CHAPTER IX
A Question of Honour
For the last five years Mr. Glyn Williams, a prominent London financier,had rented The Warren from General Talland. He liked the place, andwould gladly have bought the whole property had it not been entailed. Hestill lived in hopes that it might ultimately become his own, andperiodically made offers to the owner and heir to effect a settlement.Meantime, failing absolute possession, he posed to his city friends andto his neighbours in the county as the squire of Chagmouth. He was awell-disposed man, according to his lights, and in his own way he haddone a good deal for the place. He had built a reading room andinstitute, had helped to renovate the church, had contributed largely tothe war memorial, and headed the list of all local subscriptions. Hiswife was on numerous committees, had organized many charities,entertained the Sunday School children in her garden, got up concerts ortea-parties, attended mothers' meetings, opened bazaars, and distributedprizes.
Yet all the same Chagmouth was not as grateful as perhaps it ought tohave been, and the family at The Warren were by no means favourites inthe little town. The root of the trouble was that Mr. and Mrs. GlynWilliams made the common mistake of thinking that because they rentedthe Hall, and dispensed large sums in subscriptions, they had the rightto order the affairs of their less wealthy neighbours, and to have thefirst say in everything that was to be done in connection with theplace. Chagmouth people greatly resented being patronized. They wereborn of the good old sturdy, self-reliant stock that furnished Drake andRaleigh and other half-forgotten heroes, and they had been accustomed intheir slow independent fashion to manage their own business to their ownsatisfaction. For General Talland, whose family link with the parishdated from the time of the Armada, they had held a respect based partlyon his birth and partly on personal appreciation, but they saw no reasonto offer any undue deference to his tenant at The Warren. Money alonecannot purchase favour, and the unfortunate attitude of superiority andfashionable aloofness adopted by the whole of the Williams family hadcreated a considerable atmosphere of prejudice against them. To many ofthe Chagmouth people they were a sore trial, and the haughty manners ofthe young people were voted insufferable in the village.
Dr. Tremayne, however, who had been medical adviser at The Warren forseveral years, always met with a happy reception. He was a favouritewith rich and poor alike, for he gave equal attention to all hispatients, whether their incomes were small or great. He held those wideviews of life which estimate people at what they are and not at whatthey possess, and he always seemed to have the happy knack of bringingout the best in those whom he met. Mrs. Glyn Williams had perhaps taughther daughters many foolish and unworthy lessons, but in the presence ofthe unworldly old doctor the little snobberies melted away and thehigher standards prevailed.
It was for the sake of Dr. Tremayne that Gwen, when she next appearedat The Moorings, bestowed a grudging recognition on Merle and extended arather patronizing friendship to Mavis. The latter was not speciallyattracted, though she received the advances politely. Most of the girls,however, seemed to think her only too lucky to be thus noticed. Opalworshipped openly at Gwen's shrine. She copied her frocks, her manners,and her style of hairdressing, and offered up much incense before thealtar of fashion. The Ramsays, who were accustomed to the democraticatmosphere of a big high school, fretted at the narrowness of theoutlook. They disliked the days when the Williamses attended the Frenchclass, for Opal always put on absurd airs and was particularly "high andmighty" and aggravating. She had not improved as the term went on.Indeed, a new and most unpleasant aspect of her had lately revealeditself. She was not altogether fair over her work. On several occasionsMavis and Merle suspected her of cheating. They could not absolutelyconvict her of it, but the circumstances seemed very incriminating. Theymentioned the matter to Iva, who shrugged her shoulders.
"Of course Opal cheats when she gets a chance. We all know that. But howare you going to stop it? If you told Miss Fanny she wouldn't believeyou."
"I hate sneaking," said Mavis. "But couldn't we do something with Opalherself?"
"You'd have to catch her first."
"Yes, that's the difficulty."
It is not at all an easy matter to convict a girl who cheats on the sly.Several times Merle, who sat just behind, thought she saw Opal makehasty corrections as Mademoiselle revised the French dictation, but whenshe taxed her with it afterwards Opal denied flatly, and with hugeindignation.
