The Youngest Girl in the Fifth (24 page)

"This must be investigated immediately," she declared. "I shall send for Emma Dalton this afternoon. I happen to know that she has a place as parlour-maid at a house not far away. If I had heard of this I could not have given her a character. Indeed she deserves to be prosecuted for theft. I must write a note to her present mistress."

Miss Roscoe never let the grass grow under her feet. In this case she acted with her usual promptitude, and by two o'clock Emma, in much alarm, and weeping like a waterspout, was ushered into the study and confronted with Gwen and Netta, who were both summoned for the occasion.

"Now, Emma, this is a serious charge. Have you anything to say for yourself?" enquired Miss Roscoe, seating herself at her desk with the air of a magistrate about to try a case.

"I didn't pay the money at Parker's, and I don't deny it," sobbed Emma. "I meant to, but I saw a coat and skirt I wanted, so I thought I'd borrow it, and the bill might just wait for a bit. I've intended to go and settle every month when I got my wages, but it's never seemed the right time. I didn't know Parker's were pressing for it. Oh, dear, I've been a bad girl!"

"You have indeed," said Miss Roscoe. "It was wrong of Miss Gascoyne to ask you to help her to deceive me, but worse for you to defraud her."

"It wasn't Miss Gascoyne that suggested sending back the broken china to Parker's and saying nothing about it; it was Miss Goodwin," declared Emma, pointing at Netta. "She planned the whole thing! Yes, I can tell you she did. She's a deeper one than the other. It was half her fault, I'll be bound!"

Netta's face was a study, especially as Miss Roscoe looked at her keenly, though she made no remark.

"I've brought the money with me," continued Emma, still sobbing, "if Miss Gascoyne will please take it and forgive me."

"You don't deserve any consideration, Emma," said Miss Roscoe.

"For the sake of my mother!" pleaded Emma. "Oh, don't prosecute me! It would brand me for life!"

"Don't send her to prison, please!" interposed Gwen.

"Well, we don't want to be too hard on you and ruin your life. Let it be a warning to you to be honest in future. I am sure Miss Gascoyne has no wish to prosecute you. I shall be obliged to let your mistress know about this, however. I gave you so good a character to her, that it is not fair she should remain in ignorance of so serious a slip. She must be the judge whether she keeps you in her service or not."

"I'll go home to my mother and work at dressmaking," snivelled Emma as she prepared to depart. "Here's the money, Miss Gascoyne; I'm sorry I took it, and thank you kindly for not prosecuting."

Netta fled from the study the moment Miss Roscoe gave her leave to go. She was anxious not to have to speak to Gwen, for she knew she had not behaved well towards her. Emma's unexpected accusation had given rather an awkward turn to the affair, and she had hardly come out of it with the credit she expected. Gwen lingered behind. She felt she could not leave without offering the apology which for seven long months she had wished to make.

"Please, Miss Roscoe, I'm most dreadfully sorry about all this. I know I ought to have come and told you at once when I knocked over the box of china," she blurted out abruptly. "I've been miserable the whole time about it."

"Well, Gwen, it's a lesson to keep square, isn't it? One little step from the straight road often sends us farther out of our way than we have any intention of going. I don't think you will descend to anything so underhand again, will you?"

"Never in all my life!" protested Gwen with energy.

"Then we'll say no more about it."

The news that Gwen had been suspected of appropriating some of the gate money had leaked out, as news always leaks out, and was received with great indignation by the rest of the Fifth.

"Gwen Gascoyne simply isn't capable of doing such an abominable thing!" declared Elspeth Frazer.

"No. Gwen's gauche and brusque, but she's unimpeachable," agreed Hilda Browne.

"I'd rather suspect myself!" said Charlotte Perry.

Much satisfaction was expressed in the Form when the report of the mistake in Miss Douglas's change was circulated, and Gwen's complete acquittal secured. Everybody congratulated her heartily when she returned to the classroom.

"You're the heroine of the hour," said Louise Mawson. "It was an uncommonly disagreeable thing to happen. But in a bag full of change it's very easy to confuse a half-sovereign and a sixpence. By the by, has Miss Roscoe added up all the accounts yet? How much have we made?"

"One hundred and fifty-three pounds altogether," replied Gwen. "We got a hundred and nine pounds by collecting, and the gymkhana has made forty-four."

"Hooray! Then the cot is an accomplished fact."

"We shall all have to pay a visit to the Convalescent Home and see it, as soon as the name is painted up over it," said Hilda Browne.

