"How about tableaux, living pictures? Miss Hull loves those." It was Poppy who spoke.
The rest thought for a few minutes in silence. Just tableaux were not exactly the thing somehow. The idea lacked originality.
At last Gladys jumped and executed a silent but triumphant dance.
"Well, let"s hear it." Ann knew Gladys better than any of her other friends, and she felt that the question had been solved.
"Well, I don"t want to be forward or cheeky," Gladys began shyly, "and anyway it"s just a suggestion."
"Let"s have it," Gwyn demanded.
"Well," Gladys began again, "you all know how fond Miss Hull is of the stories that have come down about Hilltop." The rest nodded eagerly.
"Why couldn"t we have tableaux representing all the Hilltop stories we know about?" she finished with a rush.
The girls looked their admiration.
"We can and we will," Poppy declared. "I declare, that"s just the sweetest idea I ever heard!" She and Gwen went off to confer with the other Seniors, and the rest went back to Gladys" room.
"What tableaux would you have, Glad?" Prue inquired respectfully.
"Well, there"s our Countess," Gladys replied. "There"s a miniature of her own in the library, in the bookcase, that has all the souvenirs in it, and, as I remember it, she looks like Taffy."
"But where shall we find the costumes?" Phyllis inquired.
"Up in the attic. It"s loaded with cedar chests full," Ann told her.
"Miss Hull always lets us wear them when we give masquerades."
"Tell us about the rest of the characters," Sally said impatiently.
"Well, there"s the poor unhappy lady that haunts the Twins" balcony,"
Gladys suggested with a perfectly straight face.
"The Twins" balcony?" Sally showed her surprise at this new adaption of an old tale, but neither Ann nor Prue moved a muscle as Gladys continued. It was the opportunity they had been waiting for, ever since Janet had expressed the wish that their room had a ghost.
"Yes," Gladys went on in a matter-of-fact tone, "the poor pretty lady that was standing on the balcony and looked down, and saw them bringing home the dead body of her lover. He had fought a duel with her brother, and the brother had killed him."
"Oh, Glad, and you never told us!" Janet protested. "Was it really from our balcony?"
Sally who had caught Prue"s warning wink did not question any further.
She knew as well as they did, that the famous haunted balcony was on the other side of the house, outside of one of the cla.s.s rooms.
"Truth of the matter is, I didn"t intend to tell you at all," Gladys said seriously. "Those things are not nice to know about. The servants, you know, all vow they have seen the ghost."
Phyllis shivered. "Poor lovely lady" she said, "I"m awfully sorry for her, but I know I shall never sleep again."
"What nonsense" Janet exclaimed. "The idea of believing in ghosts."
The other girls did not agree with her that it was nonsense; they merely exchanged rather knowing glances.
Then Poppy and Gwen and some of the other Seniors came in, and the talk changed to plans for the tableaux.
It was decided to give six in all. They talked earnestly until the clock chimed the Happy Dreams, then the Seniors went back to their rooms, and the rest of the girls, after a few minutes" more talk, to theirs.
Janet went straight to the balcony, when she and Phyllis were alone in their own room. She looked out into the lovely night, and in her vivid imagination she saw the whole scene, as Gladys had told it to her, unfold before her.
If Miss Sloc.u.m had seen her stretch out her arms, as she looked down with the eyes of the poor maiden upon the body of her lover, she might have wondered. In literature, Janet kept her emotions to herself, and the more a scene from Shakespeare touched, the more colorless was her voice as she read it. As she would have hated to have shared the Enchanted Kingdom with any one but Peter, so she hated to share her love of the romantic, and hold it up for possible ridicule.
"Jan, do come in from that horrible balcony," Phyllis besought her. "I have the creeps every time I look at it."
"Nonsense," Janet replied shortly, but she came in, and it was not many minutes before she was in bed. Phyllis, in spite of her predictions to the contrary, was soon fast asleep, and Janet, though she tried to keep awake and think about the pretty lady, soon followed.
Neither of them ever knew how long they had been asleep, before they were conscious of a low moaning sound that came from the balcony.
Phyllis heard it first, and she leaned over and shook Janet"s arm.
"Jan, listen, what is that horrible noise?" she demanded.
Janet, still very sleepy, sat up to listen. For a minute there was no sound, but the whisper of the wind in the trees. Then very faintly at first, but coming nearer and nearer, they heard a low moan.
Phyllis was in Janet"s bed in a second, and was shivering against her.
For the best part of a minute Janet was frightened, then her good sense came to her rescue. She had not lived in an isolated house in Old Chester, where the wind played queer tricks with echoes and the waves beat dismally against the sh.o.r.e, to be easily frightened.
"Oh, Jan, it"s that woman, I know it is!" Phyllis was sobbing.
"Rats!" Janet replied inelegantly.
Before Phyllis could stop her, she had slipped out of bed and was creeping softly to the window. Phyllis was too frightened to speak. The moan came again, and this time a white arm waved through the open door.
Phyllis put her head under the covers and did not see what followed.
Janet crept closer. She was conscious of the pounding of her heart, but she was not afraid. Instead, she rather enjoyed the possibility of catching a real ghost.
She watched the window for a minute and then, acting on a sudden impulse, she walked to the door. She put her ear to the keyhole, and, as she had half expected, she heard a very cautious whisper.
Without waiting a minute she caught the handle of the door and opened it suddenly.
Two kimonoed figures fell into the room. The noise was so loud that Phyllis felt no ghost could have been responsible for it, and she uncovered her head.
She saw, by the silver moonlight that was pouring in through the window, the prostrate forms of Prue and Ann, and she heard Janet say,
"Come in, won"t you? If you are looking for Glad, she is out on the balcony."
CHAPTER XVII-The Tableaux