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Tom and Some Other Girls: A Public School Story

<h3>Chapter Twelve.</h3> <h4>Home Again.</h4> The week of examination passed slowly by, and the morning dawned when the all-important lists were to be read aloud. The girls were tired after the strain, the teachers exhausted by the work of reading over hundreds of papers, and it was consequently a somewhat pale and dejected-looking audience which assembled in the Hall to hear the report. Rhoda sat tense on her seat, and puzzled for some moments over the meaning of a certain dull, throbbing noise, before discovering that it was the beating of her own heart. It seemed to her morbid sensitiveness that every eye was upon her, that everyone was waiting to hear what place the new girl had taken. When Miss Bruce began to read she could hardly command herself sufficiently to listen, but the first mention of her own name brought her to her bearings with a shock of dismay. After all her work, her care, her preparation, to be so low as this, to take so poor a place! The mortification was so bitter that she would fain have hidden herself out of reach of consolation, but to her surprise, so far from condoling, teachers and pupils alike seemed surprised that she had done so well. “You have worked admirably, Rhoda. I am pleased with you,” said Miss Murray. “Well done, Fuzzy!” cried Tom, and even Miss Bruce said graciously: “Very good progress for a first term, Rhoda!” It was evident from their manner that they meant what they said, and another girl might have gleaned comfort from the realisation that she had expected too much of her own abilities. Not so Rhoda! It was but an added sting to discover that she had been ranked so low, that an even poorer result would have created no astonishment. She was congratulated, forsooth, on what seemed to her the bitterest humiliation! If anything was needed to strengthen the determination to excel at any and every cost, this attitude of the school was sufficient. In the solitude of the cubicle she vowed to herself that the day should come, and that speedily, when she would be estimated at her right value. She stood in the damp and cold gazing up at the Record Wall, and renewed the vow with fast-beating heart. The sun struggled from behind the clouds and lit up the surface of the tablets, and the Honours girl, and the B.A. girl, and the girls who had won the scholarships, seemed to smile upon her and wish her success, but Eleanor Newman’s name was in the shade. The sun had not troubled to light it up. She was “stupid,” and had never won a prize. The last two days were broken and unsatisfactory, and Rhoda longed for the time of departure to arrive; yet it was not without a pang of regret that she opened her eyes on the last morning, and gazed round the little blue cubicle. It was delightful to be going home, yet school had its strong points, and there were one or two partings ahead which could not be faced without depression. How nice it would be if she could take all her special friends home—Dorothy and Kathleen, and Miss Everett, and—yes! Tom herself; for, wonderful to state, she was unaffectedly sorry to part from Tom. What fun they would have had running riot in Erley Chase, and summoning the whole household to wait on their caprices! The gong rang, and all the little bells followed suit in their usual objectionable fashion, but the girls yawned and lay still for another five minutes, aware that leniency was the order of the day. The roll of the organ and the first two lines of the hymn found them still in bed, and the words were clearly distinguishable:— <blockquote> Awake my soul, and with the sun, Thy daily course of duty run— </blockquote> “How stupid!” commented Rhoda to herself. “‘Course of duty’ on the very day we are leaving school. What a ridiculous choice!” and then she tumbled out of bed and listened no more. The rest of the morning seemed a comical Alice-in-Wonderland repetition of the day of arrival. The same long queues were formed to march down, instead of upstairs; the teachers stood on the landings to say good-bye, instead of welcome; the “Black Marias” bore the pupils to, instead of from, the station, where the saloon carriages stood waiting as before. The Blues crowded into one carriage, and Tom seated herself by Rhoda, and with twinkling eyes called attention to the undulating beauty of the landscape. It was all exactly the same, yet delightfully different, for now there was no shyness nor restraint, but the agreeable consciousness of liberty to chaff in return, and be as cheeky as one chose. There was unceasing talk on the journey, yet each girl realised as the train steamed into Euston that she had forgotten to say the most important things, and was divided between regret and anxiety to look out for friends waiting on the platform. Rhoda had heard that Harold was to meet her, and presently there he was—handsomer than ever, or looking so after the three months’ separation, and as immaculate as if he had stepped out of the traditional bandbox. “There he is! That’s Harold! That’s my brother!” she cried, with a thrill of pride in the tall, frock-coated figure; and Thomasina looked, and rolled her little eyes to the ceiling. “What a bee-ootiful young man! A perfect picter! Give him my fond love, Fuzzy, and say that I am desolated not to be able to stay to make his acquaintance, but I must make a bolt for my train.” She seized her bag as she spoke and hurried to the <ANTIMG src="images/tgirl128.jpg" alt=""> door, prepared to jump on to the platform at the first possible moment, while her companions impatiently followed in her wake. Rhoda had a vague recollection of promising to write regularly to half a dozen girls, and then she was shaking hands with Harold, and laughing in pure joy at seeing the familiar face. “Here I am! Here I am! I have come back at last!” “So I see!” He swept a glance over her, half smiling, half startled. “Awfully glad to see you. Got your luggage in the van, eh? Don’t know how on earth we shall get hold of it in this crowd. What an—excuse me!