A Bunch of Cherries: A Story of Cherry Court School

"I do wish, Florence, my darling," she said, "you could manage to let me have some of that pocket-money which your Aunt Susan sends you every week. If I could give the doctor even one pound I know he would wait for the rest, and then there is the chemist, too, and I have to be a little careful now that the weather is getting chilly, and must have fires in the evening, and so on. Oh, I am quite well, my precious pet, but a little help from you would see me round this tight corner."

Florence ground her teeth and her eyes flashed. The little Mummy ill, ill almost to the point of danger. Better now, it is true, but wanting those comforts which Aunt Susan had in such abundance.

"I cannot stand it," thought the girl. "What is to be done? By fair means or foul, I must get that Scholarship. Oh, I fear nothing. I believe I am sure to win if only I can beat Kitty on her own ground. Her ground is history and literature. There is to be a horrible theme written, and a great deal depends on how that theme is handled, and I am no good at all at composition. I have no power with regard to picturesque writing. I cannot see pictures like Kitty can. I believe Sir John has set that theme on purpose, in order to give Kitty an advantage; if so, it is horribly unfair of him."

Florence muttered these words to herself; then she glanced again at her mother's letter. She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out her purse. That purse, owing to Aunt Susan's bounty, contained over two pounds. Florence resolved to send that two pounds to her mother immediately. She began to write, but had scarcely finished her letter before Bertha Keys, equipped for a walk, briskly entered the room.

"I am going to Hilchester," she said; "have you any message, Florence?"

"Oh, I should be so much obliged if you would post a letter for me," said Florence.

"I will, with pleasure," replied Bertha.

"Can you wait five minutes? I shall not be longer than that writing it."

"Yes," replied Bertha. She went and stood by the low window-ledge, and Florence bent over her sheet of paper. She wrote rapidly, a burning flush coming into each cheek.

"Oh, darling little Mummy," she wrote, "I am sending you all the money I have. Yes, you may be quite certain I will win the Scholarship by fair means or foul. I feel nearly mad when I think of your sufferings; but never mind, once the Scholarship is won and I am declared to the world to be the Cherry Court Scholarship girl, once I am crowned queen on the great day of the Scholarship competition, I shall, I perceive well, be able to do exactly what I like with Aunt Susan, and then be sure you shall not want. Please, dear Mummy, pay what is necessary of this to the doctor, and get yourself what you can in the way of nourishment. I am most, most anxious about you, my own darling little Mummy, and I vow at any risk that you shall have my ten shillings a week for the present. What do the girls at the school matter? What matters anything if you are ill? Oh, do take care of yourself for my sake, Mummy."

Bertha Keys moved restlessly, and Florence, having addressed the envelope and stamped it, went up to her.

"Look here," she said, eagerly, "I wish I could come with you, but I can't, for I have my lessons to prepare, and this is the night of the conversazione. If you would be truly kind, would you do something for me!"

"Of course I'll be truly kind," said Bertha; "I take a great interest in you, Miss Aylmer, but who would not who knew you well?"

"What do you mean by that?" said Florence, who was keenly susceptible to flattery.

Bertha gave a little contemptuous sniff.

"You are the only girl in the school whose friendship is worth cultivating," she said; "you have go and courage, and some day you will be very handsome; yes, I feel sure of it. I wish you would let me help you to form your figure; you might draw your stays a little tighter, and do your hair differently. I wish you would let me be your friend. You are the only girl in the school whose friendship I care twopence about."

"What!" said Florence, trembling slightly and looking full into Bertha's face, "do you think more about me than you do of Kitty Sharston?"

The pupil teacher gave a slight shrug of her shoulders.

"Miss Sharston," she said; "oh, a nice little girl, very nice and very amiable, but, my dear Miss Aylmer, you and she are not in the same running at all. But there, I must be quick; I have to return home in time to undress the little ones. Oh, what a lot is mine, and I pine for so much, so much that I can never have."

"Poor girl, I am sorry for you," said Florence; "but there, I won't keep you any longer. See, this is what I want you to do. Will you convert these two sovereigns into a postoffice order, and will you put it into this letter, and then fasten the envelope and put the whole into the post?"

Florence gave some more directions with regard to the postoffice order. In 1870 postal orders, much simpler things, were unknown. Bertha Keys promised, took in all the directions quickly, and started off on her mission.

She walked down the road as briskly as possible. The distance between Hilchester and Cherry Court School was between two and three miles. The road was a lonely one. Bertha presently crossed a stile and found herself in a shady lane. When she reached this point she looked behind her and in front of her; there was no one in sight. Then taking Florence's letter out of her pocket, she slowly and quietly read the contents. Having read them, a smile flitted across her face.

"Little Mummy," she said aloud, "you must do without your two pounds. Bertha Keys wants this money a great deal more urgently than you do. Florence must suppose that her letter has got lost in the post. Let her suppose what she will, this money is mine."

