Stars and Stripes
If Diana was possessed with a passion for antiquities, she might
certainly congratulate herself that a kindly fate had popped her into
such an appropriate spot as Pendlemere Abbey. It offered every
attraction to those in search of the romantic and picturesque. The
Cistercian monks who had founded it in the thirteenth century had
exhibited their proverbial good taste in the choice of a situation. It
was built on rising ground above the lake, and commanded a glorious view
across the fells. The garden, with its hill-side of rhododendrons, its
clumps of sweet-smelling pines, and its borders of such hardy flowers as
did not mind the nip of the northern air, ran steeply from a flat
terrace towards the lake, where it ended in a landing-stage and a locked
boat-house. Its orchard linked branches with the apple-trees of a
neighbouring farm. The house itself, though preserving the name and the
traditions of the Abbey, had been converted during Tudor times from
religious to lay uses. Very little of the old monks' building remained
intact, though evidences of it cropped up in unexpected quarters. There
were the remains of a piscina in the pantry; a groined arch roofed the
back kitchen; two carved stone pillars supported the fire-place in the
dining-room; a Gothic doorway led into the courtyard, and the remnants
of some ancient choir stalls were fitted as a window-seat on the stairs.
The Tudor and Elizabethan periods had left more permanent traces, and,
though later architects had played havoc with the simplicity of the
style, they had not altogether destroyed its sixteenth-century
appearance. The greater part was built of northern stone, with mullioned
windows, twisted chimneys, peaked gables surmounted with stone balls,
and a roof of flat slabs of the same yellow-brown stone that formed the
walls. A section of black and white timbered Elizabethan work, a Queen
Anne wing, and some early Victorian alterations made a strange
conglomeration of styles of architecture; but the roses and ivy had
climbed up and clothed ancient and modern alike, and Time had softened
the jarring nineteenth-century additions, so that the whole now blended
into a mellow, brownish mass, with large, bright windows enclosed in a
frame of well-clipped greenery.
There was accommodation in the roomy old house for twenty boarders, and
though no day pupils were supposed to be received a special exception
had been made in the case of Meg and Elsie Fleming, the Vicar's
daughters, who arrived every morning by nine o'clock, and Nell Gledhill,
whose governess brought her each Friday afternoon for dancing-lessons.
So far the school had jogged along very happily under Mrs. Gifford's
mild regime. Fathers and mothers had sometimes shrugged their shoulders
and hinted that her methods were old-fashioned, but they always added
that the tone of the place was so excellent, and the health of the
pupils so well looked after, that there was really no just cause for
complaint. Miss Todd, sitting in her study, and writing twenty neat,
well-thought-out letters to explain the sudden transfer of the school,
assured parents that, while preserving all the traditions of her
predecessor, she hoped to introduce a modern element of progress in
keeping with the needs of the day. "I realize that we must march with
the times," she wrote; and she meant it. She began her innovations on
that very first day. Several disconsolate seniors congregated on the
upper landing viewed change number one with dismay.
"But Mrs. Gifford promised that Geraldine and Ida and I might have the
East room," urged Nesta Erskine. "It was all arranged last term, and we
clubbed together to buy a bookcase. What are we to do with it if we're
separated? It belongs to us all three."
"I can't help it; those are Miss Todd's orders," answered Miss Beverley
briskly. "Your names are on cards pinned on to the doors of your new
rooms. Pass along at once, and find your quarters and begin to unpack.
Don't stand here blocking up the passage! Yes, Betty? Miss Hampson wants
to speak to me? Tell her I'm coming now."
As Miss Beverley bustled away the seniors moved slowly and forlornly
along the landing in quest of billets. It reminded them of finding their
places in an examination-room. Their names were unquestionably on the
doors in black-and-white, but their distribution called forth a storm of
indignant comment.
"I'm actually put with Tattie Clegg and Jess Paget!"
"And I'm boxed up with Dorothy, and Nora Haddon, and Glynne Hamilton!"
"Why, we're all mixed up with the kids!"
"Look here, you know, we can't stand this kind of thing!"
"Somebody had better go to Miss Todd!"
"It's no use; I've just been," said Loveday Seton, joining the group of
malcontents. "We had it all out in the study, and she listened quite
kindly and politely, but she was firm as nails. She says it's an
experiment for the sake of good tone, and she hopes it will work well.
We seniors are sandwiched up with intermediates and juniors so that our
influence may permeate through the school."
The five listeners groaned.
"Couldn't we permeate enough during the daytime?" sniffed Ida. "I don't
see what influence I can have while I'm asleep. I call it a jolly
nuisance to be saddled with three kids in one's room."
"Of course you have your curtains."
"What's the use of curtains? A cubicle's only semi-private after all.
