A Patriotic Schoolgirl Part 9

"I thought it was somebody walking in her sleep," maintained Daisy Shaw.

"Oh, how horrid!" shivered Barbara Wright. "I'd be scared to death of anyone sleep-walking. I'd rather meet a ghost any day."

"Did you see somebody?" enquired Betty casually.

"No, it was only what we heard--stealthy footsteps, you know, that moved softly along, just as they're described in a horrible book I read in the holidays--_The Somnambulist_ it was called--about a man who was always going about in the night with fixed, stony eyes, and appearing on the tops of roofs and all sorts of spooky places. It gives me the creeps to think of it. Ugh!"

"When people walk in their sleep it's fearfully dangerous to awaken them," commented Daisy.

"Is it? Why?"

"Oh, it gives them such a terrible shock, they often don't get over it for ages! You ought to take them gently by the hand and lead them back to bed."

"And suppose they won't go?"

"Ask me a harder! I say, there's the second bell. Scootons nous vite! Do you want to get an order mark?"

CHAPTER VIII

A Sensation

"Look here," said Betty to her room-mates that evening, "those poor girls in No. 8 are just yearning for a sensation. Don't you think we ought to be philanthropic and supply it for them?"

"Yearning for a what?" asked Marjorie, pausing with a sponge in her hand and reaching for the towel.

"Yearning for a sensation," repeated Betty. "Life at an ordinary boarding-school is extremely dull. 'The daily round, the common task', is apt to pall. What we all crave for is change, and especially change of a spicy, unexpected sort that makes you jump."

"I don't want to jump, thanks."

"Perhaps you don't, but those girls in No. 8 do. They're longing for absolute creeps--only a ghost, or a burglar, or an air raid, or something really stirring, would content them."

"I'm afraid they'll have to go discontented then."

"Certainly not. As I remarked before, we ought to be philanthropic and provide a little entertainment to cheer them up. I have a plan."

"Proceed, O Queen, and disclose it then."

"Barbara Wright suggested it to me--not intentionally, of course. We'll play a rag on them. One of us must pretend to sleep-walk and go into their room. It ought to give them spasms. Do you catch on?"

"Rather!" replied the others.

"But who's going to do the sleep-walking business?" asked Irene.

"Marjorie's the best actress. We'll leave it to her. Give us a specimen now, old sport, and show us how you'll do it. Oh, that's ripping! It'll take them in no end. I should like to see Barbara's face."

Marjorie was always perfectly ready for anything in the way of a practical joke, especially if it were a new variety. The girls had grown rather tired of apple-pie beds or sewn-up nightdress sleeves, but n.o.body had yet thought of somnambulism.

"I'm not going to stop awake again, though, until twelve," she objected.

"I had enough of it last night. It's somebody else's turn."

"Whoever happens to wake must call the others," suggested Irene.

"We'll leave it at that," they agreed.

For two successive nights, however, all four girls slept soundly until the seven-o'clock bell rang. They were generally tired, and none of them suffered from insomnia. On the third night Betty heard the clock strike two, and, going into Marjorie's cubicle, tickled her awake.

"Get up! You've got to act Lady Macbeth!" she urged. "Best opportunity for a star performance you've ever had in your life. You'll take the house."

"I'm so sleepy," yawned Marjorie. "And," putting one foot out of bed, "it's so beastly cold!"

"Never mind, the fun will be worth it. We're going to wait about to hear them squeal. It'll be precious. No, you musn't put on your dressing-gown and bedroom slippers--sleep-walkers never do--you must go as you are."

"Play up, Marjorie!" decreed the others, who were also awake.

