A Question of Honour
For the last five years Mr. Glyn Williams, a prominent London financier,
had rented The Warren from General Talland. He liked the place, and
would gladly have bought the whole property had it not been entailed. He
still lived in hopes that it might ultimately become his own, and
periodically made offers to the owner and heir to effect a settlement.
Meantime, failing absolute possession, he posed to his city friends and
to his neighbours in the county as the squire of Chagmouth. He was a
well-disposed man, according to his lights, and in his own way he had
done a good deal for the place. He had built a reading room and
institute, had helped to renovate the church, had contributed largely to
the war memorial, and headed the list of all local subscriptions. His
wife was on numerous committees, had organized many charities,
entertained the Sunday School children in her garden, got up concerts or
tea-parties, attended mothers' meetings, opened bazaars, and distributed
prizes.
Yet all the same Chagmouth was not as grateful as perhaps it ought to
have been, and the family at The Warren were by no means favourites in
the little town. The root of the trouble was that Mr. and Mrs. Glyn
Williams made the common mistake of thinking that because they rented
the Hall, and dispensed large sums in subscriptions, they had the right
to order the affairs of their less wealthy neighbours, and to have the
first say in everything that was to be done in connection with the
place. Chagmouth people greatly resented being patronized. They were
born of the good old sturdy, self-reliant stock that furnished Drake and
Raleigh and other half-forgotten heroes, and they had been accustomed in
their slow independent fashion to manage their own business to their own
satisfaction. For General Talland, whose family link with the parish
dated from the time of the Armada, they had held a respect based partly
on his birth and partly on personal appreciation, but they saw no reason
to offer any undue deference to his tenant at The Warren. Money alone
cannot purchase favour, and the unfortunate attitude of superiority and
fashionable aloofness adopted by the whole of the Williams family had
created a considerable atmosphere of prejudice against them. To many of
the Chagmouth people they were a sore trial, and the haughty manners of
the young people were voted insufferable in the village.
Dr. Tremayne, however, who had been medical adviser at The Warren for
several years, always met with a happy reception. He was a favourite
with rich and poor alike, for he gave equal attention to all his
patients, whether their incomes were small or great. He held those wide
views of life which estimate people at what they are and not at what
they possess, and he always seemed to have the happy knack of bringing
out the best in those whom he met. Mrs. Glyn Williams had perhaps taught
her daughters many foolish and unworthy lessons, but in the presence of
the unworldly old doctor the little snobberies melted away and the
higher standards prevailed.
It was for the sake of Dr. Tremayne that Gwen, when she next appeared
at The Moorings, bestowed a grudging recognition on Merle and extended a
rather patronizing friendship to Mavis. The latter was not specially
attracted, though she received the advances politely. Most of the girls,
however, seemed to think her only too lucky to be thus noticed. Opal
worshipped openly at Gwen's shrine. She copied her frocks, her manners,
and her style of hairdressing, and offered up much incense before the
altar of fashion. The Ramsays, who were accustomed to the democratic
atmosphere of a big high school, fretted at the narrowness of the
outlook. They disliked the days when the Williamses attended the French
class, for Opal always put on absurd airs and was particularly "high and
mighty" and aggravating. She had not improved as the term went on.
Indeed, a new and most unpleasant aspect of her had lately revealed
itself. She was not altogether fair over her work. On several occasions
Mavis and Merle suspected her of cheating. They could not absolutely
convict her of it, but the circumstances seemed very incriminating. They
mentioned the matter to Iva, who shrugged her shoulders.
"Of course Opal cheats when she gets a chance. We all know that. But how
are you going to stop it? If you told Miss Fanny she wouldn't believe
you."
"I hate sneaking," said Mavis. "But couldn't we do something with Opal
herself?"
"You'd have to catch her first."
"Yes, that's the difficulty."
It is not at all an easy matter to convict a girl who cheats on the sly.
