"I didn't say I knew everything; but I'm certain this is bugle all the same, and I stick to it!"
Bess's usually sweet voice had an obstinate note in it for once. She seemed determined to defend her botanical trenches.
"Go it—hammer and tongs!" laughed Kitty. "I'll back the winner!"
"And I'll take the case into court," said Linda, snatching the flower from her schoolfellow's hand and running on to show it to Miss Strong, who was an authority on the subject.
The mistress paused to let the others overtake her.
"Bugle, certainly," she decided emphatically. "The first bit we've found this year. It's out early. Self-heal? Oh dear no! The two are rather alike and are sometimes mistaken one for another, but no botanist would dream of confusing them. Bugle is a spring and early summer flower, and self-heal blooms much later. Make a note in your nature diaries that you found bugle on 15th April."
Considerably squashed, Ingred had for once to acknowledge her botany to be at fault, and, though Bess did not triumph, Francie gave Kitty a poke and the pair giggled.
"Well, of course, one can't be always right," said Ingred airily.
"So it seems; though some people set themselves up for wiseacres!" sniggered Kitty.
Ingred fell behind with Verity and let the others walk on. It was only a trifling incident, but she was annoyed to notice how openly and instantly the girls had sided with Bess. She felt too glum for speech, and as Verity was tired and disinclined to talk, they tramped along in silence.
They had been winding steadily uphill for some miles and were now on the heath from which Ryton took its name. The ground fell steeply to the west, showing glimpses of a great river in the valley below, where the still-leafless woods had burst here and there into faint tokens of spring. Beyond the river rose the characteristic grey hills of the neighborhood, with their stone walls and sheepfolds and stretches of moorland, looking a little hazy in the afternoon light, but with patches of yellow gorse catching the sunshine. Ryton was a delightful little village. Its cottages, built long ago by local craftsmen, seemed absolutely in harmony with the landscape: walls, dormers, and mullions and long undulating roofs were all of limestone and conveyed an impression of sturdy self-respect. The rain-worn, lichen-covered roofs had weathered to charming irregularities of form and lovely tones of color. Ivy and clematis climbed over the porches and twisted themselves round the low chimneys. The little gardens were bright with daffodils, mezereon, and flowering currant.
To the girls, somewhat tired and decidedly hungry, the main focus of the village was a long iron post which stretched out over the street and supported a rudely-painted sign of a bird, whose species might have been a puzzle to an ornithologist but for the words "Pelican Inn" that appeared beneath it.
In the long-ago days before railroads, the little hostelry had been a stopping-place for stage-coaches, and a wooden board still set forth that it supplied "Posting in all its branches." The landlord would no doubt have been much dismayed if any wag had entered and demanded a chaise and post-horses to drive to Gretna Green, and a shabby motor in his stable-yard showed that he marched with the times.
Miss Strong, on consulting her watch, decided that her party might safely indulge in a halt of half an hour, and ordered tea for nine persons. The inn, built on a type common in the district, was entered by an archway leading straight into a courtyard. A door on the right led to the bar, and a door on the left to the coffee-room. To this latter more aristocratic quarter Miss Strong conducted her pupils. Some of them had never before been in a small village hostelry, and were much amused at the quaint old parlor with its sporting prints, its glass cases of stuffed squirrels and badgers, and its horsehair-seated chairs with crochet antimacassars hung over the backs. The atmosphere was certainly rather redolent of stale beer and tobacco, but a bunch of crimson wall-flowers on the table did their best to spread a pleasant perfume. The tea, when, after much delay, it arrived, was delicious. The Pelican was a farm as well as an inn, and the rosy-faced servant girl carried in cream, fresh butter, and red-currant jam to the coffee-room. She apologized for the absence of cake, but it was an omission that nobody minded. Upland air gives good appetites, and, though Miss Strong reminded her flock that this was only a meal by the way, and that supper was ordered for them at Dropwick, they set to work as if they would taste nothing more till midnight. There was something so delightfully fresh and out of the common in having tea at a wayside inn; they felt true pilgrims of the road, and civilization and school seemed to have faded into a far background. The love of travel is in the blood of both Celt and Anglo-Saxon; our forefathers visited shrines for the joy of the journey as well as for religious motives, and maybe our Bronze Age ancestors, who flocked to the great Sun Festivals at Stonehenge or Avebury Circles, derived pleasure from the change of scene as well as a blessing from the Druids. The Romans, those great pioneers of travel, had opened out the district eighteen centuries ago, and laid a straight, paved road from Wendcester to Pursborough; the remains of their fortified camps and of their villas were still left to mark their era. The foss-way, leading from Ryton-on-the-Heath to Dropwick, was their handiwork, and our pilgrims were to march on the identical track of some old Roman legion.
It must be owned that when tea was finished they were very unwilling pilgrims, and would gladly have spent the night at The Pelican and have slept in the funny, musty, low-ceiled little bedrooms upstairs.
"Couldn't we possibly stop here?" implored Verity.
But Miss Strong, having booked rooms in Dropwick, was adamant.
