202CHAPTER XVIIThe Fossil Hunters
If Miss Beasley had been asked what was her most difficult problem in the management of her school, she would probably have replied the arrangement of the practising time-table. With the exception of four, all the girls learned music, and therefore, for a period of forty-five minutes daily, each of these twenty-two pupils must do execution on the piano. There were five instruments at the Grange, and, except during the hours of morning lessons and meals, they hardly ever seemed to be silent. At seven o’clock they began with scales, arpeggios, and studies, and passed during the day through a selection of pieces, classical and modern, in such various degrees of playing, strumming, and thumping as might be calculated to wear out their hammers and snap their strings in double quick time. About half of the girls learned from Mademoiselle, and the remainder had lessons from Mr. Browne, a visiting master who came twice a week to the school. He was a short little man, with sandy hair, and a bald patch in the middle of it, and a Vandyke beard that was turning rather grey. He was himself an excellent musician, and sometimes the performances of his pupils offended his sensitive203ear to the point of exasperation, and he would storm at them in a gurgling voice, blinking his short-sighted hazel eyes very rapidly, and wrinkling up his forehead till it looked like squeezed india-rubber. It was on record that he had once hit Lois Barlow a hard crack over the knuckles with his fountain-pen, whereupon she wept—not so much from pain as from injured feelings—and he had apologized in quite a gentlemanly fashion, and picked up the music that in his burst of temper he had flung upon the floor. In spite of his acknowledged irritability, all the girls who learned from him gave themselves airs of slight superiority over those who only learned from Mademoiselle. Though strict, he was an inspiring teacher, and when, as occasionally happened, he would push his pupil from the stool, and seat himself in her place to show the proper rendering of some passage, the music that followed was like a lovely liquid dream of sound.
Professor Marshall also attended the school twice a week to lecture on literature and natural science. He was a much greater general favourite than Mr. Browne; everybody appreciated his affable manner and bland smile, and the little jokes with which he punctuated his remarks.
The girls always felt that it made a change to have anybody coming in from the outside world. The one disadvantage of a boarding-school is that mistresses and pupils, shut up together, and seeing one another week in, week out, are rather apt to get on each others’ nerves. At a day school the girls take their worries home at four o’clock, and the mental atmosphere has time to clear before nine204next morning; but, when there is no home-going until the end of the term, little trifles are sometimes unduly magnified, and a narrow element—the bane of all communities—begins to creep in. To do Miss Beasley justice, she made a great effort to combat this very evil, and to run her school on broad lines. She recognized the necessity of letting the girls mix sometimes with outsiders. In a country place it was impossible to take them to concerts or entertainments, but they occasionally joined the rambles of the County Antiquarian Society or the local Natural History Club.
It occurred to Miss Beasley that it would be an excellent plan to throw open some of Professor Marshall’s lectures to residents in the neighbourhood, asking those people who attended to stay to tea afterwards, thus giving her girls an opportunity of acting as hostesses, and entertaining them with conversation. A short course of four lectures on geology was announced, and quite a number of local ladies responded to the invitation. The girls received the news with mixed feelings.
“Rather a jink!” ventured Ardiune. “It’ll be queer to see rows of strangers sitting in the lecture room! Did you say we’ve to give them tea when the Professor’s done talking?”
“Yes, and talk to them ourselves too, worse luck! I’m sure I shan’t know what to say!” fluttered Aveline.
“Oh, the monitresses will do that part of the business!” decided Raymonde easily. “We’ll stand in the background, and just look ladylike and well-mannered, and all the rest of it.”
“Will you, my child? Not if the Bumble knows205it! She’s nuts on this afternoon-tea dodge! (I don’t care—I shan’t put a penny in the slang box—Hermie isn’t here to listen and make me!) Gibbie told me that we’re all to act hostesses in turn. We’re to be divided into four sets, and each take a time.”
“Help! How are you going to divide twenty-six by four? It works out at six and a half. Who’s to be the half girl?”
“Oh! They’ll make it seven on one afternoon and six the next, I expect.”
“That’s not fair! It’s throwing too much work on those six and not enough on the seven. It’s opposed to all the instincts of co-operation and justice which Gibbie has laboured so hard to instil into me.”
“Don’t see how the Bumble can manage otherwise, unless she chops a girl in half. No, I predict you’ll be chosen among a select six, and have to pour out tea and hand cakes with one-sixth extra power laid on, and your conversation carefully modulated to your hearers.”
“Oh, Jemima!”
“Please to remember that this is a finishing school!” mocked Ardiune. “Don’t on any account shock the neighbourhood by an unseemly exhibition of vulgar slang!”
“It’ll slip out, I know, when I’m not thinking,” groaned Raymonde.
On the first afternoon of the geological course, an audience of about twenty visitors augmented the usual gathering in the lecture hall. They were accommodated with the best seats, and the school occupied the third and fourth rows. Directly in206front of Raymonde sat an elderly lady in a large black hat trimmed with cherries, which bobbed temptingly over the brim. She appeared to take an interest in her surroundings, glanced about the room, and turned a reproving eye on Raymonde, who ventured to whisper to Aveline. With Miss Gibbs hovering in the background with a now-mind-you-keep-up-the-credit-of-the-school expression, the girls hardly dared even to blink, but Aveline managed to write: “What a Tartar in front!” on a slip of paper, and hand it to her chum.
The Professor, bland as ever, was coming into the room and hanging a geological map over the blackboard. He smiled broadly, showing his large white teeth to the uttermost, and, after a few preliminary remarks of welcome to the visitors, plunged into a description of the earth’s crust.
