Drowned Cities

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Drowned Cities

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.
 CHAPTER V
Liveliness in Blue Dorm
Tea was over—a tea which seemed a babel to Joey's
unaccustomed ears, although Cousin Greta would probably have
laughed at the term "unaccustomed," considering the noise that the
five Grahams could make among themselves.
But Cousin Greta would never have guessed what a great school
could do at the first meal, with discipline relaxed and everybody
trying to tell special friends how they had spent the holidays.
Joey sat under the wing of a very young mistress, who wore a
great bunch of violets in her belt, and was addressed as "Miss
Lambton." She saw to it that Joey had plenty of bread and jam and
cake, and addressed two or three good-natured questions to her;
but it wasn't in the nature of things that the new girl shouldn't feel
rather out of it, when all near neighbours wanted to tell Miss
Lambton where they had been and what they had done, and she
had to interrupt her adorers in order to speak to Joey. Gabrielle had
been swamped directly they came into the huge refectory by two
vehement people, with a tiny silver shield fastened to their djibbahs,
who assured her vociferously that she had promised to sit between
them for the first tea last term.
However, she remembered the new girl directly tea was over, and
made her way to Joey's side, when the girls rose from table.
"Will you come to your dorm now?"
"I've got to go and say something to the Professor in Lab," Joey
said doubtfully, not being at all sure that when she reached Blue
Dorm she wouldn't be expected to stay there interviewing Matron, or
something of that kind.
 "Oh, come on, Gabrielle, if the new kid doesn't want to be shown
her dormitory, don't fag over her," urged two or three impatient
voices; but Gabrielle stood her ground.
"I quite forgot. Ingrid Latimer—she's Senior Prefect—of course,
you don't know her yet—sent me a message for you. She said the
Lab was all right, and she had seen Monsieur Trouville. I don't know
what it means, but perhaps you do."
"Yes, I know," Joey answered shortly. It had been kind of the
Senior Prefect to face the furious Professor for her, and Gabrielle
seemed kind and friendly, too; but you couldn't tell about these girls.
They despised her because of Calgarloch school, and she never
knew when they would have set her on about something else. She
didn't feel inclined to be effusive.
Gabrielle shook off her admirers and conducted Joey up many
stairs and along many passages in silence. Only when she had
opened the door of a large, light, airy room, with blue-washed walls
and blue quilts to the four beds and blue curtains to the windows,
did she find her voice again.
"This is Blue Dorm, Jocelyn. I'm sure you'll like it. Isn't it a topping
view? Look how well you can see the Fossdyke Wash—and that's the
Walpole Fen, all down on the right—it's reclaimed, you know—and
do you see that tower?"
"Yes; I saw it coming along. What is it?" asked Joey, coming a
little more out of her shell.
Gabrielle sunk her voice to an impressive whisper. "It's haunted—it
is really, Jocelyn. Of course Miss Conyngham and the sensible people
would say nonsense; but we've heard awfully queer sounds
sometimes, and once I saw some blue light with my own eyes, when
Doron Westerby—another four had this dorm last term—had
toothache in the night, and called me. You know a man was
murdered there; ages back, it was. His enemy tied him up in an
underground room of the tower, and then blew out a bit of the sea-
wall at one of the great autumn tides."
 Joey gasped. "How beastly. Are his mouldering bones there now?"
"I think they're cleared up," Gabrielle said regretfully. "You look for
the light, Jocelyn—you'll have a topping chance. I wonder which bed
you'll have—three have windows, you see; it's only in that fourth one
by the door you can't see anything, and I don't think it's fixed yet
who sleeps there."
As if in answer to her words, there was a stampede outside, and
the three other owners of Blue Dorm rushed headlong in. Each
carried something in her hand—a book, a comb, a handkerchief.
With one consent they rushed upon the three window beds, and
hurling the article upon it, shouted breathlessly, "Bags I this!"
Gabrielle got rather red. She walked up to Syb and spoke in a low
voice. Joey caught the words "a new girl" and "playing up." But
whatever her appeal might be, it hadn't much effect. Joey marched
over to the bed by the door.
"This is mine, then," she said.
