Читать книгу By Honour Bound - Bessie Marchant - Страница 7
ОглавлениеPRIDE OF PLACE
Next morning directly after breakfast, Dorothy, in company with the other new girls—about a dozen of them—went off to the study of the Head, to be examined as to place in the form, and general capacity.
It was not usual for any girl, whatever her age, to be received at once into the Sixth, and Dorothy was accordingly given a Fifth Form paper to fill. When she had done this, and it had been passed to the Head by the form-mistress who was assisting her, Miss Arden, after reading down her answers, immediately passed her another paper—and this a Sixth Form one—to fill. This was a much stiffer matter, and Dorothy worked away with absorbed concentration, not even noticing that the other girls had all done, and left the room. But none of them had been given a second paper, so she was to be forgiven for being the last.
The Head was called for at that moment. It was a couple of hours later before Dorothy knew her fate. Meanwhile the whole of the Sixth and the Upper Fifth were gathered in the lecture hall for a lecture on zoophytes by Professor Plimsoll, who was the natural history lecturer for the Compton Schools. He was a young man, and very enthusiastic. Dorothy was so surprised to find how interesting the subject could be made that she sat listening, entranced by his eloquence, until a nudge from Daisy Goatby, sitting next to her, recalled her to her surroundings.
“Take notes, duffer, take notes,” whispered Daisy with quite vicious energy. “If you sit staring like a stuck pig at my lord, you will get beans when he has finished, and he has a way of making one feel a very worm.”
Dorothy made a valiant effort to scribble things on paper; but the next minute her head was up again, and she was staring at the professor, so absorbed in what he was saying that she quite forgot Daisy’s kindly warning anent the need of looking busy.
All round her the girls were bent over their notebooks industriously scribbling: some of them were taking notes in writing they would certainly not be able to read later. One or two were writing to friends, but the main of them were jotting down facts which should serve as pegs on which to hang their ideas when they had to write out what they could remember.
Professor Plimsoll was suave in his manner, a gentleman, but withal very hot-tempered, and a terror to slackers. He noticed Dorothy’s absorbed attention, and was at first rather flattered by it; then observing that she took no notes, and that her gaze had a dreamy quality, as if her thoughts were far away, his temper flared up, and he determined to make an example of her. Nothing like beginning as he meant to go on. If he allowed such a flagrant case of laziness to pass unrebuked at the first lecture of the term, what sort of behaviour might he not have to put up with before the end of the course?
He was nearly at the end of his lecture, when he stopped with dramatic suddenness, pointing an accusing finger at Dorothy.
“The name of that young lady, if you please?” he said with a little bow to the form-mistress, who had come into the lecture with the girls.
“That is Dorothy Sedgewick,” answered Miss Groome with a rather troubled air. She was sorry that the professor should fall upon a new girl at the first lecture of term; to her way of thinking it did not seem quite fair play.
“Miss Dorothy Sedgewick, may I beg of you to step up here?” The professor’s tone was bland—he was even smiling as he beckoned her to come and stand by his side; but the girls who had attended his lectures before knew very well that he was simply boiling with rage, and from their hearts pitied Dorothy.
She rose in her place and walked forward. She was still so absorbed in what she had been listening to that she did not sense anything wrong. It did not even seem strange to her that she should be called forward. She was the only new girl present at the lecture, and she supposed it might be the ordinary thing for fresh girls to be called forward in this fashion.
“Will you permit me to see the notes you have taken?” he asked in a voice that was curiously soft and gentle, although his eyes were flashing. He held out his hand as he spoke, and Dorothy handed him her notebook, saying in an apologetic tone, “I am so sorry, but I have not taken any notes, I was so interested.”
Professor Plimsoll permitted himself a smile, and again his eyes flashed, just as if they were throwing off little sparks. He glanced at the blank page of the notebook, then gave it back to her, saying in that curiously soft and gentle tone, “Since you have been too interested to take notes, perhaps you will be so very kind as to tell us what you can remember of the things I have been telling you; especially I should be glad to hear what has interested you most.”
Dorothy looked at him in surprise; even now, so restrained and controlled was his manner, she did not realize how furiously angry he was, but supposed that he had called her out because of her being a new girl, and that her position in the school would in some way be determined by what she could do now. It had been the custom in her old school for girls to have to stand up and talk in class; and although this was a much more formidable affair, she was not so much embarrassed as she would have been but for her training in the past.
Speaking in a rather low tone, she began at the beginning. In many places she quoted the professor’s own words. Once she left out a little string of facts, and went back over her ground, marshalling them into the proper place, and then went steadily on up to the very point where the professor stopped so suddenly.
