"If Anna isn"t sorry some day for being so chummy with Lettice," said Betty seriously, "Lettice will be for being so chummy with Anna."
But Kitty could not see that. She did not care for Lettice, but it never occurred to her that her behaviour was worse than foolish, or that she should warn Anna against the friendship. Not that it would have done any good, probably, if she had.
It might have been better for them all, though, if Kitty had been more suspicious and alert, for she might then have seen what was happening, and perhaps have avoided the catastrophe to which they were all hastening. But, of course, if you have no suspicions of people, you cannot be on your guard against something that you do not know exists; and Kitty suspected nothing, not even when Betty came home one day with an unpleasant tale of foolishness to tell.
"I won"t walk home with Anna any more," she cried hotly. "She asks me to go with her, and then tries to get rid of me. I know why she wanted to, though: she had a letter to post and didn"t want me to see it.
I suppose," indignantly, "she thought I would try to read the address, or would sneak about it!"
"You must have made a mistake," said Kitty. "It is too silly to think she should want to get rid of you while she posted a letter.
Why shouldn"t she post one? I don"t see anything in it."
"Well, _I_ do," said Betty solemnly. "To tell you isn"t really sneaking, is it? Anna posts letters for Lettice Kitson--letters to people she isn"t allowed to write to--and she takes letters to her.
She does really, Kitty, and I think Anna ought to be spoken to.
Lettice was nearly expelled from her last school for the same thing.
Violet told me so."
"Nonsense," cried Kitty scornfully. "I believe the girls make up stories, and you shouldn"t listen to them, Betty; it is horrid."
"I am sure Violet wouldn"t make up stories," said Betty; "and if Lettice does such things, Anna ought not to help her. You should stop her, Kitty. Tell her we won"t have it."
"O Betty, don"t talk so. Don"t tell me any more that I ought to do.
It seems to me I ought to do everything that is horrid! And why should I look after Anna? She never takes any notice of what I say; and after all it is nothing very bad--nothing to make a fuss about, I mean.
I haven"t seen anything myself."
"Well, _I_ think it is a good deal more than nothing," said Betty gravely; "and I wish you would see, Kitty, I wish you would notice things more."
"But what good could I do? What can I say?" cried Kitty distractedly, growing really distressed.
"Say? Oh, say that we won"t stand it, and let her see that we won"t,"
said Betty. "We ought to be able to do that."
CHAPTER XI.
POOR KITTY!
Only a few days later Kitty"s eyes were opened for her, and opened violently. Autumn had come on apace. The days were short now, and the evenings long and dark. Already the girls were counting that there were only five or six weeks before Dan came home; and at school there was much talk of the break-up party, and the tableaux which were to be the chief feature of the festivity this year. Kitty was to take part in one tableau at least. She was to be Enid in one of her dearly loved Arthurian legends--Enid, where, clad in her faded gown, she met Queen Guinevere for the first time, who,
"descending, met them at the gates, Embraced her with all welcome as a friend, And did her honour as the prince"s bride."
And Kitty was to wear a wig such as she had always longed for, with golden plaits reaching to her knees, and she was almost beside herself with joy.
On the evening that the storm broke, she, little dreaming of what was coming, was doing her home work and taking occasional dips into her volume of Tennyson. Betty had finished her home lessons and was curled up in a chair reading. Anna was not in the room; in fact, she had left it almost as soon as they had settled down to their work after tea as usual. It was now nearly supper-time.
Mrs. Pike was absent at a Shakespeare reading. Dr. Trenire had been out all day, a long round over bleak country, and had not been home more than an hour. Kitty had heard him come, and had longed--as she had never longed in the days when she was free to do as she liked--to go and superintend his meal, and hear all about his day. But she knew what a to-do there would be if she did not stay where she was and do her lessons, and she had just lost herself again in the story of "Enid,"
when, to her surprise, she heard her father"s footsteps coming along the pa.s.sage and stopping at the door of the school-room. She was even more surprised when, on opening the door, he said very quietly and gravely, "Kitty, will you come to me in my study at once? I wish to speak to you."
She had looked up with a smile, but the expression on her father"s face caused her smile to die away, and left her perplexed and troubled.
"What was it? Was Dan in trouble--or ill--or--or what had happened?"
