A Popular Schoolgirl, Angela Brazil [most romantic novels .txt] 📗

Hereward.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because there may be others even better!"

"Well, of course, that's for Miss Burd to judge! But I think I've a sporting chance, at any rate!"

The dance was to be held on Monday evening after supper, when it was just beginning to grow dusk. The mistresses had taken the matter up quite enthusiastically, and had stretched some wires across the garden, and hung up Chinese lanterns. The hostel piano had been pulled close to the window, so that the strains of music could float out into the garden. At least fifteen seniors had accepted the invitation, and it was rumored that Miss Burd had invited a few private friends. Supper was held earlier than usual, so as to allow time for the all-important operation of dressing, and the moment it was finished every inmate of the hostel fled to her bedroom. Dormitory 2 was naturally a scene of much confusion. The girls tried to put on their own costumes and help each other at the same time. Fil, as a Dresden China Shepherdess, needed much assistance in the settling of her panniers, and the arrangement of her curls, which by special permission from Mrs. Best had been twisted up in curl papers from four o'clock until the last available moment, and came out, much to Fil's satisfaction, in quite creditable ringlets. The effect was so altogether charming that her room-mates called a general halt for admiration.

"You look like a mixture of Dolly Varden and Sweet Lavender, with a dash of Maid Marian thrown in," decided Verity.

"I hope my hair'll keep in curl! There's rather a damp feeling in the air," fluttered Fil anxiously.

"You could fly indoors, and give it a twist with the tongs, if it gets very limp," suggested Nora.

Nora herself was going as a personification of "The Kitchen." Her skirt was draped with dusters and dish-cloths, she wore a small dish-cover as a hat, clothes-pegs were suspended round her neck as a necklace, and she brandished a rolling-pin in her hand.

"I'm bound to be something comic," she assured the others. "I'd never keep my face straight for a romantic character. I could no more live up to Lady Jane Grey than I could fly! She's above me altogether!"

Verity, who had borrowed a Dutch costume slightly too small for her, was trying to squeeze her proportions into the tight velvet bodice, and looked dubiously at the sabots.

"I'll never be able to dance in those!" she decided. "I'll put them on to start with, and then kick them off and slip on my sandals instead. They're the most extraordinary clumpy things in the world, I feel like a cat walking in walnut shells!"

Ingred's toilet progressed very favorably till it came to the stage of coloring her face. She was not quite sure as to the best means of obtaining a Red Indian complexion. First she tried rubbing it with soil from the garden, but that was a painful process which almost scraped the skin from her cheeks. So she washed her face and used cocoa. She mixed it in a cup and dabbed it over, but it would not go on smoothly, and the result was so patchy and hideous that once more she brought out her sponge and wiped it off. At that point Verity came to the rescue, smeared the poor cheeks (already sore through such ill-treatment) with vanishing cream, then powdered on some dry cocoa, which certainly gave a dusky and non-European aspect to her features, especially when combined with the feather head-dress. Her dark hair, plaited in two long tails, completed the illusion. The girls held a complacent review of their toilets, then walked downstairs with caution, for Nora's dish-cover was difficult to balance as a hat, and Verity's heels kept slipping out of the sabots. Fil's ringlets, alas! were already beginning to untwist, and Ingred's jumper, put on in too big a hurry, showed symptoms of splitting down the seam. There was no time for repairs of any sort, however. They were five minutes late, and the rest of the company were assembled on the lawn. The boarders from the hostel, together with mistresses and seniors who had come by invitation, made a total of more than fifty persons, all in fancy dress.

These gay costumes were a pretty sight against the background of trees and bushes and flower-beds. The sun had set, leaving a yellow glow in the sky, and the Chinese lanterns were beginning to glow in the gathering twilight. It was certainly a varied crowd; all centuries had met together. A Japanese damsel walked arm-in-arm with a Lancashire witch; an Italian peasant hob-a-nobbed with "The Queen of Sheba," a Spanish lady was talking to "Old Mother Hubbard," while such characters as "A Medicine Bottle," or "An Aeroplane" rubbed shoulders with an "Egyptian Princess" or "Dick Whittington's Cat."

Miss Burd, garbed appropriately as Chaucer's Prioress, received the company at the top of the sun-dial steps, looking, in the opinion of the Foursome League, quite sufficiently like the ghost of yesterday to have justified squeals had they met her alone. When the ceremony of introduction was over, the guests dispersed about the lawn, Miss Perry struck up a waltz on the piano, and the fun began. Dancing on the grass, in the growing darkness, with the Chinese lanterns sending out a soft but uncertain radiance overhead, was a new experience to most of the school. It was difficult not to step on to the flower-beds, or to brush against the bushes. Trailing garments were decidedly in the way, and came to grief. There was a delirious sort of Eastern feeling about it—a kind of combination of "The Thousand and One Nights" and the "Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyam." The Abbey tower for once seemed out of place, and ought to have changed miraculously into a pagoda or a minaret.

It was after the girls had been dancing for some little time that Ingred first noticed a couple whom she did not remember to have seen before. They followed persistently in her steps, and even gently bumped into her once or twice, thus compelling her attention. She looked at them, considerably mystified. One was attired in Early Victorian Costume, with a crinoline, a little tippet, and a poke bonnet, from which peeped some bewitching ringlets; the other, in a gorgeous Turkish costume, was enveloped in a shimmering gauze veil.

"Who are those?" Ingred asked her partner.

