By dint of urging on the part of the new monitresses the school made a special effort for the social gathering. The idea of an exhibition had frightened the juniors at first, but when they grew used to it it appealed to them. They were rather pleased to bring specimens of their best drawings, photos, plasticine models, or other pieces of handiwork, and, though their efforts might be somewhat crude, Lorraine on the first occasion rejected nothing, thinking that comparison with better work was the surest means of raising the standard for next time. She and her fellow-monitresses certainly made merry in private over Vera Chambers' lopsided plasticine duck, Opal Clarke's extraordinary original illustrations, and the cat-stitches in Jessie Lovell's tea-cloth, but they kept their mirth to their own circle and allowed no hint of it to leak into the lower school.
On the eventful day of the "Social" the closing bell rang at 3.35 instead of at four o'clock, and forty-two delighted girls promptly put away their books, closed their desks, and trooped into thegymnasium. The monitresses, aided and abetted by Miss Janet, had spent a busy but successful time in preparation, and the room looked quite festive. Flags decorated the platforms, and Chinese lanterns were suspended from the beams of the roof. Round the wooden walls hung a show of sketches, drawings, maps, illuminations and photographs, fastened up with tacks and drawing pins, and on the tables was spread forth quite a goodly display of moths, butterflies, beetles, shells, sea-weeds, pressed wild flowers, fretwork, pokerwork, and needlework. All specimens were labelled with their owners' names, so it was excitement to walk round and compare notes. Lorraine, listening critically, judged the mental barometer of the school from the juniors' remarks, which, if slangy, were certainly complimentary.
"Peggie! You paragon! What a perfectly chubby little bag! I couldn't have made it if I'd tried till Doomsday!"
"I should cock-a-doodle, Jill, ifI'ddone that illumination!"
"Is this sketch reallyyours, Mabel? Hold me up! I feel weak."
"Wonders will never cease! Here's old Florrie made a collection of shells."
"I think this show is a stunt!"
"Absolutely topping!"
"Keep out of my way, you blue-bottle! I can't see!"
"All right, old thing! Don't get raggy!"
When the exhibits had been duly admired andnotes compared as to their respective merits, a few of the best musical stars performed on the piano, then some round games were played, and the proceedings closed by the whole school forming a wide circle and singing "Auld Lang Syne" in the orthodox fashion with crossed hands.
The girls went unwillingly, and would have stayed for another half-hour if Miss Janet had not insisted upon their departure. Lorraine, putting on her boots in the cloak-room, decided that her first effort had been an unqualified success. It had certainly seemed to draw the school together in a bond of union, so far as she could judge. She could not resist a purr of satisfaction to Dorothy, whose coat hung next to hers. Dorothy's congratulations were, however, half-hearted.
"I suppose they enjoyed it," she admitted grudgingly, "though I dare say some of them felt it a bore to be obliged to stay after four o'clock. Vivien said you'd got the whole thing up to show off your own specimens."
The hot colour flamed to Lorraine's cheeks.
"Oh, what a shame! Ididn't! I hardly showed any specimens myself, only a few ferns and photos, and one drawing. Youknowit wasn't for my own glorification!"
Dorothy straightened her collar outside her coat as if its arrangement were the main object in life.
"Oh,I'mnot saying so!" she remarked carelessly. "I'm only telling you what I heard Vivien say. Effie Swan wondered younever askedherto play when you asked Theresa Dawson."
"I couldn't ask them all—it wasn't a concert."
"She's very offended, though. I don't think she's going to come to the next social."
"Let her stay at home, then!" snapped Lorraine, thoroughly exasperated.
Dorothy consulted her watch.
"It's frightfully late!" she sighed. "I shan't have time to do my practising. We're going out to a concert to-night."
She sauntered away, having lodged several very unpleasant shafts, and leaving them to rankle.
For Lorraine, all the satisfaction of the afternoon had faded. Nothing hurts so much as the confidences of a so-called friend who tells you the disagreeable things that other people say about you. It is a particularly mean form of sincerity, for the remarks were probably never intended to be repeated. The mischief it often causes is incalculable. Lorraine walked home, feeling that there was a barrier between herself and her cousin.
