A Fortunate Term Read online

  A FORTUNATE TERM

  * * * * *

  By ANGELA BRAZIL

  "Angela Brazil has proved her undoubted talent for writing a story ofschoolgirls for other schoolgirls to read."--Bookman.

  Loyal to the School. A Fortunate Term. A Popular Schoolgirl. The Princess of the School. A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl. The Head Girl at the Gables. A Patriotic Schoolgirl. For the School Colours. The Madcap of the School. The Luckiest Girl in the School. The Jolliest Term on Record. The Girls of St. Cyprian's. The Youngest Girl in the Fifth. The New Girl at St. Chad's. For the Sake of the School. The School by the Sea. The Leader of the Lower School. A Pair of Schoolgirls. A Fourth Form Friendship. The Manor House School. The Nicest Girl in the School. The Third Class at Miss Kaye's. The Fortunes of Philippa.

  LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.

  * * * * *

  SHE FOUND TOM IN THE GREENHOUSE _Page 44_]

  A FORTUNATE TERM

  by

  ANGELA BRAZIL

  Illustrated by Treyer Evans

  Blackie and Son LimitedLondon Glasgow And Bombay

  Contents

  CHAP. Page

  I. MAVIS AND MERLE 9

  II. "THE MOORINGS" 22

  III. THE SCHOOL FAVOURITE 34

  IV. RED DEVON BY THE SEA 48

  V. FAIR MAIDS OF FEBRUARY 61

  VI. A CHILD OF MISFORTUNE 75

  VII. THE INNOVATORS 86

  VIII. THE WARREN 103

  IX. A QUESTION OF HONOUR 117

  X. AMONG THE BOARDERS 127

  XI. ROUND THE FIRE 141

  XII. PIXIE-LED 152

  XIII. BLACKTHORN BOWER 167

  XIV. NICKY NAN NIGHT 181

  XV. THE SQUATTERS 193

  XVI. TROTMAN'S CIRCUS 209

  XVII. THE SICK CLOWN 223

  XVIII. GREEK MEETS GREEK 240

  XIX. AT HALF-MAST 255

  XX. A CONFESSION 266

  XXI. THE FLORAL FESTIVAL 278

  Illustrations

  Facing Page

  SHE FOUND TOM IN THE GREENHOUSE _Frontispiece_

  BOTH MAVIS AND MERLE LET THEMSELVES GO 88

  IT CERTAINLY WAS A MOST ALARMING SPECTACLE 136

  "HERE WE ARE AT CROSS NUMBER TWO" 160

  "YOU KNOW CHAGMOUTH?" HE WHISPERED 232

  SHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A BROWN-PAPER PARCEL 272

  A FORTUNATE TERM

  CHAPTER I

  Mavis and Merle

  There had never been a week of worse weather, even for Whinburn, andthat was saying something! Mavis, sitting up in bed with adressing-jacket and two shawls round her and three comfortable pillowstucked at her back, could just see out of the window if she craned herneck a little. The prospect which greeted her was anything butpleasing--a wilderness of roofs covered with dirty snow, and a row offactory chimneys belching forth grimy smoke against a leaden sky. Fromthe street came the noise of tram-cars and tramping feet; a motor-lorry,thundering by, shook the house like an earthquake. Mavis, in the blessedlull between two storms of coughing, turned her eyes resolutely from theforlorn view of the outside world to the cheery interior of the bedroom,with its glowing fire, its bookcase full of attractive volumes, and itswalls so covered with framed prints, photos, and picture postcards thatthere hardly seemed a vacant inch of space left. Directly facing her,and in the place of honour, was a water-colour representing a landscapewith a peep of the sea beyond. The trees in the painting were bare, butthe undergrowth was green, and a patch of gorse blazed in theforeground, a rift of light from the sky gleamed on the waters of astream, and the figure of a little girl was stooping to gather ferns.Mavis gazed at the picture for some time in silent contemplation, then:

  "Muvvie, dear," she said suddenly, "I think you must have made a mistakewhen you told me you painted that in December."

  Mrs. Ramsay, sitting with the mending-basket near the fire, snicked apiece of wool and put down the scissors.

  "It's perfectly true, Madam Doubtful. Your mother doesn't tell fiblets.I sketched that in Devonshire the year before I was married. It was amilder winter even than usual, and I remember the gorse was in blossomat Christmas, and the laurustinus coming out in the gardens. I paintedexactly what I saw, and no more. Can't you believe me?"

  "Ye-e-s! But it's wonderful all the same. We don't get winters like thathere in the north. When I look at the snow and the chimneys, and then atthe picture, it's like peeping through another window into a differentworld. I only wish----"

  But a severe gust of coughing interrupted Mavis's reflections, and whenit was over she lay back, very quiet and white and exhausted, upon herthree pillows.

