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It was past twelve on a Saturday night and Raffles was running late. I had been at the rope for over three hours and usually it was no more than two. I had long since run out of things to do even if I could have lit the lamps without fear of discovery and to own the truth I was two winks away from being solidly asleep when a whispered, "Bunny!" sent me scramblind to look out the window.
Raffles was standing in the moonlight and it would have become him well were he not wearing hideously loud checks. This, combined with the false beard made him look like an elderly gypsy. Nonetheless there was still something rather magical about him. Perhaps it was the gleam in his eyes or his strong, sure stance, or some other indefinably Raffelian trait.
I let down the rope, but rather than ascending Raffles gestured me down. Puzzled, I obeyed, if dubiously. I was not a cricket player, and getting back up that rope would be a challenge in daylight, much less after midnight.
Raffles was waiting at the bottom impatiently, almost dancing about in his nervousness and excitement. "Come on, come on, Bunny! There's no time to waste!" He grabbed my arm and started running across the lawn, dragging me awkwardly behind him.
"What's going on, Raffles?" I cried, only to be shushed immediately.
We reached the far side of the lawn and Raffles ducked behind a bush, myself stumbling after him. He immediately started rooting around for something on the ground until, finding it, he let out an exultant if rather quiet cry. "Here, Bunny,"--he thrust a bundle of cloth against my chest--"put that on."
I slowly unwound the cloth, saying in a bewildered voice, "But Raffles,"--I had no desire to be caught up in his schemes, or his loud checks. It could not be denied that there was a certain thrill to fagging for Raffles. It was like sailing in the wake of a great ship. Now Raffles was asking me to cut across the waves and sail next to him.
And then I saw what I was holding.
Not loud checks.
***
Tramping through the woods at night is uncomfortable even on a moonlit night. Add skirts to the equation and it became...difficult was not a strong enough word.
I stumbled along behind, half falling over every tree root and getting caught in every thornbush. Ahead of me Raffles appeared to be having no such difficulties and was even, from time to time, whistling a jaunty little tune.
As fond as I was of him the situation was sorely trying my patience.
You're the only one I can really trust, said Raffles in my memory. True loyalty is suffering nobly.
At that moment I slipped and went down knees first. There was a distinct squelch under my left calf.
Ahead of me, Raffles called, "Come on, Bunny! There's no time for dallying about in the woods!"
Noble suffering. Right.
***
Raffles' goal as he had explained to me was a fairly simple one. It was the execution that left something to be desired.
"Stand straighter, Bunny," hissed Raffles, "and for heavens sake don't trip over the hem! You move like a wounded water buffalo."
I spared a moments concentration from my voluminous skirts to glare at Raffles, then regretted it when I again tripped.
Raffles was trailing me now at some distance. I, dressed as a maid (though rather dirtier than any maid in the Masters Hall was usually permitted to be) was to make my way to the Master's office. There I would let myself in (I did not want to know how Raffles had acquired a key) and replace the book of exeats that Raffles had earlier stolen, probably for the purpose of forgery, though I had not asked. I did not resent Raffles' theft. Raffles had always been a law unto himself in my eyes. What I did resent, very much in fact, was the necessity of replacing the book right now, and the using of myself to do it.
You don't really want me to be expelled, do you Bunny? said Raffles pleadingly in my memory. You know the Master's got it in for me.
Unsurprisingly it was true. The Master did have it in for Raffles. Privately I thought that Raffles rather deserved it. But I was never able to resist Raffles when he truly wanted something.
I straightened my skirts and went on.
I was wearing a rather disagreeable bonnet and it so impeded my vision that the night watchman was right up beside me before I even knew he was around. I jumped, unnerved and he let out a deep chuckle. He was a florid little man with a pot belly and a handlebar mustache that tended to droop. His name was Smythers, but among themselves the students called him Dogberry.
"Having trouble there, Miss?"
Dogberry was not known to be a charitable soul. I eyed him warily. "No trouble, sir. I'm only to deliver this book to the Master's study." I tried pitching my voice higher, but it sounded a bit creaky to me.
