THE VIOLET HANDKERCHIEF
A select committee consisting of Ingrid Latimer, Freda Martin, Joan
Chichester, and Miss Lambton, the assistant games-mistress, tried the
new girls for hockey that afternoon, playing them with a selection from
the second hockey-team.
Joey enjoyed herself, though she had not played since she was quite
small and a day-girl at a school in Hertfordshire. Her running and her
passing were both commended, the one by Ingrid and the other by Miss
Lambton; and she was dreadfully disappointed when, at four o'clock,
Miss Lambton looked at her watch, and said something in an undertone to
Ingrid. Then she called out:
"Jocelyn Graham is to go indoors now. Change your hockey things,
Jocelyn," she added, "and you can ask for a book from the Lower School
Library."
Of course that bothering cold! Joey thanked Miss Lambton, and went
indoors in very low spirits. Now that she had been reminded of her
cold, she felt much worse at once. Her head and eyes were heavy; she
didn't think she would ask for a book after all. She wandered up to
Blue Dorm, and began to change very slowly, finally taking out a clean
handkerchief from the drawer, and putting her handkerchief--her third
that day--into her linen-bag.
Something deep-toned showed at the bottom of her bag, under the white
of her own handkerchiefs; of course she still had the violet silk
handkerchief which she had used to dust the Lab. Joey decided that it
would be a very good thing to wash it, here and now, while she had the
time. She plunged her arm into the linen-bag and drew it out. What a
good thing she had needed another handkerchief, or it would probably
have gone to the wash with her other things, and the Professor would
have had to wait till the laundry returned it. Joey dashed into the
bathroom with the violet handkerchief, turned on some moderately hot
water, and began to scrub with vigour. She got the dirt off fairly
well, to judge by the extraordinarily black condition of the bath; if
she could only dry it, it might be possible to return it to the Lab
this very evening. Joey didn't like to think of the Professor wanting
his handkerchief and thinking of her as a thief as well as a most
interfering schoolgirl.
But how was she to dry that handkerchief? Hung out over a chair in the
Blue Dorm it would certainly take all night. The late September sun was
near its setting; she couldn't dry it on the window ledge, that was
quite certain. If only Gabrielle had been about, or even Noreen, she
might perhaps have asked whether it was allowable to go down to the
kitchens to find a fire. Already in the twenty-four hours she had spent
at Redlands she had learnt there were several things not allowed which
would have been the ordinary sort of thing to do at Calgarloch--and
Father had always been particular about obedience. But both were
playing hockey, and Joey was still cautious about the others. Probably
she would be had on again, if she asked strangers.
She went down two flights of stairs, holding the wet handkerchief
crumpled in her hand, and wondering what she had better do. Then she
saw a door open, and heard a babel of small voices coming from behind
it, and--surprising sight, a glow of firelight. She pushed the door
open a very little farther, and peeped in.
About twelve or fourteen very small girls, their ages ranging from six
or seven to nine, were sitting in a huge half-circle round a bright
fire. They were all talking hard, regardless of a pleasant-looking maid
who was laying tea--a very nice tea, with plenty of bread and jam, and
a plate of round, shiny-topped buns.
They all stopped chattering though, when they caught sight of Joey,
and stared at her solemnly in absolute silence. Still, she couldn't be
uncomfortable with people of that age, even if they hadn't reminded her
so much of Kirsty and Bingo.
"Do you mind if I come in and dry something by your fire?" she asked.
The children received the request most graciously, scrambling aside to
make room for her in the middle of the circle, and helping her to hang
the handkerchief over the high nursery fender.
"Is it your hankserchiff?" asked a small, solemn voice, while she
was spreading it out; and she turned round to meet the grave, dark
eyes of the very tiniest child she had ever seen at school. She was
about half Bingo's size, but she spoke quite distinctly, except for
the mispronunciation of the word handkerchief. Her black hair was cut
square over her forehead and bobbed; her small, round face had very
little colour, and except for the amount of expression in it and the
fact that she was talking, Joey could almost have taken her for a
French doll.
"No, it's not mine; it's one I borrowed, so I washed it," she
explained, and then she pulled the tiny child upon her lap, as she sat
on the floor.
"What's your name, I wonder?"
"Bertillia," breathed the mite, pronouncing all the syllables quite
distinctly, and looking solemnly up at Joey as she spoke.
