THE HEAD GIRL AT THE GABLES
CHAPTER I
A Momentous Decision
It was exactly ten days before the opening of the autumn term at TheGables. The September sunshine, flooding through the window of thePrincipal's study, lighted up the bowl of carnations upon thewriting-table, and, flashed back from the Chippendale mirror on thewall, caught the book-case with the morocco-bound editions of the poets,showed up the etching of "Dante's Dream" over the mantelpiece, andglowed on Miss Kingsley's ripply brown hair, turning all the silverthreads in it to gold. Miss Kingsley, rested and refreshed after thelong summer holiday, a touch of pink in her cheeks and a brightness inher eyes, left as a legacy from the breezes of the Cheviot Hills, wasseated at her desk with a notebook in front of her and a fountain pen inher hand, making plans for a fresh year's work.
Miss Janet, armed with a stump of pencil and the back of an envelope,ready to jot down suggestions, swayed to and fro in the rocking-chairwith her lips drawn into a bunch and the particular little puckerbetween her eyebrows that always came when she was trying to concentrateher thoughts.
"It really _is_ a difficulty, Janet!" said Miss Kingsley. "A suitablehead girl makes all the difference to a school, and if we happen tochoose the wrong one it may completely spoil the tone. If only LottieCarson or Helen Stanley had stayed on! Or even Enid Jones or StellaHardy!"
"It's hard luck to lose all our best senior girls at once!" agreed MissJanet, biting her stump of pencil abstractedly. "But if they're gone,they're gone."
"Of course!" Miss Kingsley's tone savoured slightly of impatience. "Andthe urgent matter is to supply their places. It's like making brickswithout straw. Haven't you any suggestions? I _do_ wish you'd stoprocking, it worries me to hear your chair creak!"
Miss Janet, seasoned by thirty-five years' acquaintance with hersister's nervous temperament, rose and walked to the window, where shestood looking out over the sunlit tennis court to the bank of exoticshrubs that half hid the blue line of the sea. There was a moment'spause, then she said:
"Suppose you read over the list of 'eligibles', and we'll discuss theirpoints each in turn."
Miss Kingsley reached for a certain black-backed shiny exercise-bookand opened it. The entries were in her own neat hand.
"There will only be eight girls in the Sixth Form this term," shevolunteered. "Taking them in alphabetical order they are: NellieAppleby, Claire Bardsley, Claudia Castleton, Vivien Forrester, LorraineForrester, Audrey Roberts, Dorothy Skipton, and Patricia Sullivan."
Miss Janet smiled.
"First of all you may cross off the last," she suggested.
"Decidedly. Patsie Sullivan as head girl would be about as suitableas--as----"
Miss Kingsley paused for an appropriate simile.
"As making Charlie Chaplin Archbishop of Canterbury!" finished MissJanet with a chuckle.
"It's unthinkable! Most of the others are soon weeded out too. NellieAppleby and Claire Bardsley--good stodgy girls, but quite unfit forleadership--Claudia Castleton, a new girl, so of course not eligible;Audrey Roberts--could you imagine silly little Audrey in any post oftrust? It really only leaves us the choice between Lorraine Forrester,Vivien Forrester, and Dorothy Skipton."
"In last term's exams these three were fairly equal," commented MissJanet.
"So equal that I shan't take the results of the exams intoconsideration. It must be a question of which girl will make the mostefficient head. Each has her points and her drawbacks. Take Vivien, now:she's smart and capable, and would revel in exercising authority."
"Too much so. I should be sorry for the school with anyone sodomineering as Vivien Forrester at the head of affairs. She's tooforward altogether, and inclined to argue and pit her opinion againstthat of the mistresses. If she were singled out for special office, Ibelieve she'd grow insufferable. Dorothy Skipton, with all her faults,would be preferable to Vivien."
