Dorothea Moore

“ But I'm glad to be friends with Blue Dorm—at least not enemies, you know—that sort of friends."
"I want you to be real friends, Jocelyn—the proper kind, if you'll be it with me as well as Gabrielle," Noreen explained in a hurry. "I wanted to last night."
"All right," said Joey. "I think I'd like to be friends too."
"And we must find a name for you," suggested Gabrielle. "Jocelyn is awfully nice, but the others will think about you as the scholarship kid they ragged, if you stick to it; you want some handy little name—that will make you seem like another girl; and we'll all start fresh." ”

“ Joey stood irresolute for one second—but only one. The jumpy young man was probably a German, since he and the Professor had been signalling to one another; but when you were English you couldn't leave even a Hun to die when he had called for help. Father had risked his life to bring in a wounded German who was lying in agony in a shell-swept reach of No-Man's Land. She would not even have hesitated for that second, if it had not been for the thought of Gabrielle and Noreen holding on precariously, with the deepening water washing round them, waiting for her help. ”

“ Joey did not waste a minute. She ran for her life, and was over the bridge before the roke came down again—baffling, clinging, frightening. But the tower was so near, and there was no dyke between; she had seen that. She ran straight on in the white darkness, and fell breathlessly against the rough wall of the tower five minutes later.
The roke was thicker than ever after that momentary lifting, but Joey didn't care now. There was shelter and safety in the tower, and she felt as though having reached it was the next best thing to being safe at Redlands. ”

“ Noreen cried. "We—Gabrielle and Joey and I—settled this afternoon that someone ought to look into the matter of the Professor's hatefulness, and it's us that are going to," she added cheerfully and ungrammatically, for the benefit of Syb and Barbara. "If he's all right our charade won't hurt him—he'll like it; if he's not...."
The gong sounded.
"Soufflez! Regardez glissant, mes enfants," Noreen cried, tying her hair-ribbon with desperate speed. "We must fix up our charade after supper; and look here! we must get some of the others to perform first, while we're fixing it. ”

“ Speed record certainly did not concern John just then—the long-snouted racer leapt forward, bumping wildly with the pace which John got out of her.
Joey crouched low in the car, feeling as though her hair was being torn from her head, but blissfully happy all the same. She had absolute confidence in John; he would deal with the Professor. It did not occur to her that seventeen-year-old John on crutches might not be a match [Pg 238] for a determined man in perfect health. Her only fear was that the motor-bicycle might get going too soon. ”

“ Lady Greta Sturt was Father's cousin and always spoke of the children as his only, though she put their faults down to poor Mums. She brought them the best chocolates when she came—such chocolates as were a rare and unaccustomed luxury even before the War—but the Grahams were not to be bought by chocolates, though it must be owned that they ate them with great speed and enjoyment. Joey wasn't sure that to be asked out by Cousin Greta would add to the joy of Redlands.
"You will be nice to her if she should ask you," Mums went on, in her soft, pleading voice. ”

“ Mademoiselle de Lavernais took the dispatch case from Joey. There was a queer look in her tired black eyes for a moment. "Thank you, Joey, I would not have the paper smaller," she said.
She stood quite silent for a moment; then began to speak in her level voice that had hardly a hint of foreign pronunciation about it.
"To say thank you is a little thing, to feel thanks warmly through you is a bigger. I carry that warmth with me for the rest of my life—and there was a time when I was not only glad because I was going back to my own country, but because I was leaving Redlands. ”

“ Mademoiselle de Lavernais seemed to have forgotten her, Joey thought; her dull black eyes had lit up—her plain, tired face was quite transformed. Joey wondered whether she ought to slip out and go to the maths mistress—another apology would certainly be needed there. Fortunately, Mademoiselle came back to earth in a minute. "But what do I talk of? We should both be at our classrooms, you, I fear, will be in trouble in that you are late. My class will merely rejoice that cross old Maddy has given them a little longer of liberty to chatter in English. Should you not be at mathematics? ”

