A Genius at the Chalet School (18 page)

   Nan was paying no heed to this. She was eagerly looking at her first attempt at editing. Miss Annersley smiled to herself. She knew all about it and she could sympathize with the girl. She remembered how another girl, more than thirty years ago, had been equally thrilled by the sight of
her
 first magazine.

   The sound of the first bell for Früstück roused Nan from her absorbtion. "Oh, I'm so glad it's come at last!" she said fervently. "Doesn't it look nice, Miss Annersley?"

   "Very nice," the Head replied warmly. "And you've given us a pleasant surprise, Nan. Oh, yes; I read it from cover to cover before I went to bed last night. You didn't expect me to resist
that
 temptation, did you?"

   Nan laughed happily. "I'm certain I couldn't have done it myself," she acknowledged. "It's just as well you held them back, Miss Annersley."

   "That's rather what I thought," Miss Annersley said pensively. "Well, the first bell has gone, so you must put that down now and go on duty. Bring some of the others along here after you've finished your cubicle work and then you can collect them and distribute the House copies at once. We'll put the rest on the book stall in the morning. If I'm not here, just come in and take them."

   Nan laid down the copy reluctantly and went to take her duty in the Speisesaal. But her radiant face could hardly escape notice and her peers were full of curiosity to know what had happened.

   "If you wait long enough, you'll see," she replied primly.

   "But I don't want to wait," Betsy Lucy said plaintively. "I want to know why you're looking as if someone had left you half a million all at once."

   Nan laughed. "That's so likely to happen, isn't it?" she said derisively. "Millionaires or even half-millionaires don't go floating around in our family. It's no use fussing, Betsy. The Head said after we'd finished our cubeys, so you'll have to wait till then."

   That finished it, of course. Katharine Gordon changed the subject to the prospects of next term's tennis and the prefects talked tennis solidly for the rest of the meal. But once they had made their beds, dusted their cubicles and put everything in order, there was no holding them. The St. Hild prefects, of which House she was an ornament, swarmed round Nan, demanding to be told the secret
now
!

   She laughed. "What excitement! It's only that
The Chaletian
 has come after all. They arrived last night but the Head thought we'd give the stalls the go-by if we knew, so she kept it very dark. But she let me see them and she said when we'd finished all the cubicle work, we might go and get the copies for the Houses and distribute them. Come on! We'll call in on the others as we go along and fetch them along with us."

   No one needed to be told that twice. They crowded after her, pausing at each House as they went on to Ste. Thérèse's, which was the school house as well, and picking up the other members of their body. When they tapped at the study door, they got no answer, so Nan, strong in the Head's final remarks, opened the door and they went in. Everyone made a beeline for the ottoman, but the editor was there before them.

   "No peeping here!" she ordered. "The Head might land at any moment, and so might Bill, and a nice set of idiots we'd look if they found us. It's O.K. to come in and collect what we want; but it's definitely
not
 O.K. to stand around reading. Come on! Miss Dene has been busy sorting them out. She's tied up the bundles for each House and labelled them. Betsy, here's Ste. Thérèse's. Carola, St. Clare's for you. Here you are, Katt; these are St. Agnes'. These are ours. I don't know what we can do about St. Mildred's. I suppose someone will be coming along to pick them up after Church. The rest are for the stall. Now clear out, everyone! Scram - scamper - vamoose!"

   They surged forth with their armfuls of
Chaletians
, hurrying off to distribute them among the others. No one had far to go, for all bedroom work was done by this time and the girls had gone to the House commonrooms to wait until it was time to get ready for Church. Everyone was thrilled when they saw the blue piles, for everyone had been afraid that the magazine would arrive too late for the Sale. It should have come at least a week ago, but trouble at the printers had held it up and the girls had resigned themselves to having to do without it for the Sale at any rate.

   "Better late than never!" Prunella Davidson remarked as she took her copy. "It really is a blessing it's arrived. It would have been ghastly if it hadn't come till Tuesday, say. We'd have got ours all right, but all the extra copies we ordered for the Sale would have been a dead loss. I hope you all realize that!"

