Angela Brazil

“ She would draw absurd pictures of girls or mistresses on the edge of her blotting-paper, or write parodies on popular poems. She was evidently much attracted to Marjorie, yet she was one of those people with whom one never grows really intimate. One may know them for years without ever getting beyond the outside crust, and the heart of them always remains a sealed book. There is a certain magnetism in friendship. It is perhaps only once or twice in a lifetime that we meet the one with whom our spirit can really fuse, the kindred soul who seems always able to understand and sympathize. ”

“ Every girl when on parade has the reputation of Brackenfield in her keeping. So strong has been the spirit not only of loyalty to the school, but of innate good breeding, that up to this day our traditions have never yet been broken. I say sorrowfully up till to-day, for this very afternoon an event has occurred which, in the estimation of myself and my colleagues, has trailed our Brackenfield standards in the dust. Sixteen girls, who under privilege of a parade exeat visited Whitecliffe, have behaved in a manner which fills me with astonishment and disgust. ”

“ Annie, summoned hastily behind the scenes, rose magnificently to the occasion. Coached by Betty and Marjorie, she grasped the outline of the part she must play with immediate comprehension. She donned the mackintosh, buckled the belt over her shoulder, cocked the soft hat over one eye, practised a military stride and an affectionate embrace, and declared herself ready for action. She was only just in time. The audience was already applauding the end of the first charade. The performers came trooping back, flushed and excited, and much relieved to find Annie so well prepared. ”

“ I appeal to you all to use the utmost economy and abstinence, and voluntarily to give up some of the things that you like. Remember you will be helping to win the war. There is a rationing pledge on the table near the door, and I ask every girl to sign it and to wear the violet ribbon that will be given her. It is the badge of the new temperance cause. The freedom of the world depends at the present time on the food thrift and self-restraint of our civilians, no less than on the courage of our soldiers. ”

“ Marjorie's hot spirits chafed against her punishment. It was terribly hard to be kept from hockey practice. She missed the physical exercise as well as the excitement of the game. On three golden afternoons she had watched the others run across the shrubbery towards the playing-fields, and, taking her dejected way to her classroom, had spent the time writing at her desk. The fourth hockey afternoon was one of those lovely spring days when nature seems to beckon one out of doors into the sunshine. ”

“ A Sensation
"Look here," said Betty to her room-mates that evening, "those poor girls in No. 8 are just yearning for a sensation. Don't you think we ought to be philanthropic and supply it for them?"
"Yearning for a what?" asked Marjorie, pausing with a sponge in her hand and reaching for the towel.
"Yearning for a sensation," repeated Betty. "Life at an ordinary boarding-school is extremely dull. 'The daily round, the common task', is apt to pall. What we all crave for is change, and especially change of a spicy, unexpected sort that makes you jump." ”

“ A recent stormy day had flung up great masses of seaweed and hundreds of star-fish. Dona, whose tastes had just begun to awaken in the direction of natural history, poked about with great enjoyment collecting specimens. There were shells to be had on the sand, and mermaids' purses, and bunches of whelks' eggs, and lovely little stones that looked capable of being polished on the lapidary wheel which Miss Jones had set up in the carpentering-room. For lack of a basket Dona filled her own handkerchief and commandeered Marjorie's for the same purpose. ”

“ The girls were busy unpacking their parcels. They had brought several presents which they thought would amuse the child during the long hours he probably spent in bed, a jig-saw puzzle, a drawing-slate, a box of coloured chalks, a painting-book, and a lovely volume of new fairy tales. His delight was pathetic. He looked at each separately, and touched it with a finger, as if it were a great treasure. The fairy book, with its coloured pictures of gnomes and pixies, he clasped tightly in his arms.
"It's as good as having a birthday!" he sighed. ”

“ Elaine motioned to Marjorie and Dona not to disturb him. Her knowledge of nursing told her that the child must not be over-excited or wearied. She felt it a responsibility to have charge of him, and was rather relieved when Lizzie's creaking boots came back along the road.
Eric brightened up to say good-bye.
"I shall tell Titania all about you," he vouchsafed. "Perhaps she'll come and see me soon now. I love her best, of course, but I love you next best. I shall pretend every day that I'm playing with you here."
"I hope he's not too tired," whispered Elaine to Lizzie. ”

“ Girls! I think I needn't tell you that we're fighting in the most terrible war the world has ever seen. We're matched against a foe whose force and cunning will need every atom of strength of which we're capable. They are not only shooting our soldiers at the front, and bombing our towns, but by their submarine warfare they are deliberately trying to reduce us by starvation. There is already a food crisis in our country. There is a serious shortage of wheat, of potatoes, of sugar, and of other food-stuffs. Perhaps you think that so long as you have money you will be able to buy food. ”

