A NIGHT ON THE LEADS
Ingrid's steps--alert, responsible--died away into distance. Silence
settled down. Then Sybil drew a long breath, and spoke in accents which
were hushed, but audible.
"Of all the utterly mean young skunks!"
"Disgusting!" Noreen agreed.
"But I suppose she hasn't learnt anything better," said Barbara.
Joey wriggled in bed, but held her tongue. Let them go on; they
wouldn't hurt her.
"Such a pig about the bath-water--I hardly washed at all," Syb went on.
"Frightfully lowering to Redlands to turn that sort in," Barbara took
up the parable.
Joey couldn't keep out of the fray any longer. "Did the Redlands girls
want to have a nice kind fat old nurse apiece to look after them and
keep them from being contaminated by less select people?" she jeered.
"Poor little dears!"
"We're not talking to you, Jocelyn Graham. We don't talk to girls who
behave as you do," Sybil told her icily.
"Righto. Don't then," Joey said, and turned over in bed.
But the outraged three had not finished by any manner of means.
"Sucking up and sneaking to Ingrid Latimer, too; I do call that the
limit," Noreen went on. "Notice how she jawed _at_ us--and I adored
Ingrid all last term."
Joey was too proud to speak again after her recent snub, or she might
have informed them that she had _not_ sneaked to Ingrid Latimer. As it
was--let them think it if they liked--she didn't care.
"Shame to put her into Blue Dorm," that was Barbara.
"P'r'aps she could be cleared out."
"Miss Conyngham is frightfully stuffy about changing dorms after she
and Matron have worked it all out."
Joey got out of bed, shouldered into a dressing-gown, thrust on
slippers, and seized her blue quilt.
"As it's rather difficult to go to sleep, while you're making all
this row, I'll sleep somewhere else to-night, if you don't mind," she
explained, with elaborate politeness, and was out of the door, trailing
her quilt after her, before any of the three had recovered from the
blank surprise caused by her remark.
When she came out of Bathroom 8, Joey had noticed a ladder at the far
end of the passage; she guessed that it must lead on to the roof. And
what better place could one find to sleep on than a roof, on such a
fine September night as this? Even if it rained she thought the leads
would be better than a Blue Dorm full of hateful girls who talked at
her.
She scrambled up the latter, stumbling over the blue quilt; pushed open
a trap-door, and arrived, sure enough, upon the leads, all silver in
the moonlight.
She had been boiling over with fury when she escaped from the Blue
Dorm, but this wonderful silver world had a calming effect. It was far
clearer now than it had been when she came. Then a haze had hovered
over the horizon; now the broad line of the Fossdyke Wash glittered a
silver glory on the edge of the white world.
The great stretch of the Walpole Fen intersected by its wide ditches
unrolled itself before her, and in the flatness that curious round
tower stood out conspicuously. Joey looked at it with interest; it
_was_ curious to see a tower standing all by itself like that. She
wondered whether she would be allowed to go and explore it sometime,
by herself of course, without the company of any of those hateful
Redlands girls. And then she thought how interested Mums would be in
hearing of it. And then she thought how much more interested Mums would
be if she, Joey, had seen the redoubtable blue light which Gabrielle
had mentioned. And then she wondered if she would see it to-night,
where she would have an even better view than if she had been allowed
a window bed. That was the last clear thought in her mind before she
found a sheltered corner, rolled herself tightly in her quilt, and fell
asleep with her face buried in the hollow of her arm to get away from
the moonlight. She dreamt of the tower, of course, but all her dreams
were confused, not clear.
She awoke at last to a sense of cold, which had been with her for some
time before it roused her.
"You little pig Kirsty; you've taken all the clothes," she murmured
sleepily; and then, as consciousness came back, she knew that she
wasn't in the familiar little bed at Pilot Cottage, where there was
just room for Kirsty and herself and no more, but somewhere in a dark
outdoor world with no moon left and a fine rain falling.
Joey stood up, holding her damp quilt about her. Luckily, her
dressing-gown was thick, but even with that she shivered--of course
she must go inside to Blue Dorm, which seemed decidedly attractive at
that moment; only how in the world was she to find the trap-door in
the dark? Joey turned round, trying to make out the geography of the
roof, and, as she turned, something blue shone for a moment through the
drizzly darkness. She watched the light, forgetting damp and discomfort
and the rather forlorn feeling which had seized her. The blue light
flashed out three times and then disappeared. Almost at once the stable
clock struck two.
The blue light had done more than give Joey a thrilling story for Mums:
it had shown her how she stood. When she came up through the trap-door,
the tower had been on her right. She made straight for the trap-door in
the darkness, and landed full upon it; she felt the ring through her
bedroom slippers.
She knelt down and lifted it cautiously, crept through and went down
the ladder backwards much impeded by the quilt, and with all her teeth
chattering as if they would never stop. Noiselessly she tiptoed into
Blue Dorm, found her bed, and got into it, pulling her bedclothes
tightly round her.
