"I have taken the votes of the members on that point," Margaret continued, "therefore I know what I am speaking about. What we do most emphatically require is that you carry your confession to its logical conclusion--that what you have said to us you say to the kindest woman in all the world, to dear Mrs. Haddo, and that you put the little packet which has cost you such misery into Mrs. Haddo"s hands. Don"t speak for a minute, please, Betty. We have been praying about you, all of us; we have been longing--longing for you to do this thing. Please don"t speak for a minute. It is not in our power to turn you from the school, nor to relate to Mrs. Haddo nor to any of the teachers what you have told us.
But we can dismiss you from the Speciality Club--that does lie in our province; and we must do so, bitterly as we shall regret it, if you do not carry your confession to its logical conclusion."
"Then I must go," said Betty very gently.
"Oh Betty!" exclaimed Olive; and she burst into a flood of weeping.
"Dear, dear, dear Betty, don"t go--please don"t go!"
"We will all support you if you are nervous," continued Margaret. "I think we may say we will all support you, and Mrs. Haddo is so sweet; and then, if you want to see him, there"s Mr. Fairfax, who could tell you what to do better than we can. Don"t decide now, dear Betty. Please, please consider this question, and let us know."
"But I have decided," said Betty. "I told you what I thought right. I love the club, and every single member of it--except my cousin, f.a.n.n.y Crawford. I don"t love f.a.n.n.y, and she doesn"t love me--I say so quite plainly; therefore, once again, I break Rule I. You see, girls, I cannot stay. I must become again an undistinguished member of this great school. Don"t suppose it will hurt my vanity; but it will touch deeper things in me, and I shall never, never forget your kindness. I can by no possibility do more than I have done. Good-bye, dear Margaret; I am more than sorry that I have given you all this trouble."
As Betty spoke she unclasped the little silver true-lover"s knot from the bosom of her dress and put it into Margaret"s hand. Then she walked out of the room, a Speciality no longer.
When she had gone, the girls talked softly together. They were terribly depressed.
"We never had a member like her. What a pity our rules are so strict!"
said Olive.
"Nonsense, Olive!" said Margaret. "We must do our best, our very best; and even yet I have great hopes of Betty. She can be re-elected some day, perhaps."
"Oh, she is like no one else!" said one girl after another.
The girls soon dispersed; but as f.a.n.n.y was going to her room Martha West joined her. "f.a.n.n.y," she said, "I, as the youngest member of the Specialities, would like to ask you a question. Why is it that your cousin dislikes you so much?"
"I can"t tell," replied f.a.n.n.y. "I have always tried to be kind to her."
"But you don"t cordially like her yourself!"
"That is quite true," said f.a.n.n.y; "but then I have seen her at home, when you have not. She has great gifts of fascination; but I know her for what she really is."
"When you speak like that, f.a.n.n.y Crawford, I no longer like you,"
remarked Martha; and she walked away in the direction of her room.
All the Speciality girls, including Betty, were present at prayers in the chapel that evening. Betty sat a little apart from her companions, she stood apart from them, she prayed apart from them. She seemed like one isolated and alone. Her face was very white, her eyes large and dark and anxious. From time to time the girls who loved her looked at her with intense compa.s.sion. But f.a.n.n.y gave her very different glances.
f.a.n.n.y rejoiced in her discomfort, and heartily hoped that she would now lose her prestige in the school.
Until the advent of Betty Vivian, f.a.n.n.y was rather a favorite at Haddo Court. She was certainly not the least bit original. She was prim and smug and self-satisfied to the last degree, but she always did the right thing in the right way. She always looked pretty, and no one ever detected any fault in her. Her mistresses trusted her, and some of the girls thought it worth their while to become chums with her.
f.a.n.n.y, however, now saw at a glance that she was in the black looks of the other Specialities. This fact angered her uncontrollably, and she made up her mind to bring Betty to further shame. It was not sufficient that she should be expelled from the Speciality Club; the usual formula must be gone through. All the girls knew of this formula; and they all, with the exception of f.a.n.n.y, wished it not to be observed in the case of Betty Vivian. But f.a.n.n.y knew her power, and was resolved to use it. The Speciality Club exercised too great an influence in the school for its existence to be lightly regarded. A member of the club, as has been said, enjoyed many privileges besides being accorded certain exemptions from various irksome duties. It was long, long years since any member had been dismissed in disgrace; it was certainly not within the memory of any girl now in the school. But f.a.n.n.y had searched the old annals, and had come across the fact that about thirty years ago a Speciality had done something which brought discredit on herself and the club, and had therefore been expelled; she had also discovered that the fact of her expulsion had been put up in large letters on a blackboard. This board hung in the central hall, and generally contained notices of entertainments or cla.s.s-work of a special order for the day"s programme.
Miss Symes wrote out this programme day by day.
On the morning after Betty had been expelled from the Specialities, f.a.n.n.y ran up to Miss Symes. "By the way," she said, "I am afraid you will have to do it, for it is the rule of the club."
"I shall have to do what, my dear f.a.n.n.y?"
"You will just have to say, please, on the blackboard that Betty Vivian is no longer a member of the Specialities."
Miss Symes stopped writing. She was busily engaged notifying the hour of a very important German lesson to be given by a professor who came from town. "What do you mean, f.a.n.n.y?"
"What I say. By the rules of the club we can give no reasons, but must merely state that Betty Vivian is no longer a member. It ought to be known. Will you write it on the blackboard?"
