[Frontispiece: SALLY FOUND HERSELF CLASPING THE DOOR OF THE NEXT
CARRIAGE (_See page 20._)]
SALLY COCKSURE
A SCHOOL STORY
_By_ IERNE L. PLUNKET
ILLUSTRATED BY GORDON BROWNE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD
REPRINTED 1929 IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY JOHN JOHNSON PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Sally at Home
II. On the Way to School
III. Unpopularity
IV. A Cold Shoulder
V. Sally is Taken Up
VI. An Escapade
VII. Penalties
VIII. A Rift in the Lute
IX. A Broad Hint
X. The Breach Widens
XI. A Night Adventure
XII. Sally at the Fair
XIII. "Just Silliness"
XIV. Autolycus
XV. Will She Come?
XVI. Disillusionment
XVII. The New Term
XVIII. The Blotted Essay
XIX. Mischief
XX. Games and Toffee
XXI. Autolycus Gives Trouble
XXII. Autolycus is Lost
XXIII. The Portholes
XXIV. Reconciliation
XXV. Rescue
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Sally found herself clasping the door of the next carriage (see page
20) ... _Frontispiece_
Sally felt herself swung off her feet
"'Ware Castle!"
The policeman pursued for a few yards
"Hi! Hi!" she screamed excitedly
CHAPTER THE FIRST
SALLY AT HOME
The hall-door bell rang violently. Sally Brendan, seated on the
schoolroom hearthrug with a volume of Shakespeare on her knees, gave
an expressive whistle and, dropping the book, ran to the window and
leaned out as far as she could without losing her balance. In this
way it was just possible to catch a glimpse of the front-door steps.
"Mrs. Musgrave! I guessed as much," she said, her head reappearing
at last. "I can tell you one thing, St. Martin, she is in a
thundering temper."
Her governess sighed. "You have no reason to say that, Sally: and at
any rate this is lesson-time, and Mrs. Musgrave's call is intended
for your mother. It has nothing to do with you."
"Hasn't it, though? Bet you a bob it has; and, as to her temper,
vicars' wives are worse than most people because they have to keep
them under so much. You should have seen her umbrella almost jumping
in her hand with rage, and then the bell! You heard it yourself, and
you can't deny it was like the noise telegraph boys make; and..."
"Sally, I must insist that you sit down and don't talk any more."
With a grunt Sally flopped on to the hearthrug, where she placed her
ear to the floor, scout fashion, before re-opening her Shakespeare.
"Only wish I could hear through a carpet," she muttered
discontentedly. "Bet your life she has come to tick me off to
Mother. She looked mad, just like a cow that sees red."
Sally was quite right about Mrs. Musgrave's temper. The vicar's wife
was very angry indeed. With a curt "No," she waved aside a cup of
tea and declined a chair, striding the length of the drawing-room and
back before she came to a halt beside Mrs. Brendan.
"Tell me whose writing this is! Be honest, Eva!" she demanded,
tapping a square of white cardboard that she placed in the other's
hands. On the cardboard was scrawled in pencil, between inverted
commas,
"Two are Company."
"It ... it looks like Sally's writing," said Mrs. Brendan unhappily.
"What do you say, Cecilia?"
A tall fair girl who had been standing by the tea-tray came over,
picked up the card, and throwing it down impatiently answered, "It is
Sally's writing, of course. What has she been doing now, Mrs.
Musgrave?"
The vicar's wife almost choked as she said, "Insulting my husband,
making him the laughing-stock of the parish. She is a wicked,
unnatural girl."
"No, no; not unnatural or wicked," murmured Mrs. Brendan
deprecatingly. "High-spirited, too high-spirited now and then, I
admit, but she is so clever."
"I am glad no one ever called my daughters clever then." Mrs.
Musgrave's voice rose almost to a shriek. "Cleverness of that sort
is criminal and will only lead to prison."
"Of what sort?" asked Cecilia. "Do tell us, Mrs. Musgrave."
The vicar's wife glared at them both almost as if she did not see
them, then sank down on the sofa.
"You know our weekly lectures under the Diocesan Mental Improvement
Scheme?" she said. "I mean my husband's lectures in the Parish Room
on Fridays. They are not well attended, but so few people care to
improve their minds nowadays."
"Cecilia has a singing class in Clinton," interposed Mrs. Brendan
hastily; "it is the only day Signor Corsi can run down from town, and
I have been so tired lately, the doctor said 'Rest in the
afternoons.' He did, didn't he, Cecilia?"
"Everyone has some reasons for not going, of course," said Mrs.
Musgrave sourly. "I did not come to criticise yours. I have no
doubt that if you and Cecilia are busy, for others Herbert's learning
is too profound, too out of date in this respect, to please a
superficial younger generation. Last Friday, at any rate, it was
raining; raining quite heavily."
Mrs. Brendan's face brightened. "That was it, Alice. I remember I
had my boots on intending to go out and then it rained and Cecilia
said 'Don't go.' No, I forgot, Cecilia was in Clinton, so it must
have been Amy, the housemaid. She takes such care of me."
"Indeed!" Mrs. Musgrave thrust out a hand for silence. "Your going
or not is beside the point, Eva, and I must beg you to let me speak
without interrupting me. As a matter of fact I had a cold and did
not attend myself. When Herbert reached the room there was no one
there at all except ... except..."
"Except...?" said Mrs. Brendan agitatedly. Surely Sally, unless
dragged by force, would not have gone to a lecture on the Cuneiform
Writings of Ancient Babylon?
