“I could get two distinctions at once! I know more German and French than ninety girls out of a hundred. Two distinctions! It’s a big start. I wonder—I wonder if I could possibly be first!” said Rhoda to herself, and her breath came fast, and her cheeks grew suddenly hot. “Nine months! Nine months!” If she studied hard, and worked up the subjects on which she was behind, might she not have a chance with the rest? The first girl! Oh, if only it could be possible, what joy, what rapture! What a demonstration of power before the school. She went off into a blissful dream in which she stood apart, receiving the congratulations of Miss Bruce and her staff, and saw Thomasina’s face regarding her with a new expression of awe. Then she came back to real life, to look remorsefully at her new friend, and notice for the first time her pinched and anxious air.
“But I would give Kathleen the money. I want nothing but the honour,” she assured herself, shutting her mind obstinately against the conviction that such a division might not be altogether easy to arrange. “And Dorothy is going in, too; lots of girls are going in, so why should not I? And if I enter I must do my best; nobody could object to that!”
Nevertheless there was an unaccountable weight on her heart, which made it a relief when the subject dropped, and Kathleen began to point out the various out-buildings scattered over the grounds.
“That’s the pavilion. We keep all the games there, and it’s so nicely furnished. There is quite a pretty sitting-room, and a stove, and all the materials for making tea. On Saturday afternoons the winning teams may stay behind and have tea there by themselves, and buy cakes from the housekeeper. It’s ripping! We look forward to it as the Saturday treat, and aren’t you just mad if your side loses! That’s the joiner’s shop. You can have lessons if you like, and learn to make all sorts of things; but I’ve no ambition to be a carpenter, so I don’t go... That’s a summer-house, but it’s so earwiggy that we leave it alone... That was meant to be a swimming-bath, but the water comes straight from a well, and it is so deadly cold that the girls got cramp, and Miss Bruce forbade them to use it any more. It looks wretchedly deserted now. If you want to be miserable all by yourself you couldn’t have a better place. It’s so still and dark, and the birds have built their nests in the corners, and come suddenly flying past, and frighten you out of your wits... Those little patches are the girls’ own gardens. You can have lessons in gardening, and get a prize if you are clever. I don’t go in for that either, for it’s an extra expense.”
“Oh, I must have a garden!” cried Rhoda quickly. “I adore flowers, and they could send me cuttings from home. I always had my own garden, but I didn’t do the work, of course. I just said how it was to be arranged, and what plants I wanted, and every one admired it, and said how successful it was. I had big clumps of things, you know; not one straggling plant here and another there, but all banked up together. You should have seen my lily bed! I made the men collect all the odd bulbs and plant them together, and they were a perfect show. The scent met you half-way down the path; it was almost overpowering. And then I had a lot of the new cactus dahlias, and left only about two branches on each, so that they came up like one huge bush with all the lovely contrasting colours. Many people say they don’t like dahlias, but that is only because they haven’t seen them properly grown.”
“Oh well, I loathe them myself, and I always shall do. You never get any satisfaction out of them, however pretty they may be, for as soon as people see them, they begin groaning and saying, ‘Oh, dear, dear, autumn flowers already! How sad it is. Winter will soon be upon us.’” Dorothy sniffed derisively. It was evident that no support was to be expected from her on the dahlia question, and Rhoda felt that only time and experience could prove to her the folly of her position.
When all the out-buildings had been explained, Kathleen led the way down a winding path which seemed to lead to nowhere in particular, but rather to come to an abrupt cul-de-sac in the shape of a high grey wall. Her companions wondered at her choice, but she went forward with an air of determination, so that there was nothing left but to follow, and hope soon to return to more interesting scenes. When she came to the end of the path, however, she stood still and began to smile with a most baffling air of mystery. What did it mean? What were they expected to see? The girls wheeled to and fro, looked at the paths, the beds, the flowers, frowned in bewilderment, and then suddenly lifted their eyes to the wall, and uttered simultaneous exclamations of surprise.
The wall was dotted over with little tablets of stone, on each of which was a neatly engraved inscription, and each inscription bore the name of a girl at its head. Rhoda craned forward and read first one and then another:
”...Winifred Barton, joined Hurst Manor, September, 189—, left Christmas, 189—. The youngest pupil who ever obtained honours in Mathematics in the Oxford Local Examinations.”
“Elizabeth Charrington, an old pupil of the school, obtained First Class in the Honours School of Modern History at Oxford.”