Читать книгу By Honour Bound - Bessie Marchant - Страница 8
ОглавлениеTOM IS DISAPPOINTING
The rest of the week passed in a whirl of getting used to things and of settling into place. Dorothy had to find that however good she might be at memory work, she did not shine in very many things which were regarded as essentials at the Compton Schools. She was a very duffer in all matters connected with the gym. She was downright scared at many things which even the little girls did not shirk. She could not swing by her hands from the bar, she looked upon punching as a shocking waste of strength, and even drill had no charm for her.
Miss Mordaunt, the games-mistress, was not disposed to be very patient with her. Miss Mordaunt was not to be beaten in her encouragement of little girls and weakly girls; she would work away at them until they became both fearless and happy in the gym. But a girl in the Sixth ought to be able to take a creditable place in sports, according to her ideas. She was really angry with Dorothy for her clumsiness and her ignorance, which she chose to call downright cowardice and laziness. She was not even appeased by being told that for the last five years Dorothy had walked two miles to school every day, and the same distance home again. In consideration of this daily four miles she had been excused from all gym work.
“One is never too old to learn, and you do not have to walk four miles every day now,” Miss Mordaunt spoke crisply. She tossed her head, and her bobbed hair fluffed up in the sunshine. She was the very best looking of all the staff, and realizing the unconscious influence of good looks, she made the most of her attractive appearance, because of the power it gave her with the girls.
“Oh, I know I am rotten at this sort of thing,” Dorothy admitted with an air of great humility, as she stood watching little Muriel Adams somersaulting in a way that looked simply terrifying.
Miss Mordaunt suddenly softened. She had little patience with ignorance, and none at all with indolence, but a girl who humbly admitted she was nothing, and less than nothing, had at least a chance of improvement.
“If you are willing to work hard, to start at the beginning, and do what the little girls do, I shall be able to make something of you in time.” The air of the games-mistress was distinctly kindly now; she even went out of her way to pay Dorothy a compliment which all the rest of the girls could hear. “The amount of walking you have had to do has had the effect of giving you a free, erect carriage, and you have an alert, springy step that is a joy to behold. I shall have long and regular walks as part of our course this term, just for the sake of improving the girls in this respect; the manner in which some of them slouch along is awful to behold.”
“I wish you had kept quiet about your long walks to school,” grumbled Daisy Goatby on Friday afternoon, when the long crocodile of the Compton Girls’ School swung along through Sowergate, and, mounting the hill to the Ilkestone promenade, went a long mile across the scorched grass of the lawns on the top of the cliffs, and then turned back inland, to reach the deep little valley of the Sowerbrook.
“Why? Don’t you like walking?” asked Dorothy, who had been revelling in the sea and the sky, and all the unexpectedness of Ilkestone generally.
“I loathe it!” Daisy said with almost vicious energy. She was so fat that the exercise made her hot and uncomfortable; she had a blowsed appearance, and was rather cross.
“That is because you are so fat,” 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.”
“And chocolates,” laughed Dorothy, who had seen the way in which her companion had been stuffing with sweets ever since they had started out.
“I am obliged to take a little of something to keep my strength up,” Daisy said in a plaintive tone; then she burst out with quite disconcerting suddenness, “What makes Rhoda Fleming have such a grouch against you, seeing that you were strangers until the other day?”
Dorothy felt her colour rise in spite of herself, but she only said quietly, “You had better ask her.”
“Bless you, I did that directly I found out how she did not love you,” answered Daisy, breathing hard—they were mounting a rise now, and the pace tried her.
“Well, and what did she say?” asked Dorothy, whose heart was beating in a very lumpy fashion.
“She said that you were the most untruthful person she had ever met, and it was not safe to believe a word you said,” blurted out Daisy, with a sidelong look at Dorothy just to see how she would take it.
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.”
“Are you going to sit down under it like that?” cried Daisy, aghast. “Why, it will look as if she was right.”
“What can I do but sit down under it?” asked Dorothy with an impatient ring in her tone. “If I were a boy I might fight her, of course.”
“Talking of fighting,” burst out Daisy eagerly, “Blanche Felmore, who is in the Lower Fifth, told me this morning that your brother Tom has had a scrap with her brother Bobby, and Bobby is so badly knocked out that he has been moved to the san. There is a bit of news for you!”
“Oh, I am sorry!” exclaimed Dorothy, looking acutely distressed. “I hate for Tom to get into such scraps, and it is horrid to think of him hurting some one so badly.”