"Won't it look scrumptious to see 'Rodenhurst Cot' in black and white?" chuckled Charlotte Perry.

"We shall have to publish reports of our special convalescents in every number of the school magazine," suggested Iris Watson. "It will be so interesting to read about them."

At four o'clock, by Winnie's express permission, Gwen went to Parker & Sons and made a final settlement of their account. The relief of being free from her load of debt was very great, and she came out of the shop happier than she had been since the day she first entered it. As Emma had refunded the one pound two and sixpence in full, Gwen had twelve and sixpence in hand, and, in consequence, felt rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The vision of a new tennis racket began to dawn on her horizon. That evening she managed to cajole Father for a short stroll on the moor. It was seldom she could secure such a
tête-à-tête
walk, but she was longing so much to unburden her mind that she gave him no peace until she had got him all to herself. Once they were seated on the heather, with the wold behind and the sea in front, Gwen began to pour out the story in her usual abrupt, jerky fashion, not omitting the matter of the prize essay which she had sold to Netta.

"Why didn't you tell me all this before, Gwen?" asked Mr. Gascoyne when she had finished.

"Because--oh, Dad, I thought it would worry you! Beatrice said you were so dreadfully hard up."

"It would have worried me far more to feel that you owed money. How much did Netta Goodwin lend you?"

"A sovereign."

"Then I will make up your twelve and six to twenty shillings, and you shall pay her back. I don't like that transaction about the essay at all."

"Netta doesn't deserve it!" exclaimed Gwen.

"I dare say not, but your conscience demands it. Honour forbids you to expose Netta, but the affair was so discreditable that I want your part at least to be set straight. That sovereign was ill-gotten gains, Gwen!"

"Oh, Dad! Are you very angry with me?"

"No, not angry, but I wish you'd trusted me. The whole business, childie, hasn't been on the square."

"I knew it wasn't, all the time," confessed Gwen, scrubbing her eyes. "But--oh, Dad, it was so hard! Why do such hard places come into one's life?"

"To give one the opportunity to get strong. If everything were always pleasant and smooth and easy, we should be poor sort of creatures in the end, with no character worth having. I feel that every day myself, and give thanks for the hard things, and I've had my share of them."

Gwen looked at Father, and a sudden perception of his meaning swept over her. Young as she was, she knew something of the struggles and disappointments, the lack of appreciation, the mistrust, the misconstructions, the slights which had met him in his parish work, and the burden of poverty which he carried so bravely and uncomplainingly--somewhat, too, perhaps, she divined of the hopes he had left behind. Her own little struggles faded into nothingness in the shadow of his.

"Yes, you've had a hard life, Dad," she repeated slowly.

"Sentry duty. That's all! A hard life is the soldier's post of honour," said Father.

He looked far out over the sea as he spoke, and it almost seemed to Gwen as if his face shone.

There was still one point which Gwen was anxious to elucidate, and that was the reason of Lesbia's peculiar conduct in the orchard on the evening of the gymkhana, and where she had obtained the ten and sixpence of which she had spoken. Lesbia seemed very unwilling to discuss the subject, but when the two girls were in their bedroom that night, Gwen held her to the point.

"Oh, Gwen, you've got me in a corner!" protested Lesbia. "I didn't mean to tell a soul about it, except Kitty Macpherson! Well, if you must know, this is what happened. One day Kitty brought a copy of
The Gentlewoman's World
to school. It had a beauty competition in it, and she urged me to try my luck, so I sent up my photo--that one which Aunt Violet had taken of me when I was staying at Greylands. It actually won a prize, and the magazine sent me a postal order for ten and sixpence. I didn't dare to tell any of you at home, because I knew you'd all think me so terribly vain and conceited. Beatrice is fearfully down on me for that kind of thing, and I knew the boys would tease, and call me 'Proudie' and 'Madam Conceit'."

Gwen laughed long and heartily. She did not tell her little sister of the unjust suspicion she had for a short time harboured against her. The whole affair was so exactly like Lesbia, from the competing for a beauty prize to the careless taking of wrong change.

"How will you explain your new tennis racket?" she enquired. "Beatrice will ask where you got the money to buy it."

"I never thought of that. I suppose I shall have to confess, then, and be labelled 'Miss Vanity'," sighed Lesbia. "It's a ripping racket, Gwen. It's exactly the same that Kitty Macpherson has. I'll lend it to you whenever you want it. Are you cross with me for not telling you before?"

"No, dear; it wasn't such a fearful crime after all," returned Gwen, half sighing, for Lesbia's secret seemed so much more innocent a one than her own had been.

