The Youngest Girl in the Fifth (20 page)

"Your meanness."

"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, I've had enough of this! I won't hear another word about your wretched affair. As I told you before, you must get out of your own scrapes, and not expect other people to act Providence for you. If you mention the subject again, I simply shan't listen."

Gwen had scarcely expected either help or consolation from Netta, though she felt indignant that her old chum should show her so little sympathy in the matter. After all, it was only in accordance with Netta's character. Grapes do not grow on thistles; and a girl so destitute of all sense of conscience was not likely to prove a stanch and faithful friend. Gwen was learning by slow and painful experience that bright amusing manners may be worthless unless allied to more sterling qualities. She had been wont to admire Netta's easy style, and even to try to copy it; now it struck her as hollow and vapid. If only she could have started quite afresh, with no guilty memories to disturb her, she felt she had the chance of getting into a better set in her Form. But what would Elspeth Frazer, Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, or any of the nicer girls think of her conduct, both in regard to the broken-china episode or the transferred essay? She knew it would not accord with their code of honour.

"I wish I had the courage to tell Miss Roscoe everything," groaned Gwen. "It would have been the straightest course if I'd gone and confessed at once when I smashed the china. It would have saved a great many complications. Dare I possibly tell now?"

She walked along the passage to the study. The door was open, so she peeped cautiously in. Miss Roscoe sat correcting papers, and nobody else was in the room. If she wished to make her confession, here was certainly her opportunity. Her heart beat and thumped, and the words seemed to freeze upon her lips. Miss Roscoe looked so stern as she sat at her desk making pencil notes on the margins of the exercises; there was a hard, uncompromising expression on her face which Gwen knew only too well, and which did not tend in the direction of tenderness towards wrongdoers. Gwen was still smarting from the scolding she had received for her conversation with Dick out of the window. If Miss Roscoe viewed that peccadillo so seriously, what would she say to the tale which her pupil had to unfold?

"I daren't! I daren't!" thought Gwen. "No, I really can't screw up the courage. I loathe myself for a deceitful wretch, and yet--oh, dear!--there's nothing in this world I dread so much as being found out!"

She ran down the passage again with a sense of relief. One voice in her heart assured her that she had escaped a danger, though another upbraided her for her cowardice.

"If Miss Roscoe hadn't looked quite so severe I might have ventured," she sighed in response to the latter. "I don't believe I'll get even so far as the study door again."

So a golden opportunity was lost, and Gwen, who might even thus late have chosen the straighter, harder path, shirked the disagreeable experience, and was left perforce to reap the harvest of her own sowing.

Gwen's Bright Idea

As Gwen went down the corridor she noticed a small crowd collected round the notice board, and, edging her way in among the crush, read an announcement which Bessie Manners, the head girl, had just pinned up.

"There will be a General Meeting of the Seniors at 2 p.m. in the Sixth Form room. Business--to consider what steps can be taken for an adequate celebration of the school anniversary. All are urged to attend."

"Hello! Whence this thusness?" exclaimed Gwen. "What have we got to do with the school anniversary? I thought Miss Roscoe engineered the whole of it!"

"So she does, ordinarily," answered Moira Thompson, one of the prefects. "But we want this to be a very special festivity; not just the usual picnic or garden party."

"But why?"

"Haven't time to explain now. Come to the meeting and we'll expound our views. I think it's a ripping notion of Bessie's myself."

"Do give me a hint!"

But Moira shook her head and passed on, leaving Gwen to curb her curiosity until two o'clock, for the prefects had not imparted their plans to anybody as yet, and none of her own Form could enlighten her.

At the hour stated nearly all the Seniors presented themselves in the Sixth Form room. Bessie Manners was voted to the chair, and at once began an explanation of why she had called the meeting.

"Girls," she said, "you all know that we're accustomed to have some kind of festivity on 1st June, the day of our school anniversary. Now it happens that this particular occasion is one of more than usual interest. Miss Roscoe has been Principal of Rodenhurst for exactly ten years, and it seems only fitting that due recognition should be made of the circumstance. The question that we have met to discuss is the shape and form in which we can adequately celebrate this event. We feel that the suggestion ought to come from the girls themselves, though we may need aid from the mistresses in carrying it out. I shall be glad if anyone who has a plan to lay before the meeting will propose it."

