Second Form at Malory Towers (7 page)

So Darrell's temper was not too good those days. And there was someone else whose temper was not good either. And that was Ellen's.

She had been quite even-tempered, though rather worried-looking for the first few weeks. And then suddenly she became really irritable. She snapped at the girls, and the little deft in her forehead deepened until it seemed as if she was always frowning.

Jean tried to find out if anything was the matter. Sally had tried, but Ellen seemed to think that Sally was just being a good head-girl, saying to set her right and stop her being so irritable. So she snapped at Sally, and the head-girl, surprised and hurt, said no more.

“Funny girl!” she said to Darrell. “I don't understand her. She's won a scholarship to Malory Towers which must mean she's terribly clever—and she works as hard or harder than any of us do—and yet she's never top, or even in the first three or four! I suppose she's cross about that and gets bad-tempered. I don't like her.”

“Neither do I.” said Darrell. “She's not worth bothering about, Sally. Leave her alone.”

“Oh, I think she's worth bothering about,” said Sally. “Everybody is. I'll ask Jean to have a word with her. She sits next to her in class.”

Jean was a very forthright girl, with little imagination, and usually went at things in the way a tank might, crushing all resistance, insisting on knowing what she wanted to know. But for some reason she did not tackle Ellen quite in this way. She sat next to her in class and she slept next to her in the dormy—so she had had plenty of opportunity of hearing Ellen's unconscious sighs and little groans when she was hard at work—or when she was trying to go to sleep.

She knew that Ellen often lay awake at night, and she guessed that Ellen was worrying about something. It couldn't be her work, surely—no scholarship girl needed to worry about work! As far as she had seen, all scholarship girls found work very easy indeed.

Jean was a kindly girl, though sometimes much too blunt in her speech and ways. She tried to think bow to get at Ellen. There didn't seem any way except by asking her straight out what was the matter, and couldn't it be put right?

But that just wouldn't do. Ellen would snap at once, as she did to Sally. So, for once, Jean gave the matter some thought, and did not act as clumsily as she usually did.

Ellen had no friend. She did not encourage anyone at an. not even the quiet Emily. Jean set herself out to be friendly in unobtrusive ways. She would never be able to force out of Ellen what was the matter—but perhaps she could persuade the girl to trust her enough to want to tell her! This was really a very praiseworthy idea on Jean's part, for it was seldom that the blunt Scots girl bothered herself to go to a lot of trouble in her dealings with people.

But she was rather proud that Sally had asked her to try her hand at Ellen, as she herself had failed. So, although Ellen did not realize it at the time, Jean set herself out to be kind and helpful in all kinds of little ways.

She helped Ellen to hunt for ages for her gym shoes, which were lost. She sympathized when the photograph of Ellen's parents got broken, and offered to get some glass cat for the frame, when next she went to the shops. She helped her to dry her hair when she washed it. Just little things that nobody, not even Ellen at first, noticed very much.

But gradually Ellen grew to trust this shrewd Scots girl She told her when she had a very bad headache, although she refused to go to Matron and tell her too. She stopped snapping at Jean, though she still snapped at everyone else—except Mary-Lou. It would need a very hard-hearted, bad-tempered person to snap at little Mary-Lou!

There were some evenings when Ellen was quite unbearable. “Really, anyone would think she suffered from what my mother calls “nerves”,” said Alicia, one evening. “Jumps at any little thing, takes things the wrong way, snaps like a bad dog—look at her now, scowling at her work-basket as if it had bitten her!”

If anyone passed too close to Ellen and knocked her elbow, she would jump and snap “Look out! Can't you see where you're going?”

If anyone interrupted her reading, she would slam her book down on the table and glare at the offender. “Can't you see I'm reading? There isn't a quiet place in the whole of this beastly house!”

“You're not reading,” Darrell would say. “You haven't turned a page since you took up your book!”

“Oh—so you've been watching me, have you?” Ellen would say, and her eyes would suddenly fill with tears. Then she would go out of the room and slam the door.

“Isn't she awful! Scratches like a cat”

“I wish she'd won a scholarship to somewhere else!”

“Always pretending to read and study and yet she slides down lower every week! Hypocrite, I call her!”

“Och, she's not a happy girl! Maybe she hasn't settled down here yet!” That was Jean, of course, and Sally would flash her a glance of approval. Jean certainly bad an uphill task with Ellen, but she was persevering with it!

