A harum-scarum schoolgirl
by Angela Brazil · English · Gutenberg #24645 · 390,941 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A harum-scarum schoolgirl
Author: Angela Brazil
Illustrator: John W. Campbell
Release date: February 19, 2008 [eBook #24645]
Most recently updated: January 3, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24645
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HARUM-SCARUM SCHOOLGIRL ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Casey Peel and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
A HARUM-SCARUM SCHOOLGIRL
[Illustration: "COULD YOU DO ME A KINDNESS, MISS?" SHE ASKED _Page 252_]
A HARUM-SCARUM SCHOOLGIRL
BY
ANGELA BRAZIL
_Illustrated by John Campbell_
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1920, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
Contents
CHAP. Page
I. A PIXIE GIRL 9
II. STARS AND STRIPES 23
III. A PENNILESS PRINCESS 39
IV. THE RUSH-BEARING 51
V. DIANA DARES 65
VI. FRENCH LEAVE 77
VII. LAND GIRLS 91
VIII. ARMISTICE DAY 108
IX. DIANA'S ENGLISH CHRISTMAS 128
X. A FIT OF THE BLUES 141
XI. DIANA TO THE RESCUE 153
XII. DIANA BREAKS OUT 167
XIII. CRUSOE ISLAND 178
XIV. SPOOKS 195
XV. JOY-RIDING 207
XVI. A FAMILY CREST 219
XVII. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER 235
XVIII. DIANA'S FOUNDLING 247
XIX. AMBITIONS 259
XX. A TANGLED PLOT 271
Illustrations
Page
"COULD YOU DO ME A KINDNESS, MISS?" SHE ASKED
_Frontispiece_
"O-O-O-OH! HOW GORGEOUS TO BELONG TO A HIGH-FALUTING
FAMILY THAT'S GOT LEGENDS AND GHOSTS!" 48
TWO PAIRS OF BARE FEET WENT SPLASHING JOYOUSLY
INTO THE BROOK 72
WE SET OFF AND RODE ALL THE MORNING 144
ITS COWL FELL BACK, AND DISCLOSED A WELL-KNOWN
AND DECIDEDLY MIRTHFUL COUNTENANCE 200
DIANA CALLED AND SHOUTED TO THEM. THEY TOOK
NO NOTICE 240
A HARUM-SCARUM SCHOOLGIRL
CHAPTER I
A Pixie Girl
"If I'd known!" groaned Winifred Cranston, otherwise Wendy, with a note
of utter tragedy in her usually cheerful voice. "If I'd only known!
D'you think I'd have come trotting back here with my baggage? Not a bit
of it! Nothing in this wide world should have dragged me. I'd have
turned up my hair--yes, it's _quite_ long enough to turn up, Jess Paget,
so you needn't look at it so scornfully; it's as nice as yours, and
nicer! Well, I tell you I'd have turned up my hair, and run away and
joined the 'Waacs' or the 'Wrens', or have driven a motor wagon or
conducted a tramcar, or scrubbed floors at a hospital, or done
anything--_anything_, I say!--rather than stay at the Abbey without Mrs.
Gifford."
"It's pretty stiff, certainly, for the Head to go whisking away like
this," agreed Magsie Wingfield, sitting on the other shaft of the
wheelbarrow. "And without any notice either! It leaves one gasping!"
"Stiff? It's the limit! Why didn't she give us decent warning, instead
of springing it on to us in this sudden fashion? I feel weak!"
"There wasn't time," explained Sadie Sanderson, who, with Violet Gorton
and Tattie Clegg, occupied, in a tight fit, the interior of the
wheelbarrow. "It was all done at a day's notice. Geraldine's been
telling me the whole history."
"Well?"
"Mr. Gifford got suddenly exempted, and was made Governor of some
outlandish place with an unpronounceable name in Burma. He telegraphed
to Mrs. Gifford to join him at Marseilles, and go out with him. So she
went--that's the long and the short of it!"
"Went and left her school behind her," echoed Vi.
"I call it simply running away," commented Wendy. "Why couldn't she have
stopped to arrange things--say till Christmas--and then followed him?"
"It's some tiresome red-tape business at the War Office. They'd give her
a passport to travel out _with_ him, but not to join him afterwards, so
she thought she'd better take the opportunity and go out with him while
she could. It must have been a terrific scramble for her to get off. I
believe she just bundled her things together and bolted, and left the
school to Miss Todd."
"Will she ever come back?"
"I shouldn't think it's likely now."
"Then we're left for evermore to the tender mercies of Toddlekins?"
"That's just about the size of it. Toddlekins has taken the whole thing
over."
"She's been longing and yearning to seize the reins and drive the coach
ever since she came," commented Tattie.
"Well, she's got her chance now."
"And she'll use it, too! You bet there'll be changes!"
"Changes! There are changes already, although Mrs. Gifford can hardly
have reached Marseilles yet."
"It's going to be a queer term," grunted Wendy.
The five girls were sitting in a retired corner of the garden at
Pendlemere Abbey. On one side, above the tops of the rhododendron
bushes, they could see the tall, twisted chimneys and flagged stone roof
of the old house; on the other side, below the lawn and across the
paddock, gleamed the silver waters of the lake, with its banks of rushes
and alders, and beyond lay a range of grey hills that seemed to melt
away into more distant peaks that merged into the mists on the horizon.
It was a beautiful view, and on this hazy September afternoon, with the
hidden sun sending long shafts of light from behind radiant masses of
cloud, it formed a prospect that should have afforded keen aesthetic
satisfaction to anybody who cared to look at it. Usually the girls
appreciated its changeful glories, but to-day--this first day of a new
term--they were too much taken up with their own grievances to think
about scenery. In fact, they sat huddled together in the wheelbarrow
with their backs towards the view.
It had certainly been a considerable shock to the girls to find, on
arriving after the holidays, that their popular Principal had deserted
them in so sudden a fashion. It was not indeed the first surprise which
she had given them. Two years before she had been Miss Housman, with a
purely educational outlook in life, and a horizon bounded by her school;
but Cupid, who plays strange pranks even with head mistresses, brought
her fate along in the shape of a major from the temporary camp by the
lake, and shot his arrows with such deadly aim that the whole romantic
business--courtship, engagement, and war wedding--took place in the
course of a few weeks, almost under the very noses of her interested
pupils. They had gone home for their Easter holidays much thrilled about
her engagement ring, and had returned to school to find her a war bride,
with her husband already in the trenches. When the excitement of
choosing her a wedding present was over, matters seemed to settle down
pretty much as before. Except in an increased anxiety for news from the
front, Mrs. Gifford had differed in no degree from Miss Housman. To the
school the Major was a mere abstraction; his leave had always occurred
during the holidays, and up to this time his existence--apart from the
element of romance with which it invested their head mistress--had not
affected the atmosphere of Pendlemere in the least. It had occasionally
occurred to some of the girls to question what would happen when the war
was over, but they generally ended by deciding: "He'll have to come and
live here, I suppose, and turn the junior room into a smoke-room". Some
of the more imaginative had even ventured the suggestion that he might
teach drilling and Latin. It never struck any of them that instead of
settling down at the school he would want to whisk away his bride to the
other side of the world. The unexpected had happened, however. Pretty
Mrs. Gifford had decided that the claims of matrimony outweighed all
consideration for her pupils, and had gone without even a good-bye,
leaving Miss Todd to reign in her stead.
There was no doubt that Miss Todd was admirably fitted to fill the post.
Possibly, unknown to the girls, she had been gravitating towards it ever
since her principal's hasty war wedding. Certainly she was ready, with
the utmost calm, to take over the school at the critical moment, and
transfer the connection from Mrs. Gifford's name to her own. She was a
woman of decided character, at her prime intellectually and physically,
tremendously interested in reconstruction problems, and longing to try
some educational experiments. So far, her ambitious schemes had been
much hampered by her Head. Mrs. Gifford, pleasant and popular both with
girls and parents, had clung to old-fashioned methods, and had been very
difficult to move in the matter of modern innovations. She had always
put on the curb when the second mistress's fertile imagination had
pranced away on Utopian lines. To an ardent spirit, steeped in new
race-ideals, and longing for an opportunity of serving her generation,
it was a proud moment when she suddenly found herself in a position to
carry out her pet schemes unchecked. On this first day of the new term
she moved round the school with the satisfaction of an admiral reviewing
a battleship.
It was much to Miss Todd's credit that she was able to take her fresh
duties quite calmly, and without any fuss or exhibition of nerves. She
was not a nervy woman, to begin with, and she had made a great point of
cultivating self-control. With her tall figure, clear grey eyes, bright
complexion, and abundant chestnut hair, she made a very favourable
impression upon those parents who had brought their daughters back to
school in person. At the moment when Wendy, Sadie, Tattie, Magsie, and
Vi were sitting grousing in the wheelbarrow, Miss Todd, in the
drawing-room, was completing an arrangement which was largely to affect
their future.
"It's very short notice, of course," she was saying. "But, as it
happens, there's a vacant bed, and I can manage it perfectly well."
"That's just a real relief to me!" replied a pleasant American voice
from the sofa. "We can't take Diana with us to Paris, and I don't want
to burden my cousin with her, so I said to my husband: 'There's nothing
for it but school, only it must be a good one'. Well, we motored along
to the nearest clergyman, introduced ourselves, and asked him to
recommend a real first-class, high-toned British school that would take
in Diana, and he said: 'Why, there's one on the spot here--you needn't
go any farther!' Time was getting short, so we brought her right along.
I must say I'm satisfied with all I've seen, and the talk I've had with
you, and I feel we're leaving her in good hands. My cousin, Mrs.
Burritt, will send over the rest of her things from Petteridge, and if
there's anything else she needs please get it for her. Well, Steve, if
we've to catch that 4.30 train, we must be going."
The tall dark gentleman in the arm-chair consulted his watch and rose
hastily.
"Just time if we put on some speed; but the roads are execrable," he
vouchsafed.
The central figure around whom this conversation had revolved had been
sitting in the window gazing at the view over the lake. She now turned
her head sharply, with an inscrutable expression in her dark grey eyes,
and, walking across to her father, linked her arm in his. He bent down
and whispered a few rapid words into her ear. Her mother patted her on
the shoulder reassuringly.
"You're going to have a good time, Diana. Why, I expect you won't be
wanting us to come back, you'll be so happy here. Address your letters
under cover of the American Embassy, Paris, till we send you the name of
our hotel. Good-bye! Be a good child and a credit to us."
The leave-taking was perhaps purposely cut short. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt
each bestowed a swift kiss upon their daughter, then made a hasty exit
to their waiting car, and were whirled away in the direction of Glenbury
Station and the 4.30 train, and their ultimate destination of Paris.
Ten minutes later Lennie Browne, one of the juniors, disturbed the
quintette on the wheelbarrow with a message.
"Miss Todd's sent me to find you," she announced. "You've got to come
and make friends with a new girl."
Sadie, Vi, and Tattie quitted their seats so suddenly that Magsie and
Wendy, still resting on the handles, came croppers on to the grass.
Wendy rolled over into a comfortable position, and did not trouble to
rise.
"Bunkum!" she remarked incredulously. "Don't try to rag _me_, Lennie
Browne, for it won't come off. As it happens, I asked Toddlekins half an
hour ago, and she said there were _no_ new girls. There!"
"Well, there's one now, at any rate."
Wendy looked at her pityingly, and shook her head.
"Lennie, you're a decent kid, but you're not clever. If you'd really
wanted to have us on successfully, why didn't you try something more out
of the common? You've a great lack of imagination. Anybody--yes,
_anybody_--could have thought of inventing a new girl!"
"But I _haven't_ invented her--she's really here! She walked with me as
far as the sundial, and I left her sitting on the seat while I went to
look for you. I said I wouldn't be a minute. Why, there she is!--come to
see what's become of me."
The quintette turned hastily, to find themselves confronted with an
absolute endorsement of the truth of Lennie's statements. A stranger of
about fourteen was walking towards them, or perhaps "shambling" would be
a better description of her method of progress. She stooped badly, swung
her arms in an awkward fashion, and shuffled her feet along the grass;
her eyes were vacant, her chin was retreating, and her mouth was set in
a foolish smile. For a full ghastly minute she stood and stared at the
girls, and they, in utter and amazed consternation, could not think of a
single intelligent remark with which to break the silence. Magsie was
the first to recover herself.
"You--you've only just come, I suppose?" she gasped, as politely as she
could.
The stranger gave a sickly giggle.
"Are you my new schoolfellows?" she asked in a low creaking voice.
"Miss Todd said you'd be pleased to see me, and I must make friends with
you. I've been wanting a bosom friend, so I'll just pick one of you out.
Let me see"--running her vacant eyes over the group and singling out
Wendy--"I may as well choose you as anybody. Are you ready to be my
chum?"
Wendy flushed scarlet, and, jumping up from the grass, brushed some dead
leaves from her dress.
"It's too soon to think about chums yet," she returned. "You haven't
even told us your name, and you don't know ours. Where do you come
from?"
"That means, I suppose, that you don't want me for a friend!" rasped the
creaking voice. "Don't you like the look of me? What's wrong with me
now? Please tell me, for I'd really like to know. I'm just crazy to make
friends."
In huge embarrassment Wendy and her companions stared at the
extraordinary stranger. She bore their united gaze without flinching.
She even turned round slowly, so that they might have an adequate view
of her foolish profile, protruding lips, and retreating chin.
"Do tell me what's wrong with me?" she repeated.
No one volunteered a criticism, and for another whole minute there was
dead silence. Then a brisk voice remarked:
"Would this style suit you better now, I wonder?"
The girls caught their breath in amazement. The stooping, slouching
figure had suddenly straightened itself up, the protruding lips had set
into a small, neat mouth, the receding chin had come forward, and the
vacant eyes were twinkling with mirth. Instead of a half-idiotic, and
wholly unattractive, specimen of girlhood, a very charming little
personality stood before them. The transformation was so utter that at
first the audience simply gaped, then with one accord they exploded into
laughter and words.
"Oh, I say!"
"You fraud!"
"I really thought you were dotty!"
"How _did_ you do it?"
"You looked too awful for words!"
"You haven't told us your name yet!"
"Can you do it again?"
The stranger curtsied, dropped her jaw, set her eyes in a glassy stare,
and, resuming the creaking voice, bleated forth:
"Thank you! Thank you for welcoming me! I'm called Miranda Jane Judkins,
and I come from Conic Section Farm, Squashville, Massachusetts. Which of
you wants to chum with me? Don't all speak at once!"
"Oh, for goodness' sake drop that awful face! It absolutely gives me
spasms!" hinnied Magsie. "It's the very image of a village idiot who
used to terrify me when I was a kiddie. Don't look at me with those
horrid eyes! I shall have a fit!"
"Look here, you mad thing!" said Vi. "Can't you tell us who you really
are?"
"Miss Judkins."
"No, no! Your real name! Stop ragging!"
Once more the half-witted, shambling figure gave place to a sparkling,
self-possessed, laughing young witch of fourteen, who with another mock
curtsy introduced herself.
"Diana Hewlitt--quick-change artiste. Entertainments arranged at any
moment. Reserved seats, five shillings. Proceeds to the Red Cross Fund.
Oh, I believe at first I really _did_ take you in!"
"You did," admitted Wendy; "because, of course, we weren't expecting it.
We shall know you better now, and be prepared. I say, you're rather a
sport! Where have you turned up from? Miss Todd said only an hour ago
there weren't any new girls."
"No doubt she told the truth. There weren't then! Why, an hour since we
were just half-way between Glassenrigg and Scawdale, pelting along at
about double the speed limit. Miss Todd didn't even know of my
existence. I've been dropped upon her like a bolt from the blue. I must
say I admired the calm way she fixed up to take me, all in ten minutes.
Most Britishers wouldn't have fallen in so quickly with Dad's lightning
methods, but she seemed to understand right away."
"Are you American, then?"
"Rather! I was born under the Stars and Stripes. Never saw England till
we crossed this summer. Dad's just been called over to Paris, and d'you
know, they've let Mother go with him, but they wouldn't give _me_ a
passport. Wasn't it real mean of them? I do think the War Office is the
limit! Well, of course, the question was: what could be done with me. I
said: 'Leave me at Petteridge'. But Mother said: 'No; I'm not going to
dump you on Cousin Coralie; she'd be down with nervous exhaustion at the
end of a fortnight. School's the place for you, and we've got to rake
round and find a school in double-quick time'. Dad nodded, and just rang
up and ordered the car, and we started out with no more idea than the
man in the moon where I was going to be landed. I'm glad fate tossed me
here, though. It looks nice; kind of a real old-world flavour about the
place, somehow. I'm crazy on old things--Scott's novels, you know, and
castles, and all the rest of it. When I heard this was called Pendlemere
Abbey, I said: 'That'll do! Take me there!' So here I am!"
"It takes one's breath away," commented Tattie. "I don't know that I'd
like to be whisked off to school in such a precious hurry myself."
"It's rather as if the pixies had dropped you," laughed Vi.
"Right you are! I guess I'm a pixie sort of girl. Please don't expect
'prunes and prism' from me, for you won't get them!"
"I don't know that we want them," chuckled Wendy.
"That takes a weight off my mind, then," twinkled Diana. "I like
mediaeval abbeys and black beams and raftered roofs, and even ghosts; but
I don't know that I exactly want mediaeval schoolgirls."
"Don't alarm yourself," said Wendy, clapping her on the shoulder. "I
assure you you'll find us all absolutely and entirely modern and
up-to-date."
CHAPTER II
Stars and Stripes
If Diana was possessed with a passion for antiquities, she might
certainly congratulate herself that a kindly fate had popped her into
such an appropriate spot as Pendlemere Abbey. It offered every
attraction to those in search of the romantic and picturesque. The
Cistercian monks who had founded it in the thirteenth century had
exhibited their proverbial good taste in the choice of a situation. It
was built on rising ground above the lake, and commanded a glorious view
across the fells. The garden, with its hill-side of rhododendrons, its
clumps of sweet-smelling pines, and its borders of such hardy flowers as
did not mind the nip of the northern air, ran steeply from a flat
terrace towards the lake, where it ended in a landing-stage and a locked
boat-house. Its orchard linked branches with the apple-trees of a
neighbouring farm. The house itself, though preserving the name and the
traditions of the Abbey, had been converted during Tudor times from
religious to lay uses. Very little of the old monks' building remained
intact, though evidences of it cropped up in unexpected quarters. There
were the remains of a piscina in the pantry; a groined arch roofed the
back kitchen; two carved stone pillars supported the fire-place in the
dining-room; a Gothic doorway led into the courtyard, and the remnants
of some ancient choir stalls were fitted as a window-seat on the stairs.
The Tudor and Elizabethan periods had left more permanent traces, and,
though later architects had played havoc with the simplicity of the
style, they had not altogether destroyed its sixteenth-century
appearance. The greater part was built of northern stone, with mullioned
windows, twisted chimneys, peaked gables surmounted with stone balls,
and a roof of flat slabs of the same yellow-brown stone that formed the
walls. A section of black and white timbered Elizabethan work, a Queen
Anne wing, and some early Victorian alterations made a strange
conglomeration of styles of architecture; but the roses and ivy had
climbed up and clothed ancient and modern alike, and Time had softened
the jarring nineteenth-century additions, so that the whole now blended
into a mellow, brownish mass, with large, bright windows enclosed in a
frame of well-clipped greenery.
There was accommodation in the roomy old house for twenty boarders, and
though no day pupils were supposed to be received a special exception
had been made in the case of Meg and Elsie Fleming, the Vicar's
daughters, who arrived every morning by nine o'clock, and Nell Gledhill,
whose governess brought her each Friday afternoon for dancing-lessons.
So far the school had jogged along very happily under Mrs. Gifford's
mild regime. Fathers and mothers had sometimes shrugged their shoulders
and hinted that her methods were old-fashioned, but they always added
that the tone of the place was so excellent, and the health of the
pupils so well looked after, that there was really no just cause for
complaint. Miss Todd, sitting in her study, and writing twenty neat,
well-thought-out letters to explain the sudden transfer of the school,
assured parents that, while preserving all the traditions of her
predecessor, she hoped to introduce a modern element of progress in
keeping with the needs of the day. "I realize that we must march with
the times," she wrote; and she meant it. She began her innovations on
that very first day. Several disconsolate seniors congregated on the
upper landing viewed change number one with dismay.
"But Mrs. Gifford promised that Geraldine and Ida and I might have the
East room," urged Nesta Erskine. "It was all arranged last term, and we
clubbed together to buy a bookcase. What are we to do with it if we're
separated? It belongs to us all three."
"I can't help it; those are Miss Todd's orders," answered Miss Beverley
briskly. "Your names are on cards pinned on to the doors of your new
rooms. Pass along at once, and find your quarters and begin to unpack.
Don't stand here blocking up the passage! Yes, Betty? Miss Hampson wants
to speak to me? Tell her I'm coming now."
As Miss Beverley bustled away the seniors moved slowly and forlornly
along the landing in quest of billets. It reminded them of finding their
places in an examination-room. Their names were unquestionably on the
doors in black-and-white, but their distribution called forth a storm of
indignant comment.
"I'm actually put with Tattie Clegg and Jess Paget!"
"And I'm boxed up with Dorothy, and Nora Haddon, and Glynne Hamilton!"
"Why, we're all mixed up with the kids!"
"Look here, you know, we can't stand this kind of thing!"
"Somebody had better go to Miss Todd!"
"It's no use; I've just been," said Loveday Seton, joining the group of
malcontents. "We had it all out in the study, and she listened quite
kindly and politely, but she was firm as nails. She says it's an
experiment for the sake of good tone, and she hopes it will work well.
