BY HONOUR
BOUND
A SCHOOL STORY FOR GIRLS
BY
BESSIE MARCHANT
AUTHOR OF
“DIANA CARRIES ON,” ETC.
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO, AND PARIS
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LTD
Parkside Works Edinburgh 9
3 Henrietta Street London WC2
312 Flinders Street Melbourne C1
5 Parker’s Buildings Burg Street Cape Town
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS (CANADA) LTD
91-93 Wellington Street West Toronto 1
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
19 East 47th Street New York 17
SOCIÉTÉ FRANÇAISE D’EDITIONS NELSON
25 rue Henri Barbusse Paris V^{e}
CONTENTS
I. WHAT DOROTHY SAW
II. A SHOCK
III. PRIDE OF PLACE
IV. TOM IS DISAPPOINTING
V. TOM MAKES EXCUSE
VI. RHODA’S JUMPER
VII. THE ENROLLING OF THE CANDIDATES
VIII. THE TORN BOOK
IX. UNDER A CLOUD
X. FAIR FIGHTING
XI. DOROTHY SCORES
XII. DOROTHY IS APPROACHED
XIII. WHY TOM WAS HARD UP
XIV. TOP OF THE SCHOOL
XV. AT HIGH TIDE
XVI. A STARTLING REVELATION
XVII. SETTING THE PACE
XVIII. THAT DAY AT HOME
XIX. A SUDDEN RESOLVE
XX. PLAYING THE GAME
XXI. THE HEAD DECIDES
XXII. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CUP
XXIII. TROUBLE FOR TOM
XXIV. DOROTHY TO THE RESCUE
XXV. SAVED BY THE CHAIN
XXVI. DOROTHY GETS THE MUTTON BONE
By Honour Bound
CHAPTER I
WHAT DOROTHY SAW
Stepping out of the train in the wake of Tom, Dorothy was at once caught
in the crowd on Paddington arrival platform. She was pushed and squeezed
and buffeted, but her eyes were shining, and her face was all smiles,
for she felt that she was seeing life at last.
“Whew! Some crowd, isn’t it?” panted Tom, as a fat man laden with a
great bundle of rugs and golf clubs barged into him from behind, while a
lady carrying a yelling infant charged at him from the side, and
catching him unawares, sent him lurching against Dorothy.
She was sturdy, and stood up to the impact without disaster, only saying
in a breathless fashion, “Oh, Tom, what a lot of people! Where do you
expect they all come from?”
“Can’t say. You had better ask ’em,” Tom chuckled, as he sprang for the
nearest taxi, and secured it too, although a ferocious looking man, with
brown whiskers like a doormat, was calling out that he wanted that
particular vehicle.
Dorothy meanwhile secured a porter, and extricating Tom’s luggage and
her own from the pile on the platform, the things were bundled into the
taxi; she and Tom tumbled in after them, and they were moving away from
the platform before the angry person with doormat whiskers had done
making remarks about them.
“That is what I call a good get-away,” Tom sighed with satisfaction,
lolling at ease in his corner. “You will have time to buy your finery
now, without any danger of our missing the train.”
“Bless you, I should have taken the time in any case, whether we lost
the train or not,” rejoined Dorothy calmly. Then she asked, with a
twinkle in her eye, “Are you coming to help me choose the frock?”
“Not me; what should I be likely to know about a girl’s duds?” and Tom
looked as superior as he felt.
Dorothy leant back laughing. “Sometimes you talk as if you know a lot,”
she said mischievously. “Do you remember Brenda Gomme and the marigold
satin?”
Tom grinned, but stuck to it that he had not been so far wrong in
calling the thing marigold, seeing that it was yellow, and marigolds
were yellow.
“Roses are red—sometimes,” she answered crisply; “for all that we do
not call all red things rose colour. Hullo! is this Victoria already?
See, Tom, we will cloakroom everything we’ve got, and then we shall be
able to enjoy ourselves.”
When this was accomplished, and the taxi paid, the two plunged into the
busy streets outside Victoria, walking briskly along, and stopping
occasionally to ask the way to the great multiple shop to which they
were bound.
“There it is! Look, Tom!” There was actual rapture in Dorothy’s tone as
she pranced along, waving her hand excitedly in the direction of the big
plate-glass windows of Messrs. Sharman and Song.
At the door of the lift she paused to beg Tom to come with her; but he,
his attention caught by a window filled with football requisites, was
already engrossed, and turned a deaf ear to her pleading.
Dorothy was shot up in the lift to the next floor, and was at once
thrilled and half-awed by the splendid vista of showrooms stretching
away before her enchanted gaze. Then a saleswoman took her in hand, and
she plunged at once into the business of buying a little frock for
evening wear, with the tip kind old Aunt Louisa had given to her.
The frocks displayed were too grown-up and elaborate for a schoolgirl.
