Jill (19 page)

II

“Have you seen Patsy Hammond?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Jill’s face wore a serious expression for she was growing worried. It was nearly an hour later, and she could not find Patsy Hammond, her special friend. Nobody had seen her.

Patsy was indeed Jill’s only friend. They were roughly the same age and had each been new girls in the fourth form, which was rather late to enter the school. Patsy was smaller than Jill, with a pale, doleful face, dark hair and expressive hands, and could make Jill sick with laughing. She could imitate almost
anybody. Together they had formed an alliance against the rest of the world.

And now Patsy could not be found. Jill had looked in the dormitory, the form-room and the day-room—and nobody had seen her. It seemed that she had not yet arrived, which was queer because she usually came before Jill did. Jill had a feeling of suspense, tinged with alarm. Perhaps she was ill.

“Have you seen Patsy Hammond?”

Joan Carter hadn’t.

Wandering along the corridor she met Pat Reynolds, who was the head of the Fifth.

“Hallo, Jill. Decent hols?”

“Scrumptious, thanks, Pat.… I say, you haven’t seen Patsy, have you?”

“Patsy Hammond? Is she coming back?”

“What?”

“Well, Matron seemed to think not.” It was like Pat to call her Matron instead of Rummy. “I don’t know.”

There was nearly ten minutes before the tea bell would ring and Jill dashed along to the Matron’s room, where Rummy sat at her table, surrounded by girls who liked her. She had a jolly, red face and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. Her table was covered with letters and certificates.

“Hallo, Jill. Had a good Christmas?”

“Oh, yes, thanks. I say, Matron——”

“M’m?”

She was nervous because the twelve other girls in the room were all listening.

“Is—is Patsy Hammond coming back this term?”

“Why, no. Her father’s gone to America and the whole family’s gone with him. Patsy’ll go to school in America. Didn’t she tell you?”

“No.…”

The little gas fire made a faint whine as it burned.

“Oh, didn’t she? I thought you two were great pals.”

“Oh, I knew she might go … I wasn’t certain.” Jill pulled herself together and began trying to lie. “I knew it was possible.…”

As she backed out of the room she suspected a faint titter, and one of them whispered, “
Sic transit
a beautiful friendship.” Jill heard her and blushed crimson. That sentence foreshadowed the mocking amusement that would greet their parting. People had always regarded their exclusive friendship with faint hostility.

She walked blindly down the passage, beginning to cry. This made her cross with herself, and she stooped, pretending to tie a shoelace, trying to control her sobbing. Then the bell rang and the passage was filled with girls, clattering, chattering; they knocked against her and one nearly pushed her over.

“Tell you later.”

“Sit by me.”

“Don’t
run
in the corridors.
Walk
.”

When they had all passed, she rose and followed them into the dining-room where tea was laid. Her first paroxysm of tears had ended, leaving her calm with the calm of desperate unhappiness.

III

She had been betrayed, she felt, and half her misery was due to that feeling, but in addition there was the more lasting pain of having lost Patsy. Neither of them had liked being at school: they were girls who found it unpleasant simply to sit in a class and be able to be asked a question. Jill lived entirely on the defensive except when she was with Patsy: that was the only time she could expand and be herself again. Now Patsy had gone and she was quite alone.

How
could
she have gone like that?

Her form mates, when they took any notice of her, made amused comments because they thought her stuck-up: if she was made a fool of in class, there was no one to console her afterwards; there was no one to sit by at meals and discuss the food with, no one to wait for in the corridor. And it was no use trying to feel splendid and alone when being alone made you miserable.

Even the mistresses noticed her:

“That Bradley child, always moping about.”

Being alone made her look out for someone else who was lonely, and this was when she first noticed Minerva Strachey. Minerva Strachey was a Sixth Form girl, and a prefect, and supposed to be very clever. She had a small study to herself, which was unusual, most studies being shared by two or three girls. Jill had never noticed her till one morning the Headmistress announced that Minerva Strachey had won a University scholarship, and in accordance with tradition had asked for a “half”. Everybody clapped, glad to prolong prayers and excited by the novelty, staring round open-mouthed towards the back to try to see her. This Jill refused to do.