All went well for a while; then an untoward incident happened. The lady with the cherries in her hat, who had possibly taken cold, or was affected by the pollen in the flowers upon the table, sneezed violently, not only once, but twice, and even a third time.
“Three’s for a wedding! Is it Gibbie?” whispered Raymonde the incorrigible.
Aveline’s mental equilibrium was always easily upset. The idea of Miss Gibbs in connection with matrimony was too much for her, and she exploded into a series of painfully suppressed giggles. The more she tried to stop, the more hysterical she grew, especially as her lack of self-control appeared to produce great agitation among the cherries on the black hat in front. It was only by holding her207breath till she almost choked that she managed to avoid disgracing herself absolutely.
As Morvyth had predicted, Raymonde was among the hostesses for the afternoon. She rose admirably to the occasion, handed round cakes and bread and butter, and talked sweetly to the guests on a variety of topics. Aveline, also one of the chosen, though less agile in conversation, tried to look “hospitable” and “welcoming,” and cultured and pretty-mannered and gracious, and everything else which might be expected from a young lady at a finishing-school.
Miss Gibbs, who was keeping the deportment of the hostesses well under inspection, beamed approval, but spurred them on to fresh efforts.
“See that nobody is neglected,” she whispered. “Hand the cakes to that lady who is standing by the piano; and you, Raymonde, take her the cream.”
The chums had instinctively avoided the owner of the black hat with the cherries, but thus urged they were bound to fulfil their social obligations. They offered a selection of ginger-nuts and fancy biscuits, and the best silver cream-jug, and murmured some polite nothings on the hackneyed subject of the weather. The lady helped herself, and regarded them with an offended eye.
“I believe you’re the two girls who sat behind me during the lecture!” she remarked tartly. “I should like to say that I considered your behaviour disgraceful. It would serve you right if I were to tell your governess.”
Overwhelmed with confusion, Raymonde and Aveline beat a hasty retreat.208
“Oh, dear! Does she think I was laughing at her?” whispered Aveline. “What must I do? Ought I to go and explain and apologize? I simply daren’t!”
“She’s a nasty old thing!” returned Raymonde in an indignant undertone. “I hope she won’t sneak to Gibbie! You can’t explain. I shouldn’t go near her.”
“Gibbie’s working round towards the piano!”
“No, Mrs. Horner’s stopped her.”
Fortunately for the girls, at this moment Professor Marshall cleared his throat violently, and, obtaining by this signal a temporary respite in the babel of small talk, announced that on the following Saturday afternoon he proposed to lead a party to Littlewood Quarry to examine the geological formation there, and search for fossils. He hoped that all the present company would be able to attend, as the expedition would be of great educational value. The general conversation in the room immediately turned upon geology. The black hat with cherries bore down upon the Professor, and its owner plunged into a lengthy discussion on the flora of the carboniferous period, so apparently absorbing that it left her no opportunity to lodge complaints as to the behaviour of the pupils. The chums, whose social duties were now finished, slipped thankfully away to prep.
“I’m disgusted with the Professor!” groaned Morvyth. “It’s too bad of him to take up another of our precious Saturday afternoons with his geology excursion. The tennis match will be all off now, and I know we could have beaten the Sixth! I don’t want to hunt for fossils!209I’m tired of continually having my mind improved!”
“We really don’t get a fair chance for games at this school,” Ardiune grumbled in sympathy. “I wish Gibbie were sporting instead of intellectual!”
It was really a grievance to the girls to be obliged to abandon tennis on this occasion. The match between Sixth and Fifth had been a fixture, and each side had hopes of its own champions. Daphne and Barbara were good players, but Valentine and Muriel had been practising early and late, and in the estimation of their own Form were well in the running for victory. Even the juniors had looked forward to witnessing the combat. Valentine, in her disappointment, went so far as to suggest to Miss Gibbs that the match might claim precedence over the excursion. The astonished mistress gazed at her for a moment with blank face, then burst out:
“Give up the fossil hunt in favour of tennis! What nonsense! You ought all to be deeply grateful to Professor Marshall for coming to take us. You girls don’t appreciate your privileges!”
“There’s one compensation,” urged Fauvette. “We shall walk through the village, and, if we break line a little, it will give a chance for somebody to dash into the shop and buy pear-drops. One had better do it for us all, and get a pound. We’ll pay up our shares, honest.”
On the afternoon of Saturday, twenty-six rather apathetic geologists started forth from the Grange. Each carried a basket, and a few, who had scrambled first, had secured hammers. Miss Gibbs, armed with “An Illustrated Catalogue of the Fossils in210the Bradbury Museum,” by means of which she hoped to identify specimens, brought up the rear, in company with Veronica, and the school crocodiled in orthodox fashion as far as the village. Here they were met by the Vicar’s wife and daughter, and several other ladies who were to join the excursion. The double line swayed and broke. Miss Gibbs’s attention became engaged by visitors, and, during the few minutes’ halt, Raymonde, well covered by her comrades, seized the golden opportunity, darted into the shop, and emerged with a large packet hidden in her basket, before mistress or monitresses had had time to miss her.
“Paradise drops!” she announced with gleeful caution. “Got them because they were on the counter, and the quickest thing I could buy. No, I daren’t dole them out now. You must wait till we get to the quarry. Gibbie’d notice you sucking them, you idiots!”
It was rather a long way to Littlewood. Much too far, in the girls’ opinion, though they would have thought nothing of the walk had they been keener on its object.
“Shouldn’t have minded so much if we’d come on a Thursday, and missed French translation. Why had it to be Saturday?” groused Ardiune.
