THE VALUE OF A GOOD CHARACTER.
Vava tossed and turned and went to sleep, only to dream of prison cells, in which Eva was secured by heavy chains, which she (Vava) tried in vain to break, and it was from one of these nightmares that she awoke in the morning to the sound of a laugh. Sitting up in bed, Vava listened, hardly able to believe her ears, for it was Eva's laugh.
'Stella,' she said in solemn tones to her sister, 'do you hear Eva laughing?'
'Yes,' said Stella shortly; but the little word said a good deal.
'Do you think she's in hysterics?' asked Vava.
'No, I do not; she seems very cheerful,' replied Stella.
Vava was very thoughtful; and when she went to the bathroom, Stella noticed that she did not stop as usual to say good-morning to Eva as she passed her door, at which her sister was rather pleased, for she did not approve of Eva's light-heartedness under the circumstances.
However, she greeted the girl kindly enough when they met at breakfast, and indeed it would have been difficult not to smile back at Eva's happy face, with a look on it that they had not seen since they had been at Heather Road. It scarcely needed Eva's announcement that she did 'feel so happy' to assure them of the fact, for she looked a different girl; 'and I don't deserve it,' she added.
There was silence when she said this, for if her three listeners had spoken their minds they would have cried in chorus, 'Indeed you do not!' As it happened, however, it was Vava, with her usual candour, who demanded, 'Then why do you feel happy?'
'Don't you know?' demanded Eva, looking from one to the other; and then, seeing from their faces that they certainly did not know the reason for her change of mood, she continued, 'I thought Mrs. Morrison would have told you.'
'What has nursie got to do with it?' asked Vava.
'Everything, she has been so good. She came up to me last night, and straightened things out in the most wonderful way, as far as they can be straightened, and I am going to keep them straight for the future,' said Eva.
'I am very glad,' said Stella; but though she wondered how the old housekeeper had straightened out this tangled web, she was too polite to ask any questions; nor, though they were burning with curiosity, did the other two do so either; Vava because she thought she should hear it from 'nursie,' and Amy because she decided that Eva would prefer to tell her when the two of them were alone.
Vava was disappointed in her hope of getting an explanation out of the old housekeeper, who, in answer to her questions, said, 'And what will it have to do with you, Miss Vava? I'm ashamed at your curiosity.'
'I don't call it curiosity to take an interest in your friends, and I want to know that Eva is safe,' said Vava.
'Oh if that is all you are asking, then I can answer you; she is safe from being punished for her wrong-doing except by her own conscience,' replied Mrs. Morrison; and with this Vava had to be content, though it was not all she wanted to be told, as the old woman very well knew.
Amy, however, fared better, and came out of Eva's room looking radiant. 'Stella, it is too good of Mrs. Morrison! Fancy, she is lending Eva the thirty pounds, and she is seeing the man herself; so we need not bother about a lawyer or anything!' she cried.
But Stella did not look at all pleased, and saying, 'Indeed!' she walked straight into the kitchen to have it out with nursie, who received her remonstrances very calmly.
'Don't you fash yourself, Miss Stella, dearie; I'm not throwing away my money, and I am not spoiling Miss Eva, nor encouraging her either. She will pay back every penny, and a hard time she will have doing it too.'
And with this Stella had to be satisfied. Mrs. Morrison was a woman of great character, and what she thought it right to do she did, without paying any attention to what people said or thought.
'I shall not be back to dinner,' said Eva as she said good-bye to the other three.
'Why? What are you going to do?' asked Amy anxiously.
Eva coloured slightly as she answered in a would-be light manner, 'I have some work to do at the office; we are working overtime, so I shall be late for the next few weeks,' and then she nodded and went off before she could be questioned further.
Amy turned to the sisters and said, 'I did her an injustice. I thought she was taking things too easy, although I was thankful to hear that she had been got out of her trouble; but this work that she speaks of is dreadfully tiresome, and all the lady-clerks refused it. She is getting very good pay for it, but it will tire her on these spring evenings.'
'I did her wrong too. I am very glad she has taken this work and is trying to earn extra money; she will feel much happier,' said Stella.