The silence in the lecture hall was such as could be felt; some of the girls, indeed, were sitting open-mouthed with amazement at such a feat of memory. But there was a ghost of a smile hovering about the lips of Miss Groome—she was thinking how the professor would have to apologize to the new girl for having so misjudged her.
If Professor Plimsoll was fiery in temper, he was also a very just man. The girls must have known he had been angry, even though Dorothy did not seem to have realized it, and it was due to himself, and to them, that he should make what amends he could.
“Miss Dorothy Sedgewick,” he began, and he bowed to her as impressively as he might have done to royalty, “I have to beg your pardon for having entirely misunderstood you. When I saw that you took no notes I was angry at what I thought was your laziness, and new girl though you were, I determined to make an example of you, and that was why I called you forward in this fashion. I do apologize most sincerely for my blunder, and I am charmed to think that I shall have a student so able and painstaking at my lectures this term.”
Great embarrassment seized upon Dorothy now. She turned scarlet right up to the roots of her hair as she bowed, murmuring something inaudible, and then she escaped to her seat amidst a storm of cheering from the excited girls.
Professor Plimsoll held up his hand for silence. The lecture went on to its end, but it is doubtful whether Dorothy got much benefit from the latter part. The girls all around her were showing their sympathy each after her kind, but she was angry with herself because she had lacked the penetration to see that she had really been an object of pity.
When the lecture was over, and they all streamed out of hall carrying their notebooks, they fell upon her, cheering her again, and patting her on the back with resounding thumps just by way of showing friendliness.
“Oh, Dorothy, you were great!” cried Hazel, struggling through the crowd to reach her. “It was priceless to see you standing there beside my lord, giving him back his old lecture on creepy-crawlies as calmly as if you had been brought up to that kind of thing from infancy. His eyes gogged and gogged until I thought they would have come right out of their sockets! And then to see the way he climbed down and grovelled at your feet, oh, it was rich!”
“Dorothy, how did you remember it all?” cried Margaret, thrusting several girls aside and coming eagerly close up to Dorothy.
“I don’t know; I cannot always remember things so well,” she answered. “But it was all so interesting, and the professor has such a way of ticking his facts off, it is so easy to keep them in mind.”
“There is one comfort,” said Hazel. “You will be certain to be in the Sixth after the little affair of this morning.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Dorothy, thinking of some of the questions on the paper she had filled in that morning.
A little later there came to her a message summoning her to the Head’s private room, and she went in fear and trembling. If she was put in the Sixth, she would be able to enter for the Lamb Bursary; if she was not in the Sixth her chance would be gone for always, for she knew that it was quite impossible for her to stay at school for more than one year.
Miss Arden was very kind; she made Dorothy sit down, and drawing out the Sixth Form examination paper, began to talk to her about it.
“In many ways,” began the Head, speaking in her calmly assured manner, “I do not think you are up to the level of the Sixth, but in other things you are very good indeed. I was still debating whether to put you straight into the Sixth, or to keep you for one term in the Upper Fifth to see how you would shape; but before I had really made up my mind, Professor Plimsoll came in and told me of what happened at his lecture. He was so impressed with your ability that, acting on his suggestion, I am going to put you straight into the Sixth, and I hope that you will work hard enough to justify me in having done this. 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?”
Miss Arden smiled. “You can enter if you wish. Indeed, I shall be very glad if you do. Even if you are not within seeing distance of getting it, the discipline and the hard work will be good for you. It will be good for the others too, for the more candidates the better the work that is done. Rhoda Fleming was to have left last term, but she has come back for the purpose of competing. I hope that next week, when the candidates are enrolled, a good number of the Sixth will offer themselves.”
Dorothy went out from the presence of the Head, feeling as if she was walking on air. How wonderful that she was in the Sixth! How still more wonderful that it was really her humiliation at Professor Plimsoll’s lecture which was the means of putting her there. It had not seemed a very awful thing to stand up beside the professor and repeat to him what she remembered of his lecture, but it had been a very keen humiliation indeed to find that he had considered her a time-waster, and had really called her out to shame her in the eyes of the others. She had suffered tortures while the girls were cheering her. Yet if all that had not happened, she would not have been in the Sixth now, with the possibility of winning the Lamb Bursary in front of her.
Rhoda Fleming was coming down the stairs as she went up. Just when passing, Rhoda leaned towards her, and smiling maliciously, murmured, “Prig!”
Dorothy’s temper flared. It was an outrage that this girl who was a thief should call her names. She jerked her head round to hurl a scathing remark after the retreating figure, then suddenly checked herself. True pride of place was to hold one’s self above the sting of insults that were petty. After all it did not matter who called her prig, provided she was not that odious thing.
