The Rivals
This book does not propose to extol an ideal heroine, only to chronicle
the deeds and thoughts of a girl, who, like most other girls, had her
pleasant and her disagreeable moods, her high aspirations and good
intentions, and her occasional bursts of bad temper. Ingred had been
very passionate as a child, and, though she had learnt to put on the
curb, sometimes that uncomfortable lower self would take the bit between
its teeth and gallop away with her. It is sad to have to confess that
the enjoyment of her walking tour was entirely spoilt by an ugly little
imp who kept her company. In plain words she was horribly jealous of
Bess. Ingred liked to be popular. She was gratified to be warden of "The
Pioneers" and a member of the School Parliament. She felt she had an
acknowledged standing not only in her own form but throughout the
college. Her official position, her cleverness in class, her aptitude
for music, her skill at games, made her an all-round force and a referee
on most subjects. There is no doubt that Ingred would have had the
undivided post of favorite in her form had it not been for Bess
Haselford. Not that Bess was in any way a self-constituted rival--on the
contrary she was rather shy and retiring, and made no particular bid for
popularity. Perhaps that was one reason why the girls liked her. She was
generous in lending her property, invited her form-mates to charming
parties at Rotherwood, and often persuaded an indulgent father to
include some of her special chums in motoring expeditions on Saturday
afternoons. She had, indeed, taken up the exact role that Quenrede had
played years ago, before the war, and which Ingred would have followed
had Rotherwood and a car still been in the Saxons' possession. In spite
of several overtures from Bess, Ingred had thrust away all idea of
friendship, and had steadily refused any invitations to her old home.
The reports which the girls brought back of the renewed glories of
Rotherwood made her feel like a disinherited princess. She considered it
rough luck that her supplanter should be at the same school and in the
same form as herself, and decided that Bess had ousted her from both
house and favor. It made it only the more aggravating that Bess's
musical talent was quite equal, if not superior, to her own. Bess had
improved immensely on the violin, and her performance at the end-of-term
recital had received quite a little ovation.
When the question of the walking tour was broached, Bess, owing to home
engagements, had at first reluctantly refused, then had managed to
rearrange her holidays and had joined the party after all. To Ingred her
presence utterly marred the enjoyment. It was extremely unreasonable of
Ingred, for Bess was most unassuming and really very long-suffering. She
put up with snubs that would have made most girls retaliate indignantly.
Nobody likes to be sat upon too hard, however, and even the proverbial
worm will turn at last.
As the walking party, much urged by Miss Strong straggled along towards
Ryton-on-the-Heath, Bess made a lightning dive up a bank and came back
with a blue flower plainly of the _labiate_ species.
"Bugle!" she remarked with satisfaction.
"Bugle?" echoed Ingred scornfully. "Shows how much you know about
botany! That's self-heal!"
"Oh no; it's certainly bugle."
"I tell you it's self-heal. I found some at Lynstones last August and
looked it up in the flower-book."
"Very likely you did, but that doesn't prove that this is self-heal."
"It does, for anybody with a pair of eyes. I've been studying botany."
"And so have I!"
"You may think you know everything, Bess Haselford, but you don't know
this."
[Illustration: "YOU MAY THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING, BESS HASELFORD, BUT
YOU DON'T KNOW THIS!"]
"I didn't say I knew everything; but I'm certain this is bugle all the
same, and I stick to it!"
Bess's usually sweet voice had an obstinate note in it for once. She
seemed determined to defend her botanical trenches.
"Go it--hammer and tongs!" laughed Kitty. "I'll back the winner!"
"And I'll take the case into court," said Linda, snatching the flower
from her schoolfellow's hand and running on to show it to Miss Strong,
who was an authority on the subject.
The mistress paused to let the others overtake her.
"Bugle, certainly," she decided emphatically. "The first bit we've found
this year. It's out early. Self-heal? Oh dear no! The two are rather
alike and are sometimes mistaken one for another, but no botanist would
dream of confusing them. Bugle is a spring and early summer flower, and
self-heal blooms much later. Make a note in your nature diaries that you
found bugle on 15th April."
