Читать книгу One Night's Mystery - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 18

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red Carew's fatal laugh had done it all—reached Miss Jones's slumbering ear, and aroused her from her vestal dreams. Cyrilla had said Miss Jones slept with one eye open; she might have added, truthfully, with one ear also. And, as it chanced, on this particular night her slumbers were lighter even than usual.

For nearly an hour after quitting the pupils' rooms with their lamps, she had sat at the window—a very unusual thing with Miss Jones—and gazed sentimentally out at the moonlight. She was nine and twenty, as has been said, and in all these nine and twenty years no man had ever paid her as much attention as Mr. Carew had paid her to-night. A delicious trance wrapped Miss Jones. What if a brilliant match were yet in store for her!—on this side of forty all things seem possible. Mr. Carew had committed himself in no way, certainly; but he had given her looks, and there had been tones and words that made her unappropriated heart throb with rapture. What a triumph it had been over her refractory, her supercilious pupil, Cyrilla Hendrick! He had hinted at meeting her again—inquired, with seeming carelessness, her hours for visiting the town, the church she attended on Sunday, and at parting he had squeezed, absolutely squeezed, her hand. No doubt he would be in waiting on Sunday to attend her home after worship. How very handsome and distingué he was—heir to a title, it might be—many of these officers were. A vision of rosy brightness—orange blossoms, Honiton lace, half-a-dozen of the girls for bridesmaids—rose before her enraptured vision, and in the midst of it a loud sneeze warned Miss Jones that she was sitting by the open window in a draught, and that the probable result of her roseate visions would be a bad cold in the head to-morrow. Upon this Miss Jones went to bed.

For hygienic reasons, she invariably left her window open, winter and summer. She had dropped into a slight beauty sleep, when suddenly there came to her ear the decided sound of a hearty laugh. In one second of time Miss Jones was sitting bolt upright in bed, broad awake, and listening intently. Yes, there it was again—a laugh, a man's laugh, and in the garden. Burglars!—that was her first thought. But no; burglars do not, as a rule, give way to fits of merriment over their work. She slipped from her bed, went to the window, and strained sight and hearing to discover the cause. There was nothing to see but the broad sheets of moonlight pouring down upon everything; but, yes, distinctly Miss Jones could hear, in that profound frosty silence, the subdued murmur of voices under the trees.

Was it inspiration—the inspiration of hatred, the inspiration of hope—that made her mind leap to Cyrilla Hendrick? Without waiting to reason out the impulse that prompted her, she ran from her room, down the stairs, and noiselessly into that of her foe. Yes, she was right! There stood the bed unoccupied, the window wide open, the girl gone. On her bed, 'Toinette lay fast asleep; she, then, was not Cyrilla's companion! Who could be? Even more distinctly than up-stairs Miss Jones could hear the murmured talk here—one voice, she could have sworn, the voice of a man.

In an instant her resolution was taken; in another she had acted upon it, and was rapping at the sleeping-room of Mademoiselle Stephanie. At last her time had come. The prize pupil of the school, her arch-enemy, was in her power. Mademoiselle Chateauroy, in a white dressing-gown, opened the door, and stared in bewilderment at her second English teacher. People talking and laughing in the grounds! Miss Hendrick not in her room! Mon Dieu! what did Miss Jones mean?

"There is not a second to lose, mademoiselle," Miss Jones feverishly cried, "if we wish to see who the man is! It wants but five minutes of twelve—she surely will not stay much longer. Come! come at once!"

She took Mademoiselle Chateauroy's hand, and fairly forced her along the chill passage to Cyrilla's room. They were not a second too soon. As they took their places at the window, the two culprits stepped out from under the tamaracs into the full light of the moon. The gentleman's arm affectionately encircled his companion's waist.

"Mon Dieu!" mademoiselle gasped.

Miss Jones gave one faint gasp also, for in the brilliant light of the moon she recognized at first glance her false, her recreant admirer, Mr. Carew. It all flashed upon her—it had all been a blind to lead her off the scent, his attentions to herself. He and Cyrilla Hendrick had planned this meeting. No doubt they had laughed together over her gullibility there under the trees. She set her teeth with a snap of rage and fury at the thought.