It never occurred to her as she got up and hurried after her father to his room that the trouble might be of her causing. When she reached the study she found Dr. Trenire standing by the table holding a letter which he was reading. He looked up from it when she entered, and in answer to the alarmed questioning in her eyes, he, after hesitating a moment, put the letter into her hand. "Read that," he said sternly, "and tell me what it means."
Kitty took the letter, but she was so bewildered and troubled by her father"s manner, and the mystery, and her own dread, that she gazed at it for seconds, unable to take in a word that it contained.
"Well?"
"I--I haven"t read it yet, father," she stammered. "Do tell me; is it-- is it anything about Dan?"
Dr. Trenire looked at her very searchingly. "This is not the time for trifling, Kitty," he said. "The letter is about you, I am sorry to say.
I am so shocked, so grieved, and astonished at what it tells me, that I--I cannot make myself believe it unless you tell me that I must.
Read it."
Kitty read it this time--read it with the blood rushing over her face and neck, her eyes smarting, her cheeks tingling; and as she more and more clearly grasped the meaning, her heart beat hot and fast with indignation.
When she looked up, her hurt, shamed eyes struck reproach to Dr.
Trenire"s heart. "Father, you didn"t--you didn"t think that I--I--that what that letter says is true?" The feeling that he had, if only for a moment, done so hurt her far more than did the letter, which was from Miss Richards.
"It had been discovered," wrote Miss Richards, evidently in a great state of wrath and indignation, "that one of the boarders had been in the habit of writing to and receiving surrept.i.tious letters from a person with whom she had been forbidden to correspond. This she could only have accomplished with the aid of some one outside the school.
On that very evening a letter had been intercepted, and the messenger almost caught; but though she had escaped she had been partially recognized by the governess, who had fortunately discovered these shocking and flagrantly daring misdoings, and the governess had no doubt in her mind that the culprit was Dr. Trenire"s elder daughter."
Miss Richards was deeply grieved to have to write such unpleasant tidings to him, but she begged he would make strict inquiries into the matter at once. In the meantime Miss Lettice Kitson, who was forbidden to leave her room, refused to make any communication on the matter.
"How dare she!" cried Kitty. "How dare she accuse me of doing such a thing! I hardly ever speak to Lettice. We are not at all friendly, and Miss Richards knows it. I have never liked her, and--and," she broke off hotly--"as if, even if I did like her, I would behave so.
Father, you know I wouldn"t; don"t you?" she entreated pa.s.sionately.
"Have you any idea who the real culprit is?" asked her father, greatly troubled. In his heart he implicitly believed her, but he had to inquire into the matter without prejudice. "If you have a suspicion, do give me the clue, that you may be cleared. Of course it wouldn"t be Betty--"
"Oh no, of course not," cried Kitty emphatically. "She has been in the playroom with me all the evening; besides, Betty wouldn"t behave so.
Why, only the other day she was fearfully disgusted with--"
Kitty stopped abruptly, a flood of colour pouring over her face as a sudden suspicion rushed over her mind with overwhelming force.
Dr. Trenire was watching her closely. "You have some suspicion?"
Kitty opened her lips, then closed them. "I--I have nothing I can say, father," she said at last in a m.u.f.fled tone.
"But you must clear yourself, Kitty," he said gravely.
"Lettice Kitson can clear me," she replied. "She knows, and of course she will tell Miss Richards when she hears that they are accusing me.
You believe me; don"t you, father?" she asked again, looking up at him pleadingly.
"Certainly, Kitty," he said heartily, unable to withstand the appeal in her gray eyes. "I would not believe you capable of such dishonourable conduct unless you yourself told me you were guilty."
In the joy and relief of her heart Kitty forgot all about any suspicions others might entertain, until Dr. Trenire mentioned Mrs. Pike. At the mention of that name her heart sank down and down. "O father," she cried, "Aunt Pike need not know anything about it, need she?"
"Of course she need, dear. Why should she not? You have nothing to fear from her knowing it. When you deny the guilt there will be an inquiry into the matter, of course, so that it must come to the knowledge of, at any rate, the elder girls and the parents, and Anna will be amongst the elder ones, I suppose. At any rate she is as tall as you are, and in your cla.s.s."
"As tall as you are." The words struck Kitty with a new suggestiveness.