“Because Saturday’s the only day the men aren’t working in the quarry. For goodness’ sake, stop grumbling!” returned Hermie in her most monitressy manner. “If you can’t enjoy things yourself, let other people have a chance, at any rate!”
Duly snubbed, Ardiune subsided, and tramped211on in silence, her discontent slightly alleviated by the prospect of Paradise drops, for Raymonde was rattling the basket suggestively to cheer her up. Extra visitors joined the party here and there upon the way, and outside Littlewood village the Professor himself was waiting for them, beaming as usual, and carrying a most professional-looking hammer, and a little bass for specimens. He greeted them with one of his customary jokes, and they smiled obediently, more out of habit than inclination.
The quarry proved more exciting than they had anticipated. It was a large place, and to get down into it they were obliged to descend several steep ladders, leading from one platform to another. Arrived at the bottom level, Professor Marshall collected his students in a group round him, and delivered a lecturette upon the points to be noticed in the strata surrounding them. Raymonde listened sadly. It seemed to her an unprofitable way of spending a Saturday afternoon. She brightened, however, when the audience dispersed to commence practical work.
“Come along!” she whispered to her chums. “Let’s scoot over there and begin to chop rocks! Quick!”
“Where are the Paradise drops?” enquired the others eagerly.
“Don’t worry, I have them safe. Only wait till Gibbie’s back is turned.”
Though they were decidedly tired of lectures, the girls nevertheless were quite mildly interested in searching for fossils. There was an element of competition about it which appealed to them, and212when Hermie found a fine specimen ofCupressocrinus crassus, the Fifth felt that they must not be outdone.
“We haven’t got anything really decent yet!” sighed Aveline, watching with envious eyes as Hermie exhibited her treasure to the admiring visitors. “The Sixth are cackling ever so hard.”
“Let’s go over there,” suggested Raymonde. “No one’s explored that bit of the quarry. We might find all sorts of things.”
The Mystic Seven, who generally clung together in their undertakings, scaled a ladder therefore, climbed a mound of refuse, and found themselves on new ground. They dispersed, and each searched to the best of her ability among the pieces of crumbly rock that were lying about. Aveline, absorbed in splitting strata with her hammer, was suddenly disturbed by a piercing yell and a shout of “Help!” She ran at once in the direction of the screams, and round the corner discovered Raymonde, sunk nearly to her waist in a kind of clay bog.
“Help me!” she implored. “I can’t get out. The more I try, the deeper I seem to sink in.”
“Don’t struggle, then; wait a minute,” said Aveline, advancing on to some firm-looking stones and stretching out a hand. “Can you manage now?”
Raymonde made a desperate but futile effort. “No, I’m stuck tight—can’t move my legs.”
“Don’t pull me, or I’ll be in too! Now, I’m going to tug one of your legs out! That’s it! Now the other! Here you are! Good gracious! What a mess you’re in!”
Arrived on firm ground, Raymonde certainly213looked a deplorable object. Her feet were two shapeless lumps of wet clay. She regarded them with rueful consternation. Ardiune came running up, and, being of a practical turn of mind, set to work to scrape her friend clean with a thin piece of stone. She succeeded in removing the bulk of the matter adhering to her, but there still remained a most unsightly coating of mud.
“What were you doing to get yourself in such a fix?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It looked quite solid, and then, when I stepped on it, I just sank in—squash! I might have been swallowed up in it and killed, if Ave hadn’t tugged me out!”
“You look a nice object to walk home with!” giggled Aveline. “What’ll Gibbie say?”
What Miss Gibbs remarked when she saw the state of her pupil’s garments was:
“Really, Raymonde, I might have known you would be sure to do some stupid thing! No other girl in the school has fallen into the mud. Why didn’t you keep with the rest, and look where you were going? You’re more trouble than everybody else put together. If you can’t behave yourself when you come on an excursion, you must be left behind to do some preparation.”
The Mystics consoled their leader as best they could, offering her their last remaining Paradise drops, and walking in a clump round her through the village to shield her from observation. Ardiune, who was poetically inclined, thought the occasion worthy of being celebrated in verse, and at bedtime handed Raymonde the following effusion, illustrated with spirited sketches in black lead-pencil,214representing her with clay-covered feet of gigantic proportions.
Raymonde, a nice and cheerful childWho seldom wept and often smiled,Was taken by her teachers kindA jaunt, to elevate her mind.By lengthy ladders undismayed,Behold her seek the quarry’s shade,With firm resolve to hit and hew,And find a fossil fern or two.She rapped the rocks with anxious pick,And scooped the ammonites out quick,But as she rang her brief tap-tapThere chanced to her a sad mishap.Urged on by hope of fossil round,She stepped on some perfidious ground,So now behold our luckless RayPlunged in the midst of horrid clay.The mud had nearly reached her waist,She called aloud in frantic haste:“I sink, I sink in quagmire sable,To free myself I am unable!”Her friend, who hurried to her shout,Had much ado to drag her out.See! thick with mud and faint with fright,She bravely bears her woeful plight.Her tender teacher’s anxious fearsShe soothes, and dries her friends’ fond tears,Declaring, with a courage calm,The outing had been worth th’ alarm.
“Humph! Good for you, Ardiune!” commented Raymonde. “Not much tenderness about Gibbie, though! And I didn’t see anybody’s fond tears!215You all laughed at me! My feet weren’t a yard long, anyway!”
“Poetic and artistic license allows a few slight exaggerations. Even Shakespeare took liberties with his subjects!” returned the authoress blandly. “If not exactly a yard long, your feet, not small by nature, looked absolutely enormous! It’s the truth!”
