Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
THE HAWK AMONG THE CHICKENS
Lluella and The Fox, more used to these orgies than some of the other girls, had retained some presence of mind. Their first thought—if this should prove to be the teacher or the matron—was to try and save such of the feast as could be hidden. Each girl flung up a spread to the pillows, and so hid the viands on the two beds. Then Mary Cox went quickly to the door.
The cowering girls clung to each other and waited breathlessly. Mary opened the door. There stood the abashed Belle Tingley, her plate in one hand, the gilded vase in the other, and beside her was the tiny figure of Mademoiselle Picolet, who looked very stern indeed at The Fox.
"I might have expected you to be a ringleader in such an escapade as this, Miss Cox," she said, sharply, but in a low voice. "I very well knew, Miss Cox, when the new girls came this fall that you were determined to contaminate them if you could. Every girl here will remain in her seat after prayers in the chapel tomorrow morning. Remember!"
She whipped out a notebook and pencil and evidently wrote Mary Cox's name at the head of her list. The Fox was furiously red and furiously angry.
"I might have known you would be spying on us, Miss Picolet," she said, bitingly. "Suppose some of us should play the spy on you, Miss Picolet, and should run to Mrs. Tellingham with what we might discover?"
"Go to your room instantly!" exclaimed the French teacher, with indignation. "You shall have an extra demerit for that, Miss!"
Yet Ruth, who had been watching the teacher's face intently, saw that she became actually pallid, that her lips seemed to be suddenly blue, and the countless little wrinkles that covered her cheeks were more prominent than ever before.
Mary Cox flounced out and disappeared. The teacher pointed to the chums' waste-basket and said to Bell , the unfaithful sentinel:
"Empty your plate in that receptacle, Miss Tingley. Spill the contents of that vase in the bowl. Now, Miss, to your room."
Belle obeyed. So she made each girl, as she called her name and wrote it in her book, throw away the remains of her feast, and pour out the chocolate. One by one they were obliged to do this and then walk sedately to their rooms. Jennie Stone was caught on the way out with a most suggestive bulge in her loose blouse, and was made to disgorge a chocolate layer cake which she had sought to "save" when the unexpected attack of the enemy occurred.
"Fie, for shame, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the French teacher. "That a young lady of Briarwood Hall should be so piggish! Fie!"
But it was after all the other girls had gone and Ruth and Helen were left alone with her, that the little French teacher seemed to really show her disappointment over the infraction of the rules by the pupils under her immediate charge.
"I hoped for better things of you two young ladies," she said, sorrowfully. "I feared for the influence over you of certain minds among the other scholars; but I believed you, Ruth Fielding, and you, Helen Cameron, to be too independent in character to be so easily led by girls of really much weaker wills. For one may will to do evil, or to do good, if one chooses. One need not drift.
"Miss Fielding! take that basket of broken food and go down to the basement and empty it in the bin. Miss Cameron, you may go to bed again. I will wait and see you so disposed. Alons!"
But before Ruth could get out of the room, and while Helen was hastily preparing for bed, Miss Picolet noticed something "bunchy" under Ruth's spread. She walked to the bedside and snatched back the coverlet. The still untasted viands were revealed.
"Ah-ha!" exclaimed the French teacher "At once! into the basket with these, if you will be so kind, Miss Fielding."
Had Heavy seen those heaps of goodies thus disposed of she must have groaned in actual misery of spirit! But Helen, being quick in her preparations for bed, hopped into her own couch before Miss Picolet turned around to view that corner of the room, and with Helen under the bedclothes the hidden dainties (though she did mash some of them) were not revealed to the eye of the teacher, who stood grimly by the door as Ruth marched gravely forth with the basket of broken food.
For a minute or two Helen was as silent as Miss Picolet; then she ventured in a very small voice:
"Miss Picolet—if you please?"
"Well, Mademoiselle?" snapped the little lady.
"May I tell you that my chum Ruth had nothing to do with this infringement of the school rules? That the feast was all mine; that she merely partook of it because we roomed together? That she had nothing to do with the planning of the frolic?"
"Well?"
"I thought perhaps that you might believe otherwise," said Helen, softly, "as you made Ruth remove the—the provisions," said Helen. "And really, she isn't at all to blame."
"She cannot be without blame," declared Miss Picolet, yet less harshly than she had spoken before. "An objection from her would have stopped the feast before it began—is it not, Miss Cameron?"
"But she is not so much to blame, Miss Picolet," repeated Helen.
"Of that we shall see," returned the little lady, and waited by the door until Ruth returned from the basement. "Now to bed!" ejaculated Miss Picolet. "Wait in chapel after prayers. I really hoped the girls of my dormitory would not force me to call the attention of the Preceptress to them because of demerits this half—and I did not believe the trouble would start with two young ladies who had just arrived."
So saying, she departed. But Helen whispered Ruth, before she got in bed, to help remove the remaining goodies to the box in the closet.
"At least, we have saved this much from the wreck," chuckled Helen.
Ruth, however, was scarcely willing to admit that that the salvage would repay them for the black marks both surely had earned.