Sunday afternoon was hopelessly wet; but the fact was less regretted
than usual, as from three to four was the time put aside for writing
home. So far a postcard to announce safe arrival had been the only word
written, and each girl was eager to pour forth her feelings at length,
to tell the latest news, and report changes of class. The two new-
comers had a score of complaints and lamentations to record, and Rhoda,
at least, entered unhesitatingly into the recital.
She had never been so miserable in her life. The girls were hateful,
domineering, and unfriendly--Miss Bruce had spoken to her three times
only--the food was good enough in its way, but so plain that she simply
longed for something _nice_; the lessons were difficult, the hours
unbearably long.--It took three whole sheets to complete the list of
grievances, by which time her hand was so tired that she read it over by
way of a rest, with the result that she was quite astonished to discover
how miserable she had been! Everything she had said was true, and yet
somehow the impression given was of a depth of woe which she could not
honestly say she had experienced. Perhaps it was that she had omitted
to mention the alleviating circumstances--Miss Everett's sweetness,
Fraulein's praise, hours of relaxation in the grounds, signs of
softening on the part of the girls, early hours and regular exercises,
which sent her to the simple meals with an appetite she had never known
at home. Five days at school, and on the whole there had been as much
pleasure as suffering. Then, was it quite fair to send home such a
misleading account?
Rhoda drew from her pocket the latest of the five loving letters penned
by the maternal hand, and read it through for the dozenth time. Sunday
was a lonely day for new-comers, and the period occupied by the sermon
in church had been principally occupied by Rhoda in pressing back the
tears which showed a presumptuous desire to roll down her cheeks and
splash upon her gloves. It had been a sweet consolation to read over
and over again the words which showed that though she might be one of a
crowd at "Hurst," she was still the treasured darling of her home.
There was nothing original in the letter; it simply repeated in
different words the contents of its four predecessors--sorrow for her
absence, prayers for her welfare, anxiety for the first long letter.
"I can hardly wait until Monday morning. I am so longing to know how
you are faring!" Rhoda read these words, and looked slowly down upon
her own letter. Well! it would arrive, and the butler would place it on
the breakfast-table, and her mother would come hurrying into the room,
and seize it with a little cry of joy. She would read it over, and
then--then she would hand it to her husband, and take out her
handkerchief and begin to cry. Mr Chester would pooh-pooh her
distress, but she would cry quietly behind the urn, and despite his
affectation of indifference he, also, would look worried and troubled;
while Harold would declare that every one must go through the same stage
before settling down, and that Rhoda might be expected to "make a fuss."
She had been so spoiled at home!
Rhoda dug her pen into the blotting-paper, and frowned uneasily. Five
days' experience at school had impressed her with the feebleness of
"making a fuss."
"If you are hurt--bear it! If you are teased--look pleasant! If you
are blamed--do better next time! If you feel blue--perk up, and don't
be a baby!" Such were the Spartan rules of the new life, and an
unaccustomed shame rose up in her mind at the realisation of the
selfishness and weak betrayal of that first home letter. Was it not
possible to represent the truth from the bright side as well as the
dark, to dwell on the kindnesses she had received, and leave
disagreeables untold? Yes, it _was_ possible; she would do so, and save
her dear ones the pain of grieving for her unhappiness. So the thick
sheets were torn across with a wrench, which made Thomasina look up from
her desk.
As a head girl, "Tom" possessed a study of her own, to which she had
prepared to depart earlier in the afternoon, but had been persuaded to
stay by the entreaties of her companions.
"Tom, don't go! Don't leave us! It's a wet day, and so dull--do stay
with us till tea-time. You might! You might!" urged the suppliant
voices, and so Tom sat down to her desk in the house-parlour which was
the property of the elder Blues, and indited letters on blue-lined,
manly paper, with a manly quill pen.
As her eyes rested on the torn letter and on the clean sheet of paper
drawn up for a fresh start, she smiled, a quiet understand-all-about-it
smile, which Rhoda chose to consider an impertinent liberty. Then down
went her head again, and the scrape, scrape of pens continued until four
o'clock, by which time the girls were thankful to fold the sheets in
their envelopes and make them ready for post. Rhoda read over her
second effort in a glow of virtue, and found it a model of excellence.
