Part 10

This idea seemed to afford him much private amusement, until putting on his glasses and opening Miss Crabingway's note his eyes fell on the contents, and he at once became grave. It was just as if Miss Crabingway were standing before him, speaking.

"Well, Joseph Sigglesthorne," the note ran, "so you have forgotten, as I knew you would. There is no excuse--I gave you three calendars, which you have not hung on the wall, by the by, but have stowed away out of sight--you've forgotten where."

(This was quite true, as Mr Sigglesthorne realized, as he stroked the back of his head and tried to recall what he had done with the calendars.)

"The money I trusted you with is overdue. Kindly hand the deal box and key to Miss Pamela there, and ask her to take out the notes."

"Ah, yes," said Mr Sigglesthorne aloud, as if Miss Crabingway were indeed in the room waiting for him to apologize. "Very thoughtless of me, I'm sure."

It may be thought remarkable that Mr Sigglesthorne should have remembered where the deal box was. But Mr Sigglesthorne always remembered where he had put money--a peculiarity of his that Miss Crabingway knew well.

And now he was full of remorse at having failed Miss Crabingway in regard to the date--for she had paid him well to remember. Mr Sigglesthorne's clothes and surroundings might have led one to think that he was none too well off, but this idea would have been wrong--with regard to the present, at any rate. Besides Miss Crabingway's money payments, he had lately got some 'research' work--this latter fact he mentioned to his visitors with some pride, and partly to account for the piles of papers abounding everywhere. He left them to think this piece of news over while he retired to another room to fetch the deal box.

While he was gone Martha rolled her eyes upward, and raised her hands in despair.

"How I _should_ like to set to and tidy up a bit for him, poor gentleman," she sighed.

"It's more than I'd like to do," said Isobel. "_What_ a muddle!"

"He'd probably be annoyed if anyone upset his research papers," said Pamela. "But, good gracious! I don't know how he can ever find anything again--once he puts it down."

"He probably doesn't find it again," said Isobel, laughing.

As for Caroline, with whom neatness was almost a passion, she was fairly numbed by the scene before her, and could only sigh deeply and shake her head. Beryl was always shy in strange places, and, whatever her thoughts, she kept silent.

Mr Sigglesthorne shortly returned, and with renewed apologies for forgetting to bring the box down to Barrowfield presented a small deal box and key to Pamela, requesting her to open it. Inside were a number of bank-notes, which she was told to take out and distribute--so much to Martha for housekeeping expenses and so much to herself and each of the other girls for 'pocket money.' Having done this, she signed a receipt and placed it in the box, which Mr Sigglesthorne locked and took away again.

Finding that they did not know the Temple well, Mr Sigglesthorne insisted on putting on his coat and top-hat and coming out with them. Pamela protested that they did not wish to take him away from his research work, but he vowed he would have plenty of time if he returned within half an hour. So he trotted beside them, talking and waving his hand, first on one side and then the other, giving them a very confused idea of the plan of the Temple and its history. But, at any rate, Mr Sigglesthorne enjoyed himself. And when he finally left them in the Strand, with more apologies, Pamela saw him disappear toward the Temple again with a smile on her face that had more of regret in it than amusement; but her regret was evidently not shared by Isobel, who said:

"Well, thank goodness! Now we can get on, and enjoy ourselves."

They did a round of sight-seeing to make the most of the day in town, and had dinner at a restaurant, where Martha, though very nervous, was nevertheless very critical, in her own mind, about the dishes served. She guessed she could make better white sauce than was served at this place, though she was curious to know how the cream pudding was made.

The girls wished they had arranged to end up the day at a theatre, but they had not thought of this in time to let Ellen know, and she would be at Barrowfield station waiting at nine o'clock. So they were obliged to relinquish this idea, with much regret.

