"It doesn't matter!"
"Oh, but itdoesmatter!" protested several urgent voices. "The book's graded, and we've not got to such long words yet. We don't know how to spell them!"
"Well, you'll have to try to-day," insisted Lesbia, who did not intend to be corrected by her form. "You must just get along as best you can."
"'After pre-lim-in-ary ex-plor-ations he reached Khar-toum and organized his ex-pe-dition to the Great White Nile.'"
Sixteen sulky girls, feeling they had a real grievance, wrote down the unaccustomed words, with an ostentatious accompaniment of shrugging of shoulders, tapping of foreheads, nibbling of pen-holders, and other signals of mental distress.
"If we all get bad marks for dictation it won't beourfaults," remarked Edie Browne in injured tones.
"You'll get a mark for bad conduct if you speak again!" snapped Lesbia.
For a moment or two there was silence, only broken by the sound of scratching pens. Then again came a piping voice.
"Do blots count? My ink's so thick it's made three smudges."
"Be as careful as you can," temporized Lesbia.
Dorothy sighed gustily, took her ink-pot out of its well, inspected it, stirred it up with her pen, and placed it on the top of her desk. At the very nextdip she upset it, and its contents spread in a black stream over her exercise-book.
"Dor-othy!"
Lesbia's voice rose to crescendo at the spectacle of the delinquent, her sleeves soaked in ink, trying to dab up the mess with a morsel of blotting-paper and a pink-edged pocket handkerchief. She hastily came to the rescue with the duster from the blackboard, which dispersed a shower of chalk over the already injured costume of her maladroit pupil.
"Go and wash your hands at once!" she ordered, replacing the now empty ink-pot in its well, and putting the exercise-book to dry by the fire. "I'm astonished at such carelessness!"
Dorothy obeyed with something very like a surreptitious wink at her comrades. The form regarded her with an expression almost approaching admiration. One would judge the unspoken thought of each to be: "Why did notIthink of such a lovely thing as to upset the ink and get sent to wash my hands instead of doing horrid dictation?"
After disposing of this interruption, Lesbia continued with the adventures of Sir Samuel Baker, despite the long words, refusing even to give the spelling of proper names, such as Nyanza and Gondokoro, declaring that all had an equal chance of getting them right.
"Or wrong!" growled Gwennie, under her breath.
"It's a quarter to eleven; and we always begin to correct them," volunteered the officious Jess Morrison.
Lesbia glared in her direction, but accepted the hint. It would need due time to correct the crop of mistakes which might certainly be expected.
"Change books!" she commanded, and, when the transfer had been effected, proceeded to go through the paragraphs, spelling the words, in the midst of which process arrived Dorothy (still with ink-stained sleeves though with cleaner fingers), who promptly asked her to begin again at the beginning as she had lost half.
There are limits to patience, and Lesbia's was at an end.
"You'll sit down and take 'missed' for your dictation, Dorothy Holding! Do you think I'm going to delay the form on your account? If I've any more trouble with you you'll go to Miss Tatham. Do you understand?"
Dorothy evidently did, for she subsided quietly into her desk, and the other girls took warning and behaved themselves. For five minutes a blessed peace reigned inIIb. Nobody was more absolutely thankful when the eleven o'clock bell rang than Lesbia. The ordeal of her first lesson was over, and, though things had not gone altogether smoothly, she had managed the form by herself, and had not been obliged to call in the assistance of any other teacher to read the riot act.
"They're imps! Sixteen cheeky, mischievous imps!" she decided, as she walked round the gymnasium eating her biscuit lunch. "But I believe I can tackle them. I dare say I shall have a row or two now and then, and I don't mean to stand any nonsense from either Madam Dorothy Holding or Jess Morrison. All the same, Lesbia Ferrars, you didn't think you could do it, and youhavedone it. That's something to sing 'O, Jubilate' about at any rate. You'll lick those kids into shape before you've done with them. Help! What a life! It's going to be a facer of a term."
When Lesbia looked back upon the events of the last few months, and compared the beginning of the September term with the present January one, she decided that she felt quite a hundred years older. Whether such a swift and sudden growing-up was unalloyed bliss was a matter for debate, but at any rate it gave her a certain feeling of self-reliance that was rather gratifying. In the Patterson household she was in a different world from that of the Hiltons. Paul and Minnie had been very, very kind, but they treated her entirely as a child, and had never even discussed her future in her presence. Paul, chivalrous towards women, but old-fashioned in his ideas of their sphere, liked girls to be brought up in cotton-wool, and thought the home provided quite a wide enough field for their energies. He considered "careers" unfeminine, and admired the mid-Victorian days, when the daughters of the house dusted the drawing-room and arranged the flowers, paid calls, played tennis, and helped at bazaars, but left college life and the professions to their brothers.
Mrs. Patterson took just the opposite view of things. She was intensely modern, and considered that every girl ought to be trained for some special career as much as every boy. Her own daughters were studying hard, Kitty for medicine, and Joan for secretarial work. She looked forward to their future prospects with as much interest as to those of her sons, Derrick, Stuart, and Godfrey. Having accepted Lesbia as an inmate of the household, she tried to train her in her own particular school of ideas. She was kind in her way, but not at all tender. Even to her own children she would only bestow the merest peck of a kiss. She was quite uncompromising with her young cousin, kept her remorselessly to home preparation or piano practice, and demanded high standards in respect of punctuality, exactitude of expression, and general alertness.
Though it kept her brains continually on the stretch, Lesbia found the mental atmosphere bracing. She began to enjoy the intellectual conversation round the breakfast- or supper-table. At first she was quite at sea regarding the topics discussed, but after a while she grew to understand and even sometimes to offer an opinion of her own. She had never in her life before imagined that so many societies and committees existed as those to which Mr. and Mrs. Patterson devoted a large part of their energies.
This difference in the brain-stimulating activity of her new home could not fail to express itself in Lesbia'sschool work. She was not clever in the sense of having a retentive memory, but she now showed more brightness in answering questions and her essays were more original. Miss Pratt, ruthless towards "slackers" or "dullards", slowly relaxed a tithe of her irony.
"I really believe, Lesbia Ferrars, you're beginning at last to realize that a human head holds something called a brain," she remarked pointedly one day. "Many girls seem to think learning is like receiving a phonographic impression. They reel it off again at exams, with as little intelligence as a gramophone. We don't want the barrel-piano style of work in this form. We want cultivated brains that can reason as well as state facts, not bunglers who haven't the sense to think."
Her pince-nez, which for a wonder had fallen quite approvingly on Lesbia, glared in the direction of Lizzie Logan.
Poor Lizzie was the champion blunderer of the form, and only the previous day, in the ambulance lesson, when asked how she would apply artificial respiration to a part-drowned patient who had broken both his arms, gasped in utter consternation, and had nervously fluttered forth: "I should work his legs about," an answer which drew forth an absolute deluge of scorn from her indignant teacher.
