CHAPTER IX.
CONSCIENCE AND DIFFICULTIES.

All the people who knew her were beginning to make a fuss over Ruth Craven. She who had hardly ever been noticed during the early part of her life, who was just her grandfather's darling and her grandmother's idol, was now petted and made much of and fussed over by every one. It was quite an extraordinary thing for the paying girls of the Great Shirley School to be so interested and excited about a foundationer. Cassandra Weldon was not the only girl who had taken Ruth up; some of the best and nicest girls of the school began to patronize her. The fact was that she was very modest and a perfect lady, and it was impossible to feel anything but good-will towards her. The rest of the foundation girls at first determined that they would leave her with her fine friends, but when Jenny insisted on Ruth's joining the secret society of the Wild American Sluts, they were obliged to submit.

'We'd do anything in the world for our queen,' said Susy Hopkins, talking to another foundation girl one day as they strolled along the road. 'It is to-night we are to meet again, and she says she will bring the rules all drawn up, and she will read them to us. There are about thirty of us now, and more and more offer to join every day. The difficulty is that we have got to keep the thing from the knowledge of the teachers and the paying girls of the school. Jenny is certain that it would be suppressed if it were known; and it must not be known, for it is the biggest lark and the greatest fun we ever had in all our lives.'

'Yes,' said Rosy Myers; 'I feel now quite honoured at being a foundation girl.'

'She does promise us wonderful things,' said Kate Rourke. 'She says when the summer comes we shall have all sorts of nice excursions. Of course, we can't do anything special in the daytime, unless sometimes on Saturday, when we have a whole holiday; but at least; she says, the nights are our own and we can do as we like. It really is grand. I suppose it is wicked, but then that makes it rather more fascinating.'

'We are in the queen's Cabinet, bless her, the duck!' said Susy Hopkins. 'There are a dozen of us now, and there is talk of a sort of livery or badge for the members of the Cabinet; but we'll know all about it when we meet at nine to-night. We are the twelve members of the Cabinet, and there are about twenty girls who are our sort of standing army. It is really most exciting.'

The girls talked a little longer and then parted. As Susy Hopkins was running home helter-skelter - for she wanted to get her lessons done in order to be fully in time for the meeting that evening - she met Ruth Craven. Ruth was walking slowly by with her usual demure and sweet expression.

'Hullo!' called out Susy. 'We'll meet to-night, sha'n't we?'

'I don't know,' said Ruth.

'Aren't you coming? Why, you are sort of Prime Minister to the queen.'

'You don't think it right really, do you,' said Ruth - 'not from the bottom of your heart, I mean?'

'Right or wrong, I mean to enjoy myself,' said Susy Hopkins. 'I suppose, if you come to analyse it, it is wrong, and not right. But, dear me, Ruth! what fun should we poor girls have if we were too particular on these points?'

'It always seems to me that it is worth while to do right,' said Ruth.

'So you say, but I don't quite agree with you. You will come to-night, in any case, won't you?'

'Yes, I will come to-night; but I am not happy about it, and I wish Jenny - Oh, I know it is very fascinating, and Jenny is just delightful, but I should not like our teachers to know.'

'Of course not,' said Susy, staring at her. 'They'd soon put a stop to it.'

'Are you certain? I know so little about the school.'
 

'Certain? I'm convinced. Why, they'd be furious. I expect we'd be spanked and expelled.'

'Then that proves it. I didn't know there was any strict rule about it.'

'Why, what are you made of, Ruth Craven?'

'I thought,' said Ruth, 'that when we were not in school we were our own mistresses.'

'To a certain extent, of course; but we have what is called the school character to keep up. We have, as it were, to uphold the spirit of the school. Now the spirit of the school is quite against secrecy in any form. Oh dear, why will you drag all this out of me? I'd made up my mind not to think of it, and now you have forced me to say it. Of course you will come to-night. You have to think of Jenny as well as the school, and she's gone to a fearful lot of expense. You could not by any possibility forsake her, could you?'

'No, of course not,' said Ruth very slowly.

She bade Susy good-bye and walked on; her attitude was that of one who was thinking hard.

'Ruth is very pretty,' said Susy to herself, 'but I don't know that I quite admire her. She is the sort of girl that everybody loves, and I am not one to admire a universal favourite. She is frightfully, tiresomely good, and she's just too pretty; and she's not a bit vain, and she's not a bit puffed up. Oh, she is just right in every way, and yet I feel that I hate her. She has got the sort of conscience that will worry our queen to distraction. Still, once she joins she'll have to obey our rules, and I expect our queen will make them somewhat stringent.'

