"Yes, I'm off soon," Cynthia had confided. They were sitting together in her cubicle. "All this is slow—slow. Ne' mind! Wait till this child gets going!" She stretched herself lazily, and flung back on her little white bed, arms behind her. Louise studied her magnificent torso.
"Why did you come?" she demanded.
Cynthia laughed.
"Italy—France—Deutschland—I'd done everywhere but England. Now comes a tour round the world—and sohome. I'm Californian, you know. I'll have great times then. You don't live, over here. You're afraid of your own shadows. Now an American girl——"
"How do you mean?"
"Aren't you? Always afraid of breaking rules? Haven't I asked you—haven't I begged you to come out with me one day? Oh, Louise, it would be great! I saw a taxi-man yesterday, outside church, with the duckiest eyes! Lunch somewhere, and 'phone through for the new show at Daly's. An American show! Dandy! Only taken you four years to transfer here! Let's go, Louise? We'd be back to supper."
Louise twinkled.
"Rot! We'd be expelled."
Cynthia opened her china-blue eyes.
"For a little thing like that? Why? We wouldn't miss a class. Besides, we'd say you asked me home to tea."
Louise looked distressed. Their ideas of veracity had clashed before.
Cynthia, watching mischievously, giggled.
"Poor kid! Doesn't it want to tell lies, then?"
"You see—English people don't! Of course, I know it's different abroad," said Louise delicately.
"Haven't you ever, Louise?"
Louise flushed crimson.
"You have?" Cynthia was amused. "What was it, Louise? Oh, what was it? Tell! Oh, you needn't mind me—my average is—well, quite average. What was it?"
Louise's lips closed.
"I call you the limit, you know! 'English people don't!' With a red-hot tarradiddle on your little white conscience all the time. You're a good pupil, Louise."
Louise, blushing, turned suspiciously.
"What are you at now!" she demanded.
"I was thinking of Clarissa." Cynthia smiled with intention.
"Clarissa who?"
"Clare, kid! Clare! Sweet Clare! Sugar-sweet Clare! Our dear Dame Double!"
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said Louise, in her lowest voice. "You know I hate it."
"All right, honey!" Cynthia rolled lazily on to her side and pulled a box of chocolates from the shelf beside her.
The room was quiet for a while.
"Cynthia?"
"Um?"
"What did you mean just now?"
"Have a candy?"
"No, thanks!"
Cynthia munched on.
"About Miss Hartill?" Louise's tone was half defiant, half guilty. She felt disloyal in re-opening the subject. Yet Cynthia's hints rankled.
"I don't know. Nothing, I guess."
"Oh, but you did mean something," said Louise uneasily.
"Maybe."
"Tell me."
"Want to know?"
"Yes."
"Badly?"
"It's not true, of course! But I'd like to know."
Cynthia's eyes danced. She could be grave enough otherwise, but her eyes and her dimples could never be kept in order.
"Tell about the tarradiddle first, and I will."
But to Louise a lie was a lie and no joking matter. She fidgeted.
"If you must know——"
"I must."
"Well—you know how Miss Hartill hates birthdays?"
"Why?"
"At least, school ones. You know, there's such a fuss at Miss Marsham's—a holiday, presents, and all that. So Miss Hartill won't let hers be known."
"'Splendid Isolation' stunt."
"If you're going to be a hatefully unjust pig, I won't tell you."
"I apologise. Have a candy?"
"Well, you know, Agatha found out that Miss Hartill was giving a party last week, and, of course, every one thought it was for hers. But it turned out it was Daffy's birthday: Miss Hartill gave it for her. It was Agatha's fault. She was so dead certain about it."
"But what did it matter?"
"Well, you see, I'd got some roses——"
"Pale pink and yellow? Beauties?"
"Yes."
"Oho! So that's where they came from. I did Dame Double an injustice. I thought it was a best boy." Cynthia gurgled.
"You saw them?"
"I went to tea with her—it must have been that day—the eighth?"
Louise nodded.
"A party! Agatha is a coon. There was only Daffy there! I wonder she didn't ask you."
Louise said nothing. Her face was expressionless.
"Mean old thing!" Cynthia grew indignant as the situation dawned on her.
"She can't ask every one. There was no reason whatever to ask me." But Louise's voice had a suspicious quiver in it, which Cynthia, with unusual tact, ignored.
"Well—about the roses? They were beauties, kid!"
"Oh, I brought 'em round, going to school. I thought she'd started, but she hadn't. She opened the door. So there I was, stuck." Louise began to laugh. "I'd meant to leave them, just without any name."
"I see." Cynthia twinkled.
"She was rather—rather breakfasty, you know—and I got flustered and forgot to wish her 'many happy.' Wasn't it lucky? I was thankful afterwards. I only said theywere out of the greenhouse and I thought she'd like them. She did, too." Louise smiled to herself.
"Well?"
"That's all."
"But where did the lie come in?"
"Oh! Oh—well—I'd bought them, you see. As if Mamma would let me pick flowers. Besides, we haven't even got a greenhouse. But I had five shillings at Christmas, and sixpence in the pudding—and sixpence a week pocket-money—and I never have anything to buy. I could well afford it," said Louise, with dignity.
"That's not a lie," said Cynthia, disappointed. "It's barely an—an evasion."
"I didn't mean to—evade. I was only afraid she'd be cross, and yet I couldn't resist getting them. Do you know the feeling, when you ache to give people things? But it was a lie, of course."
"Oh, well! You needn't mind. She tells plenty herself—acts them, at least——"
Louise caught her up.
"There! That's it! That's one of the things! You're always hinting things! Why do you? I won't have it! Of course, I know you're only in fun, but if anybody hears you——"
"I'm not! Oh, but it's no use talking! You think she's a god almighty. What's the use of my telling you that she's a conceited——"
"She's not!"
"Oh, she's a right to be. She'd be a peach if I had the dressing of her——"
"She doesn't like American fashions. We don't want her to. We like her as she is."
"And she knows it—you bet your bottom dollar! There's not much she doesn't know. Why, she simply lives for effect! She's the most gorgeous hypocrite——"
"You're a beastly one yourself—you pretend you like her——"
"But I do! I admire her heaps! But I understand her. You don't. She likes to be top dog. She'll do anything for that. She likes to know every woman and child in the school is a bit of putty, to knead into shape. I know! I've met her sort before—only generally it was men they were after. And yet it bores her too——" parenthesised Cynthia shrewdly. "That's why she likes me. I don't care two pins for her tricks. That stings her up a bit. She'll be mighty bored when I go."
