Just Gerry Part 13

"What are you reading?" she asked. "Anything interesting? Do you want to read very badly, or will you mind if we put out the light? Nita's coming in directly, and we'd arranged to have a cosy confab in the firelight. All the others are going to the organ recital, and we thought it would be a splendid opportunity to have a nice quiet evening all to ourselves."

"Is there an organ recital?" said Gerry. "I didn't know."

"Yes, there's been a notice up about it on the notice-board all the week. You are a blind old bat, Gerry, always up in the clouds. I don't believe you know half that goes on in the school. Miss Martyn's giving one in the Chapel this evening, but you needn't go to it unless you want--it's optional. Stay here and have a jolly evening with Nita and me. Here comes Nita."

The door opened at that moment, and Nita came quickly into the room.

"Hullo, here you are! I've got them all right----" she began, then stopped short at the sight of Gerry. In the dim light--Jack had switched off the overhead lamps, and the room was only lighted now by the glow from the fire--she had not seen her quite at first. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said, somewhat abruptly. "I thought you'd gone to the organ recital."

Jack grinned at Nita's look of dismay and turned to Gerry with a chuckle of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It's all right--don't take any notice of Nita. She doesn't really mean to be rude--it's just her way. Don't stand there looking like a stuffed owl, Nita. Gerry won't split. Will you, Gerry?"

"Split? Split on what?" asked Gerry, looking from one girl to the other in bewilderment.

"Why, we're going to have a chestnut-roasting, Nita and I. We were out for a walk with the three Fourth Forms this afternoon. Miss Burton took it. And we went by the chestnut plantation on Sir John Boyne's place--you know it, don't you, up by Southdown Woods? Nita and I gave the rest of them the slip and lay low in the plantation until they'd all gone past. Then we just set to and stuffed our pockets with chestnuts. There were loads of them, all eating ones, you know, and when the walk came back we tagged ourselves on to it without anyone getting wise. And we've planned to roast them in here while the others are at the organ recital. We didn't mean to let anyone else know, but we don't mind you--do we, Nita?"

"Oh no, of course not," said Nita hastily. But there was not quite so much conviction in her voice as Gerry would have liked to have heard in it. However, Jack's evident anxiety for her company made up for Nita's lack of cordiality; and soon the three of them were amicably engaged in scorching their faces and burning their fingers over the chestnuts.

It was very cosy in the sitting-room, curled up on the hearthrug in front of the glowing fire, which Jack had taken care to build up well before tea and which was now a flaming ma.s.s of red-hot coals. Jack was in one of her merriest, maddest moods, and her mirth infected the other two as well. Nita forgot her slight annoyance at finding that Gerry was to be a partic.i.p.ator in the chestnut-roasting, and Gerry herself was too happy for words as she sat beside Jack in the flickering firelight. For Jack was leaning against her in the friendliest way, and it seemed to the new girl that all her school troubles were over at last, and that nothing but friendship and happiness lay before her.

But suddenly, while the merriment was at its height, the sitting-room door opened abruptly, and a stream of light from the pa.s.sage outside poured into the room. Nita sprang to her feet, and Jack and Gerry looked round in startled surprise. A thin, angular figure stood in the doorway, and a rasping voice exclaimed in disgusted tones:

"What is this smell of burning?"

"Jemima! It's Miss Burton!" muttered Jack, as she scrambled to her feet. "Quick, Gerry, stuff the chestnuts into your pocket!

Anywhere--while I brush the shucks under the hearthrug. She can't have seen anything yet."

Gerry hastily gathered up what chestnuts she could lay her hands upon and stuffed them into the one pocket her dress possessed. Nita did the same, while Jack disposed of the empty sh.e.l.ls as best she could. By the time Miss Burton had succeeded in finding the switch and turning on the light, nothing remained except the tell-tale smell of burning to betray the fact that any unlawful feasting had recently taken place.

Jack sniffed innocently into the air.

"Burning, Miss Burton? Is there a smell of burning?"

Miss Burton advanced into the room, looking suspiciously about her.

Her days of chestnut-roasting were so long over, that she was unable to detect exactly the nature of the strange odour that a.s.sailed her nostrils, although she was well aware that it was something that should not have been in evidence in any well-conducted school. However, there appeared to be nothing that she could pounce upon, and she was obliged to confine her energies to strictures upon the unconventional att.i.tudes in which she had surprised the three girls.

"Really, the way you girls behave in this school is atrocious! Fancy three big girls of fifteen sitting on the floor in that ugly att.i.tude.

And why are you sitting in the dark? Why are you here at all for that matter? Is there not an organ recital you ought to be attending?"

"The organ recital was optional, Miss Burton," said Jack respectfully.

Respect seemed to her the easiest way of getting rid of this very unwelcome visitor. "And Nita and Gerry and I thought we would rather stay in here in the warm, and have a cosy talk over the fire."

