The Leader of the Lower School Part 11

began Helen Roper with dignity. "Do you realize that monitresses are officers in this school, and that their authority is only second to that of the mistresses?"

Gipsy took a clean handkerchief from her pocket, and, unfolding it ostentatiously, blinked hard.

"I realize it now," she answered, with a something in her voice that might have been either laughter or tears; "I'm afraid I was very ignorant before."

Helen glared at her suspiciously. Was that a twinkle in the dark eyes?

But no; Gipsy was looking grave in the extreme.

"The monitresses must be obeyed," continued the head of the school.

"Every girl at Briarcroft knows that, and anyone who deliberately disobeys incurs the penalty of being reported to Miss Poppleton."

The corners of Gipsy's mouth were drooping; her face had a.s.sumed an expression of abject penitence.

"Please don't do that to me!" she pleaded humbly. "Remember how badly I've been brought up! If I'd been at Briarcroft all the time, instead of other schools, and had had the advantage of the monitresses, I might have been different."

"I expect you would," said Helen freezingly. "And you'll please to remember that now you're here, you'll have to conform to our standards."

"I know I'm a heathen. I'll be only too grateful to be taught better,"

murmured the subdued voice that was so strangely unlike Gipsy's usual sprightly tones.

Lena Morris turned away to hide a smile. She was possessed of a strong sense of humour, and moreover had a sneaking liking for Gipsy.

"Mind you do as you're told next time, then," commanded Helen. "I'll excuse you this once, but if it happens again, I warn you that I shall send you straight to Miss Poppleton. You may think yourself very lucky to be let off so easily. You can go now."

Gipsy's big brown eyes looked like two wells absolutely overflowing with grat.i.tude and humility.

"Thanks so very immensely much! It's far more than I deserve!" she sighed, and, flaunting the clean handkerchief, beat a hasty retreat.

The monitresses would have been edified if they could have seen the war dance she executed in the pa.s.sage as soon as the door was shut.

"Couldn't have kept my face a moment longer!" she choked to one or two friends who were waiting for her. "Oh, you should have seen me as the penitent! I think I did the thing rather neatly."

"You mad hatter! I wonder Helen didn't see you were shamming," said Hetty.

"No, no! She's been improving my mind and showing me the path I ought to walk in. How would you like me if I turned out a first-cla.s.s prig?"

"It couldn't be done. Come along, you wild gipsy thing! Do you want the monitresses to come out and catch you? You'll get into a really big sc.r.a.pe some day if you're not careful."

"Some people are born wise and proper, and some are born otherwise. I'm one of the otherwise! It's my misfortune, not my fault," laughed Gipsy, as Lennie and Hetty dragged her forcibly away.

Gipsy's wild spirits were undoubtedly liable to lead her beyond the bounds of propriety, and both mistresses and monitresses were inclined, justly or unjustly, to suspect that she was at the bottom of any mischief that cropped up in the school. One incident, though shrouded in mystery, was generally laid by Miss Poppleton as a sin to her charge. In the upper corridor, not very far from Gipsy's dormitory, hung a long chain which sounded a fire bell. The boarders at Briarcroft were instructed in fire drill, though a night summons was generally only given in summertime, as Miss Poppleton was afraid of the girls catching cold. Gipsy had read the printed card of "Directions in case of Fire", and had examined the chute with intense interest.

"I'd just love to go sliding down it out of our bedroom window," she exclaimed. "It would be almost as much fun as toboganning."

"Rather freezing work on these sharp nights. There was ice on the puddles this morning," said Dilys. "No fire-drill practice for me, thank you! I prefer to stop snug in bed."

"You've no spirit of adventure in you," returned Gipsy.

"I've got sound common sense instead, and that's what you don't possess, Yankee Doodle!"

"All the same, that summons is going to come off, by hook or by crook!"

said Gipsy to herself. "It would be a kindness to the school to give it a chance to see whether it's prepared for emergencies. Gipsy Latimer, I guess you'll have to be the philanthropist! But you've no need to flaunt your n.o.ble deed. 'Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame', in fact."

If Gipsy, before she went to bed that night, contrived to tie a long piece of string to the bell chain in the pa.s.sage, and to secure the other end to her bedpost, she did not blazon the fact abroad, and the string was so neatly laid against the edges of skirting board and under mats that n.o.body happened to notice it. At 3 a.m., when the whole of Briarcroft was wrapped in deepest slumbers, there suddenly came the great _clang-clang_ of the fire bell, resounding and echoing through the quiet house. Everybody woke in a hurry, and the head of each dormitory at once switched on the electric light and a.s.sumed command. The well-trained girls dipped their towels in water and put them over their mouths, threw the red blankets from their beds round their shoulders, and lined up along the corridor. Miss Lindsay was already there, and gave the command to march, and away trooped the boarders downstairs and out of the front door on to the lawn, where they ranged themselves to be counted. The light streaming through the front door revealed a strange sight--all the girls in night gear, with their scarlet blankets trailing on the ground. The juveniles were clasping dolls and other treasures, and some of the others had caught up big sponges in their confusion. The whole exit had only taken about a hundred seconds from the sounding of the bell, and if Gipsy was last, and clutched a roll of string in her hand, n.o.body remarked the circ.u.mstance.

