A Patriotic Schoolgirl (WWI Centenary Series). Angela Brazil

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СКАЧАТЬ their extreme newness made them easily recognizable, even without the conspicuous initials.

      “What are we to do?” cried Marjorie. “We’ll miss the London train! I know we shall! Here, Dona, let’s take them ourselves!”

      She seized one of the boxes by the handle, and tried to drag it along the platform, but its weight was prohibitive. After a couple of yards she stopped exhausted.

      “Better leave your luggage and let it follow you,” said a voice at her elbow. “If you want the Euston express, you’ll have to make a run for it.”

      Marjorie turned round quickly. The speaker was the young Tommy who had leaned out of the carriage window when the line was blocked. His dark eyes were still twinkling.

      “The train’s over there, and they’re shutting the doors,” he urged. “Here, I’ll take this for you, if you like. Best hurry up!”

      He had his heavy kit-bag to carry, but he shouldered the girls’ pile of wraps, umbrellas, and hockey-sticks, in addition to his own burden, and set off post-haste along the platform, while Marjorie and Dona, much encumbered with their bags and a few odd parcels, followed in his wake. It was a difficult progress, for everybody seemed to get into their way, and just as they neared the express the guard waved his green flag.

      “Stand back! Stand back!” shouted an official, as the girls made a last wild spurt, the whistle sounded, the guard jumped into the van, and, with a loud clanging of coupling-chains, the train started. They had missed it by exactly five seconds.

      “Hard luck!” said the Tommy, depositing the wraps upon the platform. “You’ll have to wait two hours for the next. You’ll get your luggage, at any rate. Oh, it’s all right!” as Marjorie murmured thanks, “I’m only sorry you’ve missed it,” and he hailed a companion and was gone.

      “It was awfully kind of him,” commented Dona, still panting from her run.

      “Kind! He’s a gentleman—there was no mistaking that!” replied Marjorie.

      The two girls had now to face the very unpleasant fact that they had missed the connection, and that the teacher who was to meet them at Euston would look for them in vain. They wondered whether she would wait for the next train, and, if she did not, how they were going to get across London to the Great Western railway station. Marjorie felt very doubtful as to whether her experience of travelling would be equal to the emergency. She hid her fears, however, from Dona, whose countenance was quite sufficiently woebegone already.

      “We’ll get chocolates out of the automatic machine, and buy something to read at the bookstall,” she suggested. “Two hours won’t last for ever!”

      Dona cheered up a little at the sight of magazines, and picked out a periodical with a soldier upon the cover. Marjorie, whose taste in literature inclined to the sensational, reviewed the books, and chose one with a startling picture depicting a phantom in the act of disturbing a dinner-party. She was too agitated to read more than a few pages of it, but she thought it seemed interesting. The two hours were over at last, and the girls and their luggage were safely installed in the London train by a porter. It was a long journey to Euston. After their early start and the excitement at Rosebury both felt tired, and even Marjorie looked decidedly sober when they reached their destination. Each was wearing the brown-white-and-blue Brackenfield badge, which had been forwarded to them from the school, and by which the mistress was to identify them. As they left the carriage, they glanced anxiously at the coat of each lady who passed them on the platform, to descry a similar rosette. All in vain. Everybody was in a hurry, and nobody sported the Brackenfield colours.

      “We shall have to get a taxi and manage as best we can,” sighed Marjorie. “I wish the porters weren’t so stupid! I can’t make them listen to me. The taxis will all be taken up if we’re not quick! Oh, I say, there’s that Tommy again! I wonder if he’d hail us one. I declare I’ll ask him.”

      “Hail you a taxi? With pleasure!” replied the young soldier, as Marjorie impulsively stopped him and urged her request. “Have you got your luggage this time?”

      “Yes, yes, it’s all here, and we’ve found a porter, only he’s so slow, and——”

      “Are you Marjorie and Dona Anderson?” interrupted a sharp voice. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Who is this you’re speaking to? You don’t know? Then come along with me immediately. No, certainly not! I’ll get a taxi myself. Where is your luggage?”

      The speaker was tall and fair, with light-grey eyes and pince-nez. She wore the unmistakable Brackenfield badge, so her words carried authority. She bustled the girls off in a tremendous hurry, and their good Samaritan of a soldier melted away amongst the crowd.

      “I’ve been waiting hours for you. How did you miss your train?” asked the mistress. “Why didn’t you go and stand under the clock, as you were told in the Head Mistress’s letter? And don’t you know that you must never address strangers?”

      “She’s angry with you for speaking to the Tommy,” whispered Dona to Marjorie, as the pair followed their new guardian.

      “I can’t help it. He would have got us a taxi, and now they’re all gone, and we must put up with a four-wheeler. I couldn’t see any clock, and no wonder we missed her in such a crowd. I think she’s hateful, and I’m not going to like her a scrap.”

      “No more am I,” returned Dona.

      CHAPTER II.

      Brackenfield College

      Brackenfield College stood on the hills, about a mile from the seaside town of Whitecliffe. It had been built for a school, and was large and modern and entirely up-to-date. It had a gymnasium, a library, a studio, a chemical laboratory, a carpentering-shop, a kitchen for cooking-classes, a special block for music and practising-rooms, and a large assembly hall. Outside there were many acres of lawns and playing-fields, a large vegetable garden, and a little wood with a stream running through it. The girls lived in three hostels—for Seniors, Intermediates, and Juniors—known respectively as St. Githa’s, St. Elgiva’s, and St. Ethelberta’s. They met in school and in the playgrounds, but, with a few exceptions, they were not allowed to visit each other’s houses.

      Marjorie and Dona had been separated on their arrival, the former being entered at St. Elgiva’s and the latter at St. Ethelberta’s, and it was not until the afternoon of the day following that they had an opportunity of meeting and comparing notes. To both life had seemed a breathless and confusing whirl of classes, meals, and calisthenic exercises, with a continual ringing of bells and marching from one room to another. It was a comfort at last to have half an hour when they might be allowed to wander about and do as they pleased.

      “Let’s scoot into that little wood,” said Marjorie, seizing Dona by the arm. “It looks quiet, and we can sit down and talk. Well, how are you getting on? D’you like it so far?”

      Dona flung herself down under a larch tree and shook her head tragically.

      “I hate it! But then, you know, I never expected to like it. You should see my room-mates!”

      “You should just see mine!”

      “They can’t be as bad as mine.”

      “I’ll guarantee they’re worse. But go on and tell about yours.”

      “There’s СКАЧАТЬ