smooth down her shaggy hair.
"A young lady? What's her name? Where is she?"
"In the drawing-room, miss--and she didn't say who she was--only that
she thought you'd know."
"Of course! Of course!--give me my crutch, Amy."
Amy tried to expostulate. "I'm sure you oughtn't to go downstairs
with that bad ankle. What the Mistress will say---- But," as she
added afterwards to the kitchen, "I might just as well have spoken to
a whirlwind for all the notice she took."
Her crutch under her arm, Sally cleared the space to the door in a
few quick jumps, and was soon fumbling her way down the stairs. On
the last step she slipped, and had to lean her weight for a moment on
her bad foot. The pain made her wince and catch her breath, but a
few minutes later, as she entered the drawing-room, she was smiling.
"I knew you would come, Peter," she said, and then stopped dead,
because it was not Peter, but Violet Tremson.
"You?" she said, her voice trembling.
"Yes, Sally--I saw your brother to-day, and he said you were laid up."
"He had no business to mention me to you. Why have you come? What
do you want?"
Violet Tremson's quick colour came and went. "I haven't come to
steal the silver," she said, laughing a little uneasily. Then
abruptly, "Do sit down, Sally, you oughtn't to be standing--let me
help you," and she went over.
"Don't touch me," said Sally fiercely. "I never asked you to come.
Why do you pursue me in that horrible sort of way? Can't you take an
answer when it's given you? I told you on the cricket pitch I never
wanted to speak to you again."
Violet had gloves in her hand, and she measured them against the edge
of her jumper before she spoke--very deliberately:
"I'm sorry. You were angry that day--and I knew Trina had put you
against me--I hate keeping up a grudge, so I thought----"
"Even keeping up a grudge against Peter?" broke in Sally, with a
sneer.
"Yes--even against Peter," said the other tranquilly, "I don't mind
her now she's gone."
"Gone? What do you mean?"
Violet Tremson had been walking to the door: now she paused.
"Didn't you hear?" she said. "How odd--I--I thought you were
together that night. She went to a dance, and stayed away, so she
has been expelled."
For a minute she thought Sally was going to fall, but as she took a
step towards her, the younger girl pulled herself together and caught
at a bookcase for support.
"And you--you goody-goody, I suppose you went to Miss Cockran and
told her what a lot of harm Peter was doing directly the row came
out--like the sneak you are?"
"Sally, be careful what you're saying."
"Well, did you go to Miss Cockran after the row?"
"Yes--but only----"
"Shut up! That's enough--and get out. I don't want to hear any
more. You are the most unspeakable cad, and if you have got any
pride, you will leave me alone after this."
Violet Tremson was nearly as white as Sally, and, for a second, her
usually smiling mouth was twisted with a very ugly expression.
"I think I have enough pride for that," she said quietly, and stooped
to pick up one of the gloves she had dropped. Then she walked out of
the room with her back held very straight, and Sally heard the front
door close with a jerk behind her.
"I hate her! I hate her! How dared she come!" she said to herself,
crouching down in one of the armchairs, but in her heart she was not
sure if she did not hate Peter most.
So that explained things--Peter was expelled. She knew she would not
see Sally at Seascape House any more, and therefore she had not
bothered--even to write a postcard. She had just put their whole
friendship out of her life as something that no longer counted. It
had been the easiest thing to do, and Peter's comfort had, as always,
dictated the line of least resistance.
"Confoundedly selfish," that was what her Uncle Tom had called her,
and it was true after all.
"I won't think of her again--ever," said Sally passionately, and
picking up her crutch, forced herself to go upstairs. She was very
tired, and her foot was aching by the time she reached the
schoolroom, but she went over to her desk and picked out the few
mementoes she possessed of her friendship--a school snap-shot she had
stolen from Mabel Gosson, a scrawled note, a caricature done of
herself by Trina, in a schoolbook.
In the grate, she burnt them all, angry tears rolling down her cheeks.
When the picnic party returned, Sally was already in bed with her
blinds drawn, and refused either to talk or to eat her supper.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
THE NEW TERM
Sally spent a couple of weeks in bed after her interview with Violet
Tremson, the renewed swelling of her ankle after her journey
downstairs being aggravated by a fever, for which the doctor could
not account. As soon as she was better, she was sent off, at his
suggestion, to stay with her Uncle Frank and Aunt Antoinette in
Brittany for a complete change of air and scene.
