SHE SQUEEZED THROUGH THE FRAME WITHOUT MUCH DIFFICULTYPage 245
Then followed a very pleasant ten minutes which lengthened into half an hour. The girls were allowed to inspect and even to handle many of the beautiful curios. It was delightfully flattering to have cases unlocked specially for their benefit, and much more interesting than seeing the exhibits among a crowd.
"I've a box in here that I haven't had time to unpack yet," said Miss Renton, leading the way into a small stone ante-chamber which opened out of the museum. "This little room was once an oratory. It's only lighted by a lancet window. I use it as a store cupboard, because it's too dark to hold a show-case."
Kneeling on the floor in the ante-room the girls watched Miss Renton unpack some further treasures, then held up the lids of the show-cases while she bestowed them in their due places.
"It's quite nice to have two assistant museum-keepers," she laughed. "These great glass lids are so heavy I never dare to lift them without someone to help me. If one dropped back there would be a smash."
At last everything was arranged, the cases were locked, and the keys returned to Miss Renton's bag. She put on her waterproof, took her umbrella, and prepared to leave the museum. But when she tried to open the old oak door it was fast shut. She turned the ancient handle and tugged and pulled, but all in vain. Then the horrible truth burst upon her.
"We're locked in!" she gasped.
There was no possibility of doubt about it. It was quite easy also to see how it had happened. When the museum was on view the door was propped open to admit the public, the curator always shut it before she left, and as she walked across the courtyard of the Guildhall would ring the caretaker's bell, as a signal that the place might be closed.
To-day the bell had been broken, and the caretaker, noticing the High School girls go away, must have come upstairs afterwards, and seeing the museum door shut had locked it, thinking Miss Renton had gone with the others. The three unfortunate prisoners were aghast. It seemed almost too bad to be true. They all tried the door in turns, they knocked, they thumped, and they called. There was no response except a dull echo.
"Why couldn't the caretaker look inside to make sure we were gone before he locked up?" asked Marion, half-crying.
"Perhaps he did, and we were inside the little oratory. It's my own stupid fault for shutting the door. I ought to have thought about it. It never struck me he might come upstairs and think we were gone."
"Will he be coming up again?"
"It's not at all likely. He's probably gone home."
"Won't anybody else hear us if we knock and call?"
"I'm dreadfully afraid not, but we'll try again."
So once more they thumped and shouted and the old hall echoed, but nobody came to release them. The situation was serious. If the caretaker had gone home they were very much locked in, for not only was the door of the museum secured, but also the door of the big hall, and the door leading to the courtyard. Until to-morrow morning they were as good as prisoners.
There still, however, remained the window. Miss Renton climbed on a chair and peered through the small leaded panes. Unfortunately, instead of opening on to the street, it only overlooked a kind of sunk well among the buildings, so it would be impossible to attract the attention of anybody outside.
Marion's eyes were filling with tears.
"Mother'll besoanxious when I don't turn up," she gulped. "She'll never think of coming to the museum to look for me."
"Nobody will," said Lesbia with a suspicious quaver in her voice.
"It'll be simply ghastly to stay here all night."
"And so cold."
"I'd give worlds for some tea."
"We have each other's company at any rate," consoled Miss Renton. "Be glad you weren't locked in alone."
"Alone! Oh, I'd go mad!"
"So should I. I'd be afraid of the dark, and ofspooks, and of rats, and of all sorts of horrible things. Yes, I'd be absolutely raving in less than ten minutes."
"And yet, in the Middle Ages, girls were sometimes shut up alone in prisons far more dismal than this room, and kept there for years. Think of the prisoners in the Bastille. Or those who were taken by the 'Inquisition'."
"How horribly cruel. I wonder they lived through it, poor things."
"It's all very well to talk about the Middle Ages, but that doesn't get us out of this place," said Marion, rather crossly. "Are we going to stay the night here? Or is there any way of getting out?"
Miss Renton looked at the small portion of the window which opened, and shook her head.
"Even if we could squeeze through there we couldn't drop to the yard, and we should be no better off if we did."
"I shall hate the sight of these show-cases for evermore. I believe that stuffed badger is blinking at me."
"Don't be silly!"
"I know I'm silly, but it's beginning to get d-d-d-dark in here, and I'm scared to stay all n-n-n-night."
Marion was dabbing her eyes openly. She made no pretence at heroism. Adventures might be romantic enough in the Middle Ages, but they were decidedlyunpleasant in the twentieth century. She would rather read about them than experience them.
Leaving her chum to be consoled by Miss Renton, Lesbia mounted the chair and looked through the window. About three feet below her there was a fairly broad ledge, which adjoined a roof to the right. After all, the opening was not so very small.
"I believe I could squeeze through here," she volunteered. "If you'd guarantee to hold me tight, I could step on that ledge down there, and get on to the roof, then I'd scramble along till I came in sight of the street and could shout for help."
"Oh, Lesbia! Do you really dare?" gasped Marion, running to the window.
It seemed their only possible plan of escape, and as Lesbia declared she was not nervous, Miss Renton offered to help her. She fastened her own leather belt as a rope to the belt of Lesbia's coat, to make a firm support by which to hold her, and dragged a table under the window for them both to stand upon.
Luckily Lesbia was slim, so she squeezed through the frame without much difficulty, and lowered her feet on to the ledge. Miss Renton steadying her by the belt, she walked about a yard, then was able to grasp a piece of gutter and to step on to the roof.
"Let go. I'm all right now!" she shouted. She clambered up the slates on her hands and knees till she reached the ridge. Even then she was not withinview of the street, and had to scale more angles of roofs before she caught the welcome glimpse of a passing tram-car. Once in a position where she could be seen she called loudly for help. A little street arab spied her first, and stood gaping and pointing. In about half a minute a crowd collected. Somebody ran for a policeman, others shouted to Lesbia to stay where she was. In a short time a window-cleaner arrived with a long ladder. He mounted and came to the rescue. Lesbia climbed down into the street feeling exceedingly foolish, and ashamed of having made such a commotion in the city. The policeman was kind, and the crowd sympathetic, but it was hardly nice to be the centre of so very much attention. People were standing up on the tops of tram-cars to watch, carts and vans stopped to ask what was the matter, and those on the outside of the ring were even beginning to call for a doctor and an ambulance, imagining that she was injured. For a minute or two all traffic was suspended.