Unfortunately, this process did not keep her teeth from chattering,
cold chills chased each other up and down her spine, and the bed shook
with her shivering.
Someone spoke from one of the window beds:
"I say, Jocelyn!"
"Thought you weren't talking to me!" Joey inquired, as high-handedly as
is possible with teeth chattering like castanets. It was Noreen's voice
that had spoken; she recognized the faint touch of the brogue.
"Are you crying?"
"Likely!" Joey got all the scorn possible into that one word.
Noreen sat up in bed.
"Then what _are_ you doing?"
"Shivering."
"Oh!" said Noreen, and ducked down in her bed, because there was a step
outside, and the door opened. Ingrid came in with a candle.
"I thought I heard talking; is any one ill?"
Joey withdrew herself and her shivers well under the bedclothes, and
buried her face in the pillow.
"Nothing's the matter, Ingrid," Noreen said, rather flustered. "I just
thought one of them was awake--and asked."
Ingrid was in a hurry and rather cold besides. She did not make a tour
of the beds in Blue Dorm.
"My dear Kid, don't wake people up to ask if they're awake," she said.
"You spoke quite loud: I heard you in the passage, when I was fetching
stuff for Dorothy's earache. Go to sleep, and anyhow keep quiet,
please."
She shut the door. Noreen wisely waited for a good five minutes before
saying anything else. Then she got out of bed and came across to Joey,
carrying her quilt.
"Stick this on top of yours. Goodness, you _are_ cold. Like my rug too?
It's just folded at the end of my bed; I can get it in a sec."
"Thanks awfully," jerked poor Joey, wondering if she ever would be
warm again. Though she didn't want to take anything from these horrid
unfriendly Redlands girls, she couldn't resist the quilt and the rug,
and Noreen's voice was kind just then.
"Where _have_ you been?" Noreen whispered, as she tucked the plaid down
over the two quilts.
"Roof," said Joey.
"You haven't? Up the ladder and on to the leads. You slept there? I
say, there _would_ have been a row if Ingrid found out!"
"Well, I suppose so," Joey acknowledged. Her teeth were chattering
rather less; it was more possible to speak.
"She'd be sure to say we drove you to it," Noreen said. "She knew about
our ragging you...."
"I didn't tell her--at least when I asked about her boots I spoke about
the Lab, and she wanted to know who told me to tidy it," Joey explained.
"Did you tell?"
"No."
Noreen sat down on her bed.
"You're rather a young sport, Jocelyn. I say, it was rather a shame
about the Lab; was the Professor a frightful beast about it?"
"He was rather; I think he needn't have been so bad considering the
French and we are allies for evermore," Joey said.
"He's only French-Swiss; daresay he can't be as nice as pure French,"
Noreen suggested soothingly. "Anyhow, Ingrid has settled him up--she
can tackle any professor born: you should see her with our literature
prof: disagrees with him and that sort of thing. All the same, it was a
mean shame to have you on about the Lab, Jocelyn; I was really rather
sorry about it afterwards--only, you know, you were so uppish about the
bath."
The shivers had practically subsided; Joey felt happier.
"I know; I shouldn't do that again."
"I don't blame you for getting something off us when you had the
chance," Noreen observed, with an effort after fair play. "Good-night,
Jocelyn: I hope you'll be all right now."
"Good-night, Noreen; thanks ever so."
Joey went to sleep at last, with an idea in her mind that some at least
of the girls at Redlands were better than they seemed.
* * * * *
No one could think how a girl who had arrived perfectly well at four
o'clock yesterday, could manage to develop such a frightful crying cold
as Joey brought to breakfast next morning. Miss Lambton commented upon
it; her neighbors at breakfast commented upon it with less concern and
more candour; Matron commented upon it quite severely, while sticking a
thermometer that tasted of carbolic into Joey's unwilling mouth, in the
hall.
Noreen was hovering near.
"Please I expect that bed by the door has a draught or something," she
suggested. "Shall I change with her? I don't mind really."
"Rubbish about a draught," Matron answered briskly. "There is just
as much draught by a window. But you can change beds if you both
like--only it's not to be a precedent."
Matron's urbanity was possibly due to the fact that Joey had been
proved to have no temperature, and therefore could not be convicted of
the heinous crime of sickening for measles, "flu," or chicken-pox.
"Keep a sports-coat on all day in the house, and you are not to stand
about when the ground is wet, or stay out after four," she said, with
authority. "You can run away now, but be careful. You must have done
something really silly to get a cold like that."
"Come and change the beds," whispered Noreen, and the two ran up to
Blue Dorm together.
"Look here, it's jolly decent of you, but it doesn't matter about
changing, really," Joey blurted out.
Noreen grinned engagingly.
"You silly cuckoo, don't you see I want to bag your tip of 'First
Bath.'"
But Joey knew that wasn't the real reason; she began to like Noreen.