Luckily Dogberry did not appear to notice. "All by your lonesome? And at this time of the night? Perhaps I'd best accompany you."
I noted with disgust that he was staring at my chest, which was stuffed with leaves and at this moment tilting alarmingly.
The leaves had actually been my idea. Raffles had argued that I could simply pass for a flat-chested girl. You're pretty enough for it.
Well, I couldn't leave that alone, could I?
So here I was, leaf-bosom slipping and the lecherous old Dogberry far too close for my liking. "No thank you, sir, but I don't be needing any help."
"Are you sure about that, Miss, because I could provide quite a bit of....help," and he gave my bum a quick squeeze.
I am not ashamed to admit that at that moment I yelped as loud and high as any girl. I believe that I would have actually struck him, but almost at that moment there was a thunk and he fell over with a startled look on his face. Indeed I had to jump aside to avoid him falling on me. And where he had been standing there was suddenly Raffles, holding a stone vase over his head and looking simultaneously startled and pleased with himself.
"You had to hit him?" I heard myself say rather faintly.
"You'd rather I let him pinch you again?" said Raffles, sounding only mildly curious.
"Good point. Why didn't you hit him before he pinched me?"
"I couldn't find anything to do it with," he said simply. "I had to trip over the bloody cenotaph to find this vase." He tossed it to the side and glanced around. "I don't think that anyone's heard us, despite your peacock-like shrieking."
"I was trying," I said with dignity, "to defend my virtue."
Raffles grinned. "You know what that means, don't you? I saved your virtue. I, A.J. Raffles, am a savior of women's virtue."
"I'm not a woman," I grumbled. "Can we please get on with this?" I prodded the fallen Dogberry with my toe. "Couldn't you have knocked him out in the first place and left me out of it?"
"Why Bunny," said Raffles, "It wouldn't be any fun without you!" At my look he sobered. "I did consider it, but I saw no way to sneak up on him to do the deed. And really, the act seems a trifle gauche."
I looked down at my apparel in askance.
Raffles chuckled, "I do see your point, my dear, but really I had no way to know that your charms would prove so....considerable. I merely planned for you to walk in and replace the bloody book, but now that Dogberry is out of the way we can both go."
"Hadn't we better check him over?" I asked. "Suppose you've killed him?"
An arresting expression passed over Raffles' face. It was almost hopeful.
The disquieting moment was interrupted by a loud snore from our feet.
"I don't think that we need to add murder to my list of crimes quite yet," said Raffles dryly. "Do come on, Bunny!"
***
The corners of the Master's office were lost in shadows, but the desk was cast in moonlight. I made to put the book in its cubby as I had been instructed to do, but Raffles arrested the motion with a hand on my arm. "Wait, Bunny," he said. "Don't you see what an opportunity this is?"
I raised my eyebrows. "An opportunity to see the Master's office? You have that opportunity every day." (Raffles' visits to the Masters office were infamous)
"No, Bunny!" Raffles was pacing around the desk, hands behind his back like a lecturer. "When Dogberry comes to there's going to be a hue and cry, and if there's no other reason found for it then explanation will be sought among the students. They'll be blamed."
I could hear the unspoken: I'll be blamed.
"But," he continued, "if a band of thieves had broken in--"
I caught it--"But who's to say that it was a band of thieves and not students?"
Raffles took it up again, waving my suggestion aside. "No, no, Bunny. The Master would never suspect such a thing. Even of me. Imagine if someone had told you that students at this school had dared to pull something like this off, would you believe them?"
"Before tonight?" I said truthfully, "No." Now, of course, anything seemed possible.
"Exactly," said Raffles. "Now all that we've got to do is do some damage here as if a real band of thieves had been here looking for valuables."
What passed in the next hour would have looked truly ludicrous to an observer. There was much careful lowering of pieces of furniture, much quiet tearing of paper, because, as Raffles said, "to wake someone now would spoil everything."
