Читать книгу Turquoise and Ruby - Meade L. T. - Страница 1

“Nora, Nora! Where are you?” called a clear, girlish voice, and Cara Burt dashed headlong into a pretty bedroom all draped in white, where a tall girl was standing by an open window. “Nora!” she cried, “what are you doing up in your room at this hour, when we are all busy in the garden preparing our tableaux? Mrs Hazlitt says that she herself will recite ‘A Dream of Fair Women,’ and by unanimous consent you are to be Helen of Troy. Did any one ever suit the part so well? ‘Divinely tall, and most divinely fair.’ Why, what is the matter, Honora? Why have you that frown between your pretty brows, and why aren’t you just delighted? There is not a girl in the school who does not envy you the part. Why are you staying here, all by yourself, instead of joining in the fun downstairs? It’s a heavenly evening, and Mrs Hazlitt is in the best of humours, and we are all choosing our parts and our dresses for the grand scene. Oh, do come along, they are all calling you! There’s that tiresome little Deborah Duke – Mrs Hazlitt’s right hand, as we call her – shouting your name now, downstairs. Why don’t you come; what is the matter?”

“There is this the matter!” said Honora Beverley, and she turned and flashed two dark brown eyes out of a marvellously fair face full at her companion. “I won’t take the part of Helen of Troy; she was not a good woman, and I will have nothing to do with her. I will be Jephtha’s daughter, or Iphigenia, or anything else you like, but I will not be Helen of Troy.”

“Oh, how tiresome you are, Nora! What does the character of Helen matter? Besides, we are not supposed to know whether she is good or bad. Tennyson speaks of her – oh, so beautifully; and we have just to listen to his words, and the audience won’t know, why should they? All you have to do is just to steal out of the dusky wood and stand for a minute with the limelight falling all over you, and then go back again. It’s the simplest thing in the world, and there’s no one else in the school who can take the part, for there’s no one else tall enough, or fair enough. Now, don’t be a goose; come along, this minute.”

“It’s just because I won’t be a goose that I have determined not to act Helen of Troy,” replied Honora. “Leave me alone, Cara; take the part yourself, if you wish.”

“I?” said Cara, with a laugh. “Just look at me, and see if I should make a worthy Helen of Troy!”

Now, Cara was exceedingly dark, not to say sallow, and was slightly below middle height and also rather thickly built, and even Nora laughed when she saw how unsuited her friend would be to the part.

“Well, I won’t be it, anyhow,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t want to take part in the tableaux, at all.”

“Then you will disappoint Mrs Hazlitt very cruelly,” said Cara, her voice changing. “Ah, and here comes Deborah. Dear old Deb! Now, Deborah, I am going to leave this naughty girl in your hands. She is the most obstreperous person in the entire school, and the most beloved, for that matter. Just say a few words of wisdom to her and bring her down within five minutes to join the rest of us in the garden. I will manage to make an excuse for her non-appearance until then.”

As Cara spoke, she waved her hand lightly towards Nora, who was still standing by the open window, and then vanished from the room as quickly as she had entered it. After she had gone, there was a moment’s silence.

Nora Beverley was close on seventeen years of age. She was practically the head girl of the school of Hazlitt Chase – so-called after its mistress, who was adored by her pupils and was one of the best headmistresses in England. Mrs Hazlitt possessed all the qualifications of a first-rate high-school mistress, with those gentle home attributes and that real understanding of the young, which is given to but few. She had married, and had lost her only child; husband and child had both been taken from her. But she did not mourn as one without hope. Her endeavour was to help girls to be good, and true, and noble in the best sense. Her education was, therefore, threefold, embracing body, mind, and soul. Her school was not an especially large one, never consisting of more than thirty girls, but the time spent at Hazlitt Chase was one unlikely to be forgotten by any of them in after life, so noble was the teaching, so systematic the complete training. Mrs Hazlitt knew quite well that, to make a school really valuable to her young scholars, she must be exceedingly careful with regard to the girls who came there. She admitted no girl within the school under the age of fourteen, and allowed no girl to stay after she had reached eighteen years of age. The girl who came need not necessarily belong to the aristocracy, but she must be a lady by birth, and must have brought from her former schools or teachers the very highest recommendations for honour, probity, and good living. She must, besides, be intellectual above the average. With those recommendations, Mrs Hazlitt – who happened to be exceedingly well off – made the money part a secondary consideration, taking many a girl for almost nominal fees, although, on the other hand, those who could pay were expected to do so generously.

So great, did the reputation of this school become that girls’ names were on the books often for years before they were old enough to be admitted, and, in after years, to have belonged to that select academic group who walked the old cloisters at Hazlitt Chase and played happily in the ancient grounds was in itself a distinction.

