A Tangled Plot
Loveday and Diana went to bed that evening just as usual. They performed
their customary hair-brush drill, twisted Diana's light-brown locks in
curl-rags, and plaited Loveday's flaxen mane in two long braids, folded
their clothes neatly, read their Bible portions, said their prayers, and
blew out the candle. Then they lay chatting quietly till Miss Beverley
came on her nightly round of dormitory inspection.
"Only a few weeks more and we shall be saying good-bye to the ivy room,"
said Loveday. "I shall be back in Liverpool; and where will you be,
Diana?"
"Crossing the Atlantic, I hope. Dad's had our names down for passages
for ever so long, and they told him our turn might come early in August.
We're crazy to get home again."
"I don't wonder! But _how_ I'll miss you! I shall want heaps of
letters."
"Rather! And so shall I. I'll want to know what you're doing."
"Answering advertisements about posts as nursery governess," said
Loveday bitterly. "No luck ever comes to me. I had a sort of wild idea
that if I won the prize for that essay Uncle Fred might think it worth
while sending me somewhere to train; but I _know_ I shan't get it now.
Hilary read us bits out of hers, and it's just splendid--far better than
mine. I'm not in the innings."
"Oh, Loveday, what a shame! The prize means so much more to you than to
Hilary."
"I know it does. She'll win the maths prize too, and the Latin one."
"It doesn't seem fair she should get everything. I wonder if she'd hold
back her essay so as to give you a chance?"
"Not she!"
"But if----"
At that identical moment Miss Beverley opened the door, and, candle in
hand, looked round the room to see that all was left tidy. Her
inspection was swift; she said "Good night, girls!" shut the door, and
went downstairs to drink cocoa in Miss Todd's study. After her evening
round the silence rule was a point of honour in the dormitories. Loveday
and Diana turned over and went to sleep.
Some time in the middle of the night Diana woke with a start, just in
time to see Loveday in a blue dressing-gown, with their bedroom candle
in her hand, disappearing through the door. Where could Loveday be
going? Had she heard burglars? Was she ill? Why had she not roused her
room-mate? Could she by any chance be walking in her sleep?
All these questions raced through Diana's brain, and, as the quickest
way to solve them, she jumped up, fumbled in the dark for her bedroom
slippers and dressing-gown, and hurried after Loveday. She could see by
the glimmer of light that the candle was going downstairs. She followed,
flopping along in her woollen slippers, for she had not had time to draw
them on properly. She nearly lost one on the landing, and had to stop.
When she reached the hall the light had gone into the seniors' room.
Diana walked softly, and peeped cautiously in. She had rather an idea of
saying "Boo!" suddenly, and giving Loveday a scare, but she wanted to
reconnoitre first. Her friend's back was turned towards her; she was
bending over a desk, not her own desk, but Hilary's. She quickly drew
out a roll of manuscript, tore it across and across, carried it to the
fire-place, put it inside the grate, and applied the candle. Diana,
standing in the dark outside the doorway, watched her in utter
amazement. So many questions began to rush into her mind that the hall
did not seem the best place to answer them. She fled upstairs again,
jumped into bed, and lay thinking. In a minute or two Loveday came
quietly back, blew out the candle at the door, and, treading softly,
also went to bed. Diana did not speak, or betray by any movement that
she was awake. It was an hour, however, before sleep came to her. She
was on the early practising list, so she went downstairs next morning
before her room-mate was stirring.
Breakfast passed over as usual; the post-bag came in; Miss Todd sorted
and distributed the contents, and the girls retired to read their
letters. At ten minutes to nine something happened. Hilary, with wide
open eyes and flushed cheeks, came running along the hall.
"Somebody's gone and taken my essay out of my desk!" she declared
excitedly.
Her fellow-seniors wrenched their thoughts from home news.
"Impossible!" said Geraldine.
"You've misplaced it!" said Stuart.
"No, I haven't! I know just where I put it yesterday."
"Go and look again!"
"I've turned the whole desk out, I tell you, and it simply isn't there!"
"Where is it, then?"
"That's what I want to know!"
"Has anyone taken it for a joke?"
"I expect so, but I'll reckon with whoever has!"
"It's probably one of those intermediates," suggested Stuart.
"Anybody who's got it must just turn it up at once!" said Geraldine
grimly. "We can't allow this sort of thing to happen. I'll ask who's
taken it."
