There was silence, and a whispered consultation. Then Avice spoke.
“Will you give us your word of honour you weren't going to run away?”
Words of honour meant little to the young Rainhams. But they knew that Cecilia held it as a commonplace of decent behaviour that people did not tell lies. They had, indeed, often marvelled that she preferred to “take her gruel” rather than use any ready untruth that would have shielded her from their mother's wrath. Avice and Wilfred had no such scruples on their own account: but they knew that they could depend upon Cecilia's word. They were, indeed, just a little afraid of their own action in locking her up; their mother might have condoned it as “high spirits,” but their father was not unlikely to take a different view. So they awaited her reply with some anxiety.
Cecilia hesitated. Never in her life had she been so tempted. Perhaps because the temptation was so strong she answered swiftly.
“No—I won't tell you anything of the kind. But look here—if you will let me out I'll give you each ten shillings.”
Ten shillings! It was wealth, and the children gasped. Wilfred, indeed, would have shot back the bolt instantly. It was Avice who caught at his arm.
“Don't you!” she whispered. “It'll cost heaps more than that to get a new governess—and we'll make Mater give us each ten shillings for keeping her. I say, we'll have to get the Pater home.”
“How?” Wilfred looked at her blankly.
“Easy. You go to the post office and telephone to him at his office. Tell him to come at once. I'll watch here, in case Eliza lets her out. Run—hard as you can. Mater'll never forgive us if she gets away.”
Wilfred clattered off obediently, awed by his sister's urgency. Avice sat down on the head of the stairs, close to the bolted door; and when Cecilia spoke again, repeating her offer, she answered her in a voice unpleasantly like her mother's: