The Leader of the Lower School: A Tale of School Life

by Angela Brazil

  CHAPTER III

  Gipsy makes a Beginning

  BRIARCROFT HALL was a large private school which stood on the outskirtsof the town of Greyfield, close to the border of the Lake District inCumberland. It was a big, rather old-fashioned red-brick house, built inQueen Anne style, with straight rows of windows on either side of thefront door, and a substantial porch, surmounted by stone balls. Yearsago it had been the seat of a county magnate; but as the town began tostretch out long, growing fingers, and rows of villas sprang up wherebefore had been only green lanes, and an electric tramway was startedfor the convenience of the new suburb, the owner of Briarcroft hadretreated farther afield, glad enough to escape the proximity ofunwelcome neighbours, and to let the Hall to a suitable tenant. As MissPoppleton announced in her prospectuses, the house was eminently fittedfor a school: the situation was healthy, yet conveniently near to thetown, the rooms were large and airy, the garden contained several tenniscourts, and there was a field at the back for hockey. Visiting mastersand mistresses augmented the ordinary staff of teachers, and Greyfieldwas well provided with good swimming baths, Oxford Extension lectures,high-class concerts, art exhibitions, and other educational privilegesnot always to be met with in a provincial town. On the other hand, thecountry was within easy reach. Ten minutes' walk led on to comparativelyrural roads, and within half an hour you could find yourself beginningto climb the fells, with a long stretch of heather for a prospect, andthe pure moorland air filling your lungs.

  Miss Poppleton, the Principal of the school, irreverently nicknamed"Poppie" by her pupils, was a double B.A., for she had taken her degreein both classics and mathematics. She was a rather small, determinedlittle lady, with a bright complexion, sharp, short-sighted,greenish-grey eyes, which peered at the world through a pair of roundrimless spectacles, but seemed nevertheless to see everything ("toomuch", the habitual sinners affirmed!), what the girls called "anenquiring nose", grey hair brushed back quite straight from a square,"brainy"-looking forehead, and a mouth that had a habit of pursing andunpursing itself very rapidly when its owner was at all irritated ordisturbed in mind. She was a good organizer, a strict disciplinarian,and a clever teacher--everything that is admirable, in fact, in aheadmistress, from the scholastic point of view; and her vigorous,intellectual, capable personality always made an excellent impressionupon parents and guardians. By the girls themselves she was regarded ina less favourable light: the very qualities which gave her success as aPrincipal caused her to seem distant and unapproachable. Her pupilsheld her in wholesome awe, but never expanded in her presence; to themshe was the supreme authority, the "she-who-must-be-obeyed", but not ahuman individual who might be met on any common ground of mutual tastesand sympathies.

  Miss Poppleton had a younger sister, whose name did not appear on theprospectuses, and who took a very back seat indeed in the school. Amongintimate friends Miss Poppleton was apt to allude to her as "poorEdith", and most people concurred in a low estimation of her capacities.Certainly Miss Edith was not talented, neither would she have shone inany walk of life requiring brains. She was the exact opposite of hersister--tall, with big, round, blue, surprised-looking eyes, a weakchin, and a mouth that was generally set in a rather deprecating smile.She held a poor opinion of herself, and was more than willing to fill asecondary place; indeed, she would have been both alarmed andembarrassed if called upon to take the lead. For her elder sister shehad an admiration and devotion that amounted to reverence. Shecheerfully performed any tasks set her, and was perfectly content to bea kind of general help and underling, without attempting the leastinterference with any of the arrangements. Critical friends sometimeshinted that Miss Edith's position at Briarcroft was hardly a fair one,and that Miss Poppleton took advantage of her good nature and affection;but Miss Edith herself never for a single instant entertained such adisloyal notion, and continued to sing her sister's praises almost _adnauseam_. Among the girls she was a distinct favourite; her patiencewas endless, and her good temper unflagging. What she lacked in brainsshe made up for in warmth of heart, and though she faithfully uphelddiscipline, she was apt somewhat to tone down the severity of the rules,and indeed sometimes surreptitiously to soften the thorny paths of thetransgressor.

