GWEN MEETS DICKGWEN MEETS DICK
"I believe the next goes at half-past six," he remarked ruefully. "But you won't catch me waiting for it I shall walk."
"So shall I," agreed Gwen. "Walking's better fun any time than standing waiting," and she suited her action to her words. The boy kept by her side, evidently not unpleased to have a companion to talk to.
"You're one of the Gascoyne girls, aren't you?" he began. "I see the whole lot of you every day cramming into the bus. Aren't you the one they call Gwen?"
"I believe I am."
"It's you who's generally left something behind, or lost something, or got yourself into some kind of a pickle; then the one with her hair turned up scolds."
"That's Winnie," chuckled Gwen.
"Those two youngsters are cheeky imps. Tell them they'll get their heads smacked some day!"
"They often do at home."
"Serve 'em right. I'm glad to hear it. How many more are there of you at home?"
"Only two."
"Quite enough, I should think!"
"Thank you! You've asked all about my family, but you haven't told me who you are."
"Why, I thought you knew. My name is Dick Chambers. My father is Dr. Chambers, who's just taken Dr. Harrison's practice."
"At North Ditton?"
"Yes, we only came six weeks ago. Dr. Harrison has gone to London."
"I knew Dr. Harrison," said Gwen. "He came tosee us when we had scarlatina, and gave us some loathly medicine!"
"Dad can do a little in that line!" laughed Dick. "He once made me drink asafœtida when I was a kid, to cure me of sampling bottles in the surgery."
"Is it nasty?"
"It smells like a defunct rat, so you can imagine the taste."
"Ugh!"
"He doesn't give such bad things to his patients, though. There's some quite decent stuff in the dispensary, and sometimes the bottles are coloured pink, especially if they're for girls. I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up."
"I suppose you'll help your father. Have you any brothers and sisters?"
"Not a single one."
"Oh, I should think that's rather slow!"
"I don't find it so. There's always plenty to do."
"Do you like North Ditton?"
"Oh, yes, pretty well! It's nicer than Essington, where we lived before."
"Do you like the Grammar School?"
"Fairly. The chaps are rather a rotten set, and the Head's unspeakable."
Chatting thus, Gwen found the four miles to North Ditton wonderfully short ones, but when she had said goodbye to her new friend, and was trudging along the road to Skelwick by herself, she had time for many unpleasant reflections. At one blow this afternoon, she had sacrificed not only all the money in her savings box, but had got into debt as well—a debt whichshe had no present prospect of paying. It was most aggravating to have to empty her private bank; the contents were the accumulation of several little gifts that had been sent by her uncles and aunts on her last birthday, and even so far back as last Christmas. How would she explain, if Beatrice asked what had become of her money? She groaned as she splashed, recklessly through the puddles left by the morning's rain. She could foresee many difficulties ahead, especially at Christmas time.
The family had finished tea when she reached home, and Beatrice, grown uneasy at her absence, greeted her with upbraidings.
"Where have you been, Gwen? Why didn't you come with the others? Winnie nearly lost the bus with going back to look for you. You know quite well you mustn't stay behind like this. Answer me at once! Where were you?"
"I went along the promenade with Netta Goodwin, then I missed the 5.30 and had to walk all the way home. That's where I've been, and you may scold as much as you like—I don't care."
"Oh, Gwen!" exclaimed Winnie.
"I don't. I'm not going to be ordered about by Beatrice, and treated as if I were a baby. I'm surely old enough to manage my own affairs!"
Gwen was tired out with her six-mile tramp, and hungry, and very miserable, or I think she would not have talked in so lawless and foolish a strain.
Beatrice gazed at her in amazement. Gwen had often been naughty, but had never before ventured thus to wave the flag of defiance.
"I shall have to get Father to speak to you," she replied gravely. "He's gone over to Hethersedge to take the temperance meeting. He started at five o'clock. You'd better have tea now. Nellie has made you some more, in the little blue pot, and we kept you a potato cake, though you don't deserve it. Father will be very astonished and sorry when I tell him what you've said."
Gwen ate her meal with a big lump in her throat. She had not meant to rebel openly, but she had lost her temper, and the words had flashed out. Beatrice's threat alarmed her. Through all the tangled skein of Gwen's character there ran, like a thread of pure gold, the intense passionate love for her father, and the desire to preserve his good opinion. She could not bear to see the grieved look that came into his eyes when he was forced to reprove her. What indeed would he think of her when he heard Beatrice's account? She pushed the potato cake away, feeling as if she could not swallow a morsel.
Beatrice was putting Martin to bed. Better follow her now, and try to patch up peace. She ran upstairs and met her sister coming out of the little fellow's bedroom, candle in hand.
"Bee! I'm awfully sorry for what I said just now! I didn't really mean it I can't think what possessed me!" gulped Gwen.
"I try to do my best for you all. It's hard work sometimes to be eldest," said Beatrice, and there was a quiver in her voice too. "If only Mother were here."
"Don't!" said Gwen huskily. "I miss her so dreadfully still. Oh, Bee! If only you wouldn't tell Father about this!"
"If I don't, will you promise faithfully always to come straight home from school with Winnie and Lesbia, and never go anywhere without asking?"
"On my honour!"
"Then I won't trouble him. He's enough worries, poor darling, without adding any more to them! I only wish I could save him some of those he already has!"
Early next morning, long before Lesbia was awake, Gwen got up very quietly, and unlocked her savings box. It seemed dreadfully hard to have to take her treasured fifteen shillings; pocket money was such a scarce article at the Parsonage that she did not know when she would have the chance of accumulating so much again. There were only two threepenny bits and a penny left to rattle when she shook the box, so she sighed ruefully as she locked it, and put it back in its place on the top shelf of the bookcase. She hoped Netta would not forget to bring the half-sovereign she had promised to lend, though how the loan was ever to be repaid she could not imagine. For to-day it seemed enough if she had avoided Miss Roscoe's anger, and spared casting an added worry on Father's already overburdened shoulders.
Netta was faithful to her word; she came to school with both the ten-shilling piece and the half-crown which was to be her share of the "hush money" for Emma. The two girls held a long whispered conference together during the interval.
"I can't possibly go and pay Parker's myself," saidGwen. "You've no idea what a row I got into last night for missing the bus. Winnie'll keep an eye on me to-day at four o'clock, I can assure you. Could you go?"
"Very sorry, but I've got to go straight home too. Some cousins are coming to tea, and I have to ask Miss Evans to let me out of the drawing class ten minutes earlier. Why not get Emma to go? We shall have to see her to give her her tip."
"A good idea," said Gwen. "Emma understands all about it."
