“Monstrous!” she said again. “Not even troubling to speak himself. Sending some one round to speak on some one else’s telephone. To annoy me, I suppose. To try and make me commit myself. ‘Can’t you find Miss Brett?’ Good heavens!”
With a little more of this she would convince herself that Mr. Cottenham and his ward were conspiring to make fun of her, which would relieve the pressure in one direction even though it added to it in another. Meanwhile, Miss Thrush went home on her bicycle to her lodgings in the town, and Miss Mulberry—not so unstrung but that she still realised the value of invisibility—lunched alone off a tray in the antiseptic study.
Yes, she felt calmer again. She felt calmer still as she caught a glimpse through the big bow-window of the gigantic Nature-Ramble setting forth over the downs. There was a hint of reluctant resignation in the backs of the attendant shepherdesses which reminded her, consolingly, that she was still—as you might say—boss of this outfit. “Go,” she had said; and off they had all straggled and trickled in the blazing sunshine, doomed by a word to a long afternoon’s tramp without hope of appeal. Miss Mulberry had, and has, many excellent points, but it would be idle to deny that a faint smile illuminated her features as the Ramble plodded wearily towards the sky-line. She had passed through nearly two days of great strain and stress, and she had been stung to a frenzy by that telephone message just as she was on the verge of recovery; but she was still monarch of all she surveyed, and no one but the utterly insignificant Miss Thrush was aware that she had ever lost her temper.
She opened another window and sat down at her desk. She wrote and read. She nodded at this, and frowned magisterially at that, and pursed up her lips at the other. She made marks with blue pencils and red pencils and a gold-mounted fountain-pen. She did things with paperclips and paper-fasteners. She ruled lines with accuracy and skill. Paste and drawing-pins obeyed her, nor were elastic-bands and pink tape backward in yielding to her will. System, in fact, once more brooded soothingly over the antiseptic study, and where System hovered no thought of Ursula Brett could possibly survive. With the entire school away on its pilgrimage, Miss Mulberry could, and did, luxuriate in that pure educational atmosphere where pupils take their proper places as symbols and ciphers and abbreviations on card-indexes, and where the pattern of a complicated scholastic tapestry can advance without endless obstruction on the part of the individual stitches. Miss Mulberry, in short, was so happy in this imaginary world that she observed neither the passage of time nor the occasional fits of dreamy unconsciousness which so notably assisted its progress. Sometimes she would sit for as long as ten or fifteen minutes, with the butt-end of her gold-mounted fountain-pen gently tapping against her excellent front teeth, while she wandered through that distant algebraical country and admired its astonishing orderliness. Each time that she emerged, she felt a greater sense of ease and refreshment, and each time she plunged with deeper concentration and assiduity into the welter of stationery on her big desk.
It is understandable, therefore—or should be, if we have made ourselves clear—why she never heard the crunch of tyres outside the bow-window or the dying throbs of an internal-combustion engine. Nor did she notice the figure which came and stared at her over the stumpy euonymus-hedge, before turning aside to enter the wide-open front door. But when the same figure, having threaded the entrance-hall and left-hand corridor without let or hindrance, rapped suddenly on the inner defences of the pale-green study, Miss Mulberry came to herself with a start and emitted a swift inquiry.
“Yes?” she cried. “Who is it?”
The latch creaked, and the door opened.
“May I come in?” said a complete stranger.
Miss Mulberry blinked, and half-rose from her chair. The complete stranger was a young-looking elderly woman, neatly and becomingly dressed, and with an expression of twinkling calm—if that conveys anything to you—such as can only be achieved by a long life of independence and courage. No parent—or at any rate no parent with a daughter at St. Ethelburga’s—had ever looked like this. Nor was it an expression to be met with among Miss Mulberry’s elderly female acquaintances in Newcliff. The head-mistress’s memory was now in perfect order, and she was positive that she had never seen this visitor before. But she also knew that the visitor had come here with a definite purpose, and that this purpose would not, for once, reveal itself either as an appeal for charitable contributions or as an offer to lecture on Girl Guides or Wild Flowers. Nor, she was convinced, could anyone who looked like that wish to recommend some new and foreign system of mind-training combined with callisthenics. Her vast experience would have recognised any of these types, but this time it told her nothing.
