16 gwendoline makes a plan
half-term would soon be coming! the school was giving all kinds of displays—an exhibition tennis match played by four of the crack school players—a swimming and diving display—and a dancing display in the middle of the great courtyard.
“and after that,” said daphne, gloomily, “after that—the school cert. exam! i feel awfully depressed whenever i think of it.”
“think how light-hearted you’ll be afterwards!” said belinda.
“yes—like you feel after going to the dentist,” said clarissa. “you get all gloomy beforehand and then after you’ve been you feel awfully happy.”
everyone laughed. they knew that clarissa had had bad times at the dentist, and they knew that she hated the wire round her front teeth, put there to keep them back. she was hoping she could have it off before long.
“once i’ve got rid of that wire and my glasses you won’t know me!” she said, and shook back her mass of auburn hair.
she had been riding quite a bit with bill, and gwendoline had felt rather out of things. clarissa rode extremely well, and could apparently manage any horse in the school stables—and had actually been permitted to try thunder!
gwendoline found the everlasting horse conversation between the two very trying indeed.
“i once rode a horse who ran away with me and jumped over a hedge before i had even learnt how to jump!” clarissa would begin.
and then bill would go on. “did you really? i bet you stuck on all right. did i ever tell you about marvel, my brother tom’s horse?”
then would follow a long story about marvel. at the end gwendoline would try to get a word in.
“i say—clarissa, do you know where we are going for this afternoon’s walk?”
“not yet,” clarissa would say. “well, bill, i simply must tell you about my father’s old horse that lived to be over thirty. he . . .”
and so the horsy conversation would go on, till gwendoline felt she could scream. horses! horrible great snorting stamping creatures! how she wished clarissa had never gone out for that first ride with bill.
gwendoline was beginning to be very much afraid of the coming exam. she was backward in her lessons, and because of her habit of picking other people’s brains, and of copying their work, her own brains worked very badly when she had to think out something for herself. the exam paper had to be done with her own brains—she couldn’t copy anyone’s work then—and indeed gwen knew perfectly well that miss williams would see to it that she, gwendoline, would be seated much too far away from anyone else to copy!
she worried about the exam. she felt uncomfortably that she might possibly be the only person to fail—and what a disgrace and humiliation that would be! her father would have a lot of hurtful remarks to make, and her mother would cry, and her old governess would look mournful, and say it was all her fault, she ought to have taught gwen better when she was small. oh dear—why did these beastly exams matter?
gwendoline seriously considered the possibility of trying to see the papers beforehand—but that was silly, she knew. they were always locked up. she did not think to herself, “i am wrong to think of such a thing,” she merely thought, “i am silly to think there would be a chance of seeing them.”
could she be ill? could she complain of a sore throat and headache? no—matron simply never believed her. she would take her temperature and say, “my dear gwendoline, you are suffering from inflammation of the imagination as usual,” and give her that perfectly horrible medicine.
she thought of clarissa’s weak heart with envy. to have something like that—that prevented you from playing those awful games, and from swimming and climbing up hills—now that was something really worth while having—something sensible. unfortunately, though, it didn’t let you off lessons.
gwendoline thought about weak hearts for a while, and gradually a plan began to unfold itself in her mind. what about putting it round that her heart was troubling her? she put her hand to where she thought her heart was, and assumed an agonized expression. what should she say? “oh, my heart—it’s fluttering again! i do wish it wouldn’t. it makes me feel so queer. oh, why did i run up those stairs so fast!”
the more she thought about this idea, the better it seemed. next week was half-term. if she could work up this weak heart business well enough, perhaps her parents would be told, and they would be alarmed and take her away home. then she would miss school cert. which began not long after!
gwendoline’s heart began to beat fast as she thought out this little plan. in fact, she felt a little alarmed, feeling it beat so fast with excitement. suppose she really had got one? no—it was only that she was feeling excited about this clever and wonderful idea of hers.
so, little by little, gwen began to put it about that she didn’t feel very well. “oh, nothing much,” she told clarissa and bill. “you’ll know what i feel like, clarissa—my heart sort of flutters! oh, why did i run up the stairs so fast?”
clarissa was sympathetic. she knew how absolutely sickening a weak heart was. “don’t you think you ought to tell miss williams, or miss potts?” she said, quite anxiously. “or matron?”
“no,” said gwendoline, putting on a pathetically brave face. “i don’t want to make a fuss. besides, you know, it’s school cert. soon. i mustn’t miss that.”
if alicia, sally or darrell had been anywhere near, they would have yelled with laughter at all this, but bill and clarissa didn’t. they listened quite seriously.
“well, i think you ought to say something about it,” said clarissa. “if you’d had to go through what i’ve had to—lie up for weeks on end, not do a thing, give up all the riding and swimming i loved—you’d not run any risk of playing about with a groggy heart.”
gwendoline took to running up the stairs when she saw any of the upper fourth at the top. then, when she came to the landing, she would put her hand to her left side, droop over the banisters and groan.
“got a stitch?” alicia would say, unsympathetically. “bend down and touch your toes, gwendoline. oh—i—forgot—you’re too fat to do that, aren’t you?”
on the other hand mary-lou might say, “oh, gwen, what’s the matter? is it your heart again? you really ought to have something done about it!”
gwen did not perform in front of either miss williams or miss potts. she had a feeling that her performance would not go down very well. but she tried it on with mam’zelle, who could always be taken in.
mam’zelle was quite alarmed one morning to find gwen sitting on the top stair near her room, her hand pressed to her heart, groaning.