They found the housemaid when she was helping to lay the tables for dinner, and managed to draw her aside for a private talk.
"Did the fresh china come last night?" they asked eagerly.
"Oh, yes! it came all right, and Miss Roscoe never said a word, so you may think yourselves lucky," replied Emma.
"Here's the little present we promised you," said Netta, slipping the five shillings into her hand.
"I hardly like taking it!" protested Emma, though she popped it hastily into her pocket all the same.
"Could you do something more for us?" begged Gwen. "Will you call at Parker's and pay for the broken china? Here's the money—it's one pound two and six. Neither Netta nor I can possibly go."
"Oh, yes, I don't mind doing that!" returned Emma. "It's my night out this evening, and I shall be down High Street, so I can easily call at Parker's on my road. They don't close till eight o'clock."
"And you promise you'll never breathe a single word to anybody about this?"
"Not likely!" declared Emma, as she turned away to finish laying her table.
"Well, I'm thankful that's done with," thought Gwen. "It might have been an awkward affair, and I've come out of it uncommonly well. I feel as if I'd laid a ghost, and popped a stone on its grave."
It was all very well for Gwen to congratulate herself, but she quite forgot that ghosts have an awkward habit sometimes of disregarding tombstones, and rising from their graves to haunt those who have interred them. The matter of the broken china was not to be so easily disposed of as she had imagined, and though for the present her secret seemed safe, there was trouble ahead for her in plenty.
The direct result of Gwen's transaction about the china was to fling her into the arms of Netta Goodwin. With such a secret between them it was impossible not to be friendly, and though Netta was hardly an ideal chum, there seemed no choice in the matter. Moreover, she was the only one in the Fifth who had offered advances; the other girls, still indignant at the promotion of a Junior, turned the cold shoulder. This unfortunate intimacy caused Gwen to be banned the more.
"I see Gwen Gascoyne has taken up with Netta Goodwin," said Hilda Browne.
"Then that stamps her," replied Edith Arnold. "I wouldn't touch Netta with a pair of tongs myself. I thought better of the Gascoynes!"
Netta was a type of girl that can be found in every school and almost every Form. Rather deficient in moral fibre, and badly trained at home, her influence was always on the wrong side. She was clever enough, as a rule, just to avoid getting into open trouble with the authorities, but under the surface she was a source of disturbance. She had a certain following of gigglers and slackers, who thoughther escapades funny, and were ready to act chorus to her lead, and though she had never done anything specially outrageous, her reputation at headquarters was not good. Every teacher realized only too plainly that Netta was the firebrand of the Form, and that while she might preserve a smug exterior it was really she who was responsible for any outbreaks of lawlessness among the others.
As Junior Mistress of the Fifth no one had more reason to be aware of this than Winnie Gascoyne. Teaching was uphill work to Winnie. She had not Beatrice's commanding disposition and capacity for administration, consequently it was the more difficult for her to keep order and enforce rules. She did her conscientious best, but girls easily find out a governess's weak point, and at present Netta was trying how far she could go. "Ragging Miss Gascoyne" was a favourite pastime of hers, and one which afforded much sport to her applauders, if not to the victim of her jokes.
A few mornings after Gwen's introduction to the Fifth there was a class for memory map drawing with the assistant teacher. Each girl was supposed to come prepared to make a map of India, and to mark in a large number of places, a fairly difficult task, and one over which many of them grumbled in unison.
"It's not fair! It takes such heaps of time to go over it at home, one hasn't a second for anything else!" wailed Minna Jennings.
"I'd a raging headache last night, and my mother said she thought Rodenhurst was getting too much for me," bleated Millicent Cooper.
"Poor frail flower! You look as if you'd wither at a breath! Better pack you off to a sanatorium!" laughed Netta.
"And you to a lunatic asylum, you mad thing! Don't you ever get headaches with all this over-swatting?"
"No, my child, for I know a dodge or two! N. G. is no infant in arms, I assure you."
"Deign to explain, O commander of the faithful!" begged Annie Edwards.
"Well, as I told you, I'm up to a thing or two, and I flatter myself I know just exactly how to tackle Grinnie."
"Who's Grinnie?" asked Gwen rather sharply.
The others roared.
"My sweet babe, my dear ex-Junior, let us initiate you into the shibboleths of the Fifth! Yes, Seniors indulge in their little nicknames as well as the Lower School, though perhaps we are rather more cultured in our choice of them. Be it known to you then that our respected Head, vulgarly called The Bogey by ill-trained Juniors, is among our elect set yclept Lemonade, partly owing to her habit of fizzing over, and partly to a certain acid quality in her temper, otherwise hard to define. Miss Douglas, our honoured Form mistress, being a canny Scot, goes by the familiar appellation of Thistles, intended also to subtly convey our appreciation—or shall I say depreciation?—of her prickly habit."
"And Grinnie?" continued Gwen.
"Your sister, by her perpetual smile, courted the title."
"It's no good exploding, Gwen!" said Annie Edwards. "If you've got a sister who's a teacher you'll just have to hear her called nicknames. You don't suppose we're going to shut up on your account?"
"And you needn't go sneaking, either, or it'll be the worse for you," added Minna Jennings.
"We'd soon know who'd told tales," snapped Millicent Cooper.
"Peace, turbulent herd!" said Netta, holding up her hand. "Our friend Gwen, being of a sensible disposition, and a lover, like ourselves, of all wholesome jests, fully realizes the exigencies of her peculiar situation. Though in the seclusion of her home she may be bound by many natural ties, family obligations cease entirely in the classroom. If her sister is a mistress, she is a pupil, and therefore bound to side with her Form through all those trials of tact known as 'thick and thin'. Have I not put the thing in a nutshell, O Gwendolen mine?"
Gwen could not help laughing, for there was undoubted truth in Netta's argument. Winnie would, she knew, treat her with the utmost impartiality, probably even more strictly, owing to their relationship. It would certainly never do if she were to be regarded as a sneak in the Form, ready to report misdoings and make mischief; such a character would be intolerable to her. Winnie must fight her own battles, and she would throw in her luck with her peers.
"You needn't be afraid of me!" she protested. "I'd be the very last to blab; and I like fun as well as anybody."
"I knew it, oh, altogether-wise-in-judgment! Have I not proved thee?" returned Netta, with a meaning look in her eyes which only Gwen understood. "Now, having established thy reputation, I will return to my original thingumgigs."
"Oh, Netta, stop being a lunatic, and tell us how you mean to tackle Grinnie!" interposed Minna.
"Well, my little dears, it's extremely simple, but a work of genius all the same. Genius always is simple, I believe! Behold my mapping book with its virgin page. Behold also this spotless piece of blotting paper. I turn it over, and hey, presto! a transformation. Here's my map, nicely done in pencil, with all the names marked. Nothing to do but copy it, you see. At the least approach of danger I turn it with its most innocent side up."
