Bessie Marchant

“ I should not think a daughter of Grimes Fleming would be good for Tom. Do what you can to stop it, Dorothy. Remember, I depend on you.”
“Oh dear, I am afraid you will be disappointed, then,” sighed Dorothy. “I do not seem to have any power at all with Tom. I am older than he is, but that does not count, because he says he is the cleverer, as he won a scholarship for Compton and I did not. I suppose he is right, too, for he has won his way where I have had to be paid for.” ”

“ The little group just inside the door had gathered about Rhoda Fleming, who was spreading out her arms to show the beauty of the jumper she was wearing over a cream silk skirt.
“Isn’t it a dream?” Rhoda’s voice was loud and clear; it was vibrant, too, with satisfaction. “I bought it at Sharman and Song’s; they are not to be beaten for things of this sort.”
Dorothy stood as if transfixed, and at that moment the crowd of girls about Rhoda shifted and opened out, showing plainly Dorothy standing on the outskirts of the group. ”

“ Miss Mordaunt had been right away at the outer edge of the group. She had been helping the younger ones to get more confidence in their own powers; she had to see these headed for safety before she could come to the help of Miss Ball and Cissie, so she was behind Dorothy.
Miss Ball shot forward, gripped hold of Cissie by the bathing-dress, and was holding her fast, when poor, frantic Cissie, with a thin shriek of pure panic, seized Miss Ball in a frenzied grip, clinging with all her might, and choking the Fourth Form mistress by the tightness of her clutch. ”

“ Dorothy shivered a little. Rhoda’s voice made her feel bad just then. It was to her a most awful thing that a girl who knew herself guilty of deliberate theft should rise and affirm with uplifted hand that she was morally fit to compete for the Lamb Bursary.
“Perhaps she didn’t care over-much for him,” said Daisy Goatby with a windy sigh. “Getting married must be an awful fag. She could look forward to being free when the old man died; but if she had married, she might never have been free, don’t you see.” ”

“ I should like to be pals with you, and I’m not going to believe what Rhoda says about you.”
“What can Rhoda say about me?” cried Dorothy, aghast. “Why, I have not known her a week.”
“Bless you, what she doesn’t know she will make up,” said Bobby, who was by this time quite breathless with his exertions. “Don’t you trust her. If she tries to be friendly, keep her at arm’s length. I have warned Tom about her until I’m out of breath; but he will find her out some day, I dare say. Meanwhile he is not in as much danger of being scratched by her as you are.” ”

“ Hazel said. “It is all very well to keep silent because you don’t like to do Rhoda any harm; but when a girl sets out to work such mischief as Rhoda tried to do yesterday, it is quite time something is done to stop her.”
“You can’t call it real proof that Rhoda did give me that knock-out blow yesterday,” said Dorothy slowly. “Or even supposing that she did, you can’t be certain it was anything but an accident. When one is excited—really wrought up, as we all were—there is not much accounting for what happens.” ”

“ You might be very brilliant in some subjects, but if you were a duffer at others you would not stand a chance. For instance, you might stand very high in mathematics, you might be a prodigy in chemistry, but if you had not decent marks for languages, history, and music you would be left, for the judging is on the averages of all the subjects. It is really a very good way, as it gives quite an ordinary girl a chance.”
“What do you mean by judging on the averages?” asked Dorothy, frowning more than before.
“This way,” put in Margaret, whose business in life seemed to be to supplement Hazel. ”

“ The letter did not go until yesterday, you see,” replied Joan. “The trouble for Tom will be that he will not only get beans from the authorities, but the boys will cut him dead for having been such a donkey as to trust a girl with a secret.”
“I don’t see why a girl should not be trusted as well as a boy,” said Dorothy, who always felt resentful at this implied inferiority of her sex.
“You may not see it, but your blindness does not alter the fact,” said Joan bluntly. “There goes Rhoda, holding up her head with the best because she can pay up the money she copped to pay for her old raffles. ”

“ Seeing me with Hazel Dring, you might think our social positions were equal, or at least not so far apart as they really are. Hazel’s people are rich. She has never in all her life had to come within nodding distance of poverty, or even of narrow means. But she chose me for her chum, and we never trouble about the difference in our positions.”
“Of course not; why should you?” Dorothy’s tone was friendly—she had even slipped her arm round Margaret’s waist—and was shocked to see how the girl shrank and shivered as she made her proud little statement of her position. ”