Several times Merle, who sat just behind, thought she saw Opal make
hasty corrections as Mademoiselle revised the French dictation, but when
she taxed her with it afterwards Opal denied flatly, and with huge
indignation.
"As if I should," she fumed.
"Seeing is believing," maintained Merle.
"Do you mean to accuse _me_--the head girl--of cheating! I wish you'd go
and tell Miss Pollard or Miss Fanny. They know me too well to listen to
a word you'd say. Why, I'm their own god-daughter!"
"Unfortunately that doesn't make you immaculate."
"Though it ought to, when they trust you so," added Mavis.
Discussing the matter between themselves, the Ramsays decided that in
this very point lay all the trouble. The Misses Pollard, in their
foolish fondness for Opal, were making a grave mistake. They
deliberately shut their eyes where she was concerned, and were always
biased in her favour.
"It's such an amateur little school," sighed Merle. "I don't mean the
lessons, because those are really rather good, but the discipline is
horribly slack."
"Hardly exists," agreed Mavis. "Miss Fanny says easily, 'Now, get along,
girls!', and a few try to work and the rest don't, and she never _makes_
them. I hate a slack teacher, however clever she is."
"Everything is so casual," groused Merle. "There's no proper order even
in answering questions. Opal raps out the answers if she knows them, and
gets all the credit. It's most unfair. I should like to send Miss Fanny
for a term to Whinburn High, and let her see how things are managed at
other schools. It would be an eye-opener for her."
"And for Opal too, if she could go as well. It would just do her all the
good in the world."
Evidently the only thing to be done was to keep a careful eye upon the
delinquent, and bring her to book at the first opportunity that offered
sufficient private evidence without taking the affair to the teacher's
notice.
Now it happened that one afternoon Gwen Williams left her French
dictionary behind her in the classroom and went home without it. It was
found in due course by Muriel Burnitt, who flung it into the school
"pound", a lost-property basket from which objects could be redeemed by
the payment of a penny into the missionary box. Both Mavis and Merle
witnessed the placing of the book in this receptacle, though they gave
no particular thought to the matter at the time. On the next French day
Gwen came fussing into the classroom asking for her missing dictionary,
and was much put out to find it was not forthcoming.
"I _know_ I left it on the desk," she maintained.
"So you did, and I popped it into the pound," said Muriel. "Pay your
penny and you'll get it out. It's perfectly simple."
But when Gwen walked over to the lost-property basket, and inspected its
contents, she found an assortment of pencils, india-rubbers, and
pen-holders, but certainly no dictionary. She was loud in her wrath, and
the girls immediately round her began to offer comments and advice.
"It was there yesterday."
"I saw it myself."
"Opal redeemed a penknife this morning."
"You'd better ask her if she knows where it has gone."
"Here she comes!"
Yet at that exact moment Mademoiselle entered also, and the girls took
their places. In the course of the lesson she gave her pupils a piece of
unseen translation. It was a difficult passage, and to many of them an
almost impossible one to render into English. Each had her closed
dictionary placed on the desk in front of her, and cast longing looks at
its covers, but to open it was, of course, not permitted. Now Merle was
sitting just behind Opal, and she noticed the latter glancing constantly
down on to her knee. Merle could not see the object of this close
attention, but her suspicions were aroused. She dared not speak, but she
scribbled a little note on a piece of waste paper:
"Keep an eye on Opal's knee, and see if she hasn't got your dictionary."
This she addressed to Gwen and handed it surreptitiously along by Nesta
and Iva.
Gwen read it, and gave a nod of comprehension while Mademoiselle was
looking the other way. The moment the lesson was finished she stood up,
moved along the desks, and made a sudden grab on to Opal's lap.
"Hello! What are you doing with my dictionary?" she asked.
Opal turned white and then scarlet, but she was ready with a plausible
excuse.
"I--I found it," she stuttered. "I was going to give it back to you."
"Indeed!" Gwen's tone was scathing. "I happen to know it was put inside
the pound. Why did you take it out? It's extremely kind of you to have
put a brown paper cover on it. If you intended to give it back to me why
didn't you hand it over before the class began?"