The head prefect made an instant tour of the school, proclaiming the
loss, and demanding instant restoration. The school, as one girl,
utterly denied the accusation.
"But look here!" persisted Geraldine. "_Some__body_ must have taken it.
It couldn't walk out of Hilary's desk by itself! She _knows_ she left it
there yesterday. If anybody's hiding it for a joke, please give it back
at once. If it's not brought back by nine o'clock I shall tell Miss
Todd. Yes, I'm in earnest! Dead earnest!"
Seniors, intermediates, and juniors, very much astonished, retired to
their form rooms and talked the matter over; but nobody produced the
missing manuscript. During the course of the morning Miss Todd entered
the intermediate room.
"A disagreeable thing has happened, girls," she said. "Somebody has
taken Hilary's essay from her desk. If it was done as a joke, I consider
it a very sorry joke! Does anyone in this room know anything about the
matter? If so, she must speak out at once and tell me."
Miss Todd looked searchingly at the faces before her, and waited for an
answer; but nobody spoke. There was a flush of annoyance on her cheeks,
and that firm set about the mouth which generally indicated a danger
signal.
"I intend to get to the bottom of it. It can't possibly be overlooked,"
she remarked, as she left the room to go and catechize the juniors.
For the rest of the morning lessons went on as usual. Immediately after
dinner, however, Diana received a message to report herself in the
study. She went slowly. She was still thinking; she had been doing
nothing else but think since that midnight excursion down the stairs. It
was rather a white-faced, anxious-eyed little Diana who entered the
study. Miss Todd was sitting at her desk, and Hilary and Geraldine stood
near her. They looked half resentful and half nervous.
"Diana," began Miss Todd, "I've sent for you because I believe you're
the only girl who can throw any light on this most distressing business.
I'm going to ask you a straight question. Have you taken Hilary's
manuscript? I expect a straight answer."
"No," breathed Diana, looking down on the floor.
"Look me in the face, Diana. Do you know where it is? Or anything at all
about it?"
Diana's eyes raised themselves to the level of the Principal's knee, and
then fell to the floor. She did not answer.
"Geraldine tells me that she saw you at Hilary's desk yesterday
evening."
No answer.
"You are known to have threatened to play a trick on Hilary!"
Still no answer.
"Very well, Diana. Until you condescend to explain, I can't allow you to
mix with the rest of the school. We have rules here, and I intend they
shall be obeyed. I make no exception for any pupil. You're inclined to
think you have licence to do as you like, and play any pranks you choose
here. I'm going to teach you a lesson for once. You'll stay in the attic
until you choose to answer my question. I've dealt with obstinate girls
before. Come along with me!"
Miss Todd rose, and, taking a key from her desk, led the way to the
attic at the top of the little narrow staircase. The room was very
simply furnished, and was always kept in readiness as a hospital in case
any girl should be suddenly taken ill. It was not a particularly
cheerful apartment; it had a skylight window, there were no pictures on
the walls, and the floor was of scrubbed boards. It looked, as it was
intended to be, arranged with the main object of being easily
disinfected if necessary. Miss Todd ushered in Diana, and pointed to a
chair.
"You may sit there and think it over," she remarked. Then she shut the
door, and locked it on the outside.
Left alone, Diana took a seat on one of the small iron bedsteads. Her
face was a mixture of bewilderment and consternation.
"Diana Hewlitt, it seems to me you've got yourself into _some_ fix," she
said to herself. "What's puzzling me is that I can't believe the
evidence of my own eyes. Did I _dream_ I saw Loveday go downstairs and
take a roll of papers out of Hilary's desk? Goodness, I was only too
horribly awake! The queerness of the thing bothers me. It doesn't fit
in, somehow. Loveday! Loveday's the last person in the world, as I
should have thought, to do a trick like that. I can't understand it.
It's the sort of stupid thing that girls do in books. I never believed
they did it in real life. Well, one thing's certain. I'm not going to
tell about her--not if Miss Todd keeps me shut up here till I'm a
hundred. Loveday shielded me when I ran away to say good-bye to Lenox,
and I vowed I'd do the same for her if ever I got the chance. Well, I've
got it now, and no mistake. Only--Loveday! Loveday! I don't understand!
You've toppled down somehow off a pedestal. I feel as if something I
liked had got broken."