It was Miss Pratt, always anxious to work in the direction of intellectual uplift, who suggested to MissTatham that the school might get up some private theatricals for the end of the term. She constituted herself stage-manager, and was licensed to pick her stars from any form she pleased.
"I don't mind whether I choose seniors or juniors," she announced. "I want girls who canact, not wooden dummies. I shall have test rehearsals, and reject all those who haven't the proper dramatic fire about them. Any candidate will have to play up or leave the boards."
The honour of a place in Miss Pratt's "Company" was sufficiently great to attract many would-be performers, but her standards were strict, and the elimination process a severe one. Lesbia, mindful of the many squashings she had received in class, and seeing even Marion Morwood turned down for incompetence, did not dare to present herself for the ordeal.
"Miss Pratt would probably only laugh at me and say, 'You! Well really, who next?'" she confided to Marion.
And Marion, who was suffering from the disappointment of rejection, agreed with her.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and there ought to have been a hockey practice, but the rain had commenced in such dead earnest that it was hopeless to set out to the playing-field. As hockey was off, the girls might do what they pleased with the afternoon. Some went home immediately, others retired toVato do their preparation, and others hung disconsolately about the gymnasium.
"Let's have a little fun on our own," suggested Marion, looking at the platform from which, alack! she was to be exiled. "Miss Pratt's out of the way, and nobody very carping and criticizing is about, so I vote we make up a play, just anything that comes into our heads, and act it."
"Right-o!" agreed Lesbia. "It would be rather sporting. Who'll help? Cissie, are you game? And Aldora?"
"Four are quite enough!" interrupted Marion hastily, as eager girls began to crowd round clamouring to be included in the cast. "No Ican'thave everybody in it—I wouldn't haveyou, Betty Wroe, at any price, so don't bother! You can act audience if you want. We shall be ten minutes or so getting ready. Have a concert among yourselves if you want to kill time. I see Ermie has a book of songs."
"It's all very fine for you four to monopolize the stage and keep us out of it!" grumbled several disappointed voices.
"Well,wethought of it first. It wasouridea entirely."
"It's not nearly as much fun to watch as to act!"
"Go home then, if you don't want to stay. Or go and do prep!"
"No, thanks!"
Leaving their audience to settle itself or not as it wished, the four self-elected performers hurriedlyretired into the green-room behind the stage to plan out their entertainment.
"Whatshallwe act?" asked Marion, rather blank when brought face to face with the emergency of instantaneous dramatic composition.
"Give me a few minutes to think," replied Lesbia, sitting down with her head in her hands.
Lesbia's imagination was the brightest part of her mental equipment. She could often invent things in a flash. Indeed all her best work was a species of inspiration. The idea either came to her instantly, like a slave of the lamp, or stopped away altogether. This afternoon the Ariel who supplied her happiest successes was apparently close at hand. After clutching her forehead for a short, but to judge from her expression an agonizing, period, she suddenly jumped up.
"I've got it!" she triumphed. "And quite a jinky one too—name and all!"
Three cogitating girls left off fidgeting and drumming on the table and faced her expectantly.
"Well!"
"'Dr. Pillbox's Patient.' That's the title. Squat here and I'll tell you the rugged outline. We must fill in details as we go along."
Lesbia's plot was quite sufficient to content her comrades; they hurriedly arranged their parts, and flew to the cloakroom for anything they could commandeerin the way of costumes. They shamelessly purloined a felt hat of Nina Wakefield's, Pauline Kingston's waterproof, and Ada Wood's thick coat, which, together with the duster from the gymnasium blackboard, a piece of charcoal from Grace Stirling's pencil-box, Mabel Andrews' water-colour paint-box, that was lying about on the mantelpiece, and a few chairs which were already on the platform, made the extent of their hastily-scrambled-together wardrobe and scenery.
"It's 'your theatre while you wait'!" giggled Aldora.
"We've not made them wait long. I flatter ourselves we'd do for lightning actresses," grunted Lesbia, helping Cissie with her hasty toilet.
"Do I look the least scrap like a real medical man?" demanded Marion tragically.
"Put on a professional air and you'll do," advised Lesbia. "You want a piece of paper for a white collar. That's fine! Oh, you do look grand!"
Furious sounds of stamping and clapping and shouts of "Get a move on there!" from the gymnasium showed signs of impatience among the expectant girls below, so the performers, fearful that their audience might desert them altogether and go away, if they were not quick, made a few final titivations, and told Betty Wroe, who had volunteered as "odd job woman", to raise the curtain.
The scene disclosed Lesbia, as Miss Lovelace, lounging upon a sofa, improvised from four chairs with Ada Wood's coat thrown over them. After much yawning, interspersed with heavy sighs, she revealed, in the short soliloquy usual among stage heroines, the utter boredom of her life as a mistress at the Muddlehead High School. She debated how it was possible to obtain a brief respite from the eternal round of teaching, and confided to the audience that a holiday would be particularly acceptable, as George, her fiancé, was coming to spend to-morrow with his aunt, and would take her a trip upon the river if she could get the day off.
"We teachers have hearts as well as other people," proclaimed Lesbia eloquently, "and often we long to fling Minerva to the winds and worship only Cupid! What are chemistry and mathematics compared to whispered words and tender glances? No! The thraldom of education shall never stay the course of true love!"
Miss Lovelace's heroics, though they mightily impressed the audience, apparently did not solve the problem of how she was to take her holiday without losing her post at school. Her fertile brain, however, supplied the key to the situation.
"I must get an attack of measles," she declared. "Then I shall be infectious and quite unable to teach my form."
Springing from the sofa, she seized Mabel Andrews' paint-box, and with the aid of a glass of water and a sable brush dabbed spots of crimson over her face, neck, and chest. Then, falling back on to the sofa in a semi-prostrate attitude, she called loudly for Mrs. Jones.
Cissie, as the landlady, with a school towel pinned on for an apron, came bustling in, and held up hands of horror at the sight of the violent eruption on the face of her lodger. She rapidly catalogued the various complaints, from smallpox to scarlatina, which included a rash among their symptoms, and readily agreed to hurry forth and fetch the doctor.
Apparently she found him just round the corner, for he was ushered in immediately. Marion, with the scanty materials at her command, had made a very gallant attempt at masculine attire. She wore Pauline Kingston's waterproof, and a white collar made from a sheet of exercise paper. On her head was Nina Wakefield's soft black felt hat (the audience waived the point of a physician wearing his hat in his patient's parlour), and a black moustache was charcoaled on her upper lip. He examined Miss Lovelace in orthodox medical fashion, felt her pulse, examined her tongue, took her temperature (with a stilo-pen for thermometer), and asked numerous questions, to which, lying on the sofa with half-closed eyes, she groaned the answers in apparent agony. He shookhis head over the case and declared he must at once send a hospital nurse to her assistance.