It was not until later that she discovered who the girl was when by the notice-board one Sixth-former called out:

“Congratulations, Minerva!”

“Thanks,” said a low voice, and turning in curiosity Jill saw a dark slender girl with books under her arm walking away towards the studies. The girl who had spoken first waited till she was out of hearing, and then remarked to a friend:

“
Toujours
the lone wolf.”

Jill, suddenly excited, took a couple of steps after her and then stopped; it would not be proper for her to approach Minerva. But her interest was aroused and she kept a look-out for her.

She noticed that Minerva hardly ever attended any classes, but spent her time working alone in the library. How clever she must be! When she was not working, she went for solitary walks or sat reading in her room. There was no one with whom she seemed particular friendly.

She was not pretty, but Jill decided her face was “interesting”. It was oval and pale, with very dark blue eyes; her expression was grave without being in the least stodgy. Jill noticed that she never “moped about”, for all her loneliness; she simply went her own way, quietly and pleasantly, making no demands on anyone. Jill felt with a rush that she wanted to be like her.

“To look at Minerva”, she told herself extravagantly, “is like reading a page by a Stoic philosopher.”

One day Minerva left one of her notebooks behind in the library, and Jill found it and read it eagerly. She practised Minerva’s signature till she could do it perfectly, and read all the essays and notes Minerva had made on literature:

Thus we see that in creating the character of Shylock, Shakespeare’s original intention was deflected, and instead of a comic money-lender he produced a figure of tragic significance.

For days Jill tried to nerve herself to give it back to her and thus to part with it, and in the end she handed it in to the English mistress, who promised to give it to Minerva herself. She privately supposed Jill was too lazy to do so.

Jill could imitate Minerva’s handwriting, her bearing and the way she folded her hands, but it was all of no avail. Minerva’s remote indifference she could not capture. If she failed to construe a sentence rightly, her cheeks burned, and she hated both the mistress and herself.

All she could do was to watch for Minerva at the end of school, and look up sometimes from the dusk in the playground to see the light burning in her room.

IV

She measured everyone, including herself, by the standard of Minerva, and found them all wanting. The girls in her form seemed strident and lumpish, and, despite all her resolutions, she felt impelled to quarrel with them. She was unable to ignore them as Minerva would. Particularly she disliked a plump, jolly girl called Rosalie Marston, who was the centre of a group of casual acquaintances that formed the third estate of the fifth.

There was no reason why she should find Rosalie irritating: she was good-natured, friendly in a cursory way, shallow, but good-hearted. She had fluffy hair, excellent white teeth set a trifle wide apart, and eternal ink stains on her fingers. It seemed she could not touch a pen without getting inky.

Among her friends were several spiteful girls whom Rosalie was too dense or too casual to dislike.

Jill often imagined herself quarrelling with Rosalie, but never
thought it would ever really happen. Nevertheless, it did, in a most unlikely way. It started with Minerva’s half-holiday. Jill had promised herself to dedicate Minerva’s half-holiday to Minerva by spending it walking alone in the country, but one morning the Headmistress announced that it would be utilized to allow the school to watch the hockey match against St. Bride’s School. which was the most important one of the season.

“But we’re always
given
a half-day to watch that!” exclaimed Jill. It was a downright swindle.

To her astonishment and fury she found that nobody saw it from her point of view, all being excited at the prospect of witnessing the match. Their gullibility made her angry, and at break she loafed in the washroom, sulking. Rosalie and her friends were also there.

“Whoops, girls,” said Rosalie, rubbing her face with wet palms. “No school this afternoon. Bit of a twist, messing up our games day.”

“Don’t look a gift horse
au bouche
,” advised Molly Vine, retying her hair ribbon. “You should be thankful you’re going to watch the match and not going to be chased about getting your fat down.”

“All hail to the Badger. Agreed. Poof.” Rosalie groped for a towel, her eyes tightly shut. There was something in her mole-like groping that made Jill snap irritably:

“It’s a swindle. We always have the day off to watch the St. Bride’s match.”