The girls sniggered their admiration. Gwen could not approve, but she did not protest. It was not her business to preach, so she told herself. As long as she did her own work honestly, she could not begin her career in the Fifth by assuming the very character she had just denied. Minna and Annie, inspired by Netta's brilliant idea, were copying the map on to pieces of blotting paper as fast as they could.
"It wouldn't be a bad plan to trace it the wrong way, and then rub it off like a transfer," suggested Millicent.
"Just a little too clever, most astute one! Grinnie comes round to look, and she'd think you'd got on too quickly, and want to know the reason why. You're bright, Millicent Cooper, but you're not far-seeing."
"You'll get caught yourself some time," said Millicent.
"True, O Queen! But I'll have somewhat in the shape of a run first," laughed Netta.
Gwen felt rather indignant as she began her map drawing. She hated cheating, and it seemed very unjust that Netta and the others should win credit for what was not fairly their own work.
"Winnie's not half sharp enough," she thought. "If it were Beatrice, now, there isn't a girl in the room would dare to try any tricks."
Possibly even Winnie had her suspicions. She kept a watchful eye on the Form, and made an occasional tour round the desks. Netta was extremely cautious, but all the same her attention to her blotting paper was rather conspicuous.
"Netta Goodwin, hand me your mapping book!"
Netta started in some confusion at the abrupt order, and dropped both mapbook and blotting paper on to the floor. Gwen, equally startled, moved her hand hastily and sent her book spinning after the other. It was a complete accident, but one by which Netta did not hesitate to profit. Under the shelter of the desk she rapidly substituted Gwen's piece of blotting paper for her own, then passed up the book with an air of sangfroid truly heroic in the eyes of Annie, Minna, and Millicent. Miss Gascoyne examined the pages carefully, but finding nothing incriminating, supposed she had been mistaken. Netta might be the chief sinner of the Form, certainly, but she was not invariably at fault.
"She thought I was as innocent as Mary's littlelamb!" laughed that damsel afterwards. "You were a trump, Gwen, to help me. It was a smart notion of yours to drop your book too. You did it so promptly!" Then putting her arm round Gwen's neck she whispered: "I helped you when you were in a tight hole, and I'm glad to see you're going to stand by me. I shall always count upon you in future."
So thus it happened that almost in spite of herself Gwen became Netta's ally, pledged to support her on all occasions. She was afraid to risk a quarrel lest Netta should press for the return of the ten shillings she had lent. The debt felt a millstone round her neck, from which there was no immediate chance of relief. Netta's particular clique of friends, proving Gwen safe, included her in their special set, a compromising arrangement which seemed nevertheless inevitable. The girls did not really mean much harm, but they were silly and flippant, and enjoyed evading rules simply for the fun of the thing. Netta loved to show off before the others, and because she found Miss Gascoyne an easier victim than Miss Douglas, she kept most of her sallies for the junior teacher. She could estimate to a nicety the fine distinction between giving trouble and open defiance. She never actually overstepped the line, but she contrived to make matters very unpleasant for poor Winnie. It was her boast that she could always raise a spark out of Miss Gascoyne, and her admirers were ready to titter in sympathy.
Winnie, mindful of her position as teacher, never mentioned school affairs to Gwen; but one day Beatrice tackled the latter on the subject.
"I hear you've struck up a friendship with Netta Goodwin," she began. "I'm very surprised, for she doesn't seem a nice sort of girl."
"She's the only one who's been kind to me," returned Gwen, up in arms at once at Beatrice's tone.
"Indeed! Well, I wouldn't be too much with her if I were you. I'm afraid she's anything but desirable."
"Who said I was much with her? Has Winnie been telling tales about me?"
"Don't be nasty, Gwen. You know Winnie never tells."
"There's no particular harm in Netta," protested Gwen, taking up the cudgels for her schoolmate out of sheer contrariness. "She's only rather lively and funny. I suppose that's no great crime."
"Are you sure Father would like her?"
"Dad doesn't know her, so I can't pretend to say what he'd think of her," retorted Gwen, shuffling out of the matter with what she knew was a lame excuse.
Gwen had not been prepared to find the Fifth exactly a bed of roses, therefore she was hardly surprised at the thorns which beset her new path. In spite of the extra teaching from Miss Woodville, she found the work of the Form extremely difficult, especially in mathematics. There was a whole book of Euclid theorem which she had not been through, and the consequence was that every other problem had some little point proved by a theorem of which she had never heard. It was a most decided stumblingblock. It is possible to sit and look at a problem for hours without getting any further if there is just one statement of whose existence one is not aware. More than once Gwen had to hand in a blank page, and felt very humiliated at the meaning glances which passed between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold. Neither of these was yet reconciled to Gwen's presence in the Form. Rachel, mindful of her own delayed promotion to the Upper School, persisted in regarding her as an "intruding kid", and Edith could not forgive her intimacy with Netta Goodwin. Manifold small slights and snubs fell to Gwen's share, and though she affectedto make light of them, they hurt all the same. She knew that under happier auspices she might have been friendly with Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and several others of whom Father would have approved, and whom, with his entire sanction, she might have invited occasionally to the Parsonage. She was aware that she was in the worst set in the Form, and that not one of her new chums would pass muster if judged according to her home standards.
"I can't ever ask them, that's all," she declared. "Annie's giggles would give Beatrice a fit, Millicent puts on side horribly, Minna would probably make fun of everything, Claire Harris is absolutely vulgar, and as for Netta—no! Dad mustn't see Netta on any account."
Another not unexpected trouble had fallen to Gwen's share. As a member of the Upper Fourth she had, at the beginning of the term, been chosen Junior Basket-ball Captain, to arrange Lower School team games and matches, and she had worked very hard to get things going. On her promotion, however, it had been a greatly discussed point whether she should resign or finish the season. Some of the Upper Fourth, knowing how much was due to Gwen's exertions, had been anxious for her to retain her post, but on the whole the popular verdict was against her. To Gwen's disgust, her old friends, Eve Dawkins and Alma Richardson, were the loudest in her disfavour, and it was chiefly owing to their eloquence that she was requested to resign. She had been proud of her captaincy, and to give it up was a wrench. There seemed nothing at all in her new Form to compensatefor the loss, and sometimes she wished heartily that she had never been moved.
The present excitement in the Fifth was a "Literary and Dramatic Club", the members of which intended to act a piece at Christmas. It was a rather cliquish society, worked with more favour than fairness, and was principally among those girls whose homes lay near to the school.