"I knew Vivien would be annoyed at my being head girl, but I didn't think she'd be so spiteful as that!" she ruminated. "Well, I don't care! I shall go on with the 'socials' all the same, and with any other schemes that crop up. But it is horrid of her, because she might have been such a help to me!"
As the term went on, Lorraine began to see only too clearly that her two great obstacles in the school were Dorothy and Vivien. They did not openlythwart her, but there was a continual undercurrent of opposition, not marked enough for comment, but sufficiently galling. No matter what she proposed, they had always some objection to offer, and, though in the end they might hold up their hands with the rest, it was with an air of concession more than of whole-hearted agreement. They were the cleverest girls in the form, so it was hard to have to count them as opponents, rather than as allies, in her work. The other members of the Sixth, who had passed up the school with her, she knew from experience would give scant help. Patsie was a good-natured rattle-trap, Audrey an amiable little goose; Nellie and Claire were very stodgy, ordinary girls, without an original idea between them, and not much notion of the responsibilities of monitresses.
"I want somebody to back me up, and act as lieutenant," thought Lorraine.
It was at this juncture that she discovered the capacities of Claudia.
She had, so far, taken very little notice of the newcomer, except by vaguely appreciating the fact of her extreme prettiness. Claudia had not pushed herself, and the intimacy which now sprang up between the two girls came of a mere chance. Miss Kingsley had asked the school to collect fruit-stones and nuts, to be sent to headquarters for use in the manufacture of gas-masks for the army. It was a point of patriotism for everyone to bring as many as possible.
Lorraine, strolling out one Saturday on thiserrand, did not find it an easy matter to fill her basket. The appeal was a universal one in the town, and the Council School children had been on the common before her, picking up the beech-mast and acorns. As for hazel-nuts, there seemed not a solitary one left in the hedges. She was wandering disconsolately along, foraging with small success, when she happened to meet Claudia. Lorraine held out her quarter-filled basket for sympathy.
"That's all I've been able to find, and if there are any more to be had, I'm sure I don't know where they are!"
"There are heaps of horse-chestnuts in the fields above our house," replied Claudia. "I'm going home now, and, if you care to come with me, I'll help you to get some."
Lorraine jumped at the offer, and the girls set off together up the road, chatting briskly.
The Castletons had only come lately to Porthkeverne. Mr. Castleton was an artist, and, attracted by the quaint streets, picturesque harbour, and the glorious cliffs and sea in the neighbourhood, he had taken Windy Howe, an empty farmhouse on a hill some way above the town, converting a big barn into a studio, and establishing himself there with easels, paint-boxes, and a huge pile of immense canvases.
A critic had once described Mr. Castleton as a genius who had just missed fire, and the simile was an apt one. His large pictures were good, but not always good enough to hit the publictaste. He was constantly changing his style, and one year would astonish the exhibitions by misty impressionism, and the next would return to pre-Raphaelite methods. He had dabbled in sculpture, illustration, frescoes, and miniature painting, and had published two volumes of minor poems, which, unfortunately, had never commanded a good sale. He was a handsome, interesting man, utterly unpractical and irrational, delightful to talk to, but exasperating in the extreme to those with whom he had business. The quaint, old-fashioned homestead on the hill, with its low-ceiled bedrooms, panelled parlours, black-beamed kitchen, ivied porch, thick hedge of fuchsias, and view over a stretch of heath and the dancing waters of the bay, satisfied his artistic temperament, and provided a suitable background for the new ideas which he was constantly evolving. Moreover—though this was quite a secondary consideration—it afforded sufficient accommodation for his family.
Lorraine's first impression of the Castletons was that they went in for both quality and quantity. They numbered nine, and all had the same nicely-shaped noses, Cupid mouths, irreproachable complexions, neat teeth, dark-fringed blue eyes, and shining sunlit hair. They were a veritable gold-mine to artists, and their portraits had been painted constantly by their father and his friends. Pictures of them in various costumes and poses had appeared as coloured supplements to annuals or as frontispieces in magazines; they had figured in the Academy, and had been bought for permanentcollections in local art galleries. The features of Morland, Claudia, Landry, Beata, Romola, and Madox had for years been familiar to frequenters of provincial exhibitions, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, and sometimes with the lovely mother, whose profile was considered a near approach to that of the classic statue of Ceres.
