The Luckiest Girl in the School by Angela Brazil (top fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

"Can I be of any assistance?" he asked politely.

"Oh, please! My aunt is very ill, and I don't know how to drive properly yet. How am I going to get back to Seaton?" blurted out Winona, on the verge of tears.

She never forgot how kind the stranger was. With the aid of his chauffeur he lifted poor Aunt Harriet into his own car, and told Winona to take her place beside her.

"Now tell me exactly where you want to go," he said, "and I'll run you straight home as fast as I can. My man shall follow with your car. You can manage this little two-seater, Jones?"

"Yes, Sir," grinned the chauffeur, inspecting the levers.

The stranger made his big Daimler fly. Winona never knew by how much he exceeded the speed limit, but it seemed to her that they must be spinning along at the rate of nearly fifty miles an hour. Aunt Harriet had recovered a little, though she still moaned at intervals. The hedges seemed to whirl past them, they went hooting through villages, and whizzed over a common. At last the familiar spires and towers of Seaton appeared in the distance. Their good Samaritan drove them to their own door, helped Miss Beach into the house, and volunteered to take a message to the doctor, then, evading[Pg 208] Winona's thanks, he sprang into his car, and started away.

The chauffeur arrived later with Miss Beach's car, and considerately offered to run it round to the garage.

Aunt Harriet was laid up for several days after this episode, and Dr. Sidwell forbade any long expeditions in the immediate future. He encouraged the idea of Winona learning to drive.

"You could be of the greatest help in taking your aunt about," he said to her. "You must have a capital notion of it, or you couldn't have brought the car three miles entirely on your own. But of course you'll need practice before you can be trusted to mix in traffic. You'll have to apply for a license, remember. You'll be getting into trouble if you drive without!"

Winona looked back upon that outing as a most memorable occasion. She hoped to try her skill again as soon as opportunity offered. The charm of the wheel was alluring. She wished she knew the name of the stranger who had rendered such invaluable assistance. But that she never learnt.

[Pg 209]

The Easter term was passing quickly away. It had been a strenuous but nevertheless successful season. Out of nine hockey matches the team had lost only three—not a bad record for a school that was still in the infancy of its Games reputation. The Old Girls' Guild had got up its eleven, and had practiced with enthusiasm under the captaincy of Kirsty Paterson. A most exciting Past versus Present match had been played, resulting in a narrow victory for the school. Winona felt prouder of this success than of any other triumph the team had scored, for Kirsty had congratulated her afterwards, and praise from her former captain was very sweet. It had been the last match of the season, so it made a satisfactory finish to her work. She felt quite sentimental as she put by her hockey-stick. Next season there would be a fresh captain, and she would have left the High School! She wished she were staying another year, but her scholarship would expire at the end of July. She could hardly believe that she had been nearly two years at the school, and that only one term more remained to her. Well, it would be the summer term, which was the pleasantest of all, and though hockey was over, she had the cricket season before her. The Seaton High should score[Pg 210] at the wicket if it were in her power to coach a successful team.

Towards the end of March Winona had an interlude which for the time took her thoughts even from the omnipresent topic of sports. Percy, who had been in training with his regiment at Duncastle, was ordered to the Front. He was allowed thirty-six hours' leave, and came home for a Sunday. Winona spent that week-end at Highfield, and the memory of it always remained a very precious one. Percy in his khaki seemed much changed, and though she only had him for a few minutes quite to herself, she felt that the old tie between them had strengthened. Her letters to him in future would be different. During the last year they had both slacked a little in their correspondence, each perhaps unconsciously feeling that the other's standpoint was changing; now they had met again on a new basis, and realized once more a common bond of sympathy. Percy, absorbed in describing his new life, scarcely mentioned Aunt Harriet. The episode of the burning of the paper seemed to have faded from his memory, or he had conveniently buried it in oblivion. Winona had never forgotten it. It remained still the one shadow in her career at Seaton. Now especially, since Miss Beach's recent ill-health, the secret weighed heavily upon her. She felt her aunt ought to know that the will was destroyed, so that she might take the opportunity of making another. More than once she tried indirectly to refer to the subject, but it was a tender topic, and at the least hint Miss Beach's face would[Pg 211] stiffen and her voice harden; the old barrier between them would rise up again wider than ever, and impossible to be spanned. Winona would have been glad to do much for her aunt, but Miss Beach did not care to be treated as an invalid. Like many energetic people, she refused to acknowledge that she was ill, and the acceptance of little services seemed to her a confession of her own weakness. It is rather hard to have your kindly meant efforts repulsed, so Winona, finding that her offers of sympathy met with no response, drew back into her shell, and the two continued to live as before, on terms of friendship but never of intimacy. After almost two years spent in the same house Winona knew her aunt little better than on the day of her arrival. They had certain common grounds for conversation, but their mutual reserve was maintained, and as regarded each other's real thoughts they remained "strangers yet."