"They stay behind at four o'clock to rehearse," explained Netta. "It's really only among about half a dozen."
"Are you in it?" queried Gwen.
"I, my dear child? Hardly! You don't imagine the high and mighty Iris Watson would ask yours truly? Saints and sinners don't mix in this Form, if you please!"
"Do you mean to tell me the whole thing is in the hands of Iris and a few others?"
"With your usual astuteness you've hit the nail on the head."
"But that's monstrously unfair!" exclaimed Gwen indignantly. "A Dramatic Club ought to be for the whole Form. Everybody ought to have an innings, in the name of common justice."
Netta shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't want to act with Iris and Edith and Louise, thank you! A pleasant performance it would be! They may keep their precious piece to themselves, so far as I'm concerned."
"But that's not the point," persisted Gwen. "It's the fairness of the thing I'm talking about. One set has no right to monopolize everything."
"It is sickening, certainly."
"It's worse than sickening, it's intolerable, and I'm going to make a stand against it."
"You can try if you like, but you needn't expect success."
When Gwen had a cause to champion, she was ready for a fight, even on the losing side. One of her characteristics was a strong sense of justice, and here, she considered, was a distinct case of oppression. She thought over her plan of campaign, and decided that she would ask to be admitted to the Dramatic Club. Next morning, accordingly, she approached the five or six girls who constituted that society.
"Want to join our Dramatic Club!" exclaimed Louise Mawson almost incredulously. "I dare say you do!"
"But you won't!" said Hilda Browne quickly.
"Cheek!" ejaculated Rachel Hunter.
"Why shouldn't I join?"
"On the other hand, why should you?"
"Because a society ought to be open to the whole Form, and not just kept amongst a few. We didn't manage things like that in the Upper Fourth."
"How very kind of you, fresh from the Juniors, to come and give us Seniors a lesson in managing our affairs! Perhaps you'd like to be President? Would that content you?" enquired Hilda Browne sarcastically.
"I don't want to be President, but I claim the right to have some say in the matter. The thing ought to be properly constituted, and every girl in the Form ought to vote for officers."
"Well, of all cool proposals!"
"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you need suppressing!"
"She's not worth noticing!"
It was only what Gwen had expected, but she felt she had at any rate opened fire. She did not mean to retire vanquished after a first attempt. She now directed her energies to another quarter. She canvassed the entire Form, asking each girl separately if she did not consider the Dramatic Club ought to be put upon a general basis. Everybody, except those who were already members, agreed. Many had thought the present arrangement unfair, and had grumbled loudly, though nobody had had the initiative to start a revolt. Now Joan Masters and Elspeth Frazer took the matter in hand seriously, tackled the clique, and argued the question.
"You may run a private club if you like for your own amusement," said Elspeth, "but if you're going to call it 'The Fifth Form Dramatic', and give a performance before the other Forms at Christmas, then it must be a fair and open thing. Everyone must be eligible for membership, and officers should be chosen by ballot."
"Half of you wouldn't be able to join," declared Hilda Browne.
"That's our own lookout. The point is that we ought to be able to do so if we want. If you persist in keeping it all to yourselves, you may act without an audience, for none of us will come to see you, and we'll tell the other Forms what the quarrel is."
"I know they'd back us up," said Joan Masters.
Very unwillingly the clique gave way. They knew they had no just ground for their position, but they had hoped it would not be called in question.
"It's all the fault of Gwen Gascoyne, with her Lower School notions," said Rachel Hunter.
"She needn't think she's going to act!" asserted Edith Arnold.
"Don't want to!" rapped out Gwen, who happened to overhear. "I should miss the bus if I stayed behind after four. I only wanted to see things made fair and square."
Though the new arrangements were really owing to Gwen's enterprise, nobody was willing to accord her any thanks. Joan Masters and Elspeth Frazer received all the credit for having righted the wrong; and though a few might remember that Gwen had started the movement, they were almost ready to agree with Rachel Hunter that it was rather pushing of an ex-Junior to have taken so much upon herself. They had not yet forgiven her translation to the Fifth, and only the utmost humility on her part would have reconciled them. Humility was certainly not Gwen's characteristic, so she still went by the epithet of "that cheeky kid" in the Form.
"So much for their gratitude," confided Gwen to Lesbia. "I don't want to act, but some of those who have got into the play might at least acknowledge what I've done for them."
"They seem a hateful set!" sympathized Lesbia.
"Detestable!" said Gwen with unction.
One thing had not been settled by the Dramatic Society, and that was their choice of a President.Names were canvassed freely in the Form, and finally Hilda Browne and Elspeth Frazer were put up as candidates. Voting was to be by ballot during the interval, but while the papers were being given out Gwen bolted. She was feeling cross and forlorn, and sick of the whole affair.
"I don't mind who's chosen President," she thought "It makes no difference to me. They may elect whom they like."
So she went a solitary little walk round the playground, whistling a tune, and trying to look as if she didn't care about anything. She had not been there very long before she saw Betty Brierley and Ida Young signalling to her from the gymnasium door. She took no notice of their beckonings, whereupon they ran after her, and seizing her one by each arm, began to drag her towards the house.
"You're wanted most particularly, Gwen Gascoyne!" said Betty excitedly.
"We've been sent to fetch you quick!" chimed in Ida.
"Hello! Hands off!" cried Gwen, dragging herself from their grasp. "What do you want with me, I should like to know?"
"It's the others who want you."
"What for? Didn't know I was so popular!"
"You've not voted for a President yet."
"No, and I don't mean to, either."
"But, Gwen, you must! We've taken the ballot, and the votes are exactly even. You've got the casting vote!"
"Have I, indeed? No, thank you! It's rather too great an honour!"
"But look here, Gwen, it's the only way to decide it. We've got to choose either Elspeth or Hilda."
"Then you may fight it out amongst you. You don't suppose, when you've all voted by ballot, that I'm going to take the responsibility of a casting vote. It's a most unfair proposal. Why, the rejected candidate and all on her side would never forgive me!"
"We might have the ballot again," suggested Betty. "Then you need only put your cross."
"As if everybody wouldn't know who was responsible for the extra cross! I might as well write Gwen Gascoyne on my paper at once! It's no use pulling my arm; I'm not coming in to be made a cat's paw. You may go and tell the others so if you like."
Betty and Ida departed, grumbling loudly at Gwen's "unaccommodatingness", as they called it, and Gwen stayed in the playground until the bell rang, fuming with indignation. Every fresh little episode seemed to serve to make her more of an alien in the Form than ever. But here her decision was absolutely justifiable; not one of the girls would have cared to accept the unenviable role which they had wished to thrust upon her. Perhaps for that very reason they were all the more annoyed at her action. She was received with black looks when she re-entered the classroom. Elspeth Frazer whispered something to a friend, and turned away. Gwen could not quite hear, but it sounded painfully like "beast!"
