The Manor House School (8 page)

"She hurried indoors at once to fetch the small key that unlocked the boathouse, but as she was returning down the avenue she found she was just too late. There was a tramp of horses' hoofs, and Sir Humphrey Warden came riding up at the head of a band of men.

"'Good even, fair neighbour,' he said. 'I must needs make an inspection of your house, and with your permission I will give myself the honour of supping with you to-night. What brings you hither?'

"'I do but take the air, and pluck a few of these fragrant blossoms,' replied Monica hastily. 'I will presently conduct you to the Manor myself, and entertain you.'

"She was in a desperate strait. How could she manage to save her brother? Now that Sir Humphrey had come, she knew her every movement would be watched. No one could be trusted, for the servants (so she feared) had all been bribed. Gathering a bunch of roses, she contrived unnoticed to slip her little key inside the heart of one of them.

"'I would fain crave the favour of a flower, madam,' said Sir Humphrey, who was an admirer of fair dames, in spite of his Puritan dress.

"'Take your choice, sir,' replied Monica, boldly holding out her bunch. 'Nay, not this red one; it is overblown, and will fall directly. 'Tis but fit to be flung away. This pink hath the sweeter scent, an you will wear it for me.'

"As she spoke she tossed the rose containing the key with apparent carelessness over the hedge to the foot of the box tree where her brother was lying concealed; then, leading her unwelcome guest to the house, she gave orders for his due entertainment.

"Sir Humphrey and his men searched the Manor in vain, but they never thought of looking in the garden, where the fugitive was waiting till the darkness should be black enough to hide him. Sir Piers got safely away to France, and returned in triumph to his estates when Charles II came to his own again. As a remembrance of his wonderful escape, he caused his sister's portrait to be painted, with the bunch of roses in her hand. Ever since the Courtenays have had an almost superstitious reverence for the picture. There is an old saying that it guards the safety and fortunes of the family."

"And what became of Monica?" asked Lindsay, who had been deeply interested in the story.

"She married a cavalier friend of her brother's, and went to live in Devonshire. I believe she kept one of the roses treasured away in a box, and it was buried with her when she died."

"I suppose Monica was christened after her?" said Cicely.

"Yes; that has always been a favourite name with the Courtenays, though I do not think any of them can have more closely resembled the portrait."

"How can the picture guard your fortunes?" enquired Lindsay.

"I don't know. It is one of those quaint ideas that sometimes linger in families. Of course it is only a tale, and I am afraid I have been a long while in telling it. Monica, dear, it is twenty minutes past five. Lindsay and Cicely must hurry back to school at once, if they are to be in time for preparation. We shall get into sad disgrace with Miss Russell if we allow them to be late."

"I think your mother is perfectly sweet," said Lindsay, as Monica walked with them along the road to the Manor gates.

[Illustration: "I KNOW WHAT MONICA WAS GOING TO SAY"]

"She's just everything in the whole world to me," replied Monica. "I wish she were stronger, though. She has been ill for such a long time. The doctor says it would do her good to spend next winter in the south of Italy, but that, I'm afraid, will be quite impossible. She ought to go, it might make all the difference," she continued, almost as if talking to herself; "yet we can't manage it, however much we try, unless, indeed----"

But here she seemed to recollect the presence of her companions, and wishing them a hasty good-bye, she turned back to the cottage.

"I know what Monica was going to say," remarked Cicely, as they walked up the drive.

"She meant her mother would be able to go away if the treasure were found," replied Lindsay. "Oh! it does seem hard, when they need it so badly, that it should be shut up somewhere, and doing no good to anybody at all."

"I think Monica is frightened lest Mrs. Courtenay should grow worse and die, if they have to stay in England for the winter. I don't believe she would enjoy a penny of her fortune if it were to come too late for her to share it with her mother."

Lindsay's Luck

One day, shortly before Whitsuntide, Irene Spencer walked into the third-class schoolroom with a letter in her hand, and a look on her face which proclaimed news of some importance.

