WHY TOM WAS HARD UP
Dorothy had come to nearly hate that pretty evening frock of hers, because it seemed to her the buying of it had been at the root of most of her troubles since she had been at the Compton School. She argued to herself that if she had not been on the spot when Rhoda stuffed the jumper under her coat, most of the unpleasant things could not have happened.
Of choice Dorothy would not have worn the frock again that term, but when one has only a single evening frock, that frock has to be worn whenever the occasion demands it. The rules of the school were that each girl should have one evening frock, and only one, so it was a case of Hobson’s choice. Dorothy slipped the frock over her shoulders on the evening when the boys were coming over, and felt as if she would much rather go up to the study, and grind away at books until bedtime.
Such a state of mind being a bit unnatural, she gave herself a shake, which served the double purpose of settling her frock and her mind at the same time; then she went downstairs, and cracked so many jokes with the other girls, that they all wondered what had come to her, for she was usually rather quiet, and not given to over-much in the way of fun-making.
When the boys came trooping in Bobby Felmore made straight for her—he mostly did. Dorothy received him graciously enough, but there was a sparkle in her eyes which should have shown him that she was out to set things straight according to her own ideas.
“How many dances are you going to let me have to-night?” he asked, bending closer to her and looking downright sentimental.
Dorothy laughed softly, and her eyes sparkled more than ever as she murmured in a gentle tone, “This one, and never another, unless——”
“Unless what?” he demanded blankly.
“Blanche says you have been winning a lot of money in a sweepstake of some sort in your school during the last week or so. Is it true?” she asked.
“You bet it is true,” he answered with a jolly laugh. “I just about cleaned out the lot of them, and I’m in funds for the rest of the term, with a nice little margin over to help me through the Christmas vac.”
“I think you are a horrid, mean thing to take my money, that I had saved by going without things,” she said, with such a burst of indignation, that Bobby looked fairly knocked out by her energy.
“There were none of the girls in this sweepstake—at least I did not know of any,” he said hurriedly.
“Perhaps not; and if there had been, I should not have been one of them,” she answered coldly. “It would not have been so bad if I had put down the money—I should have felt that at least I had spent it myself, and I had chosen to risk losing it. As it is, I have to go without the things I want, just to fill your pocket—and I don’t like it.”
“I can’t see what you are driving at yet,” he said, and he looked blanker than ever.
“You are teaching Tom to gamble,” she said coldly, “and Tom is not satisfied with risking his own money, but he must needs go into debt, and then come to me to help him out. It would have been bad enough if he had bought more than he could afford to pay for, but it is unthinkable that he should go and stake more money than he has got. A stop must be put to it somehow; I could not go home and look my father in the face, knowing that I was standing by without raising a finger to stop Tom from being ruined.”
“Oh, he is all right,” said Bobby, who looked rather sheepish and ill at ease. “All kids go in for flutters of this sort, and it does them no end of good to singe their wings a bit. He’ll learn caution as he gets older—they all do. Besides, if he had won, you would not have made any stir.”
“Perhaps if Tom had won I should not have known anything about it,” Dorothy said a little bitterly. “It is not merely his own wings that Tom has singed, it is my wings that have been burned. I am not going to sit down under it. You are the cause of the trouble, for it is you who have got up the sweepstake. Blanche said so, and she seemed no end proud of you for doing it, poor dear little kid. But I am not proud of it. I think you are horrid and low down to go corrupting the morals of boys younger than yourself, teaching them to gamble, and then getting your pockets filled with the money you have won from them. I don’t want anything more to do with you, and in future I am going to cut you dead. Good evening!”
Dorothy slid away from Bobby as she spoke, and slipping round behind an advancing couple, she was out of the room in a moment, and fleeing upstairs for all she was worth.
She had made her standpoint clear, but she felt scared at her own audacity in doing it. She could not be sure that it had done any good, and she was downright miserable about Tom.
Of choice, she would have gone to the Head, and laid Tom’s case before her. But such a thing was impossible. She could not submit to being written down sneak and tell-tale, and all the rest of the unpleasant titles that would be indulged in.
Staying upstairs as long as she dared, trying to cool her burning cheeks, Dorothy stood with her face pressed against the cold glass of the landing window. Presently she heard a girl in the hall below asking another where to find Dorothy Sedgewick; and so she came down, and passing the big open doors of the lecture hall where they were dancing, she went into the drawing-room, intending to find a quiet corner, and to stay there for the rest of the evening if she could.
Margaret found her presently, and dragged her off to dance again. She saw Bobby Felmore coming towards her with a set purpose on his face, but she whirled round, and cutting him dead, as she had said she would, she seized upon Wilkins Minor, a small boy with big spectacles, and asked him to dance with her.