Miss Lovelace protested vigorously at this suggestion, but Dr. Pillbox was adamant, and departed saying that Nurse Harding would arrive directly with full instructions as to the treatment of the complaint. Aldora had had a little more time than the others to complete her costume and she was proud of it. She had borrowed Betty Wroe's pocket handkerchief, and with that and the blackboard duster constructed an apron with a bib. Her own handkerchief formed a Red Cross cap, and pieces of exercise paper made the collar and cuffs of her uniform. She took the patient in hand with the air of one who is going to stand no nonsense, and proclaimed her immediate intention of washing her.
Miss Lovelace, who had been languishing and half fainting upon the couch, repudiated the necessity of such extreme measures, declaring that water would only irritate the rash. Nurse insisted that such were the doctor's orders and she must obey them. A violent struggle ensued between herself and her patient, with the result that she completely wiped off the eruption and revealed the shameless fraud practised by the artful governess. At this interesting crisis Dr. Pillbox (evidently a most attentive practitioner) arrived to pay a second visit. Miss Lovelace, bursting into tears, begged the favour of an interview with himalone. Nurse Harding reluctantly retired, and the youthful teacher, falling on one knee in a picturesque cinema attitude of supplication, threw herself on the doctor's mercy and revealed not only her ingenious deception but the reason why she wanted a holiday. Dr. Pillbox was kindness itself. He assured her he had at once detected the imposture but promised to condone it. He pulled a notebook from his pocket and wrote a medical certificate to the effect that she was incapable through illness of performing her duties as teacher upon the following day, and recommended a trip upon the river as the quickest cure for re-establishing her health. It was received by his patient with an exuberance of gratitude.
Then Nurse Harding and Mrs. Jones, who were hovering in the background anxious to butt in, were called upon the platform, and all four performers stood in a line and made bows of more or less graceful quality.
As Lesbia, whose acknowledgement to the applause had been low and sweeping, rose to her usual level her eyes encountered the amused and interested gaze of no less a person than Miss Pratt. She started and conveyed her unwelcome discovery to her fellow actresses. They retired hastily in much embarrassment.
"I'd no ideashewas there!" fluttered Marion.
"When did she come?" asked Aldora.
"Why, she's been there the whole time," volunteered Betty Wroe, who was helping as wardrobe woman; "didn't you see her sitting at the back?"
"I never dared to look at the audience," gasped Lesbia. "Oh! To think of all theawfulthings I said about teachers and Cupid, and all the rest of it, with Miss Pratt actually sitting and listening. It gives me spasms. And I went on so about 'dear George'."
"And there was I with my corked moustache acting a regular old bean of a doctor."
"And I dropped all my h's as Mrs. Jones!"
"If we'd only known!"
"It's a good thing you didn't," remarked Betty with a delighted chuckle. "You played up no end, and of course with Miss Pratt in the room the girls were absolutely in fits. Calla's hysterical still. They thought you were doing it on purpose."
"Oh, we wouldn't havedared! I expect Miss Pratt thinks it the most fearful cheek. I wonder if she'll be down on us for it?"
"Oh, Jemima! We're always getting into hot water somehow."
Nell Dawson arrived at that moment with a message that if the performers had changed their costumes Miss Pratt would like a word with them.
"You see!" said Lesbia dolefully, bracing her nerves for the rebuke which, as chief offender, would probably descend most heavily upon her own head.
They were quite mistaken, however, about Miss Pratt's attitude. She highly commended the little performance.
"As an impromptu business it was really very good," she conceded. "It's shown me what you're capable of, and I'm certainly going to put all four of you in my 'Company'."
"We—we didn't know you were listening," faltered Lesbia apologetically.
"So I supposed" (a flicker of a smile crossed her face); "it's always best to live your part and forget your audience. Come to me to-morrow before nine and I'll give you your books. I hadn't fixed up the cast ofThe Duchess's Dilemma."
Four delighted girls scuttled off to the cloakroom, almost overwhelmed by the suddenness of their good fortune.
"She should!" exclaimed Aldora.
"It's too topping for words," yodelled Cissie.
"Shouldn't have thought Miss Pratt capable of being so sporting," rejoiced Marion.
"She's a griffin sometimes but she's a mascot to-day, bless her," murmured Lesbia. "I wonder, if after all, she ratherlikedthe idea of school mistresses having hearts? If she ever stays away from school with a bad cold or any other excuse I shall think she's taken the tip."
The Easter term wended its way along with many ups and downs for Lesbia. Her struggles with the unruly juniors constituted a genuine trial, but there were compensations in what Marion called "the by-products of the school", by which she meant the Dramatic Society and the various activities on the afternoons devoted to "self-expression". Lesbia had finished the decoration ofVa. Her lotus pattern really looked extremely nice round the walls and gave the room an appearance of quite superior culture. She had taken up chip-carving, and under the superintendence of Miss Joyce, who held a weekly class in the studio, was carving a frame to hold an old print of Kingfield Main Street as it appeared before the High School established its quarters there. There was great rivalry between the various forms in the decoration of their rooms. The Sixth had several beautiful pictures, and moreover sported a silver cup on their mantelpiece, a trophy which had been won six years ago, in an open tennis tournament, by Gladys Hellier and JoanMayfield, the then champions of the High School. On the possession of this cup the Sixth were considered quite unduly to give themselves airs.
"It isn't as if any of them had actually won it with their own rackets," objected Calla. "Yet they go cock-a-doodling about that wretched cup as if each of them separately had been champion."
"A very reflected kind of gloryIcall it," agreed Bernadine.
"It's six years since the school won anything publicly," croaked Phillis, wrinkling her eyebrows.
"Humph! Yes! Time it bucked up and did something," endorsed Ermie smartly.
"We beat Moreton College in the hockey match," put in Lesbia, always anxious for the credit of her own school.
"Yes, that's all right, but you don't get prizes for hockey matches. We want something we can stick on our mantelpiece, and crow over the Sixth. I should like to take down their pride."
Just at present there did not seem any immediate prospect of winning a trophy and thereby humbling the upper form. It is one thing to be wildly anxious to compete, but quite another to crystallize your efforts into a definite shape.
"There ought to be Olympic Games in Kingfield every year for all the schools in the town, and the Corporation ought to give the prizes," decidedLesbia. "It could be paid for out of the rates and taxes."
"It will be when schoolgirls get votes," nodded Marjorie emphatically.
Meantime the Corporation did not see its opportunities, and the over-taxed rate-payers of Kingfield would probably have gone on strike at the suggestion of an increase for the purpose of supplying prizes for Olympic Games for school children. Ermie Hall, whose father was a city councillor, did indeed broach the subject at the family breakfast-table, but was squashed flat by her amazed and indignant parent.
