The Fossil Hunters
If Miss Beasley had been asked what was her most difficult problem in
the management of her school, she would probably have replied the
arrangement of the practising time-table. With the exception of four,
all the girls learned music, and therefore, for a period of forty-five
minutes daily, each of these twenty-two pupils must do execution on
the piano. There were five instruments at the Grange, and, except
during the hours of morning lessons and meals, they hardly ever seemed
to be silent. At seven o'clock they began with scales, arpeggios, and
studies, and passed during the day through a selection of pieces,
classical and modern, in such various degrees of playing, strumming,
and thumping as might be calculated to wear out their hammers and snap
their strings in double quick time. About half of the girls learned
from Mademoiselle, and the remainder had lessons from Mr. Browne, a
visiting master who came twice a week to the school. He was a short
little man, with sandy hair, and a bald patch in the middle of it, and
a Vandyke beard that was turning rather grey. He was himself an
excellent musician, and sometimes the performances of his pupils
offended his sensitive ear to the point of exasperation, and he would
storm at them in a gurgling voice, blinking his short-sighted hazel
eyes very rapidly, and wrinkling up his forehead till it looked like
squeezed india-rubber. It was on record that he had once hit Lois
Barlow a hard crack over the knuckles with his fountain-pen, whereupon
she wept--not so much from pain as from injured feelings--and he had
apologized in quite a gentlemanly fashion, and picked up the music
that in his burst of temper he had flung upon the floor. In spite of
his acknowledged irritability, all the girls who learned from him gave
themselves airs of slight superiority over those who only learned from
Mademoiselle. Though strict, he was an inspiring teacher, and when, as
occasionally happened, he would push his pupil from the stool, and
seat himself in her place to show the proper rendering of some
passage, the music that followed was like a lovely liquid dream of
sound.
Professor Marshall also attended the school twice a week to lecture on
literature and natural science. He was a much greater general
favourite than Mr. Browne; everybody appreciated his affable manner
and bland smile, and the little jokes with which he punctuated his
remarks.
The girls always felt that it made a change to have anybody coming in
from the outside world. The one disadvantage of a boarding-school is
that mistresses and pupils, shut up together, and seeing one another
week in, week out, are rather apt to get on each others' nerves. At a
day school the girls take their worries home at four o'clock, and the
mental atmosphere has time to clear before nine next morning; but,
when there is no home-going until the end of the term, little trifles
are sometimes unduly magnified, and a narrow element--the bane of all
communities--begins to creep in. To do Miss Beasley justice, she made
a great effort to combat this very evil, and to run her school on
broad lines. She recognized the necessity of letting the girls mix
sometimes with outsiders. In a country place it was impossible to take
them to concerts or entertainments, but they occasionally joined the
rambles of the County Antiquarian Society or the local Natural History
Club.
It occurred to Miss Beasley that it would be an excellent plan to
throw open some of Professor Marshall's lectures to residents in the
neighbourhood, asking those people who attended to stay to tea
afterwards, thus giving her girls an opportunity of acting as
hostesses, and entertaining them with conversation. A short course of
four lectures on geology was announced, and quite a number of local
ladies responded to the invitation. The girls received the news with
mixed feelings.
"Rather a jink!" ventured Ardiune. "It'll be queer to see rows of
strangers sitting in the lecture room! Did you say we've to give them
tea when the Professor's done talking?"
"Yes, and talk to them ourselves too, worse luck! I'm sure I shan't
know what to say!" fluttered Aveline.
"Oh, the monitresses will do that part of the business!" decided
Raymonde easily. "We'll stand in the background, and just look
ladylike and well-mannered, and all the rest of it."
"Will you, my child? Not if the Bumble knows it! She's nuts on this
afternoon-tea dodge! (I don't care--I shan't put a penny in the slang
box--Hermie isn't here to listen and make me!) Gibbie told me that
we're all to act hostesses in turn. We're to be divided into four
sets, and each take a time."
"Help! How are you going to divide twenty-six by four? It works out at
six and a half. Who's to be the half girl?"
"Oh! They'll make it seven on one afternoon and six the next, I
expect."
"That's not fair! It's throwing too much work on those six and not
enough on the seven. It's opposed to all the instincts of co-operation
and justice which Gibbie has laboured so hard to instil into me."