"I don't believe any of you will ever guess what I've come to tell you," she announced. "I've heard this morning from my aunt at Linforth Vicarage. She writes asking me to spend a few days there at Whitsuntide (we are to have a short holiday, you know), and she says: 'We have asked Monica Courtenay, and we should be very pleased if Miss Russell would also allow you to bring one of your younger schoolfellows who would prove a nice companion for Rhoda.' My cousin Rhoda is twelve, so I have to pick out one from among you six. Whichever it is will have an uncommonly jolly visit, because we always have glorious times at Linforth."

"How delightful! Oh, do take me!" exclaimed the six in chorus, each enchanted with such a tempting prospect, and anxious to be the chosen favourite.

"I wish I could take you all," replied Irene, "but unfortunately the invitation is only for one. Miss Russell says this will be the best way to arrange it. The girl who is nearest to Rhoda's age must go. Will you each tell me the date of your birthday, and then I shall be able to decide. Rhoda's is on the twentieth of March."

It certainly seemed the fairest way of settling the question, and one against which there could be no appeal.

"Miss Russell is a modern Solomon," declared Cicely. "I'm afraid I haven't the slightest chance, because I'm only eleven and a half, and so is Nora."

"I'm almost thirteen," wailed Beryl. "I wish I were a few months younger. Effie, I shall be horribly jealous if the chance falls to you."

"No such luck! I am a Christmas child," returned Effie. "I believe Marjorie is nearer."

"The twenty-seventh of February. Can anybody do better than that?" asked Marjorie hopefully.

"Mine is the sixth of April," said Lindsay.

"About as much after Rhoda's as Marjorie's is before," said Irene. "We must count it up exactly. Somebody give me a pencil and a piece of paper. Let me see, the twenty-seventh of February to the twentieth of March is twenty-one days, and the twentieth of March to the sixth of April is only seventeen. Then Lindsay is nearer by four days."

"Hurrah!" cried Lindsay, clapping her hands, "I'm glad I wasn't born a week later. How dreadfully sorry I am for you all, especially Marjorie!"

"My aunt says she will send the trap for us on Friday afternoon," continued Irene. "And we are to stay until Tuesday morning, so that will give us three whole days at Linforth. I'm sure you'll like Rhoda, and my other cousins too. There are eight of them altogether. Meta, the eldest, is seventeen; she's going to study music in Germany next September. Ralph and Leonard are fifteen and fourteen; they go to the Appleford Grammar School, and ride there every day on their bicycles. Then comes Rhoda, and there are four little ones. They do lessons with a governess, but perhaps some time Rhoda is to be sent to Winterburn Lodge. Aunt Esther says she shan't treat us as visitors; we must make ourselves at home amongst the others."

The visit seemed an event worth looking forward to, not only on its own account, but because Monica was to be one of the party. Lindsay could hardly believe her good fortune, and rejoiced again and again over the happy date of her birthday. She was in a state of great excitement on the Friday afternoon, when the phaeton arrived with Monica already installed on the front seat. To drive away in such company was indeed a matter for congratulation, and she felt much sympathy for the disconsolate five who were perforce left behind, especially for poor Cicely, who would miss her more than anybody, and whose eyes were full of tears at the parting.

"Never mind," she whispered to the latter, "perhaps it will be your turn next time for something nice. At any rate, I shall have heaps to tell you when I come back."

Linforth Vicarage was a long, rambling stone house, the flagged roof and mullioned windows of which proclaimed it as belonging, equally with the Manor, to a period of the past. It was a delightful, roomy, almost medieval kind of a place, so picturesque, in its old-world fashion, that one could forgive the lowness of the rooms, the narrowness of the passages, the steepness of the stairs, and the inconvenience of the fact that the front door opened directly into the dining-room, and the bedrooms nearly all led into one another. None of these drawbacks seemed to distress the young Greenwoods, who thought their home the nicest spot in the world. They were a particularly jolly, merry, happy-go-lucky family, full of jokes and noise. Rhoda, for whose benefit Lindsay had been invited, received her visitor with enthusiasm.

"I'm so glad Miss Russell let you come!" she said. "You see, Meta will monopolize Irene and Monica, and I should have been left out altogether. I'm delighted to have someone of my own age."