"Besides which I wouldn't trust the beds here," she remarked. "So early in the year they're almost bound to be damp, and we don't want any of you laid up with rheumatic fever as the result of our trip. I prefer to give a wayside inn a week's notice if I mean to sleep there in April. Nobody has had enough coal during the winter to keep fires going in spare bedrooms. That front room was as chilly as a country church! You won't feel so tired, Verity, when you're on your feet again, and it's all downhill to Dropwick."
The Temperance Hotel, where the girls finally stayed their weary feet, was quite modern and unromantic, though well aired and fairly comfortable. Ingred, whom the fates had placed to sleep with Nora, had a trying night, for her obstreperous bedfellow had a habit of flinging out her arms, and of appropriating the larger half of the clothes, leaving poor Ingred to wake shivering. Also, the bed sloped towards the middle, so that both girls had to poise themselves on a kind of hillside, and were constantly rolling down and colliding. These troubles, however, were only incidental in the Pilgrimage, and certainly might have been worse.
On comparing notes at breakfast nearly everybody had had similar experiences. Miss Strong confessed to a patent mattress with a broken spring jutting up in the center, round which she had been obliged to lie in a curve. Linda and Francie had slept near the water-cistern, which alarmed them with weird noises, and Bess and Kitty, trying to open their window wider, had found it lacked sash-cords, and descended like a guillotine, sending the prop that had upheld it, flying into the street. Though they groused at the time, the girls laughed as they discussed these details over the eggs and bacon. The sun was shining and they felt rested, and quite ready once more to shoulder their kit and set out on the march.
There was nothing of very great interest to see in Dropwick itself, though it was a quaint enough old-fashioned market-town, with a fifteenth-century church tower, and a few black and white houses. Miss Strong decided not to waste any time there, but to push on as fast as possible across the hills to Sudbury, where there was a fine Romano-British villa that was well worth a visit. So the foss-way took them up, and up, and up, through fir-woods where the new cones were showing like candles on Christmas trees, and alongside a quarry where they pounced upon some quite interesting fossils in the heaps of stones by the road, and over a craggy weather-worn peak, where, again, they caught the magnificent view of the valley and the river and hills beyond. Then down again, through more fir-woods, where the timber was being felled, and great tree-trunks lay piled in rows one above another, and past banks that were a dream, with starry blackthorn blossom and primroses growing beneath, to where the cross-roads met and the signpost pointed an arm to Sudbury.
The Romans might take their roads straight as an arrow across moor and hill, but they chose out the beauty spots of the land on which to build their villas, and were careful to fix upon a southern aspect and shelter from the prevailing winds. The remains of the old settlement lay behind a farm, and had been carefully excavated by a local antiquarian society. Visitors applied at the farmhouse, entered their names in a book, paid their admission money, and were escorted round by a guide.
Time, and successive conquests, had demolished the greater part of the villa, but its foundations and some of the old brick walls could be plainly traced. The great bath, that indispensable feature of a Roman establishment, could still be seen, with its beautiful tesselated pavement, inlaid with mosaics of doves, cupids, and designs of fruit and flowers. The heating system also, with the leaden pipes and remains of furnaces, was a testimony to the civilization of the period, and the amount of comfort that the legions brought with them into their foreign exile. A large shed had been fitted up as a museum, and held a number of objects that had been dug up during the excavations. The girls, poring over the glass cases, looked with interest at a Roman lady's silver hand-mirror, toilet pots, and tiny shears that must have been the early substitute for scissors. More fascinating still were the toys from a little child's grave, small glass bottles, roughly-made animals of clay, and a carved object that no doubt had been at one time a treasured doll, though now it was crumbling into dust.
Among the pile of broken statues or fragments of ornamental stonework in the corner was a monumental tablet, cracked across in two places, but pieced together for preservation with iron rivets. The inscription ran:
"D.M. Simpliciæ Florentinæ Animæ Innocentissimæ quæ vixit menses decem. Felicius Simplex Pater fecit. Leg. vi, V."(To the Divine Shades. To Simplicia Florentina, a most innocent soul, who lived ten months. Felicius Simplex of the Sixth Legion, the Victorious, the father, erected this.)
"D.M. Simpliciæ Florentinæ Animæ Innocentissimæ quæ vixit menses decem. Felicius Simplex Pater fecit. Leg. vi, V."
(To the Divine Shades. To Simplicia Florentina, a most innocent soul, who lived ten months. Felicius Simplex of the Sixth Legion, the Victorious, the father, erected this.)
Some of the girls glanced at the tablet, and the English translation of the inscription which lay near, and turned away without much notice. But Ingred stood gazing at them with a catch in her throat. They brought a whole pathetic human story to life again. She could picture the noble Roman father, leader of the victorious legion, sent over from Italy and making his home here in a conquered foreign land, as our officers do in India, and bringing with him his lady with her Roman customs and her slaves. Those few brief words—"a most innocent soul who lived ten months"—told the tragedy of the cherished little daughter whose frail life faded in the fogs of the British climate about eighteen hundred years ago. Hearts are the same all the world over, and the pretty dark-eyed Roman baby must have been laid to its rest with as much grief and sadness as the fair-haired darlings whom British mothers sometimes bury in Indian soil.
