The Head Girl at the Gables (23 page)

The young people loitered along in no particular hurry, looking out to sea at the vessels, picking flowers or wild strawberries, or even a few early dewberries. As they wound up the path by the coast-guard station they heard voices behind them, and a little party consisting of an officer and two ladies passed them, walking briskly in the direction of the moors. Morland, who had saluted, turned to the girls with an eloquent face.

"It's Blake, our captain," he explained. "I saw him travelling down on Thursday, and I believe he's staying at the 'George'."

"Do you like him?" asked Claudia.

"Like him? If there's one man on the face of the earth whom I abhor it's that fellow! Thinks he's the Shah of Persia and we're dirt under his feet! He's not popular, I can tell you. He makes my blood boil sometimes!"

"He's dropped something," said Lorraine, bending down and picking up a small leather dispatch case that was lying by the side of the pathway. She handed it to Morland.

"Could you run after him and give it to him?" suggested Claudia to her brother.

"I shan't trouble myself. He's gone too far."

"We can leave it at his hotel afterwards then."

"I suppose we can, though if he flings his things about like this he doesn't deserve to have them returned to him, the blighter!" groused Morland, pocketing the case with a frown. "I wish Blake was taking his leave somewhere else. I'd rather not breathe the same air with him!"

"Is it as bad as all that?" asked Claudia.

"Worse!" said Morland gloomily. "But I don't want to talk about him--he's the skeleton at the feast--the crumpled rose-leaf--the snake in the paradise--the anything else you like that spoils my enjoyment!"

"Rather mixed similes," laughed Lorraine. "But never mind! We'll forget him if you like. He certainly didn't look at all attractive in my opinion."

Morland pulled a face and shook a fist in the direction in which his officer had disappeared, then declared himself better and ready to jog along.

They found their special property--the cave--still uninvaded. No visitors had yet happened to come across it. The table and seats and the little cupboard at the end were just exactly as they had left them last time. They collected some driftwood, lighted a fire on the rocks below, and boiled their kettle. It was delightful to have a picnic again in the grotto. As they sat chatting afterwards, Morland pulled from his pocket the leather case which Captain Blake had dropped on the path. He turned it over thoughtfully.

"I've a score or two to settle with the owner of this," he remarked. "I'm not going to let him have it back too easily. I vote we just give him a scare about it. Let him think he's lost it altogether."

"Is it anything important, I wonder?" asked Claudia.

"The more important the better--serve him right for losing it. I say--I'm going to stow it away here in the cupboard. It'll be quite safe, but he won't know that, and I hope he'll be in a jolly state of mind about it. We'll give him a fortnight to get excited in, then you girls can come and fetch it, make it into a parcel, and leave it at the 'George', and ask them to send it on to him at the camp."

"It would really serve him right," sympathised Claudia; "only I don't quite know----"

"I
do
know!" chuckled Morland. "It's the best rag I've ever had the chance of playing on him, and you bet I'll take it."

"Suppose he finds out?" suggested Lorraine.

"He won't find out. How could he? You girls will just leave the parcel at the 'George', and say someone who picked it up had handed it over to you, and will they please forward it to the officer who was staying there. Nothing could be simpler."

"Are those the papers that send Morland to the war?" asked Landry suddenly.

"Don't you worry your head about them," answered Claudia soothingly. "They're nothing to do with you, Landry."

"I don't want Morland to fight!" persisted the boy. "Morland shan't go to the war!"

"I'll be off some day, old sport!" laughed Morland.

"To-morrow?"

"No, no, not to-morrow; but before so very long, I hope."

"Will the Germans shoot at you?"

"You jolly well bet they will!"

"Don't excite him, Morland," interfered Claudia; for when Landry once woke out of his usual stolid calm and began to trouble his poor dull brains with questions, he was apt to get peevish and troublesome. "No, no, Landry dear; Morland is quite safe at present, and we won't let the Germans get him. Take this basket down to the beach and find me some more shells. I want some yellow ones to finish the pattern I was making on the ledge here."

