"I thought her acting remarkable."

"Did you? Now I can't help feeling that Shakespeare never intended it like that. He makes him such a dear little boy. It's so pathetic, you know, where he begs the man not to put out his eyes. So childlike and touching. Like little Lord Fauntleroy. I know I cried when I saw it, years ago. Now this child was not at all appealing."

Clare shrugged her shoulders.

"It is not a pretty scene, Miss Marsham, though the managers conspire to make us think so. A child at the mercy of brutes, knowing its own danger, terrorised into the extreme of cunning, parading its poor little graces with the skill of a mondaine--it's not pretty! And Louise spared us nothing."

Miss Marsham fidgeted.

"If that is your view of the scene, Miss Hartill, I wonder that you consider it fit for a school performance."

Clare hedged.

"My private view doesn't matter, after all. Traditionally it is inadmissible, of course. But if you would like the treatment altered a little, I will speak to Louise. It is only the dress rehearsal, of course."

Miss Marsham looked relieved.

"Perhaps it would be better. A little more childlike, you know. But don't let her think me annoyed, Miss Hartill; I am sure she has worked so hard. Just a hint, you know. I should not like her feelings to be hurt. Poor child, the results were a sad disappointment to her, I'm afraid. You spoke to her about the change of cla.s.s?"

"Yes."

"I hope she was not distressed?"

Clare remembered the look on Louise's face. She hesitated.

"She will get over it," she said.

The kind old woman looked worried.

"You must not let her feel that she has failed over this, Miss Hartill--on the top of the other trouble. You will be judicious?"

A door slammed in the distance; there was a blurr of voices, a sound of hurrying footsteps.

Clare rose impatiently; she was tired of the subject.

"It will be all right, Miss Marsham. I understand Louise. What in the world is that disgraceful noise?"

But the door was flung open before she could reach it. Alwynne stood in the aperture, panting a little. In her arms lay Louise, her head falling limply, like a dead bird's. Behind them, peering faces showed for a moment, white against the dusk of the pa.s.sage. Then Alwynne, staggering beneath the dead weight, stumbled forward, and the door swung to with a crash.

The roomful of women stared in horrified silence.

"She's dead," said Alwynne. "I found her on the steps. She fell from a window. One of the children saw it. She's dead."

She swayed forward to the empty rocking-chair, and sat down, the child's body clasped to her breast. She looked like a young mother.

Clare, watching half stupified, saw a thin trickle of blood run out across her bare arm.

It woke her.

"Send for a doctor!" screamed Clare. "Send for a doctor! Will n.o.body send for a doctor?"

CHAPTER XXIV

The sudden death of Louise Denny had shocked, each in her degree, every member of the staff. The general view was that such a deplorable accident could and should have been impossible. Every one remembered having long ago thought that the old-fashioned windows were unsafe, and having wondered why precautions had never been taken. Every one, the first horror over, canva.s.sed the result of the unavoidable inquest, and speculated whether any one would be censured for carelessness. The younger mistresses were so sure that it was n.o.body's business to be on duty in the dressing-room at that particular hour that they spent the rest of the hushed, horror-stricken day in telling each other so, proclaiming, a trifle too insistently, their relief that they at least had nothing, however remote, to do with the affair: while inwardly they ransacked their memories to recall if perchance some half-heard order, some forgotten promise of standing subst.i.tute or relieving guard could, at the last moment, implicate them.

But the task of quieting and occupying the frightened children, and of clearing away, as far as might be, all traces of the dress rehearsal, was at least distraction. On the heads of the school, real and nominal, the strain was immeasurably greater. It was first truly felt, indeed, many hours later. Old Miss Marsham, in whom the shock had awakened something of her old-time decision of character, had conducted the interview with the decorously grieving parents with sufficient dignity; had overseen the temporary resting-place of the dead child; had communicated with doctors, lawyers and officials. But the spurt of energy had subsided with the necessity for it. She had retired late at night to her own apartments and the ministrations of her efficient maid, a broken old commander, facing tremulously the calamity that had befallen her life-work: foreseeing and exaggerating its effect on the future of the school, planning feverishly her defence from the gossip that must ensue. An accident ... of course, an accident ... a terrible yet unforeseeable accident.... That was the point.... At all costs it must be shown that it was an accident pure and simple, with never a whisper of negligence against authority or underling.... But she was an old woman.... She needed, she supposed bitterly, a shock of this kind to humble her into realising that her day was over.... She had been driving with slack reins this many a long year.... She had known it and had hoped that no one shared her knowledge. And none had known.... So there came this pitiful occurrence to advertise her weakness to the world....

