"Somebody had better go to Miss Todd!"
"It"s no use; I"ve just been," said Loveday Seton, joining the group of malcontents. "We had it all out in the study, and she listened quite kindly and politely, but she was firm as nails. She says it"s an experiment for the sake of good tone, and she hopes it will work well.
We seniors are sandwiched up with intermediates and juniors so that our influence may permeate through the school."
The five listeners groaned.
"Couldn"t we permeate enough during the daytime?" sniffed Ida. "I don"t see what influence I can have while I"m asleep. I call it a jolly nuisance to be saddled with three kids in one"s room."
"Of course you have your curtains."
"What"s the use of curtains? A cubicle"s only semi-private after all.
What it means is that we seniors are always on duty policing those juniors. What a life!"
"Where are you put, Loveday?" asked Geraldine.
"In the little ivy room upstairs. There are two beds, and I"m to act mentor to this new American girl who"s just arrived."
"Poor you! What"s she like?"
"I don"t know. I haven"t seen her yet, but I wish she were at Jericho."
In a decidedly ruffled frame of mind, Loveday pa.s.sed along the landing, and climbed the stairs that led to the ivy room. She found her room-mate already in possession, and with her belongings half-unpacked. Photos adorned her dressing-table, a large American flag draped the mirror, and her bed was spread with odds and ends. She smiled broadly as Loveday entered.
"So here you are!" she greeted her. "Goody! What a relief! I"ve been worrying about what you"d be like, and just praying you wouldn"t have spectacles and talk with a lisp. Miss Todd gave me to understand you were a peach, and I might think myself in luck to room with you, but you never can trust head mistresses till you see for yourself. She"s told me the truth, though, after all. Yes, I like you right straight away, and I always make up my mind about people, slap bang off at once."
Loveday stared in surprise at the impetuous little figure kneeling beside the big trunk. Diana"s dark-grey eyes shone like stars, her oval face, if not exactly pretty, was piquant and interesting, her light-brown hair curled at the tips. It was, of course, an unheard-of liberty for a new girl, and an intermediate to boot, thus to address a senior, but the greeting was spontaneous and decidedly flattering. The grey eyes, in fact, expressed open admiration. On the whole, Loveday decided to waive ceremony and tradition for the nonce.
"We"ve been put together for the term, so we must make the best of each other," she conceded, more graciously than she had intended to address the interloper. "I"m glad to see you"ve kept to your own side of the room, and haven"t overflowed into mine."
"No fear!" chuckled Diana. "I"ve been at school before, and learnt not to spread myself out. We"re on rather a short allowance of s.p.a.ce, aren"t we? Are these drawers all I"ve got? I shall have just to wedge my things in. There"s my cabin trunk to come yet."
"You may have three pegs in the landing cupboard, and a locker in the cloak-room, but anything else will have to be stored in the box-room. I should think you had enough clothes there to last you a year, instead of wanting another trunk full."
Diana shook her head.
"They"re all mixed up. We packed in half an hour. I just flung in the first things that came to hand. Cousin Cora promised to send on the rest of my luggage after me. If she doesn"t, I"d best "phone."
"You"d have a little difficulty to do that," said Loveday dryly.
"D"you mean to say there"s no "phone here, or"--looking round the room--"no electric light either?"
"Certainly not. We go to bed with candles."
"Well! I wanted mediaeval ways, and it looks as if I was going to get them. It"ll be rather a stunt to go to bed by candle-light. Are there any ghosts about this place? Or skeletons built into the wall? Or dungeons with rusting chains? Or mysterious footsteps? Oh! I thought there"d have been at least something spooky in a house that claims to be six hundred years old."
Diana"s cabin trunk arrived in the course of a few days. She sorted out a selection of her numerous belongings, arranged them in her limited number of drawers, and consigned the surplus back to her boxes to be stored in the attic. This done, and a telegram received to announce the safe arrival of her father and mother in Paris, she seemed prepared to settle down. Her fellow intermediates, biased largely by her generosity in the matter of chocolates, gave her, on the whole, a favourable reception. Wendy even went further, and proffered friendship.
