CHAPTER IV
The rest of the week passed in a whirl of getting used to things and of settling into place. Dorothy had to find that however good she might be at memory work, she did not shine in very many things which were regarded as essentials at the Compton Schools. She was a very duffer in all matters connected with the gym. She was downright scared at many things which even the little girls did not shirk. She could not swing by her hands from the bar, she looked upon punching as a shocking waste of strength, and even drill had no charm for her.
Miss Mordaunt, the games-mistress, was not disposed to be very patient with her. Miss Mordaunt was not to be beaten in her encouragement of little girls and weakly girls; she would work away at them until they became both fearless and happy in the gym. But a girl in the Sixth ought to be able to take a creditable place in sports, according to her ideas. She was really angry with Dorothy for her clumsiness and her ignorance, which she chose to call downright cowardice and laziness. She was not even appeased by being told that for the last five years Dorothy had walked two miles to school every day, and the same distance home again. In consideration of this daily four miles she had been excused from all gym work.
“One is never too old to learn, and you do not have to walk four miles every day now,” Miss Mordaunt spoke crisply. She tossed her head, and her bobbed hair fluffed up in the sunshine. She was the very best looking of all the staff, and realizing the unconscious influence of good looks, she made the most of her attractive appearance, because of the power it gave her with the girls.
“Oh, I know I am rotten at this sort of thing,” Dorothy admitted with an air of great humility, as she stood watching little Muriel Adams somersaulting in a way that looked simply terrifying.
Miss Mordaunt suddenly softened. She had little patience with ignorance, and none at all with indolence, but a girl who humbly admitted she was nothing, and less than nothing, had at least a chance of improvement.
“If you are willing to work hard, to start at the beginning, and do what the little girls do, I shall be able to make something of you in time.” The air of the games-mistress was distinctly kindly now; she even went out of her way to pay Dorothy a compliment which all the rest of the girls could hear. “The amount of walking you have had to do has had the effect of giving you a free, erect carriage, and you have an alert, springy step that is a joy to behold. I shall have long and regular walks as part of our course this term, just for the sake of improving the girls in this respect; the manner in which some of them slouch along is awful to behold.”
“I wish you had kept quiet about your long walks to school,” grumbled Daisy Goatby on Friday afternoon, when the long crocodile of the Compton Girls’ School swung along through Sowergate, and, mounting the hill to the Ilkestone promenade, went a long mile across the scorched grass of the lawns on the top of the cliffs, and then turned back inland, to reach the deep little valley of the Sowerbrook.
“Why? Don’t you like walking?” asked Dorothy, who had been revelling in the sea and the sky, and all the unexpectedness of Ilkestone generally.
“I loathe it!” Daisy said with almost vicious energy. She was so fat that the exercise made her hot and uncomfortable; she had a blowsed appearance, and was rather cross.
“That is because you are so fat,” Dorothy laughed, her eyes shining with merriment. “Why don’t you put in half an hour every morning punching in the gym, then do those bar exercises that Hazel and Rhoda were doing yesterday? You would soon find walking easier.”
“Why, I take no end of exercise,” grumbled Daisy. “What with tennis, and hockey, and bowls, and swimming, one is on all the time. My fat is not the result of self-indulgence; it is disease.”
“And chocolates,” laughed Dorothy, who had seen the way in which her companion had been stuffing with sweets ever since they had started out.
“I am obliged to take a little of something to keep my strength up,” Daisy said in a plaintive tone; then she burst out with quite disconcerting suddenness, “What makes Rhoda Fleming have such a grouch against you, seeing that you were strangers until the other day?”
Dorothy felt her colour rise in spite of herself, but she only said quietly, “You had better ask her.”
“Bless you, I did that directly I found out how she did not love you,” answered Daisy, breathing hard—they were mounting a rise now, and the pace tried her.
“Well, and what did she say?” asked Dorothy, whose heart was beating in a very lumpy fashion.
“She said that you were the most untruthful person she had ever met, and it was not safe to believe a word you said,” blurted out Daisy, with a sidelong look at Dorothy just to see how she would take it.
Dorothy flushed, and her eyes were angry, but she answered in a serene tone, “If I said I was not untruthful, it would not help much; it would only be my word against Rhoda’s. The only thing to do is to let the matter rest; time will show whether she is right or wrong.”
“Are you going to sit down under it like that?” cried Daisy, aghast. “Why, it will look as if she was right.”
“What can I do but sit down under it?” asked Dorothy with an impatient ring in her tone. “If I were a boy I might fight her, of course.”
“Talking of fighting,” burst out Daisy eagerly, “Blanche Felmore, who is in the Lower Fifth, told me this morning that your brother Tom has had a scrap with her brother Bobby, and Bobby is so badly knocked out that he has been moved to the san. There is a bit of news for you!”
“Oh, I am sorry!” exclaimed Dorothy, looking acutely distressed. “I hate for Tom to get into such scraps, and it is horrid to think of him hurting some one so badly.”
“Oh, as to that, if he had not hurt Bobby, he would have been pretty considerably bashed up himself,” replied Daisy calmly. “Bobby Felmore is ever so much bigger than your brother—he is in the Sixth, and captain of the football team, a regular big lump of a boy, and downright beefy as to muscle and all that. The wonder to me is that Tom was able to lick him; it must have been that he had more science than Bobby, and in a fight like that, science counts for more than mere weight.”