—an appalling set of girls!” “I thought so too, at first, but they look different when you know them. Some of them are sweet, and awfully pretty.” “Humph!” said Harold, sceptically. “They are not conspicuous. I don’t see a decent-looking girl anywhere, except—who’s the girl in the grey hat?” “That’s Miss Everett, our house-mistress, the one I’m so fond of—the one who has the invalid brother, you know, to whom mother sent the game!” “Teacher, is she? I thought she was a pupil. Sorry for her, poor little thing, if she has to manage a lot of girls like you. Ha! ‘R.C.’ That’s your box at last. I’ll get a porter to put it on a four-wheeler. Watch where I go, and keep close behind.” He strolled forward, and such was the effect of his imposing appearance and lordly ways, that the porters flew to do his bidding, and piled the luggage on the cab, while others who had been first on the scene were still clamouring for attention. Rhoda glanced proudly at him as they drove away together, but the admiration evidently was on one side, for he frowned, and said critically— “You—er—look pale! You have lost your colour!” “I’ve been working hard.” “You have grown thinner!” “Games, I suppose. We are always running about.” “Er—what has become of your hair?” Rhoda first stared, and then laughed. “Oh, my pigtail! I forgot that you hadn’t seen it. I hated it too, at first, but I’ve grown accustomed to it, and find it very comfortable. It worries me now to have my hair blowing about and tickling my face.” “All the same, my dear, you had better untie it before we get home. We will lunch at the Station Hotel, and you can comb it out there. It will give the mater a shock if she sees you looking so changed. She would hardly know you, I think.” The tone of disapproval hit hard, and to hide her chagrin Rhoda adopted an air of indifference. “Oh, we don’t trouble ourselves about appearances at Hurst. So long as we are comfortable we are satisfied. If a girl worries to dress up, we chaff her unmercifully.” “The more foolish you! I hope and pray, Rhoda, that you are not going to develop into one of the strong-minded young women one meets nowadays, who seem to spend their lives in trying to be as much like men as possible. It will be a mistake if you do. Be as learned as you like, and as sensible as you like, and as hardy as you like—that is all to the good—but, for pity’s sake, be pretty too, and dainty, and feminine! We don’t want to have all our womenkind swallowed up in athletes, warranted to be ‘hard kicks,’ or ‘useful forwards!’ We want them to play the ornamental part in life, and be pretty, and sweet, and attractive.” “Ha, ha, yes! That’s the man’s point of view!” quoth Rhoda loftily, and her brother smiled good-naturedly as the cab stopped before the hotel. “It is, my dear, that’s very certain; and as you will probably meet a good many men as you go through life, you might as well study their opinion. It may be regrettable, but it is certainly true, that you will have more influence if you are agreeable to look at. You would have more influence over me at this moment if you would kindly walk upstairs and make yourself look—er—a little more like your old self!” “Oh, I don’t mind. Anything to please you!” said Rhoda carelessly, and strode upstairs after the chambermaid, smiling to herself in lofty superiority at Harold’s “dandy ways.” She did not smile, however, when, on coming suddenly in front of the mirror, she caught a full-length reflection of herself, for her brother’s presence had unconsciously altered her point of view, so that she saw herself no longer from the standpoint of Hurst Manor, but that of Erley Chase. Yes, Harold was right! It was not only the pigtail; there was an indefinable difference in her whole appearance. The clothes were the same, the girl was the same, but there was no longer the immaculate neatness, the dainty care, the well-groomed look which had once characterised her. In her usual impetuous fashion, she had rushed from one extreme to the other; in discarding vanity, had run perilously near neglect. “I look a nasty, horrid, hidjus fright!” she cried aloud, staring in disgust at the unwelcome vision. “I couldn’t have believed it—really I couldn’t! It’s the fault of those horrid little cubicles with the glass stuck in the darkest corner. Harold was right. Mother would have been shocked.” She slipped off coat and hat, and with the aid of the well-stocked dressing-bag went through such a process of dusting, brushing, and combing-out as she had not known for weeks past. Finally the old Rhoda seemed to smile upon her in response, in her own eyes at least, but when Erley Chase was reached some hours later Mrs Chester was far from satisfied with her darling’s appearance. Her anxious eyes took in at a glance every change in the beloved features, and nothing could shake her conviction that the child had been starved and overworked. An elaborate system of coddling was inaugurated, to which Rhoda submitted with wonderful meekness. Oh, the delight at being home again, of being loved and fussed over, and indulged in one’s pet little weaknesses! How beautiful everything looked; the richly-furnished rooms, the hall with its Turkey carpet and pictured walls; the dinner table with its glittering glass and silver! How luxurious to awake in her own pretty room, to hear the fire crackling in the grate, and to sit up in bed to drink the early cup of tea! “I never realised before how nice home was!” sighed Rhoda to herself, and for four whole days she succeeded in forgetting all about school, and in abandoning herself to the enjoyment of the festivities of the season. Christmas Day once over, however, recollections came back with a pang, and she was all eagerness to begin the proposed lessons with the Vicar. To her surprise, father and mother looked coldly upon the project, and so far from admiring her industry thought it a pity to introduce work