CHAPTER X

THE END OF THE FEUD

When the prayer-bell rang that evening, it interrupted a wild tumult in the junior playroom. The elder girls had rushed through the curtain, on the terrified summons of Angela Wilkins; and the whole school crowded and thronged round a confused heap in the middle of the floor. Nothing much was to be seen except two lanky black legs, a crumpled white frock, and a good deal of untidy brown hair; and at first nobody did anything but stare and exclaim. The ringing of the prayer-bell, however, brought them all to their senses. Margaret Hulme made a sudden dash at the two combatants, picked up the one that came first, and dropped her in a corner of the room, where she could be hidden from view until she had time to recover herself. Then the head girl turned to the child who still lay sobbing and gasping on the floor.

'You get up and behave yourself!' she said in a stern undertone; and Jean Murray struggled to her feet and went off snivelling, to be comforted by the trembling and excited Angela. Then the elder girls melted away again into their own room, and a kind of uneasy hush settled down on the eighty-seven inhabitants of Wootton Beeches.

Barbara rubbed her eyes and stared wildly round her. A solid wall of girls stood between her and the scene of the recent scuffle; she could not see what had become of her victim, and at first she did not even realise what was producing this wonderful calm. Then the girls in front of her began slowly to move away towards the archway; and once she caught a glimpse through the curtain of the door in the room beyond. It was only a glimpse, for the girls closed up again immediately; but it was enough to show her the stately figure of Miss Finlayson, as she stood and wished her pupils good-night, one by one. Barbara had watched the same ceremony for a good many evenings now, but it had never seemed quite so orderly or so solemn before. To-night, it made a peculiar impression on the wild little tomboy who had been brought up without discipline or control, and the strangeness and the misery of her position overwhelmed her as with a new feeling. At the same instant, in striking contrast to the dismal reality, came the remembrance of the dream she had dreamed all her life about this very place called school; and, unnoticed by her school-fellows, who were fully occupied in trying to behave as if nothing had happened, she broke down and sobbed bitterly in her corner.

The stream of girls that had been filing past Miss Finlayson came to an end at last; but Miss Finlayson did not follow them immediately to the chapel. Far away, in a distant corner of the junior playroom, crouched a dishevelled little girl in a crumpled frock, weeping dolefully for a dream that had never come true; and Miss Finlayson stood and waited in her place by the door.

A sense of the extreme stillness, now that the footsteps of the girls had ceased, slowly impressed itself upon Barbara; and she looked up with a new feeling of alarm. There, through the opening in the curtain, she could see the stately figure of the head-mistress in the room beyond; and Babs thrust a round, inky ball of a handkerchief into her pocket, and hastened towards her in a panic.

'I didn't know you were waiting for me,' she said, fighting to keep the quiver out of her voice. 'I didn't know they had all gone. I--I'd forgotten it was prayers now.'

She knocked over a chair as she stumbled across the room, and once her dress caught on the edge of a desk and stopped her; but Miss Finlayson waited with her hand out, and the little new girl reached her at last. Once more, behind the grave glance of the blue-grey eyes, lurked a suggestion of something softer and more human, and it gave Barbara a little courage.

'I wasn't crying because I was sorry I'd thumped Jean Murray,' she burst out. 'I'm not a bit sorry, not a _bit_! I'd like to thump her again for saying--for saying----'

It sounded uncommonly like telling tales, and she had to stop. Miss Finlayson still had hold of her hand, and still looked down at her with the mixture of expressions on her face.

'Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?' was all she said.

Barbara had not even heard the question. She was full of her grievance against Jean Murray, which she had almost forgotten for the minute; and she burst out again, more angrily than before.

'Don't you understand?' she cried passionately. 'I wasn't crying for _that_; it--it was something else, but I can't tell you what it was, because you'd only laugh. They all laugh--except when they're just being horrible! Why didn't you let me run away last week? I don't want to stop with people like Jean Murray, and--and all the rest of them; I hate being here, I hate the girls, I hate you! Why won't you let me go away?'

She hardly knew what she was saying. She had not been in such a passion since the dreary day, two years ago, when they took her nurse away from her, and she had made herself ill with fretting.

