RHODA’S JUMPER
The first social evening of term was always something of an event. The
Lower Fifth, the Upper Fifth, and the Sixth of both schools joined
forces for a real merry-making. The juniors had their own functions, and
made merry on a different evening, and they had nothing to do with the
gathering of the seniors.
The lecture hall was cleared for dancing; there were games and music in
the drawing-room for those who preferred them, and supper for all was
spread in the dining-room.
It had been a soaking wet day; the girls, in mackintoshes, high boots,
and rubber hats, had struggled for a mile along the storm-swept sea
front. They had been blown back again, arriving in tousled,
rosy-cheeked, and breathless, but thoroughly refreshed by the blow.
The dressing-bell went five minutes after they reached the house, and
there was a rush upstairs to get changed, and ready for the frolic.
Dorothy was very much excited. She was going to wear the new little
frock which she had bought at Sharman and Song’s place. She danced up
the stairs and along the corridor to the dorm, feeling that life was
very well worth living indeed.
Hazel and Margaret were just ahead of her, and the other girls were
crowding up behind. They had been rather late getting in from their
walk, and so there was not very much time before the boys might be
expected to arrive.
With fingers that actually trembled Dorothy opened the wrapping paper,
and taking out her frock, slipped it on. The looking-glass in her
cubicle was not very big; she would have to wait until she went
downstairs to have a really good look at herself. But oh! the lovely
feeling of it all!
Admiring herself—or, rather, her frock—had taken time. Most of the
girls were downstairs before she was ready. They were standing about the
drawing-room in little groups as she came in through the big double
doors, feeling stupidly shy and self-conscious, just because she
happened to be wearing a new frock that was the last word in effective
simplicity.
No one took any notice of her. The little group just inside the door had
gathered about Rhoda Fleming, who was spreading out her arms to show the
beauty of the jumper she was wearing over a cream silk skirt.
“Isn’t it a dream?” Rhoda’s voice was loud and clear; it was vibrant,
too, with satisfaction. “I bought it at Sharman and Song’s; they are not
to be beaten for things of this sort.”
Dorothy stood as if transfixed, and at that moment the crowd of girls
about Rhoda shifted and opened out, showing plainly Dorothy standing on
the outskirts of the group.
Rhoda paused suddenly, and there was a look of actual fear in her eyes
as she stood confronting Dorothy. Then she rallied her forces, and said
with a slow, insolent drawl, “Well, what do you want?”
“I—I don’t want anything,” faltered Dorothy, whose breath was fairly
taken away by the calm manner in which Rhoda was exhibiting the jumper,
which was a lovely thing made of white silky stuff, and embroidered with
silver tissue.
“Then don’t stand staring like that.” There was a positive snarl in
Rhoda’s tone, and Dorothy turned away without a word. She heard one of
the girls cry out that it was a shame of Rhoda to be so rude, but there
was more fear than resentment in her heart at the treatment she had
received. It was awful to see the malice in Rhoda’s gaze, and to know
that it was directed against herself, just because she had been the
unwilling witness of Rhoda’s shoplifting.
She would have known the jumper anywhere, even if Rhoda had not declared
so loudly that it had come from Sharman and Song’s, and she shivered a
little, wondering how she would have felt if she had been in Rhoda’s
place just then.
“Oh, Dorothy, what a pretty frock! How perfectly sweet you look!” cried
the voice of Hazel at her side, and then Margaret burst in with admiring
comments, and Dorothy found herself surrounded by a cluster of girls who
were admiring her frock and congratulating her on having an aunt with
such liberal tendencies. But the keen edge of her pleasure was taken off
by the brooding sense of disaster that would come to her every time she
recalled the look in Rhoda’s eyes.
Being healthy minded, and being also blessed with common sense, she set
to work to forget all about the uncomfortable incident, and to get all
the pleasure possible out of the evening.
The boys arrived in a batch. After the manner of their kind, they formed
into groups about the big doors of the drawing-room and at the end of
the lecture hall. But the masters who were with them routed them out
with remorseless energy, and started the dancing. Bobby Felmore, very
red in the face, and still adorned with sticking-plaster, led out the
Head. He was most fearfully self-conscious for about a minute and a
half. By that time he forgot all about being shy, for, as he said
afterwards, the Head was a dream to dance with, and she was a downright
jolly sort also.
Dorothy had danced with big boys, she had danced with cheeky youngsters
of the Lower Fifth who aired their opinions on various subjects as if
wisdom dwelt with them and with no one else, and then she found herself
dancing with Bobby Felmore.
Bobby, by reason of having danced with the Head, was disposed to be
critical regarding his partners that evening, and he began telling
Dorothy how he had plunged through a foxtrot with Daisy Goatby, who was
about as nimble as an elephant, and as graceful as a hippopotamus.
“She is quite a good sort, though, even if she is a trifle heavy on her
feet,” said Dorothy, who was hotly championing Daisy just because Bobby
saw fit to run her down.
“I say, do you always stick up for people?” he asked.
“When they are nice to me I do, of course,” she answered with a laugh.
“Well, you won’t have to stick up for Rhoda Fleming, at that rate,” said
Bobby with a chuckle. “She seems to have a proper grouch against you.
Tom was complaining as we came along to-night because you and Rhoda
don’t hit it off together.”
“We do not have much to do with each other,” murmured Dorothy, resentful
because Tom should have discussed her with this big lump of a boy who,
however well he might dance, had certainly no tact worth speaking of.
