Part 7 (2/2)

”No!” murmured Annie Smith, breaking the drowsy spell. ”She's _not_ like us--couldn't be with a V.C. father and India as a birthright. But isn't it all _wonderfully_ mysterious?”

Dear unsophisticated soul, whose _wanderl.u.s.t_ was yearly arrested, or rather satisfied, with the summer holiday by the sea, and whose rector father acted as a weekly soporific to his congregation.

”I wonder who gave her that perfectly _horrible_ charm?” she added sleepily.

”The ayah, I _think_,” came an equally sleepy answer. ”Did I tell you that I found it in the bath-room the other night? It's an eye--a cat's-eye, you know--a perfect beast of a thing; I would swear it winked at me when I dropped it on the floor. Anyway I left it there and simply _flew_ out of the room to tell Leonie, and Jessica pinched, I beg Princ.i.p.al's pardon, took my bath. Ugh! and she wears it night and day--oh! look, here she comes----”

”Oh!” sighed plain Annie Smith, ”isn't she _beautiful_!”

She was!

Unaware that anyone was watching, Leonie stopped in front of a bush of red roses. She neither touched or sniffed them; she just flung out her arms, lifted her face to the blazing sun and laughed.

The simple school frock showed the wonder of her figure, with the beautiful rounded bust, the slender waist, and the moulded limbs; the sun drew red and yellow lights out of the heavy russet hair, gold flecks out of the green eyes, and a flash of crimson from the rather full clear-cut mouth with its turned-up corners.

Her skin was like ivory with the faintest tinge of pink just on the very tip of the rather p.r.o.nounced cheek-bones; her hands were small and fine, and the fingers were like pea-pods, long and slender and slightly dimpled.

And when she moved away towards the summer-house where she could see the sea, she moved not at all from her waist upwards. She held her head and shoulders as though she had carried baskets of fruit or was.h.i.+ng upon the crown of her pate since her youth; her glorious bosom was like a bed of lotus buds in the southern wind; she moved like a deer, or a snake, or a baccha.n.a.lian dancer, as you will; but in any case in a way which in the present tense caused the Princ.i.p.al to mourn in secret, and in the future brought the condemnation of women and the eyes of men full upon her.

And behind the summer-house she leant against the wall.

”One more term,” she said, ”only one more term, and then I shall be free--free to go--free to wander--free to follow the voice which is calling, calling! Only one more little term!”

And Fate, grinning, pinched that one more little term between her knotted old thumb and finger so that it was stillborn.

CHAPTER X

”And hath gone and served other G.o.ds.”--_The Bible_.

Shriek upon shriek tore the peaceful stillness of the night, and in one second the sleeping house was transformed from a place of rest and quiet to the semblance of a disturbed rookery.

Deathly silence followed the horrible screams of fear and the sound of the girls calling one to the other, during which mistresses extricated themselves from the enc.u.mbering bedclothes to rush on to their respective landings; elder girls peered in terror from their bedroom doors, and younger ones clung to each other or the bed-post, or the door-k.n.o.b, anything in fact which would help to support their quaking little knees.

Once again the terrible screams rent the air, whipping everyone out of the stunned apathy which great fear brings to some folk, just as the Princ.i.p.al came out on to her landing and looked up to the second storey.

”Miss Primstinn,” she called, and her voice showed no sign of the thudding of her heart.

Pushed by one of those willing hands always so eager to thrust someone else to the forefront of the battle, Miss Primstinn, clutching her courage and a drab dressing-gown in both hands, half ran, half slipped down the stairs.

”_We_ will investigate, Miss Primstinn, and the young ladies will retire to their rooms and shut the doors.”

In days long past the house had been well built after the excellent design of a wealthy old architect who had fled the place when Eastbourne had become a centre for girls' schools and summer trippers.

The full moon flooded the hall round which ran the galleries belonging to the successive storeys, each crowded with girls in various designs of night attire who hung over the oak bal.u.s.trades to watch developments.

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