“ Dorothy was shot up in the lift to the next floor, and was at once thrilled and half-awed by the splendid vista of showrooms stretching away before her enchanted gaze. Then a saleswoman took her in hand, and she plunged at once into the business of buying a little frock for evening wear, with the tip kind old Aunt Louisa had given to her.
The frocks displayed were too grown-up and elaborate for a schoolgirl. Dorothy knew what she wanted, and was not going to be satisfied until she got it. ”

“ At the conclusion of the little ceremony the girls rose to their feet to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” and then with a rousing three-times-three—the first for Miss Lamb of evergreen memory, the second for the school, and the third for the newly-enrolled—they swarmed out to the grounds, for the rest of the day was to be holiday. They were to have a tennis tournament among themselves, with a box of chocolates for first prize, and an ounce of the strongest peppermints to be bought in Sowergate as consolation to the one who should score the least. ”

“ She felt very sore a little later when Tom, in the momentary absence of Rhoda, said to her, “It was silly of you to make such an exhibition of yourself at the lecture. No one cares for a prig. I should have thought you would have found that out long ago.”
“I could not help myself—I had to do as I was told; and, at least, I owe my place in the Sixth to having been able to remember.” Dorothy was keeping her temper under control now, although of choice she would have reached up and slapped Tom in the face for daring to take such a critical and dictatorial tone with her. ”

“ Pending the making plain of this mystery of how the torn book came to be among Dorothy Sedgewick’s things, the whole Form must be somewhat under a cloud. That is like life, you know; we all have to suffer for the wrong-doing of each other. If in the past Dorothy had been proved untruthful in speech and not straight in her dealings, then we might have well let the punishment fall upon her alone. As it is, you will all do your Latin for the week without any marks. ”

“ Dorothy laughed, her eyes shining with merriment. “Why don’t you put in half an hour every morning punching in the gym, then do those bar exercises that Hazel and Rhoda were doing yesterday? You would soon find walking easier.”
“Why, I take no end of exercise,” grumbled Daisy. “What with tennis, and hockey, and bowls, and swimming, one is on all the time. My fat is not the result of self-indulgence; it is disease.” ”

“ Grimshaw was an elderly gentleman of nervous aspect, with a thin, squeaky voice which would have upset the risibles of the whole school at any ordinary time; but the girls for the most part listened to him with gravely decorous faces, although one irrepressible Fourth Form kid rippled into gurgling laughter, that was instantly changed to a strangled cough. ”

“ For myself, I never attempt anything I’m not likely to achieve. You don’t catch yours truly laying himself open to ridicule; but every one to his taste. Seeing that Rhoda has come back to school for another year, it goes without saying that she will win the Mutton Bone. She is no end clever, and you won’t have much chance against her.”
“I am going to have a try, anyhow,” said Dorothy in a dogged tone; and at that moment Rhoda and Joan Fletcher came back, and the chances of any homey talk between brother and sister were over for that afternoon. ”

“ Tom snorted in derision of Bobby and Bobby’s standpoints. “He is too smug for anything these days. Downright putrid, I call it. I’ve no use for mugs.”
“Here comes Rhoda!” cried Dorothy with a little gasp of fright. “Oh, Tom, what are you going to say to her?”
“Nothing,” he answered with a snarl. “If she were a boy I would fight her. Seeing she is a girl, I can’t do that; so the only thing to be done is to look right through her and out the other side without taking any further notice of her.” ”

“ Tom shrugged his shoulders. “Every one to his taste, of course; myself, I would rather have waited until I was fit for the Sixth, than have got there by a fluke. You will find it precious hard work to keep your end up. For my own part, I would rather have been in the Upper Fifth until I was able to take my remove with credit.”
“Why, Tom, if I had been put into the Upper Fifth I should have stood no chance of the Mutton Bone,” cried Dorothy in a shocked tone. ”

“ I suppose I shall have to go back to Sevenoaks with the business undone, unless I can do it from Ilkestone, for certainly I cannot make another journey along that wreckage-strewn road beyond Sowergate. Oh! it was awful.”
“It was rather grand and terrible; I have never seen anything like it before,” replied Dorothy, who had been really thrilled by the sight of the tremendous seas.
“I can do without such sights; I would rather have things on a more peaceful scale,” sighed Mrs. Wilson, whose face was mottled with little purply patches from the shock of the accident. ”

“ Dorothy flourished her racket, and executed a festive skip as she hurried along. “It is just perfect weather for tennis, and I think—I really think we shall beat the boys if we play hard enough. And oh! we must keep that cup if we can, for the honour of the school.”
“What a lot you think of honour.” Joan half turned as she hurried along, and she surveyed Dorothy closely, as if trying to find out what made her so keen on upholding the traditions of the place. ”