"It's a sweet name, too—Simplicia Florentina!" mused Ingred. "I wonder what she would have grown up like. And what her history would have been! I'd give worlds to know more about her!"
"Aren't you coming, Ingred?" called Verity from the doorway. "Miss Strong says we ought to be getting on now."
Ingred brought her thoughts back with an effort to the twentieth century, and joined the waiting party outside. Miss Strong was talking to their guide, who was describing a short cut across the fields that would save them several miles on their way to Pursborough.
Verity, after calling to her friend in the museum, had run out. Ingred followed her, to find her with her arm locked closely through Bess's. There was no reason why she should not display such a mark of affection, but to Ingred it seemed little short of an insult to herself. Verity, her particular chum, to have openly gone over to the enemy! She stared at her in surprise. Verity did not appear to notice the stare, however, and walked on quite calmly.
Miss Strong had decided that they should find a quiet place along the lane where they could eat their lunch before beginning the second part of their march. She fixed on a lovely spot with a high wooded bank at the back and in front fields that sloped to the river. There were specks of yellow in these fields, and Kitty who finished her sandwiches first, ran to inspect nearer and reported cowslips. Instantly most of the girls went scrambling over the stile.
Miss Strong, who had bought picture-postcards of the Roman villa, and was addressing them with a stylo-pen, did not follow the exodus. She called to Ingred, however, who was last.
"Warn the girls," she said, "not on any account to go into that meadow where there is a horse with a young foal. The guide at the farm said it is a savage beast and will attack people. Be sure to tell themall!"
"I'll run after them now," answered Ingred, calling "Cuckoo!" to attract their attention.
She told Belle and Linda and Verity, who were near to the stile, and Linda passed the news on to Francie and Kitty. Bess was quite a long distance down the field, gathering blackthorn from the hedge.
"I'm not going to tear all that way after her!" thought Ingred crossly. "Verity will be sure to tell her. They seem inseparable to-day. Besides which nobody's particularly likely to go into that other meadow. There are plenty of cowslips here."
It took Miss Strong a much longer time to write her postcards than she had originally intended, and while she was thus employed her girls spread themselves out in quest of flowers. It is always amazing when you start rambling in company with others how quickly you can find yourself alone. By the time Ingred had gathered a fragrant, sweet-smelling bunch and looked round for somebody to admire it, her schoolmates were gone. She hunted about for them, and noticed Verity's green jersey and Kitty's brown tam-o'-shanter in the wood above. Surely they must all be up there together.
She was just going to follow, when a qualm of conscience seized her. She had not delivered Miss Strong's message to Bess, and it would perhaps be as well to ascertain that the latter had not strayed unwarned into the danger zone.
"It's not at all likely," Ingred kept repeating to herself, as she walked briskly along the meadow to the fence. "I'm really only going on a wild goose chase."
Likely or unlikely, it was the very thing which had happened. The cowslips on the other side of the railings were larger and finer, and Bess, having no fear of horses, had climbed over and wandered some way down the field. Only about twenty yards from her the lanky foal was gambolling round its mother, a big draught mare, cropping the grass innocently enough at present, and apparently not perceiving trespassers.
If Bess could retreat quietly and unnoticed from the field all might be well. Ingred did not dare to call for fear of attracting the mare's attention. If Bess would only turn round she might wave to her. But Bess kept her back to the fence and had no idea of danger. There was only one course open to Ingred. She slipped over the railings and went along the meadow to warn her schoolfellow. In a few quiet words she explained the situation.
"Don't run," she whispered. "Let us walk back and perhaps it will take no notice of us."
The girls went as softly as possible, looking over their shoulders every now and then to see that all was safe. Of bulls they had a wholesome terror, but they had had no previous experience of a savage horse.
They were about fifteen yards from the railings, when the mare, which hitherto had been feeding quietly, raised her head and lumbered round. She saw strangers in her territory; her primeval instinct was to protect her foal, and she came tearing across the field with wild eyes and lip turned back from gleaming teeth. The girls fled for their lives. It was a question of which could reach the railings first, they or the dangerous brute whose huge hoofs thundered behind them. Ingred, who was the taller and the stronger of the two, seized Bess by the hand and literally dragged her along. Together they tumbled over the fence somehow and rolled down the bank into the safe shelter of some gorse bushes. For a moment they were afraid the mare would leap after them, but the height of the rails balked her; apparently she was satisfied with routing the enemy and returned across the field to her foal. The girls, with shaking knees, got up and hurried towards the lane where they had left Miss Strong.
"You've saved my life, Ingred!" gasped Bess, as they went along.
"No, I haven't!" choked Ingred. "At least, it was my fault you ever went into the field at all. Miss Strong told me to tell you the horse was savage, and you were such a long way off picking cowslips that I didn't trouble to go after you. I trusted to Verity telling you."