Five years before this story opens, pretty, impetuous, blue-eyed Mrs. Castleton had suddenly resigned all the sad and glad things that make up the puzzle we call life, and passed on to sample the ways of a wider world. For the first six months her husband had mourned for her distractedly, and had written quite a little volume of poems in her memory; for the next eight months he was attractively pensive, and then—all in a few weeks—he fell in love again and married his model, a girl of barely seventeen, with a beautiful Burne-Jones face and a Cockney accent. In the following few years three more carnation-cheeked, golden-haired littleCastletons—Constable, Lilith, and Perugia—had tumbled into this planet to form a second nursery, and were already learning to sit for their portraits in various attractive studio poses.
Claudia, running into the house to fetch an extra basket for the horse-chestnuts, introduced Lorraine to a few members of the family who happened to be straying about, showed her a row of pictures in the dining-room, and escorted her through the gap at the bottom of the garden into the fields at the back of the barn.
Sitting on the farther gate, whittling a stick,was a boy of seventeen, with the unmistakable Castleton features and sunlit hair.
"Hallo, Morland!" cried Claudia. "We're going to get chestnuts. Do come and help; there's a sport! This is Lorraine Forrester."
Morland would no doubt have performed the orthodox ceremony of lifting his cap, but, being bareheaded, he grinned and shook hands instead.
"Don't advise you to eat them—they're beastly!" he vouchsafed.
"We're not going to—they're for the soldiers!"
"Then I pity the poor beggars, that's all."
"They're not to be eaten, they're to be made into gas-masks. I told you all about it, Morland," declared Claudia.
"I've a shocking memory," he demurred. "But whatever they're for I'll help you get some. Here, give me this to carry," and he took Lorraine's basket and hung it over his arm.
There were plenty of chestnuts lying on the ground under the trees, and more hanging on the branches which could be dislodged by a well-aimed stone. The young people spent a profitable half-hour, and filled their handkerchiefs as well as their baskets.
"I shall have heaps now!" exulted Lorraine. "You two are trumps to have helped me!"
"I'd nothing else to do," said Morland.
"Wouldn't Violet let you practise?" asked Claudia quickly.
"No, she said it woke up Perugia!"
Claudia shrugged her shoulders eloquently.
"It's always the way!" she replied.
"Are you fond of music?" asked Lorraine.
"Love it! It's the only thing Idocare about. I'd play all day and night if Violet didn't turn me out. She locks the piano sometimes."
"Is she your sister?"
Morland and Claudia both laughed and looked at each other, and the latter explained:
"No, she's our stepmother, but she's so young that all of us call her Violet. She's not such a bad sort on the whole, but we have squalls sometimes, don't we, Morland?"
"Rather!" nodded the boy.
"Constable and Lilith used to sleep through anything and everything," added Claudia, "but Perugia's a fidgety child, and she wakes up and yells when she hears the piano."
"I play the violin a little," admitted Lorraine modestly. "I wonder if you two would come down some day and try a few things over with me. I've nobody to play my accompaniments since Rosemary went away. I know Mother would be pleased to see you."
"We'd just love it! You bet we'll come!"
Lorraine, pouring out the account of her adventures when she reached home, sought confirmation from her mother for the invitation she had given to the young Castletons.
"They're themostfascinating family! I saw them all as Claudia was taking me back through the garden. I think each one's more perfectly beautiful than the others. They're absolutelyromantic. Youwilllet me ask Morland and Claudia to tea, won't you, Muvvie?"
"I will in this case, because I know something of Mr. Castleton from the Lorrimers, but you mustn't go giving broadcast invitations again without consulting me first."
"I won't! I won't! You're a darling to let me have them. Muvvie, I'm so thankful you're not our stepmother!"
"So am I," returned Mrs. Forrester humorously. "I find my own family quite a sufficient handful, and what I should have done with another woman's in addition, I don't know. It would have been quite too big a burden."
"We can play the piano here," said Lorraine, "because there isn't any baby to wake up and cry."
"If there were, you'd have to reckon with me, for I shouldn't let it be disturbed when I'd successfully hushed it to sleep. I haven't forgotten my own struggles with you and Richard. You were the naughtiest babies of the whole tribe."
