"Yes, that is the chain to wear with the locket," Margaret said. "It is attached to it."

"If it wasn't I should wear the pearls by themselves," Eleanor said, examining them intently. "They are a perfectly lovely row, and must be worth a lot of money. You had better keep this very carefully locked up, Margaret," she said, snapping to the case and handing it back to its owner. "They are hardly the sort of things that a governess would be likely to possess."

"My bag has a very good key," Margaret answered, "so I should always keep it locked and wear the key on my watch-chain."

When Eleanor heard that Margaret had never been to London, and had only the very vaguest idea of what Hampstead, where she was supposed to have lived for the last six years, was like, she had given vent to a low whistle expressive of despair. And as their time together was now drawing short she felt that it would be better to give Margaret a verbal description of that suburb rather than attempt to write one out for her.

So as hurriedly as she could she told Margaret as much about Hampstead as she could think of on the spur of the moment. Margaret listened attentively, and as she had naturally an excellent memory, which had been trained to a marvellous pitch of perfection by Miss Bidwell, she found no difficulty at all in committing to heart almost every word that Eleanor uttered on the subject.

The train was running now through exceedingly pretty scenery, but neither of the two girls had any attention to spare for it; every minute of their time was occupied in endeavouring to make themselves as perfect as possible in their new characters. But at last when a long, undulating range of distant blue hills turned themselves slowly into green downs, and instead of occupying the horizon only, filled the middle distance entirely, leaving a foreground of flat green fields between themselves and the train, Eleanor, glancing out of the window, gave it as her opinion that they must be fairly close to Chailfield now, and that at the next station she would change into a first-cla.s.s carriage.

The rain had long since ceased, and the sun, as it sank towards the range of hills that rose against the western sky, was shining brilliantly out of a ma.s.s of gorgeously hued clouds. As it turned out, however, Eleanor had no chance to change into a first-cla.s.s carriage, for as the train slowed down and ran into the little country station they were approaching, she saw that they had actually arrived at Chailfield.

Both girls gave a little gasp of dismay. Neither had realised that the moment for parting was so near, and now that it was actually upon them, both of them were conscious of a distinct feeling of nervousness which perceptibly increased, especially on Eleanor's part, when she saw that a lady who could be none other than Mrs. Murray had come down to meet the train, for outside the paling that separated the road from the platform a low pony-carriage drawn by two fat black ponies was waiting, and in it was seated a somewhat stout elderly lady wearing a very broad-brimmed mushroom hat. She was scanning the carriage windows as the train went slowly past her, but did not appear to see the two girls who, being in the front part, were carried some distance beyond her before the train came to a standstill.

Eleanor gathered up her umbrella and the basket containing the books, and stood up. A porter came to open the door.

"Any luggage, Miss?"

"Yes, one trunk labelled Anstruther," Eleanor said very distinctly.

"Very good, Miss; for Windy Gap, aren't you? The omnibus is waiting outside for your luggage, and Mrs. Murray has drove down to meet you."

Eleanor stepped out on to the platform feeling that the Rubicon was now crossed and that there was no drawing back for either of them. She lingered for a moment beside the door, which Margaret had very promptly shut upon her the moment she was out of the carriage.

"Don't be nervous," Margaret whispered encouragingly from the safe seclusion of her corner. "I am not."

"Of course you're not!" Eleanor retorted. "You haven't begun to play the impostor yet. I have, and I am not sure that I like it. Your turn to be nervous will come when you get to Seabourne. Well," pulling herself together as the porter came within earshot, "good-bye to you, Miss Carson, so glad to have met you. I hope your holidays will be very pleasant ones."

"I hope so too," said Margaret, with a little happy laugh of pure excitement. "Goodbye, Miss Anstruther, I hope you will get on nicely with all your lessons."

For some reason the train was late in starting on again, and Margaret was therefore able to see the meeting between Mrs. Murray and Eleanor, although she was not near enough to overhear what was said on either side. When Eleanor had given up her ticket and pa.s.sed through the gate, she saw Mrs. Murray, who had not got out of the pony-carriage, lean forward and, taking hold of Eleanor's two hands, draw her under the shade of the enormous mushroom hat and kiss her affectionately. The hat got somewhat disarranged in the process, and Mrs. Murray righted it with a pleasant low laugh that came distinctly to Margaret's ears as she sat watching the little scene from the corner of the third-cla.s.s carriage.

