Chapter 19

Alack!

Of course, as bad luck would have it, Miss Ormerod had been on the edge of the crowd outside the Guild Hall, had recognized Lesbia Ferrars descending the ladder, had been very much scandalized at the occurrence, and after making full inquiries seemed to arrive at the rather unreasonable conclusion that it was all Lesbia's fault.

"You ought to have left the museum with the other girls and Miss Chatham," she decided, fixing a stern eye on the delinquent at the close of the court martial, "then this very unseemly exhibition would not have taken place. Such a thing brings the school into disrepute. I wonder how many times I have to impress upon you girls the need for quiet and lady-like behaviour in the streets. You disgrace your badge when you make yourself conspicuous. It's one of the most annoying matters I have to enter in my report."

"I'm very sorry, Miss Ormerod," said Lesbia dutifully.

In the cloakroom she was hardly so meek. She was dismayed at the hint that her escapade would be reported to Miss Tatham, and raged at the injustice of being scolded for what she could not help.

"I believe Miss Ormerod would have _much_ rather we'd stayed in that museum all night," she flared. "She'd have let us starve, or catch pneumonia or rheumatism with sleeping on the stone floor, and wouldn't have cared a button so long as we didn't attract a crowd. Do you think I _liked_ climbing over that wretched roof? I hated it. I never felt so silly in my life as when I came down that ladder and saw everybody staring as if I were a peep-show."

"Some people thought you were doing a turn for a cinema," chirped Kathleen.

"You'll probably find an account of it in the evening paper," grinned Ermie.

"Help! It'll be the last straw with Miss Ormerod if it gets into the _Kingfield Despatch_. She never liked me before, but I'm the black sheep of the school at present."

Truly Lesbia was in no favour at head-quarters. She found it most difficult to combine teaching with her work in the Sixth Form, and to do both well. If she spent a long time getting up the geography lesson which she must give to IIB, her own preparation suffered. It was hard to be counted a slacker, and she longed to justify herself. Twelve years' experience at school had taught her, however, that the one unpardonable sin is to "answer back" when scolded, so she curbed her tongue, and listened with lowered eyelids while Miss Ormerod talked to her on the poor standard of her weekly exercises and essays, and the necessity of making greater efforts at self-improvement.

I have mentioned that the prefects at the High School had the special privilege of using the quaint little room built over the archway which spanned the road. Lesbia in particular regarded it as a harbour of refuge. She was now a daily boarder, and when one o'clock dinner was over she would often retire to this sanctum to read or do preparation before afternoon classes. At that hour she generally had it alone, and it seemed almost as good as a private study. One day, late in March, she walked briskly upstairs with her water-colour box. She wanted to illuminate a book back for Ermie's birthday, she could not venture to paint it in the studio, because her chum might come in and see it, and there was practically no time available after she went home in the afternoons. The gate room, though rather dark, would be absolutely secluded, with no fear of Ermie suddenly peeping over her shoulder and asking: "What are you doing, old sport?"

Lesbia hurried along the upper corridor, her mind full of the design which she meant to paint, so preoccupied, indeed, that she never saw a suspicious movement of the book-cupboard door as she passed, or heard suppressed giggles inside. She just walked on, utterly oblivious, went into the gate room, and, for better security, bolted herself in. The latticed window overlooking the street was open, and she noticed vaguely that the floor underneath it was wet, as though with rain.

"Funny, when it's been fine for three days," she commented; but it was an unimportant trifle, so she placed the table over the damp patch, settled herself in the best light, and began her painting. She spent a happy and profitable half-hour copying a delightful bit of "Fra Angelico" illumination from a Florentine post card, and would have gone on longer only her watch, propped up as monitor, reminded her that time was on the wing. She stood up, took her painting mug, and abstractedly turned to the window with the idea of flinging the water away. She was leaning out, mug in hand, when she suddenly realized that she was over a public roadway, and that not only were people walking underneath, but that Miss Ormerod herself was returning to the side door, and was gazing upwards at her anticipated act with horror writ large on every feature. Lesbia stopped just in time, aghast at her own folly.

