A harum-scarum schoolgirl Part 20

"Don't!" implored Loveday, almost hysterically. "Oh, suppose your face were to stick like that! You'd look the most abominable little Pharisee.

I'd hate you!"

"You like your pixie-girl best? Then, that settles it! Now, if you ever scold me again about anything, I'll put on the Pharisee face; so I warn you. You've got to choose between them. Yes, I know I'm a handful--I always have been--but, perhaps, it's good for you, Loveday mine: develops your character, and makes you more patient and persevering, and--and----"

"You're the cheekiest little imp on the face of the earth!" interrupted Loveday. "Get up, this minute, and come and finish your own work. I've something else to do besides unpack for you. If Miss Hampson comes and finds my box still half full----"

"She'll say how slow you've been, and what a nice, tidy child Diana is!

Don't try to look 'proper', Loveday! It doesn't suit your style of beauty. Yes, put my collars away, too, or I shall only crush them.

There! Very well done! First prize for order! I think you're absolutely topping, if you ask me!"

All that evening, and all the next morning, Diana's spirits continued to fizz. She might possibly have worked them off out-of-doors, but the British climate was against her; once more the fells were swathed in their familiar garments of mist, and the rain came pitter-pattering down on the roof of Pendlemere Abbey, and falling from the eaves in a monotonous drip, drip, drip. It was drawing afternoon, and promptly at half-past two intermediates and juniors would be due in the studio to go on with the various copies and models on which they were engaged. It was now shortly after two o'clock, and the school was amusing itself for the half-hour between meal-time and lessons. During that brief interval Diana, so to speak, "popped her cork".

"Hallo, America! You're looking rather weedy, standing on one leg like a marabou stork!" quizzed Sadie. "What's the matter with you?"

"Your beastly, abominable British climate!" retorted Diana. "It goes on rain, rain, raining till I'm fed up. I want to get away somewhere, and see something different from just school. I wasn't born for a convent!"

"I should think not!" chuckled Vi.

"But I'm in one, and I'm tired of it! I'm tired of you all! Yes, I mean what I say!"

"Draw it mild, Stars and Stripes!" warned Sadie.

"I don't care! School's dull, and I'm bored stiff. I'll wake things up somehow; see if I don't!"

"What'll you do, old sport?"

"Ah! _Just wait and see!_" nodded Diana, putting down the foot that had been twisted round her leg, and stamping to get rid of the pins and needles that followed her cramped position. "It's just possible I may turn philanthropist, and give you all a d.i.n.ky little surprise," she added casually, as she strolled towards the door.

The studio was a large room on the upper story, with the orthodox north windows and top-light, in the shape of a skylight. It was fitted with desks and easels, and round its walls was a row of casts on pedestals.

The girls liked drawing afternoon well enough, but they were not in any particular hurry to go upstairs and take out boards and pencils. It was not until twenty-five minutes past two that Wendy, Vi, Sadie, and Peggy came leisurely along the top landing. They opened the door of the studio in quite an every-day manner, and walked in. Then they all four stared and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:

"O-o-o-oh!"

"Jehosh-a-phat!"

"I say!"

"Good night!"

They might well exclaim, for a very startling and unantic.i.p.ated spectacle greeted them. The cla.s.sic heads of the casts had lost their dignity. Apollo wore a tam-o'-shanter c.o.c.ked rakishly over his left ear; Clytie had on a motor veil; Juno and Ceres were fas.h.i.+onably arrayed in straw hats; a wreath of twisted paper encircled the intellectual brow of Minerva; Psyche peered through spectacles; Perseus was decked with a turban; and, worst of all, the beautiful upper lip of Venus sported a moustache. Armed with a pointer stood Diana, ready, like Mrs. Jarley of the famous waxworks, to act show-woman.

"Walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen!" she began glibly. "This isn't funny at all, it's calm and cla.s.sical. Greek art up-to-date is what I call it. If Apollo had lived in this British climate I guess he'd have needed a tammy to keep his hair in curl; and Psyche must have been short-sighted when she blundered about hunting for Cupid; she'd have found him in a decent pair of spectacles, poor girl! Clytie suffered from earache, and couldn't motor without a veil; as for Venus, it's giving her the vote that's forced a moustache; she's sent for a safety-razor, but it hasn't arrived yet."

More girls had come in during Diana's explanation, and they wandered round the room in explosions of laughter.

"Why has Perseus got a turban on?" demanded Tattie.

"Because his hair grew thin on the top, and even Tatcho didn't fetch up another crop of curls, and Andromeda so objected to seeing him bald that there was nothing for it but to turn Moslem and wear a turban. He did it in self-defence, because she threatened to buy him a dark wig, and he said it would make him look like a Jew."

"That's _my_ hat!" objected Vi, pointing to the straw that decorated Juno.

"Excuse me--hers! The lady's gone on the land, working like a n.i.g.g.e.r digging the ground for the potato crop. You see, Jupiter hasn't got demobilized yet, and----"

The flower of Diana's eloquence suddenly withered and dried up as if electrocuted. In the doorway, above the heads of the giggling girls, appeared a vision in pince-nez--an avenging vision that pa.s.sed rapidly through the several stages of amazement, consternation, and wrath.

"Di-ana _Hew_litt!" snapped Miss Hampson. "Go down and report yourself _instantly_ to Miss Todd. This is simply disgraceful! Girls, take your seats! Tattie and Vi, help to remove those--those----" The irate mistress paused for a word, but, failing to find one adequate to the occasion, began instead, her fingers trembling with indignation, to strip the turban from the cla.s.sic head of Perseus.

Dead, awful silence reigned in the room. Not a girl dared to giggle; a few began nervously to sharpen pencils, but most sat and stared while the casts were denuded of their trappings. Miss Hampson removed the moustache from Venus as if she were apologizing to that deity for sacrilege, and, with her own handkerchief, wiped away from the lovely lip the seccotine which had attached the masculine appendage to the Queen of Beauty. She rolled up the hats in the towel which had served as turban, set her pupils to work at their copies, then marched sternly downstairs to lay the full enormity of the case before the justly-shocked ears of Miss Todd. n.o.body ever heard exactly what happened in the interview; no coaxing or persuasion would induce Diana to disclose details even to Wendy or Loveday, but it was generally understood in the school that Miss Todd had "spoken her mind". One result loomed large, and that was the punishment. It was absolutely unique. Perhaps the Princ.i.p.al was tired of giving poetry to learn or lines to write, and considered that confinement to bounds was not very good for a girl's health, so she devised something else to act as a discipline. For a week Diana was condemned not to wear evening-dress. It was a far greater trial than it sounds. Each night before supper the school changed into pretty frocks, and, when the meal was over, spent a pleasant hour together at recreation. With everybody else in festive attire, it was terrible for Diana to be obliged to come downstairs in her serge skirt and jersey, the one Cinderella of the party. Most especially trying was it on Sat.u.r.day, when chairs and tables were pushed back in the dining-room, and dancing was the order of the evening. Poor Diana, in her thick morning-shoes, stood forlornly in a corner, refusing all offers of partners, but watching wistfully as the others whirled by.

Miss Hampson, whose wrath was of the short, explosive kind that quickly turns to softness of heart, was understood to murmur something to Miss Todd about the impossibility of waltzing in anything but dancing-slippers; but the Princ.i.p.al's mouth was set firm, and she would not remit the least atom of the sentence till it was paid to the uttermost farthing.

If Diana looked wistful, she nevertheless bore her punishment with dignity. She was a girl of spirit, and she did not mean to betray, even by the blink of an eyelid, how much she cared. Geraldine, Hilary, and Ida had rubbed in her ostracism, and certain impudent juniors had enjoyed themselves with witticisms at her expense. To these she must preserve an att.i.tude of sang-froid. But up in the ivy room, when she went to bed, the mask fell off. The Diana that cuddled in Loveday's arms was a very different Diana from the don't-care young person of downstairs. Loveday--who understood her now--consoled and kissed where a term ago she would have scolded. There are some dispositions that can only be managed by kisses.