“Then the more often I’m swindled,” said Margaret Wolsey, “the better I shall like it.”

“But we haven’t been given a proper half at all. We shall all be marched down to the field as usual to watch the match.…”

“Well, don’t you want to watch it?”

“What
do
you want to do?”

Jill flushed.

“That’s not the point. If we’re given a half-holiday, we ought to be able to do as we please with it. That’s what a holiday
means
.”

“Oh, come on.” Rosalie had found the towel and was
rubbing her red cheeks till they shone. “Rally round the old school. Come along and give ’em a yell.”

This sidetracking infuriated Jill.

“Oh, don’t you
see
? It’s only an underhand way of not giving us a half-holiday at all. We——”

“But we’ve
got
a half-holiday——”

“But we
haven’t
. You are thick. You’re all as thick as wood. She’s taken you in like a pack of kids. What’s the good——”

“Oh, don’t niggle. We’ve got a half to watch a match, haven’t we? Watch it and shut up.”

“Shut up yourself. I’m not niggling.”

“Yes, you are. You’re splitting hairs. Can’t you have the decency to back up the school?”

“Oh, damn the school. I’m not talking about that. If you’re too dense to see the Badger’s swindled you——”

“Tripe. Tripe. Shut up and stop quibbling.”

“I really don’t see what you’re bothering about,” said Rosalie placidly, replacing the towel. Jill turned on her quivering with indignation.

“Then you must be
damned
stupid!” she said, and walked out.

She was furious all through lunch. She would
not
watch the match. She stole glances at Minerva, to strengthen her resolve, and when lunch was over she hung about the lobbies till the match was due to start. Then she slipped into the library, where she planned to stay the whole afternoon. Going out was too risky, and then, of course, Minerva herself might always come into the library.

Despite her courage, she could not help feeling a little nervous, and she chose a seat not directly in line with the door. It was forbidden for any girl below the Sixth to enter the library except at special times, and she listened nervously for footsteps, sitting with
Bleak House
open on her lap. From the distance came faint cheers and moans.

About three o’clock she heard someone coming and held her breath. The footsteps stopped at the door and came in. Jill
was petrified. The person moved along the shelves till she suddenly came in sight—it was Miss Keen.

“Good heavens, Jill! What are you doing here? Are you ill?”

“Oh, no, Miss Keen.”

“Then why aren’t you out on the field? Go at once.”

Jill breathed hard. “But——”

“Well?”

“I thought I could do as I liked on a half-holiday.”

To Jill, it did not sound particularly rude. But Miss Keen became angry.

“What do you mean? Don’t be impertinent. How dare you frowst in here. Get out on to the field at once.”

“If this is a half-holiday, I can do as I please.”

“No, you certainly cannot. You are excused school simply to watch the match against St. Bride’s.”

“But I’m excused school because Minerva Strachey——”

“Don’t stand there arguing and contradicting me. It’s disgusting to loaf about indoors instead of supporting the school.”

“I can stay in if I want to.”

“I think you’d better come and see the Headmistress.”

Jill’s heart gave a horrible lurch.

“I don’t see why——”

“Perhaps she will convince you that when she gives an order she means it to be obeyed.”

With a scared face Jill followed Miss Keen to the Headmistress’s study, where she was told to wait, as Miss Badger was among the crowd watching the match on the field. Miss Keen went off to find her, and Jill sat wretchedly on a hard chair, watching the Headmistress’s secretary typing. She occasionally sipped a cup of tea that stood beside her. The room was strange to Jill, and that added to her nervousness. She had not the least idea what she was going to say.

In about ten minutes the Headmistress came and was met outside the door by the maid with the afternoon post.

“The letters, and a telegram, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Badger, striding in. She took not the slightest notice of Jill, but went into her study by the inner
door, holding the letters. She was a tall woman, with a strong and simple face that was almost peasant-like, and still wore a mackintosh and scarf. The secretary followed her, closing the door, and Jill was alone, staring miserably at the fringe on the rug. She had to sit there for two or three minutes before the secretary came back.