Penelope, wearing a very shabby brown holland skirt and a white muslin blouse of at least three years of age, looked neither picturesque nor interesting as she strolled towards the parterre. She had not troubled herself to put on a hat. Her complexion was of the dull, fair sort which does not sunburn. She was destitute of any particle of colour; even her lips were pale; her eyes were of the lightest shade of blue; her eyelashes and eyebrows were also nearly white. As she walked along now, slightly hitching her shoulders, there came a whoop of delight from the younger children, and, amongst several others, Juliet L’Estrange leaped towards her.
“Here you are! I am so glad! Why did you not come to us last night? We’d got such a glorious place to hide in—you couldn’t possibly have found us. What is the matter, Penelope? Does your head ache?”
“Penelope’s head aches, I know it does,” said Agnes, turning to her small companion as she spoke. “What is the matter, Penelope dear?”
“I am quite all right,” replied Penelope; “but I can’t talk to you just now, Juliet, for I’ve something important to say to your sister Mary, and also to say to Cara Burt.”
“But I thought you hated the older girls,” said Juliet, puckering her pretty brows in distress. “You have always belonged to us, and that was one reason why we loved you so much. You were always gay and bright and jolly with us. Why can’t you play with us now?”
“Yes—why can’t you?” asked Agnes. “It won’t be a bit too hot to play hide-and-seek in the wood, and we have an hour and a half before we need go back to horrid lessons.”
“Yes—aren’t the lessons detestable?” said Penelope. One of her greatest powers amongst the younger girls was the manner in which she could force them to dislike their lessons, judging that there would be no surer way of making them her friends than by pretending to dislike the work they had got to do. She thus bred a spirit of mischief in the school, which no one in the least suspected, not even the girls over whom she reigned supreme.
She said a few words now to Juliet L’Estrange, and then walked on to the entrance of the wood, where she felt certain she would find Mary and Cara waiting for her. She was right: they were there, and so also, to her surprise, were the other girls who were to take part in “A Dream of Fair Women.”
It was arranged, after all, that only Helen of Troy, Iphigenia, Jephtha’s daughter, Cleopatra, and Fair Rosamond were to act. Queen Eleanor was not essential, she might come in or not, as the mistress decided later on. But five principal actors there must be, and there stood four of them looking anxiously, full into Penelope Carlton’s face. Annie Leicester was to take the part of Fair Rosamond. She was a thoroughly unremarkable looking girl, but had a certain willowy grace about her, and could put herself into graceful poses. The girl who was to take the part of Cleopatra was dark—almost swarthy. Her name was Susanna Salmi; and it needed but a glance to detect her Jewish origin. Her brow was very low; she had masses of thick, black hair, a large mouth, and a somewhat prominent chin. Her face, on the whole, was strong, and there were possibilities about her of future beauty, but that would greatly depend on whether she grew tall enough, and whether her buxom figure toned down to lines of beauty.
The four girls, such as they were, looked indeed in no way remarkable or suited to their parts. But what will not judicious make-up and limelight and due attention to artistic effect achieve? Mrs Hazlitt would not have despaired of the four, if only she had secured the coveted fifth. If the girl she wished to be Helen of Troy could only stand forth in her exquisite beauty in the midst of this group, the tableaux would be a marked success.