CHAPTER V
On Sufferance
"Scratch, scratch, scratch, Scratch went the old black hen! Every fowl that scrapes in the barn Can scratch as well as your pen!"
So sang Rona, bounding noisily one afternoon into No. 3, Room 5, andpopping her hands from behind over Ulyth's eyes as the latter satwriting at a table near the window.
"What are you always scratching away for? Can't you finish your work atprep.? Why don't you come downstairs and play basket-ball? You're mightystudious all of a sudden. What have you got here?"
Ulyth flushed crimson with annoyance, and turned her sheets of foolscaphastily over to hide them from her room-mate's prying eyes.
"You're not to touch my papers, Rona! I've told you that before."
"Well, I wasn't touching them. Looking's not touching, anyway. What areyou doing? It's queer taste to sit scribbling here half your sparetime."
"What I was doing is my own concern, and no business of yours."
"Now you're riled," said the Cuckoo, sitting down easily on her bed. "Ididn't mean any harm. I always seem sticking my foot into it somehow."
Ulyth sighed. Nobody in the school realized how much she had to put upwith from her irrepressible room-mate, whose hearty voice, extraordinaryexpressions, and broad notions of fun grated upon her sensitive nature.Rona did not appreciate in the least the heroic sacrifice that Ulyth wasmaking. It had never occurred to her that she might be placed in anotherdormitory, and that she only remained on sufferance in No. 3. Sheadmired Ulyth immensely, and was quite prepared to take her as a model,but at present the copy was very far indeed from the original. Themistresses had instituted a vigorous crusade against Rona's loud voiceand unconventional English, and she was really making an effort toimprove; but the habits of years are not effaced in a few weeks, and shestill scandalized the authorities considerably. Ulyth could tolerate herwhen she kept to her own side of the bedroom, but to have meddlesomefingers interfering with her private possessions was the last straw toher burden of endurance.
"Do you understand?" she repeated emphatically. "You're not to touch mypapers at all!"
"All serene! I won't lay a finger on them--honest--sure!" returned theCuckoo, chanting her words to the air of "Swanee River", and drumming anaccompaniment on the bedpost. "What d'you think Stephanie called me justnow? She said I was an unlicked cub."
"Oh, surely she didn't! Are you certain?"
"Heard her myself. She said it to my face and tittered. You bet I'll payher out somehow. Miss Stephanie Radford needs taking down a peg. Oh,don't alarm yourself, I'll do it neatly! There'll be no clumsy bunglingabout it. Well, if you won't go down and play basket-ball I shall. It'smore fun than sitting up here."
As the door banged behind Rona, Ulyth heaved an ecstatic "Thankgoodness!" She sat for a few moments trying to regain her composurebefore she recommenced the writing at which she had been interrupted.The manuscript on which she was engaged was very precious. She had setherself no less a task than to write a book. The subject had come to hersuddenly one morning as she lay awake in bed, and she regarded it as aninspiration. She would make a story about The Woodlands, and bring inall the girls she knew. It was no use struggling with a historical plotor a romance of the war--she had tried these, and stuck fast in thefirst chapters; it was better to employ the material close at hand, andweave her tale from the every-day incidents which happened in theschool. So she had begun, and though she floundered a little at thedifficulty of transferring her impressions to paper, she was makingdistinct progress.
"I'd never dare to have it published, of course," she ruminated. "Still,it's a beginning, and I shall like to read it over to myself. I thinkthere are some rather neat bits in it, especially that shot at Addieand Stephie. How wild they'd be if they knew! But there's no fear ofthat. I'll take good care nobody finds out."
When to make time to go on with her literary composition was thedifficulty. It was hard to snatch even an occasional half-hour duringthe day. Where there is a will, however, there is generally also a way,and Ulyth hit upon the plan of getting up very early in the morning andwriting while Rona was still asleep. The Cuckoo never stirred until theseven o'clock bell rang, when she would awake noisily, with many yawnsand stretchings of arms, so Ulyth flattered herself that her secret wasabsolutely safe.
Where to hide the precious papers was another problem. She did not dareto put them in any of her drawers, her desk would not lock, and herlittle jewel-box was too small to contain them.
The fireplace in the bedroom had an old-fashioned chimney-piece that wasfitted with a loose wooden mantel-board, from which hung a border ofneedlework. It was quite easy to lift up this board and slip the papersbetween it and the chimney-piece; the border completely screened thehiding-place, and, except at a spring-cleaning, the arrangement was notlikely to be disturbed. Ulyth congratulated herself greatly upon heringenuity. It was interesting to have a secret which nobody evenguessed. She often looked at the chimney-piece, and chuckled as shethought of what lay concealed there.
The days were rapidly closing in now, and the time between tea andpreparation, which only a few weeks ago was devoted to a last game oftennis or a run by the stream, was perforce spent by the schoolroomfire. It was only a short interval, not long enough to make anyelaborate occupation worth while, so the girls sat knitting in thetwilight and chatting until the bell rang for evening work.
One afternoon, when tea was finished, Ulyth, instead of joining theothers as usual, walked upstairs to put away some specimens in theMuseum. She passed V B classroom as she did so, and heard smotheredpeals of mirth issuing from behind the half-closed door.
"What are they doing?" she thought. "I believe I'll go and see." Butcatching Rona's laugh above the rest, she changed her mind, walked on,and bestowed her fossils carefully in a spare corner of one of thecases. Meanwhile, the group assembled round the fire in V B wereenjoying themselves. The room was growing dusk, but, seated on thehearthrug, Addie Knighton could see quite sufficiently to read aloudextracts from a document she was perusing, extracts to which the otherslistened with thrilling interest, interspersed with comments.