After this rather unconventional introduction, Lorraine's attraction to the Castletons ripened fast into intimate friendship. They were such an unusual family, so clever and interesting, yet with Bohemian ways that were different from those of any one she had yet known.
In the case of Morland and Claudia their father's artistic talent had cropped out in the form of music. Claudia cared nothing for painting, but was just beginning to discover that she had a voice. Morland,hopeless as far as school work was concerned, had learned to play the piano almost by instinct. He was a handsome, careless, good-tempered boy, decidedly weak in character, who drifted aimlessly along without even an ambition in life. He was seventeen and a half, and for nearly a year had been lounging about at home, doing nothing in particular. Spasmodically his father would realize his existence and say: "I must really do something with Morland." Then he would get absorbed in a fresh picture, and his good intentions on his son's behalf would fade to vanishing point. In another six months the lad would be liable for military service, so until the war should be over it seemed scarcely worth while to start him in any special career. Doing nothing, however, is a bad training, and even Mr. Castleton's artistic friends—not prone as a rule to proffer good advice—tendered the occasional comment that Morland was "running to seed". Morland himself was perfectly happy if he was left alone and allowed to sit and improvise at the piano; he never troubled his head about his future career, and was as unconcerned as the ravens regarding the sources of food and raiment.
He played Lorraine's accompaniments easily at sight, with a delicacy of touch and an artistic rendering such as Rosemary had never put into them. It inspired Lorraine, and yet half humiliated her; she was a painstaking but not a very clever student of the violin; no touch of genius ever flowed from her fingers. To listen to Morlandwas to gain a glimpse of a new musical world in which he flew on wings and she stumbled on crutches. She sighed as she threw down her violin, for she had all the ambition that he unfortunately lacked.
At school Claudia rapidly became one of Lorraine's best allies. She made no undue fuss, but she could always be depended upon for support. Being a new girl, she was more ready to take up new ways than were the other monitresses, who remembered the régime of Lily Anderson, and were inclined to judge everything by former standards. The chief bone of contention was the bar between seniors and juniors. Hitherto it had not been etiquette for the upper and lower school to mix more than was absolutely necessary; the elder girls had held themselves aloof, and even in the too numerous guilds and societies had insisted upon senior and junior branches.
Having broken the ice with the social gathering, at which every one alike showed exhibits, Lorraine began to run all her organizations on more popular lines. She persuaded a few volunteers to superintend the little girls' games; she set aside two special pages for their efforts in the manuscript magazine, and allowed them to vote for their own captain in their basket-ball club. These fresh departures did not pass without opposition. Some ofher colleagues hinted broadly that Lorraine was making a bid for popularity.
"Monitresses should be loyal to the Sixth!" sniffed Vivien. "We don't want to mix with Dick, Tom and Harry!"
"Don't you?" laughed Patsie, who never could resist a shot at Vivien. "I should have thought it was just Dick, Tom and Harry you wanted to mix with, and you're disgusted because it's only Maud, Gertie and Florrie! Honestly, you'd be far happier in a boys' school. You'd better get your mother to send you to one!"
"There's such a thing as co-education!" retorted Vivien.
"So there is!" chuckled Patsie.
She chuckled thoughtfully, for Vivien's remark had given her an idea. She confided it to Audrey, who was rather a chum of hers.
"I'm a little fed up with the Duchess," she remarked, "and I want to play a rag on her. Imustplay a rag on somebody, for things have beensodull lately, and the school wants livening up. She said something about co-education."
"What's co-education?" asked Audrey vaguely.
"Why, boys and girls going to school together. I believe they do it in America, and at just two or three places in England. I'm going to pretend that Miss Kingsley's taken it up, and that some boys are coming here. Vivien would be sofearfullyexcited. Oh! and I'll tell you what"—Patsie's eyes danced—"the most topping notion's just come to me! Let me whisper it!"
Audrey bent a wavy brown head with a pale pink hair ribbon to receive the communication, then exploded into ripples of laughter.
"Gracie and Sybil! They've got short hair!" she hinnied. "Oh, it will be an absolute stunt!"
