A World of Girls: The Story of a School

“What! our school favourite. You will change your mind, I expect – but that is the gong for prayers. You shall come with me to chapel, to-night, and I will introduce you to Mr Everard.”

Chapter Six

“I Am Unhappy.”

Between forty and fifty young girls assembled night and morning for prayers in the pretty chapel which adjoined Lavender House. This chapel had been reconstructed from the ruins of an ancient priory, on the site of which the house was built. The walls, and even the beautiful eastern window, belonged to a far-off date. The roof had been carefully reared in accordance with the style of the east window, and the whole effect was beautiful and impressive. Mrs Willis was particularly fond of her own chapel. Here she hoped the girls’ best lessons might be learned, and here she had even once or twice brought a refractory pupil, and tried what a gentle word or two spoken in these old and sacred walls might effect. Here, on wet Sundays the girls assembled for service; and here, every evening at nine o’clock, came the vicar of the large parish to which Lavender House belonged, to conduct evening prayers. He was an old man, and a great friend of Mrs Willis’s, and he often told her that he considered these young girls some of the most important members of his flock.

Here Hester knelt to-night. It is to be doubted whether in her confusion, and in the strange loneliness which even Mrs Willis had scarcely removed, she prayed much. It is certain she did not join in the evening hymn, which, with the aid of an organ and some sweet girl-voices, was beautifully and almost pathetically rendered. After evening prayers had come to an end, Mrs Willis took Hester’s hand and led her up to the old, white-headed vicar.

“This is my new pupil, Mr Everard, or rather I should say, our new pupil. Her education depends as much on you as on me.”

The vicar held out his hands, and took Hester’s within them, and then drew her forward to the light.

“This little face does not seem quite strange to me,” he said. “Have I ever seen you before, my dear?”

“No, sir,” replied Hester.

“You have seen her mother,” said Mrs Willis – “Do you remember your favourite pupil, Helen Anstey, of long ago?”

“Ah! indeed – indeed! I shall never forget Helen. And are you her child, little one?”

But Hester’s face had grown white. The solemn service in the chapel, joined to all the excitement and anxieties of the day, had strung up her sensitive nerves to a pitch higher than she could endure. Suddenly, as the vicar spoke to her, and Mrs Willis looked kindly down at her new pupil, the chapel seemed to reel round, the pupils one by one disappeared, and the tired girl only saved herself from fainting by a sudden burst of tears.

“Oh, I am unhappy,” she sobbed, “without my mother! Please, please, don’t talk to me about my mother.”

She could scarcely take in the gentle words which her two friends said to her, and she hardly noticed when Mrs Willis did such a wonderful thing as to stoop down and kiss a second time the lips of a new pupil.

Finally she found herself consigned to Miss Danesbury’s care, who hurried her off to her room, and helped her to undress and tucked her into her little bed.

“Now, love, you shall have some hot gruel. No, not a word. You ate little or no tea, to-night – I watched you from my distant table. Half your loneliness is caused by want of food – I know it, my love; I am a very practical person. Now, eat your gruel, and then shut your eyes and go to sleep.”

“You are very kind to me,” said Hester, “and so is Mrs Willis, and so is Mr Everard, and I like Cecil Temple – but, oh. I wish Annie Forest was not in the school!”

“Hush, my dear, I implore of you. You pain me by these words. I am quite confident that Annie will be your best friend yet.”

Hester’s lips said nothing, but her eyes answered “Never” as plainly as eyes could speak.

Chapter Seven

A Day At School

If Hester Thornton went to sleep that night under a sort of dreamy, hazy impression that school was a place without a great deal of order, with many kind and sympathising faces, and with some not so agreeable; if she went to sleep under the impression that she had dropped into a sort of medley, that she had found herself in a vast new world where certain personages exercised undoubtedly a strong moral influence, but where on the whole a number of other people did pretty much what they pleased – she awoke in the morning to find her preconceived ideas scattered to the four winds.

There was nothing of apparent liberty about the Lavender House arrangements in the early morning hours. In the first, place, it seemed quite the middle of the night when Hester was awakened by a loud gong, which clanged through the house and caused her to sit up in bed in a considerable state of fright and perplexity. A moment or two later a neatly-dressed maid-servant came into the room with a can of hot water; she lit a pair of candles on the mantelpiece, and, with the remark that the second gong would sound in half an hour, and that all the young ladies would be expected to assemble in the chapel at seven o’clock precisely, she left the room.

Hester pulled her pretty little gold watch from under her pillow, and saw with a sigh that it was now half-past six.

“What odious hours they keep in this horrid place!” she said to herself. “Well, well, I always did know that school would be unendurable.”

She waited for five minutes before she got up, and then she dressed herself languidly, and, if the truth must be told, in a very untidy fashion. She managed to be dressed by the time the second gong sounded, but she had only one moment to give to her private prayers. She reflected, however, that this did not greatly matter as she was going down to prayers immediately in the chapel.