“Just what Tom complained of; said he couldn’t think why his womenfolk
didn’t hit it off better: seemed to think that you ought to be pally
with any and every one whom he saw fit to honour with his regard. I like
his cheek; the Grand Sultan isn’t in it with that young
whipper-snapper.” Bobby tossed his head and let out one of his big
laughs then, and Dorothy thought it might be for his good to take him
down a peg.
“Tom is rather small,” she said, smiling at him with mischief dancing in
her eyes; “but he is a force to be reckoned with, all the same.”
“Now you are giving me a dig because of that mauling I had from him last
week,” chuckled Bobby. “It isn’t kind to kick a fellow that is down.”
“I have not kicked you,” she answered; and her tone was so friendly that
Bobby, rather red, and rather stammering, jerked out,—
“I say, I’m really awfully crushed on you, though I have only seen you
about twice. Say, will you be pals, real pals, you know?”
Dorothy turned scarlet, for just at that moment she caught sight of
Rhoda regarding her fixedly from a little distance. It was horribly
embarrassing and uncomfortable, and because of it her tone was quite
sharp as she replied, “I have got as many chums already as I can do
with, thank you; but I am really grateful to you for not being nasty to
Tom over that licking he gave you last week.”
“Oh, that!” Bobby’s voice reflected disappointment, mingled with scorn.
“The licking was a man’s business entirely, and it need not come into
discussion at all. I should like to be pals with you, and I’m not going
to believe what Rhoda says about you.”
“What can Rhoda say about me?” cried Dorothy, aghast. “Why, I have not
known her a week.”
“Bless you, what she doesn’t know she will make up,” said Bobby, who was
by this time quite breathless with his exertions. “Don’t you trust her.
If she tries to be friendly, keep her at arm’s length. I have warned Tom
about her until I’m out of breath; but he will find her out some day, I
dare say. Meanwhile he is not in as much danger of being scratched by
her as you are.”
Dorothy did not dance with Bobby again that evening. Indeed, she did not
dance much after that, for Margaret had a bad headache, and wandered off
to a quiet corner of the drawing-room, where Dorothy found her, and
stayed to keep her company.
“Just think, to-morrow by this time we shall be enrolled for the Lamb
Bursary, and work will begin in earnest,” said Margaret, as she leant
back in a deep chair and fanned herself with a picture paper.
“I think work has begun in earnest, anyway,” Dorothy said with a laugh.
“I know that I just swotted for all I’m worth at maths this morning. I
could not have worked harder if I had been sitting for an exam. I am
horribly stupid at maths, and I can never find any short cuts.”
“I don’t put much reliance on short cuts myself in maths or anything
else,” replied Margaret. “When a thing has to be done, it is the
quickest process in the end to do it thoroughly, because the next time
you have to travel that way you know the road. By the way—I hate to
speak of it, but you are a new girl, and you are not so well up in
school traditions as some of the rest of us—did you use a help this
morning?”
“A help?” queried Dorothy with a blank face. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes when a new girl comes she thinks to catch up in classwork by
using cribs—helps they call them here, because it sounds rather better.
Did you use anything of the sort this morning?” Margaret looked a little
doubtful and apologetic as she put her question, but she meant to get at
the bottom of the matter if she could.
“Why, no, of course I did not.” Dorothy’s tone was more bewildered than
indignant; she could not imagine what had made Margaret ask such a
question. “Do you think if I had been using a help, as you call it, that
I should have to work as I do? Besides, do you not remember how Miss
Groome coached me, and the pains she took, because I was such a duffer?”
Margaret laughed. “You are anything but a duffer, and you are a perfect
whale at work. Oh! I wish they would not say things about you. It is so
unfair on a new girl. You have enough to work against in having been put
straight into the Sixth.”
“Who have been talking about me, and what has been said?” asked Dorothy
quietly, but she went rather white. It was horrid to feel that her good
name was being taken away behind her back.
“I do not know who started the talk,” said Margaret with a troubled air.
“Kathleen Goatby was sitting here before you came. She said you had been
dancing a lot with Bobby Felmore, but she expected he would have danced
by himself rather than have been seen going round with you if he had
known what was being said.”
“I shall know better whether to be angry or merely amused if you tell me
what it is that is being said.” Dorothy’s voice was low, and her manner
was outwardly calm, but there was a fire in her eyes which let Margaret
know that she was very angry indeed.
“Kathleen said she heard Rhoda Fleming telling Joan Fletcher that you
always used cribs, that you owed your position in your old school to
this, and that you said it was the only way in which you could possibly
get your work done. I told Kathleen she could contradict that as much as
she liked, for I was quite positive it was not true. Cribs may help up
to a certain point, but they are sure to fail one in the long run.”
“I have never used cribs,” said Dorothy with emphasis. “What I cannot
understand is why Rhoda should try so hard to do me harm.”
“I think she is afraid of you.” Margaret spoke slowly, and she turned
her head a little so that her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, instead of
on her companion’s face. “It is possible she thinks you know something
about her that is not to her credit, and she is fearing you will talk
about it, so she thinks it is wise to be first at the character-wrecking
business. You had better have as little to do with her as you decently
can.”
“Trust me for that; but even avoiding her does not seem very effectual
in stopping her from spreading slanders,” Dorothy said with a wry smile.
“Fires die out that are not tended,” replied Margaret with a great air
of wisdom. “There goes the bell. Well, I am not sorry the evening is
over because of my beastly headache. I hope you have had a nice time?”
“Yes—no,” said Dorothy, and then would say no more.