CHAPTER XXIII
Dorothy and Milly Stokes were chaired round the courts by ardent admirers, and they were cheered until their heads ached from the noise.
As soon as Dorothy could escape she went in search of Tom. It was some time before she could find him; and when she did run him down he was in a temper that was anything but sweet.
“Oh, Tom! I am so sorry for the trouble,” she burst out with ready sympathy. Tom usually wore such a happy face, that it was just dreadful to see him looking so glum.
“It is pretty rotten,” he growled. “We are to be hauled up before the Head in the morning, and goodness knows what will happen then. There is one comfort—I am not the only one in the soup; there are about twenty-five of us involved. The thing that passes my comprehension is how it all came out.”
“Don’t you know?” gasped Dorothy, so amazed at his words that she had no time to think of being discreet.
“How should I know?” he said blankly. “Why, you might have knocked me down with a feather when Clarges Major told me we’d been spotted, and that the game was up so far as our night-club was concerned. It has been such a jolly lark, too! We used to go about three nights a week, and get back about three o’clock in the morning. Some club it was, too, I can tell you! Say, Dorothy, how did you know anything about it?”
“Joan Fletcher told me. She told me how Rhoda had written all about the club to your Head, because you would not lend her the money when she was in a hole about the archery club subscriptions.” Dorothy spoke in a quiet tone; she was determined that Tom should know the true facts of the case. But she quailed a little when he turned upon her with fury in his face.
“Rhoda told because I would not lend her the money! What on earth are you driving at? That time when she talked to me about being so short, I told her then that I was in the same boat—absolutely stoney.”
“It was because you did not answer her letter, when she gave you twenty-four hours to find some money to help her out of her fix.” Dorothy stopped suddenly because of the surprise in Tom’s face. “Didn’t you have that letter?” she asked.
“I have never set eyes on it,” he answered. “When did she send it, and how?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dorothy. “Joan told me that Rhoda was so angry and so very desperate because you did not answer her letter, that, to pay you out for leaving her in the lurch, she wrote a letter to Dr. Cameron, telling him about the night-club. A little after her letter went she got the money she wanted from home, and she would have recalled her letter to your Head then if she had been able to do it, but, of course, it was too late.”
“The insufferable little cad, to blow on us like that out of sheer cattish spite!” growled Tom. Then he asked, with sharp anxiety in his tone, “Has it leaked out yet among our crowd that Rhoda told?”
“I am afraid so,” answered Dorothy, and again she quailed at the look in his eyes. “Didn’t you hear all the booing when we won the cup?”
“Of course. I booed myself with might and main; but that was only because we had lost it,” said Tom.
Dorothy shook her head. “I am afraid it is more than that—there was such a lot of malice in the noise. Hazel told me that some one threw a bag of flour at Rhoda, and written across the bag were the words ‘For a sneak’; so it looks as if they knew.”
“If that is the case, you bet I am in for it right up to my back teeth,” growled Tom; and turning he walked away with never another word to Dorothy, who reflected sorrowfully that he was much more concerned at the prospect of losing the goodwill of his fellows than because he was implicated in such a serious breach of rules and regulations.
Dorothy did not see him again that day. She did not see him on the next day either; but rumours were rife in the girls’ school that the boys involved in the night-club business were in for a row of magnitude.
The work of the week was so exacting and absorbing that Dorothy found herself with but little time for thinking of Tom and his troubles.
On Sunday—the last Sunday of term it was—Tom appeared with the other boys in the gardens of the girls’ school; but he looked so miserable that Dorothy had a sudden, sharp anxiety about him.
“Oh, Tom, what is it?” she cried.
“Don’t you know?” he said, looking at her with tragic eyes. “The Head has sent for the governor, and I don’t feel as if I could face him when he comes.”
“For the governor?” echoed Dorothy blankly, and in the eyes of her mind she was seeing those grave frock-coated gentlemen who had sat on the dais in the lecture hall that day last autumn, at the enrolment of the candidates for the Lamb Bursary. She wondered why Dr. Cameron had thought it necessary to send for one of the school governors about a case of school discipline.
“Father, I mean, and he is coming to-morrow.” Tom spoke impatiently, for he thought Dorothy was much more thick in the head than she ought to have been.
“Father coming to-morrow?” Dorothy’s voice rose in a shout of sheer ecstasy. “Why, Tom, we will make him stay over Wednesday, and then he will be present when the Bursary winner is declared!”
No sooner had she uttered that joyful exclamation than a cold chill crept into her heart. How dreadful for her father to be present if she had really won the Mutton Bone; for he would have to be told perhaps that she could not be allowed to keep it because of that ugly fact of his past, which had landed him in prison for fourteen days.