   "Don't mention it!" Mary-Lou exclaimed. " - Though I expect quite a lot of people would have left orders for it," she added. "Still, it's not the same thing."

   "It certainly isn't," Hilary Wilson who, with Betsy Lucy and Sally Wilmslow were the prefects at Ste. Thérèse's, spoke severely. "Do you people understand that in
that
 case, we should have had to find the postage extra?"

   "Well, thank goodness we're spared that," Betsy remarked as she handed the copies out. "Here you are Mary-Lou, Verity - Nina - got yours, Jo? Will your mother want one again, or will she share yours?"

   "She'll want her own, of course," Jo replied, "especially if the thing about Kenya that I sent is in. I wouldn't put it past Dad to demand one on his own account, either."

   She scuttled off to seek a quiet corner and hunt through to see if the said article had been accepted or not, and Betsy gave out the few remaining and went off with the other two to the prefects' room to read her own copy in peace.

   For minutes there was silence in the commonroom except for the rustling of turning pages and occasional exclamations as the girls discovered whose contributions were in. This was always something that could not be known until the magazine arrived in all its glory. All contributions went to the editor who sorted them - generally assisted by any of the other prefects she chose to co-opt. When they had mulled over everything and made their choice, all they had picked out were put into one heap and taken to the mistress in charge of
The Chaletian
 - Miss Derwent at present. They usually selected a good deal more than could finally be used for funds were limited and printing is costly everywhere, these days. The mistress went through that lot herself, first. She, also, was apt to call on her friends for help and it was as well that some of the aspiring authors enver heard the staff's remarks on their efforts!

   When that had been done and the mistress had made her decisions, she summoned the editor, the Head Girl and the Second prefect and discussed everything with them. Finally, the sheaf that remained was handed over to Miss Dene who sent it to the printers and also saw to correcting the proofs when they arrived. The remainder was packed up and put into a closet in the stockroom in case material ever ran short later on. It had happened only twice during all the years
The Chaletian
 had been running and, warned by what had happened on the first occasion, everyone had seen to it that it never occurred again. Sundry school essays had had to be pressed into service then and even so, the result had been a very slim magazine.

   Anyone who had had anything to do with the final choices was under bond not to tell anything to anyone and the girls generally awaited the arrival of their magazine with a good deal of impatience. But for the fact that he half-term trips had had to be postponed that term, owing to the weather, there would have been a good deal more fuss about its delay in arriving before this.

   On this occasion, Mary-Lou opened her copy with a good deal of trepidation. Not only had she sent in an account of a visit she and Verity had paid during the Christmas holidays to St. Moritz, but she had calmly helped herself to a short composition of Nina's - a song - without the gifted composer's knowledge, and sent
that
 in as well. She had had one or two twinges of conscience on the subject after she had done it. Nina was admittedly not an easy-going creature and for once in her self-assured life, Mary-Lou had had spasms of wondering if she had done the right thing. Nina might very well resent the liberty. But Mary-Lou knew well enough that nothing would have induced her to send it in herself and, as she remarked to Verity, the one person to know of her action, when they
had
 a composer in the school, it was a pity if
The Chaletian
 couldn't profit by it! If nothing came of it, well and good! No one would be any the wiser - or at any rate, Nina wouldn't, which was what mainly mattered! But if it had gone in then everyone would know, including Nina, and goodness only knew
how
 she would take it!

   "Oh, well, she can't
eat
 me!" Mary-Lou told her sister by marriage as they sat together, each looking through the magazine. "I only hope she's pleased and not mad!"

   "I still think you ought to have asked her," Verity responded. "It was cheek on your part, Mary-Lou. Still, you generally do get away with all sorts of cheek," she added as she turned a page. "Oh, here's
your
 article, anyhow! Doesn't it look nobby?"

   "Not so bad," Mary-Lou agreed in carefully subdued tones, though her cheeks were flushed and her eyes had lit up. It was the first time she had ever troubled the magazine with any effort of hers and it was gratifying to know that it had passed muster.

