The young mistress opened it, looking rather taken aback to see Miss Potts standing there at such an early hour. But she did not appear at all embarrassed or awkward, which, thought Miss Potts, was very odd, considering her strange behaviour of the night before.
‘Miss Grayling would like to see you in her study at once, Miss Lacey,’ Miss Potts said briskly.
‘Before breakfast?’ said Miss Lacey, sounding most surprised. ‘Why, whatever does she want that is so urgent?’
‘She will no doubt tell you that herself,’ said Miss Potts. ‘But I shouldn’t keep her waiting if I were you, Miss Lacey.’
In the first-form dormitory, meanwhile, an air of gloom prevailed. All of the girls felt very tired indeed, and they had what was sure to be a pretty severe punishment to look forward to. Not even the fact that it was Ivy’s birthday could cheer them up.
‘I know it’s got off to a rotten start,’ said Katie dispiritedly, ‘but happy birthday, Ivy, old girl.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ivy, doing her best to conjure up a smile. ‘Oh well, at least things can only get better.’
And, for a while, things did get a little better, as the girls all gave Ivy presents and cards.
‘You’re all very decent,’ said Ivy. ‘This almost makes up for being caught out last night.’
Just then, like a small whirlwind, Daffy burst in and cried, ‘I say, you’ll never guess what I’ve just heard! Apparently it was Miss Lacey who split on us to Miss Potts. I just overheard Potty discussing it with Matron outside the bathroom, and it seems that Miss Lacey led Miss Potts right to our door.’
‘How mean of her!’ cried Violet. ‘We weren’t doing any harm. Amy was quite right about her.’
‘But how did she know that we were having a feast?’ said Ivy, wrinkling her brow.
‘She probably just found out by chance,’ said Edith. ‘She was certainly prowling around last night, for she shut Lizzie in the shed, remember. She must have come along this corridor and heard the noise we were making.’
‘It’s all very strange,’ said Katie. ‘I wonder why she did shut Lizzie in the shed?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Edith. ‘I just hope that Miss Grayling gets to the bottom of it, and that she sends Miss Lacey away as soon as possible.’
15
Miss Nicholson saves the day
It was a very trying day for Miss Grayling, and one that was full of surprises.
When Miss Lacey came to her study, the Head wasted no time at all in getting to the point.
The mistress was most astonished to discover that she had been accused of imprisoning Lizzie Mannering, and she protested her innocence hotly. Miss Grayling watched her closely, and had to admit that, if Miss Lacey was lying, she was a remarkably good actress.
‘But Miss Potts saw you as well,’ said Miss Grayling. ‘You led her to your class-room, where the first formers were having a midnight feast.’
‘They were holding a feast in my class-room?’ gasped Miss Lacey. ‘I knew nothing at all of this, Miss Grayling, you must believe me. And I certainly wasn’t wandering around last night, either in the corridors or down by the pool.’
The Head hardly knew what to say, for there were three witnesses who swore that they had seen Miss Lacey last night, yet the young woman seemed very sincere in her protestations of innocence.
Just then, someone knocked urgently at the door, and Miss Grayling called out, ‘Come in.’
Miss Nicholson entered the room and, not at all pleased at being interrupted, the Head said, ‘Miss Nicholson, I am rather busy at the moment. Could you come back later, please?’
‘I’m awfully sorry to interrupt,’ said Miss Nicholson. ‘But, you see, Miss Grayling, I know what Miss Lacey has been accused of, for the story is all over the school.’
‘Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before gossip began to spread,’ said Miss Grayling. ‘But I fail to see how it concerns you, Miss Nicholson.’
‘Oh, but it does!’ said the mistress. ‘You see, Miss Grayling, Miss Lacey was with me last night. We sat up until very late in our study, chatting away about all sorts of things. Isn’t that so, Miss Lacey?’
Catching the meaningful expression on her friend’s face, Miss Lacey nodded and said, ‘Er – yes, it is just as Miss Nicholson says.’
‘Well!’ said the Head, looking surprised. ‘This puts a very different complexion on things. It seems that the person seen wandering around Malory Towers last night must have been someone else. Though how she came to be wearing your clothes is quite a puzzle!’
