The Little School-Mothers

“Don’t deafen me,” said Harriet. “I can’t help it if you have news. I don’t suppose there is anything in your new’s,” she continued.

“You are as cross as two sticks, Harry,” said Jane; “but you won’t be when you hear what I have got to say. Come along; I must tell you before we start for home, and they are putting the horses to the waggonettes already. Let’s run down this glade. Let’s be very quick, or they’ll stop us. I see old Sparke coming back as fast as she can, and she’ll begin to call us all to the top of that little mound. It is there we are to wait for the waggonettes. Come – quick!”

Harriet, although she liked Jane, had a secret sort of contempt for her. She could be naughty, of course, but she was not clever. Harriet admired nothing but talent. She believed herself to be a sort of genius.

“I don’t suppose you have anything to tell me,” she repeated; “but I’ll come if you want me to. See, I’ll race you – one, two, three! I’ll get first to that tall tree at the end of the glade.”

In a race with Harriet, Jane was nowhere, for Harriet’s legs were so long and she was so light that she flew almost like the wind over the ground. She easily reached the meeting-place first, and Jane followed her, panting, red in the face, and a little cross.

“You did take the wind out of me,” she said. “Oh, oh, oh!”

She pressed her hand to her side.

“I cannot speak at all for a minute – I – I – can’t – tell you my news. Oh, you have winded me – you have!”

“Don’t talk, then,” said Harriet, who was leaning comfortably with her back against a tree; while Jane, round as a ball and crimson in the face, panted a little way off. By-and-by, however, Jane got back her voice.

“I’ve found out something about the new ’un,” she said, “that bird thing, who will be here to-night. I was hiding down in the brushwood, just by the big oak, and you were all looking for me; but I buried myself under a holly tree, and no one could see even a squint of me, however hard one looked. They– didn’t know I was there.”

“Who do you mean by ‘they’?” interrupted Harriet.

“Sparke and Devigny,” said Jane. “Oh, of course I am fond of Miss Devigny, but I can’t be bothered to ‘Miss’ her when I’m in no end of a hurry. Well, they talked, and it was all about the new ’un. She is not a model; that’s one comfort. She is so desperately naughty she has been sent from home – sort of expelled, you know – sort of disgraced for life; a nice sort of creature to come here! And we’re to mould her. What is to ‘mould’ a body, Harriet?”

“To make them like ourselves, I suppose,” said Harriet, whose eyes sparkled over this intelligence.

“That is what Sparke said; she hopes everything for the bird from our influence. Isn’t it fun? Isn’t it great? I am quite excited! See here now: think what larks we’ll have with a squint-eyed, hunchbacked, very naughty girl. Oh, won’t it be larks!”

“She may be a nuisance, there is no saying,” remarked Harriet.

“Why, aren’t you delighted, Harriet? I am.”

“Can’t say,” answered Harriet. “I only hope,” she added, “that whatever else she is, she is stupid. I don’t want any clever girls in the same form with me. Now, let’s go back, Jane.”

“You don’t seem at all obliged to me for telling you such a wonderful piece of news,” said Jane.

“I am not. We’d have found it all out for ourselves in no time, and you should never listen – you know you shouldn’t.”

“Oh, Harriet, you won’t tell on me – you promise you won’t?”

“I? Of course not, silly. Now let’s be quick. I hear Sparkie shouting. Let’s run back. Oh, I am glad I have got long legs!”

Book One – Chapter Two

Robina

Robina Starling was waiting all by herself in the school parlour. Mrs Burton had received her, and had been very nice to the small girl. She had talked to her affectionately, and even kissed her, and had herself taken her to the dormitory where the girls of the third form slept. She had shown her the little cubicle which was to be all her own, and said that she felt quite certain Robina would be happy at school.

“There is no unhappy girl in my school,” she said, “and if you are not as gay as a lark and as bright as the sunshine, you will be the first discontented girl who ever came to Abbeyfield. Now, dear, your things will be unpacked for you by Preston; but, in the meantime, you might brush your hair and wash your hands; then you can come down to me. We shall have tea together this first night. Afterwards, I will take you to the parlour, where you can wait for your companions.”

Mrs Burton left the dormitory as she spoke, and Robina stood there all alone. When she found herself quite alone, she blinked her eyes hard two or three times, then, tossing back her great mane of thick brown hair, said under her breath, “Now I am better.” Then she proceeded to investigate the room.

There were eight beds in the room, and it was, of course, very large. This dormitory, occupied by the third form girls, was perhaps the most beautiful bedroom it was possible to see. Each girl’s little division, or cubicle, was quite as large as an ordinary small bedroom. It was curtained off, and was completely furnished within with every requirement that a small girl could desire. There was, to begin with, a very pretty wash-hand stand with rows of wide, deep drawers beneath, and over the stand was a looking-glass. The wash-hand stand, with its drawers and glass, was so placed that a girl could see her face nicely. There was a little toilet table without a glass, and there was a deep cupboard in the wall full of shelves at one side and a hanging press at the other. The floor of the little cubicle was carpeted with pretty felt, and there were curtains to match at the windows.

Robina found herself in one of the most charming of the eight cubicles. Each cubicle was arranged with a different colour, and Robina’s was of a very delicate shade of mauve; the paint was white and the decorations mauve; the felt carpet was mauve, the curtains were mauve, and the little bed had a French canopy over it of mauve and white curtains tied back with broad mauve ribbons. There was also a mauve silk couvrepied on the bed, so that altogether the effect was most charming.

Robina was not, perhaps, a shy girl; and, having quickly taken in what her own cubicle contained, she marched into the others. Each cubicle was exactly like its fellow, except that its colouring was different: some were all in pink, some all in blue, some again in red and white, some again in palest primrose.

“I have the prettiest,” thought Robina; “not that I care.”

She now looked out of her window. The cubicle next to hers had no window, so she was highly privileged; but she was not in a mood to notice this at present. She stood quite still, gazing steadily out at the view. Her face was peculiar for so young a child, and had a look of power about it which would distinguish it all through life, and make people inclined to look twice at her. It was not exactly a beautiful face, but it arrested attention. The little nose was short, and perfectly straight; the brows thick; the forehead broad and very white. The eyes were good, but of a nondescript colour; so that one moment you spoke of them as brown, at another as blue, at another as grey. At night, they looked very black, and in times of emotion they would sparkle in quite a dangerous way. Robina’s mouth was well cut, but a little large. She had a clear skin that was somewhat pale, and was a square-built child, neither especially tall nor especially short for her age.

Having completed her toilet – not with any particular view to being tidy or making herself charming – she went downstairs. A maid directed her to Mrs Burton’s sitting-room, where she and her mistress had tea.

During tea-time, Mrs Burton did what she could to draw Robina out. But this was not at all an easy task. Robina did not want to be drawn; and she was the sort of child whom it was absolutely difficult to force out of the way in which she washed to go. Mrs Burton tried her on the subject of her sick mother; but although Robina did blink her eyes twice in a rather suspicious manner, she replied quite calmly, saying that her mother was always an invalid and could not stand noise.

“I am noisy,” said Robina, “so that is why I have been sent to you. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” replied Mrs Burton.

“Do you expect me to be very quiet here?” continued Robina.

“In play-time,” answered Mrs Burton, “you can be as noisy as you like.”

“But when I am in the mood I am always noisy,” said Robina.

“We don’t have moods here,” replied Mrs Burton, whereupon Robina stretched out her hand and helped herself without asking to a large piece of cake. She ate it almost greedily, stuffing great pieces into her mouth.

Mrs Burton was determined that no discipline should begin that evening, so she turned now to the subject of lessons. What did Robina know? Nothing, it seemed, and yet in a way everything.

“I have read lots,” answered that young lady calmly; “but they couldn’t manage me about my lessons; that was another reason why they sent me here. Did you know that?”

“Yes; I have heard it,” replied Mrs Burton.

“Do you mean to manage me here?” asked Robina.

“I hope so,” replied the headmistress.

“Nobody else has been able to do it,” said Robina in a very calm voice.

Then she got up, allowing a lot of crumbs to fall upon the floor, and walked to the window. She stood – perhaps with intention – her broad back to her governess. Mrs Burton looked at the back, the well-squared shoulders, the sturdy little figure, the thick hair which fell in luxuriant masses far below the child’s waist.

Mrs Burton was not one either to sigh or despair; but she knew quite well that she had undertaken no mean task in introducing Robina Starling into her orderly school. After a minute’s pause she got up, and, going to her little pupil, took her hand.

“I want you to help me, Robina,” she said. The wild eyes darted a quick glance into her face.

“How?” asked Robina. “I am not much good at that sort of thing.”

“I won’t tell you how to-night, my dear; but perhaps to-morrow we will have a talk. There is one rule in the school which has never been broken yet; and that is, that a new pupil – quite a new pupil – has tea with me all by herself on the day after her arrival. So you, Robina, will have the privilege of having tea alone with me to-morrow evening. You must come to me here at five o’clock – sharp at five o’clock, remember – and then you and I will have a little talk and I hope a nice time together. It is considered an honour, my love.”