"It wasn't as if I'd taken a hammer and smashed the wretched old casts!"

sobbed Diana. "I really didn't do them any damage; even the seccotine was easily sponged off Venus. But Miss Todd talked and talked as if I'd done something irreligious in church. I'd never do that, you know! Would I, now? She said I had 'an irreverent mind'. I don't believe she'll ever _quite_ forgive me. And oh, Hilary has been so nasty! Thank goodness, dancing evening's done with! I've only Monday and Tuesday nights to go through now, then the whole wretched week will be over. I suppose I'm to be allowed to wear my Sunday clothes to-morrow? If I mayn't, I'll sham ill and stop in bed. I won't go to church in my brown coat and tammy, and have Mr. Fleming and everybody staring at me. I just _couldn't_! I'd die!"

"It's all right about that--don't you worry! I asked Miss Hampson, and she said: 'Certainly, Sunday clothes'. I'll speak to Hilary, and try to get her to leave you alone. As for those kids, just leave them to me; I'll tackle them, and tell them what I think of the way they behaved to-night--the young wretches! I fancy I'll make them squirm!"

"You mascot! Miss Todd says I've been utterly and entirely spoilt. Do _you_ think I have?"

Loveday took the piquant little face between her two hands and looked a moment into the upturned grey eyes.

"Yes," she decided. "You're undoubtedly a spoilt darling--but you're a darling all the same," she added softly under her breath.

CHAPTER XIII

Crusoe Island

When the days grew a little finer, and it was possible to venture out of doors without being almost drowned, Miss Chadwick began to put the "Principles of Agriculture" into practical application. All through the winter she and her a.s.sistants--Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod--had worked in all weathers looking after the poultry, the pony, and the new greenhouse, but it was only at rare intervals that it had been possible for the school to turn out and do digging in the garden. The "Land Cla.s.ses" had, however, been studying the scientific side of the matter.

They had a.n.a.lysed soils, estimated the rainfall, and examined the germination of seeds; they understood such mysterious terms as bacteria, protozoa, cotyledons, trenching and ridging, cross-fertilization and spermatozoids, and had some elementary acquaintance with the theory of the rotation of crops. They felt like full-fledged farmers when Miss Chadwick wrote on the black-board such questions as:--

"How far apart should different kinds of orchard trees be planted to ensure enough sunlight?"

"Explain a method of testing seeds."

"What effect has transplanting on a seedling?"

"Describe the difference in structure between a corn-stem and a rose-stem. Make a cross-section drawing of each."

They tried experiments, such as planting in a box six beans with the scarred ends down, and six with the scarred ends up, and noted the results from day to day; they placed blotting-paper between two panes of gla.s.s, with seeds next to the gla.s.s, put the apparatus in water, and demonstrated the growth of roots; they started one plant in the dark, and another in a light place, grew identical peas in moist cotton or saw-dust, broke the seed leaves from specimen beans to observe what happened, and compared the results of distilled water and tap water as nourishment.

Everybody agreed, however, that it was much more interesting to put on their land costumes and work out-of-doors. Miss Chadwick, whose methods were on the newest lines, taught rhythmic digging, which is far less fatiguing than anyhow exertions, and was very particular about the position of the body and the action of the spade. Miss Todd, looking on with huge satisfaction, felt that she was cultivating girls as well as vegetables, and that her educational experiment promised elements of success. Certain special pupils were allowed to help to attend to the poultry--a coveted honour as soon as the fluffy chickens and ducklings began to be hatched; others were being trained to understand bee-keeping; it was rumoured in the school that Miss Todd's ambition even soared so high as buying a cow.

"Where would she keep it, though?" asked Tattie, who was practical.