UNDER A CLOUD
Dorothy understood now the reason why Hazel and Margaret had treated her
to so much cold shoulder that morning. There was a keen sense of
fairness in her make-up, and while she resented the unfriendly
treatment, in her heart she did not blame them for the stand they had
taken. If they really believed she did her work by means of such helps
as that torn book represented, then they were quite within their rights
in not wanting to have anything to do with her. The thing which hurt her
most was that they should have passed judgment on her without giving her
a chance to say a word in her own defence. Yet even that was forgivable,
seeing how strong was the circumstantial evidence against her.
She walked into her Form-room, apologizing to Miss Groome for being
late, and she took her place as if nothing had been wrong. The only girl
who gave her a kind look, or spoke a friendly word, was Rhoda Fleming,
and Dorothy was ungrateful enough to wish she had kept quiet.
Work went on as usual. Dorothy had given the message of the Head to Miss
Groome, who looked rather mystified, and was coldly polite in her manner
to Dorothy.
Never had a morning dragged as that one did; it took all Dorothy’s
powers of concentration to keep her mind fixed on her work. She was
thinking, ruefully enough, that she would not have much chance of
keeping her Form position if this sort of thing went on for long. She
blundered in her answers over things she knew very well, and for the
first time that term work was something of a hardship.
Eleven o’clock at last! The hour had not done striking, and the girls
were, some of them, moving about preparing for the next work, when the
door opened, and the Head came in. She looked graver than usual; that
much the girls noticed as those who were seated rose at her entrance,
and those who were moving to and fro lined up hastily to bow as she came
in.
Motioning with her hand for them to sit down again, the Head took the
chair vacated for her by Miss Groome, and sitting down began to talk to
them, not as if they were schoolgirls merely, but as woman to woman,
telling them of her difficulty, and appealing to their sense of honour
to help her out of her present perplexity.
“I am very concerned for the honour of the school,” she said, and there
was a thrill of feeling in her voice which found an echo in the hearts
of the listeners. “This morning the prefect on duty for the study floor
found a pile of books lying partly on the table and partly on the floor
in No. 1 study. Lying open on the table, partly under the other books,
was a torn and dirty Latin key. The books were the property of Dorothy
Sedgewick, who had been the last to leave the study overnight. The
matter was reported to Miss Groome, who brought the book to me; and I,
as you know, sent for Dorothy to come to me directly after breakfast.
Dorothy says she has never used a key, and that she had never seen that
ragged old book. She declares that it was not among her books overnight.
When being frightened by some one stealthily trying to enter her room,
she rose from her seat, and staying only to turn off the electric light,
bolted for the dorm, and went to bed. Miss Groome says she has always
found Dorothy straight in her work and truthful in her speech. This
being so, we are bound to believe her statement when she says she has
never seen that book, and that she has never used a key. But as books do
not walk about on their own feet, we have to discover who put that book
among Dorothy’s things. Can any of you give me any information on the
mystery, or tell me anything which might lead to it being cleared up?”
There was dead silence among the girls. In fact, the hush was so deep
that they could hear a violin wailing in the distant music-room, a
chamber supposed to be sound-proof.
When the pause had lasted quite a long time, Hazel asked if she might
speak.
“I am waiting for some of you to begin,” replied the Head, smiling at
Hazel, though in truth her heart beat a little faster. Hazel had always
been a pupil to be proud of, and it was unthinkable that she should be
mixed up in a thing of this sort.
“There was no book ragged and dirty among Dorothy’s things when we went
to bed. There could not have been a book of that sort in the room during
the evening, for we had all been turning our books out and tidying them
in readiness to start the fresh week of work. It was not more than
twenty minutes after we had come down to bed that Dorothy came rushing
down to the dorm, looking white and frightened. She was shaking so badly
that she could hardly stand. I helped her to bed; but I don’t think she
slept well, as she had nightmare, and woke most of us with her groaning
and crying—she had plainly had a very bad scare. I have had a lot to do
with her since the term began, and I have never known her say anything
that was not true; she does not even exaggerate, as some girls do.”
The brow of the Head cleared, her heart registered only normal beats,
and she said with a smile, “I am very glad for what you have said,
Hazel. Schoolgirls have a way of sticking together in a passive way,
keeping silent when they know that one is in the wrong, and that sort of
thing; but it is wholly refreshing, and a trifle unusual in my
experience, for them to bear testimony to each other’s uprightness as
you have done.”
