Just Gerry Part 23

The struggle only lasted a few moments in reality, but to Gerry it seemed an eternity before she heard Bennett's breathless cry of "Hold on, missie I keep him still an instant longer," and knew that if it was more than an instant, she would have to let the dog go. Then came a sudden blinding flash over her shoulder, a deafening report in her ear.

Bruno broke from her grasp with a frenzied leap, then came another report. And then----

And then the next thing she knew was that she was lying on the gra.s.s with Muriel and Miss Caton and Miss Latham bending over her, and with what appeared to Gerry to be the whole of Wakehurst Priory peering over their shoulders.

"For Heaven's sake, keep back, you kids!" cried Muriel in an irate voice, thrusting back the nearest of the eager throng. "Can't you see that Gerry's nearly fainting, and you will keep crowding round so that she can't get a breath of air."

"Go back, girls, at once," commanded Miss Latham, rising to her feet and waving the school away with a peremptory gesture. "Hurry up and get back to school, all of you. Whoever gets there first can tell Sister that she's wanted." An ingenious suggestion that almost instantly cleared a s.p.a.ce round Gerry. If you can't get a front place as a spectator when there's an accident, the next best thing is to be the first to carry the news of it to somebody else. And with a feeling that they were really doing something of importance, some fifty or sixty girls set out at once to race down to the school to summon Sister.

Having thus procured breathing-s.p.a.ce for Gerry, Miss Latham turned to the games' mistress, who was kneeling beside the girl.

"Is she bitten?" she asked anxiously.

"I don't know," said Miss Caton uncertainly. But Gerry, who was fast recovering from her momentary faintness, made an effort to sit up, saying in a weak voice which she had some difficulty in recognising as her own:

"No, I'm not bitten--anywhere. It's only that I'm so giddy--and out of breath."

"All right, dear; lie down again and don't try to talk. You'll be better directly," said Miss Caton gently.

"I'm better now," said Gerry, resolutely putting aside the protesting hands that attempted to hold her down, and sitting upright. The movement nearly made her turn faint again, but she conquered the feeling by a great effort and smiled into Muriel's anxious face.

"I'm all right. Really, I'm all right! He didn't hurt me a bit. Look at my hands, they're not even scratched."

Nor were they. And after much anxious questioning and examination the mistresses came to the conclusion that in some marvellous way the girl had escaped all injury.

"I can't think how he didn't bite you!" Miss Latham said. "But now, if you feel well enough, I think we'd try and get you down to the sickroom."

"Monica and I will make a carrying-chair of our hands for her," said Muriel eagerly.

But Gerry disdained all such a.s.sistance.

"I'm quite all right. I can walk by myself, thank you very much," she said, and demonstrated the truth of her words by rising to her feet. A little sick tremor ran through her as she caught sight of the men bearing away an inert black ma.s.s that had once been Bruno, and she swayed a little uncertainly. But Miss Caton caught her by one arm, and Muriel slipped her hand under her other shoulder, and she soon steadied herself; and the little procession began to make its slow way down the field.

With the exception of Monica and Muriel, all the other girls had gone by this time, hurried away by prefects and mistresses--all, that is, but one, who had somehow managed to elude the vigilance of those in authority. That one was Jack Pym, and her face was almost as white as Gerry's own as she came forward and joined the little party. In her hand she carried a couple of hockey sticks.

"I've got your stick, Gerry," she said rather awkwardly. "I saw it on the ground and I've brought it along for you."

Miss Caton dropped behind for a moment to speak to Miss Latham and Monica, and Jack slipped into her vacant place. Gerry's eyes sought Jack's with a wistful eagerness which was not lost upon the head girl.

"Give Gerry an arm, Jack," Muriel suggested. "She's a bit unsteady on her pins still."

Transferring both sticks to one hand, Jack hurried to obey. She drew Gerry's hand through her arm, giving it a squeeze which sent a sudden thrill of happiness through Gerry's heart.

"Thank you," said Gerry gratefully, as she returned the pressure.

"It's decent of you to have brought my stick along. I'd forgotten all about it."

That was in effect their reconciliation and the beginning of a friends.h.i.+p which would long outlast schooldays. But though it was such a momentous happening to both girls, neither of them said anything in the least appropriate to the occasion. In fact, the only remark made by either of them at the moment was pa.s.sed by Jack, as she glanced at Gerry's wounded nose.

"My eye, Gerry! You won't half have a lovely countenance to-morrow morning!" was all she said.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LOWER FIFTH MAKES AMENDS

Gerry was escorted in safety to the sickroom, where Sister's magical lotion eased the pain of her swollen nose and considerably improved her appearance. A strong dose of sal volatile brought back a little colour to her pale cheeks and a feeling of strength to her sadly wobbling legs. Then she was established upon a comfortable sofa in front of the sick-room fire and left to the enjoyment of a first-cla.s.s sick-room tea--the sort kept for special convalescents, Sister informed her. As it consisted of hot b.u.t.tered toast, superfinely thin bread and b.u.t.ter, apricot jam, shortbread biscuits, and sponge-cakes, Gerry agreed with her that it was certainly a great improvement upon ordinary schoolroom fare.

Downstairs in the dining-hall little else was discussed that tea-time but the subject of Gerry's pluck. A great change of feeling towards the Lower Fifth girl was taking place. Everybody realised that if it had not been for Gerry's presence of mind and extraordinary courage, many of the girls might have been bitten by poor Bruno. Whether the dog was really suffering from madness or only from some minor distemper remained to be proved. But those who had seen him that afternoon had little doubt upon the subject. He had been unaccountably moody and irritable for some days past--his surly behaviour in the gymnasium a couple of days previously had only been one incident out of many--and the way he had suddenly run amok when the headmistress was about to take him for a walk that afternoon pointed to the supposition that he was really suffering from rabies.

