An Invitation
"Zickery, dickery, lumby tum,
Tip me the wink, and out I'll come,
Leave my pagoda so glum, glum, glum,
To drink green tea with my own Yum-Yum!"
So chanted Evie Bennett on the following Monday, bursting into VB room
with a face betokening news, and a manner suggestive of Bedlam.
"What's the matter, you lunatic? Look here, if you go on like a dancing
dervish we shall have to provide you with a padded room! Mind the
inkpot! Oh, I say, you'll have the black-board over! Hasn't anybody got
a strait-waistcoat? Evie's gone sheer, stark, raving mad!"
"I've got news, my hearty! News! news! news!
'What will you take for my news?
I know it will make you enthuse!
There isn't a girl who'll refuse,
Or offer to make an excuse.'
Ahem! A poor thing, but mine own. I'm waxing so poetical, I think I must
be inspired."
"Or possessed! Sit down, you mad creature, and talk sense. What's your
precious news?"
"Mrs. Trevellyan requests the pleasure of the company of the young
ladies of Miss Birks's seminary to drink tea with her on the occasion of
the natal day of her nephew, Master Ronald Trevellyan," announced Evie,
changing suddenly to a ceremonious eighteenth-century manner, and
dropping a stiff curtsy.
"Ronnie's birthday!"
"Oh, what sport!"
"It's on Wednesday."
"Has she asked only us?"
"No, the whole school is to go, mistresses and all," returned Evie.
"Mrs. Trevellyan wants to introduce Ronnie's new governess to us."
"There are sure to be games, and perhaps a competition with prizes,"
rejoiced Annie Pridwell; "and we always have delicious teas at the
Castle. Gerda Thorwaldson, why don't you look pleased? You take it as
quietly as if it were a parochial meeting. What a mum mouse you are!"
"Is it anything to get so excited over?" replied Gerda calmly.
"Of course it is! The Castle's the Castle, and Mrs. Trevellyan is--well,
just Mrs. Trevellyan. There are the loveliest things there--foreign
curiosities, and old pictures, and illuminated books, and we're allowed
to look at them; and there's special preserved ginger from China, and
boxes of real Eastern Turkish Delight. Oh, it's a fairy palace! You may
thank your stars you're going!"
In spite of Annie's transports, Gerda did not look particularly
delighted. She only smiled in a rather sickly fashion, and said nothing.
The others, however, were much too occupied with their own pleasurable
expectations to take any notice of her lack of enthusiasm. They had
accepted her quiet ways as part of herself, and had set her down as a
not very interesting addition to the Form, and thought her opinions--if
indeed she possessed any--were of scant importance.
Gerda had made very little headway with her companions; her intense
reserve seemed to set a barrier between them and herself, and after one
or two efforts at being friendly the girls had given her up, and took no
more trouble over her. "Gerda the Silent," "The Recluse," "The Oyster,"
were some of the names by which she was known, and she certainly
justified every item of her reputation for reticence. If she did not
talk much, she was, however, a good listener. Nothing in the merry chat
of the schoolroom escaped her, and anybody who had been curious enough
to watch her carefully might have noticed that often, when seemingly
buried in a book, her eyes did not move over the page, and all her
attention was given to the conversation that was going on in her
vicinity.
Having received an invitation to Ronnie's birthday party, of course the
burning subject of discussion was what to give him as a present. Miss
Birks vetoed the idea of each girl making a separate offering, and
suggested a general subscription list to buy one handsome article.
"It will be quite sufficient, and I am sure Mrs. Trevellyan would far
rather have it so," she decreed.
"It's too bad, for I'd made up my mind to give him a box of soldiers,"
complained Annie, in private.
"And I'd a book in my eye," said Elyned.
"Perhaps Miss Birks is right," said Romola, "because, you see, some of
us might give nicer presents than the others, and perhaps there'd be a
little jealousy; and at any rate, comparisons are odious."
"Miss Birks has limited the subscriptions to a shilling each," commented
Deirdre.
