The School by the Sea
by Angela Brazil · English · Gutenberg #33909 · 360,467 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The School by the Sea
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The School by the Sea
Author: Angela Brazil
Release date: October 20, 2010 [eBook #33909]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33909
Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCHOOL BY THE SEA ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
The School by the Sea
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
50 Old Bailey, LONDON
17 Stanhope Street, GLASGOW
BLACKIE & SON (INDIA) LIMITED
Warwick House, Fort Street, BOMBAY
BLACKIE & SON (CANADA) LIMITED
TORONTO
[Illustration: "THERE IS SOMEBODY OR SOMETHING INSIDE THE BARRED ROOM!"
SHE GASPED _Page 149_ _Frontispiece_]
The School by the Sea
BY
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of "Joan's Best Chum" "The School in the South"
"The Youngest Girl in the Fifth"
&c. &c.
_Illustrated_
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
LONDON AND GLASGOW
By Angela Brazil
At School with Rachel.
Ruth of St. Ronan's.
Joan's Best Chum.
Captain Peggie.
Schoolgirl Kitty.
The School in the South.
Monitress Merle.
Loyal to the School.
A Fortunate Term.
A Popular Schoolgirl.
The Princess of the School.
A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl.
The Head Girl at the Gables.
A Patriotic Schoolgirl.
For the School Colours.
The Madcap of the School.
The Luckiest Girl in the School.
The Jolliest Term on Record.
The Girls of St. Cyprian's.
The Youngest Girl in the Fifth.
The New Girl at St. Chad's.
For the Sake of the School.
The School by the Sea.
The Leader of the Lower School.
A Pair of Schoolgirls.
A Fourth Form Friendship.
The Manor House School.
The Nicest Girl in the School.
The Third Form at Miss Kaye's.
The Fortunes of Philippa.
_Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son Ltd. Glasgow_
Contents
CHAP. Page
I. THE INTERLOPER 9
II. A KINGDOM BY THE SEA 20
III. A MYSTERIOUS SCHOOLFELLOW 30
IV. "THE KING OF THE CASTLE" 42
V. PRACTICAL GEOGRAPHY 51
VI. RAGTIME 65
VII. AN INVITATION 76
VIII. A MEETING ON THE SHORE 89
IX. A MESSAGE 99
X. MAROONED 114
XI. "CORIOLANUS" 127
XII. IN QUARANTINE 140
XIII. THE LIFE-BOAT ANNIVERSARY 153
XIV. THE BEACON FIRE 166
XV. THE OLD WINDLASS 179
XVI. HARE AND HOUNDS 192
XVII. A DISCOVERY 205
XVIII. AN ALARM 224
XIX. A TORN LETTER 235
Illustrations
Facing
Page
"THERE IS SOMEBODY OR SOMETHING INSIDE THE
BARRED ROOM!" SHE GASPED _Frontispiece_
A SMALL BOY WAS WAVING HIS CAP IN FRANTIC WELCOME 48
THE MAN APPEARED TO HAVE MANY DIRECTIONS TO GIVE 96
GERDA DARTED UPON THE BATHFUL OF OLD LETTERS 200
THE SCHOOL BY THE SEA
CHAPTER I
The Interloper
Girls! Girls everywhere! Girls in the passages, girls in the hall,
racing upstairs and scurrying downstairs, diving into dormitories and
running into classrooms, overflowing on to the landing and hustling
along the corridor--everywhere, girls! There were tall and short, and
fat and thin, and all degrees from pretty to plain; girls with fair hair
and girls with dark hair, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, and grey-eyed girls;
demure girls, romping girls, clever girls, stupid girls--but never a
silent girl. No! Buzz-hum-buzz! The talk and chatter surged in a full,
steady flow round the house till the noise invaded even that sanctuary
of sanctuaries, the private study, where Miss Birks, the Principal, sat
addressing post cards to inform respective parents of the safe arrival
of the various individual members of the frolicsome crew which had just
reassembled after the Christmas vacation. In ordinary circumstances
such an indiscretion as squealing on the stairs or dancing in the
passages would have brought Miss Birks from her den, dealing out stern
rebukes, if not visiting dire justice on the offenders; but for this one
brief evening--the first night of the term--the old house was Liberty
Hall. Each damsel did what seemed good in her own eyes, and talked,
laughed, and joked to her heart's content.
"Let them fizz, poor dears!" said Miss Birks, smiling to herself as a
special outburst of mirth was wafted up from below. "It does them good
to work off steam when they arrive. They'll have to be quiet enough
to-morrow. Really, the twenty make noise enough for a hundred! They're
all on double-voice power to-night! Shades of the Franciscans, what a
noise! It seems almost sacrilege in an old convent."
If indeed the gentle, grey-robed nuns who long, long ago had stolen
silently along those very same stairs could have come back to survey the
scene of their former activities, I fear on this particular occasion
they would have wrung their slim, transparent hands in horror over the
stalwart modern maidens who had succeeded them in possession of the
ancient, rambling house. No pale-faced novices these, with downcast eyes
and cheeks sunken with fasting; no timid glances, no soft ethereal
footfalls or gliding garments--the old order had changed indeed, and
yielded place to a rosy, racy, healthy, hearty, well-grown set of
twentieth-century schoolgirls, overflowing with vigorous young life and
abounding spirits, mentally and physically fit, and about as different
from their mediaeval forerunners as a hockey stick is from a spindle.
Among the jolly, careless company that on this January evening held
carnival in the vaulted passages, and woke the echoes of the
time-hallowed walls, no two had abandoned themselves to the fun of the
moment more thoroughly than Deirdre Sullivan and Dulcie Wilcox. They had
attempted to dance five varieties of fancy steps on an upper landing,
had performed a species of Highland fling down the stairs, and had
finished with an irregular jog-trot along the lower corridor, subsiding
finally, scarlet with their exertions, and wellnigh voiceless, on to the
bottom step of the back staircase.
"Oh!--let's--sit here--and talk," heaved Deirdre, her power of speech
returning in jerks. "I'm--tired--of ragging round--and--I've not seen
you--for ages!--and oh!--there's such heaps and heaps--to tell.
Look!--she's over there!"
"Who?" queried Dulcie laconically. She was stouter than Deirdre, and,
like Hamlet, "scant of breath".
"Why, she, of course!"
"Don't be a lunatic! Which she? And what she? And why she of all shes?"
gasped Dulcie, still rather convulsively and painfully.
"What 'she' could I possibly mean except the new girl?"
"You don't mean to tell me there's a new girl?"
"You don't surely mean to tell me you've never noticed her! You blind
bat! Why, there she is as large as life! Can't you see her, stupid? The
atrocious part of it is, she's been stuck into our bedroom!"
Dulcie sprang up, with hands outstretched in utter tragedy.
"No!" she wailed, "oh, no! no! Surely Miss Birks hasn't been heartless
enough to fill up that spare bed! Oh, I'll never forgive her, never! Our
ducky, chummy little room to be invaded by a third--and a stranger! It's
sheer barbarous cruelty! Oh, I thought better of her! What have we done
to be treated like this? It's pure and simple brutality!"
"Who's the lunatic now? Stop ranting, you goose! That bed was bound to
be filled some day, though it's hard luck on us. We did pretty well to
keep the place to ourselves the whole of last term. 'All good things
come to an end.' I'm trying to be philosophical, and quote proverbs; all
the same, 'Two's company and three's trumpery'. That's a proverb too!
You haven't told me yet what you think of our number three. She's
talking to Mademoiselle over there."
"So she is! Why, if she isn't talking German, too, as pat as a native!
What a tremendous rate their tongues are going at it! I can't catch a
single word. Is she a foreigner? She doesn't somehow quite suggest
English by the look of her, does she?"
The new girl in question, the interloper who was to form the unwelcome
third, and spoil the delightful _scene a deux_ hitherto so keenly
enjoyed by the chums, certainly had a rather un-British aspect when
viewed even by impartial eyes. Her pink-and-white colouring, blue eyes,
and her very fair flaxen hair were distinctly Teutonic; the cut of her
dress, the shape of her shoes, the tiny satchel slung by a strap round
her shoulder and under one arm--so unmistakably German in type--the
enamelled locket bearing the Prussian Eagle on a blue ground, all showed
a slightly appreciable difference from her companions, and stamped her
emphatically with the seal and signet of the "Vaterland". On the whole
she might be considered a decidedly pretty girl; her features were small
and clear cut, her complexion beyond reproach, her teeth even, her fair
hair glossy, and she was moderately tall for her fifteen years.
Dulcie took in all these points with a long, long comprehensive stare,
then subsided on to the top of the boot rack, shaking her head gloomily.
"You may call it British prejudice, but I can't stand foreigners," she
remarked with a gusty sigh. "As for having one in one's bedroom--why,
it's wicked! Miss Birks oughtn't to expect it!"
"Foreigners? Who's talking about foreigners?" asked Marcia Richards, one
of the Sixth Form, who happened to be passing at the moment, and
overheard Dulcie's complaints. "If you mean Gerda Thorwaldson, she is as
English as you or I."
"English! Listen to her! Pattering German thirteen to the dozen!"
snorted Dulcie.
"You young John Bull! Don't be insular and ridiculous! Gerda has lived
in Germany, so of course she can speak German. It will be very good
practice for you to talk it with her in your bedroom."
"If you think we're going to break our jaws with those abominable
gutturals!"--broke out Deirdre.
"Miss Germany'll have to compass English, or hold her tongue," added
Dulcie.
"Don't be nasty! You're wasting your opportunities. If I had your
chance, I'd soon improve my German."
"Why didn't Miss Birks put her with you instead?" chimed the injured
pair in chorus. "You're welcome to our share of her."
"Come along, you slackers!" interrupted Evie Bennett and Annie Pridwell,
emerging from the dining-hall. "You're wasting time here. Betty Scott's
playing for all she's worth, and everybody's got to come and dance. Pass
the word on if anyone's upstairs. Are you ready? Hurry up, then!"
"Oh, I say! I'm tired!" yawned Dulcie.
"We've had enough of the light fantastic toe!" protested Deirdre.
"Little birds that can hop and won't hop must be made to hop!" chirped
Evie firmly.
"How'll you make us?"
"The 'Great Mogul' has decreed that any girl who refuses to dance shall
be forcibly placed upon the table and obliged to sing a solo, or forfeit
all the sweets she may have brought back with her."
"'Tis Kismet!" murmured Deirdre, hauling up Dulcie from the boot rack.
"No use fighting against one's fate!" sighed Dulcie, linking arms with
her chum as she walked along the passage.
After all, it was only the younger members who were assembled in the
dining-hall--the Sixth, far too superior to join in the general romping,
were having a select cocoa party in the head girl's bedroom, and telling
each other that the noise below was disgraceful, and they wondered Miss
Birks didn't put a stop to it. (At seventeen one's judgment is apt to be
severe, especially on those only a few years younger!) Miss Birks,
however, who was forty-five, and wise in her generation, did not
interfere, and the fun downstairs continued to effervesce. Betty Scott,
seated at the piano, played with skill and zeal, and the others were
soon tripping their steps with more or less effect, according to their
individual grace and agility--all but two. Hilda Marriott had strained
her ankle during the holidays, and could only sit on the table and sigh
with envy; while Gerda Thorwaldson, the new girl, stood by the door,
watching the performance. Everybody was so taken up by the joys of the
moment that nobody realized her presence, even when whirling skirts
whisked against her in passing. Not a single one noticed her forlorn
aloofness, or that the blue eyes were almost brimming over with tears.
Mademoiselle, the only person who had so far befriended her, had beaten
a retreat, and was finishing unpacking, while the fourteen fellow pupils
in the room were still entire strangers to her. As nobody made the
slightest overture towards an introduction, and she seemed rather in the
way of the dancers, Gerda opened the door, and was about to follow
Mademoiselle's example, and make her escape upstairs. Her action,
however, attracted the attention that had before been denied her.
"Hallo, the new girl's sneaking off!" cried Annie Pridwell, pausing so
suddenly that she almost upset her partner.
"Here! Stop!"
"Where are you going?"
"You've got to stay."
"Come here and report yourself!"
The dancing had come to a brief and sudden end. Betty Scott, concluding
in the middle of a bar, turned round on the music stool, and holding up
a commanding finger, beckoned the stranger forward.
"Let's have a look at you," she remarked patronizingly. "I hadn't time
to take you in before. Are you really German? Tell us about yourself."
"Yes, go on! Where do you come from, and all the rest of it?" urged Evie
Bennett.
"Are you dumb?" asked Rhoda Wilkins.
"Perhaps she can't speak English!" sniggered Dulcie Wilcox.
Gerda Thorwaldson, now the target of every eye, had turned crimson to
the very roots of her flaxen hair. She stood in the centre of a ring of
new schoolfellows, so overwhelmed with shyness that she did not
volunteer a single response to the volley of remarks suddenly fired at
her. This did not at all content her inquisitors, who, once their
attention was drawn to her, felt their curiosity aroused.
"I say, why can't you speak?" said Barbara Marshall, nudging her elbow.
"You needn't look so scared. We're not going to eat you!"
"No cannibals here!" piped Romola Harvey.
"Lost, stolen, or strayed--a tongue! The property of the new girl.
Finder will be handsomely rewarded," remarked Mary Beckett facetiously.
"You've got to answer some questions, Gerda Thorwaldson--I suppose
that's your name?--so don't be silly!" urged Irene Jordan.
"Speak up! We shan't stand any nonsense!" added Elyned Hughes.
"What do you want me to say?" murmured Gerda, gulping down her
embarrassment with something suspiciously like a sob, and blinking her
blue eyes rapidly.
"Oh, you can talk English! Well, to begin with, are you German or not?"
"No."
"But you come from Germany?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever been in Cornwall before?"
"Never."
"I suppose you can dance?"
"No."
At this last negative a united howl went up from the assembled circle.
"Can't dance? Where have you lived? Make her try! She's got to learn!
Take her arm and teach her some steps! She won't? She'll have to! No
one's to be let off to-night!"
"Gerda Thorwaldson," said Evie Bennett impressively, "we give you your
choice. You either try to dance this very instant, or you stand on that
table and sing a song--in English, mind, not German!"
"Which will you choose?" clamoured three or four urgent voices.
"Oh, I say! It's too bad to rag her so, just at first!" protested Doris
Patterson, a shade more sympathetic than the rest.
"Not a bit of it! If she's really English, she must show it--and if she
won't, she's nothing but a foreigner!" blustered Dulcie Wilcox.
"This is easy enough," volunteered Annie Pridwell, performing a few
steps by way of encouragement. "Now, come along and do as I do."
"Fly, little birdie, fly!" mocked Betty Scott.
"She's too stupid!"
"She's going to blub!"
"Leave her alone!"
"No, make her dance!"
"Don't let her sneak out of it!"
"I say, what's going on here?" said a fresh voice, as Marcia Richards
entered the room, and, after pausing a moment to take in the situation,
strode indignantly to the rescue of poor Gerda, who, still shy and
half-bewildered with so many questions, stood almost weeping in the
midst of the circle.
"Is this the way you treat a new girl? You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves! No, she shan't learn to dance if she doesn't want to! Not
to-night, at any rate. Come along with me, Gerda, and have some cocoa
upstairs. Don't trouble your head about this noisy set. If they've no
better manners, I'm sorry for them!"
With which parting shot, she seized her protegee by the arm and bore her
out of the room.
Most of the girls laughed. They did not take the affair seriously. A fit
of bashfulness and blushing might be very agonizing to the new-comer,
but it was distinctly diverting to outsiders. New girls must expect a
little wholesome catechizing before they were admitted into the bosom of
their Form. It was merely a species of initiation, nothing more. No
doubt Gerda would find her tongue to-morrow, and give a better account
of herself. So Betty sat down again to the piano, and the others,
finding their partners, began once more to tread the fascinating steps
of the latest popular dance.
"We did rag her, rather," said Deirdre half-apologetically.
"Serve her jolly well right for talking German!" snapped Dulcie.
CHAPTER II
A Kingdom by the Sea
Please do not think because Miss Birks's pupils, on the first night of a
new term, ran helter-skelter up and down the passages, and insisted on
compulsory dancing or solo singing, that this was their normal course of
procedure. It was but their one evening of liberty before they settled
down to ordinary school routine, and for the rest of the eighty-eight
days before Easter their behaviour would be quite exemplary.
They were a very happy little community at the Dower House. They admired
and respected their headmistress, and her well-framed rules were rarely
transgressed. Certainly the girls would have been hard to please if they
had not been satisfied with Miss Birks, for allied to her undoubted
brain power she had those far rarer gifts of perfect tact and absolute
sympathy. She thoroughly understood that oft-time riddle, the mind of a
schoolgirl, and, while still keeping her authority and maintaining the
dignity of her position, could win her pupils' entire confidence almost
as if she had been one of themselves.
"Miss Birks never seems to have quite grown up! She enjoys things just
the same as we do," was the general verdict of the school.
Perhaps a strain of Irish in her genealogy had given the Principal the
pleasant twinkle in her eye, the racy humour of speech, and the sunny
optimistic view of life so dearly valued by all who knew her. Anyhow,
whatever ancestry might claim to be the source of her cheery attributes,
she had a very winning personality, and ruled her small kingdom with a
hand so light that few realized its firmness. And a kingdom it was, in
the girls' opinion--a veritable "kingdom by the sea". No place in all
the length and breadth of the British Isles, so they considered, could
in any way compare with it. Together with the old castle, for which it
formed the Dower House, it stood on the neck of a long narrow peninsula
that stretched for about two miles seaward. All the land on this little
domain was the private property of Mrs. Trevellyan, the owner of
Pontperran Tower, from whom Miss Birks rented the school, and who had
granted full and entire leave for the pupils to wander where they
wished. The result of this generous concession was to give the girls a
much larger amount of freedom than would have been possible in any other
situation. The isolated position of the peninsula, only accessible
through the Castle gateway, made it as safe and secluded a spot as a
convent garden, and afforded a range of scenery that might well be a
source of congratulation to those who enjoyed it.
There are few schools that possess a whole headland for a playground,
and especially such a headland, that seemed so completely equipped for
the purpose. It held the most delightful of narrow coves, with gently
shelving, sandy beaches--ideal bathing places in summer-time--and
mysterious caverns that might occasionally be explored with a candle,
and interesting pools among the rocks, where at low tide could be found
seaweeds and anemones, and crabs and limpets, or a bestranded starfish.
On the steep cliffs that rose sheer and jagged from the green water the
seabirds built in the spring; and at the summit, on the very verge of
the precipice, bloomed in their season many choice and rare wild
flowers--the lovely vernal squill, with its blossoms like deep-blue
stars; the handsome crimson crane's-bill; the yellow masses of the
"Lady's fingers"; the pink tufts of the rosy thrift; or the fleshy
leaves of the curious samphire. The whole extent of the headland was
occupied by a tract of rough, heathery ground, generally called "the
warren". A few sheep were turned out here to crop the fine grass that
grew between the gorse bushes, and a pair of goats were often tethered
within easy reach of the coachman's cottage; but otherwise it was the
reserve of the rabbits that scuttled away in every direction should a
human footstep invade the sanctuary of their dominion.
On these delightful breezy uplands, where the pleasant west wind blew
fresh and warm from the Gulf Stream, Miss Birks's pupils might wander at
will during play hours, only observing a few sensible restrictions.
Dangerous climbs on the edge of the cliffs or over slippery rocks were
forbidden, and not less than three girls must always be together. This
last rule was a very necessary one in the circumstances, for in case of
any accident to a member of the trio, it allowed one to stay with the
sufferer and render any first aid possible, while the other went at
topmost speed to lodge information at head-quarters.
The old dwelling itself was a suitable and appropriate building for a
school. Erected originally in the fourteenth century as a small nunnery,
it had in the days of Edward VI fallen into the hands of the then lord
of the Castle, who had turned it into a dower house. Successive
generations of owners had in their time added to it or altered it, but
had not spoilt its general atmosphere of mediaevalism. Little pieces of
Perpendicular window tracery, or remains of archways were frequent in
the old walls, and a ruined turreted gateway bore witness to the beauty
of the ancient architecture. Nobody quite knew what vaults and cellars
there might be under the house. Remains of blocked-up staircases had
certainly been found, and many of the floors resounded with a
suggestively hollow ring; but all tradition of these had been lost, and
not even a legend lingered to gratify the curious.
There was one element of mystery, however, which formed a perennial
interest and a never-ending topic of conversation among the girls. In
the centre of the first landing, right in the midst of the principal
bedrooms, stood a perpetually-closed room. The heavy oak door was
locked, and as an extra protection thick iron bars had been placed
across and secured firmly to the jambs. Even the keyhole was stopped up,
so that the most inquisitive eye could obtain no satisfaction. All that
anybody knew was the fact that Mrs. Trevellyan, who had a well-deserved
reputation for eccentricity, had caused a special clause to be made in
the lease which she had granted to Miss Birks, stipulating for no
interference with the barred room under pain of forfeiture of the entire
agreement.
"That means if we bored a hole through the door and peeped in the whole
school would be turned out of the house," said Evie Bennett once when
the subject was under discussion.
"Even Miss Birks doesn't know what's inside," said Elyned Hughes with an
awed shudder.
"Mrs. Trevellyan wouldn't let the place on any other conditions. She
said she'd rather have it empty first," added Annie Pridwell.
"What can she have there?"
"I'd give ten thousand pounds to find out!"