What a shame that there should be any clouds to mar his coming—and it was really a cloud of an extra heavy sort that was the reason of his being obliged to come.
“It is pretty rotten that he should have been sent for,” growled Tom. “All the fathers have been asked to come. So you see Rhoda raised a pretty heavy dust when she butted in.”
“Why have they all been sent for?” asked Dorothy in dismay. To her way of thinking such extreme measures boded very ill for the culprits.
“The fathers and the masters are going to confer as to what is to be done with us,” explained Tom, who was leaning against a tree and moodily kicking at the turf. “Dr. Cameron has got a bee in his bonnet about the gambling stunt going on in the schools; he is making a bid to wipe it out for always—don’t you wish he may do it? He thinks the best way is to let our governors take a hand in the business. He told us that if it had only been a question of our sneaking out of dorm when we were supposed to be fast asleep in bed, he would have dealt with the matter himself, and taken care that we had so much work to do that we would be thankful to stay in bed when we had a chance to get there.”
“Oh, Tom, how I wish you had never given way to betting and that sort of thing!” cried Dorothy, dismayed at the turn things had taken.
“You’ll have to be more sorry still if I have to lose the scholarship,” said Tom with a savage air.
“It won’t—it surely won’t come to that!” said Dorothy in dismay. Again a pang smote her as she thought of the double trouble there might be in store for the dear father. It did not even comfort her at the moment to remember how wholly innocent she was of any hand in bringing on the trouble which might arise on her account.
“It may do.” Tom’s tone was gloomy in the extreme. “On the other hand, it may tell in my favour that I am a scholarship boy. The authorities may argue that there must be good in me because I have worked so well in the past. They will say that, as I am one of the youngest of the crowd, I was doubtless led away by the seniors. Oh, there is certain to be a way out for me.”
“I am not sure that you deserve to have a way out found for you,” she said severely. “Oh, Tom, how could you bring such trouble on them at home!”
“Don’t preach,” burst out Tom impatiently. “I get more than enough of that from Bobby Felmore.”
“Bobby wasn’t in with the night-club crowd?” questioned Dorothy.
“Not he.” Tom snorted in derision of Bobby and Bobby’s standpoints. “He is too smug for anything these days. Downright putrid, I call it. I’ve no use for mugs.”
“Here comes Rhoda!” cried Dorothy with a little gasp of fright. “Oh, Tom, what are you going to say to her?”
“Nothing,” he answered with a snarl. “If she were a boy I would fight her. Seeing she is a girl, I can’t do that; so the only thing to be done is to look right through her and out the other side without taking any further notice of her.”
Rhoda bore down upon them with a little rush, her hands held out in imploring fashion. “Oh, Tom,” she cried, “I am thankful to see you here! Why have you not answered my letters? I have fairly squirmed in the dust at your feet, begging forgiveness for my cattish temper. But I was fairly desperate, or I should never have been so mad as to let you down, and your crowd as well. Words won’t say how sorry I am——”
She broke off with a jerk, for Tom, after looking at her with a cold and steady stare, turned on his heel and walked away, calling over his shoulder as he went,—
“So long, Dorothy, old girl; see you later.”
For a moment Rhoda stood staring at Tom’s retreating figure as if she could not believe her eyes, then she turned upon Dorothy with fury in her face.
“This is your work, then?” she cried shrilly. “I always knew you were jealous because Tom thought so much of me. A fine underhand piece of work, to try and separate me from my friend!”
“I have not tried to separate you from Tom; it would not have been any use,” said Dorothy calmly. “The separating, as you call it, was your own work. Tom will have to bear such a lot from his crowd because of your letter to his Head that he says he will not speak to you again.”
“Oh, he will come round,” Rhoda said, and tried to believe it; but she was hurt in her pride—the more so because she had the sense to see that she had brought the whole disaster on herself.
Dorothy turned away. She was feeling pretty sore herself because of the trouble that was bringing her father to the Compton Schools just then. It took away all her joy at the prospect of seeing him, to think how he might have to suffer on her account before he went away. She could not even comfort herself with the thought that she might not win the Bursary, because if she did not win it herself, the probabilities were that Rhoda would win it, in which case she was pledged to the Head to reveal that thing against Rhoda which she had seen in the showrooms of Messrs. Sharman and Song. What a miserable tangle it all was, and what a shame that people could not be happy when they so badly wanted to be free from care.
Monday came with hours of examination work. Happily, she was so absorbed in it that she hardly noticed how the hours went by. There was an archery contest in the afternoon. The younger boys came over, and some of the seniors, but there were big gaps in the Fifth and the Sixth of the boys’ school. None of the luckless twenty-five were present, they being gated for that day and the next—that is to say, until the council of fathers and masters had determined on what to do with them.
Dorothy guessed that she would not see her father that day. Tom had told her he would reach Sowergate by the six-thirty train, and as he would go straight to the boys’ school to dine with Dr. Cameron, and would have to be at the council afterwards, there would be no chance of seeing him until next morning.
She heard the train run in to Sowergate station, and there was a thrill in her heart to think of her father being so near. The worst of it was that she felt so bad on his account, because of what he would have to face both for Tom at the boys’ school, and for herself at the girls’ school.
She was so tired that night when bedtime came that she fell asleep directly her head touched the pillow, and she slumbered dreamlessly until morning. It was early when she woke, and sitting up in bed she thought of all the things that were before her in the day. She wondered what she would say to her father, and whether she ought to tell him of the arrangement the Head had made with her. It did not seem fair that he should have to face a situation of such gravity without some preparation.
“I can’t tell him! Oh, I can’t tell him!” she murmured distressfully, and then, because lying still and thinking about it was so intolerable, she sprang out of bed, beginning to dress with feverish haste. It was such a comfort to pitch straight into work, and to lose sight for a little while of the things which bothered her so badly.
The whole of the Sixth were to work at term finals from eleven o’clock until one that day, and they set off down to the beach at half-past nine, to bathe and get back for a little rest before the time for the exam. The Fourth Form girls had already gone down; the Fifth were sitting for their finals, and would go to bathe when their work was done.
As the group of girls with Miss Groome turned out of the school gates, they met Dr. Sedgewick coming in. Dorothy’s heart gave a great bound when she saw him, for he looked so tired and so very careworn.
Miss Groome stayed with her to speak to him, while the rest of the girls went on.
“I have not come to see you at this moment, Dorothy,” he said, with his hand on her shoulder, while his gaze travelled over her with great content. “Your Head has sent a message asking to see me, and I am going to her now. If you are back from the beach in good time, I may have a few minutes with you; and then later in the day, when your finals are over, we will have a great time together, and a regular pow-wow. You are looking fine; it is evident that work agrees with you.”
“Dorothy is a very good worker,” said Miss Groome graciously; and then she hurried on with Dorothy, to catch up with the girls who were in front, while Dr. Sedgewick walked on to the hall door for his interview with the Head.
CHAPTER XXIV
The girls of the Compton School bathed from the strip of beach just beyond the steps and in front of the lock-house. It was a steep and not very safe bit of shore. But all the girls could swim fairly well, while some of them were really expert.
The Fourth Form girls had two mistresses with them, and they were all in the water, splashing about with tremendous zest, when the Sixth, who had come to bathe, arrived on the scene.
Coming up the steps from the lock-house, they reached the Promenade, and were just going to spring down the wall to reach the tents when a shrill cry rang out that Cissie Wray was drowning.
There was instant commotion. Some of the girls who were in the water came hurrying out, scrambling up the beach in a panic; others launched themselves into deep water with a reckless disregard for their own safety, and swam out to help in the rescue.
Dorothy, standing on the edge of the wall, and looking out over the water, saw an arm shoot up, then disappear. She saw Miss Mordaunt, the games-mistress, and Miss Ball, the mistress of the Fourth, making wild efforts to reach the place where Cissie Wray was in trouble; she saw the girls who were in the water crowding together, getting in the way of the rescuers, endangering themselves, and adding to the confusion. Acting on impulse, she sprang from the wall, then running down the steep beach, and tearing off her skirt as she ran, she kicked off her shoes, and running still, took to the water as lightly as a duck, going forward with long, even strokes that carried her swiftly on.
“Go back! go back!” she shouted to the small girls who were bobbing up and down in the water, anxious to help. “Get out of the deep as quickly as you can, and get ready to make a chain to pull us up.”
Chain-making for rescue was one of the most usual swimming exercises. Sometimes half the chain would be straggling up the beach, and the other half in deep water; then the last one of the chain would drop limp and passive, while the chain struggled shorewards with the helpless one in tow.
Dorothy’s quick wit had seen that the great hope of rescue lay in the chain. The tide was running in fast, and the beach at this point rose so steeply that a swimmer with a burden was most fearfully handicapped. Oh! a rescue in such a sea would be a task of magnitude, and she suddenly realized that Cissie must have been very far out. Miss Ball was nearest to the place where Dorothy had seen the arm flung up. She was swimming with desperate haste, but she was not saving her strength in the least possible way. She was not a strong swimmer, either, and even if she reached the little girl, she would not be able to do more than hold her up in the water.
Miss Mordaunt had been right away at the outer edge of the group. She had been helping the younger ones to get more confidence in their own powers; she had to see these headed for safety before she could come to the help of Miss Ball and Cissie, so she was behind Dorothy.
