"'Late last night I slew my wife,Stretched her on the parquet flooring;I was loath to take her life,But Ihadto stop her snoring!'"
"'Late last night I slew my wife,Stretched her on the parquet flooring;I was loath to take her life,But Ihadto stop her snoring!'"
quoted Hereward fromRuthless Rhymes.
"Look here!" said Quenrede, emerging from the kitchen with a half-packed lunch basket. "We three are taking sandwiches, and going for a good old tramp over the moors. Why not drop your work for once and come with us? You look as if you needed a holiday."
"I've a beast of a headache," admitted Athelstane.
"You want fresh air, not study," decreed Quenrede with sisterly firmness, "and I shall just make some extra sandwiches and put another apple in the basket. With mother out, the orphan will carol all the morning, unless you gag her, so you may as well accept the inevitable."
"Cut and run, in fact!" added Hereward.
"The voice of the siren tempts me to go—to escape the voice of the siren who stays!" wavered Athelstane.
"Oh, come along, old sport!" urged Ingred. "What are a few old bones to Red Ridge Barrow? You can swat to-night to make up, if you want to."
"It's three to one!" said Athelstane, giving way gracefully; "and there mayn't be any more fine Saturdays for walks."
The four young people started forth with the delightful sense of having the day before them. It was fairly early, and a hazy November sun had not yet drawn the moisture from the heather. On the moor the few trees were bare, but the golden autumn leaves still clothed the woods in the sheltered valley that stretched below. Masses of gossamer covered with dew-drops lay among the bracken, like fairies' washing hung out to dry. There was a hint of hoarfrost under the bushes. The air had that delicious invigorating quality when every breath sets the body dancing. It was too late in the year for flowers, though here and there a little gorse lingered, or a few buttercups and hawkweeds. After about an hour of red haziness the sun pierced the bank of mist and shone out gloriously, almost as in summer; the birds, ready to snatch a moment's joy, were flitting about tweeting and calling, a water-wagtail took a bath in a shallow pool of a stream, and a great flock of bramblings, rare visitors in those parts, paused in their migration to hold a chattering conference round an old elder tree.
The Saxons were determined to-day to go farther afield than their walks had hitherto taken them. The local guide-book mentioned some prehistoric menhirs and a chambered barrow on the top of Red Ridge, a distant hill, so they had fixed that as their Mecca.
It was a considerable tramp, but the bracing air helped them on, and they sat down at last to eat their lunch by the side of the path that led to the summit. The boys had wished to mount to the top without calling a halt, but the girls had struck, and insisted on a rest before the final climb.
"Pity Mother isn't here!" said Ingred, voicing the general feeling of the family, which always missed its central pivot.
"Yes, but it would have been too great a trapse for her, poor darling!" qualified Quenrede. "I don't see how we could get her all this way unless we hired a pony."
"Or borrowed an aeroplane. One seems about as possible as the other," grunted Ingred.
"She shall have a photo of the stones at any rate," said Hereward, fingering his camera. "Hurry up and finish, you girls, or the light will be gone!"
"Well, we can't bolt our sandwiches at the rate you do! I wonder you don't choke!"
The old gray stones stood in a circle on the top of the hill, from whence they had possibly seen four thousand summers and winters pass by. Whether their original purpose was temple, astronomical observatory, or both is one of the riddles of antiquarian research, for neolithic man left no record of his doings beyond the weapons buried with him in his barrow. Legend, however, like a busy gossip, had stepped in and supplied points upon which history was silent. Traditions of the neighborhood explained the menhirs as twelve giants turned into stone by the magic powers of good King Arthur, who, in defiance of the claims of the isle of Avalon, was supposed to be buried in a hitherto unexplored chamber of the large green mound that stood near. Sometimes, so the story ran, the giants whispered to one another, and any one who came there alone at daybreak on May morning might glean much useful information regarding the personal appearance of his or her future lover. As it was obviously difficult to reach so out-of-the-way a spot at such a very early hour, the oracles were seldom consulted at the one and only moment when they were supposed to whisper. There were reputed, however, to be other and easier means of gleaning knowledge from them. Ingred, who had been priming herself with local lore, confided details of the occult ceremonial to Quenrede.
"It sounds rather thrillsome!" admitted that damsel doubtfully. "I'd really like to try it, only the boys would tease me to death. You know what they are!"
"They're going over there to photograph the cromlech. You'd have time before they come back."
"Shall I?"
"Go on!"
"Tell me again what to do."
"You let your hair down, and walk bareheaded in and out and in and out round all the circle of stones. Then you put an offering of flowers on that biggest stone—the Giant King, he's called—and throw a pebble into the little pool below. You count the bubbles that come up—one for A, two for B, &c.,—and they'll give you the initial of your future lover. Withverygreat luck, you might see his shadow in the pool, but that does not often happen."
"I don't believe in it, of course, but I'll try for fun! The Giant King won't get much in the way of a bouquet to-day!"
Quenrede, protesting her scepticism, but all the same palpably enjoying the magic experiment, picked an indifferent nosegay of the few buttercups, hawkweeds, and late pieces of scabious which were the only flowers available. Then she removed her hair-pins, and, letting down a shower of flaxen hair, commenced her winding pilgrimage among the old gray stones. There is a vein of superstition in the most modern of minds, and she was probably following a custom that had come down the ages from the days when our primitive ancestresses clothed themselves in skins and twisted their prehistoric locks with pins of mammoth ivory. In and out and in and out, with Ingred, like an attendant priestess, behind her, she performed the necessary itinerary, and laid her floral offering upon what may have been the remains of a neolithic altar. The pool below was dark and boggy and brown with peat. She took a good-sized pebble, and flung it into the middle with a terrific splash. Ingred, giggling nervously, counted the bubbles.
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I—It's 'I,' Queenie! No, there's another! It's 'J'! It's going to be 'J,' old sport! Aren't you thrilled? Oh, I say! Whoever on earth is that?"
Following the direction of her sister's eyes, Quenrede looked through a veil of wind-blown hair, to see, standing among the stones, a stranger of the opposite sex, garbed in tweed knickers and leather gaiters. One glance was enough. The next second she turned, and beat a hurried and ignominious retreat to the sheltered side of the green mound. Ingred, panting in the rear, followed her to cover.
Quenrede, very pink in the face, sat down on a clump of heather and immediately began to put up her hair.
"I never felt such an idiot in my life!" she confided with energy to her sympathetic audience of one. "Ingred! That man knew what I was doing! I saw the horrid amusement in his face. He was laughing at me for all he was worth. Iknowhe was!"
At eighteen it is an overwhelming matter to be laughed at. Quenrede's newly-developed dignity was decidedly wounded.
"After all, it was a very schoolgirlish thing to do," she remarked, sticking in hair-pins as well as she could without a mirror. "Do you think he's still there? I shall stop here till he marches off."
"I'll go and prospect," said Ingred.
