A harum-scarum schoolgirl

by Angela Brazil

  CHAPTER XIV

  Spooks

  March had come, and even in the northern mountainous region ofthe Pennines, where snow lingers long after it has melted in morefavoured districts, winter had begun to make way for spring. Thesnowdrops--January flowers in Wales or Cornwall, fair maids of Februaryin most counties--were late bloomers at Pendlemere, and were never intheir prime till St. Patrick's Day. They made up for their tardy arrivalby their luxuriance. They grew almost wild in the orchard, and spreadlike a white carpet over the grass, tossing fairy bells in the wind.Diana, promoted to help Miss Carr in the spraying of apple-trees, pausedin her work to look round and revel in nature's re-awakening. She was asun lover, and the long months of perpetual mist and rain had tried hervery much. She had, to be sure, kept up her spirits in spite of weather;still, the sight of fleecy, white clouds scudding across a blue sky, andthe sound of the missel-thrush tuning up on the bare branch of theplum-tree were particularly cheering. Hedge-sparrows twittered among theshrubs, and rooks were busy flying with large twigs in their bills torepair their nests in the elms near the church. In the March sunshinethe lake glittered like gold.

  "I wonder if it looked just like this when the old monks lived here,"said Diana. "Did they see exactly what we do now?"

  "Pretty much the same, I expect," answered Miss Carr ratherabstractedly. "The lake and the fells would be there, and probably mostof the farms, though the buildings would be different in those days. Thelay brethren would attend to the land just as we do. I dare say they dugin this very orchard, and grew herbs in the same place where we're goingto plant our potatoes."

  "It's a pity we can't call up a vision of them!"

  "No, thank you!" said Miss Carr, who was a practical person, and notgiven to romance. "I've not the slightest desire to see spooks. I'mquite content with modern life, and don't want fourteenth-century ghostsgliding about the place. Get on with your work, Diana! I'm moreconcerned with apple-trees than with the old monks."

  When Diana got an idea into her head, however, it was apt to stick. Shehad a lively imagination, and she liked to picture what the Abbey hadonce been. She read the account of it in the local guidebook and inChadwick's _Northern Antiquities_, which she borrowed from the library,and she further devoured Scott's _The Monastery_. Steeped in thismediaeval atmosphere, she began to tell the girls such vivid stories ofthe doings of the brethren that they almost believed her. She inventedseveral fictitious characters: Brother Amos, Brother Lawrence, BrotherJohn, and Prior Andrew, and gave a most circumstantial account of theiradventures.

  "How do you know what they used to do?" asked Jess, much impressed.

  "I guess I sort of feel it," said Diana. "It's almost like remembering."

  "Some people think we come back to earth and live again. Were you one ofthe old monks, Di?"

  "She must have been an unholy one, if she was!" interrupted Sadie."Anybody less like a monk than 'Stars and Stripes' I couldn't think of!"

  "There were all sorts, of course. I've told you Brother Lawrence was upto tricks sometimes, and got the discipline. The Prior used to be downon him, just as Toddlekins is down on us. He was more sinner than saint.That's why he can't rest quietly."

  "Doesn't he rest?" Jess's voice held a note of uneasiness.

  "No, I don't think he does. I've a kind of feeling that he haunts theplace, coming back to find out what it's like now."

  "An earth-bound spirit!" gasped Jess.

  "Yes, he's got some sins to expiate, you see."

  The conversation was growing creepy. Sadie, Tattie, Jess, and Peggy, whowith Diana were squatting near the schoolroom fire in the gloaming,moved a little nearer together. There is comfort in physical contact.The fact that Brother Lawrence was entirely an invention of Diana's didnot relieve the tenseness of the situation; she had talked about him sooften that she seemed to have conjured him up. They could almost see hiswhite habit gliding along the corridor, and his unsaintly eyes gleamingfrom under his cowl. They began to wish he had behaved better during hislifetime, or at any rate that he had not chosen to revisit the scenes ofhis old sins.

  "If I were really to see him I'd have forty fits!" shivered Peggy, whowas a superstitious little soul who threw spilt salt over her leftshoulder, and curtsied religiously to the new moon.

  "It isn't everybody can see ghosts," declared Diana. "You've got to havethe psychic faculty. Some people can feel they're there, even when theycan't see them."

  "Oh, that would be _far_ worse! It would be awful to know something wasin the room, and not be able to see it!" exploded Jess. "Tattie, may Icome and sleep in your bed to-night?"

  "There's not much room, but you can if you like," conceded Tattie; "solong as Geraldine doesn't find out."

  "I'll creep in when she's asleep."

  It was all very well for Diana to people the corridor with imaginarymonks; she knew they were images of her own creation; the moreweak-minded of her form mates, however, were frankly frightened. Nothingspreads more readily than a ghost scare. Sadie, Jess, and Peggie werebolting squealing along the passage one evening, when they almostcollided with Geraldine. She seized Jess by the arm, and pulled her intothe radius of the lamplight, nodding to the other two to follow.

