Of course it was splendid advice and was exactly what her father had told her. Actually very few of her strokes followed the advice she gave herself. She was not experienced enough to know the good ones from the bad, and they looked better than they were because the other girls could not return the ball. In fact, most of her practice came when taking a service.
At one of the lower school tennis afternoons, the school tennis captain happened to be passing just as one of Susan’s backhands came off. Susan did not see her standing there, or she would never have hit another ball. As it was, though of course she made plenty of mistakes, she was at least in the right position all the time. The next day she was sent for.
‘Susan Heath, will you go to the senior prefects’ room, at once?’
Susan got up, scarlet in the face. She knew she had done nothing. At once she suspected Nicky. What awful sin could she have committed that would take her, a junior, in front of the senior prefects?
‘Who wants me?’ she whispered.
‘Ann Ford. Go on.’
Susan, hurrying like a scared rabbit up the stairs, forgot that Ann Ford was the tennis captain and only remembered that she was a prefect. By the time she got to the top flight she had decided that Nicky, and probably herself too, as she was Nicky’s sister, would be expelled. When she reached the prefects’ room she was almost too scared to knock, but she made herself somehow. Ann Ford was sitting at her desk. She looked up as Susan came in.
‘Hallo! Are you Susan Heath?’
‘Yes,’ Susan agreed apologetically, certain that the school would soon be ringing with the name.
‘You’ve had some tennis coaching, haven’t you?’
‘Tennis?’ Susan looked stupid, for it is very difficult to jump your mind from your sister being expelled to tennis.
‘Well, haven’t you?’ Ann asked again.
‘Yes, from father,’ she agreed.
‘I see. Well, I’m having you put on to special coaching. You’ll get a chance to play every day. At the end of the term I’ll come and look at you to see how you are shaping. Might get you into a team next year.’
Susan felt she ought to curtsy or something. This was, she knew, a most tremendous honour. But as she went down the passage back to her form she felt worried inside. Her father had said he did not want her to play at school. He would simply hate her playing every day and being coached by somebody that perhaps he would not think very good. On the other hand, what would her house say if she missed the chance of being in a team with all the marks that brought in? How dreadfully swanky they would think her if they heard that her reason for not playing was that she was being coached in case she might turn out what her father called ‘first-class.’ How awful to even suggest that any game at St. Clair’s was not ‘first-class.’ Of course, the tennis was not, and the tennis coaching was not, and everybody knew it, but it was not the sort of thing you could possibly say.
All the rest of the day she turned the problem over and over in her mind. Should she not tell her father and just be coached? She knew at once that was no good. Nicky would be sure to hear and tell him. She did hope her father would understand. He had been at school himself. He must know how the rest of your house thought about you if you let them down.
She had meant to tell him that evening after tea. She came in strung up to do it. But the moment she got into the house she was told something that put it right out of her head. Next Sunday her father was motoring her down to see Jim.
In bed that night she remembered that she had forgotten about the coaching. But somehow, tennis and teams and things like that did not matter so much as they had. Nothing mattered really except that she would see Jim on Sunday. In any case they were driving down. If you are by yourself with somebody who is driving a car, it’s the easiest time really to explain things.
The only thing wrong with Sunday was that they were to have lunch at the school. Susan had done it before and thought it terrifying. She supposed all the boys were not really staring at her, but she felt as though they were.
Sunday was a most lovely day. The hedges were full of honeysuckle and dog-roses. The fields had so many buttercups in them that they looked as if they had turned yellow. It was so dry the cow-parsley along the borders of the road had its leaves grey with dust. Ashdown Forest looked cool. Susan would have liked to get out and walk through the trees and amongst the gorse. There was so much to see after being at Tulse Hill that she left talking about the coaching until they were going home.
Jim was waiting in the school drive for them. He was most terribly glad to see them and would have liked to say so, but he never found it easy to say things to his family when they came to the school. School was school and family was family. You could not expect them to mix. So all he said was:
‘Hallo! You don’t want to see the chapel again, do you? You saw it last time.’
‘No. I think we’d better go and pay our respects,’ Dr. Heath suggested.
Jim looked at his watch.
‘Well, I don’t know about that yet. Lunch is a quarter past one. It’s only a quarter to. What would we do for half an hour?’
But Dr. Heath said he thought they would not be too early, so they went in.
As a matter of fact it worked out rather well. The headmaster’s wife, Mrs. Partridge, took Susan to wash and to do her hair, and when she came back she found both Mr. and Mrs. Partridge drinking sherry with her father, so she and Jim were able to get in a corner and talk.
‘Dad gave me an awful shock,’ Jim told her. ‘In his letter he didn’t exactly say who was coming. I thought he might be bringing Nicky too. It would have been simply awful if he had. She’d have been sure to say or do something frightful in front of everybody.’
His talking of everybody reminded Susan of lunch.
‘Am I sitting next to you?’
‘Yes. I’m to move up to the end. On the other side of you is Mr. Partridge.’
