The Youngest Girl in the School Part 15

'My father writes books,' answered Babs, proudly. 'It's much more wonderful to write books than to be a professor, because everybody all over the world hears of you if you write books.'

'That depends on whether they're good books,' argued Jean, warmly. 'You _have_ to be clever if you want to be a professor, but any stupid person can write a stupid book, and n.o.body ever hears of that kind of book at all.'

'Everybody has heard of my father's book, though, so that shows how little you know about it,' replied Barbara. 'The people in America liked his book so much that they asked him to go all the way to America to lecture about it. The people in America never asked _your_ father----'

'Is your father called Everard Berkeley?' asked Jean, suddenly. She had not listened to grown-up conversations in the Christmas holidays for nothing, and she thought she saw her way at last to crushing the irrepressible new girl, once and for all.

Babs nodded. She was too proud to say anything. What other girl in the room had a father who was so celebrated that people knew him by his Christian name, instead of calling him just _Mr._ Somebody? She had only a short time in which to enjoy her triumph, however, for Jean Murray turned quickly on her heel, and walked off with a swaggering step.

'Then my father says that your father is a failure over here,' she answered, tossing her head contemptuously. 'n.o.body will read his old book in England; so he was _obliged_ to go to America.'

The other girls were beginning to notice the dispute, and they came crowding round to hear what it was all about. Most of them were in time to see Jean Murray walk off with her head in the air, just as the little new girl clenched her fists and crouched down as if to make a spring. Then the storm broke, and the Babe's fury was let loose among the fifty-five occupants of the junior playroom.

It was an easy matter, in that spring forward, to send some half dozen or so spinning out of her way, but Barbara did not stop to see what happened to them. All she wanted to do was to reach the arch offender of them all, the one who had dared to slight her father, and to hold him up to the ridicule of fifty-five girls.

n.o.body quite knew what did happen on this unexampled occasion in the annals of Wootton Beeches; and certainly n.o.body stirred a finger to put a stop to it. All that the girls in the senior playroom could tell about it afterwards was that a sudden scuffle and several screams broke the hush and hum of voices on the other side of the curtain; and then Angela Wilkins dashed through the archway with a terrified look on her face, and seized Margaret by the arm.

'Oh, come! do come!' she sobbed out in her fright. 'Barbara Berkeley has got Jean Murray down on the floor, and she's _killing_ her!'

CHAPTER X

THE END OF THE FEUD

When the prayer-bell rang that evening, it interrupted a wild tumult in the junior playroom. The elder girls had rushed through the curtain, on the terrified summons of Angela Wilkins; and the whole school crowded and thronged round a confused heap in the middle of the floor. Nothing much was to be seen except two lanky black legs, a crumpled white frock, and a good deal of untidy brown hair; and at first n.o.body did anything but stare and exclaim. The ringing of the prayer-bell, however, brought them all to their senses. Margaret Hulme made a sudden dash at the two combatants, picked up the one that came first, and dropped her in a corner of the room, where she could be hidden from view until she had time to recover herself. Then the head girl turned to the child who still lay sobbing and gasping on the floor.

'You get up and behave yourself!' she said in a stern undertone; and Jean Murray struggled to her feet and went off snivelling, to be comforted by the trembling and excited Angela. Then the elder girls melted away again into their own room, and a kind of uneasy hush settled down on the eighty-seven inhabitants of Wootton Beeches.

Barbara rubbed her eyes and stared wildly round her. A solid wall of girls stood between her and the scene of the recent scuffle; she could not see what had become of her victim, and at first she did not even realise what was producing this wonderful calm. Then the girls in front of her began slowly to move away towards the archway; and once she caught a glimpse through the curtain of the door in the room beyond. It was only a glimpse, for the girls closed up again immediately; but it was enough to show her the stately figure of Miss Finlayson, as she stood and wished her pupils good-night, one by one. Barbara had watched the same ceremony for a good many evenings now, but it had never seemed quite so orderly or so solemn before. To-night, it made a peculiar impression on the wild little tomboy who had been brought up without discipline or control, and the strangeness and the misery of her position overwhelmed her as with a new feeling. At the same instant, in striking contrast to the dismal reality, came the remembrance of the dream she had dreamed all her life about this very place called school; and, unnoticed by her school-fellows, who were fully occupied in trying to behave as if nothing had happened, she broke down and sobbed bitterly in her corner.

The stream of girls that had been filing past Miss Finlayson came to an end at last; but Miss Finlayson did not follow them immediately to the chapel. Far away, in a distant corner of the junior playroom, crouched a dishevelled little girl in a crumpled frock, weeping dolefully for a dream that had never come true; and Miss Finlayson stood and waited in her place by the door.

A sense of the extreme stillness, now that the footsteps of the girls had ceased, slowly impressed itself upon Barbara; and she looked up with a new feeling of alarm. There, through the opening in the curtain, she could see the stately figure of the head-mistress in the room beyond; and Babs thrust a round, inky ball of a handkerchief into her pocket, and hastened towards her in a panic.

'I didn't know you were waiting for me,' she said, fighting to keep the quiver out of her voice. 'I didn't know they had all gone. I--I'd forgotten it was prayers now.'

She knocked over a chair as she stumbled across the room, and once her dress caught on the edge of a desk and stopped her; but Miss Finlayson waited with her hand out, and the little new girl reached her at last.

