So, with just a little grain of hope, they retraced their steps to the post office, which was also a stationer's and newsagent's. n.o.body was in the shop, but when the girls thumped on the counter a rosy-cheeked young person appeared from the back regions.

"Want to telephone without paying? It's against the post office rules,"

she snapped, as Beatrice briefly explained the circ.u.mstances.

"My mother will pay when she comes, and if you'd take my watch----"

"I can't go against post office rules! All calls must be paid for beforehand. That's our instructions."

"But just for once----"

"What's the matter, Doris?" asked a voice, and a kindly-looking little man emerged from the back parlor, wiping his mouth hastily, and took his place behind the counter. Beatrice turned to him with eagerness, and again stated the urgency of their peculiar situation.

"Well, of course we've our instructions from the post office, and we've got to account for the calls, but in this particular case we might let you have one, and pay afterwards," he replied. "Oh, never mind the watch; it's all right!"

Beatrice lost no time in ringing up Number 167 Grovebury, and to her immense delight, when she got the connection, she heard her mother's voice at the instrument. A short explanation was all that was necessary.

"Stay where you are at the Waverley post office, and I will get a taxi and fetch you myself immediately," returned Mrs. Jackson. "It's the greatest relief to know what has become of you. I was going to ring up the police station, and describe you as 'missing!'"

The girls had to wait nearly three-quarters of an hour before the taxi made its appearance, and the welcome form of Mrs. Jackson stepped out of it. She paid what was owing for the call, thanked the postmaster for his civility, and hustled the girls into the conveyance as quickly as possible.

"I suppose girls will be girls," she said, "but I think you've been very silly ones to-day! Why didn't you keep with the rest of the school, as you ought to have done?"

"It sounds a most horrible greedy confession," replied Beatrice guiltily, "but I'm afraid it was all the fault of--buns! They just threw us late, and we missed the others. We'll never buy buns again! Never!

Never! _O peccavi!_ We have sinned!"

And she looked so humorously contrite that Mrs. Jackson, who was inclined to scold, laughed in spite of herself, and forgave the delinquents.

"On condition that such a thing doesn't happen again!" she declared.

"Trust us! We wouldn't go through such an experience again for all the buns in the world! Next time we'll cling to the College ap.r.o.n strings like--like----"

"Like adhesive sticking-plaster!" supplied Ingred gently.

"Or oysters to a mermaid's tail!" murmured Verity.

CHAPTER IX

A Hostel Frolic

"The Foursome League," which Verity had inst.i.tuted with her room-mates at the hostel, was kept by them as a solemn compact. They stuck to one another n.o.bly, though often in the teeth of great inconvenience. It generally took three of them to urge Fil through her toilet in the mornings and drag her down to breakfast in time. She was always so terribly sleepy at seven o'clock, and so positive that she could whisk through her dressing in ten minutes, and that it was quite unnecessary to get up so soon: even when the others mercilessly pulled the bed-clothes from her, and pointed to their watches, she would dawdle instead of "whisking," and spend much superfluous time over manicure or dabbing on cuc.u.mber cream to improve her complexion. She was so innocent about her little vanities, and conducted them with such child-like complacency, that the girls tolerated them quite good humoredly, and even a.s.sisted sometimes. One of them generally volunteered to brush her long flaxen hair, and tie her ribbon, and half out of habit the others would tidy her cubicle, which was apt to be chaotic, and put her things away in her drawers. They did it almost automatically, for they had come to look upon Fil somewhat in the light of a big doll, the exclusive property of "The Foursome League," and to be treated as the mascot of the dormitory.

Mrs. Best, the hostel matron, was what the girls called "rather an old dear." Her gray hair was picturesque, and the knowledge that she had lost her husband and a son in the war added an element of pathetic interest to her personality. She was experienced in the ways of girls, and contrived to keep order without seeming to be constantly obtruding rules. Among her various sane practices she inst.i.tuted the plan of awarding marks for good conduct and order to each dormitory, and allowing the one which scored the highest to give an entertainment to the others during the last hour before bedtime on Thursday night.

Naturally this was a privilege to be desired. It was fun to act variety artistes before the rest of the hostel, and well worth being in time for meals, preserving silence during prep., or getting up a little earlier so as to leave cubicles in apple-pie order. The Foursome League had not yet earned distinction, chiefly owing to lapses on the part of Fil, and Nora's incorrigible love of talking in season and out of season. One week, however, after a really heroic series of efforts, they succeeded in establishing a record, and sat perking themselves at dinner-time when Mrs. Best read out the score.

"We've not had you on the boards before," said Susie Wakefield, one of the Sixth, as the girls filed from the room when the meal was over; "we're all expecting something extra tiptop and thrillsome, so play up!"

"Hope we shan't let you down!" replied Ingred. "Please don't expect too much, or you mayn't get it!"

Dormitory 2 held a hurried conclave before afternoon school.

"It's a great stunt!" rejoiced Nora.

"What _are_ we to act?" fluttered Fil.

"Especially when we've to play up!" twittered Verity.

"What silly idiots we were not to plan it all out beforehand! But I really never dreamt we'd ever get the chance!"

"No more did I," said Ingred, sitting with her head in her hands, considering. "On the whole, it doesn't matter. Sometimes a quite impromptu thing goes off best. It's largely a question of what costumes we can rake up out of nothing.

"The cleverer those are, the more we'll get applauded. I've one or two ideas simmering. Thank goodness it's drawing this afternoon, and I shall have time to think them over."

"We'll all think!" agreed Verity. "Then we'll compare notes at four o'clock, and fix on what we're going to do. Great Minerva! It'll be a hectic evening! I'm shivering in my shoes!"

