CHAPTER I
The New School
"Katrine!" said Gwethyn, in her most impressive manner, "have younoticed anything peculiar going on in this house the last two or threedays?"
"Why, no," replied Katrine abstractedly, taking a fresh squeeze ofcobalt blue, and mixing it carefully with the rose madder and the yellowochre already on her palette. "Nothing at all unusual. Gwethyn, becareful! You nearly sat down on my brigand, and his head's still wet!"
"Peccavi! I didn't see he was there," apologized Gwethyn, rescuing thecanvas in question, and placing it in a position of greater safety onthe mantelpiece. "Considering you've got absolutely every single chairlittered with books, paints, and turpentine bottles, there reallydoesn't seem a spot left to sit upon," she continued in an injuredtone.
"Except the table," returned Katrine, hastily moving a box of pastelsand a pile of loose drawings to make room. "Please don't disturb mythings. I've been sorting them out, and I don't want to get them mixedup again. Squat here, if you're tired, and leave the bottles alone."
"I am tired. I'm nearly dead. I bicycled all the way to Lindley Park andback with Mona Taylor on the step. She _would_ make me take her! Andshe's no light weight, the young Jumbo!"
"Poor martyr! would you like a drink of turpentine to revive you? Sorrythe chocs are finished."
"Don't mock me! Mona's a decent kid, but she really was the limitto-day. I'll see myself at Jericho before I let her climb on my stepagain. But Kattie, to go back to what I was saying before youinterrupted me--haven't you noticed there's a something, a most decidedsomething in the wind?"
"Your imagination, my dear child, is one of your brightest talents.You're particularly clever at noticing what isn't there."
"And you're as blind as a bat! Can't you see for yourself that Fatherand Mother have got some secret they're keeping from us? Why are wehaving our summer dresses made in April? Why are all our underclothesbeing overhauled and counted? Why did two new trunks arrive yesterday,with K. H. M. and G. C. M. painted on them in red letters? Why didFather just begin to say something last night, and Mother shut him up ina hurry, and he look conscience-stricken, and murmur: 'I'd forgottenthey don't know yet'? Girl alive! if you're blind I'm not. There'ssomething exciting on foot. I'm wild to find out what. Why doesn'tMother tell us? It's too bad."
"She's just going to now," said a voice from the door, and a small,bright-eyed little lady walked in, laughing. "You shan't be kept in thedark any longer, poor injured creatures! I'll make a clean breast of itat last."
"Mumsie!" cried both girls, jumping up, and sweeping away the books andpainting materials that encumbered the one arm-chair. "Sit here, youdarling! It isn't turpentiny, really! Here's the cushion. Are you comfynow? Well, do please begin and tell. We're all in a dither to know."
"Brace your nerves then, chicks! First and foremost, Father has beenasked in a hurry to go out to the Scientific Conference at Sydney, andgive the lectures on Geology in place of Professor Baillie, who has beentaken ill, and can't keep his engagement. He has accepted, and muststart by the 28th. He wants me to go with him. We shall probably be awayfor three months."
"And leave us!" Gwethyn's voice was reproachful. "Are we to be two sortof half orphans for three whole months? Oh, Mumsie!"
"It can't be helped," replied Mrs. Marsden, stroking the brown headapologetically. "What a Mummie's baby you are still! Remember, it's agreat honour for Father to be asked to take the Geology chair at theConference. He's ever so pleased about it. And of course I must go too,because----"
The girls smiled simultaneously, and with complete understanding.
"If you weren't there to remind him, Mumsie, Daddie'd forget which dayshis lectures were on!" twinkled Katrine. "Yes, and I verily believe he'dput his coat on inside out, or wear two hats, or do something horrible,if he were thinking very hard of the Pleistocene period. He'd be utterlylost without you. No, you couldn't let him go alone!"
"It's not to be thought of," agreed Mrs. Marsden hastily.
"Pack Kattie and me inside your trunk," urged Gwethyn's beseechingvoice. "I'd like to see Australia."
"Too expensive a business for four. No, we've made other plans for you.Get up, Baby! You're too heavy to nurse. Go and sit somewhere else--yes,on the table, if you like. Well, Father and I have talked the matterthoroughly over, and we've decided to send you both for a term to aboarding-school we know of in Redlandshire."
"To school!" shrieked Katrine. "But, Mumsie, I left school lastChristmas! Why, I've almost turned my hair up! I can't go back and be akid again--it's quite impossible!"
