MARIANNE WINS THE PRIZE.
"I can't understand it in the least, and what's more, I don't believe
it's so." This from Catherine Lambert, who sat on a low bench buckling
her skates.
The tennis courts had been flooded and the shining blue expanse of ice
delighted the girls of High Cliffs, who enjoyed outdoor frolics.
"But, Cathy, Miss Gordon herself made the announcement, and who are we to
deny it?" Faith remonstrated. "However, as I said before, I never knew
Marianne Carnot to write verse and when one is a natural poet, one
scribbles in rhyme all of the time."
Muriel and Joy were skating toward the bench, their faces flushed beneath
their jaunty tams.
"That's fine sport," Rilla declared as they glided up. "At least I can
stand now, thanks to the patience of all of you girls, but I never will
be content until I can do the whirls and figure eights as well as
Catherine."
Laughingly Cathy held out her hands. "Come, I'll give you a lesson!"
But Gladys detained them, saying: "Shall we tell the girls the bad news?"
"Bad news on a day as sparkling as this?" Joy began. Then, as she glanced
from one face to another, she exclaimed: "I know what it is! You have
heard who has won the poetry contest."
"Have you really?" This eagerly from Muriel. How she did hope that the
prize had been awarded to Joy. But, remembering what Miss Gordon had
said, she almost knew the name that she would hear.
"Girls," Catherine Lambert said emphatically, "I'm just sure that
Marianne Carnot is a plagiarist."
Faith put a warmly gloved hand on the arm of her friend. "That's a very
serious accusation, Cathy. I really do not think that we ought to make it
unless we have more evidence than we have at present."
Catherine whirled about and her dark eyes flashed. "I suppose you'd stand
by and see your best friends cheated out of the prize rather than call
that snobbish French girl a thief, which she is, of course, if she has
copied that poem and presented it as her own."
"We will have to prove it first, I think," Faith replied quietly.
But Catherine, who was not at all meek, retorted: "Well, how are we going
to prove it? Of course, she is too clever to copy one of Tennyson's or
any other poem with which we are all familiar. Now, I think the way for
Miss Gordon to find out the truth of this matter would be to lock
Marianne in a classroom and tell her she will have to stay there until
she writes another poem of equal merit."
Gladys laughed. "Poor Marianne! She would be in there for the rest of her
natural life, I fear. Genius doesn't work that way. There was a pupil
here two years ago who composed music and said the inspiration came to
her at the queerest hours. Once she went to the music room at three
o'clock in the morning, and poor Miss Humphrey, who slept just above, was
terribly frightened. She thought the music room was haunted. Maybe
Marianne is the same way. Maybe she has had the one inspiration of her
lifetime."
The dark eyes of Catherine flashed toward Gladys scornfully. "Since when
have you taken to championing Marianne Carnot? Perhaps you would like to
be numbered among her friends, and----"
Gladys flushed and was about to retort when Joy laughingly exclaimed:
"What a tempest in a teapot we are trying to brew!" Then, more seriously:
"If Marianne wins the prize unfairly, her own heart will punish her. Now
I suggest that we all take hands and play cartwheel on the ice until the
gong rings."
Half an hour later, flushed and warm, they were trooping back to the
school when little Peggy Paterson ran out to meet them, calling: "Muriel
Storm, Miss Widdemere wants you to stop at her office before you go to
your room. The mail just came."
Muriel's heart leaped. Would there be a letter from Gene?
* * * * * * * *
There were two letters for Muriel bearing foreign postmarks. One of them
was addressed in a writing strange to the girl, and she tore it open,
almost with dread, but this was quickly changed to joy, for the letter
was from her dear Uncle Barney.
The good priest had written it for him, as he did so want Rilly to know
that, Heaven willing, he and his old mother would sail for America in the
spring.
"It's lonely I am for a look at me gal, an' it's lonely I am for me cabin
down by the sea, an' it's lonely me cabin has been this long spell,
closed there, a-waitin' for me," the letter ran.