No complaints this time, no weak self-pity; but a plain statement of
facts without any personal bias. Her father and mother would believe
that she was entirely contented; but Harold, having been through the
same experiences, would read between the lines and understand the
reserve. He would say to himself that he had not expected it of Rhoda,
and that she had behaved "like a brick," and Harold's praise was worth
receiving.
Altogether it was in a happier frame of mind that Rhoda left her desk
and took her place in one of the easy chairs with which the room was
supplied. From four to five was a free hour on Sundays, and the girls
were allowed to spend it as they liked, without the presence of a
teacher.
This afternoon talk was the order of the day, each girl in turn relating
the doings of the holidays, and having her adventures capped by the next
speaker. Thomasina, however, showed a sleepy tendency, and kept dozing
off for a short nap, and then nodding her head so violently that she
awoke with a gasp of surprise. In one of these intervals she met
Dorothy's eyes fixed upon her with a wondering scrutiny, which seemed to
afford her acute satisfaction.
"Ah!" she cried, sitting up and looking in a trice quite spry and wide-
awake. "I know what you are doing! You are admiring me, and wondering
what work of nature I most resemble. I can see it in your face. And
you came to the conclusion that it was a codfish! No quibbles, please!
Tell me the truth. That was just exactly it, wasn't it?"
"_No_!" cried Dorothy emphatically, but the emphasis expressed rather
contrition for a lost opportunity than for a wrongful suspicion. "No, I
did not!" it seemed to say, "How stupid not to have thought of it.
You--really--are--extraordinarily like!"
"Humph!" said Thomasina. "Then you are the exception, that's all. All
the new-comers say so, and therein they err. It's not a cod at all,
it's a pike. I am the staring image of a pike!"
She screwed up her little eyes as she spoke, and pulled back her chin in
a wonderful, fish-like grin which awoke a shriek of merriment from the
beholders. Even Rhoda laughed with the rest, and reflected that if one
were born ugly it was a capital plan to accept the fact, and make it a
joke rather than a reproach. Thomasina was the plainest girl she had
ever seen, yet she exercised a wonderful attraction, and was infinitely
more popular among her companions than Irene Grey, with her big eyes and
well-cut features.
"Next time you catch a pike just look at it and see if I'm not right,"
continued Tom easily. "But perhaps you don't fish. I'm a great angler
myself. That's the way I spend most of my time during the holidays."
"I don't like fishing, its so wormy," said Irene, with a shudder. "I
like lolling about and feeling that there's nothing to do, and no
wretched bells jangling every half-hour to send you off to a fresh
class. `Nerve rest,' that's what _I_ need in my holidays, and I take
good care that I get it."
"I don't want rest. I want to fly round the whole day and do nice
things," said a bright-eyed girl in a wonderful plaid dress ornamented
with countless buttons--"lunches, and teas, and dinners, and picnics,
and dances, and plays. I like to live in a whirl, and stay in bed to
breakfast, and be waited on hand and foot. I don't say I _get_ it, but
it's what I would have if I could."
"Well, I'm a nice, good little maid who likes to help her mother and be
useful. When I go back I say to her, `Now don't worry any more, dear;
leave all to me,' and I run the house and make them all c-ringe before
me. Even the cook is afraid of me. She says I have such `masterful
ways.'"
The speaker was a tall, fair girl, with a very large pair of spectacles
perched on the bridge of an aquiline nose. She looked "masterful"
enough to frighten a dozen cooks, and made a striking contrast to the
next speaker, a mouse-like, pinched little creature, with an air of
conscious, though unwilling, virtue.
"I spent the last half of these holidays with a clergyman uncle, and
helped in the parish. I played the harmonium for the choir practice,
and kept the books for the Guilds and Societies. His daughter was ill,
and there was no one else to take her place, so, of course, I went at
once. It is quite a tiny little country place--Condleton, in
Loamshire."
"What!" cried Rhoda, and sat erect in her seat sparkling with animation.
