Chapter IX: Diamond cut Diamond

Honor was both amazed and indignant at Vivian's stern rebuke. She appealed to Janie in self-justification.

"I don't understand it," she declared. "I only screwed up my face, and said ghosts glided. I stopped at once when Vivian asked me. How could Evelyn have been so fearfully frightened just at that?"

"I can't imagine," said Janie, "except that she's such an extremely nervous girl."

"It's too bad to blame me on that account."

"Vivian is generally very severe."

"She's always down on me! I'm continually in hot water, and half the time I don't know exactly why."

It was not until the next afternoon that Honor learnt of the practical joke that had been practised upon her schoolfellow. As she was washing her hands in the dressing-room she chanced to overhear a few remarks between two or three girls who were discussing the affair, and at once questioned them about it.

"Of course Meta knew it was you, Honor!" said Ruth Latimer, rather reproachfully.

"Why of course?" asked Honor.

"Because it couldn't be anyone else. You're always playing tricks upon someone."

"It's a case of 'give a dog a bad name', then. I'm innocent for once."

"But the ghost ran up the steps to No. 8!"

"That's only 'circumstantial evidence'. I certainly didn't do it. Janie can tell you that I never left the bedroom."

"Yes, I could take my oath in a law court, as a reliable witness," vouched Janie.

"Then who was it?"

Honor shook her head.

"Ask me a harder!" she said briefly.

Flossie, who was standing near, looked rather conscious, but volunteered no explanation.

"It's a most peculiar thing," said Ruth. "Somebody must have been the ghost, I suppose."

"Unless it were a real one!" suggested Flossie. "It might----"

"What nonsense! Nobody believes in ghosts, except, perhaps, Evelyn," interrupted Ruth scornfully. "Of course, it was a girl playing a trick. The only question is, who?"

"Could it be May or Trissie Turner?" suggested Flossie.

"Impossible! Evelyn's own cousins--and in the Sixth Form, too!"

"It's very extraordinary!"

"It ought to be properly cleared up," said Lettice Talbot.

"Suppose we ask every girl in the house if she knows anything," proposed Dorothy Arkwright.

"No; Meta begged us to let the matter drop," replied Ruth. "She says Evelyn is extremely sensitive about it, and can't bear the subject alluded to."

"Evelyn looked very ill this morning," observed Dorothy.

"Yes; Meta says she has had a severe shock, and the least reference to it might upset her again."

"So it will have to remain unexplained?"

"I suppose so," said Flossie. "It seems a complete mystery."

"Why, Flossie!" exclaimed Maisie Talbot suddenly, "didn't I hear you get up last night, after Vivian had gone downstairs and we had marched off to bed again? I remember I called out to you, but I was too sleepy to wake up properly. I verily believe it must have been you who frightened Evelyn. Honestly now, was it?"

Flossie turned very red. She would have continued to shield herself at Honor's expense if it had been any longer possible, but she was not prepared to tell a direct falsehood. There was no way out of it but to confess.

"What a storm in a teacup!" she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "It's absurd if one can't play the least joke without a monitress interfering and making a ridiculous fuss. It was only meant for fun; I should have laughed if anybody had done it to me."

"It's no laughing matter," said Maisie gravely. "In the first place, though Evelyn may be silly, you had no right to frighten her; and in the second place, you deliberately let the blame rest on Honor's shoulders."

"Vivian ought to be told of this," declared Dorothy.

"Yes, she must know at once," added Ruth.

"Oh, please don't go sneaking to the monitress on my account!" interposed Honor. "If Meta wants the affair to drop, it shall. Both she and Vivian took it for granted last night that I had acted the ghost in No. 4; they never asked me, or gave me a chance of denying it, so I shan't trouble to undeceive them. If Vivian has such a poor opinion of me already, she shan't think me a tell-tale in addition. As for Flossie, she's not worth noticing."

"But telling a monitress isn't like telling a teacher," objected Ruth.

"It savours of sneaking, and I prefer to leave it alone. What does it matter? I don't care about anybody's opinion!"

Honor was on her high horse. She had been much hurt by Vivian's injustice, and all the Fitzgerald pride was roused within her. Notwithstanding the girls' remonstrances, she would not allow herself to be cleared of the false charge.

"The whole thing is altogether beneath me," she remarked, as she stalked haughtily away.

"It's no good trying to persuade her," said Lettice. "When she puts that set look on her face, arguments are absolutely useless."

"On the whole, I think I rather admire her for saying nothing," commented Maisie. "It's more dignified than making a fuss. I can't tolerate tale-bearing myself. It would have got Flossie into a terrific scrape with Vivian, and probably with Miss Maitland as well."

"Flossie doesn't deserve to go scot-free," said Ruth, with a glance at the flaxen head that was discreetly disappearing through the door.