Miss Ball shot forward, gripped hold of Cissie by the bathing-dress, and was holding her fast, when poor, frantic Cissie, with a thin shriek of pure panic, seized Miss Ball in a frenzied grip, clinging with all her might, and choking the Fourth Form mistress by the tightness of her clutch.
Dorothy made a wild effort and shot forward. Would she ever cover the distance that separated her from the two who were in such dire peril? She almost reached them—she shot out an arm to grip Miss Ball, who was nearest; a great wave heaved up and swept the Fourth Form mistress farther to the left. Dorothy put out another spurt; she flung every ounce of strength she had into the effort; she summoned all her will power to her aid, and suddenly, just as she was feeling that she simply could not do any more, Cissie Wray was flung into reach of her groping fingers, and she had the little girl fast.
Cissie was still clinging with might and main to the neck of Miss Ball, who, strangled and helpless in that suffocating grip, was slowly beginning to sink.
Treading water to keep herself afloat, Dorothy hung on to Cissie’s bathing-dress with one hand, and with the other she wrenched the little girl’s hand from its frantic clasp of Miss Ball’s throat. Quite well she realized her own danger in doing this, but she trusted to her swiftness of movement to be able to elude Cissie’s clutching fingers. She had seized Cissie well by the back of the bathing-dress, and was keeping her at arm’s length. But the trouble now was with Miss Ball, who, having been so badly choked, could not regain the strength that had been squeezed out of her, and was being sucked down into the water.
Dorothy made a clutch at her, and catching her by the arm, held her fast. “Buck up!” she said sharply. “Buck up and strike out, or we’ll all be drowned. Keep afloat a minute; help is coming.”
Miss Ball had done her bit, and there was no more do in her. She flung out her hands with a feeble and spasmodic effort, which amounted to nothing as far as helping herself went.
Dorothy was in despair. Her own strength was waning, her heart was beating in a choking fashion, there was a loud singing in her ears, and her arms felt as if they were being dragged out of their sockets. She could not stand the strain another moment. Where was Miss Mordaunt, and why did she not come to the rescue?
Miss Ball was sinking—oh! she was surely sinking. Dorothy felt she could not hold the poor thing up for another second, for she was having to keep Cissie afloat too, and Cissie was squirming and kicking in the most dangerous fashion.
“Courage, Dorothy, I am here!” panted a voice close to her, and realizing that Miss Mordaunt was close at hand, Dorothy’s courage began instantly to revive.
Miss Mordaunt laid hold of Miss Ball, who was by this time limp and unconscious.
“Can you hold Cissie until I come?” panted Miss Mordaunt, who was moving rapidly to get the helpless Miss Ball ashore.
“I can manage,” Dorothy called out cheerily. She put every bit of courage she possessed into her voice so that Miss Mordaunt might be helped. There is nothing like courage to inspire courage, and although the others were doubtless swimming out to their help, there was a good distance to cover, and it was a very choppy sea.
Dorothy shifted Cissie, because the little girl’s face was so low down that it kept getting under water.
Cissie, feeling the movement, and believing that her rescuer was letting her go, made a sudden, despairing effort, and gripped Dorothy round the shoulders. Lucky for Dorothy it was that the choking grip did not get her round the throat. It was bad enough as it was, for she could not move her arms, and was dependent on her feet for keeping herself and Cissie from drifting farther out to sea.
“Cissie, let go; leave yourself to me—I will save you!” she panted. But Canute ordering the waves back from the shore was not more helpless in altering their course than she was in making any impression on poor, frantic Cissie. The child clung like a limpet to a rock; Dorothy had never felt anything like the clutch of those thin arms.
She could not hold up against it. She was being dragged down in spite of her struggles. Oh! it was awful, awful. Scenes from her past flashed into the mind of Dorothy as she felt herself slipping, slipping, and felt the thin arms about her neck clutching tighter and tighter.
Then suddenly a great peace stole into her heart; if she had to die in such a way, at least it would solve the problem of to-morrow. If she were not there to win the Lamb Bursary, the governors would not have to be told of that ugly bit in her father’s past which would shut her out from taking the Bursary even after she had won it. Supposing that she did not win it, and it came to Rhoda, if she were dead there would be no one to remind Rhoda that she might not have the Bursary because she was not fit to hold it. Perhaps her death was the best way out for them all. Anyhow, she had no longer strength to struggle—no more power to hold out against the cramping clutch of Cissie’s arms; and it was a relief, when one was so weary, to drop into peace which was so profound.
CHAPTER XXV
There was a wild commotion on the shore. Following the example of Dorothy, the Sixth dropped their skirts as they ran, and kicking off their shoes at the edge of the water, plunged in. But they were all under control and acting in concert—no one girl made any attempt to branch out on her own. They were acting now under the orders of Miss Groome, who, also skirtless and shoeless, was standing in the shallow of the water, directing the work of the chain.