  Mrs. Ramsay, mixing a poultice by the fire, sighed as she stirredlinseed meal into boiling water.

  "It's most unlucky you've started with one of your bad attacks ofbronchitis before Christmas. How am I going to get you through thewinter, child, if you've begun to take cold already? I'd like to wrapyou in cotton-wool and pack you away in a box to sleep like a dormousetill the warm weather woke you up! Whinburn certainly doesn't suit you.It may be bracing, but people with delicate chests can be too much'braced' sometimes. Is the poultice too hot? Be a brave girl! Remember,Father said 'the hotter the better!' Bear it as long as you can. Why,there's the bell! Is it Merle home already? Surely she's early to-day?"

  Mavis, protesting against the poultice, looked up eagerly as stampingfeet resounded on the stairs, and her sister, with coat and hat lightlypowdered with new-fallen snow, burst into the room.

  "Hello, Mavis! You've got the best place, in bed! It's detestable outto-day. The wind's like a knife, and it's beginning to snow again. Oh,it was cold at school! My fingers were simply frozen. The end of MissDonald's nose was quite blue, and her temper was bluer. She snapped myhead off when I asked her a question. We played tig in the gym at'break', though, and got warm, but Gertie upset the coal-box and madesuch a mess, and Miss Greene scolded ever so, and said we were tramplingcoal-dust into the floor, and it would have to be washed again beforedancing lesson. It wasn't really Gertie's fault; Joan pushed her. I metthe postman outside, Mumsie. He gave me this parcel. It's for you.You're always the lucker! I wish it was mine."

  "We'll all share it together," said Mrs. Ramsay, taking the package toMavis's bed and snipping the string with her scissors. "It has theDurracombe postmark, and it's Aunt Nellie's writing, and I think Ishan't be very far wrong if I guess flowers."

  The contents of the box were soon spread forth on the invalid'scounterpane. They were an amazing display, for it seemed as if theseasons had overlapped, and late autumn had joined hands with earlyspring. There were yellow rosebuds, and passion flowers, and a fewmontbretias, and some Michaelmas daisies, a big bunch of purple violets,some primroses, polyanthuses, a pansy or two, blossoming ivy, littlepink double daisies, and beautiful sprays of the yellow jessamine. Mavisfingered them delicately as if they were priceless treasures. The colourhad flooded into her cheeks and her eyes shone like stars.

  "Muvvie! Surely they come from a greenhouse?" she asked. "They _can't_be growing out-of-doors _now_."

  "Indeed they
can! You don't know Durracombe. The flowers go bloomingalong all the winter--if you can call it winter down there. I told youit was a different climate from Whinburn. Oh, how sweet they smell! Iremember just the exact spot in the dear old garden where these violetsgrow."

  Mavis looked out of the window, where the now fast-whirling snow washiding the smoke of the factory chimneys, then looked back to the pure,clean, delicate blossoms that lay on her lap.

  "It's like a fairy tale!" she murmured. "Think of picking them inDecember! Muvvie, if I could go and stay at the place where theseflowers grow I should get well."

  "I verily believe you would," said Mrs. Ramsay thoughtfully, as shefetched vases and began to place the drooping violets in warm water.

  Mavis, at the time our story begins, was fifteen and a half, and exactlyfourteen months older than Merle. It is necessary to state her age,because people always forgot it, and set her down as the younger of thetwo. Everybody, friends and strangers alike, gave precedence to Merle,the taller, stronger, more confident, and more dominating individuality.Mavis was an ethereal little person, who might be described as a spiritvery lightly embodied in flesh. With Merle soul and body were balanced,with a bias towards the latter--on the whole she was of the earth,earthy. There was a sufficient likeness between the sisters to suggestthat nature had reproduced an identical type in different mediums. Shehad painted the first delicately in water-colours, then had copied thesame model more strongly in oils. Which picture you preferred was amatter of taste.

  Fortunately there was a complete understanding between the girls. Theirparticular faults and virtues seemed to dovetail into one anotherwithout friction, and they were excellent chums, a useful factor atschool, where Mavis often needed a defender, and Merle was constantlyrequiring the services of someone to help to pull her out of hernumerous scrapes.

