For the Sake of the School (5 page)

"Certainly not. Most of them are quite as cultured and up-to-date as ourselves. There are splendid schools in New Zealand, and excellent opportunities for study of every kind. Poor Rona, unfortunately, has had to live on a farm far away from civilization, and her education and welfare in every respect seem to have been utterly neglected. Don't take her as a type of New Zealand! But she'll soon improve if we're all prepared to help her. I'm glad you're ready to be her real friend."

"I'll try my best!" sighed Ulyth.

A Blackberry Foray

Having made up her mind to accept the responsibility which fate, through the agency of the magazine editor, had thrust upon her, Ulyth, metaphorically speaking, set her teeth, and began to take Rona seriously in hand. Being ten months older than her protégée, in a higher form, and, moreover, armed with full authority from Miss Bowes, she assumed command of the bedroom, and tried to regulate the chaos that reigned on her comrade's side of it. Rona submitted with an air of amused good nature to have her clothes arranged in order in her drawers, her shoes put away in the cupboard, and her toilet articles allotted places on her washstand and dressing-table. She even consented to give some thought to her personal appearance, and borrowed Ulyth's new manicure set.

"You're mighty particular," she objected. "What does it all matter? Miss Bowes gave me such a talking-to, and said I'd got to do exactly what you told me; and before I came, Dad rubbed it into me to copy you for all I was worth, so I suppose I'll have to try. I guess you'll find it a job to civilize me though." And her eyes twinkled.

Ulyth thought, with a mental sigh, that she probably would find it "a job".

"No one bothered about it at home," Rona continued cheerfully. "Dad did say sometimes I was growing up a savage, but Mrs. Barker never cared. She let me do what I liked, so long as I didn't trouble her. She was no lady! We couldn't get a lady to stay at our out-of-the-way block. Dad used to be a swell in England once, but that was before I was born."

Ulyth began to understand, and her disgust changed to a profound pity. A motherless girl who had run wild in the backwoods, her father probably out all day, her only female guide a woman of the backwoods, whose manners were presumably of the roughest--this had been Rona's training. No wonder she lacked polish!

"When I compare her home with my home and my lovely mother," thought Ulyth, "yes--there's certainly a vast amount to be passed on."

The other girls, who had never expected her to keep Rona in her bedroom, were inclined to poke fun at the proceeding.

"Your bear cub will need training before you teach her to dance," said Stephanie Radford tauntingly.

"She has no parlour tricks at present," sniggered Addie Knighton.

"Are you posing as Valentine and Orson?" laughed Gertie Oliver. Gertrude had been Ulyth's room-mate last term, and felt aggrieved to be superseded.

"I call her the cuckoo," said Mary Acton. "Do you remember the young one we found last spring, sprawling all over the nest, and opening its huge, gaping beak?"

In spite of her ignorance and angularities there was a certain charm about the new-comer. When the sunburn caused by her sea-voyage had yielded to a course of treatment, it left her with a complexion which put even that of Stephanie Radford, the acknowledged school beauty, in the shade. The coral tinge in Rona's cheeks was, as Doris Deane enviously remarked, "almost too good to look natural", and her blue eyes with the big pupils and the little dark rims round the iris shone like twinkling stars when she laughed. That ninnying laugh, to be sure, was still somewhat offensive, but she was trying to moderate it, and only when she forgot did it break out to scandalize the refined atmosphere of The Woodlands; the small white even teeth which it displayed, and two conspicuous dimples, almost atoned for it. The brown hair was brushed and waved and its consequent state of new glossiness was a very distinct improvement on the former elf locks. In the sunshine it took tones of warm burnt sienna, like the hair of the Madonna in certain of Titian's great pictures. Lessons, alack! were uphill work. Rona was naturally bright, but some subjects she had never touched before, and in others she was hopelessly backward. The general feeling in the school was that "The Cuckoo", as they nicknamed her, was an experiment, and no one could guess exactly what she would grow into.

"She's like one of those queer beasties we dug up under the yew-tree last autumn," suggested Merle Denham. "Those wriggling transparent things, I mean. Don't you remember? We kept them in a box, and didn't know whether they'd turn out moths, or butterflies, or earwigs, or woodlice!"

"They turned into cockchafer beetles, as a matter of fact," said Ulyth drily.

