Chapter XII: The House on the Cliff

Stella’s quarantine was over at last.

“And what do you think!” exclaimed the returned prodigal. “I’ve got the most exciting thing to tell you. Just wait till to-night--all of you! You _will_ open your eyes!”

The girls addressed, being her three dormitory partners, opened their eyes instantly and widely; and with one accord, although the place was the cloak-room, and the time just five minutes before prayers on Monday morning, begged for instant disclosures.

“But I can’t!” urged Stella. “I’ve only just come, though I’m sure I begged the boy to drive quickly! And if the bell rings before I’m undressed I’ll be late.” She pulled feverishly at her coat, and tried to kick off one of her shoes at the same moment, just as Miss Read’s voice sounded urgently from the door.

“No more talking, and all the girls who are ready will go straight to their class-rooms. The prayer-bell will ring almost at once.”

With a sigh that the command should have come at such a tantalizing moment, the friends dispersed, Josy to seek the Fourth Form room, Gretta and Margot to make their way to the Upper Third, while Stella continued to undress in frantic haste in the empty cloak-room.

“What is it, do you think?” asked Margot, when she and Gretta had reached their respective desks, and were seated side by side. “She seemed awfully excited. Oh, and isn’t it a blessing that she didn’t get scarlet fever after all!”

“It’s something about the Hope-Scott Shield, I expect,” answered her cousin. “It’s sure to be, isn’t it? Her father’s told her something. Perhaps----” The clanging of the prayer-bell made further conversation impossible, and the expectant girls had to contain their souls in patience until the evening.

“And _now_, what is it?” demanded Josy, waving her comb and addressing the returned exile excitedly. Half-past eight had struck; the four were in their respective cubicles with the curtains drawn back, and in half an hour the light would be extinguished. “Let’s hear what you said you’d tell us.”

“You remember the ‘Little House’?” asked Stella, her eyes glistening. “Well, it’s about _that_!”

“Go on!” cried everybody in unison, and Margot’s eagerness was such that her brush flew from her hand to the opposite side of the dormitory. Since the beginning of the quarantine, and her view of the outside of the “Little House” ten days ago, she had felt the most intense desire to know more about the strange inmate whom Stella had already described as being a “miser, and quite alone, and most likely mad!” Quixotic plans had formed themselves over and over again in her mind, only to be laid aside one after another as she had realized that it would be impossible to carry out any of them, and at the same time to keep the Cliff School rules.

“All right,” and Stella’s voice grew lower in the intensity of her interest in the story she had to tell. “You know I told you that I’d never seen him--the old man, I mean. Well, on Saturday I was out driving with Jim, the boy; we were coming back from the station where we’d taken dad--he’d gone away for the Sunday to preach somewhere, you know--and suddenly, in the dark, the pony gave a kind of shy, and when Jim pulled him up and spoke to him, there was an old, old man standing in the road!”

“I say--was it _him_?” inquired Josy. “What on earth did he want, and how did you know him if you’d never seen him before?”

“I’m coming to that,” declared Stella, “if only you’ll listen. When Jim pulled the pony up the old, old man came straight to me and put his hand on my arm.”

An excited shiver shook all the three listening girls.

“And he said in quite a quiet, respectful kind of voice, you know: ‘Excuse me, miss, but I thought the parson might be driving, and I’d be glad of a word with him.’”

“What did he mean? asked Margot breathlessly.

“Well, of course, dad’s the rector, and I suppose he wanted to see him. I felt a most awfully frightened feeling, especially as I could see by the light of the carriage-lamp that his eyes looked frightfully queer; but he seemed so very old and ill that you couldn’t _help_ feeling sorry for him.”

“And what did you say?” asked Josy excitedly.

“I said that dad had just gone away for a week, and asked if he would like to see the curate?”

“And then----?” Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Stella, all brushes were suspended from their operations, and undressing was forgotten.

“Then he just turned and muttered as he went, and I could have sworn I heard him say something about a ‘confession’! He went off across the moor towards the ‘Little House.’”

“Oh, and _what_ did you do then?” urged Margot almost in a frenzy. “You didn’t leave him like that? So miserable and old!”

“I had to,” declared Stella. “I told mother, of course, and she told the curate, and he went on Sunday afternoon and knocked ever so many times at the door of the house; but he couldn’t get any answer, though he thought he heard sounds inside, and in the end he had to come away.”

