38CHAPTER IIIThe Limberlost
Everybody agreed that Marlowe Grange was an ideal spot for a school. The picturesque old orchard and grounds provided an almost unlimited field of amusement. Those girls who were interested in horticulture might have their own little plots at the end of the potato patch, and a delightful series of experiments had been started down by the moat, where a real, genuine water-garden was in process of construction. Here, duly shod in rubber waders, a few enthusiasts toiled almost daily, planting iris and arrow-head and flowering rush, and sinking water-lily roots in old wicker baskets weighted with stones. There was even a scheme on hand to subscribe to buy a punt, but Miss Beasley had frowned upon the idea as containing too great an element of danger, and of consequent anxiety for teachers.
“I don’t want a set of Ophelias drowning themselves among the willows and the long purples!” she remarked firmly. “If we bought a punt, we should need a drag and a life-belt as well. You shall go for a row on the river sometimes during the summer, and that must content you. There are plenty of occupations on dry land to amuse yourselves with.”39
The Grange certainly contained ample space for interests of every description. The old farm buildings made sheds for carpentry and wood-carving, or any other work that was too messy for the schoolrooms. Under the direction of Miss Gibbs, some of the elder girls were turning the contents of a wood pile into a set of rustic garden seats, and other industrious spirits had begun to plait osierwithes into baskets that were destined for blackberry picking in the autumn. The house itself was roomy enough to allow hobbies to overflow. Miss Beasley, who dabbled rather successfully in photography, had a conveniently equipped dark-room, which she lent by special favour to seniors only, on the understanding that they left it as they found it. Miss Gibbs had taken possession of an empty attic, and had made it into a scientific sanctum. So far none of the girls had been allowed to peep inside, and the wildest rumours were afloat as to what the room contained. Batteries and other apparatus had been seen to be carried upstairs, and those scouts who had ventured along the forbidden upper landing reported that through the closed door they could hear weird noises as of turning wheels or bubbling crucibles. It was surmised in the school that Miss Gibbs, having found a congenial mediæval atmosphere for her researches, was working on the lines of the ancient alchemists, and attempting to discover the elixir of life or the philosopher’s stone. One fact was certain. Miss Gibbs had set up a telescope in her solitary attic. She had bought it second-hand, during the holidays, from the widow of a coastguardsman, and with its aid she studied the landscape by day and the stars by night. The40girls considered she kept a wary eye on watch for escaped Germans or Zeppelins, and regarded the instrument in the light of a safeguard for the establishment.
“Besides which, anything’s a blessing that takes Gibbie upstairs and keeps her from buzzing round us all the time,” averred Raymonde.
“She’s welcome to keep anything she likes in her room, from a stuffed crocodile to a snake in a bottle!” yawned Fauvette. “All I ask is that she doesn’t take me up and improve my mind. I’m getting fed up with hobbies. I can’t show an intelligent interest in all. My poor little brains won’t hold them. What with repoussé work and stencilling and chip carving, I hardly ever get half an hour to enjoy a book. My idea of a jinky time is to sit by the moat and read, and eat chocolates. By the by, has that copy ofThe Harvestercome yet? Hermie promised to get it for the library.”
The girls at the Grange had fashions in books, and at present they were all raving over the works of Gene Stratton Porter. Even Raymonde, not generally much of a reader, had succumbed to the charms ofFrecklesandA Girl of the Limberlost. The accounts of the American swamp forest fascinated her. It was a veritable “call of the wild.”
“I’d give anything—just anything—to get into such a place!” she confided to Fauvette. “I’d chance even the snakes and mosquitoes. Just think of the trees and the flowers and the birds and the butterflies! Why don’t we have things like that in England?”
“I expect we do, only one never gets to see41them. There’s a wood over there on the hill that looks absolutely top-hole if one could go into it. Hermie said the other day that the Bumble Bee had buzzed out something about taking us all for a picnic there some day. It would be rather precious.”
Raymonde shook her head reflectively.
“Picnics are all very well in their way, but when you turn about thirty people together into a wood, I fancy the birds and butterflies will give us a wide berth. Freckles found his specimens when he was alone. You can’t go naturalizing in a crowd! Look here! Suppose you and I go and explore. I’ll be the Bird Woman, and you can be the Swamp Angel.”
“Oh, what a blossomy idea! But what about Gibbie? Can we dodge her?”
“We’ll wait till she’s shut herself up in her attic, and then we’ll scoot. Between tea and prep.’s the best time, especially now prep.’s been put later.”
“You really have the most chubby inspirations, Ray,” burbled Fauvette. “You’re an absolute mascot!”
The idea of posing as the Swamp Angel appealed to Fauvette. She was conscious that she looked the part. She fingered her fluffy flaxen curls caressingly, and resolved to wear a blue cotton dress for the next day or two, in case there was a chance of the expedition. In imagination she was already photographing rare birds and shooting villains with revolvers, and looking her best through it all.
“I wish I knew how to mix iced drinks,” she sighed regretfully. “One can’t get even the ice42over here, not to speak of the bits of cherry and lemon and grape and pineapple that the Angel used for Freckles. Girls in America have a far better time than we have.”
“Cheero! We’ll get a little fun, you’ll see, if we can only circumvent the Wasp.”
It was not a remarkably easy matter to leave the premises unobserved. Monitresses had a tiresome habit of hanging about in places where they were not wanted; Mademoiselle made herself far too conspicuous, and Miss Gibbs seemed everywhere. The chums decided that a too great attention to duty can degenerate into a fault.
“It’s what Miss Beasley said in the Scripture lesson,” declared Raymonde. “Economy over-done turns into parsimony, liberality into extravagance, self-respect into pride. Gibbie’s over-stepping the mark, and letting responsibility run to fussiness.”
It is hardly possible to tackle a mistress and convince her of her faults, so Miss Gibbs’s pharisaical tendencies went unchecked. Evidently the only possible method was to dodge her. Whether her suspicions were aroused it is impossible to say, but for several days she neglected her attic sanctum and pervaded the garden during recreation hours.
Raymonde and Fauvette lay low, and toiled with an amazing spurt of industry at osier-weaving.
