The Princess of the School by Angela Brazil (first color ebook reader .txt) 📕

describing the sad experience of a typical little waif, and his reception in the Home. It was a pretty piece, and had been composed expressly[113] for the Society by a lady who often wrote for magazines.

Then, last of all, came Carmel's Sicilian dance. Miss Lowe had fortunately been able to obtain the score of the Pastorale, and with music and costume complete the performance was an even greater success than it had been on the terrace at Bradstone. People clapped the little figure, partly for her charming dancing and partly for her pluck in trapping the burglar, so that altogether she received quite an ovation.

"We shan't forget the 'Waifs and Strays' afternoon in a hurry," said Lilias, as she tidied her possessions afterwards, for it was her drawer that the burglar had turned upside down in his search for valuables. "I feel I want to sleep with a revolver under my pillow!"

"If you did, I'd be far more afraid of you than of the burglar!" protested Bertha. "I know you'd let it off at the wrong person. I don't suppose anybody else is likely to come burgling here, so you needn't alarm yourself!"

"But if they do, Miss Wiseacre?"

"Then I should turn them over into the dressing-room, to be dealt with at her discretion by Princess Carmel!" laughed Bertha. "I believe she's equal to catching one of them in a mousetrap if she gets the opportunity!"

chapter ix The Open Road

It was fortunate for Carmel that her first experience[114] of England should come in the spring and early summer. Had she arrived straight from sunny Sicily to face autumn rains or winter snows, I verily believe her courage would have failed, and she would have written an urgent and imploring appeal to be fetched home. For the white, vine-covered house that looked over the blue waters of the Mediterranean was still essentially "home" to Carmel. She had been born and bred in the south, and though one half of her was purely English, there was another side that was strongly Italian. She was deeply attached to all her relations and friends in Sicily, and from her point of view it was exile to live so far away from them. The fact that she was owner of the Chase was, in her estimation, no compensation whatever for her banishment from "Casa Bianca." She made a very sweet and gentle little heiress, however. As yet she was mistress only in name, for during her minority everything was left in the[115] hands of Mr. Bowden and a certain Canon Lowe, who were guardians to all Mr. Ingleton's grandchildren, and kept the Chase open as a home for them. The three girls returned there from Chilcombe Hall at the end of the term, and were joined by the younger boys from their preparatory school.

For a week or two they enjoyed themselves in the grounds and the park. There was much to show Carmel, and she was happy sitting in the garden or wandering in the woods. She soon made friends with the people on the estate. The gamekeeper's children would come running out to meet her, and stand round smiling while she hunted in her pocket for chocolates; Milner's little girl adored her, and even the shy baby at the lodge waxed friendly. Carmel was intensely fond of children, and the affection which she had bestowed on younger brothers and sisters at home cropped out on every occasion where her life touched that of smaller people. To Roland, Bevis, and Clifford she was a charming companion. She would go walks with them in the woods, help them to arrange their various collections of butterflies, foreign stamps, and picture post cards, and play endless games of draughts, halma, or bagatelle.

"You slave after those boys as if you were their nursery governess!" remarked Lilias one day, just a little nettled that Clifford ran instinctively[116] to Carmel for sympathy instead of to his sister. "I promised to help them with those caterpillar boxes to-morrow, and so I will, if you'll leave them. I really can't be bothered to-day."

Carmel yielded instantly. Part of her intense charm was the ready tact with which she was careful never to usurp the place of any one else. She put aside the muslin that was to form covers for the boxes, and slipped her scissors back into the case.

Clifford, however, who was a budding naturalist, and most keen on collecting, was highly disgusted.

"I want my boxes to-day!" he wailed. "I've no place to put my caterpillars when I find them. They crawl out of the old boxes. Why shouldn't Carmel make me some? I know hers would be beauties."

"Lilias will make you some nicer ones to-morrow," urged his cousin. "Suppose we take our butterfly nets on to the heath to-day, and try to find some 'blues.' You haven't a really nice specimen, you know. And I think we might find some moths on the trees in the wood, if we look about carefully. It's worth trying, isn't it?"

"Oh yes! Do let us! Shall we start now?" agreed Clifford, much mollified.

On the whole the three girls got along excellently, but if there was any hint at disturbance it[117] generally arose from Lilias, whose pride would be up in arms at the most absurd trifles. She was annoyed that Carmel was asked to give away the prizes at the village sports, and showed her dissatisfaction so plainly that her sweet-tempered cousin, rather than have any fuss, solved the situation by asking Cousin Clare to perform the ceremony instead, considerably to the disappointment of the committee, who had thought the new heiress was the appropriate patroness.

Lilias and Dulcie took diametrically opposite views about the Chase. The former stuck firmly to her opinion that it ought to have been Everard's, that her brother was an ill-used outcast, and that it was only sisterly feeling to resent seeing anybody else in his place. Her attitude to Carmel was almost as strong as that of King Robert of Sicily in Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn towards the angel who had temporarily usurped his throne.

Dulcie, on the contrary, had always chafed against Everard's assumption of superiority and authority. He had been left the same generous legacy as the rest of the family, and had only to come back and claim his portion when he wished. If anybody was to have the Chase, she really preferred that it should belong to Carmel, who never obtruded her rights, and seemed ready for her cousins to enjoy the property on an exact equality[118] with herself. The two girls were great friends: they would go out riding together while Lilias went shopping in the car with Cousin Clare; they practised duets, and both made crude attempts at sketching the house. Their tastes in books and fancy-work were somewhat similar, and they would sit in the shade in the afternoons stitching at embroidery and eating chocolates.

