238CHAPTER XXThe Coon Concert
At the end of the summer term it had always been the custom of the school for each Form to get up a separate little entertainment, at which the other Forms should act audience. This year it was unanimously decided not only to keep up the old tradition, but to extend the original plan by charging for admission, and sending the proceeds to the Blinded Soldiers’ Fund. This idea appealed greatly to the girls.
“They’ve given their eyes for us, and we ought to do something for them!” declared Linda emphatically.
“It must be awful to be blind,” sighed Muriel.
“Yes, and some of them are such lads, too! Think of losing your sight, and having your whole career ruined, when you’re only nineteen or twenty, and the ghastly prospect of living years and years and years till you’re quite old, and never being able to see the sun again, and the flowers, and your friends’ faces, or anything that makes life beautiful! I don’t think half of us realize what our soldiers have suffered for us!”
“And they’re so patient and cheerful!” added Veronica. “In my opinion they prove their heroism239as much by the way they bear their ruined lives afterwards as by their deeds in the trenches. It has shown what stuff British folk are made of. And you get such surprises. Often a boy whom you’ve known, and always thought weak and selfish and silly, will turn out to have any amount of grit in him. There’s one in particular—a friend of ours. He cared for nothing before except amusing himself—the kind of boy who’s always getting into debt and doing foolish things. Well, he’s utterly changed; he’s not like the same fellow. I think the war will have made a great difference to many of our men.”
“And to our women too, I hope,” said Miss Beasley, who, unnoticed by Veronica, had joined the group. “It would be a poor thing for the country if only the men came purified out of this time of trouble. ‘A nation rises no higher than its women!’ And now is Woman’s great opportunity. I think she is taking it. She is showing by her work in hospitals, in canteens, on the land, in offices, or in public service, how she can put her shoulder to the wheel and help in her country’s hour of need. I believe this war will have broken down many foolish old traditions and customs, and that people will be ready afterwards to live more simple, natural lives than they did before. The school-girls of to-day are the women of to-morrow, and it is on you that the nation will rely in years to come. Don’t ever forget that! Try to prove it practically!”
Miss Beasley seldom “preached” to the girls, but when she spoke, her few quiet words generally had their effect. Hermie and Linda in especial240turned them over in their minds. As the result of their mistress’s last remark, they made a suggestion to their fellow-monitresses.
“Some of us are leaving this term, and at any rate in a few years we shall all have left, and be scattered about in various places. Wouldn’t it be nice to make a kind of League, and undertake that every girl who has belonged to this school will do her very best to help the world? It should be a ‘Marlowe Grange’ pledge, and we’d bind ourselves to keep it. If a whole school makes up its mind to a thing, it ought to have some effect, and it would be splendid to feel that our school had been an inspiration, and helped to build up a new and better nation after the war. There are only twenty-six of us here at present, but suppose when we leave we each influence ten people, that makes two hundred and sixty, and if they each influence ten people more, it makes two thousand six hundred, so the thing grows like circles in a pond. I don’t mean that we’re to be a set of prigs, and go about criticizing everybody and telling them they are slackers—that’s not the right way at all; but if we stick up constantly for all that we know is best, people will probably begin to sympathize, and want to do the same.”
Hermie’s and Linda’s idea appealed to the Sixth. They instituted the League at once, and persuaded the entire school to join. They put their heads together, and drew up a short code which they considered should explain the attitude of their society. It ran as follows:—241
God Save the King
In order to make the League a binding and lasting affair, the monitresses decided to give each242member a copy of the code, and ask her to sign her name to it. For this purpose they made twenty-six dainty little books of exercise paper, with covers of cardboard (begged from the drawing cupboard) decorated with Japanese stencils of iris, chrysanthemums, birds and reeds, or other artistic designs, the backs being tied with bows of baby ribbon. After the list of rules, were appended a few suitable quotations, and blank pages were left, so that each individual could fill them up with extracts that she liked, either cut out of magazines or written in her own hand. Most of the girls admired Robert Louis Stevenson, so the selections began with his wise and tender epitome of life:—
“To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation. Above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself. Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.”
As Linda and Hermie could not agree whether this ideal of life or the one by William Henry Channing was the more beautifully expressed, it was agreed to put the latter’s as well:—
“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,243grow up through the common—this is to be my symphony.”
As the League was to be nothing if not practical, everyone felt that the best way of upholding its principles at the present moment was to raise a good collection for the fund for the blinded soldiers. The Sixth determined to give a theatrical performance, the juniors a display of gymnastics and dancing, and the Fifth concentrated their minds upon a concert.
“It’s not to be just an ordinary concert,” said Ardiune, addressing a select committee of management; “it must be something extra special and outside, such as we’ve never had before in the school, so rub up your ideas, please, and make suggestions. I’m waiting!”
“Rather a big order to get anything entirely new!” grunted Morvyth. “I should say everything on the face of the earth’s been tried already!”
“But not here! How you catch me up!”
“There isn’t time to get up an operetta, I suppose?” ventured Fauvette.
“Hardly—in three days!”
“A patriotic performance?”
“Had one only last term, so it would come stale.”
“Then what can we have?”
“I know!” exclaimed Raymonde, bouncing up from her chair, and taking a seat upon the table instead. “I vote we be coons!”
“What’s coons?” asked Katherine ungrammatically.