"You have had your laugh, my lady, with your lover," she thought, with a vicious glare; "it is my turn now, and those laugh best who laugh last."

Then came that hurried parting embrace, extorting another horrified "Mon Dieu" from mademoiselle. Then Cyrilla was mounting the tree, then the lead pipe, then, kissing her hand to her lover, leaped into the room and stood before them!

Imagine that tableau! Dead silence for the space of one minute, during which judge, accuser, and criminal stand face to face. One faint cry of sheer surprise Cyrilla had given, then as her eyes fell on the intolerably exultant face of Miss Jones, her haughty head went up, her daring, resolute spirit asserted itself, and she faced them boldly. There was fearless blood in the girl's veins—bad blood, beyond all doubt, but pluck invincible. For her this discovery meant ruin—utter, irretrievable ruin—but since it had come there was nothing for it, with Mary Jane Jones looking on particularly, but to face it without flinching.

"Come with me, Miss Hendrick," Mademoiselle Stephanie coldly began. "You also, Miss Jones."

She led the way back to her own room, where a lamp burned and a dull red glimmer of fire yet glowed. Spectral and ghostly the two teachers looked in their long night-robes, and a faint smile flitted over Cyrilla's face as she followed. Mademoiselle closed the door carefully, and then confronted the culprit.

"Now for it!" Cyrilla thought. "Good Heaven! what an unlucky wretch I am! Nothing can save me now."

"Well, Miss Hendrick," Mademoiselle Chateauroy began, in that cold, level voice of intense displeasure, "what have you to say? I presume you have some explanation to give of to-night's most extraordinary conduct."

"A very simple explanation, mademoiselle," Cyrilla answered. "I thank you for letting me make it. Nothing can wholly excuse a pupil keeping an assignation with a gentleman in the school-grounds by night—of that I am aware—but at least my motive may partly. I have heard no news of my father for over a year; I went to hear news of him to-night. This evening, at Mrs. Delamere's, I met a gentleman whom I have known from childhood—who has been as a brother to me since my earliest recollection—who was a daily visitor at my father's house in London. I was naturally anxious for news, of papa in particular, and would have received it then and there but for Miss Jones's interference. She would not allow us to exchange a word—she was resolute to make me leave him, and I obeyed. What followed Miss Jones knows. He and I did not exchange another word, but before he left me he told me he had an important, a most important message to deliver from my father, and was determined to deliver it to-night. I refused to meet him at first, but when I remembered it was my only chance of hearing from poor papa, that no letters were allowed to come to me, I consented. He came over the wall, and I descended, remained with him a few minutes, and returned. That is the whole story."

She could see the sneering scorn and unbelief on Miss Jones's face, the cold, intense anger deepening upon Mademoiselle Stephanie's. Neither of them believed a word she had said.

"Does 'Toinette know?" Mademoiselle Chateauroy asked.

"No, mademoiselle. 'Toinette was asleep long before I went."

"Of that at least I am glad. It is sufficiently bad to have a pupil in my school capable of so shameful and evil an act, without knowing that she has corrupted the minds of other and innocent girls. For three and twenty years, Miss Hendrick, I have been preceptress of this school, and in all that time no breath of scandal has touched it. Wild pupils, refractory pupils, disobedient pupils, I have had many—a pupil capable of stealing from her chambers at midnight to meet a young man in the grounds I have never had before. I pray the bon Dieu I never may have again."

A color, like a tongue of flame, leaped for a moment into each of Cyrilla Hendrick's dark cheeks. Something in mademoiselle's simple, coldly-spoken words made her feel for the first time how shameful, how unmaidenly her escapade had been. Up to the present she had regarded it as rather a good joke—a thing to tell and laugh at. A sense of stinging shame filled her now—a sense of rage with it, at these women who made her feel it. All that was worst in the girl arose—her eyes flashed, her handsome lips set themselves in sullen wrath.

"I thank Heaven, and I thank my very good friend, Miss Jones," pursued mademoiselle, "that this wicked thing has been brought to light so soon. So soon! Mon Dieu, who is to tell me it has not been done again and again?"

