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Title: The Youngest Girl in the School
Author: Evelyn Sharp
Release Date: June 27, 2010 [eBook #32992]
Language: English
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THE YOUNGEST GIRL IN THE SCHOOL
by
EVELYN SHARP
Author of 'The Making of a Schoolgirl,' 'Wymps,' Etc.
With Illustrations by C. E. Brock
New York
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1906
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1901,
By the Macmillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped September, 1901. Reprinted January, 1902.
New edition September, 1906.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
TO
THE PROFESSOR
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
'May I--may I have all that?' 27
'Look here, Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop
of tangled hair 45
'What in the name of wonder are you children
doing down there?' 99
Five heads suddenly appeared at the open window 108
'Dear me!' he said, slightly taken aback 175
'Hullo!' said Jean. 'What's the matter?' 184
'Tell me, Herr Doktor' 261
'So he got Jill' 310
CHAPTER I
IN A LONDON SCHOOLROOM
'It's no good,' sighed Barbara, looking disconsolately round the room;
'we shall never get straight in time. Don't you think we had better
leave it, and let Auntie Anna see us as we really are? She will only be
disappointed afterwards, if we begin by being tidy; and I don't like
disappointing people, do you?'
There was a shout of laughter when she finished speaking, and Barbara
frowned. She never knew why the boys laughed at her when she tried to
explain her reasons for doing things, but they always did.
'Is that why you have put on your very shortest frock?' asked Wilfred, who
was brewing something in a saucepan over the fire. 'I believe you think
that if Auntie Anna saw you for the first time in your Sunday frock, she
might suppose you were a nice, proper little girl, instead of----'
Barbara seized the sofa cushion and aimed it at him threateningly.
'Instead of what?' she demanded.
Wilfred was at a disadvantage, owing to his position as well as to the
precious quality of the liquid in the saucepan; and he felt it wiser to
make terms. 'Well,' he observed, 'you might at least have put on a longer
frock for the credit of the family; now, mightn't you?'
Barbara looked down at her blue serge skirt, edged with certain rows of
white braid that only made it look shorter; and she gave it a pull to make
it fall a little lower over the slim black legs that appeared beneath
it. 'It's not my fault that I have just come from a gymnastic class,'
she protested. 'Besides, my Sunday frock is only two inches longer! What
difference does two inches make, even if we _have_ got an aunt coming?
You're so particular, Wilfred.'
'Stick to your chemicals, Will, and leave the Babe alone,' growled Egbert,
who was trying to read a novel on the sofa and found the conversation
disturbing.
It was not often that the eldest of the family troubled himself about the
disputes of the others, and Barbara was encouraged to go on. 'Besides,'
she added, 'there isn't time to change now. Auntie Anna will arrive
directly; and who is going to tidy up the schoolroom if I don't?'
Certainly, no one responded to her appeal. Egbert and Wilfred became
suddenly and suspiciously interested in what they were doing, while the
two other boys, who were seated on the edge of the table, continued to
swing their legs lazily backwards and forwards without making an effort to
help her. Barbara turned upon them reproachfully.
'It is perfectly horrible of you to sit there laughing, when a strange
aunt and a strange daughter may be here at any minute!' she declared. 'I
think _you_ might do something, Peter.'
'Not much!' laughed Peter, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow of fifteen or
so. 'It's good for little girls to do things, and keeps them from growing
out of all their clothes.'
'Chuck it, Babs!' advised the younger of the two. 'What does it matter
whether she thinks we live in a pig-sty or not?'
Barbara looked at them doubtfully, then picked up a pile of ragged music
and staggered across to the cupboard, shot the music into it, and closed
the door just in time to prevent her load from recoiling upon her. A
derisive chuckle from the boys on the table greeted her first attempt at
tidying up; but she went on resolutely.
'Visitors have no business to come and see people at a day's notice
like this,' she complained, as she swept a handful of rusty nails, empty
gum bottles, and other evidences of past occupations into a crowded
waste-paper basket.
Christopher stopped laughing as she said this, and a change crept over
his pale, rather delicate features. 'When the visitor is an _aunt_,' he
said with energy, 'a day's notice is more than enough.'
He associated the aunt in question with certain reforms that had taken
place from time to time in the household; and he had never forgiven her
for inducing their father, just two years ago, to dismiss the nurse they
had all adored and to send Robin and himself to a hated day-school. There
was no knowing what innovations they might not be forced to accept, now
that she was going to descend upon them in person.
Peter chuckled again. Most things to Peter were an occasion for a chuckle.
'That depends on the spirit in which she comes,' he remarked, and he
turned his pockets graphically inside out. 'An aunt who has a big place
in the country, and can afford to travel about in beastly holes like
Munich and the Italian lakes----'
'And can pick up other people's daughters and adopt them,' chimed in
Christopher, 'just because their fathers died fighting in the Soudan
and their mothers died--how did their mothers die, Egbert?'
'Penniless,' grunted Egbert, in response to the kick his book had just
received. 'That's why the kid got adopted, of course.'
'Well,' proceeded Peter, putting his pockets back and nodding wisely, 'if
an aunt like that doesn't behave decently to her deserving nephews----'
'And niece,' added Babs from the back of the sofa, where she had just
deposited a bundle of old schoolbooks.
Peter went on unabashed. 'To her deserving nephews and undeserving niece,'
he said, smiling, 'then she'll be an awful old dragon!'
'There's something in that,' observed Wilfred, taking the saucepan over to
the window for inspection. 'Perhaps she'll give me those new retorts and
things I want for my laboratory--if I ever get a laboratory,' he added
with a sigh.
'Perhaps she'll send me straight to college without expecting me to grind
for a musty old scholarship,' said Egbert, condescending to take a share
in the conversation.
'If she asks me down to Crofts for the shooting, that will be good enough
for me,' observed Peter, drawing a long breath of anticipation.
Barbara came slowly into the middle of the room and stood there, quite
unconscious of her rumpled hair and of the streak of dust that was
smeared across her face. 'I wonder what Auntie Anna will do for me?' she
murmured, more to herself than to the others. 'I hope, I do hope it
will be something new and interesting and beautiful!'
Christopher overheard her, and roused himself. He slipped off the
table and walked to his favourite position on the hearthrug, giving an
unnecessary pull to the child's hair as he passed her, which was an
attention, however, that she showed no signs of resenting. Babs never
resented anything that Kit chose to do to her; besides, she wanted to
hear what he was going to say. Whenever Kit stood like that, with his
back to the fire and his legs rather wide apart, he was always going to
say something. The odd thing was, that there was something so convincing
in his way of saying it that the family generally listened.
'Don't you fret yourselves, any of you,' he said decidedly. 'Auntie Anna
isn't going to make things pleasant for anybody in this house--not she!
Hasn't she persuaded father to do whatever she likes, all our lives?'
'What is she going to make him do now, then?' asked Wilfred, who did not
mean to give up his dream of a laboratory without a protest.
'First of all,' said Christopher, with an air of confidence, 'she'll see
that Egbert has a crammer next summer holidays; and he'll either have to
get that scholarship, or he doesn't go to Oxford at all! She'll talk about
discipline, and things like that. Aunts always do talk about discipline,
when it's for other people's children.'
'I wish you'd shut up,' grumbled Egbert, returning to his book. 'How is a
fellow to read when you're making such a clatter?'
'Then there's Peter,' continued Christopher, calmly. 'Of course she'll
say he's much too young to be trusted with a gun, though he is such an
overgrown, hulking chap; and why isn't he in the fifth instead of the
upper fourth, at _his_ age?'
'What do you know about it, you youngest-but-two?' shouted Peter,
wrathfully.
Kit peered at him through his spectacles, and went on as impudently as
ever. He was never afraid to speak his mind, for none of the others would
have dreamed of laying a finger, except in fun, on the one brother who was
not strong enough to defend himself; and Kit knew this, as well as he
knew his superiority over them in the matter of brains. The only wonder
was that the knowledge had not made him a prig. Perhaps it would have
been difficult, though, in the hurly-burly of the Berkeley family, for any
one to have been a prig.
'As for Wilfred,' he resumed, 'she'll upset all his ambitions before
he can turn round. Do you suppose she'll encourage his messing about
with things in saucepans, just because he wants to be a doctor? Not she!
She'll talk about some rotten business in the City instead. Aunts always
know millions of places in the City where they can shove their unwilling
nephews.'
'Oh, I say, dry up!' objected Wilfred, who was already sufficiently
depressed by the discovery that the brew in the saucepan was not a success.
'Then she'll pack Robin off to a preparatory at Brighton--never knew an
aunt yet who didn't want to send you to a preparatory at Brighton!--and
she'll do the same to me, only she'll choose a beastly inferior place,
where I shall be looked after by some _woman_,' concluded Christopher, in
a tone of scorn. Then he caught sight of Barbara, who was still standing
thoughtfully in the middle of the room; and he shook his head at her
pityingly. 'After that, having cleared the house of boys, she'll turn
her attention to the Babe,' he said, and paused rather abruptly.
Barbara woke up from her reflections with a start. 'Yes, Kit?' she said
questioningly. 'What will Auntie Anna do to me?'
Kit's expression of pity became exaggerated. 'To begin with,' he said,
with a deep sigh, 'she'll let down your frocks, and tie back your hair,
and never let you go anywhere alone, not even to the pillar-box at the
corner!'
The other boys began to laugh afresh.
'Think of the Babe with her hair bunched up on the top, and fastened with
a bit of ribbon! She'll look exactly like a French poodle, won't she?'
scoffed Peter.
'She'll have to hold up her skirt in the street, and step in and out of
the puddles like this!' added Wilfred, taking the end of his coat between
his thumb and finger, and prancing round Barbara on tiptoe.
Egbert shut up his book, and joined lazily in the general derision. 'Poor
little Babe! will it have to turn into a young lady, and stop talking
slang, and learn about box-pleats and false hems and _tucks_?' he jeered
softly.
Barbara turned her back on the others, and once more appealed to
Christopher. Teasing was not the kind of thing that roused her; she
had grown accustomed to it, long ago. 'What else, Kit?' she demanded
impatiently. 'There's something else, isn't there?'
Christopher nodded. 'Yes,' he said ominously, 'there's something else.
But I'm not going to tell you what it is.'
'Yes,' said Egbert, stretching himself, 'of course there's something else,
Babe. We all know what it is, but we're not going to tell you either.'
Babs looked swiftly from one to the other. 'I know!' she said, shaking
the hair out of her eyes. 'It's--school!'
Kit nodded again. 'That swagger place near Crofts, where the adopted kid
has been,' he continued in a solemn tone.
The others copied his manner, and looked at her with a ridiculous pretence
of concern. 'Poor Babe!' they said in a chorus.
Barbara again shook the hair out of her eyes with a defiant gesture. Then
she spun round lightly on her toes, and surprised everybody by laughing
scornfully. 'What a fuss you're all making!' she cried. 'Don't you know
I am simply _longing_ to go to school?'
Judging from their expressions, the Berkeley boys certainly did not know
anything of the kind. Even Christopher was puzzled at her curious way of
taking his prediction. 'You're putting it on, Babs!' he said doubtfully.
Barbara stopped spinning round, and faced them all breathlessly. 'I'm
not, honour bright!' she declared. 'I have always wanted to go to school;
I have always longed to have some real friends of my own, and to be
with people who are not trying all the time to be funny. You don't know
how tiring it is to be scored off from morning till night. I want a
change; I want to do regular, proper lessons, and to get to the top of
the school, and to have every one looking up to me! Then, they play
games at school, _real_ games, instead of the stupid ones we play in
the square, that only graze your knees. Girls are nice and jolly and
quiet, and they understand you, and they don't bother you to do things
when you'd sooner read. Of course I want to go to school, _dreadfully_!'
She paused for breath, and Egbert whistled. 'Well, I'm bothered!' he
remarked. He had never pretended to understand his little sister, but he
could not help being astonished at this totally new side to her character.
Peter took refuge as usual in a laugh; and Wilfred stared silently. But
Kit looked more solemn than ever.
'I'm disappointed in you, Babs,' he said. 'I should never have thought
that you wanted to be a young lady, never!'
'But I don't, Kit!' answered the child in a troubled tone. 'I want to do
something new, that's all. I--I'm sure father will understand what I mean,
if he sends me to school,' she added, with something that sounded like a
shake in her voice.
'Ah--father!' replied Christopher, gruffly. 'Father will not be here, you
see.'
A sudden silence came over them; and Barbara turned to the window and
flattened her nose against the glass pane, and blinked her eyes with
all her might. There was nothing to be seen outside but the blank wall
that usually limits the view from the back of a London house; but the
child with the untidy brown hair, and the small impish face, and the
slender long legs, was able, for all that, to see pictures out there.
She always saw pictures when she was excited about anything; and just
now she was thrilled with a new dream--a dream of the place that her
imagination named 'school.' She had always hidden from the boys how much
she wanted to go to school; and it was only this afternoon, when their
derision provoked her into it, that she had let them have a guess at her
real feelings. They had not understood her a bit, as she knew they would
not; but that did not matter. Her father would understand, though she
never told him much, either, and he had to guess for himself what
went on in the quaint little mind of his only daughter; but then,
Barbara had a shrewd idea that he always guessed right, and that came to
the same thing, really. Just as she was comforting herself with this
assurance, the miserable consciousness returned that he was going
away, and she would be left at the mercy of a strange aunt; and she
found herself staring at nothing but a dismal brick wall, with eyes
that were blinking to keep back the tears.
Peter was the first to break the pause that had settled with a kind of
gloom on the old London schoolroom. He was always on the alert to resent
anything that cast a shadow over the light gaiety of existence.
'I say, look here,' he began, giving himself a shake as if to get rid of
an unpleasant impression; 'don't be so jolly blue, all of you! Father
will only be away six months; he said so himself. And as for Auntie Anna,
how do we know she isn't quite a decent old lady? Some old ladies are
awfully sporting. Do you remember Merton major's aunt, Will? She used to
give him whopping tips, whenever she came to see him; and he said he quite
liked her!'
Christopher persisted in his gloomy view of the situation. 'Our aunt is
not the same as anybody else's aunt,' he said. 'And then, there's the
adopted kid.'
'Yes,' admitted Peter, 'no doubt she'll be a trial. Five years at a girls'
school and a year abroad doesn't give anybody a chance, does it?'
'Oh!' said Barbara, in a disappointed tone, 'I did hope _she_ would be
nice!'
'Wonder if she'll mind the smell of chemicals,' observed Wilfred, sniffing
cautiously at the saucepan he still held in his hand.
'Of course she will,' answered Christopher. 'She'll hate the whole jolly
lot of us, because we're boys; and she'll disapprove of the Babe.'
The boys broke into a laugh. There was something irresistibly funny to
them in Christopher's serious way of looking at things. But Barbara was
much too worried over his last remark to join in the laugh against him.
'Kit,' she begged anxiously, 'why is the adopted kid going to disapprove
of me?'
The air was full of startling discoveries this afternoon, and the idea
that the 'adopted kid,' for whom she had already formed an imaginary
attachment, was not going to like her, was a great shock to her. But
before Kit had time to speak, a loud ring at the door-bell drove the words
out of his mind and startled the rest of them into an agitated expectancy.
'That's her!' groaned Kit, and he dropped on the sofa and plunged his
head into the cushion, as if he wanted to stifle even the thought of the
dragon who was coming to work such havoc in the family. His words were
proved by the sudden arrival of Robin, who had been posted as scout on
the back staircase, and who now flung himself into their midst. He was
in far too great a hurry to look where he was going; and he tripped over
the saucepan, which had been set down casually near the door, and fell
full length into the room.
'Heigh-ho, Bobbin!' said Peter, cheerily, as he picked him up again; for,
in spite of his nine years, there was always the chance that Robin might
be going to cry. But, on this occasion, Robin was too full of news to
trouble himself about possible bruises.
'She's come; I've seen her!' he gasped. 'There's a carriage an' pair, big
spanking chestnuts with red rosettes; and a man--a man with pink tops to
his boots and a brush at the side of his hat----'
'Get on, Bobbin!' urged Egbert, impatiently. 'We've all seen a carriage
and pair before. What about the dragon?'
'Saw her too!' said Robin, panting for breath. 'Got a long black silk
thing on, and a bonnet that's rather like a hat, with pink feathers in it,
and a walking-stick with a blue knob to it, an' white kid gloves,--no, I
mean grey kid----'
'Oh, get on, do!' interrupted Egbert again. 'Never mind about her clothes,
stupid! What is she _like_?'
'Don't know what she's like,' said Robin, a little sulkily. 'Couldn't see
everything from the back staircase, could I? There was a girl with her,'
he added, as a concession to the general curiosity.
'The adopted kid!' exclaimed the others in a chorus.
Babs pressed forward eagerly. 'Does she look nice, Bobbin? Is she tall or
short? Are her dresses _quite_ long, and is her hair done up?' she cried,
pouring out her questions in a jumble.
'Oh, yes; her skirts trail all along the ground for miles,' answered
Robin. 'And she sort of rustled like tissue paper. Didn't see her face,
'cause it was all tied up in a veil,--but she's awfully tall,' he added,
looking round the circle with his head poised on one side. 'She's taller'n
any of us--even Egbert,' he concluded viciously, remembering his recent
snubbing.
Egbert put out a long arm, laid the boy dexterously on the flat of his
back in the middle of the floor, and pinned him there with his foot. 'Say
that's a cram!' he commanded in a stern voice. 'Say I'm a head taller than
the adopted kid, or else I'll----'
What he would have done to him remained unheard, for Robin set up a
wail that completely drowned the end of his sentence. The other boys
only shrugged their shoulders; the thing seemed to them a necessary
incident in the education of a younger member, and they were not going
to interfere. But Barbara sprang forward passionately. That was the kind
of thing that did rouse her.
'Leave him alone, Egbert!' she cried, but she did not wait to see whether
he would. She scarcely supposed that he would stop teasing any one for
her; besides, she never stayed to think, when once anything had roused
her. So she put her head down and made a charge straight at the offender;
and Egbert, being unprepared for the attack, fell backwards over the
footstool, with his small sister on the top of him, while Robin wriggled
free of them both and set up a louder howl than before in his surprise
and dismay.
In the middle of the hubbub the door opened; and a voice, that attracted
their attention at once because it was strange to them, made itself heard
through the tumult.
'Is there anybody here who is called Babs?' asked the new-comer.
CHAPTER II
A WITCH IN A STEEPLE-HAT
Barbara picked herself up and looked towards the door. A girl of about
eighteen stood there--an exceedingly pretty girl in a pretty frock, as the
Berkeley boys might have noticed if they had been given to noticing things
of this kind. But her regular features and her pink-and-white complexion
and her reddish-brown hair made very little impression upon them, and
they only saw that she was dressed in a grown-up manner that was rather
against her than otherwise. They decided, with the hasty judgment of a
large family, that she was much too grand to be treated as a companion;
and they prepared, quite unnecessarily, to resent any attempt of hers to
be patronising.
Nothing was further from Jill's mind than to be patronising. She had never
patronised any one in her life, not even the younger children at school,
who always expected to be patronised; and she was not likely to begin now,
with a set of schoolboys who frightened her out of her wits. For she had
never had anything to do with boys before, and she had been dreading
this moment ever since her return from abroad. She fully expected they
would play practical jokes upon her, as the schoolboys in books always
did; and she was not reassured by the uproar that met her ears when she
opened the schoolroom door. It was ridiculous that she should feel shy,
after travelling about for a whole year and meeting all sorts of people;
but as she stood rather helplessly in the doorway, she certainly found
that she was too shy to make the first advances.
The boys hesitated, and waited for one another to begin. Egbert, who
could not forget that he had just been rolling on the floor, was brushing
himself down and looking self-conscious; and it was Christopher who
remembered his manners first and came forward with his hand out.
'How do you do?' he began in his solemn, precise way. 'Won't you come and
sit down? There's an arm-chair over here, and a cushion too--somewhere.
Clear out, can't you, Peter? I believe we can even rise to a footstool,
if it isn't lost. You might look for it, Bobbin, instead of staring like
a stuck pig!' He installed her in the arm-chair and placed himself in
front of her, slightly bending forward, as he had seen his father do when
there were visitors in the drawing-room; and although the result was
rather funny when Kit did it, he managed to make Jill feel a little
more at home. 'I suppose you are Auntie Anna's daughter,' he continued
politely, 'but we don't know your name. I don't think we have ever heard
it.'
'I am Jill Urquhart,' answered the girl. She swept a glance round at the
others, who stood listening, and made a little gesture of dismay. 'What a
lot there are of you!' she exclaimed, without thinking. 'I shall never
remember all your names!'
It was an unlucky beginning, for they at once put down her remark to
affectation and counted it against her. They were so used to their numbers
themselves, that they could not understand any one else being overwhelmed
by them. Peter looked mischievous.
'It isn't so confusing as it looks,' he hastened to tell her. 'We all
answer to our names, and you will find us warm-hearted and obedient.'
Jill glanced at him innocently. 'Why,' she said with a little laugh, 'you
talk as though you were all dogs!'
Peter was left staring, and the others tittered. By her perfectly
natural remark she had turned the scale in her favour and convinced them
that there was stuff in the 'adopted kid' after all. Quite unconscious
of having said anything funny, though, Jill waited till they stopped
laughing, and then turned again to Christopher. 'Won't you introduce
me?' she asked.
Kit nodded towards Egbert, who had finished brushing himself down and was
waiting to shake hands. 'That is Egbert, who is just waking up to the
fact that you're here,' he announced. 'You will find him rather superior,
I am afraid, but we put up with him because of his age and position. Pass
along, please!'
Egbert shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly. 'It's only Kit's way,' he
explained to Jill; 'everybody gives in to Kit.'
Jill smiled. 'Kit's way' had made her forget her shyness, and she was
already interested in the delicate-looking lad, with the thin, clever
face, who had so promptly taken her under his protection.
'The next is Wilfred,' continued Christopher. 'He is responsible for the
unsavoury saucepan that has just been upset on the carpet. He thinks he
is going to be a doctor, so he is always making experiments. Of course,
he isn't going to be a doctor, really; the house can't run to it; but
we let him have his fancies. Then comes Peter, whom you have just sat
upon. Peter can't help being funny, so you must try and bear with him.
There are so few jokes in this family that perhaps we have encouraged him
more than we should.'
'Wait till she's gone, that's all!' threatened Peter in a whisper, as he
passed by after shaking hands with Jill. Christopher looked at him over
his spectacles, and went calmly on.
'I'm next on the list, and my name is Christopher, changed by the vulgar
into Kit,' he was proceeding, when Egbert made a spirited interruption.
'He is our genius,' he said, with a flourish of his hand towards the
spokesman. 'We are all very proud of him, for although only thirteen,
he has the wisdom and intelligence of one twice his age. He is the only
member of the family who can spell, and----'
'Oh, dry up!' muttered Kit, but his remonstrance was drowned in the
approving jeers of the others. The genius had had it all his own way for
about ten minutes, and it was satisfactory to see him 'scored off' in
his turn. Kit tried to resume his dignified attitude in front of Jill, but
the attempt was not particularly successful. It was always impossible in
the Berkeley family to remain dignified for long.
'Are you sure you have got them right so far, or shall I write them
down?' he asked, with so much gravity that Jill looked at him rather
suspiciously. He met her glance through his spectacles without wincing,
and the others tittered again. They were still a little doubtful about
this new cousin of theirs, who was so unlike any one who had come their
way before; and it was rather a relief to pretend to be amused.
'The last of the boys is Robin, or Bobbin if you prefer it,' continued
Kit, glibly. 'He is the youngest of us all, and the most ill-used. Indeed,
when you came in just now, you may have seen the Babe trying to rescue
him. That reminds me! I have left out our only girl. She comes between me
and Bobbin, and here you may perceive her--the Babe!'
Barbara came slowly round from her hiding-place at the back of the sofa,
and stood face to face with Jill. There was rather a wistful look on the
small countenance just then; for in all her dreams of the wonderful
cousin who was going to be her first girl-friend, Babs had never imagined
anything like this grown-up, elegant creature, who did her hair like the
ladies in the park and wore her watch dangling from her wrist. The
child's heart sank as she suddenly thought of her short gymnastic frock,
and her rumpled hair, and her dirty hands. As for Jill, she stared down at
the little person in front of her, and could not help smiling. Whenever
she had particularly dreaded being plunged into this family of boys,
she had always consoled herself by remembering that there would be one
girl among them to take her part. Now, as she looked at the rough little
tomboy before her, with her elf-like face and figure, and her bright
eager eyes, she had to own again to herself that a large family was a
difficult thing to understand.
'So you are Babs,' she began, not knowing what else to say. Then she
remembered her errand, and added hastily, 'Will you please go and see
mother? She is in the library with Uncle Everard.'
Barbara escaped and sped along the hall, full of relief at having got
away from the uncomfortable grown-up feeling that seemed to have come
into the schoolroom with Jill. She even paused outside the library door,
in her quaint, inconsequent way, to ask herself why Jill seemed so much
more grown-up than the nice old gentlemen who came to see her father,
with their pockets full of chocolates for her; and she supposed it was
because they were really old, while Jill was only grown-up, which was far
more alarming because it was so much more mysterious. But hardly had she
settled this question in her mind than a fresh one presented itself
to her. How was she to know that this other stranger, who was waiting
in there to see her, was not also going to stare at her and smile, as
Jill had done? Babs gave a troubled sigh, and opened the door with a
heavy heart.
A little old lady sat on the sofa beside her father, with her hand in
his. She was not beautiful by any means; her back was bent--like an
old witch's, Barbara thought--and she had a nose that might have been
described as hooked, and a mouth that turned down at the corners and
gave her almost a sour expression. But she had two small, keen black
eyes, that took all the ugliness out of her face; sometimes they shone
and sometimes they softened, but more often still they twinkled, as they
did now, when her little niece stole timidly into the room. The moment
the child looked up and met those eyes, she felt she was looking at her
father's sister. If she had but known it, the same eyes, too, were
gleaming back at the old lady from the middle of a bush of tangled
brown hair.
'So this is your tomboy, is it?' said Mrs. Crofton, bluntly. 'Come here,
child, and don't stand shivering there. Do you think I am going to do
anything to you?'
Barbara's unusual timidity vanished at the sound of that voice. It was
sharp and abrupt and determined, but it rang true, and there was nothing
in it to frighten anybody.
'I'm not afraid,' she said, returning the old lady's gaze frankly; 'I am
hardly ever afraid of people. Am I, father?'
Mr. Berkeley chuckled in an amused manner. He had been very curious
to see this meeting between his wild little daughter and the sister
who had managed his domestic affairs for him since the death of his wife.
By nature a student, he lived most of his life in his library and in
himself, and only woke up now and then to the fact that he had six
growing children, who probably needed something besides the affection it
was so easy to give them. In these waking moments he would write off to
his sister, Mrs. Crofton of Crofts, for whose judgment he had quite a
pathetic regard, and would carry out to the letter every suggestion she
chose to send him. Only once had he ignored her advice, and that was
when she had proposed a governess for Barbara; for he had passed over
this idea in silence, and the child had continued to run in and out
of his library, reading what books she pleased, and ordering her own
upbringing in a way that seemed to him eminently satisfactory. For
that matter, his library was open to any of his children at any time that
they chose to invade it; and they interrupted him fearlessly as often
as they pleased, without provoking anything worse than a good-humoured
growl from him, that was never to be taken seriously for a moment.
Probably this was why the tie between them and their father had come
to be a friendly as well as an affectionate one.
Just lately, something had happened to change the haphazard course of
affairs in the old London house. That autumn, Mr. Berkeley had brought
out a philosophical work on which he had been engaged for years, and
although it had only had a limited success in England, it had made a
great sensation in America. The result was an invitation to conduct a
lecturing tour in the States, which would take him abroad for something
like half a year. Mr. Berkeley had the vaguest notions as to the amount of
protection his children needed, but he had a sort of idea that children
left in charge of a housekeeper would be considered neglected, and he
did not want his children to feel neglected. As usual, he referred
his dilemma to Mrs. Crofton, who replied promptly from the Riviera,
saying she was on her way home to Crofts, and would stop a week in
town to settle his affairs for him. This he forgot to mention to the
children until the day she was to arrive, and then, in his innocence,
considered their dismay as one of the peculiarities of youth.
'So you are not afraid of me, eh? Then why won't you give me a kiss, I
should like to know?' demanded Auntie Anna, as Barbara held out her hand
in a boyish fashion.
The child looked surprised, and offered an unwilling cheek. 'We don't
often kiss in our family,' she explained; 'only when the boys go back to
school, or when somebody has banged somebody else on the head, or when
it's a birthday and presents. But that isn't often, you see.'
Mrs. Crofton of Crofts smiled, and her brother pulled his daughter down
between them on the sofa.
'You must forgive her appearance,' he said apologetically. 'We haven't
anybody to teach us to be ladylike, have we, Babs?'
The old lady put her finger under Barbara's chin, and turned the small
face round, and looked into it keenly. 'What's the matter with her
appearance?' she inquired quickly. 'Don't be a goose, Everard! Now,
child, tell me! Do you want to go on being a boy for ever, reading all
sorts of books you have no business to read, and banging people on the
head when they offend you, and looking alarming old ladies in the face
without flinching; or do you want to be combed and brushed and smoothed
into a young lady, and taught to rave about art and music and poetry, and
told to look down when you are spoken to, and never to answer back if
the truth is unpleasant? Hey? Which is it to be?'
Barbara was looking puzzled. 'I don't think I know what you mean,' she
said. 'Do you mean that I _must_ be either me or--or Jill?'
'Well, supposing we put it that way,' replied Mrs. Crofton, smiling again.
'Which do you choose to be?'
Barbara did not stop to think about it. 'I don't want to be either, thank
you,' she said decidedly. 'I would _much_ rather be like you or father.'
Mr. Berkeley chuckled once more, and his sister struck her cane on the
ground and laughed heartily. 'A pretty mess you've made of your daughter's
education, I must say,' she remarked. Then she turned again to Babs.
'Well, child, I see you are going to be like your father in any case; and
as for me--well, we'll see if we can't prevent such a terrible result as
that. And now, I want you to pretend that I am a fairy godmother. Do
you think you can?'
Barbara nodded, and her small black eyes glistened. It was not difficult
to do that. Already the bonnet with the pink feathers had turned into
a steeple-hat, and the black silk mantle into a scarlet cloak, and the
blue-knobbed cane into a broomstick. The little impish face was aglow
with delight as the old lady went on:
'Now, I've just come down the chimney with a bang, and I am going to
give my goddaughter the wish that she wishes most in all the world. But
mind--if I have a suspicion that what she asks for is not what she really
wants--bang! up the chimney I go again!'
Barbara took a flying leap into the middle of the room, and spun round
with her favourite movement on the tips of her toes. Her heart was
thumping wildly with excitement at finding herself in the middle of a real
fairy story; and when she at last stood still again, she was almost too
breathless to speak.
[Illustration: 'May I--may I have all that?']
'Please,' she said, clasping her hands tightly together, 'I want to go to
school, a real girls' school, where there are crowds of girls, and crowds
of lessons, and crowds of story-books with nice endings, and crowds of
awfully jolly games that don't pull your hair about and don't give you
bruises. May I--may I have all that?'
Auntie Anna once more struck her cane upon the ground. 'That shows how
much you know about your own daughter, Everard!' she said, which was a
remark that Barbara never understood. 'You may have all that, little
goddaughter, every bit of it!' she announced to the expectant child;
'and what is more, you shall have it in a week's time. Hey-day! Where are
you off to in such a hurry, if you please, and why am I allowed a kiss
all at once, eh? It isn't a birthday, is it?'
For Barbara had rushed impetuously to the door, and then scampered back
to kiss the face with the hooked nose that peered out from beneath the
steeple-hat. 'Of course I kissed you,' she cried, 'because--because you're
such a brick, you see!' She paused half-way in her second journey to the
door, and looked back doubtfully at the old lady on the sofa. 'May I ask
you something else?' she said.
'Anything you please,' answered Auntie Anna. 'That's what I'm here for;
eh, Everard?'
'Then--then--are you going to do anything for the boys too?' stammered
Barbara. 'I--I don't think it's quite fair to keep all the niceness to
myself, you see!'
'That depends on what the boys want,' replied the old lady, gravely. 'Do
you think you can give me any idea?'
Barbara puckered up her eyebrows, and counted off the names on her
fingers. 'First there's Egbert,' she began; 'he wants to go to Oxford
without having to get a scholarship first. Then there's Wilfred; he wants
to be a doctor, but Kit says there isn't money enough and he's got to get
over it. Do you think you'll be able to make Will into a doctor? And Peter
wants lots of shooting; he says he doesn't mind about anything else,
only Kit says he isn't old enough, and you won't trust him with a gun. Kit
hasn't seen you yet, you see. Then there's Kit----'
'That's enough for the present!' cried Mrs. Crofton, who was leaning back,
convulsed with laughter, among the sofa cushions. Mr. Berkeley again drew
his daughter towards him.
'You are revealing all the secrets of the prison-house, little girl,' he
remarked.
Barbara looked from one to the other. 'Auntie Anna did ask me,' she said
reproachfully.
'To be sure I did,' answered the old lady, recovering herself with an
effort, 'and I am delighted to hear some of the things I am expected to
do. But you must allow that even a fairy godmother has a hard time of
it occasionally, and it is a little difficult to provide for all her
godchildren at once, you know. However, you shall hear what is going
to happen in a week's time, on the very day that this naughty father of
yours takes himself off to America; and if you approve of it, we can
see about the other things later on. Is that a bargain, eh?'
'Oh! What else is going to happen in a week's time?' asked Barbara,
eagerly. By this time she was prepared for any dream to come true. Her
faith in the old lady who was playing at fairy stories was complete.
Mr. Berkeley answered her. 'Auntie Anna is going to carry you all off to
Crofts for the whole six months that I am away,' he told her; 'and you are
going to Jill's school at Wootton Beeches, which is only ten miles off.
So Kit and Robin will be able to come over and see you sometimes, when
the others have gone away, for they are going to have a tutor and stay
at Crofts with Auntie Anna and Jill. Isn't that a fine idea?'
Barbara was speechless with rapture. The expression on her face made them
laugh once more. Then she gave a kind of war-whoop that might have been
heard in the schoolroom, and bounded again towards the door. 'I simply
can't bear it another minute,' she gasped. 'I _must_ go and tell the boys.'
'Bear it just one more minute, and hear what else I have to say,' begged
Auntie Anna, raising herself with the help of her stick, and walking
slowly after her excited little niece. 'Can you ride bicycles, all of you?'
The child shook her head. 'Only Egbert,' she said; 'and that is because
he stayed with a chap, last holidays, who lent him one. Bicycles are too
jolly expensive for this family, you know,' she added quaintly.
Auntie Anna stood still and pointed the blue-knobbed cane impressively at
the child, who stood waiting. 'What do you say to a bicycle apiece all
round,' she began, 'and----'
But Barbara did not wait to say anything. Back along the hall she
scampered with all her might, and flung herself panting into the
schoolroom. She burst out at once with a rapturous medley of news.
'Boys, boys!' she shouted at the top of her voice; 'the dragon isn't
a dragon, she's like a fairy godmother out of a story-book! And she's
going to send me to the adopted kid's school, and everybody is going to
live at Crofts till father comes back, and there's going to be bicycles
_all round_--no waiting 'cause you're the youngest, Bobbin!--and----'
Suddenly she paused and stammered, and paused again. Finally, she stood
silent and uncomfortable, with the excitement and the thrill all gone
out of her. She had quite forgotten Jill; and Jill, enthroned in the one
arm-chair, with the one cushion at her back and the one footstool at her
feet, was looking as though she was not there to be forgotten.
'I've just been telling the boys all about it,' she remarked.
Barbara stared. It put the finishing touch to her distrust of Jill, that
she should have told anything to the boys--_her_ boys--before she had time
to tell them herself.
'I--I think it's a shame!' she exclaimed hotly, and she bit her lip to
keep from crying.
'Hullo, Babe! What's up?' asked Peter, in surprise.
Jill slipped out of the arm-chair, and laid her hand on the child's
shoulder. 'I'm so sorry, Babs,' she began softly; 'I really didn't
know----'
Barbara looked up at her doubtfully. The tone was kind, but then, why
did she go on smiling in that irritating way? 'You don't understand,'
she said, and twisted herself free from Jill's grasp, and did not speak
again until she was gone.
The boys took no notice of her; they always left the Babe alone when
she was in one of her odd moods. But Jill, who had really meant to be
kind, went away feeling puzzled. She had got over her first shyness of
the boys in a very few minutes, for they were evidently trying to be
friendly in their blunt, boyish fashion; but Barbara baffled her. There
was something antagonistic in the child's manner; and Jill, who had always
been accustomed to meeting with affection wherever she went, did not
quite know what to make of her. Of course it was ridiculous to worry
herself about a tomboy of eleven who chose to be sulky; but it was the
first time any one had refused to make friends with her, and Jill was a
little hurt about it.
'You're spoiled, my dear,' remarked her mother, as they drove away from
the Berkeleys' house; 'and it is I who have spoiled you. I'm a silly old
woman, but I never could bear to deny you all the sympathy you asked. I
was afraid, you see, that you might think the world was not a nice place
to be in.'
'I'm glad you spoiled me, and I think the world _is_ a nice place to be
in,' answered Jill, laughing. 'But what has that to do with Barbara's not
liking me?'
'Well, you can't expect every one to like you,' said the old lady, in her
brusque way. 'Babs will like you well enough when she finds that she is
still the Babe of the family, in spite of your being there.'
'But--but I don't like to feel that there is anybody anywhere who doesn't
like me,' complained Jill, with a little pout.
'No more does the Babe, I expect,' said Mrs. Crofton, smiling. 'However,
do your best to understand the poor little soul; she has not had much
spoiling, and I should like you two to be friends.'
'Oh!' cried Jill, laughing again as she recalled the funny little figure
that had come bounding into the schoolroom with such a yell and a clatter.
'But she really is rather impossible, mother dear!'
'Quite,' responded the old lady, drily; 'but she has amazing
possibilities, and I thought you might perhaps like to find them.
Well, what about the others?'
'Oh, I like them,' said Jill; 'though I wish they would not all talk at
once; it's so confusing. And I'm a little afraid of them, too. You never
know why they are laughing at you; and if you take them seriously, they
laugh more than ever. Whatever you do, they laugh.'
'Large families are always like that,' chuckled Mrs. Crofton.
'Large families are rather exhausting then, aren't they?' said Jill.
'The boys are rather rough too, and they seem so proud of having scars
on their hands, and of being able to see a pig killed without feeling
bad--at least, Peter was. Kit is different from the others: I like Kit.
And they _are_ frank! They were not ashamed of calling me the "adopted
kid" to my face; and they even owned to having nicknamed you "the dragon"!'
The old lady laughed. 'So I am, as far as they know!' she replied. Then
she patted the girl caressingly on the hand. 'My dear, it does us all good
to be with people who are frank, even if they are a little rough with it.
And I want you to help me to put as much love and gentleness as we can
into the Berkeleys' lives, for it strikes me that spoiling is what this
large family wants.'
'Then it's what this large family will certainly get, if _you_ have
anything to do with it,' answered Jill, softly.
In the schoolroom they had just left, the criticisms were brief and to
the point.
'She'll do,' said Peter, condescendingly, 'when she's got over that silly
way of gaping at us, as though we were beasts at the Zoo.'
'She's stunning to look at, and her clothes are just ripping,' said
Egbert, the eldest; 'but, of course, you kids couldn't be expected to
notice that.'
'Oh, you think you're everybody, just because you stayed with a chap last
holidays who had a grown-up sister who called you _Mr._ Berkeley,' cried
Wilfred.
Robin said he liked her soft way of speaking, and she reminded him of
Nurse, which set them all laughing, as they recalled that homely-looking
person in cap and spectacles. Christopher put in his opinion, when they
had all had their say.
'She wants knowing,' he said briefly. 'There's too many of us in a lump to
let her give herself away. When she takes us separately, or in pairs, we
shall get on as right as rain. And she really does know something about
stamps.'
But the Babe, who sat away in a corner by herself, said nothing. She
had forgotten Jill for the moment, forgotten her own fit of jealousy and
her shyness of the interloper, and she did not even hear what the others
were talking about. She was going to school at last, and nothing else
was of any consequence. Indeed, all through the week of whirl and
preparation that followed, Barbara went about in a kind of dream. She
could hardly yet believe in her good luck. A few short days ago things
had seemed likely to go on for ever in the same uneventful way, except
that they were going to be made dreary for a time by the absence of the
father she adored; and now, just through the coming of an old lady, whom
she had been prepared to hate, this amazing change in her future was
going to take place. To an imaginative little person like Barbara, it
was useless to pretend that there was nothing out of the ordinary in
this. She had lived for years in a fairy world of her own, where Kit
was a fairy prince and her father a nice old magician, and where numbers
of charming princesses, the schoolgirls of her imagination, were ready
to sympathise with her whenever the boys had been teasing her more than
usual. It was surely to this kingdom of her fancy that a fairy godmother,
who had once been a dragon, properly belonged; and all through that week,
Barbara wandered in her imaginary kingdom with this new inhabitant of it,
pointing out all its beauties to her, and even assuring her that the
magician would cure her rheumatism if she were to ask him nicely. 'Only,
you must not make her back _quite_ straight,' she whispered privately to
the magician, 'because she wouldn't be a proper fairy godmother if her
back were straight!' She also added strict injunctions to the keeper of
her gates, that a certain grown-up cousin, who might be known by her
tiresome way of smiling at people, was not to be admitted under any
circumstances into her fairy kingdom. 'It would never do,' thought
Barbara, seriously, 'to have any one in my kingdom who wanted to laugh at
me.'
Meanwhile, the busy preparations went on around her. It was not an easy
thing to move a family of six from the home in which they had passed the
whole of their lives, especially when their aunt, in the large manner
which characterised everything she did, insisted on allowing them to pack
whatever they wished.
'We are only young once,' she represented to a distracted housekeeper,
'and possessions are very precious when we are young. Let them bring
everything that will help to make the place seem like home to them; there
is plenty of room at Crofts. Get tired of the things? Of course they will!
We can't expect them to be wiser than the grown-ups, can we?'
So Wilfred packed explosive liquids in bottles, and Peter packed cricket
stumps and hockey clubs, and Christopher found room among Egbert's
collars and ties to stow away microscope-slides and setting-boards and
birds' eggs, and Robin brought innumerable contributions in the shape
of torn picture-books and old toys that the others had discarded long
ago. None of them ever forgot that last week in their London home; for
besides the exquisite joys of packing up, there were also delightful
expeditions up to town with Auntie Anna, ostensibly to buy clothes, but in
reality to afford amusement to an old lady who had never enjoyed her
life so much before; and whether they went alone with her, or in such
numbers that the brougham was as full as it could be, the afternoon
always ended with a magnificent tea without limitations--'Even ices to
finish up with, and no one saying nothink about your makin' yourself ill
'cause you mixed things!' as Robin proclaimed on his return home from one
of these expeditions.
Then there was the buying of the six bicycles; and even Barbara forgot
for the moment all about school and everything else for the sake of her
new two-wheeled possession, soon to be invested in her mind with magic
properties and converted into a fairy messenger in her fairy kingdom.
She was less patient over the purchase of her school outfit, which kept
her standing at the dressmaker's for whole half-hours together, when
she might have been trying her bicycle round the square; and she wondered
why it was necessary to have such quantities of clothes, just because
she was going to live at school instead of at home. Surely, if her
present wardrobe was good enough to pass the critical examination of
five brothers, it need not be improved to meet the friendly gaze of a
parcel of girls! However, Auntie Anna insisted on more clothes; and
Auntie Anna was a witch, so she ought to know. And since she did not take
the dressmaker's part, but even allowed Barbara to have her own way as
to the shortness of her skirts, with an added inch or so to satisfy the
scruples of the dressmaker, it was impossible to grumble very much at the
precious time that was being wasted.
So the week drew swiftly to a close, and the day of departure came at last.
CHAPTER III
BARBARA'S DREAM
Once more, Kit stood with his back to the fireplace, and prepared to
address the family. It was just half an hour after Mr. Berkeley had left,
and they were all assembled rather sorrowfully in the old schoolroom. In
another ten minutes their own cabs would be at the door, and they too
would be on their way to a new life. Altogether, it was a solemn moment,
and the genius of the family could not resist the temptation to make a
speech.
'Boys,' he began, nodding his head with mock importance, 'it is my opinion
that Auntie Anna is a jolly wise old lady!'
'What's that to do with father going away?' asked Barbara, rubbing her
eyes furiously. She had had her cry on the back staircase, and she felt
safe for the moment against a further display of weakness.
'It's got a lot to do with it,' rejoined Kit. 'Didn't she take us all
to the pantomime, last night--father, too? I suppose you think that was
just to amuse herself, don't you? Well, it wasn't. It was because she
was afraid of our sitting together at home, and saying it was father's
last evening, and--_blubbing_.'
This he said severely, looking at the weaker members, Babs and Robin, as
he spoke. They bore the test heroically, and the orator went on.
'And why,' he inquired, 'did she give us only a week to pack up, and buy
clothes and things, when there's ten days more before you other chaps go
back? Of course there's the Babe's school, but that could have waited.
Girls' schools never matter.'
'Well, _why_, most precocious of kids?' asked Egbert, with lazy tolerance.
Certainly, no one but Christopher would have been allowed to say so much
uninterrupted. But then, even Egbert had a kind of secret admiration for
his clever young brother, though he did not pretend to understand him.
'Well,' continued Christopher, 'if we'd had more time to think about it,
we might not have been so keen on going to live in another person's house.
And, naturally, Auntie Anna didn't want any ructions over it.'
'Oh, stop it, Kit! What a lot of rot you are making up!' objected Peter,
impatiently. Of the three elder boys, he was nearest in age to Kit, and
was consequently less inclined to tolerate him.
'Everything points to it, if you're not too thick-headed to see,' retorted
Kit, crushingly. 'Look at the way we're being rushed out of the house,
directly father has turned his back. Isn't that to give us something to
think about, so that we shouldn't mope about the shop, and _fancy_
ourselves? Of course,' he added blandly, fixing his spectacles on his
nose and staring at Peter, '_some_ people don't need anything to set them
grinning again.'
'Christopher, my son, you are a clever child, but your impudence simply
isn't to be borne,' said Peter; and he stooped down and lifted the fragile
figure of the orator high in the air, and set him down lightly outside the
door. Kit rearranged his tie, put his spectacles straight, and peered
up at the unappreciative listener who towered above him.
'As I was saying,' he resumed gently, 'Auntie Anna can give us all points
when it comes to being 'cute.'
The next day or two proved the truth of what, in his shrewd way, he
had already guessed for himself. Yet the Berkeleys were hardly to be
called unfeeling, because they appeared to take their father's departure
so coolly; for it would have been difficult to remain unhappy long, when
there were so many delightful things to distract them. Besides their
excitement, town-bred as they were, at finding themselves in a real
country-house, with an oak staircase, a secret room, and a ghost story,
there were separate joys waiting for each one of them as well. There
was a horse for Egbert to ride to hounds, and a well-stocked library
for Christopher to bury himself in, and a lumber-room for Wilfred to turn
into a laboratory; while Peter was allowed, the very first day, to go out
shooting with the keepers, and Robin promptly became the pet of all the
men on the estate, and spent long, happy hours with them down at the
stables and the farm. If there was any one in the family who was not
perfectly content, it was Barbara.
No doubt, she would have been quite as absorbed as the others were in
their new home, if she had not been going to another one herself the very
next day. As it was, she found it a little difficult to share their
enthusiasm since she had a private enthusiasm of her own. But the boys
did not understand this at all. They were very affectionate to her in
their rough, undemonstrative way, and they were always telling her that
she would be sure to 'pull through all right'; for they naturally supposed
that she wanted the kind of pity they wanted so much themselves at the
stated, horrible periods when they went back to school. But as to grasping
her notion that she was going to enjoy life at Wootton Beeches, that
was not to be expected of them. So Barbara felt that her interests, for
the first time in her life, were not the same as theirs; and a queer
sort of feeling crept over her, that changes--even nice, interesting
changes--occasionally had something strange and uncomfortable about them.
She grew so perplexed over it, at last, that she even went to Jill for
sympathy. Jill was at least a girl, and Jill had been to school, in the
same delightful place to which she was going on the morrow; and Jill
at least ought to know whether the boys' idea of school was right or
wrong. So, just after tea, on her last evening at Crofts, the child
swallowed her natural distrust of her cousin, which, after all, had
arisen chiefly from their mutual shyness of each other, and started in
search of her.
Jill was in the conservatory, arranging the flowers for the dinner-table;
and Barbara's shyness returned, as the trim, neat figure came walking
towards her, along the rows of chrysanthemums. She glanced down at her
crumpled pinafore and sighed desperately. Being dragged up a dusty
ladder into a cobwebby lumber-room by Wilfred had not proved the best of
treatments for a pinafore that really had been clean a couple of hours
ago. But Jill suddenly came out in a new light. With no teasing schoolboys
to overhear her, she felt that here, at last, was a chance of making
friends with her odd little tomboy of a cousin.
'Have you come to help me with the flowers?' she asked, with such a
friendly smile, that Babs cheered up at once. She forgot all about her
crumpled pinafore, and went straight to the point.
'No, I didn't come for that,' she answered simply. 'I came to ask you
about--about school.'
'Ah!' said Jill, suddenly picking chrysanthemums at a great rate.
'Supposing you tell me what you think about it yourself?'
Her mother's words were running in her head: 'Do your best to understand
the poor little soul!' and Jill wondered what she could tell her that
would not upset her notions of school too cruelly.
'Oh, well,' replied Babs, 'of course, _I_ think it's going to be
beautiful; but the boys--the boys are so funny about it, and it's
made me all in a muddle inside. Do you think the boys _know_?'
'Perhaps not,' said Jill, and she strolled away along the rows of
chrysanthemums. It seemed a shame to spoil the child's illusion; and yet,
when she thought of this quaint little untrained object being dropped in
the middle of the girls at Wootton Beeches----
Barbara had followed her up closely, and she suddenly interrupted her
reflections. 'You know what a girls' school is like, don't you, Jill?' she
continued appealingly. 'I wish--I _do_ wish you would tell the boys they
are all wrong about it. They _are_ wrong, aren't they?'
There was a suspicion of a doubt in the last words that struck Jill as
being rather pathetic. She put her bunch of chrysanthemums down, and drew
Barbara towards her. 'You see, Babs, it is like this,' she said slowly;
'school is very nice, if you do not mind things being strange at first,
and if you can bear being laughed at, and----'
'Why, that is quite easy!' interrupted Babs, with a smile. 'The boys have
teased me always.'
'Yes,' said Jill, doubtfully; 'the boys have teased you; but that is not
quite the same thing. Girls--girls are not boys, you see.'
'Oh no, I know they're not!' replied Barbara, happily. 'Girls are quiet
and kind and gentle; and they always understand you, and they are ready
to make friends directly they see you. I think I know what _girls_ are
like.'
She was thinking of the princesses in her fairy kingdom; and another
little smile flickered across her face. Jill glanced at her for a moment,
and then suddenly made up her mind how to act.
'Look here, Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop of tangled hair with her
hands; 'you go on thinking that girls are like that, and you'll get along
all right!' Barbara wriggled away from her before she had time to say
any more, gave her a swift look and a smile of gratitude, and darted off
in search of the boys. 'They'll be very stupid if they don't see what a
babe it is,' added Jill to herself.
At the door of the conservatory, however, the small figure in the crumpled
pinafore came to a sudden standstill.
'I say, Jill,' the child blurted out, and she clutched a handful of
pinafore to give herself courage; 'I--I want to tell you something.'
'Do you?' said Jill, smiling.
'I want to explain that I hated you at first, because I thought you
were going to make the boys like you better than me,' Babs went on
breathlessly. 'And you frightened me too, because you laughed in such a
funny way, just as if you were sneering at me for being in a muck. I
thought, perhaps, it was because you were so grand, and your clothes
were so grand, and all that; but I couldn't help being in a muck, because
I always am in a muck, you see; and so, you see--you see----'
[Illustration: 'Look here Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop of tangled
hair]
'I see,' said Jill, quietly; and she looked quite thoughtful for a minute
or two. Babs came a step nearer.
'I don't hate you now,' she said frankly. 'For one thing, the boys
don't like you better than me, after all. They don't even like you so
much as they thought they were going to. But _I_ think you're awfully
nice,--almost as nice as Kit and Nurse and father,--and I shall go and
tell them so, now; and then, perhaps, they won't say you are young-ladyish
any more!'
There was a vision of slim black legs and white pinafore disappearing
across the hall, and Jill could not help laughing. 'I must catch the post,
and write to that child Jean,' she decided, after a moment's reflection.
'It won't be so bad for the poor little mite if she has some one to show
her round.'
Late on the following afternoon the 'adopted kid' found another chance
of making her way to Barbara's heart. Barbara had wandered into the
library, with a whole hour to spare before the carriage should come round
to drive her to school; and, rather to her surprise, she discovered Kit
there, sitting huddled up in the arm-chair, with his shoulders up to his
ears. She had thought that all the boys were out ratting, and she had
not expected to see any of them until they came in at tea-time to bid
her farewell. She was feeling rather doleful, now that the important
moment was so near, for she realised that if she was going to everything
that was new and delightful, she was also going away from the boys for
the first time in her life. It did not cheer her to find Christopher
sitting over the fire with an attack of asthma.
'Kit!' she cried in distress. 'I didn't know you were ill!'
Kit crouched closer to the fire and growled. Asthma always had a bad
effect upon his temper, and to-day he had a grievance as well.
'Of course you didn't know,' he muttered. 'You never know anything now.
Can't think what's come over you lately.'
Barbara reddened, and the tears welled up in her eyes. No one could hurt
her so easily as Christopher. 'I'm awfully sorry, Kit. I suppose I've been
thinking about school,' she said; and she dropped the poker with a bang
that made him wince.
'Lucky for you to be able to go to school,' answered Kit, crossly. 'Look
at me! Just because of that journey on Wednesday I've got to coddle like
an old woman.'
Barbara stood gazing at him helplessly. Her heart was full of pity, but
no one had ever taught her how to show it. 'Poor old boy!' she said
awkwardly. 'Would you like me to tell you a story?'
'Not I! How can you think of a story when you're full of that stupid
school?' was the surly answer.
'But I'm not thinking about school now, Kit,' persisted the Babe, becoming
tearful.
'Oh, never mind. Don't cry, whatever you do; I've got such a headache,'
said Christopher, hastily.
'I'm n--not crying; I never cry,' stammered Barbara, in a shaky voice.
'I--I want to do something for you, only you won't tell me what to do.'
Kit answered her with a violent struggle for breath, and the child felt
more helpless than ever. It was just as she was making a feeble attempt
to raise him in his chair that Jill came in.
'You poor fellow!' she exclaimed, taking in the whole scene at once.
'Here, Babs, give me that piece of brown paper, and run and fetch his
medicine, will you? Poor boy! Poor Kit!'
She knelt beside him and supported him with her arm, while she wafted a
smouldering tuft of brown paper in front of him. 'Now, fetch some cushions
out of the drawing-room,' she commanded, when Barbara returned with the
medicine; and, delighted at being given something to do, the child sped
away on her errand. When she came back with her arms full of cushions,
Jill had a delightful plan to unfold.
'Ring the bell for the lamp, Babs,' she said, in her soft voice, which
was already soothing Christopher's nerves; 'and we'll have tea together
before you go. Shall we, Kit, dear?'
'It's awfully good of you,' he answered weakly. The attack was passing
off, and he was visibly cheering up. By the time tea was brought in, he
was sufficiently recovered to take the lead in his usual determined
manner; and Jill humoured him by giving in to him meekly, even consenting,
under his guidance, to toast slices of plum-cake at the end of a penknife.
'It's very extravagant, when it's Auntie Anna's plum-cake instead of the
stale stuff cook used to make; but as it's the Babe's last evening we may
be extravagant, mayn't we, Jill?' argued Christopher. 'Now, Babs, you melt
the butter; and for goodness' sake do remember you're not at home, and
don't smash the plate.'
His reminder did not wholly make the desired effect upon Babs, for when
the boys returned from the farm in a noisy tribe, flushed with the glory
of slaying, they found the 'adopted kid' scrubbing her gown with a clean
handkerchief, while Babs hung over her, covered with confusion.
'Don't worry yourself, child,' Jill was saying consolingly. 'A lump of
butter, more or less, doesn't make any difference to a frock I've worn
all the winter.'
'It just slid off the plate when I wasn't looking,' said Barbara,
penitently. 'I can't think why it didn't slide on to my frock instead
of yours.'
A chorus of merriment rang from behind.
'You ridiculous Babe!' shouted Peter. 'Why, the butter is _tired_ of being
spilled down your frock.'
Jill jumped to her feet, and blushed a little. As Kit had predicted,
she found it much easier to get on with her cousins when she took them
'separately, or in pairs'; and she was not used yet to facing them all at
once. The sound of wheels outside gave her an excuse for escape, and she
put her arm hurriedly round Babs.
'Come upstairs and put on your hat,' she suggested, and the two girls
hastened out of the room.
Auntie Anna saw to it that the farewells were not prolonged, and Barbara
found herself whirled into the covered wagonette with her last words only
half said. Kit was allowed time to whisper a gruff apology for being cross
with her before tea, but the others had to follow her to the front door
to shout their good-byes after her.
'Don't get the blues because _we_ are not there!' cried Wilfred.
'I'll write great lots of times,' declared Robin, who was in tears. 'I
won't even wait for the lines to be ruled, Babs dear. You won't mind the
spelling, will you? 'Cause it saves so much time if you don't.'
'Cheer up!' was all Egbert said; and Barbara wondered if she was very
hard-hearted, because she was not half so wretched as they all expected
her to be. Peter even made her laugh outright, as he sprang on the step
of the carriage, and went a little way down the drive with them.
'Don't funk it, old girl!' he shouted through the window. 'And just send
for us, if anything goes wrong!'
'Be off with you!' said Auntie Anna, shutting up the window; and that was
the last that the Babe of the Berkeley family saw of the boys who had been
her only companions through life.
She had plenty to think about in her long drive in the dark; and Auntie
Anna was wise enough to leave her alone most of the time. A little more
than an hour later, however, when the carriage made a sharp turn and drove
through some gates, the old lady roused her by a touch on the arm.
'We are just there, little woman,' she said in her quick, abrupt way. 'Not
afraid, eh?'
'Oh no!' answered Barbara, smiling. 'I--I'm just excited.'
Mrs. Crofton kissed the eager little face, on which the light shone as
they approached the house.
'That's right,' she said, looking pleased. 'Always be a truthful little
girl, and don't mind if you find you are not like other people.'
Then the horses stopped, and a blaze of light shone down a flight of
steps to the carriage door; and Babs, feeling suddenly very small and
unimportant, in spite of the extra inch or two on her new serge frock,
followed the old lady into the great wide hall of Wootton Beeches.
Her dream was coming true at last.
CHAPTER IV
HOW IT CAME TRUE
Half an hour later, Barbara was being led across the hall by Miss
Finlayson, to be introduced to her school-fellows in the playroom. It
puzzled her a little to see how calm and unconcerned the head-mistress
was looking. Did she not know what a thrilling moment this was to her
little new pupil, who tripped along by her side? As Babs was puzzling
over it, they reached the baize door on the opposite side of the hall,
and Miss Finlayson stooped and fastened it back, disclosing a long
passage beyond. At the end of the passage was another door; and through
this other door the murmur and hum of many voices drifted to the ears of
the excited child. She could hardly contain her impatience; and she
wondered why Miss Finlayson did not go on, instead of being so particular
about the fastening of the baize door. She even took a step forward
in her eagerness; but a hand was suddenly placed on her shoulder, and
Barbara glanced up and met the half-amused gaze of the lady who had just
seemed so indifferent to her.
Miss Finlayson had a way of looking at a girl that generally made a
friend of her at once. Her eyes were a peculiar shade of blue-grey that
gave them, as a rule, a cold expression; but they were also capable of a
glimpse of humour that completely altered and softened them, and it was
the discovery of this quality in them that changed Barbara's impatience
all at once to curiosity.
'One moment, little girl, before you go through that door over there,'
began Miss Finlayson, and her face was still grave in spite of the
betraying twinkle in her eyes. 'Tell me, have you ever known any girls
before?'
'Only Jill,' answered Barbara, wondering why she was being asked such an
odd question.
'Ah!' said Miss Finlayson. The child caught the change in her tone, and
went on quickly.
'I know Jill didn't approve of me at first,' she said, in her small,
anxious voice; 'but she does now, I think. Besides, Jill is grown-up,
you see; and I don't think it counts if you are grown-up, does it? I've
never met any real, nice, friendly girls before, who don't tease you, or
bully you, or anything like that. That's why I wanted to come to school.'
'Ah!' said Miss Finlayson again. Then she put out her hand and patted
the cheek of her little new pupil. 'Do not be unhappy if you find you are
not like the other girls,' she said, just as Auntie Anna had done; 'and
come to me, if everything else fails and you cannot stand by yourself.
Only, remember--you are not in the nursery any longer: you have come here
to learn how to grow up straight and strong and healthy, just as a plant
learns; and I am only the gardener to give you a prop, when you have been
in too great a hurry and are trying to grow too fast. Do you think you
understand?' Her voice changed again, and a laugh came into it as she
added brightly: 'Come along now, and be a happy little girl. You will
find that most of us are happy in this house.'
She took Babs by the hand, and raced her along the passage to the door
at the end, then turned the handle and pushed the child gently into the
room.
'Girls,' said the head-mistress, in the sudden lull that followed her
entrance, 'here is a new schoolfellow for you.'
Then all the voices broke out again, and Miss Finlayson nodded to Barbara,
and went away. It was one of Miss Finlayson's theories, that a new girl
should be left to fight her way by herself; but as she retreated slowly
along the passage this evening, she could not help feeling a little
anxious about the child with the small, eager face, whom she had just
launched into a strange and unfriendly world.
Barbara took two quick steps forward, as the door closed behind her, and
stood there waiting. She had acted this scene over and over again in
her mind, and she had always made her entrance like this; after which
a girl, whose face was plump and ordinary, and whose legs were of the
right proportions, and whose hair was smooth and under proper control,
had always come towards her with a welcoming smile and had led her up
to the other girls, who all had welcoming smiles too. And everybody had
listened to her while she talked about her home and her father and the
boys; and nobody had laughed and nobody had teased, and nobody had told
her to 'shut up.' It had been a very favourite scene in her dream of
school, and she waited eagerly for the other actors in it to come forward
and do their part. But no one moved.
The room in which she found herself was certainly not like the one she
had imagined. It was long and low and prettily shaped, with two wide
bow-windows thrown out on one side of it, and a great square fireplace
taking up most of the wall that faced the doorway. Next to the fireplace
was a curtained archway, which evidently formed the entrance into another
room, judging by the buzz of laughter and conversation from beyond that
the thick red curtain failed to stifle. The bookshelves on the two
remaining walls were made of plain oak; so were the desks and chairs that
stood neatly arranged round the room in rows. There were also plain oak
benches in the warm chimney-corners, and plain oak window-seats in the
bowed recesses, while the floor was made of the same wood and was left
quite bare, except for a rug in front of the hearth. A pot or two of
chrysanthemums, some blue china on the over-mantel, and one or two
hammered metal lamps that hung from the beams in the ceiling, were the
only ornaments in the room; and the whole effect was so simple and so
clean that Barbara, fresh from the dingy old schoolroom in which she had
passed her life until now, was obliged to forget everything else for the
moment and just stare round her. Then her eyes rested again on the
girls who were scattered in groups about the room, and the expectant
look on her face became a little wistful.
There seemed to be thirty or forty of them all together; and from the
noise on the other side of the curtain Babs concluded that there were as
many, or more, in the room beyond. They all talked without ceasing,--all
at once, it seemed to Barbara,--about their Christmas holidays and their
Christmas presents, about the parties they had been to and the pantomimes
they had seen, about the girls who were not back and the girls who were,
about everything, in fact, except the child by the door, who had been
waiting all her life for this moment. What did it matter to them that
she should go through a few seconds of embarrassment? They had all been
through the same, in their time; and it was not to be supposed that they
should make things any easier for future generations of new girls. So
they went on babbling about their own affairs, and Barbara went on
expecting some one to come and put an end to her discomfort. But nobody
came.
Slowly, she began to feel conscious, just as she had done when she
first met Jill, that there was something odd about her appearance. In
spite of the extra inch or two on the bottom hem of her frock, and the
temporary smoothness that a vigorous application of a wet brush had
produced on her hair, Babs saw with a kind of dismay that she was not made
in the same pattern as the crowd of neatly dressed girls before her.
None of them wore her hair loose and curly like her own, and none of
them looked as though she did not know what to do with her hands. If only
she could have held on to something, Barbara felt sure she would not
have felt so shy or so helpless. There was a chair only two yards off;
but something kept her standing where she was, and she did not even
reach out her hand to it.
The girls continued their conversation, and forgot all about the new-comer
that Miss Finlayson had brought in. Most of them stood facing the fire
and had not even looked at her; and the others, who glanced now and
then towards the door, only shrugged their shoulders and wondered why
the stupid child did not sit down, instead of standing still in that
purposeless manner. They did not mean to be unkind, but how were they
to know that she was fighting through her first disillusionment?
All at once, a diversion was made by two children from the other room,
who came tumbling through the curtain and nearly upset a tall fair girl
who was the centre of the group round the fire.
'Look where you are going, Angela Wilkins!' said the fair girl, sternly.
'What are you children doing in here, I should like to know?'
'Please, Margaret, don't be cross, and _do_ let me explain,' begged Angela
Wilkins, suppressing an inclination to giggle, and pouring out her words
hastily. 'Jean has had millions of letters from Jill Urquhart, and she
says----'
'It wasn't millions, Angela, it was only one,' corrected her
fellow-culprit from behind.
'And what business has Jean Murray to hear from Jill Urquhart?' demanded
the fair girl.
'I'm sure I don't want to hear from her,' grumbled the other girl, whom
Angela pushed forward to answer for herself. 'She only writes to me when
she wants something. I don't call that _writing_ to a person.'
'She's got a sister coming here this term, and she says everybody has got
to look after her, or something like that,' chimed in the irrepressible
Angela.
'It isn't a sister, it's a cousin. And she hasn't asked everybody; I wish
she had. She's asked _me_ to look after her, and that's a very different
thing,' complained Jean Murray, looking distinctly aggrieved.
'Yes,' added Angela, breathlessly; 'why should Jean be bothered with all
the new girls who happen to be people's cousins?'
'She isn't,' said Margaret, curtly. 'It's only one new girl; and if she is
a cousin of Jill's, Jean ought to be very proud of being asked to look
after her. Do stop exaggerating, Angela; and go away, both of you!' Then
just as the children slunk off subdued, she recalled them and made a
gesture towards the door. 'There's a new girl over there now, I believe,'
she continued indifferently. 'You'd better see whether she's the right
one; and if she is, bring her to me.'
She turned again to the fireplace, and the two girls made their way
towards the other end of the room, where Barbara still stood unnoticed.
She saw them coming, and heaved a sigh of relief. Things were a long
while happening in this school; but it was something if they happened in
the end. She glanced at their two faces as they came nearer, and felt
disappointed when the one with the cross expression addressed her first.
'I say, what's your name?' began Jean, ungraciously.
'Barbara,' answered the child, faintly. Her dream seemed more improbable
than ever, in the presence of this small stranger with the aggressive
manner.
'Barbara what?' asked Jean, impatiently.
Babs stared, and added her surname unwillingly. At home, when people spoke
like that, they had to do without an answer.
'That's the one,' grumbled Jean to her companion. Then she addressed
Barbara again. 'How old are you?' she asked, in the same abrupt way.
'Eleven,' answered Babs, obediently. 'How old are you?'
It was Jean's turn to stare. 'What business is it of yours?' she
exclaimed. After a moment's consideration, however, she found a
satisfactory reason for replying. 'I'm a year older than you, anyhow,'
she added triumphantly, 'so you'll be the youngest in the school now, and
you can take off the head girl's boots.'
Before Barbara had time to realise this penalty, or privilege, belonging
to her youth, Angela Wilkins, who had been silent for quite a surprising
length of time, suddenly attacked her afresh. 'Are you really Jill's
cousin?' she asked, with a giggle.
Babs nodded; but Angela did not seem convinced. 'You're not a bit like
her, are you? Jill Urquhart is so pretty and graceful and all that,' she
observed with engaging frankness, and then giggled again.
Barbara said nothing; it was certainly unnecessary to agree with such
a very obvious statement. Jean Murray, who had also been examining her
closely in her turn, evidently seemed to think a further snubbing was
required of her.
'You're frightfully tall for your age,' she remarked disapprovingly, as
though Barbara were somehow to be held responsible for her height. 'If I
had straight spiky legs like yours, I should have my dresses made longer.'
'No, you wouldn't, if you had five brothers always wanting you to do
things,' retorted Barbara, promptly. It was saddening to find that, even
here, people were prepared to make remarks about the slimness of her legs.
Angela was so surprised at her sudden show of resistance that she forgot
to giggle.
'I say, you'd better not speak like that to Jean Murray,' she said in a
warning tone, glancing as she spoke at Jean, as though she expected her
to take immediate measures for the suppression of the new girl. 'She's
been the youngest for so long that naturally she's inclined to be jealous,
now you've come to take her place. Of course she has to pretend she's
glad, but you can't expect her to like the idea of somebody else taking
off the head girl's----'
'Oh, if that's all,' said Barbara, indifferently, 'I don't want to take
off anybody's boots, thank you.'
'You'll have to, whether you like it or not,' interposed Jean, who had
been listening quite complacently to Angela's description of her feelings.
'Come along now, and see Margaret Hulme; and don't be such a month about
it, or else we shall catch it for stopping in here so long.'
'Who is Margaret Hulme, and why have I got to go and see her?' asked Babs,
hanging back a little. It was so perplexing to have to do things without
being given any reason for it.
Both the girls opened their eyes wide. 'Why, she is the head girl!' they
explained, as if that were reason enough for anything; and without waiting
for any more objections, they pulled her across the room to where the
fair girl still made the centre of the group round the fire. She kept
them waiting for some seconds before she condescended to notice that they
were there.
'Didn't I tell you to go back to your own playroom?' she demanded
presently. Then her eyes fell on Barbara, and she scanned her critically
up and down.
'This is Jill Urquhart's cousin,' explained Jean, hurriedly, and she gave
Barbara an unexpected push that sent her stumbling, with her usual lack
of good fortune, right against the head girl.
'Take care, child!' said Margaret, frowning. And while Babs stammered out
some apology, she turned to the other girls behind her and said something
that made them all laugh.
'She's only eleven, though she's so awfully tall; and her name is Barbara
Berkeley,' volunteered Angela, peering over the shoulder of the new girl.
'Who spoke to you?' inquired the head girl, sarcastically, looking back
again. She once more scanned Barbara all over, and smiled in an annoying
manner to herself. 'However did Jill manage to have a cousin like you?'
she asked; and the other girls laughed more than before.
'I don't know,' said Barbara, with a touch of scorn in her voice. The
mysterious way in which the head girl and her admirers were laughing at
her was very different from the frank teasing she was accustomed to; and
it gave her a sudden wish to assert herself. 'I never pretended to be
like Jill, or like any of you! I--I don't think I want to be like you,
either. In my home, we don't laugh behind people's backs.'
She caused quite a small sensation in the group round the fire. One or
two began to titter afresh, and then stopped, waiting for the head girl
to take the lead. The head girl was equal to the occasion.
'It is very certain, then, that you have stayed in your own home quite
long enough,' she remarked coldly, and resumed her conversation with her
friends.
The two children dragged Barbara through the curtain into the next room.
'Well, you _have_ got some cheek!' gasped Jean Murray, staring at her.
'Lucky for you that you're a new girl! If it had been _me_, Margaret Hulme
wouldn't have spoken to me for a whole day.'
The enormity of such a punishment did not for the moment impress Barbara
much. What she did notice was that her passage of words with the head
girl had broken the ice of her introduction to the junior playroom,
especially with the aid of Angela's highly coloured account of it.
'You never saw such a thing!' she was exclaiming rapidly to the circle
that formed round her. 'There was Margaret, looking like a dozen
thunder-clouds rolled into one, and there was the new girl, grinning from
ear to ear, not caring a bit what anybody thought of her and just
standing up to the head girl as if she was in the First herself.'
The new girl barely recognised this description of herself; but as it
made her an object of curiosity, if not of sympathy, in the junior
playroom, she did not feel inclined to correct the picture that the
red-haired, freckled little chatterbox was painting of her. Anything was
better than being left out in the cold again. It struck her too that
the girls in the junior room were far less inclined to laugh at her
than the elder ones had seemed; and it raised her fallen spirits a
little to find that the children who were now strolling up to her,
with inquisitive glances at her hair, her clothes, and everything else
about her, seemed disposed, in spite of their calm curiosity, to show
her a kind of rough friendliness. They were more like boys, these smaller
people in the junior playroom; and Barbara, though still failing to
realise her child's ideal of girls, felt a faint kinship with their
straightforward method of addressing her.
'No nickname?' they asked, when she had again admitted her name and her
age.
'Oh, yes,' answered Barbara, unsuspiciously, 'the boys always call me the
Babe, or----'
The peals of laughter that interrupted her puzzled her a good deal. It
was very queer that, wherever she went, people always laughed at her.
It was some moments before their glee over the nickname, that so exactly
suited the childish impression she produced, began to subside.
'Have you got a nurse?' asked Angela, who had laughed louder than any one.
'No,' said Barbara, simply, not seeing that this too was meant to be a
joke. 'She left, two years ago.'
'Well, you ought to have one,' retorted Jean, brusquely. 'She might teach
you how to comb your hair.'
'And let down your frock,' added two or three voices together.
'What's the matter with my frock?' asked Babs, opening her eyes. 'It's
nearly two inches longer than any frock I ever had before.'
The laughter began afresh, and Barbara gave up trying to explain things.
She was a little hurt, in reality, and was afraid of showing it; for it
would never do, after being teased by five brothers all her life, to be
ruffled by the laughter of a few schoolgirls. All the same, there was
something in their way of laughing at her that hurt, and she did not care
to provoke them into doing it any more.
The loud ringing of a bell brought her a sudden respite, by clearing the
room of her tormentors. They poured hastily out of two large doors, that
slid back in the wall and revealed another square hall beyond, similar to
the one at the front of the house. The wide staircase up which the girls
were trooping evidently led to their bedrooms, for Barbara, left deserted
and forgotten in the playroom, could hear them, directly afterwards,
moving about overhead. As she waited there alone, wondering what she
was supposed to do next, Jean Murray came hurrying back into the room
and looked round for her.
'Oh, bother!' she said, in her ungracious manner; 'what a nuisance you
are! I wish you'd do things without waiting to be told.'
Babs explained submissively that she was quite ready to do things if she
only knew what to do; but Jean still grumbled.
'Any one with any sense would know,' she declared, hastening out of the
door again as she spoke. When she was half-way across the hall, she
shouted, without looking back, 'Can't you come along? There's only a
quarter of an hour to dress for supper.'
Babs hurried after her, and managed to keep her in sight up the wide
staircase and along the gallery at the top. There were doors all round
the gallery, and at one of these, marked number twelve, Jean stopped
and waited impatiently.
'What a time you are,' she complained, when Barbara caught her up.
'I'm very quick, when anybody doesn't take such an enormous start,'
answered Barbara, panting. 'I can beat Peter twice round the Square and up
to the gate, _easily_! And you're not in it with Peter.'
Jean looked at her, and her expression was not a pretty one. However, she
only jerked her head at the door in front of them, and told Babs it was
her bedroom. 'Finny said I was to show you,' she added. 'Don't know, I'm
sure, why everybody thinks I've got to show you things. And you'd better
look sharp and dress, because when you're ready you've got to cut along
to number two and do the head girl's hair. It's always the business of
the youngest in the school to do the head girl's hair. See?'
'But I don't know how to do anybody's hair,' began Barbara, in a fever of
dismay. But Jean had already scampered out of hearing; and with her
responsibilities weighing heavily upon her, the new girl turned the
handle of her bedroom door and went forlornly in. It was a simple little
room, very clean and fresh-looking, with everything there that she wanted
and nothing that she could do without. The pretty coverlets on the bed
and the dressing-table and the muslin curtains that draped the oaken
window-sash gave it a look of homely comfort, while harmonising with the
plain green colour of the walls and the blue frieze and carpet. As
Barbara walked across her small domain and pushed aside the blind to
peep out into the clear starlit night, a moment's rest came to her
perturbed little mind. The tiny bare room was all hers, and the feeling
of privacy and possession was very comforting.
A door in the wall told her there was a room leading out of hers, and
the sound made by some one moving rapidly about in it reminded her again
of her present woes and of the necessity for dressing as quickly as
possible. Her relief at not being obliged to sleep with the other girls
was forgotten in her returning consciousness of having to live with them,
and to do their hair and to button their boots. With desperate haste
she struggled out of her serge frock and into a muslin one, that had
a strange new method of fastening that was extremely baffling; and five
minutes later, trembling, uneasy, and flushed with the hurry of her speedy
toilet, she stood knocking at the door of number two.
'It's me,' she said feebly, in response to the curt inquiry from within.
Her inadequate explanation was followed by a few quick steps on the other
side of the door, which was then flung open with an impatient movement;
and the head girl, putting hairpins rapidly into her hair as she stood,
was looking down at her sternly.
'You should go to one of the younger ones, if you want to know anything,'
she said crossly. 'Where's Jean Murray?'
'It was Jean Murray who told me to come,' answered the child, looking a
pathetic little object in her half-fastened muslin frock, with her hair
standing out wildly round her head. 'I'm sure I didn't want to come; I
don't know how to do anybody's hair; I told her so. But she said it was
because I was the youngest, and----'
'What _are_ you talking about, child?' interrupted Margaret. Her mystified
look was lost on Babs, however, as the child stared down in much misery
and confusion at the little steel buckles on her new evening shoes. She
went on unhappily with her stammering confession.
'She said I'd got to do the head girl's hair because I was the youngest,
and I was to make haste, or I shouldn't be in time. I did make as much
haste as I could, _truthfully_,' she added, looking up timidly at her
frowning questioner; 'but there were such a lot of hooks on my new frock,
and I'm not used to hooks. I've always had buttons before, you see.'
One or two of the neighbouring doors had opened by this time, and quite a
small audience was assembling to hear Barbara's attempt at explanation. A
giggle that swelled into a laugh brought dismay once more into her heart;
and a suspicion that she had been hoaxed slowly dawned upon her.
'Isn't it true?' she cried, turning upon them desperately. 'Haven't I got
to do the head girl's hair?'
'You'd better do your own first, I should say,' observed one of the
onlookers, carelessly; and the others laughed again.
The head girl silenced them peremptorily. 'Don't, Ruth!' she said.
'It's only a babe, after all. You others had better go downstairs;
the supper-bell will ring directly.'
The gallery slowly emptied itself, except for the little group of three
that still stood outside the head girl's door. The offending Ruth turned
to Barbara; she had a good-natured face, and was looking penitent.
'Come here, child, and let me fasten your frock properly,' she said;
'you've done it up all wrong.'
Barbara turned her back to her willingly. 'It's awfully bricky of you,'
she said warmly; 'I've never done up my own frock before, and this one
was so complicated, somehow.'
'You must come to me when you want your frocks fastened,' answered her
new friend. 'I sleep next door to you, and I always help Angela, whose
room is on the farther side of mine. You've only got to tap at the door
between, when you are ready. But you mustn't speak in the morning before
breakfast, or in the evening after prayers, because that is against the
rules.'
She fetched a brush and tried to reduce the tangled hair under her hands
to a certain degree of order. Margaret Hulme had disposed of all her
hairpins by this time, and was closely watching a door on the other
side of the gallery. When it at last opened she straightened herself and
prepared for action.
It was Jean Murray who came out of it, rather cautiously at first, then
with a pretence of great unconcern. But her jaunty air completely deserted
her when she saw the little group outside the head girl's door, and she
tried to slink away towards the stairs unnoticed. Margaret called her
back authoritatively, and Jean came slowly and unwillingly round the
gallery.
'Now,' said the head girl, when she was within easy hearing, 'just you
apologise to Barbara Berkeley for hoaxing her just now. If you think
there is anything funny in telling an untruth, I'm sorry for your sense of
humour, and you'd better not do it again in this house. Now then, make
haste about it.'
Barbara tried impetuously to interfere, but Ruth Oliver held her back.
'Hush!' she whispered. 'Leave it to Margaret.'
Jean was shifting from one foot to another, and her mouth began to quiver.
'I didn't know she'd be such a stupid as to believe it,' she muttered.
'My dear child,' said the head girl, blandly, 'nobody supposed you were
any judge of character. So it would clearly be wiser not to play that kind
of joke on any one in future, wouldn't it? Are you going to apologise or
not?'
Jean reddened, and a lump rose in her throat. Her worship of the head
girl was the most genuine thing about her, and she was suffering keenly
under her disapproval. But an apology to a new girl, especially to one who
had come to rob her of all her privileges, was next to an impossibility.
Barbara saved the situation.
'I don't want anybody's apologies,' she cried. 'I'm not cross, and I don't
know what you're all talking about.' She wriggled away from the friendly
grasp of Ruth Oliver, and sped round the gallery till she came to the
head of the stairs. Arrived there, the temptation of a long, broad,
shining baluster-rail was too much for her; and in another moment the
little elf-like figure in the fresh muslin frock was astride of it and
flying down to the hall, with her hair once more in rebellion round
her face. The exhilaration of the brief rush downwards sent all her
troubles out of her head, and she uttered a war-whoop of delight as she
landed with a thump on the mat at the bottom. The elder girls, who were
just streaming across the hall in response to the supper-bell, stopped
and stared aghast. Certainly the new girl was the most impudent of her
species, and meant to make her entry into the establishment of Wootton
Beeches with a flourish! But Margaret Hulme, it was rumoured, had taken
her up; and that meant that the elder girls were no longer in a position
to criticise her.
CHAPTER V
THE INK BOGIES
Barbara's disappointment had lost some of its bitterness by the time
the seven o'clock bell woke her on the following morning. Perhaps,
after all, it was her own fault that things had not turned out so
delightfully as she had expected. Even the boys used to call her clumsy
and stupid sometimes; so why should she expect any more tolerance from
her school-fellows? Anyhow, here was the beginning of another day, and
there was still plenty of time for her dream to come true.
It did not seem much like coming true, though, as she stood in the
juniors' room after breakfast, jostled from right to left by the girls
who were on their way to the different classrooms, and wondering when
somebody would come and tell her where she was to go. She wished rather
sadly that everybody in this school would not expect her to know things
by instinct.
'Do _you_ know where I am to go?' she begged, catching hold of Jean Murray
as she hurried by. Babs had forgotten, if, indeed, she had ever realised,
that Jean looked upon her as an enemy.
'Go and ask one of the seniors,' retorted Jean, shaking her off. 'You're
much too high and mighty to have anything to do with us.'
'What is she talking about?' asked the amazed Barbara, looking after her.
'Well, it isn't likely she can forget all at once that you got her a
scolding from Margaret Hulme,' explained Angela, who was hurrying as
usual after her friend, like a shadow.
'_I_ got her a scolding? What do you mean?' cried Babs.
'Oh, it's all very well to be so innocent,' snorted Angela; and she
disappeared too.
Barbara sighed and remained where she was, till she was moved on again.
'Do get out of the way,' complained some one else; 'you're right in front
of my bookshelf.'
Barbara sprang aside hastily, and caught her foot in the leg of a desk
and fell down.
'I don't mind moving,' she said, getting up again and rubbing her elbow,
'but I do wish I knew where to move to.'
'Can't you find out?' asked the owner of the bookshelf inconsistently, as
she rushed off with her arms full of books.
Barbara sighed again. Try as she might to make the best of things, it was
a little tiring to be such a universal object of complaint.
'Hullo, Babe! You ought not to be here,' said a cheery voice from the
seniors' room, and Ruth Oliver put her head round the red curtain.
'This is only the playroom, you know, and, except for preparation or for
fetching your books between the classes, you are never supposed to use
it in lesson-time. The classrooms are upstairs.'
'I know I oughtn't to be here,' answered Babs, ruefully. 'I never am where
I ought to be.'
'But Finny sent for you, ages ago,' said Ruth, looking astonished. 'Didn't
Jean tell you? She's a young horror, that Jean. Never mind, come along
with me, and I'll show you the way.'
She hurried the child through the baize door into the front hall, and
pointed out a room that was close to the foot of the stairs. 'That's
Finny's study,' she said hastily. 'You'd better look sharp. Good luck
to you!' She gave her an unexpected kiss that promptly secured her the
child's allegiance from henceforth, and ran off with her books under her
arm.
Barbara entered the room, and looked round for Miss Finlayson. Only the
head girl was there, however, sitting at the table with a frown upon her
face.
'You ought to have been here before this,' she began reprovingly. 'Miss
Finlayson couldn't wait any longer, so I've got to miss the history
lecture and examine you, instead of her. Why couldn't you come, directly
Jean told you?'
Barbara turned a little red and tried to look unconcerned, in which she
signally failed. 'I think,' she said, 'that you'd better ask Jean.'
Margaret looked at her sharply, and muttered something that sounded
uncommonly like 'Little beast!' which seemed to the child rather more
than she deserved, considering that it was really Jean's fault and not
hers at all. She was rather surprised at the head girl's next words,
which seemed quite gentle by comparison.
'Why, you look blue with cold, child,' she remarked, and drew her round
by the fire. 'Now, stand there, and tell me what history books you have
been using.'
'I haven't used any,' answered Babs. 'I haven't had any history lessons,
you see.'
'Do you mean to say you know nothing about the history of England--nothing
about wars or kings or laws, or any of those things?' inquired Margaret,
raising her eyebrows.
Barbara's face brightened. 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'I know all about _them_
from father, and the British Museum, and books. I didn't know that was
history.'
Margaret was a little puzzled. The examination of this new girl looked
as though it were going to present difficulties. 'What kind of books?'
she asked doubtfully.
'Lots of kinds,' answered Barbara, glibly. 'Napier's _History of the
Peninsular War_, and somebody else's _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, and
another one called _The Four Georges_, and--and--oh, that long stuffy
one, cut up into volumes, with ever so many funny words in it, called
_Cromwell's Life and_----'
'That's enough,' cried Margaret, and she looked in amazement at the small
animated face of the new girl. 'I--I think that will do for history,'
she went on hastily. 'Now, what about geography? I suppose you know the
elements, so I won't----'
'What's elements?' interrupted Babs.
'Well, the beginning part,' explained the head girl--'the part that tells
you the meaning of islands and volcanoes and earthquakes, and what the
world is like inside, and things about the moon and the----'
'But all _that_ is in Jules Verne's story-books,' remarked Babs. 'Of
course I've read Jules Verne. Is that what you call elements? I like
elements, then, especially the _Journey to the Centre of_----'
'Oh, I say, do stop,' interrupted Margaret, biting her lip. She was
divided between perplexity and amusement, and she wished that the
head-mistress had stayed to examine this extraordinary imp of a child
herself. 'Haven't you used any real geography books?' she asked presently.
Barbara looked vague.
'Do you know the map of England, for instance?' pursued Margaret, rather
desperately.
'Oh, yes, I know the map of England,' answered the child, confidently.
'It's so easy to find, because it's pink. I know America too, because
father has gone there to lecture, and he won't be back for ever so long,
not till----'
'Hush!' said the head girl. 'Tell me what arithmetic you have done.'
'Let me see, that's figures without letters, isn't it?' inquired Babs.
'I'm afraid I can only add up, because Bobbin hasn't got any further yet;
he's backward in sums, you see, and I've only learnt mine through helping
him with his prep. Sometimes, I wish he'd get on a little faster, because
I'm getting so tired of----'
'Then you mean to say,' interposed Margaret, rather impatiently, 'that
you can only do simple addition?'
'That's in arithmetic,' Barbara hastened to point out. 'I've got as far
as fractions in the funny sums that Kit does out of the other book;
they're much easier, because they have letters dotted about to help
you. I always do Kit's sums, when he has asthma; but he says I'm very
slow. Then there's the nice interesting book with pictures of triangles
and things; we've got up to----'
'Oh, don't!' said Margaret, and Barbara paused, a little surprised. Why
did people ask her questions if they did not mean her to answer them?
Margaret was drumming her fingers on the table and looking a little
worried. 'Have you learnt any languages?' she asked suddenly. 'I mean,
anything besides French--German, for instance?'
'No, I haven't learnt any German, and I don't want to, thank you,' said
Babs, decidedly. 'Ever since the German band complained to father, because
Peter tried to stop their noise by shying potatoes at them from the
window, we've all made a vow never to learn their beastly language. And I
don't know any French either; no more does father. I know Latin up to the
deponent verbs, though,--deponent verbs _are_ catchy, aren't they?--and
I've begun Greek with father. I'm afraid that's all the languages I----'
'Well, you are a curiosity!' declared Margaret, giving up the attempt to
hide her amusement. 'So you've never had a governess at all? Nor been to
classes?'
'I've been to a gymnastic class,' said Barbara, eagerly. 'It's the only
thing I can do properly. Have you got a gymnasium here?'
She clapped her hands when Margaret nodded, and bounded towards the door.
'Mayn't I go and try it _now_?' she asked in a disappointed tone, when
the head girl called her back.
'There's plenty of time for that,' said Margaret, reminding her with a
frown that she was only a new girl and was there to be examined; 'I've
got to settle first what class you had better go into. But I'm sure I
don't know what I am to say to Finny about you.' She sighed, and looked
at Barbara as if for inspiration. Barbara was quite equal to the occasion.
'You'd better put me in the bottom class, I should think,' she advised
pleasantly; 'you don't know what my spelling is like yet.'
'Thanks,' said Margaret, drily; 'I've no doubt you are quite competent to
examine yourself, and to teach all your betters into the bargain, but that
doesn't help me just now.' She drummed her fingers on the table again,
and Barbara waited and went off into a kind of dream as she stood there.
She was aroused by an exclamation from the head girl. 'I know,' she was
saying in a relieved tone. 'Can you write compositions, child? I mean,
make up things in your head and write them down?'
Barbara smiled. Certainly, that had nothing to do with lessons. She had
scribbled over every piece of paper she could find, ever since Nurse had
first taught her to form her letters. 'I can do that all right,' she said.
'All except the spelling,' she added as an afterthought.
Margaret paid her no attention. She was occupied in carrying out her
happy idea for concluding the examination of the new girl and leaving
herself free at the same time to go to her history lecture. 'Look here,'
she said, spreading some paper rapidly on the desk in front of her;
'come and sit in this chair and write about anything you like. You'll have
a good hour and a half before the interval for lunch; and then Miss
Finlayson will come and look at what you've written, and she will settle
what class you can go into.'
'But what shall I write about?' asked Barbara, when the head girl had
installed her at the table and was hurrying out of the room.
'Anything you like; it will be all the better test if I don't give you
a subject,' said Margaret; and she escaped before the child had time to
say any more. She felt a little mean about it, for she was positive she
could not have done it herself; but she consoled herself by the reflection
that the new girl was queer enough for anything. Besides, she did not
want to miss the whole of her history class for the sake of examining a
child who was ignorant of all the things that other children knew, but
had picked up the most extraordinary bits of knowledge by herself. So
Babs was left to face the difficulty, for the first time in her life, of
writing something within a given time.
