A Sinister Incident
'Twixt home and The Gables, Lorraine found her life that autumn a very
busy one. As head girl, the demands made on her time were considerable.
She sometimes thought it would have been easier to be at a boarding
school, where her whole energies could have been focused upon school
matters; private interests, though very enthralling, were certainly a
hindrance. And there were so many of them--her painting lessons and
delightful intimacy with Margaret Lindsay, and the rich art world that
had thereby opened its doors to her; an increasing friendship with
Morland Castleton, whose musical genius spurred her on to fresh efforts
at her violin; her affection for Claudia and for the rest of the merry
crew of the Castleton family; to say nothing of the dear home people who
claimed her attention: Richard and Donald fighting in France, Rodney
making his first flights in the Air Force, Rosemary hard at work in the
college of music, and writing ecstatic weekly budgets of her
experiences, Mervyn with his fun and nonsense and gossip from the
Grammar School, and Monica, who was the spoilt darling of the family.
Whatever her faults, Lorraine possessed to the full that intense zest of
life that the French call "using up one's heart". It is a gift
that--thank God!--the war has given to most of our British girlhood. The
old, fashionable attitude of boredom, that at one time spread like a
blight over certain classes of society, is happily passing away, purged
by the common need of sacrifice. It is incredible that at one time girls
could exist in this world, possessed of eyes and ears, and pass by the
touching, dramatic, joyous human comedy as though they were blind and
deaf. All the things we learn at school are of no value to us unless
with them we learn to love life--life in all its aspects of joy and
sorrow, laughter and tears, work and pleasure.
There was so much going on at The Gables, both in lessons and games. The
hockey season had begun, and every Wednesday afternoon the school played
in a field on the cliffs which they rented; under the coaching of Miss
Paget, a new mistress, the teams were improving. Dorothy as captain made
a much better leader than Helen Stanley had done a year ago, and Patsie
and Vivien as half-backs were considered rising stars. The second team,
which hitherto had been rather contemptible, raised its standard to an
amazing extent, and seemed to promise great things. The girls began to
look forward to Wednesdays.
One bright sunny afternoon in early November they were assembled on the
field. In their navy serge skirts and scarlet jerseys they made a bright
patch of colour against the green of the grass and the autumn blue of
the sky and the grey-blue expanse of sea that spread beneath the yellow
cliffs. It was a pretty scene, with a background of late-flowering gorse
bushes and a foreground of corn marigold that edged the field. The
sunshine fell on the athletic figures and hatless heads of the teams. A
very pretty scene indeed, and so evidently thought a dark-faced,
clean-shaven individual who was dodging about the gate, busy with a
camera. He fixed a stand, put his head repeatedly under a black velvet
cloth, and was apparently focusing upon the groups of players. The girls
noticed him, and pointed him out to Miss Paget. The dragon in her was at
once roused to wrath, and she advanced in defence of her flock.
"May I ask on what authority you're taking photographs of this school?"
she asked icily.
The stranger was all smiles and civility. He displayed an excellent set
of teeth as, with a decidedly foreign bow and flourish of his hat, he
offered a plausible explanation.
"I ask your pardon, Madam! I am an American--a journalist. I have been
sent by my newspaper to England to write an article upon Girls' Schools.
I have heard of yours, and wish to include it in my report, with a photo
of its pupils. I crave your permission to take a snapshot of the game."
Miss Paget stared at him with suspicion. She was a good judge of
character, and had studied types of nationality; moreover, she had
herself spent six months in the United States. The man's physiognomy and
accent were anything but American. She would set them down as decidedly
Teutonic.
"Certainly not!" she replied. "Miss Kingsley would not dream of
permitting it."
"But I have permission from Miss Kingsley!" he fawned. "I am to send her
photos."
"Miss Kingsley did not mention the matter to me, and unless I have her
express directions I cannot allow it. Will you kindly remove your
camera?"
"Just one little snapshot!" he begged insinuatingly.
"You've interrupted our game. Will you please go? And I must remind you
that this is a military area, and that, unless you have a signed permit
for photography, you are liable to be arrested."
"Oh, that is all right! I have the credentials of my newspaper, as well
as the assent of Miss Kingsley."
Miss Paget's temper, which had been rapidly rising, now fizzed over.
"If you don't take yourself off, I'll send some of my pupils to fetch
the coast-guard!" she thundered.
With an apologetic shrug of the shoulders the interloper packed up his
camera and departed, not without trying to secure a hurried
surreptitious snapshot with a small kodak, an effort which was nipped in
the bud by Miss Paget, who stood like a sentry at the gate, speeding his
departure. She watched him till he was safely out of sight and then
joined the excited girls, some of whom had overheard the conversation.