Retribution

Gwen took back the sovereign next morning to Netta, who received it with amazing coolness.

"An unexpected blessing," she remarked. "I'd put that sov. down as a bad debt. Better late than never. We're quits now, Gwen Gascoyne."

"Not altogether," returned Gwen. "I've set my part straight, but you've still got the credit for my essay. You haven't put that to rights."

"Catch me telling!" laughed Netta. "No, my good Gwen, that's a little too much to ask. Don't expect more than you're likely to get, and then you won't be disappointed. I'm afraid I must still consider Mr. Thomas Carlyle my special property. You really can't eat your cake and have it."

"That's exactly what you're doing," retorted Gwen. "You took my essay, and now you've got the sovereign as well."

"But I helped you out of a temporary difficulty. You forget that, and don't show as much gratitude as you might."

"Not much cause for gratitude," grunted Gwen.

"This is what comes of being too philanthropic. I won't help anybody out of scrapes again. One never gets thanked for it."

"Not when you give your help on such terms."

It was no use arguing with Netta, so Gwen turned away, glad to have closed the transaction, even though she had been decidedly the loser. There were plenty of other matters to occupy her mind, as this afternoon the tennis trials were to take place as a preliminary to playing for the Form trophy, and later for the County shield. Gwen had given in her name to Moira Thompson, the head of the games committee, and expected that she would be accepted at least for the trials. Nor was she mistaken, for when, at two o'clock, Moira pinned her paper on the notice board, the fourth couple down for singles were Gwen Gascoyne against Geraldine French. All the school was assembled to watch the play, since on this afternoon's victories would largely depend the future choice of champions.

"Here's my new racket. Do use it--it's a perfect beauty," whispered Lesbia, edging through the crowd, and pushing her treasured possession into her sister's hand. "It will just make all the difference to your play."

Gwen accepted the loan thankfully. Her old racket had been her greatest impediment, and she had not liked to borrow often from her classmates. As Lesbia had prophesied, it made all the difference to her serves, and she played up in a way that astonished everybody. Geraldine French, who was considered almost invincible by the Sixth, had not taken Gwen seriously, and was therefore most electrified and disgusted to find herself beaten by a Fifth Form girl of no particular reputation in the world of tennis. The Fifth were in a state of immense delight.

"Gwen's serves to-day were unique," declared Iris Watson. "If she can keep this up our Form may have a chance for the trophy."

"I'd no idea Gwen could do so well," agreed Elspeth Frazer. "She's suddenly developed into quite a crack player."

"And she's such long legs and arms, she seems all over the court, and scarcely misses a ball."

"She's shown up in a new light this afternoon. We shall have to think her over for a championship."

The match for the Form trophy was to be played in a week's time. At present the beautiful silver cup was in the possession of the Sixth, but the Fifth were not without hopes of winning it, and transferring it to the chimney piece of their own classroom. It was an old-established custom at Rodenhurst that after the trials had taken place each Form competing for the trophy should vote its own champions. The election was naturally a highly exciting event; all the points of the various candidates' play were carefully discussed, and the two who were considered the most likely to do credit to the Form were returned. On this occasion five girls appeared of such equal merit that the running between them would be very close. Hilda Browne and Charlotte Perry were last year's champions, and were steady players, though many thought that Charlotte had gone off a little in her serves. Betty Brierley was brilliant but unreliable, sometimes making more splendid scores than anybody in the school, and sometimes playing love games. Netta Goodwin had a special reputation for back work, in which she excelled, and this circumstance might very possibly cause her to be chosen in conjunction with a good net champion. Gwen's unexpected prowess had been a complete surprise to the Form, and had made such a favourable impression that many were inclined to vote for her. To none of the five girls did the vision of a championship appear more attractive than to Netta. She loved to shine, and it was a sore point with her that she was not more popular in her Form. Here, at any rate, seemed a chance to gain the applause of her schoolfellows. She was conscious of playing well, and though she was not a general favourite, she knew the girls did not allow individual preferences, as a rule, to bias their judgment when it was a question of winning or losing the trophy. She canvassed diligently, put any pressure she could bring to bear upon her particular friends, and began carefully to reckon up how many votes she could reasonably count upon. The result was not altogether reassuring. Both Hilda Browne and Gwen seemed powerful rivals to her pretensions, and the chances were that the election would return Hilda for first champion, and either Gwen or Charlotte Perry for second. The prospect of being beaten in an affair upon which she had set her heart filled Netta with dismay.