Louise listened, angry, yet fascinated. It gave her a curious pleasure to hear Miss Hartill belied. She would hug herself for her own superior discernment. A phrase from a half-digested story often recurred to her: "One doesn't defend one's god! One's god is a defence in himself." But Cynthia was going too far—abandoning innuendo for direct assault. She struck back.
"It's easy to say things. Just saying so doesn't make it so. And if it did, I shouldn't believe it."
"Oh! I can prove it." Cynthia laughed. "Have you noticed the Charette comedy?"
"Mademoiselle? Oh, she hates Miss Hartill. But she's French, of course."
"Does she just? H'm——!"
"Well, there was a French girl—she left last term—she told Marion that Mademoiselle had said things to her about Miss Hartill. Agatha told me. Agatha loathes Mademoiselle. Of course, Mademoiselle is rather down on her."
"I don't wonder. You know how Agatha hazes her in class."
"I can't stand Agatha." Louise shook herself. "Last French Grammar it was awful—silly, you know, not funny. One simply couldn't work. Mademoiselle kept her in. I suppose Agatha didn't like that. She's been a lamb since, anyway. About time too!"
"Shucks! It wasn't being kept in. It was Clarissa. Oh, my dear, it was fun! There was poor little Mademoiselle,storming away in her absurd English, and Agatha cheeking her for all she was worth."
"How did you hear?"
"Why, I was in the studio! Agatha didn't know we were there, of course. The glass doors were open. You know, Daffy gives me extra drawing. And just when Agatha was in full swing, and Mademoiselle speechless with rage, Miss Hartill turned up—wanted Daffy."
"Oh, go on!" Louise cried breathlessly.
"It really was funny, you know. Miss Hartill was talking to Daffy and the row going on next door—you couldn't help hearing—and suddenly Daffy said—Daffy had been fidgeting for some time—'Listen!' and Clarissa said, 'Oho-o!' You know her way, with about ten o's at the end; and Daffy said, 'There! Now do you believe me?' kind of crowing. And Miss Hartill, she just smiled, like a cat with cream, and said, 'All right, Alwynne! All right, my dear!' and went into the next room. Say, it was exciting! She didn't raise her voice, but she just let herself go, and in about two minutes Agatha came out like a ripe cheese—literally crawling. I wish she hadn't shut the door. I couldn't hear any more. I could see, of course, and you bet I watched out of the tail of my eye. Daffy never noticed me."
"What happened then?"
"Oh! They stood and talked, and Mademoiselle was scarlet and seemed to be pitching into Miss Hartill, as far as I could see, and Miss Hartill was letting her talk herself out, and sometimes she smiled and said something; that always started Mademoiselle off again. And at last Mademoiselle went and sat in one of the window-seats, and I couldn't see her face, but I imagined she was howling. French people always do. Clarissa went and patted her shoulder."
"She is a dear!" Loyally Louise bit back her instant jealousy.
"Oh, she was enjoying herself," said Cynthia coolly."You should have seen her face. Sort of smiling at her own thoughts. Have you ever seen a spider smile?"
Louise disdained an answer.
"Nor have I! Have a candy? But I bet I know what it looks like."
"Well, what happened?" demanded Louise impatiently.
"Oh, it was annoying! Daffy came and sat down in my place, to correct. I couldn't see any more. Only when Miss Hartill came out (she didn't notice me, I was putting away the group), she said to Daffy, 'She's coming to tea on Friday.' And Daffy said, 'Clare, you're a wonder!' And Miss Hartill said, 'I didn't do it for her, Alwynne!' And Daffy got pink. Clarissa did look pleased with herself."
"Well, so she ought! Wouldn't you be—if you could make people happy?"
Cynthia threw up her hands. "Happy! Oh, Momma! Are you happy?"
Louise winced.
"Is Daffy? Mademoiselle? Any of you fools? Oh, it's no use talking! You won't believe me when I tell you that she's a cat. Yes, a pussy-cat, Louise! A silky, purring pussy-cat, pawing you, pat—pat—so softly, like kisses. But if you wriggle—my! Look out for claws! Have a candy?"
Louise gathered herself together. She came close to the bed, and leaning over the older girl, spoke—
"I don't understand what you're driving at—but you're wrong. It's you that's a fool. You misjudge her, utterly. You don't understand her—you're not fit to."
"Are you?" Cynthia laughed at her openly.
"Of course not. No one—Daffy does, of course. But us?—girls? Just because she's been heavenly to you, you take advantage, to watch her, to judge, to twist all she says and does. Why do you hate her so?"
"I don't." Cynthia pulled herself upright. "My dear, you're wrong there. I like her immensely. She's a real treat. But I don't worship her like you do."
"I don't! I—I just love her." Louise glowed.
Cynthia laughed jollily.
"Oh, well! You'll get over that. Wait till you get a best boy."
"If you think I'd look at any silly man, after knowing her——"
"My dear girl! Has it never occurred to you that you'll marry some day?"
Louise shook her head.
"I've thought it all out. I never could love anybody as much as I do Miss Hartill. I know I couldn't."
"But it's not the same! Falling in love with a man——"
"Love's love," said Louise with finality. "Where's the difference?"
Cynthia sat up.
"Where's the difference? Where's the——?" She giggled. But something in the quality of her laughter disturbed. Louise frowned.
"I didn't say anything funny. You'll love your husband, I suppose, that you're always talking about having—and I'll stick to Miss Hartill. It's perfectly simple."
But Cynthia was still laughing. Louise grew irritable under her amused glances, and would have turned away, but Cynthia flung her arm about her.
"Stop! Don't you really know?"
"What?"
"The difference."
Cynthia's eyes shone oddly. Louise moved uneasily, disconcerted by their expression.
Cynthia continued.
"Hasn't any one told you? Why, with the books you've read——Haven't you read the Bible ever?"
"Of course!" Louise was indignant. "I've been right through—four times."
"And you've never noticed? Good Lord! That's all I read it for."
"I haven't an idea what you're driving at," said Louise. Cynthia was making her thoroughly uncomfortable.
Cynthia was flushed, laughing, pure devilry in her eyes. Her lips were pouted, her little teeth gleamed. She looked a child licking its lips over forbidden dainties. She had pulled Louise into her lap and her voice had dropped to a whisper.
"Shall I tell you? Would you like to know? You ought to—you're fourteen—it's absurd—not knowing about things—shall I tell you?"
Louise fidgeted. Cynthia's manner had aroused her curiosity, but none the less she was repelled. Why, she could not have said. She hesitated, aroused, yet half frightened.