We seniors are sandwiched up with intermediates and juniors so that our
influence may permeate through the school."
The five listeners groaned.
"Couldn't we permeate enough during the daytime?" sniffed Ida. "I don't
see what influence I can have while I'm asleep. I call it a jolly
nuisance to be saddled with three kids in one's room."
"Of course you have your curtains."
"What's the use of curtains? A cubicle's only semi-private after all.
What it means is that we seniors are always on duty policing those
juniors. What a life!"
"Where are you put, Loveday?" asked Geraldine.
"In the little ivy room upstairs. There are two beds, and I'm to act
mentor to this new American girl who's just arrived."
"Poor you! What's she like?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her yet, but I wish she were at Jericho."
In a decidedly ruffled frame of mind, Loveday passed along the landing,
and climbed the stairs that led to the ivy room. She found her room-mate
already in possession, and with her belongings half-unpacked. Photos
adorned her dressing-table, a large American flag draped the mirror, and
her bed was spread with odds and ends. She smiled broadly as Loveday
entered.
"So here you are!" she greeted her. "Goody! What a relief! I've been
worrying about what you'd be like, and just praying you wouldn't have
spectacles and talk with a lisp. Miss Todd gave me to understand you
were a peach, and I might think myself in luck to room with you, but you
never can trust head mistresses till you see for yourself. She's told me
the truth, though, after all. Yes, I like you right straight away, and I
always make up my mind about people, slap bang off at once."
Loveday stared in surprise at the impetuous little figure kneeling
beside the big trunk. Diana's dark-grey eyes shone like stars, her oval
face, if not exactly pretty, was piquant and interesting, her
light-brown hair curled at the tips. It was, of course, an unheard-of
liberty for a new girl, and an intermediate to boot, thus to address a
senior, but the greeting was spontaneous and decidedly flattering. The
grey eyes, in fact, expressed open admiration. On the whole, Loveday
decided to waive ceremony and tradition for the nonce.
"We've been put together for the term, so we must make the best of each
other," she conceded, more graciously than she had intended to address
the interloper. "I'm glad to see you've kept to your own side of the
room, and haven't overflowed into mine."
"No fear!" chuckled Diana. "I've been at school before, and learnt not
to spread myself out. We're on rather a short allowance of space, aren't
we? Are these drawers all I've got? I shall have just to wedge my things
in. There's my cabin trunk to come yet."
"You may have three pegs in the landing cupboard, and a locker in the
cloak-room, but anything else will have to be stored in the box-room. I
should think you had enough clothes there to last you a year, instead of
wanting another trunk full."
Diana shook her head.
"They're all mixed up. We packed in half an hour. I just flung in the
first things that came to hand. Cousin Cora promised to send on the
rest of my luggage after me. If she doesn't, I'd best 'phone."
"You'd have a little difficulty to do that," said Loveday dryly.
"D'you mean to say there's no 'phone here, or"--looking round the
room--"no electric light either?"
"Certainly not. We go to bed with candles."
"Well! I wanted mediaeval ways, and it looks as if I was going to get
them. It'll be rather a stunt to go to bed by candle-light. Are there
any ghosts about this place? Or skeletons built into the wall? Or
dungeons with rusting chains? Or mysterious footsteps? Oh! I thought
there'd have been at least something spooky in a house that claims to be
six hundred years old."
Diana's cabin trunk arrived in the course of a few days. She sorted out
a selection of her numerous belongings, arranged them in her limited
number of drawers, and consigned the surplus back to her boxes to be
stored in the attic. This done, and a telegram received to announce the
safe arrival of her father and mother in Paris, she seemed prepared to
settle down. Her fellow intermediates, biased largely by her generosity
in the matter of chocolates, gave her, on the whole, a favourable
reception. Wendy even went further, and proffered friendship.
"You're just the jolly kind of girl I like," she explained. "I think we
might have some topping times together, and wake up the school. Things
are apt to get a little dull sometimes."
Diana nodded intelligently.
"I know. It was just the same at my last school. Everyone got into a
sort of stick-in-the-mud mood, and one felt it was only _kind_ to stir
them up. I guess I did it!"
"I shouldn't wonder if you did," twinkled Wendy. "I vote we make an
alliance, and, if one of us thinks of any rather ripping rag, she just
tells the other, and we'll play it off together."
"Right you are! Let's shake on it!" agreed Diana, extending a small,
slim hand, with a garnet birthstone-ring on the middle finger.
The little American did not fit into her niche at Pendlemere without
encountering a certain amount of what her schoolmates considered
necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of
chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of "Stars and Stripes",
or "The Yank", and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic
accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee
that laid the jokers flat.
"One can't get much change out of Diana," commented Magsie, after an
unsuccessful onslaught of teasing.
"I think she's a scream," agreed Vi.
The baffling part of the new schoolmate was that her powers of acting
were so highly developed that it was impossible to tell whether she was
serious or playing a part. She "took in" her teasers times out of
number, and in fairness they deserved all they got. Towards the end of
the first week she came into the intermediate room one morning fondling
a letter.
"From Paris," she vouchsafed. "Dad and Mother have got anchored at last.
The journey must have been a startler. Paris is so full of Americans,
it's like a little New York."
"Why do you call it 'Parr-is'?" sniggered Sadie.
"It's more like the French than your way of saying it, at any rate,"
retorted Diana smartly. "This letter's been four days in coming
through."
"You might give me the stamp."
"Certainly not. You don't deserve it. I wish I were in Paris, too. Yes,
I shall call it 'Parr-is'. I'm beginning to want some of my own folks."
"I've never met any Americans, except you," volunteered Vi. "What are
they like?"
"What do you imagine they're like?"
"Like the pictures of 'Uncle Sam', with a limp shirt front, and a big
tie, and a goatee beard. I want to meet some real out-and-out Yankees."
"Won't your cousins from Petteridge ever come over to see you, Di?"
asked Magsie.
"Perhaps they may, sometime," replied Diana thoughtfully. "I should say
it's quite within the bounds of possibility, considering they only live
ten miles away."
"Gee-whiz! I guess I'd just admire to make their acquaintance!" mocked
Vi. "I reckon they'll be _some_ folks!"
Diana's eyes were fixed upon her with an inscrutable look, but she
answered quite calmly:
"I'll take care to introduce you if they come."
It was in the course of the next few days that a parcel for Diana
arrived from Petteridge Court. What it contained nobody saw except
herself, for she did her unpacking in private. Judging from certain
outbursts of chuckling, the exact cause of which she steadily refused to
reveal, the advent of her package gave her profound satisfaction. The
next Saturday afternoon was wet: one of those hopelessly wet days that
are apt to happen in a land of lakes and hills. Banks of mist obscured
the fells; the garden walks were turned to running rivers, the bushes
dripped dismally, and cascades poured from the gutters. The school,
which had been promised a country tramp, looked out of the windows with
woeful disappointment. The seniors consoled themselves by holding a
committee meeting, from which all but their elect selves were rigidly
excluded. The juniors took possession of the play-room, and relieved
their spirits by games which made the maximum of noise. Several of the
intermediates peeped in, but, finding the place a mixture of a
bear-garden and the Tower of Babel, they retired to the sanctuary of
their own form-room, where they sat making half-hearted efforts to read
or paint, and grousing at the weather.
"Is _every_ Saturday going to be wet?" demanded Magsie in an injured
voice.
"Seems like it!" mourned Jess Paget. "Of course it can be beautifully
fine on Friday, when we have to stop in and do dancing; and it just
keeps all the rain for Saturday. I call it spiteful! I wish I knew what
to do with myself. I'm moping."
"Get a book out of the library."
"I loathe reading."
"Do some painting."
"You know I can't paint."
"Go and romp with the juniors."
"I'd as soon spend an hour in a monkey-house."
"Then I can't do anything for you, I'm afraid. You'll just have to
mope."
"Where's Sadie?" asked Peggy Collins. "She promised to give me back my
crochet-needle, and I can't get on without it."
"She went off with Diana and Wendy half an hour ago. I saw them running
upstairs together. Don't flatter yourself she'll remember about your
crochet-needle."
"I know she won't--the slacker! I shall just have to go and rout her up,
and make her find it. Oh, kafoozalum! It's a weary world!"
Peggy rose languidly, stretched her arms, and strolled in the direction
of the door, which at that identical moment opened to admit the missing
Sadie.
"Here, you old blighter, where's that crochet-needle?" demanded Peggy
impolitely.
"Bother your crochet-needle! I've no time to go and hunt for it now. I
say, girls!" continued Sadie excitedly; "anybody know what's become of
Diana? She's wanted. Those American cousins of hers have turned up. I
told them she was in here, and they're waiting outside the door. Oh!"
Sadie's exclamation was caused by the door, which she had carefully
closed suddenly opening, and nearly knocking her over. Apparently the
visitors did not approve of being left to wait in the passage, and
judged it expedient to make an entrance.
"Excuse me if we walk right in," said a nasal-toned voice; "but I was
told we'd find Miss Diana Hewlitt in here."
The five girls, scattered about the room, stared for a second in blank
amazement at the intruders. They were certainly unlike any other
visitors who had ever come to Pendlemere. The speaker was a little,
short, wiry man, in a slack-fitting, brown tweed suit, with a rather
obtrusive striped tie. His raggy, grey beard straggled under his chin
and up to his ears; his eyes twinkled through a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles; in defiance of European etiquette, he wore his hat over a
crop of rough, grey hair. Clinging to his arm was a very stout lady in a
green coat and a velvet turban adorned with feathers. She also was
grey-haired, and her features were somewhat obscured by a thick, black
veil. The most prominent thing about her was a large and obtruding
tooth, which gave her somewhat the appearance of a good-natured walrus;
she held a morocco-leather satchel in her unoccupied hand, and wore a
large feather-boa round her neck.
Magsie, to her eternal credit, was the first to remember her manners,
and offer some sort of a greeting to the extraordinary strangers.
"Er--good afternoon!" she stammered. "I'm afraid Diana isn't here.
Shall--shall I go and fetch her?"
"Well, now, I'd call that real elegant of you," returned the stout lady
heartily. "We can't stay long, and we don't want to waste time."
"Cora, I guess we'd best introduce ourselves," observed the gentleman,
gently disengaging her from his arm. "We're Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Burritt
of Petteridge Court. I reckon you're Diana's schoolfellows? Pleased to
meet you, I'm sure."
"Did you have a wet drive?" asked Jess Paget, making a desperate and
most gallant attempt to pump up some item of conversation.
The stout lady shook her head eloquently.
"I _do_ say that in the matter of weather a British wet day just about
takes the cake!" she replied.
Her voice was slightly tremulous and muffled; perhaps the weather
agitated her. Moreover, her large tooth seemed to cause her some
inconvenience--it wobbled visibly as she spoke.
"If Diana don't turn up, I guess we'll have to be getting on," ventured
Mr. Elihu Burritt, pulling out a big watch and consulting it. "We've
got to call at the drug store at Glenbury, and time presses."
"Magsie's gone to fetch her. Peggy, you go too, and hurry her up. Won't
you sit down while you're waiting?" asked Jess, pulling forward two
chairs.
The visitors seated themselves, that is to say, they sank heavily down,
and planted their hands on their knees. Their eyes took an interested
review of the embarrassed faces of the girls, then they suddenly
collapsed into gurgles of laughter. An instant wave of comprehension
swept through the room.
"Diana and Wendy!" exclaimed a chorus of voices.
Mr. Elihu Burritt was guffawing to such an extent that his hat, and the
venerable locks stitched inside it, tumbled to the ground, revealing a
crop of brown hair. Mrs. Cora had lost her tooth altogether, and her
turban was tilted to a most disreputable angle. She slapped her partner
on the back, and commanded, between sobs of mirth:
"Elihu--stop laughing! I guess we'd best wangle ourselves off!"
But the girls had crowded round to examine the details of the costumes.
"They're topping!" they approved. "Absolutely A1! Can't think how you
did it! Diana, where did you get those togs?"
"Sent to Petteridge for them," exulted Diana. "They came in that parcel.
It's an old suit of Cousin Hugh's. I told Cousin Coralie I wanted it to
dress up in. The beard's just made out of tow, and so's Wendy's hair.
Flatter myself I came up to your expectations of a real backwoods Yank.
I wonder if I'd take in Miss Todd. I'd give a hundred dollars to try.
But it might be rather a risky experiment. Don't you think my old girl
is a peach? I'm nuts on her!"
"I simply shouldn't have known you, Wendy," said Jess. "How did you make
yourself so fat?"
"I'm stuffed out with all sorts of things," laughed Wendy. "Vests, and
nightdresses, and stockings, and anything we could lay our hands on.
I'm specially padded over the shoulders. The toque is one of Diana's
hats turned inside out with some feathers pinned on. The tooth? Why,
that was a piece of india-rubber tucked inside my lip. It was fearfully
difficult to make it stick, I can tell you. It kept jiggling about when
I tried to talk. Elihu, old man, shall we dance a tickle-toe?"
"Stop, you mad creatures! If you make such a racket you'll be bringing
Bunty down upon us," interposed Magsie, as the masquerading couple
twirled each other round and round. "If you want to be ready in time for
tea, you'd better go and get out of those weird garments."
"I'd like to go down to tea in them," declared Diana. "What a lovely
sensation they'd make! Magsie, just peep out and see that the coast is
clear before we make a dash for it along the passage. It might upset
Bunty's nerves if she met us."
As it happened, during the very next week Diana received a visit from
her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Burritt of Petteridge Court. They arrived in
their Daimler car, and lunched with the school. They were the very
epitome of cultured and polished America, and the girls raved over them.
After half an hour of their company, seven intermediates had determined
to mould themselves absolutely on the lines of "Cousin Coralie", and to
marry exact replicas of Mr. Burritt. It was felt that ambition could
soar no higher.
"I'm glad you like them," said Diana, as she stood on the steps with
some of her friends watching the Daimler pass out through the gate. "I
thought you would--when they really turned up. That was why I wanted you
to see 'Cousin Elihu' and 'Cousin Cora' first. They were more your idea
of typical Americans, weren't they? Ah!"--shaking her head
commiseratingly--"that's because you benighted Britishers just don't
know anything about the _real_ America."
CHAPTER III
A Penniless Princess
Miss Todd, sitting at her desk in her study, with a row of the very
latest publications on the most modern theories of education in a
bookcase so near that she could stretch out her hand for any particular
one she wanted, rapidly reviewed some of her new experiments. First and
foremost came the plan of sandwiching seniors and juniors together in
their bedrooms. She hoped the influence of the elder girls would work
like leaven in the school, and that putting them with younger ones would
give them the chance of developing and exercising their motherly
instincts. She tapped her book with her pencil as she mentally ran over
the list of her seniors, and considered how--to the outside view of a
head mistress--each seemed to be progressing.
"It's difficult to foster just the spirit one wants in them--it depends
so largely on the girl," she decided.
And there she was right--the girl made all the difference. Hilary
Chapman had listened to her remarks on "the mother instinct", and had
walked straight into her dormitory, tow-rowed her young room-mates for
their untidiness, snapped at their excuses, and sent them downstairs
with a snubbing, returning to the bosom of the seniors ruffled, but with
a strong sense of having performed her obvious duty. Betty Blane, Erica
Peters, and Peggy Collins, comparing injured notes, viewed the matter
from a different angle.
"Calls herself a mother, does she? Jolly more like a step-mother, I
should say," objected Erica.
"Pretty grizzly to be boxed up with Hilary for a whole term," lamented
Betty.
"I'm _not going_ to be 'mothered' by her," proclaimed Peggy with energy.
"She's only two years older than I am, and yet from the airs she gives
herself you'd think she was Methuselah."
"You don't _look_ like her daughter," remarked Betty, who was
literal-minded to a fault.
Peggy made an eloquent grimace.
"I'm an undutiful one, at any rate," she laughed. "I'm afraid Hilary
will find me somewhat of a handful."
Up in the little ivy room, however, matters were going somewhat better.
Diana and Loveday, after a few minor differences, dovetailed both their
possessions and their dispositions so as to admit of the least possible
friction. It was fortunate for Diana, for she had a side to her
character that would have bristled into porcupine quills had she been
placed with Hilary. Loveday's particular temperament soothed her down.
"I'm falling in love with her," she admitted to Wendy. "I was taken
with her, of course, the moment I saw her, but I believe now I'm going
to have it badly. I think she's beautiful! If there were a Peach
Competition, she'd win at a canter."
Such a pandering to the "pomps and vanities" as a Beauty Show was
certainly not an item in the list of new experiments at Pendlemere, but
there was a general consensus of opinion that Loveday held the palm in
the matter of looks. She was a fair, slender girl, with delicate
features, a clear complexion, and a quantity of long flaxen hair. She
spoke prettily, but without affectation, and always gave an impression
of great refinement. The wistful look that sometimes shaded her blue
eyes was, on the whole, attractive.
"She's like a picture I once saw of Eve just turned out of Paradise,"
commented Diana, sitting with Wendy and Tattie in the window-seat on the
stairs.
"Not half a bad shot," said Wendy. "In fact, it just about hits the
mark. In a way, Loveday _is_ turned out of Paradise. That's to say, I
suppose, if her grandfather hadn't gambled, the Abbey would have
belonged to her."
"What Abbey?"
"Why, this, of course, stupid!"
"Do you mean to say Loveday's folks used to _own_ this place?"
"They did. Owned it for hundreds of years. They were an old Border
family, and mixed up with the rebellion of 1745, and all sorts of
interesting things. Loveday's grandfather was the regular old-fashioned
sporting kind of squire you read about in books. He gambled the whole
property away. I suppose it used to be a fine place in his day. I've
heard he kept eight hunters, and always had the house full of guests
while his money lasted. Then there was a grand smash up, and everything
had to be sold--house, horses, furniture, and all. He went abroad and
died of a broken heart--never smiled again, and all that sort of thing,
you know."
"How fearfully romantic!" gasped Diana. "Of course it was his own fault
for gambling, but still one feels sorry for him. Did Loveday live here
too when she was little?"
Wendy shook her head.
"I shouldn't think so. I believe it happened ever such a long time ago;
before she was born, even."
"Couldn't her father get it back?"
"I suppose not. Besides, he's dead too. Loveday is an orphan. She's
neither father nor mother."
"Where does she live, then, when she's at home?"
"With an uncle and aunt--her mother's relations. But she never talks
very much about them, so we fancy they're not particularly nice to her.
She has no brothers or sisters. I think she feels lonely, if you ask my
opinion, but she's too proud to say so."
"And Pendlemere ought to be hers! How romantic!" repeated Diana. "I
wanted to stay in a real old-fashioned mediaeval British house, and here
I'm plumped into a story as well. It's most exciting! What's going to
happen next? Is Loveday going to get it back? Will she marry the man who
owns it? Or will somebody leave her a fortune? Or will she find a lost
will? How do stories generally end?" continued Diana, casting her mind
over a range of light literature which she had skimmed and half
forgotten.
Wendy disposed of each of the suggestions in turn.
"There isn't anybody to leave her a fortune; and what's the good of
finding a will when the place is sold? The present owner is a fat old
fellow of fifty, with a wife already, and, even if _she_ died, I
shouldn't think Loveday would want to marry him. He has three daughters
older than she is, and he's quite bald."
Diana looked baffled. Her romantic plan of restoring the fortunes of the
Seton family through matrimony certainly did not seem hopeful.
"I'm fearfully sorry for Loveday," confided Tattie. "I know something
about her, because some friends of ours live near her aunt. They say she
gets very much snubbed; her cousins make her feel it's not her own home.
She wants to go to college, but it's doubtful if she'll be able. Nesta
Erskine says Loveday is just _counting_ on a career. She wants to be
independent of her aunt."
"It must be horrible to be snubbed," commented Diana thoughtfully.
She had admired Loveday before, but now she looked at her room-mate with
new eyes. To Diana there was something fascinating about the idea of a
"penniless princess".
"Do your ancestors go right slap-bang back to the Conquest?" she asked
interestedly, while she was undressing that evening.
"Well, not quite so far as that," smiled Loveday, diligently brushing a
flaxen mane ripply with plaiting. "But I believe there were Setons in
the fourteenth century, long before they had the Abbey from Edward the
Sixth's commissioners. There are all sorts of stories and legends about
them, of course."
"What kind of stories? Do tell me! I'd just admire to hear. I'm crazy on
Border ballads and legends. Tell me, while I fix my hair."
"Well, there was little Sir Rowland. When he was only six years old his
father was killed in one of the battles of the Wars of the Roses. They
were Lancastrians, and the Yorkists seized his estate, and Rowland was
only saved from the fury of the conquering party by the devotion of his
nurse. She managed to hide him in a secret place in the tower till there
was an opportunity to escape, and then she got him away to her father's
house in the midst of a wild tract of forest. He lived there, disguised
as a forester, for years and years, and helped to cut wood and to hunt,
and only two or three people knew the secret of his birth. He used to go
errands sometimes to the great Hall of the neighbourhood, and there he
saw Lady Anne, the beautiful daughter of Lord Wharton, and fell
desperately in love with her. One day when she was out riding he was
able to save her from the attack of an infuriated stag, and I suppose
she was very grateful, and perhaps showed her feelings too plainly, for
her father shut her up in a turret-room, and ordered her to marry
somebody whom she didn't like at all. I don't know what would have
happened, but just then Henry VII came to the throne, and one of his
first acts was to restore Sir Rowland Seton to his possessions and
dignity. Lord Wharton must have thought him an eligible suitor then, for
he was allowed to marry the Lady Anne, and take her away to his castle.
