THE GYMNASTIC DISPLAY
The junior division, drawn up in double file, stood assembled in the
anteroom of the gymnasium, on the day of the great competition for
the Canon's prize. The figure-marching by the whole class was over, and
the senior division had just begun the wand exercises to the piano
accompaniment of the German music-master, who, being the unlucky
possessor of an unpronounceable name in three syllables, was generally
known as 'Scales.' The applause which had followed after the marching
had taken away the first shyness of the younger children; and even the
prospect of doing separate exercises presently, before an audience of
strangers, did not seem to be having much effect on the sixteen little
girls in scarlet frocks who were waiting in the anteroom for their turn
to come. Hurly-Burly, though supposed to be superintending affairs in
the gymnasium, had to look in at the door more than once, to remind
them that the crashing chords of 'Scales' did not drown everything;
but just as she had succeeded in reducing them at last to order, a
piece of information passed down the file from Charlotte Bigley, who
stood nearest the doorway and had the best view of the gymnasium, upset
them all once more.
'Margaret has forgotten the figure,' 'Margaret has put the others out,'
'Margaret has gone wrong,' 'Margaret Hulme has clean forgotten everything,
and she's got to step out,' were the various forms in which the news
travelled down to the end of the file, the last of all being the version
of Angela Wilkins and therefore generally discredited.
'I don't believe a word of it!' said Jean, stoutly.
'Why, Margaret couldn't go wrong if she tried,' exclaimed Barbara, whose
belief in the head girl, though slow in coming, was quite equal by this
time to Jean's.
'She has, though,' declared Angela, who stood with Mary Wells just in
front of Jean and Barbara.
Mary Wells, who had stepped out of rank on hearing the surprising news,
now returned, and in her slow and conscientious manner proceeded to
reprove Angela.
'How you do exaggerate, Angela!' she said, frowning. 'Margaret only went
a little wrong; and she's caught up again all right. Isn't it funny,
though?' she was obliged to add immediately, with a thrill of amazement
in her voice.
The two children behind her for once were dumb. The head girl, according
to their simple creed, could do no wrong; so when she did, what words had
they left to use? Babs was the first to see a way out of the difficulty.
'I know,' she said. 'I expect she's nervous. It makes you forget like
anything, if you're nervous. Once, when Egbert was being prepared for
confirmation, he was so nervous--it was a strange clergyman, you know,
and Egbert said he blinked--that he clean forgot his catechism, even
the easy first part about your godfathers and godmothers. So that's why
Margaret forgot her steps, you see if it wasn't!'
'Nervous!' echoed Jean, incredulously. 'Who ever saw Margaret nervous?
Do you think she'd be able to make every new kid who comes to the school
quake in her shoes if she was _nervous_?'
'I don't know,' answered Babs, doubtfully. Margaret Hulme had certainly
never made her quake in her shoes, even when she was a new girl; but
she did not admit this to Jean. 'Egbert can make people afraid of him
too,' she went on, 'and he can thrash any chap you please, and he always
washes his head in cold water _every_ morning, even if there's ice, and he
has more ties and clothes and things than all the others put together,
and he's awfully grand and splendid, Egbert is,--but all the same, he was
frightened of that strange clergyman. Can you see Egbert?' she concluded
proudly. 'He's at the end of them all, next to Jill. Wasn't it jolly of
Finny to put them right in the front row of the gallery?'
Her companions forgot Margaret for a minute or two in their efforts to
stand on tiptoe and catch a glimpse through the open door of Barbara
Berkeley's five brothers. The various relatives who came to the
break-up parties, and never seemed to exist at any other time except on
letter-writing days, always caused a good deal of excitement among
the girls, and added a temporary importance to the most insignificant of
them, provided she was lucky enough to possess a parent or even a cousin
among the visitors.
'They're all mine,' said Babs, glowing with the joy of possession. 'I'll
introduce them to you at supper, if you like.'
'I'm rather glad I haven't any one belonging to me here,' said Jean,
cheating herself into a brief forgetfulness of the little home in
Edinburgh. 'I'm so frightened of the introducing part; I never know
what to say, and it makes me feel such a goat.'