“Keep to the left, Hazel,” she called—“more to the left; keep within touch of the Fourth’s chain, but don’t foul them—don’t foul them, whatever you do.”
Hazel was the first of the chain; clinging to her was Joan Fletcher, a powerful swimmer, and calm in moments of crisis—an invaluable helper at a time like this. Following her came Daisy Goatby, blubbering aloud because of the peril of those out there, a girl who turned pale and ran away when a dog yelped with pain at being trodden upon. She hated to be obliged to look on suffering—the thought of any one in extremity made a coward of her—but she could obey orders. Miss Groome had ordered her into the chain, and she would cling to the girl who was in front of her even though she felt her life was being battered out of her. Dora Selwyn was behind her. Rhoda was also somewhere at the back of that wriggling procession, with Margaret and Jessie Wayne. They had reached the chain of plucky Fourths; they were encouraging the kids to hold on, and bidding them not come farther, but rest, treading water until the time for action came. The Sixth pushed ahead with all their strength. They could not swim so fast, hampered by each other; but it was safety first, and they had to obey orders if their work was to succeed.
Miss Mordaunt struggled towards them, holding the unconscious Miss Ball in a tense grip.
“Can you get her ashore, girls? I must go to Dorothy,” she panted; and thrusting Miss Ball within the grabbing clutch of the two first girls, she struck out again to reach Dorothy, who was dropping low in the water, dragged down by the grip of poor Cissie.
Hazel, with a dexterous twist of her arm, passed Miss Ball to Joan, who did not release her grip of the unconscious mistress until Daisy had hold of her and was passing her to Dora. This passing was the extreme test of the power of the chain. It would have been a comparatively easy thing to have towed her ashore. In that case, however, they would not have been on hand to help Miss Mordaunt with Dorothy and Cissie. So they had to pass their burden, and to do it as quickly as they could.
Hazel never looked behind her—she did not speak even; but, lightly treading water, she waited until Miss Mordaunt could reach her. Even then she would have to hold her place, for Cissie would have to be passed before they could tow Dorothy ashore. And it took time—oh, what an awful time it took!
Miss Mordaunt was coming towards them. She was holding Dorothy, to whom Cissie clung with the fierce clutch of despair.
“We cannot pass Cissie along—she is too frightened,” panted Miss Mordaunt, as she reached Hazel with her burden, and clung to the chain for a minute to get back her breath. “Dorothy is so frightfully done, too; but she will bear that clutch until we can get her ashore.”
“We can pass Dorothy along, with Cissie clinging to her,” said Hazel, raising herself a little in the water, and reaching out her hand to get a grip of Dorothy. “Can you swim alongside, Miss Mordaunt, to see that Cissie does not slip away?”
“That will be best,” agreed Miss Mordaunt, and striking out, she swam slowly along the chain of girls as they one after the other accepted and thrust forward the helpless two. When Dora, fourth from the end, laid hold of Dorothy, Hazel swung slowly round in the water, and swimming up behind Dorothy seized her on the other side, holding on to her, and helping to push her from girl to girl as the chain accepted and passed her on.
Cissie was not struggling at all now, though the tightness of her clutch never relaxed; she was realizing that she was being rescued, and her panic was dropping from her. She was acutely conscious, and her black eyes looked so frightened and mournful that no one had the heart to reproach her for all the peril into which her wild panic had brought the others.
The Fourth had managed to hold the chain without a break, and mightily proud they were of their prowess. They even raised a cheer when the last of the Sixth came out of the water; but it died away as they saw Dorothy lying helpless on the beach, while Miss Ball, at a little distance, was being wrapped in blankets by the woman from the lock-house.
Dorothy was not unconscious; she was only so battered and beaten by the struggle in the water that just at the first she could not lift a finger to help herself.
Miss Ball was coming round, so the woman from the lock-house said, and she offered her own bed for the use of the two who had suffered most.
Miss Groome felt that, having borne so much, it was better for them to bear a little more, and be carried to where they could have more comfort. She issued a few crisp orders. The girls, still in their wet clothes, ran to obey. Then, while the Fourth dived into their tents to dress with all the speed of which they were capable, the Sixth in their wet garments loaded Miss Ball, Dorothy, and Cissie on to three trucks which were standing under the wall of the lifeboat house, and harnessing themselves to them, started at a brisk pace for the school. They had no dry clothes on the shore to change into, and so it was wisdom to move—and to move as quickly as they could. The woman from the lock-house had lent them blankets to cover the half-drowned ones; on to these blankets they spread skirts; then each girl wrapping her own skirt round her, they set off from the shore at the best pace they could make.