What it means is that we seniors are always on duty policing those
juniors. What a life!"
"Where are you put, Loveday?" asked Geraldine.
"In the little ivy room upstairs. There are two beds, and I'm to act
mentor to this new American girl who's just arrived."
"Poor you! What's she like?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her yet, but I wish she were at Jericho."
In a decidedly ruffled frame of mind, Loveday passed along the landing,
and climbed the stairs that led to the ivy room. She found her room-mate
already in possession, and with her belongings half-unpacked. Photos
adorned her dressing-table, a large American flag draped the mirror, and
her bed was spread with odds and ends. She smiled broadly as Loveday
entered.
"So here you are!" she greeted her. "Goody! What a relief! I've been
worrying about what you'd be like, and just praying you wouldn't have
spectacles and talk with a lisp. Miss Todd gave me to understand you
were a peach, and I might think myself in luck to room with you, but you
never can trust head mistresses till you see for yourself. She's told me
the truth, though, after all. Yes, I like you right straight away, and I
always make up my mind about people, slap bang off at once."
Loveday stared in surprise at the impetuous little figure kneeling
beside the big trunk. Diana's dark-grey eyes shone like stars, her oval
face, if not exactly pretty, was piquant and interesting, her
light-brown hair curled at the tips. It was, of course, an unheard-of
liberty for a new girl, and an intermediate to boot, thus to address a
senior, but the greeting was spontaneous and decidedly flattering. The
grey eyes, in fact, expressed open admiration. On the whole, Loveday
decided to waive ceremony and tradition for the nonce.
"We've been put together for the term, so we must make the best of each
other," she conceded, more graciously than she had intended to address
the interloper. "I'm glad to see you've kept to your own side of the
room, and haven't overflowed into mine."
"No fear!" chuckled Diana. "I've been at school before, and learnt not
to spread myself out. We're on rather a short allowance of space, aren't
we? Are these drawers all I've got? I shall have just to wedge my things
in. There's my cabin trunk to come yet."
"You may have three pegs in the landing cupboard, and a locker in the
cloak-room, but anything else will have to be stored in the box-room. I
should think you had enough clothes there to last you a year, instead of
wanting another trunk full."
Diana shook her head.
"They're all mixed up. We packed in half an hour. I just flung in the
first things that came to hand. Cousin Cora promised to send on the
rest of my luggage after me. If she doesn't, I'd best 'phone."
"You'd have a little difficulty to do that," said Loveday dryly.
"D'you mean to say there's no 'phone here, or"--looking round the
room--"no electric light either?"
"Certainly not. We go to bed with candles."
"Well! I wanted mediaeval ways, and it looks as if I was going to get
them. It'll be rather a stunt to go to bed by candle-light. Are there
any ghosts about this place? Or skeletons built into the wall? Or
dungeons with rusting chains? Or mysterious footsteps? Oh! I thought
there'd have been at least something spooky in a house that claims to be
six hundred years old."
Diana's cabin trunk arrived in the course of a few days. She sorted out
a selection of her numerous belongings, arranged them in her limited
number of drawers, and consigned the surplus back to her boxes to be
stored in the attic. This done, and a telegram received to announce the
safe arrival of her father and mother in Paris, she seemed prepared to
settle down. Her fellow intermediates, biased largely by her generosity
in the matter of chocolates, gave her, on the whole, a favourable
reception. Wendy even went further, and proffered friendship.
"You're just the jolly kind of girl I like," she explained. "I think we
might have some topping times together, and wake up the school. Things
are apt to get a little dull sometimes."
Diana nodded intelligently.
"I know. It was just the same at my last school. Everyone got into a
sort of stick-in-the-mud mood, and one felt it was only _kind_ to stir
them up. I guess I did it!"
"I shouldn't wonder if you did," twinkled Wendy. "I vote we make an
alliance, and, if one of us thinks of any rather ripping rag, she just
tells the other, and we'll play it off together."
"Right you are! Let's shake on it!" agreed Diana, extending a small,
slim hand, with a garnet birthstone-ring on the middle finger.
The little American did not fit into her niche at Pendlemere without
encountering a certain amount of what her schoolmates considered
necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of
chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of "Stars and Stripes",
or "The Yank", and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic
accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee
that laid the jokers flat.
"One can't get much change out of Diana," commented Magsie, after an
unsuccessful onslaught of teasing.
"I think she's a scream," agreed Vi.
The baffling part of the new schoolmate was that her powers of acting
were so highly developed that it was impossible to tell whether she was
serious or playing a part. She "took in" her teasers times out of
number, and in fairness they deserved all they got. Towards the end of
the first week she came into the intermediate room one morning fondling
a letter.
