CHAPTER XIII

Githa's Secret

With Tony as their bond of union, the amenities between Gwethyn and Githa still continued. They could hardly be called chums, for they were never on absolutely familiar terms such as existed between Gwethyn and Rose Randall. The poor little Toadstool's natural disposition was too reserved for the frank intimacy common in most schoolgirl friendships. She rarely gave any confidences, and though she evidently admired Gwethyn immensely, it was with a funny, dumb sort of attachment that did not express itself in words. On the subject of her home and her own private affairs she was generally guarded to a degree. Once only did she break the ice. In a most unwonted and unusual burst of confidence she admitted to Gwethyn that she was unhappy about her brother.

"Cedric is at such a horrid school. The head master is a brute! None of the boys like him, and he's taken a particular spite against Ceddie, and is absolutely hateful to him. You see, it's mainly a day-school, and there are only fourteen boarders. Cedric is the eldest of them by three years, and he thinks it's very hard he should have to keep exactly the same rules as the little chaps. But Mr. Hawkins won't make any difference. He treats Ceddie as if he were at a preparatory school. He's a blustering, bullying, domineering sort of man, very fond of using the cane. Well, you know a boy of sixteen won't stand all that! Especially Cedric. He's frightfully proud and independent, and he answers old Hawkins back, and then there are squalls. Sometimes it gets to such a pass that Cedric says he'll run away. I really believe he will some day! It's past all bearing."

"Can't your uncle interfere?" asked Gwethyn.

"It's no use telling Uncle Wilfred. He always says he's not going to listen to complaints, and that Cedric is quite as well treated at school as he used to be, and that boys are a soft set nowadays, and haven't the grit their fathers used to have, and that he doesn't think anything of a lad who comes whining home after a few strokes with a cane, which are probably only too well deserved. That stops Cedric's mouth. He can't bear Uncle to think him a coward. All the same, he's often in a very tight fix, and I wish we could see some way out of it."

"I suppose your Uncle Wilfred is his guardian?"

"Yes, unfortunately. There's nobody else. We have another uncle, but he went out to America years and years ago, and we've heard nothing of him. I wish I knew his address. Perhaps Cedric might have gone to him in America. Uncle Wilfred is decent enough to me, because I'm a girl, but he says it's wholesome for boys to be knocked about a little. Sometimes Aunt Julia says Mr. Hawkins is too strict, but Uncle always stands up for him and takes his side against Cedric. Aunt is quite kind; she sends Ceddie cakes and hampers of jam every now and then, but those don't make up for Mr. Hawkins being such a beast. He and Cedric just hate each other."

Gwethyn was deeply interested, but could suggest no remedy. There seemed, indeed, no way out of such a difficult situation. Her warm sympathy, however, quite touched Githa.

"I never thought you'd care about my affairs," she faltered.

"Care! You silly child! Of course I care," protested Gwethyn. "I'm as sorry about it as I can be! Why didn't you tell me before?"

"It never struck me to tell you. Uncle Wilfred and Aunt Julia don't care to hear things, so I thought other people might be the same. Ceddie and I are nothing to you."

"Yes, you are, and please to remember that in future. I don't want to be inquisitive and pry into your private concerns, but I'm very interested in anything you may wish me to know. We can't be friends when you're such an absolute oyster!"

The poor Toadstool sighed and smiled at the same time. She had been too afraid of snubs to open her heart readily. Her present outpouring, though in a sense a relief, was also an effort. Perhaps she thought she had revealed too much of her home atmosphere, for she closed up again, and for days Gwethyn could get nothing at all out of her. Fortunately Gwethyn had the tact to leave her alone and make no attempt to force her confidence. She realized that such an odd, prickly little character must be treated with discretion, and that the sympathy which she was burning to offer was--in certain moods--as likely to offend as to please her peculiar friend.

For the last three days Githa had been more than usually what the girls called "toadish". She would speak to nobody, or if baited into words, her retorts were of a stinging quality, not encouraging to further conversation. She was late for school one morning, and went off in a great hurry in the afternoon. In class she seemed preoccupied, and was several times reprimanded by Miss Andrews for not attending to the lessons. She took the reproofs rather sulkily. Her form-mates had many wrangles with her about quite trivial matters.

"You always were a cross little toad, but your temper's got worse than ever!" declared the outraged Novie Bates, after an unprovoked push from Githa in the classroom.

