For the Sake of the School by Angela Brazil (beginner reading books for adults TXT) 📖

Mellow and tuneful as a blackbird's, Rona's clear rich young voice rang out, so fresh, so joyous, so natural, so full of the very spirit of maying and the glory of summer's return, that the visitors listened as one hearkens to the notes of a bird that is pouring forth its heart from a tree-top in the orchard. There was no mistake about the applause. Guests and girls clapped their hardest. Rona, all unwilling, was recalled, and made to sing an encore, and as she left the platform everybody felt that she had scored the triumph of the occasion.

"Glad the juniors weren't excluded. It's a knock-down for Steph," whispered Addie.

"Trust Miss Ledbury not to leave out Rona. She'll be our champion soloist now," returned Christine.

The rest of the little programme was soon finished, and the audience adjourned to the garden for tea. Stephanie, with a tray of raspberries and cream, came smilingly up to Lord and Lady Glyncraig, and, introducing herself, reminded them of the delightful visit she had paid to Plas Cafn. If they[Pg 260] had really forgotten her, they had the good manners not to reveal the fact, and spoke to her kindly and pleasantly.

"By the by," said Lord Glyncraig, "where is your schoolfellow who sang so well just now? I don't see her on the lawn."

"Rona Mitchell? I suppose she is somewhere about," replied Stephanie casually.

"Do you happen to know if she comes from New Zealand?"

"Yes, she does."

"I wonder if you could find her and bring her here? I should like very much to speak to her."

Stephanie could not refuse, though her errand was uncongenial. She could not imagine why an ex-Cabinet Minister should concern himself with a girl from the backwoods.

"Lord Glyncraig wants you; so hurry up, and don't keep him waiting," was the message she delivered, not too politely.

Rona blushed furiously. She appeared on the very point of declining to obey the summons.

"Go, dear," said Mrs. Stanton quietly. "Perhaps he wishes to congratulate you on the success of your song. Yes, Rona, go. It would be most ungracious to refuse."

With a face in which shyness, nervousness, pride, and defiance strove for the mastery, Rona approached Lord Glyncraig. He held out his hand to her.

"Won't you bury the hatchet, and let us be friends at last, Rona?" he said. "I'm proud of[Pg 261] my granddaughter to-day. You're a true chip of the old block, a Mitchell to your finger-tips—and" (in a lower tone) "with your mother's voice thrown into the bargain. Blood is thicker than water, child, and it's time now for bygones to become bygones. I shall write to your father to-night, and set things straight."

"How is it that you've actually been a whole year at The Woodlands and never let anybody have the least hint that Lord Glyncraig is your grandfather? Don't you know what an enormous difference it would have made to your position in the school? Stephie is quite hysterical about it. Why was it such a dead secret?" asked Ulyth of her room-mate, as they took off their party dresses, when the guests had gone.

"It's rather a long story," replied Rona, sitting down on her bed. "In the first place, I dare say you've guessed that Dad was the prodigal of the family. He never did anything very bad, poor dear, but he was packed off to the colonies in disgrace, and told that he might stay there. At Melbourne he met a lovely opera singer, who was on tour in Australia, and married her. That made my grandfather more angry than anything else he had done. I'm not ashamed of my mother. She was very clever, and sang like an angel, I'm told, though I can't remember her. When she died, Dad went to New Zealand and started farming. Mrs. Barker was hardly an ideal person to bring me up, but she was the only woman we could get to[Pg 262] stop in such an out-of-the-way place. I must have been an awful specimen of a child; I don't like to remember what things I did then. When I was about ten, Father went away for a few weeks to the North Island, and while he was gone, Mrs. Barker went off in the gig to have a day's shopping at the nearest store. She left me alone in the house. I wasn't frightened, for I was quite accustomed to it. No one but a chance neighbour ever came near. Yet that day was just the exception that proves the rule. Early in the afternoon a grand travelling motor drove up, and a lady and gentleman knocked at the door, and enquired for Dad. I was a little wild rough thing then, and I was simply scared to death at the sight of strangers. I told them Dad was away. Then they asked if they might come in, and the gentleman said he was my grandfather, and the lady was his new wife, so that she was my step-grandmother. Now Mrs. Barker had always rubbed it in to me that if I was left alone I must on no account admit strangers. That was the only thing I could think of. I was in a panic, and I slammed the door on them and bolted it, and then ran to the window and pulled faces, hoping to make them go away. They stood for a minute or two quite aghast, trying to get me to listen to reason through the window, but I only grew more and more frightened, and called them all the ugly names I could.

"'It's no use attempting to tame such a young savage,' said the lady at last. Then they got into their car again and drove away.[Pg 263]

"By the time Mrs. Barker arrived I was ashamed of myself, so I said nothing about my adventure, and I never dared to tell Dad a word of it. I suppose his father had come to hunt him up; but he was evidently discouraged at the reception he had received at the farm, and went back to England without making another attempt at a meeting. I don't believe he and Dad ever wrote to each other from year's end to year's end. I tried to forget this, but it stuck in my memory all the same. Time went by, my friendship with you began, and it was decided that I should be sent to The Woodlands. I knew my grandfather lived at Plas Cafn, for Dad had told me about his old home, but I did not know it was so near to the school. You ask why I did not tell the girls that I was related to Lord Glyncraig? There were several reasons. In the first place, I was really very much ashamed of my behaviour the day he had come to our farm. I thought he had cast us off completely, and would not be at all pleased to own me as granddaughter. I would not confess it to any of you, but I felt so rough and uncouth when I compared myself with other girls that I did not want Lord Glyncraig to see me, or to know that I was in the neighbourhood. Perhaps some day, so I thought, I might grow more like you, if I tried hard, and then it would be time enough to tell him of my whereabouts. Then, because he had disowned us, I felt much too proud to boast about the relationship at school. If you could not like me for myself, I wouldn't make a bid for popularity on the cheap[Pg 264] basis of being his