The examination had taken place early in May, but the summer term was nearly over before news of the results arrived. When it came, it made but a small sensation. The school had tired of waiting. Not only was its own more intimate examination drawing near, but its many heads were filled, to the exclusion of all else, with the excitements and rivalries of the summer theatricals.
The school play was an institution. Of late years—ever since she had joined the staff indeed—it had grown into an annual personal triumph for Miss Hartill.
Clare was blessed—cursed—with that sixth sense, thesens du théâtre. Her own nature was, in essence, theatrical; her frigid and fastidious reserve warring incessantly with her irrepressible love of the scene for its own sake. She was aware of the trait and humiliated by its presence in her character. Usually she would curb her inclination with a severity that was in itself histrionic: at times she indulged it with voluptuous recklessness.
As a girl, the stage had appealed to her strongly; but her excessive squeamishness, with her acute sense of personal, bodily dignity, closed it to her as a career. Also her love of power. Though she knew little of stage life she had sufficient intuition to gauge correctly what she might become. Successful necessarily—dominant never. And she required a dais. But the compelling woman, she knew, is successful through her combination of intellectual strength with sexual charm. She must not scruple to use all the weapons at her service. Clare had told herself that there were some weapons to which she would never condescend. If sting had lain in the fact that, though she would, they were not hers to use, she did not acknowledge it, even toherself. Resolutely she put from her the idea of fostering a useless talent; and the desire to exploit it, save surreptitiously in social intercourse, dulled as she grew older.
Nevertheless, the yearly plays were to Clare a source of excitement and gratification. She alone was responsible for the production. In five successful years they had become an event, a festival—not only to the school, but to the entire neighbourhood. Two, and then three public performances were given each summer, and the proceeds benefited the school charities.As You Like It,Twelfth Night,Verona, andThe Merchant of Venice, followed upon theMidsummer Night's Dream, and exhausted the list of entirely suitable plays; but after some hesitation, Clare had devised for her next venture scenes fromKing John. Several forms were studying the period, the Sixths and Fifths were reading the play, politically also it was apropos. (Clare had ever sound reasons to gild her decisions.) Privately she had been slightly embarrassed by the fact that the classes she supervised had that year proved themselves unusually poor in dramatic ability. She could depend, indeed, on a score of keen and capable children, but in Louise Denny alone had she glimpsed an actress who could do her credit. The child's physique precluded her from rôles that, otherwise, she could easily have filled, but as Prince Arthur, she could be made the central, unforgettable figure of an otherwise trite performance. "King John," quoth Clare; "decidedly, the very play." AndKing Johnwas chosen.
Since the beginning of the term, with Clare as generalissimo and Alwynne most ingenious of adjutants, staff and school had worked enthusiastically. Costumes were finished, staging painted and planned, and the various scenes were, at length, receiving their final polish. Alwynne was responsible for the interpretation of the minor parts, while Clare, in her spare time, devoted herself to the principals, attacking alternately the exaggerations of Agatha's "Constance," Marion's stolid "Hubert," a certainnear-sighted amiability in the spectacled "King John."
Clare was a born stage-manager, patient, resourceful, compelling. The children trusted her; she had the habit of success. Her air of authority cushioned them, denied the possibility of failure. Clare, wholly in earnest, Clare at usual hours, intimate and relaxed, Clare appealing, exhorting, inspiring, was irresistible. She got what she wanted from them and was not ill content. She knew to the last ounce their capabilities.
With Louise alone she had difficulties. The child was almost too easily trained. Responsive, quickly fired or chilled, she was, in fact, too delicately and completely attuned to Clare herself. Clare could be crude: she had her gusty moods: the little æolian harp quivered to snapping point before them. Originally this extreme sensitiveness had fascinated Clare; she felt like a musician exploring the possibilities of an unknown instrument; but she tired of it in time. As Louise became saturated with the stronger personality, she had, in her passionate desire to satisfy Clare, grown into her mere replica; reproducing her phraseology, voicing her opinions, reflecting her moods, stifling, in the exquisite delight of abnegation, all in her that had originally attracted the older woman. That the effect had been, first to amuse, then to irritate, finally to bore Clare's fickle humour, was natural enough. Clare, had she cared, could have guided the child, despite the great disparity of age, into a pleasant path of affection and friendship, but that she did not choose. She was disappointed, and showed it: and there, for her, the matter ended. That she was in any way responsible, she would not admit.
She did not, indeed, fully realise the extent of the change in Louise until the rehearsals began. For all her growing indifference, in spite of the marked deterioration that automatically it had caused in the girl's work, she had still a high and just opinion of her capabilities. She was positivethat as Prince Arthur, Louise would give a fine and original performance, and anticipated with amused interest her initial rendering of the character.
At the first rehearsal Louise did not disappoint her. She was neither stiff nor self-conscious, and her acting, which proved to be entirely instinctive, carried conviction. Though Clare worked from the head, she could appreciate the more primitive method, but even then, the character as portrayed by Louise amazed her. The deliberate pathos, the cloying charm, did not seem to exist for Louise. She played as in an ecstasy of terror. The text, Clare knew, could permit the reading, and the conception interested her; but the temptation to criticise, alter and improve, was natural. Here and there, as rehearsals progressed, she pulled and patched and patted—quite genuinely in the interest of the play as a whole. But the result was discouraging. The Louise of former days would have defended her own version, delighting Clare with shy impudences and flashes of insight, naïve parries and counter-attacks, till between them they had attained notable results. But the sparkle had been drilled out of Louise. She was humble, anxiously acquiescent, agreeing with every alteration, accepting every suggestion, however foreign to her own instinctive convictions, while the vividness faded slowly from her reading, leaving it lifeless and forced.
"It's patchwork," said Clare disgustedly to Alwynne, at the end of the third week, "pure patchwork. She does everything I tell her—and the result is dire. What it will be like on the night, heaven knows! And there's nobody else. Yet shecanact. That first performance was quite excellent."
"And she tries."
"She slaves! She would be less irritating if she didn't. You know, Alwynne, I let myself go yesterday. I told her how impossible she was. And all she did was to look at me like a mournful monkey!"
"Inarticulate. Exactly."
Clare lifted her eyebrows. Alwynne looked at her quaintly.
"You know perfectly well what's wrong. Why on earth don't you leave her alone?"