"Except a goat," said Mrs. Musgrave slowly and impressively; "an
evil-smelling goat of Farmer Reed's, tied to the front row of chairs."
"And ... and you mean it had this round its neck?" asked Cecilia
pointing to the card, with its mocking "Two are Company."
In spite of heroic efforts her voice trembled with laughter, and Mrs.
Musgrave bounced up from the sofa, pointing her finger at her.
"Laugh!" she said. "Laugh if you can, thoughtless girl, but your
sister, by her rudeness, her cleverness if you will, has undone years
of Herbert's patient work in the parish. Some of the choir boys were
peering through the window, giggling, and as he returned home they
dared to call out 'Giddy Goat' after him down the street. 'Giddy
Goat!' Think of it! To Herbert." At this point she collapsed on
the sofa and began to weep.
"I ... I didn't mean to laugh. It was horrible of Sally," said
Cecilia, conscience-stricken, while Mrs. Brendan went over and laid
her hand on Mrs. Musgrave's shoulder.
"We have been friends for years, Alice," she said. "Don't let this
come between us. I am ashamed of Sally."
"You have cause to be. You will have more cause," said the vicar's
wife bitterly between her sobs. "She is a dreadful child, without
heart or conscience."
"She is my daughter, Alice, so I can hardly agree with you,"
interrupted Mrs. Brendan, in what, considering her mild temperament,
was almost the heat of anger. "Sally has plenty of heart, but she is
thoughtless."
"She is thoroughly spoilt, Mother," broke in Cecilia; "first while
you were in India, by Uncle Frank and Aunt Antoinette, and now at
home. I am sure we owe it to Mrs. Musgrave to acknowledge this.
Sally is just a spoilt little beast."
"Thoroughly spoilt and selfish," agreed their visitor, drying her
eyes and beginning to pull on her gloves. "All I can say is, Eva,
that if Sally remains in Hartcombe Vale and is allowed to break away
from her governess and play tricks like a street urchin, I shall
consider it a direct insult to Herbert."
"I will speak to her, of course," murmured Mrs. Brendan, and Mrs.
Musgrave, now standing by the door, laughed scornfully.
"You mean, my dear Eva, that Sally will speak to you, and will prove
in a few brief words how right and correct--clever and high-spirited,
I should say--her conduct has been. No, Cecilia, do not interrupt
me. I owe it to Herbert and the parish to enter my protest at least."
At this moment violent sounds were heard overhead, the crash of
something heavy on the floor, a scream, more things falling, and then
a girl's clear, ringing laugh.
"The schoolroom, I believe?" said Mrs. Musgrave, "and another
exhibition of Sally's high-spirited cleverness, I suppose?"
As she opened the door she sniffed and shrugged her shoulders. "Let
me see you off," returned Cecilia coldly. She was very angry at the
way their visitor had spoken to her mother, the more that she felt
the underlying reproach was true. Sally was an odious child. There
was no use blinking the fact.
In the hall Mrs. Musgrave bade her come no further. "I am quite
capable of seeing myself off; besides, I might be tempted to say more
than I should wish in my last words." After which she added, "It
seems you are needed to restore order in the schoolroom."
To judge from the continuous noise upstairs, loud laughter mingled
with the barking of an excited dog, this was likely to be true.
"Oh, St. Martin!" rang out a girl's voice. "What rotten bad luck!
but I can't stop laughing; you do look so funny."
At this point Mrs. Musgrave closed the front door, and Cecilia, rage
in her heart, ran up the stairs two at a time.
In the schoolroom she found even greater chaos than she had
expected--a bare table, an inkpot emptying itself amongst a heap of
books in the grate, and on the floor someone struggling wildly to
free herself from the table-cloth, while a fox terrier plunged at her
protruding feet.
"Oh, mighty Cæsar! Dost thou lie so low?" chanted a small, thin girl
with a mass of red hair framing her freckled face; as, seeing her
sister, she drew herself up into a theatrical attitude and pointed to
the recumbent figure.
Cecilia told her sharply to be quiet, and having turned the fox
terrier out of the room, knelt down and extricated the governess; but
when she tried to help her to her feet Miss Martin refused to do more
than struggle into a sitting posture.
"Will you kindly ask Sally to bring me scissors?" she said, her voice
trembling, and the tears rolling down her cheeks. "She has sewn my
skirt to the carpet."
"Sally!"
Cecilia's eyes blazed, but Sally only laughed. "She had been reading
to me, yards and yards of Shakespeare, and I was fed up, so I said I
would only listen if I might sit on the rug, so St. Martin said,
'Right oh.'"
"I never said 'Right oh'," exclaimed the scandalised Miss Martin. "I
said you might remain there if you were quiet."
"Well, I was quiet, once I found the darning wool, and St. Martin has
such a long skirt that I button-holed her down by it, and then when
Mary came to say tea was ready in the dining-room I truly and honest
Injun forgot I had done so and..."
"And I rose from my chair," said Miss Martin, "and I put my foot into
my skirt and..."
"It was a mistake to clutch at the tablecloth as you fell, all the
same," interposed Sally gravely. "I simply shouted, 'Don't clutch,'
and you clutched, and there you are."
"Sally, go to your bedroom," said Cecilia sharply, as she cut the
darning wool and pulled the governess on to her feet. "Miss Martin,
I am so sorry; it was abominable of her."
"It was unpardonable," said Miss Martin, pulling the frayed ends of
wool out of her skirt with trembling fingers. "I am afraid I must
ask to see your mother at once, Miss Brendan."
"You mean you won't come back again?"
