A Popular Schoolgirl by Angela Brazil (ebooks online reader txt) π
"Oh, Muvvie!" Ingred's tone was agonized.
"It can't be helped, little woman! It can't indeed! I think you're old enough now to understand if I explain. You know this war has hit a great many people very hard. There has been a sort of general financial see-saw; some have made large fortunes, but others have lost them. We come in the latter list. When your father went out to France, he had to leave his profession to take care of itself, and other architects have stepped in and gained the commissions that used to come to his office. It may take him a long while to pull his connection together again, and the time of waiting will be one of much anxiety for him. Then, most of our investments, which used to pay such good dividends, are worth hardly anything now, and only bring us in a pittance compared with former years. Instead of being rich people, we shall have to be very careful indeed to
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"I've brought your music too!" said Francie, triumphantly opening a folio, "so you've no excuse for saying you can't remember anything. Who'll play your accompaniment? Here, Ingred!"
"Oh! somebody else would do it far better," protested Ingred. "Janieββ"
"I'm no reader."
"Lilas?"
"Couldn't to save my life!"
"Go ahead, Ingred, and don't waste time!" said Lispeth firmly.
Ingred sat down to the piano without a smile. Her schoolmates took her unwillingness for modesty, but in her heart of hearts her main thought was: "Why should I help this new girl to show off?" She would have played accompaniments gladly for anybody else, but she considered that Bess had already received quite enough attention in one afternoon. For her own credit, however, she must do her best, so she concentrated her energies on the prelude. When the first strains of the violin joined in, her musical ear recognized immediately that Bess's playing was of a very high quality. The tone was pure, the notes were perfectly in tune, and there was a ringing sweetness, a crisp power of expression, and a haunting pathos in the rendering of the melody that showed the performer to be capable of interpreting the composer's meaning. In spite of her disinclination, Ingred warmed to the accompaniment. When the violin seemed to be bringing out laughter and tears, the piano must do its part, and not merely supply a succession of unimpassioned chords. Ingred was a good reader for a girl of fifteen, but she surpassed herself on this occasion, and seemed to accomplish the difficult passages almost by instinct. She played the final notes very softly as the last fairy strains of the melody thrilled slowly away.
There was a second of silence, then the girls, inside and outside the room, clapped their loudest.
"It was capital!" declared Lispeth encouragingly. "Bess, we shall want you again for school concerts. You and Ingred ought to practise together. Let me look at your violin. I wish I could play like that!"
"Thanks ever so much!" murmured Bess to Ingred, as the latter got up from the piano.
"Oh! it's all right!" replied Ingred airily, moving away in a hurry to the other side of the room. She did not want Bess to take up Lispeth's no doubt well meant but rather embarrassing suggestion that they should practise together, and was quite ready with an excuse if it should be proposed.
"It's the turn of the Sixth now," she jodelled.
"Vb. haven't done anything yet; I'll call one of them in," said Lispeth, stepping out to the landing.
Once through the door, however, her ears were assailed by such an absolute din proceeding from the farther end of the corridor, that she dropped her character of impresario for the duties of head-girl, and calling two of her fellow prefects, went to investigate the cause of the disturbance. She returned in a short time, looking flushed and flurried.
"It's those wretched kids in IVb.," she proclaimed. "They were behaving disgracefully, pelting each other with the remains of their buns, and fencing with rulers. And they actually had the cheek to tell me they weren't making any more noise than we were with our singing and playing! I sent them home at once, and I think we'd all better go too. Those intermediates always overstep the line if they've an atom of a chance. I told them what I thought about them. It's been quite a ripping concert, and I'm sorry to break it up, but you understand, don't you?"
"Rather!" replied the others, as they began their exodus into the corridor.
CHAPTER VI The School ParliamentDuring the excitement of the concert Ingred had hardly time to realize the greatness of the honor thrust upon her in being chosen as warden to represent her form. All it stood for struck her afterwards.
"My word! You'll have to sit up and behave yourself after this, Madame!" remarked Quenrede, when she mentioned the matter at home.
"Yes, of course they'll all look to you now as an example!" added Mother.
"Oh, I don't think they will!" declared Ingred, who had not considered her new office from that point of view. "I've just to speak up for the interests of the form, you know."
"There are obligations as well as interests," said Mother seriously. "Try to make Va. a useful factor in the school. That would be something worth doing, wouldn't it?"
In arranging for the School Parliament, Miss Burd had allowed wardens to be chosen by each form, from IIIb. upwards, but had decided that the smaller girls were too young to take part in public affairs. Every form that sent a representative constituted itself into a kind of club, and chose a special name. These were placed on the Council Register as follows:
Va. The Pioneers.
Vb. The Amazons.
IVa. The Old Brigade.
IVb. The Mermaids.
IIIa. The Dragonflies.
IIIb. The Cuckoos.
"You can compare marks every fortnight," said Miss Burd, "and whichever gets the best average shall hold a cup that I intend to present. The marks of the whole form will count, so that slackers will be a distinct drawback to their own companies. Any girl who loses a mark hinders her form from gaining the cup, and of course vice versa, those who work will help."
