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[Illustration: GLORIOUS NEWS!]
The Manor House School
BY
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of "The Nicest Girl in the School" "The Third Class at Miss
Kaye's" "The Fortunes of Philippa" &c.
_ILLUSTRATED BY A. A. DIXON_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
Contents
CHAP. Page
I. NORA'S NEWS 9
II. AN INTERESTING STRANGER 22
III. A STRONG SUSPICION 36
IV. HAVERSLEIGH 50
V. AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT 67
VI. MONICA 80
VII. LINDSAY'S LUCK 94
VIII. PENDLE TOR 111
IX. THE PLOT THICKENS 127
X. UNDER THE HAWTHORN TREE 143
XI. SIR MERVYN'S TOWER 161
XII. AN ENIGMA 178
XIII. LINDSAY MAKES A RESOLVE 189
XIV. THE LANTERN ROOM 202
XV. HIDE-AND-SEEK 215
XVI. A SURPRISE 229
XVII. GOOD-BYE TO THE MANOR 243
Illustrations
Page
GLORIOUS NEWS! _Frontispiece_ 239
"SHE OPENED THE DOOR CAUTIOUSLY" 35
"I KNOW WHAT MONICA WAS GOING TO SAY" 93
AN UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT 139
THE SECRET DOOR 202
CHAPTER I
Nora's News
It was the first week of the summer term at Winterburn Lodge. Afternoon
preparation was over, and most of the girls had left the classroom for a
chat and a stroll round the playground until the tea-bell should ring.
From the tennis court came the sounds of the soft thud of balls and a
few excited voices recording the score; while through the open windows
of the house floated the strains of three pianos, on which three
separate pieces were being practised in three different keys, the
mingled result forming a particularly inharmonious jangle.
On a bench in the corner by the swing two yellow heads and a brown one
might be seen bent in close proximity over a rather dilapidated atlas.
Their respective owners were apparently making a half-hearted endeavour
to hunt out a list of towns upon the map of England, and were amusing
themselves between whiles with the pleasant, though somewhat
unprofitable pastime of grumbling.
"I hate geography!" declared Lindsay Hepburn. "If we could be taken a
picnic to each of the places, there'd be some sense in it; but to have
to reel off a string of tiresome names that don't mean anything at all
to you--I call it stupid!"
"It's such a fearfully long lesson, too!" agreed Cicely Chalmers
dolefully. "Miss Frazer might have set us a shorter one for the first!
It's really too bad of her to make us begin with two pages and a half in
a new book! I'm sure I shall never get it into my head, if I try till
midnight."
"I wonder why things always seem so much harder to learn when one's just
come back after the holidays?" propounded Marjorie Butler with a
melancholy yawn.
"I don't know. I suppose because it all feels so horrid. It's perfectly
dreadful to think what a huge time it is until we can go home again."
"Thirteen whole weeks! And every one of them will be exactly the same:
lessons with Miss Frazer or Mademoiselle, an hour's practising, a walk
in the park or along the Surrey Road, and a game of tennis when you can
manage to get hold of the court. There's never anything different,
unless Miss Russell takes us to a museum or a concert, and that doesn't
happen often, worse luck!"
Lindsay's picture of the forthcoming term certainly did not seem a
remarkably enlivening one, and the other two groaned at the prospect.
"I wish one wasn't obliged to go to a boarding school," said Cicely in
an injured tone.
"Girls! Girls!" cried a fourth voice, breaking abruptly into the
conversation, "I've been hunting for you everywhere. I thought you were
in the house or the gymnasium. Oh! I've such a piece of news to tell
you!"
"What's the matter, Nora?" enquired Marjorie, for the newcomer was out
of breath, and looked as excited as if it were breaking-up day.
"Come here and sit between us," added Lindsay, pushing the others
farther along the seat to make room.
"Is it anything really nice?" asked Cicely.
"It depends on what you call 'nice'. I'll give you each six guesses, and
even then I don't believe one of you'll be right."
"Miss Frazer doesn't mean to take geography to-morrow?"
"Absolutely wrong, though I wish she wouldn't."
"Somebody has broken another window with a tennis ball?"
"Don't be silly! It's much more interesting than that."
"Miss Russell's going to give us a holiday?"
"You're getting warm! Try again."
"Oh, we can't!"
"We give it up!"
"Go on and tell!"
"Do you remember that just before Easter a gentleman came with Dr.
Redford, and they both went over the school, peeping and poking about in
such a mysterious manner?"
"Yes, we wondered what they were doing."
"Well, it turns out that he's a sanitary inspector, and he's sent a
report to Miss Russell to say that the drains are wrong, and must be
taken up immediately."
"Is that your grand news?"
"No, it's only the first part of it. Let me finish, and then you'll see.
Dr. Redford says the drains can't possibly be touched while we're all in
the house, and yet they must be opened at once. Can't you guess now?"
"Miss Russell never means to send us home when we've only just come
back?" gasped Lindsay hopefully.
