Diana Breaks Out
Diana went back to school in the wildest and most rampageous of spirits.
She felt that she just had to let off steam somehow. She seized Wendy's
hand, tore with her to the very top of the house and down again, then
careered along the corridor in such a mad, not to say noisy stampede,
that Miss Todd issued from her study like a lion from its lair, and
fixed the culprits with the full concentrated power of what the girls
called her "scholastic eye".
"Winifred and Diana," she remarked in calm, measured tones, "if I have
to remind you again about walking quietly in the passages, it will mean
forty lines for you both, and I should be sorry to have to give
punishments on the first day of term."
The tempestuous pair, very much sobered down, tip-toed away, and went to
unpack their possessions in their separate dormitories. Diana found
Loveday in the ivy room, and burst in upon her with as much of the
bubbling-over spirits as she dared to exhibit, hugging her till she
nearly choked her.
"I've missed you loads, Loviekins!" she assured her. "It felt queer to
be in bed, and not have you on the other side of a curtain. I used to
wake up in the night and begin to speak to you out of sheer force of
habit. I wanted my 'little elder sissie' awful bad sometimes! Did you
miss me the least tiny atom? Do you care that much for your 'pixie
girl'?"
"Of course I missed you, darling! I'm just delighted to see you again!
It's nice to be back. I haven't enjoyed the holidays _very_ much. I
never do----"
"I know," said Diana sympathetically, as Loveday hesitated. "I could
read that between the lines, in your letters. You wrote me absolutely
ripping letters! I loved them! You were a dear to write so often. It
must have taken heaps of time."
"I'd nothing very much else to do," sighed Loveday, disengaging herself
gently from Diana's arms. "Let me go, child! I haven't half finished my
unpacking, and you haven't even begun yours yet."
"_Bust_ the unpacking!" said Diana naughtily. "I don't feel inclined to
be tidy; I shall just shovel armfuls of things out, and pitch them
anyhow into the drawers. Yes, Loveday Seton, I feel like that! I'm 'fey'
to-day, as the Scotch say, and must 'dree my weird'. Don't quite know
exactly what that means; but I guess I've got a little pixie imp dancing
around inside me, and he's going to make me do something crazy. There's
no help for it! It's kismet!"
"And Miss Hampson is also kismet!" said Loveday, leaving her own box and
coming to the rescue of Diana's garments, which were being literally
pitched into the drawers with no regard at all for their condition.
"Look how you're crushing your blouses! Go and sit on the bed, and let
me do it. There! What a baby thing you are! You're more like four than
fourteen!"
"It pays," said Diana serenely, squatting cross-legged on her bed, while
Loveday's neat hands arranged her possessions. "If I were a sedate,
goody-goody, 'old-beyond-her-years', staid sort of a person, you'd never
spoil me as you do. I'll try to practise it if you like, though.
Anything to please you! How would this do?"
Diana's mobile face suddenly underwent a quick change. The corners of
her mouth were drawn down, her eyelids drooped, while her eyes were cast
upward in a sort of sanctimonious squint.
"Don't!" implored Loveday, almost hysterically. "Oh, suppose your face
were to stick like that! You'd look the most abominable little Pharisee.
I'd hate you!"
"You like your pixie-girl best? Then, that settles it! Now, if you ever
scold me again about anything, I'll put on the Pharisee face; so I warn
you. You've got to choose between them. Yes, I know I'm a handful--I
always have been--but, perhaps, it's good for you, Loveday mine:
develops your character, and makes you more patient and persevering,
and--and----"
"You're the cheekiest little imp on the face of the earth!" interrupted
Loveday. "Get up, this minute, and come and finish your own work. I've
something else to do besides unpack for you. If Miss Hampson comes and
finds my box still half full----"
"She'll say how slow you've been, and what a nice, tidy child Diana is!
Don't try to look 'proper', Loveday! It doesn't suit your style of
beauty. Yes, put my collars away, too, or I shall only crush them.
There! Very well done! First prize for order! I think you're absolutely
topping, if you ask me!"
