She nestled up close to Robina, pulling that young person’s hand round her waist, and patting the said hand with her own two fat little ones and saying, over and over again: “I ’ove oo, Wobbin – I ’ove oo!”
It was on this scene that Harriet and Jane appeared. Since Robina had come, Harriet had rather avoided her. She had been jealous, poor child, from the first moment; but now she altered her tactics, and forcing her way through the group, sat down close to the new favourite.
“There’s no room here,” said Robina. “Go a little further off, please, Harriet; you are pushing little Annie and making her cry.”
“I don’t care twopence for little Annie!” cried Harriet, rudely. “I have as good a right to sit here as anybody else. Don’t press me, Annie; if I am in the way, you’re the person to make room, not me. Go back to your nursery, won’t you?”
Annie, who was a very timid child, began to cry. Robina immediately rose, lifted Curly Pate on to her shoulder, and said to the three other little ones:
“I have changed my mind. I will tell you a story now, but no one else shall listen; it’s a lovely, true, true fairy tale. We’ll just sit under that tree, and you shall all hear it.”
They followed her, clinging to her skirt and one of them trying to grasp her hand. Harriet’s face grew black. Frederica said:
“Well, Harriet, you don’t look too well pleased; but for my part, I think Robina was quite right; you ought not to have taken poor little Annie’s place.”
“Do you mind telling me,” answered Harriet, “what right those children have to interfere with us? They belong to the first form; let them stay in their nursery.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Rose Amberley, “they have as good a right to the lawn as we have. They are always allowed to play here every afternoon; and Robina invited them to tea; she bought a lot of sweeties, chocolates and cakes for them. They are Robina’s guests; they just worship her.”
“Worship her, indeed!” said Harriet. “Well —I don’t worship her.”
“Anyone can see that, Harriet, and it is a great pity,” said Rose Amberley. “Robina is a very nice girl, and as good as gold.”
“Oh, is she!” said Harriet. “Jane, what do you think?”
“I know what I know,” said Jane, nodding her little head with great firmness.
Frederica looked very hard at Jane; then she glanced at her own sister.
“Look here,” she said suddenly; “we have all been very happy at school, haven’t we?”
“Who says we haven’t?” answered Harriet. She felt crosser than ever, for there were such peals of laughter coming from under the shelter of that tree, where Robina was telling the babies her fairy tale. “Who says we haven’t?” she repeated.
“The reason we have been happy,” continued Frederica, “is simply this: we have been – or at least we have tried to be – good. It would indeed,” continued the young girl, “be very difficult to be anything but good here – here, where things are so sweet and everyone is so kind, and even lessons, even lessons are made such a pleasure. Why shouldn’t we all keep on being good? why should we be jealous?”
“Who says anyone is jealous?” said Harriet.
“Oh, Harriet!” said Frederica; “you know you are, just a little bit.”
“I don’t wonder she’s jealous!” suddenly burst from Jane. “Robina has taken her place in class. Harriet is our clever one; she doesn’t want to – to – ”
“Oh, I am sure she is not small-minded enough for that,” said Frederica at once. “If a cleverer girl comes to the school – ”
“She is not cleverer!” burst from Harriet.
“Well, Harriet, you’ve got to prove it. If you are clever, work still harder, and resume your place in the class, and I’m sure we’ll all be delighted: fair play is fair play, and it’s very mean of you to be angry about nothing. Ah! here comes tea, and I am so thirsty. Let’s help to lay it out, girls!”
Immediately every girl had started to her feet: a white table-cloth was spread on the lawn, cups and saucers followed suit; tea, cake, bread and butter, dishes of fruit were soon being eagerly discussed. The small children gave a whoop of excitement, and Robina returned, still carrying Curly Pate, with the others in her train.
During tea, one of the little ones suggested that they should turn Robina into a queen. No sooner had the thought been uttered than it was put into execution. She was seated on a special chair and crowned with flowers, which the children had been gathering for her. A wreath of flowers surrounded her laughing face, and a garland of flowers was placed round her neck. Curly Pate looked on just for a minute, then said eagerly: “Me too! me too!”
“Why should there not be two queens?” said Robina. “Gather some white flowers for the baby, somebody.”
“Somebody” meant everybody – that is, except Harriet, for even Jane was drawn into the whirlpool of excitement. Nothing could be prettier than the happy faces of the children; and especially of the queen with her flowers – her cheeks slightly flushed, her queer, half-wild, half-pathetic eyes brighter and darker than usual, one arm encircling Curly Pate’s dear little fat body, and of Curly Pate herself, shrieking with delight while a crown of white daisies encircled her little head.
It was on this scene that Mrs Burton, accompanied by a gentleman whom the girls had never seen before, suddenly appeared.
Book One – Chapter Four
An Unusual Prize
The gentleman was holding by the hand a small boy. The boy could not have been more than seven or eight years of age. He was rather a little boy for that, so that some of the girls put him down as younger. He was a very beautiful boy. He had a little dark face, with that nut-brown skin at once clear and yet full of colour which is in itself a great loveliness. His eyes were large and brown like the softest velvet. He had very thick brown hair with a sort of bronze tone in it, and this hair hung in ringlets round his head. The boy was dressed in a peculiar way. He wore a suit of brown velvet, which fitted his agile little figure rather tightly. He had brown silk stockings and little breeches, and shoes with steel buckles. Round his neck he wore a large lace collar made in a sort of Vandyke fashion. Altogether, this little boy looked exactly as though he had stepped out of a picture.
He was not at all shy. His eyes travelled over the scene, and they fixed themselves on Curly Pate, while Curly Pate’s eyes gazed on him.
There was dead silence for a minute, all the girls in the school looking neither at Mrs Burton nor at the gentleman, but at the queer, new, little, beautiful boy. Then Curly Pate broke the stillness.
“I is kene,” (queen), she said, “and – him is king!” and she pointed with rapture at the boy.
“Oh, you’re king, are you, Ralph?” said the gentleman. Then he said again: “Come over to me, little queen, and let me introduce you to the king.”
Never was anyone less shy than the school baby, and never, perhaps, was anyone more fickle. She scrambled immediately off Robina’s knee and, pushing aside her companions, went up to the boy and took his hand.
“Tiss I – king; won’t oo?” she said, and she raised her little cherubic mouth to the small boy.
The boy, who was no more shy than Curly Pate herself, stooped, kissed her, and said:
“Oh, you little darling!” Curly Pate gave her fat hand to his Majesty, and the king and queen trotted off together.
“Does oo ’ike fairies, and butterflies and flowers?” the queen was heard to say as she conducted His Majesty round the garden.
The girls all looked after them with pleasure, and the gentleman said to Mrs Burton:
“Then