"I"m not surprised. I"d think anything of Rona Mitch.e.l.l," said Stephanie. "What else could you expect of a girl from the backwoods?"
"But she was so much improved," urged Addie, who had rather a weakness for the Cuckoo.
"Only a veneer. She relapsed directly she got the chance, you see."
"But why should she take your pendant?"
"I can"t pretend to explain her motive, but take it she did--stealing, I should call it. But we"re too polite at The Woodlands to use such a strong word."
"What"ll be done to her?"
"Pack her back to New Zealand, I hope--and a good riddance. I always said she wasn"t a suitable girl to come to this school. She hasn"t the traditions of a lady. You might as well try to make a silk purse out of a sow"s ear as to get such a girl to realize the meaning of _n.o.blesse oblige_. It"s birth that counts, after all, when it comes to the test."
"There I think you"re wrong, Stephie," put in Lizzie quietly. "Gentle birth is all very well if it involves preserving a code of honour, but in itself it"s no hall-mark of character. Some of the humblest and poorest people have been the stanchest on a question of right, when those above them in station have failed utterly. A charwoman can have quite as high standards as a d.u.c.h.ess, and often lives up to them much better."
"Oh, you"re a Radical!"
"I want fair play all round, and I must say that Rona has been very straight and square so far. n.o.body has ever accused her of sneaking."
"No; the bear cub was unpolished, but not a vicious little beastie,"
agreed Addie.
"And it had grown wonderfully tame of late," added Christine.
Rona did not appear at the dinner-table; she had been removed from her own bedroom to a small spare room on another landing. She still refused to answer any question put to her. Her silence seemed unaccountable, and the Princ.i.p.als could only consider it as a display of temper.
"She was annoyed at being caught red-handed with the pendant in her possession, and she won"t give in and acknowledge her wrongdoing," said Miss Teddington to Miss Bowes.
"From a strong hint Cook gave me last night I fear there is something more behind it all," returned her partner. "I shall question every girl in the school separately until I get at the truth."
Beginning with the monitresses, Miss Bowes summoned each pupil in turn to her study and subjected her to a very strict catechism. From the Sixth she gained no information. They formed a clique amongst themselves, and knew little of the doings of the younger girls. V A were likewise absorbed in their own interests, and only cla.s.sed Rona as one among many juniors. It was now the turn of V B, and Miss Bowes sent for Ulyth a trifle more hopefully. She, at least, would have an intimate knowledge of her room-mate.
"Have you ever known Rona mixed up in any deceit before? What is her general report among her form-mates?" asked the Princ.i.p.al.
"Very square. She used to annoy me dreadfully when first she came by turning over all my things, but she soon stopped when I told her how horrid it was. She never dreamt of taking anything. It was the merest curiosity; she hadn"t been taught differently at home."
"Have you found her eating sweets or cakes in her bedroom lately?"
Ulyth hesitated and blushed.
"Ah! I see you have! You must tell me, Ulyth. Keep nothing back."
Very unwilling to betray her friend, Ulyth admitted the fact that chocolate had been pressed upon her one evening.
"Did Rona explain where she got it?"
"No, she wouldn"t tell me anything."
Miss Bowes looked thoughtful.
"I put you upon your honour, Ulyth, to answer this question perfectly frankly. Have you any reason to suspect that some of the juniors have surrept.i.tiously been buying cakes and sweets?"
Thus asked point-blank, Ulyth was obliged to relate what she had overheard; and Miss Bowes, determined to get at the root of the business, cross-questioned her closely, until she had dragged from her reluctant pupil the account of the occurrence in the garden and the conversation with the travelling hawker-woman.
"This is more serious even than I had feared," groaned Miss Bowes. "I thought I could have trusted my girls."
"I think most of them were ashamed of it," ventured Ulyth.
"It is just possible that Rona refuses to speak because she will not involve her schoolfellows."
"Oh yes, yes!" cried Ulyth, clutching at any straw to excuse her room-mate"s conduct. "That"s quite likely. Or, Miss Bowes, I"ve been thinking that perhaps it was a queer kind of loyalty to me. You know Rona"s very fond of me, and she was quite absurdly angry because Stephanie"s pendant was to go to the exhibition and not mine. She may have changed them, hoping it wouldn"t be noticed and that mine would be packed up, and perhaps she intended to put Stephanie"s back in the studio when the parcel had safely gone. Rona does such impulsive things."
Miss Bowes shook her head sadly.
"I wish I could think so. Unfortunately the other circ.u.mstances lend suspicion to a graver motive."
CHAPTER XVIII
Light
Ulyth walked from the study feeling that she had told far more than she wished.
"I"ve given Rona away," she said to herself. "Miss Bowes is thinking the very worst of her, I know. Oh dear! I wish she"d explain, and not keep up this dreadful silence. It"s so unlike her. She"s generally almost too ready to talk. If I could see her even for a few minutes I believe she would tell me. Perhaps Miss Teddington frightened her. Poor Rona! She must be so utterly miserable. Could I possibly get a word with her, I wonder?"
She talked the matter over with Lizzie.
"If I ask Miss Bowes, she"ll probably say no," lamented Ulyth.
"Then I shouldn"t ask," returned Lizzie. "We"ve not been definitely forbidden to see Rona."
"The door"s locked."
"You"ve only to climb out of the linen-room window on to the roof of the veranda."
"Why, so I could. Oh, I must speak to her!"
"I think you are justified, if you can get anything out of her. She"d tell you better than anybody else in the whole school."
"I"ll try my luck then."
"I"ll stand in the garden below and shout "Cave!" if I hear anyone coming."
To help her unfortunate room-mate seemed the first consideration to Ulyth, and she thought the end certainly justified the means. She waited until after the tea interval, when most of the girls would be playing tennis or walking in the glade; then, making sure that Lizzie was watching in the garden below, she stole upstairs to the linen-room. It was quite easy to drop from the window on to the top of the veranda, and not very difficult, in spite of the slope, to walk along to the end of the roof. Here an angle of the old part of the house jutted out, and the open window of Rona"s prison faced her only a couple of yards away. She could not reach across the gap, but conversation would be perfectly possible.