"THINGS GO SO HARDLY WITH ME SOMEHOW, DAD.""THINGS GO SO HARDLY WITH ME SOMEHOW, DAD."
"Things always go so hardly with me, somehow, Dad! I don't know how it is. I generally seem unlucky, both at school and at home. I suppose it's partly me, but if things were easier, I'd be better. I should, really."
Father did not reply: he was busy addressing the motto-cards that he was sending to his parishioners for the New Year. He handed one to her silently.
And Gwen read:
"O do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the Grace of God."
"O do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the Grace of God."
—Phillips Brooks.
Gwen sat staring hard into the fire.
"I'll hang this up in my bedroom, Dad," she said presently.
"Do; you'll find it worth thinking about," replied Father, as he blotted the thirty-fourth envelope.
Gwen went back to school feeling rather tamed and sober. The bad cold and face-ache, subsequent on her adventure in the snow, had seriously interfered with her plans for the holidays, and she had not accomplished half she intended to do in the time. Dick Chambers had been laid up in bed with an attack of rheumatism, so she had scarcely seen anything of him, and altogether the much-longed-for month had held its disappointments. She returned to her desk in the Fifth almost glad to begin a fresh term, though she knew many difficulties awaited her. First and foremost was the horrible fact that she owed a whole sovereign to Netta Goodwin, and had absolutely no prospect of paying it. She tried to avoid any private conversation with her chum, but the ruse was not successful for long. Netta was a girl who was accustomed to get her own way, and she followed Gwen round the school until she caught her alone.
"I say, you old slacker, what about that sov.?" she began. "I suppose you got your Christmas presents all right?"
"Oh, yes, I got my presents!" said Gwen, trying topass things off airily. "Not quite what I expected, though."
"But you can pay me back?"
"I'm afraid I can't just yet."
Netta's rather pretty face changed its expression considerably.
"When can you, then?" she asked sharply. "I want to know."
"Could you wait a fortnight?"
"It's inconvenient, but I might."
Netta was still scowling. "Will you promise faithfully to bring it by the 1st of February?"
"I'll do my best," agreed Gwen, escaping from what was to both a very unpleasant interview.
She had mentioned a fortnight simply on the spur of the moment to put Netta off, but she knew that the 1st of February would bring no way out of her entanglement. It was something, however, to have even a respite of two weeks; it gave her time to think and to lay plans. She wondered what Netta would do if, as seemed most likely, the debt still remained owing. She did not suppose Netta would turn informer to Miss Roscoe, but she might very possibly mention the matter to Winnie, who would tell Beatrice, who would promptly tell Father.
"Only a fortnight!" groaned Gwen, feeling like a criminal in a condemned cell. "Unless 'something turns up', as Mr. Micawber says inDavid Copperfield. If I were the heroine of a novel, a forgotten uncle in America would suddenly die, and leave me a million just at the opportune moment. But I'm only a very unromantic, every-day kind of person, not theforget-me-not-eyed, spun-gold-haired, wild-rose-petal-complexioned, pearly-toothed sort of girl who gets fortunes; I'm solid fact, not fiction. Most things are nowadays, I suppose."
Certainly the Fifth Form did not offer scope for romance or sentiment. Its daily doings were most prosaic, a round in which Latin, mathematics, and chemistry were chiefly to the fore, and the only appeal to the imagination was the weekly lecture on English literature from the Principal. Gwen liked these; Miss Roscoe had the knack of making historical dry bones live, and encouraged the girls to read for themselves. All her lessons were interesting, but in this she was inspiring. She was accustomed to give themes for fortnightly exercises, and at the first lecture of this new term she announced as a special subject: "An Essay on any one of the Great Writers of the Victorian Era", promising a volume of Browning's poems as a prize.
"I had intended to offer it for Christmas," she said, "but I thought you were too busy preparing for examinations to be able to give time to such an essay. I hope you'll do justice to the subject now."
It was a large order, thought Gwen, when already their homework had about reached its outside limit. Miss Roscoe was quite unconscionable in her demands on their time and brains. She fixed the standard of the Form so high that only the very bright girls could possibly keep up to it. Many slacked off entirely, but Gwen could not, dared not slack. She knew Miss Roscoe was watching her work, and that very much depended upon her reports for the next year or two.Father had thrown out a few hints that had stirred her ambition and raised wild hopes for the future. She was aware that there were several good scholarships from Rodenhurst, and visions of College began to dawn on her horizon.
"'Gwen Gascoyne, B.A.', sounds no end. It would be worth the grind. I mayn't be the beauty of the family, but I believe I've got the best share of the brains. Beatrice would be proud of me if I took my degree. I must make something of this essay if I 'burn the midnight'. Miss Roscoe will expect me to turn up trumps. I'll toil like a navvy!"
So Gwen decided, and stuck to her resolution. She had an undoubted capacity for work, a power of application and of steady plodding that were of immense service, as well as more brilliant gifts. She attacked the question at once. The Victorian writers offered a fairly wide choice of subject. She hesitated at first between George Eliot and Dickens, and finally selected Thomas Carlyle. Something about the rugged old prophet attracted her, and she thought he would be a congenial theme for her pen. She spent every spare moment in reading his biographies or his works, till she felt she had him at her fingers' ends. Then, with a mass of notes as a foundation, she began her essay.
Most young writers undergo the same first agonies of composition: the vainly sought simile, the sentence that will not turn nicely, the tiresome word that crops up too often, yet for which there seems no adequate substitute; the sudden lack of ideas, or the non-ability to clothe those one has in suitable language.