***
It was accomplished and we were on our way back to Raffles' room with the loot (such as it was) before we hit our next snag. Undoubtedly it would have been wiser to circle around the school, but the rope hanging from Raffles' room was damning and the possibility of its discovery spurred us to assure its safety in the speediest fashion. Unfortunately that meant passing Dogberry, and that led us to where we were now, crouching in the shrubbery, watching him sit up and look around groggily.
Beside me Raffles fairly vibrated with excitement, his breathing high and shallow. I shifted uncomfortably. "Can we leave now?"
Raffles waved me away, his eyes intent. "Not yet."
Dogberry was rubbing his head, looking puzzled.
"Raffles," I hissed, "we really need to go now!"
Raffles opened his mouth but his reply was drowned out by Dogberry's blaring voice calling out the alarm.
I jumped, hit my head on a branch and tore my leaf-bosom when I reached up to estimate the damage.
Raffles was already in action, backing out of the bush smoothly. "Come on, Bunny!"
Come on, Bunny indeed.
***
I'd known that the rope would be difficult, but in skirts and slimy with mud it was impossible. At least impossible to me. Raffles had scuttled up the rope like a monkey and was now at the top exhorting me to ever greater efforts. I gave it one more try and got three feet off the ground before gravity and weak arms conspired to return me to the earth.
Raffles would no doubt have spent some time berating me for my failure but shouting across the grounds made us both stiffen. I wrapped the rope twice around my slippery hands and once under my shoulders and Raffles pulled me up foot by laborious foot. This was not to be one of my better memories. The rope squeezed my ribs and tore at my hands and all I could hear was Raffles' labored breathing.
Finally my ascent ended and I tumbled over the sill and fell against Raffles' legs. He yelped and jumped back, looking with disgust at the mud that I'd left on his trousers.
Wearily I stripped off the dratted skirt, tore off the bonnet and dropped it to the floor with supreme indifference. There was a moment of awkardness when I removed my lopsided bosoms: some of the leaves had migrated to my small clothes, but true to form, Raffles was in too great a state of excitement to notice my discomfort. He sorted the stolen property on the bed, ignoring his own dirty clothing.
"Where is it, where is it!"
"Where is what, Raffles?" I asked, frowning at my fingernails, black even in the moonlight.
"The exeats! How could I have forgotten them?"
I sat down. "Why do you need them? Wasn't the whole purpose of this exercise to return the blasted book?"
Raffles paced around the bed with arms folded, lips twitching unhappily. "That was before we had an opportunity to make the place look vandalized. I should have remembered them." Abruptly he brightened, the light coming back to his eyes, "But think, Bunny, do you realize what we've done? What this means?"
"It means that I can finally go back to my room and get some sleep?" I said wearily.
This seemed to penetrate Raffles' excitement.
"Go back? No, Bunny, you have to stay here."
"Raffles," I said, dragging myself to my feet, "I have gone above and beyond the call of fagging tonight and now all I want to do is sleep."
"You can sleep," said Raffles, "you can sleep here, once you've washed that is. You don't want to risk getting caught in the halls, do you?"
Well. When you put it like that.
***
The bed was not made for two people, especially not two people who were malodorous despite copious time spent in the washroom. Raffles was edging away from me and I was edging away from him and the result was that we were both clinging to our respective edges. It was less than comfortable, but I was tired enough that my standards of comfort were relatively low.
I had almost drifted off when Raffles said in the darkness, "You did me a good turn today, Bunny and I won't forget that."
I turned over to face him. "Thank you, Raffles."
We lay in silence for another few moments and then Raffles began to snicker. "Did you enjoy wearing skirts, Bunny?"
In response I leaned over the side of the bed, scooped up the object that I'd dropped there earlier and turning over slapped it to the center of Raffles' chest.
He gave a little oof of surprise. "What's this?"
"Your exeats."
Raffles' rich chuckle gave way to surprised laughter and that was what I fell asleep to.