“You’ve each nearly finished a basket,” said Miss Gibbs approvingly.
“Yes, if we go on working hard this afternoon I think we shall finish them,” replied Raymonde craftily.
“It’s nice to have a thing done. I’m glad you’ve43taken to such a sensible employment,” commented Miss Gibbs.
“We like to have our fingers occupied, and then our minds haven’t time to wander,” said Raymonde, quoting so shamelessly from Miss Beasley that Fauvette kicked her surreptitiously in alarm.
Miss Gibbs regarded her for a moment with suspicion, but her eyes were bent demurely over her basket, and her expression was innocence personified.
“It’s as well you have something to do under cover, for I think it’s going to rain,” observed the mistress as she turned to leave the barn.
The girls watched her cross the courtyard and enter the house; then Fauvette, scooting in by the back way, had the further satisfaction of seeing the tail of her skirt whisking up the attic stairs. She ran back to report to Raymonde.
“Gibbie’s safe in her sanctum. She thinks we’re happily employed here for the next hour. Let’s bolt for the Limberlost! There’s nobody in the courtyard.”
“Right-o!” echoed Raymonde. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
They did not wait to fetch hats, but, strolling down the flagged path as if for exercise, reached the great gate. Then, glancing cautiously round to see that the coast was absolutely clear, they unlatched the little postern door, slipped through, and shut it after them. A moment later they were running at top speed down the road that led to the wood. It was not a very great distance away, and they had often passed near it in their walks. To scramble over the palings and enter its cool, mysterious44shade had been their dream. They were resolved now to make it a reality.
They had been prepared for something delightful, but not for the little terrestrial paradise that spread itself at the farther side of the fence. The wood had been thinned comparatively recently, so that it admitted an unusual amount of light and air. The trees, just bursting into the tender green of early May, spread delicate lacy boughs overhead, like tender fingers held out to guard the treasures underneath. The ground below, still moist and boggy from the spring rains, was clothed with a carpet of dog violets, growing in such profusion that they seemed to stretch in a vista of palest mauve into the distance. At close intervals among these grew glorious clumps of golden cowslips and purple meadow orchis, taller and finer by far than those in the meadows, and deliciously fragrant. In the swampy hollows were yellow marsh marigolds and blue forget-me-nots; on the drier soil of the rising bank the wild hyacinths were just shaking open their bells, and heartsease here and there lifted coy heads to the sunlight.
Raymonde and Fauvette wandered about in ecstasy, picking great bunches of the flowers, and running from clump to clump with thrills of delight. Surely even Freckles’s “Limberlost” could not be more beautiful than this. A persistent cuckoo was calling in the meadow close by; a thrush with his brown throat all a-ruffle trilled in a birch tree overhead, and a blackbird warbled his heart out among the hazel bushes by the fence. The girls went peeping here and there and everywhere in quest of birds’ nests, and their diligent search was45amply rewarded. In the hollow of a decaying stump a robin was feeding five little gaping mouths, the blackbird’s mate guarded four speckled eggs, and three separate thrushes had pale-blue treasures in clay-lined cradles amidst the undergrowth.
As they penetrated farther into the wood they struck upon a pond closely surrounded by sallows and alders. Raymonde peered through the shimmering leaves, and called Fauvette with a cry of joy, for covering almost the entire surface of the water was a mass of the gorgeous pale-pink fringed blossoms of the bog bean. The girls had never found it before, and it was indeed rare for it to be growing in a Midland county. They thought it was the most beautiful flower they had ever seen. How to pick any was the difficulty, for even the nearest piece lay fully a yard from the edge of the pond, and the finest blooms were in the middle of the water.
“I’m going to get some somehow, if I have to take off my shoes and stockings!” declared Raymonde.
An easier way than wading, however, presented itself. Close by the side of the pond was a young tree which had been blown over by the spring gales; the forester had chopped it from its roots, but had not yet removed it. By dint of much energy the girls lifted this, and pushed it over the water till part of it rested securely on an alder which grew on a little island in the midst. It made a rather shaky but perfectly possible bridge, if not for Fauvette, at least for Raymonde. The latter advanced upon it cautiously but courageously. She took three steps, almost slipped, but regained her46balance by a miracle, grasped an overhanging bough of the alder, and set a firm foot on the island. From here, by reaching a long arm, she could gather some fine specimens of the bog bean. She pulled it up in handfuls, with trailing oozy stalks. As she turned to grip the alder branch before venturing back over her primitive bridge, her eye suddenly caught sight of a large nest built at the extreme brink of the water. It held four browny-speckled eggs, and an agitated moorhen, seeking cover among the reeds, gave the clue to their parentage.
The school was making a collection of birds’ eggs for its museum. There were plenty of robins’ and thrushes’ and blackbirds’, and all the common varieties, but so far not a solitary specimen of a moorhen’s egg. Raymonde felt that even at the risk of betraying their secret expedition she must secure some of these. She decided to go halves, to take two and leave two in the nest to console the moorhen when she came back. She wrapped them in some grass and packed them in her handkerchief, which she slung round her neck for safety. Then taking her bunch of bog bean she managed to scramble back to the bank.
The girls were naturalists enough to remove their tree-trunk from the island, lest it should tempt marauding boys to go across and discover the moorhen’s nest. They hoped the bird would return and sit again when they were out of the way. Each carefully carrying one of the precious eggs, they went on farther to explore the wood. They had only walked a short distance when Fauvette stopped suddenly.47
“What’s that queer squeaking noise?” she asked.
“Do you hear it too?” confirmed Raymonde.
The girls glanced round, and then looked at each other blankly. There was no doubt that the persistent chirruping and peeping came from the eggs in their hands.
“Oh, good night! The wretched things are hatching out!” gasped Raymonde.
They had indeed robbed the poor moorhen at the very moment when her chicks were in the process of hatching. Already there was a chip in the side of each egg, and a tiny bill began to protrude, the owner of which was raising a shrill clamour of welcome to the world. The girls laid them hastily down on the grass.
“Those won’t be any use for the museum!” exploded Fauvette.
“I wonder if we ought to put them back,” murmured Raymonde, decidedly conscience-stricken, though somewhat unwilling to venture again over the slippery tree-trunk.