Their tomb is in Dittington Church. He was killed at the Battle of
Flodden, and one of his sons with him.
"There's a romantic story, too, about Sir Roderick Seton, who lived at
the Abbey here in the days of Charles I. He had a stone seat made, and
put just by the front door. The first person who sat on it was a lovely
girl named Katherine, and he said to her: 'Katherine, you have sat on my
seat, so you must give me three kisses as toll'. Not very long after he
went away to London, leaving his brother William to look after the
estate. Then civil war broke out, and he joined the Royalist forces, and
followed the young King Charles into exile. After the Restoration he
journeyed north, and came on foot to his old home. It was years and
years since he had left there, and nobody had had any tidings about him,
or knew whether he was alive or dead. He found his brother William, who
was now married to Katherine, sitting with her and their two children on
the stone seat by the door. He asked them for a night's lodging, and,
though they did not know who he was, they took him in and treated him
kindly. Next morning he asked his hostess to accompany him to the door,
and, pointing to the stone seat, said:
"'It is many years since I had three kisses from the dame who first sat
on it.'
"She recognized him then, and ran joyously to call the rest of the
household. His brother at once wished to hand over the keys to him, but
he would not accept them. 'I am old and childless,' he said. 'All I ask
here is bed and board till you carry me to the churchyard.' He lived
with them for some years, and devoted himself to study. The people of
the neighbourhood venerated him as a sage, and after his death he was
supposed on very special occasions to appear and give the family warning
of future trouble. They say he was seen before the Battle of Culloden,
and several times during the Napoleonic wars; but of course I can't
vouch for that--it's only legend."
Diana, sitting up in bed with the curtains of her cubicle drawn aside to
listen, gave a long-drawn, breathless sigh.
"O-o-o-oh! How gorgeous to belong to a highfaluting family that's got
legends and ghosts. I'm just crazy to hear more. What about the house?
Aren't there any dungeons or built-up skeletons or secret hiding-places?
There _ought_ to be, in a real first-class mediaeval place like this."
Loveday was plaiting her flaxen hair into two long braids; she paused
with the ribbon in her hand.
"I don't know--as you say, there ought to be. I've often
wondered--especially since----" She hesitated.
"Since what?" urged Diana, scenting the beginning of a mystery.
"Since something that happened once."
"When? Oh, _do_ tell me!"
"I've never told anybody."
Diana hopped out of bed, and flung two lace-frilled arms round her
room-mate, clinging to her with the tenacity of a young octopus.
"Oh, Loveday! Ducky! Tell me! I shan't let you go till you promise.
Please! please!" she entreated.
"If you strangle me I can't tell anything. Get back into bed, Diana! I
don't know whether it was really important, but it may have been. It
happened when I was quite a little girl. I had a slight attack of
measles, and of course I was kept in bed. Mother was nursing me, and one
afternoon she went out to do some shopping and left me to have a nap. I
wasn't sleepy in the least, and it was horribly dull staying there all
by myself. I remembered a book I wanted to read which was in the
dining-room bookcase, so I did a most dreadfully naughty thing: I jumped
up, put on my dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, and ran downstairs to
fetch _At the Back of the North Wind_. I opened the dining-room door and
marched in, and then I got a surprise, for seated in a chair by the fire
was a stranger. He looked as much surprised as I was.
"'Hallo!' he said. 'We go to bed early in this part of the world, don't
we? Or are we only getting up?'
"I walked to the fire and warmed my hands, and looked at him calmly. I
was a funny child in those days.
"'It's neither,' I answered. 'I've got measles.'
"'Then please don't give them to me,' he laughed. 'I assure you I don't
want them. Look here! I called to see your father, or, failing your
father, your mother. They're both out, and I've been waiting half an
hour for either of them to come in. I can't stay any longer. Will you
give them a message from me? Say I've been over at Pendlemere Abbey, and
that I've made a most interesting discovery there. If they care to
communicate with me, I'll tell them about it. Here's my card with my
address. Now I must bolt to keep an appointment. You'll remember the
message?'
[Illustration: "O-O-O-OH! HOW GORGEOUS TO BELONG TO A HIGH-FALUTING
FAMILY THAT'S GOT LEGENDS AND GHOSTS!"]
"He flung his card on the table, went out of the room, and I heard the
hall door bang after him. I stood for a moment thinking. If I gave this
message, Mother would know that I had been out of bed and downstairs,
and I should be sure to get a tremendous scolding. I was a naughty
little girl in those days; I took the card, flung it on the fire, seized
_At the Back of the North Wind_ from the bookcase, and tore upstairs
again. Of course I caught cold, and had rather a serious relapse which
puzzled everybody. No one except myself knew the reason, and I took good
care not to tell. Only six months afterwards I lost both my father and
mother, and went to live with my aunt at Liverpool. What became of the
stranger I don't know. I didn't even remember his name."
"You weren't living at the Abbey then?"
"No, no! We never lived at the Abbey. It was sold before I was born. I
believe at that time it was empty, and a caretaker used to allow
tourists to look through it. I suppose that gentleman was a tourist."
"What had he found?"
"That's a question I've asked myself a hundred times. Was it a sliding
panel or a secret door? Or was he simply some antiquarian crank who
wanted to prove that the Abbey was of Norman origin, or built on a Roman
foundation? How I wish I hadn't forgotten his name! When I heard that
Pendlemere had been turned into a school I begged my aunt to send me
here. For a long time she wouldn't, and I went to a day-school. Then two
years ago she and uncle decided to send me to a boarding-school, so
again I asked to come here, and after a great deal of urging they let
me. I hoped I might find out something. I'm always hunting about, but
I've never yet made the 'interesting discovery'."
"Where have you looked?" asked Diana, immensely thrilled.
"Oh, everywhere! I've tapped panels, and pushed bits of carving to see
if they'd move, but they're all absolutely firm and solid. I've had no
luck."
"I'll go exploring on my own."
"Well, if you do, don't tell the other girls. I hate to pose as a sort
of turned-out heiress, and have them pitying me. If they knew I was
hunting for hiding-places, I believe some of them would rag me
dreadfully. I should never hear the last of it. They'd always be
pretending they'd found something, just to tease me."
"And yet you ought to have been the heiress," mused Diana.
"It's no use talking about being an heiress when the place was sold
before I was born," returned Loveday rather bitterly. "I've told you
this, but I trust you not to go blabbing it all over the school. If
you're ready, I'll blow out the candle. Miss Hampson will be round in a
minute."
CHAPTER IV
The Rush-bearing
Among Miss Todd's modern principles of education was the sensible theory
that if you can once get a girl interested in a subject she will learn
without any labour, and that self-acquired knowledge is far more readily
retained than facts which are crammed down one's throat. More especially
she applied this to history. Instead of making it a dry catalogue of
dates of kings and battles, she tried to show the gradual evolution of
the British nation from the barbarism of the Stone Age to present-day
civilization. She dwelt much on folk-lore, ancient customs and
traditions, and especially encouraged the study of all local legends and
observances. In this she found an ally in the new vicar who had lately
come to the church at Pendlemere, and whose daughters, Meg and Elsie,
attended the school as day-girls. Mr. Fleming was an enthusiastic
antiquarian, and revelled in the history of the neighbourhood. He went
round his parish collecting information from the oldest inhabitants with
regard to vanished and vanishing customs, and took notes for a book
which he hoped to write upon the folk-lore of the northern counties. In
the heat of his ardour he suggested the revival of several quaint old
festivals which had once held time-honoured places in the calendar of
the year. First and foremost came the Rush-bearing. In ancient days it
had been the custom of the parishioners to cut bundles of rushes, and,
walking in procession to the church, to strew the floor thickly with
them as a covering for the winter. They would be left till the spring,
and cleared away in time for Easter. This old ceremony had long fallen
into disuse, and was only remembered by village patriarchs as one of the
yearly events of their far-away childhood.
Though it might not be desirable once more to strew the floor with
rushes, Mr. Fleming suggested that it would be a pretty idea if the
girls at Pendlemere School were to cut some bundles of them, tie them
with ribbons, and carry them into the church on the date of the old
festival, as a memorial of the past observance. Anything so interesting
as going out to cut rushes appealed to the girls, and they readily
adopted the suggestion. Miss Todd decided to turn the afternoon into a
kind of natural history and antiquarian excursion.
"The rushes by the lake are not very easy to get," she explained, "but
there are beauties growing on Fox Fell. We'll have a ramble there on
Saturday, take our lunch, and bring back our bundles. Then we can plait
our ribbons at our leisure on Monday, in time for the festival on
Tuesday. Who wants to go? Anybody who likes may stay at home."
A rustle passed round the room, for nobody was anxious to be left out of
the fun. Rambles were considered special treats at Pendlemere, and
smiles decorated twenty faces at the prospect. At Geraldine's suggestion
they did their Saturday prep. in Friday's recreation time.
"And get all your practising finished too," she urged. "If we can tell
Miss Todd that our work's quite squared up, she'll let us stay out
longer; but you know her. If there's a single girl who hasn't learnt her
literature, or made up her music list, the whole crew of us will have to
come trotting back. I'd be sorry for that girl!" Geraldine looked round
the room grimly. "I should give her a very unpleasant time myself, and I
expect the rest of you would, too. She'd richly deserve all she got."
Warned by the head girl's awful threat, tasks were completed in good
time, and promptly by half-past ten the school, in a uniform of brown
jerseys, brown tam-o'-shanters with orange tassels, strong boots,
lunch-wallets slung over their shoulders, and sticks in their hands,
were prepared, like a group of pilgrims, to make their start. Spot, the
fox terrier, escorted them, barking his loudest. Meg and Elsie Fleming
joined them in the village; so with Miss Todd and Miss Beverley they
formed a party of twenty-four. They set their faces towards the fells,
and stepped out briskly. They were not bound to walk in a crocodile,
but, though some progressed in groups, most of the girls gravitated into
pairs. Diana and Wendy linked arms as naturally as two pieces of mercury
merge together in a box. Their spirits, usually high, were to-day at
bubbling-over point: they laughed at everything, whether it was a joke
or not.
"It's my first real mountain walk in England," announced Diana.
"Oh! I'm glad you allow they _are_ mountains," said Sadie, coming up
from behind. "You've been bragging so hard about America, that I thought
perhaps you'd consider them hillocks."
"They _are_ hillocks compared with the Rockies," flashed Diana. "I'm not
going to give way an inch about America, so there!"
"All right, Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times
bigger and better than here--the apples are the size of pumpkins, and
the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years
to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't tell us again."
"I wasn't going to!" retorted Diana. "What's the use, when you can make
it all up for yourself?"
"Oh! my invention's nothing to yours. I expect you're telling Wendy some
startlers. I'm going to walk with Vi, she's more interesting than you
two."
"What's the matter with Sadie?" asked Diana, as their schoolmate ran on
to catch up Violet.
"Jealous!" said Wendy, shaking her head sagely. "She has these attacks
sometimes, and I know the symptoms. She doesn't like to see you and me
walking together. Last term she and I and Magsie and Tattie were in
Dormitory 4. Magsie and Tattie did the 'twin cherries on one stalk'
business all the time, so in self-defence Sadie and I had to chum,
though we squabbled six times a day. I'm not going to be monopolized
now, so she needn't think it. Let her chum with Vi if she likes, I'm
sure I don't care. Hallo! Which stile do we go over here, I wonder?"
The two girls had lagged behind, so that the rest of the party, walking
at the brisk pace set by Miss Todd, had passed on in front. Wendy
mounted each stile in turn, and surveyed the prospect of fields and high
hedges. There was not a solitary tam-o'-shanter to be seen from either
of them. In much doubt she hesitated.
"It'll probably be to the left, because I know we have to go through
that wood over there before we get out on to the fells," she
conjectured.
"I can't help you," said Diana. "Is it any use tossing for it?"
They ventured to the left, and, after walking over three fields, found
themselves in a narrow lane which terminated in a pond. It was such an
evident cul-de-sac that there was nothing for it but to turn back. When
they again reached the stiles they found Geraldine sitting upon the
right-hand one. Her expression was thundery, and her greeting the
reverse of cordial.
"Where _have_ you been, you two stupids? Why can't you keep up with the
rest of us instead of side-tracking like this? Here you're keeping the
whole party waiting, and I've had to turn back to hunt you up."
"Sorry to be on the earth!" apologized Wendy; "but we missed our way."
"Then it's your own fault, for we left the gipsy trail for you as plain
as plain could be. Some people have no eyes!"
"What gipsy trail?"
Geraldine pointed laconically to the grass.
There, just by the right-hand stile, lay two crossed sticks. They were
placed in a most obvious position. It was a marvel how they had escaped
notice.
"You may well stare!" commented Geraldine with sarcasm.
"I believe I did see them," said Diana, "but I didn't know what they
meant."
"Didn't know! Why, Sadie told you! I sent her on purpose. Miss Todd said
we were to leave the gipsy trail at every doubtful place."
"Sadie never told us. She never said a single word."
"You probably didn't listen. Well, I can't argue it out now, the others
are waiting, and Miss Todd's furious. Come along as fast as you can."
Diana and Wendy considered that the summary scolding which they received
from Miss Todd, who was in too big a hurry to listen to any excuses, was
entirely Sadie's fault, and a point to be settled up with her later. At
present she scuttled on ahead, conveniently out of their way.
"Just let her wait!" vowed Wendy darkly.
It was necessary to step along briskly if they meant to accomplish the
walk which Miss Todd had in her mind's eye, and anybody who has ever
acted leader to a party of twenty-four knows the difficulty of making
everyone keep the pace.
"I believe Toddlekins would like to rope us all together as if we were
Swiss mountaineers," giggled Magsie, "or a gang of prisoners clanking
chains. It's rather weak if one can't even stop to pick a flower."
They had passed through the wood by now, and were on the open fells. The
view was gorgeous. The October sun flooded the landscape and showed up
the wealth of autumn colour: tree-crested crags, ravines with brawling
brooks, stretches of heather-clad moor, banks of faded bracken, rugged
rocks and stony hill-crests were spread on the one hand, while to the
west lay a distant chain of lakes, embosomed in meadows green as
emerald, and reflecting the pale autumn sky in their smooth expanse. At
the top of the first fell, Miss Todd called a halt. They had reached
number one of the objects she had set in the day's programme. It was a
pre-historic cromlech--three gigantic stones reared in the form of a
table by those old inhabitants of our island whose customs and modes of
worship are lost in the mists of antiquity. The storms and snows of many
thousand years sweeping round it had slightly displaced the cap stone,
but it stood otherwise intact, a grey, hoary monument to the toil of the
short, dark neolithic race who once hunted on these self-same fells. The
girls crowded round the cromlech curiously. It was large enough for four
of them to sit underneath, and several crammed in as an experiment.
"Was it an altar?" asked Stuart.
"The altar theory is exploded now," said Miss Todd. "It is generally
recognized that they were burial-places of great chiefs. The body would
be placed inside, with stone weapons and drinking-cups, and any other
articles the man had loved when he was alive. Then a great heap of
stones and earth would be piled over and round it, to keep out the
wolves which were the terror of early man. The weather, and perhaps
farmers, have taken away the mound, and laid bare the cromlech; but
look! here is one that is almost in its natural position."
The girls turned, and saw close by a rocky mound that jutted from among
the crags. In its side was a small opening, just large enough to squeeze
through. Miss Todd had brought candle and matches, and personally
conducted relays of girls into the chamber within. They went curiously
or timorously as the case might be.
"Is there a skeleton inside? I don't know whether I _dare_," shivered
Tattie. "It's like going into a grave, and I'm scared to death."
"Don't be silly!" said Geraldine, who, with Loveday and Hilary, was
making her exit. "There's nothing inside it. It's only like a cave."
"You're sure bogeys won't catch my legs?"
"Stop outside, if you're afraid."
"It's like a fairy-tale, and going into the gnome's hill," fluttered
Magsie.
Everybody was determined to have a peep, and even Tattie mustered up
sufficient courage to screw through the narrow portal, though she
squealed in the process, and clung tightly to Magsie's hand. Diana and
Wendy were among the last to effect the investigation. By that time the
piece of candle was guttering out, and Miss Todd, tired of acting
show-woman, returned to the open air, and gave marching orders.
Diana and Wendy, rather fascinated with the "Goblin Hole", as they
called it, lingered, poking their noses inside the entrance.
"I didn't go in," said a voice behind them. Turning, they saw Sadie's
face, interested, and half-regretful.
"Then you've lost your luck," said Diana decisively. "If you go in and
turn round three times inside, you can have a wish, and it's bound to
come true. You'd better do it. You've just time."
"In the dark?" hesitated Sadie.
"Quick! Go on!" urged her companions, standing back to make way for her.
"Here are the matches."
Sadie struck a match, and cautiously ventured forward. The moment she
was well inside Diana motioned to Wendy, and, catching up a piece of
wood that lay on the ground, tilted it like a door across the entrance,
and piled some stones against it. Then the pair fled. They heard an
agonized shriek behind them, but they turned deaf ears to it.
They were half-way down the heathery hill-side when a very ruffled and
indignant Sadie overtook them.
"Hallo! I thought you'd gone to live with the goblins," exclaimed Diana
cheerfully.
"You're a pair of BEASTS!" exploded Sadie.
"Don't mench! What kind of beasts, please? Young gazelles or kittens?"
"Pigs would be more like it!" snapped Sadie. "To think of shutting me up
alone in that bogey-hole! I might have lost my reason."
"Didn't fancy you'd go stark staring mad as fast as all that," chuckled
Diana. "It didn't take you very long to push that door down."
"If we see any symptoms of insanity cropping out in you, we'll know the
reason," added Wendy smartly.
"And you see it's been very good for you to know what it feels like to
be left behind," rubbed in Diana. "You never told us about that gipsy
trail dodge. Tit for tat's my motto."
"I think you're the two horridest girls in the school! I sha'n't speak
to you again. You may consider yourselves funny, but no one else does,"
said Sadie witheringly, as she flounced away to hang on to Geraldine's
arm, and pour her woes into the head girl's not too willing ear.
It was a good hour's walk from the cromlechs to Birk Water, the lake
where they intended to pick the rushes. The path was the merest track,
and the tramp through the heather and over rough and rugged stones well
justified the thick footgear upon which Miss Todd had insisted. Birk
Water was a lovely little mountain tarn lying under the shadow of Fox
Fell, a smooth, grassy eminence down which hurried a noisy stream. They
found a sheltered place in the sunshine on the bank, and sat down to eat
their lunch. Hard-boiled eggs and cheese sandwiches tasted delicious in
the open air, and for a special treat there was an apple apiece. In
normal times the supply of apples was liberal, but this year the crop
had failed, and they were rare dainties.
"I sympathize with Eve," said Wendy, munching blissfully. "It must have
been a very great temptation, especially with 'knowledge' thrown in.
Just think of being able to eat an apple that would teach you all your
dates and French verbs."
"There weren't any dates then, unless they counted the geological
periods; and the Tower of Babel came later, so the French language
wasn't invented," objected Tattie.
"Oh! don't be so literal-minded. I never meant that Eve sat at a desk
and wrote exercises. I'm only telling you I like apples."
"Well, so do I, and yours is a bigger one than mine."
"It won't be long, don't you worry yourself. It's getting 'small by
degrees and beautifully less'."
The slopes of the hill were slightly marshy, and grew a crop of
remarkably tall and fine rushes. They were much easier to gather than
those on the borders of the lake. The girls had brought knives, and,
when lunch had vanished to the last crumb, they dispersed up the
hill-side to reap their rush harvest.
"If they're not all wanted for the church, I vote we ask Miss Todd to
let us put some down on the schoolroom floor," said Diana, hacking away
cheerfully. "I'd just admire to know what they feel like under one's
feet. It would take one back about five centuries."
"Spiffing! We'll ask her! Get as many as you can carry, and tell the
others. They'd be far more interesting than linoleum. Think of being
able to swish one's toes about in them. I hope the church won't want too
many."
"It oughtn't to claim more than its tithe. I suppose it's entitled to a
tenth of every harvest, if we stick strictly to the old customs," smiled
Loveday, whose arms were already filled with a sheaf of green and
orange.
On the open side of the fell the wind blew strongly, and it was a
struggle to toil upwards. The school tacked instead towards the
sheltered bank of the stream, and with one accord broke into Scotch
songs. Geraldine, in a full contralto, was singing "Green grow the
rashes, O". Betty Blane's chirpy voice proclaimed "I'm ower young to
marry yet",--a self-evident proposition, as she was only thirteen.
Stuart and Loveday were crooning "Flowers of the Forest" as a kind of
soprano dirge, which was drowned by a chorus of juniors roaring "Auld
Lang Syne".
"We twa hae paidled i' the burn
Frae mornin' sun till dine",
chanted Diana after them. "And that's just what I want to do. I've never
had a chance yet to 'paidle' in a British burn."
"You won't to-day, then," said Geraldine, who chanced to overhear, and
stopped her singing to interpolate a remark. "Shoes and stockings aren't
allowed off, except in the summer term."
"Green grow the rashes, O!
Green grow the rashes, O!
The sweetest hours that e'er I spent
Were spent among the lassies, O!"
Diana stood frowning as Geraldine passed along, carolling at the pitch
of her voice.
"What nonsense!" she growled. "Who made such a silly old rule? I'm not
going to keep it."
"It's quite as warm to-day as it sometimes is in summer," agreed Wendy.