"But we call her Tiddles," said a jolly-looking, round-faced person on
Joey's right. "At least the big ones did first, and we caught it off
them. And she's like a Tiddles, isn't she--just a sort of little kitten
thing you can pick up."
"You squeeze me when you pick me up, Ros-ie," Tiddles stated.
"How old is she?" Joey asked, cuddling Tiddles close, as she cuddled
Bingo, when he allowed it--which wasn't often.
"Oh, she's six--but isn't she small--people think she's only two or
three," Rosie answered. "She's Belgian, you know, and Miss Conyngham
has taken her 'cause she's got nobody. Her mother got killed, and the
one who brought her to England died of tiredness, poor thing--she had
to walk and walk and carry Tiddles. She found her, you know; and look
what those pigly Germans had done to her. Show your arm, Tiddles,
darling."
Tiddles, who had listened seriously and unwinkingly to her mournful
story, related so very cheerfully by Rosie, gave a funny little nod,
and pulled up the loose sleeve of her tiny blouse. On the small arm was
a long, deep scar.
"Did the Huns----?" Joey gasped.
"Yes, though she was just a tiny baby. We're never going to speak to a
German again as long as we live," Rosie stated firmly. "We've settled
that; we shall just look the other way if we meet one, as though he was
a bad smell. Poor Tiddles!"
Tiddles had been staring at Joey very solemnly, all the time that Joey
was looking at her arm. Now she suddenly laid down her black head upon
Joey's shoulder. "I like you," she said.
Joey kissed the top of the little black head. "You're a darling! My
father was killed by the Germans--at least by their being such beasts
to him and all the other wounded men. They put him in a cattle-truck,
and it was all filth, and they had no water, and when the women on the
way heard they were English they wouldn't give them any, though they
had heaps."
Joey stared through the bars of the grate, her eyes growing dim. "So
father died, after a bit."
"Would you ever do anything for a German--except despise him?" another
small girl asked truculently, and Joey answered:
"No, I don't suppose I should."
She scrambled up in a hurry. "Oh, my hanky's singeing!"
She was only just in time to save it, for the fire was really very hot.
She snatched it from the fender and looked it over anxiously to see
if there were any scorched places. No, there were none; but something
rather strange caught her eyes in one corner; something that came
between the neat red lettering of the Professor's name--some tiny marks
that stood out oddly in bright yellow from the dark violet background.
Joey stared at them for a moment in silence, holding the handkerchief
stretched to its widest in her two hands. They were photographed upon
her mind in that moment before they faded and disappeared, leaving
the red lettering of the Professor's name alone, and the handkerchief
bone-dry. Curious marks they were too--marks that looked like little
dots and dashes. Joey wondered for a second, and then she heard Noreen
calling in the passage:
"Jocelyn! Jocelyn!"
Joey made a dash for the door, pursued by a chorus of "Come again,
come again soon!" In her hurry, she thought no more about the oddness
of the little marks which appeared with the heat and disappeared again
as quickly. Noreen sounded good-tempered; perhaps she would return the
handkerchief to the Professor, as Joey herself was forbidden to go out.
She preferred her request, breathlessly. Noreen very muddy and
dishevelled, answered a shade doubtfully.
"He's always such a foaming-at-the-mouth sort of beast if you intrude
on his blessed privacy. Still, I don't mind trying if you like. He
_ought_ to be pleased to get back his old hanky. What am I to say if I
see him--humblest apologies and all that? Righto! Stay with the kids
till tea: we shan't get a fire till supper-time. If I don't return,
look for me in a poisoned grave under the Lab."
Noreen departed. Joey went back to the babies for the ten minutes that
remained before tea-time, and found that they liked stories quite as
much as Kirsty and Bingo did. Then Matron came in to give them their
tea, and Joey went down to hers.
She did not see Noreen till the meal was over; but caught her up in the
hall--on the way to the classrooms for prep.
"So sorry, Jocelyn, after you've washed it and all, but I let that
hanky drop on the way, and muddied it a little--not much. So I thought
I'd better not face the Professor, but just chucked it in at an open
window. You bet he'll see it--he probably won't know it ever left the
floor where you found it," she said. "So that's all right, isn't it?"
"Thanks awfully," Joe said, and tried to think it was as right as
Noreen said.