Schoolgirl allies

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER page

I We Arrive ii

II Disillusions 21

Chapter I

♦‘X SNT it horrid! So big and cold — and fright- I fully clean ! my sister Tad leaned over my shoulder to confide in a shivery whisper.

“IPs lovely!’" I shivered back. “Just what it ought to be ! I’m delighted ! ”

Just how we two American girls, Adelaide Louise Monroe and myself, Sherida Anne Monroe, happened at that moment to be seated in the drawing-room of a young ladies’ boarding-school of Brussels in Belgium, is a story long enough and important enough of itself to make a whole book.

I think this is a good place to explain that Tad’s nickname had grown up with her as her own infantile contraction of Adelaide, and that my real name was Sheridan, so called in compliment to a doting old great-uncle who little suspected how unhappy I was to

II be burdened with so ridiculous a name, which, upon reaching the age of reason, I promptly feminized to “ Sherida/' But my friends called me Sherry, and Sherry I expect I shall be to the end of my days.

Tad and I were wild to go to a foreign boarding-school. Merely to put one's foot upon the shores of Europe was a glorious distinction, but to go there to boarding-school was Paradise.

Why, Edna Bassett, a girl of Miss Percival's where Tad and I were day pupils, spent six weeks in Italy, and when she came back she said our head music master, who had been a pupil of Liszt's, was awfully out of date, and boldly declared that Americans didn't know the A B C of art.

And another girl, whom we had never considered anybody, returned after traveling three months on the Continent, so transformed that she immediately became the most important girl in the whole school. The clothes this girl wore, the perfumes she used, the way she twisted her hair in imitation of a French count's daughter she met at a watering-place, w^ere all of entrancing interest to me as being permeated with the atmosphere of Europe; and an old penholder she gave me, though the end was chewed to shreds and the tip corroded with ink, I prized as a thing of glory because it had come from abroad.

But when Connie Clyde, my best friend, came home after spending one term in a Parisian convent, speaking broken English, and calling herself Constance (accent hard on last syllable) Tad and I both felt it impossible to go on another day with our humdrum old life at Miss Percival’s.

Then came a glorious piece of good luck. Mademoiselle Eugenie Touchard, teacher of classical literature at Miss Percival’s, announced that the failing health of a widowed sister-in-law, who was directress of a fashionable pensionnat de demoiselles in the city of Brussels, had called her home to take charge of the school.

This golden opportunity for Tad and me to enjoy a year of polishing off in a distinguished foreign school was eagerly pounced upon by our delighted mother and highly endorsed by Mademoiselle Touchard, who took us in charge and with a conscientiousness out of all proportion to our appreciation of it, made our trip one long reel of instructive information up to the very moment of landing us within the enchanted portals of the Pensionnat Van Pelt.

Barely ten minutes had elapsed since we had pulled the clanging door-bell of the large white building that with its brick-walled garden spread the length of one side of a solemn white square; and the wooden-shod maid-servant, who had led us through a vaulted vestibule, across a marble corridor of tinted walls and gilded doors, up a shining red-carpeted stairway, and reverently ushered us into the stately drawing-room we then occupied, had just left us with the respectful explanation that madame la directrice had gone with her pupils on their noon walk, but would soon return.

Tad and I, pending this critical moment, studied our strange surroundings with eager interest. The room, which was an imposing square with a dreadfully high ceiling, was far different from our idea of what the drawing-room of a fashionable boarding-school should be.

A thin red drugget covered the center of the polished floor, and the ponderous casement-windows of figured glass through which one could see neither in nor out, were shadeless and shone with the pale glitter of sheet ice. The straight-legged chairs and stiff-backed sofas were upholstered in a cold and slippery leather of a murky red, and the wall-paper was of a chilly gray, marked off in panelings of a darker shade in which were set brass sconces holding wax candles.

Facing us a pair of window-doors opened upon a marble terrace from which sloped a garden full of trees and birds and sunshine, and from where I sat I glimpsed winding pathways, a summer-house, and beyond, a stone wall — all buried in masses of foliage just turning to the loveliest shades of red and yellow and brown.

This is a most interesting old house, young ladies,” Mademoiselle Touchard proceeded to enlighten us.

