Red Devon by the Sea
Mavis now found herself placed in a somewhat embarrassing situation. The
school favourite had taken rather a fancy to her and extended overtures
of friendship. Had she been at The Moorings by herself she might have
responded, but it was impossible to be chums with a girl who displayed
such open hostility to Merle. The two were "diamond cut diamond". Each
was a strong character, and neither would give way an inch. They
squabbled and heckled one another continually. If Opal had had even a
term's experience of a big school, and if Merle had possessed a little
tact and forbearance, they might have rubbed along together. As it was
they went about like two thunderclouds. Mavis found her best safety lay
in neutrality. She was quite nice to Opal, but not expansive, and
whenever opportunity offered she patched up a truce, though the task of
peacemaker was often a thankless business, for Opal would say: "Oh, of
course, you side with that sister of yours!" and Merle would indignantly
accuse her of not taking her part with sufficient vehemence.
Merle had found an ally in Iva Westwood. Iva was a rather
out-of-the-way girl, proud and reserved. She did not often care to wage
battle with Opal herself, but she keenly enjoyed hearing somebody else
do it, and was ready to act "backer-up" within limits. She appreciated
both the Ramsays, though her particular temperament was more attracted
by Merle. In a certain off-hand, abrupt fashion she might be considered
a chum.
On the second Friday afternoon after their arrival at Durracombe, Mavis
and Merle went to The Moorings as usual. To their immense surprise, when
they arrived there, they found the whole school arrayed in light frocks,
silk stockings, and sandalled slippers.
"Hello! What's the meaning of this? Is there going to be a party?" they
asked quickly.
"Party? No! Don't you know it's dancing afternoon?" replied Nesta,
re-tying her pale-blue hair-ribbon, which was coming off. "Surely Miss
Pollard told you?"
"She never said a word about it."
"Well, she told Opal to tell you at any rate. Just when you'd gone home
this morning I heard her say to Opal: 'Run after those two and remind
them it's dancing afternoon.'"
"Opal never came near us. What a shame!" blazed Merle.
"We didn't have dancing last Friday," objected Mavis.
"No, because Miss Crompton hadn't come back. We shall have it every
Friday now."
"Where? In the playroom?"
Nesta laughed.
"Oh no! We don't have it at school. There's no room big enough. We go to
Miss Crompton's class in the public hall."
"Well, look here! What are we to do?" asked Mavis. "We can't turn up as
we are? Shall we run home and change into 'war paint'?"
"I don't know. You'd better ask Miss Pollard. Oh, here she is! Miss
Pollard, please! Mavis and Merle didn't know it was dancing afternoon."
"How very annoying! I told Opal to remind you," said the mistress,
turning to the aggrieved pair almost as if it were their own fault. "Go
home to change? Oh no! There isn't time now. You must all come along at
once or we shall be late. It's a tiresome mistake but it can't be helped
and you mustn't miss the lesson. You'll know better next week."
"Might we _tear_ home and change, and run on to the public hall?" begged
Mavis desperately.
"No, no! You must all come together. Never mind. I'll explain to Miss
Crompton, and it will be quite all right."
It was all very well for Miss Pollard to say "Never mind" in so easy a
fashion. Mavis and Merle were furious. They possessed dainty dresses,
thin stockings, and dancing slippers in their wardrobe at Bridge House,
and when the whole school was arrayed _en fete_ it was most humiliating
to be marched off in their brown knitted jerseys, ribbed stockings, and
ordinary serviceable shoes. They both looked daggers at Opal, who just
then put in an appearance very prettily got up in a white _crepe de
Chine_ dress and a big, pale-pink hair-ribbon. She started guiltily when
she saw them.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you two about the dancing. It simply went out of
my head," she exclaimed.
"Then your head's as empty as a brass nob," exploded Merle. "It was just
_criminal_ of you to forget. I believe you did it on purpose."
