Chapter XVII: Explanations

IT was a perfect summer evening. The day had been an oppressively hot one with scarcely a breath of air stirring, but now, as the sun set, a soft, refreshing breeze began to rise, which was very welcome. Malvina Medland, on her bed of pain, felt the difference of the atmosphere with thankfulness; she was certainly better, but her recovery from her attack of illness was being made very slowly, and Dr. Elizabeth was anything but satisfied with her progress.

Seated on her favourite seat beneath the almond tree in the garden of Laureston Square on this particular evening, Ann Reed had been thinking of Malvina, and wondering how she had endured the heat of the day. Ann had found it a wearisome, dragging day herself, and she knew it must have been a trying one for Malvina; but now her thoughts had turned from the sick girl to Violet, and very troubled thoughts they were.

"I don't understand her," she mused, "I cannot believe she knows anything about Agnes Hosking's purse, for when mother mentioned it at the breakfast-table, this morning, and said how much she regretted that it had never been found, she did not seem embarrassed in the least. I was so relieved to see that! And yet she cannot bear to speak of the afternoon Agnes came to tea with us, she gets red and looks ashamed, and what can she have to be ashamed of? I wish the girls did not slight her so at school; I know some of them do, and she must notice it. It's strange that she never mentions it to me, I am always expecting her to open up the subject. Can she know what Agnes has been hinting about her? If so, she evidently does not mean to openly resent it. Ah, here she comes! Father is right—he said yesterday she was looking rather pale. I'm afraid she's unhappy."

A minute later Violet had joined Ann on the seat. She seemed tired and out of spirits; doubtless the heat of the day had tried her, too.

"I've only just finished my lessons," she remarked; "I've been so slow over them this evening. How nice it is to have it a little cooler!"

"Yes," agreed Ann; "it's very pleasant here, isn't it? So quiet, and the scent from the flowers is lovely. I wonder why flowers always smell their sweetest after sunset? How the term is flying, isn't it, Violet? Here we are in the last week of June; why, in another month we shall be commencing the holidays."

"I shall be so glad when they come," Violet admitted; "not that I am not getting on all right with my work, for I am," she hastened to explain, "but I daresay you've noticed that it has been anything but agreeable for me at school this term. I have had the cold shoulder shown me by several of the girls—not that I care!" she added bitterly, and, certainly untruthfully.

"Oh, Violet!" exclaimed Ann, "I am so sorry, and I am sure you do care. I can see it is a trouble to you. Do you—do you know why—"

"Do I know why I am being treated so?" Violet asked, as her companion hesitated to proceed. "Of course I do," she declared vehemently; "it is Agnes Hosking's doing, not a doubt of it."

"I-I am afraid it is."

"It is very hard lines on me. I cannot help it if—if we've been poor—I'm sure I've hated being so—and I ought not to mind anything Agnes may have told the girls about me, I ought to be above minding, I think you would be, Ann, but— but—" and Violet broke down, with quivering lips and eyes swimming in tears.

"Oh, don't cry, don't cry," said Ann, in much distress; "you have your friends at Helmsford College who believe in you—the Garret girls, for instance. It was Clara who told me what Agnes Hosking had been saying; she trusts you entirely, indeed she does, and Cicely, too."

"Clara trusts me?" Violet exclaimed, looking puzzled, "I don't understand. I don't suppose Agnes has said anything that is not true."

"Oh, Violet, you don't mean that, you can't!" cried Ann, in a shocked voice.

Violet wiped the tears from her eyes, and regarded her agitated companion with increasing bewilderment. During the last few weeks she had been conscious of a change in Ann's manner to her. It was not that Ann had been less kind than she had been before; indeed, if anything, she had been kinder; but she had certainly showed herself less inclined to be confidential, and often Violet had caught her watching her with a dubious, puzzled expression on her face.

"It isn't possible you could have done such a thing," Ann proceeded, "there's some mistake. Tell me, what is it you think Agnes Hosking has hinted to the girls about you?"

"I don't think she has hinted anything," Violet returned; "no doubt she has told plain facts in the most objectionable way possible. She's said, I expect, that I'm a poor girl whom your father has taken into his home out of charity, and, therefore, that I'm beneath her in position and may be slighted and snubbed as she and her friends please. She's a horrid, mean girl, that's what she is, and I hate her! I wish I'd defied her from the first instead of—oh, Ann, you'll despise me I know, but I feel I must tell you all about it, whatever you may think afterwards!"

"Yes, do," said Ann eagerly, "I fancy we are at cross purposes somehow. As to father's having taken you into his home out of charity if Agnes said that, why it's only her ill-bred way of putting it; she knows nothing about it, and she should mind her own business. But what is it you're going to tell me?"

Thereupon, with burning cheeks, Violet confessed that she had entered into a sort of compact with Agnes to obtain an invitation for her to No. 8 Laureston Square, in return for which she had been given a promise that Agnes would not make public her private affairs. Ann listened in silence, naturally greatly astonished, her eyes fixed gravely on her companion's crimson face.

"Do you utterly despise me?" Violet asked wistfully, when she had concluded her tale—it had been a difficult one to tell.

