"THE THREE MUSKETEERS"
Miss Craigie was to come back on the day after Joey was restored to the
ordinary privileges of Blue Dorm. Miss Conyngham sent for Joey after
breakfast and mentioned the fact, asking very kindly if she would like
to go and meet the four train, instead of joining her form "croc."
"Choose a companion," she said; "and, of course, I trust you to go and
come back by the road, Jocelyn."
Joey coloured up. "It's ever so good of you, Miss Conyngham; of course
I'll play fair. But please, is there ever a time when you could let us
go on the Deeps?--for that tower is most frightfully interesting."
"The owner lives in London, I believe, and doesn't allow people to go
over it," Miss Conyngham said. "It isn't supposed to be very safe now,
for scrambling about in. But I will try to find out if he would have
any objections to my taking a party of you girls, if you are so very
keen."
"I think it would do that nervous chap good to see some company," urged
Joey. "You can't think what his jumpiness was like, Miss Conyngham."
Miss Conyngham was as usual extremely busy, and could not wait to enter
into the question.
"Which companion, Jocelyn?"
"_Could_ I have two?" asked Joey, greatly daring.
Miss Conyngham considered. "I don't see any objection, if you will all
behave very steadily. Remember the credit of Redlands is in your hands.
Whom do you want?"
"Please, Gabrielle and Noreen."
Miss Conyngham smiled. "Very well. Are you three friends?"
Joey had become a good deal more certain since Cousin Greta asked that
question.
"Rather, Miss Conyngham."
"I am glad to hear that. Gabrielle is a very good sort of friend to
have, Jocelyn."
"And Noreen is a frightfully exciting one," Joey explained--and then
remembered in time it would be better not to explain why.
She discovered that she had gone up in the opinion of the Lower School
now that Miss Conyngham had actually picked her out to meet Miss
Craigie. The mathematical mistress had many adorers, it appeared--and
meeting trains could only be done by very special permission.
Ingrid Latimer herself accosted Joey in the mid-morning interval,
demanding what she meant by going.
"I suppose Miss Conyngham thought I should like it," Joey said,
slightly flustered by the question from one so great as the Senior
Prefect.
"Rubbish! As though the Head would stop to think about that," Ingrid
answered crushingly. "Think again, Kid. Is she an aunt of yours by any
chance?"
"No--but we both live in Scotland, you see," Joey suggested.
"The cheek of the babe--as though Scotland were a private belonging of
those two," burst in another huge Sixth Former, and Ingrid suddenly put
both arms round Joey and lifted her on to a desk. "Now there you stay,
until you have supplied a really adequate reason why you--merely an
uppish new kid--should be granted the glorious privilege of meeting our
Miss Craigie."
Joey considered. "Want the real reason?"
"Yes, and hurry up with it."
Joey grinned. "Then go on wanting it!"
The bell for Third Lesson rang violently.
"Oh, get off that desk and go to your classroom," ordered Ingrid. "You
are the purple limit in assertiveness. _I_ don't know why I put up with
it."
"P'r'aps because you can't help it," suggested Joey, and then she
scuttled past Ingrid at her best speed, and joined a gasping Noreen at
the door.
"Are you whole and entire?" Noreen demanded. "My dear Joey, Ingrid will
strew the floor with your remains if you don't look out. _I'd_ never
dare speak to her like that; I'd sooner cheek Miss Conyngham."
"_I_ don't mind Ingrid," Joey boasted, vain-gloriously. "It's rather
sport to see what she'll say next."
"No talking!" rapped out the Latin master, and Noreen began to gabble
over her work to herself with great energy.
Joey felt fairly sure of hers, so devoted the spare two or three
minutes, while Mr. Reade surveyed his notes, to drawing an extremely
fancy portrait of herself and Ingrid walking down the Queen's Hall
arm in arm, while portions of the Lower School cowered in doorways,
or hurried obsequiously to right and left. This work of art was duly
shown to Noreen, as soon as a flustered Barbara was put on to construe;
Noreen retorted with a furious "Just you wait!"
Joey's assertiveness was kindly ignored in the afternoon, however, in
view of the fact that she had won the privilege of meeting the train
for her friends, and the three set out very cheerfully and a good ten
minutes earlier than they need have done.
"How's the Professor?" Joey asked, as they passed the Lab, where she
had spent those purgatorial minutes on her first arrival. It had been
arranged by Miss Conyngham that she should not take chemistry till next
term, in view of the host of bewildering new subjects that descend upon
a girl fresh to school.
Noreen screwed up her eyes. "Well, his temper isn't on the mend. If he
goes on being such a beast I shall cook up a pathetic letter to the
pater and tell him I'm overworked."
"I should think _he_ is," suggested Gabrielle quietly. "Have you
noticed how pouchy he is under the eyes?--as though he didn't get
enough sleep."