'Oh,' said Mary Wells, placidly; 'how funny of you, Jean. I always say,
"Here's my sister, and this is Charlotte Bigley." That's quite easy,
surely.'
'Yes, but it isn't right,' responded Jean, frankly. 'You should hear
Margaret Hulme do it--that's something like! It reminds you of mothers,
and callers, and At Home days when you wear your best frock and hand
the scones.'
Their talk was interrupted by the retirement from the gymnasium of the
senior division. Margaret marched into the anteroom, with her eyes
staring straight in front of her, and an exaggerated air of confidence in
her bearing. There was an obvious lack of enthusiasm among her followers,
who were all whispering and looking significantly at their leader; but
the noise produced by Scales, who seemed to think that a Beethoven sonata
was an appropriate solo to play in the interval, made conversation
impossible; and the section that was to do the horizontal bar, led by
Ruth Oliver, returned to the gymnasium before the juniors were able to
satisfy their curiosity. During the second event of the competition,
Margaret and the vaulting-horse section exchanged very few remarks, and
the feeling that there was something unusual in the air had considerably
increased by the time Ruth, looking flushed and totally unlike herself,
marched her section back again. The rumour ran down the junior file that
Ruth Oliver had been distinguishing herself, and that as much of the
clapping as Scales allowed to be heard was on her account. Certainly,
the irresolute manner that marked everything Ruth did, as a rule, had
quite deserted her as she filed past the triumvirate with her little band.
'Why,' exclaimed Angela, audibly, 'I never knew Ruth Oliver was pretty
before!'
'She isn't, is she?' said Jean, just as loudly.
'Of course she is!' declared Babs, warmly. 'She's _beautiful_, and--and
classic!'
The others laughed, and she wondered why. Somebody had said, only the
other day, that Jill Urquhart had classic features; and how was she to
know that, although she was every bit as fond of Ruth as of Jill, the
same adjective would not do for both?
'Look at Margaret Hulme,' whispered Mary Wells, as the vaulting-horse
section marched past them. 'She's quite white!'
The little remark was enough to set them all wondering afresh; and
Barbara, moved by a sudden impulse, darted up to Ruth Oliver.
'_Did_ Margaret go wrong in the wands?' asked the child, in an anxious
whisper.
The smile that had made Ruth look so surprisingly pretty died out of her
face, and she glanced gravely down at her little questioner.
'Never mind, baby,' she said gently. 'Go back to your place.' And she came
as near snubbing any one then as she ever did in the whole of her school
career.
A burst of applause put every one in the anteroom once more on the alert.
'What is it?' passed eagerly from one to another. The answer, given by
Charlotte from her point of vantage near the doorway, was soon circulated.
Margaret Hulme had easily surpassed her seven companions by a brilliant
performance on the vaulting-horse; and the spirits of the anteroom went
up with a bound. Hurly-Burly had mounted the platform at the farther end
of the gymnasium, and was comparing notes with Miss Finlayson and the
expert from the London training-college, who was acting as one of the
judges; so there was no one to restrain both senior and junior divisions
from falling out of rank and pressing round the head girl, as she once
more marched back to them. They had never once made so much fuss over
their idol as they did now that she had shown, for the first time, that
even idols are capable of failure.
Hurly-Burly returned and restored order in a stern voice; and they saw
Finny standing in the middle of the platform, waiting for Scales to bring
the _Erlkoenig_ to a thundering close. The next moment she was speaking in
that low voice of hers that went straight to the ears of every one in the
room.
'It may make the end of the senior competition more interesting to you,'
she began, 'if you know how the competitors stand now. So far, Ruth
Oliver is a little ahead of the others----' Even the solemnity of the
occasion could not stay the murmur of astonishment that rose in the
anteroom at this announcement; but Miss Finlayson waited for it to
subside, and finished her speech. 'She and Margaret Hulme are very
close, for they are exactly even as regards gymnastics; but Margaret lost
a little over the wand figure. So the prize will greatly depend upon the
result of the high jump. At the same time, I feel sure you will agree with
me that the way in which the other competitors have worked has greatly
added to our enjoyment, and deserves much of our applause.'
