NEXT DAY
THE school hummed in the morning. Before breakfast it was known that a
row transcending all other rows had occurred in the night, and that
Robin Hurst, who had figured in so many scrapes before, was liable to
“catch it” this time with unexampled severity. Fearful stories of the
wrath of Miss Stone circulated among the juniors. It was reported that
she had fallen into a basket of stolen cream-puffs, rising in a
condition of messiness and fury most terrifying to contemplate. That
Robin had been foolish enough to laugh at the wrong moment was readily
believed—it was the kind of lunatic thing that Robin would do. As to
her punishment, the school palpitated amid the wildest guesses.
Expulsion was hinted at by a few, since ordinary penalties seemed
feeble, considering Miss Stone’s anger. The whole dormitory was to
suffer—except Ruby Bennett, who, having instigated the crime, had
refused to share in its fruits. Ruby found herself ostentatiously
cold-shouldered.
Whatever thoughts or doubts mingled in Robin’s mind, she gave no hint of
them to anyone else. Before breakfast, she risked further trouble by a
whirlwind visit to the kitchen, for the purpose of making her peace with
the cook.
“I’m afraid I gave you an awful lot of trouble, Cook,” she said,
breathlessly. “It wasn’t that I really wanted the blessed things, you
know—but it was a dare, so I had to get them. Please don’t be cross
with me!”
“Some day you’ll take a dare once too often, my young lady!” said Cook,
affecting sternness, and grinning in spite of herself.
“I’m not sure that I haven’t done it this time,” answered Robin, with a
sigh and a twinkle. “There’s going to be an awful row. Well, I don’t
care if I am sent away—except for Mother. She’d hate it. If I’m only a
red-haired memory to-morrow, Cookie, darling, think of me kindly and
remember I loved you. And they were scrumptious cream-puffs!”
“They say you never tasted one of them,” said the cook. For gossip
travels swiftly in a school.
Robin tilted her nose.
“Well—no,” she said. “I don’t snare things to eat them myself. It’s
different, you see.”
It was hardly a lucid explanation, but the cook saw.
“Well, between you an’ me, I rather any day they went to you young
things than to the droring-room,” she said. “I ’ope she won’t be too
’ard on you, my dear, for ’twas only a prank—but ’er state of mind was
fair ’orrible, Elizer said, when she saw them Fancy Mixed biscuits I ’ad
to send in, instead!”
Robin gave a low chuckle.
“It would be,” she said. “Well I must run, Cookie dear, for it will be
the end of all things if I’m caught. But I had to tell you I was sorry!”
She flashed a smile at the cook, and was gone.
Breakfast was eaten in unhappy silence: the weight of disgrace that lay
over Number Four dormitory was felt by all the boarders, and many
surreptitious glances were stolen at Miss Stone’s grim face, striving to
forecast the extent of the penalty to be exacted from the chief sinner.
In the playground, afterwards, Robin found her three allies banded
together by a high resolve.
“We’re going in with you,” Betty stated.
“To Miss Stone? Indeed you’re not, my children!”
“We’re just as much in it as you are,” said Annette. “We knew all about
it beforehand.”
“I never heard such rubbish,” said Robin, laughing. “I was the only
criminal, and now I’m the only one asked to the party. You can’t butt in
without an invitation—it isn’t polite!”
“Bother politeness!” Betty’s voice was almost tearful. “It will be ever
so much better if she has four of us to deal with, Robin, dear—she
can’t expel four of us.”
“She isn’t likely to expel any one,” Robin answered, in cheery tones
that hid her own forebodings. “But if she is, I’m the one, and you three
have nothing to do with it.”
“It isn’t fair for you to put on that ‘Alone I did it!’ air,” said
Joyce. “You were only the catspaw; as Annette says, we knew all about
it, so we’re just as guilty. I think all Number Four ought to go in with
you.”
“What—Ruby too? Wild horses wouldn’t drag her, and you know it.”
“Oh—Ruby!” Joyce’s tone was scornful. “She doesn’t count. Anyone else
would have whipped that beastly cream-puff under her pillow, but she
just let it sit there to give us all away. She’s an outcast!”
“She’ll emerge with a perfectly good halo, in Miss Stone’s eyes,” said
Robin, laughing. “I can see Ruby as a prefect before long, ruling us all
with a rod of iron. But truly, girls, you can’t come with me. I’ve got
to take my gruel alone.”
“You can’t stop us,” Betty said, stubbornly.
“It will only make things worse,” Robin pleaded. “Miss Stone wants a
victim, but she doesn’t want four: she will be madder than ever if you
all march into the study. And it isn’t fair, no matter how you look at
it. I’m the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts, and if I have to be
beaten full sore, well, it’s just. You can’t get away from it, that it
is just.”
“Justice is all right, but Miss Stone can be such a pig,” said Annette.
“If she hadn’t such a down on you, already, Robin, we wouldn’t mind.