Gwen wrote and burnt, and wrote and burnt again,till at last she managed something, not at all up to the ideal of her imagination, but the best her limited literary experience could produce. She refused to show it to anybody at home, and bore it off to school to read over and correct during the dinner hour. She was sitting at her desk, busy altering sentences and erasing words, when Netta came into the room.
"Hello, you old solitary hermit!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here, with your nose buried in an exercise book? There's no getting at you nowadays. You'll grow old before your time, Gwen, my child! Come out this instant, and play basket-ball."
"Can't, so that's flat," responded Gwen. "Netta, if you love me, if you've any humanity in you, leave me alone. Basket-ball's off till I've finished this."
"Well, you've got to tell me what you're doing, at any rate. Let me look! No, Miss Modesty, you're not going to hide your light under a bushel. I insist! Oho! What have we got here now?"
Netta dragged the book from Gwen's reluctant hands, and sitting on a neighbouring desk, began hastily to skim through the essay, giving grunts of approval as she read.
"First rate! I say, this is immense! Gwen, my hearty, I didn't think you'd got it in you!"
"Will it do?" demanded Gwen anxiously. She had sat on metaphorical pins to hear Netta's verdict.
"Do? I should rather think it would! If Lemonade doesn't mark it A1, First Prize, I shall say she doesn't know her business, that's all! You're pretty safe for that book of Browning, in my opinion."
"Wish it were cash instead! But I shan't get it inany case," sighed Gwen. "If I did, I'd trade it for anything I could."
"You mercenary wretch!"
"I'm so hard up. I'm no nearer paying what I owe you, Netta. I literally haven't a penny in my pocket I wish you'd take it in kind instead of money."
Netta sat silent, drumming with her fingers on the desk.
"I've a rather decent locket, if you'd care for that—" continued Gwen.
"Hush! Be quiet! You've given me an idea, Gwen Gascoyne."
"Or I've a really jolly writing case—almost new—"
"I don't want your lockets or your writing cases; I've heaps of my own. I know one thing I do want, though, and if you like to trade, you can."
"Done! Only name it, and it's yours with my blessing."
"Well, I want this essay—"
"My essay! What do you mean?"
Gwen snatched back her exercise book as a mother clutches her first-born.
"I mean what I say. If you like to hand over 'Thomas Carlyle' to me, I'll take it instead of the sov., and call us quits. It would be a new experience to win a prize. How amazed everyone would be!"
"You surely wouldn't pass it off as your own?"
"Why not?"
"Why, Netta! That would be rather strong, even for you!"
"I told you long ago I was no saint. Besides,what's the harm? It's a business arrangement. You offered to pay me in kind, and this happens to be the 'pound of flesh', I fancy. It's perfectly fair."
"Um! Don't quite see the fairness myself."
"But it is!" protested Netta rather huffily. "I believe lots of popular authors don't do all their own writing themselves. They engage secretaries to help them. I've even heard of clergymen buying their sermons."
"Oh, oh! Father doesn't!" Gwen's tone was warm.
"Well, I didn't say he did, but I believe it's done all the same. And if a vicar can read somebody else's sermon in the pulpit as if it were his own, I may hand in somebody else's essay.Quod est demonstrandum, my child."
"Can't see it!" grunted Gwen.
"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you've got to see it! I've been uncommonly patient with you, but I don't quite appreciate the joke of being done out of that sov. I must either have it or its equivalent. You can please yourself which."
Netta's eyes were flashing, and her mouth was twitching ominously. She was a jolly enough fair-weather comrade, but she could be uncommonly nasty if things went wrong.
"I suppose you don't consider it unfair to keep me waiting all this time?" she added scathingly.
Gwen kicked the desk and groaned.
"Well, it just amounts to this: if you don't choose to come to terms, I'll tell Lemonade. Yes, I will! I don't care a scrap if I went into her room as well asyou. You broke the china, and you'd get into the worst row. It wouldn't be pleasant for you. I think you'd better hand over Mr. Thomas Carlyle to me, my dear."
"And what am I to do, I should like to know?"
"Write another on a different author."
"There isn't time."
"Yes there is, heaps! I don't want it to be as good as this, naturally. Well, are you going to trade, or are you not? I can't wait here all day!"
For answer, Gwen held out the exercise book. She was in a desperately tight corner; everything seemed to have conspired against her. She knew Netta and her mad, reckless moods quite well enough to appreciate the fact that her threat to tell Miss Roscoe was no idle one. When her temper was roused, Netta was capable of anything.
"It's her fault more than mine if it's not fair. I really can't help it," thought Gwen, trying to find excuses for herself.
"Oh! Glad you've come to your senses at last!" sneered Netta, as she clutched the precious manuscript and stalked away, slamming the door behind her. There was no one else in the room, so Gwen laid her head down on the desk, and indulged in an altogether early Victorian exhibition of feeling. Her essay—her cherished essay, over which she had taken such superhuman pains, to be torn away from her like this! It was to have brought her such credit from Miss Roscoe, for even if it did not win the prize, it would surely be highly commended. And she had made herself a party to a fraud, for however muchshe might try to whitewash her act, she knew she had no right to allow Netta to use her work.
"Dad would despise me! Oh, what an abominable mix and muddle it all is! And I was going to start the New Year so straight!" wailed Gwen.
Netta in the meantime had put the essay away in her locker with the utmost satisfaction. She felt she had decidedly scored. Neither brilliant nor a hard worker, she had no opportunity of distinguishing herself in the Form under ordinary circumstances: here chance had flung into her hand the very thing she wanted. It would not take long to copy the sixteen pages of rather sprawling writing, then "Thomas Carlyle" would be her own.