The sympathetic young priest who had been scribe had written the letter
just as the kindly old Irishman had dictated it, and it sounded so like
her beloved Uncle Barney that, for a moment, it was hard for Muriel to
keep from crying.
"'Twill be a different place that he'll be findin'," she thought, "with
the lighthouse but a tumbled down heap of rocks and with grandfather
gone. Oh, I'm that glad Uncle Barney's coming. I'll ask Uncle Lem to take
me to Tunkett just as soon as they are back."
Then Muriel opened the other envelope, which was addressed in a
handwriting with which she was familiar, as Gene wrote very often to his
"storm maiden."
"Dear Rilla," the lad had written, "such an adventure as I have had! At
last the dull grey monotony of living in England has ceased, for I have
met the most interesting man, and, for some reason unknown to me, he
invites my companionship. I really can't believe that I interest him,
for all I do is listen while he talks so wonderfully about everything
that is inside books and out. If there is one corner of this earth that
he hasn't visited, I can't imagine where it is. Oh, yes, Tunkett! I
don't suppose he has ever been there. In fact, it's such an
out-of-the-way place I don't suppose anybody ever would find it unless
he happened to be born there, as Uncle Lem was, and I, of course, went
to visit him. Did I hear you inquire, 'Who is your new friend?'
"Muriel, I suppose I ought to be greatly impressed with the fact that
he is a viscount. People over here treat him as though he were made of
a very superior kind of clay, my mother among them, but the viscount
himself isn't a bit flattered by the adulation he receives. He calls it
'tommyrot,' and whenever there are social functions at the castle
(honest Injun, Rilla, that's what they call the turreted stone pile in
which he lives), he retires to his rustic log cabin in the woods, which
is so hedged in that strangers could not even guess that it was there
unless they happened to stumble on it.
"I wish I could tell you about the man himself and do justice to him,
but I simply can't. He has the most boyish face I ever saw crowned with
grey hair. He tells me that he is forty-five years old, but he seems
nearer my age than any chap of twenty I ever met.
"The first time I met him he suggested a hike through Scotland. It
seemed a good deal of an undertaking, for I wasn't very strong (just
beginning to take short walks), but every day I grew stronger, and what
a week it was.
"The Viscount of Wainwater with a pack on his back was not recognized
by anyone. The boy in his nature was very much in evidence that week.
He sang as we tramped along the deserted highways and sometimes I knew
that he was improvising. Then it was that I made a discovery. He is the
Waine Waters whose vagabond poems so often appear in American
magazines.
"One night we stopped at an out-of-the-way inn. We had been tramping
over a snow-covered moor and, as we sat near the great fireplace where
peat was burning, he began to scribble and at last he looked up and
asked, 'Shall I read it to you?' I nodded, and, Muriel, that poem was a
gem. It was called 'The Moor in Winter,' and told of the quiet trust
that is in the heart of all nature, for, although the moor lies covered
with snow, it is dreaming of the spring that is to bring back the bird
song and the heather.
"I asked Waine (he told me to call him that) for a copy of the poem,
and he gave it to me. I had planned sending it to you. I had it a week
later when I returned. I took it to the library to show mother, but,
finding that Monsieur Carnot and father were there, I turned away. I
have never seen it since. I must have dropped it and the maid probably
thought it merely a scrap and burned it. I'll ask Waine for another
copy some day, but just now, with his countess mother, he has gone away
for a fortnight.
"Isn't it about time that you were writing a first letter to your
brother-friend,
"Gene Beavers.
"P. S.--I have never mentioned you to Waine, but if you are willing,
I'd like to show him that copy of 'The Lonely Pelican' which Doctor
Winslow sent me. Shall I?
"Y. B., F. G."
Scarcely had Muriel finished reading this letter when Joy burst in with,
"Rilla, Miss Gordon has called an assembly for two o'clock this
afternoon. We are all so excited, for this is only done on very especial
occasions. What do you suppose has happened?"