Dorothy was bumped along on that fearful hand-truck. She felt she could not bear much of such transport, and yet knew very well that she had no strength to walk. She was so tired—so fearfully weary—that she simply could not bear anything more.
When she had been in such danger of drowning, dragged down by Cissie’s frenzied clasp of her shoulders, it had seemed such deep peace and rest, she had not even wanted to struggle. Then had come the confusion of Miss Mordaunt’s rough grip, and the girls dragging her here and pulling her there as they passed her along. Then had come the moment when she was hauled to safety up the steep shingly beach. How the stones had hurt her as she lay! Yet even that was as nothing to this. At least she had been able to lie still on the stones, but now the life was being bumped out of her! She could certainly stand no more! She must shriek—she must do something to show how intolerable it all was——
“Why, Dorothy, it looks as if you had been getting it rough. Have you been competing for a medal from the Humane Society, or just doing a swimming stunt off your own bat?”
Dorothy opened her eyes with a little cry of sheer rapture. “Oh, Daddy, Daddy, I had forgotten you were here! I can’t bear this old truck one minute longer—I can’t, oh, I can’t!” she wailed.
Dr. Sedgewick had been warned by the girl who had run on ahead of the procession to tell matron of what was coming, and he had met the girls and the hand-trucks down the lane a little beyond the school grounds. He gave a rapid glance round to size up the possibilities of the situation. Catching sight of the little gate into the grounds which would cut off a big piece of the way, he called to them to open it, and stooping down, he lifted Dorothy from the truck, swinging her over his shoulder.
“Guide me by the shortest way to the san,” he said to the nearest girl; and while she ran on ahead of him, he followed after her, carrying Dorothy.
“I am so heavy, you will never manage it,” she protested, yet half-heartedly, for it was such a delightful change to be borne along like this after that awful bumping on the truck.
“I think I shall be able to hold out,” he answered, laughing at her distress, and then he passed in at the door of the san, where the matron met him, and showed him where to carry Dorothy.
The hours after that were a confusion of pain and weariness, a succession of deep sleeps and sudden, startled wakings. Then presently Dorothy came out of a bad dream of being dragged down to the bottom of the sea by Cissie, and awoke to find a light burning, and her father sitting in an easy-chair near her bed, absorbed in a paper—or was it a book?
Her senses were confused—she did not seem as if she could be sure of anything; and there was something bothering her very badly, yet she could not quite remember what it was.
“Daddy, is it really you?” she asked half-fearfully. It was in her mind that she might be dreaming, and that it was not her father who was sitting there, only a fancy her imagination had conjured up.
Dr. Sedgewick dropped the paper he had been reading, and came quite close to the bed, stooping down over her, and slipping his fingers along her wrist in his quiet, professional manner.
“Better, are you?” he asked cheerfully, and his eyes smiled down at her, bringing a choking sob into her throat. The heavy sleep was clearing from her now, and she was remembering the big trouble which lay behind.
“Oh, Daddy, I can’t bear it!” she wailed.
“What is the matter?” he asked in sudden concern. “Have you pain anywhere?”
“Oh, I am all right; there is nothing the matter with me,” she burst out wildly. “It would have been better if I had gone down with Cissie, when I was so nearly done; it would have saved all the explaining that would have to come after.”
“What explaining?” he asked quietly, and then he dragged his chair closer to the bed, and leaning over her, gently stroked the hair back from her forehead.
She lay quite still for a few seconds, revelling in the peace and comfort that came from his touch. Then, wrenching her head from under his hand, she asked anxiously, “Daddy, you have seen the Head—do you think I shall win the Lamb Bursary?”
“I very much hope you will,” he answered. “The Head, of course, could make no hard-and-fast pronouncement, but there seems not very much doubt about the matter.”
Dorothy’s brows contracted—there was such a world of misery in her heart that she felt as if she would sink under the weight of it. “Oh, I wish I had not enrolled! I wish I had not come to Compton!” she burst out distressfully.
“Why do you wish that?” he asked quietly. “I thought you had been so happy here, and you have certainly done well—far, far better than Tom.”
“Ah, poor Tom! What have you done with him and with all the others?” she asked, catching at anything which seemed as if it might put off for a minute the necessity of explaining to her father her trouble about the Lamb Bursary.
Dr. Sedgewick laughed, and to her great relief there was real amusement in the sound. “We all agreed—and there were fifteen of us to agree, mark you—that we had absolute confidence in Dr. Cameron’s methods in dealing with boys. We felt the affair was a problem we would rather leave him to solve free-handed, and we have left their punishment to him. They are all to return next term, and he will decide on what course to take with them.”