"Uncoached?"
"That as well, of course. You said yourself she was excellent at first. Why don't you leave her to herself? It's safe. She's not like the others. She's a nectarine, not a potato. Give her a free hand till the dress-rehearsal. It won't be your reading—I prefer yours, too; at least I think I do——"
"I'm glad you say 'think.' But think again. There's no question of which you ought to prefer. But I, my good child, must consider my public! It wants to enjoy itself! It wants to weep salt tears! Louise's reading would cheat it of its emotions!"
"At least it will be a reading, not a repetition. I don't mean that, though, when I say—leave her alone. Clare—you won't realise what you mean to people!"
"I don't follow——" but Clare laughed a little.
"You do. You know you've made Louise crazy about you." Clare shrugged impatiently.
"I dislike these enthusiasms."
"But you cause them. I think it is rather mean to shirk the consequences."
"Really, Alwynne!" But Clare was still smiling.
"You do. You begin by being heavenly to people—and then you tantalise them."
"Does it hurt, Alwynne? Are you going to run away?"
Alwynne smiled.
"Oh, you won't get rid of me so easily. I'm a limpet. Do you know, I couldn't imagine existence without you now. I've never been so gloriously happy in my life. You wouldn't ever get really tired of me, would you?"
"I wonder."
"I know."
"I've warned you that I'm changeable. Instance your Louise."
"Oh, Clare, do be nicer to Louise."
"Oh, Alwynne, do mind your own business. I'm as nice as is good for her. But I believe you're right about this acting. I'll wash my hands of her till the dress-rehearsal, if you like. You can tell her I said so."
But Alwynne, whispering to Louise that perhaps the old way was better after all, that Miss Hartill had said she didn't mind, achieved little.
"Oh, Miss Durand—don't let her think I'm hopeless. I shall get it right in time. I'd rather stick to the way she showed me. Miss Durand—do you think she's angry? Honestly, I will get it right. Miss Durand—I suppose there's no news?"
The child's face was very drawn; her eyes seemed larger than ever; she looked like a little old woman! Alwynne was concerned; she felt vaguely responsible. She, too, wished that the news, good or bad, would come, and put an end at least to the tension.
And one morning, all unexpectedly, the news did come.
The performances were but two days away. The decorous Big Hall was in confusion. The school sat, picnic-fashion, for its prayers; and the head mistress, entering between half-hung cloths, mounted a battlemented rostrum to address it. She carried a sheaf of papers. Louise, sitting with her class at the further end of the hall, outwardly decorous enough, was in reality paying little attention. Her vague, unhappy thoughts were concerned with the coming rehearsal; she could not remember what Miss Hartill's last directions had been; she was sure she should stumble. Sometimes the mere words seemed to evade her. Yet the play was on her shoulders—Miss Durand had said so. She supposed Prince Arthur was really fond of Hubert? Not pretending, because he was afraid? But of course it was easy to love a person and yet be terrified of them. She stole a look at Clare, prominent in the gravegroup of mistresses. They were all very intent. It dawned on her that the head mistress had been speaking for several minutes.
Suddenly there was an outburst of clapping. The spectacled girl at the end of the row grew pink and stared at her hands.
"What is it?" breathed Louise. "Oh, what is it? What is it?"
A neighbour caught the murmur and looked down at her curiously.
"Are you asleep? It's the lists. Your exam. You'll be second, I expect."
But Marion was second.
The clapping crackled up anew.
So the news was come!
It was cruel to let it spring upon you thus.... You would have asked so little ... ten minutes ... a bare ... in which to brace yourself.... Surprise was horrible ... it caught you with your soul half-naked ... it shocked like sudden noise....
There came a fresh outburst.
It was wicked to make such sounds ... like all the policeman's-rattles in the world....
The reading proceeded; it calmed her; it barely stirred the beautiful silence. But presently the neat voice altered. Old Edith Marsham was a kindly soul. She had not quite forgotten her own schooldays. She realised, perfunctorily, as the successful do, the blankness of defeat. Louise heard her name pronounced, a trifle hurriedly. Louise Denny—failed.
She made no sign. She sat erect, listening to the conclusion of that matter, clapped in due course, stood, kneeled, rose again, as applause, hymns and prayers buzzed about her, filed with her class from the hall and added her shy word to the clamour of congratulation in the long corridors. Inwardly, she was stunned by the evil that was upon her.
The irregular morning classes (the imminent entertainment had disorganised the entire system of work) gave her time to rouse, to review her position.
She turned helplessly within herself, wondering how she should begin to think—and where. She wondered idly if this was how soldiers felt, when a shell had blown them to pieces? She wondered how they collected themselves afterwards? Where did they begin? Did an arm pick up the legs and head, or how?
The picture thus conjured up struck her as excessively funny. She began to giggle. The mistress's astonished voice roused her to the necessity for self-control. She picked up her pen. The thoughts flowed more clearly—yes, like ink in a pen.
So it had come.
All along she had known that she must have failed: known it from the day of the examination itself. The burden of that knowledge had been upon her for weeks like a secret guilt. Daily she had gone to prayers in cold fear, thinking: "Now—now—now—they will read it out." Daily she had studied Clare's face, to each change of expression, each abstraction or transient sternness, her heart beating out its one thought: "She had heard! she knows!" And yet behind her academic certainty of failure had lain a little illogical hope. There was just a chance—an examiner more kind than just ... a spilled ink-bottle ... an opportune fire. The child in her could still pray for miracles, for help from fairyland, and half believe it on the way.
And now the daily terrors, the daily reliefs, were alike over. Louise, who had learned, as she thought, to do without hope these many weeks, realised pitifully her self-deception. This hopelessness, this dead weight of certainty, was a new burden—a Sisyphus rock which would never roll for her. She was at the end.
Her mind, for all its forced and hot-house development, had, in matters of raw fact, the narrow outlook of theschoolgirl, superimposed upon the passions, the more intense for their utter innocence, of the child. Her sense of proportion, that latest developed and most infallible sign of maturity, was embryonic. The examination, so intrinsically unimportant, appeared to her a Waterloo. She could not see beyond it.
Clare, inexplicably altering, daily sterner and more indifferent, save for stray gleams of whimsical kindness, that stung and maddened the child by their sweetness and rarity, would, Louise considered, be effectually alienated. But Louise could not conceive life possible without Clare. The future was a night of black misery, without a hint of dawn.
