The New Girl at St. Chad's Part 11

One morning, just as the girls were going to their desks, Maisie Talbot suddenly remembered that it was Miss Farrar's birthday.

"We ought to say something about it," she whispered to Lettice. "I wish we had thought of it before, and bought her some flowers. How stupid we were to forget!"

"Are you sure it's her birthday? How do you know?" asked Flossie, who was standing near, and overheard.

"I'm absolutely certain. I have her name in my birthday book," replied Maisie.

Flossie said no more just then, but the moment Miss Farrar came into the room she stood up and wished her "Many happy returns", in the name of the whole Form, before either Maisie or Lettice had the opportunity to say a word.

They were most annoyed to be thus forestalled.

"It was our idea," protested Lettice afterwards. "You didn't even know it was Miss Farrar's birthday before we mentioned it."

"And yet you calmly took all the credit, and made yourself the mouthpiece of the cla.s.s!" exclaimed the equally indignant Maisie.

"I suppose I had as good a right as anybody else to offer congratulations," laughed Flossie. "You should have brought yours out a little quicker."

Flossie might be appreciated by her cousins, the Hammond-Smiths, and their particular friends, the Lawsons and the Palmers, but she was certainly not a favourite in her own Form. Nearly everybody had a squabble with her upon some pretext. Even Janie Henderson, whose retiring disposition involved her in few disputes with her schoolfellows, found a cause for complaint. It was one of the ordinary regulations that the girls should each take the office of warden for a week in turn, the duties being to give out any necessary books, clean the blackboard, distribute fresh pens and blotting-paper, and collect any articles that might be left in the room after lesson hours. By general custom all pencils, india-rubbers, or other stray possessions were put into what was known as the forfeit tray, whence their owners might reclaim them by paying the penalty of the loss of an order mark.

Each girl had her pencil-box, in which she was expected to keep her own property; but many things were usually left lying about, and the warden always made a careful search at one o'clock.

The most cherished object in Janie's desk was a little, pearl-handled penknife, which she greatly valued. She guarded it zealously, lending it as seldom as she could, and taking good care that it was always returned to her immediately. One unfortunate day, however, she had been sharpening her pencil at the close of the arithmetic lesson, and in the preoccupation of correcting her answers she laid her treasure down, and forgot all about it. She remembered it after dinner, and ran back to the schoolroom to rescue it, but it was nowhere to be found.

"It must have been put in the forfeit tray," she said to herself. "I shall get it to-morrow, though it will cost me an order mark, worse luck!"

She looked eagerly next morning when Miss Farrar produced the tray, but her penknife was not among the lost property. She made a few enquiries in the cla.s.s, but n.o.body professed to have seen it, and she was obliged to abandon it as hopelessly gone.

It must have been quite a week after this that one evening, when the St. Chad's girls were sitting in the recreation room, Flossie pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, and in so doing whisked out a pearl-handled penknife. She stooped in a hurry to recover it, but it had fallen under a little table, close to where Pauline Reynolds was sitting, and the latter picked it up instead.

"h.e.l.lo! This is Janie Henderson's knife," exclaimed Pauline. "Look here, Janie! Isn't this the one you lost?"

"Of course it is," affirmed Janie. "I can tell it by the small blade.

There's a tiny piece broken off at the end."

"Where did you get it, Flossie?" enquired

"I found it when I was warden," replied Flossie. "How should I know it was Janie's?"

"You might have asked whose it was," said Maisie. "You've no right to pocket things when you're warden!"

"I wrote a 'Found' notice about it," declared Flossie.

"I never saw any notice," put in Janie.

"Where did you pin this wonderful paper?" asked Pauline.

"On the dressing-room door."

"Where n.o.body would ever dream of looking!" returned Maisie. "Why couldn't you put the knife on the forfeit tray?"

"I really don't know! What's the use of making such an absurd fuss about trifles?" said Flossie, linking her arm in Norah Palmer's, and turning away.

"I call them principles, not trifles," murmured Maisie; "it's just on the same lines as the cribbing, not quite open and square. I wish Flossie had stayed at St. Bride's; I certainly don't consider her a credit to St. Chad's."