“Oh, you stupid! You know! You sing244plantation songs, and wear a red-and-white costume, and wave tambourines, and that sort of thing.”
“Do we black our faces?”
“We can if we like, but it isn’t necessary. We’re not to be nigger minstrels exactly. Coons are different. Of course, the songs are all about Sambos and Dinahs, but white people can sing them with quite as great effect. I believe the Bumble’s got some castanets and things put away that we could borrow.”
“So she has! Bags me the cymbals!”
“Pity nobody can play the banjo.”
“Never mind, we shall do very well with the piano.”
The committee having decided that their concert was to be a coon performance, the girls set to work accordingly to make preparations. All the songbooks in the school were ransacked to find plantation melodies, and after much discussion, not to say quarrelling, a programme was at length arranged, sufficiently spicy to entertain the girl portion of the audience, but select enough not to offend the easily shocked susceptibilities of Miss Gibbs, whose ideas of songs suitable for young ladies ran—in direct opposition to most of her theories—on absolutely Early Victorian lines.
“Gibbie’s notion of a concert is ‘Home, Sweet Home’ and ‘Cherry Ripe’, and perhaps ‘Caller Herrin’ if you want something lively,” pouted Ardiune.
“Yes, and even those have to be edited,” agreed Morvyth. “Don’t you remember when we were learning ‘Cherry Ripe’, she insisted on our changing245‘Where my Julia’s lips do smile’ into ‘Where the sunbeams sweetly smile?’”
“And she wouldn’t let us sing ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland’, and we knew it was just because it began: ‘Oh where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone?’”
“Don’t you know it’s highly improper for a school-girl even to mention a laddie?” murmured Katherine ironically.
“How about the blinded soldiers, then?”
“That’s another matter, I suppose.”
“Look here—let’s take our programme to the Bumble, and get her to pass it beforehand, and then there can be no criticisms afterwards.”
“Right you are!”
“I’ve got another idea,” propounded Raymonde. “Suppose, instead of having our concert in the lecture hall, we ask the Bumble to let us have it in the barn instead? It would be just twice as coony.”
“Top-hole! It would be a regular stunt!” agreed the committee.
A deputation waited upon Miss Beasley, and found her quite gracious and amenable to reason, both in respect of the choice of plantation ditties and the use of the barn as a place of entertainment. She even vouchsafed the further and most valuable suggestion that they might supply refreshments and charge for them, to help to swell the funds.
“You can send an order to the Stores at Gladford to-morrow for cakes and biscuits. Cook shall make you some lemonade, and you may have the oil stove in the barn and supply cocoa at twopence a cup.”
“May we sell sweets, Miss Beasley?” asked Raymonde tentatively.246
“Well—yes. I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You may put down chocolates with your order for cakes and biscuits, if you like.”
The delegates made a cheerful exit from the study, and hurried to communicate their good tidings to the rest of the Form.
“O Jubilate! We’ll make a night of it!” commented Katherine. “The Bumble’s turned into an absolute honey-bee!”
Great were the preparations for the event. Costumes had to be contrived—a difficult matter with only the school theatrical box to draw upon—and ten coons to be turned out in uniform garb. The usual stock properties, such as the brigand’s velvet jacket, the Admiral’s cocked hat, or the hunting top-boots, were utterly useless, and the girls had to set their wits to work. They decided to wear their best white petticoats with white blouses, and to make hats out of stiff brown paper trimmed with rosettes of scarlet crinkled paper (obtainable at the village shop), using bands of the same scarlet for belts and ties.
“Of course we’d rather have had real rush-hats and ribbons, but if you can’t get them you can’t, and there’s an end of it, and you must just make up your mind to do without!” said Raymonde philosophically.
“If I sing too hard I know I’ll burst my waistband!” objected Morvyth, who always looked on the gloomy side of events.
“Then don’t sing too hard, and don’t take any refreshments, if you’ve such an easily expanding figure!” snapped Raymonde.
“We could stitch the crinkled paper over an247ordinary belt, and then it wouldn’t break through,” suggested Valentine.
“Scarlet’s not my colour!” mourned Fauvette.
“Never mind, Baby, you look nice in anything!” returned Aveline soothingly. “And your white petticoat’s a perfect dream! I always said it was a shame to wear it under a dress.”
The entertainment was to take place in the evening, after preparation, and on the afternoon of the day in question the Fifth Form took sole and absolute possession of the barn, turning everybody else out, even those indignant enthusiasts who were at work at the wood-carving bench.
“Mind, our tools haven’t got to be touched, or we’ll have something to say!” called out Daphne as she made an unwilling exit.
“I shall put them all in the box!” returned Morvyth, slamming the door.
The wood-carving bench had to serve as refreshment table, so it was cleared with scant ceremony, in spite of Daphne’s protest; a clean cloth, borrowed from the cook, was spread upon it, and plates of cakes and biscuits, and packets of chocolates, were laid out as attractively as possible, with vases of flowers between.
Raymonde, who was nothing if not inventive, suddenly evolved a new and enterprising scheme.
“We must have a platform!” she decided. “Come along to the wood pile, and we’ll get some packing-cases and put railway sleepers over them. It won’t take us long!”
It turned out a more strenuous business than she had anticipated, however, for it was difficult in the first place to find packing-cases of the248same height, and more difficult still to get the railway sleepers to fit neatly together on the top of them.
