By Honour Bound: A School Story for Girls

Stepping out of the train in the wake of Tom, Dorothy was at once caught in the crowd on Paddington arrival platform. She was pushed and squeezed and buffeted, but her eyes were shining, and her face was all smiles, for she felt that she was seeing life at last.

“Whew! Some crowd, isn’t it?” panted Tom, as a fat man laden with a great bundle of rugs and golf clubs barged into him from behind, while a lady carrying a yelling infant charged at him from the side, and catching him unawares, sent him lurching against Dorothy.

She was sturdy, and stood up to the impact without disaster, only saying in a breathless fashion, “Oh, Tom, what a lot of people! Where do you expect they all come from?”

“Can’t say. You had better ask ’em,” Tom chuckled, as he sprang for the nearest taxi, and secured it too, although a ferocious looking man, with brown whiskers like a doormat, was calling out that he wanted that particular vehicle.

Dorothy meanwhile secured a porter, and extricating Tom’s luggage and her own from the pile on the platform, the things were bundled into the taxi; she and Tom tumbled in after them, and they were moving away from the platform before the angry person with doormat whiskers had done making remarks about them.

“That is what I call a good get-away,” Tom sighed with satisfaction, lolling at ease in his corner. “You will have time to buy your finery now, without any danger of our missing the train.”

“Bless you, I should have taken the time in any case, whether we lost the train or not,” rejoined Dorothy calmly. Then she asked, with a twinkle in her eye, “Are you coming to help me choose the frock?”

“Not me; what should I be likely to know about a girl’s duds?” and Tom looked as superior as he felt.

Dorothy leant back laughing. “Sometimes you talk as if you know a lot,” she said mischievously. “Do you remember Brenda Gomme and the marigold satin?”

Tom grinned, but stuck to it that he had not been so far wrong in calling the thing marigold, seeing that it was yellow, and marigolds were yellow.

“Roses are red—sometimes,” she answered crisply; “for all that we do not call all red things rose colour. Hullo! is this Victoria already? See, Tom, we will cloakroom everything we’ve got, and then we shall be able to enjoy ourselves.”

When this was accomplished, and the taxi paid, the two plunged into the busy streets outside Victoria, walking briskly along, and stopping occasionally to ask the way to the great multiple shop to which they were bound.

“There it is! Look, Tom!” There was actual rapture in Dorothy’s tone as she pranced along, waving her hand excitedly in the direction of the big plate-glass windows of Messrs. Sharman and Song.

At the door of the lift she paused to beg Tom to come with her; but he, his attention caught by a window filled with football requisites, was already engrossed, and turned a deaf ear to her pleading.

Dorothy was shot up in the lift to the next floor, and was at once thrilled and half-awed by the splendid vista of showrooms stretching away before her enchanted gaze. Then a saleswoman took her in hand, and she plunged at once into the business of buying a little frock for evening wear, with the tip kind old Aunt Louisa had given to her.

The frocks displayed were too grown-up and elaborate for a schoolgirl. Dorothy knew what she wanted, and was not going to be satisfied until she got it. The saleswoman went off in search of something more simple, and for the moment Dorothy was left alone staring into the long looking-glass, not seeing her own reflection, but watching the people moving about the showroom singly and in groups: it was so early in the day that there were no crowds.

She saw a girl detach herself from a group of people lower down the room, and wander in and out in an aimless fashion between the showcases. Suddenly the girl halted by a table piled with pretty and costly jumpers. Stooping over them for a moment she swiftly slid one out of sight under her coat, and with a leisurely step turned back past a big case to join her party.

Dorothy gave a little gasp of dismay. It had been so quickly done that at first she did not realize she had been watching a very neat piece of shoplifting. Then she sprang forward to meet the saleswoman, who was coming towards her with an armful of frocks. She was going to denounce that girl who was a thief, she was just opening her lips to cry out that a jumper had been stolen, she looked round to see where the girl was, but the light-fingered one had gone—vanished as completely as if she had never been—and Dorothy was struck dumb. If the girl had escaped out of the room, of what use to accuse her? Even if she were still in the building she might easily have passed the stolen garment on to some one else. Then it would be her word against Dorothy’s accusation. There would be an awful fuss, her journey would be delayed Tom would be furious, and——

“I think you will like these better, Moddom,” the voice of the saleswoman cut into Dorothy’s agitated thinking.

She hesitated, and was lost. She could not make a disturbance by telling what she had seen—she simply could not.