"As if I should," she fumed.
"Seeing is believing," maintained Merle.
"Do you mean to accuse _me_--the head girl--of cheating! I wish you'd goand tell Miss Pollard or Miss Fanny. They know me too well to listen toa word you'd say. Why, I'm their own god-daughter!"
"Unfortunately that doesn't make you immaculate."
"Though it ought to, when they trust you so," added Mavis.
Discussing the matter between themselves, the Ramsays decided that inthis very point lay all the trouble. The Misses Pollard, in theirfoolish fondness for Opal, were making a grave mistake. Theydeliberately shut their eyes where she was concerned, and were alwaysbiased in her favour.
"It's such an amateur little school," sighed Merle. "I don't mean thelessons, because those are really rather good, but the discipline ishorribly slack."
"Hardly exists," agreed Mavis. "Miss Fanny says easily, 'Now, get along,girls!', and a few try to work and the rest don't, and she never _makes_them. I hate a slack teacher, however clever she is."
"Everything is so casual," groused Merle. "There's no proper order evenin answering questions. Opal raps out the answers if she knows them, andgets all the credit. It's most unfair. I should like to send Miss Fannyfor a term to Whinburn High, and let her see how things are managed atother schools. It would be an eye-opener for her."
"And for Opal too, if she could go as well. It would just do her all thegood in the world."
Evidently the only thing to be done was to keep a careful eye upon thedelinquent, and bring her to book at the first opportunity that offeredsufficient private evidence without taking the affair to the teacher'snotice.
Now it happened that one afternoon Gwen Williams left her Frenchdictionary behind her in the classroom and went home without it. It wasfound in due course by Muriel Burnitt, who flung it into the school"pound", a lost-property basket from which objects could be redeemed bythe payment of a penny into the missionary box. Both Mavis and Merlewitnessed the placing of the book in this receptacle, though they gaveno particular thought to the matter at the time. On the next French dayGwen came fussing into the classroom asking for her missing dictionary,and was much put out to find it was not forthcoming.
"I _know_ I left it on the desk," she maintained.
"So you did, and I popped it into the pound," said Muriel. "Pay yourpenny and you'll get it out. It's perfectly simple."
But when Gwen walked over to the lost-property basket, and inspected itscontents, she found an assortment of pencils, india-rubbers, andpen-holders, but certainly no dictionary. She was loud in her wrath, andthe girls immediately round her began to offer comments and advice.
"It was there yesterday."
"I saw it myself."
"Opal redeemed a penknife this morning."
"You'd better ask her if she knows where it has gone."
"Here she comes!"
Yet at that exact moment Mademoiselle entered also, and the girls tooktheir places. In the course of the lesson she gave her pupils a piece ofunseen translation. It was a difficult passage, and to many of them analmost impossible one to render into English. Each had her closeddictionary placed on the desk in front of her, and cast longing looks atits covers, but to open it was, of course, not permitted. Now Merle wassitting just behind Opal, and she noticed the latter glancing constantlydown on to her knee. Merle could not see the object of this closeattention, but her suspicions were aroused. She dared not speak, but shescribbled a little note on a piece of waste paper:
"Keep an eye on Opal's knee, and see if s
he hasn't got your dictionary."
This she addressed to Gwen and handed it surreptitiously along by Nestaand Iva.
Gwen read it, and gave a nod of comprehension while Mademoiselle waslooking the other way. The moment the lesson was finished she stood up,moved along the desks, and made a sudden grab on to Opal's lap.
"Hello! What are you doing with my dictionary?" she asked.
Opal turned white and then scarlet, but she was ready with a plausibleexcuse.
"I--I found it," she stuttered. "I was going to give it back to you."
"Indeed!" Gwen's tone was scathing. "I happen to know it was put insidethe pound. Why did you take it out? It's extremely kind of you to haveput a brown paper cover on it. If you intended to give it back to me whydidn't you hand it over before the class began?"
