CHAPTER III

NORAH'S FREAK

Perhaps no little girl ever underwent punishment with so light a heart as Norah did that afternoon. She was quite cheerful as she watched the long train of girls file out two and two through the hall, Fräulein Glock and Miss Euphemia bringing up the rear, and when they were gone she shut herself up in the empty school-room, and whilst she got out pen and copy-paper she hummed gaily:

"St. Patrick was a gentleman And come of decent people, He built a church in Dublin town And on it put a steeple".

Miss Euphemia might not have approved very highly of the song if she had heard it, but it is to be feared that Norah did not trouble herself very much about that.

She did not make very rapid progress with Turkey in Asia and its latitudes and longitudes. Her pen was laid aside very frequently, and Norah either sprang from her seat and capered round the room as if the spirit of gladness had got into her very feet, or else leaning back against the form she gave herself up to long and delicious daydreams. She pictured to herself the happy life which they would all lead in that little old house of which Anstace had spoken, and how she and Manus would wander by the sea-shore and climb the rocks and crags of that wild, western coast upon which her father's boyhood had been spent, and of which he had told them so many stories.

The click of a latch-key in the lock of the hall-door brought her back to sober reality again, and warned her that the walking party had returned. Worse and more dire disgrace would await her if her allotted task were not accomplished.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Norah's pen absolutely raced over the paper in her efforts to make up for lost time, whilst she could hear the girls laughing and chattering as they trooped upstairs to take off their outdoor things. The blotting-paper had just been passed over the last page of copy, and Norah with a huge sigh of relief had laid down her pen, when the door opened and Miss Euphemia sailed in. She had laid aside her bonnet and mantle and resumed the high white cap, which within doors lent severity and classic dignity to her features.

"Is the lesson written out, Norah?" she enquired.

"Yes, Miss Euphemia," Norah replied, handing over the written pages, though not without some anxiety that in the haste with which the last portion had been copied out, errors and omissions might have crept in. Miss Euphemia's scrutiny seemed to satisfy her, however, and she gave the paper back to Norah, saying only: "Very well, my dear, put everything away tidily before you go upstairs. I trust I shall not be again driven to such a painful necessity as keeping you indoors."

Norah reddened and fidgeted uncomfortably.

"I hope not, Miss Euphemia," she said awkwardly. In the overflowing spirits which she was in, it was not possible to her to speak in a tone of proper penitence, and perhaps Miss Euphemia had expected a greater appearance of contrition and was disappointed.

"If I had mentioned the matter to Miss Clarkson she would have been very gravely displeased," she began, as she moved towards the door, "and if you should show yourself so inattentive again, I shall feel obliged to do so; but I hope it will not occur again, Norah."

"I hope not, Miss Euphemia," once more responded Norah; and Miss Euphemia quitted the room, closing the door rather sharply behind her.

It was opened again a minute later, and this time it was Lily Allardyce who appeared, her pink cheeks pinker than ever, after her walk in the spring wind, holding something very closely clasped in both her hands.

"Poor Norah," she said, in her pretty, cooing way. "I took my things off ever so fast, and ran down before any of the others were ready. I kept thinking of you, shut up here by yourself and writing that horrid punishment lesson, all the time that we were out. See what I've got for you! A woman was selling a whole basketful of them in the street, and Miss Euphemia let me stop and buy one." And opening her hands, Lily disclosed a large pincushion shaped like a sunflower, with rays of yellow calico all round it, and the centre stuck, hedgehog fashion, with pins.

Norah rewarded her by a boisterous hug, more perhaps as an outlet to her feelings than from any special delight in the pin-cushion.

"Lily, Lily! I'm the luckiest girl in the whole world!" she cried. "I couldn't get a chance before of telling you why Anstace--that's my sister, you know--came to see me this morning."

"Anstace, yes," said Lily meditatively. "It's such a funny name, Norah. I never heard of anyone called that before."