The confederates did not publish their plans beforehand. Patsie was an experienced joker, and knew that the point would be lost if any hint were to leak out. It was noticeable, however, that in recreation time she paraded round the gymnasium arm-in-arm with Gracie Tatham and Sybil Snow, two tall Fifth Form girls. The fact was commented upon by Vivien herself.
"Another of Patsie's sudden friendships!" she remarked. "She doesn't generally have two going at the same time. What's come to her?"
"She's weighed down by her responsibility as a monitress, and is trying to spread culture through the school," explained Audrey, with a grave mouth, but an irrepressible twinkle in her eyes.
"Culture! Great Minerva! I'm sorry for the school if it takes Patsie as a model!"
Vivien, like most of us, was a mixture of faults and virtues. One of her strong points was punctuality, and on this Patsie counted. She was nearly always one of the first to enter the cloak-room in the mornings. She liked to look over her lessons and set her books in order. On the following Thursday she turned up as usual at about a quarter to nine, and found, to her surprise, that Patsie and Audrey had already taken off their hats, and were tidying their hair in front of the mirror.
"Youhere! Wonders will never cease! What's brought you out so early? Dear me, there's a large amount of titivating going on! Is all that for Miss Turner's benefit?"
Patsie deliberately fluffed out her hair, twisted a kiss-curl round her finger, and readjusted her slide before she answered:
"Haven't you heard the news?" she said abstractedly, pushing aside Audrey, who was trying to edge her from the mirror.
"What news?"
"Miss Kingsley's trying a new venture. I think you'll get a surprise when you go into our class-room!"
"Of course some boys' schools have really had to be given up for lack of masters, so what else can be done while the war's on?" added Audrey.
"What d'you mean?"
"I won't exactly tell you, but I can give you a hint. Look over there!" and Patsie nodded in the direction of the window.
Hanging on hooks were two boys' overcoats and caps. Vivien gazed at them as if thunderstruck.
"Not co-education!" she gasped.
"I don't know what you call it," said Audrey, "but I think it will be rather a stunt. Come along, Patsie, and have first innings!"
As the chums ran from the room, Vivien hurriedly buttoned her shoes and tore after them.
"Where are they?" she asked excitedly, catching Audrey by the arm, "What are their names?"
"I don't know any more than yourself yet."
"We'll soon find out," volunteered Patsie flinging open the door of the Sixth Form room.
An unusual spectacle certainly greeted them: unusual at any rate in a ladies' school. Sitting on the desks with their backs to the door were two masculine figures, engaged in the pleasing occupation of pelting each other with exercise-books.
Apparently they did not hear the girls' entrance, for they continued their conversation.
"Rather a blossomy stunt to be here!"
"Great Judkins, yes! Guess we'll make things hum! I'm nuts on the girls!"
"Hope they're a decent-looking set!"
"Oh, right enough on the whole! But, old chap, let me tell you there's one—her name's Vivien——"
Here, to prevent awkward revelations, Vivien interrupted with a judicious cough. The long, trouser-clad legs slid from the desks, and the two manly voices ejaculated:
"Hallo! Our new school mates! How d'ye do?"
"Charmed to meet you, I'm sure!"
Quite in a flutter, Vivien advanced, looked, gasped, and spluttered out:
"Gracie and Sybil; you wretches!"
The masculine figures, unmindful of manners, collapsed on to the nearest seats, and sobbed with laughter.
"Took you in this time, old sport! Don't wemake killing boys? I believe you were just gone on us both! Oh, how it hurts to laugh! I feel weak!"
"I think you're a pair of idiots!" retorted Vivien. "I don't see anything funny in it."
"Wedo, though!" cackled Patsie. "Oh, Vivien, you looked so interested and excited! It gave me spasms! There, don't get ratty over it! Brace up!"
"It was a jinky joke!" burbled Audrey. "I say, you two, you'd better scoot quick and do some lightning changing! If Miss Janet comes in there'll be squalls! She's not quite ready yet for co-education here. Stick on your waterproofs again! There, bolt before you're caught!"
"A nice monitressyouare, Patsie Sullivan!" exploded the outraged Vivien. "Where's our authority to go to, I should like to know, if you and Audrey put Fifth Form girls up to such tricks? I wonder you condescend to it! IfIwere head girl, I can tell you I'd have something to say to you! But with these new slack ways there'll be no respect for us left. The school's going to the dogs, in my opinion!"
