CHAPTER XII
THE NEW FORM-MISTRESS
"I say! Have you heard the news?" cried Hilda Burns, bursting the next morning into the Lower Fifth sitting-room, where the form was gathered awaiting the summons to prayers.
All the girls looked up at Hilda's excited entrance. Even Gerry, who as usual was finding in a book solace from her loneliness, stopped reading to hear what the news might be.
"No! What is it?" asked various voices; and Hilda, conscious of the importance of the tidings she carried, said impressively:
"Pretty Polly's ill. Really ill. Not just influenza and bed for a day or two. She was taken suddenly bad in the night, and they had to send for the doctor. And it's appendicitis, and she's got to have an operation at once, and she's going off in an ambulance to a nursing home this morning."
"I say! Poor Polly! I am sorry," said Jack. And the whole form proceeded to express its dismay more or less appropriately. In spite of her strictness and extreme prejudices in favour of tidiness, Miss Parrot was popular with her form; and real regret at losing her so unexpectedly was mingled with sorrow for her illness. It was not for a few minutes, however, that it dawned upon the Lower Fifth that this sudden calamity would leave it without a form-mistress.
"But I say! What about us?" exclaimed Dorothy at length. "Who's going to take our form? We shall have to have somebody."
"Miss Oakley's wired to an agency asking them to send someone," said Hilda, who had an uncanny knack of finding out these sorts of things. Her information proved to be correct, for when prayers were over and the Lower Fifth marched as usual into its classroom, Miss Oakley was waiting there for them; and after telling them of their mistress's illness, she came at once to the point which was exercising the minds of the form.
"I am glad to say that I have succeeded in getting somebody to fill Miss Parrot's place for the rest of this term. Miss Burton is coming from town to-day, and will take over your form from to-morrow morning. Miss Parrot's unexpected illness has rather upset the usual school routine to-day, and instead of your classes I am going to set you some exercises and questions to work out by yourselves. Miss Latham will come in to you for the last hour this morning and correct your answers and award your marks. I trust you all to behave well during the time you are unavoidably left alone; and to show your sympathy with Miss Parrot by doing all in your power to help her successor. Now, Hilda, bring me your books, and I will set you some work to do."
The Lower Fifth behaved themselves with exemplary virtue in the classroom that morning, and in due course the new mistress arrived. She was not introduced to her form until the next day. The girls were not very favourably impressed by her appearance. Miss Burton was thin and rather angular, sandy-haired and spectacled, and she gave the impression of being both irritable and exacting—an impression which the Lower Fifth found amply justified when they came into close contact with their new mistress. Miss Burton was really one of those people who ought never to have gone in for teaching at all, having no real liking for her profession, nor any sympathy with or understanding of girls. She very soon succeeded in ruffling the feelings of the Lower Fifth, and before the first morning was ended the whole form was in open rebellion.
It was over Gerry Wilmott that the rupture took place. Margaret Taylor, who occupied the desk next to Gerry's, was unable to find her place during the literature lesson, having, through inattention, missed the announcement Miss Burton made in the beginning of the class. The girls were reading aloud in turn a play of Shakespeare's, and as her turn drew nearer and nearer Margaret fumbled desperately with the pages, finally turning an imploring glance upon Gerry, who was watching her futile struggles with nervous apprehension. Gerry was only too glad to do anything for anybody,—the ostracism in which she was kept by the rest of the form precluded her as a rule from even offering aid on such an occasion as this,—and she leant over to her neighbour's desk and pointed it out, just at the very moment when Miss Burton happened to be looking that way. The new mistress banged on her desk with such emphasis that the girl who was reading at the moment stopped suddenly, and the class looked up in amazement, while Gerry gave a frightened little jump.
"You, girl! What is your name?" said Miss Burton, pointing her pencil at Gerry.
"Gerry—I mean Geraldine Wilmott," stammered Gerry.
"What do you mean by whispering to another girl during class?" demanded the mistress, blinking furiously at the culprit through her glasses.
"I—I wasn't whispering," said Gerry. "I—I was only showing Margaret the place."
"Don't prevaricate!" thundered Miss Burton. "You were whispering. I saw you."
Up shot Margaret's hand.
"Please, Miss Burton," said that young lady indignantly, moved for once to take the unpopular new girl's part, "she wasn't whispering. I'd lost my place, and I made signs to her to show me, and she was only pointing it out with her pencil."
"I don't believe either of you," said the new mistress. Then with a fiery glance at Gerry, she said ferociously:
"Go on with the reading from the place where the last girl left off."
This command was shot out with such venom as to render poor Gerry a thousand times more nervous even than usual. She had lost her own place hopelessly by this time, and as she fumbled with the pages in the vain endeavour to find it and comply with the order, Miss Burton spoke again in a triumphant voice:
"I thought so. You do not know the place yourself, therefore you could not have been showing it to your companion! You are both of you extremely naughty, untruthful girls, and you will each take a conduct mark for your deceitfulness."
"Please, Miss Burton, I wasn't deceiving you!" cried Gerry, goaded into one of her rare attempts at self-assertion. "I was showing Margaret Taylor her place, and I did know it quite well until you confused me and made me lose it."
Miss Burton grew scarlet with anger.
"How dare you argue with me!" she said. "I see that you mean to give me as much trouble as you possibly can, but I mean to take a firm hand with you. Go and stand in that corner with your face to the wall until the lesson is over!"
