CHAPTER VIII
The studies at the Compton Girls’ School were at the top of the house, and consisted of three small rooms set apart for the use of the Sixth, and one fair-sized chamber that was used as prep room by the Upper Fifth. The private sitting-room of the Form-mistresses was also on this floor, the rooms all opening on to one long passage, which had a staircase at either end.
There were twelve girls in the Sixth, which gave four to a study. Hazel and Margaret had with them Dorothy, and also Jessie Wayne, who was a very quiet and studious girl, keeping to her own corner, and having very little to do with the others. The head girl, Dora Selwyn, had the middle study with three others, and the remaining four, of whom Rhoda Fleming was one, had the third room, which was next to the prep room of the Upper Fifth.
All the rooms on this floor were fitted with gas fires, and were very comfortable. To Dorothy there was a wonderfully homey feeling in coming up to this quiet retreat after the stress and strain of Form work. She shared the centre table with Hazel, while Margaret had a corner opposite to the one where Jessie worked.
One Friday evening at the end of October they were all in the study, and, for a wonder, they were all talking. The week’s marks had been posted on the board in the lecture hall an hour before, and they had read the result as they came out from prayers.
It was Dorothy’s class position which had led to the talking; for the first time since she had come to the school she was fourth from the top. Dora Selwyn, Hazel, and Margaret were above her, and Rhoda Fleming was fifth.
“Rhoda has been fourth so far this term,” said Jessie Wayne. “She will not take it kindly that you have climbed above her, Dorothy. How did you manage to do it?”
“I can’t think how I got above her,” answered Dorothy, who was flushed and happy, strangely disinclined for work, too, and disposed to lean back in her chair and discuss her victory. “Rhoda is a long way ahead of me in most things, and she is so wonderfully good at maths, too, while I am a duffer at figures in any shape or form.”
“You are pulling up though. I noticed you had fifty more marks for maths than you had last week,” said Hazel, who had been deep in a new book on chemistry, which she was annotating for next week’s class paper.
“Yes, I know I am fifty up.” Dorothy laughed happily. “To tell the truth, I have been swotting to that end. Indeed, I have let other things slide a bit in order to get level with the rest of you at maths. I have to work harder at that than anything.”
“Well, you jumped in Latin too; you were before me there,” said Margaret. “I should not be surprised if you have me down next week or the week after. You will have your work cut out to do it, though, for I mean to keep in front of you as long as I can.”
“I can’t see myself getting in front of you,” said Dorothy. “You seem to know all there is to be known about most things.”
“In short, she is the beginning and end of wisdom,” laughed Hazel. “But we must get to work, or by this time next week we shall find ourselves at the bottom of the Form.”
“What a row there is in the next study,” said Dorothy. “Don’t you wonder that Dora puts up with such a riot, and she the head girl?”
“The noise is not in the next study,” said Jessie, who had opened the door and gone out into the passage to see where the noise came from. “It is Rhoda and her lot who are carrying on. They do it most nights, only they do not usually make as much noise as this. I suppose they are taking advantage of the mistresses having gone to Ilkestone for that lecture on Anthropology; Dora has gone too, so there is no one up here to keep them in order to-night.”
“Well, shut the door, kid, and drag the curtain across it to deaden the noise. We have to get our work done somehow.” There was a sound of irritation in Hazel’s voice; she had badly wanted to go to the lecture herself, but she knew that she dared not take the time. If she had been free like Dora she would have gone, and not troubled about the fear of dropping in her Form; but in view of her position as an aspirant for the Mutton Bone, she dared not run the risk.
There was silence in the study for the next hour. Sometimes a girl would get up to reach a book, or would rustle papers, or scrape her chair on the floor; but there was no talking, until presently Jessie pushed her chair back, and rising to her feet, declared that she was going to bed, simply because she could not keep awake any longer.
“I am coming too,” said Hazel. “I am doing no good at all, just because I keep dropping asleep; I suppose it is because it has been so windy to-day. Are you others coming now?”
Margaret said that she would go—and indeed she was so pale and heavy-eyed that she did not look fit to stay up any longer; but Dorothy said that she wanted to finish the Latin she was doing for next day, and would stay until she had done it.
When the others had gone she rose and turned out the gas fire, fearful lest she might forget it when she went to bed, and there was a considerable penalty waiting for the girl who left a gas fire burning when she left the room.
The upper floor had grown strangely still. The Upper Fifth had gone downstairs to bed some time ago. There were no mistresses in their private room, which to-night was not even lighted. The noise in the third study had died away, and there was a deep hush over the place.
Dorothy worked on steadily for a time, then suddenly she felt herself growing nervous; there was a sensation upon her that some one was coming, was creeping along the passage, and pausing outside the door.