Matron came in a minute later, in her usual hurry, demanding keys
and everyone's attention instantly. Gabrielle was dispatched to the
big basement room downstairs to help in the unpacking and putting
away of her things; and Joey found she was expected to do the
same, after Matron had shown her exactly where and how her things
should go, and explained that there was a dormitory inspection,
inside and out, of drawers and cupboards every Saturday of term.
Joey ran upstairs with armfuls of clothes, and downstairs to get
more for a long time after that; but at last everything was put away,
and Matron, weary and a trifle dishevelled, made a tour of inspection
before going to see the babies into bed.
The four in Blue Dorm were left to arrange their photographs and
private belongings before changing into their white frocks for supper.
Joey got to work on her shelf and combined chest of drawers and
dressing-table silently and unsociably. The others had a great deal to
say to each other, and took no notice of her for some little time.
Then Sybil, who had finished, came strolling up to the corner by the
door, and cast a glance over Joey's photographs.
"I say, what an awfully good-looking boy," she said, picking up the
photo of Gavin, taken for Mums out of the tip Uncle Staff sent him
when he won the scholarship. "Who's he—your brother?"
The devil entered into Joey. "No; that's the flesher's boy in
Calgarloch, a great pal of mine," she stated easily, arranging Mums
side by side with Father in uniform.
Syb stared. Joey went on. "The kid in socks is the gravedigger's
youngest—he's called Bingo; and these two, Ronnie and Kirsty,
belong to the odd-and-end shop at Crumach."
With which appalling size in thumpers, Joey turned her back upon
the girls, and went on arranging her photographs. Syb left her in a
hurry; the others whispered together. Joey finished her corner, and
got out her evening frock.
"Having us on?" asked Noreen, with a doubtful note of
appreciation.
Joey slipped her frock over her head. "Find out," she suggested.
That made a pause, and everybody put on their evening dresses
in silence. Barbara broke it while hair was being brushed.
"I suppose Gabrielle told you that this dorm tubs at night," she
observed unwillingly. "You had better not be late coming up, because
the water gets cold so quickly."
"But of course you'd bath last because of being new," Syb joined
in, rather truculently.
Joey made no answer; she was considering. "Where is the
bathroom?" she asked.
"Right opposite. Blue Dorm uses No. 8," Barbara vouchsafed.
"Thank you," Joey answered, with extraordinary meekness, a
meekness that was almost overdone. These horrid swanky girls had
forced her to accept the worst corner of the room, but it was
certainly nearest the door, and Joey was quite clear in her own mind
which of the Blue Dorm occupants was going to have first tub to-
night.
They went down to supper after that; the three together, and Joey
behind. There was a very nice supper laid in the huge refectory; but
Joey was home-sick for the little sitting-room at Calgarloch and the
brandered herrings and the brown bread, and Robina, the lass,
bringing in the pudding, and joining freely in the conversation if she
felt inclined.
Joey sat between two rather big girls, and they only spoke once to
her to ask her name and age, and then talked hockey across her for
the rest of the meal. Not that Joey cared; she assured herself that
she didn't want to be friends with these girls.
There was dancing after supper in the Queen's Hall, but Joey
looked on. Dancing wasn't taught at Calgarloch, and she refused
decidedly when Gabrielle came and asked for a valse. And then at
nine there were prayers, and the whole of the Upper School, with
Remove II. A and B of the Lower, filed past Miss Conyngham and
said good-night. The Juniors had been swept off a good deal earlier.
Joey was really glad when bedtime came. She was longing to get
a bit of her own back. Noreen and Co. had taken her in, and made
an utter fool of her over the tidying of the Lab and the putting on of
the Head Girl's boots; but Joey wasn't going to sit down meekly
under the treatment. She managed to plant herself just in front of
Sybil, Barbara, and Noreen in the long procession; and before she
went downstairs she had put out her towel, sponges, etc., where she
could snatch them easily. The procession moved on; and she moved
with it.
She could hear Miss Conyngham's clear, mellow voice, "Good-
night, Jacynth. Good-night, Mary. Good-night, Doron—oh, what
about that tooth? Has it given you more trouble?"
 Block number one. Joey heard Syb's grumble behind. "Bother
Doron's toothache—the water will be cold."