"Well, whatever is the matter with him, he's a holy terror to work
with," Noreen declared unsympathetically. "I say, Gabrielle, I wish
Joey did take stinks--her uppishness would probably drive him clean
over the border, and we shouldn't have to bear with him any more."
"You've jolly well got to be uppish here if you don't want to be
absolutely squashed," Joey explained. "I expect the Professor has
war-strain; there was an English lady came to stay with us who simply
couldn't stand Bingo blowing a trumpet anywhere near her because she
had that, poor thing."
"P'r'aps he has a bad conscience, and is doing something beastly with
his stinks," suggested Noreen. "I say, wouldn't it be a good thing
to find out which it is? If it's war-strain--well, I'll bear his
utter hatefulness and calling me 'fat-head' before the class, with
cheerfulness; though I'm sure he's too old and too stout to have fought
the Huns--still, he _may_ have done munitions and used his chemistry
that way...."
"Wasn't he here in the war?" asked Joey.
"Rather not. He only came last term, and nobody could stand him then.
He's worse now. So if it's an evil conscience--I say, Joey, you old
slacker, why don't you take stinks? You could help no end in the
Sherlock Holmes business. Tell you what. I'll smuggle you in next
time--Cicely Wren is in San with a throat--he won't notice who's there
as long as he has his proper tale of jumpy victims."
"Let's," Joey said; but much to her surprise and disappointment,
Gabrielle interfered quite decidedly.
"No, that wouldn't do. You mustn't, Joey. Don't try and get her to,
Noreen."
"Don't see why not," grumbled Noreen, but Joey noticed that she yielded
to the rather small Head of the Lower School with only that one murmur.
It was a dull, lowering afternoon, and the Round Tower, standing up
before the three, looked gloomy and forbidding.
"Wonder if the jumpy young man is there now?" Joey remarked. The whole
story of her adventure had been joyfully told last night in Blue Dorm,
to the accompaniment of a most unwise amount of chocolates, and all
Blue Dorm was as keen to explore the shaky tower as she was herself.
And she and Gabrielle had shared a milk tumbler at Break, after which
Gabrielle had been quite as much stirred up as the other three were.
"It strikes me," said Noreen, "that we are living in a
mystery--probably lurid--and certainly topping. Why should Joey's man
be so jumpy?" She paused dramatically.
"P'r'aps an air-raid bomb fell near him," suggested Joey.
"Egg! A bomb took most of my Granny's bed-room wall out one night, and
she didn't turn a hair. English people don't."
"P'r'aps he's Belgian. He didn't seem quite English somehow."
"Well, if you meet him casually drop into French, and see how he takes
it."
"Drop into French yourself," urged Joey; "you always find that so jolly
easy in French conversation class."
"There! Listen to her, Gabrielle! Ever know anything so cheeky?--and
I'm nearly a year older," complained Noreen.
Gabrielle was a peacemaker. "Oh, don't rag, you two. I want to think
about the Professor. I wonder whether Miss Conyngham knows quite
how--how cranky he is? He quite frightened a lot of the babies who were
playing about near the door of the Lab, the other day, Rosie told me.
He simply yelled at them, and no one ought to do that with babies. It
wasn't as though they were trying to go in, or anything of that sort."
"I believe it's an evil conscience he's got," urged Noreen, with
relish. "Why should he go for the babies otherwise? There's no sense in
it."
"Unless it's like our war-strainy visitor and Bingo's trumpet," Joey
said. "But she didn't go for him--she only asked frightfully nicely if
he would mind blowing it farther off. The Professor _is_ a pig to the
kids; I've noticed it. Do you know Tiddles will never play that side of
the house at all?"
"He hasn't gone and frightened poor little Tiddles, has he?" demanded
Gabrielle indignantly.
"I don't know. I never asked. But she can't bear him," Joey said. "She
won't come round that way, even with me."
Gabrielle ruffled up like an angry robin. "Well, that settles it. Of
course, one can't go sneaking of him to Miss Conyngham when it may be
war-strain, but I shall ask the Professor myself if he will mind being
careful where the babies are concerned, poor little things."
Noreen and Joey gasped. "You won't? Why, he'll be furious."
"It's my job to look after things like that," Gabrielle said firmly.
"It's the choice between pointing out quietly to him that babies
mustn't be frightened, and telling Miss Conyngham what he's been
doing--and I'm Head of the Lower. And nobody tells about unfairness
and things like that at Coll; you just bear them, or alter them for
yourself."
"Well, you're a sport, Gabrielle," Noreen remarked admiringly. "_I_
wouldn't have the pluck."
"Of course I shall put it quite politely," Gabrielle told them. "Just
say I am sure he would be most disturbed if he knew that he frightened
the babies, and so on. I don't suppose he does it on purpose."
"I do," Noreen said stubbornly. "Don't you, Joey?"
