Part 5 (1/2)
”We've got jam tartlets!”
”Not as nice as our cheese cakes!”
”Nellie's brought a whole pound of macaroons!”
”Oh! will you swap with us for rock buns?”
”I should just think not!”
”Dolly Arden has five oranges!”
”Well, we've got bananas!”
After successfully fetching the provisions, having routed a marauding band of juniors who were poking inquisitive fingers into the baskets, the members of VA. returned to the form-room, closed the door, and gave themselves up to festivity. The four girls from the hostel need have had no fear of scarcity, for the others had brought ample to compensate for their deficiency. By general consent all the cakes were pooled, set out on hard-backed exercise books in lieu of plates, and handed round the company. Bess, whose basket contained two thermos flasks, a dozen cheese cakes, and some meringues, was felt to have brought a valuable contribution. It seemed a new experience to be sitting at their desks, drinking tea and eating cakes, instead of doing translation or writing exercises.
”Pity the Snark didn't stop! She doesn't know what she's missing!”
remarked Joanna Powers, as she took a meringue.
”Oh, Kafoozalum! We shouldn't have had much fun if the Snark had stayed!
Don't bring her back, for goodness' sake, Jo!”
”I wasn't going to! Besides which, she's probably half-way down town at present, having tea in a cafe. She generally does on Fridays.”
”She won't get a better tea than we're having!”
”I'll undertake she won't! This meringue is absolutely topping! I wonder if there's another left.”
”No, they're gone, every one of them!”
”Hard luck!”
Though the hour might be early, the girls' appet.i.tes were quite equal to the task of finis.h.i.+ng the various delicacies in the way of sweet stuff which they had brought with them. Cakes disappeared like snow in summer, and chocolate boxes, pa.s.sed round impartially, soon returned empty to their owners. When everything seemed almost finished, Bess produced another hamper, which she had carried up from the cloak-room, and stowed away under her desk. She handed it rather shyly to Beatrice, who happened to be her nearest neighbor.
”Mother sent these, and wants you all to share them,” she remarked.
Beatrice, Francie, and Linda opened the hamper all three together, then with a delighted ”O-Oh!” of satisfaction drew out six beautiful bunches of purple grapes. Ingred, finis.h.i.+ng her cup of tea, choked and coughed.
She knew those grapes well. They grew in the vinery at Rotherwood, and had been the pride of her father and of the head-gardener. She had not tasted one of them for five years, for during the war they had always been given to the patients in the Red Cross Hospital, but she could not forget their delicious flavor. Why had her father let the vinery with the house? The grapes ought to be hers to give away--not this girl's.
n.o.body else in the room cared in the least where the fruit came from, so long as it was there. Appreciative eyes looked on in glad antic.i.p.ation while Beatrice and Francie divided the bunches with as much mathematical accuracy as they could muster at the moment. A portion was laid upon each desk, and the girls fell to.
”Delicious!”
”Never tasted better in my life!”
”Absolutely topping!”
”Makes one want to go and live in a vineyard!”
”They're exactly ripe!”