Chapter 2 A Bunch of Cherries by L. T. Meade
THE GIRLS
It was a lovely day in the beginning of June, and, being Wednesday, was a half-holiday. The girls of the Upper school, numbering seven in all, were assembled in the cherry garden. The cherry garden stood a little apart, to the left of the great general garden, and was entered by a low walled-in door.
Mrs. Clavering was so proud of her cherries and so afraid that the neighbors might be tempted to help themselves to the luscious fruit, that she kept the door locked between the cherry garden and the other, and only those girls who were very privileged were allowed to sit in it. But the girls in the Upper school were, of course, privileged, and they were now enjoying a fine time seated on the grass, or on little camp-stools and chairs, under the trees, which were already laden with the tempting fruit.
They were all eagerly discussing the great event of the year, the Cherry Feast, which was to take place in three weeks from the present day. Their names were Mabel and Alice Cunningham, two handsome dark-eyed girls, aged respectively seventeen and fifteen; Florence Aylmer, who was also fifteen and the romp of the school; Mary Bateman, a stolid-looking girl of fourteen; Bertha Kennedy, who had only lately been raised to the rank of the Upper school; Edith King, a handsome, graceful girl, who competed with Mabel for the honors of the head of her class; and Kitty Sharston, who had only lately come, and who had some Irish blood in her, and was very daring and very much inclined to break the rules. She was a hobbledehoy sort of girl, having outstripped her years, which were only thirteen, and was considered by some of her companions very plain and by others very fascinating.
Mrs. Clavering did not quite know what to make of Kitty, but hoped to break her in by and by, and meanwhile she was very gentle, and Kitty loved her, although she never could be got to see that so many restrictions and so many little petty rules were not good, but extremely bad, for her character.
On this particular lovely summer's afternoon Kitty was the last to make her appearance. She came skimming gracefully through the orchard under the cherry trees, with her hair down her back, her skirt awry, and a great stain on the front of her pinafore. In the seventies girls as old as Kitty wore long white pinafores. The stain was caused by some cherry juice, for Kitty had stopped many times as she approached the others to take great handfuls of the ripe fruit, and thrust them into her mouth. Mabel called to her to sit down.
"We are all busy discussing the great event," she said, "and I have kept a seat for you near me, Kitty; wasn't it good of me?"
"Awfully good," answered Kitty. She flung herself on the ground by her friend's side and looked up at her with affectionate eyes.
"I like you all," she said, glancing round at them, "and yet all the same I hate school. The great thing that I look forward to in the treat is that immediately afterwards the holidays follow. I shall go down to join my father in Cornwall. He said he would take me to Ireland, but I doubt if he will. Now, Tommy, what are you frowning at?"
This remark was made to Florence Aylmer. Kitty from the first had insisted upon calling her Tommy. She was the first girl in Cherry Court School who had dared to adopt a nickname for any of her companions, and Florence, who had begun by being indignant, could not help laughing now as the saucy creature fixed her with her bright eyes.
"What are you frowning at, Tommy? Aren't you glad, too, that the holidays are so near?"
"No, I am not—I hate the holidays," replied Florence Aylmer. As she spoke Mabel took one of Kitty's hands, gave it a slight squeeze, it was a sort of warning pressure. Kitty looked up at her with a startled glance, then she glanced again at Florence, who was looking down. Suddenly Florence raised her face and returned the girl's gaze fully.
"I have no home like the rest of you," she said; "my mother is very poor and cannot afford to have me at home."
"Then where are you going to spend the holidays?" said Kitty; "do say, dear old Tommy, where—where?"
"Here probably, or wherever Mrs. Clavering likes to take me," replied Florence; "but there, don't talk of it any more—I hate to think of it. We have three weeks still to be happy in, and we'll make the best of that."
"Do you know, Mabel," asked Mary Bateman, now bending forward, "if Mrs. Clavering has yet decided what the programme is to be for the 25th?"
"I think she will tell us to-night," replied Mabel; "she said something about it this morning, didn't she, Alice?"
"Yes, I heard her talking to Mademoiselle Le Brun. I expect we shall hear at tea-time. If so we will meet in the oak parlor, and Mrs. Clavering will have her annual talk. She is always very nice on those occasions."
"She is nice on every occasion—she is an old dear," said Kitty.
"Why, Kitty, you don't know her very well yet."
"She is an old dear," reported Kitty; "I love her with all my heart, but I should like beyond words to give her a right good shock. I cannot tell you girls, how I positively tremble to do it. At prayers, for instance, or still more at meals, when we are all so painfully demure, I want to jump up and utter a shout, or do something of that sort. I have suppressed myself hitherto, but I really do not know if I can go on suppressing myself much longer. Oh, what is the matter, Edith—what are you frowning at?"
"Nothing," replied Edith King; "I did not even know that I was frowning. I was just thinking how nice it was to be trained to be ladylike and to have good manners and all that. Mrs. Clavering is such a perfect lady herself that we shall know all the rules of polite society when we leave the school."
"And I hate those rules," said Kitty; "but there, somebody is coming to meet us. Oh, it is little Dolly Fairfax; she is sure to be bringing a message."