It was anything but a cheerful afternoon for Diana. The only literature
in the room was a catalogue of the Stores and some reports of charitable
institutions. She read the cost of tins of sardines, pots of jam, table
linen, household china and hardware, and tried to take some faint
interest in the annual statements of the "District Nursing Association"
and "The Society for Providing Surgical Appliances for the Sick Poor".
To amuse herself she was reduced to choosing a word at random and seeing
how many other words she could make out of it, but as she had no pencil
in her pocket to write them down, it was rather difficult to keep count,
and the occupation soon palled. Shortly after four o'clock she heard a
scrimmage on the little landing outside the door. A deep-toned voice,
that sounded like Miss Beverley's, said, "Come away this minute!" and a
high-pitched, excited voice--undoubtedly Loveday's--protested, "If you'd
_only_ let me speak to her, I'm certain----"
Then a sound followed like somebody sliding down three steps at once,
and Loveday's voice, with words indistinguishable, but tone still highly
indignant, grew fainter and farther away till it ceased altogether.
Diana smiled rather bitterly.
"It's not much use her coming and talking to me," she thought. "If she
wants to tell anybody, she can tell Miss Todd. She needn't think I'll
give her away. Don't suppose she knows, though, what I saw last night.
It's a queer world! I'll be glad when I'm back in America. If Dad gets
those passages he'll come and cart me off, Miss Todd or no Miss Todd.
I'd like to see his face if he found me locked up in an attic."
Diana's tea was brought to her at five o'clock, and an hour later she
was visited by the Principal, who again urged confession.
"What's the use of keeping this up?" asked the mistress impatiently.
"You'll have to make a clean breast of it some time, so you may just as
well do it at once. It's perfectly evident that you know where the essay
is. You don't even deny that. What have you done with it?"
And again Diana stood with the same unyielding look on her face, and
stared at the floor, and did not answer a word.
There is nothing so irritating as a person who utterly refuses to speak.
Miss Todd glared at her, then turned towards the door.
"Very well; you may spend the night here. I'm not going to waste any
more time on you now. Perhaps by to-morrow morning you'll be in a
different frame of mind. I intend to know the truth of this; so it's
merely a matter of waiting. You can leave here the moment you decide to
confess; so you're punishing yourself by staying."
Once more the key turned in the lock, and Diana was a prisoner. At eight
o'clock Miss Beverley, in strict silence, brought in a tray with supper,
placed it on the table, departed, and secured the defences. After that
nobody else even came up the stairs.
"They might some of them have managed to push a note under the door,"
sighed Diana. "I guess I'd have got a message in somehow if it had been
Wendy shut up here. What a set of thick-heads they are! There isn't one
of them ever has a decent brain-wave. Wonder how long I'll have to stick
in this attic? I've not lost my bounce yet. But I guess, all the same,
I'll go to bed now."
Miss Beverley, with the supper tray, had also brought Diana's night-gear
in a small bundle. As there was no candle in the attic, it seemed wise
to disrobe while there was still light enough to see by. The little bed
was rather hard, the pillow was a lumpy one, and the spring mattress
squeaked when she moved. Diana watched the room grow gradually darker
and darker till stars appeared through the skylight. It was a very long
time before she slept. The early sunshine, however, woke her in the
small hours of the morning. There was no blind to the window, and the
room faced east. Diana sat up in bed. Her eyes fell on the pictureless
walls. Perhaps the very fact of their bareness made her look at them
more particularly. She did not admire the pattern of the paper. In
places it had been badly fitted together, especially in that corner.
Why, the magenta roses actually overlapped! They did it in a sort of
curve, almost as if they were outlining the top of a door. _Was_ it by
any chance a door?
At this stage of her inspection she sprang out of bed, went over to the
corner, and ran her hand along the portion in question. It certainly
felt as if the edge of a door were beneath. She rapped, and there was a
hollow sound, very different from that given forth from the wall when
she tried it a few yards farther on.
"I'm going to solve the problem for myself," she decided.
There was a knife left on the supper-tray. She thrust it through the
paper, and began to cut round the seeming door. And most undoubtedly it
was a door, though only a small one, with a curved top that came to the
height of her shoulder.
"It must lead somewhere!" she thought excitedly. "Suppose I could get
out on to the leads, climb down the ivy, and go off to Petteridge.