Miss Finlayson tightened her grasp on the hand that was struggling to free itself; then she bent over her rebellious little pupil, and laid her other hand against her burning cheek.

'Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?' she repeated. Her persistence began to take effect, and the cool touch of her fingers was very soothing.

'Why--why won't you let me go away?' sobbed Babs, and the tears rained down her cheeks again.

'Why?' echoed Miss Finlayson, producing a handkerchief that had not been used, like Barbara's, to mop up ink blots. 'Because I want you myself, to be sure.'

She dried the child's eyes as she spoke; and the small tear-stained face looked up at her wistfully. 'Do you want me?' asked Barbara. 'Does anybody want me--_truthfully_?'

Miss Finlayson nodded, and a look slowly deepened in her face that gave the child confidence. 'Yes, Babs, truthfully,' she answered. Then she repeated for the last time, 'Are you coming to prayers?' And keeping the hot little hand within hers, she led her upstairs to the chapel.

At Wootton Beeches the girls always walked in and out of chapel in the order of their classes, beginning at the top of the school. But, this evening, the youngest child in the school walked out in front of everybody, for Miss Finlayson held her by the hand and would not let her go. They stood together, a curiously assorted couple, at the end of the passage that led to the other wing of the house; and one after another the girls passed them on their way to their rooms. There was not a sound for some moments, except the tapping of footsteps on the polished boards; then, walking last of all, came Jean Murray. Babs broke from her companion and flung herself impetuously forward.

'I say, I'm awfully sorry I thumped you on the head just now,' she began, and held out her hand invitingly to the enemy. 'I wasn't a bit sorry at first, and I wanted to do it again, _frightfully_; but I am sorry now, and I don't.'

The girls who were still in the passage lingered, and looked back. Evidently, there was no end to the sensations that Barbara Berkeley meant to produce in her first term at school.

'Hush!' whispered Jean, glancing round timorously at the head-mistress.

Babs looked amazed. 'Won't you shake hands?' she asked. 'I know I thumped you awfully hard, but still----'

'Sh-sh!' repeated Jean, trying to push past her. 'Don't you know we're not allowed----'

'I think--I _do_ think you might make it up,' continued Babs, in a disappointed tone. 'Even if I did hurt you rather, you must own you were very mean.'

Jean Murray, feeling the eyes of authority fixed upon her, made another attempt to escape. 'Can't you wait till to-morrow?' she asked in an agitated whisper.

'I should have waited, if it hadn't been for that hymn,' answered the child, still barring the way obstinately. 'I can't help it if the hymn made me feel funny without making you feel funny too, can I? I can't think what there was about that hymn,' she added to herself reflectively; 'I never remember noticing a hymn so much before.'

Miss Finlayson came up to them, and Jean fairly quaked. If there was a rule that the head-mistress was strict about, it was the rule of silence after prayers. Jean knew, for she had been unlucky enough to break it more than once.

'I have changed your room, Jean,' said Miss Finlayson, calmly. 'Angela will have yours for the rest of the term, and you are to sleep in number fourteen, next door to Ruth Oliver. I have just told Angela, so you can go straight to her old room now, and I will send up one of the servants to move your things for the night. The rest can be done in the morning. By the way,' she added, as she left them, 'you three may talk till the lights are put out; for it seems that Barbara has something to say that will not keep until to-morrow. Good-night.'

She walked away downstairs with a deliberate step; and the two children were left standing together on the landing.

'Well, I never!' exclaimed Jean, staring after Miss Finlayson.

But Babs was less concerned with the peculiarities of the head-mistress than with her own immediate business. 'How much longer are you going to be before you shake hands?' she asked.

'Oh, that's all right,' answered Jean, awkwardly, and she at last put a limp hand into the one Barbara was tired of pressing upon her. They trotted along the passage side by side, Jean feeling a little overwhelmed by the suddenness of the reconciliation, while Babs wondered what had happened to make her so silent all at once. To her it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be on good terms with the enemy whose head you had just thumped, provided that you had apologised suitably afterwards; and she chatted away cheerfully until Jean was obliged to stifle her inclination to be dignified.

'I say,' said Babs, when they reached the gallery in the other wing of the house and were hurrying round it to their rooms; 'shall I be punished a lot for knocking you down this evening?'