“I hope it’ll hold up!” said Aveline dubiously, when the erection was at last complete.
“Oh, it’ll just have to hold!” returned Raymonde in her airiest manner. “I think it’s nicer than a stiff platform, and more suitable for a barn. It looks really ‘coony’, and suggests the Wild West, and log-cabins, and all that sort of thing.”
Immediately after preparation, the coons retired to make final arrangements in the barn. The big stable lanterns were lighted and hung up for purposes of illumination, and a cauldron of water was set upon the oil cooking-stove. It was a horrible scramble, for time was short, and they still had to change their dresses. Everyone seemed in everybody else’s way, and each gave directions to the others, though nobody was in authority, and all got decidedly cross and snapped at one another.
“It’s not an atom of use sticking up that lantern unless you fill it first,” urged Valentine. “I tell you it’s almost empty, and won’t burn twenty minutes. You don’t want to perform in the dark, I suppose?”
“It ought to have been filled before!” grumbled Ardiune. “Here, give me the paraffin can.”
“Take care what you’re doing! You’re slopping into the cauldron!”
“I’m not!”
“But I saw you! We shall have to empty out the cauldron and wash it and refill it.”
“Nonsense!” interfered Raymonde. “There isn’t time. Val, is that lantern finished? Then249hang it up, and come along and dress. We shall have everybody arriving before we’re half ready.”
Almost every amateur concert begins late, and this was no exception to the rule. By the time the coons had scrambled into their costumes, and Fauvette had got her best lace-trimmed white petticoat fastened adequately on to her blouse with safety-pins, and Katherine had adjusted her tie to her satisfaction, and Muriel had induced her paper hat to tilt at the right angle on her head, the audience was clamouring for admission at the door of the barn, and making moral remarks on the subject of punctuality.
“We’re awfully sorry,” panted Raymonde in excuse, undoing the padlock which the coons had left fastened, and allowing the school to tramp into the place of entertainment. “Your shillings, please! Yes, we’re taking the money first thing, instead of handing round the plate in the interval. Where’s the Bumble?”
“Just coming now, with Gibbie and Ma’m’selle.”
The barn with its dark rafters, stable lanterns, and improvised benches, certainly looked a most appropriate setting for a plantation programme, and Miss Beasley glanced round with amused interest on her arrival. She and the other mistresses were escorted to special posts of honour, and the performance began without further delay. Everybody admired the costumes; the red-and-white effect was quite charming, especially when worn by all ten alike, and the paper hats with their big rosettes gave a coquettish appearance that added to the piquancy of the songs. There could, of course, be no piano accompaniment, but the girls250made up for it by a liberal clashing of cymbals, rattling of castanets, and jingling of tambourines. They were as “cute” and “coony” as they knew how to be, putting a great deal of action into the songs, and adding a few comic asides. At Raymonde’s suggestion, they had decided during the performance of “The Darkies’ Frolic” to dance a lively kind of combined fox-trot and cake-walk measure to illustrate the words. They had practised it carefully beforehand, and considered it thepièce de résistanceof the evening. But alas! they had not calculated on the difference between the firm floor of the barn and the extremely shaky erection on which they were perched. They were only half-way through, and were capering in most approved darky fashion, when the middle packing-case which supported the planks suddenly gave way, and the platform collapsed. Some of the girls sprang off in time, but several went down among the ruins, and were rescued by the agitated mistresses, fortunately without real injuries, though there were scratches and bruises, and at least half a yard of lace was torn from Fauvette’s best petticoat.
As “The Darkies’ Frolic” was the last item but one in the first half of the programme, and the performers were naturally ruffled by their unexpected accident, Miss Beasley suggested that they had better have the interval at once, and soothe their feelings with cakes and cocoa before resuming the entertainment. The little spread on the wood-carving bench looked attractive; the Stores had sent a tempting selection of cakes, and the audience was quite ready for refreshment. Ardiune, presiding251at the cauldron, mixed cups of cocoa as speedily as possible, and handed them out in exchange for twopences. At the first sip, however, an expression of acute disgust spread itself over the countenance of each consumer.
“Whew!” choked Hermie. “What’s the matter with the stuff? It’s simply atrocious!”
“It tastes of paraffin!” proclaimed Veronica, pulling a wry face.
“There! I told you so!” whispered Valentine to Ardiune. “You have just gone and done it this time!”
There was no doubt about the matter. The contents of the cauldron were quite undrinkable, and the girls had to fall back on the small quantity of lemonade which the cook had provided. It was a most mortifying experience, especially happening just after the failure of the platform. The Sixth were looking amused and superior, the juniors were grumbling, and Miss Beasley was saying “Never mind, so long as we help the blinded soldiers;” which was kind, but not altogether comforting. The audience made up for the lack of cocoa by their consumption of confectionery, and went on buying till not a solitary cake or packet of chocolate was left upon the bench.
The second half of the programme had to be performed upon the floor, but went off nevertheless in quite good style and with much flourish of instruments. Fauvette, with her torn lace hurriedly pinned up, piped a pretty little solo about “piccaninnies” and “ole mammies”; Aveline and Katherine gave a spirited duet, and the troupe in general roared choruses with great vigour. Everybody252decided that the evening—barring the cocoa—had been a great success. The proceeds, in particular, were highly satisfactory.