Then she seemed to be asking Eleanor some questions, which the latter answered readily through the ear-trumpet which Mrs. Murray held out to her. Once they looked in her direction, and a spasm of alarm shot through Margaret's mind. Surely, surely Eleanor was not abandoning their conspiracy at the very outset of its career. The trunk had already been hoisted on to the top of the somewhat dilapidated looking old bus that evidently plied between the distant village of Windy Gap and the station.

Why, then, did the pony-carriage not drive on, or why did the train not start? Eleanor looked again towards the carriage in which Margaret sat in a perfect fever of impatience to be off, and then, after saying something to Mrs. Murray, to which the latter gave an affirmative nod, she left the carriage and came running up the platform. Margaret could have cried with disappointment. She had no doubt at all that Eleanor had already repented of her scheme, and was coming to say that it must be given up. Eleanor reached the door in a somewhat breathless condition, and Margaret resisting her first impulse to shut the window and to draw down the blind, and refuse to listen to a word she was going to say, put her head reluctantly out.

"I couldn't help coming to tell you that she is a perfectly sweet old lady," Eleanor panted. "And she gave me such a warm welcome that I feel an awful fraud, and----"

Margaret interrupted her with an exclamation that sounded almost like a wail of despair.

"And you have come to tell me that you want to change back into your own self?" she said.

"No, not much," Eleanor said hurriedly; "but the point is, do you? She seems to be perfectly charming, and I don't believe she would be very angry. And oh, Margaret! I feel as though I ought not to oust you from house and home in this way."

Margaret's brow cleared as though by magic. It was all right then.

Strange though it undoubtedly appeared to her, Eleanor was not only willing but actually eager to go to Windy Gap, and it was only out of motives of unselfishness that she had offered to change into their proper selves.

Briefly, but with all the emphasis of which she was capable, Margaret a.s.sured her that such an act of unselfishness would not be appreciated in the least.

"Oh, very well," Eleanor said, much relieved, "and to tell you the truth I think Mrs. Murray would be rather surprised if I were suddenly to return to her and say that I was not Margaret Anstruther but that you were. She would probably end by thinking us both impostors. Well, I must go now; I only came back just to give you the chance of becoming yourself again if you had already repented. Look here, you must let me know how you get on. I shall be quite anxious to know. Will you write? Quick, tell me Mrs. Murray is beckoning."

"I could write, of course," Margaret said cautiously "but you must remember that Margaret Anstruther has never received a letter in her life and that Mrs. Murray might want to see it."

"I shall come in and see you then," Eleanor said.

"Oh, will you?" Margaret said with a smile. "Kindly remember, Miss Margaret Anstruther, that you never took a walk unaccompanied in your life. No, leave it to me, and I will try and come out to Windy Gap one day to see you, for I am free, free, free, and quite grown up, while you are a mere child in the nursery!"

And so, though rather against her will, Eleanor was obliged to leave the matter like that, and saying good-bye to Margaret for the second time she scurried away down the platform.

Margaret watched her step into the pony-carriage, tuck the dust wrap over her knees and over Mrs. Murray's, and then settle herself with an air of obvious enjoyment for her drive. From the window Margaret could see the long, white chalky road that they would traverse to reach Windy Gap, which place doubtless lay to the left beyond the high ridge which shut out all further view of the downs. The road wound its leisurely way between high hedges and green fields, was lost for awhile as it pa.s.sed behind an outlying spur of the downs, and became visible again as, apparently repenting its former meanderings below, it sternly took the shortest and steepest way possible up the side of the hill, and finally disappeared over the brow. And it might have fallen to her lot to be sitting beside Mrs. Murray and in that little low pony-carriage, and to be driving along that monotonous road to the remote village on the downs instead of to be whirling past them as she did in a train on her way to a houseful of young people. Margaret could have hugged herself with pleasure as she thought of the exchange she had made.