"But I don't want to go, so what's the use of sending me? I just
want to be left alone," Sally had protested sullenly; but somehow,
when she saw her uncle's smiling face at Cherbourg and realised that
he knew nothing of the cause of her unhappiness, she began to forget
it too, and felt comforted.
"Been overworking, have you, Miss Pale-face? So they have cut off
your curls to give your brain air--was that it?" he demanded
cheerily: and Aunt Antoinette, who had first of all cast glances of
horror at her niece's shaggy head, became sympathetic, and offered to
see what her maid and the local hairdresser could do towards
improving matters.
They did a good deal, and by the time Sally arrived home just on the
eve of her second school term, she no longer looked the shorn little
ragamuffin of Parchester Fair. She had grown also, and though very
thin, had lost something of the irresponsible elfin wildness of which
Mrs. Musgrave had so strongly disapproved.
"You will be happier this term, won't you, darling?" asked her
mother, a little anxiously, as they stood looking down on the already
packed trunk on the last night of the holidays.
"Oh, yes!" said Sally, "I expect so."
Her tone was careless, but she did not meet Mrs. Brendan's eyes,
until, hearing a sigh, she looked up suddenly, put her arms round her
mother, and hugged her.
"I'm going to make this term a success," she said, almost fiercely.
"Don't say anything to Cissy, but just remember that I mean
to--whatever happens. I was nearly expelled last term, but this time
I shan't run any risks. It's not good enough."
She laughed bitterly, and Mrs. Brendan kissed her. "My poor Sally,"
she said, "you take things so hardly."
Sally shrugged. "I did--but I shan't in future--I'll just go on in
my own way. You know the Miller--'For I care for nobody--no not
I--and nobody cares for me.'"
Again she laughed, and Mrs. Brendan looked a little more distressed.
"My dear, but one can't live to oneself only in this world," she
began, when Sally cut her short:
"I can," she said impatiently, "and I mean to do it. As long as my
work is up to the mark, and I keep the rules, as I intend, there's
nothing you need worry about, is there? I won't disgrace you--or
even Cecilia."
Once more she was Sally Cocksure--cool and defiant. But Mrs.
Brendan, as she kissed her in silence, felt there was a subtle
difference between her old attitude and her new. Before, she had
been sure of the citadel of her own independence; now, she had
learned that she would have to fight for its defence.
Lying in the dark, with her hands behind her head, Sally sang softly
to herself that night, the lines she had taken as her motto:
"I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
Thinking of it made her eyes shine and her heart beat fast. It was
splendid. It meant getting things done as one wanted, as Napoleon
did, without being worried by qualms about other people's opinions.
Napoleon was Sally's hero at this time, in contrast to Charles the
Martyr, who, during the last term, had been the idol of her Form.
She remembered with satisfaction how she had outraged public opinion
by referring to him in an essay as "the man of straw."
"Strength is the only thing that really counts," she told herself,
and the phrase pleased her so much that she repeated it next morning
while dressing, and came down to breakfast whistling cheerfully.
Fortified by her own courage, she said good-bye with great calmness
to her mother at Clinton Station. She had utterly refused to allow
Cecilia to go with her, and now she begged Mrs. Brendan to leave her
as soon as she had taken her ticket and seen that her box was
properly labelled.
"I loathe hanging about for last words, Mummy," she said. "You'll
probably want to cry, and that will make me feel softy too--so do let
us get it over here. There are crowds of Seascapers on the platform,
so I shan't be stranded by myself, or anything."
"I thought I saw that girl--Mrs. Musgrave's niece, you know--I liked
her when I met her that time you were in bed ill," and Mrs. Brendan
looked round hopefully, but rather vaguely. She did not care for the
idea of Sally travelling by herself.
"I daresay you did see her, and perhaps I shall run into her, but I'm
not going to be left in her charge, or anyone's--so there!" Sally
bumped her suit-case impatiently against a seat, but at that minute
she saw Miss Castle in the distance, and hastily leaving her mother,
made off.
"One of the mistresses--I'll be all right--so long!" she called out,
and disappeared.
The porter, standing close by with her box, grinned.
"Don't you worry, ma'am, she'll be all right--I'll see she don't miss
the train."
Mrs. Brendan, presenting him with a shilling, turned back slowly into
the town; she remembered that she had some shopping to do for
Cecilia. As she went, she sighed. Sally, in the meantime, had
indeed run very hard into Violet Tremson, with her suit-case, because
she was wondering where Miss Castle had gone, and looking over her
shoulder to try to find her.
"Sorry," she said with a scowl, and encountered a cold stare that was
so unlike her remembrance of Violet's tranquil friendliness that it
made her feel uncomfortable. She could never recall exactly what she
had said that evening in the drawing-room, for all she had thought
about was her longing to find Peter; and then, when she was
disappointed, a desire almost as strong had taken possession of her
to hurt the immediate cause of her disappointment and make her suffer
a little of her own pain.
"I don't care if I was beastly--do her good--interfering missionary!"
she muttered, mindful of Trina's sneers, and came upon Miss Castle as
she was seeing a couple of new girls into one of the carriages.
"Keep a corner seat there for me with a book," Sally heard her say,
and running up to her, asked:
"Please, Miss Castle, may I get in with you too?"
"Why, Sally,--of course you can--climb in--how's the foot?"
"Better--but I mayn't play hockey this term. Isn't it a shame?"
She got in happily, and as she stood in the doorway, saw two scowling
faces watching her. One belonged to Olive Parker, her old enemy of
the Shrimps, and the other to a friend, Susy Cranstone, of the Upper
Fourth, who had been one of the group that had ducked her in the sea.
Susy, for the time being at any rate, "adored Miss Castle"--as she
announced on every possible occasion. She had obviously wished to
travel in the same carriage as her idol, but had not dared to ask the
adored one's leave; and now there was no room for her, as besides
Sally and the new girls, there were several quite small juniors
giggling together at the far end.
"Silly ass!--why didn't she bag the seat, if she wanted it so much?"
said Sally to herself, with great contempt, in her best Napoleonic
manner--and settled herself ostentatiously opposite Miss Castle, by
shifting a new girl--then fell to reading her magazines till the
train started.
To her annoyance, when she arrived at Seascape House and went to take
up her old quarters in room No. 9, she found she had been moved. Her
cubicle was now in a bigger dormitory, A, on the top floor, at the
end of a passage--and her next-door neighbour was no other than Susy
Cranstone. Beyond Susy was Frisky Harrison, quite recovered from her
last term's measles, and ready to live up to her nickname, to judge
by the noise going on behind her curtains--where she was supposed to
be unpacking.
"Can't you kids be quiet?" said a voice suddenly, and Poppy Bristow
flounced into the room.
"What are you doing--standing about there?" she demanded of Sally,
who answered coolly:
"Looking at you. I've only just turned up, and I'm not making a row."
This remark led to further noise and giggles behind the curtains, and
Frisky Harrison pushed her head out between them.
"Ah, Poppy, darlint, have pity on me. Sure, isn't it the first day
of term?"
(Frisky was not Irish, but she cultivated a brogue for humorous
purposes.)
Poppy scowled. She did not seem to have come back in a good temper,
and was certainly not amused on this occasion.
"Be quiet," she said. "I want everyone who sleeps in this room to
come out here a minute."
There was something so truculent in her manner that complete silence
fell, and in a minute Frisky Harrison and Susy Cranstone were
standing beside Sally. They were joined by Violet Tremson, from the
fourth cubicle in the corner.
"What is it?" said Violet.
Poppy's face cleared slightly. "Oh, I didn't know you were going to
be here, Violet--it's these three kids I meant. Now listen, you
three. I have got a 'single' at the end of the passage, and Miss
Cockran has put me in charge of this room. She says she won't have
any of the insub-sub-subordination there was last term, and if I have
any trouble I am to report it at once--and I j-jolly well mean
to--see?"
As she grew excited she began to stammer, but no one laughed--there
was too much grim earnestness in her tone. "All right, Poppy--I
didn't mean anything," muttered Frisky at last, in a weak voice; and
she and Susy went back soberly behind their curtains. Violet Tremson
had already disappeared. Sally was turning into her cubicle with a
shrug when Poppy caught her by the shoulder.
"See here, kid--your precious friend has left, and I'll stand no
cheek. You've not got a good name at headquarters, so you'd better
be careful."
Sally met her glance without flinching. It was with a great effort
of will that she prevented herself from smiling contemptuously as she
would have liked to do.
"I haven't cheeked you yet, have I?" she asked quietly, and it was
Poppy's eyes that fell before hers, as the prefect turned away.
