Etheldreda the Ready Part 8

"You really _are_ a saint! What should I do without you? Expire of pure misery and despair. As it is, I'm dying of overwork. I've a buzzy muzzy feeling in my brain which must mean something bad. Softening, I believe. It _does_ come on from overstrain!"

Susan would smile, her quietly humorous smile, at these exaggerated statements, refusing to feel any anxiety about the health of such a blooming invalid.

Apart from arithmetic, however, Dreda made wonderful progress in her studies. Her native quickness of wits stood her in good stead; she learnt easily, and seized nimbly on salient points, so that, though her knowledge was superficial, she was always ready with an answer, and could enlarge so cleverly on what she _did_ know, that the gaps of ignorance remained unsuspected. Susan, the prudent, shook her head over this juggling with fate, and foretold confusion in the coming examinations; but Dreda was content to sun herself in the present atmosphere of approbation and leave the future to take care of itself.

Given a free hand by her parents, she had entered her name for every examination on the school list, and hardly a day pa.s.sed that she did not propose a new scheme or exploit to her companions.

The time for these propositions was generally the cherished half-hour after tea, when the fourth form girls gathered round the fire in the study to chat over the doings and happenings of the day. Then Dreda was in her element, and every day, as it seemed, was filled with a fresh ambition.

"When does your school magazine come out next?"

"Never! Haven't got one to `come out.'"

"_Haven't got one_? A school without a magazine! How disgraceful! I should be ashamed to confess it. Why haven't you?"

"Too much f.a.g!"

Dreda gasped with horror.

"Why, even at home, where we are only six, we have an--an--" She paused, anxiously searching for a word which should be sufficiently vague--"an _annual_, with stories, and ill.u.s.trations, and correspondence columns just like real. I was `Aunt Nelly' and answered the questions. Such sport! ... `Yes, my dear, at fifteen you are certainly far too young to be secretly engaged. Confide the whole story to your dear mother. A mother is ever a young girl's wisest confidante.'--(Of course, no one really asked me that. I made it up. You have to make up to fill the page.) ... `So sorry your complexion is spotty. Rub it over with lemon juice and oil. Never mind if you _are_ ugly. Be good, and you'll get a sweet expression, and that is better than any beauty.' ... Ha, ha!"

She tossed her golden mane with a derisive laugh. "_Just_ like a real mag.! Then I put things in for the boys, of course--got them out of cricket reports and encyclopaedias--it looks out well to have learned bits here and there. And you can give lovely hints! It would be awfully useful in a school, because you could say whatever you wanted without being personal ... `No! the old adage, "Finding is keeping"

does _not_ apply to your companions' indiarubbers and pencils. It is not considered honourable in good society to pare off initials inscribed thereon for purposes of identification.'" She chuckled happily. "Don't I do it well? I really _have_ the knack! ... I can't think why you don't have one."

"How should we find the time?" queried Susan earnestly. "First to compose the things--and then write them out neatly would take hours and hours."

"I would write them out. It looks ever so much better if it's all in one handwriting."

The girls exchanged glances. Dreda certainly wrote a very legible hand, but they were already beginning to feel a trifle dubious about her ready promises.

"My dear, it would take _years_! You would never get through. Only yesterday you were preparing us for softening of the brain from overwork. You really must curb this overflowing energy." Nancy narrowed her eyes in her most fascinating smile, in which still lurked a spice of derision. "Your welfare is very precious to us; we can't afford to risk it for the sake of a magazine!"

Dreda flushed, and wriggled impatiently on her seat. She never could tell whether Nancy was in fun or in earnest.

"I am not proposing to take on more work. It would be a distraction!"

she declared loftily. "I love making up stories and poetry, and reading what other people have written. I'd get up early, and do it in play hours. It would be a labour of love. Besides, it would cultivate our style. `The Duck' is literary herself. I dare say she'd let it count as composition!"

The girls brightened visibly at this suggestion. It would be distinctly more amusing to write for their own magazine than to cudgel their brains to produce a sheet full of ideas on the abstruse subjects suggested by Miss Drake. They edged a little nearer the fire, straightened their backs, and fell to discussion.

"Perhaps she might."

"We'll ask her."

"She might be editor."

"She could write a lovely story herself."

"Bertha could ill.u.s.trate. She draws the killingest pictures. There was one of the fifth dormitory at 6 a.m. You saw all the girls asleep, and their heads were killing. Amy had a top-knot that had fallen on one side, Phyllis a pigtail about two inches long, and as thin as a string.

