A Popular Schoolgirl, Angela Brazil [big screen ebook reader txt] 📗

But on that point none of the family could enlighten him, for only Ingred and Derry knew the secret, and Ingred was at school, while Derry, belonging to the dumb creation, expressed his opinions solely in barks.

When the household was reunited for next weekend, the clouds had cleared from Athelstane’s horizon, but seemed to have settled more darkly than ever round Egbert. There was a horrible feeling of impending storm in the home atmosphere. It lent a constraint to conversation at meals, and put an effectual stopper on the fun which generally circulated round the fireside. It was all the more uncomfortable because nobody voiced the cause.

“Father looks unutterables, Mother’s plainly worried to death, Egbert is sulks personified, Queenie won’t tell, Athelstane and Hereward either don’t know or don’t care what’s the matter, but it makes them cross. What is one to do with such a family?” thought Ingred on Sunday afternoon.

It had been wet, and, though a detachment of them had ventured to church in waterproofs, they had not been able to take their usual safety valve of a walk across the moors. Seven people in a small house seem to get in one another’s way on Sunday afternoons. Father was dozing in the dining-room, Mother, Athelstane and Hereward were in the drawing-room, interrupting each other’s reading by constant extracts from their own books; Ingred, who hated to pause in the midst of The Scarlet Pimpernel to hear choice bits from The Young Visiters or Parisian Sketches, sought sanctuary in her bedroom, only to find the blind drawn and Quenrede with a bad headache, trying to rest. There seemed no comfortable corner available, so she slipped on her thick coat, put her book in the pocket, and walked down the garden to sit in the cycle-shed. Even in the rain it was nice out of doors; clumps of purple and yellow crocuses showed under the gooseberry bushes; lilies were pushing up green heads through the soil; the flowering currant was bursting into bud; roots of polyanthus flaunted mauve and orange blossoms; under a sheltered wall were even a few early violets, whose sweet fresh scent seemed as the first breath of spring. A missel-thrush on the bare pear tree sang triumphantly through the rain, and a song-thrush, with more melodious notes, trilled forth an occasional call; the robin, which had haunted the garden all the winter, was scraping energetically for grubs among the ivy on the wall, and scarcely troubled to fly away at her approach.

Ingred drew great breaths of sweet-scented wet air, and, with almost the same instinct as the thrush, broke into “Thank God for a Garden!” the song that Mother loved to hear Quenrede sing in the evenings when the day’s work was over.

Delightful and refreshing and soothing as Nature may be, however, it is rather a wet business to stand admiring crocuses in the streaming rain, so Ingred made a dash through the dripping bushes to the cycle-shed. If she had calculated upon finding solitude here she was disappointed. It was occupied already. Egbert, looking as gloomy as Hamlet, was tinkering with the motor-bicycle. He greeted his sister with something between a sigh and a grunt, whistled monotonously for a moment or two, then burst into confidence.

“Look here, Ingred; I can’t stand this any longer. I wish I were back in the army! I’ve a jolly good mind to chuck everything up, and re-enlist!”

“Is it as bad as all that?” asked Ingred.

“Yes, I’m about fed up with life. If it weren’t for the little Mater I’d have cleared out before this. Perhaps she’ll miss me, but I don’t know that anybody else will, and I don’t care!”

“How about Miss Bertrand?” asked Ingred, obeying a sudden impulse of mischief.

Egbert flung down a spanner, and turned to her the most astonished face in the world.

“What do you know about Miss Bertrand?” he queried.

Ingred chuckled delightedly. To use her own schoolgirl expression, she felt she “had him on toast.”

“More than you imagine! Who went into the Abbey Church, I should like to know, and sat in a pew for ever so long, and looked tender nothings? Oh yes! I saw you, and a pretty sight it was, too!” she teased.

Egbert was gazing at her as if he could scarcely believe his senses.

“But⁠—but⁠—where were you?” he stuttered.

“In the peephole!” exploded Ingred. “I could see right down into the church, and I watched you come in! I’ve been saving this up!”

Egbert drew a long breath.

“If I’d only known before!” he said slowly. “Ingred, stop laughing! You don’t understand. Look here, will you go and tell Dad that you saw me there, and the exact day and time when it happened. You can remember that?”

“Why, surely Father’s the very last person you want to know?” said Ingred, sobering down.

“No, he isn’t, he’s the one it’s most important should hear about it from a reliable witness whom he can believe. I don’t mind telling you about it now” (as Ingred expressed her astonishment in her face), “I’d got myself into a jolly old mess, and you’ll be able to clear me! It was this way; I slipped out from the office one afternoon for an hour, and went into the Abbey as you saw. Well, when I got back, somebody had been into Dad’s room during his absence, and a small sum of money was missing. He taxed me with taking it!”

“You! But why you?” exclaimed Ingred indignantly.

“Because I was the only person who had access to his private room. I told Dad I had been out⁠—which made him angrier still⁠—but none of the clerks had happened to see me go or come back, and I had no other witness to prove my words. As a matter of fact, I went out before Father, and came back after he had returned, but he wouldn’t take my word for it. You know what he is when he’s angry. You simply can’t argue with him! Then