The Little Colonel at Boarding School Part 18

sobbed Mittie, "they'd go to investigating, and find out about my eavesdropping, and they wouldn't let me stay in the school, if the spirits made such a disturbance about it."

Sara promised secrecy, but while no hint of the appearance reached the faculty, every girl in the seminary heard of it before night. Nothing was talked of but table-tippings and spirit-rapping and "appearances."

No ghostly visitant disturbed Mittie's and Sara's slumbers the second night. The Shadow Club, in secret session, decided it would not be safe to venture again so soon. But a spirit of unrest seemed to pervade the whole seminary. Mischievous girls knocked on the walls to see their roommates turn pale. Cold hands reached suddenly out of dark corners to clutch unwary pa.s.sers-by, and a panic spread in a single evening among the pupils, more contagious than mumps or measles. Every one not infected with the fear seemed infected with a desire to make some one else afraid.

Even gentle little Jean Wilson, whose deportment was always perfect, and who was too tender-hearted to watch a spider killed, so the girls declared, felt moved to do something. Her roommate, Ada Day, loudly proclaimed that _she_ was not afraid of spooks, and she didn't have any patience with girls who were silly enough to believe such tales. Nothing could frighten _her_!

While Ada was in the bath-room that evening, Jean emptied a tin box of talc.u.m powder, slipped a spool of thread inside, and drawing the end of the thread through one of the holes in the perforated lid, hid the box in the springs of Ada's bed. The black thread trailing across the carpet to Jean's pillow was not visible in the dimly lighted room when Ada came back and found Jean lying with her eyes closed. She did not turn up the lamp, but began undressing as quietly as possible, and was soon in bed herself. Both girls were wakeful that night. Both heard the clock strike several times. Ada tossed and turned whenever she roused, but Jean lay as quiet as possible, breathing regularly, so that Ada thought she was asleep and did not venture to speak.

As the clock in the lower hall stopped striking twelve, Jean reached for the thread fastened to her pillow by a pin, and gave it several quick uneven jerks. The spool rattling in the tin box sounded like the mysterious rappings at which Ada had turned up her nose. To hear it thus in the dead of night was a different matter to Ada.

"Jean!" she called, in a hoa.r.s.e stage-whisper. "Jean! Did you hear that?

What do you suppose it is?"

Jean gave the thread another tweak, and then answered, in the same loud whisper, "It sounds to me as if something was trying to spell your name by tapping. It comes from under your bed, but then of course you don't believe in such things. It may be a warning."

"I wish I dared put my foot out of bed," said Ada, her teeth chattering.

"I'd get up and make a light. You do it, Jean. I'd do that much for you if the noise was under your bed."

"s.h.!.+" warned Jean. "I believe something is really calling you. It's certainly spelling your name. Now count. One knock--that is A. One, two, three, four--D. One again--A. Yes, that spelled Ada. Now it's beginning again. One, two, three, four--D. One--A." The knocks followed in rapid succession until Ada, realizing that they were going all the way to Y, was almost paralyzed with terror.

"Oh, Jean!" she wailed. "Stop it! Stop it! Get up and make a light, or call the matron, or something! I can't stand it a minute longer! I'll be a gibbering idiot if you don't stop that awful knocking!"

Jean still continued to jerk the thread, till she heard Ada spring up desperately as if to jump out of bed. Then she said, "Oh, do be still, Ada Day. It's nothing but a spool in a tin box. See! I'll strike a match and show you. I was only playing a trick on you because you boasted nothing could frighten you. Don't rouse the house, for mercy's sake."

It took much time and much pleading on Jean's part to convince Ada that there was really no spirit under her bed, and then it took more time and pleading to appease her anger. The sound of voices and the striking of a match aroused the matron. She lay for a moment, wondering what was the matter; then, thinking that some one might be ill and in need of her services, she got up, slipped on a warm bathrobe and her felt bedroom slippers, and stepped out into the hall to investigate.

All was quiet, but she had a feeling that some mischief was afloat. An inkling of the disturbing element in the school had reached her early in the day, and although she had said nothing to the teachers, she had made a careful round of inspection just before going to bed. Some rumour of the doings of the Shadow Club which had come to her made her go to the west wing and push aside the portiere hanging over the door that led to the outside stairway. The bolt was in place, but it slipped easily in its sheath as if it had lately been oiled. Selecting a key on the ring at her belt, she locked the door. "I'll risk a fire for one night," she thought, "but I can't risk some other things."

Although the hall was quiet when she stepped out now in the midnight silence, some feeling that all was not right made her slip on down the front stairs. There was no light, excepting a faint starlight, that served to show where the windows were. As she stood there listening, about to strike a match, something in white brushed down the stairs past her. Half in a spirit of mischief, thinking to pay the girl or ghost, whichever it was, back in her own coin, the matron threw her arms around the sheeted figure.

There was a m.u.f.fled scream of terror. But, holding her captive fast with one strong hand, the matron struck a match with the other.

