She was sitting on a form in the gymnasium, in a decidedly pessimistic frame of mind, eating a piece of hard oatcake.
"It's as dry as chumping chaff1!" she confided2 dismally3. "I don't like my lunch!"
"In these days of rations4 there's never even a scrap5 of margarine to spare, let alone butter!" groused6 Audrey, who was also in a mood to mop up sympathy. "I bring biscuits every morning, but they're not what biscuits used to be."
"Nothing is."
"What's wrong with the school, though?" asked Lorraine, with somewhat of the irritation7 of a nurse when her pet fledgeling is unduly8 criticized. "It seems to be jogging along all right, as far as I can see."
"There you've hit the nail on the head exactly. It's jogging, and I hate things to jog. I like them to go with a swing. The Lent term's always as dull as ditch water."
[155]"We have our societies——" began Lorraine, but Vivien interrupted her impatiently.
"Oh, yes! Those precious societies! I know! Every one was keen at first, and then they slacked. They always do! Don't talk to me! I'm blue!"
"Are we down-hearted? No!" jodelled Patsie, throwing up her last bit of biscuit, and trying to catch it in her mouth like a terrier. "I say, Vivien, you silly cockchafer, why don't you buck9 up? If the school's dull, then for goodness' sake do something to make it more lively, instead of sitting and looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. What the Muses10 do you want?"
"Something to happen."
"What? An elopement? A fire? A burglary? Tell me the sort of sensation you're craving11 for, and we'll try to accommodate you. I'm going to start a Sensation Bureau. Excitements guaranteed. Terms cash, or monthly instalments. You pay your money, and you take your choice. Address: Miss Sullivan, The Gables. Cheques and postal12 orders must be crossed."
The girls sniggered, for Patsie was at what they were wont13 to call her "Patsiest". At school she supplied the place of public entertainer. Her favourite rôle was that of the jester, with cap and bells.
"I really have got a brain-wave, though," she rattled14 on. "I agree with Viv. Things at present are just about as dull and unromantic as they could possibly be. Girls don't have any fun as they had in the Middle Ages, or even in Jane [156]Austen's times. My great-grandmother ran away from school to Gretna Green, but it's never done now. Well, the next best thing to real adventures is making them up. That's where my Sensation Bureau comes in. Here's Vivien pining for romance. Well, I'm prepared to give it to her hot and strong. I'm going to write her a letter every day from 'Jack16', and post it inside the hollow tree in the garden. She can get and post hers there too, if she likes. Will you trade letters, Viv.? It'll be a stunt17!"
"If you'll write the first," agreed Vivien, brightening up.
"Of course your 'Jack' will write first to his little 'Forget-me-not'!" laughed Patsie.
Patsie was gifted with a most lively imagination, and some talent for writing. Her tastes ran on the lines of cheap novelettes. She evolved a supposititious hero for Vivien, and began a series of epistles couched in exceedingly ardent18 terms. All the most extravagant19 nonsense that she could invent was scribbled20 in the letters, which, addressed simply to "Forget-me-not", were posted inside the hollow of an old ash-tree at the bottom of the school garden. Vivien shared the effusions with her friends, and they had tremendous fun over them in a corner of the cloak-room. They helped her to concoct21 replies. The imaginary romance afforded them extreme entertainment. It was as exciting as writing a novel. They worked it through all sorts of interesting stages—hope, despair, and lovers' quarrels—till it culminated22 in a suggested elopement. Patsie [157]really outdid herself sometimes in the brilliancy of her composition. "Jack" had developed a floweriness of style and a knack23 of describing his bold adventures that raised him to the rank of a cinema hero. The girls used to wait for his letters with as keen an anticipation24 as for the next number of a serial25. Vivien, the fortunate recipient26 of them, was envied. Several other enthusiasts27 suggested opening a correspondence, but Patsie was adamant28.
"The Sensation Bureau's got enough in this line on its hands. I'll provide something else for you, if you like—a shipwreck29, or an air-raid, or a railway accident—but until those two are safely 'eloped', I can't take on any more love affairs. Oh, yes! you can put down your names if you like. I've a nice little matter in my mind for Audrey, later in the term—no, I shan't tell it you now, not if you beg all day!"