"Verity ran the other way with Kitty."
"I know. Well, at any rate, it was my fault and I'm ready to take the blame. Precious row I shall get into with the Snark!"
"Why should we say anything about it?"
"Not say anything?"
"There's really no need. It's over and done with now. I don't want to get you into a scrape. I vote we just keep it to ourselves."
Ingred paused, with her hand on the gate, and gazed with unaffected astonishment at her companion.
"Bess Haselford, you're the biggest trump I've ever met! It's only one girl in a thousand who'd want to cover up a thing like that. Most people would makesucha tale of it, and pose as an injured martyr whom I'd nearly murdered. I'm sure Francie would, or even Verity."
"You put yourself into danger to come and warn me!"
"Well, it was the least I could do!"
"Let's forget about it then. And don't tell any of the girls, in case they blab. It would make Miss Strong so nervous, she'd be scared about our going into any fields for ever afterwards."
"Right-o, I won't tell, but I shan't forget. As I said before, I think you're the biggest trump on the face of the earth."
"Cuckoo!" rang out Linda's voice from the bank.
"Where are you girls?" shouted Miss Strong from the lane.
"Coming!" called Ingred, as she latched the gate and hurried with Bess to rejoin the rest of the party.
The Pilgrims, after a glorious tramp down the dale of Beechcombe, reached Pursborough without further adventure, and spent the night there. They gave an hour next morning to inspecting the glorious old church and the ruins of the castle, then once more resumed the Roman road. It was the last day of their tour, so they made the best of it. They explored some delightful woods, followed the course of a fascinating stream, ate their lunch in a picturesque quarry, had an early tea at a wayside inn which rivalled "The Pelican" in quaintness, and finally reached Ribstang in time to catch the 5:20 train to Grovebury. The conclusion of the excursion meant the close of the holiday, for school would begin again on the following Monday. Everybody had enjoyed it immensely, and everybody was only too sorry it was over. To Ingred it marked an epoch. She had suddenly made friends with Bess Haselford. Now she viewed Bess with unprejudiced eyes she realized what an exceedingly nice and attractive girl she really was. The adventure in the field had flung them together, and—much to the astonishment of the others, who did not know their secret—they had walked the whole way from Pursborough to Ribstang in each other's company.
"I can't make out Ingred!" declared Verity. "Here she's been abusing Bess, and calling her a bounder, and now she's hanging on her arm! The way some people turn round is really most extraordinary——"
"'There's naught so queer as folks!'" quoted Linda. "Glad Ingred's come to her senses, at any rate. I always thought she was perfectly beastly to Bess!"
"So she was. I wonder Bess will put up with her now. I'm sure I wouldn't!"
Bess, however, was of a forgiving disposition, and let bygones be bygones. It is the only plan at schools, for girls are generally so frank in the nature of their remarks that if you begin to treasure up the disagreeable things said to you, and let them rankle, you will probably find yourself without a chum in the world. Though the fashion may be for plain speaking, it is often a matter of mood, and the mate who genuinely believes you a "blighter" one day, will claim you as a "mascot" with equal persuasion on the next. It is all part of the wholesome rough-and-tumble of your education, and proves of as much use in training you and rounding your projecting corners as the lessons you learn in your form. The girls thought Ingred's new infatuation would soon wear off, but it had come to stay. She herself was quite surprised at the force of the attraction. It was almost like falling in love. She marched with Bess at drilling, chose her for her partner at tennis, and would have changed desks to sit next to her, had not Miss Strong refused permission. As a natural result of this new state of affairs came a shy invitation from Bess asking Ingred to tea at Rotherwood. After the many previous refusals she would hardly have ventured to give in but for several hints which paved the way. Circumstances, however, alter cases, and Ingred, who had declared that nothing should induce her to set foot in her old home, was now all eagerness to go. She was delighted to find that she was to be the only guest. She felt that on this particular visit even Verity would bede trop.
On a certain Tuesday afternoon, therefore, with full permission from Miss Burd, she absented herself from the hostel tea-table, and walked home with Bess instead. It gave her quite a thrill to turn in at the familiar gate of Rotherwood. The lawns were in beautiful order, and the beds gay with tulips, aubrietias, forget-me-nots, and a lovely show of hyacinths. So far from being neglected, the place seemed even better kept than in the old days. The house, with its pretty modern black-and-white front, its many gables, and its cheerful red-tiled roof, looked the same as formerly; but indoors there were great changes. The hall, which used to be Moorish, was now hung with tapestry, and furnished in old oak; the drawing-room was yellow instead of blue, with a big brocade-covered couch and a Chappell piano; the dining-room had rows of book-cases and some good oil-paintings; the morning-room was a cheerful chintz boudoir with a gilt mirror and Chippendale chairs; the conservatory was full of choice flowers, and an aviary had been added to it.
"Mother is so fond of birds," explained Bess. "They amuse her when her head's bad and she doesn't care to see anybody. She's made most of them wonderfully tame."