Considerably squashed, Ingred had for once to acknowledge her botany to
be at fault, and, though Bess did not triumph, Francie gave Kitty a poke
and the pair giggled.
"Well, of course, one can't be always right," said Ingred airily.
"So it seems; though some people set themselves up for wiseacres!"
sniggered Kitty.
Ingred fell behind with Verity and let the others walk on. It was only a
trifling incident, but she was annoyed to notice how openly and
instantly the girls had sided with Bess. She felt too glum for speech,
and as Verity was tired and disinclined to talk, they tramped along in
silence.
They had been winding steadily uphill for some miles and were now on the
heath from which Ryton took its name. The ground fell steeply to the
west, showing glimpses of a great river in the valley below, where the
still-leafless woods had burst here and there into faint tokens of
spring. Beyond the river rose the characteristic grey hills of the
neighborhood, with their stone walls and sheepfolds and stretches of
moorland, looking a little hazy in the afternoon light, but with patches
of yellow gorse catching the sunshine. Ryton was a delightful little
village. Its cottages, built long ago by local craftsmen, seemed
absolutely in harmony with the landscape: walls, dormers, and mullions
and long undulating roofs were all of limestone and conveyed an
impression of sturdy self-respect. The rain-worn, lichen-covered roofs
had weathered to charming irregularities of form and lovely tones of
color. Ivy and clematis climbed over the porches and twisted themselves
round the low chimneys. The little gardens were bright with daffodils,
mezereon, and flowering currant.
To the girls, somewhat tired and decidedly hungry, the main focus of the
village was a long iron post which stretched out over the street and
supported a rudely-painted sign of a bird, whose species might have been
a puzzle to an ornithologist but for the words "Pelican Inn" that
appeared beneath it.
In the long-ago days before railroads, the little hostelry had been a
stopping-place for stage-coaches, and a wooden board still set forth
that it supplied "Posting in all its branches." The landlord would no
doubt have been much dismayed if any wag had entered and demanded a
chaise and post-horses to drive to Gretna Green, and a shabby motor in
his stable-yard showed that he marched with the times.
Miss Strong, on consulting her watch, decided that her party might
safely indulge in a halt of half an hour, and ordered tea for nine
persons. The inn, built on a type common in the district, was entered by
an archway leading straight into a courtyard. A door on the right led to
the bar, and a door on the left to the coffee-room. To this latter more
aristocratic quarter Miss Strong conducted her pupils. Some of them had
never before been in a small village hostelry, and were much amused at
the quaint old parlor with its sporting prints, its glass cases of
stuffed squirrels and badgers, and its horsehair-seated chairs with
crochet antimacassars hung over the backs. The atmosphere was certainly
rather redolent of stale beer and tobacco, but a bunch of crimson
wall-flowers on the table did their best to spread a pleasant perfume.
The tea, when, after much delay, it arrived, was delicious. The Pelican
was a farm as well as an inn, and the rosy-faced servant girl carried in
cream, fresh butter, and red-currant jam to the coffee-room. She
apologized for the absence of cake, but it was an omission that nobody
minded. Upland air gives good appetites, and, though Miss Strong
reminded her flock that this was only a meal by the way, and that supper
was ordered for them at Dropwick, they set to work as if they would
taste nothing more till midnight. There was something so delightfully
fresh and out of the common in having tea at a wayside inn; they felt
true pilgrims of the road, and civilization and school seemed to have
faded into a far background. The love of travel is in the blood of both
Celt and Anglo-Saxon; our forefathers visited shrines for the joy of the
journey as well as for religious motives, and maybe our Bronze Age
ancestors, who flocked to the great Sun Festivals at Stonehenge or
Avebury Circles, derived pleasure from the change of scene as well as a
blessing from the Druids. The Romans, those great pioneers of travel,
had opened out the district eighteen centuries ago, and laid a straight,
paved road from Wendcester to Pursborough; the remains of their
fortified camps and of their villas were still left to mark their era.