But though speculation might run rife in the school and a hundred
different theories be advanced, there was not the slightest means of
verifying a single one of them. Ghosts, smugglers, or a family skeleton
were among the favourite suggestions, and the girls often amused
themselves with even wilder fancies. From the outside the secluded room
presented as insuperable a barrier as from within; heavy shutters
secured the window and guarded the secret closely and jealously from all
prying and peeping. That uncanny noises should apparently issue from
this abode of mystery goes without saying. There were mice in plenty,
and even an occasional rat or two in the old house, and their gnawings,
scamperings, and squeakings might easily be construed into thumps,
bumps, and blood-curdling groans. The girls would often get up scares
among themselves and be absolutely convinced that a tragedy, either real
or supernatural, was being enacted behind the oak door.
Miss Birks, sensible and matter-of-fact as became a headmistress,
laughed at her pupils' notions, and declared that her chief objection to
the peculiar clause in her lease was the waste of a good bedroom which
would have been invaluable as an extra dormitory. She hung a thick plush
curtain over the doorway, and utterly tabooed the subject of the
mystery. She could not, however, prevent the girls talking about it
among themselves, and to them the barred room became a veritable
Bluebeard's chamber. At night they scuttled past it with averted gaze
and fingers stuffed in their ears, having an uneasy apprehension lest a
skeleton hand should suddenly draw aside the curtain and a face--be it
ghost or grinning goblin--peer at them out of the darkness. They would
dare each other to stand and listen, or to pass the door alone, and
among the younger ones a character for heroism stood or fell on the
capacity of venturing nearest to the so-called "bogey hole".
Though Miss Birks might well regret such a disability in her lease of
the Dower House, she was proud of the old-world aspect of the place, and
treasured up any traditions of the past that she could gather together.
She had carefully written down all surviving details of the Franciscan
convent, having after endless trouble secured some account of it from
rare books and manuscripts in the possession of some of the country
gentry in the neighbourhood. Beyond the dates of its founding and
dissolution, and the names of its abbesses, there was little to be
learnt, though a few old records of business transactions gave an idea
of its extent and importance.
Dearly as she valued the fourteenth-century origin of her establishment,
Miss Birks did not sacrifice comfort to any love of the antique. Inside
the ancient walls everything was strictly modern and hygienic, with the
latest patterns of desks, the most sanitary wall-papers, and each
up-to-date appliance that educational authorities might suggest or
devise. Could the Grey Nuns have but returned and taken a peep into the
well-equipped little chemical laboratory, they would probably have
fancied themselves in the chamber of a wizard in league with the fiends
of darkness, and have crossed themselves in pious fear at the sight of
the bottles and retorts; the nicely-fitted gymnasium would have puzzled
them sorely; and a hockey match have aroused their sincerest horror.
_Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis_--"the times are changed, and
we are changed with them!" Though we have lost something of the
picturesqueness of mediaeval life, the childlike faith of a childlike
age, the simplicity of a nation only groping to feel its strength, we
have surely gained in the long years of growth, in the gradual awakening
to the thousand things undreamt of by our forefathers, and can justly
deem that our lasses have inherited a golden harvest of thought and
experience from those who have trod before them the thorny and difficult
pathway that leads to knowledge.
Such were the picturesque and highly-appreciated surroundings at the
Dower House, and now a word on that much more important subject, the
girls themselves.
Miss Birks only received twenty pupils, all over fourteen years of age,
therefore there was no division into upper and lower school. Five elder
girls constituted the Sixth, and the rest were placed according to their
capabilities in two sections of the Fifth Form. Of these VB was
considerably the larger, and containing, as it did, the younger, cruder,
and more-boisterous spirits, was, in the opinion of the mistresses, the
portion which required the finer tact and the greater amount of careful
management. It was not that its members gave any special trouble, but
they were somewhat in the position of novices, not yet thoroughly versed
in the traditions of the little community, and needing skill and
patience during the process of their initiation. Almost insensibly the
nine seemed to split up into separate parties. Romola Harvey, Barbara
Marshall, and Elyned Hughes lived in the same town, and knew each other
at home; a sufficient bond of union to knit them in a close friendship
which they were unwilling to share with anybody else. The news from
Springfield, their native place, formed their chief subject of interest,
and those who could not understand or discuss it must necessarily be in
the position of outsiders. Evie Bennett, Annie Pridwell, and Betty
Scott were lively, high-spirited girls, so full of irrepressible fun
that they were apt to drop the deeper element out of life altogether. It
was difficult ever to find them in a serious mood, their jokes were
incessant, and they certainly well earned the nickname of "the three
gigglers" which was generally bestowed upon them.
Until Christmas, Deirdre Sullivan and Dulcie Wilcox had rejoiced in the
possession of a bedroom to themselves, a circumstance which had allowed
them the opportunity of cultivating their friendship till they had
become the most exclusive chums in the whole of the school. Deirdre, the
elder by six months, was a picturesque, rather interesting-looking girl,
with beautiful, expressive grey eyes, a delicate colour, and a neat,
slim little figure. Dulcie, on the contrary, much to her mortification,
was inclined to stoutness. She resembled a painting by Rubens, for her
plump cheeks were pink as carnations, and her ruddy hair was of that
warm shade of Venetian red so beloved by the old masters. It was a sore
point with poor Dulcie that, however badly her head ached, or however
limp or indisposed she might feel, her high colour never faded, and no
pathetic hollows ever appeared in her cheeks.
"I get no sympathy when I'm ill," she confided to Deirdre. "On that day
when I turned faint in the algebra class, Miss Harding had said only an
hour before: 'You do look well, child!' I wish I were as pale and thin
as Elyned Hughes, then I might get petted and excused lessons. As it
is, no one believes me when I complain."
Dulcie, who possessed an intense admiration for her chum, struggled
perpetually to mould herself on Deirdre's model, sometimes with rather
comical results. Deirdre's romantic tendencies caused her to affect the
particular style of the heroine of nearly every fresh book she read, and
she changed continually from an air of reserved and stately dignity to
one of sparkling vivacity, according to her latest favourite in fiction.
With Deirdre it was an easy matter enough to assume a manner; but
Dulcie, who merely copied her friend slavishly, often aroused mirth in
the schoolroom by her extraordinary poses.
"Who is it now, Dulcie?" the girls would ask. "Rebecca of York, or the
Scarlet Pimpernel? You might drop us a hint, so that we could tell, and
treat you accordingly."
And Dulcie, being an unimaginative and really rather obtuse little
person, though she knew she was being laughed at, could never quite
fathom the reason why, and continued to lisp or drawl, or to attempt to
look dignified, or to sparkle, with a praiseworthy perseverance worthy
of a better object.
CHAPTER III
A Mysterious Schoolfellow
It is all very well for a girl to be shy on her first night at school. A
certain amount of embarrassment is indeed considered almost "good form"
in a new-comer, indicative of her realization of the privileges which
she is about to enjoy, and the comparative unworthiness of any previous
establishment she may have attended. But when her uncommunicative
attitude is unduly prolonged, what was at first labelled mere becoming
bashfulness is termed stupidity, closeness, stuck-up conceit, or
intentional rudeness by her companions, who highly resent any repulse of
their offers of friendship. Gerda Thorwaldson, after nearly a fortnight
at the Dower House, seemed as much a stranger as on the evening when she
arrived. She was neither uncivil nor disobliging, but no efforts on the
part of her schoolmates were able to penetrate the thick barrier of her
reserve. She appeared most unwilling to enter into any particulars of
her former life, and beyond the fact that she had been educated chiefly
in Germany no information could be dragged from her.
"You've only to hint at her home, and she shuts up like an oyster,"
said Annie Pridwell aggrievedly. Annie had a natural love of biography.
She delighted in hearing her comrades' experiences, and was so well up
in everybody's private affairs that she could have written a "Who's Who"
of the school.
"You ought to know, Deirdre," she continued. "Doesn't she tell you
anything at all in your bedroom?"
"Hardly opens her mouth," replied Deirdre. "You wouldn't believe how
difficult it is to talk to her. She just says 'Yes' or 'No', and
occasionally asks a question, but she certainly tells us nothing about
herself."
"Never met with anyone so mum in my life," added Dulcie.
The question of Gerda's nationality still weighed upon Dulcie's spirits.
In her opinion a girl who could speak a foreign language with such
absolute fluency did not deserve to be called English, and she was
further disturbed by a hint which got abroad that the new girl had been
requisitioned to the school for the particular purpose of talking
German.
"If that's so, why has she been poked upon us?" she demanded
indignantly. "Why wasn't she put in a dormitory with somebody who'd
appreciate her better?--Marcia Richards, for instance, who says she
'envies our advantages'."
"Ask Miss Birks!"
"Oh, I dare say! But I don't like people who listen to everything and
say nothing. It gives one the idea they mean to sneak some day."
Though Gerda's attitude regarding her own affairs was uncommunicative,
she nevertheless appeared to take a profound interest in her present
surroundings. As Dulcie had noticed, she listened to everything, and no
detail, however small, seemed to escape her. She was anxious to learn
all she could concerning the old house, the neighbourhood, and the
families who resided near, and would ask an occasional question on the
subject, often blushing scarlet as she put her queries.
"Why, I should think you could draw a plan of the house!" said Dulcie
one day. "What does it matter whether the larder is underneath our
dormitory or not? You can't dive through the floor and purloin tarts!"
"No, of course not. I was only wondering," replied Gerda, shrinking into
her shell again.
Nevertheless, later on in the afternoon, Dulcie suddenly came across her
measuring the landing with a yard tape.
"What in the name of all that's wonderful are you doing?" exclaimed the
much-surprised damsel.
"Oh, nothing, nothing!" said Gerda, hastily rolling up her tape measure,
and slipping it into her pocket. "Only just an idea that came into my
head. I wanted to know the length of the passage, that was all!"
"What a most extraordinary thing to want to know! Really, Gerda, you're
the queerest girl I ever met. Is it having lived in Germany that makes
you so odd?"
"I suppose it must be," murmured Gerda, escaping as rapidly as possible
into the schoolroom.
I have said before that owing to the unique situation of the Dower House
the girls were allowed an amount of liberty in their play-hours which
could not so easily have been granted to them at other schools. They
wandered freely about the headland without a mistress, and so far had
never abused their privileges, either by getting into danger or staying
out beyond the specified time.
Though as a rule they rambled in trios, on the first of February the
whole of Form VB might have been seen walking together over the warren.
They had a motive for their excursion, for it was St. Perran's Day, and
St. Perran was the patron saint of the district. At the end of the
promontory there was a small spring dedicated to his memory, and
according to ancient legends, anybody who on his anniversary dropped a
pin into this well might learn her luck for the coming year. Formerly
all the lads and lasses from the villages of Pontperran, Porthmorvan,
and Perranwrack used to come to deck the well and try their fortunes,
but their annual visitation having degenerated into a rather riotous and
undesirable ceremony, Mrs. Trevellyan had put up extra trespass notices,
and given strict orders to her gamekeeper to exclude the public from the
headland.
Knowing of the ancient custom which had been practised from time
immemorial, it was of course only in schoolgirl nature to want to test
the powers of divination attributed to the old well. The Sixth Form,
who considered themselves almost grown up, treated the affair with
ridicule, and the members of VA, who copied their seniors slavishly,
likewise affected a supreme contempt for so childish a proceeding; but
VB, being still at an age when superstition holds an immense attraction,
trotted off _en bloc_ to pay their respects to St. Perran. Each, in
deference to the long-established tradition of the neighbourhood, bore a
garland of ferns and other greeneries, and each came armed with the
necessary pin that was to work the spell.
"Jessie Macpherson says we're a set of sillies," volunteered Betty
Scott. "But I don't care--I wouldn't miss St. Perran's Day for
anything."
"My wish came true last year," put in Barbara Marshall.
"Oh, I do hope I shall have some luck!" shivered Elyned Hughes.
The well in question lay in a slight hollow, a kind of narrow gully,
where in wet weather a small stream ambled between the rocks and ran
down to the sea. In the mild Cornish climate ferns were growing here
fresh and green, ignoring the presence of winter; and dog's-mercury,
strawberry-leaved cinquefoil, and other early plants were pushing up
strong leaves in preparation for the springtime. The famous well was
nothing but a shallow basin of rock, into which the little stream flowed
leisurely, and, having partially filled it, trickled away through a gap,
and became for a yard or two merged in a patch of swampy herbage.
Overhung with long fronds of lady-fern and tufts of hawkweed, it had a
picturesque aspect, and the water seemed to gurgle slowly and
mysteriously, as if it were trying in some unknown language to reveal a
secret.
The girls clustered round, and began in orthodox fashion to hang their
garlands on the leafless branches of a stunted tree that stretched
itself over the spring. They were in various moods, some giggling, some
half-awed, some silent, and some chattering.
"It isn't as high as it was last year, so I don't believe it will work
so well," said Evie Bennett. "St. Perran must be in a bad temper, and
hasn't looked after it properly. Tiresome old man, why can't he remember
his own day?"
"He's got to do double duty, poor old chap!" laughed Betty Scott. "You
forget he's the patron saint of the sailors as well, and is supposed to
be out at sea attracting the fish. Perhaps he just hadn't time this
morning, and thought the well would do."
"Let well alone, in fact," giggled Evie.
"Oh, shut her up for her bad pun! Dip her head in the water! Make her
try her luck first!"
"Pleased to accommodate you, I'm sure. Here's my pin," returned Evie.
"Now, if you're ready, I'll begin and consult the oracle."
St. Perran's ceremony had to be performed in due order, or it was
supposed to be of no effect. First of all, Evie solemnly dropped her pin
in the well, as a species of votive offering, while silently she
murmured a wish. Then placing a small piece of stick on the surface of
the water in the exact centre of the basin, she repeated the
time-honoured formula:
"Perran, Perran of the well,
What I've wished I may not tell,
'Tis but known to me and you,
Help me then to bring it true".
All eyes were fixed eagerly on the piece of stick, which was already
commencing to circle round in the water. If it found its way
successfully through the gap, and was washed down by the stream, it was
a sign that St. Perran had it safely and would attend to the matter; but
if it were stranded on the edge of the basin, the wish would remain
unfulfilled. Round and round went the tiny twig, bobbing and dancing in
the eddies; but, alas! the water was low this February, and instead of
sweeping the twig triumphantly through the aperture, it only washed it
to one side, and left it clinging to some overhanging fronds of fern
that dipped into the spring. Evie heaved a tragic sigh of
disappointment.
"I'm done for at any rate!" she groaned. "St. Perran won't have anything
to say to me this year. Oh, and it was such a lovely wish! I'll tell you
what it was, now it's not going to come off. I wished some aviator would
ask me to have a seat in his aeroplane, and take me right over to
America in it!"
The girls tittered.
"What a particularly likely wish to be fulfilled! No, my hearty, you
can't expect St. Perran to have anything to do with aeroplanes," said
Betty Scott. "The good old saint probably abhors all modern inventions.
I'm going to wish for something easy and probable."
"What?"
"Ah! wouldn't you like to know? I shan't tell you, even if I fail. Shall
I try next?"
Whatever Betty's easy and probable desire may have been, the result was
bad, and her stick, after several thrilling gyrations, tagged itself on
to Evie's under the cluster of fern. She bore her ill luck like a stoic.
"One can't have everything in this world," she philosophized. "Perhaps
I'll get it next year instead. Deirdre Sullivan, you deserve to lose
your own for sniggering! This trial ought to be taken solemnly. We'll
get St. Perran's temper up if we make fun of it."
"I thought he was out at sea, attracting the fishes!" said Deirdre.
"I'm not sure that Cornish saints can't be in two places at once, just
to show their superiority over Devonshire ones. Well, go on! Laugh if
you like! But don't expect St. Perran to take any interest in you!"
It certainly seemed as though the patron of the well had for once
forsaken his favourite haunt. Girl after girl wished her wish and
repeated her spell, but invariably to meet with the same ill fortune,
till a melancholy little clump of eight sticks testified to the general
failure.
"Have we all lost? No, Gerda Thorwaldson hasn't tried! Where's Gerda?
She's got to do the same as anybody else! Gerda Thorwaldson, where are
you?"
Gerda for the moment had been missing, but at the sound of her name she
scrambled down from the rocks above the well, looking rather red and
conscious.
"What were you doing up there?" asked Dulcie sharply. "It's your turn to
try the omen. Go along, quick; we shall have to be jogging back in half
a jiff."
Gerda paused for a moment, and with face full towards the sea muttered
her wish with moving lips; then turning to the tree, she carefully
counted the third bough from the bottom, and the third twig on the
bough. Breaking off her due portion, she twisted it round three times,
and holding it between the third fingers of either hand, dropped it into
the water, while she rapidly repeated the magic formula:
"Perran, Perran of the well,
What I've wished I may not tell,
'Tis but known to me and you,
Help me then to bring it true".
The girls watched rather half-heartedly. They were growing a little
tired of the performance. They fully expected the ninth stick to drift
the same way as its predecessors, but to everybody's astonishment it
made one rapid circle of the basin, and bobbed successfully through the
gap.
"It's gone! it's gone!" cried Betty Scott in wild excitement. "St.
Perran's working after all. Oh, why didn't he do it for me?"
"How funny it should be the only one!" said Elyned Hughes.
"I believe the water's running faster than it did before," commented
Romola Harvey. "Has the old saint turned on the tap?"
"Shall I get my wish?" said Gerda, who stood by with shining eyes.
"Of course you'll get it--certain sure. And jolly fortunate you are too.
You've won the luck of the whole Form. Don't I wish I were you, just!"
"You're evidently St. Perran's favourite!" laughed Annie Pridwell.
"Come along, it's nearly time for call-over. We'll be late if we don't
sprint," said Barbara Marshall, consulting her watch, and starting at a
run on the path that led back to the Dower House.
"It was a funny thing that our sticks should all 'stick', and Gerda's
just sail off as easily as you like," said Deirdre that evening, as,
with Dulcie, she gave an account of the occurrence to Phyllis Rowland, a
member of the Sixth. As one of the elect of the school, Phyllis would
not have condescended to consult the famous oracle, but she nevertheless
took a sneaking interest in the annual ceremony, and was anxious to know
how St. Perran's votaries had fared.
"Did you do it really properly?" she enquired. "An old woman at
Perranwrack once told me it wasn't any use at all if you forgot the
least thing."
"Why, we hung up our garlands and then wished, and said the rhyme, and
threw in our sticks."
"Oh, that isn't half enough. Where were you looking when you wished?
Facing the sea? Your stick should be chosen from the third twig on the
third branch, and it ought to be turned round three times, and held
between your third fingers. Did you do all that?"
The faces of Deirdre and Dulcie were a study.
"No, we didn't. But Gerda Thorwaldson did it--every bit. And the water
came down ever so much faster for her turn, too."
"Probably she went behind the well, and cleared the channel of the
stream. That's a well-known dodge to make the water flow quicker, and
help the saint to work."
"I certainly saw her climbing down the rocks," gasped Dulcie.
"Then she's a cleverer girl than I took her for, and deserves her luck,"
laughed Phyllis. "Look here, I can't stay wasting time any longer. I've
got my prep to do. Ta, ta! Don't let St. Perran blight your young lives.
Try him again next year."
Left alone, Deirdre and Dulcie subsided simultaneously on to a bench.
"It beats me altogether," said Dulcie, shaking her head. "How did she
manage to do it? How did she know? Who told her?"
"That's the puzzler," returned Deirdre. "Certainly not Phyllis, and I
don't believe anybody else ever heard of those extra dodges. Gerda's
only been a fortnight at the school, and says she's never been in
Cornwall in her life before, so how could she know? Yet she did it all
so pat."
"It's queer, to say the least of it."
"Do you know, Dulcie, I think there's something mysterious about Gerda.
I've noticed it ever since she came. She seems all the time to be trying
to hide something. She won't tell us a scrap about herself, and yet
she's always asking questions."
"What's she up to then?"
"That's what I want to find out. It's evidently something she doesn't
want people to know. She ought to be watched. I vote we keep an eye on
her."
"I really believe we ought to."
"But mind, you mustn't let her suspect we notice anything. That would
give the show away at once. Lie low's our motto."
"Right you are!" agreed Dulcie. "Mum's the word!"
CHAPTER IV
"The King of the Castle"
The members of VB often congratulated themselves that their special
classroom was decidedly larger than that of the Sixth or of VA. They
were apt to boast of their superior accommodation, and would never admit
the return argument that being so much larger a form, their room really
allowed less space per girl, and was therefore actually inferior to its
rivals. On one February evening the whole nine were sitting round the
fire, luxuriating in half an hour's delicious idleness before the bell
rang for "second prep.". Those who had been first in the field had
secured the basket-chairs, but the majority squatted on the hearth-rug,
making as close a ring as they could, for the night was cold, and there
was a nip of frost in the air.
"Now, don't anybody begin to talk sense, please!" pleaded Betty Scott,
leaning a golden-brown head mock-sentimentally on Annie Pridwell's
shoulder. "My poor little brains are just about pumped out with maths.,
and what's left of them will be wanted for French prep. later on. This
is the silly season, so I hope no one will endeavour to improve my
mind."
"They'd have a Herculean task before them if they did!" sniggered
Annie. "Betty, your head may be empty, but it's jolly heavy, all the
same. I wish you'd kindly remove it from my shoulder."
"You mass of ingratitude! It was a mark of supreme affection--a kind of
'They grew in beauty side by side', don't you know!"
