The Head Girl at the Gables Part 32

How or from where he appeared she could not guess, though it was possible that he had seen the school pa.s.sing near Windy Howe and had followed Claudia in the distance. He stared down at Lorraine with a certain amount of interest, but as much unconcern as if she were a bird or a rabbit.

"Landry!" she cried again. "Claudia is up by the tower. Go and tell her I have fallen down the old mine!"

The bushes rustled, and once more that patch of blue sky appeared above. Landry had gone indeed, but would he bring help? Lorraine feared that all he cared about was to find Claudia, and that with his customary taciturnity it was quite within the bounds of possibility that he might never mention her predicament at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE STOOD UP CAUTIOUSLY]

She waited a while and then shouted, and kept on calling at intervals.

Her wrist watch told her she had been nearly an hour down the shaft.

Would help never come? She was very tired and her head swam. If she were to faint, nothing could save her from falling down into that black gulf below. Her voice was growing weaker. It seemed stifled inside the shaft.

What was that sound in the distance? Surely a shout! With all her remaining energy she raised her voice in a wild halloo. Next moment Dorothy peeped over the bushes and turned with a cry to summon Claudia.

Though she was found, it was more than an hour before adequate help could be fetched from a farm, but at last two men appeared carrying a ladder, which they lowered down the shaft on to the ledge of shale. Then one of them descended and helped Lorraine to mount. Madame and a thrilled group of girls were waiting for her at the top.

"Did Landry tell you?" Lorraine asked Claudia.

"Yes, he told me and brought me to the place," said Claudia. "Landry may be very proud of himself to-day, the dear boy!"

"That mine did ought to be fenced round," remarked one of the men who had brought the ladder. "Mr. Tremayne's been warned about it many a time, but he's always put off having it done."

"Ah yes, it must be fenced!" exclaimed Madame, hysterically. "_Mon eleve!_ If she had fallen a little farther, what then?"

The man shrugged his shoulders, but Lorraine, who had been sitting on the gra.s.s, sprang to her feet.

"_Don't!_" she implored. "_Don't_ please say any more about it. I want to get away from the place. I know I shall dream it over again all night! Let me go straight home. I don't want to get any more flowers. I want just to be quiet and forget about it if I can."

CHAPTER XIX

Morland on Leave

At the end of June Morland came home on leave. He looked well in his khaki. Military training and camp-life had already worked wonders with his physique; his lanky, overgrown aspect had disappeared, his chest measure had increased, and he proudly showed the muscle in his arm. His father, always with an eye to artistic effects, wished to sketch him for a picture of Hector, and indeed, with his cla.s.sic profile and short, crisp, curly, golden hair, he would have made a capital representation of that Trojan hero. But Morland absolutely struck at the suggestion of sitting as model, declaring that he meant to enjoy himself during his brief leave, and should not even show his nose inside the studio.

"Dad must paint the kids," he confided to Claudia. "I'm fed up with portraits. Don't even mean to have my photo taken if I can help it. You remember that picture of me when I was about five--'Grannie's Darling'?

It came out as a coloured Christmas supplement, and was stuck up in everybody's nursery. Well, they got to know at the camp that I was the original of it, and they led me a life I can tell you! They've christened me 'Grannie's Darling'! I'm not going to be 'Hector' or anybody else! It isn't good enough! I sometimes wish I were as dark as a gipsy and had a broken nose! They couldn't call me 'My Lady's Lap-dog'

then! Do you know, they caught me once and held me down and tied a blue ribbon round my neck! I gave them something back though, for ragging me!

They didn't get it all their own way. Lap-dog indeed! Wait till I'm out at the front, and I'll show them who's the bull-terrier!"

"Poor old boy, it seems to rankle!" consoled Claudia laughingly. "I should think it's probably envy on their part. They wish they could send as good-looking a photo home to be put in a locket! Just forget them while you're on leave. We'll try to do something jolly. What would you like best? It's Sat.u.r.day to-morrow, so I'm at your disposal. Shall we go for a picnic somewhere?"