216CHAPTER XVIIIMademoiselle
“Parlez-vous français, Mademoiselle?She opened the window, and out she fell.And what happened next I’ve never heard tell,Parlez-vous français, Mademoiselle?”
chanted Raymonde, dancing into the dormitory and plumping down on Fauvette’s bed amid a pile of chiffons, muslins, and other flimsy articles of wearing apparel. “Why, what’s the matter, child? Whence this spread-out? You look weepy! Packing to go home? Mother ill? Or are you expelled?”
“Neither,” gulped Fauvette with a watery smile. “It’s only her—Mademoiselle! She’s turned all my drawers out on to the floor, and says I’ve got to tidy them. She lectured me hard in French. I couldn’t understand half of what she said, but I knew she was scolding. And I’ve to sort all these things out, and put them neatly away, and mend up everything that needs mending before this evening, or else she’ll tell the Bumble to come and look at them, and I shall get ‘sadly lacking in order’ down in my report again. It’s too bad!”
“It’s positively brutal of Mademoiselle!” said Raymonde reflectively. “If it had been Gibbie, now, it would have been no surprise to me. Don’t217cry, you little silly! You look like a weeping cherub on a monument! Shovel your clothes back again into your drawers, and put a tidy top layer. That’s what I always do!”
“So do I,” wailed Fauvette. “But it won’t work this time. Mademoiselle was really cross, and I could see she means to come to-night, and hold what she calls ‘une inspection’. She said something about making me an example. Why, if she wants an example, need she choose me?”
“It’s certainly breaking a butterfly,” agreed Raymonde. “I’m afraid there’s something seriously wrong with Mademoiselle. She’s completely altered this last week. She never used to worry about things, and she’s suddenly turned as fussy as Gibbie.”
Raymonde was not the only one who had noticed the change in the French mistress. It was apparent to everybody. Her entire character seemed suddenly to have altered. Whereas beforetime she had been easygoing, slack, and ready to shut eyes and ears to school-girl failings, she was now keenly vigilant and highly exacting. In classes and at music lessons she demanded the utmost attention, and no longer passed over mistakes, or allowed a bad accent. She prohibited the use of the English tongue altogether during meals, and insisted upon her pupils conversing in French, requiring each one to come to table primed with a suitable remark in that language. The number of fines which she inflicted was so heavy that the missionary box filled with a rapidity more gratifying to the local secretary of the society than to the contributors. The girls were considerably puzzled at this change218of face on the part of Mademoiselle, but Morvyth and Katherine gave it as their opinion that Miss Beasley lay at the back of it.
“The Bumble’s probably had a talk with her, and told her she must buck up or go!” suggested the former. “I’m sure she always thought Mademoiselle a slacker—which she certainly was! Possibly she’s given her till the end of the term to show what she’s capable of, and if she doesn’t come up to the mark, we shall start next term with a new French governess.”
“I shouldn’t care!” said Raymonde easily. “I never liked her much. We used to call her ‘the butterfly’, but she’s ‘the mosquito’ now. She’s developing a very unpleasant sting.”
Whatever might be the truth of Morvyth’s surmises as to the reason of Mademoiselle’s new attitude, the fact loomed large. Having determined to demonstrate her powers of discipline, she overdid it. She was one of those persons who cannot keep order and enforce rules without losing their tempers, and she stormed at the girls continually. She developed a mania for what she called “surveillance.” She was continually paying surprise visits to dormitory or schoolroom, and pouncing upon offenders who were talking, or otherwise neglecting their duties. It was even suspected that she listened behind doors. Fauvette, whose babyish characteristics led her into many pitfalls, seemed suddenly to become the scapegoat of Mademoiselle’s freshly acquired vigilance. Fauvette lacked spirit, and went down like a ninepin before the least word of reproof. Her feelings were easily hurt, and her tears always close to the surface. She sat now and219sobbed pathetically upon her pillow, without making the least effort to tidy up her belongings. Raymonde shook her head over her.
“You’re the sort of girl who ought to go through life with a nurse or a maid to look after you; you’re not fit to take care of yourself,” she decided. “Look here, how much wants doing to your clothes before the Mosquito comes buzzing round to inspect?”
“Shoals!” sighed Fauvette wearily. “I’m afraid I’ve left my mending. There are stockings, and gloves, and—all kinds of things.”
“Can you get it done in time?”
“Impossible!” and the tears dripped again on to a dainty muslin collar.
“Then there’s nothing for it but to get up a Mending Bee, and help you! We seven are sworn to stick together.”
“There’ll be squalls if you’re caught in the dormitory during recreation. I was told to stay here,” cautioned Fauvette.
“We’ve got to risk something,” returned Raymonde cheerily, scurrying off in search of the remaining five of the Mystics.
“You’ve all got to fetch work-baskets and come this instant,” she commanded. “It’s an urgency call, like last term when we made T bandages for Roumania, and nose-bags for the horses, only it’s even more important and urgent.”
Armed with their sewing materials, the girls slipped one by one upstairs, and, settling themselves upon the beds in the immediate vicinity of Fauvette’s, set to work. It was a formidable task. Their comrade had brought a large assortment of garments220to school with her, and had happily left them unmended, trusting to take them home to be repaired. At present they were mixed in a hopeless jumble on the floor and on her bed, just where Mademoiselle had tipped out the drawers. Stockings, underclothes, gloves, handkerchiefs, photos, old letters, ribbons, ties, beads, lockets, books, and an assortment of odd treasures were lying together in utter confusion.
Fauvette brightened at the sight of her friends, mopped her eyes, and pushed back her fluffy hair from her hot forehead.
