Clare was enjoying tea and triumph. She had worked hard for both, and was virtuously fatigued. The rocking-chair was comfortable, and the little gym mistress had brought her her favourite cakes. The Common-room, tinkling its tea-cups, buzzed criticism and approval. The rehearsal had been a success.
The talk centred, while opinion divided, on the Constance and the Prince Arthur. The general standpoint seemed to be that Agatha had reached the heights. Her royal robes had been effective; she reminded nearly every one of a favourite actress. Louise was less popular. A curious performance—very clever, of course—only one had not thought of Arthur quite like that! Now the Constance——
Clare, watching and listening, purred like a sleepy cat. She wondered why Alwynne was absent ... she was missing a lot.... Louise was annoying—she had been excessively irritated with her ten minutes before—and there was the debacle of the scholarship papers—but to class her with Agatha! What fools these women were!
The discussion had become argument, and was growing faintly acrimonious, when a deep voice cut across it.
Miss Hamilton, a visiting music mistress, always had a hearing when she chose to speak. She was a big woman, with a fine massive head and shrewd eyes. She dressed tweedily and carried her hands in her pockets, slouching a little. It was her harmless vanity to have none. Teaching music was her business; her recreations, hockey, and the more law-abiding forms of suffrage agitation. She was a level-headed and convincing speaker, with a triumphant sense of humour that could, and had, carried her successfullythrough many a fantastic situation. Rumours of her adventures had spread among the staff, if not through the school, and beglamoured her; she could have had a following if she had chosen. But her healthy twelve stone crashed through pedestals, and she established comradeship, as she helped you, laughter-shaken, to pick up the pieces.
A postponed lesson had given her time to attend the rehearsal, and she had afterwards joined the flock of mistresses at tea. Clare, who thought more of her opinion than she chose to own, had eyed her once or twice already, and at the sound of her voice she stopped her lazy rocking.
"But they are not in the same category! Any schoolgirl could have played Constance as What's-her-name played it, given the training she has had." Miss Hamilton nodded pleasantly to the rocking-chair. She appreciated Clare's capacities. "But Arthur——"
"Well, I thought Agatha was splendid," repeated a junior mistress stubbornly.
"She was. An excellent piece of work! 'But the hands were the hands of Esau.'"
"They always are," said the little gym mistress fervently.
Clare gave her a quick, brilliant smile. She blushed scarlet.
The music mistress laughed; she enjoyed her weekly glimpse of school interdependencies.
"Why did you single outKing John, Miss Hartill?" she inquired politely.
Clare was demure, but her eyes twinkled.
"The decision lay with Miss Marsham," she murmured.
"Of course. But having a Cinderella on the premises—eh?"
"If you know of a glass slipper——"
"You fit it on! Exactly! Where did you discover her?"
"Starving—literally starving, in the Lower Third." Clare thawed to the congenial listener. "It was an amazingperformance, wasn't it? Of course, there was nothing of the actual Arthur in it——"
Miss Hamilton nodded.
"That struck me. It was a child in trouble—not a boy. Not a girl either—but, of course, only a girl would be precocious enough to conceive and carry out the idea. If she did, that is!"
"Oh, it was original," Clare disclaimed prettily. "It had little to do with me. I had to let her go her own way."
Miss Hamilton liked her generosity.
"You're wise. It's all very well to trim the household lamps, but a burning bush is best left alone. I don't altogether envy you. Genius must be a disturbing factor in a school."
"You think she has genius?"
"It was more than precocity to-day—or talent. The Constance had talent."
"And was third in the scholarship papers. Louise failed completely. Isn't it inexplicable? What is one to do? Of course, it was disgraceful: she should have been first. I expected it. I coached her myself. I know her possibilities. Frankly, I am deeply disappointed."
Miss Hamilton pulled her chair nearer. She was interested; Clare was not usually so communicative. But their further conversation was interrupted by the opening of the door, and old Miss Marsham appeared on a visit of congratulation, accepting tea and dispensing compliments with equal stateliness.
"An excellent performance! We must felicitate each other—and Miss Hartill. But we are accustomed to great things from Miss Hartill. There can be no uneasiness to-morrow. The child in the green coat, in that scene—ah, you remember? I thought her a trifle indistinct. Perhaps a hint——? Altogether it was excellent. Especially the Constance—most dramatic. If I may criticise—acting is not my department—but the Prince Arthur? Now, wereyou satisfied? Louise is a dear child, but hardly suitable, eh?"
Clare stiffened.
"I thought her acting remarkable."
"Did you? Now I can't help feeling that Shakespeare never intended it like that. He makes him such a dear little boy. It's so pathetic, you know, where he begs the man not to put out his eyes. So childlike and touching. Like little Lord Fauntleroy. I know I cried when I saw it, years ago. Now this child was not at all appealing."
Clare shrugged her shoulders.
"It is not a pretty scene, Miss Marsham, though the managers conspire to make us think so. A child at the mercy of brutes, knowing its own danger, terrorised into the extreme of cunning, parading its poor little graces with the skill of a mondaine—it's not pretty! And Louise spared us nothing."
Miss Marsham fidgeted.
"If that is your view of the scene, Miss Hartill, I wonder that you consider it fit for a school performance."
Clare hedged.
"My private view doesn't matter, after all. Traditionally it is inadmissible, of course. But if you would like the treatment altered a little, I will speak to Louise. It is only the dress rehearsal, of course."
Miss Marsham looked relieved.
"Perhaps it would be better. A little more childlike, you know. But don't let her think me annoyed, Miss Hartill; I am sure she has worked so hard. Just a hint, you know. I should not like her feelings to be hurt. Poor child, the results were a sad disappointment to her, I'm afraid. You spoke to her about the change of class?"
"Yes."
"I hope she was not distressed?"
Clare remembered the look on Louise's face. She hesitated.
"She will get over it," she said.
The kind old woman looked worried.
"You must not let her feel that she has failed over this, Miss Hartill—on the top of the other trouble. You will be judicious?"
A door slammed in the distance; there was a blurr of voices, a sound of hurrying footsteps.
Clare rose impatiently; she was tired of the subject.
"It will be all right, Miss Marsham. I understand Louise. What in the world is that disgraceful noise?"
But the door was flung open before she could reach it. Alwynne stood in the aperture, panting a little. In her arms lay Louise, her head falling limply, like a dead bird's. Behind them, peering faces showed for a moment, white against the dusk of the passage. Then Alwynne, staggering beneath the dead weight, stumbled forward, and the door swung to with a crash.
The roomful of women stared in horrified silence.
"She's dead," said Alwynne. "I found her on the steps. She fell from a window. One of the children saw it. She's dead."
She swayed forward to the empty rocking-chair, and sat down, the child's body clasped to her breast. She looked like a young mother.
Clare, watching half stupified, saw a thin trickle of blood run out across her bare arm.
It woke her.
"Send for a doctor!" screamed Clare. "Send for a doctor! Will nobody send for a doctor?"