A good many downcast faces in the anteroom cheered up as Miss Finlayson
made her ingenious reference to the unsuccessful ones, and so contrived
to make them feel that the applause at the end of her speech was really
for them. Then the whole senior division filed into the gymnasium for
the last time, to the slow music of Herr Scales, who had just had a polite
rebuke from Hurly-Burly, and was forcing himself desperately to keep the
soft pedal down.
The children never forgot the tense feeling of the next few minutes,
the thrill that ran through every girl in Wootton Beeches when Ruth
Oliver knocked down the rope at four feet four, the answering thrill that
followed it when she cleared it at four feet six, the surprise they went
through when Margaret also cleared it at four feet six, but knocked
it down at four feet eight; and last of all, the enthusiasm of the
spectators when Ruth just managed to clear it at four feet eight and
Margaret still knocked it down after two tries at it. The people, who
clapped and smiled so good-naturedly, little knew that the exciting
contest they had just witnessed had upset the traditions of two and a half
years and proclaimed the triumph of the most retiring girl in the school.
They only thought how modern and delightful it was for girls to play
the same games as boys; and Mrs. Oliver beamed on every one from the
platform, and decided that Ruth should stay another year at school
instead of leaving at midsummer. But the anteroom was overwhelmed.
'It's--impossible!' gasped Jean, when the news travelled down to the
triumvirate. 'Why, Margaret can clear four feet ten _easily_! I've seen
her.'
'And Ruth has never done more than four feet six before,' added Angela,
forced by the seriousness of the moment into a strict statement of facts.
'Margaret was nervous; I'm certain she was,' said Barbara, positively. 'It
was the same with Egbert, when he forgot his godfathers and godmothers; he
said there was a silly idiot at the bottom of his form, who didn't mind
the strange clergyman blinking at him a bit, and he even got through the
duty to his neighbour. And Ruth wasn't nervous, you see.'
'What nonsense you are talking,' remarked Mary Wells, who loved to be
literal. 'Why, Ruth is more shy than any one in the whole school!'
That was certainly true, and Babs went on puzzling over it, long after
Margaret and Ruth had retired hand in hand to the other end of the
anteroom. For whatever the head girl felt about her failure, she did not
mean to let any one guess that she cared. Her easy self-possession was
all her own again, as she kept tight hold of Ruth's hand and chatted
lightly to the girls about her; and one or two of the others, who tried
to patronise her with their consolation, received such sarcastic replies
that they were very soon put back in their place again. Margaret Hulme
was not going to forget she was head girl, even if that roomful of
strangers had robbed her of the power she had wielded for two and a half
years.
Scales struck up a march of his own composition; and at a vigorous sign
from Miss Burleigh, Charlotte Bigley hastily marshalled her scattered
troop and led them into the gymnasium for the Indian club performance.
They were all very much subdued by the time they had separated to their
various places, for the peep they had stolen through the anteroom door
had given them no idea of what it really felt like to stand in the
middle of this staring crowd of people, who filled the gallery above
and the platform at the end, and even spread thinly round the room
close up to the wall. Jean clenched her teeth and frowned fiercely, and
would have endured twice the shyness that tortured her sooner than
forget one of the exercises she had to go through; and as for Barbara,
she took no notice of the people at all, but began to work mechanically,
as soon as the first bars of the familiar valse fell on her ears.
Angela, however, lost her head and one of her clubs at the same instant;
and a harmless aunt, who sat near, only escaped a severe blow from the
latter by the dexterity of another visitor, who put out his hand just
in time and caught it as it flew past him. It was neatly done, and the
audience applauded vigorously, while Hurly-Burly gave the command to
stop practice, and the stranger restored her property to the confused
and unhappy Angela. Then Babs recognised him. It was the Doctor who
had come out in this surprisingly new light; and even Kit, with whom she
immediately exchanged glances, was looking down at him approvingly.
'Did you see Dr. Hurst?' whispered Babs to Jean afterwards, as they filed
out of the gymnasium again.
'Of course I did, directly I got in,' answered Jean. 'Couldn't think who
it was looking so glum and thundery! Wonder why he came to a show like
this? He doesn't look as though he went in for gymnastics, does he?'
