The Youngest Girl in the Fifth Part 12

"Oh, Netta, how good of you!"

"Not so particularly. It's only a loan, and I expect you to give it back."

"Of course."

"You'd better go to Parker's this afternoon at four."

"I daren't!" said Gwen, who felt that she was floundering deeper and deeper into a mora.s.s of trouble. "You don't know what a sc.r.a.pe I got into at home for stopping behind that other time. Beatrice made me promise absolutely always to come home with Winnie and Lesbia. I should have to give all kinds of explanations."

"I'm supposed to go straight home too, on these dark afternoons. My mother's rather particular about it."

"Then what's to be done?"

"You'll have to make a bolt in the dinner hour. There's nothing else for it."

"Umph! It's risky."

"You must risk something, O my cautious philosopher! n.o.body but Thistles is about just then, and I think we can outwit Thistles. I'll bring the half-sovereign to school with me to-morrow, and you can take it to Parker's, in case it's wanted. I'm afraid you'll find you'll need it."

"I should like to prosecute Emma--she richly deserves it!"

"Couldn't do that without giving ourselves away, so you'll have to restrain your righteous wrath, my child!"

Gwen spent the rest of the day feeling as if a black shadow had suddenly fallen over her life. She had believed the episode of the china was completely finished with, and here it had cropped up again like some horrible bogey prepared to haunt her. It was worse than ever, for she had lost her own fifteen s.h.i.+llings as well as the ten which Netta had previously lent her. Between Parker's and Netta she now owed thirty-two and sixpence. The largeness of the debt appalled her. How was she ever to refund it? She hoped she might get a little money at Christmas. Her grandmother and Aunt Violet generally sent postal orders for presents, telling the girls to buy what they liked; it was these welcome gifts that const.i.tuted most of her contributions to her savings box.

The hint which Parker's had given about sending the account to her father frightened her greatly. Father must not know. He would have quite enough Christmas bills to pay without adding an extra one.

Besides, what would he think of her? Gwen liked to stand high in her father's estimation. Beatrice, too, would hear of it, and would not spare her.

"I'm always the black sheep of the family," thought Gwen. "None of them have ever done anything so dreadful as this. No! I simply shouldn't dare to tell at home."

Netta turned up next morning with the half-sovereign, according to her promise. She was not an ungenerous girl, and she had plenty of pocket money, for her father was well off, and liberal to his only daughter.

She was willing to help Gwen out of a difficulty for which she knew she herself was partly responsible, and perhaps also she rather appreciated the sense of power that the debt gave her over her schoolfellow. Netta dearly loved to lead: she would have liked to be of importance in the Form, and was often annoyed that Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, and some of the others looked down upon her. It was pleasant therefore to feel that she had one satellite who was bound to revolve in her orbit, and could be reckoned upon to support her on all occasions.

Gwen had decided to commit a breach of school rules, and to rush out between dinner and afternoon school to pay her visit to the china shop. As she had said, it was a risky performance. If she were caught, she would be reported to Miss Roscoe, and the penalty would be severe.

It seemed sailing 'twixt Scylla and Charybdis, but it was worth trying. The first difficulty was how to put on her outdoor things without anybody noticing. Girls kept strolling in and out of the dressing-room in the most tiresome manner and after waiting as long as she dared for the room to be empty, she was finally obliged to smuggle her hat and coat into the pa.s.sage, and garb herself there.

"I've barely time," she said to Netta, who was acting scout. "For goodness sake tell me if you see Thistles about! Is the coast clear?

Then I'll scoot."

At the end of the pa.s.sage, however, she encountered danger. Winnie was standing by the gymnasium door, and Gwen only just drew back in time to avoid her. Chafing with impatience, she waited while Winnie leisurely examined some papers on the notice board. Was she going to stay there all the afternoon? At last she moved, and went inside the gymnasium, and Gwen plucked up courage to make a dash for the street door. She hurried along with such enormous strides that pa.s.sers-by turned to look at her and smiled, but careless of the notice she was attracting, she even broke into a run as she caught sight of the Market Hall clock. She was panting and altogether out of breath by the time she reached the china shop, and not at all sure what she ought to say. She marched up to the counter, and produced the bill which she had received.

"Look here! You've sent me this," she began, "and I want to know whether it was really paid or not."

"I'll just enquire, miss," said the a.s.sistant, referring to his superior; then returning, after a whispered colloquy, he continued: "No, miss. Mr. Evans says it certainly never has been paid. You've no receipt for it?"

"I gave the money to the housemaid at school, and told her to take it," faltered Gwen.

"Have you asked her about it, miss?"

"She's left, and I don't know where she's gone."

The a.s.sistant shook his head.

"I'm afraid, in that case, she won't want to be found, though perhaps the police could trace her if you cared to prosecute."

"Would it not be simpler if we sent the account to your father, missy?" suggested the shopwalker, coming to join the a.s.sistant at the counter. "Ah! I forget whether we have your home address? Always best to refer bills to one's father, isn't it? Then there's no trouble."

His tone verged on the familiar and impertinent. Gwen drew herself up very straight.

"I prefer to manage it myself, thank you," she replied icily. "If you will take ten s.h.i.+llings on account now, I will pay you the balance after Christmas. Will you let it remain till then?"

"I dare say Mr. Parker wouldn't object--that's to say, if you don't mind giving me your home address as a reference."