Sally was still standing in the doorway.
"I do mean that. It is impossible to teach you anything."
"Sally, did you hear me say go to your bedroom?" broke in Cecilia
impatiently, but the girl still lingered.
"Let me speak to St. Martin alone," she said.
Miss Martin shook her head. "I have no wish to do that, Sally. It
is too late if you think an apology can cover all your rudeness; and
now, Miss Brendan, may I see your mother?"
As they went downstairs together Sally watched them from the landing,
a derisive smile at the corner of her lips, that marked, however, a
certain regret. It was a pity that St. Martin insisted on going. Of
course, she wept too easily, but all the same she was a bit of a
sport, and had forgiven and forgotten many little scenes scarcely to
her pupil's credit. In addition, she had always admitted that Sally
was clever, and Sally liked people who were ready to do this.
"Clever people aren't like other people; they have got to have
outlets for their energy and originality," was her argument for
silencing various twinges of conscience; and she at once put it
forward when Mrs. Brendan sent for her to the drawing-room as soon as
Miss Martin had gone home.
Cecilia was there to strengthen her mother, and said angrily, "If
only you didn't think yourself so clever."
"Know--not think," said Sally sweetly. It was no use losing your
temper with a sugar-plum like Cecilia.
"I am so clever you know, frightfully clever," she continued, "and
Miss Martin was such an ass, quite a nice ass, of course, not a goat
like the vicar and his double."
This diverted the conversation from the schoolroom to the lecture,
and as Sally recorded afterwards in her diary, "The floodgates
opened," but even Cecilia admitted that the ensuing deluge fell like
water off a duck's back where the culprit was concerned.
"I really truly am sorry if I made Mrs. Musgrave horrid to you," was
the nearest confession to which the sinner could be won; and when she
had been sent to bed, and carried off a choice of library books for
company, Mrs. Brendan admitted that this was not enough.
"She will have to apologise to Mrs. Musgrave and Miss Martin,
Cecilia. I must talk to her alone to-morrow."
"She will have to be sent away," returned the elder sister. "I was
at school at thirteen, and why not Sally, who is nearly fourteen?"
"She is the youngest," said Mrs. Brendan weakly, "and you know she
has been away from me so much."
"I admit Aunt Antoinette did her no good, except to teach her French,
and as to Uncle Frank, why you ever left her with them like that for
months and months on end I can't imagine."
"You see, your Uncle Frank was so devoted to her as a small child,
while your father and I were still in India, and then when your
father died and I came back he wanted to keep her, and as I had you
and the two boys, and he had been so good to Sally, I didn't like to
refuse. I fear I did wrong, however, very wrong; I am sorry now."
Mrs. Brendan usually repented of the few decisions she was prevailed
upon to make, and now she shook her head sadly.
Cecilia laughed somewhat maliciously. "Uncle Frank was sorry too.
He had enough of her after a bit, and packed her off home."
"My dear, that is ungenerous. It was not till his boy was born,
remember, and then there would have been the difficulty of
maintaining a nursery and a schoolroom at the same time, as Sally was
nearly eleven. He always said she was clever and offered to pay for
her education."
"He said, 'Send her to school,' didn't he?"
Mrs. Brendan was silent. This was perfectly true. She could
remember her brother-in-law's face quite well when he gave this
advice.
"School will do her a world of good, teach her to find her own level,
you know," he had said, and when Mrs. Brendan had asked anxiously,
"You think her clever?" he had answered:
"Abominably, the makings of a first-class prig, and may I be forgiven
for training her."
Undoubtedly Uncle Frank was right. Sally was clever beyond the
average girl of her age both in games and work, fearless and quick,
with a boundless ambition that made her strain every nerve to excel
in whatever she undertook.
"Let me; I can do it," had been her earliest watchword, and a proud
uncle had delighted in the pluck and endurance that had backed this
assertion.
"All right, kiddie, I will show you," he would say good-naturedly,
whether it was a case of arithmetic or cricket, and so put Sally
through a strenuous and valuable apprenticeship.
"That child will get somewhere," he would say delightedly, while Aunt
Antoinette, who was earlier disillusioned as to her spoilt niece's
charms, shrugged, and murmured:
"It may be ... yes ... but I ask you ... where?"
By the time Sally was thirteen her elder sister had no doubts at all
as to her future destination.
"It will be a reformatory, Mother. Either we must take steps to
discipline her, or the magistrates will, and we shall all be
disgraced. There's nothing but school. You won't get another
governess who will be an angel like Miss Martin."
"She never knew how to manage Sally."
"You can't manage a wild cat except by shutting it up, and Sally is
about as easy to control."
"She is so like her father." Mrs. Brendan sighed, then added
hastily, in an attempt to appease Cecilia's angry silence, "I mean
she always knows her own mind. He did, you know. It has been such a
responsibility without him."
Still there was silence, and the elder woman, feeling its weight and
intensity, yielded at last.
"Oh, very well, my dear. I expect you are right. She shall go to
school."
"Seascape House, next term, the summer one, and you must tell her she
will jolly well have to stop."
"Of course!" said Mrs. Brendan, "of course," but she looked troubled.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
"I shan't stop at school a minute longer than I want."
Sally was saying good-bye to Mrs. Brendan, and that good lady could
only find courage at the minute to murmur:
"But, my dear, of course you will remain. I beg you, Sally."
There were tears in her eyes, and the girl answered gruffly, but so
low that Cecilia in the doorway could not hear, "All right. I'll
try, Mum."