Dorothy’s head drooped now. It was one thing to hold it high in
conscious innocence, when she was the suspected of all, but it broke
down her self-control to hear Hazel testifying to her truthfulness.
Margaret, who was sitting at the next desk, turned suddenly and gripped
Dorothy’s hand across the narrow dividing space, and Dorothy suddenly
felt it was worth while to be in trouble, to find that she had the
friendship of these two girls.
“Has any other girl anything to say?” asked the Head sweetly, and she
looked from one to the other, as if she would read the very thoughts
that were passing through their heads.
“Perhaps they would come to you quietly?” suggested Miss Groome.
“I shall be pleased to see them if they prefer that way.” The Head was
smiling and serene, but there was a hint of steel under the velvet of
her manner; and then in a few quiet words she delivered her ultimatum.
“Pending the making plain of this mystery of how the torn book came to
be among Dorothy Sedgewick’s things, the whole Form must be somewhat
under a cloud. That is like life, you know; we all have to suffer for
the wrong-doing of each other. If in the past Dorothy had been proved
untruthful in speech and not straight in her dealings, then we might
have well let the punishment fall upon her alone. As it is, you will all
do your Latin for the week without any marks. You will do your very
best, too, for the girl producing poor work in this direction will
immediately put herself into the position of a suspected person. If the
statement of Dorothy, supported by the testimony of Hazel, is to be
believed, that the book was not in the study overnight, then it must
have been put there out of malice, and it is up to you to find out who
has done this thing.”
The Head rose as she finished speaking, and the girls rose too,
remaining on their feet until she had passed out of the room.
Great was the grumbling at the disaster which had fallen upon the Form.
Individual cases of cheating at work had occurred from time to time, but
nothing of this kind had cropped up within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant—not in the Sixth Form, that is to say. It was supposed that
by the time a girl had reached the Sixth she had sown all her wild oats,
and had become both outwardly and in very truth a reliable member of
society.
In this case there was malice as well as cheating. The girl who owned
the key had not merely used it to get a better place in her form, but
she had tried to bring an innocent person into trouble.
There was an agitated, explosive feeling in the atmosphere of the
Form-room that morning. But, thanks to the hint from the Head concerning
the character of work that would be expected of them, Miss Groome had no
cause for complaint against any of them.
As Jessie Wayne sagely remarked, the real test concerning who was the
owner of the torn book would come during the week, when the girl had to
do her work without the help of her key; most likely the task for to-day
had all been prepared before the book was slid in among Dorothy’s
things.
There was a good half of the girls who believed that Dorothy had been
using the key when she was scared by the ghost who haunted that upper
floor. They did not dare put their belief into words, but they let it
show in their actions, and Dorothy had to suffer.
Her great consolation was the way in which Hazel and Margaret championed
her. They had certainly given her the cold shoulder that first morning,
but since she had asserted her innocence so strongly, they had not
swerved in their loyalty. Jessie Wayne also declared she was positive
Dorothy had never used the key, because of the trouble she took over her
Latin.
The talk of the upper floor being haunted reached the ears of Miss
Groome, making her very angry; but she went very pale too, for, with all
her learning and her qualifications, she was very primitive at the
bottom, and she had confessed to being thoroughly scared when the Head
had a talk with her that day after Form work was over.
The Head had asked if Miss Groome suspected any of her girls in the
matter of cribbing.
“I do not,” replied the Form-mistress. “Dorothy Sedgewick has, of
course, the hardest work to keep up with her Form, but she is doing it
by means of steady plodding. She is not brilliant, but she is not to be
beaten at steady work, and it is that which counts for most in the long
run.”
The Head nodded thoughtfully, then she asked in a rather strange tone,
“Did you wonder why I did not bring that tattered book into the
Form-room when I came to talk about it?”
“Yes, I did,” replied Miss Groome.
“I did not dare bring it because of the commotion which might have
sprung up.” The Head laughed softly as she spoke, and unlocking an inner
drawer of her desk, she produced the torn old book which had made so
much discomfort among the Sixth. “Look at this.” As she spoke she put
the dirty old thing into the hands of Miss Groome, pointing to a name
written in faded ink on the inside of the cover.
The name was Amelia Herschstein, and when she had read it Miss Groome
asked with a little gasp, “Why! what does it mean?”
“That is just what I want to find out,” replied the Head crisply. “It
looks as if we are up against a full-sized mystery.”