"Olympic nonsense," he grunted. "We don't want an extra halfpenny on the rates. I don't know what the present generation is coming to. In my young days we played on the meadows by the river and never bothered our heads about trophies. The Education Committee gives a prize or two for book learning, and quite right too, but the City Council would see the children at Jericho before it offered them rewards for playing. Stick to your lessons, child; they're quite enough to keep you busy, I'm sure. Your last report wasn't up to much, so far as I remember."
"Of course Dad's rather out-of-date," commented Ermie, reporting the interview to an elect circle inVa. "I told him Miss Tatham said 'the physical side of education is as necessary as the mental', but I couldn'tget him to see it. He was quite raggy, and jammed the lid on the bacon dish, and told me to get on with my breakfast and not talk any more rubbish. So there you are. What can you do, even if your fatherison the City Council?"
"It's hopeless," agreed Calla, with a gusty sigh.
"Put not your trust in corporations," grunted Kathleen gloomily. "I do think the town might do something for us schoolgirls."
It was on the third day after this rebuff that Lizzie Logan covered herself with glory. Lizzie Logan, of all people in the world, the shyest girl in the form, an absolute retiring young she-hermit, who always blushed crimson when she had to answer a question, and generally scuttled out of the dressing-room in a hurry as if she did not want to walk home with anybody else, and looked scared to death if she was asked to join a game in the gymnasium. She came into school one morning carrying a local newspaper, and, after reddening up to the very roots of her hair and down to the margin of her V-shaped blouse, she handed it to Marjorie, murmuring something utterly unintelligible.
"Hello, old sport! What's this for?" demanded Marjorie, opening it at a large advertisement of face powder. "Nothing doing here, thanks! I haven't gone in for titivating my complexion yet. You'll have to be content with me as nature made me.Whatdoyou say? An advertisement? Why can't you speak up? Show it to me, then! Oh,I say! Girls, just look here! What do you think of this?"
A circle at once crowded round Marjorie, peeping over her shoulder. Others, on the outer limit, denied a sight of the paper, demanded explanation.
So Marjorie read the advertisement aloud:
"'KINGFIELD ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY"'The Committee offers first, second, and third prizes to school pupils who shall submit the best essays on the ancient history and associations of the city. Full particulars can be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, Mr. E. Johnson, St. Gilbert's, Thorwald Street.'"
"'KINGFIELD ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY
"'The Committee offers first, second, and third prizes to school pupils who shall submit the best essays on the ancient history and associations of the city. Full particulars can be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, Mr. E. Johnson, St. Gilbert's, Thorwald Street.'"
"Hi cockalorum! What an absolutely jinky idea!" rejoiced Calla.
"Ancient history of the city, too! That's quite in our line," purred Lesbia.
"Ra-ther! It might have been specially made for us," triumphed Kathleen.
"It was," fluttered Lizzie Logan's meek little voice.
"What d'you mean, child?" demanded Marjorie. "Here, speak up! We're not going to eat you!"
Lizzie's complexion turned from carnation todamask rose, and deepened into shades of pæony or even beetroot.
"Well, you see," she explained, "my uncle is on the Committee of the Archæological Society, and I was telling him what we do at school on Fridays, and I said I wished there was a prize we could try for, and he said it was worth thinking about, and he'd ask the President, and last night he sent me this paper; so I brought it to show you."
Lizzie finished with a kind of gasp. It was quite a long speech for her to make. Marjorie patted her encouragingly on the back.
"Lizzie Logan, you're coming on. You'll be a credit toVabefore we've done with you. Now I call this really public spirited. We must set to work hot and strong and see what can be done."
"Lesbia, you ought to be a champion at this business."
"We must all 'champ'," agreed Lesbia. "Is it a one-man-show or may we club together?"
"I don't know. We'd better some of us go round to Mr. Johnson's for particulars."
There were, so it seemed, several classes in the competition, some for elementary, and others for secondary schools. Among the latter a prize was offered for the best joint scrap album—the work of any one form—recording the history of the city in writing, photographs, old prints, drawings, newspapercuttings, or other methods. The idea appealed immensely toVa. They had never before agreed on a joint effort.
"It will be ever so much nicer to do it all together," opined Marjorie, "than each to have our own scrap-book, and go sneaking off to get photos of places you hope nobody else has found out."
"Yes, when they're all put together it will make so much better a book," agreed Marion.
"What about the prize?" ventured Aldora.
"Why, of course, they'll give a trophy to the whole form."
"Ripping!"
"We haven't got it yet, though."
"The Sixth will have an innings!"
"And we're not the only school in the town, either."
"Never mind, we can but try."
"And we'll have a jolly good try, too!"
"You bet we will."
With such a goal to work for it became a point of honour with each individual member ofVato make some adequate contribution to the scrap album. In order that its contents should not be indiscriminately miscellaneous they appointed a committee of selection, and only admitted what was considered entirely worthy. It really gave them a great deal of interest and amusement. Armed with cameras they went out in littleparties and took photographs of numerous old buildings, mediæval carvings, or antique objects, such as the town stocks or the ancient pillory. On the whole, owners of property were indulgent, and though a few jibbed at first at admitting a crew of lively schoolgirls into private premises, they relented when the object of the visit was explained to them. Some born collectors inVaturned over the contents of the stalls in the Kingfield Market to find old prints of the city, grandfathers and grandmothers were appealed to and asked to ransack their memories for forgotten legends, and their drawers for sketches or newspaper cuttings. The amount of material forthcoming was really quite considerable. The most unlikely girls would often produce quite choice specimens.
It was decided—in committee—that the album should be made of large sheets of brown paper, and that its back should be of dull-green cardboard, painted with a floral design, and the words "Scrap Album,Va, Kingfield High School" in artistic lettering. By general vote the construction of the cover fell to Lesbia. She was the only one in the form who had much initiative in art matters. Nobody else in fact dared to venture upon it. She accepted the honour, inwardly jubilant, but with an outer display of due diffidence.
"Oh, I don't think I can!" she objected.
"Rubbish! Don't be affected," snapped Calla.
"It's got to be done, so you'd best fire away and get a move on with it."
"Anybody who could do the lotus pattern on the wall could do a book-back!" declared Carrie.
"Be sporting, Lesbia," urged Kathleen.
"It's all very well for you to talk, but you forget thetimeit will take me. I've my prep to do, the same as the rest of you, and you know what Miss Pratt is. She's about as much consideration as a slave-driver. 'Your tasks, your daily tasks' are what she's out for and we have to 'make bricks without straw', that's to say, learn things without the time to do it in. How'm I going to manage?"
"We've all got to make sacrifices for the school," said Calla briskly, "and yours must be doing this book-back. If it takes your prep time and you get into rows with Miss Pratt, well that can't be helped. You'll be suffering in a good cause."
"That's all very well, but it'sIwho'll get the scoldings, and they'll be the limit."
