An Interesting Stranger
Among all Miss Russell's thirty pupils you could not have found two
stancher friends than Lindsay Hepburn and Cicely Chalmers, both of whom
were members of the third, or lowest, class.
Lindsay was a short, plump, fair, jolly-looking girl of twelve, with a
very energetic disposition; apt, according to Miss Frazer, to be
inconveniently lively and irrepressible in school, but a general
favourite in the playground.
Cicely, six months younger, was much more quiet and steady on the
surface, though her twinkling brown eyes belied her demurer manners, and
proclaimed her ready for anything in the shape of fun. She admired
Lindsay immensely, and copied her absolutely, being generally ready to
follow her through thick and thin, whatever scrapes might be the
consequence.
The pair shared a bedroom, and were so inseparable that Cicely was often
called Lindsay's shadow. That was an injustice, however; she had a
character of her own, though she might choose to merge it in her
friend's stronger personality. It is with these two, and their strange
experiences at the Manor, that my tale is chiefly concerned, for if it
had not been for Lindsay's enquiring mind, backed by Cicely's persistent
efforts, there might have been no story to tell.
This is how it all began.
On the second morning after their instalment at Haversleigh the whole
school was assembled ready for a history class in the big dining-hall.
Miss Russell, for a wonder, was late, and when she entered at last she
brought with her a new pupil. The stranger was about sixteen, a pretty,
graceful girl, with hazel eyes, long chestnut hair, and a rather
distinguished air. She was given a seat in the first form, and replied
to the few questions asked her in a quiet voice; then, at the close of
the lecture, she took her books and went away alone, without waiting to
join in the next lesson.
Naturally her sudden appearance and departure excited much curiosity.
The moment work was over, Lindsay and Cicely seized upon Kathleen
Crawford, who was rather a friend of theirs among the monitresses.
"Who's the new girl?" they asked. "We hadn't heard anybody was coming."
"She's only a day pupil for a few classes," answered Kathleen. "Her
name's Monica Courtenay. She lives here, but of course not just now."
"What do you mean?" enquired Cicely.
"Why, surely you knew Miss Russell has taken the Manor for the summer
from Mrs. Courtenay?"
"I never thought about whom it belonged to," confessed Lindsay.
"Well, at any rate, Mrs. Courtenay and Monica are staying in rooms in
the village while their house is let, and Monica is to come three times
a week for French and history."
"So this is really her home?"
"Yes, and I heard someone say it is all her own. She's an only child,
and her father is dead."
"It must seem funny for her to see a whole school here!"
"I expect it does. I shouldn't like it if the place were mine."
"Is she nice?"
"How can I tell? I saw no more of her than you did yourselves."
Everybody was greatly interested in the newcomer, and ready, at the end
of a week's acquaintance, to decide heartily in her favour. Monica was
rather dignified and reserved in her manners, and evidently not much
accustomed to mix with companions of her own age; but when her shyness
began to wear off she proved most attractive.
"She's not at all conceited, although she's mistress of the Manor," said
Lindsay.
"No, I can't say she gives herself airs in the least," agreed Cicely.
"I think she behaves beautifully," said Mildred Roper. "She never so
much as hints that it's her own house, or tries to take the lead, as
some girls would certainly have done. She doesn't go anywhere without
leave, nor even stop to play tennis unless she's asked. I heard her
apologizing to Miss Russell yesterday for giving an order to the
gardener. Mademoiselle says she is 'bien elevee' and 'tres gentille',
and that's a great compliment, for she doesn't admire English girls as a
rule."
"No one could help liking Monica," said Kathleen Crawford. "She's
charming. I call her one of the nicest girls I've ever met. And she's
had such hard luck! I've just been hearing all about her from Irene
Spencer."
"How does Irene know?" asked Lindsay.
"She stays sometimes with an uncle who is vicar of the next parish, and
her cousins are friends of Monica's. It's a most extraordinary story--it
might have come out of a book."
"Oh, do tell us!" said the others eagerly.
Kathleen's tale was in scraps, and missed out several points of which
she was not aware at the time, so it will be better to set it down here
as the girls learnt it more fully afterwards, for it was of great
importance, and formed the basis of much that was to follow.
The Courtenays, it appeared, were a very ancient family, and had
inherited the Manor from an ancestor who had fought bravely on the
Yorkist side in the days of the Wars of the Roses. In the present
generation there was no male heir, and Monica was the last of her race.
Until a few years ago the old house had been in the possession of her
great-uncle, Sir Giles Courtenay, a most eccentric man, so odd and
peculiar, indeed, that many people had considered him to be out of his
mind. He was reputed to be extremely wealthy, yet lived in a miserly
fashion, entertaining no visitors, and never spending a penny which it
was possible for him to save. He never married, but passed his days as a
recluse, shut up among the books in his library, seeing only a few old
servants whose services he had retained. Sometimes in the early morning
he would wander about the woods and fields in the neighbourhood, seeking
for wild flowers, but on such occasions he seemed much annoyed if spoken
to, and evidently preferred to take his rambles unnoticed.
