If she could have seen Raymonde's expression, as that young lady turned her head for a moment towards Aveline, she would have been surprised. The serious apprehension had changed to dancing mischief.

Even so well-seasoned a mistress as Miss Gibbs, however, cannot be aware of every sub-current in her Form. Human nature has its limits.

Raymonde left the cla.s.s-room chuckling to herself, and at the earliest convenient moment summoned a committee of the Mystic Seven.

"I've got the idea of my life!" she declared. "It isn't often I have a really topping notion, but this is one of those inspirations that come sometimes, one doesn't know how."

"You needn't be quite so peac.o.c.ky about it!" chirruped Katherine.

"Other people have ideas occasionally as well as you."

"Ah! but wait till you've heard mine, and then you'll allow I've some reason to c.o.c.k-a-doodle. Look here, don't you think it's extremely nice to be philanthropic?"

"Don't know," replied the others doubtfully. They distrusted Raymonde's philanthropy, and were unwilling to commit themselves.

"It's so nice to do things for others," continued their schoolmate gushingly. "When somebody has been looking forward to an event, just think of the bliss of being able to bring it to pa.s.s! One would feel a sort of mixture of Santa Claus and Cinderella's Fairy G.o.dmother!"

"Go on!" murmured the Mystics.

"Well, you see, what I mean is this. Gibbie's been taking ever such a lot of trouble to teach us how to act in emergencies. She must have spent hours thinking out those problems. I sometimes feel, girls, that we do not sufficiently appreciate our teachers!"

The grimaces of the six were eloquent.

"Get to the point!" suggested Ardiune.

"I'm getting! Well, you know, we're all very grateful to Gibbie, and interested in the problems, and happy in our work, and all the rest of it. I think we ought to do something to make a little return to her for her kindness. Now it must be very disappointing to coach us up for these emergencies, and never have an opportunity of putting what we've been taught into practice. If we could show her that her lessons have sunk in, and that we could face a sudden catastrophe with calm courage and prompt presence of mind, then she'd feel her labour had not been in vain. She really deserves it!"

"We can't burst the kitchen boiler, or set the cook on fire to oblige her!" objected Valentine.

"Certainly not; but there are other emergencies. With proper preparation we might engineer a very neat little Zepp raid, quite sufficient to put every theory into practice."

Smiles illuminated the faces of the committee. They began to see daylight. Raymonde re-tied her hair ribbon, and continued:

"On that afternoon when I went exploring, I discovered a way on to the roof exactly over Gibbie's bedroom. Now what you've got to do for the next few days is to collect old tins. There ought to be plenty of them about. You can leave the rest to me!"

The result of Raymonde's suggestion was an extraordinary activity on the part of her friends in the acquisition of any species of discarded can. They begged empty cocoa tins from the cook, and even climbed over the wall on to the rubbish heap to rescue specimens, rusty or otherwise, that lay there unnoticed and unappropriated. Each can was furnished with four or five large pebbles inside, and was secured at the end with brown paper if the original lid was lost. They were packed in osier-plaited baskets, and hidden away in a corner of the barn until they were wanted.

Raymonde regarded her preparations with much satisfaction.

"It ought to be enough to wake the dead!" she said, rattling one of the tins in demonstration.

As has been before explained, the members of the Fourth and Fifth Forms--nineteen girls in all--slept in the huge chamber which occupied an entire wing of the house, and had been the dormitory of the French nuns a hundred years ago. The small room at the end, formerly the cell of the Mother Superior, was now the bower of Miss Gibbs. It had two doors, one leading into the pa.s.sage and another into the dormitory, so that she could keep an eye upon the nineteen inmates. It was a very unnecessary arrangement to have her so near, the girls considered, for she would come popping in immediately if they made a noise. They envied the Sixth, who slept in little bedrooms along the corridor, and wished Miss Gibbs had possessed a lesser sense of duty and a greater appreciation of luxury, so that she might have chosen a more comfortable and s.p.a.cious bedroom elsewhere.

When sufficient tin-can ammunition had been prepared, Raymonde carried the baskets upstairs by stealth, and hid them in the lumber cupboard which she had discovered on the day she had explored the roof. They were not likely to be disturbed here, for probably no one save herself knew of the existence of the tiny room. She crept through the small door on to the tiles, and verified her position by cautious tapping, to which Morvyth, stationed in the pa.s.sage below with a hockey stick, replied. Having thus taken her exact bearings, she felt that the whole plot was in good training.

