The examinations were drawing most horribly and imminently near, and the Fifth Form, feeling themselves for the most part ill prepared for the ordeal, were shivering in antic.i.p.ation. Armed with textbooks, they made desperate efforts to pull up arrears, and stock their brains with an a.s.sortment of necessary facts. Ardiune crammed dates at every available moment, Morvyth studied the map of Europe, Valentine devoted herself to Virgil, and Magsie wept over French verbs, while the rest tried to fill up any educational gaps and holes where they knew they were lacking. The image of the Rev. T. W. Beasley, M.A. loomed large on the horizon, and his advent was hardly regarded with pleasure.

"I know I'll be scared to death!" moaned Aveline. "If there are any viva voces I shall break down altogether. I know I shall! Directly he looks at me and asks a question, every single idea will go bang out of my head!"

"It doesn't matter how well you know things if you're nervous!" agreed Katherine.

"I hate the written exams!" groaned Raymonde. "They're so long, and one gets so inky, and one's hand grows so stiff. I never can express myself well on paper. Gibbie says I've no gift for composition."

"There aren't any J pens left in the cupboard," volunteered Maudie.

"And Ma'm'selle says it's not worth while sending for more just at the end of the term, and we must use Waverleys for the exam. There's a whole boxful of those."

"Oh, what a shame! I can't write with a Waverley!" protested Raymonde in much indignation. "It'll spoil my whole exam. I call that tyranny!

Look here! I'm not going to be done! I shall send for a fountain pen with a broad nib. I saw one advertised in a magazine."

"The b.u.mble won't let you."

"I shan't ask her!"

"Then how'll you get it?"

"Oh, trust me! I'll manage it somehow. I'm not generally easily circ.u.mvented when I set my mind upon anything. I've a plan already."

"Have you? What is it?"

"Ah, that would be telling!" laughed Raymonde. "Perhaps my pen will come floating in through the window!"

"You mad creature! I don't believe you'll really get it!"

"Wait and see!"

The Fifth Form possessed a little upstairs room at the Grange which they called their sanctum. It held a piano, and was mainly used for practising, but the girls sometimes studied there out of preparation hours. Its princ.i.p.al article of furniture was a large, old-fashioned bureau, which Miss Beasley had bought among other things when she took over the house. She had given every girl in the Form one of its drawers, together with a key, so that each could have a place in which to keep any special treasures locked up.

As Raymonde sat in the sanctum that afternoon alone, trying to apply her mind to memorizing certain axioms of Euclid, Veronica came bustling in.

"You here, Ray? Miss Beasley wants some change to pay the laundry.

You've got the money you collected at your c.o.o.n concert last night; can you let her have thirty shillings in silver, and she'll give you notes instead?"

"Certainly," replied Raymonde, rising at once and unlocking her drawer in the bureau. "Here you are--four half-crowns make ten shillings, eight shillings is eighteen, and twenty-four sixpences make thirty shillings altogether. I'd just as soon have notes."

"Right-o!" said Veronica. "I'll bring them up to you later on, or send somebody with them. I hope our entertainment will do as well as yours.

By the by, a queer thing happened just this minute. I saw the ghost girl again!"

"Where?" asked Raymonde excitedly.

"Peeping round the corner of the winding staircase; but she vanished instantly. I went up a few steps, but couldn't see her. The wire door was open, and I very nearly ran up to the attic to investigate, but I knew Miss Beasley was waiting for the change. I must rush and give it to her now, or there'll be squalls. Ta-ta!"

Raymonde did not either lock up her drawer or resume her Euclid. She stood for a moment or two pondering. Then a mischievous light broke over her face, and she clapped her hands.

"Splendiferous! I'll do it!" she said aloud; and, whisking out of the room, she ran up the winding staircase, and through the open wire door into the forbidden but fascinating territory of the attics.

The girls at the Grange were obliged to keep strictly to their practising time-table, and Raymonde was due at the piano in the sanctum from 5.30 until 6.15. At 5.40, which was fully ten minutes late, the strains of her Beethoven Sonata began to resound down the pa.s.sage. Mademoiselle, pa.s.sing from her bedroom, stood for a moment to listen. She was impressed by the fact that Raymonde was playing much better than usual, and performing in quite a stylish fashion the pa.s.sage which usually baffled her. She almost opened the door to congratulate her pupil, but being in a hurry changed her mind, and ran downstairs instead. A little later Veronica, also in much haste, entered the room arm-in-arm with Hermie.

"Miss Beasley has sent the notes, Ray," she explained. "You needn't stop. I'll just pop them inside your drawer, and you can put them away properly when you've finished practising."

The figure at the piano did not turn her head, or attempt to reply, but went on diligently with the scherzo movement of the Sonata, bringing out her chords crisply, and executing some quite brilliant runs.