At his death he left everything to his great-niece, Monica.
"Both the Manor", so ran the will, "and all that it may contain,
especially commending to her the volumes in my library, and advising her
to pursue the study of botany, which has ever been a solace and a
distraction to me amidst the various ills and disappointments of life."
At first it was supposed that Monica must be a great heiress, but when
Sir Giles's legacy came to be investigated nothing could be found beyond
the ordinary furniture in the house and a few pounds in the local bank.
No one knew anything about his affairs, and neither papers nor documents
were forthcoming to give the slightest indication as to what had become
of the fortune he was known to have inherited.
Not only was all trace of the money lost, but the valuable silver plate
and jewellery that had been handed down from generation to generation of
the Courtenays were also missing, and there was no clue to their
whereabouts. It was generally believed that Sir Giles must have
concealed the whole of his wealth somewhere in the old house, but,
though a minute search had been made from cellar to garret, the
hiding-place had not yet come to light.
Instead, therefore, of owning a fortune, Monica had received nothing but
the Manor, in itself a very barren heritage. She and her mother had
taken up their residence there, but they possessed only a small income,
quite insufficient to maintain the former traditions of the family. It
was on this account that they had been glad to let the house to Miss
Russell for the summer, and to retire themselves into quiet lodgings
close by.
"Hasn't Monica ever tried to hunt for the treasure?" asked Lindsay, when
Kathleen had finished her narrative.
"Oh, yes--often! I believe she has gone systematically through each
room, but it's so well hidden that it seems quite impossible to find
it."
"Yet it must be there!"
"No doubt. It may never turn up, though, until the place is pulled down.
The whole thing is a complete mystery, and so far nobody has been able
to solve it."
"Have you asked Monica where she has looked?"
"Certainly not. Irene says she's very sensitive about it, and can't bear
to hear it spoken of. Naturally it must have been a most terrible
disappointment. I don't wonder she avoids the subject. Please be careful
never to mention it to her, or you'll offend her dreadfully, and I shall
be sorry I told you."
"I'm sure both Lindsay and Cicely would have too nice feeling to
question Monica on such a personal matter," said Mildred Roper.
"Of course we shan't say anything--we wouldn't for worlds," promised the
two younger girls.
That Monica should be the heroine of so romantic a story made her doubly
interesting in the eyes of Lindsay and Cicely. They were much impressed
by Kathleen's account, and retired to the privacy of the summer-house to
talk it over together.
"It must be dreadful to be so poor when you know you ought to be so
rich!" said Lindsay.
"And so tantalizing, when perhaps the fortune is actually in the house,"
said Cicely.
"I could never be happy for thinking about it."
"No more could I."
"Look here! Why shouldn't you and I set to work? So long as this
treasure is hidden away somewhere, I suppose it's possible to find it."
"Oh, don't I wish we could!" cried Cicely, her eyes round at the idea.
"Well, I can't see why we shouldn't have as good a chance as anybody
else. I expect it's chiefly a matter of careful hunting."
"How splendid it would be if Monica really turned out an heiress after
all!"
"Glorious! It's worth trying for. Those panelled walls might be full of
hiding-places. We don't know what we may discover when once we begin."
"We shan't have to let Miss Frazer catch us looking about."
"Rather not! Nobody must know what we intend to do."
"Not even Marjorie Butler?" pleaded Cicely.
"No," said Lindsay firmly. "Marjorie couldn't help whispering it to
Nora, and then it would be all over the school. The big girls would make
dreadful fun of us, I'm sure. They'd call us 'The Gold Seekers', or some
other stupid name, simply for the sake of teasing. Besides, if it were
talked about among the rest, it would be sure to get to Monica's ears,
and we particularly don't want that."
"No, she mustn't hear a word of it."
"Very well, then, we had better keep it to ourselves. Will you promise
faithfully that it shall be a dead secret just between you and me?"
"Absolutely dead!" agreed Cicely.
The two girls were determined to institute a thorough search for the
lost legacy, but they foresaw many difficulties in the way. In the first
place, it was hard even to make a start without letting anybody suspect
what they were doing. Although the term at the Manor seemed like a
holiday, it was nevertheless school: there was a certain amount of
supervision by the mistresses, and there were rules and regulations to
be obeyed, the same as at Winterburn Lodge. The girls were not allowed
to wander about alone exactly when and where they wished, and even
during recreation time they were expected to play games in the garden.