"Then let's take our list now. I'll write down our names, and you can
tell me the amounts."
For such an object everyone was disposed to be liberal--everyone, that
is to say, except Gerda Thorwaldson. When she was applied to, she flatly
refused.
"Don't you want to join in the present to Ronnie?" gasped Romola, in
utter amazement.
"Why should I?"
"Why, because we're going to tea at the Castle; and Ronnie is Ronnie,
and Mrs. Trevellyan will be pleased too!"
"I don't know Mrs. Trevellyan."
"Well, you soon will. You'll be introduced to her on Wednesday. She
always says something nice to new girls--asks them where their homes
are, and if they've brothers and sisters, and how old they are--and if
she finds out she knows their parents or their friends she's so
interested. And she has such a good memory for faces! She actually
recognized Irene Jordan, although she'd never seen her in her life
before, because Irene is so like an aunt, a Miss Jordan who is a friend
of Mrs. Trevellyan's."
Gerda had turned a dull crimson at these remarks. She kept her eyes
fixed on the floor, and made no reply. What her inward thoughts might
be, no one could fathom.
"Isn't your name to go down at all, then, on the list?" asked Romola,
with considerable impatience.
"No, thanks!" replied Gerda briefly, turning awkwardly away.
Wednesday arrived, and perhaps even Ronnie hardly welcomed his birthday
more than did his friends at the Dower House. His present--a toy
circus--had arrived, and had been on exhibition in Miss Birks's study,
and everybody had agreed that it was the very thing to please him. At
three o'clock the girls went to change their school dresses for more
festive attire, and were more than ordinarily particular in their choice
of preparations.
"How slow you are, Gerda Thorwaldson!" said Deirdre, whose own
immaculate toilet was complete. "You haven't put on your dress yet. Why
don't you hurry?"
"You needn't think we'll wait for you," added Dulcie.
Instead of replying, Gerda calmly donned her dressing-gown, and,
volunteering no explanation, went out of the room and shut the door
behind her.
She walked downstairs to Miss Birks's study, and, tapping at the door,
reported herself.
"May I, please, stay at home this afternoon?" she begged. "I'm afraid I
don't feel up to going out to tea to-day."
"Not go to the Castle? My dear child, I hope you're not ill? Certainly
stay at home, and lie down on your bed if your head aches. Nettie shall
bring your tea upstairs. I'm sorry you'll miss so great a treat as a
visit to Mrs. Trevellyan's."
Gerda made no comment; but as she was habitually sparing of speech, her
silence did not strike Miss Birks as anything unusual. It was time to
start, and the Principal had her nineteen other pupils to think about,
so she dismissed the pseudo-invalid with a final injunction to rest.
Gerda did not return to her bedroom till she was perfectly sure that
Deirdre and Dulcie had left it. She had no wish to run the gauntlet of
their inevitable criticisms, or to be questioned too closely on the
nature of her sudden indisposition. She loitered about the upper landing
until from the end window she saw the whole school--girls, mistresses,
and Principal--file down the drive and out through the gate in the
direction of the Castle. Then, going to her dormitory, she rang the
bell, and lay down on her bed.
"Would you mind bringing my cup of tea now, Nettie, please?" she asked,
when the housemaid appeared. "And then I should like to be left
perfectly quiet until the others come back."
"Of course I'll bring it, miss," said the sympathetic Nettie. "Nothing
like a cup of tea for a headache. The kettle's on the boil, so you can
have it at once. I won't be more than a minute or two fetching it."
Nettie was as prompt as her word. She returned almost directly with the
tea, and arranged it temptingly on a little table by the bedside.
"Shut your eyes and try and go to sleep when you've drunk it," she
recommended. "You'll perhaps wake up quite fresh. It is a pity you
couldn't go with the other young ladies to the Castle. They were all so
full of it--and Master Ronnie's birthday, too! I know how disappointed
you must feel."
