



Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]





A Bunch of Cherries

A STORY OF CHERRY COURT SCHOOL


BY

Mrs. L. T. MEADE





AUTHOR OF

"A Modern Tomboy," "The School Favorite," "Children's Pilgrimage,"
"Little Mother to the Others," Etc.




CHICAGO:

M. A. DONOHUE & CO.

1898




CONTENTS


CHAPTER.

     I.  The School
    II.  The Girls
   III.  The Telegram
    IV.  Sir John's Great Scheme
     V.  Florence
    VI.  Kitty and Her Father
   VII.  Cherry-Colored Ribbons
  VIII.  The Letter
    IX.  The Little Mummy
     X.  Aunt Susan
    XI.  "I Always Admired Frankness"
   XII.  The Fairy Box
  XIII.  An Invitation
   XIV.  At the Park
    XV.  The Pupil Teacher
   XVI.  Temptation
  XVII.  The Fall
 XVIII.  The Guests Arrive
   XIX.  Tit for Tat
    XX.  The Hills for Ever
   XXI.  The Sting of the Serpent
  XXII.  The Voice of God




A BUNCH OF CHERRIES.


CHAPTER I.

THE SCHOOL.

The house was long and low and rambling.  In parts at least it must
have been quite a hundred years old, and even the modern portion was
not built according to the ideas of the present day, for in 1870 people
were not so aesthetic as they are now, and the lines of beauty and
grace were not considered all essential to happiness.

So even the new part of the house had square rooms destitute of
ornament, and the papers were small in pattern and without any artistic
designs, and the windows were square and straight, and the ceilings
were somewhat low.

The house opened on to a wide lawn, and at the left of the lawn was a
paddock and at the right a shrubbery, and the shrubbery led away under
its overhanging trees into the most perfect walled-in garden that was
ever seen.  The garden was two or three hundred years old.  The oldest
inhabitants of the place had never known the time when Cherry Court
garden was not the talk of the country.  Visitors came from all parts
round to see it.  It was celebrated on account of its very high walls
built of red brick, its size, for it covered at least three acres of
ground, and its magnificent cherries.  The cherry trees in the Court
garden bore the most splendid fruit which could be obtained in any part
of the county.  They were in great demand, not only for the girls who
lived in the old house and played in the garden, but for the neighbors
all over the country.  A big price was always paid for these cherries,
for they made such splendid jam, as well as being so full of juice and
so ripe and good to eat that their like could not be found anywhere
else.

The cherries were of all sorts and kinds, from the celebrated White
Heart to the black cherry.  There were cherries for cooking and
cherries for eating, and in the season the trees, which were laden with
ripe fruit, were a sight to behold.

In the height of the cherry season Mrs. Clavering always gave a cherry
feast.  It was the event of the entire year, and the girls looked
forward to it, making all their arrangements in connection with it,
counting the hours until it arrived, and looking upon it as the great
feature of their school year.  Everything turned on whether the
cherries were good and the weather fine.  There was no greater stimulus
to hard work than the merest mention of this golden day, which came as
a rule towards the end of June and just before the summer vacation.
For Cherry Court School was old-fashioned according to our modern
ideas, and one of its old-fashioned plans was to give holidays at the
end of June instead of the end of July, so that the girls had the
longest, finest days at home, and came back to work at the end of
August refreshed and strengthened, and prepared for a good long tug at
lessons of all sorts until Christmas.

The school consisted of twenty girls, never more and never less, for
Mrs. Clavering was too great a favorite and had too wise and excellent
ideas with regard to education ever to be without pupils, and never
more, for she believed twenty to be the perfect number to whom she
could give every attention and offer every advantage.

The school, small as it was, was divided into two sections, the Upper
and the Lower.  In the Upper school were girls from eighteen to
fourteen years of age, and in the Lower some of the small scholars
numbered even as few years as six.  There was a resident French
mistress in the school and also a resident German, and there was an
English governess, and, of course, Mrs. Clavering herself; but the
other teachers came from the neighboring town of Hartleway to instruct
the pupils in all those accomplishments which were in the early
seventies considered necessary for a young lady's education.  I can
assure those of my readers who are well acquainted with modern schools
that no one could have been more particular than Mrs. Clavering with
regard to her girls.  In such things as deportment and nice manners and
all the code which signifies politeness, and in the almost lost art of
brilliant conversation, she could instruct as very few other people
could in her day, and then what accomplishments she did teach were
thorough.  The girls were taught French properly, they understood the
grammar of the language, and could also speak it nicely; and their
German was also very fair, if not quite as thorough as their French.
And their music had some backbone in it, for a little of the science
was taught as well as the practice, and their singing was very sweet
and true.  They could also recite, those of them who had any gift for
it, quite beautifully, and if they had a turn for acting that also was
brought to the fore and made the most of.  As to their knowledge of the
English language, it bade fair to eclipse many of the High School girls
of the present day, for they did understand in the first place its
literature, and in the next its grammar, and were well acquainted with
the works of Shakespeare and those other lions of literature whose
names we are so proud of and whose works we love.




