The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRobinThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: RobinAuthor: Mary Grant BruceIllustrator: Edgar A. HollowayRelease date: December 22, 2022 [eBook #69610]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: Australia: Cornstalk Publishing Company, 1926Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBIN ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: RobinAuthor: Mary Grant BruceIllustrator: Edgar A. HollowayRelease date: December 22, 2022 [eBook #69610]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: Australia: Cornstalk Publishing Company, 1926Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net
Title: Robin
Author: Mary Grant BruceIllustrator: Edgar A. Holloway
Author: Mary Grant Bruce
Illustrator: Edgar A. Holloway
Release date: December 22, 2022 [eBook #69610]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: Australia: Cornstalk Publishing Company, 1926
Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBIN ***
Robin flung the gate open.
Robin flung the gate open.
(See page275)
ROBINBYMARY GRANT BRUCEAuthor ofHugh Stanford’s Luck,A Little Bush Maid,Mates of Billabong,Norah of Billabong,’Possum, etc.AUSTRALIA:CORNSTALK PUBLISHING COMPANY89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY1926
ROBIN
BY
MARY GRANT BRUCE
Author ofHugh Stanford’s Luck,A Little Bush Maid,
Mates of Billabong,Norah of Billabong,’Possum, etc.
AUSTRALIA:
CORNSTALK PUBLISHING COMPANY
89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY
1926
Wholly set up and printed in Australia byThe Eagle Press, Ltd., Allen Street, WaterlooforAngus & Robertson, Ltd.89 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.1926Registered by the Postmaster-General for transmissionthrough the post as a book
Wholly set up and printed in Australia by
The Eagle Press, Ltd., Allen Street, Waterloo
for
Angus & Robertson, Ltd.
89 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
1926
Registered by the Postmaster-General for transmission
through the post as a book
Obtainable in Great Britain at theBritish AustralianBookstore, 51 High Holborn, London, W.C.1, the Bookstall in the Central Hall of Australia House, Strand, W.C., and from all other Booksellers; and (wholesale only) from the Australian Book Company, 16 Farringdon Avenue, London, E.C.4
Obtainable in Great Britain at theBritish AustralianBookstore, 51 High Holborn, London, W.C.1, the Bookstall in the Central Hall of Australia House, Strand, W.C., and from all other Booksellers; and (wholesale only) from the Australian Book Company, 16 Farringdon Avenue, London, E.C.4
CHAPTER ICALTON HALL
“Gone!” said the cook, tragically.
“Theycan’tbe,” said the parlourmaid, with that blank disbelief that is so helpful in times of stress. “Did you look in the cake-tin?”
“Did I look in the cake-tin?” demanded the cook, in tones of fury. “They was never in the cake-tin, and they aren’t now. Wotever may be the custom in your home, Elizer, it’s not my ’abit to pile up fresh cream-puffs in a cake-tin when they’re all filled with cream and just ready for a party. ’Ow’d they look, I arsk you, all messed up, and the cream stickin’ ’ere and there on ’em in blobs? I left ’em spread out singly on them two big blue dishes, same as I could serve ’em in two jiffs. And they’re gone.”
“There’s the dishes, right enough,” said the parlourmaid, still bent on being helpful. She inspected faint traces of cream on their blue expanse, with the air of a Sherlock Holmes. “They been there once, anyone can see. Oh, have another think, Cook, dear—you must have put them on the cake-plates!” She dashed hopefully at a large safe, peered into its recesses, and lost heart visibly on meeting only the cold stare of a big sirloin and a string of pallid sausages.
“Anyone as ’ud think I’d put cream-puffs in the meat-safe—!” said the cook, wearily. “ ’Ave sense, Elizer, if it’s any way possible. I tell you, I left ’em on the blue dishes; there’s the cake-plates all ready for ’em, clean d’oyleys an’ all. An’ not a cream-puff left! Well, you can searchme. I give up.”
“But where can they have gone to?” wailed Eliza, dismally.
“I dunno. But there’s young limbs in this school as is equal to anything. It ain’t the first time things ’ave disappeared from my pantry. Scones I’ve missed, time and again; and there was sausage-rolls last week, and ’alf a jam-sandwidge another time. Lots of little oddments, as you might say. But this is ’olesale, an’ no mistake!”
