The fun waxed furious, and it only increased when the sardine tin upset in the middle of one of the temporary tables.

"But it's my bed!" wailed Cynthia Greene.

"Cheer up! Someone's got to make a sacrifice for the good of the a.s.sembly, and you see the lot's fallen on you," said Raymonde consolingly. "You ought to be proud to have your bed chosen!"

"I'd just as soon it had been yours!" grumbled Cynthia. "I shan't like sleeping in a puddle of oil!"

"If you grouse any more, I'll empty the can of peaches on your pillow, so shut up!" commanded the mistress of the ceremonies. "A beano's a beano, and we're going to enjoy ourselves."

"If we make too much noise, though----" suggested Maudie Heywood.

Ardiune snapped her up promptly.

"We'll make what noise we like! What does it matter? The monitresses are locked out, and Mademoiselle will never hear. We've got the place to ourselves to-night, thank goodness! Just for once, Mother Soup's room down there is vacant!"

"Empty is the cradle, baby's gone!" mocked Morvyth.

"'Xpect she's having the time of her life at the dinner-party."

"Well, we'll have ours!"

A quarter of an hour later the dormitory presented a convivial scene.

An orchestra of five, seated on a hastily cleared dressing-table, were performing music with combs, while the rest of the company waltzed between the beds, with intervals of the fox-trot. Maudie Heywood and Cynthia Greene had accepted the inevitable, and joined the mult.i.tude.

Apparently they were enjoying themselves. Maudie's cheeks were scarlet, and Cynthia's long fair hair floated out picturesquely as she twirled round in Elsie Moseley's arms.

"We're certainly making the most of our bubbling girlhood!" murmured Raymonde with satisfaction. "The b.u.mble couldn't call us little premature women to-night!"

The dark anti-zepp curtains swayed in the night breeze, and the candles flared and guttered, the musicians tootled at their tissue-paper covered combs with tingling lips, faster and faster whirled the dancers, the fun was at its zenith, when quite suddenly the unexpected happened. The door of Miss Gibbs's room opened, and that grim lady herself stood on the threshold.

If a spectre had made its appearance in their midst, the girls could not have been more disconcerted. A horrible hush spread over the room, and for a moment everybody stared in frozen horror. The musicians slipped down from the dressing-table and scuttled towards their own beds.

"H'm! So this is how you are to be trusted!" remarked Miss Gibbs tartly, advancing towards the scene of the beano, and hastily casting an eye over the empty tins and crumby remains of the repast. "Move this rubbish away, and push those beds back to their places. Now get into bed, every one of you! Not a single sound more is to be heard to-night. We'll settle up this matter to-morrow."

Having seen each occupant of the dormitory ensconced between her sheets (Cynthia did not dare to complain that hers were sardiny!) Miss Gibbs went back to her own room, leaving the door wide open. With an enraged dragon in such close vicinity the girls did not venture to stir, and silence reigned for the rest of the night. At the first coming of the dawn, however, Raymonde rose with infinite precaution, and stole barefoot along the pa.s.sage to remove her wire and screws from the oak door. She accomplished that task without discovery, and, after hiding the screw-driver behind a wardrobe, crept back to bed.

Nineteen subdued penitents, clothed in mental sackcloth and ashes, went down to breakfast next morning. Their fears were not without foundation, for when Miss Beasley returned at ten o'clock they were summoned to the most unpleasant interview they ever remembered, from which the more soft-hearted of them emerged sobbing. They spent Sat.u.r.day afternoon in the schoolroom writing punishment tasks, while the monitresses went boating on the river. It was trying to see Daphne and Hermie coming downstairs in their nice white dresses and blue ties, and to know that they themselves were debarred the excursion.

They hung about the hall sulkily.

"It's your own faults," moralized Veronica. "After that disgraceful business on Thursday, you couldn't expect anything else. We heard you plainly enough, and we were utterly disgusted. I'd like to know who locked that pa.s.sage door. I have my suspicions," with an eye on Raymonde.

The babyish innocence of Raymonde's face at that moment might have served an artist as a model for a child angel.

"Have you? It's a pity to harbour suspicion!" she returned sweetly.

"We ought to learn to trust our schoolfellows! I loathe Veronica," she added in a whisper to Ardiune, as the monitress tripped cheerily to the door.

CHAPTER IX

A Week on the Land

The vacations at the Grange were arranged in rather an unusual fashion, a full week's holiday being given at Whitsuntide instead of the ordinary little break at half-term. This year Miss Gibbs, who was nothing if not patriotic, evolved a plan for the benefit of her country. She saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the local newspaper, stating that volunteers would soon be urgently needed to gather the strawberry crop upon a farm about fifteen miles away, and begging ladies of education to lend their services. Such a splendid opportunity of war work appealed to her. She wrote at once for particulars, and after some correspondence and a visit to the scene of action, announced her scheme to the school. She proposed that any girls who cared to devote their holidays to a useful end should join a camp of strawberry-pickers who were to be employed on the farm.

"It is being arranged by a Government bureau," she explained, "and many people will be coming who, like ourselves, want to help to bear their country's burdens--university students, journalists, social workers, hospital nurses, matrons of inst.i.tutions, and mistresses and scholars from other schools. We shall sleep in tents, and lead an absolutely outdoor life. It will be a healthy way of pa.s.sing a week, as well as a benefit to the nation. Any girl who would like to do her share may give me her name this afternoon, and Miss Beasley will write to her parents for permission for her to join the camp."

