False Colours
The thunderstorm that had added to the unpleasantness of the girls'
adventure at Sandsend seemed to herald a complete change in the weather.
The beautiful Indian summer, so warm and genial, so full of kindly
sunshine, vanished suddenly, and autumn, cold and bleak, appeared in its
place. A sharp frost in a single night worked havoc in the garden,
blackening the dahlias, withering the nasturtiums, and reducing all the
remaining annuals to a state of blighted ruin, so that what had one day
been a flowery paradise was the next a scene of desolation. A strong
easterly gale, following the frost, cleared the leaves from the trees
before they had any chance of turning to crimson or gold, and stripped
the last vestige of beauty from the hedgerows.
After this came days of pouring rain. The lawns and the playing-fields
were sodden, the roads were deep in sticky mud, the row of bare elms
dripped dismally on to the garden seats below, and the neglected sundial
no longer told the hour of day, nor formed a centre for the throng of
girls who generally haunted its steps.
"Baldur the Sun God is dead!" said Aldred, looking out of the window one
damp afternoon at the cheerless prospect, and recalling Miss Drummond's
lesson on Northern Mythology. "Loki has killed him with the piece of
mistletoe, and he will never return to Asgard. All the Æsir are weeping
for him, and the earth will be given up now to the frost giants and the
spirits of the winds."
"Won't he ever come back?" said Mabel, falling in with her friend's
humour.
"Just for a little while; but he always has to go in the winter, like
Proserpine, who was bound to spend half the year with Pluto in Hades. I
suppose there's no country, except the lost Atlantis, where it keeps
summer all the year round."
"Why, you sound quite melancholy!"
"So I am."
"But why?"
"I don't know, except that it is so sad to see the summer gone."
Aldred could scarcely explain her attitude of mind, though she was
conscious that the change in the world without affected her strongly.
She had an extreme love of nature, an intense appreciation of beautiful
things. No ancient Greek ever joyed in the sunshine more than she, or
took greater pleasure in the scent of the flowers, or the blue of the
sea and sky, or the song of the birds in springtime. Her artistic,
poetical temperament was highly sensitive to all outward impressions;
she was so keenly alive to the great, dramatic human tragedy and comedy
that is being enacted around us, so in touch with the wonder and mystery
of life, that what would pass unnoticed by many was to her the very
essence of being.
Few people had ever sympathized with this side of her disposition. Her
father had not realized it, Keith could not understand it, and Aunt
Bertha had repressed it sternly. Modern schoolgirls are certainly not
sentimental; they are more prone to laugh at poetic fancies than to
admire them: and Aldred knew that on this score she would probably meet
with ridicule from her form-mates. In consequence, she confined herself
in public to the practical and prosaic, and, with the exception of an
occasional private confidence to Mabel, kept her reflections locked in
her own bosom.
There was certainly nothing in the atmosphere of the Grange to foster
any tendency towards morbidness. The days were so fully occupied as to
leave no time for dreaming. Though Aldred was clever, it took her whole
energies to secure the place that she wished in the school. She was
determined to be head of her Form, and, holding that object in view,
toiled with a vigour such as nothing else would have wrung from her, and
which would have caused unfeigned amazement to her former governess. It
was not all plain sailing, for Ursula Bramley and Agnes Maxwell were
also good workers; and even Mabel, though not specially bright, was very
plodding and conscientious. Aldred soon found that she had to revise
entirely her old method--that a careless German exercise could
completely cancel a brilliant score in history, and that she must give
equal attention to every subject if she wished to chronicle a record.
The little tricks she had practised on Miss Perkins were not equally
successful at Birkwood: she had tried reeling off her lessons very fast,
so as to gloss over mistakes, but Miss Bardsley would allow her to
finish, and then say: "Yes; now you may repeat it again, slowly. I did
not quite catch the second person plural;" and Aldred, to her disgust,
would be compelled to reveal her ignorance in a more deliberate fashion,
and take the bad mark that ensued. She was at first a venturesome
guesser, till her many bad shots drew scathing comments from her
teachers and smiles from the rest of the Form.
"Even Lorna Hallam knows that Sir Philip Sidney didn't write the _Faerie
Queene_, and she's supposed to be our champion bungler!" observed Ursula
Bramley sarcastically, on one occasion. "As for history, you muddle up
Thomas Cromwell with Oliver Cromwell! You'd better get an elementary
book, and learn a few simple facts."