Claudia was an adept at managing Landry, and could keep the boy quiet and change the current of his impulses when others only irritated him. She put a basket in his hand and a yellow shell for a pattern, led him by the arm to the mouth of the grotto, and showed him the spot on the beach where he would be likely to find more. To her relief, he departed quite happily on the errand. She had been afraid he was on the verge of a burst of temper. She turned to her other brother.

"I'd a great deal rather you took that officer's case back to him right at once, Morland!"

But Morland was in a don't-care mood.

"He's not to have it for a fortnight. If I don't leave it in the cupboard here, I shall just chuck it into the sea, so I give you full and fair warning! Be a sport, Claudia! Here's Lorraine ready to see the fun of it. Aren't you, Lorraine?"

Neither of the girls was really quite easy about the propriety of thus hiding the officer's papers, but to please Morland they consented to do as he wished, and to come again in a fortnight to fetch them. After all, it seemed only a sort of practical joke, and, to judge from Morland's accounts, ragging was very much in fashion at his camp, among the Tommies at any rate. So long as Captain Blake did not find out who had kept the leather case there would be no trouble, and they thought he deserved some punishment for his arrogant behaviour towards his men.

It was a concession which they afterwards deeply regretted.

Smugglers' Cove

Morland's leave ended on Sunday night, and by Monday morning both he and his superior officer were back in camp. Claudia came to school in an unusually quiet and depressed frame of mind.

"Yes, I miss Morland," she acknowledged to Lorraine; "but it isn't altogether that. I'm worried about him. Perhaps it's silly of me, but I can't help it. I know I can't expect him to keep a boy always, yet one feels that growing up ought to be growing into something better--not worse. Honestly, between ourselves, I don't think Madame Bertier has a good influence over him. He's always fearfully taken with her, absolutely infatuated. She fascinates him just as she does Vivien and Dorothy and some of the girls at school, and she encourages him in things he'd much better let alone. She was up at Windy Howe on Sunday, and took Morland off for a long walk, although he'd promised to stay at home that last afternoon. They went along the cliffs towards Tangy Point. Don't think I'm jealous, but I really feel angry with her--carrying him away from his family when he'd only a few hours left of his leave!"

"I hope he didn't show her our cave?" asked Lorraine quickly.

"I hope not, but I think it's extremely probable. Oh, yes! I know he promised to keep the secret, but he's beginning to say that our secrets are childish, and not worth keeping. I've several times heard Madame asking him if he knew of any caves along the coast. If she asked persistently enough he'd be sure to tell her. I know Morland!"

"Why is she so keen on caves?"

Claudia shrugged her shoulders.

"There are a great many 'whys' about Madame that I can't answer. She's the sort of woman you read about in a novel. She's bewitched most people at Porthkeverne. I own she's very nice and pleasant, and when I'm with her I even fall under the spell a little, and almost like her, but all the time at the bottom of my heart I don't trust her at all."

Whatever Claudia's private opinion might be of Madame Bertier, that pretty Russian lady was very popular in the artistic and literary circles of the town. She was always ready to pose as model, or to play her violin at concerts or At Homes. She was capital company, had a fine sense of humour, and could keep a whole room full of people amused with her lively chatter. In addition to her engagement at The Gables she had now a number of private pupils in Porthkeverne, and had established quite a connection for lessons in French, Russian, and music. On the subject of her husband she was guarded, but it was generally understood that he was a prisoner in Germany, and that she sent him parcels. Lorraine, with a remembrance of that brief sentence she had overheard at Burlington House, often wondered if that were the case.

Madame's Academy portrait had been considered quite one of the pictures of the year: it had been reproduced in art journals and illustrated papers, and in the opinion of the critics was almost Mr. Castleton's best piece of work. To Lorraine's great joy, "Kilmeny" also came in for a share of notice in the newspaper reviews, and one day a letter arrived at the studio by the harbour, containing a special invitation for the picture to be exhibited at an important provincial art gallery in the autumn. Such invitations are the swallows of an artist's summer of success, and Margaret Lindsay's eyes shone, as she showed Lorraine the official document with the city arms heading the paper.

"You've been my mascot, you see!" she said brightly. "I've tried to get into that particular exhibition time after time, and always had my pictures rejected. And now, just to think that I'm specially invited, and a place of honour kept for my 'Kilmeny'! I feel an inch taller! I must paint you in the sunset again, Lorraine!"