The morning wore to an end. Clare had come in at the mid-morning break to announce that the dress rehearsal would take place on the afternoon of the following day. All costumes were to be ready. The day-girls were to lunch at the school. She was brief and businesslike, inaccessible to questions. She did not look at Louise.
Alwynne, later in the morning, supplementing her instructions, paused a moment at the child's desk. But Louise gave no sign. Alwynne hesitated. She herself was averse from verbal sympathy. Also she was pressed for time, and Clare, she knew, wanted her. The one o'clock bell shattered her indecision. She gave her directions and hurried away.
Louise packed her books together and went home.
She endured the cheerful noisy lunch; carried out some small commissions for her step-mother; shepherded the troop of small boys into the paddock behind the garden and saw them established at their games. She stayed a moment with the round two-year-old, sprawling by the pile of coats, but he, too, had his amusements. Every pocket tempted his enquiring fingers. He ignored her.
She went back to the house. Habit brought her for the fiftieth time to the attic, and she had opened the door before she remembered. She looked about her. An iron bedstead, covered by a crude quilt, stood where the trunk of books had lain. A square of unswept carpet lay before it. There was a deal night-table and a candlestick of blue tin, with matches and a guttered candle. Across a chair lay a paper-back, face downwards, and a pair of soiled red corsets. The ivy had been cut away from the window, and the sunlight cast no fantastic frieze, but a squared, blackshadow on the floor. The air was close, and a little rank. Louise shrank from it.
"Mother?" she said; and then: "You've gone away, haven't you? It's no use calling?"
She waited. The uneven water-jug rattled in its basin.
She spoke again—
"Mother, I know it's all spoiled here, but couldn't you come? Just for a little while, Mother? I'm most miserable. Please, Mother?"
There was no answer.
"What shall I do?" cried Louise wildly. "What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"
She turned from that empty place, stumbled to her room, and flung herself across her bed. She was shaken by her misery, as a dog shakes a rat. She cried, her head on her arms, till she was sick and blinded. Loneliness and longing seared her as with irons.
The clock ticked, and the sunshine poured into the room. The shouts of the children, the crack of the ball on bat sounded faintly. The house slept. Two hours passed.
Somewhere a clock chimed and boomed. Four o'clock.
Slowly and stiffly Louise roused herself and got off her bed. She was cramped and shivering. She stood in the middle of the room and held out her hands to the brassy sunlight, but it did not warm her. She felt dazed and giddy; her head burned as if there were live coals in it. Her thoughts flowed sluggishly; she found it impossible to hurry them; they split apart into fragments that were words and meaningless phrases, or stuck like cogged wheels. Her mind moved across immense spaces to adjust these difficulties, but she policed them in vain. There was one sentence, in particular, that she could not deal with. It would not move along and make room for other thoughts. It danced before her; its grin spanned the horizon; it inhabited her mind; it was reversible like a Liberty satin; it ticked like a clock: "What next? What next? What next? Next what? Next what? Next what?"
What next?... Dully she reckoned it up. The tea-bell—homework—bedtime. Night—and the false dreams. Morning—and the anger of Miss Hartill. Day and week and month—and the anger of Miss Hartill. The years stretched out before her in infinite repetition of the afternoon's agony, till her raw nerves shrank appalled. Kneeling down, she told God that it was impossible for her to endure this desolation. She implored Him, if He should in truth exist, not to reckon her doubt against her, but to be merciful and let her die. It was not the first time that she had prayed thus, but never before with such fierce insistence. If He existed He could impossibly refuse....
Speaking her thoughts, even to so indefinite a Listener, steadied her. A ghost of hope had drifted through her mind. A ghost indeed; a messenger that whispered not of waking but of sleep, not of arduous renewing but of an end. Death was life upon his lips and life, death; yet he was none the less a hope.
The familiar text upon the wall above her bed caught her eye. The message seemed no more miraculous than the pansies and mistletoe that wreathed about its gilt and crimson capitals. "God is our Refuge and Strength, a very present Help in Trouble." "Ask and it shall be given unto you" confirmed her from the other wall.
She sat between those tremendous statements and considered them.
God had never yet answered any prayer of hers.... Not, she supposed, that He could not, but because He did not choose.... He was rather like Miss Hartill.... But Miss Hartill would never understand.... At least one could explain things to God—if God were.... And she asked so little of Him—just to let her die and be at peace.... She thought He might—if He had even time for sparrows.... She wondered how He would manage it! If He would only be quick—because red-hot wires ran through her head when she tried to think, and she was afraid—afraid—afraid—of to-morrow and Miss Hartill....
The tea-bell pealed across the garden.
She tidied her hair, and fetching the sponge and towel stood before the glass, trying to trim her marred face into some semblance of composure. The boys would be clamouring—and one never knew.... There might be tainted food—a loose baluster—a tag of carpet.... He had his ways.... She must not baulk Him....
She went downstairs.
The children were tired and cross and quarrelsome—the heat had soured even cheerful Mrs. Denny. It was not a pleasant meal. But it could not oppress Louise. Outwardly docile and attentive, her mind had withdrawn into itself and sat aloof, inviolate, surveying its surroundings much as it would have watched the actors in a moving picture. She was impervious to bickerings and querulous comment. What did it matter? She would never have tea with them again.... She was going away from it all.... If only God did not forget....
All through the breathless evening she awaited His pleasure.
Long after the house was quiet, and Mrs. Denny tucking up her children, had come and gone, Louise lay wakeful—still waiting.
It was an airless night. Every other moment the little unaccountable noises of a sleeping building broke the warm silence. Shadows scurried across the counterpane and over her face like ghostly mice, as the trees outside her window bent and nodded to a radiant moon.
She was weary to the point of exhaustion. Momently her body seemed to shrink away from her into the depths of the bed—warm, fathomless depths—leaving her essential self to float free and uncontained. She would resign herself luxuriously to the sensation of disintegration, but with maddening regularity her next breath clicked body and soul together anew. Yet, as she drowsed, the space between breath and breath lengthened slowly, till they lay divided by incredible æons in which her thoughts wandered and lostthemselves, grew hoar and died and were born again; while the dead-weight of her body sank ever deeper into sleep, was recalled to consciousness with ever increasing effort.
