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The School by the Sea
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
50 Old Bailey, LONDON
17 Stanhope Street, GLASGOW
BLACKIE & SON (INDIA) LIMITED
Warwick House, Fort Street, BOMBAY
BLACKIE & SON (CANADA) LIMITED
TORONTO
[Illustration: "THERE IS SOMEBODY OR SOMETHING INSIDE THE BARRED ROOM!"
SHE GASPED _Page 149_ _Frontispiece_]
The School by the Sea
BY
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of "Joan's Best Chum" "The School in the South"
"The Youngest Girl in the Fifth"
&c. &c.
_Illustrated_
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
LONDON AND GLASGOW
By Angela Brazil
At School with Rachel.
Ruth of St. Ronan's.
Joan's Best Chum.
Captain Peggie.
Schoolgirl Kitty.
The School in the South.
Monitress Merle.
Loyal to the School.
A Fortunate Term.
A Popular Schoolgirl.
The Princess of the School.
A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl.
The Head Girl at the Gables.
A Patriotic Schoolgirl.
For the School Colours.
The Madcap of the School.
The Luckiest Girl in the School.
The Jolliest Term on Record.
The Girls of St. Cyprian's.
The Youngest Girl in the Fifth.
The New Girl at St. Chad's.
For the Sake of the School.
The School by the Sea.
The Leader of the Lower School.
A Pair of Schoolgirls.
A Fourth Form Friendship.
The Manor House School.
The Nicest Girl in the School.
The Third Form at Miss Kaye's.
The Fortunes of Philippa.
_Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son Ltd. Glasgow_
Contents
CHAP. Page
I. THE INTERLOPER 9
II. A KINGDOM BY THE SEA 20
III. A MYSTERIOUS SCHOOLFELLOW 30
IV. "THE KING OF THE CASTLE" 42
V. PRACTICAL GEOGRAPHY 51
VI. RAGTIME 65
VII. AN INVITATION 76
VIII. A MEETING ON THE SHORE 89
IX. A MESSAGE 99
X. MAROONED 114
XI. "CORIOLANUS" 127
XII. IN QUARANTINE 140
XIII. THE LIFE-BOAT ANNIVERSARY 153
XIV. THE BEACON FIRE 166
XV. THE OLD WINDLASS 179
XVI. HARE AND HOUNDS 192
XVII. A DISCOVERY 205
XVIII. AN ALARM 224
XIX. A TORN LETTER 235
Illustrations
Facing
Page
"THERE IS SOMEBODY OR SOMETHING INSIDE THE
BARRED ROOM!" SHE GASPED _Frontispiece_
A SMALL BOY WAS WAVING HIS CAP IN FRANTIC WELCOME 48
THE MAN APPEARED TO HAVE MANY DIRECTIONS TO GIVE 96
GERDA DARTED UPON THE BATHFUL OF OLD LETTERS 200
THE SCHOOL BY THE SEA
CHAPTER I
The Interloper
Girls! Girls everywhere! Girls in the passages, girls in the hall,
racing upstairs and scurrying downstairs, diving into dormitories and
running into classrooms, overflowing on to the landing and hustling
along the corridor--everywhere, girls! There were tall and short, and
fat and thin, and all degrees from pretty to plain; girls with fair hair
and girls with dark hair, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, and grey-eyed girls;
demure girls, romping girls, clever girls, stupid girls--but never a
silent girl. No! Buzz-hum-buzz! The talk and chatter surged in a full,
steady flow round the house till the noise invaded even that sanctuary
of sanctuaries, the private study, where Miss Birks, the Principal, sat
addressing post cards to inform respective parents of the safe arrival
of the various individual members of the frolicsome crew which had just
reassembled after the Christmas vacation. In ordinary circumstances
such an indiscretion as squealing on the stairs or dancing in the
passages would have brought Miss Birks from her den, dealing out stern
rebukes, if not visiting dire justice on the offenders; but for this one
brief evening--the first night of the term--the old house was Liberty
Hall. Each damsel did what seemed good in her own eyes, and talked,
laughed, and joked to her heart's content.
