Concerns Cynthia
"Look here!" said Hermie to Raymonde two days later, when the latter
was helping the monitress to put away the wood-carving tools; "what's
the matter with Cynthia Greene? She's behaving in the most idiotic
fashion--goes mincing about the school, and sighing, and even mopping
her eyes when she thinks anybody's looking at her. What's she posing
about now?"
"She says she feels lonely--and fair-haired and blue-eyed--at least
that's what she wrote inside her strawberry basket," volunteered
Raymonde.
"What in the name of the Muses do you mean?"
Raymonde explained. The monitress listened aghast.
"Well, I call that the limit!" she exploded. "The little monkey! Why,
Gibbie would slay her if she knew! Such an atrociously cheeky,
unladylike thing to do, and putting her address here at the Grange!
Bringing discredit on the school! I don't suppose whoever finds it
will take any notice."
"She's hoping for an answer," said Raymonde. "I believe she's just
yearning to be mixed up in a love affair."
"At thirteen!" scoffed Hermie. "The silly young blighter! I'd like to
shake her!"
"If you do, she'll be rather pleased than otherwise," returned
Raymonde. "She'll pose as a martyr then, and say the world is
unsympathetic. I'm beginning to know Cynthia Greene."
"I believe you're right!" said the monitress thoughtfully.
Sentiment was not encouraged at the Grange. Miss Beasley very rightly
thought that girls should keep their childhood as long as possible,
and that premature love affairs wiped the bloom off genuine later
experiences. The school in general assumed the attitude of scoffing at
romance, except in the pages of the library books. It was not
considered good form to allude to it. Tennis or hockey was a more
popular topic.
"So Cynthia's trying to run the sentimental business," mused Hermie.
"It'll spread if we don't take care. It's as infectious as measles.
I'm not going to have all those juniors wandering about the garden,
reading poetry instead of practising their cricket--it's not good
enough. Yet it's difficult for a monitress to interfere. As you say,
Cynthia would take a melancholy pride in being persecuted. Look here,
Raymonde, you're a young blighter yourself sometimes, but you don't go
in for this kind of rubbish. Can't you think of some plan to nip the
thing in the bud before it goes further? You're generally inventive
enough!"
"If I might have a free hand for a day or two, I might manage
something," admitted Raymonde with caution.
"I'd tell the other monitresses to let you alone. I don't mind how
you contrive it, as long as you knock the nonsense out of the juniors.
Cynthia Greene of all people, too! The former ornament of The Poplars,
who used to keep up the tone (so she says) and set an example to the
rest. What is she coming to? I should think they'd want that bracelet
back, if they knew!"
The Mystic Seven had a special Committee Meeting before tea, and
pledged one another to utmost secrecy. The result of their
confabulations seemed satisfactory to themselves, for they parted
chuckling.
The next morning, when Cynthia Greene went to her desk to take out a
lesson book, she found inside a letter addressed to herself. She
opened it in a whirl of excitement. It was written in a slanting,
backward kind of hand, with a very thick pen. Its contents ran thus:
"Dear Miss Cynthia,
"Being the fortunate recipient of the card placed in a strawberry
basket, and bearing your name, I am venturing to answer it. I,
too, am lonely, and long for friendship. I admire blue eyes and
fair hair; I myself am dark. I should like immensely to meet you.
Could you possibly be at the side gate of your garden shortly
after seven this evening? I shall arrive by motor, and walk past
on the chance of seeing you.
"Yours respectfully but devotedly,
"Algernon Augustus Fitzmaurice."
The conduct of Cynthia during the course of the day was extraordinary.
She exhibited a mixture of self-importance and fluttering
anticipation that was highly puzzling to her companions. She refused
to explain, but dropped sufficient hints to arouse interest. It was
presently whispered among the juniors that Cynthia had received a
love-letter from somebody highly distinguished and aristocratic.
"Did it come by post?" asked Joan Butler.
"No, of course not. Gibbie would never have given it to her if it had.
Cynthia found it inside her desk. She doesn't know who put it there.
It's most mysterious."
For the day, Cynthia was a heroine of romance among her Form. She
played the part admirably, wearing an abstracted expression in her
blue eyes, and starting when spoken to, as if aroused from daydreams.
She mentioned casually that she believed the family of Fitzmaurice to
be an extremely ancient one, and that its members were mentioned in
the _Peerage_. As there was no copy of that volume in the school
library, nobody could contradict her, and her audience murmured
interested acquiescence. When asked whether they preferred the name of
Algernon or Augustus, their opinions were divided.
At first the juniors were sympathetic, but by the end of the afternoon
the goddess of envy began to rear her head in their midst. Cynthia's
manner had progressed during the day to a point of patronage that was
distinctly aggravating. She openly pitied girls who did not receive
private letters, and spoke of early engagements as highly desirable.
She missed two catches when fielding at cricket, being employed in
staring sentimentally at the sky instead of watching for the ball.
"Buck up, you silly idiot, can't you? You're a disgrace to the
school!" snarled Nora Fawcitt furiously.