She stopped work, she held herself rigid, and stared fixedly at the door. The handle moved gently—some one was coming in. The horror of this creeping, silent thing was on her; she wanted to scream, but she had no power—she could only pant.
The door creaked open for perhaps half an inch. Dorothy sprang up, and in her haste knocked over a pile of books, which fell with a clattering bang on the floor. For a moment she paused, appalled by the noise she had made in that quiet place; and then, wrenching open the door, she faced the passage, which stretched, lighted and empty, to her gaze.
With a jerk she clicked off the electric light of the study, and with a series of bounds reached the top of the stairs, fleeing down and along the corridor to the dormitory. All the girls were in bed except Hazel, who looked out from her cubicle to know what was wrong.
“Nerves, I expect. Yah, I turned into a horrible coward, and when the door creaked gently open I just got up and fled,” said Dorothy, who was hanging on to the side of her cubicle, looking thoroughly scared and done up from her experience upstairs.
“I guess you have been doing too much; you would have been wiser to have come down when we did,” said Hazel calmly; and then, as her own toilet was all but complete, she came and helped Dorothy to get to bed.
It was good to be helped. Dorothy was shaking in every limb, and she was feeling so thoroughly demoralized that it was all she could do to keep from bursting into noisy crying. She thanked Hazel with lips that trembled, and creeping into her bed, hid her head beneath the clothes because her teeth chattered so badly.
Sleep came to her after a time, for she was healthily tired with the long day of work and play. But with sleep came dreams, and these were for the most part weird and frightening. Some evil was always coming upon her from behind, and yet she could never get her head round to see what it was that was menacing her. Oh, it was fearful! She struggled to wake, but was not able; and presently she slid into deeper slumber, getting more restful as the hours went by. Then the old trouble broke out again: something was certainly coming upon her, the curtains of her cubicle were shaking, her bed was shaking, and next minute she herself would be shaken out of bed. Making a great effort she opened her eyes, and saw Margaret standing over her.
“What is the matter?” gasped Dorothy, wondering why her head was feeling so queer and her mouth so parched and dry.
“That is what I have come to ask you,” said Margaret with a laugh. “You have nearly waked us all up by crying out and groaning in a really tragic fashion. Are you feeling ill?”
“Why, no, I am all right,” said Dorothy, who began to feel herself all over to see if she was really awake and undamaged. “I have been having ghastly dreams, and I thought something was coming after me, only I was not able to get awake to see what it was.”
“Ah! a fit of nightmare, I suppose.” Margaret’s tone was sympathetic, but she yawned with sleepiness, and shivered from the cold. “I found you lying across the bed with your head hanging down, as if you were going to pitch out on to the floor, so I guess you were feeling bad.”
“What is the time?” Dorothy had struggled to a sitting posture, and was wondering if she dared ask Margaret to creep into bed with her, for there was a sense of panic on her still, and she feared—actually feared—to be left alone.
“Oh, the wee sma’ hours are getting bigger. It is just five o’clock—plenty of time for a good sleep yet before the rising bell. Lie down, and I will tuck you in snugly, then you will feel better.”
Dorothy sank back on her pillow, submitting to be vigorously tucked in by Margaret. She was suddenly ashamed of being afraid to stay alone. Now that she was wider awake the creeping horror was further behind her, while the fact that it was already five o’clock seemed to bring the daylight so much nearer.
She was soon asleep again, and she did not wake until roused by the bell. So heavy had been her sleep that her movements were slower than usual, and she was the last girl to leave the dormitory.
To her immense surprise both Hazel and Margaret gave her the cold shoulder at breakfast. They only spoke to her when she spoke to them. They both sat with gloom on their faces, as if the fog in which the outside world was wrapped that morning had somehow got into them.
Dorothy was at first disposed to be resentful. She supposed their grumpiness must be the result of her having disturbed the dormitory with her nightmare. It seemed a trifle rotten that they should treat her in such a fashion for what she could not help. She relapsed into silence herself for the remainder of breakfast, concentrating her thoughts and energies on the day’s work, and trying to get all the satisfaction she could out of the fact that she had pulled up one again this week in her school position.
“Dorothy, the Head wishes to see you in her study as soon as breakfast is over.” There was a constraint in Miss Groome’s voice which Dorothy was quick to feel, and she looked from her to the averted faces of Hazel and Margaret, wondering what could be the matter with them all.
“Yes, Miss Groome, I will go,” she said cheerfully; and she held her head up, feeling all the comfort of a quiet conscience, although privately she told herself that they were all being very horrid to her, seeing that she was so absolutely unconscious of having given offence in any way.