"No one wants you to do that. I have made special arrangements for youwith Mrs. Franklin. You are to join some of the classes, and spend therest of your time studying painting. Mrs. Franklin's sister, MissAubrey, is a very good artist, and will take you out sketching. Isn'tthat a cheering prospect? You've wanted so much to have lessons inlandscape."
"Not so bad--but I'm suffering still from shock!" returned Katrine."School's school, anyhow you like to put it. And when I thought I'd leftfor good!"
"And where do I come in?" wailed a melancholy voice from the table."You're Katrine, and I'm only Gwethyn. I'm too mi-ser-able for words,Mumsie, you've betrayed us shamefully. I didn't think it of you. OrDaddie either. Do please change your minds!"
"No; for once we're hard-hearted parents," laughed Mrs. Marsden. "Iwrote last night and arranged definitely and finally for you to go toAireyholme on the 21st."
"I suppose I can take Tony with me?" asked Gwethyn anxiously, quittingher seat on the table to catch up a small Pekinese spaniel and press akiss on his snub nose. "He'd break his little heart with fretting, blesshim, if I left him behind. Wouldn't you, Tootitums?"
"I'm afraid that's impossible. We must board Tony out while we're away.I dare say Mrs. Wilson at the market gardens would look after him, orMary might take him home with her. Now, Gwethyn, don't make a fuss, forI can't help it. I'm doing the best I can for everybody. You don'trealize what a business it is to start for Australia at such a shortnotice, and have to shut up one's house, and dispose of one's family,all in three weeks' time. I'm nearly distracted with making so manyarrangements."
"Poor darling little Mumsie!" said Katrine, squatting down by thearm-chair, and cuddling her mother's hand. "You'll be glad when it'sover and you're safe on board ship. Which way do people sail forAustralia? I don't know any geography."
"We go through the Suez Canal----"
"Oh, Mumsie! Hereward!" interrupted both the girls eagerly.
Mrs. Marsden's eyes were shining.
"I'm not counting on seeing him," she protested. "It's wildly improbablehe'd get leave, and we only have a few hours, I believe, at Port Said.Still, of course, there's always just the possibility."
"Now I understand why you're so keen to go to Australia," said Gwethyn."You darling humbug! You'd have made Daddie accept a lectureship on thetop of Chimborazo, or at the North Pole, if there were a chance ofseeing Hereward for ten seconds on the way. Confess you would!"
"I suppose I'm as weak-minded as most mothers who have an only son inthe army," said Mrs. Marsden, rising from her basket-chair. "One can'tkeep one's bairns babies for ever. They grow up only too fast, and flyfrom the nest. Well, I've told you the great secret, so I'll leave youto digest it at your leisure, chicks. Aireyholme is a delightful school.I'm sure you'll enjoy being there. Perhaps you're going to have the timeof your lives!"
Left alone, the two girls were not slow in discussing the wonderfulnews. The room where they were sitting was a large attic, which had beenconverted into a studio. The drab walls were covered with sketches inoils, water-colours, pencil or chalk; a couple of easels, paint-boxes,palettes, drawing-paper, and canvases, and a litter of smallarticles--india-rubbers, mediums, pastels, and stumps--gave a veryartistic general effect, and suggested plenty of work on the part of theowners. Both the sisters were fond of painting, and Katrine, at anyrate, spent much of her spare time here. With her blue eyes, regularfeatures, clear pale co
mplexion, and plentiful red-gold hair, Katrinelooked artistic to her finger-tips. She was just seventeen, and, owingto her extreme predilection for painting, had persuaded her parents totake her from the High School, and let her attend the School of Art,where she could devote all her energies to her pet subject. On thestrength of this promotion she regarded herself as almost, if not quite,grown up--a view that was certainly not shared by her mother, and wasperhaps a determining influence in Mrs. Marsden's decision to send herto a boarding-school.
Gwethyn, two years younger, was a bright, merry, jolly, independentdamsel, with twinkling hazel eyes and ripply brown hair, a pair ofbeguiling dimples at the corners of her mouth, and a nose which, asTennyson kindly expresses it, was inclined to be tip-tilted. UnromanticGwethyn did not care a toss about "High Art", though in her way she wasrather clever at painting, and inclined to follow Katrine's lead. Sheliked drawing animals, or niggers, or copying funny pictures from comicpapers; and sometimes, I fear, she was guilty of caricaturing themistresses at school, to the immense edification of the rest of theform. While Katrine painted fairies, Gwethyn would be drawing grinninggargoyles or goblins, with a spirited dash about the lines, and muchhumour in the expression of the faces. Sometimes these artistic efforts,produced at inopportune moments in school, got her into trouble, butwrath from head-quarters had little permanent effect upon Gwethyn. Herirrepressible spirits bobbed cheerily up again when the scoldings wereover, and her eyes, instead of being filled with penitential tears,would be twinkling with suppressed fun.