As they turned away from the restaurant Pamela suddenly gave a start--stood stock still for a moment, then, bending her head, hurried on. She had caught a glimpse of her father just getting into a bus. The sight of him caused a great wave of longing and home-sickness to rush over her, so that it was all she could do to restrain herself from running back toward him. To her embarrassment she found that her eyes were full of tears. He looked just the same dear old father. She had not realized till now how badly she had wanted to see them all at home again; she knew she had wanted them, but had stifled the longing as much as possible. She wondered how her mother looked--and Michael--and the others. The post-card she received from home each month was crammed full of news--but even so, post-cards are very unsatisfying things.

As her agitation became obvious to her companions, and they inquired what was the matter she was obliged to explain a little.

"I didn't realize how _badly_ I wanted to see my people again--till I saw him," she concluded.

"Well, half the time is up now," said Isobel. "I think it was a very silly restriction of Miss Crabingway's-- But there you are! And fifty pounds is not to be sneezed at, is it?"

Much to every one's dismay, except Caroline's, it now began to rain--suddenly and heavily--and a rush was made for the nearest tube station. Caroline hastily donned her mackintosh, and stopping in a doorway slipped on her goloshes, before she ran through the rain to the tube. Her triumph was short-lived, however, because once inside the tube they were under cover all the way until they arrived at Barrowfield station, very sleepy and chilly with sitting still so long in the train.

Ellen was at the station, and she had actually brought umbrellas for them. Secretly, although not an ill-natured girl, Caroline had half-hoped they would have had to tramp home through the rain--then perhaps they wouldn't have teased her another time, she thought.

However, under the umbrellas they walked--the village fly being engaged elsewhere that evening, otherwise Thomas Bagg would have been hired to take them home.

And then Beryl would not have bumped into some one--also under an umbrella--who was coming from the village toward the station.

As a rather high wind was blowing it was necessary to hold an umbrella down close over the top of your head, and so Beryl did not notice anyone coming toward her till her umbrella caught against another umbrella; both umbrellas were lifted for a moment--and in that moment Beryl saw a woman looking at her from under the other umbrella, a woman who frowned and put her forefinger to her lips as if enjoining silence.

Beryl stifled a scream and ran quickly forward and joined the others, keeping as close to Pamela as she could till they reached home.

While the woman, with a quick backward glance at the receding group, continued on her way, limping hurriedly up the hill.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*CAROLINE MAKES A DISCOVERY*

Pamela was just dropping off to sleep that night when some one tapped on her bedroom door. She roused herself, and called out:

"Who's there?"

"May I come in a minute? It's only I--Caroline," the answer came in a loud whisper.

"Oh--yes--yes--come in," she said, sitting up, only half awake as yet.

Caroline came in, a lighted candle in her hand. She was fully dressed, and had not even untied her hair. She looked a bit scared and puzzled. Closing the door softly behind her she crossed to the side of Pamela's bed.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," she said solemnly, "but I didn't think you'd be in bed yet--I haven't even started to get undressed--I--I don't like the look of my room!"

"Don't like the look of your room! Whatever do you mean, Caroline?" Pamela rubbed her eyes.

"Well, some one's been moving things. There are several things out of their usual places. I--I believe somebody has been in the room while we've been out to-day!"

Pamela was wide awake now.

"Oh, Caroline,--you don't mean burglars? There's nothing missing, is there? Has anything been taken?"

"No. Not so far as I can see," replied Caroline. "But things have been disturbed."

"I'll come in with you and have a look," said Pamela, springing up and hastily donning dressing-gown and slippers. "H'sh. We mustn't wake the others unless it's necessary. They're all so tired."

"I didn't notice anything just at first," said Caroline, as they entered her room.

"I don't notice anything now," remarked Pamela, looking round at the neat and orderly chamber.

"Wait a minute," said Caroline. "Look here--" and she pulled open one of the drawers in her dressing-table.

"Well?" said Pamela, who could see nothing amiss with the contents of the drawer.

"Well!" echoed Caroline rather indignantly, "I never leave my drawers like this. See--these gloves were folded together in that corner--and these ribbons here--and I always keep my handkerchiefs on top of each other at this side--These handkerchiefs are all arranged anyhow. I _know_ I didn't leave them like this! ... And look here--on the mantelpiece--these photo frames have been shifted--and on this chair by the window my brown scarf which I left folded on the seat was on the floor!"