"You shouldn't stand in my way then! I wanted to get to my desk!" retorted the Toadstool snappily, opening the lid about two inches to slip in a book.

"You're very surreptitious about your precious desk," bantered Lena Dawson, for the mere sake of teasing. "What have you got inside it?"

For once the pale little face was fiery.

"If you dare to touch my desk!" stamped Githa, in a perfect fury.

Lena had never intended to touch it, but thus challenged, she thought it rather fun to--as she expressed it--"make Githa let off squibs".

"Hi-cockalorum, what a to-do!" she exclaimed. "I'm janitor this week, my child, so I've a right to look into anybody's desk if I like, and report its condition. It's my solemn duty to examine yours now, and see if it reaches the standard of neatness required--ahem!--in this very select scholastic establishment. Naturally you don't wish to risk the loss of an order mark, but duty is duty, my hearty!"

"You blithering idiot!" flared Githa, holding down the lid of her desk, and pushing Lena away with her elbow.

"Now that's equivalent to assaulting the police! I must trouble you to show me the inside of this. Will someone please help me?"

Novie Bates and Jess Howard, giggling their hardest, came to Lena's aid. The three easily pulled Githa aside and flung open the desk. Within were several paper bags, into which Lena, on a plea of "ex officio", insisted on peeping.

"Hello! What have we got here? Bread-and-butter! Scraps of meat and potatoes! Cake! By the Muses, you're having a good old feast! Do you come and refresh during recreation?"

Githa's flush of colour had faded. Her cheeks were drab again as the fungus to which Gwethyn had originally compared them. Her dark eyes were inscrutable.

"It's no business of yours if I do," she parried.

"Oh, certainly not! Munch away as hard as you please, if you like. It doesn't affect us. We'd willingly spread honey on the bread-and-butter if it would sweeten your temper."

"There, Lena, let her alone!" pleaded Jess, who thought the teasing had gone far enough. "If you weren't so touchy, Githa, nobody'd trouble to bother about you. It's your own fault if you get ragged! Don't be absurd; we're not going to run away with your precious parcels. You needn't stand guarding them like an old hen cackling over its eggs."

"Go and have a picnic with them in the garden!" jeered Lena. "Tell Mother Franklin she doesn't give you enough at dinner-time, and you have to bring extra supplies to school. She'd not refuse you a second helping if you asked. Some people have big appetites. It's a silly secret to make such a fuss about."

"I call it greedy!" scoffed Novie.

On that very same afternoon, between four and five o'clock, Katrine and Gwethyn were walking together in the orchard. The two often liked to have a private chat; though Gwethyn chummed with Rose Randall, Katrine had not made any special friendship among the Sixth, and mostly counted upon her sister for company. They had kept their adventure at the Grange to themselves, and they talked of it now as they sauntered between the apple-trees.

"It's a quaint old house," said Katrine. "We didn't half examine it when we were there. I should like to look again at that panelling in the library, and take a rough pencil sketch of it. I believe it's just what I want for one of my pictures. Shall we scoot and go across the fields?"

"Yes, by all means, if you'll guarantee we'll not get locked up! Mr. Freeman mightn't be handy a second time."

"Oh, we'll be very careful, and inspect all the door-knobs before we venture into the rooms! Come along; it will be rather sport!"

Needless to say, Gwethyn acquiesced. The mere fun of dodging the school authorities and paying a second surreptitious visit to the old Grange appealed to her; she did not care very much about the artistic merits of the panels or wish to sketch them. So again the girls climbed the fence and manoeuvred across the fields under cover of the hedges.

"It looks as if a bicycle had been here lately," said Katrine, examining some tracks on the gravel as she opened the gate. "Perhaps we shan't have the place to ourselves to-day."

"Keep a look-out, then. We can soon scoot if necessary."

Observing due caution, they entered the house by the same window as on a former occasion. Very softly they stole down the passage past the dining-room. The library door stood ajar, and Katrine pushed it open. She stopped with an exclamation of surprise. On some upturned boxes at the far end of the room sat Githa and a boy, who was eating something hastily out of a paper bag. At the sight of strangers he jumped up with a wild, hunted look on his face, and unlatching the French window, disappeared into the garden in the space of a few seconds. Githa had also sprung to her feet.

"Katrine! Gwethyn! Are you alone, or is Miss Aubrey or anyone with you?" she faltered.

"All serene! We're quite by ourselves!"

Githa ran promptly to the window.

"Right-o!" she called. "Come back, Ceddie!"

