"Don't put another touch to it," said the vicar. "It is excellent just as it is. I beg that you will shut your paint-box, and leave it; it would be a mistake to work at it any more."

"I am most interested to have seen it," declared Mrs. Silvester; "it is delightful to find anyone with such a decided gift for art. You must make it your special study, and we shall look for great things from you when you have finished school."

She pa.s.sed on with her husband, and as they walked towards the cottage the words "marvellous talent" and "astonishing cleverness" were wafted back by the summer breeze.

Aldred closed her paint-box as the Vicar had suggested. Somehow she did not feel inclined to continue her work; all the pleasure had suddenly faded away from it.

Keith had subsided once more into his former lazy att.i.tude, and sat idly picking ears of corn, preserving an ominous silence. He waited until Mr.

and Mrs. Silvester were safely inside old Mrs. Barker's garden, then burst forth.

"Well, of all the sneaks you're the biggest! Call that your work? Why, it's Mr. Bowden's!--all the best parts, at any rate, that they were praising so much. And you calmly took the credit for the whole! I wasn't going to speak and give you away, but I'll let you know what I think of you now."

"Oh, Keith! What could I do?" stammered Aldred, the tears welling up in her eyes and splashing down upon the paint-box. "Don't scold me so! I can't bear you to be cross with me."

"But you deserve it! Why didn't you say it wasn't really your own painting?"

"They never asked me if I had been helped," answered Aldred; "and, after all, it's my sketch, not Mr. Bowden's."

"Yes, your sketch, but improved absolutely beyond recognition. Look here! if you play these tricks at school you'll pretty soon find yourself the reverse of popular. Boys wouldn't stand it, and I don't suppose girls will either."

"It didn't strike me to say anything," sobbed Aldred. "Oh, Keith, don't look at me like that! Shall I run after them and tell them? I will, if you want. I'll go at once, if you'll only be friends with me again."

"No, they're inside the cottage, condoling with Mrs. Barker over her rheumatism. You'd only make yourself ridiculous if you followed them, and came out with a dramatic confession in the middle of the kitchen. I hate scenes. Do turn off the water-works, there's a good girl! Be a little straighter in future if you want to keep chums with me, though.

Here, I'll help you to pack up your traps, and we'll go home to tea.

Your sketch is still wet; if you carry that I'll bring on the rest."

Very crestfallen and miserable, Aldred took up her unfortunate painting, and began to walk away down the path towards the wood, leaving her brother to follow. In her brown holland dress and red poppy hat she made such a sweet picture against the yellow of the corn stooks that, in spite of his disapproval, Keith could not help looking after her with a certain amount of admiration. No one who met Aldred Laurence could have failed to be struck by her personality. She was very neatly and trimly made, and had a way of holding herself erect and looking alert that gave her a distinguished appearance, and seemed to raise her above the level of the average girl. Her lovely dark eyes, long, curling brown hair, and warm, rich colouring had a gipsy effect that was particularly picturesque. Her eyes were so bright and soft and expressive, her cheeks had two such bewitching dimples, and she smiled so readily and winningly in response to the smallest advance, that she generally made friends easily, and had won notice from strangers since the days of her babyhood.

To sober, downright, matter-of-fact Keith his sister was often a sore puzzle. Her eager, impetuous, excitable disposition, and many impulsive acts, were as foreign to him as an unknown language.

"Why need you work yourself up so tremendously over every trifle? What's the use of taking life so stormily?" he once remonstrated.

"I don't know," replied Aldred. "I seem to care so much more about everything than you do. I can't help it; I suppose it was born in me."

"Then it's high time you got it out of you!" remarked Keith, whose ideal was a state of unruffled calm on all occasions.

In spite of the difference in their temperaments the two were really attached to each other, and though Keith might not be demonstrative, he tolerated Aldred's devotion when they were strictly alone, though he would not allow her, as he expressed it, to "make an exhibition of him before other fellows".

Poor Aldred! She had a very warm and loving heart, and a perpetual hunger for affection that, so far, had failed to be entirely satisfied.

Since the day, seven years before, when her mother had started on that long journey from which none return, n.o.body had seemed to understand her quite, or to know how to manage her aright. Her father, a clever barrister who went daily from Dingfield into London, was too absorbed in his profession to give much time or sympathy to his children. Having sent his son to school, and provided a daily governess for his daughter, he felt that he had done all that was required of him. The masters at Stavebury were responsible for Keith, and as for Aldred, if anything more was needful for her upbringing than Miss Perkins could give, surely his sister, who managed his house so admirably, could look after his motherless girl?