Eliza was understood to murmur something feebly about the cat.
“Cat!” said the cook. “There’s cats enough and to spare, goodness knows, but cats don’t browse on scones and cream-puffs. It’s two-legged cats, or my name’s not Mary Ann Spinks—you mark my words, Elizer! Not that I’d mention names, nor even red ’air; but I have me suspicions!”
“Red hair!” ejaculated Eliza. “You aren’t thinking of Lucy Armitage? Her that’s a prefect?”
“I am not,” said the cook. “Prefeck or no prefeck, that one ’ud never ’ave spirit enough to come a-raidin’ anyone’s pantry. Not that I ’old with raidin’, Elizer, ’specially when it’s me own pantry. But I was young meself once, an’ I remember there was an apple-tree me an’ me brothers used to visit. Not our own apple-tree. I ’ave me memories. The apples weren’t any too good, ’specially as we always collared ’em green. It wasn’t ’ardly the apples we cared for, but the fun of it. Ah, well, one’s only young once, an’ the school food ain’t any too good either, as I well know.” The cook sighed, and apparently gave herself up to her memories.
“But raiding’s just stealing!” said Eliza, whose youth held no such recollections of buccaneering. She regarded the fat cook with a cold and disapproving eye.
“Not when you’re young it ain’t,” defended the cook.
“Well, I don’t see any difference,” Eliza stated. “Don’t the collect say to keep one’s hands from picking and stealing?”
“Ah, the collecks!” said the cook. “Them as wrote the collecks weren’t young, either. ’Tisn’t all of us lives up to ’em all the time—until we grow up, of course, that’s to say.”
Eliza was thinking deeply.
“Red hair!” she murmured. “Young Robin Hurst has red hair, and so has Annette Riley. Is it either of them you’re thinking of, Cook?”
“I’m not thinkin’ of anyone in particular,” averred the cook, definitely. “Not my business to think. Wot you an’ I ’ave got to bend our minds to is Miss Stone, an’ wot she’s goin’ to say when she finds there’s no cream-puffs for her party.”
“My Hevins, yes!” agreed Eliza. “And she’s that particular about having them always!”
“Don’t I know it!” the cook uttered. “ ’Cause why, they’re my specialty, an’ always ’ave been, wherever I’ve cooked. ‘Cream-puffs, of course, Cook,’ says she, yesterday, as sweet as sugar; ‘it isn’t a Calton Hall party without your puffs, you know!’ An’, though I says it, Elizer, they was never better.”
“Fair melted in me mouth, the ones you gave me, Cook,” said Eliza, soulfully.
“They would so. I must say, I’d like to see ’ow they manage ’em in the drorin-room, all in their Sunday best,” pondered the cook. “I can’t eat a cream-puff meself without needin’ a wash afterwards. But I s’pose they ’ave their dodges. Well, they won’t get any this afternoon to worry about, an’ that’s that. An’ it’s near four o’clock now, Elizer, an’ we’ve got to think of a substichoot.”
“My goodness!” Eliza uttered. “What are you goin’ to give ’em, Cook?”
“Fancy Mixed!” said the cook, grimly, advancing with slow dignity towards a tin that graced the upper shelf.
“Biscuits!” breathed Eliza, faintly. “She’ll take a fit, Miss Stone will. I never saw biscuits at one of her parties, all the time I’ve been here.”
“No, an’ you never won’t again, if I know it. I reckon I’ll keep the key of me pantry firm an’ tight in me pocket after this. It’s lowerin’ to me pride to send in fancy-mixed, but there it is—I ain’t a jugular, to conjure up a fresh set of puffs in ten minutes. Oh, well, they won’t starve: me scones take some beatin’, an’ there’s the other cakes. But them puffs lend tone to a party, Elizer, as you well know: an’ this particular party’s goin’ to be lackin’ in tone. Just you make the biscuits look as respectable as you can, while I make the tea: the bell’ll go any minute.” And Eliza, sighing deeply, prepared to face the tragedy of the drawing-room.