“I’m afraid …” she said, rising a little higher and elevating her eyebrows. “That’s to say, I don’t think I have the pleasure …”
Here any ordinary visitor would have apologised for entering unannounced, and would instantly have explained what she had come for. But the stranger had merely closed the door behind her, and started removing her gloves. She was also examining the various chairs, with a view, apparently, to selecting one for her own use.
“Can I …?” said Miss Mulberry, still suspended behind the big desk, and raising her eyebrows yet higher.
“Thanks,” said the stranger, dropping comfortably on to the sofa. “Do sit down, won’t you? You’re the headmistress, of course. Or am I wrong?”
Miss Mulberry suddenly felt that she had seen some one like this before, and that they, also, had tried to take charge of some far-off interview—if, indeed, they hadn’t actually succeeded. But she hadn’t the faintest idea who they had been.
“If you would kindly …” she began again.
“What?” said the stranger, looking up from an exploration of her hand-bag. “I’ve forgotten your name, I’m afraid, but—— No, don’t tell me; I nearly had it then. I’ve got it. ‘Raspberry.’ Miss Raspberry. Or am I quite wrong?”
Miss Mulberry gasped; once at this ridiculous and offensive mistake, and again because the stranger had just pulled out a cigarette, and had lit it, and had flung the match into her waste-paper basket. Never had she been so treated in her own fortress. Never——
“My name,” she heard herself saying coldly, “is Miss Mulberry. And to what do I owe——”
“Of course!” exclaimed the stranger, leaning back and exhaling a cloud of smoke. “How stupid of me. I’ve no manners, though; have I?”
She had the audacity to smile.
“Perhaps,” said Miss Mulberry, “you will be good enough——”
“Of course, of course,” said the stranger, waving her cigarette about. “But I’ve done such a lot since I got in, and you know what it is, don’t you? I only landed yesterday, and I’ve been on the rush the whole time. You look puzzled, don’t you? Well, never mind. My name’s Millet. Mrs. Millet.”
Miss Mulberry still looked puzzled, but it seemed just possible that the stranger had been expressing some sort of regret for her behaviour. She sat down, and removed a considerable strain from most of her muscles.
“Mrs. Millet?” she repeated, with an eye wandering towards the shelf of card-indexes.
“Yes. You don’t remember me? Never mind. I came here once—oh, years ago—but to tell the honest truth I’ve changed a good deal. Much thinner, you know, and far better for it. But you haven’t changed at all, Miss Mulberry. I’d have known you almost anywhere. It suits you, I suppose? Well, well; that’s splendid.”
Miss Mulberry opened her mouth and shut it again.
“Now, may we send for my niece?” the visitor continued. “I want to take her away with me.”
“Niece?” said Miss Mulberry, faintly. “Who—— But it’s the middle of the term. I don’t quite——”
“Oh, never mind about that. I’ve come here specially—and on the most shocking boat, too. I’d only just realised what was happening, and I’m going to stay here now. I’m sure what she needs is less work and more fun. Dances, you know,
and all that sort of thing. I’ll see to it.”
“Yes, but——”
“I was out there,” proceeded Mrs. Millet, waving her cigarette vaguely in the direction of the horizon, “staying with the most delightful people. Sir Gervase and Lady Tipton. What? You don’t know them? Well, never mind. And then this letter arrived—from their boy, you see—and I realised that Charles—I still think of him as Charles, though I haven’t seen him since we had a row during the war, and naturally I’ve always mistrusted him, though I did think—— What was I saying? Oh, Charles, of course. Well, I realised that he was still keeping the money himself. Not that he’d spend it, of course. He hasn’t got the guts. What’s that?”
Miss Mulberry had no chance to explain why she had blenched and overturned the paste-bottle, for the visitor rushed on again at once.
