Chapter 13 A World of Girls: The Story of a School by L. T. Meade
Talking Over The Mystery
Annie Forest sitting in the midst of a group of eager admirers, was chatting volubly. Never had she been in higher spirits, never had her pretty face looked more bright and daring.
Cecil Temple, coming into the play-room, started when she saw her. Annie, however, instantly rose from the low hassock on which she had perched herself and, running up to Cecil, put her hand through her arm.
“We are all discussing the mystery, darling,” said she; “we have discussed it, and literally torn it to shreds, and yet never got at the kernel. We have guessed and guessed what your motive can be in concealing the truth from Mrs Willis, and we all unanimously vote that you are a dear old martyr, and that you have some admirable reason for keeping back the truth. You cannot think what an excitement we are in – even Susy Drummond has stayed awake to listen to our chatter. Now, Cecil, do come and sit here in this most inviting little armchair, and tell us what our dear head-mistress said to you in the chapel. It did seem so awful to send you to the chapel, poor dear Cecil.”
Cecil stood perfectly still and quiet while Annie was pouring out her torrent of eager words; her eyes, indeed, did not quite meet her companion’s, but she allowed Annie to retain her clasp of her arm, and she evidently listened with attention to her words. Now, however, when Miss Forest tried to draw her into the midst of the eager and animated group who sat round the play-room fire, she hesitated and looked longingly in the direction of her peaceful little drawing-room. Her hesitation, however, was but momentary. Quite silently she walked with Annie down the large play-room and entered the group of girls.
“Here’s your throne, Queen Cecil,” said Annie trying to push her into the little armchair; but Cecil would not seat herself.
“How nice that you have come, Cecil!” said Mary Pierce, a second-class girl. “I really think, we all think, that you were very brave to stand out against Mrs Willis as you did. Of course we are devoured with curiosity to know what it means; aren’t we, Flo?”
“Yes, we’re in agonies,” answered Flo Dunstan, another second-class girl.
“You will tell exactly what Mrs Willis said, darling heroine?” proceeded Annie in her most dulcet tones. “You concealed your knowledge, didn’t you? you were very firm, weren’t you? dear, brave love!”
“For my part, I think Cecil Temple the soul of brave firmness,” here interrupted Susan Drummond. “I fancy she’s as hard and firm in herself when she wants to conceal a thing as that rocky sweetmeat which always hurts our teeth to get through. Yes, I do fancy that.”
“Oh, Susy, what a horrid metaphor!” here interrupted several girls.
One, however, of the eager group of school-girls had not opened her lips or said a word; that girl was Hester Thornton. She had been drawn into the circle by an intense curiosity; but she had made no comment with regard to Cecil’s conduct. If she knew anything of the mystery she had thrown no light on it. She had simply sat motionless, with watchful and alert eyes and silent tongue. Now, for the first time, she spoke.
“I think, if you will allow her, that Cecil has got something to say,” she remarked.
Cecil glanced down at her with a very brief look of gratitude.
“Thank you, Hester,” she said. “I won’t keep you a moment, girls. I cannot offer to throw any light on the mystery which makes us all so miserable to-day; but I think it right to undeceive you with regard to myself. I have not concealed what I know from Mrs Willis. She is in possession of all the facts, and what I found in my desk this morning is now in her keeping. She has made me see that in concealing my knowledge I was acting wrongly, and whatever pain has come to me in the matter, she now knows all.”
When Cecil had finished her sad little speech she walked straight out of the group of girls, and, without glancing at one of them, went across the play-room to her own compartment. She had failed to observe a quick and startled glance from Susan Drummond’s sleepy blue eyes, nor had she heard her mutter – half to her companions, half to herself – “Cecil is not like the rocky sweetmeat; I was mistaken in her.”
Neither had Cecil seen the flash of almost triumph in Hester’s eyes, nor the defiant glance she threw at Miss Forest. Annie stood with her hands clasped, and a little frown of perplexity between her brows, for a moment; then she ran fearlessly down the play-room, and said in a low voice at the other side of Cecil’s curtains —
“May I come in?”