Once more, behind the grave glance of the blue-grey eyes, lurked a suggestion of something softer and more human, and it gave Barbara a little courage.

'I wasn't crying because I was sorry I'd thumped Jean Murray,' she burst out. 'I'm not a bit sorry, not a _bit_! I'd like to thump her again for saying--for saying----'

It sounded uncommonly like telling tales, and she had to stop. Miss Finlayson still had hold of her hand, and still looked down at her with the mixture of expressions on her face.

'Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?' was all she said.

Barbara had not even heard the question. She was full of her grievance against Jean Murray, which she had almost forgotten for the minute; and she burst out again, more angrily than before.

'Don't you understand?' she cried pa.s.sionately. 'I wasn't crying for _that_; it--it was something else, but I can't tell you what it was, because you'd only laugh. They all laugh--except when they're just being horrible! Why didn't you let me run away last week? I don't want to stop with people like Jean Murray, and--and all the rest of them; I hate being here, I hate the girls, I hate you! Why won't you let me go away?'

She hardly knew what she was saying. She had not been in such a pa.s.sion since the dreary day, two years ago, when they took her nurse away from her, and she had made herself ill with fretting.

Miss Finlayson tightened her grasp on the hand that was struggling to free itself; then she bent over her rebellious little pupil, and laid her other hand against her burning cheek.

'Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?' she repeated. Her persistence began to take effect, and the cool touch of her fingers was very soothing.

'Why--why won't you let me go away?' sobbed Babs, and the tears rained down her cheeks again.

'Why?' echoed Miss Finlayson, producing a handkerchief that had not been used, like Barbara's, to mop up ink blots. 'Because I want you myself, to be sure.'

She dried the child's eyes as she spoke; and the small tear-stained face looked up at her wistfully. 'Do you want me?' asked Barbara. 'Does anybody want me--_truthfully_?'

Miss Finlayson nodded, and a look slowly deepened in her face that gave the child confidence. 'Yes, Babs, truthfully,' she answered. Then she repeated for the last time, 'Are you coming to prayers?' And keeping the hot little hand within hers, she led her upstairs to the chapel.

At Wootton Beeches the girls always walked in and out of chapel in the order of their cla.s.ses, beginning at the top of the school. But, this evening, the youngest child in the school walked out in front of everybody, for Miss Finlayson held her by the hand and would not let her go. They stood together, a curiously a.s.sorted couple, at the end of the pa.s.sage that led to the other wing of the house; and one after another the girls pa.s.sed them on their way to their rooms. There was not a sound for some moments, except the tapping of footsteps on the polished boards; then, walking last of all, came Jean Murray. Babs broke from her companion and flung herself impetuously forward.

'I say, I'm awfully sorry I thumped you on the head just now,' she began, and held out her hand invitingly to the enemy. 'I wasn't a bit sorry at first, and I wanted to do it again, _frightfully_; but I am sorry now, and I don't.'

The girls who were still in the pa.s.sage lingered, and looked back.

Evidently, there was no end to the sensations that Barbara Berkeley meant to produce in her first term at school.

'Hush!' whispered Jean, glancing round timorously at the head-mistress.

Babs looked amazed. 'Won't you shake hands?' she asked. 'I know I thumped you awfully hard, but still----'

'Sh-sh!' repeated Jean, trying to push past her. 'Don't you know we're not allowed----'

'I think--I _do_ think you might make it up,' continued Babs, in a disappointed tone. 'Even if I did hurt you rather, you must own you were very mean.'

Jean Murray, feeling the eyes of authority fixed upon her, made another attempt to escape. 'Can't you wait till to-morrow?' she asked in an agitated whisper.

'I should have waited, if it hadn't been for that hymn,' answered the child, still barring the way obstinately. 'I can't help it if the hymn made me feel funny without making you feel funny too, can I? I can't think what there was about that hymn,' she added to herself reflectively; 'I never remember noticing a hymn so much before.'

Miss Finlayson came up to them, and Jean fairly quaked. If there was a rule that the head-mistress was strict about, it was the rule of silence after prayers. Jean knew, for she had been unlucky enough to break it more than once.

'I have changed your room, Jean,' said Miss Finlayson, calmly. 'Angela will have yours for the rest of the term, and you are to sleep in number fourteen, next door to Ruth Oliver. I have just told Angela, so you can go straight to her old room now, and I will send up one of the servants to move your things for the night. The rest can be done in the morning. By the way,' she added, as she left them, 'you three may talk till the lights are put out; for it seems that Barbara has something to say that will not keep until to-morrow. Good-night.'

She walked away downstairs with a deliberate step; and the two children were left standing together on the landing.

'Well, I never!' exclaimed Jean, staring after Miss Finlayson.

But Babs was less concerned with the peculiarities of the head-mistress than with her own immediate business. 'How much longer are you going to be before you shake hands?' she asked.

'Oh, that's all right,' answered Jean, awkwardly, and she at last put a limp hand into the one Barbara was tired of pressing upon her. They trotted along the pa.s.sage side by side, Jean feeling a little overwhelmed by the suddenness of the reconciliation, while Babs wondered what had happened to make her so silent all at once. To her it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be on good terms with the enemy whose head you had just thumped, provided that you had apologised suitably afterwards; and she chatted away cheerfully until Jean was obliged to stifle her inclination to be dignified.

'I say,' said Babs, when they reached the gallery in the other wing of the house and were hurrying round it to their rooms; 'shall I be punished a lot for knocking you down this evening?'