She came back with the bad news that not only was the stranger still there, but he was actually in close and apparently familiar conversation with Athelstane and Hereward, who were calling loudly for their sisters, and to confirm her words came distant jodellings of:
"Ingred!"
"Queenie!"
"Where are you girls?"
There was nothing for it but to come forth from their retreat. It was impossible to stay hidden forever. Quenrede issued as nonchalantly as she could, with her hair tucked under her tam-o'-shanter, and her gloves on. She bowed instead of shaking hands when Athelstane introduced Mr. Broughten, a fellow-student of his college; it seemed a more grown-up and superior attitude to adopt. She thought his eyes twinkled, but she preserved such an air of stand-off dignity that he promptly suppressed any undue inclinations towards mirth, and stood looking the epitome of grave politeness.
"Broughten knows all about the old barrow," Athelstane explained. "He's got a candle with him—we were duds not to bring one ourselves—and he's going to act showman. Come along!"
The entrance into the mound was through a low doorway with lintel and posts of unhewn stone. Inside was a kind of central hall with three rudely-constructed chambers leading out of it. A pile of rough stones in front seemed to point to further chambers.
"That part's never been explored yet," said Mr. Broughten. "Some of us want to tackle it some day, if we can get permission, but it's a big job. You don't want to bring the barrow down on your head, and be buried in the ruins! I never think the roof looks too secure," he added easily, poking at the stones above with his stick.
The girls, aghast at the notion of a possible subsidence, made a hasty exit to the open air, and hovered near the entrance in much agitation of mind till the rest of the party made a safe reappearance. Their conductor, with a side glance at the bunch of flowers—which Quenrede ignored—made some reference to the Giant King stone and his whispering companions: he was evidently well versed in all old traditions, though he refrained from mentioning local practices. He walked part of the way home with the Saxons before he branched off to the place where he had left his bicycle.
"You looknice—you do,really, with your hair down," said Ingred to Quenrede that night, as the latter sat wielding her hairbrush at bedtime. "And you needn't be afraid anybody would mistake you for a flapper. Why, Harry Scampton actually asked Hereward the other day if you were married! By the by," she added wickedly, "do you know I've ascertained that Mr. Broughten's Christian name begins with 'J.' Whether 'John' or 'James' I can't say!"
"I don't care if it's Jehosaphat!" snorted Queenie. "I've told you already he doesn't interest me in the least!"
It was about this time that a general spirit of trouble and dissatisfaction seemed to creep into the school. How and where it started nobody knew, any more than one can trace the origin of influenza germs. There is no epidemic more catching than grumbling, however, and the complaint spread rapidly. It had the unfortunate effect of reacting upon itself. The fact that the girls were restive made the teachers more strict, and that in its turn produced fresh complaints. Miss Burd, careful for the cause of discipline, made a new rule that any form showing a record of a single cross for conduct would be debarred for a week from the use of the asphalt tennis-courts, a decidedly drastic measure, but one that in her opinion was necessary to meet the emergency.
Though the disorder was mostly among the juniors,Vawas not altogether immune from the microbe. It really began with a quarrel between Ingred and Beatrice Jackson. The latter was a type of girl common enough in all large schools. She was not always scrupulously honorable over her work, but she liked to curry favor with the mistresses. She copied her exercises shamelessly, would surreptitiously look up words in the midst of unseen Latin translation, and was capable not only of other meannesses, but sometimes of a downright deliberate fib. She and Ingred were at such opposite poles that they did not harmonize well together. In the old days, with visions of parties at Rotherwood, Beatrice had at least been civil, but now that there seemed no further prospect of being asked to pleasant entertainments, she had turned round and treated Ingred with scant politeness in general, and sometimes with deliberate rudeness. Little things that perhaps we laugh at afterwards, hurt very much at the time, and Ingred was passing through an ultra sensitive phase. During the latter part of that autumn term she detested Beatrice.
One day Miss Burd announced that on the following Saturday there was to be a match played in a suburb of Grovebury between two first-class ladies' hockey clubs. She suggested that it might be of advantage to some of the girls to go and watch it, and proposed that each of the upper forms should elect one of their number as special reporter to write an account of the match which could be read aloud afterwards in school. The idea rather struck them.
"It's Finbury WanderersversusHilton," said Linda Slater, "and they're both jolly good, I know. Wish I could have gone myself, but I'm booked already for Saturday."
"Heaps of us are," said Cicely Denham.
"We'd like to hear about it, though," added Kitty Saunders. "I call it rather a brain wave to choose a reporter."
"Hands up any girls who are free on Saturday!" called Beatrice Jackson.
The announcement had been made rather late, so most of the form already had engagements for the holiday. Only six hands were raised, belonging respectively to Ingred Saxon, Avie Irving, Avis Marlowe, Francie Hall, Bess Haselford, and Beatrice Jackson herself.
"A poor muster forVa!" remarked Kitty. "As Ingred's our warden, I should think she'd better write the report."
"The Finbury ground is a horribly awkward place to get to," put in Beatrice. "I suppose you'll motor there, Ingred."
"We have no car now," confessed Ingred, turning very red, for she was sure that Beatrice knew that fact only too well, and had brought it into prominence on purpose to humiliate her.
"Oh! I suppose you'll be motoring, Bess? Couldn't you give some of us a lift?"
"I believe I could take you all," replied Bess pleasantly. "Of course I shall have to ask Dad first if I may have the car out on Saturday, but I don't expect he'll say no."
"Oh, what sport! We'll come, you bet. Look here, I beg to propose that Bess Haselford writes the report of the match."
"And I second it," declared Francie. "Hands up, girls! Bess shall be 'boss' for this show."
Half the girls in the room had not heard Kitty's proposal that Ingred should be chosen, and some of the others, listening imperfectly, had gathered that she was not able to go to the match, so without giving her a further thought they raised hands in favor of Bess, and the matter was carried.
"But indeed I'm no good at writing or describing things!" protested Bess.
"Yes, you are! You've got to try, so there!" cried her friends triumphantly. "You'll do it just as well as anybody else would."
Ingred turned away with a red-hot spot raging under her blouse. That she, the warden of the form, should have been passed over in favor of a girl whose sole qualification seemed to be that she could offer some of the others a lift in her car, was a very nasty knock. Was Bess to supplant her in everything?
"Perhaps you'd like to make her warden instead of me!" she remarked bitterly to Belle Charlton, who stood near. "I'm perfectly willing to resign if you're tired of me!"
Belle only giggled and poked Joanna Powers, who said:
"Don't be nasty, Ingred! Bess is a sport, and we most of us like her."
"I can't see the attraction myself!" snapped Ingred.
She did not want to go to the hockey match now, and made up her mind obstinately that nothing in this wide world should decoy her to it. Bess came to school next morning armed with full permission to use her father's car and to invite as many of her schoolfellows as it would accommodate. She cordially pressed Ingred to join the party.
"I'm not going to the match, thanks," replied the latter frigidly.
"But there's heaps of room—there is indeed, without a frightful squash."