CHAPTER II.

THE GIRLS.

It was a lovely day in the beginning of June, and, being Wednesday, was
a half-holiday.  The girls of the Upper school, numbering seven in all,
were assembled in the cherry garden.  The cherry garden stood a little
apart, to the left of the great general garden, and was entered by a
low walled-in door.

Mrs. Clavering was so proud of her cherries and so afraid that the
neighbors might be tempted to help themselves to the luscious fruit,
that she kept the door locked between the cherry garden and the other,
and only those girls who were very privileged were allowed to sit in
it.  But the girls in the Upper school were, of course, privileged, and
they were now enjoying a fine time seated on the grass, or on little
camp-stools and chairs, under the trees, which were already laden with
the tempting fruit.

They were all eagerly discussing the great event of the year, the
Cherry Feast, which was to take place in three weeks from the present
day.  Their names were Mabel and Alice Cunningham, two handsome
dark-eyed girls, aged respectively seventeen and fifteen; Florence
Aylmer, who was also fifteen and the romp of the school; Mary Bateman,
a stolid-looking girl of fourteen; Bertha Kennedy, who had only lately
been raised to the rank of the Upper school; Edith King, a handsome,
graceful girl, who competed with Mabel for the honors of the head of
her class; and Kitty Sharston, who had only lately come, and who had
some Irish blood in her, and was very daring and very much inclined to
break the rules.  She was a hobbledehoy sort of girl, having
outstripped her years, which were only thirteen, and was considered by
some of her companions very plain and by others very fascinating.

Mrs. Clavering did not quite know what to make of Kitty, but hoped to
break her in by and by, and meanwhile she was very gentle, and Kitty
loved her, although she never could be got to see that so many
restrictions and so many little petty rules were not good, but
extremely bad, for her character.

On this particular lovely summer's afternoon Kitty was the last to make
her appearance.  She came skimming gracefully through the orchard under
the cherry trees, with her hair down her back, her skirt awry, and a
great stain on the front of her pinafore.  In the seventies girls as
old as Kitty wore long white pinafores.  The stain was caused by some
cherry juice, for Kitty had stopped many times as she approached the
others to take great handfuls of the ripe fruit, and thrust them into
her mouth.  Mabel called to her to sit down.

"We are all busy discussing the great event," she said, "and I have
kept a seat for you near me, Kitty; wasn't it good of me?"

"Awfully good," answered Kitty.  She flung herself on the ground by her
friend's side and looked up at her with affectionate eyes.

"I like you all," she said, glancing round at them, "and yet all the
same I hate school.  The great thing that I look forward to in the
treat is that immediately afterwards the holidays follow.  I shall go
down to join my father in Cornwall.  He said he would take me to
Ireland, but I doubt if he will.  Now, Tommy, what are you frowning at?"

This remark was made to Florence Aylmer.  Kitty from the first had
insisted upon calling her Tommy.  She was the first girl in Cherry
Court School who had dared to adopt a nickname for any of her
companions, and Florence, who had begun by being indignant, could not
help laughing now as the saucy creature fixed her with her bright eyes.

"What are you frowning at, Tommy?  Aren't you glad, too, that the
holidays are so near?"

"No, I am not--I hate the holidays," replied Florence Aylmer.  As she
spoke Mabel took one of Kitty's hands, gave it a slight squeeze, it was
a sort of warning pressure.  Kitty looked up at her with a startled
glance, then she glanced again at Florence, who was looking down.
Suddenly Florence raised her face and returned the girl's gaze fully.

"I have no home like the rest of you," she said; "my mother is very
poor and cannot afford to have me at home."

"Then where are you going to spend the holidays?" said Kitty; "do say,
dear old Tommy, where--where?"

"Here probably, or wherever Mrs. Clavering likes to take me," replied
Florence; "but there, don't talk of it any more--I hate to think of it.
We have three weeks still to be happy in, and we'll make the best of
that."

"Do you know, Mabel," asked Mary Bateman, now bending forward, "if Mrs.
Clavering has yet decided what the programme is to be for the 25th?"

"I think she will tell us to-night," replied Mabel; "she said something
about it this morning, didn't she, Alice?"

"Yes, I heard her talking to Mademoiselle Le Brun.  I expect we shall
hear at tea-time.  If so we will meet in the oak parlor, and Mrs.
Clavering will have her annual talk.  She is always very nice on those
occasions."

"She is nice on every occasion--she is an old dear," said Kitty.

"Why, Kitty, you don't know her very well yet."