The foss-way, leading from Ryton-on-the-Heath to Dropwick, was their
handiwork, and our pilgrims were to march on the identical track of some
old Roman legion.
It must be owned that when tea was finished they were very unwilling
pilgrims, and would gladly have spent the night at The Pelican and have
slept in the funny, musty, low-ceiled little bedrooms upstairs.
"Couldn't we possibly stop here?" implored Verity.
But Miss Strong, having booked rooms in Dropwick, was adamant.
"Besides which I wouldn't trust the beds here," she remarked. "So early
in the year they're almost bound to be damp, and we don't want any of
you laid up with rheumatic fever as the result of our trip. I prefer to
give a wayside inn a week's notice if I mean to sleep there in April.
Nobody has had enough coal during the winter to keep fires going in
spare bedrooms. That front room was as chilly as a country church! You
won't feel so tired, Verity, when you're on your feet again, and it's
all downhill to Dropwick."
The Temperance Hotel, where the girls finally stayed their weary feet,
was quite modern and unromantic, though well aired and fairly
comfortable. Ingred, whom the fates had placed to sleep with Nora, had a
trying night, for her obstreperous bedfellow had a habit of flinging out
her arms, and of appropriating the larger half of the clothes, leaving
poor Ingred to wake shivering. Also, the bed sloped towards the middle,
so that both girls had to poise themselves on a kind of hillside, and
were constantly rolling down and colliding. These troubles, however,
were only incidental in the Pilgrimage, and certainly might have been
worse.
On comparing notes at breakfast nearly everybody had had similar
experiences. Miss Strong confessed to a patent mattress with a broken
spring jutting up in the center, round which she had been obliged to lie
in a curve. Linda and Francie had slept near the water-cistern, which
alarmed them with weird noises, and Bess and Kitty, trying to open their
window wider, had found it lacked sash-cords, and descended like a
guillotine, sending the prop that had upheld it, flying into the street.
Though they groused at the time, the girls laughed as they discussed
these details over the eggs and bacon. The sun was shining and they felt
rested, and quite ready once more to shoulder their kit and set out on
the march.
There was nothing of very great interest to see in Dropwick itself,
though it was a quaint enough old-fashioned market-town, with a
fifteenth-century church tower, and a few black and white houses. Miss
Strong decided not to waste any time there, but to push on as fast as
possible across the hills to Sudbury, where there was a fine
Romano-British villa that was well worth a visit. So the foss-way took
them up, and up, and up, through fir-woods where the new cones were
showing like candles on Christmas trees, and alongside a quarry where
they pounced upon some quite interesting fossils in the heaps of stones
by the road, and over a craggy weather-worn peak, where, again, they
caught the magnificent view of the valley and the river and hills
beyond. Then down again, through more fir-woods, where the timber was
being felled, and great tree-trunks lay piled in rows one above another,
and past banks that were a dream, with starry blackthorn blossom and
primroses growing beneath, to where the cross-roads met and the signpost
pointed an arm to Sudbury.
The Romans might take their roads straight as an arrow across moor and
hill, but they chose out the beauty spots of the land on which to build
their villas, and were careful to fix upon a southern aspect and shelter
from the prevailing winds. The remains of the old settlement lay behind
a farm, and had been carefully excavated by a local antiquarian society.
Visitors applied at the farmhouse, entered their names in a book, paid
their admission money, and were escorted round by a guide.
Time, and successive conquests, had demolished the greater part of the
villa, but its foundations and some of the old brick walls could be
plainly traced. The great bath, that indispensable feature of a Roman
establishment, could still be seen, with its beautiful tesselated
pavement, inlaid with mosaics of doves, cupids, and designs of fruit and
flowers. The heating system also, with the leaden pipes and remains of
furnaces, was a testimony to the civilization of the period, and the
amount of comfort that the legions brought with them into their foreign
exile. A large shed had been fitted up as a museum, and held a number of
objects that had been dug up during the excavations. The girls, poring
over the glass cases, looked with interest at a Roman lady's silver
hand-mirror, toilet pots, and tiny shears that must have been the early
substitute for scissors. More fascinating still were the toys from a
little child's grave, small glass bottles, roughly-made animals of clay,
and a carved object that no doubt had been at one time a treasured doll,
though now it was crumbling into dust.