Jim did not really care for having his family to lunch. Susan was pretty and all that, and she looked all right in that green thing she was wearing. But somehow it made him shy, the other boys looking at his father and sister. Of course, it was not likely they would do anything wrong, but they might. Anyway it was lucky they looked all right. He did not want to be like Lang last term. His mother coming down dreadful and fat and all over paint. She had left her lipstick on the napkin. Jim supposed that if a thing like that happened to him he would have got dad to take him away. He was sure he could never have borne the shame.
Luckily, as Jim and Susan were shy, Mr. Partridge was a very talkative person. He told them all through lunch about how he had been in Lapland. He was very interesting and the twins, in listening to him, almost forgot the rows of eyes down the table.
After lunch they went on the pier. Dr. Heath changed a shilling into pennies and gave them six each, and told them not to leave the pier as he was going for a walk and would come back and fetch them. They had a lovely afternoon. The pennies lasted a long time in the slot machines, as they used them for football matches and things like that where one always comes back. When they had used all the pennies up, except one or two with which they bought chocolate, they went and sat on a bench and watched a man fish. Susan told Jim all about the tennis coaching. At the end he said:
‘I should think dad’s bound to see. He knows that if they want you to play in teams and things at school you have to.’
Susan screwed up her face.
‘I sometimes think he doesn’t think it matters so much at girls’ schools. I hope he’ll understand, but I don’t feel a bit sure.’
Jim wriggled more comfortably on to the bench.
‘Have you done anything about getting your money yet for the tennis house?’
She nodded.
‘I’ve kept the half-crown I had on my birthday. Didn’t you?’
Jim looked a bit ashamed.
‘Well, I had meant to, and then Jones Mi. bought a catapult one Saturday. Not a bit like an ordinary c
atapult. You ought to see it. I bet if I had it here I could get that sea-gull.’ He pointed to a bird that was so far away it was only a speck.
‘So you spent the half-crown on it?’
‘No. One and fourpence. Honestly, I think it was worth it. It’s a handy thing to have about.’
Susan counted on her fingers.
‘So you’ve only one and twopence. You want another fivepence halfpenny. That will have to come out of your pocket-money.’
‘I know. I’m saving a penny this week. School costs a lot of money.’
‘Well, where is your one and twopence?’ said Susan. ‘Don’t you think I’d better take it back to London and look after it? You might see another catapult or something. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t matter about the rest of the money. I kept my whole half-crown because I thought we might need it. I’ll put your fivepence halfpenny out of that.’
Jim was just going to argue that it was not fair on her, but the man in front of them suddenly caught a fish. It was not a very big or important-looking fish, but of course they had to get up and watch and see if they could help. Lots of other people came to watch and help too. But Jim and Susan, as they were there first, did the real helping and the man noticed it. When the fish was safely on the pier he gave it to Susan.
They, and the fish, went back to the school for tea. They were not having it this time with the boys. Instead, there was tea in the drawing-room. A special table was laid in the window for Susan and Jim. Mrs. Partridge only gave one look at the fish and then said:
‘How about having that cooked for your tea?’
Altogether it was a perfectly lovely day. Susan hated to say good-bye to Jim, but she could not help thinking that it could not really be very miserable for him with people like Mr. and Mrs. Partridge. Extraordinary to have heads of the school like that. She could not imagine the head of St. Clair’s having any fish you caught cooked for tea. If it came to that, she could not imagine having tea with her at all.
On the way home she told her father about the school tennis. Dr. Heath drove on while she was talking without seeming to listen; but she knew he was really, it was just his way. When she had finished he looked down at her and smiled.
‘You and your St. Clair’s. I shall have to take you away one day, Sukey. How being a proper St. Clair’s girl does worry you!’
Susan grew red.
‘Well, oughtn’t it to? You do see I’d look simply awful not coaching for a tennis team, if I could coach for it. If I get into a team next year it’s a mark every week for my house and extra marks if I do well in the match. You couldn’t expect a house not to want those.’
‘All right, my dear. Have your coaching. I quite see you will find life unendurable without it.’ He hesitated. ‘Though I don’t know really whether it matters terribly what the house thinks.’
‘Oh, but it does, daddy. You ought to have heard them when one of the girls wouldn’t play in the hockey team because she wanted to ride.’ She frowned in a worried way. ‘You know, daddy, it’s awfully nice being taught to play properly, but it costs a lot, and I don’t see why any of us should be any good.’
He waited to answer while he passed two cars and got further up in the queue of London-bound traffic.
‘I dare say none of you will. Your grandfather was good and, though I says it as didn’t ought, I looked like being first-class myself before my leg. It would be grand if one of you turned out an ace at something, and tennis in our family is the likeliest shot. There was a time, you know, Susan, when English people were better at games than almost anybody in the world. I sometimes think that we are going backwards. Don’t think I mind just because of England—I don’t. I’d like to see no countries at all but just one world with no frontiers. But there are countries, and I feel that the fact that England doesn’t win now as we used to is a reflection on us doctors.’