The Head’s study was a small room on the first floor, having a window which gave a delightful view over the Sowerbrook valley, with a distant glimpse of the blue waters of the English Channel. There was no view to be had this morning, however—nothing but a grey wall of fog, dense and smothering.
Miss Arden was sitting at her writing table, and lying before her was a torn book—this was very shabby, as if from much use. There was something so sinister about the disreputable volume lying there that Dorothy felt her eyes turn to it, as if drawn by a magnet.
“Good morning, Dorothy; come and sit down.” The tone of the Head was so kind that all at once Dorothy sensed disaster, and the colour rushed in a flood over her face and right up to her hair, then receded, leaving her pale and cold, while a sensation seized upon her of being caught in a trap.
She sat down on the chair pointed out by the Head, trying to gather up her forces to meet what was in front of her, yet feeling absolutely bewildered.
There followed a little pause of silence. It was almost as if the Head was not feeling quite sure about how to tackle the situation in front of her; then she said in a crisp, businesslike manner, pointing to the torn book in front of her, “This book, is it yours?”
“No,” said Dorothy with decision. “I am sure it is not. I have no book so ragged and worn.”
“Perhaps you have borrowed it, then?” persisted the Head, fixing her with a keen glance which seemed to look right through her.
“I beg your pardon?” murmured Dorothy, looking blank.
“I asked, have you borrowed it?” repeated Miss Arden patiently. It was never her way to harry or confuse a girl.
“I have never seen it before that I can remember. What book is it?” Dorothy fairly hurled her question at the Head, and rose from her seat as if to take it.
The Head waved her back. “Sit still, and think a minute. This book was found with yours on the table of your study this morning. I have learned that you were the last girl to leave the study last night; your books were left in a confused heap on the table, and this one was open at the place where you had been working before you went to bed.”
“I was doing Latin before I went to bed,” said Dorothy, her senses still in a whirling confusion.
“Just so. This book is a key, a translation of the book we are doing in the Sixth this time,” said the Head slowly, “Now, do you understand the significance of it being found among your books?”
“Do you mean that you think I was using a key last night in preparing my Form Latin?” asked Dorothy, her eyes wide with amazement.
“No; I only mean that appearances point to this, and I have sent for you so that you may be able to explain—to clear yourself, if that is possible; if not, to own up as to how far you have been depending on this kind of thing to help you in your work and advance your position in your form.”
Dorothy sat quite silent. Her face was white and pinched, and there was a feeling of despair in her heart that she had never known before. It was her bare word against this clear evidence of that torn, disreputable old book, and how could she expect that any one was going to believe her?
“Come, I want to hear what you have to say about it all.” The voice of the Head had a ring of calm authority, and Dorothy found her tongue with an effort.
“I have never used a key to help me with my Latin, or with any of my work, and I have never seen that book before,” she said in a low tone.
“It was found among the books you had been using before you went to bed.” There was so much suggestion in the voice of the Head that Dorothy gave a start of painful recollection.
“Oh! I left my books lying anyhow, and I shall have to take a bad-conduct mark. I am so sorry, but I was frightened, and ran away. I ought to have gone to bed when Hazel and Margaret went down, but I wanted to finish my Latin; it takes me longer than they to do it.”
“What frightened you?” demanded the Head.
“While I was sitting at work, and the place was very still, I had suddenly the sensation of some one, or something, creeping along outside the door; I saw the handle turn, and the door creaked open for half an inch; I cried out, but there was no answer, and I just got up and bolted.”
“There was not much to frighten you in the fact of some one coming along the passage and softly opening the door?”
The voice of the Head was questioning, and under the compelling quality of her gaze Dorothy had to own up to the real cause of her fear.
“The girls have said that the rooms up there are haunted—that a certain something comes along at night opening the doors, sighing heavily, and moaning as if in pain.”
“Did you hear sighs and moans?” asked the Head, her lips giving an involuntary twitch.
“I did not stay to listen; I bolted as fast as I could go,” admitted Dorothy. “That was why my books were not put away, or any of my things cleared up.”
“Do you know why the girls say the rooms are haunted?” asked the Head, and this time she smiled so kindly that Dorothy found the courage to reply.
“I was told that a girl, Amelia Herschstein, was killed on that landing.” Her voice was very low, and her gaze dropped to the carpet. Standing there in the daylight it seemed so perfectly absurd to admit that she had been nearly scared out of her senses on the previous evening by her remembrance of a ghost story.