"I am sure," began Moira Thompson, rising in response to Bessie's nod, "that everybody would like to show Miss Roscoe how we value her as a headmistress. For my part I think there should be a testimonial, subscribed for in the school, and that we might have a public presentation of it."

"Hear! Hear!"

"What kind of a testimonial?" asked one of the girls.

"That remains to be discussed, and would, of course, depend upon how much was collected."

"A silver tea service, or something of that kind?" enquired Natalie Preston, one of the prefects.

"Probably: we shall have to find out what Miss Roscoe would like best."

"And where would the celebrations come in?" asked Iris Watson.

"That also must be talked over. So far, Miss Roscoe has always arranged a treat for the school on anniversary day, but we think this year it ought to be the other way, and the girls arrange a treat for Miss Roscoe and the mistresses. I'm sure they'd appreciate it."

"Each Form might have a collecting book. We ought to raise quite a handsome sum," said Bessie Manners. "Then there could be a garden fête for the presentation."

"Only for the school? Or would parents and friends be allowed to come?" asked one of the Sixth.

"I don't see why they shouldn't. It would make the affair seem of more importance. We could get up an extra fund to provide afternoon tea."

"Or get it catered for, and let people pay for their own."

"Like one does at a bazaar?"

"Exactly."

"The idea is feasible. Anybody any amendments to offer?" said Bessie.

Then a sudden and brilliant suggestion came to Gwen--one of those lucky flashes of inspiration that occasionally, in our happier moments, strike us.

"May I speak?" she cried impulsively, starting up.

"By all means," nodded Chairman Bessie.

"It seems to me," said Gwen, "that if we're going to do this thing at all, it might just as easily be on a large scale as a small one. Miss Roscoe, no doubt, would be very pleased with a silver tea service, but I know something I believe she'd like far better. Don't you remember how frightfully interested she is in the new Convalescent Home? She urged us all to help it if we could. Suppose we could raise enough money to found a cot, and call it the Rodenhurst Cot, wouldn't that be a nice memorial?"

"After Miss Roscoe's own heart!" gasped Bessie.

"Ripping!" agreed most of the girls.

"But what would it cost? Is it possible?" enquired Olga Hunter.

"I believe it is. We have some papers at the Parsonage about the Convalescent Home. I was looking at them only yesterday. Any donor of £100 is to be allowed to name a cot, and nominate the special children who occupy it. Now in this big school we ought to be able to raise £100."

"A large order," said Natalie Preston.

"Not if it's undertaken systematically. As it's for a charitable object we can ask subscriptions from outsiders."

"I see your point," said Bessie. "Yes, we could beg for the Convalescent Home when we couldn't ask for contributions for a personal testimonial to Miss Roscoe. But this would please her far more. A Rodenhurst Cot! She'd love it!"

"If each girl in the school could collect five shillings," continued Gwen, "that would be over seventy-five pounds. Then suppose on anniversary day we had a grand gymkhana, and charged a shilling admission. Surely every girl could persuade two people to come, which would make at least six hundred guests. Six hundred shillings mean thirty pounds, so there you are!"

"We could have tea extra and perhaps sell flowers," added Olga Hunter, as an amendment "I'm willing to second the proposal."

"It certainly sounds feasible on these lines. We might even raise more than the hundred pounds," said Bessie.

"In that case we could add a personal testimonial to Miss Roscoe."

"Hear! Hear!" shouted several.

"Put the motion in due form, Gwen."

"I beg to propose that in order to celebrate the tenth year of Miss Roscoe's headmistress-ship, and the seventeenth anniversary of the school, we should endeavour to collect £100 to found a Rodenhurst cot in the Convalescent Home," proclaimed Gwen.

"And I beg to second that proposal," said Olga Hunter enthusiastically.

"All in favour please signify!" murmured Chairman Bessie.

Such a chorus of "Aye!" came in response that the motion was carried unanimously, and nothing remained but to discuss details.

"We shall have to let the Juniors know about it, and start them collecting," said Natalie Preston.

"We'd better each collect as much as possible in our own district or parish," suggested Gwen. "Lesbia and I, for instance, can undertake Skelwick. I'm sure some of the people there would give towards a cot."

"Then we'll have cards or books to enter the amounts?"

"Of course."

"What about the gymkhana?"

"We must appoint a special committee to arrange a programme and competitions, and ask people if they'll offer prizes."