Fortunately the policeman knew where the caretaker of the Guild Hall lived, and sent a boy to fetch him. He arrived with his keys, unlocked the big door, and went with Lesbia to release the other prisoners, who were waiting and wondering what had been happening.
"I never felt so glad in my life as when I heard the key grating in the lock," said Marion, with a sigh of relief, as they walked downstairs. "No more museumfor me, thanks. I shall be terrified ever to go inside the place again."
"Why, it wouldn't be likely to happen twice," laughed Lesbia.
"You never know. The door might bang suddenly and get jammed. I wouldn't risk it. If you knew the agonies I suffered in there. I wonder my hair didn't go white, like the Prisoner of Chillon's. I tell you I heard a rat.I did really!It was gnawing away somewhere. I'd rather face a tiger than a rat. No. You may call it shell-shock, or mental kink, or lunacy, or anything you like, but nothing in this wide world will induce me to go into the Guild Hall again—not even to my own wedding if it was the only place where I could be married.That'show I feel about it."
Of course, as bad luck would have it, Miss Ormerod had been on the edge of the crowd outside the Guild Hall, had recognized Lesbia Ferrars descending the ladder, had been very much scandalized at the occurrence, and after making full inquiries seemed to arrive at the rather unreasonable conclusion that it was all Lesbia's fault.
"You ought to have left the museum with the other girls and Miss Chatham," she decided, fixing a stern eye on the delinquent at the close of the court martial, "then this very unseemly exhibition would not have taken place. Such a thing brings the school into disrepute. I wonder how many times I have to impress upon you girls the need for quiet and lady-like behaviour in the streets. You disgrace your badge when you make yourself conspicuous. It's one of the most annoying matters I have to enter in my report."
"I'm very sorry, Miss Ormerod," said Lesbia dutifully.
In the cloakroom she was hardly so meek. She was dismayed at the hint that her escapade would be reported to Miss Tatham, and raged at the injustice of being scolded for what she could not help.
"I believe Miss Ormerod would havemuchrather we'd stayed in that museum all night," she flared. "She'd have let us starve, or catch pneumonia or rheumatism with sleeping on the stone floor, and wouldn't have cared a button so long as we didn't attract a crowd. Do you think Ilikedclimbing over that wretched roof? I hated it. I never felt so silly in my life as when I came down that ladder and saw everybody staring as if I were a peep-show."
"Some people thought you were doing a turn for a cinema," chirped Kathleen.
"You'll probably find an account of it in the evening paper," grinned Ermie.
"Help! It'll be the last straw with Miss Ormerod if it gets into theKingfield Despatch. She never liked me before, but I'm the black sheep of the school at present."
Truly Lesbia was in no favour at head-quarters. She found it most difficult to combine teaching with her work in the Sixth Form, and to do both well. If she spent a long time getting up the geography lesson which she must give toIIb, her own preparation suffered. It was hard to be counted a slacker, and she longed to justify herself. Twelve years' experienceat school had taught her, however, that the one unpardonable sin is to "answer back" when scolded, so she curbed her tongue, and listened with lowered eyelids while Miss Ormerod talked to her on the poor standard of her weekly exercises and essays, and the necessity of making greater efforts at self-improvement.
I have mentioned that the prefects at the High School had the special privilege of using the quaint little room built over the archway which spanned the road. Lesbia in particular regarded it as a harbour of refuge. She was now a daily boarder, and when one o'clock dinner was over she would often retire to this sanctum to read or do preparation before afternoon classes. At that hour she generally had it alone, and it seemed almost as good as a private study. One day, late in March, she walked briskly upstairs with her water-colour box. She wanted to illuminate a book back for Ermie's birthday, she could not venture to paint it in the studio, because her chum might come in and see it, and there was practically no time available after she went home in the afternoons. The gate room, though rather dark, would be absolutely secluded, with no fear of Ermie suddenly peeping over her shoulder and asking: "What are you doing, old sport?"
Lesbia hurried along the upper corridor, her mind full of the design which she meant to paint, so preoccupied, indeed, that she never saw a suspicious movement of the book-cupboard door as she passed, orheard suppressed giggles inside. She just walked on, utterly oblivious, went into the gate room, and, for better security, bolted herself in. The latticed window overlooking the street was open, and she noticed vaguely that the floor underneath it was wet, as though with rain.
"Funny, when it's been fine for three days," she commented; but it was an unimportant trifle, so she placed the table over the damp patch, settled herself in the best light, and began her painting. She spent a happy and profitable half-hour copying a delightful bit of "Fra Angelico" illumination from a Florentine post card, and would have gone on longer only her watch, propped up as monitor, reminded her that time was on the wing. She stood up, took her painting mug, and abstractedly turned to the window with the idea of flinging the water away. She was leaning out, mug in hand, when she suddenly realized that she was over a public roadway, and that not only were people walking underneath, but that Miss Ormerod herself was returning to the side door, and was gazing upwards at her anticipated act with horror writ large on every feature. Lesbia stopped just in time, aghast at her own folly.
"Well! Iama stupid idiot," she soliloquized. "I was actually going to give passers-by a shower-bath. Nice thing for a prefect to do. It's just like me. I had a notion I was throwing it into the garden, likeI do from the studio window. Suppose I had soused Miss Ormerod? It would have been the end of all things. There goes the bell. Oh goody! I must hurry or I shall be late for gym."
All afternoon Lesbia felt nervous lest Miss Ormerod should meet her somewhere in the school and allude to the scene at the window. She was very much relieved to go home at four o'clock having successfully avoided such a catastrophe. She congratulated herself too soon, however. On the following day, after morning classes, she received a summons to the Principal's study.
"Miss Ormerod wants you, and you'd better be jolly quick, because the barometer's at Stormy," burbled Aldora, who brought the message.
Lesbia heaved what is commonly known as a gusty sigh.
"I'm always in hot water. What is it now?"
"How should I know, child! Brace up and sprint. The longer you are in going, the worse wigging you'll get."
"I'll wait for you outside the door if you like with a clean handkerchief," chirruped Ermie.
"Thumb-screws and the rack for one," piped Cissie.