Even Mavis did not attempt to palliate Merle's home truths, for she was
bubbling over with injury, and sharper words still might have followed
had not Miss Fanny arrived and swept her whole flock from the house for
a "crocodile" walk to the public hall. The big room here, engaged by
Miss Crompton, was certainly a very good one for the purpose, with a
polished floor and nice decorations, so that it looked quite festive and
"Christmasy", as the girls, having left their coats and hats and
over-shoes in the cloakroom, marched in and took their places. The class
was not confined to the pupils at The Moorings; girls from various
country houses in the neighbourhood, and a sprinkling of little boys
were also there. The array of light dresses and thin shoes made the
Ramsays more indignant than ever. And there would have been plenty of
time to go home and change. Miss Crompton and her assistants were so
long in getting the children arranged, that Mavis and Merle might easily
have been back from Bridge House, robed in their best, before the first
dance began.
Miss Crompton ascertained that her two new pupils were no novices, then
placed them in the senior class. In revolt against what some parents
termed "stage posturing" she had revived some of the old Victorian
square dances, and was teaching the first figures of the quadrille.
Merle happened to be _vis-a-vis_ with a girl of about her own age, a
tall athletic girl with fair hair, who looked as if she would be more at
home on horseback than in a ballroom, but who, nevertheless, gaped at
the Ramsays' morning costumes with unconcealed scorn, and arranged the
skirt of her own pretty dress rather ostentatiously, as if calling
attention to the difference. When she met Merle in "the ladies' chain",
instead of joining hands as the figure required, she deliberately
refused the outstretched fingers and swept past without touching them.
To Merle it was an open insult. She looked at Miss Crompton to see
whether the teacher had noticed, but Miss Crompton's attention was
concentrated on two special bunglers, and though the incident happened
again as the girls crossed back to their own places, it drew down no
reproof.
"Slack teaching here," thought Merle, fuming with wrath. "Such a thing
would never have been allowed in our class at Whinburn. I don't know who
that girl is, but she's an out-and-out blighter. This is one of the most
grizzly afternoons I've ever had in my life."
The Ramsays were indeed glad when half-past four arrived, and they were
able to go home and pour out their woes to Aunt Nellie and Jessop, both
of whom were most sympathetic and indignant about the whole business.
"I'd have brought your dresses to the town hall for you if I'd only
known," declared Jessop.
"It was a great mistake of Miss Pollard's; she ought to have sent you
home to change, even if you missed part of the lesson." (Gentle Aunt
Nellie sounded quite wrathful). "How could you dance properly without
your thin shoes? Never mind, dears! You'll know better next week, and
we'll take care you go really nice. I wouldn't worry any more about it
if I were you. Do your preparation this evening, and if it's fine
to-morrow perhaps Uncle David will take you with him to Chagmouth. That
will give you something else to think about, won't it?"
The girls cheered up at this suggestion. They were very anxious indeed
to go out with Dr. Tremayne in his little Deemster car. He had a branch
surgery at Chagmouth, a village ten miles away, and every Saturday he
spent most of the day there, seeing patients and visiting a sanatorium
to which he was consulting medical officer. He would have taken the
girls on the previous Saturday, but there had been a strong gale, and he
was afraid of Mavis running any risks just at first.
"When you're acclimatized we shan't fear a puff of wind or a few drops
of rain," he said, "but we'll harden you gradually, like Tom does with
his bedding-out geraniums."
"Devon wind and rain are so soft they don't hurt me," urged Mavis. "The
whole air has a different feel from the north. It's nearly as mild as
our summer. Uncle David, I just want to forget I ever had a sore chest!"
"That's the best way; still we must go slow and sure. I don't want to
have to order you to bed with a bronchitis kettle."
"I hope I've said good-bye to that wretched old kettle for evermore. I
didn't want Mother to pack it, but she put it in. I'll give it away
willingly to the first person who needs it."
Saturday morning fortunately proved fine and mild enough to dispel all
fears on Mavis's behalf, and the girls were ready and anxious to start
long before Dr. Tremayne had finished his work in the surgery. They
fumed round the waiting-room door, casting indignant glances at the
patients seated within, and hoping their cases were not serious, and
would not require much of the doctor's time and attention; then, finding
such hanging about rather dispiriting, they went to the garage and
helped Tom to polish the brasses of the car--a praiseworthy occupation
that kept them busy until the last patient had been dismissed from the
surgery.