Dorothy knew what she wanted, and was not going to be satisfied until
she got it. The saleswoman went off in search of something more simple,
and for the moment Dorothy was left alone staring into the long
looking-glass, not seeing her own reflection, but watching the people
moving about the showroom singly and in groups: it was so early in the
day that there were no crowds.
She saw a girl detach herself from a group of people lower down the
room, and wander in and out in an aimless fashion between the showcases.
Suddenly the girl halted by a table piled with pretty and costly
jumpers. Stooping over them for a moment she swiftly slid one out of
sight under her coat, and with a leisurely step turned back past a big
case to join her party.
[Illustration: She swiftly slid a jumper under her coat]
Dorothy gave a little gasp of dismay. It had been so quickly done that
at first she did not realize she had been watching a very neat piece of
shoplifting. Then she sprang forward to meet the saleswoman, who was
coming towards her with an armful of frocks. She was going to denounce
that girl who was a thief, she was just opening her lips to cry out that
a jumper had been stolen, she looked round to see where the girl was,
but the light-fingered one had gone—vanished as completely as if she
had never been—and Dorothy was struck dumb. If the girl had escaped out
of the room, of what use to accuse her? Even if she were still in the
building she might easily have passed the stolen garment on to some one
else. Then it would be her word against Dorothy’s accusation. There
would be an awful fuss, her journey would be delayed Tom would be
furious, and——
“I think you will like these better, Moddom,” the voice of the
saleswoman cut into Dorothy’s agitated thinking.
She hesitated, and was lost. She could not make a disturbance by telling
what she had seen—she simply could not.
All the time she was choosing her frock she felt like a thief herself.
Half her pleasure in her purchase vanished, and she was chilled as if
the sun had gone behind a cloud, leaving the day drear and cold.
In spite of this the garment was as satisfactory as it could be, and the
price was so reasonable that there was a margin left over for shoes and
stockings to wear with the frock. Oh, life was not such a tragedy after
all, and Dorothy hugged her parcel with joy as she went down in the lift
to join Tom, who was still absorbed by the window filled with football
things.
“Did you buy up the shop?” he asked, as they went off briskly in search
of lunch.
“Why, no; it would have needed a pretty long purse to do that,” she said
with a laugh; and then she burst into the story of the shoplifting she
had seen, asking Tom what he would have done if he had been in her
place.
“Yelled out, ‘Stop thief!’ and have been pretty quick about it too,” he
answered with decision, as they settled down at a corner table in a
quiet little restaurant for lunch.
“Oh, I could not!” There was real distress in Dorothy’s tone. “The girl
was so nice to look at, and she was well-dressed too. Oh, Tom, how could
she have stooped to such meanness?”
“Women are mostly like that.” Tom wagged his head with a superior air as
he spoke. “It is very few women who have any sense of honour; I should
say it is peculiar to the sex. When boys and girls have games together
the girls always cheat, and expect the boys to sit down under it. It is
the same in the mixed schools; the girls expect to get by thieving what
the boys have to work hard for. When they are older, and ought to know
better, it is still the same; they expect to have what they want, and if
they can’t get it by fair means, why, they get it by foul. They don’t
care so long as they get it.”
Dorothy stared at him for a moment as if amazed at his outburst; then
she laughed merrily, and told him he was a miserable old cynic, who
ought to be shut up in a home for men only, and be compelled to cook his
own food and darn his own socks to the end of the chapter.
“Well, in that case I shouldn’t be going back to school to-day, with the
prospect of being invited over to the girls’ house every fortnight or so
during the term—rather jolly that would be.” Tom winked at his sister
as he spoke, and then they laughed together.
“I should feel just awful at the prospect of Compton Schools if you were
not going to be there too,” she said with a little catch of her breath;
and then she cried out that they must hurry, or they would certainly be
late for the train.
It was a scramble to get their things out of the cloakroom, to get on to
the platform, and to find a place in the Ilkestone train. At first they
had to stand in the corridor, then a voice from farther along the
corridor called to them “Tom Sedgewick, there is room for one here Is
that your sister? Bring her along.”
“Some of our crowd are down there; come along and be introduced,” said
Tom, catching Dorothy by the hand and hurrying her forward. “It is Hazel
Dring, and Margaret Prime is with her. They are pals—if you see one,
you may be sure the other is not far off.”
Hazel Dring was a tall girl with fair hair and a very nice smile.
Margaret Prime was smaller, a quiet girl with a rather shrinking manner,
as if she was afraid of being snubbed, Both of them greeted Dorothy in
the friendliest fashion. They made room for her to sit with them,
although they were already crowded; and they were so kind that she had
to be glad she had met them on the train, although secretly she would
have chosen to be alone with Tom.
“You are not a scholarship girl, are you?” asked Hazel. “You look nearly
grown up.”
“I am not clever enough for a scholarship girl,” Dorothy answered with a
little sigh; “Tom has the brains in our family. I am seventeen, and I am
to have one year at the Compton Schools.”