"It's Irish; all our names are Irish," Norah answered, with a touch of pride in her voice; "there have always been Anstaces and Norahs among the O'Briens. And we're all going over to Ireland, Lily; going to live there for ever, and never come back to London any more. What do you think of that?"

Lily's eyes grew big with wonder and dismay.

"Going away for ever, and we're never to see each other again? And you're glad?" This last with much reproach and a sound as of gathering tears.

Norah bestowed another hug by way of comfort.

"I wish you could come and live in Ireland too, but you can't; and you're going to Paris, that's luck enough for you; though I wouldn't take fifty thousand Parises for Kilshane, that's what our own place that we are going to live in is called;" and Norah drew her small stature up to its tallest. "Come along now," as she flung geography-book and paper into her locker with a reckless air; "I shall only just have time to get ready for tea."

As the two children crossed the hall, hand in hand, Norah's attention was arrested by the large wooden tray, in which the cups and saucers for the school tea had been carried up from below stairs. It stood empty now on its trestles outside the dining-room door, and from within could be heard the clatter of china as the servants moved about, laying the table. Norah, in her present mood, was ready for any freak, no matter how daring.

"Lily," she exclaimed under her breath, "did you ever toboggan down the stairs upon a tea-tray?"

"Did I ever do what?" questioned Lily in perplexity.

"Toboggan down the stairs--slide down, you know. It's the most awful fun. Manus and I used to do it at home sometimes, but it was such a poky little staircase it wasn't much good. The stairs here would be splendid, and that tray would hold us both most beautifully."

"Oh, Norah, just think how angry the Miss Clarksons would be!" gasped Lily.

"They won't know anything about it. Everybody is upstairs in the dormitories, and it always takes the other girls half an hour to take their boots off and wash their hands. We'll just have one go, not down this flight, the one above. No one will see us there, and if Jane and Ellen miss the tray they won't know where it's gone, so they can't tell tales."

Grasping the heavy tray in both hands, Norah was already half-way up the stairs. Lily followed in much alarm, but too timid to resist Norah's stronger will. As Norah had said, the fine staircase in Treherne House, with its broad shallow steps and long flights of stairs, was eminently suited for a toboggan slide, though it was hardly likely that it had ever been put to that use before.

She set her burden down with a triumphant air at the top of the flight which led down from the drawing-room. "Get in quick, Lily, while I hold the tray to prevent it slipping down," she whispered imperatively.

"Oh, Norah, I couldn't," faltered poor Lily nervously. "Just think if Miss Clarkson happened to be in her sitting-room and heard us!" And Lily cast a terrified glance at the closed door on the landing below.

"You little goose! Did you ever know Miss Clarkson to be down here at this hour? The tea-bell will ring directly, and she'll come sailing from upstairs with her evening cap on and her handkerchief in her hand." And Norah lowered her eyelids in imitation of the air of serene self-importance with which the head of Treherne House was wont to lead the procession into the dining-room. Then, breaking into her brusque tone once more, "Now, Lily, pack yourself in, and sit tight."

"I couldn't, Norah, I couldn't indeed; I'd be too frightened," protested Lily more tremulously than before.

"Nonsense, you've no idea how jolly it is! I'll go in front, and then if we do get spilt you can't be hurt, you'll only fall on the top of me. Now then, are you in? Hold on by the bannisters till I get in too, and then catch me by the shoulders."

Lily obeyed trembling, her powers of resistance as usual not being proof against Norah's determination.

"Tally ho!" cried Norah joyously, as the improvised sledge flew downwards on its mad career.

At that very moment, however, the door upon the landing opened, and out came Miss Clarkson with evening cap and handkerchief, just as Norah had described her. She stopped, absolutely rigid with amazement, as she beheld the two youngest of her pupils seated in the tea-tray and shooting down the stairs. The sudden appearance of her school-mistress was too much for Lily, whose nerves were already overstrained by the headlong speed with which they were rushing through the air. She uttered a piercing shriek, and clutched desperately at the bannisters. The sledge, thus suddenly arrested on its downward course, slewed to one side and tilted over. Both its occupants rolled out, bumped down the remaining steps, and fell in a heap upon the landing, the big wooden tray tumbling over on the top of them.

