“Do you want anything, Penelope?” she asked, and as she spoke she stretched out her hand to the mantel-piece, for the mandarin was a trifle out of his usual place. She moved him gently a little nearer the clock; Pennie’s expression changed to one of positive agony, and the mandarin’s head fell immediately with a sharp “click” on to the marble! Clasping her hands, Pennie turned involuntarily towards Ethelwyn. Now she must speak. But Ethelwyn was quite silent, and did not even turn her head. It was Miss Unity’s voice which broke the stillness.
“Child,” she said, “you have acted deceitfully.”
She fixed her eyes on Pennie, who flushed hotly, and certainly looked the very picture of guilt.
Of course Ethelwyn would speak now. But there was no sound from the window-seat.
Pennie twisted her fingers nervously together, her chest heaved, and something within her said over and over again: “I didn’t do it—I didn’t do it.” She had quite a struggle to prevent the little voice from making itself heard, and her throat ached with the effort; but she kept it down and stood before Miss Unity in perfect silence.
The latter had taken the broken head in her hand, and was looking at it sorrowfully.
“I valued this image, Penelope,” she went on, “and I grieve to have it destroyed. But I grieve far more to think you should have tried to deceive me. Perhaps I can mend the mandarin, but I can’t ever forget that you have been dishonest—nothing can mend that. I shall think of it whenever I see the image, and it will make me sad.”
The little voice struggled and fought in Pennie’s breast to make itself heard: “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it,” it cried out wildly. With a resolute gulp she kept it down, but the effort was almost too great, and Miss Unity’s grave face was too much to bear. She burst into tears and ran out of the room. Then hurrying upstairs she plunged her head into the side of the big bed where she and Ethelwyn slept together, and cried bitterly. Unjustly accused, disappointed, betrayed by her best friend—the world was a miserable place, Pennie thought, and happiness impossible ever again. There was no one to take her part—Ethelwyn was deceitful and unkind; and as she remembered how she had loved and worshipped her, the tears flowed faster. How could she, could she have done it? Then looking back, she saw how wilfully she had shut her eyes to Ethelwyn’s faults, plain enough to everyone else. That was all over now: she had broken something beside the mandarin that day, and that was Pennie’s belief in her. It was quite gone; she could never love her the least little bit again, beautiful and coaxing as she might be; like the mandarin, she had fallen all the lower because she had once stood so high.
Then Pennie’s thoughts turned longingly towards home. Home, where they were all fond of her, and knew she was not a deceitful little girl. She was very sorry now to remember how she had neglected her brothers and sisters lately for her fine new friend, and how proud and superior she had felt.
“Oh,” she cried to herself in a fervour of repentance, “I never, never will care so much about ‘outsides’ again! Insides matter much the most.”