All the time she was choosing her frock she felt like a thief herself. Half her pleasure in her purchase vanished, and she was chilled as if the sun had gone behind a cloud, leaving the day drear and cold.

In spite of this the garment was as satisfactory as it could be, and the price was so reasonable that there was a margin left over for shoes and stockings to wear with the frock. Oh, life was not such a tragedy after all, and Dorothy hugged her parcel with joy as she went down in the lift to join Tom, who was still absorbed by the window filled with football things.

“Did you buy up the shop?” he asked, as they went off briskly in search of lunch.

“Why, no; it would have needed a pretty long purse to do that,” she said with a laugh; and then she burst into the story of the shoplifting she had seen, asking Tom what he would have done if he had been in her place.

“Yelled out, ‘Stop thief!’ and have been pretty quick about it too,” he answered with decision, as they settled down at a corner table in a quiet little restaurant for lunch.

“Oh, I could not!” There was real distress in Dorothy’s tone. “The girl was so nice to look at, and she was well-dressed too. Oh, Tom, how could she have stooped to such meanness?”

“Women are mostly like that.” Tom wagged his head with a superior air as he spoke. “It is very few women who have any sense of honour; I should say it is peculiar to the sex. When boys and girls have games together the girls always cheat, and expect the boys to sit down under it. It is the same in the mixed schools; the girls expect to get by thieving what the boys have to work hard for. When they are older, and ought to know better, it is still the same; they expect to have what they want, and if they can’t get it by fair means, why, they get it by foul. They don’t care so long as they get it.”

Dorothy stared at him for a moment as if amazed at his outburst; then she laughed merrily, and told him he was a miserable old cynic, who ought to be shut up in a home for men only, and be compelled to cook his own food and darn his own socks to the end of the chapter.

“Well, in that case I shouldn’t be going back to school to-day, with the prospect of being invited over to the girls’ house every fortnight or so during the term—rather jolly that would be.” Tom winked at his sister as he spoke, and then they laughed together.

“I should feel just awful at the prospect of Compton Schools if you were not going to be there too,” she said with a little catch of her breath; and then she cried out that they must hurry, or they would certainly be late for the train.

It was a scramble to get their things out of the cloakroom, to get on to the platform, and to find a place in the Ilkestone train. At first they had to stand in the corridor, then a voice from farther along the corridor called to them “Tom Sedgewick, there is room for one here Is that your sister? Bring her along.”

“Some of our crowd are down there; come along and be introduced,” said Tom, catching Dorothy by the hand and hurrying her forward. “It is Hazel Dring, and Margaret Prime is with her. They are pals—if you see one, you may be sure the other is not far off.”

Hazel Dring was a tall girl with fair hair and a very nice smile. Margaret Prime was smaller, a quiet girl with a rather shrinking manner, as if she was afraid of being snubbed, Both of them greeted Dorothy in the friendliest fashion. They made room for her to sit with them, although they were already crowded; and they were so kind that she had to be glad she had met them on the train, although secretly she would have chosen to be alone with Tom.

“You are not a scholarship girl, are you?” asked Hazel. “You look nearly grown up.”

“I am not clever enough for a scholarship girl,” Dorothy answered with a little sigh; “Tom has the brains in our family. I am seventeen, and I am to have one year at the Compton Schools.”

“Just long enough to win the Lamb Bursary,” cried Hazel eagerly. “I expect you will be in the Sixth, you are so big; and if you are, you will be eligible for the Mutton Bone.”

“The Mutton Bone!” Dorothy looked puzzled, even frowning, as was her wont when perplexed.

Margaret laughed, then answered for Hazel. “That is what we call the Lamb Bursary—a term of affection, mind you. We would not cry it down for worlds; it is the top strawberry in the basket of the Compton Schools, and there are a lot of us going to have a try for it this year.”

“Oh yes, I know the Lamb Bursary is a prize worth having,” said Dorothy. “Tom has talked about it, and groaned a lot because there was not an equal gift for the boys. But I don’t suppose I should have much chance for it as I am not at all clever.”

“Oh, that does not matter so much if you are anything of a sticker at work,” said Hazel; “the Lamb Bursary goes to the best all-round scholar of the year. You might be very brilliant in some subjects, but if you were a duffer at others you would not stand a chance. For instance, you might stand very high in mathematics, you might be a prodigy in chemistry, but if you had not decent marks for languages, history, and music you would be left, for the judging is on the averages of all the subjects. It is really a very good way, as it gives quite an ordinary girl a chance.”