"And Dorothy _has_ faults--very big ones too!" sighed Miss Kingsley. "Inever can consider Dorothy to be absolutely straight and square. I'veseveral times caught her cheating or copying, and she's not abovetelling a fib if she's in a tight place. She's clever, undoubtedly, anddecidedly popular, and in that lies the greatest danger, for a popularhead girl whose moral attitude is not of the very highest might ruin thetone of the school in a single term. I'm afraid Dorothy is too risky anexperiment."
"Then that leaves only Lorraine Forrester?"
"Yes--Lorraine."
Both the sisters paused, with the same look of puzzled doubt on theirfaces.
"She's a child I never seem to have got to know thoroughly," said MissJanet. "I must say I've always found her perfectly square and a ploddingworker. She has given very little trouble in class."
"Not so brilliant, perhaps, as Vivien, but, on the whole, moresatisfactory," commented Miss Kingsley. "I agree with you that we havenever really got to know Lorraine. She's a very reserved girl, andhasn't pushed herself forward, but there's great strength of characterin her, in my opinion. Those big brown eyes look in earnest overanything she's doing. She's never made a bid for popularity, likeDorothy Skipton, but I've seen her coaching the younger ones at hockeyand cricket. She's inclined to go about in a dream, but I believe if shewere placed in a post of authority she'd wake up. I really think wecould depend on Lorraine. The first quality in a head girl is that shemust be conscientious, and she certainly comes out top in that respect."
"If it were put to the general vote----" began Miss Janet, but hersister snapped her up.
"I don't believe in allowing the girls a choice! The popular idol of theschool isn't always the one with the best influence. I've quite decided,Janet! Lorraine is far and away the most suitable among the new Sixth. Ishall send for her the day before term opens and have a private talkwith her. Unless I'm very much mistaken in the girl, we shan't bedisappointed."
"I believe you are right!" agreed Miss Janet, sinking into theeasy-chair and resuming her rocking, without further remonstrance fromher now satisfied sister.
Miss Kingsley and Miss Janet had kept school together at The Gables forthe last twelve years. It was not a very large school, but thenPorthkeverne was not a very large place--only a little quaint,old-fashioned seaside town, built down the sloping cliffs of a Cornishcove, with its back to the heather-clad moors and its face to the broadAtlantic. Whether you appreciated Porthkeverne or not was entirely amatter of temperament. Strangers, whose pleasure in a summer holidaydepended on pier, esplanade, band, and cheap amusements, found itinsufferably dull, and left for the more flaring gaieties of St. Jude'sor Trewenlock Head. Porthkeverne was glad to get rid of them; it did notcater for such as these. But there were others for whom the little townhad a peculiar fascination; its quaint, irregular houses and grey roofs,its narrow streets of steep steps, its archways with glimpses of thesea, its picturesque harbour and red-sailed fishing-boats, its exoticshrubs and early flowers, its yellow sands and great pinnacled crags,the softness of the west wind and the perpetual dull roll of theAtlantic breakers cast a spell over certain natures and compelled themto remain. Visitors would return to it again and again, and some ofthem, who were free to live where they chose, would take houses andsettle down as residents. Over literary and artistic people Porthkeverneseemed to exercise a special charm. Authors and artists had collectedthere, and, partly attracted by the place and partly by each other'ssociety, had formed an intellectual colony that centred round the ArtsClub in the old Guildhall down by the harbour.
Marine painters, and those who sought to immortalize peasant life ontheir canvases, found ample subjects among the crags and coves andsea-weed-covered rocks where the blue water lapped softly, or the whitewaves came foaming and churning up; and the fisher-folk, bronzed,blue-eyed, and straight of limb, were models to set the heart of aMillet or a Wilkie on the thrill. To authors the quiet place, with itsmiles of moorland lying inland from the cliffs, was a ripe field forliterary work. Novelists worked out their plots undisturbed by thehooting of motor horns or the whizzing of tr
am-cars; scientific men, whohad spent years of study over the treasures of the British Museum orKew, came there to sort out their materials for books of reference, andto have leisure for making certain experiments; writers of travelsreviewed their notes, and archaeologists scheduled the antiquities ofthe neighbourhood. To this literary and artistic brotherhoodPorthkeverne offered the calm of the country combined with the mentalstimulus of intellectual comradeship, and though, in the inevitablemarch of events, its individual members often changed, the colonyremained and flourished, and sent forth work of a character that was ofvalue to the world of art and letters.