“So I cabled to my lawyer, and he looked up the will and cabled to me, and I caught the next boat. It was time I came home anyhow, and they always say blood’s thicker than water—if you follow me. Mind you, I blame myself, and I’d no more take an old friend into the Courts—even if he did insult me—than fly to the moon. But that’s not saying he hasn’t got to fork out and answer a few questions. We’ve started on that already, in fact, and what I’ve spent on the ship’s wireless would surprise you. But I’ve always liked those children, and I’m going to get this thing straightened out for them. I tried to see the boy this morning, but he’d gone off somehwere. Still, he can wait. He’s got a job and he’s working at it. What I want, Miss Mulberry, is the girl. Will you tell her?”
As she concluded with this brisk and quite unintelligible question, the visitor shied the end of her cigarette into the empty fireplace—the first time, probably, that it had ever received such an object. The head-mistress reacted with an involuntary shudder, and made a movement as though she would pick it out.
“Well?” added Mrs. Millet.
Miss Mulberry’s eyes swung back from her desecrated hearth.
“Am I to understand——” she began.
“Good Lord, yes,” said Mrs. Millet. “Now. The sooner the better. I want to take her off with me at once.”
“But—excuse me—I’ve heard nothing from any of my pupils’ parents—I mean——”
“Parents? But I’m talking about my niece. She hasn’t got any parents.”.
“Oh!” said Miss Mulberry, trying and failing to think far faster than any human being has yet thought. “I see. Of course. I remember now. Her aunt. This is very awkward. Dear me, I wish you hadn’t come all this way. Or are we speaking of the same girl?”
“I,” said Mrs. Millet, as though humouring a backward boy, “am speaking of my niece Ursula. Ursula Brett. I am her aunt. I want to see her.”
“Quite,” said Miss Mulberry. “Exactly. Then you’ve not heard?”
“I’ve not heard what?”
“I—I’m afraid she isn’t here.”
“She’s left the school?”
“Well, not precisely. But——”
“Expelled?”
“No, no. Dear, dear; I wish you could have written. I mean——”
“But where is she, then? My dear woman, where is she?”
If Miss Mulberry blenched this time, the reflex was purely automatic.
“I don’t know,” she said, feebly. “She’s disappeared.”
“Where? When? What have you been doing to her?”
“Nothing. She ran away. The day before yesterday.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. That’s to say, she was seen riding away on—what do they call it? On a bracket. With a man in a blazer.”
“Good God!” said Mrs. Millet. “And you did nothing? You tried to hush it up? You didn’t attempt to run after her?”
A third party could scarcely have helped laughing at the picture of Miss Mulberry running after a motor-bicycle, but no third party was present and the room was notably free from signs of amusement.
“I don’t know,” said the head-mistress, “what right you have to cross-examine me like this, but I have made every effort to trace her. I also communicated with her guardian at once, but from the tone of his earlier replies I gathered that he either knew or guessed where she was, and didn’t choose to tell me. I may remind you, also, that I’m a very busy woman, and——”
“Bosh!” interrupted the impossible visitor. “Do you suppose that Charles Cottenham would ever wear a blazer or ride on a motor-bicycle?”
“I didn’t suppose anything of the sort. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that your niece is at Pippingfold.”
Was it? Perhaps it was, now that she had actually said so aloud. Yes, of course it was; for where else could she be, without any clothes and without any money, and when Mr. Cottenham had been so rude and ungrateful? Besides, there is nothing like saying something aloud—especially in an argumentative tone for which there has been great provocation—to transform a number of vague doubts into one crystallised assurance.
“That’s where she is,” added Miss Mulberry, rising to her feet. “And if you had only explained why you were here and what you wanted a little sooner, I should have told you so before. I’ve been put to a great deal of inconvenience over this affair already—a very great deal of inconvenience and trouble—and I may say—I may tell you——”
Here a growing uncertainty as to how this sentence was going to end was made more doubtful still by the very obvious fact that the visitor wasn’t listening. She, also, had risen to her feet, and had crossed the study, and was straightening her hat with the aid of a large framed photograph of the King of the Belgians—a relic of St. Ethelburga’s patriotism during the Great War.