'Yes, and Mrs. Morrison has made her promise to bring her salary straight to her every Saturday, and just ask her for what she needs; and Eva says she means to live on two shillings and sixpence a week till she is out of debt,' explained Amy.
Stella gave a sigh of relief. 'Perhaps it has taught her a lesson,' she agreed; 'and it is a blessing that it has ended better than we expected.'
Then the three started for the City with Doreen, who, of course, knew nothing of what had happened.
'There's the chairman's motor at the school-gate,' exclaimed the latter, as she and Vava approached the City school.
'Mr. Montague Jones's, you mean? So it is! I wonder what he has come for? Something to do with the prizes, I expect,' said Vava, and she stopped to speak to the chauffeur, with whom she was a great favourite.
'The master's in there; I believe he's looking for you,' the man observed.
'That isn't the proper place to look for me; I go in at the pupils' entrance, tell him,' said Vava.
But Mr. Jones was not at that moment looking for Vava. He had been met by Miss Upjohn, who was very glad to see him, as she wished to speak about some school matter, which being soon settled, Mr. Jones began at once, 'And how is my little friend Vava Wharton getting on?'
There was nothing unusual in his asking this, for it was his usual question, and the head-mistress replied with a smile, 'She is not very little, but she is getting on very well. I think you will have to give her two prizes, which is rather unusual for a girl in her first term. She has done two excellent examination papers.'
'Indeed! Which are they?' inquired Mr. Jones, who was wondering how he was to broach the subject of the Scripture papers, and get at the bottom of Miss Briggs's tale without betraying her.
'Scripture and algebra; the first did not surprise me so much, for she is exceptionally well up in Scripture, and we cannot take any credit to ourselves for the knowledge she has displayed in that subject; but she has made wonderful progress in algebra; she is a very clever girl. One has the beauty, and the other the brains—not that Vava is not good-looking, by the way,' said the head-mistress, correcting herself.
'Nor is the beauty stupid, by any means, though she is so reserved that it is difficult to get to know her or her abilities,' said Mr. Jones, who began to think that he had come on a fool's errand, and had better have trusted the head-mistress to manage her school without his interference. He was just getting up to say good-bye when there came a knock at the door, and Miss Briggs entered, looking very perturbed at sight of Montague Jones.
'My letter was strictly private, Mr. Jones,' she said.
'And so it has been treated, Miss Briggs,' replied Mr. Jones.
'Miss Briggs, excuse me, but did you write to Mr. Jones upon the matter we discussed yesterday?' inquired the head-mistress, looking very much annoyed.
Poor Miss Briggs looked very much ashamed of herself as she answered, 'Yes.' She saw that she had betrayed herself, whereas Mr. Jones had not done so.
'Since you have told Miss Upjohn so much, I think you may allow me to suggest that you should give us your grounds for suspecting my young friend Miss Wharton of dishonest practices, and let us try and convince you that you are mistaken,' observed Mr. Jones.
'Oh I did not say they were dishonest,' she protested.
'But I do,' he replied.
Thus put into a corner, Miss Briggs had to go through the whole thing again, and a very bad time she had of it. Mr. Jones had not been a magistrate for nothing. He questioned and cross-questioned and argued till he had proved even to Miss Briggs's satisfaction that the very remarks she had overheard only proved Vava's innocence, as no girl in her senses would boast openly of knowing the questions beforehand if she had looked at them secretly, far less impart one to a friend, and that one a girl whom the girls had nicknamed 'Old Honesty.' At last Miss Upjohn and her visitor had the satisfaction of having brought Miss Briggs round to their opinion.
'I see now that I was mistaken, and I am very sorry about it, and I ought not to have written to you,' she said frankly to Mr. Jones.
'No, you ought not. Miss Upjohn is quite able to manage her own affairs; but I hope she will overlook your fault this time,' he replied with equal frankness; and then he got up and left the two ladies alone.
Miss Briggs looked so ashamed of herself that Miss Upjohn was sorry for her; but what she said to her young assistant no one knew, for the story never went any further.
