The Luckiest Girl in the School, Angela Brazil [top novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Angela Brazil
Book online «The Luckiest Girl in the School, Angela Brazil [top novels .txt] 📗». Author Angela Brazil
"I thought I'd break down," she confided to her friends. "The sight of all those eyes staring at me quite put me off. I don't wonder blind musicians are generally successes, they can't see the audience. Well, never mind, I've done my bit, at any rate!"
The next on the list was a song from Annie Hardy. She had chosen "Keep the Home Fires Burning," and rendered it with great effect, the whole room joining with enthusiasm in the chorus. It took so well that there were shouts of "Encore!" and Annie came back smiling to give "Khaki Boys," which roused her audience to an even higher pitch of patriotic fervor. A recitation, "Our Hockey Match," by Agnes Heath, was felt to be particularly appropriate to the occasion. It was a very good "school piece," humorous as well as exciting, and Agnes had enough dramatic ability to do justice to it. Her own form in particular stamped lustily. The prefects[Pg 53] motioned her forward again, but she shook her head. The clapping redoubled. Agnes, escorted to the front by Margaret, bowed and announced:
"Fearfully sorry not to oblige, but this is absolutely the only thing I know, and it's too long to say all over again!"
There was a general laugh, and the audience settled itself to enjoy the next item on the program. Margaret was signaling to Winona and Garnet, and the pair slipped from their places, and made their way to the platform.
"I'm all upset! I hope I shan't break down!" whispered Winona.
"Nonsense! A duet's not so bad as a solo. You'll get on all right. Do for goodness' sake brace up!" implored Garnet. "If you muddle your accompaniment you'll spoil my part. You'll surely never go and fail me!"
The instruments had been put under the piano. Patricia Marshall handed them forth, and sounded the notes for them to be tuned. Clarice Nixon was placing chairs and music-stands. Garnet was tolerably composed, but Winona was suffering from a bad attack of that most unpleasant malady "stage fright." She would have given worlds for a trapdoor in the platform to open, and allow her to subside out of sight. No such convenient arrangement, however, had been provided for the use of bashful performers, the planks were solid, and guaranteed not to give way under any circumstances. There was nothing for it but to take her seat in full view of the audience. There were slightly over two hundred[Pg 54] girls in the room, but to Winona's fevered imagination there appeared to be thousands. She wondered how she could ever have had the folly to place herself in such a public situation. Garnet was sounding a few notes and looking at her to begin. For one dreadful moment the room whirled. Perhaps Margaret saw and understood; she laid her hand on Winona's shaking arm, and whispered encouragingly:
"Go on! Don't mind the audience. Just remember that you're playing for the form trophy!"
A sudden revulsion of feeling swept over Winona. All the school patriotism aroused within her by Margaret's speech surged up to meet the crisis. She was no longer an isolated atom, a girl fresh from home, and on trial before the critical eyes of her new form, but a unit in the great life of the school, bound to play her part for the good of the whole, and specially pledged not to fail Garnet in this emergency. Self faded in the larger vision. The color flooded back into her face. She made a desperate effort, and struck the opening chords.
As her friend had reminded her, a duet was quite a different matter from a solo. Directly the mandoline part began, her confidence returned. She tried to think that she was only playing an accompaniment for Garnet. The piece was not difficult, it was in D, quite the easiest key for the guitar, with very few accidentals or high positions. She took courage, and struck her strings crisply, so that the tone rang out well. Her instrument was a good one, very true and mellow, and her mother had taught[Pg 55] her the liquid Spanish touch which showed it to its best advantage. Garnet also was doing her best. Her plectrum vibrated evenly and rapidly, and the metallic twang, her gravest fault, was not nearly so evident as usual. The audience, unfamiliar with these particular instruments, was not hypercritical, and so long as the players kept well together, and sounded no discords, their skill was judged to be excellent. The Barcarolle had an attractive swing about it, and a romantic suggestion of gondolas and lapping water and moonlight serenades. As the last notes of the air on the mandoline died away, Winona swept her thumb over the strings of her guitar in a tremendous final chord. It had quite a magnificent and professional effect. There was no mistake about the applause; it was simply clamorous.
"Stand up and bow!" whispered Margaret, nudging the unaccustomed performers. "That's right! Bow again! It's most clearly an encore. Have you brought anything else with you? Good biz! Don't waste any more time, then. We're rather late."
The song that Winona had chosen was a bright little Irish ditty, with a catchy tune and lively accompaniment. Garnet played the air softly on the mandoline, and the two girls sang in unison, keeping strictly together, and pronouncing very plainly, so that the point of the amusing words should not be lost. The audience shrieked with laughter, and would have demanded a further encore, had not Margaret pointed to the clock, and shaken her head[Pg 56] firmly. There were other items on the program and time was going all too fast.
Another violin solo, a recitation and a Highland fling followed; then the concert wound up with a Christy Minstrel song from several members of the Sixth. This last was the triumph of the afternoon. Patricia prided herself on her preparations. She had placed a newspaper inside the grand piano over the strings, and when the hammers struck against it the effect of the accompaniment was exactly that of a banjo. She had borrowed two sets of castanets, a pair of cymbals, and a triangle, and with these loud-sounding instruments she and her companions emphasized the chorus. Garnet and Winona helped with mandoline and guitar, so the general result was quite orchestral. During the performance of this chef-d'œuvre some of the prefects went round with collecting bags, which were passed along the benches.