"I believe it's only 'swank' on Geraldine's part, because she's head
prefect. I _shall_ paddle! Just because she said I mustn't. Come on,
Wendy! Let's scoot into this hollow and enjoy ourselves. Geraldine makes
me feel real bad when she bosses. I want to go and break all the rules I
can."
CHAPTER V
Diana Dares
If Diana--a modern Eve--hankered after the apples of new experiences,
Wendy succumbed to her persuasions as readily as Adam. The little
purling brook was attractive, mistresses and prefects were safely out of
sight, and schoolmates, if they chanced to appear on the scene, might be
bribed not to blab. In a twinkling laces were unfastened, and two stout
pairs of boots stowed away among the stones, each with its stocking
tucked inside; while two pairs of bare feet went splashing joyously into
the brook. It was fun paddling in the little pools and scrambling over
the rocks, waving a foot occasionally into a foaming fall, and dancing
out on to the grass when the water grew too cold to be endured any
longer. They wandered for some distance up the hill-side, supremely
happy, though taking care not to allow their exuberant spirits to
overflow into song. So far not a soul seemed to have noticed them--they
were enjoying the sweets of undiscovered crime. Suddenly through the
clear autumnal air rang out the shrill, bubbling call of the regimental
whistle with which Miss Todd was wont, on country walks, to collect her
scattered flock. The two sinners jumped so uneasily that Wendy slipped
from a stone and splashed into a pool, with rather disastrous
consequences to her skirt.
"We'd best go back and find our boots," she said, hurriedly wringing the
water from the brown tweed.
They had not realized how far they had roamed up the stream, and the
length of the way back surprised them. It is not an easy matter to hurry
over slippery stones, though they made what speed they could, urged by
another summons from the whistle.
"I think this was the place," declared Diana, at last arriving at
landmarks that seemed familiar. "I left mine just over there."
Both girls sought their hiding-places, but, to their utter dismay, the
boots were missing. They searched about here, there, and everywhere, but
not so much as the tab of a lace could be found. Meanwhile the whistle
sounded impatient blasts.
"What _are_ we to do?" flustered Wendy. "Toddlekins will be furious if
we don't go; and yet how _can_ we go without our boots?"
"We must have mistaken the place," gasped Diana. "Perhaps it was farther
down."
"No, no! I'm certain it was just here."
"Well, we're in a pretty fix, at any rate."
"T-r-r-r-r-ee-ee!" came again from the fell side. To disobey the summons
deliberately was open mutiny. An agitated voice on the bank called to
them.
"Wendy and Diana, can't you hear the whistle? Come this instant!"
It was Stuart Hamilton, who stood beckoning violently.
"We've lost our boots," wailed Wendy.
"Then come without them. Miss Todd has sent me to find you. Hurry up!"
It was a scratchy and painful performance to hurry through heather and
over sharp stones to the spot where the school was assembled. Miss Todd
stood staring at them as they approached, with her "report yourself in
my study" expression. They felt their bare legs and feet most
embarrassingly conspicuous, and wished that fickle fashion had clothed
them in longer skirts.
"What is the meaning of this?" asked the Principal, eyeing their
uncovered extremities severely.
"We've--we've--lost our boots," stammered Diana, speaking for both.
"And why were your boots taken off? You were aware of the rule, for I
happen to know that you had just been reminded of it." (Here Wendy fixed
a reproachful gaze on Geraldine, who coloured slightly.) "You've
deliberately disobeyed orders, and you will be confined to 'bounds' for
a fortnight. It's absolutely essential in our country rambles that
discipline should be kept up, and any girl who breaks rules will stay at
home next time. You deserve to walk back with bare feet, but Miss
Beverley will give you your boots. Put them on at once!"
It was horrible to have to sit down upon the heather and pull on
stockings and boots under the critical supervision of twenty-two pairs
of eyes. Diana's lace broke, and Wendy's fingers seemed all thumbs. Miss
Todd superintended till the last knot had been awkwardly tied, then she
gave the signal for marching. Considerably crestfallen, the delinquents
dropped towards the rear.
"Did Geraldine sneak?" whispered Wendy to Violet.
"No, it wasn't exactly her fault--it was Spot really. He routed out the
boots, and began barking and worrying them, and Miss Beverley rushed up
to see what he'd got--she thought he'd caught an otter or a water-rat.
When she saw it was boots--well----"
"She knew she'd caught us," finished Diana.
"She took the boots straight to Miss Todd, and Toddlekins blew her
whistle and counted us over like sheep to find who was missing. Then she
asked who'd seen you last, and if anyone had given you leave to wade.
She dragged it all out of Geraldine. I don't think Gerry would have told
on her own."
"Spot!" said Diana, turning reproachful eyes on that panting specimen of
the canine race. "I used to think you a dinky little dog, but I'm out of
friends with you now. It's a real mean trick you've played us. Oh! you
needn't come jumping up on me and licking my hand. What possessed you to
unearth those boots? 'Bounds' for a whole fortnight! And I wanted to go
to Glenbury on Wednesday. It's too disgusting for words! Vi, d'you think
if I looked an absolute hallowed saint all Sunday, and Monday, and
Tuesday, Miss Todd would let me go to Glenbury? My name's down for the
exeat, you know."
Violet regarded Diana for a moment or two as if making mental
calculations.
"You couldn't do it," she decided at last. "You couldn't look the least
tiny, weeny atom like a saint if you tried till doomsday. Saints ought
to be thin and wan, with straight noses and fair hair parted in the
middle. You're rosy and substantial, and your nose isn't straight, and
your hair's too brown, and as for your eyes--they've a wicked twinkle in
them the whole time. No, my good girl, whatever else you may do, you
won't succeed in looking saintly."
"Well, I guess I've got some bounce in me, certainly," agreed Diana.
"But I thought perhaps if I went about on tiptoe and whispered,
and"--hopefully--"I could keep my eyes half-shut, couldn't I?"
Violet shook her head decisively.
"That twinkle would ooze out of the smallest chink, and besides, even if
you managed to look a saint, that wouldn't influence Toddlekins. You
don't know her yet. Once she says a thing she sticks to it like glue.
_She_ calls it necessary firmness in a mistress, and _we_ call it a
strain of obstinacy in her disposition. In the old days we could get
round Mrs. Gifford, but now Toddlekins rules the show, you may as well
make up your mind to things and have done with it. What she says is
kismet."
"Why do you want to go to Glenbury?" asked Jess.
"Oh! just a reason of my own," evaded Diana.
"You'll very likely get an exeat the week after," consoled Violet.
"It would be no use to me then," said Diana dismally.
The procession of rush-bearers, each carrying a good-sized sheaf in her
arms, wound down the hill-side to go back to Pendlemere by a different
route. This was a wild track over the moors, past the old slate-quarry,
where rusty bits of machinery and piles of broken slates were lying
about, then over the ridge and down by Wethersted Tarn to the gorge
where the river took its rise. Here a stream of considerable force
thundered along between high walls of rock. It was a picturesque spot;
rowan-trees hung from clefts in the crags, their bright berries
rivalling the scarlet of the hips and haws; green fronds of fern bent at
the water's edge, and brilliant carpets of moss clothed the boulders. At
one point a great tree-trunk, a giant of the fells, rotten through many
years of braving the strong west wind, had fallen and lay across the
torrent. It stretched from bank to bank like a rough kind of natural
bridge, with the stream roaring and foaming only six feet below. The
girls scrambled over its upturned roots, and stood looking at the
straight trunk and withered branches that lay stretched before them.
"Shouldn't care to venture across there," said Loveday with a shiver.
"It looks particularly slippery and horrid," agreed Geraldine.
"The water must be so very deep down there," said Hilary.
"I don't believe there's one of us who'd go across for a
five-pound-note," said Ida. "What offers? Don't all speak at once!"
The girls smiled, and were turning away to follow Miss Todd, when
Geraldine stopped and held up a finger.
"What's that noise?" she asked.
"I don't hear anything but the stream," said Ida doubtfully.
"I do, though," said Diana, who with Wendy and Vi had joined the
seniors. "It sounds like somebody whimpering."
"I'm going down the bank to see."
The others followed Geraldine, and swung themselves down to the water
level. Sitting under the arch formed by the roots of the tree was a
small boy of about seven, rubbing two swimming eyes with two grimy
little fists and sobbing lustily.
"Hallo! What's the matter here?" said Geraldine briskly. "Where do you
come from, and why don't you go home? Are you lost?"
At the mention of "home" the little fellow's tears redoubled, and the
whimper rose to a roar. Ida sat down on the rock beside him, and tried
to comfort him. It was a difficult process to get any coherent or
sensible replies to her questions, but after considerable coaxing, and a
last piece of chocolate which Wendy fortunately fished from her pocket,
she managed to wring from him that his name was Harry, that he lived at
a farm on the other side of the torrent, that he had come down to the
river with several other boys, and that they had dared him to cross by
the fallen tree. Once over, he was too frightened to go back, and, after
waiting and calling to him for some time, the other boys had run away.
How was he going to get home?
The situation was difficult, for there was no bridge across the river
for many miles. Unless the child could go back the way he had come, it
was a problem what was to be done.
"You were a silly boy ever to try to cross," said Geraldine
sententiously.
"They said I durstn't!" sobbed the small sinner.
"Oh, don't scold him!" pleaded Diana. "I do know so exactly how he felt.
I've often been dared to do things myself, and done them, though I
shivered."
"Well, you'd surely never do such a silly thing as cross that tree?"
[Illustration: TWO PAIRS OF BARE FEET WENT SPLASHING JOYOUSLY INTO THE
BROOK]
"Wouldn't I? I believe I'm going to do it now."
"Diana!"
"He's got to get home somehow. Look here, Harry!"--Diana knelt on the
pebbles, and put her arm round the little blue-jerseyed figure--"suppose
I were to go too, would you dare to cross again? We'd both crawl on our
hands and knees."
The sobs stopped, while Harry took a swift survey of her face.
Apparently he found it satisfactory.
"If you'll go first," he stammered.
"Then come along--we've no time to waste," said Diana, springing up and
giving him her hand.
"Diana! You surely don't mean----" began Geraldine in eager
remonstrance.
"Yes, I do!" interrupted Diana. "I've done worse things before, and I'm
not scared. Come on, Harry! We'll have you home in forty cracks."
The girls did not attempt to interfere. They stood and watched while
Diana hauled the little boy up the bank. Perhaps each secretly wished
she were capable of such a piece of pluck. Though the tree was tall
enough to span the stream, its bole seemed very narrow to form a bridge,
and the rounded surface made it all the more slippery; the few branches
here and there were of little help. Diana hoisted up her protege, then
going in front of him began to crawl across on her hands and knees,
speaking to him all the time, so as to encourage him to follow her.
Beneath them the water foamed and roared over the rocks: to slip would
mean to be whirled into the depths of a dark pool below. It was a slow
progress, but inch by inch they crept along till the most dangerous part
was passed, and they had reached comparative safety. The girls cheered
when at last Diana scrambled to her feet and lifted Harry on to dry
ground. A path led up the side of the gorge, and along this he set off
at full speed for home. His preserver stood looking after him for a
minute or two, and then she turned to re-cross her perilous bridge. Six
hands were stretched out to help her as she completed the venturesome
journey.
"You're a trump, Di!"
"_I_ daren't have done it!"
"You've been a guardian angel to that child!"
"Was it _very_ awful?"
"I can't think how you managed it!"
"I nearly screamed when you reached the middle!"
"It felt worse coming back than going," said Diana, brushing her skirt,
which had suffered considerably. "Somehow I minded it more. Well, it's
over now! We'd better be getting on, hadn't we?"
"Yes, indeed; the others will think we're lost," agreed Geraldine.
The t-r-r-ee-ee of the whistle was sounding from the far distance, so
the girls made a spurt and hurried along to catch up the rest of the
party. Geraldine, in virtue of her office as head prefect, briefly
explained to Miss Todd the cause of the delay.
"I shouldn't have let you do it, Diana, if I had been there," said the
Principal. "But I've no doubt the little boy's mother is blessing you.
We should have had to take him to Pendlemere with us, and have sent
somebody from the village to take him home. There would have been no
other way. Remember, though, that I'm responsible for you to your
parents, and I really can't allow these harum-scarum tricks. Suppose
there had been an accident!"
"Dad knows me, and he wouldn't have blamed you," said Diana cheerily.
"He says I'm like a cat with nine lives, or a bad halfpenny that always
turns up again. I've done worse things than this."
"Then you won't do them while you're at this school," returned Miss Todd
firmly, motioning her to walk along in front with Geraldine.
On Monday afternoon, with the aid of some ribbons, the girls made their
rushes into pretty little sheaves. They plaited bands for them, and
twisted them securely. Miss Todd, much interested, superintended their
operations.
"You may pick some flowers from the garden to-morrow, and put garlands
round them," she suggested. "We're reviving a most ancient custom that
dates back to the early days of Christianity in Britain. Pope Gregory IV
recommended that on the anniversaries of the dedication of churches
wrested from the Pagans, the converts should build themselves huts with
the boughs of trees round their churches, and celebrate the day with
feasting. The rush-bearing is probably the last relic of that ancient
ceremony. At one time there was always a village feast in connection
with it, though it degenerated at last into a sort of rustic saturnalia,
and had to be suppressed."
"Old customs are very interesting," said Diana, staring at the Principal
with wide-open, steady eyes.
"I'm glad you find them so."
"It's nice to see them _all_ kept up. If we have the rush-bearing
to-morrow, oughtn't we--just to revive an old ceremony--to have the
feast as well?"
A rustle passed over the school at Diana's temerity. Miss Todd returned
the steady gaze, then the corners of her mouth twitched.
"You've stated the case very accurately. As a matter of fact, I have
ordered seed-cake and scones, and have invited the Vicarage people to
tea."
CHAPTER VI
French Leave
The sheaves of rushes were duly carried into the church, and stacked
artistically in the deep window-sills, where they gave somewhat the
effect of a harvest festival. The girls were eager to lay bundles of
them in the particular pews occupied by the school, but the verger, who
looked askance at the whole business, and whose wife was hovering about
with a broom to sweep up bits, vetoed the suggestion so emphatically
that the Vicar, wavering with a strong balance towards ancient custom,
hastily and regretfully decided in the negative. Neither would Miss Todd
allow them to be strewn upon the schoolroom floor, although Diana
ventured to suggest the advisability of practical study of mediaeval
methods.
"There are some things best left to imagination," replied the Principal
dryly. "For instance, there would be no need to dispense with forks, and
let you hold mutton bones with your fingers at dinner, in order to
demonstrate fourteenth-century manners, nor to bleed you every time you
had a toothache, to test ancient practices of medicine. If you're so
very anxious to skip a few hundred years, I have, in an old Herbal, a
prescription to cure 'swimming in ye heade and such like phantasies'. It
consists mainly of pounded snail-shells, mixed with boiled tansy and
snippings from the hair of an unbaptized infant born between Easter and
Michaelmas. Any one who wishes has my permission to try it."
"No, thank you!" said Diana, screwing up her mouth. "Unless," she added
hopefully, "I might go out and gather the tansy. We saw some growing on
the way to Fox Fell."
"There's a fine clump at the bottom of the garden, so you needn't go out
of bounds to get it," replied Miss Todd, glancing at her pupil with eyes
that clearly saw through all subterfuges.
The Principal was determined that Diana and Wendy, having deliberately
broken a rule, should suffer the just consequences, and she did not
intend to remit one jot or tittle of the punishment she had inflicted.
"Bounds" at Pendlemere were sufficiently extensive to allow ample
exercise, and any farther excursions must be deferred till the end of
the appointed fortnight.
Diana, looking at the exeat list which hung in the hall, shook her head
at sight of her own name scored through with a blue pencil.
"Just to think that removing my boots and stockings for ten short
minutes should have cut me off from going to Glenbury," she
philosophized. "I was only 'laving my feet', as the poets say. Nymphs
always did it in classical times. Indeed, I don't suppose they ever had
boots and stockings to take off, so they could paddle as they pleased."
"They had a warmer climate in Greece," sniffed Wendy, who had a bad cold
in her head as the result of her paddling; "and I suppose they were
accustomed to it. If there is anything you want particularly in
Glenbury, Magsie's going, and I expect she'd get it for you."
"I don't know whether she could."
"What is it you want?"
Diana hesitated, then whispered in Wendy's ear:
"Three packets of Turkish cigarettes."
"O-o-o-oh!"
Wendy's eyes were wide. Diana nodded determinedly.
"But what do you want them for?"
"That's my own business."
"You surely don't _smoke_!"--in a horrified voice.
"I don't want them for myself--I'll tell you that much."
"For whom are they, then?"
"I shan't tell you!"
"Magsie would never dare to bolt into a tobacconist's and buy
cigarettes."
"I was afraid she wouldn't," said Diana sadly.
"And you'd better be careful yourself if you go to Glenbury next exeat
day. Toddlekins would draw the line at cigarettes. You wouldn't like to
get expelled?"
"I don't know that I'd very much care," sighed Diana.
She revenged herself for her enforced seclusion by clumping noisily
about the passages, till Miss Todd, hearing the racket, dropped a
significant hint as to the necessity of compulsory felt slippers for
girls who had not learnt to walk lightly. So, fearing that the Principal
might really carry out this threat, Diana betook herself to the garden,
and expended her superfluous energy on a fast and furious set of tennis.
Having lost three balls, she left Vi and Peggy to look for them, and,
still in a thoroughly bad temper, strolled round the corner of the
house. On the front drive she saw a sight that set her running. Exactly
opposite the door stood the car of her cousin, Mrs. Burritt. It was
empty, but the chauffeur, at the top of the steps, was in the very act
of handing two envelopes to the housemaid.
"Anything for me, Thompson?" cried Diana eagerly.
"Yes, miss. Letter for you, and one for Miss Todd," replied the man,
touching his cap.
Diana seized hers from Edith, the maid, devoured its contents, and
clapped her hands.
"I'll be ready in five minutes, Thompson!" she exclaimed, and fled
indoors.
Half-way down the corridor she nearly ran into Miss Todd, emerging from
her study with an open letter in her hand.
"Where are you going, Diana?"
"Cousin Cora's asked me for the night! She's sent the car for me. My
cousin Lenox is there on leave!" panted Diana.
"So I understand from Mrs. Burritt's letter, but I certainly cannot
allow you to go."
"Not go?"
Diana's face was a study.
"I had no authority from your father and mother to allow you to accept
invitations."
"But I _know_ they'd let me! Oh, Miss Todd, I simply _must_!"
"That's for me to decide, Diana, not you, and I say 'no'."
Mistress and pupil looked at each other squarely. Miss Todd's mouth was
set in a firm line. Evidently she considered that she was fighting a
campaign against Diana, and she meant to carry this outpost. Diana had
the sense to realize her defeat. She drooped her lashes over her eyes.
"May I send a note to Cousin Cora?" she asked in a strangled voice.
"You can if you wish, and I'll write to her myself, and explain that it
is against our rules."
Murmuring something that sounded dangerously like "Strafe rules!" Diana
darted upstairs for blotting-pad and fountain-pen. She frowned hard
while she scribbled, thumped the envelope as she closed it, then ran
down to give it into the personal charge of the chauffeur. She would
have added some comments for his benefit, had Miss Hampson not been
standing upon the doorstep.
"You're not coming, miss?" enquired Thompson civilly, but with evident
astonishment.
"_No!_" grunted Diana, turning indoors and clumping down the hall past
Miss Todd's study with footsteps heavy enough to justify the demand for
felt slippers.
She was too angry at the moment to mind what happened, and the
Principal, who was wise in her generation, allowed her to stamp by
unchallenged.
At tea-time, at preparation, at evening recreation, and at supper Diana
sat with a thunder-cloud on her face. When she went to bed it burst. She
squatted in a limp heap on the floor and raged at fate.
"I'm sorry, but you're really making a most fearful fuss!" said Loveday,
whose sympathy and sense of fitness were playing see-saw. "It's one of
the rules of the school that we don't go away for odd holidays. We may
have Friday to Monday at half-term, but even Mrs. Gifford never let
anyone off in the middle of the week to stay a night. You're only served
the same as everybody else. Why can't you take it sporting?"
"You don't understand!" wailed Diana, mopping her moist cheeks.
"Do get up from the floor, at any rate. It looks so weak to be huddled
up like a bundle of rags. You haven't brushed your hair yet. Don't be a
slacker, Diana!"
Thus morally prodded, Diana rose dejectedly, put on her bedroom
slippers, and took the hair-brush which her room-mate handed. She did
not like to be called a slacker, particularly by Loveday. The atmosphere
was not altogether harmonious: she felt as if their thoughts were
running round in circles, and had not yet met at a mutual angle of
comprehension.
"Loveday doesn't understand me--she thinks me a spoilt cry-baby!" she
kept repeating to herself, and the mere fact of realizing that attitude
in her companion prevented her from trying to explain the situation.
Hair-brush drill proceeded in dead silence, only broken by an occasional
gasping sigh from Diana, which echoed through the room about as
cheerfully as a funeral dirge. Loveday stared at her once or twice as if
about to make a remark, but changed her mind; she dawdled about the
room, opening drawers and rearranging her possessions. When at last she
was ready to put out the light she paused, and turned to the other
cubicle. Diana lay quietly with her nose buried in the pillow. Loveday
bent over her and dropped a butterfly kiss on the inch of cheek visible.
"Poor old sport! Was I rather a beast?" she said; then, hearing Miss
Beverley's patrol step in the passage, she dabbed the extinguisher on
the candle and hopped hastily into bed.
