“‘I’m coming to that,’ declared Stella, ‘if only you’ll listen.’”(See page 120.)
“‘I’m coming to that,’ declared Stella, ‘if only you’ll listen.’”(See page 120.)
“‘I’m coming to that,’ declared Stella, ‘if only you’ll listen.’”
(See page 120.)
Bush. Let’s lie low and wriggle along through the heather like the ‘blacks’ do. They know all the woodcraft ways, and Long Jake’s taught me some. We’ll....”
“Oh,dolet’s,” begged her hostess with delight.
“Here, keep behind me.” Margot’s eyes were dancing. “Oh, isn’t it jolly to be away from rules for a bit?—though school is topping, of course. Still, keep down; don’t raise your head, and we’ll slither through the heather. There don’t seem to be any gipsies about; only the two horses, and they’re awfully tired-out looking ones. If you want to warn me, click with your tongue!Thatsound hardly carries at all; and it’s what the natives used to do.”
“Clic-c-ck!” came suddenly from behind her, after about ten minutes’ stealthy wriggling.
It was quite certain, too, what the “click” was intended to convey. Margot had been just about to sound the warning herself. Out through the tent flap had emerged two gipsy men.
“I say, do they know we’re here!” whispered the excited Tenderfoot to her guide.
“I don’t think so. Better keep to ‘clicking’ though. The horses will see us first; you may be sure of that.”
Margot was right. One of the weary-looking animals stopped grazing and looked across, as the sudden snap of a twig proclaimed to him that some kind of life was stirring close at hand. “Here,” whispered Margot, “let’s roll into this clump of scrub. We can’t turn and slither back till the men have gone; and we may as well have a good look at the horses.”
The points of the horses, however, did not seem exactly worth the stealthy journey. They were a couple of rather dispirited creatures, evidently picked up cheap at the last fair. Ill-kempt and shaggy of mane and tail; tethered up, too, just across the next ridge, where they cropped the moorland grass.
“I say, I hope the men won’t notice us,” remarked Stella, when they were safely hidden in their bushes. “They’d never understand a tracking practice; they’d think we were spying on them, and they might be furious.”
The gipsies, however, were evidently in no way aware that they had been secretly tracked,à laAustralian aborigine, over their own bit of common land! The pair of them, still standing outside the tent flap which they had carefully pulled to after them, turned interested eyes on the horses.
“The far un hed ought to bring in a matter of ten quid at Rowsley Fair,” remarked one.
“He hed ought. If these here troubles blow over....” The second man cast a half-fearful look behind him at the tent flap against which they were standing. “But we doesn’t want to bring the police down on us. There’s no knowing now, how-some-ever, whether we’ll not be turned back, and all....”
There was plainly some mystery hanging over them. Their words hinted at such a fact; their looks made it positive.
“I say, Stella.” Margot was lying flat on the turf. “I simply can’t help hearing, so we may as well hear properly while we’re about it. The ‘blacks’ say that if they press their ears to the ground they can hear much better, and so....”
The ears of both girls were pressed close to cold Mother Earth. Were these horse-stealers? Margot’s overseas experience came back to her mind with zest. There was something on foot, certainly, and it was a relief to her pent-up feelings of excitement when, suddenly, both men, after a whispered colloquy, turned back and re-entered the tent.
“Stella, now we canreallytalk. Have you been hearing?”
“Yes,andnoticing. Isn’t it queer? Margot, let’s go back. They’ve gone now. And I’m sure....”
Stella, with relief in her tones as she spoke, prepared to slither back in the direction from which they had come.
“You don’t think—for the bravery prize—?” suggested Margot tentatively. “Suppose.... Bushrangers, you know....”
But suddenly she stopped speaking. The blood of both the Saturday adventurers turned cold. For screams rang through the air. They came from the tent; so much was certain. The cries were evidently those of a child; and just as evidently those of a child in pain.
“OH!” Margot sprang to her feet. Indignation and fury were in her eyes and in her voice. “Stella, they are hurting it!”
“What?” Stella, already half-turning in the direction of home, gave reluctant ear.
“What, indeed! It’s a child, of course. Oh, I knew quite well there was something up. Didn’t you hear those men mention the police? They’ve stolen it, or something. Anyhow, it’s unhappy.Listen!”
“Well, we can’t do anything. Not against two great men. And some of the gipsies are horrid. Margot, come on!”
“Come on, indeed!” said Margot, listening with might and main to the pitiful sobs.
“Let’s go back home, then, and we’ll fetch father,” suggested Stella.
“Why, you said your own self that he would be out to tea!” returned the downright Margot, quivering with rage. “Youcan go home, ifyou like, but I’m not coming. Why, before anyone gets back to help they might——”
Margot took a step in the direction of the tent.
“Oh, don’t be so stupid, Margot!” Stella seized her skirts. “They might do—anything to you! Oh, I wish you wouldn’t be so—so Australian! It’s not even sensible. One girl against two great gipsies! Even if youdidgo inside, what would you do?”
“I’d not be—one girl, if you came too,” Margot informed her. “Here, you’re right in one thing; we’d better get the men out of the tent, first, and then go in! Only, how....”
“There’s no way. How could there be? I’m going home,” said Stella.
“Of all thecowards! That’s whatyouare! I’d rather be—Australian, as you call it, than a coward and leave a baby crying!” Stella’s guest of the afternoon turned upon her hostess with flashing eyes. “And after talking of winning the bravery shield!”
The mention of the shield certainly seemed to revive, to a slight extent, Stella’s departing nerve.
“I’m not a coward, and if it’s for theshield——” She stopped. “Only, how——? We’ll never get the shield if the gipsies kill us.”
“Killus! It’s better than killing the baby, anyhow. And they won’t kill us. Look here!” Margot had been thinking rapidly. “There’s two of us, and there’s two things to do. (Oh dear,dolisten to that baby!) Stella, if I get the men out, will you go in? If they’re not there—only the baby, you know—you couldn’t possibly be frightened, could you? And you could rescue it while they are both away.”
“I wouldn’t mind rescuing a baby,” admitted Stella, with her mental eye on the bravery shield, “so long as—I mean, so long as you’ll do something to keep the men away from me all the time.”
“Leave that to me, then. You lie here—till I’ve done it. You absolutely needn’t move till you see the gipsy men come out of the tent. Then, well, they’ll not be back, I promise you, till you’ve had time to get hold of the child. It sounds like a small one, anyway. I’m sure you can carry it until I meet you.”
“But——” faltered Stella.
But, as the child’s cries broke out again, Margot darted from her side. As she went, shetugged violently at the leather girdle of her out-to-tea jumper frock.
“Stella, you remember that you’ve promised. Be sure——” panted Margot as she ran.
Then she fled across the ridge to the grazing quarters of the two seedy-looking steeds.
“Margot! Margot! Come back! Whereareyou going?” screamed her hostess after her.
But there was no recalling Margot, now. Having armed herself with the leather girdle she proceeded, first of all, to untether the horses with practised fingers, and then, emitting surprising yells, to whip the pair of them into a canter which led away across the moor. Possibly, as she herself hoped, the horses understood that she had no ill-feeling whatever towards them, and that her banshee-like cries were not meant to terrify them, but their masters, who had recently returned into the tent. The said owners, whether attracted by the sound of galloping hoofs or by the startling yells, were certainly not long before they issued pell-mell and post-haste through the tent flap.
“Oh!” the amazed Stella gasped. “Oh! Isn’t she frightful! Oh, I suppose I’ll simplyhaveto hurry up and go in before they get back.”
But Margot, true to her word, had certainly arranged that her companion should have ample time for her part of the rescue, as well as the easiest share of the enterprise. By this time the horses had been urged into a gallop, and their owners’ voices were sounding but faintly over the moor. Stella, though shaking in every limb, approached the flap of the tent.
As she entered, the cries sounded louder than ever. There was certainly a child in trouble there.
A little child, too; scarcely more than a baby, as its would-be rescuer could faintly see. Stella prepared to perform her share of the act of bravery as expeditiously as she could.
“Here, come along. Stop crying, do!” she remarked, picking up the baby from the bed on which it lay, “or they’ll be back. You’re all right now; they won’t hurt you any more. Or, at least, I suppose you are. I do hope and trust you reallyarea stolen baby, because, if not——”
Her remarks, as she held the child in her arms and proceeded to retrace her steps throughthe semi-gloom to the entrance of the tent, were suddenly interrupted.
Not by the arrival of a panting Margot, however, but by the entry of a hastening gipsy woman.
“What’s this! And where’s ’er dada, eh? What! You ’ere; and what beyoudoing, whoever you be, in honest folkses homes?”
“It’s——” Stella turned, with shaking knees, to face the speaker.
“Speak up, now! How did you get in, I’d like to know; with me on’y away at doctor’s to arsk ’im to step up. An’ leaving the baby’s dada in charge, an’ all. And now—what’s this? ’Ere, give the baby to me!”
“I didn’t want to, I’m sure! And—I’m the rector’s daughter, if you want to know,” added Stella grandly. “And the baby was crying horribly. We just.... Is it crying because it’sill?” she suddenly inquired.
“Rector’s daughter, eh? I’m sure I begs yer pardon, miss.” The gipsy was evidently impressed. “An’ if so be as you stopped to quieten the baby, I’m sure you’re kindly welcome. But what with these ’ere spots coming out all over it, an’ it being so fretful, and the police being that keerful on account of all the scarlingfever what’s about—coming round the camp, they did, an’ tellin’ us as we was to notify ’em if it starts—well, we dursn’t go on to Rowsley Fair, we dursn’t, without the doctor said we might. An’ there’s three times this blessed day as I’ve bin down to doctor’s. An’ now he’s on his way up, an’ he ses that sure as fate it’s the scarling fever. What with the ’orspital for the baby; and the men ’aving lorsted Rowsley Fair with it all——”
The woman began to weep.
“What!” yelled Stella.
It was the last word that she uttered within the gipsy tent. The next was addressed to Margot, whom she met returning speedily over the moor in the direction of the camp.
“The men have got the horses back all right,” she shouted. “I say—What!d’you mean to say you haven’t got the baby?” she finished up angrily.
Her questions were interrupted by the torrents of Stella’s wrath.
“It’s your fault! I’m sure I didn’t want to go in! I tried to make you go home. You can’t say I didn’t. If you hadn’t kept talking about the shield, I would never——”
Stella burst into furious crying.
“And now, scarlet fever! And I lifted it up and carried it. And it’s got spots. And that stuffy tent! And ... I’ve never had scarlet fever!”
“Do you mean to say that the baby wasn’t—being hurt, or anything?” inquired Margot slowly.
“Oh!” Stella was sobbing outright. She could answer no question with regard to the baby. “And I’ll miss the match, even if I don’t get fever. For I’m sure I’ll have to be in quarantine for ages. Oh, come home to mother quick! Oh!” finished up Stella, too miserable to remember points of etiquette, “IwishI hadn’t asked you to tea!”
Margot, also, wished the same wish, as, miserably conscious of her shortcomings, she faced a scandalized Mrs. Hill and listened to Stella’s sobbing account of the recent escapade, while she mentally agreed with Stella that it certainly was all her own (Margot’s) fault. She wished the same wish all the way back to school, whither she was instantly dispatched. “For you had better not stay here, and not come near Stella, since she’s probably caught it already, you see. What? You’ve had it? Well, of course, that is very fortunate for you;but for poor Stella there will certainly be ten days’ quarantine atleast! Go straight to Miss Slater,” continued the harassed Mrs. Hill, “and tell her—everything. What it must be to be a head mistress when even a beautiful thing like a prize for bravery can put such dreadful mischief into children’s heads, Idon’tknow!” concluded the rector’s wife.
