The Rebel of the School by L. T. Meade (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗
- Author: L. T. Meade
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The next morning, quite early, Kathleen was up. She was accustomed to getting up almost at cock-crow at Carrigrohane, and when Alice opened her eyes, it was to see an empty bed and an empty room.
"I wonder if she's up to mischief?" she thought.
She got up and went to the window. Kathleen was walking across the common. She had no hat on, and no jacket. She was stepping along leisurely, looking up sometimes at the sky, and sometimes pausing as though she was thinking hard.
"She will catch cold and be ill; that will be the next trouble," thought the indignant Alice. She sleepily proceeded with her dressing. It was only half-past seven. The Great Shirley School met at nine. Alice was seldom downstairs until past eight. When she came down this morning she saw, to her amazement, Kathleen helping the very untidy maid-of-all-work to lay the breakfast things. She was dashing about, putting plates and cups and saucers anyhow upon the board.
"Now then, Maria," she said, "shall I run down to the kitchen and bring up the hot bacon and the porridge? I will, with a heart and a half. Oh, you poor girl, how tired you look!"
Maria, whom Alice never noticed, looked with adoring eyes at beautiful Kathleen.
"It isn't right, miss. I ought to be doing my own work," she said. "I am ever so much obliged to you, miss."
"Wisha, then, it is I who like to help you," said Kathleen, "for you look fair beat."
She dashed past Alice, and appeared the next moment in the kitchen.
"Where's the bacon, cook? And where's the bread, and where's the butter, and all the rest of the breakfast? See, woman—see! Give me a tray and I will fill it up and take the things upstairs with my own hands. You think it is beneath me, perhaps; but I am a lady from a castle, and at Carrigrohane Castle we often do this sort of thing when the hands of the poor maids are full to overflowing."
The cook, a sandy-haired and sour-looking woman, began by scowling at Kathleen; but soon the girl's pretty face and merry eyes appeased her. She and Kathleen had almost a quarrel as to who was to carry up the tray, but Kathleen won the day; and when Mrs. Tennant made her appearance, feeling tired and overdone, she was amazed to see Kathleen acting parlor-maid.
"I love it," she said. "If I can help you, you dear, tired, worn one, I shall be only too glad."
"I am sure, mother," said Alice, "it is very good of Kathleen to wish to do the household work; but as she has been sent here to gain some information of another sort, do you think it ought to be allowed?"
"And who will prevent it, darling? That is the question," said Kathleen in her softest voice.
Alice was silent.
"I tell you what," said Kathleen. "When I see you beginning to help your poor, exhausted mother, and running messages for that overworked slavey—I think you call her Maria—then perhaps I'll do less. And when there's some one else to mend the boys' socks, perhaps I won't offer; but until there is, the less you say about such things the better, Miss Alice Tennant."
Ben kicked David under the table, and David kicked him back to stay quiet. Altogether the breakfast was a noisy one.
Kathleen went to school quite prepared to carry out her promise to Susy Hopkins. She had neatly packed the little Irish diamond brooch in a box, and had slipped under it a tiny note:
"Get as many foundation girls as you can to meet me, at whatever place you like to appoint, this evening. I have a plan to propose.—Kathleen O'Hara.
"P.S.—You can name the place by pinning a note under my desk. Be sure you all come. The plan is gloryious."
The thought of the note and the plan and the little brooch kept Kathleen in a fairly good humor on her walk to school. There she saw Ruth Craven. She was decidedly angry with Ruth for having, as she said to herself, "snubbed her" the day before. But beauty always had a curious effect on the Irish girl, and when she observed Ruth's really exquisite little face, clear cut as a cameo, with eyes full of expression, and watched the lips ready to break into the gentlest smiles, Kathleen said to herself:
"It is all over with me. She is the only decent-looking colleen I have met in this God-forsaken country. Make up to her I will."
She dashed, therefore, almost rudely through a great mass of incoming girls, and seized Ruth by her shoulder.
"Ruth," she said, "go and talk to Susy Hopkins during recess. She will have something to say, and I want you so badly. You won't refuse me, will you, Ruth?"
"But I don't know what you want," said Ruth.
"Go and talk to Susy Hopkins; she will know. Oh, there she is!"
"Kathleen, Kathleen!" called out Alice. "The school-bell has just rung, and they are opening the doors. Come do come."
"In a jiff," replied Kathleen.
She ran up to Susy.
"This is what I promised," she said; "and there is a note inside. Read it, and give me the answer where I have asked you."
Susy Hopkins, a most ordinary little girl, who had no position of any sort in the school, colored high with delight. Some of the paying girls looked at her in astonishment. Susy walked into the school with her head high in the air; she quite adored Kathleen, for she was making her a person of great distinction.
"We are going to have a glorious time," whispered Susy to Kate Rourke as they made their way to their respective classes.