The poor child! Ah, the poor little child! There had been a lack of supervision, no doubt ... some such gross carelessness as she, in her heyday, would never have tolerated.... And she was grown too old, too feeble to hold enquiry--to dispense strict justice.... She must depend on the lieutenants who had failed her, to hush the matter up--to make the administration of the school appear blameless.... They could do that, she did not doubt, and so she must be content.... But in the day of her strength she would not have been content.... But she was old....

It was time for her to abdicate.... She must put her affairs in order, name her successor--Clare Hartill or the secretary, she supposed....

They knew her ways.... There was that bright girl who had faced her to-day with the little child in her arms ... what was her name? Daughter or niece of some old pupil of her own.... She could more easily have seen her in her seat than either of her vice-regents.... So young and strong and eager.... She had been like that once.... Now she was a weak old woman, and because of her weakness a little child lay dead in her house.... Yes, Martha might put her to bed.... Why not? She was very tired.

Henrietta Vigers had also her anxieties. She had so long claimed the position of virtual head that there was no doubt in her own mind that other people would consider her as responsible as if she had been the actual one. She worried incessantly. Should she have had bars put up to those old-fashioned windows? She, who was responsible for all the household arrangements? Ought she not to have foreseen the danger and guarded against it? And there was the matter of the dressing-room mistress.... For the school machinery she had made herself even more pointedly responsible.... She should have arranged for some one to oversee the children.... But the dressing-room had been a temporary one and she had overlooked the necessity.... Yet if some one had been in the room the accident could impossibly have happened.... She felt that she would be lucky to escape public censure, that loss of prestige in the eyes at least of the head mistress was inevitable.

But the more or less selfish perturbation, as distinct from the emotion of sheer humanity, that was aroused by the death of the little schoolgirl in the two older women, was as nothing to the sensation of sick dismay that it awoke in Clare Hartill. She, too, through the night that followed on the accident, lay awake till sunrise, considering her position. She was stunned by the unexpectedness of the catastrophe; a little grieved for the loss of Louise, but, above all, intensely and quite selfishly frightened. She felt guilty. She remembered, remorselessly enlightened, the afternoon, the expression in Louise's eyes, and not for one instant did she share the general belief in the accidental nature of her death. Her conscience would not allow her the comfort of such self-deception. Later she might lull it to sleep again, but for the moment it was awake, and her master. This same keen-witted conscience of hers, this quintessence of her secret admirations and considered opinions, her epicurean appreciation of what was guileless and beautiful and worthy, co-existing, as it did, with the intellectualised sensuality of her imperious and carnal personality, was no small trial to Clare. Though it could not sway her decisions nor influence her actions by one hair's-breadth, it was at least cynically active, as now, to p.r.i.c.k and fret at her peace. It was, indeed, at the root of the whimsical irritability that, for all her charm, made her an impossible housemate.

Essentially, her att.i.tude to life was simple. It was an orange, to be squeezed for her pleasure. It must serve her; but she owed it, therefore, no duty. She found that she achieved a maximum of pleasurable sensations by following the dictates of that mind which is the mouthpiece of body, while indulging, as Lucullus ate turnips, in austere flirtations with that other mind, which is the mouthpiece of spirit. So she served Mammon, or rather, she allowed Mammon to serve her, but she was, on occasions, critically interested in G.o.d. And this was her undoing. Could she have been content to be frankly selfish, she might have been happy enough, but her very interest in the kingdom of Heaven had created her conscience, and had laid her open to its attacks. She ignored it, and it made her wretched: she compromised with it, and became a hypocrite.