She might perhaps have braved the crossing, and restored the eggs to the nest, but at that moment the rain, which had been threatening all the afternoon, came down in a torrent. She felt it had sealed the fate of the chicks.
“We’ll just have to leave them here. It’s like murder, but I can’t help it. If we don’t get back quick we shall be drenched.”
As the girls turned to retrace their steps they became aware that they were not alone in the wood. Some distance among the bushes a dark coat and hat were plainly advancing in their direction.48Undoubtedly somebody had been watching them and was following them. Wild visions of Black Jack and his “Limberlost” gang swam before their eyes, and with one accord they ran—ran anywhere, panic-stricken, bent only on escaping.
A voice shouted, and it added to their terror, and sent them hurrying on the faster. They imagined oaths and pistol-shots behind them. Such exciting scenes were all very well in the pages ofFreckles, but they would be decidedly out of place in an English wood. When it came to the point, neither of them possessed the courage and presence of mind of the Swamp Angel.
Suppose they found themselves bound and gagged, and tied to trees, while some dastardly ruffians hewed down the best timber in the wood? The shouts behind grew nearer. Their pursuer was evidently gaining upon them. Through the pouring rain they struggled on, splashing anyhow through swampy places, regardless of soaked shoes and stockings, pushing through wet bushes and underneath dripping branches, possessed by the one idea of flight. Down through the hollow where they had gathered the forget-me-nots, and up the bluebell bank they struggled, with never a thought for the flowers; and they were just about to scramble over some felled trees when Raymonde, who was a yard in advance, caught her foot in a tangle of brier and fell on her hands and knees among the springing bracken. Fauvette, unable to stop herself, collided heavily and collapsed by her side. Too much out of breath to stir, the girls lay for a few moments panting.
“Hallo! Wait!” shouted their pursuer.49
The rather rasping, authoritative voice was so well known and familiar that the girls scrambled up and turned round, to find—no desperate villain armed with revolver and bowie-knife, but Miss Gibbs, in a neat, shiny-black mackintosh and rainproof hat to match. She advanced breathless and agitated, and very decidedly out of temper.
“You naughty girls! What do you mean by running away like this? I watched you through my telescope as you went to the wood, and of course followed you. Why didn’t you come at once when I called?”
“We didn’t know it was you!” murmured Raymonde, forbearing to explain that they had taken their mistress for a ruffian.
Fauvette said nothing. She was looking horribly conscious and caught. Miss Gibbs glared at the guilty pair, and, telling them curtly to come along, led the way back.
Such a serious breach of school discipline was naturally visited with heavy consequences. For the next three days Raymonde and Fauvette spent their recreation hours indoors, copying certain classic lines ofParadise Lost. They were debarred from the purchase of chocolates or any other form of sweetstuff for the period of a month, and made to understand that they were under the ban not only of Miss Gibbs’s, but also of Miss Beasley’s displeasure.
“I never thought of that wretched telescope,” mourned Fauvette. “Just imagine Gibbie spying on us all the time! She must have watched us scramble over the palings into the wood. It’s worse than second sight! And then for her to50come gallivanting out after us in that swanky mackintosh! It gave me spasms!”
“We’d a jinky time, though, first. It was worth being caught afterwards,” maintained Raymonde candidly. “And, you know, in secret the Bumble Bee was rejoiced to see that bog bean. She won’t admit it, of course, but I know it’s the discovery of the term. It’s recorded in the Nature Note-book, and the best piece was pressed for the museum. My own private opinion is that both the Bumble and the Wasp will go buzzing off to that Limberlost, exploring on their own, some day, and I don’t blame them. It’s a paradise!”
“Most top-hole place I’ve ever been in in my life!” agreed Fauvette, sighing heavily. “I say, I call it rather appropriate of the Bumble to have made us copy outParadise Lost!”
51CHAPTER IVRaymonde Explores
There was no doubt that Marlowe Grange was one of the quaintest old houses in the county. The girls all felt that its mediæval atmosphere was unrivalled. Even such prosaic subjects as geometry or analysis took on an element of romance when studied in an oak-panelled chamber with coats of arms emblazoned on the upper panes of the windows. It was the fashion in the school to rejoice in the antique surroundings. The girls took numerous photos, and printed picture post-cards to send home to their families and friends, and everyone with the least aptitude for drawing started a sketchbook. Like most ancient buildings, the old hall, while preserving its principal rooms in good repair, was growing shaky in the upper stories. The labyrinth of attics that lay under the roof had been neglected till the latticed windows were almost off their hinges, and the plaster had fallen in great patches from the ceilings. Fearing lest the worm-eaten floors were really unsafe, Miss Beasley had made the top story a forbidden territory, and, to ensure her orders being obeyed, had placed a wire door to shut it off from the rest of the house. This door was kept locked, Miss Beasley and Miss52Gibbs each having a key. Every day, girls pressed inquisitive noses against the wire netting to peep at the tantalizing prospect beyond. They could just see round the corner of a winding oak staircase on to a dim, mysterious landing beyond. Once or twice Miss Gibbs had gone to her attic laboratory and had left the door open behind her, and a few bold spirits had ventured upstairs, but, as the door of her room had also been wide open, they had not dared to pass it and risk discovery, and had been obliged to beat a hasty retreat. It was highly aggravating, for the vista of dark passages looked most alluring.
“Couldn’t we ask the Bumble to take us round the attics some Saturday for a special treat?” suggested Ardiune.
“’Twouldn’t be much fun going in a specially conducted party like a crowd of tourists!” sniffed Raymonde. “We’d all have to stand at attention while the Bumble gave a short lecture on the architecture or the historical significance of some thingumbobs. It would just turn it all into a lesson. What I want is to go and poke about on my own; and I mean to some day!”
“Gibbie’d snap your head off if she caught you!”
“I don’t intend to be caught.”