Then she threw her arms round her mother's neck, gave her a wild hug,
and joined Cecilia in the hall, laughing rather loud as she banged
the drawing-room door behind her.
"You will have to be quieter at Seascape House, Sally."
"Shall I?"
"I should hope so. Why, the prefects will turn you down at once for
that."
"Blow the prefects, and blow their doors tight too!"
Cecilia smiled, offensively Sally considered, as she clambered into
the taxi beside her.
"Hang the whole lot of superior idiots to weeping willow trees for
all I care," she persisted. "You needn't think I'm going to let
school or prefects upset me."
"You are so sure, cocksure even, on things you don't know anything
about, aren't you?"
"I am usually right, you see. I don't care what anybody says, so
they can't worry me."
"Oh, shut up and don't be silly, Sally."
"Shut up yourself."
The quarrels between the sisters, frequent in spite of Cecilia's good
temper, usually degenerated into a kind of puppy's barking, and then
trailed off into silence. Now the two sat moodily while the local
train crawled from Hartcombe to Clinton, and there disgorged its
passengers.
"We should see Violet Tremson here," said Cecilia at last, breaking
the silence. "I wonder if she is one of that group. They all have
the Seascape House hatband."
"I don't want to see her. Mrs. Musgrave's pet lambs are not in my
line."
Now Mrs. Musgrave, repenting of some of her animosity towards Sally
as soon as she heard that she was really being sent to school, had
recalled the existence of a young cousin at Seascape House.
"Of course, Violet is older than you--fifteen, I think--but such a
nice quiet girl, and so clever, without being affected."
It had been an unfortunate recommendation, and Sally had merely
scowled in response. Whoever she chose as her friend she was
determined from that minute it should not be Violet Tremson.
"Beastly sort of prig. Mother's darling business, I expect." She
had discouraged Mrs. Brendan when the latter suggested asking Violet
over from Clinton during the Easter holidays, and now she said
sharply to her sister:
"Look here, I'm not going near that lot, they've got a mistress with
them."
Hurriedly grasping up her new yellow-brown suit-case, she led the way
along the platform, and tumbled into a carriage already containing
five girls. Four of them were established in the corners, but seeing
the grown-up Cecilia with a foot on the step, one of them politely
moved. "Are you coming in?" she asked.
Now was Sally's opportunity to show off before the sister who
declared she would be awed by the inmates of Seascape House as soon
as she came in contact with them.
"No, she's not, but I am, thank you," and she coolly took the corner
seat.
There was hushed silence in the carriage while the girls stared at
her round-eyed, and Cecilia blushed at her impudence.
"You needn't stop, Cissy; I'm all right."
Sally's voice was as calm and even as usual, but she was glad when
Cecilia took her at her word, and with a doubtful glance at the five
said, "I do hope you will be all right," and vanished.
"Oh, my Empress of India!" said one of the girls rather shrilly, and
the others giggled; they were about Sally's size, a healthy,
cheerful-looking set, and they stared at her as though she were an
interesting object from the Zoo.
"Shall we shift it?" demanded another, edging near the new girl; but
at this minute, when Sally was preparing to defend her corner with
tooth and nail, a distraction arose. "Olive's going to be left
behind. There's Proggins trying to shove her in, and the guard with
the whistle to his lips."
"Proggins ought to be in here, herding us."
"She'll have to sprint then. Good old Proggins."
"Oh, hurrah! Olive has seen us. Come on, Olive."
All the five, leaning out of the window or kneeling up with their
faces to the glass, yelled aloud; then cheered as a dark-haired girl
of fourteen tumbled into the carriage, hatless.
Squeezed in her corner, Sally could see the mistress, evidently the
so-called "Proggins," fumbling for Olive's dropped hat and umbrella.
She retrieved them and made a run towards their carriage, but the
train had already begun to move, and the guard, opening a door
further back, unceremoniously pushed her in and banged it.
The six burst into uproarious mirth.
"Good old Proggins; not quite her centre forward style, I think?"
"A bit slow on the ball," said Olive, throwing herself back on the
seat beside Sally and fanning herself with a newspaper. "Anyhow, it
wasn't a good pass on my part. School hats aren't weighted right."
"She'll be jolly mad with you when we get to Parchester."
"Sufficient unto the day..." and then Olive stopped and began to
stare at Sally.
"A new kid," she said, "with a head like a golliwog illumined by a
sunset. My child, yours is not the tidy sort of poll we expect at
Seascape House, especially on Sundays. Old Cocaine will put a tax on
it."
Sally raised her eyebrows, then opened her magazine with a yawn. "Is
your hair generally admired?" she asked. "It looks painted on like a
wooden doll's."
This pleasantry was received in dumbfounded silence. If Sally
intended to make a sensation she had undoubtedly succeeded, and
smiled to herself at the result. It was one of her maxims to carry
war into the enemy's country on the least provocation.
Now there was a pause, suspended hostilities, while the six whispered
in corners. Olive was being told of the new girl's dramatic entry
into the carriage; so much Sally could guess from her round-eyed
stare and the agitated way in which she ran her fingers across her
dark, smooth-clipped head.
"What's your name?" she demanded.
"Sarah Brendan."
"And your age?"
"Thirteen and a half."
Sally was proud of this, for she knew she had done very well in her
entrance examination, so well that even Cecilia had gasped. It
amused her now to see the looks of satisfaction on the faces of the
six, especially when Olive said languidly:
"Quite a small kid, which accounts for your lack of manners. We
shall have to teach you."
"I fear you will hardly be in that position."
"What do you mean?"
