Chapter XIII: Miss Maitland's Window

While the weather continued to be so hot and close, Miss Maitland allowed the girls to spend their evening recreation in the garden, so that they might have a blow of fresh, cool air before they went to bed. They enjoyed sitting under the trees with books or fancy work, though as a rule their tongues wagged so fast that there was little display of industry with their needles.

"I hate sewing," confessed Honor, "and it's no use pretending I like it."

"This piece of embroidery has lasted me three terms, and it isn't finished yet," said Maisie Talbot, leisurely snipping off a thread, and pausing before she chose another piece of silk.

"I don't have to look at my knitting," said Chatty Burns; "but then, I'm Scotch, and every Scotchwoman knits."

"You're getting on so fast, it will do for me as well," said Honor, lying comfortably on the grass with her hands clasped under her head, and watching Chatty's rapidly growing stocking. "It's a 'work of supererogation', and that always leaves a little virtue over, to count for somebody else."

"I didn't say I'd hand the extra merit on to you," retorted Chatty.

"You can't help it. If there's so much to spare it must go somewhere, and I'm the idlest person; it will naturally fly to make up my deficiencies."

"What a fallacious argument!" declared Maisie.

"Do you know," interrupted Ruth Latimer, "that it's exactly a fortnight on Friday to the end of the term?"

"Know! I should think we do know!" replied Lettice. "I expect each one of us is counting the days, and longing for the time to come, if I'm any sample of the rest of the school. I say, 'One more day gone', every night when I get into bed."

"It's glorious to think the breaking-up is so near," said Pauline Reynolds. "What are you all going to do in the holidays?"

"We're starting for the Tyrol at the beginning of August," said Ruth. "We want to have a walking tour. We shall leave our heavy luggage at Botzen, and then tramp off up the mountains with just a few things in knapsacks on our backs, and stop at chalets and little inns ('guest-houses', as they are called there) on the way. We shall feel most delightfully free, because we can go any distance we like, and shall not be bound to arrive at any special place by any special time. That's the beauty of a walking tour."

"How far can you go in a day?" asked Honor.

"It just depends. If one is in the hot valleys, quite a short distance knocks one up; but when one gets the real mountain air, one can march along without feeling the least scrap tired. I once did twenty miles in Switzerland, but that's my record."

"And a pretty good one," said Pauline, "particularly as one oughtn't to reckon miles in Switzerland; one counts mountain climbing in hours."

"Yes, I've sometimes been deer-stalking at home," said Chatty, "and it's a very different affair toiling uphill over the heather from walking on a flat road. We're not going away this summer. Father has taken some extra shooting, and we're to have a big house-party instead. It's great fun! I like helping to carry the lunch in the little pony trap on to the moors; and we have jolly times in the evening--games, and music, and dancing. Have your people settled any plans yet, Pauline?"

"They talk of Norway. It would be glorious to see the midnight sun, and the lovely pine forests. I've wanted to go ever since I read _Feats on the Fiord_."

"You won't find it so romantic as that," laughed Ruth Latimer. "Things have changed since the time Harriet Martineau wrote about it. There are no pirates nowadays, to try to kidnap bishops and burn farms. You might, perhaps, find Rolf's wonderful cave, but I'm sure there isn't a peasant left who believes in the water sprite, and the Mountain Demon, and Nipen, and all the rest of the spirits of which Erica was so afraid."

"Perhaps not; but the country's just as beautiful, and I shall see the fiords, if I haven't any adventures there. I didn't say I wanted to meet pirates among the islands; on the whole, I should prefer their room to their company."

"Well, I wish you just one adventure, to keep up the element of romance. Perhaps your boatman will row you into the middle of the fiord, and demand your purse before he consents to take you back to the vessel; or you may be shipwrecked on a sunken rock, and left stranded in the Arctic Circle, dependent on the hospitality of the Laplanders!"

