"Are we down-hearted? No!" jodelled Patsie, throwing up her last bit of biscuit, and trying to catch it in her mouth like a terrier. "I say, Vivien, you silly c.o.c.kchafer, why don't you buck up? If the school's dull, then for goodness' sake do something to make it more lively, instead of sitting and looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. What the Muses do you want?"

"Something to happen."

"What? An elopement? A fire? A burglary? Tell me the sort of sensation you're craving for, and we'll try to accommodate you. I'm going to start a Sensation Bureau. Excitements guaranteed. Terms cash, or monthly instalments. You pay your money, and you take your choice. Address: Miss Sullivan, The Gables. Cheques and postal orders must be crossed."

The girls sn.i.g.g.e.red, for Patsie was at what they were wont to call her "Patsiest". At school she supplied the place of public entertainer. Her favourite role was that of the jester, with cap and bells.

"I really _have_ got a brain-wave, though," she rattled on. "I agree with Viv. Things at present are just about as dull and unromantic as they could possibly be. Girls don't have any fun as they had in the Middle Ages, or even in Jane Austen's times. My great-grandmother ran away from school to Gretna Green, but it's never done now. Well, the next best thing to real adventures is making them up. That's where my Sensation Bureau comes in. Here's Vivien pining for romance. Well, I'm prepared to give it to her hot and strong. I'm going to write her a letter every day from 'Jack', and post it inside the hollow tree in the garden. She can get and post hers there too, if she likes. Will you trade letters, Viv.? It'll be a stunt!"

"If you'll write the first," agreed Vivien, brightening up.

"Of course your 'Jack' will write first to his little 'Forget-me-not'!"

laughed Patsie.

Patsie was gifted with a most lively imagination, and some talent for writing. Her tastes ran on the lines of cheap novelettes. She evolved a supposit.i.tious hero for Vivien, and began a series of epistles couched in exceedingly ardent terms. All the most extravagant nonsense that she could invent was scribbled in the letters, which, addressed simply to "Forget-me-not", were posted inside the hollow of an old ash-tree at the bottom of the school garden. Vivien shared the effusions with her friends, and they had tremendous fun over them in a corner of the cloak-room. They helped her to concoct replies. The imaginary romance afforded them extreme entertainment. It was as exciting as writing a novel. They worked it through all sorts of interesting stages--hope, despair, and lovers' quarrels--till it culminated in a suggested elopement. Patsie really outdid herself sometimes in the brilliancy of her composition. "Jack" had developed a floweriness of style and a knack of describing his bold adventures that raised him to the rank of a cinema hero. The girls used to wait for his letters with as keen an antic.i.p.ation as for the next number of a serial. Vivien, the fortunate recipient of them, was envied. Several other enthusiasts suggested opening a correspondence, but Patsie was adamant.

"The Sensation Bureau's got enough in this line on its hands. I'll provide something else for you, if you like--a shipwreck, or an air-raid, or a railway accident--but until those two are safely 'eloped', I can't take on any more love affairs. Oh, yes! you can put down your names if you like. I've a nice little matter in my mind for Audrey, later in the term--no, I shan't tell it you now, not if you beg all day!"

The girls were sitting near the stove in the gymnasium before afternoon school, and munching some home-made chocolate concocted with cocoa and condensed milk. Like most war subst.i.tutes, it was not so good as the real thing, but it was certainly much better than nothing. The talk, with several side-issues concerning eatables, drifted back again to the all-engrossing "Jack". Vivien, as the heroine of the romance, a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of interesting importance. She affected much knowledge of his doings.

"You've never yet told us exactly what he's like," said Nellie.

"Well, of course it's difficult to describe him. He's tall, you know, with flashing eyes and little crisp curls."

"Has he a moustache?"

"N--n--o, not exactly a moustache." (Vivien's imagination was not nearly so ready as Patsie's.) "He's rather like Antonio in that piece they had at the cinema last week. He flings money about liberally, and he's always jumping into a motor and driving off very fast."

"Where does he get his petrol?" asked Lorraine.

"Oh, it's supplied by the Government. He has a simply enormous salary and private means as well. We shall be rolling, you know. I'm looking forward to having you all staying with me when we settle down."

The circle beamed almost as if the prospect were real.

"Where's the house?" enquired Audrey.

"He has several houses," said Vivien thoughtfully, checking them off on her fingers. "A town one, of course, in the West End, a hunting-box near Warwick, and a place in Wales. I believe there's an estate in Ireland as well."

"Shall you hunt? Oh, Viv.!"

"Of course I shall. 'Jack' simply _adores_ hunting. We're going to talk over my mount to-morrow, if the dear boy's able to turn up."

In the excitement of these prospective plans Vivien involuntarily raised her voice. The previous conversation had been in subdued tones, but her last remark must have been audible over half the gymnasium.

Nellie nudged her so violently that her piece of chocolate fell to the floor. In turning to recover it she noticed the cause of the sudden interruption. Miss Janet was within a few yards of them turning over some music by the piano.

Vivien's complexion a.s.sumed a dull beetroot shade. She wondered whether Miss Janet had overheard. It was impossible to go up to her and explain that they were only pretending. The mistress's face was inscrutable. She did not even glance in their direction, but picked out two or three songs from the pile and walked away into the house. The little circle broke up. Miss Janet's vicinity seemed to have put the stopper on romance. She was certainly not a sentimental person.