"Well! I _am_ a stupid idiot," she soliloquized. "I was actually going to give passers-by a shower-bath. Nice thing for a prefect to do. It's just like me. I had a notion I was throwing it into the garden, like I do from the studio window. Suppose I had soused Miss Ormerod? It would have been the end of all things. There goes the bell. Oh goody! I must hurry or I shall be late for gym."

All afternoon Lesbia felt nervous lest Miss Ormerod should meet her somewhere in the school and allude to the scene at the window. She was very much relieved to go home at four o'clock having successfully avoided such a catastrophe. She congratulated herself too soon, however. On the following day, after morning classes, she received a summons to the Principal's study.

"Miss Ormerod wants you, and you'd better be jolly quick, because the barometer's at Stormy," burbled Aldora, who brought the message.

Lesbia heaved what is commonly known as a gusty sigh.

"I'm always in hot water. What is it now?"

"How should I know, child! Brace up and sprint. The longer you are in going, the worse wigging you'll get."

"I'll wait for you outside the door if you like with a clean handkerchief," chirruped Ermie.

"Thumb-screws and the rack for one," piped Cissie.

But Lesbia was already on her way towards the Inquisitorial Chamber.

When she entered she realized, apart from their schoolgirl jokes, that the Principal was really angry.

"Lesbia," she began grimly. "I've had too much trouble with you lately, and you'll either have to behave yourself here or leave. I won't have the High School disgraced. Your conduct yesterday was simply abominable."

Lesbia's jaw dropped in astonishment at this outburst. She did not think her carelessness quite justified so severe a rebuke. Miss Ormerod was looking "worked up", her hands trembled, and her eyes flashed through her glasses as she continued:

"Three separate people have been in to complain that you dropped water upon them as they passed under the gatehouse. One lady told me that her velvet hat was practically ruined. I want to know what you mean by it? Such shameless behaviour is unworthy of any pupil of this school--much less a prefect."

"But, Miss Ormerod, I--I--I--didn't throw water on people's heads," stammered Lesbia. "I only----"

"Don't tell me any lies," interrupted the Principal shortly; "I saw you myself. You were on the very point of throwing water from the window when you caught my eye and drew back. There can be no mistake about the matter."

"But I didn't--I didn't."

"Be quiet," blazed Miss Ormerod. "What's the use of denying what I _know_ to be true? _You_, Lesbia, who owe so much to the school, to bring it into such disrepute. I'm thoroughly disappointed and disgusted with you. You're a girl who ought to know better. To show you that I don't intend to allow such things I've struck your name off the list of prefects, and have put Kathleen in your place. Now you may go."

Lesbia walked out of the study utterly bewildered. It all seemed a kind of bad dream. She had certainly never thrown water from the gate-room window on to the heads of passers-by. Had anyone else been into the room and played such a shabby practical joke? Only prefects were allowed in the sanctum. Still it was, of course, possible that some daring spirit might have ventured to intrude. That she, Lesbia Ferrars, who had always been so loyal to the school and had striven to uphold its reputation, should be accused of this piece of vulgar horseplay seemed incredible. She bitterly regretted the stupidity which had given Miss Ormerod the supposed proof of her guilt. To be deposed from her post of prefect. Oh, it was too horrible! Such an extreme measure had never been taken at the school before within her remembrance. She felt it was unjust to give her no opportunity of explaining herself. Miss Ormerod always carried everything with such a high hand. Miss Tatham would surely have listened to her, and not have condemned her unheard.

Her fellow-prefects were extremely indignant when they heard her bad news. All the form, indeed, bristled with sympathy. Kathleen, sent for to the study to be promoted in her place, tried to plead for her, but only received a sharp snubbing for her pains. The girls shook their heads over the matter dismally.

"I expect some of those juniors are responsible," said Carrie. "I've been into their form rooms, and put them on their honour to tell anything they know about it, but nobody breathed a word. Mean little pigs. If I could catch the one who did it I'd spifflicate her."

"Hanging would be too good for such a girl," agreed Ermie bloodthirstily.