It was all very well to lay plans, but another matter to carry them out. Miss Gibbs usually locked the wire door behind her, only leaving it open when she went upstairs to fetch something and meant to return almost immediately. The mere fact of its difficulty increased Raymonde’s zest for the adventure. Her wild, harum-scarum spirits53welcomed the element of possible danger, and the imminence of discovery added an extra spice. For days she haunted the vicinity of the winding staircase, hiding in bedrooms and watching, in case Miss Gibbs went to her laboratory. Twice she watched the mistress pass through the wire door and lock it safely behind her, quite unaware of the outraged pupil fuming in No. 3 Dormitory opposite. Raymonde reiterated her old opinion that Miss Gibbs was far too exact and conscientious.
On one eventful afternoon, however, fortune favoured her. No less a person than Miss Beasley ascended the interesting staircase, actually leaving the defences unsecured. Raymonde seized the opportunity, and like a little ghost or shadow stole softly after her. The head mistress had entered the laboratory, and had closed that door after her. Raymonde tiptoed up to it, and could hear voices inside, the whirling of a wheel, and a kind of bubbling sound. Was Miss Beasley assisting Miss Gibbs with the alchemy? She did not wait even to take a survey through the keyhole, but, hurrying on, turned the corner of the passage.
She found herself in another long, narrow landing, with rooms on both sides. She peeped into most of these. They were empty, and in a deplorable state of disrepair. Plaster had fallen from the ceilings, showing the rafters; in some places, even streaks of daylight shone through chinks in the tiled roof. The worm-eaten old floors had rotted into holes, and Raymonde had to walk warily to avoid putting her foot through in tender places. Many of the rooms had cupboards—dark, mysterious, cobwebby recesses—into which she54peered with a rather jumpy sensation that a bogy might suddenly pop out. The whole atmosphere of the place was ghostly, even in the daytime.
“I shouldn’t like to come up here at night!” shivered Raymonde.
As far as she could tell, the passage seemed to be leading her round the house. It turned several corners, and ended in a long gallery. This looked more cheerful, for the sun shone in through the large end window and brightened the cracked old walls. She danced along the floor with quite a return of high spirits.
“I wish the Bumble would let us come up here on wet days. It would be a glorious place for games, nicer by far than the barn. I call it mean of her to lock up all this part of the house. We’d have absolutely topping fun! I say! what’s that little door over there?”
The door in question was very small, and quite low down on a level with the floor. Raymonde went on her hands and knees to investigate. It was secured with a bolt, which she easily opened. To her surprise, she found herself looking out upon the roof. Whether it had been constructed in past days to provide a means of escape from danger, or merely to allow workmen to replace loose tiles, it was impossible to say. It was certainly within the bounds of probability to imagine a Jacobite, with a price set on his life, creeping through the little opening to find a more secure hiding-place among the twisted chimneys, while King George’s soldiers searched the mansion below.
Raymonde put her head out. The roof sloped steeply up in front. To a girl of her temperament55the temptation to explore farther was irresistible. She squeezed through the small door, and wriggled out on her hands and knees on to the tiles.
She was in the angle of a small gable. She could see roof all round her, and sky above. Still on hands and knees, she began to creep upwards. The weather-beaten old tiles had mellowed to dull red and orange, and were partly covered with moss. She could not help admiring the artistic beauty of their colour. She reached the ridge, and peered over. Apparently she was somewhere in the middle of the roof, for a tall, twisted stack of chimneys reared itself close by, and gables spread on all sides. She went cautiously down the next incline, and up to the summit of a further ridge, which was higher. Here, by standing up and holding on to a chimney ledge, she had an excellent view. She could not see the courtyard, but she could command the bottom of the orchard, the moat, the fields that led to the river, and the cliffs and woods beyond. It was quite a bird’s-eye prospect. She seemed to be looking on to the top of everything. The cattle in the meadows appeared mere specks, and a cart and horses passing over the bridge were like a child’s toy. It was fascinating to watch them vanishing down the road.
Raymonde was in no hurry to return. She stood for quite a long time enjoying an exhilarating sense of being on the summit of a mountain. At last the recollection that it must be nearly preparation time recalled her to the necessity of departure. With a sigh of regret she dropped back on to the ridge, and crawled over the gables again. She was sure that she had left the little door open behind her,56but when she approached it she saw that it was shut. Perhaps the wind had blown it to. She put out her hand to fling it open, but it did not yield. She pushed harder, pressing with all her force. It remained immovable. Then the awful truth burst upon her. Somebody had latched the door on the inside, and she was locked out upon the roof. Had Miss Beasley or Miss Gibbs been taking a survey of the attics? No matter who it was, the horrible result remained the same. What was she to do? She beat wildly at the door, hoping to break it in, but sixteenth-century oak and bolts were made of stuff too strong for a girl’s hands. She shouted and called, knowing all the time that it was of little avail. Whoever bolted the door must have gone away. Miss Gibbs’s laboratory was at the other side of the house, and she might scream herself hoarse without anyone hearing her. For a minute or two she sat huddled up in despair. Would she have to spend the night on the roof?
It was a ghastly prospect. Hot tears came welling up, but she dashed them away angrily. Her innate pluck rose to the surface. She had been in difficult, even dangerous positions before, and had escaped. Surely there must be some way out of this?
“I’ll climb farther on over the roof,” she decided. “If I can get nearer the edge, perhaps someone may see me.”
The chance of rescue meant admitting her adventure, and incurring great wrath at head-quarters, but that was a lesser evil than passing a night on the roof. She crawled to her old vantage-ground, and descended to the right, where a gable sloped57steeply. At the bottom she passed along a wide gutter, and, rounding a corner, found that she could easily drop on to a lower portion of the roof. She was in a state of tense excitement. Where was she getting to? Would anybody see her from the courtyard; and if so, how would they propose to rescue her? It would be difficult to shout down and explain that she had come through the little door in the upper gallery. She was on a much lower level now than when she had first started. She crawled on, with hands and knees rather sore and scraped with the tiles.
Another corner, and another short drop. She was nearing the edge of the parapet. She must creep down this next piece of roof. There was another wide gutter at the bottom. She walked along this, rounded a jutting chimney-stack, and then paused with a cry. Facing her was a small door, identical with the one by which she had emerged. Could it possibly be open? She stumbled up to it, and pressed it with trembling fingers. It yielded easily. The next moment she was creeping through.