“It wasn’t—because of the bravery prize that I did it. I’d have done it—if there hadn’t ever been a bravery prize,” blurted out Margot; “and I’m most dreadfully sorry. And if there’s anything I can do?”
Do!She had done enough already. Mrs. Hill hurried indoors without delay to find carbolic, and hardly heard the last strains of Margot’s fervent apologies.
There was carbolic, too, for Margot, when she reached the Cliff School with her confession. Also a week-end of nights spent in the fastness of the San. But first of all an interview with Miss Slater.
“You, yourself, Margot, have not run any risk whatever, I think and hope; under the circumstances, though, we will take certain precautions. But Stella certainly must not return for ten days; though I hope she willnotmiss the match.” The head mistress looked at Margot’s flushed and unhappy face.
“Poor Mrs. Hill, and poor Stella!” said the head mistress quietly. “Margot, you must really try to conform to English ways.”
That was all.
“Only——” as Margot confided to Gretta later on, “Gretta, what else could I have done? You see, I truly thought the babywasunhappy, so what elsecouldI do?”
STELLA’S quarantine was over at last.
“And what do you think!” exclaimed the returned prodigal. “I’ve got the most exciting thing to tell you. Just wait till to-night—all of you! Youwillopen your eyes!”
The girls addressed, being her three dormitory partners, opened their eyes instantly and widely; and with one accord, although the place was the cloak-room, and the time just five minutes before prayers on Monday morning, begged for instant disclosures.
“But I can’t!” urged Stella. “I’ve only just come, though I’m sure I begged the boy to drive quickly! And if the bell rings before I’m undressed I’ll be late.” She pulled feverishly at her coat, and tried to kick off one of her shoes at the same moment, just as Miss Read’s voice sounded urgently from the door.
“No more talking, and all the girls who are ready will go straight to their class-rooms. The prayer-bell will ring almost at once.”
With a sigh that the command should have come at such a tantalizing moment, the friends dispersed, Josy to seek the Fourth Form room, Gretta and Margot to make their way to the Upper Third, while Stella continued to undress in frantic haste in the empty cloak-room.
“What is it, do you think?” asked Margot, when she and Gretta had reached their respective desks, and were seated side by side. “She seemed awfully excited. Oh, and isn’t it a blessing that she didn’t get scarlet fever after all!”
“It’s something about the Hope-Scott Shield, I expect,” answered her cousin. “It’s sure to be, isn’t it? Her father’s told her something. Perhaps——” The clanging of the prayer-bell made further conversation impossible, and the expectant girls had to contain their souls in patience until the evening.
“Andnow, what is it?” demanded Josy, waving her comb and addressing the returned exile excitedly. Half-past eight had struck; the four were in their respective cubicles with the curtains drawn back, and in half an hour the light would be extinguished. “Let’s hear what you said you’d tell us.”
“You remember the ‘Little House’?” askedStella, her eyes glistening. “Well, it’s aboutthat!”
“Go on!” cried everybody in unison, and Margot’s eagerness was such that her brush flew from her hand to the opposite side of the dormitory. Since the beginning of the quarantine, and her view of the outside of the “Little House” ten days ago, she had felt the most intense desire to know more about the strange inmate whom Stella had already described as being a “miser, and quite alone, and most likely mad!” Quixotic plans had formed themselves over and over again in her mind, only to be laid aside one after another as she had realized that it would be impossible to carry out any of them, and at the same time to keep the Cliff School rules.
“All right,” and Stella’s voice grew lower in the intensity of her interest in the story she had to tell. “You know I told you that I’d never seen him—the old man, I mean. Well, on Saturday I was out driving with Jim, the boy; we were coming back from the station where we’d taken dad—he’d gone away for the Sunday to preach somewhere, you know—and suddenly, in the dark, the pony gave a kind of shy, and when Jim pulled him up and spoketo him, there was an old, old man standing in the road!”
“I say—was ithim?” inquired Josy. “What on earth did he want, and how did you know him if you’d never seen him before?”
“I’m coming to that,” declared Stella, “if only you’ll listen. When Jim pulled the pony up the old, old man came straight to me and put his hand on my arm.”
An excited shiver shook all the three listening girls.
“And he said in quite a quiet, respectful kind of voice, you know: ‘Excuse me, miss, but I thought the parson might be driving, and I’d be glad of a word with him.’”
“What did he mean? asked Margot breathlessly.
“Well, of course, dad’s the rector, and I suppose he wanted to see him. I felt a most awfully frightened feeling, especially as I could see by the light of the carriage-lamp that his eyes looked frightfully queer; but he seemed so very old and ill that you couldn’thelpfeeling sorry for him.”
“And what did you say?” asked Josy excitedly.
“I said that dad had just gone away fora week, and asked if he would like to see the curate?”
“And then——?” Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Stella, all brushes were suspended from their operations, and undressing was forgotten.
“Then he just turned and muttered as he went, and I could have sworn I heard him say something about a ‘confession’! He went off across the moor towards the ‘Little House.’”
“Oh, andwhatdid you do then?” urged Margot almost in a frenzy. “You didn’t leave him like that? So miserable and old!”
“I had to,” declared Stella. “I told mother, of course, and she told the curate, and he went on Sunday afternoon and knocked ever so many times at the door of the house; but he couldn’t get any answer, though he thought he heard sounds inside, and in the end he had to come away.”
“And then——?” Margot’s voice was quite harsh in its eagerness.
“Oh, well, that’sall, I suppose,” announced Stella; “only I thought as you and Gretta are so keen about the ‘Little House’ that you’d like to know.”
“And you didn’t do anything else?” pursued Margot.
