The Madcap of the School Part 9

"Ah, lady! We don't know ourselves! It comes to us suddenly. Like a flash of light we see your future--then it fades. It's a sixth sense that's given to the poor gipsies. They're born with it, and they can't explain it any more than you can explain the breath of your body."

"I've often heard of this sixth sense," whispered Daphne to Lois.

"Sometimes we feel what's going to be, and sometimes we see it,"

continued the gipsy, fumbling with something in her lap. "We can't tell beforehand which way the knowledge will come."

"What's that you've got there?" asked Veronica sharply. "Is it a crystal?"

"You're right, lady. It is a crystal, and a wonderful one too. My grandmother got it from--but no! I'd best not be telling that. I wouldn't part with it, lady, if the Queen offered me her crown in exchange. Take it in your hand! Look how it sparkles! It doesn't often s.h.i.+ne like that--only when someone with the sixth sense holds it."

"I've sometimes suspected that I possess psychic powers!" murmured Veronica complacently.

"Would you like to learn the future, lady?" queried the gipsy. "Then hold it so, in your hands, for a minute. Now it has felt you and known you, and it will tell--oh, yes! it will tell!"

She took the crystal again, and turned to the companion who squatted beside her on the floor.

"Zara! Look what is coming to the lady," she commanded softly.

Zara, who had apparently been in a deep reverie, roused herself with a start, placed the crystal in her lap with the first finger and the thumb of each hand lightly touching it, and stared fixedly into the magic gla.s.s. For a moment or two the future seemed obscured, then evidently it cleared. She began to speak in a deep, monotonous voice, as if talking in her sleep.

"I see the sea--waves--waves--everywhere. There is a s.h.i.+p--oh! it has changed. I see sand, and a white house, and palm trees. A soldier in khaki is coming out of the house. He stops to speak to a servant--a black man in a turban--he is angry--he frowns--he goes again into the white house. Oh, it is fading--it is gone!"

"My brother Leslie's in Egypt!" gasped Veronica, much impressed.

She would have requested a continuance of the vision, but at that moment the dressing-bell clanged loudly. It was plainly time to go and tidy up for supper.

"If you could come again to-morrow about five," she suggested, pressing a coin into the gipsy's ready hand.

"Yes, lady, if we're still in the neighbourhood. We never know when we'll be moving on, you see. But we'll try to oblige you if we can."

Raymonde's and Ardiune's toilets that evening would have done credit to quick-change variety artistes. With clean faces and hands, and their dresses at least half fastened, they slipped into their places at the supper-table just in time; a little flurried, perhaps, but preserving an outward calm. So far their scheme had succeeded admirably. The Sixth appeared to have no suspicions.

They repeated their performance on the following day, installing themselves in the cow-house, and receiving relays of enquirers who came to consult them as to their future. Knowing somewhat of the private history of each member of the school, they got on excellently, and their reputation spread till more than half the girls had paid surrept.i.tious visits to their retreat. All might have gone well, and their secret might have remained undiscovered, had it not been for Veronica's friends.h.i.+p with Mademoiselle. Veronica was so impressed with the value of the crystal's information that she could not help confiding the news, and bringing the impressionable Belgian to consult the seer for herself.

Ardiune's visions of smoking ruins and rescued refugees left Mademoiselle almost speechless. She in her turn felt impelled to seek a confidante, and imparted the wonderful revelations to Miss Gibbs.

That worthy lady immediately set off for the cow-house. As she entered there was a scuttling of juniors, who sought safety behind the part.i.tion. Raymonde stared for a moment aghast, then whispered to Ardiune: "Bluff it out!"

Miss Gibbs proceeded in an absolutely business-like manner. She requested a consultation, and listened while the gipsy, decidedly nervous, gave a rambling description of a dark gentleman and an Indian temple.

"Thank you," she said at last. "I think it only fair to warn you that you can be prosecuted and fined twenty-five pounds for telling fortunes. I should like to know where you got that crystal! It's remarkably like the ball of gla.s.s that was broken off my Venetian vase. I missed it yesterday from my mantelpiece. By the by"--stooping down suddenly, and pulling aside the handkerchief from Zara's swarthy neck--"you are wearing a locket and chain that I know to be the property of one of my pupils. It is my duty immediately to put you in the hands of the police."

The game was up! The disconcerted gipsies rose from their alcove, and came back from the psychic to the material world. It was a hard, exacting, unsympathetic world as mirrored in Miss Gibbs's keen grey eyes. She told them briefly to go and wash their faces and change their attire, then to report themselves in the cla.s.s-room, where she would be at work correcting exercises.

"You can bring with you the money that you have collected over this business," she added.

