"But she—"
"Do not interrupt. I asked you no question and no answer is called for. It is a fact, which I have just read in the Morning Post, that your mother is in trouble with the police. Again—is that not true?"
"No."
The headmistress looked up in amazement "Do you mean to stand there and tell me the newspaper is lying? Do you tell me to my face that your mother is not involved with the ... the authorities?" Miss Wakefield also taught English Composition and woe betide the girl who used the same word twice in the same context. "We are blessed with the richest of all languages," she would say, "so let us explore it—let us make use of it—for to do otherwise would be tautology." She never made clear what tautology meant, but the girls got her drift.
"I don't know whether the newspapers are lying or merely mistaken, Miss Wakefield," Sarah said, "although my mother says that it's hard to tell the difference with most journalists. At any rate, she is not in trouble with the police. They are the ones that are in trouble."
The headmistress stared hard at Sarah; she was rather good at this with small girls of thirteen. (You and I might find it difficult to stare down a child, and impossible in the case of a kitten, but Miss Wakefield was, after all is said, the cousin of a Peer of the Realm.)
"I believe I can understand that," she said. "In fact, I pity the arresting officer. Here is a woman who breaks shop windows for the sake of attracting attention to her political clique, and he is no doubt subjected to scratching and biting. Votes for women, indeed! Does breaking shop windows prove that people like her should have the ... the franchise?"
"She didn't break the window," Sarah said. "She was pushed against it by the policeman. And she never scratches unless a mosquito happens to—"
"You were not there, Stone," said the headmistress, "so how can you say that?"
"I know my mother. And she doesn't bite, either," Sarah said, looking at Miss Wakefield's neck. "Unless it's a tough old hen!"