"Let them fizz, poor dears!" said Miss Birks, smiling to herself as a
special outburst of mirth was wafted up from below. "It does them good
to work off steam when they arrive. They'll have to be quiet enough
to-morrow. Really, the twenty make noise enough for a hundred! They're
all on double-voice power to-night! Shades of the Franciscans, what a
noise! It seems almost sacrilege in an old convent."
If indeed the gentle, grey-robed nuns who long, long ago had stolen
silently along those very same stairs could have come back to survey the
scene of their former activities, I fear on this particular occasion
they would have wrung their slim, transparent hands in horror over the
stalwart modern maidens who had succeeded them in possession of the
ancient, rambling house. No pale-faced novices these, with downcast eyes
and cheeks sunken with fasting; no timid glances, no soft ethereal
footfalls or gliding garments--the old order had changed indeed, and
yielded place to a rosy, racy, healthy, hearty, well-grown set of
twentieth-century schoolgirls, overflowing with vigorous young life and
abounding spirits, mentally and physically fit, and about as different
from their mediaeval forerunners as a hockey stick is from a spindle.
Among the jolly, careless company that on this January evening held
carnival in the vaulted passages, and woke the echoes of the
time-hallowed walls, no two had abandoned themselves to the fun of the
moment more thoroughly than Deirdre Sullivan and Dulcie Wilcox. They had
attempted to dance five varieties of fancy steps on an upper landing,
had performed a species of Highland fling down the stairs, and had
finished with an irregular jog-trot along the lower corridor, subsiding
finally, scarlet with their exertions, and wellnigh voiceless, on to the
bottom step of the back staircase.
"Oh!--let's--sit here--and talk," heaved Deirdre, her power of speech
returning in jerks. "I'm--tired--of ragging round--and--I've not seen
you--for ages!--and oh!--there's such heaps and heaps--to tell.
Look!--she's over there!"
"Who?" queried Dulcie laconically. She was stouter than Deirdre, and,
like Hamlet, "scant of breath".
"Why, she, of course!"
"Don't be a lunatic! Which she? And what she? And why she of all shes?"
gasped Dulcie, still rather convulsively and painfully.
"What 'she' could I possibly mean except the new girl?"
"You don't mean to tell me there's a new girl?"
"You don't surely mean to tell me you've never noticed her! You blind
bat! Why, there she is as large as life! Can't you see her, stupid? The
atrocious part of it is, she's been stuck into our bedroom!"
Dulcie sprang up, with hands outstretched in utter tragedy.
"No!" she wailed, "oh, no! no! Surely Miss Birks hasn't been heartless
enough to fill up that spare bed! Oh, I'll never forgive her, never! Our
ducky, chummy little room to be invaded by a third--and a stranger! It's
sheer barbarous cruelty! Oh, I thought better of her! What have we done
to be treated like this? It's pure and simple brutality!"
"Who's the lunatic now? Stop ranting, you goose! That bed was bound to
be filled some day, though it's hard luck on us. We did pretty well to
keep the place to ourselves the whole of last term. 'All good things
come to an end.' I'm trying to be philosophical, and quote proverbs; all
the same, 'Two's company and three's trumpery'. That's a proverb too!
You haven't told me yet what you think of our number three. She's
talking to Mademoiselle over there."
"So she is! Why, if she isn't talking German, too, as pat as a native!
What a tremendous rate their tongues are going at it! I can't catch a
single word. Is she a foreigner? She doesn't somehow quite suggest
English by the look of her, does she?"
The new girl in question, the interloper who was to form the unwelcome
third, and spoil the delightful _scene a deux_ hitherto so keenly
enjoyed by the chums, certainly had a rather un-British aspect when
viewed even by impartial eyes. Her pink-and-white colouring, blue eyes,
and her very fair flaxen hair were distinctly Teutonic; the cut of her
dress, the shape of her shoes, the tiny satchel slung by a strap round
her shoulder and under one arm--so unmistakably German in type--the
enamelled locket bearing the Prussian Eagle on a blue ground, all showed
a slightly appreciable difference from her companions, and stamped her
emphatically with the seal and signet of the "Vaterland". On the whole
she might be considered a decidedly pretty girl; her features were small
and clear cut, her complexion beyond reproach, her teeth even, her fair
hair glossy, and she was moderately tall for her fifteen years.
