Читать книгу By Honour Bound - Bessie Marchant - Страница 9
ОглавлениеTOM MAKES EXCUSE
The girls of the Compton Schools attended the church of St. Matthew-on-the-Hill, which stood on the high ground above the Sowerbrook valley. A grey, weather-worn structure it was, the tower of which had been used as a lighthouse in the days of long ago. It was a small place, too, and for that reason the boys always went to the camp church, a spacious but very ugly building, which crowned the hill just above their school.
To both girls and boys it was a distinct grievance that they were compelled to go to different churches; but St. Matthew-on-the-Hill was too small to contain them all, and the military authorities looked askance at the girls, so what could not be cured had to be endured.
The one good thing which resulted from this was that brothers and sisters were always together for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons. If the weather was fine they went for walks together; if it was wet they were in the drawing-room or the conservatories of the girls’ school.
That first Sunday, Dorothy was waiting for Tom. She was out on the broad gravel path which stretched along in front of the conservatory, for the girls had told her that the boys always came in by the little bridge over the brook at the end of the grounds, and she did not want to lose a minute of the time she could have with her brother.
She had imagined he would be in a tearing hurry to reach her, and she felt downright flat, after waiting for nearly half an hour, to see him strolling up the lawn at the slowest of walks, in company with a lumpy-looking boy whose face was liberally adorned with strips of sticking-plaster.
“Hullo, Dorothy, are you all on your own?” demanded Tom, looking distinctly bored; then he jerked his thumb in the direction of his companion, saying in a casual fashion, “Here is Bobby Felmore, the chap I licked the other day. Did you hear about it?”
“Yes, I heard,” she answered, and then hesitated, not quite sure what to say. It would be a bit embarrassing, and not quite kind, to congratulate Tom on his victory, with the beaten one standing close by, so it seemed safest to say nothing.
“It was a bit rotten to be licked by a kid like Tom, don’t you think, Miss Sedgewick?” asked Bobby with a grin. “The fact was, he is such a little chap that I was afraid to take him seriously, and that was how he got his chance at me.”
“Hear him!” cried Tom with ringing scorn. “But he is ignorant yet; when he is a bit older and wiser he will understand that a lump of pudding hasn’t any sort of chance against muscle guided by science. Besides, he had to be walloped in the cause of chivalry and right.”
“You young ass!” exploded Bobby, and he looked so threatening that Dorothy butted in, fearing they would start mauling each other there and then.
“I think it is just horrid to fight,” she said crisply. “It is a low-down and brutish habit. Are you going to walk, Tom, or shall we sit in the conservatory and talk? It is nearly three o’clock, so we have not very much time.”
“I’m not particular,” said Tom with a yawn. “Where are all the others? If we go for a walk we have just got to mooch along on our own; but if we stay in the grounds or the conservatory we can be with the others, don’t you see?”
“Just as you please.” Dorothy could not help her tone being a trifle sharp. It was a real disappointment to her that Tom did not want to have her alone for a little while.
“Very well, then, let us go down to that bench by the sundial. Rhoda Fleming is there, and the Fletchers; we had a look in at them, and a bit of a pow-wow as we came up.” Tom turned eagerly back as he spoke, and Dorothy walked in silence by his side, while Bobby Felmore went on into the house in search of Blanche, who had a cold, and was keeping to the house.
So that was why Tom was nearly half an hour late in arriving! Dorothy was piqued and resentful; but having her share of common sense, she did not start ragging him—indeed, she was so quiet, and withal pensive, that Tom’s conscience began to bother him, and he even started to make excuse for himself.
“You see, Rhoda and I are great friends—downright pals, so to speak—and, of course, if we went for a walk she would not be able to come too.” He was apologetic in manner as well as speech, and he slipped his arm round her waist with a great demonstration of affection as they went slowly across the lawn.
It was because he was so dear and loving in his manner that Dorothy suddenly forgot to be discreet, and was only concerned to warn him of the kind of girl she knew Rhoda to be.
“Oh, Tom, dear old boy, I wish you would not be pals with Rhoda,” she burst out impulsively. “I don’t think you know what sort of girl she is, and, anyhow, she——”
Dorothy came to a sudden halt in her hurried little speech as Tom faced round upon her with fury in his face.
“You had better stop talking rot of that kind.” There was an actual snarl in his tone, and his eyes were red with anger. “Girls are always unfair to each other, but I thought you were above a meanness of that sort.”
