West End School was conducted on lines differing somewhat both from
those of the modern public school and the old polite finishing seminary
for young ladies. It accommodated in all about fifty pupils, and
although games and examinations formed important parts of the
curriculum, they were not regarded as being of such absorbing importance
as in many modern schools. Miss Bretherton was a woman of lofty aims,
who was continually looking beyond her pupils' schooldays to the time
when they should be the women of Britain; the wives and mothers, and
sisters and friends of the men who were to carry on the work of our
great Empire, and who, humanly speaking, would do that work well or ill
according to the manner in which their womankind influenced their lives.
Miss Bretherton realised that the chief result of school study was not
the mere storing of information, but the training of the brain to
grapple with the great problems of life. Lessons were only means to an
end. Half of that which was learnt with such pains would be forgotten
before a dozen years had passed by; but the deeper lessons of industry,
patience, self-restraint, would remain as habits of daily life.
Formation of character--that was the one absorbing object which the Head
held in view, and which underlay every scheme and arrangement. Miss
Bretherton's manner was so staid, her nature so reserved, that her
pupils were apt to credit her with being dull and easily deceived,
little guessing that those quiet eyes were as searchlights turned upon
their little foibles and vanities. During Dreda's first week at school
her mood was pretty equally divided between enjoyment and misery. She
loved the big, full, bustling house, the constant companionship of her
kind, the chats over the study fire, the games in the playground; in a
lesser degree she enjoyed the lessons also--those, at least, in which
she was fairly proficient--and found Miss Drake a most interesting and
inspiring teacher. She loved the interest which she excited, the
flattering remarks of other girls, the quiet devotion of Susan; but she
hated the rules of "early to bed and early to rise"; found it a penance
to be obliged to practise scales, with icy fingers, for forty minutes
before breakfast; was fretted and humiliated by her ignorance on many
important subjects, and at the end of the long day often found herself
tired, disappointed, and--hungry!
There is no doubt that a school menu is a distinct trial to the girl
fresh from home. The girl accustomed to mix cream in a cup of freshly
roasted, freshly ground coffee takes badly to the weak, groundy liquid
so often supplied in its place. She grows tired to death of beef,
mutton, and resurrection pie, and is inclined to declare that if the
only way to become strong is to consume everlasting suet puddings, why,
then, as a choice of evils, she prefers to be weak!
"Is it always as bad as this?" Dreda demanded plaintively of her room-
mates as they brushed their locks in company before retiring to bed on
the evening of her fifth day at West House. "Do you _never_ have
anything nice and light, that doesn't taste of suet and oven? Does it
get better as summer comes on?"
"Worse!" pronounced Nancy shortly.
Dreda had devoted five whole days to the study of Nancy's character, and
to this hour could not make up her mind whether she most liked or
detested her. She was the oddest of girls: nothing seemed to excite
her, nothing to trouble, nothing to please. Occasionally she would show
swift, kindly impulses, as when she had offered to become Dreda's coach;
but not a flicker of disappointment did she portray if such impulses
were repulsed, not a gleam of pleasure if they were accepted. At other
times she seemed to take a perverse pleasure in making the worst of a
situation and playing the part of Job's comforter.
"Worse!" she sighed. "Much worse! Because it's warm weather, and your
fancy lightly turns to nicer things. It's a bit of a cross to see
strawberries in the shop windows, and them come home to `Brother, where
art thou?'"
"What brother?"
"Raisins!" said Nancy, and sighed again. "They lose each other in such
steppes of suet."
Conscientious Susan exclaimed in protest.
"Nancy! Too bad. There is always stewed rhubarb!"
But this was poor comfort, for Dreda disliked stewed rhubarb almost as
much as suet itself. She pouted disconsolately for several moments,
then smiled with sudden inspiration.
"I'll get a doctor's order!"
"What for?"
"Plenty of fresh ripe fruit. Vegetarian diet. Fruit, and cream, and
eggs during the summer heat!"
"How will you manage to get it?"
"I'll have something... I'll ask Rowena what's the best complaint:
headaches or dizziness, or feeling tired. I'll tell mother it's the
heavy food, and mother'll tell him, and he'll write to Miss Bretherton.
I shall eat strawberries, and watch you search for `brothers.'"
Nancy stared solemnly with her long, dark eyes.
"There was a girl here who tried that before--Netta Bryce. That very
same dodge."
"Well?"
"She wished she hadn't."
"Why?"
"Try, and you'll find out."
"Nancy, you _are_ horrid. What happened to her? Where is she now?"
"Dead!" croaked Nancy, and drew the screen around her bed. After that
Dreda might question as much as she liked, but she knew well that never
a reply would Nancy vouchsafe. It was really most tiresome!
She lay awake for a good ten minutes pondering over what _could_ have
happened to Netta Bryce, and if she had died soon, and under what
conditions. Nancy was really the most aggravating of creatures!
