The Christmas holidays were over, the Easter holidays were over, and spring was back once more. On the slope over which the new students had gaily tobogganed two months before the primroses were showing their dainty, yellow faces, and the girl gardeners were eagerly watching the progress of their bulbs. Hearing that other plots boasted nothing rarer than pheasant eye and Lent lilies, Rhoda had promptly written home for a supply of Horsfieldi and Emperor, which were expected to put everything else in the shade, but, alas! they were coming up in feeble fashion, and showed little sign of flowering. “Another year,” the gardener said, “they would do better another year! Bulbs were never so strong the first season.” Whereat Rhoda chafed with impatience. Always another time, and not now!
Always postponement, delay, uncertainty! Try as she might, checks seemed to be waiting on every side, and she could never succeed in distinguishing herself above her fellows. In moments of depression it seemed that she was as insignificant now as on the day when she first joined the school; but at other times she was happily conscious of a change in the mental attitude towards herself. Though still far from the front, she was recognised as a girl of power and determination; an ambitious girl, who would spare no work to attain her end, and who might, in the future, become a dangerous rival. Dorothy had long ago thrown up the unequal fight, and even Kathleen had moments of doubt, when she said fearfully to herself, “She is cleverer than I am. She gets on so well. Suppose—just suppose...”
With milder weather, cricket had come into fashion, and on the occasion of the first pavilion tea the Blues turned up in force. Thomasina sat perched in manly attitude on the corner of the table, where, as it seemed to the onlooker, every possible hindrance was put in the way of her enjoyment of the meal. Irene Grey presided at the urn, Bertha handed round the cups, and a bevy of girls hung over the cake basket, making critical and appreciative remarks.
“Bags me that brown one, with the cream in the middle! I’ve tried those macaroons before—they are as hard as bricks!”
“I wish they would get cocoa-nut cakes for a change; I adore cocoa-nuts, when they are soft and mushy. We make them at home, and they are ever so much nicer than the ones you buy!”
“That’s what they call plum-cake, my love! Case of ‘Brother, where art thou?’ like the Friday pudding. Those little white fellows look frightfully insipid. What Rhoda would call a ‘kid-glove flavour,’ I should say.”
Every one laughed at this, for it was still a matter of recent congratulation in the house that Rhoda Chester had invented an appropriate title for a certain mould or blancmange, which appeared at regular intervals, and possessed a peculiar flavour which hitherto had refused to be classified.
In a moment of inspiration, Rhoda had christened it “Kid-Glove Jelly,” and the invention had been received with acclamation. Did she say she had never distinguished herself, had never attracted attention? No, surely this was wrong; for in that moment she had soared to the very pinnacle of fame. So long as the school endured, the name which she had created would be handed down from generation to generation. Alas, alas! our ambitions are not always realised in the way we would choose! When one has pined to be in a first team, or to come out head in an examination, it is a trifle saddening to be obliged to base our reputation on—the nickname of a pudding!
Rhoda smiled brightly enough, however, at the present tribute to her powers, and passed her cup for a third supply with undiminished appetite. She had been playing with her usual frantic energy, and was tired and aching. Her shoulders bent forward as she sat on her chair; she shut her eyes with a little contraction of the brows; the dimple no longer showed in her cheek; and when Bertha upset the tray upon the floor, she started with painful violence. Her nerves were beginning to give way beneath the strain put upon them; but, instead of being warned, and easing off in time, she repeated obstinately to herself:—“Three months more—two and a half—only two!—I can surely keep up for eight weeks, and then there will be all the holidays for rest!”
It seemed, indeed, looking forward, as if the world were bounded by the coming examination, and that nothing existed beyond. If she succeeded—very well, it was finished! Her mind could take in no further thought. If she failed—clouds and darkness! chaos and destruction! The world would have come to an end so far as she was concerned.