"And a surprise for everyone!" she chuckled complacently. "Of course, it's rather dear—a whole pound! But—yes, most undoubtedly it's worth it!"
To Gwen, not the lightest part of the business was that she was faced with the horrible necessity of writing another essay. Only two days remained, so time pressed. It was impossible to look up any subject adequately, so she chose Dickens, as being an author whose books she knew fairly well, and by dint of much brain racking and real hard labour contrived to give some slight sketch of his life and an appreciation of his genius. She was painfully conscious, however, that the result was poor, the style slipshod, and the general composition lacking both in unity and finish. She pulled a long face as she signed her name to it.
"That isn't going to do much for you, Gwen Gascoyne," she said to herself. "It won't even get 'commended'. Bah! I'm sick of the whole thing!"
She felt more sick still on the day when Miss Roscoe returned the essays.
"I had hoped the average standard would be higher," commented the Principal. "Very few girls have treated the subject in any really critical spirit. There is only one paper worthy of notice—that on Thomas Carlyle by Netta Goodwin, and it is so excellent that it stands head and shoulders above all the others. I am very pleased, Netta, very pleased indeed, that you should have done so well. Your essay is carefully thought out and nicely expressed, and is evidently the result of much painstaking work. You thoroughly deserve the prize which I offered, and I have written your name in the book."
The Fifth Form gasped as Netta, with a smile of infinite triumph, marched jauntily up the room to receive her copy of Browning's Poems. Each girl looked at her neighbour in almost incredulous astonishment. Netta Goodwin, of all people in the world, to have won such praise!
Gwen drew her breath hard, and clenched her fists till her nails hurt her palms. At that moment, I am afraid, she hated Netta.
"Who was your author, Gwen? I chose Thackeray," said Louise Mawson afterwards.
"Dickens—and I only got 'fairly creditable'," responded Gwen. "It's just rotten!"
Which was a word utterly tabooed both at Rodenhurst and at home, but the sole one that seemed bad enough for the occasion.
"So I hear Netta Goodwin's was the prize essay," remarked Father that evening. "Well, we can't all of us win prizes, can we? It was a strange coincidence that she should have written on Thomas Carlyle too!"
"Most remarkably strange, and very unfortunate for me," admitted Gwen, drinking her cup of bitterness to the dregs.
To Gwen the spring term seemed to pass much more rapidly than the autumn one had done. She was growing used to the Fifth Form; and the work, though certainly not easy, was now, thanks to the extra coaching that she had received, well within her compass. She did not feel so terribly harassed over her preparation, and instead of, as formerly, spending the whole evening until bedtime at her books, she was able to spare a chance hour or two occasionally for other things. The change of thoughts and the extra interests did her good; she lost her worried expression, and though she still could not help wrinkling up her forehead when trying to answer a question, some of her other bad habits began to drop away. Beatrice had not to correct her nearly so often, consequently there was less fridging of tempers between the two sisters, and a great increase of calm in the home atmosphere. It was a matter of tacit understanding at the Parsonage that Gwen raised most of the household storms. Winnie and Lesbia had peace-loving dispositions, and jogged along very evenly; and the boys, though apt to be mischievous, were always good-humoured little fellows, not much givento quarrelling unless they were teased. At present such a blessed tranquillity reigned at the breakfast and tea-tables that Beatrice really began to hope that the family volcano was quieting down, and that her eruptions and explosions would be things of the past.
Perhaps it was partly the pleasant spring weather that had such a beneficial effect on Gwen's temper. She loved the early growing season of the year, when every day was a little longer and lighter than the last, and the bulbs were pushing up in the garden, and the hazel catkins showering clouds of pollen in the lane, and the rooks cawing and building in the clump of elms near the mill, and great flights of screaming white sea-gulls, noisy, chattering jackdaws, and cheery, whistling starlings flew all together in mixed flocks to feed on the wolds. The morning walk to North Ditton across the heath, so bleak and wretched in December, was a daily delight now the sun was glinting over the sea and the gorse was in bud, and the stonechats, which had vanished during the cold weather, were back among the boulders, darting from stone to stone in short, jerky flight, with that sharp, jarring cry which is the prelude to their sweeter spring note. The moorland air at 8 a.m. was so fresh and pure and exhilarating that it seemed to blow away all the cobwebs, and Gwen often felt inclined to dance along the path for sheer joy of the sun and the wind, and the birds and the countless green things that were rapidly showing their heads through the brown skeletons of last autumn's heather and bilberry. The thrill of springtime is a totally different sensation from what we experience on even the most gorgeousday in October; there is a message of hope in the air, a foretaste of the coming summer, a glow of reawakened vitality, an exaltation half physical and half spiritual, as every year nature tells us afresh in her own fashion the miracle of the Resurrection.
Life was a busy round at the Parsonage. Winnie devoted each moment she could spare to the garden and the hen-yard, and Gwen, who at present had a craving for out-of-doors, lent a hand as often as she could. She whistled and sang over her work as she transplanted forget-me-nots, sowed seeds, or tidied up the rockery, and her stalwart arms made the lawn mower fly.
"There's some advantage in growing!" she declared, as she trundled away the wheelbarrow full of weeds. "My muscles have hardened since last year. I'll wheel you back up the garden, Martin, if you like. Tumble in!"