"I'll tell you," said Cynthia lusciously.
With a sudden effort Louise freed herself from the encircling arm. She edged away from the elder girl, stammering a little.
"I don't think I want to know anything. It's awfully sweet of you. I'd rather—I always ask Daffy things. Do you mind?"
Cynthia, good-tempered as ever, laughed aloud.
"Lord, no! But what a little saint! Aren't you ever curious, Louise? All right! I won't tease. Have a candy?"
And Louise, eating chocolates, was not long in forgetting the conversation and all the curious discomfort it had aroused. If a leaf had fallen on the white garment of her innocence—a leaf from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—she had brushed it aside, all unconscious, before it could leave a stain.
The spring term was nearly over, holidays and a trip to Italy deliciously near; yet Clare Hartill sat at breakfast and frowned over a neatly-written letter.
Clare Hartill did not encourage the re-entry of old friends into her life. She did not forget them. She would look back upon the far-off flaming intimacy with regret, would quote its pleasures to the friend of the hour with disconcerting enthusiasm; but she was never eager for the reappearance of any whose ways had once diverged from her own. Pleasant memories, if you will; but, in the flesh, old friends were tiresome. They claimed instant intimacy; were free-tongued, fond, familiar; could not realise that though they might choose to stand still, she, Clare, had grown out of their knowledge, beyond their fellowship. She, indeed, would find them terribly unaltered; older, glamourless, yet amazingly, humiliatingly the same. She would look at them furtively as she entertained them, and shudder at the lapse from taste that surely must have explained her former affection. She would be gracious, kind, yet inimitably distant, and would send them away at last, subdued, vaguely disquieted, loyal still, yet very sure that they would never trouble her again. Which was exactly what Clare Hartill intended. Yet she had her fits of remorse withal, her secret bitter railing at fate and her own nature, for that she could neither keep a friend nor live without one. Recovering, she would be complacent at having contrived, without loss of prestige, to rid herself of bores.
There was one fly in her ointment. Who knows not that fly, earnest and well-intentioned, which, when it is dug out with a hairpin, cleanses itself exhaustively and forthwith returns to the vaseline jar? Such a fly, optimistic and persistent,was the correspondent who invariably signed herself, "Ever, dear Clare, your affectionate little friend, Olivia Pring. P.S. Do you remember...?" There would follow a reminiscence, at least twenty years old, that Clare never did remember.
Olivia Pring was a school-mate. There had been a term together in the Lower Third. For a few weeks she had been Clare's best friend and she never let Clare forget it. Clare, with removes and double removes, had disappeared speedily from Olivia's world, but she never quite shook off Olivia. Olivia, amiable, admiring, impervious to snubs, refused to be shaken off. She went her placid way, became a governess, and an expert in the more complicated forms of crochet. She wrote to Clare about twice a year—dull, affectionate letters. Clare, that involute character, amazed herself by invariably answering them. At long intervals Olivia would be passing through London, and would announce herself, if quite convenient, as intending to visit her dear Clare that afternoon. She would describe the lengthy tussle between herself and her employer, before she had wrested the requisite permission to stay the night—and did Clare remember the last visit but three, and the amusing evening they had had? And the letter was invariably delayed in the posting, and its arrival would precede that of Olivia by a bare half-hour. Olivia, growing even fatter and more placid, would apologise breathlessly between broad smiles at the sight of Clare and recollections of the dear old days. And Clare, as one hypnotised, would go to her linen cupboard and give out sheets for the spare room. There would follow an evening of interminable small-talk for Clare, of sheer delight for Olivia Pring, who, consciously and conscientiously commonplace, enjoyed dear Clare's daring views as a youthful curate might enjoy, strictly as an onlooker, what he imagines to be the less respectable aspects of an evening in Paris.
And Clare would retire to bed at ten-fifteen and sleep asshe had not slept for weeks. Olivia would be regretfully obliged to catch the eight-eleven, and would depart amid embraces. And Clare would order up a second breakfast and wonder why she stood it. Yet the pile of unused doileys in her linen cupboard increased yearly. A doiley was Olivia's invariable tribute, and arrived, intricate and unlovely, within a week of her visit.
Clare fingered her letter in quaint helplessness. She had a sleepless night behind her, and a big morning's work before, and her usual end-of-term headache. Olivia was arriving—she glanced at the hopelessly legible sheets—at three-fifty. No chance of mistake there. Clare decided that it was quite impossible for her to survive a seven hours'tête-à-têtewith her affectionate friend Olivia Pring. If only Alwynne could help her out. But Alwynne, she knew, was taking the skimmings of the Sixths and Fifths to a suitable Shakespeare performance. She had taken the pick of the classes herself the evening before. No chance of Alwynne, then. And Cynthia! Alack for Cynthia! who could have been trusted to amuse Olivia Pring as much as Olivia Pring would have amused her—Cynthia must be aboard ship by now. Clare, in regretful parenthesis, hoped Cynthia would send a few compatriots to Utterbridge.... Americans gave a fillip to one's duties.... Anyhow Alwynne and Cynthia were out of the question.
There was Louise! She brightened. Louise, queer little thing, was always amusing.... Louise would serve her turn.... Louise would be so charmed to come.... Clare laughed a little consciously. Perhaps she had neglected Louise a trifle of late, perhaps it was not altogether fair of her. A happy thought buffered the prick of her yawning conscience. It was Alwynne's fault.... Alwynne, with her ridiculous, well-meaning objections.... She, Clare, had given in to them, for peace and quiet sake.... And now, most probably, Louise was not too content with life.... One knew what schoolgirls were.... Never mind! Clare would be very nice to Louise thisevening.... Louise should enjoy herself, and, incidentally, preserve Clare from expiring of boredom at poor Olivia's large, flat feet.
The invitation was given during the eleven o'clock break. Clare would occasionally join the school in Big Hall, and share its milk and biscuits. Often enough to make it any day's delightful possibility, not often enough for it to be other than an event. She would sit on the platform steps, watching the gay promenaders below, informal, approachable, tossing the ball to the daring few, hedged about, in turn, by the tentative many. Sometimes she would stroll about the hall with a girl on either side, or one only. She had a curious little trick of catching the girl she spoke with by the elbow, and pushing her gently along as she talked, bending over (she was very tall) and enveloping. Everybody knew the "Gendarme Stunt" as Cynthia Griffiths irreverently termed it, and no one would have dreamed of approaching or interrupting such atête-à-tête.