The girls would not tolerate Aldred's conceit. She quickly discovered
that if she wished to be popular, it was unwise to claim too much credit
for her achievements. The week after she arrived she had taken her place
among the others at a singing lesson. Miss Wright, the mistress, began
to teach the class the old English ballad, "Should he upbraid"; it was
one with which Aldred happened to be familiar, so she at once took the
lead and sang away lustily, beating time in a rather marked manner, and
accomplishing the many little runs and trills with an air as if she
considered herself indispensable. At the close of the lesson, as they
were filing out of the room, she could not resist remarking to Ursula
Bramley:
"It was a good thing I knew that song so well, wasn't it?"
"Why?" asked Ursula pointedly, looking her straight in the eyes.
Thus cornered, Aldred could hardly say that she thought the class would
have managed badly without her aid; her tact told her that the remark
would be unpalatable and indiscreet, so she quickly changed her ground.
"Oh! only that I find it difficult to learn new things," she replied, in
some confusion.
"Indeed! Well, I suppose you'll improve when you've been here a little
while," returned Ursula, with a meaning smile that was partly a sneer,
and made Aldred decidedly red and uncomfortable.
During the earlier part of the term, try as she might, Aldred was not
able to see her name in the coveted position of heading the list for the
Fourth Form. One week she failed in geometry, another in French; if her
German was correct, her arithmetic proved inaccurate, and some
unexpected slip would pull her down. At the end of the sixth week,
however, she at last dared to hope. She was aware that she had done
unusually well, both in the ordinary class subjects and in the Friday
morning examination; while Ursula, her chief opponent, had had an
exercise returned, and received a bad mark for botany. The lists were
always posted up on the notice-board in the corridor just before
tea-time on Saturday afternoon, and there was generally a rush to read
them. On this particular Saturday, Aldred determined to be the first to
cull the news. She was too proud to allow herself to seem anxious, so
she hung about the corridor, pretending that she was searching for a
lost piece of india-rubber, and that she was thrillingly interested in
the view of the dripping garden through the side window. At last Miss
Drummond appeared, pinned the papers neatly on to the notice-board, and
re-entered the library. Aldred strolled up as casually as she could;
but Mabel, who had also been on the look-out, was before her.
"You're top! You're top!" shrieked the latter. "There it is: 'No. 1,
Aldred Laurence.' Oh, how lovely! You've beaten Ursula by twenty marks.
It's splendid! Come and see for yourself!"
Though inwardly she felt she had satisfied her ambition, Aldred took the
announcement with the greatest outward sang-froid.
"Oh! am I?" she replied nonchalantly. "No, I don't want to see, thanks;
I can take your word for it."
"How calm you are! I should have been fearfully excited if it had been:
'No. 1, Mabel Farrington.'"
"What's the use of getting excited? Let us go into the dressing-room,
and wash our hands for tea."
Mabel linked her arm affectionately in that of Aldred, and accompanied
her down the passage, talking as she went.
"I knew you would come out top, dearest!" she said. "You were certain
to, as soon as you had grown used to the work here. It's always
difficult for a new girl, when she has been accustomed to a different
teacher; but I think you have fallen into Birkwood ways marvellously
quickly. Don't you feel proud?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, I do, for you! To think of being twenty marks ahead of Ursula!
It's a tremendous score! How do you manage to be so clever?"
"I'm not clever. It's sheer good luck, I expect."
"No, it's not good luck," said Mabel, putting back Aldred's dark curls
with a caressing hand. "It's something far more, only you're too modest
to acknowledge it. You're behaving just as you did at Seaforth. Oh,
I've heard about that episode! We all know of it, though you may think
it was done by stealth."
"What episode?" gasped Aldred, suddenly red to the tips of her ears.
"Don't blush so, darling! I won't speak about it again, if you'd rather
not; but I should like to tell you how much I admire you, not only for
what you did, but for the way you've tried to make nothing of it
afterwards. It's only one girl in a thousand who would have had the
courage to rush into that blazing house, and crawl upstairs and down
again; or the presence of mind to tie a wet handkerchief over the little
boy's mouth. I should never have thought of that, I'm certain. Do you
mind my mentioning it to you just this once?"
Now was Aldred's chance. The occasion when she might deny her identity
with the heroine of the fire had come at last! How easily the mistake
could be corrected, and the matter set right! She looked nervously at
Mabel, and words struggled painfully to her lips.
"I--I'm afraid--you----" she began.
"Yes, dearest?" There was a little thrill in Mabel's voice.
"You're--you're thinking too--too well of me----" stammered Aldred,
trying desperately to take the fatal plunge.
Mabel simply smiled. Her blue eyes were gazing into her friend's with
adoring affection; her face showed how deeply her feelings were stirred,
and how earnestly she meant all she had said.
