"Girls!" she cried shakily. "Girls! Somebody's taken my pendant! It's gone!"
"Why, nonsense, Stephie; it can't be gone! It was there all right last night."
"It's not there now. Ulyth's has been put in its place, and mine's vanished. Come and see."
There was an instant stampede for the studio.
"It's probably on the bench," said Doris. "Some people are such bad lookers. I expect we shall find it directly."[Pg 222]
"You can't find a thing that isn't there," retorted Stephanie with warmth.
Doris considered herself an excellent looker, and, in company with a dozen others, she searched the studio. Willing hands turned everything over, hunted under tables, on shelves, and among shavings, but not a sign of the pendant could they find.
"Are you sure this one isn't yours?" asked Ruth, coming back to the exhibits.
"Certain! I know my own work. This is Ulyth's; and there's the mistake she made that disqualified it."
"Yours was put back last night?"
"I saw it safe myself, after Rona'd been juggling4 with it. Where is Rona? I believe she's at the bottom of this."
"She's in the garden."
"Then she must be fetched."
"What's the matter? What are you making a bother about?" cried Rona, as an excited detachment of girls stopped her game of tennis and asked her a dozen questions at once. "What have I done with Stephanie's pendant? Why, I've done nothing with it, of course."
"But you must have hidden it somewhere."
"It's a mean trick to play on her."
"You and Steph are always at daggers5 drawn6."
"Do go and put it back."
"I can't think what you're talking about!" flared7 Rona. "I've not even been inside the studio. If a joke's being played on Stephanie, it's somebody else who's doing it, not me. For goodness' sake[Pg 223] let me get on with my game. Come, Winnie, it's your serve."
The girls retired8, whispering to one another. They were not at all satisfied. The news of the loss spread rapidly over the school, and had soon reached the ears of the authorities. Miss Lodge, who heard it from a monitress, at once sought Miss Bowes' study. A few moments later she went in a hurry to summon Miss Teddington, and a rash junior who ventured within earshot was sent away with a scolding. Miss Bowes looked grave as she walked into the hall for call-over. She took the names as usual, then, instead of dismissing the forms, she paused impressively.
"I have something to say to you, girls," she began in a strained voice. "A most unpleasant thing has happened this morning. The pendant made by Stephanie Radford, which was to have been sent to the Elwyn Bay Exhibition, has disappeared, and Ulyth Stanton's pendant has been substituted for it. It is, I suppose, a practical joke on the part of one of you. Now I highly disapprove9 of this foolish form of jesting; it is neither clever nor funny, and is often very unkind. I beg whoever has done this thing to come forward at once and replace the pendant. She need have no fear, for she will not be punished or even scolded, though she must give me her word never to repeat such a prank10."
Miss Bowes stopped, and looked expectantly at the rows of intent eyes fixed11 upon her. Nobody spoke12 and nobody moved. There was dead silence[Pg 224] in the hall. The Principal flushed with annoyance13.
"Girls, must I appeal to your honour? Is that necessary at The Woodlands? Have I actually one among you so lacking in moral courage that she dare not own up? I repeat that she will meet with no reproof14. Nothing more will be said about the matter."
Still no reply. Each girl looked at her neighbour, but not even a whisper was to be heard.
"Girls, I am exceedingly pained. Such a thing has never happened here before. For the sake of the school, I make one last appeal to you. Will nobody speak? Then I shall be obliged to ask each of you in turn what she knows."
It was a dreary15 business putting the same question to forty-eight girls, receiving one after another forty-eight decided16 negatives. Miss Bowes sighed wearily as it came to an end, and turned to Miss Teddington, who had sat on the platform silent but frowning during the ordeal17.
"We cannot let it rest here."
"Certainly not!" snapped Miss Teddington firmly. "The matter must be sifted18 to the bottom."
The two Principals conferred for a moment in whispers, then Miss Bowes announced:
"Girls, this affair must be very carefully inquired into. I hoped it was only a practical joke, but a circumstance came to my knowledge last night which, I fear, may lend a more sinister19 aspect to it than either Miss Teddington or I had imagined. I am most deeply disappointed that the code of[Pg 225] honour which we have always upheld at The Woodlands seems by some of you to have been broken. I shall have more to say to you later on. In the meantime you may go to your classrooms."
Very solemnly the girls turned to march in their separate forms from the hall; but as IV b filed through the door there was a sudden outcry, a hustling20, a rush of other girls, and an excited, aghast crowd.
"It's here! It's here, Miss Bowes!" shouted Doris Deane. "Rona Mitchell had it! It fell from her blouse pocket when she pulled out her handkerchief."
"It's Rona!"
"We saw it fall!"
"She had it all the time!"
"Oh, the sneak21!"
"Silence!" thundered Miss Bowes, ringing her bell.
In the midst of the sudden hush22 the Principal walked down the hall and took the pendant from Doris's hand.