Cynthia sighed gently, with the air of "Ah-if-you-only-knew-my-feelings!"
and twisted the ends of her hair into ringlets. After tea, in defiance of
all school traditions, she changed her dress and put on her best
slippers. She appeared in the schoolroom with a bunch of pansies pinned
into her belt.
Preparation was from six to seven, and was supposed to be a period of
strenuous mental application. That evening, however, Cynthia made
little progress with her Latin exercise or the Wars of the Roses. Her
Form mates, looking up in the intervals of conning their textbooks,
noted her sitting with idle pen, gazing raptly into space or glancing
anxiously at the clock. Though she had not confided the details of her
secret, her companions felt that something was going to happen.
Romance was in the atmosphere. Several of the juniors found themselves
wishing that clandestine letters had appeared in their desks also.
When the signal for dismissal was given, and the girls trooped from
the schoolroom, Cynthia mysteriously melted away somewhere. Ardiune,
walking round the quad. five minutes later, accosted Joan Butler,
Janet Macpherson, Nancie Page, and Isobel Parker, who were sitting on
the steps of the sundial reading Ella Wheeler Wilcox's _Poems of
Love_.
"If you'd like a little sport," she observed, "come along with me. You
may bring Elsie and Nora if you can find them. I promise you a jinky
time!"
The juniors rose readily. None of them were really very fond of
reading, but Cynthia had lent them the book earlier in the day, with a
few pages turned down for reference. They flung it on to the stone
step, with scant regard for its white cover. Ardiune led her recruits
hastily to the back drive, and bade them hide behind the thick laurel
and clipped holly bushes that backed the border.
"Somebody you know is coming to keep an appointment, and will get a
surprise," she volunteered.
They had hardly taken cover when Cynthia Greene appeared, strolling
along the drive. She advanced to the gate, leaned her elbow on it,
and, posing picturesquely, glanced with would-be carelessness up and
down the back lane, and coughed.
At this very evident signal a figure emerged from the shelter of the
opposite bushes and strode to the gate. The juniors gasped. They had
all taken part in last Christmas's term-end performance, and they
easily recognized the hat, long coat, and military moustache of the
school theatrical wardrobe, the only masculine garments permitted at
the Grange. Cynthia, being a new-comer, was not acquainted with them.
Her agitated eyes merely took in a manly vision who was accosting her
politely, though without removing his hat.
"Have I the pleasure of addressing Miss Cynthia Greene?" asked a
deep-toned voice.
Cynthia, utterly overcome, giggled a faint assent.
"I am Algernon Augustus. Delighted to make your acquaintance! You're
the very girl I've always longed to meet. I can't describe my
loneliness, and how I'm yearning for sympathy. Fairest, loveliest one,
will you smile upon me?"
What Cynthia might have answered it is impossible to guess, but at
that critical moment the hat, which was several sizes too large,
tilted to one side, and allowed Raymonde's hair to escape down her
back. Cynthia's agitated shriek brought a crowd of witnesses from out
the laurel bushes. They did not spare their victim, and a perfect
storm of chaff descended upon her.
"Did it go to meet its ownest own?"
"Did you call him Algernon, or Augustus?"
"Did he tell you his family pedigree?"
"Where's his motor-car, please?"
"Is the engagement announced yet?"
"I think you're a set of beasts!" whimpered Cynthia, leaning her head
against the gate and sobbing.
"If you hadn't been such a silly idiot you wouldn't have been taken in
by such a transparent business," returned Raymonde, pulling off her
moustache. "Look here, we don't care about this sickly sort of stuff,
so the sooner you drop it the better. Gracious, girl! Turn off the
waterworks! Be thankful Gibbie didn't scent out your romance, that's
all! If the Bumble knew you'd put that card inside that strawberry
basket, she'd pack up your boxes and send you home by the next train.
Crystal clear, she would!"
For at least a week after this, Cynthia Greene suffered a chastened
life, and shed enough tears to make her pocket-handkerchiefs a
conspicuous item in her laundry bag. She began to wish that the names
of Augustus and Algernon could be expunged from the English language.
Her Form mates hinted that she might receive a present of Debrett's
_Peerage_ on her next birthday. If she missed a ball at tennis, or
slacked a little at cricket, somebody was sure to enquire: "Thinking
of him?" She found a picture of two turtle-doves attached to the
pin-cushion on her dressing-table, and drawings of hearts and darts
were scrawled by unknown hands inside her textbooks. Moreover, she
lived in constant dread lest somebody should have really found the
card inside the strawberry basket, and should send an answer by post,
which would fall into the hands of Miss Beasley. The prospect of
expulsion from the school haunted her.
Fortunately for her, nobody troubled to notice her request for
correspondence, the basket of strawberries having probably found its
way to some snuffy individual at a greengrocer's stall, who took no
interest in the loneliness of blue-eyed, fair-haired damsels. As for
her volume of _Poems of Love_, Hermie confiscated it until the end of
the term, and recommended a _Manual of Cricket_ instead.