She resented the death of Louise because it challenged her whole scheme of life. She was furiously angry with the dead child for what she felt to be an indictment of her legitimate amus.e.m.e.nts. Louise, so meek and ineffectual, had yet been able to steal a march on her, had stabbed in the back and run away, beyond reach of Clare's retaliation.... Louise had fooled her.... She, Clare, proud of her insight, her complete knowledge of character, her alert intuition, had yet had no inkling of what was pa.s.sing in that childish mind.... If she had guessed, however vaguely, she could have taken measures, have scourged the mere suggestion of such monstrous rebellion out of that subject soul.... But Louise, secure in her insignificance, had tricked her, planned her sure escape.... But how unhappy she must have been!...

In a sudden revulsion of feeling Clare grew faint with pity, as she tried to realise the child's state of mind during the past months. Her thoughts went back to the Christmas Day they had spent together. She had been happy enough then.... Half sincerely she tried to puzzle out the change in Louise, the gradual deterioration that had led to the tragedy.

Had she been to blame? Louise had grown tiresome, and she had snubbed her.... There was the thing in a nutsh.e.l.l.... If she was to be so tender of the feelings of all the silly girls who sentimentalised over her, where would it end, at all?

Poor little Louise.... She had been really fond of her at the beginning.... She had thought for a time that she might even supplant Alwynne.... But Louise had disappointed her.... She had let her work go to the dogs.... All her originality and charm fizzled out.... She had ceased to be interesting.... And she, Clare, had naturally been bored and had shown it.... Why couldn't the child take it quietly? If Louise had only known--and had conducted herself with tact--Clare had been preparing to be nicer to her again.... She had been deeply interested in her performance of the morning, had recognised its uncanny sincerity--had thought, with a distinct quickening of interest, that Louise was recovering herself at last, and that it might be as well to take her in hand again.... Oh, she had been full of benevolent impulses!

But then Louise had been tiresome again ... had stopped her and made a scene.... She hated scenes ... at least (with a laugh) scenes that were not of her own devising....

She supposed she should have recognised that the child was overwrought--terribly overwrought by the emotions aroused by such an interpretation as she had insisted upon giving.... She ought never to have been allowed to play it like that.... That was Alwynne's doing....

Alwynne had persuaded Clare to leave Louise to her own devices....

Alwynne was so headstrong.... She hoped that Alwynne would never need to realise how much she was to blame....

Here she became aware that her conscience was convulsed with cynical laughter. She flushed in the darkness, her opportune sense of injury increasing.

Alwynne might well be distressed.... If any awkward questions should be asked, Alwynne might find herself uncomfortably placed.... People would wonder that she had not noticed how unbalanced Louise was growing....

Every one knew how intimate, how ridiculously intimate, she and Louise had become.... Alwynne had fussed over her like an old hen ... had even on occasion questioned her, Clare's, method with her.... She must have known what was in Louise's mind.... Yet Clare had no doubt that people would be only too ready to accuse her, rather than Alwynne, of criminal obtuseness.... Henrietta Vigers, for instance.... Henrietta would be less prejudiced than many others, though.... She was no friend to Alwynne.... It might do no harm to talk over the matter with Henrietta Vigers.... A word or two would be enough....

Of course it would be considered an accident.... But if by any chance, vague suspicions were rife, a judicious talk with Henrietta would have served, at least, to prevent Clare from being made their object.... She had her enemies, she knew.... Alwynne, with her easy popularity, had none save Henrietta.... A few waspish remarks from Henrietta would not hurt Alwynne.... Clare would protect Alwynne from serious annoyance, of course.... If the mistresses--the school--oh, if the whole world turned against Alwynne, Clare would make it up to her.... What did Alwynne want, after all, with any one but Clare? The less the world gave Alwynne, the more she would be content with Clare, the more entirely she would be Clare's own property.... It was a good idea.... She would certainly speak to Miss Vigers....

She was outlining that conversation till she fell asleep.

CHAPTER XXV

On the following afternoon Clare and Henrietta were sitting together in the mistresses' room. The afternoon cla.s.ses were over and the day pupils and mistresses had gone home. The boarders were at supper and the staff with them.