“Brace up!” Raymonde encouraged her. “We’re not going to help unless you’ll do your own share. Sort those things out, and be putting them in your drawers while we do your mending. Morvyth, take these stockings; Katherine, you’re artistic, so I’ll give you baby ribbon to thread through these bodices. Ardiune, you may mend gloves. Ave, collect those hair ribbons, and put them neatly inside that box, and stack those photos together. Why they’re not in an album I can’t imagine!”
“Because I generally sleep with one or two of them under my pillow,” confessed Fauvette. “Why shouldn’t I, if I like? There’s no harm in it. Oh! please be careful with those beads, you’ll break the strings!”
“I can’t think why you need so many empty chocolate boxes,” commented Aveline, sweeping up treasures with a ruthless hand. “Your drawers will be so full they won’t shut. Throw half of them away!”
“No, no! I always keep them to remind me of221the people who gave them to me. You mustn’t throw any of them away. They’re chock-full of memories.”
“Rather have them chock-full of chocs, myself!” remarked Morvyth dryly. “Fauvette, you’re interesting and pretty—when you don’t cry (for goodness’ sake look at your red eyes in the glass!); but you’re as sentimental as an Early Victorian heroine. You ought to wear a bonnet and a crinoline, and carry a little fringed parasol, and talk about your ‘papa’! If you don’t get safely engaged to an officer before you’re out of your teens, you’ll turn into one of those faded females who bore one with sickly reminiscences of their past, and spend the remainder of your life pampering a pet poodle. Here, I’ve mended two pairs of stockings for you.”
“And I’ve done three pairs,” said Raymonde, folding up the articles in question and putting them in her friend’s second long drawer. “We’re getting on. Kathy, have you finished the bodices? We’ll soon have you straightened up, Baby, and if Mademoiselle––Oh!”
Raymonde’s sudden ejaculation was caused by a vision of no less a person than Miss Gibbs, who was standing in the doorway of the dormitory regarding the sewing party in some astonishment.
“What are you girls doing here?” she demanded, making a bee-line for them among the beds.
Nobody answered, and for a moment or two blank dismay spread itself over the countenances of the Mystics. Then Raymonde’s lucky star came to the rescue, and popped an inspiration into her head.
“You were telling us in Social History class222yesterday, Miss Gibbs, about the necessity of women co-operating in their work if they are ever to command a higher scale of pay,” she explained glibly; “so we thought we’d better begin to put our principles into practice. Fauvette had fallen into arrears, and was in danger of—er—trouble, so we all came just to boost her up to standard, and let her get a fair start again. It’s on the basis of a Women’s Union or—or—Freemasons. We thought we were bound to help one another.”
Miss Gibbs was not a remarkably humorous person, but on this occasion the corners of her mouth were distinctly observed to twitch. She mastered the weakness instantly, however, and remarked:
“I’m glad to hear that you are interested in co-operation. This is certainly a practical demonstration of the theory, and Fauvette ought to be grateful to you. Be quick and finish straightening the things, and, if anybody asks questions, you may say that you have my permission to remain here until tea-time.”
The girls sat at attention till the door closed upon their mistress, then their mingled amazement and gratitude burst forth.
“Good old Gibbie!”
“She’s an absolute sport to-day!”
“Never known her in such a jinky mood before!”
“The fact of the matter is,” observed Raymonde sagely, “I believe Gibbie absolutely loathes Mademoiselle, and that for once in a way she’s not above taking a legitimate chance of paying her out.”
When the French mistress came round that evening on her tour of inspection, she found Fauvette’s drawers in apple-pie order right to the very bottoms—beads,223ties, and collars carefully arranged in boxes, and nicely mended stockings placed in a row.
“It only show vat you can do ven you try!” she commented. “In a woman to be untidy is—ah! I have not your English idiom?”
“The limit!” wickedly suggested Raymonde, who was standing close by.
But Mademoiselle, who had been warned against the acquisition of slang, glared at her till she beat a hasty retreat.
It was growing near to the end of the term, and examinations loomed imminently on the horizon. They were to be conducted this year by Miss Beasley’s brother, a clergyman, and a former lecturer at Oxford. He had made a special study of modern languages, so that his standard of requirement in regard to French grammar was likely to be a high one. Up till now the Fifth Form had plodded through Déjardin’s exercises in an easy fashion, without worrying greatly about the multitude of their mistakes, over which their mistress had indeed shaken her head, but had made no special crusade to amend. Now, in view of the awe-inspiring visit of the Reverend T. W. Beasley, M.A., Mademoiselle had instituted an eleventh-hour spurt of diligence, and kept her pupils with reluctant noses pressed hard to the grindstone. Irregular verbs and exceptions of gender seemed much worse when taken in such large doses. The girls began to wish either that the Tower of Babel had never been attempted, or that the world had reached a sufficient stage of civilization to adopt a universal language. Over one point in particular224they considered that they had a just and pressing grievance. The French classes of Form V came on the time-table from 12 to 12.30, being the last subjects of morning school. Dinner was at one o’clock, and in the intervening half-hour the girls put away their books, washed their hands and tidied their hair, and refreshed their flagging spirits by a run round the garden. Mademoiselle had been wont to close her book at the exact minute of the half-hour, but now she utterly ignored the clock, and would go on with the lesson till a quarter or even ten minutes to one. The wrath of the Form knew no bounds. They valued their short exercise before dinner extremely. To have it thus cut off was an infringement of their rights. Mademoiselle, who was perfectly aware that she was exceeding the limit of the time-table, sheltered herself behind excuses.
“Ven I take your verbs I forget it is so late,” she would remark. “Ze lesson slip avay, and ve not yet done all ve should.”