Miss Kingsley and her sister, Miss Janet, themselves women of strongliterary tastes, had come to the town with the rising tide of the ArtsSettlement, and had established their school chiefly to meet the needsof the new colony. Most of their pupils were the children of paintersand authors, though a few of the gentry and professional men of thedistrict also took advantage of such a good local opportunity to educatetheir daughters. The Gables was a pleasant old-fashioned white house,standing on a narrow terrace of the cliff, with a high rock behind toscreen it from the wind, and a view of grey roof-tops leading down to apeep of the harbour. In the sheltered garden grew, according to theirseason, white arum lilies and rosy tamarisk, aloes and myrtle andoleander and other beautiful half-tropical shrubs, while geraniums,carnations and humbler flowers bloomed in profusion. There was a verandacovered with a wistaria, and most of the class-room windows were framedwith sweet-smelling creepers. Long afterwards, when the pupils lookedback to their time at The Gables, they would always connect certainlessons with the strong scent of honeysuckle, or the faint odour of tearoses, for the flowers seemed just as much a part of the general cultureof the school as were the Botticelli pictures on the library walls, orthe weekly recitals of modern music.
This garden, Miss Kingsley's fetish and the joy of Miss Janet's heart,was blooming its best on the particular September afternoon when theautumn term began. Soon after two o'clock its green lawn and shady pathsbegan to fill up with girls. They came at first in twos and threes, andthen in larger numbers till the place seemed full of them. There wereonly about forty altogether, but it was seven weeks since most of themhad met one another, and the babel of tongues that ensued would havesuggested a hundred children at the least. Six long-legged juniorsoccupied the garden-seat, with as many more hanging over the back; adozen of the smaller fry squatted on the grass, some frivolousintermediates cackled over jokes in the corner by the bay tree, and afew enterprising spirits had mounted the wall to watch for new-comers.
"Here's Aileen!"
"And Grace!"
"With her little sister!"
"And Effie after all, though she wasn't sure she'd be back in time!"
"Good old Effie! I'm glad she's come!"
"Where's Marcia, by the by?"
"Gone to the High School at St. Jude's."
"Poor wretch, I'm sorry for her! What a traipse to go by train everymorning! Why, here's Doreen, and she's cut her hair short! Oh, I say!Doreen, old sport, I hardly knew you! What a kid you look!"
Doreen shook back her shock of crisp brown hair, conscious of thepleasing fact that it curled at the ends.
"Kid, indeed!" she replied, with an indignant thrill in her voice. "Iwas thirteen last week!"
"Shouldn't have thought it," twittered Enid. "I was just going tosuggest a pair of socks and ankle-band shoes. There's a new teacher forthe kindergarten, if that interests you. There, don't get raggy! Perhapsyou'll find yourself in the Sixth after all!"
"No, thank you! I've no yearnings to be in the Oxford Room. I suppose weshall all be going up a form, though? Who are the monitresses this year?Have you heard?"
Enid slipped down from her post on the wall, and locking her arm inDoreen's strolled with her towards the house.
"Not a word," she replied. "Until the Great Panjandrum reads out thelists we're utterly and entirely in the dark. Of course, most of thosewho were in the Fifth last year will have gone up into the Sixth,except, perhaps, Beryl Woodhouse and Moira Stanning, but I've beentalking it over with Vera and Pansy, and they both agree it's anabsolute toss-up who's to be head girl."
"Why, how extraordinary! I should have said there wasn't any doubt aboutit. There's only one girl who's in the least likely."
"Which one?"
"Vivien, of course!"
Enid pulled an eloquent face.
"It's not 'of course'. I, for one, heartily hope she _won't_ get it.Vivien Forrester, as she is, is quite bad enough, but Vivien Forresteras head of the school would be the absolute limit."