"No, not that, though it's nearly as jolly. She's taken a beautiful old
manor house in the country, and it's to be our school for the whole of
the summer term. We're to go there in a body--girls, and teachers, and
servants, and everyone."
If Nora had hoped to astonish her companions she had certainly
succeeded. They were wild with curiosity, and fired off questions all
three together.
"Where is it?"
"When are we going?"
"How did you get to know?"
"One at a time, please," said Nora, enjoying her importance. "I met
Mildred Roper in the hall just now. Miss Russell has been explaining it
to the monitresses, and said they might tell us as soon as they liked.
It's a lovely Elizabethan house, at a place called Haversleigh, a long
way from here. We're to start next Tuesday."
Such a tremendous event as the removal of the school from town to
country was without precedent in the annals of Winterburn Lodge.
"It's almost too good to be true," cried Cicely rapturously.
"It will be like the last day and setting off for the seaside both
together," declared Lindsay, waltzing round the seat in the exuberance
of her spirits.
"Not quite, because we shall have lessons when we get there," corrected
Nora.
"Well, at any rate it'll be ever so much nicer than being in London."
"Hurrah for the old Manor!" shouted Marjorie Butler, clapping her hands.
Miss Russell had indeed been much alarmed by the sanitary inspector's
report. She was determined to make the change without delay, and hurried
on the preparation as speedily as possible.
Boxes were brought down from the attic, and teachers and monitresses
were kept busy superintending the packing of clothes, linen,
schoolbooks, and numberless other articles. For the few days that
remained work was relaxed, the headmistress's chief anxiety seeming to
be the health of the girls, and her one object to take them away before
any sign of illness should break out amongst them.
"Miss Russell looked so worried when I told her my head ached," said
Nora Proctor. "She asked every one of us afterwards if we had sore
throats."
"I was silly enough to say I thought mine felt a little scrapy," said
Lindsay ruefully. "I soon wished I hadn't, because she gave me a
horribly nasty disinfectant lozenge, and told me to suck it slowly until
I'd finished it. Ugh! I can taste it yet!"
"I'm absolutely sick of the smell of carbolic. There's a jar full in
every room," said Cicely.
"Never mind! You'll only have to endure it for one day more. We're
actually off to-morrow."
Those in authority might certainly be excused if they looked worried,
for it was no light task to accomplish so much in such a short space of
time. By Tuesday morning, however, the final arrangements were
completed; the rows of boxes were locked, strapped, and piled on railway
carts; while the girls, an excited, chattering crew, were ready and
waiting for the omnibuses which were to take them to the station.
"Good-bye to poor old Winterburn Lodge!" said Cicely, giving a last peep
into the familiar classroom. "We shan't see these maps and desks again
until next September."
"I wonder how many things will have happened before we come back here?"
said Lindsay thoughtfully.
It was a long journey into Somerset, but Miss Russell had engaged saloon
carriages, and taken large baskets of lunch; so, in the opinion of her
thirty pupils at least, the expedition felt like a picnic.
"How I wish we could go every year, or that Miss Russell would remove
into the country altogether," said Beryl Austen, who had secured a
corner seat, and was in raptures over the view.
"Then it wouldn't be town, and we shouldn't be able to have visiting
masters," said Mildred Roper, one of the monitresses.
"Who wants them? I'm sure I should be only too delighted never to see
any of them again!"
Mildred smiled.
"I suppose, after all, we're sent to school to learn something," she
remarked dryly. "I'm afraid you'll find Miss Frazer will give you plenty
of work to make up for the loss of Herr Hoffmann and Monsieur Guizet."
"I don't care a scrap, so long as there's fun when lessons are over.
We're going to have a glorious time, and I mean to thoroughly enjoy
myself."
Beryl only expressed the sentiments of the rest of the girls, most of
whom regarded the coming term in the light of a holiday. As the train
steamed through green meadows and woods just breaking into leaf, it
indeed seemed as if London and professors had been effectually left
behind, and their spirits rose higher with every mile.
By afternoon they were all impatience to arrive. For fully an hour
before they reached their destination they kept enquiring whether they
must get out at the next station, and were sure that each ancient house
visible from the carriage windows could not fail to be the Manor.
"Here we are at last!" announced Miss Russell, when, after many false
alarms, the welcome word "Haversleigh" made its appearance in plain
letters, and a porter's voice was heard pronouncing something which bore
a faint resemblance to the name. "Steady, girls! Steady! Remember each
is to take her own bag, and file out in proper order. Nobody is to move
until I say 'March!'"
Miss Russell first held a review on the platform, to make sure that none
of her pupils or their belongings had gone astray.
"I am quite relieved we have all arrived safely," she said. "I think we
may congratulate ourselves that not even an umbrella is missing. It is
only half a mile from here to the house, quite an easy walk, so we will
start at once, and leave our luggage to follow."
