THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CUP
Just below the stained-glass window which was at the back of the dais in the lecture hall stood a silver cup of great beauty. Other and lesser cups were ranged on each side of it, and all of them were protected by a glass case of heavy make.
This principal cup had been in the girls’ school for two years now. It had to be fought for on the tennis courts each year at the end of the summer term. Until two years ago the boys had won it for six or seven years in succession, and great had been the jubilation among the girls when at last they had succeeded in winning it for themselves. Having had it for two years, they were preparing to fight for it again with might and main when the time for the struggle should come round again.
Realizing that the best players were not always to be found in the Sixth Form, the contest was fought by the united efforts of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Forms, the finals being fought amid scenes of the wildest enthusiasm.
The struggle was fixed for just one week before the end of term, and was indeed the beginning of the end—the first break of the steady routine of the past three months. Fortunately the weather was all that could be desired, and every one was in wild spirits for the fray.
The Fourth and the Fifth of both schools were early on the ground. The excitement at the courts was tremendous. Exasperated by having lost the cup for two years in succession, the boys had been working hard at tennis this summer, and they were out to win—a fact the girls were quick to realize.
The games had already started when the Sixth of the boys’ school came pouring out from their school premises across the cricket field to the courts of the girls’ school, where the battle was being fought. Two minutes later the girls of the Sixth also arrived on the scene. They were a little late because of a history exam which had held them until the last minute.
The governors of the schools left nothing to chance, and the exams of the last two weeks of the summer term were things of magnitude.
Dorothy came down to the courts with Joan Fletcher. Hazel and Margaret, her special chums, were in front, but Dorothy had been delayed by Miss Groome, and was the last on the scene—or would have been if Joan had not waited for her.
“What a jolly old day it is!” exclaimed Joan, anxious to show a friendly front. Both she and Daisy Goatby had completely veered round in these last weeks, and showed themselves very anxious to be on friendly terms with Dorothy.
“Oh, it could not be better!” Dorothy flourished her racket, and executed a festive skip as she hurried along. “It is just perfect weather for tennis, and I think—I really think we shall beat the boys if we play hard enough. And oh! we must keep that cup if we can, for the honour of the school.”
“What a lot you think of honour.” Joan half turned as she hurried along, and she surveyed Dorothy closely, as if trying to find out what made her so keen on upholding the traditions of the place.
“Why, of course! But that is only right and natural. Don’t you think so?” There was surprise in Dorothy’s tone, for Joan seemed to be hinting at something. Her scurrying run had dropped to a walk, and Dorothy slowed up also.
“It isn’t what I think that matters very much in this case,” burst out Joan explosively. “I was only thinking what a pity it is that some of the rest of our crowd are not as keen on the honour of the school as you are.”
“Now, just what do you mean by that?” Dorothy halted abruptly, staring at Joan.
They were just at the edge of the nearest court now, and the shouts and yells from boys and girls resounded on all sides.
Joan looked up at the sky, she looked down at her white tennis shoes, and then her gaze went wandering as if she were in search of inspiration. Finally she burst out, “I hate to have to tell you, but Daisy and I tossed up as to which should do it, and I am the unlucky one: your brother has mixed himself up in a particularly beastly sort of scrape.”
“Tom is in a scrape?” breathed Dorothy, and suddenly she felt as if it were her fault, for she had seen so little of Tom this term, and when she had seen him he had not cared to be in any way confidential.
Joan nodded in an emphatic fashion. “A silly noodle he must be to be cat’s-paw for a girl in such a silly way.”
“What has he done?” asked Dorothy, striving to keep calm and quiet, yet feeling a wild desire to seize and shake the information out of her.
“I don’t know the real rights of it,” said Joan. “I know a little, and guess a lot more. Rhoda has dropped quite a considerable lot of money lately in hospital raffles and in the sweepstakes that were got up to provide that new wing for the infirmary. As she has helped Tom to so many plums in the way of winning money in the past, it was only natural that she turned to him when she got into a muddle herself. She was in a rather extra special muddle, too, for she was holding the money we raised for the archery club, and when the time came to pay it over, lo! it was not, for she had spent it, and her dump from home had not arrived. To tide her over the bad bit she applied to Tom. He said he had no money, and did not know where to get it. She, in desperation—and Rhoda knows how to scratch when she is in a corner—wrote to Tom that if the money was not forthcoming in twenty-four hours, she would tell his Head of the doings at the night-club.”
“What night-club?” demanded Dorothy, aghast.
“Oh, I don’t know. Boys are in mischief all the time, I think,” said Joan impatiently; and then she went on, “The time-limit passed; Rhoda got still more desperate and still more catty. Finding Tom did not pay up—did not even send to plead for longer time, or take any other notice of her ultimatum—Rhoda wrote her letter to Tom’s Head, and actually posted it. This letter had not been in the post half an hour when her money from home arrived. She was able to get out of her fix, but she was not able to stop having got Tom into an awful sort of row. And now she is so mad with herself, that the Compton School is not big enough to hold her in any sort of comfort.”