"I vote we appoint the prefects, then, as a committee."

"Right-o!"

Gwen came away from the meeting with flying colours. She had certainly made a proposition which nobody else had thought of, but which all acknowledged was exactly the most fitting to meet the circumstances. For the first time in her experience she found her remarks receiving the attention not only of her own Form, but even of the Sixth. The prefects, mindful of their dignity, generally held themselves aloof, so it was indeed a triumph for Gwen to be seized upon, after the meeting was over, by Bessie Manners, and consulted upon the general working of the scheme. To walk down the corridor linked arm in arm with the head girl was a distinction that fell to few, and Gwen, though she accepted the honour with apparent unconsciousness, knew perfectly well that it would make an enormous difference to her position in the school. For the moment she was talked about. Her plan for the cot was called "Gwen Gascoyne's scheme", and to her was given the entire credit for originating it. The more the idea was discussed, the more everybody liked it. The mistresses sympathized heartily, and the Juniors promised earnest co-operation. Gwen, for once, was appreciated to her heart's content. It was wonderful how gracious the prefects were towards her, and how the members of her own Form suddenly treated her with respect. After so long a period of unpopularity it was very sweet to find general opinion had thus veered round, and Gwen enjoyed her new character of organizer to the full. She threw herself heart and soul into the working of her scheme, and thanks partly to her parish experience at Skelwick, and partly to a practical element in her composition, she was able to give really good and helpful advice, both as to the collecting of the fund, and the arranging of the gymkhana. There was very little time before the day of the anniversary, so those in authority were obliged to push matters as fast as they could. Each girl in the school begged in her own circle most assiduously, and from the reports that began to be circulated the result seemed most encouraging.

"I believe we're going to get the £100 just by collecting, and that the gymkhana will be extra," said Bessie Manners exultingly. "By the by, Miss Roscoe wishes it to be known that she would much prefer not to be offered a private testimonial, but that everything should go towards the cot."

"Oh, we wanted to give her some remembrance, though," cried several of the girls, rather disappointed.

"I'd set my heart on her having a silver teapot at least," said Iris Watson.

"It's just like Miss Roscoe not to want anything personal," said Gwen. "I must say I admire her for it. She always reminds me of an ancient Roman--the State first and foremost in her estimation, and herself nowhere."

"Yes, she'd sacrifice a good deal for the sake of the school," agreed Bessie Manners.

It was decided to turn the anniversary into a kind of floral fête, to be held in the large cricket field. There were to be morris dances, a maypole dance, a procession of decorated bicycles, and numerous athletic competitions. Tea, coffee, and lemonade would be served at tables on the ground, and flowers and sweets could be carried round in baskets and sold during the afternoon. It was wonderful when once the ball had been set rolling how quickly offers of help flowed in. The girls' parents and friends approved of the idea of a "Rodenhurst" cot for the Convalescent Home, and were most kind in their contributions. Enough cakes were promised to provide amply for afternoon tea. Bessie Manners's mother undertook to send a supply of ices, and a generous store of sweets and flowers seemed forthcoming. To have such an excellent mutual object to work for seemed to unite all the members of the school, and especially to break down the barrier between Seniors and Juniors which had hitherto existed. While before it had hardly been considered etiquette for the Sixth and Fifth to talk to those in the Lower Forms, they might now be seen conferring on quite pleasant terms about the gymkhana, comparing notes on subscriptions, and making arrangements for flower selling and sweet vending.

Considering the large amount of home preparation that was expected from her in view of the forthcoming examinations, Gwen found she had set herself a task in undertaking any more work, but by arranging her time very carefully, she managed to perform one set of duties without neglecting another. She and Lesbia collected fifteen and ninepence for the cot among their friends in Skelwick, and wrote down the various items with much satisfaction in a notebook supplied for the purpose. The Gascoynes did not possess bicycles, so could not join the cycle parade, but Lesbia was to sing in one of the glees, and Gwen meant to enter for certain of the athletic sports. Her long arms and legs would, she hoped, stand her in good stead in a contest of running or jumping, and even if she did not win a prize, it was worth competing for the mere fun of the thing. Giles and Basil were scarcely less excited, for the Boys' Preparatory Department was to have its share in the celebrations, and they looked forward to showing their prowess in public. They spent much of their spare time in training for various Olympic games, an occupation of which Beatrice heartily approved.