‘You! Why? What can you do?’
Dr. Heath stared at the road ahead as if he could see a vision.
‘We don’t teach physical training nearly so much as we ought to. We are far too fond instead of medicines and cutting people up. I think every father and mother in the country ought to aim at making their children first-class in some line.’
‘But everybody can’t play games, and, anyway, everybody couldn’t win.’
‘Of course they couldn’t, but they could try, and because they tried the whole standard would go up. Besides, games aren’t the only thing. Ever hear of Amy Johnson, who flew alone to Australia in a second-hand aeroplane before flying was half as safe as it is now? When we read of people like her it does us good. We remember we had good people once, and will have them again.’
‘Of course I’d like to be really good, but I’m afraid I never will.’ Susan wriggled more comfortably into her seat. ‘You see, I don’t like people watching me, and they would if I had to play at Wimbledon.’
Dr. Heath laughed.
‘They certainly would. Well, try and get into your St. Clair’s team. Perhaps it will help your temperament, but remember, if I find you getting into bad habits I’ll drag you out of it again by the scruff of your neck, whatever your house says.’
Susan was only half listening. The sea air had made her sleepy. Presently her father said something about Ashdown Forest, but she must have been nearly asleep, for what she answered was:
‘It was a lovely fish. We ate half each.’
CHAPTER V
THE UMBRELLA MAN
Nicky had been having a lesson from her father on how to serve. It had been an annoying lesson. For one thing it was very hot. For another, she thought her father was fussing as usual about things that did not matter. She had done all the things she had been told. Thrown the ball about five feet into the air, ‘smoothly’ as her father called it, and what in juggling Annie called ‘easing it along,’ but it meant exactly the same thing. She had stood properly, right round with her left shoulder facing the net. She had swung her racket properly. Each time she had been told to stop and look where it was; it was in a line with her left shoulder, which she knew was right. She had hit the ball properly at least five times out of ten. She had not even forgotten to fling out her left arm to help her balance. Most important of all, not once had she taken her eye off the ball except when the cat from next door walked across the wall, and anybody would have stopped to look at him. She had even remembered that awful follow through. Instead of being pleased and telling her how good she was, which Nicky considered was only fair, her father kept up a continual moan of: ‘Your feet, Nicky. You’re foot-faulting again.’
Nicky argued that it was ridiculous. If she had to keep on hitting balls hard she could not keep thinking about her feet. She got very cross indeed. She had stood right to begin with—she was sure she had. Her left foot had started just behind the line and her right foot, of course, well behind that. She did not believe it was true that her right foot swung over the line before she had hit the ball and not after it. In fact, she knew quite well that it had not. What with the heat and one thing and another she would probably have gone on arguing for hours, only a patient rang up and wanted her father, and he had to go.
After he had gone she lay flat down on the grass without bothering to put on her jersey, which would certainly have got her into trouble if Pinny or her mother had seen her. She wished she had got something to do. Something nice ought to happen every Saturday afternoon. It was mean Susan had gone out to tea. She thought it was very unfair of Susan’s friends to ask Susan out to tea and not ask her. Even David would be better than nothing, but he was in the drawing-room with Pinny, singing. She thought David’s singing a disgusting noise. She thought it was very stupid of Pinny and her mother to encourage him. There he was going on and on:
‘A pocket full of rye,
Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie—’
‘What a stupid song!’ Nicky growled. If you baked birds they couldn’t sing.
‘The king was in his counting-house, Counting out his mon
ey.’
Nicky sat up. ‘Counting out his money.’ What an awful thing! Only two weeks to the holidays and she had not got her one shilling and a penny for the tennis house. Of course she had not promised to get it, but she had meant to really. One and a penny. Even if she kept to-day’s money and next Saturday’s and the Saturday’s after, that would be only sixpence. Sixpence! Well, sixpence wouldn’t be any good, so she might as well spend this week’s twopence. She got up.
Just down the road from the Heath house there was a cake shop. It was not a very big cake shop, but they were allowed to go to it by themselves because it was on the same side of the road. It was kept by a Mrs. Pettigrew. The children always called her Mrs. Pettigrew when they spoke to her, but at home they called her Mrs. Tiggy Winkle.
Nicky went to Mrs. Pettigrew’s and did as satisfactory a spending as was possible with twopence; just as she was going, Mrs. Pettigrew picked up a paper bag and put a macaroon in it.
‘Something extra because it’s a nice day.’
Nicky walked back up the road eating the macaroon. Because of it she would have been perfectly happy if she had not been worrying about the one and a penny. Suddenly round the corner came a man pushing a barrow. At the end of the barrow were balloons and those paper things that spin round. On the barrow were jam-jars and at the far end some old clothes. Nicky went across to have a look.
‘Why have you got those balloons?’ she asked.
The man stopped his barrow.
‘Well, miss, I gives them in exchange like for the jam-jars.’
‘Do you give them in exchange for the clothes too?’
‘No, I buys them. Got a bit of a shop about a mile from here. I deals in old clothes.’