  "I want a word with you," she said. "It's high time you stopped thisridiculous nonsense. I don't know who started it, but it's getting thelimit. Oh, yes! I know you go creeping into Tattie's bed when you thinkI'm asleep, and you daren't walk upstairs alone. I'm not as blind ordeaf as you seem to suppose. You're putting silly ideas into juniors'heads. Whoever heard of the Abbey being haunted? Such stuff! You'll beafraid of your own shadows next. Do try to be more strong-minded! Ireally shouldn't have expected----"

  Geraldine stopped, because something like a whirlwind suddenly descendedthe stairs and stampeded towards them. It resolved itself intoDiana--Diana with scarlet cheeks, shining eyes, and face simply bubblingover with excitement.

  "Hallo! I say!" she jodelled, "What _do_ you think?" Then she sawGeraldine, and halted dead.

  "Come here!" commanded the head girl. "I want to talk to you too aboutthis absurd spook scare. It's mostly among you intermediates, and thesooner you get it out of your silly heads the better. Pity you can'tfind something more sensible to talk about. Why don't you read, and fillup your empty brains? There are heaps of good books in the library, ifyou'd only get them out. You spend all your spare time gossiping."

  "We _do_ read!" retorted Diana, taking up the cudgels for the malignedintermediates. "I've just read _The Monastery_, and that's all about aghost called 'The White Lady of Avenel'. It's _grand_ where she ridesthe sacristan's mule down the river and sings:

  'Merrily swim we; the moon shines bright. Good luck to your fishing! Whom watch ye to-night?'

  There are heaps and loads of ghost tales in the guide book and inChadwick's _Northern Antiquities_, and those are all books Miss Todd_told_ me I might read. She said they were 'educational'."

  "She didn't mean you to take the ghosts seriously, though, any more thanyou'd believe in the gods of Greece because you were learning classicalliterature. Why, you'll tell me next that you expect to see thefairies."

  "I'm not sure that I don't!"

  "Then you're a bigger goose than I thought you. Really, at fourteen! I'mastonished at all of you. You don't see _me_ running squealing away fromsupposed ghosts. Don't let me catch you being such little idiots again."

  Having finished her harangue, and having, as she thought, thoroughlysquashed the folly of the intermediates, Geraldine proceeded on her way,happily oblivious of the faces they were pulling behind her back.

  "I'd like to see _her_ squeal and run," grunted Jess.

  ITS COWL FELL BACK, AND DISCLOSED A WELL-KNOWN ANDDECIDEDLY MIRTHFUL COUNTENANCE]

  "So should I," agreed Sadie. "She's always _very_ superior. By the by,Stars and Stripes, what were you just going to tell us?"

  "Nothing particular."

  Diana was looking preoccupied, as if her thoughts were far away.

 
"I'm sure it was," urged Sadie. "Don't be mean! Go on!"

  "I've changed my mind. No, I'm _not_ going to tell you. It's no usebothering me, for I just shan't."

  "I think everybody's horrid to-night," said Sadie, turning away muchoffended.

  It was on the very next evening that Ida Beckford, going to her bedroomin the gloaming, caught a glimpse of a white-robed figure with a cowlover its head gliding along the passage and up the stairs. Ida was notso strong-minded as Geraldine. She turned the colour of pale putty, andwent straight downstairs again to relate her psychic experience to herfellow seniors. She did not meet with the sympathy she expected.

  "Some silly trick of those intermediates," sniffed Hilary.

  "I'll be down on them if they go shamming spooks," threatened Geraldine.

  "If it happens again we'll set a watch and catch it," declared Stuartloftily.

  Ida cheered up at this mundane view of the matter, and recovered hercolour; but she abandoned the blotter she was going to fetch, and stayedin her form-room instead of walking upstairs again. The news began tocreep about the school, however, that the Abbey was being haunted by aspiritual visitor. Many of the girls saw it glide along the landing inthe dusk, and disappear up a certain narrow flight of stairs. Now hereinlay the mystery. The stairs went up ten steps in full view of thepassage, then they turned a sharp corner, rounded a yard of landing, andwith four more steps ended in a locked attic door. Several of the mostventuresome members of the school had tried to follow the figure, butwhen they came round the corner, to their immense surprise it hadutterly disappeared. And there was absolutely no place in which it couldpossibly have concealed itself.

  "Has it crept through the keyhole?" quavered Peggy.

  "Or just vanished into thin air?" speculated Magsie.

  "The door's really locked!" declared Vi, rattling the handle again tomake sure.

  "We certainly _saw_ it go up, but it's not here now!"

  "Flesh and blood can't disappear in a second!"

  "It's most uncanny!"

  "The old Cistercians wore white habits."

  "I say, I don't like this!"