It was built nearly three hundred years ago by one of the great burgomasters of the city and is to-day practically unchanged. The garden is the same, and some of the attics and cellars have never been thoroughly explored.’'

Could anything be more thrillingly romantic than this?

The stillness surrounding us was so deep and prolonged that one could almost hear the fall of the leaves softly fluttering to the marble terrace outside, and Tad and I were becoming restless under the strain, when a sharp clang of the big front-door bell gave our nerves a painful jog.

They were still unpleasantly tingling when the door of the room opened and in walked two ladies in street costume (mother and daughter, no doubt), who passed us with polite bows to seat themselves near a window overlooking the garden.

The older lady, who was not at all old, was a magnificent blonde whose pink and white face, fashionably framed in pale yellow hair, was entrancingly beautiful, and whose rich toilet of sables and velvet gave her the air of a queen. The girl, who looked every bit of eighteen, was tall and slender, with a thin dark face, very dark eyes, pathetic in their expression of sadness, and the proudest mouth I ever saw — almost scornful in the unsmiling droop of its short upper lip.

She was dressed in simple black, with nothing to detract from its somberness save a long curling plume i6 drooping from her small velvet turban, and a bunch of pale violets thrust in the bosom of her rough walking-jacket. But she was an aristocrat from the crown of her nobly poised head to the sole of her delicately arched foot, and I longed to know her with an eagerness that surprised even myself.

They were plainly visitors, awaiting like ourselves the arrival of the directress, and the restless impatience of the mother at the delay showed itself in a faint scowling of her large blue eyes, a nervous tapping of her dainty shoe-tip, and the frequent consulting of a jeweled watch that nestled among her scented furs.

The girl, meanwhile, sat motionless before the long window with her dark eyes fixed in mournful contemplation of the quiet old garden. The haunting sadness of those eyes awoke in me deepest interest and pity, and while planning, should this girl be or become a pupil, to make her my friend and know her trouble, I saw the mother, with an imperative Viens! to the daughter, presently arise to depart.

As they repassed us on their way out, Mademoiselle Touchard politely offered the information, ‘‘Madame la dir ec trice sera bi entot de retoiirf*

“ We will return,’Hhe mother replied without pause in her hurried exit, but the daughter, f6llowing at a slower pace, received the courtesy with an acknowledging inclination, and as she did so, our glances met. It was only a flash — keen interest on my side, startled surprise on hers. But it was recognition.

Scarce five minutes after their departure a violent jangling of the door-bell went crashing through the house, and Tad, who, daring creature that she was, had been entertaining herself at one of the big front windows by peering between the intricacies of the figured glass, gestured frantically to me to come over quick.

I darted to her side, and, gluing my eye to the spot at which in her zeal she had banged my head, I found myself looking down upon a long line of black-robed girls who, in soldierly order of two by two, stood waiting on the sidewalk.

I was greatly impressed by the appearance of these girls, the sober uniformity of whose black dresses, jackets, and little round felt hats, made our rich velvettrimmed costumes suddenly seem garish and out of place, and in a sort of terror I noticed how beautifully these girls held themselves, how serious they were, how silent.

Then the long line moved slowly forward, and Tad and I hurried back to the sofa beside Mademoiselle Touchard to await the moment so long desired, yet so dreaded.

We heard the swift rush of many feet, the subdued hum of many voices, the closing of distant doors, the clanging of distant bells. Then came a sudden quieti8 ness, during which a wing of the shining-white door Tad and I sat expectantly watching was softly opened, and a figure tall, slender, black-robed, with a sweet pale face framed in bands of dark wavy hair, came into the room. With joyful cries of ‘‘ Marie! Eugenie ! ” she and Mademoiselle Touchard rushed into each other’s arms.

Madame Van Pelt welcomed Tad and me smilingly, kissed us upon each cheek, and in charmingly halting English said that she knew we should become pupils to do her honor, and that she had two other cheres demoiselles americaines in the school who, she was sure, would be most happy to make of us the acquaintance.”