“And then----?” Margot’s voice was quite harsh in its eagerness.

“Oh, well, that’s _all_, I suppose,” announced Stella; “only I thought as you and Gretta are so keen about the ‘Little House’ that you’d like to know.”

“And you didn’t do anything else?” pursued Margot.

“Well, what else could I do?” inquired Stella impatiently. “I’ve had enough of too _much_ doing, I can tell you, Margot. Mother’ll tell dad, of course, when he gets home, and he’s sure to go. What would you have done yourself, Margot, as far as that goes?”

“I don’t know,” said Margot slowly, staring at her own reflection in the glass with unseeing eyes; “but I’d have _had_ to do something!”

“I think it was jolly brave of Stella not to be frightened when the pony shied and all that,” interposed the head of the dormitory, tactfully; “and I say, talking about bravery, has anyone thought of anything?”

But nothing in the way of conversation on any topic was to be got from Margot and Gretta, and if nurse had been told how long it was before the former fell asleep that night she would certainly not have believed it. Truth to tell, the impression made on Margot’s mind by Stella’s story had been such as to call up all her strongest sympathies, and she lay awake weaving plan after plan that might be tried to relieve the imagined sufferings of the inhabitant of the “Little House,” only to throw each one aside as she realized that it would be quite impossible to work from school. “Oh, those rules!” she murmured to herself; and just before she fell asleep: “Oh, if Long Jake was only here!”

Temporary relief appeared in the morning, however, in the shape of little scraps of paper, which were handed round to all the older girls in the sitting-room directly after breakfast.

“They’re for your lists, you know,” said Helen, who was officiating. “Write down how much you want to spend, and what you’d like for the feast, and then give them in to me, and I’ll give them to Miss Read. She’ll see that the things are all right, and that they’re bought. It’ll be best if you do it according to dormitories, and then you won’t all write the same things!”

Accordingly, four pigtailed heads from Dormitory 3 met in solemn conclave in one corner of the sitting-room, and, as a result, evolved a menu that would have caused the most hardened gourmand to gasp and gasp again.

“Sardines!”--this from Margot; “and French rolls, _new_ ones, to eat with them.”

“Meringues--large ones with lots of cream”--this Josy’s choice; “and if they have those éclairs with yellow custard in them, three of those!”

“Sausage-rolls and bath-buns”--these were decided upon by Stella and Gretta together; the former acting as adviser-in-chief in a most unselfish manner considering that no bite of the feast was to pass her lips; “and half a pound of mixed cream sweets, and some Velma chocolate.”

“But we’ve forgotten drinks!” said the head of the dormitory gravely; “and really with all those things we shall need them.”

“A good dose of Gregory’s Powder’ll be enough,” remarked the grim voice of nurse, who had entered the room unnoticed, and now stood looking over Josy’s shoulder. “If I had _my_ way there’d be an end of these feasts, as you call them--a lot of silly rubbish!”

But nurse’s words were laughed to scorn, for this was a privileged occasion. “Two bottles of ginger champagne and one of raspberry syrup,” were added to the list; “and some apples,” wrote Josy, “so long as they’re nice and green; if not, then Brazil nuts!”

This completed the list, and the hearts of that dormitory were at rest on the subject of the feast, at least. “You’ll be lucky if Miss Read lets you have a quarter of this!” laughed Helen, reading the list aloud. “Everybody--listen! Sausage-rolls, meringues, sardines, Brazil nuts!”

She was interrupted by a howl of misery from Sybil--poor Sybil of the sweet tooth!

“I think it’s just hateful for everyone to have a dormitory feast but us; and such lovely, lovely things! And I’ve got such lots of pocket-money that auntie gave me!”

“Do be quiet, Sybil,” adjured Gretta, feeling very sorry for her little sister, but knowing from old experience that sympathetic treatment was of little use at such a time. “Perhaps Miss Read will let me keep something for you; I’ll ask her, if you’ll stop crying.”

“She won’t, she won’t,” sobbed Sybil. “They’re all just the hor----!”

“Cheero, Sybil!” interposed Josy; “there’s the match to watch on Saturday, anyway!”

“Yes, that’s the _best_ part of the day,” agreed Margot.

“It isn’t, it isn’t,” sobbed Sybil, quite given over to her grief and temper; “and I’ll not go near the old match, and I’ll pay you out, everyone of you--just see if I don’t!”

But not one of the listening girls guessed how she would keep her word.