The sudden death of Louise Denny had shocked, each in her degree, every member of the staff. The general view was that such a deplorable accident could and should have been impossible. Every one remembered having long ago thought that the old-fashioned windows were unsafe, and having wondered why precautions had never been taken. Every one, the first horror over, canvassed the result of the unavoidable inquest, and speculated whether any one would be censured for carelessness. The younger mistresses were so sure that it was nobody's business to be on duty in the dressing-room at that particular hour that they spent the rest of the hushed, horror-stricken day in telling each other so, proclaiming, a trifle too insistently, their relief that they at least had nothing, however remote, to do with the affair: while inwardly they ransacked their memories to recall if perchance some half-heard order, some forgotten promise of standing substitute or relieving guard could, at the last moment, implicate them.
But the task of quieting and occupying the frightened children, and of clearing away, as far as might be, all traces of the dress rehearsal, was at least distraction. On the heads of the school, real and nominal, the strain was immeasurably greater. It was first truly felt, indeed, many hours later. Old Miss Marsham, in whom the shock had awakened something of her old-time decision of character, had conducted the interview with the decorously grieving parents with sufficient dignity; had overseen the temporary resting-place of the dead child; had communicated with doctors, lawyers and officials. But the spurt of energy had subsided with the necessity for it. She had retired late at night to her own apartments and the ministrations of herefficient maid, a broken old commander, facing tremulously the calamity that had befallen her life-work: foreseeing and exaggerating its effect on the future of the school, planning feverishly her defence from the gossip that must ensue. An accident ... of course, an accident ... a terrible yet unforeseeable accident.... That was the point.... At all costs it must be shown that it was an accident pure and simple, with never a whisper of negligence against authority or underling.... But she was an old woman.... She needed, she supposed bitterly, a shock of this kind to humble her into realising that her day was over.... She had been driving with slack reins this many a long year.... She had known it and had hoped that no one shared her knowledge. And none had known.... So there came this pitiful occurrence to advertise her weakness to the world.... The poor child! Ah, the poor little child! There had been a lack of supervision, no doubt ... some such gross carelessness as she, in her heyday, would never have tolerated.... And she was grown too old, too feeble to hold enquiry—to dispense strict justice.... She must depend on the lieutenants who had failed her, to hush the matter up—to make the administration of the school appear blameless.... They could do that, she did not doubt, and so she must be content.... But in the day of her strength she would not have been content.... But she was old.... It was time for her to abdicate.... She must put her affairs in order, name her successor—Clare Hartill or the secretary, she supposed.... They knew her ways.... There was that bright girl who had faced her to-day with the little child in her arms ... what was her name? Daughter or niece of some old pupil of her own.... She could more easily have seen her in her seat than either of her vice-regents.... So young and strong and eager.... She had been like that once.... Now she was a weak old woman, and because of her weakness a little child lay dead in her house.... Yes, Martha might put her to bed.... Why not? She was very tired.
Henrietta Vigers had also her anxieties. She had so long claimed the position of virtual head that there was no doubt in her own mind that other people would consider her as responsible as if she had been the actual one. She worried incessantly. Should she have had bars put up to those old-fashioned windows? She, who was responsible for all the household arrangements? Ought she not to have foreseen the danger and guarded against it? And there was the matter of the dressing-room mistress.... For the school machinery she had made herself even more pointedly responsible.... She should have arranged for some one to oversee the children.... But the dressing-room had been a temporary one and she had overlooked the necessity.... Yet if some one had been in the room the accident could impossibly have happened.... She felt that she would be lucky to escape public censure, that loss of prestige in the eyes at least of the head mistress was inevitable.
But the more or less selfish perturbation, as distinct from the emotion of sheer humanity, that was aroused by the death of the little schoolgirl in the two older women, was as nothing to the sensation of sick dismay that it awoke in Clare Hartill. She, too, through the night that followed on the accident, lay awake till sunrise, considering her position. She was stunned by the unexpectedness of the catastrophe; a little grieved for the loss of Louise, but, above all, intensely and quite selfishly frightened. She felt guilty. She remembered, remorselessly enlightened, the afternoon, the expression in Louise's eyes, and not for one instant did she share the general belief in the accidental nature of her death. Her conscience would not allow her the comfort of such self-deception. Later she might lull it to sleep again, but for the moment it was awake, and her master. This same keen-witted conscience of hers, this quintessence of her secret admirations and considered opinions, her epicurean appreciation of what was guileless and beautiful and worthy, co-existing, as it did, with the intellectualised sensuality of her imperious and carnal personality, was nosmall trial to Clare. Though it could not sway her decisions nor influence her actions by one hair's-breadth, it was at least cynically active, as now, to prick and fret at her peace. It was, indeed, at the root of the whimsical irritability that, for all her charm, made her an impossible housemate.
Essentially, her attitude to life was simple. It was an orange, to be squeezed for her pleasure. It must serve her; but she owed it, therefore, no duty. She found that she achieved a maximum of pleasurable sensations by following the dictates of that mind which is the mouthpiece of body, while indulging, as Lucullus ate turnips, in austere flirtations with that other mind, which is the mouthpiece of spirit. So she served Mammon, or rather, she allowed Mammon to serve her, but she was, on occasions, critically interested in God. And this was her undoing. Could she have been content to be frankly selfish, she might have been happy enough, but her very interest in the kingdom of Heaven had created her conscience, and had laid her open to its attacks. She ignored it, and it made her wretched: she compromised with it, and became a hypocrite.
She resented the death of Louise because it challenged her whole scheme of life. She was furiously angry with the dead child for what she felt to be an indictment of her legitimate amusements. Louise, so meek and ineffectual, had yet been able to steal a march on her, had stabbed in the back and run away, beyond reach of Clare's retaliation.... Louise had fooled her.... She, Clare, proud of her insight, her complete knowledge of character, her alert intuition, had yet had no inkling of what was passing in that childish mind.... If she had guessed, however vaguely, she could have taken measures, have scourged the mere suggestion of such monstrous rebellion out of that subject soul.... But Louise, secure in her insignificance, had tricked her, planned her sure escape.... But how unhappy she must have been!...
In a sudden revulsion of feeling Clare grew faint withpity, as she tried to realise the child's state of mind during the past months. Her thoughts went back to the Christmas Day they had spent together. She had been happy enough then.... Half sincerely she tried to puzzle out the change in Louise, the gradual deterioration that had led to the tragedy. Had she been to blame? Louise had grown tiresome, and she had snubbed her.... There was the thing in a nutshell.... If she was to be so tender of the feelings of all the silly girls who sentimentalised over her, where would it end, at all?
Poor little Louise.... She had been really fond of her at the beginning.... She had thought for a time that she might even supplant Alwynne.... But Louise had disappointed her.... She had let her work go to the dogs.... All her originality and charm fizzled out.... She had ceased to be interesting.... And she, Clare, had naturally been bored and had shown it.... Why couldn't the child take it quietly? If Louise had only known—and had conducted herself with tact—Clare had been preparing to be nicer to her again.... She had been deeply interested in her performance of the morning, had recognised its uncanny sincerity—had thought, with a distinct quickening of interest, that Louise was recovering herself at last, and that it might be as well to take her in hand again.... Oh, she had been full of benevolent impulses! But then Louise had been tiresome again ... had stopped her and made a scene.... She hated scenes ... at least (with a laugh) scenes that were not of her own devising....
