Girls of the Forest Part 24

"You needn't answer me now. I'll come back again. This is Friday night.

I'll come back on Monday night. The picnic is arranged for Wednesday night. Listen, Paulie; you will have to change your mind, for if you don't--well!"

"If I don't?"

"I can make it very hot for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll come and have a talk with your aunt. There!"

"Oh, Nancy. What about?"

"Such an interesting story, darling! All about our fun that night when you burnt your arm--all about our gaiety, and the fireworks, and your stealing away as you did, and your stealing back as you did. Oh! I shall have a jolly story to tell; and I will tell it, too. She'll turn me away, and tell me she'll never see me any more; but what of that? She's done that already. I will have my fun; you will have your punishment. That's fair enough, isn't it? You don't desert Nancy King for nothing, remember that, Pauline, so you had better say at once that you will come. Now, my love, I think that is about all."

Nancy's face was very red. She was feeling thoroughly angry. Pauline's manner annoyed her past description. She really imagined herself to be extremely kind and good-natured to Pauline, and could not endure the little girl taking her present high stand.

"I must be going now," she said.

She gave Pauline a nod which was scarcely friendly, but was, at the same time, very determined, and was about to run home, when Pauline called her.

"Don't go for a minute, Nancy. There's something else. Have you brought me back Aunt Sophia's thimble?"

"No, I have not. I have a story to tell you about that, and I was just forgetting it. I do hope and trust you won't really mind."

"Oh, what is it? You know I am quite likely to get into a sc.r.a.pe about that horrid thimble as well as everything else. What is the story? The thimble isn't yours. You surely haven't lost it!"

"Nothing of the kind. You look as though you thought I had stolen it.

Mean as I am, I am not quite so bad as that. Now let me tell you. Becky, poor old girl! saw it. She's always mad about finery of any sort, and her people are rich as rich. I had the thimble in my pocket, and she was snuggling up close to me in her nice, engaging little fas.h.i.+on, and she felt the thimble hard against my side, much as I felt it when it was in your pocket. In she slipped her little bit of a white hand and drew it out. I never saw any one so delighted over a toy of the sort in all my life. It fitted her little finger just to a nicety.

"'Why,' she exclaimed, 'I never, never saw a thimble like this before; did you, Nancy?'

"'Guess not,' I answered. 'It's a cunning one, isn't it?'

"She kept turning it round and round, and looking at it, and pressing it up to her cheek, and trying to see her own reflection in that wonderful sapphire at the bottom of the thimble. Then what do you think happened? I own it was a little sharp of her, but of course you can't be so unfriendly as to mind. She took the precious little toy and put it into a dear, most precious little box, and covered it over with soft, soft cotton-wool, and placed a sweet little lid on the top. Dear me, Pauline!

you needn't open your eyes any wider. And when she had secured the little box, she wrapped it in brown paper, and twined it, and sealed it, and addressed it to her sister Josephine in London."

"Then she stole it," said Pauline.

"Not a bit of it. What a narrow-minded girl you are! Just hear my story out. Becky sent the thimble to Josephine to their house in Bayswater, with directions that Josephine was to take it to their jeweller, Paxton, and ask him to make another in all particulars precise ditto the same.

You understand? Precise ditto the same--sapphire, gold, turquoise, and all. And this beautiful thimble is to be worn on the dear little middle finger of Becky's dear little white hand. When it is faithfully copied you will have the original thimble back, my love, but not before. Now, then, ta-ta for the present."

Nancy ran off before Pauline had time to reply. She felt stunned. What did everything mean? How queer of Nancy to have suddenly turned into a perfectly awful girl--a sort of fiend--a girl who had another girl completely in her power; who could, and would if she liked, make that other girl wretched; who could and would ruin that other girl's life.

There was a time when the midnight picnic seemed the most delightful thing on earth; but it scarcely appeared delightful now to poor Pauline, whose head ached, whose arm ached, and whose whole body ached. What was she to do?

When she re-entered the shrubbery, her unhappy feelings were by no means lightened to see that Penelope was waiting for her. Penelope stood a little way off, her feet firmly planted a little apart, her straw hat pushed back from her sunburned face, her hands dropped straight to her sides.

"I didn't eavesdrop," she said. "I could have easy. There was a blackberry briar, and I could have stole under it and not minded the scratches, and I could have heard every single word; but I didn't, 'cos I'm not mean. But I saw you talking to Nancy, what kind Aunt Sophy says you're not to talk to. Perhaps, seeing you has done what is awful wrong, you'll give me a penny instead of Aunt Sophy; then I needn't tell her that you were talking to Nancy when you oughtn't, and that I think you have got the thimble. Will you give me a penny or will you not?"

Pauline put her hand into her pocket.

"You are a most detestable child," she said.

"Think so if you like," said Penelope. "Oh, here's my penny!"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed at the penny which was reposing on Pauline's palm.

"Now I'll go straight off and get John to bring me in some cookies," she exclaimed.

CHAPTER XIV.

PAULINE CONFESSES.

Pauline was in such a strait that she made up her mind to tell a lie. She had never, so far as she could remember, told an actual and premeditated lie before. Now matters were so difficult, and there seemed such a certainty of there being no other way out, that she resolved to brave the consequences and add to her former sin by a desperate, downright black lie. Accordingly, just before dinner she ran into Verena's room.

"Renny," she said, "I have made up my mind."

"What about?" asked Verena. "Why, Pauline, you do look bad. Your face is as white as a sheet."

"I shall have to explain," continued Pauline. "I am going to tell how I got the burn on my arm."

Verena gave a great sigh of relief.

"I am glad," she cried. "It is far better to tell."

"So I think," said Pauline in an airy fas.h.i.+on. "Give me a kiss, Verena; I must dress for dinner, and I haven't a moment to lose."

"You will wear your pretty blouse?"

"Certainly."

Pauline dashed out of the room, banging the door noisily after her.

"I wonder what she means," thought Verena. "She is certainly getting rather queer. I am afraid she has a terrible secret on her mind. I am glad she means to confess, poor darling! I seem to have less influence over her than I used to have, and yet I love no one like Paulie. She is all the world to me. I love her far better than the others."

Meanwhile Pauline, with great difficulty, put on her pretty evening-blouse.

How she hated those elbow-sleeves! How she wished the little soft chiffon frills were longer! At another time she would have been delighted with her own reflection in the gla.s.s, for a cream-colored silk blouse suited her.

She would have liked to see how well she looked in this new and fas.h.i.+onable little garment. She would have been pleased, too, with the size and brilliancy of her black eyes. She would have admired that flush which so seldom visited her sallow cheeks; she would even have gazed with approbation at her pearly-white teeth. Oh, yes, she would have liked herself. Now she felt that she hated herself. She turned from the gla.s.s with a heavy sigh.

Having finished her toilet, she wrapped a soft muslin handkerchief round her wounded arm and ran downstairs. Her aunt was already in the drawing-room, but to Pauline's relief no one else was present. The little girl ran up to her aunt, dropped a curtsy, and looked somewhat impertinently into her face.

"Here I am," she said; "and how do I look?"

"You have put on your blouse, Pauline. It suits you. Turn round and let me see how it fits at the back. Oh! quite nicely. I told Miss Judson to make the blouses in a simple fas.h.i.+on, so that they could be washed again and again. But what is the matter, my dear? Your face is very white.

And--why, my dear Pauline, what is wrong with your arm?"