"She won't!" asserted Lettice. "Honor is the most contrary, queer, impossible, perverse girl I've ever met. She'll let Flossie off easily now, but she'll make her pay for it in some other way. I could see it in her eye. She was as cool as a cucumber outside, but I'm sure that was only the crust over the crater, and that there was the usual volcano inside. It's bound to find a safety-valve, so Flossie had better look out for squalls!"

Lettice was right. Honor was certainly in a most unenviable frame of mind. She considered that Vivian had treated her unfairly in assuming her to be guilty without making any proper investigation.

"It's the first time a Fitzgerald has ever been called a coward!" she said to Janie.

The word rankled in her memory even more than the monitress's high-handed manner.

"Then you must use every opportunity of showing that you're the reverse," replied Janie. "You'll have to live the thing down. I expect the truth will come round to Vivian's ears in course of time, and I'm sure that she'll think far better of you than if we had gone at once to her with a long accusation against Flossie. If Flossie herself had offered to tell, that would have been different; but she didn't rise to such a pitch of heroism."

"One wouldn't expect it from Flossie Taylor!" said Honor contemptuously, as she hurried off to her music lesson.

I am afraid Honor's scales that day were anything but a satisfaction to Fraeulein Bernhardt, the piano teacher. Her mind was so abstracted that she kept continually playing wrong fingering, or even an occasional wrong note in the harmonic minors. Her study was little better, and her piece a dead failure. The mistress, with characteristic German patience, set her to work to try to conquer a couple of difficult phrases, through which Honor stumbled again and again, each time with the same old mistakes, until the end of the half-hour.

"I find you not yet fit to take share in ze evening pairformance!" sighed poor Fraeulein, whose musical ear had been much distressed by this mangling of her favourite tarantella. "Zere must be more of improvement before ve render ze piece to Mees Maitland. You say you not vish to play in publique? Ach, so! Zat is vat zey all say; but it is good to begin young to get over ze fear--vat you call ze 'shyness'--is it not so?"

Fraeulein Bernhardt was an excellent teacher--patient, conscientious, and enthusiastic. She tried to inspire all her pupils with her own love for music, and with some indeed she succeeded, though with others it proved a more difficult task.

"I'm almost impossible!" avowed Lettice Talbot. "I believe I'm nearly as bad as the old fellow who declared he only knew two tunes--one was 'God Save the King', and the other wasn't."

"You certainly have a particularly leaden touch," agreed Dorothy Arkwright. "The way you hammer out Mendelssohn is enough to try my nerves, so I'm sure it must be an offence to Fraeulein."

"I think it's stupid to be obliged to learn the piano when you've absolutely no taste for it," yawned Lettice. "I'm going to ask Father to let me give it up next term."

"Don't!" interposed Vivian Holmes, who happened to overhear Lettice's remark. "I went through that same phase myself, when I was fourteen. I implored my mother to allow me to stop music, and she had nearly consented when I met a lady who advised me most strongly to go on. She said she couldn't play herself, and regretted it immensely now she was grown-up, and would be thankful if she could manage even a hymn tune. So I did go on, and now I'm very glad. I'm certain you'll like it better, Lettice, when you've got over more of the drudgery."

"Perhaps it will never be anything but drudgery for me!"

"Oh, yes, it will! We shall have you taking part in the 'Friday firsts' yet."

On the first Friday in every month Miss Maitland held a "Mutual Improvement Evening", at which all who were sufficiently advanced were expected to contribute by playing, singing, or reciting. These were quite informal gatherings, only Chaddites being present. Miss Cavendish considered it good for teachers and pupils to meet thus socially, and a similar arrangement obtained at each house. To many of the girls, however, it was more of an ordeal to be obliged to perform before their schoolfellows than it would have been to play to strangers.

"I'm always nervous, in any case," said Pauline Reynolds; "but strangers don't criticize one openly afterwards, whatever they may think in private. I feel it's perfectly dreadful to have Fraeulein and Miss Maitland and Miss Parkinson sitting on one side, and all of you in a row on the other!"

"But we're very polite," urged Lettice. "We say, 'Thank you!'"

Honor had not yet been considered proficient enough to take an active part in the monthly entertainment, but Flossie's name was one of the first on the list. She played the violin remarkably well, better than almost anybody else at Chessington; and as she was seldom nervous, her pieces were generally very successful. The day following Evelyn Fletcher's fright happened to be "Mutual Improvement Friday". The girls only spent a short time at preparation, and then went upstairs to change their dresses. The meetings were always held in the drawing-room, and were rather festive in character. Miss Maitland tried to make them as much as possible like ordinary parties; she received the girls as guests, encouraged them to converse with herself and the other teachers, and had coffee served to them during the evening.

On this particular occasion Flossie made a very careful toilet, and she certainly looked nice in her pretty, embroidered white muslin dress, her fair hair tied with big bows of palest blue ribbon. She took a last glance at herself in the looking-glass, then, seizing her violin, which she had brought to her cubicle, she prepared to go downstairs.