Gwen and Winnie had a great scheme between them of building a summer house, and every Saturday they managed to get on a little with their operations. There was a large pile of young felled trees in the yard which Mr. Gascoyne had bought for firewood, and some of these were admirable for the purpose. With considerable toil they dragged out half a dozen, dug holes in the ground, and planted them as posts to make a framework. Smaller boughs were nailed across and across, and then bunches of heather were tucked and tied securely into all the interstices. The roof was at first a terrible problem, till Winnie conceived the brilliant idea of using an old worn-out gate that lay in the orchard. It was heavy to lift, but withthe aid of Father, Beatrice, and Nellie the maid, they managed to heave it up so that it rested securely upon the six posts. Then they thatched it neatly with heather and fir boughs.
"I don't suppose for a moment that it will be watertight," said Winnie; "but we shan't use it in wet weather. What I want is a nice shady place to sit in at the end of the tennis lawn. It will be perfectly lovely to have tea here. I believe I can make seats with some of those stumps."
"I'd back you to do anything in the joinering line," laughed Dick, who still came for lessons on Saturday mornings, and generally stayed to chat and help the gardeners, though he was yet debarred from any very violent exertions, greatly to his indignation. "You ought to be a Colonial. I believe you'd be equal to running up a shanty on your own and making the furniture out of old boxes."
"Perhaps I'll emigrate some day," nodded Winnie. "It would be more in my line than teaching. I'll leave University honours to Gwen, and try my luck in another hemisphere. Women are wanted in Canada if they're domesticated—and I flatter myself I'm that."
"Don't know that I won't join you when I've got my degree!" declared Gwen. "I've yearned to go to Canada ever since I saw those ripping pictures on the kinematograph—only Father'd have to promise to come and see me every fortnight."
"How particularly possible! Gwen, you're a rotter!" chirped Dick, throwing a piece of stick at her. "I thought your last idea was to study medicine and go to College with me."
"Perhaps I shan't be able to do either: scholarships don't grow on every bush like blackberries. Probably I'll just have to stay at home and 'wash dishes and feed the swine'. By the by, we haven't shown you our eleven little pigs! They're absolute darlings, as sweet as the Duchess's baby inAlice in Wonderland. Come along this instant, and I'll catch one for you to nurse. We've never had a pet pig before, but I declare I mean to tame one of these. They're the sharpest, cutest little scaramouches you ever saw: as funny as kittens, and twice as intelligent as puppies. Yes; I'm a pig enthusiast at present, and if you laugh I'll make you buy one for yourself!"
There was plenty of scope for Gwen's energy as spring came on and added hatch after hatch of fluffy chickens and downy ducklings to Winnie's hen-yard. She helped to arrange the coops, to make wired enclosures for the tiny chicks, and, hardest task of all, to collect the young pullets and cockerels that were allowed to roam on the common, and lock them up safely for the night.
"No one who hasn't tried henkeeping could possibly conceive the difficulty of getting in those wretched long-legged, half-fledged fowls," declared Gwen. "They know I'm going to shut them up, and they're so clever they come for the Indian corn when I call 'chuck, chuck', and eat it with one eye upon me. Then when I try to cajole them into the henhouse they fly all ways. Lesbia, you may come and act guard, but I won't have the boys; they only rush about and frighten the chickens. The last time I took Stumps the Buff Orpington with the black feather in its tailflew over the hedge into the turnip field. I didn't get him back till it was moonlight, then I caught him perching on a stump, and carried him round."
The particular pride of Winnie's heart was a clutch of little Partridge Wyandottes, mothered by a comfortable old Plymouth Rock hen. The setting of eggs had been given her by a farmer's wife in the neighbourhood; they were from a particularly good strain, and ten out of the dozen had hatched and thrived. She watched over them with more than ordinary zeal, leaving manifold instructions with Nellie for their diet during her absence at school, and visiting them the very first after her return each afternoon. On the evenings when she took the choir practice at church she entrusted them solely to Gwen's charge.
"Give them a last feed of 'Chikko', and see that they've got clean water, and don't let Jingles go near them, because the old hen gets excited, and stamps about and treads on them," urged Winnie one Wednesday as she started off with a roll of music in her hand. "Be sure you shut them up early, because Nellie says she saw a rat last night, and I noticed something had been burrowing near the shed."
Gwen promised complete accordance with all directions, and then went off to finish her Latin translation. It was a particularly stiff piece of Virgil, and she puzzled over it so long that she utterly forgot all about the chickens, and it was only the call of an owl waking up on the ivy-covered ash tree at the bottom of the garden that reminded her of her henwife's duties.
"Gracious! It's nearly dark!" she exclaimed, flinging down Virgil and making a rush for the hen-yard. "I hope to goodness those chicks are all right! What an idiot I am! Winnie will be ready to slay me if anything's happened to them."
It was growing very dusk indeed, and though none of the doors were yet shut, the feathered flock had all gone to roost. As Gwen crossed the hen-yard she suddenly saw something dark and shadowy creep from behind the shed and dart stealthily in the direction of the coops. It disappeared inside the very one where the cherished Partridge Wyandottes were cuddling under their foster-mother's wings. Gwen's heart almost stood still. She well knew the cunning and daring of rats, and how they would snatch the chicks or young ducklings from the wariest and most warlike hen. To leave this in the coop for even a minute while she went to call help would certainly result in the loss of one or more of Winnie's favourites.
Very cautiously she peered inside. The hen, who knew her well, clucked softly, and the chickens popped their little speckly heads out from the mass of encircling feathers and "peeped" gently. They were not yet aware of danger. Where was the rat? It appeared to have vanished into thin air. It certainly could not have left the coop. At the opposite end from where the hen was sitting there was a billet of wood, and on looking at this closely she saw a long tail dangling out underneath. Without doubt her enemy had taken refuge there and was hiding in the corner.