"That's no American!" she proclaimed. "And I don't for a moment believe
that he had permission from Miss Kingsley to photograph the school."
"She'd have said so, surely," commented Vivien.
"Probably he didn't even know her name till you mentioned it, Miss
Paget," said Lorraine.
"He's a foreigner in my opinion--possibly a spy," continued the
mistress. "This field would make a most excellent landing-place for
enemy aircraft. One can't be too careful in these matters--living as we
do near the coast, in a military zone. The cheek of the man, too! Calmly
to set up his camera and begin to take us without asking leave! Even in
times of peace it would be unpardonable. I must say I have the very
strongest suspicions of his intentions."
"It seems rather the wrong time for an American magazine to be wanting
an article on English Girls' Schools," said Patsie.
"It's the most flimsy excuse."
The affair made quite a sensation in the school. Miss Kingsley, when
the matter was reported to her, disclaimed all knowledge of the
photographer or any commission to him to take the hockey teams. She was
justly indignant, and almost thought of mentioning the incident to the
police. The girls talked the affair threadbare. They were quite sure
they had had an encounter with a spy. Their suspicions were further
justified in the course of a few days by an experience of Lorraine's.
She was going by train on Saturday morning to Ranock, a little place a
few miles from Porthkeverne, whither her mother had sent her to return
some books to a friend who lived near the station. There were several
other people in the compartment; and sitting in the corner on the side
next to the sea was a man whom Lorraine was nearly sure she recognized
as the pertinacious stranger of the hockey field. She watched him now
keenly. He was gazing out of the window at the sand-hills and stretches
of marshy shore. Presently they passed the golf links, and, quick as
thought, he whisked a little kodak from his pocket and began to take
instantaneous photographs through the carriage window. Lorraine uttered
an exclamation and nudged the gentleman who sat next to her. Promptly he
interfered.
"Look here! Snapshots aren't allowed without a permit," he remonstrated.
The photographer slipped the kodak back into his pocket and smiled his
former plausible smile.
"I am an American," he began, "a journalist. I have been sent by my
newspaper to England, to write an article upon golf links. I wish to
include those of Porthkeverne, with illustrations."
"Have you a permit?" persisted his fellow-passenger. "You'll get
yourself into trouble if you haven't. The authorities are uncommonly
strict about it."
"It's a queer dodge to photograph the golf links from a railway
carriage," commented someone else.
"Not at all! I take hundreds of photos for my magazine in this way,"
explained the self-styled journalist.
"Well, you'll just not take any now," returned the other. "If you do, I
shall inform the guard."
Lorraine listened excitedly. She was quite loath to leave the
compartment at Ranock. She wondered to what destination the man was
travelling, and hoped that the other passengers would keep an eye on
him. She went that afternoon to see her uncle, Barton Forrester, who was
a special constable, and told him about both incidents. He looked
thoughtful.
"I'll report the matter to Wakelin," he commented. "One can't be too
careful in a place like this. Of course the fellow might have a permit,
but it had better be inquired into. Give me as accurate a description of
him as you can."
Lorraine shut her eyes, visualized, and gave her impressions of the
stranger. Uncle Barton rapidly jotted down a few notes. He communicated
the result to the chief constable, who issued an order that the next
time anyone answering to that description was sighted his photographic
permit was to be demanded and inspected. There is such a thing, however,
as shutting the stable door after the steed is stolen; and, in spite of
the vigilance of the local police, nothing further was seen or heard of
the enterprising photographer. He had evidently betaken himself and his
camera to other scenes of adventure.
The school talked about the episode for a while with bated breath, then
forgot it in the whirl of other interests. It was getting near Christmas
time, and there was ever so much to be done in preparation. The
excitement of the moment was the rhythmic dancing display. All the term
a teacher had been coming weekly from St. Cyr, and those lucky
individuals who were members of the dancing class had had the time of
their lives. Of course the musical ones, and those with some idea of the
poetry of motion, scored the most, but even those who were not naturally
graceful enjoyed the movements.
Miss Kingsley had decided that her pupils should give a display of what
they had learnt, and invited an audience of parents and friends to the
gymnasium on breaking-up day. The performance was to begin at three
o'clock, and long before that hour the proud band of selected artistes,
arrayed in their costumes, were assembled ready in the small studio
which served as a dressing-room. There were a good many of them, and the
space was limited, so it was a decided cram.
"Everybody seems to take up so much more room than usual to-day,"
declared Patsie, flinging out a long arm with a floral garland, and
hitting Effie Swan by accident in the eye.
