Tom and Some Other Girls Part 8

"Oh, well, everything in moderation. See that she is not overworked.

There will be no time gained in that way," said the princ.i.p.al, and forthwith banished the subject from her busy brain. There came a day, however, half way through the term, when Rhoda collapsed, and found it impossible to rise from her bed. Three times over she made the effort, and three times sank back upon her pillow faint and trembling, and then in despair she raised her voice, and wailed a feeble "Tom!"

Tom came promptly, b.u.t.toning her magenta jacket, and went through a most professional examination.

"To the best of my judgment," she announced finally, "you are sickening for scarlatina, tonsilitis, and housemaid's knee, but if you stay in bed and have an invalid's breakfast I should say you would be fairly convalescent by twelve o'clock. Snoddle down, and I'll see Nurse as soon as I'm dressed, and put her on the track."

"I want Miss Everett!" sighed Rhoda plaintively, and Tom gave a grunt of a.s.sent.

"I expect you do. All the girls want her when they are ill. She's no time to spare, but I'll tell her, and probably she'll squeeze in five minutes for you after breakfast. You are not going to die this time, my dear, so don't lose heart. We shall see your fairy form among us before many hours are past!"

Perhaps so. Nevertheless it _was_ good to be coddled once more, to lie snugly in bed and have a tray brought up with a teapot for one's very own self, and egg, and fish, and toast--actually toast! instead of thick slices of bread-and-sc.r.a.pe. The luxury of it took away one's breath.

It was pleasant, also, to have Nurse fussing around in motherly fas.h.i.+on, and hear her reminiscences of other young ladies whom she had nursed, in days gone by, and brought back from the jaws of death. From her manner, it is true, she did not appear to suffer any keen anxiety about her present patient: but, as Rhoda looked at the empty dishes before her, she blus.h.i.+ngly acknowledged that, after all, she could not have been so ill as she had imagined.

After breakfast came Miss Everett, sweet as ever, and looking refres.h.i.+ngly pretty in her pale blue blouse and natty collar and cuffs.

If one did not know to the contrary, she would certainly have been mistaken for one of the elder girls, and her manner was delightfully unprofessional.

"Well, my poor dear, this is bad news! I _was_ sorry when Tom told me.

What is it?--headache--back-ache--pain in your throat?"

Rhoda stretched herself lazily and considered the question.

"A kind of general all-overishness, if you know what that means. I feel played out. I tried to get up, but it was no use, I simply couldn't stand. I feel as if I had no back left--as weak as a kitten."

Miss Everett looked at her quietly, then her eye roved round the room and rested meaningly on half-a-dozen pieces of paper fastened up in conspicuous positions. One sheet was tacked into the frame of the looking-gla.s.s, another into a picture, a third pinned against the curtain, and each was covered with Rhoda's large writing, easily legible across the few yards of s.p.a.ce: Rules of Latin Grammar, List of Substantives, Tenses of Verbs--they stared one in the face at every turn, and refused to be avoided. Miss Everett laid her hand upon the bed, and something rustled beneath her touch. Yet another sheet had been concealed beneath her pillow.

"Oh, Rhoda!" she cried, reproachfully; "oh, Rhoda!"

The girl put on an air of protest.

"What? There's no harm in it, is there? I can't catch the others up unless I work hard. I have not enough time in preparation, so I put these up and learn them while I dress and undress, and every time I come in to prepare for a meal. You have no idea what a lot I get through.

And I keep a list in my pocket too, and take it out at odd moments.

Miss Murray is surprised at the way I am getting on."

"I have been surprised too, to see you look so ill, with such white cheeks and heavy eyes. I understand it now."

"But, Miss Everett, I _must_ work. I _must_ get on! If I am behind I _must_ catch up. Even if I am tired I must get on in my cla.s.s."

"Why?"

Why? Why must she get on? It was such an extraordinary question to come from a teacher, that Rhoda could only gasp in bewilderment--"Why?

You ask _why_?"

"Yes, I do. One has always some object in work. I wondered what yours might be. Why are you so terribly anxious to come to the front?"

A dozen answers rose to Rhoda's lips. To impress Thomasina; to show her that if I do think a good deal of myself, it's not without a cause...

To take the conceit out of the girls who patronise me. To be able to patronise in my turn, and not remain always insignificant and powerless... To show Harold how clever I am, and to have my name put on the Record Wall when I leave! ... They were one and all excellent reasons, yet somehow she did not care to confide them to Miss Everett.

Instead, she hesitated, and answered by another question.

"I suppose you think there is a wrong and a right motive? I suppose you think mine is the wrong one. What is the right, then? I'm ill, and reduced in my mind, so it's a good time to preach; I'll listen meekly!"

"And disagree with every word I say," cried Miss Everett laughing. "No, no, Rhoda, I never preach. I know girls well enough to understand that that doesn't pay. There are some secrets that we have to find out for ourselves, and it is waste of time telling the answers before the hearer is ready to receive them; only, when one has oneself suffered from ignorance, and sees another poor dear running her head against the wall, one is sorry, that's all, and one longs to point out the danger signals.

Find out, dear, what your motive is, and be satisfied that it's a good one. Meantime, I'm going to take away these papers. Do you see?

Every--single--one!" She walked round the room, confiscating the lists, and putting them in her pocket with an air of good-natured determination. "Let that tired head rest, and believe me, my dear, that your elders understand almost as much about girls as you do yourself.

We are never blamed for under-working at Hurst, and you may take for granted that the hours for work are as long as you can stand. The short time spent in your cubicle is not intended for work, but for rest--of all kinds!"