"Don't see how the Bumble can manage otherwise, unless she chops a
girl in half. No, I predict you'll be chosen among a select six, and
have to pour out tea and hand cakes with one-sixth extra power laid
on, and your conversation carefully modulated to your hearers."
"Oh, Jemima!"
"Please to remember that this is a finishing school!" mocked Ardiune.
"Don't on any account shock the neighbourhood by an unseemly
exhibition of vulgar slang!"
"It'll slip out, I know, when I'm not thinking," groaned Raymonde.
On the first afternoon of the geological course, an audience of about
twenty visitors augmented the usual gathering in the lecture hall.
They were accommodated with the best seats, and the school occupied
the third and fourth rows. Directly in front of Raymonde sat an
elderly lady in a large black hat trimmed with cherries, which bobbed
temptingly over the brim. She appeared to take an interest in her
surroundings, glanced about the room, and turned a reproving eye on
Raymonde, who ventured to whisper to Aveline. With Miss Gibbs hovering
in the background with a now-mind-you-keep-up-the-credit-of-the-school
expression, the girls hardly dared even to blink, but Aveline managed
to write: "What a Tartar in front!" on a slip of paper, and hand it to
her chum.
The Professor, bland as ever, was coming into the room and hanging a
geological map over the blackboard. He smiled broadly, showing his
large white teeth to the uttermost, and, after a few preliminary
remarks of welcome to the visitors, plunged into a description of the
earth's crust.
All went well for a while; then an untoward incident happened. The
lady with the cherries in her hat, who had possibly taken cold, or was
affected by the pollen in the flowers upon the table, sneezed
violently, not only once, but twice, and even a third time.
"Three's for a wedding! Is it Gibbie?" whispered Raymonde the
incorrigible.
Aveline's mental equilibrium was always easily upset. The idea of Miss
Gibbs in connection with matrimony was too much for her, and she
exploded into a series of painfully suppressed giggles. The more she
tried to stop, the more hysterical she grew, especially as her lack of
self-control appeared to produce great agitation among the cherries on
the black hat in front. It was only by holding her breath till she
almost choked that she managed to avoid disgracing herself
absolutely.
As Morvyth had predicted, Raymonde was among the hostesses for the
afternoon. She rose admirably to the occasion, handed round cakes and
bread and butter, and talked sweetly to the guests on a variety of
topics. Aveline, also one of the chosen, though less agile in
conversation, tried to look "hospitable" and "welcoming," and cultured
and pretty-mannered and gracious, and everything else which might be
expected from a young lady at a finishing-school.
Miss Gibbs, who was keeping the deportment of the hostesses well under
inspection, beamed approval, but spurred them on to fresh efforts.
"See that nobody is neglected," she whispered. "Hand the cakes to that
lady who is standing by the piano; and you, Raymonde, take her the
cream."
The chums had instinctively avoided the owner of the black hat with
the cherries, but thus urged they were bound to fulfil their social
obligations. They offered a selection of ginger-nuts and fancy
biscuits, and the best silver cream-jug, and murmured some polite
nothings on the hackneyed subject of the weather. The lady helped
herself, and regarded them with an offended eye.
"I believe you're the two girls who sat behind me during the lecture!"
she remarked tartly. "I should like to say that I considered your
behaviour disgraceful. It would serve you right if I were to tell your
governess."
Overwhelmed with confusion, Raymonde and Aveline beat a hasty
retreat.
"Oh, dear! Does she think I was laughing at her?" whispered Aveline.
"What must I do? Ought I to go and explain and apologize? I simply
daren't!"
"She's a nasty old thing!" returned Raymonde in an indignant
undertone. "I hope she won't sneak to Gibbie! You can't explain. I
shouldn't go near her."
"Gibbie's working round towards the piano!"
"No, Mrs. Horner's stopped her."
Fortunately for the girls, at this moment Professor Marshall cleared
his throat violently, and, obtaining by this signal a temporary
respite in the babel of small talk, announced that on the following
Saturday afternoon he proposed to lead a party to Littlewood Quarry to
examine the geological formation there, and search for fossils. He
hoped that all the present company would be able to attend, as the
expedition would be of great educational value. The general
conversation in the room immediately turned upon geology. The black
hat with cherries bore down upon the Professor, and its owner plunged
into a lengthy discussion on the flora of the carboniferous period, so
apparently absorbing that it left her no opportunity to lodge
complaints as to the behaviour of the pupils. The chums, whose social
duties were now finished, slipped thankfully away to prep.
