Tom and Some Other Girls Part 17

Harold was so taken aback that he did not know what to say, but Rhoda dragged laughingly at her friend's arm and cried,--

"Come along! Come along! It will soon be time to go indoors and dress for dinner, and we haven't done half our round. I was going to take Tom to the links, Harold. She is a great golfer, and will be interested in seeing them. You'll come too, won't you?"

"With pleasure. They are just our own tame little links, Miss Bolderston, which we have faked up in the park. You won't think much of them if you are a player, but they give an opportunity for private practice, and we have some good sport there occasionally."

"Ah, yes! How many holes?" enquired Tom, sticking one thumb between the b.u.t.tonholes of her coat, and tilting her head at him with such a businesslike air that he felt embarra.s.sed to be obliged to reply.

"Nine, with a little crossing about; some of the distances are very short, I'm afraid. Still, it has its points, and I've played on larger links with less enjoyment. We will take a short cut across here to the first hole. We start here, as you see, and a good full cleek shot should land you on the green. There are only two holes which really give a chance for a driver. Now you can see the second green, but it's not so easy a hole as it looks from here, for the gra.s.s is tussocky, and one almost always gets a bad lie for the approach."

"Yes, but why not drive for the green?"

"Well, you see, it's rather too far for a cleek, and too short for a driver. Sometimes I try it with a bra.s.sey, but on the whole I think the cleek is best. If you over-drive you get into awful trouble, as you will see." So the course was gone over and explained, and Tom's eye was quick to see the possibilities, and note the dangers, nor did she hesitate sometimes to differ from Harold's tactics.

"Well," said he, in conclusion, "what do you think of 'em? Rather sporting, aren't they?"

"Humph--yes!" said Tom. "That fifth hole is a little tricky, but I think they ought to be done in--er--What's your record?"

"M-well, it varies--of course. I'm no pro., but I can get round in forty, with luck."

"Forty! Humph!" Tom wheeled round on her heel, and gazed from right to left with calculating eyes. Her lips moved noiselessly, then she nodded her head, and cried confidently:

"I'll take you! I'll play you to-morrow for the better man!"

"Done!" agreed Harold at once, but he straightened his shoulders as he spoke with a gesture which meant that he had no intention, if he knew it, of being beaten by a school-girl, and his sister looked forward to the contest with very mingled feelings. If Tom lost, it would be a distinct blow; yet if Tom won, how Harold would dislike her! How hopeless it would be to look for any friends.h.i.+p between them after that!

She was glad that the game would have to be deferred for a day at least, for an evening spent in Tom's company must surely instal her in public favour. When, however, she went to her friend's room to convey her downstairs to dinner, Rhoda's confidence was shaken, and she nearly exclaimed aloud in dismay at the apparition which she beheld.

Tom in full evening dress was a vision which had been denied to Hurst Manor, but on the present occasion she had evidently determined to pay every honour to her hosts, and bony arms and neck emerged festively from a shot-silk gown, which Rhoda felt convinced must have been a possession of the long-deceased mother.

"What do you think of _that_?" Tom cried proudly, rustling round to confront the new-comer, arms akimbo, and eyes twinkling with complacency. "There's a natty get-up! Quite a fas.h.i.+on plate, ain't I?

The very latest from Par-ee. You didn't expect to see anything like that, did you?"

"I didn't!" cried Rhoda, truthfully enough; but Tom suspected no satire in her words, and taking up the hand-gla.s.s, began twisting and turning before the mirror so as to get a view of her hair, which was no longer plaited into a pigtail, but screwed into a knot the size of a walnut, planted accurately in the middle of her head.

"I say, what do you think of my coiffure?"

Rhoda looked, and burst into a shriek of laughter. "Oh, Tom! that's it!

I noticed there was something different, but couldn't think what it was. Oh, no, no, Tom, you can't leave it like that! You must make it bigger, and wear it either high or low. It's too ridiculous--that little b.u.t.ton just in the very wrong place. Sit down for one moment, and I'll arrange it for you!"

But Tom beat her off resolutely with the hair-brush.

"I won't! It's my own hair, and I like it this way. It's _distingue_-- not like every other woman you meet. Now that I've left school and am grown-up, I must study _les convenances_, and it's fatal to be commonplace. I may be prejudiced, but it seems to me that in this get- up I'm a striking figure!"

