EXPLANATIONS
IT was a perfect summer evening. The day had been an oppressively hot
one with scarcely a breath of air stirring, but now, as the sun set, a
soft, refreshing breeze began to rise, which was very welcome. Malvina
Medland, on her bed of pain, felt the difference of the atmosphere
with thankfulness; she was certainly better, but her recovery from her
attack of illness was being made very slowly, and Dr. Elizabeth was
anything but satisfied with her progress.
Seated on her favourite seat beneath the almond tree in the garden
of Laureston Square on this particular evening, Ann Reed had been
thinking of Malvina, and wondering how she had endured the heat of the
day. Ann had found it a wearisome, dragging day herself, and she knew
it must have been a trying one for Malvina; but now her thoughts had
turned from the sick girl to Violet, and very troubled thoughts they
were.
"I don't understand her," she mused, "I cannot believe she knows
anything about Agnes Hosking's purse, for when mother mentioned it at
the breakfast-table, this morning, and said how much she regretted
that it had never been found, she did not seem embarrassed in the
least. I was so relieved to see that! And yet she cannot bear to speak
of the afternoon Agnes came to tea with us, she gets red and looks
ashamed, and what can she have to be ashamed of? I wish the girls did
not slight her so at school; I know some of them do, and she must
notice it. It's strange that she never mentions it to me, I am always
expecting her to open up the subject. Can she know what Agnes has been
hinting about her? If so, she evidently does not mean to openly resent
it. Ah, here she comes! Father is right—he said yesterday she was
looking rather pale. I'm afraid she's unhappy."
A minute later Violet had joined Ann on the seat. She seemed tired and
out of spirits; doubtless the heat of the day had tried her, too.
"I've only just finished my lessons," she remarked; "I've been so slow
over them this evening. How nice it is to have it a little cooler!"
"Yes," agreed Ann; "it's very pleasant here, isn't it? So quiet, and
the scent from the flowers is lovely. I wonder why flowers always
smell their sweetest after sunset? How the term is flying, isn't it,
Violet? Here we are in the last week of June; why, in another month
we shall be commencing the holidays."
"I shall be so glad when they come," Violet admitted; "not that I am
not getting on all right with my work, for I am," she hastened
to explain, "but I daresay you've noticed that it has been anything
but agreeable for me at school this term. I have had the cold shoulder
shown me by several of the girls—not that I care!" she added bitterly,
and, certainly untruthfully.
"Oh, Violet!" exclaimed Ann, "I am so sorry, and I am sure you do
care. I can see it is a trouble to you. Do you—do you know why—"
"Do I know why I am being treated so?" Violet asked, as her companion
hesitated to proceed. "Of course I do," she declared vehemently;
"it is Agnes Hosking's doing, not a doubt of it."
"I-I am afraid it is."
"It is very hard lines on me. I cannot help it if—if we've been
poor—I'm sure I've hated being so—and I ought not to mind anything
Agnes may have told the girls about me, I ought to be above minding,
I think you would be, Ann, but— but—" and Violet broke down, with
quivering lips and eyes swimming in tears.
"Oh, don't cry, don't cry," said Ann, in much distress; "you have your
friends at Helmsford College who believe in you—the Garret girls,
for instance. It was Clara who told me what Agnes Hosking had been
saying; she trusts you entirely, indeed she does, and Cicely, too."
"Clara trusts me?" Violet exclaimed, looking puzzled, "I don't
understand. I don't suppose Agnes has said anything that is not true."
"Oh, Violet, you don't mean that, you can't!" cried Ann, in a shocked
voice.
Violet wiped the tears from her eyes, and regarded her agitated
companion with increasing bewilderment. During the last few weeks she
had been conscious of a change in Ann's manner to her. It was not that
Ann had been less kind than she had been before; indeed, if anything,
she had been kinder; but she had certainly showed herself less
inclined to be confidential, and often Violet had caught her watching
her with a dubious, puzzled expression on her face.
"It isn't possible you could have done such a thing," Ann proceeded,
"there's some mistake. Tell me, what is it you think Agnes Hosking
has hinted to the girls about you?"
"I don't think she has hinted anything," Violet returned; "no doubt
she has told plain facts in the most objectionable way possible. She's
said, I expect, that I'm a poor girl whom your father has taken into
his home out of charity, and, therefore, that I'm beneath her in
position and may be slighted and snubbed as she and her friends
please. She's a horrid, mean girl, that's what she is, and I hate her!
I wish I'd defied her from the first instead of—oh, Ann, you'll
despise me I know, but I feel I must tell you all about it, whatever
you may think afterwards!"
"Yes, do," said Ann eagerly, "I fancy we are at cross purposes
somehow. As to father's having taken you into his home out of charity
if Agnes said that, why it's only her ill-bred way of putting it; she
knows nothing about it, and she should mind her own business. But what
is it you're going to tell me?"
Thereupon, with burning cheeks, Violet confessed that she had entered
into a sort of compact with Agnes to obtain an invitation for her to
No. 8 Laureston Square, in return for which she had been given a
promise that Agnes would not make public her private affairs. Ann
listened in silence, naturally greatly astonished, her eyes fixed
gravely on her companion's crimson face.
"Do you utterly despise me?" Violet asked wistfully, when she had
concluded her tale—it had been a difficult one to tell.