Doron's toothache was much better, thank you; yes, the stuff had
done it a lot of good; she wouldn't want any more, she thought.
"Thank you, Miss Conyngham."
Doron Westerby moved on; so did the procession.
"Good-night, Sylvia. Good-night, Trixie. Good-night, Cecily. Good-
night, Kathleen—any more news from home, dear?"
Block number two. Joey wondered if Syb's exaggerated groan
would be heard by Miss Conyngham; they were so near her now.
Yes, Kathleen had heard from home, and Frankie was better. His
temperature had gone down three degrees, thank you, Miss
Conyngham.
Kathleen was disposed of. "Good-night, Thelma. Good-night,
Winifred. Good-night—oh, it's you, Jocelyn? Settled your things
comfortably into the Blue Dormitory?"
"Yes, thank you, Miss Conyngham."
"That's right. Sleep well. Good-night, Jocelyn."
The procession moved on. Joey was out of the Queen's Hall and
on the stairs. Up them three steps at a time—the long legs at which
Calgarloch stared amazed were certainly of use now. Behind her she
heard Syb and Barbara disputing whose turn it was to have first
bath. As the turn had to be remembered across the width of the
holidays that was a difficult matter to decide. Joey chuckled
inwardly; they really needn't worry themselves to remember. She
plunged at the door of Blue Dorm and grabbed her things, including
pyjamas and dressing-gown. Too late; the other three saw what she
meant to do.
"Here, you are last for the bathroom," Syb shouted.
Joey dived across the passage and flung herself and her
belongings into Bathroom 8. "I don't think!" she said succinctly, as
she slammed the bolt home.
Joey enjoyed her bath. She took as much hot water as she
wanted, and didn't come out, whatever the bangings and
objurgations outside the door, till she had been in the bath as long
as she wished. Then at last she emerged, to face a furious trio
waiting for her in Blue Dorm.
Joey plumped down her armful of belongings on her bed. "I
should hurry," she advised politely. "The tap was beginning to run
cooler before I left."
Syb bolted to the bathroom; the other two turned their backs
studiously upon the aggressor, and talked ostentatiously to one
another. Joey curled up on her bed, did her hair in three bangs, and
then wrote up her diary for the first day at Redlands.

"Redlands is a hole, and the girls are pigs. I hate them all,
except p'r'aps Gabrielle. They think it a fair disgrace to have
been at a council school, and say beastly things. I wish I was
seventeen this minute, and coming away: I'll never get a bit of
paper big enough to cross off all the hateful horrid days I've got
to stay here. I have settled never to say a single word to any of
these hateful horrid swanky girls, except, p'r'aps Gabrielle, as
long as I live."

The letter to Mums, which was also written while the other three
bathed in tepid water with much bitterness of spirit, expressed a
rather different view.

"It's frightfully pretty here," Joey wrote, "and the Wash lies on
the edge of what you see—all glittering—and the river is mixed
up with it, and the Deeps are like another sea, only green grass.
The College is awfully nice, and some of it is very ancient and
historical. I'll tell you the history bits when I've mugged them
up. I'm in Blue Dorm, and that's the nicest Dorm. I have the
bed nearest the door, and that's frightfully handy for getting first
bath. My room-companions are Sybil, Barbara, and Noreen
 O'Hara. They were very interested in my photographs. I'm going
to have a topping time here, I can see, and I should think I'm in
the liveliest dorm that ever was.—Your loving
"Joey."
"P.S.—You might write soon; I'm frightfully happy here, still
you might write."

A bell rang just as Joey had finished her letter, and a stentorian
voice in the passage cried, "Silence for prayers."
Noreen O'Hara rushed from the bathroom, after a tub lasting a
short two minutes, and hurled herself upon her knees among her
sponges and bath-towel. A minute later a Prefect looked in, and
withdrew noiselessly.
There was absolute quiet for some seven or eight minutes, and
then a little murmur arose again.
Joey had dropped her writing-things and said her prayers like the
rest. She wondered if she ought to feel ashamed of her behaviour
with the bath; the sad thing was that she didn't, particularly. And if
she said she was sorry now, the furious three would think she was
afraid of what they might do to her. Joey decided to stick it out, but
have a shorter and a cooler bath to-morrow.