“What made them fight?” asked Dorothy, a shiver going the length of her spine. It seemed to her little short of disastrous that Tom should get into trouble thus early in the term.
Daisy gave a delighted giggle, and her tone was downright sentimental when she went on to explain. “Tom is most fearfully crushed on Rhoda Fleming; did you know it? We used to make no end of fun of them last term. Tom is such a kid, and Rhoda is nearly two years older than he is; all the same he was really soft about her. They usually danced together on social evenings, they shared cakes and sweets and all that sort of thing, and they were so all-round silly that we got no end of fun out of the affair. Of course we thought it was all off when Rhoda was leaving; but now that she has come back for another year it appears to have started again stronger than ever.”
“But how can it have started?” asked Dorothy in surprise. “We only came on Tuesday—this is Friday; we have not met any of the boys yet.”
Daisy sniggered. “You haven’t, perhaps, but Rhoda has, and Blanche too. It seems that the evening before last, Blanche, who had no money for tuck, ran down into the shrubbery beyond the green courts to see if the boys were at cricket; she meant to signal Bobby, and ask him to send her some money through his matron, don’t you see. Rhoda saw the kid loping off, and wanting some amusement, thought she would go along too. Bobby saw the signalling, and knowing it was Blanche, came to see what she wanted. It seems that Tom also saw a handkerchief fluttering from the end of the shrubbery, and thinking it was Rhoda waving to him, came sprinting along after. He caught Bobby up, too, and passed him. Rhoda was at the fence, and so they had a talk, while Blanche told Bobby about having no money, and got him to promise that he would send five shillings by his matron that same evening. Things were pleasant enough until the girls were coming away; they expected the bell to go in a minute, and knew that they would have to scoot for all they were worth. Then Tom said something about thinking that Bobby was coming across to see Rhoda, and he was just jolly well not going to put up with it.”
“Yes, what then?” said Dorothy sharply.
It was not pleasant to her to find out how little she really knew about the inside of Tom’s mind. He was a year younger than herself; she regarded him as very much of a boy, and it was rather hateful to think that he was making a stupid of himself with a girl like Rhoda Fleming. Poor old Tom!
“Bobby Felmore said something rude,” replied Daisy. “The Felmores are rather big in their way, and their pride is a by-word. Bobby remarked that he would not trouble to go the length of a cricket pitch at the call of a girl like Rhoda. Tom went for him then and spat in his face, or something equally unpleasant. After that it had to be a fight, of course, and they planned it for yesterday. When the boys’ matron brought Blanche the five shillings she told her that Bobby was licked, and in bed in the san.”
“Will Tom be very badly punished?” asked Dorothy with dilating eyes; her lively fancy was painting a picture of dire penalties which might result, and she was thinking how distressed her father and mother would be.
Daisy laughed merrily. “When you see Bobby Felmore you will understand what a most astonishing thing it is that Tom should have whacked him. Oh no, Tom won’t get many beans over that. He may have an impot, of course; but he would get that for any breaking of rules. I should think that unofficially the masters would pat him on the back for his courage. He must be a well-plucked one to have stood up to Bobby, and to beat him. I wish I had been there to see.”
“I don’t; and I think it is just horrid for boys to fight!” cried Dorothy, and was badly ashamed of the tears that smarted under her eyelids.
“You are young yet; you will be wiser as you get older,” commented Daisy sagely; and at that moment the crocodile turned in at the lodge gates, and the talk was over.
Dorothy had furious matter for thought. She had been looking forward to Sunday because she knew that she would have a chance to talk to Tom for an hour then; and she had meant to tell him that the girl who did the shoplifting at Messrs. Sharman and Song’s place was at the Compton Schools in her form.
If Tom was so fond of Rhoda Fleming as to be willing to fight on her behalf, he would not be very ready to believe what his sister had to tell him.
“He might even want to fight me,” Dorothy whispered to herself, with a rather pathetic little smile hovering round her lips.
She went into the house feeling low-spirited and miserable; but there was so much to claim her attention, she had so many things to think about, and next day’s work to get ready for, that her courage bounced up, her cheerfulness returned, and she was as lively as the rest of them. After all, Tom would have to fight his own way through life, and it was of no use to make herself miserable because he had proved disappointing so early in the term.
CHAPTER V
The girls of the Compton Schools attended the church of St. Matthew-on-the-Hill, which stood on the high ground above the Sowerbrook valley. A grey, weather-worn structure it was, the tower of which had been used as a lighthouse in the days of long ago. It was a small place, too, and for that reason the boys always went to the camp church, a spacious but very ugly building, which crowned the hill just above their school.
To both girls and boys it was a distinct grievance that they were compelled to go to different churches; but St. Matthew-on-the-Hill was too small to contain them all, and the military authorities looked askance at the girls, so what could not be cured had to be endured.
The one good thing which resulted from this was that brothers and sisters were always together for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons. If the weather was fine they went for walks together; if it was wet they were in the drawing-room or the conservatories of the girls’ school.
That first Sunday, Dorothy was waiting for Tom. She was out on the broad gravel path which stretched along in front of the conservatory, for the girls had told her that the boys always came in by the little bridge over the brook at the end of the grounds, and she did not want to lose a minute of the time she could have with her brother.
She had imagined he would be in a tearing hurry to reach her, and she felt downright flat, after waiting for nearly half an hour, to see him strolling up the lawn at the slowest of walks, in company with a lumpy-looking boy whose face was liberally adorned with strips of sticking-plaster.