Patsie and Audrey beat a hurried retreat, for they knew that there was a certain amount of justice in Vivien's remarks. Their escapade, a report of which would, of course, be circulated through the school, would in no way enhance the authority of the Sixth. They hoped Lorraine would not hear about it, though it seemed inevitable that it must come to her ears. As a matter offact, Lorraine learnt the whole story before she had taken off her boots. She made little comment, but went into class with a cloud on her face.
The head girl was going through the difficult experience, shared by all who are suddenly placed in authority, of trying to hold the reins so as to satisfy everybody. To keep slackers up to the mark without gaining for herself the unenviable reputation of "a Tartar", to be pleasant with the juniors without loss of dignity, to preserve old standards while adopting new ones, called for all the tact she possessed. She often felt her cousin a great impediment. Vivien was one of those people who love to give good advice, and to say what they would do in certain circumstances, urging on others drastic measures which they would probably never enforce themselves if they happened to be in authority. Sometimes, however, the objections were just, and this was a case in point. The matter floated in Lorraine's mind all the morning, as a kind of background to English literature and mathematics. She called a monitresses' meeting for four o'clock that very day.
When afternoon school was over, and Miss Janet, with the big volume of Milton, had taken her departure, Lorraine assembled her committee, intercepting Patsie and Audrey, who were trying to sneak from the room.
"Look here, you'vegotto stop!" she assured them.
"I've to call at the dressmaker's; I've brought my bicycle on purpose!" objected Audrey.
"Then the dressmaker will have to wait ten minutes."
"And I'm due at the dentist's," declared Patsie.
"The dentist can wait too! It's most important for us all to be at this meeting. I can't possibly let any one off it."
Rather sulkily, Audrey and Patsie went back to their desks. Possibly they might have rebelled, but public opinion was plainly against them. Vivien was looking virtuous, and Dorothy made some pointed remarks about duty before pleasure.
"If you think going to the dentist's and having that horrible drill whirling round and round inside your tooth is a pleasure, I wish you'd go instead of me," retorted Patsie, flinging her books back into her desk and banging the lid hard. "You'd be only too welcome to take my place."
"Don't be shrill, child. Business is business, and the sooner we get it over the better. I want to go home myself."
"I won't keep you all more than a few minutes," interposed Lorraine. "What I want to say is this, that though I have openly rather held a brief for the juniors in some ways, I don't mean our authority over them to be in the least lessened. Please don't misunderstand me about it. We must thoroughly uphold our dignity as monitresses," (turning a reproachful eye on Patsie and Audrey) "and enforce the rules as much as ever."
"Hear! hear! It doesn't do to grow slack," said Vivien pointedly.
"We're certainly not going to grow slack. Iput it to every monitress to make it a point of honour to keep up discipline. There must be no truckling even with Fifth Form girls. Rules are rules!"
"Right you are, O Queen!"
"We'll be a regular set of dragons!"
"No giving in on our part!"
"Those juniors have been trying it on lately!"
"They're the limit sometimes!"
"Well, I'm glad we're all agreed," remarked Lorraine. "Whatever happens, we must support one another. I need not keep you any longer now. Patsie wants to get away to her dentist."
"Ugh! I don't feel in such a hurry to go and be tortured when it comes to the point," shuddered Patsie.
"But I'm keen on the dressmaker. She's making me the sweetest coat-frock you ever saw—in brown velveteen with braid trimming!" purred Audrey.
Having decided to keep a tight hand over the turbulent juniors, the monitresses proceeded to live up to their resolution. They inspected the cloak-room, sternly repressed giggling and talking on the stairs, and insisted upon an orderly queue for the issue of library books. Even Patsie turned the twinkle in her eye into a glance of reproof. The lower forms, who had certainly been trying how far they could go, were disposed to rebel, and gave trouble on one or two occasions, but the slightest attempt at mutiny was met with instant firmness.
"Don't let them master you for a minute," counselled Lorraine. "If anything very flagranthappens, report to me, and we'll deal with it in Committee."
