Just Gerry — A Reader’s Guide

There was nobody near except Phyllis Tressider, who was hurriedly scrambling the last of her clothes into an already overfull drawer.

"Could you--would you tell me what that bell is for?" asked Geraldine very timidly. If there had been anyone else to ask, she would not have approached her late antagonist. But there was nobody in sight at the moment, and the new girl at last plucked up sufficient courage to make her request.

Phyllis eyed her grumpily.

"Tea, of course, duffer," she snapped rudely. "Whatever else do you expect at this hour of the day?"

Then she caught sight of Dorothy Pemberton emerging from her cubicle, and went flying down the corridor to meet her.

"Come along, old thing," she cried. "Let's buck up and bag places at Muriel's table." And the two chums vanished, arm in arm, leaving Geraldine Wilmott to find her way as best she might.

The new girl was the only person left in the dormitory, and her face grew wistful, and a choking sensation came into her throat as she realised the fact.

"They might have just shown me the way," she murmured to herself, looking forlornly around her. "I don't think I'm going to like Phyllis whatever-her-name-is, and that Dorothy Pemberton. They needn't have been so beastly to me just because I'm in one of their cubicles. It wasn't my fault. Oh, well, I suppose I'd better go and try and find out where tea is." And the new girl made her way towards the door through which Dorothy and Phyllis had disappeared.

Tea was in full swing when Geraldine at last found her way to the dining-hall. She stood for a few moments in embarrassed hesitation just inside the doorway, until a girl who was sitting at the head of the nearest table spoke to her.

"You haven't got a place yet, have you? Won't you come and sit by me?"

It was Monica Deane, the girl who slept in Number Fourteen Cubicle in the Pink Dormitory. Geraldine recognised her with a feeling of relief, and moved across to her table with alacrity. Monica spoke to a small girl sitting on her left hand.

"Shove up one, Vera, will you? And ask the others to move up, too. This is a new girl in my dorm, and I want to talk to her," she said, with a friendly smile at Geraldine as the girl slipped thankfully into the seat thus provided for her. "Pass the bread and butter down, Mamie," she added to somebody farther up the table. "And, Gwennie, run and get another cup of tea." Then, having thus attended to the new girl's immediate wants, she turned round to her with the obvious intention of commencing a conversation.

"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" she began.

"Not at all," said Geraldine, looking up with a shy little smile. "I expect you want to know what my name is, don't you?"

"Well, yes--that was one of them," laughed Monica. "You've been asked that question before, evidently, from the tone in which you said it."

Geraldine laughed too. Already Monica's friendliness was dispelling that feeling of nervous resentment and shyness occasioned by the encounter with Dorothy and Phyllis. Neither of these two girls were at Monica's table, Geraldine was glad to see. The occupants of Table Number Three were mostly smaller children, none of whom the new girl had come across before. She turned to her new friend with a look of gratitude.

"I should just think I have! But so far, you're the only person who's asked me if I minded."

"Well, won't you reward me for my politeness by giving me the information?" asked Monica. And Geraldine responded to the kindly interest by confiding, not merely her name and age, but also many details of her home life. By the time the meal was over, Monica was conversant with much of the new girl's past history (always excepting the events of that October night; Geraldine never willingly referred to that terrible time)--not an altogether unusual experience for Monica, who had been the recipient of many a new girl's confidences. The senior had vivid recollections of her own first days at school, and she always made a point of being especially friendly to newcomers during their first few weeks at Wakehurst Priory. It had, in fact, become quite a recognised thing in the school for Monica Deane to take any exceptionally forlorn-looking new girl under her wing.

"What do we have to do now?" asked Geraldine, as, tea being finished, she rose reluctantly from her chair. She recognised the fact that she would not be able to stay with the elder girl all the evening, and she dreaded being left once more to her own devices.

"Well, that just depends. Nobody does anything regular the first day of term. Usually, of course, it's prep after tea. You've finished your unpacking, haven't you? Then I should think you'd better go to your sitting-room and find a book to read. I wonder which sitting-room you'll be in? Have you any idea which form you're going to belong to?"

"Oh yes. Miss Oakley sent me some examination questions to answer; and when I'd sent them in, she wrote back saying I should be put in the Lower Fifth," replied Geraldine.

