Chapter THE EIGHTH: A Rift in the Lute

It was the Tuesday evening after the adventures of the last chapter; and the Lower Fifth was holding what it called an "Indignation Meeting" under the line of oaks that bordered the cricket field. (It is the way of Lower Fifths to adopt such excitable measures to express their feelings, while Upper Fifth and Sixth stroll by in dignified contempt, and Juniors stand at a distance and wish they were able to join in the discussion, or had thought of holding a "pow-wow" themselves.)

"Only three cases of measles--one of them scarcely a bit spotty, so Matron says--and yet here we all are shut up like lepers for the whole summer."

"Last Saturday's Second Eleven match cancelled, and now next Saturday's First Eleven! You bet there will be no half-term leave, or fête. I can't see it's worth while going to school at all."

"Simply rotten sport! Look here, let us insist that those who have had measles are not lepers, and can go anywhere they ordinarily would have, in any decently managed term."

"Rather! and if not, we will all go on strike."

"Oh, do let's! Strikers always win--my father says so."

"Whom do you intend to strike first? Cocaine? And if so, what with?--A bath sponge?"

It was Peter speaking now, from under the shade of a big hat, and there was contempt mingled with amusement in her lazy voice.

"Oh, Peter darling!--so you have woken up at last. Do tell us what you did on Saturday; something awful, I'm quite sure."

The Lower Fifth, uncertain how to proceed with a strike from any practical standpoint, was quite glad to change the subject.

As Mabel Gosson took her friend by the arm and shook her gently to elicit an answer to her question, another of the Form broke in with:

"There was a fiendish row, I know, between Poppy and Edith Seymour, as soon as the Juniors had gone to bed; and then they had another kick-up at the prefects' meeting yesterday. I heard Poppy was heavily censured: or whatever committees do, when they are sick with anyone. I saw Poppy afterwards, and she was mad with you, Peter ... said it was all your fault, and she wished you would leave."

"Kind of her! I'm sure. It is I who ought to be in tears, 300 lines of 'Morte d'Arthur' for my sins."

"And you have done them already?"

Trina Morrison took off her hat, and flapped it at her questioner.

"My friend, am I not always a slave to duty? Rest assured that they will be done. I think I may safely say that Little Arthur's barge has pushed off from the bulrushes towards Avilion, by now."

"Yes--but it is not you who are pushing the barge, but Sally Brendan."

There was much criticism in Violet Tremson's tone; and criticism of Peter's actions was so rare in the Lower Fifth that Trina raised her eyebrows while the rest stared.

"My good child, why be a purist? Did I lay claim to be the moving spirit?"

"No--but you didn't say, either, that Sally wasn't able to go to cricket yesterday, or to-day, because she is doing your lines, as well as her own. Doris Forbes is mad with her; and thinks she doesn't bother to turn up and practise, because there are no matches. If she loses her place in the Second Eleven, it will be your fault."

Violet Tremson was on her feet now, her usually calm eyes bright with indignation; but Trina merely shrugged her shoulders and settled herself more comfortably against her tree.

"Sally the Martyr," she said pleasantly. "Such a shy gentle soul, that she always needs mothering and persuading to make her do what she wishes."

Everyone laughed, except Violet, who made an impatient movement with her foot.

"I wish you would leave her alone, Peter. You are not playing fair by her--messing up her chances at cricket, etc."

At this point there was a general shout of "Oh, shut up, Violet. What business is it of yours?" And then Sally appeared, very inky and rather breathless.

"Just look, Peter," she said, producing some sheets of closely written foolscap, and pressing them into Trina's hand. "I don't believe anyone but a Scotland Yard detective could see the difference between them and the lines you gave me."

The elder girl sat up, and after examining them carelessly, patted the younger on the back.

"You will have to look out, kid, or if the habit grows on you it will be a case of spending your days in prison for forgery."

"Then you do think them awfully good, don't you?"

Sally couldn't resist angling for further praise. She wished she had not done so, as she met Peter's mocking glance.

"Oh, they are certainly good enough to take in an ass like Poppy; if no one here has an attack of conscience, and gives the show away."

Cries of--"Of course we won't, Peter--Rather not!" arose on all sides.

Sally stood shifting from one leg to the other, her face sullen. No one had taken any notice of her, or looked at her handiwork, except Peter, who had not even thanked her. All her pride rose in arms.

"I think it's a frightfully good copy, myself," she said at last, defiantly.

"I wouldn't go so far as that," retorted Trina calmly; "you have scarcely done the dots over my 'i's' justice, for instance, or the fashionable curve of my 's'. Still, I daresay it's quite a good effort for a youngster." And she yawned.

There was a roar of laughter that made Sally go hot with rage.

"If the lines are not good enough for you, I won't ask you to make use of them," she said furiously.