‘Miss Grayling,’ said Miss Lacey. ‘What was the person wearing?’
‘A white blouse and pink floral patterned skirt, according to Miss Potts,’ said the Head. ‘And, most unusually, a hat with a small veil.’
‘Well, I certainly have an outfit like that,’ said Miss Lacey, frowning. ‘But Daisy took the skirt and blouse off to be cleaned, because Violet accidentally splashed ink on them, and I haven’t had them back yet. As for the hat – well, now that I come to think about it, I haven’t seen it for a while.’
‘This just becomes more and more mysterious!’ exclaimed the Head. ‘I shall have to speak to Daisy about the clothes, of course. Miss Lacey, you may go, and I am very sorry that you were unjustly accused. Oh, and you had better have this back, too.’
The Head took something from her drawer, and handed it to Miss Lacey. It was the key to her class-room.
‘Miss Potts gave me this,’ said Miss Grayling. ‘It seems that Violet took it from your study yesterday. Needless to say, she will be punished for it.’
Well, really, thought Miss Lacey, it was just one thing after another! Murmuring a faint word of thanks, she took the key and put it in her pocket. Then she and Miss Nicholson went on their way, walking along the corridor in silence, each of them lost in her own thoughts. Only when they were safely in their own study, with the door shut behind them, did Miss Lacey break the silence, saying, ‘You told the Head a lie to get me out of trouble. Why did you do that?’
Miss Nicholson turned a little red, and said gruffly, ‘Because you are my friend, and I know that you didn’t do what you were accused of. If it had just been Lizzie’s or Edith’s word against yours, the Head might have believed you. But Miss Potts also thinks she saw you, and you know how much Miss Grayling trusts her.’
Gwen looked at Miss Nicholson’s round, rather plain face, and suddenly knew the meaning of true friendship. She thought back over the girls she had tried to befriend during her time as a pupil at Malory Towers, and then at finishing school. All of them had been wealthy, gifted or beautiful. Miss Nicholson was none of these things, but she was kind, loyal and good-hearted. And those were the things that really mattered in a friend. Gwen had been stupid not to see it years ago, she realised now.
‘Thanks awfully,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’ll never forget what you did for me today.’
‘Oh, think nothing of it,’ said Miss Nicholson, going back to her usual hearty manner. ‘What we have to consider now is that there is someone going around disguised as you.’
‘Yes, and whoever it is is causing trouble in the hope that I will get the blame,’ said Gwen, frowning. ‘How I wish I knew who it was!’
Miss Nicholson said nothing, apparently lost in thought, then, abruptly, she said, ‘You never told me about the incident with Violet and the ink.’
Gwen shrugged. ‘It hardly seemed worth mentioning. I was a little annoyed at the time, but it was just an accident and there was no real harm done.’
‘Are you quite sure that it was an accident?’ asked Miss Nicholson.
‘I think so,’ said Gwen, puzzled. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because it suddenly occurred to me that young Violet positively worships Amy of the sixth form, and would do anything for her,’ said Miss Nicholson. ‘And Amy’s dislike of you is well-known.’
‘What are you getting at?’ asked Gwen, her brow furrowed.
‘Well, Amy is abo
ut the same height as you, though a little slimmer,’ said Miss Nicholson. ‘And her hair is the same colour, so … ’
As Miss Nicholson’s voice tailed off, light suddenly dawned on Gwen. ‘You think it was Amy who was masquerading as me last night!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, my goodness!’
Just then the two mistresses heard someone humming a tune in the corridor outside, and Miss Nicholson said, ‘That’s Daisy! She always hums while she works. Let’s see if she can shed any light on who may have taken your clothes.’
She pulled open the door, calling, ‘Daisy, would you come in here for a moment, please?’
Daisy entered the study, looking a little scared, and Gwen said, ‘Daisy, what happened to the skirt and blouse that I gave you to wash for me the other day? I haven’t had them back yet.’
‘Why, Miss Lacey, I washed and ironed them, just as I said I would,’ said Daisy. ‘And I went to hang them up in your bedroom, but the door was locked, so I brought them in here. In fact, I hung them over the back of that very chair that you are sitting on, Miss Lacey.’