  Dr. Ramsay lived at the north-country manufacturing town of Whinburn, aprosperous but bleak corner of the kingdom, where smoke had stunted thetrees and soiled the herbage, where flowers were scarce and bloomedlate, and winter stretched its icy fingers well into autumn and spring.The house, like most doctors' houses, was on the main high road, andpart of the garden behind had been turned into a garage, so there wasvery little room for the bed of bulbs and the perennial border uponwhich Mavis concentrated most of her outdoor energies. She toiled hardto have a floral display in the summer months, but it was dishearteningwork, for the frost always killed her wallflowers, and only the hardiestof plants would consent to make a sulky struggle against the smokyatmosphere that seemed to blight the very heart of vegetation and turnthe choicest bedding varieties into sickly specimens. Merle, less deeplywedded to nature, had long given up gardening as a bad job, and hadhanded over her patch of unkindly northern soil to her sister. She wasmore interested in the car: she liked to watch the chauffeur clean it,and the high-water mark of her bliss came on the days when, on a quietroad and with no policeman within sight, her father would allow her fora brief space to assume command of the driving-wheel.

  "I'll be your chauffeur, Dad, when I'm old enough to leave school," shewould assure him airily. "I _do_ think you might get me a drivinglicence now! Too young? What nonsense! We've no need to tell theGovernment I'm only fourteen. I'd soon drive as well as Greenhalgh ifyou'd let me try. I'm not afraid of anything."

  "I dare say not, but think of _my_ feelings with a harum-scarum like youat the helm!" her father would reply. "You'd soon collide with a lorry,or land us in the ditch. I'll stick to Greenhalgh, thank you. He doesn'twant to run at forty miles an hour."

  "I'll take proper motoring lessons when I've left school," Merle woulddeclare, "then I'll be ready to drive any car in the UnitedKingdom--that's to say, if I haven't made up my mind to be a ladydetective."

  Mavis, who was in bed when our story begins, weathered her Decemberattack of bronchitis and came downstairs in time for Christmas Day, butwith such white roses in her cheeks that her father looked at heranxiously, and called Mother into the consulting-room for a privateconfabulation, the result of which was a long private letter addressedDr. Tremayne, Durracombe, Devonshire, which was posted without thegirls' knowledge. Several other letters followed, and the briskcorrespondence had just reached a satisfactory conclusion on a certainJanuary day when Mavis, with a shawl round her shoulders, was peeringout of the window at the flying snowflakes.

  "Watching the feathers from Mother Carey's chickens, bairns?" said Mrs.Ramsay. "I'm afraid it's going to be a wild night. The wind's rising. Ilike the snow when it's newly fallen, but it gets dirty directly inWhinburn."

  "And I don't like snow at all, Muvvie," replied Mavis. "We were buildingcastles in the air just now, and mine was to live in a lovely wood whereit was never really winter."

  "My castle was to be a chauffeur or a lady detective!" laughed Merle."Perhaps both! It would be great sport to go dashing about the countryin a car, unravelling mysteries and catching jewel thieves. Will youcome with me, Mavis?"

  Mavis shook her head.

  "I've told you I'm going to live in a house with an enormous garden, anda wood where I can watch the birds. I'd rather track tomtits than jewelthieves. You shall come and stay with me when you're tired of chasingyour burglars. It will be fine and warm in my wood, with no slushy snow_ever_, or yellow fog, only lovely flowers and ferns the whole yearround, and I shall go out without being eternally wrapped up. That's mycastle in the air!"

  "Don't you wish you may get it, that's all! It sounds like El Dorado.Oh, I'll come and stay with you right enough when you find such afairyland. Woods like that don't grow near Whinburn. Look at the skynow! It's actually trying to snow again!"

  "It won't snow in my _wood_!"

  "And I say such woods don't exist except in your imagination," declaredMerle emphatically.

  "Not quite the fairy land Mavis pictures, but there's a very goodapproach to them in Devonshire," said Mrs. Ramsay. "I've something Iwant to tell you chicks. How would you like to go to Durracombe and staywith Uncle David and Aunt Nellie? Don't look so incredulous! It's reallytrue. We've arranged to send you for three months, and I'm to take youdown there next week."

  This was news indeed, such news that at first the girls were hardlyable to believe it. They had never been in Devonshire, and had not seentheir mother's uncle, Dr. Tremayne. Their father, Dr. Ramsay, busy withhis own professional work, had little time to spare for visiting, andwhen he snatched a holiday the family had generally gone to Scotland, orto some east-coast seaside resort. He was fond of the north, which has acharm all its own, but his wife was a Devon woman, who could not forgetthe county of her birth. She had told her children stories of itsbeauties, its mild air, its early flowers, its legends of pixies, itssmugglers' coves and blue stretches of sea, its moors and dancingbrooks, till they had come to look upon it as a sort of Elfland, afairy-tale country that had no more real existence than the kingdom atthe top of Jack's beanstalk. Uncle David and Aunt Nellie, too, thoughfamiliar household names, were entities as unsubstantial as charactersin a book. To go and stay with them at Durracombe seemed as amazing as avisit to Robinson Crusoe's island or a sojourn with Robert LouisStevenson in the South Seas. When their minds were adjusted to the newidea they demanded details.

