Judy of York Hill Part 21

The two were still busily sc.r.a.ping chocolate icing out of a bowl when the strains of the wedding march were heard in the next room, and, peeping through the crack of the kitchen door, they beheld a rather fl.u.s.tered-looking Miss Ashwell trying to guess the first parcel.

Helen shooed them off, declaring they had no manners at all, and that they had better see that they were ready for their own party.

Judith and Nancy were indignant at the implication that they were not well prepared for the morrow, but just before "Lights out" bell sounded, Judith asked Sally May to let her see the rhyme for the Canterbury bells tag.

"Why--I thought you and Nancy were doing it. I heard you trying to get a rhyme for 'Susan.'"

"Well, we couldn't," said Judith weakly; "I thought you had one written already."

"We'll have to get up at six o'clock, every one of us," declared Nancy; "put a pencil and paper beside your bed; each of us has got to have a rhyme and then we'll choose the best."

There was much yawning and stifled groaning next morning, but Nancy was firm and refused to retire to her own cubicle until she had seen each member of the crew provided with pencil and paper.

The fires of poetic genius burned low at such an early morning hour, but they knew, as well as Nancy did, that there would be no time after breakfast. So after much frowning and biting of pencils, five verses were written, and handed to Catherine to choose the best.

It was an exciting afternoon. There was a Senior cricket match being played and the Fifth-Formers were loath to lose one minute of that.

Judith and Nancy were especially keen to watch Catherine's play. They would dash over to the match for ten minutes, and then race off to squeeze lemons, or see if the cakes had come, and then back again to the match.

Josephine and Joyce had made a huge bouquet of tea-roses interspersed with samples of the trees and shrubs and flowers which were to be planted in the "White Cottage" garden. Day girls had been requested to bring samples of cherry trees and gooseberry bushes and such things as were not to be found at York Hill. It was a somewhat curious-looking bouquet, however, for to each spray was attached a little wooden tag bearing the donor's name, and a bit of paper with the accompanying rhyme.

Miss Ashwell looked adorably pretty, they all agreed, when she and Miss Meredith joined them in the latter's garden after the cricket match. The guests were escorted to the wicker chairs under the trees and the girls seated themselves on rugs.

There was a moment's pause. Miss Ashwell confessed afterwards to a feeling of nervousness as to what was going to happen to her, for the day before, without a moment's notice, she had been literally showered with hankies by the little First-Formers. However, Sally May was discovered on her feet about to make a speech. Sally May, usually so glib of tongue, moistened her lips several times, and then, holding out the bouquet, she delivered at breakneck speed the little speech which she had composed--and fortunately memorized--for the occasion.

"Had the fright of my life, my dear," she whispered to Judith afterwards. "I felt like Alice in Wonderland growing taller and taller every moment--expected to be lost in the tree-tops. I'll never, never, never try to make a speech again."

Miss Meredith, who had also been presented with a bunch of lovely roses, leaned forward to examine Miss Ashwell's.

"Yours seems to be an unusually interesting bouquet, my dear," she observed. "May I see one of those b.u.t.terflies? He seems to be on an apple-tree bough." And unfolding the wings of the b.u.t.terfly--the b.u.t.terflies were Five B's idea--she read:

"Drifting from the apple boughs, foam of pink and white Rippling through the branches in the green spring light; All the elfin breezes in the world, you see, Have come to play at snowflakes in your apple tree."

"_Your_ apple tree! how charming!" said Miss Meredith; "who is the fairy G.o.dmother who is going to give you such a fascinating tree?" And taking up the little wooden tag she read, "St. Lawrence Apple, Frances Purdy."

"Miss Ashwell must read the next one," said Joyce after Frances's rhyme had been applauded, and she grinned rather wickedly as Miss Ashwell took the green branch held out to her and read the tag:

"Black currants, you know, In your garden which grow, Have more uses than perhaps you would think; When hubby's in bed, with a cold in his head, You may give him a black-currant drink."

Miss Ashwell's cheeks were as pink as the lovely rose from whose stalk she hurriedly took the next verse:

"Roses pink and white and nodding, Roses drenched with dew; What would you have but roses By a cottage built for two?"

Rosamond's effort was the signal for a burst of merriment:

"This bush will bring you wit and mirth, You'll happy be and merry, For in your house you'll never have A goose, but nice goose-berry."

"I wanted to say gooseberry pies," said Rosamond, "but it wouldn't rhyme." And she couldn't understand why their laughter was redoubled.

The crew of the "Jolly Susan" were becoming uneasy. Would Miss Ashwell overlook the bluebells in Five A's bouquet? Nancy held up the flowers for Miss Ashwell to choose, and rather ostentatiously turned the bluebells towards her, but she perversely chose Olivia's pansies. Five o'clock had rung and the maids were crossing the lawn with trays of the inevitable cake and lemonade. The crew felt desperate. Perhaps it was a case of telepathy, for, with her hand hovering over Marjorie's hollyhocks, Miss Ashwell seemed to change her mind and took up instead the bluebells:

"Bells from a crew of pirates bold That sail the 'Jolly Susan,'

With bells the time is always told When our good s.h.i.+p's a-cruisin,'

Heave-aho, my laddies, oh, All the bells are swinging, Flower-bells and s.h.i.+p bells, for your wedding ringing."