One of the greatest hindrances to their plan was Mrs. Wilson, an elderly
servant who had been left in charge by Mrs. Courtenay, and who seemed to
consider herself responsible for her mistress's property. She evidently
much resented the presence of thirty schoolgirls in the Manor, and kept
a keen eye upon them to see that they did no damage. She was continually
watching to satisfy herself that they were not scratching the furniture,
nor spilling candle-grease upon the stairs; and was loud in her
complaints to Miss Russell over the most absurd trifles.
If she had had sufficient authority, I believe she would have limited
the girls entirely to their bedrooms and schoolrooms, but as that was
impossible, she did her best to frighten them away from the rest of the
house by being as disagreeable as she could. As a natural consequence
they detested her. They nicknamed her "The Griffin", and took a naughty
pleasure in defying her as far as they dared.
"She's as sour as a green gooseberry!" grumbled Effie Hargreaves. "If we
only take a stroll along the portrait gallery, she thinks we're going to
knock down the armour, or poke our fingers through the pictures."
"Yes, she seems to imagine we can't look at a thing without breaking it.
It's perfectly ridiculous!" declared Beryl Austen.
"She's an absolute nuisance. It's a pity she was left behind," said Nora
Proctor; and that was the general verdict in the old housekeeper's
disfavour.
With such a dragon continually on the alert, it was almost impossible
for Lindsay and Cicely to find the slightest opportunity of beginning
their treasure hunt, and they were reduced to very low spirits on the
subject. One half-holiday afternoon, however, Lindsay reported that Mrs.
Wilson, dressed in black bonnet and mantle, had been seen to leave the
back door and walk away in the direction of the village.
"Now is our chance!" she assured Cicely. "Miss Russell is lying down in
her bedroom with a bad headache, Miss Frazer is playing tennis, and
Mademoiselle is sitting reading in the arbour. Everyone else is in the
garden, and if we run indoors at once nobody will notice, and we shall
have the place practically to ourselves."
Could anything have been more fortunate? They lost no time in hurrying
into the Manor, feeling almost as desperate conspirators as Guy Fawkes
and his confederates; and commenced immediately to make a careful tour
of investigation. They stole round the hall, the dining-room, and the
library, scrutinizing every nook and corner, tapping the panels to hear
if they sounded hollow, and peeping up the old wide chimneys, but all
with no success.
"I'm afraid we shan't find anything down here," said Lindsay at last. "I
expect people made hiding-places where they wouldn't be so easy to get
at. Let us go and explore the attics. We've never been up there yet."
They reached the top storey without encountering even a servant. Somehow
it felt a little eerie to hear nothing but the echo of their own
footsteps, and to find themselves quite alone in such an out-of-the-way
part of the house. The Manor was very large, and nearly the whole of the
left wing was unoccupied. They passed door after door, all leading to
more and more empty rooms, till Lindsay began to grow almost dismayed at
the bigness of their undertaking.
"I didn't know the place was so huge!" she sighed. "I'm afraid one might
spend years looking round and examining it thoroughly. I don't wonder
Monica lost heart. There isn't the faintest clue to go upon, either, to
give one a hint where to hunt."
"Hadn't we better be turning back?"
Cicely was growing rather tired of the fruitless attempt.
"In a minute. Let us go to the end of this landing."
The passage in itself was like the others, but it differed in one
particular, for it terminated in a narrow, winding staircase. This
looked tempting--just the sort of thing, in fact, that they felt ought
to lead to somewhere interesting and important.
"It's like the way to the turret chamber where Sir Walter was
imprisoned, in _Tales of the Middle Ages_," said Lindsay.
"Or where Katherine was dragged when Sir Gilbert found she had overheard
the secret plot," said Cicely.
They scrambled almost on hands and knees up sixteen steep steps. At the
top was a small landing, and exactly facing them, up three steps more,
stood a closed door. The girls paused for a moment to consider what to
do next.
"Listen!" said Cicely suddenly. "I thought I heard a queer noise."
There certainly was a most extraordinary sound issuing from the room
opposite. It resembled somebody groaning, or giving long-drawn, sighing
breaths. It went on for a few moments and then stopped, then commenced
louder than before, and finally died away altogether.
"What is it?" whispered Cicely, rather nervously.
"I don't know, but I'm going to look and see."
"Oh! Dare you? I hope it's nothing that will bounce out!"
[Illustration: "SHE OPENED THE DOOR CAUTIOUSLY"]
"Nonsense! Why should it?"
"It might. Do be careful!"
"Don't be silly!" said Lindsay. "We came up here on purpose to discover
things, and help Monica. If there's a noise in that room, we certainly
ought to find out what's making it."
And with this plausible excuse for satisfying her curiosity, she opened
the door cautiously, and peeped inside.