"I wonder if it has anything to do with the contest?" Faith said softly,
as she and Muriel found unoccupied chairs near their three friends, who
were already seated.
"My opinion is that Miss Gordon merely wishes to announce the name of the
winner of the prize, and as we would not again be assembled until Monday,
except in the dining hall and chapel, she has taken this method of
bringing us together." And Joy was right.
Miss Gordon's smile, as she entered with Miss Humphrey and Miss
Widdemere, was so pleasant that it at once quieted the fears of the
senior girls that something had gone wrong.
"Although only a small group of you are interested in the poetry
contest," she began, "I wish you all to hear the three poems that have
been pronounced best by a most able judge, who is the Professor of
English literature at Columbia.
"The first prize has been awarded to Marianne Carnot, the second to
Muriel Storm, and the third to Joy Kiersey."
There was a rustle among the girls, all of whom turned to look at the
honored three.
Muriel and Joy were not surprised at the announcement that the winner had
been Marianne Carnot, but they had not known that a second and third
prize had been offered.
They made no whispered comment, however, as Miss Gordon was again
speaking. "I am going to ask the three girls, beginning with Joy, then
Muriel, and then Marianne, to come to the platform and read aloud the
really excellent poems which they have submitted."
Faith noticed that the eyes of this kind principal never left the dark,
handsome face of the French girl, and she also noticed that Marianne did
not look up even when her name was mentioned.
After all, Faith decided, the meeting had a deeper purpose than that for
which it had been called.
Joy, with her flower-like face flushed, read the poem, which she really
knew by heart, so sympathetically, and the plaint of the Indian maid so
appealed to her listeners, that they wondered how the other two poems
could be better.
Muriel's poem, although showing more real talent, was not read as well,
and the pupils were still inclined to believe that Joy's should, at
least, have had second place.
"Now, Marianne."
Faith and Catherine watched the French girl, and for that matter, so did
Miss Gordon and Miss Humphrey, but the winner of the first prize seemed
to be in no way disconcerted. She stood up and her dark eyes looked
directly into those of Miss Gordon as she took the manuscript.
Everyone had to acknowledge that Marianne read well, but what was she
reading? From the very announcement of the title, Muriel had leaned
forward, her breath coming in little gasps, her face suddenly pale, her
hands clasped tensely.
Marianne, having read her poem through to the end, walked down the aisle
between the girls to her former seat, but she could not resist sending a
glance of triumph toward Muriel. The clear hazel eyes that looked back at
her were scornful and accusing. Marianne quickly seated herself, a deep
red flush suffusing her face.
Within her heart was the certainty that Muriel knew, but how could she?
And Muriel did know, for the title of the poem which Marianne had read
was "Winter on the Moor." Muriel left the other girls directly after the
meeting and hurried to her own room. She wanted to be alone to think, but
this she was not permitted to do. Almost immediately there came a tap on
her door and Faith was admitted. With her hands on the shoulders of her
friend, she looked deep into the hazel eyes.
"Tell me, dear," she said. "I will keep it a secret if you wish. What is
troubling you?"
Muriel turned and taking Gene's letter from its envelope, she read aloud
his description of the viscount and the poem by Waine Waters entitled
"The Moor in Winter."
"The very poem that won the prize for Marianne," Faith exclaimed. "Her
father must have found and sent it to her. What shall you do about it?
Marianne will, of course, be expelled when the truth is known. Last year
when Miss Gordon enumerated the ideals of High Cliffs, she mentioned
plagiarism as being one of the greatest of misdemeanors."
"I shall not mention it," was the quiet reply. "Now let us forget it."
The poetry contest was soon a thing of the past, for everyone was
thinking and planning for the Christmas holidays that were but two weeks
away.
However, it was noticeable that Marianne Carnot never again chose verse
as the form of her compositions. Her classmates were not interested
enough to speculate about it, but Miss Gordon and Miss Humphrey believed
that some day they would know the truth.