Another bell rang. Noreen and Syb were already in bed; Barbara
jumped up at the bell, and Joey more slowly followed her example.
The Prefect looked in again.
"All in bed—that's right." She turned to put out the light. "Good-
night."
"Good-night, Ingrid," said the injured three in a burst. "Good-
night," said Joey pointedly by herself when the others had finished.
Ingrid Latimer looked in her direction. "Why, it's the new kid."
She came across to Joey's bed. "Got my message, young 'un?"
"Yes, thanks awfully."
 "That's all right. He won't think any more of it. You come to me, if
anybody tries on that sort of game again. You'll always find some
fat-headed idiots in Coll who think it funny. Good-night."
"Good-night, and thanks no end."
Ingrid turned the light out. Blue Dorm was left in outward peace.
It was outward only!
 CHAPTER VI
A Night on the Leads
Ingrid's steps—alert, responsible—died away into distance. Silence
settled down. Then Sybil drew a long breath, and spoke in accents
which were hushed, but audible.
"Of all the utterly mean young skunks!"
"Disgusting!" Noreen agreed.
"But I suppose she hasn't learnt anything better," said Barbara.
Joey wriggled in bed, but held her tongue. Let them go on; they
wouldn't hurt her.
"Such a pig about the bath-water—I hardly washed at all," Syb
went on.
"Frightfully lowering to Redlands to turn that sort in," Barbara took
up the parable.
Joey couldn't keep out of the fray any longer. "Did the Redlands
girls want to have a nice kind fat old nurse apiece to look after them
and keep them from being contaminated by less select people?" she
jeered. "Poor little dears!"
"We're not talking to you, Jocelyn Graham. We don't talk to girls
who behave as you do," Sybil told her icily.
"Righto. Don't then," Joey said, and turned over in bed.
But the outraged three had not finished by any manner of means.
"Sucking up and sneaking to Ingrid Latimer, too; I do call that the
limit," Noreen went on. "Notice how she jawed at us—and I adored
Ingrid all last term."
 Joey was too proud to speak again after her recent snub, or she
might have informed them that she had not sneaked to Ingrid
Latimer. As it was—let them think it if they liked—she didn't care.
"Shame to put her into Blue Dorm," that was Barbara.
"P'r'aps she could be cleared out."
"Miss Conyngham is frightfully stuffy about changing dorms after
she and Matron have worked it all out."
Joey got out of bed, shouldered into a dressing-gown, thrust on
slippers, and seized her blue quilt.
"As it's rather difficult to go to sleep, while you're making all this
row, I'll sleep somewhere else to-night, if you don't mind," she
explained, with elaborate politeness, and was out of the door, trailing
her quilt after her, before any of the three had recovered from the
blank surprise caused by her remark.
When she came out of Bathroom 8, Joey had noticed a ladder at
the far end of the passage; she guessed that it must lead on to the
roof. And what better place could one find to sleep on than a roof,
on such a fine September night as this? Even if it rained she thought
the leads would be better than a Blue Dorm full of hateful girls who
talked at her.
She scrambled up the latter, stumbling over the blue quilt; pushed
open a trap-door, and arrived, sure enough, upon the leads, all silver
in the moonlight.
She had been boiling over with fury when she escaped from the
Blue Dorm, but this wonderful silver world had a calming effect. It
was far clearer now than it had been when she came. Then a haze
had hovered over the horizon; now the broad line of the Fossdyke
Wash glittered a silver glory on the edge of the white world.
The great stretch of the Walpole Fen intersected by its wide
ditches unrolled itself before her, and in the flatness that curious
round tower stood out conspicuously. Joey looked at it with interest;
it was curious to see a tower standing all by itself like that. She
wondered whether she would be allowed to go and explore it
sometime, by herself of course, without the company of any of those
hateful Redlands girls. And then she thought how interested Mums
would be in hearing of it. And then she thought how much more
interested Mums would be if she, Joey, had seen the redoubtable
blue light which Gabrielle had mentioned. And then she wondered if
she would see it to-night, where she would have an even better view
than if she had been allowed a window bed. That was the last clear
thought in her mind before she found a sheltered corner, rolled
herself tightly in her quilt, and fell asleep with her face buried in the
hollow of her arm to get away from the moonlight. She dreamt of
the tower, of course, but all her dreams were confused, not clear.
