Chapter 6 No.6

A Promise

Dorothy had grown so accustomed to travelling to school with Alison that she felt extremely at a loss when one morning she looked out of the carriage window at Latchworth and did not see the familiar rosy, smiling face on the platform.

"I wonder if Alison's late, or if she's stopping at home?" she thought. "She had rather a cold yesterday, and Mrs. Clarke seems so fearfully fussy. I'm glad Aunt Barbara doesn't worry over me to such an extent; it must be a perfect nuisance to have to wear galoshes just on the chance of its raining, and to swathe a Shetland shawl over your mouth if there's the slightest atom of damp in the air. And Alison is so conscientious over it! I believe I should stuff the shawl inside my satchel, and lose the galoshes on purpose!"

The journey seemed dull without her friend and their usual chat together. It was not interesting to stare out of the window when she knew every yard of the line by heart, and for lack of other occupation she was reduced to taking out her books and looking over her lessons. Both in the mid-morning interval and the half-hour before dinner she missed Alison exceedingly. She tried to fill up the time with various expedients. She got a book from the library, and was so long and so fastidious in choosing that the prefect in charge grew tired of recommending, and waxed impatient.

"Really, Dorothy Greenfield, you might be a literary critic! One is too childish, and another's too stiff, and you don't care for historical tales. I should like to know what you do want! Be quick and take something, or I shall just lock the case up again and leave you without anything. Oh, you'd like The Old Curiosity Shop! Then why couldn't you say so at first?"

Though Dorothy had settled on a Dickens for the sake of making some choice, she had no intention of reading just at present, and she sauntered into the gymnasium to see what the others were doing. It was not the day for a dramatic rehearsal, and nothing particular was going on. Some of the girls were playing rounders, but most were standing about chatting, and waiting for the dinner bell. Hope Lawson and Blanche Hall were talking together, and as Dorothy passed she caught a fragment of their conversation.

"We shall have to fly, the second dinner is over," said Hope; "but I believe we shall just be able to do it."

"If we only get a peep at the dresses as they go in, it will be worth it," replied Blanche. "I hear there are to be twelve bridesmaids and two pages. We'll do a bolt!"

"What are Hope and Blanche talking about?" said Dorothy to Addie Parker, who was standing close by.

"Why, there's a grand wedding at St. Peter's at two o'clock. Miss Russell is to be married, and I suppose it will be ever such a swell affair. They were laying down red carpets when I passed this morning. I peeped into the church, and some men were just bringing pots of the loveliest flowers."

"Are Hope and Blanche going to see it, then?"

"Yes, no doubt. Bertha Warren and I mean to go, and so do Annie Gray and Joyce Hickson. I wouldn't miss it for the world. You'd better come."

"I'll think about it," returned Dorothy.

The more she considered the idea the more she liked it, in spite of the fact that it was a rather doubtful adventure. There was no exact rule that the girls should not leave the College during the dinner hour, but it was well understood, all the same, that they remained on the premises.

"Miss Tempest has never said so," thought Dorothy, "nor have any of the mistresses. When a thing hasn't been forbidden, I suppose it's allowed. St. Peter's is just round the corner, so I declare I'll go. I've never seen a smart wedding."

As soon as dinner was over she fled to the dressing-room to put on her outdoor clothes, then, as Blanche described it, she "did a bolt". She much preferred going by herself to joining Addie Parker and Bertha Warren, so she scurried along, hoping they would not overtake her. At the lich-gate of the church she came upon Hope Lawson and Blanche Hall.

"Hallo, Dorothy! So you've sneaked away too?" said Hope.

"I don't call it sneaking," returned Dorothy. "Why shouldn't we come?"

"Yes, why shouldn't we, indeed?" echoed Blanche.

"No reason at all, my dear," observed Hope, "except that Miss Tempest might happen to make a bother about it if she heard. One never knows quite what she'll take it into her head to say or do."

"Then she mustn't hear."

"Right you are! We certainly won't tell of each other."

"Rather not!"

"Will you promise too, Dorothy, never to breathe one single word that you've seen Blanche and me here?"

"Of course! Do you think I'm likely to go telling tales to Miss Tempest?"

"Well, no; but you'll promise not to tell any body, not even the girls?"

"All serene!"

"On your honour?" said Hope, catching her by the arm.

"On my anything you like," answered Dorothy, who, seeing Bertha Warren and Addie Parker coming up, was in a hurry to get away.

She was anxious to try to obtain a place in the church, so that she might see something of the ceremony. All the seats seemed taken as she entered, but she marched confidently up the aisle, hoping to find room farther on. She was stopped directly, however, by the verger.