"Of course they do, when they're as clumsy as you are," retorted that
distressed damsel, with her handkerchief to the injured orb. "I call you
the absolute limit, Patsie--you're fit for nothing but a barn dance!
Clogs would suit you better than sandals."
"Gently, child, gently! Sorry if I've hurt your eye, but don't let that
warp your judgment. The Flower Quadrille's going to be rather choice,
though I say it as shouldn't."
"The others' part of it, perhaps, but not yours."
"There, don't get excited! I forgive you!"
"It's for me to forgive, not for you, I think!" grumbled Effie. "A nice
object I shall look dancing with my eye all red and inflamed!"
"I wish the gym. were a larger room!" groused Theresa. "The dances would
have a much better effect if there were more space for them, and I
should like a parquet floor."
"What else would you like?" snapped Lorraine. "Some people would grumble
in Paradise. The old gym.'s not such a bad place for a performance, and
the floor has been chalked. I think myself it's a very decent sort of
room. Would you like to dance on the lawn?"
"Not in December, thanks!"
"Are you ready, girls?" asked Miss Paget, opening the door. "Miss
Leighton has just come, and we're going to begin."
There was no doubt that the dances were extremely pretty. Miss Leighton
was an excellent teacher, and her pupils did her credit. The audience
was charmed, and clapped with the utmost enthusiasm at the end of each
performance. There was a Daisy Dance, in which twelve little girls,
dressed to represent daisies, went through a series of very graceful
movements; and a Rose Gavotte that was equally pretty and tasteful. A
Butterflies' Ball, in which the dancers waved gorgeous wings of painted
muslin, was highly effective; and so was the Russian Mazurka, given by
Vivien and Dorothy, attired in fur-trimmed costumes and high scarlet
leather boots. The babies looked sweet in a Doll Dance, and little
Beatrice Perry made a sensation by her _pas seul_ as "Cupid", dressed in
a classic toga with the orthodox bow and arrows. She was a beautifully
made child of six, and danced barefooted, so she looked the part
admirably, and quite carried the audience by storm.
Monica, with floating fair hair, a figured muslin dress and a basket of
flowers, capered as a "Spring Wind" and dropped blossoms in the path of
"April"; even Patsie, the overgrown, looked quite pretty in her Flower
Quadrille. But everybody decided that the star of the afternoon was
Claudia. She was beautiful to begin with, and her forget-me-not costume
suited her exactly. Perhaps her long experience in posing as a model for
her father's pictures made it easier for her to learn the right
postures. She had dropped into the rhythmic dancing as into a
birthright; her movements seemed the very embodiment of natural grace,
and to watch her was like surprising the fairies at dawn, or the dryads
and oreads in a classic forest. The best of Claudia was that she was
quite without self-consciousness. She danced because she enjoyed it, not
to command admiration. She received the storm of clapping quite as a
matter of course, just as she took the exhibition of her many portraits
in the Academy.
"I'd give anything to have your face," said Patsie enviously to her
afterwards. "Some folks are luckers! Why wasn't _I_ born pretty? It
gives people such a tremendous pull!"
"I don't know," answered Claudia, rather taken aback at the question.
"Look here!" said Lorraine; "we've got to take the faces our mothers
gave us. Haven't you heard of a beautiful _plain_ person? I know several
who haven't a single decent feature, and yet somehow they're lovely in
spite of it all. Some of the most fascinating women in the world have
been plain--George Sand hadn't an atom of beauty, and yet she enthralled
two such geniuses as Chopin and Alfred de Musset."
"I'll go in for fascination, then," rattled on Patsie. "We can't all be
in the same style. Claudia shall do the Venus business, and I'll be a
what-do-you-call-it? Siren?"
"Oh, no! Sirens were wretches!"
"Why, I thought they were only a sort of mermaid! Well, I'll be very
modern--chic, and _spirituelle_, and witty, and _fin-de-siècle_ and all
the rest of it; and I'll have a salon like those French women used to
have, and everybody'll want to come to it, and talk about the charming
Miss Sullivan, only perhaps I'll be Mrs. Somebody by that time! I hope
so, at any rate. I don't mean to be left in the lurch, if I can help
it!"
"What shall you do if you are?" laughed Lorraine.
"Go in for a career, my dear!" said Patsie airily. "Farming, or
Parliament, or doctoring. Everything's open to us women now!"
"Well, I wouldn't try Rhythmic Dancing, at any rate! You're certainly
not cut out for that!" scoffed Effie, whose injured eye was still
smarting.