CHAPTER III

The Third Class

Heathercliffe House was a large modern building which stood in its own grounds about a mile from the sea, and an equal distance from the railway station at Aberglyn. It looked bright and cheerful on the October afternoon when a cab containing Mrs. Lindsay and Sylvia turned in at the gate and drove slowly up the drive to the front door. Sylvia, gazing with eager eyes from the window, noticed the trim garden, the shrubbery of laurels and rhododendrons, the beds still gay with geraniums, and the smooth lawns where in the distance she could just catch a glimpse of girls playing tennis. As the cab passed under a big chestnut tree she saw a little girl of about her own age run rapidly to the top of a bank, and, hiding behind a broom bush, peep down with evident curiosity at the newcomers below. She was a bonny child with a creamy complexion, blue eyes, and thick, straight, brown hair, tied with a ribbon that at present hung over her left ear; she stared hard at Sylvia as the latter leaned out of the window, then, seeing Mrs. Lindsay in the background, she took fright and dashed away among the shrubs even more quickly than she had come.

"I wonder what her name is, and if I shall like her!" thought Sylvia. "She looks nice. Oh! There are some more of them!" as about half a dozen older girls paused in a game of croquet to glance at the cab, and several little ones, playing under a tree, pointed eagerly, for which they were evidently reproved by a teacher who was with them. There was no time, however, to see further; the cab had drawn up at the front steps, the cabman was ringing the bell, and Mrs. Lindsay was collecting small parcels and telling Sylvia to jump out first.

Sylvia felt very serious indeed when they were ushered into the drawing-room, and Miss Kaye came forward to meet them. She was a tall, pleasant-looking lady, still fairly young, with a fresh colour, brown eyes, and thick coils of smooth auburn hair. She had a brisk, cheerful manner, and was not in the least like the old-fashioned severe sort of mistress about whom Sylvia had read in _What Katy did at School_ and _Sara Crewe_, and whom she had been expecting to see. She welcomed her new pupil kindly, and ordered tea to be brought in at once.

"Our usual schoolroom tea is at five o'clock," she said, "but to-day you shall have yours here, as I know you will wish to be with your mother as long as possible. Then, when you have seen your bedroom, and taken off your things, you will be ready to make friends with some of your companions."

Sylvia sat very solemnly during tea, listening to the talk between Miss Kaye and her mother, and though the mistress sometimes addressed a question to her she was much too shy to answer anything except "Yes" or "No". She was glad when the ordeal was over and Miss Kaye suggested that, as Mrs. Lindsay had only a short time left before she must return to the station, they would like to look through the school, and see both classrooms and dormitories.

When she tried afterwards to recall her first impressions of Heathercliffe House she had only a confused remembrance of clinging very tightly, almost desperately, to her mother's hand, as they were shown the neat bedrooms, the large empty playroom, the schoolrooms with their desks and blackboards, and took a peep into the dining-room where rows of girls of all ages were sitting round two long tables having tea. Then came the moment which she had been dreading from the beginning, that hurried last goodbye, that final hug as Mrs. Lindsay kissed her again and again and hastened down the steps into the cab, the rumble of the departing wheels, and the sudden sense that she was left alone in a school of more than thirty girls, and that she did not yet know one of them even by name. An overwhelming rush of homesickness swept over her, so bitter in its force that she almost cried out with the intensity of the pain; she stood still in the hall with the dazed expression of one newly awakened from a dream, turning a deaf ear to Miss Kaye's well-meant efforts at consolation, and longing only for some safe retreat where she might escape to have a little private weep, out of reach of watching eyes. Seeing the mistress pause to speak to a teacher who came at that instant from the dining-room, she seized the opportunity, and dived into the drawing-room, where she ran to the window to catch the last glimpse of the coachman's hat as he drove through the gate, and disappeared behind the trees and bushes which bordered the road. Miss Kaye did not follow her; perhaps long experience had taught her that it was sometimes best to leave new girls judiciously alone, and for a few minutes she stood playing absently with the tassel of the blind, and struggling hard to keep back her rising tears. Why had she been brought to school? Why had she not begged her mother to take her home with her? It was cruel to send her away. It was all Aunt Louisa's doing, she was sure. She could never make herself happy, and she should write to-night to her father and tell him so. Perhaps he might relent and come to fetch her.