The boy did not reply, and after waiting a little, Githa turned again to her friends.

"You've plumped upon my secret, so I may as well tell you. I know you won't give me away?"

"We'd be burnt at the stake first!" protested Gwethyn.

"Well, I dare say you guess that was my brother. Poor old Ceddie! He's been in fearful trouble, and he's run away from school. He always said he would, and now he's done it at last. I told you Mr. Hawkins was a beast. He caught Ceddie smoking a cigarette, and said he meant to make an example of him. He was just white with passion. He hauled Ceddie into the big classroom, and made the janitor hold him over a chair, and then thrashed him simply brutally, before all the school. He gave him seventeen strokes. Ceddie didn't care so much about the pain--he bore it like a Stoic; but it was such an indignity to be caned like that--a tall fellow of sixteen, before all those little boys! He took the first opportunity and bolted that very evening. He says he'd rather die than go back to school. I'll try and get him to come in and speak to you."

Githa ran into the garden and apparently used her powers of persuasion successfully, for after a short time she came back accompanied by her brother, whom she introduced to her friends. Cedric was rather a nice-looking lad, painfully shy, however, and much oppressed by the awkwardness of the situation. He did not seem disposed to talk to the visitors, and stood with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window, and whistling softly. As their presence only seemed to embarrass him, Katrine and Gwethyn had the tact to go away. Githa walked with them down the passage.

"He's been here three days," she confided. "He knew there'd be a frightful hue-and-cry after him, so he's lying low until it's over. Of course we daren't let Uncle know where he is. There's ever such a hullabaloo going on about it all at home, but I look absolutely stolid and don't breathe a word. I come every day and bring him food, and he sleeps on some straw in the attic. He'd rather do that than be sent back to old Hawkins's tender mercies."

"Does your uncle know how he was thrashed?"

"I'm not sure. Probably Mr. Hawkins only told his own side of the story. I daren't ask anything. I'm so afraid of letting out the secret."

"But he can't stay here for ever!"

"No, he's just waiting until things blow over; then he'll do a bolt at night, and walk to Settlefield and try and enlist. He's wild to join the army."

"But he's too young!" gasped Katrine.

"He's very tall for his age, and of course he'd pretend he was eighteen."

Katrine was aghast at such a plan. It seemed pre-doomed to failure. Cedric might be tall, but his boyish figure and youthful face would proclaim to any recruiting sergeant that he was below the age for enlistment. She stated her opinion emphatically, and urged Githa to persuade him to give up so foolish a notion.

"Oh dear! Whatever are we to do then?" sighed the worried little Toadstool. "We'd both counted on his getting into the army. I'm at my wits' end. I suppose he'll have to tramp to Liverpool, and get on a ship as a cabin-boy or a stoker, and work his passage to America. Perhaps he'll find Uncle Frank there."

"I'm afraid that would be worse still," said Katrine gently. "Couldn't you trust your Uncle Wilfred? Perhaps if he really heard Cedric's side of the case, he would take him away from this school, and see about fitting him for what he's to be in the future. After all, he's his guardian."

"And a very harsh one! No, I daren't tell Uncle Wilfred. Ceddie must try to get to America. Other boys have run away and made their own fortunes."

"But how many have done the opposite?" urged Katrine. "Don't let him throw away his life like this! Have you no friend you could ask to help him?"

Githa shook her head forlornly.

"Nobody cares to bother about us."

"I wish Father and Mother were in England!" said Gwethyn.

"Oh, how I wish they were!" exclaimed Githa, with a flash of hope on her face that faded as suddenly as it arose. "But what's the use of wishing, when we know they're in Australia?"

The suggestion had given Katrine an idea, however.

"Would you trust your secret to Mr. Freeman?" she asked. "He's one of the kindest men I know, and perhaps he'd be able to think of some way out of the matter. I needn't tell him that Cedric is hiding at the Grange" (as Githa hesitated); "I'd simply state the facts of the case, and ask for his advice."

"Oh! Dare we trust him? He wouldn't let Mr. Hawkins get hold of Ceddie?"

"I promise he wouldn't."

Having wrung a somewhat unwilling consent, Katrine hurried away before Githa had time to change her mind. In defiance of all school rules she and Gwethyn went straight to the village, and called at Mr. Freeman's lodgings. They found their friend painting in his studio, and, having first pledged him to strictest secrecy, poured out their story.