"Hus.h.!.+" she said. "There's no use in disturbing everybody." Then as the match flared up she saw that it was no Wraith of Vengeance she held. The sheet fell to the floor, revealing Ida Shane, dressed even to hat and furs, and carrying her leather travelling-bag.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SHADOW CLUB IN DISGRACE

"THE president wishes to see the members of the Shadow Club in his office immediately. They will please pa.s.s out before we proceed with the opening exercises."

That was the announcement Professor Fowler made in chapel next morning, and a clap of thunder from a clear sky could not have been more unexpected or more startling in its effect. A frightened silence pervaded the room so deep that every girl could hear her heart beat. A message to Doctor Wells's office at that hour was almost unheard of. He always conducted the chapel exercises himself. It must be a matter of grave importance indeed that would cause his absence now, and the sending of such a message.

Lloyd and Betty exchanged startled glances, then slowly rose, followed by Allison and Kitty. Katie stood up next and looked back with a giggle at Lucy, Retta, Rose and Dora, who, being only of the Order of W. V.'s, hesitated to follow. But emphatic beckonings brought them to their feet, and they filed out into the hall after the other girls, their heads held high, and smiling as if indifferent to the whisperings around them.

But the instant the door closed upon them and they found themselves alone in the hall outside, they began demanding of each other the reason for the summons.

"You needn't ask _me_!" exclaimed Lucy. "We didn't do a thing last night on our side of the building. I've no more idea than a chipmunk why we were sent for."

"Nothing happened in our wing," protested Betty and Lloyd, in the same breath.

"Oh, girls, I'm all in a shake!" exclaimed Retta Long, almost in tears.

"It frightens me nearly to death to think of being called up before the president. Such a thing never happened to me before, nor to any of our family."

"Oh, boo!" exclaimed Kitty, with a rea.s.suring smile. "We haven't done anything so killing bad that we need care. We've only had a little fun.

Come on! I'm not afraid of all the king's horses and all the king's men."

But in spite of her brave words she sat down as shyly as the rest of them when Doctor Wells, tall and commanding, motioned them to seats in front of his desk. He looked so big and dignified, standing before them erect and silent, while he waited for them to be seated, that her courage failed her. But when he sat down in his armchair and looked gravely from one frightened face to the other, Kitty saw a twinkle in the kind eyes behind the spectacles which rea.s.sured her.

"We caught a ghost in the seminary last night, young ladies," he began, abruptly, with a smile twitching an instant at the corners of his mouth.

It was only for an instant. His face was unusually grave as he proceeded. "It was just in time to prevent a very serious occurrence which would have been a great calamity to the school. It made a partial confession which implicated some one in your club, and I have sent for you in order that you may clear yourselves at once. Most of your mischief has been only innocent amus.e.m.e.nt, I know, but I must have a complete history of the club, from the beginning six weeks ago, up till twelve o'clock last night."

At mention of a ghost, they looked at each other with startled faces, wondering how much he already knew. Evidently some one outside of the club had been playing their own game, and they wondered who could have made a confession which could truthfully have included them.

Instinctively they turned to Betty to be their spokesman. With her truthful brown eyes looking straight into the doctor's, Betty clasped her hands in her lap and gave a simple account of the club.

She began with the verse Miss Edith had written in their alb.u.ms, and the story she had told them of the girls who walked forty miles to the mountain school. She told of the impulse it had awakened in them to do something for the mountain people, and the club that had grown out of that desire.

"We didn't intend to play any pranks in the beginning," she said; "all we wanted to do was to cast our shadow-selves where we could never be.

But just after Hallowe'en we met in our room one Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and a girl hid in the closet next to ours and heard all our secrets and went and told them, and we decided to shadow _her_ awhile, to punish her for being so mean. But one-half of the club lived outside the seminary, and Ida Shane resigned about that time, so we established a new order, and took these four girls in as Wraiths of Vengeance." She nodded toward the new members.

A grim smile flitted across the doctor's face as he listened to her explanation of their duties, and heard the use they had made of Lot's wife and the magic lantern. But he smoothed his white moustache to cover his amus.e.m.e.nt, and when she finished he sat in deep thought a moment, his brows drawn closely together.

"If there was any ghost around last night, we weren't responsible for its doings," she added. "It didn't belong to the club."

"Why did Ida Shane resign?" he asked, suddenly.

"I don't know, sir," answered Betty. "She wouldn't tell."

"There must have been a reason," he continued, sternly. "Do you know, Kitty?"

"No, sir."

"Do you, Katie?"

"No, sir."

The same question and the same answer pa.s.sed down the line until it came to Lloyd. She blushed a vivid scarlet and hesitated.

"Yes, I know," she exclaimed. "But I am not at liberty to tell."

The president held out part of a torn envelope, on which was written with many flourishes in a bold, masculine hand, "Lloydsboro Seminary.

Kindness of bearer."

"Have any of you seen this handwriting before?" he asked.

The envelope was pa.s.sed from hand to hand, each girl shaking her head in denial, until it came to Lloyd. With a sick sinking of heart she recognized the familiar penmans.h.i.+p that had been such a bugbear, and which she had hoped never to see again. All the colour faded from her face as she faintly acknowledged that it was familiar.