“Won’t they be punished in any way now?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, in a way, I suppose,” he answered. “They will, of course, lose all conduct marks, because they were acting in known defiance of regulations—that goes without saying. The great majority of us were in favour of flogging, but our suggestion met with no encouragement from the Head. He told us there were some things for which flogging was a real cure, but gambling was not one of them. The only real and lasting cure for gambling was to lift the boy to a higher level of thought and outlook—in short, to fill his life so full of worthier things that the love of gambling should be fairly crowded out. He argued, too, that if it were crowded out in youth, it would not have much chance to develop later on in life.”
“It sounds like common sense,” said Dorothy, turning a little on her pillow, and looking at the shaded night lamp as if the softened glow might show her a clear way through her own problems. Then she asked, with a timid note in her voice, “So you are not being anxious about Tom any more?”
“I did not say that,” Dr. Sedgewick answered quickly. “You know, Dorothy, a doctor never gives up hope while there is life in a patient; so one should never give up hope of recovery of one suffering from—what shall I call it?—spiritual disease. We will say that Tom has shown a tendency to disease. But checked in its first stages—arrested in development—he may be entirely cured before he reaches full manhood. That is what I am hoping, and what those other fathers are hoping and believing too. We feel that the discipline of school is the best medicine for them at the present stage, and that is why we are so content to leave the whole business in the hands of Dr. Cameron.”
Dorothy lay silent for a minute or two, and again her eyes sought the soft glow from the lamp. Then making a desperate effort, she made her plunge. “Daddy,” she whispered, catching at his hand and resting her cheek upon it, “Daddy, I have got a trouble—a real, hefty-sized trouble.”
“I know you have,” he answered gravely, and then he sat silent, waiting for her to speak.
How hard it was! Why did he not help her? She held his hand tighter still. Oh! if only she could make him understand how it hurt her to speak of that old story to him! And yet it had to be done! She could not in honour take the Bursary, knowing herself disqualified for it.
“Had you not better out with it, and get it over, Dorothy?” he asked quietly.
She gasped, and suddenly burst out with a jerk, “Daddy, Mrs. Wilson told me you had been sent to prison for a fortnight when you were a young man, and the rules of enrolment for the Lamb Bursary candidates state specially that girls cannot compete whose parents have been in prison.”
It was out now—out with a vengeance—and Dorothy hid her face so that she might not have to see the pain she had caused. So strained was she that it seemed a long, long time before her father spoke, and when he did, his voice seemed to come from a great distance.
“Mrs. Wilson made a little mistake; it was not I who went to prison, but my cousin Arthur,” he was saying. “It was Arthur who was driving home from the dance that night, and I was sitting beside him trying to hold him back from his mad progress. You would have spared yourself a lot of suffering, Dorothy, if you had come to me with that old story when you were home last vacation.”
“Then you have never been in prison?” cried Dorothy, her voice rising in a shout of sheer joyfulness. “And I can have the Mutton Bone!”
“You have to win it first,” Dr. Sedgewick reminded her.
CHAPTER XXVI
In consequence of the trouble at the bathing place, and the tired and chilled condition of the Sixth, the examination for finals was put off until next morning at eight o’clock.
Dr. Sedgewick had said that Dorothy would certainly not be fit to sit for it; but when the Sixth went into early breakfast at seven o’clock Dorothy joined them. She was a bit shaky still, and she looked rather white, but there was such radiant happiness in her eyes that she seemed fairly transfigured by it.
The examination was over by ten o’clock, and the girls dispersed to amuse themselves in any way they liked best. Cissie Wray fell upon Dorothy as she came out of the examination room—literally fell upon her—hugging her with ecstasy.
“Dorothy, Dorothy, are you better? Oh, I want to say ‘Thank you!’—I want to shout it at you; and yet it does not seem worth saying, because it is so little to all I feel inside—for your goodness in saving me yesterday.”
“Poor Cissie, you were badly scared,” said Dorothy, and she shivered a little even in the warm sunshine as she thought of the frenzied clutch of Cissie’s thin arms and the agony in her big black eyes.
“Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful! I don’t ever want to go into the sea again, though I am not afraid in the swimming bath.”
“How is Miss Ball?” asked Dorothy, wanting to get Cissie’s attention away from the previous day’s terror.
“She is better, but she is not up yet. And the girls say I nearly drowned her as well as myself, and that we should both have been dead if it had not been for you! Oh dear, how awful it was! I can’t bear to think about it!”
“Then don’t think about it,” said Dorothy, looking down at Cissie with kindness in her eyes. “I can see my father coming by the shrubbery path—shall we go and meet him?”
