WHY TOM WAS HARD UP
Dorothy had come to nearly hate that pretty evening frock of hers,
because it seemed to her the buying of it had been at the root of most
of her troubles since she had been at the Compton School. She argued to
herself that if she had not been on the spot when Rhoda stuffed the
jumper under her coat, most of the unpleasant things could not have
happened.
Of choice Dorothy would not have worn the frock again that term, but
when one has only a single evening frock, that frock has to be worn
whenever the occasion demands it. The rules of the school were that each
girl should have one evening frock, and only one, so it was a case of
Hobson’s choice. Dorothy slipped the frock over her shoulders on the
evening when the boys were coming over, and felt as if she would much
rather go up to the study, and grind away at books until bedtime.
Such a state of mind being a bit unnatural, she gave herself a shake,
which served the double purpose of settling her frock and her mind at
the same time; then she went downstairs, and cracked so many jokes with
the other girls, that they all wondered what had come to her, for she
was usually rather quiet, and not given to over-much in the way of
fun-making.
When the boys came trooping in Bobby Felmore made straight for her—he
mostly did. Dorothy received him graciously enough, but there was a
sparkle in her eyes which should have shown him that she was out to set
things straight according to her own ideas.
“How many dances are you going to let me have to-night?” he asked,
bending closer to her and looking downright sentimental.
Dorothy laughed softly, and her eyes sparkled more than ever as she
murmured in a gentle tone, “This one, and never another, unless——”
“Unless what?” he demanded blankly.
“Blanche says you have been winning a lot of money in a sweepstake of
some sort in your school during the last week or so. Is it true?” she
asked.
“You bet it is true,” he answered with a jolly laugh. “I just about
cleaned out the lot of them, and I’m in funds for the rest of the term,
with a nice little margin over to help me through the Christmas vac.”
“I think you are a horrid, mean thing to take my money, that I had saved
by going without things,” she said, with such a burst of indignation,
that Bobby looked fairly knocked out by her energy.
“There were none of the girls in this sweepstake—at least I did not
know of any,” he said hurriedly.
“Perhaps not; and if there had been, I should not have been one of
them,” she answered coldly. “It would not have been so bad if I had put
down the money—I should have felt that at least I had spent it myself,
and I had chosen to risk losing it. As it is, I have to go without the
things I want, just to fill your pocket—and I don’t like it.”
“I can’t see what you are driving at yet,” he said, and he looked
blanker than ever.
“You are teaching Tom to gamble,” she said coldly, “and Tom is not
satisfied with risking his own money, but he must needs go into debt,
and then come to me to help him out. It would have been bad enough if he
had bought more than he could afford to pay for, but it is unthinkable
that he should go and stake more money than he has got. A stop must be
put to it somehow; I could not go home and look my father in the face,
knowing that I was standing by without raising a finger to stop Tom from
being ruined.”
“Oh, he is all right,” said Bobby, who looked rather sheepish and ill at
ease. “All kids go in for flutters of this sort, and it does them no end
of good to singe their wings a bit. He’ll learn caution as he gets
older—they all do. Besides, if he had won, you would not have made any
stir.”
“Perhaps if Tom had won I should not have known anything about it,”
Dorothy said a little bitterly. “It is not merely his own wings that Tom
has singed, it is my wings that have been burned. I am not going to sit
down under it. You are the cause of the trouble, for it is you who have
got up the sweepstake. Blanche said so, and she seemed no end proud of
you for doing it, poor dear little kid. But I am not proud of it. I
think you are horrid and low down to go corrupting the morals of boys
younger than yourself, teaching them to gamble, and then getting your
pockets filled with the money you have won from them. I don’t want
anything more to do with you, and in future I am going to cut you dead.
Good evening!”
Dorothy slid away from Bobby as she spoke, and slipping round behind an
advancing couple, she was out of the room in a moment, and fleeing
upstairs for all she was worth.
She had made her standpoint clear, but she felt scared at her own
audacity in doing it. She could not be sure that it had done any good,
and she was downright miserable about Tom.
Of choice, she would have gone to the Head, and laid Tom’s case before
her. But such a thing was impossible. She could not submit to being
written down sneak and tell-tale, and all the rest of the unpleasant
titles that would be indulged in.
Staying upstairs as long as she dared, trying to cool her burning
cheeks, Dorothy stood with her face pressed against the cold glass of
the landing window. Presently she heard a girl in the hall below asking
another where to find Dorothy Sedgewick; and so she came down, and
passing the big open doors of the lecture hall where they were dancing,
she went into the drawing-room, intending to find a quiet corner, and to
stay there for the rest of the evening if she could.
Margaret found her presently, and dragged her off to dance again. She
saw Bobby Felmore coming towards her with a set purpose on his face, but
she whirled round, and cutting him dead, as she had said she would, she
seized upon Wilkins Minor, a small boy with big spectacles, and asked
him to dance with her.