"She is an old dear," reported Kitty; "I love her with all my heart,
but I should like beyond words to give her a right good shock.  I
cannot tell you girls, how I positively tremble to do it.  At prayers,
for instance, or still more at meals, when we are all so painfully
demure, I want to jump up and utter a shout, or do something of that
sort.  I have suppressed myself hitherto, but I really do not know if I
can go on suppressing myself much longer.  Oh, what is the matter,
Edith--what are you frowning at?"

"Nothing," replied Edith King; "I did not even know that I was
frowning.  I was just thinking how nice it was to be trained to be
ladylike and to have good manners and all that.  Mrs. Clavering is such
a perfect lady herself that we shall know all the rules of polite
society when we leave the school."

"And I hate those rules," said Kitty; "but there, somebody is coming to
meet us.  Oh, it is little Dolly Fairfax; she is sure to be bringing a
message."




CHAPTER III.

THE TELEGRAM.

Dolly came up in her brisk way.  She was holding something concealed in
her little pinafore.  She looked very mysterious.  She had a round
cherub face and two great big blue eyes, and short hair, which she wore
in a curly mop all over her head.  Dolly was the youngest girl in the
school and a great pet with everyone.  When Bertha saw her now she
sprang to her feet and went forward in her somewhat clumsy way.

"Come, little Dolly," she said; "what's the mystery?"

"It's not for you, Bertha," said Dolly, "and don't you interrupt.  It's
for--it's for Kitty Sharston."

"For me?" cried Kitty.  "Oh, what a love you are, Dolly; come and sit
on my lap.  Is it a box of bon-bons or is it a letter?"

"Guess again," said Dolly, clapping her hand to her little mouth, and
looking intensely mysterious.  Her blue eyes rolled roguishly round
until they fixed themselves on Edith King's face, then she looked again
at Kitty as solemn as possible.

"You guess again," she said; "I'll give you five guesses.  Now, then,
begin right away."

"It's the book that Annie Wallace said she would lend me--that's it,
now, isn't it, Dolly?  See, I'll feel in your pinafore."

"No, it's not--wrong again," said Dolly; "that's three guesses--two
more."

Kitty made another guess--wrong again.  Finally Dolly was induced to
unfold her pinafore, and inside lay an unopened telegram.

Now, in those days telegrams were not quite as common as they are now.
In the first place, they cost a shilling instead of sixpence, which
made a vast difference in their number.  Kitty's face turned slightly
pale, she gripped the telegram, shook little Dolly off her lap, stood
up, and, turning her back to the girls, proceeded to open it.  Her
slim, long fingers shook a little as she did so.  She soon had the
envelope torn asunder and had taken out the pink sheet within.  She
unfolded it and read the words.  As she did so her face turned very
white.  "Is the messenger waiting for an answer?" she said, turning to
Dolly.

"Yes," replied Dolly; "he is waiting up at the Court."

"Then I must run away at once and answer this," said Kitty.  "Oh, I
wonder if I have got money enough!"

"I'll lend you a shilling if you like," said Edith King.

"Thanks, awfully," replied Kitty.  "I'll pay you back when I get my
pocket-money on Saturday."

There was a queer, troubled, dazed sort of look in her eyes.  Edith
handed her the shilling and she disappeared under the cherry trees.

Dolly proceeded to skim after her.

"No, do stay, Dolly," cried Florence Aylmer; "stay and sit on my lap
and I'll tell you a story."

Dolly looked undecided for a moment, but presently she elected to go
with Kitty.

"There is something bothering her," she said; "I wonder what it can be.
I'll run and see; I'll bring word afterwards."

She disappeared with little shouts under the trees.  Nothing could ever
make Dolly sad long.  The other girls turned and looked at one another.

"What in the world can it be?" said Florence.  "Poor Kitty! how very
white she turned as she read it."

Meanwhile Kitty had reached the house; the messenger was waiting in the
hall.  Mrs. Clavering came out just as the girl appeared.

"Well, my dear Kitty," she said, "I hope it is not very bad news?"

"I will tell you presently; I must answer it now," said Kitty.

"You can go into the study, dear, and write your telegram there."

Kitty went in; she spent a little time, about ten minutes or so,
filling in the form; then she folded it up, gave it to the boy with a
shilling, and went and stood in the hall.

"What is the matter, Kitty?" said her governess, coming out and looking
her in the face.

"My telegram was from father.  He--he is going to India," said Kitty,
"that is all.  I won't be with him in the holidays--that's all."

She tried to keep the tremble out of her voice; her eyes, brave,
bright, and fearless, were fixed on Mrs. Clavering's face.

"Come in here and let us talk, dear," said Mrs. Clavering.

"I can't," said Kitty; "it is too bad."

"What is too bad, dear?"

"The pain here."  She pressed her hand against her heart.

"Poor child! you love him very much."

"Very much," answered Kitty, "and the pain is too bad, and--and I can't
talk now.  I'll just go back to the other girls in the cherry orchard."

"But, Kitty, can you bear to be with them just now?"

"I can't be alone," said Kitty, with a