"I was at Seaforth----" continued Aldred.
"I know that."
"But--but----"
Oh, how hard it was to utter her confession! In the act, Aldred's
resolution failed her; she stopped again, and was silent. Her
embarrassment was most apparent.
"Would you really rather not speak of it, dear?" said Mabel gently.
Why did Aldred hesitate? Opportunity, like an angel of light, still
tarried, and held open the door of honour. If she could only screw up
her courage to the sticking-point!
"All right! If you don't like me to mention it, I'll say nothing more.
I'm satisfied now I've let you know that your deed isn't absolutely
hidden under a bushel. You're famous, in spite of yourself. You darling!
I only wish I were worthier to be your friend."
Aldred shrank back at the words, and, disengaging Mabel's clinging arms,
made an excuse to hurry away. She had the grace to be thoroughly ashamed
of herself, and to feel that she could not bear any more praise at
present.
"Why didn't I tell?" she moaned, in an agony of remorse. "I know I'm
mean, and dishonest, and horrid, and the exact opposite of what she
supposes. What would Keith say, if he knew? He'd never forgive me. He
scolded me for not explaining that Mr. Bowden had painted part of my
picture, and this is twice as bad. Keith is so absolutely honourable! I
suppose I ought to go to Mabel now, and put things right. No, I can't! I
simply can't! It would be worse than ever. I couldn't force myself to
say it--the words would choke me!"
A letter from Keith had arrived only that morning, a particularly nice,
jolly letter, full of chatty news and of such affectionate enquiries
about her own doings at school that it seemed to bring her into closer
touch than usual with her brother. She wanted so much to stand well in
Keith's opinion; and she recalled with a groan what he had said to her
in the cornfield about her sketch: "Of all the sneaks, you're the
biggest!" and, "Be a little straighter in future, if you want to keep
chums with me." Yes, she was a sneak; it was not a pretty epithet, but
it was a true one. In Keith's eyes this affair would be serious; he
would never tolerate such conduct for one single moment. If she wished
to act up to his principles, she must undeceive Mabel immediately, her
own self-respect told her that. Yet she could not bring herself to do
it, and for a whole week she wavered, her conscience reproaching her
bitterly, and her pride pleading and ever pleading to put off the evil
moment.
"It's impossible to tell her straight out," she decided at last. "I'll
write a letter and give it to her; that will be much easier, because I
needn't stay to watch her read it. I know Keith would have gone and
owned up; but then, I'm not Keith--I always mind things so much more
than he does."
Having resolved to make an explanation through the medium of pen, ink,
and paper, she retired, when tea was over, to the empty classroom, and
set herself to the unwelcome task. How difficult it was! She scribbled
sheet after sheet, and tore up one after another. Her confession looked
so bald and paltry when she saw it in black and white! It seemed so
awkward to explain adequately how the mistake had arisen. After five
fruitless attempts, she at last managed to arrive at a result which, if
it did not satisfy her, at least contained the truth. She placed it in
an envelope, and addressed it to Mabel Farrington, then stood turning it
over and over in her hand. Was this letter to break their
friendship?--so small a thing to have such a fateful result? Well, if it
must be, she had better let it be done as quickly as possible; it was no
use delaying any longer. Bracing up her nerves, therefore, she went down
to look for Mabel.
It being Saturday evening, there was no preparation. Relays of girls
were having their hair washed in the bathroom, and others were finishing
stocking darning, or various pieces of mending; tidying their drawers,
putting out their clean clothes, and performing the many small duties
that seemed to accumulate at the end of the week.
The Lower School recreation room happened to be temporarily deserted by
its usual rollicking crew, and Mabel was there alone, standing warming
her hands at the fire. She looked up brightly as Aldred entered.
"Come along!" she said. "Isn't this a glorious blaze? We've got the room
all to ourselves for once, and we'll have such a cosy chat! Why! what's
this you're giving me? A letter? From whom?"
"From me. It's something I want you to know," replied Aldred shortly;
and she would have turned to leave the room had not Mabel caught her by
the arm and forced her back to the fire.
"Don't run away!" she exclaimed. "You're the most absurd girl! What are
you writing to me about?"
"You'll find out when you've read it," gulped Aldred.
"But why couldn't you tell me? What's the matter? You're actually
crying! Dearest, have I done anything to offend you?"
"No, no! Do let me go, and then open the letter!"
"I shan't. You must stay here till I know why you are crying. Has
anybody been nasty to you?"