Meanwhile, under a great pine-tree that stood in the corner of the Calton Hall playground, three girls sat in a state of palpitating expectancy. School was dismissed for the day, and the “crocodile” walk, loathed by the boarders, which usually followed hard upon the heels of the last lesson, was not to take place—a joyful omission which always signalized the afternoons when Miss Stone gave a party, since the junior governesses, who escorted the “crocodile,” were required in the drawing-room to assist in pouring out tea. Sounds of mirth came from the tennis-courts, where a hastily-arranged tournament was in full swing. Across the playground the space sacred to juniors echoed with the shrill cries attending a game of rounders: other enthusiasts made merry over basketball. But the three under the pine-tree, although ready for tennis, were evidently a prey to emotions deeper than could be excited, at the moment, by any ordinary game.
“I know she’s been caught!” Annette Riley breathed, anxiously. “She ought to have been here ages ago.”
“Oh, give her time,” said Joyce Harrison, endeavouring to be comforting. “She might have been delayed in ever so many ways. Ten to one she’s found that the whole thing is no go, and she’s given it up, and is getting into her tennis things.”
“Not Robin,” said Betty O’Hara, quietly.
“Well, Robin can’t do everything she wants to, no matter how plucky she is,” Joyce responded. “And I really do hope she isn’t going to pull this off. She’s been in such an awful lot of rows already this term—Miss Stone’s getting madder and madder about her. I wish that silly ass of a Ruby hadn’t dared her to go raiding the sacred pantry.”
“So do I,” said Annette. “Everyone knows it isn’t safe to dare Robin to do anything. If you told her she wasn’t game to climb feet foremost up the electric-light pole, she’d be doing it in five minutes!”
“Ruby Bennett takes advantage of that,” Betty said hotly. “Half the scrapes that Robin has been in this term have had Ruby’s nasty little jeers at the bottom of them. And Robin’s such a dear old blind bat that she never sees it.”
“Well, Robin seems to like rows,” said Joyce. “But there will be an awful one if she’s caught this time.” She dropped her voice dramatically. “When Mother was down last week Miss Stone talked to her in her very stoniest manner about my being friends with Robin——said all sorts of horrid things about her wildness, and that she had a bad influence in the school. Poor old Mother was quite worried about it, until I made her see that Robin is just the straightest ever—she does mad things, but she wouldn’t tell a lie if she were burned alive!”
“I should just say she wouldn’t!” uttered Betty. “Robin a bad influence, indeed! I never heard such rubbish. Why, there isn’t a junior that wouldn’t lick her boots! Prigs like Lucy Armitage, of course——”
“Oh, old Lucy isn’t bad,” said Annette. “She’s rather overweighted by being a prefect, that’s all. She’s worried about Robin too, because Miss Stone told her she meant to make an example of her, next time she broke a rule. And Robin’s simply incapable of not breaking rules!”
“But she never does an underhand thing, as half of Miss Stone’s pets do,” said Betty. “Everyone knows that girls whose parents have money are all right in this school: Miss Stone keeps her telescope to her blind eye where they are concerned. If Robin’s mean old uncle were a bit more generous to her, she wouldn’t be Miss Stone’s black sheep. He must be a horrid old pig! Robin and her mother have a perfectly vile time at home. It’s no wonder the poor darling kicks over the traces when she gets away from him.” She fanned herself with her racquet. “I wish she’d come—it will be time for out set very soon.”
“Wonder if Miss Stone has caught her and locked her up,” conjectured Joyce, gloomily.
“Not much she hasn’t!” said a cheerful voice—and the three girls sprang up with exclamations of delight as a fourth whirled suddenly into their midst, laughing.
“Robin!—you didn’t manage it?”
“You weren’t caught?”
“Tell us what happened!”
“Easiest thing ever,” said Robin Hurst cheerfully, sitting down on the thick carpet of pine-needles. “I waited until the front-door bell was going every two minutes and Eliza was marking time between rings in the hall, and then I slipped into the servery. Cookie was up to her eyes in hot scones: just as she was brooding over the cooking of a great oven-trayful I dodged into the pantry—and oh, girls, you should have seen the cream-puffs!”
“Cream-puffs—wow!” said Annette.