Greatly cheered by this agreeable information. Tad and I followed down the beautiful red-carpeted stairway to a snug little apartment opening off the grand corridor of marble and gilt. Here in this pleasant room hung with stiff yellow brocade, where a grate fire crackled softly and cast tiny reflections of itself in the gilded chairs and polished floor, we removed our wraps and presently were served with a delightful little luncheon of hot chocolate, crisp rolls, a savory omelette, and, for dessert, little buttery, sugary, crisscross wafers so scrumptiously good that Tad jogged me under the table to whisper, to my terror lest she be overheard, ‘‘Aren’t they just the jolliest!”

During the luncheon Madame Van Pelt asked in a friendly way if the demoiselles spoke French, and as she was looking directly at me when she put the question, and the fishy green eyes of Mademoiselle Touchard were fixed upon me with expectant severity, I hurriedly responded with an embarrassed, ''' Un petit, madame/'

The moment I had spoken I knew that I should have said Un pen/' and though Madame Van Pelt, with a kindly pat and laugh, made light of my stammering correction. Mademoiselle Touchard shook her ugly red head at me with a gravity that overwhelmed me with humiliation and entirely took away my appetite for more g alettes which the kind directrice was pressing upon me.

After luncheon. Mademoiselle Touchard suggested that Tad and I might be glad to meet our schoolmates, so Madame Van Pelt, affectionately clasping a hand of each, led us away into the white-and-gold corridor.

Here our trunks were standing, disfiguring blots upon the pavement of black-and-white marble, and upon sight of them Madame Van Pelt, who had been regarding us in a puzzled sort of way, motioned to us to remain where we were, and, pushing open a heavy swing-door that creaked protestingly on stiff hinges, disappeared.

Alone for the first time since we had left home, Tad and I felt woefully desolate and forsaken. The sight of the trunks about which clustered tenderest memories of all that we had left, the strains floating to us of a Chopin nocturne much practised at Miss Percival’s, and, above all, the despairing reflection that we were in Europe, thousands of miles from those we loved, imprisoned for a long year in a foreign boarding-school, swept over us with crushing force.

What did we do? Lift our voices in a song of rejoicing that we at last had landed at the summit of our desires? Alas, no! We plumped ourselves down on top of the biggest trunk, brought forth our handkerchiefs, buried our faces in their crumply folds — and wept!

Chapter II

F ootsteps approaching caused Tad and me to hurriedly mop our eyes and stuff our handkerchiefs into our pockets, and barely had we done this when again the swing-door protestingly squeaked and Madame Van Pelt reappeared, accompanied by two tall, slim girls stylishly dressed in black.

** Vos compatriotes! I leave you to make of yourselfs the acquaintance,” was madame's brief introduction as she hastened away.

“ Our name is Gardner. My venerable sister here, who has passed by eighteen months the spot ‘ where the brook and river meet,' is Elizabeth. I am Katherine, the baby of the family, aged sixteen years, three months, and five days. We're from New York City. Are you? '' was the lively speech of the taller of the two girls, a handsome brunette with a brilliant complexion.

We replied that we came from a city farther west than New York, and after telling our names and giving a few essential details of family history, we all became the best of friends.

** Oh, we’re so glad you’re Americans ! We’ve been the only Americans in the school for so long that it’s just splendid to have somebody from our own country to keep us company ! ” announced the starry-eyed Elizabeth, who, while possessing none of her sister’s dash and sparkle, was by far the loveliest creature I had ever seen.

** Oh, girls, girls, what wouldn’t I give to see dear old America again! You don’t know how I’m longing for a good old-fashioned dish of pork and beans with Boston brown bread smoking hot ! ” Katherine yearningly cried.

“ Buckwheat cakes and country sausage ! ” Elizabeth murmured with a rapturous uplifting of her soulful eyes.

“ Codfish balls and boiled potatoes I ” Katherine sighed.

‘‘ Molasses peppermints and peanut taf — ” Elizabeth began, to be cut short by an energetic shove of the swing-door that gave entrance to an individual whom the two Gardners greeted with a dismayed, ‘‘Old Prowler!”

“ Otherwise known as Mademoiselle Julie, the housekeeper! She’s come to attend to the unpacking of your trunks ! ” Katherine explained.

