“Well, then, let’s coax her into the back playground after morning lessons to-morrow. We must pretend to be very kind to her, and then she’ll come fast enough. You manage to sit next her at breakfast and don’t laugh at her whatever you do. We’ll manage fine.”
“Yes, we will,” was the reply.
CHAPTER X.
THE HOWARD BEQUEST.
Although Miss Archdale spoke very soothingly to wild Peggy she did not feel so comfortable as her words seemed to imply. She was a very clever and very conscientious woman, and saw immediately that a very strong new element had come into the Lower School with the advent of Peggy. Whether it was for good or evil remained to be proved. Miss Archdale was wise enough to know that the best teachers in the world can only guide girls; they can only, so to speak, give them a little push here and a little nudge there in the direction in which they are to go. The girl is really, when all is said and done, her own teacher, her own guide; if she chooses to follow the paths of evil, not all the accomplishments in the world, not all the knowledge, not all the loving-kindness, can keep her back. God, inside the girl, must be the propelling force for good; and, alas! Satan inside the girl must be equally the propelling force for evil. Because Miss Archdale recognised this fact she was an admirable and efficient and dearly loved teacher; and because Mrs. Fleming recognised the same fact even in greater fullness she had made The Red Gables the school that it was. Miss Archdale, to all appearance, had taken little or no notice of The Imp and her ways. She called her Kitty Merrydew, and was consistently kind to her.
Kitty’s conduct was always excellent before her teachers. She learnt her numerous tasks with the ease of very pronounced talent; she was a favourite with the occasional masters and mistresses who came to the school, for her music was decidedly above the average, and so also was her drawing and painting. She had a perfect genius for caricature, and could make thumbnail sketches of the different girls and mistresses in a way which convulsed the school with mirth. These caricatures she kept, however, carefully hidden from the eyes of the mistresses. Kitty could tell a story better than anybody else, she could sing a song to “bring down the house,” she could act to perfection, and here her powers of mimicry did her immense service. Up to the present Miss Archdale had left The Imp more or less alone; she knew that the girl was peculiar, difficult, and that she had a power in her which seemed to be more directed to evil than to good; but, nevertheless, up to the present she knew that she had no right to interfere. The Imp was The Imp, and as she seemed not to cause any unhappiness, and was on the whole more a favourite than the reverse, she judiciously let her alone. But now things were different. The new girl was a power to be reckoned with, and already between the new girl and Kitty Merrydew open war had been declared. Miss Archdale was truly thankful that Peggy’s bed had been made up for her in the lower dormitory, where some quiet, well-behaved little girls slept. She would have altered matters at once had things been different, and had the child been put into the dormitory where Kitty Merrydew and the Dodds, her satellites, were placed.
It was one of the strictest rules of the school that the girls were never to visit the dormitories during the daytime, and that no girl was ever to be seen at night in any dormitory but her own. The rules of The Red Gables School were not many, but they were very strict; to break them was to get into dire disgrace and to be subjected to instant punishment. Miss Archdale had, therefore, no fear of Peggy being molested during the time devoted to slumber; and, in consequence, having seen all the girls safely into their respective dormitories, she crossed the quadrangle in order to have a conversation with Mrs. Fleming.
As a rule nothing would have induced her to trouble her dear head-mistress on the first night of school; but this special occasion needed special counsel, and Miss Archdale did not hesitate. Mrs. Fleming’s beautiful suite of rooms was in a small wing on the ground floor of that portion of the house which was reserved for the Upper School. The suite consisted of a spacious and lovely sitting-room, which looked out into the celebrated rose-garden, and had French windows which in summer were always open; beyond the sitting-room was a bedroom, a dressing-room (where Mrs. Fleming’s own special maid slept), and a bathroom. Besides the sitting-room, at the opposite side of the passage was a small room which went by the name of the library. Its walls were completely lined with books from ceiling to floor, and Mrs. Fleming was fond of saying that not one of these books had been purchased, they had all been gifts from the different schoolgirls to the different head-mistresses. The books were bound in calf and were all uniform in appearance, and therefore looked extremely neat and tempting to lovers of literature. There was a side devoted to fiction (almost all classical), another side to belles-lettres, another side to foreign languages, and another to religious works and philosophical treatises. Behind the outer row of books was an inner row where obsolete volumes were placed to make room for the newest and best books as they came along. The sole furniture of the library, besides the books, was a large roll-top desk, where the head-mistress kept her important letters, a table on which a typewriter stood, a chair facing the desk where the head-mistress could sit, and two or three other chairs, plain and stiff and covered with green leather. It was in this room that Mrs. Fleming received her pupils when they were in disgrace, or when, as sometimes happened, they were in trouble; it was here, in short, that she conducted all her business affairs, and it was here on this special night that Miss Archdale sought for her. She was not to be found there, however, and the governess was wondering whether she might knock at the sitting-room door when the door was flung open and the head-mistress came out, accompanied by Miss Greene.
“I think, Henrietta,” said the mistress, in her pleasant voice, “that those ideas are quite excellent. I won’t keep you now, my dear, as I am sure you have quite enough to do to get things into order. Yes, I agree with you, the prize must be thrown open to the whole school, or it would not meet with the wishes of our dear old friend.—Ah, Julia,” here she turned and held out her hand to Miss Archdale, “I am glad to see you, my dear girl. Were you coming to consult me about anything special?”
“I was, although I admit it’s a shame,” said Miss Archdale.
“Not a bit of it, nothing is a shame that is for the good of the school. Well, Henrietta, as Julia has come I’ll tell her myself about the prize. Good-night, dear.—Come in, Julia—come in.”