So sang Netta, banging down her copy of Æneid I and II with a force that almost dissevered its cover and made the desk ring.
"I call it absolute sickening nonsense," she continued energetically. "Why in the name of all common sense should we girls in this modern twentieth century be expected to bother our precious heads over antiquated1 old rubbish that would be far better consigned2 to decent burial? What's the use of it, I want to know?"
"'An admirable training for the intellect', my dear! to quote Thistles," said Annie Edwards. "According to her theory you ought to feel your mind sprouting3 at every fresh page, and sending out shoots of wisdom."
"Sprouting, indeed! Just the other way!" grunted4 Netta. "Latin has a paralysing effect upon my brain. Instead of sharpening me it deadens my faculties5.
[158]
When I've been trying to construe6 a page of Virgil, my intellect feels a pulp7."
"Then the obvious moral is, don't try!" yawned Millicent Cooper.
"I don't."
"No more you do, you old slacker!"
"Why should one try when one can scrape through without?"
"Not an easy thing if Thistles puts you on a difficult bit! Have you made any sense out of this part? It's uncommonly9 stiff."
"Not I—I shall throw myself as usual on Gwen's mercy. Come here, Gwendolen mine, that's a sweet angelic cherub10, and interpret these abominable11 lines!"
Gwen came rather reluctantly. Of late Netta had grown into the habit of applying to her for help with her extremely ill-prepared work, and the habit was assuming proportions that Gwen did not like. At first it had only been a word or two, then an odd sentence, but it was rapidly developing into a demand for a translation of the whole lesson.
"Oh, I say, Netta, you make me a regular henchman!" she objected. "Why should I act as providence12 to you continually?"
"Because you know the lesson, my hearty13, and I don't. Ergo, it is your duty and privilege to impart your information to me."
"Don't always see my privileges."
"Then you ought. If you're helped, you ought to help others."
"I'm not helped!"
[159]
"Oh, Gwen! I'm sure Grinnie helps you at home!" broke out Millicent Cooper.
"She doesn't! She doesn't, indeed! I do all my prep, by myself."
"Can you actually swear on your honour she's never once helped you?" said Annie Edwards.
"On my hon—" began Gwen, then stopped and stammered14 lamely15. "Well, at least, there was once—"
The recollection had struck her of the evening when she had caught the rat in the hen-coop. She had been so upset and flurried on that occasion that she had certainly applied16 to Winnie for assistance with a passage that she could not have otherwise prepared.
"Once!" sneered17 Annie. "Oh, no doubt! Everybody in the Form knows how it is you get on so well with your work!"
"I get no help at home!" declared Millicent self-righteously.
"Oh, drop drivelling, and let Gwen alone! She's got to tell me these lines," said Netta. "What do I care how she prepares her work? Come, Gwen, ma-vourneen, be a real friend!"
As Gwen translated the passage Netta wrote it rapidly down in pencil, and even Annie and Millicent, in spite of their condemnations of assisted preparations, seized their books and followed the words carefully.
"A particularly nasty bit—I could never do it if I tried half a year. Thanks awfully18!" said Netta, slipping the paper inside her Æneid.
[160]
"Netta, you're not going to—"
"Never mind what I'm going to do. My concerns are my own," returned Netta airily. "I'm an unlucky person, and I'm sure to get the worst piece if there is one. It's Kismet."
Gwen's desk was close to Netta's, and when the Virgil class began she could not help noticing the latter pop the scrap8 of paper on her knee under cover of a pocket handkerchief.
Miss Douglas followed no fixed19 order in the Form; she called on any girl she wished to translate, choosing from back or front desks with strictest impartiality20. As Netta had predicted, the difficult passage fell to her lot. To the surprise of almost the whole Form she came off with flying colours. Though Annie and Millicent had strong suspicions, only Gwen had seen the little piece of paper hidden under Netta's handkerchief. At lunch time she flew out on the subject.
"Look here, Netta," she began grimly, "helping21 you a little is one thing, but I'm not going to act crib for you again; so just don't think it."
"What do you mean?" gasped22 Netta sharply.
"What I say. You'd better prepare your own Virgil next time."
"Aren't you going to help me any more?" There was an unpleasant look in Netta's eyes.
"Not when you write it out and crib."
"It was only one scrap. Don't be horrid23, Gwen!"
"I like things square, and they've not been quite straight lately. I'm going to put a stop to it, so I give you warning."
[161]
"Won't you tell me just the hard bits?"
"Not a single sentence."
"Then you're a mean, stingy thing, Gwen Gascoyne! I don't know why you should have taken it into your head all of a sudden to be so sanctimonious24. You've not been so remarkably25 square before that you need turn saint now. You promised you'd stand by me, and this is how you keep your word, is it? I'll know better another time than to help you. You may get out of your own scrapes as best you can. I'll pay you for this, Gwen Gascoyne! I'll catch you tripping some time, see if I don't—and then—" and with a significant nod Netta turned away.
"You can do anything you like; I don't care," grunted Gwen.