“You don’t seem to have got the details quite right,” said the Head in a matter-of-fact tone. “About twenty years ago, I have been told, the landing where the studies are was given up to the Sixth for bedrooms; girls were not supposed to need studies then—at least they did not have them here. There was no second staircase then; the place where the stairs go down by the prep room of the Upper Fifth was a small box-room which had a window with a balcony. Amelia Herschstein was leaning over this balcony one night to talk to a soldier from Beckworth Camp who had contrived to scrape an acquaintance with her, when she fell, and was so injured that she died a week later. I suppose that the idea of the haunting comes from the fact of the Governors making such drastic alterations in that part of the house immediately afterwards. I am sorry you were frightened by the story, and I can understand how you would rush away, forgetting all about your books. But your fright is a small matter compared with this business of the torn book.” As she spoke the Head pointed in distaste at the ragged, dirty book in front of her, and paused, looking at Dorothy as if expecting her to speak.
Dorothy had nothing to say. Having told the Head that she had never seen the book before, it seemed useless to repeat her assertion.
After a little pause Miss Arden went on: “Your Form-mistress says that she has always found you truthful and straightforward in your work. It is possible that you have an enemy who put the book among your things. For the present I suspend judgment. As the matter is something of a mystery, and others of the Form may be involved, I must also suspend the Latin marks of the entire Form to-day. Will you please tell Miss Groome that I will come to her room, and talk about this question of the day’s Latin, at eleven o’clock. You may go now.”
Dorothy bowed and went out, with her head held very high and her heart feeling very heavy.
CHAPTER IX
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.”
CHAPTER X
The weeks flew by. There had been no clue to the mystery of that torn book which had Amelia Herschstein’s name written inside the cover, and in the rush of other things the matter had been nearly forgotten by most of the girls. The Head and Miss Groome did not forget; but whereas Miss Groome frankly admitted herself scared stiff by the uncanny character of the find, and refused to be left alone in the sitting-room on the upper floor when the others had gone to bed, the Head got into the habit of walking quietly up the stairs most nights, going along the passage, opening the doors of the different rooms, and coming down the other stairs.
She meant to get to the bottom of the mystery somehow, but so far she had not found much reward for her searching. When the governors had arrived on their monthly visit to the schools, and had come to lunch with the girls, she had invited the unsuspecting gentlemen into her private room, and had led the talk to the days of the past, and then had put a few searching questions about the tragedy of Amelia Herschstein, asking who she was, and how it came about that such an accident occurred. To her surprise she found they resented her questioning, and her attempts to get information drew a blank every time.
Then she took her courage in her hands, and faced the three gentlemen squarely. “The fact is,” she said, speaking in a low tone, “I am up against a situation which fairly baffles me. If you had been willing to talk to me about this affair of the tragic fate of the poor girl, I might not have troubled you with my worries, or at least not until I had settled them. I have found that Amelia is said to walk in the upper passage where the studies are. This has the one good effect of making the Sixth Form girls very ready to go to bed at night. But I find that the mistresses do not take so much pleasure as formerly in their private sitting-room, which is, as you know, also on that passage. Then a week or two ago a girl, alone in a study up there, was frightened by the sensation of something coming; she saw the handle of the door turn, and the door come gently open for a little way. I am sorry to say she did not stay to see what would happen next, but bolted downstairs to the dorm as fast as she could go. The strange part of the affair was that there was found among that girl’s books next morning a torn old book, a key to the Latin just then being studied by the Form, and the name inside the book, written in faded ink across the inside of the cover, was Amelia Herschstein.”
“Whew!” The exclamation came from the most formal looking of the governors, and taking out his handkerchief he hurriedly mopped his face as if he was very warm indeed.
“You understand now why I am anxious to know all there is to be known about the tragedy.” The Head looked from one to the other of the three gentlemen as she spoke, and she noted that they seemed very much upset.
“It was a case which landed the school in heavy trouble,” said the formal man, after a glance at the other two as if asking their consent to speak. “It was proved pretty clearly from things which came out at the inquest, and what the soldier afterwards admitted, that it was not because she had fallen in love with him that Amelia arranged meetings and talks with this soldier. She was trying to get from him details of a government invention on which he had been working before he came to Beckworth Camp. Now, a love affair of that sort was bad enough for the reputation of the school, but can you not see how infinitely worse a thing of this kind will prove?”
“Indeed I can.” The Head was frankly sympathetic now, and she was taking back some of the hard thoughts she had cherished against the unoffending governors.
“It was proved, too, that the father of Amelia had been in the German Secret Service,” went on the formal man. “Consideration for the feelings of the bereaved parents stopped the authorities from taking further proceedings. The soldier, a promising young fellow, and badly smitten by the young lady who was trying to make a tool of him, was sent to India at his own request, and was killed in a border skirmish a few months later. You understand now how it is we do not care even among ourselves to talk of the affair.”