“Hullo, Dorothy, are you all on your own?” demanded Tom, looking distinctly bored; then he jerked his thumb in the direction of his companion, saying in a casual fashion, “Here is Bobby Felmore, the chap I licked the other day. Did you hear about it?”
“Yes, I heard,” she answered, and then hesitated, not quite sure what to say. It would be a bit embarrassing, and not quite kind, to congratulate Tom on his victory, with the beaten one standing close by, so it seemed safest to say nothing.
“It was a bit rotten to be licked by a kid like Tom, don’t you think, Miss Sedgewick?” asked Bobby with a grin. “The fact was, he is such a little chap that I was afraid to take him seriously, and that was how he got his chance at me.”
“Hear him!” cried Tom with ringing scorn. “But he is ignorant yet; when he is a bit older and wiser he will understand that a lump of pudding hasn’t any sort of chance against muscle guided by science. Besides, he had to be walloped in the cause of chivalry and right.”
“You young ass!” exploded Bobby, and he looked so threatening that Dorothy butted in, fearing they would start mauling each other there and then.
“I think it is just horrid to fight,” she said crisply. “It is a low-down and brutish habit. Are you going to walk, Tom, or shall we sit in the conservatory and talk? It is nearly three o’clock, so we have not very much time.”
“I’m not particular,” said Tom with a yawn. “Where are all the others? If we go for a walk we have just got to mooch along on our own; but if we stay in the grounds or the conservatory we can be with the others, don’t you see?”
“Just as you please.” Dorothy could not help her tone being a trifle sharp. It was a real disappointment to her that Tom did not want to have her alone for a little while.
“Very well, then, let us go down to that bench by the sundial. Rhoda Fleming is there, and the Fletchers; we had a look in at them, and a bit of a pow-wow as we came up.” Tom turned eagerly back as he spoke, and Dorothy walked in silence by his side, while Bobby Felmore went on into the house in search of Blanche, who had a cold, and was keeping to the house.
So that was why Tom was nearly half an hour late in arriving! Dorothy was piqued and resentful; but having her share of common sense, she did not start ragging him—indeed, she was so quiet, and withal pensive, that Tom’s conscience began to bother him, and he even started to make excuse for himself.
“You see, Rhoda and I are great friends—downright pals, so to speak—and, of course, if we went for a walk she would not be able to come too.” He was apologetic in manner as well as speech, and he slipped his arm round her waist with a great demonstration of affection as they went slowly across the lawn.
It was because he was so dear and loving in his manner that Dorothy suddenly forgot to be discreet, and was only concerned to warn him of the kind of girl she knew Rhoda to be.
“Oh, Tom, dear old boy, I wish you would not be pals with Rhoda,” she burst out impulsively. “I don’t think you know what sort of girl she is, and, anyhow, she——”
Dorothy came to a sudden halt in her hurried little speech as Tom faced round upon her with fury in his face.
“You had better stop talking rot of that kind.” There was an actual snarl in his tone, and his eyes were red with anger. “Girls are always unfair to each other, but I thought you were above a meanness of that sort.”
Dorothy’s temper flared—what a silly kid he was to be so wrapped up in a girl. She fairly snapped at him in her irritation.
“If you were not so young, so unutterably green, you would be willing to listen to reason, and to hear the truth. Since you won’t, then you must take the consequences, I suppose.”
“Don’t be in a wax, old girl.” He gave her an affectionate squeeze as he spoke, which had the effect of entirely disarming her anger against him.
“I am not in a wax; oh, I was, but it has gone now.” She smiled up into his face as she spoke, deciding that come what might she could not risk losing his love by trying to point out to him what sort of a girl Rhoda was.
The September afternoon was very sunny and warm, and the group of girls on the broad wooden bench by the sundial were lazily enjoying the brightness and the heat as Dorothy and Tom came slowly along the path between the flower-beds at the lower end of the lawn.
Rhoda Fleming was there, Joan and Delia Fletcher, and Grace Boldrey, a Fourth Form kid who was Delia’s chum. They all made room for Dorothy and Tom, as if they had expected them to come.
Dorothy found herself sitting between the two Fletchers, while Rhoda monopolized Tom, and the Sunday afternoon time, which she had looked forward to as being like a bit of home, resolved itself into an ordeal of more or less patiently bearing the quips and thrusts of Rhoda, who appeared to take a malicious pleasure in making her as uncomfortable as possible.
The affair of Professor Plimsoll’s lecture was dragged out and talked about from the point of view of Rhoda, who, perching herself on the lower step of the sundial, pretended she was Dorothy, standing up beside the professor, and repeating to him his own lecture.
Rhoda had a real gift of mimicry: the others rocked with laughter, and Dorothy, although she smarted under the lash of Rhoda’s tongue, joined in the laugh against herself, because it seemed the least embarrassing thing to do.
She felt very sore a little later when Tom, in the momentary absence of Rhoda, said to her, “It was silly of you to make such an exhibition of yourself at the lecture. No one cares for a prig. I should have thought you would have found that out long ago.”
“I could not help myself—I had to do as I was told; and, at least, I owe my place in the Sixth to having been able to remember.” Dorothy was keeping her temper under control now, although of choice she would have reached up and slapped Tom in the face for daring to take such a critical and dictatorial tone with her.
