Chapter XIV: The Hockey Match

The eventful day on which the Cliff School was to play the Redford School girls dawned clear and cloudless.

“It’s perfectly ripping weather for the match,” announced the captain from the bottom of the breakfast-table. “I’ve been shaking with nervousness all the week for fear it should be wet, and we should have to scratch it; but now there’s no fear of _that_, and the best thing we can do is to go out and have a look at the field. Who’ll help to roll the pitch?”

Almost everyone at the long table clamoured aloud for the privilege.

“But you must all remember,” said Miss Read from her place, “that this isn’t a holiday exactly; although, of course, you’re all free to watch the match in the afternoon, and there _is_ the feast to-night! This morning’s preparation must be done just as thoroughly as though to-day were the most ordinary Saturday of the term, and it will be best to leave the field to look after itself until all your school-work is finished.”

A few pigtailed heads shook themselves despairingly at these words of wisdom, and a few solemn voices were heard to proclaim that _they_ “couldn’t learn a single word” with such momentous doings ahead, but one and all suppressed their excited feelings manfully, and in less than half an hour four and twenty heads, bent industriously over the same number of desks in the preparation room, testified to the struggles that the girls were making to perform their usual duties.

Two hours later, Margot, traversing the corridor, inky-faced, and laden with exercise-books, but triumphant in the knowledge of lessons prepared, met Gretta emerging from the music-room, her violin-case in her hand.

“I’ve done, Gretta, have you? Oh, ripping, isn’t it! Let’s fetch Josy; she’s finished, I know, and we’ll go and roll the ground.”

On the field were Adela and Sybil, muffled in coats by nurse’s orders, and walking along arm in arm, with all the air of a pair of conspirators on some mysterious mission bent.

“Come on, you two!” shouted Josy, puffing with her exertions. “Come and help. This roller’s jolly heavy!”

“_They_ won’t come,” announced Joan Curtis, the school-baby, pushing manfully, and evidently feeling rather neglected by her friends; “they’re talking secrets, and they won’t let me hear.”

“Secrets! Rot!” laughed Josy. “Come and push, you two kids!” she called again. “It’s not fair to leave this for the team to do; they’ll need every jolly scrap of strength they’ve got for this afternoon.”

“If you mean _us_,” said Sybil, turning and surveying the breathless quartette with what Josy called “the most utter cheek!” in her face, “we’re _not_ kids, and we’re not coming! You can just roll your old grass yourselves!”

“All right, just wait till Helen comes along, young lazy-bones,” shouted Josy cheerily, and bent herself energetically to the task in hand.

“I can’t _think_ what’s come over Sybil lately,” said Gretta to Margot. “She’s so _frightfully_ cross.”

“Oh, mother’ll put her right,” declared her cousin with assurance, pushing manfully, “just wait till she comes.”

But things were to prove very different that afternoon from what was expected. The girls met at dinner--the team sedulously avoiding all puddings, while speaking longingly of the evening’s feast--and listened at the close of the meal to Miss Read’s final announcement.

“All of you are free after dinner,” she said, “to watch the match. The Redford girls get here at two o’clock, and Helen, you, as captain, must see that they are made at home by our team. The rest of you had better be on the field. Tea will be ready in the hall, nurse says, as soon as the match is over--that will be about a quarter to four, I expect, as the first whistle sounds at two-thirty. Those of you who have friends must look after them and see that they have tea; the team must look after the Redford girls, and all the rest of you must look after yourselves all the afternoon. Nurse and I shall both be busy the whole time with all kinds of preparations.”

If anyone had glanced in Sybil’s direction during the utterance by the house-mistress of her final remark they might have noticed a flush of excitement rise suddenly to her cheeks; but nobody did, and her face had resumed the rather peevish expression that it had worn for the last few days by the time grace had been said and it was time for the girls to leave the dining-room.

“Come on, Gretta and Margot!” exclaimed Josy, as soon as they were free; “let’s go to the window that looks on the side gate and watch for the Redford girls. They always drive over from their school, you know; it’s about four miles along the coast beyond this.”

The two friends agreed rapturously. Mrs. Fleming wouldn’t arrive just yet, Margot declared, since the time of the match had, by mistake, been omitted from her daughter’s letter, and Miss Slater would not sanction the sending of a wire to repair the mistake. Besides which, all the non-players were exceedingly anxious to view the rival team, and to decide from their appearance by methods of their own whether the antagonists were likely to prove victors or victims of to-day’s match.