She speculated languidly upon her sensations. They recalled a day at the dentist's, years before. A tube had been placed over her mouth and she had struggled, remembering a hideous story of a woman—a French marquise—that she had read in a magazine. The name began with a "B" or a "V." "Brin—" something. The Funnel—The Leather Funnel—that was the name of the story.... But there came no choking water—only sweet, buzzing air.... And then her body had dropped away from her, as it was doing now.... She recalled the sensation of rest and freedom; she had passed, like a bird planing down warm breezes, into exquisite oblivion.... She had returned, centuries later, to a dull aching pain, harsh noises, and lights that were like blows.... But if she had not returned? She would have been dead.... They would have buried her.... Such things had happened.... So that was death—that cradling, beautiful sleep. And God was sending it to her now; flooding her, drowning her in its warm comfort.... God was very good.... She was sorry—sorry that she had often not believed in Him.... But Miss Hartill didn't.... But she would never see Miss Hartill any more.... Perhaps, years after, when she was tired of sleeping, she would go back and see her again.... There was All Souls' Night, when you woke up.... But she would not frighten Miss Hartill.... She laughed a little, to think that she could ever frighten Miss Hartill.... She would just kiss her, a little ghost's kiss that would feel like a puff of air ... and then she would go back and sleep and sleep and sleep ... with only the yew-berries pattering on to her gravestone to tell her when another year had drifted past.... It was funny that people could be afraid to die.... She wondered if ghosts snored, and if you heard them, if your grave were very close? It was her last thought as she slid into slumber.
Instantly the breakfast gong came crashing across her peace. She fought against waking. Her eyelids lifted the weight upon them as violets press upwards against a clod of rotten leaves. She lay dazedly, her mind cobwebbed with dreams, her thoughts trickling back into the channels of the previous night. Slowly she took in her situation. There was the window, and a shining day without: she could hear the starlings quarrelling on the lawn, and the squeak of an angry robin.... There was her room, and the tidy pile of clothes by the bed ... the bed, and she herself lying in it.... So she was not dead! There was to-day to be faced, and Miss Hartill's anger, and all the other hundreds and thousands of days....
And she must get up at once.
Her sick mind shrank from that, as from a culminating terror. She was desperately tired; her body ached as if it had been beaten. Dressing was a monstrous and impossible feat.... It could not be.... Yet her step-mother would come—she was between God and Mrs. Denny—and God had left her in the lurch.
She lay shielding her eyes from the strong light.
The pressure on her eyeballs was causing the usual kaleidoscopic ring of light to form within her closed lids. The phenomenon had always been a childish amusement to her; she was adept at the shifting pressure that could vary colour and pattern. She watched idly. Red changed to green, purple followed yellow, and the ring narrowed to a pin-point of light on its background of watered silk; then it broke up as usual into starry fragments. But they danced no dazzling fire-dance for her ere they merged again into the yellow ring; to her distracted fancy they were letters—fiery letters, that formed and broke and formed again. G—O—D—then an H and a P and an L. She puzzled over them. "God hopes?" "God helps?" But He hadn't.... "God helps?" A Voice in her ears exactly like her own took it up—"Those that help themselves." It spoke so loudly that she shrank. The universe echoed to Itsboom: yet she knew so well that the Voice was only in her own head.
No wonder her head ached, when it was all full of Lights and Voices.... And Miss Hartill would be angry if she took Them to school.... If only she need not go to school.... Why—why had God cheated her? "He helped those——" Was that what They meant?
She looked about her, brightening yet uncertain; then her long plait of hair caught her eye. Lazily she lifted it, disentangled a strand no thicker than coarse string, and doubling it about her throat, began to tighten it, using her fingers as a lever, till the blood sang in her ears. She had sat upright in bed for the greater ease. Suddenly she caught sight of her face in the wardrobe mirror. It was growing pink and puffy; the eyes goggled a little. The sensation of choking grew unendurable. Instinctively her fingers freed themselves and the noose fell apart. She swung forward, panting, and watched her features grow normal again.
"It's no good. Oh, I am a coward," cried Louise, wearily.
Her mother's old-fashioned travelling clock, chiming the quarter, answered her, and for a moment forced her thoughts back from those borderlands where sanity ends. Habit asserted itself; she was filled with everyday anxieties. She was late, certainly for breakfast, probably for school. She jumped out of bed, washed and dressed in panic speed, collected her belongings and hurried from the house.
Her father, hearing the gate clack, glanced up from his newspaper.
"Has that child had any breakfast?" he demanded, uneasily.
There was no answer. He was late himself, and his wife had poured his coffee and left the room. He could hear her heavy footfall in their bedroom overhead.
He returned to his reading.
Louise ran up the steep hill, her satchel padding at her back, the soft wind disordering her hair and whipping a colour into her white cheeks. She gained the deserted cloakroom, flung off her hat, and fled upstairs. But she was later than she guessed. Racing, against all rules, through the upper hall and down the long corridor, the drone of voices as she passed the glass-panelled doors warned her that no hurrying could avail her. She was definitely late. Her speed slackened.
The passage ended at right-angles to a small landing, into which her class-room opened. She paused, sheltering in the curve of the hall, listening. The class was still. The single voice of a mistress rang muffled through the walls. She could not distinguish the accents.
It was Miss Durand's class; but when everything was so upset ... one never knew ... it might be Miss Hartill herself.... That would be just Louise's luck.... She hated you to be late.... But there was no point in hesitating....
Yet she hesitated, shifting her weight uneasily from foot to foot, till a far-off step in the corridor without, ended her uncertainty. Some one was coming.... That again might be Miss Hartill.... Louise must be in her place.... Yet surely it was Miss Hartill's voice in the form-room?
She crept to the door and peered through the glass.
Miss Durand was standing at the blackboard.
Louise entered, brazen with relief, and began her apologies. But Alwynne was no Rhadamanthus, and her official reprobation was marred by a twinkle. She would have beenlate herself that morning, but for Elsbeth—poor dear Elsbeth, who conceded, without remotely comprehending, the joys of that extra twenty minutes. And when had Louise been late before? Little, good, frightened Louise! She entered the name in the defaulters' book, but her manner sent the child to her desk quieted.