"What name, please? Are you one of the Miss Guntons?" he enquired.

"No," stammered Dorothy, "I-only--"

"Then you must go out," he interrupted tartly. "These pews is for the invited guests-general public's only allowed in the free seats, and they're full up long ago."

Much abashed, Dorothy beat a hasty retreat, after having caught a brief vision of elegantly-dressed guests and beautiful rows of palms and chrysanthemums in pots. Evidently there was no room for schoolgirls. She was annoyed with herself for having ventured there. Her pride hated rebuffs, and the old verger's manner made her feel hot and uncomfortable. Several people in the pews had turned to look at her. No doubt they considered her an impertinent intruder. Her cheeks flamed at the idea. The churchyard seemed almost as full as the church, though the crowd there was of a totally different description. The possibility of witnessing the wedding had attracted a motley assemblage-nurses with babies and small children, errand boys, hatless women from back streets, dressmakers' assistants who had come to see the fashions, and a number of those idlers who are always to be found ready to run and look at anything in the way of a show, be it a marriage, a funeral, or an accident.

By a little judicious elbowing, Dorothy managed to secure a place where she had a tolerable view of the path and the lich-gate. She was wedged rather tightly between two nursemaids, and the basket of a grocer's boy behind was pressing into her back; but these were minor discomforts, which must be endured.

"Here they come!" said somebody.

There was a rustling and swaying movement among the crowd, a sound of carriage wheels, a general craning forward of heads; the nurse next to Dorothy held up her little charge in her arms. It was difficult to see, for the awning rather hid the view from those in the churchyard above the path. All that Dorothy caught was a glimpse of a figure in white satin and lace, and just a peep of some bridesmaids in palest blue; then a tall woman moved in front of her, and effectually shut out the prospect.

"What a swindle!" she thought. "I've hardly seen anything at all. It wasn't worth the trouble of coming. I wonder if the other girls have had better luck?"

She noticed two school hats in the distance, though she could not recognize the faces under them. She was half inclined to struggle through the groups of people towards them, when she remembered to look at the church clock.

"Nearly twenty-five past!" she ejaculated. "I must fly!"

It was not an easy matter to extricate herself from the crowd. Dorothy knew it was useless to attempt to go out by the main entrance, so she made a push for the side gate; then taking a short cut by a small street, she scurried back to school. She was just changing her boots in the dressing-room when Addie Parker, Bertha Warren, and three other girls came hurrying in.

"Oh, Dorothy! Did you get off?" cried Addie. "You are lucky! We were all caught!"

"Yes, caught dead-every one of us!" echoed Bertha.

"Oh, it was horrible!" exclaimed Joyce Hickson. "I never expected she'd be there."

"And we ran almost plump against her!"

"Just our luck!"

"What do you mean? Who caught you?" asked Dorothy.

"Miss Tempest. Didn't you see her?"

"No, not I."

"Then thank your good star!"

"Where was she?"

"Close to the lich-gate. She came up quite suddenly, just when the bride had gone in. Phyllis saw her first, and passed on a 'Cave', but it was impossible to get away, there were so many people round."

"She must have noticed our school hats in the distance," added Annie Gray.

"What did she do?" asked Dorothy.

"Pulled out her notebook and took all our names. Oh, I'm just shaking in my shoes! I didn't know whether I dared come back to school, or whether I hadn't better trek straight off home."

"You'd have got into a worse pickle still if you'd done that."

"Perhaps I should. Anyhow, I'm quaking."

"Yes, it's 'Look out for squalls'!"

"Squalls? A tempest, you mean!"

"It will be a raging Tempest, certainly."

"Oh, goody! There's the bell, and I haven't changed my boots!"

"Did you see anything, though?" asked Dorothy, as they hurried upstairs.

"Yes, I had a lovely view. The bridesmaids were sweet; their bouquets were all of lilies of the valley: and as for Miss Russell-it makes me want to be married myself! It was almost worth while being caught to see it-but oh, dear! what will happen to us, I wonder? I'd give everything I possess to have this afternoon over."

Full of uneasy forebodings, the delinquents took their places at their desks. Dorothy looked round for Hope and Blanche. They slipped in at the last moment, rather red and out of breath, and seemingly anxious to avoid the enquiring eyes of the others.

