7 darrell and gwen

darrell hoped that her last term would go very very slowly. so did sally.

“i want to hold on to every moment, this last term,” said darrell. “i know quite well we’ll have a wonderful time at st. andrews, when we leave here—but i do so love malory towers, and i want the time to go as slowly as possible. i want to go away remembering every detail of it. i never want to forget.”

“well, we shall remember all the things we want to remember,” said sally. “we shall remember all the tricks we’ve ever played on mam’zelle, for instance—every single one! we shall remember how the pool looks on a sunny day—and how the sea looks from the classroom windows—and what it sounds like when the girls pour out of school at the end of the morning.”

“and you’ll remember dear gwen and her ways,” said alicia, who was nearby. “you’ll never forget those!”

“oh, gwen!” said darrell, exasperated at the thought of her. “i wouldn’t mind forgetting every single thing about her. she’s spoiling our last term with her silly behaviour!”

gwen really was being very trying. she had never liked malory towers, because she had never fitted in with its ideas and ideals. she was spoilt, selfish and silly, and yet thought herself a most attractive and desirable person. the only other girl in the form at all like her, maureen, she detested. she could see that maureen was like her in many many ways, and she didn’t like seeing herself so often in a girl she disliked.

gwen never stopped talking about her next and last school. “it’s in switzerland, you know,” she said a hundred times. “the best school there. it’s called a finishing school, and is very very select.”

“well, i hope it will finish you off properly,” said alicia. “it’s time something put an end to you!”

“that’s not funny, alicia,” said gwen, looking dignified. “very first-formish.”

“you always make me feel first-formish,” said alicia. “i think of silly things like putting out my tongue and saying ‘yah!’ when you start talking about your idiotic school. why you couldn’t have gone this term, and left us to enjoy our last term in peace, i simply can’t imagine.”

“i had an awful fight to go,” said gwen, and the others groaned. they had already heard far too often about gwen’s “fight”. each time she told them, she related worse and worse things that she had said to her father.

“i bet she didn’t say half those things,” said alicia to darrell. “no father would stand it—and mr. lacy has put gwen in her place plenty of times before!”

however, it was true that gwen had said some very cruel things to her father during the last holidays, backed up by her mother. mrs. lacy had been so set on sending gwen to a finishing school where she could “make nice friends”, that she had used every single means in her power to back gwen up.

tears and more tears. reproaches. sulks. cruel words. mrs. lacy had brought them all out, and gwen added to them. the old governess, miss winter, who adored gwen and thought the world of mrs. lacy, had been shocked.

gwen related it all to her unwilling listeners. “miss winter was an idiot. all she could say was, ‘your father is tired, gwendoline. he’s not been well for some time. don’t you think it would be better not to worry him so much?’ she’s silly and weak—always has been.”

“shut up,” said sally. “i’d hate to treat my father like that.”

“i said to my father, ‘aren’t i your only daughter? do you grudge me one more year’s happiness?’?” went on gwen, throwing herself into the part with all her heart. “i said, ‘you don’t love me. you never did! if you did, you would let me have this one small thing i want—that mother wants too.’?”

“i said ‘shut up’,” said sally, again. “we don’t want to hear this. it doesn’t reflect any credit on you, gwen. it’s beastly.”

“oh, you’re rather a prig, sally, aren’t you?” said gwen, with her affected laugh. “anyway, you wouldn’t have the courage to stand up to your father, i’m sure.”

“you don’t have to ‘stand up’ to your parents if you pull together,” said sally, shortly.

“do go on, gwen,” said maureen, from her corner of the room. “it’s so interesting. you sound so grown-up!”

gwen was surprised at this tribute from maureen, but very pleased. she didn’t see that maureen was encouraging her to go on simply so that she might make herself a nuisance and a bore to everyone. maureen could see how disgusted the others were. she was rather disgusted herself. although she was very like gwen, she did at least love her parents.

“let gwen go on and on!” she thought. “horrid creature! she’s showing herself up properly!”

and so gwen went on, talking to maureen, repeating the unkind things she had said to father, exulting in the victory she had won over him.

“i went on till i got my way,” she said. “i stayed in bed one whole day and mother told him i’d be really ill if i went on like that. so daddy came upstairs and said, ‘very well. you can have your own way. you’re right and i’m wrong. you can go to switzerland to school.’?”

nobody believed that her father had said this. nobody said anything at all except maureen.

“what a victory, gwendoline,” she said. “i bet you were all over your father after that.”