"'The girls of the Oaklands'," so she read, "'were a rather peculiar andmiscellaneous set, especially those in the Lower Fifth. Scarcely any ofthem could be called pretty--'" ("Oh! oh!" howled the attentive circle.)"'One of them, Valerie Chadford, imagined herself so, and gave herselffearful airs in consequence; she was very set up at knowing smartpeople, and often bragged about it.'" ("I'll never forgive her, never!"screamed Stephanie.) "'The twins, Pearl and Doris, were fat, stodgygirls, who wore five-and-a-halfs in shoes and had twenty-seven-inchwaists.'" ("Oh! Won't Merle and Alice be just frantic when they hear?")"'But even they were more interesting than Nellie Clacton, who usuallysat with her mouth open, as if she was trying to catch flies.'" ("Doesshe mean me?" gasped Mary Acton indignantly.) "'Florence Tulliver wasinclined to be snarly, and often said mean things about other peoplebehind their backs.'" ("I'll say something now!" declared GertrudeOliver.) "'And Annie Ryton was----'" but here Addie broke off abruptlyand exploded.
"Go on! Go on!" commanded the girls.
"It's too lovely!" spluttered Addie. "O--ho--ho! So that's what shethinks of me, is it?"
"Read it, can't you?"
"Here, give the paper to me!"
"No, no! I'll go on--but--I didn't know my eyes were like fadedgooseberries, and my hair like dried seaweed!"
"Has she described herself!" asked Stephanie.
"I haven't come to it yet. Oh yes! here we are, farther on: 'Ourheroine, Morvyth Langton, was an unusually----'"
But here Addie stopped abruptly, for a blazing little fury stood in thedoorway.
"Addie Knighton, how dare you? How dare you? Give me that paper thisinstant!"
"No, no! It's much too interesting. Let go! Don't be silly! How can you?Oh, what a shame!" as Ulyth in her anger tore the manuscript across andflung it into the fire.
"Whew! Now you've gone and done it!" whistl
ed Rona.
Ulyth was holding down the last flaming fragment with the poker. When ithad expired she turned to the guilty circle. "Who took my papers from mybedroom?"
Her voice was sharp, and her eyes fixed full on Rona.
"I didn't touch them. I never laid so much as a finger on them,"protested the Cuckoo.
"But you told someone where they were?"
Rona winked in reply. Yes, alas! winked consciously and deliberately.(It was well for her that Miss Moseley was not in the room.)
"I knew you'd got something there," she admitted. "Were you such aninnocent as to think I never saw you scribbling away hard in the earlymornings? Why, I was foxing! I used to watch you while I was snoring,and nearly died with laughing because you never found me out."
If eyes could slay, Ulyth's would have finished Rona at that moment. ButAddie Knighton, whose suspension of mirth had been merely a species oftemporary paralysis, now relapsed into a choking series of guffaws, inwhich the others joined boisterously.
"I can't--get--over--seaweed--and faded gooseberries!" crowed Addiehysterically.
"I don't catch flies with my open mouth!" shouted Mary Acton, suspendingher knitting in her indignation.
"Will somebody please measure the twins' waists?" bleated Christine.
"I didn't say it was meant for any of you. If the cap fits, put it on.Listeners hear no good of themselves, and no more do people who readwhat isn't intended for them. It serves you all right, so there!" andUlyth flounced out of the room.
She ran straight up to her bedroom, and burst into tears. It was such atragi-comedy ending to her literary ambition. She would rather the girlshad been more indignant than that they had laughed so much.
"I'll never write another line again," she resolved; and then shethought of the binding she had always intended to have on her firstpublished book, and wept harder.
"Ulyth," said the Cuckoo, stealing in rather shamefacedly, "I'm reallyfrightfully sorry if you're riled. I didn't know you cared all that muchabout those old papers. I told Addie, as a joke, and she went and pokedthem out. I think they were fine. It was a shame to burn them. Can't youwrite them over again?"
"Never!" Ulyth replied, wiping her eyes. "Rona, you don't realize whatdamage you've done. There! oh yes, I'll forgive you, but if you want tokeep friends with me, don't go and do anything of the sort again, that'sall!"
Ulyth felt a little shy of meeting her class-mates after their discoveryof the very unflattering description she had written of them, but thegirls were good-natured and did not bear malice. They treated the wholeaffair as an intense joke, and even took to calling one another by theassumed names of the story. They composed extra portions, including alurid description of Ulyth herself, illustrated by rapid sketches on theblack-board. The disappointed authoress took it with what calm she couldmuster. She knew they meant to tease, and the fewer sparks they couldraise from her the sooner they would desist and let the matter drop. Itwould probably serve as a target for Addie's wit till the end of theterm, unless the excitement of the newly formed ambulance class chasedit from her memory. The Woodlanders were trying to do their duty bytheir country, and all the girls were enthusiastically practisingbandaging.
"I wish we'd some real patients to bind up," sighed Merle one day, as VB took its turn under Nurse Griffith's instructions.
"I'd be sorry for them if they were left to your tender mercies,"retorted Mavis, who had been posing as patient. "My arm's sore yet withyour vigorous measures."
"What nonsense! I was as gentle as a lamb."
"A curious variety of lamb then, with a wolf inside."
"I believe The Woodlands would make a gorgeous hospital," suggestedAddie hopefully. "When we're through our course we might have some realpatients down and nurse them."
"Don't you think it! The Rainbow won't carry ambulance lessons as far asthat!"