The Princess Of The School Part 8

"You have a treat before you!" Dulcie a.s.sured her. "You may talk about your Sicilian flowers, but just wait till you have seen an English wood full of bluebells! There's nothing to beat it in the whole world. I've often heard of Sir Ra.n.a.ld Joynson's grounds. We're in luck to get leave to go in them, because I believe he's generally rather stingy about allowing people there. I wonder how Miss Walters managed it."

"She's a clever woman," said Gowan. "She always seems to manage to get what she wants. Some people do!"

"I wish _I_ did!" wailed Bertha. "I've wanted a princ.i.p.al part in the French plays ever since I came to school, and Mademoiselle never will give me one; I always have to be a servant, or an extra guest, and speak about two lines!"

"Well, your French accent is so atrociously bad, I don't wonder!"

returned Gowan. "You certainly wouldn't be a credit to Mademoiselle in a princ.i.p.al part. And you're very stiff and wooden in acting, too!"

"Thank you for your compliments!" sniffed Bertha, much offended.

"Oh, don't be sarkie! I must tell the truth. Cheer up! It's a picnic on Sat.u.r.day, not a French play!"

"Thank goodness it is!" rejoiced Dulcie. "I hate Mademoiselle's French afternoons! I don't know which is worst; to have to learn and act yards of dialogue, or to sit in the audience and listen while other people show off. I like out-of-doors treats! I'm an open-air girl."

The occupants of the Blue bedroom decided that it was high time something happened to stir up Carmel, who was behaving more like an exile than an heiress. Now the first excitement of her arrival and unpacking was over, she had relapsed into a piteous fit of homesickness.

"I believe she's crying again!" said Dulcie, laying an ear to the door that communicated with the dressing-room. "Do you think I ought to go in to her?"

"It's no use!" declared Lilias. "I went last night and tried to comfort her, and I'm sure I only made her cry harder. Best leave her to herself."

"Homesick people always do cry harder if you sympathize," proclaimed Gowan. "I was prefect of the junior dormitory at my other school before I came here, and the new kids always turned on the water works at first.

I learnt how to manage them. Sympathy makes them worse. What you want is to switch their minds off thinking about home, and make them enjoy school life. Carmel will come round in time."

"Meantime," said Bertha, "she reminds me of that picture in Miss Walters' study: 'The Hostage.' You know the one I mean, the girl who's standing leaning over the castle wall and gazing out to sea, and evidently thinking of her own country. I wonder if princesses who were sent to be married to foreign princes felt homesick?"

"I dare say they did," grunted Gowan, "but I'm sure my plan's the best for curing the complaint. Smack them on the back and make them cheer up, instead of letting them weep on your shoulder. I don't like a damp atmosphere!"

To do Carmel justice, however acute her sense of exile might be, she had not obtruded her woes upon her schoolfellows, and had conducted her weeping in secret. If sounds of distress filtered through the door, it was only when matters seemed particularly hopeless. On Sat.u.r.day she came down dressed for the jaunt, and all smiles.

"Sit her between Edith and Bertha," commanded Gowan, "and tell them they may be their silliest! Make her laugh till she's weak. I'll take a turn at her myself later. Don't let her mope about in the woods alone. Keep close to her, and make all the insane jokes you can. I tell you I was homesick myself once, though you mayn't believe it. I don't often dab my eyes now, do I?"

"Here are the wagonettes," said Dulcie. "Why, that driver has stuck up a flag! How nice of him! It looks so festive. Bags me go in his chariot."

It took a little while to arrange mistresses, girls, and tea-baskets inside the two motors, but at last everything was packed in, and they started off in the direction of Bradstone. Other people were out enjoying Sat.u.r.day's holiday, and cars, bicycles, and conveyances were frequent on the road. Grinsdale Park, their destination, was approached by great gates, outside which the wagonettes stopped and unloaded their pa.s.sengers. Miss Walters, armed with Sir Ra.n.a.ld Joynson's letter, called at the lodge for permission to enter, and, her credentials being in strict order, the party was duly admitted.

"Won't everybody who sees us go in be just green with envy?" rejoiced Edith. "Did you see how those two cyclists tried to hang on to us and push in too? Miss Walters looked at them most witheringly. 'May I ask if you have a private permit?' I heard her say to them. It squashed them flat, and they beat a retreat."

