CHAPTER XXI
HECTOR OR PARIS?
That evening the lists for the dormitory hockey finals were posted up on the notice-board. Muriel Paget and Monica Deane pinned them up on their way out from supper, and after the two prefects had departed a curious crowd quickly gathered round to see who had been selected. Much to everybody's astonishment, Geraldine Wilmott's name figured again in the Pink Dormitory list.
"Surely Muriel isn't to let her play again?" exclaimed Elsie Lipscombe, the Green Dormitory's centre forward. "Why, it was only through her that the Pink Dorm didn't win last time! It must be a mistake!"
"Play who?" asked Dorothy Pemberton, who came up just then arm in arm with Phyllis Tressider.
"Gerry Wilmott. She's down for left outside!"
"Not German Gerry?" cried Phyllis.
"Muriel must be cracked!" said Dorothy in disgusted amazement, as her eyes verified the truth of Elsie's statement. "What on earth Muriel can see in that little donkey I can't think! I don't think the head girl ought to show such favouritism. It was all very well putting her in last time when there was nobody else to play. But now there's Pam Henderson, and Dora Wainscott, and Bee Tyrell, and heaps of others. It isn't fair to go putting in a rotten little German coward who can't play hockey for nuts, and who even funks climbing a rope ladder!"
"Oh, well, I suppose Muriel knows what she's about," said Gwen Carter, an Upper Fifth girl, in rather a languid tone. "After all, neither Pam nor Bee are exactly geniuses at hockey, you know. I shouldn't think that even Gerry Wilmott was much worse. And Dora Wainscott's hand is still awfully bad. She was wearing it in a sling in form to-day."
"All the same, I think it's too bad that German Gerry should be playing," declared Phyllis loudly. She had caught sight of Gerry coming along the corridor, and had raised her voice purposely in order that she might hear. "I think it's a shame that we should be asked to play in the same team with her again, when everybody knows that the Pink Dorm would have won last time if she hadn't funked."
Gerry heard, as it was intended that she should. But she took no notice, only hurried by the group around the notice-board with flushed cheeks and averted eyes. The girls stopped talking for the moment and watched her curiously. Just as she passed somebody gave a slight hiss, which was immediately taken up by three parts of the girls present.
"German Gerry!" called out someone, and the hissing grew louder as the girl fled by. Gerry's steps quickened into a run until she had turned a corner of the corridor and was out of sight of her tormentors. She had been on her way to the Lower Fifth sitting-room, but her reception in the passage made her change her mind, and she hurried on to the classroom instead, which was empty and deserted at this hour. It was against the rules to be there except in lesson hours, as Gerry knew well. But she had no other place of refuge, and once or twice lately this had served her in good stead. It was less risky than going to the dormitory, which was also out of bounds at this time, and there was no other place in the school where she could hope to find privacy.
She slipped into her desk and buried her burning face in her hands, grateful for the darkness and the silence. Although she did not realise it, Gerry was certainly getting braver. When she first came to school she would not have ventured alone into a dark room for anything in the world, in spite of her fifteen years. But now she was so absorbed in her greater trouble that she forgot to be afraid.
"Why do they hate me so?" she asked herself, and puzzled, as she had puzzled so many times before, over her unpopularity. It was not really so puzzling as she imagined. She was too quiet and shy to have won popularity easily in any case, even without her nerves, in such a big school as Wakehurst Priory; and, unfortunately for her, she had made two very bad enemies on the first day of term in Dorothy Pemberton and Phyllis Tressider.
Without being altogether bad-hearted, these two girls were responsible for a great deal of trouble in the school. They both possessed what so many of the girls lacked—personality; and they had a large following amongst their own set of girls who admired them for their ingenuity in mischief and the spirit of dare-deviltry which seemed at times to possess them. They had been "up against" Gerry from the very beginning, owing to the fact that Gerry had innocently usurped Dorothy's cubicle; and a series of unlucky accidents, occasioned by Gerry's newness to school ways and her rather unfortunate disposition, had simply played into their hands.
For some while Gerry was left in peace in the solitude of the classroom. But luck was against her that night, as it had seemed to be so often during the term. As a rule nobody ever dreamt of going near the classrooms after supper, but to-night Miss Burton must needs require a book from her desk and come to fetch it. And suddenly poor Gerry was startled by the abrupt opening of the schoolroom door and the switching on of the light.
She rose to her feet in a panic to find Miss Burton regarding her in surprised disapproval.
