Read Ebook: The Bravest Girl in School by Talbot Ethel

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Ebook has 618 lines and 42208 words, and 13 pages

"Oh, a most healthy, bracing spot; sea-air and fine views, I believe. The house is built on a sandy soil, and there is every modern convenience conducive to health; sanitary arrangements splendid; you're a pair of lucky children!"

Gretta was used to streams of eloquence that she only half understood. She waited patiently until this one was over. Evidently none of the details dear to the hearts of children were to be elicited through conversation with the doctor; she was thrown back upon her own imaginings, and waited patiently for the advent of her aunt and Sybil on the following day.

It was with a face of unusual excitement that she rushed to open the front door to them when the time arrived, and the first glance at the child's eager face reassured Mrs. Fleming, who had feared that Gretta might have demurred against the arrangement for her father's sake.

"You're looking forward to school, then, Gretta?" she inquired, when Sybil had flown to acquaint Ann with the details of her visit.

"Dad says we're to go, and he seems to think he can manage without me, and thank you very much," said Gretta, unwontedly demonstrative in the excitement that she was feeling. "Auntie, darling, do you really mean it?--about violin lessons, too?"

"Why, of course, my dear," said Mrs. Fleming. "Your mother told me in her letters, as you know, that you had quite a special gift in that direction. She played so beautifully herself that I should like you to have the advantages she had. Perhaps, too, Gretta, you know, you might use it in years to come. It means hard work, but--the practising, I mean."

Gretta blushed crimson, but as much with pleasure at what the future held, as with annoyance at Sybil's speech. Everything in her world seemed changed; school, music-lessons, were to come her way; she was feeling that she already had as much pleasure in prospect as a princess in a fairy-tale, when Mrs. Fleming's next speech made her gasp.

"And we've got all your clothes to get, you know."

Evidently with brown stockings the summit of Sybil's happiness had been reached. Gretta could only turn her eyes wonderingly towards her aunt.

"Oh, auntie, how lovely! But--ought she to have them? She has some quite good black ones, only, of course, they're darned."

"Oh, Gretta, you spoil-sport! But you can't change it, for they're bought, aren't they, Auntie Tib?" and she danced a jig round Mrs. Fleming's chair.

Gretta said no more after that; she did not find it so easy as Sybil did to express herself in words, but Mrs. Fleming could read the feelings in her face and felt well repaid for all that she was doing for the children. When she left again that afternoon it was with the promise that, during the fortnight that remained before the new term at the Cliff School commenced, she would undertake the buying of the children's wardrobes, and see that all things were in readiness for the twenty-first of January.

That fortnight went by in a whirl of delight. Ann worked with a will, excited with the idea that she was to be the doctor's housekeeper and factotum and "see if she could manage to make him really comfortable," as Mrs. Fleming put it. The doctor forgot his worries and fell in with all the plans. Auntie came and went like a good fairy, cheerful and kind, and Sybil was in such a state of wild delight at the pleasures that school must hold for her that she could hardly wait patiently until the eventful day should arrive.

"But you'll be as glad to get home for the holidays as you are to get away, Miss Sybil, and that's a fact," quoth Ann sententiously, on the last evening. "You'll have to behave yourself where you're going; see if you don't!"

But when the day had dawned at last--the twenty-first of January, and the first day of school--the throb that the little girl's heart gave as she woke from her dreams somehow or other did not feel as though it was quite due to joyful excitement, and even Gretta was conscious of very mixed feelings, the most pronounced of which seemed to be a positive disinclination to saying good-bye to the doctor.

The children's father appeared to be the most cheery member of the group that met at the breakfast-table. Sybil found herself for once quite unable to eat, and if it had not been for Ann's I-told-you-so expression of countenance when she entered the room with hot plates, the child would probably have dissolved into tears before the end of the meal. Her older sister was fully occupied with her own thoughts; turning and re-turning over in her mind every possible dreadful thing that might happen! Suppose Ann should not make dad comfortable; suppose he should get ill! Suppose--suppose! It was a relief to all when the postman's knock sounded and Sybil raced to the letter-box, taking the opportunity to mop her eyes in the loneliness of the passage as she went.

The only letter proved to be from auntie, and was merely a repetition of the plans already decided upon for the comfort of the children on their journey. "Margot and I will meet you both for lunch at York," she wrote. "Then I will see you into the Cliffland train, and you three will travel down together." The words came like the welcome sound of Mrs. Fleming's cheery voice; somehow things began to feel different, and by ten o'clock, when the children were ready to start for the station with their father, Sybil's tongue, at least, was loosed once more.

"Good-bye, Ann. When I come back I'll tell you all about school." Sybil was dressed in her new navy-blue suit and sported the cherished brown stockings. Her hair was plaited and tied with a ribbon bow. She felt an experienced schoolgirl already.

"Good-bye, Miss Sybil, and if they treat you badly, you just come straight back 'ome; I 'ates them schools!" and Ann, whose knowledge was altogether derived from sensational and impossible story-books, wiped her eyes with her apron in anticipation of the troubles her pets were to endure.

"I'll promise," said the doctor, with a trace of a smile at her words.

In the excitement of putting the finishing touches to Sybil's wardrobe the last few minutes quickly passed, and before they could realize that they were actually off, the children found themselves kissing their hands frantically to their father, who was standing on the fast receding platform waving his handkerchief. Really and truly they were off to school!

