‘Oh, I see…’ But Julia was frowning.

‘What did Bully want with you?’ asked Jennifer.

‘Bully? Oh, nothing really. Just Mummy’s address. But she hasn’t got one because she’s on a bus. In Turkey somewhere. Jennifer—look here. Your racquet didn’t need restringing.’

‘Oh, it did, Julia. It was like a sponge.’

‘I know. But it’s my racquet really. I mean, we exchanged. It was my racquet that needed restringing. Yours, the one I’ve got now, was restrung. You said yourself your mother had had it restrung before you went abroad.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’ Jennifer looked a little startled. ‘Oh well, I suppose this woman—whoever she was—I ought to have asked her name, but I was so entranced—just saw that it needed restringing.’

‘But you said that she said that it was your Aunt Gina who had said it needed restringing. And your Aunt Gina couldn’t have thought it needed restringing if it didn’t.’

‘Oh, well—’ Jennifer looked impatient. ‘I suppose—I suppose—’

‘You suppose what?’

‘Perhaps Aunt Gina just thought that if I wanted a new racquet, it was because the old one wanted restringing. Anyway what does it matter?’

‘I suppose it doesn’t matter,’ said Julia slowly. ‘But I do think it’s odd, Jennifer. It’s like—like new lamps for old. Aladdin, you know.’

Jennifer giggled.

‘Fancy rubbing my old racquet—your old racquet, I mean, and having a genie appear! If you rubbed a lamp and a genie did appear, what would you ask him for, Julia?’

‘Lots of things,’ breathed Julia ecstatically. ‘A tape recorder, and an Alsatian—or perhaps a Great Dane, and a hundred thousand pounds, and a black satin party frock, and oh! lots of other things…What would you?’

‘I don’t really know,’ said Jennifer. ‘Now I’ve got this smashing new racquet, I don’t really want anything else.’

Chapter 13

Catastrophe

The third weekend after the opening of term followed the usual plan. It was the first weekend on which parents were allowed to take pupils out. As a result Meadowbank was left almost deserted.

On this particular Sunday there would only be twenty girls left at the school itself for the midday meal. Some of the staff had weekend leave, returning late Sunday night or early Monday morning. On this particular occasion Miss Bulstrode herself was proposing to be absent for the weekend. This was unusual since it was not her habit to leave the school during term time. But she had her reasons. She was going to stay with the Duchess of Welsham at Welsington Abbey. The duchess had made a special point of it and had added that Henry Banks would be there. Henry Banks was the Chairman of the Governors. He was an important industrialist and he had been one of the original backers of the school. The invitation was therefore almost in the nature of a command. Not that Miss Bulstrode would have allowed herself to be commanded if she had not wished to do so. But as it happened, she welcomed the invitation gladly. She was by no means indifferent to duchesses and the Duchess of Welsham was an influential duchess, whose own daughters had been sent to Meadowbank. She was also particularly glad to have the opportunity of talking to Henry Banks on the subject of the school’s future and also to put forward her own account of the recent tragic occurrence.