"Geraldine Wilmott! What are you doing here? Of course you know that it is strictly against the rules?"
"Yes, I know," said Gerry lamely, unable to think of any excuse for her presence in the classroom at this unauthorised hour. Dorothy or Phyllis or Jack would have thought of dozens in a moment! Indeed, it did not occur to her that there was any excuse to make. She was too fundamentally honest to try and wriggle out of the scrape as ninety-nine out of a hundred schoolgirls might have done. Miss Burton, however, with her lack of understanding, interpreted her reply as bald defiance, and was correspondingly severe.
"Then that means another bad mark for you. Really, you are incorrigible! I shall be obliged to report you to Miss Oakley if you don't soon make a decided improvement in your conduct. Go back to your sitting-room at once. And don't forget to give in your bad mark to-morrow morning."
Gerry wandered disconsolately back through the corridors. There seemed to be nobody about, and as she did not want to go to the sitting-room sooner than she could help, she went on to look at the notice-board, to see if Muriel really had put her name down for Saturday's match. From Phyllis Tressider's speech she gathered that she had done so. Somehow, after the incident in the gymnasium that afternoon, Gerry had quite expected Muriel to change her mind about putting her into the team. But, no! There was her name down, in black and white—Gerry Wilmott, left outside.
Gerry stood for a few moments gazing at the list, uncertain whether to be pleased that Muriel still intended to give her another chance, or to be frightened at the ordeal that lay before her. And as she stood there, doubtfully regarding the notice-board, the head girl herself came along, and stopped to speak to her.
"Well, Gerry, I'm giving you your chance, you see," she said kindly.
"Yes—I see," said Gerry, turning round to face the prefect. "But, Muriel, are you—are you sure you think it's best? Supposing—supposing I funk again?"
"Now, look here, Gerry, I shall really get cross with you if you go on like this," said the head girl impatiently. And indeed, there was some reason for her impatience. She seemed always to be having to spur Gerry Wilmott on to the simplest acts of courage. "I keep telling you and telling you that you must have more confidence in yourself! You needn't funk if you'll only make up your mind not to. You've put up one or two quite good games since you've been playing forward, Alice says, and there's no earthly reason why you should not do the same on Saturday. If Dora Wainscott's hand was well enough for her to play, I should put her in. But it isn't, and you're just as good as any of the other girls in the dorm who are left—rather better than most of them. Now, are you going to buck up and do yourself and the dorm credit, or are you going to let me down?"
"I'm—I'm going to do my best," said Gerry, lifting earnest eyes to the head girl's face. "It's jolly good of you, Muriel, to give me the chance after the way I went on over gym this afternoon."
"Did you think I should cut you out because of that?" said Muriel. "You certainly did make rather an ass of yourself. But there's no earthly reason why you should do the same on Saturday. I should like to fit you up with a new backbone, Gerry Wilmott," she added laughingly. "You'd be quite a decent kid if you'd only buck up and be a bit more daring! You ought to take for your own the motto that the Red Cross Knight found written up over the door of the castle—'Be bold, be bold, be bold!'"
"It wasn't the Red Cross Knight; it was Britomarte," said Gerry, and Muriel smiled approvingly at her for the correction. It was something for Gerry even to dare to correct a quotation.
"Good for you, kiddie! So it was. Well, you get that thoroughly into your head by next Saturday and act upon it, and you'll do all right." And she hurried on her way, leaving a much inspirited Gerry behind her.
"She is a brick!" thought the girl enthusiastically, as she walked slowly towards the Lower Fifth sitting-room. "I don't wonder all the girls are so keen about her. I will get that motto into my head, and I will play up and justify her choice of me for next Saturday, and I won't let anything the other girls may say or do affect me! I'll just keep saying the words over and over to myself whenever I feel inclined to funk, and see if that won't make me braver. Be bold, be bold, be bold!"
And then some lines of Longfellow's she had once heard came into her head in the inconsequent way such lines do occur to lovers of poetry:
"Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
'Be bold! be bold!' and everywhere—'Be bold!'
'Be not too bold'—yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly."
Gerry's face took on an expression of rigid determination as she repeated the lines to herself. And, throwing up her head with a little gesture of defiance, she said aloud:
"Well, I just won't be a 'perfumed Paris' this time, whatever happens!"
And with this bold resolve she walked into the sitting-room, and settled herself down in her usual corner with a book, until the bell should ring for prayers and bed.