"Have they settled it?" she asked Netta.
"Yes; Elspeth and Hilda drew lots, and Hilda won. I'm fearfully sorry she did. Elspeth says it'sall your fault, and that you ought to have voted for her when you'd made such a fuss about the clique."
"Would you have given a casting vote yourself?"
"Well, no; but if you'd only stayed and voted by ballot like everyone else, then nobody would have known who'd given the odd one. It was most stupid of you to rush away. You're rather an idiot, Gwen Gascoyne!"
"'Et tu, Brute!Then fall, Cæsar!' I'm like the old man and his ass in Æsop; I seem to end by pleasing nobody."
"Do you wish to compare yourself with the old man or the quadruped, my child? The latter's the more apt, certainly!"
"Oh, good night!" said Gwen, who was getting the worst of it "I wish sometimes I'd never come into your wretched Form."
"You'd be far more at home among the Juniors!" snapped Netta, rather out of temper.
A few days after this was the Rodenhurst Annual Distribution of Prizes. It was always held in the beginning of November, rather an unusual date, to be sure, but Miss Roscoe found it convenient in many ways to have it in the middle of the autumn term. It gave plenty of time to receive examiners' reports, and to chronicle successes in the July examinations, but on the other hand it did not interfere with Christmas celebrations.
The function took place in the Town Hall at Stedburgh, and there was invariably a large gathering of parents and friends. To the whole school it seemed an important occasion, and both Gwen and Lesbiawere full of excitement when the afternoon arrived.
"Not that I need alarm myself that I shall be called upon to walk up and receive a prize!" said Lesbia. "Never got one in my life, and never shall!"
"You might get the Sewing or the Holiday Competitions," said Gwen, trying to be encouraging.
"No fear! One genius is enough in a family! I'll go prepared to clap you!"
All the girls wore white dresses and blue hair ribbons, and made quite an imposing array as they sat in the central aisle of the large room at the Town Hall.
"There seem to be far more of us when we're in white!" said Gwen. "We don't look half so many in the lecture hall at school. Have a few little angels crept in unawares?"
"You're not one of them, at any rate," laughed Netta, who was sitting next to her.
To Gwen the great feature of the occasion was that Father was seated on the platform, in company with several other clergymen and the Mayor, who was to distribute the prizes. Beatrice was amongst the audience, and had brought Martin with her, and Giles and Basil had come with the Boys' contingent. All her family were present, and if she were to get a prize, how pleased they would be!
The proceedings began with the usual speeches from the chairman and others. Gwen had heard these every year, and they were always pretty much on the same theme. It is hard to be original at prize-givings, and the gentlemen who had been asked to "say a few words" might be forgiven if their remarks were somewhat hackneyed. Miss Roscoe read the examiners' report on the school, and the successes in the Matriculation and the Senior and Junior Oxfords. These the girls knew already, so, though they clapped heartily, it did not cause much excitement. Everyone was waiting in suspense for the prize list.
Miss Roscoe always began with the lowest Form, so the first to walk up to the platform was a small kindergarten child, who had won honours for "general improvement". Neither Giles nor Basil had any luck; they were too erratic to be serious students, but when it came to the turn of the Middle Second, Lesbia Gascoyne was awarded the prize for plain sewing. A perfect storm of clapping greeted pretty Lesbia as she returned down the hall to her place. She was a tremendous favourite at Rodenhurst, and Seniors and Juniors alike applauded. It was the first time she had ever distinguished herself in any way, and though it was only for plain sewing, the girls were ready to give her an ovation. At last the Upper Fourth was reached, and Gwen knew that as she had taken her exams with her old Form (the Middle Fourth it had been in July) her name would be still on that list.
"First prize for Mathematics, Gwen Gascoyne," read Miss Roscoe.
Gwen's heart thumped, for a moment she did not move, till Netta gave her an admonishing push, then she walked up the hall. The Mayor handed her a volume of Coleridge's poems, handsomely bound in calf, and emblazoned with the school arms; he smiled pleasantly as he did so, and added a word of compliment. Gwen murmured "Thank you", and turnedaway. Father was clapping his loudest on the platform, and there was a nervous little applause from the rest of the family and from Netta, but that was all. Not a single girl in either Gwen's old Form or her new one gave her the least sign of appreciation. The colour flamed into her face as she made her way back to her seat. It is hard at any time to be unpopular, but it is a cruel thing when the lack of favour is displayed before a public audience. Gwen stuck her nose in the air, and put on the most defiant, don't care expression she could assume, but she felt the slight deeply, especially when she heard the hearty reception given to Iris Watson, who had won the Languages medal.
"Never mind, childie!" said Mr. Gascoyne, when at "good night" time that evening, in the safe sanctuary of Father's study, she broke down, and burst out crying; "you did your best, and you deserved your prize. That's the main thing!"
"I shall hate the prize now!" sobbed Gwen. "I can't bear to look at it; it will always remind me of this horrid afternoon. Why should they have been so nasty to me? They clapped Lesbia!"
"Gwen, you're not jealous?" Father's voice was just a trifle anxious.
"No, no!" gulped Gwen emphatically. "Lesbia's a darling; I don't wonder people are fond of her. But oh, Dad, it is hard sometimes to be left out in the cold!"
"Very hard. Many older and wiser people than you have felt that. Yet to bear neglect well is one of the bravest things in life. Don't worry about notbeing appreciated; your own self-respect is worth more to you than the opinion of other people. If you're quite sure you're doing your duty, you can afford to ignore what the world thinks."
"I don't know why I should be so unpopular," sighed Gwen, squeezing Father's hand tightly, and rubbing her cheek against his coat sleeve, as if there were something comforting in the very feel of the cloth.
"You must live it down. It may take a long time, and a great deal of patience, but I'm sure you'll win, and the girls will be proud of you yet."
"Proud! They may get to tolerate me, but I don't believe I'll ever make them like me, Daddy!"
"Courage! We never know what we can do till we try. If you want to be liked, make yourself wanted. Good night, childie! Cheer up! The world's not such a bad place, after all."
"Not while you're in it!" said Gwen, kissing the dear, plain face that was so like her own.
Since the afternoon when Gwen had stopped behind in Stedburgh to arrange about the broken china, and had been obliged to walk home, she had seen nothing more of Dick Chambers. She looked out for him every morning on the bus, but he was not there, and she was just wondering what had become of him when he turned up in the most unexpected quarter. It was the Saturday morning after the prize-giving. Saturday was a whole holiday, and therefore a blissful day, every moment of which was appreciated. Gwen was returning about ten o'clock from an errand she had been sent to do in the village, and as she opened the Parsonage gate she saw in the middle of the front walk a boyish figure that looked familiar.