Besides Miss Drake, commonly called "The Duck," there were two other
resident teachers at West Hill. Mademoiselle--a tiny, pathetic-looking
little creature, warranted to fly into a temper in a shorter time, and
upon less provocation, than any other woman in the United Kingdom; and
Fraulein, a lumpish but amiable creature who gave lessons in German and
music. Miss Bretherton herself took the whole school for the morning
Bible lesson, and had a disagreeable habit of descending upon the
different forms at unexpected moments, and taking the place of the
regular teacher. Of course, the surprise visit invariably happened just
at the moment when the girls had "slacked," whereupon fright being added
to ignorance, they would make such a poor display that they themselves
were covered with confusion and their instructor with mortification.
Almost every day at dinner time two or three girls could be observed
with crimson cheeks and watery eyes gazing miserably at their plates,
when the beholders would nudge each other significantly, and exchange
glances of commiserating understanding. "Our turn next!"
Two masters also visited the school. Mr Broun, the professor of music,
was a small, shaggy-looking personage, with a bumpy brow and eyes set
extraordinarily far apart. He was a born musician, and, as a
consequence, found it infinitely irritating to the nerves to be obliged
to teach young ladies who had not one note of music in their
composition, but whose parents considered an acquaintance with the
pianoforte to be a necessity of education. When one of these
unfortunates went up for her lesson, shouts and groans of despair could
be heard outside the door of the music-room, accompanied by the sound of
heavy footsteps pacing helplessly to and fro, and at the end of the
half-hour the victim would emerge, red and tearful, or red and defiant,
as her nature was, to recount gruesome stories of brutality to her
companions. "He rapped my ringers with his pencil. I won't stand it.
I'm sixteen. I'll write home and complain." Sandwiched in among the
poor pupils were one or two who possessed real musical ability--Nancy,
for instance, whose supple fingers seemed to draw mysterious sweetness
and depths from the keys of the well-worn piano--and in these cases the
lesson would extend far beyond its legitimate length and would take upon
itself something of the nature of a recital, as Mr Broun himself took
possession of the piano stool, to illustrate the effect which he wished
produced. Then the girls in adjoining rooms would find their attention
wandering from their books, and little groups "changing form" would
linger outside the door listening with bated breath. Ah! if one could
only play like _that_!
Mr Minns, the mathematical master, was built on wires, and expected one
rapid explanation of the most complex rule to make it clear as crystal.
After twenty years spent in teaching, he _still_ professed to be
prostrated with horror at each fresh exhibition of feminine obtuseness,
and would groan, and writhe, and push his fingers through his hair,
until it stood up round his head like a halo. He was Dreda's special
_bete noire_, for, like many girls who excel in literature and
composition, she detested the sight of a sum and had never grown beyond
the stage of counting on her fingers beneath the table. If it had not
been for Susan's laboriously patient explanations, nothing could have
saved her from the most hopeless humiliation; but Susan had a gift of
apt and fitting words, and of inventing illustrations which showed
daylight through the thickest mist.
She rose early and worked late in order to have time to spare for her
duties as coach, and Dreda was lavish in gratitude.
"You really _are_ a saint! What should I do without you? Expire of
pure misery and despair. As it is, I'm dying of overwork. I've a buzzy
muzzy feeling in my brain which must mean something bad. Softening, I
believe. It _does_ come on from overstrain!"
Susan would smile, her quietly humorous smile, at these exaggerated
statements, refusing to feel any anxiety about the health of such a
blooming invalid.
Apart from arithmetic, however, Dreda made wonderful progress in her
studies. Her native quickness of wits stood her in good stead; she
learnt easily, and seized nimbly on salient points, so that, though her
knowledge was superficial, she was always ready with an answer, and
could enlarge so cleverly on what she _did_ know, that the gaps of
ignorance remained unsuspected. Susan, the prudent, shook her head over
this juggling with fate, and foretold confusion in the coming
examinations; but Dreda was content to sun herself in the present
atmosphere of approbation and leave the future to take care of itself.
Given a free hand by her parents, she had entered her name for every
examination on the school list, and hardly a day passed that she did not
propose a new scheme or exploit to her companions.
The time for these propositions was generally the cherished half-hour
after tea, when the fourth form girls gathered round the fire in the
study to chat over the doings and happenings of the day. Then Dreda was
in her element, and every day, as it seemed, was filled with a fresh
ambition.
"When does your school magazine come out next?"
"Never! Haven't got one to `come out.'"
"_Haven't got one_? A school without a magazine! How disgraceful! I
should be ashamed to confess it. Why haven't you?"
"Too much fag!"
Dreda gasped with horror.
"Why, even at home, where we are only six, we have an--an--" She paused,
anxiously searching for a word which should be sufficiently vague--"an
_annual_, with stories, and illustrations, and correspondence columns
just like real. I was `Aunt Nelly' and answered the questions. Such
sport! ... `Yes, my dear, at fifteen you are certainly far too young to
be secretly engaged. Confide the whole story to your dear mother. A
mother is ever a young girl's wisest confidante.'--(Of course, no one
really asked me that. I made it up. You have to make up to fill the
page.) ... `So sorry your complexion is spotty. Rub it over with lemon
juice and oil. Never mind if you _are_ ugly. Be good, and you'll get a
sweet expression, and that is better than any beauty.' ... Ha, ha!"