"She'll be chosen all the same, you'll see. There really isn't anybodyelse. When Lily Anderson left last term, she certainly thought Vivienwas going to be her successor. She showed her how to keep all the booksof the Clubs and Guilds, so that she could slide into the work easily.And Vivien's such a sport at hockey, too!"
"Um! I don't know. She has such a jolly good opinion of her owncleverness, but the question is whether Miss Kingsley exactly shares itor not. Hello! Hold me up! Here comes the Duchess herself, as large aslife!"
The girl who advanced briskly from the rhododendron walk would have beengood looking, but she was spoilt by a rather rabbity mouth and largeteeth. Her complexion was clear, her brown eyes were bright, and herauburn hair was abundant. She held herself with the confidence of onewho has so far found life an unqualified success. In her wake followed alittle train of courtiers: Sybil Snow, Nellie Appleby, Mona Parker,Phoebe Gibson, and Adelaide Brookfield, all eager sycophants cravingher favour, and doing their utmost to ingratiate themselves.
"I tell you I can't promise anything!" Vivien was saying. "Naturally thehead of the school has the power to appoint any secretaries she likes,but it'll be time enough to decide these things afterwards. I wish youwouldn't bother me so! There'll be a proper Committee meeting on Fridayto arrange the Societies, and you must just wait till then."
"But if anybody speaks to you about it in the meantime, you'll rememberit's the Dramatic I'm keenest on?" urged Phoebe plaintively.
"I tell you again, I can't promise--but--well, I'll do my best for you,at any rate."
"What's this about the Dramatic?" broke in Dorothy Skipton, who, arm inarm with Patsie Sullivan, had joined the group. "Do you mean to sayyou're arranging the Societies beforehand? Really, Vivien Forrester, ofall cool cheek I call this the very limit! Who said _you_ were going tobe head girl, I should like to know?"
Two red spots flared into Vivien's cheeks.
"Nobody said so!" she retorted. "Certainly _I_ didn't, though I dare sayI've as good a chance as anybody else. I don't see why you need catch meup like this."
"Little bit tall to be promising posts till you're certain you're topdog!" laughed Patsie. "Old Dorothy may be the lucker instead of you._Me?_ Rather not! I can hardly flatter myself after my career last termthat I'd be chosen as pattern pupil and pitchforked into the post ofhonour to set a good example to the rest of the school. Do I _look_ thepart, now?"
The others, surveying Patsie's humorous face and twinkling grey eyes,broke into a universal chuckle.
"Well, it's hardly your line, exactly!" admitted Vivien. "Why, if youconfiscated surreptitious sweets from the kids, you'd probably eat thembefore their indignant faces, and give them a tip on how to hide themmore carefully in future. I know you!"
"Joking apart, though," said Dorothy, "I suppose somebody'll be madehead of this school. Hasn't any one got the least inkling or hint?Lorraine! Lorraine Forrester, come here! We're talking about who's to behead girl. It's a burning question, isn't it? Do you know anything?"
The schoolmate addressed as Lorraine closed with a slam the book shewas reading, and advanced somewhat unwillingly. She was a slim, prettygirl of sixteen, with the general effect of an autumn woodland.Everything about her seemed golden brown; her hazel eyes, her creamycomplexion, the sunny glint in her rich, dark hair were emphasized bythe brown dress she was wearing and the orange carnations pinned in herbelt. At the firs
t glance there was a certain likeness to Vivien, forthe girls were cousins, yet everything about Lorraine seemed of aslightly superior quality, as if she had been turned out of a finermould. She flushed as she evaded Dorothy's question.
"I suppose we shall all know when Miss Kingsley tells us," she answered.
"We'd be duffers if we didn't!" mocked Patsie. "In my opinion Dorothy'llhave an uncommonly good innings, and I'm getting ready to congratulateher."
"No, no! It'll be Vivien!" declared Mona.
"Yes, Vivien!" agreed Sybil and Phoebe together.
But at that moment the loud clanging of the bell put a stop to theconversation, and the girls turned in a body, and hurried into thehouse.