"There's something I want to do at home on Saturday."
"Couldn't you do it in the morning? The form will be disappointed if you don't go—and, I say——" (shyly) "I wish you'd write that wretched report instead of me. I hate the idea of doing it!"
"The form won't care twopence whether I go or stay away, and as they've chosen you to write the report you'll have to write it or it'll be left undone," retorted Ingred perversely.
Bess, looking decidedly hurt, turned away. Her little efforts at friendship with Ingred were invariably met in this most ungracious fashion. She could not understand why her kindly-meant advances should always be so systematically repulsed. Ingred, on her part, stalked off with the mean feeling of one who at bottom knows she is in the wrong, but won't acknowledge it even to herself. Under the sub-current of indignation she realized that she would have liked Bess immensely if only the latter had not taken up her residence at Rotherwood. That, however, was an offense which she deemed it quite impossible ever to forgive.
Ingred went about her work that morning in a very scratchy mood, so much so as to attract the attention of Miss Strong, who possibly felt a little prickly herself, since even teachers have their phases of temper. It was at that time a fashion in the form for the girls to keep all sorts of absurd mascots inside their desks, the collecting and comparison of which afforded them huge satisfaction. Now Miss Strong happened to be lecturing on "The Age of Elizabeth," a subject so congenial to her that she was generally most interesting. But to-day she had reached a rather dry and arid portion of that famous reign, and even her powers of description failed for once and the lesson became a mere catalogue of events and dates. Ingred, bored stiff with listening, secretly opened her desk, and, taking a selection of treasures from it, began to fondle them surreptitiously upon her lap. It was, of course, a quite illegal thing to do. She glanced at them occasionally, but for the most part kept her eyes upon her teacher. Beatrice, however, who sat near and had an excellent view of Ingred's lap, gazed at it with such persistent and marked attention that she attracted the notice of Miss Strong, who followed the direction of her looks and pounced upon the offender.
"Ingred Saxon, what have you there? Bring those things to me immediately and put them on my desk!"
With a crimson face Ingred obeyed, and handed over into the teacher's custody:
1. A black velvet cat.2. A small golliwog.3. A piece of four-leaved clover.4. A stone with a hole in it.5. An ivory pig.
1. A black velvet cat.
2. A small golliwog.
3. A piece of four-leaved clover.
4. A stone with a hole in it.
5. An ivory pig.
Miss Strong smiled cynically.
"At fifteen years of age," she remarked, "I should have thought a girl would have advanced a little further than playthings of this description. The Kindergarten would evidently be a more fit form for you thanVa! You lose five order marks."
Five order marks! Ingred gasped with amazed indignation. One at a time was the usual forfeit, but to lose five "at one fell swoop" seemed excessive, and would make a considerable difference to her weekly record. She blazed against the injustice. No girl in the form had ever had so severe punishment.
"Oh, Miss Strong!" she protested hotly. "Five!I haven't really done anything more than heaps of the others. It's not fair!"
Now if Ingred had really hoped to get her sentence remitted she could not have done a more absolutely suicidal thing. A mistress may overlook some faults, but she will not stand "cheek." The discipline of the form was at stake, and Miss Strong was not a mistress to be trifled with. Her little figure absolutely quivered with dignity, and though physically she was shorter than her pupil, morally she seemed to tower yards. She fixed her clear dark eyes in a kind of hypnotic stare on Ingred and remarked witheringly:
"That will do! I don't allowanygirl to speak to me in this fashion! You'll take a cross for conduct as well as losing the five order marks. You may go to your seat now."
Ingred walked back to her desk covered with humiliation. To be publicly rebuked before the whole form was an unpleasant experience, particularly for a warden. Beatrice, Francie, and several others were holding up self-righteous noses, though their desks contained an equal assortment of mascots. Ingred, still seething, made little attempt to listen to the rest of the lecture, and was obliged to pass the questions which came to her afterwards on the subject-matter. She was heartily thankful when eleven o'clock brought the brief ten minutes "break."
"Well, youhavebeen a lunatic this morning!" said Beatrice, passing her, biscuits in hand, in the cloak-room. "What possessed you to go and lose the tennis-court for the form?"
"If you hadn't stared so hard at me Miss Strong would never have noticed."
"Oh, of course! Throw the blame on somebody else! You're always the 'little white hen that never lays astray.'"
"Kitty and Evie and Belle and I had arranged a set!" grumbled Cicely Denham. "It's most unfair, this rule of punishing the whole form for what one girl does!"
"Go and tell Miss Burd so then!" flared Ingred. "It hasn't been very successful so far to tell teachers they're not fair, but you may have better luck than I had. She'll probably say: 'Oh, yes, Cicely dear, I'll rearrange the rules at once!' So like her, isn't it?"
"Now you're sark! Almost as sarky as the Snark herself!" commented Cicely, as Ingred, choking over a last biscuit, stumped away.
There is much written nowadays about the unconscious power of thought waves, and certainly one grumbler can often spread dissatisfaction through an entire community. Perhaps the black looks which Ingred encountered from the disappointed tennis-players in her form turned into naughty sprites who whispered treason in the ears of the juniors, or perhaps it was a mere coincidence that mutiny suddenly broke out in the Lower School. It began with a company of ten-year-olds who, with pencil boxes and drawing books, were being escorted by Althea Riley, one of the prefects, along the corridor to the studio. Hitherto, by dint of judicious curbing, they had always walked two and two in decent line and had refrained from prohibited conversation. To-day they surged upstairs in an unseemly rabble, chattering and talking like a flock of rooks or jackdaws at sunset. It was in vain that Althea tried to restore order, her efforts at discipline were simply scouted by the unruly mob, who rushed into the studio helter-skelter, took their places anyhow, and only controlled themselves at the entrance of Miss Godwin, the art mistress.
Althea, flushed, indignant, and most upset, sought her fellow-prefects.
"Shall I go and complain to Miss Burd?" she asked.
"Um—I don't think I should yet," said Lispeth a little doubtfully. "You see, Miss Burd has given us authority and she likes us to use it ourselves as much as we can, without appealing to her. Of course in any extremity she'll support us. I'll pin up a notice in the junior cloak-room and see what effect that has. It may settle them."
Lispeth stayed after four o'clock until the last coat and hat had disappeared from the hooks in the juniors' dressing-room. Then she pinned her ultimatum on their notice board:
"In consequence of the extremely bad behavior of certain girls on the stairs this afternoon, the prefects give notice that should any repetition of such conduct occur, the names of the offenders will be taken and they will be reported to Miss Burd for punishment."
"That ought to finish those kids!" she thought as she pushed in the drawing-pins.
