The Head Girl at the Gables (25 page)

"I fear Madame must be unwell, as she has not come or sent a note," she explained briefly. "You had better go on with your preparation and write your exercises. I suppose you know what to do next? Then get to work, and of course I put you on your honour as seniors to keep the silence rule."

Lorraine, sitting scribbling away at her desk, felt in no mood to break the rule by entering into conversation with either Dorothy or Audrey, who sat respectively to right and left of her. Her thoughts were far away from the pen which was automatically writing her exercise. What had become of Madame Bertier? Was her absence in any way connected with the events of yesterday? That was the question which kept forcing itself upon her brain. She wondered whether Miss Janet had ever harboured suspicions of the attractive Russian. She had never fallen under her sway so completely as her sister had done. Something in Miss Janet's worried expression made Lorraine think her surmise a correct one. Lorraine's French grammar went to the winds that morning, and she wrote down mistakes, which, in calmer moments, would have caused her to shudder.

At the eleven o'clock interval, Claudia walked into the cloak-room. Lorraine, who had come for her packet of lunch, greeted her with surprised enthusiasm.

"Here you are at last! Why are you so late? I've simply loads to tell you! Do you know that Madame Bertier's never turned up to-day?"

"Hasn't she?" said Claudia abstractedly. "I've loads to tell you too, Lorraine. Come into the garden; I don't want anyone to overhear."

When they were out of reach of the ears of prying juniors, Claudia continued:

"I'm in dreadful trouble; that's why I'm so late. Everything's gone wrong. Yesterday afternoon I had a telegram from Morland: 'Take parcel immediately to the George'."

"That case that the officer lost? I always thought Morland ought to have given it back to him at once. Well! Did you go to the cave and fetch it?"

"I went," said Claudia slowly, "but, when I looked in the little cupboard, it wasn't there."

"Not there!" Lorraine's tone was horror-stricken.

"No. I hunted all round the cave, but it had gone, absolutely."

"Great Scott! What are we to do?"

"I don't know. I telegraphed to Morland that it was lost. I hope he won't get into trouble about it."

"I hope not." Lorraine's face was very grave.

"And to make things worse, Landry is ill in bed to-day. He's in one of his most fractious moods, and won't have anybody near him but me. I only ran down to school for a few minutes to tell you that the dispatch case is lost, then I must go back to him. I've explained to Miss Janet that he's ill, and I have to nurse him. There's the bell, and you must go in. What a nuisance! Come and see me after four, if you can."

"I'll try. Good-bye till then."

Claudia and Lorraine hurried in opposite directions, the one home and the other into school. Lorraine was in a ferment of emotion. Who could possibly have taken the pocket case? Some intruder must have discovered their cave and have stolen it from the cupboard. Was it some chance tourist who had climbed up the rocks, or was it--could it be--Madame Bertier?

Lorraine had always suspected that Morland had told her the secret of the grotto. What if she had gone there, found the officer's private papers, and made treasonable use of them? There were so many doubtful episodes in connection with her--the cut telephone wire; her meeting on the shore with the man arrested only yesterday as a spy, who had claimed her portrait at the Academy as that of his wife.

"It looks bad!" thought Lorraine. "Oh, why didn't we persuade Morland to give that wretched case back at once to his captain? What will he do when he gets Claudia's telegram?"

The answer to this question came later on in the day. She was walking back to school at a quarter past two that afternoon, when just by the windmill she met Morland himself on a motor bicycle. He dismounted at once.

"Lorraine! The very person in all the world I want to see. I say, I'm going to ask to leave the bike at the windmill here, then will you walk up the hill with me?"

"It's nearly school time!" demurred Lorraine.

"Hang school for once! I tell you I
must
talk to you. I'm in the most awful mess I've ever got into in my life. Is it true what Claudia telegraphed? Is that pocket book really gone from the grotto?"

He spoke rapidly, catching his breath. Lorraine felt that, as in the case of yesterday, school must yield to weightier matters. She could not desert Morland now for the sake of a botany class. His business was urgent.

"Leave your bike then, and I'll come," she consented.

So they walked up the hill together towards Windy Howe, and he poured out his story.