Nevertheless, Miss Hartill had not exchanged three sentences with Louise Denny on the morning of Olivia Pring's arrival, before every girl in Big Hall knew of it, and twice the number of eyes were following them, with an elaborately accidental gaze, in their progress.
Possibly Clare was a little touched by Louise's delight at the invitation. At any rate she managed, in spite of her headache, to be a very charming companion. She confessed to the headache, and asked Louise for advice. And Louise, deeply concerned, could think of nothing but a recipe she had found in Clare's own Culpeper, in which rhubarb and powdered dormice figured largely. She suggested it in a doubtful little voice. The school would have given a good deal to know what made Miss Hartill laugh so.
Miss Hartill told Louise all about her visitor, whom, she declared, she depended on Louise to entertain, and added a couple of comical tales of their mutual schooldays. Unfortunately Clare'snovelliowed their charm more to her inventive touches and graphic manner than to the actualunderlying fact. Louise was left with the impression of an Olivia Pring who had been Friar Tuck to Clare's Robin Hood. She appreciated the honour of being asked to meet her to a degree that would have tickled Clare, had she guessed it.
"Miss Olivia Pring!" Louise meditated all day over Miss Olivia Pring. Evidently Miss Hartill's best friend.... She hoped Miss Olivia Pring would like her.... How dreadful it would be if she didn't ... for what might she not say of her to Miss Hartill? Louise must be careful, oh, so careful, of her manners and her speech.... It was rather hard luck that she would not have Miss Hartill to herself.... It would be dreadfully uncomfortable—talking before a stranger.... Except for the delightfulness of being asked by Miss Hartill, she could have wished that Miss Hartill had not asked her. Rather an ordeal for a thirteen-year-old—supper with Miss Hartill and Miss Olivia Pring.
Now shyness, like any other painful sensation, is inexplicable to such as have not experienced it, is at once forgotten by such as outgrow it, but to those at its mercy, to sheer suffering, paralysing, stultifying, a spiritual Torture of the Pear.
Clare Hartill should have understood; she had her own furtive childhood for reference; but Clare Hartill had a headache, and she was very tired of Olivia Pring. Olivia was so placid, so shapeless, so ridiculous, in her pink flannel blouse, and the reckless glasses, that were ever on the point of toppling over the precipice of her abbreviated nose into the abyss of her half-open mouth. It certainly did not occur to Clare that Louise could feel the slightest discomfort on account of Olivia Pring.
But Louise was blind to the flannel blouse, and the foolish face, and the unmanageable glasses. She was wearing glasses of her own, rose-coloured affairs, through which Miss Pring appeared, not only as a "grown-up" and a stranger, but as the intimate of Deity in Undress. MissPring did nothing to dispel the illusion—she had conscientiously flattened the high spirits out of too many little girls to be interested in a new specimen. She addressed herself chiefly to Clare—recalling incessantly, and enlarging upon, trifling incidents of their mutual past, which every fresh sentence of the badgered hostess contrived to recall to her elastic memory. Louise, always sensitive, her shyness growing with every word, could but take each unexplained allusion as a personal snub, and feeling herself entirely superfluous, began to imagine that Miss Hartill was already regretting the invitation. Panic-struck she tried to remedy matters by effacing herself as completely as possible. It was wonderful what a small and insignificant person Louise could sometimes look, and did look that evening in one of Clare's big arm-chairs. Her prim little whisper and deprecatory smile might have struck Clare as pathetic if Clare had not been so very tired of the affectionate reminiscences of Olivia Pring. As it was, she was annoyed. She had asked Louise of the bright eyes and quick stammer and extravagant imagery, to supper with her—the panther-cub, not the leveret. She had talked of Louise too—had looked forward to putting the child through its paces, if only for the benefit of Olivia Pring. She had even surmised that Louise would take Olivia's measure, and at a nod from Clare would be delicately, deliciously impertinent. Indeed, she had thought her capable of it. But it was only a schoolgirl after all—a silly tongue-tied schoolgirl—that she had for an instant compared with Alwynne: Alwynne, monstrously absent, a match for ten Olivias.
She yawned, shrugged her shoulders, and suggested, in fine ironic fit, a game of "Old Maid." Olivia was extremely pleased. She so much preferred Old Maid—or Beggar-my-Neighbour, perhaps?—to Bridge. She did not approve of Bridge. In her position it did not do. Clare would remember that she had always said....
Clare fetched the cards.
Louise! Louise! You have done yourself no good to-night. Shy? Nonsense! What is there to be shy about? A few words from Miss Hartill—a prompting or two—a leading question—could have broken the ice of your shyness for you, eh? And Miss Hartill knows it, as well as you, if not better. That shall not avail you. Who are you, to set Miss Hartill's conscience itching? Miss Hartill has a headache. Pull up your chair, and deal your cards, and stop Miss Hartill yawning, if you can. Believe me, it's your only chance of escape.
Louise was a clumsy dealer. Her careful setting out of cards irritated Clare to snatching point. Olive triumphed in every game. On principle, Clare disliked losing, even at Beggar-my-Neighbour. And they played Beggar-my-Neighbour till ten o'clock.
Louise grew more cheerful as the evening progressed, ventured a few sentences now and then. Clare was dangerously suave with both her guests; but Louise, taking all in good faith, hoped after all, that she had not appeared as stupid as she felt. It had been dreadful at first, she reflected, as she put on coat and hat. But it had gone better afterwards.... She didn't believe Miss Hartill was cross with her.... That had been a silly idea of her own.... Miss Hartill was just as usual.
She made her farewells. Clare came out into the hall and ushered her forth.
"Good-bye!" Louise smiled up at her. "It was so kind of you to have me. I have so much enjoyed myself." Then, the formula off her tongue: "Miss Hartill, I do hope your head's better?"
"Thank you!" said Clare inscrutably. "Good-night!" Then, as the maid went down the stairs: "Louise!"
"Yes, Miss Hartill?"
Clare was smiling brilliantly.
"Don't come again, Louise, until you can be more amusing. At any rate, natural. Good-night!"
She shut the door.
Louise spent her Easter holidays among her lesson books. Miss Hartill and Miss Durand were in Italy, all responsibilities put aside for four blessed weeks, but for Louise there could be no relaxation. The examinations were to take place a few days before the summer term began, and their imminence overshadowed her. Useless for Miss Durand to extract a promise to rest, to be lazy, to forget all about lessons. Louise promised readily and broke her promise half-an-hour after she had waved the train out of the station. Impossible to keep away from one's History and Latin and Mathematics with examinations three weeks ahead. Miss Durand might preach; her overtaxed brain cry pax; her cramped body ache for exercise; but Louise knew herself forced to ignore all protests. She would rest when the examinations were over. Till then—revision, repetition—repetition, revision—with as little time as might be grudged to eating and sleeping and duty walks with Mrs. Denny.