"You"re just the jolly kind of girl I like," she explained. "I think we might have some topping times together, and wake up the school. Things are apt to get a little dull sometimes."
Diana nodded intelligently.
"I know. It was just the same at my last school. Everyone got into a sort of stick-in-the-mud mood, and one felt it was only _kind_ to stir them up. I guess I did it!"
"I shouldn"t wonder if you did," twinkled Wendy. "I vote we make an alliance, and, if one of us thinks of any rather ripping rag, she just tells the other, and we"ll play it off together."
"Right you are! Let"s shake on it!" agreed Diana, extending a small, slim hand, with a garnet birthstone-ring on the middle finger.
The little American did not fit into her niche at Pendlemere without encountering a certain amount of what her schoolmates considered necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of "Stars and Stripes", or "The Yank", and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee that laid the jokers flat.
"One can"t get much change out of Diana," commented Magsie, after an unsuccessful onslaught of teasing.
"I think she"s a scream," agreed Vi.
The baffling part of the new schoolmate was that her powers of acting were so highly developed that it was impossible to tell whether she was serious or playing a part. She "took in" her teasers times out of number, and in fairness they deserved all they got. Towards the end of the first week she came into the intermediate room one morning fondling a letter.
"From Paris," she vouchsafed. "Dad and Mother have got anch.o.r.ed at last.
The journey must have been a startler. Paris is so full of Americans, it"s like a little New York."
"Why do you call it "Parr-is"?" sn.i.g.g.e.red Sadie.
"It"s more like the French than your way of saying it, at any rate,"
retorted Diana smartly. "This letter"s been four days in coming through."
"You might give me the stamp."
"Certainly not. You don"t deserve it. I wish I were in Paris, too. Yes, I shall call it "Parr-is". I"m beginning to want some of my own folks."
"I"ve never met any Americans, except you," volunteered Vi. "What are they like?"
"What do you imagine they"re like?"
"Like the pictures of "Uncle Sam", with a limp shirt front, and a big tie, and a goatee beard. I want to meet some real out-and-out Yankees."
"Won"t your cousins from Petteridge ever come over to see you, Di?"
asked Magsie.
"Perhaps they may, sometime," replied Diana thoughtfully. "I should say it"s quite within the bounds of possibility, considering they only live ten miles away."
"Gee-whiz! I guess I"d just admire to make their acquaintance!" mocked Vi. "I reckon they"ll be _some_ folks!"
Diana"s eyes were fixed upon her with an inscrutable look, but she answered quite calmly:
"I"ll take care to introduce you if they come."
It was in the course of the next few days that a parcel for Diana arrived from Petteridge Court. What it contained n.o.body saw except herself, for she did her unpacking in private. Judging from certain outbursts of chuckling, the exact cause of which she steadily refused to reveal, the advent of her package gave her profound satisfaction. The next Sat.u.r.day afternoon was wet: one of those hopelessly wet days that are apt to happen in a land of lakes and hills. Banks of mist obscured the fells; the garden walks were turned to running rivers, the bushes dripped dismally, and cascades poured from the gutters. The school, which had been promised a country tramp, looked out of the windows with woeful disappointment. The seniors consoled themselves by holding a committee meeting, from which all but their elect selves were rigidly excluded. The juniors took possession of the play-room, and relieved their spirits by games which made the maximum of noise. Several of the intermediates peeped in, but, finding the place a mixture of a bear-garden and the Tower of Babel, they retired to the sanctuary of their own form-room, where they sat making half-hearted efforts to read or paint, and grousing at the weather.
"Is _every_ Sat.u.r.day going to be wet?" demanded Magsie in an injured voice.
"Seems like it!" mourned Jess Paget. "Of course it can be beautifully fine on Friday, when we have to stop in and do dancing; and it just keeps all the rain for Sat.u.r.day. I call it spiteful! I wish I knew what to do with myself. I"m moping."