"I don't want to know. Not if it involves nursing your weight. Oh, yes!
go to Barbara, by all means, if she'll have you. I'm not in the least
offended."
"That big basket-chair oughtn't to be monopolized by one," asserted Evie
Bennett. "It's quite big enough for two. Here, Deirdre, make room for
me. Don't be stingy, you must give me another inch. That's better. It's
rather a squash, but we can just manage."
"You're cuckooing me out!" protested Deirdre.
"No, no, I'm not. There's space for two in this nest. We're a pair of
doves:
"'Coo,' said the turtle dove,
'Coo,' said she".
"I'll say something more to the point, if you don't take care. What a
lot of sillies you are!"
"Then please deign to enlarge our intellects. We're hanging upon your
words. Betty can stop her ears, if she thinks it will be too great a
strain on her slender brains. What is it to be? A recitation from
Milton, or a dissertation on the evils of levity? Miss Sullivan, your
audience awaits you. Mr. Chairman, will you please introduce the
lecturer?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, I hasten to explain that owing to severe
indisposition I am unable to be present to-night," returned Deirdre
promptly.
"Oh, Irish of the Irish!" laughed the girls. "Did you say it on purpose,
or did it come unconsciously?"
"I wish I were Irish. Somehow I never say funny things, not even if I
try," lamented Dulcie.
"Because you couldn't. You're a dear fat dumpling, and dumplings never
are funny, you know--it's against nature."
"It's not my fault if I'm fat," said Dulcie plaintively. "People say
'Laugh and grow fat', so why shouldn't a plump person be funny?"
"They are funny--very funny--though not quite in the way you mean."
"Oh, look here! Don't be horrid!"
"You began it yourself."
"Children, don't barge!" interrupted Romola Harvey. "You really are
rather a set of lunatics to-night. Can't anyone tell a story?"
"I was taught to call fibbing a sin in the days of my youth," retorted
Betty Scott, assuming a serious countenance.
"You--you ragtimer! I mean a real story--a tale--a legend--a romance--or
whatever you choose to call it."
"Don't know any."
"We've used them all up," said Evie Bennett, yawning lustily. "We all
know the legend of the Abbess Gertrude--it's Miss Birks's favourite
chestnut--and what she said to the Commissioner who came to confiscate
the convent: and we've had the one about Monmouth's rebellion till it's
as stale as stale can be. I defy anybody to have the hardihood to repeat
it."
"Aren't there any other tales about the neighbourhood?" asked Gerda
Thorwaldson. It was the first remark that she had made.
"Oh, I don't think so. The old castle's very sparse in legends. I
suppose there ought to be a few, but they're mostly forgotten."
"Who used to live there?"
"Trevellyans. There always have been Trevellyans--hosts of them--though
now there's nobody left but Mrs. Trevellyan and Ronnie."
"Who's Ronnie?"
More than half a dozen answers came instantly.
"Ronnie? Why, he's just Ronnie."
"Mrs. Trevellyan's great-nephew."
"The dearest darling!"
"You never saw anyone so sweet."
"We all of us adore him."
"We call him 'The King of the Castle'."
"They've been away, staying in London."
"But they're coming back this week."
"Is he grown up?" enquired Gerda casually.
"Grown up!" exploded the girls. "He's not quite six!"
"He lives with Mrs. Trevellyan," explained Betty, "because he hasn't got
any father or mother of his own."
"Oh, Betty, he has!" burst out Barbara.
"Well, that's the first I ever heard of them, then. I thought he was an
orphan."
"He's as good as an orphan, poor little chap."
"Why?"
"Nobody ever mentions his father."
"Why on earth not?"
"Oh, I don't know! There's something mysterious. Mrs. Trevellyan doesn't
like it talked about. Nobody dare even drop a hint to her."
"What's wrong with Ronnie's father?"
"I tell you I don't know, except that I believe he did something he
shouldn't have."
"Rough on Ronnie."
"Ronnie doesn't know, of course, and nobody would be cruel enough to
tell him. You must promise you'll none of you mention what I've said.
Not to anybody."
"Rather not! You can trust us!" replied all.
It was perhaps only natural that the affairs of the Castle should seem
important to the dwellers at the Dower House. The two buildings lay so
near together, yet were so isolated in their position as regarded other
habitations, that they united in many ways for their mutual convenience.
If Miss Birks's gardener was going to the town he would execute
commissions for the Castle, as well as for his own mistress; and, on the
other hand, the Castle chauffeur would call at the Dower House for
letters to be sent by the late post. Mrs. Trevellyan was a widow with no
family of her own. She had adopted her great-nephew Ronald while he was
still quite a baby, and he could remember no other home than hers. The
little fellow was the one delight and solace of her advancing years. Her
life centred round Ronnie; she thought continually of his interests,
and made many plans for his future. He was her constant companion, and
his pretty, affectionate ways and merry chatter did much to help her to
forget old griefs. He was a most winning, engaging child, a favourite
with everybody, and reigned undoubtedly as monarch in the hearts of all
who had the care of him. It was partly on Ronnie's account, and partly
because she really loved young people, that Mrs. Trevellyan took so much
notice of the pupils at the Dower House. On her nephew's behalf she
would have preferred a boys' preparatory school for neighbour, but even
girls over fourteen were better than nobody; they made an element of
youth that was good for Ronnie, and prevented the Castle from seeming
too dull. The knowledge that he might perhaps meet his friends on the
headland gave an object to the little boy's daily walk, and the jokes
and banter with which they generally greeted him provided him with a
subject for conversation afterwards.
The girls on their part showed the liveliest interest in anything
connected with the Castle. They would watch the motor passing in and out
of the great gates, would peep from their top windows to look at the
gardeners mowing the lawns, and would even count the rooks' nests that
were built in the grove of elm trees. Occasionally Mrs. Trevellyan would
ask the whole school to tea, and that was regarded as so immense a treat
that the girls always looked forward to the delightful chance that some
fortunate morning an invitation might be forthcoming.
Mrs. Trevellyan had been staying in London at the beginning of the term,
but early in February she returned home again. On the day after her
arrival the girls were walking back from a hockey practice on the
warren, swinging their way along the narrow tracks between last year's
bracken and heather, or having an impromptu long-jump contest where a
small stream crossed the path.
"It's so jolly to see the flag up again at the Castle," said Evie
Bennett, looking at the turret where the Union Jack was flying bravely
in the breeze. "I always feel as if it's a kind of national defence. Any
ships sailing by would know it was England they were passing."
"I like it because it means Mrs. Trevellyan's at home," said Deirdre
Sullivan. "A place seems so forlorn when the family's away. Did Ronnie
come back too, last night?"
"Yes, Hilda Marriott saw him from the window this morning. He was going
down the road with his new governess. Why, there he is--actually
watching for us, the darling!"
The girls had to pass close to a turnstile that led from the Castle
grounds into the warren, and here, perched astride the top rail of the
gate, evidently on the look-out for them, a small boy was waving his cap
in frantic welcome. He was a pretty little fellow, with the bluest of
eyes and the fairest of skins, and the lightest of flaxen hair, and he
seemed dimpling all over his merry face with delight at the meeting. The
girls simply made a rush for him, and he was handed about from one to
another, struggling in laughing protest, till at last he wriggled
himself free, and retiring behind the turnstile, held the gate as a
barrier.
[Illustration: A SMALL BOY WAS WAVING HIS CAP IN FRANTIC WELCOME
_Page 48_]
"I knew you'd be coming past, so I got leave to play here. Thank you all
for your Christmas cards," he said gaily. "Yes--I like my new governess.
Her name's Miss Herbert, and she's ripping. Auntie's going to ask you to
tea. I want to show you my engine I got at Christmas. It goes round the
floor and it really puffs. You'll come?"
"Oh! we'll come all right," chuckled the girls. "We've got something at
the Dower House to show you, too. No, we shan't tell you what it
is--it's to be a surprise. Oh, goody! There's the bell! Ta-ta! We must
be off! If we don't fly, we shall all be late for call-over. No, you're
not to come through the gate to say good-bye! Go back, you rascal! You
know you're not allowed on the warren!"
As the big bell at the Dower House was clang-clanging its loudest, the
girls set off at a run. There was not a minute to be lost if they meant
to be in their places to answer "Present" to their names; and missing
the roll-call meant awkward explanations with Miss Birks. One only,
oblivious of the urgency of the occasion, lingered behind. Gerda
Thorwaldson had stood apart while the others greeted Ronnie, merely
looking on as if the meeting were of no interest to her. Nobody had
taken the slightest notice of her, or had indeed remembered her
existence at the moment. She counted for so little with her
schoolfellows that it never struck them to introduce her to their
favourite; in fact they had been totally occupied among themselves in
fighting for possession of him. She remained now, until the very last
school sports' cap was round the corner and out of sight. Then she
dashed through the turnstile, and overtaking Ronnie, thrust a packet of
chocolates, rather awkwardly, into his hand.
The bell had long ceased clanging, and Miss Birks had closed the
call-over book when Gerda entered the schoolroom. As she would offer no
explanation of her lateness, she was given a page of French poetry to
learn, to teach her next time to regard punctuality as a cardinal
virtue. She took her punishment with absolute stolidity.
"What a queer girl she is! She never seems to care what happens," said
Dulcie. "I should mind if Miss Birks glared at me in that way, to say
nothing of a whole page of _Athalie_."
"She looked as if she'd been crying when she came in," remarked Deirdre.
"She's not crying now, at any rate. She simply looks unapproachable.
What made her so late? She was with us on the warren."
"How should I know? If she won't tell, she won't. You might as well try
to make a mule gallop uphill as attempt to get even the slightest, most
ordinary, everyday scrap of information out of such a sphinx as Gerda
Thorwaldson."
CHAPTER V
Practical Geography
Miss Birks often congratulated herself on the fact that the smallness of
her school allowed her to give a proportionately large amount of
individual attention to her pupils. There was no possibility at the
Dower House for even the laziest girl to shirk lessons and shield her
ignorance behind the general bulk of information possessed by the Form.
Backward girls, dull girls, delicate girls--all had their special claims
considered and their fair chances accorded. There was no question of
"passing in a crowd". Each pupil stood or fell on the merits of her own
work, and every item of her progress was noted with as much care as if
she were the sole charge of the establishment. Miss Birks had many
theories of education, some gleaned from national conferences of
teachers, and others of her own evolving, all on the latest of modern
lines. One of her pet theories was the practical application, whenever
possible, of every lesson learnt. According to the season the girls
botanized, geologized, collected caterpillars and chrysalides, or hunted
for marine specimens on the shore, vying with each other in a friendly
rivalry as to which could secure the best contributions for the school
museum.
There was no subject, however, in Miss Birks's estimation which led
itself more readily to practical illustration than geography. Every
variety of physical feature was examined in the original situation, so
that watersheds, tributaries, table-lands, currents, and comparative
elevations became solid facts instead of mere book statements, and each
girl was taught to make her own map of the district.
"I believe we've examined everything except an iceberg and a volcano,"
declared Betty Scott one day, "and I verily believe Miss Birks is on the
look-out for both--hoped an iceberg might be washed ashore during those
few cold days we had in January, and you know she told us Beacon Hill
was the remains of an extinct volcano. I expect she wished it might
burst out suddenly again, like Vesuvius, just to show us how it did it!"
"Wouldn't we squeal and run if we heard rumblings and saw jets of steam
coming up?" commented Evie Bennett. "I don't think many of us would stay
to do scientific work, and take specimens of the lava."
"Where are we going this afternoon?" asked Elyned Hughes.
"Mapping, Miss Birks said. We're to make for the old windmill, and then
draw a radius of six miles, from Kergoff to Avonporth. Hurry up, you
others! It's after two, and Miss Harding's waiting on the terrace. What
a set of slow-coaches you are!"
It was the turn of VB to have a practical geography demonstration, and
they started, therefore, under the guidance of the second mistress, to
survey the physical features of a certain portion of the neighbourhood,
and record them in a map. Each girl was furnished by Miss Birks with a
paper of questions, intended to be a guide to her observations:
1.--Using the windmill as a centre, what direction do the roads
take?
2.--What villages or farms must be noted?
3.--What rivers or streams, and their courses?
4.--What lakes or ponds?
5.--The general outline of the coast?
6.--Are there hills or mountains?
7.--What historical monuments should be marked with a cross?
Armed with their instructions, pocket compasses, and note-books, the
girls set off in cheerful spirits. They dearly loved these country
rambles, and heartily approved of this particular method of education.
It was a beautiful bright afternoon towards the middle of February, one
of those glorious days that seem to anticipate the spring, and to make
one forget that winter exists at all. The sky was cloudless and blue,
not with the serene blue of summer, but with that fainter, almost
greenish shade so noticeable in the early months of the year, and
growing pearly-white where it touched the horizon. There was a joyous
feeling of returning life in the air; a thrush, perhaps remembering that
it was St. Valentine's Eve, carolled with full rich voice in the bare
thorn tree, small birds chased each other among the bushes, and great
flocks of rooks were feeding up and down the ploughed fields. In
sheltered corners an early wild flower or two had forestalled the
season, and the girls picked an occasional celandine star or primrose
bud, and even a few cherished violets. The catkins on the hazels were
shaking down showers of golden pollen, and the sallows were covered with
silky, silvery tufts of palm; the low sycamores in the hedge showed rosy
buds almost ready to burst, and shoots of bramble or sprays of
newly-opened honeysuckle leaves formed green patches here and there on
the old walls.
The girls walked at a brisk, swinging pace, in no particular order, so
long as they kept together, and with licence to stop to examine
specimens within reasonable limits of time. Miss Harding, who was
herself a fairly good naturalist, might be consulted at any moment, and
all unknown or doubtful objects, if portable, were popped in a basket
and taken back to be identified by the supreme authority, Miss Birks.
Though they fully appreciated the warren as a playground, it was
delightful to have a wider field for their activities, and the
opportunity of making some fresh find or some interesting discovery to
report at head-quarters. Miss Birks kept a Nature Diary hung on the wall
of the big schoolroom, and there was keen competition as to which should
be the first to supply the various items that made up its weekly
chronicle. It was even on record that Rhoda Wilkins once ran a whole
mile at top speed in order to steal a march on Emily Northwood, and
claim for VA the proud honour of announcing the first bird's nest of the
year.
The special point for which the girls were bound this afternoon was a
ruined windmill that stood on a small eminence, and formed rather a
landmark in the district. From here an excellent view might be obtained
of both the outline of the coast and the course of the little river that
ambled down from the hills and poured itself into the sea by the tiny
village of Kergoff. No fitter spot could have been chosen for a general
survey, and as the girls reached the platform on which the building
stood, and ranged themselves under its picturesque ragged sails, they
pulled out their note-books and got to business.
It was a glorious panorama that lay below them--brown heathery common
and rugged cliff, steep crags against which the growing tide was softly
lapping, a babbling little river that wound a noisy course between
boulders and over rounded, age-worn stones, tumbling in leaps from the
hills, dancing through the meadows, and flowing with a strong, steady
swirl through the whitewashed hamlet ere it widened out to join the
harbour. And beyond all there was the sea--the shimmering, glittering
sea--rolling quietly in with slow, heavy swell, and dashing with a dull
boom against the lighthouse rocks, bearing far off on its bosom a chance
vessel southward bound, and floating one by one the little craft that
had been beached in the anchorage, till they strained at their cables,
and bobbed gaily on the rising water. Only one or two of the girls
perhaps realized the intense beauty and poetry of the scene; most were
busy noting the natural features, and calculating possible distances,
marking here a farm or there a hill crest, and trying to reproduce in
some creditable fashion the eccentric windings of the river.
"That little crag below us just blocks the view of the road," said
Deirdre. "I can't get the bend in at all. Do you mind, Miss Harding, if
some of us go to the bottom of the hill and trace it out?"
"Certainly, if you like," replied the mistress. "I'm tired, so I shall
wait for you here. It won't take you longer than ten minutes."
"Oh, dear, no! We'll race down. I say, who'll come?"
Dulcie, Betty, Annie, Barbara, and Gerda were among the energetically
disposed, but Evie, Romola, and Elyned preferred to wait with Miss
Harding.
"We'll copy yours when you come back," they announced shamelessly.
"Oh, we'll see about that! Ta-ta!" cried the others, as they started at
a fair pace down the hill.
The road was certainly the most winding of any they had attempted to
trace that afternoon. It twisted like a cork-screw between high banks,
then hiding beneath a steep crag plunged suddenly through a small fir
wood, and crossed the river by a stone bridge. The girls had descended
at a jog trot, trying to take their bearings as they went. Owing to the
great height of the banks it was impossible to see what was below,
therefore it was only when they had passed the wood that they noticed
for the first time an old grey house on the farther side of the bridge.
It was built so close to the stream that its long veranda actually
overhung the water, which swept swirling against the lower wall of the
building. Many years must have passed since it last held a tenant, for
creepers stretched long tendrils over the broken windows, and grass grew
green in the gutters. The dilapidated gate, the weed-grown garden, the
weather-worn, paintless woodwork, the damp-stained walls, the damaged
roof, all gave it an air of almost indescribable melancholy, so utterly
abandoned, deserted, and entirely neglected did it appear.
"Hallo! Why, this must be 'Forster's Folly'!" exclaimed Barbara. "I'd no
idea we were so close to it. We couldn't see even the chimneys from the
windmill."
"What an extraordinary name for an even more extraordinary house!" said
Deirdre. "Who in the name of all that's weird was 'Forster'? And why is
this rat's-hall-looking place called his folly?"
"He was a lawyer in the neighbourhood, I believe, and, like some
lawyers, just a little bit too sharp. It was when the railway was going
to be made. He heard it was coming this way, and he calculated it would
just have to cut across this piece of land, so he bought the field and
built this house on it in a tremendous hurry, because he thought he
could claim big compensation from the railway company; and then after
all they took the line round by Avonporth instead, five miles away, and
didn't want to buy his precious house, so he'd had all the trouble and
expense for nothing."
"Served him right!" grunted the girls.
"They say he was furious," continued Barbara. "He was so disgusted that
he never even painted the woodwork or laid out the garden properly. He
tried to let it, but nobody wanted it; so he was obliged to come and
live in it himself for economy's sake. He was an old bachelor, and he
and a sour old housekeeper were here for a year or two, and then he died
very suddenly, and rather mysteriously. His relations came and took away
the furniture, but they haven't been able to sell the house, it's in
such a queer, out-of-the-way place. Then everybody in the neighbourhood
said it was haunted, and not a soul would go near it for love or money."
"It looks haunted," said Dulcie with a shiver. "Just the kind of
lonely-moated-grange place where you'd expect to see a 'woman in white'
at the window."
"Never saw anything so spooky in my life before," agreed Deirdre.
"Did you say it used to belong to Mr. Forster, the lawyer?" asked Gerda.
"The one who had business at St. Gonstan?"
"I don't know where he had business, but it was certainly Mr. Forster,
the lawyer. I don't suppose there'd be more than one."
"When did he die?"
"About five years ago, I fancy. Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, nothing! It doesn't matter in the least," returned Gerda, shrinking
into her shell again.
"It's the weirdest, queerest place I've ever seen," said Deirdre. "Do
let's go a little nearer. Ugh! What would you take to spend a night
here alone?"
"Nothing in the wide world you could offer me," protested Betty.
"I'd go stark, staring mad!" affirmed Annie.
"Hallo!" squealed Dulcie suddenly. "What's become of Gerda? She's
sneaked off!"
"Why, there she is, peeping through one of the broken windows!"
"Oh, I say! I must have a squint too, to see if there's really a ghost!"
fluttered Annie.
"You goose! You wouldn't see ghosts by daylight!"
"Well, I don't care anyhow. I'm going to peep. Cuckoo, Gerda! What can
you see inside?"
When Annie Pridwell led the way, it followed of necessity that the
others went after her, so they scurried to catch her up, and all ran in
a body over the bridge and into the nettle-grown garden. Gerda was still
perched on the window-sill of one of the lower rooms, and she turned to
her schoolfellows with a strange light in her eyes and a look of
unwonted excitement on her face.
"I put my hand through the broken pane and pulled back the catch," she
volunteered. "We've only to push the window up and we could go inside."
"Oh! Dare we?"
"Suppose the ghost caught us?"
"Oh, I say! Do let us go!"
"It would be such gorgeous sport!"
"I'm game, if you all are."
As usual it was Annie Pridwell who led the adventure. Pushing up the
window, she climbed over the sill and dropped inside, then turning round
offered a hand to Gerda, who sprang eagerly after her. It was imperative
for Deirdre, Dulcie, Betty, and Barbara to follow; they were not going
to be outdone in courage, and they felt that at any rate there was
safety in numbers. There was nothing very terrible about the
dining-room, in which they found themselves, it only looked miserable
and forlorn, with the damp paper hanging in strips from the walls, and
heaps of straw left by the remover's men strewn about the floor.
"We'll go and explore the rest of the house," said Annie, with a
half-nervous chuckle. "Come along, anybody who's game!"
Nobody wished to remain behind alone, so they went all together, holding
each other's arms, squealing, or gasping, or giggling, as occasion
prompted. They peeped into the empty drawing-room and the silent
kitchen, where the grate was red with rust; hurried past a dark hall
cupboard, and found themselves at the foot of the staircase.
"Oh, I daren't go up; I simply daren't!" bleated Barbara piteously.
"Suppose the ghost lives up there?" suggested Betty.
"My good girl, no self-respecting spook likes to make an exhibition of
itself," returned Annie. "The sight of six of us would scare it away. I
don't mean to say I'd go alone, but now we're all here it's different."