“ Marjorie assured her airily. "Cheer oh! I call it a stunt to be going to Brackenfield. I mean to have a top-hole time there, and no mistake!"
"It's all very well for you!" sighed Dona dolefully. "You've been at a boarding-school before, and I haven't; and you are not shy, and you always get on with people. You know I'm a mum mouse, and I hate strangers. I shall just endure till the holidays come. It's no use telling me to brace up, for there's nothing to brace about."
In the bedroom where the two girls lay talking every preparation had been made for a journey. ”

“ Morrison's wishes that she had broken her barrier of reserve. She had, however, taken rather a fancy to Marjorie, and sometimes invited her into her study. To go and sit in Winifrede's tiny sanctum, to see her books, photographs, post cards, and other treasures, and to be regaled with cocoa and biscuits, was a privilege that raised Marjorie to the seventh heaven of bliss. Her impulsive, warm-hearted disposition made her apt to take up hot friendships, and for the present she worshipped Winifrede. To be singled out for favour by the head girl was in itself a distinction ”

“ One would imagine you were poor ignorant girls who had never been taught better; indeed, many a Sunday-school class would have had more self-respect. Whoever began it"—here she looked hard at Marjorie—"is directly responsible for lowering the tone of the school. Think what disgrace it brings on the name of Brackenfield for such an act to be remembered against her pupils! Knit and sew for the soldiers, get up concerts for them, and speak kindly to them in the hospitals, but never for a moment forget in your conduct what is due both to yourself and to them. ”

“ Miss Jones had no lack of sitters when she felt disposed to paint, for every girl in the house would have been only too flattered to be asked.
Dona was a greater success in her hostel than in the schoolroom. After her easy lessons with a daily governess she found the standard of her form extremely high. She was not fond of exerting her brains, and her exercises were generally full of "howlers". Miss Clark, her form mistress, was apt to wax eloquent over her mistakes, but she took the teacher's sarcasms with the same stolidity as the girls' teasings. ”

“ Instead of being an elder pupil, with a considerable voice in the arrangement of affairs, she was now only an Intermediate, under the absolute authority of Seniors, a unit in a large army of girls, and, except from her own point of view, of no very great importance. If she wished to make any reputation for herself her claims must rest upon whether or not she could prove herself an asset to the school, either by obtaining a high place in her form, or winning distinction in the playing-fields, or among the various guilds and societies. Marjorie was decidedly ambitious. ”

“ The girls went back to school with less reluctance than their mother had expected. It was, of course, a wrench to leave home, and for Dona, at any rate, the atmosphere was at first a little damp, but once installed in their old quarters at Brackenfield they were caught in the train of bustling young life, and cheered up. It is not easy to sit on your bed and weep when your room-mates are telling you their holiday adventures, singing comic songs, and passing round jokes. ”

“ When I leave school I mean to go on a farm, and wear corduroy knickers and leggings and thick boots all the time. It'll be gorgeous. I love anything to do with horses, so perhaps they'll let me plough. What shall you do, Marjorie?"
"Something to help the war, if it isn't over. I'll nurse, or drive a wagon, or ride a motor-bike with dispatches."
"I'd rather ride a horse than a bike any day," said Betty. "I used to hunt before the war. You needn't smile. I was twelve when the war began, and I'd been hunting since I was seven, and got my first pony. ”

“ At eleven o'clock she heard Miss Norton walk along the corridor and go into her bedroom. After that no other sound disturbed the establishment, and Marjorie repeated poetry and even dates and French verbs to keep herself awake.
At last the clock chimed its full range and struck twelve times. She sat up and felt for the matches.
Betty and Sylvia, who had gone to sleep prepared, woke with the light, but it was a more difficult matter to rouse Irene. She turned over in bed and grunted, and they were obliged to haul her into a sitting position before she would open her eyes. ”

“ Girls might receive presents from home, but they were not to claim any special privileges or exemptions, to ask for exeats, or to bring cakes into the dining-hall. In a school of more than two hundred pupils it would have been difficult continually to make allowances first to one girl and then to another, and though in a sense all recognized the necessity of the rule, those whose birthdays fell during term-time bemoaned their hard fate.
It struck Marjorie as a very cheerless proceeding. She found an opportunity, when Irene was out of the way, to talk to her room-mates on the subject. ”