The housekeeper was squat of figure, with a sallow complexion, poppy black eyes, and oily black hair piled in a braided cushion on top of her head and surmounted by a huge black-ribbon bow whose stiff ends bristled unpleasantly about her ears. A black bombazine dress, white crocheted collar fastened with a hair brooch, and gold earrings with long tasseled pendants, completed a costume of unbecoming simplicity.

The housekeeper appeared to be a most unamiable person, full of fussy activity, and when, in compliance with a request which the Gardners advised us to obey, • Tad and I handed over to her our keys, she proceeded to open our trunks and overturn the contents with a coolness that we found perfectly maddening. Every smallest object was taken out, felt of, and peered into, until the marble pavement was littered with our properties.

She’s searching for sweetmeats, jewelry, novels, and like pernicious objects liable to contaminate the health or the morals of the young ladies of the Pensionnat Van Pelt,” said Katherine, who appeared to be hugely entertained by the discomfiture of Tad and me.

“ But what’s the matter with those books ? ” I hotly asked, pointing to my Bible and hymnal, laid aside during this separation of the sheep from the goats.

** All Greek to our dear Julie, who doesn’t know English from Chinese,” laughed Katherine, whose nonsense the gentle Elizabeth interrupted with a soothing :

‘‘ You’ll get everything back when you leave. Old Prowler is only doing her duty.”

‘‘ My private journal with all my secret thoughts ! ”

Tad howled with a frantic clutch toward a bulky volume of red morocco tied with blue ribbon, which Mademoiselle Julie was guarding with a careful eye.

Connie Clyde's letters, full of confidential things," I wailed at sight of a large box containing the effusions of my chum during her sojourn in the Parisian convent — which display of agitation on my part caused the precious box to be placed immediately in quarantine with the goats.

‘‘ What a pity, girls, that you brought such heaps of elegant dresses ! " Katherine bemoaned, glancing toward the great stack of browns and crimsons and blues that encumbered the floor. ‘‘ You know the rule here is black all the year round."

‘‘ Mademoiselle Touchard took care that we should know all about the black uniform," Tad snapped with spiteful emphasis. ** We’re not going to escape."

‘‘ Girls I " here ejaculated Katherine, to whom the housekeeper had been jabbering words impossible of comprehension. (The French these people spoke and the French I had learned at school didn’t seem the same language. ) ** Old Prowler says we’re to help

you carry your things to the attic and she’ll follow to find you closet room."

As Mademoiselle Julie waddled off with her stuff apron bulging with spoils, Elizabeth and Katherine began heaping their arms with clothing and calling to Tad and me to do the same.

** You mustn’t look for luxuries like elevators in a foreign boarding-school or a foreign anything/' Katherine merrily informed us. Our method here of handling baggage is to be recommended for keeping the blood in circulation ; you carry your own things upstairs, and the more you carry at once the less trips you’ll have to make.”

Tad and I, in much disgust, loaded ourselves to the ears, and had just turned to pursue our weary way up the shining red-carpeted stairs, when we were startled by Elizabeth and Katherine calling to us in an agitated duo: ‘‘Girls! Girls!’ You mustn’t go up those stairs ! ”

“ Why, that’s the way we went up this morning! ” I retorted round the corner of a hat-box that was piercing my mouth.

“ Oh, this morning you were visitors and now you’re pupils ! ” was Katherine’s illuminating reply.

Then, as we gingerly backed our way down the few steps we had mounted, she held open the creaking swing-door, and with a grandiose air of mockery proclaimed : “ Henceforth this domain of marble and

gilt knows you no more on a footing of equality. Pass on into the scholastic regions where the young ladies of the Pensionnat Van Pelt ‘ live and move and have their being.’ ”

The squeaking door swung to behind us — giving me a smart whack on the back for not moving faster — and Tad and I found ourselves in a narrow passageway whose calcimined walls of white-gray were smudged with finger-marks and crisscrossed with penciled names. The wooden floor was worn to the slippery hardness of stone, and the atmosphere of the dingy place was close with a strange sour, soupy smell, which the Gardners said was foreign stew, and which from that day forth has remained in my mind as the characteristic odor of a foreign boarding-school.

Ragout de hoeuf d la sauce aigre is served here three times a week, so you won’t miss your share of the delectable compound,” Elizabeth mischievously observed.