She supposed she should have recognised that the child was overwrought—terribly overwrought by the emotions aroused by such an interpretation as she had insisted upon giving.... She ought never to have been allowed to play it like that.... That was Alwynne's doing.... Alwynne had persuaded Clare to leave Louise to her own devices.... Alwynne was so headstrong.... She hoped that Alwynne would never need to realise how much she was to blame....
Here she became aware that her conscience was convulsed with cynical laughter. She flushed in the darkness, her opportune sense of injury increasing.
Alwynne might well be distressed.... If any awkward questions should be asked, Alwynne might find herself uncomfortably placed.... People would wonder that she had not noticed how unbalanced Louise was growing.... Every one knew how intimate, how ridiculously intimate, she and Louise had become.... Alwynne had fussed over her like an old hen ... had even on occasion questioned her, Clare's, method with her.... She must have known what was in Louise's mind.... Yet Clare had no doubt that people would be only too ready to accuse her, rather than Alwynne, of criminal obtuseness.... Henrietta Vigers, for instance.... Henrietta would be less prejudiced than many others, though.... She was no friend to Alwynne.... It might do no harm to talk over the matter with Henrietta Vigers.... A word or two would be enough....
Of course it would be considered an accident.... But if by any chance, vague suspicions were rife, a judicious talk with Henrietta would have served, at least, to prevent Clare from being made their object.... She had her enemies, she knew.... Alwynne, with her easy popularity, had none save Henrietta.... A few waspish remarks from Henrietta would not hurt Alwynne.... Clare would protect Alwynne from serious annoyance, of course.... If the mistresses—the school—oh, if the whole world turned against Alwynne, Clare would make it up to her.... What did Alwynne want, after all, with any one but Clare? The less the world gave Alwynne, the more she would be content with Clare, the more entirely she would be Clare's own property.... It was a good idea.... She would certainly speak to Miss Vigers....
She was outlining that conversation till she fell asleep.
On the following afternoon Clare and Henrietta were sitting together in the mistresses' room. The afternoon classes were over and the day pupils and mistresses had gone home. The boarders were at supper and the staff with them.
But Henrietta had taken no notice of the supper-hour. She had more work in hand than she could well compass—letters to write and answer, of explanation, and enquiry, and condolence. She could have found time for her supper, nevertheless, but when she was overworked she liked her world to be aware of it. Clare, contrary to her custom, had stayed late. She was waiting for Alwynne. She had offered, perfunctorily enough, her assistance, but Henrietta had refused all help from her. Yet Henrietta had turned over the bulk of her formal correspondence to Alwynne, who sat, hard at work, in the adjacent office. She disliked Alwynne, but accepted the very necessary help from her more easily than from Clare Hartill. Yet she was softened by Clare's offer, which she had refused, and not at all grateful for Alwynne's help, though she accepted it.
She wrote busily for more than an hour, and Clare, silent, scarcely moving, sat watching her. Henrietta had, for once, no feeling of impatience at her idle supervision. She did not experience her usual sensation of intimidated antagonism. It was as if the stress of the last twenty-four hours had temporarily atoned the two incongruous characters. Neither by look or gesture had Clare flouted any suggestion or arrangement of Henrietta's—indeed, her presence had been quite distinctly a support. Henrietta had appealed more than once, and even confidently, to her.Henrietta had thought, with a touch of compunction, how strangely trouble brought out the best in people. Miss Hartill had been very proud of Louise Denny; evidently felt her death. The shock was causing her to unbend. Not, as one would have expected, to Alwynne Durand—she hoped, by the way, that Miss Durand was addressing those envelopes legibly: she did so dislike an explosive handwriting—no, Miss Hartill was turning, very properly, to herself in the emergency.... She was pleased.... There should be free-masonry between the heads of the school.... And Clare Hartill, for all her lazy indifference, was influential and enormously capable.... Henrietta wondered if it would be safe to consult her.... She might, without acknowledging a definite uneasiness, find out cautiously whether it had occurred to Miss Hartill that she, Henrietta, might be considered to have been negligent.
She glanced across at her inscrutable colleague. Clare was staring thoughtfully at her. Her lips were puffed a little, as if in doubt.
Their eyes met for a moment in a glance that was almost one of understanding.
Henrietta hesitated, for the first time not at all disconcerted by Clare's direct gaze. But the sparkle of gay malice that attracted half her world, and disconcerted the other half, was gone from Clare's eyes. Their expression, for the time being, was calm, possibly friendly; at any rate, irreproachably matter-of-fact.
Henrietta flung down her pen with a sigh of fatigue, and bent and unbent her cramped fingers. But it was not fatigue that made her stop work. She wanted to talk to Clare Hartill, and had a queer conviction that Clare Hartill wanted to talk to her.
"Finished?" Clare spoke from the shadow of her deep chair. Her back was to the light, but Henrietta faced the west window. The evening sun laid bare her face for Clare's inspection. Not a flicker of expression could escape her, if she chose to look.
"More or less. I want half-an-hour's rest."
"I don't wonder. You've had everything to see to." Clare's voice was delicately sympathetic.
Henrietta unbent.
"A secretary's work isn't showy, Miss Hartill, but it's necessary: and any happening that's out of the common doubles it. The correspondence over this unhappy affair alone——"
"I know. Of course, at Miss Marsham's age——"
"It all falls on me! People don't realise that. The extra work is enormous. Miss Marsham depends on me so entirely, of course."
"Yes, yes," murmured Clare appreciatively.
Henrietta played with her papers.
"I feel the responsibility very strongly," she said abruptly; but her tone was confidential.
Clare nodded.
"Yet, of course—as far as nominal responsibility goes—I am not the head of the school. I cannot be held responsible—any oversight——"
Clare nodded.
"Oh, Miss Vigers—you merely carry out instructions, like the rest of us"—she hesitated imperceptibly—"officially," she added slowly.
Henrietta looked relieved.
"I am so glad you see what I mean."
"Oh, I do, entirely," Clare assured her grimly.
"I'm not heartless," said Henrietta suddenly, flushing. Her tone justified herself against unuttered criticism. "And the poor child's death was as much a shock to me as to any one. But I was not fond of her—as you were, for instance——"
Clare's pose never altered.
"I was very proud of her," she said gently. "I thought her an exceptional child. But, as Miss Durand said to me only a few days ago—I didn't really know her: not, at least, as she did. Alwynne, I know, thinks we have lost agenius. But you're right—it was a shock to me—a terrible shock."
"It was that to everybody, naturally. But in a way it's curious," said Henrietta meditatively, "how much we all feel it—how oppressively, at least: for I don't think any one was very fond of Louise."