“That is putting the shoe on the wrong foot; you ought to wait until I ask you,” said the boy with a swagger.
“Well, I will wait, if you will make haste about the asking,” she answered with a laugh; and then she said, “You dance uncommonly well, I know, because I have watched you.”
Wilkins Minor screwed up his nose in a grin of delight, and bowing low he said, with a flourish of his hands, “Miss Sedgewick, may I have the pleasure?”
“You may,” said Dorothy with great fervour. Then she and the small boy whirled round with an abandon which, if it was not complete enjoyment, was a very good imitation of it.
Tom was waiting for her when she was through with Wilkins Minor—Tom, with a haggard look on his face, and such a devouring anxiety in his eyes that her heart ached for him.
“Have you got that money for me?” he asked. He grabbed her by the arm, leading her out to the conservatory to find a quiet place where they could talk without interruption.
“What do you want it for?” she asked. “See, Tom, this is the third time this term you have come to me to lend you money you never attempt to pay back. You have as much as I have, and it does not seem fair.”
“Oh, if you are going to cut up nasty about it, then I have no more to say.” Tom flung away in a rage. But he did not go far; in a minute he was back at her side again, pleading and pleading, his face white and miserable. “Look here, old thing, you’ve always been a downright good sport—the sort of a sister any fellow would be glad to have—and it isn’t like you to fail me when I’m in such an awful hole. Just you lend me that five shillings, and you shall have a couple of shillings for interest when I pay it back.”
“How can you be so horrid, Tom?” she cried in great distress. “You are making it appear as if it is just merely the money that is worrying me. I know that you have been gambling. You know very well that there is nothing in the world that would upset Dad more if he found it out, while Mums would pretty well break her heart about it.”
“It wasn’t gambling; it was only a sweepstake that Bobby Felmore got up. All the fellows are in it, and half of them are as badly bitten as I am,” he explained gloomily. “Of course, if I had won it would have been a different matter altogether. I should have been in funds for quite a long while; I could have paid you back what I have had, and given you a present as well. You wouldn’t have groused at me then.”
“You mean that you would not have stood it if I had,” she corrected him. Then she did a battle with herself. Right at the bottom of her heart she knew that she ought not to let him have the money—that she ought to make him suffer now, to save him suffering later on. But it was dreadful to her to see Tom in such distress; moreover, she was telling herself perhaps she could safeguard him for the future by making him promise that he would never gamble again.
“Well, are you going to let me have it?” he demanded, coming to stand close beside her, and looking down at her with such devouring anxiety in his eyes that she strangled back a little sob.
“I will let you have it on one condition,” she said slowly.
“Let’s have it, then, and I will promise any mortal thing you like to ask me,” he burst out eagerly, his face sparkling with returning hope.
“You have got to promise me that you will never gamble again,” she said firmly.
“Whew! Oh, come now, that is a bit too stiff, surely,” growled Tom, falling back a step, while the gloom dropped over his face again.
“I can’t help it. They are my terms; take them or leave them as you like,” she said with decision. But she felt as if a cold hand had gripped her heart, as she saw how he was trying to back out of giving the promise for which she asked.
“Do you mean to say that you won’t give me the money if I don’t promise?” he asked, scowling at her in the blackest anger.
“I do mean it,” she answered quietly, and she looked at him in the kindest fashion.
“Well, I must have the cash, even if I have to steal it,” he answered, with an attempt at lightness that he plainly did not feel. “I promise I won’t do it again; so hand over the oof, there’s a good soul, and let us be quit of the miserable business.”
“You really mean what you say—that you will not gamble again?” asked Dorothy a little doubtfully, for his manner was too casual to inspire confidence.
“Of course I mean it. Didn’t I say so? What more do you want?” His tone was irritable, and his words came out in jerks. “Do you want me to go down on my knees, or to swear with my hand on the Bible, or any other thing of the sort?”
“Don’t be a goat, Tommy lad,” she said softly, and then she slipped two half-crowns into his hand, and hoped that she had done right, yet feeling all the time a miserable insecurity in her heart about his keeping his promise to her.
He made an excuse to slip away soon after he had got the money, and Dorothy turned back into the drawing-room in search of diversion. She quickly had it, too—only it was not the sort she wanted.
Bobby Felmore was prowling round the almost empty room, studying the portraits of the founders of the Compton Schools, as if he were keenly interested in art; but he wheeled abruptly at sight of her, and came towards her with eager steps.
“I’ve been nosing round to find you. Where have you been hiding?” he said, beaming on her. “Come along and have another dance before chucking-out time. I thought I should have had a fit to see that young bantam chick, Wilkins Minor, toting you round.”
“I said I did not intend dancing with you again, and I meant it,” she said coldly.
