Chapter V: Rules

“Are they ‘cooked all wrong, or cold, or anything?’” asked Josy mischievously from Gretta’s right-hand side.

“No, they’re very nice,” said her table-companion, determined not to show she minded being teased. “Margot”--turning to her cousin, who sat eating bread-and-butter, and wearing an unusually solemn expression--“how do you like everything? What girls have you talked to?”

“I’m not so sure that I like it at all,” said Margot decidedly, looking very pink, and setting her chin rather obstinately. “I’ve been talking to a girl called Stella, and it seems as though we’re simply going to be cooped up! Sitting in lines, you know, and doing everything at the proper time! It doesn’t seem----”

“Oh, but Margot!” exclaimed Gretta, thankful that the buzz of talk was rendering it impossible for their conversation to be overheard; “it’s only school ways, you know. Everyone else likes it. If you look at them you can see they do, and there’s such a nice girl next me. Her name’s Josy, and----”

“Yes, do tell your cousin to look at me,” declared the said Josy, stretching a friendly fist across, and firmly shaking Margot by the hand. “I’m head of your dormer, you know, and you’ll have to do as you’re told. Has anyone asked you if you like scrambled eggs?”

“I’ve eaten them, so it’s pretty plain,” replied Margot, a little huffily perhaps, for the first part of Josy’s speech had not served to smooth her ruffled feathers. “I can make better ones myself, though; not so squashy, and with more butter on the toast!”

Josy gave a squeak of joy. “I say!” she said delightedly; “I wish you’d teach _me_! Where did you learn?”

“I learned in Australia, of course,” answered Margot. “My mother taught me; it’s perfectly easy. Look here, if you don’t mind, when does the post go? I’ve finished my tea, and it’s frightfully important that I should send a letter home. It must reach York by----”

“Oh, but you can’t write this evening,” said Josy, rather taken aback by Margot’s decisive tones; “you’ve nothing unpacked, have you? Besides, we write our letters on Sunday; it’s the day for it.”

“But that’s not the same,” persisted Margot. “My mother will expect to hear from me, and----” Her speech was cut short by the sudden rising of the house-mistress. Nurse and the girls at both tables followed suit, and when grace was said those nearest the door commenced to file out of the room in the same orderly and silent way as they had entered.

“Ask Miss Read, Margot!” suggested Gretta. “She’ll tell you if you may!”

“I’m not going to ‘ask’ about such a thing,” said Margot in high dudgeon; “as though I can’t write a letter to my mother, indeed! I’m going straight to that dormitory-place to see if my boxes have gone up. Anyhow, I’ve a post card in my bag; that’ll be better than nothing!” She turned on her heel as she spoke, and ran up the stairs while Gretta looked uneasily after her.

“Come back, you new child!--Margot Fleming, isn’t it?” called the head girl from the tail of the procession, as she caught sight of the flying figure. “It’s against the rules to go to the dormitories now!”

“I don’t believe in rules,” said Margot, turning and speaking emphatically from the top stair, “about silly things like that, I mean. I’m going for a post card, and I’ve simply got to have it.” She turned again, and resumed her upward journey.

“But you don’t mean to say you won’t let me write to mother!” she exclaimed three minutes later--standing with flaming cheeks, a post card clutched in her hand--to Miss Read, who had followed her upstairs, and now gazed at the independent twelve-year-old with a face of undisguised surprise; “because, if so----”

“The school rule is that letters are written home on Sundays,” said the house-mistress. “You have come here to obey the rules, haven’t you? But, unfortunately, you have broken several of them already--mostly without knowing it, of course--and now you want to break _this_ one.”

“I don’t want to break rules,” said Margot passionately, “but I want to keep my promise.”

“And that was----?” asked Miss Read slowly.

“I said to mother as the train was starting, ‘I’m going to write to-night,’ so I must do it. What’s the _sense_ of making a rule like this one of yours; there doesn’t seem any reason!”

“I can quite see that you don’t understand the reason,” said Miss Read, speaking very quietly, “but I’ll try to explain things if you will listen. There are twenty-four boarders here, and if I gave leave to _one_ of them to write a letter, I must naturally give leave to _all_, which means that twenty-four girls would need writing material from boxes that are not yet unpacked. Writing materials are very often at the bottom of people’s trunks, of course, and if twenty-four girls were allowed upstairs to turn over their boxes, and then to leave their trunks again and go down to write letters, what would be the state of the dormitories, and when would the rest of the unpacking and arranging get done?”

“I suppose things _would_ be in a muddle,” said Margot frankly; “but,” with her chin still held high, “mother will expect----”

“I don’t think so,” remarked Miss Read, forestalling her; “because Miss Slater understands very well indeed how the girls’ mothers feel, and she has made arrangements that they should not be anxious. A post card has been sent already to your mother--as to the parents of every one of the girls--to say that you have arrived safely, and that you will all write yourselves on Sunday.”

“Then she _will_ understand!” broke in Margot. “Oh, that’s all right then, but I’d have liked to have written myself.”

“Well”--Miss Read frankly showed her amusement now--“it’s a very good thing, Margot, that the post card was _not_ left to you to send, for the last post went before tea, and any letter sent now would not arrive in York before to-morrow evening.”

“I’m sorry,” said Margot, smiling too. “You don’t mind me not understanding, do you? I’m not used to schools, you see.”

“I don’t see how you _can_ understand the rules all at once, as you’re only twelve, you know,” remarked Miss Read cheerfully, “but we’ll be quite satisfied if you’ll just obey them, and make up your mind that they’ll have to be understood gradually. You’ll find that’s the best way to set to work.”