There was no time to lose. The nights swallowed up the days all too swiftly.
Yet, waking one morning with a start to realise that the day of days had dawned at last, she found it incredible. The morning was exactly like other mornings, with the sun streaming blindingly in upon her, because she had forgotten, as usual, to drawn her blind at night, her head already aching a little, hot and heavy from uneasy sleep. All night long her brain had been alert, restless, beyond control. All night long it had tugged and fretted, like a leashed dog, at the surface slumber that tethered it. She felt confused, burdened with a half-consciousness of vivid, forgotten dreams.
She dressed abstractedly, lesson books propped against her looking-glass, and wedged between soap-dish and pitcher. For the hundredth time she conned the technicalities of her work, and making no slips, grew more cheerful for it had been the letter, not the spirit, that had troubled her—little matters of rules and exceptions, of dates and derivations, that would surely trip her up. But she was feeling sure of herself at last, and thrilling as she was with nervous excitement, could yet be glad that the great day had dawned, and ready to laugh at all her previous despondencies. Things were turning out better than she had expected. There was bracing comfort in beginning with her own subject—Miss Hartill's own subject. She could have no fears for herself in the Literature examination. French in the afternoon, that was less pleasant. But she would manage—must, literally. "Miss Hartill expects——" She laughed. She supposed the sailors felt just the same about Nelson as she did about Miss Hartill. She wondered if Lady Hamilton had minded his only having one eye and one arm? Suppose Miss Hartill had only one eye and one arm? Oh! If anything happened to Miss Hartill...! She shivered at the idea and instantly witnessed, with all imaginable detail, the wreck of the train as it entered Utterbridge station, and she herself rescuing Miss Hartill, armless and blind, from the blazing carriage. She had her on the sofa, five years later, in the prettiest of invalid gowns, contentedly reliant on her former pupil. And Louise, blissfully happy, was her hands and feet and eyes, her nurse, her servant, her—(hastily Louise deprived her alike of income and friends) her bread-winner and companion. Here her French Grammar, slithering over the soap to the floor, woke her from that delicious reverie.
She picked it up, and applied herself for a while to its dazing infinitives. But teeth-brushing is a rhythmic process: her thoughts wandered again perforce. She had got to be first.... Miss Hartill would be so pleased.... It would be heavenly to please Miss Hartill again as she usedto do.... Nothing had been the same since Cynthia came.... She flushed to the eyes at the recollection of her last unlucky visit——"You needn't come again unless you can be more amusing. You might at least be natural...." Yet Miss Hartill had been so kind at the last ... had waved to her from the train....
The postman's knock startled her, disturbed her meditations anew. Letters! Was it possible? Would Miss Hartill have remembered? Have sent her, perhaps, a postcard? Stranger things had been. She had for weeks envisaged the possibility. She finished her dressing and tore downstairs.
The maid was hovering over the breakfast-table.
"Are there any letters, Baxter? Are there any letters?" But she had already caught sight of a foreign postcard on her plate, a postcard with an unfamiliar stamp. She scurried round the table, her heart thumping.
But the big, adventurous handwriting was hatefully familiar. The postcard was from Miss Durand.
She waited a moment, her lips parted vacantly, as was her fashion when controlling emotion; waited till the maid had gone.
Then she crumpled and tore the thin cardboard in her hand and flung it at last on the floor, in a passion of disappointment.
"She might have written!" cried Louise. "Oh, she might have written! It wouldn't have hurt her—a postcard."
Presently a thought struck her. She groped under the table for the torn scraps of paper and spread them in her lap, piecing them eagerly, laboriously. Miss Hartill might have written on Miss Durand's postcard.
She had the oblong fitted together at last and read the scrawl with impatient eagerness. Miss Durand was just sending her a line to wish her all imaginable luck. She and Miss Hartill were having a glorious time. They were sitting at that moment where she had made a cross on thepicture postcard. She wished Louise could be with them to see the wonderful view over the valley and with good wishes from them both, was her Alwynne Durand....
Louise's eyes softened—"from them both." That was something! Miss Hartill had sent her a message. She sighed as she wrapped the scraps carefully in her handkerchief. Life was queer.... Here was Miss Durand, so kind, so friendly always—yet her kindness brought no pleasure.... And Miss Hartill, who could open heaven with a word—was not half so kind as Miss Durand. Louise marvelled that Miss Hartill could be so miserly. She was sure that if she, Louise, could make people utterly happy by kind looks and kind words, stray messages and occasional postcards, that she would be only too glad to be allowed to do it. To possess the power of giving happiness.... And with no more trouble to yourself than the writing of a postcard! Queer that Miss Hartill did not realise what her mere existence meant to people.... She couldn't realise it, of course ... that was it.... She thought so little about herself.... It was her own beautiful selflessness that made her seem, occasionally, hard—unkind even.... She didn't realise what she meant to people.... If she had, she would have written.... Of course she would have written ... just a word ... on Daffy's postcard....
Louise sighed again. One didn't ask much.... But it seemed the more humble one grew—the less one asked—the more unlikely people were to throw one even that little.... At any rate there was the examination to tackle.... If she did well—! She lost herself again in speculations as to the form Miss Hartill's approval might take.
The family trooped in to breakfast as the brisk maid dumped a steaming dishful of liver and bacon upon the table.
Louise occupied her place and began to spread her bread-and-butter, avoiding her father's eye. But, as she foresaw, she was not permitted to escape.
Mr. Denny pounced upon the butter-dish.
"Not with bacon," he remarked, with reproachful satisfaction, and removed it.
Louise said nothing. She was careful not to look at her parent, for she knew that her expression was not permissible. His harmless tyrannies irritated her as invariably as her tricks of personality grated upon him. She thought him smug and petty, and despised him for his submissive attitude to her step-mother. His noisy interferences with her personal habits she thought intolerable, though she had learned to endure them stolidly. But most of all, she hated to see his fat, pudgy hands touching her food. She was accustomed to cut bread for the family. No one guessed why she had arrogated to herself that duty.
And he, good man, would look at his daughter occasionally, and wonder why she was so unlike his satisfactory sons and their capable mother: would be vaguely annoyed by her silences, and by a certain expression that reminded him uncomfortably of his first "fine-lady" wife; would have an emotion of disquieted responsibility; would hesitate: would end by presenting his daughter with a five-shilling-piece, or be delivered from a dawning sense of responsibility by crumbs on the carpet, the muddy boots of a son and heir, or, as in the present instance, an unjustifiable predilection for butter.
