The Bravest Girl in the School

By ETHEL TALBOT With Four Illustrations in Colour and Black-and-White CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

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First published 1924 Printed in Great Britain

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To HILDA SKAE

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List of Illustrations

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CHAPTER I A SECRET

“HOW soon will you know it, Sybil?”

The speaker turned anxious eyes in the direction of her younger sister, who sat kicking her heels on the faded carpet, and tilting her chair backwards and forwards as she chanted a French verb in a sing-song voice.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Sybil, throwing down her book and speaking in an aggrieved tone. “You’ve given me too much to learn, I’m sure, Gretta. I can’t possibly get it done by tea-time. Oh—bother!” She was interrupted by the entrance of a dishevelled, slatternly-looking maid who, capless and excited, burst into the untidy room.

“And what am I to do now, Miss Gretta, I’d like to know? Here’s master bringing in a visitor, and if she stays to tea there’s not a{2} scrap of butter in the house. I tell you plainly I’m not going to stand it, and——”

“Perhaps it’s only a patient——” began Gretta timidly.

“Patient? Not likely!” snorted the maid. “Why, she’s in the drawing-room at this instant, and, what’s more, she’s your auntie, and you’d best be going straight up to see her!”

At the sound of this extraordinarily unexpected announcement both little girls opened their eyes in amazement and stared. Sybil, after an instant’s pause of incredulity, recovered herself first.

“Why, whatever do you mean, Ann?” she asked excitedly. “Dad didn’t say anyone was coming. Oh!” and here she turned in amazement to her sister. “Gretta, can it be Auntie Tib from Australia? And can she have brought Margot, too? Oh, hurrah! hurrah!” and she began to dance wildly round the room.

“Oh, Sybil, do stop and come and help,” cried Gretta distractedly. “If it is Auntie Tib she must be coming to tea, and everything’s so untidy! Here, come and help me, do!”

But Sybil still danced on regardless of entreaties. “Put away your things yourself,{3}” she shouted. “You spend all your time playing your precious fiddle, instead of housekeeping; now you can just clear up alone!”

“Here, for goodness’ sake don’t be so selfish, Miss Sybil,” said Ann, her good temper suddenly returning. “Look, now, my dears, you pop up and talk to your auntie while I’m off down to the grocer’s for a pound of Best Fresh. I’ll make buttered toast in no time. Maybe she won’t have tasted any for years, if she’s just back from foreign wilds!”

Her words were interrupted by the sound of the opening drawing-room door, and then came their father’s footsteps along the passage. “Gretta! Sybil! Where are you?” he began in an irritated voice, then stopped as the two little girls nearly fell into his arms.

“Didn’t you get my message?” he continued fretfully. “Can’t you children come any quicker when I specially send for you? Here’s your aunt who has been travelling thousands of miles to see you, and——”

“We didn’t——” Sybil was beginning, but the sound of rapid, flying footsteps cut her short. “My darlings!” said a voice; a “perfectly new voice,” as Sybil said afterwards.{4} “Come and let me see both of you! Why, John, this one is the living image of Margaret!”

Gretta found herself hugged by two motherly arms, and, as her aunt kissed her, found tears on her cheeks in memory of the mother who had died a year ago, and who had been Auntie Tib’s only sister; then, recovering a little from the shock of the unexpected embrace, she had time to survey the new relation, who had now turned all her attention to Sybil.

She was a tall woman, dressed in rich furs. She had removed her gloves already, and Gretta noticed the bracelets and rings that she wore, and wondered. Truly, it was ages since such magnificence had come to the doctor’s house!

But the new-comer did not seem at all concerned with her own grandeur. She sat down in the little drawing-room, and did not appear to notice that not only was there no fire in the grate, but that Ann had neglected to remove the ashes since last Sunday. She drew the children to her again, kissed her namesake, Sybil, and carried on a flow of conversation with her, at once sympathetic and gay. Sybil, a host in herself, made up for the shyness and{5} consequent shortcomings of the rest of her family by her excited chatter.

“But we never knew you were coming, auntie,” she said, snuggling herself nearer to her new-found relation. “And, oh! where is Margot?”

“Oh, Margot’s coming presently; and, darling, I sent a telegram,” exclaimed her aunt. “Have you not had it?”

The doctor wheeled round suddenly at the sound of her last words. “Telegram!” he ejaculated; “but when?”

