CHAPTER XI

The Christmas Holidays

"Stir-up Sunday" seemed to come almost directly after Sylvia's birthday, and the girls began to count the weeks eagerly until the holidays. There were many ingenious devices for marking the pa.s.sage of time. Hazel Prestbury cut notches on her ruler, Connie Camden put twenty-two stones on her mantelpiece and threw one out of the window every morning, and Nina Forster scored the calendar hanging in her bedroom each evening with a very black lead pencil.

"I live only ten miles away," said Linda, "so I haven't a long journey, have I? The first term I used to go home for weekends, but Miss Kaye said it unsettled me, and she asked Mother to let me stay at school like the other girls. I don't mind it now; it's rather nice here on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays."

There still seemed a good deal to be done before the end of the term arrived. All the girls had been working in the evenings at dressing dolls and making other presents for a Christmas tree that was to be given to the poor children attending a ragged school at Aberglyn. They liked the employment, especially as Miss Kaye would come sometimes and read aloud to them while they sewed.

"And there isn't anybody in the world who can read so beautifully as Miss Kaye," said Linda.

"When I was at Mrs. Harper's school," said Hazel, "we were helped to make Christmas presents to take home, instead of doing things for ragged schools. I worked a most lovely afternoon-tea cloth; Mother's quite proud of it still. I wish we did that here."

"I don't," said Marian. "I suppose you only like doing things for yourself."

"It wasn't for myself. It was for my mother. How nasty you always are, Marian!"

"It was for home, at any rate," retorted Marian. "Miss Kaye says we can be quite as selfish for our families as for ourselves, and we ought to remember outside people at Christmas, who don't get any presents, and who won't give us nice things back."

"Well, really!" said Hazel; "do you mean to tell me I'm not to make presents for my mother and my aunts?"

"I didn't say anything of the sort. You can give those too, but Miss Kaye said they oughtn't to be the only ones. Even heathens are fond of their own families, and it's not particularly generous just for all to give things round in a circle."

"Well, we've done plenty for the ragged schools this year," said Nina, reviewing the row of dolls in their pretty bright frocks, the wool b.a.l.l.s, the knitted reins, and the sc.r.a.pbooks which formed the contribution of the cla.s.s. "They'll look splendid hanging on the tree."

"I wish we could go and see the treat," said Sylvia.

"Miss Kaye won't let us do that," replied Linda. "She's afraid we might catch measles or chicken-pox."

"I always go to our treats at home," said Jessie Ellis.

"Your father's a clergyman, so you're sure to," said Marian. "We do sometimes, to the Scholars' Tea or the Congregational Teaparty.

Gwennie and I help to pa.s.s cups and hand the cake, while Mother pours out."

"Let us tell what we're each going to do in the holidays," said Hazel.

"You go on, Marian, as you've begun. Don't you have anything but school treats?"

"Of course we do," answered Marian. "We go on New Year's Eve to our grandfather's, and have a big family party with all our cousins.

Everybody has to play a piece, or recite poetry, or do something, and it's ever so jolly. We sit up till midnight, and bring in the New Year. And we go skating with our brothers, and slide on the pond, and if there's any snow we toboggan down the hill on teatrays and have s...o...b..ll fights with some boys who live near. It's great fun."

"Yes, lovely fun!" echoed Gwennie.

"I go to so many parties!" said Hazel. "I always have three or four a week, and we give a dance ourselves too. Last year I went to the Mayor's Children's Fancy Ball. I was dressed as a Dresden china shepherdess, with a flowered skirt and a laced bodice and paniers, and a big hat, and a crook in my hand. It's only to be a plain ball this Christmas. Then there are the pantomimes; we generally go to two and sometimes to the circus as well, and any concerts or entertainments that may happen to be on. Now, Connie, it's your turn to say."

"There are so many of us," began Connie, "Mother says it's like a party to see us all sitting round the table. We play games amongst ourselves, and get up acts and charades. We have a huge room at the top of the house, where we may make as much noise and mess as we like.

Sometimes the boys give a magic-lantern show up there, or make shadow pictures. And Bertie has a lathe, and turns all kinds of jolly things in it out of pieces of wood; and he helps us to build boats; and we sail them across the reservoir; and we go long walks on the moors; and we've a little hut at the end of the garden, with a stove in it where we cook things. We make the most glorious toffee! I wouldn't change my holidays for anybody else's!"

"They do sound nice," said Nina. "I go about with my sisters. They're quite grown up, and they take me to pay calls. Then my brother's at home as well, and he and I have fun together. I'm asked to plenty of parties, but Mother is so terribly afraid of my catching cold that I miss quite half of them. I don't always go to the pantomime, because of draughts. I like the summer holidays best, when we stay at the seaside. Jessie, you haven't said yet."

"I don't know what to tell," said Jessie, who was not gifted with great powers of description.

"Oh, but you must say something! I don't suppose you spend the holidays in bed."

