A Bunch of Cherries: A Story of Cherry Court School

A Bunch of Cherries: A Story of Cherry Court School
L. Meade

L. T. Meade

A Bunch of Cherries: A Story of Cherry Court School

CHAPTER I.

THE SCHOOL

The house was long and low and rambling. In parts at least it must have been quite a hundred years old, and even the modern portion was not built according to the ideas of the present day, for in 1870 people were not so aesthetic as they are now, and the lines of beauty and grace were not considered all essential to happiness.

So even the new part of the house had square rooms destitute of ornament, and the papers were small in pattern and without any artistic designs, and the windows were square and straight, and the ceilings were somewhat low.

The house opened on to a wide lawn, and at the left of the lawn was a paddock and at the right a shrubbery, and the shrubbery led away under its overhanging trees into the most perfect walled-in garden that was ever seen. The garden was two or three hundred years old. The oldest inhabitants of the place had never known the time when Cherry Court garden was not the talk of the country. Visitors came from all parts round to see it. It was celebrated on account of its very high walls built of red brick, its size, for it covered at least three acres of ground, and its magnificent cherries. The cherry trees in the Court garden bore the most splendid fruit which could be obtained in any part of the county. They were in great demand, not only for the girls who lived in the old house and played in the garden, but for the neighbors all over the country. A big price was always paid for these cherries, for they made such splendid jam, as well as being so full of juice and so ripe and good to eat that their like could not be found anywhere else.

The cherries were of all sorts and kinds, from the celebrated White Heart to the black cherry. There were cherries for cooking and cherries for eating, and in the season the trees, which were laden with ripe fruit, were a sight to behold.

In the height of the cherry season Mrs. Clavering always gave a cherry feast. It was the event of the entire year, and the girls looked forward to it, making all their arrangements in connection with it, counting the hours until it arrived, and looking upon it as the great feature of their school year. Everything turned on whether the cherries were good and the weather fine. There was no greater stimulus to hard work than the merest mention of this golden day, which came as a rule towards the end of June and just before the summer vacation. For Cherry Court School was old-fashioned according to our modern ideas, and one of its old-fashioned plans was to give holidays at the end of June instead of the end of July, so that the girls had the longest, finest days at home, and came back to work at the end of August refreshed and strengthened, and prepared for a good long tug at lessons of all sorts until Christmas.

The school consisted of twenty girls, never more and never less, for Mrs. Clavering was too great a favorite and had too wise and excellent ideas with regard to education ever to be without pupils, and never more, for she believed twenty to be the perfect number to whom she could give every attention and offer every advantage.

The school, small as it was, was divided into two sections, the Upper and the Lower. In the Upper school were girls from eighteen to fourteen years of age, and in the Lower some of the small scholars numbered even as few years as six. There was a resident French mistress in the school and also a resident German, and there was an English governess, and, of course, Mrs. Clavering herself; but the other teachers came from the neighboring town of Hartleway to instruct the pupils in all those accomplishments which were in the early seventies considered necessary for a young lady's education. I can assure those of my readers who are well acquainted with modern schools that no one could have been more particular than Mrs. Clavering with regard to her girls. In such things as deportment and nice manners and all the code which signifies politeness, and in the almost lost art of brilliant conversation, she could instruct as very few other people could in her day, and then what accomplishments she did teach were thorough. The girls were taught French properly, they understood the grammar of the language, and could also speak it nicely; and their German was also very fair, if not quite as thorough as their French. And their music had some backbone in it, for a little of the science was taught as well as the practice, and their singing was very sweet and true. They could also recite, those of them who had any gift for it, quite beautifully, and if they had a turn for acting that also was brought to the fore and made the most of. As to their knowledge of the English language, it bade fair to eclipse many of the High School girls of the present day, for they did understand in the first place its literature, and in the next its grammar, and were well acquainted with the works of Shakespeare and those other lions of literature whose names we are so proud of and whose works we love.

CHAPTER II.

THE GIRLS

It was a lovely day in the beginning of June, and, being Wednesday, was a half-holiday. The girls of the Upper school, numbering seven in all, were assembled in the cherry garden. The cherry garden stood a little apart, to the left of the great general garden, and was entered by a low walled-in door.

Mrs. Clavering was so proud of her cherries and so afraid that the neighbors might be tempted to help themselves to the luscious fruit, that she kept the door locked between the cherry garden and the other, and only those girls who were very privileged were allowed to sit in it. But the girls in the Upper school were, of course, privileged, and they were now enjoying a fine time seated on the grass, or on little camp-stools and chairs, under the trees, which were already laden with the tempting fruit.

They were all eagerly discussing the great event of the year, the Cherry Feast, which was to take place in three weeks from the present day. Their names were Mabel and Alice Cunningham, two handsome dark-eyed girls, aged respectively seventeen and fifteen; Florence Aylmer, who was also fifteen and the romp of the school; Mary Bateman, a stolid-looking girl of fourteen; Bertha Kennedy, who had only lately been raised to the rank of the Upper school; Edith King, a handsome, graceful girl, who competed with Mabel for the honors of the head of her class; and Kitty Sharston, who had only lately come, and who had some Irish blood in her, and was very daring and very much inclined to break the rules. She was a hobbledehoy sort of girl, having outstripped her years, which were only thirteen, and was considered by some of her companions very plain and by others very fascinating.

Mrs. Clavering did not quite know what to make of Kitty, but hoped to break her in by and by, and meanwhile she was very gentle, and Kitty loved her, although she never could be got to see that so many restrictions and so many little petty rules were not good, but extremely bad, for her character.