"Hello! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed.
"Come on business of a rather particular character," grinned Dick. "Didn't you know your Father's coaching me?"
"He never said so!"
"He is, though. I'm to come three days a week, from nine to ten, and I've just made a start this morning. I say, he's a ripping chap!"
"I agree with you there," remarked Gwen. "But why aren't you going to school?"
"Thereby hangs a tale! I happened to do an idiotic thing one afternoon—fainted in the lab, and had to be picked up in the midst of fragments of glass that I'd smashed to smithereens. Then Dad got some wretched specialist to come down and see me, and the fellow said I must stop school for this term at any rate."
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Do you feel ill?"
"No. I'm all right—but it's rather rotten, for I'm knocked off 'footer'."
"How sickening for you! I know how wild I should be if I mightn't play hockey. What may you do?"
"Only just loaf about—not even golf."
"May you go walks?"
"Oh, yes! but it's rather slow mooning about on the moors by oneself."
"Have you been to see Stack Head, where the sea-birds build? Or the chasms? Oh! you ought to go there! I'll show you the way if you like!"
"I wish you would!"
"There'd be heaps of time this morning—that's to say if I may go," added Gwen, suddenly recollecting that she had promised Beatrice on her honour not to go anywhere without leave. "Oh, here's Dad, so I can ask him."
"Yes, by all means take Dick to Stack Head, the walk will do him good," replied Mr. Gascoyne. "Be careful, and don't scramble about too much, that's all—those cliffs are dangerous, remember!"
"We'll go as cautiously as two pussy-cats," said Gwen.
"Hardly an apt simile!" laughed Mr. Gascoyne, pointing to Pluto, the black Persian, that was careering madly up a tree at the moment. "However, you're used to Skelwick rocks, and Dick will have to learn his footing. Only please don't learn it at the expense of your neck, Dick! We haven't gone far enough with the Latin prose yet!"
"You needn't be afraid for me, sir, though I came a cropper over old Cicero this morning," laughed Dick.
It was a beautiful, sunny day in early November; one of those late autumn days when a little crisp hoar frost lingers in the hollows, but in the full sunshine it is almost as warm as summer. Gwen fetched a favourite stick, her indispensable companion on the moors, and, discarding her jacket, set forth joyously for a five-mile tramp. She loved the great bare headland that rose behind the Parsonage; there was a sense of freedom in leaving the houses of the village, and seeing only sea and sky around, and feeling the short, fine grass under her feet. It was a stiff climb to the top of the plateau, but once up there was a tolerably flat walk of about a couple of miles to the jagged rocks that formed the end of the promontory.
"Isn't it glorious?" said Gwen, when, the scrambling part finished, they sat for a moment or two on a rock to take breath. Below lay the clear, grey, even, shimmering surface of the sea, a little hazy at the horizon, and changing to deepest green as it neared the cliffs, where the sea-birds wheeled round screaming in sheer joy of life. "Don't you feel as ifyou could take a jump from the edge and just go sailing down like a gull, and land gently on the water, and float off?"
"Better not try the experiment unless you provide yourself with a parachute! An aeroplane could make a good start up here. Do you ever get any guillemots' eggs? Or puffins'?"
"Not often; though sometimes the lighthouse men bring us a few. Are you collecting eggs?"
"Rather! I've got nearly five hundred. I could do with a razor-bill's or a puffin's."
"You'll have to wait till next summer. June and July are the best months. I can show you where the birds sit, though. They haven't proper nests, they just squat on the rocks, packed as close together as sardines. It's wonderful to see them. And the noise they make! No, it isn't here, it's over by the chasms; we shall get there soon."
Half an hour's brisk walking brought them to what must have seemed to the ancient inhabitants of these islands the end of the world. The headland descended in a sheer precipice into the water, while wicked-looking rocks showed a black point here and there among the surf as a warning to any vessel to give them a wide berth. The cliff was hardly less dangerous than the rocks below, for its surface was torn into great rugged chasms, each as deep as the sea level, though often only a few feet in breadth. These curious natural rents wound in tortuous course to the edge of the precipice, sometimes crossing one another, and thus leaving islands stranded between, or long promontories, from the ends of which there would beno escape except by a jump. Gwen and Dick picked their way carefully along. There was scarcely need for Mr. Gascoyne's warning; each felt the entire necessity for extreme caution. Peeping over the edges of the chasms they could see green ferns growing in splendid clumps in clefts of the rock, and farther down darkness or a glint of water.
"Ugh! It would be horrible to tumble there!" declared Gwen, shivering as she gazed into the dim depths. "You don't feel as if you'd ever come up again, do you? Why, what's that? Did you hear?"
"Nothing but the gulls."
"It's like someone shouting. There it is again—behind us."
"By Jove! it is someone calling. Has anybody slipped down one of these holes? We'd best go and see, but do be careful. Hello, there! We're coming!"
Walking, as Gwen had said, like cautious cats, they threaded their way along the narrow strips of land till they reached the particular chasm whence the shouts issued. Looking over, they could see on a ledge about six feet down a little corduroyed, blue-jerseyed figure, and a frightened, freckled face that peered upwards. Gwen recognized the urchin in a moment: it was Johnnie Cass, the scapegrace of a family of fisher folk who lived in the village, and the naughtiest boy in Winnie's Sunday School class. He was in no immediate danger, for the ledge was wide, but the wall of rock above him was too steep to admit of his climbing up.
"Johnnie, what are you doing down there?" she called.
"Oh! boo-hoo-hoo!" wailed the scared voice from below. "I were reachin' after a sea-gurt with a broke wing and down I cooms!"
"Serve you right, too! How do you intend getting back?"
"I don't know—I wish my mother was 'ere!" and again he broke into a howl of woe.
"I'm glad she's not—she'd make a worse noise than you, from my experience of her," murmured Gwen. "Look here!" she continued, turning to Dick, "I suppose we've got to fish this little wretch up somehow."
"If I reach down can you catch hold of my hand and let me pull you?" shouted Dick to the snivelling Johnnie.
"Nay! I durstn't stir an inch—oh! where's my mother?"
"He's lost his nerve—that's what's the damage. If I go down for him could you give me a haul back?"
Gwen shook her head.
"You're too heavy. Better do it the other way. I'll go down, hand up the kid, and then you shall pull me back. Nonsense! I'm not bothered with nerves. Shan't mind in the least!"
