For the next few days conversation circled incessantly round the subject
of the forthcoming literary competition, concerning which there were
naturally many diverging opinions. "My life, indeed! _Well_, my first
principle has always been `One thing at a time, and that done well.'
I'm cramming for an exam., and have no time to waste on meanderings,"
declared Barbara, whose compositions invariably received the lowest
marks in her form, while Nancy smiled her enigmatical smile, and stared
mysteriously into space.
"I shall write it, of course, but I shall not put in my _real_
sentiments. It would not be fair to my future. If my plans are to
succeed they demand secrecy--breathless, inviolate secrecy, until the
hour arrives!"
"Gracious, Nancy! You talk as if you were an Anarchist in disguise!"
gasped a horrified voice from the far corner of the fireside round which
the girls were assembled, whereupon the gratified Nancy endeavoured to
look more mysterious than ever.
"Why in disguise? Is there anything in my appearance which is out of
keeping with a life of noble rebellion against tyranny and oppression?
A bomb may be often a blessing in disguise, but there is so much narrow
prejudice and ignorance in this world that people must be trained to
appreciate the true meaning. Till that hour arrives my life's ambition
must remain locked within my own breast!"
"I haven't got one--at least, only to have a good time and be done with
work. You couldn't put _that_ in an essay. It sounds so mean,"
confessed blue-eyed Flora with a sigh. Dreda looked at her quickly, and
as quickly averted her eyes. Put in bald language was not that her own
ambition also? In thinking over the essay, she had mentally rehearsed
many grandiose phrases; but now, with a sudden chilling of the blood,
she realised the emptiness of the high-sounding words. What had she
ever wished from life but pleasure, approbation, and easy success? How
much thought had she given to possible trials and difficulties? How
much effort to train herself for the battle of life? It was one of
those blinding moments of self-revelation which come to us all, and
before which the noblest natures shrink aghast. Dreda leant her head
against the wall to hide herself from the dancing firelight, but her
unusual silence could not fail to attract attention, and Norah was quick
with a gibing question.
"Why so silent, Etheldreda the Ready? Can it be that you have been so
busy arranging the lives of other people that you have not had time to
think of your own?"
The dart struck home once more, but before there was time to answer
Susan rushed to the defence.
"It's just because Dreda _is_ thinking that she does not talk. Dreda
will win the prize. No one has a chance against her, but it is such a
thrilling subject that it will be interesting to try. The difficulty
will be to keep within the limit; only three thousand words--"
"Only! My dear, do you know what three thousand words mean? I counted
up one sheet of foolscap, and it came to two hundred and fifty. How on
earth could one find enough to say about life to fill twelve whole
pages?"
Flora was transparently in earnest, her blue, opaque-looking eyes roving
from face to face, inviting sympathy and understanding; but Susan gave a
clear little laugh of derision.
"I could fill volumes! It's a wonderful, wonderful theme--a voyage into
the dark--a battle to be fought, a victory to be won, a mountain to be
climbed, or perhaps no mountain at all, but just a long, long road, on a
dead level plain. Work and effort, and failure and success, sorrow and
joy, and at the end the secret--the great secret--solved at last!"
Susan's voice trembled, her slight little form shook with emotion, she
pressed her hands against her knees to still their trembling. The girls
stared at the floor, or exchanged furtive glances of embarrassment.
Susan was "too too for words" in her high falutin' moods; she talked
just like people in books; silly nonsense that no one could understand!
She was going to leave school when she was eighteen and help her mother
in the house, because the two elder girls wanted to be teachers. Why
couldn't she say so straight out, instead of mooning about secrets, and
battles, and mountains to be climbed? Flora sniggered into her
handkerchief, Barbara gaped, Nancy tilted her head, and rolled her eyes
to the ceiling, Dreda wakened out of her dream, and sat up flushed and
eager.
"Susan, _stop_! You mustn't! If you tell us your ideas we may copy
them without meaning to do it... If you put thoughts into our heads
they stay there and grow, and we can't send them away, but they are
_yours_. You ought to keep them to yourself."
"My dear, she says she has enough to fill a volume. She needn't grudge
a few to her starving friends," cried Nancy in would-be reproach.
"Confide in me, Susan dear! I'll sit at your feet, and gobble up all
the pearls that you drop, and perhaps in the end I may win the prize
myself. I don't see why it should be taken for granted that only two
girls have a chance. There's a lot of vulgar prejudice in this school,
but Mr Rawdon will judge with an unbiased mind. I have thought more
than once when I've been reading his books that the style was rather
like my own, and I've a sort of a--kind of a--what's the
word?--_premonition_ that he'll like me best."
There was a general laugh, but Nancy was a favourite despite her teasing
ways, so the laughter was good-tempered and sympathetic, and it was easy
to see that if by chance the prize fell to her lot the award would be a
popular one. Nancy was incurably lazy, but the conviction lingered in
the minds of her companions that "she could be clever if she chose," and
it would seem quite in character that she should suddenly wake up to the
surprise and confusion of her competitors. Dreda looked round with an
anxious air, as if recognising a new, and formidable competitor. She
determined to begin making notes that very evening, and asked suddenly:
"Has anyone seen my stylo? My things seem to be bewitched nowadays.
They are always disappearing. I searched for my French book for a solid
hour yesterday, and this morning it was my penknife, and now it's the
pen--I waste half my time hunting and searching."
"You are so untidy. If you would be more methodical--"
"I didn't ask for moral reflections, Barbara. I asked for my pen."
"Is it a black one? A little stumpy black one--about so long?"
"Yes--yes! That's it. Have you seen it, Nancy?"
Nancy stroked her chin with a meditative air.