Raymonde now found herself inside a cupboard full of old lumber. The dust was thick, and surely had not been disturbed for years. Some broken chairs with moth-eaten seats were piled together, and some ancient boxes lay full of rubbish. Straw, old books, hanks of rope, and other miscellaneous things occupied the corner. There was a door opposite, without either latch or knob. Raymonde with some difficulty managed to pull it open, and stepped out into a passage. When she pushed the door to behind her, she noticed that it fitted so exactly58into the oak panelling as to be quite undiscernible. Could it be a secret cupboard? She wondered if Miss Beasley knew of its existence. There was a window close by; she looked out and took her bearings. Apparently she was just over the big dormitory; the tiles across which she had crawled to enter the cupboard must have been those of Miss Gibbs’s bedroom. The landing where she found herself at present led to the servants’ quarters; the staircase was to her right.
Raymonde hurried down without meeting anybody, washed the dust and dirt off her hands, and walked in to preparation in the very nick of time.
59CHAPTER VFifth-Form Tactics
It was an unfortunate truth that Miss Gibbs was not very popular at the Grange. She was clever, conscientious, and well-meaning, and preserved a high ideal of girlhood. Much too high for practical use, so her pupils maintained.
“This isn’t a school for saints!” grumbled Valentine one day. “If we followed all Gibbie’s pet precepts we should have halos round our heads.”
“And be sprouting wings!” added Raymonde. “A very uncomfortable process too. I expect it would hurt like cutting teeth, and it would spoil the fit of one’s blouses. I don’t want to be an angel! I’m quite content with this world at present.”
“I’m so tired of developing my capabilities!” sighed Fauvette. “One never gets half an hour now, just to have fun.”
Miss Gibbs, who aspired to a partnership in the school, was deeply concerned this term with the general culture and mental outlook of her charges. She had attended an educational congress during the Easter holidays, and came back primed with the very latest theories. She was determined to work on60the most modern methods, and to turn her pupils out into the world, a little band of ardent thinkers, keen-witted, self-sacrificing, logical, anxious for the development of their sex, yearning for careers, in fact the vanguard of a new womanhood. Unfortunately her material was not altogether promising. A few earnest spirits, such as Maudie Heywood, responded to her appeals, but the generality were slow to move. They listened to her impassioned addresses on women’s suffrage without a spark of animation, and sat stolidly while she descanted upon the bad conditions of labour among munition girls, and the need for lady welfare workers. The fact was that her pupils did not care an atom about the position of their sex, a half-holiday was far more to them than the vote, and their own grievances loomed larger than those of factory hands. They considered that they had a very decided grievance at present.
Miss Gibbs, acting on the advice of a book entitledEducation out of School Hours, was determined that every moment of the day should be filled with some occupation that led to culture. She carefully explained that the word “recreation” meant “re-creation”—a creating again, not a mere period of frivolity or lotus-eating, and advocated that all intervals of leisure should be devoted to intellectual interests. She frowned on girls who sauntered arm-in-arm round the garden, or sat giggling in the summer-house, and suggested suitable employments for their idle hands and brains. “Never waste a precious minute” was her motto, and the girls groaned under it. Healthy hobbies were all very well, but to be urged to ride them in season61and out of season was distinctly trying. One well-meant effort on Miss Gibbs’s part met with particular disapproval. She had decided to take the girls on Saturday afternoons to visit various old castles, Roman camps, and other objects of historical and archæological interest in the neighbourhood. On former similar occasions she had been in the habit of delivering a short lecture when on the spot; but, noticing that many of the girls were so distracted with gazing at the surroundings that they were not really listening, she determined that they should absorb the knowledge before visiting the place. She wrote careful notes, therefore, upon the subject of their next ramble, and giving them out in class, ordered each girl to copy them and to commit them to memory.
The result of her injunction was an outburst of almost mutinous indignation in Form V.
“When does she expect us to do it, I should like to know?” raged Morvyth. “There’s not a moment to spare in prep., so I suppose it will have to come out of our so-called recreation! Look here, I call this the very limit!”
“Saturday afternoon’s no holiday when we’ve got to go prowling round a wretched Roman camp!” mourned Valentine. “What do I care about ancient earthworks? If they were modern trenches, now, with soldiers in them, it would be something like! There’ll be nothing to see except some mounds. I suppose we shall have to stand round and listen while she holds forth, and look ‘intelligent’ and ‘interested’.”
“I don’t know whether she’s going to hold forth herself,” said Aveline. “I hear she’s invited several62people from an archæological society to meet us there, and probably one of them will do the spouting—some wheezy old gentleman with a bald head, or an elderly lady in a waterproof and spectacles. One knows the sort!”
“Oh, good biz!” exclaimed Raymonde. “If visitors are coming, Gibbie’ll have to talk to them, and she won’t have so much time to look after us. She’s welcome to the bald old boys! Let her have half a dozen if she wants!”
“You forget you’ve got to listen to them.”
“Oh, I’ll listen! At least I’ll look serious and politely absorbed. That’s all that’s expected.”
“In the meantime we’ve these wretched notes to copy,” groused Katherine.
“Have we? I don’t think so! I’ve got an idea. Maudie Heywood’s sure to make a most beautiful copperplate copy; we’ll borrow hers, and just skim them over to get a kind of general acquaintance with the subject, sufficient to show ‘intelligent interest’. Gibbie won’t be able to question us with those other people there.”
“But suppose she asks beforehand to see our notes?”
“I’ve thought of that. We’ll each copy out the first page, and stick some old exercise sheets behind it. She’ll never find out.”
The Mystic Seven looked at their leader in admiration. They considered that on such occasions her resourcefulness amounted to genius. They followed her advice, and copied the front page only of the notes, placing underneath some portions of Latin translation or historical essay. Aveline underlined her title with red ink, Morvyth ruled a neat63margin, and Fauvette tied her sheets together with a piece of the blue baby ribbon which she used for threading through her underclothes. On the outside, at any rate, their copies looked most presentable.