It seemed the more feasible plan, for the six feet of rock that sheered down to the ledge was so steep and smooth of surface as to render it impossible for anyone to climb it without assistance; and it would be comparatively easy for Dick to drag Gwen's lighter weight to the top, though a difficult matter for her to pull him. If her heart went into her mouth as she let herself over the edge, Gwen did not show it. Shewas not given to exhibiting the white feather, and both at school and at home kept up a well-deserved reputation for pluck. Five seconds landed her by Johnnie's side, and once there she tried not to look into the gulf below. After some amount of cajoling, she persuaded the young rascal to take his dirty little fists out of his eyes, and allow himself to be hoisted up within reach of Dick's firm grip; then a successful heave did the rest. Johnnie was soon in safety, but it was much harder work for Gwen to follow; there was nobody to boost her, and not an inch of ledge on the rock to make a foothold.
"It's good practice for Alpine climbing!" she gasped, as with dishevelled hair and grazed face she at last scrambled back. "I thought my arms were being dislocated."
Dick was rubbing his own arms ruefully, but he did not complain. He had turned very white. Perhaps the effort of pulling up two people had been rather too much for him. Gwen suddenly remembered with compunction that he was ill, and not even allowed the exertion of golf, much less "footer". She wished she had thought of it before and gone to the lighthouse for help.
"I'm an idiot," she told herself. "It was I who suggested he should do the hauling part. I hope he hasn't done himself any harm."
Meantime Johnnie Cass stood surveying Gwen with the grin of Puck.
"Yer face is bleedin', and yer hair's all over yer eyes. Aye, yer do look a sight!" he volunteered.
Gwen shook him! She really couldn't help it; itrelieved her feelings so very much. After all, it is rather nervy work to go down a chasm; and though she wouldn't own that she had minded in the least, her legs seemed weak and queer, and her hands were hot and trembling, and there was a funny buzzing sound in her head. She was rather ashamed of herself for losing her temper, however, and tried suddenly to be dignified.
"Johnnie Cass," she protested solemnly, "you ought to be grateful to me for saving your life instead of making impertinent remarks!"
Dick burst out laughing.
"Bravo!" he said. "Look here, you kid, if you don't want your head punched as well you'd best obliterate yourself."
Johnnie took the hint and fled away over the moor, bolting for home with all possible speed and lifting up his voice as he went in a melancholy howl. Dick and Gwen sat down on a rock to recover themselves.
"You've got some pluck—for a girl," said Dick, throwing a pebble into the chasm. "I didn't expect you'd really go down there and fetch him. Girls generally stand by and shriek."
"Not modern girls," affirmed Gwen. "They used to do the shrieking business in oldfashioned novels. It's gone out of fashion since hockey came in."
"I thought ladies were supposed to scream and wring their slim, fair hands!"
"Shows you haven't got any sisters! Do my hands look slim and fair?"
"Well, no, they're a good deal more like a boy's," admitted Dick.
"I often wish I were a boy," sighed Gwen regretfully.
"Don't! You're a jolly sight nicer as you are," returned Dick, getting up to go.
The pair did not reach the Parsonage until after one o'clock, and Beatrice and Mr. Gascoyne were beginning to wonder what had become of them.
"I hope Dick's none the worse," said Father rather anxiously when Gwen poured out the tale of their adventure. "I'm afraid it's been a tiring morning for him. He had better stop to lunch and have a good rest afterwards before he attempts to walk home. I'll go and telephone to his father from the post office and say we're keeping him. Perhaps Dr. Chambers will say he mustn't come here again if we let him do rash things!"
The family laughed at the humorous account of the rescue of Johnnie Cass which Dick and Gwen gave at the dinner table.
"You needn't have expected gratitude from that imp!" said Winnie, who had suffered many hard experiences in Sunday School. "Possibly his mother may thank you, but I doubt even that."
"All the same Gwen did her best, and that's a satisfaction," said Father. "Johnnie's a clever little lad in spite of his naughtiness, and may turn out better than we expect Some day he may even thank you for having saved his life. Gwen must keep her eye on him. He owes her so much it ought to make a bond between them."
"Well, I wish her joy of her protégé," said Winnie, with a dubious shake of her head.
After that Dick spent many Saturday mornings at the Parsonage. His father would not allow him to invite his own friends as they always proved rather too much for him, but the boy was lonely, and found the Gascoynes pleasant companions. Gwen especially, who was nearest his own age, became his particular chum, and the two carried out many experiments together in the way of photography, amateur bookbinding, and one or two other hobbies in which they were mutually interested. Dick's lessons with Mr. Gascoyne were over by ten o'clock, and he generally stayed an hour or two longer, adapting himself so well to the household that he soon seemed to be almost one of the family. Giles and Basil adored him, and haunted his footsteps as much as they were allowed, but their mischievous young fingers generally worked such havoc among slides and specimens that Gwen was often forced to turn them out and lock the door upon them.
"Monkeys from the zoo are tame and well-behaved compared with Stumps and Bazzie," she declared. "If one wants one's things ruined commend me to two small brothers!"
Gwen was delighted to have found so congenial a friend. Beatrice and Winnie, being both older, were naturally companions for one another and were inclined to treat her entirely as one of the younger ones, forgetting how fast she was growing up, and it was difficult to make childish little Lesbia interested in anything. Here at last was somebody who appreciated birds' eggs, and butterflies, and collections of shells, and pressed flowers; someone who did pen-and-ink drawings a great deal better than herself, and who knew exactly how to make lantern slides, and could even manage to mend the toy printing press that Giles had broken.
Dick was clever with his fingers, and as he was not allowed to read very much he spent long hours at home constructing wonderful boxes for birds' eggs, or stretchers for butterflies and moths, or preparing slides for the microscope.
"I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up," he confided to Gwen, "so microscopic work will be a help to me. Dad's teaching me a little scrap of dispensing now, just to amuse me."
"I hope he doesn't let you make up the bottles of medicine!" laughed Gwen. "I pity the patients."
"Rather not, but I see what goes in them. If you'll come over to the surgery some day I'll make you taste something for laughing!"
"We should be lost without Dick now," said Gwen one day at tea. "What shall we do when he goes back to school?"
"I'm afraid that won't be just yet," said Mr. Gascoyne. "He doesn't get strong as fast as his father hoped. He's a nice lad, not brilliant, but very painstaking over his work. It's quite a pleasure to teach him."