She awoke at last to a sense of cold, which had been with her for
some time before it roused her.
"You little pig Kirsty; you've taken all the clothes," she murmured
sleepily; and then, as consciousness came back, she knew that she
wasn't in the familiar little bed at Pilot Cottage, where there was just
room for Kirsty and herself and no more, but somewhere in a dark
outdoor world with no moon left and a fine rain falling.
Joey stood up, holding her damp quilt about her. Luckily, her
dressing-gown was thick, but even with that she shivered—of course
she must go inside to Blue Dorm, which seemed decidedly attractive
at that moment; only how in the world was she to find the trap-door
in the dark? Joey turned round, trying to make out the geography of
the roof, and, as she turned, something blue shone for a moment
through the drizzly darkness. She watched the light, forgetting damp
and discomfort and the rather forlorn feeling which had seized her.
The blue light flashed out three times and then disappeared. Almost
at once the stable clock struck two.
The blue light had done more than give Joey a thrilling story for
Mums: it had shown her how she stood. When she came up through
the trap-door, the tower had been on her right. She made straight
for the trap-door in the darkness, and landed full upon it; she felt
the ring through her bedroom slippers.
 She knelt down and lifted it cautiously, crept through and went
down the ladder backwards much impeded by the quilt, and with all
her teeth chattering as if they would never stop. Noiselessly she
tiptoed into Blue Dorm, found her bed, and got into it, pulling her
bedclothes tightly round her.
Unfortunately, this process did not keep her teeth from chattering,
cold chills chased each other up and down her spine, and the bed
shook with her shivering.
Someone spoke from one of the window beds:
"I say, Jocelyn!"
"Thought you weren't talking to me!" Joey inquired, as high-
handedly as is possible with teeth chattering like castanets. It was
Noreen's voice that had spoken; she recognized the faint touch of
the brogue.
"Are you crying?"
"Likely!" Joey got all the scorn possible into that one word.
Noreen sat up in bed.
"Then what are you doing?"
"Shivering."
"Oh!" said Noreen, and ducked down in her bed, because there
was a step outside, and the door opened. Ingrid came in with a
candle.
"I thought I heard talking; is any one ill?"
Joey withdrew herself and her shivers well under the bedclothes,
and buried her face in the pillow.
"Nothing's the matter, Ingrid," Noreen said, rather flustered. "I
just thought one of them was awake—and asked."
Ingrid was in a hurry and rather cold besides. She did not make a
tour of the beds in Blue Dorm.
 "My dear Kid, don't wake people up to ask if they're awake," she
said. "You spoke quite loud: I heard you in the passage, when I was
fetching stuff for Dorothy's earache. Go to sleep, and anyhow keep
quiet, please."
She shut the door. Noreen wisely waited for a good five minutes
before saying anything else. Then she got out of bed and came
across to Joey, carrying her quilt.
"Stick this on top of yours. Goodness, you are cold. Like my rug
too? It's just folded at the end of my bed; I can get it in a sec."
"Thanks awfully," jerked poor Joey, wondering if she ever would
be warm again. Though she didn't want to take anything from these
horrid unfriendly Redlands girls, she couldn't resist the quilt and the
rug, and Noreen's voice was kind just then.
"Where have you been?" Noreen whispered, as she tucked the
plaid down over the two quilts.
"Roof," said Joey.
"You haven't? Up the ladder and on to the leads. You slept there?
I say, there would have been a row if Ingrid found out!"
"Well, I suppose so," Joey acknowledged. Her teeth were
chattering rather less; it was more possible to speak.
"She'd be sure to say we drove you to it," Noreen said. "She knew
about our ragging you...."
"I didn't tell her—at least when I asked about her boots I spoke
about the Lab, and she wanted to know who told me to tidy it," Joey
explained.
"Did you tell?"
"No."
Noreen sat down on her bed.