"The Lower Fifth? Oh, well, come along then, and I'll show you your sitting-room," said Monica briskly. "You've got an awfully nice room. The Lower Fifth is one of the biggest forms at Wakehurst, and in consequence it's been given the biggest sitting-room. You'll find plenty of people to be friends with you there. Dorothy Pemberton's in it, and Phyllis Tressider--you know, the girl who has the cubicle next to yours."

"Oh, _is_ she?" said Geraldine blankly, a feeling of dismay creeping over her. Then a sudden impulse moved her to confide in Monica.

"I don't think I like either of them, much," she volunteered. "Especially not Phyllis Tressider."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Monica, stopping before a door and pausing with her hand on the knob to give some good advice to the new girl. "Look here, now, don't you go imagining things! Phyllis and Dorothy are both quite nice girls on the whole, and you'll get on all right with them, if you don't take too much notice of what they say just at first. They've always slept side by side in those two cubicles, ever since they came to the school, so naturally they're feeling a bit upset at being separated. Though, I must say, they've rather asked for it--the pranks those two used to get up to in the dormitory last term! But, of course, they know that it has nothing to do with you, really; and they'll soon come round and be nice to you--so long as you're nice to them. You'll find they'll make much better friends than they will enemies--and, if you take my advice, you'll try your best to keep them friends."

And with this, for Monica, unusually lengthy homily, the elder girl opened the door of the Lower Fifth sitting-room, and pushed Geraldine inside.

Judging from the number of people congregated in the sitting-room, the Lower Fifth was certainly a very big form. Geraldine shrank back a little as Monica ushered her in, bewildered and shy of the crowd of girls confronting her. But Monica laid her hand on her shoulder and led her across the room to a group of girls clustered round a vivacious individual with a crop of short curly hair, who was perched up on the edge of a table, swinging her legs to and fro and talking vigorously.

"Sorry to interrupt," began Monica, still with her hand on Geraldine's shoulder. "But this is a new girl, who tells me that she is going to be in your form. Her name's Geraldine Wilmott, and she's fifteen years old, and you needn't all start catechising her directly I'm out of the room. I fancy she's had about enough of that already. Jack," addressing the girl on the table, "will you have an eye to her for this evening? Put her up to things a bit, will you? and tell her what to do and where to go, there's a dear."

"Righto! Delighted, I'm sure!" replied Jack, stretching out a friendly hand to Geraldine. "How do you do? What dorm are you in? Have you unpacked your things yet? Is this the first time you've been to school, or did you go to a day-school before? What part of the country do you hail from, and how many brothers and sisters have you got?"

A shout of laughter from the group of girls around her greeted this string of questions, and Monica made a laughing protest.

"Oh, Jack--and I told you not to go asking her questions!"

"Well--but you said 'after you had gone out of the room,' so I thought I had better start straight away while there was still time," replied Jack, with an injured air, which was belied, however, by the twinkle in her laughing eyes. Then she turned to Geraldine in an impulsive friendly way that it was impossible to resist.

"You needn't answer them, though, if you don't want to. Come along and I'll get you a locker. We've bagged all the nicest ones already, I'm afraid. But I'll get you the decentest that is left, and next term maybe you'll get a better one." And Monica left the Lower Fifth sitting-room feeling that she had done her best for the new girl.

"I'm afraid she's in for a rough time of it, though," the senior thought to herself, as she made her way along the corridors to the small study which, as a member of the Sixth Form, she was entitled to have to herself. "She's just the type of sensitive girl who gets on worse at school than any other sort, although at heart they're usually quite nice kids. Still, if anybody can make her feel at home in the Lower Fifth, it's Jack. I wish she'd come across her before Phyllis and Dorothy appeared on the scene. Oh, well, it's none of my business, I suppose! I like the kid, but she'll have to fight her own battles. I dare say she'll shake down all right in the end--they mostly do."

And with this comforting reflection the Sixth Form girl entered her study, and banished the thought of Geraldine Wilmott from her mind.