“They don’t _look_ as if they’d been in any kind of training,” announced Josy sententiously, when after half an hour’s waiting at last the brake drew up, and a dozen exceedingly healthy-looking specimens of girlhood jumped down. “See that one by the driver! She’s a perfect tub!”

“But there’s that thin one with short hair; look at _her_!” adjured Margot critically. “She’s got eyes everywhere _already_, and she looks as though she’s got splendid muscle, don’t you think so?”

“Not so good as Helen’s, _I_ bet,” said someone else coming up behind. The conversation ceased abruptly as the observers rushed round to the school-entrance to watch the arrival of the visitors more closely.

Once in the field, Josy was mortified to find that the girl she had designated as a “tub” appeared to be the most important player of all and the captain of the team; a most responsible and energetic person, of whom the rest of her team stood in the deepest awe.

The mistaken one groaned in her horror. “If _that_ one’s the captain, and looks like _that_, what _must_ the others be, for they look quite decent players! They’ll beat us to splinters, I _know_ they will!”

“They won’t,” adjured Margot, stoutly. “Why, look at _our_ team, and remember the _days_ that they’ve had no pudding. I’d back our team anywhere, wouldn’t you, Gretta?”

The sudden sounding of the umpire’s whistle gave an exciting thrill to the onlookers, and the match began.

“Oh, I _wish_ mother was here! Everyone else’s people have come!” groaned Margot. “If _only_ I hadn’t been such an idiot as to forget to put the time!”

“And I can’t think why Stella hasn’t turned up yet,” remarked Gretta. “She said she would be sure to be here at the start, didn’t she?”

That question was answered on the instant by the appearance of Stella herself, who was seen to be advancing in a breathless rush across the field, waving her arms in a state of wild excitement.

“Oh, they’ve started! I _knew_ they would have! _How_ unlucky I always am! What’s the score? Any goals? Oh, I _am_ glad I’m in time to see the first,” she announced in a single breath, as she reached the side of her three friends. “Jim _wouldn’t_ hurry, and I knew we’d be late!”

“Hallo, Stella!” cried the three in unison, but with only a very small fragment of attention to spare for the new-comer and her remarks, as their eyes followed jealously the journeyings up and down the field of the hockey ball. “Good! Helen!--Play UP!”

The shouting died down a little, and Stella, always conversational, began again.

“Oh, I’ve something to tell you. You, Gretta, especially. I saw----”

“Shut up, Stella, till half-time, can’t you?” This from Josy, who could find interest in nothing but the progress of the game.

“But I _must_ tell Gretta! Gretta, I saw----!”

The whistle sounded, and there was a thunder of clapping and stamping, while voices shrill and clear applauded the Cliff School for the first goal of the game.

“I wonder how Sybil’s enjoying it,” said Gretta, pink with excitement, and glancing round the assembled crowd of onlookers in search of her little sister.

“But that’s what I _mean_!” began Stella again. “Gretta, I _saw_ Sybil. I was driving up, about a mile away, and she was walking----”

“What!” Margot and Gretta turned simultaneously. “Sybil--a mile away! But how _could_ she be?”

“Well, she was, anyway. I _would_ have stopped the trap but I was so frightfully late. I’ve been trying to tell you for ages, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“And you let her go on?” Margot was crimson. “Stella, how could you? Gretta, what could Sybil have been doing? Sybil--a mile away!”

“I can’t imagine.” Gretta was shaking with anxiety; the match was forgotten, and she turned for help to her cousin. “Margot, have you any idea? Could she be unhappy and be trying to get home? I never thought--Oh, how selfish I’ve been.”

“You’ve not,” said Margot, thinking rapidly. “I know what it is. She’s off to the ‘Little House’; that’s where she’s gone; and it’s my fault, not yours. She’ll get there, too, if she was a mile away when Stella saw her. She must have started the minute after dinner. Oh, Gretta, and she’ll be terrified if she really meets that old man, and goes to his house and----”

“Well, _I_ didn’t know,” began Stella, rather shamefacedly.

“Look here, Stella, is your trap waiting?” burst in Margot. “I’m going after her. May I ask your boy to drive me? I’ll catch her up, perhaps, before she gets there, and bring her back.”

“I suppose you can,” Stella was beginning rather doubtfully, but Gretta and Josy burst in: “Look here, Margot, let’s ask Miss Read what to do. We’re not allowed----”

“There isn’t any time,” said Margot angrily; “and you _know_ that Miss Read said she’d be busy all the afternoon. I’m going this instant, whatever you say, and I don’t care if I _am_ breaking rules--there’s nothing else to do.”

She rushed across the field as she spoke to the path that led to the school entrance, leaving the others to look after her with anxious faces.