Monica was a great favourite in the household, and held in request by all, from Mr. and Mrs. Greenwood to Cyril, the baby. As Rhoda had prophesied, however, she disappeared after tea with Meta and Irene, the three elder girls evidently wishing to have a chat in private. Rhoda made an effort to secure Lindsay to herself, but the four little ones--Wilfred, Alwyn, Joan, and Cyril--begged so piteously not to be banished from the society of the interesting visitor that in the end she yielded, and allowed them to help to exhibit the various treasures in the garden which she wished to show to her new friend.

The Greenwoods had quite a menagerie in the way of pets. They kept them in a disused stable, in neat cages with wire fronts, most of which had been made by Ralph and Leonard. There were silky-haired, lop-eared rabbits, that could be hugged in small arms without offering any remonstrances; bright-eyed little guinea-pigs, which often caused exciting chases by escaping from their owners' embraces and hiding away behind the cages; a family of piebald mice, consisting of a mother and five young ones, which generally went to bed in the daytime, and had to be poked out of their sleeping quarters with a lead pencil to make them show themselves; a morose-looking tortoise that would allow Wilfred to scratch its head, but spat indignantly at the others; and a whole box full of silkworms in various stages, from tiny, wriggling black threads to chrysalids in cocoons. The children were accompanied to the stable by a sharp little black Pomeranian; but they were obliged to leave him outside in case he might hurt the rabbits, and he sat howling dolefully on the doorstep until they came out again. He escorted them into the garden afterwards, however, and so did a large nondescript kind of yard dog, which was called Bootles, and which allowed itself to be harnessed to a mail-cart, and drew Cyril up and down the path.

"I want to show you our fruit trees," said Rhoda, leading the way to the orchard. "We each have one of our very own, planted as soon as we were born. Meta, Ralph, and Leonard have apples, Wilfred and Alwyn pears, mine is a Victoria plum, Joan has a greengage, and Cyril a black cherry. You see, they stand in a row, away from the other trees, so we call this our part of the orchard."

"Whose is the ninth?" enquired Lindsay, looking at a fine pear tree which headed the line.

"That belonged to our eldest brother," said Rhoda. "He died before I can remember, but we still call it 'Herbert's tree'. The pears are always ripe every year on his birthday, so we pick them all and pack them carefully in a box, and send them to a children's hospital in London. Mother sends the money she would have spent on his birthday present too. They're the most beautiful pears, the best we have, and we thought that was the nicest thing we could do with them."

The Greenwoods' little gardens were as interesting as their fruit trees. Each child appeared to have been trying a different experiment. Wilfred had made a pond in his by sinking an old wooden tub in the ground, and was trying to persuade a water-lily to grow in it. He had planted a clump of iris and some forget-me-nots at the edge, which hung over rather gracefully, and really looked quite pretty. He kept several frogs to swim about in the water, though the constant catching of these rather interfered with the wellbeing of the struggling lily. Alwyn had built a miniature house in her plot out of old bricks and stones, and had thatched it neatly with straw. She had made a gravel path up to the front door, and had sown grass to represent lawns, and cut a round flower bed in the middle of each. Joan's garden was subject to violent changes. Last year it had been a potato patch, but as she dug up those useful vegetables every day to see how they were sprouting, it was not surprising that they refused to make much growth. Lately she had converted the whole into a dolls' cemetery, and, with Cyril's aid, keenly enjoyed conducting the funerals of various headless favourites, waxing so enthusiastic over the obsequies that she even buried several quite respectable wax babies, though, regretting their loss afterwards, she was eventually forced to dig them up again. She put tombstones at the heads of the graves, made of slates from the roof of a tumble-down shed, and carefully wrote names, dates, and epitaphs upon them in slate pencil, being greatly distressed when the inscriptions were invariably obliterated by every fresh shower of rain.

Cyril had sown the letters of his name in mustard and cress, which were just coming up fresh and green, and would soon be ready to cut. He also had some bulbs under pieces of glass in a corner which he called his hothouse. Ralph and Leonard were so busy at school that their gardens appeared to be mostly cared for by Rhoda, who had a very ambitious scheme for her own.

"I want to make a floral clock," she explained. "You see, I've dug a round face and marked it out into twelve parts, and I'm going to put each figure in different-coloured flowers. Then I thought if I could fix a pole in the middle it ought to cast a shadow, and tell the time like a sundial. I've made it north, south, east, and west by my compass, and it will be most delightful if I can only get it to work."