"Misery me, and I was having such a lovely dream, all about holidays and picnics, and walks on the sands--"

"I've had the most awful night, doing sums all the time, with the Examiner looking over my shoulder. My head is like a jelly!"

Then Tom's voice arose in derisive accents. Happy Tom! who was well through her June Matric, and could afford to chaff the poor victims.

"Would any young lady like to explain to me how to find the resultant of a system of parallel forces?"

"Tom, you are brutal! Be quiet this moment, or we'll come and make you--"

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Rhoda, love, just give me the Substance of King Richard's speech to Northumberland, when the latter announced that he was to be removed to Pomfret!"

Rhoda began to reply, but stopped abruptly, for on rising from bed she was attacked by a strange giddiness, and lay back against the pillows trembling with cold and nausea. Her hands shook as she uncorked the eau-de-Cologne, and the scent, so far from being reviving, made her shudder afresh. She dressed with difficulty, sitting down at frequent intervals, and growing colder and colder with each exertion, so that when she emerged from her cubicle her pallid face roused Tom's instant attention.

"Rhoda, you are ill!" she cried, her chaffing manner changing at once, as she realised the seriousness of the occasion. "What's the matter?

Didn't you sleep? Let me feel your hand--. Goodness, what a frog! You had better lie down, and let me send for nurse."

"No, thank you, Tom, _please_! It's only excitement. I shall be better after breakfast. Please, please, don't make a fuss!"

"Humph!" said Tom shortly, "just as you like. If you feel yourself going, stoop down and pretend to fasten your shoe, and give a scrub to your cheeks before pa.s.sing Miss Bruce. She'll spot you in a moment if you go in with a face like that."

Thus adjured, Rhoda "scrubbed her cheeks" all the way downstairs, and looked so rosy as she pa.s.sed the Princ.i.p.al that the good lady felt much relieved. She had had some anxious thoughts about Rhoda Chester of late, and was only too glad to feel that her anxiety had been needless; but, alas! three times over during breakfast did Rhoda stoop down to b.u.t.ton her shoe, and in vain did her companions press food upon her. A sumptuous breakfast had been served in honour of the occasion, but ham and eggs seemed just the last things in the world that she wanted to eat, while the sight of fried fish took away the last remnant of appet.i.te. She drank her tea, trying to laugh with the rest, and to take no notice of the swaying movement with which the walls whirled round from time to time, or of the extraordinary distance from which the girls' voices sounded in her ears.

"She's game! She's real game!" said Tom to herself, watching the set face with her sharp little eyes, "but she's uncommon bad all the same.

I'll put Evie on her track!" So Miss Everett's attention was duly called to the condition of her pupil, and Rhoda was dosed with sal- volatile, and provided with smelling salts to keep in her pocket. Not a word of reproach was spoken, and Evie indeed appeared to treat the indisposition as quite an orthodox thing under the circ.u.mstances. So affectionate was she, so kind and cheery, and so thoughtful were the girls in giving up the best seats in omnibus and train, and in offering supporting arms along platforms, that Rhoda felt inclined to cry with mingled grat.i.tude and remorse.

When the hall was reached in which the examination was to be held, she had yet another dose of sal-volatile as a preparation for the ordeal of the arithmetical paper, and then, gathering up pens and pencils, marched slowly into the dreaded room. It was shaped like an amphitheatre, with a railed-in platform at one side, and sloping seats descending all round.

"It's like the operating theatre at a hospital! Oh my! and don't I feel as if I were going to be cut up too!" groaned Dorothy, as she filed along in front of a seat, looking for her place. At a distance of every two or three yards the desks were marked with a number, in front of which was a supply of blotting and writing paper. Some of the candidates made out their own number at once, others went roaming helplessly about, and Rhoda found herself perched in the furthest corner, far from her companions. She looked across and received Dorothy's smiling nod, but Kathleen's face was set in stern anxiety, and the others were too busy arranging papers to remember her existence.

The Examiner, in cap and gown, stood on the platform, talking to the lady secretary of the Centre. She made a remark, and he smiled, and said something in reply at which they both laughed audibly. It shocked Rhoda in much the same way as it would have done to hear a chief mourner laugh at a funeral. Such levity was most unseemly, yet on the other hand the pictures on the walls were surely unnecessarily depressing!