All that evening, and all the next morning, Diana's spirits continued to
fizz. She might possibly have worked them off out-of-doors, but the
British climate was against her; once more the fells were swathed in
their familiar garments of mist, and the rain came pitter-pattering down
on the roof of Pendlemere Abbey, and falling from the eaves in a
monotonous drip, drip, drip. It was drawing afternoon, and promptly at
half-past two intermediates and juniors would be due in the studio to go
on with the various copies and models on which they were engaged. It was
now shortly after two o'clock, and the school was amusing itself for the
half-hour between meal-time and lessons. During that brief interval
Diana, so to speak, "popped her cork".
"Hallo, America! You're looking rather weedy, standing on one leg like a
marabou stork!" quizzed Sadie. "What's the matter with you?"
"Your beastly, abominable British climate!" retorted Diana. "It goes on
rain, rain, raining till I'm fed up. I want to get away somewhere, and
see something different from just school. I wasn't born for a convent!"
"I should think not!" chuckled Vi.
"But I'm in one, and I'm tired of it! I'm tired of you all! Yes, I mean
what I say!"
"Draw it mild, Stars and Stripes!" warned Sadie.
"I don't care! School's dull, and I'm bored stiff. I'll wake things up
somehow; see if I don't!"
"What'll you do, old sport?"
"Ah! _Just wait and see!_" nodded Diana, putting down the foot that had
been twisted round her leg, and stamping to get rid of the pins and
needles that followed her cramped position. "It's just possible I may
turn philanthropist, and give you all a dinky little surprise," she
added casually, as she strolled towards the door.
The studio was a large room on the upper story, with the orthodox north
windows and top-light, in the shape of a skylight. It was fitted with
desks and easels, and round its walls was a row of casts on pedestals.
The girls liked drawing afternoon well enough, but they were not in any
particular hurry to go upstairs and take out boards and pencils. It was
not until twenty-five minutes past two that Wendy, Vi, Sadie, and Peggy
came leisurely along the top landing. They opened the door of the studio
in quite an every-day manner, and walked in. Then they all four stared
and ejaculated:
"O-o-o-oh!"
"Jehosh-a-phat!"
"I say!"
"Good night!"
They might well exclaim, for a very startling and unanticipated
spectacle greeted them. The classic heads of the casts had lost their
dignity. Apollo wore a tam-o'-shanter cocked rakishly over his left ear;
Clytie had on a motor veil; Juno and Ceres were fashionably arrayed in
straw hats; a wreath of twisted paper encircled the intellectual brow of
Minerva; Psyche peered through spectacles; Perseus was decked with a
turban; and, worst of all, the beautiful upper lip of Venus sported a
moustache. Armed with a pointer stood Diana, ready, like Mrs. Jarley of
the famous waxworks, to act show-woman.
"Walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen!" she began glibly. "This isn't
funny at all, it's calm and classical. Greek art up-to-date is what I
call it. If Apollo had lived in this British climate I guess he'd have
needed a tammy to keep his hair in curl; and Psyche must have been
short-sighted when she blundered about hunting for Cupid; she'd have
found him in a decent pair of spectacles, poor girl! Clytie suffered
from earache, and couldn't motor without a veil; as for Venus, it's
giving her the vote that's forced a moustache; she's sent for a
safety-razor, but it hasn't arrived yet."
More girls had come in during Diana's explanation, and they wandered
round the room in explosions of laughter.
"Why has Perseus got a turban on?" demanded Tattie.
"Because his hair grew thin on the top, and even Tatcho didn't fetch up
another crop of curls, and Andromeda so objected to seeing him bald that
there was nothing for it but to turn Moslem and wear a turban. He did it
in self-defence, because she threatened to buy him a dark wig, and he
said it would make him look like a Jew."
"That's _my_ hat!" objected Vi, pointing to the straw that decorated
Juno.
"Excuse me--hers! The lady's gone on the land, working like a nigger
digging the ground for the potato crop. You see, Jupiter hasn't got
demobilized yet, and----"
The flower of Diana's eloquence suddenly withered and dried up as if
electrocuted. In the doorway, above the heads of the giggling girls,
appeared a vision in pince-nez--an avenging vision that passed rapidly
through the several stages of amazement, consternation, and wrath.