"There--there wasn't time!"
"Oh, good gracious, don't tell me any more fiblets! You meant to stickto it, and you were cribbing from it on your knee. Nice thing for a headgirl to do, I must say. I've not much opinion of you here at TheMoorings."
Opal protested, but Gwen would not listen to a word she had to say,and, pulling the paper cover off the dictionary, stalked out of the roomwith the air of an offended queen. The girls sniggered openly.
It was so seldom Opal met her match. To have drawn down the wrath anddispleasure of Gwen was a particular humiliation to her.
"Rather priceless, wasn't it?" chuckled Merle to Iva. "Hope it willteach her not to cheat in future."
"Don't flatter yourself. She will directly she gets the chance. She'sdone for herself with Gwen though for the present."
Iva's opinion of Opal was founded on experience. There was anunfortunate moral kink about the head girl that often involved her invery shady transactions. It was a deplorable thing for the school, asinstead of upholding the tone she lowered it. Mavis often wondered howMiss Fanny could be so foolish and weak as not to see for herself thather favourite evaded rules. Out of sheer bravado Opal would often doforbidden things, and would boast that she could venture on them withimpunity where others would surely get into trouble. One mean dishonestyabove all others aroused the Ramsays' indignation.
The top form took arithmetic with Miss Fanny. It was a subject whichOpal disliked, but for the last two or three lessons she had worked allher problems correctly. Miss Fanny, who ought to have known better, lefther Key to the arithmetic on the mantelpiece of the classroom, and onemorning Mavis, coming in early, caught Opal in the very act of copyingthe answers to the next set of questions.
"Well!" she exploded. "Of all mean sneaks you're the biggest I've evermet. No wonder you get all your sums right if you write down the answersbeforehand. How _can_ you?"
Opal tried to laugh the matter off.
"Why don't you do it yourself, my dear?" she answered. "If Miss Fanny_will_ leave her book about, of course we look at it. That's humannature!"
"It's not my way," said Mavis gravely. "And if Miss Fanny trusts us somuch that she leaves her Key here, we ought to be worthy of her trust.It's shameful to deceive her."
"Oh, Jonathan! Go and tell her, then."
"You know I never tell tales."
That day, however, Opal was unexpectedly overtaken by Nemesis. MissFanny was suffering from a severe headache, and Miss Pollard came totake the arithmetic class in her stead. The girls told her the number ofthe exercise they had reached, and she wrote the questions upon theblackboard. For some reason of her own she reversed their order. Whenshe called for the answers, Opal, with great assurance, read hers out,and, of course, as she had copied from the book, No. 6 came instead ofNo. 1, and vice versa. Miss Pollard stared at her in much amazement, andtold her to come and work them upon the blackboard, a process of whichshe made a conspicuous bungle. Miss Pollard made no special remark, butpossibly her suspicions may have been aroused, for she carried away theKey, and it was never again left in the classroom. Whether her affectionfor Opal prevented her from making a closer inquiry, or whether theaffair was merely a coincidence, and she still preserved her faith inthe integrity of her pet pupil, it was impossible to tell.
"All the same I call it the limit for her to shut her eyes to things inthe way she does," commented Mavis to Merle. "Both Miss Pollard and MissFanny are dears, but a teacher ought to know something of what goes onin a school, and not leave it just to luck. What are we to do? We can'tgo sneaking and telling, and yet I feel we ought to make a stand. Itdoesn't seem right to let Opal behave like this and do nothing. Shehasn't the slightest idea of honour."
"That's what most of them need here," snorted straightforward Merle.
"I know. But what can you expect with such a slacker as head girl? Ifonly Mother were here I'd ask her, but I'm so stupid at explainingproperly in a letter it's no use to write."
"Not a bit. She wouldn't really understand. Seems to me there's nothingfor it but just to worry on as best we can. They're a queer set, but wecan't help it."