Betty Vivian Part 7

Miss Symes left the room. When she did so the two younger girls looked at their elder sister. Betty's face was very white, and her chest was working ominously.

Sylvia went up to her and gave her a sudden, violent slap between the shoulders. "Now, don't begin!" she said. "If you do, they'll all come round us. It isn't as if we could rush away to the middle of the moors, and you could go on with it as long as you liked. Here, if you howl, you'll catch it; for they'll stand over you, and perhaps fling water on your head."

"Leave me alone, then, for a minute," said Betty. She flung herself flat on the ground, face downwards, her hair falling about her shoulders. She lay as still as though she were carved in stone. The twin girls watched her for a minute. Then very softly and carefully Sylvia approached the p.r.o.ne figure, pushed her hand into Betty's pocket (a very coa.r.s.e, ordinary pocket it was, put in at the side of her dress by Jean's own fingers), and took out a bunch of keys.

Sylvia held up the keys with a glad smile. "Now let's begin," she said.

"It's an odious, grandified room, and Betty'll go mad here; but we can't help it--at least, for a bit. And there's always the packet."

At these words, to the great relief of her younger sisters, Betty stood upright. "There's always the packet," she said. "Now let's begin to unpack."

Notwithstanding the fact that there were six deal trunks--six trunks of the plainest make, corded with the coa.r.s.est rope--there was very little inside them, at least as far as an ordinary girl's wardrobe is concerned; for Miss Frances Vivian had been very poor, and during the last year of her life had lived at Craigie Muir in the strictest economy. She was, moreover, too ill to be greatly troubled about the girls' clothing; and by and by, as her illness progressed, she left the matter altogether to Jean. Jean was to supply what garments the young ladies required, and Jean set about the work with a right good will. So the coa.r.s.est petticoats, the most clumsy stockings, the ugliest jackets and blouses and skirts imaginable, presently appeared out of the little wooden trunks.

The girls sorted them eagerly, putting them pell-mell into the drawers without the slightest attempt at any sort of order. But if there were very few clothes in the trunks, there were all sorts of other things.

There were boxes full of caterpillars in different stages of chrysalis form. There was also a gla.s.s box which contained an enormous spider.

This was Sylvia's special property. She called the spider d.i.c.kie, and adored it. She would not give it flies, which she considered cruel, but used to keep it alive on morsels of raw meat. Every day, for a quarter of an hour, d.i.c.kie was allowed to take exercise on a flat stone on the edge of the moor. It was quite against even Jean Macfarlane's advice that d.i.c.kie was brought to the neighborhood of London. But he was here.

He had borne his journey apparently well, and Sylvia looked at him now with worshiping eyes.

In addition to the live stock, which was extensive and varied, there were also all kinds of strange fossils, and long, trailing pieces of heather--mementos of the life which the girls lived on the moor, and which they had left with such pain and sorrow. They were all busy worshiping d.i.c.kie, and envying Sylvia's bravery in bringing the huge spider to Haddo Court, when there came a gentle tap at the door.

Betty said crossly, "Who's there?"

A very refined voice answered, "It's I;" and the next minute f.a.n.n.y Crawford entered the room. "How are you all?" she said. Her eyes were red, for she had just said good-bye to her father, and she thoroughly hated the idea of the girls coming to the school.

"How are you, Fan?" replied Betty, speaking in a careless tone, just nodding her head, and looking again into the gla.s.s box. "He is very hungry," she continued. "By the way, Fan, will you run down to the kitchen and get a little bit of raw meat?"

"Will I do what?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"Well, I suppose there is a kitchen in the house, and you can get a bit of raw meat. It's for d.i.c.kie."

"Oh," said f.a.n.n.y, coming forward on tiptoe and peeping into the box, "you can't keep that terror here--you simply won't be allowed to have it! Have you _no_ idea what school-life is like?"

"No," said Betty; "and what is more, I don't want you to tell me. d.i.c.kie darling, I'd let you pinch my finger if it would do you any good.

Sylvia, what use are you if you can't feed your own spider? If Fan won't oblige her cousins when she knows the ways of the house, I presume you have a pair of legs and can use them? Go to the kitchen at once and get a piece of raw meat."

"I don't know where it is," said Sylvia, looking slightly frightened.

"Well, you can ask. Go on; ask until you find. Now, be off with you!"

"You had better not," said f.a.n.n.y. "Why, you will meet all the girls coming out of the different cla.s.srooms!"

"What do girls matter," said Betty in a withering voice, "when d.i.c.kie is hungry?"

Sylvia gathered up her courage and departed. Betty laid the gla.s.s box which contained the spider on the dressing-table.

If f.a.n.n.y had not been slightly afraid of these bold northern cousins of hers, she would have dashed the box out on the balcony and released poor d.i.c.kie, giving him back to his natural mode of life. "What queer dresses you are wearing!" she said. "Do, please, change them before lunch. You were not dressed like this when I saw you last. You were never fashionable, but this stuff----"

"You'd best not begin, Fan, or I'll howl," said Betty.