“ As if in answer to her words, there was a stampede outside, and the three other owners of Blue Dorm rushed headlong in. Each carried something in her hand—a book, a comb, a handkerchief. With one consent they rushed upon the three window beds, and hurling the article upon it, shouted breathlessly, "Bags I this!"
Gabrielle got rather red. She walked up to Syb and spoke in a low voice. Joey caught the words "a new girl" and "playing up." But whatever her appeal might be, it hadn't much effect. Joey marched over to the bed by the door. ”

“ The "sweet Anne Wendover," whom Roger Malfrey had wooed in vain, because "the wasting sickness" wooed her more successfully, had lived there; and he must have ridden often through those great gates, which now stood wide to chars-à-bancs and brakes all the summer-time, and bore a large printed notice, "Teas provided."
"Joey would like this," whispered Gabrielle, as the first brake rattled into the old court-yard, and stood beneath the new sign.
"Yes, wouldn't she? Queer how one misses the kid," returned Noreen. ”

“ The key rattled, half-turned, stopped. "Bother!" cried Frances. "Run, Miss Tiddles, there's a dear, and see if the Professor's gone yet."
Wonder of wonders. Tiddles must be in or near the Lab—Tiddles who had such a horror of it. But Joey had not time for astonishment. "Stop her! Don't let her go!" she cried. If the Professor knew that she was escaping from her prison!
Frances seemed to be bending all her powers to the turning of the key. She was a determined person, accustomed to resisting the onslaughts of the Lower School upon the sugar basin, when she poured out the tea. ”

“ Mums smiled, and then the train stopped at Pettalva Junction, and the bustle of changing began.
Mums found a lady going all the way to Edinburgh—a cheerful, capable-looking personage who breezily undertook to see Joey safely into the hands of Miss Craigie at the Waverley Station. Then Mums bought Joey buns and two apples and a magazine, and reminded her of the packet of sandwiches in her pocket and kissed her silently; and Joey said, "Don't mind, Mums; I'm going to like it." ”

“ And if for some odd inexplicable reason it should matter, it would be so poor and un-English to have stayed away just because it would be more fun going with the others. After all, Noreen, who was nearly a year older than herself, had suggested there was some mystery going; and though she had said it half jokingly, it might be true all the same. She must put up with the duller drive, and not even ask if Noreen and Gabrielle might come with her to Mote; it was quite clear they would not want to. Joey gave herself a little shake and marched up to Miss Conyngham's door. ”

“ Mademoiselle said, with slow scorn. "It is a pity almost that you have a nation, Noreen. You should belong to some miserable little German State, where la patrie is represented by the gendarme with his big fist, and the tax-collector. Find another subject that you can talk of—some of those that figure in the paper during your silly season will suit you well, I make no doubt."
Noreen, scarlet about the ears, was obviously unable to find a subject at all. Perhaps it was not wonderful! Joey, burning with resentment for her friend, rushed into the breach. ”

“ John held out a thin, scarred hand. "I say, don't you worry about Gracie," he growled. "Shocking bad form to talk like that, but she doesn't mean it."
"I don't want to be sent back in the car," poor Joey burst out. "It's only six miles—who wants a car?"
She stopped. It wasn't possible to tell John, who was Gracie's cousin, that what hurt so much in the speech was the sense that they all thought her a nuisance who must be entertained as a duty. Perhaps John had really been finding her a nuisance too, when he taught her signalling. Joey's one thought was to get away from all. ”

“ Joey remembered the deep slanting ditches; to slip into one of them had been a very real danger on that foggy Sunday when she had come back alone from Cousin Greta's; to do so now [Pg 256] would be almost certain death. She did her best to splash along faster, though she was beginning to feel decidedly conscious that it was a long time since breakfast, and that she was chilled to the bone. It seemed as though the three of them had been splashing through that cold swirly water for years, and there didn't seem any particular end to it; and what had happened to John? ”

“ Louder it grew and louder, as girls came pouring in from their different classrooms.
"What can be happening?" Miss Lambton interrupted herself to ask.
The three sinners took the question for a signal of dismissal. They ran.
A great throng of girls, growing larger every moment, was congregated in the hall, cheering wildly. Squeezing past smaller girls, and under the elbows of seniors, Joey arrived somehow in the front rank.
A large notice faced her—a notice on which the ink was hardly dry:
"In consequence of information received, Miss Conyngham withdraws the ban on Redlands." ”