“Well, what else could I do?” inquired Stella impatiently. “I’ve had enough of toomuchdoing, I can tell you, Margot. Mother’ll tell dad, of course, when he gets home, and he’s sure to go. What would you have done yourself, Margot, as far as that goes?”
“I don’t know,” said Margot slowly, staring at her own reflection in the glass with unseeing eyes; “but I’d havehadto do something!”
“I think it was jolly brave of Stella not to be frightened when the pony shied and all that,” interposed the head of the dormitory, tactfully; “and I say, talking about bravery, has anyone thought of anything?”
But nothing in the way of conversation on any topic was to be got from Margot and Gretta, and if nurse had been told how long it was before the former fell asleep that night she would certainly not have believed it. Truth to tell, the impression made on Margot’s mind by Stella’s story had been such as to call up all her strongest sympathies, and she lay awake weaving plan after plan that might be tried to relieve the imagined sufferings of the inhabitantof the “Little House,” only to throw each one aside as she realized that it would be quite impossible to work from school. “Oh, those rules!” she murmured to herself; and just before she fell asleep: “Oh, if Long Jake was only here!”
Temporary relief appeared in the morning, however, in the shape of little scraps of paper, which were handed round to all the older girls in the sitting-room directly after breakfast.
“They’re for your lists, you know,” said Helen, who was officiating. “Write down how much you want to spend, and what you’d like for the feast, and then give them in to me, and I’ll give them to Miss Read. She’ll see that the things are all right, and that they’re bought. It’ll be best if you do it according to dormitories, and then you won’t all write the same things!”
Accordingly, four pigtailed heads from Dormitory 3 met in solemn conclave in one corner of the sitting-room, and, as a result, evolved a menu that would have caused the most hardened gourmand to gasp and gasp again.
“Sardines!”—this from Margot; “and French rolls,newones, to eat with them.”
“Meringues—large ones with lots of cream”—this Josy’s choice; “and if they have those éclairs with yellow custard in them, three of those!”
“Sausage-rolls and bath-buns”—these were decided upon by Stella and Gretta together; the former acting as adviser-in-chief in a most unselfish manner considering that no bite of the feast was to pass her lips; “and half a pound of mixed cream sweets, and some Velma chocolate.”
“But we’ve forgotten drinks!” said the head of the dormitory gravely; “and really with all those things we shall need them.”
“A good dose of Gregory’s Powder’ll be enough,” remarked the grim voice of nurse, who had entered the room unnoticed, and now stood looking over Josy’s shoulder. “If I hadmyway there’d be an end of these feasts, as you call them—a lot of silly rubbish!”
But nurse’s words were laughed to scorn, for this was a privileged occasion. “Two bottles of ginger champagne and one of raspberry syrup,” were added to the list; “and some apples,” wrote Josy, “so long as they’re nice and green; if not, then Brazil nuts!”
This completed the list, and the hearts ofthat dormitory were at rest on the subject of the feast, at least. “You’ll be lucky if Miss Read lets you have a quarter of this!” laughed Helen, reading the list aloud. “Everybody—listen! Sausage-rolls, meringues, sardines, Brazil nuts!”
She was interrupted by a howl of misery from Sybil—poor Sybil of the sweet tooth!
“I think it’s just hateful for everyone to have a dormitory feast but us; and such lovely, lovely things! And I’ve got such lots of pocket-money that auntie gave me!”
“Do be quiet, Sybil,” adjured Gretta, feeling very sorry for her little sister, but knowing from old experience that sympathetic treatment was of little use at such a time. “Perhaps Miss Read will let me keep something for you; I’ll ask her, if you’ll stop crying.”
“She won’t, she won’t,” sobbed Sybil. “They’re all just the hor——!”
“Cheero, Sybil!” interposed Josy; “there’s the match to watch on Saturday, anyway!”
“Yes, that’s thebestpart of the day,” agreed Margot.
“It isn’t, it isn’t,” sobbed Sybil, quitegiven over to her grief and temper; “and I’ll not go near the old match, and I’ll pay you out, everyone of you—just see if I don’t!”
But not one of the listening girls guessed how she would keep her word.
TO say that Sybil was angry would be using too mild a word to express the state of feelings that filled her troubled breast. She was just as furious as any little girl could be, and truly to outward appearance her lot at present was a hard one.
To be denied any participation in the dormitory feast (and to such a sweet-toothed little damsel the magnitude of the treat was tremendous), and to be expected to take comfort—forsooth!—from the fact that she would be allowed to watch the hockey-match was, according to Sybil’s present state of ideas, to add insult to injury.
A week ago, before the feast had been mooted, no one had been more excited and delighted at the prospective match than the child herself, but now the complexion of the case was altered. The feast which she was not to enjoy loomed largely and lusciously before her, while the hitherto alluring match had fallen in her opinionto the position of an irritating event without interest or excitement. And now here was Margot—Margot, only six months her senior, and yet included in the band of fortunate older ones!—suggesting that this match was the “best part” of the day’s entertainment. Sybil flounced angrily out of the sitting-room and, leaving a group of amused and half-sympathetic bigger girls, betook herself in tears to the playground, to be found there presently by her chum and slave, Adela, in a very great temper indeed.
“I’ll just pay them all out!” she exclaimed for the twentieth time, feeling very glad of a sympathetic listener and waxing proportionately eloquent.
“But how?” inquired Adela, who was not very original-minded, and who considered her friend to be a monument of wisdom.
“I’ll not goneartheir old hockey match,” bragged Sybil; “and I’ll have—yes, Iwillhave a dormitory feast!”
“Oh,how?” Adela’s eyes opened wide, and her mouth wider. “Inourdormitory, do you mean? Oh, could we really have one?”
“It’s easy enough,” said Sybil, drying her tears, and wondering how on earth it was tobe done; “only—I’m not going to tell anyone—not even you!”