“One pound ten shillings!” announced Raymonde. “Just count it over, somebody, please, to make sure I’m right! I don’t call that half bad for a Form concert. If the others do as well, we shall have quite a nice sum. Shall I give it to the Bumble now?”
“She’s gone upstairs. Besides, I believe it’s Gibbie who’s going to send off the money. You’d better keep it till the others have had their entertainments, and it can all be handed in together.”
“Right-o! I’ll take it and lock it up in my drawer. I say, it was awful fun being coons, wasn’t it?”
“Top-hole!” agreed the others.
253CHAPTER XXIThe Blinded Soldiers’ Fund
The examinations were drawing most horribly and imminently near, and the Fifth Form, feeling themselves for the most part ill prepared for the ordeal, were shivering in anticipation. Armed with textbooks, they made desperate efforts to pull up arrears, and stock their brains with an assortment of necessary facts. Ardiune crammed dates at every available moment, Morvyth studied the map of Europe, Valentine devoted herself to Virgil, and Magsie wept over French verbs, while the rest tried to fill up any educational gaps and holes where they knew they were lacking. The image of the Rev. T. W. Beasley, M.A. loomed large on the horizon, and his advent was hardly regarded with pleasure.
“I know I’ll be scared to death!” moaned Aveline. “If there are any viva voces I shall break down altogether. I know I shall! Directly he looks at me and asks a question, every single idea will go bang out of my head!”
“It doesn’t matter how well you know things if you’re nervous!” agreed Katherine.
“I hate the written exams!” groaned Raymonde. “They’re so long, and one gets so inky, and one’s254hand grows so stiff. I never can express myself well on paper. Gibbie says I’ve no gift for composition.”
“There aren’t any J pens left in the cupboard,” volunteered Maudie. “And Ma’m’selle says it’s not worth while sending for more just at the end of the term, and we must use Waverleys for the exam. There’s a whole boxful of those.”
“Oh, what a shame! I can’t write with a Waverley!” protested Raymonde in much indignation. “It’ll spoil my whole exam. I call that tyranny! Look here! I’m not going to be done! I shall send for a fountain pen with a broad nib. I saw one advertised in a magazine.”
“The Bumble won’t let you.”
“I shan’t ask her!”
“Then how’ll you get it?”
“Oh, trust me! I’ll manage it somehow. I’m not generally easily circumvented when I set my mind upon anything. I’ve a plan already.”
“Have you? What is it?”
“Ah, that would be telling!” laughed Raymonde. “Perhaps my pen will come floating in through the window!”
“You mad creature! I don’t believe you’ll really get it!”
“Wait and see!”
The Fifth Form possessed a little upstairs room at the Grange which they called their sanctum. It held a piano, and was mainly used for practising, but the girls sometimes studied there out of preparation hours. Its principal article of furniture was a large, old-fashioned bureau, which Miss Beasley had bought among other things when she255took over the house. She had given every girl in the Form one of its drawers, together with a key, so that each could have a place in which to keep any special treasures locked up.
As Raymonde sat in the sanctum that afternoon alone, trying to apply her mind to memorizing certain axioms of Euclid, Veronica came bustling in.
“You here, Ray? Miss Beasley wants some change to pay the laundry. You’ve got the money you collected at your coon concert last night; can you let her have thirty shillings in silver, and she’ll give you notes instead?”
“Certainly,” replied Raymonde, rising at once and unlocking her drawer in the bureau. “Here you are—four half-crowns make ten shillings, eight shillings is eighteen, and twenty-four sixpences make thirty shillings altogether. I’d just as soon have notes.”
“Right-o!” said Veronica. “I’ll bring them up to you later on, or send somebody with them. I hope our entertainment will do as well as yours. By the by, a queer thing happened just this minute. I saw the ghost girl again!”
“Where?” asked Raymonde excitedly.
“Peeping round the corner of the winding staircase; but she vanished instantly. I went up a few steps, but couldn’t see her. The wire door was open, and I very nearly ran up to the attic to investigate, but I knew Miss Beasley was waiting for the change. I must rush and give it to her now, or there’ll be squalls. Ta-ta!”
Raymonde did not either lock up her drawer or resume her Euclid. She stood for a moment or two256pondering. Then a mischievous light broke over her face, and she clapped her hands.
“Splendiferous! I’ll do it!” she said aloud; and, whisking out of the room, she ran up the winding staircase, and through the open wire door into the forbidden but fascinating territory of the attics.
The girls at the Grange were obliged to keep strictly to their practising time-table, and Raymonde was due at the piano in the sanctum from 5.30 until 6.15. At 5.40, which was fully ten minutes late, the strains of her Beethoven Sonata began to resound down the passage. Mademoiselle, passing from her bedroom, stood for a moment to listen. She was impressed by the fact that Raymonde was playing much better than usual, and performing in quite a stylish fashion the passage which usually baffled her. She almost opened the door to congratulate her pupil, but being in a hurry changed her mind, and ran downstairs instead. A little later Veronica, also in much haste, entered the room arm-in-arm with Hermie.
“Miss Beasley has sent the notes, Ray,” she explained. “You needn’t stop. I’ll just pop them inside your drawer, and you can put them away properly when you’ve finished practising.”
