A Popular Schoolgirl by Angela Brazil (top 100 books to read TXT) 📖

neighbors and tramps.

"Shoo! Get away!" urged Ingred, with rather shaking knees.

"Be off, you ill-mannered brute!" shouted Hereward.

The dog, however, appeared to think the wall was his own special property, and that it was his business to drive them away from their own garden. It continued to bark and snarl. Now, as Hereward wished to fix the rabbit-hutch in exactly the spot over which the creature had mounted guard, he was naturally much annoyed, and sought for some ready means of dislodging it from its point of vantage. He did not relish the prospect of being bitten, so did not want to engage it at close quarters, and no pole or other weapon lay handy.

Looking hastily round, his eye fell upon the garden-syringe with which Athelstane sometimes cleaned the motor-bicycle. It had been left, with a bucket of water, outside the shed. He drew out the piston, filled the syringe, then discharged its contents straight at the dog. But at that most unlucky moment a quick change took place on the wall; the collie retired in favor of his master, and the stream of water charged full into the astonished countenance of a precise and elderly gentleman from next door. For a few moments there was a ghastly silence, while he wiped his face and recovered his dignity. Then he demanded in withering tones:

"May I ask what is the meaning of this?"

Ingred and Hereward, overwhelmed with confusion, stuttered out apologies and explanations. The old gentleman listened with his busy gray eyebrows knitted and his mouth pursed into a thin line.

"I shall immediately take steps to ensure that my dog has no further opportunities of annoying you," he remarked stiffly, and took his departure.

"Who is he?" whispered Ingred, as the footsteps on the other side of the wall shuffled away.

"His name's Mr. Hardcastle. He's retired, and lives there with a housekeeper. Great Scot! I've put my foot in it, haven't I? Who'd have thought he was just going to pop his head up? Dad was going to ask him to lend us his garden-roller, but it's no use now. I expect I've made an enemy of him for life!"

"I hope he means to keep that savage dog fastened up," said Ingred. "It's a horrid idea to think that it may, any time, pounce over the wall at us. It's like having a wolf loose in the garden."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Hardcastle kept his word in a way that the Saxons least anticipated. Instead of chaining the dog, he had a tall wooden paling erected along the top of the wall, making an effectual barrier between the two gardens. It was not a beautiful object, and it cut off the sunshine from a whole long flower-bed; so, though it insured privacy, it might be regarded as a doubtful benefit for the bungalow.

"It makes one feel so suburban," mourned Quenrede.

"We shan't be visible, at any rate, when we're digging potatoes," laughed Mrs. Saxon, "and that's a great point to me, for I'm past the age that looks fascinating in an overall. If we've Suburbia on one side of us, we've the open moor on the other, which is something to be thankful for."

"Yes, until it's sold in building plots," sighed Quenrede, who was in a fit of blues, and unwilling to count up her blessings.

CHAPTER IV Intruder Bess

Ingred, after a blissful week-end, returned to Grovebury by the early train on Monday morning, and, wrenching her mind with difficulty from the interests of Wynch-on-the-Wold, focused it on school affairs instead. There was certainly need of mental concentration if she meant to make headway in the College. The standard of work required from Va. was very stiff, and taxed the powers of even the brightest girls to the uttermost.

"Miss Strong reminds me of Rehoboam!" wailed Fil, fresh from the study of the Second Book of Chronicles. "Her little finger's thicker than her whole body used to be, and, instead of whips, she chastises us with scorpions. I want to go and bow the knee to Baal."

"Rather mixed up in your Scripture, child, but we understand your meaning," laughed Verity. "The Bantam's certainly piling it on nowadays in the way of prep."

"Shows an absolutely brutal lack of consideration," agreed Nora.

"So do all the mistresses," groaned Ingred. "Each of them seems to think we've nothing to do but her own particular subject. Dr. Linton actually asked me if I could practise two hours a day. Why, he might as well have suggested four! I can only get the piano for an hour, even if I wanted it longer. It's a frightful business at the hostel to cram in all our practicing, isn't it? I nearly had a free fight with Janie Potter yesterday. She commandeered the piano, and though I showed her the music time-table, with my name down for '5 to 6' she wouldn't budge. I had to tilt her off the stool in the end. It was like a game of musical chairs. She wouldn't look at me to-day, she's so cross about it. Not that I care in the least!"

Music was a favorite subject with Ingred, and one in which she excelled. She would willingly have given more time to it, had the school curriculum allowed. She was a good reader, and had a sympathetic, if rather spidery touch. This term she had begun lessons with Dr. Linton, who was considered the best master in Grovebury. He was organist at the Abbey Church, and was not only a Doctor of Music, but a composer as well. His anthems and cantatas were widely known, he conducted the local choral society and trained the operatic society for the annual performance. His time was generally very full, so he did not profess to teach juniors; it was only after celebrating her fifteenth birthday that Ingred had been eligible as one of his pupils. He had the reputation of being peppery tempered, therefore she walked into the room to take her first lesson with her heart performing a sort of jazz dance under her jersey. Dr. Linton, like many musicians, was of an artistic and excitable temperament, and highly eccentric. Instead of sitting by the side of his new pupil, he paced the room, pursing his lips in and out, and drawing his fingers through his long lank dark hair.