But Lesbia was already on her way towards the Inquisitorial Chamber.
When she entered she realized, apart from their schoolgirl jokes, that the Principal was really angry.
"Lesbia," she began grimly. "I've had too much trouble with you lately, and you'll either have to behave yourself here or leave. I won't have the High School disgraced. Your conduct yesterday was simply abominable."
Lesbia's jaw dropped in astonishment at this outburst. She did not think her carelessness quite justified so severe a rebuke. Miss Ormerod was looking "worked up", her hands trembled, and her eyes flashed through her glasses as she continued:
"Three separate people have been in to complain that you dropped water upon them as they passed under the gatehouse. One lady told me that her velvet hat was practically ruined. I want to know what you mean by it? Such shameless behaviour is unworthy of any pupil of this school—much less a prefect."
"But, Miss Ormerod, I—I—I—didn't throw water on people's heads," stammered Lesbia. "I only——"
"Don't tell me any lies," interrupted the Principal shortly; "I saw you myself. You were on the very point of throwing water from the window when you caught my eye and drew back. There can be no mistake about the matter."
"But I didn't—I didn't."
"Be quiet," blazed Miss Ormerod. "What's the use of denying what Iknowto be true?You, Lesbia, who owe so much to the school, to bring it into suchdisrepute. I'm thoroughly disappointed and disgusted with you. You're a girl who ought to know better. To show you that I don't intend to allow such things I've struck your name off the list of prefects, and have put Kathleen in your place. Now you may go."
Lesbia walked out of the study utterly bewildered. It all seemed a kind of bad dream. She had certainly never thrown water from the gate-room window on to the heads of passers-by. Had anyone else been into the room and played such a shabby practical joke? Only prefects were allowed in the sanctum. Still it was, of course, possible that some daring spirit might have ventured to intrude. That she, Lesbia Ferrars, who had always been so loyal to the school and had striven to uphold its reputation, should be accused of this piece of vulgar horseplay seemed incredible. She bitterly regretted the stupidity which had given Miss Ormerod the supposed proof of her guilt. To be deposed from her post of prefect. Oh, it was too horrible! Such an extreme measure had never been taken at the school before within her remembrance. She felt it was unjust to give her no opportunity of explaining herself. Miss Ormerod always carried everything with such a high hand. Miss Tatham would surely have listened to her, and not have condemned her unheard.
Her fellow-prefects were extremely indignant when they heard her bad news. All the form, indeed, bristledwith sympathy. Kathleen, sent for to the study to be promoted in her place, tried to plead for her, but only received a sharp snubbing for her pains. The girls shook their heads over the matter dismally.
"I expect some of those juniors are responsible," said Carrie. "I've been into their form rooms, and put them on their honour to tell anything they know about it, but nobody breathed a word. Mean little pigs. If I could catch the one who did it I'd spifflicate her."
"Hanging would be too good for such a girl," agreed Ermie bloodthirstily.
"Well, there's one thing, we none of us believe it in the school."
"Vbpretend they do," groaned Lesbia.
"Vbare the scum of the school. Don't pay any attention to them. I'll have a talk with them and settle them. If they say a word more about it they'll have to reckon with me."
"I wish we could set it straight with Miss Ormerod."
"'None so deaf as those who won't see'," misquoted Ermie. "The 'Orm' is one of those pig-headed people who get a notion into their precious noddles and need a surgical operation to get it out again. I'm afraid you'll have to live through the rest of the term as a blighted blossom. Cheerio! Miss Tatham will be back after Easter."
"Yes, and find I'm not a prefect. A nice tale she'llbe told about it all, I expect. I'd write to her, but she hasn't answered my two last letters."
"Well, you see, the doctor said she wasn't to be worried about any school matters, and it would get rather stiff answering letters if everybody wrote to her, wouldn't it?"
"Right you are, O Queen! I stand rebuked."
Though her friends in the Sixth, and indeed most of the girls, might thoroughly sympathize with Lesbia, her deposition from the prefectship had an unfortunate effect upon those forms to which she acted as assistant mistress. Discipline had always been her weak point, and the children seemed to wax more unruly than ever. Whether they believed her guilty or innocent of the crime laid to her charge they realized she was degraded from office, and therefore considered she might be defied with impunity. Many were the weary tussles she had in her classes. She dared not appeal to Miss Ormerod, and was obliged to struggle along as best she could, fighting against the continual "ragging" to which she was subjected, and sometimes wishing all juniors were at the bottom of the sea.
She began to dread the hours when she must take command inIIIb. The girls there were a particularly turbulent crew, and experts in heckling their inexperienced young teacher. They particularly loved to "prove her with hard questions", and as she was not a modern Solomon she could rarely find satisfactoryanswers for these youthful "Queens of Sheba". It made her terribly nervous to be asked to settle startling by-problems of the lesson, especially when she guessed they were put on purpose to puzzle her. She would try desperately to evade them.
"That's nothing to do with what we're learning," she would say airily.
"But Miss Ormerod likes us to think things out," some determined conscientious objector would reply, "and, of course, we want to know exactly."
"Miss Ormerod says it's part of the lesson to ask questions," would pipe another child.
Then the whole form would gaze at poor Lesbia till she writhed under the combined stare, horribly conscious of her own ignorance and her poor qualifications for her task as teacher, and wondering how to hide her lack of general knowledge from her fifteen persecutors.
First and foremost among the rebels was Maisie Martin. She was quick of brain, agile in invention, and easily led the rest. During the last weeks of term she became the cross and stumbling-block of Lesbia's life. She was passing through a restless phase, and enjoyed giving trouble; Miss Campbell, her own form-mistress, could not easily be defied, so she broke out all the more under a junior teacher.
School had grown so intolerable lately that Lesbia welcomed week-ends as a prisoner does a reprieve.She felt sometimes as if she wanted to shake the dust of Kingfield off her feet for ever. One Saturday, simply to get away for a mental change, she borrowed Joan's bicycle and rode out into the country. Flowers were opening in the hedgerows and woods, thrushes and blackbirds were singing their spring songs, and in spite of occasional showers the afternoon was fresh and pleasant. Some of the peace and quiet of nature seemed to steal into her tired soul. She began to feel that life was not all High School, and to listen to those soothing voices that whisper in the rustle of leaves and the murmur of streams. She spent more than an hour simply resting in a wood, and started to go home very much refreshed and consoled.