Tom shrugged his shoulders. “Every one to his taste, of course; myself, I would rather have waited until I was fit for the Sixth, than have got there by a fluke. You will find it precious hard work to keep your end up. For my own part, I would rather have been in the Upper Fifth until I was able to take my remove with credit.”
“Why, Tom, if I had been put into the Upper Fifth I should have stood no chance of the Mutton Bone,” cried Dorothy in a shocked tone.
Tom smiled in a superior and really aggravating fashion. “Going in for that, are you? Well, your folly be on your own head; you are more fond of the wooden spoon than I should be. For myself, I never attempt anything I’m not likely to achieve. You don’t catch yours truly laying himself open to ridicule; but every one to his taste. Seeing that Rhoda has come back to school for another year, it goes without saying that she will win the Mutton Bone. She is no end clever, and you won’t have much chance against her.”
“I am going to have a try, anyhow,” said Dorothy in a dogged tone; and at that moment Rhoda and Joan Fletcher came back, and the chances of any homey talk between brother and sister were over for that afternoon.
Rhoda and Tom started arguing about a certain horse that was to run at Ilkestone the following week, and Dorothy, sitting listening to Joan Fletcher’s thin voice prosing on about the merits of knife pleated frocks, wondered what her father would have said if he could have heard Tom discussing the points of racehorses as if he had served an apprenticeship in a training stable.
Later on, when she walked with him to the little gate at the end of the grounds, where the bridge went over the brook and the field path which led to the boys’ school, Tom began to make excuses for himself for the depth of his knowledge on racing matters.
“A fellow has to keep his eyes open, and to remember what he hears, or he would get left at every turn, you know,” he said, and again he slid his arm about his sister’s waist.
“I don’t think father and mother would approve of your keeping your eyes so wide open about horse-racing and that sort of thing.”
Dorothy spoke in a rather troubled fashion. It was really difficult for her to lecture Tom for his good when he had his arm round her in that taking fashion.
“Oh, naturally the governor and mums are more than a trifle stodgy in their outlook. It is a sign of advancing years.” He laughed light-heartedly as he spoke, then plunged into talk about football plans and his own chances of getting a good position in his team.
They lingered at the bridge until the other boys who had been visiting at the girls’ school came pouring along the path at a run. Then the first bell sounded for tea, and Dorothy had to scuttle back through the grounds at racing speed, for she would only have five minutes in which to put herself tidy for tea.
“Did you have a pleasant afternoon?” asked Hazel, who had been out with Margaret.
“It was good to be with Tom for a time,” Dorothy answered, hesitated, and then went on in a hurried fashion, “It would have been nicer, of course, if we had been alone together, or with you and Margaret, but Tom elected to spend the time with Rhoda and Joan Fletcher, and—and, well, it was not all honey and roses.”
“I can’t think what the silly boy can see in Rhoda,” said Hazel severely. “I never cared much for her myself, and the way in which she has snubbed Margaret is insufferable. I am thankful that Dora Selwyn is head girl, and not Rhoda; it would be awful if she set the pace for the whole school.”
“Dora Selwyn looks nice, but she is rather unapproachable,” said Dorothy in a rather dubious tone.
Hazel laughed. “Don’t you know the secret of that?” she asked. “Dora is about the shyest girl alive, and her stand-offishness is nothing in the world but sheer funk. You try making friends with her, and you will be fairly amazed at the result.”
CHAPTER VI
The first social evening of term was always something of an event. The Lower Fifth, the Upper Fifth, and the Sixth of both schools joined forces for a real merry-making. The juniors had their own functions, and made merry on a different evening, and they had nothing to do with the gathering of the seniors.
The lecture hall was cleared for dancing; there were games and music in the drawing-room for those who preferred them, and supper for all was spread in the dining-room.
It had been a soaking wet day; the girls, in mackintoshes, high boots, and rubber hats, had struggled for a mile along the storm-swept sea front. They had been blown back again, arriving in tousled, rosy-cheeked, and breathless, but thoroughly refreshed by the blow.
The dressing-bell went five minutes after they reached the house, and there was a rush upstairs to get changed, and ready for the frolic.
Dorothy was very much excited. She was going to wear the new little frock which she had bought at Sharman and Song’s place. She danced up the stairs and along the corridor to the dorm, feeling that life was very well worth living indeed.
Hazel and Margaret were just ahead of her, and the other girls were crowding up behind. They had been rather late getting in from their walk, and so there was not very much time before the boys might be expected to arrive.
With fingers that actually trembled Dorothy opened the wrapping paper, and taking out her frock, slipped it on. The looking-glass in her cubicle was not very big; she would have to wait until she went downstairs to have a really good look at herself. But oh! the lovely feeling of it all!
Admiring herself—or, rather, her frock—had taken time. Most of the girls were downstairs before she was ready. They were standing about the drawing-room in little groups as she came in through the big double doors, feeling stupidly shy and self-conscious, just because she happened to be wearing a new frock that was the last word in effective simplicity.
No one took any notice of her. The little group just inside the door had gathered about Rhoda Fleming, who was spreading out her arms to show the beauty of the jumper she was wearing over a cream silk skirt.
“Isn’t it a dream?” Rhoda’s voice was loud and clear; it was vibrant, too, with satisfaction. “I bought it at Sharman and Song’s; they are not to be beaten for things of this sort.”