On the following day there was a fog--one of those white sea-fogs which sometimes enveloped Porthkeverne, when everything was veiled in soft mist, and even the very furniture was clammy. Vivien, whose throat was delicate, came to school with a Shetland shawl across her mouth. She sat and coughed in the gymnasium during recreation, and fingered a letter in her pocket. It was quite a fat letter, and addressed to "Jack Stanley, Esq".

"If it weren't so damp I'd run down the garden and post this," she said to Lorraine. "I expect there'll be one waiting for me in the tree, but I promised Mother I wouldn't do anything silly, and I suppose it _would_ be silly to run down the wet garden in my thin shoes and without my coat."

"It would be absolutely cracked, with that cough. I'll go. Give me your letter."

It was part of the procedure of the romance that the correspondence must be deposited inside the hollow tree, or else, on wet days, it would certainly have been far simpler to hand over the notes in school. Vivien had once hinted this, but Patsie stuck firmly to her plans, and, as she was the originator of the whole scheme, she had the right to make the arrangements.

"'Jack's' letters will be found in the garden, and nowhere else," she decreed.

So Lorraine, who was sufficiently interested to want to hear the next instalment supplied by Patsie's fertile imagination, ran out into the fog and among the dripping bushes down the path that edged the lawn. The pillar-box was moist and earwiggy; she wetted and soiled her sleeve by reaching down into it. At the bottom, in company with a fat spider and several woodlice, lay a letter addressed in a bold hand to "My Forget-me-not". She exchanged it for Vivien's epistle and scudded off through the damp mist back to the gymnasium. If any eyes were watching as she pa.s.sed the study window and came in by the side door, it was much too foggy for her to see clearly. As she handed the letter to her waiting cousin she noticed that the envelope was not gummed down securely.

"Hallo, 'Jack's' been in a hurry with this," she commented. "It isn't properly stuck."

"Perhaps it's the damp that's melted the gum," said Vivien, pulling out the contents impatiently.

Jack's correspondence, though addressed to her, was common property.

Several heads bent over the closely-written sheet, eager for what might be termed "the next episode" of the romance. The letter was dated "The Grand Hotel" and began:

"MY OWN DARLINGEST FORGET-ME-NOT,

"It is twenty-four hours since I last wrote to you, and the time has seemed an eternity. How I manage to live without your presence I cannot imagine. Life apart from you is a blank wilderness. I wander by the sad sea waves, and were it not for the fond hope of meeting you again I should cast myself into them and perish. Forget-me-not, my ownest own, I can stand this misery no longer. Surely the clouds that have separated us may now be blown apart, and again I can bask in the sunshine of your smile? If you can forgive me, meet me alone at twilight in the old familiar spot on the beach, that hallowed place where we first gazed into each other's eyes and vowed fidelity. I have a plan to propose, but I dare not write it: I must tell it to you in words and beg for your favour on my knees. I shall be there, awaiting your approach with burning anxiety, and longing to clasp you in these fond arms.

"With all the love in the wide world, "Your most devoted slave, "JACK."

The girls giggled.

"He's worse than ever this time," said Audrey.

"Got it badly," agreed Nellie.

"I wonder what his plan is," grinned Claire. "I say, Patsie, what's 'Jack' going to do next?"

"Wait and see," remarked Patsie calmly. "I'm not going to give away his secrets beforehand. It will all unfold itself in due time."

"History essays, please!" said Claudia, who was working monitress for the week, and whose duty it was to collect the exercise-books and give them to Miss Kingsley. "Don't be all day about it, I'm in a hurry!"

"Here's mine," answered Lorraine. "And do you mind giving this note to Morland? It's a list of pieces by that new Russian composer, Vladi--something--ski. Rosemary sent it for him."

"Right you are!" said Claudia. "He's mad on Russian music just at present."

The bell rang at that moment and the girls trooped upstairs to their cla.s.s-room. They had taken their seats, and Miss Turner was just in the act of opening her Latin book when Miss Janet came bustling in. Miss Janet's moods varied. This morning the corners of her mouth were tucked in and her eyes were inscrutable. The form instantly set her mental register at "stormy".

"Stand up, girls!" she commanded briskly. "Move from your desks and form into line over there, facing me!"

Exceedingly astonished, the form obeyed.

"Now each of you turn up your feet so as to show me the soles of your shoes, right first, then left. Thank you! Lorraine, whose shoes are damp, will go downstairs and change into her gymnasium shoes: the rest may take their seats."

Very much mystified the girls returned to their desks. Miss Janet departed, and Lorraine ran down to effect the required change. She could not understand Miss Janet's fussy solicitude for her health. She did not remember that the form had ever been examined thus for damp feet. She could only conclude that Miss Janet, who was apt to take sudden whims, had been studying a treatise on hygiene. At eleven o'clock she had a further surprise. Miss Paget brought her a message telling her to report herself to Miss Kingsley in the study. Wondering what was the matter, she answered the summons at once. She found Miss Kingsley and Miss Janet sitting together at the table with trouble writ large on their faces.

The mental atmosphere of the room cut her like a knife, it was so unmistakably hostile.