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.”