There was more than the usual amount of buzzing conversation next morning as juvenile heads bumped each other in their efforts to read the notice. The result, however, was absolutely unprecedented in the annals of the school. It was the custom of the Sixth Form, and of many of the Fifth, to take their lunch and eat it quietly in the gymnasium. There was no hard and fast rule about this, but it was generally understood to be a privilege of the upper forms only, and intermediates and juniors were not supposed to intrude. To-day most of the elder girls were sitting in clumps at the far end of the gymnasium, when through the open door marched a most amazing procession of juniors. They were headed by Phyllis Smith and Dorrie Barnes carrying between them a small blackboard upon which was chalked:
DOWN WITH PREFECTS!RIGHTS FOR JUNIORS!THE WHOLE SCHOOL IS EQUAL!
DOWN WITH PREFECTS!RIGHTS FOR JUNIORS!THE WHOLE SCHOOL IS EQUAL!
After these ringleaders marched a determined crowd waving flags made of handkerchiefs fastened to the end of rulers. A band, equipped with combs covered with tissue-paper torn from their drawing-books, played the strains of the "Marseillaise." They advanced towards the seniors in a very truculent fashion.
"Well, really!" exclaimed Lispeth, recovering from her momentary amazement. "What's the meaning of all this, I'd like to know?"
"It's a strike!" said Dorrie proudly, as she and Phyllis paused so as to display the blackboard before the eyes of the Sixth. "We don't see why you big girls should lord it over us any longer. We'll obey the mistresses, but we'll not obey prefects."
"You'll just jolly well do as you're told, you impudent young monkeys!" declared Lispeth, losing her temper. "Here, clear out of this gymnasium at once!"
"We shan't! We've as good a right here as you!"
"We ought to send wardens to the School Parliament."
"We haven't any voice in school affairs!"
"It's not fair!"
"We shan't stand it any longer!"
The shrill voices of the insurgents reached crescendo as they hurled forth their defiance. They were evidently bent on red-hot revolution. Lispeth rose to read the Riot Act.
"If you don't take yourselves off I shall go for Miss Burd, and a nice row you'd get into then. I give you while I count ten. One—two—three—four——"
Whether the strikers would have stood their ground or not is still an unsolved problem, but at that opportune moment the big school bell began to clang, and Miss Willough, the drill mistress, in her blue tunic, entered the gymnasium ready to take her next class. At sight of her, Dorrie hastily wiped the blackboard, and the juniors fled to their own form-rooms, suppressing flags and musical instruments on the way. Miss Willough gazed at them meditatively, but made no comment, and the Sixth, hurrying to a literature lesson, had no time to offer explanations.
Lispeth, more upset than she cared to own, talked the matter over with her mother when she went to dinner at one o'clock. She was a very conscientious girl and anxious to do her duty as "Head." As a result of the home conference she went to Miss Burd, explained the situation, and asked to be allowed to have the whole school together for ten minutes before four o'clock.
"It's only lately there's been this trouble," she said. "I believe if I talk nicely to the girls I can get back my influence. That's what Mother advised. She said 'try persuasion first.'"
"She's right, too," agreed Miss Burd. "If you can get them to obey you willingly it's far better than if I have to step in and put my foot down. What we want is to change the general current of thought."
Speculation was rife in the various forms as the closing bell rang at 3:45 instead of at 4 o'clock, and the girls were told to assemble in the Lecture Hall, and were put on their honor to behave themselves. To their surprise, the mistresses, after seeing them seated, left the room. Miss Burd mounted the platform and announced:
"Lispeth Scott wishes to speak to you all, and I should like you to know that anything she has to say is said with my entire approval and sanction. I hope you will listen to her in perfect silence."
Then she followed the other mistresses.
All eyes were fixed on Lispeth as she ascended the platform. With her tall ample figure, earnest blue eyes, light hair, and fair face flushed with the excitement of her task she looked a typical English girl, and made what she hoped was a typical English speech.
"I asked you to come," she began rather shyly, "because I think lately there have been some misunderstandings in the school, and I want, if possible, to put them straight. There has been a good deal of talk about 'equality,' and some of you say there oughtn't to be prefects. I wonder exactly what you mean by 'equality?' Certainly all girls aren't born with equal talents, yet each separate soul is of value to the community and must not go to waste. The test of a school is not how many show pupils it has turned out, but howallits pupils are prepared to face the world. I think we can only do this by sticking together and trying to help each other. In every community, however, there must be leaders. An army would soon go to pieces without its officers! The prefects and wardens have been chosen as leaders, and it ought to be a point of honor with you to uphold their authority. I assure you they don't work for their own good, but for the good of the school. I hear it is a grievance with the juniors that they mayn't elect wardens for the Council. Well—they shall do that when they're older; it will be something for them to look forward to! There's a privilege, though, that we can and will give them. We're going to start a Junior branch of the Rainbow League, and I think when they're doing their level best to help others, they'll forget about themselves. Carlyle says that the very dullest drudge has the elements of a hero in him if he once sees the chance of aiming at something higher than happiness. Please don't say I'm preaching, for I hate to be a prig! Only we'd all made up our minds to do our 'bit' in 'after the war work,' and it seems such a pity if we forget, and let the tone of the school drop—as it certainlyhasdropped lately. I'm sure if we all think about it we can keep it up, and Seniors and Juniors can work together without any horrid squabbles. We big girls were juniors ourselves once, and you little ones will be seniors some day, so that's one way of looking at it. Now that's all I've got to say, except that any Juniors who like can stay behind now and join the Junior Branch of the Rainbow League. We want to get up a special Scrap-book Union, and Miss Burd says she'll give a prize for the best scrap-book, and also for the best home-made doll. She's going to have an exhibition on breaking-up day."
Though Lispeth, in her agitation, had not said half the nice things she had intended to say, her little speech had good effect. It reminded the girls of some of the high ideals with which they had started the term, and which, like many high and beautiful things, were in danger of getting crowded out of the way by commoner interests. Everybody suddenly remembered the exhibition and sale which was to come off before Christmas, and made a spurt to send some adequate contribution. The juniors, flattered at having a special branch of their own of the Rainbow League, and time allotted in school to its work, dabbed away blissfully at scrap-book making, with gummy overalls and seccotiny fingers, but complacent faces. The prefects, with intent, dropped in when possible to admire the efforts.
"I believe," said Lispeth to her special confidante Althea, "that perhaps we were making rather a mistake. You can't have any influence with those kids unless you keep well in touch with them. I was so busy, I just let them slide before, and I suppose that was partly why they got out of hand, though the little monkeys had no business to get up that impudent strike! They're as different as possible now, and some of them are quite decent kiddies. Dorrie Barnes brought me a rose this morning. I suppose it was meant as a sort of peace-offering."
