Part 7 (1/2)

Miss Symes left the room. When she did so the two younger girls looked at their elder sister. Betty's face was very white, and her chest was working ominously.

Sylvia went up to her and gave her a sudden, violent slap between the shoulders. ”Now, don't begin!” she said. ”If you do, they'll all come round us. It isn't as if we could rush away to the middle of the moors, and you could go on with it as long as you liked. Here, if you howl, you'll catch it; for they'll stand over you, and perhaps fling water on your head.”

”Leave me alone, then, for a minute,” said Betty. She flung herself flat on the ground, face downwards, her hair falling about her shoulders. She lay as still as though she were carved in stone. The twin girls watched her for a minute. Then very softly and carefully Sylvia approached the p.r.o.ne figure, pushed her hand into Betty's pocket (a very coa.r.s.e, ordinary pocket it was, put in at the side of her dress by Jean's own fingers), and took out a bunch of keys.

Sylvia held up the keys with a glad smile. ”Now let's begin,” she said.

”It's an odious, grandified room, and Betty'll go mad here; but we can't help it--at least, for a bit. And there's always the packet.”

At these words, to the great relief of her younger sisters, Betty stood upright. ”There's always the packet,” she said. ”Now let's begin to unpack.”

Notwithstanding the fact that there were six deal trunks--six trunks of the plainest make, corded with the coa.r.s.est rope--there was very little inside them, at least as far as an ordinary girl's wardrobe is concerned; for Miss Frances Vivian had been very poor, and during the last year of her life had lived at Craigie Muir in the strictest economy. She was, moreover, too ill to be greatly troubled about the girls' clothing; and by and by, as her illness progressed, she left the matter altogether to Jean. Jean was to supply what garments the young ladies required, and Jean set about the work with a right good will. So the coa.r.s.est petticoats, the most clumsy stockings, the ugliest jackets and blouses and skirts imaginable, presently appeared out of the little wooden trunks.

The girls sorted them eagerly, putting them pell-mell into the drawers without the slightest attempt at any sort of order. But if there were very few clothes in the trunks, there were all sorts of other things.

There were boxes full of caterpillars in different stages of chrysalis form. There was also a gla.s.s box which contained an enormous spider.

This was Sylvia's special property. She called the spider d.i.c.kie, and adored it. She would not give it flies, which she considered cruel, but used to keep it alive on morsels of raw meat. Every day, for a quarter of an hour, d.i.c.kie was allowed to take exercise on a flat stone on the edge of the moor. It was quite against even Jean Macfarlane's advice that d.i.c.kie was brought to the neighborhood of London. But he was here.

He had borne his journey apparently well, and Sylvia looked at him now with wors.h.i.+ping eyes.

In addition to the live stock, which was extensive and varied, there were also all kinds of strange fossils, and long, trailing pieces of heather--mementos of the life which the girls lived on the moor, and which they had left with such pain and sorrow. They were all busy wors.h.i.+ping d.i.c.kie, and envying Sylvia's bravery in bringing the huge spider to Haddo Court, when there came a gentle tap at the door.

Betty said crossly, ”Who's there?”

A very refined voice answered, ”It's I;” and the next minute f.a.n.n.y Crawford entered the room. ”How are you all?” she said. Her eyes were red, for she had just said good-bye to her father, and she thoroughly hated the idea of the girls coming to the school.

”How are you, Fan?” replied Betty, speaking in a careless tone, just nodding her head, and looking again into the gla.s.s box. ”He is very hungry,” she continued. ”By the way, Fan, will you run down to the kitchen and get a little bit of raw meat?”

”Will I do what?” asked f.a.n.n.y.

”Well, I suppose there is a kitchen in the house, and you can get a bit of raw meat. It's for d.i.c.kie.”

”Oh,” said f.a.n.n.y, coming forward on tiptoe and peeping into the box, ”you can't keep that terror here--you simply won't be allowed to have it! Have you _no_ idea what school-life is like?”

”No,” said Betty; ”and what is more, I don't want you to tell me. d.i.c.kie darling, I'd let you pinch my finger if it would do you any good.

Sylvia, what use are you if you can't feed your own spider? If Fan won't oblige her cousins when she knows the ways of the house, I presume you have a pair of legs and can use them? Go to the kitchen at once and get a piece of raw meat.”

”I don't know where it is,” said Sylvia, looking slightly frightened.

”Well, you can ask. Go on; ask until you find. Now, be off with you!”

”You had better not,” said f.a.n.n.y. ”Why, you will meet all the girls coming out of the different cla.s.srooms!”

”What do girls matter,” said Betty in a withering voice, ”when d.i.c.kie is hungry?”

Sylvia gathered up her courage and departed. Betty laid the gla.s.s box which contained the spider on the dressing-table.

If f.a.n.n.y had not been slightly afraid of these bold northern cousins of hers, she would have dashed the box out on the balcony and released poor d.i.c.kie, giving him back to his natural mode of life. ”What queer dresses you are wearing!” she said. ”Do, please, change them before lunch. You were not dressed like this when I saw you last. You were never fas.h.i.+onable, but this stuff----”

”You'd best not begin, Fan, or I'll howl,” said Betty.

”Hus.h.!.+ do hush, f.a.n.n.y!” exclaimed Hester. ”Don't forget that we are in mourning for darling auntie.”