Repeated entreaties from her excited friend only served to render Sybil’s silence more profound. Truth to tell, she was feeling quite concerned as to how she was to carry the affair through and thus maintain a reputation for daring with Adela. She, therefore, with the courage born of despair, made up her mind recklessly that it would be “all right in the end,” and implicated herself still further by acquainting her remaining dormitory companion with the fact of her intentions.
“We’regoing to have a feast on Saturday,too!” she announced that night from behind her cubicle curtains; “and if either of you say one single word about it you shan’t have one tiny crumb of anything!”
“Does nurse know?” inquired Joan Curtis, aged eleven-and-three-quarters, and previously mentioned in these pages as being the youngest of the Cliff School girls.
“No, she doesn’t,” snapped Sybil; “but if we don’t ask her about it she can’t say we’re not to, and so it’ll be all right.”
This logical remark seemed to appear unanswerable to the other two, probably becausethe prospect of a feast of their own was such an alluring one, and there the matter rested—forthem; while for Sybil began a time of wild and exciting imaginings and brain-rackings as she wondered however she could procure enough materials for the longed-for festivity!
It was small wonder, then, that during the following days she went about her duties and played her games with a somewhat pensive expression of face; and sympathetic Margot, guessing—wrongly—what was the matter with her little cousin, cast about in her mind for some way to mitigate the dreadful disappointment. Her ideas voiced themselves in a letter written with Miss Slater’s express permission and received by Mrs. Fleming during the middle of the week.
“Darling Mother,” wrote Margot. “You haven’t answered about whether you’re coming to the match, anddocome if you can, because Josy and Stella want to see you, and Stella’s coming on purpose. Gretta and I didn’t tell Sybil we’d asked you so that she should have a ripping surprise, and please bring some of those chocolates she liked so much at York, because her dormer isn’t going to have a feast and ours is, and she minds much more than weshould, because she’s not so keen on hockey yet. Your lovingMargot.”
The letter received in answer proved that Mrs. Fleming had understood the somewhat rambling contents of her daughter’s note; it arrived on Friday morning, the day before that settled upon for the eventful match, and both Margot and Gretta, walking arm-in-arm round the hockey-field after breakfast, read and re-read the missive, at each time of reading commenting wonderingly on one particular sentence:
“I shall love to come on Saturday, and shall drive over in the car,” wrote Mrs. Fleming, in the large, generous-looking handwriting that her daughter declared “looked just like mother,” “but I expect you will be surprised to hear that it is the last time I shall be able to use it. Tell Gretta that I have something very important to talk to her about, and I hope she and I will be able to get a little quiet time together.”
“Why, whatever can it be?” asked Margot for the twentieth time.
Gretta’s mind flew, as it almost always did, musicwards. “Could it be about my fiddle?” she asked. “I mean, could Monsieur Villon have complained or anything?”
“Now, Gretta, youknowhe couldn’t,” laughed her cousin; “Miss Slater’s just as pleased about your music as she can be, and you know that day Miss Read said to nurse, when you cut your finger at supper, that sometime you’d be insuring your right hand for thousands of pounds, like—what’s his name?—Kreisler, isn’t it? Well, that’s the very thing itcouldn’tbe!”
Gretta gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, Ididhope not, of course. It couldn’t be dad, could it?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure it couldn’t be that, either. He wrote to you himself, yesterday, you know—that letter where he said that everything was going on well, and that Ann had learned to cook bacon properly. Depend upon it, Gretta,that’snothing to be frightened about! But why, oh,why, is it the last time that they’re using the car? I can’t believe that dad wants a new one already! It’s one of those new Daimlers, you know, and he said that its running was perfect—‘mounts a hill like a bird!’—that’s what he said in his very last letter, and it wasn’t so long ago.”
“Well, let’s wait, anyhow; it’s only till to-morrow,” said Gretta, “and won’t it be too simply lovely to see auntie again!”
It was difficult to “keep” the surprise from Sybil for even one day; particularly as she was looking so grave just now, Margot thought, and after consultation with Gretta, she decided on dealing out a tiny piece of excitement to her younger cousin as a kind of tonic.
“Hallo, Sybil!” she said, meeting the damsel alone in the cloak-room that afternoon; “I’ve hardly spoken to you for days.”
“I don’twantto talk to you,” said Sybil, head-in-air, and very distant and grown-up in manner; “you’re not half as nice as I used to think you were, Margot, before you came back from Australia. First you won’t keep your promise and go to the ‘Little House’ with me; and, now, you just put on airs and eat feasts in your old dormitory, although you’re only six months older than me!”
“It isn’tmyfault that I’m in that dormer,” began Margot, still good-humouredly. “Nurse put me in it; and Ididn’tpromise to go to the ‘Little House’ with you, Sybil. I only said I’d think about it. You’d much better be glad you didn’t go, instead of being so cross about it, because you might have been most awfully frightened, I know.”
“Who says I’mnotgoing?” inquired Sybil,flouncing round angrily. “And who says we’re not going to have a feast? You and Gretta can walk about talking secrets, but I’ve got a secret, too.”
“Well, I’d meant to tell you part of ours,” Margot flared up at her irritating small cousin; “and now I’ve a good mind not to! Gretta!” she called, as her elder cousin opened the cloak-room door. “Here’s Sybil being a perfect baby! I can’thelpbeing cross with her!”
“What! With auntie coming to-morrow!” The joyous sound in Gretta’s voice showed that her words were true.
“Oh, ifthat’syour secret!” Even the head-in-air Sybil unbent at the news. She pranced round the cloak-room in joy, hockey-stick in hand. Such, indeed, was the magic of Mrs. Fleming’s name that in five minutes, everything forgotten except that to-morrow would bring Auntie Tib, the three were off to the hockey-ground as gaily as though moods and mysteries had never been!
“‘Long Jake—why, itisyou!’ cried Margot.” (See page 150.)
“‘Long Jake—why, itisyou!’ cried Margot.” (See page 150.)