"These precious chicks have got to be saved somehow or Winnie'll never forgive me," muttered Gwen, clenching her teeth to brace her nerves.
Then she did a thing from which her whole spirit shrank. She took her handkerchief in her hand to give her a firmer grip and seized hold of the tail. She dragged the rat out of the coop and bore it off, hanging head downwards and whirling round and round in vain effort to escape, while it squeaked with wrath and indignation. Fortunately it could not raise its head sufficiently to bite her or she might have suffered a nasty wound. Gwen rushed towards the back door, shouting loudly for Nellie, but when that worthy domestic saw what she carried she uttered a yell of terror instead of offering help.
"Throw it down, Miss Gwen, it'll bite you!" she shrieked. "Oh! gracious goodness! throw it down!"
"Bring the poker! Where's Jingles?" screamed Gwen. Then, realizing that she could hold her wriggling burden no longer, she dropped the rat into the water-butt, and catching up the yard brush which lay handily near, held down the victim till it was drowned.
"Miss Gwen! How did you dare!" shivered Nellie.
"Ugh! It's a hateful, horrid, barbarous thing to have to do. I feel as if I'd committed a murder. It's made me quite sick," said Gwen. "Nellie, do go and shut up those chickens before any more rats get into the coop. I don't feel equal to catching another." Then she sat down on the pump-trough to recover.
"You're a heroine!" declared Winnie when she came back from the choir practice and viewed the interesting corpse. "I shouldn't have dared! No, nothingin this world would have induced me to seize the creature by its tail. It's a huge one too, with such wicked-looking teeth. What a wonder you weren't bitten! You shall have one of those Partridge Wyandottes for your very own. Choose whichever you like and I'll call it yours."
"I wish you'd help me to finish my Virgil," said Gwen. "I'm only halfway through and it's almost bedtime!"
"You're as good as a terrier, Gwen!" said Dick, when he heard the exciting story the next Saturday. "I wish you'd come ratting in our stable at home. I'd undertake to find you some sport."
"Don't be detestable! You talk as if I'd enjoyed it. I had to bury the thing afterwards, for Winnie wouldn't touch it. I made a mull of my Virgil in class next day, and I couldn't tell Miss Douglas the reason."
"You might have put the episode into Latin. It sounds quite Homeric. Did you keep the tail as a trophy? If we want to excite you we'll just say 'Rats'. Please let us know when you're on the warpath again and we'll come to see the fun;" and Dick dodged round an apple tree and fled.
"You've got to be here early next Saturday, mind, and help us to take things to the Agricultural Show!" Gwen shouted after him. "You may come to breakfast if you'll behave yourself."
"Right-o! I'll act beast of burden provided it's hens I'm to carry—not rats! Ta-ta!"
The Agricultural Show was the great event in the year at Skelwick. It was held in the big field besidethe mill, and all the villagers for miles round made holiday to attend it. For days beforehand men were busy putting up pens and erecting a tent where eggs and butter and dressed fowls could be exhibited, while a few travelling caravans arrived with shooting galleries or cheap bazaars and set up a kind of fair in an opposite field.
There were many classes for poultry, so Winnie decided to send some of her best cockerels, a selection of Buff Orpington chickens, and a pair of big white Aylesbury ducks. She and Gwen got up very early on the Saturday morning to take a final review of their exhibits. They were determined to give the ducks a washing in order that they might show them with their plumage in an absolutely spotless condition. Armed with a tin bath, a can of warm water, some soap and a sponge, they shut themselves in a disused pig sty and commenced operations. It is no easy task to wash a large, struggling, flapping, protesting duck, and though Gwen held their wings down while Winnie did the scrubbing, both girls were splashed all over and drenched with water before they had finished.
"But the Aylesburys look gorgeous," said Gwen, flinging her dishevelled hair from her hot face. "They're clean to the very tips of their beaks. The drake looks as if you'd curled his tail feather with the curling tongs. They're fearfully upset and angry, poor dears; they think they've been half killed. Winnie, how are we going to get them to the Show?"
"That's what's puzzling me. We don't possess a basket big enough for them. I believe we shall have to carry them."
"In our arms? Yes, that'll be by far the best way. They'd knock their feathers about in a hamper and get dirty again. They've had one breakfast already, but I think they deserve a little scrap of Indian corn as a reward for what they've gone through."
All exhibits had to be delivered at the Show field by nine o'clock, and precisely at half-past eight a procession set off from the Parsonage: Lesbia carefully carrying a dozen beautiful brown eggs in a basket, the three boys with small hampers of chickens, Dick holding a little wooden crate containing Black Minorca cockerels, and finally Winnie and Gwen, each clasping a huge white Aylesbury in her arms. Dick had offered gallantly to be duck bearer, but the girls preferred to transport their own pets.
"They know us so well, you see," said Gwen, "so they won't struggle like they would with a stranger. Besides, we know just the dodge of holding down their wings so that they can't flap."
They decided to take the short cut to the mill, through two meadows, across a small stream, and over a stile that led them direct into the Show ground. Gwen and Winnie got on very well with Dick and the boys to open gates: it was rather perilous work crossing the stream on a single plank, but they accomplished that in safety, and Winnie, with infinite caution, climbed over the stile into the mill meadow, still hugging her burden. Gwen essayed to follow with equal skill, but the stile was a very steep and awkward one, and she needed both hands to hold the drake. She was stepping carefully over the top bar when somehow her foot caught and she stumbled;she put out one hand to save herself, and the cunning drake, quick to seize his opportunity, wriggled himself free and made a dash for liberty.