A gasp of incredulous amazement went up from the Lower Fifth.
"Miss Burton! We're not babies!" cried Hilda Burns indignantly. "We're Fifth Form and not used to punishments like that. You can't make Gerry stand in a corner!"
"Don't interfere!" said the mistress. "Geraldine Wilmott, do as I direct you, at once."
Gerry's momentary display of spirit had quite spent itself by now. With a white face she walked across the schoolroom and took up the position Miss Burton indicated. And there she stood in silent humiliation with her face to the wall, while the rest of the form, sulky and rebellious, dragged through the remainder of the lesson.
Miss Burton did not try any more drastic measures. Perhaps she realised that she had already gone too far. Or perhaps, having vented some of her anger upon Gerry, she felt more amiably disposed towards the rest of her girls. At all events, the lesson ended without another contretemps; and Gerry was permitted to come out of her ignominious corner and was seated again in her desk before Miss Latham entered to take her usual class in history.
The Lower Fifth managed to conceal their indignation during the history lesson, but when at last the morning's work had ended and the new mistress had finally departed from the classroom, the storm of anger burst. For the first time since she had come to Wakehurst Priory, Gerry found herself the centre of popular sympathy.
"What a beastly shame, Gerry!" said Jack Pym, coming over to Gerry's desk. "She's a beastly, mean pig—and she hadn't any right to treat you like that." And she put her hand caressingly on Gerry's arm, a proceeding which filled Gerry's heart with a sudden thrill of happiness. It was almost the first time Jack had spoken to her since that first unlucky day at school. Even her late humiliation seemed worth while if it was going to bring her Jack's friendship again.
The other members of the form, too, gave vent to many expressions of sympathy, and schemes of vengeance upon the new mistress were discussed.
"Tell you what—we'll strike!" said Dorothy Pemberton, always ready to take the side of lawlessness and disorder.
"How?" said Phyllis, eager to support her chum, yet not quite seeing how a successful strike could be engineered.
"Why, we won't do a stroke of prep for her!" said Dorothy. "We'll work for all the other mistresses doubly hard to make up, but when it comes to Miss Burton's work we won't do a thing. We'll all promise not to, and then if the whole lot of us are in it she can't do anything."
"She can give us conduct marks," said Hilda Burns.
"Yes, but she'll have to give them to the whole lot, so they won't mean very much. And although we shan't get any marks for her lessons, yet it won't really count, because we shall all be in the same boat."
"She can complain to Miss Oakley," said Hilda.
"Well, if she does, that will be just what we want. Miss Oakley will jaw us, of course, but she'll make inquiries too, and when she finds out what a rotter Miss Burton is, she'll dismiss her right away. Let her go to Miss Oakley if she likes, it will be all the better. Who'll sign on to down books for Miss Burton?"
"I will, for one," cried Jack impetuously.
"And I," cried Phyllis Tressider.
"And I."
"And I."
"And I," echoed round the room.
There were one or two doubtful people, but Dorothy's arguments, aided by Jack's and Phyllis's persuasions, overcame the most conscientious individuals. One by one the members of the form gave in and took a solemn vow that they would not do a stroke of preparation for the new form-mistress.
At length it came to Gerry's turn to be questioned.
"You'll come in, Gerry, of course," remarked Dorothy, in a nicer tone of voice than she had ever before used towards the new girl.
For a moment Gerry hesitated. It seemed to her that they had not given the new form-mistress much of a chance. She might be nicer in a day or two—it would surely be kinder to wait a little while before declaring such open war upon her. But, on the other hand, it seemed as though a door had been suddenly opened which would lead to all the things Gerry most longed for—popularity, the sympathy of her form, Jack's coveted friendship. All the while Dorothy and Jack had been arguing with and persuading the other waverers to join the strike, Gerry had been battling strenuously within her own heart. She wanted, oh, so badly! to throw in her lot with the rest of the form. Marks and favour with the mistresses meant so little in comparison with all the other important aspects of school life. Jack's hand was on her shoulder, Jack's friendship lay open to her—Gerry instinctively felt—if she would only throw in her lot with the rest of the Lower Fifth. And after all, why shouldn't she? She had really had more provocation than any of the others, for it was she who had suffered the unjust and humiliating punishment. She looked at Jack, and at the eager expression on Jack's face she threw her conscientious scruples to the winds.
"Yes, I'll come in," she said, and Dorothy turned to the rest of the form with an air of triumph.
"That's all right, then. We're all in it. What prep has that old beast set us for to-night? Learn by heart that speech of Henry the Fifth's, work right through the algebra exercise, and write five hundred words in German on 'Spring.' Thank the Lord, she teaches us German! It will be some consolation for the rows we're bound to get into, to think we shall be able to cut out that beastly German for a bit. What does that leave us for to-night? French, history analysis for Miss Latham, and that science paper for Miss White. Good! We shall have a jolly slack time in prep to-night, shan't we?"
"There'll be an awful bust up on Monday morning, though," said Hilda Burns.
Hilda was still rather doubtful about the strike. As head of the form, she could not help feeling that she was slightly responsible for its good behaviour, and might be called to account for its lawlessness by the powers that were. But she was not strong enough to stand up against Dorothy and Phyllis and their powerful following, so she cast in her lot with the rebels and said no more against the graceless plan.