"We must choose a moonlight night, or I shouldn't be able to see my way over the roof," she informed the committee. "Of course Zepps don't generally come when there's a moon, but there'll be no time for anybody to think of that. You know your part of the business?"

"Ra--ther!"

The household at the Grange retired early to rest. Miss Gibbs, who was an ardent advocate of daylight saving, and always rose at six, was generally in bed by eleven, on the theory that it is impossible to burn a candle at both ends. As a rule, every occupant of the long dormitory was wrapt in slumber before that hour, and the mistress, taking a last peep at the rows of small beds, would hear nothing but peaceful breathing. On one particular evening, however, when she made her usual survey of the room, seven of the apparent sleepers were foxing. They lay with closed eyes and composed faces, but inwardly they were particularly lively. Each one had solemnly pa.s.sed her word to keep awake, and considered herself on sentry duty. To pa.s.s the time they had brought acid drops to bed with them, and sucked them slowly, so as to make them last as long as possible. They dared not talk, for fear of disturbing the others, though the temptation was great.

Occasionally a stealthy hand would reach over to the next bed, to make sure of its occupant's vigilance, and the squeeze would be pa.s.sed on down the row of seven.

When the old grandfather clock on the stairs chimed midnight, Raymonde and Morvyth rose quietly, and donned dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers, then, with a final signal to their fellow mystics, crept cautiously out of the room. The pa.s.sage was very dark, but Morvyth had brought her electric torch, and flashed a ray of light in front of them. It felt decidedly spooky, and they were thankful to be together.

They went up the stairs towards the servants' quarters, and along an upper landing. By the aid of the torch it was not difficult to find the secret door among the panelling. The little lumber-room looked horribly dark; it needed an effort of will to enter among its dim shadows. A rat was gnawing in the corner, and scurried away with noise enough for a lion. Raymonde peeped through the small door on to the roof. Outside, the moon was shining brilliantly. She could see each separate tile as clearly as by daylight. The sight restored her courage.

"I'll creep through, and then you hand me the baskets," she whispered.

"I know just the place to drop the tins. They'll go plump, and roll down the whole length of the gable."

"Right-o, old sport!" returned Morvyth.

Miss Gibbs lay in her bedroom, sleeping the sleep of the just. The moonlight, flooding through her hygienically wide-open window, revealed the rows of photographs on her chimney-piece, the gilt-edged volumes on her book-shelf, and the little emergency medicine cupboard on the wall. Was she dreaming of the lesson she meant to give to-morrow, or of the officer whose portrait, in the silver frame, occupied the post of honour in her picture gallery? Who could tell?

Unsympathetic school-girls do not know all the secrets of a teacher's life. Perhaps Miss Gibbs, like the familiar chestnut burr, hid a silver lining under her p.r.i.c.kly exterior. She slept so peacefully--it was a shame to disturb her. Schoolgirls are ruthless beings at best.

Bang! Rattle! Bang! b.u.mp! She woke with a start. Projectiles were falling upon the roof with terrific force. At the same moment shrieks issued from the dormitory, and a wild shout of "Zepps!" Miss Gibbs's presence of mind did not desert her. It took her exactly three seconds to put on her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, two more to sweep her watch, purse, and a little packet of treasures (placed nightly in readiness) into the ample pocket of her wrapper, and the next instant she was flashing her torchlight in the dormitory.

The girls, most of them very scared, were turning out of bed; Aveline, Fauvette, Valentine, Ardiune, and Katherine were already garbed, and encouraging the others. Before a minute and a half had elapsed, the whole party was on its way to the cellar, having rung the great bell on the stairs to warn the rest of the household.

Raymonde and Morvyth, having expended the ammunition, hurried downstairs, and slipped in among their Form mates un.o.bserved. The school spent an agitated hour in the cellar, sitting on blankets clutched from their beds. As all appeared quiet, and no more mysterious thumps resounded on the roof, Miss Beasley, who had reconnoitred, declared it safe to return to roost, and ordered her twenty-six pupils upstairs again. Possibly she had her suspicions, for very early next morning she went out to investigate the extent of the damage, and discovered a selection of the projectiles lying on the lawn. The result was a solemn harangue to the whole school.