Dorothy stood as if transfixed, and at that moment the crowd of girls about Rhoda shifted and opened out, showing plainly Dorothy standing on the outskirts of the group.
Rhoda paused suddenly, and there was a look of actual fear in her eyes as she stood confronting Dorothy. Then she rallied her forces, and said with a slow, insolent drawl, “Well, what do you want?”
“I—I don’t want anything,” faltered Dorothy, whose breath was fairly taken away by the calm manner in which Rhoda was exhibiting the jumper, which was a lovely thing made of white silky stuff, and embroidered with silver tissue.
“Then don’t stand staring like that.” There was a positive snarl in Rhoda’s tone, and Dorothy turned away without a word. She heard one of the girls cry out that it was a shame of Rhoda to be so rude, but there was more fear than resentment in her heart at the treatment she had received. It was awful to see the malice in Rhoda’s gaze, and to know that it was directed against herself, just because she had been the unwilling witness of Rhoda’s shoplifting.
She would have known the jumper anywhere, even if Rhoda had not declared so loudly that it had come from Sharman and Song’s, and she shivered a little, wondering how she would have felt if she had been in Rhoda’s place just then.
“Oh, Dorothy, what a pretty frock! How perfectly sweet you look!” cried the voice of Hazel at her side, and then Margaret burst in with admiring comments, and Dorothy found herself surrounded by a cluster of girls who were admiring her frock and congratulating her on having an aunt with such liberal tendencies. But the keen edge of her pleasure was taken off by the brooding sense of disaster that would come to her every time she recalled the look in Rhoda’s eyes.
Being healthy minded, and being also blessed with common sense, she set to work to forget all about the uncomfortable incident, and to get all the pleasure possible out of the evening.
The boys arrived in a batch. After the manner of their kind, they formed into groups about the big doors of the drawing-room and at the end of the lecture hall. But the masters who were with them routed them out with remorseless energy, and started the dancing. Bobby Felmore, very red in the face, and still adorned with sticking-plaster, led out the Head. He was most fearfully self-conscious for about a minute and a half. By that time he forgot all about being shy, for, as he said afterwards, the Head was a dream to dance with, and she was a downright jolly sort also.
Dorothy had danced with big boys, she had danced with cheeky youngsters of the Lower Fifth who aired their opinions on various subjects as if wisdom dwelt with them and with no one else, and then she found herself dancing with Bobby Felmore.
Bobby, by reason of having danced with the Head, was disposed to be critical regarding his partners that evening, and he began telling Dorothy how he had plunged through a foxtrot with Daisy Goatby, who was about as nimble as an elephant, and as graceful as a hippopotamus.
“She is quite a good sort, though, even if she is a trifle heavy on her feet,” said Dorothy, who was hotly championing Daisy just because Bobby saw fit to run her down.
“I say, do you always stick up for people?” he asked.
“When they are nice to me I do, of course,” she answered with a laugh.
“Well, you won’t have to stick up for Rhoda Fleming, at that rate,” said Bobby with a chuckle. “She seems to have a proper grouch against you. Tom was complaining as we came along to-night because you and Rhoda don’t hit it off together.”
“We do not have much to do with each other,” murmured Dorothy, resentful because Tom should have discussed her with this big lump of a boy who, however well he might dance, had certainly no tact worth speaking of.
“Just what Tom complained of; said he couldn’t think why his womenfolk didn’t hit it off better: seemed to think that you ought to be pally with any and every one whom he saw fit to honour with his regard. I like his cheek; the Grand Sultan isn’t in it with that young whipper-snapper.” Bobby tossed his head and let out one of his big laughs then, and Dorothy thought it might be for his good to take him down a peg.
“Tom is rather small,” she said, smiling at him with mischief dancing in her eyes; “but he is a force to be reckoned with, all the same.”
“Now you are giving me a dig because of that mauling I had from him last week,” chuckled Bobby. “It isn’t kind to kick a fellow that is down.”
“I have not kicked you,” she answered; and her tone was so friendly that Bobby, rather red, and rather stammering, jerked out,—
“I say, I’m really awfully crushed on you, though I have only seen you about twice. Say, will you be pals, real pals, you know?”
Dorothy turned scarlet, for just at that moment she caught sight of Rhoda regarding her fixedly from a little distance. It was horribly embarrassing and uncomfortable, and because of it her tone was quite sharp as she replied, “I have got as many chums already as I can do with, thank you; but I am really grateful to you for not being nasty to Tom over that licking he gave you last week.”
“Oh, that!” Bobby’s voice reflected disappointment, mingled with scorn. “The licking was a man’s business entirely, and it need not come into discussion at all. I should like to be pals with you, and I’m not going to believe what Rhoda says about you.”
“What can Rhoda say about me?” cried Dorothy, aghast. “Why, I have not known her a week.”
“Bless you, what she doesn’t know she will make up,” said Bobby, who was by this time quite breathless with his exertions. “Don’t you trust her. If she tries to be friendly, keep her at arm’s length. I have warned Tom about her until I’m out of breath; but he will find her out some day, I dare say. Meanwhile he is not in as much danger of being scratched by her as you are.”
Dorothy did not dance with Bobby again that evening. Indeed, she did not dance much after that, for Margaret had a bad headache, and wandered off to a quiet corner of the drawing-room, where Dorothy found her, and stayed to keep her company.
“Just think, to-morrow by this time we shall be enrolled for the Lamb Bursary, and work will begin in earnest,” said Margaret, as she leant back in a deep chair and fanned herself with a picture paper.
“I think work has begun in earnest, anyway,” Dorothy said with a laugh. “I know that I just swotted for all I’m worth at maths this morning. I could not have worked harder if I had been sitting for an exam. I am horribly stupid at maths, and I can never find any short cuts.”
“I don’t put much reliance on short cuts myself in maths or anything else,” replied Margaret. “When a thing has to be done, it is the quickest process in the end to do it thoroughly, because the next time you have to travel that way you know the road. By the way—I hate to speak of it, but you are a new girl, and you are not so well up in school traditions as some of the rest of us—did you use a help this morning?”
“A help?” queried Dorothy with a blank face. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes when a new girl comes she thinks to catch up in classwork by using cribs—helps they call them here, because it sounds rather better. Did you use anything of the sort this morning?” Margaret looked a little doubtful and apologetic as she put her question, but she meant to get at the bottom of the matter if she could.
“Why, no, of course I did not.” Dorothy’s tone was more bewildered than indignant; she could not imagine what had made Margaret ask such a question. “Do you think if I had been using a help, as you call it, that I should have to work as I do? Besides, do you not remember how Miss Groome coached me, and the pains she took, because I was such a duffer?”
Margaret laughed. “You are anything but a duffer, and you are a perfect whale at work. Oh! I wish they would not say things about you. It is so unfair on a new girl. You have enough to work against in having been put straight into the Sixth.”
“Who have been talking about me, and what has been said?” asked Dorothy quietly, but she went rather white. It was horrid to feel that her good name was being taken away behind her back.
“I do not know who started the talk,” said Margaret with a troubled air. “Kathleen Goatby was sitting here before you came. She said you had been dancing a lot with Bobby Felmore, but she expected he would have danced by himself rather than have been seen going round with you if he had known what was being said.”
“I shall know better whether to be angry or merely amused if you tell me what it is that is being said.” Dorothy’s voice was low, and her manner was outwardly calm, but there was a fire in her eyes which let Margaret know that she was very angry indeed.
“Kathleen said she heard Rhoda Fleming telling Joan Fletcher that you always used cribs, that you owed your position in your old school to this, and that you said it was the only way in which you could possibly get your work done. I told Kathleen she could contradict that as much as she liked, for I was quite positive it was not true. Cribs may help up to a certain point, but they are sure to fail one in the long run.”
“I have never used cribs,” said Dorothy with emphasis. “What I cannot understand is why Rhoda should try so hard to do me harm.”
“I think she is afraid of you.” Margaret spoke slowly, and she turned her head a little so that her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, instead of on her companion’s face. “It is possible she thinks you know something about her that is not to her credit, and she is fearing you will talk about it, so she thinks it is wise to be first at the character-wrecking business. You had better have as little to do with her as you decently can.”
“Trust me for that; but even avoiding her does not seem very effectual in stopping her from spreading slanders,” Dorothy said with a wry smile.
“Fires die out that are not tended,” replied Margaret with a great air of wisdom. “There goes the bell. Well, I am not sorry the evening is over because of my beastly headache. I hope you have had a nice time?”
“Yes—no,” said Dorothy, and then would say no more.
CHAPTER VII
The September sunshine was streaming in through the big stained-glass windows of the lecture hall next morning when, at eleven o’clock, the girls came trooping in from their Form-rooms, and took their places facing the dais. The Head was seated there in company with Mr. Melrose, who acted as governor of the Lamb Bursary, and two other gentlemen, who also had something to do with the bequest which meant so much to the Compton School for Girls.
When they were all in their places, Mr. Melrose stood up, and coming to the edge of the dais, made a little speech to the girls about Miss Lamb, who had been educated at the Compton Schools. “Agnes Lamb came to be educated here because her father, an officer, was at that time stationed at Beckworth Camp,” he said in a pleasant, conversational tone, which held the interest even of those girls who had heard the story several times before. “She was in residence for three years, during which time she made many friendships, and formed close ties in the school. It was while she was being educated here that her father died suddenly, and Miss Lamb, already motherless, was adopted by an uncle who was very rich, and who at once removed her from the school. Although surrounded by every luxury, the poor girl seemed to have left happiness behind her when she left the school. Her desire had been for higher education. Her uncle did not believe in the higher education of women: all the poor girl’s efforts after more knowledge were frowned upon, and set aside. She might have clothes in prodigal abundance, she might wear a whole milliner’s shop on her head, and her uncle would not have complained; but when she wanted lessons, or even books, she was reminded that but for his charity she would be a beggar: and, indeed, I think many beggars had greater possibilities of happiness. The years went on. Miss Lamb, always a gentle soul, lacked the courage and enterprise to break away from her prison, and continued to languish under the iron rule of her uncle. Her youth passed in close attendance on the crabbed old man, who had become a confirmed invalid. She had her romance, too: there was a man who loved her, and she cared for him; but here again her uncle’s will came between her and her happiness. The sour old man reminded her that he had kept her for so many years—that he had provided her with dainty food, and clothed her in costly array: now, when he was old and suffering, it would be base ingratitude for her to leave him, especially as the doctors told him he had not long to live. Because she was so meek and gentle, so easily cowed, and so good at heart, Miss Lamb sent her lover away to wait until she should be free to take her happiness with him. But the old uncle lingered on for several years. The man, who was only human, got tired of waiting, and on the very day when the death of the old uncle set Miss Lamb free he was married to a woman for whom he did not particularly care, just because he had grown tired of waiting for the happiness that tarried so long. Miss Lamb never really recovered from that blow. She lived only a few years longer, but she filled those years with as much work for her fellows as it was possible to get into the time. When she died, and her will was read, it was found that her thoughts must have lingered very much on the happy time she had spent within these walls, for the bulk of her property came for the enrichment of the Compton Girls’ School. In addition to this she left a sum of money which should, year by year, entitle one girl to the chance of a higher education.”