Rhoda blushed guiltily. During the first days at school the morning hymn had been both a delight and stimulus. She had listened to the words with a beating heart, and whispered them to herself in devout echo; they had seemed to strike a keynote for the day, and send her to work full of courage; but, alas! for weeks past the strains had fallen on deaf ears, and the lips had been too busy conning Latin substantives to have leisure for other repet.i.tion. Her sense of guilt made her meek under the confiscation of her lists, and pathetically grateful for the kiss of farewell.

"Thank you for coming. I know you are busy, but I wanted you so! It's nice to see you; you look so sweet and pretty!"

"Oh, you flatterer! I'm surprised at you. As if it matters what a staid old teacher looked like; I'm above such silly vanities, my dear."

She looked, however, extremely pleased, quite brisked up in fact, and so delightfully like a girl that Rhoda took heart of grace, and enquired:--

"I wish you would tell me _your_ object! That wouldn't be preaching, and you are so young to be working so hard! I have often wondered--"

"Ah!" cried Miss Everett, and a curious look pa.s.sed over her face--half glad, half sad, wholly proud. "I'll tell you my object, Rhoda--it's my brother, Lionel! I have an only brother, and he is a genius. You remember his name, and when you are an old lady in a cap and mittens you can amuse other old ladies by telling how you once knew his sister, and she prophesied his greatness. At school he carried all before him, and he is as good as he is clever, and as merry as he is good. He won a scholars.h.i.+p at Oxford, but that was not enough. My father is the vicar of Stourley, in D--s.h.i.+re, and has such a small stipend that he could not afford to help him as much as was needed. Then I wrote to Miss Bruce, and asked her if she could give me an opening. She is an old family friend, and knew that I had done well in examinations and was good at games (the younger teachers here must be able to play with the girls-- it's one of the rules), so she gave me my present position, and I am able to help the boy. He went up last year and did famously, but I have had sad news this week. He had been obliged to go home and convalesce after an attack of influenza, and is so weak still that the doctor says he will want any amount of rest and feeding up before he can go back.

So you see I am more thankful than ever to be able to help!"

"I don't see it at all," said Rhoda bluntly. "I should be mad. What's the good of your slaving here if, after all, he can't get on with his work? You might as well be comfortably at home."

"Rhoda! Rhoda! be quiet this moment. It's bad enough to fight against my own rebellious feelings without hearing them put into words. I won't stay another moment to listen to you!"

She gave a playful shake to the girl's shoulder, and ran out of the room, while Rhoda "snoddled" down to think over the conversation.

"Well, then, I suppose her motive is love--love for her brother, and-- er--thinking of him before herself. She comes here and slaves so that he may have his chance. She is an angel, of course, an unselfish angel, and I'm a wretch." She lay still for a few moments, frowning fiercely, then suddenly the bedclothes went up with a wrench--"I don't care--she's ambitious too! She thinks he is clever, and wants him to be great!

Well, so do I want to be great! If it isn't wrong for one person, it can't be for another. My motive is _success_, and I'll work for it till I drop!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

TOM'S EXAMINATION.

A day in bed renewed Rhoda's energy, and she took up her work with unabated fervour. The "lists" were, perhaps, less conspicuously displayed than before, but were none the less in readiness when needed, and if Miss Everett disapproved, the Latin mistress was all praise and congratulation.

"I certainly have a gift for languages, and with lessons during the holidays I shall soon be steaming ahead," Rhoda told herself proudly.

"I'll ask mother to let Mr Mason coach me. He is a splendid teacher, and if I have an hour a day I shall learn a lot. Won't the girls stare when I come back, and go soaring up the cla.s.s! I shouldn't wonder if I got a remove. It will be impossible to work up to Thomasina and her set, but at any rate I'll be past the baby stages, and not disgrace myself in the examinations."

All the world seemed bounded by examinations at present. Thomasina and the elder girls working steadily towards the goal of the "Matric"; Kathleen and her friends dreaming night and day of the "Oxford"; while nearer at hand loomed the school examinations, which ended the term.

Rhoda was in a fever of anxiety to acquit herself well in the eyes of her companions on this occasion, and could think, speak, and dream of nothing else. Even her joy of getting her remove from the "Bantlings"

into a higher team was swallowed up in the overwhelming interest, while Dorothy was filled at once with admiration and disgust at the monotony of her conversation.

"I don't know, and I don't care!" she replied callously, when anxiously consulted about a point in mathematics. "I've come out to play, and I'm not going to rack my brains for you or anyone else. You are getting a regular bore, Rhoda! It's like walking about with `Magnall's Questions.' Let's talk about frolics, or holidays, or something nice, and not worry about stupid old lessons."

Well! Rhoda told herself, it was no wonder if Dorothy _were_ medium, if this was the way she regarded her studies. If she took no more interest than this in the coming contest, what could she expect from the result?

She would be sorry, poor dear, when she saw her name at the bottom of the list! There was no help to be expected from Dorothy; but Rhoda stored up a few knotty questions, and took the first opportunity of asking Tom for a solution. She had discovered that Tom liked nothing better than to be consulted by the younger girls, and had a tactful way of asking help in return, which took away the sense of obligation.

"Oh, by-the-by," she would call to Rhoda, in her elegant fas.h.i.+on, "you are a bit of a German sausage, aren't you? Just read over that pa.s.sage for me. I've been puzzling over it for the whole of the evening," and then would follow some blissful moments, when Rhoda would skim lightly over the difficulty, and feel the eyes of the girls fixed admiringly upon her.