The figure at the piano did not turn her head, or attempt to reply, but went on diligently with the scherzo movement of the Sonata, bringing out her chords crisply, and executing some quite brilliant runs.
“Raymonde’s improving enormously in her music,” commented Hermie, as the two monitresses went back along the passage.
“Yes,” agreed Veronica. “And how remarkably257pretty she looked to-night! Her hair was quite curly, and she had such a lovely colour. Did you notice?”
“That room’s so dark, I can’t say I did, particularly. Ray’s not bad looking, though I don’t call her exactly a beauty!”
“She looked a beauty this evening! Fauvette will have to mind her laurels! She’s always been the belle of the Form until now.”
When Maudie Heywood, in accordance with the practising time-table, came at 6.15 to claim the piano, she found the sanctum unoccupied. Raymonde’s drawer in the bureau was shut and locked. This fact Maudie noticed almost automatically. At the moment it seemed a matter of no consequence, though in the light of after events it was to assume a greater importance than she could have imagined.
Raymonde turned up late for preparation, looking hot and conscious, and with her brown serge dress only half fastened. She gave no excuse for her lack of punctuality, and took her loss of order mark with stoicism.
“What were you doing?” whispered Aveline, when the evening work was over and the books were being put away.
Raymonde’s head was inside her desk. She drew it out, and seemed on the point of uttering a confidence. Then, suddenly changing her mind, she stooped again to arrange her papers.
“Little girls shouldn’t ask questions!” she grunted.
“Oh, very well!” flared Aveline, who was very easily offended. “I’m sure you needn’t tell me258anything if you don’t want to, thanks! I shan’t force your silly secrets from you!”
“You certainly won’t!” snapped Raymonde, as Aveline flounced away.
There was no time for further bickering. The juniors were giving their gymnastic and dancing display in the lecture hall, and Miss Beasley had announced that she wished the entertainment to begin promptly.
“That’s a shot at us!” sniggered Ardiune. “I know the Coons started late, but we really couldn’t help it. It took me ages to help Fauvette into her costume, not to speak of getting into my own as well. The Fourth are only performing in their gym. dresses, so it’s easy enough for them to be punctual. I’ll stump up my shilling cheerfully for the sake of the blind Tommies, but I don’t expect much of a show for my money’s worth.”
“No more do I,” agreed Katherine. “I’m fed up with Swedish drill. I confess my interest centres in the refreshments.”
After all, the Fifth were agreeably surprised at the achievements of the performers. The juniors had been practising in private under the instruction of Miss Ward, the visiting athletics mistress, and had quite a novel little programme to present to their schoolfellows. They exhibited some remarkably neat skipping drill, and also some charming Russian and Polish peasant dances, and a variety of military exercises that would almost have justified their existence as a Ladies’ Volunteer Corps. It was a patriotic evening, with much waving of flags and allusions to King and Country. Even the refreshments were in keeping, for the table259was decorated with red, white and blue streamers, and there were on sale little packets of chocolates wrapped up in representations of the Union Jack. The cocoa on this occasion was immaculate, and everything was served with the utmost daintiness.
“Quite a decent business for the kids!” commented Ardiune, “but not half the fun of our coon performance!”
“It was ripping in the barn!” agreed Morvyth.
There remained one more entertainment in aid of the Blinded Soldiers’ Fund, that of the Sixth Form, which was expected by everybody to be the best. Miss Beasley had thrown it open to outsiders, and some of the ladies who attended the geology lectures had promised to come and bring friends. In view of this augmented audience the performers made extra-special efforts. They held frequent rehearsals with closed doors, and took elaborate pains to prevent impertinent juniors from obtaining the least information as to their plans. The wildest notions circulated round the school. It was rumoured that a musical comedy was to be presented, the male parts being taken by professional actors specially engaged from London for the occasion; then that, failing the professionals, Miss Beasley and Miss Gibbs had consented to play the two heroes, and might be expected to appear in tights, with flowered waistcoats and cocked hats. In the imagination of the gossipmongers Professor Marshall, as a Greek tragedian, and Mr. Browne, garbed as a highwayman, were to be added to the list of artists. It was even whispered that the Reverend T. W. Beasley, M.A., who was booked to arrive on Monday, had260consented to come earlier, for the purpose of joining in the festivities, and would appear in the character of a humorist, and give some wonderful exhibitions of lightning changes of costume and ventriloquism. The uncertainty as to what might be expected certainly enhanced the pleasure of anticipation. Not a girl would have missed this performance for worlds.
The Sixth kept their secret well. Not a word leaked out as to the true nature of the programme. Meta, indeed, went about with rather mincing steps, while Veronica seemed to affect a truculent attitude; but whether this was the result of learning parts, or was put on with deliberate intention to deceive, the wide-awake members of the Fifth could not determine.
The entertainment was to be held on Saturday, when, as there was no preparation, the whole evening could be devoted to amusement. It was announced to begin at 6 p.m., with box office open at 5.45. The school turned up with prompt punctuality, and would have scrambled for the door, if Barbara, seated at the receipt of custom, had not insisted upon their forming an orderly and orthodox queue. She took their shillings in a business-like manner.
“Programmes—hand painted—sixpence each. Please buy one for the good of the cause!” she added.