Mr. Melrose was interrupted at this point by a tremendous outburst of cheering; indeed, it seemed as if the sixty girls must have throats lined with tin, from the noise they contrived to make.
Mr. Melrose did not check them; he merely stood and waited with a smile on his face, wondering, as he looked at the wildly cheering mob, if any one of them would have been as meek under burdens as had been the gentle soul whose memory they were so vigorously honouring.
The cheering died to silence, and then he began to speak again. “I have finished the story of how it was that Miss Lamb came to leave so much money to the school, and now I am going to ask Mr. Grimshaw to read the rules for the enrolment of candidates for the Lamb Bursary. You will please follow that reading very carefully, making up your minds as he proceeds, as to whether you individually can fulfil the terms of the bequest.”
Mr. Grimshaw was an elderly gentleman of nervous aspect, with a thin, squeaky voice which would have upset the risibles of the whole school at any ordinary time; but the girls for the most part listened to him with gravely decorous faces, although one irrepressible Fourth Form kid rippled into gurgling laughter, that was instantly changed to a strangled cough.
The reading began with a tangle of legal terms and phrases as to the receiving of the money, and the way in which it was to be laid out, and then the document stated the requirements looked for in the candidate:—
“Each candidate offering herself for the winning of the Lamb Bursary must be in the Sixth Form of the Compton Girls’ School. She must be of respectable parentage, which is to say, that neither of her parents shall have been in prison. She herself must have a high moral character. No girl known to have cheated, or to have robbed her fellows in any way, is eligible as a candidate. It is furthermore required that each candidate shall take all the general subjects taught in the school, and no candidate shall be allowed to specialize on any particular subject; but each one to be judged on the all-round character of her learning. Candidates must be enrolled for three terms, the judging being on the marks made in that time. Each girl offering herself as a candidate will, with right hand upraised, declare solemnly, that she is a fit person to be enrolled as a candidate, and that she individually fulfils the conditions laid down in this document.”
“Each candidate offering herself for the winning of the Lamb Bursary must be in the Sixth Form of the Compton Girls’ School. She must be of respectable parentage, which is to say, that neither of her parents shall have been in prison. She herself must have a high moral character. No girl known to have cheated, or to have robbed her fellows in any way, is eligible as a candidate. It is furthermore required that each candidate shall take all the general subjects taught in the school, and no candidate shall be allowed to specialize on any particular subject; but each one to be judged on the all-round character of her learning. Candidates must be enrolled for three terms, the judging being on the marks made in that time. Each girl offering herself as a candidate will, with right hand upraised, declare solemnly, that she is a fit person to be enrolled as a candidate, and that she individually fulfils the conditions laid down in this document.”
The squeaky voice ceased, and Mr. Grimshaw with some creaking of immaculate boots sat down, while a profound hush settled over the rows of bright-faced girls. A robin just outside one of the open windows sang blithely, and away in the distance a bugle sounded.
There was a stir in the long row of Sixth Form girls. Hazel rose to her feet, her face rather white and set, for she was the first to enroll, and the situation gripped her strangely; but her voice rang clearly through the hall as, with right hand raised, she said,—
“I, Hazel Dring, offer myself as a candidate for the Lamb Bursary. I promise to abide by the conditions laid down, and I declare myself a fit person to be enrolled.”
Mr. Melrose looked at the Head, who bowed slightly, then he said to Hazel, “Will you please come on to the dais and be enrolled.”
She went forward, and the gentleman who had not spoken proceeded to spread a paper before her, which she had to sign. Meanwhile Margaret stood up, and raising her right hand, made the affirmation in the same way, and she was followed by Daisy Goatby.
Dorothy was thrilled to the very centre of her being. She rose to her feet, she lifted her right hand, while her voice rang out vibrant with all sorts of emotions.
“I, Dorothy Sedgewick, offer myself as a candidate for the Lamb Bursary. I promise to abide by the conditions laid down, and I declare myself a fit person to be enrolled.”
Again the Head bowed in response to the inquiring look of Mr. Melrose, who asked Dorothy to join the others on the dais, and she went forward, feeling as if she was treading on air. It seemed such a solemn ceremony, and there was the same sensation of awe in her heart that she felt when she was in church.
She was in the midst of writing her name when she heard the stir of another girl rising and then the words:—
“I, Rhoda Fleming, offer myself——”
Dorothy paused with her pen suspended, and her face went ashen white, as the glib tongue of Rhoda repeated the declaration that she was a fit person to be enrolled. Oh, how could she do it? Was it possible that Tom was right, and the average girl had no sense at all of honour, or moral obligation?
