“Where would you like me to meet you with my suitcase?” she asked, with another sketchy little curtsy.
“At the entrance gate, I should think. I will send my chauffeur to receive the case from Sister Genevieve. Where, I wonder, should he wait?”
“At the entrance to the nuns’ garden. That will not be very far for us to carry the suitcase. It need not be heavy. I shall soon be coming back here, I expect. I do not wish to go away, and shall cable my grandfather so, and request his permission to return. I am not at all convinced that he would approve of my staying with strangers, but I know that it is being done for what you all imagine must be the best.”
So saying, she left them. The Spanish child raised her eyebrows, gave Mrs. Bradley a pensive little smile, and remarked, as though to herself: “
“I am not surprised,” Mrs. Bradley said. “She carries it off very bravely, but she must be having a very worrying time.”
“She is troubled since the death of the little cousin.”
“Yes. She looks strained and ill. ”
“She is ill. She is never like this, so not polite. You must please to forgive her this time.”
“I do not regard her as not polite. I do not think of it that way. She has protested, as she has the right to do, against being taken away.”
Before they could say any more, Ulrica herself came back.
“I cannot find Mary to say good-bye,” she said. “If she should come in here whilst I am packing, dear Maria, ask her to wait, or come up to my cell, if you please.”
“Cell?” said Mrs. Bradley, when Ulrica had disappeared again.
“She has hopes of entering the religious life,” Maria reminded her. “
“Possibly you are right,” Mrs. Bradley agreed, so they said no more, and Mrs. Bradley, sitting on the floor where Ulrica had sat, and brooding over the chessboard like a crumpled bird of prey, waved a skinny claw to invite the black-haired child to continue the game which Ulrica had abandoned.
Nearly an hour later, Ulrica came down, not expecting, it was obvious, to discover Mrs. Bradley still there. She watched in absolute silence, while Mrs. Bradley moved on slowly to victory. Then she gave a little sigh, and the victor and the vanquished both looked up.
“This lady could beat my father,” said the Spanish child, picking up a castle in slender, olive-brown fingers. Ulrica nodded, and asked:
“Did she continue the game from the point at which I left it?”
“Yes, she did, and you left it at very bad,” Mrs. Bradley’s opponent observed with considerable candour.
“Sister Genevieve has taken my suitcase to the top of the stairs, and Bessie is coming to carry it out to your chauffeur,” said Ulrica, smiling to show that she felt no resentment of Maria’s frank opinion.
In less than a quarter of an hour, she and Ferdinand had been driven away by George from the convent guest- house. George had just returned with a report of having seen Miss Bonnet’s car in the grounds of Kelsorrow School.
Mrs. Bradley and Bessie watched Ferdinand, George and Ulrica out of sight, then turned to one another with the mutual congratulation of those who are left behind while others take themselves off. Bessie even wiped her hands on her apron. Her opinion of Ulrica Doyle was soon made clear.
“Snitchy little tripe-hound,” she observed. “Don’t half fancy herself, I reckon. Ask me, she knowed what she was doing when t’other poor nipper conked out.”
“I fear that your remark is highly actionable, dear child,” said Mrs. Bradley, in gently remonstrative tones. Bessie grinned and spat. Then she said good night, and watched, bright-eyed, whilst Mrs. Bradley re-entered the guest-house doorway. She herself returned to the Orphanage for supper, which consisted of thick bread and butter, milk pudding and cocoa. It was greatly relished by the orphans, and got finished to the very last crumb; this to the perennial mystification of Mother Ambrose, who could not understand how children could be so hungry when, not many hours before, they had made a generous tea.
Mrs. Bradley, with the comfortable feeling of a job well done, went across to soothe Mother Francis, who so far had not been notified of Ulrica Doyle’s departure. Mother Francis, looked greatly concerned, almost ran to meet her, and told her a long involved story, the gist of which was that Mary Maslin could not be found on the building, and had not been seen since just after a quarter past three.
“And if only I had listened to you,” said Mother Francis, with all the disarming humility of her profession, “I should not have caused myself all this terrible new anxiety. I ought to have insisted that both the children were sent away when you said.”
Mrs. Bradley took out a notebook, and asked for all the information which Mother Francis could give.
“Thank God we have got the other child away!” Mother Francis exclaimed more than once in the course of her detailed narration. Mrs. Bradley, longing to dispense with some of the conversation and get to work, had a sudden uneasy recollection of an hour she had spent playing chess whilst Ulrica Doyle was supposed to be packing a suitcase.
Mary, it appeared, had been well on the previous day, when Mother Cyprian went in to take the needlework at half-past two. She had answered her name and, later (perhaps at ten to three, Mother Cyprian thought), she had had her work criticised and was shown how to do a false hem.
And no false hem would have been necessary, Mother Cyprian had reiterated, if only Mary were not such a stupid girl. Even over needlework she was stupid, than which there could not be a pleasanter, easier subject, or one which was in every way more suited to a young girl’s mentality.
This cry from the heart Mrs. Bradley was obliged to receive in full from Mother Francis, who, weighed down, apparently equally, by worry and humility, had lost the faculty for selection, and let Mrs. Bradley have all the material at her disposal in one great tangled muddle of fact, opinion and emotion.
