Chapter Thirteen.
The energy with which Etheldreda the Ready set about her work as sub-editor threatened to ruin the magazine before its birth, for intending contributors grew so tired of daily and sometimes hourly reminders that by the end of a week weariness had developed into right-down crossness and irritation. “For goodness’ sake leave me alone. I’m sick of the name of the old magazine! If you worry me once more I won’t do a thing—so there!” Such answers were more than a little disconcerting to one who had worked herself up to a white heat of enthusiasm, and could neither think, dream, nor speak of any other subject under the sun. So engrossed was Dreda in trying to keep other writers to the mark, that it was not until ten day’s of the allotted fourteen had passed by that she set to work to think out her own contribution. It was to be a story, of course—not a stupid, amateury, namby-pamby story, such as you could read in other school magazines, but something striking and original, that would make everyone talk and wonder, and lie awake at night. So far so good; but when the time for writing it arrived it was astonishingly difficult to hit upon a suitable idea! Dreda chewed the end of her pen, wrote “Synopsis of Plot” at the top of her paper in an imposing round hand with the downstrokes elaborately inked, dotted wandering designs here and there, and cudgelled her brains for inspiration. There must be a girl, of course—a girl heroine, blonde and lovely, and an adventuress (brunette), and a hero. But she did not intend to write a love story—that was piffle. Something really thrilling and dangerous! She mentally ran over a list of misadventures—fire, flood, shipwreck. She had read of them all dozens of times over; and, mentioned in a synopsis, they would have quite an ordinary effect. It was after hours of anxious deliberation, during which ordinary lessons went completely to the wall, that the brilliant idea of an earthquake flashed upon Dreda’s mind. An earthquake story might be as complicated as one pleased, for all the superfluous people could be killed off at the crucial moment, while legal papers and wills could disappear, so that one could not even be expected to unravel the mystery! She hovered uncertainly between three sensational titles—“A Hopeless Quest,” “For Ever Hidden,” “In the Twinkling of an Eye!”—and plunged boldly into the first sentence of the synopsis without having the faintest idea how it should end:
“A lovely young girl, Leila (English, yellow hair, sixteen) lives on a beautiful isle which had been a volcano hundreds of years before. (This will not be mentioned till the last, but mysterious remarks made about rumblings, to prepare the mind.) Dolores (Spanish), aged seventeen, pretends to be her friend, but is really jealous. They stay together at a country house with a veranda, and exciting things happen. Leila is supposed to be an orphan, and Dolores patronises her because she is poor. An English officer comes to call, and staggers back at sight of Leila. (He is really her father.) Dolores makes mischief, and persuades him to leave her all his money. They go to the lawyers, and Leila goes out for a sail in a boat to cheer her spirits. While she is sailing, the volcano blows up and everyone is killed. Leila is picked up by a passing ship, and inherits the money.”
Compared with this sensational programme, Susan’s story promised to be deplorably tame and uneventful, and Dreda curled her lip in scorn as she read the neatly written lines:
“I want to write the story of a man who was naturally very nervous and afraid, but who hid it so well that everyone believed him to be a hero. I want to show that he really did become brave, because his friends believed in him, and he tried to be worthy of their trust.”
“Gracious! How dull. It sounds like a tract. Susan is a dear; but she’s a currant bun when all is said and done, and she can’t get away from it. They are stodgers!” quoth Miss Dreda, with a shrug, as she placed the paper beside her own in her desk. Her anger against Susan had died a rapid death, for the double reason that she herself found it impossible to harbour resentment, and that Susan steadily refused to be a second party to a quarrel. Scornfully though her help had been refused, she offered it afresh every evening, and after three days’ experience of struggle and defeat, Dreda was thankful to accept.
“But you were mean about the editorship, all the same. It wasn’t like you, Susan!” she declared severely, feeling it would be too great a condescension to capitulate without protest. “You are generally quite sweet about helping other people. I don’t understand what you were thinking about!”
Susan’s quiet smile seemed to express agreement with this last statement, but she made no protest and allowed herself to be kissed and petted with a condescending “We’ll say no more about it, will we, dear? Now for this exercise—it’s a perfect brute!”
It was only by dint of ceaseless entreaties and cajoleries that the sub-editor succeeded in collecting a respectable number of entries for the first number of the magazine before the appointed date, and if the absolute truth had been known she was already feeling overweighted with the cares of office. It was a fag to be worried out of one’s life, and as a result to be disliked rather than praised.
“I shake in my shoes at the very sight of Dreda Saxon!” said Norah West of the spectacles and freckles. “There’s no peace in life while she is on the rampage. This school has never been the same since she came. She seems to have upset everything.”
