Part 20 (1/2)
”_I_ never put it there!”
”Clive!” exclaimed Mavis, with a sudden flash of intuition. ”Did you wear Merle's jersey yesterday? I remember she found it wet. I verily believe you dressed up in her clothes and went to school.”
For answer Clive burst into fits of laughter.
”Oh, it was topping!” he hinnied. ”I stuck on her skirt and jersey and tam o' shanter and took in everybody. I walked down the street, and up the drive to the school door, and prowled round the garden. There was a window open, so in I went and found exam questions all over the table. I thought I'd rag you about them!”
”You atrocious imp! Look here! You don't know what a sc.r.a.pe you've got us into. You'll just have to own up and get us out of it again, that's all!”
Irresponsible Clive was full of thoughtless mischief, and it was a long time before the girls could get him to see the serious side of his escapade, and realise what an exceedingly grave charge had been brought against their honour. In the end, by dint of scolding, entreaty, coercion, and even bribery, they succeeded in persuading him to come along with them to 'The Moorings,' where they asked for Miss Mitch.e.l.l, and told her the whole story.
”I'm extremely glad to know,” she said, looking hard at Clive. ”The fact is I was deceived myself. He's very like you, Merle! I happened to see him climbing out of the window, and I certainly thought I recognised you.
I've felt upset all day about it. I couldn't understand your doing such a thing.”
”Will you explain to the boarders, please! I hate them to think me a sneak.”
”I'll make that all right.”
”And about those exam questions--Mavis and I wouldn't have dreamt of looking them up beforehand, and I don't suppose we should have known them. Wouldn't it be fairer just to cross them off in our papers and not count them? We'd much rather you did.”
”Yes, it's the only thing to be done.”
Clive, much subdued, blurted out a kind of apology before he left, which Miss Mitch.e.l.l accepted with dignity. Perhaps she did not think it good for him to forgive him too easily. His evil prophecies about the exams were fortunately not fulfilled, for his cousins, though they did not score brilliant successes, just managed to sc.r.a.pe through without any failures.
The Fifth form, when they heard the true facts of the story, repented their hasty court of justice and made handsome amends.
”It doesn't matter!” said Merle. ”You were quite right if you thought we'd been cheating. I should pull anybody else up myself, fast enough. It must have been the acting we did at Christmas that put the idea into Clive's idiotic young head. He was dressed up as a girl then, and rather fancied himself. He really is the limit.”
”We shall always be a little uncertain now which is you and which is your cousin!” laughed Iva.
”Oh, he won't do it again! We've put him on his honour, and I don't think he'd break his word.”
CHAPTER XIII
The Kittiwake
The great Easter secret, which Merle had surprised and preserved with so much difficulty, was out at last. Clive's father and mother were coming to Devons.h.i.+re for a holiday; they had taken rooms at a farm in Chagmouth, and they had not only arranged for their own son to join them, but they had also asked Mavis and Merle to be their visitors. The girls thought that no invitation could have been more delightfully acceptable. They adored Chagmouth, and the Sat.u.r.days they managed to spend there were always red-letter days, so the prospect of three whole weeks in this El Dorado sent their spirits up to fizzing-over point.
”Bevis will be at Grimbal's Farm!”
”And Tudor will be at home!”
”The Castletons are expecting Morland and Claudia!”
”And, of course, Fay will be there, and Tattie, and the Colvilles!”
”Goody! What a lovely tribe of us to go out picnics!”
”We'll have the time of our lives!”
Burswood Farm, where Mr. and Mrs. Percy Tremayne had taken rooms, was on the hillside above Chagmouth. It was a delightful spot, with that airy feeling about it that comes from looking down upon your neighbours'