It was only a few days after this, at twenty minutes past two by the big clock in the hall, that Vivien turned into the Sixth Form room, where most of her fellow-monitresses were assembled. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes flashed sparks.
"I've been havingsucha row with those wretched kids!" she exploded. "What do you think a lot of them were doing? Why, they'd actually gone into the gym., where everything had been placed ready for senior drill, and were racketing about with the clubs and dumb-bells. The second they saw me they bolted, and made a dash through the far door and out into the garden, leaving clubs and dumb-bells lying just anywhere. You never saw such a mess as the gym. was in! I had to send Effie Swan and Theresa Dawson to put things in order again. Then I went round to the cloak-room, and asked every single girl if she had been in the gym. Some of them owned up quite frankly, but one told me a deliberate lie."
"A lie! Good gracious! Are you perfectly certain?"
"Absolutely sure. Couldn't be mistaken. I saw her myself in the gym. She was the very last to run out."
"The mean little sneak! Lying is the absolute limit!" frowned Lorraine. "We can't stand that kind of thing—we shall just have to make an example of her. Which kiddie was it?"
"I'm frightfully sorry to have to say it—but it was Monica."
There was dead silence for a moment. Lorraine's face was grim.
"Are you perfectly sure, Vivien?" asked Claudia.
"If you saw her, there's no more to be said," declared Lorraine emphatically. "Monica must report herself here after four o'clock, and we'll deal with the case as it deserves. Nellie, will you please take her this message," rapidly scribbling the summons on a piece of exercise-paper, "and tell her she's to come before going to the cloak-room. Dorothy, would you mind fetching me the Guilds Register? I'm going to cross off Monica's name. We can't have a liar in any of the societies."
"Oh, Lorraine, stop! Don't condemn her unheard!" pleaded Claudia. "She may have some excuse to offer."
"Qui s'excuse s'accuse!" returned Lorraine bitterly. "I'm afraid it's only too plain."
"Butdolet me try to find out! Don't be in such a dreadful hurry! Wait a bit!"
"What's the use of waiting? It had better be done now!"
And Lorraine, with a firm hand, drew a thick ink line through the name of Monica Forrester.
All through afternoon school Lorraine's head was in a whirl. The fact that Monica was her sister made her the more ready to punish her severely. No one should say that she showed favour to her own family. After the crusade she had made for discipline, it was necessary to bestern. And yet—Monica! She could not credit the child with telling a lie. Naughty and wilful she had often been, but deceitful and untruthful never. It was indeed a hard blow to be obliged to convict her of such sneaking behaviour. Yet duty was duty, and Lorraine set her teeth. Just before four o'clock Claudia asked permission from the mistress to leave a few minutes earlier, and made her exit while Patsie was collecting the essay books. Lorraine looked at her reproachfully, but of course could make no comment before Miss Turner. Directly the latter had taken her departure, there came a timid tap at the door, and Monica entered, a white-faced little figure with big puzzled eyes.
"You sent for me?" she faltered.
"Yes, I did send for you," replied Lorraine grimly. "I want to ask you, before all the monitresses, whether you were in the gym. this afternoon. Give a straight answer, Monica!"
"I've told Vivien I wasn't."
"Do you stick to that?"
"Yes."
"But Vivien saw you!"
"So she says. Can'tyoubelieve me, Lorraine?"
Monica's grey eyes were fixed full on her sister's face. There was a quiver in her voice. Lorraine steeled her heart and looked away.
"The word of a monitress is sufficient. I have been obliged to strike your name off the Guilds Register, Monica. For this term, at any rate, you won't have the privilege of belonging to any of the societies. I want you juniors to understand once and for all that you can't break rules and tell untruths. If you'd only confess!"
LORRAINE
"I can't confess what I've not done!"
"But it's been proved against you, so it's no use persisting in denying it. I——"
"Stop a moment, Lorraine!" cried Claudia, bursting suddenly into the room. "It's quite a mistake! It wasn't Monica, after all! I ran downstairs and caught those juniors as they came out. I watched their backs, and Irene Holt has just the same blue serge and buttons as Monica, and the same coloured hair ribbon. They aren't alike in front, but their back views are absolute twins. I took Irene by the shoulders, and told her Iknewshe was guilty, and letting the blame fall on Monica, and she threw up the sponge at once, literally howled, and acknowledged it was she who had been in the gym. I told her to go and wait in her own form room, and she's sitting there, boo-hooing for all she's worth."