Alwynne, at sentry-go between blackboard and rostrum, dictating, supervising, expounding, yet found time to watch her. Louise was always a little on her motherly young mind. The child's shrinking manner worried her—and her pain-haunted eyes. Pain was Alwynne's devil. She was selfish, as youth must be, but at least, unconsciously. Hint trouble, and all of her was eager to serve and save. She was the instinctive Samaritan. But her perception was blurred by her profound belief in Clare. Louise, she knew, was in good hands, in wise hands; where she had known ten children, Clare had trained a hundred; if Clare's ways were not hers—so much the worse for hers.
Yet this disciplining of Louise was a long business; she wished it need not make the child so wretched. Surely Clare forgot how young she was.... There would be new trouble over the affair of the papers.... If Clare would but be commonplace for once, laugh, and say it didn't matter, and perhaps ask Louise to tea.... The child would be radiant for another six months—and work better too.... But, of course, it was absurd for her to dictate to Clare.... Louise had had such a pretty colour when she came in; it was all gone now.... She looked dreadfully thin.... Alwynne wondered if it would do any good to speak to Clare again.... Dear Clare—she was so proud of her girls, so eager to see them successful.... Louise was a bitter disappointment to her.... Yet, if she could have been gentler—but, of course, Clare knew best.... Alwynne only hoped the rehearsal would be a success. If Louise did well, it might adjust the tension....
She watched the child, sitting apparently attentive, noted the moving lips, the little red volume half hidden in her lap.Shakespeare had no business in a physiology lesson, but Alwynne let her alone.
The hour was over all too quickly for Louise. Earlier in the year, when she had been at her most brilliant, and Miss Hartill's classes the absorbing joy of her day, she had yet welcomed the hours with Miss Durand. They alone had not seemed, in comparison, a waste of priceless time. They were jolly hours, quick-stepping, cheerful, laughter-flecked; void of excitements, yet never savourless; above all restful. Unconsciously she had counted on them for their recuperative value. Even now, exhausted, overwrought, beyond all influence, the kindly atmosphere could at least soothe her. Wistfully her eyes followed Alwynne, as the young mistress left the room.
Clamour arose; slamming of desk-lids, thud of satchels and rattle of pencil-cases mingling with the babble of tongues. The next lesson was French Grammar. The little Frenchwoman was invariably late. She dreaded the lesson as much as her audience enjoyed it. They welcomed it as a pleasant interlude—the hour for conversation. Agatha did not even trouble to keep an eye on the door, as she turned to Louise, immobile beside her.
"I say, were you late?"
"Didn't you see?"
"Why were you late? Weren't you called? Didn't you wake up?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Oh, the housemaid died in the night. Smallpox." Louise stooped over her book, her shoulders hunched against questions.
"No, but tell me. Did you get in a row?"
"You heard what Daffy said. I want to learn, Agatha."
"Oh, not that. Did you get in a row about the rehearsal?"
"What rehearsal?"
"The rehearsal yesterday."
Louise sat up, her eyes widening.
"There was no rehearsal yesterday?" she said anxiously.
"Wasn't there just!"
"But I never heard; nobody told me."
"Why, Daffy came in herself, yesterday morning. Every one was there. I suppose you were moonstruck as usual. Do you mean to say you didn't hear? I don't envy you."
"Was she angry?" said Louise, in her smallest voice.
Agatha began to enjoy herself.
"Angry? She was raving!"
"What did she say?"
"Well, she didn't say much," admitted Agatha. "Just asked where you were, and if not, why not—you know her way. Then we got started and went all through it, and had a gorgeous afternoon. She read your part. I say, she can act, can't she? But she was pretty mad, of course."
"Was she—" said Louise. But it was not a question.
"Oh, and you're to go to her at break, this morning. Don't go and forget, and then say I didn't tell you." And she turned to greet the entering mistress with a flood of Anglo-French.
Louise had three parts of an hour in which to assimilate the message. How unlucky she was! She remembered the previous morning as one remembers a nightmare.... Miss Durand had certainly drifted through its dreadfulness—but of what she had said or done, Louise remembered nothing. But it was certain that she had managed to annoy Miss Hartill more than ever. To miss a special rehearsal! Now she was to go to her, and Miss Hartill would be so angry already, that when the question of the papers arose, the last chance of her leniency was gone.... For, of course, she would speak of the examination.... What would she say? Her imagination stubbed; it could not pierce the terror of what Miss Hartill would say.
The break was half over before she had wrenched herself out of her desk, along the length of the school, and up the staircase to Clare's little sanctum.
She knocked timidly. Clare's answering bell, that invariably startled her, rang sharply. She hesitated—the bell rang again, a prolonged, shrill peal. She pulled herself together, opened the door, and went in.
The floor was littered with gay costumes. Miss Durand, in a big apron, laughter-flushed, with her pretty hair tumbling down her back, was sorting them into neat heaps.
Clare, at ease in a big arm-chair, directing operations, while her quick fingers cut and pasted at a tinsel crown, was laughing also.
"How happy they look," thought Louise.
Clare glanced up.
"Well, Louise," she said, not unkindly.
Louise stammered a little.
"Miss Hartill—I'm very sorry—I'm most awfully sorry. They said—the girls said—there was rehearsal yesterday, and you wanted me. I honestly didn't know. I've only just heard there was one."
Clare kept her waiting while she clipped at the indentations of the crown. The scissors clicked and flashed. It seemed an interminable process.
Finally she spoke to Alwynne, her eyes on her work.
"Miss Durand! You gave my message to the Fifths?"
Yes, Alwynne had told the girls.
"Wasn't Louise in the room at the time?"
Alwynne's unwilling eyes took in every detail of the forlorn figure between them. She lied swiftly, amazing herself—
"As a matter of fact—I believe Louise was not in the room at the time. It was my fault: I should have seen that she was told. I'm so sorry."
Louise gave a little gasp of relief—more audible than she realised.
Clare roused at it. She disliked a check. She dislikedalso the obvious sympathy between the child and the girl.
"No, it was my fault. I should have gone myself. It's always wiser. It saves trouble in the long run. Never mind, Louise. You couldn't help it. Are you sure of your words?"
Louise, infinitely relieved, was quite sure of her words.
"Very well. Shut the door after you—oh, Louise!"
Louise turned in the doorway.
"Yes, Miss Hartill."