Off he went over the Show ground, flapping and fluttering like a white whirlwind and quacking his loudest, and the Gascoyne family, popping down hampers and baskets, followed hard behind; Winnie, much encumbered by her duck, shouting frantic directions. It was Dick who caught the runaway, and pinioned him cleverly until Gwen secured him, then with much triumph they shut him up with his agitated mate in the wire pen marked "No. 207".
"I thought we'd lost him," panted Winnie. "Oh, dear! It's no joke bringing one's beasties to a show. I'm glad we decided not to exhibit the pigs! Martin, you're not to open that hamper. We shall be having the chickens escaping next! Stop him, Stumps! I feel like the 'Old Woman who lived in a Shoe'. Gwen, you take charge of the cockerels while I find where the Black Minorcas have to go to."
The public was not allowed in the field while the judging was in process; so until twelve o'clock the Gascoynes were obliged to wait with what patience they could muster. As soon as the gates were opened they trooped into the Show.
"Hurrah! First Prize for White Aylesburys!" exclaimed Winnie ecstatically, gazing with rapture at the large pink card that decorated No. 207 pen. "It was worth washing them. The darlings! How nice they look!"
"And the chickens have got a third!" yelled the boys, who had taken a hasty round of the exhibits.
"The eggs haven't won anything, but the cockerels have 'commended'. Mrs. Hodges' have got the first."
"We haven't done badly," said Winnie, "considering I can't devote all my time to it like the farmers' wives. Gwen, you've helped loyally, and I'm going to give you half a crown out of the prize money. I shall save the rest to buy some really good White Leghorns; Mrs. Hodges says they lay better than any others in the winter. Oh, here's Father! We must go and tell him of our success."
The very first thing which Gwen did, when Winnie had given her the promised half-crown out of the prize money, was to go straight to the post office and buy a postal order for that amount and a penny stamp. She possessed a few odd coppers, but otherwise no funds had come her way for a long time, and she had been growing very uneasy about the bill which she still owed to Parker's for the broken china. She now sent them the postal order, with a note saying that she hoped very soon to settle the remainder of the account, and begging them to wait a little longer. She also asked them to return her a receipt addressed "c/o Miss Netta Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh".
"I dare say Netta'll be angry, and call it cheek on my part, but I can't help it," thought Gwen. "I daren't get another letter sent to school after the rowing Miss Roscoe gave me, and if it comes home, Beatrice will want to know who's been writing to me. It's only fair that Netta should take a little of the bother on her own shoulders. She's certainly had the best of it in this affair. Oh, dear, I still owe Parker's ten shillings. I haven't the ghost of a notion how I'm to pay it!"
Gwen could not forgive Netta for appropriating her prize essay. She still felt indignant whenever she thought about it, especially as there was always an uneasy sensation of guilt on her own part. She knew it was not a straight transaction, and poor Gwen, with all her faults, loved straightness. For lack of other friendships at school she was forced into companionship with Netta, but she never whole-heartedly liked her. Lately, especially, Netta had taken a rather high-handed tone, and was apt to order her chum about in a manner that Gwen's independent spirit greatly resented. The friction between the two was sometimes hot, but neither cared to risk a quarrel, for each knew that the other, if turned into an enemy, might come out with some decidedly awkward revelations. So they went on in the old way, squabbling continually over trifles and making it up again, but on the whole ready to stand up for each other against the rest of the Form. Yes, alack!—the rest of the Form, for Gwen, in spite of her well-meant efforts, had not yet won popularity in the Fifth. She had tried to be genial and sociable, but nobody seemed to want her. If she joined in a conversation, Rachel Hunter or Edith Arnold would stare at her as if they thought it great impertinence on her part to intrude herself into their concerns. They never asked her opinion, or consulted her about anything, but simply ignored her, and left her to her own devices. Nearly all the girls lived in Stedburgh, and their talk was often of Stedburgh affairs, concerts, amateur dramatic performances, and entertainments in which Gwen, living far away at Skelwick, could have no possible part.Though she sometimes got in a word about school matters, her remarks were never well received, and she was always more or less conscious of being an alien and an outsider in her Form.
She tried to pretend that she did not care about the opinion of the others, but it was hard, all the same. Most of us like popularity, especially when we believe we have done nothing to deserve the reverse.
"If I'd been as pretty as Lesbia, they'd have made ever such a fuss over me," thought Gwen. "She's the pet of her form, and the darling of all the big girls. I'd have been a beauty if I could! They never even give me a chance to be nice to them—they just leave me alone. Yes, it's hard!"
But all the while, Father's New Year motto hung over the dressing table in her bedroom, and every morning she could not help looking at it. It seemed a stern gospel to pray for strength instead of ease, and yet it attracted her. After all, was it not a nobler conception of life to work away and not mind what people thought of you, than to be always caring whether you were popular? There was a certain joy in overcoming difficulties, and surmounting obstacles. She was already succeeding in mastering the lessons that had baffled her at first. Could she ever win a place for herself in the Form? It would undoubtedly seem almost a miracle if she did.
"I wonder if I should be happier at another school?" she sometimes thought. "Dad spoke once of the possibility of sending me to one of the Clergy Daughters' Schools; he said I might get a scholarship. But oh, dear! That would mean leaving home, and being aboarder! Suppose I didn't like it any better than Rodenhurst; then it would be perfectly awful to have to spend the whole term without once seeing Dad or any of the others. No, I won't suggest it. I'd better stick where I am, and peg along as best I can."