“Just long enough to win the Lamb Bursary,” cried Hazel eagerly. “I
expect you will be in the Sixth, you are so big; and if you are, you
will be eligible for the Mutton Bone.”
“The Mutton Bone!” Dorothy looked puzzled, even frowning, as was her
wont when perplexed.
Margaret laughed, then answered for Hazel. “That is what we call the
Lamb Bursary—a term of affection, mind you. We would not cry it down
for worlds; it is the top strawberry in the basket of the Compton
Schools, and there are a lot of us going to have a try for it this
year.”
“Oh yes, I know the Lamb Bursary is a prize worth having,” said Dorothy.
“Tom has talked about it, and groaned a lot because there was not an
equal gift for the boys. But I don’t suppose I should have much chance
for it as I am not at all clever.”
“Oh, that does not matter so much if you are anything of a sticker at
work,” said Hazel; “the Lamb Bursary goes to the best all-round scholar
of the year. You might be very brilliant in some subjects, but if you
were a duffer at others you would not stand a chance. For instance, you
might stand very high in mathematics, you might be a prodigy in
chemistry, but if you had not decent marks for languages, history, and
music you would be left, for the judging is on the averages of all the
subjects. It is really a very good way, as it gives quite an ordinary
girl a chance.”
“What do you mean by judging on the averages?” asked Dorothy, frowning
more than before.
“This way,” put in Margaret, whose business in life seemed to be to
supplement Hazel. “You might get a hundred marks for maths; well, eighty
would be a good average, so you would be put down for eighty. Say you
only got twenty for history; the twenty left over from your maths
average would be put to it, but it would not bring you up to your
average of eighty, don’t you see? It is a queer way of judging, and must
give the staff and the examiners no end of trouble, but it does work out
well for the girl who is plodding but not especially clever. In most
subjects one could hope to make eighty out of a hundred, but oh! it
means swotting all the time. One can’t shirk a subject that does not
make much appeal, because every set of marks must be up to the average.”
“I don’t mind work,” said Dorothy, her frown disappearing, “but I’m not
brilliant anywhere, and that has been the trouble. The Bursary sends you
to Cambridge, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, the full university course. Oh! it is well worth trying for, even
if one has little or no chance of getting it.” Margaret’s face glowed as
she spoke, and Dorothy thought she was really nice-looking when she was
animated.
“Webster and Poole are wedged into a corner along there; I am going to
talk to them,” said Tom, thrusting his head in from the corridor; and
then he went off, and Dorothy did not see him again until the train
slowed up at Claydon Junction, where they had to change for Sowergate.
Quite a crowd of boys and girls poured out of the London train, racing
up the steps and over the bridge to the other platform where the little
Sowergate train was waiting. Dorothy went over with Margaret, while
Hazel and Tom stayed behind to sort out the luggage. There was a wait of
ten minutes or so. The carriage was crowded out with girls, some of them
new, like Dorothy, and others, old stagers, who swaggered a little by
way of showing off. The talk was a queer jumble of what they had been
doing in vac, of the hockey chances of the coming term, and what sort of
programme they would have for social evenings. Dorothy sat silent now;
indeed she was feeling rather lonely and out of it, for every one was
appealing to Margaret, and Hazel was at the other end of the carriage,
while Tom was nowhere to be seen.
“Rhoda Fleming has come back,” said a stout girl who had flaming red
hair, “I saw her at Victoria. She says she is going to stay another
year, so that she can have a chance at the Mutton Bone.”
“She will never win it,” chorused several.
“She would stand a very good chance if only she would work,” said
Margaret quietly. “Rhoda is really clever, and she has such a good
memory too.”
“It is like you to say a good word for her, Meg, but she has snubbed you
most awfully in her time.” The red-haired reached out a friendly hand to
pat Margaret on the shoulder, but Dorothy noticed that Margaret winced,
turning a distressful red.
“I don’t mind who snubs me, provided Hazel does not,” she said with a
rather forced laugh.
“There is not much danger of my doing that, kid.” Hazel nodded her head
from the other end of the carriage, and looked her affection for her
chum.
Dorothy thrilled. How beautiful it must be to have a girl chum, and to
love her like that. She and Tom had always been great pals, but she had
never had a chum among girls. Her own two sisters, Gussie and Tilda,
otherwise Augusta and Matilda, were four years younger than herself, and
being twins, were in consequence all in all to each other.
Just then the train ran out of tunnel number three, Dorothy caught sight
of two flags fluttering amid groups of trees on the landward side of the
railway track, and at that moment a great roar of cheering broke out
along the train. The girls in the carriage yelled with all their might,
handkerchiefs fluttered, and Dorothy wondered what was happening.
“See those flags?” cried Margaret, seizing her arm and shaking it
violently. “They are the school flags, and we are saluting them. Now,
then, yell for all you are worth!”
And Dorothy yelled, putting her back into it too, for was she not also a
Compton girl?