Once more the black eyes flashed, but with her arms folded Cyrilla stood sullenly silent now. The worst had come; the very worst that could ever happen. Miss Dormer would hear all, she would be expelled the school, expelled Miss Dormer's house—her last chance of being Miss Dormer's heiress was at an end. Ruin had come, absolute ruin, and nothing she could do or say would avert it now. The look that came over the face of the girl of nineteen showed for the first time the strong capabilities of evil within her.

"What was the name of this young man you met, Miss Hendrick?" mademoiselle went on.

Cyrilla lifted her darkly angry eyes.

"I have given you an explanation of my conduct, mademoiselle, and you refuse to believe it. I decline to answer any further questions."

"His name was Mr. Carew," said Miss Jones, opening her lips for the time. "Lieutenant Frederic Carew of the——Fusiliers."

She gave the information with unction, her exultant eyes upon Cyrilla's face. Once more the dark eyes lifted and looked at her—a look not good to see.

"This is your hour, Miss Jones," that darkly ominous glance said. "Mine shall come."

Mademoiselle Stephanie made a careful note of the name.

"That will do, Miss Jones. I will not detain you from your needful rest longer. Of course it is unnecessary to caution you to maintain strictest silence concerning this disgraceful discovery. Not for worlds must a whisper of the truth get abroad or reach the other young ladies. Miss Hendrick will remain in this room a close prisoner until she quits the pensionnat forever. She has been, not the pupil I have best loved, but the pupil I have most been proud of. It gives me a pang, I cannot describe how great, to lose her, and thus. I am sorry for my own sake, and sorrier for hers. Miss Dormer told me to watch her closely, for she was not as other girls, and for three years I have. For three years she has offended in no way, and now, to end like this!"

"Then let my three years' good conduct plead for me, mademoiselle," Cyrilla said, boldly. "It is my first offence—it shall be my last. Say nothing to any one; let me remain until Christmas—not three months now—and quit the school, as I have lived in it, with honor."

But mademoiselle shook her head, sorrowfully, yet inexorably.

"Impossible, Miss Hendrick. You have been guilty of an offence for which expulsion can be the only punishment. How could I answer to Heaven and the mothers of my pupils for the guilt of allowing any one capable of such a crime to mingle with them and deprave them?"

"'Guilt! deprave!' You use strong language, mademoiselle. The gentleman I met has been all his life as my brother—I met him to hear news of my father, which I can hear in no other way. And that is a crime!"

"A crime against obedience, against all delicacy and maidenly modesty. But it has been done, and no talking will undo it. Go to your room, Miss Jones, and be silent. You, Miss Hendrick, shall remain with me. To-morrow I will write to your aunt, telling her all. Until her answer arrives you will remain under lock and key here."

"And the sentence of the court is that you be taken hence to the place of execution, and that there you be hanged by the neck until you are dead."

The grim words flashed through Cyrilla's mind. She had read them often, and wondered how the miserable, cowering criminal in the dock must feel. She could imagine now. She did not cower—outwardly she listened unmoved, with a hardihood that was to mademoiselle proof of deepest guilt; but inwardly—"all within was black as night."

Miss Jones, that covert smile still on her face, left the room. Mademoiselle Stephanie pulled out that transparent deception, a sofa-bed, amply furnished with pillows and quilts. Many pupils had slept out their week of solitary confinement on this prison bed, but never so deeply dyed a criminal before.

"You will undress and sleep here, Miss Hendrick," mademoiselle said; "but first kneel down and ask pardon of le bon Dieu for the sin you have done."

"I have committed no sin—I will thank you not to say so, mademoiselle," Cyrilla flashed forth at last. "Make mountains out of mole-hills if you like, but don't expect me to call them mountains too. Write to my aunt, expel me when you please, but meantime don't insult me."

And then Cyrilla, flinging her clothes in a heap on the nearest chair, got into the sofa-bed and turned her face sullenly to the wall.

"There goes my last hope," she thought, "thanks to my horrible temper. I might have softened her to-morrow—now there isn't a chance. Like Francis the First, at Pavia, 'all is lost but honor!'"