All night long Loveday had uneasy and troubled dreams about Diana. They
met and parted, and quarrelled and made it up; they did ridiculous and
impossible things, such as crawling through tubes or walking on roofs;
they were pursued by bulls, or they floated on rivers; yet always they
were together, and Loveday, with a feeling of compunction and no sense
at all of the ridiculous, was trying with a sponge to mop up Diana's
overflowing rivers of tears that were running down and making pools on a
clean table-cloth. She awoke with a start, feeling almost as if the
sheets were damp. Stealthy sounds came from the next cubicle, and the
candle was lighted there.
"What's the matter, Diana?"
"S-h-s-h!"
"Aren't you well?"
"Yes, I'm all right."
"What is it, then?"
As a grunt was the only answer, Loveday got up and drew aside the
curtains. Her room-mate was ready dressed, and was in process of combing
her light-brown locks and fixing in a slide.
"What the dickens are you up to, child?" ejaculated Loveday in
amazement.
Diana turned quickly, pulled Loveday down on to the bed, flung an arm
round her, and laid a fluffy head on her shoulder.
"Oh, _do_ be a sport!" she implored.
"But what do you want to do?"
"Look here--it's like this! I'm such a duffer at explaining, or I'd have
told you last night. My cousin, Lenox Clifford, has come over to England
with the American contingent. He has just thirty-six hours' leave, and
he rushed over to Petteridge to see the Burritts. Lenox and I were
brought up together; I've stayed whole months with them when Uncle Carr
had a ranch in New Mexico. It was Lenox who taught me to ride, and to
fish, and to row, and to skate. There's no one in the world so clever as
Lenox! It's his birthday to-day. It was for him I wanted to get those
cigarettes--I thought he'd like them in camp. I couldn't think of
anything else to send him that he could pack among his kit. Well, he's
going off this week to the front, and, as likely as not, he'll be killed
right away, and I'll never see him in this world again. It makes me
crazy to think of it. He's only ten miles away, and I mayn't even say
good-bye to him. Lenox, who's called me his 'little indispensable' ever
since I was four! If he was killed, and I hadn't had one last word with
him, I'd break my heart. Yes, I would! You English girls are so
cold--you laugh at me because I feel red-hot about things."
"We're not cold really. I didn't understand," said Loveday. "You never
told me all this about your cousin. Does Miss Todd know he's just off
for the front?"
"Cousin Coralie said so in her letter. That's what made me so furious. I
wouldn't have asked to go to Petteridge just for the sake of a holiday;
but when it's a case of seeing Lenox, perhaps for the last time, I'm
desperate. Rules are cruel things!"
"I do think Miss Todd might have made a special exception," said
Loveday, hugging the agitated little figure that clung to her. "I'm
sure Mrs. Gifford would have let you go. It's because Miss Todd is new,
and also because, when once she's said a thing, she sticks to it. You
were kept to 'bounds'."
"I know. But, Loveday, I'm going to break them this morning. I must say
good-bye to Lenox whatever happens. I'm going to cycle over to
Petteridge--now don't talk, for I've planned it all out. I can climb
down the ivy, and I left Wendy's bicycle outside last night on purpose.
I shall be back by half-past seven."
The audacity of the proposal nearly took Loveday's breath away.
"But--but----" she remonstrated.
"No buts," said Diana, getting up and putting on her tam-o'-shanter.
"But, you silly child, you'll never do it in the time, and they won't be
up when you get to Petteridge."
"Won't they? I rather guess they will! I told Cousin Cora I was coming
to breakfast at six o'clock, and they must send me back in the car,
bicycle and all."
"Did you put that in the letter you sent by the chauffeur?"
"Yes. Miss Todd didn't ask to read it. I reckon they'll have a nice
little meal waiting. If I can manage to slip in here before the gong
sounds for prayers, nobody need know a word about it except you,
Loveday, and I trust you not to tell."
"It's frightfully against my conscience," faltered Loveday doubtfully.
"Oh! Suppose you had a brother or a cousin of your own who was going out
to the front, wouldn't you want to say just one word of good-bye?
Especially when you hadn't seen him for a year! It isn't as if I were
doing anything that Father and Mother would be angry about. And Cousin
Cora will send me back in the car."
"It really is red-tape of Miss Todd," murmured Loveday yieldingly.
"Then you'll promise? Oh, good! What a sport you are! Help me on with my
coat. No, I don't need a scarf--it's quite warm. I must take my watch,
though."
The girls drew aside the curtains and looked out of the window. It was
only about half-past four; the stars were shining, and there was a thin,
horned moon hanging in the east, its radiant rim turned towards the spot
where the day would break. No hint of dawn was yet in the air, though
curlews were calling from the meadows by the lake. Bushes and garden
paths were plainly distinguished in the starlight.
"It'll be light soon," said Diana, "and, at any rate, I can see quite
well enough to ride. I shall just enjoy spinning along."
"Be careful going down hills," urged Loveday. "By the by, you're on the
early practising-list this morning--had you forgotten?"
"Oh, kafoozalum! So I am! Suppose Bunty comes to see why the piano's
silent? Well, I can't help it! I'm going! Do the best you can for me,
won't you?"
The close ivy which grew up the side of the house had stems as thick as
tent-posts. Diana let herself down over the sill, found a footing, and
descended hand over hand with the agility of a middy. Wendy's bicycle
was leaning against the wall at the bottom. She took it, and waved
good-bye to Loveday, then walked along the side-path that led to the
gate. A minute later she was free-wheeling down the hill that led
through the village in the direction of Petteridge Court. Loveday,
shaking her head, went back to bed.
"I'm thankful I'm not a prefect, or I should have felt bound to stop
her," she reflected. "If I'd had a brother or a cousin whom I hadn't
seen for a year, and who was just off to the front, I declare I'd have
done it myself. I don't blame her! But there'll be a row if Bunty
doesn't hear her scales going."
Exactly at a quarter to eight o'clock a Daimler car whisked through the
village, and stopped by the gate of Pendlemere Abbey. A small figure
hopped from it, and the chauffeur handed out a bicycle, then drove away
at full speed. Girl and bicycle crept through the laurels to the side
door, whence the former fled upstairs like a whirlwind. From the
intermediates' room came the strains of the Beethoven sonata with which
Loveday was at present wrestling. Diana, wrenching off coat and hat in
her bedroom, paused to listen.
"Bless her!" she muttered. "She's actually gone and taken my place! What
an absolute trump she is!"
It was not until morning school was over that the confederates had the
slightest chance to compare notes.
"Well, did you see him?" asked Loveday, when at last they met in their
bedroom to brush their hair for dinner.
Diana's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes, and Cousin Cora said she was glad I came. She lost her own boy,
you know--he went out with the American Red Cross, and was killed when a
Zepp. bombed the hospital. That's two years ago now. I wouldn't have
missed saying good-bye to Lenox for worlds. I'd quite a nice ride to
Petteridge. It got light directly, and the hills looked beautiful in the
dawn. Loveday, you did my practising for me!"
"Not exactly _for_ you! I took your half-hour, and you must take mine
instead, from half-past four till tea-time."
"Right-o! But did Bunty come in?"
"Yes; and I told her I wanted to go out with Nesta this afternoon. So I
do."
"You don't think anybody suspects?"
"Not a soul!"
Diana came close, and laid a hand on her room-mate's arm.
"Loveday, I'll never forget what you've done for me to-day--_never_! If
I ever get the chance to do anything for you in return, you bet I'll do
it, no matter _what_ it costs me! You've been a real mascot. There isn't
a girl in the school who'd have played up better, certainly not among
the seniors. I do think you're just ripping! Did Bunty look _very_
surprised to see you at the piano?"
"She did, rather; but I asked her if Nesta and I might have an exeat
this afternoon to go to the Vicarage. Mrs. Fleming gave us an open
invitation, you know, to come and see her sketches."
"What a brain! You really are too lovely!" chuckled Diana.
CHAPTER VII
Land Girls
With the bond of such a secret between them, Diana and Loveday cemented
a firm friendship. To be sure, Loveday's conscience, which was of a very
exacting and inquisitorial description, sometimes gave her unpleasant
twinges like a species of moral toothache; but then the other self which
also talked inside her would plead that it was only sporting to screen a
schoolfellow, and that no one but a sneak could have done otherwise. She
sincerely hoped that Diana had escaped notice both going and returning,
and that no busybody from the village would bring a report to Miss Todd.
If the matter were to leak out, both girls would get into serious
trouble--Diana for running away, and her room-mate for aiding and
abetting her escapade. That she was really in some danger on her account
gave Loveday an added interest in Diana. She began to be very fond of
her. The little American had a most lovable side for certain people, on
whom she bestowed the warmth of her affection, though she could be a
pixie to those who did not happen to please her. With the seniors in
general she was no favourite. She had more than one skirmish with the
prefects, and was commonly regarded as a firebrand, ready at any moment
to set alight the flame of insurrection among turbulent intermediates
and juniors.
"Diana's at the bottom of any mischief that's going!" proclaimed
Geraldine one day, after a battle royal over an absurd dispute about the
tennis-court.
"And the worst of it is, she makes Wendy just as bad!" agreed Hilary
warmly.
"Wendy wasn't exactly a saint before Diana came," put in Loveday.
"Oh, you always stand up for Diana! I can't think what you see in her--a
cheeky little monkey, I call her!" Geraldine was still ruffled.
"She has her points, though."
"She'll get jolly well sat upon, if she doesn't take care," muttered
Geraldine, who held exalted notions as to the dignity of prefects.
It was at the beginning of the second week in October that Miss Todd, in
whose brain ambitious projects of education for the production of the
"super-girl" had been fermenting, announced the first of her radical
changes. She had not undertaken it without much consultation with
parents, and many letters had passed backwards and forwards on the
subject. Most, however, had agreed with her views, and it had been
decided that at any rate the experiment was to be tried. Pendlemere,
which so far had concentrated entirely on the Senior Oxford Curriculum
and accomplishments, was to add an agricultural side to its course.
There was to be a lady teacher, fresh from the Birchgate Horticultural
College, who would start poultry-keeping and bee-keeping on the latest
scientific principles, and would plant the garden with crops of
vegetables. She could have a few land workers to assist her, and the
girls, in relays, could study her methods. Miss Todd, who in choosing a
career had hesitated between teaching and horticulture, snatched at the
opportunity of combining the two. She was bubbling over with enthusiasm.
In imagination she saw Pendlemere a flourishing Garden Colony, setting
an educational example to the rest of the scholastic world. Her girls,
trained in both the scientific and practical side of agriculture in
addition to their ordinary curriculum, would be turned out equipped for
all contingencies, either of emigration, or a better Britain. She
considered their health would profit largely. She explained her views to
them in detail, painting rose-coloured pictures of the delights in store
for them in the spring and summer. The girls, very much thrilled at the
prospect, dispersed to talk it over.
"Is Pendlemere to be a sort of farm, then?" asked Wendy.
"Looks like it, if we're to keep hens and bees, and grow all our own
vegetables! Bags me help with the chickens. I love them when they're all
yellow, like canaries. Toddlekins hinted something about launching out
into a horse if things prospered."
"A horse! Goody, what fun!" exulted Diana. "I just _adore_ horses! Bags
me help with stable-work, then. I'd groom it instead of learning my
geography or practising scales. I say, I call this a ripping idea!"
"Don't congratulate yourself too soon," qualified Magsie. "You'll
probably find the geography and the scales are tucked in somehow. All
the same, I think it sounds rather sporty."
"It will be a change, at any rate, and we'll feel we're marching with
the times."
"When does the 'back-to-the-land' teacher come?"
"On Friday, I believe."
Miss Chadwick, the graduate of Birchgate Horticultural College, who was
to run the new experiment, arrived at the end of the week, and brought
two students as her assistants. They were a fresh, jolly-looking trio,
with faces rosy from open-air work, and serviceable hands which caused a
considerable flutter among those of the school who went in for manicure.
At tea-time they talked gaily of onion-beds, intensive culture,
irrigation, proteids, white Wyandottes, trap-nests, insecticides,
sugar-beets, and bacteria. Miss Todd, keenly interested, joined in the
conversation with the zeal of a neophyte; Miss Beverley, the
nature-study side of whose education had been neglected, and who
scarcely knew a caterpillar from an earthworm, followed with the uneasy
air of one who is out of her depth; the school, eating their
bread-and-butter and blackberry jam, sat and listened to the talk at the
top end of the table.
"It sounds rather brainy," commented Diana in a whisper.
"Yes," replied Wendy, also in a subdued tone. "Poor old Bunty's
floundering hopelessly. Did you hear her ask if they were going to
cultivate cucumbers in the open? I nearly exploded! I believe she thinks
pineapples grow on pine-trees. She's trying _so_ hard to look as if she
knows all about it. I'll be sorry for the infant cabbages if she has the
care of them."
"It wouldn't be her job, surely."
"I'd agitate for a 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables'
if it were. I believe I'm going to adore Miss Chadwick! She looks so
sporty. She wrinkles up her nose when she laughs, just like a baby
does."
"The little dark student with the freckles is my fancy."
"Oh! I like the other, with the bobbed hair."
Miss Chadwick, with her assistants Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod, brought a
new and decidedly breezy element into the school. They spent Saturday in
reviewing the premises, and on Monday they set to work. The girls, who
as yet were only in the position of onlookers, watched the operations,
much thrilled. All sorts of interesting things began to arrive: portable
hen-houses packed in sections, chicken-coops, rolls of galvanized wire
netting, iron stakes, the framework of a greenhouse, and a whole cargo
of tools. The three enterprising ladies seemed to have some knowledge of
carpentry, and at once began to fit parts together and erect sheds.
Their sensible land costumes excited admiration and envy.
"It's what I mean to do when I grow up," resolved Magsie. "Did you see
the way Miss Carr ran up that ladder? And she's begun to thatch the roof
so neatly. She does it far better than that old man from the village who
potters about. I'm just yearning to try my hand at thatching. I wish
Miss Carr would let me!"
While they were busy getting the place in order, Miss Chadwick and her
assistants declined all offers of inexperienced help, assuring the girls
that they would have their "jobs" given them later on, when there was
time to teach them. This did not at all content the enthusiastic spirits
who were burning to throw lessons to the winds and spend their days in
mixing putty, lime-washing hen-houses, and fixing up wire netting. They
hung about disconsolately, snatching at such opportunities of assistance
as holding ladders or handing nails.
"You _might_ let me tar the roof of the chicken-coop," begged Wendy.
"I'd just love to let it all squelch on, and I adore the smell!"
But Miss Carr, who the day before had rashly allowed Diana the use of
the lime-wash pail, was firm in her refusal.
"I haven't time to show you how, and I don't want things spoilt. Put
down that tar-brush, Wendy! If you get smears on your skirt, you'll
never get them off again."
"I don't see where _we_ come in!" groused Wendy. "I thought we were to
learn agriculture."
"You won't learn it by dabbing tar on the end of your nose," laughed
Miss Carr.
In the course of a few weeks, however, the preliminary stages were over.
Some fowl-houses and runs were finished, and their feathered occupants
arrived and took possession. A consignment of spades, rakes, and hoes
was delivered by the carrier, and arranged by the students in the new
tool-shed. Miss Carr announced herself ready to begin her course of
instruction. To the girls the crowning-point of the preparations was the
opening of several large boxes posted from a London shop. They contained
twenty land costumes in assorted sizes. The excitement of trying them on
was immense. Twenty little figures in smocks and gaiters went capering
about the school, wild with the fun of the new experiment, and feeling
themselves enthusiastic "daughters of the soil".
"It was A1 of Toddlekins to let us have a 'land uniform'."
"Couldn't do any decent work without, I should say."
"I believe Miss Carr insisted on it."
"Sensible woman!"
"It feels so delightfully business-like."
"Shall we win green armlets?"
"I'm just dying to start and dig!"
"And I want to climb a tree!"
Miss Chadwick and her students set to work methodically. They gave
classroom lectures on the principles of agriculture, and practical
demonstrations in the garden. The girls learnt the constituents of
soils, and also how to trench; the theory of scientific poultry-raising,
and the actual mixing of the food. They prepared plots that would be
sown in the spring, cleared and rolled paths, planted bulbs, and divided
roots of perennials; they sawed wood, lifted rhubarb, and helped to
prepare a mushroom bed. It was all new and exciting, and there was a
spice of patriotism mixed up with it. They felt that they were training
to be of some service to the community.
"It's fearfully weird," said Wendy, writing her essay on _Insect Pests_,
"to have to find out whether your insect has a biting or a sucking
mouth, so as to know whether you must spray the beastie direct, or apply
poison to the plant. I'd feel rather like a dentist examining their
jaws."
"I heard of an editor in America," laughed Magsie, "who got his 'answers
to correspondents' mixed up, and in reply to 'how to kill a plague of
crickets' put 'rub their gums gently with a thimble, and if feverish,
administer Perry's Teething Powders'; while to 'Anxious Mother of
Twins', he gave the advice: 'Burn tobacco on a hot shovel, and the
little pests will hop about and die as dead as door-nails'."
"You always fix these yarns on America," pouted Diana. "It sounds a
great deal more like one of your British editors."
To some of the girls the greatest event of all was the arrival of the
horse and trap which Miss Todd had decided to add to her establishment.
Pendlemere was some distance from the station and from Glenbury, the
nearest town, and she thought it would be a great convenience to be
independent of carriers and able to fetch supplies for themselves.
Diana, keenly interested, was allowed by Miss Ormrod to make the
acquaintance of "Baron", the pretty chestnut cob, and even to help in
his toilet. Diana loved horses, and used the curry-comb with enthusiasm,
talking to Baron in what she called "horse language"--a string of
endearing terms that on the whole he seemed to appreciate.
"I'd just adore to drive him!" she sometimes hinted; but Miss Ormrod
always ignored the hint, and, instead of offering her the reins, never
even invited her into the cart. Diana would stand watching wistfully
when Baron was harnessed, and the governess car would start out on a
pilgrimage to the town. She considered that a practical part of her
education was being obviously neglected.
"If we could each keep a pony and go for rides on the hills, it would be
ripping!" she sighed.
"Goody! What a circus we'd look!" said Vi, who did not take so kindly to
horsemanship, and preferred a car.
Early in November, Miss Todd, having some urgent business to transact,
went up to London for a few days, leaving Pendlemere in the hands of
Miss Beverley. The school jogged along without any mishaps during her
absence. She was expected home upon the Thursday. On Wednesday
afternoon, which was a holiday, Miss Chadwick, Miss Carr, Miss Ormrod,
and Miss Hampson mounted bicycles, and rode away with a party of seniors
to Glenbury. The juniors, by special invitation from Mrs. Fleming, went
to tea at the Vicarage. Two intermediates were in bed with a mild form
of "flu", and the remainder amused themselves as they liked best. Peggy
sat indoors, doing pen-painting; Vi brought stones for a rockery; Sadie
and Magsie played a set of tennis on the cinder court; Diana and Wendy,
who had asked to join the cycle party, and had in consequence received a
severe snub from Geraldine, wandered about the garden like unquiet
spirits.
"It's the limit to be an intermediate!" groused Wendy gloomily. "Seniors
and juniors get all the fun! Did you ever hear of _our_ form being taken
to do anything special while the others stopped at school? Of course you
didn't, because we never are! The seniors get first innings, and we only
have the crumbs that are left, and those juniors are treated like babies
though they're nearly as tall as we are. I'm fed up with it!"
"We'd better have a demonstration--parade the corridor with a placard:
'Fair play for Intermediates! Equal treats for all!'" suggested Diana,
who was always ready with ideas.
"Much good it would do us! We should only get sat upon by everybody.
Hullo! Here's Peggy wandering down. What's the matter with you, chucky?
You look disturbed."
"I hate coming out in a wind," said Peggy, holding her hands over her
rumpled hair. "I say, did you, or did you not see Miss Chadwick, Miss
Ormrod, _and_ Miss Carr bike off to Glenbury? Are they all three gone?"
"Of course they're gone!"
"You saw them with your own eyes?"
"Helped to blow up their tyres, which we thought was really saintly,
when we weren't asked to go with them," said the still injured Wendy.
"Well, it's a pretty go they're all off! Bunty's just had a telegram
from Toddlekins. She's coming back this afternoon, and wants the trap to
meet the four-thirty train."
"She should! She's in a precious hurry to leave her beloved London.
Whence this thusness?"
"I don't know. She's coming, at any rate," said Peggy, rather crossly.
"Bunty sent me to find out if everybody had really gone. Toddlekins will
have to get a taxi, that's all. Whew! I'm being blown to bits! I want to
get back to my pen-painting. I'm making a birthday present for my
cousin. Ta-ta!"
Diana stood watching Peggy's retreating figure as the latter raced up
the garden and into the house.
"Toddlekins will be rather savage not to be met," she commented.
"Yes; she's so keen on the trap, and the amount it saves in taxis and
carriers."
"It does seem rough on her, especially when she's sent a telegram. Look
here, old thing, let's take it to meet her ourselves!"
"What? You and me?"
"Why not? I can drive, and I know how to harness Baron. I have helped to
put him in the trap heaps of times. Bunty? Best not tell her anything
about it; she's always such a scared rabbit, and she'd only have fits!"
Wendy's eyes shone like stars.
"It _would_ be a stunt! Fancy driving in state to the station and
fetching Toddlekins! She'd be pleased to save a taxi."
"Bless her, she shall! We'll show her that her girls have some spirit
and self-reliance at a crisis. It's only making a practical
demonstration of our new agricultural course! What's the use of learning
if you can't apply it at the right moment? Run and fetch our coats and
hats and gloves, that's a cherub, while I go and tell Baron all about
it."
