The Youngest Girl in the Fifth (16 page)

"Look here, Netta," she began grimly, "helping you a little is one thing, but I'm not going to act crib for you again; so just don't think it."

"What do you mean?" gasped Netta sharply.

"What I say. You'd better prepare your own Virgil next time."

"Aren't you going to help me any more?" There was an unpleasant look in Netta's eyes.

"Not when you write it out and crib."

"It was only one scrap. Don't be horrid, Gwen!"

"I like things square, and they've not been quite straight lately. I'm going to put a stop to it, so I give you warning."

"Won't you tell me just the hard bits?"

"Not a single sentence."

"Then you're a mean, stingy thing, Gwen Gascoyne! I don't know why you should have taken it into your head all of a sudden to be so sanctimonious. You've not been so remarkably square before that you need turn saint now. You promised you'd stand by me, and this is how you keep your word, is it? I'll know better another time than to help you. You may get out of your own scrapes as best you can. I'll pay you for this, Gwen Gascoyne! I'll catch you tripping some time, see if I don't--and then--" and with a significant nod Netta turned away.

"You can do anything you like; I don't care," grunted Gwen.

She was out of temper that morning, for it was swimming day, and the thought of the rest of the Form jaunting off to the baths without her filled her with despair. She did not speak to Netta during the dinner hour, nor did the latter seek her company.

"What have those two quarrelled about? I thought they were ever so chummy," said Charlotte Perry to Elspeth Frazer.

"I'm sure I don't know. It would be a good thing for Gwen Gascoyne if she did quarrel with Netta, in my opinion."

"Then she'd be in a set by herself! Perhaps she thinks 'better Netta than nobody'."

"Better nobody than Netta, I should say. Do you know, Charlotte, I don't believe Gwen's half bad by herself, if only Netta would let her alone. It's when they get together they're so silly."

"Um--perhaps you're right. Gwen's straight, whatever else she is, and one can't say that for Netta."

"Hardly! I vote we watch them, and if they really are out of friends, we'll see if we can do anything with Gwen. It's rather rough on her to be such an outcast."

"Pity she's not as nice as Lesbia."

"Do you know," said Elspeth reflectively, "I'm not sure that she mayn't be at bottom. Of course Lesbia's awfully sweet-tempered, but then she's made such a fuss of, and there's really nothing in her. Now, I think there is something in Gwen, if she were taken the right way. I didn't like her at all at first, I don't know that I even do very much now, but I fancy she's one of those girls whom one might get to like if one saw the other side of her--I'm certain she has another side, only it never comes out at school."

"It isn't nice of her to rag her own sister, though."

"That's Netta's fault; she starts all the ragging and throws it on to Gwen."

"I'd be glad if I could really think so," returned Charlotte, and there for the moment the matter ended.

That afternoon a joyful, jubilant, rejoicing crew of Fifth Formers set off for the baths, duly armed with their costumes and mackintosh caps, and from the window of the classroom one dejected, miserable girl watched them depart. Gwen thought she had never felt quite so forlorn in her life before. She was aggrieved with Fate, and kept muttering, "Hard luck! hard luck!" to herself as the last school hat whisked round the corner.

"I didn't see Netta," she thought, and then turned, for she heard Netta's indignant, protesting voice in the passage outside in loud altercation with Miss Trent.

"It's no use, Netta, I can't allow it," the mistress was saying. "With that sniffly cold in your head it would be folly to bathe, and as you say your mother is away from home, and you could not ask her permission this morning, I must be the judge, and I say most emphatically no."

"But, Miss Trent! If I just--"

"Not another word, Netta! Go into your own Form room at once, and do some preparation. Do you want me to report you to Miss Roscoe? Then go, this instant!"

A very sulky, angry, rebellious, disconsolate Netta flung herself through the doorway and flounced to her desk. She gave one stare at Gwen, and, frowning, began to get out her books.

"We're companions in misfortune!" ventured Gwen, but Netta took not the very slightest notice.

"Oh, very well, madam; if you're going to cut me I'll cut you!" thought Gwen, and she turned to the window again.