Miss Symes looked at f.a.n.n.y with a curious expression on her face. "Thank you for telling me," she said. She then crossed the great hall to where Margaret and some other girls of the Specialities were a.s.sembled. She told Margaret what f.a.n.n.y had already imparted to her, and asked if it was true.
"It is true, alas!" said Margaret.
"But I thought Betty was such a prime favorite with you all," said Miss Symes; "and she really is such a sweet girl! I have never been more attracted by any one."
"I cannot give you any particulars, Miss Symes; but I think we have done right," said Margaret.
"If you have had any hand in it, dear, I make no doubt on the subject,"
replied Miss Symes. "It is a sad pity. f.a.n.n.y says it is one of your rules that an expelled member has her name published on the blackboard, the fact being also stated that she has been expelled."
"Oh," said Margaret, "that is a very old rule. We don"t want it to be carried into effect in Betty"s case."
"But if it is a rule, dear, and if it has never been abolished----"
"It has not been abolished," said Margaret. "It would distress Betty very much."
"Nevertheless, Margaret, if it is right to expel Betty it is right to publish that fact on the blackboard, always provided it is a rule of the Specialities."
"I am afraid it is a rule," said Margaret. "But we are all unhappy about her. We hate having her expelled."
"Can I help you in any way, dear Margaret?"
"No, Miss Symes; no one can help us, and the deed is done now."
Miss Symes went very slowly to the blackboard, and wrote on it simply: "Betty Vivian has resigned her membership of the Speciality Club."
This notice caused flocks of girls to surround the blackboard during the morning, and the news flew like wildfire all over the school. Betty herself approached as an eager group were scrutinizing the words, saw her name, read it calmly (her lips curling slightly with scorn), and turned away. No one dared to question her, but all looked at her in wonder.
Betty went through her lessons with her accustomed force and animation, and there was no difference to be observed between her manner of to-day and that of yesterday. After school she very simply told her sisters that she had withdrawn from the Specialities, and then begged of them not to pursue the subject. "I am not going to explain," she said, "so you needn"t ask me. I shall have more time to devote to you in the future, and that"ll be a good thing." She then left them and went for a long walk by herself.
Now, it is one of those dreadful things which most surely happen to weak human nature that when an evil and jealous and unkind thought gets into the heart, that same thought, though quite unimportant at first, gradually increases in dimensions until it overshadows all other thoughts and gains complete and overwhelming mastery of the mind. Had any one said to f.a.n.n.y Crawford a fortnight or three weeks before the Vivians" arrival at the school that she would have felt towards Betty as she now did, f.a.n.n.y would have been the first to recoil at the monstrous fungus of hatred which existed in her mind. Had Betty been a very plain, unattractive, uninteresting girl, f.a.n.n.y would have patronized her, kept her in her place, but at the same time been kind to her. But f.a.n.n.y"s rage towards Betty now was almost breaking its bounds. Was not f.a.n.n.y"s own father educating the Vivians? Was it not he who had persuaded Mrs.
Haddo to admit them to the school? She herself was the only daughter of a rich and distinguished man. The Vivians were n.o.bodies. Why should they be fussed about, and talked of, and even loved--yes, loved--while she, f.a.n.n.y, was losing her friends? The thought was unbearable! f.a.n.n.y had managed by judicious precaution to get Betty to reveal part of her secret, and Betty was no longer a member of the Specialities. Betty"s name was on the blackboard too, and by no means honorably mentioned. But more things could be done.
For f.a.n.n.y felt that the school was turning against her--the upper school, whose praise she so prized. The Specialities asked her boldly why she did not love Betty Vivian. There would be no peace for f.a.n.n.y until Mrs. Haddo knew everything, and dismissed the Vivians to another school. This she would, of course, do at once if she knew the full extent of Betty"s sin. f.a.n.n.y felt that she must proceed very warily.
Betty had hidden the packet, and boldly declared that she would not give it up to any one--that she would rather leave the Specialities than tell her story to Mrs. Haddo and put the little sealed packet into her keeping. f.a.n.n.y"s present aim, therefore, was to find the packet. She wondered how she could accomplish this, and looked round her for a ready tool. Presently she made up her mind that the one girl who might help her was Sibyl Ray. Sibyl was by no means strong-minded. Sibyl was unpopular--she pined for notice. Sibyl adored Betty; but suppose--oh, suppose!--f.a.n.n.y could offer her, as a price for the dirty work she wanted her to undertake, membership in the Speciality Club? Martha West would be on Sibyl"s side, for Martha was always friendly to the plain, uninteresting, somewhat lonely girl. f.a.n.n.y felt at once that the one tool who could further her aims was Sibyl Ray. There was no time to lose.
Sibyl had been frightfully perturbed at seeing Betty"s name on the blackboard, and she was as eager to talk to f.a.n.n.y as f.a.n.n.y was pleased to listen to her.
"Oh Fan!" she said, running up to her on the afternoon of that same day, "may I go for a very little walk with you? I do want to ask you about poor darling Betty!"
"Poor darling Betty indeed!" said f.a.n.n.y.
"Oh, but don"t you pity her? What can have happened to cause her to be no longer a member of the Specialities?"
"Now, Sibyl, you must be a little goose! Do you suppose for a moment it is within my power to enlighten you?"
"I suppose it isn"t; but I am very unhappy about her, and so are we all.