Chapter 3: The Doll.

I do not know what it was, but something prevented Mrs. Galloway from giving us the sort of talking to I had expected. She is a woman with as nasty a tongue as you would care to meet. I had never before known her lose a chance of using it. And there was a chance! But, instead, there she stood mumchance, and before she had even so much as said a word, Emily and I were off upstairs. I was on the second floor, and Emily was on the third. When I stopped to go into my room I called out to her, “Good night!” but she ran on, and never answered. She was in such a state of mind, what with the fright, and her crying, and the cold biting us through and through while we waited on the doorstep, that all she cared for was to get between the sheets.

In my room most of the girls were wide awake. It was not a large room, so there were only nine of us, and that was including Miss Ashton. She was the senior assistant, a regular frump, thirty if a day. She came to bed a quarter of an hour after we did, and after she had come to bed no one was supposed to talk. If any girl did talk Miss Ashton reported her, and the girl was fined, and half the fine, whatever it was, went into Miss Ashton’s pockets. So, of course—since, sometimes, her pockets were bulging out with our money—no love was lost between us.

When I went in, although I knew that most of the girls were awake, because of Miss Ashton no one spoke a syllable, until Lucy Carr, who had the next bed to mine, whispered as I stood by her:

“Whatever have you been up to?”

“I’ve been nearly robbed and murdered, that’s what I’ve been up to.”

“Miss Blyth, I shall report you for talking after midnight.”

This was Miss Ashton, cold, and hard, and short as usual. Trust her to go to sleep while there was a chance to snatch at somebody else’s penny!

“Very well, Miss Ashton, you can report me, and you can say, at the same time, that it’s a wonder that I was alive to talk at all, for what I’ve gone through this day, and this night, I alone can tell.”

I plumped down on my box, and I leaned my back against the wall, and I had to cry. Then all the girls set off together. Lucy Carr sat up in bed, and she put her arms about my neck; she was a nice girl, was Lucy Carr, we hardly ever quarrelled.

“Never mind her, my love; you know what she’s like; she can’t help it, it’s her nature. Don’t you cry, my dear.”

And then there were such remarks as “It’s a shame!” “Poor dear!” and “How can people be so cruel?” from the others. But Miss Ashton was not touched, not she; she simply said, in her cold, hard tones:

“Miss Carr, Miss Sheepshanks, Miss Flick, Miss James, I shall report you for talking after midnight.”

“That’s right,” said Lucy, “and much good may our money do you. I wish it would burn a hole in your pocket!”

Then the girls were still. Of course they did not want to lose all their money, and there was no knowing what the fine might be for talking at that time of night, and especially for keeping on. So I sat on my box, and I wiped my eyes; I never do believe much in crying, and somehow I felt too mad for a regular weep. I should like to have given Miss Ashton a real good shaking—everything would go wrong!

Just as I was beginning to undress—I actually had unhooked my bodice—I thought of what the object in the grey canvas cloth had slipped into my hand. What had become of it? In my agitation I had forgotten all about it. I was holding it when I came into the room—I remembered that. What had become of it since? I felt on my knee; it was not there. I had not put it in my pocket. It must have dropped on the floor. Intending to start a search I put out my foot and touched something with my toe. I reached out my hand; it was the scrap of paper.