  Four resident mistresses and a certain number of visiting teacherscompleted the staff at Briarcroft Hall. The greater proportion of thepupils were day girls, and the boarders, though they gave themselvesairs, were decidedly in the minority. Such was the little community intowhich Gipsy was to be launched, and where for many months to come shewould have to make and keep her own position.

  Gipsy started with the most excellent intentions of exemplary behaviour,and if her conduct, regulated according to American codes, hardlyharmonized with Briarcroft standards, it was more her misfortune thanher fault. On the first day after her arrival she betook herself to thePrincipal's study, and after a light tap at the door, enteredconfidently with a breezy "Good morning". Miss Poppleton looked up fromher papers in considerable surprise. Her private room was sacred toherself alone, and unless armed with a most warrantable errand nobodyever ventured to disturb her.

  "Who sent you here, Gipsy?" she enquired rather sharply.

  "Nobody," replied Gipsy, quite unaware of having given any occasion foroffence. "I only came to ask leave to run out and buy a pan, and somesugar, and a few other things. I reckon there's a store handy, and Iwouldn't be gone ten minutes. There's heaps of time before nine."

  Miss Poppleton gasped. She had grasped the fact, at the beginning, thatGipsy was likely to prove an unusual pupil, but she had not anticipatedsuch immediate developments.

  "What you ask is perfectly impossible," she replied. "The boarders hereare never allowed to go out alone to do shopping."

  "So some of them told me last night, but I didn't believe them. Ithought they were ragging me because I'm new, and I'd best ask atheadquarters," returned Gipsy. "I wouldn't lose my way, and I'maccustomed to taking care of myself. I'd engage you'd find you couldtrust me."

  "That's not the question at all, Gipsy. I cannot allow you to breakschool rules."

  "Not just this once?"

  "Certainly not. If I made an exception in your case, the others wouldexpect the same privilege."

  "Is that so?" said Gipsy slowly. "It seems a funny rule to me, becausein Dorcas City we might always go to the store if we reported first."

  "You're not in America now: you'll have to learn English ways here, andEnglish speech too. You must make an effort to drop Americanisms, andtalk as we do on this side of the Atlantic."

  Miss Poppleton's tone was rather tart, and her mouth twitched ominously.Gipsy's eyes twinkled.

  "I'll do my best," she answered brightly. "I picked up a few words fromthe other girls last night that I didn't know before. There was'ripping' for one, and--what was the other, now, that caught on to me?Oh, I know!--'rotten'. I won't forget it again."

  Miss Poppleton's face was a study.

  "Of course I don't mean slang words like those. The girls had nobusiness to be using them. You must copy the best, and not the worst."

  "I guess it will take me a while to learn the difference."

  "You'll have to expunge 'guess' and 'reckon' from your vocabulary."

  Gipsy heaved an eloquent sigh.

  "I'll make a mental note of what I've got to avoid, but I expect they'llslip out sometimes. But about that pan, please! Might the janitor go outand buy it for me? I can't make any Fudge till I get it, and Ireck--that is to say, I mean to teach those girls to make Fudge. They'venot tasted it."

  Miss Poppleton glared at her irrepressible pupil with a glance thatwould have quelled Hetty Hancock or Lennie Chapman, but Gipsy did notflinch.

  "They've actually never tasted Fudge!" she repeated, with a smile ofpity for their ignorance.

  But Miss Poppleton's patience was at an end.

  "Gipsy Latimer, understand once for all that these things are notallowed at Briarcroft. While you are here you will be expected to keepthe rules of the sc
hool, or, if you break them, you will be punished.Leave my study at once, and don't report yourself here again until youare sent for."

  Gipsy left the room as requested, but she stood for a moment or two onthe doormat outside, shaking her head solemnly.