"Yes, if the kids don't trail after us! I don't bargain to take Beata, Romola, Madox, Lilith, Constable, Perugia and perhaps the baby in its pram!"

"You shan't! I'll see to that. Just Landry and I'll go, and we won't tell the small fry we're off."

"How about the grotto?"

"A1! I'll ask Lorraine to come with us. The tide will be just right to get round the rocks, so we'll take our lunch and eat it there."

Lorraine, shamelessly regardless of appointments at the dentist's and dressmaker's, accepted the invitation, and joined the party with a picnic-basket. It was an ideal day for the excursion; the warm sunshine was tempered by a cool breeze blowing in straight from the Atlantic; the sea had a.s.sumed its summer hue of intense blue-green, and the cliffs were covered with the beautiful crimson wild geranium.

The young people loitered along in no particular hurry, looking out to sea at the vessels, picking flowers or wild strawberries, or even a few early dewberries. As they wound up the path by the coast-guard station they heard voices behind them, and a little party consisting of an officer and two ladies pa.s.sed them, walking briskly in the direction of the moors. Morland, who had saluted, turned to the girls with an eloquent face.

"It's Blake, our captain," he explained. "I saw him travelling down on Thursday, and I believe he's staying at the 'George'."

"Do you like him?" asked Claudia.

"Like him? If there's one man on the face of the earth whom I abhor it's that fellow! Thinks he's the Shah of Persia and we're dirt under his feet! He's not popular, I can tell you. He makes my blood boil sometimes!"

"He's dropped something," said Lorraine, bending down and picking up a small leather dispatch case that was lying by the side of the pathway.

She handed it to Morland.

"Could you run after him and give it to him?" suggested Claudia to her brother.

"I shan't trouble myself. He's gone too far."

"We can leave it at his hotel afterwards then."

"I suppose we can, though if he flings his things about like this he doesn't deserve to have them returned to him, the blighter!" groused Morland, pocketing the case with a frown. "I wish Blake was taking his leave somewhere else. I'd rather not breathe the same air with him!"

"Is it as bad as all that?" asked Claudia.

"Worse!" said Morland gloomily. "But I don't want to talk about him--he's the skeleton at the feast--the crumpled rose-leaf--the snake in the paradise--the anything else you like that spoils my enjoyment!"

"Rather mixed similes," laughed Lorraine. "But never mind! We'll forget him if you like. He certainly didn't look at all attractive in my opinion."

Morland pulled a face and shook a fist in the direction in which his officer had disappeared, then declared himself better and ready to jog along.

They found their special property--the cave--still uninvaded. No visitors had yet happened to come across it. The table and seats and the little cupboard at the end were just exactly as they had left them last time. They collected some driftwood, lighted a fire on the rocks below, and boiled their kettle. It was delightful to have a picnic again in the grotto. As they sat chatting afterwards, Morland pulled from his pocket the leather case which Captain Blake had dropped on the path. He turned it over thoughtfully.

"I've a score or two to settle with the owner of this," he remarked.

"I'm not going to let him have it back too easily. I vote we just give him a scare about it. Let him think he's lost it altogether."

"Is it anything important, I wonder?" asked Claudia.

"The more important the better--serve him right for losing it. I say--I'm going to stow it away here in the cupboard. It'll be quite safe, but he won't know that, and I hope he'll be in a jolly state of mind about it. We'll give him a fortnight to get excited in, then you girls can come and fetch it, make it into a parcel, and leave it at the 'George', and ask them to send it on to him at the camp."

"It would really serve him right," sympathised Claudia; "only I don't quite know----"

"I _do_ know!" chuckled Morland. "It's the best rag I've ever had the chance of playing on him, and you bet I'll take it."

"Suppose he finds out?" suggested Lorraine.

"He won't find out. How could he? You girls will just leave the parcel at the 'George', and say someone who picked it up had handed it over to you, and will they please forward it to the officer who was staying there. Nothing could be simpler."

"Are those the papers that send Morland to the war?" asked Landry suddenly.