"Cheerio, chucky. We'll all slack a little and bring down the standard, so that you won't seem so conspicuous.Youwon't mind a bad mark or two, will you, Marjorie?"
"Not at all," beamed that damsel shamelessly. "It's not the first time by any means."
"We'd better have a rota to slack prep" (Carrie's voice was eager), "three of us can do it every day inturns, then Miss Pratt won't be too down on any special one. Bags me to-morrow. I want to go out to tea anyway."
"Right you are. See how we're backing you up, Lesbia. Isn't it noble of us? I think we're absolute mascots if you ask me."
Rather overwhelmed by the honour thrust on her unaccustomed shoulders, but buoyed up by the importance of it, Lesbia set to work to consider the question of a book-back worthy of the form scrap album. She received no inspiration or even particular encouragement from the Pattersons. As a family they were intellectual but not in the least artistic. Mrs. Patterson frowned slightly when her young cousin, bubbling over with elation, mentioned the matter at the dinner-table.
"Well now, Lesbia," she began, in her deep common-sense tone of voice, "it's all very well to take up these fads, but what about your lessons? I think Miss Tatham's making a mistake to let so much time be wasted over these outside things. Girls have to stick close to their books if they want to pass exams. Now when Kitty was reading for her matric, she never went out anywhere, even to a concert or a lecture. Did you, Kitty?"
Kitty, sprinkling sugar over her roasted apples, shook her head emphatically.
"It was just jolly well grind, grind from breakfast till bedtime," she admitted, "I think they're slacking off at Kingfield High nowadays."
"Oh, but it's much more interesting than ever it used to be," urged Lesbia, anxious for the credit of her school, "and of course even Miss Pratt knows we're trying for the scrap-book prize. Oh, well, yes—of course she's a little sniffy over it, but she can't say we mustn't."
"As long as Lesbia does her prep all right I don't see why anybody need scream," put in Joan, taking up the cudgels for her cousin.
"Scream indeed! Really, Joan!" said her mother indignantly. "The slang you girls talk is simply outrageous. We shall hardly know the English language soon. As I said before, Lesbia must do her home work properly, and I don't expect to see any drawing brought out before her preparation and her practising are both finished, every day. You quite understand, Lesbia?"
Lesbia, to avoid replying, passed the butter dish and the biscuits with unnecessary officiousness, and turned the subject neatly on to Joan's headache. She meant to produce the scrap-book cover at all costs, though she could not fling down the challenge and proclaim her rebellious intentions in the midst of the assembled Patterson family.
KINDLY INTERESTPage 134
"I'd better go and ask Miss Joyce about it," she decided.
Miss Joyce still took the Arts and Crafts classes at the High School, but she was always so busy that she had no time for private conversations with individual pupils. For several months her remarks to Lesbia had been confined to professional criticisms. The invitation to come and see her at her rooms still held open, however, and Lesbia determined to avail herself of it. She knew Miss Joyce worked in her studio on Thursdays, and would therefore be at home to a chance visitor.
So on Thursday afternoon, when school was over, she deliberately missed the Morton Common tram-car, banished the Pattersons temporarily from her mind, and walked down the town to Pilgrims' Inn Chambers. She was in a bubble of excitement. The unorthodox little outing seemed a stupendous treat, and an immense relief from the ordinary routine of her well-regulated life. The orderly and methodical régime of her cousins' household was immensely good for her, but often a keen trial to her Celtic temperament. When she was bursting to impart some piece of information, and had run home, and begun eagerly to pour it out, Mrs. Patterson would utterly ignore her news, and interrupt her by reminding her that she had not changed her boots. Her moments of excited elation were discouraged, Joan and Kitty, indeed,thought them bad form, and the family laughed at the violent enthusiasm which she could put into the merest trifles.
"You're such a child over everything, Lesbia," Joan would remark patronizingly.
Miss Joyce at any rate did not call her "a child" for any display of enthusiasm. She "enthused" herself upon art matters, and her mental atmosphere was sympathetic. Lesbia's footsteps quickened as she turned down Mill Street and went into the cobbled courtyard of the old Pilgrims' Inn. With a delighted thrill of anticipation she skipped up the black oak staircase to the door of Miss Joyce's studio. Here her enthusiasm was checked, for the little tin board nailed below the knocker bore the unwelcome notice "Out".
Out—when she had come all that way on purpose. It was too aggravating.
"Yet it's my own silly fault for not asking her on Tuesday whether she'd be in to-day. I might have known I'd have no luck," groused Lesbia. "Well, I suppose there's nothing for it but to trot back again. It reallyisthe limit. Hello! I believe somebody's in there after all. Unless it's ghosts."
Faint explosions of mirth proceeding from the other side of the thick door sounded more human than ghostly, despite the haunted character of the house. Lesbia seized the knocker and gave a loud rap-tap.There was a grating of chairs, and presently appeared the grinning face of one of the art-metalwork pupils.
"Miss Joyce has only gone to the post. She won't be more than a few minutes. Would you like to wait?"
Lesbia accepted the offered chair with alacrity. She sat watching the two students as they returned to their work. They were quite young girls, hardly older than herself. How glorious it must be for them, she thought, to spend their time in this delightful studio, at a little table under a window, melting their materials in a gas jet and turning out such pretty things. The creative instinct, always very strongly developed in Lesbia, rose rebelliously. Life would be far more worth while spent in making beautiful artistic objects than in learning certain school lessons that were apparently not much good to herself or anyone else. She sighed as she watched the twisting of the ornament for the edge of a brooch, and contrasted it with her morning's struggle over certain geometrical problems and a piece of stiff Latin translation.
"People may say what they like about brain culture, but let me use my hands!" she burst out impulsively.
The elder pupil looked at her in astonishment.
"It takes brains too for this kind of work, I can tell you," she remarked. "You have to have all your wits about you, or you make silly mistakes and spoil things."
"I only wish I'd the chance to try," said Lesbia.
But at that moment Miss Joyce returned. She camebustling in, with a little paper bag in her hand, surprised to see Lesbia, but very kind about it.
"You must stay and have tea," she declared hospitably. "I've just been out for some buns. Sybil, is the kettle boiling? We always make ourselves tea about this time."
The kettle on the gas-ring was almost boiling over. The pupils put down their tools and helped to set out the pale-yellow tea-service. There was a pot of striped purple crocuses on the tea-table, and a big jar of sallow "palm" and hazel catkins standing upon the floor. The March sunshine, flooding through a diamond-paned window, lighted up a blue vase full of Lent lilies. Lesbia, sinking into a basket-chair—the room had so many comfortable chairs—enjoyed her tasteful surroundings with the art-hunger of one whose æsthetic cravings have been systematically starved.
Miss Joyce was very sympathetic about the scrap album. She rocked gently to and fro, balancing her tea-cup in her hand.
