Upper Fourth at Malory Towers (7 page)

“How do you like Malory Towers, Ruth?” she asked, wondering if Ruth would be able to answer, if Connie wasn't there I “I like it,” said Ruth.

“I hope you're happy here,” said Darrell, wondering how to lead up to what she really wanted to say. There was a pause. Then Ruth answered politely.

“Yes, thank you.”

She didn't sound happy at all, Darrell thought! Why ever not? She was well up to the standard of work, she was good at all games, there was nothing dislikeable about her—and the summer term was fun! She ought to be very happy indeed!

“Er—Ruth,” said Darrell, thinking desperately that Sally would be much better at this kind of thing than she was, “—er—we think that you let yourself be—er—well nursed a bit too much by Connie. Couldn't you—er—well, stand on your own feet a bit more? I mean...”

“I know what you mean all right,” said Ruth, in a funny fierce voice. “If anyone knows what you mean,
I
do!”

Darrell thought that Ruth was hurt and angry. She tried again. “Of course I know you're twins—and twins are always so close to one another, and—and attached—so I quite understand Connie being so fond of you, and...”

“You don't understand anything at all,” said Ruth. “Talk to Connie if you like, but you won't alter things one tiny bit!”

And with that she walked out stiffly, carrying her pile of clean paint-jars. Darrell was left by herself in the cloakroom, puzzled and rather cross.

“It's not going to be any good to talk to Connie, I'm sure,” thought Darrell, rinsing out the last of the jars. “She'd be as fierce as Ruth. She's ruining Ruth! But if Ruth wants to be ruined, and made just a meek shadow of Connie, well, let her! I can't see that I can stop her!”

She took her pile of paint-jars away, and made up her mind that that particular difficulty could not be put right. “You can't drag twins away from each other if they've always been together and feel like one person,” she decided. “Why, some twins know when the other is in pain or ill, even if they are far apart. It's no good putting those two against me. They must do as they like!”

The next thing to do was to ferret out Felicity, and see how she was getting on. She ought to be more or less settled down now. Perhaps she had made some more friends. If only she had others as well as June, it wouldn't matter so much—but Darrell felt that the strong-minded June would cling like a leech to someone like Felicity, if Felicity had no other friend at all!

So she found Felicity in Break, and asked her to come for a walk with her that evening. Felicity looked pleased. To go for a walk with the head-girl of the Upper Fourth was a great honour.

“Oh, yes—I'd love to come,” she said. “I don't think June's fixed anything for tonight.”

“What does it matter if she has?” said Darrell, impatiently. “You can put her off, surely? I haven't seen anything of you lately.”

“I like Miss Potts,” said Felicity, changing the subject as she often did when Darrell got impatient. “I'm still a bit scared of her—but my work's a bit in advance of the form, really, Darrell, so I can sit back and take things easy this first term! Rather nice!”

“Yes, jolly nice,” agreed Darrell. “That's what comes of going to a good prep school—you always find you're in advance of the lowest form work when you go to a public school—but if you go to a rotten prep school, it takes years to catch up! Er—how is June in her work? “

“Brilliant—when she likes!” said Felicity, with a grin. “She's awfully good fun—frightfully funny, you know. Rather like Alicia, I should think.”

“
Too
like Alicia,” Darrell thought to herself, remembering how wonderful she had thought Alicia in her first term at Malory Towers. “Isn't there anyone else you like, Felicity?” she asked her sister.

“Oh, yes—I like most of my form,” said Felicity. “They don't seem to like June much, though, and sit on her hard. But she's like indiarubber, bounces up again. There's one girl I like awfully—her name's Susan. She's been here two terms.”

“Susan! Yes, she's fine,” said Darrell. “Plays lacrosse awfully well for a kid—and she's good at gym, too. I remember seeing her in a gym display last term.”

“Yes. She's good at games,” agreed Felicity. “But June says Susan's too pi for words—won't do anything she shouldn't, and she thinks she's dull, too.”

“She would!” said Darrell. “Well, I'm glad you like Susan. Why don't you make a threesome—you and June and Susan? I don't think June's a good person to have for an only friend.”