But Verity could not tell.

In the twilight it was, of course, easy to make mistakes, but Ingred began to have a strong suspicion that neither of the mysterious partners belonged to the school. They were certainly not members of the Fifth or Sixth. Perhaps some of the Juniors had forced themselves in? No, they were too tall for Juniors.

"Perhaps they are ghosts!" shivered Verity.

"Ghosts don't bump into people. These are real substantial flesh and blood!"

"It's so dark, we can hardly see."

"Well, I vote we keep close to them, and next time we get near a lantern, we'll turn the tables and bump into them, and try to see who they are."

It was easier said than done, however; the strangers seemed to have changed their tactics, and instead of pursuing Ingred and Verity now endeavored to avoid them. No "elusive Pimpernels" could have been more difficult to follow. They would come quite close and then suddenly dodge and glide away, only to reappear and repeat the same tantalizing performance. Ingred and Verity began to get on their mettle. It was so evidently done on purpose that they were fully determined to catch the errant pair. After a long game at hide-and-seek they at last managed to dance along side them, and laying violent hands upon them, to drag them into the light of a lantern. As Ingred gazed for a moment in perplexity, the Early Victorian lady gave a most un-Early Victorian wink inside the poke bonnet.

"Hereward! How dare you!" gasped his sister.

A firm hand drew her away from the light, and in the shelter of a laurel bush, a voice, choking with laughter, proclaimed:

"Done you, old girl! Done you brown! What about that bet? I told you you'd never know me!"

"You abominable young wretch," replied Ingred, laughing in spite of herself. "How did you manage it? And who is your friend?"

"Allow me to introduce Vashti, Queen of Persia!"

"Bunkum! It's a boy! I know it is!"

The explosive sounds issuing from under the shimmering veil of Queen Vashti certainly sounded more masculine than feminine, and that Persian princess confessed presently to the name of Franklin.

"He's a chum of mine," explained Hereward, "and he lives close by, so we made it up to come together. His sister lent us the clothes and dressed us. I say, your Prioress never found us out, did she? What about that prize?"

"There isn't going to be a prize, and you certainly wouldn't have deserved it! Look here, you'd better wangle yourselves off before it gets about who you are. I should get into a row, not you!"

"Would the Prioress kick up rough?"

"She'd probably think I'd planned the whole business, and encouraged you to come."

"Even if we apologized?"

"She wouldn't accept an apology. If you want me to have any tennis next week, you had better clear out."

"Just a round with you first, and Franklin can take your friend, or vice versa if you prefer it!"

"You impudent boy! Certainly not. I daren't risk it. Look, Miss Strong is bringing out the lamp, and putting it on the sun-dial, and I believe Miss Perry is going to take a flashlight photo presently. If you want to disgrace me for ever——"

"We'll go!" sighed a mournful voice. "Though it's Adam and Eve turned out of Paradise. I say, Franklin, they don't want us, after all our trouble! We'd better be getting on, I suppose. Our deepest respects to the Prioress. She's given us a delightful evening, if she only knew it. We'd like to come again some time. Ta-ta!"

CHAPTER XXI The Abbey Recital

Now that Ingred had at last made friends with Bess, she found they had innumerable subjects of interest in common. They were both keen tennis players, dabbled a little in art, pursued Nature study, liked acting, when they had any opportunity of showing their talents in that line, and were enthusiastic over music. Bess was making as good progress on the violin as Ingred on the piano, so there seemed great possibilities of playing together. Sometimes when Bess brought her instrument to school for her lesson, she and Ingred would try over a few pieces, and other girls who chanced to be near would collect and act audience.

"I vote we get up a musical society next year," suggested Ingred. "It's impossible this term—we've too much on our hands already—but if the societies are rearranged in September, we'll agitate to let music take a much bigger place than it has done so far."

"Yes, that would be glorious!" agreed Bess, with visions of a school choir, and even a school orchestra, dancing before her eyes. "Signor Chianti is leaving Grovebury, so if we have a new violin master next term, I hope it will be somebody who's enthusiastic and able and willing to organize things."

"That's the point, of course. Dr. Linton is very able, but not willing to bother with us beyond our lessons—he's so frightfully busy. I suppose he feels that after training the Abbey choir, and conducting choral societies to sing his cantatas, he doesn't care to trouble himself over schoolgirls."

"He's a real musician, though. I often wish I could study under him. I'd love to play something with him, just once, to see how it feels to have him accompany me. I think it would be so inspiring, it would just make one let oneself go! I stay every Sunday evening after service at the Abbey to hear his recitals. Occasionally somebody plays the violin, and his accompaniment is simply gorgeous. He manages to make it sound like a whole orchestra. I've never played with an organ. It's so much fuller than a piano."

"Yes," agreed Ingred contemplatively.

Bess's remarks had given her an idea, but she did not want to communicate it at once to her friend. It was nothing more or less than that she should ask Dr. Linton to allow Bess to play with him some time in the Abbey. She wondered whether she dared. His temper was still decidedly irritable, and it was quite uncertain whether he would receive the suggestion graciously, or snap her head off. She thought, however, it was worth venturing.

"I'll try to catch him in an amiable mood," she decided.

In order not to arouse any grounds for irritation, she practiced particularly well, and took her next work to him at a high stage of excellence.

"Bravo!" he said, when she had finished her "Serenade." "I believe you've really got some music in you! You brought out that crescendo passage very well indeed. We want a little more delicacy