It was arranged to hold what was called "The Rainbow Fête" on breaking-up afternoon, and parents and friends were invited to the ceremony. There was to be both a sale and an exhibition. The best of the toys and little fancy articles were to be at a special stall, and would be sold for the benefit of the "War Orphans' Fund," and those that were not quite up to standard would nevertheless be on view, and would be sent away afterwards to help to deck Christmas trees in the slums.THEstall, as the girls called it, was of course the center of attraction. It was draped with colored muslins in the rainbow tints, and though real irises were unobtainable, some vases of artificial ones formed a very good substitute. The home-made toys were really most creditable to the handicraft-workers, and had been ingeniously contrived with bobbins, small boxes, and slight additions of wood, cardboard, and paper, aided by the color-box. Windmills, whirligigs, carts, engines, trains, dolls' house furniture, jigsaw puzzles, cardboard animals with movable limbs, black velveteen cats with bead eyes, beautifully dressed rag dolls, wool balls and rattles for babies, and dear little books of extracts, were some of the things set out in a tempting display. Fil, whose slim fingers excelled in dainty work, had contributed three charming booklets of poetry and nice bits cut from magazines and newspapers, the back being of colored linen embroidered with devices in silk. They were so pretty that they were all snapped up beforehand, and could have been sold three times over.
"You promised one to me—you know you did!" urged Linda Slater, much aggrieved at the non-performance of an order.
"Well, I thought I'd have time to do four, and could only manage three," apologized Fil. "You see, they really take such ages, and Miss Strong was getting raggy about my prep."
"Youmightmake me one for my birthday!" begged Evie.
"Certainly not! Those that ask shan't have!"
"Well, couldn't you do some during the Christmas holidays?"
"No, I can't and shan't!" snapped Fil. "I'm sick to death of making booklets, and I'm not going to touch one of them during the holidays. You seem to think I've nothing else to do except cut bits out of magazines for your benefit!"
"There! There! Poor old sport! Don't get baity!"
"You shouldn't do them so jolly well, and then you wouldn't get asked!"
Thestall occupied a position of importance at the end of the lecture hall, and the rest of the exhibits were put round on trestle tables. They were what Ingred described as "a mixed lot." Some of the animals were bulgy in their proportions, or shaky in their cardboard limbs, the wheels of the carts did not quite correspond, the windmills were apt to stick, or the puzzles would not quite fit. In spite of their imperfections, however, they looked attractive, and would, no doubt, give great pleasure to the little people who were to receive them, and who were hardly likely to be very critical of their workmanship.
To make the afternoon more festive, there was to be a tea stall, to which the girls brought contributions of cakes, and music was to be given from the platform, so that the scene might resemble a café chantant. Ingred had been chosen as one of the artistes, and arrayed in her best brown velveteen dress, with a new pale-yellow hair ribbon, she waited about in her usual agonies of stage fright. Learning from Dr. Linton, however improving it might be to her touch, was hardly conducive to self-complacency, and, after having suffered much vituperation for her imperfect rendering of a piece, it was decidedly appalling to have to play it in public, especially with the horrible possibility that at any moment her master might happen to pop in to view the exhibition and arrive in time for her performance.
"I shall have forty fits if I see him in the room, I know I shall!" she confided to Fil. "You've no idea how he scares me. I have my lessons on the study piano generally, and if only he would sit still I shouldn't mind, but hewillget up and prowl about the room, and swing out his arms when he's explaining things; he onlyjustmissed knocking over that pretty statuette of Venus the other day. I'm sure if Miss Burd knew how he flourishes about, she wouldn't let him loose among her cherished ornaments!"
"Perhaps he won't turn up to-day!"
"Oh yes! He said he should make a point of buying a toy for his little boy. If I break down suddenly in the midst of my piece, you'll know the reason. I'm shaking now."
"Poor old sport! Don't take it so hard!"
By three o'clock the lecture hall was filled with what Lilias Ashby (who had undertaken to write a report for the school magazine) described as "a distinguished crowd." Fathers indeed were as few and far between as currants in a war pudding, but mothers, aunts, and sisters had responded nobly to the invitations, and were being conducted round by the girls to see their special exhibits.
Mrs. Saxon had been unable to come that afternoon, but Quenrede had turned up, looking very pretty in a plum-colored hat, and giving herself slight airs as of one who is now a finished young lady, and no longer a mere schoolgirl. She chatted, in rather mincing tones, to Miss Burd herself, while Ingred stood by in awe and amazement, and when she bought a cup of tea from Doreen Hayward at the refreshment stall, she murmured: "Oh, thankssomuch!" with the manner of a patroness, though only six months ago she and Doreen had sat side by side in the Science Lectures. It was a new phase of Quenrede, which, though accepted to some extent at home, had never shown itself before with quite such aggravated symptoms.
Ingred, walking as it were in her shadow, was not sure whether to admire or laugh. It was, of course, something to have such a pretty and decidedly stylish sister; she appreciated the angle at which the plum-colored hat was set, and the self-restraint that made the tiny iced bun last such an enormous time, when a schoolgirl would have finished it in three bites, and have taken another. A grand manner was certainly rather an asset to the family, and Queenie was palpably impressing some of the intermediates, who poked each other to look at her.
"It's my turn to play soon, and I'm just shivering!" whispered Ingred.
"Nonsense, child! Don't be such a little goose!" declared her sister airily. "It's only a school party—there's really nothing to make a fuss about!"
"Onlya school party!" That seemed to Ingred the absolute limit. Quenrede last term had, in her turn, shivered and trembled when she had been obliged to mount the platform! Could a few short months have indeed effected so magnificent a change of front?
"All the same, it's I who've got to play, not she! It's easy enough to tell somebody else not to mind," thought Ingred, as, in answer to Miss Clough's beckoning finger, she made her way towards the piano to undergo her ordeal.
One point in favor of the recital was that the audience moved about the room and went on buying toys or cups of tea and cakes, and even talking, instead of sitting on rows of seats doing nothing but watching and listening. It was rather comforting to think that the concert was really only like the performance of a band, a soothing accompaniment to conversation. Ingred opened her music with an almost "don't care" feeling. For one delirious moment she felt at her ease, then, alack! her mood suddenly changed. In a last lightning glance towards the audience she noticed among the crowd near the tea-stall the tall thin figure, cadaverous face, and long lank hair of Dr. Linton. The sight instantly wrecked her world of composure. If it had not been for the fact that Miss Clough was standing near, and nodding to her to begin, she would have run away from the platform.
"Oh, the ill luck of it!" she thought. "If I had only played last time, instead of Gertie, I'd have had it over before he came into the room! I know he'll be just listening to every note, and criticizing!"
With a horrid feeling, as if her breath would not come properly, and her head was slightly spinning, and her hands dithering, Ingred began her "Nocturne," trying with a sort of "drowning" effort to keep her mind on the music in front of her, instead of on the music-master at the other end of the room. For sixteen bars she succeeded, then came the hitch. She had rejected the offered services of Doris Grainger, and had elected to turn over her own pages. She now made a hasty dash at the leaf, her trembling hand was not sufficiently agile, the sheet slipped, she grabbed in vain, and the music fluttered on to the floor. The performance came to a dead halt. Doris and Miss Clough rushed to the rescue, but they were put politely aside by a tall figure who stepped on to the platform, and Dr. Linton himself picked up the scattered sheets of the unfortunate "Nocturne." He arranged them together in order, placed them upon the stand, and, addressing his dismayed pupil, said:
"Now, then, begin again, andIshall turn over for you. Bring out thatfortepassage properly! Remember there's a pedal on the piano!"