"Well, there's one thing, we none of us believe it in the school."

"VB pretend they do," groaned Lesbia.

"VB are the scum of the school. Don't pay any attention to them. I'll have a talk with them and settle them. If they say a word more about it they'll have to reckon with me."

"I wish we could set it straight with Miss Ormerod."

"'None so deaf as those who won't see'," misquoted Ermie. "The 'Orm' is one of those pig-headed people who get a notion into their precious noddles and need a surgical operation to get it out again. I'm afraid you'll have to live through the rest of the term as a blighted blossom. Cheerio! Miss Tatham will be back after Easter."

"Yes, and find I'm not a prefect. A nice tale she'll be told about it all, I expect. I'd write to her, but she hasn't answered my two last letters."

"Well, you see, the doctor said she wasn't to be worried about any school matters, and it would get rather stiff answering letters if everybody wrote to her, wouldn't it?"

"Right you are, O Queen! I stand rebuked."

Though her friends in the Sixth, and indeed most of the girls, might thoroughly sympathize with Lesbia, her deposition from the prefectship had an unfortunate effect upon those forms to which she acted as assistant mistress. Discipline had always been her weak point, and the children seemed to wax more unruly than ever. Whether they believed her guilty or innocent of the crime laid to her charge they realized she was degraded from office, and therefore considered she might be defied with impunity. Many were the weary tussles she had in her classes. She dared not appeal to Miss Ormerod, and was obliged to struggle along as best she could, fighting against the continual "ragging" to which she was subjected, and sometimes wishing all juniors were at the bottom of the sea.

She began to dread the hours when she must take command in IIIB. The girls there were a particularly turbulent crew, and experts in heckling their inexperienced young teacher. They particularly loved to "prove her with hard questions", and as she was not a modern Solomon she could rarely find satisfactory answers for these youthful "Queens of Sheba". It made her terribly nervous to be asked to settle startling by-problems of the lesson, especially when she guessed they were put on purpose to puzzle her. She would try desperately to evade them.

"That's nothing to do with what we're learning," she would say airily.

"But Miss Ormerod likes us to think things out," some determined conscientious objector would reply, "and, of course, we want to know exactly."

"Miss Ormerod says it's part of the lesson to ask questions," would pipe another child.

Then the whole form would gaze at poor Lesbia till she writhed under the combined stare, horribly conscious of her own ignorance and her poor qualifications for her task as teacher, and wondering how to hide her lack of general knowledge from her fifteen persecutors.

First and foremost among the rebels was Maisie Martin. She was quick of brain, agile in invention, and easily led the rest. During the last weeks of term she became the cross and stumbling-block of Lesbia's life. She was passing through a restless phase, and enjoyed giving trouble; Miss Campbell, her own form-mistress, could not easily be defied, so she broke out all the more under a junior teacher.

School had grown so intolerable lately that Lesbia welcomed week-ends as a prisoner does a reprieve. She felt sometimes as if she wanted to shake the dust of Kingfield off her feet for ever. One Saturday, simply to get away for a mental change, she borrowed Joan's bicycle and rode out into the country. Flowers were opening in the hedgerows and woods, thrushes and blackbirds were singing their spring songs, and in spite of occasional showers the afternoon was fresh and pleasant. Some of the peace and quiet of nature seemed to steal into her tired soul. She began to feel that life was not all High School, and to listen to those soothing voices that whisper in the rustle of leaves and the murmur of streams. She spent more than an hour simply resting in a wood, and started to go home very much refreshed and consoled.

As she rode along, fully seven miles out of Kingfield, she passed a girl who was walking and wheeling a bicycle. The general set of the figure was familiar, and, turning her head, Lesbia recognized Maisie Martin. Her first feeling was to ignore her, and pedal along in front as fast as possible, to get away from such an incarnation of all her school worries. But the leaves and the brook had been rustling and rippling a different gospel, and her mental tone was in tune with them. She got off her machine instead and turned back.

"Hello, Maisie! What's the matter with you?" she inquired.