"Oh, Miss Durand was deeply attached to her," Clare protested, her beautiful voice low with emotion.
"Yes, of course! Oh, I've noticed that." Clare's unusual accessibility made Henrietta anxious to agree. Also, though she had noticed nothing unusual, she did not wish to appear lacking in penetration. She recalled Alwynne's haggard face; recollected how much she had had to do with the child; and decided that Clare was probably right.
"But except for her," she went on, "and your interest in her——"
"I've never had such a pupil," said Clare calmly. "Industrious—original—oh, I shall miss her, I know. But you're right—she was not popular——"
"Yet everybody feels her death—among ourselves, I mean—to an extraordinary degree. After all—an accident is only an accident, however dreadful! But there's a sort of oppression on us—a kind of fear. Do you know what I mean? I think we all feel it. It draws us together in a curious way."
"'The Tie of Common Funk,'" rapped out Clare, forgetting her rôle.
Henrietta stiffened.
"I don't think it is an occasion for slang," she said. "The child's not buried yet."
Clare bit back a flippancy.
"I thought you would realise," continued Henrietta severely, "that the situation is trying for us all——"
"Of course I do." Clare hastened to soothe her. "But seriously, Miss Vigers, I do not think you need be anxious. The inquest—oh, a painful ordeal, if you like. But you, at least, can have no reason to reproach yourself."
Henrietta relaxed again.
"No! As I say, I'm not the head of the school. I'm not responsible for regulations—only for carrying them out. And accidents will happen."
"I only hope," said Clare, as if to herself, "that it will be considered an accident——"
Henrietta stared.
"But Miss Hartill! Of course it was an accident!"
Clare looked at her wistfully.
"Yes! It was, wasn't it? Yes, of course! It must have been an accident." Her tone dismissed the matter.
But Henrietta was on the alert. Her own anxieties had been skilfully allayed. Her mind was recovering poise. She nosed a mystery and her reviving sense of importance insisted on sharing the knowledge of it.
"Miss Hartill—you are not suggesting——?" Her tone invited confidence.
Clare gave a little natural laugh.
"Oh, my dear woman—I'm all nerves just at present. Of course I'm not suggesting anything. One gets absurd ideas into one's head. I'm only too relieved to hear you laugh at me. Your common sense is always a real support to me, you know. I've grown to depend on it all these years. I'm afraid I've got into the way of taking it too much for granted."
She gave a charming little deprecatory shrug.
Henrietta flushed: she felt herself warming unaccountably to Clare Hartill. She wondered why she had never before taken the trouble to draw her out.... She was evidently a woman of heart as well as brain. She felt vaguely that she must constantly have been unjust to her. But these sensations only whetted her eager curiosity. She pulled in her chair to the hearth.
"But what ideas, Miss Hartill? If you will tell me—I should be the last person to laugh. I have far too much respect for—I wish you would tell me what is worryingyou. Does anything make you think it was not an accident?"
Clare was the picture of reluctance.
"Impressions—vague ideas—is it fair to formulate them? Even if Louise were unbalanced—but, of course, I did not see much of her out of class. I confess I thought her manner strained at times. But I teach. I have nothing to do with the supervision of the younger children."
"That is Miss Durand's business," remarked Henrietta crisply.
"Oh, but if she had noticed anything——" began Clare. Then, lamely, "Obviously she didn't——"
"It was her business to. She should have reported to me. Why, she coached Louise, didn't she?"
"Of course, if Louise had really overworked—badly——" reflected Clare, with the distressed air of one on whom unwelcome ideas are dawning. "One hears of cases—in Germany—but it's impossible!"
Henrietta looked genuinely shocked, but none the less she was excited.
"She failed in that exam.——" she adduced.
"Yes! Miss Durand coached her for that, you know. Poor Miss Durand! How she slaved over her! She was dreadfully disappointed," said Clare indulgently.
"Of course, she let her overdo herself!" cried Henrietta triumphantly. "But you coached her too—didn't you notice either?"
"I coach the whole class. You know how busy I am. I'm afraid I left Louise a good deal to Alwynne," said Clare regretfully.
"But she's supposed to be grown up—an asset to the school, according to Miss Marsham," said Henrietta tartly. "But, I must say, if she couldn't see that the child was doing too much, she's not fit to teach——"
"Oh, my dear!" cried Clare, distressed. "You mustn't say such things. You've no idea how conscientious Alwynneis. She may have worked Louise too hard—but with the best intentions. She would be heartbroken if you suggested it."
"Oh, you are always very lenient to Miss Durand," began Henrietta, with a touch of jealousy.
"Ah! She's so young! So full of the zeal of youth. Besides, I'm very fond of her." Clare's smile took Henrietta into her confidence—confessed to an amiable weakness.
Henrietta brooded.
"Oh, Miss Hartill, you talk of my common sense. I wish—I wish you could see Miss Durand from my point of view for a moment." She eyed Clare, attentive and plastic in her shadows, and took courage. "This—appalling—probability——"
"Possibility——" Clare deprecated.
"Oh, but it seems terribly probable to me—only carries on my idea of Miss Durand. She is so ignorant—so inexperienced—so undisciplined—she cannot possibly have a good influence on young children——"
"She is my friend!" Clare reminded her, with gentle dignity.
"And if your suspicions are correct—if Louise's death were not accidental—if it had anything to do with her state of mind—if it were the effect of overwork—I consider—I must consider Miss Durand in some measure responsible. I feel that Miss Marsham should be told."
Clare shook her head. Her solemn, candid eyes abashed Henrietta.
"Miss Vigers—we are speaking in confidence. I should never forgive myself if anything I've said to you were repeated."
"Of course, of course!" Henrietta appeased her hastily. "But I've had my own suspicions—oh, for a long time, I assure you. I've not been blind. And I might feel it my duty—on my account, you understand—after all MissMarsham depends on me implicitly—to speak to her—for the sake of the school——"
Clare considered.
"That, of course—I can't prevent. But Miss Vigers—forgive me—but—don't let your sense of responsibility make you unfair. And for heaven's sake, don't let my vague uneasiness—it's really nothing more—affect your judgment. We may both be utterly mistaken. I am sure the result of the inquest will prove us mistaken after all—it will be found to have been an accident."
Henrietta closed her lips obstinately.
Clare rose in her place.
"It was an accident!" she cried passionately. "In my heart I am sure. I wish I'd never said anything to you. I'd no right to be suspicious. Think of what Miss Durand's feelings would be if she realised——" She flung out her hands appealingly. "Oh, we're two overwrought women, aren't we? Sitting in the dusk and scaring ourselves with bogies. It was an accident, Miss Vigers—a tragic accident! Make yourself think so! Make me think so too!" Her beautiful eyes implored comfort.
Henrietta, quite touched, patted her awkwardly on the arm. She enjoyed her transient superiority.
"Of course, of course, we'll try to think so. Now you must go home. You are quite overwrought. It will be a trying day for us all to-morrow. I shall go to bed early too. Won't you go home now?"