She was out of temper that morning, for it was swimming day, and the thought of the rest of the Form jaunting off to the baths without her filled her with despair. She did not speak to Netta during the dinner hour, nor did the latter seek her company.
"What have those two quarrelled about? I thought they were ever so chummy," said Charlotte Perry to Elspeth Frazer.
"I'm sure I don't know. It would be a good thing for Gwen Gascoyne if she did quarrel with Netta, in my opinion."
"Then she'd be in a set by herself! Perhaps she thinks 'better Netta than nobody'."
"Better nobody than Netta, I should say. Do you know, Charlotte, I don't believe Gwen's half bad by herself, if only Netta would let her alone. It's when they get together they're so silly."
[162]
"Um—perhaps you're right. Gwen's straight, whatever else she is, and one can't say that for Netta."
"Hardly! I vote we watch them, and if they really are out of friends, we'll see if we can do anything with Gwen. It's rather rough on her to be such an outcast."
"Pity she's not as nice as Lesbia."
"Do you know," said Elspeth reflectively, "I'm not sure that she mayn't be at bottom. Of course Lesbia's awfully sweet-tempered, but then she's made such a fuss of, and there's really nothing in her. Now, I think there is something in Gwen, if she were taken the right way. I didn't like her at all at first, I don't know that I even do very much now, but I fancy she's one of those girls whom one might get to like if one saw the other side of her—I'm certain she has another side, only it never comes out at school."
"It isn't nice of her to rag her own sister, though."
"That's Netta's fault; she starts all the ragging and throws it on to Gwen."
"I'd be glad if I could really think so," returned Charlotte, and there for the moment the matter ended.
That afternoon a joyful26, jubilant, rejoicing crew of Fifth Formers set off for the baths, duly armed with their costumes and mackintosh caps, and from the window of the classroom one dejected, miserable27 girl watched them depart. Gwen thought she had never felt quite so forlorn in her life before. She was aggrieved28 with Fate, and kept muttering, "Hard luck! hard luck!" to herself as the last school hat whisked round the corner.
"I didn't see Netta," she thought, and then turned,
[163]
for she heard Netta's indignant, protesting voice in the passage outside in loud altercation29 with Miss Trent.
"It's no use, Netta, I can't allow it," the mistress was saying. "With that sniffly cold in your head it would be folly30 to bathe, and as you say your mother is away from home, and you could not ask her permission this morning, I must be the judge, and I say most emphatically no."
"But, Miss Trent! If I just—"
"Not another word, Netta! Go into your own Form room at once, and do some preparation. Do you want me to report you to Miss Roscoe? Then go, this instant!"
A very sulky, angry, rebellious31, disconsolate32 Netta flung herself through the doorway33 and flounced to her desk. She gave one stare at Gwen, and, frowning, began to get out her books.
"We're companions in misfortune!" ventured Gwen, but Netta took not the very slightest notice.
"Oh, very well, madam; if you're going to cut me I'll cut you!" thought Gwen, and she turned to the window again.
There was no mistress in the room, and Gwen knew that for the next hour she could practically do as she liked. She would begin her preparation soon and finish some of it before she went home, but there was no particular hurry. The window commanded a view of a side street and just a peep into the main street, and it amused her at present to stand watching the passers-by. They were not remarkably enthralling—an old gentleman in a Bath chair, a nursemaid wheeling two babies in a perambulator, a baker's boy, a
[164]
young woman with a large parcel, a vendor34 of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars. Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest flashed across her face and she leaned out over the protecting iron bars.
"Dick!" she called loudly and impulsively35, "Dick!"
The boy on the pavement below stopped and gazed up.
"Hello! Why, Gwen, by all that's wonderful!"
"What are you doing in Stedburgh, Dick?"
"Come in to have my hair cut, Miss Inquisitive36, if you must know!"
"Oh, what a shame! I like it curly best. Have you had it done?"
"The fatal operation has been performed," said Dick, uncovering his closely-cropped head for a moment.
"And what are you going to do now?"
"Go home again."
"I wish I could," sighed Gwen.
"Are you supposed to be in school?" queried37 Dick.
"Of course I am, silly! I'm in my own Form room."
"Must be a queer sort of school, then, if they let you talk at the window."
"They don't as a rule. But the others have all gone to the baths to-day and I'm left here to do prep."
"Hard luck!"
"Just what I've been saying to myself. It's simply sickening. You know what it feels like to be out of things."
"Don't I, rather!"
[165]
"OH, I SAY, WELL CAUGHT!" "OH, I SAY, WELL CAUGHT!"
"I feel like a captive in a tower or a nun38 in a convent," continued Gwen plaintively39.
"Not much of the nun about you!" grinned Dick. "I'd be sorry for the convent you were in. Look here, if I got you some sweets and chucked up the bag would you catch it or muff it?"
"Try me."
"If you muff it I'll expect you to throw it down again."
"Right-o!"
"Then wait half a mo. and I'll cut round the corner to Sherrard's and see what I can fish up for you. You really look like an object for charity."
"You philanthropist!"
"Better wait till you've caught your catch before you bless me!" chuckled41 Dick.
He was certainly not gone long; he returned almost immediately with a most interesting-looking paper bag in his hand.