"Hush! do hush, f.a.n.n.y!" exclaimed Hester. "Don't forget that we are in mourning for darling auntie."

"But have you really no other dresses?"

"There's nothing wrong with these," said Hester; "they're quite comfortable."

Just at that moment there came peals of laughter proceeding from several girls' throats. The room-door was burst open, and Sylvia entered first, her face very red, her eyes bright and defiant, and a tiny piece of raw meat on a plate in her hand. The girls who followed her did not belong to the Specialities, but they were all girls of the upper school. f.a.n.n.y thanked her stars that they were not particular friends of hers. They were choking with laughter, and evidently thought they had never seen so good a sight in their lives.

"Oh, this is too delicious!" said Sibyl Ray, a girl who had just been admitted into the upper school. "We met this--this young lady, and she said she wanted to go to the kitchen to get some raw meat; and when I told her I didn't know the way she just took my hand and drew me along with her, and said, 'If you possessed a d.i.c.kie, and he was dying of hunger, you wouldn't hesitate to find the kitchen.'"

"Well, I'm not going to interfere," said f.a.n.n.y; "but I think you know the rules of the house, Sibyl, and that no girl is allowed in the kitchen."

"I didn't go in," said Sibyl; "catch me! But I went to the beginning of the corridor which leads to the kitchen. _She_ went in, though, boldly enough, and she got it. Now, we do want to see who d.i.c.kie is. Is he a dog, or a monkey, or what?"

"He's a spider--_goose_!" said Sylvia. "And now, please, get out of the way. He won't eat if you watch him. I've got a good bit of meat, Betty,"

she continued. "It'll keep d.i.c.kie going for several days, and he likes it all the better when it begins to turn. Don't you d.i.c.kie?"

"If you don't all leave the room, girls," said f.a.n.n.y, "I shall have to report to Miss Symes."

The girls who had entered were rather afraid of f.a.n.n.y Crawford, and thought it best to obey her instructions. But the news with regard to the newcomers spread wildly all over the house; so much so that when, in course of time, neat-looking f.a.n.n.y came down to dinner accompanied by her three cousins, the whole school remained breathless, watching the Vivians as they entered. But what magical force is there about certain girls which raises them above the mere accessories of dress? Could there be anything uglier than the attire of these so-called Scotch la.s.sies?

And was there ever a prouder carriage than that of Betty Vivian, or a more scornful expression in the eye, or a firmer set of the little lips?

Mrs. Haddo, who always presided at this meal, called the strangers to come and sit near her; and though the school had great difficulty in not bursting into a giggle, there was not a sound of any sort whatever as the three obeyed. f.a.n.n.y sat down near her friend, Susie Rushworth. Her eyes spoke volumes. But Susie was gazing at Betty's face.

At dinner, the girls were expected to talk French on certain days of the week, and German on others. This was French day, and Susie murmured something to f.a.n.n.y in that tongue with regard to Betty's remarkable little face. But f.a.n.n.y was in no mood to be courteous or kind about her relatives. Susie was quick to perceive this, and therefore left her alone.

When dinner came to an end, Mrs. Haddo called the three Vivians into her private sitting-room. This room was even more elegant than the beautiful bedroom which they had just vacated. "Now, my dears," she said, "I want to have a talk with you all."

Sylvia and Hester looked impatient, and shuffled from one ungainly clad foot to the other; but Mrs. Haddo fixed her eyes on Betty's face, and again there thrilled through Betty's heart the marvelous sensation that she had come across a kindred soul. She was incapable, poor child, of putting the thought into such words; but she felt it, and it thawed her rebellious spirit.

Mrs. Haddo sat down. "Now," she said, "you call this school, and, having never been at school before, you doubtless think you are going to be very miserable?"

"If there's much discipline we shall be," said Hester, "and Betty will howl."

"_Don't_ talk like that!" said Betty; and there was a tone in her voice which silenced Hetty, to the little girl's own amazement.

"There will certainly be discipline at school," said Mrs. Haddo, "just as there is discipline in life. What miserable people we should be without discipline! Why, we couldn't get on at all. I am not going to lecture you to-day. As a matter of fact, I never lecture; and I never expect any young girl to do in my school what I would not endeavor to do myself. Above all things, I wish to impress one thing upon you. If you have any sort of trouble--and, of course, dears, you will have plenty--you must come straight to me and tell me about it. This is a privilege I permit to very few girls, but I grant it to you. I give you that full privilege for the first month of your stay at Haddo Court. You are to come to me as you would to a mother, had you, my poor children, a mother living."

"Don't! It makes the lump so bad!" said Betty, clasping her rough little hand against her white throat.

"I think I have said enough on that subject for the present. I am very curious to hear all about your life on the moors--how you spent your time, and how you managed your horses and dogs and your numerous pets."

"Do you really want to hear?" said Betty.

"Certainly; I have said so."

"Do you know," said Hetty, "that Sylvia _would_ bring d.i.c.kie here.

Betty and I were somewhat against it, although he is a darling. He is the most precious pet in the world, and Sylvia would not part with him.

We sent her to the kitchen before dinner to get a bit of raw meat for him. Would you like to see him?"