“That is putting the shoe on the wrong foot; you ought to wait until I
ask you,” said the boy with a swagger.
“Well, I will wait, if you will make haste about the asking,” she
answered with a laugh; and then she said, “You dance uncommonly well, I
know, because I have watched you.”
Wilkins Minor screwed up his nose in a grin of delight, and bowing low
he said, with a flourish of his hands, “Miss Sedgewick, may I have the
pleasure?”
“You may,” said Dorothy with great fervour. Then she and the small boy
whirled round with an abandon which, if it was not complete enjoyment,
was a very good imitation of it.
Tom was waiting for her when she was through with Wilkins Minor—Tom,
with a haggard look on his face, and such a devouring anxiety in his
eyes that her heart ached for him.
“Have you got that money for me?” he asked. He grabbed her by the arm,
leading her out to the conservatory to find a quiet place where they
could talk without interruption.
“What do you want it for?” she asked. “See, Tom, this is the third time
this term you have come to me to lend you money you never attempt to pay
back. You have as much as I have, and it does not seem fair.”
“Oh, if you are going to cut up nasty about it, then I have no more to
say.” Tom flung away in a rage. But he did not go far; in a minute he
was back at her side again, pleading and pleading, his face white and
miserable. “Look here, old thing, you’ve always been a downright good
sport—the sort of a sister any fellow would be glad to have—and it
isn’t like you to fail me when I’m in such an awful hole. Just you lend
me that five shillings, and you shall have a couple of shillings for
interest when I pay it back.”
“How can you be so horrid, Tom?” she cried in great distress. “You are
making it appear as if it is just merely the money that is worrying me.
I know that you have been gambling. You know very well that there is
nothing in the world that would upset Dad more if he found it out, while
Mums would pretty well break her heart about it.”
“It wasn’t gambling; it was only a sweepstake that Bobby Felmore got up.
All the fellows are in it, and half of them are as badly bitten as I
am,” he explained gloomily. “Of course, if I had won it would have been
a different matter altogether. I should have been in funds for quite a
long while; I could have paid you back what I have had, and given you a
present as well. You wouldn’t have groused at me then.”
“You mean that you would not have stood it if I had,” she corrected him.
Then she did a battle with herself. Right at the bottom of her heart she
knew that she ought not to let him have the money—that she ought to
make him suffer now, to save him suffering later on. But it was dreadful
to her to see Tom in such distress; moreover, she was telling herself
perhaps she could safeguard him for the future by making him promise
that he would never gamble again.
“Well, are you going to let me have it?” he demanded, coming to stand
close beside her, and looking down at her with such devouring anxiety in
his eyes that she strangled back a little sob.
“I will let you have it on one condition,” she said slowly.
“Let’s have it, then, and I will promise any mortal thing you like to
ask me,” he burst out eagerly, his face sparkling with returning hope.
“You have got to promise me that you will never gamble again,” she said
firmly.
“Whew! Oh, come now, that is a bit too stiff, surely,” growled Tom,
falling back a step, while the gloom dropped over his face again.
“I can’t help it. They are my terms; take them or leave them as you
like,” she said with decision. But she felt as if a cold hand had
gripped her heart, as she saw how he was trying to back out of giving
the promise for which she asked.
“Do you mean to say that you won’t give me the money if I don’t
promise?” he asked, scowling at her in the blackest anger.
“I do mean it,” she answered quietly, and she looked at him in the
kindest fashion.
“Well, I must have the cash, even if I have to steal it,” he answered,
with an attempt at lightness that he plainly did not feel. “I promise I
won’t do it again; so hand over the oof, there’s a good soul, and let us
be quit of the miserable business.”
“You really mean what you say—that you will not gamble again?” asked
Dorothy a little doubtfully, for his manner was too casual to inspire
confidence.
“Of course I mean it. Didn’t I say so? What more do you want?” His tone
was irritable, and his words came out in jerks. “Do you want me to go
down on my knees, or to swear with my hand on the Bible, or any other
thing of the sort?”
“Don’t be a goat, Tommy lad,” she said softly, and then she slipped two
half-crowns into his hand, and hoped that she had done right, yet
feeling all the time a miserable insecurity in her heart about his
keeping his promise to her.
He made an excuse to slip away soon after he had got the money, and
Dorothy turned back into the drawing-room in search of diversion. She
quickly had it, too—only it was not the sort she wanted.
Bobby Felmore was prowling round the almost empty room, studying the
portraits of the founders of the Compton Schools, as if he were keenly
interested in art; but he wheeled abruptly at sight of her, and came
towards her with eager steps.
“I’ve been nosing round to find you. Where have you been hiding?” he
said, beaming on her. “Come along and have another dance before
chucking-out time. I thought I should have had a fit to see that young
bantam chick, Wilkins Minor, toting you round.”
“I said I did not intend dancing with you again, and I meant it,” she
said coldly.