We’re coming, and that’s all about it.”
The big bell clanged out, and from every quarter the girls began to
hurry towards the schoolroom.
“Well, I must go,” Robin said, straightening her shoulders. “Trot off
into school, my dears, or you will be marked late.” She smiled at them,
turning to go.
“We’re coming,” said the three, in an obstinate chorus. They formed
round her, and marched across the playground and into the house, while
Robin protested vainly. She was still protesting when they reached the
study door and Joyce tapped gently.
Miss Stone’s eyebrows went up as they filed into the room.
“I summoned Robin only,” she said, stiffly. “Why are you all here?”
“We were in it too, Miss Stone,” Joyce said. “It doesn’t seem fair to us
for Robin to take all the blame.”
The principal looked at them indifferently.
“Possibly I have not understood fully,” she said, with cold politeness.
“You mean me to believe that you were concerned in the robbery
yesterday?”
Joyce flushed angrily.
“We knew Robin meant to take the things—if she could.”
“Quite so. And you were willing to let her do it?”
“It was only a joke—another girl had dared her to do it.”
“But you did not help in this very peculiar species of joke?”
“No. But we would have, if Robin had wanted help.”
“They had nothing whatever to do with it, Miss Stone!” Robin
interrupted, hotly. “It was entirely my own affair. It’s quite
ridiculous for them to come in with me. I’m the only one who should be
punished.”
“I am glad you realize that,” said Miss Stone, smoothly. “Everyone who
helped to gorge upon what you stole is worthy of punishment, and will
certainly be dealt with in due course; but you were evidently the
ringleader, as you have been so often before in every kind of
lawlessness. Since your companions have chosen to burst into my study
with you they may remain to hear what I have to say to you.”
“I wish you would send them away,” muttered Robin.
“I daresay you do. But it may hinder them from following in your
footsteps if they are enabled to form a clear idea of how such behaviour
as yours is regarded by people with ordinary ideas of honour.”
The colour surged over Robin’s face, and ebbed as quickly, leaving it
very white. Betty O’Hara uttered a choked exclamation.
“Miss Stone! Robin’s the honourablest girl——!”
“Is she?” Miss Stone smiled faintly. “I fear that does not say much for
the others—if I accept your view, Betty. But then, I do not.” She
paused, and took off her pince-nez as though fearing they might be a
handicap to her eloquence. Then, very deliberately, she proceeded to
avenge her wrongs by dissecting Robin’s character.
The three who listened carried away no very clear idea of the long
oration that followed. They heard the smooth voice rising and falling in
waves of scorn and condemnation; but most of their attention was centred
on the white face of their companion, who listened to the recital of her
own misdeeds in utter silence, infuriating the principal by the shadow
of a smile that lurked about the corners of her mouth. Miss Stone was a
woman of an evil temper: she had never liked Robin, and she had chosen
to consider herself humiliated. Now she forgot that the girl before her
was little more than a child, and her anger grew as she lashed her
pitilessly with her tongue. She searched an ample vocabulary for the
most stinging words: her voice was bitter as she spoke of deceit, theft,
dishonour, meanness, greed. “If Robin had been a murderess she couldn’t
have been more beastly,” said Annette, tearfully, later. And Robin
listened, and the little smile did not fail.
“I have not made up my mind whether I can permit you to remain in the
school,” finished the principal, as breath began to grow short. “The
disgrace to your mother weighs with me, of course, though I cannot
expect it to weigh with you: but I have to consider your contaminating
effect upon my other pupils. For the present you will remain entirely
apart from the others, studying, sleeping, and taking your meals alone,
and debarred from all games. Later on——”
There was a knock at the door. Eliza entered, visibly nervous at finding
herself in the hall of justice, yet able to send a look of sympathy at
the criminal in the dock.
“I told you I was not to be disturbed, Eliza,” said Miss Stone, angrily.
“Sorry ma’am. But it’s a telegram, and it’s marked “Urgent.” So I
thought I’d better bring it in.”
Miss Stone took the envelope from her hand, and tore it open hastily.
Her face changed. She looked at Robin uncertainly.
“This—this alters matters,” she said. “It concerns you, Robin.”
All the defiant carelessness died out of Robin’s face. She sprang
forward.
“Mother!” she cried, and her voice was a wail. “It isn’t Mother!”
“No—no. Not your Mother. She has telegraphed for you to go home at
once. There is bad news for you, I am afraid.”
“Then she is ill! Tell me, quickly!”
“It is not your mother at all,” Miss Stone answered. “It is your uncle.
He—he died yesterday, my dear.”
Robin stared at her, helpless in her overwhelming rush of relief.
“Oh—Uncle Donald!” she said. She gave a short laugh, and caught at
Betty to steady herself, forgetting Miss Stone altogether. “I—I’m
sorry—I didn’t mean to laugh. But I thought it was Mother!”