"Oh, come," said Pamela. "That might easily have slid off. The main point is--is there anything missing?"

"Nothing so far," replied Caroline. "But some one _has_ been in here moving my things--I'm certain of it. I know just the way I always leave my belongings. I always put them in the same places and in the same positions."

She seemed so positive that Pamela was silenced. Anyone else but Caroline would probably not have noticed that anything had been disturbed in their room.

"Well--what shall we do?" said Pamela, who really thought that Caroline was under a delusion. She couldn't see anything wrong with the room. "If we wake everybody up we shall only scare them--it isn't as if you'd missed anything. That would be a different matter. I suppose you've searched all over the room? Of course, you've made sure there's no one hiding here now?"

"Oh, yes," said Caroline; but to make doubly sure she and Pamela searched again thoroughly. They looked in the wardrobe, behind the wardrobe, under the bed, behind the chest of drawers, and in and under every likely and unlikely place in the room.

"Have you looked in the soap-dish?" said Pamela, jokingly.

But Caroline did not laugh; she continued her search solemnly. Suddenly an exclamation from her made Pamela wheel round.

"Just fancy that!" said Caroline, still on her knees, after an attempt to look under the chest of drawers--a space of about six inches from the ground. "Look here, Pamela! Here's my silver thimble! The one I couldn't find--under the edge of the carpet beneath this chest of drawers. And I've looked everywhere for it--but here. It must have rolled off the back of the chest, and got wedged under the carpet."

"What luck! The search hasn't been wasted after all then," remarked Pamela, stifling a yawn.

"And it is my wish come true," said Caroline slowly.

"What! About the thimble! Is that what you wished?" cried Pamela.

"Yes," said Caroline. "I didn't know what else to wish--and I couldn't find my silver thimble that my grandmother gave me--so I thought I'd wish about that."

"I see," said Pamela, trying hard not to smile. "Well, your wish has come true. You lucky girl! I only hope the rest of us are as fortunate."

After this Caroline reluctantly agreed to go to bed, and not to bother any further about the things in her room being disturbed until the morning, when Pamela promised to make full inquiries and sift the matter thoroughly. Pamela felt fairly certain in her own mind that no one had been in Caroline's room or she would not have let the matter drop so easily. Both girls being now very tired after their long day in town they soon dropped into their beds and went off to sleep.

Caroline referred to the matter over breakfast in the morning, thereby incurring a great deal of attention and questioning from the others--which made her feel quite important for once in a way. Caroline was one of those people who could not usually attract much attention from others, as she was unable to talk interestingly about things. But this morning she found she was actually being interesting; she liked the sensation, and meant to make the most of it.

While Pamela and Isobel discussed the matter with Caroline, Beryl, who had turned very white, sat silent, her half-finished breakfast pushed on one side; she sat stirring her tea mechanically round and round--only breaking her silence once to ask Caroline if she had missed anything, and seemed relieved on hearing that Caroline had not.

"I suppose nobody else's room was disturbed in any way?" said Pamela, adding, "Mine was all right."

"So was mine," said Isobel.

"And mine," echoed Beryl, quickly.

"Well, we'll just go and ask Ellen if she can throw any light on the matter, shall we?" said Pamela. "She was the only inmate of this house who was not up in London yesterday."

Ellen was very interested, but it did not seem as if she could help to solve the question. She had certainly not been in the room herself; she had left the house at the same time as they did yesterday, and when she and Millicent Jackson--the friend with whom she had spent the day--had come in to fetch the umbrellas to bring to the station in the evening, they had not been upstairs at all. They had let themselves in at the back door, gone straight through to the hall, taken the umbrellas out of the stand, and gone out of the front door. They weren't in the house five minutes, as they were in a hurry to get to the station in time.

"There, Caroline!" said Isobel. "You see nobody could have been in your room. You must have moved the things yourself."

But Caroline shook her head.