"Just a few bottles of medicine to make up, and then we're off," said
Uncle David, giving some instruments to Jessop to sterilize. "Have you
each got a warm scarf, girls? And where's the rug? Tell Tom to put my
bag inside the dicky, there won't be room for it in front to-day. You
two will have to sit close, but we'll squeeze in somehow."
The little yellow car was only a two-seater, but it held three at a
pinch. Mavis, in the middle, sat as far back as possible, so as not to
incommode Uncle David's left arm as he drove, while Merle sat a little
forward, to give extra room. Jessop tucked the rug over their knees, Tom
started the engine, Aunt Nellie waved good-bye out of the open window,
and at last they were off, over the bridge and along the road that led
to the south. It was a lovely sunny morning, with great fleecy clouds on
the horizon, and a blue sky overhead. Small birds were flitting about in
the hedges, and large flocks of rooks and starlings were feeding in the
ploughed fields. The banks were green with masses of beautiful
hart's-tongue ferns, and all nature seemed alive and stirring and
thinking of spring. The car whizzed along at a good pace, and they were
soon scaling the hill and crossing the portion of the moor that lay
between Durracombe and Chagmouth. The glistening drops from yesterday's
showers still shone on the brown heather, sheep were feeding on the
patches of fine grass, and wild little ponies stampeded away at the
approach of the car, as if they were running a race with motor power.
It was so beautiful on the uplands that the girls were quite sorry when
the open, hedgeless road dipped between banks into a valley and turned
into the orthodox deep Devonshire lane. Down and down they went, so
steeply that Uncle David seemed to be hanging on to the brakes, and for
at least two miles there was no occasion to use the engine, then quite
suddenly they whisked round a bend of the road and caught a glimpse of
the village lying below them. Chagmouth came afterwards to mean so much
to Mavis and Merle that they never forgot their first sight of it. It
burst upon them, a compact mass of picturesque houses lying huddled
between two magnificent headlands crowned with gorse and brown bracken.
A rushing stream ran through the valley, flowed under several bridges,
and poured itself into the harbour, where gulls were flapping and
screaming, and the rising tide was rocking the fishing-boats gently to
and fro. Out beyond the jetty white sea-foam was flying round jagged
rocks, and a motor-launch was making its way cautiously among chopping
waves. Though it was only the first of February, the village, owing to
the large number of its half-exotic shrubs, was framed in a setting of
green, among which the little colour-washed houses shone like flowers.
Seen as a bird's-eye view from the road above, Chagmouth indeed looked
like a gigantic flower border with the emerald sea for a lawn. As they
dipped downward into the ravine there rose up towards them certain
scents and sounds intimately connected with the place, and afterwards
indissolubly associated with it in the minds of the two girls--the
murmur of running water, the cries of sea-gulls, the twitter of small
birds, the salt smell of the sea, the pungent smoke of burning
driftwood, and the faint, aromatic odour of moist evergreen shrubs
steaming in the sunshine.
Dr. Tremayne halted at a house at the top of the village, and took his
car round into the stable-yard. The house was a farm, and he rented
rooms there for the purpose of his profession. A brass plate upon the
door set forth his surgery hours. People in Chagmouth, unless they were
seriously ill, kept their aches and pains until Saturdays, for it was a
long way to fetch the doctor from Durracombe to pay a special visit. The
waiting-room at Grimbal's Farm was generally full when he arrived, and
there were enough messages from patients requiring his attendance to
keep him busy for the whole of the day.
When the car had been put safely under cover, Uncle David took Mavis and
Merle beneath the great arch of fuchsias that framed the doorway and
into the wide, old-fashioned hall, where the farmer's wife, who had been
watching for the car, was standing to greet them.
