And at length spring was gone and summer come, and the momentous week arrived on which her future depended. Now, though, she was not alone in her trepidation. The eyes of even the surest members of the form had a steely glint in them, and mouths were hard. Dr. Pughson’s papers were said to be far more formidable than the public examination: if you got happily through these, you were safe.
Six subjects were compulsory; high-steppers took nine. Laura was one of those with eight, and since her two obligatory mathematics were not to be relied on, she could not afford to fail in a single subject.
In the beginning, things, with the exception of numbers, went pretty well with her. Then came the final day, and with it the examination in history. Up to the present year Laura had cut a dash in history; now her brain was muddled, her memory overtaxed, by her having had to cram the whole of Green’s History of the English People in a few months, besides a large dose of Greece and Rome. Reports ran of the exceptionally “catchy” nature of Dr. Pughson’s questions; and Laura’s prayer, the night before, was more like a threat than a supplication. The class had only just entered the Headmaster’s room on the eventful morning, and begun to choose desks, when there came a summons to Laura to take a music-lesson. This was outside consideration, and Dr. Pughson made short work of the intruder—a red-haired little girl, who blushed meekly and unbecomingly, and withdrew. Here, however, Laura rose and declared that, under these circumstances, some explanation was due to Monsieur Boehmer, the music-master, today’s lesson being in fact a rehearsal for the annual concert.
Dr. Pughson raised his red-rimmed eyes from his desk and looked very fierce.
“Tch, tch, tch!” he snapped, in the genial Irish fashion that made him dreaded and adored. “How like a woman that is! Playing at concerts when she can’t add two and two together!—Your arithmetic paper’s fit for Punch, Miss Rambotham.”
The smile he looked for went round.
“Have you seen the questions?—no? Well, give them here then. You’ve got to go, I suppose, or we might deprive the concert of your shining light. Hurry back, now. Stir your stumps!”
But this Laura had no intention of doing. In handling the printed slip, her lagging eye had caught the last and most vital question: “Give a full account of Oliver Cromwell’s Foreign Policy.”—And she did not know it! She dragged out her interview with the music-master, put questions wide of the point, insisted on lingering till he had arranged another hour for the postponed rehearsal; and, as she walked, as she talked, as she listened to Monsieur Boehmer’s ridiculous English, she strove in vain to recall jot or tittle of Oliver’s relations to foreign powers. Oh, for just a peep at the particular page of Green! For, if once she got her cue, she believed she could go on.
The dining-hall was empty when she went through it on her way back to the classroom: her history looked lovingly at her from its place on the shelf. But she did not dare to go over to it, take it out, and turn up the passage: that was too risky. What she did do, however, when she had almost reached the door, was to dash back, pull out a synopsis—a slender, medium-sized volume—and hastily and clumsily button this inside the bodice of her dress. The square, board-like appearance it gave her figure, where it projected beyond the sides of her apron, she concealed by hunching her shoulders.
Her lightning plan was, to enter a cloakroom, snatch a hurried peep at Oliver’s confounded policy, then hide the book somewhere till the examination was over. But on emerging from the dining-hall she all but collided with the secretary, who had come noiselessly across the verandah; and she was so overcome by the thought of the danger she had run, and by Miss Blount’s extreme surprise at Dr. Pughson’s leniency, that she allowed herself to be driven back to the examination-room without a word.
The girls were hard at it; they scarcely glanced up when she opened the door. From her friends’ looks, she could judge of the success they were having. Cupid, for instance, was smirking to herself in the peculiar fashion that meant satisfaction; M. P.’s cheeks were the colour of monthly roses. And soon Laura, crouching low to cover her deformity, was at work like the rest.
Had only Oliver Cromwell never been born!—thus she reflected, when she had got the easier part of the paper behind her. Why could it not have been a question about Bourke and Wills, or the Eureka Stockade, or the voyages of Captain Cook? … something about one’s own country, that one had heard hundreds of times and was really interested in. Or a big, arresting thing like the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, or Hannibal’s March over the Alps? Who cared for old Oliver, and his shorn head, and his contempt for baubles! What did it matter now to anyone what his attitude had been, more than two hundred years ago, to all those faraway, dreamlike countries? … Desperately she pressed her hand to her eyes. She knew the very page of Green on which Cromwell’s foreign relations were set forth; knew where the paragraph began, near the foot of the page: what she could not get hold of was the opening sentence that would have set her mechanical memory a-rolling.
The two hours drew steadily to a close. About half an hour beforehand the weakest candidates began to rise, to hand in their papers and leave the room; but it was not till ten minutes to twelve that the “crack” girls stopped writing. Laura was to be allowed an extra