“ma petite q’avez vous? what is the matter?” she cried. “you have hurt yourself? where?”
“it’s—it’s all right, mam’zelle,” panted gwendoline. “it’s—it’s nothing—just this awful heart of mine. when i run or do anything energetic—it seems to go all funny!”
“you have the palpitations! you are anaemic then!” cried mam’zelle. “me, i once suffered in this way when i was fifteen! you shall come with me to matron, and she shall give you some good, good medicine to make your blood rich and red.”
gwendoline didn’t want her blood made “rich and red” by matron. it was the last thing in the world she wanted! she got up hastily and smiled weakly at mam’zelle.
“it’s over now! i’m quite all right. it’s not anaemia, mam’zelle—i’ve never been anaemic. it’s just my silly heart. it’s—er—it’s a weakness in our family, i’m afraid.”
this was quite untrue, but gwendoline added it because she thought it might convince mam’zelle it was her heart and not her blood that was wrong! mam’zelle was very sympathetic, and told gwen she had better not play tennis that afternoon.
gwendoline was delighted—but on thinking it over she regretfully decided that she had better play, because she wouldn’t possibly be able to convince sally that her heart had played her up again. sally just simply didn’t believe in gwen’s weak heart. so she played. mam’zelle saw her and was surprised.
“the brave gwendoline!” she thought. “she plays even though she knows it may bring on the palpitations again! ah, these english girls, they have the courage and the pluck!”
gwendoline laid a few more plans. she would bring mam’zelle up to her parents at half-term, and leave her to talk to them. she was certain that sooner or later mam’zelle would speak about her heart—and then she, gwen, would be anxiously questioned by her mother—and if she played her cards well, she would be taken home at once by a very anxious and frightened mother!
gwen did not stop to think of the pain and anxiety she would give to her parents by her stupid pretence. she wanted to get out of doing the exam, and she didn’t mind how she did it. she was quite unscrupulous, and very clever when she badly wanted her own way.
“i’m certain mother will take me home,” she thought. “i really don’t think i need bother about swotting up for the exam. it will be a waste of time if i don’t take it. look at all the others—groaning and moaning every evening, mugging up latin and french and maths and history and the rest! well—i shan’t!”
and, to the surprise of everyone, gwendoline suddenly stopped working hard, and slacked!
“aren’t you afraid of doing frightfully bad papers?” asked mavis, who was rather afraid of this herself, and was working very hard indeed.
“i shall do my best,” said gwendoline. “i can’t do more. it’s this beastly heart of mine, you know—it does play me up so, if i work too hard.”
mavis didn’t believe in this heart of gwendoline’s, but she was really puzzled to know why the girl was so silly as to waste her time, when she ought to be putting in some good hard work preparing for the exam.
but, surprisingly enough, it was connie who put her finger on the right spot! she had a great scorn for the weak ineffectual gwendoline. she was a domineering, strong-minded girl herself, and she could not bear gwendoline’s moaning and grumbling. for some reason or other connie had been touchy and irritable for the last week or two, and her bad temper suddenly flared out one evening at gwen.
gwendoline had come into the common-room and flopped down in a chair. everyone was swotting hard for the exam as usual, their heads bent over their books.
“i really must not carry heavy things again,” began gwendoline, in her peevish voice. nobody took any notice except to frown.
“i’ve had to help potty with the books in the library,” went on gwen. “great heavy piles! it’s set my heart fluttering like anything!”
“shut up,” said connie. “we’re working.”
“well, there’s no need for you to be rude,” said gwen, with dignity. “if you had a heart like mine . . .”
and then connie exploded. she got up and went to stand over the astonished gwendoline.
“you haven’t got a heart, weak or otherwise! you’re a big bundle of pretence! you’re making it all up to get out of school cert. i can see through you! that’s why you’re not working, isn’t it—because you’re banking on your heart letting you out, in some way or other you’ve planned! well, let me tell you this—i don’t care tuppence whether you do school cert. or not, or whether you work or not—but i do care about my own work! and so do the others. so shut up about your silly heart, and keep away from us with your moanings and groanings till school cert. is over!”
with that connie went back to her seat, glowering. everyone was startled—too startled to say a word. they all felt that what connie said was true.
“you hateful, cruel thing!” said gwendoline in a trembling voice. “i hope you fail! and you will, too—see if you don’t! you only get decent marks because you’re always cribbing from ruth. we all know that! she’ll pass and you won’t! i think you’re a beast!”
she burst into tears, got up and went out of the room, banging the door so violently that mam’zelle and miss potts, working in their room not far away, wondered whatever was happening.
the girls looked at one another. alicia made a face. “well, i expect connie’s right—though you were a bit brutal, weren’t you, connie?”
“no more brutal than you sometimes are,” said connie, rather sulkily. “anyway, let’s go to work again. some of us are not like you, alicia—skating lightly over every subject and doing everything well, without bothering. you don’t understand how hard some of us find our work. let’s get on.”
there was silence in the room as the girls worked away, reading, making notes, learning by heart. only clarissa and mary-lou were really troubled about gwen. clarissa still believed in her weak heart, and mary-lou was always sorry for anyone who cried.
as for gwendoline, her tears were not tears of sorrow, but of rage. that horrible connie! if only she could get back at her for her unkind words. how gwendoline hoped that connie hadn’t spoilt her beautiful plan!