It was only the Fifth Form who were accorded the privilege of the ramble. They were Miss Gibbs’s special charge this term, Miss Beasley devoting herself to the Sixth, and Mademoiselle looking after the Juniors. The Fifth hardly appreciated receiving the lion’s share of Miss Gibbs’s attention. They complained that she tried all her educational experiments upon them. They were ready, however, the whole ten of them, on Saturday afternoon, clad in the neat school uniform, brown serge skirt, khaki blouse, scarlet tie, and burnt-straw hat. Miss Gibbs viewed them with approval. Each had slung over her shoulders a vasculum for botanical or other specimens, and each carried in her hand a copy of the notes. They looked business-like, healthy, well trained, and alert with intelligence, altogether an excellent advertisement for the school and its modern methods.
The camp was about a two-mile walk from the Grange, so the Form had at least the satisfaction of obtaining exercise. As Valentine had prophesied, it consisted of some mounds in the middle of a field, where, to Fauvette’s infinite discomposure, some cows were grazing. The members of the Archæological Society had already arrived, and came forward to greet Miss Gibbs. There was a large stout gentleman, with a grey moustache and bushy overhanging eyebrows; also a little thin gentleman with a pointed beard and an argumentative64voice; a tall lady with a high colour, who carried a guide-book, and a short-sighted younger man, who was trying to spread out an ordnance map. These seemed to be the principal members of the party, though there were a few stragglers.
“Professor Edwards—my girls!” said Miss Gibbs, introducing the Formen blocto the leader for the afternoon.
The stout gentleman smiled blandly, and murmured some suitable remark about the value of acquiring antiquarian tastes while still young.
“I had perhaps better read my short paper before we inspect the remains,” he added.
“Goody! He surely isn’t going to disinter any dead Romans to show us, is he?” whispered Katherine.
“Bunkum!” replied Ardiune. “Nothing as thrilling as that, don’t you fear!”
Miss Gibbs smiled encouragingly to the Form, and beckoned them to draw nearer. They arranged themselves in a respectful semicircle, with attentive eyes fixed on the lecturer, and copies of notes rather conspicuously flaunted.
He discoursed exhaustively on the subject of Roman camps in general, and the girls listened with receptive faces, but minds wandering upon more modern themes. Morvyth was speculating whether it would be possible to purchase chocolates on the way home, Fauvette was planning her next party frock, and Aveline was wondering whether there would be jam or honey for tea that day.
“Before I ask you to take a personal survey of the earthworks,” concluded the Professor, “I should like to have Miss Gibbs’s opinion as to the65exact position of the entrance and the approximate date of construction. She has, I know, made a study of this branch of archæology.”
“My ideas are embodied in my notes,” purred Miss Gibbs. “Perhaps you would not mind reading the paragraph. I lent them a short time ago to Mrs. Gladwin.”
Professor Edwards turned expectantly; but the tall lady, who a moment before had been at his elbow, had strayed away, papers in hand, and was not available for reference.
“My girls all have copies of the notes. Pass yours, Ardiune,” smiled the mistress.
The luckless Ardiune blushed scarlet, but dared not disobey.
“The passage occurs about the middle,” prompted Miss Gibbs, as the Professor fumbled with the pages. “May I find it for you? Why, surely there must be some mistake! This is French! Valentine, your copy, child!”
With an even more crimson countenance Valentine tendered her manuscript, which consisted of last week’s essay on Comets. Miss Gibbs, with a growing tightness round her lips, inspected Raymonde’s extracts from Chaucer, and Katherine’s translation of Virgil, before Aveline had the presence of mind to hand up Maudie Heywood’s copy. It is unwise for a mistress to show temper before visitors, and Miss Gibbs, with admirable self-control, mastered her feelings and read the paragraph calmly. During the discussion which followed, the girls availed themselves of an invitation from the short-sighted gentleman to inspect the earthworks, and thankfully fled to the farthest limits of the66field. They knew, of course, that it was only putting off the evil hour, and further events justified their forebodings. Miss Gibbs preserved an ominous silence on the way home, and after tea summoned the Form to their class-room, where she went into exhaustive details of the whole business.
“I’m disgusted with you—utterly disgusted!” she declared. “It seems of little use to spend time in attempting to give you intellectual interests. Those girls who did not copy the notes will stay in now and write them. I shall look at them all at eight o’clock.”
“It means a good solid hour’s work,” whispered Raymonde to Ardiune. “Tennis is off to-night. Strafe the old camp! I wish the Romans had never lived!”
67CHAPTER VIA Midnight Scare
Miss Gibbs’s plans for the enlargement of her pupils’ minds ran over a wide range of subjects from archæology to ambulance. As they expressed it, she was always springing some fresh surprise upon them. Like bees, they were expected to sip mental honey from many intellectual flowers. They had dabbled in chemistry till Ardiune spilt acid down Miss Gibbs’s dress, after which the experiments suddenly stopped. They had collected fruits and seed-vessels, had studied animalculæ through the microscope, and modelled fungi in plasticine. Stencilling, illuminating, painting, and marqueterie each had a brief turn, and were superseded by raffia-plaiting and poker-work. Miss Beasley suggested tentatively that it might be better to concentrate on a single subject, but Miss Gibbs, who loved arguments about education, was well prepared to defend her line of action.
“There is always a danger in specialization,” she replied. “You can’t tell how a girl’s tastes will run till you give her an opportunity of proving them. My theory is, let them try each separate craft, and then choose their own hobbies. One will take naturally to oil-painting, another may68find clay or gesso her means of artistic expression. Some minds delight in pure Greek outline, while others revel in the intricacies of Celtic ornament. Again, a girl with no æsthetic sense may be enraptured with the wonders of the microscope, and those who find a difficulty in mastering the technical terms of botany may yet excel in the extent of their collections of specimens. Who would have imagined that Veronica Terry would develop an interest in geology? I had always considered her a remarkably dull child, but her fossils formed the nucleus of the school museum. I have hopes at present that one or two of my girls are developing tastes that will last them for life.”
It was one of Miss Gibbs’s pet theories that not only should her pupils have the opportunity of sampling arts, handicrafts, and scientific pursuits, but that they should in every respect cultivate a wide mental horizon. She was fond of suggesting emergencies to them, and asking how they would act in special circumstances.