"No," Ann responded, "but I don't understand you quite." There was a
look of relief on her face, for it was plain to her now, beyond a
shadow of doubt, that Violet knew nothing of the lost purse. "I never
trouble about what people think of me," she continued, "I am sure it
is a mistake to do so. But, Violet, you are wrong in imagining that
the girls who have snubbed you have done so on account of—of your
position. If you had not induced me to ask Agnes to our house we
should have been spared a lot of unhappiness, for she says—it is best
to tell you the truth, for I foresee you will find it out—that she
suspects you of having taken her purse. Yes, that is what she has been
telling the girls, and I—I have not liked to speak to you about it
for—for—"
"She suspects me of having taken her purse!" Violet cried excitedly.
"Why, how could I have done that? What an absurd thing to suggest!"
"She says you might have taken it up from my bed as you were the last
of us to leave the room that evening—"
"I remember I was," interrupted Violet; "but I never saw her purse
after she put it into her muff. And she suspects me of having taken
it—stolen it! She considers me a thief!"
The girl was trembling with anger, her eyes flashed, and she clenched
her hands in her rage. Suddenly she turned upon Ann, almost fiercely,
with the question:—
"Do you suspect me, too?"
"No, Violet no," Ann replied earnestly; "but I have not known what
to do. I have been so anxious, and—and puzzled. I have not been able
to understand you. You seemed so bitterly to regret having induced me
to ask Agnes to tea—of course I see why that was now—and once or twice
I—I have half doubted you, against my will, I—I could not help it.
Oh, forgive me! I am sure now that you know nothing about the purse!
Oh, I have been so wretched!"
Violet stared at her companion in silence for a minute, then she
covered her face with her hands and burst into a flood of passionate
tears. Ann sat by her, silent and miserable, incapable of offering any
consolation, and when, by-and-by, she ventured to put her arm around
her she was promptly repulsed.
"Let me alone!" Violet cried. "To think that you should have believed
me to be a thief! Oh, it is horrible—horrible!"
"Violet, don't be too hard on me!" Ann said, pleadingly; "you must
remember that it was your own conduct which made me doubt you; and it
was the very faintest doubt, indeed it was, I put it away again and
again, and then something you would say or do would bring it back.
And—and I could not understand where you got the money to pay for your
new tennis racquet, and—"
"Why you know I have the same amount to spend as you have yourself!"
broke in Violet, looking both surprised and reproachful.
"Yes; but I know, too, that you have been sending a part of it to
Ruth, and so—"
"I haven't, I haven't!" Violet interrupted again. "I quite meant to do
so, but I found there were so many things I wanted," she added,
greatly abashed.
"Yes, of course," Ann returned, hurriedly, trying in vain to conceal
her astonishment; "you must not think I wish to pry into your private
affairs, Violet. Your money is your own to do as you like with; but
you must remember that you did tell me you were going to send some
to Ruth, and that misled me."
"Do your mother and father know that Agnes Hosking suspects me
of having stolen her purse?" demanded Violet, in a hard tone.
"No," replied Ann; "I have not told them."
"Then I shall," said Violet proudly; "I wonder if they will believe
that I am a thief! Perhaps they will send me home in disgrace!"
"You know they will not."
"How can I tell? Why should they not believe this tale against me
if others do—if you did?"
"Violet, you are most unjust." There was deep pain in Ann's voice.
In her heart of hearts Violet knew that this was true, for she
recognised that she herself had given her companion sufficient cause
to mistrust her, but she was not going to acknowledge that now.
Dr. and Mrs. Reed had gone to a dinner-party and were not expected
home till late, so she would have no opportunity of speaking to them
that night, but she was determined to inform them of the ugly
suspicion Agnes Hosking entertained of her the first thing in the
morning; she would ask them to let her go home, she thought she could
not endure to return to Helmsford College again to be pointed at as
a thief. Her eyes were quite dry now; her sense of passionate
indignation had overcome every other feeling.
In silence the two girls sat side by side whilst the twilight faded
and the shadows of evening began to gather. At length Violet gave a
shudder, as though she was cold, and, rising, declared her intention
of returning to the house.
"Yes, I think it is time we went indoors," said Ann; "for the dew
is falling. My blouse is damp, I feel, and yours must be, too; we had
better go in and change them. We are friends, are we not, Violet?"
Then, as Violet vouchsafed no response, she continued gently: "At any
rate, I am your friend whatever your feelings may be towards me,
and—and I am so sorry for you, dear. You must not take this matter
too much to heart. Agnes can only influence a few of the girls against
you, after all; she has very little power in the school really. Now we
have had this talk together I know better how to act. I will speak
to Agnes myself—"
"Oh, I will not trouble you to do that," Violet interrupted coldly,
"you had much better not interfere. I—I don't suppose I shall go back
to Helmsford College; I shall ask your father to send me home. I wish
I had not come here!"
"Oh, Violet, don't say that!"
"I do say it, and I mean it."
After that they returned in silence to the house, and went upstairs
to their respective rooms. As soon as Ann had changed her blouse
she crossed the landing to Violet's door, and inquired if she was
coming into the drawing-room, for they had previously arranged
to practise a duet, which they were learning on the piano.
"No," Violet answered curtly, "I am going to bed."
"Going to bed!" echoed Ann. "Oh, please, don't! Are you not well?
Have you taken cold?"
"I don't know and I don't care," was the reckless response; "I only
want to be left in peace. Do go away."
Ann did as she was requested, but by-and-by her kind heart prompted
her to return. This time she opened the door softly, and, entering the
room, crossed to the bed. She could not see Violet very plainly,
for there was no light in the room save that which the stars
gave—Violet had pulled up the blind before getting into bed—but she
guessed that she was not asleep, and, stooping over her, she imprinted
a kiss on her forehead. The next minute Violet's arms were around her
neck and the kiss was warmly returned.