Gwen secured a bathing costume that fitted quite tolerably. She had no mackintosh cap, but she plaited her hair very tightly instead. She did not much care whether it got wet or not. It was most exciting to run down the steps and slip into the lovely clear green water. She had undressed with such record speed that she was actually the first, but she was very soon joined by a bevy of laughing, squealing maidens. It was an amusing, but not a picturesque sight. The Fifth Form attired in bathing costumes were about as different from the academy pictures of cla.s.sical nymphs as a man in the street from a statue of Apollo.

Instead of floating about in graceful att.i.tudes, with the "amber dropping hair" of Milton's Sabrina, they "larked" like a school of porpoises, splashing each other and playing tricks. There was no attempt at a lesson that afternoon. The girls just enjoyed themselves in their own way, with many cautions from Miss Douglas not to trespa.s.s beyond the danger line. Gwen, held up by Netta, made frantic efforts to try her strokes, though her attempts invariably ended in a plunge from which she came up spluttering. Netta, with a very little help from Gwen, got on much better, for she had been to the baths before, and had had some practice. Several of the girls were already good swimmers, and after showing their prowess, were allowed to disport themselves at the deep end.

"I shan't be content till I can dive," declared Gwen, watching enviously as Elspeth Frazer took a header. "I shouldn't think it's difficult when you get the knack. It will be just having the pluck to try. I can float the least little sc.r.a.p already, so I've learnt something this afternoon, and so have you."

"We shall both get on grandly at the lessons," a.s.sented Netta.

The whole Form agreed unanimously that the experiment was "ripping", and everyone was extremely anxious to come again. Gwen went home mad with enthusiasm, and Lesbia, whose Form had preceded the Fifth, was in equal ecstasies. Both besieged their father with wild entreaties to be allowed to take the course.

"You haven't told me the fees, and that's a very important point,"

said Mr. Gascoyne.

"I quite forgot to ask," admitted Gwen, brought down to the mundane side of the question. "Lesbia, do you know?"

Lesbia shook her head. She rarely knew anything; as a rule other people were ready to manage her affairs for her.

"Miss Douglas says the swimming course is to be half a guinea each, and admission to the baths threepence a time. There is a special arrangement for schools," said Winnie, supplying the needed information.

"Then I must think it over," returned Father. "Times are bad just now, chicks, and I don't know whether I can afford it. A curacy is not a fat living, remember, and there are seven of you!"

Very much sobered, the enthusiastic bathers betook themselves to their preparation.

"I wish everything nice didn't cost money!" sighed Gwen.

She broached the subject to Beatrice during the evening.

"I've been talking about it to Father," said the latter. "I'm afraid he can't manage it for you both, but he might possibly for one. It will be a choice between you and Lesbia."

"I'm the eldest!" urged Gwen quickly.

"Yes, I know you are, but on the other hand, it really is Lesbia's turn, because you took the St. John's Ambulance last winter at the Parish Room, and Lesbia didn't."

"Swimming's a million times nicer than ambulance!"

"It's not any more useful. Don't be selfish, Gwen! You know how hard up we are. We can't all of us do everything, and I think this time it certainly ought to be Lesbia."

Gwen kicked the orchard gate against which they were leaning, and tried to keep down a lump that rose in her throat. Beatrice's arguments were unanswerable.

"It'll be sickening to be the only one in the Form who doesn't take swimming," she said at last. "Every single girl will join except me. I shall have to stop behind and do prep. instead. I'll feel more utterly out of things than ever."

"You could pay for the course yourself, if you like," suggested Beatrice. "What have you done with all your money?"

Gwen's restless hands were hacking notches on the top bar of the gate.

Her penknife slipped suddenly, and cut her finger.

"Your own fault, if you will be so clumsy!" said Beatrice. "Come indoors, and I'll tie it up for you. You'd better hold it under the cold-water tap first."

Gwen groaned in spirit as she went to bed that night.

"I shall never hear the last of that wretched fifteen shillings!" she thought "I feel like Mr. Caudle in the _Curtain Lectures_, when he'd lent a five-pound note to a friend. That money of mine was to have bought Christmas presents, and boots for Johnnie Ca.s.s, and a new tennis racket, and paid for the swimming, and I don't know what else, according to my family's ideas. Oh, dear! Being poor's a hateful business! I wish Dad were Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of only Curate-in-charge of Skelwick Bay!"

CHAPTER XIV

Gwen meets Trouble

"There's a sickening author called Virgil, Don't I wish I were chanting his dirge--ill!

As a door-nail he's dead Yet his works live instead, And to me they're a regular scourge--ill!"

So sang Netta, banging down her copy of _aeneid I_ and _II_ with a force that almost dissevered its cover and made the desk ring.

"I call it absolute sickening nonsense," she continued energetically.

"Why in the name of all common sense should we girls in this modern twentieth century be expected to bother our precious heads over antiquated old rubbish that would be far better consigned to decent burial? What's the use of it, I want to know?"

"'An admirable training for the intellect', my dear! to quote Thistles," said Annie Edwards. "According to her theory you ought to feel your mind sprouting at every fresh page, and sending out shoots of wisdom."

"Sprouting, indeed! Just the other way!" grunted Netta. "Latin has a paralysing effect upon my brain. Instead of sharpening me it deadens my faculties. When I've been trying to construe a page of Virgil, my intellect feels a pulp."

"Then the obvious moral is, don't try!" yawned Millicent Cooper.

"I don't."

"No more you do, you old slacker!"

"Why should one try when one can sc.r.a.pe through without?"

"Not an easy thing if Thistles puts you on a difficult bit! Have you made any sense out of this part? It's uncommonly stiff."

"Not I--I shall throw myself as usual on Gwen's mercy. Come here, Gwendolen mine, that's a sweet angelic cherub, and interpret these abominable lines!"

Gwen came rather reluctantly. Of late Netta had grown into the habit of applying to her for help with her extremely ill-prepared work, and the habit was a.s.suming proportions that Gwen did not like. At first it had only been a word or two, then an odd sentence, but it was rapidly developing into a demand for a translation of the whole lesson.

"Oh, I say, Netta, you make me a regular henchman!" she objected. "Why should I act as providence to you continually?"

"Because you know the lesson, my hearty, and I don't. Ergo, it is your duty and privilege to impart your information to me."

"Don't always see my privileges."

"Then you ought. If you're helped, you ought to help others."

"I'm not helped!"

"Oh, Gwen! I'm sure Grinnie helps you at home!" broke out Millicent Cooper.

"She doesn't! She doesn't, indeed! I do all my prep, by myself."