"No. It's no use crying," said Eliot. "You can't do anything."
"That's it," Anne sobbed. "If we only could. If we could go to him and
tell him we wouldn't have done it if we'd known."
"You jolly well can't. It would only bother the poor chap. Besides, it
was Jerry did it. Not you."
"It _was_ me. I filled the sponge. We did it together."
What they had done was beastly--setting booby-traps for Pinkney, and
laughing at him when his mother was dying--but they had done it
together. The pain of her sin had sweetness in it since she shared it
with Jerry. Jerry's arm was round her as she went upstairs to bed,
crying. They sat together on her bed, holding each other's hands; they
faced it together.
"You'd never have done it, Anne, if I hadn't made you."
"I wouldn't mind so much if we hadn't laughed at him."
"Well, we couldn't help _that_. And it wasn't as if we'd known."
"If only we could tell him--"
"We can't. He'd hate us to go talking to him about his mother."
"He'd hate us."
Then Anne had an idea. They couldn't talk to Pinkney but they could
write. That wouldn't hurt him. Jerry fetched a pencil and paper from the
schoolroom; and Anne wrote.
Dear Pinkney: We didn't know. We wouldn't have done it if we'd
known. We are awfully sorry.
Yours truly, ANNE SEVERN.
P.S. You aren't to answer this.
JERROLD FIELDING.
Half an hour later Jerrold knocked at her door.
"Anne--are you in bed?"
She got up and stood with him at the door in her innocent nightgown.
"It's all right," he said. "I've seen Pinkney. He says we aren't to
worry. He knew we wouldn't have done it if we'd known."
"Was he crying?"
"No. Laughing.... All the same, it'll be a lesson to us," he said.
xii "Where's Jerrold?"
Robert Fielding called from the dogcart that waited by the porch. Eliot
sat beside him, very stiff and straight, painfully aware of his mother
who stood on the flagged path below, and made yearning faces at him,
doing her best, at this last moment, to destroy his morale. Colin sat
behind him by Jerrold's place, tearful but excited. He was to go with
them to the station. Eliot tried hard to look as if he didn't care; and,
as his mother said, he succeeded beautifully.
It was the end of the holidays.