Jean recovered some of her self-assurance. If she was to be denied the pleasure, in future, of persecuting the new girl, there was no reason why she should not still patronise her.

'Punished!' she echoed. 'That's all you know about it. Nobody is ever punished here.'

It took Barbara a moment or two to get used to this new idea, and by that time they had reached their rooms. She returned to the subject soon after, however, when Ruth had opened the doors that led from her room into both theirs, so that they could talk across her if they liked.

'Can you be as naughty as you choose in this school?' demanded Babs, in a puzzled tone.

'I don't advise you to try,' remarked Ruth.

'Why not? What would happen if I did?' asked Babs, curiously.

'Well, you'd feel jolly small, and have to come round in the end and behave like other people,' said Jean, raising her voice to make herself heard.

Barbara wandered into Ruth's room to have her frock unfastened, and continued the discussion from there.

'Then, is being good at school the same thing as behaving like other people?' she said doubtfully.

The others seemed to have some difficulty in answering this. 'There!' said Ruth, giving her a little push; 'make haste and get undressed.'

Barbara wandered back into her own room again, and thought it over carefully. 'Being good at home wouldn't be the same thing as behaving like other people,' she observed presently.

'Home isn't school,' answered Ruth. 'And Finny's school isn't like other people's schools,' she added.

'Isn't it?' said Babs, with interest. 'Where's the difference?'

'Ask Jean,' replied Ruth; and Jean took up the tale from beyond.

'I was at another school before I came here, and it was very different, I can tell you,' she remarked. 'There were nothing but rules there, and you always seemed to be breaking one or another of them, without knowing it; and then you got punished. I was punished the whole time I was there.'

'What sort of punishments?' asked Barbara.

'Stupid punishments,' answered Jean, vaguely. 'Punishments that made you feel foolish, and made you hate people. I did hate a lot of people at that school. I thought I was awfully wicked because I hated so many people. And then I came here,' she wound up triumphantly.

'And did you find you were good when you came here?' asked Babs.

'You shut up and get yourself ready for bed, or else Fräulein will catch you,' was all Jean said in reply to this.

Barbara gave one or two perfunctory taps to her head with a brush. 'I suppose that's why we're left so much to ourselves,' she remarked, after a pause. 'We never see the teachers except at meals or in lesson time, do we?'

'Of course we don't,' replied Ruth; 'that's where Finny's school is so different, you see. In most schools you are being watched all day by some one or another, and it makes you whisper because you don't want to be overheard. Nothing makes Finny so furious as to catch any one whispering.'

'Is she ever furious?' inquired Barbara.

'Don't be a young silly,' said Ruth, good-naturedly, a reply which had no effect whatever upon Barbara.

'It seems to me,' she went on thoughtfully, 'that it's very difficult to know what is wrong and what isn't, when there aren't any punishments and no one is there to tell you.'

'Well, you're supposed to have some sense, you know,' explained Ruth. 'Finny's great idea is that you should think for yourself and not go to other people to find out things. She says being good isn't worth much, if you're only good because some one else tells you to be good.'

'That's all very well,' objected Babs, 'but suppose you don't know without being told?'

'Well, if you don't know that behaving like a wild Indian is wrong, it's not much good being there to tell you so,' said Jean, bluntly.

The point of her remark was quite lost on Barbara, who was still puzzling over a question that had never occurred to her before. 'At home,' she observed, 'we never talk about whether a thing is right or wrong. If we did, the boys would call it awfully slack.'

'What do they call it when you nearly kill people by knocking them down and hitting them?' asked Jean, rather suddenly. The application of hot water was causing the bruise on her forehead to smart most unpleasantly.

'Oh!' said Barbara, in a surprised tone; 'I thought you had made it up?'

'Bother making it up,' grumbled Jean, 'when you've got a lump as big as----'

'Why didn't you say so before?' cried Babs, in great concern. 'Haven't you any pomade to put on it?'

Something very like an amused chuckle came from the direction of Ruth Oliver, but Babs was in far too great a hurry to notice that. Flinging everything right and left on the floor, she cleared out two drawers and a box before she succeeded in finding the bottle she wanted.