Susy was small, rather stupid, and absolutely unimportant. Kate was big, black-eyed, impudent. She was jealous of the paying girls of the school; but she treated Susy as some one beneath contempt.
"Don't drag my sleeve," she replied crossly. "And what you do mean by a glorious time? I don't understand you."
"You will presently," said Susy. "And when all is said and done, you will have to remember that you owe it to me. But I have no time to talk now; only meet me, and bring as many of the foundationers as you can collect into the left-hand corner of the playground, just behind the Botanical Laboratory, at recess."
Kate made no answer, unless a toss of her head could have been taken as a reply. Her first impulse was to take no notice of Susy's remarks—little Susy Hopkins, the daughter of a small stationer in the town, a girl who had scarcely scraped through in her examination. It was intolerable that she should put on such airs.
The work of the school began, and all the girls were busy. Kate was clever, and she meant to try for one of the big scholarships. She would get her forty pounds a year when the time came, and go to Holloway College or some other college. She was not a lady by birth; she had not a single instinct of a true lady within her; but she was intensely ambitious. She did not care so much for beauty as for style; she made style her idol. The look that Cassandra wore as she walked quietly across the room, the set of her dress, the still more wonderful set of her head as it was placed on her queenly young shoulders—these were the things that burnt into Kate's soul and made her restless and dissatisfied. She would willingly have given all her father's wealth—and he was quite well-to-do for his class—- to have Cassandra's face, Cassandra's voice, Cassandra's figure. Cassandra was not at all a pretty girl, but her appearance appealed to all the wild ambitions in Kate's soul. She had a jealous contempt of Ruth Craven, who, although a foundation girl, managed to look like a lady; but her envy was centered round Cassandra. As to the Irish girl, she had scarcely noticed her up to the present.
Work went on that morning with much verve and vigor. It was a pleasant morning: the windows were open; the schoolrooms were all well ventilated; the teachers, the best of their kind, were stimulating in their lectures and in their conversation. There was a look of business and animation throughout the whole place: it was like a hive of bees. At last the moment of recess arrived. Kate just raised her head, looked over the shoulders of her companions, and saw Susy Hopkins darting restlessly about, catching one girl by the sleeve, another by the arm, whispering in the ear of a third, flinging her arm round the neck of a fourth; and as she spoke to the girls they looked interested, astonished, and cordial. They moved away to that lonely part of the playground which was situated at the back of the Botanical Laboratory. Kate had made up her mind not to take the least notice of Susy. She was pacing up and down alone; for, most provoking, all her chosen friends had gone off with that young lady. Suddenly she saw Ruth Craven going very quietly by. By all the laws of the foundationers, Ruth ought to speak to her companions in misfortune. Kate rushed up to her.
"What are they all doing there?" she said. "Do you happen to know Susy Hopkins?"
"No," replied Ruth gently. "She came up to me just now and asked me to join her and some other girls at the back of the Laboratory. I don't know that I want to."
"I am curious," said Kate. "Of course, I am no friend of Susy's; she is a most contemptible little wretch; but I may as well know what it is all about. Come with me, won't you?"
Ruth hesitated.
"Come along; we may as well know. There is probably some mischief on foot, and it is only fair that we should be forewarned."
"I don't want to know," said Ruth; but as Kate slipped her hand through her arm and pulled her along, she said resignedly, "Well, if I must I must."
As they strolled across the big playground, Ruth turned and glanced at Cassandra; but Cassandra was busy making friends with Florence, who was very angry with her for her desertion of the day before, and took no notice of Ruth. The Irish girl was nowhere in sight. Ruth sighed and continued her walk with Kate.
The most lonely and most dreary part of the playground was that little portion which was situated at the back of the Laboratory. Nothing grew there; the ground was innocent of grass, and much worn by the tramping of young feet. There were swings and garden-seats and preparations for tennis and other games in the rest of the big playground, but nothing had ever been done at the back of the Laboratory. When the two girls arrived they found five other girls waiting for them. Their names were, of course, Susy Hopkins, who considered herself on this delightful occasion quite the leader; a gentle and refined-looking girl of the name of Mary Rand; Rosy Myers, who was pretty and frivolous, with dark eyes and fair hair; Clara Sawyer, who was renowned for her vulgar taste in dress; and Hannah Johnson, a heavy-looking girl with a scowling brow and a very pronounced jaw. Hannah Johnson was about the plainest girl in the school. When Susy saw Kate Rourke and Ruth Craven she uttered a little scream of delight.
"Now we are complete," she said. "Listen to me, all you girls, for I haven't too long in which to tell you; that horrid bell will ring us back to lessons and dullness in less than no time. The most wonderful, delightful chance is offered to us. I met her yesterday, and she decided to do it. She is a brick of bricks. She will make the most tremendous difference in our lives. You know, although you pretend not to feel it, but you all must know how we foundationers are sat upon and objected to in the school. We bear it as meekly as we can for the sake of our so-called advantages; but if we can be
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