"You're rather a young sport, Jocelyn. I say, it was rather a shame
about the Lab; was the Professor a frightful beast about it?"
 "He was rather; I think he needn't have been so bad considering
the French and we are allies for evermore," Joey said.
"He's only French-Swiss; daresay he can't be as nice as pure
French," Noreen suggested soothingly. "Anyhow, Ingrid has settled
him up—she can tackle any professor born: you should see her with
our literature prof: disagrees with him and that sort of thing. All the
same, it was a mean shame to have you on about the Lab, Jocelyn;
I was really rather sorry about it afterwards—only, you know, you
were so uppish about the bath."
The shivers had practically subsided; Joey felt happier.
"I know; I shouldn't do that again."
"I don't blame you for getting something off us when you had the
chance," Noreen observed, with an effort after fair play. "Good-night,
Jocelyn: I hope you'll be all right now."
"Good-night, Noreen; thanks ever so."
Joey went to sleep at last, with an idea in her mind that some at
least of the girls at Redlands were better than they seemed.

No one could think how a girl who had arrived perfectly well at
four o'clock yesterday, could manage to develop such a frightful
crying cold as Joey brought to breakfast next morning. Miss Lambton
commented upon it; her neighbors at breakfast commented upon it
with less concern and more candour; Matron commented upon it
quite severely, while sticking a thermometer that tasted of carbolic
into Joey's unwilling mouth, in the hall.
Noreen was hovering near.
"Please I expect that bed by the door has a draught or
something," she suggested. "Shall I change with her? I don't mind
really."
 "Rubbish about a draught," Matron answered briskly. "There is just
as much draught by a window. But you can change beds if you both
like—only it's not to be a precedent."
Matron's urbanity was possibly due to the fact that Joey had been
proved to have no temperature, and therefore could not be
convicted of the heinous crime of sickening for measles, "flu," or
chicken-pox.
"Keep a sports-coat on all day in the house, and you are not to
stand about when the ground is wet, or stay out after four," she
said, with authority. "You can run away now, but be careful. You
must have done something really silly to get a cold like that."
"Come and change the beds," whispered Noreen, and the two ran
up to Blue Dorm together.
"Look here, it's jolly decent of you, but it doesn't matter about
changing, really," Joey blurted out.
Noreen grinned engagingly.
"You silly cuckoo, don't you see I want to bag your tip of 'First
Bath.'"
But Joey knew that wasn't the real reason; she began to like
Noreen.
 CHAPTER VII
The Violet Handkerchief
A select committee consisting of Ingrid Latimer, Freda Martin, Joan
Chichester, and Miss Lambton, the assistant games-mistress, tried
the new girls for hockey that afternoon, playing them with a
selection from the second hockey-team.
Joey enjoyed herself, though she had not played since she was
quite small and a day-girl at a school in Hertfordshire. Her running
and her passing were both commended, the one by Ingrid and the
other by Miss Lambton; and she was dreadfully disappointed when,
at four o'clock, Miss Lambton looked at her watch, and said
something in an undertone to Ingrid. Then she called out:
"Jocelyn Graham is to go indoors now. Change your hockey things,
Jocelyn," she added, "and you can ask for a book from the Lower
School Library."
Of course that bothering cold! Joey thanked Miss Lambton, and
went indoors in very low spirits. Now that she had been reminded of
her cold, she felt much worse at once. Her head and eyes were
heavy; she didn't think she would ask for a book after all. She
wandered up to Blue Dorm, and began to change very slowly, finally
taking out a clean handkerchief from the drawer, and putting her
handkerchief—her third that day—into her linen-bag.
Something deep-toned showed at the bottom of her bag, under
the white of her own handkerchiefs; of course she still had the violet
silk handkerchief which she had used to dust the Lab. Joey decided
that it would be a very good thing to wash it, here and now, while
she had the time. She plunged her arm into the linen-bag and drew
it out. What a good thing she had needed another handkerchief, or it
would probably have gone to the wash with her other things, and
the Professor would have had to wait till the laundry returned it.