"Condleton! I know it quite well. I often drive over there with my
ponies. It is only six miles from our place, and such a pretty drive.
I know the Vicarage quite well, and the Church, and the funny little
cross in the High Street!"
She spoke perfectly simply, and without thought of ostentation, for her
parents' riches had come when she herself was so young that she had no
remembrance of the little house in the manufacturing town, but looked as
a matter of course upon the luxuries with which she was surrounded. It
never occurred to her mind that any of her remarks could be looked upon
as boasting, but there was a universal glancing and smiling round the
room, and Thomasina enquired gravely:
"Do you drive the same pair every day?"
"Of ponies? Oh, yes, generally," replied Rhoda innocently. "They are
frisky little things, and need exercise. Of course if we go a very long
way, I give them a rest next day and drive the cobs, but as a rule they
go out regularly."
Thomasina shook her head in solemnest disapproval. "That's a mistake!
You should change _every_ day. The merciful man is merciful to his
beast. I can't endure to see people thoughtless in these matters. My
stud groom has special orders _never_ to send out the postilions on the
same mounts oftener than twice a week!"
There was a moment's pause, and then a shriek of laughter. Girls threw
themselves back in their seats, and held their sides with their hands;
girls stamped on the floor, and rolled about as though they could not
contain their delight; girls mopped their eyes and gasped, "Oh, dear!
oh, dear!" and grew red up to the roots of their hair. And Rhoda's face
shone out, pale and fixed, in a white fury of anger.
"You are a very rude, ill-bred girl, Thomasina Bolderston! I made an
innocent remark, and you twist it about so as to insult me before all
the house! You will ask my pardon at once if you have any right
feeling."
"I'm the Head Girl, my dear. The Head Girl doesn't ask pardon of a
silly new-comer who can't take a joke!"
"I fail to see where the joke comes in. If you are Head Girl a dozen
times over, it doesn't alter the fact that you don't know how to behave.
You have bullied me and made me miserable ever since I came to this
school, and I won't stand it any longer, and so I give you notice!"
"Much obliged, but it's no use. The rules of this school are that the
pupils must obey the Head Girl in her own department, and there can be
no exception in your favour, unpleasant as you find my yoke."
"When _I_ am a Head Girl I shall try to be worthy of the position. I'll
be kind to new girls, and set them a good example. I'll not jeer at
them and make them so wretched that they wish they never had been born!"
Thomasina leant her head on her hand, and gazed fixedly into the angry
face. She made no reply, but there was no lack of speakers to vindicate
her honour. Sneering voices rose on every side in a clamour of
indignant protest.
"When _she_ is Head Girl indeed! It will be a good time before _that_
happens, I should say."
"Not in our day, let us hope. We are not worthy to be under such a
mistress."
"Oh my goodness, what a pattern she will be; what a shining example!
You can see her wings even now beginning to sprout."
"Nonsense, child! It's not wings, it's only round shoulders. These
growing girls _will_ stoop. You had better be careful, or you will be
set in order next."
Rhoda looked across the room with smarting, tear-filled eyes.
"Don't alarm yourselves; I wouldn't condescend to bandy words. You are
like our leader--not worthy of notice!"
"Look here, Rhoda Chester, say what you like about us, but leave
Thomasina alone. We will not have our Head Girl insulted, if we know
it. If you say another word we will turn you out into the passage."
"Thank you, Beatrice; no need to get excited; I can fight my own battles
without your help. This little difference is between Rhoda and me, and
we must settle it together. I think we could talk matters over more
comfortably in my study, without interrupting your rest hour. May I
trouble you, Miss Chester? Three doors along the passage. I won't take
you far out of your way!"
Thomasina rose from her seat, and waved her hand towards the door. She
was all smiles and blandness, but a gasp of dismay sounded through the
room, as if a private interview in the Head Girl's study was no light
thing to contemplate.
Rhoda's heart beat fast with apprehension. What was going to happen.
What would take place next? It was like the invitation of the spider to
the fly--full of subtle terror. Nevertheless, her pride would not allow
her to object, and, throwing back her head, she marched promptly, and
without hesitation, along the corridor.