As she rode along, fully seven miles out of Kingfield, she passed a girl who was walking and wheeling a bicycle. The general set of the figure was familiar, and, turning her head, Lesbia recognized Maisie Martin. Her first feeling was to ignore her, and pedal along in front as fast as possible, to get away from such an incarnation of all her school worries. But the leaves and the brook had been rustling and rippling a different gospel, and her mental tone was in tune with them. She got off her machine instead and turned back.
"Hello, Maisie! What's the matter with you?" she inquired.
She might well ask, for Maisie's usually clean and cheerful face was streaked with smudges of dirt, herskirt held a big rent, and she hobbled rather than walked. She was indeed a most forlorn-looking object, visibly depressed.
At sight of someone she knew she made an eager spurt forward.
"Oh, I've had such a spill," she explained. "I don't know how I did it, but I pitched right over the handles, and I've smashed my bike. It's not fit to ride. Look! I've scraped my leg too, and grazed my hands."
"Hard luck! Be glad you're not worse hurt though. How are you going to get back to Kingfield?"
"I don't know. Walk, I suppose," Maisie's voice shook. She looked on the verge of tears.
"Could you leave your bike at that cottage and ride on my luggage-carrier?"
"Oh! Would you take me?"
"I'd try. If I upset both of us you mustn't blame me. I'm not a very steady rider."
"I'll risk it."
"Come along then, and we'll ask if anybody will look after the bike till you can send for it."
Having found a friendly and sympathetic old woman, who consented to take charge of the machine, Lesbia rode off with Maisie perched on her luggage-carrier, and succeeded in balancing her burden and conveying her safely into Kingfield.
"Now hurry home, and put cold cream on that leg,"she advised, as she set her down at the corner of her own road, a stiff and sore specimen of girlhood, but an absolute lump of gratitude. "Oh, never mind about saying thank you. You'd have done the same for me I've no doubt."
"I shan't forget it, if I live to be a hundred and nine," called Maisie, as Lesbia remounted and rode away.
And she did not. She might be a troublesome girl, but she was staunch if she took a fancy to anybody. For the future Lesbia was her heroine instead of the butt of her powers of ragging. The difference which this changed attitude made inIIIbwas enormous. The girls were like sheep, and followed where Maisie led. They ceased catechizing their teacher, and behaved with some approach to decent order. One day Maisie, whose new infatuation was almost embarrassing, and who followed Lesbia about the school to the great annoyance of Marion and Regina, insisted upon whispering a secret.
"I've found out about that water-throwing business," she confided. "It was Jess and Gwennie who did it. They sneaked into the gate room, and shot at people from the window with squirts. They said you nearly caught them in the corridor as they were coming back, but they dodged inside the book cupboard. I always guessed it was those two, because they'd been showing us their squirts and 'baptizing' us, as they called it, in the gym till we all scooted off. I had a quarrelwith them both this morning and I said I should tell you."
This was news indeed. Lesbia carried it immediately to the prefects.
"Of course you'll go straight to Miss Ormerod," urged Carrie. "The thing ought to be set right at once."
"I don't know," Lesbia was wrinkling her brows. "I'm so out of favour with Miss Ormerod that I really don't think it will make much difference. And, anyway, she's leaving, and I shall probably never see her again. It would get Jess and Gwennie into a terrific scrape, and it seems no use stirring up more trouble. I'd rather leave things as they are, now."
"But, girl alive! don't you want to be a prefect again?"
"Kathleen makes a far better one than I did. She'd best stick to it. As long as the school knows the facts I don't care."
"But Miss Tatham? What will she say when she comes back and finds you aren't prefect?"
"I shall explain it all to Miss Tatham without mentioning the names of the girls. I'm sure she'll understand."
"Well, youarea saint!"
"Not a bit of it. I'm putting my work on to Kathleen."
"Oh, I dare say!"
"Well, please let it stand at this."
"Right you are.Weshan't go telling Miss Ormerod. Don't you fear."
The true state of affairs, of course, spread round the whole school in half an hour, and public opinion dubbed Lesbia a trump. Among the juniors especially her decision raised her to the height of popularity. Jess and Gwennie were ready to grovel at her feet.
"You'll find us all positiveangelsnext term," they assured her.
"Well, hardly that, I expect," laughed Lesbia. "Still, I dare say we'll understand each other rather better, and you'll try to behave in class without making me turn absolute gorgon to keep you in order, won't you?"
"Gorgon indeed! You're adear!" gushed Gwennie.
"An absolute sport!" agreed Jess, linking her arm affectionately in that of her new-found idol.
Easter came as a blessed pause in the rush and turmoil of school life. The round of work at Kingfield High had seemed even more arduous to Lesbia in the Sixth than it had been inVa. The form was supposed to be grinding for the Matric, and though only its brightest specimens, Regina, Carrie, and Kathleen, and two wobbly candidates, Aldora and Cissie, were to be offered up as victims to the educational sacrifice, it meant that everybody, clever, mediocre, or dull, had to toil through the same textbooks and write identical exercises. Miss Pratt, who had gone up with the Sixth fromVa, considerably to Lesbia's sorrow, constituted herself a kind of intellectual razor to sharpen the wits of the form, and had scant mercy on those who fell short of her standard. Lesbia sometimes, squashed flat by a sarcasm, felt she was metaphorically placed on a stool with a dunce's cap on her head. She tried to keep pace with the matriculation candidates, but her swimming brainsoften got confused, and, as she was a venturesome guesser, she was occasionally guilty of coming out with "howlers".
Everybody seemed to welcome this particular Easter, even "the blessed Damozel", who, despite her poetic appearance, was the form's champion worker. The hard grind had perhaps accentuated her resemblance to Rossetti's heroine, for a slight paleness etherealized her, the intellectual concentration made her great grey eyes shine as the chief feature in her face, and her hair, which fortunately never seemed to darken, was still "yellow like ripe corn". Regina was really growing very pretty, and though she had not yet dropped her jerky angular manner, she was much less gauche than she had been a year ago, and promised to develop into an interesting personality.
"She's the sort of girl who may possibly doanythingafter she leaves school," commented Calla one day, when the girls were discussing absent members.