"I believe Sir Ra.n.a.ld used to let the public in at one time," said Noreen, "but people behaved so atrociously that he had to stop. Rough boys used to tear about and break the bushes, and take the flowers, and do a great deal of damage."

"I know! I've heard about it," said Lilias. "They went bird-nesting, too, and took all the eggs. That was the absolute finish. Sir Ra.n.a.ld is very keen on natural history, and he keeps these grounds as a sort of bird sanctuary. I believe quite rare kinds build here, and he never lets them be disturbed."

"I wonder he gave us a permit to come!"

"Well, you see, most of the young birds are fledged by now, and, besides, he wouldn't expect us to go about climbing trees and robbing nests!"

Carrying the picnic-baskets amongst them, the party started forth along the drive, but after ten minutes' walking turned down a bypath into the woods. They were at the edge of a beautiful lake, and on one side of them stretched a gleaming expanse of water, edged with shimmering reeds, and on the other grew thick groves of trees with a carpet of wild hyacinths beneath. The sun glinted through the new green leaves on to the springing bracken and bluebells, and made long rifts of light across the water, birds were flitting about and twittering in the trees, and everywhere there was that delicious scent of the woodlands, a mixture of honey and flowers and warm moist earth and damp moss, which is the incense nature burns at the shrine of the G.o.ddess of spring.

It was so lovely that the party straggled considerably. They could not help putting down the picnic-baskets and leaving the path to explore and gather flowers. There were so many delightful surprises. Phillida and Noreen noticed a moorhen's nest built on an overhanging bough that swept the lake, and saw four tiny downy creatures swimming away very fast to take cover; Ursula found a specimen of the Truelove-knot, and triumphed immensely, partly on botanical grounds and partly because she regarded it as an omen of early matrimony, though needless to say this latter aspect of her rejoicing was not communicated to Miss Walters, only chuckled over in private with her intimate friends.

Knowing that the girls would not do any damage, the mistresses allowed them to disperse, on the understanding that they came at once when they heard the Guide's whistle.

Dulcie, Carmel, and Prissie had wandered away down the banks of the little stream where grew pale marsh violets, golden globeflowers, and the sweet-scented fern. Pushing through the undergrowth above the water, they found themselves in a tiny natural clearing such as poets of old would have described as a "a bower." Budding trees encircled it, a guelder rose bush overtopped it, and delicate fern-like moss sprang through the gra.s.s underfoot. There were fairies, too, in the bower; four little whitethroats were flitting about in the sunshine. It was perhaps their first exodus from the nest, for as yet they were without the slightest sense of fear. They allowed the girls to catch them, fondle them, and stroke their lovely plumage; they would fly delicately away, twittering with pleasure, then flit back to the caressing hands like sprites at play. Anything more innocent and beautiful it would have been impossible to conceive; it was like a glimpse into Paradise before the fear and dread of man had pa.s.sed over G.o.d's lesser creatures. The girls stood absolutely fascinated, till at last, attracted perhaps by some warning mother-signal, their dainty bird friends took a sudden rapid flight into the woods and were gone. Carmel looked after them with shining eyes.

"It's like St. Francis of a.s.sissi and his 'little sisters the birds,'"

she said softly. "Have you read the _Little Flowers of St. Francis_, and how he preached to the swallows and they all flocked round him and twittered? I've never seen birds so tame as this! They aren't in Sicily, you can hardly ever get near them there."

"They aren't in England either," said Dulcie, "though our gamekeeper told us that if you can just chance to see them when they first leave the nest, they don't know what fear is. He once found some newly-hatched wild ducks, and they were perfectly unafraid, but when he pa.s.sed the place half an hour later, the mother duck gave a call, and the little ones wouldn't let him come anywhere near them. They'd had their lesson, and learnt fear."

"I once brought up a starling that had tumbled out of a nest," said Prissie, "and it was always perfectly tame, and would let me stroke it, and would perch on my hand. I had it for years. Do you think we could have kept the whitethroats?"

"No, no!" said Carmel quickly. "I'd as soon think of caging fairies! It would be a shame to take them out of this lovely wood; it's their fairy-land. I'm so glad Sir Ra.n.a.ld doesn't allow boys to come in here! I thought at first it was rather selfish of him, but I begin to understand. There must be some quiet places left where the birds can be undisturbed. I'm glad to have seen these!"