Joey dashed into the bathroom with the violet handkerchief, turned
on some moderately hot water, and began to scrub with vigour. She
got the dirt off fairly well, to judge by the extraordinarily black
condition of the bath; if she could only dry it, it might be possible to
return it to the Lab this very evening. Joey didn't like to think of the
Professor wanting his handkerchief and thinking of her as a thief as
well as a most interfering schoolgirl.
But how was she to dry that handkerchief? Hung out over a chair
in the Blue Dorm it would certainly take all night. The late
September sun was near its setting; she couldn't dry it on the
window ledge, that was quite certain. If only Gabrielle had been
about, or even Noreen, she might perhaps have asked whether it
was allowable to go down to the kitchens to find a fire. Already in
the twenty-four hours she had spent at Redlands she had learnt
there were several things not allowed which would have been the
ordinary sort of thing to do at Calgarloch—and Father had always
been particular about obedience. But both were playing hockey, and
Joey was still cautious about the others. Probably she would be had
on again, if she asked strangers.
She went down two flights of stairs, holding the wet handkerchief
crumpled in her hand, and wondering what she had better do. Then
she saw a door open, and heard a babel of small voices coming from
behind it, and—surprising sight, a glow of firelight. She pushed the
door open a very little farther, and peeped in.
About twelve or fourteen very small girls, their ages ranging from
six or seven to nine, were sitting in a huge half-circle round a bright
fire. They were all talking hard, regardless of a pleasant-looking
maid who was laying tea—a very nice tea, with plenty of bread and
jam, and a plate of round, shiny-topped buns.
They all stopped chattering though, when they caught sight of
Joey, and stared at her solemnly in absolute silence. Still, she
couldn't be uncomfortable with people of that age, even if they
hadn't reminded her so much of Kirsty and Bingo.
 "Do you mind if I come in and dry something by your fire?" she
asked.
The children received the request most graciously, scrambling
aside to make room for her in the middle of the circle, and helping
her to hang the handkerchief over the high nursery fender.
"Is it your hankserchiff?" asked a small, solemn voice, while she
was spreading it out; and she turned round to meet the grave, dark
eyes of the very tiniest child she had ever seen at school. She was
about half Bingo's size, but she spoke quite distinctly, except for the
mispronunciation of the word handkerchief. Her black hair was cut
square over her forehead and bobbed; her small, round face had
very little colour, and except for the amount of expression in it and
the fact that she was talking, Joey could almost have taken her for a
French doll.
"No, it's not mine; it's one I borrowed, so I washed it," she
explained, and then she pulled the tiny child upon her lap, as she sat
on the floor.
"What's your name, I wonder?"
"Bertillia," breathed the mite, pronouncing all the syllables quite
distinctly, and looking solemnly up at Joey as she spoke.
"But we call her Tiddles," said a jolly-looking, round-faced person
on Joey's right. "At least the big ones did first, and we caught it off
them. And she's like a Tiddles, isn't she—just a sort of little kitten
thing you can pick up."
"You squeeze me when you pick me up, Ros-ie," Tiddles stated.
"How old is she?" Joey asked, cuddling Tiddles close, as she
cuddled Bingo, when he allowed it—which wasn't often.
"Oh, she's six—but isn't she small—people think she's only two or
three," Rosie answered. "She's Belgian, you know, and Miss
Conyngham has taken her 'cause she's got nobody. Her mother got
killed, and the one who brought her to England died of tiredness,
poor thing—she had to walk and walk and carry Tiddles. She found
her, you know; and look what those pigly Germans had done to her.
Show your arm, Tiddles, darling."
Tiddles, who had listened seriously and unwinkingly to her
mournful story, related so very cheerfully by Rosie, gave a funny
little nod, and pulled up the loose sleeve of her tiny blouse. On the
small arm was a long, deep scar.
"Did the Huns——?" Joey gasped.
"Yes, though she was just a tiny baby. We're never going to speak
to a German again as long as we live," Rosie stated firmly. "We've
settled that; we shall just look the other way if we meet one, as
though he was a bad smell. Poor Tiddles!"
Tiddles had been staring at Joey very solemnly, all the time that
Joey was looking at her arm. Now she suddenly laid down her black
head upon Joey's shoulder. "I like you," she said.