"Di-ana _Hew_litt!" snapped Miss Hampson. "Go down and report yourself
_instantly_ to Miss Todd. This is simply disgraceful! Girls, take your
seats! Tattie and Vi, help to remove those--those----" The irate mistress
paused for a word, but, failing to find one adequate to the occasion,
began instead, her fingers trembling with indignation, to strip the
turban from the classic head of Perseus.
Dead, awful silence reigned in the room. Not a girl dared to giggle; a
few began nervously to sharpen pencils, but most sat and stared while
the casts were denuded of their trappings. Miss Hampson removed the
moustache from Venus as if she were apologizing to that deity for
sacrilege, and, with her own handkerchief, wiped away from the lovely
lip the seccotine which had attached the masculine appendage to the
Queen of Beauty. She rolled up the hats in the towel which had served as
turban, set her pupils to work at their copies, then marched sternly
downstairs to lay the full enormity of the case before the
justly-shocked ears of Miss Todd. Nobody ever heard exactly what
happened in the interview; no coaxing or persuasion would induce Diana
to disclose details even to Wendy or Loveday, but it was generally
understood in the school that Miss Todd had "spoken her mind". One
result loomed large, and that was the punishment. It was absolutely
unique. Perhaps the Principal was tired of giving poetry to learn or
lines to write, and considered that confinement to bounds was not very
good for a girl's health, so she devised something else to act as a
discipline. For a week Diana was condemned not to wear evening-dress. It
was a far greater trial than it sounds. Each night before supper the
school changed into pretty frocks, and, when the meal was over, spent a
pleasant hour together at recreation. With everybody else in festive
attire, it was terrible for Diana to be obliged to come downstairs in
her serge skirt and jersey, the one Cinderella of the party. Most
especially trying was it on Saturday, when chairs and tables were pushed
back in the dining-room, and dancing was the order of the evening. Poor
Diana, in her thick morning-shoes, stood forlornly in a corner, refusing
all offers of partners, but watching wistfully as the others whirled by.
Miss Hampson, whose wrath was of the short, explosive kind that quickly
turns to softness of heart, was understood to murmur something to Miss
Todd about the impossibility of waltzing in anything but
dancing-slippers; but the Principal's mouth was set firm, and she would
not remit the least atom of the sentence till it was paid to the
uttermost farthing.
If Diana looked wistful, she nevertheless bore her punishment with
dignity. She was a girl of spirit, and she did not mean to betray, even
by the blink of an eyelid, how much she cared. Geraldine, Hilary, and
Ida had rubbed in her ostracism, and certain impudent juniors had
enjoyed themselves with witticisms at her expense. To these she must
preserve an attitude of sang-froid. But up in the ivy room, when she
went to bed, the mask fell off. The Diana that cuddled in Loveday's arms
was a very different Diana from the don't-care young person of
downstairs. Loveday--who understood her now--consoled and kissed where a
term ago she would have scolded. There are some dispositions that can
only be managed by kisses.
"It wasn't as if I'd taken a hammer and smashed the wretched old casts!"
sobbed Diana. "I really didn't do them any damage; even the seccotine
was easily sponged off Venus. But Miss Todd talked and talked as if I'd
done something irreligious in church. I'd never do that, you know! Would
I, now? She said I had 'an irreverent mind'. I don't believe she'll ever
_quite_ forgive me. And oh, Hilary has been so nasty! Thank goodness,
dancing evening's done with! I've only Monday and Tuesday nights to go
through now, then the whole wretched week will be over. I suppose I'm to
be allowed to wear my Sunday clothes to-morrow? If I mayn't, I'll sham
ill and stop in bed. I won't go to church in my brown coat and tammy,
and have Mr. Fleming and everybody staring at me. I just _couldn't_! I'd
die!"
"It's all right about that--don't you worry! I asked Miss Hampson, and
she said: 'Certainly, Sunday clothes'. I'll speak to Hilary, and try to
get her to leave you alone. As for those kids, just leave them to me;
I'll tackle them, and tell them what I think of the way they behaved
to-night--the young wretches! I fancy I'll make them squirm!"
"You mascot! Miss Todd says I've been utterly and entirely spoilt. Do
_you_ think I have?"
Loveday took the piquant little face between her two hands and looked a
moment into the upturned grey eyes.
"Yes," she decided. "You're undoubtedly a spoilt darling--but you're a
darling all the same," she added softly under her breath.