"Yes. With those brains it's just what she takes it into her head to concentrate on," agreed Laura. "Shemightmake a hit on the stage."
"No, no! Not with those queer manners."
"But don't you see she's always posing? It's the very effort to be something outside herself that makes her so odd and peculiar. She's feeling after an ideal, and if she ever strikes it she'll be a huge success."
"If in the meantime she doesn't marry a curate," put in Kathleen.
"A curate, child?"
"Yes; Regina's exactly the sort of girl who would!"
"Iprophesy she'll go to college, take a tremendous good degree—wrangler or double first or something of that sort—and be head of a high school."
"No, she won't. I know it seems her ordinary course, but she's not an ordinary girl. She'll wangle something different and unusual. She ought to marry a member of Parliament, not a curate—though I believe if she did she'd soon make him a bishop—I could just imagine her, very handsomely dressed, at a Mansion House ball, dancing with a foreign ambassador. Cave! Here she comes—with the air of a princess. Who's she copying at present I wonder?"
The little group dispersed, giggling, as Regina entered the room and seeking out Lesbia drew her chum away. She was fond of private and confidential chats, but this one had a special point to it. The Websters were going to spend Easter at their country cottage, and invited Lesbia to go with them.
"You were such a sport at Dolmadoc last summer. We all say we want you to come again," insisted Regina.
Lesbia, with a dutiful demur about deferring to Mrs. Patterson, jumped—nay clutched—at such a gorgeouschance. She had been in much alarm lest she should be sent to Tunbury again to take charge of Terry for the Easter holidays, or packed off to spend them with Aunt Newton, who wrote periodical letters suggesting that her great-niece might leave school and take the place of the depressed companion who had at last plucked up courage and gone to a more congenial post. Dolmadoc, with its fresh mountain breezes and glorious views, seemed the very spot to blow away school cobwebs and to lay up a store of fresh energy for the coming term. Every corner of it would be like an old friend.
So the Wednesday before Good Friday found Lesbia with the Webster family in a crowded train bound for North Wales, jammed tightly between two tourists, with her feet on a portmanteau and Una seated on her knee, but smiling through all discomforts as she caught the first glimpse of the grey hills from the carriage window.
Dolmadoc, in the early spring, was a different landscape from what it had been in its summer dress, and she had to make its acquaintance afresh. Very little foliage was yet out, but the bare woods held lovely tints of amber and purple and gold in their naked branches, and the moss carpet was greener than ever. Here and there primroses spangled the banks, and bushes of blackthorn—perhaps the most delicate and beautiful of all blossom—raised white stars againstthe flecked blue of the sky. The higher mountains were covered with snow, and the wind was keen and fresh. It was not possible to sit about in the garden, as they had done in August, but walks through the brisk air were a joy. They could tramp twice as far without fatigue. It was delightful to ramble round to all their old haunts, to revisit the waterfall, to climb to the top of Pentrevis, to scramble through the thick fir wood on the hill, or—in rubber boots—to go into the marshy meadows near the river. They had a special errand here, for the little wild daffodils grew in quantities on the low-lying fields and were greatly in request for Easter decorations. The whole of the Webster family, armed with baskets, went on an expedition to gather them. They passed, by permission, through a farmer's yard, then made a bee-line across several meadows, climbing fences and hurdles, till they reached a particular stretch where the stream flowed into the river. This favoured triangle was yellow with the daffodils, and although busy hands could pick and pick it seemed to make little difference to the wealth of bloom spread around. Lesbia loved the Lent lilies with their short trumpets and faint delicious fragrance, so redolent of the country. She revelled in all the spring flowers at dear Dolmadoc, the great crown imperial lilies, with the tears inside their dropping heads, the blue primroses in the cottage garden, the white violets under the wall, the purpleaubretia coming out on the rockery, and the clumps of yellow cowslips that bordered the pathway. They seemed so much cleaner and fresher than the flowers in town gardens or parks, she liked to lay them against her cheek, and would sometimes go down on her knees just to be near them where they grew. Old half-forgotten fairy tales would come flooding back in the company of the flowers, and all her most pronounced Celtic instincts seemed to crowd to the top.
Lesbia had a chance of exercising her artistic faculties on Easter Saturday. The Websters always helped to decorate the church, and this year the vicar's daughter was away, so they had been asked to undertake pulpit, font, and lectern. They appointed their visitor chief authority, and worked under her directions. With so much beautiful material in the way of flowers, Lesbia thoroughly enjoyed herself, and evolved a pretty scheme of decoration. She outlined the pulpit with ivy and bunches of wild daffodils, tying large branches of blackthorn and catkin-covered hazel to the candle-brackets; the lectern had a background of green and a great sheaf of crown imperial lilies, while the base of the font was a garden of green moss, with primroses peeping through in little clumps.
Other members of the congregation had been busy putting flowers along the window ledges and twisting garlands of ivy round some of the pillars, till the churchlooked a fragrant mass of lovely blossom, dressed fitly for its great festival of Easter day.
"I'll come and make a sketch of it next week," thought Lesbia; "that little bit with the font and the open door and the view down the valley would be simply a picture, especially if I put Una sitting on the step with her lap full of primroses. I can feel just how it ought to look, if I can only paint it. The light and shade is exactly right in the afternoon. Oh dear! I wish I could spend my days in painting. I'd rather dab away at a canvas than do anything else in the world!"
The Websters were long-suffering towards Lesbia in allowing her leisure to sketch, and even in sitting as her models, but they rebelled against the devotion of more than a due portion of her time to painting. They were in the mood for walking, and nearly every day wanted to start off with picnic baskets and to eat their lunch somewhere on the hills. It was certainly better for Lesbia to take exercise than to sit sketching in such weather. She groused, but submitted to the inevitable, and enjoyed herself very much when once she had made the plunge and started forth. The Stripling, who was taller than ever, still favoured practical jokes, and was wont to wax argumentative if anybody disagreed with him. He had many wordy tussles with Regina, and even did a little brain-fencing with Lesbia. He liked to air some rather outrageousopinion and stick to it, as if he were conducting the opposition in a debating society. On one occasion Lesbia, halting by a cross-roads sign-post upon the moors, remarked casually what a mercy it was there were no highwaymen nowadays to pounce like hawks on unwary travellers. Derrick instantly bristled to the defensive.
