Chapter One.

Great Refusal.

“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