Just now she was sitting on the table in the studio, hugging Tony, andtrying to adjust her mental vision to the new prospect which openedbefore her.
"It's hard luck to have to leave the 'High' when I'd really a chance forthe tennis championship," she mourned. "I suppose they'll play tennis atthis new school? I hope to goodness they won't be very prim. I guessI'll wake them up a little if they are. Katrine, do you hear? I'm goingto have high jinks somehow."
"Jink if you like!" returned Katrine dolefully. "It's all very well foryou--you're only changing schools. But I'd left! And I'd quite made upmy mind to turn up my hair this term. Of course I'll like thelandscape-painting. I can do lots of things for the sketching club whileI'm away, but--it's certainly a venture! Perhaps an adventure!"
"It'll be a surprise packet, at any rate," laughed Gwethyn. "We don'tknow the place, or the people we're going to meet, or anything at allabout it. Kattie, I felt serious a minute ago, but the sight of yourlugubrious face makes me cackle. I want to sketch you for a gargoyle--amelancholy one this time. That's better! Now you're laughing! Look here,we'll have some fun out of this business, somehow. I'm going to enjoymyself, and if you don't play up and follow suit, you're no sister ofmine."
* * * * *
A fortnight later, the two girls were waving good-bye from the window ofa train that steamed slowly out of Hartfield station. Even Gwethynlooked a trifle serious as a railway arch hid the last glimpse of Mumsiestanding on the platform, and Katrine conveniently got something in hereye, which required the vigorous application of her pocket-handkerchief.They cheered up, however, when the city was passed, and suburban villasbegan to give place to fields and hawthorn hedges. After all, noveltywas delightful, and for town-bred girls three months of country life,even at school, held out attractions. It was a four hours' journey toCarford, where they changed. The express was late, and, somewhat totheir dismay, they found they had missed the local train, and would haveto wait three hours for the next. As it was only eight miles toHeathwell, the village where the school was situated, they decided toride there on their bicycles, leaving their luggage to follow by rail.The prospect of a cycling jaunt seemed far pleasanter than waiting at anuninteresting junction; it would be fun to explore the country, and theywould probably arrive at school earlier by carrying out this plan.
Through the sweet, fresh-scented lanes, therefore, they started, wherethe young leaves were lovely with the tender green of late April, andthe banks gay with celandine stars and white stitchwort, and thethrushes and blackbirds were chanting rival choruses in the hedgerow,and the larks were rising up from the fields with their little brownthroats bubbling over with the message of spring. On and on, mile aftermile of softly undulating country, where red-roofed farms lay amongorchards full of blossom, and a river wandered between banks of osiersand pollard willows, and the sleek white-faced cattle grazed in meadowsflowery as gardens. It seemed a fitting way to Eden; but the girls hadnot quite anticipated the little Paradise that burst upon their viewwhen a bend of the road brought them suddenly into the heart ofHeathwell. Surely they must have left the present century, and by somestrange jugglery of fate have turned back the clock, and foundthemselves transported to mediaeval times. The broad village street ranfrom the old market hall at one end to the ancient church at the other,flanked on either side by black-and-white houses so quaint in design,and so picturesque in effect, that they might have stepped from apainting of the seventeenth century. The cobble-stoned cause-way, theirregular flights of steps, the creepers climbing to the very chimneys,the latticed windows, the swinging inn-sign with its heraldic dragon,all combined to make up a scene which was typically representative ofMerrie England.
"Are we awake, or are we in an Elizabethan dream?" asked Katrine,dismounting from her bicycle to stand and survey the prospect.
"I don't know. I feel as if I were on the stage of a Shakespearian play.A crowd of peasants with May garlands ought to come running out of thatarchway and perform a morris dance, then the principal characters shouldwalk on by the side wings."
"It's too fascinating for words. I wonder where Aireyholme is?"
"We shall have to ask our way. Ought one to say: 'Prithee, good knave,canst inform me?' or 'Hold, gentle swain, I have need of thy counsel'?"
"We shall start with a reputation for lunacy, if you do!"
The school proved to be not very far away from the village. Aireyholme,as it was aptly called, was a large, comfortable, rather old-fashionedhouse that stood on a small hill overlooking the river. Orchards, in theglory of their spring bloom, made a pink background for the whitechimneys and the grey-slated roof; a smooth tennis lawn with four courtsfaced the front, and in a field adjoining the river were some hockeygoals.