   "Mother and Dad will be awfully pleased," Verity said, as she skimmed through it. "It reads better in print than it did in your scrawl."

   "Shut up, ass!" was Mary-Lou's response to this. "Here's a short story by Betsy. It's a Guernsey legend, it says. What's next? Oh, a sonnet by Nan Herbert. I say! I'd no idea she could write like this! It's rather decent, isn't it?"

   An exclamation from Nina who was sitting at a nearby table made Mary-Lou and Verity both look at her. Her face was pink and her eyes were bright with excitement.

   "Oh -
oh
! However did they get hold of this?"

   At the same time, Bess Appleton called across the room, "I say, Nina, how simply gorgeous of you! I don't believe we've ever had
music
 in the mag before! Doesn't it look lovely? How does the tune go? Play it for us, won't you? And Verity can sing it. I say, you people, have you seen? Nina has a song in the mag - words and music! It's on page twenty-five. Look! Do let us hear it properly, Nina!"

   The room rang with their delighted exclamations.

   "That's something!" Hilary exclaimed. "One up to our House! Oh, yes, Nina! We simply must hear it! Where's Verity?"

   "But - I can't think how it got there!" Nina cried in bewildered tones. "
I
 never sent it in! It never dawned on me to do so." She regarded the page with gratified eyes. "How nice it looks to see it in print!" She suddenly woke up to the fact that everyone was demanding to hear it and the flush in her face deepened. "It's only quite a little thing, you know, I - it would never have been published by any
proper
 music publisher."

   "Never mind that! It's in the mag, at any rate," Hilary said, "and we want to hear it. Play it through for us, Nina, do! There's a gem! Verity can sing it for you all right. She can read music easily enough."

   Verity herself came forward. "Oh, Nina, I'm so glad! Shall we try it and let the rest hear it? I can read it all right. It sounds lovely to me."

   Nina got up and went over to the piano she never touched as a rule, since the girls thumped on it regardless when they wanted to dance or have community singing. She sat down and began to play the four bars that made up the prelude. Verity had gone with her and now she sang in the lark-like voice that was her great gift. The listening girls were enthralled. Most of them had not enough musical knowledge to realize that Nina had been quite right in her statement. It was pretty enough, but too slight for any publisher to bother with it. But, as with the
Welcome to Cecily
, everything she was to do in the future was foreshadowed in it. And however much she might publish in the future, it is hard to say if she would feel prouder over it than she did over that simple canzonette published in the school magazine.

   "Are the words yours as well?"Prunella asked when it had ended and they had exhausted every laudatory adjective they could think of. "I don't know them at all."

   Nina shook her head. "No, they're Herrick's. I read it when I was looking up a quotation in general literature and loved them. They sang that air in my head and I scribbled it down in a hurry and forgot it. I found it at half-term - the proper half-term, I mean, and I spent my free time polishing it. But I
still
 don't understand how it got there. I lost it - " Her eyes had been wandering round them as she spoke and now they lighted on Mary-Lou's face. That young woman, however, much as she tried, could not help looking conscious and Nina was down on her at once. "Mary-Lou Trelawney! It was
you
!"

   Now that the secret was out, Mary-Lou was her own woman again. "Yes, it was me," she assented. "I found it on the floor in our formroom one morning and I was awfully struck with it - words
and 
music - "

   "Thought you didn't learn?" Hilda Jukes interjected at this point.

   "No more I do. But Verity does. I gave it to her and made her play it to me. Then I thought what a gorgeous lift up it would be all round if we could get it into
The Chaletian
. But I know I hadn't a Chinaman's chance of coaxing
you
 to send it. So I spent all one evening copying it out - and believe me, it
took
 all one evening! How
do
 you do it, Nina? - because it was filthy from kicking about the floor and I couldn't send it in like that. Then I just shoved it into the box Nan had put for contributions at the back of the dais in Hall. After that, I could only wait." She paused and eyed Nina. "You - you don't mind, do you, Nina? I know it was cheek - and I'll apologize for that if you want me to - but you don't really mind, do you?"