CHAPTER V
Fifth-Form Tactics
It was an unfortunate truth that Miss Gibbs was not very popular atthe Grange. She was clever, conscientious, and well-meaning, andpreserved a high ideal of girlhood. Much too high for practical use,so her pupils maintained.
"This isn't a school for saints!" grumbled Valentine one day. "If wefollowed all Gibbie's pet precepts we should have halos round ourheads."
"And be sprouting wings!" added Raymonde. "A very uncomfortableprocess too. I expect it would hurt like cutting teeth, and it wouldspoil the fit of one's blouses. I don't want to be an angel! I'm quitecontent with this world at present."
"I'm so tired of developing my capabilities!" sighed Fauvette. "Onenever gets half an hour now, just to have fun."
Miss Gibbs, who aspired to a partnership in the school, was deeplyconcerned this term with the general culture and mental outlook of hercharges. She had attended an educational congress during the Easterholidays, and came back primed with the very latest theories. She wasdetermined to work on the most modern methods, and to turn her pupilsout into the world, a little band of ardent thinkers, keen-witted,self-sacrificing, logical, anxious for the development of their sex,yearning for careers, in fact the vanguard of a new womanhood.Unfortunately her material was not altogether promising. A few earnestspirits, such as Maudie Heywood, responded to her appeals, but thegenerality were slow to move. They listened to her impassionedaddresses on women's suffrage without a spark of animation, and satstolidly while she descanted upon the bad conditions of labour amongmunition girls, and the need for lady welfare workers. The fact wasthat her pupils did not care an atom about the position of their sex,a half-holiday was far more to them than the vote, and their owngrievances loomed larger than those of factory hands. They consideredthat they had a very decided grievance at present.
Miss Gibbs, acting on the advice of a book entitled _Education out ofSchool Hours_, was determined that every moment of the day should befilled with some occupation that led to culture. She carefullyexplained that the word "recreation" meant "re-creation"--a creatingagain, not a mere period of frivolity or lotus-eating, and advocatedthat all intervals of leisure should be devoted to intellectualinterests. She frowned on girls who sauntered arm-in-arm round thegarden, or sat giggling in the summer-house, and suggested suitableemployments for their idle hands and brains. "Never waste a preciousminute" was her motto, and the girls groaned under it. Healthy hobbieswere all very well, but to be urged to ride them in season and out ofseason was distinctly trying. One well-meant effort on Miss Gibbs'spart met with particular disapproval. She had decided to take thegirls on Saturday afternoons to visit various old castles, Romancamps, and other objects of historical and archaeological interest inthe neighbourhood. On former similar occasions she had been in thehabit of delivering a short lecture when on the spot; but, noticingthat many of the girls were so distracted with gazing at thesurroundings that they were not really listening, she determined thatthey should absorb the knowledge before visiting the place. She wrotecareful notes, therefore, upon the subject of their next ramble, andgiving them out in class, ordered each girl to copy them and to committhem to memory.
The result of her injunction was an outburst of almost mutinousindignation in Form V.
"When does she expect us to do it, I should like to know?" ragedMorvyth. "There's not a moment to spare in prep., so I suppose it willhave to come out of our so-called recreation! Look here, I call thisthe very limit!"
"Saturday afternoon's no holiday when we've got to go prowling round awretched Roman camp!" mourned Valentine. "What do I care about ancientearthworks? If they were modern trenches, now, with soldiers in them,it would be something like! There'll be nothing to see except somemounds. I suppose we shall have to stand round and listen while sheholds forth, and look 'intelligent' and 'interested'."
"I don't know whether she's going to hold forth herself," saidAveline. "I hear she's invited several people from an archaeologicalsociety to meet us there, and probably one of them will do thespouting--some wheezy old gentleman with a bald head, or an elderlylady in a waterproof and spectacles. One knows the sort!"
"Oh, good biz!" exclaimed Raymonde. "If visitors are coming, Gibbie'llhave to talk to them, and she won't have so much time to look afterus. She's welcome to the bald old boys! Let her have half a dozen ifshe wants!"
"You forget you've got to listen to them."
"Oh, I'll listen! At least I'll look serious and politely absorbed.That's all that's expected."
"In the meantime we've these wretched notes to copy," grousedKatherine.
"Have we? I don't think so! I've got an idea. Maudie Heywood's sure tomake a most beautiful copperplate copy; we'll borrow hers, and justskim them over to get a kind of general acquaintance with the subject,sufficient to show 'intelligent interest'. Gibbie won't be able toquestion us with those other people there."
"But suppose she asks beforehand to see our notes?"
"I've thought of that. We'll each copy out the first page, and sticksome old exercise sheets behind it. She'll never find out."