She tossed her golden mane with a derisive laugh. "_Just_ like a real
mag.! Then I put things in for the boys, of course--got them out of
cricket reports and encyclopaedias--it looks out well to have learned
bits here and there. And you can give lovely hints! It would be
awfully useful in a school, because you could say whatever you wanted
without being personal ... `No! the old adage, "Finding is keeping"
does _not_ apply to your companions' indiarubbers and pencils. It is
not considered honourable in good society to pare off initials inscribed
thereon for purposes of identification.'" She chuckled happily. "Don't
I do it well? I really _have_ the knack! ... I can't think why you
don't have one."
"How should we find the time?" queried Susan earnestly. "First to
compose the things--and then write them out neatly would take hours and
hours."
"I would write them out. It looks ever so much better if it's all in
one handwriting."
The girls exchanged glances. Dreda certainly wrote a very legible hand,
but they were already beginning to feel a trifle dubious about her ready
promises.
"My dear, it would take _years_! You would never get through. Only
yesterday you were preparing us for softening of the brain from
overwork. You really must curb this overflowing energy." Nancy
narrowed her eyes in her most fascinating smile, in which still lurked a
spice of derision. "Your welfare is very precious to us; we can't
afford to risk it for the sake of a magazine!"
Dreda flushed, and wriggled impatiently on her seat. She never could
tell whether Nancy was in fun or in earnest.
"I am not proposing to take on more work. It would be a distraction!"
she declared loftily. "I love making up stories and poetry, and reading
what other people have written. I'd get up early, and do it in play
hours. It would be a labour of love. Besides, it would cultivate our
style. `The Duck' is literary herself. I dare say she'd let it count
as composition!"
The girls brightened visibly at this suggestion. It would be distinctly
more amusing to write for their own magazine than to cudgel their brains
to produce a sheet full of ideas on the abstruse subjects suggested by
Miss Drake. They edged a little nearer the fire, straightened their
backs, and fell to discussion.
"Perhaps she might."
"We'll ask her."
"She might be editor."
"She could write a lovely story herself."
"Bertha could illustrate. She draws the killingest pictures. There was
one of the fifth dormitory at 6 a.m. You saw all the girls asleep, and
their heads were killing. Amy had a top-knot that had fallen on one
side, Phyllis a pigtail about two inches long, and as thin as a string.
You know her miserable little wisp of hair. Mary was lying on her back
with her mouth wide open. It was the image of her. She's nearly as
good as Hilda Cowham. We might call her `Hilda Cowman' as a _nom de
plume_. Wouldn't it look professional?"
Dreda was a trifle annoyed that the position of editor had not been
offered to herself as the originator of the movement, and she likewise
cherished the belief that she was entitled to take a prominent place as
illustrator; but she consoled herself with the reflection that when the
magazine was really started her previous experience could not fail to be
useful.
"We'll have stories, and essays, and poetry, and competitions, and
advertisements at the end. You have to pay for advertisements, and that
pays for stationery."
"What sort of advertisements?"
"Every sort. Exchanging stamps and post cards, selling snapshots--
anything you like. I should put: `Fifth form pupil will coach junior
for ten minutes daily in exchange for fagging: hot water, sewing on
buttons, darning, etcetera.' I'm not used to mending. It's the limit!
What shall we call it?"
"The magazine? _The Grey House Monthly_--_Messenger_--_Herald_--
something of that kind. We ought to bring in the name of the school."
"I don't see why. I think it would be nicer without. Less amateury.
The--_Casket_. Wouldn't _Casket_ be good? It implies that it is full
of treasures."
"_The Torch_! That's nicer than _Casket_, and sounds more spirited. We
could have a picture of a woman holding up a lamp, with the word
`Progress' written across the beams--like they do in the _Punch_
cartoons. I think _Torch_ would be lovely."
"Why not _Comet_?" asked Nancy in her brief, quiet tones, narrowing the
double line of black eyelashes as she spoke so as to hide the expression
of her eyes.
There was a moment's pause, broken by Dreda's quick, suspicious
question:
"Why _Comet_?"
"Why not?"
"Do you mean because of the _tail_?"
"Comets _do_ have tails, don't they? So do magazines!"
That was all very well, but the silence which followed the explanation
showed that suspicion still rankled. Dreda arched her eyebrows at
Barbara, who shrugged in reply. Susan wrinkled her brows, and Norah
pursed her lips. What was Nancy really thinking inside that sleek,
well-shaped little head? Comets appeared suddenly; remained to be a ten
days' talk and wonder, and then--mysteriously disappeared!
Instinctively Dreda stiffened her back, and registered an inward vow
that she would spare neither time nor pains to make the magazine a
permanent and shining light!