The next day I did not see Comtesse Riki at all. My cold was rather
worse; but the day after I was able to sit up in my room, and she came
to me with two or three other girls in the evening. She was shy,
however, and had none of her old warm manner. Baroness Elfreda made
herself more agreeable on that occasion, and a plump little German girl
of the name of Fraulein Schott took my fancy by her blunt,
good-humoured, pleasant manner. There were also some Dutch girls and a
French girl, who all crowded into our sitting-room to congratulate me,
to chatter to one another, to flock to the window and gaze longingly at
the balcony.
"You are what is called of the lucky," said Elfreda presently.
"But why?" I asked. "I don't think I am specially lucky; I have been
two whole days in my room with this horrid cold."
"I make no thought for the cold," said Elfreda. "I do consider that you
are of the lucky type because your room looks upon this so gay street."
On further questioning, I found that both she and the Comtesse had rooms
at the back of the house. After a time Hermione came in and chased my
visitors away. When they were gone she sat down near me. She looked
very grave.
"Did you," she said, "notice anything special about Riki?"
"No," I answered; "except, perhaps, that she was more silent than
usual."
"I do not like what is going on," said Hermione after a pause. "I did
not want to worry you when you were ill, but Riki came to me on that
evening and asked me if I was going out; and then she begged me to post
a letter for her."
"Oh yes," I said. I trembled slightly. "And you--what did you do?"
"Do?" said Hermione--"do? I asked her to read the rules in her
bedroom."
"The rules in her bedroom?" I said.
"My dear Dumps, wherever are your eyes? There are rules written in four
languages in every bedroom in the house. Have you never read those in
your room?"
"I have glanced at them."
"Well, in the German and French and Italian sections the very strictest
rule of all is that no letters of any sort whatsoever are to be posted
by girls of those nationalities except in the post-box in the hall, and
any girl helping another to get letters in any other fashion into the
post will be most severely punished."
"I did not notice it."
"Well, notice it the next time you go into your bedroom. But don't look
so white; it doesn't matter to us, surely!"
"Of course not," I said in a faint voice. After a pause I said, "But
why are you anxious about her now?"
"She is underhand; she is not quite open. Now, Elfreda is a dull girl;
I never could get anything amusing out of her; but she is quite
different from Riki. Riki is supposed to be pretty, and will probably
be much admired when she leaves school; but it is her want of openness
that I cannot stand."
"The whole system is wrong," I said with some vigour. "I cannot imagine
how any German girl grows up really nice."
"But heaps of them do, and you won't be long at the school before you
find that there are as nice German girls as English. You must not take
Riki von Kronenfel as a specimen."
I said nothing more, and after a time Hermione continued, "Now let us
turn to something else. I had a letter from my father to-day; I am not
to go home for Easter."
"Oh dear! Easter will be here in a fortnight now," I said. "I do not
suppose for a single moment that I shall have a chance of getting back."
"But have you heard definitely?"
"No."
At this moment there was a tap at our door, and Justine entered with
some letters. Of course, we both fell upon them as girls will all over
the world, and the next minute we were eagerly sorting our different
letters from a pile which Justine, with her most gracious French manner,
had laid on the table--two for Hermione, one for me, and one for
Augusta.
"From my step-mother," I said, and I sank into a chair and opened it.
Far away from home Mrs Grant seemed like a very beneficent and kind
presence; her letters were charming, as they told me every single thing
I wanted to know; nothing was forgotten, nothing left out. I opened the
letter now. To my surprise, I saw that it was quite short.
"My dear Dumps,--I cannot write as much as I would to-day, for I am
sorry to say your father is not quite himself."
I started. There seemed to come a little prick at my heart--not a very
big prick, just a momentary sense of uneasiness.
"He has a severe chill--not an ordinary cold--and he is in bed."
The Professor in bed! I laid down my letter and looked up at Hermione
with startled eyes.
"What is it?" she said.
"Father is in bed," I replied.
"Good gracious, how you made me jump! And why shouldn't he be in bed?"
"You don't understand. Why, I never remember his staying in bed. He is
never ill, except with those fearful headaches."
"He hadn't a good, careful woman like Grace Donnithorne to look after
him in the past," replied Hermione in an indifferent tone. "For
goodness' sake don't be anxious!"
Just at this moment the door opened and Augusta entered.
"A letter for you," said Hermione.
She glanced at me as she spoke, and her eyes evidently implored me to
keep my news to myself. But Augusta had seen my face.
"Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing--nothing," said Hermione, with impatience. "For goodness' sake
don't worry her, Augusta; she has not quite got over her cold. Fancy
any girl being nervous because her father is in bed for a day or two!"
"The Professor ill?" said Augusta.
"Oh no," I answered.
Her tone was like a tonic to me. If she was anxious, surely I needn't
be.
"That is," I continued, glancing down at my step-mother's letter, "he is
not very well, that's all."
"I knew he was too good," said Augusta.
She took up her letter and walked out of the room, slamming the door
after her.
"It really is provoking," I said, "when your friend feels more about
your father than you do yourself."
I went on reading my step-mother's letter. She said that if all went
well she would like me to return home for one week at Easter.
"By that time we can move your father down to Hedgerow House," she said.
"The fresh country air will do him good. He has been working for years
far beyond his strength, and this is the result. I should like to have
you with the boys and myself to spend our first Easter together, dear;
so, although few of your companions will be leaving Bella Vista at that
season, I hope to have you. I will write about it later on, and give
you particulars with regard to your journey."
I do not exactly know why this letter made me feel depressed. To have
my father a little ill was not the sort of thing that would put an
ordinary girl into a state of keen anxiety; but anxious I was, and
depressed. Perhaps this was caused by my own state of weakness, for my
cold had left me far less strong than I had been.
The next day, however, something occurred which put all thoughts of home
and home life out of my head. Soon after breakfast Mademoiselle Wrex
came upstairs and asked me to follow her to the Baroness's private
sitting-room.
"But why am I to go there?" I said.
Mademoiselle Wrex looked at me kindly. She came up to me and took my
hand.
"I trust," she said after a pause, "that when questioned you will tell
the simple truth. A very painful thing has occurred. Fortunately the
Baroness is able to nip it in the bud. It seems that you are
suspected."
I guessed what was coming, and I felt a cold chill at my heart. How
silly I had been! How worse than silly--how wrong!
"I will follow you in a minute, mademoiselle," I said.
"Put a warm shawl round you, dear, though the house is not cold; for
since so many girls have been suffering from this sort of slight form of
influenza, all the passages have been heated much more than they were."
Mademoiselle left the room. I flew immediately to the table of rules
which was pinned against my wall. There was no doubt whatever that the
rule in question was there. I had broken it; there was no excuse for
me. I wrapped a white shawl round my shoulders and ran downstairs. As
I passed through the wide hall I peeped into the schoolroom, which
opened directly into it. I saw Baroness Elfreda glancing out at me with
an intense and frightened expression on her face. Immediately several
other girls looked out also, and then a whisper ran round the room. I
felt it more than heard it, and my misery and distress grew worse. I
had never before been mixed up with a dreadful thing of this sort. But
Mademoiselle Wrex was standing by the Baroness's sitting-room door. She
said, "Vite! vite, mon enfant!" and we found ourselves the next minute
at the other side of a thick pair of velvet curtains.
The Baroness was standing by a bright fire made of logs of wood. This
was the only room in the house which had the privilege of a fire. The
fire gave it all of a sudden a sort of English look. A smarting pain
came at the back of my eyes.
"I trust you are better, my child," said the Baroness.
She came up to me quite kindly, took my hand, and led me to a seat which
exactly faced the very bright light which came through two tall windows.
She then rang the bell.
"Request Comtesse Riki von Kronenfel to attend here immediately," was
her remark to the servant.
The servant withdrew; there was a dead pause in the room. The Baroness
was turning over some papers, and did not take the slightest notice of
me.
As soon as Riki entered she glanced nervously round her. When she saw
me she turned first red, then very white; then, being evidently quite
satisfied that I had betrayed her, she went to the extreme end of the
room and sat there with her hands folded.
"You sent for me, my Baroness?" she said in the prettiest tone
imaginable, and looking up with pleading blue eyes at the face of her
mistress.
The Baroness returned her glance with one full, dark, swift, and
indignant.
"Riki," she said, "I have had the good fortune to intercept a letter
addressed to you."
"But how? I understand not," said the girl.
"It was addressed to you, and got, doubtless by mistake, into the
post-box this morning."
As the Baroness spoke she laid the letter on the table. Riki came
forward as though to pounce on it. "Permit me," said the Baroness. She
took it up and held it firmly in her own hand.
"But it is open," said Riki.
"I opened it," said the Baroness.
Riki then stood very still; it seemed to me I could almost hear her
heart beat.