Gwen was a great home-bird. On the few occasions in her childhood, when she had paid visits at relations' houses, she had, after a few days, grown so intolerably homesick, and wept so hopelessly and inconsolably, that she had had to be packed back, rather in disgrace; and though she was now old enough to behave herself, she had not been asked again, nor was she very enthusiastic to receive invitations. She felt bashful, awkward, and badly dressed under the critical eyes of Aunt Violet or Aunt Christina, and much preferred the atmosphere of the Parsonage, and the society of her own family. To come back every evening from school, and spend Saturday and Sunday at home, seemed indispensable at present, though she supposed if she went to College later on, she would have to get used to being away.
Eastertide came, and brought welcome holidays. Gwen helped to deck the church with daffodils, and great boughs of pink almond blossom, and bunches of sweet-smelling wallflowers. She loved the Easter decorations far more than those at Christmas, and this time she had rather a free hand, for Beatrice was too busy to come, and Gwen was allowed to do the lectern and reading desk all by herself, while Winnie undertook the pulpit. She gave infinite pains to her work, and Father praised the result, which was a tremendous satisfaction. To do anything for Father was a joy.Gwen often wished she could play the organ like Winnie, but she was not clever at music. Beatrice had made a great effort to teach her the piano, with poor success, for she was not a docile or attentive pupil, and the lessons generally involved a wrangle between the two sisters, Beatrice losing her patience, and Gwen arguing hotly. Finally Father had put a stop to the lessons altogether, on the ground that it was sheer waste of time, and Gwen was better employed at something else. Lesbia, however, played rather nicely; she could manage the harmonium at the Sunday School, and was just beginning to practise the organ under Winnie's instructions. It was the one thing Lesbia did pretty well, for she did not distinguish herself at school. She was not a remarkably bright girl, and was very childish for her age. Though Gwen was fond of her younger sister, and petted her like everybody else, the two were not in any sense companions. Lesbia was far more on a level with the little boys, and generally amused herself with Giles or Basil; Gwen's schemes and projects were miles above her head.
The holidays, though very enjoyable, were quite uneventful. They slipped away much too swiftly, and the ordinary round of school and home work began again. It was the summer term, however, and to Gwen that meant a great deal. She took up tennis with hot enthusiasm, practising both at home and at school in any time she could spare. Her long arms and strong wrists stood her in good stead, and it began to be said in the Form that "Gwen Gascoyne's play was quite decent". She mowed and rolled thelittle lawn at the Parsonage vigorously, marked out the courts with a brush, and persuaded either Beatrice or Winnie to have a game every evening before bedtime, and Father whenever she could catch him.
"If only I'd a better racket!" she sighed one night, "it's impossible to do very much with a wretched old thing that's half sprung. You should have seen my serves when Netta lent me hers yesterday!"
"Why don't you buy a new one, then?" suggested Lesbia. "You're the Crœsus of the family. Your money box must be bursting, for you've been hoarding up for ages. How much have you got in it?"
"Ah! Wouldn't you like to know!" returned Gwen, suddenly desirous of changing the subject.
"You really might get a new racket, Gwen," agreed Winnie. "It's a good idea of Lesbia's. We'd all borrow it on occasion."
"Oh, I dare say! Very nice for you all, no doubt. Rackets are rather expensive little luxuries, my dear girl. Otherwise I'd be happy to accommodate you."
"You're a perfect old miser! What are you going to do with your wealth? Invest it in an annuity?"
"Probably speculate on the Stock Exchange, or take up Mexican mines!" declared Gwen, trying to turn things off with a laugh.
"Well, you're the only member of the family who keeps any money."
"A good example in thrift to the rest of you, then!"
Gwen did not dare to complain again about the poorness of her racket, though it was a serious handicap in her games at school, where most of the girlscame supplied with the very best. In spite of this impediment her play improved steadily, and she several times beat Louise Mawson, though she could not vanquish Hilda Brown or Charlotte Perry, the champions at present of the Form.
"I suppose you're going to take swimming, Gwen?" said Netta one day. "Miss Trent says we begin this afternoon."
"Haven't heard anything about it. Please condescend to enlighten my ignorance."
"Why, don't you know? We're going to the baths every Wednesday. It's clean-water day, and the whole school's to go in relays. They've a ripping teacher of swimming there now, a Miss Morris, who swam the Channel halfway, or did something else marvellous, I forget exactly what. Anyway, it's arranged we're to have a proper course of lessons. I expect every girl in the Form will join."
"It sounds—well, just idyllic!" said Gwen. "Whether I can take it or not is another question. I shall have to ask at home first."
"Oh, Mr. Gascoyne's sure to say 'yes'. Why shouldn't he? All girls ought to learn to swim."
It was impossible to explain to Netta that the fee for the course might prove an insurmountable barrier. Gwen was always too proud to plead poverty, and hid her father's narrow circumstances from her schoolmates as well as she could.
"You won't have time to ask before this afternoon," said Netta. "I advise you to go to the baths, though. I believe the lessons don't begin till next week, and this is only what you might call a trialtrip, so you could see how you like it. Miss Trent says we can get bathing dresses there to-day, and bring our own afterwards."
The Rodenhurst girls had not before been taken to the public baths at Stedburgh, and the swimming course was a new departure of Miss Roscoe's. The idea proved extremely popular, and almost everybody wanted at least to sample the experiment.
"Oh, yes, you might go to-day," said Winnie, whom Gwen caught and consulted in the passage. "There's no great damage in that. You don't pledge yourself to take the course. Lesbia can go too. Miss Roscoe said it was to be a special afternoon."