  "It's a bad lookout!" she said to herself. "I'm afraid there arebreakers ahead. That's not a very difficult matter to foresee. She's gota temper! I've not had any previous experience of English schools, butit rather appears as if this one's run on the lines of a reformatory. IfI don't want to get myself into trouble, I shall have to lie low, andmind what I'm doing. Well, I've sampled the teachers, and I've sampledthe boarders. Now for the day girls and my new Form!"

  Gipsy had already made the acquaintance of the elect twenty who were tobe her house companions, but that was a comparatively slight affaircompared with the ordeal of her introduction to the school as a whole.In spite of her outward appearance of sangfroid, she felt her heartthumping a little as she marched into the large lecture hall for "callover". It needs a certain courage to face seventy-two criticalstrangers, and her past experience had taught her that a new girl on herfirst day is like "goods on approval", and has to run the gauntlet ofpublic opinion. She tried to look airy and unembarrassed, and talkeddesperately to Lennie Chapman, who had been told off to "personallyconduct" her to her Form; but all the same she was conscious that shewas the observed of all observers. It was only natural that the little,erect, dark figure, with its bright eyes and big scarlet hair ribbons,should attract attention. Gipsy was about as different from theordinary run of British schoolgirls as a parakeet is from a flock ofpigeons; and the others were quick to note the difference.

  "I say, who's that foreign kid?" enquired Madeleine Newsome, a member ofthe Fifth, pausing in a friendly quarrel with a Form mate to take aquick, comprehensive survey of the stranger's personal appearance.

  "Can't say, I'm sure," responded Emily Atkinson, "but we'll soon findout. Hello, you kid, what's your name? And what part of the globe do youspring from?"

  "She's Spanish and American and New Zealand and South African andseveral other things, and she's been shipwrecked dozens of times," beganLennie Chapman, who was prone to exaggerate, and liked to act showman.

  "Let her speak for herself," interrupted Madeleine bluntly. "I supposeshe understands English, doesn't she? What's your name, kid? Don't standstaring at me with those big black eyes!"

  But here Gipsy's momentary bashfulness took flight. Seven schools hadtaught her to hold her own, and she was soon imparting information aboutherself with a volubility that left no doubt of her acquaintance withthe English tongue. Other girls hurried up to listen, and in less than aminute she was the centre of a crowd, answering a perfect fire ofquestions with a beaming good humour and a quickness of repartee thatrather took the fancy of her hearers.

  "She's sharp enough, at any rate," commented Mary Parsons. "Not veryeasy to take a rise out of her, I should think."

  "Awfully pretty, I call her," responded Joyce Adamson. "Those big redbows are immense in more ways than one."

  "She's not the sort to play second fiddle evidently," grumbled MaudeHelm a trifle enviously. "New girls oughtn't to have such cheek, in myopinion. When I was new----"

  "Oh, yes! We all remember how you stood looking black thunders, and noone could drag a single word out of you, not even your name! Can't seewhere the sense came in! I like a girl with plenty to say for herself."

  "This one's got enough, at any rate!" snapped Maude. "She talks awaylike a Cheap-Jack. Now if I were----"

  "Hold your tongue, can't you? I want to hear what she's saying."

  "What Form's she in?"

  "I believe Poppie's put her in the Upper Fourth."

  "Hush! Here's Poppie herself!"

  As the Principal stepped upon the platform and rang the bell, the girlshastily scurried to their seats, deferring further catechism of theirnew schoolfellow till eleven o'clock. Gipsy's name had been placed onthe roll call of the Upper Fourth, so as a member of the Lower Schoolshe marched in the long line that filed from the lecture hall to theright-hand wing of the house. The preliminary part of her ordeal mightbe considered successfully over. Schoolgirls are quick to take likesand dislikes; with them, first impressions are everything, and a fewminutes are often sufficient to decide the fate of a newcomer. By theend of the day Gipsy had won golden opinions; her whimsical humour andfree Colonial manners, however unfavourably they might impress MissPoppleton, pleased the popular taste, and except by an envious few shewas pronounced "ripping". Even Helen Roper, the head of the school,condescended to notice her.

