Pixie Intercedes.
“One more question, Pixie, and remember I place absolute reliance on what you say, for you have given proof that you are to be trusted. You heard Lottie’s insinuation that you might have had some share in the accident! Had you touched the scent-bottle at all that night?”
“I had not, Miss Phipps!” The grey eyes looked into the face of the questioner with a steady light. “I never noticed it at all until the girls began talking about it, and then said I, ‘I must have a look at that bottle before I’m much older,’ and so I did that very same evening, but never a finger did I lay upon it. I put me hands behind me back and just doubled meself over the table—like this!—looking at it all I knew, but not daring as much as to breathe upon it, and from that hour I was never within yards of its presence.”
“I understand! But why, dear, have you refused to give us this simple explanation all these weeks? It was surely only to your credit that you had thought of Mademoiselle’s comfort before your own, so there was no reason for being so secret about it. Did you not see that it would have helped your cause to have given this explanation?”
“I—didn’t—like!” said Pixie, twisting her finger in and out in embarrassed fashion. “It was this way—that first night you were all so cross and so certain that it was me, because I had been in the room, that I was shy about telling. You see Mademoiselle would have been obliged to be pleased with me, and she wasn’t feeling disposed to be pleased just then, and it would seem as if I were trying to get off blame by boasting of what I’d done. I can’t explain my feelings, but I couldn’t tell! The next day it would have been different, but Lottie begged me not to say what I knew, and we never told tales of each other at home. The boys would have been cut in pieces before they had rounded on each other, so of course I had to give my word. It was very miserable, because no one loved me, and in my home we have very affectionate ways, the one with the other; but Lottie said it was only a little time to the holidays, and after that all would be forgotten. She did say she would ask me to visit her, and I wouldn’t hurt her feelings by saying No, so I just wrote and told Bridgie to say I couldn’t be spared, for I can’t go anywhere but my own home. And she said her father would be so angry with her if he knew, that never another happy moment would she have, and I knew my people wouldn’t mind!”
“And did you tell your people how unhappy you were? Did you tell them what trouble you were in?” queried Miss Phipps softly, and at that Pixie shook her head with great emphasis.
“I did not, Miss Phipps—I wouldn’t dare! They would be so terribly angry!”
“But you said a moment ago that they ‘wouldn’t mind’! Then how could they be angry with you, dear?” asked Miss Phipps, smiling, and Pixie bent her head with a quick propitiatory bow.
“’Deed, it was yourself they would be angry with,—not me! If the two Houses of Parliament were walking up to Knock Castle and telling them that Pixie had told a lie and stuck to it for a month on end, they would only be calling shame upon them, to have nothing better to do than take away a lady’s character, and the Major would say, ‘Twelve years have I known her, and never the day that she wasn’t up to her neck in mischief, but no child of mine ever looked in my face and gave me the lie, and Pixie’s not the one to begin.’ So never a word did I say, but just that the examinations were coming on, and we were not allowed to go out.”
“Pixie, come here!” cried Miss Phipps; and when the girl approached she received her with outstretched arms and framed the thin little face with her hands. “Little Pixie,” she said softly, “never say again that no one loves you in this house. I have loved you from the first, and have felt it a real trouble to be obliged to doubt you, and now I love you a hundred times more for your loyalty and unselfish consideration for your friend. You would have been wiser to be more candid about your own doings, but I appreciate your scruples, and the school code of honour has so many good points that I cannot bring myself to say that it should have been broken. As for the conduct of a girl who would let another suffer as you have done rather than bear the consequences of her own misdoing, I have no words to express my horror and indignation, especially when she is a senior and you one of the youngest in the school. It shows a want of principle which makes me despair of her future. A sudden slip or disobedience I could pardon, but not deliberate deceit, and I am too fond of my girls, and too anxious about their welfare, to allow such an influence to remain in their midst.”