Read Ebook: Betty at St. Benedick's by Talbot Ethel Cowham Hilda Illustrator

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Ebook has 516 lines and 35282 words, and 11 pages

There wasn't much time, though, for conjecture upon this point; the sudden arrival of the mistress in charge made that plain. "Only one new girl this term. Her boxes are here, but she--" she was beginning in rather a puzzled voice. "Hesther, Louise, Gladys, have any of you--? Oh, here she is!" Her eyes fell with evident approval upon the figure of Betty, standing stiff as any grenadier, under the clock.

"How very sensible of you to follow the others," remarked she in a downright voice, "and to come straight here. So few of the new girls do, and the train is such a long one. Now fall in, please." Miss Drury's tone was breezy and her look travelled quickly from Betty to the whirlpool which, almost like magic, seemed to sort itself into instantaneous couples at the sound of her command.

"Yes, we're all here now, I think. Phyllis and Gerry will lead off. But wait outside the station, please, for a moment as usual, until I give the word to start up the hill. There should be twenty-six of you here, and I must make sure." Then, as she brought up the rear herself, Miss Drury--ignoring fervent requests from three evident admirers--turned again in Betty's direction and threw her a friendly glance.

"Betty Carlyle? Yes, come along. No, Marie and Brenda, will you make the last couple, please; I have only two sides, as you know, and Betty has no partner. Clare--yes, you may walk with me too."

Betty found herself, therefore, making a threesome, stepping out with as steady a stride as she could manage, and feeling a distinct twinge of awe in her heart. For Miss Drury, on whose right side she walked, seemed to the new girl as much unlike a "teacher" as any one could possibly be. The books at home were rather old-fashioned certainly, and they had generally depicted the mistresses of schools as being gaunt ladies in specs and mittens. Miss Drury, however, was as unlike the "specs-and-mittens" type as any one could possibly be.

She reminded Betty of the golf-playing ladies on the links at the seaside last year from whose furious hitting she had protected the ubiquitous twins, who had been consumed with a mania to stray on the greens hunting for "lost balls." For Miss Drury wore brogues and a sports coat; she looked, Betty found herself thinking, "like the jolly older sister of one of the girls, instead of anybody teachery." The very words of her conversation with Clare, who walked on the mistress's left hand, sounded altogether unschooly, Betty thought.

Clare was evidently listening feverishly while the mistress expatiated fervently on the interests and excitements of an Easter camp when the winds had been so strong that their tent was blown sky-high during the process of being pitched by an inexperienced camper; when the tent canvas had apparently shrunk dreadfully after an April deluge; and when a tent pole had cracked at midnight with direful consequences to all concerned. "But all I can say is," finished up the mistress, "that I never gained such good experience at first hand in my life. The more you pay for experience the more good you get from it." Then, in the quick direct and very kindly way which Betty had already realized as characteristic, Miss Drury turned to speak to the new girl at her side.

"Are you a Guide?" she asked kindly. "No? Well, I am very glad, for your sake then, that you have come to St. Benedick's just when you have. Thirteen, are you not? Quite a junior. You have plenty of time to work up for your badges, you know."

"I hope you'll be a Cowslip," put in Clare, smiling across from Miss Drury's other side. "Oh, Miss Drury, I do hope--" The talk began again.

But Betty had already decided that, if she had anything to do with the matter, she would be a Daisy rather than any other flower of the field! She was still firmly of the same opinion when the lodge gate was reached and the school came in sight.

Not a large house, but an old one. Standing, as it did, in well-wooded grounds, it looked still almost as it must have looked long ago--an unpretentious old family mansion, which had not been built for school purposes, but whose quiet atmosphere of age and dignity had yet changed wonderfully little since the coming of the Benedick girls some ten years back.

From the lodge gate through which the crocodile of girls entered the old house could be seen at once, with its mullioned windows and twisted chimneys, with its creepers which would be red-golden in the autumn but which were now glad-green. It was lit up with the late afternoon sun, and seemed, against its background of dark whispering trees, as though smiling kindly at the returning girls. The house was faced with green lawns, as well and trimly kept as they had ever been before the school had taken possession there. Its gardens, through which the big drive wound up to the great main door, were old-world gardens still. Beds of old-fashioned roses, tiled paths, clipped yew trees, an ancient sundial--the impression of the whole was a quiet one. Rooks cawed from the tall old elms behind the house; the trees in the grounds through which the girls walked seemed old and full of years.