"That's all right, then," said Gwen, rushing jubilantly away.
She was immensely anxious to learn to swim. The bay at Skelwick was so dangerous that Father would not allow any of them to bathe there, so as yet she had had no chance of testing her skill in natation. She loved all kinds of physical sports, they seemed a necessity of her active, fast-growing young body, and the prospect of trying a new element was alluring. In the very highest of spirits she joined the procession of Fifth Form girls that filed off at three o'clock, in charge of Miss Douglas.
The baths at Stedburgh had only lately been enlarged and re-opened, and in their improved shape were now quite a feature of the town. They were supplied with salt water, and could boast great conveniences in the matter of dressing-rooms, hair-drying apparatus, and plentiful hot towels. Gwen had never been inside before, so she gazed with delighted admiration, at the ladies' large bath, with its pale-green tiles, its flights of steps, and its diving board at the deep end. There was a cord across the middle, with a big notice that non-swimmers were to venture no farther, and must confine themselves to the shallow end; also that water wings could be hired.
"I hear Miss Morris won't let her pupils use those, though," said Netta. "She calls it an amateurish dodge. I should think we shall have to hold each other up while we practise our strokes!"
Gwen secured a bathing costume that fitted quite tolerably. She had no mackintosh cap, but she plaited her hair very tightly instead. She did not much care whether it got wet or not. It was most exciting to run down the steps and slip into the lovely clear green water. She had undressed with such record speed that she was actually the first, but she was very soon joined by a bevy of laughing, squealing maidens. It was an amusing, but not a picturesque sight. The Fifth Form attired in bathing costumes were about as different from the academy pictures of classical nymphs as a man in the street from a statue of Apollo. Instead of floating about in graceful attitudes, with the "amber dropping hair" of Milton's Sabrina, they "larked" like a school of porpoises, splashing each other and playing tricks. There was no attempt at a lesson that afternoon. The girls just enjoyed themselves in their own way, with many cautions from Miss Douglas not to trespass beyond the danger line. Gwen, held up by Netta, made frantic efforts to try her strokes, though her attempts invariably ended in a plunge from whichshe came up spluttering. Netta, with a very little help from Gwen, got on much better, for she had been to the baths before, and had had some practice. Several of the girls were already good swimmers, and after showing their prowess, were allowed to disport themselves at the deep end.
"I shan't be content till I can dive," declared Gwen, watching enviously as Elspeth Frazer took a header. "I shouldn't think it's difficult when you get the knack. It will be just having the pluck to try. I can float the least little scrap already, so I've learnt something this afternoon, and so have you."
"We shall both get on grandly at the lessons," assented Netta.
The whole Form agreed unanimously that the experiment was "ripping", and everyone was extremely anxious to come again. Gwen went home mad with enthusiasm, and Lesbia, whose Form had preceded the Fifth, was in equal ecstasies. Both besieged their father with wild entreaties to be allowed to take the course.
"You haven't told me the fees, and that's a very important point," said Mr. Gascoyne.
"I quite forgot to ask," admitted Gwen, brought down to the mundane side of the question. "Lesbia, do you know?"
Lesbia shook her head. She rarely knew anything; as a rule other people were ready to manage her affairs for her.
"Miss Douglas says the swimming course is to be half a guinea each, and admission to the baths threepence a time. There is a special arrangement forschools," said Winnie, supplying the needed information.
"Then I must think it over," returned Father. "Times are bad just now, chicks, and I don't know whether I can afford it. A curacy is not a fat living, remember, and there are seven of you!"
Very much sobered, the enthusiastic bathers betook themselves to their preparation.
"I wish everything nice didn't cost money!" sighed Gwen.
She broached the subject to Beatrice during the evening.
"I've been talking about it to Father," said the latter. "I'm afraid he can't manage it for you both, but he might possibly for one. It will be a choice between you and Lesbia."
"I'm the eldest!" urged Gwen quickly.
"Yes, I know you are, but on the other hand, it really is Lesbia's turn, because you took the St. John's Ambulance last winter at the Parish Room, and Lesbia didn't."
"Swimming's a million times nicer than ambulance!"
"It's not any more useful. Don't be selfish, Gwen! You know how hard up we are. We can't all of us do everything, and I think this time it certainly ought to be Lesbia."
Gwen kicked the orchard gate against which they were leaning, and tried to keep down a lump that rose in her throat. Beatrice's arguments were unanswerable.
"It'll be sickening to be the only one in the Formwho doesn't take swimming," she said at last. "Every single girl will join except me. I shall have to stop behind and do prep. instead. I'll feel more utterly out of things than ever."
"You could pay for the course yourself, if you like," suggested Beatrice. "What have you done with all your money?"
Gwen's restless hands were hacking notches on the top bar of the gate. Her penknife slipped suddenly, and cut her finger.
"Your own fault, if you will be so clumsy!" said Beatrice. "Come indoors, and I'll tie it up for you. You'd better hold it under the cold-water tap first."
Gwen groaned in spirit as she went to bed that night.
"I shall never hear the last of that wretched fifteen shillings!" she thought "I feel like Mr. Caudle in theCurtain Lectures, when he'd lent a five-pound note to a friend. That money of mine was to have bought Christmas presents, and boots for Johnnie Cass, and a new tennis racket, and paid for the swimming, and I don't know what else, according to my family's ideas. Oh, dear! Being poor's a hateful business! I wish Dad were Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of only Curate-in-charge of Skelwick Bay!"