"Well, they were horrid enough in all conscience. I don't like Nature study when it means hoarding up creepy-crawlies."

"You're not obliged to take it."

"I don't this year. I've got Harmony down on my time-table instead."

"You'll miss the rambles with Teddie."

"I don't care. I'll play basket-ball instead."

"How about the blackberry foray?"

"Oh, I'm not going to be left out of that! It's not specially Nature study. I've put my name down with Miss Moseley's party."

The inmates of The Woodlands were fond of jam. It was supplied to them liberally, and they consumed large quantities of it at tea-time. To help to meet this demand, blackberrying expeditions were organized during the last weeks of September, and the whole school turned out in relays to pick fruit. A dozen girls and a mistress generally composed a party, which was not confined to any particular form, but might include any whose arrangements for practising or special lessons allowed them to go. Dates and particulars of the various rambles planned, with the names of the mistresses who were to be leaders, were pinned up on the notice-board, and the girls might put their names to them as they liked, so long as each list did not exceed twelve.

On Saturday afternoon Miss Moseley headed a foray in the direction of Porth Powys Falls, and Merle, Ulyth, Rona, Addie, and Stephanie were members of her flock.

"I'm glad I managed to get into this party," announced Merle, "because I always like Porth Powys better than Pontvoelas or Aberceiriog. It's a jollier walk, and the blackberries are bigger and better. I was the very last on the list, so I'd luck. Alice had to go under Teddie's wing. I'd rather have Mosie than Teddie!"

"So would I," agreed Ulyth. "I scribbled my name the very first of all. Just got a chance to do it as I was going to my music-lesson, before everyone else made a rush for the board. Porth Powys will be looking no end to-day."

Swinging their baskets, the girls began to climb a narrow path which ran alongside the stream up the glen. Some of them were tempted to linger, and began to gather what blackberries could be found; but Miss Moseley had different plans.

"Come along! It's ridiculous to waste our labour here," she exclaimed. "All these bushes have been well picked over already. We'll walk straight on till we come to the lane near the ruined cottage, then we shall get a harvest and fill our baskets in a third of the time. Quick march!"

There was sense in her remarks, so Merle abandoned several half-ripe specimens for which she had been reaching and joined the file that was winding, Indian fashion, up the path through the wood. Over a high, ladder-like stile they climbed, then dropped down into the gorge to where a small wooden bridge spanned the stream. They loved to stand here looking at the brown rushing water that swirled below. The thick trees made a green parlour, and the continual moisture had carpeted the woods with beautiful verdant moss which grew in close sheets over the rocks. Up again, by an even steeper and craggier track, they climbed the farther bank of the gorge, and came out at last on to the broad hill-side that overlooked the Craigwen Valley.

Here was scope for a leader; the track was so overgrown as to be almost indistinguishable, and ran across boggy land, where it was only too easy to plunge over one's boot-tops in oozy peat. Miss Moseley found the way like a pioneer; she had often been there before and remembered just what places were treacherous and just where it was possible to use a swinging bough for a help. By following in her footsteps the party got safely over without serious wettings, and sat down to take breath for a few minutes on some smooth, glacier-ground rocks that topped the ridge they had been scaling. They were now at some height above the valley, and the prospect was magnificent. For at least ten miles they could trace the windings of the river, and taller and more distant mountain peaks had come into view.

"Some people say that Craigwen Valley's very like the Rhine," volunteered Ulyth. "It hasn't any castles, of course, except at Llangarmon, but the scenery's just as lovely."

"Nice to think it's British then," rejoiced Merle. "Wales can hold its own in the way of mountains and lakes. People have no need to go abroad for them. What's New Zealand like, Rona?"

"We've ripping rivers there," replied the Cuckoo, "bigger than this by lots, and with tree-ferns up in the bush. This isn't bad, though, as far as it goes. What's that place over across on the opposite hill?"

"Where the light's shining? Oh, that's Llanfairgwyn! There's a village and a church. We've only been once. It's rather a long way, because you have to cross the ferry at Glanafon before you can get to the other side of the river."

"And what's that big white house in the trees, with the flag?"

"That's Plas Cafn. It's
the
place in the neighbourhood, you know," said Stephanie, fondly fingering her necklace.

"I don't know. How should I?"