"That we are not likely to be in the same form, or are you all
mistresses?"
"We are all 'Lower Fourth' here except Susy, who is in the 'Upper
Fourth.'"
"Exactly." Sally smiled; it was an offensive smile and led the girl
called Olive to seize her magazine out of her hand and throw it on
the floor.
"You horrid little scrub!" she said. "What are you driving at?"
"That I am in the Remove--which is above the Fourths, isn't it?--and
so I am not likely to see much of you children. As to your manners,
give me back that _Pearson's_."
"Get it yourself."
Taken unwarily, Sally bent down to do so and found herself pitching
forward on her nose, while with a shout of delight Olive seated
herself in the corner. It was dirty on the floor, and Sally's temper
was in shreds by the time she had picked herself up.
"Move at once, you beast," she said, her face white with passion; but
unlike her family, who had been taught by Mrs. Brendan to propitiate
rather than exasperate her when in one of her black moods, the six
girls crowed with joy at her discomfort.
"Go and wash your face, darling," cried one; and another: "Here's a
seat," pulling at Sally roughly and then sliding across the vacant
place before she could sit down.
For the next ten minutes pandemonium reigned, and for once, though
she was undoubtedly the cause, Sally had not created it for her own
pleasure. The tears rose to her eyes, but at the general offer of
handkerchiefs and a bucket she forced them back.
"I'll make you pay, you horrid little beasts," she said, clenching
her hands on the ledge of the open window behind her, but the threat
only evoked shouts of: "For she's a jolly smart fellow," to which the
accompaniment was a tattoo of as many feet as could reach the new
suit-case.
"Its mother won't know it soon," said Olive, examining the no longer
shiny surface, when the singers at last paused, exhausted.
"You have nearly knocked a hole in it. I shall tell Miss Cockran."
Sally's voice trembled with rage.
"If you do, you will be a dirty little sneak, and sent to Coventry by
the whole school."
"I don't care."
There was more laughter, and once more the six began to sing, and
Sally hated them while she stood there helpless, the more that they
seemed to have forgotten her very existence.
"Will you leave my suit-case alone? and give me back my seat?"
She pulled at Olive's sleeve, but though she repeated her questions
twice that young lady only looked at her lazily and laughed.
"In both cases the answer is in the negative," she returned and,
leaning back, closed her eyes.
"Very well," said Sally quietly. Her anger had died down into a cool
fury that was none the less intense, yet what could she do? She
looked out of the carriage window and realised from other journeys
that the train was nearing Southampton, and Southampton was the first
stop after Clinton. She could, of course, get out there, but the
exit would be undignified, and in imagination she could hear her
tormentors laugh, and see them kiss their hands to her in exultant
farewell at her discomfiture.
Now Sally liked her entrances and exits to be dramatic, not
undignified, and in a flash of inspiration the suggestion of how to
achieve this came. Just before Southampton there was a tunnel, and
when the train plunged into it, while everyone's eyes were growing
accustomed to the gloom, she would open the door and step along the
footboard to the next carriage.
"That will give them a fright," she said grimly to herself, and as
usual did not pause to consider her own folly in risking her life for
a matter of wounded pride. Besides, she was used to climbing and had
once played follow my leader with her brothers on a local train to
the same tune.
With a shriek the train plunged into the tunnel, and Sally, whose
fingers had been clasped on the handle, slid open the door and felt
for the step; the next minute she was swinging on the footboard,
while the hot air beat her face and blew her mop of hair across her
eyes. Her hat she had lost on the floor during her struggle in the
carriage.
As the train emerged once more into the day, with a glint of sunlight
across the harbour, Sally found herself clasping the door of the next
carriage while a girl, leaning out, grasped her by the shoulders.
"You young fool; what made you do such a thing?"
There was a group round Sally now on the platform, including
Proggins, her face deathly white, and all the elder girls from
neighbouring carriages; above their heads she could see the anxious
expressions of her fellow travellers of the Fourths. Certainly she
had impressed them.
"Why did I do it?" she said jauntily, and in a loud voice. "Why, I
couldn't get a decent seat where I was, and it was so stuffy."
At this a few of her audience laughed, though some merely stared,
while Proggins grasped her firmly by the shoulder.
"You will sit with me," she said.
"May I have my suit-case and magazine, if you have quite finished
with them?"
This was the moment of Sally's triumph, for as she turned and looked
up at Olive the latter meekly handed down her property through the
open window with never a gibe or scowl.
"I said to Cecilia that I could look after myself," the new girl
complacently told herself, as she settled down to read. She was not
unconscious that her companions, including Proggins, were regarding
her with curiosity.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
UNPOPULARITY
Sally Brendan ended her first week in the Remove at the top of the
form. What was more, she kept her place there easily during the
ensuing three, to the disgust of her nearest rival, the
fifteen-year-old Dorothy Baker.
"Never mind, I shall be out of your way in the Lower Fifth next
term," said Sally kindly, when the class list was read. The effect
of these words was naturally far from soothing.
"Oh, go and put your head in your desk; I didn't ask you to patronise
me," was the furious response, but Sally only laughed.
What was the use of propitiating these silly rabbits, as she had
christened her present form companions, any more than the kids of the
Lower Fourth who had teased her in the railway carriage? With the
Lower Fifth, whom she soon expected to be her future classmates, it
was different, and Sally would dearly have liked to make friends with
one of their number at least, a dark-haired girl, Trina Morrison,
nicknamed "Peter" by her intimates for reasons long forgotten.