"I may as well explain to you now. I am re-arranging the classes."
Louise questioned her mutely.
"You will be in the Upper Fourth next term."
Louise stood petrified. She had never thought of this.
"You are moving me down? I am third still."
"We think—Miss Marsham agrees with me—that the work in the Fifth is too much for you. It is not your fault."
"Miss Hartill, I have tried—I am trying."
Clare smiled quite pleasantly.
"I am quite sure of it. I tell you that I'm not blaming you. I blame myself. If I expected more of you than you could manage—no one but myself is to blame. I am sure you will do well in the Fourth."
Louise broke out passionately—
"It is because of the examination."
Clare held out her crown at arm's length, and eyed it between criticism and approval as she answered Louise.
"I think," said Clare smoothly, "we had better not discuss the examination."
Louise stood in the doorway, her mouth quivering.
Alwynne could stand the scene no longer. She jerked herself upright, and, going to the child, slipped her arm about her and pushed her gently from the room.
Clare was still admiring her crown, as Alwynne shut the door again. Alwynne must try it on. It would suit Alwynne.
Alwynne peeped at herself in the little mirror, but her thoughts were with Louise on the other side of the door.
"Clare," said Alwynne uneasily, "you hurt that child."
Clare looked at her oddly.
"Do her good," she said. "Do you think no one has ever hurt me?"
Alwynne was silent. At times her goddess puzzled her.
To the schoolgirls the dress rehearsal was, if possible, more of an ordeal than the performances themselves. The head mistress attended in state with the entire staff and such of the girls as were not themselves acting. Stray relatives, unable to be present at the play proper, dotted the more distant benches, or were bestowed in the overhanging galleries, while the servants, from portly matron to jobbing gardener, clustered at the back of the hall.
The platform at the upper end had been built out to form a stage, and when, late in the afternoon, the final signal had been given and the improvised curtains drew audibly apart, Clare had fair reason to plume herself on her stage-management.
The long blinds of the windows had been let down and shut out the sceptical sunshine; and the candle footlights, flickering unprofessionally, mellowed the paintwork and patterned the home-made scenery with re-echoing lights, pools of unaccountable shadow, and shaftlike, wavering, prismatic gleams, flinging over the crude stage-setting a veil of fantastic charm.
The play opened, however, dully enough. The scenes chosen had had inevitably to be compressed, run together, mangled, and Clare had not found it easy work. Faulconbridge, bowdlerised out of all existence, could not tickle his hearers, and King John, not yet broken in to crown and mantle, gave him feeble support. But with the entrance of Constance, Arthur and the French court, actors and audience alike bestirred themselves.
Agatha, her dark eyes flashing, her lank figure softenedand rounded by the generous sweep of her geranium-coloured robes, looked an authentic stage queen. Her exuberant movements and theatrical intonation had been skilfully utilised by Clare, who, playing on her eager vanity, had alternately checked and goaded her into a plausible rendering of the part. She was the reverse of nervous; her voice rolled her opening speech without a tremor; her impatient, impetuous delivery (she hardly let her fellow-actors finish their lines) fitted the character and was effective enough.
Yet to Clare, note-book in hand, prepared to pounce, cat-like, on deficiencies, neither she nor her foil dominated the stage, nor the row of schoolgirl princes. Her critical appreciation was for the little figure, wavering uncertainly between the shrieking queens, with scared anxious eyes, that swept the listening circle in faint appeal, quivering like a sensitive plant at each verbal assault, shrinking beneath the hail of blandishments and reproaches. The one speech of the scene, the reproof of Constance, was spoken with un-childlike, weary dignity—
"Good my mother, peace!I would that I were low laid in my grave;I am not worth this coil that's made for me."
Yet it was not Arthur that spoke, nor Louise—no frightened boy or overwrought, precocious girl. It was the voice of childhood itself, sexless, aloof; childhood the eternal pilgrim, wandering passive and perplexed, an elf among the giants: childhood, jostled by the uncaring crowd, swayed by gross energies and seared by alien passions.
"She's got it," muttered Clare to Alwynne, reporting progress in the interval; "oh, how she's got it!" She laughed shortly. "So that's her reading. Impudent monkey! But she's got her atmosphere. Uncanny, isn't it? It reminds me—do you remember that performance of hers last autumn withChilde Roland? I told you about it. Well, this brings it back, rather. Clever imp. I wonderhow much of my coaching in this act she'll condescend to leave in?"
"You gave her a free hand, you know," deprecated Alwynne.
"I did. But it's impudence——"
"Inspiration——"
"Impudence all the same. When the rehearsal is over I must have a little conversation with Miss Denny." She showed her white teeth in a smile.
Alwynne caught her up uneasily—
"Clare—you're not going to scold? It wouldn't be fair. You know you're as pleased as Punch, really."
Clare shot a look at her, but Alwynne's face was innocent and anxious. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Am I? I suppose I am. I don't know. On my word, Alwynne, I don't know! But run along, my deputy. There's an agitated orb rolling in your direction from the join of the curtains."
Alwynne fled.
The opening scene of the second division of the play—as Clare had planned it—showed Arthur a prisoner to John and the old queen. The child's face was changed, his manner strained; his startled eyes darted restlessly from Hubert to the king and back again to Hubert; the pair seemed to fascinate him. Yet he shrank from their touch and from Elinor's embrace, only to check the instinctive movement with pitiful, propitiatory haste, and to submit, his small fists clenched, to their caresses. His eyes never left their faces; you saw the tide of fear rising in his soul. Not till the interview with Hubert, however, was the morbid drift of the conception fully apparent. He hung upon the man, smiling with white lips; he fawned; he babbled; he cajoled; marshalled his poor defences of tears and smiles, frail defiance and wooing surrender, with an awful, childish cunning. He watched the man as a frightened bird watches a cat; turned as he turned, confronting him with every muscle tense. His high whisper premised a voice tooweak with terror to shriek. Yet at the entrance of the attendants there came a cry that made Clare shiver where she sat. It was fear incarnate.
Clare fidgeted. It was too bad of Louise.... And what had Alwynne been thinking of? A free hand, indeed! Too much of a free hand altogether! The fact that she was listening to a piece of acting, that, in a theatre, would have overwhelmed her with admiration, added to her annoyance. A school performance was not the place for brilliant improprieties. Certainly impropriety—this laborious exposure of a naked emotion was, in such a milieu, essentially improper—Louise must be crazy! And in what unholy school had she learned it all—this baby of thirteen? And what on earth would staff and school say?