There followed a hurried enquiry among the mistresses as to the whereabouts of the fire, and the discovery that no fire existed. Miss Poppleton hastily gave the order to return, and the boarders trooped back shivering to the dormitories, not a little disconcerted to have been disturbed for nothing on a chilly night in November. The Princ.i.p.al made every enquiry next day as to the source of the alarm, but she could discover nothing. Dilys Fenton was able to a.s.sure her that when she had switched on the light in No. 3 Dormitory Gipsy Latimer had been asleep, and she had been obliged to shake her violently to awaken her, so it was quite impossible that Gipsy could be responsible for the practical joke.

The occurrence made a great excitement among the boarders. For days they talked of scarcely anything else.

"It was over too soon, and they didn't use the chute after all," said Gipsy disconsolately.

"Gipsy! you never--you couldn't-- Oh, surely----!"

But Gipsy's brown eyes looked such absolute mirrors of innocence that even Hetty's suspicions were laid to rest.

CHAPTER VIII

Daisy Forgets

THOUGH Gipsy was accustomed to try to enjoy herself in any place where circ.u.mstances chanced to fling her, and though she had contrived to settle down fairly happily at Briarcroft, she nevertheless thought often of her father, far away on the opposite side of the Equator. He must long ago have arrived at the Cape, and it was high time that she received news from him, telling her of his whereabouts. Every morning she looked out anxiously for the post, but day after day brought the same disappointment. She was the only boarder who had no letters, and she often felt her isolated position keenly when she saw her schoolmates tearing open their welcome budgets. It would be nice, she thought, to have a mother and brothers and sisters to write to her, and a home to go to in the holidays. In her roving life she could not remember a real home; a log hut for a few weeks in a mining camp had been the nearest approach to it.

"But I've Dad, and he's better than a whole family; and it's fun to go about the world with him, though I do live mostly at hotels when I'm not at school," she said to herself. "I'm not going to worry my head. Dad will send me a letter as soon as he possibly can, I know. He's not in the least likely to forget me."

So she tried to comfort herself, but every day she looked out wistfully for the postman--how wistfully n.o.body but Miss Edith ever noticed. It was growing towards the end of November, and already the boarders were beginning to talk of the holidays. The evening recreation time was devoted to the making of Christmas presents; even the little girls were busy embroidering traycloths and constructing pincushions. Gipsy began to work a pair of slippers for her father, a rather lengthy proceeding, for she was not clever at needlecraft, and was apt to pull her wool too tightly, having to unpick her st.i.tches in consequence. There was no particular hurry in her case, though, for it was impossible for her to dispatch the parcel in time for Christmas when she did not know where to address it. If there was a forlorn look in the brown eyes sometimes when others talked about home, they twinkled again so readily that her schoolmates never realized she could feel lonely, and a stranger in a strange land. To them she appeared the very epitome of fun and happy-go-lucky carelessness, and they would have been surprised indeed if they had known what a very sore heart she carried occasionally under her outward a.s.sumption of jollity.

Daisy Scatcherd's birthday fell on the last day of November. Daisy, though she merited her nickname of "Scatterbrains", was rather a favourite among the boarders, so she came off very well indeed in the matter of presents. Her home people had also remembered her, and many interesting parcels arrived for her during the course of the morning.

Between four and half-past, in the afternoon, she was taking a run round the garden in company with a few friends, when she spied the postman walking briskly up the drive.

"I expect he's got something more for me," she exclaimed, and dived under the laurels to take a short cut to the drive and intercept him.

"Give me the letters, please! It's my birthday!" she said breathlessly.

"Only three this afternoon, missy! Don't know whether any of 'em's for you or not," said the man, laughing.

"Let me see! Yes! yes! I'll take them, please. It's all right."

Not sorry to save the extra walk to the house, the postman departed. He was late, and had a long round before he could return home. Daisy was looking eagerly at the letters. One, a thin foreign envelope, was addressed to Miss Gipsy Latimer, and that she thrust hastily into her coat pocket; the other two were for herself. They both contained postal orders, which elevated her to such heights of satisfaction that she never gave a thought to the letter she had stuffed in her pocket: indeed, in her excitement she had put it away so automatically that the incident faded from her memory almost as soon as it happened. She rushed into the house in a state of great exultation, to ask Miss Edith to take charge of her orders, and put them away safely.

"A whole pound! Isn't it lovely? I shall buy a new camera, or perhaps a bookcase like Hetty Hanc.o.c.k's; or I want a bracelet watch most fearfully badly, and I expect I'll get some more money at Christmas that I could put to it. What would you advise, Miss Edith?" she chattered.

"Wait till you go home and consult your mother," said Miss Edith. "What a cold you've got, child! You oughtn't to have been running about the garden. And this coat is much too thin. You must wear your thick one now. Put this away in your wardrobe, to take home at Christmas."

"Mother said I needn't take my autumn clothes back with me," objected Daisy. "It only crams up my boxes. She said they might as well be left here."

"Very well. I'll put it away in my big cupboard until the spring. Here are some cough lozenges, and I shall rub your chest to-night with camphorated oil. Go and sit by the fire, and mind you don't get into draughts."