“I see,” she said, turning round. “You think he sent for her, then?”
The head-mistress shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s possible,” added Mrs. Millet. “But I wonder why. Had he written to her lately, do you know? Or sent her anything to sign?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Mischief,” said Mrs. Millet, darkly. “I ought to have waited till I got back. I must think this over. I must ring up that gas-bag of a lawyer. I must meet him there—as soon as possible. Very well, Miss Mulberry; I dare say you did your best. But you liked the girl? Eh?”
“She was very popular. I don’t know that I should describe her as one of my best pupils, but——”
“I should jolly well hope not,” said Mrs. Millet, with a laugh of surprising vehemence. “But of course she was popular. I was popular myself, though you mightn’t think it; and when I was at school, do you know what I did? I tried to set fire to it. Not bad, eh? Well, good-bye. Thanks awfully for all your help. No, don’t bother; I remember the way out. And, I say, if there are any bills or anything, you’d better keep them till I write to you. I don’t think you’ll hear much more from Charles Cottenham. No, I don’t think so, somehow. Good-bye.”
What an appalling family! And of course she’d left the door open. They always did.
But Miss Mulberry hadn’t the strength or determination to close it. She just sat back among the ruins of her System, and stared blankly at the King of the Belgians, and repeated fragments of the recent dialogue without hearing her own voice. Pippingfold? Yes, but what if she weren’t at Pippingfold, after all? What if that dreadful woman came back again, and tried to drag her into the mysterious scandal at which she had kept hinting? That talk of lawyers made Miss Mulberry’s blood run cold, for never so far had the blackest crimes at St. Ethelburga’s gone further than these pale-green walls. Popular, indeed! She’d like to have that woman back again for just five minutes, and tell her a little more about her precious niece.
No, she wouldn’t, though. She never wanted to hear of her, or from her, again. Or from any of them. Far, far better to tear up the account for Ursula’s stationery and extras during this unspeakable summer term, than to have any more dealings with any of this pack of maniacs. If they wrote to her, she wouldn’t answer. If they telephoned, she would refuse to speak. If they c
ame here, she would issue instructions that——
The door gave a sudden creak, and the head-mistress awoke from her passionate reverie.
“Who’s there?” she snapped. “What is it?”
The door opened a little wider, and round the edge of it there crept—with the air of a nervous boa-constrictor—a long, thin, weary-looking young man. His light suit was stained here and there with what might be, and indeed was, lubricating-oil. His hair was in distinct disorder. His Adam’s-apple was only imperfectly under control, and a twittering, deprecating smile played about his youthful lips like summer lightning in the tropics. His eyes displayed acute fear mingled with desperate resolution. The surface of his countenance was distinctly glossy. And though one of his preposterous legs seemed extremely anxious to bear him further into the room, the other seemed as determined to hook itself round the door and hold him back. He contrived to maintain his unstable equilibrium in these difficult conditions by clutching the inner handle with a grip of steel.
It was open to considerable doubt whether certain sounds proceeding from him were occasioned by hiccupes or an attempt at human speech. But in the latter event he would appear to be employing some very primitive and elementary form of dialect, for Miss Mulberry could distinguish nothing but the monosyllable “Er.”
“Er,” said the intruder, in fact. “Er.” And again: “Er-er.”
“What are you doing?” demanded the head-mistress. “Who are you, please? What do you want?”
The intruder looked over his shoulder as though meditating precipitate flight, and looked back again with a sort of apologetic heroism.
“Er—” he said.
“Would you mind answering me—whoever you are?”
“I say——”
“Yes?”
“Er—I say—are you Miss Mul-mulberry?”
“I am. And can you please explain why you’re here?”
The intruder smiled, shook his head, nodded and frowned.
“Er——”
“Really—” began the head-mistress, impatiently.
Another Part of the Wood Page 19