Mrs. Haselford proved to be a gentle pleasant lady who shook hands kindly with Ingred, then excused herself on the score of ill-health, and retired to her room, leaving the girls to have tea by themselves.
"Mother's never been really well for three years," said Bess. "Not since Bert and Larry——"
She did not finish her sentence, but her eyes turned to the wall where hung two portraits of lads in khaki. Ingred understood. She knew that Bess had lost both brothers in the war, and she had heard that poor Mrs. Haselford had shut herself up in her grief and refused all comfort, sometimes even to the extent of remaining for days upstairs, and neglecting the company of husband and child. Her attitude to Bess was often peculiar, it was almost as if she resented her daughter being left when her adored boys had been taken from her. Bess never knew how she would be received, for sometimes her mother would seem unable to bear her presence, and at other times would unreasonably chide her for neglect. It began to dawn on Ingred how very lonely her friend must be. She had secretly envied her the possession of Rotherwood, but now she realized how little the house itself would mean without the happy home life in which brothers and sister had borne their part.
"I'd rather have the bungalow with the family, than Rotherwood all alone!" she ruminated. "As for Muvkins, she's one in a million. I believe she'd be cheery in a coal cellar, so long as she'd a solitary chick to keep under her wing. Why, if we'd lostourboys, she'd have been trying to make it up to Queenie and me for not having brothers. I know her! That's her way!"
Bess had much to show to her visitor when tea in the dainty morning-room was over. There were her books, and her photographs and postcard albums, and all kinds of girlish possessions, and a cocker spaniel with three puppies as fat as roly-poly puddings, and a fern-case opening out of one of her bedroom windows, and a collection of pressed wild flowers, and a green parroquet that would sit on her wrist, and allow her to stroke its head, though it snapped at strangers. They had been working upwards through the house, and finally Bess led the way to the top landing of all. She paused for a moment before the door of an attic room.
"I expect you'll know this place!" she remarked shyly, ushering in her guest.
Ingred looked round in amazement. It was a little sanctum which she and Quenrede had shared in the old days as a kind of studio. Here they had been allowed to try experiments in poker work, painting, fret-carving, spatter-work, or any other operations which were considered too messy to be performed in the school-room downstairs. They had loved their "den," as they called it, and had taken a particular pleasure in covering its walls with pictures, cut, most of them, from magazines, and stuck on with glue or paste. During the occupation of Rotherwood by the "Red Cross," this room had been locked up, and Ingred had imagined that Mr. Haselford would have had it papered when the rest of the house was decorated. She was delighted to find it in this untouched condition. All her dear former treasures adorned the walls, and she ran from one to another rejoicing over them. There was even a further surprise. Years ago an artist cousin had sketched her portrait in pastel crayons upon the color-wash of the wall. It had been done as a mere artistic freak, but like many such spontaneous drawings it had been an admirable likeness and a very pretty picture. It bore her name, "Ingred," in flourishy letters underneath. The whole of this had now been protected with a sheet of glass and enclosed by a frame. A table in the room, an easy chair, and a gas-fire seemed to point to its occasional occupation.
"You actually haven't had this changed!" exclaimed Ingred. "I thought it must all have been swept away by now!"
"No. You see, Father took me over the house when first he decided to come here, and when he was arranging what papers to choose. I fell in love with this dear wee room just as it was, and begged that it mightn't be touched. Father let me have it for my very own. It was so different from all other rooms. I liked the pictures pasted on the walls, and the bits of poker-work nailed up. I knew some other girls must have been here, and it gave me a homely feeling, as if you had only gone away for a few minutes, and might come back any time and talk to me. Then there was your portrait. I wondered who 'Ingred' was! The name struck my fancy immensely, and so did the face. You remember we removed to Rotherwood at the end of July, and all the rest of the summer I wondered about the portrait. I used to come up here and sit when I felt very lonely, and it seemed company, somehow. You can't think how fond I got of it. I suppose I was rather silly and absurd, but I knew nobody in Grovebury then, and Mother was ill in her room, and Father away all day—anyhow I got into the habit of talking to it as if it were a girl friend, and showing it my paintings, and my pressed flowers, and everything I was doing. I pretended it liked to see them. Sometimes I even brought up my violin and played to it. That was nicer than being quite by myself. It grew to be as dear to me as the little sister I had always longed to have.
"Then in September I went to the College. You can imagine what a start it gave me when somebody called you 'Ingred.' I looked at you, and I saw at once that you were the 'Ingred' of my picture, only grown older. I was absolutely thrilled. It was very foolish of me, but I thought somehow you'd understand. Of course you didn't! How could you? It was idiotic of me to expect it. The 'Ingred' on the wall was simply the friend of my fancy."
"And the real one was just hateful to you!" said Ingred sorrowfully. "I know I was a perfect beast! I was ashamed of myself all the time, only I wouldn't confess it. Lispeth used to slate me sometimes for my nastiness. She called me 'a jealous blighter,' and so I was! The girl of your fancy is a great deal nicer than I am, or ever can be, but I'll try to live up to her as well as I can, Bess, if you'll let me!"