Half an hour later, two clean, tidy, but dejected pupils entered the cla.s.s-room, and placed the sum of thirteen and ninepence upon her desk. Miss Gibbs counted it over scrupulously.

"Any girls who were foolish enough to give you this, deserve to lose it," she remarked, "and I shall send it as a contribution to the Red Cross Fund. You will each learn two pages of Curtis's _Historical Notes_ by heart, and repeat them to me to-morrow after morning school.

I may mention that I consider it a great liberty for any girl to enter my bedroom and remove ornaments from my mantelpiece."

That evening, after preparation and supper, the entire school, instead of being allowed to pursue fancy work, was summoned to the lecture hall, and harangued by Miss Beasley upon the follies and dangers of superst.i.tion. She touched upon ancient beliefs in witchcraft, and modern credulity in clairvoyance and spiritualism, and placed an equal ban upon both.

"In these enlightened times, with all the advantages of education to dispel ignorance," she concluded, "it is incredible to me that anybody can still be found ready to believe in such nonsense. I beg you all, and especially those elder girls who should be leaders of the rest, to turn your thoughts and conversation to some healthier topic, and to let these morbid fancies sink into the obscurity they deserve."

"It was a nasty hit for the monitresses!" whispered Ardiune to Raymonde afterwards. "Did you see Veronica turning as red as beetroot?

We'll have to wake early to-morrow morning, and swat at those wretched dates. It was grizzly bad luck Gibbie found us out!"

"But on the whole the game was worth the candle!" proclaimed Raymonde unrepentantly.

CHAPTER VIII

The Beano

After the events related in the last chapter, the monitresses suddenly awakened to a sense of their responsibility as leaders of the school.

Particularly Veronica. She had a sensitive disposition, and Miss Beasley's reproof rankled. She determined to set an example to the younger ones, and to be zealous in keeping order and enforcing rules.

She held a surprise inspection of the juniors' desks and drawers, and pounced upon illicit packets of chocolate; she examined their books, and confiscated any which she considered unsuitable; she put a ban upon slang, and wrote out a new set of dormitory regulations. Her efforts were hardly so much appreciated as they deserved. The girls grumbled at this unantic.i.p.ated tightening of the reins.

"We've always bought sweets and kept them in our desks," declared Joan Butler. "I believe Veronica used to do it herself."

"Life wouldn't be worth living without chocolates!" mourned Nora Fawcitt.

"And we always used to scramble for the bathroom in the mornings, ever since I've been here," groused Dorothy Newstead. "It's no fun to wait in a queue."

The Fifth fared no better than the Fourth, and being older, their indignation was even hotter.

"Veronica took away _Adam Bede_, and said it wasn't 'suitable'!" fumed Aveline. "She told me I might read Scott and d.i.c.kens instead. And I'd just got to the interesting part! It's too idiotic!"

"I can't see why Veronica need act censor to all our reading," agreed Katherine bitterly. "Why should we be allowed Jane Austen and not Charlotte Bronte?"

"Little girls mustn't read love stories!" mocked Raymonde.

"But they're all love stories--Scott's and d.i.c.kens's and Jane Austen's and everyone's! How about Shakespeare? There's heaps of love-making in _Romeo and Juliet_, and we took that with Professor Marshall!"

"I don't think Gibbie ever quite approved of it. She thought it indiscreet of the Professor, I'm sure, and likely to put ideas into our heads!"

"Does she expect we'll go eloping over the garden wall? Perhaps that's why she keeps such a vigilant look-out with the telescope!"

"It's quite bad enough to have Gibbie always on our trail," said Ardiune gloomily, "but when it comes to Veronica turning watch-dog as well, I call it an outrage!"

"I think Fifth-Form girls have responsibilities as well as monitresses," grunted Raymonde. "It's not good for Veronica to take life so earnestly! She'll grow old before her time. The b.u.mble's always rubbing it into us to make the most of our girlhood, and not be little premature women, so I vote we live up to her theory. It's Veronica's last term here. She ought to be bubbling and girlish, and carry away happy memories of her light-hearted school-days when she goes out into the wide world to be a woman. I consider it's our duty to look after this. The b.u.mble says the value of school life consists in its 'give and take'. We're taking a good deal from Veronica at present, so we must give her something back. Let's teach her to be kittenish and playful."

The chums exploded. The idea of the serious-minded Veronica developing a bubbling or kittenish manner was too much for them.

"We did pretty well when we took Maudie Heywood in hand," urged Raymonde. "She's wonderfully improved. Never exceeds the speed limit in her lessons, and if she writes extra essays she keeps them to herself, and doesn't flaunt them before the Form. And there was Cynthia Greene, too! We don't hear a word about The Poplars now, or her wretched bracelet. It may be difficult, perhaps, but we'll do our best with Veronica. We must regard ourselves as sort of missionaries."