The Princess of the School by Angela Brazil (first color ebook reader .txt) 📕

"A Stranger. You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk! You bore one to death with your eternal broad vowels!

"Gorgo. Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume?"

"Oh, do let me be Gorgo!" begged Dulcie. "I love her; she's so smart and sarcastic. Isn't it exactly like somebody talking during a concert, and a person in the row in front objecting, and a friend butting in with rude remarks? That's what generally happens."

"Did people's accent matter in Greek as much as it does in English?" asked Prissie.

"Evidently. The Alexandrian gentleman—who sounds a decided fop—did not approve of a Doric pronunciation. No doubt broad vowels were out of fashion. I believe I shall give his[99] part to Edith. It's a small one, but it has scope for a good deal of acting."

"And who is to be Praxinoë, please?"

"I think I must choose Carmel. She ought to act in an idyll by Theocritus, as he was a Sicilian like herself. Would he find Sicily much altered, Carmel, if he came back? Or is it the same after two thousand years?"

"There are still goatherds on the mountains, though we don't see wood nymphs now!"

"No, the wood nymphs have all trotted over to England, and are going to give a performance in aid of the 'Waifs and Strays!'" said Dulcie. "I hope Apollo will remember them, and send them a fine day, if he's anything to do with the weather over here. Perhaps his sun chariot only runs on the Mediterranean route."

"Surely he's got an aeroplane by now!" laughed Edith. "We'll send him a wireless message to remind him of his duty. 'Nymphs dancing Thursday week at 2.30 p. m. Kindly cable special supply of sunshine.'"

"Now, girls, you're getting silly!" said Miss Adams, shutting her book and rising. "If we want to make a success of our classic afternoon, we've plenty of hard work before us. I'm going on with costumes at present, and anybody who cares to volunteer can fetch her thimble and a needle and cotton, and hem a chiton."

It needed a tremendous amount of rehearsing[100] and preparation before Miss Adams judged her classic performance fit for public exhibition. The Greek garments, simple as they were, nevertheless required sewing, and there were certain pieces of scenery to be constructed. The other mistresses helped nobly, though they were thankful to be spared the organization of the proceedings, and to leave the brunt of the burden to a specialist. Tickets for the entertainment had been sold in the neighborhood, and parents and friends of the girls who lived within motoring distance had promised to drive over.

"Cousin Clare is coming!" rejoiced Dulcie. "She has two friends staying at the Chase, and she'll bring them with her. If Milner drives them, I shall ask Miss Walters if he may come and watch too. He'd be so delighted to see it. He loves anything of that kind. His own little girl was May Queen at the village pageant two years ago, and he's talked about it ever since."

[101]"I wrote to Mr. Bowden," said Lilias, "and he's taken two tickets, but he's doubtful if he'll find time to get off. He's always so busy."

"Never mind if he sent the money for them!" consoled Edith. "Of course it's nice to have big audiences, but it's money we're out for. We want to make a decent sum."

"Miss Walters says the tickets have sold quite well. Even if it's a doubtful day, and we don't have a very big audience, we shall clear something, at any rate."

"Oh, but I do hope people will come! It's so disappointing to take all this trouble, and to act to rows of empty chairs. What's going to happen, by the by, if it's a wet day? Will it be put off?"

"We shall have to have it in the big schoolroom. It can't be put off, because Miss Adams can only stay till Friday, and we couldn't get through it without her."

"No, indeed! She's the directing genius of it all!"

"Oh dear! It simply must keep fine!"

Never was weather more carefully watched. All the old country saws and superstitions were remembered and repeated. It became a matter of vital importance to notice whether the scarlet pimpernel was out, if the cattle were grazing with their heads up hill, and whether a heron flew[102] across the sky. Prissie took a candle into the garden last thing before bed-time, to observe if the lawn showed earthworms; the finding of black slugs was considered to be rather fatal, and the hooting of owls a decidedly bad omen. The goddess of the English climate, however, is such a fickle deity that there is never the least dependence to be placed on weather prophecies. She always seems to prefer to give a surprise. On the day before the performance it rained; evening closed in with a stormy sky, and every probability of waking next morning to find a drizzle. Dulcie, putting her head out of the window last thing, reported driving clouds and a total absence of stars.

Yet, lo and behold! they woke to one of those rare ethereal dawns that come only now and then in a summer. The Blue bedroom faced east, and over the line of laurels in the garden they could watch pearl and opal flush into rosy pink before the sun shone out in an almost cloudless sky. By nine o'clock the wet grass of yesterday was beginning to dry up, and Miss Adams, with the help of Jones the gardener, was setting up her scenery, and making initial arrangements for the business of the afternoon.

She had contrived her open-air theater as far as possible on Greek lines. There was no stage, but the audience sat on chairs on the grass, and on cushions and rugs placed down a bank that commanded[103] the lawn. The performance was to begin at 3 o'clock, and soon after 2.30 visitors began to arrive. There