“ I do not need to remind our old girls what that election means to Redlands; it is the visible expression of perfect trust; it means that in the girl chosen to govern the Upper or the Lower School the other girls feel they have someone in whose hands can be safely placed the honour of the school. ”

“ And then the train slid out of the station and Joey was off to the new world, and Mums was left behind.
That was the beginning of the long day's travelling down through Scotland, and now she was almost at Edinburgh, and the end. In a few minutes Miss Craigie would meet her—Miss Craigie, whom Joey saw as a replica of her brother, only in a coat and skirt—and she would be hearing all about Redlands, and learning what a new girl ought to know. Joey remembered from school stories that new girls need a lot of watching if they are not to begin their school career with unforgivable blunders. ”

“ I don't know why I put up with it."
"P'r'aps because you can't help it," suggested Joey, and then she scuttled past Ingrid at her best speed, and joined a gasping Noreen at the door.
"Are you whole and entire?" Noreen demanded. "My dear Joey, Ingrid will strew the floor with your remains if you don't look out. I'd never dare speak to her like that; I'd sooner cheek Miss Conyngham."
"I don't mind Ingrid," Joey boasted, vain-gloriously. "It's rather sport to see what she'll say next." ”

“ Gracie met them at the door, a pretty but delicate-looking girl, very beautifully dressed. When Joey shook hands with her she suddenly realised that her own stockings were darned in the leg, where the darn showed a good deal.
However, Gracie was quite polite, and carried her guest off to her own room to take off her coat and hat and wash her hands for luncheon, and then to the schoolroom, where Miss Richards was sitting, playing Halma with a spare, freckled boy who was lying on the sofa, covered with a rug. ”

“ Joey felt her cup of pride would brim over if she could bring Mums up to these majestic people and say, carelessly, "I'd like you to know my mother," as she had heard Joan Chichester do when her people came down at Mid-term. Of course, in old days it would have been unheard-of cheek for any member of the Lower School, except for Gabrielle, who breakfasted with Miss Conyngham when school matters needed attention, and could say, "I say, Ingrid, oughtn't we...."
It was that "we" which was so wonderful, really; much more so than breakfasting with the Head! ”

“ Joey could take chaff better now; besides, the antipathy of the Redlanders to her village school had died a natural and speedy death.
"P'r'aps I'd better think of yours," she said.
"You little beast!" muttered Noreen, but rather inaudibly, "beast" being one of the expressions that even easy-going Miss Lambton did not pass at table.
There was a walk before chapel on Sundays, if weather allowed; Joey paired off with Gabrielle on this occasion, and found her sympathetic over the outing.
"It's always decent going out when you're at school, even if it's to the stuffiest people," she explained. ”

“ Joey held out her hand. "You'll chuck it now, of course, and I'm sure Colonel Sturt will see about your not getting into trouble; and, if you don't mind, I could speak to Mademoiselle de Lavernais about you—she comes from Alsace too. We're no end glad you're all right, really."
"Rather!" said Noreen and Gabrielle with great heartiness, and all three shook hands with the Alsatian solemnly. ”

“ Miss Craigie was to come back on the day after Joey was restored to the ordinary privileges of Blue Dorm. Miss Conyngham sent for Joey after breakfast and mentioned the fact, asking very kindly if she would like to go and meet the four train, instead of joining her form "croc."
"Choose a companion," she said; "and, of course, I trust you to go and come back by the road, Jocelyn."
Joey coloured up. "It's ever so good of you, Miss Conyngham; of course I'll play fair. But please, is there ever a time when you could let us go on the Deeps?—for that tower is most frightfully interesting." ”

“ With Noreen squeezing her arm affectionately on one side and Joey holding rather shyly to the other, Miss Craigie walked the two miles to Redlands, hearing much school news and asking many questions, in especial about the prospects of the big hockey match, Redlands v. Lincolnshire Ladies, which was always played towards the end of October.
"It's to be at Deeping Royal this year," Gabrielle said. "It was the Lincs Ladies' turn to choose, you see."
"Selfish pigs, they might have chosen somewhere nearer. Nine miles off; why, hardly any of us will be able to go and look on," grumbled Noreen. ”