More than one girl in the school was surprised at Dora Russell exerting herself to try for the prize essay. She was just about to close her school career, and they could not make out why she roused herself to work for the most difficult prize, for which she would have to compete with any girl in the school who chose to make a similar attempt.
Dora, however, had her own, not very high motive for making the attempt. She was a thoroughly accomplished girl, graceful in her appearance and manner; in short, just the sort of girl who would be supposed to do credit to a school. She played with finish, and even delicacy of touch. There was certainly no soul in her music, but neither were there any wrong notes. Her drawings were equally correct, her perspective good, her trees were real trees, and the colouring of her water-colour sketches was pure. She spoke French extremely well, and with a correct accent, and her German also was above the average. Nevertheless, Dora was commonplace, and those girls who knew her best spoke sarcastically, and smiled at one another when she alluded to her prize essay, and seemed confident of being the successful competitor.
“You won’t like to be beaten, Dora, say, by Annie Forest,” they would laughingly remark; whereupon Dora’s calm face would slightly flush and her lips would assume a very proud curve. If there was one thing she could not bear it was to be beaten.
“Why do you try for it, Dora?” her class-fellows would ask; but here Dora made no reply: she kept her reason to herself.
The fact was Dora, who must be a copyist to the end of the chapter, and who could never to her latest day do anything original, had determined to try for the composition prize because she happened accidentally to hear a conversation between Mrs Willis and Miss Danesbury, in which something was said about a gold locket with Mrs Willis’s portrait inside.
Dora instantly jumped at the conclusion that this was to be the great prize bestowed upon the successful essayist. Delightful idea; how well the trinket would look round her smooth white throat! Instantly she determined to try for this prize, and of course as instantly the bare idea of defeat became intolerable to her. She went steadily and methodically to work. With extreme care she chose her subject. Knowing something of Mrs Willis’s peculiarities, she determined that her theme should not be historical; she believed that she could express herself freely and with power if only she could secure an un-hackneyed subject. Suddenly an idea which she considered brilliant occurred to her. She would call her composition “The River.” This should not bear reference to Father Thames, or any other special river of England, but it should trace the windings of some fabled stream of Dora’s imagination, which, as it flowed along, should tell something of the story of the many places by which it passed. Dora was charmed with her own thought, and worked hard, evening after evening, at her subject, covering sheets of manuscript paper with pencilled jottings, and arranging and rearranging her somewhat confused thoughts. She greatly admired a perfectly rounded period, and she was most particular as to the style in which she wrote. For the purpose of improving her style she even studied old volumes of Addison’s Spectator; but after a time she gave up this course of study, for she found it so difficult to mould her English to Addison’s that she came to the comfortable conclusion that Addison was decidedly obsolete, and that if she wished to do full justice to “The River” she must trust to her own unaided genius.
At last the first ten pages were written. The subject was entered upon with considerable flourishes, and some rather apt poetical quotations from a book containing a collection of poems; the river itself had already left its home in the mountain, and was careering merrily past sunny meadows and little rural, impossible cottages, where the golden-haired children played.
Dora made a very neat copy of her essay so far. She now began to see her way clearly—there would be a very powerful passage as the river approached the murky town. Here, indeed, would be room for powerful and pathetic writing. She wondered if she might venture so far as to hide a suicide in her rushing waters; and then at last the brawling river would lose itself in the sea; and, of course, there would not be the smallest connection between her river, and Kingsley’s well-known song, “Clear and cool.”
She finished writing her ten pages, and being now positively certain of her gold locket, went to bed in a happy state of mind.
This was the very night when Annie was to lead her revellers through the dark wood, but Dora, who never troubled herself about the younger classes, would have been certainly the last to notice the fact that a few of the girls in Lavender House seemed little disposed to eat their suppers of thick bread-and-butter and milk. She went to bed and dreamt happy dreams about her golden locket, and had little idea that any mischief was about to be performed.