For somehow, though she couldn't exactly have explained her feelings on the matter, though she didn't perhaps realize that she had had as yet any ideas as to what the school buildings would be like, now she knew that she had expected something far more modern and ordinary--nothing exactly beautiful like this. And yet there was a "something" in the bearing of all the girls--a "something" she had noticed more in the two seniors of the train, perhaps, than in the juniors, and most of all in Sybil--a "something" which was akin to the feeling that this old building gave.

"No fuss," it seemed to say as it stood there beautiful as though from unhurried age. "Easy does it." Almost the first words she had heard Sybil utter had been just those. So many years it had taken for the beauty of the old house to grow. The age of hurry-scurry had never had a part in the making of this old mansion. It seemed to stand with gentle, kindly dignity, holding its memories, cherishing them as some treasure among the trees, which perhaps held older memories still.

"Yes," her voice was quiet and seemed to match with the scene, as though she, too, saw what Betty saw, and understood, for all her talk of camping and for all the modern breeziness of her manner. "This is St. Benedick's. Miss Carey likes to keep the grounds just as they were. The playing-fields are right away from the house, though we use the grounds, of course, for Guide practices."

The procession of girls had wound by this time in orderly fashion along the drive, between the old-world garden lawns and beds, and through the great doors which seemed--so Betty thought--glad to open to them. Then, as she followed on herself, the very last of the line, she forgot the first impressions that the old house had given her. For Miss Drury was addressing an individual in a starched cap and apron who stood at the foot of the wide stairway.

"The only new girl; Betty Carlyle, Nurse. I will hand her over to you while the others go straight to the cloakrooms."

Betty found herself, therefore, ascending the stairway step by step with a sudden longing for a twin on either side. The sense of dignity and mystery that the first sight of the old house had given her was gone now. There were echoing sounds of voices and laughter, greetings and meetings down below, in which she had no share.

"Your room is number three, and you'll share it with Mona and Geraldine and Irene," Nurse was remarking in a tone which seemed as starchy as her uniform. "And so I trust you are not an untidy girl."

Three minutes afterwards Betty, having tiptoed along passages which seemed scented both with the old-fashioned flowers whose perfumes were wafted through the widely-opened windows and also with nowadays beeswax and turpentine, found herself seated inside a cubicle that was to be "all her own."

It was then that the shyness came back.

If only she'd had Jan's frock to change, or Jack's bootlace to unknot! Of course she knew that school was really going to be lovely--her first acquaintance with Sybil, and Gerry, Miss Drury, and, yes, even with the old house itself, had assured her of that; but if only there had been somebody there who needed her as they all had needed her at home!

AT THE WINDOW TABLE

"I just half-guessed you'd be in our room," said Gerry. "That was why I couldn't help speaking to you in the station."

She had dimpled herself into Betty's cubicle, and had perched herself, still dimpling, on the side of Betty's bed. Her hat had been left downstairs, and a mass of red-to-golden hair seemed almost to glitter as she sat there. To Betty's admiring eyes she seemed a glittery sort of person altogether.

"Oh!" cried Gerry with an apologetic squeak.

She rose from the white coverlet as she squeaked, and was attempting to remove certain creases as Nurse drew back the curtain.

"In another girl's cubicle, and before half an hour of the term has passed, Geraldine!" remarked the starched and stately dignitary. "I had two thoughts about putting a new girl in here at all; for with you so forgetful and all, how's she to learn the rules? Rumpling the covers--!" Nurse bent down and smoothed the coverlet herself; "and she younger than you, and needing teaching!"

Nurse's tone was majestic in its intonation, and a subdued voice came in reply from the other end of the room where Gerry had fled to her own domain.

"Nurse, I honestly forgot. I'll really remember. In three weeks, you know, one can forget such lots of things!"

But Nurse replied not at all, and apparently making no allowance for this extenuating circumstance, turned to Betty instead. "You're ready now? Well, Geraldine may take you downstairs when the tea-gong rings. You will see Miss Carey afterwards; but first of all she wishes you to have your tea."

Nurse withdrew, and the closing of the door behind her seemed to serve to loosen the tongue of Gerry, who burst into a flood of conversation without delay.