“You said ‘unless,’ but you did not explain what that meant.” He thought
he had caught her, and stood smiling in a rather superior fashion.
Dorothy coloured right up to the roots of her hair. The thing she had to
say was not easy, but because she was in dead earnest she screwed up her
courage to go through with it, and said in calm tones, “The ‘unless’ I
spoke about was, if you had seen fit to pay back what you have had from
the boys for that sweepstake you got up.”
“A likely old story, that I should be goat enough to do that, after
winning the money!” He burst into a derisive laugh at the bare
suggestion of such a thing.
Dorothy turned away. There was a little sinking at her heart. She really
liked Bobby, and they had been great pals since she had come to the
Compton School. If he could not do this thing that she had put before
him as her ultimatum, then there was no more to be said, and they must
just go their separate ways, for, having made up her mind as to what was
right, she was not going to give way.
“You don’t mean that you are going to stick to it?” he said, catching at
her hand as she turned away.
“Of course I mean it, and you know that I am right, too,” she said,
turning back so that she could stand confronting him. “You know as well
as I do that gambling in any shape or form is forbidden here, and yet
you not only do it yourself, but you teach smaller fellows than yourself
to gamble, and you fill your pocket by the process. You are about the
meanest sort of bounder I have seen for a long time, and I would rather
not have anything more to do with you.”
“Well, you are the limit, to talk like that to me,” snarled Bobby, who
was as white as paper with rage, while his eyes bulged and shot out
little snappy lights, and Dorothy felt more than half scared at the
tempest she had raised.
But she had right on her side. She knew it. And Bobby knew it too, but
it did not make him feel any nicer about it at the moment.
Just then a crowd of girls came scurrying into the room. The foremost of
them was Rhoda, and she called out in her high-pitched, sarcastic voice,
“What are you two doing here? The other fellows are just saying good
night to the Head, and you will get beans, Bobby Felmore, if you are not
there at the tail end of the procession.”
For once in her life Dorothy was downright grateful to Rhoda. Bobby had
to go then, and he went in a hurry. Dorothy could not comfort herself
that she had had the last word, since it was really Bobby who had spoken
last. But at least it was she who had dictated terms, and so she had
scored in that way.
She did not encounter Bobby again until the next Sunday afternoon. It
was the last Sunday of the term, and only a few boys had come over to
see their sisters. It was a miserable sort of day, cold wind and
drizzling rain, so that nearly every one was in the drawing-room or the
conservatory, and only a few extra intrepid individuals had gone out
walking.
Dorothy was looking for Tom. She could not find him anywhere, and was
making up her mind that he had not come over when she encountered Bobby
coming in at the open window of the drawing-room, just as she was going
out to the conservatory in a final search for Tom.
Bobby jerked his head higher in the air at sight of her, and stood back
to let her pass, but he took no more notice of her than if she had been
an utter stranger. Dorothy’s pride flamed up, and with a cold little bow
she went past, walking along between the banks of flowering plants, and
not seeing any of them. It was horrid of Bobby to treat her like that.
Of course she had said that she would cut him dead—she had done it
too—but that was a vastly different matter from being cut by him.
“Still, I had to speak, and I am glad that I did. I don’t want to have
anything to do with any one who will teach younger boys to break rules,
and then will get rich at their expense,” she whispered to herself in
stormy fashion.
She went the length of the conservatory, and was just coming back,
deciding that for some unknown reason Tom had not come over, when
Charlotte Flint of the Fourth called out to her,—
“Your brother Tom has gone out for a walk with Rhoda Fleming. I saw them
go; they slipped out of the lower gate, and went down the road as if
they were going on to the Promenade.”
Dorothy groaned. She did not want to go out walking that afternoon; the
weather was of the sort to make indoors seem the nicer place. But if she
did not go, there would be trouble for Tom, and for Rhoda too. So she
scurried into the cloakroom, and putting on boots and mackintosh, let
herself out by the garden door, meaning to slip out of the lower gate as
they had done.
Miss Groome came into the hall as she was going out by the garden door,
and she said, “Oh, Dorothy, do you know it is raining? Are you going for
a walk?”
“I am going a little way with Tom, only he has started first,” she
answered with a nod and a smile; and then she scurried away, grateful
for the Sunday afternoon liberty, which made it possible for a girl to
take her own way within certain limits.
It would not be pleasant walking with Rhoda and Tom, for Rhoda would
certainly say malicious things, and Tom was not feeling pleased with her
because of the promise she had exacted from him. But the only way to
save Rhoda from getting into trouble was for her to be there.
There was to be a breaking-up festivity over at the boys’ school on
Tuesday night. If Rhoda was hauled up for breaking rules to-day, she
might easily be shut out from that pleasure.
Rhoda and Tom were sheltering from the rain under the railway arch at
the bottom of the lane; it was too wet and windy to face the Promenade.
They walked back to the school with Dorothy, but neither of them
appeared the least bit grateful for her interference.