Sylvia looked at Miss Kaye many times during tea, trying to read the answer in her face, but the latter did not glance in her direction, and seemed fully occupied in a conversation with Mademoiselle. When the meal was over, however, she called to her to remain after the other girls had left the room.
"I have seen Linda," she said, "and find her thoroughly sorry for any part she has played which has not been perfectly honourable and straighforward. I am sure she will be more careful in future to avoid even the shadow of an untruth. As I think she was trying to shield Nina and Hazel I have decided not to punish her any more, and she is once again free. Did you say that you would be willing to give up your share of the fun outside and spend the evening with her?"
"Yes, oh yes!" exclaimed Sylvia.
"And miss the fireworks?"
"I don"t mind."
"You are a good little friend, but it is not necessary. Linda may come to the bonfire, and you shall have the pleasure of running upstairs at once and telling her so yourself."
You may be sure that Sylvia flew like an arrow to her bedroom to announce the delightful news, and that it did not take Linda long to put on her outdoor clothes and join the crowd which was already a.s.sembling in the courtyard.
Mr. Cameron had just arrived. He was a tall, jolly, rather elderly gentleman, with a grey moustache and an endless stock of jokes, which he fired off like crackers among the girls. They all knew him well, as he often came to Heathercliffe House. His daughter Doris had been educated there, and though she was now nineteen, she was fond of her old school, and had accompanied her father this evening to watch the fireworks.
"Out of my way!" shouted Mr. Cameron; "make room for the princ.i.p.al figure, the leading actor on the stage, we may call him, and if you don"t admire him, it"s your own bad taste!"
He was staggering from the house as he spoke, carrying in his arms a huge guy, stuffed with straw, whose comical red face, dangling arms, and helpless legs roused shouts of laughter all round.
"There," said Mr. Cameron, seating him on a convenient barrel in the midst of the bonfire, "anyone can change places with him who likes; he mayn"t look clever, but at any rate I can guarantee he"ll get a warm reception before he even takes the trouble to open his mouth. Now then, stand back, children; we"re going to begin."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN A FEW MINUTES A GRAND BLAZE WAS FLARING UP"]
The gardener had brought out a large torch, which he applied to some loose shavings, and in a few minutes a grand blaze was flaring up, catching the boxes, hampers, and brushwood of which the pile was composed. Mr. Cameron fastened a match to the end of a pole, and, lighting it, approached within a few feet of the guy.
"Now look," he said; "watch very carefully, and you"ll see him roll his eyes."
He applied the match to the mask where two small pin-wheels had been fitted in front of the empty sockets. They went off immediately, and gave exactly the appearance of two horrible, flaming eyes whirling round and round in the big head. The younger children screamed and clung delightedly to the elder ones, and even Miss Kaye was quite startled at the effect.
"Now he"s going to talk," declared Mr. Cameron; "he"s like the girl in the fairy tale who dropped diamonds and pearls whenever she opened her lips."
He held his lighted pole to the guy"s mouth, where a Roman candle was hidden inside, and out came b.a.l.l.s of red and blue and green, shooting into the air one after another with great brilliance. By this time the flames had reached his arms and legs, which, being stuffed with squibs and crackers, exploded with much noise, and the luckless conspirator disappeared with a crash into the midst of the burning barrels, to the accompaniment of a storm of clapping and a l.u.s.ty cheer. When the blaze had somewhat subsided, the tub of potatoes was carried out, and each girl was allowed to place one in the hot ashes, together with several chestnuts, which could be roasting while they ate the toffee and parkin.
"You wouldn"t think of eating sweet things just before you had potatoes at any other time," said Linda, "but everything tastes so delicious when it"s from the bonfire."
Mr. Cameron was getting ready to let off the more important fireworks, which had been kept till the end, and the girls arranged themselves in a half-circle to look at the golden rain, the Catherine wheels, and the rockets which were to finish the festivities. He had prepared a surprise for them by writing "Heathercliffe House" in gunpowder on the ground, which, when it was set alight, stood out in letters of flame, and had a fine effect. "I always said Heathercliffe House ought to set the world on fire," he laughed, "and we"ve done it to-night."