“All right, I’ll try,” Margot sighed. “How many have I broken already? I’ll do my best; really, I will.”

“Then please remember that in my absence the head girl’s orders must be obeyed--she takes my place, you see--also, one of nurse’s rules is that the dormitories are not to be visited by girls without leave except at certain times. Helen told you that, you’ll remember. It will be to your own interest, you know, to remember these things; a number of people can’t live together without making certain arrangements so that the wheels run smoothly. In schools these arrangements are called ‘rules.’ You’ll get used to things very soon.”

“I feel more used to them now, I think,” said Margot, smiling bravely. “I suppose I’d better go down now, hadn’t I? I hope the girls won’t laugh at me.”

“Well, I don’t think they’re a bit likely to do _that_,” said the house-mistress.

Her words proved true. On Margot’s entry into the sitting-room she found everyone so busy and intent on arranging their valuables from upstairs, where unpacking was in progress, that her reappearance was noticed by no one but Gretta, who, busily leaning over a small drawer, called to her cousin with delight.

“Margot, this is yours; just next mine. We’ve to line them with paper, Helen says, and then when we unpack--our dormitory’s going to begin next--we can bring down anything we like.”

Margot, glad of employment, threw herself into the task with great enthusiasm, and by bedtime, when the unpacking and arranging of her belongings was completed, she had begun to feel her old cheerful self again, and to settle into the ways of the other girls, who seemed so very much at home. When nurse came in, announcing firmly that in another five minutes lights would be turned out and that undressing would then have to be completed in the dark, Gretta trembled lest her cousin should lift a voice in vigorous protest; but Margot merely scrambled busily into bed behind her curtains.

“Oh, may we talk in bed to-night, nurse?” asked the head of the dormitory urgently; “just for a quarter of an hour, because it’s the first night of term! Do, _do_ let us!”

“Well,” said nurse, who, martial though she might be, was not always proof against Josy’s wheedling, “but not a minute longer!” She closed the door as she spoke, and fifteen minutes’ bliss began!

“Let’s take each of the minutes separately!” suggested Stella, a trifle unscrupulously, from her corner of the room.

“No, we won’t; it isn’t fair; you’re wasting a minute by talking about it. I want to ask the new girls all sorts of things while we’re alone, and it’s so ripping talking in bed,” announced Josy. “Do you like feasts, and have you any pocket-money? This is a ripping dormer to be in, you know,” she added ingenuously, “because I’m oldest in it, and there isn’t any really big girl here to order us about!”

“We’re more under _nurse_, though, down here,” corrected Stella, “and the babies are just opposite, so we can’t make much noise.”

“But nurse is a perfect _brick_ at week-ends!” Josy spoke with unction. “She gave us ten minutes to talk in, every Saturday night last term, and didn’t mind the dormer feast a scrap!”

“Do you have feasts? What fun!” exclaimed Margot, sitting up in bed and peeping through her curtains into the darkness. “We’ve got money, haven’t we, Gretta? Shall we have one this term, Stella?”

“Don’t ask _me_!” replied that young woman dejectedly. “_I_ go home for week-ends; we only live five miles away. I’m out of nearly all the fun. I’d rather be an out-and-out boarder; you and Josy and Gretta will have it all your own way. I come in for matches, of course, when we have them, but that’s all. It’s not fair to talk about feasts when I’m here, Josy, when I can’t eat them. Talk about the prize instead.”

“All right,” replied Josy with alacrity.

“What’s _that_?” chorused Gretta and Margot.

“It’s a mystery, so far,” explained the dormitory head with enthusiasm, “but it’s sure to be most awfully thrilling. Mrs. Hope-Scott, a great friend of Miss Slater’s, you know, has offered it--the prize, I mean--to the school.”

“But what for?” inquired Margot eagerly.

“Well, that’s what we don’t know. On the last day of last term Miss Slater told us there _was_ to be one; but she is to tell us more about it on the first day of _this_ term--that’s to-morrow, you know--and we’re all just longing to hear.”

“If it’s for lessons, there’s no chance for _me_,” groaned Stella.

“But if it’s for music, perhaps _Gretta_ might get it,” burst in Margot excitedly. “Mother says----”

“Oh, it won’t be for anything like that, I should think,” said Josy. “It’s a prize, Miss Slater said, that anyone could get; ‘from the oldest to the youngest; age will make no difference, nor intellectual ability,’ that’s exactly what she said. I didn’t know what it meant, and Miss Read told me afterwards--for I asked her--that it means that you needn’t be so awfully clever.”

“New girls might have a chance, then?” ventured Gretta.

“Oh, _rather_,” replied Josy. “That won’t make any difference. Mrs. Hope-Scott had a girl at school here once; Hilda her name was, and she was head girl before I came. She went and trained to be a nurse, and then she died--nursing some poor people with fever, you know--and her mother is giving the prize in remembrance of her. Miss Slater told us all that on the last day of last term, and----”

“Now, not another word in here,” said nurse, opening the door and speaking very emphatically; “off you go to sleep this very instant!”

She shut it again decisively as she uttered the words, and it spoke well for the impression that Miss Read’s speech had left on Margot’s mind that, with a question on the very tip of her tongue, she yet refrained from asking it, and turned on her side to fall asleep almost before the sound of nurse’s footsteps had died away.

The other girls turned and twisted a little and finally fell asleep too; Gretta was the last, and her first dream was of her father, sitting alone with his pipe in the cheerless dining-room at home.