Free Summer at the Haven by Katharine Moore Page B

more cheerful exactly, but less of a shadow. One used scarcely to be aware of her. Now, if only it wasn’t for that dreadful Miss Ford with her all the time, I believe she could be quite a nice friendly person.”
    “I can’t think why you want everyone to be friendly,” said Frances Dawson, though without rancour, adding “but I suppose you can’t help it.”
    “Can it be just Tom’s nosegays that have changed her?” mused Mrs Perry, taking no notice of Miss Dawson’s remark.
    But though Tom’s offerings were not without their effect, the change in Dorothy Brown which Mrs Perry had noticed had come about through a completely chance event. Yet this too was connected with the boy. Leila Ford had managed to keep him out of her room by bribing Gisela to do extra cleaning with some of the chocolates she always kept near her, but she could not avoid him altogether. One day, when she and Dorothy were returning to their rooms after dinner, they saw him coming towards them down a passage. Pleased at the meeting and feeling that he had not yet managed to show that he wanted to be friends with Lady Miss Ford, Tom ran towards her with his hand held out in his usual greeting. To her horror Dorothy then saw Leila raise the stick which she now always used to support her great bulk and strike at his outstretched arm, so that it fell to his side.
    “Get away – you!” she cried, but Tom stood still. Dorothy, as if impelled by an almost reflex action, immediately stepped up to him and kissed him. Then she went into her own room and shut the door.
    At first she was overcome with rage at Leila and surprise at herself. Gradually both anger and surprise faded away. She sat down on her bed ignoring, indeed not even hearing, the imperious tapping on her wall, Leila’scustomary summons. She knew that something very important had happened to her and that she had to find out what it was. She sat on, and eventually certain facts presented themselves to her. First, that she hated Leila and had done so for years: secondly, that the Leila she had once loved had never existed; thirdly, that Leila had never cared for her and perhaps had never cared for anyone; and lastly, that she had been too cowardly at the beginning and latterly too tired to admit all this to herself. It was as if Leila’s stick had struck down not just Tom’s arm but the whole false defensive wall that Dorothy had built all these years out of her longing and her pride – a defence against reality. She sat on and felt an extraordinary lightening of spirit. “The truth shall make you free.” She knew now something of what these words meant.
    Suddenly she became conscious of Leila’s insistent renewed angry tapping. She felt emptied of both love and hate and, instead, an immense pity filled her heart. She got up and went to attend to her friend.
    Miss Dawson was not much aware of Tom at first. She did not usually care for boys, classing them with cats as the natural enemies of birds. Mary Perry had told her that Tom was a nice boy, but Mary was too apt to think everyone nice. Still, she admitted that as yet she had nothing against him. There had been a native boy on one of her Himalayan trips of whom she had once been quite fond and though he was all grace and this boy was uncouth, yet Tom reminded her of him somehow. They both had the same open, gentle look.
    One day, sitting by her window, she heard a sound she hated. It was Lord Jim, yowling triumphantly to let the world know that he had successfully tracked down and caught his prey. The peculiar unmistakable tone of the cry was occasioned by his mouth being full of his wretched victim. Miss Dawson peered out. Yes, therethe beast was, carrying what looked very much like another thrush, pitifully quiet and still. Thrushes were especially vulnerable, being slow and trusting birds, and this was the third that she had known Lord Jim take already this summer, and there might of course have been others. Then she saw Tom