"It seems there were most important papers in that pocket case," he confided. "The captain's kicked up an awful shindy at losing them. He's inquired and advertised, and put it into the hands of the police. At first I was like Brer Rabbit, I just 'lay low and said nuffin', and chuckled to think I was leading him such a dance. Then one of the chaps told me he'd heard that a coast-guard at Porthkeverne had seen a Tommy picking something up on the road. I can tell you that made me sit up. I'd forgotten we were close to that wretched coast-guard station. I twigged in a flash that I was in the greatest danger of discovery. Blake would remember passing me on the moor. I stood aside and saluted. There was no other Tommy near. Lorraine, if they fix this on to me I shall be court-martialled! I tell you I simply can't face it!"

It seemed indeed the most desperate problem with which they had ever dealt. Unless the case were found, ruin stared Morland in the face. Captain Blake, strictest of martinets, would not be likely to overlook so grave an offence.

"How did you manage to come over here to-day?" asked Lorraine.

"Pitched it strong about urgent business and got a few extra hours off, borrowed a motor-bike and pelted here for all I was worth. I felt I didn't care whether I broke my neck or not."

"Oh, Morland!"

"Well, I tell you I didn't! I rode part of the way at sixty miles an hour, and I whizzed down that long hill to St. Cyr simply like a hurricane. Look here, I don't want to show up at home for fear Dad or Violet ask questions. What's to be done?"

"Wait at the bottom of the orchard and I'll run up to the house and fetch Claudia. She's at home to-day nursing Landry, who's in bed."

"You mascot! The very thing!"

Leaving Morland sitting under the elder bushes by the orchard gate, Lorraine made her way into the garden, and, finding one of the numerous little Castletons playing about, despatched her with a message to Claudia. The latter came out at once, Lorraine explained hurriedly, and the two girls, with some difficulty evading the curiosity of Beata, Romola and Madox, whisked down a side path into the orchard, and joined Morland. They held a very agitated council of three under the elder bushes.

"Are you
certain
the case isn't there?" urged Morland.

"Absolutely. I hunted for half an hour round the cave," declared Claudia.

"Then who's taken it? If it's some chance tourist who's got it, it may be returned."

Lorraine shook her head.

"I'm terribly afraid it's Madame Bertier. I believe she's mixed up in a very queer piece of business here. I want to tell you what happened yesterday."

As Lorraine recounted her adventures at St. Cyr, and the connection of the foreigner, whom she had helped to identify, with the fascinating Russian, Morland's face darkened.

"Great Heavens! Was the woman a spy after all?" he groaned. "It's the limit! What an infernal ass I've been! If she's caught with those papers on her, and they're traced to me, I'm done for--once and for all! Look here, I'm going out to the cave to have one last hunt for the case. It might have slipped behind something. Will you girls come with me?"

"What's the use? I know we shan't find it," said Claudia. "Besides, I can't leave Landry. He's in bed, and very troublesome. He talks rubbish the whole time, mostly about you, Morland! He keeps suddenly laughing and saying he's stopped your going to the war, and isn't it clever of him, but he gets angry if I ask how, and shouts out that it's his secret and he won't tell me. Violet's fed up with him. I left her in his room, but if I'm not quick back, she'll be sending one of the children to hunt for me."

Morland rose hurriedly.

"I'd best scoot before the kids find me out. Lorraine, will you come?"

It seemed cruel to desert the poor boy at such a pinch, so Lorraine consented, but by the time they had walked down the steep lane to Pettington Church she changed her mind. At the lychgate she stopped.

"I'm so tired to-day, Morland! I don't think I
can
trudge all that way to Tangy Point! Time's important, and you'll walk so much faster without me. You hurry on, and I'll wait for you here."

"Right oh! I'm a selfish beast to ask you to go. Good-bye, old girl! If I don't find that case, perhaps you'll never see me again!"

"Morland! Morland!" called Lorraine.

But his khaki-clad figure was already tearing along the steep track up the cliff, and he did not look round. In another moment he had vanished behind a turn of the rocks.

Lorraine sank down on the seat inside the lychgate. She felt mean at not walking with him, but the afternoon was sultry and hot, and she was very tired after her yesterday's adventures. She knew that he had gone on a fruitless errand, and that, though it might satisfy him to look on his own account, he would certainly not find the missing pocket-case inside the cave.