Having made these remarks under her breath, Bertha calmly tore poor Florence's letter into a thousand tiny fragments. These she scattered to the four winds, and then, humming a gay air to herself, proceeded on her way to Hilchester. She transacted her business, went to a shop and purchased out of one of Florence's sovereigns some gay ribbons and laces for her own bedizenment, and then returned home.

"Did you post my letter?" said Florence, who met her in one of the corridors.

"Yes, dear, I am glad to say it caught the evening post."

"Then that's right, and mother will receive it early to-morrow," thought the girl to herself.

The feeling that her money would relieve her mother contrived to ease her overburdened conscience, and she was more cheerful and happy-looking that evening.

The next day at an early hour, as Florence was standing in the oak parlor alone for a wonder, for neither Mary Bateman nor Kitty Sharston were present, Bertha Keys came into the room.

"The subject of the composition is to be set this afternoon," she said. "You are good at composition, are you not, Miss Aylmer?"

"No, that is it – I am very bad indeed," replied Florence.

"I am very sorry, for I believe a great deal turns on the way the themes are done. They must be very good ones."

"I must do my best," said Florence, in a gloomy voice; "there is not the least doubt that I shall beat Kitty Sharston in mathematics and arithmetic, and as to Mary Bateman, she has not a scrap of imagination in her composition."

"But the little Kitty has a great deal," said Miss Keys, in a reflective tone. "I have read some of her themes; she has a poetical mind. The programme for the great day is to be given out also this afternoon, and I believe Sir John intends to read the three Scholarship essays aloud, and the guests present are then to vote with regard to the fortunate winner. Of course, the theme will not quite decide the Scholarship, but it will go a very long way in that direction. I have seen Sir John, and I know that all his tendencies, all his feelings are in favor of Miss Sharston."

"There is little doubt on that point," replied Florence; "if it were not for Kitty Sharston this Scholarship would never have been offered. I wish it never had been offered," she continued, with a burst of confidence which she could scarcely repress. "Oh, Miss Keys, I have a great weight on my mind; I am a miserable girl."

"I see you are, but why don't you confide in me? I believe I could sympathize with you; I also believe I could help you."

"I will, I must win," said poor Florence. "Oh, I could scarcely sleep last night with thinking of my mother. I am so truly, truly glad that you were able to post that letter in time; but for your happening to go to Hilchester she would not have had it this morning. Now she must be feeling great relief."

"I can post as many more letters to your mother as you like," said Bertha Keys. "I will do anything in my power for you; I want you to believe that. I want you to believe also that I am in a position to give you serious and substantial help."

"Thank you," said Florence. She gazed into Bertha's eyes, and felt a strange thrill.

Bertha had a rare power of magnetism, and could influence almost any girl who had not sufficiently high principles to withstand her power.

She now hastily left the oak parlor to attend to her studies, and Florence sat down to begin her studies. Her head ached, and she felt restless and miserable. She envied Kitty's serene face and Mary Bateman's downright, sensible way of attacking her subjects.

"I cannot think how you keep so calm about it," she said to Mary, in the course of that morning; "suppose you lose?"

"I have thought it all out," answered Mary, "and I cannot do more than my best. If I succeed I shall be truly, truly glad. If I fail I shall be no worse off than I was before. I wish you would feel as I do about it, Florry, and not make yourself quite ill over the subject. The fact is you are not half as nice as you were last term when everyone called you Tommy."

"Oh, I know, I know," answered Florence, "but I cannot go back now. What do you think the theme for the Scholarship will be?"

"I have not the slightest idea. That theme will be Kitty's strong point; there is not the slightest doubt about that."

Florence bent again over her French exercise. She was fairly good at French, and her German was also passable, but as she read and worked and struggled through a difficult piece of translation her thoughts wandered again and again to the subject of the English theme. What would it be? History, poetry, or anything literary?

The more she thought, the less she liked the idea of this supreme test.

Dinner passed, and the moment for the reassembling of the school for afternoon work arrived. Just as all the girls were streaming into the large schoolroom, Mrs. Clavering came hurriedly forward.

"Before you begin your duties this afternoon, young ladies," she said, "I have received a communication from Sir John, and as you are all interested in the Scholarship, which may be offered another year to some further girls of Cherry Court School, I may as well say that I have just received a letter from him suggesting the theme for the essay. I will repeat to you what he has said."

Mrs. Clavering stood beside her desk and looked down the long school-room. The room contained at this moment every girl in the school, also the teachers. Florence glanced in the direction of Bertha Keys. She was standing just where a ray of light from one of the windows caught the reflection of her red hair, which surrounded her pale face like a glory. She wore it, not in the fashion of the day, but in an untidy and yet effective style. The girls of the day wore their hair neatly plaited and smooth to their heads.