"No," Ann responded, "but I don't understand you quite." There was a look of relief on her face, for it was plain to her now, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Violet knew nothing of the lost purse. "I never trouble about what people think of me," she continued, "I am sure it is a mistake to do so. But, Violet, you are wrong in imagining that the girls who have snubbed you have done so on account of—of your position. If you had not induced me to ask Agnes to our house we should have been spared a lot of unhappiness, for she says—it is best to tell you the truth, for I foresee you will find it out—that she suspects you of having taken her purse. Yes, that is what she has been telling the girls, and I—I have not liked to speak to you about it for—for—"

"She suspects me of having taken her purse!" Violet cried excitedly. "Why, how could I have done that? What an absurd thing to suggest!"

"She says you might have taken it up from my bed as you were the last of us to leave the room that evening—"

"I remember I was," interrupted Violet; "but I never saw her purse after she put it into her muff. And she suspects me of having taken it—stolen it! She considers me a thief!"

The girl was trembling with anger, her eyes flashed, and she clenched her hands in her rage. Suddenly she turned upon Ann, almost fiercely, with the question:—

"Do you suspect me, too?"

"No, Violet no," Ann replied earnestly; "but I have not known what to do. I have been so anxious, and—and puzzled. I have not been able to understand you. You seemed so bitterly to regret having induced me to ask Agnes to tea—of course I see why that was now—and once or twice I—I have half doubted you, against my will, I—I could not help it. Oh, forgive me! I am sure now that you know nothing about the purse! Oh, I have been so wretched!"

Violet stared at her companion in silence for a minute, then she covered her face with her hands and burst into a flood of passionate tears. Ann sat by her, silent and miserable, incapable of offering any consolation, and when, by-and-by, she ventured to put her arm around her she was promptly repulsed.

"Let me alone!" Violet cried. "To think that you should have believed me to be a thief! Oh, it is horrible—horrible!"

"Violet, don't be too hard on me!" Ann said, pleadingly; "you must remember that it was your own conduct which made me doubt you; and it was the very faintest doubt, indeed it was, I put it away again and again, and then something you would say or do would bring it back. And—and I could not understand where you got the money to pay for your new tennis racquet, and—"

"Why you know I have the same amount to spend as you have yourself!" broke in Violet, looking both surprised and reproachful.

"Yes; but I know, too, that you have been sending a part of it to Ruth, and so—"

"I haven't, I haven't!" Violet interrupted again. "I quite meant to do so, but I found there were so many things I wanted," she added, greatly abashed.

"Yes, of course," Ann returned, hurriedly, trying in vain to conceal her astonishment; "you must not think I wish to pry into your private affairs, Violet. Your money is your own to do as you like with; but you must remember that you did tell me you were going to send some to Ruth, and that misled me."

"Do your mother and father know that Agnes Hosking suspects me of having stolen her purse?" demanded Violet, in a hard tone.

"No," replied Ann; "I have not told them."

"Then I shall," said Violet proudly; "I wonder if they will believe that I am a thief! Perhaps they will send me home in disgrace!"

"You know they will not."

"How can I tell? Why should they not believe this tale against me if others do—if you did?"

"Violet, you are most unjust." There was deep pain in Ann's voice.

In her heart of hearts Violet knew that this was true, for she recognised that she herself had given her companion sufficient cause to mistrust her, but she was not going to acknowledge that now.

Dr. and Mrs. Reed had gone to a dinner-party and were not expected home till late, so she would have no opportunity of speaking to them that night, but she was determined to inform them of the ugly suspicion Agnes Hosking entertained of her the first thing in the morning; she would ask them to let her go home, she thought she could not endure to return to Helmsford College again to be pointed at as a thief. Her eyes were quite dry now; her sense of passionate indignation had overcome every other feeling.

In silence the two girls sat side by side whilst the twilight faded and the shadows of evening began to gather. At length Violet gave a shudder, as though she was cold, and, rising, declared her intention of returning to the house.

"Yes, I think it is time we went indoors," said Ann; "for the dew is falling. My blouse is damp, I feel, and yours must be, too; we had better go in and change them. We are friends, are we not, Violet?"

Then, as Violet vouchsafed no response, she continued gently: "At any rate, I am your friend whatever your feelings may be towards me, and—and I am so sorry for you, dear. You must not take this matter too much to heart. Agnes can only influence a few of the girls against you, after all; she has very little power in the school really. Now we have had this talk together I know better how to act. I will speak to Agnes myself—"

"Oh, I will not trouble you to do that," Violet interrupted coldly, "you had much better not interfere. I—I don't suppose I shall go back to Helmsford College; I shall ask your father to send me home. I wish I had not come here!"

"Oh, Violet, don't say that!"

"I do say it, and I mean it."

After that they returned in silence to the house, and went upstairs to their respective rooms. As soon as Ann had changed her blouse she crossed the landing to Violet's door, and inquired if she was coming into the drawing-room, for they had previously arranged to practise a duet, which they were learning on the piano.

"No," Violet answered curtly, "I am going to bed."

"Going to bed!" echoed Ann. "Oh, please, don't! Are you not well? Have you taken cold?"

"I don't know and I don't care," was the reckless response; "I only want to be left in peace. Do go away."

Ann did as she was requested, but by-and-by her kind heart prompted her to return. This time she opened the door softly, and, entering the room, crossed to the bed. She could not see Violet very plainly, for there was no light in the room save that which the stars gave—Violet had pulled up the blind before getting into bed—but she guessed that she was not asleep, and, stooping over her, she imprinted a kiss on her forehead. The next minute Violet's arms were around her neck and the kiss was warmly returned.