Unfortunately, though Aunt Bertha had great experience and excellent skill in the making of jams and the care of linen, she had no apt.i.tude for the handling of human souls. She was a stout, bustling, unimaginative, prosaic person, without an atom of romance or sentiment in her composition. A nature such as Aldred's was beyond her comprehension. She tried to do her best for the child, but it was such an unsympathetic best that it had the unhappy effect of setting a barrier between herself and her niece which neither seemed able to pa.s.s.

Long and lucidly would Aunt Bertha reason and expound, and enjoin habits of neatness, order, and punctuality. All to no purpose! Arguments never appealed to Aldred. She would listen with an air of don't-care indifference, and do just the same next time. Yet if her aunt could have given her one warm kiss, the battle would have been won. It was a sad pity, for the girl had in reality a very sweet disposition, though at present it was like a neglected garden, where a few choice blossoms might be found, struggling with ugly weeds that threatened sometimes almost to strangle the flowers.

The precise governess carefully chosen by Aunt Bertha had not helped matters. She found her pupil bright indeed, but only ready to work by fits and starts, and quite unmoved by fear of punishment, or promise of reward. So strong at last had the friction grown that Miss Perkins had herself resigned her post, and recommended that Aldred should be packed off to school.

"I have done my utmost," she said to Miss Laurence, "but I feel that I am a complete failure. I have no influence over Aldred, and she is not making the slightest progress. In the circ.u.mstances I cannot honestly continue to teach her. In my opinion a little strict discipline is what she requires, and the sooner she experiences it the better."

The decision to send her away (long held over her head as a threat), instead of daunting Aldred, had delighted her. Aunt Bertha was much relieved. She had dreaded a storm when the question was raised, and though she considered it a bad characteristic in a girl to be glad to leave home, she felt it removed a difficulty when her niece accepted the situation so readily.

To Aldred the idea of forming herself on the prim pattern of her aunt was intolerable. She was ready to copy anybody whom she loved and admired, but to be obliged to repress her enthusiasms, and reduce her ideals to the level of the commonplace, seemed like being forced into a box too small to contain her.

"Aunt Bertha never understands," she thought. "She says I must try to grow up now, and be sensible. If growing up means getting cold and calm and stupid, and taking everything as a matter of course, I'd rather not.

I'll just stop a child always, however hard they may try to make me different!"

Such was Aldred at the time our story begins,--a ma.s.s of contradictions, so wayward and yet so winning, a mixture of good impulses and weak points, equally ready to join a crusade or to follow the mult.i.tude to do evil; waiting, like a gaily painted but rudderless vessel, to be launched on to the stormy ocean of school life.

CHAPTER II

Mabel Farrington

Birkwood Grange was a rambling, roomy stone house, built at the edge of a breezy common, within sight and sound of the sea. It was a pleasant spot for a school; beyond stretched the broad downs, covered with short, fine gra.s.s, through which the dazzling white road wound like a ribbon to the distant horizon. There was a sense of air and s.p.a.ce as one looked over the green upland, where for miles the view was interrupted only by the sails of a windmill, or an occasional storm-swept tree, the slanting branches of which showed the direction of the prevailing gale. In front, the chalky cliffs descended sharply to the beach; and beyond them, now blue as turquoise, now gleaming silver, now inky black, as calm as a lake, or lashing into foaming spray, always changing, yet ever beautiful, lay the wide waters of the English Channel. On one side of the house was a walled kitchen-garden, and on the other a field for hockey; while in front a large lawn provided ample s.p.a.ce for several tennis courts.

On the afternoon of September 14th The Grange presented an extremely lively and animated scene. Girls were everywhere--tall girls, short girls, fat girls, slim girls; some fair, some dark, some pretty and some plain; and all in a state of excitement, and chattering as fast as their tongues would wag. No anthill, or hive of bees about to swarm, could have seemed in a greater ferment; there was a constant hum of conversation, a continual patter of feet, and a succession of young people, always moving in and out, searching for friends, claiming old acquaintances, exchanging greetings, and pa.s.sing on items of news. It was the first day of the autumn term; a fresh school year had begun, and the party of thirty-nine girls who const.i.tuted Miss Drummond's little community were once more a.s.sembled for a season of work and play.