"No, thanks! I believe their tents are disgustingly dirty. I hope I may see a Lapp settlement, all the same, and also a few seals. I'm afraid a whale, or an iceberg, is too much to expect."

"Where are you going, Lettice?" enquired Chatty.

"Nowhere in particular, unless Maisie and I are asked to our aunt's. But we shall have jolly fun at golf and tennis. When one has been at school the whole term, one likes to be at one's own home, and to meet all one's friends again. It feels such ages since one saw them."

"Yes; the middle part of the term always seems to drag dreadfully, and then the last comes with a rush, and the exams. are on before one knows what one is doing."

"Don't talk of exams!" cried Pauline. "I expect I shall fail in every single one. I'm completely mixed up in chemistry, and I never can remember dates and names properly. My history paper will be a series of dashes: 'War with France was renewed in ----, when the English gained the decisive battle of ----, in which the Prince ---- was slain and the Duke of ---- taken prisoner. By the Treaty of ---- a truce was concluded', &c."

"Perhaps Miss Farrar will think it's a guessing competition," remarked Honor.

"I dare say she will. I wish we needn't have exams., or marks, or any horrid things, to show whether we've done well or badly."

"I can get on tolerably with facts," said Lettice, "but I'm always marked 'weak' for composition. Miss Farrar says I use tautology and repeat myself, and that my grammar is shaky and my general style poor. She told me to take Macaulay as a model, but I can no more copy other people's ways of writing than I could improve my features by staring at the Venus de Medici."

"Poor old Salad! You're not cut out for an authoress."

"I'm certainly not; I'd rather be a charwoman! I don't aspire to be editress of the school magazine, I assure you, nor even a contributor. By the way, Honor, why don't you send something? I'm sure you could."

"I did think of it," replied Honor. "I was going to make a nice little series of acrostics on all of your names. I did one about Chatty, and showed it to Janie; but she said that it was far too slangy, and Vivian would never pass it, so I tore it up, and felt too squashed to go on."

"Oh! what was it?" exclaimed the girls. "Can't you remember it?"

"I'll try. I believe it went this way:

"C hatty Burns is just a ripper!
H air's the colour of a kipper;
A nd her face so round and red is
T hat you'd think her cheeks were cherries.
T hough we often call her 'Fatty',
Y ou depend we're nuts on Chatty."

"What a shame!" cried the indignant original of the acrostic. "My hair's auburn, it's not the colour of a kipper!"

"We certainly call you 'Fatty', though," laughed Lettice. "I think the poem is lovely!"

"It's a good thing you tore it up, all the same," said Ruth. "Vivian would have been simply horrified. We have a crusade against slang at Chessington, and 'ripper' is one of the words absolutely vetoed. We only say 'jolly' by stealth."

"I'm sure 'jolly' ought to be allowable. I saw it in a book in the library: 'as jolly as a sandboy', was the expression."

"What is a sandboy?" asked Lettice. "The phrase is always quoted as the high-water mark of bliss."

"I've never been able to find out," said Ruth. "I suppose it's either one of those wretched little urchins who dive for pennies, or an ordinary donkey boy. But this is what Miss Farrar calls 'a digression from the subject'. I want to hear if Honor has written any more acrostics."

"I made one on Lillie Harper," replied Honor. "It had an illustration, too, done very badly, in just a few crooked strokes, like little children draw:

"L illie is a dab at cricket;
I depict her at the wicket.
L ook how tight her bat she's grasping,
L eaving all the fielders gasping!
I have done this sketch in woggles,
E specially to show her goggles.

"It ought to have the picture to really explain it," said Honor regretfully; "I'm sorry now that I tore it up. I began a piece on the exams. too; it was a parody of 'The boy stood on the burning deck', but I can't get beyond the first verse:

"The girl sat at the hard, bare desk,
Whence all but she had fled;
Her fingers they were stained with ink,
And aching was her head."

"Oh, go on! It would be so nice!"

"It's impossible to think of any more."