CHAPTER VIII

MAUD DANVERS

There were only three or four stations between Chailfield and Seabourne, and they followed so closely on one another that in rather less than half an hour the train ran into the big station of Seabourne.

"Any luggage, Miss, cab, or outside porter, please," said a porter, opening the door of the carriage.

"One trunk and a hat-box, and I will have a cab, please," Margaret answered.

She was rather surprised and pleased at her own self-possession, as led by the porter she threaded her way up the crowded platform. And when he paused to ask her what name he should look for on the trunk she gave Eleanor's as calmly as though she had been known by it all her life. It had not occurred to Margaret that any one might come to the station to meet her, or, rather, to meet the girl whose ident.i.ty she had taken on herself, consequently she gave a startled jump, when, as she stood on the edge of the press of people round the luggage van, a tap fell smartly on her shoulder, and turning, she found herself confronted by a merry, sunburnt girl of about her own age.

"Miss Carson, isn't it?" the latter sang out in a clear, rather pleasant voice, that could be distinctly heard above the noise and confusion surrounding them. "Oh, don't look so astonished! I heard you tell the porter the name on your luggage, and I tracked you up the platform. Let me introduce myself. I am Maud Danvers, and I hope you've had a nice journey and all that. I say, you're taking a cab, aren't you? That's all right. Get in to one when you've collected all your belongings, will you, and wait for me, and I'll drive up with you. I shan't be long, but I have just got to go and finish a conversation that I am in the middle of."

And with a careless little nod Miss Maud Danvers turned and went off up the platform. But casual though her greeting had been, it had served to dispel the slight feeling of loneliness that had been creeping over Margaret. How exceedingly kind of that nice girl to have come and met her! And in what a delightfully frank and friendly manner she had accosted her! Margaret felt instantly sure that she was going to like Maud Danvers very much indeed, and it was with a little glow of pleasure that she reflected that she was going to live in the same house with her for many weeks to come. For a moment she forgot to aid the porter to look for her box, but turning her back upon the busy crowd she followed Maud with her eyes. Without being exactly pretty, Maud Danvers was an exceedingly nice-looking girl, and her fresh, clear skin no less than her brisk step and the way she held herself, showed that she was an outdoor girl.

She was wearing a short tweed skirt that barely reached to her ankles, and displayed a neat pair of golfing shoes, but the skirt was so exceedingly well hung and the fit of the Norfolk coat that matched it so good that Margaret, unversed though she was in such matters, instinctively recognised that Maud's clothes not only became her very well, but had been made by a first-cla.s.s tailor. Her own simply made coat and skirt of blue serge felt suddenly very dowdy.

Meanwhile Maud had made her way along the crowded platform to a point where two girls in Panama hats and long white blanket coats, and carrying tennis racquets under their arms, were standing together, and as soon as she reached their side, they all three plunged into an eager conversation in the interest of which it was soon evident that Margaret was forgotten.

Just, however, as Margaret's cabman was beginning to show signs of impatience, the bicycles for which the two girls had been waiting were extricated from the van, and with a hasty nod to Maud, they pushed their way out of the crowd.

"The Cedars, Pelham Road, please," Maud said as she got into the cab.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Carson. But I wanted to speak to the Finches. They had just got back from the Surbiton Tournament. They had done awfully well both of them. The tall one, Anna's the best. Fancy, wasn't it stupendous luck for her! She got into the third round of the open singles and met Mrs. Lambert Chambers. Of course, she was beaten hollow. Didn't even get a game. But wasn't it luck meeting her?"

Now, as Margaret had not the very vaguest notion who Mrs. Lambert Chambers was, or why it should be considered such extraordinary good fortune to meet her, she gave such a vague a.s.sent to the question that Maud turned to stare at her with undisguised amazement in her eyes.

"You don't mean to say," she exclaimed, "that you have never even heard of Mrs. Lambert Chambers!"

"I don't seem to remember her name," confessed Margaret, blushing crimson.

"Why, I mean the famous Mrs. Lambert Chambers. The tennis player. Miss Douglas that was, you know."

"Oh!" said poor Margaret again. Then she added lamely, "I--I suppose she must play very nicely."