"I can see your cover," she said, staring so fixedly at the ceiling that Lesbia instinctively looked there too. "It doesn't want realistic roses painted on it, but a decorative pattern. Don't put too much of it either. A design should never be overdone. My advice is, adapt your lotus pattern to it. It's far and away the best thing you've produced yet, and youmay just as well use it. Put a piece at the top and a piece at the bottom, then in the middle paint a misty and rather impressionistic sketch of those old houses at the bottom of Mill Street—you can copy them from a photo—then bring your lettering right across your sketch. It ought to be very effective."
"Why, so it would. I can almost see it," agreed Lesbia, with her eye on the carved boss that ornamented one of the beams of the studio roof. "I'll make a rough drawing of it to-night, on a piece of paper. May I bring it to school to show you before I begin to do it on the proper cardboard?"
"Of course. I'll criticize it with pleasure. Now about this scrap album, is it entirely confined to antiquarian things? Why don't you put in a list of wild flowers found in the neighbourhood? And any nature notes you can?"
"I hadn't thought of that."
"They're always included in local guide-books, so I should imagine they might very well go in. Mr. Broughten would help you there."
"Who's Mr. Broughten?"
"A very clever botanist who lives in the set of chambers opposite. I'll take you to see him if you've finished your tea. Have you? Then come along. I know he's in, because we both came up the stairs together. Oh, don't look so scared, he won't gobble you up. He's an absolute old dear."
It was getting late, but Lesbia put the thought of time resolutely away, for Miss Joyce would not listen to her faint expostulations, and hurried her, protesting indeed but a very willing victim, along the passage which led to Mr. Broughten's set of chambers. He was at home, and they were ushered into his study. Like the rest of the Pilgrims' Inn it was a quaint old room, with black oak beams and diamond-paned windows. The whole of the walls were lined with shelves, upon which were stored a vast collection of pressed flowers and ferns, a work which had occupied Mr. Broughten for most of his life. He was an old man now, and the hand that held his pen shook as he wrote. He rose with difficulty to receive his visitors, peering at them through his spectacles. Lesbia was afraid he did not seem very pleased at being interrupted, but, their errand once explained, he suddenly became extremely kind and interested. He hunted out several reports of the proceedings of a local Natural History Society, in which were given lists of the flora and fauna of the neighbourhood, and, after a moment's palpable hesitation, even offered to lend the pamphlets.
"If you will promisefaithfullyto bring them back. I lose so many books because people forget toreturnthem," he said emphatically.
Lesbia gave the required pledge, and Miss Joyce also promised for her with the earnestness of a godmother registering a baptismal vow.
"You shall have my pot of crocuses as a hostage," she assured him, laughing. "I'll bring them across and leave them with you until Lesbia returns the books."
"I never refuse flowers," answered Mr. Broughten brightly. "Crocuses are special pets of mine too. I hope they're purple ones? Good! Then we're making a very profitable exchange on both sides. If there's any more help I can give you another time, come and ask me."
Horribly late, but with her mind an absolute storehouse of new and artistic ideas, Lesbia hurried home to 28 Park Road. It was nearly seven when she arrived, and she had not touched her practising or her preparation. For once Mrs. Patterson was really angry. She took Lesbia into the drawing-room alone, and began to talk in the strained voice of one who is putting a curb on her strong indignation.
"You don't seem to realize things," she said, during the course of what was, after all, a scolding which Lesbia had brought on her own head. "Here you are nearly sixteen and a half, and as childish as if you were six. If you won't work and don't pass your exams what's going to happen to you? I suppose you know you'll have to earn your own living? You can't be anything of a teacher unless you get some proper qualifications."
"MustI be a teacher?" asked Lesbia desperately. "Couldn't I take up Art instead?"
"Art!" (Mrs. Patterson's voice expressed a volume of scorn.) "Art! That's the last thing in the world to depend upon. It's a most precarious livelihood nowadays. Why it would probably be years before you could sell a picture. Now don't be silly, Lesbia. Miss Tatham has been very kind in helping you, and you owe it to her and to the school to work your hardest. What's the use of beginning to cry? Do wipe your eyes and be sensible."
But being sensible was just the last thing possible to Lesbia. She rushed upstairs to her bedroom and went on crying. She did not go down when the gong sounded, and Kitty, coming in search of her presently, found her with one shoe on and one off, and her dress still unchanged. She answered all her cousin's arguments by torrents of tears, till Kitty lost patience and went away.
"Leave her to herself," decided Mrs. Patterson, sending up Lesbia's supper, and her home lesson books, upon a tray; "it's half temper, and she's better alone."
Joan looked rather sympathetically in the direction of the stairs—she had a warm corner for Lesbia—but the two sisters were starting for a concert and could not wait to comfort anybody. They did not take the matter seriously. To Lesbia it was desperate trouble.From the flutter of joy of the inspiring afternoon she had dropped into a chaos of despair. For the first time she began to look ahead, and she seemed to see her life stretching an endless bleak vista of perpetual teaching.
"Ihateteaching," she sobbed, clenching her fists.
She had not known before that she disliked the prospect so much. The grind of it appalled her. She almost began to wish she had gone to Canada with Paul and Minnie—Minnie who had been so sweet and forgiving, and had written her such a nice letter from Belleville to say that bygones must be bygones, and that at all costs they must keep friends and correspond with one another. An extra lump rose in Lesbia's throat when she thought of Minnie and the children. Well, she had cut herself adrift from them at any rate. She had anchored herself fast to the Kingfield High School, and, according to Mrs. Patterson, she might consider herself extremely lucky to have the chance of continuing there at all. She must make the best of it. That was the only thing to be done. She washed her face, ate her supper, and, seeing her pile of books on the tray, made a really creditable effort to prepare some of her lessons, but her head ached, and the letters danced about on the pages.
Kitty, coming upstairs at 10.45 after the concert, peeped into the bedroom, and found Lesbia lying asleep, fully dressed, and clasping a Latin dictionary.
"This won't do at all," muttered Kitty, shaking her head.
She was not a demonstrative girl, and despised what she called "sentimentality" in Lesbia, but she could be kind in her sensible way. She woke her cousin, made her undress, and promising to call her early next morning, turned out the gas, then went to her own room and set her alarm clock for six o'clock. It was a sacrifice on Kitty's part, for she detested early rising; she did it, however, without any fuss, just as part of the day's work. She hauled Lesbia out of bed by gas-light, and went over the whole of her home lessons with her before breakfast, sending her off to school better prepared than she had been for many weeks. After that a family understanding was arranged. Mrs. Patterson had at first been inclined to veto entirely any work at the Scrap Album Competition, but Kitty compromised by stipulating it should only be done in absolutely spare time. Lesbia borrowed the alarm clock and often got up early and did her preparation in her bedroom, so that she might have leisure for her drawing after school hours. The cover began to make substantial progress. Miss Joyce approved the design, and lent her a book on "illuminating" to help her with the lettering of the title.