The quarrels between Honor and Flossie occasionally rose to the level of a miniature war. The latter never lost any opportunity of flinging ridicule and contempt on all things Irish, and Honor, who resented a slur on her native land more than a personal injury, could not keep her hot temper within bounds. It was, of course, very foolish to take any notice of Flossie's taunts, and so her friends reminded her.

"The more you blaze up, the more she'll tease, of course," said Maisie.

"Why can't you keep calm, and pretend you don't hear her?" said Pauline. "She doesn't try it on with us."

"You're such a set of stolid Anglo-Saxons!" declared Honor. "You never get roused about anything."

"It's bad form, my dear girl! Hysterics are out of fas.h.i.+on. We don't go in for them at Chessington."

"But you really are entertaining when you're aggressively Celtic, Paddy!" said Lettice. "I own I can't resist taking a rise out of you myself sometimes, just for the fun of seeing you explode."

"You ought to have been born Red Indians!" retorted Honor. "I like people with a little fire. What's the good of having feelings, if one's not to show them?"

"You show them so hard," laughed Lettice, "you make yourself quite ridiculous! I'm sure I shouldn't think one of Flossie's silly jokes was worth making any fuss about."

This was very excellent and practical schoolgirl wisdom, but unfortunately Lettice preached a philosophy of stoicism to which Honor had not yet attained. At the least provocation her fiery Irish blood always a.s.serted itself, and she would flare up, albeit she was conscious that, by so doing, she was affording her enemy the keenest satisfaction, and was providing amus.e.m.e.nt for the other girls, who enjoyed "hearing Paddy break out".

One morning the feud came to a crisis. When Honor opened her desk she found inside a neat little collection of new potatoes, and on the top, pinned to the biggest, a paper in Flossie's handwriting, bearing these lines:

HONOR'S WISH

Oh, Erin, moist Erin, how damp are thy showers!

I would I were back 'mid thy pigs and thy rills!

The "tater" to me is more dear than thy flowers, And I relish the rain on thy ever-wet hills.

Honor could not help laughing at this, in spite of the aspersion on the climate of her country. Such a quip, however, could not go unrequited, and she sought for means of retaliation. She decided that Flossie deserved a "b.o.o.by trap", and fled back early to the cla.s.sroom after lunch, to set it for her. It was a rather difficult and delicate operation, for she did not wish to catch anybody else by mistake. She balanced a big dictionary so that it rested on the top of the door and the lintel of the doorway; then, stationing herself inside the room, she held the handle firmly, lest someone should disturb her arrangement by flinging back the door, which was just sufficiently wide open to allow a single person to enter. She peeped every now and then into the pa.s.sage, on the look-out for Flossie, and admitted each returning girl with caution and due warning.

"Here she is at last!" whispered Lettice, who was naughty enough to enjoy practical jokes, and, after admiring the preparations, had offered to act scout.

"Is she really coming in next?"

"Yes; she's walking in front of May Thurston and Dorothea Chambers."

"Are you certain?"

"Absolutely."

"Then tell me when!"

"Now!"

Honor pulled open the door, and down crashed the dictionary, tumbling full on the head, not of Flossie Taylor, but (oh! horrible miscarriage of justice!) of Miss Farrar herself. At exactly the wrong moment the teacher had popped out of the next cla.s.sroom, and, as Flossie had stood politely aside to give her precedence, she had walked straight into the trap destined for her pupil.

The dictionary was heavy, and in its fall its sharp corner caught Miss Farrar on the cheek. She stopped, almost dazed by the sudden blow, and, pressing her handkerchief to her face, drew it back marked with a red stain. At the sight of the blood Honor uttered a shriek, and, rus.h.i.+ng from the room, fled down the pa.s.sage, as if to escape from the horror of what she had done. In almost a state of panic she ran across the quadrangle, and, turning into the garden, sought refuge inside the tool-shed. Here she was found some time afterwards by Janie, who had been sent to look for her, and had vainly searched St. Chad's and every other likely spot of which she could think.