"I shall be the most miserable girl in the school," she said to herself. "Far worse than Florence in _The New Pupil_; she only 'shed a few tears', and I'm going to cry quarts, I know I am."

She took out her handkerchief ready for the expected deluge, but life is often very different from what we propose, and before she had time to do more than wipe away the first scalding drop she was startled by a voice at her elbow. Turning round hastily she found herself face to face with the little girl who had run to the top of the bank to peep at her as she came up the drive, and who now stood smiling in a particularly friendly fashion.

"Miss Kaye has sent me to take you to the playroom," she said. "We've just finished tea. You've had yours, haven't you? So come along."

"What's your name?" asked Sylvia, stuffing her handkerchief back into her pocket in a hurry, and blinking the remains of a drop off her eyelashes. She was too proud to care to be caught crying like a baby, and hoped her companion had not noticed.

"Linda Marshall. I know yours. Miss Kaye told us this morning. You're going to be in our class, and you're to sleep in my bedroom, because I'm the only one who hasn't got a room mate. Do come! Miss Kaye'll be cross if we're not quick. We're not allowed in the drawing-room at all, only she sent me in to fetch you."

"Do you like being here?" asked Sylvia, following her new friend with some deliberation.

"Sh! we mayn't speak in the hall! There, I can talk to you now we're down the passage. Yes, of course, I like it. Everyone does; we have such jolly times. Now come here," pausing with her hand on the door handle, "I want to go in quite suddenly and surprise them."

She flung the door open, and, with a giggle, announced "Miss Sylvia Lindsay", giving our heroine such a vigorous push forward that she nearly fell into the midst of a group of girls who were standing close by. There were six of them, and they had evidently been waiting to see the new arrival, though they pretended they were only finding some books and putting away their paintboxes. They looked steadily at Sylvia, but no one volunteered a remark, and the silence would have grown oppressive had not Linda come to the rescue. "Now then," she cried, "have you all gone dumb? Sylvia, this is our class. I'll tell you their names. Connie Camden, Hazel Prestbury, Marian and Gwennie Woodhouse, Nina Forster, and Jessie Ellis. There were only seven of us before, and you'll make eight. It's a much nicer number, because we can just get up a set of lancers by ourselves now, without one of the second class joining. I hope you know the lancers?"

"A little," said Sylvia, who felt rather overwhelmed by the six pairs of eyes fixed upon her.

"We'll soon teach you if you don't. The dancing lessons begin next week, and they are such fun. Miss Delaney is a perfect dear. We all adore her. I'm sure you'll think she's sweet; won't she, girls?"

"Of course she will," said Marian Woodhouse. "I ought to know, because I learnt from Miss Delaney before I came here. We're to have the tarantella this term."

"And a skirt dance," added Hazel Prestbury. "Have you brought an accordion-pleated dress with you for dancing?"

"I don't think so," replied Sylvia. "But Mother was going to send some of my clothes afterwards. I came away in rather a hurry."

"You're late though," said Connie Camden. "It's nearly three weeks since we started the term. We came back on the 14th of September."

"Why didn't you come then?" asked Nina Forster.

"I don't know. Father only decided to send me a week ago."

"Well, you can try to catch us up, but we've done twenty pages of the new history," said Marian Woodhouse, "and read the first canto of _Marmion_. We shall have to tell you the story."

"I know it, thank you," replied Sylvia. "I had it with my governess at home."

"Oh!" said Marian, looking rather disgusted. "But I don't suppose you took any of the notes, and Miss Arkwright explains it quite differently from anyone else. What sums are you at?"

"Weights and measures," said Sylvia.

"Why, we did those in the baby class! We're doing fractions now."

"We've only just begun them," said Linda. "Don't bother about lessons, Marian. We've barely ten minutes before prep, and I want to show Sylvia her locker."