Cousin Coralie wouldn't let me be brought back here to be shut up in an
attic, I know!"
She worked away laboriously, tearing at the paper to free the door. It
flashed across her mind that Miss Todd might have something to say
about the disfigurement of the wall, but as she had gone so far, that
did not deter her.
"Might as well finish it now," she smiled.
More hacking and tearing, then a gigantic shove, and the door suddenly
opened inwards. She was looking into another attic, a larger and much
darker room, lighted only by a tiny little skylight in the corner. It
seemed full of furniture--chairs and tables piled together, and
something that looked like a small grand piano. They were so thickly
coated with dust that it was difficult in the dim light to distinguish
more than upturned legs and general outlines. There did not appear to be
the least possibility of escape in this direction. The skylight was more
inaccessible than the one in her own attic. She sighed, went back,
washed her dusty hands, and got into bed again.
"I guess there'll be a fine old shindy when Miss Todd sees what I've
done," she soliloquized.
Miss Todd, who was thoroughly out of patience with Diana, did not hurry
to send her breakfast up early that morning. She decided that the
prisoner might very well wait until the school had finished its meal.
She even distributed the post first, and began to read her own letters.
She intended to carry the tray upstairs herself, and have another talk
with Diana. It was an unpleasant duty, and could be deferred for a few
minutes. Meantime the school also read its letters. There were two for
Hilary. One in the well-known home writing, and the other a long
envelope addressed in a strange hand. She opened this first. It
contained three manuscripts, and a printed notice to the effect that the
editor of the _Blue Magazine_ much regretted his inability, owing to
lack of space, to make use of the enclosed, for the kind offer of which
he was much obliged.
"My stories packed back by return of post. How disgusting!" groused
Hilary. "He might have taken one of them. Are they all here, by the by?
Yes; 'The Flower of the Forest', 'The Airman's Vengeance', and--Good
Heavens! What's this? Why--why, it's actually my essay on
'Reconstruction'!"
Hilary was so utterly dismayed that at first she could only stare aghast
at her recovered manuscript; then she tore straight off to Miss Todd.
"I must have put it in in mistake for my other story," she explained. "I
can't imagine how I could; but evidently I _did_! I'm too sorry for
words. _Poor_ Diana!"
Everybody said "Poor Diana!" when the news--as news will--spread like
wildfire over the school. Miss Todd ordered some fresh tea to be made,
and an egg boiled for the breakfast-tray. She was a just woman, and
ready to make damages good. She even asked Miss Hampson to get out the
last jar of blackberry jelly; there was still one left in the
store-room. Diana, in the attic, having dressed hours ago, sat hungrily
by the table, listening for footsteps, and wondering if starvation were
to be part of her punishment. She glanced guiltily at the torn
wall-paper as the key turned in the lock. Miss Todd, however, was so
full of the good news that she hardly looked at the attic wall.
"Why did you say, Diana, that you knew something about the essay?" she
asked.
"I never said anything at all," replied Diana, which, of course, was
literally true.
It was nice to eat a dainty breakfast at leisure and not hurry down to
lessons. She felt herself the heroine of the school that morning as she
strolled into the French class just when the disagreeable grammar part
of the lesson was over. Later on in the day there were confidences in
the ivy room.
"I knew you hadn't done it, darling!" declared Loveday. "It wasn't like
you one little bit. I had a regular squabble with Miss Beverley. I tried
to come and talk to you through the door, and she came and dragged me
away. Why didn't you tell Miss Todd you'd never even seen the wretched
essay?"
"Sissie," whispered Diana, "will _you_ tell _me_ what you were doing at
Hilary's desk in the middle of the night?"
"Why--why, surely you never thought----"
"Yes, I did; and that's why I held my tongue," said Diana, burying her
hot face on Loveday's shoulder. "Forgive me, please, for having thought
it."
"It never struck me that anybody should think that," said Loveday, still
amazed at the idea. "And how did you know about it? Did you follow me?
Well, I'll tell you what I was doing. We seniors have a secret--not a
very desperate one; it's only a little literary society. We make up
stories for it, and fasten them together into a sort of magazine.