Thus encouraged, Marjorie rose to the occasion and began to act her part. There was one difficulty to be overcome. At night a lamp was left burning in the corridor, but the bedrooms were in darkness. How were the occupants of No. 8 going to see her? They must be decoyed somehow from their beds. She decided to open the door of their room so as to let in a little light, then enter, walk round their cubicles, and go out again on to the landing, where she hoped they would follow her. Softly she entered the door of No. 8, and advanced in a dramatic att.i.tude with outstretched hands, in imitation of a picture she had once seen of Lady Macbeth. The light from the corridor, though dim, was quite sufficient to render objects distinct. At the first stealthy steps Daisy Shaw awoke promptly. Her shuddering little squeal aroused the others, and they gazed spellbound at the white-robed figure parading in ghostly fashion round their room. Avoiding the furniture, Marjorie, with arms still outstretched, tacked back into the corridor. Exactly as she had antic.i.p.ated, the girls rose and followed her. They were huddled together at the door of their dormitory, watching her with awestruck faces, when an awful thing happened. Another door opened, and Miss Norton, blue dressing-gown and bedroom slippers and all, appeared on the scene.

"What's the matter?" she asked sharply.

"Marjorie Anderson's walking in her sleep!" whispered the girls.

Now in this horrible emergency Marjorie had to act promptly or not at all. She decided that her best course was to go on shamming somnambulism. She walked down the corridor, therefore, with a rapid, stealthy step.

Miss Norton turned on the frightened girls, and, whispering: "Don't disturb her on any account!" followed in the wake of her pupil.

Then began a most exciting promenade. Marjorie, with eyes set in a stony glare, marched downstairs into the hall. She stood for a moment by the front door, as if speculating whether to unlock it or not. She could hear Miss Norton breathing just behind her, and was almost tempted to try the experiment of shooting back at least one bolt, but decided it was wiser not to run the risk. Instead she walked into the house mistress's study, turned over a few papers in an abstracted fashion, threw them back on to the table, and went towards the window. Here again Miss Norton shadowed her closely, evidently suspecting that she had designs of opening it and climbing out. She turned round, however, and, with apparently unseeing eyes, stared in the teacher's face, and stole stealthily back up the stairs. At her own bedroom door she paused, in seeming uncertainty as to whether to enter or not. Miss Norton laid a gentle hand on her arm, and guided her quietly into her room and towards her bed. Marjorie decided to take the hint. Wandering about in a nightdress, with bare feet, was a very cold performance, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from palpably shivering. Keeping up her part, she gave a gentle little sigh, got into bed, laid her head on her pillow, and closed her eyes. She could feel Miss Norton pulling the clothes over her, and, with another quivering sigh, she sank apparently into deepest slumber. The teacher stayed a few minutes watching her, then, as she never moved, went very quietly away and closed the door after her.

Nothing was said at head-quarters next morning about the night's adventures, but Miss Norton looked rather carefully at Marjorie, asked her if she felt well, and told her she was to go to Nurse Hall every day at eleven in the Ambulance Room for a dose of tonic. Marjorie, who had not intended her practical joke to run to such lengths, felt rather ashamed of herself, but dared not confess.

"There'd be a terrific scene if Norty knew," she said to Betty, and Betty agreed with her.

In the afternoon, when Marjorie ran up to her cubicle for a pocket-handkerchief, to her surprise she found Mrs. Morrison there superintending a man who was measuring the window. She wondered why, for nothing, apparently, was wrong with it; but n.o.body dared ask questions of the Empress, so she took her clean handkerchief and fled. Later on that day she learned the reason.

"We're to have bra.s.s bars across our window," Sylvia informed her. "I heard the Empress and the Acid Drop talking about it. They're fearfully expensive in war-time, but the Empress said: 'Well, the expense cannot be helped; I daren't risk letting the poor child jump through the window. Her door must certainly be locked every night.' And Norty said: 'Yes, it's a very dangerous thing.'"

"Are they putting the bars up for me?" exclaimed Marjorie.

"Of course. Don't you see, they think you walk in your sleep and might kill yourself unless you're protected. Nice thing it'll be to have bars across our window and our door locked at night. It will feel like prison. I wish to goodness you'd never played such a trick!"

"Well, I'm sure you all wanted me to. It wasn't my idea to begin with,"

retorted Marjorie.

Great was the indignation in No. 9 at the prospect of this defacement of their pretty window. The girls talked the matter over.

"Something's got to be done!" said Betty decidedly.