"I'm disgusted with the Professor!" groaned Morvyth. "It's too bad of
him to take up another of our precious Saturday afternoons with his
geology excursion. The tennis match will be all off now, and I know we
could have beaten the Sixth! I don't want to hunt for fossils! I'm
tired of continually having my mind improved!"
"We really don't get a fair chance for games at this school," Ardiune
grumbled in sympathy. "I wish Gibbie were sporting instead of
intellectual!"
It was really a grievance to the girls to be obliged to abandon tennis
on this occasion. The match between Sixth and Fifth had been a
fixture, and each side had hopes of its own champions. Daphne and
Barbara were good players, but Valentine and Muriel had been
practising early and late, and in the estimation of their own Form
were well in the running for victory. Even the juniors had looked
forward to witnessing the combat. Valentine, in her disappointment,
went so far as to suggest to Miss Gibbs that the match might claim
precedence over the excursion. The astonished mistress gazed at her
for a moment with blank face, then burst out:
"Give up the fossil hunt in favour of tennis! What nonsense! You ought
all to be deeply grateful to Professor Marshall for coming to take us.
You girls don't appreciate your privileges!"
"There's one compensation," urged Fauvette. "We shall walk through the
village, and, if we break line a little, it will give a chance for
somebody to dash into the shop and buy pear-drops. One had better do
it for us all, and get a pound. We'll pay up our shares, honest."
On the afternoon of Saturday, twenty-six rather apathetic geologists
started forth from the Grange. Each carried a basket, and a few, who
had scrambled first, had secured hammers. Miss Gibbs, armed with "An
Illustrated Catalogue of the Fossils in the Bradbury Museum," by
means of which she hoped to identify specimens, brought up the rear,
in company with Veronica, and the school crocodiled in orthodox
fashion as far as the village. Here they were met by the Vicar's wife
and daughter, and several other ladies who were to join the excursion.
The double line swayed and broke. Miss Gibbs's attention became
engaged by visitors, and, during the few minutes' halt, Raymonde, well
covered by her comrades, seized the golden opportunity, darted into
the shop, and emerged with a large packet hidden in her basket, before
mistress or monitresses had had time to miss her.
"Paradise drops!" she announced with gleeful caution. "Got them
because they were on the counter, and the quickest thing I could buy.
No, I daren't dole them out now. You must wait till we get to the
quarry. Gibbie'd notice you sucking them, you idiots!"
It was rather a long way to Littlewood. Much too far, in the girls'
opinion, though they would have thought nothing of the walk had they
been keener on its object.
"Shouldn't have minded so much if we'd come on a Thursday, and missed
French translation. Why had it to be Saturday?" groused Ardiune.
"Because Saturday's the only day the men aren't working in the quarry.
For goodness' sake, stop grumbling!" returned Hermie in her most
monitressy manner. "If you can't enjoy things yourself, let other
people have a chance, at any rate!"
Duly snubbed, Ardiune subsided, and tramped on in silence, her
discontent slightly alleviated by the prospect of Paradise drops, for
Raymonde was rattling the basket suggestively to cheer her up. Extra
visitors joined the party here and there upon the way, and outside
Littlewood village the Professor himself was waiting for them, beaming
as usual, and carrying a most professional-looking hammer, and a
little bass for specimens. He greeted them with one of his customary
jokes, and they smiled obediently, more out of habit than
inclination.
The quarry proved more exciting than they had anticipated. It was a
large place, and to get down into it they were obliged to descend
several steep ladders, leading from one platform to another. Arrived
at the bottom level, Professor Marshall collected his students in a
group round him, and delivered a lecturette upon the points to be
noticed in the strata surrounding them. Raymonde listened sadly. It
seemed to her an unprofitable way of spending a Saturday afternoon.
She brightened, however, when the audience dispersed to commence
practical work.
"Come along!" she whispered to her chums. "Let's scoot over there and
begin to chop rocks! Quick!"
"Where are the Paradise drops?" enquired the others eagerly.
"Don't worry, I have them safe. Only wait till Gibbie's back is
turned."