The service in the chapel the night before had impressed her more deeply than she cared to own, and she followed her companions downstairs with a certain feeling of pleasure at the thought of again seeing Mr Everard and Mrs Willis. She wondered if they would take much notice of her this morning, and she thought it just possible that Mr Everard, who had looked at her so compassionately the night before, might be induced, for the sake of his old friendship with her mother, to take her home with him to spend the day. She thought she would rather like to spend a day with Mr Everard, and she fancied he was the sort of person who would influence her and help her to be good. Hester fancied that if some very interesting and quite out of the common person took her in hand, she might be formed into something extremely noble – noble enough even to forgive Annie Forest.

The girls all filed into the chapel, which was lighted as brightly and cheerily as the night before; but Hester found herself placed on a bench far down in the building. She was no longer in the place of honour by Mrs Willis’s side. She was one of a number, and no one looked particularly at her or noticed her in any way. A shy young curate read the morning prayers; Mr Everard was not present, and Mrs Willis, who was, walked out of the chapel when prayers were over without even glancing in Hester’s direction. This was bad enough for the poor little dreamer of dreams, but worse was to follow.

Mrs Willis did not speak to Hester, but she did stop for an instant beside Annie Forest. Hester saw her lay her white hand on the young girl’s shoulder and whisper for an instant in her ear. Annie’s lovely gipsy face flushed a vivid crimson.

“For your sake, darling,” she whispered back; but Hester caught the words, and was consumed by a fierce jealousy.

The girls went into the school-room, where Mdlle. Perier gave a French lesson to the upper class. Hester belonged to no class at present, and could look around her, and have plenty of time to reflect on her own miseries, and particularly on what she now considered the favouritism shown by Mrs Willis.

“Mr Everard at least will read through that girl,” she said to herself; “he could not possibly endure any one so loud. Yes, I am sure that my only friend at home, Cecilia Day, would call Annie very loud. I wonder Mrs Willis can endure her. Mrs Willis seems so ladylike herself, but – Oh, I beg your pardon, what’s the matter?”

A very sharp voice had addressed itself to the idle Hester.

“But, mademoiselle, you are doing nothing! This cannot for a moment be permitted. Pardonnez-moi, you know not the French? Here is a little easy lesson. Study it, mademoiselle, and don’t let your eyes wander a moment from the page.”

Hester favoured Mdlle. Perier with a look of lofty contempt, but she received the well-thumbed lesson-book in absolute silence.

At eight o’clock came breakfast, which was nicely served, and was very good and abundant. Hester was thoroughly hungry this morning, and did not feel so shy as the night before. She found herself seated between two strange girls, who talked to her a little and would have made themselves friendly had she at all encouraged them to do so. After breakfast came half an hour’s recreation, when, the weather being very bad, the girls again assembled in the cosy play-room. Hester looked round eagerly for Cecil Temple, who greeted her with a kind smile, but did not ask her into her inclosure. Annie Forest was not present, and Hester breathed a sigh of relief at her absence. The half-hour devoted to recreation proved rather dull to the newcomer. Hester could not understand her present world. To the girl who had been brought up practically as an only child in the warm shelter of a home, the ways and doings of school-girl life were an absolute enigma.

Hester had no idea of unbending or of making herself agreeable. The girls voted her to one another stiff and tiresome, and quickly left her to her own devices. She looked longingly at Cecil Temple; but Cecil, who could never be knowingly unkind to any one, was seizing the precious moments to write a letter to her father, and Hester presently wandered down the room and tried to take an interest in the little ones. From twelve to fifteen quite little children were in the school, and Hester wondered with a sort of vague half-pain if she might see any child among the group the least like Nan.

“They will like to have me with them,” she said to herself. “Poor little dots, they always like big girls to notice them, and didn’t they make a fuss about Miss Forest last night! Well, Nan is fond enough of me, and little children find out so quickly what one is really like.”

Hester walked boldly into the group. The little dots were all as busy as bees, were not the least lonely, or the least shy, and very plainly gave the intruder to understand that they would prefer her room to her company. Hester was not proud with little children – she loved them dearly. Some of the smaller ones in question were beautiful little creatures, and her heart warmed to them for Nan’s sake. She could not stoop to conciliate the older girls, but she could make an effort with the babies. She knelt on the floor and took up a headless doll.

“I know a little girl who had a doll like that,” she said.

Here she paused and several pairs of eyes were fixed on her.

“Poor dolly’s b’oke,” said the owner of the headless one in a tone of deep commiseration.

“You are such a breaker, you know, Annie,” said Annie’s little five-year-old sister.

“Please tell us about the little girl what had the doll wifout the head,” she proceeded, glancing at Hester.

“Oh, it was taken to a hospital, and got back its head,” said Hester quite cheerfully; “it became quite well again, and was a more beautiful doll than ever.”

This announcement caused intense wonder and was certainly carrying the interest of all the little ones. Hester was deciding that the child who possessed the headless doll had a look of Nan about her dark brown eyes, when suddenly there was a diversion – the play-room door was opened noisily, banged-to with a very loud report, and a gay voice sang out —

“The fairy queen has just paid me a visit. Who wants sweeties from the fairy queen?”

Instantly all the little feet had scrambled to the perpendicular, each pair of hands was clapped noisily, each little throat shouted a joyful —

“Here comes Annie!”

Annie Forest was surrounded, and Hester knelt alone on the hearth-rug.