As Linda stood watching the last rocket tearing across the sky, she put her arm round Sylvia"s shoulder. "I shouldn"t have been here at all this evening except for you," she whispered. "It was lovely of you to go to Miss Kaye. She was so nice about it when I said I was sorry.
I don"t think I shall ever be frightened of her again."
"Three cheers for Miss Kaye!" called Mr. Cameron. "Those who feel they have had a jolly time may join me, and those who don"t had better go to bed. Hip! Hip! Hooray!"
And among all the laughing, clapping girls there were none who responded more heartily than Linda and Sylvia.
CHAPTER X
Sylvia"s Birthday
Nina Forster was obliged to remain in bed for several days, but Hazel Prestbury came into school on the following morning, rather red about the eyes, and a little sulky. She was sorry, not so much for her fault, as for being found out, and she blamed herself for her own stupidity.
"I might have known some tiresome person would see us out of a window," she thought. "Miss Kaye always manages to get to hear everything."
She felt that the other girls disapproved of her. Marian spoke her mind freely on the subject, and even gentle Gwennie did not appear too anxious to sit next to her. Linda avoided her as much as possible, keeping strictly to Sylvia"s company, and, though Connie Camden, who never thought about anything, was as friendly as ever, it did not quite make up for the general coldness of the rest. The girls were too kind to send her to Coventry, but Hazel felt she had lost her former position in the cla.s.s. It was a severe wound to her pride, for she had liked to be considered a leader, and had always been pleased to see how easily the others had accepted her opinions and suggestions; as the eldest she had possessed a good deal of influence, and her greatest punishment was to find it gone.
November crept on fast, and the days seemed to grow rapidly shorter and shorter. It was chilly now in the mornings, and those whose hard fate it was to be obliged to practise before breakfast grumbled at stiff fingers and cold toes.
"I never know whether I like it or not," said Sylvia. "I hate it when I"m in bed, and feel I"d give all the world not to have to get up so early; but when it"s done it"s so nice to think you won"t have to do it at four o"clock. I wish one could learn music without practising."
"And French without verbs," groaned Linda, looking at her exercise, nearly every line of which showed red-ink corrections in Mademoiselle"s neat foreign handwriting. "I think some people are born bad at languages, and I"m one of them. I never can understand properly what Mademoiselle is saying, and then she gets cross and says I don"t attend."
French was a serious trouble to Sylvia also. She had learnt very little with her governess at home, and found it most difficult to keep up with Marian, who had rather a pretty accent, and was good at translation. To encourage her pupils, Mademoiselle had offered a prize to whichever could write the best letter home in the French language.
Each was to be the unaided work of the compet.i.tor, though grammars and dictionaries might be freely consulted. It was a difficult task to all the girls, and to some an almost impossible one, but Mademoiselle insisted upon everybody at least making an attempt, and laughed in private over the funny efforts which followed.
If the prize had been given for the queerest instead of the best letter Connie Camden would have gained it. She grew so tired of looking up words that she wrote anything she thought sounded like French, and the result would have puzzled a native to decipher. It ran thus:--
"Heathercliffe Maison.
"Novembre la onzieme.
"Mon cher mere
"Mamzelle a tolde moi que je mustai writer une lettre en francais. Je le findai tres difficile et je ne likai pas du tout. Mamzelle a offre une prize mais je suis sure que je ne shallai pas le getter. Je begge que vous excusez moi parce que je ne canne pas thinker de rien encore a sayer.
"Votre aimant fille, "CONNIE."
This, however, was the worst of the set, some of the others having managed to express themselves quite nicely. Rather to everybody"s astonishment Hazel Prestbury won the prize. She was not industrious enough to gain the highest marks in cla.s.s, but on this occasion she had set her best energies to work, and her letter, both as regards composition and grammar, was far in advance of all compet.i.tors. She felt a thrill of triumph as Mademoiselle presented her with a charming Parisian basket full of choice chocolates, accompanied by a speech in French, which n.o.body understood in the least. She handed it round amongst the girls with a sense that she had at last somewhat regained her lost standing, and when the basket was empty had the satisfaction of overhearing Marian remark that she was generous with her sweets, and Gwennie wish that she knew French only half as well.