Dorothy’s temper flared—what a silly kid he was to be so wrapped up in a girl. She fairly snapped at him in her irritation.
“If you were not so young, so unutterably green, you would be willing to listen to reason, and to hear the truth. Since you won’t, then you must take the consequences, I suppose.”
“Don’t be in a wax, old girl.” He gave her an affectionate squeeze as he spoke, which had the effect of entirely disarming her anger against him.
“I am not in a wax; oh, I was, but it has gone now.” She smiled up into his face as she spoke, deciding that come what might she could not risk losing his love by trying to point out to him what sort of a girl Rhoda was.
The September afternoon was very sunny and warm, and the group of girls on the broad wooden bench by the sundial were lazily enjoying the brightness and the heat as Dorothy and Tom came slowly along the path between the flower-beds at the lower end of the lawn.
Rhoda Fleming was there, Joan and Delia Fletcher, and Grace Boldrey, a Fourth Form kid who was Delia’s chum. They all made room for Dorothy and Tom, as if they had expected them to come.
Dorothy found herself sitting between the two Fletchers, while Rhoda monopolized Tom, and the Sunday afternoon time, which she had looked forward to as being like a bit of home, resolved itself into an ordeal of more or less patiently bearing the quips and thrusts of Rhoda, who appeared to take a malicious pleasure in making her as uncomfortable as possible.
The affair of Professor Plimsoll’s lecture was dragged out and talked about from the point of view of Rhoda, who, perching herself on the lower step of the sundial, pretended she was Dorothy, standing up beside the professor, and repeating to him his own lecture.
Rhoda had a real gift of mimicry: the others rocked with laughter, and Dorothy, although she smarted under the lash of Rhoda’s tongue, joined in the laugh against herself, because it seemed the least embarrassing thing to do.
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.
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.
Tom smiled in a superior and really aggravating fashion. “Going in for that, are you? Well, your folly be on your own head; you are more fond of the wooden spoon than I should be. 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.
Rhoda and Tom started arguing about a certain horse that was to run at Ilkestone the following week, and Dorothy, sitting listening to Joan Fletcher’s thin voice prosing on about the merits of knife pleated frocks, wondered what her father would have said if he could have heard Tom discussing the points of racehorses as if he had served an apprenticeship in a training stable.
Later on, when she walked with him to the little gate at the end of the grounds, where the bridge went over the brook and the field path which led to the boys’ school, Tom began to make excuses for himself for the depth of his knowledge on racing matters.
“A fellow has to keep his eyes open, and to remember what he hears, or he would get left at every turn, you know,” he said, and again he slid his arm about his sister’s waist.
“I don’t think father and mother would approve of your keeping your eyes so wide open about horse-racing and that sort of thing.”
Dorothy spoke in a rather troubled fashion. It was really difficult for her to lecture Tom for his good when he had his arm round her in that taking fashion.
“Oh, naturally the governor and mums are more than a trifle stodgy in their outlook. It is a sign of advancing years.” He laughed light-heartedly as he spoke, then plunged into talk about football plans and his own chances of getting a good position in his team.
They lingered at the bridge until the other boys who had been visiting at the girls’ school came pouring along the path at a run. Then the first bell sounded for tea, and Dorothy had to scuttle back through the grounds at racing speed, for she would only have five minutes in which to put herself tidy for tea.
“Did you have a pleasant afternoon?” asked Hazel, who had been out with Margaret.
“It was good to be with Tom for a time,” Dorothy answered, hesitated, and then went on in a hurried fashion, “It would have been nicer, of course, if we had been alone together, or with you and Margaret, but Tom elected to spend the time with Rhoda and Joan Fletcher, and—and, well, it was not all honey and roses.”
“I can’t think what the silly boy can see in Rhoda,” said Hazel severely. “I never cared much for her myself, and the way in which she has snubbed Margaret is insufferable. I am thankful that Dora Selwyn is head girl, and not Rhoda; it would be awful if she set the pace for the whole school.”
“Dora Selwyn looks nice, but she is rather unapproachable,” said Dorothy in a rather dubious tone.
Hazel laughed. “Don’t you know the secret of that?” she asked. “Dora is about the shyest girl alive, and her stand-offishness is nothing in the world but sheer funk. You try making friends with her, and you will be fairly amazed at the result.”
