Part 14 (1/2)
”I'm most awfully sorry, Jack,” she said miserably. ”If only my beastly pocket hadn't burst it would have been all right! I always seem to be getting you into trouble! I am such a stupid a.s.s over things!”
”Oh, that's all right,” said Jack, trying to be magnanimous, although she could not help agreeing with Gerry about her stupidity. Gerry certainly seemed an expert at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.
”You couldn't help your pocket bursting, of course.”
But in spite of her words, Gerry could not help feeling that both her companions blamed her a little for the unfortunate accident--Nita more so, perhaps, than Jack. It would have been some consolation if she had been allowed to share fully in the punishment, but Jack, with that scrupulous honesty of hers, had effectually prevented her from doing that. Gerry would gladly have done the lines for all three of them, but that, of course, was impossible, and she could only bear her own share of the burden laid upon them.
The organ recital was over by the time the three reached the Lower Fifth sitting-room again, and the members of the form had returned to their usual Sunday evening occupations. Grumbling greatly at their affliction, Jack and Nita got out their pens and paper and made a beginning at their punishment task, for they knew that it would be all that they could do to get the lines finished by the required time. The rest of the Lower Fifth listened sympathetically to their tale of woe, and many were the censures upon the new mistress for her unsportsman-like manner of dealing with the affair.
”Of course she ought to have lectured you herself, and let you off with a conduct mark at most,” exclaimed Dorothy Pemberton. ”Fancy taking you up to the Head for a little thing like that!”
”But what a silly a.s.s you must have been, Gerry Wilmott, to go letting them drop just when she was going away,” said Phyllis Tressider.
Phyllis still bore a grudge against Gerry because of the rowing the head girl had given her on Gerry's behalf, and she had acquiesced very unwillingly into taking the new girl into favour.
”I couldn't help it, my pocket burst,” said Gerry. And Jack, although she herself blamed Gerry a little for the accident, hastened to take her part.
”Shut up, Phyllis, and leave Gerry alone. It wasn't her fault. It was that beast of a Miss Burton! Never mind, though, we'll be revenged upon her to-morrow. Won't she be wild when she finds that we've none of us done a single stroke of the work she set!”
”She'll report us to Miss Oakley, right away--you see if she doesn't,”
prophesied Hilda Burns gloomily. ”If she'll report a little thing like roasting chestnuts, she's sure to take a big matter like refusing to do our work up to the Head, too. We're in for an awful time, in my opinion. I think we were a.s.ses to have done it. It would have been better to have got even with her in some safer way.”
”Well, it's too late now to begin repenting about it,” said Jack cheerfully. ”And, anyway, we're all in it together, whatever happens.”
And then she and Nita and Gerry settled down to their punishment lines.
CHAPTER XV
THE LOWER FIFTH IS MUTE
The first lesson on Monday morning was with Miss Latham. The Lower Fifth, by way of marking the contrast, or perhaps in order to soothe their guilty consciences, had given extra attention to their preparation for the English mistress, and matters progressed swimmingly in consequence. Miss Latham dealt out good marks lavishly. Then, with a word of praise for the careful manner in which the form had prepared its work, she made way for Miss Burton.
It was the German lesson first.
”Let me see--I set an essay for your preparation, didn't I?” began the new mistress briskly. ”Hilda Burns, you are head of this form, kindly collect the papers and bring them to me.”
Hilda rose from her desk, then hesitated, while her eye swept round the cla.s.sroom. Every member of the form sat rigidly at attention, while every desk was bare of essay papers. With a little gasp of nervousness, Hilda endeavoured to break the news of the Lower Fifth's unpreparedness for the lesson.
”If you please, Miss Burton, I don't think there are any essays to be given in.”
Miss Burton stared at her in undisguised amazement.
”No essays? What do you mean, child? Do you mean to tell me that n.o.body in the whole form has had time to do their preparation?”
”I--I don't think there are any essays done,” evaded Hilda.
Miss Burton continued to stare at the head of her form for a moment or two. Then a grim expression came over her face and she turned to the other girls.
”Hands up, please, those of you who have done the essay that I set,”
she commanded.
Not a hand was raised. The whole form sat in rigid stillness; and the mistress put her question in a slightly different form.