into the holidays. It needed a hard struggle to induce them to consent to three lessons a week instead of six, and she had to face the certainty that private study would be made as difficult as possible. Even Harold elevated his eyebrows and enquired, “Why this tremendous hurry?” as if he had never been to a public school himself and known the necessity for advance. Rhoda betook herself to the faithful Ella in no very gentle mood, and stormed about the small Vicarage garden like a young whirlwind. “Well, I must say grown-ups are the most tiresome, aggravating, unreasonable creatures that were ever invented! First they want you to work, and urge you to work, and goad you to work, and ‘Oh, my dear, it would do you all the good in the world to compete with other girls,’ and then, the moment you take them at their word and get interested and eager, round they turn, and it’s, ‘Oh the folly of cram! Oh the importance of health!’ ‘Oh what does it matter, my dear good child, if you are a dunce, so long as you keep your complexion!’ No, I’m not angry, I’m perfectly calm, but it makes me ill! I can’t stand being thwarted in my best and noblest ambitions. If I had a daughter, and she wanted to cram in her holidays, I’d be proud of her, and try to help, instead of throwing hindrances in the way. It’s very hard, I must say, to get no sympathy from one’s nearest and dearest. Even your father looked at me over his spectacles as if I were a wild animal. I thought he would have been pleased with my industry.” “He is; I know he is; but he thinks you may overdo it. You know, Rhoda, you are impetuous! When you take up an idea you ride it to death, and in lessons that doesn’t pay. Slow and sure wins the—” “Rubbish! Humbug! It will never win my race, for I have a definite time to run it in, and not a day more. It has to be a gallop, and a pretty stiff one at that. For goodness’ sake, Ella, don’t you begin to preach. You might be grown-up yourself, sitting there prosing in that horribly well-regulated fashion.” “I’m not well-regulated!” cried Ella, incensed by the insinuation. “I was only trying to calm you down because you were in such a temper. What is the use of worrying? You have got your own way; why can’t you be happy? Leave the wretched old Latin alone, and tell me about school. There are a hundred things I am longing to hear, and we have not had a proper talk yet. Tell me about the girls, and the teachers, and the rules, and the amusements, and what you like best, and what you hate worst.” It was a “large order,” as Harold would have said, but Rhoda responded with enjoyment, for what can be pleasanter than to expatiate on one’s own doings to a hearer with sufficient knowledge to appreciate the points, and sufficient ignorance to prevent criticism or undue sensitiveness as to consistency of detail! Rhoda told of the chill, early breakfasts, of the seven o’clock supper when everything looked so different in the rosy light, especially on Thursdays, when frolics and best clothes were the order of the day; of Miss Mott, with her everlasting “Attention to the board”; the Latin mistress, with her eye-glasses; Fraulein, with a voice described by Tom as sounding “like a gutter on a rainy day”; and of Miss Everett, sweetest and best-loved of all. Lastly she told of the Record Wall, and Ella was fired, as every girl hearer invariably was fired, with interest and emulation. When Rhoda went off to her lesson in the study the poor little stay-at-home recalled the words of Eleanor Newman’s inscription, and capped them by one even more touching: “Ella Mason, a student of exceptional promise, voluntarily relinquished a career of fame and glory to be a cheerful and uncomplaining helper at home.” Alas, poor Ella! at the word “cheerful” her lips twitched, and at “uncomplaining” the big tears arose and trickled down her cheeks! For the rest of the holidays Rhoda worked more persistently than anyone suspected, with the exception of her tutor, who invariably found the allotted task not only perfectly accomplished, but exceeded in length. Even making allowances for the girl’s undoubted gift for languages, he was amazed at her progress, and complimented her warmly at the close of the lessons, watching with half-amused, half-pitying eyes the flush of pleasure on the girl’s cheeks. “You are very ambitious, Rhoda. Very anxious to distinguish yourself?” “Yes.” “Well, well! you are young. It is natural. Remember only that there are different kinds of success, and aim for the best. When I was your age I had dreams of a deanery or a bishopric, but I have remained all my life in this sleepy village. My college companions have soared over my head, yet I can never feel myself an unsuccessful man. I have had great compensations, and have discovered that obscurity has many lessons which I needed badly to learn. Don’t be too anxious for honour and glory; there are other things better worth having!” “The worst of old people is—they will preach!” said Rhoda to herself as she walked home across the Park. “He is a good old thing, the Vicar, but a terrible bore. Unsuccessful! I should think he is unsuccessful, with half-a-dozen children, and that wretched little bit of a house, and a poor stipend. No wonder he gets prosy. Young people understand young people best, and Miss Everett was quite right when she said it was no use trying to stuff lessons down your throat until you were ready to swallow them. If all the fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and vicars in the world were to lecture me now, and tell me to take it easy, and not to worry about the examination, it would have no effect. In another two days I go back to school, and then—then—” She stood still in the midst of the bare, wintry scene, and clasped her hands together passionately. “Rhoda Chester, you must work, you must win! If you don’t do well in that examination, it will break your heart!” <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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