Miss Carter, the science mistress, entered, and the hygiene lesson began. Eight guilty souls in the class found it difficult to fix their attention upon ventilation or food values. Dorothy's mind was in a ferment. What was about to happen? She had not thought it any great crime to go to see the wedding, but apparently such an action was viewed far more seriously at head-quarters. In her speculation on the issue of events, she gave such random answers that Miss Carter stared at her in surprise.

"Did you misunderstand the question, or are you not attending, Dorothy Greenfield?" she asked.

Dorothy made an effort to pull herself together and recall the forgotten facts, but they were elusive, and she could only stare stupidly at the teacher. Just at that moment the door opened, and Miss Tempest entered. There was a perceptible shudder amongst those girls whose consciences told them they were to blame. Addie Parker and Bertha Warren exchanged glances, Joyce Hickson pretended to be absorbed in her notebook, while Hope Lawson sat with her nose in the air, as if unconscious of any need to disturb herself.

"Excuse me for interrupting the lesson, Miss Carter," began Miss Tempest, "but there is a very important matter upon which I must speak at once. Adeline Parker, Bertha Warren, Joyce Hickson, Annie Gray, and Phyllis Fowler-stand up!"

With downcast eyes the five girls responded to the command.

"I wish to know what you were doing at St. Peter's Church this afternoon?"

No one had the courage to venture a reply.

"Who gave you permission to leave the school?"

Still there was dead silence among the culprits.

"You know perfectly well the day boarders are not allowed to go out during the dinner hour."

Miss Tempest's voice, which had begun icily, was waxing more stern and wrathful. Addie Parker began to sob.

"How is it that among all the girls at the College you five had the presumption to attempt such a flagrant breach of the rules? I say you five, for I saw you and took your names; but I certainly noticed another Avondale hat among the crowd, and I intend to find out to whom it belonged. Was any other girl in this class present at St. Peter's this afternoon?"

Dorothy's conscience gave a great, uncomfortable prick. She had many faults, but concealment was not one of them, so she stood up.

"I was there, Miss Tempest," she said, rather defiantly.

At the head mistress's gaze Dorothy dropped her eyes. Miss Tempest was not to be trifled with.

"Indeed! By whose permission?"

"I didn't ask anybody. I didn't know the dinner girls weren't allowed to go out. We none of us knew. We thought we had a perfect right to go."

"That cannot be true. You have been four years at the College, and no one is better acquainted with the rules than yourself. It is an unheard-of thing for day boarders to leave until four o'clock, and could not be allowed for an instant. I am astonished that you should commit such a breach of discipline and then attempt to justify yourself-yes, astonished and disappointed in the extreme."

"But I really didn't--" began Dorothy.

"That will do," interrupted Miss Tempest sharply. "I don't wish to hear any further excuses. You have shown me that you are not to be trusted."

"But I do speak the truth!" burst out Dorothy.

"Dorothy Greenfield, if you answer me back again, I shall have to request you to leave the College altogether. I do not allow any girl to set her opinion against mine."

When Miss Tempest was angry, her mouth looked grim and her eyes blazed. Quite cowed, Dorothy did not venture to seek further to exculpate herself. She stood twisting her hands nervously, and (I regret to say) with a very stubborn expression on her face. Inwardly she was raging. The head mistress glared at her for a moment, then turned to the class again.

"Was any other girl in this room at St. Peter's this afternoon?" she asked. "I appeal to your honour."

Nobody answered. Hope and Blanche sat still, with eyes that dared not raise themselves to meet those of the mistress.

"Very well; I am glad to find no others have broken the rule. For the rest of the term the six girls who so forgot themselves will not be allowed in the gymnasium between one and half-past two. If it is too wet to go into the playground, they must stay in the classrooms. Any of the six who enters the gymnasium during the prohibited time must report herself to me at once in the library. Thank you, Miss Carter. I am sorry to have been obliged to disturb your lesson, though more sorry still for the cause of the interruption."

Dorothy took in very little of the remainder of the hygiene lesson. She was in a ferment of indignation. Miss Tempest had doubted her word before all the Form, and that rankled more than the scolding. Her contempt for Hope and Blanche was supreme, but she was angry, all the same, at their meanness. She was far too proud to cry like Addie Parker, whose eyes were already red and swollen, and whose cheeks were blotched with tears. She sat, a sullen, defiant little figure, nursing her wrath and full of a burning sense of injustice.

Fortunately, the rest of the afternoon was devoted to drawing, and she was able to give a mechanical attention to her copy, which made her work just pass muster.

"Not so good as usual to-day, Dorothy," said the art mistress at the close of the class. "I can only give you 'Fair'. I don't think you have tried your best."