"There--there wasn't time!"
"Oh, good gracious, don't tell me any more fiblets! You meant to stick
to it, and you were cribbing from it on your knee. Nice thing for a head
girl to do, I must say. I've not much opinion of you here at The
Moorings."
Opal protested, but Gwen would not listen to a word she had to say,
and, pulling the paper cover off the dictionary, stalked out of the room
with the air of an offended queen. The girls sniggered openly.
It was so seldom Opal met her match. To have drawn down the wrath and
displeasure of Gwen was a particular humiliation to her.
"Rather priceless, wasn't it?" chuckled Merle to Iva. "Hope it will
teach her not to cheat in future."
"Don't flatter yourself. She will directly she gets the chance. She's
done for herself with Gwen though for the present."
Iva's opinion of Opal was founded on experience. There was an
unfortunate moral kink about the head girl that often involved her in
very shady transactions. It was a deplorable thing for the school, as
instead of upholding the tone she lowered it. Mavis often wondered how
Miss Fanny could be so foolish and weak as not to see for herself that
her favourite evaded rules. Out of sheer bravado Opal would often do
forbidden things, and would boast that she could venture on them with
impunity where others would surely get into trouble. One mean dishonesty
above all others aroused the Ramsays' indignation.
The top form took arithmetic with Miss Fanny. It was a subject which
Opal disliked, but for the last two or three lessons she had worked all
her problems correctly. Miss Fanny, who ought to have known better, left
her Key to the arithmetic on the mantelpiece of the classroom, and one
morning Mavis, coming in early, caught Opal in the very act of copying
the answers to the next set of questions.
"Well!" she exploded. "Of all mean sneaks you're the biggest I've ever
met. No wonder you get all your sums right if you write down the answers
beforehand. How _can_ you?"
Opal tried to laugh the matter off.
"Why don't you do it yourself, my dear?" she answered. "If Miss Fanny
_will_ leave her book about, of course we look at it. That's human
nature!"
"It's not my way," said Mavis gravely. "And if Miss Fanny trusts us so
much that she leaves her Key here, we ought to be worthy of her trust.
It's shameful to deceive her."
"Oh, Jonathan! Go and tell her, then."
"You know I never tell tales."
That day, however, Opal was unexpectedly overtaken by Nemesis. Miss
Fanny was suffering from a severe headache, and Miss Pollard came to
take the arithmetic class in her stead. The girls told her the number of
the exercise they had reached, and she wrote the questions upon the
blackboard. For some reason of her own she reversed their order. When
she called for the answers, Opal, with great assurance, read hers out,
and, of course, as she had copied from the book, No. 6 came instead of
No. 1, and vice versa. Miss Pollard stared at her in much amazement, and
told her to come and work them upon the blackboard, a process of which
she made a conspicuous bungle. Miss Pollard made no special remark, but
possibly her suspicions may have been aroused, for she carried away the
Key, and it was never again left in the classroom. Whether her affection
for Opal prevented her from making a closer inquiry, or whether the
affair was merely a coincidence, and she still preserved her faith in
the integrity of her pet pupil, it was impossible to tell.
"All the same I call it the limit for her to shut her eyes to things in
the way she does," commented Mavis to Merle. "Both Miss Pollard and Miss
Fanny are dears, but a teacher ought to know something of what goes on
in a school, and not leave it just to luck. What are we to do? We can't
go sneaking and telling, and yet I feel we ought to make a stand. It
doesn't seem right to let Opal behave like this and do nothing. She
hasn't the slightest idea of honour."
"That's what most of them need here," snorted straightforward Merle.
"I know. But what can you expect with such a slacker as head girl? If
only Mother were here I'd ask her, but I'm so stupid at explaining
properly in a letter it's no use to write."
"Not a bit. She wouldn't really understand. Seems to me there's nothing
for it but just to worry on as best we can. They're a queer set, but we
can't help it."