"Raymonde's improving enormously in her music," commented Hermie, as the two monitresses went back along the pa.s.sage.

"Yes," agreed Veronica. "And how remarkably pretty she looked to-night! Her hair was quite curly, and she had such a lovely colour.

Did you notice?"

"That room's so dark, I can't say I did, particularly. Ray's not bad looking, though I don't call her exactly a beauty!"

"She looked a beauty this evening! Fauvette will have to mind her laurels! She's always been the belle of the Form until now."

When Maudie Heywood, in accordance with the practising time-table, came at 6.15 to claim the piano, she found the sanctum unoccupied.

Raymonde's drawer in the bureau was shut and locked. This fact Maudie noticed almost automatically. At the moment it seemed a matter of no consequence, though in the light of after events it was to a.s.sume a greater importance than she could have imagined.

Raymonde turned up late for preparation, looking hot and conscious, and with her brown serge dress only half fastened. She gave no excuse for her lack of punctuality, and took her loss of order mark with stoicism.

"What were you doing?" whispered Aveline, when the evening work was over and the books were being put away.

Raymonde's head was inside her desk. She drew it out, and seemed on the point of uttering a confidence. Then, suddenly changing her mind, she stooped again to arrange her papers.

"Little girls shouldn't ask questions!" she grunted.

"Oh, very well!" flared Aveline, who was very easily offended. "I'm sure you needn't tell me anything if you don't want to, thanks! I shan't force your silly secrets from you!"

"You certainly won't!" snapped Raymonde, as Aveline flounced away.

There was no time for further bickering. The juniors were giving their gymnastic and dancing display in the lecture hall, and Miss Beasley had announced that she wished the entertainment to begin promptly.

"That's a shot at us!" sn.i.g.g.e.red Ardiune. "I know the c.o.o.ns started late, but we really couldn't help it. It took me ages to help Fauvette into her costume, not to speak of getting into my own as well. The Fourth are only performing in their gym. dresses, so it's easy enough for them to be punctual. I'll stump up my shilling cheerfully for the sake of the blind Tommies, but I don't expect much of a show for my money's worth."

"No more do I," agreed Katherine. "I'm fed up with Swedish drill. I confess my interest centres in the refreshments."

After all, the Fifth were agreeably surprised at the achievements of the performers. The juniors had been practising in private under the instruction of Miss Ward, the visiting athletics mistress, and had quite a novel little programme to present to their schoolfellows. They exhibited some remarkably neat skipping drill, and also some charming Russian and Polish peasant dances, and a variety of military exercises that would almost have justified their existence as a Ladies'

Volunteer Corps. It was a patriotic evening, with much waving of flags and allusions to King and Country. Even the refreshments were in keeping, for the table was decorated with red, white and blue streamers, and there were on sale little packets of chocolates wrapped up in representations of the Union Jack. The cocoa on this occasion was immaculate, and everything was served with the utmost daintiness.

"Quite a decent business for the kids!" commented Ardiune, "but not half the fun of our c.o.o.n performance!"

"It was ripping in the barn!" agreed Morvyth.

There remained one more entertainment in aid of the Blinded Soldiers'

Fund, that of the Sixth Form, which was expected by everybody to be the best. Miss Beasley had thrown it open to outsiders, and some of the ladies who attended the geology lectures had promised to come and bring friends. In view of this augmented audience the performers made extra-special efforts. They held frequent rehearsals with closed doors, and took elaborate pains to prevent impertinent juniors from obtaining the least information as to their plans. The wildest notions circulated round the school. It was rumoured that a musical comedy was to be presented, the male parts being taken by professional actors specially engaged from London for the occasion; then that, failing the professionals, Miss Beasley and Miss Gibbs had consented to play the two heroes, and might be expected to appear in tights, with flowered waistcoats and c.o.c.ked hats. In the imagination of the gossipmongers Professor Marshall, as a Greek tragedian, and Mr. Browne, garbed as a highwayman, were to be added to the list of artists. It was even whispered that the Reverend T. W. Beasley, M.A., who was booked to arrive on Monday, had consented to come earlier, for the purpose of joining in the festivities, and would appear in the character of a humorist, and give some wonderful exhibitions of lightning changes of costume and ventriloquism. The uncertainty as to what might be expected certainly enhanced the pleasure of antic.i.p.ation. Not a girl would have missed this performance for worlds.

The Sixth kept their secret well. Not a word leaked out as to the true nature of the programme. Meta, indeed, went about with rather mincing steps, while Veronica seemed to affect a truculent att.i.tude; but whether this was the result of learning parts, or was put on with deliberate intention to deceive, the wide-awake members of the Fifth could not determine.