"Peter" was rather old for the Lower Fifth, a lazy but far from
stupid girl of seventeen, who spent much time and ingenuity annoying
those in authority while her other talents ran to seed.
"School is such a bore," she would drawl to the group of her
admirers. "It's really too silly, all these old rules; let's pitch
some of them overboard!" and Sally, hovering on the outskirts, would
laugh with the rest as some new evasion was expounded, and try to
catch her idol's eye. So far she had not succeeded, though Peter,
she felt sure, was one of those who had noticed the incident of the
railway carriage.
This incident created quite a sensation for the moment at Seascape
House, though when Olive Parker's version of the affair was broadcast
it had not tended to make the new girl popular.
"Cheeky little beast!" was the general opinion, chiming in with a
prefect's comment, "Stupid little ass. She deserved to break her
neck."
Thus the school as a whole decided to ignore the incident.
Only one girl mentioned it to Sally, and that more by way of
introduction than in admiration or blame.
"I'm Violet Tremson," she said, coming up to Sally in the large
playroom that evening. "I'm sorry you didn't have much of a time on
the journey. I was keeping a place amongst our lot, but I didn't see
you at Clinton."
"Thanks."
Sally, with remembrances of Mrs. Musgrave, spoke sulkily, though she
could not help being attracted by the tall fair girl's friendly smile.
"I tried to wangle your sleeping in our dorm., but I don't seem to
have succeeded."
"Oh, I shall be all right; I can sleep anywhere."
"That's good!" Violet Tremson was smiling broadly now and cast a
hasty glance over her shoulder before she went on. "You see that fat
girl over there, Pilladex we call her, because her name's Decima
Pillditch?"
"The one with no eyebrows and pig's eyes?"
Violet Tremson stiffened slightly. "She's quite a good sort when
she's awake, if she's not beautiful," she said a little resentfully,
"and you'd better be careful, for she's Upper Fifth and in the
running for a prefectship. Anyhow she is head of your dorm, and
sleeps with her mouth open and snores; adenoids, I suppose."
"I shall put soap in her mouth," said Sally. "I did once to my
brother Fred and he was frightfully sick."
"Well, I wouldn't try it on the Pilladex, if you want to lead a quiet
life. You have never been at school before, I expect?"
"No, why on earth should I?"
Something in Violet Tremson's voice made Sally feel angry. It was
almost like hinting, "You are barely out of long clothes"; and she
added, "I know a good deal more than most schoolgirls I have met."
"Indeed? I hope you won't begin to lose intellectual ground here."
It was intolerable. This tall fair girl with her bland smile was
actually laughing at her, and Sally hated laughter when she couldn't
see the joke.
"Anyhow it's no business of yours," she said, and turning her back
walked off.
Violet Tremson did not come near her again, and Sally told herself
she was glad.
"A superior ass like any cousin of Mrs. Musgrave's was bound to be,"
she wrote to her mother, and scowled to think that the superior ass
was in the Lower Fifth. "Of course, she's nearly fifteen," she added
when she gave this information, but it did not make her feel much
better.
These were bad days for Sally Brendan, almost a nightmare when she
looked back on them afterwards, and only her half-muttered promise to
her mother kept her from doing something outrageous that might lead
to her being expelled.
"I'm unpopular just because I can do things, but I don't care," she
wrote home, and secretly cared a great deal. Hitherto in her life
she had mixed chiefly with grown-ups who spoiled her or tolerated her
shortcomings because her daring amused them, and this latter had been
the case with her schoolboy brothers.
"Sally is a regular sport," they would say, and forgive her vanity
because she could bowl and swim and climb, was never afraid, nor
complained when she was hurt. Younger children too had been willing
to take a daring leader at her own valuation, and it was only now
when she was brought into contact with numbers of girls of her own
age that Sally realised she could be seen and not admired, also that
her wit might fail to hit so many targets.
In school hours things were not so bad. Sally easily kept her first
place, enjoyed her lessons, and liked Miss Castle, her form mistress,
who was always ready to help her and praise her work.
"Well done, Sally," she would say, pausing by the new girl's desk,
and sometimes, "Why don't the rest of you use your brains like Sally
Brendan?" Occasionally she found fault. "Don't be so certain you
are right, remember pride before the fall; you are too cocksure," and
this led to Sally's nickname in the form, "Miss Cocksure," and a
rhyme chalked on the board one morning before school:
"Miss Cocksure
Is a bore,
I'm quite sure
She won't score."
"Won't I just?" muttered Sally to herself and smiled calmly on the
class, as calmly as Miss Castle told the girl nearest to the board to
clean it, before the literature lesson began.
"They are jealous because she likes me," was Sally's inward
conviction, and there was some truth in this. It was the fashion in
the middle forms of Seascape House to "adore" Miss Castle because she
was young, rather pretty, very friendly, and could read poetry aloud
with just the right amount of expression.
"Not woodenly like old Cheeserings (Miss Cheeseman) or pouring out
yards of sob-stuff like Smutts (Miss Black)," was the general
verdict, and when Miss Castle stage-managed Shakespeare plays there
was dramatic fervour throughout the school.
Certainly it was annoying for the Remove that Miss Castle should
accept this conceited new girl as one of their bright stars, give her
principal parts in Shakespeare scenes, and read large portions of her
essays aloud. That she might really like Sally for her hard work and
enthusiasm, and most of all perhaps because she did not bore her with
languishing glances and sentimental attentions, did not occur to
Dorothy Baker or her friends.
"Horrid little cad," they denounced Sally, adding, "Won't we take it
out of her in games!"
