The Princess of the School, Angela Brazil [reading strategies book .TXT] 📗

"Chilcombe Hall.

"My dear Everard,

"I must write at once and tell you of the terrible things that have been happening at this school. On Monday last the cook made a mistake, and used a packet of rat poison instead of sugar in our pudding. It was the day for ginger puddings, and we all thought they tasted rather queer, somehow, but it is not etiquette here to leave anything on your plate, so we made an effort and finished our rations. Well, about ten minutes afterwards most of us were taken with umpteen fits. We writhed about the room in agony, and thought our last hour had come. The doctor was sent for, and he motored over so fast that he killed two little boys and a cow on the road, but he said he did not care, and it was all in the way of business. He stood us up in a line and gave us each an emetic of mustard and water which was very horrid, and[281] felt like a poultice inside. We are beginning to get better now, but Carmel's legs are stiff, and she has a tendency to go black in the face every now and then. The doctor says she will do so for a fortnight, until the rat poison wears itself out of her system. He does not think she will be lame always. At least he hopes not. Lilias squints a little in consequence of the umpteen fits she had, which turned her eyes round, and my face is still swollen, and three front teeth dropped out, but otherwise we are quite well, and the Doctor says things might have been much worse, for at least our lives were spared. I think we ought to see a specialist, but Miss Walters won't hear of it.

"Hoping you are quite well,
"With love,
"Your affectionate sister
"Dulcie."

"Don't say I can't write fiction!" proclaimed Dulcie, making a grimace at Gowan. "It's as good as a novel (though I say it myself) and as interesting as anything in a newspaper. Improbable? Not at all! Cooks make mistakes sometimes, like other people! I don't exactly know the symptoms of rat poisoning, but I dare say they are very much what I've described. It's thrilling reading, anyhow, and you ought to give me a good clap for it."

"Tootle-too! Somebody has lost a trumpeter!" returned Gowan.

[282]"I don't care! I'm sure if we took votes for the most thrills, my piece would win. I'm going to keep it! Hand it back to me, Gowan! I want to show it to Everard some time. He'd laugh ever so over it. He says my home letters are tame. This would wake him up, at any rate! He'd say his sister was breaking out into an authoress! What sport!"

The day following the secret meeting of the[283] Mafia was one of those devoted to home correspondence. The girls were alloted forty minutes during school hours: they brought their writing-cases into the class-room, and scribbled off as many letters as possible during the brief time allowed. On this particular Wednesday Dulcie was much in arrears; she wrote three letters to Sicily, one to an aunt in London, a short scrawl to Everard, and was beginning "My dear Cousin Clare," when Miss Hardy entered the room in a hurry.

"Jones has to leave half an hour earlier," she announced, "and he wants to take the post-bag now. Be quick, girls, and give me your letters!"

A general scramble of finishing and stamping ensued. Dulcie, who had not addressed her envelopes, folded her loose sheets anyhow, and trusted to luck that the foreign letters were not over-weight.

"I can't help it if they have to pay extra on[284] them," she confided to Carmel. "They look rather heavy, certainly, but I hadn't any thin note paper, you see."

"Douglas will pay up cheerfully, I'm sure!"

"How do you know that his was a heavy one?"

"Oh, I can guess!"

"I was only answering a number of questions he asked me. It's very unkind not to answer people's questions!"

"Most decidedly! I quite agree with you!" laughed Carmel.

The letters were posted in Glazebrook that evening by the factotum Jones, and Dulcie, though her thoughts might possibly follow the particular heavy envelope addressed to Montalesso, dismissed her other items of correspondence completely from her mind. She was taking a run round the garden the next morning at eleven o'clock "break," when to her immense surprise she heard a trotting of horse's hoofs on the drive, and who should appear but Everard, riding Rajah. The rules at Chilcombe Hall were strict. No visits were allowed, even from brothers, without special permission from Miss Walters. Hitherto Everard had come over only by express invitation from the head-mistress, and this had been given sparingly, at discreet intervals, and always for the afternoon. Surely some most unusual circumstance must have brought him to[285] school at the early hour of eleven in the morning? Dulcie flew across the lawn, calling his name. At the sight of his sister Everard dismounted, and greeted her eagerly.

"Hello! How are you? How's Carmel?" he began. "I say, you know, this has been a shocking business! You look better than I expected" (scanning her face narrowly). "It's a mercy you aren't all under the daisies! Is Carmel really lame? What about those fits? I came directly I read your letter. A specialist must be sent for at once! I can't understand Miss Walters taking it so lightly. We ought to have been told at once, directly it happened."

As Everard poured forth these remarks, Dulcie's expression underwent several quick changes, and passed from astonishment to sudden comprehension and mirth.

"We're better, thanks!" she choked. "And Carmel can hobble about quite well on her crutches, and her face isn't very black now, not like it was at first, though of course she still has the fits pretty regularly, and the Doctor says——"

But at that moment her mendacious statement was contradicted by Carmel herself, who came running over the lawn with an agility that put crutches out of all question, and a complexion that was certainly in no way spoilt.

[286]It was Everard's turn to look amazed. He glanced in much perplexity from his cousin, radiant and apparently in the best of health, to his sister, who was almost speechless with laughter.