When the album was at last complete,Varegarded their joint effort with satisfaction. It was quite a fat substantial book, written in their best and clearestscript, and illustrated with photographs, sketches, and prints. They had recorded the city's history, and its various ancient customs and old legends; there was a chapter of nature notes, mentioning how an otter had been seen in the lake of the public park, and a hare had actually been caught running in the High Street. The list of flowers, taken from Mr. Broughten's reports, was carefully copied.
"We've done our best over it," said Aldora, "and we can't do more. If the judges don't give it a prize I'll never forgive them. No, not though one of them is your own uncle, Lizzie Logan. I'll—I'll lie in wait for him on his way home andshoothim. There!"
"Pull yourself together, Aldora, my child," murmured Calla. "It mayn't turn out as bad as that."
"Well I donotwant the Sixth to score this time."
"I saw their book and they won't," chuckled Kathleen.
"There are other schools going in for the competition though," added Carrie dolefully.
"But three prizes are offered."
The scrap album was packed up at last in a big parcel, and left at the house of one of the judges. Three weeks passed by, andValanguished for news. They began to be afraid that they should not know the result before the holidays. One day, however, Lizzie Logan came to school with a look of most unwonted excitement on her usually stolid face. Her voice,which was generally a scared whisper, was actually audible over half the cloakroom as she announced:
"My uncle told me last night that we've won the first prize."
Such a chorus of jubilee instantly arose that Lizzie's utterances were drowned. Those in her immediate vicinity dragged forth details of information and proclaimed them for the benefit of the others.
"A committee of six, including the Lady Mayoress, sat on the books."
"Saton them! Oh, horrors!"
"And the Lady Mayoress is so fat!"
"Don't be utter idiots. Committees always sit on things. No! No!Can'tyou get it into your stupid heads? Not reallysit. It's just an expression."
"Hold me up. I thought our champion book was squashed as flat as a pancake."
"Well, it isn't. It's first-prize winner, and the second and third prizes have been won by 'Redlands' and 'The College'."
"And where do the Sixth come in?"
"They're out altogether."
"Oh! What a spiffing score forVa."
The prize awarded for the successful scrap album was a pretty little clock, with an inscription recording the event and the date. It was placed upon the mantel-piece in the form room, and regarded with great pride and satisfaction by its owners.
"So nice to have a clock in the room," rejoiced Carrie. "It helps you on if you can keep looking at it during lessons."
"We might even set it to go a little fast," suggested Ermie hopefully.
"No use, old sport! Miss Pratt wouldn't stop prating till the bell rang, however fast the clock was."
"I suppose not. However, perhaps she'll see it, and notice the time, and not think it worth while beginning anything fresh at about five minutes to."
"Ermie Hall, you're a bright enough girl, but if you think Miss Pratt willeverremit one jot or tittle of our work you've read her character wrong, and that's the fact. Nails aren't in it for hardness. Crow as loud as you like about the clock, but don't congratulate yourself it's going to help lame dogs over stiles, because it won't. Do you take that in?"
"Bow-wow! All right, Grannie! I'm drinking at the fount of your wisdom."
"As for Lesbia," put in Calla, "I think she was a regular mascot about that cover. No one knows how she swatted over it. I'm sure it turned the scale."
"Oh, don't mench! I enjoyed it."
"Look here!" asked Marion, suddenly and anxiously. "Does the clock belong tousor to our form? If we go up into the Sixth next year can we take it with us?"
"Oh, I never thought of that!"
"We'll want a Solomon to settle such a question," said Calla. "Meanwhile the clock's ours for the whole of next term, and that's quite far enough ahead to look forward in my opinion. It may have broken its mainspring before we're in the Sixth, and then we shouldn't want it. Sufficient unto the day is the tick thereof."
"Right you are, O Queen of Wisdom!"
When Easter drew near, Lesbia began to be very anxious as to where she was to spend her holidays. From various hints thrown out by the Pattersons, she gathered that they wanted to use her bedroom, and were making arrangements for her to go away. She sincerely hoped it would not be to Mrs. Newton's. The remembrance of Christmas was hardly enlivening. Another three weeks in that elderly mid-Victorian atmosphere was certainly not a tempting prospect to a girl of sixteen. At last, only a few days before the vacation began, Mrs. Patterson, putting on her pince-nez and, taking a letter from her bag, announced to Lesbia that she had some news for her.
"You're to go as holiday governess to a little boy," she began; then, noticing her young cousin's look of utter consternation, "now, don't be absurd, Lesbia! It's the very thing for you. Mr. and Mrs. Stockton are friends of ours. They live in the country—quite a pretty place. A change of air will do you good, especially to be out-of-doors the whole day with Terryafter stuffing in school all the term. You'll look after him while his own governess has her holiday, but he won't need any lessons except music, so it will be a holiday for you too. As I was saying, it's pretty country, and I dare say Joan would lend you her bicycle to take with you. You'll be interested in Mr. Stockton's pictures. He's really quite a good artist."
An artist! Lesbia pricked up her ears at this piece of information. The desolate prospect suddenly seemed to blossom. Moreover, she was very fond of the country. A change from town would be a great relief.
"Perhaps I'd like a boy better than girls," she ventured, thinking of the juniors, who had been particularly outrageous of late. "It won't be so bad if I haven't to teach him."
"I've no doubt you'll get along very well, so it's quite decided," decreed Mrs. Patterson promptly. "I shall write to Mrs. Stockton to-day and say you'll arrive next Tuesday."
Feeling rather a pawn in the hands of Fate, but somewhat consoled by the loan of Joan's bicycle, Lesbia was duly seen off from the station by Kitty, who popped a packet of chocolates in her pocket as she bid her good-bye and added:
"Take a firm stand with Terry from the first. Don't let him think he's going to have it all his own way or——"
"What do you mean?" asked Lesbia agitatedly, butthe porter was already slamming the door and waving back non-passengers from the edge of the platform, and the train started before Kitty could complete her sentence.
Such a disquieting hint did not present her future pupil in a favourable light. Lesbia ate her chocolates to try and banish the uneasy forebodings.
"After all, I don't suppose hecanbe worse than Allie Pearson and Edie Browne," she thought, as she flung the empty case out of the window. "They're the absolute limit in the way of fidgets."
Mr. Stockton met her at Tunbury Station, and drove her home in a little trap drawn by a fat lazy pony. It was already dark, so she only had glimpses of fleeting hedgerows as they jogged along the muddy country road. The air felt fresh though, with a bracing exhilarating quality that made her think of soda-water. There was a faint scent of flowers, fragrant after rain. A thin crescent moon shone in the sky, close to a bright planet.
"It's going to be a fine Easter, we hope," volunteered Mr. Stockton, grasping at the well-worn topic of the weather to assist him in the difficult task of making conversation with a shy girl of sixteen, evidently unused to small talk.
