A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl (26 page)

"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 manuscript; 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 class 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 entitled 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.

"Will it be enough to send me to a horticultural college?" she asked Miss Todd.

"Ample, my dear. It ought to bring you sufficient for a thoroughly good training in any career you want to take up."

This was news indeed--so splendid that it seemed almost too good to be true. Hilary's essay, which, as everybody expected, easily won the prize, had indirectly made Loveday's fortune after all.

"I bless the day when I was a prisoner in the attic," rejoiced Diana. "If I hadn't knocked that door in, the furniture might still have been lying there in the dust."

"I wonder if
this
was the discovery that gentleman wanted to tell Father about," surmised Loveday.

Surprise came on surprise, for the very morning after this happy solution of Loveday's future, Diana received a telegram from Paris. Mr. Hewlitt had succeeded in getting three passages (thrown up at the last by a family who were taken ill with "flu" and unable to travel); he and Mrs. Hewlitt were crossing the channel post-haste, and Diana must start from school and meet them in Liverpool. Loveday helped her to pack her boxes. It was an excited, fluttered, tearful little Diana who clung to her at the last.

"Sissie! I can't say 'Good-bye!' It's not 'good-bye' to
you
--only 'au revoir'."

"We'll meet again some day, darling!"

"We'll just jolly well have to, or I'll know the reason why! If you don't come out to see us in America I shall come over here and fetch you. Write very often, and let me know how the baby goes on, and if it has been taken into the Home. I haven't quite finished its frock. Will you do it? Oh, thanks! I'm leaving the Abbey in as big a hurry as I came here. Dad always uses his 'lightning methods'. But I shan't forget any of you, ever--not you, Wendy, or Jess, or Vi. Write to me, won't you? As for you, Loveday mine, I haven't words left. Let me give you one more good hug! Yes, Miss Todd, I'm really coming. No, I don't want to miss my train. Good-bye, everybody and everything! Good-bye! Good-bye!"

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