"The time rolled on, she could not go
Without her teacher's word,"

improvised Ruth.

"That teacher, taking tea below,
Her sighs no longer heard,"

finished Honor. "Only, Miss Farrar wouldn't be taking tea in the middle of an exam. No, it can't be done!"

"Then we must put 'To be continued'," said Ruth.

"Make another acrostic, Paddy!" urged Lettice.

"Acrostics are too hard, because one is hampered by keeping to the letters of the girls' names," objected Honor. "Limericks are much easier. How would this do for Vivian Holmes?--

"There was a head girl of St. Chad's,
Who was subject to fancies and fads;
When we tried to talk slang,
She declared it was wrong,
And said she considered us cads."

"Good!" laughed Ruth. "Only, of course, Vivian wouldn't dream of using such a word as 'cad'. Now, I've got one about you:

"There's a girl at our house we call 'Paddy':
She's not 'goody-goody', but 'baddy';
She loves practical jokes,
Or to play us a hoax,
Though we tell her such tricks are not 'Chaddy'."

"Very well, Miss Ruth Latimer! I'll return the compliment," said Honor. "How do you like this?--

"There's a girl at our house who's called Ruth:
She is fond of an unpleasant truth;
She says she is seeking
To practise plain speaking,
But we think she is merely uncouth."

"I don't mind in the least," declared Ruth; "in fact, I'm rather flattered than otherwise."

"Make one about Maisie or me," implored Lettice. "You can say as nasty things as you want."

"Nothing could possibly rhyme with Lettice," announced Honor after a moment's cogitation, "or with Salad either. I might do better with Maisie. Let me see--crazy, hazy, daisy, lazy--I think those are all. Will this suit you?--

"There's a girl in this garden called Maisie;
At lessons she's horribly lazy,
But she's splendid at sports,
And at games of all sorts,
While o'er cricket she waxes quite crazy."

"What are you all laughing at?" enquired Flossie Taylor, sauntering up to join the group, and taking a seat on the grass.

"Limericks. Honor is winding them off by the yard. Now, Paddy, let us have one about Flossie! Quick, while your genius is burning!"

"It's only flickering," laughed Honor, "but I'll try:

"There's a girl at St. Chad's who's named Flossie;
She tries to be terribly 'bossy',
She sets us all straight
(Which is just what we hate),
And makes us exceedingly cross(y)."

"Oh, what a fearfully lame rhyme!" said Lettice.

"I know it is, but I couldn't think of any other word. If you're offended, Flossie, you can go away."

"I'm not silly enough to care about such trifles," replied Flossie loftily.

"You've quite left out Janie," said Lettice, "and there she is sewing all the time, and as usual never offering a single remark. Janie Henderson, why don't you talk?"

"You don't give me a chance to put in a word," protested Janie. "Perhaps I'm like the proverbial parrot, which couldn't talk, but thought all the more."

"You mean that I do the talking, and not the thinking?"

"I didn't say so."

"But you implied it. You deserve a horrid Limerick, and I shall make one myself. Wait a moment, while I rack my brains. Oh, now I've got it!--

"Miss Henderson, otherwise Jane,
May think very hard with her brain,
But it never comes out,
So she leaves us in doubt
If there are any thoughts to explain.

"There! You can't retaliate, because, as Honor says, there isn't a rhyme for Lettice."

"It's a good thing, for we might get too personal," interposed Chatty. "I think we've been over the margin of politeness as it is. Suppose we change the subject. Do you know, the honey dew is dropping from this lime tree overhead and making my knitting needles quite sticky!"

"It would be a lovely tree to climb, the boughs are so regular," said Honor, gazing into the green heights above.

"I don't believe I could go up a tree if a mad bull were after me," asserted Pauline. "I should just collapse at the bottom, and be gored to death, I know I should!"

"It isn't difficult," declared Honor. "You've only to catch hold of the branches, and keep swinging yourself a little higher. I've climbed ever so many trees in our garden at home."