Gerda finished her tea far more rapidly than is usual for invalids with
sick-headaches; then, instead of taking Nettie's advice and closing her
eyes, she rose and put on her school dress, her coat, and her cap. She
opened the door and listened--not a sound was to be heard. The servants
must surely be having their own tea in the kitchen, and no one else was
in the house. With extreme caution she crept along the passage and down
the stairs. The side door was open, and as quietly as a shadow she
passed out and dodged round the corner of the house. A few minutes later
she was running, running at the very top of her speed across the warren
in the direction of a certain rocky creek not far from St. Perran's
well.
* * * * *
When the girls returned at half-past six, full of their afternoon's
experiences, they found Gerda lying on her bed, with the blind drawn
down. There was an almost feverish colour in her cheeks.
"We'd a ripping time!" Dulcie assured her. "A splendid 'Natural Objects'
competition. I nearly got a prize, but I put 'snake-skin' down for one,
and it was really a piece of the skin of a finnan-haddock. Emily
Northwood won the first, with sixteen objects right out of twenty, and
Hilda Marriott was second with fourteen. I might have known that
specimen was fish scales.
"Ronnie was delighted with his circus," added Dulcie. "He gave us each a
kiss all round. And Mrs. Trevellyan was so nice! She was sorry you
couldn't come, and hoped she'd see you some other time. By the by, how's
your headache?"
"Rather better. I think I'll get up now," murmured Gerda. "I haven't
touched my Latin to-day."
"Plucky of you to come and do prep. If I had a headache, wouldn't I just
make it an excuse to knock off Virgil!"
It was getting near to the end of February. The days were lengthening
visibly, and the sun, which only a month ago had appeared every morning
like a red ball over the hill behind the Castle, now rose, bright and
shining, a long way to eastward. In spite of occasional spring storms,
the weather was on the whole mild, and every day fresh flowers were
pushing up in the school garden. The warren, attractive even in winter,
was doubly delightful now primrose tufts were venturing to show among
the last year's bracken, and the gorse was beginning to gleam golden in
sheltered stretches. The girls were out every available moment of their
spare time, rambling over the headland or haunting the sea-shore. For
most of them the latter provided the greater entertainment.
They had discovered a new occupation, that of salvaging the driftwood,
and found it so enthralling that for the present it overtopped all other
amusements. The high spring-tides and occasional storms washed up
quantities of pieces of timber, and to rescue these from the edge of the
waves, and carry them into a place of safety, became as keen a sport as
fishing. Quite a little wood-stack was accumulating under the cliff, and
the girls had designs of carrying it piece by piece to a point on the
top of the headland, and there building a beacon of noble proportions to
be fired on Empire Day amid suitable rejoicings.
It was exciting work to skip about at the water's edge, grasping at bits
of old spars or shattered boards. The sea seemed to enjoy the fun, and
would bob them near and snatch them away in tantalizing fashion,
sometimes adding a wetting as a point to the joke. To secure a fine
piece of wood without getting into the water was the triumph of skill,
attended with considerable risk, not to life or limb, but to length of
recreation, for Miss Birks had laid down an inviolable rule that anybody
who got her feet wet at this occupation must immediately return to
school, change shoes and stockings, and desist from further attempts on
that day. One or two of the girls were lucky enough to possess
india-rubber wading boots, with which they could venture to defy Father
Ocean and rob him of some of the choicest of his spoils, but they were
the highly-favoured few; the rank and file had to content themselves
with the ordinary method of swift snatching with the aid of a hockey
stick.
Two days after Ronnie's birthday party a strong wind and squall during
the night had furnished material for more than usually good sport, and
the whole school betook itself to the beach to try to reap a harvest.
Laughing, joking, squealing, the girls pursued their quarry, enjoying
the fun all the more for the accidents of the moment. Evie Bennett
dropped her hockey stick, and nearly lost it altogether. Romola Harvey
slipped and fell flat into a pool of water; and many other minor mishaps
occurred to keep up the excitement until the catch of the year was
secured, a large piece of timber which it took the united efforts of all
arms to drag successfully up the beach. Deirdre and Dulcie at last,
grown reckless ventured a risky experiment on their own account, with
the result that a wave caught them neatly, and gave them the full
benefit of sea-water treatment.