  "Three months! We shall miss school for a whole term. Oh, Mummie, whatfun! Shall we find cowslips in the fields? And can we go paddling in thebrook? It sounds gorgeous!"

  "You certainly won't find cowslips in January. Don't expectimpossibilities. And as for paddling, I forbid anything of the sortbefore Easter. Don't congratulate yourselves that you're going to have aterm's holiday. There's a very nice little day school in Durracombe,kept by the late vicar's daughters, only ten minutes' walk from UncleDavid's house. Don't pull faces! Of course you must go to school, andyou'll probably like it. How long can I stay? About a week. I shall takeyou there and see you settled, then I must fly back to Father, for he'snot accustomed to doing without the whole of his family. I wish he couldhave come with us, but it's quite impossible for him to leave hispatients a
t present. If you catch another cold, Mavis, before we goaway, I shall be really cross with you. We hope Devonshire air will worka cure and stop these perpetual bouts of bronchitis. As for you, Merle,there's really no reason for sending _you_, except----"

  "Except that my little sister couldn't and wouldn't and shouldn't gowithout me. We're practically twins, and we're no more use apart thanthe two blades of a pair of scissors. Oh yes, Mummie darling, we'll bepatterns of virtue. Don't worry about us. We'll cheer up Aunt Nellie andamuse Uncle David, and wake the new school up too, I dare say. Don'tlook horrified, sweetest, I'm half joking. Mavis is such an angel-girlshe needs me to drag her down a little or she'd just go floating off toheaven like a balloon, and never find her way back. I act earthlyballast for her, and keep her anchored to this world. She'd neverremember her tonic if I didn't remind her. I'll keep an eye on her downin Devon, and see that she doesn't sit in draughts or get her feet damp.Trust her twin to look after her. Whenever she wants to do silly thingsI'll scold till I'm hoarse. You don't know how I can croak when I like!"

  "As if I were going to do silly things!" interrupted Mavis indignantly."Really, to hear you talk, anybody'd think you were my grannie insteadof fourteen months younger than I am! I hope this new school will bedecent. We shall miss Janie and Edna."

  "But think of getting rid of Miss Donald for a whole term, and nothaving Miss Hanson to teach us algebra. Oh, what a jubilee! Our deskswill be empty in IVA. Sounds quite pathetic, doesn't it? Sort of twintombstone business."

  "They grew in beauty side by side; They filled one school with glee,"

  laughed Mavis.

  "And now they're going to have some larks In Devon by the sea!"

  finished Merle.

  "Durracombe--Durracombe--Durracombe," repeated Mavis. "Yes, I like thename. It grips me somehow. I feel I can be happy at Durracombe. Ishouldn't want to go to a place called Porkville or Mudbury. There's agreat deal in a name. Mumsie, dear, I wish we were starting to-morrow. Ican't wait. I want to see Durracombe at once."

  "You silly child! And I, who have all your clothes to get ready, amthankful to have at least a week to turn round in. I don't say I'm notlooking forward to seeing Devon again, though. We shall be ever such ajolly trio when we set off in the train, shan't we?"

  "And where do I come in?" asked a mock-lugubrious voice, as Dr. Ramsayjoined the party. "My family appear very anxious to run away from me. Itseems to me I'm to be left out in the cold. Poor Papa! Sitting alone byhis desolate hearth with only the cat for company. My heart bleeds forhim!"

  "Daddy! You naughty boy! You ought to come with us," cried the girls,forcing their father into an elbow chair and seating themselves on thetwo arms, so as to be in position to administer smacking kisses on bothhis cheeks. "You know very well Devon won't be _quite_ Devon withoutyou. We hate to leave you behind. Now, promise us something! Oh, it'sperfectly easy and possible, and we know you can do it. Say yes! You'llbe kissed to death by wild daughters if you don't. It's your only chanceof life! Now or never! There! You've promised to come down to Durracombeat Easter to fetch us home."

  "Have I indeed? Oh, I dare say!"

  "I'll keep him to his bargain," laughed Mother; "but I expect when thetime comes he'll be fussing to start. We're not a family who can bear tobe divided for long, are we?"

  "Rather not!" said Merle, slipping from the arm-chair to pull Motherinto the charmed circle. "You shall come in the car, darlings, and motorus back, and I'll drive whenever there's a smooth bit of road ahead.It's a topping idea."

  "Only your driving doesn't happen to be included in the bargain, youyoung puss! We've some respect for our limbs, and prefer to reach homewith bones unbroken," declared Father, escaping from his tempestuousdaughters to answer the insistent telephone-bell that was ringing loudpeals of agitated warning in the hall.