They did. The new girl was not even asked if she knew how to pitch a
straight ball, but was sent to join the junior game.
"You had better be a Shrimp," said Miss Rogers (Proggins), the games
mistress, who had not admired Sally's exploit on the train and
thought she needed keeping in her place. She added sharply, "Go at
once; Olive Parker will tell you what to do."
Olive, who was captain of the Shrimps (junior cricketers at Seascape
House were divided into Shrimps and Sardines), was only too ready to
undertake the task, though after the new girl had bowled her three
times over in practice at the nets she did not give her the
opportunity of doing so again.
"You'd better go out boundary or long stop," she would say, and yell
at Sally to "Get a move on" or "Throw the ball up, can't you?"
whenever she had the chance.
"You think yourself so jolly superior, don't you?" she said
indignantly when the younger girl sulked, only to grow red with anger
herself at the quick retort:
"I am superior to this sort of play anyway."
It was true, and Olive Parker knew it. She was being horribly
unfair, but at the same time she and the rest of the juniors disliked
Sally so much that she could not do anything right in their eyes.
When she had been batting one day and was bowled second ball (she
usually made a very creditable score) there were cheers from all the
Shrimps and derisive laughter. Sally had learned to make her face
very wooden, but there were tears smarting under her lids as she
walked back to the row of seats, ostentatiously filled up as she
approached. No one spoke to her, though Edith Carter, a girl in the
Upper Fourth, said something about "What price ducks' eggs?" and
laughed. Then there was silence, and looking up Sally saw Miss
Rogers standing beside her, and a big girl, Doris Forbes, the school
captain.
"You don't generally get out so quick, do you?" asked Miss Rogers
abruptly.
Sally shook her head. She could not trust herself to speak because
of the lump in her throat.
"I thought not. You hold your bat well. Did your brothers teach
you?"
"I have played a lot with them." Sally was beginning to recover.
After being ignored so much, even casual interest was pleasant, but
at this minute the last wicket fell and her side went out to field.
Sally was put boundary as usual, and except that Olive was less
hectoring and more business-like owing to the presence of her exalted
audience, the game dragged on its usual slow course.
Suddenly there was an interruption.
"Let Sally Brendan bowl now," called out Miss Rogers, and she walked
across the pitch and began to umpire.
Sally felt her heart beat very fast, but she looked quite calm as she
took her place behind the wickets and picked up the ball. She had
had no practice lately in bowling, but her eye was good, and every
nerve alert with the consciousness that now or never was her
opportunity.
Her first ball, a fast one, went wide, her second pitched too short,
but the third rooted Edith Carter's middle stump almost out of the
ground.
"Now I've got the right length," said Sally to herself exulting, and
the wickets began to fall rapidly before her onslaught.
"What I want to know, Olive Parker," said Miss Rogers as the last of
the batting team withdrew with a scowl and a duck's egg, "is why you
never mentioned Sally Brendan as a bowler when I asked you last week
about any promising Shrimps?"
"Don't know!" muttered Olive sullenly.
"Hardly keeping your eyes open, was it?" suggested Doris Forbes, the
cricket captain, and then Miss Rogers said decidedly:
"We'll talk about that afterwards, and you, Doris, settle what you
like about Sally."
"Yes, Miss Rogers."
As the mistress turned away Doris beckoned to Sally. "You can come
and bowl to me at the nets," she said.
Sally enjoyed the next half-hour more than any she had spent at
Seascape House; not that her bowling remained unpunished, but that it
aroused all her energy and skill. Soon she had forgotten the crowd
round the nets and was absorbed in her task, not even hearing the
school bell ring out seven o'clock till her batter called to her to
stop.
"H'm! You're keen enough," said Doris Forbes.
"It's the first real play I have had since I have been here."
"All right, you can come and try your luck with the Eagles
to-morrow," she said. "Now trot away."
Sally Brendan went back across the playing fields all alone, but for
once unconscious of her isolation. She was to play with the Eagles,
the group of senior cricketers from whom the first and second elevens
were chosen, and Olive Parker and her Shrimps would torment her no
longer. While she changed for supper visions of herself captaining
the first eleven and telling everyone what to do passed before her
eyes.
"I said I'd score," she laughed to herself triumphantly, and when
Violet Tremson separated herself from the crowd in front of the
dining-room door and congratulated her on her play at the nets she
answered coolly:
"Oh, that's nothing. I never got a chance before at this place."
Some of the girls round sniggered, and Sally rather wished she hadn't
been so lofty. After all, it was decent of Violet, who wasn't in the
Eagles at all, but the middle sort of game of the Bears and Wolves.
"I'll give you some practice if you like," she added, and heard
someone say:
"What frightful cheek! Leave the little bounder alone, Violet. Her
head's been turned so that it's simply reeling."
It was Doreen Priestly, another of the Lower Fifth, whom Sally had
secretly admired but henceforth hated. She had not meant to be
superior in her offer, merely friendly, and though Violet answered
quite gratefully: "Thanks. I'd like to but I'm no use at all at
batting," she suspected secret laughter at her expense.
"Anyway, I'll be too busy for a bit," she said in a rough voice and
pushed her way into the dining-room.
"What beasts they all are at Seascape House," she decided, "except,
of course, Doris Forbes and Miss Rogers--oh, and Miss Castle!"
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
A COLD SHOULDER
By half term Sally had played with the Eagles for some weeks and won
herself a place in the Second Eleven.
