For the Sake of the School (24 page)

By three o'clock the school was in a flutter of expectation.

"Do I look--decent?" asked Rona anxiously, taking a last nervous peep at her toilet in the wardrobe mirror.

"Decent!" exclaimed Ulyth. "You're for all the world like a Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait. I'd like to frame you, just as you are, and hang you on the wall."

"You wouldn't feel ashamed of me if--if you happened to be my relation? I've improved a little since I came here, haven't I? I was a wild sort of goose-girl when I arrived, I know."

"The goose-girl is a Princess to-day," said her room-mate exultantly.

Ulyth thought Rona had never looked so sweet. The pretty white dress trimmed with pale blue edgings suited her exactly, and set off her lovely colouring and rich ruddy-brown hair. Her eyes shone like diamonds, and the mingled excitement and shyness in her face gave a peculiar charm to her expression.

"She's far and away the prettiest girl in the school," reflected Ulyth. "If there were a beauty prize, she'd win it."

Everybody was waiting in the garden when the guests arrived. The scene soon became gay and animated. There were delighted welcomings of parents, enthusiastic meetings between old school chums, and a hearty greeting to all visitors. Mrs. Stanton and Oswald had driven in a taxi from Elwyn Bay, and were received with rapture by Ulyth.

"Motherkins! Oh, how lovely to see you again! I must have you all to myself for just a minute or two before I share you with anybody--even Rona!"

"Is that Rona over there?" asked Oswald, gazing half amazed at the friend who seemed to have added a new dignity to her manner as well as inches to her stature since Christmas-tide.

"Yes, go and fetch her to speak to Motherkins."

"I hardly like to. She looks so stately and grown-up now."

"What nonsense! Ossie, you can't be shy all of a sudden. What's come over you, you silly boy? There, I'll beckon to Rona. Ah, she sees us, and she's coming! No, I'm afraid she can't sit next to us at the concert, because she's one of the performers, and will have to be in the front row."

The ceremonies were to take place in the hall, after which tea would be served to the company out-of-doors.

"Lord Glyncraig is to act as chairman," whispered Addie. "Stephie is so fearfully excited. She means to go and speak to him and Lady Glyncraig afterwards. I hope to goodness they won't have forgotten her. She'd be so woefully humiliated. She wants us all to see that she knows them. She's been just living for this afternoon, I believe."

Rona, her hands tightly clasped, watched the tall figure mount the platform. Lord Glyncraig, with his clear-cut features, iron-grey hair, and commanding air, looked a born leader of men, and well fitted to take his share in swaying a nation's destiny. She could picture him a power in Parliament. It was good of him to come this afternoon to speak at a girls' school. Lady Glyncraig, handsome, well-dressed, and aristocratic, sat in the post of honour next to Miss Bowes. Rona noticed her gracious reception of the beautiful bouquet handed to her by Catherine, and sighed as she looked.

There were no prizes at The Woodlands this year, for the girls had asked to devote the money to the Orphanage; but the examination lists and the annual report were read, and some pleasant comments made upon the scope of the Old Girls' Union. Lord Glyncraig had a happy gift of speech, and could adapt his remarks to the occasion. Everybody felt that he had said exactly the right things, and Principals, mistresses, parents, and pupils past or present were wreathed in smiles. These opening ceremonies did not take very long, and the concert followed immediately.

Marjorie's Prelude, Evie's Nocturne, Stephanie's Mazurka, and Gertie's recitation all went off without a hitch, and received their due reward of appreciation. It was now Rona's turn. For a moment she grew pale as she mounted the platform, then the coral flushed back into her cheeks. She had no time to think of the audience. Miss Ledbury was already playing the opening bars:

"Come out, come out, my dearest dear! Come out and greet the sun!"

Mellow and tuneful as a blackbird's, Rona's clear rich young voice rang out, so fresh, so joyous, so natural, so full of the very spirit of maying and the glory of summer's return, that the visitors listened as one hearkens to the notes of a bird that is pouring forth its heart from a tree-top in the orchard. There was no mistake about the applause. Guests and girls clapped their hardest. Rona, all unwilling, was recalled, and made to sing an encore, and as she left the platform everybody felt that she had scored the triumph of the occasion.

"Glad the juniors weren't excluded. It's a knock-down for Steph," whispered Addie.

"Trust Miss Ledbury not to leave out Rona. She'll be our champion soloist now," returned Christine.

The rest of the little programme was soon finished, and the audience adjourned to the garden for tea. Stephanie, with a tray of raspberries and cream, came smilingly up to Lord and Lady Glyncraig, and, introducing herself, reminded them of the delightful visit she had paid to Plas Cafn. If they had really forgotten her, they had the good manners not to reveal the fact, and spoke to her kindly and pleasantly.

"By the by," said Lord Glyncraig, "where is your schoolfellow who sang so well just now? I don't see her on the lawn."

"Rona Mitchell? I suppose she is somewhere about," replied Stephanie casually.

"Do you happen to know if she comes from New Zealand?"

"Yes, she does."

"I wonder if you could find her and bring her here? I should like very much to speak to her."

Stephanie could not refuse, though her errand was uncongenial. She could not imagine why an ex-Cabinet Minister should concern himself with a girl from the backwoods.