"Mad? In course he was mad! Think I don't know a mad dog when I see one?" said Bennett, when questioned upon the subject by Dorothy and Phyllis, as he was taking away the muddy boots from the lobby just before tea. "If it hadn't been for that there young lady, there'd have been some humans mad as well--and serve some of them right!" he added, with a sour glance. For although the servants did not know the full ins and outs of Gerry's ostracism, yet they were well aware that "little Miss Wilmott" had been having anything but a happy time during her first term at Wakehurst Priory.

But Wakehurst Priory had thoroughly repented of its ways now! Gerry was the heroine of the hour, and there was considerable danger of the school losing its head in the other direction and making a popular idol of her. Even Dorothy and Phyllis were penitent, and openly acknowledged their remorse in the Lower Fifth sitting-room after tea that evening. As it was a Sat.u.r.day evening there was, of course, no school work to be prepared, and the form was at liberty to discuss to its heart's content the subject which was occupying its mind so entirely.

It was Hilda Burns who made the suggestion that appealed most strongly to the form.

"I think we ought to make her a public apology," she announced dramatically, "to let the whole school know what beasts we have been."

And her idea was taken up with much acclamation by the other members of the Lower Fifth.

"Yes, let's!" said Dorothy eagerly. "Let's go now and ask Muriel to call a school meeting, and then we'll ask for Gerry to come down to it, and we'll all step out in turn and tell her how frightfully sorry we are for having been such rotters, and ask her to make it up!"

"Come on," said Phyllis. "We'll go to Muriel now." And the form trooped off to the head girl's study.

Muriel was having a private tea-party in her own room with Monica and Jack Pym. The latter had disappeared since the hockey match, although the other members of the Lower Fifth had been too excited to notice it before. Tea in their private studies was a privilege the Sixth Form girls were ent.i.tled to on Sat.u.r.days and other holidays if they liked; and to-day Muriel had asked Jack to join in the cosy little party. The head girl was not an un.o.bservant individual, and she had noticed Jack's unhappy face and remorseful manner during that walk down from the hockey field. And after they had seen Gerry safely into Sister's care she had invited the younger girl to come and have tea with Monica and herself. The three had been having a very serious discussion respecting Gerry Wilmott and her troubles as they sat round the study fire.

"Good gracious! How many more of you are there?" exclaimed Muriel, as one by one the Lower Fifth squeezed themselves into the small room.

"Is that all? Margaret Taylor, you're nearest; do you think you can manage to shut the door? Now, then, what have you all come about?"

Dorothy acted as spokeswoman.

"About Gerry Wilmott, please, Muriel," she began. "We've come to tell you what utter beasts and rotters we've been to her all the term----"

"I think I know something about that already," interrupted Muriel.

"Jack's been telling me."

This abrupt announcement rather upset Dorothy's elaborate explanation.

It is disconcerting when you have buoyed yourself up to confession to find that someone else has done all the confessing for you. At any other time the Lower Fifth would have been seriously annoyed with Jack for having thus forestalled the dramatic little scene it had planned with the head girl. But to-night the whole form was so genuinely upset and penitent about its treatment of Gerry Wilmott that--although they did not know quite what to say for a moment or two--they bore no grudge against the informer.

"There's something Miss Oakley wants me to tell you about Gerry," went on Muriel, surveying the discomfited faces before her. "It's not to go any further, though. Only Gerry's own form are to know about it, and Miss Oakley trusts to your honour never to mention it to Gerry herself unless she confides in you of her own free will. I didn't know it until to-day, when Miss Oakley sent for me to go to her after we'd taken Gerry to the sick-room. If I had known it, I should have behaved very differently towards her myself! It seems that she was in a bad air-raid three years ago, when she was almost a kid. The house she was in was wrecked and a nurse she was awfully fond of was killed in front of her eyes, while she herself was pinned down underneath some wreckage for hours and hours before they could get her out. She wasn't hurt, but it upset her nerves completely. And it's mostly that that has made her so shy and nervous and funky of things. Her people sent her here to see what school would do for her. Nothing was said about her awful experience, because she can't bear to talk about it, for one thing, and for another the doctors didn't want her to be treated any differently from the other girls. And they thought she would have been if people knew. But Miss Oakley says I'm to tell you now, so that you may treat Gerry with more consideration in the future."

There was a dead silence in the room. If anything had been wanting to complete the Lower Fifth's humiliation it was this! The one excuse the form had had for its conduct had been Gerry's cowardice, and it put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to its repentance to discover that even this was not entirely her own fault. The Lower Fifth's remorse, which had been acute enough before, was almost unbearable now!

"Well," said Muriel at length, as the silence still continued--"well?

What are you going to do about it?"

"We thought that--that perhaps we'd better make Gerry a public apology," faltered Dorothy, her usual sang-froid deserting her for once under Muriel's coldly critical eye. "We thought if you would call a meeting of the whole school that we'd ask Gerry to come down, and then we'd tell her how frightfully sorry we are about having been so mean, and each of us would apologise to her in front of everybody."

"And jolly pleasant that would be for poor Gerry!" said Muriel. "Do you think she wants a public apology! To be made to feel an utter a.s.s in front of the whole school just to ease your rotten little consciences! We'll give her a public ovation if you like, but not a public apology--at least, not one anything in the least like the scheme you've planned. If you want to make amends, I think it would be much more to the purpose if you went and told Miss Burton the truth about that strike of yours, and how it was Gerry who broke it down by her plucky action in refusing to go on with it."