Geraldine is president, and Hilary is the secretary. It was the night
for giving in the stories, and I put mine with the others inside
Hilary's desk. Geraldine and I haven't been quite hitting it lately; so
I'd made a girl in my story exactly like her, only nastier, and written
a lot of very sarcastic things. I thought they were awfully clever. Then
when I got into bed I was sorry. It seemed a mean sort of thing to do. I
made up my mind I'd go down first thing in the morning and tear up the
story. But I'm such a sleepy-head in the mornings, and you know how
early Geraldine generally gets up. I was afraid she'd come down first,
and probably rummage the stories out of Hilary's desk and read mine. The
more I thought about it the more ashamed I was of what I'd written. I
couldn't go to sleep. I felt I shouldn't be easy till it was burnt; so
at last I got up, and lighted the candle, and went downstairs and did
the deed. That's how you saw me at Hilary's desk. By the by, Geraldine
said she caught _you_ there before supper. What were _you_ doing?"
"Putting pepper among her books to pay her out and make her sneeze,"
confessed Diana.
"Why, she did say her desk smelled somehow of pepper!" exclaimed
Loveday. "We were all so excited, though, about the essay being missing
that we didn't take much notice of it. The whole affair's been a sort of
'Comedy of Errors'."
One substantial result remained from Diana's confinement to the attic,
and that was the discovery of the door into the room beyond. Miss Todd
explored, and carried some of the dusty chairs out into the light of
day. She was enough of a connoisseur to see at a glance that they were
Chippendale, and extremely valuable. She had the rest of the furniture
moved out and cleaned, then sent for a dealer in antiques to ask his
opinion about it. He said it made his mouth water.
"A set of ten Chippendale singles with two armchairs will fetch almost
anything you like nowadays," he added.
"The question is, to whom do they legally belong?" said Miss Todd. "I'm
only the tenant here. I must tell my landlord."
The owner of the Abbey, who had bought the property many years before
from Mr. Seton, was a man with a fine sense of honour. Though, legally,
the furniture in the forgotten attic might have been transferred to him
with the house, he did not consider himself morally entitled to it.
"It certainly belongs to the heirs-at-law of the late Mr. Seton," he
declared.
There was only one heir, or rather heiress-at-law, and that was Loveday.
It was decided, therefore, to sell the furniture for her benefit. The
collection included objects of great rarity, among them a genuine
spinet and a beautifully inlaid bureau. At the present boom for antiques
they would realize a very substantial sum, quite a windfall, indeed, for
Loveday.
"Will it be enough to send me to a horticultural college?" she asked
Miss Todd.
"Ample, my dear. It ought to bring you sufficient for a thoroughly good
training in any career you want to take up."
This was news indeed--so splendid that it seemed almost too good to be
true. Hilary's essay, which, as everybody expected, easily won the
prize, had indirectly made Loveday's fortune after all.
"I bless the day when I was a prisoner in the attic," rejoiced Diana.
"If I hadn't knocked that door in, the furniture might still have been
lying there in the dust."
"I wonder if _this_ was the discovery that gentleman wanted to tell
Father about," surmised Loveday.
Surprise came on surprise, for the very morning after this happy
solution of Loveday's future, Diana received a telegram from Paris. Mr.
Hewlitt had succeeded in getting three passages (thrown up at the last
by a family who were taken ill with "flu" and unable to travel); he and
Mrs. Hewlitt were crossing the channel post-haste, and Diana must start
from school and meet them in Liverpool. Loveday helped her to pack her
boxes. It was an excited, fluttered, tearful little Diana who clung to
her at the last.
"Sissie! I can't say 'Good-bye!' It's not 'good-bye' to _you_--only 'au
revoir'."
"We'll meet again some day, darling!"
"We'll just jolly well have to, or I'll know the reason why! If you
don't come out to see us in America I shall come over here and fetch
you. Write very often, and let me know how the baby goes on, and if it
has been taken into the Home. I haven't quite finished its frock. Will
you do it? Oh, thanks! I'm leaving the Abbey in as big a hurry as I came
here. Dad always uses his 'lightning methods'. But I shan't forget any
of you, ever--not you, Wendy, or Jess, or Vi. Write to me, won't you? As
for you, Loveday mine, I haven't words left. Let me give you one more
good hug! Yes, Miss Todd, I'm really coming. No, I don't want to miss my
train. Good-bye, everybody and everything! Good-bye! Good-bye!"
End of Project Gutenberg's A harum-scarum schoolgirl, by Angela Brazil