"Oh, you're done for. Go back at once!" commanded Jessie Macpherson, the
head girl, whose office it was to see that the rule about changing shoes
was duly observed.
"Sea-water doesn't hurt," protested the chums.
"Your feet are wet through, so back you trot this instant. Do you want
me to report you?"
Very loath to leave the shore, Deirdre and Dulcie were nevertheless
bound to obey, so they toiled regretfully up the steep path from the
cove, casting a lingering eye on their companions, who were still hard
at work.
"Where's Gerda?" asked Dulcie. "She's not down there, and now I think of
it, I haven't seen her for the last half-hour or more. Did she get
wet?"
"I really didn't notice. I suppose she must have, and been sent back. We
shall probably find her in the garden."
The two stepped briskly over the warren, their shoes drying on their
feet with a rapidity which made them disparage Miss Birks's excellent
rule about changing.
"It's just her fuss--we should have taken no harm," said Deirdre. "I
say, surely that's Ronnie's laugh. I'd know it anywhere. Where is the
child?"
The girls were passing close to the high wall which separated the Castle
grounds from the warren, and as it seemed more than probable that Ronnie
was inside, playing in the garden, they managed with considerable
effort, and the aid of some strong ivy, to climb to the top and peep
over. Here a most unexpected sight met their gaze.
On the grass, under a tamarisk bush, sat Gerda with Ronnie on her knee.
She had evidently made friends with the little fellow to a great extent,
for he seemed very much at home with her, and the two were laughing and
joking together in the most intimate fashion. It was such an absolutely
new aspect of Gerda that Deirdre and Dulcie were dumb with amazement.
When, at the Dower House, had she laughed so gaily, or talked in so
animated and sprightly a fashion? No shy, reserved, taciturn recluse
this; her eyes were shining, and her whole face was full of a bright
expression, such as the others had never seen there before.
"Hallo, Gerda! What are you doing here?" called Deirdre, finding speech
at last.
Gerda dropped Ronnie, and sprang to her feet with a sharp exclamation.
No one could have looked more utterly and egregiously caught. She stood
staring at the two faces on the top of the wall, and offered no
explanation whatever. Ronnie, however, waved his hand merrily.
"We've been playing Zoo," he volunteered. "Gerda's been a lion, and
gobbled me up, and she's been an elephant and given me rides, and we
were both polar bears, and growled at each other. Listen how I can growl
now--Ur-ur-ugh! Oh, and look what she's given me for my birthday! It
comes from Germany," producing from his pocket a little compass. "Now if
ever I get lost, I can always find my way home. See, I can show you
which is north, and south, and east, and west."
"You'd better be going back, Gerda," remarked Dulcie grimly. "You know
we're not allowed in the Castle grounds without a special invitation."
"I'll come through the side gate," replied Gerda, turning from Ronnie
without even a good-bye. Deirdre and Dulcie dropped from the wall, and
met their room-mate at the identical moment when she passed through the
turnstile.
"Well, of all mean people you're the meanest!" observed Deirdre. "I call
it sneaky to take such an advantage, and go to play with Ronnie by
yourself. We'd do it if it were allowed, but it isn't."
"I wonder his governess wasn't with him," said Dulcie. "He's generally
so very much looked after."
"And as for going inside the Castle garden, it was most fearful cheek,"
continued Deirdre. "We, who know Mrs. Trevellyan quite well, never think
of doing such a thing."
"What I call meanest," put in Dulcie, "was to try and curry favour with
Ronnie by giving him a birthday present on your own account. Miss Birks
said there were to be no separate presents: we were all to join, so that
there'd be no jealousy--and you wouldn't subscribe. Oh, you are a nasty,
hole-and-corner, underhand sneak! Have you anything to say for
yourself?"
But Gerda stumped resolutely along with her hands in her coat pockets,
and answered never a word.