Three weeks of the summer holidays passed rapidly away in this fashion. Carmel was glad to have the opportunity of getting to know the Chase, and admitted its attractions, though her heart was still in Sicily.

Towards the end of August the party broke up and scattered. Carmel had received an invitation from English relations of her stepfather to join them on a motor tour; the three little boys were to be taken to rooms at the seaside by Miss Mason, their late governess; Lilias and Dulcie went to stay with friends, and Cousin Clare had arranged to attend a conference. She agreed, however, that when Lilias and Dulcie returned from their visit, they should go with her in the car for a week-end to Tivermouth, to see how the boys were getting on.

"If you'll promise we may stay at an hotel!" stipulated Lilias. "I wouldn't spend a week-end in rooms with those three imps for the world.[119] I'd like to see them, but not at too close quarters."

"It's quite improbable that their landlady would have bedrooms for us," said Cousin Clare. "So in any case we should be obliged to stop at an hotel. In this crowded season I shall engage rooms beforehand."

"Hurrah!" triumphed Dulcie, who was anxious for a grown-up experience. "I must say I hate staying with the boys near the beach; the sitting-room's always overflowing with their seaweed and other messes."

"What a joke if I were to turn up at the hotel too!" said Carmel. "I believe the Rogers are going down to Devonshire. I shall tell them the date you'll be at Tivermouth. They'll possibly like to meet you."

"Oh, do! It would be such fun!" agreed Dulcie. "We'd have an absolutely topping time together. Persuade them as hard as you can!"

"I'll do my best!" agreed Carmel.

As it is impossible to follow the adventures of everybody, we will concern ourselves particularly with the experiences of our heroine, who was to take her first motor tour among English scenery. The party in the comfortable Rover car consisted of Major and Mrs. Rogers, their daughter Sheila, their guest Carmel, and a chauffeur. Major Rogers was still suffering from the effects of[120] wounds, and was more or less of a semi-invalid, a condition which made him fussy at times, and too independent at others, for directly he felt a trifle better he would immediately begin to break all the rules that the doctors had laid down for his treatment. He was an amusing, humorous sort of man, who would jest between spasms of pain, and generally found something to laugh at in the various episodes of their journey. There is a laughter, though, that is more the expression of supreme courage than of genuine mirth, and the drawn lines round the Major's mouth told of sleepless nights and days of little ease, and of trouble that hurts worse even than physical pain; for one son lay on a Belgian battle-field, another on the heights near Salonika, with no cross to mark the grave, and a third deep under the surging waters of the Atlantic.

Mrs. Rogers was Mr. Greville's sister, and for that reason, though she was no real relation, Carmel called her Aunt Hilda. She had been a belle in her youth, and she was still pretty with the pathetic beauty that often shines in the faces of those who have suffered great loss. Her once flaxen hair was almost entirely gray, but she had kept her delicate complexion, and there was a gentle sweetness about her that was very attractive.

Her daughter was an exact replica of what she herself must have been at nineteen, though Sheila[121] was going through an uncomfortable phase, and affected to despise the country, to be nervous of motoring, and to long to be back in town again. She was quite kind to Carmel, but treated her with the distantly indulgent attitude of the lately-grown-up for the mere schoolgirl. It was evident that she regarded the whole tour as more or less of a nuisance, and just a means of killing time until she could start off for Scotland to join a certain house-party to which she had been invited, and where she would meet several of her most particular friends.

"I'm sorry we couldn't ask one of your cousins to come with you, dear," said Mrs. Rogers to Carmel, "but there isn't room in the car for any one else. It's a good opportunity for you to see something of England. It's all very different from Sicily, isn't it? You'll feel your first winter trying, I'm afraid; we certainly lack sunshine in this climate."

"Give me Egypt," said Major Rogers. "It's this perpetual damp in the air that makes things melancholy over here. Why, except in the height of summer it's hardly ever fit to sit out-of-doors. I like a place where I need a sun helmet."

"You and Mother are salamanders, Daddy!" declared Sheila. "I believe you'd enjoy living in a hot-house! Now, I like Scotland, with a good sharp wind across the moors, and a touch of mist[122] in it to cool your face. I like either town or mountains. If I can't walk down Regent Street, then I'd tramp over the heather, but I don't admire ordinary English scenery. It's too tame."

"You surely don't call this tame?" replied her father, pointing at the village through which they were motoring, "it's one of the show bits of the Midlands, and an absolute picture. Where are your eyes, child?"

But Sheila was perverse, and refused to evince any enthusiasm, and ended by pulling out a novel over which she chuckled, quite regardless of the scenery, and only tore herself from the book to ask for the box of chocolate marsh mallows that she had bought at the last town where there was a good confectioner's.

Carmel would certainly have found Dulcie, or even Lilias, a more congenial companion than Sheila, but she nevertheless managed to enjoy herself. She loved the country, and was delighted with the variety of the English landscape. Though less rich than the vineclad south, the greenness of its fields and hedges never failed to amaze her, and she was fascinated by the quaint villages, their thatched roofs, church spires, and flowery gardens. They had been running through Gloucestershire en route for Somerset and Devon, and were to call a halt at various show