“I do understand,” the Head replied. “But what you have told me does not throw any light on the mystery of how that book came to be with Dorothy Sedgewick’s things in the No. 1 study.”
“It only points to the probability of some of Amelia’s kin being in the school, and if that is found to be the case they will have to go, and at once.” The formal man shut his mouth with a snap as if it were a rat trap, and the Head nodded in complete understanding.
“Yes, they would certainly have to go,” she said, and then she deftly turned the talk into other channels; and being a wise, as well as a very clever woman, she saw to it that the cloud was chased from their faces before they went away.
Now she knew where she stood, and it was with a feeling of acute relief that she set herself to the business of finding out the source from which that torn book came. The first thing to do was to have a talk with Miss Groome. Her lip curled scornfully as she recalled the terror displayed by the Form-mistress. Of what good was higher education for women if it left them a prey to superstitious fears such as might have oppressed poor women who had no education at all?
A big hockey match was engrossing the attention of every one during the last week in November. It was big in the sense of being very important, for they were to play against the girls of the Ilkestone High School, and the prestige of the school with regard to hockey would hang on the issue of the game.
It was the only game Dorothy played at all well; she was good at centring, and she was not to be beaten for speed. The games-mistress wanted her for outside right, and Dora Selwyn, who was captain, agreed to this. But she exacted such an amount of practice from poor Dorothy in the days that came before the one that was fixed for the match that other work had to suffer, and she had to face the prospect of her school position going down still lower.
Never once since that affair of finding the torn book among her things had Dorothy been able to reach the fourth place in her Form. The next week she had been fifth again, with Rhoda once more above her, and the week after that she had suffered most fearfully at finding Joan Fletcher also above her. All this was so unaccountable to her because she knew that she was working just as hard as before.
Sometimes she was inclined to think she was being downed by circumstances. She was like a person being sucked down in a quagmire—the more she struggled the lower down she went.
Of course this was silly, and she told herself that despair never led anywhere but to failure.
Her keenest trouble was that she knew herself to be, by some people, a suspected person—that is to say, there were some who said that she must have used cribs in the past, which accounted for her failures now that she might be afraid to use them. There was this good in the trouble, that it made her set her teeth and strive just so that she might show them how false their suppositions were.
The reason her position had dropped was largely due to the fact that the other girls had worked so much harder. The words of the Head concerning the position of slackers had fallen on fruitful ground. No girl wanted to be looked upon as having used cribs to help her along. The others, all of them, had the advantage of being used to the work and routine of the Compton School. Dorothy, as new girl, was bound to feel the disadvantages of her position.
Rhoda Fleming had a vast capacity for work, and she had also a heavy streak of laziness in her make-up. Just now she was working for all she was worth, and the week before the hockey match she rose above Margaret, who seemed to shrink several sizes smaller in consequence. She had to bear a lot of snubbing, too, for so elated with victory was Rhoda, that she seemed quite unable to resist the temptation of sitting on Margaret whenever opportunity occurred.
It pleased Rhoda to be quite kind, even friendly, to Dorothy, who did not approve the change, and was not disposed to profit by it.
Two days before the hockey match Rhoda, encountering Dorothy who was lacing her hockey boots, offered to help with her work.
“I can’t bear to see you slipping back week by week,” she said with patronizing kindness. “Of course you are new to things. There is that paper on chemistry that we have to do for to-morrow’s lab work—can I help you with that?”
Dorothy stared at her in surprise, but was prompt in reply. “No, thank you; I would rather do my work myself.”
“Yet you use cribs,” said Rhoda with an ugly smile.
Dorothy felt as if a cold hand had gripped her. “I do not!” she said quietly, forcing herself to keep calm.
Rhoda laughed, and there was a very unpleasant sound in her mirth. “Well, you don’t seem able to prove that you don’t, so what is the good of your virtuous pose? If your position drops again this week, don’t say I did not try to help you.”
The incident caused Dorothy to think furiously. She was sure that Rhoda had, somehow, a hand in her position dropping. Was it possible that she was boosting Joan Fletcher along in order to lower Dorothy, and so make it appear that there could not be smoke without a fire in the matter of that old book?
She broke into a sudden chuckle of laughter as she sat on the low form in the boot-room lacing up her second boot. Rhoda had departed, and she believed herself alone. Then along came Margaret, wanting to know what the joke was; and leaning back with her head against the wall and her boot laces in her hand, Dorothy told her of Rhoda’s kind offer, and the threat which followed.
