Part 32 (2/2)
”I guess there'll be a fine old s.h.i.+ndy when Miss Todd sees what I've done,” she soliloquized.
Miss Todd, who was thoroughly out of patience with Diana, did not hurry to send her breakfast up early that morning. She decided that the prisoner might very well wait until the school had finished its meal.
She even distributed the post first, and began to read her own letters.
She intended to carry the tray upstairs herself, and have another talk with Diana. It was an unpleasant duty, and could be deferred for a few minutes. Meantime the school also read its letters. There were two for Hilary. One in the well-known home writing, and the other a long envelope addressed in a strange hand. She opened this first. It contained three ma.n.u.scripts, and a printed notice to the effect that the editor of the _Blue Magazine_ much regretted his inability, owing to lack of s.p.a.ce, to make use of the enclosed, for the kind offer of which he was much obliged.
”My stories packed back by return of post. How disgusting!” groused Hilary. ”He might have taken one of them. Are they all here, by the by?
Yes; 'The Flower of the Forest', 'The Airman's Vengeance', and--Good Heavens! What's this? Why--why, it's actually my essay on 'Reconstruction'!”
Hilary was so utterly dismayed that at first she could only stare aghast at her recovered ma.n.u.script; then she tore straight off to Miss Todd.
”I must have put it in in mistake for my other story,” she explained. ”I can't imagine how I could; but evidently I _did_! I'm too sorry for words. _Poor_ Diana!”
Everybody said ”Poor Diana!” when the news--as news will--spread like wildfire over the school. Miss Todd ordered some fresh tea to be made, and an egg boiled for the breakfast-tray. She was a just woman, and ready to make damages good. She even asked Miss Hampson to get out the last jar of blackberry jelly; there was still one left in the store-room. Diana, in the attic, having dressed hours ago, sat hungrily by the table, listening for footsteps, and wondering if starvation were to be part of her punishment. She glanced guiltily at the torn wall-paper as the key turned in the lock. Miss Todd, however, was so full of the good news that she hardly looked at the attic wall.
”Why did you say, Diana, that you knew something about the essay?” she asked.
”I never said anything at all,” replied Diana, which, of course, was literally true.
It was nice to eat a dainty breakfast at leisure and not hurry down to lessons. She felt herself the heroine of the school that morning as she strolled into the French cla.s.s just when the disagreeable grammar part of the lesson was over. Later on in the day there were confidences in the ivy room.
”I knew you hadn't done it, darling!” declared Loveday. ”It wasn't like you one little bit. I had a regular squabble with Miss Beverley. I tried to come and talk to you through the door, and she came and dragged me away. Why didn't you tell Miss Todd you'd never even seen the wretched essay?”
”Sissie,” whispered Diana, ”will _you_ tell _me_ what you were doing at Hilary's desk in the middle of the night?”
”Why--why, surely you never thought----”
”Yes, I did; and that's why I held my tongue,” said Diana, burying her hot face on Loveday's shoulder. ”Forgive me, please, for having thought it.”
”It never struck me that anybody should think that,” said Loveday, still amazed at the idea. ”And how did you know about it? Did you follow me?
Well, I'll tell you what I was doing. We seniors have a secret--not a very desperate one; it's only a little literary society. We make up stories for it, and fasten them together into a sort of magazine.
Geraldine is president, and Hilary is the secretary. It was the night for giving in the stories, and I put mine with the others inside Hilary's desk. Geraldine and I haven't been quite hitting it lately; so I'd made a girl in my story exactly like her, only nastier, and written a lot of very sarcastic things. I thought they were awfully clever. Then when I got into bed I was sorry. It seemed a mean sort of thing to do. I made up my mind I'd go down first thing in the morning and tear up the story. But I'm such a sleepy-head in the mornings, and you know how early Geraldine generally gets up. I was afraid she'd come down first, and probably rummage the stories out of Hilary's desk and read mine. The more I thought about it the more ashamed I was of what I'd written. I couldn't go to sleep. I felt I shouldn't be easy till it was burnt; so at last I got up, and lighted the candle, and went downstairs and did the deed. That's how you saw me at Hilary's desk. By the by, Geraldine said she caught _you_ there before supper. What were _you_ doing?”
”Putting pepper among her books to pay her out and make her sneeze,”
confessed Diana.
”Why, she did say her desk smelled somehow of pepper!” exclaimed Loveday. ”We were all so excited, though, about the essay being missing that we didn't take much notice of it. The whole affair's been a sort of 'Comedy of Errors'.”
One substantial result remained from Diana's confinement to the attic, and that was the discovery of the door into the room beyond. Miss Todd explored, and carried some of the dusty chairs out into the light of day. She was enough of a connoisseur to see at a glance that they were Chippendale, and extremely valuable. She had the rest of the furniture moved out and cleaned, then sent for a dealer in antiques to ask his opinion about it. He said it made his mouth water.
”A set of ten Chippendale singles with two armchairs will fetch almost anything you like nowadays,” he added.
”The question is, to whom do they legally belong?” said Miss Todd. ”I'm only the tenant here. I must tell my landlord.”
The owner of the Abbey, who had bought the property many years before from Mr. Seton, was a man with a fine sense of honour. Though, legally, the furniture in the forgotten attic might have been transferred to him with the house, he did not consider himself morally ent.i.tled to it.
”It certainly belongs to the heirs-at-law of the late Mr. Seton,” he declared.
There was only one heir, or rather heiress-at-law, and that was Loveday.
It was decided, therefore, to sell the furniture for her benefit. The collection included objects of great rarity, among them a genuine spinet and a beautifully inlaid bureau. At the present boom for antiques they would realize a very substantial sum, quite a windfall, indeed, for Loveday.
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