“They were just waiting for me—two big blue dishes full. It seemed a sin to leave any, so I didn’t. That little suit-case of yours just held them all, Annette, darling—it’ll be a bit creamy, but I’ll clean it for you.”
“And nobody saw you?”
“Not a soul. It didn’t take two minutes. I shot up the back stairs just as Eliza came out—she was too full of importance to glance upwards, and tennis-shoes are nice quiet things. We’ll have a gorgeous supper to-night—and I’ll show Ruby Bennett I’m not as scared as she tried to make out.”
She laughed defiantly, tossing her hat from her mane of bright red hair. Even though shingled, Robin Hurst’s hair was a defiant mop, resisting all her efforts to make it resemble the sleek demureness of her schoolfellows’ heads. Its very colour was defiant: no such head of flame had ever before enlivened the sober rooms of Calton Hall. It blazed round a narrow delicate face, with clear pale skin that made its owner furious by its trick of blushing at the slightest provocation. Until humourously-inclined schoolgirls had found that the pastime was dangerous, it had been considered rather good fun to make Robin blush—to see the quick wave of colour surge to the very roots of her hair, and even down her neck. That was two years ago, when she had been a new girl, shy and uncertain of herself. Now that she was nearly sixteen, no one took liberties—it was too much like jesting with gunpowder.
For the rest, she was tall and very slender—almost boyish in her clean length of limb; with brown eyes that were rarely without a twinkle, and a mouth altogether too wide for good looks, with a little upward quirk at the corners. Lessons were abhorrent to her; history and poetry she loved, but in every other subject she held a firm position at the bottom of her class, and was wholly unrepentant about it. The teachers liked her, while they despaired of her. Miss Stone, the principal, regarded her with cold disapproval, as a girl who was never likely to reflect the slightest credit on the school. From the first she had shown a disregard of law and order that landed her perpetually in trouble. Whatever might be her deficiencies in class, she was possessed of an amazing ability for getting into scrapes—and for laughing her way out of them. She took her penalties cheerfully, and was ready to plan fresh mischief the next day.
An impatient hail came from the tennis-courts, and the four girls gathered themselves up and ran to answer it. Over a hard-fought set Robin apparently forgot altogether that any weight of crime lay upon her shoulders—possibly because she did not regard the raiding of a pantry as in the least criminal. She prepared for tea with serene cheerfulness, that deepened a little as she met Ruby Bennett’s enquiring eye.
“Well, how did the raid go?” asked Ruby, lightly. One was never quite sure of one’s ground with Robin: it was necessary to feel one’s way.
“What raid?” queried Robin, with an air of sublime innocence. They were filing into the dining-room, and conversation was frowned upon by the authorities during the procession.
Triumph flashed into the other girl’s face.
“I thought you wouldn’t be game!” she said, smiling unpleasantly. She went to her place, radiating satisfaction. Miss Stone was not present; it was usual for her to remain in seclusion on the evening following a party. The teachers, especially the junior ones, looked rather troubled, as if the festivity had not brought pleasure in its train. They were preoccupied, and when conversation at the long tables rose above its permitted hum they failed to quell it with their customary promptness. There were plates of biscuits on their table—Fancy Mixed—but they seemed to regard them without appetite.
These things did not trouble the pupils, who were unusually hungry—hard exercise in the playground having more effect upon the appetite than the slow and sinuous meanderings of a walk in crocodile formation. They ate all before them, and did not grumble unduly at the jam, which was that peculiar blend that arrives in very large tins, and is said to be nutritious—as, indeed, it may well be, having as a basis the wholesome turnip and vegetable marrow. Calton Hall was one of those semi-fashionable private schools that loom attractively in advertisements and preserve a certain amount of outside show, while assisting profits by a steady system of cheese-paring in matters under the surface: its boarders owed much of their healthy appearance to the fact that the digestion of youth is tough and long-enduring. Tea being over, they dispersed for the half-hour of liberty before preparation: during which time Robin and her friends were at some pains to avoid Ruby Bennett. That damsel was clearly bent on triumphing openly. Since, however, she could not find Robin, she philosophically postponed her jibes until bedtime, when her victim would be at her mercy in the dormitory.