'Here it is!' she exclaimed, taking it in to her wounded foe. 'It's awfully good stuff, really; and it keeps you from turning blue and yellow. We always use it at home.'

Ruth's chuckle grew into a hearty laugh. 'I should think you wanted pounds of it in your home, if they're all like you!' she exclaimed.

Barbara wondered what the joke was. 'They're not like me,' she said simply. 'The others are all boys, you see, so they get their own way without fighting.'

And when the German governess came to turn out their lights, she found the three white-robed figures standing together in Jean's room, one of them shaking with laughter, another trying rather unsuccessfully to keep grave, while the third, holding out a bottle in her hand, looked at them both with a puzzled air. There was no end, thought Fräulein, to the caprices of English children. Had not Miss Finlayson been relating to all the teachers downstairs, how the two little ones before her had flown at each other in a passion, just before prayers?

The junior playroom felt equally incapable of grappling with the situation, when the new girl marched gaily into it the next morning with her arm linked in Jean Murray's. For once, Jean's followers found themselves at a loss. Not having been informed what actually had taken place in the passage the night before, they could hardly be expected to know all at once how to treat this new state of affairs. Nor did Jean trouble herself to enlighten them. Indeed, she was so cross when any one approached her on the subject, that even Angela had to leave her alone; while the junior playroom in general, being less devoted, threw out dark hints about temper as soon as Jean was out of hearing. Angela, however, had the wit to see the one thing that was evident--the feud with the new girl was at an end, and anybody who wanted to keep friends with Jean Murray in future would have to accept Barbara Berkeley as well. So she decided to accept Barbara herself, to begin with; and she set to work at the same time to convert the whole of the junior playroom.

'If you don't behave decently to her, you'll have Finny down on you,' she advised, in the few moments allowed for conversation after breakfast. 'Anybody could see that, from the way Finny glared at Jean last night.'

'Did _you_ see it?' inquired Charlotte Bigley, with unpleasant directness.

'N--no, not exactly,' admitted Angela, uncomfortably. 'But Mary Wells did, and she told me. And look here,' she went on, shifting her ground hurriedly, 'Jean's made it up with Barbara Berkeley, and the sooner we do the same the better it'll be for us. Besides, why shouldn't we make it up? It's such a bore to have to keep on remembering all the time that you're _furious_ with some one!'

This was more to the point; and the junior playroom, which had never thrown itself with any heartiness into the feud, decided that Barbara Berkeley was to be accepted without any more delay. Unfortunately, Barbara Berkeley, who had never realised that her school-fellows had been leaving her in peace on purpose to annoy her, was quite unprepared for the sudden change in their behaviour.

Charlotte Bigley was the first to put into force the resolution that had been arrived at by the junior playroom. 'If you like,' she observed carelessly, when she met Barbara by the bookshelf, just before the first class, 'you can put away Ruth Oliver's desk after preparation, instead of me.'

For her part, she had always felt kindly disposed towards the new girl, and the offer she was making now came straight from her heart, and was the most generous one she could think of at the moment. But Babs only looked dismayed.

'Why must I put away Ruth Oliver's desk?' she demanded. 'I have to put away Margaret Hulme's as it is; and it's so difficult to get dressed in time for supper when there's such a lot of desks to put away first. Of course,' she added with an effort, 'I'll do it to please you, if you really want me to.'

'Why, I thought you'd _like_ to do it!' exclaimed Charlotte, staring at her. 'You're so thick with Ruth, and naturally I supposed----'

'Thanks awfully,' said Barbara, without enthusiasm. 'It's really awfully kind of you, but I think p'raps you'd better go on doing it, if you're used to doing it. Of course, I know some people like doing those stupid things for the big girls, but----'

'All right,' said Charlotte, abruptly; and she went away, feeling distinctly small.

Babs hurried off to the Fifth classroom, and arrived just in time for the geography lesson. She was settling herself as usual at the bottom desk, when her neighbour, rather a dull girl, for whom she secretly felt a sort of contempt because she took no interest in her lessons, but only learned them from conscientious motives, began making advances to her.

'Barbara,' she whispered, nudging the new girl in a familiar way that was meant to be sociable. Babs, having sat next to her for fourteen days without extracting a single remark from her, was considerably startled.