"Let you!" echoed Bess, linking her arm affectionately in that of her friend. "You're a perfect dear nowadays."
The girls tore themselves away quite regretfully from the little attic studio, but time was passing only too quickly, and they wished to try a game of tennis before Ingred returned to the hostel.
"So you like the house in its new dress?" asked Bess as they walked down the steps into the garden. "Father thinks it's beautiful. He says Mr. Saxon is the best architect he knows. He's simply put every thing in exactly the right place. Does he only design houses, or does he go in for anything bigger?"
"He would if he got the chance," replied Ingred. "What sort of things do you mean?"
"Oh, a church, or a museum, or an art gallery."
"I know he's done most splendid designs for these, but he's never had the luck to get them accepted. There's generally so much influence needed to get your plans taken for a big public building like that. At least, that's what Dad says. If you have a relation on the City Council, it makes a vast difference to your chances. We've no friends at Court."
"Oh!" said Bess, rather abstractedly, and the subject dropped.
The girls had only time for one game of tennis, when the stable-clock, chiming half-past six, reminded Ingred that if she wished to do her preparation that evening she must rush back to the hotel. She bade Bess a reluctant good-by.
"You'll come and see me again?" asked the latter.
"Rather! And I'll send thought-waves to animate my portrait, and let it talk for me in my absence," laughed Ingred. "Perhaps you'll get more than you bargain for—I'm an awful chatter-box."
"You'll never talk too much for me," said Bess, as she kissed her good-by.
The Saxon family agreed that whatever might be the drawbacks of Wynch-on-the-Wold in wintry weather, it was an idyllic spot in the month of May. The wall-flowers which Ingred had transplanted were now in their prime, the apple trees were in blossom, clumps of lilies were pushing up fast, and pink double daisies bordered the front walk. The woods in the combe below the moor were a mass of bluebells, and here and there those who searched might find rarer flowers, orchises, lily of the valley, and true lover's knot. Friends who had shirked the journey while the winds blew cold, now began to drop in at the bungalow and take tea under the apple trees. Ingred, returning home on Friday afternoons, would find bicycles stacked by the gate and visitors seated in the garden. She greeted them with enthusiasm or the reverse, according to her individual tastes.
"Really, Ingred, they don't seem to teach manners at the College now!" said Quenrede one day. "The way you scowled at Mrs. Galsworthy and Gertrude was most uncivil. You didn't look in the very least pleased to see them."
"I wasn't! They're the most stupid people on the face of the earth! And they stayed such ages. I thought they'd never go. Just when I wanted a nice private talk with you and Mother before the boys came back. Why should you look glad to see a person when you're not?"
"For the sake of manners, my dear!"
"Then manners really mean humbug," declared Ingred, who loved to argue. "To say you're glad to see people, when you're not, is telling deliberate fibs. Most hypocritical, I call it! Why can't people tell the truth?"
"Because it would generally be offensive and unkind to do so," put in Mother, who happened to overhear. "There's another side to the question, too. When you say—against your will—that you are glad to see somebody, you mean that all thebestpart of you is glad—the kind, generous part that likes to give pleasure, not the selfish lower part that only thinks of its own convenience. So you are not really telling a fib, but being true to your nobler self. A great deal of what people call 'plain speaking' is simply giving rein to their most uncharitable thoughts. As a rule, I say Heaven defend me from those ultra-truthful souls who enjoy 'speaking their minds.'"
"But are we to gush over every bore?" asked Ingred.
"There are limits, of course. We can't let all our time be frittered away by idle friends, but we can generally manage tactfully without offending them. Don't look so woe-begone, childie! Nobody else is coming to-night, and I promise you tea in the woods to-morrow."
"By ourselves?"
"Unless anyone very nice comes over to join us," put in Quenrede quickly.
"You girls shall give the invitations. I won't bring any middle-aged people," laughed Mother, with a sly glance at Quenrede.
The party in the bluebell woods on Saturday was entirely a family one, with the exception of Mr. Broughten, who rode over on a motor-bicycle ostensibly to lend some microscopic slides to Athelstane, though Ingred suspected there was another attraction in the visit. Quenrede, who professed great surprise, gave him a guarded welcome.
"After all the fuss you made about my manners yesterday, you might have seemed more glad to see him," sniffed Ingred critically.
"Might I? Well, really, I think I'm going to hang a label round my neck: 'Pleased to meet you! Let 'em all come!' It would save trouble. Stick tight to me when we're gathering bluebells. Three's better company sometimes than two. Don't I like him? Oh yes, he's all right, but I'm not keen on atête-à-tête."
After which hint, Ingred, who had some acquaintance with the perversity of Quenrede's feminine mind, did exactly the opposite, and, abandoning her basket to the custody of Mr. Broughten, left him helping her sister to gather bluebells, and took herself off with Hereward.
"He's not half bad!" she ruminated laughingly. "Not of course a fairy prince exactly, or even a Member of Parliament, but the bubbles on the pool by the whispering stones certainly came to 'J,' and his name is 'John,' for I asked Athelstane. There's the finger of fate about it, and Queenie had better make up her mind."