Wendy, much thrilled, and fired with the excellence of Diana's notion,
went indoors, and, taking elaborate precautions not to meet anybody,
secured outdoor garments worthy of the occasion. She rolled them in a
Union Jack for camouflage, and bore them off to the stable.
"I've brought 'bests'," she said. "Toddlekins wouldn't thank to be met
by two Cinderellas!"
Diana was standing with her arms thrown round Baron's neck, whispering
sweet nothings into his twitching ear. If he did not understand the
substance of her remarks, he realized the force of her affection, and
kept rubbing his nose against her shoulder in a sort of caress, very
gently catching her jersey with his lips and pulling it.
"I've told him, and he's delighted to go," declared Diana. "He's just
pining for a run. It's so dull for him standing here with no one to talk
to. It takes away his appetite. He'll enjoy his supper twice as much
when he comes back. Won't you, dear old man?"
"We mustn't be all day about starting. If you've finished making love to
him, let's get out the trap."
"Right you are!"
Diana was perfectly capable of accomplishing what she had undertaken.
She took down the harness, led Baron out into the yard, and proceeded to
put him into the shafts in quite a professional fashion. She looked over
all the straps, fetched the whip, donned the garments which Wendy had
brought, and proclaimed herself ready.
"We'll go out quietly by the back way," she chuckled. "Open the gate;
that's a mascot!"
There was nobody to say them nay, so in a few minutes they were trotting
briskly along the Glenbury Road. Diana was a capital little Jehu, and
held the reins with a practised hand. Baron, perfectly conscious of who
was driving him, behaved admirably. The girls felt their spirits at
high-water mark. They had certainly scored over the rest of the school,
and secured a superior jaunt to anybody. Moreover, it was a pleasant
afternoon to be out. The weather, which for some days had been damp, had
changed to windy. Long, dappled mare's-tail clouds stretched across the
pale November sky, and every now and then the sun shone out between
them. The glory of the autumn tints had been blown away, but the
infinitely intertwined, almost leafless boughs of the woodlands had a
beauty apart from foliage. Bushes covered with crimson masses of hips or
haws foretold a hard winter; birds twittered restlessly in the
hedgerows; and the withered leaves came whirling along the road with a
scurrying, rustling sound as of the little footsteps of innumerable
fairies. A seed-vessel of the sycamore, flying like a miniature
aeroplane, struck Diana full in the face. She picked it up as it fell on
her coat, and put it in her pocket.
"I shall keep it as my mascot," she said. "It was evidently meant for
me, so it will bring me luck. Do you believe in luck?"
"Very much, sometimes, but I don't often have any."
"We've got it to-day, though. Baron's going splendidly. I think the wind
excites him. You wouldn't believe he'd been out every day this week.
He's as fresh as a daisy. What's the time? I can't get to my watch."
"Quarter past four."
"Gee whiz! We must hurry ourselves. We've to be waiting at the station
by half-past. Baron, can you put on a spurt?"
They were bowling along a good macadam road and down hill, so that Baron
did not object to the extra strain put upon his legs. The spire of
Glenbury Church loomed ahead; in a few more minutes they began to see
the roofs of the houses. They crossed the bridge over the river, turned
the corner by the King's Arms Inn, and were trotting at a good pace
along Castle Street, when suddenly Wendy's side of the trap dipped down.
There was a horrible jarring and grinding, and horse and governess car
seemed to be trying to practise sliding. With great presence of mind,
and also strength of arm, Diana pulled Baron up.
"We've lost our wheel!" she gasped.
A crowd immediately collected round the little carriage, which stood
lop-sided in the gutter. One passer-by held the horse, another helped
Diana and Wendy out; a boy came running up with the wheel that had
danced across the street. People stood at shop doors and stared.
Sympathetic voices asked if the girls were hurt. Several connoisseurs
were feeling Baron's legs. In that most critical and agitating
situation, who should be seen riding up from the town but a group of ten
cyclists, led by Miss Chadwick, and displaying the familiar hatbands of
Pendlemere School. Diana and Wendy turned the colour of boiled beetroot.
The cyclists dismounted in a body, and Miss Chadwick, staggered at the
amazing spectacle of the wreck before her, took over instant possession.
She tilted her bicycle against a lamp-post, sent a boy for a blacksmith,
and began to unharness Baron. When he was clear of the shafts, and being
led away by a friendly ostler, she demanded explanations. Diana supplied
them briefly. Miss Chadwick looked at her keenly, but forbore to comment
before the crowd.
"Miss Ormrod and I will stay in town and come back with Miss Todd," she
said, with compressed lips. "You and Wendy can ride our bicycles. Miss
Carr, will you please go as quickly as you can to the station and
explain to Miss Todd what has happened. The train must be in by now. I
think, Miss Hampson, you'd better take the girls on."
It was ignominious to be thus dismissed, and to be forced to mount
machines and cycle back to school, instead of having the proud
distinction of driving the head mistress. Diana and Wendy felt their
feathers fall considerably, especially when they contemplated the fuller
explanations which must inevitably follow.
It was quite dark before Miss Todd arrived in the mended cart. She and
Miss Chadwick and Miss Ormrod had tea together in the drawing-room.
Later in the evening Diana and Wendy received orders to report
themselves in the study. They entered with sober faces. Outside, a band
of thrilled intermediates, who had listened with bated breath to the
account of the adventure, hung about and discussed possible punishments.
Miss Todd was not a mistress to be trifled with, and the trap was her
latest toy. It was nearly half an hour before the door opened, and two
very subdued and crushed specimens of girlhood issued, mopping their
eyes.
"She says Miss Chadwick knew the wheel wasn't safe, and had gone to get
a fresh pin for it," volunteered Wendy with a gulp. "But how could _we_
know that? She doesn't believe in practical demonstrations of our
lessons, or in self-reliance; she says we've just to do what we are
told. She got quite raggy when Diana mentioned it. We mayn't go near the
stable for a week, and we've each to learn ten pages of poetry by
heart."
"Ten pages! What an atrocious shame!" sympathized Vi. "It'll take all
your recreation time this week."
"I know it will, and I wanted to do some sewing."
"She never said _what_ poetry," put in Diana, her moist eyes suddenly
twinkling. "I'll learn something out of the _Comic Reciter_--the very
maddest and craziest one I can manage to find."
CHAPTER VIII
Armistice Day
Diana had a fairly retentive memory, and learned poetry without much
trouble. By far the hardest part of her punishment was to be forbidden
to visit the stable for a week. She was sure Baron would miss her, and
that, though he might receive other offerings of bread and carrots, he
would be looking out and pricking his ears in vain for the friend with
whom he had grown to be on such intimate terms.
Miss Chadwick, much annoyed at the accident to the cart, treated Diana
distantly. Instead of smiling at her when she came into the room, she
would look round her or over her head, and flash recognition to somebody
else. It was humiliating to find herself out of favour, especially as it
was noticed and commented on by her form-mates, all of whom were
candidates for Miss Chadwick's friendship. Wendy, toiling away at her
punishment task and grumbling at its difficulty, was not at all a
cheerful companion. Moreover, it rained--rained for two days and nights
without stopping; rained as it only can rain in a northern and
mountainous district in the month of November. The fells were covered
with mist, rivers ran down the garden paths, and from the eaves came a
continual and monotonous drip-drip-drip. Diana, whose letters from Paris
had been delayed, and who was home-sick in consequence, vibrated between
a fit of the blues and a wild outbreak of spirits. She had reached the
stage when she must either laugh or cry. She wandered restlessly round
the schoolroom on Saturday afternoon, while the others were amusing
themselves with reading, painting, or sewing.
"What a quiet set you are!" she raged. "Anyone would take you for 'Miss
Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies'! Why can't you wake up? This is
the dullest hole I've ever been in in my life. Magsie, stop that eternal
sewing, and be sporty! You look like a model for 'gentle maidenhood'. I
want to stick a pin into you, to see what would happen."
"Draw it mild, Stars and Stripes," answered Magsie, biting off the end
of her cotton. "And be careful about experiments with pins, or something
more may happen than you quite bargain for."
"I don't care! Anything for an excitement! I want some fun, and there'll
be a shindy if I don't get it. Wendy! Vi! Sadie! Do brace up and be
sports! Let's go on the upper landing and let off steam. It's better
than moping here."
Diana, by sheer force of will, carried the day, detached her friends
from their several occupations, and bore them, three steps at a time, up
the stairs to the top story. The upper landing was long, and had a
polished oak floor; it looked gloomy on this wet afternoon, and the rain
made a continual patter on the roof. In Diana's eyes, however, it
afforded a field for enterprise.
"I've a gorgeous idea!" she purred. "We'll pretend the floor's a
skating-rink. I've borrowed Loveday's roller skates, and we'll take it
in turns."
That roller skates were hardly meant for indoor amusement did not occur
to the girls. They agreed with enthusiasm. In order to share the
pleasure Vi and Sadie each buckled one on, and began a series of glides,
punctuated by pushes from the other foot. Wendy and Magsie, not to be
outdone, began to slide down the polished floor, and Tattie, who had
powers of invention, fetched a cake of soap and a sponge, and perfected
their activities by making a slippery course along the boards.
"It's like Alpine sports," exulted Wendy, taking a turn with one of the
skates, and skimming at top speed. "Can't you just imagine you're in
Switzerland? I want to make snowballs. Oh! why can't we do some
toboganning? I'd like to go tearing down a hill on a bob-sleigh. It
would be priceless."
"You shall do next best to it, my child," said Diana cheerily. "Trust
your granny to find the way for you. I've coasted indoors before now.
Wait a second, and you'll see!"
She disappeared, and in a short time returned with her drawing-board.
"You just squat on this," she explained, "and you go skimming down the
stairs like a water-chute. It'll be prime!"
"O-o-o-oh!"
"You _are_ priceless!"
"Great is Diana of the Americans!"
The improvised bob-sleigh worked admirably, and if it happened to catch,
there was always the banister to clutch at. Its popularity eclipsed even
that of the soap-slide and the roller skates. The fun waxed fast and
furious, not to say noisy. Bumpings and bursts of laughter began to echo
downstairs on to the lower stories. Miss Hampson, coming to unlock the
jam-cupboard in preparation for tea, stood for a moment in the corridor,
listening like a pointer. Then she thrust the key into her pocket and
dashed to the upper regions, just in time to behold Wendy, with scarlet
cheeks and flying hair, coasting down the stairs on a drawing-board. For
a moment Miss Hampson was without words. She stared, gasping, at Wendy,
who hurriedly picked up both herself and the drawing-board, and stood at
attention. The sporting party on the upper landing would gladly have
melted away had there been any possible cover, but there was not. Vi and
Sadie had not even time to kick off their roller skates. Miss Hampson's
keen eyes took in every detail of the trails on the polished oak floor,
and the soap-slide. Then they focused on Diana.
"I can imagine who's been the instigator of all this!" she said
sharply. "We've never been accustomed to such doings at Pendlemere
before. Miss Todd will be appalled at the damage you've done to the
floor. Go downstairs to the schoolroom at once, and remember that this
landing is prohibited in future. I'm astonished that all of you don't
know better!"
It was on the following Monday that tidings of the armistice were
proclaimed. The girls heard the church bells ringing when they were in
the middle of morning lessons, and unanimously "downed books and
pencils" and trooped to the front door, where Miss Todd was verifying
the good news from the butcher boy. For five minutes the school went
wild; everybody joined hands and danced in a circle on the drive,
shouting "Hurrah!" After all the long suspense and anxiety the relief
was stupendous. There was hardly a girl who had not some relation at the
front over whose safety she might now rejoice. That the shadow of more
than four years had at length been removed, seemed almost too good to be
true. Miss Todd and Miss Beverley had gone indoors to find all the
available stock of bunting; Miss Chadwick was already climbing on a
ladder up the porch to hang the Union Jack over the threshold.
"We ought each to have a flag of our own," said Geraldine, who was
intensely patriotic. "I'm going to ask Miss Todd if we may go and buy
some."
Wild schemes for celebrating the day floated in the air, varying from a
picnic to a bonfire.
"The ground is too wet yet for either," decreed Geraldine. "How could we
tramp over the fells when everything's a quagmire? And if you think you
can light a bonfire with damp wood, you're jolly well mistaken. We'll
collect sticks, and have one when they're dry. I plump for a flag-hunt.
There must be some in the shops."
Geraldine's suggestions were generally received with favour at
head-quarters. Miss Todd felt that the school was fizzing over, and must
find some outlet for its excitement. An expedition to Glenbury to buy
flags seemed feasible. They could have an early lunch, and start
immediately afterwards. Those who possessed bicycles could ride, and the
rest could walk a mile to Athelton village and catch the motor-omnibus
which passed there. Everybody was satisfied with the arrangement, and
the cyclists dispersed to oil their machines and pump tyres. Miss Todd
and Miss Chadwick were going in the trap; even Spot, with a bow of red,
white, and blue ribbon tied to his collar, was to accompany the party.
Diana did not possess a bicycle, so Wendy, out of sheer good-fellowship,
decided to lend hers to Sadie and to take the omnibus, so that she
herself might go in company with her chum. Nine girls and a mistress
started off in good time for Athelton, slightly in advance of the
cyclists, who expected to meet them in Glenbury. Even in the village of
Pendlemere and the little hamlet of Athelton people were making peace
rejoicings: flags hung from windows, and children ran about blowing tin
trumpets, whistles, and mouth-organs. A string of small urchins had
improvised a band, and paraded proudly along, banging on tin trays and
old kettles, and yelling the National Anthem. Men talked eagerly
together outside the post office; women stood at their doors and
watched, some radiant and excited, and some quieter, with a heartache
behind the smile, as they thought of those lads who would not come
marching home with the others.
The wild weather of the last few days seemed to have rolled away with
the war clouds. The sky was flecked with blue, and the trees by the
roadside were hung all over with drops that sparkled in the sun like
jewels. The brook that ran down from the fells was tumbling along in a
great brown stream, thundering under the bridge; robins, hopping in the
wet hedgerows, twittered their plaintive little autumn song. A woman
picked a marigold from her battered, rain-sodden garden, and handed it
over the wall to Wendy. Everybody seemed to want to speak, even to
strangers, and to tell how many of their relations had served in the
war.
At last the omnibus, ten minutes late, came rumbling along, and stopped
to pick up passengers. The school scrambled in, and with difficulty
found places. It was a jolting journey, much crammed up among country
people with baskets, but it was fun, even though the rattling almost
shook them off their seats, for all the passengers seemed so
good-tempered and jolly. On their arrival at Glenbury they found the
town _en fete_, with bunting hanging across the streets, and large
banners decorating the public buildings. The pavements were so full that
the crowd overflowed into the road. The cyclist members of the
Pendlemere party had arrived first, and had already bought flags, which
they pinned in their hats. The motor-omnibus contingent rushed off
immediately to secure any that were left, and to try to get some sweets.
Miss Todd, who had put up the cart at the Queen's Hotel, met them as
they were emerging from the confectioner's, sucking pear-drops and
toffee.
"You're lucky, for sweets are scarce," she commented. "Thanks very
much--I won't have one just now. Where are the others? Can you find
them? I'm going to take you all up the church tower to get a bird's-eye
view of the town. It will look nice to-day, with the flags out, and we
ought to be able to see for miles round."
Glenbury Church was almost as large as a cathedral, and possessed a
steeple which was a landmark for the neighbourhood. It was possible to
ascend as far as the flying buttresses, and to walk round a stone
causeway that encircled the tower just where the spire tapered up. The
entrance was in the nave, through a small oak door studded with nails.
The verger, aged, wheezy, and inclined to conversation, admitted them.
"You'll get a fine view," he said huskily; "you ought to be able to see
the prison and the cemetery, and, with luck, the lunatic asylum as well.
It's over amongst the trees to the east of Chatford. You can't miss it
if the sun's shining on the roof. There's been a-many folks up to-day."
The narrow corkscrew staircase was old and worn, and seemed to twist
round and round in an absolutely endless ascent as the girls toiled up
its hundred-and-eighty-six steps. To add to their difficulties, parties
of people kept coming down, and the problem of passing was difficult; it
could only be accomplished by the school flattening itself against the
walls while the descending sightseers gingerly made their way round the
narrow centre of the staircase. Tiny lancet windows here and there let
in streams of sunshine, but most of the pilgrimage was made in a
decidedly "dim religious light". Everyone's knees were aching when at
last they emerged through a small door on to the causeway. They were
standing on a flat terrace edged by a stone parapet just tall enough to
allow them to lean their arms on it and look over. Above them rose the
spire, tapering thinner and thinner till its slender point ended in a
weather-cock. Below, the town lay spread out like an architect's design.
They could see the roofs of all the buildings, and the streets, and the
lawns, and the pond in the park; all seemed viewed at an unusual angle,
for they were gazing down on the tops of things. Round the town
stretched miles of misty woods and fields, melting into the grey haze
of the fells. The objects of attraction mentioned by the verger--the
jail, cemetery, and lunatic asylum--were not particularly conspicuous,
and nobody was very anxious to localize them. The girls walked all round
the causeway, so as to get the view at every point.
"I suppose Pendlemere's over there?" said Diana, pointing a brown-gloved
finger in the direction of the fells.
"Yes; you can see the road we came by in the 'bus," explained Stuart.
"It winds round by Athelton. There's a much shorter way back, though, if
we were walking. Do you see that white farm-house on the hill above the
park? Well, you go through the fold-yard, across a field, and down a
lane, then there's a straight path over the moor, right to Pendlemere.
It saves two miles at least. Hilary and Nesta and I walked it once with
Miss Todd."
"Dinky, I should guess."
"Nice in summer, but it might be pretty wet now."
Most of the girls agreed that coming down steps was rather worse than
going up. Their ankles ached when they reached the bottom. The old
verger was taking the sixpences of another party of tourists, and
telling them, in his wheezy voice, to look out for the cemetery, the
jail, and the lunatic asylum--to him evidently the three prime points of
interest in the landscape. Spot, who had been fastened by his leash to
the railings outside, greeted the girls with noisy enthusiasm. Diana
untied him, and gave him a pear-drop.
"Bless him! He wants a bit of candy as well as the rest of us. He's a
'booful' dog with his patriotic ribbon on his collar. Stop barking,
that's a cherub boy, or you'll drive your Auntie Diana crazy!"
There was a short interval of shopping after the excursion up the tower,
and then Miss Todd pulled out her watch, compared it with the church
clock, and declared it was time to be returning. The motor-omnibus,
which started from Shipham, five miles away, was due in Glenbury at a
quarter to four. Miss Hampson marched her contingent to the
market-place, where it always stopped to pick up its passengers. Already
quite a crowd was waiting for it--people who had come in from the
neighbouring villages to see the peace rejoicings. There was no
policeman to insist on an orderly queue, so when the great scarlet
vehicle lumbered up, a wild scramble ensued. Some of the Pendlemere
girls were pushed in amongst the jostling throng, and some were elbowed
out. Wendy, Diana, and Miss Hampson, at the tail-end of the crush, tried
to scramble on to the step. The conductress, a brawny woman in uniform,
stopped them.
"Only room for one more," she shouted; "and I can't take that dog!"
"But we'd stand!" entreated Miss Hampson piteously.
"They're standing as it is! Can't take more than the 'bus is registered
for, or we'd break down at the hills. Room for one! Which of you's
coming? Be quick! I can't wait all day!"
It was a matter that had to be decided in a moment. Miss Hampson,
knowing that seven of her girls were already packed in the omnibus, felt
that she must go and escort them. She turned desperately to Wendy and
Diana, and panted:
"Miss Todd won't have started yet. Run to the 'Queen's'. She'll take you
back in the trap."
Then she allowed herself to be hustled inside by the impatient
conductress.
The two girls left behind stood staring for a minute after the
retreating omnibus. Spot, straining at his leash, barked his loudest.
"Well, I don't envy them their drive. They're packed like sardines,"
commented Wendy.
"I guess we've got the best of it," agreed Diana.
Evidently the next thing to be done was to walk to the Queen's Hotel and
report themselves, to Miss Todd. Diana was even beginning to speculate
whether she could advance any possible argument, such as a desire to
save strain on her mistress's arm, whereby she might induce the
Principal to allow her to take the reins and drive Baron home. They went
along Westgate, and turned the corner of Hart Street; in another two
minutes they would have been in Castle Street. Then fate interfered.
From a narrow alley on the right came sounds resembling explosives, and
three small boys, yelling gleefully, shot out into the road. Wendy,
pausing to ascertain the cause of the excitement, ejaculated the one
word, "Squibs!"
"Gee whiz! You don't mean to say they've got fireworks!" exclaimed
Diana. "Then I'm not going back till I've bought some. Here,
sonny!"--catching a bare-headed urchin by the shoulder--"tell me where
you got those squibs, and I'll give you my last bit of candy. Mrs.
Cobbes's in Beck Street? Where's Beck Street? Is it far? You ought to
come and show us for that big bit of candy."
"Can't! Got to go 'ome to my tea," returned the youth, whose small teeth
were already in the toffee. "Cobbes's is down there!" pointing an arm
like a sign-post in the direction of a by-street.
Diana and Wendy did not even wait to discuss the expediency of thus
side-tracking. The magic lure of fireworks drew them on, and with one
accord they trotted off to seek Mrs. Cobbes's shop. It took a little
hunting about and asking to find it; and then Mrs. Cobbes was stout and
slow, and seemed to need an eternity of time to wrap up their purchases
in an old piece of newspaper.
"We shall have to hurry!" said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her
parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and
provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting at him from
the railings.
