"No more I have, goosey."

"Then why did you say you'd been at a French school? You're telling fibs."

"No, I'm not, because Brussels doesn't happen to be in France--it's in Belgium."

"I thought you were supposed to learn geography in the third cla.s.s,"

laughed Irene Spencer.

"She said a French school, not a Belgian one," objected Lindsay.

"Well, everybody speaks French in Brussels."

"Don't they speak Flemish?"

"Only the poor people, and even they can generally talk French as well."

"How long were you there, Mary?" put in Mildred Roper.

"Only one term. I got ill, and had to come home."

"Was it nice?"

"Oh, just tolerable!"

"Had you to talk French all the time?"

"I had to try, because none of the girls knew anything else. They used to laugh at me if I spoke English."

"How nasty! I shouldn't have cared to be you," said Cicely.

"Yes, it was horrid, when I was sure they were saying things about me and I couldn't understand them. I used to get quite cross, and that made my head ache."

"Was the school in the country?" asked Lindsay.

"No, I've told you already it was in Brussels, and that's a big city. It was a large building, with a great high wall all round it, with spikes on the top, as if it were a prison. Inside there was a courtyard where we used to play games. It had orange trees and oleanders in big green tubs, but no gra.s.s nor flowers. You couldn't possibly have called it a garden. We hardly ever went out for proper walks. Sometimes we were taken to the park, but even there we had to go very primly, two and two, with the teachers looking after us most sharply."

"Were the teachers nice?"

"Yes, pretty well. I liked them better than the girls, at any rate.

There were two sisters in my cla.s.s, called Marie and Sophie Beauvais, who were always making fun of me because I was English. I had a horrid time until a German girl came to the school, and then they teased her instead of me. The best thing of all was the coffee. It was perfectly delicious--nicer than any I've ever tasted in England."

"Why didn't you stay in Brussels?"

"I was ill, and my mother had to come and fetch me. She declared she would never let me go so far away from home again; so she sent me to Winterburn Lodge instead. Miss Russell is very kind if one's not well, and Mother said she would rather have me properly looked after, even if I didn't learn French."

"Yes, Miss Russell does take care of us," said Irene. "I used to be at another school, and the teachers never noticed if we had headaches, or couldn't eat our meals. We had to work most fearfully hard for exams, too. The headmistress made a point of getting a certain number of pa.s.ses each year, and one was obliged to prepare and go in whether one was clever or not. Give me good old Winterburn Lodge!--especially when one's at the Manor instead. By the by, there's Monica. She's surely not come to play tennis? It's too hot."

"Fifteen degrees too hot," agreed Monica, throwing herself down on the gra.s.s beside the others and fanning herself with her hat. "Out on the road the heat's at simmering-point. I came to bring a message to Miss Russell, and I hear she's gone to Linforth and won't be back until half-past four. I think I shall wait for her."

"Oh, do!" cried the others. "We'll have a 'palaver' here under the trees."

"What's a 'palaver', please? I hope it's something cool and fizzy to drink."

"No, it's nothing of the sort. It's a kind of meeting, where everybody has to tell a story in turn."

"But I'm rigidly truthful!" objected Monica, with a twinkle in her eye.

"You naughty girl! You know we don't mean telling falsehoods. It's telling tales," said Irene.

"I'm no tell-tale either!"

"Don't be too funny. Your story will have to be longer than anyone else's to make up for this. Mildred, you explain, as I don't seem able to express myself properly."

"It can either be a story you have read, or one of something that has happened to yourself," said Mildred. "We prefer people's own adventures if we can get them."

"So few people have any adventures in real life!" said Monica.

"Then you can tell something out of a book."

"Suppose I can't remember anything?"

"You must. It needn't be grand; we're not a critical audience."

"I'm very stupid at telling things," said Monica; "might I read you something instead?"

"If you've got it here."

"As it happens, I have," replied Monica, opening a bound volume of a magazine which she held in her hand. "I brought this book to lend to Miss Russell, as I knew it would interest her. It has a story about the old Manor in the times of the Wars of the Roses, and how Sir Roger Courtenay came to win it for his own. I dare say you might like to hear it."

"If it's about the Manor I'm sure we shall," said Irene. "Who wrote the tale?"

"A gentleman who stayed in the village a year or two ago. He was very enthusiastic about Haversleigh. I suppose he made it up from the short account in the guide-book. All the facts are quite true, though he must have used his imagination for the details. The worst of it is that it's a fairly long story, and if I read it I'm afraid there won't be any time left for you to tell yours."

"Oh, we don't mind that!"

"So much the better!"

"Fire away!"

"Do go on!"

Thus encouraged, Monica found her place and, the girls having cl.u.s.tered round her in a close circle so as to hear the better, she began her tale:

SIR MERVYN'S WARD

The middle of the fifteenth century was one of the most stormy periods that the pages of English history have ever recorded. The rival claims of the houses of York and Lancaster had led to those disastrous Wars of the Roses that wiped away the flower of chivalry and made the fair land one b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield. In the autumn of 1470 Edward IV had been driven from his throne by the powerful Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, and Henry VI had been once more restored to power, though for how long a period none could venture to guess. They were hard times to live through, especially for those lesser gentry and yeomen who had not placed themselves definitely under the protection of any of the greater barons, and still strove to keep their estates in peace and quiet. The turmoil of the great struggle had not spared even the obscure village of Haversleigh. The inhabitants went about their tasks with an air of unrest. It seemed scarcely worth while to plough the fields, and sow corn which might be trampled underfoot by the soldiery before there was a chance to reap it. There were loud and deep murmurs among the villagers at the many exactions and tyrannies of Sir Mervyn Stamford, the then occupant of the Manor, the estates of which he administered on behalf of his ward, Catharine Mowbray. Catharine's father, Sir John Mowbray, had fallen in battle on the side of the Yorkists, but with the return of Henry VI to power, Sir Mervyn, a stanch Lancastrian, had bought the rights of her guardianship from the half-imbecile king, and had not only a.s.sumed control of her property, but had announced his intention of wedding the maiden, either with or without her consent.