Chapter 23 The Rebel of the School by L. T. Meade
RUTH WILL NOT BETRAY KATHLEEN
Soon after dinner Ruth walked over to Cassandra's house. Cassandra was so anxious to see her, so determined to use her influence on what she considered the scale of right, that she was waiting for Ruth at the little gate.
"Ah! here you are," she said. "I am so glad to see you. Mother has gone out for the day; we will have a whole delightful afternoon to ourselves. We can do some good work."
"Let us," said Ruth.
She felt feverish and excited. As a rule she was very calm, but now her heart beat too fast. She was thinking of her grandfather, and of what it would mean to him and the old grandmother when she came back on Saturday a disgraced girl, expelled from her high estate, her golden chance snatched from her. Nevertheless she had always been pretty firm, and pretty well resolved to do what she thought right. She was firmer now, and quite resolved.
"Shall we go in at once and set to work?" she said. "I want to read that bit of Tasso over again before Miss Renshaw comes."
"No, no," said Cassandra. "You are always in such a fidget to learn, Ruth. Come into the garden; I want to talk to you."
Ruth looked full round at her companion. She saw something in Cassandra's eye which made her slightly shiver. Then she said:
"Very well."
Cassandra opened the little gate which led into the tiny fruit and vegetable garden. There was a narrow path, bordered on each side with a box-hedge, down which the girls walked. Presently Cassandra slipped her arm round Ruth's waist.
"You knew, of course," she said, "how much I love you."
"You are awfully good to me, Cassie."
"As a rule I am not fond of what schoolgirls call falling in love," continued Cassandra; "but I love you. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you."
"Thank you," said Ruth again.
She wondered what Cassandra would say on Saturday. Surely after Saturday no girl who belonged to the Great Shirley School would like to speak to her.
"Now I want to tell you something," continued Cassandra. "I saw Miss Ravenscroft this morning. She told me about you and your position with the governors."
"Oh, need we talk of that?" said Ruth coloring, stopping in her walk, and turning to face Cassandra.
"Why shouldn't we? I wish you would tell me everything. Why are you going to be so obstinate? But of course you won't be. You will—you must—change your mind. She told me—Miss Ravenscroft did—because she likes you, Ruth, and she would be so terribly sorry if you got into trouble over this matter. She said you are certain to get into most serious, terrible trouble, for the governors will on no account depart from their firm resolve to expel you from the school. You will have defied their authority, and that is what they cannot permit. It is on that ground they will expel you, but it is strong enough; no one can suppose for a moment that they are acting with injustice."
"I am glad it is on that ground," said Ruth softly.
"Then of course you will be wise, Ruth. It is silly and quixotic, for the sake of a girl like Kathleen O'Hara, to ruin all your own prospects."
"It is scarcely that—and yet it is that," said Ruth slowly. "It is because I will not be a traitor," she added, lowering her voice, then flinging up her head and gazing proudly before her.
"I knew you were quixotic. I knew that was at the bottom of it," said Cassandra. "But you will think it over, Ruth. It would be too terrible to see you denounced in the presence of the whole school, and sent out of the school for ever. Think of losing your scholarship. Think of the help you want to give your grandparents. Think of your own future."
"I think of them all," said Ruth; "but I also think of what father would have said if he were alive. You see Cassandra, before all things he was a gentleman."
Cassandra started. She looked full at Ruth.
"Is that a slap at me?" she asked.
"No; I did not mean it as a slap at you or anybody. I only see how the matter looks to me, and how it would have looked to father, and how it looks to grandfather. There are some people born that way; I think, after a fashion, I am one of them. There are others who would look at the thing from a different point of view, but I don't think I envy those others. Shall we go in now and set to work?"
"You are an extraordinary girl," said Cassandra. "I really don't know whether I love you or hate you most for being such a little goose. Well, Ruth, if that is your mind, I don't know why you care to go in to work, for it will be all over in a day or two—all over—and your fate sealed."
"Nevertheless I should like to read that piece of Tasso, and do my work with Miss Renshaw. Shall we go in?" said Ruth.
Cassandra somehow did not dare to say any more. Afterwards, when Ruth had returned to her own home, Cassandra sat with her head in her hands for the best part of an hour. Her mother asked her what ailed her.
"I have a headache," she replied. "I was with a girl to-day who is fifty times too good for me."
"What nonsense you are talking, Cassandra! There are few people good enough for you."
"To think of her gives me a headache," continued Cassandra. "If you don't mind, mother, I will go to bed now."
Meanwhile things were moving rather rapidly in another direction. Kathleen O'Hara, walking home that day in the company of Susy Hopkins, eagerly questioned that young lady.
"How prim and proper every one looked in the school to-day!" she said. "What is wrong?"
"There is plenty wrong," said Susy. "I tell you what it is, Kathleen, I feel rather frightened. I suppose it will come to our all being expelled."
"Oh, not a bit of it," said Kathleen.
"Well, it looks rather like it," said Susy. "Do you know what they are doing?"
"What?"
"They are bringing pressure to bear upon Ruth Craven. The governors convened a special meeting yesterday; they had Ruth before them, and then tried by every means in their power to get her to tell. You see, she is in the position of the person who knows everything. She belonged to us for a time, and now she doesn't belong to us."
"Well?" said Kathleen, feeling interested and a little startled.
"She wouldn't tell."
"Of course she wouldn't. She is a brick. The Ruth Cravens of the world are not traitors," said Kathleen. "And so that is what the governors are doing—horrid, sneaky, disagreeable things! But they are not going to subdue me, so they needn't think it. I tell you what it is, Susy. Why should we put off till next week our picnic to town? Can't we have it this week?"
"I wish we could," said Susy. "It would be glorious," she continued. "I do think somehow, Kathleen, that they will catch us in the long run. It might be dangerous to put off our glorious time till next week."
"It might? It certainly would," said Kathleen. "We will go to-morrow evening. School is always over at four. We can meet at the railway station between five and six, and go off all by ourselves to—But where shall we go when we get to town?"
"Couldn't we go to a theatre—to the pit at one of the theatres?"
"If only Aunt Katie O'Flynn was with us it would be as right as right," said Kathleen; "but dare we go alone?"
"I am sure we dare. I shouldn't be frightened. I think some of the girls know exactly how to manage."
"Well, I tell you what. You know most of the names of the members. Go round to-day and see as many as you can. Tell them that I am game for a real bit of fun, and that I will stand treat. We will go to town by the quarter-to-six train to-morrow evening. We will have some refreshments at a restaurant, and then we will go to the pit of one of the theatres. It will be a lark. There will be about forty of us altogether."
"We are sure to be found out. It is too risky; and yet I think we'll do it," said Susy. "Oh, there never was such a lark!"
"Nothing could happen to forty of us," said Kathleen. "I am going to do it just to defy them. How dare they try to make dear little Ruth betray us? But she won't. I am certain she won't."
Susy talked a little longer to Kathleen, and finally agreed to take her message to as many of the Wild Irish Girls as she could possibly reach.
"They will all hear of it safe enough," said Susy. "The whole forty of us will meet you at the station to-morrow night. Oh dear! of course it is wrong."
"It is magnificently wrong; that is the glorious part of it," said Kathleen. "Oh dear! I feel almost as jolly as though I were in old Ireland again."
She laughed merrily, parted from Susy, and ran all the rest of the way home.