“This night-club, what is it exactly?” Dorothy turned her back on the tennis players, and faced Joan with devouring anxiety in her eyes.
“I don’t know really; I think it is got up by some of the young officers at the camp. Lots of them are Compton old boys, you know. I think they meet somewhere at dead of night to drink and play cards, and go on the burst generally. They call it going the pace. I suppose they let some of our boys in for old sake’s sake, though it would be kinder to the boys if they did not. Anyhow, it is all out now. The boys will get in a row, the young officers may get court-martialled, or whatever they do with them up there, and all because a girl lost her temper through not being able to twist Tom round her little finger.”
“Joan, I am ever so grateful to you for telling me all this, even though I can’t see any way of helping Tom,” said Dorothy; and then she asked, “Does he know that Rhoda has told Dr. Cameron?”
“He did not. The letter did not go until yesterday, you see,” replied Joan. “The trouble for Tom will be that he will not only get beans from the authorities, but the boys will cut him dead for having been such a donkey as to trust a girl with a secret.”
“I don’t see why a girl should not be trusted as well as a boy,” said Dorothy, who always felt resentful at this implied inferiority of her sex.
“You may not see it, but your blindness does not alter the fact,” said Joan bluntly. “There goes Rhoda, holding up her head with the best because she can pay up the money she copped to pay for her old raffles. I wonder how she feels underneath, when she thinks how her letter to Tom’s Head will make history for the Compton Boys’ School, and for the camp as well? You see, she has let the whole lot into it, and there will be no end of a dust up.”
“Even scavengers have their uses,” said Dorothy, feeling suddenly better because she realized that Tom would have entirely lost faith in Rhoda; and although he might have to suffer many things at the hands of his outraged companions, he would learn wisdom from the experience, and come out of the ordeal stronger all round.
“It is our turn—come along,” cried Joan with an air of relief. She was thankful indeed to have got her unpleasant task over, and to find that Dorothy did not look unduly upset.
The struggle for the cup was being put through amid displays of wild enthusiasm. The first sets were played by boys against boys, and girls against girls, and the yelling grew fairly frantic when the semi-finals were reached.
The girls for the semi-final were Dora Selwyn and Rhoda against Dorothy and a Fifth Form girl, Milly Stokes, who had carried all before her in previous sets, though she was small, and younger than most of her Form.
It was rather hard for Dorothy to have to play against Dora and Rhoda, and she had little hope of surviving for the final. Rhoda was a good all-round player; she was great, too, at smashing and volleying; while Dora, with no great pace in her strokes, was very accurate, and always inclined to play for safety first.
There was no holding Milly Stokes. She behaved like one possessed. She sent the balls flying with a reckless abandon which looked as if it must spell ruin, yet each time made for success. Dorothy was wrought up to a great pitch. It was not tennis she seemed to be playing; it was the contest between right and wrong—she and Milly Stokes pitted against Rhoda and the head girl. She was not nervous. That story of Tom’s impending disgrace had so absorbed her that she could not think about herself at all. She was standing for what was upright and ennobling, so she must play the game to win.
Louder and louder grew the cheering; now she could hear the shouting for “Little Stokes” and “Sedgewick of the Sixth.”
They had won, too, and now Milly Stokes rushed at her, flinging a pair of clinging arms round her, and crying, “Oh, Dorothy, Dorothy, you are a partner worth having! We have beaten those two smashers, and surely, surely we can beat the boys!”
“We will have a good try, anyhow,” answered Dorothy with a laugh; and then she went off to the little pavilion to have a brief rest while the boys played their last set for semi-final.
So far she had not caught a glimpse of Tom, but as she came out of the pavilion with Milly Stokes and went across the court to her place, she saw him standing by the side of Bobby Felmore.
Her heart beat a little faster at this sight. She knew that he and Bobby had not been on good terms lately; that they should be together now, made her jump to the conclusion that Tom’s punishment at the hands of the boys had begun, and Bobby was proving something of a refuge for him.
“Bless you, Bobby!” she murmured under her breath as she nodded in their direction; and she was very glad to think that Bobby had not survived to the final, so that she would not have to beat him.
Their opponents were a long, sandy-haired youth, perspiring freely, and a dark boy of uncertain temper and play to match. It was a fine struggle. Milly dashed about more wildly than ever, but Dorothy played with a gay unconcern that surprised even herself. She had vanquished the wrong in the semi-final, and this last bit of struggle was merely for the glory of the school. They won, too, and the shrill cheering of the girls frightened the birds from the trees, while the boys booed with a sound of malice in their tone, which was partly for the loss of the cup, but still more for the loss of the dubious privilege of their night-club.