Lorraine, curled up on the window-seat, turning over art magazines, shook her head.

"Don't repeat yourself!" she advised. "Why not paint the dawn instead? It's just as beautiful as sunset--more so, I think, and would give you a different scheme of colour, all opal and pearly pink, instead of golden and brown. Can't you choose some other fairy-tale heroine?"

"Yes--the Dawn Princess! I can see her in imagination, standing at the edge of the waves, with a rosy sky behind her, and trails of sea-weed under her bare feet. I believe it would be a companion picture to 'Kilmeny'! If I can paint it in time, I'll see if the Art Gallery will consent to exhibit the pair. I'm actually getting ambitious. Will you stand as model again?"

"With all the pleasure in life, any time and anywhere you want me! I'm yours to command!"

A good and adequate picture of the dawn was not so easy to paint as a sunset. They were on the west coast, and, in order to get the effect of the sun rising over the sea, it was necessary to be on some promontory where they could look eastwards over a stretch of water. The only headland which answered the required points of the compass was Giant's Tor Point, which jutted out in a curve from the mainland, with the whole of Pendragon Bay between it and the opposite point of the coast. The sandy beach under its shelter had been named "Smugglers' Cove". It was several miles away from Porthkeverne, so unless they could walk there by moonlight, it would be quite impossible to reach it in time to witness from the beach the spectacle of dawn. A moonlight scramble over cliffs and rocks might be highly romantic, but not altogether a safe proceeding, and Margaret Lindsay had a better suggestion to offer.

"We'll take my little bathing-tent, and pitch it on the shore in some sheltered place, and spend the night there. There will be just room for us both to cram in, and with a rug each we should keep quite warm. Then we shall be all ready and prepared for the dawn the moment it comes."

The weather was so warm that there were no objections to camping-out, and Mrs. Forrester quite readily gave permission for the expedition.

"You're such a
sensible
person, Muvvie dear!" gasped Lorraine ecstatically. "Some mothers would have howled at such a plan. I'm sure Aunt Carrie wouldn't have let Vivien go. You always seem to see things just from the same point of view as we do ourselves."

"I know you'll be safe with Margaret Lindsay, or I wouldn't let you stir five yards from my apron strings. I could be a dragon of a mother if the occasion required!" laughed Mrs. Forrester. "So far, happily, you've never wanted to do anything especially outrageous. I can see no harm in your camping-out on the beach just for one night. I should be a very unreasonable person if I objected."

"But then you're Muvvie and nobody else, you see!" said Lorraine, dropping a kiss on the dear brown hair that was just turning grey.

So it came to pass that on the very Tuesday evening after Morland had returned to camp, Margaret Lindsay and Lorraine shouldered bathing-tent, rugs, and picnic-basket, and trudged out to Giant's Tor Point. They arrived there about sunset, and found a quiet, sheltered spot among the rocks, well above high-water mark, where they pitched their tent. There was not a soul in sight: they seemed to have the whole of the headland and the bay entirely to themselves. It was a calm, warm evening, and the waves lapped gently upon the beach. The sand in the spot they had chosen was dry, so they piled up heaps of it for pillows, and laid down their rugs; then, having completed these preparations, opened their baskets and had a picnic supper. The sunset had faded by that time, and a full moon was shining over the bay, glinting on the waves and lighting up the outlines of the crags on the headland. The silence was broken only by the gentle purring of the waves on the pebbles, or the call of some night-bird. The calm stillness was beautiful beyond description: it was like a glimpse into another world where all petty struggles and troubles had faded away. It needed an effort to leave the beautiful moonlight and go to bed inside the tent, but they tore themselves away from it at last, and rolled themselves up in their rugs. It was a long time before either of them slept; the unusual circumstances, their cramped position, and the swish-swash-grind of the waves made them keenly on the alert. Though Lorraine would not have confessed it for worlds, she found the situation a trifle eerie. She thought she heard noises in the distance, and recalled tales of smugglers and wreckers and ghost-haunted coves. She was glad to have Margaret close beside her. There was comfort in the sense of contact with something human. Not till after midnight did she fall into a troubled sleep.