“You said ‘unless,’ but you did not explain what that meant.” He thought he had caught her, and stood smiling in a rather superior fashion.
Dorothy coloured right up to the roots of her hair. The thing she had to say was not easy, but because she was in dead earnest she screwed up her courage to go through with it, and said in calm tones, “The ‘unless’ I spoke about was, if you had seen fit to pay back what you have had from the boys for that sweepstake you got up.”
“A likely old story, that I should be goat enough to do that, after winning the money!” He burst into a derisive laugh at the bare suggestion of such a thing.
Dorothy turned away. There was a little sinking at her heart. She really liked Bobby, and they had been great pals since she had come to the Compton School. If he could not do this thing that she had put before him as her ultimatum, then there was no more to be said, and they must just go their separate ways, for, having made up her mind as to what was right, she was not going to give way.
“You don’t mean that you are going to stick to it?” he said, catching at her hand as she turned away.
“Of course I mean it, and you know that I am right, too,” she said, turning back so that she could stand confronting him. “You know as well as I do that gambling in any shape or form is forbidden here, and yet you not only do it yourself, but you teach smaller fellows than yourself to gamble, and you fill your pocket by the process. You are about the meanest sort of bounder I have seen for a long time, and I would rather not have anything more to do with you.”
“Well, you are the limit, to talk like that to me,” snarled Bobby, who was as white as paper with rage, while his eyes bulged and shot out little snappy lights, and Dorothy felt more than half scared at the tempest she had raised.
But she had right on her side. She knew it. And Bobby knew it too, but it did not make him feel any nicer about it at the moment.
Just then a crowd of girls came scurrying into the room. The foremost of them was Rhoda, and she called out in her high-pitched, sarcastic voice, “What are you two doing here? The other fellows are just saying good night to the Head, and you will get beans, Bobby Felmore, if you are not there at the tail end of the procession.”
For once in her life Dorothy was downright grateful to Rhoda. Bobby had to go then, and he went in a hurry. Dorothy could not comfort herself that she had had the last word, since it was really Bobby who had spoken last. But at least it was she who had dictated terms, and so she had scored in that way.
She did not encounter Bobby again until the next Sunday afternoon. It was the last Sunday of the term, and only a few boys had come over to see their sisters. It was a miserable sort of day, cold wind and drizzling rain, so that nearly every one was in the drawing-room or the conservatory, and only a few extra intrepid individuals had gone out walking.
Dorothy was looking for Tom. She could not find him anywhere, and was making up her mind that he had not come over when she encountered Bobby coming in at the open window of the drawing-room, just as she was going out to the conservatory in a final search for Tom.
Bobby jerked his head higher in the air at sight of her, and stood back to let her pass, but he took no more notice of her than if she had been an utter stranger. Dorothy’s pride flamed up, and with a cold little bow she went past, walking along between the banks of flowering plants, and not seeing any of them. It was horrid of Bobby to treat her like that. Of course she had said that she would cut him dead—she had done it too—but that was a vastly different matter from being cut by him.
“Still, I had to speak, and I am glad that I did. I don’t want to have anything to do with any one who will teach younger boys to break rules, and then will get rich at their expense,” she whispered to herself in stormy fashion.
She went the length of the conservatory, and was just coming back, deciding that for some unknown reason Tom had not come over, when Charlotte Flint of the Fourth called out to her,—
“Your brother Tom has gone out for a walk with Rhoda Fleming. I saw them go; they slipped out of the lower gate, and went down the road as if they were going on to the Promenade.”
Dorothy groaned. She did not want to go out walking that afternoon; the weather was of the sort to make indoors seem the nicer place. But if she did not go, there would be trouble for Tom, and for Rhoda too. So she scurried into the cloakroom, and putting on boots and mackintosh, let herself out by the garden door, meaning to slip out of the lower gate as they had done.
Miss Groome came into the hall as she was going out by the garden door, and she said, “Oh, Dorothy, do you know it is raining? Are you going for a walk?”
“I am going a little way with Tom, only he has started first,” she answered with a nod and a smile; and then she scurried away, grateful for the Sunday afternoon liberty, which made it possible for a girl to take her own way within certain limits.
It would not be pleasant walking with Rhoda and Tom, for Rhoda would certainly say malicious things, and Tom was not feeling pleased with her because of the promise she had exacted from him. But the only way to save Rhoda from getting into trouble was for her to be there.
There was to be a breaking-up festivity over at the boys’ school on Tuesday night. If Rhoda was hauled up for breaking rules to-day, she might easily be shut out from that pleasure.
Rhoda and Tom were sheltering from the rain under the railway arch at the bottom of the lane; it was too wet and windy to face the Promenade. They walked back to the school with Dorothy, but neither of them appeared the least bit grateful for her interference.