'I don't know,' said Babs, trying to be fair even to the beast who had not
shown himself worthy to be a prince. 'It was very smart the way he caught
that club. Perhaps he is good at gym, though he can't take a joke.'
Angela required so much consolation from them both on account of her
blunder, that they forgot all about the doctor, and spent most of their
time, while Charlotte's section was displaying on the horizontal ladder,
in assuring her, with more or less confidence in their tones, that when
it came to the rings no one could hope to compete with her. Then Charlotte
Bigley returned at the head of her section, trying unsuccessfully to
look as if nothing had happened; and Mary Wells proudly informed all
those who cared to hear, that if anybody thought she was going to do
the rings as well as Charlotte had just done the ladder, she was much
mistaken!
'Oh, you shut up!' rejoined Babs. 'You haven't seen Angela yet.'
'Or Jean!' echoed Angela, faithfully.
The third voice for once was wanting. Jean Murray stood waiting for the
signal to advance; and her determined, almost dogged look was blotting out
every other expression on her thin, clever face.
Babs understood, and sprang forward to her place at Jean's side.
'It's all right, Jean,' she said earnestly. 'I must try my very hardest,
because Finny made us all promise; but--but I do want you to win, all the
same.'
'Oh, stop it, Babe,' Jean threw back at her, in a tone that startled and
hurt her; and the child shrank into herself again, and had a hard fight
to keep back the tears that rushed into her eyes for the first time in
many weeks.
Their persistent encouragement of Angela made her go through the first
exercise on the rings successfully. It was a swing and a pull up in front,
and she managed it more neatly than either of her supporters. Then came
the swing and turn, and here Angela's temporary courage deserted her.
Perhaps she was flurried by the little attempt made by the gallery to
applaud her the second time she came forward; in any case, the glimpse
she had of Kit, who caught her eye and nodded cheerfully just as she
was beginning, did not help to compose her. She turned too soon and too
vigorously, and spun round helplessly in the air, until Hurly-Burly
came to her aid and helped her to drop ignominiously to the ground.
After that, it was evident that the issue of the competition rested
with Jean and Barbara, for they soon showed that they were much more
finished and thorough in their work than any one else in their section;
and everybody was prepared for the statement made by Miss Finlayson
in the next interval. She announced that Charlotte Bigley, Jean Murray,
and Barbara Berkeley were exactly even up to that point, and that the
result would have to be determined by the rope-climbing.
The rope-climbing, however, left the result still undetermined. Both Jean
and Babs reached the top in six seconds, blew the trumpet they found there
with a vigour that sent the spectators into a peal of merriment, and slid
down again, much pleased with themselves and the interest they were
exciting. Charlotte Bigley on the third rope excelled them in speed and
reached the top in five seconds, but forgot to blow the trumpet, and so
made things even once more. The junior division filed out again, while
Miss Finlayson and the expert and Hurly-Burly put their heads together
on the platform, and Herr Scales thought the moment an appropriate one for
a performance in his best manner of his favourite composition, which
was called _Sonnenschein_ and had been thumped out in the holidays to
half the parents in the room.
Miss Finlayson rose to her feet again. As the three competitors she
had already mentioned were still equal, she must call upon each of
them to do one of the advanced exercises, Charlotte on the ladder and the
other two on the rings; they were to choose their own exercises, and if
they again proved themselves equally good, the prize would be divided.
The spectators were in a pleasant state of interest by this time, and
the three little rivals were greeted with enthusiasm when they stepped
out of the anteroom for the last time and took up their positions in front
of the platform. They looked very small and slight as they stood there
in their short red frocks against a solid background of people; but they
had quite lost every suspicion of bashfulness, and Babs even began to
look upon the whole thing as an immense joke. She nodded gaily to the boys
in the gallery, and smiled happily at Auntie Anna, who had the place
of honour on the platform next to the Canon; and in the silence that
followed, while Charlotte Bigley was jumping from rung to rung of the
horizontal ladder, she occupied herself in trying to decide on her own
exercise. If Jean chose leaving go with one hand, she should swing
and let go and catch on to the trapeze beyond--at least, if Hurly-Burly
would only be decent and give her leave. She half hoped that Jean _would_
choose the other; for she had practised the trapeze one, only last week,
and----
A sudden murmur, followed by a faint attempt at applause, roused her; and
she saw Charlotte Bigley walking slowly back to the anteroom with her eyes
fixed on the ground.