“Bah! it is a fight, is it?” cried Margaret. “Well, let them rise above us week by week if they want to. But, mind you, Dorothy, we have got to keep our end up somehow. Hazel and I have been going through the marks—dissecting them, you know—and we find that both you and I have made our steady average week by week; we have not fallen back—it is the others who have pulled up. Hazel says she is pretty sure that Rhoda will pull above her next week. There is one comfort—it is awfully good for Miss Groome; and I am sure the poor thing looks as if she needs a little something to cheer her up, for she does seem so uncommonly miserable this term—all the fun is clean knocked out of her.”
“I wish we could work harder,” grumbled Dorothy. “Oh, this hockey match is a nuisance! Just think what a lot of time it wastes.”
“Don’t you believe it, old thing,” said Margaret. “It is hockey, and the gym, and things of that sort that make it possible for us to swot at other things. It makes me mad to hear the piffle folks talk about the time at school that is wasted on games. If the people who talk such rot had ever worked at books as we have to work they would very soon change their tune.”
“Oh! I know all that.” Dorothy’s tone was more than a trifle impatient, for she was feeling quite fed-up with things. “My complaint is that hockey makes me so tired; I am not fit for anything but to go to sleep afterwards.”
“Just so. And isn’t that good for you?” Margaret wagged her head with an air of great understanding. “Before I came here—when I was working for the scholarship—I should as soon have thought of standing on my head in the street as wasting my precious time on games. The result was that I was always having bad headaches, and breaking down over my work; and I used to feel so wretched, too, that life seemed hardly worth living. Indeed, I wonder that I ever pulled through to win the scholarship.”
“All the same, this match is an awful nuisance,” grumbled Dorothy; and then she was suddenly ashamed of her ill-temper and her general tendency to grouch.
CHAPTER XI
Dora Selwyn was a downright good captain. What she lacked in brilliance she made up in painstaking. She was always after individual members of her team when they were playing for practice, and she lectured them with the judgment and authority of an expert. A lot of her spare time was taken up in studying hockey as played by the great ones of the game. She had even gone so far as to write letters of respectful admiration to the players of most note; and these invariably replied, giving her the hints for which she had asked with such disarming tact.
The match with the first team of the Ilkestone High School meant a lot to her. That team had an uncommonly good opinion of themselves, and, doubtless, they would not have stooped to challenge the senior team of the Compton Girls’ School but for the fact that they had just been rather badly beaten by a team of Old Girls, and were anxious to give some team a good drubbing by way of restoring their self-confidence.
The day of the match came, bringing with it very good weather conditions. If Dora felt jumpy as to results, she had the sense to keep her nervousness to herself, and fussed round her team with as much clucking anxiety as a hen that is let out with a brood of irresponsible chickens.
The match was to be played at Ilkestone. She would have been much happier if the fight had been on their own ground; but the arrangement had been made, and it had to stand.
Dorothy was nervous too, but she would not show it. This was the first time she had played in an outside match with the team, and she was very anxious to give a good account of herself.
Her position had been changed at the last minute—that is to say, at yesterday’s practice. Rhoda had persuaded Dora to give her the outside right, which left Dorothy the position of outside left, which, as every one knows, is the most difficult position of the hockey field. Naturally, too, she smarted at being thrust into the harder task when she had made such efforts to train for her place.
Still, there is no appeal against the command of the captain, and Dorothy climbed into the motor charabanc that was taking them to Ilkestone, seating herself next to Jessie Wayne, and smiling as if she had not a care in the world.
“My word, you do look brisk, Dorothy, and as happy as if you were going to your own wedding,” said Daisy Goatby in a grudging tone, as the charabanc with its load of girls and several mistresses slid out of the school gates and, mounting the steep hill past the church, sped swiftly towards Ilkestone.
“Why shouldn’t I look happy?” asked Dorothy. “Time enough to sit and wail when we have been beaten.”
“Don’t even mention the word, Dorothy,” said the captain sharply; and she looked so nervy and uncomfortable that Dorothy felt sorry enough for her to forgive her for the changed position. She was even meek when Dora went on in a voice that jerked more than ever: “I do hope you will do your best, Dorothy. I am horribly upset at having to change your position, but Rhoda declared she would not even try if I left her as outside left. So what was I to do?”
“Is she going to try now?” asked Dorothy rather grimly. She was wondering what would have happened if she had done such a thing.
“Oh, she says she will, and one can only hope for the best; but I shall be downright glad when it is all over, and we are on our way back.” Dora shivered, looking so anxious that Dorothy had to do her level best at cheering her, saying briskly,—
“I expect we shall all go back shouting ourselves hoarse, and we shall have to hold you down by sheer force to keep you from making a spectacle of yourself. Oh, we are going to win, don’t you worry!”