Though they were decidedly tired of lectures, the girls nevertheless
were quite mildly interested in searching for fossils. There was an
element of competition about it which appealed to them, and when
Hermie found a fine specimen of _Cupressocrinus crassus_, the Fifth
felt that they must not be outdone.
"We haven't got anything really decent yet!" sighed Aveline, watching
with envious eyes as Hermie exhibited her treasure to the admiring
visitors. "The Sixth are cackling ever so hard."
"Let's go over there," suggested Raymonde. "No one's explored that bit
of the quarry. We might find all sorts of things."
The Mystic Seven, who generally clung together in their undertakings,
scaled a ladder therefore, climbed a mound of refuse, and found
themselves on new ground. They dispersed, and each searched to the
best of her ability among the pieces of crumbly rock that were lying
about. Aveline, absorbed in splitting strata with her hammer, was
suddenly disturbed by a piercing yell and a shout of "Help!" She ran
at once in the direction of the screams, and round the corner
discovered Raymonde, sunk nearly to her waist in a kind of clay bog.
"Help me!" she implored. "I can't get out. The more I try, the deeper
I seem to sink in."
"Don't struggle, then; wait a minute," said Aveline, advancing on to
some firm-looking stones and stretching out a hand. "Can you manage
now?"
Raymonde made a desperate but futile effort. "No, I'm stuck
tight--can't move my legs."
"Don't pull me, or I'll be in too! Now, I'm going to tug one of your
legs out! That's it! Now the other! Here you are! Good gracious! What
a mess you're in!"
Arrived on firm ground, Raymonde certainly looked a deplorable
object. Her feet were two shapeless lumps of wet clay. She regarded
them with rueful consternation. Ardiune came running up, and, being of
a practical turn of mind, set to work to scrape her friend clean with
a thin piece of stone. She succeeded in removing the bulk of the
matter adhering to her, but there still remained a most unsightly
coating of mud.
"What were you doing to get yourself in such a fix?" she asked.
"I don't know. It looked quite solid, and then, when I stepped on it,
I just sank in--squash! I might have been swallowed up in it and
killed, if Ave hadn't tugged me out!"
"You look a nice object to walk home with!" giggled Aveline. "What'll
Gibbie say?"
What Miss Gibbs remarked when she saw the state of her pupil's
garments was:
"Really, Raymonde, I might have known you would be sure to do some
stupid thing! No other girl in the school has fallen into the mud. Why
didn't you keep with the rest, and look where you were going? You're
more trouble than everybody else put together. If you can't behave
yourself when you come on an excursion, you must be left behind to do
some preparation."
The Mystics consoled their leader as best they could, offering her
their last remaining Paradise drops, and walking in a clump round her
through the village to shield her from observation. Ardiune, who was
poetically inclined, thought the occasion worthy of being celebrated
in verse, and at bedtime handed Raymonde the following effusion,
illustrated with spirited sketches in black lead-pencil, representing
her with clay-covered feet of gigantic proportions.
Raymonde, a nice and cheerful child
Who seldom wept and often smiled,
Was taken by her teachers kind
A jaunt, to elevate her mind.
By lengthy ladders undismayed,
Behold her seek the quarry's shade,
With firm resolve to hit and hew,
And find a fossil fern or two.
She rapped the rocks with anxious pick,
And scooped the ammonites out quick,
But as she rang her brief tap-tap
There chanced to her a sad mishap.
Urged on by hope of fossil round,
She stepped on some perfidious ground,
So now behold our luckless Ray
Plunged in the midst of horrid clay.
The mud had nearly reached her waist,
She called aloud in frantic haste:
"I sink, I sink in quagmire sable,
To free myself I am unable!"
Her friend, who hurried to her shout,
Had much ado to drag her out.
See! thick with mud and faint with fright,
She bravely bears her woeful plight.
Her tender teacher's anxious fears
She soothes, and dries her friends' fond tears,
Declaring, with a courage calm,
The outing had been worth th' alarm.
"Humph! Good for you, Ardiune!" commented Raymonde. "Not much
tenderness about Gibbie, though! And I didn't see anybody's fond
tears! You all laughed at me! My feet weren't a yard long, anyway!"
"Poetic and artistic license allows a few slight exaggerations. Even
Shakespeare took liberties with his subjects!" returned the authoress
blandly. "If not exactly a yard long, your feet, not small by nature,
looked absolutely enormous! It's the truth!"