“Imagine yourself left a widow,” she had once propounded, “with three small children to support, and a capital of only three hundred pounds. How would you employ this sum to the best advantage, so as to provide some future means of subsistence for yourself and family?”
The opinions of the Form had been interesting, and had varied from poultry farming to the establishment of a boarding-house or the setting up of tea-rooms. The most original suggestion, however, was contributed by Fauvette, and, while it outraged Miss Gibbs’s sense of propriety, caused infinite hilarity in the Form.69
“If I were left a widow,” she wrote, “I should get the children into orphanages, or persuade rich friends to adopt them. Then I would spend the three hundred pounds in buying new clothes and staying at the best hotels, and try to get married again to somebody who could provide for me better.”
Among the flights of fancy in which the Fifth Form were forced to indulge were a railway collision, a fire, a bicycle accident, an escape of gas, the swallowing of poison, the bursting of the kitchen boiler, a case of choking, and an infectious epidemic. On the whole they rather enjoyed the fun of airing their views, and when asked to propose fresh topics had suggested such startling catastrophes as “A German Invasion,” “A Revolution,” “A Volcanic Eruption,” “A Famine,” and “A Zeppelin Raid.”
Rejecting the first four, Miss Gibbs had chosen the last for discussion, and for fully ten minutes the Form, in imagination, dwelt in an atmosphere of explosives. They clutched their few valuables that were within reach, donned dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers, each seized a blanket, and all descended to the cellars with the utmost dispatch of which they were capable, while bombs came crashing through the roof, and the walls of the house tottered to ruin.
“I shall never dare to go to sleep again!” shivered Fauvette, appalled at the mental picture presented to her.
“Are the Zepps likely to come, Miss Gibbs?” enquired Ardiune.
“Not so likely at this time of year as in winter.70Still, of course, one never can tell,” replied the mistress, anxious to justify the usefulness of her emergency lessons. “It is wise to know what to do. We ought all to adopt the Boy Scouts’ motto—‘Be Prepared’.”
“And suppose we ever do hear dreadful noises in the middle of the night?” said Raymonde, gazing with solemn, awestruck eyes at the teacher.
“Then you must make for the cellar without delay,” replied Miss Gibbs emphatically.
If she could have seen Raymonde’s expression, as that young lady turned her head for a moment towards Aveline, she would have been surprised. The serious apprehension had changed to dancing mischief. Even so well-seasoned a mistress as Miss Gibbs, however, cannot be aware of every sub-current in her Form. Human nature has its limits.
Raymonde left the class-room chuckling to herself, and at the earliest convenient moment summoned a committee of the Mystic Seven.
“I’ve got the idea of my life!” she declared. “It isn’t often I have a really topping notion, but this is one of those inspirations that come sometimes, one doesn’t know how.”
“You needn’t be quite so peacocky about it!” chirruped Katherine. “Other people have ideas occasionally as well as you.”
“Ah! but wait till you’ve heard mine, and then you’ll allow I’ve some reason to cock-a-doodle. Look here, don’t you think it’s extremely nice to be philanthropic?”
“Don’t know,” replied the others doubtfully. They distrusted Raymonde’s philanthropy, and were unwilling to commit themselves.71
“It’s so nice to do things for others,” continued their schoolmate gushingly. “When somebody has been looking forward to an event, just think of the bliss of being able to bring it to pass! One would feel a sort of mixture of Santa Claus and Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother!”
“Go on!” murmured the Mystics.
“Well, you see, what I mean is this. Gibbie’s been taking ever such a lot of trouble to teach us how to act in emergencies. She must have spent hours thinking out those problems. I sometimes feel, girls, that we do not sufficiently appreciate our teachers!”
The grimaces of the six were eloquent.
“Get to the point!” suggested Ardiune.
“I’m getting! Well, you know, we’re all very grateful to Gibbie, and interested in the problems, and happy in our work, and all the rest of it. I think we ought to do something to make a little return to her for her kindness. Now it must be very disappointing to coach us up for these emergencies, and never have an opportunity of putting what we’ve been taught into practice. If we could show her that her lessons have sunk in, and that we could face a sudden catastrophe with calm courage and prompt presence of mind, then she’d feel her labour had not been in vain. She really deserves it!”
“We can’t burst the kitchen boiler, or set the cook on fire to oblige her!” objected Valentine.
“Certainly not; but there are other emergencies. With proper preparation we might engineer a very neat little Zepp raid, quite sufficient to put every theory into practice.”72
Smiles illuminated the faces of the committee. They began to see daylight. Raymonde re-tied her hair ribbon, and continued:
“On that afternoon when I went exploring, I discovered a way on to the roof exactly over Gibbie’s bedroom. Now what you’ve got to do for the next few days is to collect old tins. There ought to be plenty of them about. You can leave the rest to me!”
The result of Raymonde’s suggestion was an extraordinary activity on the part of her friends in the acquisition of any species of discarded can. They begged empty cocoa tins from the cook, and even climbed over the wall on to the rubbish heap to rescue specimens, rusty or otherwise, that lay there unnoticed and unappropriated. Each can was furnished with four or five large pebbles inside, and was secured at the end with brown paper if the original lid was lost. They were packed in osier-plaited baskets, and hidden away in a corner of the barn until they were wanted.
Raymonde regarded her preparations with much satisfaction.
“It ought to be enough to wake the dead!” she said, rattling one of the tins in demonstration.
As has been before explained, the members of the Fourth and Fifth Forms—nineteen girls in all—slept in the huge chamber which occupied an entire wing of the house, and had been the dormitory of the French nuns a hundred years ago. The small room at the end, formerly the cell of the Mother Superior, was now the bower of Miss Gibbs. It had two doors, one leading into the passage and another into the dormitory, so that she73could keep an eye upon the nineteen inmates. It was a very unnecessary arrangement to have her so near, the girls considered, for she would come popping in immediately if they made a noise. They envied the Sixth, who slept in little bedrooms along the corridor, and wished Miss Gibbs had possessed a lesser sense of duty and a greater appreciation of luxury, so that she might have chosen a more comfortable and spacious bedroom elsewhere.