On this particular lovely summer's afternoon Kitty was the last to make her appearance. She came skimming gracefully through the orchard under the cherry trees, with her hair down her back, her skirt awry, and a great stain on the front of her pinafore. In the seventies girls as old as Kitty wore long white pinafores. The stain was caused by some cherry juice, for Kitty had stopped many times as she approached the others to take great handfuls of the ripe fruit, and thrust them into her mouth. Mabel called to her to sit down.

"We are all busy discussing the great event," she said, "and I have kept a seat for you near me, Kitty; wasn't it good of me?"

"Awfully good," answered Kitty. She flung herself on the ground by her friend's side and looked up at her with affectionate eyes.

"I like you all," she said, glancing round at them, "and yet all the same I hate school. The great thing that I look forward to in the treat is that immediately afterwards the holidays follow. I shall go down to join my father in Cornwall. He said he would take me to Ireland, but I doubt if he will. Now, Tommy, what are you frowning at?"

This remark was made to Florence Aylmer. Kitty from the first had insisted upon calling her Tommy. She was the first girl in Cherry Court School who had dared to adopt a nickname for any of her companions, and Florence, who had begun by being indignant, could not help laughing now as the saucy creature fixed her with her bright eyes.

"What are you frowning at, Tommy? Aren't you glad, too, that the holidays are so near?"

"No, I am not – I hate the holidays," replied Florence Aylmer. As she spoke Mabel took one of Kitty's hands, gave it a slight squeeze, it was a sort of warning pressure. Kitty looked up at her with a startled glance, then she glanced again at Florence, who was looking down. Suddenly Florence raised her face and returned the girl's gaze fully.

"I have no home like the rest of you," she said; "my mother is very poor and cannot afford to have me at home."

"Then where are you going to spend the holidays?" said Kitty; "do say, dear old Tommy, where – where?"

"Here probably, or wherever Mrs. Clavering likes to take me," replied Florence; "but there, don't talk of it any more – I hate to think of it. We have three weeks still to be happy in, and we'll make the best of that."

"Do you know, Mabel," asked Mary Bateman, now bending forward, "if Mrs. Clavering has yet decided what the programme is to be for the 25th?"

"I think she will tell us to-night," replied Mabel; "she said something about it this morning, didn't she, Alice?"

"Yes, I heard her talking to Mademoiselle Le Brun. I expect we shall hear at tea-time. If so we will meet in the oak parlor, and Mrs. Clavering will have her annual talk. She is always very nice on those occasions."

"She is nice on every occasion – she is an old dear," said Kitty.

"Why, Kitty, you don't know her very well yet."

"She is an old dear," reported Kitty; "I love her with all my heart, but I should like beyond words to give her a right good shock. I cannot tell you girls, how I positively tremble to do it. At prayers, for instance, or still more at meals, when we are all so painfully demure, I want to jump up and utter a shout, or do something of that sort. I have suppressed myself hitherto, but I really do not know if I can go on suppressing myself much longer. Oh, what is the matter, Edith – what are you frowning at?"

"Nothing," replied Edith King; "I did not even know that I was frowning. I was just thinking how nice it was to be trained to be ladylike and to have good manners and all that. Mrs. Clavering is such a perfect lady herself that we shall know all the rules of polite society when we leave the school."

"And I hate those rules," said Kitty; "but there, somebody is coming to meet us. Oh, it is little Dolly Fairfax; she is sure to be bringing a message."

CHAPTER III.

THE TELEGRAM

Dolly came up in her brisk way. She was holding something concealed in her little pinafore. She looked very mysterious. She had a round cherub face and two great big blue eyes, and short hair, which she wore in a curly mop all over her head. Dolly was the youngest girl in the school and a great pet with everyone. When Bertha saw her now she sprang to her feet and went forward in her somewhat clumsy way.

"Come, little Dolly," she said; "what's the mystery?"

"It's not for you, Bertha," said Dolly, "and don't you interrupt. It's for – it's for Kitty Sharston."

"For me?" cried Kitty. "Oh, what a love you are, Dolly; come and sit on my lap. Is it a box of bon-bons or is it a letter?"

"Guess again," said Dolly, clapping her hand to her little mouth, and looking intensely mysterious. Her blue eyes rolled roguishly round until they fixed themselves on Edith King's face, then she looked again at Kitty as solemn as possible.

"You guess again," she said; "I'll give you five guesses. Now, then, begin right away."

"It's the book that Annie Wallace said she would lend me – that's it, now, isn't it, Dolly? See, I'll feel in your pinafore."

"No, it's not – wrong again," said Dolly; "that's three guesses – two more."

Kitty made another guess – wrong again. Finally Dolly was induced to unfold her pinafore, and inside lay an unopened telegram.

Now, in those days telegrams were not quite as common as they are now. In the first place, they cost a shilling instead of sixpence, which made a vast difference in their number. Kitty's face turned slightly pale, she gripped the telegram, shook little Dolly off her lap, stood up, and, turning her back to the girls, proceeded to open it. Her slim, long fingers shook a little as she did so. She soon had the envelope torn asunder and had taken out the pink sheet within. She unfolded it and read the words. As she did so her face turned very white. "Is the messenger waiting for an answer?" she said, turning to Dolly.

"Yes," replied Dolly; "he is waiting up at the Court."

"Then I must run away at once and answer this," said Kitty. "Oh, I wonder if I have got money enough!"