"From Paris," she vouchsafed. "Dad and Mother have got anchored at last.
The journey must have been a startler. Paris is so full of Americans,
it's like a little New York."
"Why do you call it 'Parr-is'?" sniggered Sadie.
"It's more like the French than your way of saying it, at any rate,"
retorted Diana smartly. "This letter's been four days in coming
through."
"You might give me the stamp."
"Certainly not. You don't deserve it. I wish I were in Paris, too. Yes,
I shall call it 'Parr-is'. I'm beginning to want some of my own folks."
"I've never met any Americans, except you," volunteered Vi. "What are
they like?"
"What do you imagine they're like?"
"Like the pictures of 'Uncle Sam', with a limp shirt front, and a big
tie, and a goatee beard. I want to meet some real out-and-out Yankees."
"Won't your cousins from Petteridge ever come over to see you, Di?"
asked Magsie.
"Perhaps they may, sometime," replied Diana thoughtfully. "I should say
it's quite within the bounds of possibility, considering they only live
ten miles away."
"Gee-whiz! I guess I'd just admire to make their acquaintance!" mocked
Vi. "I reckon they'll be _some_ folks!"
Diana's eyes were fixed upon her with an inscrutable look, but she
answered quite calmly:
"I'll take care to introduce you if they come."
It was in the course of the next few days that a parcel for Diana
arrived from Petteridge Court. What it contained nobody saw except
herself, for she did her unpacking in private. Judging from certain
outbursts of chuckling, the exact cause of which she steadily refused to
reveal, the advent of her package gave her profound satisfaction. The
next Saturday afternoon was wet: one of those hopelessly wet days that
are apt to happen in a land of lakes and hills. Banks of mist obscured
the fells; the garden walks were turned to running rivers, the bushes
dripped dismally, and cascades poured from the gutters. The school,
which had been promised a country tramp, looked out of the windows with
woeful disappointment. The seniors consoled themselves by holding a
committee meeting, from which all but their elect selves were rigidly
excluded. The juniors took possession of the play-room, and relieved
their spirits by games which made the maximum of noise. Several of the
intermediates peeped in, but, finding the place a mixture of a
bear-garden and the Tower of Babel, they retired to the sanctuary of
their own form-room, where they sat making half-hearted efforts to read
or paint, and grousing at the weather.
"Is _every_ Saturday going to be wet?" demanded Magsie in an injured
voice.
"Seems like it!" mourned Jess Paget. "Of course it can be beautifully
fine on Friday, when we have to stop in and do dancing; and it just
keeps all the rain for Saturday. I call it spiteful! I wish I knew what
to do with myself. I'm moping."
"Get a book out of the library."
"I loathe reading."
"Do some painting."
"You know I can't paint."
"Go and romp with the juniors."
"I'd as soon spend an hour in a monkey-house."
"Then I can't do anything for you, I'm afraid. You'll just have to
mope."
"Where's Sadie?" asked Peggy Collins. "She promised to give me back my
crochet-needle, and I can't get on without it."
"She went off with Diana and Wendy half an hour ago. I saw them running
upstairs together. Don't flatter yourself she'll remember about your
crochet-needle."
"I know she won't--the slacker! I shall just have to go and rout her up,
and make her find it. Oh, kafoozalum! It's a weary world!"
Peggy rose languidly, stretched her arms, and strolled in the direction
of the door, which at that identical moment opened to admit the missing
Sadie.
"Here, you old blighter, where's that crochet-needle?" demanded Peggy
impolitely.
"Bother your crochet-needle! I've no time to go and hunt for it now. I
say, girls!" continued Sadie excitedly; "anybody know what's become of
Diana? She's wanted. Those American cousins of hers have turned up. I
told them she was in here, and they're waiting outside the door. Oh!"
Sadie's exclamation was caused by the door, which she had carefully
closed suddenly opening, and nearly knocking her over. Apparently the
visitors did not approve of being left to wait in the passage, and
judged it expedient to make an entrance.
"Excuse me if we walk right in," said a nasal-toned voice; "but I was
told we'd find Miss Diana Hewlitt in here."
The five girls, scattered about the room, stared for a second in blank
amazement at the intruders. They were certainly unlike any other
visitors who had ever come to Pendlemere. The speaker was a little,
short, wiry man, in a slack-fitting, brown tweed suit, with a rather
obtrusive striped tie. His raggy, grey beard straggled under his chin
and up to his ears; his eyes twinkled through a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles; in defiance of European etiquette, he wore his hat over a
crop of rough, grey hair. Clinging to his arm was a very stout lady in a
green coat and a velvet turban adorned with feathers. She also was
grey-haired, and her features were somewhat obscured by a thick, black
veil. The most prominent thing about her was a large and obtruding
tooth, which gave her somewhat the appearance of a good-natured walrus;
she held a morocco-leather satchel in her unoccupied hand, and wore a
large feather-boa round her neck.