'What do you want?' she asked impatiently. She was taking a last frantic look at the capes of Scotland, and the interruption was agonising.

'Would you like to be my partner, next time we practise running with Hurly-Burly?' proceeded Mary Wells, with an air of extreme benevolence. She was rather glad that Jean Murray had made it up with the new girl, for it had not been amusing to sit perpetually next to some one with whom she was not allowed to associate.

'Why, no, of course not!' answered Barbara, giving up the capes of Scotland in despair, and turning rather crossly to the tiresome neighbour who had never bothered her before. 'We're not a bit evenly matched, and it wouldn't be fair. Ask Angela Wilkins, if you want a partner; she doesn't run _much_ faster than you do.'

If there had been time, her amazed neighbour would no doubt have told her what she thought of her. It was bad enough to have her friendly suggestion thrown back in her face, but to be offered a gratuitous criticism of her running powers into the bargain was intolerable. However, Miss Tomlinson said 'Silence!' before Mary could express her feelings, so Babs remained in comfortable ignorance of them.

She was not to be left alone for long, however, and it soon became impossible even for Barbara not to see that a change of some sort had come over her school-fellows. During the two weeks she had been at school, meal-times had been delicious periods of peace, when every one had babbled round her but never to her, and nobody had interrupted her if she wanted to dream. But to-day, when they all met in the dining-room for lunch, in the ten minutes' 'break' that occurred in the middle of the morning, it was evident that her time for dreaming was gone by. This was the opportunity that the children of the junior playroom had been eagerly awaiting since the moment when Angela had succeeded in moving them to charitable designs. So Babs had scarcely made her appearance in the dining-room, than a crowd of eager penitents descended upon her, jostling one another in the attempt to be first. One rushed at her with the biscuits, another with a glass of milk, and a third with a plateful of bread and jam.

'I say, don't bother! Thanks awfully, don't you know,' stammered Barbara, who was a little flustered at finding herself the object of so much attention. She helped herself to bread and jam, accepted the milk, which the bearer insisted on holding for her till she felt inclined to drink it, and then tried to slip away as usual to a retired corner. But her way was barred by another group of girls, headed by the zealous Angela herself.

'I wonder if you'll help me with my algebra in French class,' began the latter, beaming upon her former enemy with the air of one who was conferring a favour. 'I always get in such a bog over it.'

'You're so splendid at algebra, Babs, aren't you?' added another, with great warmth.

'She's good at lots of things! She'll get to the top of the Fifth in no time, won't she?' cried Angela, with her ordinary disregard for facts.

'Oh, no,' said Barbara, earnestly. 'There's my spelling; you're forgetting that.'

'Ye--es,' allowed Angela, unwillingly; 'but spelling isn't everything.'

'Should think not, indeed!' echoed the chorus of enthusiasts.

'And I don't know any arithmetic,' proceeded Barbara, desperately. It really hurt her regard for truth to have all these absurd remarks made about her.

'What's arithmetic?' demanded Angela, loudly.

'Only think of the piles of history you know!' chimed in some one else.

'Yes, indeed!' said the chorus.

'And Latin!' proclaimed another admirer.

'I--I wish you wouldn't,' murmured Babs, unhappily.

She could not think what had come over them all; and they made her feel foolish. Fortunately, somebody noticed just then that she had finished the bread and jam; and they all rushed off, jostling one another again as they went, to find fresh provisions. Barbara seized the opportunity to escape, dodged the placid bearer of the milk, and went in search of Jean Murray. She had an uncommonly shrewd suspicion that Jean Murray was somehow at the bottom of this new and irritating persecution.

She found her hidden away in a corner of the big dining-room, occupying very much the position that Barbara herself had enjoyed until now. Her appearance was dejected, and she looked as though the encouragement of noble sentiments did not agree with her nearly so well as the strife and wrangling in which she usually indulged. The truth was that her new pose of friendliness was making her feel unpleasantly self-conscious; and she was afraid of being laughed at by the big girls for having so meekly accepted her late enemy for a friend. The big girls, of course, worried themselves so little about the petty quarrels of the junior playroom, that they had no more intention of laughing at her than Barbara had; but it was impossible for so important a person as Jean Murray to realise that. So she gave a guilty start when Barbara, heated, aggrieved, and bubbling over with resentment, suddenly pounced upon her in her corner.

