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.