Terry was in bed when Lesbia arrived, but not asleep. His room led out of hers, and she was taken in by candle-light to be introduced to him. She gotan impression of a pair of round blue eyes, that stared at her as if taking her all in, and a crop of short chestnut curls. He could not be induced to speak a single word.
"He'll talk quite enough to-morrow," volunteered his mother, settling him down again on his pillow. "Now, Terry, remember you'renotto wake too early. We don't want to hear anything of you till the hot water comes."
Lesbia, tired after her journey and the excitement of her exodus from Kingfield, was too weary to sleep. The bed, though comfortable enough, felt strange, and she tossed about uneasily for hours, with brain racing in a whirl of galloping thoughts. A clock on the landing, chiming the quarters, roused her every time she dozed, and it had struck half-past three before she finally lost consciousness. She slept lightly, with confused dreams. Suddenly—in the midst of a heated argument with Miss Pratt—she woke with a start to find something cold on her face. The dawn was just glinting through the Venetian blinds, and a small red-headed figure was dancing like an imp beside her bed, brandishing a wet sponge.
"Done you!" he triumphed. "Done you brown! I told Miss Gordon I'd give you cold pig. She said I daren't, but I dare! I'm not a bit afraid of you. You're only sixteen! I heard Mummie say so. No, Iwon'tgo back! I tell you Iwon't!"
For Lesbia had bounced out of bed, wrenched away the sponge, and was bundling the young man in the direction of his own room. She stopped, turned him to face her, and glared at him solemnly.
"You'll do what you're told, so I warn you at the beginning. If ever you come into my room again without asking you'll get more than you bargain for. I'm not going to stand any disrespect. Now fly! And don't let me hear another sound, or I'll have to go and fetch your mother. Do you understand?"
Apparently Terry did, for his bare legs beat a retreat. Once back in his own quarters, though, he did not keep the rule of silence imposed upon him. He began to sing in a rather ostentatious voice, and to rattle something about that made a noise. Lesbia shut the door between the two rooms and took no further notice; but sleep was banished, for though Terry did not intrude again, he continued at intervals to treat her to selections of whistling, comic songs, and even verses of hymns, all of which were extremely disturbing.
"Little wretch!" she soliloquized. "I'm afraid I'm in for a bad time with him. He's pretty; but he's evidently most outrageously spoilt."
Lesbia's anticipations with regard to Terry were partly fulfilled, but not altogether. He seemed an equal mixture of angel and elf. In his celestial moods he could be really sweet, and most affectionate. She was fond of him when he sat on her knee begging forstories, or when he asked sudden, old-fashioned questions on astounding subjects, but she groaned when she noticed the gleam in his eye which always betokened the quest for mischief. He was a stubborn, unruly little boy, indulged by adoring parents till their patience failed, then his mother would confiscate his chocolates, and his father would operate with a bedroom slipper.
Lesbia's duties were to superintend his toilet, take him for walks, and give him a short daily lesson on the piano.
"You see he's just begun music with Miss Gordon," explained Mrs. Stockton, "and it would be such a pity if he were to forget all he's learnt."
Though Lesbia had instructed the juniors at Kingfield High School in the elements of arithmetic, history, and other subjects, she had never in her life before taught music. She felt decidedly nervous as she led Terry, with newly-washed hands, to the piano.
"He'll tell you what he has to do," volunteered Mrs. Stockton, vanishing gladly from the room.
Terry, whose fingers were still rather damp, opened the instruction book in the middle, and twisted the music-stool round and round with quite unnecessary zeal.
"That's enough. It won't go any higher," commanded Lesbia. "Have you got as far as this duet? All in half a term? I suppose you play the treble part? And Miss Gordon takes the bass?"
Terry nodded. He was staring hard at Lesbia as if evolving an idea. Suddenly he burst out:
"When you talk you keep your nose still, and when Miss Gordon talks hers wobbles about just like my rabbit's when it wants a lettuce."
"'Sh, 'sh! That's nothing to do with music," suppressed Lesbia. "Now we're going to try this duet. I'll play the bass. Are you ready? I shall count a whole bar first. One—two—three—four."
They began, Lesbia playing what was before her, but Terry improvising out of his head. He did it so cleverly that his teacher, a little nervous at reading her own part, did not notice for a bar or two that the thumpings in the treble had nothing to do with the instruction book. She stopped him reproachfully. His blue eyes looked as innocent as a child-cherub's.
"I'm very fond of music," he bragged. "I like to play it my own way."
"I don't believe you've ever got as far as the middle of this book," declared Lesbia. "I shall begin at the beginning and see how much you really know."
Master Terence Stockton either knew nothing of the elements of the piano or he was not going to give away his information. He did not seem yet to have grasped the value of the various notes. Lesbia set to work to try and explain the functions of a minim, a crotchet, and a quaver. It was so long since she had learnt such details in her own childhood that she was a little at aloss how to express adequately in words what had become a matter almost of instinct.
"This big note with a hole in it is a semibreve and it counts four of these black notes, which are called crotchets. Now suppose we're counting four crotchets to a bar, one—two—three—four; how long is this semibreve?"
"How long? An inch! An inch and a half! Two inches!" exclaimed Terry excitedly, as if he were playing a game at guessing. "There's a foot-rule in my new joinering box if you'll let me go and fetch it!"
Lesbia nearly collapsed, for her own explanations were so clearly at fault. She began again, and tried to make them a little more lucid. It was uphill work, however; for though Terry would gaze at her, apparently drinking in everything she said, he would suddenly come out with a remark which showed that his mind was wandering elsewhere. Poor Lesbia at the end of the half-hour felt they had made little progress. She resolved privately to study the instruction book before to-morrow's lesson, and to prepare some very plain and adequate plan of imprinting musical notation on the grey pulp of Terry's unwilling brain.
Despite the fact that her pupil was decidedly a handful, the time at Tunbury was nevertheless a holiday. They went beautiful walks in the fields to pickprimroses and dog violets, there was a wood where she played robbers with Terry, and where one day they had a picnic tea and boiled a kettle on a camp fire, there were occasional drives in the pony trap, and a few bicycle rides, with Terry on the luggage-carrier because she could not leave him at home. She felt rather like "Sindbad the Sailor" laden with his "Old Man of the Sea" as she rode along with a pair of small arms clutched tightly round her waist, but she found the treat an excellent bribe for good behaviour and certainly a means of keeping her frisky youth out of mischief. There was one delight in her visit which compensated for many drawbacks. Mr. Stockton was painting a picture of his little son, and every morning Terry had a sitting in the studio. Lesbia came also, and the good-natured artist lent her a canvas, tubes, palette, and brushes, and let her try her 'prentice hand at portraiture in oils. To sit close to Mr. Stockton and watch him paint was a revelation. Lesbia took to the work like a duck to water, and produced something really so very like Terry that her effort won words of warm approval.