The two mistresses exchanged glances, and Miss Nicholson said, ‘When was this, Daisy?’
The maid thought for a moment, and said, ‘It would have been while you were both at breakfast yesterday morning. I do hope that I haven’t done anything wrong but, you see, the door was open, and – ’
‘No, you’ve done nothing wrong, Daisy,’ said Gwen. ‘Thank you, you may go now.’
The maid left, shutting the door behind her, and Miss Nicholson sat down in the chair opposite Gwen’s, saying, ‘That settles it then. Violet came in here yesterday and took your key. I’ll bet that she saw your clothes on the chair and took those as well.’
‘You think that she gave them to Amy, so that she could disguise herself as me?’ said Gwen.
‘That’s exactly what I think,’ said Miss Nicholson firmly.
‘It’s certainly possible,’ said Gwen thoughtfully. ‘And I have been thinking about my hat, and have realised that it must have been taken when my bedroom was ransacked. I didn’t notice that it was missing at the time, for I don’t particularly like it and I was thinking of throwing it away.’
‘If that is so, then either Amy or Violet – or both of them – are responsible for ransacking your room,’ said Miss Nicholson with a grim expression.
‘Then there was the time that someone got into my class-room and did all that damage,’ said Gwen, looking thoughtful. ‘I was convinced that was Amy too, but Daisy was able to clear her name. Oh dear, how horrible it is! I really don’t know what to think! Should we tell Miss Grayling of our suspicions?’
‘No, for we have no proof,’ said Miss Nicholson. ‘I think we need to catch the two of them out ourselves.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Gwen. ‘And until we do, we had better make sure that we lock the study door whenever we leave it.’
‘I don’t think that we should,’ said Miss Nicholson. ‘We need to make it easy for Amy and Violet to play their tricks so that we can trap them somehow. All the same, we had better be careful what we leave lying around in here. And we must be sure not to let either of the girls think that we suspect them, for that will put them on their guard, you know.’
Violet, meanwhile, quite unaware that she was regarded with such dark suspicion by the two mistresses, was in the Head’s study, along with the rest of the first form.
They had already endured a very severe scolding, and Miss Grayling finished off by saying, ‘Although midnight feasts are against the rules, I am well aware that most schoolgirls take part in them now and again. But there are other things about this business that concern me greatly.’
She paused to look sternly at the first formers, all of whom were standing with bent heads.
‘First of all, you held the feast in a room that was out of bounds,’ went on Miss Grayling in a very serious voice. ‘A room that you had been put on your honour not to enter. Faith, as head of the form, didn’t you feel some sense of responsibility? Didn’t it occur to you that you should – at the very least – have stopped the others from using that room?’
Faith bit her lip. It had occurred to her, briefly. But then she had got caught up in the excitement of it all, and had been as thrilled as the others at the thought of having the feast in Miss Lacey’s class-room.
‘No,’ she said honestly, raising her head and looking Miss Grayling in the eye. ‘But it should have. I am very sorry, Miss Grayling. We all are.’
‘As for you, Violet,’ said Miss Grayling. ‘What you did was very wrong indeed. You had no right to go into the mistresses’ study, never mind stealing Miss Lacey’s key.’
The unfortunate Violet trembled like a leaf, and her voice shook as she said, ‘I-I didn’t think of it as stealing, Miss Grayling. It wasn’t stealing, for I meant to return it to the study this morning.’
‘I daresay,’ said Miss Grayling. ‘However, I trust that the punishment I give you will make you think twice before you decide to help yourself to someone else’s property in the future.’
Miss Grayling looked at the row of bent heads before her, then said, ‘You are all confined to school for the next two weeks.’
The first formers groaned inwardly, for this meant no walks on the beach and no trips into town to spend their pocket money. No one protested, though, for they all knew that they had well and truly earned the punishment.
‘You, Violet, will apologise to Miss Lacey,’ the Head continued, and Violet almost sighed with relief, for she felt that she had got off very lightly. But Miss Grayling hadn’t finished.