Outside in the quadrangle the school talked over the proposition at its leisure.

"Will they let us eat the strawberries?" asked Fauvette anxiously.

"Certainly, you little glutton!" snapped Veronica. "You'll be allowed to stuff till you loathe the very thought of swallowing a strawberry.

But you'll have to pick hard and do your share, or they'll turn you off!"

The monitresses were fired with the idea, and all, except Linda, had decided to "do their bit." Their enthusiasm spread downward like a wave. Before the day was over, eighteen girls had given in their names as volunteers, Raymonde, Morvyth, Katherine, and Aveline being among the number.

"I would like to have joined you, really!" protested Fauvette, "only I know I'll be so dreadfully home-sick all the rest of the term if I don't go home, and----"

"Don't apologize, child!" interrupted Raymonde. "n.o.body in their senses expects you to go. You'd be a huge embarra.s.sment to the rest of us. Blue-eyed darlings, all baby-ribbon and fluffy hair, aren't meant for hard work. Why, you'd pick about six strawberries in an hour, and eat three-quarters of them! Go home and be petted, by all means! We don't want you weeping yourself to sleep at night, it disturbs the dormitory. The country'll survive without your services!"

Raymonde's harum-scarum mind was for once really filled with a wish to help. She meant to do her full share of work. Also she was determined to enjoy herself. The prospect of camp-life was alluring. There was a gipsy smack about it that satisfied her unconventional instincts. It seemed almost next door to campaigning.

"If I'd only been a boy, I'd have run away to the front long ago!" she announced.

"Girls have their own chances in life as well as boys now," said Hermie. "Wait till you've finished with school, then you must try to find your niche in the world. There's plenty of pioneer work for women to do yet. They haven't half exploited the colonies. Once we show we're some good on the land, why shouldn't the Government start us in co-operative farms out in New Zealand or Australia? It ought to be done systematically. Everything's been so haphazard before. Imagine a farm all run by girls educated at our best secondary and public schools! It would be ideal. I'm yearning to try it."

Hermie's aspirations towards field labour and a colonial future had been greatly spurred on lately by the advent of some lady labourers on a farm near the Grange. For the last fortnight the milk had been delivered, not by the usual uncouth boy, but by a charming member of the feminine s.e.x, attired in short smock, knickers and gaiters, and a picturesque rush hat. Hermie had entered into conversation with her, and learned that she was a clergyman's daughter, that she milked six cows morning and evening, and went round with the cart delivering the milk, and that she was further concerned with the care of poultry, pigs, and calves. The glamour of her experiences made Hermie wish that the Grange were full of pigs instead of pupils.

"I'd rather attend to a dozen nice little black Berkshires than act monitress to those juniors!" she sighed. "There would really be more satisfaction in it. And as for Raymonde Armitage and her set--give me young calves any day!"

Miss Gibbs was extremely busy making preparations for the expedition.

The farmer undertook to provide tents for the party, and bags of hay to sleep upon, but each member must bring her own pillow, blankets, mug, knife, fork, spoon and plate, as well as her personal belongings.

These latter were whittled down to the smallest capacity, for there would be little room to stow them away in the tents. Stout boots, waterproofs, and hockey caps were taken, in case the weather might change, the girls wearing their usual Panama school hats on fine days.

In order to prevent difficulty with the ordinary strawberry-pickers, they were to be paid for their work according to the amount accomplished, and were each to contribute ten shillings towards the canteen, the tents being provided free.

"But suppose we don't each earn ten shillings?" asked Daphne the cautious.

"Whoever doesn't will have to make up the balance from her own pocket," said Miss Gibbs. "If the ordinary pickers can pay their way, I suppose we can do the same, but it will mean sticking at it hard, and no shirking. We must show what we're made of!"

On the Friday before Whitsun week an excited little party of eighteen stood with bags and bundles ready to start, Miss Gibbs bustling round them like a fussy hen with a large brood of chicks, giving ever so many last directions and injunctions, which seemed rather superfluous as she was going with them, and would have them under her charge the whole time. They went by rail to Ledcombe, the nearest station to Shipley, where the strawberry gardens were situated. The scene on the platform when they arrived was certainly new and out of the common. A train had just come in from London, bringing pickers from the slums.

It was labelled "Strawberry Gatherers Only," and its cargo was lively, not to say noisy. There were elderly men, younger ones unfit for military service, women with bawling babies, girls shouting popular songs, and a swarm of turbulent children. Whole families had apparently set forth to spend a few weeks helping at the fruit harvest, combining a holiday in the country with profit to their pockets.

"We're not going among that crew, I hope?" said Daphne, staring rather aghast at the unkempt crowd.

"Certainly not; we shall have our own quarters," returned Miss Gibbs, marshalling her flock to the gate of exit. Drawn up outside the station were six large hay wagons, and on one of these hung a placard: "Marlowe Grange." Miss Gibbs made for it immediately, turning out some struggling slum children who had already climbed in and taken temporary possession, and stowed the baggage inside.

"There's plenty of room for us all," she announced, "but you'll each have to sit on your own bundle. I'm glad I stipulated that they should reserve us a wagon for ourselves."