  Brother Lawrence, as the girls began to call the apparition, showedhimself frequently, but always with the same elusiveness. The phenomenonwas invariably as before: his white monastic robes would glimmerthrough the darkness, glide up the stairway, and then seemingly meltinto nothing. Geraldine herself pursuing hotly on the scent, found thatshe was utterly baffled.

  A head girl, especially a prefect with a scorn for superstition, doesnot like to admit herself baffled. Geraldine thought the matter over,took Loveday into her confidence, and went to Miss Todd. As the resultof her interview she resolved to set what she called "a very neat littlespook-trap". She and Loveday said nothing about it to the rest of theschool. They merely bided their time.

  Brother Lawrence did not always show up when anybody was on the watchfor him; he seemed to prefer displaying his supernatural powers to theunwary. For two whole days he did not put in an appearance; whether hewas haunting elsewhere or expiating his sins in purgatory was a pointfor discussion. On the third evening, however, Tattie, Jess, and Magsiehad screwed their courage to sticking-point, and strolled upstairs inthe twilight, half hoping and half fearing to catch a glimpse of the nowalmost familiar apparition. They kept in the shadow of the big cupboard,and held each others' hands without speaking. A full moon was shiningthrough the landing window, and lit up the narrow staircase with asilvery, ghostly gleam. Suddenly from the darkness of a doorway emergedthe white robes, and passed rapidly upwards in the moonlight. Stillclutching hands for moral support, the three girls tore after it.Surely this time they could manage to overtake it? But no; it had turnedthe corner before they reached the lowest stair, and by the time theyhad dashed up the ten steps it had made its usual disappearance. Theyhalted on the yard of landing, breathing hard; then their hearts seemedto turn somersaults, for the attic door suddenly opened. It was no ghostwho peered forth at them, but Geraldine and Loveday. The former had acandle in her hand; she struck a match and lighted it calmly.

  "You needn't look so scared!" she said to the panting trio. "I'm justgoing to show you your precious spook. Stand back a little, will you? Iassure you it won't bite you!"

  She descended to the landing, turned round towards the four steps thatled to the attic door, then, to the immense amazement of the girls,raised up the steps like the lid of a chest. There was a good-sizedcavity below, and in this place of concealment crouched a white-cladfigure. Geraldine took it by the arm and hauled it unceremoniouslyforth. It issued chuckling, and, as its cowl fell back, disclosed awell-known and decidedly mirthful countenance.

  "Stars and Stripes!" ejaculated Jess.

  "The game's up!" proclaimed Diana coolly. "You two"--nodding at theseniors--"have been too many for me."

  "I always thought you were at the bottom of all this, Diana Hewlitt!"said Geraldine. "I was quite determined I'd catch you. Take thosethings off at once. What are they? Sheets? Fold them up properly; don'ttrail them on the floor. Do you know that if anybody in the school hadhad a weak heart you might have killed her by playing such a trick?"

  "I knew you were all too strong-minded," twinkled Diana. "Of course,nobody believed in Brother Lawrence, any more than they believed in thefairies or the gods of Greece. I guess it's rather nice sometimes tomake a sort of practical demonstration of one's reading. It shows oneappreciates the books and takes an intelligent interest. There are heapsof good books in the library. I'm going to borrow _Customs andSuperstitions of the Celts_."

  "You may borrow what you like," said Geraldine grimly; "but if we've anymore of this business Miss Todd will settle it herself; so I tell you."

  "People who provide entertainment are rarely thanked," sighed Diana, asshe folded the sheets. "I ought to receive a stipend for keeping theschool amused."

  "You'll receive something you don't bargain for, if you don't takecare," warned Geraldine. "Go downstairs, all of you!"

  That Brother Lawrence was identical with Diana did not very muchsurprise the school, but everybody went crazy over the discovery of thesecret hiding-place under the stairs. Even Miss Todd had not known ofits existence. Diana confessed that she had found it out quite byaccident, had rushed downstairs to communicate the thrilling news, buthad changed her mind as its obvious advantages flashed across her. Shehad not been able to resist making use of it to play a ghost trick. Thelittle chamber which she had so unexpectedly brought to light was onlyjust big enough to crouch in, and had probably been made in thetroublous times of the Stuarts as a place of temporary concealment whenthe Abbey was searched by soldiers. Unfortunately it was quite empty.

  "When I first opened it I expected to find a hoard of spade-guineas orsilver punch-bowls," said Diana ruefully to Loveday--the two girls werediscussing the great discovery as they went to bed. "I nearly howledwhen I found nothing but dust."

  "I wonder," answered Loveday, "if this is what that gentleman found--theone, I mean, who came to see Father when I had measles. You know I'vealways been hunting about for hiding-places."

  "Yes, I know."

  "I thought somehow it would be rather better than this, though. Ithardly seemed worth while his troubling to come and call; though, ofcourse, it's interesting. Mr. Fleming will be very thrilled."

  "I'd have been a great deal more thrilled if there'd been anything worthhaving inside. As I told you before, I expected spade-guineas. It's oneof the disappointments of my life!" declared Diana, getting into bed.