"Bread with your meat," he said firmly and handed her a full plate.
Then he watched her with interest. His conception of the duties of fatherhood was realised in seeing that his children slightly over-ate themselves at every meal. He did as he would be done by.
Louise picked up knife and fork unwillingly. She was dry-mouthed with excitement and the beginnings of a headache, and the liberal portion of hot, rich food sickened her. But anything was better than a fuss. She sliced idly at the slab of liver.
Opportunity beckoned Mr. Denny.
"Don't play with your food," said the father sharply.
She ate a few mouthfuls, conscious of his supervision. Satisfied, he turned at last to his own breakfast.
There was a peaceful interval.
The children talked among themselves. Mrs. Denny, hidden behind her tea-cosy, was exclusively concerned with the table manners of the youngest boy. The moment was propitious.
Softly Louise rose and slipped to the sideboard. Her plate once hidden behind the biscuit-tin....
Mr. Denny looked up. He was ever miraculously alert at breakfast.
"More bacon, Louise?"
"No, thank you, Father," said Louise fervently.
"Have you finished your plate?"
"Yes, Father."
Her brothers gave tongue joyously.
"Oh-h! You whopper!"
"Oh, Father, she hasn't!"
"Mother, did you hear? Louise says she's finished her bacon. She hasn't."
"Not near!"
"Not half!"
"Not a quarter!"
"Well—of all the whopping lies!"
Mr. Denny sprang up, his eyes glistening. He, too, enjoyed a scene. The plate was retrieved from its hiding-place and its guilty burden laid bare.
"Emma, do you see this? Emma! Leave that child alone and attend to me! Flagrant! Flagrant disobedience! Louise, I told you to eat it. Turning up your nose at good food! There's many a child would be thankful—Emma! Am I to be disobeyed by my own children? And a lie into the bargain! If that is the way you are taught at your fine school, I'll take you away. Disgraceful! Eat it up now. Emma! Are you or are you not going to back me up? Is all that food to be wasted?"
Mrs. Denny's calm eyes surveyed the excited table.
"Don't fuss, Edwin. Louise, eat up your bacon."
"I can't," said Louise sullenly.
"Then you shouldn't have taken so much."
"I didn't. It was Father——"
"Eat it up at once," said Mrs. Denny peremptorily, as the baby cast his spoon upon the carpet. The tone of her voice ended the discussion.
Mr. Denny watched his daughter triumphantly, as she toiled over her task, called her attention to a piece of bacon she had left on the edge of her plate, and when she had finished told her she was a good girl and that it would do her good. After which he gave her a shilling.
"I don't want it," muttered Louise.
"You don't want it?" repeated Mr. Denny incredulously.
Louise looked at him. There was a world of uncomprehending contempt in the eyes of father and child alike, though the father's were amused, where the child's were bitter.
Mr. Denny laughed jollily.
"I say, kids! Hear that? Your sister here hasn't any use for a shilling. Bet you haven't either! Eh? I don't think!"
Ensued clamour, with jostling and laughter and clutching of coins, from which the head of the house retired to his chair by the fire, chuckling and content. He enjoyed distributing largesse, especially where there was no great need for it, though he was liberal enough to famous charities. He never gave to beggars, on principle.
Louise slipped out of the room under cover of the noise, and was dressed and departing when her step-mother called her back.
"Louise! You stay to lunch to-day, don't you?"
"At school? Oh no, Mamma. Holidays, you know! They only open a class-room for the exam."
"The fifty-pound job, eh?" Her father eyed her overthe top of his paper approvingly. For once his daughter was showing a proper spirit. "Go in and win, my girl! I've given you the best education money could buy. If you don't get it, you jolly well ought to. Fifty quid, eh? I wasn't given the chance of earning fifty quid when I was thirteen. Shop-boy, I was. Started as shop-boy like me father before me."
His wife cut in sharply.
"Isn't there an afternoon examination? I understood——"
"Yes, Mamma. But no dinners. It's all shut."
Mrs. Denny frowned.
"It's annoying. I wanted you out of the way. Nurse is taking the children for an outing. I've enough to do without providing lunches—you must take some sandwiches—spring cleaning—maids all busy——"
"I'd rather take sandwiches!" Louise's face brightened.
"I thought the cleaning was over—not a comfortable room in the house for the last fortnight." Mr. Denny was testy.
His wife answered them thickly, her mouth full of pins as she adjusted her dusting apron.
"Very well! Ask cook to—no, she's upstairs. Cut them yourself. There's plenty of liver. Perfectly absurd! Do you want the house a foot deep in dust? You leave the household arrangements to me! The top-floor hasn't been done for years—not thoroughly."
"The top floor? Not the attics?" said Louise.
"Yes! I'm re-arranging the rooms. John's getting too big for the nursery. He needs a room to himself. I'm putting him in cook's old room."
Louise paused, the slice of bread half cut.
"Where's cook going?" said her father.
She awaited the answer, a fear catching at her breath.
"Oh, in the lumber-room," said Mrs. Denny easily. "It only wants papering. A nice, big room! A sloping roof,of course. But with her wages, if she can't put up with a sloping roof—! But it'll take some clearing! You wouldn't believe what an amount of rubbish has collected."
"It's not rubbish," said Louise. Her voice was low with passion. "It's not rubbish! You shan't touch it."
Mrs. Denny spun round amazedly: Her step-daughter, the loaf clutched to her breast with an unconscious gesture, the big knife gleaming, was a tragi-comic figure.
"What on earth——?" she began.
Louise leaned forward, hot-eyed.
"Mamma! You won't! You can't! You mustn't! Father, don't let her! That's Mother's room! If you put cook in Mother's room——" She choked. A priestess defending her altars could have used her accents.
Mr. Denny put down his paper.
"What's the matter with the girl?" he demanded.
Mrs. Denny shrugged her shoulders.
"I've no idea! I don't know what she means. Put down that knife; Louise—you'll cut yourself. And mind your own business, please."
"You don't understand!" Louise fought for calmness, for words that should enlighten and persuade. "I didn't mean to interfere. But the big attic! Mamma! Father! That's my room. I always go there—do my lessons there—I love it! You don't know how I love it. You see——" She paused helplessly.
"But you've got the nursery to sit in," said Mrs. Denny, equally helpless. "I'm sorry, Louise, if you've taken a fancy to the room—but I want it for cook."