Ruby was not the only occupant of Number Four who went up to bed with a keen sense of anticipation. Every girl knew that she had dared Robin Hurst to raid Miss Stone’s pantry: eight out of the twelve had gathered, more or less indirectly, that Robin had not taken up the challenge—and it was always interesting to see Robin baited, especially by Ruby Bennett, who had a very unpleasant knowledge of the best places to plant her winged darts. Robin’s peppery temper lent peculiar excitement to the frequent encounters between them.
It was, therefore, extremely disappointing to find that Robin took all Ruby’s jeers meekly on this eventful evening. She said very little, and what she did say was vague: she alluded apologetically to the manifold risks of raiding before a party, and led them to infer that her spirit had quailed at the task. Ruby rose to the occasion with vigour, though she might have been warned by her adversary’s suspicious humility: now was her chance to be avenged for many encounters when Robin had triumphed. She let all her smouldering jealousy of the more popular girl find vent in her sneers, until Number Four marvelled at Robin’s self-restraint.
That lasted until the lights were out and the teacher on duty had made her round. Then came stealthy movements and choked laughter; and the flash of Annette’s electric torch revealed Robin perched on the end of Betty’s bed, an elfish figure in pale-blue pyjamas.
“Friends—Romans—countrymen!” she declaimed. “Are you awake?”
Ten convulsive moments demonstrated that the dormitory was indeed astir. There was a sense of development in the air. Betty O’Hara giggled hopelessly. Ruby lay still.
“Miss Stone regrets—I feel sure she regrets—the poor and insufficient food set before you at the evening meal. She realizes that more is owing to you; that you cannot be expected to sleep without a little extra nourishment.”
“Robin, you lunatic—what have you been up to?” ejaculated someone.
“I am not a lunatic,” said Robin, with dignity. “I am the commissariat department of this dormitory, just as Ruby is its top-notch orator—when she gets a chance. It is my joyful privilege to beg you all to sit up—which I perceive ten of you are already doing—and to invite you to join in Miss Stone’s party festivities. Willingly and gladly have her guests denied themselves that you may now feast on Cook’s extra-special cream-puffs!”
Smothered yelps of joy broke out from the beds, and leaping figures hastened to form a ring round the red-haired speaker. Many hands patted her on the back, until she begged for mercy.
“Keep off, you stupids! And for goodness’ sake, be quiet, or you’ll have Miss Bryant in! Got the suit-case, Betty?”
“Robin, darling, how did you do it?”
“Quite easy, when you know how,” said Robin, airily. She opened the suit-case, and the torch revealed a mass of cream-cakes, more or less amalgamated by this time. But no one was critical.
“Help yourselves, everybody.” No second bidding was necessary. Ten hands plunged into the booty, and choked sounds of satisfaction arose. From Ruby’s bed came neither voice nor movement.
“Cream-puff, Ruby?” invited Robin.
“No, thanks,” said Ruby, sulkily.
“Too bad!” said the commissariat department. She selected a fairly undamaged puff, and took it over to Ruby’s bed, holding it within an inch of her nose. The nose twitched longingly, but pride was stronger than hunger.
“I don’t want it, I tell you. Take it away!”
“Oh, I really couldn’t,” said Robin, lightly. “They’re ever so good, aren’t they, girls? I couldn’t bear you to go without any, when I really did risk my life and liberty to get them for you.” She laid the delicacy gently on Ruby’s pillow, disregarding a furious command to take it away, and capered back to the circle of girls, who were choking with laughter, between mouthfuls.
“All gone!” said Joyce, mournfully. “Oh, but they were lovely, Robin!”
“Robin Hurst!” said Betty, suddenly. “You never had one yourself!”
“Didn’t I?” answered Robin, innocently. “Well, that was an oversight on my part. Never mind, I really don’t much like squashed cream-puff. Next time I have the chance of—er—abstracting any, young ladies, I shall endeavour to pack them more neatly.”
“Oh, that’s a shame, Robin—when you ran all the risk. What beasts we are! And I had three!”
“I had all the fun—except what Ruby had,” laughed Robin. “It was worth it. And Ruby did enjoy herself so. Own up you’re beaten, Ruby, and eat that puff!”