"But why turn the lights out?" demanded the mistress, suspicious of the extreme innocence of the three faces before her. The innocence of two of them, rather! Gerry was not good at disguising her expression at any time, and at the moment she was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"We like sitting in the firelight best," said Jack glibly. "It makes it seem so much more cosy and mysterious. Don't you think so yourself, Miss Burton?" From the keen interest of her tone an uninitiated observer might have thought that it was really a matter of importance to her to discover the mistress's private opinion on this engrossing topic.

Miss Burton, however, was not to be thus beguiled.

"No, I cannot say that I do," she said stiffly. She gave another suspicious look around, but although she was not by any means convinced of the innocency of her three pupils' proceedings, there seemed to be nothing that she could lay hold of, and she turned reluctantly towards the door.

And then at that inauspicious moment, Gerry's pocket--stuffed far beyond its ordinary capacity with chestnuts--must suddenly give way!

There was a sound of ripping material, and the next moment a cascade of chestnuts poured out upon the floor. In a moment Miss Burton was upon them, and the mystery of the strange smell became apparent to her.

"I _thought_ so!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "I knew you were up to some sort of mischief! Attendance at Chapel may be optional, as you say, but I am quite sure that you are not allowed to stay away in order to roast chestnuts!"

"There's no rule that says we mayn't, that I know of," said Jack, rather impudently.

The mistress glared at her.

"Don't be impertinent!" she said. "If you are allowed to do it, why did you attempt to conceal the chestnuts? Come with me to Miss Oakley--we will see what she has to say about it."

Any other mistress would have dealt with the affair herself, and not have taken it up to the Head in such a drastic manner. Jack gave a gasp of dismay. But she realised the futility of arguing with Miss Burton, and with a shrug of her shoulders she walked towards the door.

Nita and Gerry followed in her wake, and the three culprits were marched along the corridors to the headmistress's study, Miss Burton keeping a strict eye upon them and bearing the chestnuts in her hands.

Miss Oakley was enjoying a quiet hour in her study, but she aroused herself at once to attend to the mistress's complaint. Miss Burton was a newcomer, and although the headmistress had realised already that her methods were not altogether the methods in vogue at Wakehurst Priory, yet courtesy as well as school discipline demanded that her complaints should be attended to. So she listened gravely enough to the recital of the reprehensible conduct of the three Lower Fifth girls, and their attempted concealment of the chestnuts.

"Geraldine Wilmott had hidden them in her pocket," said the mistress, having made out the worst possible case against the three culprits.

"That shows that she had a guilty conscience, I am inclined to think that this girl is the worst of the three. She was very rude and insolent to me the other morning in cla.s.s."

Miss Oakley glanced at Gerry's crimson face in surprise. The new girl always seemed so shy and quiet that rudeness and insolence were about the last things she expected from her. However, whatever the facts might be of the incident in cla.s.s, they had nothing to do with the matter in hand, and she turned again to her contemplation of the chestnuts.

"May I ask where you obtained these chestnuts?" she inquired mildly.

Jack answered for the other two.

"Nita and I got them while we were out walking this afternoon, if you please, Miss Oakley."

"I don't think it does please me," said the mistress quietly. "The only chestnut trees that I know of near here belong to Sir John Boyne, and I know he is very particular about trespa.s.sers on his estate. Did you go into his plantation to get them?"

"Yes," said Jack.

"Then you acted very wrongly, Jack," the headmistress said gravely. "I do not suppose that you quite realised it, but what you were doing was nothing less than stealing. If you had been poor children and had been caught by the keepers, you would probably have been severely punished.

As it is, I cannot allow you to escape all punishment for your wrong-doing. You will all three write out, 'I must not steal,' three hundred times, and hand your lines to Miss Burton not later than to-morrow evening."

"But, please, Miss Oakley, Gerry didn't steal them. She wasn't with us out walking, and she didn't know anything about it until after tea,"

said Jack.

"But she helped you to eat them, I suppose?" said the headmistress.

"Y--yes, but she didn't have anything to do with thinking of the plan.

She just happened to be in the sitting-room, so we asked her to join in," said Jack.

"Well, perhaps her crime wasn't quite so great as yours," said Miss Oakley, with a little smile. "All the same, since she took part in the feasting, I think she also must pay for her pleasure. Geraldine, suppose you write out, 'Chestnuts are bad for the digestion,' one hundred times--I think that will be enough for your share. Now you may go."

The three made their way back to the sitting-room, rather crestfallen at the ignominious ending to their cosy evening, and full of wrath against Miss Burton for what Jack termed her "beastly sneakiness." At least, Jack and Nita were full of wrath. Gerry was too unhappy at having got her friends into trouble to be angry with anybody.