"You never actually believed my letter about the rat poison?" exploded Dulcie. "I explained that it was written for our literary evening. I told you, Everard, I only sent it on for you to read because it sounded so funny, and I was rather proud of it!"

"You told me nothing of the sort!"

"Oh, but I did indeed! Unless—" (suddenly sobering down), "unless I forgot to put my other letter into the envelope, and only sent you the rat-poison one! I was in such a hurry! Oh, good-night! Isn't it just like me! Poor old Everard, I never meant to give you such a scare! I'm frightfully sorry! Umpteen apologies!"

"Then is the whole business fiction?" demanded her brother, with knitted brows.

"Oh, Everard, don't be angry!" implored Carmel. "Dulcie didn't mean to rag you! We were having a jolly evening, and each of us had to write something—the funnier the better—and that was Dulcie's contribution. She said she was going to send it to you to make you laugh, but of course she meant to put in her other letter to explain that this was only nonsense. But Miss Hardy came in such a hurry, and whisked all our[287] letters off before we had time to read them over, or hardly to put them in the right envelopes. So you know it was just an accident."

"I rode over at once to see what was the matter!"

Everard's voice still sounded offended, though slightly mollified.

"I know you did, and it was ever so kind of you. I'm only sorry you should have all the trouble. It's been nice to see you, though, and we do thank you for coming."

"It must be a relief to find we don't squint or hobble on crutches," added Dulcie naughtily. "How shall we explain to Miss Walters if she catches you?"

"I'd better be going!" declared Everard. "Isn't that your school-bell ringing? Well, I'm glad at any rate to find you all right. Shan't dare to believe any of your letters in future, Dulcie!

"'Matilda told such awful lies,
It made you gasp and stretch your eyes.
Her aunt, who from her earliest youth
Had kept a strict regard for truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda—
The effort very nearly killed her.'

"Good-by, Carmel! Keep my bad young sister in order if you can. She needs some one to look after her." And Everard, with a hand on Rajah's[288] bridle, nodded smilingly after the girls as they ran towards the house in response to the clanging school-bell.

The rest of the summer term at Chilcombe Hall seemed to pass very rapidly away, and the space in this book is not enough to tell all that the girls did during those weeks of June sunshine and July heat. There were tennis tournaments and archery contests, cricket matches, picnics and strawberry feasts, as well as the more sober business of lessons, examinations, and a concert to which parents were invited. To Carmel it was the pleasantest term she had spent at school, for she had settled down now into English ways, and did not so continually feel the call of her Sicilian home. The "Hostage," as Dulcie still sometimes laughingly called her, if she pined for the Casa Bianca, had contrived to make herself happy in her northern surroundings, and had won favor with everybody. School girls do not often make a fuss, but, when breaking-up day arrived, and the Ingletons drove away in their car, a chorus of cheers followed them from the doorstep, and, though the hoorays were given to all three without discrimination, there is no doubt that they were mainly intended for Carmel.

"She's a sport!" said Gowan, waving in reply to the white handkerchief that fluttered a farewell. "I don't know any chum I like better. She[289] always plays the game somehow, doesn't she?"

"Rather!" agreed Noreen. "I think the way she's taken her place at Cheverley Chase without cuckooing all that family out, or making them jealous, is just marvelous. If anybody deserves her kingdom, it's Princess Carmel; it's only one in a thousand who could have done what she has."

Carmel, indeed, though an unacknowledged sovereign, had managed to win all hearts at the Chase. Even Lilias did not now resent the ownership of one who so rarely urged her own claims; insensibly she had grown fond of her cousin, and liked her company.

The summer holiday promised to be as pleasant as that of last Christmas. Mr. Stacey, who had taken his vacation in June and July, had returned to Cheverley in time to greet Roland, Bevis, and Clifford, a welcome state of affairs to Cousin Clare, for the three lively boys were almost beyond her management, and needed the kindly authority which the tutor knew so well how to wield without friction. All sorts of plans for enjoyment were in the air, a visit to the sea, a motor tour, a garden party, a tennis tournament, a cricket match, even a dance at the Chase, when one day something quite unexpected occurred, something which changed the entire course of events, and threw the thoughts of the holiday makers into a new channel. Like many extraordinary happenings,[290] it came about in quite an ordinary way.

Carmel had left her despatch case at school—a small matter, indeed, but fraught with big consequences. As she wanted some convenient safe spot in which to deposit note paper, old letters, sealing wax, stamps, and other such treasures, Cousin Clare allowed her to take possession of a writing-desk which stood on the study table. It had belonged to old Mr. Ingleton, and he had indeed used it till the day before his death, but it had been emptied of its contents by Mr. Bowden, and was now placed merely as an ornament in the window. It was a large, old-fashioned desk of rosewood, handsomely inlaid with brass, and lined with purple velvet. Carmel seized upon it joyfully, and began to transfer some of her many belongings to its hospitable depths. It was well fitted, for there was an ink-pot with a silver top, and a pen-box containing a seal and a silver pen. Mr. Bowden had left these when he removed the papers, probably considering them as part and parcel of the desk. Carmel lifted out the ink-pot to admire its cover, but, though it came out fairly easily, it was a difficult matter to fit it in again. In pushing it back into its place she