The Luckiest Girl in the School | Page 2

Highfield?" she asked her
brother anxiously.
"Bunkum!" replied that light-hearted youth. "We always have more or
less of a fuss when my school bills come in. It'll soon fizzle out again!
Don't you fret yourself. Things will jog on as they always have jogged
on. There'll be nothing done, you'll see. Come on and bowl for me,
that's a chubby one!"
"But this time mother really seemed to be in earnest," said Winona
meditatively, as she helped to put up the stumps.
Mrs. Woodward had been left a widow three years before this story
opens. She was a fair, fragile little woman, still pretty, and pathetically
helpless. She had been accustomed to lean upon her husband, and now,
for lack of firmer support, she leaned upon Winona. Winona was young
to act as prop, and though it flattered her sense of importance, it had put
a row of wrinkles on her girlish forehead. At fifteen she seemed much
older than Percy at sixteen. No one ever dreamt of taking Percy

seriously; he was one of those jolly, easy-going, happy-go-lucky,
unreliable people who saunter through life with no other aim than to
amuse themselves at all costs. To depend upon him was like trusting to
a boat without a bottom. Though nominally the eldest, he had little
more sense of responsibility than Ernie, the youngest. It was Winona
who shouldered the family burdens.
The Woodwards had always lived at Highfield, and in their opinion it
was the most desirable residence in the whole of Rytonshire. The house
was old enough to be picturesque, but modern enough for comfort. Its
quaint gables, mullioned windows and Cromwellian porch were the joy
of photographers, while the old-fashioned hall, when the big log fire
was lighted, would be hard to beat for coziness. The schoolroom, on
the ground floor, had a separate side entrance on to the lawn, leading
through a small ante-room where boots and coats and cricket bats and
tennis rackets could be kept; the drawing-room had a luxurious ingle
nook with cushioned seats, and all the bedrooms but two had a southern
aspect. As for the big rambling garden, it was full of delightful
old-world flowers that came up year after year: daffodils and violets
and snow-flakes, and clumps of pinks, and orange lilies and Canterbury
bells, and tall Michaelmas daisies, and ribbon grass and royal Osmunda
fern, the sort of flowers that people used to pick in days gone by, put a
paper frill round, and call a nosegay or a posy. There was a lawn for
tennis and cricket, a pond planted with irises and bulrushes, and a wild
corner where crocuses and coltsfoot and golden aconite came up as
they liked in the spring time.
Winona loved this garden with somewhat the same attachment that a
French peasant bears for the soil upon which he has been reared. She
rejoiced in every yard of it. To go away and resign it to others would be
tragedy unspeakable. The fear that Aunt Harriet might recommend the
family to leave Highfield was sufficient to darken her horizon
indefinitely. That her mother had written to consult the oracle she was
well aware, for she had been sent to post the letter. She had an
instinctive apprehension that the answer would prove a turning-point in
her career.

For a day or two everything went on as usual. Mrs. Woodward did not
again allude to her difficulties, Percy had conveniently forgotten them,
and the younger children were not aware of their existence. Winona
lived with a black spot dancing before her mental eyes. It was
continually rising up and blotting out the sunshine. On the fourth
morning appeared a letter addressed in an old-fashioned slanting
handwriting, and bearing the Seaton post mark. Mrs. Woodward read it
in silence, and left her toast unfinished. Aunt Harriet's communications
generally upset her for the day.
"Come here, Winona," she said agitatedly, after breakfast. "Oh, dear, I
wish I knew what to do! It's so very unexpected, but of course it would
be a splendid thing for you. If only I could consult somebody! I
suppose girls nowadays will have to learn to support themselves, and
the war will alter everything, but I'd always meant you to stop at home
and look after the little ones for me, and it's very--"
"What does Aunt Harriet say, mother?" interrupted Winona, with a
catch in her throat.
"She says a great deal, and I dare say she's right. Oh, this terrible war!
Things were so different when I was a girl! You might as well read the
letter for yourself, as it concerns you. I always think she's hard on
Percy, poor lad! I was afraid the children were too noisy the last time
she was here, but they wouldn't keep quiet.