“Don’t you alarm yourself! She couldn’t twist her tongue round them. I’d think she was pining away to an early death if she did! You’ll hear plenty of plain, straight, wholesome talking-to before you’re half an hour older, my child, or else I’m entirely mistaken.”
“You will, old sport, unless you’ve mended your ways,” chuckled Morvyth. “Are you a reformed character this term, may I ask? Come back with a certificate for good behaviour—no vice, gentle in harness, a child can drive her, etcetera?”
“Help! The school would die of dullness if I did! You’d be positively bored to tears. No, we all have our talents, and I consider my mission in life is to keep things humming and cheer you all up. I may do it at some personal sacrifice, but––”
“Personal thingumjig!” interrupted Valentine Gorton. 12
“But it is!” persisted Raymonde, her dark eyes dancing. “You don’t know how disinterested I am. Gibbie can’t row us all at once, and when I draw fire on myself I save you. See? I’m a kind of scapegoat for the school. Everybody’s sins are stuck on to me. Gibbie lets forth the vials of her wrath, the storm’s over, she feels better, and nobody else is much the worse.”
“Not even you—you heroic victim?”
“Bless you, child, I’m as used to scolding as eels to skinning. Neither the Bumble Bee nor the Wasp worry me. I let them both buzz. It seems to please them! Indeed, I think they expect it. When one’s got a reputation, one’s bound to live up to it.”
Raymonde Armitage would certainly not have won a medal for exemplary behaviour, had any such prize been offered at the school. There was no harm in her, but her irrepressible spirits were continually at effervescing point, and in fizzing over were liable to burst into outbreaks of a nature highly scandalizing to the authorities. As regarded Miss Beasley, the Principal, though she upheld discipline firmly, it was an open secret that she had a sneaking weakness for Raymonde. “The Bumble Bee rows Ray, but she likes her,” was the general verdict. With Miss Gibbs, however, it was a different matter. The humour of a situation never appealed to her. She frankly considered her troublesome pupil as a thorn in the flesh, and perhaps gave her credit for more than she really deserved in the way of blame. It was whispered in the school that several enterprising spirits had managed to shift on to Raymonde’s shoulders the 13 consequences of their own crimes, with results more satisfactory to themselves than to their lively classmate. In spite of the fact that she had passed her fifteenth birthday, Raymonde was the most irresponsible creature in the world. She looked it. Her face was as round and smooth as an infant’s, with an absurd little dab of a nose, a mouth with baby dimples at the corners, and small white teeth that seemed more like first than second ones, and dark eyes which, when they did not happen to be twinkling, were capable of putting on a bewitching innocence of expression calculated to deceive almost any teacher, however experienced, save the case-hardened Miss Gibbs.
At the beginning of this term there were twenty-six girls in the little community assembled at Marlowe Grange. The old house provided ample accommodation, and had been easily adapted to meet the wants of a school. Built originally in Elizabethan days, it had been added to at various times, and its medley of architecture, while hopelessly confusing styles, had resulted in a very picturesque and charming whole. Perhaps the most ancient part was the fortified gateway, ruinous and covered with ivy, but still preserving its winding stair leading to an upper story that spanned the entrance. With its tiny loophole windows and its great solid oak gate with the little door cut through, it had the aspect of a mediæval fortress, and was a fitting introduction to what was to follow. High walls on both sides enclosed the courtyard, and farther on, to the right of the house, was another quaint garden, where shaved yew trees and clipped hollies presented distorted imitations 14 of peacocks, umbrellas, pagodas, or other ambitious examples of topiary art. Here, in the late April weather, spring bulbs were blooming, wallflowers made a sheet of gold, and the pear trees were opening pure white blossoms. Little clumps of pansies, pink daisies, and forget-me-nots were struggling up, rather mixed amongst the box edging, and a bank of white alyssum on the rockery near the hives provided a feast of nectar for the bees, whose drowsy hum seemed to hold all the promise of the coming summer.
Behind this garden, and sheltered by the outbuildings from the north and east winds, lay the orchard, neglected and unpruned, but very beautiful with its moss-grown apple trees, its straggling plums, and budding walnuts, and cherries just bursting into an ethereal fairy network of delicate palest pink bloom. Primroses grew here amongst the grass, and clumps of dog violets and little tufts of bluebells were pushing their way up to take the place of the fading daffodils, while a blackthorn bush was a mass of pure white stars. At the far end, instead of a hedge, lay the moat, a shallow stagnant pool, bordered with drooping willows, tall reeds, and rushes that reared their spear-like stems from the dark oozy water. Originally this moat had encircled the mansion as a means of defence, but now, like the ruined gateway, its mission was long past, and it survived, a sleepy witness to the warfare of our forefathers, and a picturesque adjunct to the general beauty of the place that could scarcely be surpassed. From the farther side of the moat peaceful meadows led to the river, where between high wooded banks a 15 stately silver stream glided slowly and tranquilly on in its path towards the ocean, rippling over weirs, and bearing on its calm bosom an occasional pleasure boat, punt, or fussy little motor yacht.