Several changes had taken place; most of the rooms had been re-papered and painted, and there were alterations in the time-table, a revised practising list, and an entirely modified arrangement of some of the cla.s.ses.

Small wonder, therefore, that a babel of talk prevailed in every corner of the house, and that various groups of hair ribbons kept collecting and dispersing with the bewildering effect of a kaleidoscope, while such a general atmosphere of bustle and commotion pervaded the establishment as to turn the head of any onlooker in a complete whirl. Aldred, ensconced in an angle of a bow window, surveyed the whole spectacle, as yet, from the standpoint of an outsider. It is true, she had received a cordial welcome from Miss Drummond; she had been duly entered as a member of the Fourth Form; she had been allotted a desk in a cla.s.sroom, a locker in the recreation-room, and a cubicle in a big, airy bedroom; and was already possessed of a pile of new books, a chest expander, and a hockey stick: yet, in spite of this initiation she was feeling decidedly like a fish out of water. She was not usually afflicted with shyness, but to find herself in the midst of a medley of strangers, all too occupied with their own affairs even to realize her existence, was a little disconcerting to even her easy self-confidence. She was beginning to wonder how long she would remain unnoticed, and was trying to screw up her courage to venture a remark to one of her nearest neighbours, when a plain girl in spectacles broke the ice.

"What's your name, and where do you come from?"

Aldred started at the abruptness of the question and turned to face the speaker, who continued with a smile: "We always put new-comers through a catechism. I want to know your age, and what cla.s.s and dormitory you're in, and which teacher you're to learn music from, and whether you're going to take dancing and wood-carving. Oh! so you're in the Fourth--that's my form, as it happens. My name's Ursula Bramley, and I'm fourteen and a half. We have a very decent time at Birkwood. There's any amount of fun going on, as you'll soon find out. Wait till we start the Debating Society and the Cooking Cla.s.s! Have you been measured yet for a gymnasium costume? Of course, there has not been an opportunity, but Miss Drummond is sure to see about it to-morrow--and a cooking ap.r.o.n too, if you haven't already got one."

Aldred replied as briefly as possible to these various interrogations, but Ursula seemed quite satisfied with "Yes" and "No" for an answer, and rattled on: "I'm rather sorry for you, being put in No. 2 dormitory, because you'll be with Fifth Form girls, and you can't expect them to be particularly chummy with you. If there had only been room, now, in No.

5! But we're full up, all six beds; there isn't even a corner for a shakedown. We have such jokes in the mornings, when we're getting up!

It's a pity you'll be out of it. I'd like you to see Dora Maxwell acting a peac.o.c.k; you'd simply scream! Of course, we daren't make too much noise, or we should have a monitress pouncing down upon us; but it's ever such fun, all the same. They're a very prim set in No. 2. They never lost a single order mark last term! Well, if you can't be in our dormitory you'll be with us in cla.s.s, at any rate, and it isn't dull there by any means, I can tell you."

"How many girls are there in the Fourth Form?" asked Aldred.

"There were seven before, but you'll make eight. Why, most of them are in the room now, or on the lawn just outside, so I can point them out to you. That's Phbe Stanhope standing by the fireplace,--the one with the long light pigtail and the blue blouse; she's talking to Lorna Hallam, and Agnes Maxwell is showing her camera to them both. Now, if you'll look through the window you'll see two girls walking arm in arm round the sundial; the fair one is Dora Maxwell, and the dark one is Myfanwy James. Dora is tremendously jolly; she and Myfanwy think of the most outlandish things to do. Why, one night they went to bed right underneath their bottom sheets, and put their pillows over their faces, and when Freda Martin (that's our prefect) came to turn out the lights she thought they weren't there at all, and was just going to make a tremendous fuss, when Myfanwy couldn't stand it any longer, and exploded! We six are in the same dormitory, and we're the greatest chums. We call ourselves 'The Clan', and each is pledged to back the others up through thick and thin, whatever happens."

"Who's the seventh girl in the cla.s.s?"

"Mabel Farrington."

"And doesn't she belong to 'The Clan'?"

"Oh, no! Mabel wouldn't dream of such a thing."

"Why not?"

"Oh! because--well, she's rather particular. She's not very great friends with anybody."

"Don't you like her?"

"Like her? Yes; everybody likes Mabel. That's not the reason at all.