Among the pile of broken statues or fragments of ornamental stonework in
the corner was a monumental tablet, cracked across in two places, but
pieced together for preservation with iron rivets. The inscription ran:
"D.M. Simpliciæ Florentinæ Animæ Innocentissimæ quæ vixit menses
decem. Felicius Simplex Pater fecit. Leg. vi, V."
(To the Divine Shades. To Simplicia Florentina, a most innocent
soul, who lived ten months. Felicius Simplex of the Sixth Legion,
the Victorious, the father, erected this.)
Some of the girls glanced at the tablet, and the English translation of
the inscription which lay near, and turned away without much notice. But
Ingred stood gazing at them with a catch in her throat. They brought a
whole pathetic human story to life again. She could picture the noble
Roman father, leader of the victorious legion, sent over from Italy and
making his home here in a conquered foreign land, as our officers do in
India, and bringing with him his lady with her Roman customs and her
slaves. Those few brief words--"a most innocent soul who lived ten
months"--told the tragedy of the cherished little daughter whose frail
life faded in the fogs of the British climate about eighteen hundred
years ago. Hearts are the same all the world over, and the pretty
dark-eyed Roman baby must have been laid to its rest with as much grief
and sadness as the fair-haired darlings whom British mothers sometimes
bury in Indian soil.
"It's a sweet name, too--Simplicia Florentina!" mused Ingred. "I wonder
what she would have grown up like. And what her history would have been!
I'd give worlds to know more about her!"
"Aren't you coming, Ingred?" called Verity from the doorway. "Miss
Strong says we ought to be getting on now."
Ingred brought her thoughts back with an effort to the twentieth
century, and joined the waiting party outside. Miss Strong was talking
to their guide, who was describing a short cut across the fields that
would save them several miles on their way to Pursborough.
Verity, after calling to her friend in the museum, had run out. Ingred
followed her, to find her with her arm locked closely through Bess's.
There was no reason why she should not display such a mark of affection,
but to Ingred it seemed little short of an insult to herself. Verity,
her particular chum, to have openly gone over to the enemy! She stared
at her in surprise. Verity did not appear to notice the stare, however,
and walked on quite calmly.
Miss Strong had decided that they should find a quiet place along the
lane where they could eat their lunch before beginning the second part
of their march. She fixed on a lovely spot with a high wooded bank at
the back and in front fields that sloped to the river. There were specks
of yellow in these fields, and Kitty who finished her sandwiches first,
ran to inspect nearer and reported cowslips. Instantly most of the girls
went scrambling over the stile.
Miss Strong, who had bought picture-postcards of the Roman villa, and
was addressing them with a stylo-pen, did not follow the exodus. She
called to Ingred, however, who was last.
"Warn the girls," she said, "not on any account to go into that meadow
where there is a horse with a young foal. The guide at the farm said it
is a savage beast and will attack people. Be sure to tell them _all_!"
"I'll run after them now," answered Ingred, calling "Cuckoo!" to attract
their attention.
She told Belle and Linda and Verity, who were near to the stile, and
Linda passed the news on to Francie and Kitty. Bess was quite a long
distance down the field, gathering blackthorn from the hedge.
"I'm not going to tear all that way after her!" thought Ingred crossly.
"Verity will be sure to tell her. They seem inseparable to-day. Besides
which nobody's particularly likely to go into that other meadow. There
are plenty of cowslips here."
It took Miss Strong a much longer time to write her postcards than she
had originally intended, and while she was thus employed her girls
spread themselves out in quest of flowers. It is always amazing when you
start rambling in company with others how quickly you can find yourself
alone. By the time Ingred had gathered a fragrant, sweet-smelling bunch
and looked round for somebody to admire it, her schoolmates were gone.