The question of marks had been a much debated subject with Miss Burd. She had discussed it in detail at several educational conferences, and had come to the conclusion that, on the whole, the system was highly desirable.
"It's all very well to talk about the evils of emulation, and work for work's sake," she confided to Miss Strong, "but you can't get children to see things altogether in the same light as grown-ups. I own that, when I was a child myself, I made tremendous efforts so that I might be head of my form, and when the arrangements were changed at our school, and, instead of carefully-registered marks and places, we only had first, second, or third class, I slacked off considerably. I knew that a lesson not quite so perfectly learnt, or an exercise with one or two mistakes, would still find me in the First Class, so why should I make such enormous exertions? When every slip might mean the loss of my chance to be top, I was far more careful. Of course I know that Emulation, with a big E, is supposed to be all wrong, but really I think people make too much fuss about it. It was quite friendly rivalry when I was at school, and the girls with whom I competed were my dearest chums. I believe my new system here is going to unite both methods. Every girl will work for herself, but her marks will also count for her form, and if she slacks, and so pulls down the standard, I hope her companions will give her as bad a time as they do to a 'butter-fingers' at cricket, and that's saying something!"
The idea of each form constituting a club appealed to the school. It was far more interesting to be "Amazons" or "Cuckoos" than merely Vb. or IIIb., and as awards were to be according to averages, it was thrilling to feel that girls of twelve could wrest away the silver cup from the hands of the very prefects themselves.
"It makes it just like playing a game!" declared Ida Brooke.
"Yes, a sort of tug-of-war when everybody's got to pull, and mustn't let go!" added Cissie Barnes, "Do you remember playing 'Oranges and Lemons' once with the Sixth? We all held on to each others' waists like grim death, and Janie Potter gave way and broke their chain, so we won!"
"We'll beat them again, too! I'd like to see that cup on our mantelpiece!"
"The Pioneers," otherwise Va., were as anxious as any of the other forms to carry off laurels. Even Fil, much under protest, really made quite an effort to work.
"You ought to help me with my exercises, though, Ingred," she wheedled. "Remember, it's for the benefit of the form. If you let me make mistakes, wellβit's the form that will suffer. You can't call it my fault, it's on your own head. You know as well as I do that I simply can't spell, and it takes me hours to hunt up words in the dictionary. I'm looking for 'phenomenon' now."
"You certainly won't find it in the F's," laughed Ingred. "What an infant in arms you are! Here, then, go ahead, and I'll act as dictionary. You've only written half a page yet. You'll be a week of Sundays at this rate."
"And I haven't touched my Latin or French!" sighed Fil dismally. "I wish I could go to a school where there isn't any homework, and that somebody would invent a typewriter that would just spell the words ready-made when you press a button."
"There's a fortune waiting for the man who does!" agreed Ingred. "'The Royal-Road-to-Learning Typewriter: spells of itself.' It would sell by the million, I should think."
Ingred washed her hands, plaited her hair, and put on her best brooch and her new bangle to attend the first meeting of the School Parliament. The function was held in the Sixth Form room, which she thought slightly unfair, for the prefects, being on their own ground, felt a distinct advantage, and acted as hostesses. There were four of them, so with the games captain they made a party of five from the Sixth, as opposed to six representatives of lower forms, a quite undue proportion in the opinion of the younger girls. Whatever successes the intermediates might win later on, "The True Blues" had carried all before them so far, and had won the cup by an average at least a dozen marks in advance of "The Mermaids," who came second. The trophy stood on their mantelpiece, and they had brought an ornamental glazed tile on which to place it, as if they meant it to stay there.
On the whole they received the other wardens very graciously, and gave them opportunities to speak and air their views. Questions such as the due apportioning of the asphalt tennis-courts, basket-ball and hockey fixtures, and various school societies were discussed, and the general business of the term got under way.
"It helps things to be able to talk it over and know what you all think," said Lispeth. "We're making so many changes with coming into the new building, that it's almost like an entirely fresh start. Miss Burd wants us to get up a sort of Reconstruction Society in the school. She hasn't quite planned it out yet, but she told me a little about it, and I think it's ever so nice. As soon as it's quite fixed up, I'm going to call a general meeting, and explain it to everybody. I expect that will be next Wednesday. Will you give me power to do this on my own, or must I call a special committee on Monday to discuss it first, before I put it to the school?"
"It's my music lesson on Monday, I couldn't come," demurred Ingred.
"And I have to go to the dentist immediately after four," chimed in Alys Horner, the warden of "The Amazons."
"If Miss Burd has arranged it, I suppose it's all serene," said Mabel Hughes, of "The Old Brigade."
"You'll like it, I know. I'd explain now, only I haven't got any of the papers, and besides, it would take such a long time, and it's rather late, and I want to be getting home. Anyway, I hope we shall all take it up hot and strong. Be sure to keep Wednesday free, though I'm going to ask Miss Burd to let us have the meeting in school hours if possible, then we're absolutely sure of everybody."
"Right you are!" agreed
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