“Cave!” said someone, in a sharp whisper.
There was a faint sound in the passage. Robin shot the empty suit-case under the bed, and in a moment every girl’s head was meekly on her pillow, as the door opened and Miss Stone’s portly figure appeared. She switched on the dormitory light. Behind her, Miss Bryant’s face showed, worried and anxious.
“Girls, what are you doing?”
There was profound silence.
“I heard your voices—you need not pretend to be asleep.” The principal’s angry glance swept the long room. “Joyce Harrison—what have you been doing?”
“Talking, Miss Stone.”
“And what else?”
No answer. Mild surprise was visible on Joyce’s innocent face. Talking in bed was against the rules—to admit to one breach of regulations seemed to her sufficient.
“You need not try to hide your guilt from me,” boomed Miss Stone, in tones of concentrated wrath. “I am very certain of what has been going on.” She moved from one bed to another, peering with short-sighted eyes. “What is that on your pillow, Ruby?”
She made a hasty step forward, and her foot caught on a trailing blanket. Stumbling, she put out her hand, to save herself. It came down squarely on Ruby’s neglected cream-puff. Triumph mingled with disgust as she regained her balance, cream dripping from the hand she held aloft.
“I thought as much! A towel, if you please, Miss Bryant—quickly! You wicked, deceitful girls! Which of you stole these cakes from my pantry this afternoon?”
The profound silence that greeted this question was broken by a smothered burst of irrepressible laughter from two beds at the end of the room. The scene had been too much for Robin and Betty. They ducked their heads beneath the clothes, whence gurgles proceeded.
It was all that was necessary to fan Miss Stone’s anger to white heat. Words failed her for a moment, while she rubbed furiously at her sticky hand.
“You will find it by no means a joke, young ladies,” she said, bitterly, her voice shaking. “Ruby Bennett, what do you know of this theft?”
“I didn’t do it,” said Ruby, sulkily.
“The cake was on your pillow—do you think I am going to believe that you know nothing of it? Answer me!”
“I never touched your cakes—and I never ate any,” Ruby gulped. Fear of Miss Stone’s wrath mingled with fear of her schoolfellows, should she tell all she longed to tell.
“Did you put the cake on your pillow?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“I—I—”
Robin Hurst sat up in bed, her hair a vivid flame round her pale face.
“Oh, Ruby doesn’t know anything about it, Miss Stone,” she said, her voice faintly bored. “I did it all. None of the others had anything to do with it.”
Joyce, Betty, and Annette bobbed up with Jack-in-the-box effect.
“We were in it too, Miss Stone!”
“That’s not true!” flashed Robin. “I took them by myself.”
Miss Stone surveyed them bitterly.
“I had guessed you were at the bottom of it, Robin Hurst,” she said. “No other girl in the school would lower herself by the actions in which you find pleasure. I warned you last week—this time I shall certainly make an example of you. Do not go into school in the morning; you may come to my study at half-past-nine!” She swept majestically from the room, leaving silence and consternation behind her.
CHAPTER IINEXT DAY
Theschool hummed in the morning. Before breakfast it was known that a row transcending all other rows had occurred in the night, and that Robin Hurst, who had figured in so many scrapes before, was liable to “catch it” this time with unexampled severity. Fearful stories of the wrath of Miss Stone circulated among the juniors. It was reported that she had fallen into a basket of stolen cream-puffs, rising in a condition of messiness and fury most terrifying to contemplate. That Robin had been foolish enough to laugh at the wrong moment was readily believed—it was the kind of lunatic thing that Robin would do. As to her punishment, the school palpitated amid the wildest guesses. Expulsion was hinted at by a few, since ordinary penalties seemed feeble, considering Miss Stone’s anger. The whole dormitory was to suffer—except Ruby Bennett, who, having instigated the crime, had refused to share in its fruits. Ruby found herself ostentatiously cold-shouldered.
Whatever thoughts or doubts mingled in Robin’s mind, she gave no hint of them to anyone else. Before breakfast, she risked further trouble by a whirlwind visit to the kitchen, for the purpose of making her peace with the cook.