Katherine, who was in advance, pushed open a door to one side of the tiny passageway and ushered us down a step into a big barracks of a place lined with long tables varnished a shiny wood-red.

The refectoire where three times daily we congregate to feed on fare that is filling and, alas, too often unbecomingly fattening,” Katherine announced with a gesture as sweeping as her burdened arms would permit.

At the extreme end of the big room a girl, dressed like the Gardners in simple black, sat at a piano practising difficult finger-exercises with the most fascinating agility. She stood up when we entered, and, as we passed her, faced about and made us the most beautiful bow — not an offhand bob of the head, but a slow, deep inclination from the waist, such as a Sir Walter Raleigh might make to a Queen Elizabeth.

She was an unusually pretty girl. Her face, which was childishly full with a pretty touch of prominence about the cheek-bones, was pink and white as a flower, and her shining braids of golden-blonde hair were coiled becomingly round her head, Greek fashion. And so extremely polite was this young lady that she remained standing with modestly lowered eyelids until we passed out of the room and closed the door upon her.

“ Rather an overpowering salutation to the likes of us,'* I sighed in relief when out of hearing.

“ The foreigners always bow in that grand way to strangers, and it's one of the first things you'll have to learn to do here," Katherine informed us.

“ Claire de Miron has especially beautiful manners," Elizabeth remarked, her dark eyes glowing softly as she spoke. “ I'm sorry I couldn't introduce you to her, but it's against the rules to disturb a pupil at practice. Don't you think Claire lovely ? "

“ Elizabeth thinks there's nobody like Claire de Miron, though she's a whole year younger and is only in the second class," Katherine observed with a teasing glance at her sister.

‘‘ Claire's not exactly a whole year younger, Kitty, and she's the best pupil in the school. She's had the prize for application two years now, and you know it's no small thing to get that here,” Elizabeth gently retorted, with the loveliest crimson flaming her tender cheek.

“ And more than that, Qaire plays the piano better than anybody else in the whole school,” Elizabeth added with a pretty little air of defiance.

“ Oh, come now, Bess, that's going a little too far when you play so beautifully yourself,” was Katherine's reproachful rejoinder, which sisterly partiality Elizabeth received with a quiet smile.

The refectoire opened into a small stone-paved carrS, with to one side a spindly stairway rising flight after flight. Up this steep and slender spiral Tad and I were invited to climb, and, as with our weary loads we stood propped against the railing of the third landing, pantingly to regain our breath, we were startled by the noisy bumping of some heavy object coming up the spiral stairs.

“ Only one of your empty trunks being carried up by the maids,” the Gardners said, leaning to look over the slender balustrade.

Tad and I looked, too, and were highly amused to see two strapping, wooden-shod peasant girls giggling hysterically in their efforts to force a big Saratoga up the narrow stairway. Mademoiselle Julie, jingling and puffing, clumped after, and soon had the lot of us busily at work in the attic.

The attic was a big, clean, airy place lined with roomy closets where the girls kept their clothes, and the Gardners led us to a little round window in the gable through which Tad and I peered wonderingly down upon the white paving-stones of the quiet square below, and over across the queer-shaped roofs and fantastic chimney-pots of the city so strange to us.

The fussy Mademoiselle Julie had considerable difficulty in making our elaborate American outfit hang and fold with the trimness of the foreigners' unadorned belongings. But at last satisfied, she bundled us out of the attic, locked the door with an enormous brass key, and waddled off to delights elsewhere.

Elizabeth and Katherine, who had been given a partial holiday to look after us, then brought us down into what they called the “ dormitory of the English."

The dormitory of the English was a long, narrow apartment lighted at the end by a broad casement-window and rows of smaller windows set high along the two side walls. These side walls were partitioned off into small curtained inclosures called by the Gardners chambrettes. Each one contained a tiny white bed, a washstand, and a low rush-bottom stool.

“These chambrettes are certain to be yours," the Gardners announced, as they discovered, side by side, two of these curtained inclosures containing unmade beds. “ All the etrangires sleep in the dortoir des Anglaises”

“If you sleep here you'll be next to two of the nicest girls in the school, Ailsie Dunmire and Pat Mack,” the comforting Elizabeth said in her gentle voice.