'What happened? I didn't see,' she whispered, nudging Jean.
'Hand slipped, fell off,' answered Jean, briefly, as she went forward and
grasped the rings.
She did choose swinging and letting go with one hand, and she went through
it very successfully, and earned every bit of the applause that greeted
her when she finished. Barbara was so delighted that she went on clapping
her loudly after everybody else had stopped, and did not notice what she
was doing till the audience began to laugh and Hurly-Burly came up and
spoke to her.
'May I have the trapeze let down?' whispered Babs, eagerly. 'I want to
let go of the rings and catch on to it at the end of my swing--like I did
the other day.'
Hurly-Burly looked doubtful. 'Are you sure you can manage it?' she asked.
Barbara pleaded, and the games-mistress gave in. It was always difficult
for any one so practical as Miss Burleigh to understand the odd little
pupil, who at one moment could throw herself into a game as heartily as a
boy, and at another was liable to exasperate her companions by going
off into a dream and completely forgetting what she was doing. But it was
impossible to help liking the child, and Hurly-Burly, who had a sneaking
conviction that the trapeze exercise would decide the prize in her favour,
could not resist the temptation to let her have her own way and secure
to herself at the same time a little reflected glory. For it was she
who had taught Barbara the exercise, and she had every reason to be
proud of her pupil. So she let down the trapeze from the roof and held it
back with her hands, ready to drop it forward when the child had worked up
her swing.
The eyes of the German music-master were filled with sentimental
interest, as the youngest girl in the school stepped up to the rings. He
knew very little about gymnastics, though a German; for his life had been
passed almost entirely in other lands, and during the brief period he
had spent in his own country he had been so absorbed in his art that he
had completely neglected the physical culture that is of so much
importance to most Germans. As for girls' gymnastics, his experience in
them had been entirely confined to a few occasions like the present,
when he was asked to play instead of the junior music-mistress. But he
never assisted at the usual lessons, when the junior music-mistress was
considered good enough to perform; so Miss Finlayson's remarks on the
merits of the three competitors conveyed very little to him. Still, he
managed to gather that Barbara stood a good chance of winning the prize,
and his fat, benevolent face beamed with satisfaction in consequence.
It was true that the little Fraeulein with the black, black eyes and the
wonder-clumsy fingers had no more talent for music than his tabby
cat, while the performances of Fraeulein Vilkins were the joy of his
heart; but it was the little one who asked him so many questions about
his beloved Germany, which she seemed to regard as being about the size
of Kensington Gardens, and he forgave her all her excruciating false
notes for the sake of her warm heart, which was _colossal_. When he saw
her standing there all alone, he quite gave up trying to be brilliant and
dropped into a little simple melody of his own, which he had never
thought important enough to name, but which Barbara had always told
him in her funny English was 'awfully fine.' Unfortunately, just as she
recognised the notes and nodded at him with a little smile, Jean brought
him a message from the games-mistress, asking him not to play at all
until the exercise was over.
'It's rather a difficult exercise, and you might put her out,' explained
Jean, seeing that he looked puzzled at such a peculiar request. Her
explanation did not help him much, for Jean did not trouble to translate
it into his own language; and, never having witnessed the exercise
that was coming, he failed to see the point of Hurly-Burly's message.
However, he was glad of the opportunity to descend from the platform
and get a better view of the little Fraeulein's performance; and he placed
himself, rather inconveniently, just in front of the games-mistress, and
prepared to miss nothing of what followed.