It was now early in June. The school would break-up in about five weeks – for Mrs Hazlitt never kept to the usual high-school dates – and all the girls were deeply interested in those guests who were to assemble to witness the distribution of prizes, to see an old play of the time of Queen Elizabeth acted in the Elizabethan garden, and, in especial, to behold the tableaux of that masterpiece of Tennyson – “A Dream of Fair Women.”

Mrs Hazlitt was remarkable for her gifts as a reciter, and had arranged to tell the story herself in Tennyson’s immortal words and to allow those girls who were best suited to the parts to appear in the tableaux during the recitation.

By common consent, to Nora Beverley was assigned the part of Helen of Troy. Nora had been at the school almost since she was fourteen, and had grown up in its midst a gentle, reserved, dignified girl, who never gave her heart especially to any one particular person, but was admired and respected by all. She was clever, without being ingenious; very beautiful in appearance, and was known to be rich.

Cara Burt was supposed to be her special friend, and was sent to her now on this occasion to desire her to come at once to Mrs Hazlitt, who was seated in the old Elizabethan garden, and was choosing the different girls who were to take part in the coming tableaux. Cara returned somewhat slowly up the box walk and stood before Mrs Hazlitt with downcast eyes.

“Well,” said that good lady; “and where is Honora? You were some time away, Cara; why has she not come with you?”

“I don’t know whether she will come at all,” said Cara. “She seems very – I don’t mean undecided, but decided against taking the part.”

A swift red passed over Mrs Hazlitt’s cheeks. She was evidently quite unaccustomed to the slightest form of insubordination.

“Did you tell Nora that I desired her to be present?” was her remark.

“Yes – of course I did, Mrs Hazlitt. Oh, may I sit near you, Mary?”

Cara seated herself cosily beside Mary L’Estrange.

“I told her, Mrs Hazlitt, that you wanted her immediately, and where we were all to be found, and that she was to be Helen of Troy.”

“Well – and – ?” said Mrs Hazlitt.

“She said she did not want to be Helen of Troy – that Helen of Troy was a wicked woman, and that she would not take the part.”

Again the colour swept across Mrs Hazlitt’s face. “We must regard Helen as visionary,” she said, “a vision of womanly beauty. There is no one in the school who can take her, except Honora, but I override no one’s scruples. I presume, however, that she will be gracious enough to give me an answer.”

The headmistress was too calm ever to allow her real feelings to be seen, but the girls who knew her well, and who clustered round her now in pretty groups, watched her face with anxiety. Jephtha’s daughter did not wish to be deprived of her part, nor did Cleopatra, nor did Fair Rosamond, nor did Iphigenia. How dreadful of Helen of Troy if she upset all the arrangements and made the pretty tableaux impossible!

“Oh, of course she will yield,” said Mary L’Estrange. But Cara Burt shook her head.

“Nobody knows Honora well, do they?” she said, in a semi-whisper to her companion.

“Perhaps not,” replied Mary; “and yet, she has been in the school for years.”

“I consider her exceedingly conceited,” remarked Cara again, dropping her voice. “But, oh! here comes Deborah – dear old Deborah – and no Honora, as I am alive! Now I wonder what is going to happen.”

Deborah Duke was the English teacher and general factotum in the school. All the girls adored her. It was not necessary to worship her. She was the sort of person round whose neck you could hang, whose waist you could clasp, whose cheeks you could kiss, whom you could shake, if you liked, if she were in a bad humour – but, then, Deborah was never in a bad humour – whom you could go to in all sorts of troubles and get to intercede for you. She was plain, and dumpy, and freckled. Nevertheless, she was Deborah, the darling of the school. As to her knowledge of English, it is very much to be doubted whether it was specially extensive; but, at any rate, she knew how to coddle a girl who was not quite well and how to put a bad-tempered girl into a good humour, and how, on all and every occasion, to come between Mrs Hazlitt and the children whom she taught. The girls all owned that they could be afraid of Mrs Hazlitt, but of Deborah – never.

“Here you are, Deborah!” called out Cara. “Take this seat, won’t you? There is plenty of room between Mary and me. Sit down, and tell us when Helen of Troy intends to put in her appearance.”

“Why does not Honora Beverley come when I request her presence?” said Mrs Hazlitt, speaking in that tone of majesty which always impressed the girls.

“Honora is coming in one minute, Mrs Hazlitt, and she will explain matters to you herself. I am very sorry,” continued poor little Deborah, whispering her latter remark to Mary and Cara. “She must have a bee in her bonnet; no one else could object to represent Tennyson’s beautiful lines.”

Just at that moment there came a slow step down the centre walk of the Elizabethan garden. Its edges of box, which were clipped very close and thick, slightly rustled as a white dress trailed against them, and then a very slim girl, with the fairest of fair faces and a head of thick and very pale golden hair stood in their midst. She was taller than all the other girls, and slimmer, and there was a wonderful darkness in her eyes. She was out of the common, for the soft brown of her eyes was rare to find in so fair a face.