Cecil said “Yes,” and Annie, entering the pretty little drawing-room, flung her arms round Miss Temple’s neck.
“Cecil,” she exclaimed impulsively, “you’re in great trouble. I am a giddy, reckless thing, I know, but I don’t laugh at people when they are in real trouble. Won’t you tell me all about it, Cecil?”
“I will, Annie. Sit down there and I will tell you everything. I think you have a right to know, and I am glad you have come to me. I thought, perhaps – but no matter. Annie, can’t you guess what I am going to say?”
“No, I’m sure I can’t,” said Annie. “I saw for a moment or two to-day that some of those absurd girls suspected me of being the author of all this mischief. Now, you know, Cecil, I love a bit of fun beyond words. If there’s any going on I feel nearly mad until I am in it; but what was done to-day was not at all in accordance with my ideas of fun. To tear up Miss Russell’s essay and fill her desk with stupid plum-cake and Turkish delight seems to me but a sorry kind of jest. Now, if I had been guilty of that sort of thing, I’d have managed something far cleverer than that. If I had tampered with Dora Russell’s desk, I’d have done the thing in style. The dear, sweet, dignified creature should have shrieked in real terror. You don’t know perhaps, Cecil, that our admirable Dora is no end of a coward. I wonder what she would have said if I had put a little nest of field-mice in her desk. I saw that the poor thing suspected me, as she gave way to her usual little sneer about the ‘underbred girl:’ but, of course, you know me, Cecil. Why, my dear Cecil, what is the matter? How white you are, and you are actually crying! What is it, Cecil? what is it, Cecil, darling?”
Cecil dried her eyes quickly.
“You know my pet copy of Mrs Browning’s poems, don’t you, Annie?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You lent it to me one day. Don’t you remember how you made me cry over that picture of little Alice, the over-worked factory girl? What about the book, Cecil?”
“I found the book in my desk,” said Cecil, in a steady tone, and now fixing her eyes on Annie, who knelt by her side – “I found the book in my desk, although I never keep it there; for it is quite against the rules to keep our recreation books in our school-desks, and you know, Annie, I always think it is so much easier to keep these little rules. They are matters of duty and conscience after all. I found my copy of Mrs Browning in my desk this morning with the cover torn off, and with a very painful and ludicrous caricature of our dear Mrs Willis sketched on the title-page.”
“What?” said Annie. “No, no; impossible.”
“You know nothing about it do you, Annie?”
“I never put it there, if that’s what you mean,” said Annie. But her face had undergone a curious change. Her light and easy and laughing manner had altered. When Cecil mentioned the caricature she flushed a vivid crimson. Her flush had quickly died away, leaving her olive-tinted face paler than its wont.
“I see,” she said, after a long pause, “you, too, suspected me, Cecil, and that is why you tried to conceal the thing. You know that I am the only girl in the school who can draw caricatures, but did you suppose that I would show her dishonour? Of course things look ugly for me, if this is what you found in your book; but I did not think that you would suspect me, Cecil.”
“I will believe you, Annie,” said Cecil eagerly. “I long beyond words to believe you. With all your faults, no one has ever yet found you out in a lie. If you look at me, Annie, and tell me honestly that you know nothing whatever about that caricature, I will believe you. Yes, I will believe you fully, and I will go with you to Mrs Willis and tell her that, whoever did the wrong, you are innocent in this matter. Say you know nothing about it, dear, dear Annie, and take a load off my heart.”
“I never put the caricature into your book, Cecil.”
“And you know nothing about it?”
“I cannot say that; I never – never put it in your book.”
“Oh, Annie, exclaimed poor Cecil, you are trying to deceive me. Why won’t you be brave? Oh, Annie, I never thought you would stoop to a lie!”
“I’m telling no lie,” answered Annie with sudden passion. “I do know something about the caricature, but I never put it into that book. There! you doubt me, you have ceased to believe me, and I won’t waste any more words on the matter.”