"Well, Mrs. Penruddock, how are you? Anybody waiting for me this
morning?" began Uncle David. "You see I've brought my nieces with me
to-day. They'll take a look round the place while I'm busy. Can you
manage to find any lunch for them, do you think?"
"Of course I can, Doctor," smiled Mrs. Penruddock. "It's a nice day for
them to see Chagmouth. It's really quite warm down by the harbour. There
are ten people in the waiting-room, and I have the messages here. Mrs.
Glyn Williams said there was no hurry, any time would suit her."
"I'll go up in the afternoon then, when I take the Sanatorium. I'll see
the people who are waiting now, and then have lunch, please, before I
begin my round. Have you a watch, Mavis? That's right! Then run down and
look at the sea, you two girls, and be back by one o'clock. Don't forget
the time, because I shall have a long round to-day, and must make an
early start."
Dr. Tremayne disappeared into his surgery, and Mavis and Merle, after a
few directions as to their route from Mrs. Penruddock, turned down the
street that led towards the sea. Chagmouth was nothing more than a
village, though its natives liked to call it a town. To enter it was
like exploring a new world. The road to Chagmouth was happily too steep
and narrow for charabancs, so that, even in summer, trippers, with their
terrible train of sandwich-papers and cigarette-ends, had not yet
discovered it and defiled its beauty. It was the most picturesque jumble
of fishermen's cottages that could possibly be imagined; its narrow
alleys, its archways, its flights of steps, its green half-doorways, its
tiny windows and chimneys set at every quaint angle, its cobble stones
and deep gutters, seemed a survival from old days of wrecking and
smuggling, and transported one's charmed imagination back to the
eighteenth century. Every corner was an artist's subject, the roofs were
yellow with lichen, and many of them were covered with masses of ferns;
fishing-nets hung out to dry over palings, and clumps of valerian and
stocks and snapdragon grew in the crevices of the walls. Sea-gulls were
everywhere, as tame as chickens. They sat in rows on the roof ridges,
they perched on the chimneys, and flapped down into the streets to catch
the bread the children threw for them, they swam with the ducks in the
wide pool where the stream emptied itself into the harbour, and circled
with loud cries round the jetty and the arcade where the fish was
packed. Nobody in Chagmouth ever molested the gulls; they were the
mascots of the village, and, according to all traditions handed down
from time immemorial, to injure one of them would be to court instant
bad luck and risk at sea. Even the naughtiest boys did not throw stones
at them, and they were indeed considered almost as sacred as are the
storks in some countries.
Mavis and Merle, much thrilled with their surroundings, plunged down
the narrow little street and along flights of steps and under a deep
archway, till they found themselves by the harbour, where red-sailed
fishing-boats were at anchor, and blue-jerseyed, bronze-faced men were
sitting on casks or on coils of rope, smoking, and talking about
prospects of future catches. It was such a picturesque sight that Mavis
wanted to linger, but Merle, who could catch a glimpse of the spray
beyond the breakwater, pulled her on towards the sea. So they climbed
one flight of steps, and went down another on the far side of the jetty,
finding themselves on a strip of sand and shingle with high rocks and a
headland behind, and the stretch of green open channel in front.
The midday February sunshine made gleaming, dancing lights on the
water. Each wave as it rolled in showed a transparent window of amber,
then fell in foaming white on the beach, carrying back with it a mass of
grinding pebbles. The south wind was fresh, but not at all cold. Mavis
drank in great gasping breaths of it, as if it were something for which
she had craved and pined. A fortnight of Devon had already brought a
pink tinge to her cheeks, and the sea air to-day was turning them rosy.
The girls walked about on the shore, picking up shells, examining the
great tangled pieces of seaweed, and peeping into the pools among the
rocks. They would have liked to go round the point, but Mavis's
wristwatch warned her that time was galloping, and that if they meant to
climb back up the hill to Grimbal's Farm they must turn at once and
hurry their steps; so, very reluctantly, they said a temporary good-bye
to the beach, promising themselves many further visits there on future
Saturdays, and each taking a cockleshell to carry in her pocket as a
charm to lure her again to the domain of the sea-nymphs.