Trina Morrison's eyes had closed; but now she half-opened them languidly, and her voice, when she spoke, had a cold edge to it.

"Take them back if you want," she said curtly, "and clear out, do." There was silence while Sally stood, her hands clenched, fighting a battle between her pride and newly proffered loyalty. Were pride to conquer, she knew it would be an end of all friendship between herself and Peter; and could she bear this? There was entreaty in the glance with which she looked at last at the elder girl, but the other's eyes were shut again, and she realised there was to be no half-way house of mercy.

"I ... I don't want the lines, Peter. You know I did them for you."

The words were so halting--her voice so humble--that she hardly recognised it. Now, perhaps, Trina would speak a few words of thanks, but she did not; and after a fresh tussle with her pride, that urged her to pick up the foolscap and tear it into little pieces, Sally left it on the grass, and, turning on her heel, walked away across the playing-fields.

"I suppose they are all jeering at me," she told herself miserably. "Now they will despise me as soft, besides hating me." With difficulty she choked back tears, and hurried along, that she might not catch the echo of Fifth Form laughter. Had she known it, the group she had left, instead of laughing at her, was quite silent, until Violet Tremson said:

"You are a prize beast, Peter."

And though Mabel Gosson told her to shut up, and not be a prig, and someone else muttered, "It will do the little ass good to be taken down a peg," no one looked quite comfortable about it.

Trina Morrison might be a joy to the Lower Fifth, but even her admirers did not always understand her.

"Of course she has her nasty side; most people have," they would explain her lapses from their ordinary code; and perhaps part of her fascination lay in the uncertainty of what she would do and say on different occasions.

Now she made no visible effort to combat criticism, or justify herself. As the school-house bell rang, she got up leisurely and gathered the lines from "Morte d'Arthur" together.

"There goes Poppy, so I may as well get rid of these at once," she said, and strolled off after the prefect.

The Lower Fifth could see her slip her arm through Poppy's and hear her friendly laugh, as she handed over the sheets of foolscap.

"And she'll have that fat idiot purring before they have gone the length of the playing-fields," said Mabel Gosson, with an admiring sigh. "Peter is a wonder, you know. Why, anyone else who went on as she does, would have been expelled long ago."

"I wish she was expelled," said Violet Tremson angrily. "She is just pushing the school downhill as hard as she can. You all know she is a rotter, and yet you let her trample on you and take the lead--even some of the Sixth do too, like Poppy."

"You were keen enough on her yourself, when you first came--as much a slave to her as any of us."

"I know I was; and it hurt me frightfully when I found out she wasn't straight, and ... and what a selfish beast she really is. That is why I hate to see the way she is carrying on with a kid like Sally Brendan."

"Oh, do leave off crabbing Peter; after all, she is my friend," said Mabel Gosson crossly. "If you keep on any more, Violet, everyone in the school will say you are jealous because she dropped you, and surely that prickly hedgehog of a child can look after herself. You should have seen her shake Peter the other afternoon on the beach."

"Of course she can. I wonder Peter ever took any notice of her at all, after that."

"It was really frightfully good of someone Peter's age to go on an adventure with a little ass of her sort."

"Rather! and I say, we never heard what Peter did.... She is a sport. We must get it out of her."

By the time the Lower Fifth group had reached the school, all Peter's admirers had recovered the full extent of their admiration. Only Violet Tremson was silent, her usually calm face perplexed by a struggle waging in her mind between two sets of inclinations.

One decision would be, to leave Sally alone to work out her fate. It wasn't even as though she were the type of girl to need a champion, or had shown any wish to be friendly. She was cheeky, conceited, self-sufficient; and wouldn't really mind being expelled, if what she boasted were true.

Violet was well aware of all this, and wondered at her own reluctance to accept the obvious conclusion that Sally's affairs were no business of hers.

"And yet I should hate her to be expelled," she told herself. "She has such lots of brains and pluck. One day, if she stops on here, she will be head of the school and games--ever so much better at running both than Doris Forbes, because she has more imagination."

Violet Tremson was still arguing with herself when she went in to supper. Sally, she could see, had been crying, and now, left in Coventry by her neighbours, made merely a pretence of swallowing her bread and jam. Trina Morrison, on the contrary, surrounded by her friends, was making so much noise that every now and then an exasperated prefect demanded silence from that end of the table.

"She is a beast," said Violet of Peter; and marvelled at the wave of indignation that, for the moment, swept her. Why should she care if a girl who had been persistently rude to her was snubbed and humiliated? It was a difficult question to answer, because the demands of friendship, as of love, are independent of argument and common sense. If Sally craved for Trina's affection, Violet knew in her heart that she would have liked the chance of winning Sally's.

"I suppose one can't help likes and dislikes," she told herself at last, "and if Trina wasn't here, I might make something of her."