"Well, no!" said Jessie, laughing. "Though I did once, when I had scarlet fever. I go walks with my brother, and we help to decorate the church, and people ask us to tea. I think that's all."

"I still think mine are the nicest," said Hazel. "Linda, we want yours."

"We live quite in the country," said Linda. "The carol singers come on Christmas Eve, and we ask them in and give them hot coffee. There's a big pond, where we skate if it freezes hard enough, and once, when there was very deep snow, we had out our sledge. Sometimes we stay with Granny in London, and then we go to the pantomime and the circus, and have a lovely time. We've got a new puppy, and I want to teach him some tricks these holidays. Now, Sylvia, you're the last."

"I've n.o.body to do anything with," said Sylvia rather wistfully, almost forgetting, in listening to the glowing accounts of the others, how she had once said she did not wish for young companions. "Not at home at any rate; but of course there are parties, and we have people to tea. I just read and paint, and do things by myself."

The girls appeared to consider this must be very slow, and pitied Sylvia to such an extent that she was quite surprised.

"I'm perfectly happy," she remonstrated.

"But it can't be so nice as having brothers and sisters," said Marian in her decisive manner. "I should miss our little ones most dreadfully, and Fred and Larry too. Holidays wouldn't be holidays without seeing them. I think it must be wretched to be an only child."

Talking of the holidays did not make them come any the faster, and there was plenty of hard work to be gone through before the end of the term arrived. For the first time in her life Sylvia had real examinations. She rather enjoyed the solemnity of the occasion, the typed questions, the large sheets of lined paper with margins ruled in red ink, the clean blotting paper, the new pens, and even the awesome silence of the room, with Miss Arkwright sitting at her desk reading instead of teaching as usual. She came out top in history, grammar, and geography, but Marian beat her easily in French, writing, and arithmetic, and in the end their marks were so exactly even that they were bracketed together.

Then there was an agitating afternoon when everybody had to recite poetry to Miss Kaye, each being expected to choose a different piece.

Sylvia selected "John Gilpin", which she had learnt with Miss Holt, but unfortunately grew nervous and got so mixed that she was obliged to sit down in confusion, and hear Marian sail glibly through "The Little Quaker Maiden", a poem which she rendered with great effect.

Connie Camden and Jessie Ellis had a furious quarrel as to which should say "Hohenlinden", that being the shortest on the list of both; but in the end Jessie gave way and took "The May Queen" instead.

Miss Denby did not allow the music to be neglected, and made each pupil learn a grand Christmas piece which seemed to need much more practising than any other, and had the added ordeal that it must be played on the last day before an audience of the whole school.

The party which was always held on the Sat.u.r.day before breaking-up was also a new experience to Sylvia. The first cla.s.s acted a short French play, under the excited direction of Mademoiselle, who had spent much time in coaching them for their parts. The second cla.s.s took a scene from _The Midsummer-Night's Dream_. Trissie Knowles made a pretty t.i.tania, and Stella Camden such a mischievous Puck that everybody clapped heartily, though Miss Barrett said she was only acting her natural character, and of course it came easily to her. Connie Camden climbed up and sat on the window sill in order to see better, and fell down with a terrible crash, grazing her knee on a form and making a big b.u.mp on her forehead, and Dolly managed to upset a bottle of ink which Miss Coleman thought she had put most securely away.

When the plays were over, the girls had dancing and games in the large cla.s.sroom, and finished with a dainty supper of fruit, cake, and jellies, which fully justified Linda's remark that "Heathercliffe House seemed almost as much parties as school".

Then came the exciting afternoon when the boxes were carried down from the boxroom and everybody set to work to pack, with the help of the monitresses and Miss Coleman. It was a most delightful, noisy, blissful time, when there were no forfeits if one ran into anybody else's room, or even jumped on the bed, when n.o.body had to practise or learn lessons, and one could shout and sing in the schoolroom. Connie Camden flung her history up to the ceiling, and did not mind in the least when it lost its back in its descent.

"Miss Arkwright will be dreadfully cross about it when we begin history again," said Marian.

"I don't care! That's a whole month off, and we've all the holidays first. No school for four weeks, and going home to-morrow! Hooray!"

shouted Connie at the pitch of her lungs, waltzing among the desks with such vigour that she knocked over the blackboard, and got a scolding after all from Miss Arkwright, who happened at that moment to enter the room.

"You must control yourself, Connie. I can't have such wild behaviour even if it is the last day," she said firmly.

"Oh, Miss Arkwright," cried Connie, "you can't want to go home half as badly as I do!"

"Indeed I do," said the mistress. "I shall enjoy my holidays quite as much as anybody, though I have learnt not to dance round the desks to show my pleasure."

The girls laughed. The idea of Miss Arkwright executing a Highland fling or a jig between the forms tickled their fancy.

"I could imagine Miss Kaye doing it easier than Miss Arkwright,"

whispered Linda. "She did dance a reel, you know, at the party."