And help to spend my money,"
chanted the minstrels lustily, and the audience smiled at the appropriateness of the words.
It was felt that the Symposium had been an enormous success. The girls were quite loath to leave, and dispersed slowly from the gymnasium. Many eyes were turned on Winona and Garnet as they carried their instruments down from the platform. "Who are they?" every one was asking, for so far their names were not known outside their own form. "The two County Scholarship holders,"[Pg 57] somebody replied, and the information was passed on.
Next morning, Margaret proudly posted up the result of the collection, which amounted to £2 13s. 7d.—a very substantial sum in the estimation of the school.
"It ought to be sufficient to buy a cup!" she triumphed. "Miss Bishop has promised to send for some catalogues, so that we can look up the prices. We shall start the season well, at any rate. Kirsty's almost ready to stand on her head! I never saw any one so elated!"
"Except yourself!" smiled Patricia.
"Cela va sans dire, camarade!"
Garnet and Winona, walking down the High Street together after the performance, also compared notes.
"It was fine! I do admire Margaret. Mustn't it be splendid to be head of the school?" sighed Garnet enviously.
"Do you think so? Yes, I suppose it is, but if I had my choice, I'd a dozen times over rather be Games Captain," answered Winona.[Pg 58]
CHAPTER V Aunt HarrietIt is high time now that we paused to consider a very important person indeed in this story, namely Miss Harriet Beach, but for whose invitation Winona would never have attended Seaton High School at all. Aunt Harriet was what is generally known as "a character," that is to say, she was possessed of a strong personality, and was decidedly eccentric. Though her age verged on sixty she preserved the energy of her thirties, and prided herself upon her physical fitness. She was tall, with a high color, keen brown eyes, a large nose, a determined mouth, and iron gray hair. In her youth she must have been handsome, and even now her erect figure and dark, well-marked eyebrows gave her a certain air of distinction. She was a most thoroughly capable woman, reliable, and strongly philanthropic: not in a sentimental way, however; she disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, and would have considered it a crime to bestow a penny on a beggar without making a proper investigation of his case. She was a tower of strength to most of the charitable institutions in the city, a terror to the professional pauper, but a real friend to the deserving. Her time was much occupied with committees, secretarial duties, district visiting, workhouse inspection and[Pg 59] other public interests. She was apt indeed to have more than her share of civic business; her reputation for absolute reliability caused people to get into the habit of saying "Oh, go to Miss Beach!" on every occasion, and as she invariably proved the willing horse, she justified the proverb and received the work in increased proportions.
Like most people, Aunt Harriet had her faults. She was apt to be a trifle overbearing and domineering, she lacked patience with others' weaknesses, and was too doctrinaire in her views. She tried very hard to push the world along, but she forgot sometimes that "the mills of God grind slowly," and that it is only after much waiting and many days that the bread cast upon the waters returns to us. She prided herself on her candor and lack of "humbug." Unfortunately, people who "speak their minds" generally treat their hearers to a sample of their worst instead of their best, and their excessive truthfulness scarcely meets with the gratitude they consider it deserves. Miss Beach's many estimable qualities, however, overbalanced her crudities, her friends shrugged their shoulders and told each other it was "her way," "her heart was all right." Though she might give offense, people forgot it, and came to her again next time they wanted anything done, and the universal verdict was that she was "trying at times," but on the whole one of the most useful citizens which Seaton possessed.
If there was one person more than another who wore out Miss Beach's patience it was her niece and goddaughter, Mrs. Woodward. She had a sin[Pg 60]cere affection for her, but their two personalities were at absolutely opposite poles. She admitted that Florita was amiable, well-meaning, and thoroughly affectionate, but for the rest she considered her weak, foolishly helpless, liable to extravagance, a poor housekeeper, and a perfect jelly-fish in her methods of bringing up her family. In vain did Aunt Harriet, on successive visits, preach firmness, order, consistency and other maternal virtues; her niece would brace herself up to a temporary effort, but would relax again directly her guest had departed, and the children—little rogues!—discovered at a remarkably early age that they could do pretty much as they liked. The Woodwards always dreaded the advent of Aunt Harriet, her disapproval of their general conduct was so manifest. By dint of urging from their mother they made extra attempts at good behavior before the august visitor, but they were subject to awful relapses. Mrs. Woodward, on her side, considered she had her trials, for her aunt had a habit of arriving suddenly, giving only a few hours' notice by telegram, and she could not forbear the suspicion that her revered godparent wished to surprise her housekeeping and catch her unprepared. On one occasion, indeed, when the family came down—rather late—for breakfast, Aunt Harriet was discovered sitting on the rustic seat outside the dining-room window. She explained that she had taken the 5 a.m. workmen's train and had come to spend a long day with them, but not wishing to disturb the house at too early an hour she had remained in the garden en[Pg 61]joying the view until somebody arrived downstairs. In spite of her rather angular attitude, Miss Beach was a very kind and generous friend to her widowed niece, and she was the one person in the world to whom Mrs. Woodward naturally thought of turning in time of trouble. Aunt Harriet's advice might not always be palatable, but it was combined with such practical help that there seemed no alternative but to follow it.
Miss Beach, though not
Comments (0)