‘You will also go to bed an hour early every night for the next week. And I hope that you will use the time to reflect on what you have done.’
This seemed very harsh indeed to poor Violet. How horrid to have to go to bed when it was still light outside, and the others were in the common-room having fun. But she did not dare argue with the Head, and said meekly, ‘Yes, Miss Grayling.’
Daffy, however, had listened to this with a frown and, as she was considerably bolder and more outspoken than Violet, she said, ‘But Miss Grayling, didn’t Miss Potts tell you that Miss Lacey locked Edith’s sister in the shed last night? She doesn’t deserve an apology, if you ask me. In fact – ’
‘I didn’t ask you, Daphne,’ said Miss Grayling, so coldly that the girl fell silent. ‘So kindly keep your opinions to yourself until I ask for them. I have investigated the matter, and the person who locked Lizzie in the shed was most definitely not Miss Lacey.’
The first formers looked at one another in astonishment and, unable to hold her tongue, Edith said, ‘But it was, Miss Grayling. I beg your pardon, but I saw her with my own eyes.’
‘No, Edith,’ said the Head. ‘The person you saw was someone pretending to be Miss Lacey. Who it was, and what her motive was, I don’t know, but I hope that we will get to the bottom of the matter eventually. Now, you may all go to your lesson. Miss Potts knows that you have been with me, so she will excuse you for being late. Edith, not you. I would like a word with you, please.’
As the others trooped out, Edith looked rather alarmed. And her heart sank when Miss Grayling looked at her coldly, and said, ‘I find it quite extraordinary, Edith, that you watched someone lock Lizzie in a shed and, rather than letting her out, you simply left her there and went off to enjoy a feast with your friends. Hardly the behaviour of a loyal and loving sister.’
Edith turned red and said, ‘I was going to let her out later. You see, Miss Grayling, she found out that we were planning a feast and she meant to sneak. So Lizzie isn’t quite as loyal as everyone thinks either.’
‘I see,’ said the Head, rather shocked at the bitterness in Edith’s tone. ‘Why do you think that Lizzie intended to sneak?’
‘Because she simply can’t bear me to have any fun,’ Edith burst out. ‘She thinks that school is all about studying, and lessons, and exams and – ’
‘Well, these things are very important,’ interrupted the Head.
‘I know,’ said Edith with a sigh. ‘And I do want to do well at those things, Miss Grayling, really I do. But I also want to make friends and enjoy my time at school. But Lizzie thinks that is wrong. Why, she doesn’t even want me to go in for the swimming gala.’
‘I see,’ said Miss Grayling again, frowning. ‘Well, I shall be seeing Lizzie shortly, for no doubt she will come along to report Miss Lacey to me. I will have a talk with her, Edith, and see if I can impress on her the importance of striking a healthy balance between work and play.’
‘Thank you, Miss Grayling,’ said Edith, though she didn’t feel very hopeful. Lizzie had such very firm ideas about things. But if anyone could get through to her, Miss Grayling could.
16
Unexpected arrivals
‘I can’t believe that it is almost the last week of term,’ said Felicity as she and her friends lazed on the grass one Saturday afternoon after an energetic game of tennis.
‘I know, hasn’t the time just flown!’ said Susan. ‘Soon we shall all be packing to go home.’
Never to return to Malory Towers. No one said the words, but they hung, unspoken, in the air, making everyone feel a little melancholy.
None of them wanted to talk about the prospect of not returning to school, so Julie said heartily, ‘I’ll bet the last two weeks haven’t flown by for the first formers. They must be jolly glad that their two-week punishment is up.’
‘Silly kids,’ said June rather scornfully. ‘Having a midnight feast is one thing, but to steal a mistress’s key, then hold it in a room which is out of bounds is quite another.’
‘That was a strange business,’ said Pam. ‘We never did find out who it was wandering around that night dressed in Miss Lacey’s clothes.’
‘I daresay that we never will now,’ said Nora. ‘A pity, because I hate unsolved mysteries. I always feel … ’
Suddenly Nora’s voice tailed off as she gazed towards the school, and Lucy gave her a nudge, saying, ‘You always feel what?’