“‘Long Jake—why, itisyou!’ cried Margot.” (See page 150.)
THE eventful day on which the Cliff School was to play the Redford School girls dawned clear and cloudless.
“It’s perfectly ripping weather for the match,” announced the captain from the bottom of the breakfast-table. “I’ve been shaking with nervousness all the week for fear it should be wet, and we should have to scratch it; but now there’s no fear ofthat, and the best thing we can do is to go out and have a look at the field. Who’ll help to roll the pitch?”
Almost everyone at the long table clamoured aloud for the privilege.
“But you must all remember,” said Miss Read from her place, “that this isn’t a holiday exactly; although, of course, you’re all free to watch the match in the afternoon, and thereisthe feast to-night! This morning’s preparation must be done just as thoroughly as though to-day were the most ordinary Saturday of theterm, and it will be best to leave the field to look after itself until all your school-work is finished.”
A few pigtailed heads shook themselves despairingly at these words of wisdom, and a few solemn voices were heard to proclaim thatthey“couldn’t learn a single word” with such momentous doings ahead, but one and all suppressed their excited feelings manfully, and in less than half an hour four and twenty heads, bent industriously over the same number of desks in the preparation room, testified to the struggles that the girls were making to perform their usual duties.
Two hours later, Margot, traversing the corridor, inky-faced, and laden with exercise-books, but triumphant in the knowledge of lessons prepared, met Gretta emerging from the music-room, her violin-case in her hand.
“I’ve done, Gretta, have you? Oh, ripping, isn’t it! Let’s fetch Josy; she’s finished, I know, and we’ll go and roll the ground.”
On the field were Adela and Sybil, muffled in coats by nurse’s orders, and walking along arm in arm, with all the air of a pair of conspirators on some mysterious mission bent.
“Come on, you two!” shouted Josy, puffingwith her exertions. “Come and help. This roller’s jolly heavy!”
“Theywon’t come,” announced Joan Curtis, the school-baby, pushing manfully, and evidently feeling rather neglected by her friends; “they’re talking secrets, and they won’t let me hear.”
“Secrets! Rot!” laughed Josy. “Come and push, you two kids!” she called again. “It’s not fair to leave this for the team to do; they’ll need every jolly scrap of strength they’ve got for this afternoon.”
“If you meanus,” said Sybil, turning and surveying the breathless quartette with what Josy called “the most utter cheek!” in her face, “we’renotkids, and we’re not coming! You can just roll your old grass yourselves!”
“All right, just wait till Helen comes along, young lazy-bones,” shouted Josy cheerily, and bent herself energetically to the task in hand.
“I can’tthinkwhat’s come over Sybil lately,” said Gretta to Margot. “She’s sofrightfullycross.”
“Oh, mother’ll put her right,” declared her cousin with assurance, pushing manfully, “just wait till she comes.”
But things were to prove very different thatafternoon from what was expected. The girls met at dinner—the team sedulously avoiding all puddings, while speaking longingly of the evening’s feast—and listened at the close of the meal to Miss Read’s final announcement.
“All of you are free after dinner,” she said, “to watch the match. The Redford girls get here at two o’clock, and Helen, you, as captain, must see that they are made at home by our team. The rest of you had better be on the field. Tea will be ready in the hall, nurse says, as soon as the match is over—that will be about a quarter to four, I expect, as the first whistle sounds at two-thirty. Those of you who have friends must look after them and see that they have tea; the team must look after the Redford girls, and all the rest of you must look after yourselves all the afternoon. Nurse and I shall both be busy the whole time with all kinds of preparations.”
If anyone had glanced in Sybil’s direction during the utterance by the house-mistress of her final remark they might have noticed a flush of excitement rise suddenly to her cheeks; but nobody did, and her face had resumed the rather peevish expression that it had worn for the last few days by the time grace had beensaid and it was time for the girls to leave the dining-room.
“Come on, Gretta and Margot!” exclaimed Josy, as soon as they were free; “let’s go to the window that looks on the side gate and watch for the Redford girls. They always drive over from their school, you know; it’s about four miles along the coast beyond this.”
The two friends agreed rapturously. Mrs. Fleming wouldn’t arrive just yet, Margot declared, since the time of the match had, by mistake, been omitted from her daughter’s letter, and Miss Slater would not sanction the sending of a wire to repair the mistake. Besides which, all the non-players were exceedingly anxious to view the rival team, and to decide from their appearance by methods of their own whether the antagonists were likely to prove victors or victims of to-day’s match.
“They don’tlookas if they’d been in any kind of training,” announced Josy sententiously, when after half an hour’s waiting at last the brake drew up, and a dozen exceedingly healthy-looking specimens of girlhood jumped down. “See that one by the driver! She’s a perfect tub!”
“But there’s that thin one with short hair; look ather!” adjured Margot critically. “She’s got eyes everywherealready, and she looks as though she’s got splendid muscle, don’t you think so?”
“Not so good as Helen’s,Ibet,” said someone else coming up behind. The conversation ceased abruptly as the observers rushed round to the school-entrance to watch the arrival of the visitors more closely.
Once in the field, Josy was mortified to find that the girl she had designated as a “tub” appeared to be the most important player of all and the captain of the team; a most responsible and energetic person, of whom the rest of her team stood in the deepest awe.
The mistaken one groaned in her horror. “Ifthatone’s the captain, and looks likethat, whatmustthe others be, for they look quite decent players! They’ll beat us to splinters, Iknowthey will!”
“They won’t,” adjured Margot, stoutly. “Why, look atourteam, and remember thedaysthat they’ve had no pudding. I’d back our team anywhere, wouldn’t you, Gretta?”
The sudden sounding of the umpire’s whistle gave an exciting thrill to the onlookers, and the match began.
“Oh, Iwishmother was here! Everyoneelse’s people have come!” groaned Margot. “IfonlyI hadn’t been such an idiot as to forget to put the time!”