"Haven't seen enough of him--but I do think he's a terror," Joey
agreed; and then the station came in sight and they left off talking
about the Professor and his ways, and talked of Miss Craigie instead.
"You'll have to buck up over your maths now, Joey," Gabrielle remarked.
"She'll be so frightfully keen to see you go top, if she's a friend of
yours."
"Joey is rather brainy over them," Noreen remarked kindly. "I sometimes
fear she's going to turn into a swot after all."
"I'm not. I've been in quite as many rows for talking in maths class as
you, anyhow," Joey retorted.
"Well, nobody talks when Miss Craigie takes maths," Gabrielle said,
and Noreen agreed a trifle ruefully. "No, that's a true bill. You're
a frightfully strenuous crowd in Scotland, Joey. Glad I wasn't born
there."
"It's really rather funny we three should be friends," Joey remarked.
"Gabrielle English, Noreen Irish, and I Scotch."
"We ought to make a pretty good alliance, don't you think?" said
Gabrielle in her quiet way.
"The three Musketeers," suggested Noreen. "Let's stick together like
they did--and I only wish we could go in for as many rows!"
At which pious aspiration both Joey and Gabrielle laughed, for Noreen
was notorious at Redlands for the number and extent of her rows.
The train was rather late, but it came at last, and among the few
people getting out at Mote Deeping, was a neat figure in a very
well-cut coat and skirt, who was only about half Mr. Craigie's ungainly
size, and not at all like him at first sight; though Joey came a little
later on to recognise the familiar twinkle of the deep-set eyes and
the kindly smile. Just then she only knew Miss Craigie by the ecstatic
exclamation of Noreen and Gabrielle, "That's her!"
Miss Craigie shook hands with them, and she seemed to know who Joey
was without a need of Gabrielle's polite introduction. At the earnest
request of all the three, she consented to put all her luggage into one
of the wheezy cabs and walk with them to Redlands.
She laid a hand on Joey's shoulder as they left the little station.
"Well, how goes it?"
Joey liked her voice, with its touch of soft Scotch accent, and her
eyes were very kind. She took a deep breath.
"I've messed up my quilt taking it on the roof, and Matron says it's
a disgrace and ought to make me ashamed every time I go to bed. And
I've starred a window, so it had to be mended; and I've got into a row
with the Head for arriving home alone, and with Professor Trouville for
tidying his old Lab----"
"That was my fault!" interrupted Noreen.
"And been turned out of French class once--but Maddy was fearfully
decent after--and out of maths class twice for ragging...."
"I begin to feel quite anxious," Miss Craigie said tranquilly; but even
Joey understood the truth of Noreen's statement, that there was no
ragging when Miss Craigie taught.
With Noreen squeezing her arm affectionately on one side and Joey
holding rather shyly to the other, Miss Craigie walked the two miles
to Redlands, hearing much school news and asking many questions, in
especial about the prospects of the big hockey match, Redlands _v._
Lincolnshire Ladies, which was always played towards the end of October.
"It's to be at Deeping Royal this year," Gabrielle said. "It was the
Lincs Ladies' turn to choose, you see."
"Selfish pigs, they might have chosen somewhere nearer. Nine miles off;
why, hardly any of us will be able to go and look on," grumbled Noreen.
"I think you will find that a certain number will go by train," Miss
Craigie said in her quiet way. "You ought to be a poet, Noreen--you do
love to magnify a grievance."
Noreen joined in the laugh against herself; she was always ready to do
that.
"Well, I don't magnify the Stinks Professor, anyway, Miss Craigie; he
has grown into such an ill-tempered beast, hasn't he, Gabby?"
Miss Craigie shook her head. "Unparliamentary language, Noreen; stop
it, please."
Noreen stopped quite meekly--rather to Joey's disappointment. She would
have liked to consult Miss Craigie about the Professor and his ways;
however, if he wasn't to be talked about there was an end of it. She
asked instead where Deeping Royal was.
"Away beyond the big reservoir--much nearer the Fossdyke Wash than we
are," Noreen explained. "Gorgeous fields, if it's fine--but--when it's
wet--Help! I wish they would play us at Redlands--we're always all
right."
"And who will be allowed to go besides the Team?" Joey next asked
anxiously.
"Oh, when we play outside and have to drive or go by train, each member
of the Team can take a friend, and the Heads of the Upper and Lower
School can take two. You'll take us, won't you, Gabrielle?" Noreen
demanded breathlessly.
Joey gasped at the audacity of this suggestion, but Gabrielle answered
composedly.
"You were the two I meant to ask, _of course_." Joey walked the rest of
the way back treading on air, and refrained from swanking aggressively
to either Gabrielle or Noreen when Miss Craigie invited her to come and
help unpack after tea.
Afterwards, when several very big things had happened, she looked
back on that blissful afternoon, and saw the result of that threefold
friendship.