"Oh! why didn't I make a stand at the time, and insist on his giving it back to Captain Blake at once!" she fretted. "I wish I'd more strength of mind! I was a weak jelly-fish. He'd have done it if I'd held out more. What's going to happen now, goodness only knows! When he sees that the case really isn't there, I'm afraid he'll do something really desperate, run away, or jump into the sea, or anything. It's the worst fix I've ever been in, in all my life. Could I take the blame on myself? It was as much my fault as his. I'm certainly what would be called an accomplice. I wish I could ask Detective Scott about it, but I daren't. Morland might be arrested, like that spy. Oh! it's too horrible to think he may be court-martialled! Will they put him in prison? Shoot him, even?"

Lorraine's notions of military discipline were hazy, but she knew that the keeping back of important papers was an offence of the utmost seriousness, and that if they had fallen into the hands of a spy it might mean a charge of treason. Wild visions of saving Morland at any cost floated through her mind. She felt almost prepared to give herself up to the police and make a confession. Yet how could she do so without involving her friends? She would certainly be asked if she had picked up the case herself, and why she had not returned it immediately to its owner. What would she answer?

"They'd have it all out of me in five minutes when they began cross-questioning, and I should only land Morland in a worse mess than ever," she decided gloomily. "Could Uncle Barton help, I wonder? No, as a special constable he'd be bound to give information. He's no more use than Detective Scott!"

Lorraine sighed, and moved farther along the seat into the shade. It was a broiling afternoon. The sun was pouring down on the grey tower of the little church, and on the mildewed grave stones and the bushes of rosemary and lavender, and the box edging that led to the Norman doorway. A rambler rose rioted over the railings of a monument; its crimson trusses of blossom veiled the broken urn inside. Over the wall the green cliff-side stood out against the gleaming sea. Bees were humming under the archway of the roof. Some swallows scintillated by with gleaming wings. Not a soul was near. She was alone with the sunshine and the birds and the flowers. There flashed across her a strong memory of the day when she and Claudia and Morland had taken their first walk to the cave, and had stopped to look at the church--the Forsaken Merman Church, as Claudia always called it. How happy they had been then, with no terrible shadow hanging over them! She could almost hear Claudia's voice quoting the poem:--

"From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, But we stood without in the cold blowing airs."

It was just the opposite now, for she sat without in the heat, and there was nobody inside saying prayers. The door stood open--not shut. Something urged her to enter--some impulse so strong and so overpowering that instinctively she rose and walked up the little path between the lines of box edging. It was almost as if an invisible hand led her on, under the groined porch and through the carved Norman doorway. How cool and peaceful it was inside, in the soft, diffused golden light falling on the sandstone pillars through the saint-filled windows.

Though no service was in progress, she had a sense that the prayers of many generations lingered in the place, and made it holy. The haloed saints in the east window smiled down at her with calm eyes. Had they ever been in trouble as she was to-day? In their white robes and with palms in their hands, they looked so infinitely removed from the twentieth century. Yet their own times must have seemed absolutely modern to them. There was nothing in their lives which could not be also in ours. The same All-Father who gave them that perfect peace could give it surely to us.

In the dim shadow of the chancel she dropped on her knees and prayed--not a stilted, formal prayer, but a sort of intense, white-hot, wordless passion of entreaty for that bright-haired boy whose life was going so wrong.

As she rose to her feet again her eyes fell on the carved oak balustrade of the gallery at the west end. It was the place where Landry had been wont to sit and listen when Morland played the organ. She could almost see him now, with his parted lips and far-away blue eyes, and the sunlight from the window behind making a halo of his hair. She wondered how the church looked from his vantage point. She had never been into the gallery. She walked slowly down the nave and up the dusty, worm-eaten flight of stairs into the cobwebby regions above. There was a low bench facing the balustrade. She moved along it, and sat down in Landry's seat. There was no dreamy, haunting music to-day from the organ, filling the church like the murmur of the sea. Morland had sterner work to do in the world now than to improvise nocturnes. How rapt his face had been as the grand harmonies came thrilling from his fingers! Was this the exact angle from which Landry had viewed him? She moved slightly farther along, and in doing so kicked some object with her foot. She stooped to pick it up. It was something quite small, and covered with dust. She held it up to look at it by the light from the window. Then, with a little gasping sob, she fell back on to the seat.