"I don't know who has played this contemptible practical joke," she proclaimed witheringly. "It may seem humorous to small minds, but to me it is pitiable. There were no doubt instigators amongst you, and for the sake of those ringleaders I shall punish you all. You will spend Wednesday afternoon in your cla.s.s-rooms copying out 'Lycidas,'

instead of taking our projected trip on the river. It is hard to punish the innocent with the guilty, but those responsible for this occurrence are probably known to their companions, who will, I hope, visit their displeasure upon them, and cause them to regret that they have deprived the school of a holiday."

Miss Beasley's method of punishment, though voted abominably unfair by the majority, was certainly efficacious. Such grave suspicion fell on the Mystic Seven that the indignant monitresses took the matter in hand, and insisted on investigating the entire business. Popular opinion raged hotly against the culprits, for the promised expedition to the river had been regarded as the treat of the term.

"I believe it's all your fault, Raymonde Armitage!" scolded Linda Mottram. "If there's any mischief about, one may be sure you're at the bottom of it. We don't want your monkey tricks here. They're on the level of a kindergarten for little boys. If anything more of this sort happens, you may expect to find yourself jolly well boycotted. I shan't speak to you, in any case, for a week, and I hope none of the other monitresses will. You deserve sending to Coventry by everybody."

"How hard it is to be public-spirited!" mourned Raymonde to her chums afterwards. "I'm sure I gave everybody a treat, and especially Gibbie.

I'm a martyr to the cause of emergencies. For goodness' sake don't any of you drink poison by mistake, or they'll lay the blame on me and send me to the gallows!"

CHAPTER VII

The Crystal Gazers

It was about this time that a wave of the occult pa.s.sed over the school. It began with Daphne Johnson, who happened to read a magazine article on "The Borderland of the Spirit World," and it spread like an epidemic of influenza. The supernatural was the topic of the hour.

Ghost stories were at a premium, and any girl who could relate some creepy spiritual experience, which had happened to the second cousin of a friend of a friend of hers, was sure of a thrilled audience. This taste for the psychic was particularly strong among the girls of the Sixth Form, who leaned towards its intellectual and scientific aspects. They despised vulgar apparitions, but discussed such abstruse problems as phantasms of the living, thought transference, will power, hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Meta Wright dabbled a little in palmistry, and examined the hands of her schoolmates, prophesying startling events in their future careers. Lois Barlow sent half-a-crown to a ladies' newspaper to have her horoscope cast, and was terribly dejected at the gloomy prospects offered her by the planets, till she fortunately discovered that she had put the date of her birth wrong by three hours, which would, of course, completely alter the aspect of the heavenly bodies, and cause the best of astrologers to err. Veronica Terry talked darkly of experiences in the psychic world, of astral bodies, etheric doubles, elemental ent.i.ties, and nature spirits. She went to sleep at night with her thumbs and big toes crossed, in the hope of bringing back the adventures of her dreams into her waking consciousness. She was a little hazy on the subject, but yearned for further instruction.

"It's called 'Yoga'," she confided to her particular chum, Barbara Rowlands. "You concentrate your mind before you go to sleep, and then you're able to function in the astral body. My cousin Winnie told me of a girl at College who did it, and she was seen standing in the room of a friend at the other side of the hostel, while all the time she was asleep in bed."

"I hope you won't do that!" shuddered Barbara nervously. "It would give me a fit if I woke up and found you staring at me, and knew it wasn't really you. Promise you won't!"

"It may be rather difficult to regulate one's movements, once one is out of the body," returned Veronica guardedly.

Barbara did not crave for spiritual excursions, and secretly preferred the old days, when her chum talked tennis instead of psychology; but the occult was paramount, and she was obliged to follow the fashion.

The atmosphere of the Grange was certainly conducive to superst.i.tion.

The dim pa.s.sages and panelled walls looked haunted. Every accessory of the old mansion seemed a suitable background for a ghost. The juniors were frankly frightened. They did not dare to go upstairs alone. They imagined skeleton fingers clutching their legs through the banisters, or bodiless heads rolling like billiard b.a.l.l.s along the landings.

Having listened, awestruck, to Veronica's accounts of a seance, they were apprehensive lest the tables should turn sportive and caper about the rooms rapping out spirit messages, or boisterous elementals should b.u.mp the beds up and down and fling the china about.