The programmes, produced in Linda’s and Hermie’s best style, were attractive. Each had a different picture upon its cover, and all were tied up with white satin ribbon. The girls opened them eagerly, and read:261
“So the Bumble and Gibbie aren’t in it, after all!” whispered Aveline. “I never thought they would be, nor the Professor, nor Mr. Browne either, and certainly not Mr. Beasley! It promises to be decent.”
“Hope they’ll begin promptly!” murmured Morvyth. “I say, Barbara, isn’t it time you began to dress?”
“I don’t come on till the second scene,” explained Barbara, “so I can change while they’re acting the first. That’s why they put me as doorkeeper. Go back to your seats. Visitors are arriving.”
The two front rows had been reserved for outsiders, and presently began to be filled by those who had bought tickets. Miss Beasley and Miss Gibbs took their places, Mademoiselle played an introductory fantasia upon the piano, and the curtains were drawn aside.
There was no doubt about the play being amusing; from first to last the audience was convulsed. The262actresses threw themselves admirably into their parts, and rendered their characters with the utmost spirit. Veronica, well padded with pillows, made a stout and presentable Sir Anthony Absolute, and played the autocratic parent to the life. Hermie, with blue cloak, sword, and military stride, endeavoured to live up to her conception of an eighteenth-century buck, and made love with a fervour that was all the more enhanced by the sight of Miss Gibbs in the front row, sitting with pursed-up lips and straightened back. Meta, as Lydia Languish, sighed, wept, made eyes, and indulged in a perfect orgy of sentiment, while Lois acted the cheeky maidservant with enthusiasm. The best of all, however, was Mrs. Malaprop; Linda had seen the play on the real stage, and reproduced a famous actress to the utmost of her ability. Her absurd manners and amusing mistakes sent the room into a roar, and she occasionally had to wait for quiet until she could continue her speeches.
Everybody voted the evening a huge success. The visitors heartily congratulated Miss Beasley upon the cleverness of her elder pupils, and hoped they would sometimes give another open performance. The girls clapped till their hands were sore. Even Miss Gibbs, though she considered that the love-making had exceeded the limit allowable in school theatricals, expressed guarded approval.
“We’ve cleared two pounds three and sixpence!” announced Barbara gleefully to the Fifth.
“Good!” exclaimed Valentine. “And we made one pound ten, and the kids one pound seven. What does it tot up to?”263
“Five pounds and sixpence,” calculated Barbara after a moment’s scribbling on the back of a programme.
“Well, I call it a very decent result for a school of only twenty-six girls!”
264CHAPTER XXIIAn Accusation
On the following Monday afternoon the Reverend T. W. Beasley arrived in readiness to begin, on Tuesday morning, his task of examining the school. There was great fluttering in the dove-cot, and much anxiety on the part of the girls to catch the first glimpse of him. They had decided that, as the brother of their good-looking Principal, he would be tall, fair, and clean-shaven, with classical features, gentle blue eyes, and a soft, persuasive manner—the ideal clergyman, in fact, of the storybook, who lives in a picturesque country rectory and cultivates roses. To their disappointment he was nothing of the sort, but turned out to be a short, broad-set little man, with a grey beard and moustache, and keen dark eyes under bushy eyebrows, and a prominent nose that was the very reverse of romantic. He cleared his throat frequently in a nervous fashion, and when he spoke he snapped out his remarks abruptly, in a very deep voice that seemed to rise almost out of his boots.
“He isn’t half as nice as Professor Marshall!” decided the Fifth unanimously.
“Looks as if he had a temper!” ventured Fauvette.265
“Oh! it’s cruelty to give us viva voces! I’ll never dare to answer a question!” wailed Aveline.
“I’m afraid he’ll be strict,” admitted Katherine.
“Perhaps he’s nervous too, and scared of us!” suggested Morvyth.
“Don’t you believe it!” laughed Raymonde scornfully. “I flatter myself I’m pretty good at reading faces, and I can see at a glance he’s a martinet. That frown gives him away, and the kind of glare he has in his eyes. I’m a believer in first impressions, and I knew in a second I wasn’t going to like him.”
Aveline sighed dramatically.
“It’s rough on a poor young girl in her early teens to be put through an ordeal by a stern and elderly individual who’ll have absolutely no consideration for her feelings.”
“Feelings! You’ll have your head snapped off!” prophesied Raymonde.
“Why couldn’t the Bumble have examined us herself, or at any rate let the Professor do it?”
“Ask me a harder, child!”
“Well, I think it’s very unnecessary to have this Mr. Beasley. Bumble Bee, indeed! He’s a regular hornet!”
Whatever the private opinion of the Fifth might be on the subject of their examiner, they were obliged to hide their injured feelings under a cloak of absolute propriety. The reverend visitor was a solid fact, and all the grumbling in the world could not remove the incubus of his presence. At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning he would begin his inquisition, and the girls judged that there would be scant mercy for any sinner who failed to reach266the required standard. A terrible atmosphere of gloomy convention pervaded the school. Miss Beasley was anxious for her pupils to appear at their very best before her scholarly brother, whose ideal of maidenly propriety was almost mediæval, and she kept a keen eye on their behaviour. Nobody dared to speak at meal-times, except a whispered request for such necessary articles as salt and butter; laughter was out of the question, and even a smile was felt to be inappropriate. The girls sat subdued and demure, outwardly the pink of propriety, but inwardly smouldering, and listened obediently while the visitor, mindful of his educational position in the establishment, held forth upon subjects calculated to improve their minds.