Gretta slipped out of the room, and returned, looking rather perturbed, with a yellow envelope. “Here it is, dad!” she said timidly. “I didn’t know that——”

“Tut—tut!” said the doctor irritably. “You should know when things come. You’ve nothing else to do, child.” He tore open the envelope, while Auntie Tib’s eyes turned towards Gretta, into whose cheeks a sudden flush had risen. She noticed the girl’s shabby outgrown frock, her patched slippers, and the clumsy darns on her stockings. Then she drew her little niece towards her and kissed her again. “So you’re the housekeeper, are you, Gretta?” she said tenderly.{6}

“Oh, isn’t she lovely!” said Sybil half an hour later, as the two girls made their way back towards the drawing-room again, after tidying themselves for tea. “I never could have thought she would be such a lovely auntie. Do you know, Gretta, I thought she would perhaps be quite brown, or talk a different language, or something, as she was coming from Australia. Oh, I do wonder if Margot will come in time for tea. Auntie said she’d be here in about three-quarters of an hour!” A loud ring at the front door interrupted her, and the chuff-chuff of a departing motor was suddenly heard outside.

“It’s Margot! It’s Margot!” exclaimed Sybil in the wildest excitement, racing into the drawing-room with the news, while her older sister followed almost as quickly. The two grown-ups within stopped in the midst of a very earnest conversation and turned to listen, as the opening of the front door by Ann was followed by the sound of an eager voice outside.

“I’ll go right in, thank you,” said a very assured voice, and then someone opened the drawing-room door very firmly, and entered.

Sybil, and even Gretta, too, rose to their feet{7} and gazed open-mouthed at the visitor as she embraced her mother, talking in an animated voice all the time. “Oh, mother,” she said, “I guessed, somehow, that this would be the room, and I couldn’t wait, so I just didn’t. Dad’s driven on with the car to the hotel garage, and I told him to put me down here because I wanted to see the cousins just at the very earliest minute, and——” She turned towards Gretta and Sybil with a friendly expression of countenance, and held out her hand.

This must be Margot, their cousin, of course; but, dressed as she was in a plain leather topcoat and motoring goggles, she was—to say the least of it—quite unlike the cousin of the children’s imaginings. However, when, at the suggestion of her mother, these impedimenta had been removed, the real Cousin Margot emerged.

She was taller than Sybil, whose senior she was by six months, and weedier. Her mouse-coloured hair was thick and rather short, cut straight across her forehead and tucked away behind her ears; her grey eyes looked out very straight and clear at the world from under dark eye-lashes, and her mouth was a good-humoured and a capable one. Add to this a determined,{8} rather self-willed little chin, and you have a fairly good picture of the Australian cousin, to the making of whose acquaintance the children had been so greatly looking forward.

Both of them fell in love with her at once in their own respective ways. Sybil, talking sixteen to the dozen in no time, asking questions that needed no answers, making comments, and compelling attention; and Gretta, content to sit and watch and listen, making up her mind, nevertheless, very firmly the while.

Tea followed almost at once, and with the tea Uncle Bob arrived. It was during the course of the unusually cheery meal that the new uncle made his very unexpected announcement.

“Margot thought we’d better come over to fetch her mother back in the car after her conversation with you,” he said, addressing the doctor, “and take the chance of seeing you all at the same time. There’s plenty of room for the children, if you like to spare them to us for a day or two. We could pack them both into the back seat, and take them with us. Margot wants to have them.”

“And we’d like to have you, too, of course, you know,” remarked that damsel cheerfully,{9} turning to her uncle with a friendly smile and nod, “only, mother says that you can’t take a holiday.”

“No, I can’t easily do that, young lady,” said the doctor, surprised and rather amused by the assured ways of his Australian niece. “But if your parents like to shoulder the responsibility, there’s no reason why your cousins shouldn’t take advantage of the offer.”

“Oh!” Sybil was almost inarticulate in her entreaties. Never could she have imagined that such good fortune would come her way. “Oh, it would be too, too lovely! Auntie, darling, do take us!”

“And what about you, Gretta?” said Mrs. Fleming, turning to the older girl; “will you come, too?”

“No, thank you,” said Gretta steadily. “I think I’d rather stay with dad.”

There was a moment’s silence, and the doctor got up from his seat. “Well, I must be off. Sorry, but there’s a patient who can’t be left. Settle it with your aunt, children. She’ll do what’s right.”

“Think it over, Gretta,” said her uncle when the doctor had left the room; “your father will be safe enough.{10}”

“I think I’ll stay, thank you,” said Gretta hesitatingly. Margot slipped her hand under the table and pressed her cousin’s fingers in a friendly way for a minute. Evidently she understood what was passing in Gretta’s mind.

After tea there was a tremendous bustle and hurry. Sybil’s little bag had to be packed, and soon she was standing, pink-faced and tremendously excited, waiting for the reappearance of the car that was to take her away.

“Good-bye, Gretta darling. I understand why you want to stay,” said Auntie Tib, hugging the rather lonely looking little figure that stood on the step to see them start. “But I shall see you again very soon, because——” She bent down and whispered: “Ask your father, to-night, when he comes home, to tell you the secret that he has for you. Don’t forget. And I do hope that it will please you!”