"I have read the letter," said the Baroness; "and now I will read it
aloud. I will read it in English, so that both you and this young girl,
Rachel Grant, may hear." The Baroness then began:
"My own One, Angel of Love and Light,--I have received your two most
precious letters quite safely. I pine to get still more news from
you. I don't think it possible that I can exist until the summer
without seeing you, and I propose, during the Easter recess, to get my
father to allow me to visit Paris. There, I make no doubt, we can
arrange a meeting, if the some kind English girl,"--("Horrors!" I
said to myself)--"will again help us by putting your communications to
me into the post-box _outside_ the house where that dragon of
propriety, the Baroness von Gablestein, resides.--Your most faithful
and devoted lover,--
"Heinrich."
This letter, read aloud in the smooth tones of the Baroness, without a
scrap of emotion, just as though she were repeating one of her pupils'
daily lessons, fell truly like a bomb-shell into the little room.
"I must have other witnesses to this transaction," she said.
Again she rang the bell. Riki darted blue fire of indignation towards
me. I did not speak; I believe I looked a greater culprit than she did
at this moment.
"Request Mademoiselle Wrex and Fraulein Schumacher to come here
immediately," said the Baroness, her tone now one of great
imperiousness. The servant withdrew, and the French and German
governesses made their appearance. The Baroness handed the letter in
question to each in turn.
"Do not speak," she said; "I only want you to witness exactly what will
immediately take place.--Comtesse, will you have the goodness to tell me
the name of the individual who calls himself Heinrich?"
Silence on the part of the Comtesse.
"If there is such reluctance to your making a full confession of your
disgraceful conduct, I shall be forced to send a telegram to your
father, the Count Kronenfel, and request him to attend here in order
that he may take his daughter away in disgrace from my establishment."
This threat had a due effect on Riki, and she now, in a very nervous
voice, confessed that the name of the youth who called himself Heinrich
was Holgarten. Further investigation proved that Holgarten was a boy at
a large school near Riki's native place, that he and she had met two or
three times, and that the idea of a correspondence had started between
them. She did not wish, she said, to enter into a forced marriage.
Here she burst into tears.
"It is not the English way," she said.
"And pray, Comtesse, what have you to do with the English way? You are
a German girl."
"I--I love Heinrich," she said.
She threw herself down on the sofa, regardless of proprieties, and burst
into sobs.
"You will have the goodness in a minute or two to leave the room. Your
punishment, which will be a severe one, will be meted out to you when I
have considered all the circumstances. I now wish to ask you the name
of the English girl who posted your letters."
There was no answer from Riki; again she glanced at me. Again she
lowered her eyes and twisted her hands in distress.
"A full confession, Comtesse; in no other way will you escape the just
anger of your noble father."
Before she could speak I sprang to my feet.
"You need not ask her," I said. "I did very wrong. I posted the
letters."
"That will do," said the Baroness. A relieved look passed over her
features. "Riki, stop crying. Your conduct has been beyond words, but
I will not say any more to blame you just now.--Fraulein Schumacher,
conduct the Comtesse to her room, and see that she does not leave it;
stay with her there, for I cannot trust her alone."
The German governess immediately conveyed the weeping girl from the
room, and I found myself the one culprit who was now to be dealt with.
"I must ask you," said the Baroness in her very bitterest tone, "why
you, an English girl, brought up without the terribly circumscribed pale
of the German girl, dared to help her to convey letters from this
house."
"I did it without thinking," I said.
"The rule on the subject of letters was in your bedroom."
"I know."
"You had read the rules?"
"That is true; but they did not make any impression on me; I did not
remember any of them."
"You must tell me exactly what occurred; also on what dates you posted
the letters."
Gradually, piece by piece, the Baroness got the information from me. My
conduct seemed to grow blacker and blacker in my own eyes. The Baroness
evidently thought very badly of me. After a time she said:
"I shall be forced to make a distinction between you and the other
girls. It must be known amongst the English girls--and we have six or
seven in this establishment--that their letters will still be unread,
that their correspondence will still be unmolested, with the exception
of the correspondence and letters of one girl--Rachel Grant. In future
you must post every letter in the box in the hall, and each letter you
receive must be first of all opened and read by me before it is handed
to you. That is your just punishment. I could do much more severe
things, but I will to a certain extent overlook your inexperience."
I left the room feeling as though the very floor would open to receive
me. I went upstairs with my cheeks on fire. How was I to live? How
was I to endure this?