"I _did_ see a stylo somewhere! I remember noticing it--a very nice
one. Quite new."
"Yes--yes; that's it. Where was it? Do think, Nancy! Cudgel your
brains."
"I am cudgelling them--I'm cudgelling _hard_." Nancy nipped her chin
between her finger and thumb, and knitted her brows till her eyebrows
appeared to meet. "I saw it this morning. It was lying on a shelf,
near a window. I can see it before me now." She waved her hand in the
air. "Like a picture. Distinctly!"
"Yes--yes--yes! But where? _Think_! In the big classroom?"
"No-o; I think not. No; certainly not the big classroom?"
"Miss Drake's room, then? The study? Number 5? Our bedroom? If you
can see it distinctly, you _must_ know."
Nancy frowned on, apparently plunged in thought, then slowly a flash
seemed to irradiate her features.
"I have it!" she cried triumphantly. "It was in the window of the
chemist's shop! I saw it as we passed by in walk.--A beautiful black
brand-new stylo!"
The audience sniggered with enjoyment, for though not quite so heartless
as their brothers, it cannot be denied that most school-girls take a
mischievous delight in teasing their companions. Dreda Saxon was,
moreover, from this point of view an amusing victim, for when a joke was
directed against herself her sense of humour was temporarily eclipsed,
and she took refuge in what was laughingly dubbed "heroics." Now, as
usual, her eyes flashed, her chin tilted itself in air, and her voice
swelled in deep-toned reproof.
"That is not funny, Nancy--it is _unkind_! To laugh at people who are
in trouble is a sign of a mean, unprincipled mind. I am surprised that
you condescend to such depths."
A shriek of laughter followed this reproof, and as she marched
majestically from the room Dreda caught a glimpse of Nancy beaming and
unrepentant, pretending to wring tears out of a dry pocket-handkerchief.
In that moment she mentally added three "heads" to the essay on life,
and headed them with large capital letters: Misunderstanding. Mockery.
Faithless Friends.
During the next week Dreda spent every moment that could be spared from
ordinary school-work in working at her essay, alternating between wild
elation and depths of despair as her thoughts flowed or flagged. Her
home letter was full of the all-absorbing topic, but Rowena's reply was
a great surprise--for behold, pessimistic repinings had given place to
an outlook which was positively jaunty in tone.
"It's a nice old world, after all," Rowena wrote. "It is stupid to
allow oneself to get humped, for sometimes at the very moment when you
believe that all is over, the very nicest things are just about to
begin. Put that in your essay, and make moral reflections. `Oft-times
in our ignorance we believe ... but looking back over a gap of time we
can see--A trivial word, a passing glance, the choice of a road, on such
trifles may depend ... Discipline is good for us all, but joy cometh in
the morning.' You know the sort of thing. For once I really wish I
could write your essay for you. I feel just in the mood to write pages.
I've been out riding with Mr Seton and his cousins three times this
week, and the exercise is so exhilarating. The cousins are staying at
the Manor House--such nice girls! We have taken quite a fancy to one
another, and they lend me a mount, so that we can go about together Mr
Seton sends you his best wishes for the competition. We talked about it
together when we were riding to-day. He is so clever, and has such
beautiful thoughts. He is looking forward most awfully to his life, and
says it gets better and better all the time. I feel quite ashamed to
remember how depressed and discontented I have been, and how irritable
with poor old Maud. She can't help it, poor dear, if she _is_ stupid;
one ought to be patient with her, and satisfied with a peaceful home
life! I _am_ satisfied now. To-morrow I go to lunch at the Manor
House."
"But it was to _me_ he offered the mount," was Dreda's comment, not
without a touch of offence. Then with a benevolent impulse: "Oh, well,
Ro can have it until the holidays, and then he'll take me." Rowena's
suggestions as to the essay were too valuable to be ignored, and the
fact that they were in exact contradiction of the pessimistic passages
on persecution last added, was no hindrance to an author of Etheldreda's
ingenuity. She had simply to write, "On the other hand, it may be
said," and in came Rowena's reflections as pat as possible. During
those next few days her versatile mind seized on everything that she
heard, saw, or read, which could by any possibility be turned into
material for the essay, until page after page was filled with her big
straggling handwriting, and while her companions were still biting their
pens in search of inspiration, she was confronted by the task of
reducing her masterpiece by at least one-half of its length. And what a
task that was!
"Really," she told Susan with a sigh, "cutting down is more difficult
than making-up! I read over each bit by itself, and it seems as if I
love it more than all the rest put together, and I simply can't _endure_
to lose it; but the next bit is the same, and the next, and the next."
She rolled her eyes dramatically to the ceiling. "I am like a mother,
called upon to sacrifice one of her children. Whichever I choose, it
will break my heart! How I wish I could send in two papers, and have
two chances!"
Such a proceeding was, of course, out of the question, so with much
groaning and lamentation Dreda cut out the quieter passages, reserving
the highly coloured flights of fancy which she considered more likely to
attract an author of Mr Rawdon's standing. When at last the typed
copies of the twelve essays were circulated in the school it was found,
as had been expected, that Susan and Dreda had far out-distanced the
other competitors, but Susan's most devoted admirers confessed that her
production appeared tame and dull when compared with Dreda's sparkling
eloquence.
"I don't quite know what she's driving at," Barbara admitted, "but it
sounds awfully grand all the same; and dear old Sue's so painfully in
earnest! We'd better resign ourselves to the worst, for Dreda's bound
to get the prize, and lord it over us for the rest of the term. Our
lives won't be worth living."
"It's the unexpected that happens in this world. I have a feeling that
there will be strange developments about this prize. Wait and see!"
said Nancy, darkly.