“Why, you don't even know her!” said Felicity in surprise. “Anyway,
she
wouldn't want Susan in a threesome! “

A bell rang in the distance. “Well, see you this evening,” said Darrell. “We'll go on the cliffs—but don't you go and bring June, mind! I want you to myself!” “Right,” said Felicity, looking pleased. But alas, that evening a meeting was called of all the School Certificate girls, and Darrell had to go to it. She wondered if she could possibly squeeze time in for even a short walk with Felicity. No, she couldn't—she had that essay to do as well.

She sent a message to her sister by a second-former. “Hey, Felicity,” said the second-former, “compliments from Head-Girl Darrell Rivers, and she says she can't take baby sister for a walky-walk tonight!”

Felicity stared at her indignantly. “You know jolly well she didn't say that!” she said. “What
did
she say?”

“Just that,” said the cheeky second-former, and strolled off.

Felicity translated the message correctly and was disappointed.

“Darrell can't go for a walk tonight,” she told June. “I suppose she's got a meeting or something.”

“I bet she hasn't,” said that young lady, scornfully. “I tell you, these fourth-formers, like Alicia and Darrell, don't want to be bothered with us—and we jolly well won't go bothering them! Come on—we'll go for a walk together!”

Darrell forgot about Clarissa for a day or two, because for some reason the days suddenly became very full up indeed. Head-girls seemed to have quite a lot of duties Darrell hadn't thought of, and there was such a lot of prep to do this term.

Gwendoline now had Clarissa very firmly attached to her side. She sat next to her in class, and offered to help her whenever she could—but this usually ended, not in Gwen helping Clarissa, but the other way round!

Their beds were next to each other's at night, for Gwendoline had persuaded softhearted Mary-Lou to change beds with her, so that she might be next to Clarissa.

“She's never been to school before, you see, Mary-Lou,” she said, “and as I hadn't either, before I came here, I do understand how she feels. It's at night you feel things worst. I'd like to be near her just to say a few words till she settles down properly.”

Mary-Lou thought it was extraordinary of Gwendoline to develop such a kind heart all of a sudden, but she felt that it ought to be encouraged anyway—so she changed beds, and to Darrell's annoyance one night, there was Gwendoline next to Clarissa, whispering away like anything.

“Who told you you could change beds?” she demanded.

“Mary-Lou,” said Gwendoline, in a meek voice.

“But—why in the world did you ask
Mary-Lou
?” said Darrell. “I'm the one to ask, surely.”

“No. Because it was Mary-Lou's bed I wanted to change over, Darrell,” explained Gwen, still in a meek voice. She saw that Darrell was annoyed, and decided to offer to change back again. Then surely Darrell would say all right, keep next to Clarissa!

“But, of course, if you'd rather I didn't sleep next to Clarissa—though I only wanted to help her—” said Gwendoline, in a martyr-like voice.

“Oh, stay there,” said Darrell, who could never bear it when Gwendoline put on her martyr-act. So Gwendoline, rejoicing inwardly, did stay there, and was able to whisper what she thought were comforting words to Clarissa at night. She was too far away from Darrell's bed to be heard—and in any case Darrell, usually tired out with work and games, slept very quickly, and heard nothing.

Clarissa thought Gwendoline was really the kindest girl she had ever met—not that she had met many, however! Feeling lonely and strange, she had welcomed Gwendoline's friendliness eagerly. She had listened to endless talks about Gwendoline's uninteresting family, who all seemed to be “wonderful” according to Gwen, and yet appeared to the listening Clarissa to be uniformly dull!

She said very little about her own family, though Gwendoline questioned her as much as she dared, longing to hear of Rolls Royces and yachts and mansions. But

Clarissa merely spoke of their little country house, and their “car,”—not even “cars”, thought the disappointed Gwendoline.

As Clarissa had a weak heart, and did no games or gym, she hadn't much chance to get together with the other girls. She either had to rest at these times, or merely go to watch, which she found rather boring. So she looked forward eagerly to the times she could be with Gwendoline, who was practically her only companion.

That is, till Darrell really took the matter in hand! Seeing Gwendoline's fair head and Clarissa's auburn one bent together over a jigsaw puzzle one fine evening, when everyone should have been out of doors, she made up her mind that something really must be done!

She went to Mavis. After all, Mavis had no real friend, she just made a threesome with Daphne and Mary-Lou. She could quite well spare some of her time for Clarissa.

