"I'm frightened!" whimpered Joan.

"I vote we go downstairs," suggested Morvyth. "I don't want to play any more hide-and-seek at present."

n.o.body else seemed anxious to pursue the game. The attics were too charged with the occult to be entirely pleasant. Everybody made a unanimous stampede for the lower story, pa.s.sing down the winding staircase with a sense of relief. Once on familiar ground again, things looked more cheery.

"Back already?" commented Miss Gibbs, who had met them on the landing.

"Yes, we're all--er--a little tired!" evaded Hermie, with one of her conscious blushes.

"Better go to the dining-room and get out your sewing, then," replied the mistress, eyeing her keenly.

The girls proceeded soberly downstairs, still keeping close together like a flock of sheep. Raymonde, however, lagged behind. For a moment or two she stood pondering, then she ran swiftly up the winding staircase again into the attic.

The talk of the school that evening turned solely upon the ghost girl.

Meta, who had not seen the vision, declared it was nothing but over-excited imagination, and feared that some people were apt to get hysterical; at which Hermie retorted that no one could be further from hysteria than herself, and that six independent witnesses could scarcely imagine the same thing at the same moment, without some basis for their common report. Veronica considered that they had entered unwittingly into a psychic circle, and encountered either a thought-form that had materialized, or a phantasm of the living.

"Some people have capacities for astral vision that others don't possess," she said in a lowered voice. "It's quite probable that Hermie may be clairvoyante."

Hermie sighed interestedly. It was pleasanter to be dubbed clairvoyante than hysterical. She had always felt that Meta did not appreciate her.

"We've none of us been trained to realize our spiritual possibilities," she replied, her eyes wide and thoughtful.

While a few girls disbelieved entirely in the spectre, and others accepted the explanation according to Veronica's occult theories, most of the school considered the attic to be haunted by a plain old-fashioned ghost, such as anybody might expect to find in an ancient mansion like the Grange. They waived the subject of modern costume, deciding that in the dim light such details could hardly have been adequately distinguished, and that the apparition must have been a cavalier or Jacobite maiden, whose heart-rending story was buried in the oblivion of years.

"Perhaps her lover was killed," commented Fauvette, with a quiver of sympathy.

"Or her father was impeached by Parliament," added Maudie.

"She may have had a cruel stepmother who ill-treated her," sighed Muriel softly.

Raymonde alone offered no suggestions, and when asked for her opinion as to the explanation of the mystery, shook her head sagely, and said nothing. The immediate result of the experience was that Veronica went to Miss Beasley, and borrowed _An Antiquarian Survey of the County of Bedworthshire, including a description of its Castles and Moated Houses, together with a History of its Ancient Families_--a ponderous volume dated 1823, which had before been offered for the girls'

inspection, but which n.o.body had hitherto summoned courage to attack.

She studied it now with deep attention, and gave a digest of its information for the benefit of weaker minds, less able than her own, to grapple with the stilted language. The school preferred lighter literature for their own reading, but were content to listen to legends of the past when told by Veronica, who had rather a gift for narrative, and could carry her audience with her. As the next afternoon was still hopelessly wet, the girls gathered in one of the schoolrooms with their sewing, and were regaled with a story while they worked.

"I found out all about the Grange," began Veronica. "It belonged to a family named Ferrers, and they took the side of the King in the Civil War. While Sir Hugh was away fighting in the north, the house was besieged by Cromwell's troops. The Lady of the Manor, Dame Joan Ferrers, had to look after the defence. She had not many men, nor a great deal of ammunition, and not nearly as much food as was necessary. She at once put all the household upon short rations, and drew up the drawbridge, barred the great gates, and prepared to hold out as long as she possibly could. She knew that the Cavalier forces might be marching in the direction of Marlowe at any time to relieve her, and that if she could keep the enemy at bay even for a few weeks the Grange might be saved. The utmost vigilance was used. Sentries were posted in the tower over the great gate, and the lady herself constantly patrolled the walls. With so small a garrison it was a difficult task, for the men had not adequate time to rest or sleep, and were soon nearly worn out. The scanty supply of food was almost at an end. Unless help should arrive within a few days, they would be obliged to capitulate. All the flour was gone, and the bacon and salted beef, and the c.o.c.ks and hens and pigeons, and even the horses had been killed and eaten, though these had been kept till the very last. The worst of the trouble was that there was treachery within the walls. Dame Joan was well aware of it, though she could not be absolutely sure which of her men were disaffected, for they all still pretended loyalty to their master and to the King. n.o.body, she felt, was really to be trusted, though the walls were still manned, and the cannon blazed away with what ammunition was left. If the Grange were to be saved at all, it was imperative that a message asking for help should be conveyed to the Royalist forces. But how could it be taken?

The Roundheads were encamped all round the walls, and would promptly shoot anyone who attempted to penetrate their lines. None of the garrison would be stout-hearted enough to venture.

"Sir Hugh's eldest son was away fighting with his father, but there was a daughter at home, a girl of about thirteen, named Joyce. She came now to her mother, and begged to be allowed to take the message.