‘‘ Ailsie is the niece of a great Scottish earl, and Pat Mack, whose real name is Patricia Margaret Mc- Dermott, is an Irish girl with the darlingest brogue,” Elizabeth further explained.

“ Well, whoever you’re next to, be thankful it’s not Suky Sikes ! ” Katherine announced.

“ Suky Sikes! What a name! Who is she?” Tad and I exclaimed.

‘‘ She’s an English girl — a character ! One is -never quite sure whether she’s silly or just odd. You won’t be long in knowing Suky Sikes ! ” Elizabeth and Katherine laughed.

‘‘ Where did she get her queer name ? ” I asked.

Her real name is Susannah Uranice Katherine Yolande,” Katherine explained. “ But when she first came here a little girl, in her silly way she wouldn’t tell her name but just signed herself initials — S.U.K.Y. So the girls called her Suky and she’s gone by that name ever since.”

** Poor old Suke ! She’s to be pitied ! ” Elizabeth said in her kindly way. “ She never goes home, nobody ever comes to see her, and she never gets letters or hampers like the other girls. All we know about her is that she’s an orphan and is taken care of by an old bachelor uncle.”

Down the center length of the dormitory of the English ran the funniest toilet-table. It had tall, thin legs shapeless as broomsticks ; its top of stone, mottled red and white, resembled exactly a huge slice of bologna sausage, and upon this polished slab sat, for all the world like a lot of squatting pigeons, a long row of chunky little white pitchers and basins.

The back of this odd table was as high as a fence, and was hung with small looking-glasses hideously framed in black papier-mache.

Each one of these reflectors was a horror worse than the other. Some were dim, as though breathed upon by a pernicious mist. Some were little better than bits of blurred tin. Some reflected light with the nauseating effect of quivering sea- water. Some were seamed and blotched, as though with a blighting eruption. One was a sunburst of fractures, as if it had been viciously struck — probably with the back of a hair-brush in some indignant hand. And all distorted the countenance out of all resemblance to humanity. The tints, too, of these awful things added to the nightmarish effect. Ghastly whites, weird blues, spooky greens, and sickly yellows were the hues to choose from.

“ They're not so bad when you get used to them," said Elizabeth, who, with a comb filched from the toilet-box of an English girl, was calmly fluffing her front hair before a reflector that gave her a complexion of mottled tan, two noses at different angles, a row of tusk-like greenish-hued teeth, and a pair of dreadfully crossed eyes.

Tad, whose tip-tilted nose was the bane of her existence, found a glass that showed her nasal appendage as of most distinguished length. True, her rosy complexion was reflected as a purplish pink, one side of her round face was grotesquely twisted, and her forehead terminated in a horn capped with one villainous eye. But, for the sake of what my sister called compensating effects, she was charmed.

Oh, girls, while I think of it,’^ the bright voice of Katherine here interrupted, ‘‘when you come upstairs at bedtime be sure you each grab a pitcher and basin to carry into your chambrette for safe-keeping.”

“If you don’t you’ll find no water to wash with in the morning, unless you want to go down three flights to the courtyard to get it. No joke this weather — burr-r-r-rrr ! ” Elizabeth shuddered.

Grab! Did these aristocratic foreign girls, whose manners Tad and I had come all the way from America to imitate, grab for anything? Why, even Tad, who was not distinguished for polish of deportment, was shocked.

But both Elizabeth and Katherine assured us that grabbing was our only protection against imposition, and with kindly forethought they placed two sets of the fullest jugs where Tad and I could take them with ease on our way to our chambrettes at bedtime.

Our inspection of the dormitory over, Elizabeth and Katherine suggested seating ourselves on one of the empty beds, where, with a box of molasses peppermints unearthed from a handbag, we four Americans in a foreign boarding-school settled down for a cozy chat.

If we’d known that you didn’t have such things in this country, we’d have brought you stacks,” Tad and I said in response to the Gardners’ information that chewing-gum, peanuts, and popcorn were unknown in this foreign land.

‘‘ We’ve learned to do without a great many things that were dear to us,” Elizabeth sighed with an emotion that made her beautiful fawn-like eyes seem brimming with tears.

“ Do you have much fun here ? ” was my first leading question.