She might well ask, for Maisie's usually clean and cheerful face was streaked with smudges of dirt, her skirt held a big rent, and she hobbled rather than walked. She was indeed a most forlorn-looking object, visibly depressed.

At sight of someone she knew she made an eager spurt forward.

"Oh, I've had such a spill," she explained. "I don't know how I did it, but I pitched right over the handles, and I've smashed my bike. It's not fit to ride. Look! I've scraped my leg too, and grazed my hands."

"Hard luck! Be glad you're not worse hurt though. How are you going to get back to Kingfield?"

"I don't know. Walk, I suppose," Maisie's voice shook. She looked on the verge of tears.

"Could you leave your bike at that cottage and ride on my luggage-carrier?"

"Oh! Would you take me?"

"I'd try. If I upset both of us you mustn't blame me. I'm not a very steady rider."

"I'll risk it."

"Come along then, and we'll ask if anybody will look after the bike till you can send for it."

Having found a friendly and sympathetic old woman, who consented to take charge of the machine, Lesbia rode off with Maisie perched on her luggage-carrier, and succeeded in balancing her burden and conveying her safely into Kingfield.

"Now hurry home, and put cold cream on that leg," she advised, as she set her down at the corner of her own road, a stiff and sore specimen of girlhood, but an absolute lump of gratitude. "Oh, never mind about saying thank you. You'd have done the same for me I've no doubt."

"I shan't forget it, if I live to be a hundred and nine," called Maisie, as Lesbia remounted and rode away.

And she did not. She might be a troublesome girl, but she was staunch if she took a fancy to anybody. For the future Lesbia was her heroine instead of the butt of her powers of ragging. The difference which this changed attitude made in IIIB was enormous. The girls were like sheep, and followed where Maisie led. They ceased catechizing their teacher, and behaved with some approach to decent order. One day Maisie, whose new infatuation was almost embarrassing, and who followed Lesbia about the school to the great annoyance of Marion and Regina, insisted upon whispering a secret.

"I've found out about that water-throwing business," she confided. "It was Jess and Gwennie who did it. They sneaked into the gate room, and shot at people from the window with squirts. They said you nearly caught them in the corridor as they were coming back, but they dodged inside the book cupboard. I always guessed it was those two, because they'd been showing us their squirts and 'baptizing' us, as they called it, in the gym till we all scooted off. I had a quarrel with them both this morning and I said I should tell you."

This was news indeed. Lesbia carried it immediately to the prefects.

"Of course you'll go straight to Miss Ormerod," urged Carrie. "The thing ought to be set right at once."

"I don't know," Lesbia was wrinkling her brows. "I'm so out of favour with Miss Ormerod that I really don't think it will make much difference. And, anyway, she's leaving, and I shall probably never see her again. It would get Jess and Gwennie into a terrific scrape, and it seems no use stirring up more trouble. I'd rather leave things as they are, now."

"But, girl alive! don't you want to be a prefect again?"

"Kathleen makes a far better one than I did. She'd best stick to it. As long as the school knows the facts I don't care."

"But Miss Tatham? What will she say when she comes back and finds you aren't prefect?"

"I shall explain it all to Miss Tatham without mentioning the names of the girls. I'm sure she'll understand."

"Well, you _are_ a saint!"

"Not a bit of it. I'm putting my work on to Kathleen."

"Oh, I dare say!"

"Well, please let it stand at this."

"Right you are. _We_ shan't go telling Miss Ormerod. Don't you fear."

The true state of affairs, of course, spread round the whole school in half an hour, and public opinion dubbed Lesbia a trump. Among the juniors especially her decision raised her to the height of popularity. Jess and Gwennie were ready to grovel at her feet.

"You'll find us all positive _angels_ next term," they assured her.

"Well, hardly that, I expect," laughed Lesbia. "Still, I dare say we'll understand each other rather better, and you'll try to behave in class without making me turn absolute gorgon to keep you in order, won't you?"

"Gorgon indeed! You're a _dear_!" gushed Gwennie.

"An absolute sport!" agreed Jess, linking her arm affectionately in that of her new-found idol.