“Mavis,” said Darrell, “we think that Clarissa is seeing a bit too much of darling Gwendoline Mary. Will you try and get Clarissa to yourself a bit and talk to her?”

Mavis was surprised and pleased. “Yes, of course, Darrell,” she said. “I'd love to.” Secretly she thought that the small, bespectacled Clarissa was quite well paired off with Gwendoline—but if Darrell thought otherwise, then it must be so! So obediently she went to try to prise Clarissa away from the close-clinging Gwen.

“Come down to the pool with me, Clarissa,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “I'm not bathing today—but we'll go and watch the others. They want someone to throw in pennies for them to dive for.”

Clarissa got up at once. Gwendoline frowned. “Oh, Clarissa—you can't go just yet.”

“Why? We've nothing much to do,” said Clarissa, surprised. “You come, too.”

“No. I feel rather tired,” said Gwendoline, untruthfully, hoping that Clarissa would stay with her. But she didn't. She went off with Mavis, rather flattered at having been asked by her. Clarissa had not much opinion of herself. She thought herself dull and plain and uninteresting, and indeed she certainly appeared so to most of the girls!

Darrell beamed at Mavis. Good old Mavis! She was doing her best, thought Darrell, pleased. But poor Clarissa didn't have much of a time with Gwendoline afterwards!

Gwendoline was rather cold, and gave her very short, cool answers when she returned from the pool. Clarissa was puzzled.

“I say—you didn't really mind my going off with Mavis for a bit, did you) “ she said at last.

Gwendoline spoke solemnly. “Clarissa, you don't know as much about Mavis as I do. She's not the sort of girl your family would like you to be friends with. Do you know what she did last year? She heard of a talent-spotting competition in a town near here—you know, a very
common
show with perfectly dreadful people in it—and she actually went off by herself to sing in the show!” Clarissa was truly horrified, partly because she knew that she herself would never have had the courage even to think of such a thing. “What happened?” she said. “Tell me.”

“Well—Mavis missed the last bus home,” said Gwendoline, still very solemn. “And Miss Peters found her lying by the road about three o'clock in the morning. After that she was terribly ill, and lost her voice. She thought she had a wonderful voice before that, you know—though I can't say
I
ever thought much of it—and so it was a very good punishment for her to lose it.”

“Poor Mavis,” said Clarissa.

“Well, personally I think she ought to have been expelled,” said Gwendoline. “I've only told you this,

Clarissa, because I want you to see that Mavis isn't really the land of person to make friends with—that is if you were thinking of it.”

“Oh no, I wasn't,” said Clarissa, hastily. “I only just went down to the pool with her, Gwen. I won't even do that if you don't want me to.”

Poor weak Clarissa had said just what Gwendoline hoped she would say, and the next time that Mavis came to ask her to go for a short walk with her, she refused.

“Don't bother Clarissa,” said Gwendoline. “She really doesn't want you hanging round her.”

The indignant Mavis walked away and reported to Darrell that
she
wasn't going to bother about that silly little Clarissa any more! She had better find someone else. What about Daphne?

Daphne came by at that moment and heard her name. In a fit of annoyance Darrell told her that Mavis had been rebuffed by Clarissa, and that Mavis had suggested that she, Daphne, should have a try. What about it?

“I don't mind having a shot—just to spoil darling Gwendoline Mary's fun,” said Daphne with a grin. So she tried her hand at Clarissa, too, only to be met with excuses and evasions. Gwendoline had quite a bit to tell Clarissa about Daphne, too!

“You see, Clarissa,” said Gwendoline, “Daphne isn't really
fit
to be at a school like this. You mustn't repeat what I tell you—but a year or two ago Daphne was found out to be a thief!”

Clarissa stared at Gwendoline in horror. “I don't believe it,” she said.

“Well, just as you like,” said Gwen. “But she was a thief—she stole purses and money and brooches—and this wasn't the only school she'd stolen at, either. When it was found out, Miss Grayling made her come into our common room, and confess everything to us—and we had to decide whether or not she should be expelled. It's as true as I'm standing here!”

Clarissa was quite pale. She looked across the courtyard to where Daphne was laughing with Mary-Lou. She couldn't believe it—and yet Gwendoline would never, never dare to tell such a lie as that.

“And—did you all say that—you didn't want her expelled?” she said at last