“Peggy, I wish you to tell me, dear. You would not disobey me when I issue a command to you, my dear child?”
“I’m afeard that I must, misthress dear,” said poor Peggy.
Mrs. Fleming was silent for a minute. To tell the truth, she was a good deal disturbed, and now Peggy’s silence confirmed a suspicion which had come into her mind. The girl was the victim of foul play. The Imp, beyond doubt, was at the bottom of this, and the poor child had been put on her honour not to tell.
Mrs. Fleming pondered for a few minutes, then she said gently: “I don’t wish to disturb you in any way at present, Peggy, for you have gone through a great deal; but I’m obliged to use my common-sense. Your leg was broken by a blow or a kick, that has been proved by Dr. Hodge. I don’t ask you if anybody could have been so savagely cruel as to give you a blow, Peggy; but the pony being in the field may have kicked you. Poor Sam is a very gentle beast; but if he did this I fear that his days are numbered.”
“Oh merciful heaven, ma’am, what are ye talkin’ about?” Peggy half sat up in bed and her eyes grew bright with fever. “Is it the baste ye mane, the poor blessed powny? Why, ma’am, far from kickin’ me, it was himself—Whinsie, I call him, after a little powny of the same breed at home—it was hisself saved me life intirely, that it was, ma’am.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Fleming, rising, “we won’t say anything more about it to-night, Peggy dear, and you needn’t be frightened about Whinsie—what a pretty name!—for he certainly sha’n’t be punished. Now you must try and go to sleep. Miss Smith will sleep in your room to-night, Peggy dear, and to-morrow I’m going to get a nurse for you for a few days, for you must keep that poor leg very still. Now then, good-night, little girl, good-night. I may look in again later on, and the doctor is going to give you something to stop the pain.”
That evening Mrs. Fleming had a long and serious conversation with all her teachers, and the consequence was that the next day after prayers she desired the entire school to wait, in order that they might listen to something of the deepest importance which she had to speak to them about.
“It is a grievous thing,” she said, “a dreadful and terrible thing. I think you must all guess to what I allude. A child came to our school, to The Red Gables, to our happy school, where noble women have been reared and have gone out into the world to do noble work therein. Girls, there are but few of you present who have not had mothers in this school, and brave and noble mothers mean brave and noble daughters; yet a dark and really terrible crime has taken place in our midst, during the very first day of our school life too. A child, a stranger, an exile from her native land, and an orphan—for Peggy Desmond has neither father nor mother—came here because the brave man who has undertaken her education felt that he could not do better than give her to me. Ah, girls, I was so proud of the trust, I was so proud to be able to do anything for the child of Captain Desmond, V. C.”—the girls started and looked at each other—“the daughter of a noble father I felt was worthy of all the care I could bestow upon her. She came here bright, strong, healthy, full of courage, full of marked individuality. She was brought up, it is true, in an Irish cabin; but I thought that you girls would be the very first to help me, kindly, gently, lovingly, to correct a few phrases which she had learnt from her foster-parents in her early infancy. Now, girls, you of the Upper School have nothing to do with this matter; will you therefore leave the hall? Girls of the Lower School, come forward, I have something very important to say to you.”
The Imp had one of those strange faces which never revealed emotion; she was very pale now, but beyond that fact she looked as usual. Her companions, the Dodds, however, not only looked but were considerably troubled. They were the sort of girls who, with muddy complexions, small, deeply-set eyes, large mouths, and clumsy features, must have been pronounced ugly whatever their dress or whatever their wealth. Her complexion was Grace Dodd’s special trial, it never served her in good stead, flushing up vividly when she wished to look pale, leaving her patchy and mud-coloured when she longed to look bright and rosy. Anne was exactly like Grace, her characteristics only a little less prominent perhaps. The commonplace origin of these two girls showed itself in their walk, in their manner, their look. Mrs. Fleming had never wished to admit nouveaux riches to the school; but Mrs. Dodd, long, long ago, when she was but a very poor girl, and in the days when Dodd himself had not loomed on the horizon of her life, was daily governess to Mrs. Fleming, then a young and rather naughty child. The rather despised governess married Dodd in his poverty, he acquired wealth—vast wealth—and Mrs. Dodd went up with him in the social scale. She loved the feeling of affluence with a passionate intensity, and the one desire of her life was that her two girls should be educated at The Red Gables; hence, therefore, the reason of their presence; and Mrs. Fleming earnestly hoped to be able to help them to use their wealth in the right direction. The other girls of the Lower School were, besides those already mentioned, Hannah Joyce (who had accompanied Peggy on her walk on the previous morning), Annie Jones, Priscilla Price, and Rufa Conway. These girls crowded round their teacher now, wondering what she was about to say. Her quick eyes took them all in, and she was not slow to discover that while Kitty Merrydew betrayed no emotion of any kind, the Dodds looked intensely uncomfortable, and so also did Sophy Marshall. Hannah Joyce also looked quite different from usual. Poor Hannah was now the one sole point of danger, and in consequence she had been attacked, not only by the Dodds, but by The Imp herself, that morning.
The Imp had described to Hannah what might occur if she mentioned the fact that Peggy had gone off mysteriously with Grace Dodd. “When you are questioned you must keep the very little you know dark,” said Kitty; “if you were to say that Grace had fetched Peggy while she was talking to you the most horrible suspicions might get abroad—they really might, Hannah! I don’t know how to tell you what an unpleasant position we might all find ourselves in. When questioned you have got to be silent, Hannah—for the good of the school, you understand—and when I assure you that nothing at all happened to Peggy while we were with her you will know how important your silence is. If it were known that Grace called Peggy, there’s no saying what might not come to light. Peggy herself is a brick, I will say that for her; she won’t let out a single thing, just for fear that her friends—as she knows we most truly are—might get into hot water. She hardly knows us. You have known us for a long time. We all belong to the Lower School. You of course will follow Peggy’s example.”