A clock from a neighbouring church struck the half-hour. Susy looked up, uttered an exclamation, put wings to her feet, and ran the rest of the way home. Susy's home was in the High Street of the little town of Merrifield. Her mother kept a fairly flourishing sex shop, in one part of which was a video store. Some ladies were buying videos as Susy dashed through the shop on her way to the family rooms at the back. Mrs. Hopkins was selling condoms to a couple of boys; she looked up as her daughter entered. Susy went into the parlour, where tea was laid on the table. It consisted of a stale loaf, some indifferent butter, and a little jam. The tea, in a pewter teapot, was weak; the milk was sky-blue, and the jug that held it was cracked.

Susy poured out a cup of tea, drank it off at a gulp, snatched a piece of bread-and-butter from the plate, and sat down to prepare her lessons at another table. She had two hours' hard work before her, and it was already nearly six o'clock. The quarry was a little distance away, and she must tidy herself and do all sorts of things. Just then her mother came in.

'Oh, Susy,' she said, 'I am so glad you have come! I want you to attend to the shop for the next hour. I am sent for in a hurry to my sister's; she has a bad cold, and wants me to call in. I think little Peter is not well; your aunt is afraid he is catching measles. Run into the shop the moment you have finished your tea, like a good child. You can take one of your lesson-books with you if you like. There won't be many customers at this hour.'

'Oh, mother, I did really want to work hard at my lessons. They are very difficult, you know, and you promised that when I went to the Great Shirley School you'd never interfere with my lesson hours.'

'I did say so, and of course I don't mean to interfere; but this is a special case.'

'Can't Tommy go and stand in the shop? If any special customers come in I will attend to them.'

'No, Tommy can't. He has a headache and is lying down upstairs. You must oblige me this time, Susy. You can sit up a little longer to-night to finish your lessons if you are much interrupted while I am away.'

'You are sure you will not be more than an hour, mother?'

'Oh, certain.'

'And I suppose in any case I may shut up the shop at seven o'clock, mayn't I?'

'Shut the shop at seven o'clock!' said Mrs. Hopkins. 'You forget that this is Wednesday. We always keep the shop, except the video store part, open until past nine on Wednesdays; such a lot of people come in for odds and ends on this special night. But I will be back long before nine. Don't on any account shut the shop until I appear.'

Susy, feeling cross and miserable, all her bright hopes dashed to the ground, took a couple of books and went into the shop and sat behind the counter. The days were getting short and cold, and as the shop door was opened there was a thorough draught where she was sitting. Her feet grew icy cold; she could scarcely follow the meaning of her somewhat difficult lessons. No customers appeared.

'How stupid I am!' thought the little girl. 'This will never do.'

She roused herself, and bending forward, propped her book open before her. Presently she heard the clock outside strike seven.

'Mother will be back now, thank goodness!' she thought. 'If I work desperately hard, and stop my ears so that I needn't hear a sound, I may have done by nine o'clock.'

Just at that moment two ladies came in to ask for a special sort of video. Susy, who was never in the least interested in the shop, did not know where to find it. She rummaged about, making a great mess amongst her mother's neat stores; and finally she was obliged to say that she did not know where it was.

'Never mind,' said one of the ladies, kindly; 'I will come in again next time I am passing. It doesn't matter this evening.'

Susy felt vexed; she knew her mother would blame her for sending the ladies away without completing a purchase. And they had scarcely left before she found the box which contained the video. She pushed it out of sight on the shelf, and sat down again to her book. Her mother ought to be coming in now. Susy would have to do a lot of exercises; these she could not by any possibility do in the shop. She had also some mathematical work to get through or she would never be able to keep her place in class. Why didn't Mrs. Hopkins return? Half-an-hour went by; three-quarters. It was now a quarter to eight. Susy felt quite distracted. With the exception of the two ladies, there had been no customer in the shop up to the present. The fact was, they did not begin to appear until soon after eight on Wednesday evenings. Then the schoolgirls and schoolboys and many other people of the poorer class used to drop in for remaindered stock of videos, for magazines, for condoms, for rubber dolls, &c.

'Mother must be in soon. I know what I will do,' said Susy. 'I will open the door of the parlour and sit there. If any one appears I can dash out at once.'

No sooner had the thought come to her than she resolved to act on it. She turned on the lights in the parlour - it was already brightly lighted in the shop - and sat down to her work.

'An hour and a quarter before the meeting of the Wild American Sluts,' she said to herself. 'Strange, is it not, that I should call myself a Wild American Girl when I am a Cockney through and through? Well, whatever happens, I shall be at the meeting.'