Dulcie took in all these points with a long, long comprehensive stare,
then subsided on to the top of the boot rack, shaking her head gloomily.
"You may call it British prejudice, but I can't stand foreigners," she
remarked with a gusty sigh. "As for having one in one's bedroom--why,
it's wicked! Miss Birks oughtn't to expect it!"
"Foreigners? Who's talking about foreigners?" asked Marcia Richards, one
of the Sixth Form, who happened to be passing at the moment, and
overheard Dulcie's complaints. "If you mean Gerda Thorwaldson, she is as
English as you or I."
"English! Listen to her! Pattering German thirteen to the dozen!"
snorted Dulcie.
"You young John Bull! Don't be insular and ridiculous! Gerda has lived
in Germany, so of course she can speak German. It will be very good
practice for you to talk it with her in your bedroom."
"If you think we're going to break our jaws with those abominable
gutturals!"--broke out Deirdre.
"Miss Germany'll have to compass English, or hold her tongue," added
Dulcie.
"Don't be nasty! You're wasting your opportunities. If I had your
chance, I'd soon improve my German."
"Why didn't Miss Birks put her with you instead?" chimed the injured
pair in chorus. "You're welcome to our share of her."
"Come along, you slackers!" interrupted Evie Bennett and Annie Pridwell,
emerging from the dining-hall. "You're wasting time here. Betty Scott's
playing for all she's worth, and everybody's got to come and dance. Pass
the word on if anyone's upstairs. Are you ready? Hurry up, then!"
"Oh, I say! I'm tired!" yawned Dulcie.
"We've had enough of the light fantastic toe!" protested Deirdre.
"Little birds that can hop and won't hop must be made to hop!" chirped
Evie firmly.
"How'll you make us?"
"The 'Great Mogul' has decreed that any girl who refuses to dance shall
be forcibly placed upon the table and obliged to sing a solo, or forfeit
all the sweets she may have brought back with her."
"'Tis Kismet!" murmured Deirdre, hauling up Dulcie from the boot rack.
"No use fighting against one's fate!" sighed Dulcie, linking arms with
her chum as she walked along the passage.
After all, it was only the younger members who were assembled in the
dining-hall--the Sixth, far too superior to join in the general romping,
were having a select cocoa party in the head girl's bedroom, and telling
each other that the noise below was disgraceful, and they wondered Miss
Birks didn't put a stop to it. (At seventeen one's judgment is apt to be
severe, especially on those only a few years younger!) Miss Birks,
however, who was forty-five, and wise in her generation, did not
interfere, and the fun downstairs continued to effervesce. Betty Scott,
seated at the piano, played with skill and zeal, and the others were
soon tripping their steps with more or less effect, according to their
individual grace and agility--all but two. Hilda Marriott had strained
her ankle during the holidays, and could only sit on the table and sigh
with envy; while Gerda Thorwaldson, the new girl, stood by the door,
watching the performance. Everybody was so taken up by the joys of the
moment that nobody realized her presence, even when whirling skirts
whisked against her in passing. Not a single one noticed her forlorn
aloofness, or that the blue eyes were almost brimming over with tears.
Mademoiselle, the only person who had so far befriended her, had beaten
a retreat, and was finishing unpacking, while the fourteen fellow pupils
in the room were still entire strangers to her. As nobody made the
slightest overture towards an introduction, and she seemed rather in the
way of the dancers, Gerda opened the door, and was about to follow
Mademoiselle's example, and make her escape upstairs. Her action,
however, attracted the attention that had before been denied her.
"Hallo, the new girl's sneaking off!" cried Annie Pridwell, pausing so
suddenly that she almost upset her partner.
"Here! Stop!"
"Where are you going?"
"You've got to stay."