It was like having a lesson in public. Ingred felt too scared to begin, and yet she was too much afraid of her master to refuse, so the bigger fright prevailed, and—as a cat will swim to escape an enemy—she dashed at the "Nocturne." Once restarted, it went magnificently: afterwards, she always declared that Dr. Linton must have hypnotized her, she was sure her unaided efforts could never have rendered it in such style. He behaved as if he were conducting an orchestra, soothing thepianopassages and spurring her on tofortissimoefforts, even humming the melody in his eccentric fashion, quite unmindful of the audience. The enthusiastic applause at the end was so evidently for both master and pupil that he bowed instinctively in response.
Ingred, remembering, now the ordeal was over, that she was nervous, melted from the platform, and left him to receive the laurels. He did a characteristic but very kind act, looked round for his pupil, and then, perceiving that she had beaten a retreat, sat down to the piano himself, and, unasked, gave an encore for her. A solo from Dr. Linton was an unexpected treat, especially as he was in the mood for music, and played with a sort of rapture that carried his listeners into an ethereal world of delicate sounds. Ingred, hidden behind a protecting barrier of schoolfellows, could see all the sylphs dancing and the fairy pipers piping as the crisp notes came tripping from his practised fingers. At the end she came back as from a dream, to realize that she was not in elf-land, but in the College Lecture Hall, and that she was sitting on a form next to Miss Strong, who held on her knee a little red-coated, brown-haired boy with Dr. Linton's unmistakable dark eyes.
In that instant, as the music ceased, Ingred received quite a sudden and new impression of Miss Strong; there was a tender look on the mistress's face, as she held her arm around the child, and she whispered something to him that made the dark eyes dance. He slipped from her lap, and hand in hand they went together towards the toy-stall. It was quite a pretty little scene, one of those tiny glimpses into other people's lives that we catch occasionally when the veil of their reserve is for a moment held aside. Ingred looked after them meditatively.
"Shouldn't have thought the Snark capable of it," she ruminated. "Perhaps she likes boys better than girls. Some people do."
The toy stall, though half depleted of its contents, was still the center of attraction. Lispeth and Althea were displaying what were left of its windmills and whirligigs to friends who bought with an eye to Christmas presents. Miss Strong, reckless in the matter of expense, purchased thechef-d'euvreof the whole collection—a wonderful contrivance consisting of two cardboard towers and a courtyard, across which, by means of a tape wound round bobbins, and turned by a handle, walked a miniature procession of wooden soldiers. Little Kenneth Linton received it with open arms.
"Better let me wrap it up in paper," urged Lispeth. "Somebody said just now that it's beginning to snow, and you don't want to have it spoilt before you get it home, do you?"
"N-no," said Kenneth, relinquishing it doubtfully.
"You're a lucky boy," continued Lispeth, as she made up the parcel. "Isn't that a Teddy Bear in your pocket? And a ball too? There, I believe I've used up all the string! What a nuisance! Can anybody get me any from anywhere?"
"I'll find you some in half a jiff," said Dorrie Barnes, whisking off immediately.
Since the formation of the Junior Rainbow League, Dorrie had taken a liking to Lispeth which amounted to absolute infatuation. She followed her like a pink-faced shadow, and was always at her elbow, sometimes at convenient and sometimes at embarrassing moments. She fled now, like a messenger from Olympus, with the fixed determination of procuring string for her goddess from somewhere. It was not an easy task, for string was a scarce commodity; what there was of it had mostly been already used, and what was left was jealously guarded by its proprietresses, who refused to part with it, even on the plea that it was for the head prefect. Dorrie, however, was a young person of spirit and resource, and she did not mean to be done. One of the trestles that supported the secondary exhibits of toys had rather come to grief, and had been patched up temporarily with stout twine. Her sharp eyes had noted this fact, so, going down on her hands and knees, she managed to creep unobserved under the table, cut the twine with her penknife, and unwound it. She was just congratulating herself upon the success of her achievement when the unexpected happened, or, rather, what might have been expected by any one with an ounce of forethought. The damaged trestle, no longer held together, promptly gave way, and the table collapsed, burying a squealing Dorrie amid a shower of toys. She was pulled out, agitated but uninjured, and the scattered exhibits were carried to another table. In the confusion of their transit she managed to secrete the piece of twine, the loss of which had been the cause of the whole upset, and presented it quite innocently to Lispeth, who, not knowing that she was receiving stolen goods, thanked her and tied the parcel. Ingred, who had watched the whole comedy, laughed, but did not give away the secret.
"That child's an imp!" she said to Quenrede. "But she's a very accomplished imp. I'll tell you the joke afterwards, not now! Lispeth little knows where her string comes from, and she's wrapping up that parcel so placidly! Isn't the Snark looking quite pretty this afternoon? Never saw her with such a color! Well, if you're ready, Queenie, we'll go over to the hostel and get my things. We can just catch the four o'clock train, if we're quick. Wait half a sec, though! There goes Dr. Linton with Kenneth. I don't want to walk out under his wing!"
The tall dark figure of the music master was striding through the doorway, carrying his small son, who hugged his toy with one arm, and waved a friendly good-by with the other.
"What possessed you to drop all your music, child?" said Quenrede, rather patronizingly to Ingred. She was still trying to live up to the plum-colored hat. "You played ever so decently afterwards, though—you did, really! Don't tell me again that you're nervous, for it's all rubbish. You looked as if you enjoyed it."
"Enjoyed it!" echoed Ingred. "If you'd gone through the palpitations that I felt this afternoon you'd want to go to a specialist, and consult him for heart trouble! I've lived through it this once, but if I'm ever asked to play again in public, you'd better go to the cemetery beforehand, and choose a picturesque corner for my grave, and buy a weeping willow ready to plant upon it. Yes, and order a headstone too, with the simple words: 'Died of fright.' I mean it! 'Enjoyed it!' indeed! Why, I've never in the whole of my life been in such an absolutely blue funk!"
The Saxon family celebrated Christmas at the bungalow with mixed feelings. As Ingred said, it was like the curate's egg—parts of it were very nice. It was the first Christmas they had spent all together for many years, and if they could only have forgotten Rotherwood, and their altered circumstances, they would have enjoyed it immensely. Mrs. Saxon, the unfailing sunshine-radiator of the household, tried to ignore the tone of discontent in her husband's voice, the grumpy attitude of Egbert, Quenrede's fit of the blues, and Athelstane's rather martyred pose. She insisted on bundling everybody out for a blow on the moors.
"If we'd been living in Grovebury," she remarked, "we should probably have taken a jaunt to Wynch-on-the-Wold as a special treat. Let us think ourselves lucky in being on the spot and only having to turn out of our own door to be at once in such lovely scenery. It's like having a country holiday at Christmas instead of midsummer—a thing I always hankered after and never got before!"