Clare nodded, mute, grateful. She went to her peg, and took down her hat and jacket.
"Have you finished with Miss Durand? She was going home with me."
"Oh! Miss Durand!" Henrietta's tone grew crisper. "Yes, of course. I'll see if she has done. I'll send her to you. And you mustn't let yourself worry, Miss Hartill. Leave it all to me. These things are more my province. Good-night!" said Henrietta cordially.
She left the room.
Clare, pinning on her hat, stared critically at herself in the inadequate mirror.
"I think," she said confidentially, "we did that rather well."
She smiled. The cynical lips smiled back at her.
"You beast!" cried Clare, with sudden passion. "You beast! You beast!"
She was still staring at herself when Alwynne came for her.
Clare Hartill's precautions proved to be unnecessary as the alarms of her colleagues. The inquest was a formal and quickly concluded affair, and the only corollary to the verdict of accidental death was an expression of sympathy with all concerned.
Whereon, there being no further cause for the detaining of Louise Denny above ground, she was elegantly and expeditiously buried.
The whole school attended the funeral. The flowers required a second carriage, and for the first time in his life, Mr. Denny was genuinely proud of his daughter. He did not believe that his own death could have extracted more lavish tributes from the purses of his acquaintances.
Clare Hartill, writing a card for her wreath of incredible orchids, did not regret her extravagance. After all—one must keep up one's position.... There would certainly not be such another wreath in the churchyard.... How Louise would have exclaimed over it! Poor child.... It was all one could do for her now. Clare hesitated, pen arrested—"With deepest sympathy." It was not necessary to write anything more.... Her name was printed already.... But Louise would have liked a message.... After all, she had been very proud of Louise....
She reversed the card, and wrote, almost illegibly, in a corner, "Louise—with love. C. H." She paused, lips pursed. Sentimental, perhaps? Possibly.... But let it go....
Hastily she impaled her card on its attendant pin, and thrust it, print upward, among the flowers. The message was for Louise; no one else need see it.
Alwynne, too, sent flowers. But as usual she had spent all but a fraction of her salary. Seven and sixpence does not make a show, even if the garland be home-made. The shabby wreath was forgotten among the crowd of hot-house blooms. It lay in a corner till the day after the funeral. Then the housemaid threw it away.
So Louise had no message from Alwynne.
By the end of a fortnight Louise was barely a memory in the school. A month had obliterated her entirely.
Yet her short career and sudden death had its influence on school and individual alike. Miss Marsham had had her lesson; she began to make her preliminary preparations for giving up her head mistress-ship, and selling her interest in the school; though it was the following spring before she began to negotiate definitely with Clare, on whom her choice had finally fallen. She would not be hurried; she would not appear anxious to settle her affairs; but she had determined, between regret and relief, that the next summer should be the last of her reign.
Henrietta, though her anxieties were abated by the turn affairs had taken, was still doubtful whether Miss Marsham were as blindly reliant upon her as usual. But, though feeling her position still somewhat insecure, her spirits had risen, and her natural love of interference had risen with them. She could not forget her conversation with Miss Hartill: an amazing conversation—a conversation teeming with suggestions and possibilities.... Of course, Miss Hartill had had no idea, poor distracted woman, of how skilfully Henrietta had drawn her out.... Henrietta felt pleased with herself. Without once referring to Miss Hartill, she could follow out her own plans as far as Miss Durand was concerned.... Later, Miss Hartill might remember that apparently innocent conversation and realise that Henrietta had stolen a march on her.... Yet, though she might be loyally angry, for her friend's sake, she could not do anything to cross Henrietta's arrangements ... could not wish to do anything, because essentially,if reluctantly, she had approved them, had recognised that it was time to curtail Miss Durand's activities....
Henrietta felt virtuous. Miss Durand had brought it on herself.... She wished her no harm.... But it was right that Marsham should realise how far she was from an ideal school-mistress.... She had been engaged as scholastic maid-of-all-work.... Yet in a few terms she had become second only to Miss Hartill herself.... It was not fit.... Let her go back to her beginnings.... She, Henrietta, had only to open Miss Marsham's eyes.... But to that end there must be evidence....
For the rest of the term, patient and peering as a rag-picker, she went about collecting her evidence.
Clare did not give another thought to her conversation with the gimlet-eyed secretary. It had served its purpose—had been a barrier between herself and the possibility of attack—had given her a feeling of security. She perceived, nevertheless, that her transient affability had made Henrietta violently her adherent. Clare was resigned to knowing that the change of face would be temporary—she could not allow a parading of herself as an intimate, and thither, she shrewdly suspected, would Henrietta's amenities lead. But she found it amusing to be gracious, as long as no more was expected of her. She did not like Henrietta one whit the better; felt herself, indeed, degraded by the expedient to which she had resorted, and fiercely despised her tool. Henrietta should be given rope, might attack Alwynne unhindered, nevertheless she should hang herself at the last.... Clare would ensure that.... Once—Henrietta had called her a cat.... Oh, she had heard of it! Well—for the present, she would purr to Henrietta, blank-eyed, claws sheathed.... Let her serve her turn.
But Clare, beneath her schemes and jealousies, was, nevertheless, deeply and sincerely unhappy. The removal of the entirely selfish and cold-blooded panic that had been upon her since Louise's death, left her free to entertaindeeper and sincerer feelings. She thought of Louise incessantly, with a growing feeling of regret and responsibility. She hated responsibility, though she loved authority—she had always shut her eyes to the effects of her caprices. But the more she thought of Louise, the more insistent grew her qualms. That the child was dead of its own will, she never doubted; but she fought desperately against the suggestion that her own conduct could have affected its state of mind, was ready to accept the most preposterous premise, whose ensuing chain of reasoning could acquit her. But nobody having accused her, no ingenuity of herself or another, could, for the time being, acquit her. She was merely a prey to her own intangible uneasinesses. Yet it needed but a key to set the whole machinery of her conscience in motion against her. The key was to be found.
The term was drawing to an end, and Alwynne, rounding off her special classes and generally making up arrears, was proportionately busy. She still spent her week-ends with Clare, but she brought her work along with her. She had her corner of the table, and Clare her desk, and the two would work till the small hours.
But by the last Sunday evening, Clare's piles of reports and examination papers had disappeared, and she was free to lie at ease on her sofa, and to laugh at Alwynne, still immersed in exercise books, and tantalise her with airy plans for the long, delicious holidays. It had been, in spite of the season, a day of rain and cold winds. The skies had cleared at the sunset, with its red promise of fine weather once more, but the remnant of a fire still smouldered on the hearth. Alwynne was flushed with the interest of her work, but ever and again Clare shivered, and pulled the quilted sofa-wrap more closely about her. She wished that Alwynne would be quick.... Surely Alwynne could finish off her work some other time.... It wouldn't hurt her to get up early for once, for that matter.... She was bored.... She was dull.... She wanted amusement.... She wanted Alwynne, and attention, and affection, and a littlebutterfly kiss or two.... Alwynne ought to be awake to the fact that she was wanted....