"We've been more than Miss Harding's ten minutes," vacillated Deirdre.
"Oh, bother! One doesn't often get the chance to explore. Come along,
you sillies, what are you frightened at?"
So together they mounted the stairs and took a hasty survey of the upper
story. Here the remover's men had evidently done their work even more
carelessly than down below, for though the furniture had been taken
away, enough rubbish had been left to provide a rummage sale. All kinds
of old articles not worth removing were lying where they had been thrown
down on the bedroom floor--old curtains, old shoes, scraps of mouldy
carpet, the laths of venetian blinds, broken lamp shades, empty bottles,
torn magazines, cracked pottery, worn-out brushes, and decrepit straw
palliasses.
"Did you ever see such an extraordinary conglomeration of queer things?"
said Annie. "I wonder they didn't tidy the house up before they went. No
wonder nobody would take it! And look, girls! They've actually left a
whole bathful of old letters! Somebody has begun to tear them up, and
not finished. They ought to have burnt them. Just look at this piece! It
has a lovely crest on it."
"Oh, has it? Give it to me; I'm collecting crests," cried Deirdre,
commandeering the scrap of paper. "It's a jolly one, too. I say, are
there any more? Move out, Annie, and let me see!"
"Look here," remonstrated Barbara; "I don't think we ought to go
rummaging amongst old letters. It doesn't seem quite--quite honourable,
does it? They are not ours, Annie. I wish you'd stop! No, Gerda, don't
look at them, please! Oh, I say, I wish you'd all come away! Let's go.
Miss Harding will think we're drowned in the river, or something; and at
any rate she'll scold us no end for being so long. Do you know the
time?"
There was certainly force in Barbara's remarks. Their ten minutes' leave
had exceeded half an hour, and Miss Harding would undoubtedly require a
substantial reason for their delay.
"Oh, goody! It's four o'clock!" chirruped Betty. "I'd no idea it was so
late! We don't want to get into a row with Miss Birks. I believe I hear
Romola shouting in the road. They've come to look for us!"
"We'd best scoot, then," said Annie, and flinging back the letters into
the bath, she turned with the rest and clattered downstairs.
Miss Harding, grave, annoyed, and justly indignant, was waiting for them
on the bridge. She received them with the scolding they merited.
"Where have you been, you naughty, naughty girls? You're not to be
trusted a minute out of my sight! I gave you permission to go straight
to the bottom of the hill and back, and here you've been away more than
half an hour! What were you doing in that garden? You had no right
there! Come along this instant and walk before me, two and two. Miss
Birks will have to hear about this. A nice report to take back of your
afternoon's work at map drawing!"
Map drawing! They had forgotten all about the maps. The girls looked at
one another, conscience-stricken; and Deirdre, with an awful pang,
realized that she had left her note-book on the mantelpiece of the
dining-room. She had been disposed to titter before, but she felt now
that the affair was no joking matter.
"Miss Harding mustn't know we've been inside the house," she whispered
to Gerda, with whom in the hurry of the moment she had paired off.
"No one's likely to tell her, and she couldn't see us come out of the
window from where she was standing," returned Gerda.
"We shall get into trouble enough as it is. I didn't think Miss Harding
would have cut up so rough about it. I say, just think of leaving those
old letters all lying about! I got one--at least it's a scrap of
one--with a lovely crest, a boar's head and a lot of stars--all in
gold."
"What!" gasped Gerda. "Did you say you found that on a letter?"
"Well, it's a piece of a letter, anyway."
"Oh, do let me see it!"
"Is Miss Harding looking? Well, here it is. Be careful! She's got her
eye on us! Oh, give it me back, quick!"
Gerda had turned the scrap of paper over and was glancing at the writing
on the other side. She reddened with annoyance as Deirdre snatched back
her treasure.
"Let me see it again!" she pleaded.
"No, no; it's safe in my pocket! Better not run any risks."
"You might give it to me. I'm collecting crests."
"A likely idea! Do you think, if I wanted to part with it, I'd present
it to you? No, I mean to keep it myself, thanks."
"I'd buy it, if you like."
"I don't sell my things."
"Not if I offered something nice?"
"Not for anything you'd offer me," returned Deirdre, whose temper was in
a touchy condition, and her spirit of opposition thoroughly aroused. "We
don't haggle over our things at the Dower House, whatever you may do in
Germany."
Gerda said no more at the time, but at night in their bedroom she
returned once more to the subject.
"You won't get it if you bother me to the end of the term," declared
Deirdre, locking up the bone of contention in her jewel-case and putting
the key in her pocket.
"What do you want it for so particularly, Gerda?" asked Dulcie sharply.
"Oh, nothing! Only a fancy of my own," replied Gerda, reddening with one
of her sudden fits of blushing, as she turned to the dressing-table and
began to comb her flaxen hair.
CHAPTER VI
Ragtime
If there was one thing more than another that the girls of the Dower
House considered a particular and pressing grievance it was a wet
Saturday afternoon. They were all of them outdoor enthusiasts, and to be
obliged to stop in the house instead of tramping the moors or roaming on
the sea-shore was regarded as a supreme penance. On the Saturday
following the mapping expedition there was no mistake about the rain--it
seemed to come down in a solid sheet from a murky sky, which offered
absolutely no prospect of clearing.
The overflowing gutter-pipes emptied veritable rivulets into a temporary
pond on the front drive; the lawn appeared fast turning into a morass;
and even indoors the atmosphere was so soaked with damp that a dewy film
covered banisters, furniture, and woodwork, and the wall-paper on the
stairs distinctly changed its hue. In VB classroom the girls hung about
disconsolately. There was to have been a special fossil foray that
afternoon under the leadership of a lady from Perranwrack, who took an
interest in the school, and who had thrown out hints of a fire of
driftwood and a picnic tea among the rocks.
"It's so particularly aggravating, because Miss Hall has to go up to
London on Monday and won't be back for weeks, so probably she won't be
able to arrange to take us again this term," grumbled Romola.
"It's too--too _triste_!" murmured Deirdre in a die-away voice,
arranging a cushion behind her head with elaborate show of indolence.
"Weally wetched!" echoed Dulcie lackadaisically, sinking into the
basket-chair with an even more used-up air than her chum.
"Good old second best!" laughed Betty. "Whom are you both copying now?
Have you been gobbling a surreptitious penny novelette? I can generally
tell your course of reading from your poses. These present airs and
graces suggest some such title as 'Lady Rosamond's Mystery' or 'The
Earl's Secret'. Confess, now, you're imagining yourselves members of the
aristocracy."
"I believe the penny novelettes are invariably written in top garrets by
people who've never even had a nodding acquaintance with dukes and
duchesses," said Barbara. "The real article's very different from the
'belted earl' of fiction. The Clara-Vere-de-Vere type is extinct now. If
you were a genuine countess, Deirdre, you'd probably be addressing
hundreds of envelopes in aid of a philanthropic society, instead of
lounging there looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. Don't glare!
I speak the solemn words of truth."
"You make my he--head ache," protested Deirdre with half-closed eyelids,
but her complaint met with no sympathy. Instead, several strong and
insistent hands pulled her forcibly out of her chair and flung away the
cushion.
"I tell you we're sick of 'Lady Isobel' or whoever she may be. For
goodness' sake be somebody more cheerful if you won't be yourself. Can't
you get up an Irish mood for a change? A bit of the brogue would hearten
up this clammy afternoon."
"Oh, isn't it piggy and nasty!" exclaimed Annie, stretching out her arms
in the agony of an elephantine yawn. "I want my tea! I want my tea! I
want my tea! And I shan't get it for a whole long weary hour!"
"Poor martyr! Here, squattez-ici on the hearth-rug and I'll make you a
triscuit."
"What on earth is a triscuit?"
"Oh, you're not bright or you'd guess. It's a biscuit toasted nicely
brown and eaten hot. Don't you twig? A biscuit means 'twice cooked';
therefore if it's cooked again it must be a triscuit. That stands to
reason."
"Is it to be a barmecide feast? I don't see your precious biscuits."
"'"I've got 'un here," sez she, quite quiet-like,'" returned Betty, who
was a Mrs. Ewing enthusiast, and quoted Dame Datchet with relish. "Half
a pound of cream crackers, and I mean to be generous and share 'em
round. Don't you all bless me? Now the question is, how we're going to
'triscuit' them."
The girls crowded round with suggestions. Toasting biscuits was
certainly more entertaining than doing nothing. Deirdre forgot for the
time that she was a heroine of fiction, and plumped down by the fender
with a lack of high-born dignity that would have scandalized "Lady
Isobel".
"You'll smash them up if you try sticking your penknife through them,"
she observed. "It'll burn your fingers too to hold them so close to the
fire. Try the tongs."
"Some of them might be tilted up in the fender," volunteered Gerda,
whose rare remarks were generally to the point. "They'd be getting hot,
and we could finish them off afterwards."
"Right you are! Stick them up in a row. Now if I take this one with the
tongs and hold it just over that red piece in the fire----"
"Be careful!"
"Remember it's fragile."
"There, I knew you'd smash it! Oh, pick the other half out, quick! It's
burning!"
"What a Johnnie-fingers you are! It's done for."
In the end--and it was Gerda's quiet suggestion--the tongs were placed
over the fire like a gridiron and the biscuits successfully popped on
the top and turned when one side was done. Everybody appreciated them
down to the last crumb, and awarded Betty a vote of thanks for her
brilliant idea.
"The worst of it is, they're finished too soon," sighed Evie, "and we've
nothing else to fill up the gap till tea-time. I want to do something
outrageous--break a window or smash an ornament, or damage the
furniture! What a nuisance conscience is! Why does the 'inward monitor'
restrain me?"
"Probably the wholesome dread of consequences my dear. You might cut
your hand in a wild orgy of window smashing and there'd be bills to pay
afterwards for reglazing and medical attendance."
"But can't we do anything interesting?"
"Let's play a trick on VA," suggested Annie. "It would do them good and
shake them up. My conscience gives me full leave."
"It's celebrated for its well-known elasticity!" chuckled Evie.
"But what could we do?"
"Oh, just rag them a little somehow. It would be rather sport."
"Plans for sport in ragtime wanted! All offers carefully considered.
Now, then, bring on your suggestions."
Everybody stared hopefully at everybody else, but no one rose to the
occasion.
"Going--going--going--a first-rate opportunity for mirth-provoking----"
"Could we get them into the passage and one of us hide behind the
curtain of the barred room and act ghost?" proposed Romola desperately.
Her suggestion, however, was received with utter scorn.
"Can't you think of anything more original than that?"
"We're fed up with that ghost trick. Nobody even calls it funny now."
"Besides, Miss Birks said she'd punish anyone who did it again. She was
awfully angry last time."
Duly squashed, Romola subsided, and the silence which followed resembled
that of a Quakers' meeting.
"I've got it!" shouted Betty at last, clapping her hands ecstatically.
"The very thing! Oh, the supremest joke!"
"Good biz! But please condescend to explain," commented Evie.
"Oh, we'll try thing-um-bob--what d'you call it? Mesmerism--that's the
word I want. With dinner plates, you know."
Apparently nobody knew, for all looked interested and intelligent, but
unenlightened.
"Do you mean to say you've never heard of it? Oh, goody! What luck!"
"Look here," interposed Annie, "you're not going to rag us as well. It's
to be for the benefit of VA if there's any sell about it."
"All right! They'll really be enough, and you shall act audience. Only
with fourteen of you it would have been so----"
"Betty Scott, give us your word this instant that you won't play tricks
on your own Form."
"I won't--I won't--honest, I won't!"
"And tell us what you're going to do."
"No, that would spoil it all. You must wait and see. Barbara, go to the
kitchen door and cajole Cook into lending us seven dinner plates. Say
you'll pledge your honour not to break them. And purloin a candle from
the lamp cupboard. Be as quick as you can! Time wanes."
Barbara executed her errand with speed and success. She soon returned
with the plates and set them down on the table. Betty lighted the
candle, laid one plate aside, then held each of the others in turn over
the flame till the bottoms inside the rims were well coloured with
smoke. The girls watched her curiously.
"Now, I'm ready!" she announced, "but I want a messenger. Elyned, you go
and tap at VA door and say we shall be very pleased if they care to come
and try a most interesting experiment. Mind you put it politely, and for
your life don't snigger."
Now VA had been spending an even duller and more wearisome afternoon
than VB, for they had not had the diversion of toasting biscuits. They
were yawning in the last stages of boredom when Elyned arrived and
delivered her message. Usually they considered themselves far too select
to have much to do with the lower division, but to-day anything to break
the monotony was welcome. They accepted the invitation with alacrity,
and came trooping in to the rival classroom with pleased anticipation in
their faces.
"It's a most curious experiment," began Betty. "I learnt it from a
cousin who's been out East. He saw it practised by some Chinese priests
at a josshouse. I believe it's one of the first steps of initiation in
Esoteric Buddhism. My cousin's not exactly a Theosophist, but he's
interested in comparative theologies, and he went about with a lama, and
found out ever so many of their secrets. He wrote down the formulary of
this for me."
"What's it about?" asked the elder girls, looking considerably
impressed.
"It's a species of mesmerism--or animal magnetism, as some people prefer
to call it. You make certain passes, and repeat certain words after me,
and then you all get into the hypnotic state. Of course it depends how
psychic you are, but anybody with even undeveloped mediumistic powers
will sometimes give replies to questions they couldn't possibly answer
in the normal state."
"I suppose it won't hurt us?" asked Agnes Gillard rather gravely.
"Oh, not at all! It's wonderful sometimes to find how people who've
never even suspected they possessed psychic gifts bring out absolutely
unaccountable pieces of information. It really would be quite uncanny,
except for the latest theory that it's merely utilizing a natural power
once cultivated by man, but long forgotten except by a few priests in
the Tibetan monasteries. The Theosophical Society, of course, is trying
to revive it."
"I'm afraid I don't know anything about Theosophy," murmured Hilda
Marriott.
"It's akin to the Eleusinian mysteries and the cult of Isis," continued
Betty unblushingly. "You have to understand 'Karma' (that's
reincarnation) and 'Yoga' (that's flitting about in your astral body
while you're asleep), and--and--" But here both memory and invention
failed her, so she hurriedly changed her point. "Oh! it would take me
years to explain, and you couldn't understand unless you'd been
initiated. Let's get to the experiment. Will you all stand in a row?"
"Aren't any of you going to try?" asked Irene Jordan, addressing the
members of VB, who, solemn as judges, stood slightly in the background.
"We can only do it with seven, the mystic number--and there are eight of
them, and they can't agree who's to be left out," said Betty hurriedly.
"It's always done with six neophytes and one initiated. If you're ready,
we'd best begin, and not waste any more time."
She arranged her neophytes in a line, and gave to each a plate, telling
her to hold it firmly in the left hand. Then, taking her stand facing
them, she raised her own plate to the level of her chest.
"Now you must do exactly as I do!" she commanded. "All fix your eyes on
me, and don't take them off me for a single instant. The concentration
of the seven visual currents is of vital importance. Put the middle
finger of the right hand beneath the plate exactly in the centre, then
describe a circle with it on the under side of the plate. Be sure the
circle follows the same course as the sun, or we may break the mesmeric
current. Watch what I'm doing. Now describe a circle on your face in the
same manner, beginning with the left cheek. Copy me carefully. And now
we must repeat the cabalistic formulary (the oldest in the
world--Solomon got it from El Zenobi, the chief of the Genii): 'Om mani
padme hum'. Let us say it slowly all together seven times, performing
the orthodox circles at each."
The neophytes played their parts admirably. They never removed their
gaze from the face of their instructress; they copied her every
movement, and repeated the mystic words to the very best of their
ability. "Om mani padme hum" rolled from their lips seven times, and
seemed to suggest the dreamy atmosphere of the occult.
"The mesmeric current is forming! I can feel it working!" declared
Betty. "It only requires further visualization for the hypnotic state to
follow. To complete the magnetic circle, will you all kindly turn and
face each other?"
Still holding the plates, the obedient six swung round, stared at one
another, then gasped and shrieked. And well they might, for, one and
all, their countenances were besmirched with black in a series of
concentric rings which caused them to resemble Zulu chiefs or
American-Indian warriors on the warpath.
"Oh! oh! oh!" came from the members of VB, who, having been stationed
behind the neophytes, had been in equal ignorance of the trick that was
being played on them. Then everybody exploded.
"Oh, you look so funny!"
"Is the magnetic current working?"
"Is it the cult of Isis?"
"Oh, my heart! Oh! ho! ho!" gurgled Betty. "You didn't twig your plates
were smoked and mine wasn't! Oh, I've done you! Done you brown,
literally!"
"You p-p-p-pig!" spluttered the victims.
"Don't break the plates! Here, put them on the table! Oh, don't look so
indignant, or you'll kill me! I've got a stitch in my side with
laughing. Here, don't stalk off like offended zebras! I'll apologize!
I'll go down on my bended knees! It was a brutal rag--yes--yes--I own up
frankly! I'll grovel! _Peccavi! Peccavi! Miserere mei!_"
"I've got some chocolates here," murmured Annie Pridwell. "I was keeping
them for Sunday, but do have them," handing the packet round among the
outraged upper division.
The occasion certainly seemed to warrant some form of compensation. Evie
hastily followed Annie's example, and sacrificed a private store of
toffee on the altar of hospitality. Blissfully sucking, the six seniors
allowed themselves to be mollified. As connoisseurs of jokes, they were
ready to acknowledge the superior excellence of the trick played upon
them; moreover, they found one another's appearance highly diverting.
"Betty Scott, you'll be the death of me some day," remarked Rhoda
Wilkins. "Oh, Agnes! If you could only see yourself in the glass!"
"It's the pot calling the kettle! Look at your own face!"
"Do you think we could possibly work it on the Sixth?"
"No, they'd smell a rat."
"I want my tea," said Annie. "Oh, cock-a-doodle-doo! There's the first
bell! Hip-hip-hooray! I say, you six, if you don't want to give Miss
Birks a first-class fit, you'd best be toddling to the bath-room, and
applying the soap-and-water treatment to your interesting
countenances."
CHAPTER VII
An Invitation
"Zickery, dickery, lumby tum,
Tip me the wink, and out I'll come,
Leave my pagoda so glum, glum, glum,
To drink green tea with my own Yum-Yum!"
So chanted Evie Bennett on the following Monday, bursting into VB room
with a face betokening news, and a manner suggestive of Bedlam.
"What's the matter, you lunatic? Look here, if you go on like a dancing
dervish we shall have to provide you with a padded room! Mind the
inkpot! Oh, I say, you'll have the black-board over! Hasn't anybody got
a strait-waistcoat? Evie's gone sheer, stark, raving mad!"
"I've got news, my hearty! News! news! news!
'What will you take for my news?
I know it will make you enthuse!
There isn't a girl who'll refuse,
Or offer to make an excuse.'
Ahem! A poor thing, but mine own. I'm waxing so poetical, I think I must
be inspired."
"Or possessed! Sit down, you mad creature, and talk sense. What's your
precious news?"
"Mrs. Trevellyan requests the pleasure of the company of the young
ladies of Miss Birks's seminary to drink tea with her on the occasion of
the natal day of her nephew, Master Ronald Trevellyan," announced Evie,
changing suddenly to a ceremonious eighteenth-century manner, and
dropping a stiff curtsy.
"Ronnie's birthday!"
"Oh, what sport!"
"It's on Wednesday."
"Has she asked only us?"
"No, the whole school is to go, mistresses and all," returned Evie.
"Mrs. Trevellyan wants to introduce Ronnie's new governess to us."
"There are sure to be games, and perhaps a competition with prizes,"
rejoiced Annie Pridwell; "and we always have delicious teas at the
Castle. Gerda Thorwaldson, why don't you look pleased? You take it as
quietly as if it were a parochial meeting. What a mum mouse you are!"
"Is it anything to get so excited over?" replied Gerda calmly.
"Of course it is! The Castle's the Castle, and Mrs. Trevellyan is--well,
just Mrs. Trevellyan. There are the loveliest things there--foreign
curiosities, and old pictures, and illuminated books, and we're allowed
to look at them; and there's special preserved ginger from China, and
boxes of real Eastern Turkish Delight. Oh, it's a fairy palace! You may
thank your stars you're going!"
In spite of Annie's transports, Gerda did not look particularly
delighted. She only smiled in a rather sickly fashion, and said nothing.
The others, however, were much too occupied with their own pleasurable
expectations to take any notice of her lack of enthusiasm. They had
accepted her quiet ways as part of herself, and had set her down as a
not very interesting addition to the Form, and thought her opinions--if
indeed she possessed any--were of scant importance.
Gerda had made very little headway with her companions; her intense
reserve seemed to set a barrier between them and herself, and after one
or two efforts at being friendly the girls had given her up, and took no
more trouble over her. "Gerda the Silent," "The Recluse," "The Oyster,"
were some of the names by which she was known, and she certainly
justified every item of her reputation for reticence. If she did not
talk much, she was, however, a good listener. Nothing in the merry chat
of the schoolroom escaped her, and anybody who had been curious enough
to watch her carefully might have noticed that often, when seemingly
buried in a book, her eyes did not move over the page, and all her
attention was given to the conversation that was going on in her
vicinity.
Having received an invitation to Ronnie's birthday party, of course the
burning subject of discussion was what to give him as a present. Miss
Birks vetoed the idea of each girl making a separate offering, and
suggested a general subscription list to buy one handsome article.