“ Dorothy’s tone was frankly amazed. “It is surely a great honour to be a scholarship girl—to have won the way here for yourself; I only wish I had been able to do it.”
“Oh yes, the cleverness part is all right, although very often it is not so much cleverness as adaptability, or luck pure and simple,” said Margaret, who hesitated a minute; and then, as if summoning her courage by an effort, went on, “You see, the scholarship girls often come up from the elementary schools. ”

“ There was real distress in Dorothy’s tone. “The girl was so nice to look at, and she was well-dressed too. Oh, Tom, how could she have stooped to such meanness?”
“Women are mostly like that.” Tom wagged his head with a superior air as he spoke. “It is very few women who have any sense of honour; I should say it is peculiar to the sex. When boys and girls have games together the girls always cheat, and expect the boys to sit down under it. It is the same in the mixed schools; the girls expect to get by thieving what the boys have to work hard for. ”

“ You see, Dorothy, you have to think not merely of yourself and your own sense of honour, which is a very fine one; but you have to think also of your father and the effect it might have on him and his career if you withdrew from your position as a candidate now. You know very well how serious it is for a doctor to be talked about in such a way as would inevitably occur if this story became common property. A doctor smirched is a doctor destroyed. ”

“ The red-haired reached out a friendly hand to pat Margaret on the shoulder, but Dorothy noticed that Margaret winced, turning a distressful red.
“I don’t mind who snubs me, provided Hazel does not,” she said with a rather forced laugh.
“There is not much danger of my doing that, kid.” Hazel nodded her head from the other end of the carriage, and looked her affection for her chum.
Dorothy thrilled. How beautiful it must be to have a girl chum, and to love her like that. She and Tom had always been great pals, but she had never had a chum among girls. ”

“ Louder and louder grew the cheering; now she could hear the shouting for “Little Stokes” and “Sedgewick of the Sixth.”
They had won, too, and now Milly Stokes rushed at her, flinging a pair of clinging arms round her, and crying, “Oh, Dorothy, Dorothy, you are a partner worth having! We have beaten those two smashers, and surely, surely we can beat the boys!”
“We will have a good try, anyhow,” answered Dorothy with a laugh; and then she went off to the little pavilion to have a brief rest while the boys played their last set for semi-final. ”

“ Miss Mordaunt laid hold of Miss Ball, who was by this time limp and unconscious.
“Can you hold Cissie until I come?” panted Miss Mordaunt, who was moving rapidly to get the helpless Miss Ball ashore.
“I can manage,” Dorothy called out cheerily. She put every bit of courage she possessed into her voice so that Miss Mordaunt might be helped. There is nothing like courage to inspire courage, and although the others were doubtless swimming out to their help, there was a good distance to cover, and it was a very choppy sea. ”

“ Dorothy laughed—Rhoda’s tendency to brag always did amuse her. Then she answered in a merry tone, “If the Mutton Bone depended on the striving of this week, and next, and even the week after, I admit that there would not seem much hope for the rest of us; but our chance lies in the months of steady work that we have to face.” ”

“ Dorothy flushed, and her eyes were angry, but she answered in a serene tone, “If I said I was not untruthful, it would not help much; it would only be my word against Rhoda’s. The only thing to do is to let the matter rest; time will show whether she is right or wrong.” ”

“ It is very unusual for a new girl to be put into the Sixth. Different schools have different methods of work, and a girl has usually to be with us a little time before we feel sufficiently sure of her. However, I hope it is all going to be quite right.”
“Thank you very much; I will be sure to work,” murmured Dorothy, and her eyes were shining like two stars at the prospect before her; then she asked in a low tone, her voice a little shaken, “May I enter for the Lamb Bursary, now that I am going to be in the Sixth?” ”

“ She would have known the jumper anywhere, even if Rhoda had not declared so loudly that it had come from Sharman and Song’s, and she shivered a little, wondering how she would have felt if she had been in Rhoda’s place just then.
“Oh, Dorothy, what a pretty frock! How perfectly sweet you look!” cried the voice of Hazel at her side, and then Margaret burst in with admiring comments, and Dorothy found herself surrounded by a cluster of girls who were admiring her frock and congratulating her on having an aunt with such liberal tendencies. ”

“ Dora would have got over that in time, perhaps, if Dorothy had been something of a slacker; but it did not please her that the new girl—that is to say, the comparatively new girl—should be mounting to the top of the school in the matter of marks week by week, so she veered round to the side of Rhoda and championed her cause.
The days simply flew now. The summer term was always delightful at Sowergate. There was sea-bathing; there was tennis and golf; frequent picnics livened things up for all who cared for that sort of thing; there were bicycle trips; some of the girls were learning to ride ”