"Well, you know it now, at any rate."

"Does it belong to toffs?"

"It belongs to Lord and Lady Glyncraig. They live there for part of the year."

"Oh!" said Rona. She put her chin on her hand and surveyed the distant mansion for several moments in silence. "I reckon they're stuck up," she remarked at last.

"I believe they're considered nice. I've never spoken to them," replied Ulyth.

"I have," put in Stephanie complacently. "I went to tea once at Plas Cafn. It was when Father was Member for Rotherford. Lord Glyncraig knew him in Parliament, of course, and he happened to meet Father and me just when we were walking past the gate at Plas Cafn, and asked us in to tea."

Merle, Addie, and Ulyth smiled. This visit, paid four years ago, was the standing triumph of Stephanie's life. She never forgot, nor allowed any of her schoolfellows to forget, that she had been entertained by the great people of the neighbourhood.

"He wasn't Lord Glyncraig then; he was only Sir John Mitchell, Baronet. He's been raised to a peerage since," said Merle, willing to qualify some of the glory of Stephanie's reminiscences.

"We don't grow peers in Waitoto, or baronets either, for the matter of that," observed Rona. "I don't guess they're wanted out with us. We'd have no place in the bush for a Lord Glyncraig."

"You'd better claim acquaintance with him, as your name's Mitchell too. How proud he'd be of the honour!" teased Addie.

Coral flooded the whole of the Cuckoo's face. She had begun to understand the difference between her rough upbringing and the refined homes of the other girls, and she resented the sneers that were often made at her expense.

"Our butcher at home is Joseph Mitchell," hinnied Merle.

"Mitchell's a common enough name," said Ulyth. "I know two families in Scotland and some people at Plymouth all called Mitchell. They're none of them related to each other, and probably not to Merle's butcher or to Lord Glyncraig."

"Nor to me," said Rona. "I'm a democrat, and I glory in it. Stephanie's welcome to her grand friends if she likes them."

"I do like them," sighed Stephanie plaintively. "I love aristocratic people and nice houses and things. Why shouldn't I? You needn't grin, Addie Knighton; you'd know them yourself if you could. When I come out I'd like to be presented at Court, and go to a ball where the people are all dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses. It would be worth while dancing with a duke, especially if he wore the Order of the Garter!"

"Until that glorious day comes you'll have to dance with poor little me for a partner," giggled Merle.

"Aren't you all rested? We shall get no blackberries if we don't hurry on," called Miss Moseley from the other end of the rock.

Everybody scrambled up immediately and set out again over the bracken-covered hill-side. Another half-mile and they had reached the bourne of their expedition. The narrow track through the gorse and fern widened suddenly into a lane, a lane with very high, unmortared walls, over which grew a variety of bramble with a particularly luscious fruit. Every connoisseur of blackberries knows what a difference there is between the little hard seedy ones that commonly flourish in the hedges and the big juicy ones with the larger leaves. Nature had been prodigal here, and a bounteous harvest hung within easy reach.

"They are as big as mulberries--and oh, such heaps and heaps!" exclaimed Addie ecstatically. "No, Merle, you wretch, this is my branch! Don't poach, you wretch! Go farther on, can't you!"

"I wish we could send the jam to the hospital when it's made," sighed Merle.

The party spread itself out; some of the girls climbed to the top of the wall, so that they could reach what grew on the sunnier side, and a few skirted round over a gate into a field, where a ruined cottage was also covered with brambles. They worked down the lane by slow degrees, picking hard as they went. At the end a sudden rushing roar struck upon the ear, and without even waiting for a signal from Miss Moseley the girls with one accord hopped over a fence, and ran up a slight incline. The voice of the waterfall was calling, and the impulse to obey was irresistible. At the top of the slope they stopped, for they had reached a natural platform that overlooked the gorge. The scene rivalled one of the beauty-spots of Switzerland. The Porth Powys stream, flowing between precipitous rocks, fell two hundred feet in a series of four splendid cascades. The rugged crags on either side were thickly covered with a forest of fir and larch, and here and there a taller stone-pine reared its darker head above the silvery green. Dashing, roaring, leaping, shouting, the water poured down in a never-ceasing volume: the white spray rose up in clouds, wetting the girls' faces; the sound was like an endless chorus of hallelujahs.