They were oil-coloured portraits of departed worthies, at that gloomy stage of decay when frame, figure, and background have acquired the same dirty hue, and the paint has cracked in a hundred broken lines. One old gentleman--the ugliest of all--faced Rhoda as she sat, and stared at her with a mocking gaze, which seemed to say:

"You think you are going to pa.s.s in arithmetic, do you? Wait until you see the paper! _You'll_ be surprised--!"

It was a relief to turn to the paper itself and know the worst, which seemed very bad indeed. She glanced from question to question, feeling despair deepen at the sight of such phrases as--"Simplify the expression"; "debenture stock at 140 1/8"; "at what rate per cent.?"

etcetera, etcetera. In the present condition of mind and body it was an effort to recall the multiplication table, not to speak of difficult and elaborate calculations. Poor Rhoda! She dipped her pen into the ink, and wrote the headline to her paper, hesitated for a moment, added "Question A," and then it seemed as if she could do no more. The figures danced before her eyes, her knees shook, her hands were so petrified with cold that she clasped them together to restore some feeling of warmth, and the faintness of an hour ago seemed creeping on once more. She leant her elbows on the desk, bowed her hands in her head, and remained motionless for ten minutes on end. The other girls would think that she was studying the paper, and deciding what question she could best answer; but in reality she was fighting the hardest battle of her life, a battle between the Flesh, which said, "Give in; say you are too ill! Think what bliss it would be to lie down and have nothing to do!" and the Will, which declared, "No, never! I must and shall go on. Brain! Hands! Eyes! you are my servants. I will not _let_ you fail!" In the end Will conquered, and Rhoda raised her face, pale to the lips, but with determination written on every feature.

The girl next to herself had covered half the sheet with figures, and was ruling two neat little lines, which showed that Question A was satisfactorily settled. All over the room the girls were scribbling away, alert and busy; there was plainly no time to be wasted, and Rhoda began slowly to puzzle out the easiest problem. The answer seemed inappropriate; she tried again, with a different result; a third time, with a third result; then the firm lips set, and she began doggedly the fourth time over. To her relief this answer was the same as number two, so it was copied out without delay, and the next puzzle begun, and the next, and the next.

Oh, the weariness of those two hours, the struggle against weakness, the moments of despair when memory refused to work, and simplest facts evaded her grasp! n.o.body ever knew all that it meant, and as she had the presence of mind to tear up her blotting-paper, no examining eyes were shocked by the sight of the expedients to which a senior candidate had been reduced in order to discover the total of six multiplied by six, or eight plus eleven. There were other moments, however, when the brain cleared and allowed a s.p.a.ce for intelligent work. More faintness came on again, and at the end she could announce to her companions that she had answered nine out of the twelve questions.

"What did you get for the square root?" enquired Kathleen anxiously.

"Irene's answer was different from mine; but I _did_ think I was right.

I went over it twice!"

The girls were all surging together in the ante-room, comparing answers, and referring eagerly to Irene, who read aloud her own list with a self- satisfied air. Those whose numbers agreed with hers announced the fact with whoops of joy, those who had differed knitted their brows and were silent. Kathleen looked worried and anxious, and could not think what she had been about to get "that decimal wrong."

"But it was horrible, wasn't it? The worst we have had."

"The wall-paper was vile," cried another voice indignantly. "_Toujours_ wall-paper! They might have a little originality, and think of something else. I longed to give Tom's answer!"

"It wasn't really difficult, but tricky! Decidedly tricky!" said Irene, with an air. She could afford to be superior, for there was no doubt that she had pa.s.sed! and pa.s.sed well. "The square root was absurdly easy." Then her eye fell on Rhoda, and she asked, kindly enough, "What did you make it, Rhoda? I hope you got on all right, and feel better."

"Thanks, yes; but I didn't put down my answers. I really can't remember what they were."

"And a good thing too! You have done your best, so don't worry over it any more, but come along to lunch!" cried Miss Everett, cheerily; and the girls obeyed with willing haste, for it was one of the "treats" of examination time to lunch in a restaurant, and be allowed to order what one chose.

Rhoda was so much revived by the walk and the joy of knowing the ordeal over that she was able to eat a morsel of chicken, but the fascinations of jam puffs had departed for the time being, and she could even look unmoved at the spectacle of a dozen strawberry ices in a row.

"If every candidate indulges in an ice a day, state accurately the number of bushels of fruit--" began Dorothy, with her mouth full of Vanilla biscuit, but she was promptly elbowed into silence; no one being in the mood for further calculations just then.

