Part 32 (1/2)

”Diana Hewlitt, it seems to me you've got yourself into _some_ fix,” she said to herself. ”What's puzzling me is that I can't believe the evidence of my own eyes. Did I _dream_ I saw Loveday go downstairs and take a roll of papers out of Hilary's desk? Goodness, I was only too horribly awake! The queerness of the thing bothers me. It doesn't fit in, somehow. Loveday! Loveday's the last person in the world, as I should have thought, to do a trick like that. I can't understand it.

It's the sort of stupid thing that girls do in books. I never believed they did it in real life. Well, one thing's certain. I'm not going to tell about her--not if Miss Todd keeps me shut up here till I'm a hundred. Loveday s.h.i.+elded me when I ran away to say good-bye to Lenox, and I vowed I'd do the same for her if ever I got the chance. Well, I've got it now, and no mistake. Only--Loveday! Loveday! I don't understand!

You've toppled down somehow off a pedestal. I feel as if something I liked had got broken.”

It was anything but a cheerful afternoon for Diana. The only literature in the room was a catalogue of the Stores and some reports of charitable inst.i.tutions. She read the cost of tins of sardines, pots of jam, table linen, household china and hardware, and tried to take some faint interest in the annual statements of the ”District Nursing a.s.sociation”

and ”The Society for Providing Surgical Appliances for the Sick Poor”.

To amuse herself she was reduced to choosing a word at random and seeing how many other words she could make out of it, but as she had no pencil in her pocket to write them down, it was rather difficult to keep count, and the occupation soon palled. Shortly after four o'clock she heard a scrimmage on the little landing outside the door. A deep-toned voice, that sounded like Miss Beverley's, said, ”Come away this minute!” and a high-pitched, excited voice--undoubtedly Loveday's--protested, ”If you'd _only_ let me speak to her, I'm certain----”

Then a sound followed like somebody sliding down three steps at once, and Loveday's voice, with words indistinguishable, but tone still highly indignant, grew fainter and farther away till it ceased altogether.

Diana smiled rather bitterly.

”It's not much use her coming and talking to me,” she thought. ”If she wants to tell anybody, she can tell Miss Todd. She needn't think I'll give her away. Don't suppose she knows, though, what I saw last night.

It's a queer world! I'll be glad when I'm back in America. If Dad gets those pa.s.sages he'll come and cart me off, Miss Todd or no Miss Todd.

I'd like to see his face if he found me locked up in an attic.”

Diana's tea was brought to her at five o'clock, and an hour later she was visited by the Princ.i.p.al, who again urged confession.

”What's the use of keeping this up?” asked the mistress impatiently.

”You'll have to make a clean breast of it some time, so you may just as well do it at once. It's perfectly evident that you know where the essay is. You don't even deny that. What have you done with it?”

And again Diana stood with the same unyielding look on her face, and stared at the floor, and did not answer a word.

There is nothing so irritating as a person who utterly refuses to speak.

Miss Todd glared at her, then turned towards the door.

”Very well; you may spend the night here. I'm not going to waste any more time on you now. Perhaps by to-morrow morning you'll be in a different frame of mind. I intend to know the truth of this; so it's merely a matter of waiting. You can leave here the moment you decide to confess; so you're punis.h.i.+ng yourself by staying.”

Once more the key turned in the lock, and Diana was a prisoner. At eight o'clock Miss Beverley, in strict silence, brought in a tray with supper, placed it on the table, departed, and secured the defences. After that n.o.body else even came up the stairs.

”They might some of them have managed to push a note under the door,”

sighed Diana. ”I guess I'd have got a message in somehow if it had been Wendy shut up here. What a set of thick-heads they are! There isn't one of them ever has a decent brain-wave. Wonder how long I'll have to stick in this attic? I've not lost my bounce yet. But I guess, all the same, I'll go to bed now.”

Miss Beverley, with the supper tray, had also brought Diana's night-gear in a small bundle. As there was no candle in the attic, it seemed wise to disrobe while there was still light enough to see by. The little bed was rather hard, the pillow was a lumpy one, and the spring mattress squeaked when she moved. Diana watched the room grow gradually darker and darker till stars appeared through the skylight. It was a very long time before she slept. The early suns.h.i.+ne, however, woke her in the small hours of the morning. There was no blind to the window, and the room faced east. Diana sat up in bed. Her eyes fell on the pictureless walls. Perhaps the very fact of their bareness made her look at them more particularly. She did not admire the pattern of the paper. In places it had been badly fitted together, especially in that corner.

Why, the magenta roses actually overlapped! They did it in a sort of curve, almost as if they were outlining the top of a door. _Was_ it by any chance a door?

At this stage of her inspection she sprang out of bed, went over to the corner, and ran her hand along the portion in question. It certainly felt as if the edge of a door were beneath. She rapped, and there was a hollow sound, very different from that given forth from the wall when she tried it a few yards farther on.

”I'm going to solve the problem for myself,” she decided.

There was a knife left on the supper-tray. She thrust it through the paper, and began to cut round the seeming door. And most undoubtedly it was a door, though only a small one, with a curved top that came to the height of her shoulder.

”It must lead somewhere!” she thought excitedly. ”Suppose I could get out on to the leads, climb down the ivy, and go off to Petteridge.

Cousin Coralie wouldn't let me be brought back here to be shut up in an attic, I know!”

She worked away laboriously, tearing at the paper to free the door. It flashed across her mind that Miss Todd might have something to say about the disfigurement of the wall, but as she had gone so far, that did not deter her.

”Might as well finish it now,” she smiled.

More hacking and tearing, then a gigantic shove, and the door suddenly opened inwards. She was looking into another attic, a larger and much darker room, lighted only by a tiny little skylight in the corner. It seemed full of furniture--chairs and tables piled together, and something that looked like a small grand piano. They were so thickly coated with dust that it was difficult in the dim light to distinguish more than upturned legs and general outlines. There did not appear to be the least possibility of escape in this direction. The skylight was more inaccessible than the one in her own attic. She sighed, went back, washed her dusty hands, and got into bed again.