When sufficient tin-can ammunition had been prepared, Raymonde carried the baskets upstairs by stealth, and hid them in the lumber cupboard which she had discovered on the day she had explored the roof. They were not likely to be disturbed here, for probably no one save herself knew of the existence of the tiny room. She crept through the small door on to the tiles, and verified her position by cautious tapping, to which Morvyth, stationed in the passage below with a hockey stick, replied. Having thus taken her exact bearings, she felt that the whole plot was in good training.
“We must choose a moonlight night, or I shouldn’t be able to see my way over the roof,” she informed the committee. “Of course Zepps don’t generally come when there’s a moon, but there’ll be no time for anybody to think of that. You know your part of the business?”
“Ra—ther!”
The household at the Grange retired early to rest. Miss Gibbs, who was an ardent advocate of daylight saving, and always rose at six, was generally in bed by eleven, on the theory that it is impossible to burn a candle at both ends. As a rule, every occupant of the long dormitory was74wrapt in slumber before that hour, and the mistress, taking a last peep at the rows of small beds, would hear nothing but peaceful breathing. On one particular evening, however, when she made her usual survey of the room, seven of the apparent sleepers were foxing. They lay with closed eyes and composed faces, but inwardly they were particularly lively. Each one had solemnly passed her word to keep awake, and considered herself on sentry duty. To pass the time they had brought acid drops to bed with them, and sucked them slowly, so as to make them last as long as possible. They dared not talk, for fear of disturbing the others, though the temptation was great. Occasionally a stealthy hand would reach over to the next bed, to make sure of its occupant’s vigilance, and the squeeze would be passed on down the row of seven.
When the old grandfather clock on the stairs chimed midnight, Raymonde and Morvyth rose quietly, and donned dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers, then, with a final signal to their fellow mystics, crept cautiously out of the room. The passage was very dark, but Morvyth had brought her electric torch, and flashed a ray of light in front of them. It felt decidedly spooky, and they were thankful to be together. They went up the stairs towards the servants’ quarters, and along an upper landing. By the aid of the torch it was not difficult to find the secret door among the panelling. The little lumber-room looked horribly dark; it needed an effort of will to enter among its dim shadows. A rat was gnawing in the corner, and scurried away with noise enough75for a lion. Raymonde peeped through the small door on to the roof. Outside, the moon was shining brilliantly. She could see each separate tile as clearly as by daylight. The sight restored her courage.
“I’ll creep through, and then you hand me the baskets,” she whispered. “I know just the place to drop the tins. They’ll go plump, and roll down the whole length of the gable.”
“Right-o, old sport!” returned Morvyth.
Miss Gibbs lay in her bedroom, sleeping the sleep of the just. The moonlight, flooding through her hygienically wide-open window, revealed the rows of photographs on her chimney-piece, the gilt-edged volumes on her book-shelf, and the little emergency medicine cupboard on the wall. Was she dreaming of the lesson she meant to give to-morrow, or of the officer whose portrait, in the silver frame, occupied the post of honour in her picture gallery? Who could tell? Unsympathetic school-girls do not know all the secrets of a teacher’s life. Perhaps Miss Gibbs, like the familiar chestnut burr, hid a silver lining under her prickly exterior. She slept so peacefully—it was a shame to disturb her. Schoolgirls are ruthless beings at best.
Bang! Rattle! Bang! Bump! She woke with a start. Projectiles were falling upon the roof with terrific force. At the same moment shrieks issued from the dormitory, and a wild shout of “Zepps!” Miss Gibbs’s presence of mind did not desert her. It took her exactly three seconds to put on her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, two more to sweep her watch, purse, and a little packet of76treasures (placed nightly in readiness) into the ample pocket of her wrapper, and the next instant she was flashing her torchlight in the dormitory.
The girls, most of them very scared, were turning out of bed; Aveline, Fauvette, Valentine, Ardiune, and Katherine were already garbed, and encouraging the others. Before a minute and a half had elapsed, the whole party was on its way to the cellar, having rung the great bell on the stairs to warn the rest of the household.
Raymonde and Morvyth, having expended the ammunition, hurried downstairs, and slipped in among their Form mates unobserved. The school spent an agitated hour in the cellar, sitting on blankets clutched from their beds. As all appeared quiet, and no more mysterious thumps resounded on the roof, Miss Beasley, who had reconnoitred, declared it safe to return to roost, and ordered her twenty-six pupils upstairs again. Possibly she had her suspicions, for very early next morning she went out to investigate the extent of the damage, and discovered a selection of the projectiles lying on the lawn. The result was a solemn harangue to the whole school.
“I don’t know who has played this contemptible practical joke,” she proclaimed witheringly. “It may seem humorous to small minds, but to me it is pitiable. There were no doubt instigators amongst you, and for the sake of those ringleaders I shall punish you all. You will spend Wednesday afternoon in your class-rooms copying out ‘Lycidas,’ instead of taking our projected trip on the river. It is hard to punish the innocent with the guilty, but those responsible for this occurrence are probably77known to their companions, who will, I hope, visit their displeasure upon them, and cause them to regret that they have deprived the school of a holiday.”
Miss Beasley’s method of punishment, though voted abominably unfair by the majority, was certainly efficacious. Such grave suspicion fell on the Mystic Seven that the indignant monitresses took the matter in hand, and insisted on investigating the entire business. Popular opinion raged hotly against the culprits, for the promised expedition to the river had been regarded as the treat of the term.
“I believe it’s all your fault, Raymonde Armitage!” scolded Linda Mottram. “If there’s any mischief about, one may be sure you’re at the bottom of it. We don’t want your monkey tricks here. They’re on the level of a kindergarten for little boys. If anything more of this sort happens, you may expect to find yourself jolly well boycotted. I shan’t speak to you, in any case, for a week, and I hope none of the other monitresses will. You deserve sending to Coventry by everybody.”
“How hard it is to be public-spirited!” mourned Raymonde to her chums afterwards. “I’m sure I gave everybody a treat, and especially Gibbie. I’m a martyr to the cause of emergencies. For goodness’ sake don’t any of you drink poison by mistake, or they’ll lay the blame on me and send me to the gallows!”