Miss Beach, however, took an interest in Winona's doings at school. She read her monthly reports, and scolded her if her work had fallen below standard. She expressed a guarded pleasure over successful matches, but rubbed in the moral that games must not usurp her attention to the detriment of her form subjects.

"You came here to learn something more than hockey!" she would remind Winona. "It's a splendid exercise, but I'm afraid it won't prove a career! I should like to see a better record for Latin and Chemistry; they might very well have more attention!"[Pg 212]

Winona had tried to persuade her aunt to come and watch one of the matches, but Miss Beach had always found some engagement; she was concerned in so many of the city's activities that her time was generally carefully mapped out weeks beforehand. She consented, however, to accept Miss Bishop's invitation to the Gymnasium Display, which was to be given at the High School at the close of the Easter term.

This was a very important occasion in the estimation of the girls. It was their first athletic show since the advent of Miss Barbour, the Swedish drill mistress. Governors and parents were to be present, and the excellence of the performance must justify the large amount which had been spent upon gymnastic apparatus during the past year.

For two whole terms Miss Barbour had been teaching and training her classes with a view to this exhibition, and woe betide any unlucky wight whose nerves, memory or muscles should fail her at the critical moment! A further impetus was given to individual effort by the offer, on the part of one of the Governors, of four medals for competition, to be awarded respectively to the best candidates in four classes, Seniors over 16, Intermediates from 13 to 16, Juniors from 10 to 13, and Preparatories under 10. It was felt throughout the school that the offer was munificent. The Governors had been stingy over the matter of the hockey field, and had been reviled accordingly, but Councillor Jackson was retrieving the character of the Board by this action, and the girls reversed their opinion in his favor.[Pg 213] They hoped that other Governors, warmed by his example, might open their hearts in silver medals or book prizes for future occasions.

"He's a dear old trump to think of it!" said Winona.

"You drew a picture of him floundering in the mud at hockey!" twinkled Garnet.

"Well, I forgive him now, and I'll draw another of him standing on the platform, all beaming with benevolence, and distributing medals broadcast. Look here, Bessie Kirk, you needn't be congratulating yourself beforehand with such a patently self-satisfied smirk, because I'm going to win the Senior Medal."

"No, you're not, my child! Take it patiently, and compose your mind. The medal's coming this way!"

"How about me?" put in Marjorie Kemp.

"You'll do well, but you're not a champion! You're too fat, Jumbo, and that's the fact. You're all right when it's a question of brute strength, but when agility matters, those superfluous pounds of flesh of yours are an impediment. I'd back Joyce sooner than you; she's as light as a feather!"

Hearing herself commended, Joyce fluttered up to the group, smiling.

"I did four feet six, yesterday," she announced, "and I'd have cleared four feet seven, I believe, only I had to stop. It's always my luck!"

"Why had you to stop?"

"My back ached!"[Pg 214]

Instant apprehension overspread the faces of her friends.

"Joyce Newton!" exclaimed Winona, "you're never going to get small-pox again, and stop the athletic display?"

"You don't feel sick, or head-achy, or sore-throaty, do you?" implored Bessie. "For goodness sake stand away, if you're infectious! I don't want to be another contact case!"

"What pigs you are!" said Joyce plaintively, "One can't catch small-pox twice!"

"But you might be going to get scarlet fever, or measles, or even influenza!"

"Stop ragging! Mayn't I have a back-ache if I want? It's my own back!"

"Have as many back-aches as you choose, my hearty, but don't disseminate germs! If the athletic display doesn't come off, I'll break my heart, and you can write an epitaph over me: