THE AFTERMATH
There was another panic over in Madison," explained Miss Gifford,
after leaving the telephone; "when Miss Allen and Miss Dalton were
found missing it is a wonder someone over there didn't send out a
second fire alarm. Miss Fairlie was much relieved to know her
charges were safe and sound here, and I obtained a leave of absence
for you for the remainder of the night," she finished. The very much
perturbed matron had no idea of being left alone with a flock of
obstreperous freshmen.
"Lovely!" exclaimed Jane, dancing around with a group of barefoot
girls who threatened to turn the occasion into a Greek playlet.
"Scrumbunctious!" sang out the ballet de chambre, dancing in wild
glee now that danger of ghosts and firemen had actually passed.
"But girls," spoke Dozia, "did you notice the little fat fireman who
held that big hose nozzle? I do verily believe he was so
disappointed he wanted to hit someone. Just see where his old hose
scraped my best silken hose. I don't mean that for a parody, but
honestly, girls, these were the last and final gift from mater. She
has condemned me to wear ordinary lisle hereafter, and just look at
that--stock!"
"Only dry dust, it will brush off," soothed Jane. "But I say, girls,
how about beds!"
"Beds!" shrieked a chorus.
"Not a bed!" spoke Nellie Saunders for her entire class. "We
wouldn't mind cuddling up here on blankets and cushions, but I for
one shall not mount those spooky stairs, this night."
"Silly child," scolded Dozia, her own eyes heavy with the ordinary
common garden variety of sleep. "Would you expect company to do all
the lugging? Who's to set up the billet?" "Volunteers?" called Jane,
and from somewhere not before observed stepped out little Sarah
Rowland.
"I shall be glad to help," she said timidly, and instantly a volley
of eyes challenged her.
"Oh, Sally!" exclaimed Dolly Lloyd. "Don't you dare! The spooks
would just eat you up. You look exactly like a cream puff."
Laughter of the most chummy sort followed this, and it was evident
Sally, in her cream and white striped robe with her yellow hair
flowing over her shoulders, was a popular girl with her companions.
Jane noticed, however, that her face, usually prettily flushed with
pink, was now deadly white, and also that the child's eyes shifted
in a peculiarly nervous manner.
"It's lovely of you, Sally, and we'll just set a good example while
Miss Gifford is searching for that miscreant fire. Come along and
get the swaddling clothes for these babes. Aren't they an unruly
lot?" and she tossed off her blue cape preparatory for the lugging
of couch quilts, pillows and whatever else might seem useful.
Sally tripped up the stairs and Jane was after her.
"Do they really mean to sleep in the recreation room?" asked the
freshman, waiting at a landing for Jane.
"Land knows," replied Jane, "but I thought we had best humor them at
least past the pneumonia point. I am thankful they did not all break
away over the campus to some other building. We will probably shame
them into going back to bed when they see how much trouble they are
giving. Where might we find the bed clothes storeroom?"
"Just here to your left. But wait until I switch that light." She
reached a button and gave the side light its current. Then she
stepped back to Jane.
"Miss Allen," she began in more subdued voice, "I just wanted to
tell you it was I who rang--the fire bell!"
"Oh, did you?" said Jane lightly, following the hushed tone of
voice, "but where did you think the fire was?"
"I knew there was no fire," she confessed, "but I had to do it to
cover those other noises."
Jane was mystified, but she realized by Sarah's manner that a
complete explanation was not possible just then. Here and there a
step or a voice threatened the snatched confidence.
"Did you hear that scream?" whispered Jane.
"Yes, and I--had my room changed to over at the foot of the attic
stairs just yesterday, but--but--oh, Miss Allen, it is too
dreadful!" she gasped, dropping into a window seat and bursting into
tears.
"Don't, dear! Don't, Sally!" begged Jane. "You are all unnerved.
Tomorrow you can tell me your fears, if you wish," Jane qualified.
"But now let us get back to the girls. They will think something
dreadful HAS happened to us."
"But I can't tell you, Miss Allen. If I did I should have to leave
dear old Wellington and this--opportunity means so much to me," and
again she sobbed convulsively, while Jane put an affectionate arm
around the little stranger.
Clapping of hands and calling out foolish warnings from below
checked Jane's flow of sympathy, and presently she stumbled back to
the recreation room propelling a mountain of blankets and
comfortables.
"There. Just see what you have done," she charged the students who
were instantly struggling for the blankets to the extent of
practically disrobing the accommodating Jane. "Leave me my blouse,
please do. It's the only real Jersey I possess. But aren't you
ashamed to treat juniors this way?"
"Dreadfully!" drawled a girl already rolled like a cocoon in a
pretty blue "wooley" and coiling up on a rug in the farthest corner.
"Jane Alien, you're a perfect lamb, and I hope you'll stay with us
forever."
"I am sure I have a congestive chill," chattered a fraud of a girl
who almost upset Jane in the blanket rush. "Give me the pink one.
It's my color," and another tug freed "the pink one" from its
company of neatly folded coverlets.
"It is a shame," confessed someone else. "Come on upstairs, girls.
Let's defy the ghosts. I have always heard they shun a crowd.
Where's the crowd? Let's make them shun us."
"Second the motion and hurrah!" added Nellie Saunders. "Also we
should put a price on that ghost's head--offer a reward for the
capture. I'm willing to chip in, although as usual I'm a little
short this week."
Dozia had been going over the house with Miss Gifford and just then
both returned to the recreation room.
"Does anyone know where Miss Duncan is--Miss Shirley Duncan?" asked
the matron, keeping her pencil at that name on her report pad.
Jane started involuntarily at the question. She had been secretly
wondering where the rebellious Shirley was during all the
excitement.
"Oh, yes," spoke up Margie Winters. "She is outside visiting with
her folks. She told me this afternoon she had obtained permission."
"Not from me," declared Miss Gifford. Then as if fearing
complications she added more tactfully, "But of course I might not
have been within reach and someone else may have given permission.
Will you just step in here, dear?" to Margie. "I want to note what
you say of Miss Duncan's absence," and while the reclaimed mutineers
were being actually driven up the stairs by Jane, Dozia and the
braver element, Miss Gifford was obtaining what clue she might as to
Shirley Duncan's whereabouts.
Herded successfully to second floor the visiting juniors set about
distributing their charges into beds--any beds in any rooms but
"under covers" was the order.
"I can just about picture the parade trooping into the infirmary
tomorrow," said Dozia. "Here, Betty, this solo cot for yours. It is
just your cute little size. And those tosies," with a playful thrust
at a pair of shivering feet, "I think nervous freshies should wear
slippers about their necks at night--like we used to have our
mittens on a tape, you know. There," finished the querulous Dozia.
"You would have to roll down stairs if another alarm sounded. You're
a perfectly sealed packet." Just the tip of Betty's head stuck out
of the package.
Somehow all were finally settled and it was Sally--Sarah Howland,
who came to the rescue of the visitors.
"But you must rest," she insisted, only a tell-tale pink rim around
her blue eyes betraying the hysterical collapse she had so lately
experienced.
"We are not the least bit afraid," declared Dozia. "In fact, we are
rather anxious to meet said spook. Which room might be one in
proximity? Where does the big noise seem to come from?"
"No more shows tonight, Dozia," spoke Jane before Sally could
answer. "How much do you want for your money? Isn't a fire and a
volunteer fireman's comedy enough?"
"But I am dreadfully keen on spooks," she was pinching Jane's arm
cruelly, "and I thought it was--something weird that set off the
original alarm."
Sally winced. "Here is a nice big bed," she told them nervously,
pushing back a door and disclosing a tranquil untrammelled room, all
neat and orderly as if nothing unusual had happened in old Lenox.
"We call it the guest room but rarely have company to occupy it. I
am sure Miss Gifford will want you two juniors to make yourselves at
home in it," finished Sally with a quaver. She could not entirely
hide the fact of her anxiety to get Jane and Dozia behind a closed
door. Jane might have understood but Dozia was perplexed.
"It's a lovely room," faltered Dozia, "but I feel more like camping
out. What time is it, anyhow?"
"About two-thirty A. M.," said Jane, "and since the youngsters are
safely tucked in, I believe we should take Sally's advice. This is
quite sumptious," folding down the extra white shams and coverlet.
"Rather a pity to spoil it for such a sliver of sleep."
Miss Gifford was at the door when Sally glided off. "I am so glad
you girls are getting to bed," she commended. "What a night we have
had? And what a mercy you happened to be within call? I'm sure I
don't know how you got here but I am not worrying about the details.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil, etc., and"--with a readjustment
of her glasses and a closer fold into the soft night shawl--"this
condition is dreadful. I have tried to fathom the mystery without
troubling the office, but I know now I should have reported it
before." (She referred to the nocturnal disturbances, of course.)
"Don't fear any further alarm, midnight is always the chosen hour."
"Yes," blurted Dozia, "we know about it, Miss Gifford, and my friend
Jane inveigled me into this midnight raid. That is really how we got
over here, but I can't say we have to report progress--'stampede'
would be more accurate."
"But this is only one night," Jane insisted, "and our fire brigade
spoiled every possibility of investigation. But, Miss Gifford, since
we have undertaken the task, I should like to propose that you give
us an opportunity to try our skill at it. Suppose" (Jane had in mind
the tearful face of little Sally) "you give us one more night before
you turn the alarm in to Miss Rutledge? I am sure we can control
your girls and get them to agree to our plan. In spite of
everything, you know, they just adore the fun and sensation of it
all."
"Well," faltered Miss Gifford, weakening, "of course I could not
risk a repetition of this night's experience; at the same time I do
like to keep my records free from appeals to headquarters. It is so
much more efficient to manage each cottage independently, subject to
a general system. Well, go to bed children and thank you for your
moral and physical support. We shall discuss future plans on the
morrow," she said sweetly. Truth to tell Miss Agnes Gifford was a
very sweet girl--woman, and at the moment both Jane and Dozia fell
loyally under the spell of her charms.
"Say, Dinks!" whispered Dozia from her side of the big double bed,
"what do you think Judy will say to all this?"
"Judy had her own fun and shouldn't complain. Wasn't she all nicely
arrested and tried at a regular police court? What's a spook and a
fire to that!"
But Jane knew better. That night at Lenox was a "thriller" indeed,
and Judith Stearns might well envy her chums its experiences.
Then while Dozia slept Jane wondered.
What did little Sally Howland mean about taking a room at the attic
stairs? And how was that charming little thing implicated with the
ghost of Lenox Hall?
The plot was thickening. Sally did not in any way answer to the
deceitful type, but some mysterious force seemed to overshadow her.
"Pretty little thing, with such appealing eyes and so honest--"
Jane slept.