Vava never thought of her unpleasant experience with Miss Briggs after that day, except to feel that it had done good instead of harm, for the young mistress went out of her way to be pleasant to the girl she had wrongfully accused, which Vava thought very nice of her, as it had never been proved that she had not moved those papers. Perhaps she would not have been so grateful to Miss Briggs if she had known that it had been proved to have been some one else.
The facts of the case were that another mistress had taken them by mistake, and in her hurry just put them back inside the door. Miss Upjohn was very glad to have this explanation, not that she doubted Vava, but because she thought it would show Miss Briggs how easily one may be suspicious without cause. And, if the truth be told, it was not till she heard this that Miss Briggs did quite believe in Vava's innocence. So that it did teach her a lesson.
Vava was called into the head-mistress's study that morning, and went in looking very hot and indignant, but came out smiling, and said to Doreen, 'It's all right.'
'What's all right?' demanded Doreen, staring.
'Oh I forgot you know nothing about it. Well, it does not matter; it was only something that was bothering me, and it's all right now. Miss Upjohn is a brick,' explained Vava.
'I knew that before, and I'm glad whatever was bothering you is all right; you all seem to have had the blues lately at your place. Mother said she supposed you found a house rather a bother as well as a pleasure,' remarked Doreen.
'Oh no, we don't! Mrs. Morrison takes all the worry off us; she's a brick too, a gold brick!' declared Vava with enthusiasm.
'I never heard of a "gold brick,"' observed Doreen.
'Well, she's one,' said Vava obstinately, and they both laughed.
But Vava never told any one except her 'gold brick,' as she called 'old nursie,' of the bad quarter of an hour which she had had with Miss Briggs before school, when the latter had accused her of having seen the papers, and told her to go and confess it to Miss Upjohn. 'But that wasn't the worst, nursie; the worst was in Miss Upjohn's room,' declared the girl.
'But I thought she had the sense to believe in you?' asked the old woman.
'Oh yes, she was most awfully nice, and told me she had never doubted me for a moment; it was Miss Briggs that made me feel so horrid and uncomfortable. Miss Upjohn told her she owed me an apology, and she looked so miserable I felt as if I ought to apologise to her,' said Vava.
'And why would you do that? No one has a right to take away your character, and if they try to do it, and find they are wrong, it is they who should apologise. There's nothing so much worth in this world as one's character—never forget that, my bairn,' said the old nurse. 'You see how Mr. Jones and Miss Upjohn both believed in you, though I must say things did look black to a suspicious person; that was because they knew your character, and that it was an honest character. If that same tale had been told about a girl who was not straightforward it might have been a different thing. Be thankful for your head-mistress's trust in you, and always act up to the principles you have been taught; it will save you from many a pitfall or from the trouble a weak young lady like Miss Eva brings upon herself.'
'It doesn't seem to matter so much as long as I have you to get me out of it,' said Vava mischievously.
'Indeed it does, for though I might get you off punishment I could never undo what you had done,' said the old housekeeper.
'But if I was sorry?' suggested Vava.
'You would be forgiven, but it would never undo it, remember that,' repeated Mrs. Morrison.
And Vava did remember it. At the moment she was thinking that Eva seemed to have got over her trouble, and to feel as if it were undone the moment the money was paid; but, as it happened, she was mistaken, and when she saw her come in night after night, looking tired out and black under the eyes, she began to understand that 'old nursie' was right, and that one cannot undo a wrong deed. Moreover, though she never spoke of it, Eva felt that she had lost her character for uprightness with her friends, and she bitterly regretted her weakness. But if the girl had but known it, they respected her more now that she was working so hard to repay Mrs. Morrison than they had ever done before, and Vava was only too glad to be with her in the short time she had free.
As for the furniture man, the shrewd Scotchwoman managed him better perhaps than a lawyer would have done, and she got back Eva's jewellery, which he had accepted in part payment at much less than their value; and her still final triumph was that she only paid the thirty pounds.
'So I made him take five pounds off the bill, and then overpaid him to be quit of him altogether, though it's a fine suite, after all,' said Mrs. Morrison when recounting her transaction with the not too reputable tradesman, who, for his part, was not sorry to have done with Mrs. Morrison, whose shrewd questions and business knowledge made him feel very uncomfortable, as did some of her plain comments on his behaviour.