There was no mistress in the room, and Gwen knew that for the next hour she could practically do as she liked. She would begin her preparation soon and finish some of it before she went home, but there was no particular hurry. The window commanded a view of a side street and just a peep into the main street, and it amused her at present to stand watching the passers-by. They were not remarkably enthralling--an old gentleman in a Bath chair, a nursemaid wheeling two babies in a perambulator, a baker's boy, a young woman with a large parcel, a vendor of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars. Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest flashed across her face and she leaned out over the protecting iron bars.

"Dick!" she called loudly and impulsively, "Dick!"

The boy on the pavement below stopped and gazed up.

"Hello! Why, Gwen, by all that's wonderful!"

"What are you doing in Stedburgh, Dick?"

"Come in to have my hair cut, Miss Inquisitive, if you must know!"

"Oh, what a shame! I like it curly best. Have you had it done?"

"The fatal operation has been performed," said Dick, uncovering his closely-cropped head for a moment.

"And what are you going to do now?"

"Go home again."

"I wish I could," sighed Gwen.

"Are you supposed to be in school?" queried Dick.

"Of course I am, silly! I'm in my own Form room."

"Must be a queer sort of school, then, if they let you talk at the window."

"They don't as a rule. But the others have all gone to the baths to-day and I'm left here to do prep."

"Hard luck!"

"Just what I've been saying to myself. It's simply sickening. You know what it feels like to be out of things."

"Don't I, rather!"

[Illustration: "OH, I SAY, WELL CAUGHT!"]

"I feel like a captive in a tower or a nun in a convent," continued Gwen plaintively.

"Not much of the nun about you!" grinned Dick. "I'd be sorry for the convent you were in. Look here, if I got you some sweets and chucked up the bag would you catch it or muff it?"

"Try me."

"If you muff it I'll expect you to throw it down again."

"Right-o!"

"Then wait half a mo. and I'll cut round the corner to Sherrard's and see what I can fish up for you. You really look like an object for charity."

"You philanthropist!"

"Better wait till you've caught your catch before you bless me!" chuckled Dick.

He was certainly not gone long; he returned almost immediately with a most interesting-looking paper bag in his hand.

"Oh, do tell me, is it chocolate or caramels?" asked Gwen eagerly.

"Find out, madam! Now we'll see if I'm a good shot and if you're a butter-fingers. Are you ready? All right then, here goes! Oh, I say, well caught! Good old girl!"

"Told you I'd do it. Thanks most awfully! Have you kept any for yourself? Then take--"

"Gwen Gascoyne!" said a stern voice suddenly at her elbow.

Gwen jumped as if she had been shot, and turning guiltily, found herself face to face with Miss Trent. By the door stood Netta in visible triumph.

"Gwen Gascoyne," said Miss Trent again, "is this the way you conduct yourself when you're left to do your preparation? You're a disgrace to the school--an absolute disgrace! We had thought our Rodenhurst girls could be trusted to behave themselves."

"I was only talking to Dick," urged Gwen in self-defence.

"Is Dick your brother?"

"No--but--"

"Then you ought to be utterly ashamed of yourself. Such an affair has never happened at Rodenhurst before. I sincerely hope nobody in the street or in the houses opposite noticed the occurrence. It would be enough to spoil the reputation of the school."

"I didn't know I was doing anything so dreadful!" retorted Gwen.

"Then it's time you learnt. Miss Roscoe will have to hear about this. Report yourself in the study at four o'clock, and go at once to your desk and begin your preparation. Put that paper bag on the mantelpiece, I can't allow you to keep it."

Miss Trent sat down on Miss Douglas's vacant chair, evidently with the intention of staying in the room to act Gorgon. Gwen walked to her desk in the depths of humiliation. She caught Netta's glance as she went by, and it seemed to add insult to injury.

"I know who sneaked," she thought. "Very well, Netta Goodwin, I've done with you. You may tell any tales of me you like now; nothing would ever induce me to be friends with you again. In for a penny in for a pound. I expect you'll cut up nasty about that china business, but I feel as if I don't care. I'm booked for an awful row with Miss Roscoe! Oh, Dick, your sweets were well meant, but you little know what they're going to cost me!"