"It will be quite sufficient, and I am sure Mrs. Trevellyan would far
rather have it so," she decreed.
"It's too bad, for I'd made up my mind to give him a box of soldiers,"
complained Annie, in private.
"And I'd a book in my eye," said Elyned.
"Perhaps Miss Birks is right," said Romola, "because, you see, some of
us might give nicer presents than the others, and perhaps there'd be a
little jealousy; and at any rate, comparisons are odious."
"Miss Birks has limited the subscriptions to a shilling each," commented
Deirdre.
"Then let's take our list now. I'll write down our names, and you can
tell me the amounts."
For such an object everyone was disposed to be liberal--everyone, that
is to say, except Gerda Thorwaldson. When she was applied to, she flatly
refused.
"Don't you want to join in the present to Ronnie?" gasped Romola, in
utter amazement.
"Why should I?"
"Why, because we're going to tea at the Castle; and Ronnie is Ronnie,
and Mrs. Trevellyan will be pleased too!"
"I don't know Mrs. Trevellyan."
"Well, you soon will. You'll be introduced to her on Wednesday. She
always says something nice to new girls--asks them where their homes
are, and if they've brothers and sisters, and how old they are--and if
she finds out she knows their parents or their friends she's so
interested. And she has such a good memory for faces! She actually
recognized Irene Jordan, although she'd never seen her in her life
before, because Irene is so like an aunt, a Miss Jordan who is a friend
of Mrs. Trevellyan's."
Gerda had turned a dull crimson at these remarks. She kept her eyes
fixed on the floor, and made no reply. What her inward thoughts might
be, no one could fathom.
"Isn't your name to go down at all, then, on the list?" asked Romola,
with considerable impatience.
"No, thanks!" replied Gerda briefly, turning awkwardly away.
Wednesday arrived, and perhaps even Ronnie hardly welcomed his birthday
more than did his friends at the Dower House. His present--a toy
circus--had arrived, and had been on exhibition in Miss Birks's study,
and everybody had agreed that it was the very thing to please him. At
three o'clock the girls went to change their school dresses for more
festive attire, and were more than ordinarily particular in their choice
of preparations.
"How slow you are, Gerda Thorwaldson!" said Deirdre, whose own
immaculate toilet was complete. "You haven't put on your dress yet. Why
don't you hurry?"
"You needn't think we'll wait for you," added Dulcie.
Instead of replying, Gerda calmly donned her dressing-gown, and,
volunteering no explanation, went out of the room and shut the door
behind her.
She walked downstairs to Miss Birks's study, and, tapping at the door,
reported herself.
"May I, please, stay at home this afternoon?" she begged. "I'm afraid I
don't feel up to going out to tea to-day."
"Not go to the Castle? My dear child, I hope you're not ill? Certainly
stay at home, and lie down on your bed if your head aches. Nettie shall
bring your tea upstairs. I'm sorry you'll miss so great a treat as a
visit to Mrs. Trevellyan's."
Gerda made no comment; but as she was habitually sparing of speech, her
silence did not strike Miss Birks as anything unusual. It was time to
start, and the Principal had her nineteen other pupils to think about,
so she dismissed the pseudo-invalid with a final injunction to rest.
Gerda did not return to her bedroom till she was perfectly sure that
Deirdre and Dulcie had left it. She had no wish to run the gauntlet of
their inevitable criticisms, or to be questioned too closely on the
nature of her sudden indisposition. She loitered about the upper landing
until from the end window she saw the whole school--girls, mistresses,
and Principal--file down the drive and out through the gate in the
direction of the Castle. Then, going to her dormitory, she rang the
bell, and lay down on her bed.
"Would you mind bringing my cup of tea now, Nettie, please?" she asked,
when the housemaid appeared. "And then I should like to be left
perfectly quiet until the others come back."
"Of course I'll bring it, miss," said the sympathetic Nettie. "Nothing
like a cup of tea for a headache. The kettle's on the boil, so you can
have it at once. I won't be more than a minute or two fetching it."
Nettie was as prompt as her word. She returned almost directly with the
tea, and arranged it temptingly on a little table by the bedside.
"Shut your eyes and try and go to sleep when you've drunk it," she
recommended. "You'll perhaps wake up quite fresh. It is a pity you
couldn't go with the other young ladies to the Castle. They were all so
full of it--and Master Ronnie's birthday, too! I know how disappointed
you must feel."
Gerda finished her tea far more rapidly than is usual for invalids with
sick-headaches; then, instead of taking Nettie's advice and closing her
eyes, she rose and put on her school dress, her coat, and her cap. She
opened the door and listened--not a sound was to be heard. The servants
must surely be having their own tea in the kitchen, and no one else was
in the house. With extreme caution she crept along the passage and down
the stairs. The side door was open, and as quietly as a shadow she
passed out and dodged round the corner of the house. A few minutes later
she was running, running at the very top of her speed across the warren
in the direction of a certain rocky creek not far from St. Perran's
well.
* * * * *
When the girls returned at half-past six, full of their afternoon's
experiences, they found Gerda lying on her bed, with the blind drawn
down. There was an almost feverish colour in her cheeks.
"We'd a ripping time!" Dulcie assured her. "A splendid 'Natural Objects'
competition. I nearly got a prize, but I put 'snake-skin' down for one,
and it was really a piece of the skin of a finnan-haddock. Emily
Northwood won the first, with sixteen objects right out of twenty, and
Hilda Marriott was second with fourteen. I might have known that
specimen was fish scales.
"Ronnie was delighted with his circus," added Dulcie. "He gave us each a
kiss all round. And Mrs. Trevellyan was so nice! She was sorry you
couldn't come, and hoped she'd see you some other time. By the by, how's
your headache?"
"Rather better. I think I'll get up now," murmured Gerda. "I haven't
touched my Latin to-day."
"Plucky of you to come and do prep. If I had a headache, wouldn't I just
make it an excuse to knock off Virgil!"
It was getting near to the end of February. The days were lengthening
visibly, and the sun, which only a month ago had appeared every morning
like a red ball over the hill behind the Castle, now rose, bright and
shining, a long way to eastward. In spite of occasional spring storms,
the weather was on the whole mild, and every day fresh flowers were
pushing up in the school garden. The warren, attractive even in winter,
was doubly delightful now primrose tufts were venturing to show among
the last year's bracken, and the gorse was beginning to gleam golden in
sheltered stretches. The girls were out every available moment of their
spare time, rambling over the headland or haunting the sea-shore. For
most of them the latter provided the greater entertainment.
They had discovered a new occupation, that of salvaging the driftwood,
and found it so enthralling that for the present it overtopped all other
amusements. The high spring-tides and occasional storms washed up
quantities of pieces of timber, and to rescue these from the edge of the
waves, and carry them into a place of safety, became as keen a sport as
fishing. Quite a little wood-stack was accumulating under the cliff, and
the girls had designs of carrying it piece by piece to a point on the
top of the headland, and there building a beacon of noble proportions to
be fired on Empire Day amid suitable rejoicings.
It was exciting work to skip about at the water's edge, grasping at bits
of old spars or shattered boards. The sea seemed to enjoy the fun, and
would bob them near and snatch them away in tantalizing fashion,
sometimes adding a wetting as a point to the joke. To secure a fine
piece of wood without getting into the water was the triumph of skill,
attended with considerable risk, not to life or limb, but to length of
recreation, for Miss Birks had laid down an inviolable rule that anybody
who got her feet wet at this occupation must immediately return to
school, change shoes and stockings, and desist from further attempts on
that day. One or two of the girls were lucky enough to possess
india-rubber wading boots, with which they could venture to defy Father
Ocean and rob him of some of the choicest of his spoils, but they were
the highly-favoured few; the rank and file had to content themselves
with the ordinary method of swift snatching with the aid of a hockey
stick.
Two days after Ronnie's birthday party a strong wind and squall during
the night had furnished material for more than usually good sport, and
the whole school betook itself to the beach to try to reap a harvest.
Laughing, joking, squealing, the girls pursued their quarry, enjoying
the fun all the more for the accidents of the moment. Evie Bennett
dropped her hockey stick, and nearly lost it altogether. Romola Harvey
slipped and fell flat into a pool of water; and many other minor mishaps
occurred to keep up the excitement until the catch of the year was
secured, a large piece of timber which it took the united efforts of all
arms to drag successfully up the beach. Deirdre and Dulcie at last,
grown reckless ventured a risky experiment on their own account, with
the result that a wave caught them neatly, and gave them the full
benefit of sea-water treatment.
"Oh, you're done for. Go back at once!" commanded Jessie Macpherson, the
head girl, whose office it was to see that the rule about changing shoes
was duly observed.
"Sea-water doesn't hurt," protested the chums.
"Your feet are wet through, so back you trot this instant. Do you want
me to report you?"
Very loath to leave the shore, Deirdre and Dulcie were nevertheless
bound to obey, so they toiled regretfully up the steep path from the
cove, casting a lingering eye on their companions, who were still hard
at work.
"Where's Gerda?" asked Dulcie. "She's not down there, and now I think of
it, I haven't seen her for the last half-hour or more. Did she get
wet?"
"I really didn't notice. I suppose she must have, and been sent back. We
shall probably find her in the garden."
The two stepped briskly over the warren, their shoes drying on their
feet with a rapidity which made them disparage Miss Birks's excellent
rule about changing.
"It's just her fuss--we should have taken no harm," said Deirdre. "I
say, surely that's Ronnie's laugh. I'd know it anywhere. Where is the
child?"
The girls were passing close to the high wall which separated the Castle
grounds from the warren, and as it seemed more than probable that Ronnie
was inside, playing in the garden, they managed with considerable
effort, and the aid of some strong ivy, to climb to the top and peep
over. Here a most unexpected sight met their gaze.
On the grass, under a tamarisk bush, sat Gerda with Ronnie on her knee.
She had evidently made friends with the little fellow to a great extent,
for he seemed very much at home with her, and the two were laughing and
joking together in the most intimate fashion. It was such an absolutely
new aspect of Gerda that Deirdre and Dulcie were dumb with amazement.
When, at the Dower House, had she laughed so gaily, or talked in so
animated and sprightly a fashion? No shy, reserved, taciturn recluse
this; her eyes were shining, and her whole face was full of a bright
expression, such as the others had never seen there before.
"Hallo, Gerda! What are you doing here?" called Deirdre, finding speech
at last.
Gerda dropped Ronnie, and sprang to her feet with a sharp exclamation.
No one could have looked more utterly and egregiously caught. She stood
staring at the two faces on the top of the wall, and offered no
explanation whatever. Ronnie, however, waved his hand merrily.
"We've been playing Zoo," he volunteered. "Gerda's been a lion, and
gobbled me up, and she's been an elephant and given me rides, and we
were both polar bears, and growled at each other. Listen how I can growl
now--Ur-ur-ugh! Oh, and look what she's given me for my birthday! It
comes from Germany," producing from his pocket a little compass. "Now if
ever I get lost, I can always find my way home. See, I can show you
which is north, and south, and east, and west."
"You'd better be going back, Gerda," remarked Dulcie grimly. "You know
we're not allowed in the Castle grounds without a special invitation."
"I'll come through the side gate," replied Gerda, turning from Ronnie
without even a good-bye. Deirdre and Dulcie dropped from the wall, and
met their room-mate at the identical moment when she passed through the
turnstile.
"Well, of all mean people you're the meanest!" observed Deirdre. "I call
it sneaky to take such an advantage, and go to play with Ronnie by
yourself. We'd do it if it were allowed, but it isn't."
"I wonder his governess wasn't with him," said Dulcie. "He's generally
so very much looked after."
"And as for going inside the Castle garden, it was most fearful cheek,"
continued Deirdre. "We, who know Mrs. Trevellyan quite well, never think
of doing such a thing."
"What I call meanest," put in Dulcie, "was to try and curry favour with
Ronnie by giving him a birthday present on your own account. Miss Birks
said there were to be no separate presents: we were all to join, so that
there'd be no jealousy--and you wouldn't subscribe. Oh, you are a nasty,
hole-and-corner, underhand sneak! Have you anything to say for
yourself?"
But Gerda stumped resolutely along with her hands in her coat pockets,
and answered never a word.
CHAPTER VIII
A Meeting on the Shore
"D'you know, Dulcie," remarked Deirdre, when the chums were alone, "the
more I think about it, the more convinced I am there's something queer
about Gerda Thorwaldson."
"So am I," returned Dulcie emphatically. "Something very queer indeed. I
never liked her from the first: she always gives me the impression that
she's listening and taking mental notes."
"For what?"
"Ah, that's the question! What?"
"I certainly think we ought to be on our guard, and to watch her
carefully, only we mustn't on any account let her know what we're
doing."
"Rather not!"
"She's no business to sneak away by herself when we're all salvaging on
the beach. She knows perfectly well it's against rules."
"She doesn't seem to mind rules."
"Well, look here, we must keep an eye on her, and next time we see her
decamping we'll just follow her, and watch where she goes. I don't like
people with underhand ways."
"It doesn't suit us at the Dower House," agreed Dulcie.
Though the chums kept Gerda's movements under strict surveillance for
several days, they could discover nothing at which to take exception.
She did not attempt to absent herself, or in any way break rules; she
asked no questions, and exhibited no curiosity on any subject. If
possible, she was even more silent and self-contained than before.
Rather baffled, the girls nevertheless did not relax their vigilance.
"She's foxing. We must wait and see what happens. Don't on any account
let her humbug us," said Deirdre.
One afternoon a strong west wind blowing straight from the sea seemed to
promise such a good haul at their engrossing occupation that the girls,
who for a day or two had forsaken salvaging in favour of hockey
practice, turned their steps one and all towards the beach. As they
walked along across the warren they had a tolerably clear and
uninterrupted view of the whole of the little peninsula, and were
themselves very conspicuous objects to anyone who chanced to be walking
on the shore. Deirdre's eyes were wandering from sea to sky, from
distant rock to near primrose clumps, when, happening to glance in the
direction of the cliff that overtopped St. Perran's well, she was
perfectly sure that she saw a white handkerchief waved in the breeze. It
was gone in an instant, and there was no sign of a human figure to
account for the circumstance, but Deirdre was certain it was no
illusion. She called Dulcie's attention to it, but Dulcie had been
looking the other way, and had seen nothing.
"Probably it was only a piece of paper blowing down the cliff," she
objected. "How could it be anyone waving? Nobody's allowed on the
warren."
"It might be Ronnie and Miss Herbert."
"Oh no! We could see them quite plainly if it were."
"Gerda, did you notice something white?"
"I don't see anything there," replied Gerda, surveying the distance with
her usual inscrutable expression. "I think you must have been mistaken."
It seemed quite a small and trivial matter, and though Deirdre, for the
mere sake of argument, stuck to her point all the way down to the beach,
the others only laughed at her.
"You'll be saying it's a ghost next," declared Betty. "I think you're
blessed with a very powerful imagination, Deirdre."
Arrived on the shore, the girls found their expectations fully
justified. Several most interesting-looking pieces of driftwood were
bobbing about just at the edge of the waves, and with a little clever
management could probably be secured, and would make a valuable addition
to the stack which was to furnish their beacon fire. Jessie Macpherson,
who possessed a pair of wading boots, was soon in command, directing the
others how to act so that none of the flotsam should be lost, and
marshalling her band of eager volunteers with the skill of a
coastguardsman.
"Wait for the next big wave! Have your hockey sticks ready! Doris and
Francie and I will wade in and try to catch it, then, when the wave's
going back, you must all make a rush and try to hold it. Not this wave!
Wait for that huge one that's coming. Are you ready? Now! Now!"
The owners of the wading boots did their duty nobly. They caught at the
floating piece of timber and held on to it grimly, while a line of girls
followed the retreating wave, and, making a dash, seized the trophy, and
rolled it into safety.
"Oh, it's a gorgeous big one--the largest we have!"
"That was neatly done!"
"We've robbed old Father Neptune this time!"
"It's a piece of luck!"
"Of flotsam, you mean!"
"Three cheers for the beacon!"
"Hip, hip, hip, hooray!"
"Hooray! Hooray!" echoed Dulcie, then she looked round, and suddenly
touched Deirdre on the arm.
In the midst of the general excitement Gerda had vanished. Where had she
gone? That was the question which the chums at once asked each other. It
was impossible that in so short a space of time she could have scaled
the steep path from the cove on to the top of the cliff. She must surely
have run along the shore instead. To the east the great mass of crags
formed an impassable barrier, but it was just practicable to round the
headland to the west. Without a moment's delay they dashed off in that
direction. They tore in hot haste over the wet sand, scrambled anyhow
amongst the seaweed-covered rocks at the point, regardless of injury to
clothing, and, valiantly leaping a narrow channel, turned the corner,
and found themselves in a second cove, similar to the former, but larger
and more inaccessible from the cliffs. They were rewarded for their
promptitude, as the first sight that caught their eyes was Gerda,
speeding along several hundred yards in front of them, as if she had
some definite object in view.
"Shall I shout after her?" gasped Dulcie.
"Not for the world," returned Deirdre. "We mustn't let her know she's
being followed."
"If she looks back, she'll see us."
"We'll hide behind this rock."
"She'll be round the next corner in a minute."
"So she will. Then, look here, we must wait till she's gone, and then
climb up the cliff, and run along and peep over from the top."
"Whew! It'll be a climb."
"Never mind, we'll manage it. Let us take off our coats and carry them.
I'm so hot."
Deirdre's precautions proved to be most necessary. Gerda turned at the
far headland, and took a survey of the bay before she scrambled round
the point. She did not see the two heads peeping at her from behind the
big rock, and, apparently, was satisfied that she had eluded pursuit. No
sooner had she disappeared than Deirdre and Dulcie hurried forth, and,
choosing what looked like a sheep track as the best substitute for a
path, began their steep and toilsome climb. Excitement and determination
spurred them on, and they persevered in spite of grazed knees and
scratched fingers. Over jagged pieces of rock, between brambles that
seemed set with more than their due share of thorns, catching on to
tufts of grass or projecting roots for support, up they scrambled
somehow, till they gained the level of the warren above.
The course that followed was a neat little bit of scouting. Making a
bee-line for the next cove, they then dropped on their hands and knees,
and, crawling under cover of the gorse bushes to the verge of the cliff,
peeped cautiously over. Gerda was just below them, standing at the edge
of the waves and looking out to sea. This creek was a much smaller and
narrower one than the others, and the rocks were too precipitous to
offer foothold even to the most venturesome climber.
Well concealed beneath a thick bush that overhung the brow of the crag,
Deirdre and Dulcie had an excellent view of their schoolmate's movements
without fear of betraying their presence. Gerda stood for a moment or
two gazing at the water, then she gave a long and peculiar whistle, not
unlike the cry of the curlew. It was at once answered by a similar one
from a distance, and in the course of a few minutes a small white dinghy
shot round the point from the west. It was rowed by a big, fine-looking,
fair-haired man, who wore a brown knitted jersey and no hat.
With powerful strokes he pulled himself along, till, reaching the
shallows, he shipped his oars, jumped overboard, and ran his little
craft upon the beach. He had scarcely stepped out of the water before
Gerda was at his side, and the two walked together along the beach, he
apparently asking eager questions, to which she gave swift replies. Up
and down, up and down for fully ten minutes they paced, too absorbed in
their conversation to look up at the cliff above, though had they done
so they would scarcely have spied the two spectators who cowered close
under the shelter of the overhanging hazel bush, squeezing each others'
hands in the excitement of the scene they were witnessing.
The man appeared to have many directions to give, for he talked long and
earnestly, and Gerda nodded her head frequently, as if to show her
thorough comprehension of what he was saying. At last she glanced at her
watch, and they both hurried back to where they had left the boat. He
launched his little dinghy, sprang in, seized the oars, and rowed away
as rapidly as he had arrived. Gerda stood on the beach looking after him
till he had rounded the point and disappeared from her view, then,
crying bitterly, she began to walk back in the direction from which she
had come. Deirdre and Dulcie waited until she was safely past the corner
and out of sight, then they sprang up and stretched their cramped limbs,
for the discomfort of their position had grown wellnigh intolerable.
"Ugh! I don't believe I could have kept still one second longer,"
exploded Dulcie.
"My feet are full of pins and needles," said Deirdre, stamping her
hardest, "and my elbow is so sore where I have been leaning on it, I
can't tell you how it hurts."
"It can't be worse than mine."
"I say, though, we've seen something queer!"
"Rather!"
"Who can that man be?"
"That's just what I want to know."
"It looks very suspicious."
"Suspicious isn't the name for it. Do you think we ought to tell Miss
Birks?"
"No, no, no! That would never do. We must say nothing at all, but go on
keeping our eyes open, and see if we can find out anything more. Don't
let Gerda get the least hint that we're on her track."
"Suppose Jessie asks us why we left the cove? What are we to say?"
"Why, that we missed Gerda, and as she's our room-mate, we went over the
warren to see if we could find her and make a threesome. It was our
plain duty."
Dulcie chuckled.
"Oh, our duty, of course! And naturally, of course, we didn't find her
on the warren. She wasn't there."
"She'll have to make her own explanations if Jessie asks her where she
was."
"Trust her for that!"
"I wonder what excuse she'll give?"
[Illustration: THE MAN APPEARED TO HAVE MANY DIRECTIONS TO GIVE
_Page 95_]
As it happened, everything turned out most simply. Deirdre and Dulcie
overtook Gerda farther on along the warren, and concluded that she had
probably climbed up from the second cove by the same path as themselves.