'I say, look here,' began Babs, impetuously; 'I thought you'd made it up, and it's a shame!'

'What are you talking about?' demanded Jean Murray. 'I have made it up, long ago.'

'Then whose fault is it that all those girls keep bothering me?' exclaimed Barbara, growing more indignant as she went on. 'I haven't had a moment's peace all the morning, and it makes me feel silly. I don't like being made to feel silly. Why don't you tell them to leave me alone?'

'But I don't know what you're talking about,' said Jean. 'How are they making you feel silly?'

'They keep on telling me how clever I am,' grumbled Barbara, in a tone of the deepest contempt. 'Me clever! Just think of it! And they say I'm going to get to the top of the class, and all that rot. What do they mean by it? That's what I want to know. I was just beginning to get used to girls, and I told Kit only yesterday that they were not so bad after all, because they left you pretty much to yourself; and now--look at them! It's enough to make any one feel silly. Well, what's the joke?'

Jean was laughing heartily. It was the first time that morning she had been able to forget her own feelings of 'silliness'; and it cheered her considerably to find that some one else was in the same plight as herself. 'You _are_ queer!' she declared. 'Why, they are doing all that to show that they want to be nice to you, of course.'

Barbara stared at her aghast. 'Oh!' was all she said at first. After a pause for reflection, she added suddenly, 'Then what were they trying to be all the time they left me alone?'

Jean stopped laughing, and began kicking at the window-seat by which they stood.

'Was that their way of being nasty?' proceeded Babs, in a puzzled tone.

'I--I suppose so,' muttered Jean, looking away from her.

'Oh!' said Barbara again.

There was another pause, and then Jean made an immense effort. 'I made them leave you alone,' she jerked out. 'I hated you. It--it was because of Margaret Hulme.'

Barbara's puzzled look vanished. When she did begin to understand a thing, she was generally pretty quick about it. 'I'm beastly sorry,' she said softly. 'A little while ago, I thought Jill was going to make the boys like her better than me; and I felt just like that. What a pity you didn't tell me sooner!'

That, after all, was their real reconciliation; and this time there was no doubt about it. If there had been, it would have been ended finally by Margaret Hulme herself, that same afternoon, in the cloakroom. The head girl had been taking off her own muddy boots for more than a fortnight now; and that in itself was enough to quicken her observation of events in the junior playroom.

'Isn't there anybody over there who would like to unlace my boots for me?' she said in a loud voice, as the younger ones came trooping into the cloakroom after the hockey practice.

There was silence in the ranks of the juniors. The big girls were smiling, the little ones looked at one another doubtfully, and the head girl waited with her foot put forward. The etiquette of the junior playroom was tremendous, and although forty-five sets of fingers were itching to be at the knot in the head girl's bootlace, nobody could move until Jean Murray did.

'You can do it, if you like,' she said to Barbara indifferently.

'Oh, no,' said Barbara, quickly. 'I shouldn't think of it.' This time, her sacrifice was genuine, for Margaret had kissed her just before dinner and told her she was a 'good little soul,' and the feeling of the youngest girl in the school had considerably changed in consequence with regard to the head girl's boots.

'Of course,' said Margaret Hulme, drawing back her foot, 'if nobody _wants_----'

A murmur ran along the ranks of the juniors, and Babs suddenly whispered something in Jean's ear. Then the two children joined hands and presented themselves solemnly before the head girl.

'Please,' said Barbara, quickly, 'we've settled it.'

'It's about time,' observed Margaret.

'We're going to halve it,' added Jean, in a great hurry.

'What? My foot?' asked the head girl.

The wit of the head girl produced a storm of laughter in the cloakroom. When it subsided, Barbara was ready with her explanation.

'Jean's going to do them four days, and I'm going to do them the other three,' she said. 'And Jean's going to begin,' she added, and walked away heroically.

'Oh, no, you begin,' said Jean, feebly.

But Margaret smiled and pinched her ear. 'You begin, child,' she said; and Jean fairly loved the new girl from that moment onwards.

##