It was certainly not easy to think of anything to say, in this unfamiliar,
austere little room, with a blank sheet of paper staring at her, and
some one preparing to pounce upon her presently, to criticise what she
had done. In the library at home such a chance as this would have
filled her with joy, and the paper would have been covered in a few
minutes with a medley about giants and princesses and dragons, to be told
later on to Kit and Bobbin when they clamoured for a story. But here
it seemed impossible to get a single word on to her sheet of paper, and
she looked at the clock in despair, and wondered what would happen to
her when Miss Finlayson returned and found she had written nothing. She
plunged her pen desperately into the ink at last, and wrote the first
thing that came into her head. It was a title she remembered noticing
on the back of a book with a smart cover--one that had lately been
added to her father's library. She did not know what it meant, and she
was not sure what she was going to say about it, but it sounded more
like the kind of thing to choose for an examination than one of her fairy
stories would have been. Then, just as she had written the heading
very crookedly across the top of the page, she found that the pen she
had picked up was a quill, and possessed the most entrancing capacity
for making splutters. It was the first time she had happened upon a
quill, and the discovery was too delightful to be neglected. So she spent
the next ten minutes in adorning her paper with fantastic ink shapes,
that she named bogies on the spot and wove into a fairy story about an
enchanted princess, who had to write a composition in an hour and a half.
When this exciting occupation began to pall, she was seized with a
sudden desire to explore, and began wandering restlessly round the room.
There was very little to examine besides books; but books were always
good enough for Barbara, and she became very quiet and absorbed as her
inky forefinger travelled slowly along the bottom shelves, until she had
exhausted the outsides of all the volumes that came within her reach.
Then she stood back, with her hands behind her, and stared up at the
ones above her head; and a familiar name, printed in dull gold letters
on the back of a solid volume in russet brown, suddenly made her heart
leap.
'Father's book!' she gasped. 'There's father's book! And I've been in this
stupid place all this time, and never discovered it till now! Oh, I must
get father's book!'
There was a sob in her throat when she found that even a footstool, placed
on the highest chair in the room, did not mount her up sufficiently
to reach the precious volume. Her bright little eyes travelled quickly
round the study, to embrace all its resources, and she very nearly uttered
one of her wild war-whoops of delight when she spied a step-ladder
half hidden in a dark corner. It did not take her a minute to stagger
with it across the room and to fix it, more or less securely, against the
bookshelf. After that, there was no sound in the little study except the
ticking of the clock and the rustling of leaves, until the door
opened sharply and the owner herself walked in.
For a moment Miss Finlayson thought the room was empty. Then she saw the
small figure with the big book, perched on the top of the ladder; and
the quaintness of the picture made her smile irresistibly. 'What are you
doing, Barbara?' she asked.
She spoke as softly as she could, but the sound of her voice was quite
enough to startle the unconscious child. She dropped the heavy book with
a thud, and would have lost her balance and plunged after it, had not
Miss Finlayson been prepared for the contingency and put out an arm to
save her. Babs caught at it wildly, and found herself lifted down and
placed on the floor in safety.
Miss Finlayson had stopped smiling, but she did not look very angry. 'What
were you doing up there, Barbara?' she repeated gently.
'I was reading father's book,' answered Barbara, rubbing her eyes. 'I
didn't know it was there, till I looked up and saw it; and then I just
climbed up and got it. I think I must have been reading a great long time,
because I've got such an ache just there.' She curled her hand under her
arm and thumped the middle of her back. 'Do you ever get an ache in the
middle of your back when you've been reading?' she inquired earnestly.
Miss Finlayson did not answer immediately. She stooped and picked up the
fallen book first, and replaced it on the shelf. Barbara began to wonder
if she was angry, and if that was why she had such an odd, serious look
on her face.
'And do you like your father's book, Barbara?' she asked presently.
'I think it's the most beautiful book in all the world,' answered Barbara,
without hesitation.
Miss Finlayson was a little startled, but she did not show it. 'Then I
wonder if you can explain it to me,' she went on; 'for, do you know, I
find some of it rather difficult to understand?'
Barbara threw back her head and laughed merrily. 'But I don't understand
_any_ of it,' she cried. 'You have to be grown up to understand it, father
says. And I'm not grown up yet, you see.'
'No,' agreed Miss Finlayson. She was looking distinctly relieved, and
the twinkle had come back again into the depths of her eyes. 'I shouldn't
worry about that, though, if I were you,' she continued, sitting down
and taking the child on her lap. 'Some day, when you are quite grown up,
you will be able to understand it; and then we can read it together and
help each other over the difficult parts. What do you say to that?'
'I think it will be beautiful; but it's a very long time to wait,' sighed
Barbara. 'When do you think I shall be quite grown up? Jill is grown up,
and she is eighteen. Shall I be grown up when I am eighteen?'
'We will wait and see,' said Miss Finlayson, but somehow her tone was
not encouraging. 'Meanwhile,' she went on, patting the hand that was
fearlessly lying in hers, 'supposing we make a bargain that neither of us
will read your father's book until we can read it together? You see,
if you were to go on reading it now, you might understand it in quite a
wrong way, and then you would never be able to help me over the difficult
parts.'
Barbara thought about it for a moment or two. 'But _you_ will have to do
without father's book all those years!' she exclaimed suddenly.
'I have read it once, you see,' said Miss Finlayson, gravely; 'I think I
can manage to wait, if you will wait too.'
Barbara still looked doubtful. 'Do you really think I shall be able to
help you over the difficult parts?' she asked.
Miss Finlayson smiled mysteriously. 'Perhaps,' she said. 'One never knows.'
'Then I'll wait till I'm grown up before I read it again,' decided
Barbara. 'It would certainly be a pity to spoil father's book by
understanding it all wrong.'
'Or by dropping it from the top of other people's ladders,' observed Miss
Finlayson. That was all the reproof she gave her; and then she turned
briskly to the writing-table. 'Isn't there something you have written
for me?' she asked.
Barbara jumped away from her in dismay. 'I quite forgot!' she said
penitently. 'I did begin to write something, and then--and then----' She
struggled in vain to remember what had happened, and gave it up with a
sigh. 'I don't know what I did, but I know I never wrote any more than
this,' she added, and produced the sheet of paper in a shamefaced manner.
Miss Finlayson took it, and glanced at the title that was written
crookedly across the top of the page. 'A Comparrisson of the Possition of
Women, now and in the eighteenth century,' was what she read. Below that
came quantities of smudges and blots, and at the bottom of all was
inscribed: 'These are the ink bogies that came and wrote the Princess's
compossition for her, and saved her from the awfull anger of the cruel old
witch called Finny.'
Miss Finlayson read this over more than once, then she folded up the sheet
of paper very carefully, keeping her face averted all the while. Babs was
sure she had been very naughty, and she was seized with a panic lest the
head-mistress should be too angry this time even to speak to her.
'I--I know it was very naughty of me,' she confessed anxiously; 'I
couldn't think of anything to say about it, and the pen made such
beautiful bogies, and--and--are you _awfully_ furious?'
Miss Finlayson had to look at her, then; and she made a last effort to
keep grave. The next moment the little room was filled with her laughter.
'My dear little girl,' she exclaimed, 'I am afraid I am not a bit furious.
The fact is--the ink bogies _have_ saved the Princess!'
CHAPTER VI
THE BOOTS OF THE HEAD GIRL
'I'm going to be in your class for everything except Latin and
mathematics,' shouted Barbara, flying into the juniors' room just
before dinner. It seemed to her of the first importance that everybody
should know which class she was to be in, and she was distinctly
surprised when Jean Murray, whom she had addressed, turned her back on
her and began talking loudly to some one else. 'Don't you hear?'
persisted Babs, coming round in front of her again. 'I'm going to be in
your class for everything except----'
'Sneak!' burst out Jean Murray, unable to control herself any longer.
'Tell-tale! You oughtn't to be in anybody's class, you oughtn't!'
Barbara stood stockstill, and looked at her. All the courage she had
regained from her peaceful morning in Miss Finlayson's study dwindled away
again, and left her hopeless of propitiating these strange schoolgirls,
who seemed determined on being cross with her whatever she did. Angela
knocked roughly against her at the same instant, and surprised her at
last into a remonstrance.
'What have I done?' she demanded. 'Won't anybody tell me what I have done?'
No one answered her. The alliance of Jean and Angela, though Jean was
the youngest and Angela the most empty-headed of all the children there,
meant the existence of a strong party in the junior playroom; and the
poor little new girl stood a very small chance of asserting herself
against it. They were much like sheep, both in the upper and the lower
playrooms at Wootton Beeches; and the party that followed Margaret Hulme
in one room was like the party that followed Jean in the other. In
both cases it only needed some one a little stronger than the rest to
be the leader; and Jean, in spite of her inferiority in age, supplied
the strength, or what her school-fellows mistook for it, in a certain
doggedness of temper that pulled them along in her wake. Most of them
found it so unpleasant to be in her bad books, that she had very little
difficulty in managing them.
Barbara turned appealingly to Angela. 'Why is Jean so cross with me?' she
asked. 'I haven't done anything to her, have I?'
'Not done anything?' echoed Angela, looking over her shoulder for Jean's
support. 'Why, you went and told Margaret Hulme that Jean hadn't given
you Finny's message, and----'
'Sneak! Tell-tale!' sneered Jean again.
Barbara suddenly looked immensely relieved, and smiled in a friendly
manner at the enemy. At least this was a misunderstanding that she could
clear up. 'Is that all?' she cried. 'No wonder you were cross, if you
thought that. Of course I never said a word about it to Margaret Hulme, or
any one else; I suppose she guessed, or something. But why didn't you
give me the message? It would have saved such a lot of bother, wouldn't
it?'
'Well,' gasped Jean, as though words almost failed her, 'I never heard
such wicked story-telling!'
'Nor I either,' chimed in Angela, putting her arm round Jean's waist.
'She's done nothing but tell crams ever since she's been here. Come away,
Jean, dear; she isn't fit to be argued with.'
The pair of them marched off, consumed with righteous wrath, to the other
end of the playroom. Babs, overwhelmed with the incredible idea that any
one should suppose her capable of telling an untruth about anything,
waited speechlessly for some one to interfere and take her part. But
those of her school-fellows who had been listening to the dispute hastily
followed the example of their leader, and ignored her entirely. They did
not stop to think whether they were being just; if the new girl told
stories--and Jean Murray said she did--it was certainly their duty to
teach her a lesson. When they looked for her presently, to see how she was
bearing their displeasure, they found she was no longer there.
Upstairs, in the small, bare bedroom, the one spot where she felt safe
from the intrusion of horrible wicked people with horrible wicked
thoughts in them, the forlorn little new girl was covering page after page
of the ruled note-paper Auntie Anna had given her, with an ill-written,
ill-spelt account of her woes.
'Dear, dear boys,' she wrote; 'I am very misserable. Everything is
horible. At least, that is not quite true. Finny is nice she is like
Auntie Anna and Nurse, and I've got a bedroom of my very own we all have
but mine is one of the nicest becourse it comes at the corner of the
house and looks over a wall into the orchard and there's a plant with
bunches of red beries that climes round my window and nobody else has
red berrys round their window but only me. Finny has lots of ripping books
in her study and she has father's book and she is very nice but the girls
are beests I hate girls! Girls tell stories and they say you do things
when you don't and they are awfull beests. They laugh at you every
time you open your mouth but I don't mind their siliness so much it's
their untruthfull hatefullness that I hate. I have never been so miserable
I wish father had never gone to that beestly America and I wish Auntie
Anna would come and fetch me back again. Do do ask her to come and take
me away from all those hatefull girls, tell her how miserabble I am
you don't know any of you what it is to be really misserable, etc. etc.'
She had reached about the fifth page of this wild epistle when her door
flew open; and Ruth Oliver looked in, with a perturbed look on her
good-humoured face.
'Why, there you are!' she exclaimed. 'Didn't you hear the dinner-bell?
We're half-way through the first course. Whatever are you doing?'
Barbara began folding up her letter and forcing it with trembling hands
into an envelope. 'I've been writing home,' she said, and her voice
quivered. Of course, everything she did was wrong; but what did dinner
matter when there was her letter home to be written?
'My dear child, we're not allowed to write letters except on Wednesday
afternoons. Make haste and put the thing away, do,' said Ruth,
impatiently. The sudden look of distress on the child's face touched
her, and she added more kindly--'Well, well, bring it downstairs with
you, Babe, and perhaps Finny will give you leave to send it to-day. Only,
do _come_.'
Miss Finlayson not only gave her leave, but even offered to deliver the
letter herself, as she happened to be going to pay a call near Crofts
that same afternoon. It consoled Babs a little to feel that the boys would
not have to wait until the morning to learn how miserable she was; at
the same time, her present situation was no easier to bear, for all the
younger girls took a thoughtless pleasure in talking at her, whenever
Jean was present; and it was not nice to be with people who made remarks
about her, and yet pretended all the time that she was not there. The
early part of the afternoon at Wootton Beeches was given up to playing
games in the nine-acre field, which was marked out, during the winter,
into hockey grounds; and here Babs found herself, soon after dinner,
strolling aimlessly along by the hedge and wondering what there was about
her that made eighty-seven girls detest her so heartily. When she suddenly
remembered how much she had looked forward to playing real games with
real schoolgirls, her disappointment was too much for her, and the tears
rolled rapidly down her cheeks.
'Why, here's the new girl, Barbara Berkeley. She'll do,' said a brisk
voice behind her, and the games-mistress descended upon her with a hasty
request 'not to hide away in corners when she was wanted.'
'I didn't know I was wanted,' explained Barbara, following her up the
field. 'I never am wanted, you see.'
'Nonsense! Everybody is wanted at this school,' replied the
games-mistress, who had a warm complexion, a breezy manner, and a
vigorous step, all of which, aided by her name of Burleigh, had secured
her the nickname of Hurly-burly. It never occurred to her that the new
girl was suffering from anything worse than the ordinary depression
natural to her newness, and she decided immediately that the best
thing to cheer her up would be to make her run about. In the eyes of
Miss Burleigh, running about was a cure for most things. 'Here, Charlotte
Bigley!' she called loudly; 'you ought to have looked after this child
instead of letting her escape. She'll do to play forward on your
side. Just put her where you like, and let's begin.'
There was not much chance, when Miss Burleigh was about, of letting
private feuds spoil the game of hockey; and under the influence of
her infectious gaiety, the girls even began to show Babs a certain amount
of friendliness. Perhaps the fact that Jean Murray was bicycling round
the cinder-track, instead of playing hockey, may have had something
to do with their change of manner, but Babs did not inquire into that.
It was enough for her that she was allowed, for the first time in her
life, to run about in the open air without a hat; and she reddened
with pleasure when Charlotte Bigley, the captain of her side, actually
complimented her on the way she ran. Charlotte was the oldest of the
junior girls, and she was going to be moved into the upper Third next
term; so she always professed to be rather superior to the leadership
of Jean Murray--especially when Jean Murray was out of the way.
'You'll make a very good right wing, when you've learnt to pass the
ball inside instead of poking at it,' she observed condescendingly, at
half-time.
A very little was enough to send up Barbara's spirits with a bound, and
when the bell rang at four o'clock for preparation, she ran indoors with
as buoyant a step as the rest, and even whistled gaily to herself as she
unlaced her boots in the large cloakroom, where the girls were taking off
their outdoor things. Angela happened to overhear her, and at once took
upon herself to quench this unseemly appearance of cheerfulness, and to
remind her that she was still only a new girl.
'You'd better look sharp and take off the head girl's boots, or you'll
catch it,' she advised her in a threatening tone.
Barbara stopped whistling and became suspicious. 'Last time I was told to
go and do things for the head girl, it was all humbug,' she said. 'I'm
not going to be taken in twice, so you shut up!'
Angela under the protection of Jean, and Angela by herself, were two
very different beings. The unexpected resistance made by Babs was quite
enough to change her bullying tone into an injured one, and she began
to edge off towards the other girls. 'This isn't humbug, anyhow,' she
said in a milder tone. 'If you don't believe me, go and see; that won't
hurt you, whether it's true or not. Of course, if you _want_ to make
Margaret jump on you, it doesn't matter to me.'
There was certainly something in what she said, and Barbara heaved a
sigh for the complications of school life. It was so silly, she felt,
so extremely silly to make such a fuss about the displeasure of the
head girl, and to avoid it by doing such stupid things for her. Why
couldn't the head girl take off her own boots, like every one else?
However, it did not matter much, one way or the other; and Babs would
have taken off anybody's boots to secure a little friendliness in this
most unfriendly of assemblages. So she threaded her way through the crowd
of girls to where Margaret Hulme stood talking with the enthusiastic
hockey players who formed the first eleven. She had not begun to take
off her boots, Babs noticed, so perhaps it was true after all, and the
head girl was really waiting for some one to come and do it for her.
'Ruth would make a splendid half-back if she'd only learn to strike
better,' Margaret was saying earnestly; 'and if Winifred wasn't so
frightened of tackling, we should have quite a--what is it, child?'
'Please, I've come to know if you want your boots unlaced,' said Barbara,
rather faintly. She was fully prepared to be laughed at again for her
pains; and, indeed, it did seem a most ridiculous suggestion to make to
any one. But the head girl treated it as if it were the most natural thing
in the world.
'Of course I do. Do you want to do them to-day?' was her reply, and she
immediately put her right foot a little forward and went on talking to
her eleven.
'Oh, but I don't _want_ to take them off,' cried Babs, eagerly. 'I only
thought----'
But Margaret was too deep in her conversation to pay any attention to
the youngest girl in the school; and Barbara knelt down unwillingly and
struggled with a stubborn knot in a muddy bootlace. She had hardly begun
her unattractive task, when some one dropped suddenly beside her on the
floor and laid a hot hand on hers.
'You leave the head girl's boots alone!' said Jean's voice in her ear.
'It's just like your interfering ways, to come sneaking up to her when
I wasn't looking. Go away and mind your own business!'
Now, Babs had just been resenting deeply the absurdity of her position at
the feet of the head girl. She did not want to take off anybody's boots,
and she thought it an exceedingly stupid thing to do. But to give up her
task because some one came and got cross about it, was quite another
matter. A lurking spirit of mischief, helped by the exhilaration she
still felt after her two hours in the open air, made her retain her hold
on the knot in the head girl's bootlace.
'I am minding my own business,' she retorted stoutly. 'Ever since I've
been here, you and Angela have dinned the head girl's boots into my ears
till I'm sick of hearing about the stupid things. Now I'm here, I'm not
going to stop till I've done them; so you'd better go away yourself.'
[Illustration: 'What in the name of wonder are you children doing down
there?']
Jean glanced at her furiously, and Barbara tugged away at the bootlace
and began whistling again, to show how little she cared whether Jean was
angry or not. Above their heads, the gossip went on busily about the style
of the first hockey eleven.
'How about our chances against the Wilford club next month?' some one was
asking.
'As to that,' said Margaret, with confidence, 'if we only keep our heads
we shall have no difficulty whatever in standing----'
She did not finish her sentence, for at that instant a violent onslaught
on her right foot put a comical end to it by nearly upsetting her balance.
She just saved herself by seizing the arm of the nearest girl, and the
hockey gossip came to an abrupt finish.
'What in the name of wonder are you children doing down there?' demanded
Margaret, wrathfully. The knot had come undone by this time, and Jean
was tugging at one end of the bootlace, while Babs, with an elfish glee
shining in her bright little eyes, was keeping a firm hold on the other
end.
'You go away,' Jean was gasping in a choked voice. 'I've done this for
two years, and I'm not going to give up doing it now.'
'You told me yourself I'd got to do it, and I'm not going away till it's
done, so there!' laughed Barbara, in reply.
She made another dash at the foot between them, and the head girl again
nearly lost her balance. 'Stop quarrelling, and leave my foot alone, you
naughty little wretches!' cried Margaret, stamping her disengaged foot
vigorously. Jean, with two years of discipline behind her, awoke suddenly
to the voice of authority and started to her feet, covered with terror
at the enormity of her offence. But Babs uttered a yell of delight at
finding the victory so easily won.
'Why don't you unlace somebody else's boots?' she shouted defiantly to
her adversary. 'There's lots of boots round here waiting to be unlaced.'
Margaret stooped down and lifted her up bodily, and set her on her feet
beside Jean.
'Now,' she said sternly, 'what do you both mean by behaving in this
disgraceful manner?'
Neither of them answered her. Jean hung her head and looked as if she were
going to cry every minute, and Barbara waited to see what would happen
next. It did not seem to her that she had done anything so very dreadful,
and she wondered why no one saw how funny it all was. Ruth Oliver was
looking the other way, so she could not see her face; but the rest of
them seemed just as serious about it as the head girl herself.
'Haven't you anything to say for yourselves?' demanded Margaret.
Hot, angry tears began to well up into Jean's eyes. She never knew she
could have hated any one so much as she hated this new girl for coming
between her and Margaret Hulme. Barbara caught sight of her tears, and
the desire to laugh suddenly left her.
'You see, we didn't know who had got to unlace your boots,' she explained
hastily. 'It isn't that it's such an awfully jolly thing to unlace
people's boots, but----'
'Oh, that's it, is it?' interrupted Margaret, crushingly. 'Then you
needn't be in the same difficulty any more on my account, for in future
I shall unlace my own boots. Now, go away and do your preparation at
once, and don't let me see either of you again for the rest of the day.'
Babs went off obediently to find her books, and she puzzled greatly as
she went over the displeasure of Margaret Hulme. 'Such a fuss to make
about _boots_,' she remarked to Charlotte Bigley, whose bookshelf was next
to hers. But even Charlotte was not proof against the furious account of
the matter that Jean Murray had just been giving to a sympathetic circle
of friends; and Barbara soon found that she had quite lost the little
popularity she might have gained in the hockey field by her behaviour
over the head girl's boots.
'I think she must be mad,' declared Angela, in the buzz of conversation
that preceeded the call for 'Silence' from the presiding French teacher.
'She looked as though she wanted to kill Jean. I was looking at her all
the time, and I was quite frightened. She ought to be watched, I'm certain
she ought.'
'She ought not to be spoken to by any one,' wailed Jean, hiding behind an
open atlas to avoid the scrutiny of Mademoiselle, who sat in the archway
between the two playrooms. 'Perhaps, if every one leaves her alone she'll
learn how to behave like other people.'
Left alone she accordingly was, since Jean Murray had so decreed it;
and this time there were no half-measures about it. At tea-time, and
again at the supper table, the girls on either side of her turned their
backs upon her and talked busily to their other neighbours; and in the
playroom afterwards she found herself just as scrupulously avoided. It
was decidedly an uncomfortable state of things for the new girl, as it
was meant to be by those who were responsible for making it; but somehow
the new girl did not seem to mind it half so much as they would have
expected. All the evening she sat in the corner of the juniors' room
by herself, and any one would have said from the look on her face that
she did not care whether the others spoke to her or not. Now and then
she smiled, as she sat there with her elbows perched on her knees and
her chin supported on her hands; and the whole time her look of supreme
unconsciousness never left her.
'She's hardened, that's what she is,' declared Jean, glancing in her
direction. This she said to keep up her own resentment against the new
girl, which was unaccountably beginning to cool.
'She thinks it's grand to pretend not to care,' added the faithful
Angela. This, indeed, was the prevailing opinion among the children
of the junior playroom; and it was not comforting to their pride.
All the while, Barbara guessed nothing of the comments she was provoking
by her manner. It was enough for her that she had got away once more
into her fairy kingdom, and that Kit and the magician and the old
fairy godmother had just turned out all the princesses who were called
schoolgirls, and had shut the gates in their faces.
It was a very weary little new girl who went up to her bed that evening
after prayers. She was almost too tired to think over the events that
had been crowded into the last twenty-four hours, almost too sleepy to
realise that this was the close of her first day at school, the day she
had thought would be the happiest day in her life. Perhaps it was a good
thing she was not able to think too much about anything, at the end of
that first day at school. The moment Fräulein had turned out her light,
she went off into a dreamless sleep that might have lasted unbroken till
the morning, had not something occurred most strangely to break it.
She did not hear the small pebbles that were thrown up, one after
another, at her window; it would have taken more than that to rouse
her from her first sleep, though once a handful of mould and gravel that
scattered itself all over the glass panes made her stir uneasily and
murmur something sleepily. It was just after this that some one began
calling 'Coo-ey' softly, on two particular notes; and after this had been
repeated two or three times, it gradually worked itself into the waking
dream of the little new girl. At the fourth time, she was wide awake
and listening with all her might. Another repetition of it, followed by a
gentle whistle that only Peter knew how to blow through his fingers, took
her with a flying leap to the window. The moon outside was flooding the
world with light and revealing every secret in the landscape for miles:
it flooded the big nine-acre field beyond the orchard; it flooded the
orchard itself, and the wall that ran along it, just under her window; and
it showed her five boys sitting astride on the top of the wall, and
five--no, _six_ bicycles leaning against the bottom of the wall.
Barbara pushed open the lattice window as wide as it would go, and leaned
out breathlessly. Her finger was on her lips, and she shivered from head
to foot with cold and the fear of being overheard. Supposing that any
one were to find out they were there, and should send them away before she
could get to them?
The five of them made frantic signs of welcome, as soon as they saw
the familiar dark head appear at the window. In spite of the graphic
description contained in her letter, they were beginning to be afraid
of having besieged the wrong window. Then Kit waved a screw of paper and
made more signs, and the dark head vanished from view again. It did
not take a minute to turn out all the contents of her corner drawer,
and to find the ball of string that Robin had given her for a parting
present, and then to fling the end of it down to Kit, who tied on his
screw of paper and nodded at her to haul it up.
The moonlight was bright enough to enable her to read the few short
pencilled lines without much difficulty.
'We've come to the rescue,' she read. 'Auntie Anna has gone away till
to-morrow, so we could not wait until then, knowing you were so jolly
blue. Come down quickly; there's a window under yours that you could get
through all right.'
Barbara struggled with desperate haste into her pink dressing-gown,
thrust her bare feet into a pair of woolly slippers, and glided to the
door. In her haste and her half-awakened condition a more elaborate
costume than that, considering the urgency of the occasion, seemed quite
unnecessary to her. Along the silent gallery she pattered, and down
the wide staircase, then through the two empty playrooms into the front
hall. She knew the window the boys had meant; she had noticed the red
berries tapping against the glass, as she passed it on her way to Finny's
study the morning before.
As she sped across the moonlit hall, she did not see that the study door
was ajar and that a chink of light shone out from it. All her attention
was absorbed in the one thought that the boys were going to take her away
from this houseful of unfriendly strangers, and that she would never have
to face them and their taunts again.
She clambered on to the window-seat, and unfastened the shutter. That was
easy enough, but the bolt of the window baffled her for some seconds.
When she did manage to shoot it back, the noise it made filled her with
apprehension. In her terror lest she should have been overheard, she did
not pause another instant, but threw up the sash and hastily put one
slippered foot on the ledge. Once outside and on her bicycle, the boys
would take care that no one overtook her; and she would be free at last!
Panting with excitement, she stooped through the open window and prepared
to draw her other foot after her. But before she had time to do so, a
light step had crossed the hall and an arm was flung round her from behind.
'Barbara!' exclaimed Miss Finlayson. '_Barbara!_'
CHAPTER VII
AN IMPROMPTU SUPPER PARTY
The disappointment was too much. Barbara covered her face with her hands
and burst into tears.
'Let me go, do let me go!' she cried, struggling to free herself. 'It
can't make any difference to you whether I run away or not, and it does
matter to me and the boys!'
'Barbara!' repeated Miss Finlayson, very quietly indeed. But the child
did not seem to hear.
'Why won't you let me go?' she sobbed passionately. 'I can't stop any
longer in this horrible place. Nobody wants me here, nobody! Do, do let
me go back with the boys.'
Miss Finlayson put her other arm for a moment round the little figure in
the pink dressing-gown, and she kissed the only place on the hot, wet
cheek that was to be seen. Then she stepped backwards and left her free.
'You can go, Barbara, if you want to,' she said, just as calmly as before.
Babs uncovered her eyes and looked at her incredulously. Now that she
was free to go the inclination to run away seemed to have left her.
Outside, the boys were waiting and wondering why she did not join them.
They could just see something at the open window, but the shadow cast
by the orchard wall made it indistinguishable. Miss Finlayson shot one
glance outwards, that took in the row of figures at the top of the wall,
and the row of bicycles at the bottom of it; then she waited passively
for Barbara to make up her mind. But this was precisely what the child
could not do.
'Wouldn't you--wouldn't you _mind_?' she stammered at last.
'Would it matter to you if I did?' asked Miss Finlayson.
Babs stood still, in a miserable state of indecision, with one foot still
on the window-seat, and the other placed on the ledge outside. She was
beginning to feel exhausted by the excitement she had gone through, and
she gave a weary yawn that turned into a shiver. Miss Finlayson promptly
put an end to the situation by lifting her back into the hall. Directly
she did so, a series of thuds in the neighbourhood of the wall, followed
by the crunch of footsteps along the gravel path, sounded from without,
and the tops of five heads suddenly appeared at the open window.
'If you please,' said a voice, pleadingly, 'it is our fault that the Babe
is trying to escape. You won't rag her for it, will you?'
[Illustration: 'Five heads suddenly appeared at the open window']
'She never knew we were coming, till we came,' added another voice. 'We
made up the plan because we heard she was jolly unhappy.'
'We couldn't possibly let her be unhappy another minute, or else we might
have waited till Auntie Anna came back,' chimed in a third.
Then followed a disappointed cry in Robin's shrill tones. 'But _isn't_
she going to escape, after all?'
Miss Finlayson waited till they had finished speaking, and her large clear
eyes were brimming over with fun.
'Of course she is going to escape, if she wants to,' answered the
head-mistress; 'but at present she seems to be in some doubt about
the matter. Supposing you come in and wait by the fire, while she
thinks it over. You might help her, perhaps, to make up her mind. Will
you climb through the window, or shall I unbolt the front door?'
Naturally, a rescue party five strong could not do anything so tame
as to walk through a front door; so although the window was four or
five feet from the ground, Robin was hoisted up first by Peter's strong
arms, and then they all scrambled after him, one by one, till the little
procession was ready to follow Babs and her captor into the warm, cosy
study. Certainly, no one could have said that Miss Finlayson's room looked
stiff or austere at night, when the curtains were drawn and the fire had
burned down to a rich red glow.
There was something like an uncomfortable pause, as soon as they found
themselves assembled there, with the light full on their faces. It was
true that the expedition had not failed, and that the Babe was as free
to escape now as she had been before Miss Finlayson came upon the scene;
but, for all that, none of them could help feeling that Miss Finlayson,
so far, had the game in her own hands, and that they were only making
themselves look ridiculous. For they could all see that her face was
overflowing with merriment, as she stooped down and poked the fire into a
blaze.
Egbert cleared his throat, and tried to relieve the awkwardness of the
position by making some sort of an apology. He knew quite well that, being
the eldest, he ought to have suppressed the plot in the very beginning.
'I am afraid you will think us rather mad,' he began, 'but the Babe's
letter put us all on our mettle; and we thought--that is, some of us
thought she ought to be rescued. Of course, we hadn't seen you then,' he
added desperately. Any apology for the rescue party certainly involved
the most unflattering insinuations about his hostess; and Egbert in his
confusion thought exceedingly bitter things about Kit and Peter, who
had dragged him against his will on this wild adventure.
'It was awfully nice of you to think of me,' murmured Barbara, but her
tone was not so enthusiastic as it might have been. If only Finny would
stop being so obliging about it, she was sure she would find it so much
easier to run away.
'Exceedingly nice!' echoed Miss Finlayson, warmly. 'I am only sorry
there should be this delay in carrying out your plan. However, that is
no reason why we should not have something to eat, while Barbara is
making up her mind. It must be nearly midnight, and I am starving. Will
one of you come and help me to forage?
Egbert volunteered, with a feeling of relief at having something to do;
and he followed her out of the room. The moment the door closed, the
children's tongues were loosed.
'Dear, dear Babs,' cried Robin, dancing round her gleefully; 'you will
come away from the horrid, cross old thing, won't you?'
'Finny isn't cross, Bobbin; it's the others,' remonstrated Babs.
'Why, of course you're coming, aren't you?' said Peter, who was impatient
to have done with this inaction and to carry out the glorious rescue they
had planned. The worst of it was that half its gloriousness seemed to have
subsided before the pleasant manners of the head-mistress.
'I should think she was coming, indeed!' declared Wilfred. 'You don't
suppose I'm going to lose two hours of bed for nothing, do you?'
Christopher, who had been silently observing Barbara all the while, shook
his head slowly. 'She won't come,' he said gruffly. 'They've made her
different already.'
A vague feeling of uneasiness crept over Barbara. Kit was always right;
_was_ she different already? She gave herself an involuntary shake. 'Never
mind about me!' she exclaimed. 'Tell me about Crofts, and what you've been
doing since I left, and----everything. Do you mean to say your cold is
better already, Kit?'
'Ah!' Wilfred hastened to tell her; 'that's because of the new doctor.'
'There's a new doctor just settled in this part of the world,' explained
Peter. 'Your Finny thinks an awful lot of him, and that's why Auntie
Anna sent for him last night, when Kit got bad, instead of going to the
old-fashioned chap who lives round the corner at Crofts. _We_ don't think
anything of him at all, though; do we, boys?'
'He _is_ a funny man,' commented Robin.
'He's a beast,' said Kit, conclusively.
'He's a clever beast, anyway,' protested Wilfred, feeling bound to support
the profession. 'He's done you an awful lot of good already, Kit, and
he lets you go out as much as you like. It's the modern treatment, or
something.'
'Why is he a beast, Kit?' asked Barbara, sympathetically. The world had
convinced her so strongly, since yesterday afternoon, of its possibilities
in the way of beasts, that she felt sure Kit was right about it.
'He grunts at you as though you weren't fit to speak to; and he isn't a
bit sorry for you, as old Browne used to be, but he seems to think you
are making it all up,' said Christopher, in an injured tone.
'He doesn't like boys; that's at the bottom of it,' added Peter. 'He
looked black as thunder because we were rotting in the library with Kit,
and he cleared us all out before he'd even look at his tongue.'
'And he never sent for a silver spoon, nor nothing,' cried Robin, in
much excitement. 'How did he 'xamine your throat, Kit, if he hadn't got
a silver spoon?'
'Shoved a thing like a skewer down, that he took out of his pocket,' said
Kit, contemptuously. 'His pocket was full of rotten skewers and things.'
'That's the modern treatment,' said Wilfred again.
'Modern treatment be hanged!' remarked Peter, with a laugh. 'Jill hates
him too; he treated her as if she was about ten years old.'
'Jill's furious because Auntie Anna has asked him to dinner next week;
and we shall have gone back by then, so she'll have him to herself all
the evening,' chuckled Wilfred.
'How is Jill?' asked Barbara, as soon as she could get in a word.
There was a little pause. 'She's all right,' said Christopher,
indifferently, after a moment or two.
'Kit likes her _awfully_,' proclaimed Robin, with his head on one side.
'So does Peter,' added Christopher, hastily. 'He was awfully gone on her
this morning, because she mended his cap when no one was looking.'
'I don't think she means to be young-ladyish, really,' remarked Wilfred,
patronisingly. 'Last night, when you kids had gone to bed, she sang to
Egbert and me. She can sing!'
'Now, why didn't she sing to us before?' demanded Peter. 'That's where
she's so awfully rum.'
'She hasn't been properly trained, that's all,' said Christopher.
'Why, she's studied under the best master in Paris!' interrupted Wilfred.
'You goat! I meant _her_, not her singing,' snapped Christopher.
'Oh, well, we all know why _you_ like her,' retorted Wilfred. 'It's
because she came and sucked up to you by offering to read aloud to you,
before Dr. Hurst said you might go----'
'I never said I did like her,' disputed Kit.
The door opened before they settled the matter; and the foraging party
returned, laden with spoil.
'I brought everything I could find that looked interesting,' announced the
head-mistress. 'You must be ravenous after riding all that way; and I'm
sure I am, though I've done nothing but sit by the fire all the evening
and make time-tables. You might clear them out of the way for me, will
you, Robin? And you, Wilfred, can move the other things on to the floor,
or anywhere else you like. Will you hold this tray, Peter, while I lay
the cloth? No, I don't want you, Christopher, thank you. Can't you see
that Babs is bubbling over with news for you? Go and keep her company
by the fire till supper is ready.'
It was very queer that she should know all their names like that, and
Egbert declared afterwards that he did not think he had told her anything
about them, though somehow she had kept him talking all the time they
were foraging in the larder. She had found out as much as she wanted
to know, however, and she found out a good deal more before supper was
over. There was something about her that made them all talk to her as
if she were an old friend of theirs instead of the stern jailer whom
they had come to defy. Not that she allowed them for all that to have
the conversation to themselves, for she chatted away herself as busily
as possible; and she made jokes about her impromptu supper until even
Egbert felt at his ease.
'Can any one cut up his chicken without a knife?' she asked. 'There's a
knife short, but it doesn't do to be too particular on an occasion of
this sort, does it? Ah, of course, you have one in your pocket, Peter;
I am used to girls, you see, and a girl never has anything in her
pocket except a handkerchief, and that is generally half out of it.
Now, who is going to carve the beef? Not I, indeed! I have carved the
beef in this household for twelve years, and you needn't suppose I'm going
to miss such an opportunity as this of being idle. Do you know, there
have never been five gentlemen together at my table since I became a
schoolmistress? Think of that, Barbara, and do not wonder that I know
more about girls than tomboys. I'm sorry there isn't a salad, but
there's real chutnee from Bombay and not the other place--wherever that
may be. An old pupil sends me my chutnee; and I always keep it for
grand occasions, like this and the break-up party. Will you come to
our next break-up party? That depends, I suppose, on whether Babs stops
here or not. Ah, well, she will have made up her mind by that time,
won't she? I'm afraid I must forbid you cold pie, Kit, it's poison to
asthma; besides, here are real, stiff, stewed pears. Don't you like
stewed pears that are stewed _stiff_?'
Barbara sat on the hearthrug with Kit, and she tried hard to determine
whether she should run away or not. With Finny revealing herself in
this wonderful new light, and Kit sitting beside her in the comfortable
firelight and sharing her plateful of stewed pears, the problem was
more than she could solve for herself. If this was school, she should
like to stay here always; and if it wasn't, well, she felt too lazy in
the present delicious state of things to worry herself any more about it.
Supper came to an end at last, and Miss Finlayson glanced at the clock.
Egbert took the hint, and pulled Christopher away from the bookshelves,
which he had begun greedily to examine.
'I think we must be going,' said the eldest of the five, politely; and
then he stopped short. The absurdity of the situation upset his dignity
again, and he stood there fingering his cap nervously.
'What about Babs?' asked Miss Finlayson; and her eyes twinkled and shone
till one might almost have supposed them to be filled with tears.
The boys looked towards the fireplace; but Miss Finlayson was standing in
front of it, and the little figure in the pink dressing-gown was hidden
from view. The head-mistress, at all events, had come to the conclusion
that the problem was too difficult for Barbara to solve.
'Yes, what about the Babe?' said Egbert, glancing round at the others.
'We did come to rescue her,' maintained Peter, 'and I do think----'
'Isn't Babs coming?' interrupted Robin, in tones of amazement. It seemed
a great waste of time to come all this way, and not to rescue anybody in
the end. Of course, there was the supper to be taken into consideration;
but it would be contrary to all precedent in the Berkeley family, if the
boys were to let themselves be influenced by _supper_.
'She'd be an idiot if she did come,' muttered Wilfred, under his breath.
He, undoubtedly, had been influenced by the supper.
Christopher pushed a chair on one side with a quick, impatient movement.
'She won't come,' he said once more. Then he caught a look from his
hostess, and reddened slightly. 'Perhaps she had better stay,' he added,
with an effort.
'Thank you, Kit,' said Miss Finlayson, with a nod and a smile at him. Then
she turned to the others again. The look of amusement never left her face
once. 'Will some one ask the Babe what she feels about the matter?' she
suggested.
She moved on one side to give them the opportunity. But the question was
never put. Babs had stopped trying to make up her mind; and the little
girl in the pink dressing-gown was lying curled up on the hearthrug, fast
asleep.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DISENCHANTMENT OF A BEAST
Barbara was stretched, face downwards, on the floor of the junior
playroom. It was Wednesday evening, about ten days after the rescue
party had invaded Wootton Beeches; and she was trying, with the aid of
much ink and a footstool for a writing-desk, to answer Kit's last two
letters, and to send him all the news she had accumulated since that
important occasion. Over her head buzzed the desultory conversation of
her fifty-five companions, who still gloried in ignoring her; but she
heeded them no more than they had come to heed the unconscious little
person who lay stretched at their feet. It was really only a habit
with them, by this time, to ignore the new girl; for most of them had
quite forgotten the fancied grievance they had originally cherished
against her for her defiance of their favourite, Jean Murray. Indeed, if
it had not been for the fear of Jean's scorn and Jean's tongue, they would
undoubtedly have made friends with her days ago. With the best intentions
in the world, it was not easy to go on avoiding some one who never
seemed to notice that she was being avoided; and most of them wished
secretly that Jean Murray would 'come round.' But whatever Jean felt
about it, she showed no intention outwardly of coming round. Whenever she
found herself alone with a picked audience, she seized the opportunity to
inflame them and herself afresh, by recalling the evil behaviour of
Barbara over the head girl's boots, pointing out how, by a tissue of
deceit, the offender had wormed herself into Margaret's favour, to the
exclusion of other worthier members of the junior playroom--notably of
Jean Murray herself. 'You've only got to see how little she cares, and
_that_ will show you what a wicked mind she's got,' was the kind of
sentence that usually wound up one of these inflammatory addresses;
and after that, the junior playroom would redouble its coolness towards
Barbara Berkeley. But Barbara Berkeley persisted in going her own way
cheerfully, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to live
with fifty-five companions who never spoke to her; and the situation in
the junior playroom threatened to become too absurd to be maintained.
Babs dropped her pen, and picked up one of Kit's letters for reference.
She had so much to say to him and so little time to say it in, that
she was afraid of leaving some of his questions unanswered. Kit's neat
and precisely written epistle was a great contrast to her own blotted
and smudged production; and Barbara sighed as she realised how much
he managed to say in a few words, while she expended far more time and
ink and energy, without expressing half as much as she wanted to tell him.
'Dear Babe,' Kit had written--'This is to tell you that we got home
safely from the great Midnight Rescue Party, though of course I caught a
chill and had to have that beast Hurst again. I'll tell you presently
how Jill ragged him, though; and that was well worth being ill for. But
first of all I have to inform you what we all think is for your good in
the present crisis of your fortunes. (That means, now you are at school.)
Of course we are much afflicted to hear that you are not happy, and of
course we are not surprised to hear you do not like girls. (Nobody
could, except Egbert, and he doesn't really, only he pretends he does
because of that chap's sister last holidays. That's what has done for
Egbert, and it's a great pity, but what we must expect at his age, so
it's no use vociferating about it.) But to resume--we are all agreed
that the best thing you can do is to stop where you are until the period
of probation is over (that means till you've done being at school). You
see, it is only for three months at a time, and _we_ are here in the
holidays. It would be indescribable and unprecedented (which means
beastly, and awful, and things like that) if you had to live with girls
in the vacation too. But you are spared this, and it is your duty to be
thankful for every crumb of comfort that is to be substracted from the
situation. (Besides, you are a girl yourself; you can't get over that
though you mayn't like the idea, and you've got to go on being a girl
till you're a woman. It's something to feel that it can't last for
ever, and that in the end you will be able to be a woman, like Nurse and
Auntie Anna; and there's nothing the matter with them, is there?) If
your temporary indisposition only cures your spelling it will be money
well spent, for your spelling, my dear Babe, as father once said, is
both original and varied. So cheer up, and remember that Jill is but
a girl too, and that she is quite passable for one of that slack and
wayward sex. (Even when she is most like a girl I find I can bear with
her. For instance, when I lammented the other day that the rescue party
had been a frost, she said, "Why, you couldn't have bicycled unless it had
been, could you? Listen to the rain, now!") The post is going, so I must
infer the description of how Jill ragged the doctor till next time.
Meanwhile, cultivate the endurance for which English women have ever been
renowned; that is the result of the codgitations of the council we held
before the others went back to school.--Your affectionate brother,
Christopher Berkeley.
'P.S.--I'm not quite sure about the m's in lammenting; it looks rum
somehow, but there isn't a dictionary, so I must leave it. C.'
His other letter was much longer, and had evidently been written straight
off without the elaborate care that he had given to the composition of
the first one. As Babs read it, she pictured him sitting as he always did,
perched on a high chair at the writing-table, with his legs curled under
him and his nose very close to the paper; and suddenly, the deadly
feeling of home-sickness she had been battling with for days came over
her again.
'This is the true account,' she read, through a suspicious mist in her
eyes, 'of how Jill ragged the doctor, when he came to dine with us,
the day after the boys went back. Of course, Auntie Anna didn't know he
was a beast, so she couldn't be blamed for asking him; but Jill and I much
regretted the circumstance. Robin grumbled and said he wished he was old
enough to sit up to dinner and have courses and courses and courses,
but that's his beastly greediness, as I pointed out to him, and he
doesn't know what it is to get a white tie under a filthy clean
collar and then an Eton coat under that and to wash your teeth extra
instead of only in the morning. But Jill came in and tied it, which was
something, and she even did it better than Nurse, who used to make you
feel sick by grinding her knuckles into your throat all the time. Having
prepared ourselves for the awful holocaust we then proceeded downstairs.
(Perhaps you won't be able to understand all the words in this letter, but
it's too good a joke to be spoilt by making it easy for you, so you
must do your best.) Jill had an awfully decent pink sort of thing on, and
it had rows of fringe that you could tie into knots without her rotting
you for doing it. Well, to come to the real matter of my discourse, we
found the doctor in the drawing-room, also the old Rector, who is called
Barnaby and is too old to count much, and besides Auntie Anna likes him
so we mean to extend to him the charm of our companionship. And the
Rector took in Auntie Anna, and the Beast took in Jill, and I followed
behind feeling rotten. You don't know how rotten it is, when you are
an odd one like that and nobody wants you in their conversation. You
see there were two conversations all the time, Auntie's conversation
with the old boy about tithes and rent charges and things that are
not suited to my intellect, and Jill's conversation with the doctor
which wasn't a conversation at all because he wouldn't talk. He sat and
glowered at his plate like a cat would, and if he lifted his eyes by
accident and caught one of us staring at him, he looked down again as
if he'd been shot. His conduct was most unaccountable and reprehensible
as I pointed out to Jill afterwards, and she said, "Yes," and grinned. I
was greatly incensed with him for giving her so much bother, because
she worked hard at him and never got cross once, and she asked him about
the village and about the poor people and about abroad, and all those
grown-up things, and the Beast said "Yes" and "No" and "Certainly,"
till I wanted to kick him. I tried to help Jill once or twice by tossing
off one of my polite rejoinders, but he only behaved as if I wasn't there
and looked more like a poker than ever. That was what put Jill's monkey
up. She couldn't stand his indifference and acidity to me, so she began
to rag him and that shows that she is in reality a brick though
forced to maskerade as a girl. (That's another word you don't know
perhaps but it's in the dictionary.) She smiled at him as perky as you
please and she said in that soft-cotton-wolly voice of hers, "Is there
anything that _does_ interest you, Dr. Hurst?" And when the Beast was
so bowled over that he nearly dropped his knife and fork, she just went
on and explained how funny it was to sit all the evening with some one
who didn't want to talk, and didn't he think so too? I wanted to break
out into paeons of triumph in order to express my satisfaction at the
turn matters were taking, but I restrained my impetuosity in time and
waited for the Beast to speak. He stuttered rather and began chopping
up the pear on his plate as if it was for Christmas puddings, and then
he said he didn't suppose any young people were interested in what he was
interested in (which shows that all the while he lumped Jill and me
together as _kids_ and not fit to associate with him). Then Jill asked
him what he _was_ interested in, and he said "Bac--" (this is the longest
word of all and I'm afraid you won't find it in the dictionary, at
any rate not in the way I'm going to spell it) "Bacterioi--" oh hang!
here goes again--"Bacteriollodgy." Then Auntie Anna winked at Jill, and
we went upstairs and left the Beast with the Rector, which was a
punishment he more than deserved, as I told Jill. She said she was afraid
we boys were spoiling her manners, and Auntie said, "Of course they are!"
as if it was a good thing, which of course _we_ know it is. I had to
go to bed then, and Jill said it was awful desolation and despair when
I'd gone, because Auntie Anna began her conversation all over again with
old Barnaby, and the Beast instead of having the sense to join in it
went and sat with Jill all the evening. Which shows his puerrility and
blightedness. She sang to him too, and he got up to go the moment she had
finished which was beastly rude, I think. If he did think she sang badly
he might have played up better. But he's a beast, and you can't get over
that. He's very ugly and sulky looking, and he's about fifty I should
think, but Jill says not so old. That's her grown-up charitableness
which she can't get over. Anyhow----'
The mist in Barbara's eyes threatened to become so serious at this point
that she put down Kit's letter hastily and returned to her own. Whatever
happened, she was not going to cry before all these girls, who never
understood anything she did. She was hard at work again by the time Ruth
Oliver pushed aside the curtain and looked in from the next room.
'Barbara Berkeley!' she called. 'Has any one seen Barbara Berkeley?'
One or two of the girls looked round casually at the slim figure on the
floor, but nobody roused her. Ruth Oliver was too good-natured a person to
inspire much authority in the junior playroom, and the children would
sooner risk her displeasure any day than Jean Murray's. If it had been
any other girl in the First, half a dozen of them would have hastened to
do her bidding at once.
'Angela!' called Ruth, impatiently, coming into the room as she spoke;
'don't you know where the Babe is? She has got to go and see the doctor
at once.'
On the other side of the curtain, both Barbara and her nickname met with
the popularity that was denied to them in the junior playroom; and the
note of familiarity in the elder girl's words sent Angela's impudent chin
up in the air.
'We don't know anybody of that name in here,' she said, and went on
talking flippantly to the girl beside her.
Ruth Oliver was not born to be a leader, and she was horribly afraid of
some of the younger ones, who had been quick enough to detect this long
ago, and naturally presumed upon it. But there were limits even to her
endurance, and she laid a stern hand on Angela's shoulder.
'If you don't want to be reported to Margaret Hulme, you'd better fetch
Barbara to me at once,' she commanded, with a firmness she certainly did
not feel.
Angela rose with a very bad grace, and strolled as slowly as she dared to
the other end of the room. 'If you'd only said that at first, it would
have saved all this fuss!' she muttered, as soon as she was at a safe
distance.
Babs still lay face downwards on the floor, with her heels in the air
and her whole attention fixed on the paper she was covering with her
large round handwriting. If she did not finish her letter before the
prayer-bell rang, it would have to wait until next Wednesday. So she did
not take any notice when some one came and said something or another in
her ear. She was always in somebody's way, and if she moved, she would
only be in somebody else's way. So she stayed where she was.
'Don't you hear? You've got to go and see the doctor,' repeated Angela,
loudly and with impatience. Thoughtless and empty-headed as she was, even
Angela Wilkins had the sense to see how absurd it was that the new girl
should turn on her persecutors by ignoring them.
Barbara rolled over on her side and glanced up at her.
'Oh, all right! I know how much of that to believe,' she answered; and she
rolled back again into her old position and continued her letter to Kit.
'She says she doesn't want to see the stupid doctor, and nothing will
induce her to come, and she doesn't care what you say or anybody else
either,' was Angela's version, on her return to Ruth Oliver, of the way
in which Barbara had received her message.
The elder girl looked down at her suspiciously. 'Did she really say that?'
she inquired.
'Go and ask her, that's all,' cried Angela, full of righteous indignation
at having her word doubted. For she was really under the impression that
she had correctly described the attitude of the new girl towards the
doctor and Ruth Oliver.
'Well, I will,' answered Ruth, and she threaded her way among the girls
until she too stood over the prostrate figure of the offender.
'Babs,' she called, bending down.
Barbara flourished her black legs in the air with an impatient movement.
'How you do bother!' she complained, stifling a sigh. 'That's the second
in five minutes. Why can't you leave me alone?'
There was a start of surprise in the group that surrounded her. It is
probable that few of her listeners saw the ridiculous side of the new
girl's request to be left alone, when that was the punishment that had
been meted out to her ever since her second day at school; but any one of
them could have told her that that was not the way to speak to a girl
in the First.
Ruth turned a little red from sheer nervousness; and the girls immediately
decided that she was afraid of the youngest child in the school, and began
to giggle with one accord. Barbara sighed again at this new interruption;
and raising herself on her knees, she sat back on her heels.
'Oh, it's you!' she observed, shaking the hair out of her eyes. 'Why
didn't you say so? I thought it was just some one who wanted to bother.'
'You've got to go and see the doctor in Finny's study. Make haste, Babe,'
said Ruth, who was smarting under the giggle, and wanted to get back into
the other room among her equals. But the Babe showed no signs of making
haste.
'Why have I got to see the doctor?' she asked, opening her eyes. 'I'm not
ill or anything; and I want to finish my letter home. Don't you think it's
a mistake?'
'No, I don't,' said Ruth, forgetting her nervousness all at once, and
lifting the child boldly off the floor. 'You've got to be examined to
see if you can do gymnastics, that's all. He's in Finny's study, waiting
for you.' She carried her playfully under her arm and set her down on
the further side of the curtain. Whatever the other tiresome children
might think of her, she knew that the Babe never criticised her, and that
gave her confidence.
Barbara was still a little dubious about the sense of seeing a doctor
when she did not feel ill; but she trotted across the hall obediently
and went into Finny's study. She was only half conscious of what she
was doing, for she had been taken from her letter too abruptly to have had
time to wake up properly; and Babs always required plenty of time to
wake up, when she had been absorbed in anything. So the solemn-looking
young man, who sat in the low arm-chair, was a little upset when she not
only gave him her hand to shake but also put up her face to be kissed
as a matter of course.
Dr. Wilson Hurst, in spite of Kit's idea of his age, was only twenty-eight
and quite young enough to feel extremely bashful. He jerked back his head
suddenly; and Barbara woke up.
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' she said, smiling. 'I wasn't thinking. Of course you
don't want to be kissed; I shouldn't have dreamed of kissing you at home,
you know, because the boys feel just like you about kissing. But Ruth
kisses me such lots, and everybody seems to kiss everybody else here, so I
suppose I've rather got into the way of----'
Here Miss Finlayson said 'Hush!' very softly; and the doctor pulled
something so queer and interesting out of his pocket at the same time,
that Barbara forgot everything else. 'What are you going to do with that
funny thing? Is it a speaking-tube?' she asked curiously.
'I'm going to see whether your heart is in the right place,' answered the
doctor, and he was immediately so overcome at his stupendous levity in
making a joke over a medical examination, that he did not speak another
word till it was completed. As for Babs, she was immensely interested the
whole time, and never took her bright little eyes off his face once.
'Is it in the right place?' she asked him, when he put the queer-looking
thing back in his pocket again.
'Yes,' said the doctor, briefly.
'Is anybody's in the wrong place?' pursued Babs, leaning against his knee
in the most friendly way imaginable.
'Sometimes,' said the doctor. He marvelled at himself for not feeling more
irritated by her, when as a rule he found children so worrying.
'Is yours in the right place?' persisted Barbara.
'I--I hope so,' said the doctor, struggling with a grim smile.
'Same place as mine?' continued Barbara, eagerly.
Miss Finlayson put out her hand to stop her; but Babs did not see. The
doctor saw, and did not take any notice.
'I imagine it is in the same place,' he said feebly.
'But how do you know, unless some one else finds it for you?' inquired
Babs. 'You can't listen to your own heart through that funny thing, can
you?'
'N--no, some one else has to find it,' admitted the doctor, and she
supposed he had remembered something that made him feel shy, for he
coloured furiously and rose to his feet rather hurriedly.
Babs stood gazing up at him attentively, while he exchanged parting words
with Miss Finlayson. 'It's an awful pity you didn't go to see Kit when he
was ill,' she remarked, directly there was an opportunity. 'Kit's doctor
was a beast.'
The long oval face turned slightly red again; and Miss Finlayson said
something very quickly about the wet evening.
'Yes,' replied the doctor, stammering a little; 'I am sorry the evening is
so late,--so wet, I mean, and that I am so late in calling--positively
the first minute I've had to-day,--extremely busy this time of year----'
A hand was stealing inside his, and he had to stop and look down again.
'Do you think you could go and see Kit next time he is ill?' asked Babs,
appealingly. 'It isn't nice to have a beast for a doctor, when you're ill,
is it?'
The doctor went on looking down at her with an odd sort of smile on his
face. 'That reminds me,' he said--though how it reminded him the child
could not for the moment imagine--'that your cousin Miss Urquhart charged
me with a message for you. She sent you her love and promised to write
soon. I hope I have given it correctly.'
'Oh!' cried Barbara, with great excitement. 'Do you know Jill?' The doctor
kept hold of her hand and nodded. 'And Auntie Anna? And the boys--_all_
of them? Then you must know Kit!'
'Yes,' said Dr. Hurst, grimly. 'I was the beast.'
Then he stooped and kissed her cheek very stiffly, as if he were not used
to kissing people; and then he went away. Like Ruth Oliver, he had found
it difficult to feel nervous of the youngest girl in the school.
Barbara climbed on the window-seat, and flattened her nose against the
window-pane, and watched the lamps of the doctor's trap receding down the
drive. 'I like doctors; don't you, Miss Finlayson?' she inquired, when
that lady came back into the study.
Miss Finlayson agreed that she liked doctors very much indeed, and
she began to write something in a big book, while Babs knelt on the
window-seat and stared out into the rain and the darkness. Suddenly she
jumped down from her perch with a cry of dismay.
'What's the matter now?' asked the head-mistress, absently.
'I must have called him a beast!' gasped Barbara.
'I think I heard something like it,' observed Miss Finlayson, still
writing.
'But--but I didn't mean that _he_ was a beast,' proceeded Barbara, looking
distressed. 'I meant that somebody else was a beast. It wasn't my fault
that somebody else was _him_, was it, Miss Finlayson?'
'It would be safer, I think, and perhaps a little more considerate, not to
call anybody a beast,' remarked the head-mistress, gravely. 'Then these
little mistakes would be avoided.'
'I never will again,' sighed Babs. 'It's such a particular pity, because
he isn't a bit like a real beast, is he?'
Miss Finlayson looked up while she dried the page she had just written.
'Have you finished your letters home?' she inquired pleasantly. 'The
prayer-bell will ring in about a quarter of an hour.'
The reminder sent Barbara straight out of the room, and she sped swiftly
back across the hall, thinking busily. Clearly, the only reparation
she could make to the doctor was to transform him from a beast into a
fairy prince, and to offer him a place in her fairy kingdom; but he
would be rather lonely there without a princess, she feared, and she
herself already belonged to Kit. It was always easier to find princes
than princesses, and she did wish that Finny would not wear a cap and
scrape her hair back so tidily--two things which disqualified her, in
spite of her niceness, from being a princess in anybody's kingdom.
However, perhaps he would not mind doing without a princess just at
first; and in time she might be able to find some one who was neither
silly nor unkind, and would be worthy of a crown and the companionship
of a disenchanted beast.
At this point in her reflections Barbara reached the door of the senior
playroom, and the sight of the elder girls, as they busied themselves
with their weekly correspondence, reminded her again of her letter to
Kit. For the moment, as far as she was concerned, her new prince would
have to whistle for a princess.
CHAPTER IX
THE BABE'S 'FURY'
In the junior playroom Jean Murray had been taking the opportunity to
revive the animosity against the new girl.
'Can't you see that she's laughing at us all?' she exclaimed to a circle
of humble listeners. 'It's all very well to pretend to be such a baby;
that kind of thing may go down with the elder ones, but it won't do here.
Anybody can see that she's only putting it all on, to be aggravating.'
'She told a story the very day she arrived,' chimed in Angela from behind.
'A girl who could do that would do anything.'
'Can't you leave the child alone?' suggested Charlotte Bigley, who
happened to be listening. 'She seems such a harmless infant to me. I
don't believe she even knows she is supposed to be in disgrace.'
It required a good deal of courage to stand up alone against all the girls
in the junior playroom, and Charlotte flushed a little when they all
laughed at her.
'That's where her artfulness comes in,' declared Jean. She thought she
heard her rival's voice on the other side of the curtain, and jealousy
made her more bitter than before. 'If you ask me, I believe she only
pretends not to notice any of us, so as to pick up everything she can; and
then she goes and sneaks it all to the elder ones.'
'Oh, Jean!' remonstrated Charlotte.
Jean looked a tiny bit ashamed of herself. It was not nearly so easy to
say unkind things about the new girl as it had been a week ago. All the
same, her unhappiness at the continued coldness of Margaret Hulme was
quite genuine, and it hurt her sorely to think that the head girl was
now smiling on the interloper as she used to smile upon her.
'Well, it's true!' she vowed. 'I vote we don't leave her alone, or give
her the chance of mocking at us, any more. She wants to be taught that
she's the youngest girl in the school, and that it isn't anything to be
cocky about. Anybody who likes can make up to her, as the big girls do;
but _I_ am going to see that she keeps in her place.'
'What a fuss to make about an innocent brat like that,' remarked
Charlotte, smiling scornfully. 'It's jealousy, because Margaret is
kind to her: that's all it is!'
That was decidedly what it was, but it did not soothe Jean's temper to
be told so in this blunt manner; and by the time her rival came in from
the seniors' room, the enemy had been worked up into a fine state of
resentment against her. Unconscious as ever that there was anything
unusual in the atmosphere of the junior playroom, Barbara slipped through
the girls who were standing about, and reached her footstool and her
letter almost before they noticed that she had returned. There seemed
to be some wrangling going on between Jean Murray and Charlotte; but Jean
Murray was always wrangling with some one about something, and Babs
paid no more attention to it than to the sudden hush that followed as
she dropped down in her old position on the floor. It was a good thing,
she thought, that nobody talked just then, because there was so little
time left in which to finish her letter. She took up the pages she had
written and glanced over them.
'Thank you awfuly much for your advice,' she had scrawled in her large
childish hand. 'I am cheering up lots and now that I don't take any
notice of the girls and their awfull siliness it is quite nice being here
but not nearly so nice as being at home with you and father all of
which is now burried for ever alass in my past. I don't hate girls
like I did at first. At first they were always bothering and asking
quesstions and being inquissitive but now they leave me alone and never
talk except when they want the salt or the butter or haven't heard the
number of the psarm at prayers or can't do their algibra I have lots
of algibra to do because girls aren't good at algibra I don't think so I
always do their algibra for them. Girls are no fun like boys but as long
as they don't say horible things to me like they did at first I think I
shall be able to bear them all right but its rather dull excep when we
play hockey I'm getting on at hockey Hurly-Burly says and she says I
shall play in matches some day and she's a brick and I like her. We
haven't had any gym yet because the gymnasiam is being painted but
we're going to begin to-morrow and I'm longing to begin they can't laugh
at my short skirts at gym because everybody's skirt is short at gym
and its red and very becomming Ruth says Ruth is Ruth Oliver and she's a
big girl and she hooks up my frocks and kisses me she kisses me rather
a lot but it's Ruth Oliver so I can put up with it. School is very nice
when it's games or algibra or latin but it's horrid when its dictation or
geography or coppies Finny says I must try so I am trying but I wish I
wasn't such an ignorrant girl I heard Jean Murray say yesterday I was the
most ignorrant girl that ever came inside this house but praps that was
because I had seventeen speling faults.'
She sighed as she dipped her pen in the ink again. That was all she had
said, after writing nearly all the afternoon and evening. And she had so
much more to say, and there was so little time left before prayers!
'I have just seen the doctor who is a Beast and he isn't a Beast,' she
had written laboriously on a fresh page, when Jean Murray stooped over
her and shook her vigorously by the arm.
'Oh, dear!' sighed Babs, feeling in her pocket for the handkerchief that
so rarely seemed to be in it. 'There's another blot, and I'm in such a
hurry!'
'It's no use losing your temper about it,' said Jean. 'You've got to get
up from the floor and fetch a desk, if you want to write letters.'
Barbara looked up in mild surprise. 'But I'm not losing my temper! Are
you sure you don't mean _you_ when you say me?' she asked with a spice
of mischief in her tone.
'There!' said Jean, turning triumphantly to the attendant Angela. 'Didn't
I say she was only laughing at us? Now, look here,' she continued,
turning again to Babs, 'you've got to remember that you're the youngest in
the school----'
'Oh, don't!' interrupted Babs, putting up her hands to her ears. 'You'll
begin about the head girl's boots next.'
It was the most luckless thing she could have said, for it convinced
Jean more than ever that the new girl was bent on making game of her
most serious feelings.
'I shall say anything I choose,' she retorted hotly. 'Get off the floor
at once, will you? We don't want ink spilt all over the place; this isn't
a nursery.'
'Who's spilling ink all over the place?' asked Barbara, without moving.
All the mischief that was in her rose uppermost when any one spoke to her
like that.
'You are, of course,' returned Jean, shaking her again. 'You're so badly
brought up that you don't know how to behave in a civilised house. You're
nothing but a young savage; I heard Margaret Hulme say so, directly you
arrived--there! It's easy to see you've never had any one to look after
you.'
The mischievous look died out of the child's face, and she gathered up
her papers and scrambled slowly to her feet. The boys would have known
that such lamblike behaviour was only the prelude to one of the Babe's
'furies'; but Jean thought she had succeeded at last in subduing her, and
she became exultant.
'It's time that some one civilised you,' she remarked scornfully. 'I'm
glad I've been brought up properly, and not neglected like you.'
Barbara flashed round upon her suddenly. 'What's the matter with my
bringing-up?' she demanded in a breathless voice. 'My father brought
me up, and no one in the whole world could have brought me up better
than he has.'
'That accounts for it,' scoffed Jean. 'Fathers can't bring anybody up,
especially girls. I've heard mother say so, lots of times.'
Barbara's eyes were glittering brightly. 'My father can,' she answered
swiftly. 'My father isn't like other people's fathers. You shouldn't judge
my father by your father. I don't expect your father to be clever because
mine is, do I?'
The implied insult was quite accidental on her part, in spite of the anger
that was growing in her; but Jean could not be expected to know that.
'How dare you say that my father isn't clever?' she cried indignantly.
'My father is a professor at Edinburgh, so there!'
'My father writes books,' answered Babs, proudly. 'It's much more
wonderful to write books than to be a professor, because everybody all
over the world hears of you if you write books.'
'That depends on whether they're good books,' argued Jean, warmly. 'You
_have_ to be clever if you want to be a professor, but any stupid person
can write a stupid book, and nobody ever hears of that kind of book at
all.'
'Everybody has heard of my father's book, though, so that shows how little
you know about it,' replied Barbara. 'The people in America liked his book
so much that they asked him to go all the way to America to lecture about
it. The people in America never asked _your_ father----'
'Is your father called Everard Berkeley?' asked Jean, suddenly. She
had not listened to grown-up conversations in the Christmas holidays
for nothing, and she thought she saw her way at last to crushing the
irrepressible new girl, once and for all.
Babs nodded. She was too proud to say anything. What other girl in the
room had a father who was so celebrated that people knew him by his
Christian name, instead of calling him just _Mr._ Somebody? She had only
a short time in which to enjoy her triumph, however, for Jean Murray
turned quickly on her heel, and walked off with a swaggering step.
'Then my father says that your father is a failure over here,' she
answered, tossing her head contemptuously. 'Nobody will read his old
book in England; so he was _obliged_ to go to America.'
The other girls were beginning to notice the dispute, and they came
crowding round to hear what it was all about. Most of them were in
time to see Jean Murray walk off with her head in the air, just as the
little new girl clenched her fists and crouched down as if to make a
spring. Then the storm broke, and the Babe's fury was let loose among the
fifty-five occupants of the junior playroom.
It was an easy matter, in that spring forward, to send some half dozen or
so spinning out of her way, but Barbara did not stop to see what happened
to them. All she wanted to do was to reach the arch offender of them all,
the one who had dared to slight her father, and to hold him up to the
ridicule of fifty-five girls.
Nobody quite knew what did happen on this unexampled occasion in the
annals of Wootton Beeches; and certainly nobody stirred a finger to put
a stop to it. All that the girls in the senior playroom could tell about
it afterwards was that a sudden scuffle and several screams broke the
hush and hum of voices on the other side of the curtain; and then Angela
Wilkins dashed through the archway with a terrified look on her face, and
seized Margaret by the arm.
'Oh, come! do come!' she sobbed out in her fright. 'Barbara Berkeley has
got Jean Murray down on the floor, and she's _killing_ her!'
CHAPTER X
THE END OF THE FEUD
When the prayer-bell rang that evening, it interrupted a wild tumult in
the junior playroom. The elder girls had rushed through the curtain,
on the terrified summons of Angela Wilkins; and the whole school crowded
and thronged round a confused heap in the middle of the floor. Nothing
much was to be seen except two lanky black legs, a crumpled white frock,
and a good deal of untidy brown hair; and at first nobody did anything
but stare and exclaim. The ringing of the prayer-bell, however, brought
them all to their senses. Margaret Hulme made a sudden dash at the two
combatants, picked up the one that came first, and dropped her in a corner
of the room, where she could be hidden from view until she had time to
recover herself. Then the head girl turned to the child who still lay
sobbing and gasping on the floor.
'You get up and behave yourself!' she said in a stern undertone; and Jean
Murray struggled to her feet and went off snivelling, to be comforted
by the trembling and excited Angela. Then the elder girls melted away
again into their own room, and a kind of uneasy hush settled down on the
eighty-seven inhabitants of Wootton Beeches.
Barbara rubbed her eyes and stared wildly round her. A solid wall of
girls stood between her and the scene of the recent scuffle; she could
not see what had become of her victim, and at first she did not even
realise what was producing this wonderful calm. Then the girls in front
of her began slowly to move away towards the archway; and once she
caught a glimpse through the curtain of the door in the room beyond. It
was only a glimpse, for the girls closed up again immediately; but it was
enough to show her the stately figure of Miss Finlayson, as she stood
and wished her pupils good-night, one by one. Barbara had watched the
same ceremony for a good many evenings now, but it had never seemed
quite so orderly or so solemn before. To-night, it made a peculiar
impression on the wild little tomboy who had been brought up without
discipline or control, and the strangeness and the misery of her position
overwhelmed her as with a new feeling. At the same instant, in striking
contrast to the dismal reality, came the remembrance of the dream she
had dreamed all her life about this very place called school; and,
unnoticed by her school-fellows, who were fully occupied in trying to
behave as if nothing had happened, she broke down and sobbed bitterly
in her corner.
The stream of girls that had been filing past Miss Finlayson came to an
end at last; but Miss Finlayson did not follow them immediately to the
chapel. Far away, in a distant corner of the junior playroom, crouched
a dishevelled little girl in a crumpled frock, weeping dolefully for a
dream that had never come true; and Miss Finlayson stood and waited in
her place by the door.
A sense of the extreme stillness, now that the footsteps of the girls
had ceased, slowly impressed itself upon Barbara; and she looked up with
a new feeling of alarm. There, through the opening in the curtain, she
could see the stately figure of the head-mistress in the room beyond;
and Babs thrust a round, inky ball of a handkerchief into her pocket, and
hastened towards her in a panic.
'I didn't know you were waiting for me,' she said, fighting to keep
the quiver out of her voice. 'I didn't know they had all gone. I--I'd
forgotten it was prayers now.'
She knocked over a chair as she stumbled across the room, and once her
dress caught on the edge of a desk and stopped her; but Miss Finlayson
waited with her hand out, and the little new girl reached her at last.
Once more, behind the grave glance of the blue-grey eyes, lurked a
suggestion of something softer and more human, and it gave Barbara a
little courage.
'I wasn't crying because I was sorry I'd thumped Jean Murray,' she burst
out. 'I'm not a bit sorry, not a _bit_! I'd like to thump her again for
saying--for saying----'
It sounded uncommonly like telling tales, and she had to stop. Miss
Finlayson still had hold of her hand, and still looked down at her with
the mixture of expressions on her face.
'Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?' was all she said.
Barbara had not even heard the question. She was full of her grievance
against Jean Murray, which she had almost forgotten for the minute; and
she burst out again, more angrily than before.
'Don't you understand?' she cried passionately. 'I wasn't crying for
_that_; it--it was something else, but I can't tell you what it was,
because you'd only laugh. They all laugh--except when they're just being
horrible! Why didn't you let me run away last week? I don't want to stop
with people like Jean Murray, and--and all the rest of them; I hate being
here, I hate the girls, I hate you! Why won't you let me go away?'
She hardly knew what she was saying. She had not been in such a passion
since the dreary day, two years ago, when they took her nurse away from
her, and she had made herself ill with fretting.
Miss Finlayson tightened her grasp on the hand that was struggling to free
itself; then she bent over her rebellious little pupil, and laid her other
hand against her burning cheek.
'Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?' she repeated. Her persistence began
to take effect, and the cool touch of her fingers was very soothing.
'Why--why won't you let me go away?' sobbed Babs, and the tears rained
down her cheeks again.
'Why?' echoed Miss Finlayson, producing a handkerchief that had not been
used, like Barbara's, to mop up ink blots. 'Because I want you myself,
to be sure.'
She dried the child's eyes as she spoke; and the small tear-stained face
looked up at her wistfully. 'Do you want me?' asked Barbara. 'Does anybody
want me--_truthfully_?'
Miss Finlayson nodded, and a look slowly deepened in her face that gave
the child confidence. 'Yes, Babs, truthfully,' she answered. Then she
repeated for the last time, 'Are you coming to prayers?' And keeping the
hot little hand within hers, she led her upstairs to the chapel.
At Wootton Beeches the girls always walked in and out of chapel in
the order of their classes, beginning at the top of the school. But,
this evening, the youngest child in the school walked out in front of
everybody, for Miss Finlayson held her by the hand and would not let
her go. They stood together, a curiously assorted couple, at the end of
the passage that led to the other wing of the house; and one after another
the girls passed them on their way to their rooms. There was not a
sound for some moments, except the tapping of footsteps on the polished
boards; then, walking last of all, came Jean Murray. Babs broke from her
companion and flung herself impetuously forward.
'I say, I'm awfully sorry I thumped you on the head just now,' she began,
and held out her hand invitingly to the enemy. 'I wasn't a bit sorry at
first, and I wanted to do it again, _frightfully_; but I am sorry now,
and I don't.'
The girls who were still in the passage lingered, and looked back.
Evidently, there was no end to the sensations that Barbara Berkeley
meant to produce in her first term at school.
'Hush!' whispered Jean, glancing round timorously at the head-mistress.
Babs looked amazed. 'Won't you shake hands?' she asked. 'I know I thumped
you awfully hard, but still----'
'Sh-sh!' repeated Jean, trying to push past her. 'Don't you know we're not
allowed----'
'I think--I _do_ think you might make it up,' continued Babs, in a
disappointed tone. 'Even if I did hurt you rather, you must own you were
very mean.'
Jean Murray, feeling the eyes of authority fixed upon her, made another
attempt to escape. 'Can't you wait till to-morrow?' she asked in an
agitated whisper.
'I should have waited, if it hadn't been for that hymn,' answered the
child, still barring the way obstinately. 'I can't help it if the hymn
made me feel funny without making you feel funny too, can I? I can't think
what there was about that hymn,' she added to herself reflectively; 'I
never remember noticing a hymn so much before.'
Miss Finlayson came up to them, and Jean fairly quaked. If there was a
rule that the head-mistress was strict about, it was the rule of silence
after prayers. Jean knew, for she had been unlucky enough to break it more
than once.
'I have changed your room, Jean,' said Miss Finlayson, calmly. 'Angela
will have yours for the rest of the term, and you are to sleep in number
fourteen, next door to Ruth Oliver. I have just told Angela, so you can
go straight to her old room now, and I will send up one of the servants
to move your things for the night. The rest can be done in the morning. By
the way,' she added, as she left them, 'you three may talk till the
lights are put out; for it seems that Barbara has something to say that
will not keep until to-morrow. Good-night.'
She walked away downstairs with a deliberate step; and the two children
were left standing together on the landing.
'Well, I never!' exclaimed Jean, staring after Miss Finlayson.
But Babs was less concerned with the peculiarities of the head-mistress
than with her own immediate business. 'How much longer are you going to be
before you shake hands?' she asked.
'Oh, that's all right,' answered Jean, awkwardly, and she at last put a
limp hand into the one Barbara was tired of pressing upon her. They
trotted along the passage side by side, Jean feeling a little overwhelmed
by the suddenness of the reconciliation, while Babs wondered what had
happened to make her so silent all at once. To her it seemed the most
natural thing in the world to be on good terms with the enemy whose
head you had just thumped, provided that you had apologised suitably
afterwards; and she chatted away cheerfully until Jean was obliged to
stifle her inclination to be dignified.
'I say,' said Babs, when they reached the gallery in the other wing of
the house and were hurrying round it to their rooms; 'shall I be punished
a lot for knocking you down this evening?'
Jean recovered some of her self-assurance. If she was to be denied the
pleasure, in future, of persecuting the new girl, there was no reason why
she should not still patronise her.
'Punished!' she echoed. 'That's all you know about it. Nobody is ever
punished here.'
It took Barbara a moment or two to get used to this new idea, and by that
time they had reached their rooms. She returned to the subject soon after,
however, when Ruth had opened the doors that led from her room into both
theirs, so that they could talk across her if they liked.
'Can you be as naughty as you choose in this school?' demanded Babs, in
a puzzled tone.
'I don't advise you to try,' remarked Ruth.
'Why not? What would happen if I did?' asked Babs, curiously.
'Well, you'd feel jolly small, and have to come round in the end and
behave like other people,' said Jean, raising her voice to make herself
heard.
Barbara wandered into Ruth's room to have her frock unfastened, and
continued the discussion from there.
'Then, is being good at school the same thing as behaving like other
people?' she said doubtfully.
The others seemed to have some difficulty in answering this. 'There!' said
Ruth, giving her a little push; 'make haste and get undressed.'
Barbara wandered back into her own room again, and thought it over
carefully. 'Being good at home wouldn't be the same thing as behaving
like other people,' she observed presently.
'Home isn't school,' answered Ruth. 'And Finny's school isn't like other
people's schools,' she added.
'Isn't it?' said Babs, with interest. 'Where's the difference?'
'Ask Jean,' replied Ruth; and Jean took up the tale from beyond.
'I was at another school before I came here, and it was very different,
I can tell you,' she remarked. 'There were nothing but rules there, and
you always seemed to be breaking one or another of them, without knowing
it; and then you got punished. I was punished the whole time I was there.'
'What sort of punishments?' asked Barbara.
'Stupid punishments,' answered Jean, vaguely. 'Punishments that made
you feel foolish, and made you hate people. I did hate a lot of people
at that school. I thought I was awfully wicked because I hated so many
people. And then I came here,' she wound up triumphantly.
'And did you find you were good when you came here?' asked Babs.
'You shut up and get yourself ready for bed, or else Fräulein will catch
you,' was all Jean said in reply to this.
Barbara gave one or two perfunctory taps to her head with a brush. 'I
suppose that's why we're left so much to ourselves,' she remarked, after
a pause. 'We never see the teachers except at meals or in lesson time, do
we?'
'Of course we don't,' replied Ruth; 'that's where Finny's school is so
different, you see. In most schools you are being watched all day by some
one or another, and it makes you whisper because you don't want to be
overheard. Nothing makes Finny so furious as to catch any one whispering.'
'Is she ever furious?' inquired Barbara.
'Don't be a young silly,' said Ruth, good-naturedly, a reply which had
no effect whatever upon Barbara.
'It seems to me,' she went on thoughtfully, 'that it's very difficult to
know what is wrong and what isn't, when there aren't any punishments and
no one is there to tell you.'
'Well, you're supposed to have some sense, you know,' explained Ruth.
'Finny's great idea is that you should think for yourself and not go to
other people to find out things. She says being good isn't worth much, if
you're only good because some one else tells you to be good.'
'That's all very well,' objected Babs, 'but suppose you don't know without
being told?'
'Well, if you don't know that behaving like a wild Indian is wrong, it's
not much good being there to tell you so,' said Jean, bluntly.
The point of her remark was quite lost on Barbara, who was still puzzling
over a question that had never occurred to her before. 'At home,' she
observed, 'we never talk about whether a thing is right or wrong. If we
did, the boys would call it awfully slack.'
'What do they call it when you nearly kill people by knocking them down
and hitting them?' asked Jean, rather suddenly. The application of hot
water was causing the bruise on her forehead to smart most unpleasantly.
'Oh!' said Barbara, in a surprised tone; 'I thought you had made it up?'
'Bother making it up,' grumbled Jean, 'when you've got a lump as big
as----'
'Why didn't you say so before?' cried Babs, in great concern. 'Haven't
you any pomade to put on it?'
Something very like an amused chuckle came from the direction of Ruth
Oliver, but Babs was in far too great a hurry to notice that. Flinging
everything right and left on the floor, she cleared out two drawers and
a box before she succeeded in finding the bottle she wanted.
'Here it is!' she exclaimed, taking it in to her wounded foe. 'It's
awfully good stuff, really; and it keeps you from turning blue and yellow.
We always use it at home.'
Ruth's chuckle grew into a hearty laugh. 'I should think you wanted pounds
of it in your home, if they're all like you!' she exclaimed.
Barbara wondered what the joke was. 'They're not like me,' she said
simply. 'The others are all boys, you see, so they get their own way
without fighting.'
And when the German governess came to turn out their lights, she found
the three white-robed figures standing together in Jean's room, one of
them shaking with laughter, another trying rather unsuccessfully to keep
grave, while the third, holding out a bottle in her hand, looked at them
both with a puzzled air. There was no end, thought Fräulein, to the
caprices of English children. Had not Miss Finlayson been relating to
all the teachers downstairs, how the two little ones before her had
flown at each other in a passion, just before prayers?
The junior playroom felt equally incapable of grappling with the
situation, when the new girl marched gaily into it the next morning
with her arm linked in Jean Murray's. For once, Jean's followers found
themselves at a loss. Not having been informed what actually had taken
place in the passage the night before, they could hardly be expected to
know all at once how to treat this new state of affairs. Nor did Jean
trouble herself to enlighten them. Indeed, she was so cross when any one
approached her on the subject, that even Angela had to leave her alone;
while the junior playroom in general, being less devoted, threw out
dark hints about temper as soon as Jean was out of hearing. Angela,
however, had the wit to see the one thing that was evident--the feud
with the new girl was at an end, and anybody who wanted to keep friends
with Jean Murray in future would have to accept Barbara Berkeley as
well. So she decided to accept Barbara herself, to begin with; and she
set to work at the same time to convert the whole of the junior playroom.
'If you don't behave decently to her, you'll have Finny down on you,'
she advised, in the few moments allowed for conversation after breakfast.
'Anybody could see that, from the way Finny glared at Jean last night.'
'Did _you_ see it?' inquired Charlotte Bigley, with unpleasant directness.
'N--no, not exactly,' admitted Angela, uncomfortably. 'But Mary Wells
did, and she told me. And look here,' she went on, shifting her ground
hurriedly, 'Jean's made it up with Barbara Berkeley, and the sooner we
do the same the better it'll be for us. Besides, why shouldn't we make it
up? It's such a bore to have to keep on remembering all the time that
you're _furious_ with some one!'
This was more to the point; and the junior playroom, which had never
thrown itself with any heartiness into the feud, decided that Barbara
Berkeley was to be accepted without any more delay. Unfortunately,
Barbara Berkeley, who had never realised that her school-fellows had
been leaving her in peace on purpose to annoy her, was quite unprepared
for the sudden change in their behaviour.
Charlotte Bigley was the first to put into force the resolution that
had been arrived at by the junior playroom. 'If you like,' she observed
carelessly, when she met Barbara by the bookshelf, just before the first
class, 'you can put away Ruth Oliver's desk after preparation, instead
of me.'
For her part, she had always felt kindly disposed towards the new girl,
and the offer she was making now came straight from her heart, and was the
most generous one she could think of at the moment. But Babs only looked
dismayed.
'Why must I put away Ruth Oliver's desk?' she demanded. 'I have to put
away Margaret Hulme's as it is; and it's so difficult to get dressed
in time for supper when there's such a lot of desks to put away first. Of
course,' she added with an effort, 'I'll do it to please you, if you
really want me to.'
'Why, I thought you'd _like_ to do it!' exclaimed Charlotte, staring at
her. 'You're so thick with Ruth, and naturally I supposed----'
'Thanks awfully,' said Barbara, without enthusiasm. 'It's really awfully
kind of you, but I think p'raps you'd better go on doing it, if you're
used to doing it. Of course, I know some people like doing those stupid
things for the big girls, but----'
'All right,' said Charlotte, abruptly; and she went away, feeling
distinctly small.
Babs hurried off to the Fifth classroom, and arrived just in time for
the geography lesson. She was settling herself as usual at the bottom
desk, when her neighbour, rather a dull girl, for whom she secretly felt
a sort of contempt because she took no interest in her lessons, but only
learned them from conscientious motives, began making advances to her.
'Barbara,' she whispered, nudging the new girl in a familiar way that
was meant to be sociable. Babs, having sat next to her for fourteen days
without extracting a single remark from her, was considerably startled.
'What do you want?' she asked impatiently. She was taking a last frantic
look at the capes of Scotland, and the interruption was agonising.
'Would you like to be my partner, next time we practise running with
Hurly-Burly?' proceeded Mary Wells, with an air of extreme benevolence.
She was rather glad that Jean Murray had made it up with the new girl,
for it had not been amusing to sit perpetually next to some one with
whom she was not allowed to associate.
'Why, no, of course not!' answered Barbara, giving up the capes of
Scotland in despair, and turning rather crossly to the tiresome neighbour
who had never bothered her before. 'We're not a bit evenly matched,
and it wouldn't be fair. Ask Angela Wilkins, if you want a partner; she
doesn't run _much_ faster than you do.'
If there had been time, her amazed neighbour would no doubt have told
her what she thought of her. It was bad enough to have her friendly
suggestion thrown back in her face, but to be offered a gratuitous
criticism of her running powers into the bargain was intolerable. However,
Miss Tomlinson said 'Silence!' before Mary could express her feelings,
so Babs remained in comfortable ignorance of them.
She was not to be left alone for long, however, and it soon became
impossible even for Barbara not to see that a change of some sort had
come over her school-fellows. During the two weeks she had been at
school, meal-times had been delicious periods of peace, when every one
had babbled round her but never to her, and nobody had interrupted her
if she wanted to dream. But to-day, when they all met in the dining-room
for lunch, in the ten minutes' 'break' that occurred in the middle of
the morning, it was evident that her time for dreaming was gone by. This
was the opportunity that the children of the junior playroom had been
eagerly awaiting since the moment when Angela had succeeded in moving
them to charitable designs. So Babs had scarcely made her appearance in
the dining-room, than a crowd of eager penitents descended upon her,
jostling one another in the attempt to be first. One rushed at her
with the biscuits, another with a glass of milk, and a third with a
plateful of bread and jam.
'I say, don't bother! Thanks awfully, don't you know,' stammered Barbara,
who was a little flustered at finding herself the object of so much
attention. She helped herself to bread and jam, accepted the milk, which
the bearer insisted on holding for her till she felt inclined to drink
it, and then tried to slip away as usual to a retired corner. But her
way was barred by another group of girls, headed by the zealous Angela
herself.
'I wonder if you'll help me with my algebra in French class,' began
the latter, beaming upon her former enemy with the air of one who was
conferring a favour. 'I always get in such a bog over it.'
'You're so splendid at algebra, Babs, aren't you?' added another, with
great warmth.
'She's good at lots of things! She'll get to the top of the Fifth in no
time, won't she?' cried Angela, with her ordinary disregard for facts.
'Oh, no,' said Barbara, earnestly. 'There's my spelling; you're forgetting
that.'
'Ye--es,' allowed Angela, unwillingly; 'but spelling isn't everything.'
'Should think not, indeed!' echoed the chorus of enthusiasts.
'And I don't know any arithmetic,' proceeded Barbara, desperately. It
really hurt her regard for truth to have all these absurd remarks made
about her.
'What's arithmetic?' demanded Angela, loudly.
'Only think of the piles of history you know!' chimed in some one else.
'Yes, indeed!' said the chorus.
'And Latin!' proclaimed another admirer.
'I--I wish you wouldn't,' murmured Babs, unhappily.
She could not think what had come over them all; and they made her feel
foolish. Fortunately, somebody noticed just then that she had finished
the bread and jam; and they all rushed off, jostling one another again
as they went, to find fresh provisions. Barbara seized the opportunity
to escape, dodged the placid bearer of the milk, and went in search of
Jean Murray. She had an uncommonly shrewd suspicion that Jean Murray was
somehow at the bottom of this new and irritating persecution.
She found her hidden away in a corner of the big dining-room, occupying
very much the position that Barbara herself had enjoyed until now. Her
appearance was dejected, and she looked as though the encouragement of
noble sentiments did not agree with her nearly so well as the strife
and wrangling in which she usually indulged. The truth was that her new
pose of friendliness was making her feel unpleasantly self-conscious; and
she was afraid of being laughed at by the big girls for having so meekly
accepted her late enemy for a friend. The big girls, of course, worried
themselves so little about the petty quarrels of the junior playroom,
that they had no more intention of laughing at her than Barbara had; but
it was impossible for so important a person as Jean Murray to realise
that. So she gave a guilty start when Barbara, heated, aggrieved, and
bubbling over with resentment, suddenly pounced upon her in her corner.
'I say, look here,' began Babs, impetuously; 'I thought you'd made it up,
and it's a shame!'
'What are you talking about?' demanded Jean Murray. 'I have made it up,
long ago.'
'Then whose fault is it that all those girls keep bothering me?' exclaimed
Barbara, growing more indignant as she went on. 'I haven't had a moment's
peace all the morning, and it makes me feel silly. I don't like being
made to feel silly. Why don't you tell them to leave me alone?'
'But I don't know what you're talking about,' said Jean. 'How are they
making you feel silly?'
'They keep on telling me how clever I am,' grumbled Barbara, in a tone of
the deepest contempt. 'Me clever! Just think of it! And they say I'm
going to get to the top of the class, and all that rot. What do they mean
by it? That's what I want to know. I was just beginning to get used to
girls, and I told Kit only yesterday that they were not so bad after
all, because they left you pretty much to yourself; and now--look at them!
It's enough to make any one feel silly. Well, what's the joke?'
Jean was laughing heartily. It was the first time that morning she had
been able to forget her own feelings of 'silliness'; and it cheered her
considerably to find that some one else was in the same plight as herself.
'You _are_ queer!' she declared. 'Why, they are doing all that to show
that they want to be nice to you, of course.'
Barbara stared at her aghast. 'Oh!' was all she said at first. After a
pause for reflection, she added suddenly, 'Then what were they trying to
be all the time they left me alone?'
Jean stopped laughing, and began kicking at the window-seat by which they
stood.
'Was that their way of being nasty?' proceeded Babs, in a puzzled tone.