“And I can’t think why Stella hasn’t turned up yet,” remarked Gretta. “She said she would be sure to be here at the start, didn’t she?”
That question was answered on the instant by the appearance of Stella herself, who was seen to be advancing in a breathless rush across the field, waving her arms in a state of wild excitement.
“Oh, they’ve started! Iknewthey would have!Howunlucky I always am! What’s the score? Any goals? Oh, Iamglad I’m in time to see the first,” she announced in a single breath, as she reached the side of her three friends. “Jimwouldn’thurry, and I knew we’d be late!”
“Hallo, Stella!” cried the three in unison, but with only a very small fragment of attention to spare for the new-comer and her remarks, as their eyes followed jealously the journeyings up and down the field of the hockey ball. “Good! Helen!—Play UP!”
The shouting died down a little, and Stella, always conversational, began again.
“Oh, I’ve something to tell you. You, Gretta, especially. I saw——”
“Shut up, Stella, till half-time, can’t you?” This from Josy, who could find interest in nothing but the progress of the game.
“But Imusttell Gretta! Gretta, I saw——!”
The whistle sounded, and there was a thunder of clapping and stamping, while voices shrill and clear applauded the Cliff School for the first goal of the game.
“I wonder how Sybil’s enjoying it,” said Gretta, pink with excitement, and glancing round the assembled crowd of onlookers in search of her little sister.
“But that’s what Imean!” began Stella again. “Gretta, IsawSybil. I was driving up, about a mile away, and she was walking——”
“What!” Margot and Gretta turned simultaneously. “Sybil—a mile away! But howcouldshe be?”
“Well, she was, anyway. Iwouldhave stopped the trap but I was so frightfully late. I’ve been trying to tell you for ages, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“And you let her go on?” Margot was crimson. “Stella, how could you? Gretta,what could Sybil have been doing? Sybil—a mile away!”
“I can’t imagine.” Gretta was shaking with anxiety; the match was forgotten, and she turned for help to her cousin. “Margot, have you any idea? Could she be unhappy and be trying to get home? I never thought—Oh, how selfish I’ve been.”
“You’ve not,” said Margot, thinking rapidly. “I know what it is. She’s off to the ‘Little House’; that’s where she’s gone; and it’s my fault, not yours. She’ll get there, too, if she was a mile away when Stella saw her. She must have started the minute after dinner. Oh, Gretta, and she’ll be terrified if she really meets that old man, and goes to his house and——”
“Well,Ididn’t know,” began Stella, rather shamefacedly.
“Look here, Stella, is your trap waiting?” burst in Margot. “I’m going after her. May I ask your boy to drive me? I’ll catch her up, perhaps, before she gets there, and bring her back.”
“I suppose you can,” Stella was beginning rather doubtfully, but Gretta and Josy burst in: “Look here, Margot, let’s ask Miss Read what to do. We’re not allowed——”
“There isn’t any time,” said Margot angrily; “and youknowthat Miss Read said she’d be busy all the afternoon. I’m going this instant, whatever you say, and I don’t care if Iambreaking rules—there’s nothing else to do.”
She rushed across the field as she spoke to the path that led to the school entrance, leaving the others to look after her with anxious faces.
“THERE,” said Margot, breathlessly, “Stella said that you’d drive me down towards the station; the way you’ve just come, you know—— Can I get into the trap?”
She stood hatless and excited, looking up into the face of the rector’s garden-boy, who was standing at the pony’s head. He stared down at her sheepishly enough, and with the most evident surprise at such an unexpected proposal.
“But, Miss Stella, she said I wor to wait for her,” he volunteered at last. “Them wor my orders—to wait for Miss Stella.”
“But I can’t helpthat, I’m afraid,” urged Margot. “I’ve got to go; so do you mind getting in, and we’ll start.”
But the lad still stared on, and made no movement of any kind. Margot stamped her foot with annoyance.
“But Stella said—— Well, go and ask her if you like. She’s over there.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the hockey-field as she spoke, and the boy turned his head.
“Well, if Miss Stella gives me the orders herself!”
“Go and ask her, I said,” enjoined Margot. “I’ll look after the pony. I know him quite well. Oh, do hurry, there’s the most tremendously important thing to do!”
Much overawed by Margot’s assurance of manner, the boy, with a parting “Whoa there, now!” to the pony, delivered up the reins and departed on his errand.
“If Miss Stella wor to say——” were his last words.
“Of course she will,” insisted Margot. “Oh, do hurry!”
But evidently such a verb was unknown in the vocabulary of the rector’s Jim; for five minutes Margot stood at the pony’s head in a fever and ferment of excitement; then her powers of endurance gave out.
“Oh, howslowthey are in England!” she lamented, “and that boy, I declare he’s——!” A sudden idea flashed into her mind before even she had finished the sentence. “I’ll just not wait for him,” she said; “I’llgo! Stella’ll guess when she finds the trap gone; I’msureI can drive quicker thanhewould, too; and who knows where Sybil mayn’t be by this time?”
Without losing another moment she hopped up into the trap, shut the little door with an incisive click and, with a professional shake to the reins, was off and away down the road in the direction of the “Little House.”
If it hadn’t been for the nature of her errand Margot would have been in the seventh heaven of delight. Behind her was the Cliff School, with its rules and regulations; even its delights—her friends and the hockey match—were forgotten for a time; before her was the long winding road with the moors on either hand, and there was no sound to be heard but the thud-thud of the pony’s feet. She felt almost as though the old days were back again; that she was as free as the air, and as wild as the gulls that were circling round the cliffs. “Almost” she felt like this, but not quite, for deep down in her heart the strongest feeling of all was fear lest Sybil, having ventured forth to the “Little House” in a state of pique against her sister and her cousin, might come to harm if she were not turned back in time.