Certainly winter on the wold held a charm of its own. The great waste of brown moor stretching under the gray sky showed rich patches where yellow grass and rushes edged dark boggy pools, the low-growing stems of sallows and alders were delicate with shades of orange and mauve; here and there a sprig of furze lingered in flower, and black flights of starlings and fieldfares, driven from colder climates in quest of food, swept in long lines across the horizon. The weather was open for the time of year, the wind strong but not too keen, and had it not been for the lowness of the sun in the sky the day might have been autumn instead of December. It was glorious to walk to the top of Wetherstone Heights and see, miles away, the spire of Monkswell Church and the gleam of the distant river, then to hurry back in the gloaming with the rising mists creeping up like advancing specters, and to find the lamps lighted and tea ready in the cheery bungalow. Nobody wanted to quarrel with Yule cake and muffins, and even Mr. Saxon temporarily forgot his worries and relapsed into quite amusing reminiscences of certain adventures in France.
If only our spirits would keep up to the point to which, with much effort, we screw them, all would be well: unfortunately they often have a tiresome knack of descending with a run. When tea was finished and cleared away Mr. Saxon found the presence of his family a hindrance to reading, and at a hint from their mother the younger members of the party took themselves off into the little drawing-room. Here, round a black fire, which, despite Hereward's poking, refused to burn brightly, the grumble-cloud that had been lowering all day burst at last.
"If we'd only got the Rotherwood billiard table there'd be something to do!" groused Egbert gloomily.
"There isn't a corner in this poky hole where a fellow can fiddle with photography," chimed in Athelstane, "even if there was time to do it. When I get back from Birkshaw it's nothing but grind, grind, grind at medical books all the evening."
"Rather have your job than mine, though," said Egbert. "You haven't to sit under the Pater's eye all day long, and have him down on you like a cartload of bricks if you make the slightest slip. I'm the worst off of the whole lot of us!"
"What about me at that odious Grammar School?" asked Hereward, pressing his claims to the palm of dissatisfaction.
"Or me at the hostel!" urged Ingred, not to be outdone.
"I don't think you, any of you, realize how slow it is just to stop at home!" sighed Quenrede. "There were sixteen dozen things I'd made up my mind to do, and I can't do one of them. It's going to be a hateful New Year for all of us—just a New Year of going without and scraping and saving and economizing—ugh! What a life!"
"Life's mostly what we make it," said Mother, who had quietly joined the circle. "After all, what we think we want doesn't always give the greatest happiness. Suppose each of us tries to let this be the best year we've ever had? Very little in the way of material wealth may come to us, but the other kind of wealth is far better worth working for. I think this hard time gives us the chance to show what we're made of. During the fighting, the lads at the front went steadily through severe privations, and the women at home worked in the same brave, cheery fashion. Now the strain of the war is over, are we going to let all this splendid spirit drop? Suppose we fight our own battles as we fought our country's? Let me feel I've still got a family of soldiers to be proud of."
"You're the Colonel, then, of the new corps," said Egbert, with an affectionate bear-hug to the slight figure that was already making the black fire break into a blaze. "You've pluck enough for the whole clan, little Mother o' mine! You shall sound your slogan and lead the attack on Fate till we get back to Rotherwood! There!"
"I'm aiming at higher things than Rotherwood, darling boy!" said his mother gravely.
"Iknow!" whispered Quenrede, squeezing the dear hand that reached out and clasped her own. "I won't be a selfish beast any more. I won't indeed. Economizing shall be my New Year's cross!"
"If we're going to count up crosses," proclaimed Athelstane humorously, "the orphan's fine voice while I'm studying is mine!"
"Butsheprobably counts it her choicest blessing!" exclaimed Ingred.
And then the whole family broke out laughing, and Mother's little lecture ended in fun. It made its impression upon individual members all the same.
The six miles which separated the Saxons from Grovebury seemed to have set up an effectual barrier between them and the old world in which they had moved before. Many people who had been friendly in the Rotherwood days did not trouble to come so far as Wynch-on-the-Wold to pay calls, and the numerous invitations which had formerly been extended to the young folks decreased this Christmas to very few.
First and foremost amongst these scanty festivities came Mrs. Desmond's dance. It was a grown-up affair, and she had sent printed invitations to Egbert, Athelstane and Quenrede. The latter, who only knew the Desmonds slightly and was always overwhelmed in their presence, developed a sudden and acute fit of shyness and implored to be allowed to refuse.
"If it had been the Browns' or Lawrences' I'd have loved it," she urged, "but you know, Mumsie, how Mrs. Desmond absolutely withers me up! I never can say six words when she's there. I'd run five miles to avoid meeting her: you know I would! She's so starchy."
"You see very little of your hostess at a dance. Don't be silly, Queenie!" insisted Mrs. Saxon. "I say you're to go, so there's an end of it."
"I'll go for an evening's martyrdom, then, not for enjoyment!" wailed her daughter dolefully.
A first grown-up dance is often a terrible ordeal to a girl of eighteen, and Quenrede, though she had put on a few airs to impress the schoolgirls at the Rainbow League sale, was at bottom woefully bashful. She was still in the stage when her newly-turned-up hair looked as if it were unaccustomed to be coiled round her head; she had a painful habit of blushing, and had not yet acquired that generalsavoir fairewhich comes to us with the passing of our teens. To be plunged for a whole evening into the society of a succession of strangers seemed to her anything but an exhilarating prospect.
"If I could just dance with our own boys!" she sighed.
"I'd pity you if you did!" declared Ingred, pausing in an effort to make Athelstane's steps more worthy of a ball-room. "Why, half the fun will be your different partners. I only wish I'd your chance and was 'coming out' too!"
"I'm sure you're welcome to go instead of me," proclaimed Quenrede petulantly.
All the same she watched the preparations for the event with considerable girlish interest. Mother, whose ambitions at first had run to a dress from town, regretfully decided that the family finances could only supply a home-made costume, and set to work with fashion book and sewing-machine to act amateur dressmaker, a thrilling experience to unaccustomed fingers, for paper patterns are sometimes difficult to understand, seams do not fit together as they ought, and the bottom hem of a skirt is the most awkward thing in the world to make hang perfectly straight. Quenrede, standing on the table, revolved slowly while Mrs. Saxon and Ingred stuck in pins and debated whether a quarter of an inch here and there should be raised or lowered. Ingred showed far more cleverness in sewing than her sister; her natty fingers could contrive pretty things already in the shape of collars and blouses.
"You'd make an admirable curate's wife!" Quenrede laughingly assured her. "Ishall have to marry a rich man and get my things from London."
"It will probably be the other way," declared Mother. "Stand still, Queenie, I can't measure properly if youwilldance about!"