Dorothy shut her pencil box with a slam. She was in a thoroughly bad temper, and felt that she did not much care what happened. Miss Giles gave her a warning look, as if she were disposed to tell her to lose an order mark; but seeing perhaps that the girl was overwrought and unlike herself, she took no further notice, and passed on to the next drawing board.

As Dorothy left the studio, Hope Lawson managed to edge close up to her, and whispered in her ear: "Remember your promise! You said you wouldn't tell a soul-not even one of the girls."

"You don't deserve it," mumbled Dorothy.

"But you promised on your honour-if you have any honour. Perhaps you haven't."

"I've more than you," retorted Dorothy. "You and Blanche are a couple of sneaks. There! you needn't look so aghast. I'm not going to blab. I've enough self-respect to keep a promise when I've once made it, though, as I said before, you don't deserve it. You the Warden, too! A nice example you are to the Lower School, if they only knew it!"

"They mustn't know it. Promise me again, Dorothy; promise me faithfully you won't tell. I'll bring you a huge box of chocolates if you'll keep this a secret."

"I don't want your chocolates!" said Dorothy scornfully. "I've told you already that I don't break my promises. You're safe enough as regards me."

"Silence!" called the mistress; and the two girls fell into line again as they marched with their drawing boards down the corridor.

In the dressing-room the rest of the Form had plenty to say about the occurrence.

"You've done for yourself, Dorothy," declared Ruth Harmon. "You'll be in Miss Tempest's bad books for evermore."

"I can't see that I was any worse than the others," snapped Dorothy; "not so bad, indeed, because I wasn't caught, and yet I owned up. Miss Tempest might have taken that into account."

"She would have, I dare say, if you hadn't answered her back," said No?lle Kennedy.

"I only told her I didn't know we mightn't go."

"But you said it so cheekily, and Miss Tempest hates cheek above everything. I shouldn't care to be in your shoes now. What a good thing you weren't chosen Warden!"

Dorothy tugged at her boot lace till it snapped, then had to tie the two ends together in a knot. How hard it was to keep her unwelcome secret! She felt as if in common justice the girls ought to be made aware of the moral cowardice of their leader.

"I'd have made a better one than some-yourself not excepted," she growled.

"My lady's in her tantrums to-day," chirped Ruth.

"I'm not! What a hateful set you all are! I wish to goodness you'd leave me alone!"

Dorothy seized her books and stalked away without a good-bye to anybody. How thankful she was that Avondale was a day school, and that she could shake the dust of it from her feet until nine o'clock to-morrow morning!

"If I weren't going home to Aunt Barbara now, I should run away," she thought. "It would be dreadful to have to endure this all the evening. Oh dear, I hate the place, and I hate Miss Tempest, and I hate the girls, and everything, and everybody!"

Poor Dorothy carried a very sore heart back to Holly Cottage that evening, but she cheered up when she entered the pretty little sitting-room, with its bright fire and a cosy tea laid ready on the oak table. After the storms and whirlwinds of school, home seemed such a haven of refuge, and Aunt Barbara-who always understood-so utterly different a personality from Miss Tempest.

"I'm cross and horrid and disagreeable and altogether fractious, Auntie!" she said, squatting on the hearthrug after tea, with one of the dear hands squeezed in hers, while she poured out her accumulation of troubles. "I've got to keep that promise, but I can't do it with any good grace, and I still feel that Miss Tempest was unjust, because nobody had ever said we mightn't leave the Coll. in dinner-time. And I'm barred the gym. It's too disgusting, because it puts me out of all rehearsals, and I shall have to give up my part in the act."

"Poor old sweetheart, you've certainly been in the wars to-day! But honestly, don't you think it is just the least little scrap your own fault? I fancy at the bottom you knew that dinner girls aren't expected to run out into the town whenever they like, even to look at weddings-and it wasn't justifiable to speak rudely to Miss Tempest, was it?"

Dorothy stared hard at the fire.

"No; I suppose I was cheeky. Auntie, when I'm at school and things are horrid, I just flare up and explode-I can't help it. I'm quite different at home. I wish I had lessons with you again, like I did when I was a little girl. I'd be far nicer."

"A soldier isn't good for very much until he's tried, is he? School is your battlefield at present, and the temper is the enemy. Won't you be a Red Cross Knight, and ride out to do full and fair fight with it? It's as ugly a dragon as ever attacked St. George."

"And a great deal harder to conquer, because every time I kill it, it comes to life again, ready for another go at me. There, Auntie! yes, I'll make a try; but I know I shall do lots more hateful things-I always do!"

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