Miss Walter's whistle, sounding loudly in the distance, recalled them to the path. They found the school very excited over a heronry which they could see on an island in the lake. Some large untidy nests were in the trees, and every now and then a heron, with long legs outstretched behind it, would sail majestically through the air from the mainland.

"It would be a very fishy place if we could get near," remarked Miss Hardy. "All the ground underneath the nests would be strewn with bones and remains. The herons fly a tremendous long way in search of food, sometimes a radius of as much as forty miles. Look! there's one fishing in the lake over there."

"I like the whitethroats best," said Dulcie. "I shouldn't care to hold a young heron in my hand and cuddle it!"

At the lower end of the lake was a hill-side, and down the slopes Sir Ra.n.a.ld had caused to be planted a little forest of rhododendrons. They were in their prime, and stretched a beautiful ma.s.s of every shade from crimson to pink and lavender. On the top of the hill was a summer-house, a temple-like building with pillars and steps, and here, by arrangement, they expected the lodge-keeper's wife to supply them with boiling water for their tea. It looked an ideal place for a picnic, and they started at once to climb the steep path that led among the rhododendrons to the summit. Up and up under the screen of delicate blossom, they felt as if they were treading in some tropical garden, and when they reached the summit, and the view burst upon them of crimson-clad slope, gleaming lake, and flecked blue sky, they stood gazing with much satisfaction.

"The Temple," as the girls called the summer-house, was a cla.s.sic building with a terrace in front, and here the school elected to sit, instead of in the rather cramped room. There was a kitchen at the back, and Mrs. Bates, the lodge-keeper's wife, had lighted a fire and boiled kettles in readiness for them.

"Sir Ra.n.a.ld and his friends come for lunch here sometimes in the shooting season," she explained, "so I'm used to getting tea and coffee made. Take some chairs outside if you like. You'd rather sit on the steps! Well, there's no accounting for tastes! Give me your teapots, and I'll warm them before you put the tea into them."

Sitting in a row on the steps that led from the "temple" to the terrace, the girls had a glorious view, Carmel in especial seemed particularly to enjoy herself.

"It's more like home than anything I've seen yet!" she declared enthusiastically. "I could almost fancy that this little piazza is on the slope of Etna! The goatherds ought to be playing the 'Pastorale'

down there! I can nearly hear them!"

"What's the 'Pastorale'?" asked Dulcie.

"It's the Sicilian National Dance. Every body dances it--sometimes by sunlight and sometimes by moonlight. Oh! it's a thing that gets into your blood! Once you hear it played on the pipes you have to jump up and dance--you simply can't help it. There's magic in it!"

"Dance it for us now on the terrace!" suggested Dulcie.

"I've no music!"

"Can't you hum it? Miss Walters, may Carmel show us a Sicilian dance?"

"By all means, if she will!" acquiesced the head-mistress.

"Go on Carmel!" commanded the girls. "Show us how it goes!"

Thus urged, Carmel rose from her seat, and went on to the terrace at the foot of the steps. She looked for a moment or two at the crimson slope of flowers and the shining lake, as if to put herself into the right mental atmosphere, then, humming a lively but haunting tune, she began her old-world southern dance.

It was wonderful dancing, every action of her alert young body was so beautifully graceful that you forgot her modern costume and could imagine her a nymph in cla.s.sic draperies. Her arms kept motion with her tripping feet, and both were in time with the tune that she was trilling. It seemed a spontaneous expression of gaiety as natural as the flight of a dragon-fly or the sporting of a kitten. Her dark hair flew out behind her, her eyes shone and sparkled, and her cheeks flushed with unwonted color. For the moment she looked the very incarnation of joy, and might have been Artemis surprised in a Sicilian grove. It was such a fresh aspect of Carmel that the girls stared at her in amazement. From Princess she had changed to Oread, and they did not know her in this new mood. They gave her performance a hearty clap, however, as she stopped and sank panting on to the steps.

"You'll have to turn dancing-mistress, Carmel, and give the others a lesson in your Pastorale," said Miss Walters. "It's a pretty step, and we shall ask you to do it again when we give our garden fete in aid of the 'Waifs and Strays.' Don't you think our English scenery can compare favorably even with your beloved Sicily?"

"It's very beautiful," admitted Carmel, "but I miss Etna in the distance."