“I don’t believe Gibbie likes him either!” opined Katherine, after Monday night’s supper.
“Of course not! He beats her on her own ground. As for the Bumble, she’s quite distraught. She keeps glancing at us as if she expected somebody all the time to spill her tea, or break a plate, or pull a face, or do something dreadful. We’re not usually an ill-behaved set!”
“He’s getting on my nerves!” complained Aveline.
“The place is more like a reformatory than a school!” growled Morvyth.
When the post-bag arrived on Tuesday morning, it contained, among other letters and parcels, a small narrow packet directed to Miss R. Armitage. Miss Gibbs, whose business it was to overlook her pupils’ correspondence, was in a particular hurry, as it happened, and inclined for once to scamp her duties.267
“What’s this, Raymonde?” she asked perfunctorily. “A fountain pen, did you say? For the exams. I suppose your mother has sent it. There are two letters for Aveline and one for Morvyth. You may take them to them, and tell Daphne I want to speak to her.”
Raymonde did not stop for further interrogation. She beat as speedy a retreat as possible, delivered the message and the letters, and finished unpacking her parcel. Her Form mates, more inquisitive than Miss Gibbs, gathered round her and began to catechize.
“What have you got there?”
“Did it come by the post?”
“Why, it’s a fountain pen, isn’t it?”
“Who sent it to you?”
“Did you buy it, then?”
“It looks a jolly nice one!”
“Is it full, or empty?”
“Don’t talk all at once, children!” commanded Raymonde loftily. “I’ll answer your questions in proper order, so just behave yourselves!
“1. It is a fountain pen, as anybody with half an eye could see!
“2. It came by the post.
“3. Nobody sent it to me.
“4. I bought it.
“5. It is a jolly nice one.
“6. I have reason to believe it is empty. I’m going to fill it out of Fauvette’s bottle.”
“Cheek!” returned Fauvette, allowing her friend to help herself to the Swan ink, however. “What puzzles me, is how you managed to buy it.”
“Your little head, Baby, is easily puzzled,”268smiled Raymonde serenely. “It’s meant to wear fluffy curls, and not to engage itself in abstruse problems. I don’t advise you to worry yourself over this, unless you can turn it to some account. If the Hornet should ask you for an original example, you might begin: ‘Let A represent a fountain pen, and B my schoolmate, C standing for an unknown quantity––’”
Fauvette, at this point, placed her hand over her chum’s mouth.
“Stop it!” she begged beseechingly. “If I get any of those wretched A B and C questions I’ll collapse, and disgrace the Form. I’ve many weak points, but mathematics are absolutely my weakest of all. If you frighten me any more, I shan’t have the courage to walk into the exam. room. Do I look presentable? Are my hands clean? And is my hair decent?”
“You look so much more than presentable that anybody but a hardened brute of an examiner would be bowled over by you utterly and entirely.”
“I’m sure he hasn’t any feelings, so it’s no use trying to work upon them,” said Fauvette plaintively.
“Joking apart, Ray, where did you get that fountain pen?” asked Morvyth.
Raymonde’s eyes twinkled.
“Little flower, could I tell you that,I’d tell you my heart’s secret with it!”
she misquoted.
“But do tell me! I think you might!”
“The more you tease, the less you’ll find out!”
The school bell put an end to the conversation,269and the girls, with straightened faces, marched to their places in the big lecture hall. The Reverend T. W. Beasley had taken full command of the examinations, and had introduced several innovations. On former occasions each Form had sat and written in its own room, but now desks had been placed for the whole school together, and were so arranged that the Forms sat alternately, a junior being sandwiched between each senior. The girls were hugely insulted. “He suspects we’ll copy each other’s papers!” thought Raymonde, and flashed her indignation along to Aveline. She did not speak, but her expressive glance drew forth a reproof from the examiner. He cleared his throat.
“Any girl communicating either by speech or otherwise will be dismissed from the room!” he announced freezingly.
After that, the girls scarcely dared to look up from their papers. They studied their questions and wrote away, some fast and furiously, and others with the desponding leisure of those having very little to put down. Mr. Beasley sat upon the platform, toying with his watch-chain, and keeping his eye upon the movements of the candidates. Fauvette, finishing long before the others, ventured to raise her eyes as high as his boots, and let them rest there, marvelling at the size and thickness of the footgear, and congratulating herself that she could wear number three.
The morning wore itself slowly away. When the school compared notes at 12.30, the girls agreed that they had never in their lives before been given such an atrocious and detestable set of examination papers. The Sixth had fared as badly as the Fifth270or the juniors, and even monitresses were loud in their complaints. Certain viva voces taken in the afternoon confirmed their ill opinion of their examiner.
“He glares at one till one’s frightened out of one’s wits!”
“And he hurries so—one hasn’t time to answer!”
“And he takes things in quite a different way from what Gibbie does.”
“He’s no need to be sarcastic!”
“Sarcastic, did you say? I call him downright rude!”
“He evidently doesn’t think much of our intellects!”
“Well, we don’t think much of him, anyway!”
“I believe he uses pomatum on his hair,” confided Fauvette in a shocked whisper.
“My dear, I believe it’s bear’s grease!” corrected Morvyth scornfully.