"Irene! The little sneak! I'm awfully sorry, Monica!" apologized Vivien.
Lorraine's face cleared like sunlight bursting through a cloud. Her relief at the turn events had taken was intense.
"Shall I bring up the wretched kid?" asked Claudia.
"Oh, do please forgive her!" pleaded Monica. "She's such a scared rabbit! She never knows what she's saying!"
"Well, I call that sporting of you!" said Vivien,smacking Monica heartily on the back. "I vote we just say no more about the whole business. Let Irene scoot off and mop her eyes at home. She's been punished enough, I dare say."
"Right you are!" agreed the others readily.
"I'll tell her she may go, then," said Claudia. "Lorraine, for goodness' sake take a penknife and scratch out that score you made through Monica's name in the Guilds Register. I told you to wait, but you were in such a precious hurry to execute vengeance."
"I'll be only too glad to restore the honour of the family," smiled Lorraine.
To make amends to Monica for having doubted her word, Lorraine took her on Saturday afternoon to see the Castletons. They found all the younger members of that interesting family amusing themselves in the garden, digging their war plots and sweeping up dead leaves. They were warm-hearted, friendly children, and adopted Monica immediately. By the end of ten minutes she was seated on the dead leaves inside the wheel-barrow, nursing Perugia, with Madox squatting at her feet, Beata and Romola chattering one on each side, while Lilith and Constable brought dilapidated toys for her inspection. As she seemed to be perfectly happy and to be thoroughly enjoying herself, Lorraine suggested leaving her there for a while.
"I thought perhaps you'd like to come and walk with me?" she said to Claudia.
"I'd love it above everything. May Morland and Landry go too?"
"Why, of course, if they care to!"
"You won't mind Landry?" Claudia hesitated and blushed rosy pink. "You know he's not quite the same as other boys. You mustn't expecttoo much from him. But he's very affectionate, and he likes to come with us."
"Oh, please bring him! I quite understand!"
Lorraine had indeed seen at once, without any explanation from Claudia, that poor Landry, in spite of his fourteen years, was more childish than Madox. He was a fine well-grown boy, in features perhaps the most beautiful of all the handsome family, with china blue eyes and pale gold hair that curled from the roots, and a mouth that would have done credit to one of Botticelli's cherubs. In mind, however, Landry had never advanced beyond the age of seven. He was quiet and inoffensive, spoke little, and seemed to live in a sort of dream world of his own. He was devoted to Claudia, and quite happy and contented if he might follow her about and be near her. With the rest of the family, and especially with his stepmother, he was sometimes fractious, but Claudia could always manage him and calm him down. Her invariable kindness to him was one of the nicest features in her character. He clung to her arm now as the four young people set off across the moor.
"He's been having rather a blow-up with Violet," explained Claudia. "It's your own fault this time, Landry, you know! Still, it's just as well to take a walk and let the atmosphere clear before we come back. Violet easily fizzes over, but she doesn't keep it up long. Where shall we go, Lorraine? You know the walks here better than we do."
"Suppose we go past Pettington Church and along the cliffs to Tangy Point?"
"Right you are! Anything you like will suit us," agreed Morland easily.
So they turned through the farmyard and down the steep lane that led to the small church whose square grey tower and carved Norman doorway looked out across the green cliff-side to the sea.
"Father was sketching here yesterday," volunteered Claudia, pausing to peep in at the gateway.
"What was he painting?" asked Lorraine, stopping also to look and admire, for the mellow October sunshine glinting on the grey walls and the autumn-clad trees and the gleaming sea made a picture all in russet and pearl.
"It's one of a series of illustrations for Matthew Arnold's poem, 'The Forsaken Merman'. You know it, don't you? Well, this is 'the little grey church on the windy hill', where Margaret came to say her prayers. You remember she left her merman husband and her children in 'the clear green sea' because—
''T will be Easter time in the world—ah me!And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'
''T will be Easter time in the world—ah me!And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'
''T will be Easter time in the world—ah me!And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'
She promised to come back to them all, but she never came, so they went to look for her.