The six children who, with Linda and Sylvia, made up Class III at Miss Kaye's, were all very much of an age. Hazel Prestbury was the eldest; a tall fair girl of twelve, with regular features and a quantity of pretty light hair which fell below her waist, and of which she was exceedingly proud. She could be rather clever when she troubled to work, but as that did not often happen she rarely stood high in her form, though she was well advanced in music, and played better than many girls of thirteen and fourteen. Marian Woodhouse, only an inch shorter, had a good complexion, and curly ruddy hair plaited in a thick pigtail. So far she had easily kept head of the class, for she was bright, and such a good guesser that she often contrived to make Miss Arkwright think she knew more than was really the case. She liked to manage other people, to take the lead, and keep everybody up to the mark, and was more of a favourite with the teachers than she was with her companions. There could have been no greater contrast to her than her sister Gwennie, a round, rosy dumpling of a girl, so gentle and quiet and unassuming that she scarcely ever seemed to have an opinion of her own, being content to follow Marian blindly, whom she considered the cleverest person in the whole world. The girls often called the pair "Voice and Echo", because poor Gwennie so faithfully upheld everything which her elder sister said, no matter whether it proved right or wrong. Connie Camden was the jolliest little romp imaginable. She was not at all pretty, and wore her lank, colourless brown hair cut short like a boy's, but she had frank grey eyes, and though she was continually getting into scrapes, her honest, straightforward ways atoned for much that was lacking in other respects. She was one of a large family, and had three sisters in the school, all with the same reputation for endless jokes and high spirits. Nina Forster, a graceful, delicate-looking child of ten, spoilt by her weak mouth and indecisive chin, was generally lost in adoration of some favourite among the bigger girls. Her friendships were of the briefest, but very hot while they lasted, and she seemed able to change her affections so easily from one object to another that she had a different idol nearly every week. Jessie Ellis, whose plain, freckled little face could look almost pretty when she smiled, had been placed in the third class solely because she was too big to remain any longer in the Kindergarten. She was dull at lessons, having a poor memory and a lack of any power of grasping a subject; she was the despair of Miss Arkwright, and took her seat placidly at the bottom of the form as regularly as Marian Woodhouse occupied the top.

Sylvia was excused from preparation on this first evening, and was taken instead by Miss Coleman to unpack her box and arrange her drawers.

Heathercliffe House had been specially built for a school, and was so designed that, instead of long dormitories or curtained cubicles, there were rows of small bedrooms, each intended to accommodate two girls. The one which Sylvia was to share with Linda Marshall stood at the end of the upper corridor. It was a pretty little room with a pink paper, and a white-enamelled mantelpiece. The furniture was also in white enamel, and consisted of a washstand, two chests of drawers, and a large wardrobe fixed into the wall, containing two separate compartments with a drawer for best hats at the bottom of each. The beds had pink quilts to match the paper, the jugs and basins were white with pink rims, while even the mats on the dressing table were made of white muslin over pink calico.

Sylvia looked round with approval. She had expected school to be a bare, cheerless place, but this was as dainty as her own room at home. The walls were hung with pictures in oak frames, there was a small bookshelf beside each bed where Bibles and favourite volumes could be kept, and the mantelpiece was covered with tiny china cats, dogs, and other animals, which Miss Coleman said belonged to Linda.

It took some time to arrange Sylvia's possessions, for the mistress was very particular as to where they were put, and informed Sylvia that she would be expected to keep them exactly in that order, and her drawers would be examined once a week.

"Your dressing gown is to hang behind the door; there is a hook here for your bath towel, which, by the by, you are never to leave in the bathroom; your sponge must go in the lefthand sponge basket, and your bedroom slippers under this chair. Your coats must, of course, always be kept in the wardrobe, but your boots are to go downstairs. You may lay your writing case and paintbox on the chest of drawers, or keep them in your locker in the playroom."

"I'm glad I brought a white nightdress case," thought Sylvia; "it looks much nicer on the pink bed than the blue one Mother nearly packed instead. When I've put out my photos it will feel more homey. I'll write to Mother to-morrow and tell her all about it."