'I--I suppose so,' muttered Jean, looking away from her.
'Oh!' said Barbara again.
There was another pause, and then Jean made an immense effort. 'I made
them leave you alone,' she jerked out. 'I hated you. It--it was because of
Margaret Hulme.'
Barbara's puzzled look vanished. When she did begin to understand a thing,
she was generally pretty quick about it. 'I'm beastly sorry,' she said
softly. 'A little while ago, I thought Jill was going to make the boys
like her better than me; and I felt just like that. What a pity you didn't
tell me sooner!'
That, after all, was their real reconciliation; and this time there was
no doubt about it. If there had been, it would have been ended finally by
Margaret Hulme herself, that same afternoon, in the cloakroom. The head
girl had been taking off her own muddy boots for more than a fortnight
now; and that in itself was enough to quicken her observation of events in
the junior playroom.
'Isn't there anybody over there who would like to unlace my boots for
me?' she said in a loud voice, as the younger ones came trooping into
the cloakroom after the hockey practice.
There was silence in the ranks of the juniors. The big girls were smiling,
the little ones looked at one another doubtfully, and the head girl
waited with her foot put forward. The etiquette of the junior playroom
was tremendous, and although forty-five sets of fingers were itching to be
at the knot in the head girl's bootlace, nobody could move until Jean
Murray did.
'You can do it, if you like,' she said to Barbara indifferently.
'Oh, no,' said Barbara, quickly. 'I shouldn't think of it.' This time,
her sacrifice was genuine, for Margaret had kissed her just before
dinner and told her she was a 'good little soul,' and the feeling of
the youngest girl in the school had considerably changed in consequence
with regard to the head girl's boots.
'Of course,' said Margaret Hulme, drawing back her foot, 'if nobody
_wants_----'
A murmur ran along the ranks of the juniors, and Babs suddenly whispered
something in Jean's ear. Then the two children joined hands and presented
themselves solemnly before the head girl.
'Please,' said Barbara, quickly, 'we've settled it.'
'It's about time,' observed Margaret.
'We're going to halve it,' added Jean, in a great hurry.
'What? My foot?' asked the head girl.
The wit of the head girl produced a storm of laughter in the cloakroom.
When it subsided, Barbara was ready with her explanation.
'Jean's going to do them four days, and I'm going to do them the other
three,' she said. 'And Jean's going to begin,' she added, and walked away
heroically.
'Oh, no, you begin,' said Jean, feebly.
But Margaret smiled and pinched her ear. 'You begin, child,' she said;
and Jean fairly loved the new girl from that moment onwards.
CHAPTER XI
MISS FINLAYSON'S UNCLE, THE CANON
'It's all very well to tell you to do things for other people; but when
nobody wants anything done, how are you going to carry it out?' demanded
Charlotte Bigley of a circle of attentive listeners.
It was plain-work evening, some five weeks or so before the end of
the term; and fifty-five busy little people, on one side of the curtain,
sewed laboriously at fifty-five flannel garments, while thirty-two others,
in the seniors' room, were cutting out fresh ones and struggling with
what Miss Smythe called the 'fixing.' Usually, plain-work evening was
the dullest out of the seven, for conversation did not flourish under
the depressing dominion of flannel, and Miss Smythe, the needlework
mistress who came from the town twice a week to teach them, had never
managed to interest her pupils either in herself or in what they were
doing. But to-night there was something to discuss that thrilled every
one of the workers on both sides of the curtain, and the effect on
the flannel garments of this unusual enthusiasm even awoke a faint
wonderment in the mind of Miss Smythe. She did not know, never having
tried to win the confidence of the children, that the cause of the
emotion that was pulsing from end to end of the two playrooms was the
temporary residence, under the honoured roof of Wootton Beeches, of Miss
Finlayson's uncle, the Canon.
The Canon had always been an object of interest, theoretically, to the
girls at Wootton Beeches. They did not know much about him, except that
he lived in some cathedral town in the North of England, and came South
about once a year and spent part of his holiday at Wootton Beeches;
and they were familiar with his portrait, which always stood on the
writing-table in his niece's study. That was all they could have told
anybody; but the very lack of facts only added to the magic of his name,
and as none of them happened to be in touch with a bishop, or even
with a dean, Miss Finlayson's uncle the Canon continued to impress
them from a distance with his importance. Hitherto, his visit had always
happened to fall in the holidays; but, this time, he had unaccountably
appeared in the middle of the term, and the excitement of his actual
presence among them had given them enough news to put in their letters
home for quite two weeks. The day before, he had even replaced the curate
in the little chapel, and had not only read prayers but had delivered
an address on unselfishness as well; and it was this address that had
provided the whole school, on plain-work evening, with a burning topic of
conversation.
The problem that had just been put into words by Charlotte Bigley was one
that had exercised the ingenuity of everybody since yesterday morning.
To do good works was the present ardent desire of all their hearts; but
where were the good works to be found?
'I suppose there's always something to be done for somebody, only we've
got to discover what it is,' said Mary Wells, after profound reflection.
'He did say life was full of little things that were waiting to be done,
but it's so easy to talk like that,' complained Jean Murray. 'Why didn't
he say _what_ things?'
'Well, you see, we've got to discover what they are,' persisted Mary. When
she did manage to produce an idea, she was always very slow to part with
it.
'You said that before,' retorted Jean, impolitely; 'and it doesn't help
anybody at all. You can't go round _asking_ people, can you? They'd call
you a nuisance.'
Barbara sighed, and laid down the blackened piece of flannel she had been
toiling at since the beginning of term. Between the address of the Canon
and the shapelessness of her flannel petticoat, life was very difficult to
understand just then.
'Besides,' she chimed in, when Jean finished speaking, 'if everybody is
doing something for everybody else, there's nobody left to do anything
for!'
'Finny always says we are to do things for ourselves as much as we can,
and that the way to help other people most is to see that they don't
have to bother about _us_. That's not a bit the same thing as going round
and finding out what people want done for them,' continued Charlotte,
eloquently.
'They can't both be right,' declared Angela, shrilly. 'If the Canon says
one thing and Finny says another, what are we to believe, and what is the
truth of it all, I should like to know? The _truth_--that's what _I_ want!'
'Yes, you do,' remarked Babs, beginning to chuckle. 'You want it awfully
badly, most of the time.'
'You mind your own business, Barbara Berkeley, and I'll mind mine,'
advised Angela, threateningly.
'But that's just what we haven't got to do,' retorted Babs, with another
laugh. 'I've got to forget my own business and look after somebody else's,
and so have you. The Canon said so.'
'The Canon never said anybody was to have enough cheek for two people,
anyhow,' returned Angela, rather feebly. She generally ended in coming off
the worse in a battle of words with Barbara. On this occasion, however,
she had the junior playroom with her.
'You shouldn't joke about serious things, Barbara Berkeley,' said Mary
Wells, disapprovingly.
'Barbara Berkeley thinks she can laugh at everything!' cried Angela, with
renewed courage.
Miss Smythe came up at the same moment and put the crowning touch on
Barbara's discomfiture by examining the luckless flannel petticoat and
disclosing the fact that she had sewed it up all the way round.
'How do you expect a child is going to get into that?' asked the
needlework mistress, holding up the misshapen garment to the derision of
the whole room.
Barbara accepted the criticism and the laughter with equal unconcern.
She had never supposed that any child was going to get into a petticoat
that only existed for her express torture and the witticisms of Miss
Smythe. It had been unpicked so often that it would scarcely hold the
large, uneven stitches she repeatedly put into it; and she took up the
scissors and began to undo it all over again as a necessary part of the
evening's proceedings. Hardly, however, had she snipped at the first
piece of cotton, than she was assailed on both sides by eager helpers,
thirsting for the painful pleasures of self-sacrifice.
'Let me do it for you, Babe!' exclaimed Angela, quite forgetting their
recent dispute on the very subject of the virtue she now was so anxious
to exploit.
'No, let me,' begged Mary Wells on the other side.
Barbara looked from one to the other doubtfully. The Canon had said
nothing about complications of this kind. Then Mary took the decision
and the flannel petticoat simultaneously out of her hands.
'Do, there's a dear,' she said coaxingly. 'Think how I helped you with
your German the day before yesterday.'
'It's a shame,' vowed Angela Wilkins, retiring sulkily. 'I did ask first!'
'Never mind,' said Babs, soothingly; 'I'm sure to do it again before long;
I always do.'
Angela, however, found a more abiding consolation in Barbara's temporary
idleness.
'You're not doing anything for anybody, that's certain!' she threw back
at her jeeringly. 'Why, you're the only idle person in the room! Call that
being unselfish, indeed!'
Barbara hastened to clear herself of the reproach by picking up Mary
Wells's neatly made and spotless piece of white flannel. She was not
sure what it was meant for, as it was not sewed together anywhere;
and she had never been shown how to do the elaborate scallops that
ornamented the edge of it. But a trifle like want of skill made very
little difference to a seeker after self-sacrifice; and Babs recklessly
plunged her needle into the beginning of the next scallop, and entangled
the silk hopelessly. A cry from Mary Wells disturbed her well-meant
efforts. The Canon, thought Mary, might say what he liked about people
doing things for others, but was it quite fair when they did them all
wrong?
'It's for my sister's baby,' she lamented, seizing her handiwork from the
zealous Barbara; 'and if I don't finish it soon, the baby will be too big
for head-flannels at all.'
'But--I wanted to do something for you,' protested Babs, in a disappointed
tone.
'You've stickied the needle, and left a great black finger-mark on it,'
wailed Mary Wells, making fresh discoveries, as she went on, of what Babs
_had_ done for her.
Miss Smythe came up to know what the fuss was about; and she promptly
added her word to the condemnation of Barbara Berkeley.
'What do you mean by touching anybody else's work, you naughty little
girl?' she said sharply. 'You are more trouble than anybody else in the
school, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
Barbara did not look at all ashamed of herself. She never did when people
were cross with her. Mary Wells had the grace to come to her assistance.
'Please, Miss Smythe,' she said, swallowing her mortification at the
ravages in the head-flannel, 'it was my fault as well. I took Barbara's
work, to begin with.'
The needlework mistress stared from one to the other. 'What's come over
the children?' she exclaimed. 'Why are you interfering with each other's
work like this?'
Barbara assumed an exaggerated expression of meekness. 'Please, it was
because we were both trying to sacrifice ourselves,' she announced.
It certainly sounded a ridiculous reason when it was put that way, but
it completed the perplexity of Miss Smythe, and that was something.
'It seems to me,' she said severely, 'that you are strangely forgetting
yourself, Barbara Berkeley. Commence what I gave you to do at once, and
stand up until I tell you to sit down again.'
'Why, the Canon _said_ we were to forget ourselves,' began Babs,
mischievously; and there is no doubt that a further penalty would have
been added to her punishment had not Jean Murray made a sudden diversion
by dropping her thimble. In spite of the want of success that had attended
Barbara's attempt at good works, the influence of the Canon was still
very strong among the occupants of the junior playroom; and five girls
hastily flung aside their work, and bumped their heads together on the
floor in their hurry to restore Jean her property. Jean took it with the
grudging manner of one who would like to have been in the fortunate
position of conferring rather than of accepting a service; and Miss
Smythe in despair condemned five more culprits to a standing position.
As luck would have it, the Canon expressed a wish that evening to see what
the young people were doing with themselves; and it happened that Miss
Finlayson brought him through the curtain into the junior playroom just
after the six ringleaders had been ordered to stand up.
'Very nice, very charming, to be sure!' murmured the old gentleman,
whose benevolent face had gone a long way in carrying his address home to
the hearts of his hearers. 'Such a beautiful and womanly sight, too! I
suppose you are all working for the poor, eh, my dears? Very excellent
indeed, I'm sure!'
His niece was busy talking with Miss Smythe, and did not correct his
mistake; and the children were too shy to do more than look at one another
and giggle faintly. The Canon went on, and bent over Mary Wells, who
appealed to him at once by the serious expression of her face and her
diligent application to the head-flannel.
'And for whom are you working so industriously, may I ask?' he inquired
benignly.
'It's for my sister--I mean the baby,' stammered Mary, much flustered at
being thus singled out. The Canon felt a little perplexed, not having
supposed Mary Wells or her sister to belong to what he largely called
'the poor'; and he passed on hurriedly to where the six culprits stood
first on one leg and then on the other, trying to stitch at their work
with wavering and unsteadied fingers.
[Illustration: 'Dear me!' he said, slightly taken aback.]
'Dear me!' he said, slightly taken aback. 'Is it--is it quite usual--I
mean, do you find it _convenient_ to perform your--your embroidery in that
exceedingly arduous position?'
The six girls edged up to one another; and more giggles, very nervous
ones this time, greeted the Canon's remark. He put on his eye-glasses,
and began slowly to grasp the meaning of their uncomfortable position.
'Ah!' he said, with a knowing smile. 'So you have done something you
shouldn't, eh, my dears? Shocking, shocking! Let us see what the cause
of offence is, and perhaps we can get the punishment mitigated for you.
How would that be, eh?'
He turned to look for Miss Smythe, and the six put their heads together
for a hasty, whispered consultation.
'Let's tell him it's through his sermon,' urged Barbara, all agog with
mischief. 'It would be such fun!'
'Certainly not!' decided Angela, solemnly. 'He must never know. Didn't he
say it was splendid to suffer for righteousness's sake, and isn't this
_real_ righteousness?'
She carried the remaining four with her; and by the time Finny and Miss
Smythe joined the Canon in front of them, five out of the six faces glowed
with the fervour of martyrdom. The sixth was glowing too, but hardly
from such a lofty motive.
'Well,' said Miss Finlayson, gently, 'and what is the reason of this?'
Miss Smythe coughed and hesitated. She did not understand her pupils in
the least, but she had a certain feeling of loyalty towards them, and she
did not want to get them into trouble. Added to this, she really did not
know the reason of it.
'They--they were a little tiresome, and I made them stand up,' she
explained hurriedly. 'No doubt--only high spirits, and--and so on.
I--I could not quite grasp what had been upsetting them this evening,
and I always find standing up is--is an excellent remedy for--for high
spirits, in short.'
It was the opinion of the junior playroom afterwards that 'Smithy' had got
out of it very well; and she went up in its estimation henceforth. But
her explanation failed to satisfy Miss Finlayson. There was something
about the virtuousness on the offenders' faces that struck her as
being overdone; and she turned to the one at the end of the row, whose
countenance was a study in suppressed emotions, and tried to get at the
truth of the matter.
'What was it, Barbara?' she asked in that tone of hers that would make
any girl tell her anything. Not that Barbara, on this occasion, needed
forcing.
'It was because of the sermon yesterday,' she said, bubbling over
with enjoyment of the situation. 'And we were all trying to sacrifice
ourselves, and it was so difficult, because nobody wanted anything
done; and then Mary Wells sacrificed herself for me, so I tried to do
the same for her, and I only spoiled the baby's head-flannel, and made
Smithy--I mean Miss Smythe--wild. That was why I stood up. The other five
stood up because they all tried to sacrifice themselves for Jean's
thimble; and Miss Smythe hadn't heard the sermon, you see, and she only
thought they were being naughty, so----'
'That will do,' said Miss Finlayson, and she turned her back hurriedly
on the row of martyrs. The needlework mistress was almost in tears at what
she considered a wilfully frivolous manner of referring to a sermon by a
real canon. But the Canon just passed his hand across his mouth, and then
gave up the attempt to look shocked.
'You are very good little girls to listen so attentively to people's
sermons,' he said, smiling openly. 'And I think, if anybody ought to
stand up, it should be by rights a certain old gentleman who preaches
them. What do you say, Miss Smythe? If I promise to stand up for the
rest of the evening, will you let these six young ladies sit down?'
CHAPTER XII
THE FURTHER PURSUIT OF GOOD WORKS
'All the same,' said Jean Murray afterwards, 'it doesn't mean that the
Canon's sermon was wrong just because all of you were so stupid in the
way you tried to make it work.'
She could not really resist such an enticing opportunity of showing her
superiority; but her less fortunate school-fellows found it difficult to
appreciate her point of view, and they resented it accordingly.
'It's only just by chance that it wasn't you as well,' Barbara hastened to
point out.
'And you know you began by being jealous because _we_ were doing all the
sacrificing,' added Angela.
The others, not being in the inner circle of Jean's friendship, did not
venture on an open remonstrance; but one of them asked her bluntly what
she considered the Canon did mean by his address.
Jean drew herself up complacently. 'Well, of course he meant much bigger
things than just picking up people's thimbles and interfering with
everybody all round,' she began rather contemptuously.
'He said _little_ things, all the same,' observed Mary Wells, doggedly.
'That,' said Jean, airily, 'was only his way of putting it--and because
he was a canon,' she added, struck by a brilliant thought. 'When you are
a canon, the things you consider little are the same as the things that
ordinary people call big.'
'Bravo, Jean,' said Charlotte Bigley, sarcastically. 'Now, let us hear
what the big things are.'
Jean was on her mettle, and she gave herself a moment's desperate
reflection.
'Well, things like helping the poor, and taking food to people who are
starving, and giving up your pocket-money to buy things for them, and not
minding how dirty they are, nor how wicked and dishonest and--and tipsy,'
she proclaimed.
The junior playroom was much impressed by this new view of the Canon's
sermon.
'Isn't Jean clever?' demanded Angela, proudly, of her immediate
neighbours. One of these happened to be Barbara, who fully agreed
with her, but still appeared a little puzzled.
'It will be very difficult to do all that,' she observed. 'How can we do
things for the poor, when we never see any poor?'
'You never know when the chance may come,' answered Jean, who was rarely
at a loss. 'Besides, there's the holidays.'
'What!' said Mary, in a voice of dismay. 'Have we got to wait till the
_holidays_ before we can be unselfish?'
'Well,' replied Jean, vaguely, 'you can't say that, for an opportunity
may occur at any minute. What we've got to do is to be on the look-out
for it.'
This unsatisfactory way of disposing of the Canon's address fell very flat
after the recent excitement in the juniors' room concerning it; and most
of Jean's listeners grumbled loudly as soon as she was out of hearing.
But Babs and Angela unhesitatingly threw in their lot with Jean. They were
not quite sure what she meant, but they never doubted her right to be
their leader in this as in everything.
'We'll all keep on the look-out,' they said to one another; 'and the first
who sees an opportunity of helping the poor must promise to share it with
the other two.'
Saturday afternoon came round in another day or two, and on Saturday
afternoon the girls could do pretty much as they liked, as soon as the
hockey practice was over. It was one of those late wintry days in March
which bring with them a promise of spring to come: there was a sharpness
in the air, now that the sun was nearing the west, that proclaimed it
still to be winter, while a faint earthiness of smell, a tumult of birds'
voices in the hedge, and an intense blueness above, all told of the
warmer season in store. The triumvirate, as Margaret Hulme had nicknamed
Jean and her two inseparable companions, were much too fond of the open
air to go indoors before they were obliged; so, while most of their
school-fellows voted for the fire and a story-book, they wandered off
down the nine-acre field, their arms linked affectionately together.
Their conversation was very engrossing, for it turned on the gymnastic
competition that was going to be held at the end of the term, for which
the Canon had just offered a prize of six morocco-bound books, to be
chosen by the successful competitor herself.
'That's where this hole is such a nice hole for a school,' said Jean. 'At
the other school I went to, they never asked you what books you'd like;
and they always gave you _poetry_.'
'Some poetry is all right. I think I like poetry when it's got a story in
it, and the rhymes are not too far away from one another, and the lines
jog along without your having to bother about them,' remarked Babs.
'Oh, that kind isn't bad,' admitted Jean. 'I didn't mean Macaulay and
Longfellow and all the _real_ poets. But the stuff they gave you at my
school was horribly dull, and it never had any sort of story in it, and
the lines didn't seem to belong to one another at all; and there was
generally a thing called a glossary at the end, which only showed that
it wasn't fit for any one to read.'
'I know that kind of poetry; we have lots of it at home,' put in Angela.
'There's a chap called Browning who's rather like that. Have you ever read
any Browning, you two?'
'No,' said Jean, flatly. 'Don't believe you have either. My father says
Browning didn't understand himself, and I'm sure _you_ don't know more
than Browning. So there!'
'Never mind about the poetry,' interposed Barbara. 'I want to hear about
the gym prize. Who do you think is going to get it, Jean?'
'Well, Margaret is awfully good, of course, but we shall know better after
the trial on Monday afternoon,' said Jean, cautiously.
'What trial?' asked Barbara.
'Why,' exclaimed Jean, in surprise, 'didn't you hear Finny give out that
we were all to do the show exercises before her on Monday afternoon, so
that she could decide who was to go in for the prize?'
'Of course she didn't hear; the Babe's always asleep!' said Angela, with
scorn. 'I watched her all the time Finny was speaking, and she was smiling
away to herself as if some one was having a conversation with her.'
'Never mind, she's getting better,' said Jean, approvingly. 'She doesn't
gape half so much as she did, and she doesn't jump when you go up and
speak to her suddenly. By the way, you've got as good a chance as any
one, Babe, of getting the gym prize.'
Barbara, who had taken their frank criticisms of her without a murmur,
could not allow this last assertion to pass. She pulled up suddenly in
the middle of the field, and looked first at one and then at the other
of her two companions. 'What do you mean?' she gasped.
[Illustration: 'Hullo! said Jean. What's the matter?']
'Oh, you're putting it on; don't be affected,' scoffed Angela.
'No, she isn't putting it on; she never does,' objected Jean. 'Look at
home, Angela, before you talk about affectation.'
'All the same,' continued Angela, undisturbed, 'you must know you're
perfectly splendid at gym, Babs. Now, don't you?'
'I'd quite forgotten,' confessed Barbara, as they resumed their stroll.
'I'm so bad at most things that I'd got out of the way of thinking I could
do gymnastics. But, of course, the boys always said I wasn't bad, for
a girl; and once I got the prize at my class in London. There were only
thirty of us, though,' she added modestly.
They strolled on as far as the gate at the bottom of the field, and
stood looking over it into the lane below. The lane was out of bounds,
which lent it an added charm; and they liked nothing better than to come
here on half-holidays and lean against the gate, and wonder where the
grass-grown path led to and what it looked like when it got round the
corner by the old elm tree. To-day, they had scarcely taken up their
position there when they were startled by sounds of distress from below;
and the next minute a small boy came slouching along the lane, crying
bitterly.
'Hullo!' said Jean. 'What's the matter?'
The boy was so surprised that he stopped crying and looked up. He was a
very pitiable little object, in corduroy garments that could not properly
be called knickerbockers and yet were too short for trousers, with a
small area of grey flannel shirt appearing above them, and a red worsted
comforter twisted round his neck, making an unbecoming patch of colour
against his pinched and tear-stained little face.
'What is the matter?' asked Angela, pityingly.
'Have you hurt yourself?' added Barbara, as the child only stared at them
vacantly.
With a little more coaxing and the bribe of a piece of dusty chocolate
that came from the depths of Barbara's pocket, he was at last induced to
mumble out a confused statement of his woes. Between the quaver in his
voice and the broadness of his speech they had a hard matter to understand
what he said; but Angela, who lived in another part of the same county,
managed after a while to translate to the others that he was crying
because his father was away looking for work, and his mother could not
pay the rent, and they were all going into the 'house' to-morrow. To
Bobby Hearne, who was smarting under the remarks of the neighbours'
children, it was the last part of his story that seemed the worst;
but the triumvirate only grasped the fact that starvation and poverty
really stood before them in the person of the small boy with the red
comforter round his neck. They looked at one another breathlessly, for
the same thought was in all their minds.
'It's the opportunity!' said Jean, solemnly.
'They're really starving!' cried Barbara, clapping her hands joyfully. 'We
must go and feed them----'
'And give them clothes,' added Angela, enthusiastically; 'and
pocket-money!'
Babs pulled a purse out of her pocket. 'Here's three and sevenpence
halfpenny, and I've got ten shillings more in my left-hand corner drawer,'
she said earnestly. 'Will that be enough, do you think?'
Jean had been thinking deeply. 'It's no use giving anything to that scrap
of a child,' she decided. 'We must go and see his mother first, and find
out if his story is true. My father says that indis-indiscrim-in-_ate_
charity does an awful lot of harm. We don't want to do indiscrimin-_ate_
charity, do we? Come along, you two, and look sharp!'
They clambered over the gate and dropped into the lane, one by one.
Barbara was the last, and she almost forgot the solemn reason for
their expedition in the thrilling thought that they were going to find
out at last where the lane went to. She was quite unprepared for the
disappointment she felt when they turned the corner by the old elm
tree and the forbidden world beyond burst upon their view. After all, the
lane was just the same round the corner, except that it was not quite
so interesting, for it grew less grassy as it went on, and finally
widened out into a kind of cart-track that was anything but romantic.
An enchanted princess might flee with a prince down a grass-grown lane
that wound away to nowhere in particular but she would never dream of
stumbling over sharp flint stones and splashing through puddles in a
common cart-track. The other two did not seem to notice that there was
anything wrong with the lane, though; they just kept on straight ahead,
with Bobby Hearne shuffling along between them, and Barbara had to run a
little to catch them up.
'Is it far?' she asked.
'Oop agin the top end o' the village,' explained Bobby, who was fast
losing his shyness under the influence of these wonderful young ladies,
who carried such funny sticks in their hands, and talked in such a
magnificent way about pocket-money.
'That's close to the church, on the way up from the station,' said Jean.
'Is yours the cottage with the red roof, Bobby, or the one with roses all
over it?'
Bobby looked vacant again; he did not recognise his home from Jean's
picturesque description. 'There be foive pig-styes along of it,' he
announced, after long and careful reflection.
The cart-track brought them to a ploughed field, across which they plodded
laboriously, and in the end it landed them in the road that ran right
through the village. They met a good many inquisitive glances as they
hastened along, for the young ladies of Wootton Beeches very rarely
left their own grounds, and certainly never appeared in the village
except on their way to and from the station. They found their courage
slowly evaporating in the face of the curiosity they provoked, and there
was very little of it left by the time they arrived at the cottage with
the five pig-styes. Talking about good works in the junior playroom was
a very different matter, they found, from carrying them out in a strange
cottage, where numbers of strange children came out from dark corners
and gaped at them without saying a word of welcome. Babs and Angela
pushed forward their leader, and peered over her shoulder as she stood
hesitating on the threshold.
'Hello, mother!' shouted Bobby, hustling his brothers and sisters out of
the way and penetrating into the gloomy recesses of the cottage. 'Here be
three yoong ladies come to see ye.'
A harassed-looking woman came in from the back-yard, and started when
she saw the three faces in the doorway. 'It be proper good of ye, for
sure,' she said, casting nervous glances from her unexpected visitors to
a bed that was made up on the floor, near the empty grate; 'but my girl
Lilian Eliza, she be ill, she be, and ye'd best not come in, I reckon.'
She did not know the power of the Canon's address. At the sound of her
voice, the triumvirate, neither understanding nor heeding her warning,
stepped firmly into the room.
'I'm so sorry your daughter is ill,' began Barbara, fumbling hastily in
her pocket. 'Would three and sevenpence halfpenny be any good, do you
think? And I've got ten shillings more in my----'
Jean nudged her violently, but the woman's eyes had glistened at the
mention of money, and Babs emptied her purse impetuously on the table.
'Bless ye, missy, for sure!' said the woman, gratefully. 'Lilian Eliza,
she be goin' to the infirmary to-morrow, she be, and I can git her
Neighbour Bunce's spring-cart wi' that, I can.'
Her evident gratitude reproached Jean, and she forgot all about the
dangers of indiscriminate charity. She took the other two by the hand and
pulled them away to the door.
'We'll come back again directly, Mrs. Hearne,' she called out. Then the
triumvirate broke into a run, and vanished along the road before the eyes
of the bewildered woman.
'What are we going to do?' asked Angela, panting, when they once more
climbed the gate at the bottom of the nine-acre field.
'We're going straight to the larder, straight as we can go; and then,
we're just going to bag all the food we can carry,' answered Jean, in
an odd, determined sort of tone. 'Did you see the look on that woman's
face when you gave her the money, Babe? I believe--I believe they've all
had nothing to eat for _weeks_! It's--it's horrible to think of!'
There was a sob in her voice, and the other two were silent from sympathy
and a kind of awkwardness. They had never heard Jean talk like this
before, and it finished the work begun by the Canon's address. There
was not the thought of a scruple in either of their minds when they
arrived at the back of the house, and Jean bade them climb up by the
water-butt and get into the larder through the open window.
'There's sure to be a hook you can undo so as to move the wire netting
aside,' she told them. 'If we went round to the door, some one might make
a fuss; and there's no time for fusses.'
'Jean knows everything,' murmured Angela, as she found the hook and
squeezed successfully through the window.
'What shall we take?' whispered Babs, slipping after her into the dimly
lighted larder. 'I think they'd like jam tart and plum-pudding, don't you?'
She shifted the two delicacies dearest to her heart on to one dish, and
handed it up to Jean, who stood poised uncertainly on the edge of the
water-butt.
'The jelly and the cranberry pie look rather nice,' said Angela, her own
mouth watering for them, as she passed them out to Jean.
'Can't you find something substantial?' urged Jean, when she had deposited
the second load on the ground beside the water-butt.
The two children in the larder looked round at the well-stocked shelves.
There was cold beef, to be sure, and a large tureen of mutton broth; but
these did not strike them as being at all the sort of present that any
one would like to have.
'Apple dumplings,' settled Angela, swiftly, as her eye fell on a large
dish full of them; and they handed the apple dumplings after the other
things, and then followed them by way of the water-butt to the impatient
Jean, who had already loaded herself with the jelly and the cranberry pie.
'Come along!' said Jean. 'If we're not quick, we shall be late for tea.
Besides, we must get back to see Finny, and explain to her what we've
done. She might be cross if she found it out for herself.'
'Are you sure she won't be cross anyhow?' asked Barbara, as she staggered
along in her wake, carrying the dish that contained the plum-pudding and
the jam tart.
'Not if we explain exactly why we did it,' said Angela, gasping for
breath just behind her companions. She found the apple dumplings decidedly
weighty.
'Nobody,' said Jean, emphatically, 'could mind anything we chose to do
in a cause like this. Besides, there wasn't time to ask leave first, was
there? When people haven't had anything to eat for weeks, you can't keep
them waiting for food while you ask _leave_, can you?'
The shortest cut to the nine-acre field was across the lawn at the side of
the house, and then through the little gate in the shrubbery. It was much
less secluded than the longer way by which they had come, but detection
had to be risked, now that the time was so short. And even if they were
caught, as Jean pointed out in a whisper, it would be worth while to
suffer in such a noble cause; and as for the Hearnes, Finny would be
sure to send them on the things as soon as she heard how many weeks they
had been without food.
'But how can we suffer, if Finny isn't going to be cross about it?'
argued Barbara, becoming heated in the effort to keep the plum-pudding
from rolling into the jam tart and sticking to it. 'You said----'
Her sentence was never finished, for just as they left the shadow of the
house and were going to strike across the lawn, they heard the click
of the little gate opposite, and two figures emerged suddenly from the
shrubbery. There was still light enough to disclose that they were the
Canon and Barbara's disenchanted beast, the Doctor.
Even then, the triumvirate might have escaped detection by slipping round
to the back of the house again before they were seen; and Jean had the
presence of mind to sound a retreat in an agonised whisper, and turned
sharply round herself. But Barbara's effort to follow her example was too
much for the uncertain balance of the plum-pudding. It chose that very
moment to tumble into the jam tart, and the two slid together from the
dish and rolled to the feet of the astonished Canon.
'Upon my word,' exclaimed the old gentleman, starting violently,
'Elizabeth's establishment is full of surprises!'
The triumvirate kept very close together at the edge of the grass lawn,
and waited for the two gentlemen to approach. Very little of their
enthusiasm remained to keep up their spirits, for the erratic behaviour of
the plum-pudding made even the pursuit of good works seem foolish and
unnecessary.
'What are you children doing here?' asked the Canon, and his voice
distinctly took a note of disapproval. He did not know very much about
girls, though his niece assured him they were not unlike little boys; but
he was quite sure that it was not the right thing for plum-puddings to
be rolling across the lawn at that time of day, and disapproval seemed
to be demanded by the circumstance.
The effect on the three children of his mild attempt at severity was
immediate. Babs was struck dumb by it; anything so dreadful as the anger
of a Canon had never occurred to her as a possible result of feeding the
poor, and she had to think it all over before she could say anything.
Angela put down the apple dumplings, the weight of which had become
intolerable, and began to cry softly. Jean pulled herself together with a
frantic effort, and clutched the dish she was holding so fiercely that
the jelly on the summit of the cranberry pie shivered and shook.
'It was my fault,' she blurted out, looking steadfastly over the edge of
the dish at the well-blacked boots of the Canon. 'I made them go out of
bounds, and visit the poor, and--and climb into the larder window to fetch
things for the woman who looked so hungry. They wouldn't have gone, if
it hadn't been for me. I made them--it was my fault.'
'No, it wasn't; it was all our faults,' wept Angela, in a confused mumble.
Babs stepped forward and tried hard not to break down and cry too. 'Please
don't rag Jean for it,' she begged. 'The boy was crying, and we all
thought it was the opportunity come at last----'
'What opportunity?' asked the Canon, looking extremely puzzled.
'To--to do what you said in your sermon,--good works, and feeding the
poor, and all that,' faltered Barbara. Somehow, when she expressed it that
way, it seemed like putting the blame on the Canon, and she was sure it
could not be right for a little girl to blame a Canon. Added to this,
she was possessed with the dread that they had only made themselves look
ridiculous after all; and she expected that they would all three be
very heartily laughed at, as soon as the old gentleman began to understand
their story. She was determined in her own mind that if the Doctor should
join in the laugh against them, a certain fairy prince should be turned
once more into a beast and banished for ever from her kingdom. She was
bound to admit, however, that the Doctor, so far, had not shown the
least interest in them or their story.
'But--but I quite fail to understand,' said the Canon, rather testily.
'Who was the boy you speak of, and what had you to do with him?'
'It was Bobby Hearne,' answered Jean, still staring down at his boots;
'and if you only knew how hungry they all looked when we got to the
cottage----'
She was interrupted by the Doctor, who suddenly behaved in the most
extraordinary manner. For the first time he appeared to be listening to
what they were saying, and he sprang right in front of the Canon and
grasped Jean by the shoulder.
'Do you mean to say you have been into the Hearnes' cottage?' he cried,
shaking her in his impatience until the jelly and the cranberry pie ran
some danger of following the example of the plum-pudding. 'Were you stupid
enough to go right inside?'
'Yes!' answered the triumvirate, with one voice.
The Doctor took his hand away, and turned with a shrug of his shoulders to
the Canon.
'The Hearne girl is down with scarlet fever,' he said in a suppressed tone.
CHAPTER XIII
IN 'QUORRANTEEN'
'MY DEAR DARLING DEAREST FATHER,--We are in quorranteen that's Jean
Murray and Angela Wilkins and me becos we tried to feed the poor after
the cannon's sermon and the poor had scarlet fever and now praps we
shall have scarlet fever too and in case we do we've got to stop in
quorranteen for eight days and it's an awful shame becourse it gives us
such a little time to practis for the gym prize. The cannon is Finny's
uncle and he's awfully nice though a little unreesonable Jean says and
Jean knows bekause her father is a professor and he has ofered a prize for
whoever is best at the gym display on the break up day. I mean the
cannon and not Jean's father. Quorranteen is a little house built by
itself in the garden and connected with the school by a covvered passage
that leads into the front hall because Jean says it's no use being in
quorranteen unless you're quite sure no one can catch things off you so we
are issolated. All the same we do free exercises every morning just to
keep our mussels in good order for the gym competition and I tell
them fairy stories when their's nothing else to do and Angela says
they're not bad only she likes reel stories best which is a great pitty
becos I don't know any reel stories but still they put up with my kind of
stories very well and Jean says I'm a funny kid. We have our dinner
early so that we can go out in the garden while the other girls are
having theirs so that no one can catch anything off us and we are
alowed to go all over Finny's garden as well as the nine aker field and
we are really in a very supperior possition Jean says. Sumtimes for a
great treat one of the big girls is alowed to come and talk to us
from the garden and we stand at the window and shout down to her because
you can't catch things off people that way Jean says and the other two
nearly always vote for Margaret that's the head girl who is adorrable and
divvine Jean says but I vote for Ruth who is a brick. The worst of being
in quorranteen is that I have learnt the true charracter of the doctor
and Kit always said he was a beast but I didn't think he was a beast but
now I think he must be rather a beast because he is so horrid and
unsimpathetick he always behaves as if we were very naughty and wicked
for wanting to feed the poor and giving such a lot of trubble insted of
understanding that it was all the cannon's fault for preaching that sermon
which meant something quite diferent and how were we to know that the
poor had scarlet fever? I think we were rather silly and it was our
silly silliness that I minded most but the doctor doesn't seem to
think that and he looks at our tungs and he says what's that? to every
paper bag he sees about in the quorranteen which is only hardbake or
chocalate from the big girls. Jean says he is much nicer to me than to
Angela or her but I haven't noticed any diference myself and I don't
want him to be nice to me if he isn't nice to them it isn't fair or above
bord is it father? Anuther bother is that Finny hasn't said a word to us
yet about feeding the poor and giving such a lot of trubble and I think
she's very cross and is saving up for an enormous skolding but Jean
says no it's Finny's way to give us time to think it over before she
says anything and it's just dissipline Jean says. Besides, she can't
be very cross or else she wouldn't have gone on feeding the poor I mean
the Hearnes ever since we came into the quorranteen which is what she's
been doing because she told us so and they haven't had to go into the
workhouse after all.'
Barbara had scribbled so far uninterrupted, but when she picked up her
third sheet of exercise paper and began to cover that too, the patience
of her companions became exhausted.
'I say,' said Jean, yawning, 'I wish you'd stop writing and talk; I never
knew any one so fond of writing as you are, Babe.'
Quarantine, after nearly a week of it, was beginning to lose its novelty,
and all the paper bags that the sure aim of the head girl managed to
deposit in their prison did not make up for the many hours of her society
that they were unable to enjoy. Even the arithmetic lessons of Miss
Tomlinson, and the plain-work evenings conducted by 'Smithy,' would
not have seemed nearly so unattractive now as they did a week ago.
'All right,' said Babs, putting down her blue pencil; 'I don't mind
stopping, but I thought Angela didn't want to talk.'
Jean glanced round at Angela, and Angela immediately put her hand to her
head and sighed heavily. She had been doing this for some minutes without
making any effect upon Barbara, although Barbara had been the first to
notice that there was something unusual in her behaviour. That was so
like Babs! She was always the first to notice anything, but she had such
an unsatisfactory way of passing it over, whatever it was, that it was
no advantage to anybody unless some one else noticed it too.
'Hullo!' said Jean, staring; 'what's the matter, Angela?'
'I've got a splitting headache,' murmured Angela, half closing her eyes.
'Anything else?' asked Jean, becoming interested.
'My throat is rather sore, I think, and--and I'm sure I'm feverish,'
answered Angela, faintly; and she shivered to show how feverish she was.
'Oh,' said Barbara, opening her eyes, 'that's how Dr. Hurst said it began;
and then Finny dragged him away, and we didn't hear any more.'
'_Don't_ say anything so dreadful,' murmured Angela, complacently. 'What
shall I do if I can't go in for the competition?'
'Besides, you might have it very badly and die,' said Jean, consolingly.
'Yes, you might. We knew a boy on the opposite side of the square, and
_he_ died,' remarked Babs. 'Only, I'm not sure if it was scarlet fever.
His sister used to come and tell us about it, and she said he had a kettle
with a long spout in his room, all day long, and it puffed out smoke at
him, and made such a funny gurgling sound that she used to be afraid to
pass his door after dark. Perhaps it wasn't scarlet fever,' she added,
out of consideration for Angela, 'but he did die.'
Angela looked from one to the other and shook her head mournfully. 'I
expect it was,' she said. 'It sounds exactly like it.'
'Oh, yes,' continued Jean, cheerfully. 'I _know_, because a cousin of
mine had something that was catching once, and she nearly lost her sight
through it, and she's had to wear spectacles ever since, and her eyes
are all red and shiny, and she looks a hideous sight. I expect that was
scarlet fever too.'
Angela shuddered, and quite closed her eyes that time. Her two comforters
looked at each other expressively.
'Poor Angela!' said Jean, stroking her forehead. 'It's awful hard lines
that you should be the one to catch it.'
'Oh, never mind about that,' answered the victim, meekly. 'I'm glad it's
me and not you.'
'Lots of people don't die, you know,' added Barbara, taking hold of her
hand and waggling it up and down in a way that was intended to express
sympathy.
'N--no,' said Angela, with some reluctance; 'but lots of people do.
Anyhow, I hope I shall be brave, whatever happens.' And she stifled a sigh.
'Of course you will,' said Jean, warmly. '_We_ know that!'
'If--if this should be the last time we are together before they separate
us,' continued Angela, opening her eyes again and looking up at them
appealingly, 'you _will_ remember, won't you, that----'
The door opened and put an abrupt stop to her pathetic last request. The
triumvirate, still clasping hands affectionately, looked round and met
the astonished gaze of the head-mistress.
'What's the matter with Angela?' she inquired briskly.
Angela closed her eyes again hastily. The other two prepared valiantly
to defend her position.
'She's got a headache and a sore throat, and she's feverish,' answered
Jean, glibly.
'She thinks she's got it,' added Babs, coming straight to the point.
They fully expected Miss Finlayson to do something startling to show her
concern at the approaching peril of Angela; but Miss Finlayson merely
smiled.
'Oh, so that's what she thinks, is it?' she observed. 'And may I ask if
that is why you have chosen this particular moment to hang over her more
closely than usual?'
The triumvirate loosed hands, and Miss Finlayson came and looked very
sharply at the unconscious features of the sufferer; then she suddenly
whipped a thermometer out of her pocket and into the open mouth before
her. Angela sat up in dismay, and tried to protest; but Miss Finlayson
smiled again and pressed her gently back.
'You mustn't speak, or we shall not be able to find out your temperature,'
she said, and Angela put on a resigned air, and suffered in silence.
'Now,' continued the head-mistress, pleasantly, 'we can have a few
minutes' conversation, while we are waiting to discover whether Angela has
scarlet fever or not. To begin with, I want to ask you if you remembered,
when you went out of bounds last Thursday, that you were abusing the
trust I had placed in you? Recollect!--I do not keep policemen at every
corner to spy over you when you are left to yourselves, but I do put
you on your honour not to do anything you know I have forbidden. Did you
think of this, Jean?'
Jean reddened and looked down.
'No, I didn't,' she blurted out. 'I forgot all about the bounds, at first,
and I only thought you would like us to feed the poor, and it was such
a grand opportunity. And then, afterwards----'
'Yes--afterwards?' said Miss Finlayson, encouragingly, as Jean hesitated.
'Afterwards, when I saw that woman look like she did, I never thought
of you or anything,' she muttered with an effort; and she was very red
indeed by the time she had finished.
Miss Finlayson took her hand and held it between her own, and then turned
to Barbara.
'Was that your reason too, Babs?' she asked.
'No, it wasn't,' answered Babs, without hesitation. 'I did remember about
going out of bounds directly we climbed over the gate; but I saw the other
two had forgotten, so I didn't say anything.'
The thermometer nearly fell out of Angela's mouth from surprise at this
amazing admission; and Jean felt compelled to say something in Barbara's
defence.
'You see, the boy was crying so,' she interrupted anxiously; 'and I
suppose Babs thought----'
'Hush!' said the head-mistress, softly; 'I want Babs to tell me what she
thought.'
Barbara was almost as red as Jean by this time. 'I didn't think about
the boy, or the poor, or anything,' she confessed; 'but I wanted to see
whether the lane did lead to the enchanted grotto, where the beautiful
princess----'
She paused, because she remembered just in time that nobody ever
understood about those things. Miss Finlayson was watching her carefully.
'And did it?' she asked quietly.
'Oh no,' said Barbara; 'it was _horrible_ when it got round the corner.'
Miss Finlayson nodded, and smiled her own mysterious smile. Then she took
the thermometer out of Angela's mouth.
'And what was your reason, Angela?' she asked.
'I don't know,' said Angela, rather foolishly. 'Jean said "Come on!" and
we'd promised to share the first opportunity that came; and Babs went, and
so of course I went too.'
Miss Finlayson looked relieved. 'You have made me feel much happier,
children,' she said, 'because I see now that you did not realise what you
were doing, and that your own reasons seemed good enough to you at the
time. If I thought I could not trust to your honour any more, I should
be most unhappy. Do you think you understand?'
The triumvirate looked very thoughtful. Angela, who seemed to have
forgotten all about her alarming symptoms, was the first to speak.
'I suppose I ought to have found out whether the others were right before
I followed them,' she said.
Miss Finlayson nodded.
'And we ought to have made sure we were right ourselves before we let her
follow us, because Angela always follows,' added Jean.
Miss Finlayson nodded again.
Barbara roused herself and shook back her hair. 'I was the worst,' she
said impetuously. 'I did remember about the bounds, and the others didn't
until afterwards. But I forgot about the honour part, truthfully!'
'Yes,' answered the head-mistress; 'you were the worst, Babs; and you
soon found out that the lane did not lead to the enchanted grotto, didn't
you? Now, what we can all see very clearly from this conversation is that
we must think a little more carefully in future before we do things. The
rules in my school are made for people who _think_, and not for people
who have to be told whether a thing is right or wrong. People of that kind
are not the people for me. Are you going to let me trust you again in
future, children?'
There was no doubt whatever from their faces that they thought she might;
but Babs still wanted something cleared up.
'Was the Canon's sermon all wrong, then?' she asked in her straightforward
manner. Jean and Angela looked at the head-mistress nervously; but Miss
Finlayson did not seem to mind.