For the next four days the examination dragged its weary course, and Rhoda was carefully nursed and coddled so as to be able to stand the strain. She was sent to bed immediately on her return from the train; was not allowed to rise until eight o'clock; was dosed with nurse's pet tonic, and with Bovril and sandwiches between the papers, and for once she was sufficiently conscious of past errors to acknowledge that Nature could not be defied, and to attempt no more four o'clock preparation cla.s.ses. On the whole she got through fairly well, growing stronger each day, and even feeling occasional bursts of exultation at the conclusion of a paper which might have been written especially for her benefit. What rapture to be questioned about those very rules in French grammar which one had rubbed up the week before; to have pet pa.s.sages selected from Shakespeare, and find the Latin prose for translation become gradually intelligible, as one telling substantive gave the clue to the whole! Once a.s.sured of the meaning, it was easy to pick out the words, skimming lightly over difficult phrases, but making a great show of accuracy when opportunity arose. As to the elegance of the translation from English into Latin the less said the better, but even with a realisation of its shortcomings, Rhoda was hopeful of the result.

"They will say, `She doesn't know much, poor thing, but she has worked hard, and deserves to pa.s.s. Her grammar is good, and she has mastered the books. Oh, yes; certainly she has enough marks to pa.s.s.'"

"I think I have done fairly well in Latin," she told Miss Mott on her return, and that severe lady actually smiled, and said graciously:

"I hope you have. You have certainly worked with a will."

Miss Bruce, however, was not nearly so encouraging, and her last interview with her pupil was somewhat in the nature of a cold douche.

"Now that the week is over, Rhoda," she said, "I must tell you that I have felt a good deal of anxiety on your account, which I would not willingly have repeated. There is a strain about examinations which some girls feel more than others. The head of your house, for instance, Thomasina Bolderston, is a capital subject, and seems able to hit the happy medium between working hard and over-working; but you appear to suffer physically from the strain. I thought you seemed ill even before the breakdown on Monday, and I fear your parents will be far from satisfied with your looks. In the case of a girl who is preparing to earn her livelihood, and to whom certificates are all-important, one must take all reasonable precautions and then face the risk; but with you it is different. You are the only daughter of wealthy parents, and as, in all probability, you will never need to work for yourself, it would be wiser to content yourself with taking the ordinary school course and leaving examinations alone. I shall feel it my duty to acquaint your mother with my opinions, and to advise--"

Rhoda gave a gasp of dismay, and stared at her with horrified eyes.

"You will forbid me to go in for any more exams.! You won't allow me to try again?"

The Princ.i.p.al smiled slightly.

"That is, perhaps, over-stating the case. The final decision must, of course, rest with your parents. If, in opposition to my advice, they should still desire--"

But Rhoda heard no more. The idea that her father and mother should wish her to go in for any work which interfered with health was so impossible to conceive that it might as well be dismissed at once. With one fell crash her castle in the air had fallen to the ground and lay in ruins at her feet. If she had not done well this time, farewell for ever to her dreams of distinction, for no other opportunity would be granted!

For the first half of the holidays the thought weighed upon her with depressing force, but gradually, as health improved, the outlook lightened also, and she began to pose to herself in a new light. If she pa.s.sed well--and, despite her illness, she looked back on most of the papers with a feeling of complacency--if she won the scholarship, or even gained distinction, her reputation among her cla.s.s-mates would be to a certain extent established, and the fact that the delicate nature of her nervous system debarred her from further efforts would ent.i.tle her to a tribute of peculiar sympathy. When other girls succeeded, their companions would shake their heads, and whisper among themselves, "If Rhoda could only--"

"A good thing for her that Rhoda," etcetera, etcetera. In imagination she could hear the remarks, and her face unconsciously a.s.sumed the expression of meek endurance with which she would listen. And so more and more did the result of that week's work fill the horizon of her life; she thought of it day by day, and dreamt of it by night; she talked of it to Ella, until even that patient listener wearied of the theme; she counted the weeks, the days, the hours, until the report should arrive. And then one morning, half-way through breakfast, Mr Chester looked up from his eggs and bacon and remarked casually--as if it were an ordinary, commonplace subject, and not an affair of life and death:

"By the way, Rhoda, there is something about your examination in the paper to-day. I noticed the heading. You may like to see it!"

Rhoda leant back in her chair, and held out her hand in dumb entreaty.

The newspaper was open at the right page, and her eye fell at once on the familiar heading, and, underneath, a long list of numbers.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

FAILED!

First Cla.s.s, Second Cla.s.s, and still no sign of the familiar number.