“I do wish there was something to read,” said Peter. “I’ve read all our books fifty times over.”
“I’ll go to the Doctor’s,” said Phyllis; “he’s sure to have some.”
“Only about how to be ill, and about people’s nasty insides, I expect,” said Peter.
“Perks has a whole heap of magazines that came out of trains when people are tired of them,” said Bobbie. “I’ll run down and ask him.”
So the girls went their two ways.
Bobbie found Perks busy cleaning lamps.
“And how’s the young gent?” said he.
“Better, thanks,” said Bobbie, “but he’s most frightfully bored. I came to ask if you’d got any magazines you could lend him.”
“There, now,” said Perks, regretfully, rubbing his ear with a black and oily lump of cotton waste, “why didn’t I think of that, now? I was trying to think of something as ’ud amuse him only this morning, and I couldn’t think of anything better than a guinea-pig. And a young chap I know’s going to fetch that over for him this teatime.”
“How lovely! A real live guinea! He will be pleased. But he’d like the magazines as well.”
“That’s just it,” said Perks. “I’ve just sent the pick of ’em to Snigson’s boy—him what’s just getting over the pewmonia. But I’ve lots of illustrated papers left.”
He turned to the pile of papers in the corner and took up a heap six inches thick.
“There!” he said. “I’ll just slip a bit of string and a bit of paper round ’em.”
He pulled an old newspaper from the pile and spread it on the table, and made a neat parcel of it.
“There,” said he, “there’s lots of pictures, and if he likes to mess ’em about with his paintbox, or coloured chalks or whatnot, why, let him. I don’t want ’em.”
“You’re a dear,” said Bobbie, took the parcel, and started. The papers were heavy, and when she had to wait at the level-crossing while a train went by, she rested the parcel on the top of the gate. And idly she looked at the printing on the paper that the parcel was wrapped in.
Suddenly she clutched the parcel tighter and bent her head over it. It seemed like some horrible dream. She read on—the bottom of the column was torn off—she could read no farther.
She never remembered how she got home. But she went on tiptoe to her room and locked the door. Then she undid the parcel and read that printed column again, sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands and feet icy cold and her face burning. When she had read all there was, she drew a long, uneven breath.
“So now I know,” she said.
What she had read was headed, “End of the Trial. Verdict. Sentence.”
The name of the man who had been tried was the name of her father. The verdict was “Guilty.” And the sentence was “Five years’ Penal Servitude.”
“Oh, Daddy,” she whispered, crushing the paper hard, “it’s not true—I don’t believe it. You never did it! Never, never, never!”
There was a hammering on the door.
“What is it?” said Bobbie.
“It’s me,” said the voice of Phyllis; “tea’s ready, and a boy’s brought Peter a guinea-pig. Come along down.”
And Bobbie had to.
XI
The Hound in the Red Jersey
Bobbie knew the secret now. A sheet of old newspaper wrapped round a parcel—just a little chance like that—had given the secret to her. And she had to go down to tea and pretend that there was nothing the matter. The pretence was bravely made, but it wasn’t very successful.
For when she came in, everyone looked up from tea and saw her pink-lidded eyes and her pale face with red tear-blotches on it.
“My darling,” cried Mother, jumping up from the tea-tray, “whatever is the matter?”
“My head aches, rather,” said Bobbie. And indeed it did.
“Has anything gone wrong?” Mother asked.
“I’m all right, really,” said Bobbie, and she telegraphed to her Mother from her swollen eyes this brief, imploring message—“Not before the others!”
Tea was not a cheerful meal. Peter was so distressed by the obvious fact that something horrid had happened to Bobbie that he limited his speech to repeating, “More bread and butter, please,” at startlingly short intervals. Phyllis stroked her sister’s hand under the table to express sympathy, and knocked her cup over as she did it. Fetching a cloth and wiping up the spilt milk helped Bobbie a little. But she thought that tea would never end. Yet at last it did end, as all things do at last, and when Mother took out the tray, Bobbie followed her.
“She’s gone to own up,” said Phyllis to Peter; “I wonder what she’s done.”
“Broken something, I suppose,” said Peter, “but she needn’t be so silly over it. Mother never rows for accidents. Listen! Yes, they’re going upstairs. She’s taking Mother up to show her—the water-jug with storks on it, I expect it is.”
Bobbie, in the kitchen, had caught hold of Mother’s hand as she set down the tea-things.
“What is it?” Mother asked.
But Bobbie only said, “Come upstairs, come up where nobody can hear us.”
When she had got Mother alone in her room she locked the door and then stood quite still, and quite without words.
All through tea she had been thinking of what to say; she had decided that “I know all,” or “All is known to me,” or “The terrible secret is a secret no longer,” would be the proper thing. But now that she and her Mother and that awful sheet of newspaper were alone in the room together, she found that she could say nothing.
Suddenly she went to Mother and put her arms round her and began to cry again. And still she could find no words, only, “Oh, Mammy, oh, Mammy, oh, Mammy,” over and over again.
Mother held her very close and waited.
Suddenly Bobbie broke away from her and went to her bed.