"I don't know," he began aggressively. "I think there's a great deal to be said for highwaymen. It was a sporting way of getting a living. And it made travelling far more interesting than it is now. There was some fun in riding with your pistol cocked. Besides, it brought out people's courage. We're a soft lot nowadays when it isn't wartime. A man was a man in the eighteenth century. He knew how to take care of himself. I think some of those famous highwaymen were very fine fellows. They'd the spirit of the age in them. People's blood is as dull as ditch-water in the twentieth century."
"Oh, indeed. I wonder how you'd like a highwayman darting suddenly down upon you, Mr. Derrick, and saying 'Hands up'?"
"I'd be equal to him if he did, no fear," replied the Stripling grimly.
Lesbia did not trouble to pursue the argument, for the very good reason that she was suddenly possessed with an idea, such an excellent and brilliant idea that she chuckled softly to herself over it. She kept it darkfrom Derrick, but confided it to Regina at the first opportunity. Her chum's explosions made the Stripling prick up his ears.
"What are you two after?" he asked, with suspicion.
"Oh, nothing for small boys," choked Regina.
"You've always got some silly joke."
"Well, we're going to keep this one to ourselves at any rate."
"Little things please little minds!" scoffed the Stripling.
"Right-o! You won't get it out of us that way."
What Lesbia proposed was that she should dress up in a landgirl's costume which she had seen in a cupboard at the cottage, take one of the old pistols that hung in the hall, go into the lane that evening, and lie in wait for Derrick, who would be cycling back from Cefn station where he always went to buy an evening paper at the bookstall. The plan seemed most feasible. The lane was narrow, it would be almost dark, and she hoped to be able to pull him off his bicycle before he discovered the joke.
They watched him start as usual for Cefn, then rushed upstairs to begin the toilet. The land costume fitted Lesbia very well. She had always longed to try it on, and danced about in it now to her own admiration and Regina's. She put on an old cap of Derrick's, corked a moustache, and borrowed the pistol. It was a "flint-lock", a most suitable weapon fora highwayman, and made a beautiful spark when the trigger was pulled. They calculated the time which Derrick generally took in going to and from the station, then went into the lane and hid behind some bushes. It was twilight, the sun had set, and stars were coming out in the sky. Presently they heard the familiar sound of approaching cycle wheels. A red lamp came glimmering towards them.
"Now," whispered Regina, pushing her chum forward.
Lesbia sprang from the bush, presented her pistol, snapped the trigger with the best spark it had yet made, and seizing the machine by the handles tipped its owner neatly off on to the grass.
"Hello! What's all this about?" cried an unfamiliar voice, in much deeper tones than those of the Stripling. The pistol dropped from Lesbia's outstretched hand. Oh horrors! It was not Derrick after all whom she had assaulted, but a stranger. The unknown object of her violence picked himself up before she had time to run away, and, grasping his bicycle, peered through the darkness into the faces of the two girls, for Regina had joined her chum.
"I've come to see Mr. Webster. Is he at home?"
A pair of very ashamed and crestfallen maidens apologized, and explained their "rag". Lesbia scooted away to wash off her moustache and change her attire while Regina led the visitor into the cottage. Muchto their dismay, he was invited to supper. He was trustworthy, however, and did not betray them, though his eyes twinkled when Mrs. Webster performed the introduction "Mr. Ford—Miss Ferrars". He sat next to Lesbia at the supper table. He made no reference at all to highwaywomen, but looked amused and friendly.
"I wonder if by any chance you happen to be a daughter of a Mr. Charles Ferrars whom I used to know long ago?" he asked presently.
"Charles was my father's name," answered Lesbia in astonishment.
"Then it must be the same, for you're so like him. Used he to live at Hanbury? So did I. We were partners together for a short while. Dear me! That's ages ago now!"
"It's sixteen years since he died," said Lesbia gravely.
"So much as that. Time flies indeed. You must have been too young to remember him I suppose. A handsome man, and a great favourite with everybody! It makes me feel quite middle-aged to see his daughter almost grown-up."
Lesbia had heard so little about her own father that it was interesting to meet someone who had known and remembered him. She treasured the brief incident on that account. It seemed a link with the dim far-away past, when she too had had father and motherof her own to love her and treasure her, instead of being an orphan with no home but the house of a distant cousin, and nothing to look forward to in the future but earning her own living in a way which she would probably find quite uncongenial.
Lesbia returned to the High School with a feeling of intense relief at finding Miss Tatham once more at the helm. A term's rest had set up the Principal's health, and she seemed her old self again. Her strong, calm personality made an enormous difference in the school; many wheels, which had creaked and jarred, now turned smoothly, and teachers and pupils took on a more united tone. Lesbia went to her and explained the circumstances which had led to her loss of the prefectship. Miss Tatham listened quietly, but made little comment. She was, of course, bound to support Miss Ormerod's régime, recognizing that her locum tenens had done her best during a difficult term.
"You've been kind in screening the juniors, Lesbia," she said. "I think, on the whole, as Kathleen has been made a prefect, it will be wiser to have no further changes. You have quite enough to do as it is. Don't you agree with me?"
"Yes, indeed! Please don't think I wanted the prefectship back. I only wanted to explain."
"I'm very glad you told me, because now I quite understand."
Miss Tatham never gushed, or showed favouritism towards any special girl, but Lesbia always realized her kindly attitude and felt that the head mistress was her friend. She had indeed been her good genius for the last eighteen months. But for her helping hand it would have been impossible to continue at the High School. She had borne patiently with a most imperfect assistant mistress, for whose defects she had often had to make up.
Lesbia owed her more than she could ever hope to repay. It was a great thing to finish her course in the school where she had started as the youngest pupil. At the end of the summer term she would have completed nearly thirteen years at Kingfield High, a record which no other girl had ever equalled. What was to happen to her afterwards? That was a question which troubled her continually. The Pattersons were straining every resource to keep two sons at college and a third at Rugby. It was unfair to be a burden to them any longer. She must think seriously of how she was to begin and earn an independence, and make her own way in the world.
"I'm afraid there's nothing for it but teaching," she said to herself ruefully. "Everything else I'd liketo do needs an expensive training. So does teaching really, to do it properly. I ought to go to college and take a degree if I ever want to get a head-mistressship. I might go as governess to a child like Terry, or perhaps Miss Tatham would keep me on to help with the juniors, but either would be a blind alley and lead to nothing better, if I'm not trained and certificated and all the rest of it. And, oh dear! I don't think I'm cut out for a teacher. Miss Ormerod was right when she said I'd no sense of discipline. I could never make a 'head' like Miss Tatham, so calm and even and unmoved. I'm all nerves and jumps. It isn't my line in the least. Oh, if only I could paint all day long! That's the life! You do, yourself, a thing that you like, instead of forcing unwilling children to do what they don't want. I love the children, and I'd sit painting them for hours and hours, and call them 'sweet little angels', but when I begin to try to teach them they turn into imps. I'm in the wrong box, but there's no help for it, and I suppose I shall just have to worry on doing my incompetent best till the end of the chapter. It's Kismet!"
Meantime, though Lesbia might worry about her future, the summer term went on as usual. There were cricket matches, and tennis tournaments, and an occasional nature ramble to break the monotony of the ordinary grind of work, as well as such side activities as the Photographic Society, and a newly-formedSketching Club. Lesbia found one advantage in having resigned the prefectship to Kathleen, it gave her Tuesday afternoons free. Formerly she had been obliged to superintend a juniors' cricket practice, but now she could spend the time at her beloved painting in the studio. As it was a "Self Expression" afternoon she was under no tuition, but might carry out any artistic scheme she wished. By special leave she borrowed Gwennie Rogers, who had strained her knee and might not play cricket, and, posing the child as model, began to paint a study of her head in oils. Gwennie was very pretty, with an apple-blossom complexion and fluffy fair hair, and the episode of the gate room had switched her adoration of Lesbia to a point which made her sit still for half an hour at a stretch without moving, a quality in a model which is absolutely invaluable.
Lesbia, whose art victims generally fidgeted and twisted their heads and never kept the same position for more than two minutes together, painted away with the utmost satisfaction. The studio was quiet, and she seemed able to give her whole attention to her subject. She mixed a very delicate grey for the shades on Gwennie's face, and put a dull blue background behind her fair hair. She recalled all the hints Mr. Stockton had given her when she had attempted Terry's portrait, and tried to reproduce some of the artistic effects which she had watched his clever fingersperform. The doing of it was sheer joy. She worked away in a sort of happy dream, almost oblivious of her surroundings. She hardly noticed when the door opened and someone entered the studio. She was startled at last by hearing Miss Tatham's voice behind her. Instantly the spell broke. She laid down her palette and brushes, and Gwennie moved her pose.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Lesbia," said Miss Tatham. "I've brought a gentleman—a great artist—to see our studio. This is one of our elder pupils, Mr. Moxon. She's painting this afternoon quite on her own account. We have no life class here, so she's just trying her 'prentice hand at a sketch of one of her schoolfellows. It's all good practice."
Mr. Moxon, from a height of six feet two, looked down at the canvas on Lesbia's easel.
"It's a very nice study," he remarked. "She evidently has the gift of catching a likeness. It really is a most happy little portrait. The chin is charmingly modelled, and she has captured just the roguish expression of the original. Don't touch it again" (speaking to Lesbia). "It's exactly right as it is. You'll probably spoil it if you try to do any more to it. I hope you're going on with art?"
"I'm afraid not." Lesbia's voice was sad.
"What a thousand pities! You ought to go andstudy in Paris, at Mesurier's studio. He's the coming man! Tell your people to send you. You'd get on very well there. Tell them I say so."
Mr. Moxon moved on, following Miss Tatham, to inspect other details in the school. He left Lesbia in a ferment. That an artist—and a great artist too—should have condescended to praise her work, and encourage her to go on, raised her to the clouds. Oh, if only she could take this kind advice and go to Paris to study! But, alas! those things were for fortunate girls who had friends who could afford to send them abroad, not for luckless people like herself, who were fated to toil away at humdrum occupations. It was no use mourning over what could not be helped, a course at a Paris studio was as impossible as a tour round the world, and there was not the slightest prospect of it ever coming within her reach. She almost wished he had never mentioned the dazzling idea, it was too tantalizing to be obliged to turn her back upon it.
Though Lesbia might have to forgo many beautiful art dreams, she made the best at any rate of the opportunities which Kingfield High School offered to her. Miss Joyce had instituted a sketching class for the summer term, and took about half a dozen of the girls out with her on Friday afternoons. At first they went by train into the country, but she found the journey wasted so much time, going and returning,that she looked about for some pretty bit near at hand, which would be within their powers, and finally fixed on Pilgrims' Inn yard. It was a picturesque old court, and had the advantage of being quiet. As it was private ground, no tiresome urchins from the street might stray in and molest them, and no passers-by would stop to stand and watch their work, a species of persecution from which they had suffered considerably in country villages. The old black-and-white house, with its gables and mullioned windows, its nail-studded doors, its gallery, and the benches alongside the entrance, made several excellent subjects, and afforded points of view for all her students. They settled themselves on their camp-stools, unfolded their sketching-easels, and were soon busy with pencil or charcoal, blocking in the main outlines of their prospective pictures.
Lesbia had secured a particularly pretty little corner, with a peep through the archway into the street, and a cluster of pots of geraniums—a fine splash of colour—which had been placed upon one of the benches. She drew it rapidly (she was improving so much in accurate drawing) and had begun to lay on her sky while the others were still in the process of rubbing out wrong lines. She mixed cerulean blue and flake white on her palette, and worked in yellow ochre and rose madder on her canvas, to give warmth and sunshine to the effect. She was gazing at her subject,weighing its colour-values and scheme of light and shade, when somebody came out of one of the offices which occupied the ground floor of the Pilgrims' Inn Chambers, a somebody who walked briskly towards the archway, threw a passing glance at the sketching-easel, halted, and looked back in evident hesitation. For a moment he seemed an utter stranger to Lesbia, then there surged into her mind the remembrance of the lane at Dolmadoc and the visitor who had received the "rag" intended for Derrick. The recognition appeared to be mutual. Mr. Ford lifted his hat and came back to speak to her.