"I should be in the First, but that there is so much jealousy amongst
the Seniors, who are a rotten lot," she wrote home to her mother; and
Mrs. Brendan sighed as she read out this characteristic message to
Cecilia, who said:
"Still as offensive as ever, it seems! I suppose her impudence is
chronic now."
This was exactly the verdict of Seascape House, from Olive Parker,
who was henceforth driven to satisfy her dislike of the new girl by
muttered jeers in the passage, to Doris Forbes, the Sixth Form
Cricket Captain.
"Look here, kid! If there is any more cheek on your part you will
have to go back to the Shrimp pool. I am sick of complaints of the
way you give unasked advice to your elders, and put your oar in on
every occasion. You are not a cricket coach."
Sally looked sulky, but for once did not answer back. She loved the
Eagles game, while the thought of a return to shrimping, as it was
called, made her feel sick at heart.
"Why do you do it? ... 'bound' so much, I mean?" went on Doris
gruffly. She was a good-natured girl with a secret liking for her
recruit's pluck, and yet she could not but admit that the child,
apart from her play, was a prize beast of the worst order.
Sally flushed resentfully.
"I ... I don't bound," she said. "It's just that I know about
cricket, style, I mean. My uncle who taught me played for Yorkshire
for years, and when some of them are holding their bat all wrong they
get mad because I'm a lot younger than they are, and..."
"I suppose if you weren't such a kid you would know it was wise to
hold your tongue and be less objectionable," broke in the elder girl.
"I hear they call you Miss Cocksure, and if I were you I would live
that name down as quickly as you can."
"I didn't give it to myself."
Doris Forbes laughed and laid her hand on the other's shoulder.
"Don't gobble with rage or I shall christen you Miss Turkey
Cocksure," she said; and then, with a sudden return to the dignity of
her office, "Anyhow I sent for you not to argue with you but to give
you some wholesome advice and a warning. Control your tongue and
manners or you may find yourself scrapped. See?"
She turned on her heel and walked away without waiting for an answer;
and Sally clenched her hands to prevent herself running after her
with the usual, "I don't care."
For once she did care, and when Olive Parker, who had been trying to
listen to the conversation from a distance, called out in jeering
tones, "Scrapped, are you, Cocky?" she turned on her savagely,
instead of passing her by as usual with her nose in the air.
"No! You half-baked shrimp. If you are able to read, look on the
board and you will see that I am down to play against Borley Club
next Saturday."
This was quite true, and Sally Brendan, like the rest of the Second
Eleven, had been counting the days to the match; for it was to be
played, not on the home ground, but at Borley, and this meant a
char-a-banc ride with lunch and tea at the other end.
"Such a scrumptious feed too," said Cathy Manners of the Upper Fifth,
who had played in the match last year. "Why, we had chickens and
salad for lunch; I don't mean beastly oil and vinegar stuff, but
fruit and cream with ices after tea."
Those of her audience who would not be going groaned; and one of
them, Mabel Cosson, put an end to further descriptions by saying:
"Bet you anything you like the match is off! Patty Dolbey is in the
San. with a temperature and headache; and Frisky, who is in her room,
told me she was spotty all down her neck, only Matron said she wasn't
to spread it about."
"That is why you are both keeping so quiet about it, I suppose?"
suggested someone, while another voice chimed in:
"Spread what? Small-pox? I am jolly glad I have just been
vaccinated. It makes absolute pits in one's skin, I hear."
After this, conversation degenerated into a medical discussion
ranging over complaints varying from the Black Death to epileptic
fits. Sally Brendan, standing on the outskirts of the group, took no
part, for though, having had both measles and chicken-pox, she felt
in a position to contradict each of the speakers in turn, she had
learned that it was waste of breath to attempt this. Either her
remarks were ignored, or someone took her by the shoulders and pushed
her away out of earshot.
She would not indeed have remained so close but that she wanted to
hear more about the match. This match, she had decided, would give
her a chance to distinguish herself before an unprejudiced audience.
As she lay awake that night, with only Decima Pillditch's snores to
distract her thoughts, she pictured the captain of the Borley eleven
congratulating her on her bowling, and saying:
"We all think that you must be really First Eleven, aren't you?"
That would be a heavy score against Doris Forbes and other snobs of
the Upper Fifth and Sixth. Sally turned over on her side with a
satisfied smile on her lips, and hopes soon became merged in dreams,
not merely of pulling off a hat-trick, but of bowling the entire
Borley eleven in as many balls.
"The only runs they made were in the overs that I wasn't bowling,"
she wrote home in an imaginary letter; and woke with a start to find
the sun shining, and a bell ringing violently at the end of the
passage.
The first information that greeted her was vouchsafed by Milly Grubb,
the captain of the Second Eleven.
"Match off!" she said, and made no answer to Sally's twice-repeated
"Why?"
"Beast!" muttered the girl; but during breakfast learned from general
conversation that Mabel Gosson had been right in her prophecy. Patty
Dolbey had developed measles, and Frisky Harrison, her chum, was also
in the sanatorium under suspicion.
"Little cads!" said one of the Second Eleven of these unfortunates.
"Why couldn't they have smothered their faces in flour or something
until after the match was over?"
"Just imagine if Old Cocaine had caught them powdering their noses!"
"I suppose we shall all be shut up like maniacs for the rest of the
term? Sort of thing one expects during Lent, but in the summer it is
awful."
There was a general groan, and then Sally heard Peter's drawl:
"I had the afternoon off to go and see my cousins at Springley Manor,
this side of Parchester, you know. I suppose they will have all had
measles, so I can turn up there all right as arranged. They are none
of them children."