Nina Forster returned to cla.s.s after a week"s absence, looking pale and thin, and with a white knitted shawl wrapped ostentatiously round her shoulders. She was a girl who thoroughly enjoyed being delicate, and liked the importance of having a fuss made over her. There was always a large bottle of tonic on the sideboard, which Nina gloried in being obliged to swallow, and she was rather pleased than otherwise if Miss Kaye decided that it was too damp a day for her to venture out.
"I can"t stand much, you know," she would explain complacently to the others in languid tones. "Every winter I have been laid up, with the doctor listening at my bronchial tube and taking my temperature night and morning. It makes Mother most unhappy, and I"m sure Miss Kaye"s quite worried about me too."
As most of the girls did not know the exact meaning of either a bronchial tube or a temperature, they were a good deal impressed, and allowed Nina to take the warmest seat and the biggest piece of toffee "for the sake of her throat", a state of affairs which was just what she wanted, and of which she did not fail to take advantage to the uttermost.
With the colder weather eider-down quilts had made their appearance in the bedrooms, and now supplied the places of the pretty pink coverlets which were only used in summer. It felt very warm and comfortable to snuggle down under them at night, when the wind was howling outside and the rain beating fast against the windows, and very hard to throw them back and get up in the dark, chilly mornings, when the dressing bell was ringing in the pa.s.sage outside.
Sylvia"s eider-down quilt once caused her an experience which gave her a greater fright than she had ever had in her life before. She had been to sleep for what seemed to her several hours, and woke suddenly with a curious sense that someone besides herself and Linda was in the room. It seemed to her as if her quilt were being very gently but surely pulled from her bed. Wideawake in an instant, she pulled it back and lay listening with strained ears. There was nothing to be heard but Linda"s placid breathing and the drip of the rain from the spout outside the window. Again the quilt slowly began to move, and this time she was certain she caught a slight sound. Could it be possible that a burglar was concealed under her bed? The idea was too dreadful, and a cold shiver ran through her. What was she to do? She did not dare to call to Linda; she felt as if her tongue would refuse to utter a cry, and perhaps if she did the man would at once crawl out. The room was not quite dark, as a fitful moon shone in through the blind between the storm clouds, and to poor Sylvia it made the horror almost worse to know that she would be able to see somebody rise up suddenly by her bedside.
"I"d give him anything and everything he wants to steal," she thought, "if only he wouldn"t frighten me so. Oh, I wonder whether he"s really there or not!"
She held the edge of the quilt in her hand. Was it slipping once more?
Yes, it was most undoubtedly being pulled from her grasp, and, as her hair nearly stood on end with fear, she heard an unmistakable sneeze from somewhere just underneath her bed. She gave a little agonized gasp of terror, and at the same moment something sprang up and plumped on to her chest. Nearly dead with fright, she yet managed to look, and to her astonishment beheld only the waving tail and round green eyes of Toby, the school cat, which, settling himself comfortably, began to claw the quilt with his paws, purring his loudest the while as if quite proud and pleased with himself. Sylvia sat up in bed and laughed heartily at her burglar.
"Toby, you wretch," she cried, stroking his soft fur, "how did you manage to get in here? I suppose it was you that was trying to tug my quilt from me. No doubt you wanted to make yourself a nice bed on the floor. And then you sneezed! What shall I do with you? I can"t take you to the kitchen in the middle of the night. You"ll have to cuddle down with me; you"re beautifully warm at any rate. Here, come inside, you"ll be as good as a hot bottle." And, clasping the purring cat close in her arms, she was soon back in the land of dreams.
It was quite a little adventure to relate to Linda next morning, and the latter wondered how she had been able to sleep so stolidly through it.