She hunted about for them, and noticed Verity's green jersey and Kitty's
brown tam-o'-shanter in the wood above. Surely they must all be up there
together.
She was just going to follow, when a qualm of conscience seized her. She
had not delivered Miss Strong's message to Bess, and it would perhaps be
as well to ascertain that the latter had not strayed unwarned into the
danger zone.
"It's not at all likely," Ingred kept repeating to herself, as she
walked briskly along the meadow to the fence. "I'm really only going on
a wild goose chase."
Likely or unlikely, it was the very thing which had happened. The
cowslips on the other side of the railings were larger and finer, and
Bess, having no fear of horses, had climbed over and wandered some way
down the field. Only about twenty yards from her the lanky foal was
gambolling round its mother, a big draught mare, cropping the grass
innocently enough at present, and apparently not perceiving trespassers.
If Bess could retreat quietly and unnoticed from the field all might be
well. Ingred did not dare to call for fear of attracting the mare's
attention. If Bess would only turn round she might wave to her. But Bess
kept her back to the fence and had no idea of danger. There was only one
course open to Ingred. She slipped over the railings and went along the
meadow to warn her schoolfellow. In a few quiet words she explained the
situation.
"Don't run," she whispered. "Let us walk back and perhaps it will take
no notice of us."
The girls went as softly as possible, looking over their shoulders every
now and then to see that all was safe. Of bulls they had a wholesome
terror, but they had had no previous experience of a savage horse.
They were about fifteen yards from the railings, when the mare, which
hitherto had been feeding quietly, raised her head and lumbered round.
She saw strangers in her territory; her primeval instinct was to protect
her foal, and she came tearing across the field with wild eyes and lip
turned back from gleaming teeth. The girls fled for their lives. It was
a question of which could reach the railings first, they or the
dangerous brute whose huge hoofs thundered behind them. Ingred, who was
the taller and the stronger of the two, seized Bess by the hand and
literally dragged her along. Together they tumbled over the fence
somehow and rolled down the bank into the safe shelter of some gorse
bushes. For a moment they were afraid the mare would leap after them,
but the height of the rails balked her; apparently she was satisfied
with routing the enemy and returned across the field to her foal. The
girls, with shaking knees, got up and hurried towards the lane where
they had left Miss Strong.
"You've saved my life, Ingred!" gasped Bess, as they went along.
"No, I haven't!" choked Ingred. "At least, it was my fault you ever went
into the field at all. Miss Strong told me to tell you the horse was
savage, and you were such a long way off picking cowslips that I didn't
trouble to go after you. I trusted to Verity telling you."
"Verity ran the other way with Kitty."
"I know. Well, at any rate, it was my fault and I'm ready to take the
blame. Precious row I shall get into with the Snark!"
"Why should we say anything about it?"
"Not say anything?"
"There's really no need. It's over and done with now. I don't want to
get you into a scrape. I vote we just keep it to ourselves."
Ingred paused, with her hand on the gate, and gazed with unaffected
astonishment at her companion.
"Bess Haselford, you're the biggest trump I've ever met! It's only one
girl in a thousand who'd want to cover up a thing like that. Most people
would make _such_ a tale of it, and pose as an injured martyr whom I'd
nearly murdered. I'm sure Francie would, or even Verity."
"You put yourself into danger to come and warn me!"
"Well, it was the least I could do!"
"Let's forget about it then. And don't tell any of the girls, in case
they blab. It would make Miss Strong so nervous, she'd be scared about
our going into any fields for ever afterwards."
"Right-o, I won't tell, but I shan't forget. As I said before, I think
you're the biggest trump on the face of the earth."
"Cuckoo!" rang out Linda's voice from the bank.
"Where are you girls?" shouted Miss Strong from the lane.
"Coming!" called Ingred, as she latched the gate and hurried with Bess
to rejoin the rest of the party.