Though she was ready with a joke, as a matter of fact Quenrede was having a severe struggle not to be snappy. For years and years she had planned her "coming out," and she had decided upon a ball at Rotherwood, and an absolute creation of a gown that was to be sent for from Paris. There would have been some éclat then in emerging from the chrysalis stage of the school-room and becoming a butterfly of society. To make her first grown-up appearance at Mrs. Desmond's dance and in a home-made dress seemed not so much a "coming out" as an "oozing out." There are degrees in butterflies, and she feared her appearance would resemble not the gorgeous "Red Admiral" or "Painted Lady," but the "Common White Cabbage." If it had not been for the New Year's resolution, some traces of her disappointment would have leaked out, but she kept the secret bravely to herself. The family indeed knew she was not anxious to go, but set her unwilling attitude down to mere shyness. Her mother never guessed at the real reason.
There was a tremendous robing on the evening of January the ninth, with Mother and Ingred for lady's-maids, and "The Orphan" hovering about, offering to bring pins or hot water on the chance of getting a peep at the proceedings. Mrs. Saxon stepped back, when all was complete, and viewed the result somewhat in the spirit of an artist who has finished a picture. It is an event in a mother's life when her first little girl grows up and becomes a young lady. To-night Quenrede was to be launched on the stream of society. Looked at critically, her appearance was very satisfactory. Though the new dress might not be up to the level of a fashion-plate, it certainly became her, and set off the pretty fair face, white neck, and coils of gleaming flaxen hair.
"Your gloves and shoes and stockings are all right, and you've got a nice handkerchief, and your fan," reviewed Mother, wrapping an evening cloak round her handiwork. "Good-by, my bird! Enjoy yourself, and don't be silly and shy."
"I shall keep awake till you come back!" Ingred assured her.
It was something at any rate to be going with Egbert and Athelstane. Among the stream of strangers there would be at least two home objects upon which she might occasionally cast anchor. The thought of that buoyed her up as the taxi whirled them down hill to Grovebury.
The Desmonds were giving the dance as a coming-out for one of their own daughters, and their house wasen fête. An awning protected the porch, red cloth carpeted the steps, a marquee filled the lawn, and a stringed band from Birkshaw had been engaged to play the latest dance music.
Quenrede passed calmly enough through the ordeals of leaving her cloak in the dressing-room (where a crowd of girls were prinking, and there was no room for even a glance in the mirror), and the greeting from her host and hostess in the drawing-room. It was in the ball-room afterwards that her agony began. Egbert and Athelstane were whisked away from her to be introduced to other girls, and utter strangers, whose names she seldom caught, were brought to her, took her program, recorded their initials and passed on to book other partners. The few people in the marquee whom she knew were too far away or too occupied to speak to her, so she stood alone, and heartily wished herself at home.
It was better when the dancing began, though her partners scared her horribly. They all made exactly the same remarks about the excellence of the floor, the taste of the decorations, and the beauty of the music, and asked her if she had been to the pantomime, and whether she played golf. Small talk is an art, and though Quenrede had many interests, and in ordinary circumstances could have discussed them, to-night she felt tongue-tied, and let the ball of conversation drop with a "yes" or "no" or "very." Dances with strangers who expected her to talk were bad enough, but the gaps in her program were worse. No doubt Mrs. Desmond tried to look after all her guests, but several gentlemen had disappointed her at the last minute, and there were not quite partners enough to go round. At a young people's party Quenrede would have cheerily danced with some other girl in like plight, but at this stiff grown-up gathering she dared not suggest such an informality, and remained a wallflower. She caught glimpses occasionally of Egbert and Athelstane, the former apparently enjoying himself, the latter looking as solemn as if he were in church.
"I know the poor boy's counting his steps and trying not to tread on anybody's toes!" thought Quenrede. "Ingred said his partners would have to pull him around somehow."
Supper was a diversion, for she was taken in by quite a nice red-headed boy, a little younger than herself, who, after a manful effort to talk up to her supposed level, thankfully relapsed into details of football-matches. Being a nephew of the house, he proved an adept in attracting the most tempting dishes of fruit or trifle to their particular table, and even basely commandeered other people's crackers for her benefit. She bade him good-by with regret.
"I say, I wish my card wasn't full! I'd have liked a dance with you!" he murmured wistfully as they left the supper-room.
If only she had known people better, and the atmosphere had not seemed so stiff and formal, and she had not been so miserably shy, Quenrede might have enjoyed herself. As it was she began counting the hours. In one of the wallflower gaps of her program she took a stroll into the conservatory. It looked like fairyland with the colored lanterns hanging among the palms and flowers. Somebody else was apparently enjoying the pretty effect—somebody who turned round rather guiltily as if he were caught; then at sight of her smiled in relief.
"I thought you were one of my hostesses come to round me up to do my duty," he confessed. "I'm a duffer at dancing, so I've taken cover in here. I see you don't remember me, but we've met before—at Red Ridge Barrow. My name's Broughten."
"Why, of course! You had a piece of candle and showed us inside the mound. I ought to have known you again, but—you look so different——"
"In evening dress! So do you; but I recognized you in a minute. Look here" (in sudden compunction), "am I keeping you from a partner?"
"No more than I am keeping you!" twinkled Quenrede, pointing to the empty line on her program. "I'm not dancing this, so I came here to—to enjoy myself."
Her companion laughed in swift comprehension.
"I don't know how other people may find it," he confided, "but hour after hour of this sort of thing gets on my nerves. A tramp over the moor is far more my line of amusement. I was wishing I might go home!"
"So was I!"
"But there's still at least another hour and a half."
"With extras, more!" admitted Quenrede.
He held out his hand for her program. "I'm an idiot at dancing, but would you mind sitting out a few with me?"
"If you won't talk about the floor and the decorations and the band, and ask me whether I've been to the pantomime, or if I like golf!"
"I promise that those topics shall be utterly and absolutely taboo. I'm sick of them myself."
Quenrede's shyness, which was only an outer casing, had suddenly disappeared in the presence of a fellow-victim of social conventions, and conversation came easily, all the more so after being pent-up all the evening. Henry Desmond, wandering into the conservatory presently, remarked to his partner, sotto voce:
"That Saxon girl's chattering sixteen to the dozen now! Couldn't get a word out of her myself!"
When Quenrede, sometime about five o'clock in the morning, tried to creep stealthily to bed without disturbing her sister, Ingred, refreshed by half a night's sleep, sat up wide awake and demanded details.
"Sh! Sh! Mother said we weren't to talk now, and I must tell you everything afterwards. Oh, I got on better than I expected, though most of the people were rather starchy. How did my dress look? Well—promiseyou won't breathe a word to darling Mother—it was just passable, and that's all. Some girls hadlovelythings. I didn't care. The second part of the evening was far nicer than the first, and I enjoyed the dances that I sat out the most. The conservatory was all hung with lanterns. There; I'm dead tired and I want to go to sleep. Good-night, dear!"
"But you've 'come out!'" said Ingred with satisfaction as she subsided under her eiderdown.
"Oh yes, I'm most decidedly 'out,'" murmured Quenrede.