"Surely it's Miss Ferrars? Well, this is really a coincidence! I've been thinking about you all day, and was going to ring up the Websters to ask for your address. I've a matter of business to settle with you. Your teacher won't mind my talking to you for a few minutes? That's all right! Well, perhaps you remember my mentioning that years ago your father and I were once in partnership? We had invented rather a good thing and had meant to patent it, but when he died it was put on the shelf. Lately I looked it up and patented it myself. It was really speculation on my part. Well, this morning fortune smiled, and I had quite a decent offer for it from a big engineering firm. I won't sell it without your signature to represent your father's share in the invention. Of course you don't understandthese business affairs. Can I see your guardian any time?"
"I don't think I have a 'guardian', but you could talk to Mr. Patterson. I live with the Pattersons, 28 Park Road, Morton Common."
Mr. Ford wrote down the name and address in his notebook.
"I'll call round this evening," he volunteered. "I want to get the matter fixed up at once. It will be a stroke of luck for us both. I never thought that invention would turn up trumps after all these years. Good-bye! I have an appointment to keep and must hurry off."
He was gone, but left a very fluttered Lesbia behind him. The news was overwhelming. She knew that when her own father died there had been no provision for his wife and baby, that fact had often been cast in her teeth by Mrs. Patterson and other relations. It was her stepfather, Mr. Hilton, and her stepbrother, Paul, who had provided for her during her childhood and educated her. She had had nothing whatever of her own. Was that humiliation at last to be lifted from her? However small this luck of which Mr. Ford spoke it would seem riches to a girl possessed of no income at all.
"If it's enough to take me to Paris for even one year's painting I'd nearly stand on my head with joy," she thought. "I don't know how I'm going tolive till this evening. Suppose the patent doesn't sell after all? It would be like my luck! How funny that I should meet Mr. Ford here this afternoon. It really was a coincidence, just when he had had the offer. What a horrible disappointment if the whole thing falls through. I've a feeling it will never really come off!"
But it did come off. The Goddess of Fortune, who had hitherto meted out rather Spartan treatment to Lesbia, turned her wheel and scattered favours for once. Mr. Patterson managed all the business transactions, and before the end of the summer term Lesbia found herself, if not exactly an heiress, in a position of comparative independence. There was amply enough for an art education, and that was her main concern. Instead of being obliged to carry on an uncongenial occupation she could take Mr. Moxon's advice and go to study in Paris. Miss Joyce had a cousin who was working at Mesurier's studio, and who promised to find room for Lesbia in her flat, and to initiate her into the art-student life of the place when the autumn term should commence. The blazing prospect seemed the very summit of human desire. No girl could possibly have a happier time in store for her.
Then one day there arrived for Mrs. Patterson a letter with a Canadian postmark. She opened it, read it, and handed it to Kitty, with the explanation:
"It's from Mabel Johnson. She says she's been to see the Hiltons. Minnie seems in a bad way, poor thing."
"Minnie! What's the matter with Minnie?" cried Lesbia, suddenly interested. "Is she ill? What is it?"
Kitty was reading the letter half aloud and half to herself, in that particularly aggravating fashion which gives a few leading words and skips the important points.
"Certainly—um—um—to go—um—um—um—complete rest—um—never be well——"
"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter?" urged Lesbia, dancing with impatience.
Kitty finished the first sheet and handed it on to her. The Canadian friend, Mrs. Johnson, had paid a visit to the Hiltons and sent grave accounts of Minnie's health.
"Mrs. Hilton certainly ought to go away to a nursing home for several months' complete rest," so the letter ran, "she'll never be well until she does. She says, however, it's out of the question, she can't leave her husband and the children to the tender mercies of a mulatto 'help' and a Chinese 'boy', both of whom may elect to leave at any moment without notice, if the whim seizes them. You know what servants are out here. It seems a pity she has no relations who could come and take charge for a while, and give her the chance of getting well. She really looks hardlyfit to be going about. She tells me her husband advertised for a housekeeper, but such queer creatures turned up to offer themselves for the post it was impossible to engage one. These are some of the trials of our life out here."
Lesbia handed the letter back to Mrs. Patterson without a word. She could not trust herself to speak. She ran upstairs to her bedroom so that she might be alone. A wild struggle was going on in her heart. Minnie ill, and no one to help her! How much she owed to Paul and Minnie! Debts so great as that ought surely to be repaid. There were better things in the world even than cultivating your own talents, kind, unselfish things that counted far more in the long run. Lesbia was quick at making decisions. As eighteen months ago she had burnt her boats and run away from theRoumaniaon the spur of a moment, so now she equally impulsively changed her plans. She ran downstairs all excitement to announce her intentions.
"If Minnie's ill and needs me, I must go to her! Paris can wait. Six months in Canada won't spoil my career. I'll start the painting when I come back. Minnie will trustmeto look after Paul and the children, when she wouldn't leave them with anybody else. I shall justmakeher pack off to a nursing home."
"I believe you're right," said Mrs. Patterson slowly."In the circumstances you're about the only person who can persuade her. Yes, Lesbia, I think you ought to go."
So it was all arranged, a letter was sent off to the Hiltons, they cabled back "Come!", and Lesbia's passage was booked for the end of July. The matter seemed almost as big a hurry as her exodus of a year and a half ago, but with the vast difference that this time she went of her own free will, and, moreover, was an infinitely stronger and more helpful personality than the old dreamy Lesbia had been.
She was glad that she need not start until after breaking-up day; she wanted to see the very last of Kingfield High before she left it. The good-byes of all her friends seemed more sincere than those of a former occasion, though there was less fuss, and no parting present. Marion in particular squeezed her hand.
"Mother always said it wasmyfault you ran away from the Hiltons. I'm glad you're going to set things straight there," she whispered. "You're a real trump. Don't forget me over in Canada."
And Miss Tatham, taking final leave of her oldest pupil, added her word:
"You've been nearly thirteen years here, Lesbia, and have beaten the record for attendance. I must say you've improved very much all round lately. Be as loyal to the best things in life as you've been loyalto the school. I wish you every success, either in the New World or the Old, and if you ever come back, and I'm still here, be sure to call and see me, and you'll always find a welcome waiting for you at Kingfield High."