"Have you brought a piece with you," he inquired. "Then play to me. Oh, never mind if you make mistakes! That's not the point. I want to know how you can talk on the piano. What have you got in that folio? Beethoven? Rachmaninoff? M'Dowell? We'll try the Beethoven. Now don't be nervous. Just fire away as if you were practising at home!"

It was all very well, Ingred thought, for Dr. Linton to tell her not to be nervous, but it was a considerable ordeal to have to perform a test piece before so keen a critic. In spite of her most valiant efforts her hands trembled, and wrong chords crept in. She kept bravely at it, however, and managed to reach the end of the first movement, where she called a halt.

"It's not talking—it's only stuttering and stammering on the piano," she apologized.

Dr. Linton laughed. Her remark had evidently pleased him. He always liked a pupil who fell in with his humor.

"You've the elements of speech in you, though you're still in the prattling-baby stage," he conceded. "It's something, at any rate, to find there's material to work upon. Some people wouldn't make musicians if they practised for a hundred years. We've got to alter your touch—your technique's entirely wrong—but if you're content to concentrate on that, we'll soon show some progress. You'll have to stick to simple studies this term: no blazing away into M'Dowell and Rachmaninoff yet awhile."

"I'll do anything you tell me," agreed Ingred humbly.

Dr. Linton's manner might be brusque, but he seemed prepared to take an interest in her work. He was known to give special pains to those whose artistic caliber appealed to him. In his opinion pupils fell under two headings: those who had music in them, and those who had not. The latter, though he might drill them in technique, would never make really satisfactory pianists; the former, by dint of scolding or cajoling, according to his mood at the moment, might derive real benefit from his tuition, and become a credit to him. It was a by-word in the school that his favorites had the stormiest lessons.

"I'm thankful I'm not a pet pupil," declared Fil, whose playing was hardly of a classical order. "I should have forty fits if he stalked about the room, and tore his hair, and shouted like he does with Janie. He scared me quite enough sitting by my side and saying: 'Shall we take this again now?' with a sort of grim politeness, as if he were making an effort to restrain his temper. I know I'm not what he calls musical, but I can't help it. I'd rather hear comic opera any day than his wretched cantatas, and when I'm not practising I shall play what I like. There!"

And Fil, who was sitting at the piano, twirled round on the stool and strummed "Beautiful K—K—Katie" with a lack of technique that probably would have brought her teacher's temper up to bubbling-over point had he been there to listen to her.

It was exactly ten days after the term had begun that Bess Haselford came to the College. She walked into the Upper Fifth Form room one Monday morning, looking very shy and lost and strange, and stood forlornly, not knowing where to sit, till somebody took pity on her, and pointed to a vacant desk. It happened to be on a line with Ingred's, and the latter watched her settle herself. She looked her over with the critical air that is generally bestowed on new girls, and decided that she was particularly pretty. Bess was the image of one of the Sir Joshua Reynolds' child angels in the National Gallery. The likeness was so great that her mother had always cut and curled her golden-brown hair in exact copy of the picture. She was a slim, rosy, bright-eyed, smiling specimen of girlhood, and, though on this first morning she was manifestly afflicted with shyness, she had the appearance of one whose acquaintance might be worth making. Ingred decided to cultivate it at the earliest opportunity, and spoke to the new arrival at lunch-time. Bess replied readily to the usual questions.

"We've only come lately to Grovebury. We used to live at Birkshaw. Yes, I'm fairly keen on hockey, though I like tennis better. Have you asphalt courts here, and do you play in the winter? I adore dancing, but I hate gym. I'm learning the violin, and I'm to start oil-painting this term."

She seemed such a pleasant, winsome kind of girl that Ingred, who was apt to take sudden fancies, constituted herself her cicerone, and showed her round the school. By the time they had made the entire tour of the buildings, Ingred began to wonder whether, without offense, it would be possible to leave her desk, next to Verity, and sit beside Bess. There was a great charm of voice and manner about the new-comer, and Ingred's musical ear was sensitive to gentle voices. She discussed Bess with the others next morning before school.

"Yes, she's pretty, and that blue dress is simply adorable," conceded Nora. "I'm going to have an embroidered one myself next time."

"Her hair is so sweet," commented Francie.

"I call her ripping!" said Ingred with enthusiasm.

"Well, you ought to take an interest in her, Ingred, considering that she lives at Rotherwood," put in Beatrice.

"At Rotherwood!"

"Yes, didn't you know that?"

Ingred, under pretence of distributing exercise-books, turned hastily away. Her heart was in a sudden turmoil. This was indeed a bolt from the blue. She, of course, knew that Rotherwood was let, but she had not heard the name of the tenants, and, as the subject was a sore one, had forborne to ask any questions at home. It was surely the irony of fate that the house should be taken by people who had a daughter of her own age, and that this daughter should come to the College, and actually be placed in the same form as herself. She seemed a rival ready-made. Biased by jealous prejudice, Ingred's hastily-formed judgment reversed itself.

"I'm thankful I didn't move away from Verity to sit next to her," she thought. "I expect she'll be ever so conceited and give herself airs, and the other girls will truckle to her no end. I know them! I wish to goodness she hadn't come to the College. Why didn't they send her away to a boarding school? I'm not going to make a fuss over her, so she needn't think it."

Poor Bess, quite unaware of being any cause of offence, and grateful for the kindness shown