Magsie, to her eternal credit, was the first to remember her manners,
and offer some sort of a greeting to the extraordinary strangers.
"Er--good afternoon!" she stammered. "I'm afraid Diana isn't here.
Shall--shall I go and fetch her?"
"Well, now, I'd call that real elegant of you," returned the stout lady
heartily. "We can't stay long, and we don't want to waste time."
"Cora, I guess we'd best introduce ourselves," observed the gentleman,
gently disengaging her from his arm. "We're Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Burritt
of Petteridge Court. I reckon you're Diana's schoolfellows? Pleased to
meet you, I'm sure."
"Did you have a wet drive?" asked Jess Paget, making a desperate and
most gallant attempt to pump up some item of conversation.
The stout lady shook her head eloquently.
"I _do_ say that in the matter of weather a British wet day just about
takes the cake!" she replied.
Her voice was slightly tremulous and muffled; perhaps the weather
agitated her. Moreover, her large tooth seemed to cause her some
inconvenience--it wobbled visibly as she spoke.
"If Diana don't turn up, I guess we'll have to be getting on," ventured
Mr. Elihu Burritt, pulling out a big watch and consulting it. "We've
got to call at the drug store at Glenbury, and time presses."
"Magsie's gone to fetch her. Peggy, you go too, and hurry her up. Won't
you sit down while you're waiting?" asked Jess, pulling forward two
chairs.
The visitors seated themselves, that is to say, they sank heavily down,
and planted their hands on their knees. Their eyes took an interested
review of the embarrassed faces of the girls, then they suddenly
collapsed into gurgles of laughter. An instant wave of comprehension
swept through the room.
"Diana and Wendy!" exclaimed a chorus of voices.
Mr. Elihu Burritt was guffawing to such an extent that his hat, and the
venerable locks stitched inside it, tumbled to the ground, revealing a
crop of brown hair. Mrs. Cora had lost her tooth altogether, and her
turban was tilted to a most disreputable angle. She slapped her partner
on the back, and commanded, between sobs of mirth:
"Elihu--stop laughing! I guess we'd best wangle ourselves off!"
But the girls had crowded round to examine the details of the costumes.
"They're topping!" they approved. "Absolutely A1! Can't think how you
did it! Diana, where did you get those togs?"
"Sent to Petteridge for them," exulted Diana. "They came in that parcel.
It's an old suit of Cousin Hugh's. I told Cousin Coralie I wanted it to
dress up in. The beard's just made out of tow, and so's Wendy's hair.
Flatter myself I came up to your expectations of a real backwoods Yank.
I wonder if I'd take in Miss Todd. I'd give a hundred dollars to try.
But it might be rather a risky experiment. Don't you think my old girl
is a peach? I'm nuts on her!"
"I simply shouldn't have known you, Wendy," said Jess. "How did you make
yourself so fat?"
"I'm stuffed out with all sorts of things," laughed Wendy. "Vests, and
nightdresses, and stockings, and anything we could lay our hands on.
I'm specially padded over the shoulders. The toque is one of Diana's
hats turned inside out with some feathers pinned on. The tooth? Why,
that was a piece of india-rubber tucked inside my lip. It was fearfully
difficult to make it stick, I can tell you. It kept jiggling about when
I tried to talk. Elihu, old man, shall we dance a tickle-toe?"
"Stop, you mad creatures! If you make such a racket you'll be bringing
Bunty down upon us," interposed Magsie, as the masquerading couple
twirled each other round and round. "If you want to be ready in time for
tea, you'd better go and get out of those weird garments."
"I'd like to go down to tea in them," declared Diana. "What a lovely
sensation they'd make! Magsie, just peep out and see that the coast is
clear before we make a dash for it along the passage. It might upset
Bunty's nerves if she met us."
As it happened, during the very next week Diana received a visit from
her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Burritt of Petteridge Court. They arrived in
their Daimler car, and lunched with the school. They were the very
epitome of cultured and polished America, and the girls raved over them.
After half an hour of their company, seven intermediates had determined
to mould themselves absolutely on the lines of "Cousin Coralie", and to
marry exact replicas of Mr. Burritt. It was felt that ambition could
soar no higher.
"I'm glad you like them," said Diana, as she stood on the steps with
some of her friends watching the Daimler pass out through the gate. "I
thought you would--when they really turned up. That was why I wanted you
to see 'Cousin Elihu' and 'Cousin Cora' first. They were more your idea
of typical Americans, weren't they? Ah!"--shaking her head
commiseratingly--"that's because you benighted Britishers just don't
know anything about the _real_ America."