Everybody in the room was smiling genially at the youngest girl in the
school. She had already prepossessed them in her favour by her frank
admiration for Jean Murray; and now, as she stood there waiting for
the sign from Hurly-Burly to begin, there was something about her happy
unconsciousness that appealed irresistibly to her audience. Suddenly, the
five boys in the gallery began to stamp their feet encouragingly, and
Peter shouted 'Go it, Babe!' at the top of his voice. In a moment, the
cry was taken up in the anteroom. 'Go it, Babe!' said twenty voices or
more in a breath. The enthusiasm was infectious, and the words were
repeated with many a laugh all over the room. 'Go it, Babe!' cried the
people on the platform, and the people in the gallery, and the people who
sat near her by the wall, until every one in the gymnasium was stamping
and clapping and saying 'Go it, Babe!' to the little person in the short
scarlet frock.
Barbara held the rings tightly, and her breath came rather quickly and
unevenly. She was bewildered by the noise, and waited for it to subside
before she began the exercise. It was so difficult to know what it all
meant. Of course, the boys wanted her to win; and perhaps the other people
did too, because they were grown up, and grown-up people always were
jolly and kind to her. She could understand why the Doctor, stern as
he was, smiled away at her and clapped her as heartily as any one, from
his place on the platform; and she thought she knew dimly what was making
Jean stamp on the floor till the dust flew. But the enthusiasm of her
other school-fellows, who were pressing forward from the anteroom door,
amazed her greatly. Could it be that they had suddenly forgotten how
young and unimportant she was, and how much she needed correction, and
how often she required to be told that she was the youngest in the school?
Were these the girls she had hated so heartily only three months ago, the
disgraced princesses she had turned out of her kingdom so passionately?
The applause died down at last, and Miss Burleigh made her the signal to
begin. Babs walked back as far as she could, stood stretched for a second
on the tips of her toes, then shook the hair out of her eyes with the
old familiar movement, and took a sharp run forward. The next minute, the
slim scarlet form was flying backwards and forwards, with graceful,
regular movements. The onlookers gazed and admired, wondering with
some curiosity what her exercise was going to be; and their interest
increased when she uttered a sharp 'Now!' just as she was sweeping
backwards from her highest swing. Only one person in the room failed
to notice that it was Miss Burleigh who let the trapeze drop forward
instantly, so that it hung ready for the small performer to grasp on
her return swing.
The music-master had been wholly absorbed in watching the little
Fraeulein, from the first moment she had begun to swing. He thought he had
never seen anything so graceful as the way she swept to and fro, nor
anything so _huebsch_ as the expression and the rose-red complexion of
the youngest girl in the school. It was truly _grossartig_! His eyes
followed her closely all the time, from end to end of her swing; and that
was how he contrived to be looking away at the precise moment when
Hurly-Burly let down the trapeze. The murmur that rose from the people who
surrounded him, as they realised what Barbara was going to do, made him
look round; and he saw the thing hanging there, as though it had
dropped from the roof by accident, and in another second would get in
the way of the child who was swinging so deliciously. Viewed afterwards
in the light of ordinary common-sense, it seemed to him _wunderbar_
that he could so have deceived himself. At the time, not a doubt was in
his mind as to what he thought had happened. The trapeze had fallen
down by accident and was going to embarrass the little Fraeulein, if
not to hurt her; and the people around him were all exclaiming aloud,
because they too had realised her danger. Nevertheless, nobody seemed to
know what to do, and the little Fraeulein was already sweeping straight
towards it on her downward swing. All these reflections rushed through
his brain in the flash of a moment. There was no time to hesitate. He
must be the one to rush out and come to her aid. With a loud German
exclamation, the music-master hurled himself forward and snatched back
the trapeze just as the child let go of the rings.
He had a dim recollection afterwards of being gripped by Hurly-Burly
just an instant too late, and of seeing the little scarlet figure twist in
the air above him and drop with a nasty thud at the edge of the last
mattress, of finding himself in the midst of a huge concourse of people,
who suddenly rose up with a great roar and bore down upon him, uttering
shriek after shriek,--and then, of coming miserably to himself again,
with his heart thumping and his head throbbing painfully, just as a
deathlike silence succeeded the uproar, and a voice like Miss Finlayson's
said something that sounded like 'Doctor!'
Some one had sprung from the platform with a flying jump the moment the
accident happened, and was forcing a passage through the throng of people.
There was not a sound to be heard in the great gymnasium as the Doctor
knelt down on the floor and put out his hand to the little still spot
of scarlet that lay on the edge of the last mattress.