  "Hello, you new girl!" she said patronizingly, "you may join ourNeedlework Guild if you like. You've got to subscribe a shilling, andpromise to make a garment every year. They're sent to the hospitals, youknow."

  "Thanks," replied Gipsy, not too utterly overwhelmed by the honour. "I'ma bad sewer, but I dare say I'd manage to cobble up something."

  "Then I'll put your name down, and you can bring me the shillingto-morrow. Have you got a camera? Then I expect you'll like to belong tothe Photographic Guild--the subscription's a shilling for that too.Remind me to give you a card of the rules if I forget."

  "You'll do!" whispered Lennie Chapman, who had watched over Gipsy'sintroduction with anxious interest. "If Helen Roper's spoken to you,you're sure to get on. You'll join the Guilds, of course? There's theDramatic as well, and the Musical, and the Athletic."

  "If they want a shilling for each, it will soon run away with one'spocket-money," laughed Gipsy.

  "Why, yes, so it does, but then one has to join. It is the thing to do."

  "I don't mind the subscriptions if the Guilds are fun."

  "Well--um! I can't say they're very much fun for us. We're only LowerSchool, you see, and we don't get a look-in."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why, of course it's all in the hands of the Sixth. They arrangeeverything. We mayn't so much as express an opinion."

  "No, it's really rather too bad," said Hetty Hancock, joining in theconversation. "We Lower School aren't fairly treated. The PhotographicGuild spent all the society's money on a gorgeous developing machinelast term, and no one's allowed to use it except the Committee."

  "But aren't any of the Lower School on the Committee?" asked Gipsy.

  "No, we're not counted 'eligible'. We vote, but we may only electmembers of the Sixth. And the Sixth just have it all their own way."

  "How monstrously unfair!"

  "It's just as bad in the Dramatic," continued Hetty, airing hergrievances. "The Sixth arrange all the casts, and of course take thebest parts for themselves, and only give us Juniors little, unimportantbits."

  "But don't the Lower School act plays by themselves?"

  "They haven't, so far; you see, it's always been one big Society. But Ican tell you we've grumbled when our subscriptions have all gone to buywigs and costumes for the Sixth."

  "But why do you let them?" protested Gipsy.

  Hetty shrugged her shoulders.

  "How are we going to prevent it, when we've no voice in the matter? Itold you the Committee arrange everything. We're supposed to be allowedto give our views at the General Meeting, but it's the merest farce--theSixth won't condescend to listen to us."

  "I'd make them listen!" said Gipsy indignantly.

  "You'd better try, then!" laughed Hetty. "It's the Annual Meeting of allthe Guilds on Friday week. We have to elect officers for the year. Ishould like to see you tackle Helen Roper!"

  Gipsy turned away without further comment. Her past experience ofschools had taught her that it was unwise to begin by criticizingwell-worn institutions too soon. During the next few days, however, sheasked many questions, and by diligently putting two and two togethermanaged to arrive at a tolerably accurate estimate of the general stateof affairs. The result caused her to shake her head. Though she saidlittle, like the proverbial parrot she thought the more, and herthoughts gradually shaped themselves into a plan of action. At the endof a week she faced t
he situation.

  "Look here, Gipsy Latimer!" she said to herself, "there are abuses inthis school that need reforming. Somebody's got to take the matter up,and I guess it's your mission to do it! I don't believe it's everoccurred to those girls to make a stand for their rights. They maysupport you, or they may call you an interfering busybody for yourpains; you'll have to take your chance of that. With your free-borndemocratic standards, it's impossible for you to sit still and seethings go on as they are. This annual meeting's your opportunity, soyou'd best pluck up your courage and nerve yourself for the fray."