Turquoise and Ruby

The moment Mrs Hungerford entered, Mademoiselle marched up to her.

“I claim the so great reward,” she said. “You did advertise for this very leetle trinket, and behold! I it to you restore. Look at it – it is the one that you have lost. Ponder it – and consider it well. Compare it with the bracelet your little daughter Pauline wears, and see if it is not, in very truth, the lost bangle.”

“It most certainly is,” said Mrs Hungerford; “and you have found it? Pardon me – I do not know your name.”

“Mademoiselle d’Etienne – at your service. I have had the so high privilege to teach your young daughters the elegancies of our French tongue at that select seminary, Hazlitt Chase. I know when the bangle was missing, and the sore grief it was to the chère petite who had lost it. Through a series of adventures I have found it again, and I lay it on your lap. You can give it to the child for whom it was purchased.”

“But how did you get it?”

“Ah! There I have a histoire the most pathetic, the most wonderful, the most extra-ordinaire to relate.”

“No,” interrupted Penelope, suddenly, “the time has come for Brenda to speak. Brenda, tell what you know.”

“There’s no use in concealing it,” said Brenda. “I am not sorry – I mean, I’m only sorry to be found out. Mrs Hungerford, this is what happened. Do you remember driving up with me to Hazlitt Chase on the day of the prize-giving? You stepped – oh – out of the carriage, and as you did so you dropped the bangle on the ground, I saw it: I coveted it: I took it: I slipped it into my pocket. I put you off the scent by telling my sister that doubtless you had dropped it in the train. I am the thief. I await my punishment: it is prison, it it not? Very well; I have confessed. I think it is most likely that Mr Beverley is a magistrate. He can send for the police, and put me into prison. I stole the bangle: Mademoiselle found it. I am a thief, and Penelope is the sister of one. That is all.”

“Oh, poor girl!” said Mrs Hungerford. She rose slowly from her seat and left the room. In a few minutes she returned. She brought with her three sovereigns and three shillings.

“These are for you,” she said to Mademoiselle. “This is the reward offered. You have led to the discovery of the bangle – I don’t want to know how – take your reward, and go.”

“Yes, please go at once,” said Honora.

There was a quality in her young voice which the Frenchwoman had never heard before, and there was such a ring of scorn in Mrs Hungerford’s tone that it seemed – as Mademoiselle afterwards expressed it – “to wither even the very vitals.” She took her money sulkily and, without a word, left the presence of the others, never to be seen by them again.

What followed can be easily explained. Mrs Hungerford was a good woman. Honora had learned some lessons in the higher life. Now Mrs Hungerford and Honora were certainly not going to punish Penelope, and their one earnest desire was to rescue Brenda.

They left the sisters alone for a short time, and talked together.

“That poor, poor, pretty girl!” said Mrs Hungerford. “Oh, of course what she did was dreadful, but we just mustn’t let her go under, must we, Honora?”

“I knew you would feel like that,” said Honora, “I felt certain of it. You can little guess what Penelope has suffered; she is a splendid girl. Her mission at present in life is to help her sister.”

“Now listen.”

Mrs Hungerford proposed a plan which was eventually carried out. This was no less than, first and foremost, to assure Brenda of her absolute forgiveness.

“You acted very badly indeed,” she said; “but I am not going to call the police, nor to put you in prison. Your punishment will be that those who know you will have to be acquainted with what has occurred. You had much better not return to the boarding-house, but stay here. Your little pupils must go back to their father, for I do not think it right that they should be with you any longer. As to you – I want you and Penelope to do something for me.”

“I to do anything for you?” said Brenda, her eyes suddenly growing soft and a new expression stealing over her face.

“Yes. My house in the country is empty at present. Will you and Penelope go there to-day and live there quietly until the holidays come to an end? I can put you on the way. When the holidays are over, Penelope will, of course, return to Hazlitt Chase, and I myself will do my utmost to get you a post which I think you may suit – not as teacher to the young, for you have not the necessary qualifications.”

From the thought of prison, the magistrates, the handcuffs, which she might possibly wear, the public examination, the trial – to going away with Penelope to Mrs Hungerford’s own house was such a relief to the miserable Brenda that, all of a sudden, she gave way utterly.

“There – now I am sorry really!” she said. “I was not a bit sorry when every one was hard to me, but I am bitterly sorry now!”

Mrs Hungerford’s arrangements were carried out in full detail. The little Amberleys were invited up to the Castle until the Reverend Josiah could be summoned. He came on the following morning, and was told in full the sad story about Brenda. He was greatly shocked, but begged that the knowledge of what had occurred should be kept from his daughters.

“I am afraid they suspect a great deal,” said Mrs Beverley, who of course had been taken into confidence.

“Poor children, life is hard on them!” said dear papa, “and I did think Brenda such a sweet young creature. How frightfully we were deceived! But I must take them back, and get Miss Juggins to teach them in future.”

“Perhaps you would allow me to recommend a particularly nice girl to be their governess,” here interposed Mrs Beverley.

“Oh, Madam, do you know of one?”

“I do – I have known her since she was a child. I think she would go to you, and help your little girls. Her name is Lydia Hamburg. You can see her if you like, for she lives close by.”

Lydia Hamburg, who was all that Brenda Carlton was not, did eventually find herself installed as governess to the little Amberleys; and as she was faithful and true, the wheels of life ran smoothly at the rectory, and the girls turned out, on the whole, better than might have been expected.

As to Brenda, hers was a difficult and – it must be owned – a worthless character. Not all Penelope’s earnestness and faithful love would make her really see the enormity of her crime in its full light. But, nevertheless, even she had learned a lesson and, in future, would not lend herself to such open sin as heretofore. Mrs Hungerford arranged that she was to leave England, with a party who were going to Canada; for in a fresh land, she might do better.

These things have all happened, and the characters in this story have moved on a little way in life’s journey. To each has been meted out a due share of cloud and sunshine, and those who have done wrong have each in their turn suffered.

But Penelope has never forgotten her dream, nor the feeling of that blessed crown of thorns, and she and Honora Beverley are the best and truest of friends.