"And I'm absolutely green with stage-fright! What a life!" proclaimed Fil.

If Miss G.o.dwin, the drawing-mistress, noticed a slacking off in accuracy on the part of four of her pupils, that afternoon, she perhaps set it down to want of artistic feeling. It is difficult to copy with absolute exactness when only your fingers are busy, and your brain is far away.

Ingred planned enough entertainments to supply a Pierrot troupe for a month, but abandoned most of them as being quite impossible to act with the very limited resources that were available at the hostel. At a select Foursome Committee after school, however, she presented the pick of the performances, and as n.o.body else had thought of anything better, or indeed quite so good, her suggestions, with a few amendments and alterations, were carried unanimously.

At eight o'clock that evening, when preparation was finished, the boarders' room was rapidly transformed into an amateur theater. The trestle tables were carried to one end to form the gallery, rows of chairs represented the dress circle, and cushions in front either the pit or the stalls, according to individual taste, or, as Mrs. Best said, the behavior of the occupants.

There was no curtain, but, as the scenery preserved Shakespearian methods of simplicity, that did not matter. Part of the charm of these Thursday night entertainments was their absolutely spontaneous character, and the fact that many details had to be left to the imagination of the spectators only made things more amusing.

When the audience, after a slight struggle for gallery seats, had settled itself, and Mrs. Best and Nurse Warner had taken possession of the arm-chairs specially reserved for them, Dollie Ransome, who had been requisitioned by the performers to act as Greek chorus, placed some stools by the fire-place, and announced importantly:

"King Alfred and the Cakes. A Historical Drama."

The little old woman who entered, carrying some sticks and a basin, was difficult to identify as Fil. Her fair hair had been powdered, wrinkles were painted on her smooth forehead, a handkerchief was knotted on her head for a cap, and she wore an ap.r.o.n borrowed from the cook, and a check table-cover arranged as a shawl. She bestowed the sticks in the fender to represent a fire on the hearth, and taking some biscuits from her basin, placed them amongst the supposed embers, indulging meanwhile in a soliloquy about the hardness of the times for poor folk, and the danger from the Danes.

A violent knocking on the door was followed by the entrance of such a magnificent object that the spectators immediately applauded his advent.

Nora, with her large build, short-cut hair, and generally boyish appearance, was the very one to act King Alfred. She had folded a plaid traveling rug into a kilt which reached just to her bare knees, borrowed a velvet coatee and a leather belt from Mrs. Best, and, by the aid of bandages from the ambulance cupboard, had made quite a good imitation of Saxon leg-gear. Armed with a bow and arrows, hastily constructed from twigs cut in the garden, she advanced with a manly stride, begged for hospitality, and was accommodated with a stool by the hearth, where she sat whittling arrows in an abstracted fashion, and heaving gusty sighs.

The audience had hardly recovered from its astonishment when it was thrilled again by the entrance of an ancient and elderly peasant man, so disguised that it was almost impossible to recognize Ingred. A water-proof with a broad leather belt served as coat, and, being padded inside with a pillow, gave the effect of bent and bowed shoulders. Some tow, supplied by Mrs. Best, was fastened as a long straggling beard, and bushy eyebrows of the same material were fixed on with soap. Leaning heavily upon a stick, he came limping in, complaining in a tremulous voice of his rheumatism, started with amazement at the sight of the handsome stranger seated by his hearth, and drew his wife aside for explanations. The old couple, after conversing in audible whispers, decided to go out for more firewood, and as a last charge the dame commended her cakes to the care of their guest. King Alfred, on being left alone by the hearth, whittled away at his arrows with more energy than discrimination, and showed indeed a sad lack of practical skill for so well seasoned a warrior. Perhaps, however, he was not accustomed to have to make them for himself, and missed his chief archer. Throwing them down at last, he sank his head in his hands in an absolute cinema pose of despondency, and sighed to an extent which must have been painful to his lungs. The dame returned to sniff burning cakes and fly to the rescue of her cookery. Fil was quite a good little actress, and produced what she considered her _piece de resistance_. She had spent her summer holidays in Somerset, and had there picked up a local ballad which dealt with the legend in dialect. She brought out a verse of it now with great effect:

"Cusn't ee zee the ca-akes, man?

And cusn't ee zee 'em burrn?

I'se warrant ee eat 'em fast enough, Zoon as it be ee turn!"

And catching up a biscuit, carefully blackened beforehand by toasting it over the gas, she flaunted it in the face of the embarra.s.sed monarch.

The dramatic situation was slightly spoilt by the delay in the entrance of the courtier, who ought to have come in at that psychological moment, and didn't. The fact was that Verity, finding it dull waiting in the pa.s.sage, had run upstairs to make some additions to her costume, and had miscalculated the length, or rather shortness, of the act. It is difficult for the most accomplished actor to go on looking embarra.s.sed for any length of time, and as Fil's eloquence in the scolding line suddenly failed her, there was an awful pause while the peasant husband, with wonderful agility considering his rheumatism, hopped to the door and called agitatedly for the missing performer. The courtier flew downstairs like a whirlwind, tripped into the room, and fell upon his red-stockinged knees to do homage to his sovereign, who rose majestically and extended a hand of pardon to the now grovelling peasant.

The audience, particularly that portion seated in the gallery, clapped and cheered to such an extent that one of the trestles, which had been carelessly fixed, collapsed, and sent a whole row of girls sliding on to the floor, whence they were rescued speechless with laughter, but uninjured. They came crowding round the performers to admire the costumes.

"They're topping!"