“I wish I did not care so much,” sighed Dora. Then she turned to give a word of counsel to another of the team, and did not lean over to Dorothy again.
The Ilkestone team were on the ground waiting, while the rest of the High School were drawn up in close ranks to be ready to cheer their comrades on to victory. Dorothy’s heart sank a little at that sight. She knew full well the help that shouting gives.
Then Hazel rushed up to her. “Dorothy, your brother Tom has just come; he says the boys of the Fifth and Sixth are on their way here to shout for us. Oh! here they come. What a lark it is, for sure!”
And a lark it was. The boys came streaming across the stile that led into the playing-field from the Canterbury road; and although they were pretty well winded from sprinting across the fields to reach the ground in time, they let out a preliminary cheer as an earnest of what they were going to do later on, when play had begun.
The High School girls, not to be beaten, set up a ringing cheer for their side. Their voices were so shrill that the sound must have carried for a long way.
Play was pretty equal for the first quarter, then the High School team got a bit involved by the fault of the forwards falling back when the other side passed.
Time and again, when the backs cleared with long hits to the wings, their skill was wasted, for the wingers were not there.
Suddenly Dorothy’s spirits went up like a rocket. She knew very well that once falling back of the forwards had begun it was certain to go on. For herself, she was doing her bit, and a very difficult bit it was, and there seemed no glory in it; but wherever she was wanted, there she was, and it was the outburst of shouting which came from the boys that told her the side was keeping their end up.
The play was fast and furious while it lasted, and the shouting on both sides was so continuous that it seemed to be one long yell.
Then suddenly, for Dorothy at least, the end came. She was in her place, when the ball came spinning to her from a slam hard shot. She swung her stick, and caught it just right, when there was a crashing blow on her head which fairly knocked her out. She tumbled in a heap on the grass, and that was the last she remembered of the struggle.
When she came to her senses again she was lying on the table in the pavilion, and a doctor was bending over her, while the anxious faces of Miss Groome and the games-mistress showed in the background.
“Why, whatever has happened?” she asked, staring about her in a bewildered fashion. “Did I come a cropper on the field?”
“Yes, I suppose that is about what you did do,” replied the doctor, speaking with slow deliberation.
“It is funny!” Dorothy wrinkled her forehead in an effort to remember. “I thought I hit my head against something—a most fearful crack it seemed.”
“Ah!” The doctor gently lifted her head as he made the exclamation; he slid off her hat, and passed his fingers gently through her hair.
“Oh! it hurts!” she cried out sharply.
Then he saw that the back of her hat was cut through, and there was a wound on her head. He called for various things, and those standing round flew to fetch them. He and Dorothy were momentarily alone, and he jerked out a sudden question: “Who was it that fetched you that blow?”
Dorothy looked her surprise. “I am sure I don’t know,” she said doubtfully; “there was no one quite close to me. I remember swinging my stick up and catching the ball just right, and then I felt the blow.”
“Some one fouled you, I suppose—a stupid thing to do, especially as yours was such a good shot.” He was very busy with her head as he spoke, but she twisted it out of his hands so that she could look into his face.
“Was it a good shot?” she asked excitedly. “Did we win the game?”
“Without doubt you would have won if it had been fought to a finish,” he said kindly. “Now, just keep still while I attend to this dent in your head, or you will be having a fearful headache later on.”
Dorothy did have a headache later on. In fact, it was so bad that she was taken back to Sowergate in the doctor’s motor, instead of riding in the charabanc with the others. She felt so confused and stupid that it seemed ever so good to her to lie back in the car and to have nothing to think about.
She protested vigorously, though, when the school was reached and she was taken off to the san, to be made an invalid of for the rest of the day.
“I really can’t afford the time,” she said, looking at the doctor in an imploring fashion. “My Form position has been going down week by week of late, and this will make things still worse.”
“Not a bit of it,” he said with a laugh. “You will work all the better for the little rest. Just forget all about lessons and everything else that is a worry. Read a story book if you like—or, better still, do nothing at all. If you are all right to-morrow you can go to work again; but it will depend upon the way in which you rest to-day whether you are fit to go to work to-morrow, so take care.”
Dorothy had to submit with the best grace she could, and the doctor handed her over to the care of the matron, with instructions that she was to be coddled until the next day.
“I had been watching the game—that was why I happened to be on the spot,” he said to the matron as he turned away. “I don’t think I ever heard so much yelling at a hockey match before. I’m afraid I did some of it myself, for the play was really very good. I did not see how the accident happened, though; but I suppose one of the players in lunging for the ball just caught this young lady’s head instead.”