"They are to be Canterbury bells really," explained Josephine to Miss Ashwell as the lemonade was being served and the rest of the tags were being pa.s.sed about so that they might all be read. "We hope you'll plant them in a long row: Canterbury was an awfully hard word to put into a poem, you know."

"It's the nicest verse of all," declared Miss Ashwell. "They'll be lovely in a row. What a garden I'm going to have!"

Nancy and Judith lingered after the party broke up. They made themselves very busy clearing away lemonade gla.s.ses and stray chairs just out of earshot of Miss Ashwell and Miss Meredith, who were talking busily. They hoped within themselves that Miss Meredith would depart, and Judith hoped that Nancy would go, and Nancy hoped that Judith would go.

But the five-thirty bell sounded and Nancy reluctantly went off to a music-lesson. Judith gathered up some bits of paper under a peony bush and with a sigh of relief saw Miss Meredith hurry away. Now was her chance. She waylaid Miss Ashwell at the door.

"Oh, Judy, it's been the loveliest party ever," said Miss Ashwell, putting her arm round Judith and giving her a happy little hug; "the nicest party I ever was at. However did you think of it all?"

And be it recorded in Judith's favour that she did not claim credit for the idea.

"We're awfully glad you liked it, for we wanted to give you something that wouldn't let you forget us." How ever was she to tell Miss Ashwell how she was going to miss her next year. "I'm glad to be one of the Canterbury bells, but I wanted a special flower of my own for you, something that would be sweet and rosy and--and--dear, so please don't let any one else give you a climbing rose because I want to give you one that will climb up and knock at your window in the early morning and say--" But she couldn't get any further. She had suddenly realized that in two weeks' time Miss Ashwell would be gone, that she loved her, and hated to think that next year some one else would be in the dear little room at the end of the corridor where she had so often found rest and comfort. A miserable lump swelled in her throat--she couldn't say another word.

"I know," said Miss Ashwell; "the roses will tap at the window and say, 'Get up, lazy person, and come out and weed the garden and clip the roses before breakfast,' or, 'Hurry, hurry, Judith and Nancy and all the rest of them are coming down to-day for lunch, this is a gala day,' or perhaps they'll just be fragrant and lovely and bring sweet remembrances of York Hill and Judith."

"Thank you," said Judith rather hoa.r.s.ely, but she went away brimful of happiness because she knew that once more Miss Ashwell had understood.

CHAPTER XVI

A TOAST TO THE SCHOOL

JUDITH woke early Friday morning with a feeling that something was going to happen. "What is it?" she asked herself sleepily. "An examination?

No! Thank goodness, they are all over for this year." Now she remembered, this was the day of the Reunion--and the Wedding! No wonder that she felt that something was going to happen. What a day it was going to be!

She stretched lazily, and instantly Nancy, who heard her moving, whispered:

"You awake, Judy? I can't sleep. The Old Girls are coming to-day. Oh, Goody! Goody! If the bell doesn't ring soon I'll burst. I simply must shout a little bit."

Nancy's smiling face appeared over the wall of the cubicle.

"Let's get up and be all dressed when the bell does ring, and then we can slip out into the garden."

"We'll have to be awfully quiet going for our baths," objected Judith, who didn't feel as energetic as Nancy appeared to be; "you go first."

Nancy agreed, but when she came back all rosy from her bath Judith was sound asleep. Nancy tiptoed over to the bed determined to wash the sleeper's face with a bath-sponge, when something in the utter relaxation of Judith's att.i.tude struck her. Judith was tired, very tired. "And no wonder," thought Nancy, as she stole quietly and with infinite precautions back to her own room, "it makes me tired even to _think_ of all we've done this week, and all there is to do yet, but it's awfully jolly. Poor Judy! What a good thing she's got her speech all ready for to-night. I am glad she isn't on the refreshment committee."

There was an air of excitement in the dining-room even at breakfast-time. Reminiscences of Old Girls were the order of the day, and Judith learned the names of some of the more famous graduates. She must look out for Kathryn Fleming, who had been singing in New York all season, but she couldn't miss her, she wasn't the sort who was easily overlooked; and Julia Weston, a judge of the Juvenile Court out West; and Penelope Adams, who had married a millionaire and was a great belle; and Martha Penrose, who was just "the sweetest little Virginian you ever saw"; and her chum, Winifred Freeman, who was matron of a big hospital; and Kitty Fisken, the artist; and Isobel Grier, who married Professor Mitch.e.l.l. Judith finally put her fingers in her ears.

"Don't tell me about any more of them," she begged. "I'm beginning to get the same dazed feeling I had the first night I was here--I felt smothered in people."