'The Canon's sermon was rather like my rules,' she pointed out; 'and
it was meant for people who think. It is no use being unselfish in a
thoughtless kind of way, or else you do as much harm as most people do
by being selfish. I want you to try very hard to put lots of thought and
cleverness into your good deeds all your life, so that by the time you
are grown up your good deeds will be really worth doing. Then you will
be able to carry out properly what the Canon told you; for, to tell the
truth, the Canon's sermon was rather meant for grown-up thinking, and
perhaps that is why you misunderstood it. But children's thinking is
worth just as much in its own way; don't forget that, little girls.'
She jumped up and kissed them all round, then glanced hastily at her
watch. 'It strikes me,' she said gravely, 'that if somebody looks out of
the window in five minutes' time, somebody will see something in the
garden.'
She was just going out of the room, when an exclamation from Barbara
called her back. 'Why,' she said, 'you haven't told us about Angela's
scarlet fever yet!'
'No more I have,' said the head-mistress, and she took the thermometer to
the window and examined it. Angela tried rather feebly to recover her
resigned expression, which she had completely dropped in the last few
minutes; and her school-fellows exchanged a look of apprehension.
'Poor Angela!' said Miss Finlayson, pensively, as she dipped the
thermometer into a glass of water.
Angela put her hand to her head, and the other two closed round her
sympathetically.
'I am truly sorry for you,' continued Miss Finlayson, returning the
thermometer to her pocket and sighing deeply.
The triumvirate gazed at her in a scared fashion.
'Is she--is she going to have scarlet fever, _really_?' asked Barbara,
anxiously.
Miss Finlayson walked slowly across the room, shaking her head. She turned
when she reached the door, and her eyes twinkled. 'I am afraid not,'
she said, and they heard her laughing to herself as she ran downstairs.
The triumvirate had very little time to congratulate Angela on her escape
before their attention was caught by a loud 'Coo-ey!' from the garden
below. Certainly 'quorranteen' was full of diversions this afternoon.
'Kit! Kit! That's Kit!' shouted Babs, and a series of flying leaps took
her across to the window. In another minute the sash was flung wide, and
she was leaning out as far as the laws of balance allowed her. She was
right about the 'Coo-ey!' for there on the lawn below stood her favourite
brother, and by his side stood Jill and Auntie Anna.
'Well, well,' said the old lady, leaning on her blue-knobbed cane and
looking more like a witch than ever, 'and what is the meaning of this, I
should like to know? A fine lot of trouble you're giving people with your
tricks, you young monkey!'
'Oh, it's all right,' Babs assured her; 'we've made it up with Finny, and
she's not a bit cross, and next time we're going to think first, and we're
never going to pay a bit of attention to the old Canon till we're grown
up. Then we shan't make any more mistakes, she says.'
'It's to be hoped not, for I think you've made a young silly of yourself
all the same,' remarked Christopher, frankly. 'Whatever made you do it,
Babe?'
Barbara looked a little crestfallen. It would be easier to explain
their escapade to twenty Canons than to one brother, even when it was
a favourite brother like Kit. Jill came hurriedly to the rescue.
'Never mind about that, Kit,' she said. 'Think how lucky it is that she
hasn't caught scarlet fever, after all.'
Barbara cheered up. 'Even Angela doesn't think she's going to have it
now,' she observed; 'and she's been thinking she's got it, ever since
we went into quarantine; so we shall be able to come out again the day
after to-morrow. Of course it means sums and flannel petticoats and all
those horrible things as well; but still, we shall be able to practise
up for the gym display, and that's much more important. You're all coming
to the gym display, aren't you?'
'Rather!' said Kit. 'It's the day after the others break up; and even
Egbert says he doesn't mind coming, though it's only a girls' school,
and he says he doesn't expect much. Of course, Will is awfully keen on
coming, and so is Peter; but that's only for the grub, so don't you make
any mistake about it.'
'I don't know why Egbert is so mighty grand,' objected Barbara. 'Our gym
is really _serious_, I can tell you. You should see Angela on the rings;
and as for Jean Murray--why, I forgot! You don't know them yet!'
She disappeared abruptly from the window, while Auntie Anna said something
about leaving the young people to themselves, and strolled off towards
the house. Kit was attacked with a sudden fit of shyness at the prospect
of being presented to two perfectly strange schoolgirls; and he shouted
at Barbara to 'come back and chuck it!' But Barbara did not hear him, and
he edged behind Jill for protection.
Upstairs, in the 'quorranteen,' Barbara was trying with some difficulty
to persuade Jean and Angela to show themselves.
'Oh no!' they both said, getting as far away as possible from the window,
and contriving to look neglected. 'Never mind us, Babe; _please_ go on
talking to your people.'
'But it's _Kit_!' represented Babs, as if that settled the matter at once.
'He's my favourite brother, and he's a genius, and he's only thirteen,
and he has asthma so badly you'd think he was going to die. You _must_
want to know Kit! Besides, Jill is there too.'
'Jill Urquhart?' cried Angela. 'Why didn't you say so before? Of course,
we want to see Jill Urquhart!'
So the triumvirate squeezed themselves on to the narrow window-seat, and
hung in a row over the window-ledge, while Jill smiled and nodded from
below, and said pleasant things to them in her pretty soft voice. For all
that, her old school-fellows did not feel at their ease with her; for
they had suddenly made the discovery that Jill Urquhart, who used to be
the privileged possessor of boots to be unlaced and desks to be put away,
and other things now connected with Margaret Hulme, had somehow changed
into a daintily dressed, grown-up sort of visitor, who had to hold up
her skirt because the grass was wet. No one, not even the head girl, held
up her skirt at Wootton Beeches.
'This is Jean Murray, Kit, and that's Angela Wilkins,' said Babs, by
way of introduction; and Christopher, who was still seeking protection
behind his cousin, pulled off his cap and grinned. Then there was a
pause, and the situation became rather strained. Barbara looked round
at her two companions, and could not imagine what had come over them.
Why, she wondered, did they not chatter away as they usually did? They
only giggled faintly, however; and Angela was covered with blushes. So
far, the introduction did not seem a success.
'Angela can swing and turn and leave go with one hand and catch on
again--I mean on the rings,' said Barbara, by way of opening the
conversation.
'I can't! What stories! Besides, it's quite easy; anybody could!' declared
Angela, vehemently.
'And Jean can turn coach-wheels as well as Peter,' continued Babs,
eagerly. 'She can do hand-balance too, when Hurly-Burly isn't looking;
because we're not allowed to do hand-balance, you see, so we've got
to wait till no one is looking. Isn't it wonderful of Jean?'
'How _can_ you, Babe?' murmured Jean, reproachfully; and she concealed her
confusion by staring up at the top of the elm tree opposite and pretending
that she was not the person referred to.
'They are very clever, aren't they, Kit?' said Jill, in a gentle,
encouraging manner.
'Oh, rather!' said Kit, picking a blade of grass and gnawing it in his
desperation.
'And it will be most exciting to see Angela on the rings at the display,
won't it, Kit?' continued Jill, smiling away more pleasantly than ever.
'Oh, rather!' said Kit, again; and he wound the blade of grass elaborately
round his little finger.
'What we can do is nothing to Babs, though!' said Angela, making a mighty
effort to overcome her shyness. 'She's the best in the whole school!'
'Oh, the Babe!' remarked Christopher, leaving the shelter of Jill's big
hat, and suddenly regaining confidence. '_She_ doesn't count.'
Conversation flourished more easily after that, for the triumvirate
combined immediately in an attempt to prove to Kit that the Babe did
count. Indeed, the argument grew so hot and furious that the Doctor,
who happened at that moment to make his call upon his small patients,
knocked three times at the door of the room, and finally had to walk in
unannounced. There was a look of annoyance on his face, for he already
resented being compelled to waste his precious time in attending three
healthy young schoolgirls who had nothing whatever the matter with
them, and would not have been in their present plight but for a piece of
childish folly. When he found that his patients had not even the grace
to be ready for his visit, his irritation increased.
'Excuse me,' he began, 'are you aware----?' He paused and frowned, for it
was quite evident that none of them was aware of anything except of
what was going on in the garden. Nothing was to be seen of his patients
except an array of black legs along the window-seat; the rest of them
appeared to be hanging over the ledge outside in a perilous and inelegant
position; and all three of them were gabbling away as fast as their
tongues would let them.
'Well, you wait for the competition, that's all!' Angela was proclaiming
shrilly.
'It all depends on how soon that stupid Doctor lets us out of this hole,'
added Jean, with suppressed scorn in her voice.
'He's so funny; he never says anything important, and he only looks glum,
as if he was _so_ sorry for himself,' chimed in Babs, with a laugh.
Dr. Wilson Hurst tapped his stick smartly on the table; and there was a
sudden pause. Then came three thuds on the floor by the window-seat, and
the triumvirate stood facing him in varying stages of confusion.
'We--we didn't know you were there,' ventured Barbara.
'So I gathered,' said the Doctor, without a smile. 'Will you kindly show
me your tongues?'
He did not want to see their tongues particularly; but it seemed the most
obvious means at his disposal for producing silence. The rapidity with
which three tongues simultaneously darted out for his inspection reminded
him irresistibly of mechanical toys, and he very nearly allowed himself to
smile.
'That will do,' he said, controlling himself sternly; and he took out his
watch and felt Barbara's pulse. The moment the child's tongue was her own
again, she began to make use of it.
'You're sorry that we are not any iller, aren't you, Dr. Hurst?' she
remarked.
'Eh? What?' said the Doctor, taken aback. 'I--I don't know what you are
talking about.'
'Well, you always look as though you would like us so much better if we
_really_ had scarlet fever instead of only waiting for it,' explained
Babs, pleasantly. '_Would_ you like us better, Dr. Hurst, if we really
had scarlet fever?'
She had so nearly guessed the truth with her quick, impish perception,
that the Doctor dropped her hand abruptly and passed on to Angela. 'There
doesn't seem to be much the matter with any of you,' he said, by way
of conducting the conversation on strict medical lines. He looked so
cross about it, however, that the attempt did not prosper. Barbara, in
the innocence of her heart, thought he needed cheering up.
'Are you coming to the display, Dr. Hurst?' she asked politely.
'The--I beg your pardon?' he murmured, staring hard at his watch.
'The gymnastic display at the end of the term, when we're going to
compete for the Canon's prize, you know,' proceeded Barbara. 'Everybody's
coming--Jill too! So _you_ will, won't you, Dr. Hurst?'
'Really, I don't know,' answered the Doctor; and he dropped Angela's
hand just as hastily, and passed on to Jean Murray. Babs looked a little
puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared.
'Oh, of course, you don't like Jill! I'd forgotten that,' she remarked
with a smile. 'But that doesn't matter, because you needn't sit next to
her, need you? I don't think Jill would mind your not sitting next to
her,' she added reflectively.
The Doctor began to wish very heartily that he had accepted Miss
Finlayson's offer to let one of the teachers accompany him from the house,
and he prepared to beat a speedy retreat. But Angela, in her bland and
tactless manner, put the finishing touch to his embarrassment and cut off
his retirement.
'Jill Urquhart is outside on the lawn now,' she observed quite pointlessly.
'So she is!' cried Barbara, clapping her hands. 'Then you'll come to the
window and speak to her, won't you, Dr. Hurst? Kit is there too!'
'You must really excuse me,' said the Doctor, stiffly, as he took up his
hat and stick; 'but, really----'
'Oh, Dr. Hurst, _do_ come,' begged the child, her little black eyes
bright with entreaty. In spite of her temporary disloyalty during the
period of 'quorranteen' to the prince who had once been a beast, she
still considered him worthy to stay in her kingdom with the magician
and other privileged folk; and it really hurt her to feel that he did not
appreciate Jill and Kit, and that Jill and Kit on their side did not know
he had been disenchanted quite six weeks ago. Surely, she thought, if
they were all properly brought together, they could not fail to like one
another.
The Doctor hesitated, and Barbara waited anxiously. He thought he only
had to decide whether he should leave at once, or whether he should stay
and be laughed at by the other schoolgirl outside--the one who had made
him feel so stupid at Mrs. Crofton's dinner-party. But to Barbara his
decision meant much more than that, for it was going to determine whether
a certain beast was a prince, or whether a certain prince was a beast.
So she waited with a look of thrilling expectancy on her face; and the
other two, who had never seen her look like that before, began to feel
a little doubtful about the way she was behaving.
'I say, Babe, don't!' whispered Jean, tugging at her.
The little movement roused the Doctor, and recalled him to the absurdity
of his position. He bowed, and walked with sudden determination to the
door.
'Good afternoon,' he said curtly; and the disappointment on Barbara's face
haunted him in the most tiresome manner for the rest of the day.
Babs stood motionless for nearly a minute after he had gone. Then she
smiled a little wistfully to herself.
'After all, he must have found it rather lonely without a princess, and I
can't find a princess,' she reflected out loud.
'What _are_ you talking about?' asked Jean.
'Hadn't we better go back to Jill?' added Angela, impatiently.
Barbara gave a start. 'What a silly duffer I am!' she cried joyfully. 'Of
course, there's Jill; and she's been there all the time!'
'Yes, she has,' said Jean, bluntly, 'and it's time you remembered it, for
she must be tired of waiting for us by this----'
Barbara interrupted her with another remark--rather a mournful one this
time.
'It never comes right,' she sighed. 'Now, I've got a princess without a
prince!'
CHAPTER XIV
PREPARING FOR THE DISPLAY
Dr. Hurst did not call again at the little house in the garden, and
the triumvirate came out of quarantine in due course, very little subdued
by their eight days' imprisonment, and more on the alert than ever for
any piece of excitement that might come their way. The junior playroom,
having passed an exceedingly dull and uneventful week during their
absence, welcomed their return with joy; and it was perhaps fortunate
for the internal affairs of Wootton Beeches that there was going to be
a gymnastic display to absorb the energies of its wilder spirits. As the
days rolled on and the end of the term drew nearer and nearer, the
conversation on both sides of the curtain became almost entirely limited
to the one topic of the Canon's prize; and those who were not among the
chosen competitors for it spent the best part of their time in watching
the others practise in the big gymnasium, and in disputing hotly the
various chances of the claimants. Miss Finlayson had settled that the
six morocco-bound volumes offered by her uncle should be divided into
two prizes, one for the senior and one for the junior division of the
school; and while it was generally agreed that Margaret Hulme would carry
off the first, the discussion in the junior playroom as to the winner of
the second was endless. Most of the girls were agreed that Charlotte
Bigley and the three members of the triumvirate shared equal chances, on
the whole, of being successful; and a great deal would depend, it was
said, on the exercises chosen for competition. For, until a week before
the great day, nobody knew what the exact programme was to be. 'It's
one of Finny's dodges,' Charlotte Bigley declared, 'because she wants
us to be good all round, and not to grind at one or two things just for
the sake of the prize. It's like the prize-giving in the Christmas
term; we never know what the prizes are going to be for, till after the
exams. are over.'
So the excitement was great when Miss Burleigh walked into the gymnasium
on the Saturday before the display, and called for silence so that she
might read out the order of the competition. Even the younger children
forced themselves into a kind of uneasy order, as Hurly-Burly unfolded
her sheet of foolscap paper; for the next few minutes would practically
decide, they thought, who was to be the lucky one among the juniors.
'First of all,' announced the games-mistress, 'the whole gymnastic class
will open the display by an exhibition of step-marching.' This was
received with average interest, for it sounded like one of the ordinary
gymnastic lessons, and had nothing to do with the competition. Miss
Burleigh waited for the murmur of comments to subside, and went on.
'Then the thirty-two girls chosen to compete for the prize will separate
into two divisions; and the senior division, led by Margaret Hulme, will
perform the following exercises:--'
Miss Burleigh paused again, but there were no comments this time.
'First, wand exercises by the whole senior division; then a display on the
horizontal bar, to be followed by one on the vaulting-horse,--competitors
to choose between the bar and the horse,--and the whole to conclude
with high jump. After tea, I will show you the exercises chosen for
competition, and will help you to divide yourselves into sections.'
The buzz of remarks from the senior division lasted almost long enough
to shake the loyalty of the younger children to the head girl; and they
cast many reproachful glances towards the further end of the gymnasium,
where Margaret formed the centre of an eager, chattering group. Then
Hurly-Burly took pity on them and called for silence again, and the
juniors had their chance at last.
'The junior division, led by Charlotte Bigley, will go through the
following exercises:--' began Miss Burleigh. She did not mean to pause
here, but a storm of remonstrance from the junior division drowned her
next words.
'Did you _ever_!' cried the shrill voice of Angela Wilkins, who, with Jean
and Barbara, sat perched on the top of the vaulting-horse.
'Why doesn't Jean lead?' added Babs, indignantly.
'I say, please don't! I'm not nearly so good as you are,' contradicted
Jean, in a faint tone that lacked conviction.
'Can't you be quiet, you three?' grumbled Mary Wells, who had a prejudice
against the triumvirate, founded on many injuries. 'As if anybody could
lead better than Charlotte! The impudence of _some_ kids----'
'Hush-sh!' interposed the audience generally, and Miss Burleigh struggled
on.
'First, Indian clubs for the whole section. After that----'
'Jean--for certain!' interrupted Barbara, nodding. 'She bangs every one
at clubs!'
'There you go again!' said the injured voice of Mary Wells. 'Everybody
knows that Charlotte----'
'Oh, stop it!' said Charlotte herself; and temporary peace was restored.
'After that,' continued Hurly-Burly, rapidly, 'a display on the horizontal
ladder, to be followed by one on the rings. Competitors to choose
between----'
'I bag rings!' screamed Angela, at the top of her voice.
'No, you don't!' said Mary Wells, in her stolid, aggravating way. 'You've
just got to wait till it's settled for you, so there! We all know why
you're so anxious not to do the ladder; why, you can't even manage a
simple travel----'
'How can you, Mary Wells?' asked Angela, solemnly. 'You know I can bear
anything but an untruth; and to say that _I_----'
'Sh-sh!' said Miss Burleigh, vigorously, and she was again allowed a
few seconds of silence. 'The junior division will then conclude with
rope-climbing.'
Hardly were the words out of her mouth than her listeners fell to
disputing again.
'Rope-climbing--Barbara!' asserted Jean.
'What are you talking about?' cried Mary, with contempt. 'Barbara is
simply not _in_ it with Charlotte; and what's more, you know she isn't,
Jean Murray.'
'Oh, the wicked stories some people can tell,' sighed Angela. 'Have you
seen Barbara Berkeley swarm up the----'
'Please, please don't,' implored Babs. 'Can't you see that Hurly-Burly
wants to say something else?'
Being the champion in question, she could not very well side with Jean,
as she usually did. Her appeal had some effect on the disputants, and
Miss Burleigh, remembering it was a half-holiday, shrugged her shoulders
good-naturedly and took advantage of the pause to proceed.
'The display will take place at five o'clock on Thursday,' she proclaimed;
'supper will be at seven, and after supper, the Canon, who is coming
from the North on purpose, will give away the prizes to the two
successful competitors----'
'That's Margaret and Charlotte Bigley,' interrupted Mary, noisily; and
Hurly-Burly gave it up and fled, with her hands over her ears, just
as Angela, with a yell of defiance, lost her balance and plunged down
head-first from her perch on the vaulting-horse.
'No, no! Margaret and Jean!' she gasped out breathlessly, as she scrambled
up again from the floor and brushed the dust from her hands and knees.
Jean sprang to her feet on the top of the vaulting-horse, and danced up
and down in her excitement.
'Margaret and the Babe!' she shrieked, waving her arms wildly round her
head.
But Barbara had slipped down after Angela, though not quite so
precipitately, and had retired from the contest to a particular corner
of the gymnasium, where the hot-water pipes projected sufficiently to
form what might with imagination be considered a seat. It required
some ingenuity, perhaps, to preserve any sort of balance on the edge of
a row of hot-water pipes; but that was nothing to a small person who
could never sit down tamely on a chair like other people, but always
preferred the slanting surface of a desk, or something equally
unaccommodating. So Babs felt the hot-water pipes with her grubby
little hands, to make sure they were just the right heat to be sat
upon, and then squeezed herself on to them contentedly, curled her legs
away underneath, and in a few seconds was supremely unconscious of what
was going on at the other end of the gymnasium. Jean Murray might yell
herself hoarse in her defence, for all she knew or cared; for at that
moment her mind was occupied with a far more important question.
It was Angela who first grew tired of waging war with Mary Wells without
the valuable support of Barbara Berkeley. Angela could shriek with the
shrillest, when once some one had told her what to shriek; but there
was a solid calmness about Mary that carried more conviction with it,
and Barbara's wit was the only thing to make any impression upon that.
Besides, if Angela shrieked 'Margaret and Jean,' and Jean shrieked
'Margaret and the Babe,' who was there left but the Babe to shriek
for Angela herself? So in a very short time Angela Wilkins also left
the contest, and found her way to the place where the hot-water pipes
projected into a perch for the youngest girl in the school.
'Hullo, Babe! What's up?' she inquired.
Barbara looked at her vaguely. Some one in a scarlet gymnasium frock
certainly stood in front of her, but it had nothing whatever to do with
what she was worrying over in her mind; so, at first, she did not take
any notice.
'Aren't you coming to practise rings?' pursued Angela, who had seen
Barbara look like this before, and knew from experience that in time
the child would rouse herself sufficiently to answer her.
'Rings?' repeated Babs, vacantly.
'Oh, come on!' said Angela, impatiently. 'How you do moon about the place,
to be sure! Don't you want to win the Canon's prize?'
Barbara's expression changed swiftly, and she frowned. 'Get away,' she
growled, with unusual fierceness; and Angela stared and withdrew.
'Barbara Berkeley is in an awful fury,' she announced, when she got back
to Jean.
'What about?' asked Jean.
'Oh, not _about_ anything,' answered Angela, shrugging her shoulders.
'When the Babe is in a fury, it's never _about_ anything, is it? It's
inside her, or something,' she added, seeking in her mind for some
explanation of the strange moods that made Barbara Berkeley a puzzle
to every one.
'Inside her!' echoed Mary Wells, scornfully. 'What you two can see in that
child I never can make out. Fancy making friends with any one who loses
her temper _inside_!'
'Well, it's better than losing it _outside_ and upsetting everybody by
howling like a baby, because you can't find your pencil-box, isn't it,
stupid?' cried Jean.
Mary blushed painfully at the personal reference, and hastily changed
the conversation. 'Barbara Berkeley is a spoilt little kid,' she retorted.
'She's the most sullen, ill-tempered, obstinate little----' The words
stayed at the tip of her tongue, for the unconscious subject of them had
suddenly joined the group round Mary, and was staring at her in her most
solemn and disconcerting manner.
Mary Wells felt foolish. There was something about the youngest girl
in the school, when she looked like that, that would make any one feel
foolish. But Babs had evidently not heard a word she had been saying.
'Come on,' she said, hooking her arm into Jean's; 'I want to ask you
something.'
The two wandered away together down the long gymnasium.
'Look here,' began Barbara, impetuously, as soon as they were out of
hearing of the others. 'Are you keen on winning that prize?'
Jean drew a long breath. She wanted to take that prize back with her to
the little home in Edinburgh, where she had been adored and spoiled for
twelve whole years, more than she had ever wanted anything in the world;
and she did not know how to answer Barbara's unexpected question.
'Why?' she asked, at length.
Barbara took hold of a rope and waved it backwards and forwards to
give herself courage. 'Because,' she blurted out, 'I want to get it
too,--_awfully_, and so does Angela, and--and we can't all get it, can we?'
'No,' said Jean, looking at her curiously. She had thought she really was
beginning to understand the Babe; and here she was, showing herself in a
more puzzling light than ever.
'You see,' Barbara went on, swarming up the rope a couple of feet and
making her next remark to the black hook in the beam above, 'I'd like
awfully to win it, because I don't want the boys to think I've got too
much like a girl to do things now; and because it's so--so splendid to
feel you _can_ do things.'
She slid down the rope again, and Jean saw how her eyes were glowing and
shining, and she felt a little more puzzled than before.
'Then, Angela wants to get it because she's always bottom in everything
else,' continued Barbara. 'That's not much of a reason, I think,
especially when she hasn't got any brothers--only millions of sisters,
who don't count; but still, she'll be awfully disappointed if she doesn't
get it, won't she?'
'Yes,' said Jean.
Babs curled the rope round her waist, and swung herself gently to and fro.
The movement seemed to aid her reflections. 'Why do _you_ want to get it,
Jean?' she asked softly.
It was never easy to induce Jean to talk about herself; but if any one
could do it, Barbara was the person. And, this time, she succeeded.
Jean drew another long breath, and clenched her fists.
'Because I want to be first,' she said slowly. 'I want to be first in
_everything_. I'd sooner be bottom than second! Of course you'll think
I'm a conceited pig,' she added, almost fiercely, 'but I can't help
that; I don't expect you to understand.' Then she muttered in a lower
tone,--'Nobody ever does, excepting only mother and father.'
Barbara's eyes were fixed on her face, and there was a warmth in their
blackness that Jean had only seen there once, and that was when she was
writing to her father in America.
'Good old Jean!' she murmured. 'It's awfully hard to understand; but I'll
try--_truthfully_. And I'd like you to get the prize--I would, really.
I didn't want you to have it before; but I do now, Jean, old girl!'
'I ought to want _you_ to have it, but I don't,' sighed Jean, trying
vainly not to be behindhand in unselfishness; 'I just want it myself,
so it's no good pretending I don't.'
There was silence between them for an instant; and from the other end of
the gymnasium drifted the monotonous war-cries of Mary Wells and Angela
Wilkins.
'Margaret and Charlotte Bigley!' shouted one.
'Margaret and Jean Murray!' added the other.
The enthusiasm was too infectious to be resisted. With a wild scream
of glee, Jean and Babs raced the whole length of the room and flung
themselves into the fray, without a thought of the opposite sentiments
they had just been expressing to each other.
'Margaret and the Babe!' yelled Jean, brandishing an Indian club.
'Margaret and Angela!' came from the panting Barbara, just behind her.
Nothing but the entrance of Finny would have calmed the noisy tumult; but
when they saw her standing on the platform, looking down at them with
her best Saturday smile on her face, the clamour ended in a burst of
laughter; and five or six of the more eager of them invaded the platform,
and danced round her appealingly.
'Do, do say who's going to win,' begged Barbara, catching hold of her
sleeve.
'It's Margaret and the Babe, isn't it?' cried Jean.
'No!' shrilled Angela. 'You mean Margaret and----'
'Charlotte Bigley!' gasped Mary Wells, squeezing herself into the front
rank.
Miss Finlayson put out her arms and encircled as many of them as she
could, and spun them round the platform with her.
'Dear, dear little girls!' she exclaimed, when she was out of breath and
could dance no more. 'Do you know what the Canon ought to have done, if
he wanted to please _me_?'
'What? What?' cried a dozen voices.
'He ought to have offered thirty-two prizes, and then I should not have
been afraid of any of my children feeling disappointed,' answered Miss
Finlayson, nodding at them wisely; and, somehow, it seemed to Jean as if
the head-mistress's eyes rested longest of all upon her.
CHAPTER XV
THE GYMNASTIC DISPLAY
The junior division, drawn up in double file, stood assembled in the
anteroom of the gymnasium, on the day of the great competition for
the Canon's prize. The figure-marching by the whole class was over, and
the senior division had just begun the wand exercises to the piano
accompaniment of the German music-master, who, being the unlucky
possessor of an unpronounceable name in three syllables, was generally
known as 'Scales.' The applause which had followed after the marching
had taken away the first shyness of the younger children; and even the
prospect of doing separate exercises presently, before an audience of
strangers, did not seem to be having much effect on the sixteen little
girls in scarlet frocks who were waiting in the anteroom for their turn
to come. Hurly-Burly, though supposed to be superintending affairs in
the gymnasium, had to look in at the door more than once, to remind
them that the crashing chords of 'Scales' did not drown everything;
but just as she had succeeded in reducing them at last to order, a
piece of information passed down the file from Charlotte Bigley, who
stood nearest the doorway and had the best view of the gymnasium, upset
them all once more.
'Margaret has forgotten the figure,' 'Margaret has put the others out,'
'Margaret has gone wrong,' 'Margaret Hulme has clean forgotten everything,
and she's got to step out,' were the various forms in which the news
travelled down to the end of the file, the last of all being the version
of Angela Wilkins and therefore generally discredited.
'I don't believe a word of it!' said Jean, stoutly.
'Why, Margaret couldn't go wrong if she tried,' exclaimed Barbara, whose
belief in the head girl, though slow in coming, was quite equal by this
time to Jean's.
'She has, though,' declared Angela, who stood with Mary Wells just in
front of Jean and Barbara.
Mary Wells, who had stepped out of rank on hearing the surprising news,
now returned, and in her slow and conscientious manner proceeded to
reprove Angela.
'How you do exaggerate, Angela!' she said, frowning. 'Margaret only went
a little wrong; and she's caught up again all right. Isn't it funny,
though?' she was obliged to add immediately, with a thrill of amazement
in her voice.
The two children behind her for once were dumb. The head girl, according
to their simple creed, could do no wrong; so when she did, what words had
they left to use? Babs was the first to see a way out of the difficulty.
'I know,' she said. 'I expect she's nervous. It makes you forget like
anything, if you're nervous. Once, when Egbert was being prepared for
confirmation, he was so nervous--it was a strange clergyman, you know,
and Egbert said he blinked--that he clean forgot his catechism, even
the easy first part about your godfathers and godmothers. So that's why
Margaret forgot her steps, you see if it wasn't!'
'Nervous!' echoed Jean, incredulously. 'Who ever saw Margaret nervous?
Do you think she'd be able to make every new kid who comes to the school
quake in her shoes if she was _nervous_?'
'I don't know,' answered Babs, doubtfully. Margaret Hulme had certainly
never made her quake in her shoes, even when she was a new girl; but
she did not admit this to Jean. 'Egbert can make people afraid of him
too,' she went on, 'and he can thrash any chap you please, and he always
washes his head in cold water _every_ morning, even if there's ice, and he
has more ties and clothes and things than all the others put together,
and he's awfully grand and splendid, Egbert is,--but all the same, he was
frightened of that strange clergyman. Can you see Egbert?' she concluded
proudly. 'He's at the end of them all, next to Jill. Wasn't it jolly of
Finny to put them right in the front row of the gallery?'
Her companions forgot Margaret for a minute or two in their efforts to
stand on tiptoe and catch a glimpse through the open door of Barbara
Berkeley's five brothers. The various relatives who came to the
break-up parties, and never seemed to exist at any other time except on
letter-writing days, always caused a good deal of excitement among
the girls, and added a temporary importance to the most insignificant of
them, provided she was lucky enough to possess a parent or even a cousin
among the visitors.
'They're all mine,' said Babs, glowing with the joy of possession. 'I'll
introduce them to you at supper, if you like.'
'I'm rather glad I haven't any one belonging to me here,' said Jean,
cheating herself into a brief forgetfulness of the little home in
Edinburgh. 'I'm so frightened of the introducing part; I never know
what to say, and it makes me feel such a goat.'
'Oh,' said Mary Wells, placidly; 'how funny of you, Jean. I always say,
"Here's my sister, and this is Charlotte Bigley." That's quite easy,
surely.'
'Yes, but it isn't right,' responded Jean, frankly. 'You should hear
Margaret Hulme do it--that's something like! It reminds you of mothers,
and callers, and At Home days when you wear your best frock and hand
the scones.'
Their talk was interrupted by the retirement from the gymnasium of the
senior division. Margaret marched into the anteroom, with her eyes
staring straight in front of her, and an exaggerated air of confidence in
her bearing. There was an obvious lack of enthusiasm among her followers,
who were all whispering and looking significantly at their leader; but
the noise produced by Scales, who seemed to think that a Beethoven sonata
was an appropriate solo to play in the interval, made conversation
impossible; and the section that was to do the horizontal bar, led by
Ruth Oliver, returned to the gymnasium before the juniors were able to
satisfy their curiosity. During the second event of the competition,
Margaret and the vaulting-horse section exchanged very few remarks, and
the feeling that there was something unusual in the air had considerably
increased by the time Ruth, looking flushed and totally unlike herself,
marched her section back again. The rumour ran down the junior file that
Ruth Oliver had been distinguishing herself, and that as much of the
clapping as Scales allowed to be heard was on her account. Certainly,
the irresolute manner that marked everything Ruth did, as a rule, had
quite deserted her as she filed past the triumvirate with her little band.
'Why,' exclaimed Angela, audibly, 'I never knew Ruth Oliver was pretty
before!'
'She isn't, is she?' said Jean, just as loudly.
'Of course she is!' declared Babs, warmly. 'She's _beautiful_, and--and
classic!'
The others laughed, and she wondered why. Somebody had said, only the
other day, that Jill Urquhart had classic features; and how was she to
know that, although she was every bit as fond of Ruth as of Jill, the
same adjective would not do for both?
'Look at Margaret Hulme,' whispered Mary Wells, as the vaulting-horse
section marched past them. 'She's quite white!'
The little remark was enough to set them all wondering afresh; and
Barbara, moved by a sudden impulse, darted up to Ruth Oliver.
'_Did_ Margaret go wrong in the wands?' asked the child, in an anxious
whisper.
The smile that had made Ruth look so surprisingly pretty died out of her
face, and she glanced gravely down at her little questioner.
'Never mind, baby,' she said gently. 'Go back to your place.' And she came
as near snubbing any one then as she ever did in the whole of her school
career.
A burst of applause put every one in the anteroom once more on the alert.
'What is it?' passed eagerly from one to another. The answer, given by
Charlotte from her point of vantage near the doorway, was soon circulated.
Margaret Hulme had easily surpassed her seven companions by a brilliant
performance on the vaulting-horse; and the spirits of the anteroom went
up with a bound. Hurly-Burly had mounted the platform at the farther end
of the gymnasium, and was comparing notes with Miss Finlayson and the
expert from the London training-college, who was acting as one of the
judges; so there was no one to restrain both senior and junior divisions
from falling out of rank and pressing round the head girl, as she once
more marched back to them. They had never once made so much fuss over
their idol as they did now that she had shown, for the first time, that
even idols are capable of failure.
Hurly-Burly returned and restored order in a stern voice; and they saw
Finny standing in the middle of the platform, waiting for Scales to bring
the _Erlkönig_ to a thundering close. The next moment she was speaking in
that low voice of hers that went straight to the ears of every one in the
room.
'It may make the end of the senior competition more interesting to you,'
she began, 'if you know how the competitors stand now. So far, Ruth
Oliver is a little ahead of the others----' Even the solemnity of the
occasion could not stay the murmur of astonishment that rose in the
anteroom at this announcement; but Miss Finlayson waited for it to
subside, and finished her speech. 'She and Margaret Hulme are very
close, for they are exactly even as regards gymnastics; but Margaret lost
a little over the wand figure. So the prize will greatly depend upon the
result of the high jump. At the same time, I feel sure you will agree with
me that the way in which the other competitors have worked has greatly
added to our enjoyment, and deserves much of our applause.'
A good many downcast faces in the anteroom cheered up as Miss Finlayson
made her ingenious reference to the unsuccessful ones, and so contrived
to make them feel that the applause at the end of her speech was really
for them. Then the whole senior division filed into the gymnasium for
the last time, to the slow music of Herr Scales, who had just had a polite
rebuke from Hurly-Burly, and was forcing himself desperately to keep the
soft pedal down.
The children never forgot the tense feeling of the next few minutes,
the thrill that ran through every girl in Wootton Beeches when Ruth
Oliver knocked down the rope at four feet four, the answering thrill that
followed it when she cleared it at four feet six, the surprise they went
through when Margaret also cleared it at four feet six, but knocked
it down at four feet eight; and last of all, the enthusiasm of the
spectators when Ruth just managed to clear it at four feet eight and
Margaret still knocked it down after two tries at it. The people, who
clapped and smiled so good-naturedly, little knew that the exciting
contest they had just witnessed had upset the traditions of two and a half
years and proclaimed the triumph of the most retiring girl in the school.
They only thought how modern and delightful it was for girls to play
the same games as boys; and Mrs. Oliver beamed on every one from the
platform, and decided that Ruth should stay another year at school
instead of leaving at midsummer. But the anteroom was overwhelmed.
'It's--impossible!' gasped Jean, when the news travelled down to the
triumvirate. 'Why, Margaret can clear four feet ten _easily_! I've seen
her.'
'And Ruth has never done more than four feet six before,' added Angela,
forced by the seriousness of the moment into a strict statement of facts.
'Margaret was nervous; I'm certain she was,' said Barbara, positively. 'It
was the same with Egbert, when he forgot his godfathers and godmothers; he
said there was a silly idiot at the bottom of his form, who didn't mind
the strange clergyman blinking at him a bit, and he even got through the
duty to his neighbour. And Ruth wasn't nervous, you see.'
'What nonsense you are talking,' remarked Mary Wells, who loved to be
literal. 'Why, Ruth is more shy than any one in the whole school!'
That was certainly true, and Babs went on puzzling over it, long after
Margaret and Ruth had retired hand in hand to the other end of the
anteroom. For whatever the head girl felt about her failure, she did not
mean to let any one guess that she cared. Her easy self-possession was
all her own again, as she kept tight hold of Ruth's hand and chatted
lightly to the girls about her; and one or two of the others, who tried
to patronise her with their consolation, received such sarcastic replies
that they were very soon put back in their place again. Margaret Hulme
was not going to forget she was head girl, even if that roomful of
strangers had robbed her of the power she had wielded for two and a half
years.
Scales struck up a march of his own composition; and at a vigorous sign
from Miss Burleigh, Charlotte Bigley hastily marshalled her scattered
troop and led them into the gymnasium for the Indian club performance.
They were all very much subdued by the time they had separated to their
various places, for the peep they had stolen through the anteroom door
had given them no idea of what it really felt like to stand in the
middle of this staring crowd of people, who filled the gallery above
and the platform at the end, and even spread thinly round the room
close up to the wall. Jean clenched her teeth and frowned fiercely, and
would have endured twice the shyness that tortured her sooner than
forget one of the exercises she had to go through; and as for Barbara,
she took no notice of the people at all, but began to work mechanically,
as soon as the first bars of the familiar valse fell on her ears.
Angela, however, lost her head and one of her clubs at the same instant;
and a harmless aunt, who sat near, only escaped a severe blow from the
latter by the dexterity of another visitor, who put out his hand just
in time and caught it as it flew past him. It was neatly done, and the
audience applauded vigorously, while Hurly-Burly gave the command to
stop practice, and the stranger restored her property to the confused
and unhappy Angela. Then Babs recognised him. It was the Doctor who
had come out in this surprisingly new light; and even Kit, with whom she
immediately exchanged glances, was looking down at him approvingly.
'Did you see Dr. Hurst?' whispered Babs to Jean afterwards, as they filed
out of the gymnasium again.
'Of course I did, directly I got in,' answered Jean. 'Couldn't think who
it was looking so glum and thundery! Wonder why he came to a show like
this? He doesn't look as though he went in for gymnastics, does he?'
'I don't know,' said Babs, trying to be fair even to the beast who had not
shown himself worthy to be a prince. 'It was very smart the way he caught
that club. Perhaps he is good at gym, though he can't take a joke.'
Angela required so much consolation from them both on account of her
blunder, that they forgot all about the doctor, and spent most of their
time, while Charlotte's section was displaying on the horizontal ladder,
in assuring her, with more or less confidence in their tones, that when
it came to the rings no one could hope to compete with her. Then Charlotte
Bigley returned at the head of her section, trying unsuccessfully to
look as if nothing had happened; and Mary Wells proudly informed all
those who cared to hear, that if anybody thought she was going to do
the rings as well as Charlotte had just done the ladder, she was much
mistaken!
'Oh, you shut up!' rejoined Babs. 'You haven't seen Angela yet.'
'Or Jean!' echoed Angela, faithfully.
The third voice for once was wanting. Jean Murray stood waiting for the
signal to advance; and her determined, almost dogged look was blotting out
every other expression on her thin, clever face.
Babs understood, and sprang forward to her place at Jean's side.
'It's all right, Jean,' she said earnestly. 'I must try my very hardest,
because Finny made us all promise; but--but I do want you to win, all the
same.'
'Oh, stop it, Babe,' Jean threw back at her, in a tone that startled and
hurt her; and the child shrank into herself again, and had a hard fight
to keep back the tears that rushed into her eyes for the first time in
many weeks.
Their persistent encouragement of Angela made her go through the first
exercise on the rings successfully. It was a swing and a pull up in front,
and she managed it more neatly than either of her supporters. Then came
the swing and turn, and here Angela's temporary courage deserted her.
Perhaps she was flurried by the little attempt made by the gallery to
applaud her the second time she came forward; in any case, the glimpse
she had of Kit, who caught her eye and nodded cheerfully just as she
was beginning, did not help to compose her. She turned too soon and too
vigorously, and spun round helplessly in the air, until Hurly-Burly
came to her aid and helped her to drop ignominiously to the ground.
After that, it was evident that the issue of the competition rested
with Jean and Barbara, for they soon showed that they were much more
finished and thorough in their work than any one else in their section;
and everybody was prepared for the statement made by Miss Finlayson
in the next interval. She announced that Charlotte Bigley, Jean Murray,
and Barbara Berkeley were exactly even up to that point, and that the
result would have to be determined by the rope-climbing.
The rope-climbing, however, left the result still undetermined. Both Jean
and Babs reached the top in six seconds, blew the trumpet they found there
with a vigour that sent the spectators into a peal of merriment, and slid
down again, much pleased with themselves and the interest they were
exciting. Charlotte Bigley on the third rope excelled them in speed and
reached the top in five seconds, but forgot to blow the trumpet, and so
made things even once more. The junior division filed out again, while
Miss Finlayson and the expert and Hurly-Burly put their heads together
on the platform, and Herr Scales thought the moment an appropriate one for
a performance in his best manner of his favourite composition, which
was called _Sonnenschein_ and had been thumped out in the holidays to
half the parents in the room.
Miss Finlayson rose to her feet again. As the three competitors she
had already mentioned were still equal, she must call upon each of
them to do one of the advanced exercises, Charlotte on the ladder and the
other two on the rings; they were to choose their own exercises, and if
they again proved themselves equally good, the prize would be divided.
The spectators were in a pleasant state of interest by this time, and
the three little rivals were greeted with enthusiasm when they stepped
out of the anteroom for the last time and took up their positions in front
of the platform. They looked very small and slight as they stood there
in their short red frocks against a solid background of people; but they
had quite lost every suspicion of bashfulness, and Babs even began to
look upon the whole thing as an immense joke. She nodded gaily to the boys
in the gallery, and smiled happily at Auntie Anna, who had the place
of honour on the platform next to the Canon; and in the silence that
followed, while Charlotte Bigley was jumping from rung to rung of the
horizontal ladder, she occupied herself in trying to decide on her own
exercise. If Jean chose leaving go with one hand, she should swing
and let go and catch on to the trapeze beyond--at least, if Hurly-Burly
would only be decent and give her leave. She half hoped that Jean _would_
choose the other; for she had practised the trapeze one, only last week,
and----
A sudden murmur, followed by a faint attempt at applause, roused her; and
she saw Charlotte Bigley walking slowly back to the anteroom with her eyes
fixed on the ground.
'What happened? I didn't see,' she whispered, nudging Jean.
'Hand slipped, fell off,' answered Jean, briefly, as she went forward and
grasped the rings.
She did choose swinging and letting go with one hand, and she went through
it very successfully, and earned every bit of the applause that greeted
her when she finished. Barbara was so delighted that she went on clapping
her loudly after everybody else had stopped, and did not notice what she
was doing till the audience began to laugh and Hurly-Burly came up and
spoke to her.
'May I have the trapeze let down?' whispered Babs, eagerly. 'I want to
let go of the rings and catch on to it at the end of my swing--like I did
the other day.'
Hurly-Burly looked doubtful. 'Are you sure you can manage it?' she asked.
Barbara pleaded, and the games-mistress gave in. It was always difficult
for any one so practical as Miss Burleigh to understand the odd little
pupil, who at one moment could throw herself into a game as heartily as a
boy, and at another was liable to exasperate her companions by going
off into a dream and completely forgetting what she was doing. But it was
impossible to help liking the child, and Hurly-Burly, who had a sneaking
conviction that the trapeze exercise would decide the prize in her favour,
could not resist the temptation to let her have her own way and secure
to herself at the same time a little reflected glory. For it was she
who had taught Barbara the exercise, and she had every reason to be
proud of her pupil. So she let down the trapeze from the roof and held it
back with her hands, ready to drop it forward when the child had worked up
her swing.
The eyes of the German music-master were filled with sentimental
interest, as the youngest girl in the school stepped up to the rings. He
knew very little about gymnastics, though a German; for his life had been
passed almost entirely in other lands, and during the brief period he
had spent in his own country he had been so absorbed in his art that he
had completely neglected the physical culture that is of so much
importance to most Germans. As for girls' gymnastics, his experience in
them had been entirely confined to a few occasions like the present,
when he was asked to play instead of the junior music-mistress. But he
never assisted at the usual lessons, when the junior music-mistress was
considered good enough to perform; so Miss Finlayson's remarks on the
merits of the three competitors conveyed very little to him. Still, he
managed to gather that Barbara stood a good chance of winning the prize,
and his fat, benevolent face beamed with satisfaction in consequence.
It was true that the little Fräulein with the black, black eyes and the
wonder-clumsy fingers had no more talent for music than his tabby
cat, while the performances of Fräulein Vilkins were the joy of his
heart; but it was the little one who asked him so many questions about
his beloved Germany, which she seemed to regard as being about the size
of Kensington Gardens, and he forgave her all her excruciating false
notes for the sake of her warm heart, which was _colossal_. When he saw
her standing there all alone, he quite gave up trying to be brilliant and
dropped into a little simple melody of his own, which he had never
thought important enough to name, but which Barbara had always told
him in her funny English was 'awfully fine.' Unfortunately, just as she
recognised the notes and nodded at him with a little smile, Jean brought
him a message from the games-mistress, asking him not to play at all
until the exercise was over.