It was a long time before Dame Joan would give her consent, for she knew the terrible danger to which Joyce would be exposed; but she had the lives of her younger children to think of as well, and in the end she gave her reluctant permission. Just when it was growing dusk, she took her little daughter to a secret doorway in the panelling, from which a subterranean pa.s.sage led underneath the moat into the adjoining wood. This secret pa.s.sage was known only to Sir Hugh and his wife and their eldest son, and it was now shown to Joyce for the first time. It was a horrible experience to go down it alone, but she was a brave la.s.sie, and ready to risk her life for the sake of her mother, and her younger brothers and sisters. She took a lantern to guide her, and set off with as cheerful a face as she could show. The air was stale and musty, and in some places she felt as if she could scarcely breathe. Her footsteps, light though they were, rang hollow.

After what seemed to her a very long way, she found herself in a small cave, and could catch a gleam of twilight sky through the entrance.

She at once extinguished the lantern, and advanced with extreme caution. She was in the wood at the farther side of the moat, a place where she had often played with her brothers, and had gathered primroses and violets in the springtime. She could recognize the group of tall elms, and knew that if she kept to the right she might creep through a hole in the hedge, and make her way across some fields into the high road. As quietly as some little dormouse or night animal she stole along.

"Not far off she could see the great camp fire, round which the troopers were preparing their supper. She hoped they would all be too busy with their cooking to notice her. As she pa.s.sed behind some bushes she suddenly caught the gleam of a steel helmet within a few yards of her. She crouched down under the shelter of a clump of gorse.

But in doing so she made a faint rustle.

"'Halt! Who goes there?' came the challenge.

"Joyce's heart was beating so loudly that she thought it must surely be heard.

"The sentry listened a moment, then levelling his pistol, sent a shot through the gorse bush. It pa.s.sed within a few inches of her head, but she had the presence of mind not to cry out or move. Evidently thinking he was mistaken, the sentry paced farther on, and Joyce, seizing her golden opportunity, slipped through the hole in the hedge.

Still using the cover of bushes, she made her way across three fields, and reached the road. It was quite dark now, but she knew her direction, and turned up a by-lane where she would be unlikely to meet troopers. All night she walked, guiding herself partly by the stars, for she knew that Charles's Wain always pointed to the north. At dawn a very tired and worn-out little maiden presented herself at the gateway of Hepplethorpe Manor, demanding instant audience of Sir Roger Rivington. That worthy knight and loyal supporter of the Crown, on hearing her story, immediately sent hors.e.m.e.n with a letter to General Bright, of the King's forces, who lay encamped only five miles off; and he, marching without delay for Marlowe Grange, surprised the Parliamentarians and completely routed them. The half-starved garrison opened the great gates to their deliverers with shouts of joy, and, we may be sure, welcomed the supplies of food that poured into the house later on. As for Joyce, she must have been the heroine of the family."

"Is that all?" asked the girls, as Veronica paused and began to count the st.i.tches in the sock she was knitting.

"All that's in the book, and I've embroidered it a little. It was told in such a very dull fashion, so I put it in my own words. It's quite true, though."

"What became of Joyce afterwards?"

"She married Sir Reginald Loveday, and became the lady of Clopgate Towers. The tomb is in Byford Church."

"If she'd been shot by the trooper, I should have thought she was the ghost girl!" commented Ardiune. "I don't quite see how we could fix that up, though. It doesn't seem to fit. You're quite sure she escaped?"

"Perfectly certain. How else could the Grange have been saved?"

Veronica's argument settled the question, but the girls felt that the dramatic interest of the situation would have been better suited if the story had ended with the melancholy death of the heroine, and her subsequent haunting of the Manor.

"I always heard that Cromwell's soldiers destroyed the walls and made those big holes in the gateway with their cannon-b.a.l.l.s," said Morvyth, still only half convinced.

"So they did, but that was two years afterwards, and the children were all sent safely away before the second siege."

"It hasn't solved the mystery of the ghost girl," persisted Ardiune.

"Ray, what do you think about it?"

Raymonde, lost in a brown study, started almost guiltily, and recommenced her sewing with feverish haste.

"Think? Why, it's a pretty story, of course. What more can I think?

Why d'you ask me?"

"Oh! I don't know, except that you generally have ideas about everything. Who can the ghost girl be?"

But Raymonde, having lost her scissors, was biting her thread, and only shook her head in reply.

CHAPTER XX

The c.o.o.n Concert

At the end of the summer term it had always been the custom of the school for each Form to get up a separate little entertainment, at which the other Forms should act audience. This year it was unanimously decided not only to keep up the old tradition, but to extend the original plan by charging for admission, and sending the proceeds to the Blinded Soldiers' Fund. This idea appealed greatly to the girls.

"They've given their eyes for us, and we ought to do something for them!" declared Linda emphatically.

"It must be awful to be blind," sighed Muriel.

"Yes, and some of them are such lads, too! Think of losing your sight, and having your whole career ruined, when you're only nineteen or twenty, and the ghastly prospect of living years and years and years till you're quite old, and never being able to see the sun again, and the flowers, and your friends' faces, or anything that makes life beautiful! I don't think half of us realize what our soldiers have suffered for us!"

"And they're so patient and cheerful!" added Veronica. "In my opinion they prove their heroism as much by the way they bear their ruined lives afterwards as by their deeds in the trenches. It has shown what stuff British folk are made of. And you get such surprises. Often a boy whom you've known, and always thought weak and selfish and silly, will turn out to have any amount of grit in him. There's one in particular--a friend of ours. He cared for nothing before except amusing himself--the kind of boy who's always getting into debt and doing foolish things. Well, he's utterly changed; he's not like the same fellow. I think the war will have made a great difference to many of our men."