THE WAYS OF WAKEHURST PRIORY

Meanwhile in the Lower Fifth sitting-room, Jack--Joanna Pym, Geraldine afterwards discovered her full name to be--was instructing the new girl in the ways of Wakehurst Priory.

"Ever been to school before?" she asked, regarding Geraldine with some interest, when Monica had left the room and most of the other girls had moved away, thus leaving the two alone together.

"No, never," said Geraldine, feeling that the admission implied some grave neglect upon somebody's part.

Jack appeared to take this view of the matter also.

"You're awfully old to come to school for the first time. Fifteen on your last birthday, didn't you say? You must be pretty good at lessons, though, to be in the Lower Fifth right away. Miss Oakley usually puts people into a form lower than they could go into, for their first term, because she says that entrance examinations are so deceptive, and if the girls are really good they can always be moved up. We don't often get new girls in the Lower Fifth--most of the new kids begin in the Lower School. I guess you'll be the only new girl in our form this term."

"Shall I?" said Geraldine. "I'm rather sorry for that. It would have been nicer if there had been somebody else new, too."

"Oh, I don't know. New girls are a rotten lot as a rule," replied Jack airily. "You seem rather decenter than most. But you will have an awful lot to learn if you've never been to school before."

"Why? Are the lessons so very difficult?" questioned Geraldine.

"Oh, it isn't the _lessons_," replied her informant. "Lessons don't really count very much at school, except with the mistresses. It's games and rules and--and--well, school etiquette in general, you know. I expect it will take you quite a term to learn all our school ways."

"Will it?" said Geraldine, looking rather alarmed. Jack hastened to reassure her.

"You needn't look so scared about it! Of course there are heaps of unwritten rules and things which you'll have to pick up, besides all the rules which the mistresses make. But people make allowances for you your first term, and I'll help you a lot, if you'd like me to. I've been here for years and years and years, and there isn't much about the old Priory I couldn't put you up to--though I'm not specially good at lessons," Jack added, with becoming modesty.

"Oh, I wish you would! Tell me about things, I mean. What happens next this evening? And what time do we start lessons, and when do we play games, and all that?"

"I'd better begin at the beginning," said Jack, nothing loath at the opportunity of exercising her tongue. Jack was an inveterate chatterbox. "Getting-up bell goes at seven, breakfast is at quarter to eight. Eight-fifteen to eight-thirty we tidy cubicles and make our beds. Then there's half an hour free, which we're supposed on fine days to spend in the quad or somewhere out in the grounds, before the bell goes at nine o'clock for prayers. We all assemble then in the Great Hall and march into Chapel for prayers, in the order of forms. You'd better stick to me to-morrow morning, and I'll show you where to stand and sit. After prayers, we go to our form rooms and work until eleven. At eleven there's half an hour's recess, when you can get cocoa and biscuits, if you want them, in the dining-hall. Then lessons again until one o'clock, tidy yourself, and dinner at quarter-past. Then there's a free time until half-past two, when either you have to go for a walk or play games."

"May you choose which you do?" asked Geraldine.

"Rather not!" answered Jack emphatically. "You're marked down which you're to be. Usually you get about four games' afternoons a week, and the rest walks. In the summer we do prep in the afternoon, and have games after tea. But this term we do prep in the evening, and have our hockey in the afternoon. Do you play hockey?"

"No," confessed Geraldine, rather uneasily.

"That's a pity," said her new friend. "How was that? Wasn't there any sort of a club in the village where you lived?"

"Y--yes--there was," said Geraldine. "But my people wouldn't let me join. Mother and Dad didn't approve much of hockey for girls."

"What a shame!" sympathised Jack. "Weren't you jolly sick about it?"

Geraldine flushed suddenly hotly red. She wished that she could have honestly said "Yes." But she was a very truthful person, and even to make a favourable impression upon Jack--to whom she had taken an immense liking--she could not prevaricate.

"Well, no, not exactly," she said in a low tone. "You--you see, I didn't much think I should care about it, myself."

"Not care about it!" Jack opened wide surprised eyes. Hockey was the joy and delight of her harum-scarum existence, and it had never before occurred to her that there could be an individual of hockey age in the world misguided enough not to care. "Why, it's a perfectly scrumptious game! It's an awful pity you've never played before. I'm afraid Muriel will put you into a dreadfully low team. Never mind, though, you must work as hard at it as ever you can, and you'll soon get moved up."

