The next event of any special importance in the Ramsays' world was Mavis's birthday. She was seventeen now, and was so much taller and stronger since she had come to live in Devonshire that her mother declared their old friends in the north would hardly know her. She was still more fragile-looking than Merle, but her attacks of bronchitis were luckily things of the past, and she was rapidly outgrowing all her former delicacy. Many things which had been prohibited before were allowed her now, and her father's present was a new bicycle and the permission to ride it. Her mother gave her a sketching easel and Merle a camp-stool, for painting was at present her favourite hobby, and Uncle David and Aunt Nellie were lavish in books and music. From Bevis arrived a wooden box containing a kittiwake, which he had stuffed himself, with wings outspread. There was a hook in its back so that it could be suspended by a piece of thread from the ceiling to look as if it were flying. In its beak Bevis had placed a note.
"I didn't shoot it," he explained. "I know you hate to think of any one killing them. I found it dead on the shore, so thought you might just as well have it stuffed."
"I'm so glad it wasn't shot on purpose, poor dear thing!" said tender- hearted Mavis. "Aren't its feathers soft and lovely? I shall hang it to the beam in our bedroom, and it will always seem like a little bit of Chagmouth when we wake in the mornings. It looks just exactly as if it were alive. How clever of Bevis to stuff it so well."
At 'The Moorings' the matter of most vital interest was the arrival of a large wooden hut, which Miss Pollard had bought from the Government, and which was erected in a corner of the garden close to the house. Now that numbers had increased so much in the school extra accommodation was urgently needed, and the new building would serve for a gymnasium, and as a room for lectures and meetings. The great matter for speculation was whether it would be finished in time for term-end festivities. Miss Pollard, urged on by Miss Mitchell, contemplated inviting parents and friends to a formal Speech Day, an affair upon which she had never ventured before. Unless the hut was ready it would be impossible to accommodate so many people, so she hurried on the work and hoped for the best. It was a great amusement to her pupils to watch the various parts being fitted together, and to see the corrugated iron roof fastened on. They rejoiced immensely when at last a flag floated from the top.
"Mr. Perkins says he can undertake to have all perfectly ready by the 25th. I can send out my invitations now!" purred Miss Pollard.
Before Speech Day, however, must come the inevitable examinations. Everybody felt they were much more wearing in July than at Christmas or Easter, owing to the heat, and also to the fact that they covered the work of the whole school year, and not merely that of a single term. Mavis did her utmost but had to struggle with bad headaches, and realised that she had not done herself justice. Merle slogged away grimly, with ink-stained fingers and her hair tied tightly back because of the heat. She had never really taken so much pains over an examination before, and had never found herself so well prepared. Quite to her surprise her brains felt clear and collected, and her mental car seemed to whizz along so fast it quite exceeded the speed limit. No other girl in the form wrote so many sheets as she did or answered such a large proportion of the questions. At the end of the week, tired, nervy, and decidedly cross, she nevertheless felt some satisfaction over the papers she had sent in. Every one in the Fifth had little doubt about the results, and public opinion was justified, for Merle came out top in almost every subject, gaining an average of 91 per cent on the whole exam. She had expected to do well, but was quite staggered at this success, for Muriel, Iva, and Nesta, her usual rivals, were left far and away behind. They were sporting enough to give her their congratulations.
"It means first prize, old thing! Won't we give you a clap as you march on to the platform!" said Iva.
Miss Pollard was determined to do this, her first Speech Day, in style; the chair was to be taken by a local magnate, and the prizes distributed by a real live professor from Oxford, who was spending his vacation in the neighbourhood. There was a tremendous business moving forms and chairs into the newly-erected hut, and decorating the platform with pots of plants and ferns. All the pupils were dressed in white and wore their best hair ribbons. Mavis was feeling sad and sentimental, for it was her last term. She was to leave 'The Moorings' and concentrate her energies on music, and on lessons in painting from Mr. Castleton, which would suit her far better than the strenuous work of the Sixth form. To the girls, and especially the younger ones, this first public function at school was not altogether unmixed bliss. They were obliged to sit as quiet as rows of little angels, packed tightly together on forms without backs, and to listen to interminable speeches about subjects which they only half understood, the main points of which seemed to be, however, that Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny and Miss Mitchell and all the teachers and all the pupils were much to be congratulated, and everybody must remember that 'Rome was not built in a day.'
"Nor the hut either!" whispered Winnie to her chum, applying the proverb too literally. "I wish they'd seen it before the roof was on!"
"'How the creatures talk!'" quoted Joyce, from Alice in
Wonderland. "I'm bored to tears!"
The prize-giving part was more interesting. As the names were called, each winner in turn walked up to the platform, received her book, bowed more or less gracefully, and retired. The applause was a welcome relief to the rank and file, who were tired of sitting at such exemplary attention. It was over at last, and the visitors went to be shown round the school and to be regaled with tea in the dining-room. Professor Hartley, in cap and gown, had crossed the garden to the hostel, and the pupils, some of them suffering from pins and needles, were free to disperse. It was the breaking-up for the day-girls, and to-morrow morning the boarders would be sent home.
"Just a word with you, Merle!" said Miss Mitchell, calling the latter into the study by herself. "I want to tell you that I'm pleased with your work. You've made an effort and shown me what you can do. Next term we shall have a Sixth form, and Miss Pollard agrees with me that it will be advisable to appoint a head girl. That position will fall to you, not only because you're top in the exams, but because we think you have fitted yourself to take it. A head girl is no use unless she can lead; I've been watching you all the year, and you've shown me lately that you understand what is expected. The school is still in an elementary stage, but it has improved immensely, and next year I trust you to do your very best for it."
"Oh, thank you, Miss Mitchell!" gasped Merle, almost too overwhelmed for words.
To be thus chosen out and selected by her idol was a most happy ending to the term, and offered golden opportunities in the coming September. It meant more to her even than her prize. She went at once to tell the good news to her sister.
"I don't like to cackle too loudly, because of Muriel and Nesta," said
Mavis. "But I am proud of you! It's been worth the grind, hasn't it?"
"Rather! Though I'm yearning for the holidays. Shall we go to Chagmouth on Saturday?"
"Oh, yes! Bevis breaks up to-morrow, and I expect he'll be at Grimbal's Farm by then. It's his last term at school as well as mine. I wonder how he feels about leaving? I promised, too, to call and see the Castletons."
When the girls reached home, there was a letter on the table for Mavis in Clive's handwriting. They heard from the boy every now and then, though he was not a particularly good correspondent. This epistle, which had apparently been penned on Sunday, was mostly a summary of cricket and anticipations of his holidays. It ended:
Your affec'ate coz, CLIVE.
P.S.—Meant to send you this snap before. Isn't it priceless?
The sting of a scorpion is in its tail. Mavis stooped down and picked up the little photo which had fallen from the envelope on to the floor. Clive had used his Brownie camera at Chagmouth and had promised to post them the results, but had forgotten. This solitary print represented Bevis—there was no mistaking Bevis—but Mavis bent over it with puzzled eyes, for clasped tightly in his arms with her head laid upon his shoulder was a girl. Merle, who snatched the photo away to look at it, decided her identity at once.
"Why, it's Romola! That's the artistic blue dress that Violet made for her!"
"So it is! Where's her plait, though?"
"Hidden behind her, I suppose. I say! They're coming it rather strong, aren't they?"
"Yes. I shouldn't have thought that of Bevis!"
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