She watched her, between fretfulness and affection, æsthetically appreciative of the big young body in the lavender frock, and the crown of shining hair, pleased with her property, intensely impatient of its interest in anything but herself.
"Alwynne——?" There was a hint of neglect in her voice.
Alwynne beamed, but her eyes were abstracted.
"Only another half-hour, Clare. I must just finish these. You don't mind, do you?"
"I? Mind?" Clare laughed elaborately. She picked up a book, and there was silence once more.
Leaves fluttered and a pen scraped. The light began to fade.
Suddenly Alwynne gave a smothered exclamation. Clare looked up and pulled herself upright, angry enough.
"Alwynne! Your carelessness—you've dropped your wet pen on my carpet. It's too bad."
Alwynne groped hastily beneath the table. But even the prolonged stooping had not brought back the colour to her cheek, as she replaced her pen on the stand.
"I'm sorry. I was startled. It hasn't marked it. Clare—just listen to this."
"What have you got hold of?" demanded Clare irritably. She disliked spots and spillings and mess, as Alwynne might know.
"It's Louise's composition book. I always wondered where it had got to, when I cleared out her desk. It must have lain about and got collected in with the rest, yesterday."
"Well?" said Clare, with a show of indifference.
"Here's that essay on King John and his times. Do you remember? You gave it to them to do just before the play. It's not corrected. Not finished." She hesitated. "Clare! It's rather queer."
"Is it any good?" said Clare meditatively.
"What for?"
"The School Magazine. We're short of copy. The child wrote well. But I suppose it wouldn't do to use it—though I don't see why not."
Suddenly Alwynne began to read aloud.
"Another way by which King John got money from the Jews was by threatening them with torture. He was all-powerful. He could draw their teeth, tooth by tooth, twist their thumbs, or leave them to rot in dark, silent prisons. They could not do anything against him. If he could not force them to yield up their treasure he would have them burned, or cause them to be pressed to death. This is a horrible torture. I read about a woman who was killed in this way in the 'Hundred Best Books'; and there was a man in Good King Charles's days whom they killed like this. It is the worst death of any. They tie you down, so that you cannot move at all, and there is a slab of stone that hangs a little above you. This sinks very slowly, so that all the first day you just lie and stare at it and wonder if it really moves. People come and give you food and laugh at you. You are scarcely afraid, because it moves so little and you think nobody could be really so cruel and hurt you so horribly, and that you will be saved somehow. But all the time the stone is sinking—sinking—and the day goes by and the night comes and they leave you alone. And perhaps you go to sleep at last. You are horribly tired, because of the weeks of fear that are behind you. Perhaps you dream. You dream you are free and people love you, and you have done nothing wrong and you are frightfully happy, and the one you love most kisses your forehead. But then the kiss grows so cold that you shrink away, only you cannot, and it presses you harder and harder, and you wake up and it is the stone. It is the sinking stone that is pressing you, pressing you, pressing you to death—and you cannot move. And you shriek andshriek for help within your gagged mouth, and no one comes, and always the stone is pressing you, pressing you, pressing you——"
"Another way by which King John got money from the Jews was by threatening them with torture. He was all-powerful. He could draw their teeth, tooth by tooth, twist their thumbs, or leave them to rot in dark, silent prisons. They could not do anything against him. If he could not force them to yield up their treasure he would have them burned, or cause them to be pressed to death. This is a horrible torture. I read about a woman who was killed in this way in the 'Hundred Best Books'; and there was a man in Good King Charles's days whom they killed like this. It is the worst death of any. They tie you down, so that you cannot move at all, and there is a slab of stone that hangs a little above you. This sinks very slowly, so that all the first day you just lie and stare at it and wonder if it really moves. People come and give you food and laugh at you. You are scarcely afraid, because it moves so little and you think nobody could be really so cruel and hurt you so horribly, and that you will be saved somehow. But all the time the stone is sinking—sinking—and the day goes by and the night comes and they leave you alone. And perhaps you go to sleep at last. You are horribly tired, because of the weeks of fear that are behind you. Perhaps you dream. You dream you are free and people love you, and you have done nothing wrong and you are frightfully happy, and the one you love most kisses your forehead. But then the kiss grows so cold that you shrink away, only you cannot, and it presses you harder and harder, and you wake up and it is the stone. It is the sinking stone that is pressing you, pressing you, pressing you to death—and you cannot move. And you shriek andshriek for help within your gagged mouth, and no one comes, and always the stone is pressing you, pressing you, pressing you——"
Clare caught the exercise-book from Alwynne's hand and thrust it into the heart of the half-dead fire. It lay unlighted, charring and smouldering. The unformed handwriting stood out very clearly. Clare caught at a matchbox, and tore it open; the matches showered out over her hand on to the rug and grate. She struck one after another, breaking them before they could light. Silently Alwynne took the box from her shaking fingers, lit a match and held it to the twisting papers. A thin little flame flickered up, overran them eagerly, wavered a second, and died with a faint whistling sigh.
"Do you hear that? Did you see that?" Clare knelt upright on the hearth. She held up her forefinger. "Listen! Like a voice! Like a child's voice! A child sighing! Light the candles—light all the candles! I want light everywhere. No room for any shadow."
But as Alwynne moved obediently, she caught at her hand.
"Alwynne! Stay with me! Don't go into another room. Alwynne, I'm frightened of my thoughts."
Alwynne put her hand shyly on her shoulders, talking at random.
"Clare, dear, do get up. Come on to the sofa. You mustn't kneel there. You'll strain yourself. I always get tired kneeling in church. It makes one's heart ache."
Clare would not move.
"Don't you think my heart aches?" she said. "Don't you think it aches all day? You're young—you're cold—you can sit there reading, reading—with a ghost at your shoulder——"
An undecipherable expression flashed across Alwynne's face. It came but to go—and Clare, absorbed in her own passion, saw nothing.
"It's Louise!" she cried, between sincerity and histrionics. "Calling to some one. Calling from her grave. They call it an accident, like fools. Oh, can't you hear? She died because she was forced. She's complaining—plaining—plaining——I tell you it's nothing to do with me. It wasn't my fault!"
She flung her arms about Alwynne's waist and clutched her convulsively. She was sincere enough at last.
"Alwynne! Alwynne! Say it was not my fault."
Alwynne sank to her knees beside her and held her close. They clung to each other like scared children. But Clare's abandonment awoke all Alwynne's protective instincts. She crushed down whatever emotions had hollowed her eyes and whitened her cheeks in the last long weeks, and addressed herself to quieting Clare. Clare, stepped off her pedestal, unpoised, clinging helplessly, was a new experience. In the face of it she felt herself childish, inadequate. But Clare was in trouble and needed her. The very marvel of it steadied. All her love for Clare rose within her, overflowed her, like a warm tide.
By sheer strength she pulled Clare into a chair and dropped on to the floor beside her, face upturned, talking fast and eagerly.