They discreetly ignored her red eyes and made some casual remarks upon
the weather. The three were walking together when the rest of the school
came up from salvaging. The head girl looked at them, but seeing that
they formed an orthodox "threesome" made no comment, and passed on. She
probably thought they had been taking a stroll on the warren. Gerda
looked almost gratefully at her companions. She had evidently felt
afraid lest they should mention the fact that she had not been with them
the whole time. She made quite an effort to speak on indifferent
subjects as they walked back, and was more conversational than they ever
remembered her. At tea-time, however, she relapsed into silence, and
during the evening nobody could draw a word from her. Dulcie woke once
during the night, and heard her crying quietly.
The two chums puzzled their heads continually over the meaning of the
strange scene they had witnessed. Many were the theories they advanced
and cast aside. One only appeared to Deirdre to be a really possible
explanation.
"I'll tell you what I believe," she said, "I think that man in the brown
jersey is a German spy. You know, although Gerda sticks to it that she
is English, we've always had our doubts. She looks German, and she
speaks better German than Mademoiselle, though Mademoiselle's Swiss, and
has talked two languages from babyhood. Gerda isn't an English name. She
says it was taken from Gerda in 'The Snow Queen', but can one believe
her? I'm called 'Deirdre' because my family's Irish, and it's an old
Celtic name, but 'Gerda' is distinctly Teutonic. Then she spells
Thorwaldson 'son' but in one of her books I found it written
Thorwaldsen, which is most suggestive. No, mark my words, she's a
German, and she's come here as a spy."
"What has she to spy on?" asked Dulcie, deeply impressed.
"Why, don't you see? A knowledge of this part of the coast would be
simply invaluable to the Germans, if they wanted to invade us. All these
narrow creeks and coves would be places to bring vessels to and land
troops, and the Castle could be taken and held as a fort, and perhaps
the Dower House too."
"Is that why she was measuring the passage?"
"It might very easily be! She'd give them a plan of the school."
"Oh! Would they come and turn us out and kill us?"
"One never knows what an enemy might do. This bit of shore is not at all
well protected; we're a long way from a coastguard station on either
side. It's just the sort of spot where a whole army could be quietly
landed in a few hours, before anyone had an inkling of what was going
on. There's no doubt that we ought to watch Gerda most carefully. It may
mean saving our country from a terrible catastrophe."
CHAPTER IX
A Message
Now that they had decided on an explanation of their schoolfellow's
mysterious conduct, the chums felt that every circumstance seemed to
point in its favour. They wondered they had never thought of it before.
The importance of keeping a strict watch was realized by both. There was
a certain satisfaction in doing so. They felt as if they were rendering
their country a service, almost indeed as if they were members of a
secret diplomatic corps, and had been told off for special duty. Who
knew what England might have to thank them for some day? Possibly at no
very far-off date the whole country might be ringing with their names,
and the newspapers publishing portraits of the two schoolgirls who had
averted a national disaster. Just to be prepared for emergencies, they
took snapshots of each other with Dulcie's Brownie camera, and added a
series of photographs of the school, all of which they thought would be
very suitable to give to the enthusiastic reporter who would demand an
illustrated interview. They were rather disappointed with the results of
the portraits, which in their estimation scarcely did them justice.
"I look more like forty than fourteen!" said Deirdre, regarding ruefully
the dark shadows on her cheeks and the lines under her eyes. "It doesn't
show my hair properly, either. No one could tell it was curly."
"And I look as fat as a prize pig, with no eyes to speak of, and an
imbecile grin."
"I wonder how real photographers manage to touch things up, and make
them look so nice?"
In spite of their best efforts it had proved impossible to do their
developing and printing without their handiwork being seen by their
companions. The photographs of the school were so good that the girls
begged them shamelessly to send home. Gerda was particularly
importunate, and even offered to buy copies when they were refused as a
gift.
"We don't sell our things," said Dulcie bluntly. "You may go on asking
till Doomsday, and you won't get a single print, so there!"
To the chums, Gerda's request was full of significance.
"It shows pretty plainly we're on the right track," said Deirdre. "Of
course she wants them to send to her foreign government. They'd pay her
handsomely."
"Don't she wish she may get them!" snorted Dulcie.
The affair made an added coolness in their dormitory. Gerda appeared to
think them unkind, while they stood more than ever on the alert. They
watched her unceasingly. For some days, however, they could find nothing
of an incriminating nature in her conduct. Possibly she was aware of
their vigilance, and was on her guard against them.
"I believe we're overdoing it," said Deirdre anxiously. "Best slack off
a little, and seem as if we're taking no notice of her. Don't follow her
about so continually. It's getting too marked altogether. We must be
diplomatic."
Just at present Gerda's behaviour was perfectly orthodox. If she went on
the warren, it was invariably as one of a "threesome", and the chums
could detect her in no more solitary and clandestine excursions. She
seemed to have assumed a sudden interest in salvaging, and particularly
in the beacon which the girls were beginning to build upon the headland.
No one was ready to work harder in carrying up the pieces of driftwood
from the beach, and piling them on to the great stack which every day
grew a little higher and higher, till it really began to be a
conspicuous object, and could be seen from both the villages of
Pontperran and Porthmorvan, and from the sea. It was at Gerda's
suggestion that a Union Jack, fastened to a pole, was kept flying from
the top--a little piece of patriotism which appealed to the school at
large, though it roused suspicion in the minds of the chums.
"It's a signal, of course," said Dulcie.
"Some fine day she'll pull it down, and substitute the German flag,"
agreed Deirdre. "She's only waiting her opportunity."
"Unless we circumvent her. There are two Britishers here who mean to
look after their country!"
It was curious how many little things, really quite trivial in
themselves, seemed to point in the direction of the chums' fears. Miss
Birks greatly encouraged a debating society among her girls, and on her
list of subjects for discussion had placed that of "National Truth
versus Diplomatic Evasions". Gerda had certainly been chosen to speak
for the opposition, and was therefore pledged to the side of diplomacy;
but Deirdre and Dulcie thought she made far too good a case of it, and
pleaded much too warmly the cause of the ambassador who on behalf of his
country's honour is obliged to meet guile with guile, and outwit the
enemy by means of stratagems and deeply-laid schemes.
"Any expedient is allowable for the sake of your fatherland," she had
contended, and Dulcie quoted the words with a grave shake of her head as
she talked the matter over with Deirdre.
"Notice particularly that she said fatherland! Now the Vaterland is
always Germany. She didn't mean Britain, you may depend upon it.
No--she's planning and scheming for another war!"
"Then we'll plan and scheme for King George! We'll accept her
principles, and 'make use of any stratagem to outwit the enemy'."
So they waited and watched, and watched and waited, in what they
flattered themselves was true Machiavellian style, till they were almost
growing tired of so fruitless an occupation.
Then one day, quite unexpectedly, something happened. It was a wild,
windy March morning, and the girls were taking a hasty run on the
warren between morning school and dinner, to "blow away cobwebs" and
give them an appetite. There was not time to go far, but they dispersed
in all directions, trying which could make the biggest distance record
available. Gerda had started with Annie Pridwell and Betty Scott, but
under pretence of beating their speed she had got considerably ahead and
left them panting in the rear.
"Where's Gerda?" asked Deirdre, who, with Dulcie and Evie Bennett, had
followed the first "threesome".
"We simply can't keep up with her! She walked as if she had
seven-leagued boots. She's gone over the hill there. I'm going to wait
till she comes back."
"There's no sense in flying like the wandering Jew!" protested Betty. "I
hope she won't be long, because I don't want to walk back as fast as I
came."
"Dulcie and I'll go after her," said Deirdre promptly. "We don't mind
running. You two can be toddling along with Evie as leisurely as you
like."
It only meant a change of "threesomes", so the girls agreed readily and
departed at once, leaving the chums to act escort to the truant.
"She's done it on purpose," gasped Dulcie as soon as they were alone.
"Of course. It's a perfectly transparent dodge. Now we must do Secret
Service work again and not let her see she's being followed."
The chums really congratulated themselves that they were getting on in
the matter of scouting, they availed themselves so cleverly of the cover
of rocks and bushes and proceeded with such admirable caution and care.
Their efforts were successful, for after a few minutes of skilful
stalking they caught sight of their quarry.
Gerda was climbing down the cliff side, fully a hundred feet below them,
and had nearly reached the level of the beach. She descended quickly,
almost recklessly, scrambling anyhow over rocks and through brambles,
and splashing through a boggy piece where a trickle of water had formed
a pool. Arrived on the shingle, she went straight to a hole among the
rocks, searched in the seaweed, and produced a bottle. Taking a piece of
paper from her pocket, she folded it into a long narrow slip and put it
inside, replacing the cork tightly. Then she ran towards the crag at the
mouth of the cove, and climbing up higher than was compatible with
safety she hurled the bottle as far as she could throw it into the sea.
She stood looking for a moment or two as it bobbed about on the surface
of the water, then, turning round, began to scramble back with more
haste than care.
"We've seen enough! Come quick before she spies us!" whispered Deirdre,
dragging Dulcie away. "We mustn't let her know we were anywhere near.
Let us run and be a long way off before she gets to the top of the cliff
and sees us."
The clanging of the first dinner bell, which could plainly be heard in
the distance, certainly offered a reasonable excuse for hurry. The chums
fled like hares, and even with their best efforts only took their places
at table when grace was said and the beef carved. Gerda was later still
and scurried in, hot and breathless, after the potatoes had been handed.
She drank her whole glassful of water at a gulp. Deirdre and Dulcie
avoided looking at her, but they nudged each other secretly. It was a
satisfaction to know what she had been doing, though they could not
openly proclaim their rejoicing. The penalty for lateness at meals was a
fine, but they put their pennies in the charity box with the feeling of
philanthropists. They considered them as contributions to a most
excellent cause.
It was Wednesday, and a half-holiday. At three o'clock the whole school
was to start for a walk to Avonporth, and in the meantime the girls were
expected to busy themselves with minor occupations. A certain number
were due at the pianos for practising or music lessons, and from the
rest stocking-darning, mending, and the tidying of drawers would be
required. Gerda marched off with a volume of Beethoven, and was soon
hard at work on the Moonlight Sonata under Mademoiselle's tuition. She
played well, for she had been carefully taught in Germany, and had a
good execution and sympathetic touch.
Deirdre and Dulcie stood outside the door for a moment or two listening
to her crisp chords.
"She's boxed up there safe for an hour," commented Deirdre.
"Yes, Mademoiselle won't let her off," agreed Dulcie.
"I could do my darning after tea, and my drawers are as tidy as tidy."
"So are mine!"
"Should we? Do you think we dare?"
"Yes, yes. I'm game if you are."
Then the pair did a scandalous deed, such as they had never even
contemplated in all their schooldays before. They took French leave and
went out on to the warren. They knew the consequences would be
disastrous if they were caught, for they were breaking three rules all
at once, absenting themselves without permission, going two together
instead of in a "threesome", and being on the headland at a forbidden
hour. Perhaps the very riskiness of the undertaking added to its
enjoyment.
"We must try and get that bottle, and here's our opportunity," said
Deirdre.
"We can't explain to Miss Birks now, but we can tell her some day that
we went out of sheer necessity," argued Dulcie.
"Of course; it's only our duty. Even the best of rules have to be broken
sometimes when it's a matter of expediency. Miss Birks will quite
appreciate that."
"Yes--when she knows the whole."
Meantime Miss Birks did not know, and the sense that their disinterested
motives might be liable to misinterpretation caused the chums to proceed
warily and avoid exposing themselves to any observer from the upper
windows. They tacked along bypaths and went rather a roundabout route to
reach their destination. Their hope was that the rising water might have
washed the bottle back on to the beach, for Gerda's arm had not been
strong enough to throw it sufficiently far to carry it into the open
sea, and when they last saw it it had been whirling round and round at
the mouth of the creek. They climbed down the cliff side by the same
track that she had followed, and ran eagerly to the edge of the waves.
The tide was much higher than it had been before dinner, and was rolling
up its usual toll of sticks, seaweed, and miscellaneous debris. What was
that dark-green object that kept appearing and disappearing, half-hidden
by a mass of floating brown bladderwrack? One moment it had vanished,
and the next it bobbed up persistently. Deirdre and Dulcie did not wait
to ask. With one accord they whisked off shoes and stockings (a
proceeding utterly and entirely forbidden except in the months of June
and July) and plunged into the water. They were both adepts in the art
of salvaging, but no piece of driftwood ever gave them more trouble than
that elusive bottle, which dipped and dived and evaded them with the
skill of an eel. The beach was shingly, not sandy, which made their
fishing not only a slippery but a most agonizing performance. They were
obliged to grip each other's hands to keep their foothold at all. At
last a larger wave than usual proved helpful, and indeed did its office
so thoroughly that it dashed the bottle against Dulcie's shins. With a
squeal of pain she caught it, nearly upsetting herself and Deirdre in
the process, and the pair hobbled back to where they had left their
shoes and stockings.
"Ugh! I'm absolutely lame! I didn't know stones could cut so,"
complained Deirdre.
"Look at my leg! It will be black and blue, I know," groaned Dulcie.
The possession of the bottle, however, was ample compensation for any
scars they might have won in the struggle for its acquisition. They
tried with impatient fingers to pull out the cork, but as that proved
obdurate they cut the Gordian knot by breaking the neck on a stone. The
thin piece of foreign note-paper was quite untouched by wet. Together
they unfolded it, knocking their heads in their eagerness to read it
both at once. At last, surely, they were within reach of Gerda's secret.
But the letter was written in German, and alas! the chums were still in
the elementary stages of the language, so that except for a chance word
here and there they could not decipher a line of it. Their
disappointment was keen.
"What does she mean by writing in her wretched old Deutsch?" demanded
Dulcie indignantly.
"Oh, bother her! I wish I could read it!" moaned Deirdre.
Never had the advantages of education appealed to the girls more
strongly. They began to think quite seriously of the necessity for
studying foreign languages.
"Why didn't I have a Fraeulein in my babyhood instead of an ordinary
English nursery governess?" lamented Deirdre.
"We may be able to do something with a dictionary," said Dulcie more
hopefully.
The idea was consoling enough to prompt them to put on their shoes and
stockings, pocket the document, and climb the cliff. After all, if they
could make little out of it themselves, they had at least prevented the
message from falling into the hands of the person for whom it was
destined, and so had frustrated Gerda's intention. That was sufficient
reward for their trouble, even without the chance of learning its
contents.
"We can keep asking separate words or even sentences until we can piece
it all together," said Dulcie sagely.
"Right you are! and now we'd best rush back as fast as we can."
Time waits for nobody, and during their excursion to the beach it had
seemed to roll on above the speed limit. Unless they meant to be late
for the walk, they must hurry. They were obliged to skirt the cliffs,
for they did not dare to show themselves on the open tract of the
warren. It was not particularly easy to make haste along a narrow path
beset with briers and riddled with rabbit holes. Deirdre went first,
because she always naturally took the lead, and Dulcie, whose physical
endurance was less, panted after her a bad second. Suddenly Deirdre
stopped, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked intently over the
sea at a small object in the far distance.
"What's that?" she asked sharply.
For a moment or two it had the semblance of a huge bird, then a strange
whirring noise was heard, and as it drew rapidly nearer and nearer they
could see it was an aeroplane flying at no great height over the water.
Apparently it was aiming for the exact spot where they were standing,
and, quite scared, the girls crouched down beside a gorse bush. With a
loud whirr it passed over their heads, and, steering as easily as a
hawk, alighted gently on the moorland only about a hundred yards farther
on.
Here was a pretty state of things! Had the vanguard of the German army
arrived already? And did the enemy mean to swoop down on the school?
They peeped timorously from behind the bush and saw two airmen in full
oilskins dismount hastily and make an examination of the machine.
Whether they were Germans it was impossible to tell; they spoke in tones
too low for their words to carry, and certainly their garments gave no
hint of their nationality. They looked round searchingly, as if
verifying their whereabouts, glanced in the direction of the girls who
cowered under their gorse bush, devoutly hoping they were not visible,
and consulted a map; then, after an earnest conference, entered their
machine again and started off in a northerly direction, flying over the
warren towards Avonporth. The chums, almost spellbound, watched the
aeroplane till it waned into a mere speck in the sky; then fear lent
them wings and they scuttled back to school at a pace they had never
attained even at the annual sports. Fortune favoured them, and they
managed to dodge unnoticed into the garden, run round to the front, and
just in the nick of time take their places among the file of girls
assembled on the drive.
Nobody mentioned the aeroplane, so evidently nobody but themselves could
have seen it. Whence it came and where it was going remained a mystery,
though Deirdre and Dulcie had a settled conviction that Gerda could have
enlightened them on that point. She was quite unconscious of the trick
they had played her, and as they walked just behind her they chuckled
inwardly at the knowledge that her cherished letter lay in Deirdre's
pocket. Outward and visible triumph they dared not venture on: it was
too dangerous an indulgence for those who wished to keep a secret. As it
was, they found it difficult to evade the enquiries of their friends.
"What became of you two just now?" asked Evie Bennett. "Miss Harding was
inspecting drawers, and she sent me to fetch you. I'd such a hunt all
over the place and couldn't find you anywhere."
"You're a notoriously bad looker, you know, Evie," returned Deirdre,
laughing the matter off.
"So Miss Harding said; but it isn't fair to expect one to find people
who aren't there."
"Perhaps Betty had mesmerized us into the hypnotic state and rendered us
invisible to mortal eyes such as yours!"
"Now, don't rag me! Oh, wasn't that joke spiffing! I shall never forget
VA with their faces all streaked with black! I laughed till I nearly
died. They haven't forgiven us, and I believe they're plotting something
to pay us back in our own coin."
"Let them try, if they like. We're not easily taken in."
"By the by, I was hunting for you two just now," Annie Pridwell broke
in. "I wanted to borrow some darning wool, and as I couldn't find you I
helped myself off your dressing-table. I don't know whose basket it was
I rifled. I took the last skein."
"Mine, but you're welcome," said Dulcie. "My stockings are darned for
this week, and shown to Miss Harding and put away. I'll get some more
wool on Saturday, if we go to the village."
"But I couldn't find you when I looked for you," persisted Annie.
"Yes, where were you?" asked Evie again.
But to such an inconvenient question the chums prudently turned deaf
ears.
Deirdre and Dulcie were determined to leave no stone unturned until they
had obtained a translation of the letter which they had purloined from
the bottle. They did not care to show the manuscript itself to any of
the elder girls, as to do so might be to betray their secret, but by
dint of asking odd sentences and words they made it out to run thus:
"Very little to report. No progress at all just at present. Extreme
caution necessary. Better keep clear of headland for a while, and let
all plans stand over." There was neither beginning nor signature, and no
date or address.
To the chums the communication had only one meaning. It must refer to a
German attack upon the coast. The aeroplane had probably been
prospecting for a suitable place to land troops. It was Gerda who was to
supply the information needed by the foreign government as to a
favourable time for executing a master-stroke.
Evidently she did not consider the hour was yet ripe. For the present
England was safe, but who knew for how long?
"It's that man in the brown jersey who's engineering the mischief," said
Deirdre. "When we see him sneaking about in his boat we may know there's
something on foot."
"What ought we to do?" asked Dulcie doubtfully.
"Nothing can be done just now, if they're on their guard and lying low.
We must be vigilant and keep a general eye over things. If anything
unexpected crops up we can warn the police. But, of course, we should
have to have very good grounds to go upon in that case, a perfectly
circumstantial story to tell."
"We've nothing but suspicions at present."
"That's the worst of it. We want more direct evidence. They might only
laugh at us for our pains, and we should get into trouble with Miss
Birks for interfering in concerns that aren't ours. No; we'll keep the
police as the very last resource, and only tell them what we know in the
face of a great emergency."
CHAPTER X
Marooned
Miss Birks's birthday fell on the 1st April, and so did Betty Scott's.
It was not a particularly happy date for an anniversary, but they both
declared they liked it. To Betty it was certainly a chequered event, for
the girls treated her to the jokes they dared not play on the
head-mistress, and she had to endure a double dose of chaffing. But, on
the other hand, a birthday shared with Miss Birks was luck above the
common. There was invariably a whole holiday, and some special treat to
celebrate the occasion. The nature of the festival depended so entirely
upon the day that it was not generally decided till the last minute,
which added an element of surprise, and on the whole enhanced the
enjoyment. Whether this year's jollification would be outdoors or
indoors was naturally a subject of much speculation, but the morning
itself settled the question. Such a clear blue sky, such brilliant
sunshine, and so calm a sea pointed emphatically to an excursion by
water, and Miss Birks at once decided to hire boats, and take the school
for a picnic to a little group of islets due west of the headland.
The girls loved being on the sea, and did not often get an opportunity
of gratifying their nautical tendencies, for they were, of course, never
allowed to hire boats on their own account. Miss Birks was too afraid of
accidents to permit lessons in rowing, though many of her pupils
thirsted to try their skill with the oars, and had often vainly begged
leave to learn in the harbour. To-day three small yachts, with steady
and experienced boatmen, were waiting by the quay at Pontperran, and
even Mademoiselle--the champion of timorous fears--stepped inside
without any nervous dread of going to the bottom of the ocean. It was
delightful skimming out over the dancing, shining water, so smooth that
the worst sailor could not experience a qualm, yet lapping gently
against the bows as if it were trying to leap up and investigate the
cargo of fair maidens carried on its bosom. With one accord the girls
struck up some boat songs, and the strains of "Row, brothers, row!" or
"Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing,
Over the sea to Skye,"
rang clear and sweet in the fresh spring air.