You know her miserable little wisp of hair. Mary was lying on her back with her mouth wide open. It was the image of her. She's nearly as good as Hilda Cowham. We might call her `Hilda Cowman' as a _nom de plume_. Wouldn't it look professional?"

Dreda was a trifle annoyed that the position of editor had not been offered to herself as the originator of the movement, and she likewise cherished the belief that she was ent.i.tled to take a prominent place as ill.u.s.trator; but she consoled herself with the reflection that when the magazine was really started her previous experience could not fail to be useful.

"We'll have stories, and essays, and poetry, and compet.i.tions, and advertis.e.m.e.nts at the end. You have to pay for advertis.e.m.e.nts, and that pays for stationery."

"What sort of advertis.e.m.e.nts?"

"Every sort. Exchanging stamps and post cards, selling snapshots-- anything you like. I should put: `Fifth form pupil will coach junior for ten minutes daily in exchange for f.a.gging: hot water, sewing on b.u.t.tons, darning, etcetera.' I'm not used to mending. It's the limit!

What shall we call it?"

"The magazine? _The Grey House Monthly_--_Messenger_--_Herald_-- something of that kind. We ought to bring in the name of the school."

"I don't see why. I think it would be nicer without. Less amateury.

The--_Casket_. Wouldn't _Casket_ be good? It implies that it is full of treasures."

"_The Torch_! That's nicer than _Casket_, and sounds more spirited. We could have a picture of a woman holding up a lamp, with the word `Progress' written across the beams--like they do in the _Punch_ cartoons. I think _Torch_ would be lovely."

"Why not _Comet_?" asked Nancy in her brief, quiet tones, narrowing the double line of black eyelashes as she spoke so as to hide the expression of her eyes.

There was a moment's pause, broken by Dreda's quick, suspicious question:

"Why _Comet_?"

"Why not?"

"Do you mean because of the _tail_?"

"Comets _do_ have tails, don't they? So do magazines!"

That was all very well, but the silence which followed the explanation showed that suspicion still rankled. Dreda arched her eyebrows at Barbara, who shrugged in reply. Susan wrinkled her brows, and Norah pursed her lips. What was Nancy really thinking inside that sleek, well-shaped little head? Comets appeared suddenly; remained to be a ten days' talk and wonder, and then--mysteriously disappeared!

Instinctively Dreda stiffened her back, and registered an inward vow that she would spare neither time nor pains to make the magazine a permanent and s.h.i.+ning light!

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

To the delight of Dreda, and the more subdued satisfaction of the other pupils, a magazine received the sanction of the headmistress and Miss Drake, provided that it did not aim at more than a quarterly appearance.

"It will waken you up!" said the latter, smiling whimsically at her pupils. "You are all rather apt to go to sleep at times, especially when a little originality is desired; but remember that the magazine receives official sanction as a means of education, not as a receptacle for any rubbish you may choose to scribble. We'll have stories, of course; but I have suffered under stories in other amateur magazines, and am determined to raise ours above the usual level. Every girl who wishes to write a story must draw out a synopsis of the plot and submit it to me before she embarks on the task of writing it out. I will then refuse or accept it, and in the latter case will talk it over with the author, giving her some hints as to arrangement, treatment of points, which will, I hope, be of value to the story. In fact, I should like to have the entire synopsis of the magazine drawn up and brought to me a month before publication. So what a Tartar of an editor I am going to be! I have quite decided that if I am to get through the work at all, I must have an understudy, a sub-editor, so to speak, who can keep the contributors up to time, collect their suggestions, and submit them for my criticism. It will involve a good deal of steady, methodical work.

I wonder--"

"I'll do it, Miss Drake. Let me. I offered to be editor before."

The words leaped from Etheldreda's lips before Miss Drake's eyes had wandered halfway round the cla.s.s. Mary's face wore its usual blank stare, Barbara sniggled with obvious contempt, Nancy veiled her eyes with her thick, dark lashes, Susan flushed suddenly a brilliant red.

Both Miss Drake and Dreda herself were arrested by the sight of those flaming cheeks, for Susan was, as a rule, so calm and self-restrained that any exhibition of excitement on her part was bound to attract attention. What was the matter? Why did she look so anxious and eager?

What were the words which seemed trembling on her lips? Dreda felt complacently convinced that as her own friend and ally Susan was longing to champion her cause. Miss Drake smiled and asked encouragingly:

"Well, Susan, what is it? What were you going to say?"

The red mounted higher and higher until it reached the roots of the tightly brushed hair. Susan's very ears seemed aflame, and her voice had the husky note of repressed excitement.