Presently Mademoiselle Wrex followed me.
"Oh mademoiselle, I cannot bear this!" I exclaimed. "I must go away."
"Go away?" she said.
"Yes; how can I bear to stay at the school when I am disgraced?"
"But your punishment is not very great," said the French teacher.
"But to let the others know, and to have my freedom as an English girl
taken away from me!"
"It will be restored again, I am sure, if you bear your punishment with
meekness," said Mademoiselle; "but if you rebel and make a fuss the
Baroness will keep up her indignation."
"And will she tell my people at home?"
"I do not think she will do that if you bear your punishment with all
due patience. You did wrong."
"I did wrong, but not such a dreadful sin as you give me credit for. I
did wrong in ignorance. There is a great, great difference between
doing a thing you know is wrong and doing a thing that is wrong without
knowing it."
A slight smile played round the lips of Mademoiselle. She was, as a
rule, kindly; but she could not quite understand my nice distinction.
"The effect is the same," she said. "Do you not know that for a young
lady in this school to have a correspondence with a schoolboy, as the
Comtesse Riki has done, is quite scandalous? It would ruin the school.
The Comtesse must be made an example of."
"Oh, what are they going to do with her, poor thing?"
"She will not be dismissed; that would be too disgraceful; but she is
for a whole week to be confined to her own room, and no girl in the
school will be allowed to speak to her. At the end of that time she
will be restored to a certain amount of liberty; but her actions will be
most carefully watched."
"And Heinrich?" I said.
"Heinrich?" said Mademoiselle, with a start. "You are not interested in
him, I hope?"
"Oh no, no!"
"He will receive one short letter from the Baroness, and his master at
the school will receive another. I do not think anybody in the future
need trouble themselves about Heinrich."
Nothing could exceed the contempt which she threw into the word. After
a time she left me.
The scene of the morning had certainly not made my cold better; but when
Hermione came up I confided my troubles to her. She said she thought
that I was lucky to have got off as cheaply as I had.
"Rosalind has been telling me of another girl, an English girl, who
helped some Russians to get their communications into the post, and she
was dismissed--sent back to England within twenty-four hours. The only
reason you are not treated as harshly is because the Baroness really
believes that you did what you did unwittingly."
"I did," I said. "Oh, I hate this school! I was never meant to be a
French or German girl. I have lived such a free life, I shall die in
this cage."
"No, you won't, you silly girl. As to your thinking that we English
girls will think any the less of you, you may be certain we won't."
But, after all, the punishment which was so severe, which I so dreaded,
which seemed to shake my nature to its very depths and to turn me at
once from a happy, interested, contented girl into a mass of sulkiness
and misery, was, for the time at least, to be averted--averted in a very
fearful way--for that evening there came a telegram from my step-mother:
"Your father very ill; one of the teachers must bring you back
immediately."
Mademoiselle Wrex was the lady who had the task of conveying me home.
There was a great fuss and bustle and distress in the school when the
telegram reached me. I scarcely knew what to do with myself. Augusta
was speechless with misery. She begged and implored me to take her with
me.
"But I can't," I said. "And why should I? He is not your father."
"No," said the poor thing--"no."
I really pitied her. She sank back on the sofa in our little
sitting-room with a face like death.
"If you see him, can you just tell him how he has helped me?"
"I will," I said. I pitied her now. What had seemed silly and
unreasonable when the Professor was in health assumed quite a different
aspect when the dear Professor was dangerously ill.
My feelings were torn between the misery of the morning and my relief at
not being publicly disgraced before the other girls, and the terror and
fear of returning to my home to find my father very ill.
Hermione was a host in herself. She superintended my packing; it was
she who saw that I had plenty of sandwiches to eat on the journey, she
who brought my fur cloak for me to wear on the steamer. Even the
Baroness was very kind. She came into the hall and saw that I was
warmly wrapped up.
"We will hope for the best, Rachel," she said.
I raised my eyes to her face and wondered if I should ever see her
again--if this little flash of school life was all I was to be permitted
to enjoy. But had I enjoyed it? I did not know. I could scarcely tell
what my own sensations were.
A minute later I was in the cab. Hermione's face was no longer visible
from the doorway; Augusta, who was standing on the balcony of our
sitting-room and waving frantically, was lost to view: the school, with
its brightness, its life, its strange spirit of intrigue, its curious
un-English customs, seemed to vanish for ever. I flung myself back in
the cab and cried as though my heart would break.