They did hurry. They nearly ran up Jessamine Street and Vine Street,
and clattered up the steps behind the post office into Castle Street,
and tacked through the crowd into the yard of the Queen's Hotel. A whole
row of conveyances was standing with shafts down, but the familiar
governess car was not among them. Perhaps it had been put inside the
coach-house.
"Miss Todd's trap, did you say?" replied the ostler, removing the
fag-end of a cigarette from his lips. "Why, she's gone! I harnessed her
only five minutes ago!"
Here was a blow indeed! They had never expected Miss Todd to drive away
without them, though, considering that she did not know they had been
left behind by the omnibus, she was scarcely to be blamed for doing so.
The two girls looked serious as they walked into the street again.
Somehow they felt aggrieved.
"If the rest haven't started, Magsie and Vi might take us behind them on
their bicycles," suggested Wendy dubiously. "Hodson's would know if
they've gone. They were to call for some parcels there."
It proved a forlorn hope. The girl behind the counter assured them that
a party on bicycles, wearing brown tam-o'-shanters, had come and claimed
their purchases, and ridden off up the street ringing their bells. The
next motor-omnibus would come through at seven. It was always crowded,
and no doubt would be particularly full to-night.
"There's nothing else for it, Di--we shall have to walk," said Wendy
blankly.
"Whew! It's a pretty good step."
"Six miles."
"Je-hoshaphat!"
"Well, it's no use waiting for the 'bus. We should never get places."
"Let's take that short cut that Stuart was talking about. She said it
saves two miles."
"What a brain wave! It's only a quarter past four. We'd be home long
before dark. You can walk four miles an hour, can't you?"
"Ra-ther!"
So they turned across the park, and up the hill to the white farm, and
through the fold-yard, and over the field, and along the lane on to the
open moor. They felt decidedly pleased with themselves, for it was far
nicer here than plodding along the high road. The ground was not so wet
as Stuart had prognosticated; indeed the path was quite firm and well
trodden, and in parts was even paved with stones. Spot, released from
his leash, careered about like a mad creature. Diana could not help
dancing a few steps, and Wendy, though she was growing hungry, stopped
grousing to admire the view. The sun, a red ball among grey masses of
mist, was sinking behind the fells, and a golden glow tipped the brown,
withered heather. The whole atmosphere seemed to reflect peace.
Overhead, little radiant clouds stretched themselves into the semblance
of angels' wings moving lightly across the evening sky. To watch them
was like gazing at the portals of a heavenly world.
The girls walked along as briskly as they could, but on the rough
moorland path it was impossible to keep the pace at four miles an hour.
They were going uphill, and, unless they went in single file, one of
them, owing to the narrowness of the track, was obliged to keep stepping
into the heather. At the top of the crest they dipped down again into a
high, narrow valley between two fells. It was swampy here, and in places
there were quite wide pieces of water to jump across. The path, which
had been growing worse and worse, finally separated into a fork. The
girls came to a halt, and stood looking first at one track, then at the
other. They were in doubt which to choose, for each looked equally bad.
They had turned so often that they had rather lost their sense of
locality.
"I should think Pendlemere must be over there," said Wendy, pointing to
the right, but looking frankly puzzled.
"Well, you know the place better than I do," answered Diana, following
her lead.
So they went to the right, through a small thicket of hazel-bushes, over
some rocks, and on up the bleak fell-side. The sun had disappeared, and
the little golden angels' wings had given place to sombre, grey clouds.
It was growing distressingly dark. A spot or two of rain began to fall.
The path, degenerated into a mere sheep track, was increasingly
difficult to trace. Though neither would admit it, both the girls felt
uneasy. They could not recognize any familiar landmarks to show them
their whereabouts. Suppose darkness came on, and found them still
wandering about on the moor?
"Do you think we've come the right way?" asked Diana at last.
Wendy looked round in the fading light, hoping against hope to see the
corner of Pendlemere gleaming below her in the valley. By now it
certainly ought to be visible. Nothing in the shape of a lake, however,
appeared in the landscape; only an interminable waste of brown heather
under threatening rain-clouds.
"No," said Wendy, with a shake in her voice. "As a matter of fact, I
believe we're lost."
Diana was plucky as a rule, but she was very tired now, and hungry as
well. Two somethings that may have been rain-drops splashed down her
cheeks; she turned her face away from Wendy as she wiped them off.
"What's to be done?" she asked huskily.
"Go back, I suppose. Goodness knows where this will lead to!"
"We ought to have taken that other turning."
"It's too dark to go that way now. We'd better get back to Glenbury, and
try for the 'bus."
Very soon the girls realized that it was getting too dark even to
distinguish the path at all. They stumbled blindly on through the
heather, conscious only that they were going downhill, but whether they
were really retracing their steps or not, it was impossible to tell.
Spot, whose spirits had failed him, followed at their heels. Faster and
faster fell the darkness; the girls linked arms to avoid getting
separated. They were both thoroughly frightened. Would they be obliged
to spend the night upon the moor? If there were only some means of
finding the way back to Glenbury!
Suddenly, a long distance in front of them, a light flashed out, as
though a candle had been placed in a cottage window. Hope revived. If
only they could reach some human habitation, they could ask to be
directed. They dragged their tired feet along, splashing in the dark
through puddles, sinking in soft ground, or stumbling over stones. It
seemed an interminable tramp before at last they struck the end of a
wall, and, feeling their way with their hands, groped along till they
reached a gate. The next moment they were rapping with their knuckles on
a door.
It was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, who stared at them in
suspicious amazement as they asked to be directed to Glenbury; then,
seeing that they were only girls with their hair down their backs, she
cautiously invited them to come in. They accepted thankfully. After the
dark and the damp outside, the farm-kitchen seemed a haven of refuge.
A little boy, who had been sitting by the fireside, sprang up at their
entrance, and faced them with wondering eyes. Something in the small
figure seemed familiar. Diana's mind galloped rapidly back to a day in
late September when she had crawled along a tree-trunk across a racing
torrent, with a frightened, blue-jerseyed atom of humanity creeping
behind her.
"Gee-whiz! I guess you're Harry!" she exclaimed heartily.
The mental thermometer of the kitchen, which had stood at about
freezing-point, suddenly thawed into spring. Harry, recognizing his
former friend in need, hastily explained to his mother, who turned to
the girls with a light in her face.
"I've always wanted to thank you," she said to Diana; "but I never knew
who it was who'd helped Harry home that day. Sit you down, both of you,
by the fire. You'll let me make you a cup of tea?"
Rest, warmth, and tea were what the tired girls craved. They sat on the
settle, with a little round table in front of them, and ate the scones
and blackberry jam that with true northern hospitality were piled on
their plates. Harry's father came in presently, and, after a whispered
conversation with his wife in the back-kitchen, offered to take a
lantern and escort the girls back to Pendlemere.
"It's a goodish step, but you're rested now, maybe, and it's no use
risking missing the 'bus at Glenbury, and having to walk it after all."
A very tired Diana, and an equally weary Wendy arrived at the school
just when Miss Todd was getting absolutely desperate about their
absence. She had sent Miss Chadwick to Athelton to meet the seven
o'clock omnibus, and the teacher had returned to report that they had
not come on it. Miss Todd forbore to scold two such limp wrecks, and
sent them straight upstairs, with orders for hot baths, bed, and basins
of bread-and-milk. Explanations were reserved for next day, and they did
not get off scot free by any means. Miss Todd had an aggravatingly
mathematical mind. She calculated the time the omnibus left the
market-place, the exact moment when she herself started in the trap from
the Queen's Hotel, the distance between these two given points, and in
how many minutes at the rate of not less than three miles an hour two
ordinary walkers should accomplish it. The answer left ten whole minutes
to spare, and of that ten minutes of the afternoon she demanded a strict
account from Diana and Wendy.
The sinners, whose bones still ached after their adventure, appeared in
such crushed spirits that they did not receive the entire scolding their
head mistress had intended, and were for once dismissed with a caution.
"She didn't say we mightn't go to the bonfire," sneezed Wendy, on their
way down the passage. Wendy as usual had taken a cold in her head.
"I kept the squibs dry, thank goodness!" sighed Diana. "Nobody knows
about them yet, so we'll let them off as a surprise. Won't they all just
jump when they hear them? I'm looking forward to that bonfire as the
event of my life!"
CHAPTER IX
Diana's English Christmas
Diana had fondly hoped that the armistice meant an immediate declaration
of peace, that her father and mother would return post-haste from
France, take her away from Pendlemere, and cross at once to America, so
that they might spend Christmas in their own home. To her immense
disappointment, nothing so nice happened. The peace conferences were
lengthy. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt remained in Paris, and did not even speak
of booking passages to New York. They wrote instead to make arrangements
for Diana's holidays in England. It was at first decided that she should
spend the time with her cousins, the Burritts, but influenza broke out
so badly at Petteridge Court that all in a hurry the plans had to be
changed. It ended in Diana passing Christmas with the Flemings at
Pendlemere Vicarage. So far she had scarcely realized Meg and Elsie
Fleming. They came to school daily, and she had seen them among the
juniors, and remarked that they were "sweet kids". She was now to meet
them at nearer acquaintance, and not only Meg and Elsie, but Monty,
Neale, and Roger as well.
They were an interesting and lively family, and after a preliminary
half-hour of painful politeness, they thawed over schoolroom tea, and
adopted her into their midst. Monty, the eldest, was an eccentric,
clever lad in spectacles, fond of making scientific and chemical
experiments, which generally ended in odours that caused the others to
hold their noses and open the schoolroom windows, top and bottom. He had
a philosophical mind and a love of argument, and would thrash out
questions for the sheer fun of debate in a growling sort of tone that
was not really bad-tempered, only put on.
Neale, six months older than Diana, was a bright, jolly-looking boy,
with a freckled nose and chestnut hair that rather stood on end. As
regards book-learning, the less said about his attainments the better,
and he had an unpleasant half-hour in his father's study, explaining
details of his school report; but in all practical matters he was ahead
of Monty. He was a thorough young pickle, up to endless pranks, and
determined not to let time hang heavy on his hands during the holidays.
Roger, the youngest, a smart little chap of nine, followed in the wake
of his brothers, poking interfering fingers into Monty's chemical
messes, or acting scout for Neale's escapades. At the end of twelve
hours Diana felt that she knew them perfectly, and had shaken down into
a place of her own amongst them.
Six young people home for the holidays are apt to turn a house upside
down, and it was fortunate for Mrs. Fleming that she had an easy-going
and happy-go-lucky disposition, and could view with comparative
equanimity the chaos that reigned in the schoolroom. To Diana it was
delightful; she preferred a floor littered with shavings, a table spread
with paints, plasticine modelling-clay, and other descriptions of mess,
and chairs encumbered with books and papers, to the neatest, tidiest
room where everything you want is put away out of reach in cupboards.
"When I heard I was coming to the Vicarage, I thought: 'My, I guess I
won't have to bounce there!' But you're a real set of sports," she
assured her new friends.
"Well, I don't think we're exactly what you'd call prim and proper,"
chuckled Meg.
There were still a few days before Christmas, and the energies of the
whole family were focused on decorations. There were not many people in
the village with leisure to help, so most of the work fell upon the
Flemings. They tramped down to the church, bearing great armfuls of
evergreens, strings of holly-berries, and texts cut out in paper
letters. The girls sat in a pew and twisted garlands of yew and laurel,
which the boys, with the aid of a short ladder, fastened round the
pillars. Mrs. Fleming was fitting panels of cotton wool on to the
pulpit, and sprinkling them with artificial frost.
"We ought to have lots of flags about the place this Christmas," said
Monty, "to make it a sort of victory celebration as well. I'll put two
or three over the organ, and stick some round the monuments. What I'd
like would be to see our huge Union Jack hanging down over that blank
wall there."
"Well, why don't you put it?" enquired Diana, looking up from her
wreath-twisting.
"All very well, madam, but how am I going to get it there? That's a
little detail which escapes your feminine observation. Please to note
the height of our ladder and the height of that wall, and compare the
difference."
"I'd get up on to that passage and fix it," nodding to the triforium.
"Would you, indeed, Miss America? I rather think I see you toddling
along there, with a drop of thirty feet below you."
"Do you dare me to?"
"You're brave enough down here in a pew, but I don't believe any girl
would have the head for that. Women aren't steeple-jacks!"
"You needn't speak so scornfully. There may be a few steeple-jennies
among them!"
"No fear," laughed Monty, turning away.
Diana said nothing more, but as she went on with her wreath her thoughts
were as busy as her fingers. She was more silent than usual at lunch,
and slipped away quickly afterwards, leaving the family talking round
the fire. First, she ran upstairs to the corner of the upper landing,
where she knew the big Union Jack was kept. She rolled it into a tight
bundle, tucked it under her arm, then tore off to the church. She found
herself alone there, for none of the other decorators had returned. It
was exactly the opportunity she wanted. The bunch of keys was hanging in
the big door. She pulled them out, and carried them to the tiny door by
the chancel steps. This she unlocked and flung open, disclosing a steep,
winding stair. Almost on her hands and knees Diana scrambled up, and up,
and up till she reached the triforium, the narrow stone gallery that ran
round the church under the clerestory windows. The first few yards were
safely protected with arches, pillars, and a balustrade, but after that
came a stretch of about twenty feet with no parapet at all. The gallery
was only twenty-four inches wide; on the one side was the wall, on the
other a sheer drop of about thirty feet. Diana paused, and set her
teeth. She did not dare to walk it, but she knelt down and crawled along
till she reached the next piece of balustrade. Then she unrolled her
Union Jack, and, tying it by its cords to the pillars, arranged it so
that it hung down into the church and covered the exact spot of blank
wall that Monty had indicated. She had just finished when she heard
footsteps in the porch. Not wanting to be caught by the Vicar, she began
to crawl back in the same way as she had come. Perhaps the sense that
someone might be watching her from below unnerved her, for the return
journey seemed far worse than the outward one had done. She did not
venture to look down, but kept her eyes on the wall. Half-way she was
suddenly seized with a horrible paroxysm of dizziness. For a moment or
two she lay flat, too frightened to move, while her giddy head seemed to
be spinning round. With a supreme effort she mastered the sensation, and
crawled on, inch by inch, till she once again reached safety. With
rather tottering knees she came down the winding staircase, and through
the small door to the chancel steps. Mrs. Fleming, Meg, Monty, and Neale
were standing by the lectern when she appeared. Mrs. Fleming was white
as chalk; the others were staring open-mouthed, with a queer strained
look in their eyes.
"Well, I've done it, you see!" said Diana jauntily.
The Flemings gazed at her without speaking. Monty went and locked the
door of the staircase and put the keys in his pocket. The silence was
embarrassing.
"I think it looks very nice hanging there," declared Diana, nodding at
her Union Jack.
"My dear," said Mrs. Fleming in a shaky voice, "if you knew what I
suffered when I saw you creeping along the triforium you couldn't speak
so lightly. It isn't right to risk your life in this fashion."
Diana tried to carry the matter off airily, but the boys were grumpy and
would not speak. Meg kept looking at her with a peculiar expression, as
if she were recovering from a shock. Altogether, Diana felt that her
deed of daring had fallen very flat. She was annoyed that no one
congratulated her upon it. She considered that for a girl of fourteen it
was rather a record. Monty would not be able to sneer at "Miss America"
again. She strolled in a casual way past the font which he was
decorating, and made a final effort to wring from him the appreciation
she craved.
"There _are_ some steeple-jennies in the world!" she remarked, staring
upwards at the clerestory.
Monty picked up another piece of holly, placed it deliberately in
position, and then turned his spectacles on Diana.
"And there are more jenny-asses in it too than I should have expected!"
he answered pointedly.
When Diana had undressed that evening Mrs. Fleming came into her room to
say good-night, and sat down for a minute on the edge of her bed.
"Have you thought, dear," she said, "what it would have meant to Mr.
Fleming and me to have been obliged to write to your father and mother
and tell them you were lying dead, or, worse still, a cripple with a
broken spine; and what your father's and mother's feelings would have
been at the news?"
Diana turned her face away.
"Thoughtlessness can sometimes amount to heartlessness in its lack of
consideration for others."
"Monty dared me to do it."
"He never dreamed you actually would. Besides, are you going to do every
idiotic, silly thing that every foolish person says you dare not? I
thought you were more sensible, Diana! Remember, we are responsible for
you during the holidays, and I wish to return you whole to your parents.
We use every reasonable precaution to take care of you, but I can't
calculate on safeguarding you as if you were a baby of three."
Diana drummed her fingers on the pillow. Mrs. Fleming waited a moment,
then tried a different tack.
"I'm not very strong, Diana. My heart is weak, and I'm afraid for some
days I shall feel the effect of the shock you gave me this afternoon. I
don't believe you're the kind of girl who'd deliberately want to make me
ill."
Diana wriggled round, but her head was bent down.
"Remember that we care about you, dear. It would grieve us very much if
the slightest little accident were to happen to you. We want you to have
jolly holidays here, and to go back to school safe and well, with, I
hope, a happy remembrance of the Vicarage."
Two soft arms were thrown round Mrs. Fleming's neck.
"I'd do anything for _you_, though I hate to be a molly-coddle!"
whispered Diana. "I'm most fearfully sorry if I've really made you feel
ill!"
* * * * *
The decoration of the church was only one of the incidents of Christmas;
there were other things to be done before the festival arrived. The
Flemings liked to preserve old traditions, and finding that their
little American guest was very keen on all the details of a genuine
British Yule-tide, they did their best to satisfy her. Mrs. Fleming used
the cherished half-pound of currants--which in the war-time shortage of
dried fruits was all the grocer could send her--to make the frumenty and
spiced cakes that from time immemorial had been eaten in that northern
district to celebrate the feast of the Nativity. A Yule-log was sawn and
placed upon the dining-room fire, and a huge bough of mistletoe hung up
in the hall.
"We ought to have the Waits to make it just perfect!" said Diana.
"I believe some of the choir used to go round carol singing once," said
Meg, "but it's been given up. The mothers said the girls caught cold,
and they stayed out too late, so it was put a stop to. It's a pity in a
way. Mrs. James was saying only the other day that she quite missed
them, and so did Mrs. Holmes. They both said Christmas wasn't what it
used to be."
The pupils of Diana's eyes were growing large and round and shining, as
they always did when her fertile mind was evolving new ideas. She seized
Meg's arm.
"Oh, I've got such a brain-wave!" she confided. "Look here! Why
shouldn't we be Waits? We've learnt all those Christmas carols at
school. Let's go round and sing them. It would be ripping fun!"
The idea appealed to Meg and Elsie, and, rather to the astonishment of
the girls, the boys also took it up with enthusiasm, and volunteered
their assistance. They enlisted the help of the village schoolmistress,
and some of the most tuneful among her pupils, and all on the spur of
the moment made up their company.
"What always spoils carol singing," said Monty sententiously, "is that
everybody's generally so beastly out of tune. They don't seem able to
keep the pitch without a harmonium."
"Pity we can't carry a harmonium with us!"
"Why shouldn't we?" suggested Neale. "I don't mean I'm going to haul the
thing on my back, so you needn't grin. I've a better notion than that.
We'll see if the Blackwoods will lend us a cart. Put the harmonium
inside, hang up a lantern to see by, and there you are, with a movable
concert platform ready to take round where we like."
The others looked at Neale with admiration. It was such a very brainy
idea, they wondered they had never thought of it for themselves. Time
was short, as the performance was to be that evening, so they dispersed
to make their arrangements. Ted Blackwood, a member of the church choir,
agreed to bring his father's cart.
"I'll take t'owd mare," he grinned. "Shoo's steady, and won't bolt when
th' harmonium starts. Aye, I've a big stable lantern as 'ull do too."
Here indeed was an excitement for a young American visitor. Diana could
hardly wait till tea was over and darkness fell. Fortunately it was a
fine evening, with a hint of frost in the air, so the expedition would
not be damped by rain. Mrs. Fleming insisted upon all the party being
very warmly clad, and brought out an old picture of "The Waits" to
demonstrate that the use of mufflers was an integral part of the
ceremony. Diana, to her delight, was lent a Red Ridinghood cloak of
Meg's, clad in which she felt that she had stepped back at least three
centuries, and was walking in the days of the Stuarts.
"I might be one of the pilgrims in the _Mayflower_!" she exclaimed.
"What would Dad give to see me? I wish you were coming too," she added
to Mrs. Fleming.
"I'm too busy, child, to-night," said Mrs. Fleming, kissing the roguish
little face framed in the red hood. "Enjoy yourselves, chicks! And,
Diana,"--with a warning finger held up--"_don't_, please, do anything
desperately amazing!"
"I'll be an absolute model of mild mediaeval maidenhood," promised that
damsel, with twinkling eyes.
They went first to the Blackwoods' farm, then, when Ted had harnessed
"t'owd mare", they proceeded with the cart to the schoolhouse, and,
after a good deal of heaving and hauling, lifted in the harmonium and a
stool for Miss Simpson, the schoolmistress, to sit upon while she
played. The rest of the party having joined them, they jogged along to
the first house on their list, that of Mrs. Holmes at the Old Grange
Farm. They drew up the cart outside the door, placed lanterns on the
harmonium, and saw Miss Simpson settled at the instrument--a matter of
some difficulty, as the cart sloped, and the stool was inclined to slide
away. Ted held the old mare by the bridle, in case the music might
revive her youthful spirits and cause her to bolt. The others grouped
themselves round the cart. Miss Simpson struck up, and through the keen
night air rang out the cheerful strains of "Christians, awake!" The
Holmes family opened the door in quite a state of excitement, and
listened with much appreciation while "Good King Wenceslas", "The First
Nowell", and other old carols were sung. They insisted on bringing the
party indoors for slices of Yule cake, and would have given them hot
coffee as well, but Monty, who wished to visit other houses, declared
they had not time to wait while it was made. So they tramped on to the
James's farm, where they had an equally hearty reception, and were
regaled with cocoa, currant bread, and cheese.