“Oh, as to that, if he had not hurt Bobby, he would have been pretty considerably bashed up himself,” replied Daisy calmly. “Bobby Felmore is ever so much bigger than your brother—he is in the Sixth, and captain of the football team, a regular big lump of a boy, and downright beefy as to muscle and all that. The wonder to me is that Tom was able to lick him; it must have been that he had more science than Bobby, and in a fight like that, science counts for more than mere weight.”
“What made them fight?” asked Dorothy, a shiver going the length of her spine. It seemed to her little short of disastrous that Tom should get into trouble thus early in the term.
Daisy gave a delighted giggle, and her tone was downright sentimental when she went on to explain. “Tom is most fearfully crushed on Rhoda Fleming; did you know it? We used to make no end of fun of them last term. Tom is such a kid, and Rhoda is nearly two years older than he is; all the same he was really soft about her. They usually danced together on social evenings, they shared cakes and sweets and all that sort of thing, and they were so all-round silly that we got no end of fun out of the affair. Of course we thought it was all off when Rhoda was leaving; but now that she has come back for another year it appears to have started again stronger than ever.”
“But how can it have started?” asked Dorothy in surprise. “We only came on Tuesday—this is Friday; we have not met any of the boys yet.”
Daisy sniggered. “You haven’t, perhaps, but Rhoda has, and Blanche too. It seems that the evening before last, Blanche, who had no money for tuck, ran down into the shrubbery beyond the green courts to see if the boys were at cricket; she meant to signal Bobby, and ask him to send her some money through his matron, don’t you see. Rhoda saw the kid loping off, and wanting some amusement, thought she would go along too. Bobby saw the signalling, and knowing it was Blanche, came to see what she wanted. It seems that Tom also saw a handkerchief fluttering from the end of the shrubbery, and thinking it was Rhoda waving to him, came sprinting along after. He caught Bobby up, too, and passed him. Rhoda was at the fence, and so they had a talk, while Blanche told Bobby about having no money, and got him to promise that he would send five shillings by his matron that same evening. Things were pleasant enough until the girls were coming away; they expected the bell to go in a minute, and knew that they would have to scoot for all they were worth. Then Tom said something about thinking that Bobby was coming across to see Rhoda, and he was just jolly well not going to put up with it.”
“Yes, what then?” said Dorothy sharply.
It was not pleasant to her to find out how little she really knew about the inside of Tom’s mind. He was a year younger than herself; she regarded him as very much of a boy, and it was rather hateful to think that he was making a stupid of himself with a girl like Rhoda Fleming. Poor old Tom!
“Bobby Felmore said something rude,” replied Daisy. “The Felmores are rather big in their way, and their pride is a by-word. Bobby remarked that he would not trouble to go the length of a cricket pitch at the call of a girl like Rhoda. Tom went for him then and spat in his face, or something equally unpleasant. After that it had to be a fight, of course, and they planned it for yesterday. When the boys’ matron brought Blanche the five shillings she told her that Bobby was licked, and in bed in the san.”
“Will Tom be very badly punished?” asked Dorothy with dilating eyes; her lively fancy was painting a picture of dire penalties which might result, and she was thinking how distressed her father and mother would be.
Daisy laughed merrily. “When you see Bobby Felmore you will understand what a most astonishing thing it is that Tom should have whacked him. Oh no, Tom won’t get many beans over that. He may have an impot, of course; but he would get that for any breaking of rules. I should think that unofficially the masters would pat him on the back for his courage. He must be a well-plucked one to have stood up to Bobby, and to beat him. I wish I had been there to see.”
“I don’t; and I think it is just horrid for boys to fight!” cried Dorothy, and was badly ashamed of the tears that smarted under her eyelids.
“You are young yet; you will be wiser as you get older,” commented Daisy sagely; and at that moment the crocodile turned in at the lodge gates, and the talk was over.
Dorothy had furious matter for thought. She had been looking forward to Sunday because she knew that she would have a chance to talk to Tom for an hour then; and she had meant to tell him that the girl who did the shoplifting at Messrs. Sharman and Song’s place was at the Compton Schools in her form.
If Tom was so fond of Rhoda Fleming as to be willing to fight on her behalf, he would not be very ready to believe what his sister had to tell him.
“He might even want to fight me,” Dorothy whispered to herself, with a rather pathetic little smile hovering round her lips.
She went into the house feeling low-spirited and miserable; but there was so much to claim her attention, she had so many things to think about, and next day’s work to get ready for, that her courage bounced up, her cheerfulness returned, and she was as lively as the rest of them. After all, Tom would have to fight his own way through life, and it was of no use to make herself miserable because he had proved disappointing so early in the term.