"Oh, do tell me, is it chocolate or caramels?" asked Gwen eagerly.
"Find out, madam! Now we'll see if I'm a good shot and if you're a butter-fingers. Are you ready? All right then, here goes! Oh, I say, well caught! Good old girl!"
"Told you I'd do it. Thanks most awfully! Have you kept any for yourself? Then take—"
"Gwen Gascoyne!" said a stern voice suddenly at her elbow.
Gwen jumped as if she had been shot, and turning guiltily, found herself face to face with Miss Trent. By the door stood Netta in visible triumph.
[166]
"Gwen Gascoyne," said Miss Trent again, "is this the way you conduct yourself when you're left to do your preparation? You're a disgrace to the school—an absolute disgrace! We had thought our Rodenhurst girls could be trusted to behave themselves."
"I was only talking to Dick," urged Gwen in self-defence.
"Is Dick your brother?"
"No—but—"
"Then you ought to be utterly42 ashamed of yourself. Such an affair has never happened at Rodenhurst before. I sincerely hope nobody in the street or in the houses opposite noticed the occurrence. It would be enough to spoil the reputation of the school."
"I didn't know I was doing anything so dreadful!" retorted Gwen.
"Then it's time you learnt. Miss Roscoe will have to hear about this. Report yourself in the study at four o'clock, and go at once to your desk and begin your preparation. Put that paper bag on the mantelpiece, I can't allow you to keep it."
Miss Trent sat down on Miss Douglas's vacant chair, evidently with the intention of staying in the room to act Gorgon43. Gwen walked to her desk in the depths of humiliation44. She caught Netta's glance as she went by, and it seemed to add insult to injury.
"I know who sneaked," she thought. "Very well, Netta Goodwin, I've done with you. You may tell any tales of me you like now; nothing would ever induce me to be friends with you again. In for a penny in for a pound. I expect you'll cut up nasty
[167]
about that china business, but I feel as if I don't care. I'm booked for an awful row with Miss Roscoe! Oh, Dick, your sweets were well meant, but you little know what they're going to cost me!"
Gwen had a very hazy45 remembrance of how she did her preparation that afternoon. She wrote a French exercise almost automatically, feeling the mistress's eye upon her the whole time. At four o'clock, with her heart somewhere in the region of her shoes, she reported herself in the study. Miss Trent had been beforehand; so when she entered Miss Roscoe was already aware of the nature and extent of her crime. The headmistress was not disposed to make light of the affair; like Miss Trent, she considered that the reputation of the school might be seriously compromised by Gwen's behaviour, and she did not spare the culprit. Gwen did not often cry at school, but on this occasion she left the Principal's room weeping like Niobe, and poor Winnie, who had been called in to hear the tail end of the lecture, followed blinking a little on her own account.
"You do such lunatic things, Gwen," said Winnie on the way home.
"I meant no harm," protested the still tearful Niobe.
"I dare say you don't, but they're stupid things all the same. You might have known you'd get into trouble. I shall scold Dick about it."
"It wasn't his fault."
"Well, it's been a silly business all round, and why Miss Roscoe should send for me and talk as if I were partly responsible I can't imagine," said the aggrieved Winnie. "It's bad enough to have to teach in class
[168]
without being blamed for what no person in her senses could consider my fault."
"That's Miss Roscoe all over," gulped46 Gwen. "If she's angry she must fizz whether there's justice in it or not. I'm fearfully sorry, Win! It's too bad you were dragged in."
"Well, I suppose it can't be helped now," said Winnie, somewhat mollified. "Miss Roscoe's storms are soon over, that's one blessing47. I expect by to-morrow she'll have calmed down. You'll be in disgrace for a while, but she'll forget about it."
"What became of the sweets?" asked Lesbia.
"Left them on the chimneypiece and I expect the housemaid will commandeer them. I daren't ask for them, I can tell you."
Next morning the lower sashes of the Fifth Form room windows were found firmly screwed down, and the glass had received a coat of white paint put on the outside, so that not even a peephole could be scratched from within. The girls whose desks had formerly48 commanded a view were savage49; even Miss Douglas wore an air of plaintive40 resignation.
"Might have known it would be Gwen Gascoyne who would bring herself into such a mess!" said Charlotte Perry.
"Um—I've a notion Netta set the ball rolling," returned Elspeth Frazer.
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1
antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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2
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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3
sprouting
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| v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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4
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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5
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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6
construe
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| v.翻译，解释 | |
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7
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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8
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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9
uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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10
cherub
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| n.小天使，胖娃娃 | |
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11
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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12
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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13
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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14
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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16
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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17
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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19
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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20
impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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21
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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22
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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23
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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24
sanctimonious
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| adj.假装神圣的，假装虔诚的，假装诚实的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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27
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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28
aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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29
altercation
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| n.争吵，争论 | |
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30
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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disconsolate
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| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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33
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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impulsively
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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37
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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38
nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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40
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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41
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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43
gorgon
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| n.丑陋女人，蛇发女怪 | |
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44
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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45
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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46
gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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47
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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48
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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49
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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