"All the same, it will be difficult not to get into a row with her as
monitress," Sally told herself, as she reflected complacently on the
triumph of will that had kept her from giving Poppy a handle to abuse
her.
How difficult it was going to be she had not yet realised.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
THE BLOTTED ESSAY
Half the autumn term had gone, and Sally, though she did not mention
it in her letters home, found that she disliked her life at Seascape
House a great deal more than even when she had been a new girl. It
was true that she had achieved her move into the Lower Fifth, where
she sat, like an infant prodigy, among her elders; but the change was
not to the throne of triumph which she had pictured in imagination.
Violet Tremson was head of the form, and kept her place by a narrow
margin, above her friend, Doreen Priestly. It was only on occasions
that Sally came third, more often she was fifth or sixth; and though
at her age she should have been contented with this position, it did
not satisfy her ambition to take the lead and dominate those around
her.
What worried her most was that she could not understand her failure
to achieve anything for which she worked. To her mother, she wrote
that her new Form-mistress, "Old Cheeserings," disliked her; and
though this was probably true--for Sally's manners were not endearing
towards those whom she herself disliked--she knew in her heart that
mutual lack of affection would make no difference in her marks.
The only other explanation was that Sally was still too young to
achieve, with her usual ease and quickness of grasp, the standard of
work in the Lower Fifth, and this she was not prepared to admit.
"Of course, it is difficult to play a lone hand," she wrote Roger, in
a moment of expansion, when she longed for sympathy--even in her
brother's almost illegible scrawl--and she added, "Still, you bet I
hold some trumps, and will make the most tricks in the end."
She also put "Napoleon did," but crossed this out, for Napoleon had
been beaten at Waterloo. He had trusted his friends--people like
Bernadotte--and they had betrayed him.
Sally never meant to trust anyone at school again; but though she
made no effort to win friends, she would have been glad of a group of
admirers--however humble.
In the end, one admirer presented herself--a putty-faced girl, called
Catherine Dowl, who had been in the Lower Fifth for years, and was
almost as much disliked there as Sally herself--though no one quite
knew why.
She had very curly hair, and queer, slanting eyes, that seemed to
disappear when she talked, beneath her lazy eyelids; and when she
laughed it was noiselessly, so that the only sign was the show of
teeth and upper gums.
"The Cat," she was nicknamed, or "Puss Puss," but it was not an
attractive member of that much-maligned race that she resembled.
There was no Persian pride, or grace, in her, but rather the
self-defensive cunning of a persecuted slum tabby.
Frisky Harrison, who had also been moved into the Lower Fifth at the
same time as Sally, declared that "Puss Puss" cheated in arithmetic,
at which she was very bad, and other members of the Form
ostentatiously drew their books away, when she sat near them. She
did not seem to resent this, nor was she put off at first when Sally
refused to have anything to say to her.
"Your essay was much better than Violet's this week--Miss Cheeseman
favours her," she said one day, in the middle of the morning
interval. To which Sally, who had been thinking so herself only a
minute before, responded:
"Rot!"
She knew suddenly, that it wasn't true.
"You ought to be head of the Form, for you are much more original,"
went on the girl, in her soft voice. "That's why they don't like
you."
"I shall be head very soon," said Sally, flattered, in spite of
herself, by a tribute to her powers that quite met her own views on
the subject.
"I know--you are the horse for my money, and I have put all I possess
on your winning--so mind you do."
The girl laughed noiselessly, and as she spoke seated herself quite
close to Sally.
"Tell me what you think of Wordsworth," she said confidentially. "I
was watching you yesterday and could see that you didn't agree with
Cheeserings."
"It's no use disagreeing with her, is it?"
"No, I should think not--sheer waste of time."
The "Cat" bared her teeth and threw back her head, as though her
companion had said something extraordinarily funny.
"But you didn't change your opinion, did you? I expect it is very
rarely you change when you have made up your mind."
"Hardly ever," said Sally carelessly, and forgot that she was
changing it at the minute. She no longer definitely disliked
Catherine Dowl. That day she talked to her in class, between the
lessons, and walked up and down the passages with her, indifferent to
the contemptuous curiosity of the Juniors.
"They haven't any brains, of course," said the "Cat" tranquilly, when
Olive Parker miawed and crowed at them from behind a pillar, and the
other shrugged and agreed.