With Ingred, however, school matters were at present much more interesting than speculating about her sister's possible future. It was an interesting term at the College. Cricket and tennis were in full swing, and she took an active part in both. The best of being at the hostel was that the boarders had the benefit of the tennis courts in the evening, and so secured an advantage in the matter of practice over any girls who did not possess a private court at home. So far the College had not competed in tournaments, but Blossom Webster was hopeful that later on in the term some champions might be chosen who would not disgrace the Games Club. Meantime she urged everybody to practice, and coached her favorites with the eye of an expert. Nora was particularly marked out for future distinction. She had made tremendous strides lately, and her swift serves were the terror of her opponents. The hostel felt justly proud of her achievements, and would collect in the evening, after prep., to watch her play a set of singles with Susie Wakefield, who, though older and taller, almost invariably lost.
Susie had good points of her own, however, and with Nora as partner could beat even Blossom and Aline occasionally. No doubt the future credit of the school was in their hands.
One evening it happened that Nora was in a particularly slashing and reckless mood, and she sent no less than three balls flying straight over the wall that bordered the tennis courts. They fell into the premises of old Dr. Broadfield, whose garden adjoined that of the school. They were not the first that had done so, indeed so many balls had gone over lately that the loss was growing serious. At one time the girls had been wont to ring Dr. Broadfield's front-door bell and beg permission to pick up their property, but they had been received so sourly by his elderly housekeeper, that they hardly dared to ask again.
"Three good balls gone in half an hour!" grieved Verity. "There'll soon be none left at this rate. I believe there must be a dozen at least lying on the grass over there, only that stingy old thing won't throw them back. It's really too bad."
"How could we possibly get them?" ruminated Doreen.
"Sham ill, get Dr. Broadfield to attend, and coax them out of him," suggested Fil.
Doreen shook her head.
"He's not the school doctor, unfortunately. When Millie sprained her ankle, Miss Burd sent for Dr. Harrison. We might fish for them with a butterfly net tied to the end of a drilling pole, if they're anywhere near enough."
"They're not. I peeped over the wall and they've rolled quite a long way off."
"How weak! What are we to do?"
"There's nothing for it," said Ingred slowly, "but to make a sally into the enemy's trenches and fetch them back!"
"Oh! I dare say! But who's going to do the sallying business?"
"Iwill, if you like."
"You!"
"Yes; I don't mind a scrap."
"You heroine!"
"Don't mensh!"
"But suppose you're caught?"
"I shall have to risk that, of course. I'll reconnoiter carefully first."
The boundary between the College premises and the property of Dr. Broadfield was part of the old Abbey wall. The mortar had crumbled away from the stones, leaving large interstices, so it was quite easy to climb. With a little boosting from Verity and Nora, Ingred successfully reached the top, and peered over into the neighboring garden. Just below her was a rockery, which offered not only an easy means of descent, but a quick mode of egress in the case of the necessity of beating a hasty retreat.
Beyond the flower-bed, and lying on the lawn, were no less than seven tennis balls, marked with the unmistakable blue cross that claimed them for the College. The sight was enough to spur on the faintest heart. Apparently there was nobody in this part of the garden, and no watchful face peered from any of the windows. It was certainly an opportunity that ought not to be missed. Ingred slipped first one foot and then the other over the wall, and dropped on to the rockery. It was the work of a minute to pick up the balls and throw them back to rejoicing friends. If she herself had followed immediately there would have been no sequel to the episode. But happening to look under the bushes, she noticed another ball, and went in quest of it. It seemed a shame to return until she had found any that might have strayed farther afield, so she dived under the rhododendron bushes, and was rewarded with two more balls. She had issued out on to another part of the lawn, and was on the very point of retreating, when she suddenly heard voices on the path between the bushes. To run to the wall would be to cross open country, so, with an instinctive desire to seek cover, she dived into a summer-house close by, and shut the door. The footsteps came nearer. Were they going to follow her into her retreat, and catch her? It would be too ignominious! Peeping warily through a small window of the summer-house, she saw two young people, apparently much interested in each other, strolling leisurely up. To her immense relief they did not attempt to enter, but sat down on a seat outside the window. They were so near that she could perforce hear every word, and was an unwilling but compulsory eavesdropper.
At first the conversation consisted mostly of tender nothings: "He" certainly called her "Darling!"; "She" replied: "Oh, Donald, don't!" and a sound followed so suspiciously like a kiss that Ingred, only a few feet away from them, almost giggled aloud. She wondered how long they were going to keep her a prisoner. It might be very pleasant for themselves to sit "spooning" in the garden on a mild May evening, but if they prolonged their enjoyment beyond eight o'clock, the hostel supper-bell would ring, and any girl not in her place at the table would lose a mark for punctuality.
"He" on the other side of the window, was waxing sentimental about old times and bygone days.