NEW ARRIVALS

"Why, Gretta!" exclaimed the surprised child in horror. Then the corners of her own mouth turned down, her eyes opened wider and wider, and in another moment they would certainly have overflowed in sympathy had not the older girl, with a mighty effort, pulled herself together.

"It's all right, Sybil, don't take any notice of me. I was only so afraid that dad would miss us."

"Well, I wish you wouldn't look like that," half sobbed Sybil. "I hope school isn't going to be horrid, after all. Ann said it would be, and now you're crying about it. It's unkind of you to frighten me, and if the girls are going to be nasty I shan't stay. I shall write and ask auntie to take me away!"

It was rather a miserable little couple who peered out of the carriage window at York station and looked anxiously for their aunt and cousin, who were standing on the platform awaiting the incoming train. Margot herself, the self-reliant Margot, was looking a little forlorn, too, though she would not have owned to it for worlds, and even Auntie Tib had a lonely feeling at the bottom of her heart at the idea that she and Margot were to be parted for the first time. But she did not show it. That was not Mrs. Fleming's way. All was laughter and bustle, and under her genial influence the children's spirits began to reassert themselves.

"Oh, auntie, how lovely!" Sybil grasped at the box. "And don't our clothes look nice! It's the first time we've worn them, you know. Do you think the girls at school will like them?"

"They'll have far too many other interests to think about your clothes, you may be sure," said auntie. "We must hurry; it wouldn't do to miss the train."

Only a very few minutes after that they were bustled into the Cliffland carriage, and Margot, looking very serious, was hanging out of the window and exchanging last words with her mother. "I'm going to write to-night, mother, so look out for a letter to-morrow morning. Give father my love, and don't let him miss me."

"All right, darling." Mrs. Fleming kissed Margot again, but her last words were for Gretta, and it was almost as though she could read the thoughts that were passing in the child's mind.

"Uncle Bob and I are going to take the car over to Redgate to-morrow, dear," she said, just as the guard was lifting his whistle to his lips. "I shall have a talk with Ann, and will write and tell you how your father gets on."

"And now we're really going to school!" announced Sybil in a conversational tone of voice, settling herself comfortably with the chocolates and looking admiringly at her own brown legs. "Do you think all the girls will come and meet us?"

"Very likely they won't be there yet," answered Margot, looking perhaps a little pale-faced, but trying to talk unconcernedly; "or there may even be some of them in this train. I wonder if we shall like them. I always used to long to go to school in Australia, but, of course, we lived too far out."

"Who taught you?" asked Gretta, admiring her cousin's pluck, and proceeding to imitate her by entering herself into the conversation. "Was it auntie?"

"Well, she did when I was little, but she was very busy, you know. When I was nine she stopped, because Long Jake taught me then."

"Long Jake!" exclaimed Sybil, looking up from her chocolates. "Whoever was that?"

"Oh, he was one of father's men at first, and they were great friends too. He taught me in the evenings, just for fun. He was awfully clever. When dad went to the diggings he looked after mother and me."

"I'd like to see Long Jake," said Sybil "What's he like?"

"He's very big; that was why they gave him his name, of course; and he's coming to England soon, I know. He'll be sure to come and see me when he does, so perhaps you'll see him, too. When we lived in the Bush he and I used to ride together for miles. He taught me lots of things."

"What kind of things?" Gretta was beginning, but Sybil broke in animatedly: "Oh, look! There's the sea and the cliffs! Is it Cliffland? And what a funny, tiny house! Can it be the school?"

The other children followed her pointing finger with their eyes. There, in the distance, stood a little one-storied bungalow-like habitation in the shadow of the cliffs.

"What a strange place!" said Gretta. "Why, Margot, look! It hasn't any windows, has it?"

"Not that I can see," began her cousin, peering out, but even while they watched the house was lost to view as the train took a sudden curve.

"There! It's gone!" said Sybil petulantly. "How stupid!"

The appearance of a lady at the door of the carriage, who looked in and nodded at them and then proceeded, as the train drew up, to open the door, confirmed their suspicions. "You're for the Cliff School, aren't you?" she said cheerfully. "Jump out, and be quick! The porter will see to all your things, so leave them behind--the pony will be waiting!"

Gretta obediently advanced to the stranger's side, leaving all but her beloved fiddle. Sybil followed her sister, feeling friendly disposed, but shy. Margot, with alacrity, jumped on to the seat, and began pulling down her leather suit-cases from the rack.

"Didn't you hear what I said?" remarked the new-comer pleasantly. "Leave your bags. The porter has his orders, and this is a terminus." She looked up and down the platform as she spoke and then, with a parting "Wait a minute, girls!" made her way to the other end of the train.

"Whatever did she mean?" said Margot, standing by her bags on the platform and addressing Gretta in mystified tones. "I'd far rather see after these myself."

"Oh, it's just school ways," said Gretta comfortingly. She turned her eyes as she spoke in the direction of the cheery lady, and watched her as she received into her keeping a small girl about Sybil's size, who was being handed over by an anxious mother, evidently obliged to catch the next train back.

"It must be another new girl," said Sybil excitedly. "I like that lady. I suppose she's a teacher; and she smiled at me!"

"I'm Miss Read," said that capable person, returning with the small girl in tow. "Come along, girls, the trap is outside. We have an hour's drive to the Cliff. This is Adela Greaves; you will soon know each other quite well."

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