"Not so utterly benighted!" commented Gwethyn, as she and Katrinewheeled their bicycles up the drive. "There's more room for games herethan we had at the 'High'. I'm glad I bought that new racket. Wonderwhat their play's like? I say, these are ripping courts!"
To judge by the soft thud of balls behind the bushes, and the cries thatregistered the scoring, several sets of tennis were in progress, and asthe girls turned the corner of the shrubbery, and came out on to thecarriage sweep before the front door, they had an excellent view of thelawn. Their sudden appearance, however, stopped the games. The playershad evidently been expecting them, and, running up, greeted them incharacteristic schoolgirl fashion.
"Hello! Are you Katrine and Gwethyn Marsden?"
"So you've turned up at last!"
"Did you miss your train?"
"Miss Spencer was in an awful state of mind when you weren't at thestation. She went to meet you."
"Have you biked all the way from Carford?"
"Yes, and we're tired, and as hungry as hunters," returned Katrine. "Ourluggage is coming by the 5.30. We missed the 2.15, so we thought we'drather ride on than wait. Where can we put our bikes?"
"I'll show you," said a tall girl, who seemed to assume the lead. "Atleast, Jess and Novie can put them away for you now, and I'll take youstraight to Mrs. Franklin. She'll be most fearfully relieved to see you;she gets herself into such stews over anybody who doesn't arrive on thenail. I'm Viola Webster. I'll introduce the others afterwards. You'llsoon get to know us all, I expect. There are thirty-six here this term,counting yourselves. Did you bring rackets? Oh, good! We're awfully keenon tennis. So are you? Dorrie Vernon will be glad to hear that. She'sour games secretary. I wonder if Mrs. Franklin is in
the study, or inthe drawing-room? Perhaps you'd better wait here while I find her. Oh,there she is after all, coming down the stairs!"
* * * * *
The new world into which Katrine and Gwethyn were speedily introduced,was a very different affair from the High School which they hadpreviously attended. The smaller number of pupils, and the fact that itwas a boarding-school, made the girls on far more intimate terms withone another than is possible in a large day-school. Mrs. Franklin, thePrincipal, was a woman of strong character. She had been a lecturer atcollege before her marriage, and after her husband's death had begun herwork at Aireyholme in order to find some outlet for her energies. Hertwo sons were both at the front, one in the Territorials, and the otheras a naval chaplain. Her only daughter, Ermengarde, had lately beenmarried to a clergyman. Tall, massive, perhaps even a trifle masculinein appearance, Mrs. Franklin hid a really kind heart under a ratheruncompromising and masterful manner. She was a clever manager, anadmirable housekeeper, and ruled her little kingdom well and wisely.Both in features and personality she resembled an ancient Roman matron,and among the girls she was often known as "the mother of the Gracchi".
Mrs. Franklin's sister, Miss Aubrey, who lived at the school, was anartist of considerable talent. She superintended the art teaching, andgave the rest of her time to landscape-painting, in both oil and watercolours. It was largely the fact that Katrine might have sketchinglessons from Miss Aubrey which had influenced Mr. and Mrs. Marsden intheir choice of Aireyholme. The art department was a very importantfeature of that school. Any talent shown among the pupils was carefullyfostered. The general atmosphere of the place was artistic; the girlswere familiar with reproductions of pictures from famous galleries, theytook in _The Art Magazine_ and _The Studio_, they revelled inillustrated catalogues of the Salon or the Royal Academy, and dabbled inmany mediums--oil, water colour, pastel, crayon, and tempera. The bigstudio was perhaps the pet room of the house; it was Liberty Hall, whereanybody might pursue her favourite project, and though some of theattempts were certainly rather crude, they were all helpful in trainingeye and hand to work together.
Of the other mistresses, Miss Spencer was bookish, and Miss Andrewsathletic. The former was rather cold and dignified, an excellent andpainstaking, though not very inspiring teacher. She spoke slowly andprecisely, and there was a smack of college about her, a scholasticofficialism of manner that raised a barrier of reserve between herselfand her pupils, difficult to cross. Very different was Miss Andrews,whose hearty, breezy ways were more those of a monitress than of amistress. She laughed and joked with the girls almost like one ofthemselves, though she could assert her authority emphatically when shewished. Needless to say she was highly popular, and although she hadonly been a year at Aireyholme, she was already regarded as anindispensable feature of the establishment. Into this busy and highlyorganized little community Katrine and Gwethyn, as new-comers, mustshake themselves down.