Gwen had a very hazy remembrance of how she did her preparation that afternoon. She wrote a French exercise almost automatically, feeling the mistress's eye upon her the whole time. At four o'clock, with her heart somewhere in the region of her shoes, she reported herself in the study. Miss Trent had been beforehand; so when she entered Miss Roscoe was already aware of the nature and extent of her crime. The headmistress was not disposed to make light of the affair; like Miss Trent, she considered that the reputation of the school might be seriously compromised by Gwen's behaviour, and she did not spare the culprit. Gwen did not often cry at school, but on this occasion she left the Principal's room weeping like Niobe, and poor Winnie, who had been called in to hear the tail end of the lecture, followed blinking a little on her own account.

"You do such lunatic things, Gwen," said Winnie on the way home.

"I meant no harm," protested the still tearful Niobe.

"I dare say you don't, but they're stupid things all the same. You might have known you'd get into trouble. I shall scold Dick about it."

"It wasn't his fault."

"Well, it's been a silly business all round, and why Miss Roscoe should send for me and talk as if I were partly responsible I can't imagine," said the aggrieved Winnie. "It's bad enough to have to teach in class without being blamed for what no person in her senses could consider my fault."

"That's Miss Roscoe all over," gulped Gwen. "If she's angry she must fizz whether there's justice in it or not. I'm fearfully sorry, Win! It's too bad you were dragged in."

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped now," said Winnie, somewhat mollified. "Miss Roscoe's storms are soon over, that's one blessing. I expect by to-morrow she'll have calmed down. You'll be in disgrace for a while, but she'll forget about it."

"What became of the sweets?" asked Lesbia.

"Left them on the chimneypiece and I expect the housemaid will commandeer them. I daren't ask for them, I can tell you."

Next morning the lower sashes of the Fifth Form room windows were found firmly screwed down, and the glass had received a coat of white paint put on the outside, so that not even a peephole could be scratched from within. The girls whose desks had formerly commanded a view were savage; even Miss Douglas wore an air of plaintive resignation.

"Might have known it would be Gwen Gascoyne who would bring herself into such a mess!" said Charlotte Perry.

"Um--I've a notion Netta set the ball rolling," returned Elspeth Frazer.

Storm Clouds

It was only a few days after this that a letter arrived for Mr. Gascoyne which almost turned the little Parsonage upside down. Gwen could tell from Father's manner that something had happened, he seemed so unusually agitated, so perplexed, and sometimes so absent-minded that he forgot all that was going on around him. Something was wrong, argued Gwen, and as she did not like to question Father himself, she plucked up her courage and asked Beatrice.

"Well, I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't know, so long as you don't chatter about it," said the latter. "I think you can be trusted to keep a secret?"

"If it's Dad's secret," returned Gwen.

"Well, the fact is, Dad's had a living offered to him. You needn't jump and clap your hands, for it's nothing at all out of the way--indeed he hardly knows whether to accept it or not. It's a good deal better from a money point of view than this curacy, but there are objections."

"Where is it?"

"That's one of the chief objections. It's in a very poor part of a crowded manufacturing town, a place black with huge chimneys that send out clouds of smoke, where there's hardly a blade of grass, and the very trees are all blighted with the chemicals in the air. Father knows the place well; he was curate there for a short time just after his ordination. He called it Sodom-and-Gomorrah-mixed then, and it's probably worse instead of improved, for they've built more chemical works, he hears."

"Oh!" said Gwen, her enthusiasm very much damped. "But he's surely not going to accept it?"

"I don't know. There are many things to be considered. We're a big family, and the boys have got to be educated somehow. I don't know how it's to be done here."

"There's the Stedburgh Grammar School."

"Yes, but how are we to manage the fees? Winnie can't go and teach there to equalize their school bills! If we went to Rawtenbeck, they could all three be sent to King Edward's College. It's certainly an inducement."

"And we should have to leave the Parsonage, and the garden, and everything at Skelwick!"

"Yes; that's the terrible part. Father's simply torn in two. He's done so much for Skelwick. Think what it was when he came! And now there's the Mission Room at Basingwold, and the Lads' Club, and the Library, and the Men's Class, and the Temperance Union, and all the Guilds. Perhaps, if he went, another curate might come who took no interest in them, and they would all go to pieces."