"You can put 'c/o Miss Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh',"

said Gwen, who wished at any cost to avoid the chance of a letter being sent to her at her own home. She got a receipt for the ten s.h.i.+llings on account, and put it carefully away in her purse. She thought both the shopmen looked at her very inquisitively, but she took no notice. She did not mean to gratify their curiosity by explaining the details of how she had incurred the expense. She wished Netta were with her; it was so much harder to keep up her dignity alone. With a curt "Good afternoon!" she left the china stores and hurried back to school. She was only just in time, for the second bell was already ringing. Fortunately the dressing-room was empty, except for one agitated Junior, who was in too great haste to notice anything. Gwen scuttled into the Fifth exactly five seconds before Miss Douglas, and sat down at her desk, exhausted but congratulating herself. She contrived to write a surrept.i.tious note to Netta, and to pa.s.s it, neatly rolled into a ball, on the waste-paper tray. Its tenor was calculated to be ambiguous to outsiders, but intelligible to the initiated.

"All hail, Protector of the Poor! This is to inform you that the deed is done--successfully. I thought I was within an ace of exposure, but things righted themselves, and lo! I triumphed. For the present the supplier of brittle goods is satisfied, and for the future--well, I leave it to luck. I feel like a warrior who has been through a campaign--I'm not sure if I haven't acquired some wounds. My head is swimming, and I'm a broken flower for the afternoon. Expect me to collapse in maths. My brains are capable of nothing more arduous than the three R's. I am living till four, when I can have the exhilaration of reciting my breathless experiences to your sympathetic ear.

"Yours in abject grat.i.tude,

"G.G."

CHAPTER IX

Keeping Christmas

The end of the term seemed to arrive very rapidly--too quickly for the amount of work that had to be done, yet too slowly in the estimation of the three hundred and eleven girls who were looking forward to the holidays. Exam week came and went, leaving inkstained fingers and a crop of headaches; mistresses were busy correcting papers; "swatters"

were daring to congratulate themselves, and "slackers" were bewailing the difficulty of the questions. Gwen, who had done pretty well on the whole, considering her handicaps, ventured to think she must be through in most subjects, and not such a disgrace to the Fifth as to necessitate her dismissal to the Lower School again, a consummation at which one or two of her detractors had occasionally hinted in times of irritation.

The few days left were chiefly occupied with what the girls called "scratch lessons", just something to keep them employed until the lists were out. A good deal of lat.i.tude was allowed to those rehearsing for the various performances, and though Gwen could not claim that excuse for exemption, she managed to make a little work spin out a long way without incurring reproof.

She was tired with the strain of the term; it had needed much effort to keep up with the rest of the Form, and the daily bus journey and walk to and from home were all extra exertion. She had grown enormously in the last few months--"grown out of all conscience", said Beatrice, who sighed ruefully over boots too small and skirts too short--and she had become so pale and lanky and angular in the process that Winnie unfeelingly compared her to a plant raised in a cellar.

Her unlucky hands and feet seemed bigger than ever, and more inclined to fidget and shuffle, and to her bad habit of wrinkling up her forehead she had added a nervous blink of her eyes.

"Winnie Gascoyne is charming," confided Miss Douglas to a fellow mistress, "and Lesbia is about the loveliest child I've ever seen. I can't imagine why Gwen should vary from pretty to plain continually.

But she does."

Unfortunately, Gwen's temper suffered in exact proportion to her increased inches. She was snappy at school and snarly at home, difficult to please, and ready to take offence at everything. Probably a week's rest in bed, on a feeding diet and a good tonic, was what her tired body and irritable nerves required, but n.o.body had the hardihood to make such a suggestion. Except in cases of dire necessity, the Gascoynes did not indulge in the luxury of medical advice or chemist's bills, so Gwen perforce did without a doctor, and the medicine he would most undoubtedly have prescribed for her. So far from thinking of rest, she was making plans sufficient to fill five holidays instead of one; even she herself laughed sometimes at the largeness of her projects compared with the brief month in which she was to carry them out.

Meantime the two days of the dramatic performances had arrived. The Seniors always had the first afternoon and the Juniors the second, the audience being composed of the rest of the school together with the mistresses. The outside public was not invited, as the little plays were only intended to be acted among the girls themselves. The Sixth naturally led off, and Gwen quaked as she sat with her Form in front of the heavy red curtains. She was afraid an unpleasant surprise awaited her comrades, and she wondered how they would take it. Exactly what she expected happened. The bell rang, the curtains were drawn aside to reveal--alas, alas, for the Fifth!--a very excellently got up trial scene from the _Merchant of Venice_. Bessie Manners, the head of the school, was a majestic Portia in a handsome scarlet robe; Winnie made an attractive Nerissa; while all the other characters were arrayed in slightly more sumptuous costumes than Elspeth and Hilda had been able to collect.

A shudder of cold horror ran through the unfortunate Fifth, the dramatic representatives of which listened with a kind of fascination to their own speeches, tripped off lightly and easily by their Seniors. It was more particularly galling as all realized that the whole thing was on a rather higher scale than theirs; it was better staged, much prompter, the actions were more appropriate, and the players less stiff and self-conscious, to say nothing of the superior dresses. In gloomy resignation they sat the scene out, and had the magnanimity to applaud heartily at the end. Then came the crisis.

"We can't possibly give the very same thing all over again," whispered Hilda to Elspeth. "We shall just have to announce that ours is 'off'."