In passing Miss Maitland's bedroom on the lower landing, she noticed that the door stood open, and that no one was within. There was a large mirror in the wardrobe, and, catching a glimpse of her own reflection as she went by, she stopped suddenly, and could not resist the temptation to run in for a moment and take a full-length view of herself as she would appear when she was playing her piece. She raised her violin and struck a suitable attitude, and was immensely pleased with the result that faced her--the dainty dress, the blue bows, the coral cheeks, flaxen hair, and bright eyes all made a charming picture, and the position in which she held her instrument was particularly graceful. She drew her bow gently over the strings, to observe the curve of her slender wrist and well-shaped arm. It was gratifying to know that she would make such a good appearance before her schoolfellows. Once again she played a few notes, for the sheer satisfaction of watching her slim, white fingers in the glass.

Alas for Flossie! That single bar of Schubert's Serenade was her undoing. Honor chanced to be passing the door at the identical moment, and, hearing the strain of music, peeped inside. She grasped the situation at a glance.

"Oho, Miss Flossie! So I've caught you prinking!" she said to herself. "You're evidently practising your very best company smile for this evening. What a disappointment it would be to you, now, if you were not able to play that piece after all!"

Honor had a resourceful mind. Very gently she put her hand inside the door and abstracted the key, which, with equal caution, she fitted into the keyhole on the outside; then, quickly shutting the door, she locked it, and ran away before Flossie had even discovered that anybody Was there. The latter naturally noticed the slight noise and turned round, but she was too late; and though she rattled the handle, and knocked and called, it was of no avail. Honor, as it happened, had been the last girl to go downstairs, and there was nobody left on either landing to hear even the most frantic thumps. Flossie rushed to the electric bell, hoping to bring a servant to her assistance; but it was out of order, and would not ring. She was in a terrible dilemma: if she made too much noise one of the teachers, or even Miss Maitland herself, might come upstairs to see what was the matter; on the other hand, there she was locked up fast and secure, missing the "evening", and with an equal chance of being found out in the end, and asked to give some explanation of her presence in the mistress's room.

In the meantime, Honor went downstairs chuckling. She entered the drawing-room in the highest of spirits, paid her respects to Miss Maitland, and found a seat close to the door. The musical part of the performance, she ascertained, was to come first, and after coffee there were to be recitations, and a dialogue in French. A neat programme had been written out and was laid on the top of the piano, so that it could be referred to by Vivian Holmes, who was conductress of the ceremonies.

It was late already, and the proceedings began immediately. The room was crowded, and amongst the forty girls nobody seemed to have particularly remarked Flossie's absence, and no enquiry was made for her, until the close of the song that preceded her violin solo.

"Where is Flossie Taylor?" whispered Vivian then, with a look of marked annoyance on her face. "Her _Serenade_ comes next. She ought to be standing by the piano. Has anybody seen her? Please pass the question on."

She paused a moment or two in great impatience; then, as no Flossie put in an appearance, she turned to Meta Fletcher and May Turner, who followed on the programme, and asked them to begin their duet.

"I can't wait for anybody," she remarked. "If Flossie isn't ready, I must simply miss her out. We've almost too many pieces to get through in the time."

The rest of the music went off successfully. Nobody broke down, or even made a bad stumble, a subject of much self-congratulation to several nervous performers and of great relief to Vivian, who, as monitress of the house, always arranged the little concerts as a surprise for Miss Maitland, the latter preferring that the girls should settle all details amongst themselves, instead of leaving matters to a teacher.

Coffee was brought in at eight o'clock, after which the recitations began immediately. At this state of the entertainment Honor felt magnanimous. She did not want to involve Flossie in serious trouble, so, slipping quietly away, she ran upstairs, unlocked the door of Miss Maitland's bedroom, and released her prisoner.

The disappointed violinist emerged looking decidedly glum.

"It's a nasty, mean trick you've played me, Honor Fitzgerald!" she burst out.

"No meaner than you played on Evelyn Fletcher--not half so bad, in my opinion. I'm sorry to say you're too late for your solo. The music's over long ago, and they're hard at work reciting Shakespeare at present."

"Just what I expected! And it's all your fault!"

"You're very ungrateful! You ought to be most relieved to be let out before Miss Maitland caught you," retorted Honor. "What an opportunity to point a moral on the fatal consequences of vanity!" Then, as Flossie flounced angrily away: "You've never thanked me for unlocking this door yet. I thought we were supposed to cultivate manners at St. Chad's. If Vivian asks where you've been, I suppose you'll tell her?"

"I certainly shan't! And you'll be a sneak if you do."

"All right, all right! Keep your little temper! You may make your mind easy; I don't intend to do anything of the sort," called Honor, watching Flossie's back as her victim hurried out of earshot down the passage. "It has been a delightful evening," she continued to herself; "really quite the jolliest since I came to Chessington. I'm afraid I've had the lion's share of the enjoyment, but that couldn't be helped. It certainly is a most immense satisfaction to feel that Flossie Taylor and I are now exactly quits!"