"I don't care a hang, if it amuses their small minds," she said.
"You wouldn't. Have you ever noticed how often really great people
have been disliked at school?"
Sally had not, and was glad to have it pointed out. She would
remember Shelley.
In the meantime, she was quite prepared to neglect the names of all
those who had been both popular and illustrious.
"Anyhow, it doesn't matter, does it?" she said grandly, "I mean being
unpopular. Success so often is envied just because it is the thing
that counts most."
The next week Violet Tremson was only third, and Sally second, in
Form marks. Violet remembered giving in her arithmetic paper, but it
had not reached Miss Skalding, the mathematical mistress, while her
essay was so covered in blots as to be perfectly unintelligible.
"I can't understand it," said Miss Cheeseman. "It is not like you to
be so untidy."
"I ... I didn't make those blots," said Violet slowly. Her eyes were
astonished. "I ... I'm sure I didn't," she added.
"Who else could have made them without your seeing them?" asked Miss
Cheeseman in an annoyed tone. She had an unfortunately querulous
manner; and everyone looked round at everyone else, except Violet,
who was turning the pages of her essay with rather a high colour in
her cheeks.
Sally wondered if it could be Frisky Harrison; she was often careless
with ink, and had a leaky fountain pen which her neighbours dreaded;
but her expression was one of obvious innocence. Then the girl
looked beyond her, and caught for a moment a rather peculiar gleam in
Catherine Dowl's slanting eyes. It was triumph--there was no doubt
of it.
So the Cat had done it--Sally knew in a flash--and also that it had
not been done for love of her, but in hatred of Violet Tremson.
Putting her evidence rapidly together she could find none direct, but
everything pointed to this decision. Peter had once told her, as an
illustration of Violet's missionary spirit, that Violet had caught
"Puss Puss" cheating and had forgiven her, on promise of amendment.
"Much use to forgive a slimy beast like that," Peter had said. "She
should have reported her to a prefect, and got her expelled. She is
such a second-rate cad."
In her revulsion of feeling against Trina Morrison, Sally had pushed
this judgment into the back of her mind, when accepting the Cat's
homage.
"Cheating is silly," she had told herself, and argued that it was
therefore impossible; but now, remembering the cunning in Catherine
Dowl's eyes, she realised that it was not impossible. What was
unlikely, was that the Cat would ever forgive those who found her out.
With a feeling of rising discomfort, she stood in front of the
notice-board on Monday morning, and saw her name second, with Violet
Tremson's third.
"Congratulations," whispered Catherine Dowl, appearing as usual at
her elbow. "Now there is only one more rung for you to climb in this
Form."
"Shut up," said Sally fiercely, forgetting wisdom in her indignation.
"Violet ought to be first or second, and you know that quite well."
"Ought she?" The Cat raised her eyebrows. "I didn't know. Well, she
isn't there, is she?" And she laughed noiselessly.
"I wish she was," said Sally. "I loathe winning anything by
underhand means."
"Ah!" said the Cat quickly, and she suddenly raised her usually soft
voice.
"Then did you make the blots on the essay?"
"No, I didn't--but you know who did, quite well."
"On the contrary--I quite believed it was Violet who must have done
it, as Miss Cheeseman said, until you accused yourself."
Sally glared; but the Cat's slanting eyes merely blinked, without any
expression at all in them, as they met hers.
By this time a large part of the Form had gathered round and were
sniggering happily at the quarrel.
"Quite amusing when thieves fall out," said Doreen Priestly. "Do
come here, Violet. I have never heard anything like it before. The
Cocky-doodle says she threw ink on your essay to get above you on the
Form List."
"I didn't," said Sally furiously, "I said I hated being above her,
just because someone had played a dirty trick."
"Well, who was the someone if it wasn't you?"
Sally looked round the ring of hostile faces; she saw that the Cat
had slipped away, and was already seated at her desk, with her head
bent over a book.
"I didn't do it," she said sullenly.
"Then who did?" demanded Doreen. "You know something about it--you
and your precious friend--or why did you bring up the subject at all?"
The hostile glances shifted for a moment to Catherine Dowl, who
looked up tranquilly and then laughed.
"Does Sally accuse me?" she asked. "Then I suppose she has a
proof--or else she is in one of her tempers. I am too old to do
anything so childishly spiteful--besides, why should I? I'm sure I
don't care who is head of the Form, for I know it will never be me."