The weather was bad just then, and there was no lacrosse, and not even a walk, for the country round about was deep in mud. The girls grew restless, penned up indoors, and the teachers decided that, bad weather or not, there had better be a School Walk the next day.

Everyone groaned. The rain poured down. The sky was black and lowering. The lacrosse fields were half under water. Whatever would the country lanes be like? The sea was an angry grey-green, and the wind was so high on the cliff that no girl was allowed up there in case she was blown over.

Gwendoline and Daphne grumbled the loudest of all Gwendoline developed a persistent sniff in class, hoping that Miss Parker would think she had a cold and let her off the walk. But Miss Parker had been warned by Potty of Gwendoline's sniffs, and was not sympathetic. “If you sniff any more, you can go and do it outside the door,” she said. “If there's one thing I cannot bear, it's somebody sniffing. It's disgusting, it's unnecessary, and in your case, it is probably put on, Gwendoline.”

Gwendoline glared. Why were there no schoolteachers like her old governess at home, Miss Winter? She always rushed for a thermometer at once, if Gwendoline so much as cleared her throat, and would never, never dream of making her go out for a walk in such terrible weather.

She did not dare to sniff again, and was annoyed at Darrell's grins. Daphne looked at her sympathetically. Not that she cared whether Gwendoline had a cold or not, but it was the thing to do—Gwendoline simply lapped up sympathy.

Daphne herself tried other tactics to get out of the walk. She had no intention at all of wading through miles of mud. She went to Mam'zelle Dupont with her exercise book that evening. She put on her sweetest smile and knocked at the door of the little room which Miss Potts shared with Mam'zelle. She hoped fervently that Potts wasn't there. Potty always seemed to be irritated by Daphne's presence.

Fortunately Potty wasn't there. “Ah, it is you
ma petite
Daphne!” cried Mam'zelle, welcoming her favourite with a smile almost as charming as Daphne's. “You have something to say to me? You do not understand something, is it not?”

“Oh. Mam'zelle, I'm in such a muddle over these tenses,” said Daphne. “I really do feel that I ought to have a little coaching in them, if you could possibly spare the time. I do so badly want to get my French better.”

“But it has been much better lately, my dear child!” cried Mam'zelle, beaming, not knowing that little Mary-Lou had been doing most of Daphne's French for her. “I am pleased with you.”

Daphne turned on her smile again and Mam'zelle's heart melted still further. Ah, this pretty Daphne! She put her arm around her. “Yes, yes, of course I will give you a little extra coaching.” she said. “We shall soon put these tenses right. You can stay now,
ma petite
!”

“No, not now, Mam'zelle.” said Daphne. “But I could give up that lovely country walk tomorrow, if you would be good enough to take me then. It's the only spare time I have.”

“The good child—to give up the walk that you English girls so dearly love!” cried Mam'zelle, who thought that all walks were an extremely silly invention. “Yes. I can take you then. I will tell Miss Parker. You are a good girl. Daphne. I am pleased with you!”

“Thank you, Mam'zelle.” said Daphne, delighted, and gave Mam'zelle a ravishing smile as she went triumphantly out of the room.

Miss Parker was surprised and annoyed when she heard that Daphne was not to go with the class on their long walk. She looked crossly at Mam'zelle.

“But why this sudden desire for French on Daphne's pact?” she said. “She's just the type of girl that needs a jolly good long walk—yes, and a muddy one too. Shake some of her airs and graces off her! Give her the extra lesson another time. Mam'zelle.”

But Mam'zelle was obstinate. She did not like Miss Parker, with her big nose. She pursed up her small mouth and shook her head. “I cannot take Daphne any other time. It is good of the girl to give up a nice walk to improve her French.”

Miss Parker made a disbelieving noise that irritated Mam'zelle at once. “She wants to get out of the walk, you know mat perfectly well, Mam'zelle. It's foolish to give her her way like that; Daphne gets her way too easily, and I don't like some of her methods. Too underhand for me!”

Mam'zelle stood up for her favourite, and began to exaggerate. “Miss Parker! If you knew how much that girl wanted to go for her walk! Ah, to splash through the autumn lanes! Ah, to sniff the sea air after being cooped up so long! Daphne has sacrificed her pleasure, and she should be praised for that, not blamed. She will be hard at work with me whilst you are all enjoying yourselves out in the lovely air.”