'It's rather a difficult exercise, and you might put her out,' explained
Jean, seeing that he looked puzzled at such a peculiar request. Her
explanation did not help him much, for Jean did not trouble to translate
it into his own language; and, never having witnessed the exercise
that was coming, he failed to see the point of Hurly-Burly's message.
However, he was glad of the opportunity to descend from the platform
and get a better view of the little Fräulein's performance; and he placed
himself, rather inconveniently, just in front of the games-mistress, and
prepared to miss nothing of what followed.
Everybody in the room was smiling genially at the youngest girl in the
school. She had already prepossessed them in her favour by her frank
admiration for Jean Murray; and now, as she stood there waiting for
the sign from Hurly-Burly to begin, there was something about her happy
unconsciousness that appealed irresistibly to her audience. Suddenly, the
five boys in the gallery began to stamp their feet encouragingly, and
Peter shouted 'Go it, Babe!' at the top of his voice. In a moment, the
cry was taken up in the anteroom. 'Go it, Babe!' said twenty voices or
more in a breath. The enthusiasm was infectious, and the words were
repeated with many a laugh all over the room. 'Go it, Babe!' cried the
people on the platform, and the people in the gallery, and the people who
sat near her by the wall, until every one in the gymnasium was stamping
and clapping and saying 'Go it, Babe!' to the little person in the short
scarlet frock.
Barbara held the rings tightly, and her breath came rather quickly and
unevenly. She was bewildered by the noise, and waited for it to subside
before she began the exercise. It was so difficult to know what it all
meant. Of course, the boys wanted her to win; and perhaps the other people
did too, because they were grown up, and grown-up people always were
jolly and kind to her. She could understand why the Doctor, stern as
he was, smiled away at her and clapped her as heartily as any one, from
his place on the platform; and she thought she knew dimly what was making
Jean stamp on the floor till the dust flew. But the enthusiasm of her
other school-fellows, who were pressing forward from the anteroom door,
amazed her greatly. Could it be that they had suddenly forgotten how
young and unimportant she was, and how much she needed correction, and
how often she required to be told that she was the youngest in the school?
Were these the girls she had hated so heartily only three months ago, the
disgraced princesses she had turned out of her kingdom so passionately?
The applause died down at last, and Miss Burleigh made her the signal to
begin. Babs walked back as far as she could, stood stretched for a second
on the tips of her toes, then shook the hair out of her eyes with the
old familiar movement, and took a sharp run forward. The next minute, the
slim scarlet form was flying backwards and forwards, with graceful,
regular movements. The onlookers gazed and admired, wondering with
some curiosity what her exercise was going to be; and their interest
increased when she uttered a sharp 'Now!' just as she was sweeping
backwards from her highest swing. Only one person in the room failed
to notice that it was Miss Burleigh who let the trapeze drop forward
instantly, so that it hung ready for the small performer to grasp on
her return swing.
The music-master had been wholly absorbed in watching the little
Fräulein, from the first moment she had begun to swing. He thought he had
never seen anything so graceful as the way she swept to and fro, nor
anything so _hübsch_ as the expression and the rose-red complexion of
the youngest girl in the school. It was truly _grossartig_! His eyes
followed her closely all the time, from end to end of her swing; and that
was how he contrived to be looking away at the precise moment when
Hurly-Burly let down the trapeze. The murmur that rose from the people who
surrounded him, as they realised what Barbara was going to do, made him
look round; and he saw the thing hanging there, as though it had
dropped from the roof by accident, and in another second would get in
the way of the child who was swinging so deliciously. Viewed afterwards
in the light of ordinary common-sense, it seemed to him _wunderbar_
that he could so have deceived himself. At the time, not a doubt was in
his mind as to what he thought had happened. The trapeze had fallen
down by accident and was going to embarrass the little Fräulein, if
not to hurt her; and the people around him were all exclaiming aloud,
because they too had realised her danger. Nevertheless, nobody seemed to
know what to do, and the little Fräulein was already sweeping straight
towards it on her downward swing. All these reflections rushed through
his brain in the flash of a moment. There was no time to hesitate. He
must be the one to rush out and come to her aid. With a loud German
exclamation, the music-master hurled himself forward and snatched back
the trapeze just as the child let go of the rings.
He had a dim recollection afterwards of being gripped by Hurly-Burly
just an instant too late, and of seeing the little scarlet figure twist in
the air above him and drop with a nasty thud at the edge of the last
mattress, of finding himself in the midst of a huge concourse of people,
who suddenly rose up with a great roar and bore down upon him, uttering
shriek after shriek,--and then, of coming miserably to himself again,
with his heart thumping and his head throbbing painfully, just as a
deathlike silence succeeded the uproar, and a voice like Miss Finlayson's
said something that sounded like 'Doctor!'
Some one had sprung from the platform with a flying jump the moment the
accident happened, and was forcing a passage through the throng of people.
There was not a sound to be heard in the great gymnasium as the Doctor
knelt down on the floor and put out his hand to the little still spot
of scarlet that lay on the edge of the last mattress.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST DAY OF THE TERM
In the annals of Wootton Beeches there had never been so dismal a
packing-day as the one that dawned on the morrow of the gymnastic
competition. Generally, packing-day was the most delightful day in the
term: it came just after the break-up party, and just before going home,
and everything that happened on it seemed filled with a peculiar interest
of its own. First of all, there was the joy of rushing up to the bedrooms
directly after breakfast, to put out all the clothes in tidy little
heaps, ready for packing later on; then, the less delightful business
of clearing the bookshelves and tearing up the old exercise-books--an
occupation which contrived, in spite of itself, to present a certain
amount of charm, simply because it belonged to the last day of the term.
And the nicest part of all was the indescribable feeling that it was the
last day of the term, that there were no more lessons to prepare and
no more penalties to avoid, no more scales to practise and no more
stockings to mend, and, best of all, no more rules to bother about, so
that Fräulein and Mademoiselle could both be addressed, much to their
own distraction, in the British tongue, and anybody who pleased could
run up and down stairs to her heart's content without asking leave
first. All these privileges made packing-day, as a rule, something to
look forward to. But to-day nothing was happening as it usually did.
Breakfast had been gone through almost in silence, and the accustomed rush
to the bedrooms afterwards had taken place quite quietly and tamely. The
tidying of the bookshelves, which could generally be made to linger so
pleasantly over the whole morning, was accomplished for once in an hour
or so; and the girls found themselves, at eleven o'clock, with nothing
further to do until Miss Tomlinson should send for them to pack their
things. On any other packing-day the playroom would have been cleared
of chairs and tables in a few minutes, and somebody would have been
dragged to the piano to play a valse, and there would have been plenty of
amusement for every one until dinner-time. But to-day nobody wanted
to dance, and hardly any one talked.
Jean Murray sat motionless on one of the window-seats in the senior
playroom. On packing-day all ordinary restrictions were suspended, and
the younger children wandered in and out of the two rooms as they pleased.
Jean had taken advantage of this privilege to escape from her usual
play-fellows, who were remaining behind from force of habit in their own
domain. The way Angela persisted in crying was enough to drive any one
away; she had cried all through prayers, and had begun again directly
after breakfast. Mary Wells, forgetting how much she had endured on former
occasions from the triumvirate, sat with her arm round Angela's neck,
calling her 'Poor darling!' at intervals, with an occasional sob of her
own to keep her company. Some of the others cried a little too,--at least,
they did when they came near Angela,--and Charlotte Bigley was in such
a temper that no one dared speak to her. All together, the juniors' room
was more than Jean could bear just then. Jean was not crying herself: she
had not cried a drop since she saw the streak of scarlet twist round in
the air and drop with a thud that still sounded in her ears.
It was not a bit like the last day of the term. 'Tommy' did not once
come to the door and call out the name of the next girl who was to go
upstairs and pack. Nobody in the room was exchanging addresses with any
one else, or promising to write weekly letters during the holidays.
Margaret was as cross as Charlotte Bigley, it seemed, for she allowed no
one but Ruth Oliver to come near her; and the other big girls were
scattered about the room in idle, listless groups, conversing a little,
now and then, in hushed tones. None of them noticed Jean; and Jean
never saw them. She just sat rigidly on the window-seat, and looked
straight in front of her, with the odd, hard expression on her face
that had been there since the night before.
Margaret was sitting at the table tracing interminable circles on the
back of an old envelope with a pair of compasses. The presence of Ruth at
her elbow, as she absorbed herself in this pursuit, was very comforting.
Ruth was a slow old thing, as every one knew, but in time of need she
was invaluable.
After a while, the head girl dug the point of the compass into the table,
and cleared her throat nervously.
'She's such an awfully nice little kid,' she said. She spoke hurriedly,
and her face had turned rather red.
'Yes,' answered Ruth, staring down at the maze of circles on the back of
the envelope.
Margaret went on, with an effort: 'She has such a queer way of getting at
you,' she said. 'I never knew how much I cared about the child, till--till
now.'
'No,' answered Ruth, softly.
'Supposing----' began Margaret, and stopped abruptly. 'Do you think----?'
she began again, and again hesitated.
'Hurly-Burly said they couldn't tell till the Doctor's next visit,'
replied Ruth. 'She hadn't recovered consciousness when he left, you see.'
'Don't!' muttered Margaret, hastily. She dug the compass a little deeper,
and cleared her throat once more. 'When did you see Hurly-Burly?' she
asked.
'Just after prayers,' said Ruth. 'She said I wasn't to tell the younger
ones, so don't split. The Doctor stayed till five this morning, and he's
coming again presently. He's rather cut up, she says.'
'_That_ Doctor? Don't believe it!' said Margaret, shading some of the
circles with a pencil.
'Hurly-Burly said so,' maintained Ruth, in her resolute way. 'Perhaps he
isn't so stiff and stupid as he seems. I saw him last night, talking to
Jill Urquhart, and he looked quite young and jolly. You never know, do
you?'
'Perhaps not. It doesn't matter, does it?' said the head girl,
indifferently.
'Hurly-Burly is pretty bad, too,' continued Ruth. 'She thinks it's her
fault, because there was a gap in the mattresses, so that the Babe fell
half on the boards. That's how she cut her head. You see, the mattresses
were arranged for the rings, and when Hurly-Burly altered them for the
trapeze she didn't stop to test them to see if they were in the right
place. Anybody else might have done the same, with the whole room waiting
for her; but still, she is reproaching herself like anything.'
'She needn't,' said Margaret, with quiet vehemence. 'It's only the fault
of that idiot Scales.'
'Poor Scales!' murmured Ruth. 'I saw him too wandering about the hall;
and he was crying just like a baby, and he didn't seem to mind my seeing
him a bit. I suppose foreigners are always like that.'
Margaret curled her lip contemptuously. 'I shouldn't waste my pity on him,
if I were you,' she remarked. 'No one but a foreigner would have anything
to cry about.'
Ruth glanced at her timidly. 'I think, perhaps, it is worse for Scales
than any one,' she ventured to say. 'Of course, he's a hopeless idiot,
but he didn't mean----'
'Oh, never mind about Scales!' interrupted Margaret; and Ruth took up the
compasses and began drawing invisible circles on the tablecloth.
A bit of conversation drifted across to them from the juniors' room.
'Her brothers stopped all night; so did the old lady,' Mary Wells was
saying. 'I saw their breakfast going into Finny's study this morning,
when Tommy called me back into the dining-room to fold my table-napkin.'
'How could you notice a thing like that?' came in plaintive, reproving
tones from Angela. 'I wish I was able to bear up like you, Mary.'
'Poor darling!' said Mary Wells, tenderly.
'Was Jill there too?' asked another voice.
'She's up in Finny's bedroom, with _her_,' answered Angela, quickly. She
was almost restored to a normal condition by the desire to tell something
that nobody else knew. Then she remembered herself, and subsided into a
proper state of tearfulness. 'I was hanging about upstairs, to see if I
could find out how _she_ was, when Jill passed me in a white apron,
looking just like a real nurse,' she went on, with a long-drawn sigh. 'I
tried to speak to her, but I was too upset.'
'_Poor_ darling!' cried Mary Wells, more fervently than before.
Margaret stirred impatiently, and flung down her pencil. 'I say,' she said
to Ruth, 'what can we give those children to do? I'm sure Finny wouldn't
like them to go on drivelling like that. Angela is such a little idiot!'
'I think she's really fond of the Babe,' observed Ruth, as she followed
the head girl across the room.
'Oh, yes,' admitted Margaret, with a shrug of her shoulders; 'Jean told
her she'd got to be.'
At the window-seat she stopped and forgot Angela for the moment. The sight
of the child who sat there, looking so white and wretched, touched her.
'Cheer up, kiddie!' she said, sitting down beside her. Ruth Oliver
discreetly moved on.
'Get away!' gasped Jean.
Margaret stroked her hand, but Jean drew it away sharply, and shifted her
position so that she looked out of the window. Her eyes wandered across
the drive and fell on the little building in the field, where she and
Angela had passed their eight days of quarantine with the youngest girl
in the school. Somehow, Jean could not bear the sight of it to-day, and
she moved round restively, till she faced Margaret again.
'Oh, do leave me alone!' she said fiercely; and the head girl felt rather
helpless, and left her.
In the junior playroom, Angela had relapsed at the sight of Ruth Oliver
into a fresh fit of crying.
'What _is_ the matter, Angela?' demanded Ruth, for once almost losing her
patience.
'Matter?' sobbed Angela, leaning back for support on the substantial arm
of Mary Wells. 'I'm full of re--remorse, and--and penitence! So would you
be, if--if you were as bad and--and as sinful as me!'
'Why, what have you been doing now?' inquired Ruth, keeping her temper
with difficulty.
Angela stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and recovered sufficient
control over herself to take it out again and make her confession.
'Last week,' she faltered, '_she_ asked me to help her with her French;
and--and--I was cross, and--and--I wouldn't.'
She burst into tears again, as Charlotte Bigley looked up from the book
she was pretending to read and put in a curt remark.
'Who's _she_?' she demanded bluntly.
Angela stopped crying to stare at her. 'You know fast enough, Charlotte!'
she mumbled indistinctly.
Charlotte tossed her head scornfully. 'If you mean Barbara Berkeley, why
on earth can't you say so?' she exclaimed. 'She hasn't lost her name
because she fell off the rings, _has_ she?'
Mary Wells spoke her mind solemnly. 'We all know _you_ have no feeling,
Charlotte Bigley,' she was beginning, when some one near the window
announced that the Doctor had just driven round the corner of the house.
This in itself was enough to reduce Angela to further depths of
contrition. 'What shall I do,' she wailed, 'if she dies before I can ask
her forgiveness?'
Margaret Hulme suddenly stood over her, and shook her by the shoulder.
'Stop it, child!' she said, not unkindly, for even Angela's tears made her
own feel uncomfortably near the surface. She turned to the others quickly.
'Every one will get ready and go into the field for a hockey practice,'
she commanded.
Charlotte shut her book with a bang. 'What's the good of hockey?' she
grumbled crossly.
'What's the good of anything,' sighed Margaret, 'with that poor little
kid lying ill up there?'
Charlotte looked at her swiftly, and then turned away, blinking her eyes
furiously; and the head girl took her arm with astonishing condescension,
and walked silently into the cloakroom with her.
A little later, Dr. Hurst came out of Miss Finlayson's bedroom upstairs,
and closed the door softly behind him. The head-mistress stood waiting
for him on the landing. Their eyes met, and hers were full of anxious
inquiry. In his there shone a gleam of something that had not been there
before.
'Better,' he said, and drew a long breath. He put his hand on the
baluster-rail to steady himself. 'She'll do, now that consciousness
has returned,' he went on in a businesslike tone; 'the concussion was
only slight, after all, and the fracture to the leg could hardly be in
a better place. Wonderful what children will do to kill themselves
without succeeding! She'll pull through in no time, with rest and
quiet--perfect quiet, mind! Don't let those boys go near her, whatever you
do; and keep your girls from weeping on her neck as much as possible. Good
morning.'
Miss Finlayson smiled, and retained his hand a moment. No one would have
thought that this practical man of medicine, who pretended to regard his
little patient merely as an interesting case, was the boyish-hearted
fellow who had sat by her bedside all night to watch for her returning
consciousness.
'Must you go?' she said. 'Why not rest on the sofa in my study for an
hour, and stay to lunch with us? You must be worn out.'
The Doctor drew himself up and frowned. 'Not at all, not at all!' he said,
looking vexed. 'Room full of patients waiting for me at home--I must wish
you good morning.'
[Illustration: 'Tell me, Herr Doktor, haf I kilt her?']
He left her and hurried off, still frowning. Just as he turned the corner
of the gallery, Egbert and Peter, who had been lying in wait for him some
fifteen minutes, sprang out upon him from an open door.
'How is she?' they asked eagerly.
'Really!' fumed the Doctor, who hated being taken by surprise. 'The
bulletin is with Miss Finlayson; I have no time----'
Peter grasped his arm as he was escaping. 'Is she going to get better?'
he implored. There was no mistaking the earnestness in the boy's face,
and the Doctor melted in spite of himself.
'Yes, yes, to be sure,' he growled. 'That is, if you leave her alone.'
When he reached the staircase he was again brought to a standstill. The
way was entirely blocked by the massive form of the German music-master,
who sat on the top stair with his face buried in his large, fat hands.
The Doctor tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. If one thing more
than another annoyed him, it was the sight of uncontrolled emotion.
'Pardon me,' he said briskly, 'but will you kindly----'
'_Gott in Himmel!_' shouted Herr Scales, springing to his feet as he
recognised the Doctor's voice. 'Tell me, Herr Doktor, haf I kilt her? Am I
a murterer of the _lieblichste_ little Fräulein that ever walked upon----'
'Nonsense, sir!' interrupted Dr. Hurst, doing his best to keep his temper.
The sight of the tears that streamed down the good-natured face of the
music-master was enough, he told himself, to annoy any man who was not a
foreigner. 'Nobody has killed her yet; but what you are going to do, among
you, before you have done with her, I shouldn't like to say.'
'You do not understand,' wept Herr Scales, clasping his hands. 'It was
I who nearly kilt her, _dummer_ wretch that I am.'
'Well, you haven't killed her, my good sir, and she's going to get
better,' answered the Doctor, trying to deal gently with him in spite of
his irritating foreign behaviour. Then he left him and went quickly
down the stairs.
Two more voices assailed him in the hall, as he took down his coat from
the peg. Restraining his impatience as best he might, the young man
looked round to find Kit and Wilfred at his elbow. Curled up on the rug
in front of the stove lay Robin, fast asleep, with his head pillowed on a
footstool. Weariness and the shedding of many tears had left their mark
on his round, babyish face, and the elder boys looked little more than
half-awake themselves. Kit's face was tear-stained too, and he suddenly
found he could not put the question he was longing to ask. It was Wilfred
who blurted it out instead.
'Is she better?' he asked.
The Doctor had been up all night; he had gone through more anxiety than
he could have believed himself capable of feeling; he had found that his
heart had gone out unconsciously, eleven weeks ago, to the child who had
called him a beast; and he felt that all the glory his profession could
bring him was not worth so much as the saving of that one little life
upstairs. And then people came and bothered him with their senseless
questions. If she were worse, was it likely he would be leaving her now?
He was worn out with want of sleep, and it did not occur to him that the
same thing might possibly be true of the white-faced lads before him.
'Bless my soul!' he exclaimed testily. 'How many _are_ there of you?
There's a couple at every corner. How can you expect your sister to get
better if you hang about the place and ask questions at the top of your
voice? There's--there's an atmosphere of nervous sentiment all over the
house that's enough to ruin any case.'
Wilfred was dumbfounded, and stared stupidly. But Christopher suddenly
found his tongue, and, being Christopher, he found it sarcastically.
'Counting Jill, there are only six all together,' he said, peering up at
the irritated young man through his spectacles, 'so you won't meet any
more.'
'I don't care how many there are of you,' grumbled Dr. Hurst, flinging
on his coat. 'Keep out of her way, that's all--and mine too.'
'You may be sure we'll do that, if we can,' retorted Wilfred, recovering
his courage. 'Only, you haven't told us yet how she is.'
'You seem to forget she's our sister, and we're beastly cut up about her,'
added Kit, glumly.
'She's not a rotten bacteria, either,' said Wilfred, in a vicious
undertone which the Doctor fortunately missed.
Dr. Hurst felt a little bit ashamed of himself, and was more cross than
ever. 'There, there! She's better, of course,' he muttered, pushing past
his questioners. Then he saw the sleeping Robin curled up in front of the
stove, and he glanced back at the tired faces of the other two. 'Best
thing you can do is to go straight to bed,' he advised, jamming his hat
down on his head. 'Best thing for the case, too.'
Kit smiled at him indulgently. 'Let them go to bed who have beds,' he
remarked. 'I've only got an arm-chair.'
The Doctor fled discomfited, and shut the front door in their faces. He
did not understand boys, and he did not like them, and he would not have
minded if he had never had to meet another boy as long as he lived. In
a very few moments, however, he came to the conclusion that although boys
were pretty bad, girls could beat them easily, with several points to
spare.
His man was walking the cob up and down outside, and the trap was not in
sight when Dr. Hurst shut the front door behind him. The occurrence was
particularly unfortunate, for as he stood waiting on the steps the whole
of the junior hockey team came strolling round the corner of the house.
This in itself was sufficiently embarrassing to the young man who stood
there; and he hailed the appearance of his trap with deep and earnest
satisfaction. But he was not to be allowed to escape so easily. The sound
of wheels made the children look round; and some one suddenly called
out--'It's the Doctor!' The next moment he found himself, greatly to
his consternation, in the middle of a throng of excited young ladies,
all in extremely short skirts and all armed with hockey clubs, who were
clamouring loudly and persistently to know if Barbara Berkeley was out of
danger.
Probably it would never have happened if it had not been the last day
of the term, when a sense of unusual liberty prevailed. Certainly, if it
had been any other day the hockey team would not have been wandering round
by the front door at all, but would have gone straight to the nine-acre
field through the orchard at the back. But the Doctor knew nothing of all
this. He only realised that the girls were finishing what the boys had
begun, and that in another minute he should lose his temper very badly
indeed.
Most eager of all was a child with a freckled face and reddish-coloured
hair, who somehow seemed familiar to him, though he could not remember
where he had met her before. She came right up to where he stood
helplessly, with his right foot placed on the carriage-step; and she
raised her voice shrilly above all the others.
'May I see her before she gets worse?' she implored sentimentally. 'I
should never forgive myself, Mary Wells says I shouldn't, if anything
happened to her, and----'
The Doctor made a great effort and waved them off distractedly, just as
Margaret Hulme and some of the elder ones hurried on the scene and called
angrily to his tormentors. He seized the opportunity to spring to his
seat, and then turned and glared at them.
'See her before she gets worse?' he answered back furiously. 'If you want
to see her before you've done your best to finish her altogether, you'll
have to look sharp.'
Miss Finlayson suddenly appeared on the doorstep. Nobody knew how much she
had seen or heard, but she was looking exceedingly stern. She opened her
mouth to speak, just as Dr. Hurst perceived her and broke into a fresh
torrent of words. By this time he had lost the last scrap of his patience.
'What with rascally boys and hysterical _schoolgirls_,' he shouted,
seizing the whip and cracking it round his head, 'how can you expect me
to pull the case through?'
He tugged violently at the reins; the startled animal sprang forward, and
the trap clattered noisily out of sight.
The few short, vigorous sentences with which Miss Finlayson improved
the next five minutes sent the girls into the hockey field with a
much reduced opinion of themselves. Margaret Hulme stayed behind to
vindicate the offenders as well as she could; and the result was that the
head-mistress remembered it was the last day of the term, and blamed
herself for having almost allowed her feelings for the youngest girl
in school to run away with her.
'Send Jean and Angela up to my bedroom at once,' she said thoughtfully,
when Margaret had finished telling her what had been going on in the
playroom that morning.
She waited for them on the landing, and kissed them both very
affectionately when they appeared hand in hand. She glanced quickly
from Angela's red and swollen countenance to Jean's pale and miserable
one, and she decided not to say what had been in her mind the minute
before. A much better idea struck her, and she acted upon it promptly.
'If you will promise me to be as quiet as mice,' she whispered, 'you shall
both have one peep at her.'
The room into which she led them on tiptoe was almost dark. The only light
that was admitted came from one small window in the farther corner, and it
was just enough to reveal Jill, as she bent over the bed with a cup in
her hand. Then she moved away, and the two children, peeping from their
hiding-place behind the screen by the door, saw Barbara.
She lay flat on her back among the white pillows; a hillock under the
bedclothes showed where the cage protected her broken leg, and a bandage
round her head kept the thick, dark hair from tumbling over her face as
it usually did. Otherwise, she was not nearly so much altered as her
play-fellows had vaguely expected to find her. The bright little eyes
gleamed out as impishly as ever from beneath the white bandage, and as
she smiled up at Jill they realised to their intense relief that the Babe,
with a hole in her head and a cage over her leg, was much the same Babe
who had arrived in their midst, with her elf-like look and her happy
unconscious smile, three months ago.
'Why, Jean, I do believe you're crying,' said Angela, in surprise, when
Miss Finlayson had pushed them outside again, and they were retreating
slowly along the gallery. Angela herself felt no further inclination to
cry, now that she had seen the Babe and found she was not a bit altered.
There was no middle course in Angela's emotions, and her only wonder now
was why any one had made a fuss about Barbara's accident at all.
But the tears were raining down Jean's cheeks for the first time, and the
hard, queer look was gone from her face. She flung herself away to her
own room, and left Angela to puzzle over her behaviour as best she might.
CHAPTER XVII
SEVEN TIMES ROUND THE WORLD
'Have the girls gone home?' asked the invalid, about a week later. She
had made such strides towards recovery that she was to be allowed her
first visitor that day, and she could not help wondering whether Jean
Murray was going to be the privileged person. Everything had been so
strange and quiet since the morning she had woke up in Finny's bed; and
she had slept away so many hours of the days that followed, that she had
lost count of the time altogether. She seemed to have been lying in a
kind of delicious enchantment, with people doing things for her just as
though she were a princess; while Jill was always at hand to tell her
stories in her beautiful soft voice, whenever she grew tired of lying
still. For Jill was the nicest person in the world to be with, when one
was enchanted; she never bothered, and she always seemed to come to
the rescue just in time, when the pain of being strapped in one position
began to grow intolerable. Then, there was the Doctor too. No one would
have expected the Doctor to turn out such a trump. Only to-day, after
being so strict in the morning about what she was to eat, he had run
in again after lunch to bring her a packet of sweets. They were very
wholesome sweets, as he had assured Jill; but still they were sweets,
and a doctor who was a beast would never have thought of bringing them,
even if they were wholesome. So, clearly, he was not a beast. Even Jill
had been surprised at his coming twice in one day, now that she was so
much better; so that showed that he must be a particularly nice sort of
doctor. For Jill had once nursed Auntie Anna when she was ill, and she
knew a lot about doctors, so she would not have been surprised at his
coming twice in one day, if it had been a usual thing for a doctor to do.
Babs smiled happily to herself as she settled the Doctor's claims to
niceness; then she remembered that she was going to have a visitor after
tea, and she asked again if the girls had gone home.
'Yes, they went five or six days ago,' said Jill, without impatience,
though she had answered the same question once already. Babs certainly
did not need an illness to make her absent-minded.
'Then who is coming to see me after tea?' was Barbara's next inquiry.
'I said Kit might come; I thought you would like to have him best,'
answered Jill.
'Kit? Is he going to bicycle over from Crofts?' asked the child.
'Why, no,' explained Jill, smiling. 'They have all been in the house ever
since you were taken ill. Finny invited them to stay, you know, and Auntie
Anna too.'
Barbara laughed a little. 'They'll never be able to tease me again, now
that they've stopped in a girl's school themselves,' she remarked with a
chuckle.
There was a pause, which the invalid occupied in thinking over the
things she had been too lazy to consider before. She had a great many
questions to ask, but somehow it was too much exertion to ask them.
Fortunately, Jill was so clever that she always guessed what she wanted
to know without waiting to be asked first; and that saved a lot of
trouble. In this way the child had learned that the gymnastic prize was
to be divided between Jean and herself; and thinking about the gymnastic
prize produced another question from her, rather unexpectedly.
'Wasn't it Scales who moved the trapeze away?' she asked.
Jill looked up surprised. None of them knew how much Babs remembered of
what had happened on the night of her accident. 'Yes,' she replied. 'He
has been very unhappy about it, poor man! He writes every day from Hanover
to say how miserable he is. But, of course, it was an accident.'
'Of course,' said Barbara, looking distressed; and Jill was afraid she
had said too much.
'Shall I write and send him a message from you?' she suggested quickly.
Babs brightened up, and nodded.
'Tell him it's awfully jolly to be ill and to have every one doing things
for you, and bringing you sweets, and all that,' she said eagerly. 'And
say that if he wants me to pay him out, just to make us quits, don't you
know, he can think of the awful way I am sure to play my pieces next term.'
'Very well,' answered Jill, laughing; and there was silence once more.
Jill looked very pretty as she sat there by the window, working away
at her embroidery in the frame; and Babs congratulated herself, with a
glow of satisfaction, on having made her a princess in her fairy
kingdom. It was so nice of Jill, she reflected, to behave exactly like a
princess, and to sit at the window of her lonely turret making tapestry,
to while away the time until her prince should come thundering over the
drawbridge below. Jill's prince had not come yet, so of course she would
have to go on working by the window till he did; she deserved an extra
nice prince too, and Babs sighed as she remembered that she had not been
able to find her any sort of a prince so far.
'It's a pity, isn't it, that Dr. Hurst had to be enchanted again so soon?'
she murmured aloud.
'I'm afraid I don't _quite_ understand,' said the princess, from the
window.
'You see,' continued Babs, solemnly, 'he began by being a beast; then I
disenchanted him and made him into a handsome and gallant young prince;
and after that he was so horrid to Jean and Angela in the quarantine that
I had to turn him out of my kingdom, and make him wander over the earth
once more in the shape of a beast.'
'Oh,' said Jill, bending rather closely over the embroidery frame. 'Let
me see, what kingdom was that?'
'_My_ kingdom,' answered Barbara, in an important tone. Then she realised
that Jill did not know about her kingdom. 'I've never told any one
before,' she went on doubtfully. 'If I tell you, Jill, will you promise
not to laugh?'
Jill promised, and worked on steadily at her embroidery while the small
voice from the bed painted her the fairy kingdom she had never described
to any one before.
'And so,' concluded Barbara, with a sigh, 'I can't make it come right,
because now there's a princess without a prince. Do you mind waiting until
I find you a prince, Jill?'
'Not at all,' answered Jill, turning to the light rather abruptly, and
taking quite a long time to choose between two shades of silk.
'It was so stupid of Dr. Hurst to get himself turned out like that, wasn't
it?' continued Babs.
'He--perhaps he didn't know,' said Jill, with some hesitation.
'You can't be a beast without knowing it,' answered Barbara, positively.
'Are you sure he _is_ a beast?' asked Jill, who was still looking out of
the window, though she had chosen her silk some moments ago.
'Oh, he's not a beast now. I _love_ him. Don't you?' cried the child,
enthusiastically.
Jill began putting her work away in a great hurry. 'It's time for tea,'
she remarked.
Barbara did not seem to have heard. The dreamy look had returned to her
face, and she was almost thinking aloud.
'You see,' she murmured, 'however nice he is now, he _must_ walk round
the world seven times, and kill a giant, and rescue a beautiful princess,
before he can be disenchanted a second time. You can't alter that. It's
a pity you haven't got to be rescued or anything, Jill, because then----'
'If you talk any more, child,' interrupted Jill, with decision, 'you will
be too tired to have a visitor after tea.'
Jill _was_ a nice person, Barbara settled again in her mind, as they had
tea together out of Finny's private tea-set that the Canon had given her
last Christmas. She was so nice that she even slipped away afterwards,
when Christopher came into the room, so that he and Babs could have
their talk together without feeling that somebody else was listening. For
all that, neither of them seemed to find it easy to begin, and they
remained looking at each other in silence for some moments after Jill
had closed the door upon them.
Then Christopher made a great effort and addressed her from the end of
the bed, where he had taken up his position.
'Hullo!' he said, tugging at his collar as if to remove some obstruction
to his voice.
'Hullo!' answered Babs, faintly, from among her pillows.
Then followed another pause. They both felt there were plenty of things
to be said, but somehow they could not think of them just then. Presently,
Kit remembered that she was an invalid, and that invalids always had to
be kissed. He also decided that the sooner he got it over the better; so
he marched round to the side of the bed and kissed her.
'How are you, Babe?' he asked, feeling more at his ease now that this
formality was over and he was free to climb on the edge of her bed and
sit there swinging his legs.
'Oh, I'm all right,' answered Barbara, heartily.
They both knew she was nothing of the sort, but in the Berkeley family
it was a point of honour with every one, even during a visitation of
toothache, to declare himself 'all right.'
'How are you, Kit?' asked Babs, after a little further reflection.
'I'm all right, thanks,' answered Christopher, faithfully, and he whistled
a tune to fill the next pause. 'Awfully poor lying here, isn't it?' he
resumed presently.
Barbara nodded. 'It's stale,' she said expressively.
Kit looked sympathetic. 'It would make _me_ sick,' he observed.
'Oh, it's all right,' Barbara hastened to assure him; and he whistled a
little more.
'Jill's all right too, isn't she?' he continued after a while.
'Oh, Jill's all right--_rather_,' said the child, warmly. 'How are the
other boys, Kit?'
'They're all right,' answered Kit.
'And Auntie Anna?'
'She's _all_ right,' answered Kit.
Conversation again languished slightly. Barbara's eyes, wandering round
the room in search of inspiration, fell on the little bag of sweets that
the Doctor had brought her.
'Have a sweet,' she suggested, pointing to the table by the window.
Christopher slipped off the bed with alacrity. 'It's awfully decent of
you,' he observed. 'Sure you don't want them all?'
'Oh, no; take the whole jolly lot,' begged his sister.
Kit's countenance fell slightly when he peered into the bag. 'Acid drops,'
he commented briefly, and put a couple critically into his mouth. 'Who
brought them?'
'Dr. Hurst. He said they were wholesome,' replied Babs, by way of
explanation. She did not want Kit to think she had been such a muff as to
choose acid drops in preference to chocolate.
'That's just about what he would say,' remarked the boy, putting several
more of them into his mouth.
'I--I think he's all right, Kit,' said Barbara, timidly.
Christopher shook his head vigorously. It was the only form of reply
possible to him at the moment.
'He's a rotter,' he said, as soon as he could speak; 'and so slack, too!'
He peered again into the paper bag. 'Is it worth while?' he murmured to
himself, and decided that it was not. 'Pity it wasn't some one else who
got them for you,' he added with a sigh, as he returned to the bed.
'He isn't bad, _really_, Kit,' persisted the child, looking troubled.
'Not bad? Why, he's an awful old soft, Babe,' answered Kit,
contemptuously. 'If you were a boy, you'd know.'
'He isn't old, anyhow. He's only twenty-eight; I asked him,' said Babs,
eagerly.
'Oh, rats!' laughed Kit, who had quite got over his awkwardness by this
time, and was rapidly forgetting that she was an invalid and that he had
been told not to tease her. 'He may be twenty-eight perhaps, if you just
count his birthdays, but he's as old as the hills for all that. He was
born grown-up; that sort of chap always is.'
'He's been awfully kind to me, Kit,' persisted the child, her troubled
look returning.
'You always think people are nicer than they are, don't you?' observed
her brother, with gentle scorn. 'When we had that beast of a housekeeper
who used to smack you and Robin, you always said her Sunday bonnet was
beautiful, or something like that.'
'Oh, Kit!' was all Barbara felt capable of replying, and the boy rattled
on heedlessly.
'That Doctor is the rottenest of rotters,' he declared in a cheerful tone.
'He only pretends to like you because you're what he calls a "case." If
you'd got asthma, now, he'd treat you as if you were putting it all on,
and make you feel a jolly humbug. _I_ know him!'
'Of course, you're always right, Kit,' said Babs, growing more unhappy
every minute, 'but--but----'
'He treated us all like kids the first day you were ill,' said
Christopher, scowling at the recollection; 'and once, when Jill was
blubbing because you weren't so well, we got in a funk and went off on
our own, Peter and I, to fetch him; and he wouldn't come. He said no one
could do anything for you by just coming and looking at you, and we
weren't to disturb him for nothing at all--or some such rot. Then we
found that he'd cooked up an arrangement with Finny not to come unless
_she_ sent for him. Just like him!'
Barbara was struggling feebly to keep back her tears. She could not think
what was making her want to cry so much.
The boy had stopped scowling, and was chuckling softly to himself. Barbara
held her breath, and thought that if he would only talk about something
else, she might be able to keep from crying. Perhaps the table by the
window might stop swimming about, too.
'We've scored one against him at last, though,' her brother was saying,
in a voice that seemed suddenly to have gone a long way off. 'He must
be quite at the other end of the gallery,' Babs thought. Yet some one
was certainly sitting on the edge of her bed, because she could feel the
mattress jumping up and down.
'We struck that little kid in the yard just now--the one who nearly gave
you scarlet fever,' Christopher went on gaily. 'He came to know how you
were, or something. Bobby Hearne, I think he called himself. Well, we
got him to go to the doctor's house with a message from his aunt, who
lives five miles t'other side of Crofts, to say that she had just fallen
downstairs and nearly killed herself, and would he go to her at once!
Thirty miles there and back, all for nothing! Rather a score, eh? It was
my idea, too, not Peter's!'
He turned to Barbara for approval, and found her sobbing bitterly. She had
heard every word he said, with horrible distinctness, though his voice had
come from such a long way off. She had tried to stop him, but she could
not make a sound till she began to cry.
'Babe! I say, don't! What's up, old girl?' exclaimed Kit, staring at her
in consternation. At any time it was an event, to make the Babe cry, but
now that she was so ill, he felt nothing short of a brute.
Jill had slipped into the room and was bending over the excited child.
'Kit doesn't understand--he doesn't know he's not really a beast--he
isn't a beast, is he?' gasped Barbara, between her sobs. 'He's played a
horrible trick on him--he's sent him seven times round the world; and I
never meant him really to walk seven times round the world--you know I
didn't, Jill. It's all my fault for turning him out of my kingdom--if
I hadn't turned him out of my kingdom, he wouldn't be wandering seven
times round----'
'Hush!' whispered Jill, and she gave Christopher a look that sent him
stumbling out of the room in a mixture of bewilderment and remorse. Up
and down the landing he paced, feeling desperately wicked and desperately
foolish by turns, until Jill opened the door of the bedroom and beckoned
to him. She held a thermometer in her hand, and she paid no attention
whatever to the shamefaced inquiry he stammered out.
'Send Miss Finlayson here at once, and say I want the Doctor,' she
commanded, and went hurriedly back into the room.
Clearly, she was very angry with him, and it had never seemed possible
before that Jill could be angry with any one. But it was not this that
suddenly made Kit turn cold and funny all over as he started along the
gallery with Jill's message. He pulled up short with a jerk, and gave a
little cry of dismay.
'What shall I do?' he exclaimed in a despairing tone. 'I've sent the
Doctor fifteen miles in the opposite direction.'
* * * * *
It was nearing seven o'clock and growing dusk when Kit at last struck
the high road between four and five miles below Crofts. It was a full
ten-mile drive by the road from Wootton Beeches, but Kit had saved over
two miles by taking the short cut across the fields. He stopped for the
first time since he had started on his mad chase after the Doctor, and
looked panting up and down the deserted road.
'I can't have been much more than three-quarters of an hour, and I bet
it's four miles,' he muttered. The mud with which he was splashed up
to the collar showed the kind of ground over which he had been travelling,
and the way his breath was coming and going told how much of the four
miles had been covered at a run. Now that he had exhausted his first
impulse to rush after the Doctor and bring him back at any cost, he began
to realise what an absurd thing he had set himself to do. Dr. Hurst had
had an hour's start of him at least, and even the short cut across the
fields would not make up for that. With a quick-trotting cob like his, he
would have reached his destination easily by this time and discovered the
trick that had been played upon him, and no effort on Kit's part would
bring him back a moment sooner than he would be coming of his own accord.
Besides, if it was any good going after him, Finny would have sent her man
on horseback long before this, and he would have outdistanced Kit in any
case.
'If only our bicycles had been there instead of at Crofts, I might have
caught him up then,' cried the boy, as the hopelessness of the position
dawned upon him.
Nothing answered him, and the road looked more dreary than ever. A
good deal of rain had fallen that week, and the drip drip of the trees
overhead added a kind of melancholy to everything. Christopher's quick
imagination called up all the details of the scene he had left behind him:
the unwonted anger of his cousin, the anxiety of Finny and Auntie Anna
when he had rushed into the drawing-room with her message, and then
their eagerness to ring the bell and send some one for the Doctor,
whom he knew to be far away on a wild-goose chase of his own making. He
pictured with vividness too the consternation that would be caused in
the house when Finny's messenger returned from his fruitless errand,
and the look that would come on Auntie Anna's face when Peter came in
from his tramp with the other boys and explained the trick that had been
played on the Doctor. No wonder he had hurried straight out of the house
and struck blindly across the fields, without stopping to reflect whether
it would be any good or not! Even now, though he knew how little he
could do, he felt unable to remain inactive; and turning his face in
the direction of Crofts, he once more broke into a run and hurried
wildly along the muddy, desolate road.
He had been running about thirty-five minutes, only falling into a walk
now and then to recover his breath, when the sound of wheels, coming
from behind made him draw to the side of the road. He still trudged on,
however, with his head down and his hands clenched, and he did not even
trouble to look round when the vehicle caught him up and passed him. The
light from the lamp flashed across his face as it rolled swiftly by; and
immediately afterwards, the trap pulled up just ahead of him.
'Hullo! Is that Christopher Berkeley?' said a voice from above.
Kit staggered, and stood speechless. It was the Doctor's voice; there was
no doubt about that. But how came he to be driving towards Crofts instead
of away from it? His sudden appearance was so remarkable that the boy's
head felt in a whirl.
'I--I thought----' he faltered.
The Doctor gave a quiet laugh, and climbed down from his seat.
'You thought I was green enough for anything, didn't you?' he observed.
'Just stand by the animal, will you, while I get out of my coat?'
Kit obeyed mechanically. Everything had turned so topsy-turvy all at once,
that it seemed no more extraordinary for him to be doing meekly what the
Doctor told him than it was for the Doctor to be struggling out of his
greatcoat just as the rain was beginning to come on again.
'Then--then you didn't go to Bobby Hearne's aunt, after all?' he inquired
stupidly.
'Not much!' answered the Doctor, with another short laugh. He had got his
coat off by this time, and he held it out to Christopher peremptorily.
'Put this on, and look sharp!' he commanded.
'But----' stammered the boy, hanging back.
'Do you want to keep me here all night?' cried Dr. Hurst, impatiently;
and as Kit still hesitated, he wrapped the coat quickly round him and
lifted him bodily into the gig. Then he mounted beside him, and turned the
animal's head. The next instant, they were bowling along towards home,
at the rate of ten miles an hour.
For the first five minutes they did not speak. Then the Doctor jerked out
a sharp inquiry.
'Aren't you going to ask after your sister?' he demanded.
Kit started. 'I was afraid you'd rag me for it,' he muttered awkwardly.
The Doctor flicked the horse with his whip. 'Sorry you think me such a
brute,' he said shortly. He flicked the horse again, and played it a
moment or two, as it tossed its head and jumped about. 'I don't think
it's anything serious,' he went on. 'I gave her a soothing draught, and
everything depends on the state in which she wakes up. But I think she'll
be all right.'
The relief at Kit's heart nearly choked him. 'Did Jill tell you it was
my fault?' he asked after a while.
'I gathered as much,' said Dr. Hurst. 'You mustn't excite her any more,
you know, or I won't answer for the consequences. What was it all about,
eh?'
He was evidently making a gigantic effort to be amiable, and Christopher
felt he owed him something in return. Besides, it was a kind of relief to
put the blame on himself.
'I said you were a rotter, and she said you weren't,' he jerked out; 'and
I said you were only decent to her because she was an interesting case,
and she said----'
'All right,' said the Doctor, hastily. He supposed truthfulness was an
excellent thing in theory, but it added another terror to boys.
As they neared the village Christopher summoned up courage to ask one more
question.
'Did you come out on purpose to bring me back?' he inquired with an effort.
'Yes,' said Dr. Hurst, briefly.
Christopher puzzled over this. 'But--but how did you know I'd gone after
you?' he asked curiously.
'Jill told me you'd disappeared, and I guessed,' said Dr. Hurst. If it had
not been so dark, Kit might have seen a smile flicker across the serious
face of his companion.
'Did Jill think about me, then?' cried the boy, eagerly. 'Perhaps she
isn't so wild with me after all!'
'Not so wild with you as you deserve, I dare say,' remarked Dr. Hurst.
'Indeed, it was because Miss Urquhart was making such an unnecessary fuss
about you, that I promised to come and look for you.'
He thought that the boy, although a boy, would not notice the slip he
had made just before in calling his pretty cousin by her first name;
but Kit noticed fast enough. He had not much time, however, to think about
it before they pulled up with a jerk at the back entrance to Wootton
Beeches. He began to mumble out his thanks, while the Doctor helped him
out of the overcoat and then put it on himself; but the young man cut
him short.
'Do you suppose I drove all those miles in the rain, at the end of a hard
day's work, for the sake of a scamp like you?' he growled; and Christopher
was left staring after him in the darkness.