The girls held an indignation meeting to discuss the subject. Even Maudie Heywood’s appetite for knowledge was glutted by this extra diet of French syntax, and Muriel Fuller and Magsie Mawson, amiable nonentities who rarely ruffled the surface of the school waters, for once verified the proverb that the worm will turn.
“It’s not fair!” raged Ardiune.
“Ma’m’selle knows she ought to stop at half-past!” urged Magsie in injured tones.
“It’s taking a mean advantage!” echoed Muriel.
“And we can’t really work properly when she goes on so long!” wailed Maudie.225
“I vote we strike!” suggested Morvyth fiercely. “Let’s tell her we won’t go in for the exam. at all, if she goes on lengthening out the lessons.”
Several of the Form brightened up at the suggestion, but Aveline, a shade more practical, shook her head discouragingly.
“If we do, there’ll be a fine old row! The Mosquito’ll appeal to the Bumble, who’d have her back up directly. I think we’d better not try that on. We don’t want to take home ‘conduct disgraceful’ in our reports.”
“Ave’s right,” agreed Raymonde. “We know the Bumble! This is a matter for tact, not brute force. We must manage Mademoiselle. She pretends she forgets the time—very well, then, we must take steps to bring it palpably to her notice. Will you leave the matter in my hands? I’ve got an idea.”
Raymonde’s inspirations were so well known in the Form, that the rest willingly consented to appoint her as a sub-committee of one to undertake the full management of the affair. Before the next French class she made a tour of the monitresses’ bedrooms. They had instituted an early-rising society among themselves this term, and almost everyone was provided with an alarum-clock. Raymonde boldly borrowed five of these, without asking leave of their owners, and set them all carefully for 12.30, winding them up to their fullest extent. She then placed them inside the book cupboard in the class-room, and covered them with some sheets of exercise paper.
The lesson proceeded even more painfully than usual. Ardiune got hopelessly mixed between indefinite226pronouns and indefinite pronominal adjectives, and Fauvette floundered over the negations, while Muriel found the proper placing of thep’s andl’s in the conjugation ofappeleran impossible problem. As 12.30 drew near, there was much glancing at wrist-watches. Mademoiselle kept her eyes persistently turned away from the clock, with the evident intention of once more ignoring the time. This morning, however, Fate, in the person of Raymonde, had been against her. Exactly at the half-hour five alarums started punctually inside the cupboard, raising such a din that it was impossible to hear a word. Mademoiselle flew to investigate, took them out, shook them, and laid them on their backs, but they were wound up to their fullest extent, and nothing short of a hammer would have stopped them. The noise was terrific.
The baffled French governess, clapping her hands over her ears, raised her eyebrows in a signal of dismissal, and the girls availed themselves of the permission with record speed. The alarums burred cheerily on for about twenty minutes, after which, by Mademoiselle’s instructions, they were replaced in the monitresses’ bedrooms by Hermie. The Fifth were prepared for trouble, but to their surprise no notice was taken of the incident at head-quarters. Possibly Mademoiselle was aware that her late efforts at discipline were regarded by Miss Beasley with as little favour as her former slackness, and considered it useless to appeal to her Principal. She took the hint, however, and in future terminated the lesson punctually at the half-hour, so on this occasion the girls considered that they had most decidedly scored.
227CHAPTER XIXA Mysterious Happening
It was now nearly the end of July. The weather, which for many weeks had been fine and warm, suddenly changed to a spell of cold and wet. Rain dripped dismally from the eaves, the tennis courts were sodden, and the orchard was a marsh. The girls had grown accustomed to spending almost all their spare time out of doors, and chafed at their enforced confinement to the house. They hung about in disconsolate little groups, and grumbled. Miss Beasley, who was generally well aware of the mental atmosphere of the Grange, registered the barometer at stormy, and decided that prompt measures were necessary. To work off the steam of the school, she suggested a good old-fashioned game of hide-and-seek, and gave permission for it to be played on those upper landings which were generally forbidden ground. Twenty-six delighted girls started at once upstairs, and passed through the wire door, specially unlocked for their benefit, to the dim and mysterious regions that lay under the roof. It was the best place in the world for the purpose—long labyrinths of passages leading round into one another, endless attics, and innumerable cupboards. The smallness of the latticed228windows, combined with the wetness of the afternoon, produced a twilight that was most desirable, and highly suited to the game.
Hermie and Veronica picked sides, and the former’s band stole off to conceal themselves, while the others covered their eyes in orthodox fashion, and counted a hundred.
“Cuckoo! We’re coming!” shouted Hermie at last, and the fun began.
Up and down, and in and out, diving through doorways, racing along passages, chasing one another round corners, groping in cupboards, panting, squealing, laughing or shuddering, the girls pervaded the upper story. There was a ghostly gloom about the old place which made it all the more thrilling, and gave the players a feeling that at any moment some bogy might spring upon them from a dark recess, or a skinny hand be stretched downwards through a trap-door. Flushed, excited, and really a little nervous, both sides at last sought the safety of the “den.” Two or three of them began to compare notes. They were joined by others. In a very short time the whole school knew that at least a third of their number had seen a “something.” They were quite unanimous in their report. “It” was a girl of about their own age, in a dark-green dress with a wide white collar. Hermie and Ardiune had noticed her most distinctly. She had smiled and beckoned to them, and run along the passage, but when they turned the corner she had disappeared; and Linda and Elsie, whom they had met coming in the opposite direction, declared that they had seen nobody. Lois and Katherine had caught a glimpse of her as they229chased Maudie in one of the attics, and Joan declared positively that she had seen her flitting down the stairs.
“It’s queer in the extreme,” murmured Valentine.
“Are you quite sure it wasn’t really only one of us?” urged Meta.