“I’m afraid I gave you an awful lot of trouble, Cook,” she said, breathlessly. “It wasn’t that I really wanted the blessed things, you know—but it was a dare, so I had to get them. Please don’t be cross with me!”
“Some day you’ll take a dare once too often, my young lady!” said Cook, affecting sternness, and grinning in spite of herself.
“I’m not sure that I haven’t done it this time,” answered Robin, with a sigh and a twinkle. “There’s going to be an awful row. Well, I don’t care if I am sent away—except for Mother. She’d hate it. If I’m only a red-haired memory to-morrow, Cookie, darling, think of me kindly and remember I loved you. And they were scrumptious cream-puffs!”
“They say you never tasted one of them,” said the cook. For gossip travels swiftly in a school.
Robin tilted her nose.
“Well—no,” she said. “I don’t snare things to eat them myself. It’s different, you see.”
It was hardly a lucid explanation, but the cook saw.
“Well, between you an’ me, I rather any day they went to you young things than to the droring-room,” she said. “I ’ope she won’t be too ’ard on you, my dear, for ’twas only a prank—but ’er state of mind was fair ’orrible, Elizer said, when she saw them Fancy Mixed biscuits I ’ad to send in, instead!”
Robin gave a low chuckle.
“It would be,” she said. “Well I must run, Cookie dear, for it will be the end of all things if I’m caught. But I had to tell you I was sorry!” She flashed a smile at the cook, and was gone.
Breakfast was eaten in unhappy silence: the weight of disgrace that lay over Number Four dormitory was felt by all the boarders, and many surreptitious glances were stolen at Miss Stone’s grim face, striving to forecast the extent of the penalty to be exacted from the chief sinner. In the playground, afterwards, Robin found her three allies banded together by a high resolve.
“We’re going in with you,” Betty stated.
“To Miss Stone? Indeed you’re not, my children!”
“We’re just as much in it as you are,” said Annette. “We knew all about it beforehand.”
“I never heard such rubbish,” said Robin, laughing. “I was the only criminal, and now I’m the only one asked to the party. You can’t butt in without an invitation—it isn’t polite!”
“Bother politeness!” Betty’s voice was almost tearful. “It will be ever so much better if she has four of us to deal with, Robin, dear—she can’t expel four of us.”
“She isn’t likely to expel any one,” Robin answered, in cheery tones that hid her own forebodings. “But if she is, I’m the one, and you three have nothing to do with it.”
“It isn’t fair for you to put on that ‘Alone I did it!’ air,” said Joyce. “You were only the catspaw; as Annette says, we knew all about it, so we’re just as guilty. I think all Number Four ought to go in with you.”
“What—Ruby too? Wild horses wouldn’t drag her, and you know it.”
“Oh—Ruby!” Joyce’s tone was scornful. “She doesn’t count. Anyone else would have whipped that beastly cream-puff under her pillow, but she just let it sit there to give us all away. She’s an outcast!”
“She’ll emerge with a perfectly good halo, in Miss Stone’s eyes,” said Robin, laughing. “I can see Ruby as a prefect before long, ruling us all with a rod of iron. But truly, girls, you can’t come with me. I’ve got to take my gruel alone.”
“You can’t stop us,” Betty said, stubbornly.
“It will only make things worse,” Robin pleaded. “Miss Stone wants a victim, but she doesn’t want four: she will be madder than ever if you all march into the study. And it isn’t fair, no matter how you look at it. I’m the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts, and if I have to be beaten full sore, well, it’s just. You can’t get away from it, that it is just.”
“Justice is all right, but Miss Stone can be such a pig,” said Annette. “If she hadn’t such a down on you, already, Robin, we wouldn’t mind. We’re coming, and that’s all about it.”
The big bell clanged out, and from every quarter the girls began to hurry towards the schoolroom.
“Well, I must go,” Robin said, straightening her shoulders. “Trot off into school, my dears, or you will be marked late.” She smiled at them, turning to go.
“We’re coming,” said the three, in an obstinate chorus. They formed round her, and marched across the playground and into the house, while Robin protested vainly. She was still protesting when they reached the study door and Joyce tapped gently.
Miss Stone’s eyebrows went up as they filed into the room.