The girls were sitting near the stove in the gymnasium before afternoon school, and munching30 some home-made chocolate concocted31 with cocoa and condensed milk. Like most war substitutes, it was not so good as the real thing, but it was certainly much better than nothing. The talk, with several side-issues concerning eatables, drifted back again to the all-engrossing "Jack". Vivien, as the heroine of the romance, assumed an attitude of interesting importance. She affected32 much knowledge of his doings.
"You've never yet told us exactly what he's like," said Nellie.
"Well, of course it's difficult to describe him. [158]He's tall, you know, with flashing eyes and little crisp curls."
"Has he a moustache?"
"N—n—o, not exactly a moustache." (Vivien's imagination was not nearly so ready as Patsie's.) "He's rather like Antonio in that piece they had at the cinema last week. He flings money about liberally, and he's always jumping into a motor and driving off very fast."
"Where does he get his petrol?" asked Lorraine.
"Oh, it's supplied by the Government. He has a simply enormous salary and private means as well. We shall be rolling, you know. I'm looking forward to having you all staying with me when we settle down."
The circle beamed almost as if the prospect33 were real.
"Where's the house?" enquired34 Audrey.
"He has several houses," said Vivien thoughtfully, checking them off on her fingers. "A town one, of course, in the West End, a hunting-box near Warwick, and a place in Wales. I believe there's an estate in Ireland as well."
"Shall you hunt? Oh, Viv.!"
"Of course I shall. 'Jack' simply adores hunting. We're going to talk over my mount to-morrow, if the dear boy's able to turn up."
In the excitement of these prospective35 plans Vivien involuntarily raised her voice. The previous conversation had been in subdued36 tones, but her last remark must have been audible over half the gymnasium. Nellie nudged her so violently that [159]her piece of chocolate fell to the floor. In turning to recover it she noticed the cause of the sudden interruption. Miss Janet was within a few yards of them turning over some music by the piano.
Vivien's complexion37 assumed a dull beetroot shade. She wondered whether Miss Janet had overheard. It was impossible to go up to her and explain that they were only pretending. The mistress's face was inscrutable. She did not even glance in their direction, but picked out two or three songs from the pile and walked away into the house. The little circle broke up. Miss Janet's vicinity seemed to have put the stopper on romance. She was certainly not a sentimental38 person.
On the following day there was a fog—one of those white sea-fogs which sometimes enveloped39 Porthkeverne, when everything was veiled in soft mist, and even the very furniture was clammy. Vivien, whose throat was delicate, came to school with a Shetland shawl across her mouth. She sat and coughed in the gymnasium during recreation, and fingered a letter in her pocket. It was quite a fat letter, and addressed to "Jack Stanley, Esq".
"If it weren't so damp I'd run down the garden and post this," she said to Lorraine. "I expect there'll be one waiting for me in the tree, but I promised Mother I wouldn't do anything silly, and I suppose it would be silly to run down the wet garden in my thin shoes and without my coat."
"It would be absolutely cracked, with that cough. I'll go. Give me your letter."
It was part of the procedure of the romance that [160]the correspondence must be deposited inside the hollow tree, or else, on wet days, it would certainly have been far simpler to hand over the notes in school. Vivien had once hinted this, but Patsie stuck firmly to her plans, and, as she was the originator of the whole scheme, she had the right to make the arrangements.
"'Jack's' letters will be found in the garden, and nowhere else," she decreed.
So Lorraine, who was sufficiently40 interested to want to hear the next instalment supplied by Patsie's fertile imagination, ran out into the fog and among the dripping bushes down the path that edged the lawn. The pillar-box was moist and earwiggy; she wetted and soiled her sleeve by reaching down into it. At the bottom, in company with a fat spider and several woodlice, lay a letter addressed in a bold hand to "My Forget-me-not". She exchanged it for Vivien's epistle and scudded41 off through the damp mist back to the gymnasium. If any eyes were watching as she passed the study window and came in by the side door, it was much too foggy for her to see clearly. As she handed the letter to her waiting cousin she noticed that the envelope was not gummed down securely.
"Hallo, 'Jack's' been in a hurry with this," she commented. "It isn't properly stuck."
"Perhaps it's the damp that's melted the gum," said Vivien, pulling out the contents impatiently.
Jack's correspondence, though addressed to her, was common property. Several heads
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