"I'm glad you're not a nun, darling!" he remarked fatuously. "If you had lived in the ancient Abbey, I shouldn't have been able to walk about the garden with you, should I?"
"I suppose not," she ventured, "especially if you'd been a monk."
"I dare say some of themdidmanage to do a little love-making sometimes, though. What's that story about the ghost?"
"The White Nun, do you mean? The one that haunts the College gardens?"
(Ingred pricked up her ears at this).
"Yes. Isn't there some legend or other about her?"
"I believe there is, but I've forgotten it. I only know she walks on moonlight nights, down the steps by the sun-dial, and then disappears into the wall near the Abbey. At least she's supposed to. I've never met anybody who's seen her. Don't talk of such shuddery things! You make me feel creepy!"
Apparently he offered masculine protection, for another suggestive sound was followed by a giggle and a remonstrance. The hostel bell was ringing, and the Abbey clock was striking eight. Were they going to stay talking all night? Ingred was growing desperate. She wondered how she was going to explain her absence to Mrs. Best. She even debated whether it would be advisable to open the summer-house door, bolt across the lawn, and trust to luck that the matter was not reported at the College. She had her hand on the latch when the feminine voice outside remarked:
"It's getting chilly, Donald!"
"Don't catch cold, darling!" with tender solicitude. "Would you rather go indoors?"
"Hooray!" triumphed Ingred inwardly, though she did not dare to utter a sound.
It took a little while for the lovers to get under way and finally stroll back along the path among the bushes. Ingred gave them time to walk out of sight and hearing, then made a dash for the rockery, scrambled over the wall, tore across the tennis courts, and entered the dining-room nearly ten minutes late for supper. Mrs. Best looked at her reproachfully, and Doreen, who was monitress for the month, took a notebook from her pocket and made an entry therein. Nora and Verity and Fil went on eating sago blanc-mange with stolid countenances that betrayed no knowledge of their room-mate's doings, but that night, when The Foursomes met in the privacy of Dormitory 2, they demanded an account of her adventure.
She certainly had a piece of interesting news to confide.
"Did you know that a ghost haunts the garden?"
"No! Oh, I say, where?"
"That part by the sun-dial. I've heard it called 'The Nun's Walk!'"
"So have I; but I never knew there was a ghost!"
"It's supposed to walk on moonlight nights."
"How fearfully thrillsome!"
"I've never seen a ghost!" shivered Fil.
"No more have I—and I've never met anyone who exactly has. It's generally their cousin's cousin who's told them about it."
"There's a moon to-night," remarked Nora.
"So there is!"
The four girls looked at one another, hair brushes in hand. Each had it on the tip of her tongue to make a suggestion.
"Idareyou to go!" said Verity at last.
"Not alone?"
Fil was clutching already at Nora's hand.
"Well, no! Hardly alone. I vote we all go together and try if we can see anything."
"It would be rather spooksomely jinky!"
"Well, look here, don't let's undress properly, but get into bed, and cover ourselves up until Nurse has been her rounds, then we'll slip downstairs and out through the side door into the garden. Are you game?"
"Who's afraid?" said Ingred valiantly.
Upstairs in their bedroom, with the gas turned on, it was easy enough to feel courageous. Their spirits rose indeed at the prospect of such an adventure. Nurse Warner, who came into the room a little later, looked round at the four beds, turned out the gas, and departed without a suspicion. She had not been gone five minutes when a surreptitious dressing took place, and four figures in dark coats stole down the stairs. Though the building of the College might be absolutely modern, the garden was a relic of mediæval days. It had formerly belonged to the nunnery of St. Mary's, and had adjoined the Abbey. Parts of the crumbling old wall were still left, and a flagged path led from a sun-dial to some ruins. In the day-time it was a cheerful place, and a blaze of color. The girls had never before seen it in its night aspect. On this May evening it had a quiet beauty that was most impressive. The full moon shone on the great dark pile of the Abbey towers and the beech avenue beyond. There was just light enough in the garden to distinguish bushes as heavy masses, and to trace the paths from the grass. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers.
It is amazing how different conditions can alter a scene: at noon, with the hum from the busy streets, it was commonplace enough; by moonlight it became a mystic bower of enchantment. The girls walked along very quietly, treading on the grass so as to make no noise. A slight mist was rising from the ground near the Abbey; in the rays of the moon it resembled a lake. Everything, indeed, was altered. The outline of the sumach bush was like a crouching tiger; the laburnum tassels waved like skeleton fingers. It seemed a witching, unreal world.
Four rather scared girls crept along, clasping hands for moral support. Each secretly would have been relieved to abandon the quest, but did not like to be the first to turn tail. They had determined to walk from the sun-dial to the Abbey wall and back again. So far the garden, though mysterious, showed no signs of anything supernatural. They began to pluck up courage, and even to talk to one another in low whispers. At the ruins they turned and looked back towards the sun-dial. The moonlight streamed along the flagged path, and shimmered on the clumps of early yellow lilies.
What was that, stealing from under the shelter of the hawthorn tree? The girls gasped and almost stopped breathing.