“I summoned Robin only,” she said, stiffly. “Why are you all here?”
“We were in it too, Miss Stone,” Joyce said. “It doesn’t seem fair to us for Robin to take all the blame.”
The principal looked at them indifferently.
“Possibly I have not understood fully,” she said, with cold politeness. “You mean me to believe that you were concerned in the robbery yesterday?”
Joyce flushed angrily.
“We knew Robin meant to take the things—if she could.”
“Quite so. And you were willing to let her do it?”
“It was only a joke—another girl had dared her to do it.”
“But you did not help in this very peculiar species of joke?”
“No. But we would have, if Robin had wanted help.”
“They had nothing whatever to do with it, Miss Stone!” Robin interrupted, hotly. “It was entirely my own affair. It’s quite ridiculous for them to come in with me. I’m the only one who should be punished.”
“I am glad you realize that,” said Miss Stone, smoothly. “Everyone who helped to gorge upon what you stole is worthy of punishment, and will certainly be dealt with in due course; but you were evidently the ringleader, as you have been so often before in every kind of lawlessness. Since your companions have chosen to burst into my study with you they may remain to hear what I have to say to you.”
“I wish you would send them away,” muttered Robin.
“I daresay you do. But it may hinder them from following in your footsteps if they are enabled to form a clear idea of how such behaviour as yours is regarded by people with ordinary ideas of honour.”
The colour surged over Robin’s face, and ebbed as quickly, leaving it very white. Betty O’Hara uttered a choked exclamation.
“Miss Stone! Robin’s the honourablest girl——!”
“Is she?” Miss Stone smiled faintly. “I fear that does not say much for the others—if I accept your view, Betty. But then, I do not.” She paused, and took off her pince-nez as though fearing they might be a handicap to her eloquence. Then, very deliberately, she proceeded to avenge her wrongs by dissecting Robin’s character.
The three who listened carried away no very clear idea of the long oration that followed. They heard the smooth voice rising and falling in waves of scorn and condemnation; but most of their attention was centred on the white face of their companion, who listened to the recital of her own misdeeds in utter silence, infuriating the principal by the shadow of a smile that lurked about the corners of her mouth. Miss Stone was a woman of an evil temper: she had never liked Robin, and she had chosen to consider herself humiliated. Now she forgot that the girl before her was little more than a child, and her anger grew as she lashed her pitilessly with her tongue. She searched an ample vocabulary for the most stinging words: her voice was bitter as she spoke of deceit, theft, dishonour, meanness, greed. “If Robin had been a murderess she couldn’t have been more beastly,” said Annette, tearfully, later. And Robin listened, and the little smile did not fail.
“I have not made up my mind whether I can permit you to remain in the school,” finished the principal, as breath began to grow short. “The disgrace to your mother weighs with me, of course, though I cannot expect it to weigh with you: but I have to consider your contaminating effect upon my other pupils. For the present you will remain entirely apart from the others, studying, sleeping, and taking your meals alone, and debarred from all games. Later on——”
There was a knock at the door. Eliza entered, visibly nervous at finding herself in the hall of justice, yet able to send a look of sympathy at the criminal in the dock.
“I told you I was not to be disturbed, Eliza,” said Miss Stone, angrily.
“Sorry ma’am. But it’s a telegram, and it’s marked “Urgent.” So I thought I’d better bring it in.”
Miss Stone took the envelope from her hand, and tore it open hastily. Her face changed. She looked at Robin uncertainly.
“This—this alters matters,” she said. “It concerns you, Robin.”
All the defiant carelessness died out of Robin’s face. She sprang forward.
“Mother!” she cried, and her voice was a wail. “It isn’t Mother!”
“No—no. Not your Mother. She has telegraphed for you to go home at once. There is bad news for you, I am afraid.”
“Then she is ill! Tell me, quickly!”
“It is not your mother at all,” Miss Stone answered. “It is your uncle. He—he died yesterday, my dear.”
Robin stared at her, helpless in her overwhelming rush of relief.
“Oh—Uncle Donald!” she said. She gave a short laugh, and caught at Betty to steady herself, forgetting Miss Stone altogether. “I—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to laugh. But I thought it was Mother!”