The Youngest Girl in the School Part 11

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 Fraulein 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 gla.s.s 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 repet.i.tion 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 s.h.i.+vered 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 gla.s.s, as she pa.s.sed 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 pa.s.sionately. 'I can't stop any longer in this horrible place. n.o.body wants me here, n.o.body! 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 pa.s.sively 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 s.h.i.+ver. 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?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: '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 br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 a.s.sembled 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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.