She stole a look at her colleagues. Some were interested, she could see, but obviously puzzled. A couple were whispering together. A third had chosen the moment to yawn.
Her contradictory mind instantly despised them for fools that could not appreciate what manner of work they were privileged to watch. She saw her path clear—her attitude outlined for her. She would glorify a glorious effort (it was pleasant that for once justice might walk with expediency) and her sure, instant tribute would, she knew, suffice to quiet the carpers. But, for all that, the performances themselves should be, she promised herself, on less dangerous lines than the dress-rehearsal. She would have a word with Louise: the imp needed a cold douche.... But what an actress it would make later on! Clare sighed enviously.
The scene was nearly over. With the glad cry—"Ah! now you look like Hubert," the enchantment of terror broke. A few more sentences and Arthur was left alone on the stage.
As the door clanged (Alwynne was juggling with hardware in the wings) the child's strained attitude relaxed and the audience unconsciously relaxed with it. He swayed a moment, then collapsed brokenly into a chair. The long pause was an exquisite relief.
But before long the small face puckered into frowns; a back-wash of subsiding fear swept across it. The hands twitched and drummed. You felt that a plan was maturing.
At last, after furtive glances at the door, he rose with an air of decision, and crossed quickly to the alcove of the window. For an instant the curtains hid him, and the audience stared expectantly at an empty stage. When he turned to them again, holding the great draperies apart with little, resolute fists, his face was alight with hope, and, for the first time, wholly youthful. In the soft voice ringing out the last courageous sentences, detailing the plan of the escape, there was a little quiver of excitement, of childish delight in an adventure. He ended; stood a moment smiling; then the heavy folds hid him again as they swept into position.
There was a tense pause.
Suddenly as from a great distance, came a faint wailing cry. Thereon, silence.
The curtains wheezed and rattled into place.
Alwynne, hurrying on to the stage to shift scenery for the following act, nearly tripped, as she dismantled the alcove, over a huddle of clothes crouched between backing and wall. She stooped and shook it. A small arm flung up in instant guard.
"Louise? Get up! The act's over. Run out of the way. Stop—help me with this, as you're here."
Obediently the child scrambled to her feet. She gripped an armful of curtain, and trailed across the stage in Alwynne's wake. Till the curtains rose on the final act, she trotted after her meekly, helping where she could.
With King John embarked on his opening speech, Alwynne drew breath again. She ran her eye over the actors, palpitant at their several entrances, saw the prompter still established with book and lantern, and decided that all could go on without her for a moment. She put her hand on Louise's shoulder and drew her into the passage.
"What is it, Louise?"
"Nothing."
"What were you doing just now? Were you scared? Was it stage fright?"
"Oh no." Louise smiled faintly.
"Then what were you doing?"
Louise considered.
"I was dead. I had jumped, you know. I was finding out how it would feel."
"Louise! You gruesome child!"
"I liked it—it was so quiet. I'd forgotten about shifting the scenery. I'm sorry. Does it—did it hurt him, do you think, the falling?"
Alwynne put both her hands on the thin shoulders and shook her gently.
"Louise! Wake up! You're not Prince Arthur now! Gracious me, child—it's only a play. You mustn't take it so seriously."
Louise made no answer; she did not seem to understand.
Alwynne was struck by a new idea. She took the child's face in her hand and turned it to the gaslight.
"Did I see you at lunch, Louise? I don't believe I did. Do you know you're a very naughty child to take advantage of the confusion?"
"Miss Durand, I had to learn. I was forgetting it all. I slipped the last two lines as it was—you know, the 'My uncle's spirit is in these stones' bit. I wasn't hungry."
"And you were very late, too. What did you have for breakfast?"
An agitated face peered round the corner.
"Miss Durand, which side do I come on from? Hubert's nearly off."
"The left." Alwynne hurried to the rescue, dragging Louise after her. She hustled the anxious courier to his entrance, twitched his mantle into position, and saw him safely on the stage. Then she turned to Louise.
"Louise, will you please go to the kitchen and ask Mrs.Random for two cups of tea and some buns—at once. There is some tea made, I know. I'm tired and thirsty—two cups, please. Bring it to me here, and don't run into any one with your hands full. Be quick—I'm dying for some."
Louise darted away on her errand. Poor Daffy did look hot and flustered.... Daffy was such a dear ... every one worried her ... it was a shame.... Wouldn't Daffy have been a pleasant mother? Better than shouting Constance.... What was it she had asked for? A plum, a cherry and a fig? No, that wasn't it. Oh, of course, tea—tea and buns.
Alwynne looked after her, smiling and frowning; she was not in the least thirsty. What a baby it was.... But nothing to eat all day! Mrs. Denny ought to be ashamed of herself.... She, Alwynne, would keep a vigilant eye on her to-morrow, poor little soul.... Had she really lost herself so entirely in the part—or was there a touch of pose? No, that was more Agatha's line.... Agatha was enjoying herself.... She listened amusedly, watching through a crack in the screen, till a far-away chink caught her ear. She went out again into the passage, and met Louise with a laden tray.
Alwynne drank with expressive pantomime and motioned to the other cup.
"Drink it up," she commanded.
"It's a second cup—for you——" began Louise.
"Be a good child and do as you're told! I must fly in a minute."
The child looked doubtful; but the steaming liquid was tempting and the new-baked, shining cakes. She obeyed. Alwynne watched the faint colour flush her cheeks with a satisfaction that surprised herself.
"Finish it all up—d'you hear? I must go." She hesitated: "Louise—you were very good to-day. I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully pleased."
She went back to the stage. She had had the pleasure ofbringing a look of relief to Louise's face. Alwynne could never remember that the kindest lie is a lie none the less.
In the part of Arthur the child, unconsciously, had seen embodied her own psychological situation. She had enacted the spirit, if not the letter, of her own state of mind, and in the mock death had experienced something of the sensations, the sense of release, of a real one. Left to herself, she might gradually have dreamed and imagined and acted herself out of her troubles, have drifted back to real life again, cured and sane. But Alwynne, with her suggestion of good cheer, had destroyed the skin of make-believe that was forming healingly upon the child's sore heart. Louise awoke, with a pang of hope, to her real situation.