"What have you to say for yourself, Rona Mitchell?"
Rona was standing23 staring as if a ghost had suddenly risen up and confronted her. Her vermilion colour had faded, and left her face deadly white.
"Rona, do you hear me?"
Rona shivered slightly, glanced desperately24 at Miss Bowes, then cast her eyes on the floor. She did not attempt to reply.[Pg 226]
"I give you one more chance, Rona."
"Oh, Rona," interrupted Ulyth, who was weeping hot tears of dismay, "remember the Camp-fire! For the sake of the school, Rona!"
She drew back, choking with emotion, as Miss Bowes waved her aside.
Rona gazed for a moment full at Ulyth—a long, long, searching gaze, as if she would read Ulyth's very soul in her eyes. Then the colour flooded back, a full tide of crimson25, over brow and neck.
"Yes—for the sake of the school!" she repeated unsteadily, and, bursting into tears, hid her burning face in her hands.
Miss Teddington hastily dismissed the other girls, and, coming to the assistance of her partner, asked many questions. It was absolutely useless, for Rona would not answer a single word.
"Go to your bedroom," said the irate26 Principal at last. "This matter cannot be allowed to pass. If you had owned up at once nothing would have been said, but such duplicity and obstinacy27 are unpardonable. Until you make a full confession28 you must not mix with the rest of the school. We should be sorry to have to send you back to New Zealand, but girls with no sense of honour cannot remain at The Woodlands."
Still sobbing29 hysterically30, Rona was policed upstairs by Miss Teddington and locked into her bedroom. An hour or two of solitude31 might bring her to her senses, thought the mistress, and break the stubborn spirit which seemed at present to possess her. A wide experience of girls had proved[Pg 227] that solitary32 confinement33 soon quelled34 insubordination, and by dinner-time the culprit would probably volunteer some explanation.
Both Principals were greatly upset by the occurrence. Hitherto the little world at The Woodlands had jogged on without any more desperate happenings than the breaking of silence rules or the omission35 of practising. Never in all its annals had they been obliged to deal with a case of such serious import.
Ulyth, with the rest of V b, was obliged to march off to her form-room. The inquiry36 had delayed the morning's work, and Miss Harding began to give out books without a moment's further waste of time. Ulyth sat staring at the problem set her, without in the least taking in its details. She could not apply her mind to the calculation of cubic contents while Rona was crying her heart out upstairs. What did it, what could it, all mean? Had her room-mate only been intending to play a practical joke on Stephanie? If so, why had she not at once admitted the fact? Nobody would have thought much the worse of her for it, as such jokes had been rather the rage of late among the juniors. It seemed so unlike Rona to conceal38 it; lack of candour had not been her fault hitherto. She was generally proud of the silly tricks she was fond of playing, and anxious to boast about them. She could not have been deterred39 by dread40 of the Principals' displeasure. Only yesterday she had marched into the study, to report herself for talking, with a sangfroid41 that was the admiration42 of her form; and[Pg 228] had come out again smiling, with the comment that both the Rainbow and Teddie were "as decent as anything if one owned up straight". No, there must be another and a much graver explanation.
A chain of circumstances flashed through Ulyth's mind, each unfortunate link fitting only too well. The evidence seemed almost overwhelming. Rona had been present at the meeting by the stream when Tootie incited43 the juniors to some secret act of rebellion against the school rules. What this act was the occurrence in the garden had plainly shown. That Rona had been implicated44 seemed a matter of certainty. Her brooch had been in the possession of the cake-vendor, and she had chocolates in her bedroom, the acquisition of which she had refused to explain. Did she intend to keep the pendant and exchange it for confectionery? Her pocket-money, as Ulyth knew, was exhausted45, and she had hardly any of the trinkets that most girls wear.
"Ulyth Stanton, you are not attending to your work. Give me your answer to Problem 46."
Ulyth started guiltily. Her page was still a blank, and she had no answer to produce. She murmured a lame46 excuse, and Miss Harding glared at her witheringly. Thrusting her preoccupation resolutely47 aside, she made an effort to concentrate her thoughts upon the subject in hand.
The morning passed slowly on. To Ulyth each successive class seemed interminable. At recreation, the girls, in small clumps48, discussed the one topic of the hour.[Pg 229]
"I'm not surprised. I'd think anything of Rona Mitchell," said Stephanie. "What else could you expect of a girl from the backwoods?"
"But she was so much improved," urged Addie, who had rather a weakness for the Cuckoo.
"Only a veneer49. She relapsed directly she got the chance, you see."
"But why should she take your pendant?"
"I can't pretend to explain her motive50, but take it she did—stealing, I should call it. But we're too polite at The Woodlands to use such a strong word."
"What'll be done to her?"