“This is the most painful week I’ve ever had to go through in all my life,” bleated Aveline. “Even if I live through it—and that’s doubtful—I shall be a nervous wreck. They’ll have to send me for a rest cure during the holidays. I’m not accustomed to be cross-questioned as if I were a criminal in the dock!”
“It’s a witness, child, you mean,” amended Raymonde. “Criminals don’t generally give evidence against themselves. But we understand you, all the same! For two pins I’d sham utter ignorance, and give him some very surprising answers. Yes, I would, if Gibbie or the Bumble didn’t stick in the room the whole time! That’s the worst of it. They’d know in a second that I was only having him on.”271
As the week progressed, the school considered itself more and more ill-used. The fact was that the Reverend T. W. Beasley was accustomed to university students, and could not focus his mind to the intellectual range of girls of thirteen to seventeen. Moreover, he was by nature a reformer. He liked to give others the benefit of his advice, and he had much to say in private to his sister upon the subject of her pupils’ lessons and general management. Perhaps poor Miss Beasley had not expected quite so much criticism. She was accustomed, nevertheless, to defer to her brother’s opinions, and she listened with due humility, though with much inward perturbation, while he laid down the law upon the education of women. Miss Gibbs, who was a born fighter, was inclined to argue—a disastrous policy, which so nearly ended in what are generally termed “words,” that her Principal was obliged to ask her (privately) to allow the visitor to state his views uninterrupted.
The school was so taken up with the stern business on hand, that such delights as coon concerts and theatricals were quite in the background. On Thursday afternoon, however, Veronica sought out Raymonde.
“I want your money for the Blinded Soldiers’ Fund,” she said. “I’ve given in ours, and so have the juniors. Miss Beasley says when she has it all she’ll write a cheque for the amount, and send it to the secretary.”
“But Miss Beasley has our money already,” objected Raymonde. “Don’t you remember? She said she wanted some change, and you came and asked me for it.”272
“So I did, and brought you back notes instead.”
Raymonde shook her head.
“You certainly didn’t.”
“What nonsense, Ray! You know I brought them,” protested Veronica indignantly. “You were practising, and I said: ‘Don’t stop, I’ll put them inside your drawer.’ Hermie was with me at the time.”
A conscious look spread over Raymonde’s face. She blushed hotly.
“Was it last Friday?” she asked quickly.
“Of course it was Friday. The notes must be in your drawer. Have you the key? Then come along, and we’ll go and find them.”
Raymonde unwillingly followed Veronica upstairs. Her manner was embarrassed in the extreme. She unlocked her drawer in the bureau, and turned out the possessions she had there, but no notes were among them.
“What’s become of them?” demanded Veronica sharply.
“I—I really don’t know!” faltered Raymonde.
“Then you must find out. As treasurer for your Form, you are responsible.”
“You’re sure you put them in my drawer, and not in anybody else’s?”
“Certain. It was the bottom one on the right-hand side, and it was open just as you left it when you gave me the silver. I couldn’t be mistaken.”
Raymonde flung herself down on a chair, and buried her face in her hands.
“I want to think,” she murmured.
Veronica gazed at her with growing suspicion.273
“I’m sorry, but it’s my duty to report this to Miss Beasley,” she remarked freezingly.
“Oh, no, please!” pleaded Raymonde, starting up in great agitation. “Can’t you give me just a few days, and then—well perhaps it will be all right. Leave it over till Saturday.”
“It will be all wrong!” said the monitress sternly. “I can’t understand you, Raymonde, for either you have the money or you haven’t. If you have, you must hand it over; and if you haven’t, we’ve got to find out where it’s gone. That’s flat! So come along with me at once to the study.”
The Principal, on being told the facts of the case, was astonished and distressed.
“There may possibly be some misunderstanding,” she urged. “Before anybody is accused we will make sure that the notes were not placed in a wrong drawer. Tell every member of the Fifth to come at once to the practising-room, and bring her keys. You will go upstairs with me, Raymonde.”
Veronica’s message spread consternation through the Form. The girls trooped to the sanctum with scared faces. They found Miss Beasley there, looking very grave, and Raymonde, her eyes downcast and her mouth set in its most obstinate mould, standing by the bureau.
“I wish you each to unlock your drawer in my presence,” said the Principal. “The money collected at your concert is missing, and perhaps it may have been misplaced.”
In dead silence the girls complied, every one in turn showing her possessions. There were certainly no notes among them. Miss Beasley turned to Veronica.274
“What time was it when you took up the money?”
“About five minutes to six, Miss Beasley. It was just before I went into preparation. Hermie was with me.”
“Did you leave the drawer open or shut?”
“I shut it, but did not lock it. Raymonde’s keys were dangling in it. I thought she would lock it for herself when she had finished practising.”
“Who came into the room next? Maudie Heywood? Then, Maudie, did you notice the keys hanging in the drawer when you arrived at 6.15?”
“No, Miss Beasley, they were certainly not there.”
“Thank you, girls, you may go now. Veronica, tell Hermie to go to my study and wait for me. Raymonde, you will stay here. I wish to speak to you alone.”
The Principal waited until the door had closed on her other pupils, then turned to the white-faced little figure near the bureau.
“Raymonde, this is a sad business,” she said solemnly. “You had better confess at once that you have taken this money.”