Mornings and evenings at Paston Hall Clare spent diligently at her books. She had no study of her own—Paston Hall was not big enough for that; but all the forenoon, when the Sixth Form were in class, she might have the Prefects Room to herself. She settled down there one morning about three weeks after the beginning of term with a whole day's programme of study before her. She was not going to Brackenbine that afternoon. Mrs. Sterne had told her the previous day that she would have to go into Pentabridge and would be late back. Niall had given Clare a look that plainly invited her to come all the same; but, dearly as she would have loved it, to go there openly in daylight when Mrs. Sterne might be known to be away was too great a risk.
It was a cold, wet morning, and Clare was annoyed to see that the Prefects' Room fire had gone out. The rule was that the fire was not lighted in that room until evening; by persistent agitation Clare had got the rule changed in principle, but in practice it needed constant vigilance on her part to see that the maids did make the fire in the mornings. She put down her books and went to the housekeeper's room where, after some argument, she obtained a promise that a maid would come along and relight the fire. With that she returned and buried herself in Victor Hugo.
The maid came after long delay and spent an even longer time incompetently stuffing bits of newspaper and not very dry sticks between the bars of the grate. Clare was too used to the Paston Hall system to interfere, though she could have made the fire anew herself in half the time. At last, and as it were in spite of the maid's teasings and potterings, a little flame established itself on the heap of coal−dust with some promise of permanency. Irritated by the girl's snuffling and exasperatingly slow tearing of sheets of newspaper, Clare told her to go and leave it alone.
The fire burned up slowly and Clare accomplished a couple of hours' solid work on her French Romantics. She yawned then and stretched and got up to spend a few minutes by the fire before changing to another subject. The maid had done her job in a slatternly fashion, scattering bits of burnt stick and paper all over the hearth and leaving her unused newspapers strewn on the hearthrug. Clare gathered them up and dropped them behind the coal−box. A torn half−sheet of the Pentabridge Independent fluttered loose, and as Clare picked it up again her eye fell on a photograph that she recognised.
That was her first thought; then she realised that she must be mistaken. There was no caption under the photograph, only a paragraph which the maid had torn raggedly across. Clare read:
“It is with deep regret that we report the death from Infantile Paralysis of Margaret Raines, seventeen−year−old daughter of Mr and Mrs. George Raines of White House, Highwood Road, Pentabridge, who was admitted to Pentabridge Infirmary in a critical condition last Thursday night. Margaret was one of the most promising pupils who have ever attended Pentabridge High School. She not only had a brilliant record in schoolwork and examinations but had a lively interest in the wider field of out−of−school activities. She was an enthusiastic student of Nature and made a special hobby of bird−watching, being a junior member of the Pentabridge and District Natural History Society before which she read a paper which was highly commended by Sir Edward Porter, the Chairman, last spring. Miss Lancing, the Sixth Form mistress of the High School, in expressing the staff's deep sorrow at the tragic news of Margaret's passing, said, 'We all felt that Margaret was destined for a brilliant career. She was highly gifted in many directions. While she was popular in the school and a good mixer, there were fewer people who knew the more sensitive side of her character. She read much and had a fervent love of Nature which led her on many solitary rambles in the woods and fields and inspired her to write reflective poetry full of delicate observation....'”
The rest of the paragraph had gone to rekindle the Prefects' Room fire. Clare looked at the date of the paper and found it to be the previous June.
She had never heard of Margaret Raines before. The people of Pentabridge might have been dwellers in Patagonia for all the contact Paston Hall girls had with them. And yet, she was convinced she knew the face. Even in the blurred newspaper reproduction it was a pretty face. It was framed in fair hair done in two long plaits coiled over the ears. The collar of a white blouse appeared above a school gym−tunic: a Pentabridge High School girl—Clare could not possibly have known her. She might conceivably have caught a glimpse of her if she had been one of the High School girls whom she occasionally no−iced cycling past Paston Hall gates, but her conviction was that this was a face she had dwelt on, not merely glimpsed.
She stared at the photograph and then, suddenly, she had it. She folded the torn sheet hurriedly and flew with it through the school and upstairs to her room. For some time now she had not taken the Christmas−tree doll out of its tissue paper, but she had no doubts about it: the picture and the doll were twin sisters. She snatched the little parcel from the back of her cupboard shelf and unwrapped it. Then she sat abruptly down on her bed with a gasp of dismay.
She was certain that the doll had been undamaged when she last looked at it a week, no, nearer a fortnight ago. She had taken immense care of it. Now it was ruined. Her first suspicion, rushing in with indignation, was that someone in sheer mischief and malice had stolen into her room and gashed and hacked the figure; but that was too wild a suspicion: there could be no one with so crooked a mind at Paston Hall. Then she began to examine the doll more carefully and concluded at length that the damage was the result of some natural action. Chiefly it seemed that the wood had split into many small fissures along the grain; the fine joints had opened into crevices and the paint had come off in flakes. The dress was quite undamaged. Clare could not understand how the wood could so deteriorate in so short a time. There were no hot−water pipes near her cupboard, or, indeed, anywhere in the room. The walls were quite dry; nothing else in the cupboard was spoiled: her tennis racket had been stored there all winter on the same shelf and there was not the slightest trace of warping or splitting on that or its press.
She came near to tears at the disaster and blamed herself bitterly for not having looked at the doll every day to make sure it was all right. If she had noticed when first the wood began to split she could have taken it to Niall and he would perhaps have been able to stop it. And yet, how could she have suspected that it might split? It was the wood of the little trees and he had said he used that because it was so durable. There was nothing she could do now but take it to Niall and tell him just where it had been kept and ask him what had happened and if he could mend it. She must take it this very afternoon. Even though Mrs. Sterne was not at home, she must run the risk; she could not wait another day.
When her distress had abated a little by taking this decision she recalled why she had come to look at the doll now. She opened the piece of newspaper out and laid it and the doll on the bed. In spite of the damage to the figure's face she thought her impression was confirmed. She twisted the doll's long hair loosely into plaits and coiled them to resemble the hair of the girl in the photograph. The likeness was there: she had not been mistaken.
She pored and puzzled over the two things so long that the end−of−school bell caught her still in her bedroom and she was roused from her speculations by the surging rumour of noise from classes set free.