The beaming good-humour of her smile, the utter absence of anything approaching envy or discontent, struck home to Rhoda's heart, and silenced further protestations. She put her arm round Tom's waist, gave her an affectionate grip, wis.h.i.+ng, for perhaps the first time in her life, that she herself had put on an older frock, so that the contrast between herself and her guest should be less marked in the eyes of the household.

Alas! socially speaking, Tom was not a success. Mrs Chester was plainly alarmed by her eccentricities; Mr Chester did not know whether to take her in fun or in earnest; and Harold's languor grew more and more p.r.o.nounced. The very servants stared with astonishment at the peculiar guest, and when dinner was over Rhoda, in despair, took Tom up to her own den to avoid the ordeal of an evening in the drawing-room.

Once alone, with closed doors and no critical grown-ups to listen to their conversation, the hours sped away with lightning speed, while Tom told of her own plans, sympathised with Rhoda's ambition, and let fall words of wisdom, none the less valuable for being uttered in the most casual fas.h.i.+on. Every now and again the remembrance of her recent disappointment would send a stabbing pain through Rhoda's heart, but, as she had said, it was impossible to remain in low spirits in Tom's company, and if no one else enjoyed that young lady's society it was precious beyond words to her girl companion.

The game of golf was played as arranged, but though Harold came off victor it was too close a contest to be agreeable to his vanity, or to increase his liking for his opponent, while Mr Chester confided to his wife that he could not understand Rhoda's infatuation for such a remarkably unattractive companion.

"If it had been that sweet little Miss Everett, now, she might have stayed for a year, and been welcome, but I confess I shall be glad when this girl takes her departure. She makes me quite nervous, sitting blinking at me with those little eyes. I have a sort of feeling that she is laughing to herself when she seems most serious."

"Oh, she could never laugh at you, dear. She couldn't be so audacious!"

declared Mrs Chester fondly; "but I can't bring myself to like her, and where her cleverness lies is a mystery to me. I never met a more ignorant girl. She can neither sew nor knit nor crochet, and the remarks she made in the market yesterday would have disgraced a child of ten. I pity the man who gets _her_ for his wife!"

But, as we have seen, Thomasina had other ideas than matrimony for her own future. As she drove to the station by Rhoda's side she fell into an unusual fit of silence, and emerging from it said slowly:

"I'm glad I've seen your home, Fuzzy. It's very beautiful, and very happy. You are all so fond of one another, and so nice and kind, that it's a regular ideal family. I think you are a lucky girl. I like all your people very much, though they don't like me!"

Rhoda exclaimed sharply, but Tom's smile was without a shadow of offence as she insisted--

"My dear, I know it! Don't perjure yourself for the sake of politeness.

I'm sorry, but--I'm accustomed to it. Strangers _don't_ like me, and it's not a mite of use trying to ingratiate myself. I did all I knew when I came here. I wore my best clothes, I tried to behave prettily, and you see, dead failure, as usual! You needn't look doleful, for no doubt it's all for the best. If I were beauteous and fascinating I might be distracted from my work, whereas now I shall devote myself to it with every sc.r.a.p of my strength. Girls love me, and I love them, so I'll give up my life for their service. We have all our vocation, and it would be a happier world if everyone were as well satisfied as I am.

`In work, in work, in work always, let my young days be spent.' Bother it! Here's the station already, and I haven't said half I wanted to!"

"Nor I to you. It's horrid to say good-bye, and think of school without you, but you'll write to me, won't you, Tom? You will promise to write regularly?"

"Indeed, I won't! Fifty odd girls implored me to write to them, and it's too big an order. No, my dear Fuzz, I shall have no time to tell you how busy I am. Here we part, and we must leave it to fate or good fortune when we meet again. Bless you, my infant! Perk up, and be a credit to me."

"But--but--how am I to know, how am I to hear what happens to you? I _can't_ say good-bye and let you fade away completely, as if we had never met. It's horrible. You _must_ let me know!"

"Look in the newspapers. You will see my doings recorded in the Public Press," replied Tom, as she skipped into the carriage. Rhoda looked on blankly, her heart sinking with a conviction that Tom did not care; that it was nothing for her to say good-bye and part without a prospect of reunion. She was too proud to protest, but, waving her hand, turned abruptly away and walked out of the station. The train lingered, however, and the temptation to take one more peep became too strong to be resisted, so she ran along the path for twenty or thirty yards, and peered cautiously through a gate from which a sight of the carriage in which her friend sat could be commanded. Tom had leant back in her seat, and flung her hat on one side; her little eyes were red with tears, and she was mopping them a.s.siduously with a ball-like pocket handkerchief!