The Mystic Seven looked at their leader in admiration. They consideredthat on such occasions her resourcefulness amounted to genius. Theyfollowed her advice, and copied the front page only of the notes,placing underneath some portions of Latin translation or historicalessay. Aveline underlined her title with red ink, Morvyth ruled aneat margin, and Fauvette tied her sheets together with a piece ofthe blue baby ribbon which she used for threading through herunderclothes. On the outside, at any rate, their copies looked mostpresentable.
It was only the Fifth Form who were accorded the privilege of theramble. They were Miss Gibbs's special charge this term, Miss Beasleydevoting herself to the Sixth, and Mademoiselle looking after theJuniors. The Fifth hardly appreciated receiving the lion's share ofMiss Gibbs's attention. They complained that she tried all hereducational experiments upon them. They were ready, however, the wholeten of them, on Saturday afternoon, clad in the neat school uniform,brown serge skirt, khaki blouse, scarlet tie, and burnt-straw hat.Miss Gibbs viewed them with approval. Each had slung over hershoulders a vasculum for botanical or other specimens, and eachcarried in her hand a copy of the notes. They looked business-like,healthy, well trained, and alert with intelligence, altogether anexcellent advertisement for the school and its modern methods.
The camp was about a two-mile walk from the Grange, so the Form had atleast the satisfaction of obtaining exercise. As Valentine hadprophesied, it consisted of some mounds in the middle of a field,where, to Fauvette's infinite discomposure, some cows were grazing.The members of the Archaeological Society had already arrived, and cameforward to greet Miss Gibbs. There was a large stout gentleman, with agrey moustache and bushy overhanging eyebrows; also a little thingentleman with a pointed beard and an argumentative voice; a talllady with a high colour, who carried a guide-book, and a short-sightedyounger man, who was trying to spread out an ordnance map. Theseseemed to be the principal members of the party, though there were afew stragglers.
"Professor Edwards--my girls!" said Miss Gibbs, introducing the Form_en bloc_ to the leader for the afternoon.
The stout gentleman smiled blandly, and murmured some suitable remarkabout the value of acquiring antiquarian tastes while still young.
"I had perhaps better read my short paper before we inspect theremains," he added.
"Goody! He surely isn't going to disinter any dead Romans to show us,is he?" whispered Katherine.
"Bunkum!" replied Ardiune. "Nothing as thrilling as that, don't youfear!"
Miss Gibbs smiled encouragingly to the Form, and beckoned them to drawnearer. They arranged themselves in a respectful semicircle, withattentive eyes fixed on the lecturer, and copies of notes ratherconspicuously flaunted.
He discoursed exhaustively on the subject of Roman camps in general,and the girls listened with receptive faces, but minds wandering uponmore modern themes. Morvyth was speculating whether it would bepossible
to purchase chocolates on the way home, Fauvette was planningher next party frock, and Aveline was wondering whether there would bejam or honey for tea that day.
"Before I ask you to take a personal survey of the earthworks,"concluded the Professor, "I should like to have Miss Gibbs's opinionas to the exact position of the entrance and the approximate date ofconstruction. She has, I know, made a study of this branch ofarchaeology."
"My ideas are embodied in my notes," purred Miss Gibbs. "Perhaps youwould not mind reading the paragraph. I lent them a short time ago toMrs. Gladwin."
Professor Edwards turned expectantly; but the tall lady, who a momentbefore had been at his elbow, had strayed away, papers in hand, andwas not available for reference.
"My girls all have copies of the notes. Pass yours, Ardiune," smiledthe mistress.
The luckless Ardiune blushed scarlet, but dared not disobey.
"The passage occurs about the middle," prompted Miss Gibbs, as theProfessor fumbled with the pages. "May I find it for you? Why, surelythere must be some mistake! This is French! Valentine, your copy,child!"
With an even more crimson countenance Valentine tendered hermanuscript, which consisted of last week's essay on Comets. MissGibbs, with a growing tightness round her lips, inspected Raymonde'sextracts from Chaucer, and Katherine's translation of Virgil, beforeAveline had the presence of mind to hand up Maudie Heywood's copy. Itis unwise for a mistress to show temper before visitors, and MissGibbs, with admirable self-control, mastered her feelings and read theparagraph calmly. During the discussion which followed, the girlsavailed themselves of an invitation from the short-sighted gentlemanto inspect the earthworks, and thankfully fled to the farthest limitsof the field. They knew, of course, that it was only putting off theevil hour, and further events justified their forebodings. Miss Gibbspreserved an ominous silence on the way home, and after tea summonedthe Form to their class-room, where she went into exhaustive detailsof the whole business.
"I'm disgusted with you--utterly disgusted!" she declared. "It seemsof little use to spend time in attempting to give you intellectualinterests. Those girls who did not copy the notes will stay in now andwrite them. I shall look at them all at eight o'clock."
"It means a good solid hour's work," whispered Raymonde to Ardiune."Tennis is off to-night. Strafe the old camp! I wish the Romans hadnever lived!"