"Lord Glyncraig wants you; so hurry up, and don't keep him waiting," was the message she delivered, not too politely.

Rona blushed furiously. She appeared on the very point of declining to obey the summons.

"Go, dear," said Mrs. Stanton quietly. "Perhaps he wishes to congratulate you on the success of your song. Yes, Rona, go. It would be most ungracious to refuse."

With a face in which shyness, nervousness, pride, and defiance strove for the mastery, Rona approached Lord Glyncraig. He held out his hand to her.

"Won't you bury the hatchet, and let us be friends at last, Rona?" he said. "I'm proud of my granddaughter to-day. You're a true chip of the old block, a Mitchell to your finger-tips--and" (in a lower tone) "with your mother's voice thrown into the bargain. Blood is thicker than water, child, and it's time now for bygones to become bygones. I shall write to your father to-night, and set things straight."

* * * * *

"How is it that you've actually been a whole year at The Woodlands and never let anybody have the least hint that Lord Glyncraig is your grandfather? Don't you know what an enormous difference it would have made to your position in the school? Stephie is quite hysterical about it. Why was it such a dead secret?" asked Ulyth of her room-mate, as they took off their party dresses, when the guests had gone.

"It's rather a long story," replied Rona, sitting down on her bed. "In the first place, I dare say you've guessed that Dad was the prodigal of the family. He never did anything very bad, poor dear, but he was packed off to the colonies in disgrace, and told that he might stay there. At Melbourne he met a lovely opera singer, who was on tour in Australia, and married her. That made my grandfather more angry than anything else he had done. I'm not ashamed of my mother. She was very clever, and sang like an angel, I'm told, though I can't remember her. When she died, Dad went to New Zealand and started farming. Mrs. Barker was hardly an ideal person to bring me up, but she was the only woman we could get to stop in such an out-of-the-way place. I must have been an awful specimen of a child; I don't like to remember what things I did then. When I was about ten, Father went away for a few weeks to the North Island, and while he was gone, Mrs. Barker went off in the gig to have a day's shopping at the nearest store. She left me alone in the house. I wasn't frightened, for I was quite accustomed to it. No one but a chance neighbour ever came near. Yet that day was just the exception that proves the rule. Early in the afternoon a grand travelling motor drove up, and a lady and gentleman knocked at the door, and enquired for Dad. I was a little wild rough thing then, and I was simply scared to death at the sight of strangers. I told them Dad was away. Then they asked if they might come in, and the gentleman said he was my grandfather, and the lady was his new wife, so that she was my step-grandmother. Now Mrs. Barker had always rubbed it in to me that if I was left alone I must on no account admit strangers. That was the only thing I could think of. I was in a panic, and I slammed the door on them and bolted it, and then ran to the window and pulled faces, hoping to make them go away. They stood for a minute or two quite aghast, trying to get me to listen to reason through the window, but I only grew more and more frightened, and called them all the ugly names I could.

"'It's no use attempting to tame such a young savage,' said the lady at last. Then they got into their car again and drove away.

"By the time Mrs. Barker arrived I was ashamed of myself, so I said nothing about my adventure, and I never dared to tell Dad a word of it. I suppose his father had come to hunt him up; but he was evidently discouraged at the reception he had received at the farm, and went back to England without making another attempt at a meeting. I don't believe he and Dad ever wrote to each other from year's end to year's end. I tried to forget this, but it stuck in my memory all the same. Time went by, my friendship with you began, and it was decided that I should be sent to The Woodlands. I knew my grandfather lived at Plas Cafn, for Dad had told me about his old home, but I did not know it was so near to the school. You ask why I did not tell the girls that I was related to Lord Glyncraig? There were several reasons. In the first place, I was really very much ashamed of my behaviour the day he had come to our farm. I thought he had cast us off completely, and would not be at all pleased to own me as granddaughter. I would not confess it to any of you, but I felt so rough and uncouth when I compared myself with other girls that I did not want Lord Glyncraig to see me, or to know that I was in the neighbourhood. Perhaps some day, so I thought, I might grow more like you, if I tried hard, and then it would be time enough to tell him of my whereabouts. Then, because he had disowned us, I felt much too proud to boast about the relationship at school. If you could not like me for myself, I wouldn't make a bid for popularity on the cheap basis of being his granddaughter. I'm a democrat at heart, and I think people ought to be valued on their own merits entirely. I'd rather be an outsider than shine with a reflected glory."

"You'll be popular now," said Ulyth. "Are you to spend the holidays at Plas Cafn?"

"Yes. Miss Bowes says I must, though I'd far rather have accepted your invitation. Lady Glyncraig was very kind and sweet; she kissed me and said she hoped so much that we should be friends. They have promised to ask Dad to come over for next Christmas and have a big family reunion."

"You won't let them take you away from The Woodlands? We don't want to lose you, dear. You must stay here now--for the sake of the school."

"For my own sake!" cried Rona, flinging her arms round her friend. "Ulyth, I owe everything in the world to you. I understand now how good it was of you to take me into your room and teach me. I was a veritable cuckoo in your nest then, a horrid, tiresome, trespassing bird, a savage, a bear cub, a 'backwoods gawk' as the girls called me. It's entirely thanks to you if at last I'm----"

"The sweetest Prairie Rose that ever came out of the wilderness!" finished Ulyth warmly.

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