Everybody agreed that the passage was too short, and they were almost
sorry when they arrived at their destination. The islands were nothing
more than a group of five rocks, too small for cultivation, and
inhabited only by sea-birds. Some rough grass and bushes grew on the
largest, where there was also a shelving sandy strip of beach that
formed a safe landing-place. Here all disembarked, and the provision
hampers were carried ashore, together with the big iron trivet and
cauldron used for picnics. There was something very fascinating in thus
taking possession of a desert island, if only for a few hours. For the
present the school felt themselves a band of girl Crusoes, and set to
work at once in pioneer fashion to make preparations for lunch. There
was an ample supply of drift-wood lying above high-water mark to serve
as fuel under their trivet, so while some got the fire going, others
took garden spades which they had brought with them and dug sand seats
sufficient to accommodate the company. The chairs destined for the
mistresses were quite superior erections, provided with backs, and that
of Miss Birks was adorned with shells, specially collected from the
rocks by a committee of decoration told off for the purpose. In shape
and elaboration of ornament it resembled a throne, and as a finishing
touch the motto "A Happy Birthday" was placed in yellow periwinkles at
the foot.
By the time these extensive preparations were finished, the cauldron was
boiling, for the fire had been well kept up, and replenished with wood.
Miss Harding dropped in the muslin bag containing the tea, Jessie
Macpherson assumed command of the milk can, and a willing army carried
cups and laid out provisions. The boatmen were provided each with a
steaming pint mug of tea, and a basket of comestibles amongst them, and
retired to one of the yachts with grins of satisfaction on their
countenances. That hospitality having been settled, the cauldron--which
combined the function of urn as well--flowed busily, filling cup after
cup till the whole school collected on the sand seats to do justice to
the provisions. There were rival birthday cakes: Miss Birks's, a
nobly-iced erection decorated with candied violets, was perhaps the
larger of the two, but Betty's--sent from home--had the glory of fifteen
coloured candles.
"Yours ought to have had candles too, Miss Birks," she said, as she
carefully struck a match.
"I'm afraid they'd be too thick on the ground!" laughed Miss Birks. "I
used to have them when I was a child, but I barred the exhibition of my
years after I was twenty-one."
"I once knew a gentleman who had a huge birthday cake with seventy
candles on, and all his grandchildren came to his party," volunteered
Hilda Marriott.
"That must have been a truly patriarchal cake, and something to
remember. I'm afraid I can only offer you candied violets. Betty, shall
we each cut our first slice at the same moment? Here's to everybody's
health and prosperity and good luck for the rest of the year!"
It was the first real picnic since last autumn, so, added to the double
birthday, it seemed a more than ordinary festivity, and everybody waxed
particularly jolly. Miss Birks told humorous Irish stories, and made
endless jokes; even Miss Harding, usually the pink of propriety, was
guilty of an intentional pun. The merry meal was over at last, and when
the baskets had been repacked, all dispersed to wander round the tiny
island. It did not differ particularly from the mainland, but the girls
found it amusing to investigate new coves, and ramble about on the
grassy expanse at the top of the cliffs. A few sought out Miss Birks and
begged to be allowed to explore the next largest islet of the group, so
after a little discussion half a dozen were sent off under charge of
Miss Harding in one of the boats. As there only remained about forty
minutes before it would be necessary to go back, it was arranged that
this boat should not waste time by returning to the bigger island, but
should start on its own account, independently of the other two, as soon
as its party had made a brief survey of the islet.
Deirdre and Dulcie, who were venturesome climbers, took advantage of the
extra liberty allowed them on this special day to escape by themselves
without the tiresome addition of the usual third, and scaled the very
highest point of the rocky centre. Here they found they had an excellent
view of the whole of the small group, and could command a prospect of
cove and inlet quite unattainable from the shore. Dulcie had brought a
pair of field-glasses, and with their aid distant objects drew near, and
what seemed mere specks to the ordinary vision proved to be sea-birds,
preening their wings, or resting upon the rocks. They watched with great
interest the progress of the boat to the other island.
"Didn't know Miss Birks was going to let anyone go, or we'd have gone
ourselves," lamented Deirdre. "Who's in her? Can you see?"
"Perfectly. Miss Harding and Jessie Macpherson, Phyllis Rowland, Doris
Patterson, Rhoda Wilkins, Irene Jordan, and Gerda Thorwaldson. David
Essery is rowing them."
"Oh, I wish we'd gone!" repeated Deirdre enviously. "Give me the
glasses, and let me take a look."
It was a very long look, that swept all round the islands and took in
every detail of cliff and rock. Deirdre repeated it twice, then gave a
sudden exclamation.
"Dulcie, you see that big black cliff over there--rather like a
seal--count three points farther on, and tell me if you don't think
there's a boat in that tiny inlet."
Dulcie seized the glasses, and proceeded to verify the statement.
"It is! Oh, it certainly is! It's moving out now from behind the rock.
Somebody's in it, rowing--Deirdre! I do believe----"
"Not him!" shrieked Deirdre ungrammatically, snatching the glasses from
her friend. "Oh, it is! I'm perfectly persuaded it is! It's just his
figure, and he rows in the same way exactly--the man in the brown
jersey!"
"Then Gerda's engineered that expedition to go and meet him. It's as
plain as plain!"
Their excitement was intense. It did indeed seem an important discovery,
and an added link in their chain of circumstances. Should they stay
where they were, and watch the meeting through the field-glasses, or
would it be possible to follow the matter up more nearly? They resolved
to make a try for the latter. Climbing down as rapidly as they could
from their point of vantage, they found Miss Birks, and entreated to be
allowed to join the party on the other island.
"John Pengelly would row us over, and we'd catch them up immediately,"
they pleaded. "Oh, do please let us go!"
Miss Birks was in a birthday frame of mind, and prepared to listen to
any fairly-reasonable request.
"There would be quite room for you to go home in David Essery's boat,"
she acquiesced. "Yes, you may go if you wish. John Pengelly can take you
at once. Tell Miss Harding I sent you, and you're to return with her
party."
The boatman was good-natured, and apparently did not mind making the
extra journey. He grinned at the girls as he pushed off.
"Can't have too much of the sea, missies?" he ventured. "I'll soon pull
you over there."
He landed them carefully on the second island, then rowed back to the
first landing-place to join his fellow boatman and smoke a pipe till it
was time to start. Deirdre and Dulcie knew exactly which way Miss
Harding and the girls had gone, and their plain duty was to follow them
as rapidly as possible, and report themselves as additions to the party.
They did nothing of the sort, however. Instead, they took exactly the
opposite direction, and made for the western side of the islet, where
they had seen the mysterious boat.
"You may depend upon it we shall find Gerda there," said Deirdre. "It's
better not to let her know we're here. We're far more likely to catch
her."
With a little scrambling they reached an inlet, which--so they
calculated--must be the one they had marked through the field-glasses.
They could see no boat, however, and no Gerda. They waited for a while,
then rambled farther along the shore, but finding nothing, came back to
their former point. They had so entirely counted upon Gerda being there
that they felt decidedly disappointed.
"Perhaps she couldn't sneak off," suggested Dulcie. "Miss Harding's very
tiresome and particular sometimes."
"I wonder if the boat's waiting about for her?" said Deirdre. "I should
very much like to know."
Obeying a sudden impulse, she advanced to the edge of the waves and
reproduced, as nearly as she could remember it, the long peculiar curlew
cry which Gerda had given as a signal on the former occasion. The effect
was instantaneous. There was an answering whistle, and from behind a
rock not very far away a small craft shot out into the creek. It was
undoubtedly the same white dinghy which they had seen before, and
contained the same tall, fair man who had spoken with their school-mate.
He rowed forward with a few rapid strokes, then seeing Deirdre and
Dulcie he paused, took a searching glance round the shore, turned his
boat, and rowed away from the island, passing as quickly as possible
behind the shelter of the next of the group. Deirdre stood watching him
through the field-glasses as he disappeared. She was not altogether sure
whether she had not made a false move. It was perhaps hardly wise to
have thus put him on his guard, and let him become aware that they knew
of the curlew signal. She already regretted her hasty, thoughtless act.
She was conscious that it would defeat her own ends. It seemed no use
staying any longer in the creek, for he would certainly not be likely to
return after such an alarm.
"We'd better go and find Miss Harding," suggested Dulcie.
It was undoubtedly high time they reported themselves, so, putting the
field-glasses back in their case, they set off for the other side of the
island. Arrived at the opposite cove, they looked eagerly for their
school-mates, but nobody was to be seen.
"I expect they're a little farther on," suggested Deirdre, hiding the
fear she dared not own.
But they were not farther on, and though the girls climbed the cliff, so
as to have a thorough view of the shore, and shouted and cooeed till
they were hoarse, there was not a sign of a human being anywhere. Far on
the horizon were three tiny specks.
Dulcie took out the all-useful glasses, and adjusted the focus
anxiously. One glance confirmed her worst apprehensions--the boats had
gone, and left them behind! It was perfectly easy to see how it had
happened. Miss Birks, having sent them specially across the sound,
believed them to be with Miss Harding's party, and Miss Harding did not
even know that they had left the larger island. It was their own fault
entirely for not reporting themselves. While they had been watching the
mysterious boatman on the wrong side of the island, the others must have
been starting, utterly unconscious that two of their number were
missing.
"We're marooned! That's what it amounts to." Deirdre's voice shook a
little as she made the unwelcome admission.
"Well, of all idiots we're the biggest! We have got ourselves into a
jolly fix!" exploded Dulcie.
It was highly probable that they would not be missed until the arrival
at the harbour. Then, no doubt, someone would come back for them, but
the tide was rising rapidly, and perhaps by the time a boat could return
it would not be possible to land and take them off. The prospect of a
night spent on a desert island was not enlivening. Then, too, came
another fear. The mysterious stranger was in the near neighbourhood.
Hidden behind rocks and creeks he might have accomplices, who might take
it into their heads to reconnoitre. The idea was horrible. They felt an
intense dread of the unknown man in the brown jersey. He must be very
angry that they had discovered his signal. Suppose he were to find them,
and wreak his vengeance upon them? They bitterly rued their folly,
though that did not mend matters in the least.
"We won't go over to that side of the island again, in case he might see
us," quavered Dulcie. "Let us sit down here, in this sheltered corner.
How cold it's getting!"
"I'm hungry, too," sighed Deirdre. "There's nothing to eat on the place
except raw periwinkles!"
The sun had set behind a bank of grey clouds, and even in the last ten
minutes the daylight had faded noticeably. A chilly wind had sprung up,
and the girls shivered as they buttoned their coats closely.
"Do you hear something?" said Dulcie presently.
It was a sound of oars, and both pricked up their ears, half-nervously,
half-hopefully. They did not venture to show themselves till they could
ascertain whether it were friend or enemy. Hidden under the shadow of
the rock, they watched the darkening water, then gripped each other's
hands in terror--it was the white boat that appeared round the corner.
Its brown-jerseyed occupant was rowing slowly and leisurely, with a
careful eye on the shore as he went. Would he see them? They were only
partially concealed, and a keen observer might easily detect their
presence. To Deirdre those few minutes equalled years of agony--her
lively imagination summoned up every possible horror. He paused at last
on his oars, and gave the long shrill curlew call. A hundred seagulls
screamed in reply. Twice, thrice he repeated it, then apparently judging
it a failure, he rowed away in the direction of the mainland.
Dulcie was crying with fright and cold. She let the tears trickle
unwiped down her plump cheeks. She was not cut out by nature for a
heroine, and would gladly just then have given up all chance of seeing
her portrait in the newspapers if she could have found herself safely
back in the schoolroom at the Dower House. Adventures might be all very
well in their way, but this one had gone decidedly too far.
"I wish you'd never suggested our coming," she said fretfully. "It was
your fault, Deirdre."
"Don't be mean, and try and throw the blame on me! You were just as keen
as I was!"
"I'm not keen now! I wish to goodness we'd never bothered our heads
about Gerda. You won't catch me on such a wild-goose chase again!"
"I'm utterly disgusted with you, Dulcie Wilcox!" returned Deirdre
witheringly; and Dulcie wept yet harder, to have added to her physical
troubles a quarrel with her chum.
It was almost dark before a search party, consisting of Miss Birks and
three boatmen, arrived to fetch them, and the tide had risen so high
that it was impossible to land as before, so that John Pengelly had to
wade through the water and carry each of them in turn on his back to the
boat. Miss Birks said little, but they knew it was the ominous silence
before a storm, and that she would have much to say on the morrow. They
were intensely thankful when they at last saw the lights of Pontperran,
and felt they were within measurable distance of food and fire.
"You provided a nice birthday treat for Miss Birks, I must say,"
commented Jessie Macpherson sarcastically. "What possessed you to go off
on your own in that silly way? There was nothing in the least
interesting on that side of the island, and you knew where we were, and
that we should be starting almost directly. I simply can't understand
such foolishness! Why did you do it?"
But an explanation of the motives that had influenced their conduct was
the very last thing in the world that Deirdre and Dulcie felt disposed
to offer, even to mitigate the scorn of the head girl.
CHAPTER XI
"Coriolanus"
It was an old-established custom at the Dower House that at the end of
every term the girls must make a special effort to distinguish
themselves. They would get up a play, or a concert, or a Shakespeare
reading, sometimes a show of paintings, carving, and needlework, or a
well-rehearsed exhibition of physical exercises and drill. It was quite
an informal affair, only intended for themselves and the mistresses,
though occasionally Miss Birks invited a few friends to help to swell
the audience. Now April was here, the Easter holidays seemed fast
approaching, and preparations were accordingly made for the usual
function. As a rule, the girls organized the affair themselves, under
the direction of the Sixth Form, but this term Miss Harding stepped in
and assumed the management. She decreed that all the members of the
Latin classes should give a Latin play, and selected a version of
_Coriolanus_ for their performance. About half the school took Latin,
just enough to make up the cast required, so both senior and junior
students were set to work to learn speeches and get up orations. At
first they were entirely dismayed at the prospect of so arduous an
undertaking.
"I hardly thought Miss Harding was serious when she proposed it," said
Annie Pridwell, who with Deirdre, Dulcie, and Gerda made up the four
representatives of VB.
"Serious enough in all conscience," groaned Dulcie, turning over the
leaves of the small volume with an air of special tragedy.
"Volumnia--Volumnia--yes, here she comes again--Volumnia--oh! why am I
chosen for Volumnia? I'll never get all this stuff into my head!"
"You'll look the character nicely," said Annie consolingly. "You've
really rather a classic sort of nose, and you'll have a big distaff and
spindle, and be spinning as you talk."
"That won't help me to remember my part, unless I can write it on a
scrap of paper and hide it among the flax. I declare, it's not fair!
Volumnia has far more to say than Tullus Attius or Sicinius. You ought
to have something extra tagged on to your parts."
"We've quite enough, thanks!" declared Deirdre and Annie hastily.
"As for Gerda," continued Dulcie, "she's being let off too easily
altogether. Her Senator's speech is only eight lines."
"Well, it's my first term at Latin, remember," said Gerda.
"Jessie Macpherson will have to swot like anything to get up 'Caius
Marcus Coriolanus'. I'm glad I'm not picked for the show part, anyhow."
"Jessie won't mind swotting if she has a chance to shine. There'd have
been trouble if she'd had to play second fiddle."
"No one would be rash enough to suggest that. She's not head of the
school for nothing."
"Look here! Is this play to be part of the Latin lesson or an extra?
Shall we be excused our ordinary prep.?"
"Not a line."
"Oh, what a shame! Then it's giving us double lessons. I wish Miss
Harding had left us to get up a concert by ourselves."
Although the girls might grumble and make rather a fuss over learning
their parts, they soon committed the little play to memory, and thanks
to Miss Harding's efforts rehearsals went briskly. Jessie Macpherson,
whose cleverness certainly justified her assumption of general
superiority, rose to the occasion nobly, and tripped off her long
speeches as if Latin were her mother tongue, to the envy and admiration
of those who still halted and stumbled.
"Jessie had got through her grammar before she came to the Dower House,
though," said Irene Jordan, herself a beginner. "It gives her an
enormous pull to have started early."
"Boys' schools get up ever such grand Latin plays," remarked Rhoda
Wilkins. "At Orton College, where my brothers go, they did the _Phormio_
of Terence. We went to see it, and it was splendid. It took fully two
hours. Ours won't take one."
"Well, one expects boys to be better at Latin."
"Some girls' schools run them hard," said Phyllis Rowland. "I know girls
who can beat their brothers."
"Oh, yes, at the big High Schools, where you choose classics or modern
languages, and stick to one side. At the Dower House we dabble in
everything all round, maths., and science, and accomplishments thrown in
as well. Well, it gives you the chance to see which you like best."
The most serious question in connection with the performance was the
arrangement of the costumes. Miss Harding and the elder girls pored over
illustrated Roman histories and classical dictionaries, trying to get
the exact style of the period.
"It's difficult to reproduce with twentieth-century materials," said the
mistress. "One feels all the linens ought to be homespun, and woven in a
loom like Penelope's; and as for the scenery--well, we shall just have
to do the best we can."
"As long as we avoid anachronisms we shall be all right," said Jessie
Macpherson. "We shall have to leave something to the imagination of the
audience."
The whole school was requisitioned to help, and large working parties
were held in the dining-room. The girls found it an amusement to hem
togas or construct shields out of cardboard and brown paper, and
stitched quite elaborate borders on the robes of Veturia, Volumnia, and
Valeria. One of the difficulties that presented itself was the question
of footgear. Roman matrons did not wear serviceable school shoes with
heels, or elegant French ones either. It would certainly be necessary to
contrive sandals.
"We can't cut our best shoes down for the occasion!" said Marcia
Richards.
"I'd leave the school first!" returned Phyllis Rowland.
Hiring "Roman" sandals was too great an expense, and an ambitious
attempt of Jessie Macpherson's to make them out of paper turned out a
ghastly failure.
In the end Miss Harding cut some from strips of cloth, and this effect
proved classical enough to serve the purpose.
"That will be the best we can manage," she said.
"I'm thankful I haven't to do a dance in mine. It would be a queer sort
of shuffle!" confided Dulcie to her chum.
In honour of the very special effort which was being made, Miss Birks
decided to send a number of invitations and ask quite a considerable
gathering to an afternoon performance.
"It's going to be really a swell thing for once," said Deirdre. "I hear
Miss Birks is getting new curtains--those old ones are quite worn
out--and the joiner is to come and fix a rod. And there's to be tea
after the entertainment. Such heaps of people are coming!"
"Who?" asked Gerda.
"Oh, Major and Mrs. Hargreaves and their little boys, and Canon Hall and
Miss Hall, and Dr. and Mrs. Dawes, and all the four Miss Hirsts, and the
Rector of Kergoff, and Mr. Lawson, and of course Mrs. Trevellyan."
"And Ronnie?"
"Rather! We wouldn't leave Ronnie out of it! Miss Herbert is to come
too, if she hasn't gone home for the holidays."
"You've never seen Mrs. Trevellyan yet, Gerda?" put in Dulcie.
"Only in church."
"Well, but I mean to speak to. You didn't go to Ronnie's birthday party,
and the day she came here you were as shy as a baby, and scooted out of
the way."
"I can't help being shy," returned Gerda, blushing up to the very tips
of her ears.
"Why, there you are, turning as red as a boiled lobster! Miss Birks says
shyness is mostly morbid self-consciousness, and isn't anything to be
proud of. Why don't you try to get out of it? It looks right-down silly
to colour up like that over simply nothing at all. I'd be ashamed of
it!" said Dulcie, who could be severe on other people's faults, though
she demanded charity for her own.
"Gerda's copying eighteenth-century heroines!" mocked Deirdre. "They
always tried to outvie the rose. Didn't Herrick write a sonnet to his
Julia's blushes? And I'm sure I remember reading somewhere:
'O, sweet and fair,
Beyond compare,
Are Daphne's cheeks.
And Daphne's blushing cheeks, I swear!'
Go it, Gerda! Can you possibly get a little redder if you try? If you
outvie the rose, there's still the peony left!"
Gerda took her room-mates' teasing, as she took everything else at the
Dower House, with little or no remonstrance. It would have pleased the
girls much better if they could have raised a spark out of her. Her
queer, self-contained reserve was not at all to their taste, and they
awarded the palm of popularity to Betty Scott, whose high spirits,
perpetual jokes, and amusing tongue made her the public entertainer of
the Form.
"I wish Betty were acting," sighed Dulcie. "She's always the life and
soul of a play. It was very stupid of her mother not to want her to
learn Latin."
"I'm afraid Gerda'll be a perfect stick as Ancus Vinitius," whispered
Deirdre.
"An absolute dummy," agreed her chum.
But they underestimated Gerda's talents. Her part was a small one, yet
she rendered it excellently. She walked, acted, and spoke with a calm
dignity well in keeping with the character she represented. Everybody
agreed that she made a most reverend and stately senator.
"I ought to look old, though," she maintained. "It's absurd for us all
to look so youthful."
"Powder your hair," suggested Irene.
"Not enough. I think I can do better than that."
Rather to the girls' amusement, Gerda seemed more than ordinarily
anxious about her costume.
"She couldn't make more fuss if she was taking Coriolanus himself!"
laughed Dulcie. "The Senator might be the chief part."