"Pack her back to New Zealand, I hope—and a good riddance. I always said she wasn't a suitable girl to come to this school. She hasn't the traditions of a lady. You might as well try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as to get such a girl to realize the meaning of noblesse oblige. It's birth that counts, after all, when it comes to the test."
"There I think you're wrong, Stephie," put in Lizzie quietly. "Gentle birth is all very well if it involves preserving a code of honour, but in itself it's no hall-mark of character. Some of the humblest and poorest people have been the stanchest on a question of right, when those above them in station have failed utterly51. A charwoman can have quite as high standards as a duchess, and often lives up to them much better."
"Oh, you're a Radical52!"
"I want fair play all round, and I must say that[Pg 230] Rona has been very straight and square so far. Nobody has ever accused her of sneaking53."
"No; the bear cub37 was unpolished, but not a vicious little beastie," agreed Addie.
"And it had grown wonderfully tame of late," added Christine.
Rona did not appear at the dinner-table; she had been removed from her own bedroom to a small spare room on another landing. She still refused to answer any question put to her. Her silence seemed unaccountable, and the Principals could only consider it as a display of temper.
"She was annoyed at being caught red-handed with the pendant in her possession, and she won't give in and acknowledge her wrongdoing," said Miss Teddington to Miss Bowes.
"From a strong hint Cook gave me last night I fear there is something more behind it all," returned her partner. "I shall question every girl in the school separately until I get at the truth."
Beginning with the monitresses, Miss Bowes summoned each pupil in turn to her study and subjected her to a very strict catechism. From the Sixth she gained no information. They formed a clique54 amongst themselves, and knew little of the doings of the younger girls. V A were likewise absorbed in their own interests, and only classed Rona as one among many juniors. It was now the turn of V b, and Miss Bowes sent for Ulyth a trifle more hopefully. She, at least, would have an intimate knowledge of her room-mate.[Pg 231]
"Have you ever known Rona mixed up in any deceit before? What is her general report among her form-mates?" asked the Principal.
"Very square. She used to annoy me dreadfully when first she came by turning over all my things, but she soon stopped when I told her how horrid55 it was. She never dreamt of taking anything. It was the merest curiosity; she hadn't been taught differently at home."
"Have you found her eating sweets or cakes in her bedroom lately?"
Ulyth hesitated and blushed.
"Ah! I see you have! You must tell me, Ulyth. Keep nothing back."
Very unwilling56 to betray her friend, Ulyth admitted the fact that chocolate had been pressed upon her one evening.
"Did Rona explain where she got it?"
"No, she wouldn't tell me anything."
Miss Bowes looked thoughtful.
"I put you upon your honour, Ulyth, to answer this question perfectly57 frankly58. Have you any reason to suspect that some of the juniors have surreptitiously been buying cakes and sweets?"
Thus asked point-blank, Ulyth was obliged to relate what she had overheard; and Miss Bowes, determined59 to get at the root of the business, cross-questioned her closely, until she had dragged from her reluctant pupil the account of the occurrence in the garden and the conversation with the travelling hawker-woman.
"This is more serious even than I had feared,"[Pg 232] groaned60 Miss Bowes. "I thought I could have trusted my girls."
"I think most of them were ashamed of it," ventured Ulyth.
"It is just possible that Rona refuses to speak because she will not involve her schoolfellows."
"Oh yes, yes!" cried Ulyth, clutching at any straw to excuse her room-mate's conduct. "That's quite likely. Or, Miss Bowes, I've been thinking that perhaps it was a queer kind of loyalty61 to me. You know Rona's very fond of me, and she was quite absurdly angry because Stephanie's pendant was to go to the exhibition and not mine. She may have changed them, hoping it wouldn't be noticed and that mine would be packed up, and perhaps she intended to put Stephanie's back in the studio when the parcel had safely gone. Rona does such impulsive62 things."
Miss Bowes shook her head sadly.
"I wish I could think so. Unfortunately the other circumstances lend suspicion to a graver motive."
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1
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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justifying
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| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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4
juggling
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| n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
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daggers
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| 匕首，短剑( dagger的名词复数 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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7
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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8
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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9
disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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prank
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| n.开玩笑，恶作剧；v.装饰；打扮；炫耀自己 | |
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11
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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12
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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13
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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15
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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16
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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18
sifted
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| v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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19
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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20
hustling
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| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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22
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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23
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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24
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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25
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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26
irate
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| adj.发怒的，生气 | |
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27
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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28
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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29
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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31
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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33
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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34
quelled
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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36
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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37
cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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38
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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39
deterred
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| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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41
sangfroid
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| n.沉着冷静 | |
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42
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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43
incited
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| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
implicated
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| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
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45
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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46
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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47
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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48
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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49
veneer
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| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
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50
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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51
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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52
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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53
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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54
clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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55
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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56
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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57
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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58
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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59
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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60
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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61
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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62
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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