"No; it's I who have done something wrong--I wanted to let you know--I'm
afraid you'll never care for me afterwards--I daren't tell you--so
please read it, and don't keep me now!"
Mabel looked puzzled, then suddenly enlightened; but instead of
loosening her hold on her friend, she pulled her down on to the
hearth-rug, before the fire.
"I understand!" she said. "Oh, Aldred, dear, I know all about that, you
know!"
Aldred's face was a study.
"Yes, Agnes Maxwell told me before tea."
"What has Agnes to do with it?"
"Why, she heard you! She said all the others who had spoken English had
reported themselves to Miss Bardsley, but she was sure you hadn't."
Aldred drew a long breath. It was quite a different crime that Mabel
imagined she was confessing, a little slip that she scarcely
recollected, and certainly had not intended to rake up. She had been
guilty of expressing herself in her own language during the time set
apart for French conversation that morning, but, having no desire to
lose a mark, she had discreetly allowed her memory to fail her when the
mistress asked if any girl had "communicated in English".
"I must say I was very astonished," continued Mabel, "and very
disappointed that you, of all people, should not have told; it seemed so
entirely different from what you are. I couldn't believe that you would
go a whole afternoon letting 'perfect' be down in the register, when you
ought to have had a bad mark. Of course, I knew you would tell before
Monday--luckily, Saturday's marks count for next week."
Aldred said nothing. She sat on the fender, poking the little, soft
volcanoes that oozed out of the coal, squeezing them down, and watching
the jets of gas that followed.
"It was a funny idea to write it in a letter!" said Mabel. "You always
do quaint things; I suppose it's because you're such an original girl."
"Aren't you going to read it?" asked Aldred, in a strained voice.
"Why should I? I know what's in it. No, it shall go down into that
hollow in the fire. Give me the poker. There! What a blaze it makes!"
Aldred watched her confession flare up and sink into ashes in the heart
of the hot coals; there was a strange look on her face, a look that her
friend could not fathom.
"Suppose I had said nothing at all about it next week, and had kept the
'perfect', would you still have cared for me?"
"Oh, but you couldn't!" cried Mabel. "It's impossible! Why, it wouldn't
be you to do such a thing!"
"But if----"
"There are no 'ifs'. I could never believe any wrong of you, darling;
and yet----"
"What are you two crouching over the fire in the dark for?" exclaimed
Dora Maxwell, bursting suddenly into the room. "We are going to act dumb
charades in the hall, and Miss Drummond and the teachers are all there
to watch. Come along! We've thought of some most lovely words, which I'm
sure they'll never think of guessing."
So another opportunity was lost, and Aldred's secret was still untold.
She dared not run the risk of breaking the friendship. If she was blamed
for such a small fault, could she ever be forgiven for so much greater a
deception? It was so sweet to be the very centre of Mabel's adoration,
to be placed on a pinnacle, and loved with such rapturous devotion.
Could she bear to see all this fade utterly, or even partially, away?
No! She was glad and thankful that the letter had been burnt; she felt
as if she had escaped from a great danger. She told Miss Bardsley about
her "English communication", and took her bad mark with resignation; it
was a small evil, compared with what she had avoided. There seemed no
retreat now from the course she had taken; she could not in future plead
the excuse that she was ignorant of her identification with the heroine
of the fire. The affair had been mentioned so plainly that it was
impossible for the most dense and obtuse person not to have understood
the allusion. Had Mabel on the first occasion questioned her
point-blank, I think she would probably have owned up immediately; but
every wrongdoing bears its own ill harvest, and the second slip from the
straight path is always easier than the first. Aldred persuaded herself
that she had not told any deliberate lies, though she was fully aware
that her silence made her equally guilty of falsehood. Finally, she
tried to dismiss the whole thing from her thoughts. Mabel had promised
not to speak of it again; surely it was finished with, and there was no
need to trouble further? Yet it was a trouble. Deep down in her heart
lay always the consciousness that she was sailing under false colours;
every now and then Mabel would impute to her some better motive than
really actuated her, or some virtue that she did not possess, and
Aldred's inward monitor would give her an uneasy twinge, and remind her
how very far she was below that high standard. There was also constantly
present the dread that Mabel might learn the truth from some outside
source; perhaps the cousin who had written to her before might hear more
details, and write again, or some other friend might have been staying
at Seaforth, and might know full particulars. The horror of the thought
would make Aldred shudder with apprehension; she was living, she knew,
on a bubble reputation, and at one word it might collapse, and change
her pleasant Eden of appreciation and adulation into a blank desert of
disillusion and contempt.