“Absolutely!” declared Hermie emphatically. “We all have on our brown serges to-day, and I tell you this girl was in dark green; not a gym. costume to wear over a blouse, like ours, but a dress with long sleeves and a big white collar.”
“I don’t believe she’s a real girl at all,” faltered Magsie tremulously. “She’s a spook!”
Magsie voiced the opinion of the majority. It was what most of the school had been feeling for the last five minutes. The interest in the supernatural, which had been a craze earlier in the term until sternly repressed by Miss Beasley, suddenly revived. Daphne remembered the magazine article she had read entitled “The Borderland of the Spirit World,” and cold thrills passed down her spine. Veronica ventured the suggestion that the apparition might be an astral body or an elemental entity.
“It’s a case for the Society for Psychical Research to investigate,” she nodded gravely. “I always said the Grange was bound to be haunted.”
“What was this girl like?” asked Raymonde reflectively. “Ancient or modern?”
“Modern, decidedly. She had on a green dress with a white––”
“So you’ve told us already,”—impatiently. “We know about her clothes. What was she like?”230
Hermie stood for a moment with eyes shut, as if calling up a mental picture.
“About Ardiune’s height, but slimmer: rosy face, and dark hair done in a plait—really not so unlike you, Ray, only I should say decidedly prettier.”
“Thank you!” sniffed Raymonde.
“That just about sizes her up!” agreed those who had seen the vision.
“She didn’t look spooky at all,” continued Hermie. “She was quite substantial. You couldn’t see through her, and she didn’t melt into the air.”
“And yet she disappeared?”
“Yes, she certainly disappeared, and in a passage where there were no doors.”
“Do you remember the story I told you of the lady whose astral double left her body during sleep, and haunted a friend’s house?” began Veronica darkly.
“Don’t tell any ghost stories up here—don’t!” implored Fauvette. “I’ll have hysterics in another minute!”
“I’m frightened!” whimpered Joan.
“I vote we go downstairs,” suggested Morvyth. “I don’t want to play any more hide-and-seek at present.”
Nobody else seemed anxious to pursue the game. The attics were too charged with the occult to be entirely pleasant. Everybody made a unanimous stampede for the lower story, passing down the winding staircase with a sense of relief. Once on familiar ground again, things looked more cheery.
“Back already?” commented Miss Gibbs, who had met them on the landing.231
“Yes, we’re all—er—a little tired!” evaded Hermie, with one of her conscious blushes.
“Better go to the dining-room and get out your sewing, then,” replied the mistress, eyeing her keenly.
The girls proceeded soberly downstairs, still keeping close together like a flock of sheep. Raymonde, however, lagged behind. For a moment or two she stood pondering, then she ran swiftly up the winding staircase again into the attic.
The talk of the school that evening turned solely upon the ghost girl. Meta, who had not seen the vision, declared it was nothing but over-excited imagination, and feared that some people were apt to get hysterical; at which Hermie retorted that no one could be further from hysteria than herself, and that six independent witnesses could scarcely imagine the same thing at the same moment, without some basis for their common report. Veronica considered that they had entered unwittingly into a psychic circle, and encountered either a thought-form that had materialized, or a phantasm of the living.
“Some people have capacities for astral vision that others don’t possess,” she said in a lowered voice. “It’s quite probable that Hermie may be clairvoyante.”
Hermie sighed interestedly. It was pleasanter to be dubbed clairvoyante than hysterical. She had always felt that Meta did not appreciate her.
“We’ve none of us been trained to realize our spiritual possibilities,” she replied, her eyes wide and thoughtful.
While a few girls disbelieved entirely in the232spectre, and others accepted the explanation according to Veronica’s occult theories, most of the school considered the attic to be haunted by a plain old-fashioned ghost, such as anybody might expect to find in an ancient mansion like the Grange. They waived the subject of modern costume, deciding that in the dim light such details could hardly have been adequately distinguished, and that the apparition must have been a cavalier or Jacobite maiden, whose heart-rending story was buried in the oblivion of years.
“Perhaps her lover was killed,” commented Fauvette, with a quiver of sympathy.
“Or her father was impeached by Parliament,” added Maudie.
“She may have had a cruel stepmother who ill-treated her,” sighed Muriel softly.
Raymonde alone offered no suggestions, and when asked for her opinion as to the explanation of the mystery, shook her head sagely, and said nothing. The immediate result of the experience was that Veronica went to Miss Beasley, and borrowedAn Antiquarian Survey of the County of Bedworthshire, including a description of its Castles and Moated Houses, together with a History of its Ancient Families—a ponderous volume dated 1823, which had before been offered for the girls’ inspection, but which nobody had hitherto summoned courage to attack. She studied it now with deep attention, and gave a digest of its information for the benefit of weaker minds, less able than her own, to grapple with the stilted language. The school preferred lighter literature for their own reading, but were content to listen to legends of the past233when told by Veronica, who had rather a gift for narrative, and could carry her audience with her. As the next afternoon was still hopelessly wet, the girls gathered in one of the schoolrooms with their sewing, and were regaled with a story while they worked.