Louise made her way to the hearth and stood between the pair.
"Mamma—please! Please! Please! There's the other attic for cook—not this one!"
"Now be quiet, Louise!" Mrs. Denny was getting impatient.
Suddenly Louise lost grip of herself.
"It's not right! It's not right! You've got all thehouse! Every room is yours and you grudge me that one! Nobody's ever wanted it but me! It's mine! You've got your lovely rooms—drawing-room, and dining-room, and morning-room, and bedroom, and summerhouse, and the boys have got the nursery and the maids have got the kitchen, and yet you won't let me have the attic! It's not fair! It's mean! Why can't cook have the other attic? Not this one! Not this one!"
"But why? Why?" Mrs. Denny was more bewildered than angry. She looked down at her step-daughter as a St. Bernard looks at an aggressive kitten. Desperately Louise tore off her veils.
"Because of Mother. Can't you understand? All her things are there. She's there! So I've always played up there. Oh, won't you understand?"
Mrs. Denny flushed.
"You talk a lot of nonsense, Louise. Finish your sandwiches. You'll be late."
"Then you will leave it, as it is?"
"Certainly not. I told you—I need it for cook."
Louise turned to her father with a frenzied gesture.
"Father! Don't let her! Don't let her touch it! Oh, how can you let her touch it?"
Mr. Denny put down his paper, staring from one to the other.
"Emma? What's she driving at?"
"To control the household, apparently. She's a very impertinent child," said Mrs. Denny impatiently.
"Father! I'm not! I don't! Father! I only want her to leave my attic alone! Father——"
"Don't worry your father now," began Mrs. Denny.
"He's my father! I can speak to him if I choose," cried Louise shrilly.
"Now then, now then!" reasoned Mr. Denny heavily. "Can't have you rude to your mother, you know."
Louise gave herself up to her passion.
"She's not my mother! I call her Mamma! She's notmy mother! Mother wouldn't be so cruel! To take away all I've got like that. Her books are there! Her things! It's always been our room—hers and mine! And to take it away! To put cook—it's horrible! It's wicked! It's stealing! I hate her! I hate you—all of you! I'll never forget—never—never—never!"
She stopped abruptly on a high note, stared blindly at the outraged countenances that opposed her, and fled from the room.
They listened to the clatter of umbrellas in the hall stand, to the furious hands fumbling for mackintosh and satchel, to the bang of the hall door.
Mr. Denny whistled.
"Hot stuff! What? I never knew she had it in her." There was a curious element of approval in his tone. He respected volubility.
His wife frowned; then, she, too, began to laugh. She was as incapable as he of imagining the state of nerves that could lead, in Louise, to such an outburst. To speak one's mind, noisily and emphatically, was a daily occurrence for her. Silence was stupidity, and meekness irritating. This "row" was unusual because Louise had taken part in it, but she certainly thought no worse of her step-daughter on that account. The child should be sent to bed early as a punishment, she decided, but good-humouredly enough. She was too thick-skinned to be pricked by Louise's repudiation. She dismissed it as "temper." Its underlying criticism of her character escaped her utterly.
By the time the attic was cleared and the paperhanger at work, she had forgotten the matter.
It is not impossible to sympathise with Ahab.
It must have been difficult for him, with his varied possessions, to realise the value to Naboth of his vineyard. He had offered compensation. Naboth would undoubtedly have gained by the exchange. Ahab, owning half Palestine, must have been genuinely puzzled by this blind attachment to one miserable half-acre. One wonders what would have happened if they had met to talk over the matter. Ahab, convinced of the generosity of his offer, courteously argumentative, carefully repressing his not unnatural impatience, would have contrasted favourably with the peasant, black, fierce, dumb, incapable of explaining himself, conscious only of his own bitter helplessness in the face of oppression and loss.
The Naboth mood is a dangerous one. Fierce emotions, unable to disperse themselves in speech, can turn in again upon the mind that bred them, to work strange havoc. The affair of the attic, outwardly so trivial, shook the child's nature to its foundation. Though one's house be built of cards, it is none the less bedazing to have it knocked about one's ears. To Louise, the loss of her holy place, but yet more the manner of its loss, was catastrophic. Her nerves, frayed and strained by weeks of overwork and excitement, snapped under the shock. Her sense of proportion failed her. Miss Hartill, the examination, all that made up her life, faded before this monstrous desecration of an ideal. She suffered as Naboth, forgetting also his greater goods of life and kith and kin, suffered before her.
Before she reached the school the violence of her emotion had faded, and she was in the first stage of the inevitable physical reaction. She felt weak and shaken. She wasgoing, she knew, to her examination. She wondered idly why she did not feel nervous. She tried to impress the importance of the occasion upon herself, but her thoughts eluded her—sequence had become impossible. She gave up the attempt, and her mind, released, returned to the scene of the morning in incessant, miserable rehearsal.
Mechanically she made her way into the school by the unfamiliar mistresses' entrance, greeted the little knot of competitors assembled in the hall. But if she were introspective and distraught, so were they: her silence was unnoticed.
The nervous minutes passed jerkily. Louise thought that the clock must be enjoying himself. He was playing overseer; he wheezed and grunted as her father did at breakfast; had just such a bland, fat face. Her father would be a fat, horrible old man in another ten years. She was glad. Every one would hate him, then, as she hated him, show it as she dared not do.
Miss Vigers interrupted her meditations; Miss Vigers, utterly unreal in holiday smiles and the first hobble-skirt in which her decent limbs had permitted themselves to be outlined. She marshalled the procession.
The Lower Fifth class-room, newly scrubbed and reeking of naphthaline, with naked shelves and treble range of isolated desks, was unfamiliar, curiously disconcerting. Louise, ever perilously susceptible to outward conditions, was dismayed by the lack of atmosphere. She wriggled uneasily in her desk. It was uncomfortable, far too big for her: Agatha's initials, of an inkiness that had defied the charwoman, stared at her from the lid. She was at the back of the room. Between Marion's neat head and the coiffure of the little Jewess, the bored face of the examiner peered and shifted. He was speaking—
"You will find the questions on your desks. Write your names in the top right-hand corner of each page. Full name. Kindly number the sheets. You are allowed two and a half hours."
A pause. Some rustling of papers and the snap and rattle of pencil-boxes. Then the voice of the examiner again—
"You may begin."