Gerda had notions of her own, which she proceeded to carry out. She went
to Jessie Macpherson and borrowed the white wig, and with the help of
some more sheep's wool contrived a beard to match. On the afternoon of
the performance she not only donned these, but blackened her eyebrows
and painted her face with a series of wrinkles and crows'-feet.
"Why, it's splendid!" exclaimed the girls. "You look seventy at the very
least. Just the sort of venerable old city father you're meant for."
"You'd hardly know me, would you?" enquired Gerda casually.
"Nobody would know you. I don't believe even Miss Birks will recognize
you. It's the best make-up of anybody's. Jessie'll be proud to see her
wig used after all. She'll almost wish she'd worn it herself."
The performers found the dressing nearly the greatest part of the fun.
They arranged Volumnia's classical garments and ornaments, adjusted her
gold fillet; draped the folds of Veturia's flowing robe, and persuaded
Brutus to abandon spectacles for the occasion.
"You forget we're supposed to be in _circum_ 490 B.C.," remarked Jessie
Macpherson.
"I shall be blind without them!" objected Brutus.
"Never mind! You must catch hold of Sicinius's toga if you get into
difficulties."
"The Chinese used spectacles ages ago. Couldn't a pair of them have got
imported into Rome?"
"Certainly not. Those goggles of yours would spoil the whole classical
spirit of the play, and I shan't allow them."
"Well, I suppose I'll worry through somehow; but if I upset the rostrum
don't blame me!"
"You've just got to go through your part without upsetting anything,
spectacles or no spectacles, or you'll have to settle with me
afterwards!" observed Jessie grimly.
By half-past three all the invited guests had arrived and taken their
places in the dining-hall, where a temporary platform had been put up.
From behind the curtains the performers could take surreptitious peeps
and watch the arrival of the audience. Dulcie, with her eye at a tiny
opening, reported progress to the others.
"There's the Vicar! There's Mrs. Hargreaves with all the boys! There's
Canon Hall! Oh, here's Mrs. Trevellyan, and Miss Herbert and Ronnie
behind her!"
"Where are they sitting?" asked Gerda.
"Right in the middle of the front row. Do you want to peep?"
"Thanks--just for a second. Tell me, is my beard all right? Miss Birks,
or--anyone else--wouldn't know me?"
"Not from Adam! What a fuss you make about your costume!" said Dulcie
impatiently. "Nobody'll notice it all that much. There are ten others
acting as well as yourself."
"I'm glad you snubbed her," said Deirdre, as Gerda having taken her peep
between the curtains, retired to the back of the stage.
"She really needs it sometimes. It isn't good for people to let them get
swollen head."
"Are you all ready?" asked Miss Harding anxiously. "Then ring the bell,
Marcia. Now, Rhoda, don't forget your cue, 'Satis verborum,' and
remember to speak up. And, Doris, do put the right accent on 'Dulce et
decorum est pro patria mori'. I shall be so ashamed if you get it
wrong."
The audience clapped vigorously as the curtains parted and disclosed an
atrium with Veturia and Volumnia seated spinning and chatting as Roman
matrons may very possibly have chatted in the year 490 B.C. The scene
was really pretty, and became impressive when Caius Marcius arrived with
his proud news. Jessie Macpherson had an excellent idea of acting, and,
as her features were classical, she made an ideal personation of the
future Coriolanus, putting just the right amount of aristocratic
haughtiness into her demeanour and calm command into her tone of voice.
Miss Harding had been nervous about many points, but as the play went
on, and scene succeeded scene, she breathed more freely. Every girl was
on her mettle to do her best, and things that had dragged even at the
dress rehearsal now went briskly. Nobody needed prompting, and nobody
forgot her cue; all spoke up audibly, and even the lictor, who had been
the most difficult to train, did not turn his back on the audience.
Though many of the guests certainly could not understand the dialogue,
the plot of the play was so palpable that all could easily follow the
story from its interesting opening to the end. Coriolanus died nobly,
and fell to the ground with a really heroic disregard of possible
bruises; and Veturia commanded the sympathy of the entire room as she
shared his fate. The performers received quite an ovation as they stood
in a line making their bows.
"Really, Miss Birks, your girls are too clever for anything," remarked
Canon Hall. "Their Latin was most excellent."
"The soft pronunciation makes it sound just like Italian," said Mrs.
Trevellyan. "They deserve many congratulations."
"Yes, they caught the classical spirit of the thing so well," agreed Mr.
Poynter, the vicar.
"Considering that many of them are beginners, I think it is fairly well
to their credit, and certainly to Miss Harding's," said Miss Birks.
"This is the first Latin play they have attempted. Another time they
will do better."
The next part of the function was tea in the drawing-room, to which
guests and pupils were alike invited.
"Be quick and change your costumes!" commanded Coriolanus behind the
scenes. "Here! somebody please unfasten me at the back! Where are my
shoes gone to?"
"Why need we change?" interposed Gerda quickly. "It will take so long,
tea'll be over before we're ready. Why can't we go in as we are?"
"Oh, yes, let us keep on our costumes!" agreed Dulcie, who liked being a
Roman lady. "Miss Harding, mayn't we have tea in character?"
"Why, I dare say it will amuse the visitors. Yes, run in as you are if
you wish. Gerda, wouldn't you like to take off that beard and wash your
face? Come here and I'll help you."
"No, thanks! I'd rather keep it on, really."
"I don't know how you'll negotiate any tea!"
"I don't mind."
The eleven performers made quite a sensation as they filed into the
drawing-room. All the children among the guests wanted to examine their
garments and handle their mock daggers. Ronnie in particular persisted
in calling his aunt's attention to every detail.
"I like Jessie and Rhoda and Hilda the best," he declared frankly. "I
didn't know Marcia at first. And who do you think that old man is? It's
Gerda--Gerda Thorwaldson! Gerda, do let Auntie look at you! Yes, you
must come! I'll drag you! Here she is, Auntie!"
"How do you do, my dear? Your make-up seems excellent," said Mrs.
Trevellyan kindly, smiling as the senator blushed furiously under his
painted wrinkles. "Ronnie, you mustn't be naughty! Don't hold her if she
wants to go. What a little tyrant you are!"
"Gerda is such a very shy girl," said Miss Birks, as Ronnie loosed his
hold and Ancus Vinitius made his escape. "I always have the greatest
difficulty in persuading her to speak to strangers. It amounts to a
fault."
"A pardonable failing at her age," returned Mrs. Trevellyan. "She'll
outgrow it presently, no doubt. At any rate, it's pleasanter than too
great self-assurance, which is generally the reproach cast at young
people of the period. It's quite refreshing nowadays to meet a girl who
is shy."
CHAPTER XII
In Quarantine
However excellent the arrangements of a school, and however happy the
girls may be there, the word "holidays" nevertheless holds a magic
attraction. Miss Birks's pupils thoroughly appreciated the Dower House,
but they would not have been human if they had not rejoiced openly in
the immediate prospect of breaking-up day. Already preparations were
being made for the general exodus; the gardener was carrying down trunks
from the box-room, Miss Harding was checking the linen lists, and the
girls were sorting the contents of their drawers and deciding what must
be left and what taken home.
"These are going to be extra-special holidays," triumphed Deirdre. "You
know, my sister's at school at Madame Mesurier's, near Versailles? Well,
Mother and I are to have ten days in Paris, so that we can see Eileen
and take her about. Won't it be absolutely ripping? I've never been
abroad before, and I'm just living for it. We're to go and see all the
sights. Eileen's looking forward to it as much as I am."
"I'm going to stay with my cousins in Hampshire," said Dulcie. "They're
mad on horses, so I shall get some riding. They always give me 'Vicky',
the sweetest little chestnut cob. She goes like a bird, and yet she's so
gentle. When we're not riding we play golf. Their links are gorgeous."
"Where are you going, Gerda?" asked Deirdre.
"To London, to meet Mother," replied Gerda, with a light in her eyes
such as the chums had not seen since she arrived. She offered no details
of further plans, but evidently the prospect satisfied her. All three
girls were counting the hours till their departure. There is a dour old
proverb, however, which states that "there's many a slip 'twixt cup and
lip", and for once its pessimistic philosophy was justified.
On the very morning of the breaking-up day Deirdre, who had passed a
funny, feverish night, woke up to find her face covered with a rash.
Dulcie went for Miss Birks, who, after inspecting the invalid and
finding on enquiry that both Dulcie and Gerda had slight sore throats,
forbade the three to leave their bedroom until they had been seen by a
medical man. Very much disconcerted, they took breakfast in bed.
"It may be only nettle-rash," said Deirdre. "I had it once before when
I'd eaten something that disagreed with me."
"And I expect Gerda and I caught cold on the warren yesterday. No doubt
it's nothing," said Dulcie, trying to thrust away the horrible
apprehensions that oppressed her.
When Dr. Jones arrived, however, and examined his patients he sounded
the death-knell of their hopes. He pronounced Deirdre to be suffering
from a slight attack of German measles, and from Dulcie's and Gerda's
symptoms diagnosed that they were sickening for the same complaint.
"The rash will probably be out to-morrow," he announced. "With care in
the initial stages it should prove nothing serious, but for the present
they are as well in bed."
The three victims could hardly believe the calamity that had overtaken
them. To stop in bed with measles when their boxes were packed and the
last things ready to go into their hand-bags, and their trains arranged
and their relations notified of the time of their arrival!
"It's--it's rotten!" exclaimed Deirdre, turning her flushed face to the
wall.
"If it's German measles I believe it's your fault, Gerda!" declared
Dulcie, weeping openly.
"I didn't start them!" objected poor Gerda.
"You've had them packed in your box, then!" snapped Dulcie, who was
thoroughly cross and unreasonable. "Oh, won't it make a pretty
hullaballoo in the school?"
The sympathies of the moment might well be with Miss Birks. She had
caused each of her remaining seventeen pupils to be examined by the
doctor, and as all appeared free from symptoms was sending off seventeen
telegrams to inform parents of the circumstances and ask if they wished
their daughters to return home or to remain in quarantine. Without
exception the replies were in favour of travelling, so the usual cabs
and luggage carts drove up, and the girls, rejoicing greatly, were
packed off under Miss Harding's escort by the midday train to Sidcombe
Junction, where they would change for their various destinations.
In spite of strict injunctions to keep warm, Deirdre got out of bed and
watched the departure from the window.
"To think that I ought to have been sitting inside that bus, and my box
ought to have been on that cart!" she lamented. "Oh, I could howl!
Mother will have got our tickets for Paris. I wonder if she'll go
without me? Oh, why didn't I powder my face and say nothing about it?"
"You couldn't have hidden that rash! Besides, it's horribly dangerous to
catch cold on the top of measles. Get back into bed, you silly! I'll
tell Miss Birks if you don't! Do you want what the doctor called
'complications'? I think you're the biggest lunatic I know, standing in
your night-dress by an open window!" Dulcie's remarks were sage if not
complimentary, so Deirdre tore herself away from the tantalizing
spectacle of the start below and dutifully returned to her pillow just
in time to save herself from being found out of bed by Miss Birks, who,
having said good-bye to the travellers, came upstairs to condole with
the three invalids.
"I can't think how we caught it!" sighed Dulcie.
"At our performance of _Coriolanus_, I'm afraid," said Miss Birks. "Dr.
Jones tells me that all the little Hargreaves are down with it. He was
called in to attend them yesterday. Probably they were sickening for it
and gave you the infection."
"I hope Ronnie won't have caught it!" gasped Gerda.
"I trust not, indeed. I shan't feel easy till I have sent to the Castle
to enquire about him. It certainly is the most unfortunate happening.
But Deirdre may be glad she had not started for Paris. There is nothing
so miserable or so disastrously expensive as to be laid up in a foreign
hotel. The proprietor would have demanded large compensation for
measles, even if he had allowed her to remain in the house. Probably she
would have been removed to a fever hospital."
"Not a pleasant way of seeing Paris!" said Deirdre, summoning up a
smile.
"You'll have a holiday there another time, I'm sure. And now you must
all be brave girls and try to make the best of things. Fortunately, none
of you seem likely to be really ill. We'll do what we can to amuse
ourselves."
Miss Birks spoke brightly, and her cheery manner hid her own
disappointment, though she might justly have indulged in a grumble, for
she had been obliged to cancel all her arrangements for a motor tour and
stay to attend to her young patients. The responsibility of looking
after them and the subsequent disinfecting which must be done would
completely spoil her holiday. She was not a woman to think of herself,
however, and she put her aspect of the case so entirely aside that the
girls never even suspected that her regrets were equal, if not superior
to their own.
As the doctor had prophesied, both Dulcie and Gerda developed the rash
on the following day. Fortunately, all three girls had the complaint
very slightly, and beyond a touch of sore throat and sneezing were not
troubled with any very disagreeable symptoms.
"The microbes have only fought a half-hearted battle, and they are
retiring worsted," declared Miss Birks; "they're not as savage as
scarlet-fever germs."
"Quite tame ones," laughed Dulcie.
"Germs 'made in Germany' aren't likely to be A1," said Deirdre, with a
quip at Gerda.
After a day or two in bed, Dr. Jones pronounced his patients
convalescent, gave them permission to go downstairs, and held out the
promise of a walk on the warren if they continued to improve. Their
period of isolation was a fortnight, after which they were to be allowed
to go home for the remaining week of the holidays. If it had not been
for the thought of what they were missing, they might have congratulated
themselves on having an extremely good time. Miss Birks was kindness
itself, and allowed every indulgence possible. They were kept well
supplied with books, in cheap editions which could be burnt afterwards,
and had licence to pursue any hobby which admitted of disinfection. Dr.
Jones brought good reports of the Hargreaves children, who were now
convalescent. Ronnie had most fortunately not caught any germs, and was
away with Mrs. Trevellyan in Herefordshire. Of the seventeen girls who
had returned home, Irene Jordan only had developed a slight rash, so
that on the whole the school had escaped better than might have been
expected.
After the constant society of their class-mates, the three invalids felt
the Dower House to be very large and empty and lonely. It was
astonishing how different it seemed now the rooms were untenanted. The
whole place wore a changed aspect. In ordinary circumstances they hardly
ever gave a thought to the ancient associations of the house, but now
they constantly remembered that it had been occupied as a convent, and
that hundreds of years ago gentle grey-robed figures had flitted up and
down those identical stairs and paced those very same passages. It was
the code of the school to laugh at superstition, and none of the girls
would confess to a dislike to go upstairs alone, but it was remarkable
what excuses they found for keeping each other company.
Gerda was the worst off in this respect, for Deirdre and Dulcie, though
ready to accommodate each other, did not show her too much
consideration, and would often ruthlessly disregard her palpable hints.
They kept very much together, and though not openly rude, made her feel
most decidedly that she was _de trop_. She never complained, nor offered
the least reproach; her manner throughout was exactly the same as it had
been since her first arrival, gentle, reserved, and uncommunicative.
Sometimes the chums, out of sheer naughtiness, tried to pick a quarrel
with her, but she never lost her self-control, and either kept entire
silence, or replied so quietly to their gibes that they were rather
ashamed of themselves. To Miss Birks Gerda did not open her heart any
more than to her room-mates. She appeared grateful for kindness, but
the Principal's best efforts could not make her talk, and on the topic
of her home and her relations she was dumb. To any questions she would
return the most brief and unwilling answers, and seemed reluctant to
have the subject mentioned at all. After several vain attempts to win
her confidence, Miss Birks gave up trying, and allowed her to go on in
her usual self-contained silent fashion--a negative policy not wholly
satisfactory.
All three girls made excellent progress, and Dr. Jones very soon gave
permission first for a gentle walk round the garden at midday, then for
a longer time out-of-doors.
"We've been making invalids of them, though they're not invalids at
all," he said jokingly. "They're nothing but three humbugs! Look at
their rosy cheeks! And I hear reports of such excessive consumption of
chicken broth, and jelly, and other delicacies, I shall have to diet
them on porridge and potatoes. I think Miss Birks is too good to you,
young ladies. When I was at school I wasn't pampered like this, I assure
you, whatever infectious complaints I managed to catch. They used to
dose us with Turkey rhubarb, no matter what our ailment; it was a kind
of specific against all diseases, and nasty enough to frighten any
microbe away."
"May we go home next week?" pleaded Deirdre.
"Girls who catch German measles don't deserve to go home. But I know
Miss Birks wants to get rid of you, so I won't be too severe. Yes, I
think I may consider you cured, and give you your order of release for
next Wednesday."
That evening three very jubilant girls sat in the small schoolroom
scribbling their good news.
"This day week we shall be at home," rejoiced Deidre.
"Oh, goody! I am so glad! I can hardly write sense. I hope Mother'll
understand it. She's accustomed to my ragtime letters, though."
"Miss Birks is sending post cards about the trains," volunteered Gerda.
"A good thing, too, for I never remember to put the time. Shall I read
you what I've said, Deirdre?
"DARLING MUMMIE,
"I'm coming home--oh! isn't it spiffing? Do let us have trifle
and sausages for supper, and let Baba stop up for it. I've made
her a present, and it's not infectious, because Miss Birks has
had it stoved. And it will be ripping to see you all again. I'm
so glad I shan't miss Douglas. I hope Jinks is well, but don't
let them bring him to the station to meet me, in case he gets on
the line. Oh, high cockalorum for next week!
"Heaps and heaps of love from
"DULCIE."
"It's a good thing Miss Birks is sending a post card, you silly child,"
remarked Deirdre crushingly. "You've never told your mother which day
you're coming, to say nothing of mentioning a time."
"Oh, haven't I? No more I have. I'll put it in a P.S. I hope Mother
won't forget I said trifle and sausages. She always lets me choose my
own supper on the day I go home, and we have it all set out in the
breakfast-room. Generally we only get biscuits and milk before we go to
bed. I think they might let Baba sit up this time. She's nearly six. Oh,
bother! My stamps are upstairs. Do come with me, and I'll fetch them. I
simply hate going alone."
"You're as big a baby as Baba," returned Deirdre. "No, I can't and won't
and shan't go with you. You must pluck up your courage for once. Dear me
there's nothing to be afraid of, you scared mouse."
Thus duly squashed by her own chum, Dulcie made no further plea; she
only banged the door in reply, and they could hear her footsteps
stumping slowly and heavily upstairs. In a few moments, however, she
descended with a much swifter motion, and, looking pale and frightened,
burst into the schoolroom.
"There's somebody or something inside the barred room," she gasped.
"It--whatever it is--it's tapping on the door. I daren't go past."
Both Deirdre and Gerda rose to the rescue, and--three strong--the girls
ventured to investigate. With a few pardonable tremors they drew aside
the curtains that concealed the door of the mysterious room. There was
nothing to be seen or heard, however. The iron bars had not been
tampered with, and all was dead silence within.
"Your nerves are jumpy at present, and you'd imagine anything," decided
Deirdre.
"I didn't imagine it. I really heard it. I tell you I did. Oh, I say!
There it is again!"
Instinctively the girls clung together, for from inside the door
certainly came the sound of rapping, not very loud, but quite
unmistakable.
"Who's there?" quavered Deirdre valiantly. But there was no reply. "If
you want help, speak," she continued.
The three held their breath and listened. Dead silence--that was all,
nor was the rapping repeated.
"I've heard it before," whispered Gerda.
"When?"
"Several times. Once just after I came, and again in the middle of the
term, and about three weeks ago. It's always the same. A few taps, and
then it stops."
"Did any of the other girls hear it?"
"I didn't ask them."
"It's spooky to a degree. What can it be?"
"Oh, do you think there's anybody inside?" whimpered Dulcie.
"Why didn't he answer, if there was?"
"He might be deaf and dumb. Oh, perhaps that's the secret of the room.
Is some poor creature shut up there? Oh, it's too horrible!"
"Don't get hysterical!" said Deirdre. "Mrs. Trevellyan wouldn't go
shutting up deaf and dumb people! It is very mysterious, though."
"Shall we tell Miss Birks?" suggested Dulcie.
"No, certainly not. She's always fearfully down on us if we get up any
scares about the barred room. Don't you remember how cross she was with
Annie Pridwell and Betty Scott last term?"
"Do you ever hear any other noises?" asked Gerda.
"No, only what might reasonably be rats or mice."
"Has anyone any notion what's inside?"
"Not the very slightest. I don't believe even Miss Birks knows."
"Well, look here," said Dulcie. "I shall never dare to go down this
passage alone again. One of you will simply have to come with me."
"I don't think we'll very much care to go alone ourselves," returned
Deirdre.
"You called me a scared mouse!" Dulcie's tone was injured, as if the
epithet still rankled.
"Well, we're three scared mice, and it's a case of 'see how they run!'"
laughed Deirdre, getting back her self-possession. "We'll go up and down
in threesomes for the future."
"You promise? You'll never make me pass here by myself again?"
"Faithfully, on my honour! We'll act police, and protect you against a
dozen possible spooks. Do stop squeezing my arm, you've made it quite
sore!"
"I don't know how it is, Deirdre, you never take things seriously. I
can't see anything to laugh about myself. The whole thing's queer, and
uncanny, and mysterious, and I hate mysteries. Why can't Mrs. Trevellyan
have the bars taken down and let us look into the room?"
"Ah! Ask me a harder."
"'While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door,'"
quoted Gerda, who was learning "The Raven".
"You're both determined to make fun of it, and it isn't a laughing
matter," complained Dulcie. "I haven't got my stamps yet. Come along!"
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/33909