In the holidays supper was not before nine o'clock at Wootton Beeches, so
the boy had plenty of time to make himself presentable before the bell
rang. He looked eagerly round the drawing-room when he went into it, but
only the three elder boys were there.
'Where's Jill?' he asked.
'Oh, it's you, is it?' observed Egbert, without answering him. As the
eldest of the family, he felt that he ought to administer some sort of
rebuke to Kit for the commotion he had caused in the household. Indeed,
he had said as much to the others before the boy came in; but there was
something about Kit that would make any one fight shy of rebuking him,
when it came to the point. So Egbert was rather relieved than otherwise
when Wilfred interrupted him.
'Jill's upstairs,' he said, looking over his book at Kit. 'She wants to
be with the Babe when she wakes up, in case she's excited or anything.'
Kit flung himself into an arm-chair and whistled carelessly. Whatever his
feelings were in the matter, he was not going to let the family see them.
There was rather an awkward silence, which Peter broke by remarking that
it was ten minutes to nine, upon which Egbert said something about a clean
collar and went out of the room. There was a feeling of relief when he
had gone, Egbert having reached the age when it was never quite possible
to say whether he was going to side with the enemy or not.
'Egbert's awfully wild with you,' observed Peter, with smiling frankness.
'He says you ought to be kicked.'
'Let him do it,' grunted Kit, indifferently. Having given the Doctor a
glimpse of his real feelings not so many minutes ago, he did not intend
to betray himself again yet awhile.
Wilfred, who had been watching him closely, began slowly to understand.
'It's all right, Kit,' he said good-naturedly. 'Egbert never counts! He
only does it because he's the eldest and thinks we've got to be reminded
of it. Peter and I are with you!'
'Awfully kind of you, I'm sure,' answered Christopher, sarcastically. All
the same, he stopped whistling and seemed inclined to come round; and
Peter hastened to put in a conciliating word.
'Of course, we know you didn't mean to make the Babe excited,' he said.
'Jill says so herself.'
'Oh, shut up!' said Kit, ungraciously.
'As for the Doctor,' continued Wilfred, 'anybody is justified in ragging
_him_.'
'Rather,' chimed in Peter. 'What do you think Egbert says about him?'
'Don't know and don't care,' rejoined Kit. Somehow, he felt it was rather
mean to join in abusing the man who had gone out after him, all in the
rain and the darkness. Still, he was sure he hated the fellow more than
ever now, for had he not outwitted him and put him under an obligation
to him at the same time? The boys did not notice his diffidence.
'Egbert says----' began Peter, and paused to give his words more effect;
'Egbert says--that--the Doctor is in love with Jill.'
Christopher sat up and gazed at him. For once his quick wit had not been
quite so quick as Egbert's. So that was why Dr. Hurst had called her
'Jill'; and that was what he had meant just now by his parting words
at the gate!
'Egbert's hit it,' he said morosely. 'The chap _is_ in love with Jill.
Poor Jill!'
'That's what Wilfred says,' cried Peter, all ready as usual for mischief.
'He says Jill has got to be saved from him, or else----'
'Jill saved?' echoed Kit, scornfully. 'As if she needed any saving from
_that_ idiot!'
'Well, I don't know,' objected Wilfred, shaking his head. 'Girls are so
rum. Look at Merton major's aunt----'
'She isn't a girl, she's an _aunt_!' interrupted Christopher.
'Well, it's all the same, really,' declared Wilfred. 'Merton major says
she only married that Indian chap because he bothered so, and because she
wanted to be obliging.'
'And Jill is _awfully_ obliging, you know she is,' added Peter. 'You can't
tell what may happen, if that Doctor goes on bothering her.'
'Well, what are we to do, then?' Kit condescended to ask. 'We can't lock
him up, can we?'
'No,' admitted Wilfred, 'we can't lock him up. But there's lots of other
things we can do. We can see that she's never left alone with him, for
instance. Babs is always with them in the sickroom, that's one thing.
But what happens when he comes out of the sickroom, and Jill walks along
the gallery with him and sometimes even down to the front door? That's
dangerous, anyhow.'
'In future,' said Peter, solemnly, 'one of us will always be on the
look-out to join them the moment they come out of the sickroom. What
else, Will?'
Wilfred reflected a moment. 'Sometimes,' he said at last, 'I've known her
to be taking a walk in the garden, just as he happens to drive up; and
then they stay talking ever so long before they go into the house. Once,
he even made her take him round the conservatory. That must never happen
again.'
'Never,' agreed Peter. '_I'll_ see to that.'
'Look here,' said Christopher, doubtfully; 'perhaps Jill won't like our
hanging round her like that.'
'She may not like it _at the time_,' began Wilfred, impressively.
'But she'll thank us for it all her life afterwards,' concluded Peter,
with great solemnity.
Jill's voice at the door made them start like guilty conspirators. She
was much too preoccupied to notice their confusion, however.
'Has Kit come back?' she asked anxiously. Christopher sprang out of the
arm-chair, and her face cleared. 'I'm so glad; I was afraid you were
lost,' she said, taking his hand gently. 'Babs has just woke up,' she
explained, as they went upstairs together, 'and she is still rather upset
about something. I think you can calm her, if you will.'
Kit muttered something indistinctly, and she went on talking in her soft
voice. 'The child has got into her head that you have done something to
the Doctor, so I want you to assure her that it is all right. Will you,
Kit dear?'
'I'm the biggest brute,' burst out the boy, 'that ever----'
'Nonsense!' said Jill, putting her hand over his mouth. Then she opened
the door of Barbara's room and they went in.
Auntie Anna was sitting by the child, trying to soothe her.
'Bless your little heart!' she was saying as they entered. 'There's
nothing the matter with the Doctor, my dear. What makes you think such
a thing, eh?'
'You don't understand,' said the little fretful voice from the bed. 'Kit
said--Kit said----'
Christopher pushed Jill on one side, and suddenly knew what he had got
to do.
'That's all right, Babe; I was only rotting,' he said bluntly, and patted
the hot little hand that lay on the counterpane.
The bright, wistful eyes were fixed searchingly on his face. 'But you've
sent him wandering seven times round the world,' she murmured wearily.
'You said you had, Kit.'
'It's all right, Babe,' said Kit, again. 'He's come back now. I've just
seen him.'
He only partly understood what she was talking about, but he seemed to
know how to satisfy her, and the others drew back and left him to do it
alone.
'You've seen him?' asked Babs, wonderingly. 'But----'
'You see,' said Kit, desperately, 'it doesn't take long to get round the
world seven times, when--when you've got a smart little cob like his!'
The worried look faded out of the child's face, and she smiled for the
first time. 'That isn't the reason, Kit,' she told him. 'It is because he
was once a fairy prince.'
'Oh, is it?' remarked Kit.
The bright little eyes were closing sleepily, and the aching bandaged head
fell sideways on the pillow.
'He has only got to kill the giant and rescue the princess now,' she
whispered contentedly. And Kit went on stroking her hand till she was
sound asleep.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RESCUE OF A PRINCESS
Barbara was none the worse for her relapse, and she made such a good
recovery in the weeks that followed, that the Doctor decided she could
be moved to Crofts on the last day of the holidays. Miss Finlayson
vowed she had never enjoyed her Easter holidays so much before for she had
persuaded Auntie Anna and the boys to remain her guests the whole time,
to save her, as she said, from the horrible feeling of loneliness that
always seized her as soon as the last fly went down the drive with the
last box on the top of it, and the last girl sitting inside. 'At my age,'
she told them laughingly, 'it is not safe to be left alone. Who knows
that I might not begin talking about rheumatism and nerves, if I had a
whole month to think about myself?' And Auntie Anna, who never talked
about rheumatism by any chance, though it had bent her back for her
ten years ago, nodded her head wisely like the old witch that she was,
and consented to remain at Wootton Beeches with her adopted daughter
and her noisy young nephews until Barbara was well enough to be taken
home. The boys, for their part, enjoyed themselves every bit as well as if
they had been at Crofts; for Finny was first-rate company as long as she
was with them, and she contrived at the same time to leave them to
themselves just as much as they wished to be left. And staying at a
girls' school was by no means such poor fun as might have been expected;
for it was big enough for them to make as much noise in it as they
pleased without disturbing anybody, while they had the run of a capital
gymnasium, and, as soon as their bicycles had been brought from Crofts,
could explore the country for miles round as well. Altogether, the
Easter holidays were a great success, and there were many groans when the
month came to an end, and school once more threatened to darken the
joy of their existence.
'You are a lucky beast, Kit,' observed Peter, as they sat swinging on the
yard gate a couple of mornings before their departure. 'Wish I was you and
needn't go to school.'
'You wouldn't like it, if you were me,' answered Kit, shortly. Nobody
ever guessed how much he wished he were like other boys and could lead
the healthy life they professed to despise so much.
Wilfred, who had just strolled up, had occasional glimmerings of
understanding where Kit was concerned; and he had one now. 'Never mind,
old chap,' he said consolingly. 'You've got all the genius, you know.'
Christopher kicked a stone across the yard without speaking; and Peter
hastened to change the conversation, which he perceived was in danger of
becoming serious. Peter never attempted to understand anybody, but he had
a determined objection to anything that was serious.
'If we've done nothing else these holidays, we have at least saved Jill
from the Doctor,' he remarked with a chuckle.
'What's the good of that?' growled Kit. He did not take the keen interest
in the salvation of Jill that the others expected from him, though he
certainly did not raise any grown-up objections to it, as Egbert would
have done. Egbert was going to Oxford in October, and he was getting far
too grown-up for ordinary intercourse with the rest of the family. Kit
was not in the least grown-up; besides, he hated the Doctor--that was
certain, because he so constantly said he did. But it was a pity, the
others agreed, that he did not show more enthusiasm over persecuting him.
'It's a lot of good,' retorted Peter. 'You don't want her to marry the
chap, do you?'
Kit smiled in a superior manner. 'I'm not interested in _marrying_,' he
observed. 'You can't have marrying, or any of that rot, without girls.
And I hate girls.'
'Do you hate Jill?' cried Wilfred, staring.
Christopher kicked another stone across the yard.
'That's different,' he said vaguely. 'Jill's not a girl, exactly.'
'What is she, anyway?' demanded Peter.
Kit's genius was hard pressed. It was so stupid of people to take
him literally. Robin saved his embarrassment by suddenly rushing
helter-skelter into the yard, from the direction of the carriage-drive.
'He's just driven in at the lodge gates,' he panted. 'An' Jill's waiting
on the front doorstep. If you don't look sharp you won't cob them in time.'
The conspirators glanced hastily at one another. 'It's your turn, Kit,'
said Wilfred.
Kit started uncomfortably. 'I don't think so,' he objected. 'I'm not in
the mood, and I should make a mess of it. You go, Peter.'
'All right, I'm on,' said Peter, and he strode briskly towards the front
of the house, swinging his long arms as he went.
Robin danced round the other two gleefully. 'Silly old Doctor won't marry
Jill, won't marry Jill, all on a summer's morning!' he chanted in a kind
of refrain he made up on the spur of the moment.
Kit turned upon him sternly. 'Chuck it, Bobbin, unless you want your head
cuffed!' he commanded, and walked off before he could be provoked into
carrying out his threat.
Upstairs Barbara lay on the sofa by the window and waited for the Doctor's
visit. Her leg was in plaster of Paris now, and she could be lifted on
to the sofa by Egbert, every morning. It was less wearisome than lying
in bed all day, but even the fun of pretending she was enchanted by an
evil fairy did not make up for the dulness of staying in one room all
through her first holidays. To be sure, she was going to Crofts the
day after to-morrow, and Auntie Anna had promised that Jean and Angela
should come and see her the very next Saturday; but that did not make
up for everything, and she hoped that if her bad fairy ever bewitched her
again, she would manage to do it in term-time instead of when the boys
came home.
The Doctor drove up just below as she came to this conclusion, and she
forgot her own enchantment in the more thrilling amusement of thinking
about his.
It was rather stupid of the Doctor, she reflected, to be such a long time
working out the rest of his spell. Any one who had gone round the world
seven times, as easily and as cheerfully as he had, might at least take
the trouble to find a princess to rescue. He must really want to go on
being a beast, she decided, as she craned her neck over the window-sill
and watched him dismount from his gig. The princes in the fairy tales
never wanted to go on being beasts; and it was very confusing. Just
then, Jill came out on the doorstep, and she patted the horse and began to
talk to the Doctor. Barbara laughed softly to herself. If only the cruel
giant would come along now and clap Jill into a dungeon, the Doctor
could rescue her on the spot and then stand before her in his real shape.
A prince and princess, who had no giant to bring them together, did not
make the right sort of fairy tale at all.
'Hullo! There _is_ the giant!' exclaimed Babs, immediately afterwards, as
Peter came striding across the lawn to interrupt the conversation on
the doorstep. 'He must be the giant,' she continued, watching the trio
below her with great interest, 'because the Doctor is looking so angry
and Jill has such a funny, frightened look on her face. Besides, Peter
looks like a giant; he's so big and dangerous looking. I wonder if the
Doctor will kill the giant _now_, or--oh, dear! they've both come indoors
and left the giant outside. I don't think I ever heard of the prince and
princess running _away_ from the giant before. I'm sure that's wrong. How
Peter is grinning--just like a horrid old giant. _Coo-ey_, Peter!'
The prince and princess came into the room, talking busily.
'If you don't come to-morrow,' Dr. Hurst was saying, 'I am afraid it will
have to be put off indefinitely, as I am going away for ten days. When I
come back, you will have gone to Crofts, you see.'
'I will ask Auntie Anna,' answered Jill.
Barbara seized the first opportunity to interrupt them. 'What's going to
happen to-morrow, Dr. Hurst?' she demanded. 'Are you going to carry off
the princess at last?'
'I--I don't think so,' said Dr. Hurst, sitting down beside her.
'Why don't you?' demanded the child.
'Well,' said Dr. Hurst, smiling, 'I don't know whether the princess is
ready to be carried off. Are you so anxious to get rid of her?'
Both he and Jill were used by this time to her fancy for weaving the
people she liked best into a fairy tale. But Jill was not smiling so
much as usual this morning.
'I don't want to be carried off by anybody, thank you, Babs,' she said
demurely.
'Oh, that doesn't make any difference,' Babs assured her. 'If you're a
princess, you just have to be carried off whether you like it or not.'
'Then I'll be a new kind of princess, and refuse to have anything to do
with the prince when he comes. Shall I, Babs?' suggested Jill, lightly.
Barbara looked at her doubtfully. Jill's idea was not like anything she
had ever read in a fairy tale, and she did not think much of it.
'You see, you're _not_ a new kind of princess,' she answered simply. And
the Doctor looked amused; but Jill hurried away to the other end of the
room and began talking about temperatures.
The giant must have been very busy all that day, for he did not come
near the invalid's room till just before supper. Kit came, and so did the
other boys, but they only said vaguely that Peter was in the barn; and
when he ran in at last to say good-night to her, she knew it was no use
trying to find out what his plans were for locking up the princess. For
Peter did not know that he was a giant, and he did not know that Jill was
a princess; and it was better to go on with the story in her own way than
to provoke Peter's great laugh by telling him about it. So she went to
sleep and dreamed of the dear old magician, who had been away from her
kingdom for four whole months, and was going to be away for two months
more; and in her dream he came back and rescued the princess himself,
and turned the beast into a prince for her. But that was only a dream,
and in the morning the end of the story seemed further off than ever.
'Do let me see what you have been writing, Peter,' she shouted through
her open window, just before lunch-time. Peter and Wilfred had been more
than an hour composing a letter on the lawn below, with Robin jumping
round them all the time, jogging their elbows and otherwise provoking
them into outbreaks of fury that did not improve his behaviour in the
least.
'_Do_, there's a dear, nice, darling boy,' begged Barbara, as the
conspirators looked at one another and hesitated.
'It's a secret,' said Wilfred.
'I can keep a secret; you _know_ I can,' cried Babs, indignantly.
'It's about Jill,' explained Peter, 'and you might do her a great and
lasting injury if you were to go and blab. Mightn't she, Will?'
'I think it's a shame,' protested Babs. 'Here am I shut up all alone, with
a bad leg that hurts and hurts and----'
'Oh, let her see it. Anything for a quiet life,' interrupted Wilfred, and
Peter strode upstairs with the letter.
'Promise faithfully you'll endure any amount of awful tortures, sooner
than betray us?' he demanded threateningly, when he arrived in her room.
'I'll be killed first, honour bright,' said Barbara, solemnly; and the
letter passed into her hands. Her countenance grew very perplexed as she
read it; for, to tell the truth, she could make neither head nor tail of
its mysterious contents.
* * * * *
'Dearest Jill,' it ran,--'We the undersigned are anxious to save you from
an awful and terrible fate that is hanging over your head. The barn,
we know, is not a place you would choose to spend a happy afternoon in,
but Peter has cleaned out as much of the filth as he can (he found
several decayed martins' nests full of insects, two dead rats in an
unspeakable condition, and a rotting owlet that made you squirm; so
you see it might have been much worse, mightn't it?) And I (that's
Wilfred) have successfully deposited in a box you will find secreted
in the manger, two apples, some seed-cake (sorry it isn't plum, but
there wasn't any), and a bottle of ginger beer. This, we think, will
keep starvation from gnawing at you till the hour of release, which is
seven o'clock, when we hope the Doctor will have given up waiting for you.
We would put some more things to eat, but they are a little difficult to
get without arousing suspicion; and we are afraid of attracting the
mice and rats, which are plentiful already, and of which we believe you
are afraid. We the undersigned all hope, dear Jill, that you will not
attribute base motives to our action in this matter. We do assure you,
honest Injun, that though you may dislike us for the moment, you will
thank us deeply all the rest of your life.--We have the honour to remain,
Wilfred Everard Berkeley,
Peter Everard Berkeley,
Robin Everard Berkeley.
'P.S.--Kit isn't in it, because he raised objections and we shunted him.
So your lifelong gratitude need not be extended to him.'
* * * * *
'But when are you going to give Jill the letter?' asked Barbara, looking
extremely puzzled, as she came to the end of this elaborate composition.
'We're not going to give it to her,' explained Peter. 'It's going to be
dropped into the barn through a hole in the roof, as soon as Robin has
coaxed her to go inside. The letter is to explain why we've locked her----'
He did not finish his sentence, for Wilfred called him from below, and he
seized the sheet of paper and scampered off with it.
Barbara was left in a great state of bewilderment. Something was evidently
going to happen to Jill, and it was apparently intended to save her from
something that was much worse; but what it all meant was a mystery to
her, and there was no one about to give her any more details. The three
conspirators were careful to keep out of her way, and she did not see
any more of them until after lunch, when they raced out of the front door
and disappeared in the direction of the nine-acre field.
'I'm going to leave you for half an hour,' said Jill, when Barbara had
finished her midday meal. 'Bobbin has been worrying me all dinner-time
to go and look at a baby rabbit he has found, so I promised to run down
to the barn and meet him there. Do you mind?'
Barbara said she did not mind at all; and she was left behind, consumed
with curiosity as to whether Jill was really going to be locked into the
barn, and whether it really could be for her good, as the boys had
said, and whether Jill would be angry with them for doing it or would
give them her lifelong gratitude. Somehow, Babs did not believe in the
lifelong gratitude much; it did not seem likely that Jill would be
grateful to any one for shutting her up in a dark and dirty barn for a
whole afternoon, even if it was to save her from an awful fate that
still remained to be explained. As she thought about it, Babs even
began to wonder if she had been right in promising not to warn Jill.
But then, if it _was_ to save her from an awful fate, as Peter declared
it was, it would have been very unkind to keep her from going down to
the barn.
She gave up trying to reason it out, and hoped it was all a joke, and
that Jill would come back again at the end of half an hour. But more
than half an hour passed by, and still she did not come back. Everything
suddenly grew very dull. The garden looked more deserted than usual,
and after the pony carriage had come round and taken Finny and Auntie
Anna and Egbert for a drive, there was not another sound to break the
stillness. Babs began to feel neglected; she had not once been left
alone like this, ever since she was first taken ill, and she found it
extremely depressing. If it was really necessary for the future happiness
of Jill that she should be kept in the barn all the afternoon, some
one else might have been told off to take her place in the sickroom.
Besides, as the afternoon wore on, the little invalid realised with some
sadness that unless Jill did come in, there would be no one to get her
tea ready; and she wanted her tea rather badly.
At last, to her intense relief, a thump came at the door, and Kit rushed
unceremoniously into the room.
'Where's Jill?' he demanded hurriedly.
'I wish I knew for certain, but I don't,' said Barbara, plaintively.
'Then they've done it!' exclaimed Kit, in a tragic tone, and he dropped
into a chair and looked at her.
'Done what?' inquired Babs, eagerly. Kit's behaviour was as remarkable
as every one else's to-day, so perhaps she was going to get at the truth
at last.
'Locked her up in the barn!' gasped Kit. 'They said they were going to,
yesterday, but I thought they were only rotting. I told 'em it wasn't
good enough, and I'd have nothing to do with it, so I s'pose that's why
they didn't tell me any more. And then, I forgot all about it; and after
dinner to-day I went into Finny's study to read a stunning book I'd found
there; and I didn't think of anything, till it suddenly struck me how
awfully quiet everything was. If she's disappeared, they must have done
it, stupid owls!'
'But isn't it all right?' cried Barbara, looking distressed. 'Peter said
it was to save her from an awful fate----'
'That's all very well,' returned Kit; 'but the game isn't worth it,
and that's what I told them. You see, the Doctor's coming after tea
to-day, to fetch Jill and take her over the new infirmary he's so keen
about, because Jill is nuts on nursing and all that, don't you know.
Well, Peter overheard them talking about it yesterday and Auntie Anna
said at breakfast that she'd come home from her drive in time to go too,
if she could. But we all knew that she wouldn't get back in time, most
likely; and besides, the Doctor meant business from the look of him, Peter
said, so he'd be dead certain to come early enough to go off with Jill
alone. Trust him! That was jolly dangerous, you see, because the chap
is going away to-morrow, and it's their last chance of being together.'
'Why is that dangerous?' asked Barbara, trying hard to follow his
bewildering tale.
'Oh, well, if he's ever going to ask her to marry him, or any of that
rot, he must be going to do it to-day,' explained Kit, with a certain
contempt in his voice. 'Anyhow, what we've been trying to do all the
holidays is to save Jill from the Doctor; so naturally we were rather
upset when Peter brought us the news. But I said I'd have nothing to do
with locking any one up, 'specially Jill; so they said I could make myself
scarce, and I did.'
'Oh, Kit!' exclaimed Barbara, opening her eyes, 'do you think Jill is in
that horrible dark barn all this time?'
Kit sprang to his feet and made for the door. 'I'll go and see if I can
find those idiots,' he said, but an exclamation from the sofa made him
look back. Babs was clapping her hands wildly, and her face had suddenly
reddened with excitement.
'It's all right, Kit. It's beautiful,' she was crying joyfully. 'Don't
stop them, Kit; don't help her to escape, whatever you do. Leave her alone
till the prince comes. Don't you see he'll be able to break the spell at
last!'
Kit did not see at all. Indeed, he looked rather alarmed, and came back
into the room. 'Look here, Babe, you're not going to get excited again,
or anything like that, are you?' he asked her, nervously.
Barbara set his mind at rest by laughing merrily. 'You silly old Kit, of
course I'm not!' she said. 'I never felt so jolly in my life!'
Christopher sped away, reassured, and Barbara lay back on her cushions
and waited impatiently for the sound of the Doctor's gig. She did not have
to wait long, and she waved her hand gaily in answer to the flourish of
his whip with which he greeted her as he drove up to the door.
'Come up here, Dr. Hurst, and be as quick as you possibly can!' she called
down to him; and a minute later he was in the room.
The first thing he did was to ask where Jill was, just as Kit had done.
Barbara laughed more merrily than ever. Her small black eyes were
glittering with excitement.
'She _has_ been locked up by the cruel old giant, and you can go and
rescue her at last,' she told him.
Dr. Hurst frowned slightly. 'What do you mean, child?' he asked a little
impatiently. He was evidently not in a mood for joking, and Barbara
instantly became grave.
'I didn't mean to play, but it _is_ so like a fairy story,' she said
penitently. 'And it's quite true about the locking up. They've put her in
the barn, Peter and the others have,--not Kit,--and they mean to keep
her there till you've gone away, so that--so that you won't get a chance
of marrying and living happily ever after! It's to save Jill from you,
they say, but Kit's furious about it, and----'
The Doctor flung his driving-gloves on the table. They were quite new
ones, she noticed, and he had even forgotten to take the tissue paper
off the buttons of one of them. 'Where is the barn?' he asked grimly.
'It's at the far end of the nine-acre field,' explained Barbara, and
before she could say any more she found she was alone.
Excitement had made her forget all about her tea, though the hour for it
was long past. She wished with all her heart that she could be transported
to the scene of the rescue and actually see the princess fall into the
prince's arms, while the giant lay stretched at their feet. Then she
remembered that the giant was Peter, and perhaps Will and Bobbin too, and
she hoped he would not lie stretched there for long.
The minutes crept slowly by, and still no one came in. It was no use
looking out of the window, for the nine-acre field was on the other
side of the house, beyond the orchard. Then she began to be afraid
that something dreadful must have happened. She reminded herself again
that Peter was the giant, and that the Doctor was small and slight in
comparison, even for a prince. Supposing, contrary though it was to all
the laws of fairy tale, that the giant should be too strong for the
prince, and the princess should not be rescued after all? At last she
heard the welcome sound of footsteps coming along the gallery, and
then Jill opened the door softly and hurried up to her. The Doctor was
just behind her.
'My dear little Babs!' cried Jill, dropping on her knees beside the sofa,
'have you been wondering what had become of me?'
'Oh, no,' answered the child; 'I knew about the dark and gruesome dungeon.
But I think I'd like my tea, please.'
'Of course you would,' said Jill, in much distress, and she began bustling
about the room and making preparations for tea in quite a flustered sort
of way. Babs turned to the Doctor. A question was burning on the tip of
her tongue, and he smiled encouragingly.
'_Did_ you rescue the princess?' she asked.
'I did,' answered the Doctor, briefly.
She looked anxiously at his tie, which had wandered under his right ear,
and at his collar, which was crumpled. 'Did you hurt the giant _much_?'
she asked.
'I found him in three pieces,' answered the Doctor, gravely, 'and I give
you my word I did not leave him in more.'
Barbara was not yet satisfied. 'How did you get into the dungeon?' she
asked.
'Through the door,' replied the Doctor.
She opened her eyes wide. 'Then you must have stepped over the body of
the giant,' she said.
'So I did,' laughed Dr. Hurst. 'But do not let that alarm you, for here
he comes.'
The door was pushed open once more, and the three conspirators tumbled
into the room. Their ties and collars were in much the same condition
as the Doctor's, but they seemed none the worse for that. Indeed, they
looked rather cheerful over it than otherwise, until they saw the Doctor
sitting there, holding Barbara's hand; and then they stopped short and
hesitated.
'Do, do tell me,' implored Babs. 'How did Dr. Hurst rescue Jill?'
'I'll tell you, Babs dear,' cried Robin, suddenly dancing up to the
Doctor, and climbing on his knee in quite a friendly manner. 'He came
walking with big long steps up to the door of the barn, where we was
keeping guard over Jill; and he said, "Who can wrestle, out of you young
scamps?" 'Course I said _I_ could, but he just swinged me up in the apple
tree an' left me there, which was horrid, but I didn't mind much, 'cause
I saw all the fun. An' the others said they could, if he liked; an'
the Doctor said whoever won was to have Jill, an' Peter said "Yes,"
'cos he's lots bigger'n the Doctor and he thought he'd win. But he didn't
win, nobody did, 'cept only Dr. Hurst; so he got Jill and brought her
back here; an' I climbed down from the apple tree all by myself, an' the
others shook hands with the Doctor and stopped behind, lookin' scared!'
'I beg to state,' said Jill, severely, from the other side of the room,
where she was preparing tea, 'that nobody has _got_ me, as you call it.
And the sooner you all go out of this room and leave me alone with my
patient, the better.'
[Illustration: 'So he got Jill']
'I say,' began Wilfred, who was standing first on one leg and then on the
other, and trying not to laugh, 'you're not really wild with us, are you,
Jill?'
'I'm simply _furious_ with you,' said Jill, and she began cutting bread
and butter with vigour.
'We really did it for your good,' added Peter, putting on an air of mock
penitence. 'How were we to know you didn't _want_ to be saved from the
Doctor?'
Jill tossed her head and went on cutting bread and butter still, with
her back turned to them all. 'Next time you try to save any one from any
one else,' she remarked, 'you'd better make sure first that she does want
saving.'
Anything they might have said in reply to this was drowned by the noisy
entrance of Christopher. He bounced into the room and shook his fist
wrathfully at his brothers.
'Look here, you fellows!' he shouted. 'Next time you shut a chap into a
_pig-sty_, perhaps you'll choose a pig-sty that doesn't belong to a pig
that comes home at tea-time and bangs against the door. I'd like to----'
He was brought to an abrupt pause. It suddenly struck him that there was
something a little odd about the way every one was assembled in the Babe's
room.
'Dry up, Kit!' said Wilfred, with a huge sigh. 'You were quite right; the
game wasn't worth it. She didn't want to be saved, after all.'
'She's just a girl,' added Peter, in a tone of deep dejection.
'She's a _princess_!' insisted Barbara, from the sofa.
Christopher looked swiftly round the room. The attitude of every one
seemed a little strained. Jill was cutting enough bread and butter for a
school, and the crumbs flew in all directions as she stood there with
her back to them all. The Doctor was smiling in a way that was clearly
put on, and Bobbin was examining his watch-chain with a familiarity that
would not have seemed possible an hour ago.
'Well, I'm bothered!' said Kit, at last. The truth was gradually dawning
upon him. 'Do you mean to say that you two have been and gone and got
_engaged_, while we've been trying to save you?' he demanded. '_Have_
you, Jill?'
'Oh, don't bother,' grumbled Jill. 'Why can't you ask Dr. Hurst?'
'_Have_ you?' repeated Kit, turning to the Doctor.
'Ask Jill,' replied the Doctor, smiling more than ever.
'Boys,' said Christopher, fixing his spectacles firmly on his nose
and staring solemnly at his brothers, 'we've made shocking idiots of
ourselves.'
Into the middle of them all now walked Mrs. Crofton of Crofts.
'Such a trouble as I've had to get back in time, my dear,' she was
beginning, when she too stopped short and seemed to find things a little
unusual.
'Hey-day!' she cried, leaning on her blue-knobbed cane and looking sharply
round. 'What's every one looking so glum about, I should like to know?'
Nobody answered her at first. Dr. Hurst put Robin down and rose to his
feet, and he stopped smiling at last, while Jill dropped the bread-knife
and turned round with a very red face; but neither of them spoke. It was
the Babe who came to the rescue, and it was she who explained everything
in her small, dreamy voice.
'Dr. Hurst has saved Jill from the giant,' she said, 'and they are going
away to their own kingdom, to live happily ever after! I do wish,' she
added wistfully, 'that the magician would come back too. Then things would
be _quite_ beautiful.'
CHAPTER XIX
THE MAGICIAN
The triumvirate sat under the old cedar tree at Crofts, and once more
they discussed the important affairs of the little world at Wootton
Beeches. It was the first Saturday in the term; and Auntie Anna, true
to her promise, had invited Jean and Angela to drive over and spend
it with Barbara. The spring had come in with a rush, and May had dawned
in such a flood of warm sunshine that the child was able to pass most of
her time on a couch in the garden. The Doctor, in spite of the ten miles
that lay between his house and Crofts, came nearly every day to see how
she was; and he hinted at a promise of crutches in ten days' time, after
which she was to go away to the seaside and get strong enough to return
to school at the half-term. It was very nice, Barbara thought, to see
the Doctor so often, now that she was so much better and did not really
need him; but Christopher was very sarcastic on the subject.
'S'pose you think he comes to see _you_, don't you?' he remarked
scornfully; and when pressed by Barbara for a more definite explanation of
the Doctor's actions, he condescended to add: 'Once a chap gets engaged
to a _girl_, it's the _girl_ who's at the bottom of everything he does!'
The day was so hot that Kit and Bobbin came out to join the others under
the cedar tree, and they flung themselves on the grass in different
stages of exhaustion. Now and then, they threw in a lazy contribution
to the conversation that was going on over their heads, though at first
this related entirely to the number of new girls, the alterations in
the classes, and other bits of school gossip. Then, however, it took a
personal turn, and Christopher's comments grew satirical.
'Has anybody asked after me?' inquired Barbara.
'What a question!' scoffed Christopher. 'A kid like you!'
'They have, though,' declared Jean, making a great effort to overcome her
shyness of Barbara Berkeley's clever brother. 'Everybody did, first thing.
You'd never think the Babe had only been there one term.'
'Oh, well, that's because she smashed herself up,' said Kit, cheerfully.
'Girls always fuss over you, if you kill yourself ever so little.'
'They _don't_, Kit,' objected Babs.
'Guess what Margaret Hulme said about you yesterday,' put in Angela,
eagerly. Angela was not nearly so shy as Jean, and, much to Barbara's
astonishment, Kit found her 'better fun' in consequence. It seemed a
little strange that the genius of the family should not be able to
appreciate the amazing qualities of Jean Murray.
'What did she say about me?' asked Barbara, only to be interrupted by
another jeer from Christopher.
'Never knew such cockiness as the Babe's,' he laughed, tilting his straw
hat a little more over his eyes.
'Babs always thinks that everybody's always talkin' about her,' added
Bobbin, in his shrillest voice.
Barbara stretched as far as she could, and managed with difficulty to
knock off Kit's hat with the end of a stick. Robin was out of reach, so
she contented herself with frowning at him severely, and then leaned
back again and began to fan herself with her handkerchief. Everything
made one feel hot this afternoon. 'What did Margaret say about me?' she
repeated curiously.
'It was when I was waiting to put away her books, just before dinner
yesterday,' Angela related with eagerness; 'or was it before tea? No!
I think it was before dinner, because----'
'Oh, get on, Angela, do!' interrupted Jean, impatiently. Even the presence
of Barbara Berkeley's clever brother, which was paralysing her, could
not keep the leader of the junior playroom from snubbing Angela.
'Well, she said Babs was the most popular girl in the school,' continued
Angela. 'She did, honour bright, and I'm _not_ exaggerating, Jean. She
said it to Ruth Oliver, and Ruth Oliver said: "Isn't it queer? Such a
little kid, too." And Margaret said: "That's just it, stupid!" Then she
saw me listening, and she told me not to listen but to make myself scarce;
and of course I wasn't listening at all, I was only----'
'There's nothing new in _that_' interrupted Jean, looking superior.
'Everybody knows that the Babe----' Here she caught Kit's eye, and
stopped hastily. She was not sure that she liked Barbara Berkeley's
clever brother; he had such a queer way of looking at one. Nobody in
the junior playroom ever made her feel like that.
Barbara was in deep perplexity. 'Is that why every one clapped, then, on
the night of the display?' she said wonderingly.
Christopher looked in mock reproach at Angela. 'You shouldn't have told
her,' he said. 'She won't be fit to speak to for a month now.'
'Oh, don't, Kit!' retorted Barbara, more from habit than because she
really resented his words. As a matter of fact she had hardly heard them,
for she was busy puzzling things over in her mind. 'I can't think what it
all means,' she went on; 'every one used to complain of me so. There was
Mary Wells, for instance----'
'Oh, Mary Wells _adores_ you!' cried Angela, in her effusive manner. 'She
said so directly you broke your leg.'
Barbara puzzled still more. 'I don't understand about Margaret Hulme a
bit, though,' she observed. 'Only the day before the display, she told
me I was a little nuisance, because I didn't hear her the first time she
spoke to me; so of course I thought she hated me!'
'That was before you broke your leg, though,' explained Jean.
'She _adores_ you now,' added Angela.
Kit and Bobbin burst out laughing, but Barbara went on puzzling, and did
not notice them. Adoration at Wootton Beeches seemed to spring from the
strangest causes. After being more or less neglected for a whole term
by the greater part of her school-fellows, it was at least surprising
to be suddenly placed on a pinnacle of fame, just because she had broken
her leg. If she had only guessed at Angela's envy of that same broken
leg--an envy that was probably shared by half the junior playroom--she
might have been still further amazed.
The boys strolled indoors to find Auntie Anna and to beg for tea in the
garden; and the conversation under the cedar tree grew more intimate.
Jean came out of her shell, and talked about her home in Edinburgh in a
way she had never done before, even on half-holidays at school; and
Angela, in her turn, gave an elaborate description of her eldest
sister's drawing-room dress, and of the longing it had aroused in her
own frivolous little mind to be presented at Court herself.
'And so I shall be, some day; mother says so!' she announced, spreading
out the folds of her rough serge skirt, and seeing it in imagination many
times its length and composed of shimmering satin.
'I shan't,' said Jean, regarding her with scorn. 'I don't want to be
presented. Any stupid idiot can put on a white satin dress, miles long,
and grin at Queen Victoria. _I_ want to be clever like father, and get a
degree at college, and lecture to thousands and thousands of people,
and----'
'Oh, don't be like that, Jean,' interrupted Barbara, earnestly. 'If you're
going to give lectures you'll have to go away from all your children, for
months and months and months, and leave them to break all their legs,
all by themselves, and--oh, it _is_ so horrible to break your leg all
by yourself!'
'Poor dear,' said Angela, ready as usual with a tearful and demonstrative
sympathy.
Jean was much too wrapped up in her future to sympathise with anybody.
'I dare say I shan't have any children,' she said, seized with a happy
inspiration. 'You can't have everything, and I'd much sooner have a
degree.'
Barbara looked at her in some doubt. 'That's all very well,' she remarked,
'but you'll be jolly dull if you don't look out. _I_ don't mean to go
without children; I'm going to have millions of 'em--all boys--see if I
don't! Then we can always be sure of having enough for sides, without
inviting strangers to come and play. You can never be sure how strangers
are going to play, and sometimes they spoil the game, and that's a bore.'
'If you have boys of your own, you'll be a mother; and if you're a mother,
you won't join in the games at all. Mothers only sit and look on, and send
the ones to bed that can't agree,' said Angela, with an air of experience.
'I don't advise you to be a mother, Babe,' added Jean, earnestly. 'You'll
have to mend such a lot of socks, and p'r'aps make babies' clothes
too; and you've been a whole term getting round the hem of one flannel
petticoat, as it is.'
'You _can_ get things ready-made,' answered Barbara, but her tone did not
sound hopeful. She had to own sadly to herself that she was not cut out
for a mother, and she fell back on the more practical futures of other
people. 'Wilfred's going to be a doctor, after all,' she told them, with
great pride. 'Auntie Anna says she'll stand all the money that father
can't, and he's going to St. Thomas's--Will is, I mean. Isn't it awfully
splendid?'
Her friends murmured something appropriate, but they were not deeply
interested in the career of Wilfred. At school, the girls' conversation
was largely made up of details of this kind; but Crofts was not school,
and neither Jean nor Angela felt inspired to carry on the discussion.
Babs, however, failed to notice their want of enthusiasm. Everything was
happening exactly like the fairy story she had planned, the fairy story
that had begun in the old London house, on the day that a certain
dragon had entered it as a fairy godmother; and for the moment she was
back again in her own kingdom, where the old witch still wandered
about in her steeple-hat, in the company of Kit the prince, and where the
twice-disenchanted beast was placing a crown on the charming head of
the princess who had waited so long for him, and where a crowd of other
princesses, after breaking their heads and their legs and suffering
numerous unpleasant penalties of the kind, had at last returned from
their banishment and were hailing the child herself as their queen. But
one familiar figure was still missing from her fairy kingdom; and the
little queen came sadly back to the world under the cedar tree, with a
sigh and a murmured remark about 'America' and 'lectures' that her
listeners only half understood. They recognised the Babe's very natural
wish for her father's return, but they did not know how the wish had
grown into a longing since her accident, during the weary days in which
there had been no school to distract her, and nothing to do but to think.
'He'll be back in two months, won't he?' asked Jean, meaning to be
sympathetic, though her manner was awkward.
'Two months!' echoed Babs, dolefully, 'What's two months?'
'It's years, isn't it?' responded Angela, with her accustomed inaccuracy.
Having secured their sympathy, such as it was, Barbara allowed herself to
become more doleful still. 'He must have missed all our letters, too,'
she sighed. 'The last one he sent us was from some awful American place,
that Kit says is in the map if you've got a month to look for it, only
you haven't!--and he never told us where to write next, and he didn't say
a word about me. So he's not even heard yet that I fell off the rings!'
'Never mind, Babs dear,' said Angela, consolingly; 'think how _proud_ you
will be when you can tell him all about it yourself.'
Not appreciating the distinction of having broken her leg quite so warmly
as Angela, Babs did not respond; and the arrival of tea, and with it
every one from the house, made her give up the immediate attempt to pity
herself. After all, people who went away to America to lecture could
not leave their children to break their legs by themselves for ever; and
meanwhile, there was home-made cake and strawberry jam under the cedar
tree.
It was in the middle of tea, just as Robin, with a wavering hand, was
conveying a second cup to Babs, that the wonderful event happened. Jill
had the best view of the house from where she sat at the tea-table, and
her sudden exclamation interrupted the jeers of the others over Robin's
strenuous performance.
'Such a funny-looking man is coming up the drive!' she remarked. 'He's
wearing the very oddest kind of clothes, too--a sort of Inverness cape,
and a squashy brown hat. And do look at the way he is walking, with his
arms swinging about--just like Peter, when he's in a hurry.'
'He must be a tramp,' said Angela, giggling.
Everybody looked round, except Barbara, who made a plaintive request, that
nobody heard, for her couch to be wheeled into a different position.
Then Auntie Anna gave a little shriek, and dropped her pince-nez into her
lap.
'Bless my soul!' she cried, fumbling for them in an agitated manner. 'Why,
it looks exactly like--I do believe--look, Jill! Your eyes are younger
than----'
The boys were sharper than Jill, though, and they settled the question
at once in their own riotous fashion. Barbara's second cup of tea fell
with a crash and a splash, before she could reach out her hand for it,
and her two brothers rushed shouting and screaming across the lawn. In
another instant they had disappeared in the folds of the Inverness cape;
and Angela Wilkins realised with a shock that she had called Barbara
Berkeley's father a tramp!
* * * * *
'Well, Everard, and what have you to say for yourself?' demanded Auntie
Anna, in a severe tone, as soon as she could make herself heard. For quite
ten minutes, every one had been talking at once.
'What have I to say?' repeated Mr. Berkeley, with his eyes twinkling.
'Why, plum-cake, to be sure! You haven't offered me any tea yet.'
His sons nearly wrecked the tea-table in their efforts to be first in
supplying his wants; and Auntie Anna gave up the attempt to be firm.
'Well, well,' she said, shaking her head, 'you always were incorrigible,
Everard! But what about the end of your lecturing tour?'
'There won't be any end, as far as I'm concerned,' smiled her brother,
devouring plum-cake with avidity.
'But--but what did they _say_ to your extraordinary departure?' cried
Auntie Anna.
'I didn't give them time to say much,' answered Mr. Berkeley. 'The boat
was starting in a couple of hours, you see.'
Auntie Anna threw up her hands. 'Of all the improvident, hot-headed----'
she was beginning, when the change of expression in her brother's face
silenced her. He held out his cup to her with a pathetic look.
'You always forget,' he said. 'Two lumps, please.'
The boys flung themselves upon the sugar-basin, and more than two lumps
found their way into his cup. Jill took the opportunity to present
Barbara's friends to him, and Mr. Berkeley smiled and said something
genial to both of them, which made Jean forget at once how shy she was and
drove away the last bit of Angela's confusion over her stupid mistake. But
his attention soon wandered back to his children, and he stirred his
tea and beamed upon all three of them alternately, until the others began
to feel that they were in the way. His eyes rested longest of all upon
Babs, who lay on her couch with an expression of complete contentment
on her face; and Auntie Anna saw, and understood.
'I said all the while it was madness to write and tell you about it,' she
grumbled.
Mr. Berkeley chuckled. 'I never got your letter till last Wednesday week,'
he said. 'It had been following me about from place to place. Poor little
Babe!' he added, pinching her cheek softly; 'what a shame to let you
knock yourself about, when your poor old father wasn't there to take care
of you!'
Auntie Anna smiled grimly. 'No one could very well be less capable of
taking care of her,' she remarked.
Robin clambered on his father's knee and hugged him afresh.
'Why _did_ you come home, father?' he cried, raising his voice higher than
ever.
Mr. Berkeley looked mildly surprised. 'Can't you guess, sonny?' he asked.
'Do you suppose I could stay another minute in somebody else's country,
when I heard that my little girl was ill over here?'
Jill got up rather suddenly, and offered to take Jean and Angela round
the garden; and Auntie Anna grasped her blue-knobbed cane, and rose
slowly to her feet. Before she went off, however, she shot one more
question at her brother in her most abrupt manner. 'What about your
luggage, Everard?' she demanded. 'Where have you left it?'
Mr. Berkeley reflected a moment. 'I _think_ it was Boston,' he began
doubtfully, 'but it may have been----'
He did not finish his sentence, for the old lady shook her head in
despair at him and hobbled off towards the house. Barbara watched her
retreating figure, and smiled gently to herself. Auntie Anna might pretend
as much as she liked that she was a dragon, but nothing could prevent
her looking like a fairy godmother!
Her father stroked her rough, tumbled hair caressingly, and smiled back at
her.
'What is it, Babe?' he asked.
The child gazed at him as he sat there, with the two boys clinging to him
as though they would never let him go again; and the whimsical look stole
into her bright little eyes, and lighted up the whole of her small impish
face.
'The magician has come back,' she said, with a happy laugh; 'and there
isn't room to _move_ in my fairy kingdom!'
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