“Oh, rather!” cried Cissie, skipping along by the side of Dorothy. “Dr. Sedgewick is a dear; he took such lovely care of me yesterday, and teased me about wanting to be a mermaid. I think he is the most wonderful doctor I have ever seen. But I have never had a doctor before that I can remember—so, of course, I have not had much experience.”
Cissie seized upon one of the doctor’s arms, while Dorothy held the other, and they took him all round the grounds. They showed him the gymnasium, the archery and tennis courts, the bowling green, and all the other things which made school so pleasant. Then Cissie had to go off to a botany examination, which was the last of the term’s work for the Fourth, and Dorothy strolled with her father to the seat under the beech tree that overlooked the boys’ playing-fields.
“I have sent a wire to your mother to say that I shall not be home until the night train,” said Dr. Sedgewick, slipping his arm round Dorothy as she sat with her head resting against his shoulder. “Your Head says that I must stay for the prize-giving this afternoon. If I skip tea, I think I can manage the five o’clock train, which will put me in town with time to catch the last train to Farley.”
“Then Tom and I shall get home to-morrow. Oh! how lovely it will be.” Dorothy nestled a little closer in her father’s arm, and thought joyfully that now there was no shadow on her joy of home-coming.
“Yet you have been very happy here?” The doctor looked round upon the grounds and the playing-fields as he spoke, and thought he had never seen a pleasanter place.
“Indeed I have—it has been lovely!” said Dorothy with satisfying emphasis. “It has been good to be near Tom. Only the worst of it has been that he did not seem to need me very much.”
“Tom will be happier when he has cut his wisdom teeth,” said Dr. Sedgewick. “By the way, Dorothy, what other fairy stories did Mrs. Wilson tell you of my past? I should think the poor lady’s brain must have been weakening, though, in truth, it was never very strong.”
“I don’t think she told me any others,” answered Dorothy. “I thought she seemed very fond of your cousin, Arthur Sedgewick, by the way she spoke of him. Daddy, why did you never tell us anything about him, and why did mother refuse to talk about him when I mentioned the matter to her?”
“He turned out such a detrimental, poor fellow, that your mother hated the very mention of him, especially as it laid such a burden on my shoulders for years. When he died he left debts, and he left an invalid wife. For the sake of the family honour the debts had to be paid, and the poor wife had to be supported until she died. There was good reason for your mother’s unwillingness to talk about him. It was getting into bad habits as a boy that was his undoing.” The doctor sat for a while in silence, and then he said, “It is because of Arthur having made such a mess of life that I am so glad to leave Tom here for another couple of years—he will have learned many things by that time.”
The lecture hall was crammed to its utmost capacity. Many visitors occupied the chairs in the centre of the hall, while round the outskirts, in the corners, along the front of the dais, and everywhere that it was possible to find a place to sit, or stand, girls in white frocks were to be seen. Prize-giving for the boys had been the previous afternoon—a function shorn of much of its glory, for the double reason that the disaster on the beach in the morning had taken away much of the joyfulness of the girls, and the fact that twenty-five of the boys would not receive even the prizes they had earned, because of the trouble in regard to the night-club.
The boys who had come over to the prize-giving at the girls’ school were accommodated in the gallery. There were not so many of them present as was usual on such occasions, but those who had come did their loudest when it came to the cheering. The wife of the M.P. for the division gave away the prizes; and as she was gracious and kindly in her manner, she received a great ovation.
Dorothy had the conduct medal—she had also the first prize for English Literature; but that was all. The fact of having to be an all-round worker was very much against the chances of winning prizes.
It seemed a fearfully long time to wait until all the prizes had been given. Then the wife of the M.P. sat down, and the legal-looking gentleman who managed the Lamb Bursary stepped on to the dais. He had a paper in his hand; but he had to stand and wait so long for the cheering to subside that the Head rose in her place and came forward to the edge of the dais, holding up her hand for silence.
At once a hush dropped on the place—a hush so profound and so sudden that it gave one the sensation of having had a door shut suddenly on the great noise of the past few minutes.
Then, in his quiet but penetrating voice the governor of the Bursary read the names of the candidates in the order in which they had enrolled, with the total of marks to each name.
Dorothy sat white and rigid. As the names were read out she tried to remember them, to determine, which girl had the most, but she was so confused that she could not hold the figures in her head. When the seven names had been read there was a pause, and again the hush was so profound that the humming of a bee in one of the windows sounded quite loud by contrast.
“I have therefore great pleasure,” went on the cool, rather didactic tones of the governor, “in stating that the Lamb Bursary for this year goes to Dorothy Ida Sedgewick, who has won it, not by a mere squeeze, but with a hundred marks above the candidate nearest to her in point of number.”
Now indeed there was a riot of cheering, of clapping, and of jubilation generally, until, standing up, the whole crowd of white-frocked girls burst into singing,—