In a few minutes more they had passed the ticket collector, and found
themselves on the leafy high road. It seemed as different from London as
a fairy tale from a Latin grammar. There had been a slight shower of
rain, which had brought out the scent of growing grass and budding
leaves; the ground was white with the fallen blossom of blackthorn
hedges; and a thrush, seated on the summit of an apple tree, was pouring
forth a volume of song that sounded almost like a welcome to the
country.
With so many new sights to gaze at, it was difficult to walk primly two
and two, and the line proved a straggling one, in spite of Miss Frazer's
efforts in the rear. At a pair of great iron gates Miss Russell stopped
and turned to her girls.
"This is our first glimpse of the Manor," she said, with a touch of
pride in her voice. "I want you to take a good look at your new school."
It was nicer even than they had expected--a glorious old place, built
partly in Tudor fashion of grey stone, and partly of black and white
timbers. There were latticed windows, and a porch ornamented with stone
balls, and curious twisted chimneys, and picturesque gables at odd
angles.
"It's like a house out of one of Sir Walter Scott's novels," said
Marjorie Butler.
"It looks as if one might have all kinds of adventures there," added
Lindsay Hepburn gleefully.
The inside proved just as satisfactory as the outside. It was delightful
to sit down to tea in a great dining-hall, with a carved roof, and walls
hung with spears, shields, and stags' antlers.
"I feel we oughtn't to be drinking tea," said Cicely Chalmers. "I'm sure
they didn't have it in Queen Elizabeth's times. It was tankards of ale
or mead in those days."
"Don't finish your cup, then, if you wish to imagine yourself entirely
in the past," said Mildred Roper. "I'm afraid you'll have to leave the
marmalade too. That's quite a modern invention, and so are the Bath
buns."
"Don't be horrid!" said Cicely. "It really is an old-fashioned place.
Lindsay and I have got the quaintest panelled bedroom you could possibly
imagine. There's a great four-post bed, with yellow brocaded curtains;
it's big enough to hold six, instead of only two."
"And there's a lovely library, and a picture gallery, and ever so many
queer rooms and long passages upstairs," put in Nora Proctor. "I got
quite lost, and couldn't find my way down at first."
"So did I," said Beryl Austen. "I tried to explore a little, but it
looked so dim and dark I didn't dare to go alone, so I turned back. I
thought I might meet a Cavalier or a Roundhead on the landing!"
Beryl was not the only one to whom their new quarters seemed rather
weird and strange on this first evening of their arrival. After being
accustomed to electric light and modern bedrooms, it was a great change
to walk upstairs with candles to antique chambers that might have
belonged to the Middle Ages.
"Don't be silly, girls!" exclaimed Miss Russell indignantly, as they
scurried past the suits of armour in the picture gallery. "I shall not
allow any absurd nonsense of this kind. You have no more to be afraid of
here than you had at Winterburn Lodge. I will take you over the house
to-morrow and show you everything, and when you study the real history
of the place you won't want to concern yourselves with silly
superstitions."
Though the old Manor might look ghostly by night, it wore a bright and
cheerful aspect in the sunshine of next morning, and not even the most
ardent of Cockneys would have wished herself back among streets and
squares. It certainly seemed more interesting to learn lessons sitting
on tall-backed oak chairs at a carved table, than at desks in an
ordinary schoolroom, furnished with maps and blackboard. The teachers
enjoyed it as much as the girls, and everybody had a delightfully
romantic feeling of being transferred to the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
"We oughtn't to have science, or physiology, or anything up-to-date
here," said Cicely, as, in company with the rest of the third form, she
took possession of the panelled parlour that was to be their temporary
classroom.
"No, indeed," said Lindsay. "Girls in those days didn't have half our
work."
"You forget Lady Jane Grey," said Miss Frazer. "In the matter of
knowledge she would easily have put you to shame. If you want her
sixteenth-century studies you will have to begin Greek as well as Latin,
French, Italian, and some Hebrew and Arabic!"
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Lindsay, aghast at such a list of accomplishments.
"I'd rather stick to our own century."
"I thought ladies did nothing but go hunting and hawking then," said
Marjorie Butler. "Did they all know Greek and Latin?"
"Probably not, but they could make preserves, and perfumes, and other
secrets of the still-room; and they embroidered the most beautiful
tapestries, if we are to judge from the specimens in the big
drawing-room. Young people were very severely brought up. They might
never sit without permission in the presence of their parents or
teachers, and they were beaten for the slightest offences. Don't you
remember that even poor Lady Jane Grey was punished with 'nips, bobs,
and pinches'; and little Edward VI had his whipping-boy, to receive the
blows which it was not considered seemly to bestow upon his own princely
person!"
"Had the other boy to be whipped for what the king had done? How
horribly unfair!" said Beryl Austen.
"Yes, their ideas of justice were rather different from ours. They would
have thought present-day children absolutely spoilt. The girls who
perhaps may have done lessons in this room three hundred years ago would
not learn them so easily and pleasantly as you are going to do this
morning. Fetch the geology books, Beryl. We must go on with modern work,
in spite of our ancient surroundings."