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” The car was starting. With waving of hands, and kisses from Sybil, it turned the corner and was lost to sight. Gretta was free to go into the house again, and went, but with a feeling as though somehow everything was changed.{11}

She went into the lonely drawing-room, from which Ann was removing the remains of the meal, and sat down to wait for her father’s return, while Auntie Tib’s last words rang in her ears. What, oh, what could be the secret that she was to hear?{12}

CHAPTER II GOING TO SCHOOL

“YOUR aunt wishes to send you both to the school where she has arranged to send Margot.”

It was the doctor who was speaking, and Gretta clutched the coffee-pot and stared with amazement at his surprising announcement.

To go to school! She, Gretta! So this was auntie’s secret! At first the shock of surprise at the unexpected news held her speechless, almost breathless; then the shock was followed by an overwhelming wave of delight. The great wish of her life, that she had never voiced to anyone before, was really to come to pass: she was to go to school—to school! She sat silent, almost stunned with excitement and joy.

“You would like to go, of course?” said her father. At the sound of his voice she glanced up, and a whole set of new feelings took the place of the delighted ones that had filled her mind a moment before.

“How selfish I am!” she said to herself.{13} “I’d quite forgotten that I’m dad’s housekeeper. Oh, I can’t go and leave him all alone with Ann! How lonely he’d be! And he might even get ill. Sybil can go, but I don’t see how I can!”

“Well! Well!” said her father irritably. “Have you nothing to say? Your aunt has been most generous; wants you both to get the advantage of good teaching—even suggests that she will pay for violin lessons for you——”

“Oh!” Gretta’s face crimsoned with pleasure at the idea. “Dad,” she ventured, “but could you spare me?”

“Spare you! Why not?” said her father. “It’ll be the making of you. I could never have afforded the school she has chosen, and the best thanks you can give her is to make the most of her offer. It is generous in the extreme.”

“But, dad,” ventured Gretta. “What would you do? Wouldn’t you miss us?”

“Well, yes,” said her father. “But we can’t get good things for nothing in this world, and it’ll be worth while to be lonely at times if I know that you and Sybil are being turned out as your mother would have liked.” He opened his paper again, and Gretta said no more. So seldom did he speak of her mother that the{14} child knew by his last remark that the arrangement was settled, and that he did not wish to say any more about it.

“But talk it over with your aunt when she brings back Sybil to-morrow,” he remarked, as he brushed his hat in the passage preparatory to starting on his rounds. “Good-bye, child; you mustn’t turn into a woman too soon, you know.”

He kissed her and banged the front door, and Gretta was left to a maze of excited thoughts: she was to go to school; the decision had been taken out of her hands!

How much she longed to go she believed that no one in the whole world knew. No one? Well, perhaps her fiddle did, the child thought to herself; for Gretta, since her mother’s death, had been thrown very much upon her own resources, and she would have felt even more solitary and companionless had it not been for the hours she spent with her beloved violin.

Could auntie have discovered all this, Gretta wondered—she was lovely enough for anything! For, as she had offered the violin lessons, too, she surely must have guessed how her elder niece had longed and longed for proper ones! Gretta’s mother had played and had taught her, herself, but when mother died, a year ago, there had{15} been no one to help the child with her music, and she had been forced to muddle along alone.

“How did Auntie Tib know about my violin?” she inquired of the doctor at dinnertime that day.

“I don’t know, my dear. Probably your mother wrote to her about your music,” said the doctor, who could not distinguish one note of music from another. “She seems to wish you to keep it up at school.”

“Where is it? The school, I mean?” ventured Gretta timidly.

“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{16} 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.”

“Practice!” repeated Sybil, entering the room in high feather. “Is that what you’re talking about? What a stupid thing! Aren’t you telling Gretta about the hotel breakfast, auntie, and all the lots of different things the{17} waiters brought! But she’s sure to talk about that old violin if anyone’ll listen; she’s just half-crazy about it. She twangs it from morning to night when dad’s out, and last month she gave up sugar in her tea because she’d no pocket-money and she wanted to buy a new string, and——” The child paused, breathless.

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.”

Clothes! Gretta hadn’t given them a thought; but evidently Sybil had. “I’m to have some jumper dresses just like Margot’s,” she announced grandly. “We’ve both been measured! And brown stockings, Gretta—brown!”

Evidently with brown stockings the summit of Sybil’s happiness had been reached. Gretta could only turn her eyes wonderingly towards her aunt.{18}

“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.

“I spoke to your father, Gretta,” said that lady, when Sybil’s excitement had subsided, “and asked him if I might think of you three little girls as sisters while you were at school. He agreed, and understood why I wanted it, and I think you are old enough to understand, too.”

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{19} 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.