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

SCHOOL AGAIN.

School again, and no Tom! The house-parlour with no manly figure to lean with its back against the mantelpiece, and jingle chains in its pocket; the dining-hall with no one to make faces at the critical moment when a girl was swallowing her soup, or to nudge her elbow as she lifted a cup to her lips; the cubicle with no magenta dressing-jacket whisking to and fro--it was ghastly! The girls could not reconcile themselves to their loss, and the first fortnight of the term was one of unalloyed depression. No one dared to joke, for if she did her companions instantly accused her of "apeing Tom" and snubbed her for the feebleness of the attempt; no one dared to be cheerful, lest she should be charged with fickleness, and want of heart. And Irene, the beautiful, reigned in Tom's stead! It would have been a difficult post for any girl to have succeeded Thomasina Bolderston, but, curious though it may appear, Irene's flaxen locks and regular features were for the time being so many offences in the eyes of her companions. They were accustomed to Tom; Tom had been the Head Girl of their heart, and they resented the "finicking" ways of her successor as an insult to the dear departed.

Irene strove by a gentle mildness of demeanour to soften the prejudice against her, and the girls but abused her the more.

"Catch Tom saying `_It didn't matter_'! Imagine Tom pretending she didn't hear! A nice Head Girl _she_ is! We might as well have Hilary Jervis!" Irene a.s.sumed a pretence of firmness; the girls rolled their eyes at each other and t.i.ttered audibly. The idea of Irene Grey ordering others about! Plainly, it was time, and time only, which could give any authority to Tom Bolderston's supplanter!

How keenly Rhoda felt her friend's absence no one guessed but herself.

Tom's att.i.tude towards the result of the late examinations would have given the keynote to that of her companions, and have s.h.i.+elded the poor, smarting victim from much which she now had to endure. The girls were unaffectedly sorry for her, but pity is an offering which a proud spirit finds it hard to accept. It seemed strange to realise that girls cast in such graceful moulds as Dorothy and Irene should be so deficient in tact as to gush over the humiliation of another, and check the rhapsodies of successful candidates by such significant coughings and frownings as must have been obvious to the dullest faculties. Oh, for Tom's downright acceptance of a situation--her calm taking-for-granted that the sufferer was neither selfish nor cowardly enough to grudge success to others! Rhoda felt, as we have all felt in our time, that she had never thoroughly appreciated her friend until she had departed, and she was one of the most enthusiastic members of the committee organised to arrange about the tablet to be composed in Tom's honour.

Of course, Tom must have a place on the Record Wall! Blues, Reds, Greens, and Yellows were unanimously decided on the point; contributions poured in, and on Sunday afternoon the Blues sat in consultation over the wording of the inscription.

"The simpler the better. Tom hated gus.h.!.+" was the general opinion; but it was astonis.h.i.+ng how difficult it was to hit on something simple yet telling. A high-flown rhapsody seemed far easier to accomplish, and at last, in despair, each girl was directed to compose an inscription and to read it aloud for general approval. None were universally approved, but Rhoda's received the largest number of votes, as being simple yet comprehensive:--

"This tablet is erected to the memory of Thomasina Bolderston, the most popular `Head Girl' whom Hurst Manor has ever known. Her companions affectionately record the kindly justice of her rule, and the unfailing cheerfulness which was a stimulus to them in work and play."

"Yes--it's the best, decidedly the best, but I should like it to have been better still!" said Kathleen thoughtfully. "It is so difficult to describe Tom in three or four lines."

"And it leaves so much unsaid! I should like to describe her a little bit so that future pupils might know what she was like. If they read that, they would imagine her just like anyone else," objected Bertha, frowning. "I suppose it wouldn't do to say something about her-- er--`_engaging ugliness_!' or some expression like that?"

Howls of indignation greeted this audacious proposition, and Bertha was alternately snubbed, reproached, and abused, until she grew sulky and retired from the discussion. Rhoda herself came to the rescue, and with the critical spirit of the true artist acknowledged the defect in her own work.