“You have sent for me, Mrs Hazlitt,” said Honora, “and I have come.”

“You have been very slow in obeying my summons, Honora,” said Mrs Hazlitt, in her gentlest tones.

“I am sorry,” replied Nora.

She came a step nearer, and stood before her mistress. She slightly lowered her eyes. The girls, who looked on in extreme wonder and interest, hardly breathed while waiting for the conversation which they knew was about to ensue.

“I am very sorry, indeed,” repeated Honora, “but I was detained. I had made up my own mind, but your messenger sought to unmake it.”

“Well, Honora,” said Mrs Hazlitt, briskly, “you know, dear, that we have decided, amongst the other interesting events of the eighth of July, that Tennyson’s ‘Dream of Fair Women’ shall be recited by myself, and that, in order to give meaning and depth to the wonderful poem, I mean to present a series of tableaux to our guests. This will be nothing more nor less than that the ‘fair women’ who are represented in the poem shall appear just when their names are mentioned, and, surrounded by limelight and suitably dressed in character, shall give point to my recitation. By unanimous consent, you, Honora, are elected to take the part of Helen of Troy. I have sent for you, dear, to tell you this. I shall study the dress of the period and will write to-night to a friend of mine at the British Museum, in order to be sure of good and suitable costumes. You will have nothing to do but simply to stand before the audience for a few minutes. I think I have got all the other characters, and I have sent for you mainly to express my desire. You, Honora, will be Helen, you understand?”

“I understand what you wish,” replied Honora.

There was a question in her voice, which caused the other girls to look at her attentively. Mrs Hazlitt paused; she did not speak at all for a minute; then she rose slowly.

“Being my scholar,” she said then, “is but to know and to obey. You will be Helen of Troy. Now, girls, I think our pleasant meeting can come to an end, and it is supper time. Deborah, go into the house and see if supper is prepared in the north parlour. Good-night, girls; I may not see any of you again this evening.” But, before Mrs Hazlitt could retire, Honora came a step forward and laid her hand on her arm.

“You are mistaken,” she said. “You must listen. Another girl must be found to take the part of Helen of Troy, for I refuse to act.”

The light was growing dim, for it was getting on to nine o’clock, but again the girls perceived that Mrs Hazlitt’s cheek was flushed, and that her eyes looked almost angry.

“What do you mean?” she said, coldly.

“I don’t like the character, and I won’t appear in the tableau as the character, that is all.”

“But, when I desire you to be the character – ”

“I don’t think you will force me against my conscience. This is a case of conscience: I will not be Helen of Troy.”

“Do you quite know what you are saying?”

“Quite.”

“She spoke to me very explicitly,” said Deborah. “It is, I think, a matter of conscience.”

“She gave me her mind, also,” called out Cara. “Hush, Deborah. Cara; when it is time for you to speak, I will call upon you to do so. Do you clearly understand, Honora, what this means?”

“I don’t know what it means, except that I will not be Helen of Troy.”

“Then who is to be Helen of Troy?”

“Anybody who is sufficiently indifferent to take the part.”

“I want to put things quite clearly before you, Honora. You understand that, on the day when the parents of my pupils arrive here to see their children, when relations and friends cluster in the old garden, it must be a member of the school who takes part in all the tableaux and all the different events.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“Will you have the goodness to point out to me amongst my thirty girls who else could be Helen, ‘divinely tall, and most divinely fair’?”

Honora’s dark eyes seemed to sweep her companions for a moment. Then she said, slowly:

“That is for you to discover; not for me.”

“It means this, then,” said Mrs Hazlitt, very slowly. “That because you pretend to know more than I know, we are to give up the tableaux altogether, for there is no one else in the school to take the part.”

Honora shrugged her shoulders.

“I am sorry,” she said.

“You won’t yield?”

“I will not.”

“You have displeased me extremely. You talk of this as a case of conscience. I declare that it is nothing of the sort. Helen of Troy was the symbol of all that is beautiful in woman. Her name has come down through the ages because of her loveliness and gracious character. When a schoolgirl like you attempts to override her mistress’ maturer judgment, she acts with wilfulness and ungraciousness, to say the least of it.”

“I am sorry,” said Honora.

She turned aside. There was a lump in her throat. After a minute, she continued:

“But I will not act Helen of Troy.”

“That being the case, girls,” said Mrs Hazlitt, who had quite resumed her usual calm of manner, “we must forego the tableaux – that is unless a suitable Helen of Troy can be found within twenty-four hours. I will now wish you good-night. I am disappointed in you, Honora, very much disappointed.”