“Well, she wouldn't take Mam'zelle Rougier in quite so easily as she takes
you
,” said Miss Parker, beginning to lose her temper.
She
sees through her all right!”

Mam'zelle began to bristle. “I will have a word with Mam'zelle Rougier,” she began. I will have two, three, four words. She shall not say things about Daphne, who is getting so much better at French!”

“Let's drop the subject,” said Miss Parker, feeling heartily tired of Daphne. “Go and have it out with Mam'zelle Rougier if you like. I don't care! Except that I feel Daphne has got the better of us. I'm glad not to have her with us on the walk, moaning and groaning, dragging her feet along!”

Daphne could not resist telling everyone of the way she had managed to get out of the walk. Gwendoline wished she had been sharp enough to do the same. The others were frankly disgusted with the hypocritical little trick.

“Fancy doing all that just to get out of going for a walk!” said Darrell. “It'll be fun, splashing through the puddles in our Wellingtons. Well—if you
want
to spend the afternoon doing French verbs, good luck to you! That's just like you, somehow, Daphne.”

But, the walk didn't come off after all! The wind blew itself into a gale, and Miss Parker decided that it must be put off. The girls were just putting on their macs and Wellingtons when she came to the cloakroom to tell them. Daphne had already taken her French book to Mam'zelle.

“Girls! I'm sorry! But the wind has become a perfect gale!” said Miss Parker, appearing suddenly in the cloakroom. “The walk is off. But to make up, we'll all go into the gym and have an afternoon of riotous games, shall we? And I'll get Matron to let us have a picnic tea in mere, to make a change, if some of you will carry the stuff.”

The girls cheered. An afternoon of jolly games -racing round, competing with one another, laughing, yelling—and ending up with a picnic tea on the floor. That certainly would be a change.

Matron came up to scratch too—she provided four super chocolate cakes for a treat, as well as two pots of golden honey. The girls were thrilled.

“What about Daphne. Miss Parker?”“ said Mary-Lou, remembering that Daphne was with Mam'zelle. “Shall I go and fetch her?”

“Idiot!” said Alicia, under her breath. “Fancy reminding Miss Parker about Daphne! Serve her right to miss all this! I'll tell Mary-Lou what I think of her in a. minute!”

Miss Parker looked down at Mary-Lou's anxious face, and wondered for the twentieth time why Mary-Lou bothered about Daphne when she had Darrell and Sally for friends.

“Oh. Mary-Lou, no, you mustn't disturb Daphne!” said Miss Parker, clearly, so that all the listening girls heard quite well. “She badly wanted to have this extra coaching, Mam'zelle tells me, and was quite willing to forgo the walk. She would be willing to forgo the games and picnic too. I am sure. We mustn't disturb her. When a girl shows herself to be as studious as that it would be a pity to spoil it all.”

Mary-Lou was the only one who did not see the sly humour of Miss Parker's words. The others did immediately, and a roar of laughter broke out Miss Parker smiled too.

“Sucks for Daphne!” said Alicia. “Serves her jolly well right!”

They had a gay and riotous afternoon, and got thoroughly tired and dusty. Then they sat down to an enormous tea, demolishing bread and butter and honey and the four chocolate cakes in no time.

Daphne appeared just as the last piece of cake was eaten. She had had an extremely boring afternoon, for Mam'zelle Dupont had taken her at her word and had given her some very, very thorough coaching in the French verbs. She had made poor Daphne repeat them after her scores of times, she had corrected her pronunciation conscientiously, she had even made her write them out.

Daphne wished heartily she had never suggested such a thing. She had thought that she would have had a nice cosy time with Mam'zelle talking about herself. But although Mam'zelle was fond of Daphne and quite taken in by her, she was determined to do her duty as regards coaching the girl. So she kept poor Daphne's nose to the grindstone, and when Daphne faintly protested, saying that she thought she had bothered Mam'zelle enough and the girls would be back from their walk now, surely, Mam'zelle pooh-poohed the idea at once.

“We shall hear the girls come back,” she said, not knowing that they had never gone out “As soon as we hear them, you shall go down and join them,
ma petite
, and you will enjoy your tea, I am sure. A good conscience makes us enjoy our food well.”