The crash of their fall reverberated through the house, doors opened above stairs, exclamations and questioning voices were heard, and the whole school came trooping down to find out what had happened, while the servants left their work and ran up from below. Norah had fallen undermost, but she was on her feet again in a moment, her hands clenched, and her small white teeth set tight. Her head had come in violent contact with the floor of the landing, and a bump had already started out upon her forehead, which was swelling visibly and promised before long to display a variety of shades of blue and green. She was conscious besides of a bruised knee and sundry smaller injuries, but Norah was a heroic little soul, and she deemed it beneath her to cry merely for pain; so whilst poor Lily, after struggling out from under the tray, could only sit in a forlorn little heap and sob pitifully, Norah boldly faced Miss Clarkson, who had not yet recovered sufficiently from the shock she had received to utter a syllable.

"It was my fault, Miss Clarkson, it was indeed. I made Lily come with me, and she didn't want to. I knew it was naughty, but the tray was standing in the hall as we came out, and I couldn't help it. I haven't known what to do all day, I've been so glad since Anstace told me that we were all going over to live in Ireland. I've been very happy here," she added with sudden recollection, for Norah possessed a share of Irish politeness with all her other Irish qualities, "but it's school, you know, it's not home; and if you had thought that you weren't ever going to have a home of your own again, or at least not for years and years, and then heard all at once that you had got the dearest, most delightful old house in Ireland to live in--oh, Miss Clarkson, if you'd been me, and you had seen that tray standing in the hall, you'd have wanted to toboggan down-stairs too!"

The whole of the school had flocked down-stairs by this time. Miss Susan, the second Miss Clarkson, had been foremost to reach the scene of the disaster. She had picked poor disconsolate Lily up, and was examining into the extent of her injuries, whilst Miss Euphemia stood with the fallen tray in her hand, and the girls and the French and German teachers crowded upon each other on the stairs in their efforts to get a view of what was passing.

An absolute shiver went through the close-pressed ranks at Norah's audacious speech, which called up a vision of Miss Clarkson seated in the tea-tray and careering madly down-stairs with her cap ends streaming behind her. In awe-struck silence the whole throng waited for the thunder of Miss Clarkson's wrath to fall on the daring offender's head. There was a momentary pause, and then Miss Clarkson, as if prompted by some overmastering impulse, stooped and kissed, yes, actually--a thing which, in the memory of the oldest girl present, she had never been known to do before--she kissed the little upturned face that gazed so earnestly at her.

"I scarcely think that, my dear," she said in answer to Norah's venturesome suggestion, "but I was truly rejoiced to hear of your good fortune from Anstace this morning, even though it means that we shall lose you from amongst us very soon. Under such exceptional circumstances I can make a certain allowance for your feelings having carried you beyond yourself, especially considering what a little wild Irishwoman you are. Your behaviour was of course most reprehensible," she went on, straightening herself and resuming her wonted scholastic manner, as she remembered her audience and the effect that might be produced upon them by such unexampled lenity. "Nothing would induce me to pass over a repetition of it, but for this once, considering the circumstances as I have said, and that you and Lily have already suffered from the consequences of your very silly and unladylike freak, I will take no further notice of it. Jane, carry the tray back to the pantry at once. Euphemia, be good enough to take Lily upstairs and put some sticking plaster on her face. We will now proceed to the dining-room, girls. When Norah and Lily have made themselves tidy and fit to appear at table, they will join us there."

And Miss Clarkson swept down-stairs with her most stately air, the girls exchanging wondering glances and whispered comments as they followed, two and two, to take their places at the long table in the dining-room.