Joey kissed the top of the little black head. "You're a darling! My
father was killed by the Germans—at least by their being such
beasts to him and all the other wounded men. They put him in a
cattle-truck, and it was all filth, and they had no water, and when
the women on the way heard they were English they wouldn't give
them any, though they had heaps."
Joey stared through the bars of the grate, her eyes growing dim.
"So father died, after a bit."
"Would you ever do anything for a German—except despise him?"
another small girl asked truculently, and Joey answered:
"No, I don't suppose I should."
She scrambled up in a hurry. "Oh, my hanky's singeing!"
She was only just in time to save it, for the fire was really very
hot. She snatched it from the fender and looked it over anxiously to
see if there were any scorched places. No, there were none; but
something rather strange caught her eyes in one corner; something
that came between the neat red lettering of the Professor's name—
some tiny marks that stood out oddly in bright yellow from the dark
violet background.
Joey stared at them for a moment in silence, holding the
handkerchief stretched to its widest in her two hands. They were
photographed upon her mind in that moment before they faded and
disappeared, leaving the red lettering of the Professor's name alone,
and the handkerchief bone-dry. Curious marks they were too—marks
that looked like little dots and dashes. Joey wondered for a second,
and then she heard Noreen calling in the passage:
"Jocelyn! Jocelyn!"
Joey made a dash for the door, pursued by a chorus of "Come
again, come again soon!" In her hurry, she thought no more about
the oddness of the little marks which appeared with the heat and
disappeared again as quickly. Noreen sounded good-tempered;
perhaps she would return the handkerchief to the Professor, as Joey
herself was forbidden to go out.
She preferred her request, breathlessly. Noreen very muddy and
dishevelled, answered a shade doubtfully.
"He's always such a foaming-at-the-mouth sort of beast if you
intrude on his blessed privacy. Still, I don't mind trying if you like. He
ought to be pleased to get back his old hanky. What am I to say if I
see him—humblest apologies and all that? Righto! Stay with the kids
till tea: we shan't get a fire till supper-time. If I don't return, look for
me in a poisoned grave under the Lab."
Noreen departed. Joey went back to the babies for the ten
minutes that remained before tea-time, and found that they liked
stories quite as much as Kirsty and Bingo did. Then Matron came in
to give them their tea, and Joey went down to hers.
She did not see Noreen till the meal was over; but caught her up
in the hall—on the way to the classrooms for prep.
"So sorry, Jocelyn, after you've washed it and all, but I let that
hanky drop on the way, and muddied it a little—not much. So I
thought I'd better not face the Professor, but just chucked it in at an
open window. You bet he'll see it—he probably won't know it ever
left the floor where you found it," she said. "So that's all right, isn't
it?"
"Thanks awfully," Joe said, and tried to think it was as right as
Noreen said.
 CHAPTER VIII
The Peace-Pipe
Matron was lying in wait at the door of Remove II. B Classroom,
and pounced on Joey as she came out at the end of prep explaining
that she was to go to bed at once in order that her throat and chest
might be rubbed with camphorated oil.
Joey submitted, but unwillingly; bed two hours before anybody
else, when she didn't feel ill, only heavy, was a very depressing idea.
However, it was clearly no case for argument.
Matron bustled her through her bath and into bed, and was
rubbing her with a vigour that left no breath for conversation on her
part by the time the other three came in to change their frocks for
supper.
Joey wished very heartily that Matron had finished, for she had
thought of some new and effective things to say to Syb and Barbara,
in answer to their taunts of last night. Noreen was, of course, to be
left out; Noreen had really been decent about the bed and
everything, even if she had been the ringleader in that ragging
business. Joey meant to forgive and forget where Noreen was
concerned; but to let Syb and Barbara have it hot and strong. Only
she would contrive to let them know that she wouldn't take all the
hot water again.
But of course nothing could be said or done while Matron was in
the room. She had finished the rubbing now, but was pouring out a
portentous dose of ammoniated quinine. On the other side of the
room Barbara, Syb, and Noreen were dressing with extraordinary
politeness. "Please, Barbara, could you hook me up?" and so on.
They were nearly ready; if Matron stayed much longer the supper
bell would ring, and the opportunity would be lost.