“I found out all about the Grange,” began Veronica. “It belonged to a family named Ferrers, and they took the side of the King in the Civil War. While Sir Hugh was away fighting in the north, the house was besieged by Cromwell’s troops. The Lady of the Manor, Dame Joan Ferrers, had to look after the defence. She had not many men, nor a great deal of ammunition, and not nearly as much food as was necessary. She at once put all the household upon short rations, and drew up the drawbridge, barred the great gates, and prepared to hold out as long as she possibly could. She knew that the Cavalier forces might be marching in the direction of Marlowe at any time to relieve her, and that if she could keep the enemy at bay even for a few weeks the Grange might be saved. The utmost vigilance was used. Sentries were posted in the tower over the great gate, and the lady herself constantly patrolled the walls. With so small a garrison it was a difficult task, for the men had not adequate time to rest or sleep, and were soon nearly worn out. The scanty supply of food was almost at an end. Unless help should arrive within a few days, they would be obliged to capitulate. All the flour was gone, and the bacon and salted beef, and the cocks and hens and pigeons, and even the horses had been killed and eaten, though these had been kept till the very234last. The worst of the trouble was that there was treachery within the walls. Dame Joan was well aware of it, though she could not be absolutely sure which of her men were disaffected, for they all still pretended loyalty to their master and to the King. Nobody, she felt, was really to be trusted, though the walls were still manned, and the cannon blazed away with what ammunition was left. If the Grange were to be saved at all, it was imperative that a message asking for help should be conveyed to the Royalist forces. But how could it be taken? The Roundheads were encamped all round the walls, and would promptly shoot anyone who attempted to penetrate their lines. None of the garrison would be stout-hearted enough to venture.
“Sir Hugh’s eldest son was away fighting with his father, but there was a daughter at home, a girl of about thirteen, named Joyce. She came now to her mother, and begged to be allowed to take the message. It was a long time before Dame Joan would give her consent, for she knew the terrible danger to which Joyce would be exposed; but she had the lives of her younger children to think of as well, and in the end she gave her reluctant permission. Just when it was growing dusk, she took her little daughter to a secret doorway in the panelling, from which a subterranean passage led underneath the moat into the adjoining wood. This secret passage was known only to Sir Hugh and his wife and their eldest son, and it was now shown to Joyce for the first time. It was a horrible experience to go down it alone, but she was a brave lassie, and ready to risk her life for the sake of her mother, and her younger brothers and sisters. She235took a lantern to guide her, and set off with as cheerful a face as she could show. The air was stale and musty, and in some places she felt as if she could scarcely breathe. Her footsteps, light though they were, rang hollow. After what seemed to her a very long way, she found herself in a small cave, and could catch a gleam of twilight sky through the entrance. She at once extinguished the lantern, and advanced with extreme caution. She was in the wood at the farther side of the moat, a place where she had often played with her brothers, and had gathered primroses and violets in the springtime. She could recognize the group of tall elms, and knew that if she kept to the right she might creep through a hole in the hedge, and make her way across some fields into the high road. As quietly as some little dormouse or night animal she stole along.
“Not far off she could see the great camp fire, round which the troopers were preparing their supper. She hoped they would all be too busy with their cooking to notice her. As she passed behind some bushes she suddenly caught the gleam of a steel helmet within a few yards of her. She crouched down under the shelter of a clump of gorse. But in doing so she made a faint rustle.
“‘Halt! Who goes there?’ came the challenge.
“Joyce’s heart was beating so loudly that she thought it must surely be heard.
“The sentry listened a moment, then levelling his pistol, sent a shot through the gorse bush. It passed within a few inches of her head, but she had the presence of mind not to cry out or move. Evidently thinking he was mistaken, the sentry236paced farther on, and Joyce, seizing her golden opportunity, slipped through the hole in the hedge. Still using the cover of bushes, she made her way across three fields, and reached the road. It was quite dark now, but she knew her direction, and turned up a by-lane where she would be unlikely to meet troopers. All night she walked, guiding herself partly by the stars, for she knew that Charles’s Wain always pointed to the north. At dawn a very tired and worn-out little maiden presented herself at the gateway of Hepplethorpe Manor, demanding instant audience of Sir Roger Rivington. That worthy knight and loyal supporter of the Crown, on hearing her story, immediately sent horsemen with a letter to General Bright, of the King’s forces, who lay encamped only five miles off; and he, marching without delay for Marlowe Grange, surprised the Parliamentarians and completely routed them. The half-starved garrison opened the great gates to their deliverers with shouts of joy, and, we may be sure, welcomed the supplies of food that poured into the house later on. As for Joyce, she must have been the heroine of the family.”
“Is that all?” asked the girls, as Veronica paused and began to count the stitches in the sock she was knitting.
“All that’s in the book, and I’ve embroidered it a little. It was told in such a very dull fashion, so I put it in my own words. It’s quite true, though.”
“What became of Joyce afterwards?”
“She married Sir Reginald Loveday, and became the lady of Clopgate Towers. The tomb is in Byford Church.”237
“If she’d been shot by the trooper, I should have thought she was the ghost girl!” commented Ardiune. “I don’t quite see how we could fix that up, though. It doesn’t seem to fit. You’re quite sure she escaped?”
“Perfectly certain. How else could the Grange have been saved?”
Veronica’s argument settled the question, but the girls felt that the dramatic interest of the situation would have been better suited if the story had ended with the melancholy death of the heroine, and her subsequent haunting of the Manor.
“I always heard that Cromwell’s soldiers destroyed the walls and made those big holes in the gateway with their cannon-balls,” said Morvyth, still only half convinced.
“So they did, but that was two years afterwards, and the children were all sent safely away before the second siege.”
“It hasn’t solved the mystery of the ghost girl,” persisted Ardiune. “Ray, what do you think about it?”
Raymonde, lost in a brown study, started almost guiltily, and recommenced her sewing with feverish haste.
“Think? Why, it’s a pretty story, of course. What more can I think? Why d’you ask me?”
“Oh! I don’t know, except that you generally have ideas about everything. Who can the ghost girl be?”
But Raymonde, having lost her scissors, was biting her thread, and only shook her head in reply.