Part 57

'It's prettier than wot the Coventry pageant was, so it is,' said the cook, 'but it's long past your bed times. So come on out of that there dangerous boat, there's dears.'

So then the children went to bed. And when the house was quiet again, Alison slipped down and put back Ethel's jewelry, fitting the things into their cases and boxes as correctly as she could. 'Ethel won't notice,' she thought, but of course Ethel did.

So that next day each child was asked separately by Ethel's mother who had been playing with Ethel's jewelry. And Conrad and George said they would rather not say. This was a form they always used in that family when that sort of question was asked, and it meant, 'It wasn't me, and I don't want to sneak.'

And when it came to Alison's turn, she found to her surprise and horror that instead of saying, 'I played with them,' she had said, 'I would rather not say.'

Of course the mother thought that it was Kenneth who had had the jewels to play with. So when it came to his turn he was not asked the same question as the others, but his aunt said:

'Kenneth, you are a very naughty little boy to take your cousin Ethel's jewelry to play with.'

'I didn't,' said Kenneth.

'Hush! hush!' said the aunt, 'do not make your fault worse by untruthfulness. And what have you done with the amethyst ring?'

Kenneth was just going to say that he had given it back to Alison, when he saw that this would be sneakish. So he said, getting hot to the ears, 'You don't suppose I've stolen your beastly ring, do you, Auntie?'

'Don't you dare to speak to me like that,' the aunt very naturally replied. 'No, Kenneth, I do not think you would steal, but the ring is missing and it must be found.'

Kenneth was furious and frightened. He stood looking down and kicking the leg of the chair.

'You had better look for it. You will have plenty of time, because I shall not allow you to go to the picnic with the others. The mere taking of the jewelry was wrong, but if you had owned your fault and asked Ethel's pardon, I should have overlooked it. But you have told me an untruth and you have lost the ring. You are a very wicked child, and it will make your dear mother very unhappy when she hears of it. That her boy should be a liar. It is worse than being a thief!'

At this Kenneth's fortitude gave way, and he lost his head. 'Oh, don't,' he said, 'I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. Oh! don't tell mother I'm a thief and a liar. Oh! Aunt Effie, please, please don't.' And with that he began to cry.

Any doubts Aunt Effie might have had were settled by this outbreak. It was now quite plain to her that Kenneth had really intended to keep the ring.

'You will remain in your room till the picnic party has started,' the aunt went on, 'and then you must find the ring. Remember I expect it to be found when I return. And I hope you will be in a better frame of mind and really sorry for having been so wicked.'

'Mayn't I see Alison?' was all he found to say.

And the answer was, 'Certainly not. I cannot allow you to associate with your cousins. You are not fit to be with honest, truthful children.'

So they all went to the picnic, and Kenneth was left alone. When they had gone he crept down and wandered furtively through the empty rooms, ashamed to face the servants, and feeling almost as wicked as though he had really done something wrong. He thought about it all, over and over again, and the more he thought the more certain he was that he had handed back the ring to Alison last night when the voices of the servants were first heard from the dark lawn.

But what was the use of saying so? No one would believe him, and it would be sneaking anyhow. Besides, perhaps he hadn't handed it back to her. Or rather, perhaps he had handed it and she hadn't taken it. Perhaps it had slipped into the boat. He would go and see.

But he did not find it in the boat, though he turned up the carpet and even took up the boards to look. And then an extremely miserable little boy began to search for an amethyst ring in all sorts of impossible places, indoors and out. You know the hopeless way in which you look for things that you know perfectly well you will never find, the borrowed penknife that you dropped in the woods, for instance, or the week's pocket-money which slipped through that hole in your pocket as you went to the village to spend it.

The servants gave him his meals and told him to cheer up. But cheering up and Kenneth were, for the time, strangers. People in books never can eat when they are in trouble, but I have noticed myself that if the trouble has gone on for some hours, eating is really rather a comfort. You don't enjoy eating so much as usual, perhaps, but at any rate it is something to do, and takes the edge off your sorrow for a short time. And cook was sorry for Kenneth and sent him up a very nice dinner and a very nice tea. Roast chicken and gooseberry pie the dinner was, and for tea there was cake with almond icing on it.

The sun was very low when he went back wearily to have one more look in the boat for that detestable amethyst ring. Of course it was not there. And the picnic party would be home soon. And he really did not know what his aunt would do to him.

'Shut me up in a dark cupboard, perhaps,' he thought gloomily, 'or put me to bed all day to-morrow. Or give me lines to write out, thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands, of them.'

The boat, set in motion by his stepping into it, swung out to the full length of its rope. The sun was shining almost level across the water. It was a very still evening, and the reflections of the trees and of the house were as distinct as the house and the trees themselves. And the water was unusually clear. He could see the fish swimming about, and the sand and pebbles at the bottom of the moat. How clear and quiet it looked down there, and what fun the fishes seemed to be having.

'I wish I was a fish,' said Kenneth. 'Nobody punishes them for taking rings they didn't take.'

And then suddenly he saw the ring itself, lying calm, and quiet, and round, and shining, on the smooth sand at the bottom of the moat.

He reached for the boat-hook and leaned over the edge of the boat trying to get up the ring on the boat-hook's point. Then there was a splash.

'Good gracious! I wonder what that is?' said cook in the kitchen, and dropped the saucepan with the welsh rabbit in it which she had just made for kitchen supper.