After her talk with Father on the evening of the prize-giving Gwen went back to school determined, if she could not feel cordial just at present towards her classmates, she would at least bury the hatchet and take no notice of the unkindness they had exhibited. It seemed much the most dignified course, for Gwen was far too proud to look injured, or to show even to Netta that she had felt hurt. Perhaps the girls were a little ashamed of themselves. Iris Watson and one or two others spoke to her with quite an approach to friendliness, and Elspeth Frazer asked her opinion about the costumes for the play. Gwen was not taking a part, so she was rather a free lance in that respect, and her advice was likely to be disinterested. Each Form got up its own particular act with a secrecy worthy of the Freemasons. It was a point of honour not to betray the least tiny hint of what was going to happen, in order that the performance should be a complete surprise to the rest of the school.
Now the Fifth had decided to give the trial scene from theMerchant of Venice—rather an ambitious and decidedly a hackneyed piece to select. The Dramatic Society was influenced in its choice, however, by several considerations; the Form was studyingThe Merchant, and had learnt the principal speeches for recitations, which would save a great deal of trouble to the performers in the matter of studying parts. Then Hilda Browne's father was a barrister and would lend his wig for the occasion, and Louise Mawson could bring a gown that would do excellently for Shylock's gaberdine, also two sets of tights and doublets and feathered caps, all of which were invaluable assets in the way of stage properties.
"We must manage the rest of the costumes as best we can," said Elspeth. "Charlotte Perry knows of a dressmaker who makes fancy dresses very cheaply. She does them for other schools. The chief question is the scheme of colour: Hilda wants us to copy exactly from some celebrated picture, and Louise says it doesn't matter as long as everything looks very bright and gay. Here's a book of costumes. Tell me what you think."
As Gwen turned over the pages of the little volume, with its illustrations of Bassanio, Jessica, &c., a horrible suspicion suddenly shot into her mind. Where had she seen that book before? And just lately too! Why, at home, of course! She had come into the sitting-room suddenly and found Winnie and Beatrice discussing it over the fire. Winnie had suppressed it instantly, but not before she had caught a glimpse both of the illustrations and the title. She remembered them perfectly. Now Winnie, as well as being Junior Mistress for the Fifth, was a member of a class for higher mathematics composed of a few Senior girls and taught by a professor who came weekly from theUniversity at Radchester. On the strength of this class she considered herself still one of the Sixth for special purposes, and licensed to take part in school performances. Was the Sixth going to act in theMerchant of Venice? It looked uncommonly like it. Why else should Winnie be studying that particular book of costumes?
Gwen was in a dilemma. She did not know what to do. Not only did the Rodenhurst code of honour regard Form secrets as being inviolable as those of the confessional, but further she had been continually warned by Father and Beatrice that, now Winnie was a mistress, she and Lesbia must be particularly careful never to repeat anything they heard at home which might be likely to compromise their sister at school. It was clearly impossible to betray the least hint of her suspicion, but on the other hand it would be an exceedingly stupiddénouementif both Forms were to act the same play. She decided to try finesse.
"Have you absolutely decided onThe Merchant?" she said. "Don't you think it's rather stale to choose our Form subject? It's been done before too."
"Not for three years," objected Elspeth. "That's quite time enough for most of the girls to have forgotten it. Besides, I know the speeches."
"You could learn some fresh ones."
"Oh, I dare say! It sounds easy enough when you haven't to do it yourself. One's homework is quite enough just now without learning pages of blank verse. Then there are the costumes."
"Wouldn't they come in forThe Rivals? You might do some scenes from that. We've never hadit at school before, and it's simply ripping. Or part ofShe Stoops to Conquerwould be gorgeously funny."
"You couldn't put Sir Anthony Absolute into Shylock's gaberdine, or Tony Lumpkin into a Venetian doublet and tights! And what about the wig? Hilda's had hard work to persuade her father to lend it, and she'd be fearfully offended if it wasn't used."
These arguments were so conclusive that Gwen sighed. Nevertheless she made a last appeal.
"Well, I think you're very silly to actThe Merchant," she said. "You might choose something far more original and interesting. It's an opportunity wasted—and, if you'll only believe me, I'm quite sure you'll be sorry for it."
"It's you that's silly, Gwen Gascoyne!" retorted the indignant Elspeth. "We've chosenThe Merchant, so why need you go trying to upset everything. I was asking you about the costumes, not the play."
"Like Gwen's cheek!" murmured Louise Mawson. "We don't want ex-Juniors interfering with our Dramatic!"
Gwen turned sharply away. It seemed most unfortunate that she always got across the rest of the Form. In this instance her motive was the purest, but as she could not explain, the girls naturally thought it was only her love of putting herself forward which caused her to suggest such a drastic measure as a change of programme.
"They never will understand me!" she thought bitterly. "Father said they would be proud of me yet, but oh, dear! the more I try to do, the more Iseem disliked. They'll be fearfully sold when it comes to the performance. I wonder if I ought to give them just a hint! It's really too idiotic to have twoMerchants. No, I won't! They'd probably only slang me for letting out Form secrets. I'm glad I'm not acting, at any rate. School's not exactly a terrestrial paradise at present. I wonder what other troubles are coming to me? I believe I'm one of those people who are born under an unlucky star!"
Gwen's words might almost have been prophetic, for the very next day something happened—something so unprecedented and overwhelming that she could never have anticipated it, even if she had been expecting general ill luck.
At the interval she received a summons to Miss Roscoe's study. She went at once, wondering why she had been sent for.
"Hope the Head's not going to put me into the Sixth!" she laughed to herself. "That would be rather too good a joke. I'm willing to be a prefect or even proctor if I'm asked!"
Gwen's reception at her last visit to the study had been so favourable, that this time she tapped lightly at the door, and entered confidently. One glance at Miss Roscoe's face, however, showed her that she was in dire disgrace. The Principal's rather handsome, heavy features seemed to cast themselves in a Roman mould when she was annoyed; her brows would knit, and her mouth assume a set, dogged expression of authority. All these storm signals being visible, Gwen quaked in her shoes. Miss Roscoe had anunopened envelope in her hand, and to this at once drew her pupil's attention.
"Gwen Gascoyne, a letter arrived this morning addressed to you at Rodenhurst. Now, it is one of our principal rules that no girls are allowed to have letters sent to them at the school. Tell your correspondent on no account to write to you here again. If I find anything further addressed to you, I shall enclose it in an envelope, and post it to your father. I will not have Rodenhurst made a vehicle for clandestine correspondence. You may go, but understand clearly this is never to happen again."
Gwen took the letter, and left the room in silence. She was too much astonished to defend herself. She could not imagine who had written to her and put the school address. As soon as she was in the corridor she tore open the envelope. It contained a bill from "Messrs. John Parker & Sons, Glass and China Merchants" for
"Replacing 10 articles in brokenTea Service ... £1 2 6"
And at the bottom was written in a business hand:—