Nancy offered to contribute an article on “Characteristics of School Celebrities—Literary and Sportive,” and refused to be coaxed to a more decorous subject. “That, or nothing!” was her mandate, so down it went on the synopsis, followed, by way of contrast, by Mary Webster’s “Essay on Ancient Greece,” and the head girl’s “Great Women of History.” Beryl Turner, who had a passion for figure drawing, unjustified by skill, submitted half a dozen sketches of an impossible young woman apparently entirely devoid of joints, to explain which she proposed to write a story, thus entirely reversing the usual process of illustration; and, fired by a desire to show her own artistic superiority, Dreda hastily embellished her own paper with two vignette paintings of her own heroines. Leila, with luxuriant locks of yellow, splashed with green, and Dolores with inky hair and eyes of a rich gamboge. On the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month Dreda spent her recreation hour in arranging the collected sheets to the best advantage, and in fastening them within the cover of an old exercise book. She was aglow with self-satisfaction at having accomplished her task in time, and intended to lay special stress on the fact in her next letter home and so win from the home circle that admiration and praise which her schoolfellows were so slow to bestow.
On the whole, she was well pleased with the result of her labours, and looked forward with a lively curiosity to Miss Drake’s comments and criticisms. When the booklet was finished and a printed label pasted in the middle of the black cover, she laid it carefully inside her desk and went to rejoin her companions by the study fire. They stopped talking as she approached, and began to “rag” in true school fashion.
“Here comes our literary friend. Quite worn out with the strain of her intellectual efforts! Sit down, my love, and calm your fevered brow!” This from Barbara, while Norah cried scornfully:
“Look at her fingers—inked to the joints! Anyone could tell she was a budding author!”
“Did you tie the papers together with blue ribbon? That’s an absolute necessity. I have a piece I could give you.”
“Thank you, Nancy. I’ll accept it with pleasure—for my hair. The book is finished and needs no trimmings. It looks beautifully neat and professional. I can’t show it to anyone until my—my colleague has seen it and made her alterations; but as soon as it comes back—”
She nodded in condescending fashion, and the girls chuckled and exchanged twinkling glances.
“‘My colleague’! That’s good!”
“Good word, Dreda! Bring that in in your story. It has a fine effect.”
“I’m thankful it is finished at last. We shall be able to sleep in peace to-night without being disturbed by your plunging and snortings. I’ve always heard that geniuses were trying to live with, but they are even worse by night than by day!”
“At what time are you going to present the Opus to your colleague? After prep, to-morrow? Then I beg to suggest that until it has been reviewed and the verdict passed the subject shall be forbidden. The strain is too great!”
Norah rolled her eyes, a performance rendered weirdly effective by the presence of her large round glasses, and the other girls taking up the clue, flopped in their seats, leant feebly against a neighbouring shoulder, and fanned themselves faintly with their handkerchiefs. As a rule, Dreda was as quick to take offence as she was to forgive, but this afternoon she manifested no signs of irritation. “They laugh who win,” and no one could deny that she had won this time—won all along the line—in gaining consent to the establishment of a magazine, in obtaining the post of sub-editor; lastly, and most striking of all, in being ready up to time, despite the gloomy prophecies to the contrary.
For the next twenty-four hours she was her brightest, most charming self, so radiant with happiness that she overflowed with sympathy and kindness to all around. She nursed little Vida Neale, the baby of the school, on her knee, and recounted such fascinating stories that earache was forgotten in squeals of delighted merriment. She went up early to dress for the evening and carried hot water to the cubicles of her four best friends; she talked in the most amiable of fashions to poor, dull Fraulein at supper; listened to remarks on the superiority of Germany with a self-control bordering on the miraculous; and finally laid her head down on the pillow of her bed with the feeling of being at peace with all the world.
“Prosperity suits me,” she told herself, snuggling cosily beneath the clothes. “It brings out the best points in my disposition. I ought never to be crossed!”
The next morning passed slowly. Dreda did not distinguish herself at lessons, and it was with a somewhat strained manner that Miss Drake crossed the room to speak to her at the end of the preparation hour. She had been obliged to find fault with her new pupil several times in the course of the day’s classes. There was that in her manner which showed that she feared lest yet another reprimand might be necessary.
“Dreda, have you remembered that to-day is the fifteenth of the month?”
“Yes, Miss Drake.”
“Have you the synopsis of the school magazine ready to show me?”
“Yes, Miss Drake.”
“Quite ready?”
“Yes, Miss Drake.”
The Duck smiled her prettiest, most approving smile.
“Good girl! I like punctuality. Bring it up to me now, please, in my sitting-room.”
“Yes, Miss Drake.”
Up the stairs ran Dreda, light of foot, bright of eye, heart beating high with happiness, into the bare empty schoolroom, where the windows stood open and the fire smouldered on the grate. She switched on the electric light, crossed the floor to her own desk, and threw open the lid. Stupid! She had imagined that she had left the manuscript book on top ... How came she to be mistaken in so strong an impression?
... She lifted a pile of exercise sheets, pushed the books aside, and scattered miscellaneous possessions to right and to left. Her eyes distended as if about to fall from her head. She sank back on a chair and gazed stupidly before her. The synopsis had disappeared!