"You're not to talk like that. Of course it's not your fault. If anything could be your fault. Clare, darling, don't look like that. You must lean back and rest. You're just tired, you know. We've talked of it so often. You know it was an accident. Why can't you believe it, if every one else does?"
"Do you?" said Clare intently.
Alwynne's eyes met hers defiantly.
"I do. Of course I do. It's wicked to torment yourself. But if I didn't—if the poor baby was overtired and overworked—is it your fault? You only saw her in class at the last. You couldn't help it if the exams, and the play were suddenly too much—if something snapped——"
"You see, you do think so," said Clare bitterly. "I'vealways known you did. Well—think what you like—what do I care?" She put up her clenched hands and rubbed and kneaded at her dry aching eyes.
Alwynne watched her, desperately. Here was her lady wanting comfort, and she had found none. She wracked her brains as the sluggish minutes passed.
Clare's hands dropped at last. She met Alwynne's anxious gaze and laughed harshly.
"Well? The verdict? That I was a brute to Louise, I suppose?"
Alwynne looked at her wistfully.
"Clare, I do love you so."
Clare stiffened.
"Then I warn you—stop! I'm not good for you. I hurt people who love me. You always pestered me about hurting Louise. You needn't protest. You always did. And now you lay her death at my door. I see it in your face. Can't I read you like a book? Can't I? Can't I?" Her face was distorted by the conflict within her.
Alwynne's simplicity was convinced. Here, she felt, was tragedy. Awe and pity tore at her sense of reality. Love loosened her tongue. Her words rushed forth in a torrent of incoherent argument. She was so eager that her fallacies had power to convince herself, much more Clare.
"Clare, I won't have it. You don't know what you say. What is this mad idea you've got? What would poor Louise think if she heard? Why, she adored you. And you were kind—always kind—only when you thought it better for her, you were strict. It's folly to torment yourself. If you do—what about me?"
"You?" Clare's eyes glinted suddenly.
"Me! If you are to blame, how much more I? Oh, don't you see?" Alwynne's face grew rapt. Here was inspiration; her path grew suddenly clear. "Clare, don't you see? If she did—" she paused imperceptibly—"I ought to have seen what was coming. I knew her so much better than you."
Clare repressed a denial.
"Oh, darling—you mustn't worry. It's my responsibility. Try and think—at the play, for instance. Did you think her manner strained? No, of course you didn't. But I did. I thought at the time it had all been too much for her. I did notice—I did! I thought—that child will get brain-fever if we're not careful——I meant to speak to Elsbeth. I meant to speak to you. Oh, I'd noticed before. Only I was busy, and lazy, and put it off. She was unhappy at failing—I knew. I wanted to tell you that I know how much it meant to her—and I didn't. I was afraid——" She broke off abruptly; her eloquence ended as suddenly as it had begun.
But she had succeeded in her desire. Clare was recovering poise; would soon have herself all the more rigidly in control for her recent collapse. She stiffened as she spoke.
"Afraid of whom?"
"I mean I was afraid all along of what might happen," Alwynne concluded lamely. "You see, it was my fault?" There was an odd half-query in her voice.
"If you noticed so much and never tried to warn me, you are certainly to blame." Clare's voice was full of reluctant conviction. "I can't remember that you tried very hard."
"Oh, Clare!" began Alwynne. Their eyes met. Clare's face was hard and impassive—all trace of emotion gone. Her eyes challenged. Alwynne's lids dropped as she finished her sentence. "That is—no, I didn't try very hard."
"And why not?"
Inconceivably an answer suggested itself to Alwynne, an unutterable iconoclasm. Her mind edged away from it horrified and in an instant it was not. But it had been.
"I don't know," she stammered.
"You realised the responsibility you incurred?" Clare went on.
"I didn't. No, never!" Alwynne supplicated her.
"You do now?"
"Oh, yes," she said despairingly. She rejoiced that Clare could believe and be comforted, but it hurt her that she believed so easily. It alarmed her, too, made her, knowing her own motives, yet doubt herself. She felt trapped.
"I'm sorry you told me," said Clare abruptly.
They sat a moment in silence. A ray from the dying sun illuminated their faces. In Alwynne an innocent air of triumph fought with distress, and a growing uneasiness. Clare was expressionless.
Clare put up her hand to shelter herself, and her face was scarcely visible as she went on. She spoke softly.
"My dear, I can't say I'm not relieved. I feel exonerated—completely. Yet I wish you hadn't told me. I'd have rather thought it my fault than known it——"
"Mine," said Alwynne huskily.
Clare bent towards her, tender, gracious, yet subtly aloof; confessor, not friend.
"Oh, Alwynne! Why will you always be so sure of yourself? Why not have come to me for advice as you used to? What are we elder folk for? I love your impetuosity—your self-reliance—and I believe, I shall always believe, that you wanted to spare me trouble and worry. I know you. But you're not all enough, Alwynne, to decide everything for yourself. You won't believe it, I suppose—oh, I was just the same. But doesn't all this dreadful business show you? A few words—and Louise might have been with us now. Of course you acted for the best, but——There, my dear, there, there——" for her beautiful, pitiful voice had played too exquisitely on Alwynne's nerves, and the girl was sobbing helplessly.
And Clare was very kind to Alwynne, and let her cry in peace. And when she was tired of watching her, she braced her with deft praises of courage and self-control. Self-control appealed very strongly to Clare, Alwynne knew. While she dried her eyes, Clare whispered to her that the past was past and that one couldn't repair one's mistakesby dwelling on them. Let devotion to the living blot out a debt to the dead. She must try and forget. Clare would help her. Clare would try to forget too. They would never speak of it again. Never by word or look would Clare refer to it. It should be blotted out and forgotten.
And after a discreet interval, when there was no chance of big, irrepressible tears dropping into the gravy, or salting the butter, Clare thought she would like her supper.
She made quite a hearty meal, and Alwynne crumbled bread and drank thirstily, and watched her with humble, adoring eyes.
Clare, in soft undertones, was delicately amusing, full of dainty quips that coaxed Alwynne gently back to smiles and naturalness. She spared no pains, and sent Alwynne home at last, with, metaphorically speaking, her blessing.
But Alwynne stooped as she walked, as though she carried a burden.
The summer holidays came and went, eight cloudless weeks of them. Clare loved the sun; was well content to be out, day after day, cushioned and replete, on the sunniest strip of sand in the sunniest corner of a parched and gasping England. She found it wonderfully soothing to listen with shut eyes to the purr of the sea and the distant cries of gulls and children, with Alwynne to fan her and shade her, and clamber up and down two hundred feet of red cliff for her when the corkscrew was forgotten, or the salt, or Clare's bathing-dress, or a half-read magazine. Clare grew brown and plump as the drowsy days went by. Alwynne grew brown, too, but she certainly did not grow plumper. But then the heat never suited Alwynne. She had often said so, as she reminded Elsbeth. For, when Alwynne came back to her for the three weeks at home that she had persuaded Clare were due to Elsbeth, Elsbeth was difficult to satisfy. Elsbeth was inclined to be indignant. What sort of a holiday had it been, if Alwynne could come back so thin, and tired, and colourless under her tan? What had Miss Hartill been about to allow it?