“ We're only schoolgirls now, but in a few years we shall become a part of the women of the nation. In the future Britain will have to depend largely on her women. Let them see that they fit themselves for the burden! We used to be told that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of our great public schools. Well, I believe that many future struggles are being decided by the life in our girls' schools of to-day. Though we mayn't realize it, we're all playing our part in history, and though our names may never go down to posterity, our influence will. ”

“ As the summer wore on, and submarines sank many of our merchant vessels on the seas, the food question began to be an important problem at Brackenfield. Everyone was intensely patriotic and ready to do all in her power to help on the war. Mrs. Morrison believed in keeping the girls well abreast of the important topics of the moment. She considered the oldfashioned schools of fifty years ago, where the pupils never saw a newspaper, and were utterly out of touch with the world, did not conduce to the making of good citizens. She liked her girls to think out questions for themselves. ”

“ As they left [21] the carriage, they glanced anxiously at the coat of each lady who passed them on the platform, to descry a similar rosette. All in vain. Everybody was in a hurry, and nobody sported the Brackenfield colours.
"We shall have to get a taxi and manage as best we can," sighed Marjorie. "I wish the porters weren't so stupid! I can't make them listen to me. The taxis will all be taken up if we're not quick! Oh, I say, there's that Tommy again! I wonder if he'd hail us one. I declare I'll ask him."
"Hail you a taxi? With pleasure!" ”

“ In the hurry and bustle of school life, however, it is something to have a congenial comrade, if it is only a girl who will sit next you at meals, walk to church with you in crocodile, and take your side in arguments with your room-mates.
The spring term at Brackenfield proved bitterly cold. In February the snow fell thickly, and one morning the school woke to find a white world. In Dormitory 9 matters were serious, for the snow had drifted in through the open window and covered everything like a winding-sheet. ”

“ Marjorie went into the dining-hall for tea with a thrill akin to that which she usually suffered when visiting the dentist. To judge from their heightened colour and conspicuously callous manner, Rose Butler, Patricia Lennox, Phyllis Bingham, Laura Norris, Gertrude Holmes, and Evelyn Pickard were experiencing the same sensations. They fully expected to receive three order marks apiece, which would mean bed immediately after supper, instead of going to the needlework union. To their surprise Miss Franklin took no notice of them. ”

“ You lucky thing!" exclaimed Betty enviously. "Why can't my brother come to Whitecliffe?"
[257] "Can't you bring him to school and introduce him to us?" suggested Irene.
"Or take some of us out with you?" amended Sylvia.
"We're simply dying to meet him!" declared Patricia.
"He has only the one afternoon to spare," replied Marjorie, "and has promised to take just Dona and me out to tea at a café, though I don't mind betting Elaine goes too. I wish I could bring him to school and introduce him. The Empress is fearfully mean about asking brothers. Brackenfield might be a convent." ”

“ I've never met such a sweet, dear, precious thing in all my life before. Of course, if I don't know his name I can't send him things, but I've got an idea. We'll leave a little parcel for him with the girl who looks after the refreshment kiosk on the Whitecliffe Road, and ask her to give it to him next time he passes. She couldn't mistake the long perambulator."
"And write 'From the fairies' on it. Good!" agreed Marjorie. "It's exactly the sort of thing that Eric will like." ”

“ The interval between supper and prayers was spent by the girls in their own hostels. At present each house was busy with a needlework union. They were making articles for a small bazaar, that was to be held at the school in the spring in aid of the Red Cross Society. They sat and sewed while a mistress read a book aloud to them. Marjorie [70] was embroidering a nightdress case in ribbon-work. She used a frame, and enjoyed pulling her ribbons through into semblance of little pink roses and blue forget-me-nots. In contrast with French verbs and the Civil Wars the occupation was soothing. ”

“ Even Dona laughed heartily, and the colour crept back to her cheeks. She was beginning to get over her terror of wounded soldiers.
"They seem to be able to enjoy themselves," she remarked.
"Oh yes, they've all sorts of amusement!" replied Elaine, drawing her cousins aside. "It's wonderful how cheery they keep, not to say noisy sometimes. In 'Kitchener' Ward the men have mouth organs and tin whistles and combs, and play till you're nearly deafened. We don't like to check them if it keeps up their spirits, poor fellows! You see, there's always such a pathetic side to it. ”

“ In Marjorie's dormitory the taste was for celebrities. Sylvia Page, who was musical, adorned her cubicle with charming photogravures of the great composers. Irene Andrews, whose ambition was to "come out" if there was anybody left to dance with after the war, pinned up the portraits of Society beauties; Betty Moore, of sporting tendencies, kept the illustrations of prize dogs and their owners, from The Queen and other ladies' papers. Marjorie, not to be outdone by the others, covered her fourth share of the wall with "heroes". ”