“Will you finish your signature, if you please, Miss Sedgewick.” It was the quiet voice of the gentleman taking the signatures that broke in upon Dorothy’s confused senses. Murmuring an apology, she finished writing her name, and went across to sit beside Daisy Goatby, while Rhoda came up to the dais to sign the enrollment paper. Joan Fletcher was the next, and she was followed by Jessie Wayne. Dora Selwyn, the head girl, did not compete; she was specializing in botany and geology, and did not want to be compelled to give her time to other subjects. There were seven candidates this year: last year there had been four, and the year before there had been eight. As Miss Groome, the Form-mistress remarked, seven was a good workable number, sufficient to make competition keen, but not too many to crowd each other in the race.
At the conclusion of the little ceremony the girls rose to their feet to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” and then with a rousing three-times-three—the first for Miss Lamb of evergreen memory, the second for the school, and the third for the newly-enrolled—they swarmed out to the grounds, for the rest of the day was to be holiday. They were to have a tennis tournament among themselves, with a box of chocolates for first prize, and an ounce of the strongest peppermints to be bought in Sowergate as consolation to the one who should score the least.
The three gentlemen stayed to lunch, and sat at the high table in the dining-room with the Head and such of the staff as were not at the lower tables carving.
The seven candidates had been decorated with huge white rosettes, in recognition of their position, and the talk at table was chiefly about Miss Lamb and her unfortunate love story.
“I expect she was afraid if she had married the man her uncle would have cut her out of his will, and so she would have been poor,” said Rhoda, who was very bright and gay.
Dorothy shivered a little. Rhoda’s voice made her feel bad just then. It was to her a most awful thing that a girl who knew herself guilty of deliberate theft should rise and affirm with uplifted hand that she was morally fit to compete for the Lamb Bursary.
“Perhaps she didn’t care over-much for him,” said Daisy Goatby with a windy sigh. “Getting married must be an awful fag. She could look forward to being free when the old man died; but if she had married, she might never have been free, don’t you see.”
“I think she was a martyr, poor dear.” Dorothy had the same vibrant sound in her voice as when she rose to affirm, and the other girls dropped silent to listen to what she had to say.
“Why do you think she was a martyr?” asked Margaret softly, seeing that Dorothy paused.
“Because she sacrificed everything to a principle.” Dorothy flushed a little as she spoke; she was too new to her surroundings to feel at ease in making her standpoints clear, and she was oppressed also by Rhoda’s bravado in affirming, in spite of that damaging incident at Sharman and Song’s.
“There was no principle involved that I can see,” grumbled Joan Fletcher with wrinkled brows. “There was self-sacrifice if you like, although, to my way of thinking, even that was uncalled for, seeing that the old man had the money to pay for any service he might require. I am not going to grumble at her for putting aside her happiness, because if I win the bursary I shall be so much the better off in consequence of her deciding to sacrifice herself for her uncle.”
“I think Dorothy is right,” chimed in Hazel crisply. “Miss Lamb made a principle out of her duty, real or supposed, to her uncle: she gave up her chance of married happiness because her sense of what was right would have been outraged if she had not.”
“Then she was a martyr!” exclaimed Jessie Wayne. “I shall see her as a picture in my mind next time we sing ‘The martyr first whose eagle eye.’ ”
“I dare say you will, goosey”—Dora Selwyn leaned forward past Dorothy to speak to Jessie, who sat at the end of the table—“meanwhile, you will please get on your feet, for the Head is rising.”
Jessie scrambled up in a great hurry, punting into Daisy Goatby, who sat on the other side of her. Daisy, heavy in all her movements, lurched against a plate standing too near the edge of the table, and brought it to the ground with a crash. But the crash was not heard, for Hazel, who saw it falling, and the gentlemen rising to leave the room at the same moment, swung up her hand for a rousing cheer, and in the burst of acclamation the noise of smashing was entirely lost.
“What a morning it has been!” murmured Dorothy, as she strolled down to the tennis court with Margaret for a little practice at the nets before the serious work of the tournament should begin.
“Yes.” Margaret spoke emphatically. She paused, and then said rather shyly, “I should not have been very happy about it all, though, if it had not been for the talk I had with you last night. Oh! I was worried about that rumour of your depending on helps that are not right for your work. I think I should have fainted, when you made your affirmation, if I had known that there was anything not right about it.”
“I do not expect you would have swooned, however badly you might have felt.” Dorothy’s tone was rather grim as she spoke, for she was thinking of Rhoda. “It is astonishing what we can bear when hard things really come upon us.”
“Perhaps so. Anyhow, I am very glad it was all right,” Margaret sighed happily, and slid her arm in Dorothy’s. “I even had a big struggle with myself when Rhoda Fleming stood up to affirm, and I forgave her again from the bottom of my heart for every snub she has ever handed out to me, for it seemed as if it would make her record sweeter if I did that.”
“I wish I were as good as you.” Dorothy’s tone was a little conscience stricken. There had been no desire in her heart to have Rhoda clean enough to affirm; she had been merely conscious of a great amazement at the girl’s audacity and callousness.
“Oh, rot, I am not good!” jerked out Margaret brusquely; and then, Sixth Form girl though she was, she challenged Dorothy to race to the nets.
It was a neck-and-neck struggle, and the victor was nearly squashed at the goal by the vanquished falling on to her, and they helped each other up, laughing at the figures they must have cut, and the loss of hard-won dignity involved.
It was Dorothy who won, but that was only because she had a longer stride. She knew this right well, and Margaret knew it too.