"I should like to see you do it here, then."

"Very well! I'll show you, if you don't believe me."

The lime tree in question stood close to the house--so near, in fact, that some of its boughs brushed the windows. Miss Cavendish had several times decided to have it cut down, thinking it interfered with the light; but Miss Maitland had always begged that it might be spared a little longer, saying she loved its cool shade.

Honor swung herself quite easily from branch to branch, while the group of girls below watched her with admiration.

"You look like a middy going up the main-mast," said Ruth.

"Or a monkey at the Zoo," added Lettice.

"That's the voice of jealousy," remarked Chatty. "Lettice is green with envy because she can't do it herself."

"A squirrel would be a happier simile," suggested Ruth.

"She's getting along very quickly," said Pauline.

Half-way up the tree Honor paused and looked down.

"Hallo!" she cried, "I'm just by Miss Maitland's study. I shall go in, and pay her a call. Ta-ta!" and she disappeared suddenly through the open window.

"What will Miss Maitland say if she's there?" exclaimed Lettice.

"I don't believe she'd be cross," said Maisie. "She'd be amused to see anybody come in so funnily."

Honor was absent only about a minute, then her beaming face peeped from the window once more.

"Miss Maitland's not at home," she announced. "I've left my card with the footman, and said I'd call again another day, in my aeroplane. Keep out of the way down there--I'm coming!" and down she came, with a rush and a scramble, arriving quite safely, however, with only her hair ribbon untied and her hands a little grazed.

"You see, it's really a very easy matter," she explained; "we do far harder things in the gym."

"Can you find a good foothold?" asked Flossie.

"Oh, yes! There are heaps of places that seem made on purpose to put your toe in. It's almost like a ladder."

"Here's Vivian!" said Chatty. "I'm afraid she's come to call us in."

"What a nuisance! I don't want to go to bed."

Chatty had accurately guessed the monitress's errand.

"It's nearly nine o'clock," proclaimed Vivian. "Didn't you hear the bell? I rang it at the side door."

"We didn't hear a sound," replied Lettice. "But then, we were all laughing so much. Honor Fitzgerald has just been climbing the lime tree, and she went right through the window into the study."

"Honor Fitzgerald is a hoyden, then," said Vivian. "And what business had she to go inside Miss Maitland's room? It was a piece of great impertinence."

"I'm sorry I told you," said Lettice ruefully.

"I wish Vivian could have heard the verse you made about her!" whispered Pauline to Honor. "Is hoyden a dictionary word, or not? I'm afraid I should have said 'cheek' instead of impertinence, but I'm not a monitress."

The girls had entered the dressing-room, and were putting away books and sewing materials in their lockers, when Maisie exclaimed:

"Oh, what a bother! I've left my work-basket on the grass. It was open, too, and if there's a heavy dew my scissors and crewel needles will be covered with rust. Lettice, do go and fetch it for me!--there's just time."

Lettice was so accustomed to wait upon her elder sister that she did not even remonstrate, but turned straightway and ran into the garden to fetch the lost property. It had grown suddenly very dusk, almost dark. The lime tree stood out tall and black by the side of the house, and the bushes were dense masses of shadow. Lettice had to grope for the basket, but found it at last, and began to retrace her steps along the hardly-discernible path. She was about twenty yards away from the lime tree when a slight noise made her look back, and she noticed the figure of a girl swinging herself down by the branches in the same way as Honor had done. Whoever it was alighted on the ground gently, and rushed off into the bushes before Lettice could see her face, though it would have been too dark, in any case, to distinguish her features. It was all done very quickly, and so silently that, except for the first sound, there was scarcely a rustle.

Lettice was in a great hurry, and did not stop to make any investigation; indeed, she did not trouble to give the matter a thought. It seemed a trifling little incident, not even worth mentioning to the others; yet it was one that she was to remember afterwards, in view of certain events that followed, for it was destined to make a link in the strangest chain of circumstances that ever occurred at St. Chad's.