“For itispartly my fault,” Margot found herself reiterating in time to the pony’s trotting feet; “and Ihavebeen rather a beast to her lately; and if she gets frightened at the gipsies, or anything——”
Margot touched the pony lightly with the whip at the prompting of the thought, and urged him onwards, only half-conscious that in her heart was being born a new kind of affection for the aggravating little cousin who was so “frightfully babyish.”
“Of course,I’vebeen in Australia, and she hasn’t; andI’vehad mother——; and I’m a perfect beast to think her always so silly, when it isn’t her fault hardly at all.” This was the final summing-up of Margot’s thoughts, and perhaps it was just as well that she had finished her recriminations, for at that very minute the rector’s pony, having traversed about half of the way to the station, thought well to fall down suddenly on his two front knees!
The truth was that he wasn’t used to being driven so furiously, on account of the fact that the rector had picked him up cheap at a sale because of a previous accident that had left him with two broken knees. The experiencedMargot should haveknownthat, she told herself furiously.
“If I’d had the sense to look at his knees before I started I’d have known they’d been broken before,” she announced in contrition and annoyance, as she stood in the middle of the road surveying the victim, who, plainly sorry for himself, had scrambled up again with his driver’s help, and now presented a desolate spectacle.
“Whatwould dad think of me?” continued the aforesaid driver. “Hewouldsay I was an ass. Yes, I’m sorry enough for you,” here she addressed the martyred beast, “for you can’t be driven a single mile farther; but whatamI to do about Sybil! I can’t leave you here.”
Her monologue might have lasted longer, for there certainly seemed no way out of the difficulty, had not the sudden appearance of a strange man, far away round a corner of the road, given Margot a clue to the best mode of procedure.
“I’ll ask whoever this is,” she thought to herself, “to take the pony back to the rectory for me and explain, and apologize most fearfully. Then I can cut over the moors to the ‘Little House’; it can’t be more than a mileaway! It’s a good thing I know the way that Stella showed me.” She sat down on a milestone to contemplate the results of her reckless driving, and to wait till the stranger should turn the next corner and come into view again.
“Coo-ee!” she shouted presently, as soon as he appeared within hailing distance, standing up and waving her hand.
“Coo-ee!” responded the stranger in an equally practised manner.
“If it doesn’t feel just exactly like being back in Australia!” laughed Margot to herself as she advanced to meet the new friend, whip in hand. “Why, it looks something like——! But it just couldn’t be——!Long Jake—why, itisyou!”
“Seems like it, doesn’t it!” said a tremendously tall and broad-shouldered individual, clad in tweeds, who, with a very wide smile, came striding towards the amazed girl. “I recognized your ‘Coo-ee!’”
“But how on earth did you get here?” Margot’s eyes opened their widest; her surprise was so great that at first she did not realize how delighted she was at this most unexpected appearance.
“Well, how didyouget here, yourself?” inquired Long Jake. “I made up my mind to pay a call on a young lady in a fashionable boarding-school, and instead of finding her sitting primly in the parlour at work on her sampler, as I expected, I discover her in the middle of the road doctoring a broken-kneed pony, with signs of furious driving strewn around for all to see!”
“Well, anyway,” said Margot, disregarding his last remarks, “I’m perfectly thankful you’ve come. There’s not a single sampler at our school—I expect the boys’ schools have used them all up—but there really is an adventure for you to help in, if you’ll only listen.” She proceeded animatedly to lay the facts of the case before him, and the new-comer listened with amusement in his face, that changed to interest as the tale continued.
When she had finished he went to the head of the pony, that stood rather miserably cropping the grass at the side of the road. “Seems to me you’ve been breaking rules, Miss Margot,” he remarked, “and I expect your mother will have arrived at the school by this time, and will most likely be wondering pretty forcibly where you are. But if you ask for my opinionI think, as we’re so far on the way to that ‘Little House’ of yours, that we can’t do better than go straight on. I’ll doctor up this chap’s knees a bit though, first, and then tether him so that he’ll be safe for a time; and, as you say that little cousin of yours is likely to have gone on rather a risky errand, we’ll make tracks straight away in her direction and bring her back.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you think so,” breathed Margot in relief. “I was so afraid you might want me to go back to school, and I know I’ve broken rules, but I don’t see how I could have helped it. Gretta will tell mother, and she’ll know I’m safe; and Sybil may be so frightened.”
“Well, that settles it; for it’s very likely, I should think,” said Long Jake rather gravely, “if the description of the old man that you give is a pretty correct one, that it would be best to bring her back without delay. Look here, Margot, we’ll lose as little time as possible. We’ll go straight over the moors in the direction of the hole in the cliff, where you say the place is, and we’ll cut off an easy mile that way. Can you step out, or shall I leave you here to look after the trap?”
“Rather!” declared his companion. “And, besides, Sybil knows me, you see.” And accordingly “step out” the pair did, while the crippled pony forgot his woes for a while and watched them wistfully till they disappeared from his view.
“So that’s the place, is it?” inquired Long Jake, after they had walked for a while. “Rum little spot, isn’t it? There’s been no sign of the child, though. Would she have been likely to try to get inside?”
“Well, if she’s doing it for the bravery prize, of course,” suggested Margot, “perhaps she might; but she’s not likely towantto, all alone; and if he’s mad and queer, like Stella says, he might frighten her awfully, you know.”
“I think we’ll just get there as quick as we can, and investigate when we arrive, instead of thinking of horrors. It’s most likely that the child’s gone back.”
“But we should have passed her on the road, you see,” said Margot.
Five minutes more brought the pair to the “Little House”; by this time the little girl was panting hard with her exertions and efforts to keep up with the stride of her companion;she looked apprehensively towards the windowless little place, then, as they drew up outside, she pressed her ear to the wooden door.
“Therearevoices!” she whispered in horror.
Long Jake nodded gravely; then, without a moment’s hesitation, he raised his hand and knocked a loud rat-tat.