"Come here and report yourself!"
The dancing had come to a brief and sudden end. Betty Scott, concluding
in the middle of a bar, turned round on the music stool, and holding up
a commanding finger, beckoned the stranger forward.
"Let's have a look at you," she remarked patronizingly. "I hadn't time
to take you in before. Are you really German? Tell us about yourself."
"Yes, go on! Where do you come from, and all the rest of it?" urged Evie
Bennett.
"Are you dumb?" asked Rhoda Wilkins.
"Perhaps she can't speak English!" sniggered Dulcie Wilcox.
Gerda Thorwaldson, now the target of every eye, had turned crimson to
the very roots of her flaxen hair. She stood in the centre of a ring of
new schoolfellows, so overwhelmed with shyness that she did not
volunteer a single response to the volley of remarks suddenly fired at
her. This did not at all content her inquisitors, who, once their
attention was drawn to her, felt their curiosity aroused.
"I say, why can't you speak?" said Barbara Marshall, nudging her elbow.
"You needn't look so scared. We're not going to eat you!"
"No cannibals here!" piped Romola Harvey.
"Lost, stolen, or strayed--a tongue! The property of the new girl.
Finder will be handsomely rewarded," remarked Mary Beckett facetiously.
"You've got to answer some questions, Gerda Thorwaldson--I suppose
that's your name?--so don't be silly!" urged Irene Jordan.
"Speak up! We shan't stand any nonsense!" added Elyned Hughes.
"What do you want me to say?" murmured Gerda, gulping down her
embarrassment with something suspiciously like a sob, and blinking her
blue eyes rapidly.
"Oh, you can talk English! Well, to begin with, are you German or not?"
"No."
"But you come from Germany?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever been in Cornwall before?"
"Never."
"I suppose you can dance?"
"No."
At this last negative a united howl went up from the assembled circle.
"Can't dance? Where have you lived? Make her try! She's got to learn!
Take her arm and teach her some steps! She won't? She'll have to! No
one's to be let off to-night!"
"Gerda Thorwaldson," said Evie Bennett impressively, "we give you your
choice. You either try to dance this very instant, or you stand on that
table and sing a song--in English, mind, not German!"
"Which will you choose?" clamoured three or four urgent voices.
"Oh, I say! It's too bad to rag her so, just at first!" protested Doris
Patterson, a shade more sympathetic than the rest.
"Not a bit of it! If she's really English, she must show it--and if she
won't, she's nothing but a foreigner!" blustered Dulcie Wilcox.
"This is easy enough," volunteered Annie Pridwell, performing a few
steps by way of encouragement. "Now, come along and do as I do."
"Fly, little birdie, fly!" mocked Betty Scott.
"She's too stupid!"
"She's going to blub!"
"Leave her alone!"
"No, make her dance!"
"Don't let her sneak out of it!"
"I say, what's going on here?" said a fresh voice, as Marcia Richards
entered the room, and, after pausing a moment to take in the situation,
strode indignantly to the rescue of poor Gerda, who, still shy and
half-bewildered with so many questions, stood almost weeping in the
midst of the circle.
"Is this the way you treat a new girl? You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves! No, she shan't learn to dance if she doesn't want to! Not
to-night, at any rate. Come along with me, Gerda, and have some cocoa
upstairs. Don't trouble your head about this noisy set. If they've no
better manners, I'm sorry for them!"
With which parting shot, she seized her protegee by the arm and bore her
out of the room.
Most of the girls laughed. They did not take the affair seriously. A fit
of bashfulness and blushing might be very agonizing to the new-comer,
but it was distinctly diverting to outsiders. New girls must expect a
little wholesome catechizing before they were admitted into the bosom of
their Form. It was merely a species of initiation, nothing more. No
doubt Gerda would find her tongue to-morrow, and give a better account
of herself. So Betty sat down again to the piano, and the others,
finding their partners, began once more to tread the fascinating steps
of the latest popular dance.
"We did rag her, rather," said Deirdre half-apologetically.
"Serve her jolly well right for talking German!" snapped Dulcie.