It was a unique experience, trudging along country lanes with a cart and
lanterns, with hoar-frost under foot, and a few stars winking in a misty
sky, then standing in the cold night air to sing their carols. Diana
felt that she could never forget it, and that the shrill voice of little
Jack Greenhalgh warbling
"Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
Born is the King of Israel!"
would always be associated with her idea of Christmas.
She had her fill of old-world customs, for she was allowed, by special
favour, to go into the belfry and help for one brief minute to pull a
bell. And after service on Christmas morning she stood in the church
porch and watched the distribution of the "roth shillings", which, in
accordance with the terms of an old charity, were handed over to "twelve
worthy widows resident within the bounds of the parish". She helped in
the afternoon at the schools, where a big tea-party and Christmas-tree
were given to the children of the village, and joined nobly in the games
that were played afterwards, tearing round at "Drop the Handkerchief",
or pulling at "Oranges and Lemons", with unflagging energy.
"Have you had a nice Christmas Day, childie, away from all your own
people?" asked Mrs. Fleming, holding Diana's face between her hands as
she said good-night, and looking at her critically for signs of
home-sickness.
But Diana's eyes were without a suspicion of moisture, and her voice was
absolutely cheerful as she answered:
"Yes, thanks; just topping!"
CHAPTER X
A Fit of the Blues
The interest of experiencing a real old-fashioned English Christmas had
kept Diana's spirits up at fizzling-over point, but directly the
festival was over, her mental barometer came down with a run, and landed
her in a bad fit of the blues. There were several reasons for this
unfortunate plunge into an indigo atmosphere. First, the inevitable
reaction after the over-excitement of breaking up, sending off presents
and cards, and duly celebrating the Yule-tide feast. Diana was a
highly-strung little person, whose nerves were apt to get on edge, and
who made the common mistake of trying to live too fast. Her father's
"lightning methods", which she much admired and imitated, were decidedly
wearing to her vitality, and left her sometimes like a squeezed orange
or an india-rubber ball that has lost its bounce. Then secondly, the
French mails had been delayed, and, since the holidays began, Diana had
not received a single parcel, letter, or even solitary picture post card
from her parents in Paris. The blank was great, and though the Flemings
assured her that foreign posts were irregular, and that the whole of
her correspondence would probably arrive together in one big cargo, she
nevertheless could not rid herself of the uneasy impression that illness
or accident to father or mother might be the cause of the delay. Reason
three, a hackneyed but very present trouble was the weather. The English
climate had behaved itself during the first days of the holidays, and
had shown Diana quite a story-book aspect of Christmas, with a light
fall of snow on the fells, hoar-frost on all the plants and ferns in the
garden, and the sun a red ball seen through a rime-tipped tracery of
trees. After that, however, it revenged itself in rain, steady rain that
came down from a hopelessly grey sky without the least glint of sunlight
in it. It was very mild too; the air had a heavy languor that made
everybody feel tired and disinclined for any exertion. Mrs. Fleming
spread the table with sewing, and sighed at the largeness of the task
which faced her. The Vicar shut himself in his study, and pinned a
notice on the door stating that nobody must disturb him. Monty retired
to develop photos; Neale, clad in a mackintosh, went out into the wet;
Meg and Elsie buried themselves in books.
Diana, feeling that life was utterly drab, wandered from room to room
doing nothing. She could not settle to sew, read, paint, write letters,
or any normal employment, and had not even the patience to try to put
together a jig-saw puzzle. She missed Wendy and her other chums amongst
the intermediates, and was almost tempted to wish herself back at
school. Her piquant little face with this new _triste_ aspect was a
sorry spectacle, and Mrs. Fleming watched her uneasily.
"I hope the child isn't going to be home-sick," she said to herself. "I
shall be sorry we took her in if we can't make her happy."
It was evident that something must be done, and something beyond the
ordinary resources of books and dissected puzzles. Mrs. Fleming
cudgelled her brains. Her few days' acquaintance with her young visitor
had taught her that Diana needed judicious handling. It was no use
making palpable efforts to interest her. In her pixie moods she seemed
almost to resent it.
"I believe the secret of Diana is to switch her thoughts off herself on
to other people," ruminated Mrs. Fleming. "Instead of trying so hard to
amuse her, I shall ask _her_ to amuse _us_."
She waited till her guest, who had taken an aimless prowl round the
house, returned once more like a wandering will-o'-the-wisp to the
dining-room, then she tackled her.
"Diana, I want you to do something very kind. I'm in low spirits to-day,
and feeling as stupid as an owl. I believe we all are--Meg and Elsie,
and the boys, and even the Vicar! I'd give anything for something to
buoy me up and to look forward to. Suppose, after tea, we were to make a
circle round the fire and tell stories--really jolly stories that we'd
prepared beforehand. We'd each take the rest of the day to think them
out. If possible, they must be personal experiences; things that have
actually happened to ourselves. You must have had adventures in America,
I'm sure, that would interest us immensely. I'm just longing to hear
about your life out there. Can't you write down a few notes, and give us
a really good yarn? You've no idea how much I'd enjoy it."
Diana stopped whistling, and stood with her mouth screwed into a button.
Her grey eyes were fixed on Mrs. Fleming speculatively.
"I didn't know grown-up ladies ever got bored stiff!" she remarked at
last.
"They do horribly sometimes; indeed the more middle-aged they are the
more they need cheering up, I think. They don't like 'getting on in
years'."
"I guess you want me to act jester."
"That's exactly the role I'd like to assign to you."
The twinkle was slowly coming back to Diana's eyes, and the dimples to
the corners of her mouth. The effect was like sunshine bursting through
a rain-cloud.
"I guess I'll try if I can remember anything to startle you, if you're
out for sensations. It's a kind of literary society, isn't it? Can you
lend me a pencil, please, and some waste paper? I don't know what I've
done with my blotter. Thanks! Now I'm going right up to my bedroom to
sort of ruminate."
Mrs. Fleming's prescription for low spirits acted like a charm. Diana
spent most of the rest of the day scribbling. She came down to tea
looking quite elated. The others tried to question her, but she refused
to be drawn. "Wait and see!" was all she would vouchsafe.
[Illustration: WE SET OFF AND RODE ALL THE MORNING]
It was cosy in the drawing-room when the family collected and made a
circle round the log-fire. By unanimous vote Diana's story was given
first innings, and, seated in a basket-chair near the lamp, she opened
her manuscript.
"I thought I'd rather read it than tell it, if you don't mind," she
said. "I'm a duffer sometimes at telling things. Before I start off,
though, I'd best explain who folks are, or you won't understand. Uncle
Carr Clifford had a ranch in New Mexico, and I used to go and stay there
months. They always kept a special pony for me to ride. Her name was
Darkie, and she was just a peach. I used nearly to live on her back.
Lenox, my cousin, would take me all round the ranch. I'd great times.
Well, it was when I was staying at Buller's Creek (that was Uncle Carr's
ranch) that this happened. Have I made it clear?"
"Crystal! Bowl ahead!"
So Diana began:
"THE LOST PONY
"I had been staying some weeks at Buller's Creek, and one morning,
when I came down to breakfast, Lenox ran into the veranda. He looked
fearfully excited.
"'Do you know,' he cried, 'that Darkie's missing from the stable?'
"We all sprang up at the bad news, and Uncle Carr whistled. Darkie
was my special pet, and, apart from that, she was the best pony on
the ranch. How had she got out of the stable? Lenox had tied her up
himself the night before. Either some malicious person must have let
her loose or, worse still, some one must have stolen her.
"'I believe it's Lu Hudson!' declared Lenox and Uncle Carr nodded.
"Lu Hudson, whom most people called 'Spanish Lu', was the owner of
the next ranch, and a very disagreeable neighbour. He was a big,
rough, dark, hot-tempered fellow, with a bad reputation for picking
quarrels and using his revolver. He and Uncle Carr were continually
having lawsuits about the boundary of their ranches, and his sheep
were constantly trespassing on the Buller's Creek ranges. He had the
greatest admiration for Darkie, and several times had asked to buy
her, but Uncle Carr had always curtly refused to part with her. The
last time there had been trouble about the boundary, Spanish Lu had
sworn that he would pay Uncle Carr out, and he was just the sort of
desperate fellow to keep his word. Of course the first thing to be
done was to ride round the ranch and see whether Darkie could be
found anywhere.
"'I'm sorry I can't look after the matter myself to-day,' said Uncle
Carr; 'but Jake and I have to get off to the mart at Louisville. She
may have strayed, but it's not likely. I don't believe you'll find
her.'
"As soon as Uncle and Jake, the herdsman, had started off in the
buggy, Lenox saddled Whitefoot, his own pony, to go in search of
Darkie. I begged and prayed and implored to go too, so finally they
let me have my way, and saddled Jap for me, a brown pony, quiet and
steady, though not so clever as Darkie. Coonie, a little half-caste
boy, went with us.
"'The air feels heavy this morning,' said Aunt Frances, as we were
starting. 'If a storm comes on, make for cover. Don't try to get
home across the prairie till it's over.'
"The sun was shining, and we did not think the weather looked at all
like a storm. I rather laughed at Auntie as she fastened a wrap on
to my saddle, with instructions to wear it if I felt cold. Lenox had
the lunch-basket, and also a small axe, which he always took with
him when going round the ranch.
"We set off and rode all the morning, but never a trace of Darkie
was to be found. We ate our lunch in a stony little glen, where a
stream flowed down from the ridge above. I was very keen on getting
wild flowers, and while our ponies rested, I wandered up the bank of
the stream, gathering myself a posy. I went on and on, much farther
than I intended. At the very head of the glen was a natural barrier
of rock, with a few steep steps leading on to a kind of plateau at
the top. This spot, I knew, marked the boundary between my uncle's
ranch and that of Spanish Lu. The glen was the property of Buller's
Creek; the farther side of the ridge belonged to the Hudson range,
and the plateau was neutral ground.
"Something, I don't know what, impelled me, as I stood there, to
give the long-drawn, peculiar whistle with which we always called
Darkie. To my astonishment, a whinny came from the plateau above. In
another moment I was scrambling up the rock steps. There, tied to a
cedar-stump, was Darkie. She recognized me at once, and whinnied
again. There was nobody in sight. I did not even stop to think of Lu
Hudson. I just ran to Darkie and untied her, and took her by the
bridle. It was a fearful business to lead her down the rock steps,
but she was as surefooted as a mule, and together we managed it
somehow. The boys nearly had a fit when I made my appearance with
the missing pony. It was pretty plain, so they said, that Spanish Lu
must have stolen her and taken her there for safety, intending to
come back and fetch her. Where was he now? The answer came
unexpectedly.
"'What's that smoke there?' asked Coonie.
"Lenox and I turned to look in the direction in which he pointed. A
grey haze was mounting from the horizon.
"'It's more like dust than smoke,' said Lenox. 'I wouldn't mind
betting it's sheep.'
"Who could have the impudence to be driving sheep on to the
Buller's Creek range? It seemed more than probable that Lu Hudson
had broken his pledge, and was again trespassing on his neighbour's
property. Lenox and I looked at each other. If Spanish Lu were
within short distance of us, the sooner we got Darkie safely home,
the better.
"'I'll ride her, and you lead Jap,' I decided.
"We started off at once. As we got out of the glen and on to the
prairie we could see in the distance an immense flock of sheep,
herded by two men on horseback. We were too far from them to
recognize faces, but the general appearance of one of them suggested
Spanish Lu.
"'They're grazing east of the ridge, in spite of what the judge
settled!' exclaimed Lenox angrily. 'If I hadn't to take care of you
and Darkie, I'd go and tell them what I think of them.'
"It seemed no use running our heads into danger, and perhaps having
Darkie wrenched from us, so we made off east towards home. We had
only gone about a mile when suddenly the sky to the west behind us
turned black. In a few minutes we were in the thick of a terrific
blizzard. My first instinct was to give Darkie her head and fly for
the ranch, but Lenox caught at my bridle.
"'Ride back to the glen!' he shouted.
"Lenox knew enough about prairie blizzards to prevent him from
trying to find our way home through this one. On the open plains,
where the wind has full sweep, a blizzard is a thing to be dreaded.
Though we had to face the storm to ride back to the glen, it was
the safest thing to do, for we were not far away, and we should find
shelter there. With our heads down, and sharp scraps of ice beating
on our saddles, we urged our ponies along. Suddenly we caught sight
of a great moving mass coming on with the storm. It was the immense
flock of sheep, that had stampeded before the blizzard, and were
drifting along across the prairie. Lenox stood up in his stirrups,
and shouted to Coonie:
"'Ride over there, and we'll turn them into the glen!'
"Coonie understood in a second, and so did I. Unless we could drive
the sheep into shelter, undoubtedly the whole number would perish in
the storm. Lenox thrust Jap's bridle into my hand, and dashed ahead.
In a few minutes he and Coonie had succeeded in turning the leaders
towards the entrance of the creek, and after them swept the rest of
the flock. We followed into the sheltered glen, and, dismounting
from our ponies, found a nook under a projecting piece of rock.
There were some tree-stumps about, and Lenox set to work to chop
them with his axe, and soon made a roaring fire. How glad I was that
Aunt Frances had made me bring the wrap! I should have been frozen
without it. Even by the fireside the air was bitter. What must it be
like out in the open prairie, we wondered? We had not sat long in
our sheltered nook before we heard voices, and two figures, covered
with ice and snow, made their appearance leading horses. They
staggered to our camp-fire, half exhausted by the violence of the
storm. Though his hair and his beard were white with snow, we had no
difficulty in recognizing Spanish Lu. He thawed for a little, and
then spoke to his herdsman.
"'The sheep!' he gasped.
"'They're all here,' answered Lenox in triumph. 'We saw them, and
turned them into the creek.'
"Spanish Lu stared at us as if he could hardly believe his eyes.
"'You kids! You turned the whole herd?'
"I expect he felt pretty grateful, for, if it hadn't been for Lenox
and Coonie, several thousand of his sheep would certainly have been
lost, and, as it was, they were safely grazing in shelter. When the
storm was sufficiently over for us to venture home, he led out
Darkie himself and helped me to mount. Neither he nor we said a word
about her loss, though we were perfectly certain he must have taken
her from the stable.
"After that day he kept his sheep to his own side of the ridge, and,
though he was never a pleasant neighbour, Uncle Carr wasn't obliged
to go to law with him again about the boundary of the two ranches.
So we felt that Darkie had patched up peace, particularly as we
didn't accuse Lu Hudson of taking her. Horse-stealing is a very
serious crime in the West, so I expect he thought he had got off
uncommonly well."
"And what became of Darkie?" asked Meg, as Diana's manuscript came to a
rather abrupt end.
"Uncle Carr gave up the ranch when he went into Congress, and Darkie and
all the other ponies were left at Buller's Creek. She wouldn't have been
happy off the prairie, or I'd have begged to have her. Lenox? Why, he's
still in France; but I suppose he'll be demobilized soon, and going back
to Harvard. He wants to be a professor, not a ranchman. He's a fearfully
clever boy. Now, I've read my story, and I'm waiting for yours. Who's
going to come next?"
"After such excitements as horse-stealing and a blizzard, our poor
little adventures would seem very tame," said Mrs. Fleming, voicing the
general feeling of the family, each member of which was showing a plain
desire to shirk. "Suppose we keep our stories for another evening, and
play games now? Meg, get pencils and paper, and we'll have a round of
'telegrams'."
CHAPTER XI
Diana to the Rescue
Next morning the postman arrived quite laden with parcels and letters
addressed to "Miss Diana Hewlitt". As Mrs. Fleming had prophesied,
everything came at once, and her young guest spent a busy and ecstatic
half-hour opening her various packages. Scent, French chocolates,
Parisian embroideries, gloves, ribbons, and other dainty vanities such
as girls love were raved over and spread forth on the table, while Diana
devoured the contents of her letters. From one large envelope she drew
forth a photograph of a lovely lady in evening-dress.
"It's Mother! Oh, how perfectly sweet! And the very image of her, too!"
she cried, handing the photo to Meg for admiration.
Her fit of the blues had utterly vanished, and she was in a
rose-coloured mood to-day. Meg, leaning over the table, deeply
interested in the parcels, looked critically at the picture of the
bright-eyed lady with the soft coils of fair hair.
"She's not like you, Diana."
"No. A thousand times better looking than I am!"
"I suppose you're like your father?"
"Yes, so people say, though I can't see it myself."
"How pretty she is--and how young! She might almost be your sister. And
yet I suppose she must be middle-aged."
"What do you mean by 'middle-aged'?" demanded Diana sharply.
"Why, anything over thirty! I call _my_ mother middle-aged."
"Do you?"
"Of course!" (Meg was still examining the photo.) "What a perfectly
glorious dress to be taken in! And I adore her necklace. She's like the
pictures one sees in _The Queen_. It must be lovely to have a pretty
mother."
Diana was looking at Meg with an unfathomable expression in her grey
eyes.
"Don't you call your mother pretty, then?" she asked.
"Oh, yes! she's a darling; but she's had her day. She's not a society
beauty, is she?"
"N-n-n-o, I suppose not," said Diana thoughtfully.
The boys came into the room just then; the conversation was interrupted,
and Meg probably forgot all about it. Diana, however, did not. At
lunch-time she critically studied her hostess's features, and mentally
compared them with those of the photo which had arrived that morning
from Paris.
"I don't believe Mrs. Fleming is really any older than Mother," she
decided. "She's been very pretty some time, but she's let herself go.
It's a pity. All the same, I could shake Meg!"
An impression that had been gathering in Diana's mind ever since she
arrived at the Vicarage now shaped itself into definite form. She did
not like the attitude of her friends towards their mother. They were
devoted to her, but their love lacked all element of admiration. Mrs.
Fleming had made the common mistake of effacing herself utterly for the
sake of her children. She had dropped her former accomplishments, even
the music in which she had once excelled, and made herself an absolute
slave to her household. So long as Meg and Elsie wore pretty frocks she
cared nothing for her own dress; she never bought a new book or took a
holiday; her interests were centred in the young people's achievements,
and she had become merely the theatre of their actions. Going away
seldom, and reading little, had narrowed her horizon. She often felt her
ideas were out of date, and that she was not keeping up with the modern
notions her children were imbibing at school. They always spoke with
more respect of their teachers' opinions than of hers, and would allude
to subjects they were learning as if they did not expect her to
understand them. Sometimes they assumed little airs of patronage towards
her. Among themselves they occasionally referred to her as "Only
Mother!"
Diana, thinking it all carefully over, raged mentally. "I guess I've got
to make those Flemings admire their mother!" she said to herself. "Just
how to do it beats me at present, but I don't give up. I'd like to fix
her hair for her if I dared. She strains it back till she looks like a
skinned rabbit, and her dresses were made in the year one, I should say.
She's a dear, all the same, though. If she could only be cured of
feeling on the shelf, she'd grow ten years younger."
Having set herself the surprising undertaking of rejuvenating Mrs.
Fleming, Diana went warily to work. It would certainly not do to
reproach Meg, Elsie, and the boys for lack of appreciation of their
mother; they would simply have stared in utter amazement. Somehow, by
hook or by crook, she must be made to shine, so as to command their
honest admiration. Diana catalogued her personal attractions:
1. A really quite classical nose.
2. A nice, neat mouth.
3. Good teeth.
4. A pretty colour when she gets hot or excited.
5. Quite fascinating brown eyes.
6. Hair that would be lovely if it were only decently done, instead
of scooped away and screwed into a tight knob at the back.
Anybody with these points might make so much of them, if they only knew
how to use them properly. Diana wondered if it would be possible to buy
a book on the secrets of fascination. It was just the element that was
lacking. Putting personality aside, she began probing into the extent of
her friend's mental equipment. She induced her to bring out the
water-colour sketches of former years, and even wrung from her a half
promise that some day--when the weather was nice, and if she had
time--she would paint a picture of the church.
"The boys would each like a sketch of their mother's to take to school
with them," decreed Diana. "Monty would have his framed and hang it in
his study, and show it to all his friends as _your_ work."
"Why, so he might," said Mrs. Fleming, looking much surprised. The idea
had evidently never occurred to her before.
From painting, Diana passed to other accomplishments. Mrs. Fleming
rendered the accompaniments to Elsie's violin pieces and Meg's songs
with a delicacy of touch that revealed the true musician.
"I wish you'd play something to me," begged Diana one day when the
girls' practising was over and their mother was rising from the piano.
"_I_, my dear child! I never play now."
"Why not?"
"I gave up my music long ago, when I got married."
"You haven't forgotten it, though."
"Well, not altogether, of course. I'm a good reader still."
"Please!" urged Diana.
And, to content her impetuous visitor, Mrs. Fleming gave in. She pulled
a volume of Chopin from the stand, and began the twelfth nocturne. It
was years since she had played it, but as she touched the keys the old
spirit crept back into her fingers, and the notes came rippling out
delicately and easily. Diana, sunk back in the recesses of the long
basket-chair, listened fascinated. She loved music when it was of a
superior quality, and she did not often get the chance of hearing
playing such as this.
"More! More!" she begged, when the nocturne came to an end.
The ice once broken, Mrs. Fleming, as much to her own astonishment as to
that of the family, actually revived her interest in the piano. She
hunted out her old pieces and began to practise them. She said it was to
amuse D
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