But Alwynne's account of their pleasant lazy days was certainly appeasing.... It must have been the heat.... Not even the most suspicious of aunts could conscientiously suspect Clare of having anything to do with it.... Wait till September came, with its cooling skies.... Alwynne would be better then.
In the meantime Elsbeth tried what care and cookery and coddling could do, and Alwynne submitted more patiently than usual.
Alwynne, indeed, was unusually gentle with Elsbeth inthe three weeks they spent together before the autumn term began. She was always good to Elsbeth, considerate of her bodily comforts, lovingly demonstrative. But Clare had taught Alwynne very carefully that she was growing up at last, becoming financially and morally independent, free to lead her own life, that if she stayed with Elsbeth it was by favour, not by duty. And Alwynne, immensely flattered by the picture of herself as a woman of the world, had lived up to it with her usual drastic enthusiasm. Elsbeth, not unused to disillusionment and hopes deferred, could sigh and smile and acquiesce, knowing it for the phase that it was and forgiving Alwynne in advance. But Clare, who owed her neither gratitude nor duty, she never forgave. She was a very human woman, for all her saintliness.
She got her reward that summer, when Alwynne came back, quieted, grave, very tender with Elsbeth, clinging to her sometimes as if she were nearer nine than nineteen. But Elsbeth was fated never to have her happiness untainted. She was haunted by the conviction that Alwynne's subduement was not natural. Her pleasure in being with her aunt was so obvious that Elsbeth was worried, and knowing how infallibly Alwynne turned to her in any trouble, she expected revelations. But none came—only the manner was there that always accompanied them. Yet something was wrong.... A quarrel with Clare Hartill.
But Alwynne, delicately questioned, chattered happily enough of their holiday, and there were frequent letters——She was over-anxious, too, to protest that she was perfectly well, and, in proof, exhausted herself in unnecessary housework. But she continued restless and abstracted, jumped absurdly at any sudden noise, and followed Elsbeth about like a homeless dog.
And she had contracted an odd habit of coming late at night into Elsbeth's room, trailing blankets and a pillow under her arm, to beg to sleep on Elsbeth's sofa—just this once! She would laugh at herself and pull Elsbeth's facedown to her for a kiss, but she never gave any good reason for her whim. But she came so often that Elsbeth had a bed made up for her at last, and she slept there all the holidays, or lay awake. Elsbeth suspected that she lay awake two nights out of three.
With the autumn term Alwynne seemed to rouse herself, and flung herself into her work with her usual energy. Elsbeth saw less of her. The school claimed all her days, and Clare the bulk of her evenings. She had moved back into her own room again, and Elsbeth, her door ajar, would lie and watch the crack of light across the passage, and grieve over her darling's sleeplessness, and the shocking waste of electric light.
She wondered if the girl were working too hard.... Could that be at the root of the matter? She grew so anxious that she could even consult Clare on one of the latter's rare and formal calls.
"I am so glad to see you. Alwynne is changing; she'll be down in a minute. I made her lie down. Miss Hartill, I'm very distressed about the child. Do you think she looks well?"
Clare, less staccato than usual, certainly didn't think so.
"So thin—she's growing so dreadfully thin! Her neck! You should see her neck—salt-cellars, literally! And she had such a beautiful neck! But you've never seen her in evening dress."
Yes, Clare had seen her.
"And so white and listless! I don't know what to make of her. I don't know what to do."
Clare, with unusual gentleness, would not advise Elsbeth to worry herself. Possibly Alwynne was doing a little too much. Clare would make enquiries. But she was sure that Elsbeth was over-anxious.
But Elsbeth was not to be comforted. She nodded to the open door.
"Look at her now—dragging across the hall."
But Alwynne, in her gay frock, cheeks, at sight of Clare,suddenly aflame, did not look as if there were much amiss. She was thinner, of course....
Elsbeth, however, had made Clare uneasy. She attacked Alwynne on the following day.
"Your aunt says you're dying, Alwynne. What's the matter?"
"Dear old Elsbeth!" Alwynne laughed lightly.
"Isanything wrong?" Clare did not appear to look at her; nevertheless she did not miss the slight change in Alwynne's face, as she answered with careful cheeriness—
"What should be wrong in this best of all possible——"
Clare caught her up.
"I'm not a fool, Alwynne. What's the matter?"
"I wish you wouldn't discuss me with Elsbeth," said Alwynne uneasily. "I don't like it. I won't have you bothered."
"I'm not," said Clare coolly. "At the same time——"
Alwynne braced herself. She knew the tone.
"—I don't like any one about me with a secret grief and a pale, courageous smile. I can't stand a martyr."
"I'm not!" Alwynne was wincing. Then, suddenly: "What has Elsbeth been saying? Honestly, I didn't know she'd noticed anything."
"What is the matter?" said Clare again, gently enough. "Tell me, silly child!"
Alwynne shrugged her shoulders.
"Nothing! Just life!"
Clare waited.
"I'm sorry if I've been horrid—" she paused—"to Elsbeth."
Clare opened her eyes.
"What about me?"
"I'm never horrid to you," said Alwynne with compunction. "That's what's so beastly of me."
"Well, upon my word!" cried Clare blankly.
"Oh, you know what I mean." Alwynne jumbled her words. "I always want to be nice to you. It's perfectlyeasy. And then I go home to Elsbeth, the darling, and am grumpy and snappy, and show her all the hateful side of me. Heaven knows why! Only yesterday she said, 'You wouldn't speak to Clare Hartill like that,' in her dear, hurt voice. I felt such a brute."
A little smile hovered at the corners of Clare's mouth.
"I was always so sorry," said Clare smoothly, "that you couldn't spend Christmas Day with me last year."
Alwynne wrinkled her forehead.
"What's that got to do——?"
Clare caught her up.
"With your secret griefs? Nothing whatever! You're quite right. But what are they, Alwynne? Who's been worrying you? Have you got too much to do?"
"It's not that," said Alwynne unwillingly.
"Then what?"
"Oh, things!"
"What things?"
"Miss Vigers, for one," Alwynne began. Then she burst out: "Clare, I don't know what I've done to her. She never leaves me alone."
Clare stiffened.
"Miss Vigers? What has she to say to you? You're responsible to me—after Miss Marsham."
"She doesn't seem to think so. It's nag, nag, nag—fuss, fuss, fuss. Are the girls working properly? Am I not neglecting this? Or overdoing that? Do I remember that Dolly Brown had measles three terms ago? Why is Winifred Hawkins allowed to sit with the light in her eyes? Do I make a habit of keeping So-and-so in? and if so, why so? And Miss Marsham doesn't approve of this, and Miss Marsham evidently doesn't know of that—and my manner is excessively independent—and will I kindly remember...? Oh, Clare, it's simply awful. I get no peace. And you know how driven I am, with Miss Hutchins away. You'd think I'd done something awful from the way she treats me. Everlastingly spying and hinting——"