"But--but shall I _have_ to play?" asked Geraldine in some dismay.

"Of course you will. Unless you've got a doctor's certificate to say you're not allowed. Everybody has to play here, unless the doctor says you mayn't. Never mind, you'll soon get to like it. Nobody could help liking hockey when once they've begun--it's such a ripping game!"

"Doesn't the ball hurt frightfully when it hits you?" said Geraldine nervously. She had watched hockey matches, although she had never played in one, and she did not feel at all inclined to participate in the game.

"Of course it does!" Jack laughed merrily. "But that's part of the fun. You feel my leg--all those little bumps and lumpy things down the front. That's from the balls I stopped last year"--with a proud inflection in her tone. "I'm third eleven now, B.1--they call the teams after the letters of the alphabet here--and with any luck I'll get into the second eleven this term. There are two vacancies--left outside and right half. I've no chance as outer, I'm not fast enough. Besides, Vera Maynce from the Fifth Remove is almost sure to get chosen for that. But I've got quite a sporting chance for right half. Gertie Page from the Upper Fifth might get it, but if I only do well in the trial next Saturday, I believe Muriel will give it to me. She told me at the end of last season that it would lie between Gertie and me, and I'd better not let myself get stale. And I haven't. My brother's been practising sending hard shots at me all through the hols. I'm getting no end of a dab at stopping them. You have to be good at stopping balls, if you play half-back," she added, for the information of the new girl.

"What happens after hockey?" asked Geraldine. She had been listening rather uneasily to Jack's account of the glories of the hockey field. To Geraldine's mind these would be more in the nature of tortures. Even before the air-raid she had always been rather a delicate child, and had never played any of the rough and tomboyish games in which most girls join as readily as their brothers. Consequently, she had never learnt to take hard knocks with the average schoolgirl's ready equanimity. And the idea of stopping balls on her shins amidst the mud and scrimmage of the hockey field rather appalled her. But she saw that it would never do to let this new-found friend of hers guess just how she felt about it. Geraldine could imagine the contempt that would come into Jack's eyes if she were to betray the fact that she was really afraid of the unknown game. And she made haste to change the topic before her companion should perceive the horror with which she was regarding her coming ordeal on the hockey field.

"Oh, after hockey," said Jack, readily taking the bait. "Tea, of course, after you've washed and changed. There's usually about half an hour's interval after we come down from the field. The tea-bell goes at half-past four, and the prep bell at five, so there's not much time between them. We do prep until seven. Then change for supper, which is at half-past seven. From eight to nine's free. The juniors go to bed then, while the seniors--all the forms above the Lower Fourth--go to Chapel once more for prayers. Then bedtime comes for everybody at nine-thirty. So wags the weary round from day to day," she concluded, with a fine poetical flourish. "If it wasn't for hockey and half-holidays, and Sundays and hampers and dormitory feasts, and other occasional rags, school would be an awfully dead-and-alive affair. But as it is, it has its redeeming features. I say, what dorm are you in?"

"The Pink Dormitory," answered Geraldine.

"You lucky kid! That's Muriel Paget's dorm this term. Half the girls in the school would give their eyes to be in your shoes."

"Why?" asked Geraldine in astonishment.

"Why? Because Muriel's head girl, and everybody in this school is cracked on her. At least, as cracked as Muriel will let them be! She won't let girls make themselves idiots over her--she squashes them horribly if they overdo the flowers and sweets and fagging business. Still, it would be jolly nice to be in her dorm; I wouldn't mind being there myself, though I'm not one of the most love-sick of her satellites, by a long way. I bet there'll be a rare old scrum to-night to fetch her hot water, and do those sorts of things."

"One of the girls did ask if she might fetch her hot water, this afternoon," volunteered Geraldine. "But she squashed her then. She said she wasn't going to have any of that silly rot going on in her dorm so long as she was monitress there."

"Did she? How awfully like Muriel!" chuckled Jack, with keen appreciation. "Who was the girl, do you know? Oh, of course, though, you won't! You're new. I quite forgot."