The speaker broke off as the sound of a loud but very melodiously-toned gong boomed somewhere from the regions below. Tea-time; there was no doubt of that; and the new girl was thankful of Geraldine's presence at her side as the pair made their way down the wide and shallow stair.

She forgot the pride, though, for shyness again, just for a little while, when the dining-room door was reached. At home meals were generally eaten in a basement room, to save trouble for the general servant whose duties were so never-ending. Here the very idea of a meal in such a lovely room made Betty gasp with shyness at first, and then realize suddenly how hungry she was!

The dining-room ceiling overhead was oak-beamed; the walls were panelled in dark oak too; the mullioned windows which lined one side of the wall were all thrown widely open, and the scent of stocks and pinks seemed to fill the room.

A big bowl of pinks, too, stood in the middle of each of the three tables, one of which--of circular shape--was smaller than the others. This round table was placed in the very centre of the room, and was flanked on either side by a longer and narrower one. Betty, standing in the doorway, saw six senior girls take their places at the round table, while a line of junior girls, each evidently taking her own seat by right, advanced to each of the narrow tables in quiet file.

"Geraldine, please take Betty Carlyle to the window table with you," came the voice of a mistress standing at the door.

It was all so quiet and orderly, and yet it didn't feel "ruley." Every girl, as Betty took her place at the corner of her table, seemed cheerily smiling at her neighbour as though thoroughly contented with her lot. The new girl felt contented too, but her feeling of contentment changed suddenly to one of surprise when, after listening to the words of the Grace pronounced by the mistress in charge, every tongue seemed suddenly unloosed all round her, and the room began to buzz and hum with animated conversation.

"Well, as I was just beginning to tell you when the gong sounded, we--" burst out somebody sitting close by and speaking to her table neighbour.

Everybody seemed to have something to say except Betty, and she didn't need to talk to Gerry at her side; for Gerry, evidently keen to make her companion feel at home, burst into a glib and speedy description of their immediate surroundings.

"That's Mona opposite to you. She sleeps in our room. She's talking to Molly now, but I'll make her look presently. We don't talk across tables, you know.

"I love this table," said Betty shyly.

Betty took a mouthful, too, and gazed across at the middle table. Then suddenly she flushed with pride and pleasure as a friendly smile met her inquiring look. For Sybil was seated there--Sybil of the train journey. In all the excitements Betty had almost forgotten her, but it seemed that the older girl had not forgotten Betty. How quiet and dignified she looked, Betty thought, as she sat there with a golden braid of hair wound in a coronet round her head. "There--there's the girl who told me to stand under the clock," she whispered, touching Geraldine's arm.

Gerry nodded. "That's Sybil. She's the head of our patrol. She's head girl too this term of the school. Our patrol is the Daisies. I'm in it; and Mona and Irene as well. We've got four patrols at school, you know; there are the Buttercups and the Cowslips and the Foxgloves as well as us. I don't see how you can possibly be in our bedroom without being a Daisy; but, you see--" Gerry's tone broke off in rather a worried note.

"Oh, I do hope--" began Betty feverishly, just as silence fell suddenly upon the room as Miss Stewart tapped on the table.

"Girls, go straight to the Oak Room, as you always do on the first day. Miss Carey is ready for you now."

Perhaps the Oak Room had been used in the early days as a banqueting hall, for a musicians' gallery ran round the four walls overhead. Perhaps stately family festivals, banquets, and ceremonial feasts had taken place here in years gone by. But for all that, the old pictures still hanging on the walls seemed to look down tolerantly on the girls of to-day as they entered.

But perhaps, too, it was the sight of them all--young, gay, simple-hearted, and with life stretching so invitingly before them--standing in the room that held so many echoes of the past, which made the headmistress when she entered pause for a moment and look down at them quietly before she spoke.

Scarcely an opening speech could her words be called, for her words were, as usual, few. But even before Miss Carey had opened her lips some of the waiting girls had felt themselves under the influence of what she had come to say.

"Outside, in life, there is so much hurry-scurry nowadays. You, who are one with the outside life, and must take your share in it later, are spending certain years here to fit you for your life outside. And these years should be for you later on, I like to think, a treasure which, in the storm and stress that life must bring to each of us, no one can take from you. Quiet memories will be yours of a time when--helped perhaps more than you realize now by the atmosphere and influence of this house itself--you, each one, laid up a store of strength for later days.

IN THE BIG OAK HALL

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