"Whew! Poor little chap!" he exclaimed. "He seems to have got himself into a precious mess! Sleeping on straw, did you say? And living on scraps his sister brings him? No, no! He mustn't think of running off to America. So Mr. Ledbury is his uncle? The solicitor at Carford? Well, as it happens, he's doing some legal business for me at present, so I fancy I might open negotiations with him, very diplomatically, of course. Don't be afraid! I'll stand the boy's friend. It's high time they were thinking what to make of him. Leave it in my hands, and I'll see if I can't talk the uncle round."

"Oh, thanks so much!" exclaimed the girls. "You don't know what a relief it is to hand the matter over to you. Now we must scoot, or we shall get into trouble at school ourselves."

On this occasion, Katrine and Gwethyn went straight to Mrs. Franklin's study, and reported themselves for having broken bounds. The Principal glared at them, entered the offence in her private ledger, and harangued them on its enormity; but as they had made voluntary confession, she gave them no special punishment. On the whole, they considered they had got off rather more easily than they had expected.

"I can't bear to think of that poor laddie sleeping all alone in that dismal old house," said Katrine, as the sisters went to bed that night. "It gives me the creeps even to imagine it. He looked a jolly boy. He and Githa seem to have hard luck. It was too bad to leave them utterly to their uncle's charity."

"The grandfather ought to have provided for them properly," agreed Gwethyn. "People should make just wills before they die."

* * * * *

Githa came to school the next morning with dark rings round her eyes. She admitted having lain awake most of the night, worrying about her brother.

"If Mr. Freeman can't help us, Ceddie means to start to-night for Liverpool," she whispered to Gwethyn during the interval.

The three girls spent an anxious day. They wondered continually if their friend were working on their behalf, and with what success. At about half-past three, Mr. Freeman called at the school, and asked Mrs. Franklin's permission to speak to Katrine. He had good news to report. He had seen Mr. Ledbury and had spoken to him about Cedric, without betraying the boy's whereabouts, which indeed he did not himself know. He found that Mr. Ledbury exhibited the utmost relief at hearing tidings of the runaway. He said he had been making inquiries, and discovered, through information given him by one of the under masters, that the school was not what he had thought it to be, and that the punishment given to his nephew had been excessive and brutal in the extreme. He was sorry that he had ever placed the boy in Mr. Hawkins's charge, and should at once remove him. He sent a message to Cedric, telling him to return home, and that all would be forgiven. He seemed anxious to do his best for his nephew, and to give him a good start in life.

"I was able to make a proposition," added Mr. Freeman, "which opens a way for the boy's immediate future. My brother is in the Admiralty Department, and I am almost sure that I can persuade him to give Cedric a nomination for the navy. They want lads of his age at present, and I should think the life would just suit the young chap. So let his sister tell him to go home. I don't suppose his uncle will exactly kill the fatted calf for him, but he won't be thrashed or sent back to school. I'll guarantee that."

Githa's eyes shone with gratitude when Katrine told her the result of Mr. Freeman's kind offices as peacemaker.

"Oh! I am so relieved--so thankful! Ceddie would love to get into the navy! It would be far nicer than enlisting as a private. How proud I should be of him in his uniform! I'll fly now on my bike to the Grange, and get Ceddie to come straight home with me. I believe Aunt Julia will be glad. Oh, how ripping to have Cedric at home again! You and Gwethyn are just the biggest trumps on earth!"

As Mr. Freeman had prognosticated, the runaway was not received with any great outward demonstration of joy by his uncle and aunt, though both were secretly much relieved at his reappearance. Matters took an unexpected turn, however, for the poor lad had caught cold by sleeping on damp straw in the empty house, and was confined to bed with a sharp attack of rheumatism. His illness brought out all the kindness in his aunt's nature. She had always had rather a soft corner for him, though she had not been willing to admit it, and had generally persuaded herself that the two children were a burden. She nursed him well now, and was so good to him during his convalescence that Githa's manner thawed, and the girl was more at ease with her aunt than she had ever been before--a wonderfully pleasant and unusual state of affairs.

Mr. Freeman's representations at the Admiralty had the desired effect. Cedric received his nomination, and in due course, when the doctor would pronounce him fit, was to go up for his examination. He was wild with enthusiasm.

"If I can only get quickly into the fighting line," he declared, "won't I just enjoy myself!"

"Get well first," commanded Githa, whose sisterly pride seemed to think her brother destined to become at least an admiral.