When at last everything had been tidily set in its right place, and a servant had carried the empty box to the boxroom, Miss Coleman took Sylvia to the playroom, and, giving her a book, told her she might read until her companions came to join her. The girls of the third class did preparation and practising until seven, after which they were allowed half an hour's recreation until supper. They had the playroom to themselves, as the little ones had gone to bed by that time, and the elder girls had a separate sitting-room of their own. Precisely as the clock struck seven Linda Marshall, Hazel Prestbury, Connie Camden, and Nina Forster came tearing in.

"I thought we'd find you here," cried Linda. "We're just through prep., but I don't know my history in the least. Do you, Hazel?"

"Not a morsel. Miss Arkwright will scold to-morrow. It's dreadfully hard, though; I don't suppose anybody will know it properly."

"Except Marian," said Nina.

"Oh, yes, Marian! She'll scrape through somehow. She always does. Look here, Sylvia! If you're clever, I wish you'd take down Marian Woodhouse. We're quite tired of seeing her always top."

"She's so conceited about it," said Connie Camden.

"She thinks no one else can do anything but herself," said Nina Forster.

"Yes, do try, Sylvia," said Linda; "it would be lovely if you got above her. It would do her ever so much good."

"Oh, do!" pleaded the others.

"Why don't you try yourselves?" asked Sylvia.

"Oh, we can't; it's no use!" said Connie; "but you look clever, and I'm sure you'll be able to learn things. She needn't think she's going to have it all her own way this term, because----"

"Hush, she's here!" said Hazel quickly, as the door opened, and Marian came in, carrying her music case, followed shortly afterwards by Gwennie and Jessie Ellis.

"What shall we play to-night?" asked Connie, who had gone rather red. "I don't think she heard," she whispered to Hazel.

"Word-making," said Marian decisively. "Here's the box."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Nina and Hazel, "that's a stupid game. We don't like it at all."

"Yes, you do. Don't be silly. Come along."

"I vote for telegrams," suggested Linda.

"No!" cried Marian.

"Yes!" cried the others in such overwhelming majority that Marian had to give way, though she looked anything but pleased.

Pencils and pieces of paper were collected, the eight girls seated themselves round the table, and each set to work to concoct a telegram the words of which must commence with twelve letters read out at random, in the order in which they were given. The letters were: T, C, M, I, C, D, C, I, W, E, A, B. They proved a little puzzling to fit together, but after much nibbling of pencils, and knitting of brows, everybody managed to get something written, and Marian volunteered to read them out.

The first happened to be Sylvia's. She had put: "Tell Charley Mother ill. Cook dead. Come immediately. Will explain all. Bertha."

"It's not bad," said Marian condescendingly, "but you don't know how to spell. You've written C-h-a-r-l-e-y."

"Well, and that's the right way too!" said Sylvia.

"Indeed it's not, it's C-h-a-r-l-i-e. Why, even Jessie Ellis knows that."

"I've seen it C-h-a-r-l-e-y in a book," objected Sylvia, who meant to fight her own battles.

"Then it must have been a misprint."

"I believe you can spell it both ways," said Hazel, "just like Lily or Lillie."

"Then it's old-fashioned, and my way's the best," declared Marian, who loved to argue.

"Oh, get on and never mind!" cried Linda. "We want to hear the other telegrams. What does it matter how we spell them?"

At half-past seven a tray with glasses of milk and plates of bread-and-butter and biscuits was brought into the room, and, when supper was finished, Mercy Ingledew, the monitress, came to see that all went off to their bedrooms, going upstairs with them to help to plait their hair and superintend the due brushing of teeth and the tidy disposal of clothes. From the beginning it had seemed so new and strange and exciting that Sylvia had not yet found time for the tears which she had fully intended to shed, and it was only when she was in bed and the light turned out that she suddenly remembered how homesick she was. Even then the fresh events kept mixing themselves up with her regrets, and as she mopped her cheeks with her damp pocket handkerchief she thought: "It's much more interesting than I expected. I shall like Linda. But Marian Woodhouse needn't think she's going to teach me everything. I dare say I can learn lessons as well as she does. It would be lovely if I could be head of the class. I'm going to try and try just as hard as I possibly can, and then I could write to Mother and tell her I was top."

And with this meritorious resolution she fell asleep.