Dorothy elected to go straight to bed. If her getting back to work to-morrow depended on the manner in which she kept quiet to-day, then certainly she was going to be as quiet as possible.
Meanwhile great was the commotion among the hockey team. All the riotous satisfaction the Compton Schools would have felt at the victory which seemed so certain was dashed and spoiled by the accident which had happened just when Dorothy had made her splendid shot. “Who did it?” was the cry all round the field. But there was no response to this; and although there were so many looking on, no one seemed to be able to pick out the girls who were nearest to Dorothy, and there was no one who admitted having hit her by fluke.
The High School team said and did all the correct things, and then they suggested that the game should be called a draw. Naturally the Compton Schools did not like this; but, as Dora Selwyn said, a game was never lost until it was won, so the High School team had right on their side, and after a little talking on both sides it was settled to call it a draw.
Even this raised the Compton team to a higher level in hockey circles; henceforth no one would be able to flout them as inefficient, and the High School would have to treat them with greater respect in the future.
“We should not have done so well if the boys had not come to shout for us,” Dora admitted, when that night she had dropped into the study where Hazel and Margaret were sitting alone, for Jessie Wayne had hurt her ankle in getting out of the charabanc, and was resting downstairs.
“Noise is a help sometimes,” admitted Hazel, who wondered not a little why the head girl had come to talk to them that night, instead of leaving them free to work in peace.
She did not have to wonder long. After a moment of hesitation Dora burst out, “Why does Rhoda Fleming hate Dorothy Sedgewick so badly?”
“Mutual antagonism perhaps,” replied Hazel coolly. “Dorothy does not seem particularly drawn to Rhoda, so they may have decided to agree in not liking each other.”
“Don’t be flippant; I am out for facts, not fancies,” said the head girl sharply. She paused as if in doubt; then making up her mind in a hurry, she broke into impetuous speech. “I have found out that it was Rhoda who struck Dorothy down on the hockey field. But I am not supposed to know, and it is bothering me no end. I simply don’t know what I ought to do in the matter, so I have come to talk it over with you, because you are friends—Dorothy’s friends, I mean.”
“How did you find it out? Are you quite sure it is true?” gasped Hazel. “It is a frightfully serious thing, really. Why, a blow like that might have been fatal!”
“That is what makes me feel so bad about it,” said Dora. “I had a bath after we came back from the match, and I went to my cubicle and lay down for half-an-hour’s rest before tea. No one knew I was there except Miss Groome; she understood that I was feeling a bit knocked out with all the happenings, so she told me to go and get a little rest. I think I was beginning to doze when I heard two girls, Daisy Goatby and Joan Fletcher, come into the dorm, and they both came into Daisy’s cubicle, which is next to mine. They were talking in low tones, and they seemed very indignant about something; and I was going to call out and tell them not to talk secrets, because I was there, when I heard Daisy say in a very stormy tone that in future Rhoda Fleming might do her own dirty work, for she had entirely washed her hands of the whole business, and she did not intend to dance to Rhoda’s piping any more—no, not if next week found her at the bottom of the Form. Then Joan, in a very troubled fashion, asked if Daisy were quite sure—quite absolutely positive—that Rhoda aimed at Dorothy’s head instead of at the ball. Daisy sobbed for a minute in sheer rage, it seemed to me, and then she declared it was Dorothy’s head that was aimed at. There was some more talking that I could not hear, then some of the other girls came up, Joan went off to her own cubicle, and that was the end of it.”
“Good gracious, what a shocking business!” cried Hazel, going rather white, while Margaret shivered until her teeth chattered. “Dora, what are you going to do?”
“What can I do?” cried the head girl, throwing up her hands with a helpless gesture. “Suppose I went to the Head and made a statement, and she called upon Daisy to own up to what she knew, it is more than likely that Daisy would vow she never said anything of the sort. She would declare she did not see Rhoda strike Dorothy, and in all she said Joan would back her up. It would be two against one.”
“Daisy would speak the truth if she were pushed into a corner,” put in Margaret, who had not spoken before.
“She might, and again she might not.” Dora’s tone was scornful. “For all her size, Daisy is very much of a coward. Her position, too, would be so unpleasant that really it would take a good lot of real courage to face it. All the girls would point at her for telling tales, and Rhoda would pose as a martyr, and get all the sympathy she desired.”
“What are you going to do, then?” asked Hazel.
“I don’t see that anything can be done, except to wait and to keep our eyes open,” said Dora. “I wish you could find out what it is that Dorothy has over Rhoda—that might help us a little. It will be rather fun when this week’s marks come out if Daisy does go flop in her Form position.”
“Dorothy will have scored then, even though her work may be hindered,” said Margaret.