“i would have been if he’d have let me,” said gwen, looking a little puzzled. “but he went all grieved and sad, and hardly spoke to any of us. except sometimes to miss winter. he was putting it on, of course, to make me feel awful. but i didn’t. ‘two can play at that game,’ i thought, so i went cool too. i hardly even said good-bye to him when he drove the car away at the beginning of term. you’ve got to stand up to your parents when you get to our age!”

darrell stood up suddenly. she felt really sick. she thought of her own father, mr. rivers—kindly, hard-working surgeon, devoted to his wife and two daughters. how would he feel if she, darrell, suddenly “stood up” to him, and spoke cruel words, as gwen had to her father?

“he’d be heart-broken!” thought darrell. “and i’m sure mr. lacy felt the same. i expect he loves gwen, even if she is beastly and selfish. how could she behave like that?”

she spoke to gwen, and the tone of her voice made everyone look up.

“gwen, i’d like a few words with you,” said darrell, “come on up to my study, will you?”

gwen was surprised. what did darrell want with her? she felt like refusing, and then got up. she was rather afraid of the forthright darrell.

darrell led the way to her study. she had remembered miss grayling’s words. could she possibly say something now, this very minute, to influence gwen, and show her where she had gone wrong? darrell felt that she might. she felt so strongly about the matter that she was certain she could make gwen see her point.

“sit down in that arm-chair, gwen,” said darrell. “i want to say something to you.”

“i hope you’re not going to preach at me,” said gwen. “you’ve got on that kind of face.”

“well, i’m not going to preach,” said darrell, hoping that she wasn’t. “look here, gwen—i can’t help feeling terribly sorry for your father about all this.”

gwen was amazed. “sorry for my father! why? what’s it to do with you, anyway?”

“well, you’ve told us so often about this family row of yours, that i, for one, can’t help feeling that it is something to do with me now,” said darrell. “i mean—you’ve made me share in all that bickering and rows and upsets, and i feel almost as if i’ve been a spectator.”

gwen was silent for once. darrell went on.

“i’m not going to say a word about who’s right or who’s wrong, gwen,” said darrell, earnestly. “i’m not going to criticize anyone. i just say this. from what you’ve told me you’ve made that nice father of yours miserable. you’ve got what you want at the expense of someone else’s peace of mind.”

“i’ve got to stand on my own feet, haven’t i?” muttered gwen.

“not if you stamp on someone else’s toes to do it,” said darrell, warming up. “don’t you love your father, gwen? i couldn’t possibly treat mine as you’ve treated yours. if you did say all those cruel things to yours, then you ought to say you’re sorry.”

“i’m not sorry i said them,” said gwen, in a hard voice. “my father’s often said unkind things to me.

“well, you deserved them,” said darrell, beginning to lose patience. “he doesn’t. i’ve met him plenty of times and i think he’s a dear. you don’t deserve a father like that!”

“you said you weren’t going to preach,” said gwen, scornfully. “how long are you going on like this?”

darrell looked at gwen’s silly, weak face and marvelled that such a weak person could be so hard and unyielding. she tried once again, though she now felt sure that it was no use. nobody in this world could make any impression on gwen!

“gwen,” she began. “you said that your father said he couldn’t afford to send you to switzerland. if so, he’ll have to go short of something himself, to let you go.”

“he was wrong when he said he couldn’t afford it,” said gwen. “mother said he could. he was just saying that as an excuse not to let me go. he was horrid about the whole thing. he said—he said—that i was s-s-silly enough without being made s-s-s-sillier, and that a good j-j-job would shake me out of a lot of n-n-nonsense!”

stuttering with self-pity, gwen now dissolved into tears. darrell looked at her in despair.

“couldn’t you possibly go to your father and say you’re sorry, you’ll call the whole thing off, and do what he wants you to do, and get a job?” she asked, in her forthright way. it all seemed so simple to darrell.

gwen began to sob. “you don’t understand. i couldn’t possibly do a thing like that. i’m not going to humble myself. daddy would crow over me like anything. i’m glad i’ve made him miserable—it’ll teach him a lesson!” finished gwen, so maliciously that darrell started to her feet.

“you’re horrible, gwen! you don’t love your father or anyone else. you only love yourself. you’re horrible!”

she went out of the room, and made her way straight to miss grayling’s room. she had failed utterly and absolutely with gwen. if miss grayling wanted to influence her she must try herself. it was beyond darrell!

she told miss grayling everything. the head mistress listened gravely. “thank you, darrell,” she said. “you did your best, and it was well done. one day gwen will meet her punishment, and it will alas, be a terrible one.”

“what do you mean?” said darrell, half scared by the foreboding tone in miss grayling’s voice.

“i only mean that when someone does a grievous wrong and glories in it instead of being sorry, then that person must expect a terrible lesson,” said miss grayling. “somewhere in her life, punishment is awaiting gwen. i don’t know what it is, but inevitably it will come. thank you, darrell. you did your best.”