"I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully pleased." ... So pleased that, who knew, she might yet forgive the crime of the examination? If it might be.... "What might be must be," cried the child within her.
There came a crash of clapping; the rehearsal was over at last, and in a few moments flocks of girls, chattering and excited, came trouping past Louise on their way to tea.
She did not follow them. She was suddenly aware of boy's clothes. She must change them.... She could not find Miss Hartill till she was tidy, and she had determined to speak with her.
Miss Durand had said.... She would do as Arthur did to Hubert—she would besiege Miss Hartill, force her to be kind, till she could say, "Oh, now you look Miss Hartill! all this while you were disguised." She shivered at the idea of undergoing once more the emotional experience of the scene—but the vision of Miss Hartill transfigured drew her as a magnet pulls a needle.
She went towards the stairs.
The big music-room at the top of the house had been temporarily converted into a dressing-room, and she thought she would go quickly and change, while it was still quietand spacious. But as she pushed open the swinging doors that divided staircase from passage, she saw Clare coming down the long corridor. There was no one else in sight. Again wild, unreasoning hopes flooded her. She would seize the opportunity ... she would speak to Miss Hartill there and then.... She would ask her why she was always angry.... Perhaps she would be kind? "I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully pleased...." She must have speech with her at once—at once....
She waited, holding open the door, her heart beating violently, her face steeled to composure.
Clare, passing with a nod, found her way barred by a white-faced scrap of humanity, whose courage, obviously and pitifully, was desperation. But Clare could be very blind when she did not choose to see.
"Miss Hartill, may I speak to you?"
"I can't wait, Louise. I'm busy."
"Miss Hartill, was it all right? Were you pleased? I tried furiously. Was it as you wanted it?"
"Oh, you played your own version." Clare caught her up sharply.
"But Miss Durand said—you said I was to."
"I expect it was all right," said Clare lightly. "I'm afraid I was too busy to attend much, even to your efforts, Louise." She smiled crookedly. "And now run along and change."
She pushed against the door, but Louise, beyond all control, caught back the handles.
"Miss Hartill—you shall listen. Are you always going to be angry? What have I done? Will you never be good to me again as you used to be?"
Clare's face grew stern.
"Louise, you are being very silly. Let me pass."
"Because I can't bear it. It's killing me. Couldn't you stop being angry?"
Clare, ignoring her, wrenched open the door. Louise, flung sideways, slipped on the polished floor. She crouchedwhere she fell, and caught at Clare's skirts. She was completely demoralised.
"Miss Hartill! Oh, please—please—if you would only understand. You hurt me so. You hurt me so."
Clare stood looking down at her.
"Once and for all, Louise, I dislike scenes. Let me go, please."
For a moment their eyes strove. And suddenly Louise, relaxing all effort, let her go. Without another look, Clare retraced her steps and entered the Common-room. Louise, still crouching against the wall, watched her till she disappeared. The doors swung and clicked into rigidity.
There was a sudden uproar of voices and laughter and scraping chairs. A distant door had opened.
Louise started to her feet, and sped swiftly up the stairs, flight on flight, of the tall old house, till she reached the top floor and the music-room. It was empty. She flung-to the door, and fumbled with the stiff key. It turned at last, and she leaned back against the lock, shaking and breathless, but with a sense of relief.
She was safe.... Not for long—they would be coming up soon—but long enough for her purpose.
But first she must recover breath. It was foolish to tremble so. It only hindered one ... when there was so little time to lose.
Hurriedly she sorted out her little pile of everyday clothes—some irrelevant instinct insisting on the paramount necessity of changing into them. Mrs. Denny would be annoyed if she spoiled the new costume. She re-dressed hastily and, clasping her belt, crossed to the window.
It was tall and divided into three casements. The centre door was open. A low seat ran round the bay. She climbed upon it and stood upright, peering out.
How high up she was! There was a blue haze on the horizon, above the line of faint hills, that melted in turn into a weald, chequered like the chessboard counties inAlice. So there was a world beyond the school! Nearerstill, the suburb spread map-like. She craned forward. Directly under her lay the front garden, and a row of white steps that grinned like teeth. It was on them that she would fall—not on the grass....
She imagined the sensation of the impact, and shuddered. But at least they would kill one outright.... One would not die groaning in rhymed couplets, like Arthur....
Clasping the shafts, she hoisted herself upwards, till she stood upon the inner sill. Instantly the fear of falling caught her by the throat. She swayed backwards, gasping and dizzy, steadying herself against the stout curtains.
"I can't do it," whispered Louise hoarsely. "I can't do it."
Slowly the vertigo passed. She fought with her rampant fear, wrenching away her thoughts from the terror of the death she had chosen, to the terror of the life she was leaving. She stood a space, balanced between time and eternity, weighing them.
With an effort she straightened herself, and put a foot on the outer ledge. Again, inevitably, she sickened. Huddled in the safety of the window-seat, stray phrases thrummed in her head: "My bones turn to water"—"There is no strength in me." He knew—that Psalmist man....
She slipped back on to the floor, and walked unsteadily to the littered table. Her hands were so weak that she could hardly lift them to pour out a glass of water.
She leaned against the table and drank thirstily. What a fool she was.... What a weak fool.... An instant's courage—one little second—and peace for ever after.... Wasn't it worth while? Wasn't it? Wasn't it? She turned again to her deliverance.
As she pulled herself on to the seat, she heard a noise of footsteps in the passage without, and the handle of the door was rattled impatiently. In an instant she was on the sill. This was pursuit—Miss Hartill, and all the terrors! There must be no more hesitation. Once more she crouched forthe leap, only, with a supreme effort, to swing herself back to safety again. Her hands were so slippery with sweat that they could barely grip the window-shafts. There was a banging at the door and a sound of voices calling. She swayed in a double agony, as fear strove against fear.
She heard the voice of a prefect—
"Who is it in there? Open the door at once."
They would break open the door.... They would find her.... They would stop her.... Coward that she was—fool and coward.... One instant's courage—one little movement!
She stiffened herself anew. Poised on the extreme edge of the outer sill, she pushed her two hands through the belt of her dress, lest they should save her in her own despite. She stood an instant, her eyes closed.
Then she sprang....