"Could anyone have slipped in the back door after you--without you noticing?" she asked Ellen.

"Oh, miss! Well--I never thought of that!" said Ellen, then hesitated. "Of course, they could have, Miss Caroline--but it's most unlikely. If anyone had troubled to do that they would have taken something while they were about it, wouldn't they?"

Caroline shrugged her shoulders.

"All I know is--the things in my room were disturbed," she insisted doggedly. "And I don't like it."

"How could anyone have slipped in without you seeing, Ellen?" inquired Pamela.

"Well, Miss Pamela, to be exact," explained Ellen, "me an' Millicent unlocked the back door and came in, shut the door, and went into the kitchen, where I struck a match and lit the candle that we keep on the dresser here. We didn't bother to light the gas as we was going straight through, and out the front way. Me an' Millicent was talking, interested-like, as we went into the hall, when Millicent says, 'Oh, did you lock the back door again?' And I says, 'Oh, no.' And I went back and locked it.... Then we got the umbrellas and went straight out the front way.... Now, _do_ you think anyone would have got in just in that minute before I locked the back door, Miss Pamela? Now _do_ you, Miss Caroline?"

"It's just possible, of course, but not at all likely," said Pamela. "Thanks very much, Ellen--as nothing has been missed, I really don't see any use in pursuing the matter further, Caroline, do you? ... And it's such a grand morning, let's all go for a good tramp over the hills."

So Pamela dismissed the incident from her mind; and Isobel, putting it down to "one of the bees in old Caroline's bonnet," soon followed suit. Ellen and Martha discussed the matter together, and Ellen repeated her story to Martha several times--each time with more emphasis than the last; and when she next saw Millicent Jackson she mentioned it to her, and they talked of it until the subject was exhausted--then as nothing further happened to make them remember it, they too forgot it. Caroline remembered it as a grievance for a considerable time, then the excitement of the coming bazaar caused it to fade into the background. The only one who did not forget the incident was Beryl, and she had good reason to remember it--as we shall presently see.

After the visit to London a marked change seemed to come over Beryl; always pale and nervous, she appeared to grow even paler and more nervous as the days went by. At times she would emerge from the cloud of depression which seemed so often to envelop her now and join light-heartedly in whatever was going on, but these occasions grew more and more rare.

When Pamela remarked on her paleness one day Beryl put it down to the weather, saying it made her feel tired. Pamela believed her; had she not been so absorbed in Elizabeth Bagg and her work she might have noticed things that would have aroused her suspicions; but she was not suspicious in any way until one evening Beryl, very awkward and hesitating, asked Pamela if she would lend her a sovereign. Pamela did not voice the surprise she showed in her face--surprise because the pocket-money handed over to each of them by Mr Sigglesthorne had been quite generous and sufficient for the few expenses the girls would be likely to incur in Barrowfield during the remainder of their stay. However, she lent the money at once, and willingly, and asked no questions--for which Beryl seemed very grateful.

Feeling a little uneasy about the matter, and wishing to help her if possible, Pamela made several opportunities for Beryl to confide in her if she had wished to do so. But Beryl did not seem to wish to do so.

*CHAPTER XV*

*ABOUT A BAZAAR AND A MEETING IN THE RUINED WINDMILL*

The bazaar, for which Caroline had been sewing so perseveringly, was held in the grounds of the Manor House on a beautiful sunny day at the end of May. Caroline spent a blissful afternoon, dressed in a Japanese kimono with chrysanthemums in her hair, surrounded by tea-cosies and cushion-covers and hand-embroidered scarves; and she had quite a brisk sale at her stall, in spite of exorbitant prices.

The spacious lawn below the terraced flower-garden was a delightful picture; the soft, velvety grass and the cool shade under the trees that bordered it making a pleasing background for the dainty kimonoed figures that tripped to and fro among the bamboo stalls with their white umbrella-shaped awnings. As the general public began to make its appearance, the colours in the summer dresses that moved across the lawn became as variegated as the flower-garden itself.

Lady Prior stood on the terrace and looked down with a pleased smile at the animated scene beneath her.