Instantly a furious pen-scratching broke the hush. Louise glanced in the direction of the sound, and smiled broadly. Agatha had begun. Miss Hartill would have seen the joke, but the examiner was already absorbed in the book he had taken from his pocket. Louise gazed idly about her. So this was what the ordeal was like! There were her clean, blank papers on the desk before her, and the printed list of questions. She supposed she had better begin.... But there was plenty of time. She had a curious sense of detachment. Her body surrounded her, rigid, quiescent, dreading exertion. Her mind, on the contrary, was bewilderingly active, consciously alive with thoughts, as she had once, under a microscope, seen a drop of water alive with animalculi: thoughts, however, that had no connection with real life as it at the moment presented itself: thoughts that admitted the fact of the examination with a dreamy impersonality that precluded any idea of participation. Her mind felt comfortable in its warm bed of motionless flesh, would not disturb its repose for all the ultimate gods might offer: but was interested nevertheless in its surroundings, gazing out into them with the detached curiosity of an attic-dweller, peering out and down at a dwarfed and distant street. Yet each trivial object on which her eyes alighted gave birth to a train of thought that led separately, yet quite inevitably, to the memories that would shatter her quietude, as conscious and subconscious self struggled for possession of her mind.
She stared at the intent backs of her neighbours. One by one they hunched forward, as each in turn settled to work. Louise considered them critically. What ugly things backs were! It was funny, but girls with dark skirts always pinned them to their blouses with white safety-pins, andvice versa. It made them look skewered....Yet Miss Durand had said that backs were the most expressive part of the whole body.... That was the day they had seen the Watts pictures. But then the draperies of the great white figure in "Love and Death" were not fastened up in the middle with safety-pins.... That had been a wonderful picture.... She knew how the boy felt, how he fought.... How long had he been able to hold the door? she wondered. Characteristically, she never questioned the ultimate defeat. It was terrible to be so weak.... But the Death was beautiful.... pitying.... One wouldn't hate it while one resisted it, as one hated Mamma.... Mamma, forcing her way into an attic.... Louise writhed as she thought of it.
The girl in front of her coughed, a hasty, grudging cough, recovered herself, and bent again to her work. Louise was amused. What a hurry she was in! What a hurry every one was in! How hot Marion's cheeks were! And Agatha.... Agatha was up to her wrists in ink.... Like the women in the French Revolution.... Though that was blood, of course.... They were steeped in gore.... It would be fascinating to write a story about the knitting women ... click—click—clicking—like a lot of pens scraping.... What were they all scribbling like that for? Of course, it was the examination.... There was a paper on her own desk too.... How funny!
"Distinguish between Shelley the poet, and Shelley the politician. Illustrate your meaning by quotations."
Shelley? The name was familiar.... She sells sea-shells....
"Give a short account of the life of Shakespeare."
He had a wife, hadn't he? A narrow, grudging woman, who couldn't understand him.... A woman like Mamma.... Mamma, who was turning out the attic and laughing at Louise.... Not that that mattered—but to clear the attic—to take away Mother's things.... What would Mother do—little, darling Mother...? It was holidays.... Mother would know.... Mother would be there,waiting for Louise. A hideous picture rose up in Louise's mind. With photographic clearness she saw the attic and the faint shadow of her mother wavering from visibility to nothingness as the sunlight caught and lost her impalpable outlines: there was a sound of footsteps—Louise heard it: the faint thing held out sweet arms and Louise strained towards them; but the door opened, and Mrs. Denny and the maids came in. Mamma pointed, while the maids laughed and took their brooms and chased the forlorn appearance, and it fled before them about the room, cowering, afraid, calling in its whisper to Louise. But the maids closed in, and swept that shrinking nothingness into the dark corner behind the old trunk: but when they had moved the trunk, there was nothing to be seen but a delicate cobweb or two. So they swept it into the dustpan and settled down to the scrubbing of the floor.
The picture faded. Louise crouched over her desk, her head in her hands. About her the pens scratched rhythmically.
For a space she existed merely. She could not have told how long it was before thoughts began once more to drift across the blankness of her mind like the first imperceptible flakes that herald a fall of snow.
She moved stiffly in her seat. The thoughts came thicker—thoughts of her mother still, of the dream presence that she would not feel again.... Never again? There was the Last Judgment, of course.... She would see her then.... And who knew when the Judgment would come.... In a thousand years? In the next five seconds? She counted slowly, holding her breath: "One—two—three—four—five——" and stared out expectantly into space through the lashes of her dropped lids.
All about her sat forms, bowed like her own, scarcely moving. Of course, of course—she nodded to herself—satisfied with her own acuteness. Obviously, the Last Judgment.... They were all waiting for God.... He hadn't arrived yet, it seemed.... Well, one might look about alittle first.... How queer Heaven smelt! The heart of Louise leapt within her.... Now was the opportunity to find Mother.... Mother would be somewhere among the dead.... But they all had ugly backs.... But Mother.... Of course Mother would be standing on that high platform place like a throne.... It was her place.... She always stood there.... Or did she? Was there not some one else? very like her ... with eyes ... and a smile ... whom Louise knew so well? Wasn't it Mother? With patient deliberation she strove to disentangle the two personalities, that combined and divided and blurred again into one. There was Mother—and the Other—one was shape and one was shadow—but which was real? There was Mother—and the Other—who was Mother? No, who was—who was—The Other was not Mother—but if not, who?—who?—who?—
A chorus of angels took up the chant: Who? who? who? They had flat, faint voices, that gritted and whispered, like pens passing over paper.
Who? who? who?
The answer came thundering back out of infinite space in the awaited voice of God....
"You have ten minutes more."
Louise gave a faint gasp. Reality enveloped her once more, licking up her illusion as instantly and fiercely as an unnoticed candle will shrivel up a woman's muslins. She stood naked amid the ashes of her dreams.
She glanced wildly about her. The girls at her elbows were furiously at work. The little examiner had put away his book and was staring at her. Her eyes fell. Before her lay foolscap, fair and blank, save for her name in the corner, and a close-printed paper that she did not recognise, clamouring for information anent Shelley, and Carlyle, and the Mermaid Tavern. Because, of course, she was at the Literature examination, and there were ten minutes more.
And she had written nothing.
An instant she sat appalled. Then she snatched up her pen and wrote....
Her pen fled across the paper at Tam o' Shanter speed, leaving its trail of shapeless, delirious sentences. She never paused to consider—she wrote. She knew only that she had ten—twelve—fifteen questions to answer, and ten minutes in which to do it. Ten minutes for a two and a half hours' paper! No matter—if one stopped to think.... Hurry! hurry! Shelley was born in 1792—he was the son of Sir Timothy Shelley, of Field Place, near Horsham——
When the examiner collected the papers, she had written exactly two pages.