The Madcap of the School Part 25

"Never known her in such a jinky mood before!"

"The fact of the matter is," observed Raymonde sagely, "I believe Gibbie absolutely loathes Mademoiselle, and that for once in a way she's not above taking a legitimate chance of paying her out."

When the French mistress came round that evening on her tour of inspection, she found Fauvette's drawers in apple-pie order right to the very bottoms--beads, ties, and collars carefully arranged in boxes, and nicely mended stockings placed in a row.

"It only show vat you can do ven you try!" she commented. "In a woman to be untidy is--ah! I have not your English idiom?"

"The limit!" wickedly suggested Raymonde, who was standing close by.

But Mademoiselle, who had been warned against the acquisition of slang, glared at her till she beat a hasty retreat.

It was growing near to the end of the term, and examinations loomed imminently on the horizon. They were to be conducted this year by Miss Beasley's brother, a clergyman, and a former lecturer at Oxford. He had made a special study of modern languages, so that his standard of requirement in regard to French grammar was likely to be a high one.

Up till now the Fifth Form had plodded through Dejardin's exercises in an easy fas.h.i.+on, without worrying greatly about the mult.i.tude of their mistakes, over which their mistress had indeed shaken her head, but had made no special crusade to amend. Now, in view of the awe-inspiring visit of the Reverend T. W. Beasley, M.A., Mademoiselle had inst.i.tuted an eleventh-hour spurt of diligence, and kept her pupils with reluctant noses pressed hard to the grindstone. Irregular verbs and exceptions of gender seemed much worse when taken in such large doses. The girls began to wish either that the Tower of Babel had never been attempted, or that the world had reached a sufficient stage of civilization to adopt a universal language. Over one point in particular they considered that they had a just and pressing grievance. The French cla.s.ses of Form V came on the time-table from 12 to 12.30, being the last subjects of morning school. Dinner was at one o'clock, and in the intervening half-hour the girls put away their books, washed their hands and tidied their hair, and refreshed their flagging spirits by a run round the garden. Mademoiselle had been wont to close her book at the exact minute of the half-hour, but now she utterly ignored the clock, and would go on with the lesson till a quarter or even ten minutes to one. The wrath of the Form knew no bounds. They valued their short exercise before dinner extremely. To have it thus cut off was an infringement of their rights.

Mademoiselle, who was perfectly aware that she was exceeding the limit of the time-table, sheltered herself behind excuses.

"Ven I take your verbs I forget it is so late," she would remark. "Ze lesson slip avay, and ve not yet done all ve should."

The girls held an indignation meeting to discuss the subject. Even Maudie Heywood's appet.i.te for knowledge was glutted by this extra diet of French syntax, and Muriel Fuller and Magsie Mawson, amiable nonent.i.ties who rarely ruffled the surface of the school waters, for once verified the proverb that the worm will turn.

"It's not fair!" raged Ardiune.

"Ma'm'selle knows she ought to stop at half-past!" urged Magsie in injured tones.

"It's taking a mean advantage!" echoed Muriel.

"And we can't really work properly when she goes on so long!" wailed Maudie.

"I vote we strike!" suggested Morvyth fiercely. "Let's tell her we won't go in for the exam. at all, if she goes on lengthening out the lessons."

Several of the Form brightened up at the suggestion, but Aveline, a shade more practical, shook her head discouragingly.

"If we do, there'll be a fine old row! The Mosquito'll appeal to the b.u.mble, who'd have her back up directly. I think we'd better not try that on. We don't want to take home 'conduct disgraceful' in our reports."

"Ave's right," agreed Raymonde. "We know the b.u.mble! This is a matter for tact, not brute force. We must manage Mademoiselle. She pretends she forgets the time--very well, then, we must take steps to bring it palpably to her notice. Will you leave the matter in my hands? I've got an idea."

Raymonde's inspirations were so well known in the Form, that the rest willingly consented to appoint her as a sub-committee of one to undertake the full management of the affair. Before the next French cla.s.s she made a tour of the monitresses' bedrooms. They had inst.i.tuted an early-rising society among themselves this term, and almost everyone was provided with an alarum-clock. Raymonde boldly borrowed five of these, without asking leave of their owners, and set them all carefully for 12.30, winding them up to their fullest extent.

She then placed them inside the book cupboard in the cla.s.s-room, and covered them with some sheets of exercise paper.

The lesson proceeded even more painfully than usual. Ardiune got hopelessly mixed between indefinite p.r.o.nouns and indefinite p.r.o.nominal adjectives, and Fauvette floundered over the negations, while Muriel found the proper placing of the _p_'s and _l_'s in the conjugation of _appeler_ an impossible problem. As 12.30 drew near, there was much glancing at wrist-watches. Mademoiselle kept her eyes persistently turned away from the clock, with the evident intention of once more ignoring the time. This morning, however, Fate, in the person of Raymonde, had been against her. Exactly at the half-hour five alarums started punctually inside the cupboard, raising such a din that it was impossible to hear a word. Mademoiselle flew to investigate, took them out, shook them, and laid them on their backs, but they were wound up to their fullest extent, and nothing short of a hammer would have stopped them. The noise was terrific.

The baffled French governess, clapping her hands over her ears, raised her eyebrows in a signal of dismissal, and the girls availed themselves of the permission with record speed. The alarums burred cheerily on for about twenty minutes, after which, by Mademoiselle's instructions, they were replaced in the monitresses' bedrooms by Hermie. The Fifth were prepared for trouble, but to their surprise no notice was taken of the incident at head-quarters. Possibly Mademoiselle was aware that her late efforts at discipline were regarded by Miss Beasley with as little favour as her former slackness, and considered it useless to appeal to her Princ.i.p.al. She took the hint, however, and in future terminated the lesson punctually at the half-hour, so on this occasion the girls considered that they had most decidedly scored.

CHAPTER XIX

A Mysterious Happening

It was now nearly the end of July. The weather, which for many weeks had been fine and warm, suddenly changed to a spell of cold and wet.

Rain dripped dismally from the eaves, the tennis courts were sodden, and the orchard was a marsh. The girls had grown accustomed to spending almost all their spare time out of doors, and chafed at their enforced confinement to the house. They hung about in disconsolate little groups, and grumbled. Miss Beasley, who was generally well aware of the mental atmosphere of the Grange, registered the barometer at stormy, and decided that prompt measures were necessary. To work off the steam of the school, she suggested a good old-fas.h.i.+oned game of hide-and-seek, and gave permission for it to be played on those upper landings which were generally forbidden ground. Twenty-six delighted girls started at once upstairs, and pa.s.sed through the wire door, specially unlocked for their benefit, to the dim and mysterious regions that lay under the roof. It was the best place in the world for the purpose--long labyrinths of pa.s.sages leading round into one another, endless attics, and innumerable cupboards. The smallness of the latticed windows, combined with the wetness of the afternoon, produced a twilight that was most desirable, and highly suited to the game.

Hermie and Veronica picked sides, and the former's band stole off to conceal themselves, while the others covered their eyes in orthodox fas.h.i.+on, and counted a hundred.

"Cuckoo! We're coming!" shouted Hermie at last, and the fun began.

Up and down, and in and out, diving through doorways, racing along pa.s.sages, chasing one another round corners, groping in cupboards, panting, squealing, laughing or shuddering, the girls pervaded the upper story. There was a ghostly gloom about the old place which made it all the more thrilling, and gave the players a feeling that at any moment some bogy might spring upon them from a dark recess, or a skinny hand be stretched downwards through a trap-door. Flushed, excited, and really a little nervous, both sides at last sought the safety of the "den." Two or three of them began to compare notes. They were joined by others. In a very short time the whole school knew that at least a third of their number had seen a "something." They were quite unanimous in their report. "It" was a girl of about their own age, in a dark-green dress with a wide white collar. Hermie and Ardiune had noticed her most distinctly. She had smiled and beckoned to them, and run along the pa.s.sage, but when they turned the corner she had disappeared; and Linda and Elsie, whom they had met coming in the opposite direction, declared that they had seen n.o.body. Lois and Katherine had caught a glimpse of her as they chased Maudie in one of the attics, and Joan declared positively that she had seen her flitting down the stairs.

"It's queer in the extreme," murmured Valentine.

"Are you quite sure it wasn't really only one of us?" urged Meta.

"Absolutely!" declared Hermie emphatically. "We all have on our brown serges to-day, and I tell you this girl was in dark green; not a gym.

costume to wear over a blouse, like ours, but a dress with long sleeves and a big white collar."

"I don't believe she's a real girl at all," faltered Magsie tremulously. "She's a spook!"

Magsie voiced the opinion of the majority. It was what most of the school had been feeling for the last five minutes. The interest in the supernatural, which had been a craze earlier in the term until sternly repressed by Miss Beasley, suddenly revived. Daphne remembered the magazine article she had read ent.i.tled "The Borderland of the Spirit World," and cold thrills pa.s.sed down her spine. Veronica ventured the suggestion that the apparition might be an astral body or an elemental ent.i.ty.

"It's a case for the Society for Psychical Research to investigate,"

she nodded gravely. "I always said the Grange was bound to be haunted."

"What was this girl like?" asked Raymonde reflectively. "Ancient or modern?"

"Modern, decidedly. She had on a green dress with a white----"

"So you've told us already,"--impatiently. "We know about her clothes.

What was she like?"

Hermie stood for a moment with eyes shut, as if calling up a mental picture.

"About Ardiune's height, but slimmer: rosy face, and dark hair done in a plait--really not so unlike you, Ray, only I should say decidedly prettier."

"Thank you!" sniffed Raymonde.

"That just about sizes her up!" agreed those who had seen the vision.

"She didn't look spooky at all," continued Hermie. "She was quite substantial. You couldn't see through her, and she didn't melt into the air."

"And yet she disappeared?"

"Yes, she certainly disappeared, and in a pa.s.sage where there were no doors."

"Do you remember the story I told you of the lady whose astral double left her body during sleep, and haunted a friend's house?" began Veronica darkly.

"Don't tell any ghost stories up here--don't!" implored Fauvette.

"I'll have hysterics in another minute!"