"The village looks forward so eagerly to this each year," she remarked to a friend. "You see, there is absolutely nowhere for them to go as a rule, poor creatures. This is quite an event for them." And she raised her eyebrows and gave a little rippling laugh.

Meanwhile the poor creatures were spending their money as they were able, and the local reporter, who was wandering among the stalls, was mentally calculating how big a sum of money he would be able to announce in next week's _Observer_ as the result of Lady Prior's Annual Bazaar. Most of the village seemed out to enjoy itself at all costs; but now and again one would come across a gloomy individual who looked like an unwilling victim of this annual institution. In some cases, as one little old woman grumbled to Caroline, people came because they had been badgered and worried into promising to attend by one of the industrious members of the committee.

"And there's so much questioning, and reproachful looks, an' cold stares afterward--if you don't come," she grumbled, fingering the various articles on Caroline's stall, "that you come for peace sake.... Though I'd much rather be sittin' at 'ome an' 'aving a cup of tea in peace and quietness and restin' my old bones--it's all very well for young folk to come gallivantin' and spendin' their savings--but when you're old--! ... 'Ow much is this? What is it? Eh? An egg-cosy! ... Oh, give me one of them six-penny 'air-tidies--it'll do for my daughter in London. I ain't got no 'air to speak of myself. But my daughter--her 'air comes out in 'andfulls--you ought to see it! ... You've got nothing else for six-pence, I suppose? No? ... I won't 'ave anything else then."

And the little old woman took the hair-tidy and made her way straight to the gates, apparently making a bee-line for home, having fulfilled her duty.

Caroline was not critical--she took things very much as a matter of course, and did not feel ashamed for the handsomely dressed lady from a neighbouring village who inquired in a loud voice for the stall where the 'pore clothes' were for sale. Caroline did not quite understand at first, until another stall-holder explained that Mrs Lester always purchased a number of garments to distribute among the deserving poor of her parish. The garments Mrs Lester bought looked a bit clumsy, and were made all alike, of rather coarse material, but "she's awfully good to the poor, you know," Caroline was told; and there the matter ended, until she recounted the incident to the others when she got home, and provoked a stormy protest from Pamela against the _way_ in which rich people were 'good to the poor.'

"Why can't they be more tactful," asked Pamela. "Of course I know lots of them are--but I mean people like this Mrs Lester."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Pamela," said Isobel, laughing. "What do poor people want with tact? Give them a good meal or a bundle of clothes and they'll pretend to be grateful and satisfied and all that, and directly your back is turned they'll grumble because you haven't given them _more_. They always want more--they don't want tact!"

Pamela stared for a moment at Isobel, who was reclining gracefully on the sofa, amusement in every line of her face at Pamela's ideas.

"Good gracious, Isobel! I can see a perfectly horrible future in store for you," Pamela said quietly. "You are going to be another Mrs Lester."

"What of it?" laughed Isobel. "As long as I am as rich as she is, there are no horrors for me."

"Anyway, I'm sorry for you," said Pamela earnestly.

"What on earth for?" asked Isobel, slightly nettled.

"Because you'll miss some of the best things in life," replied Pamela.

"Not if I'm rich, I shan't," said Isobel.

Caroline had listened in mild surprise at all this. It had never struck her that there could be anything to object to in Mrs Lester's attitude.

"Do you know," she said, changing the conversation, "I had to pay for the hire of my kimono. I hadn't expected to have to pay after giving my services free, and making so many things for the bazaar. But it all goes to a good cause, I suppose."

Caroline had rather regretted that none of the other three girls had been present at the bazaar in the afternoon, to see how rapidly her tea-cosies had sold; but each of the three had had a different excuse for not coming. Isobel's absence, of course, was a foregone conclusion--she would have loved to go, but could not on account of Miss Crabingway's instructions.

Pamela, as we know, hated bazaars. "Don't ask me to come, Caroline," she had said kindly. "But will you take this donation for 'the cause' and put it in one of the boxes or whatever they have to collect the money in."