Part 10 (2/2)

'Yes. I'm afraid dear Gwen's not taking that very bravely,' said Miss Winter. 'Never mind, she has that nice child Maureen to set her a good example.'

'I think we ought to ask Maureen to stay for a week or two in the Christmas holidays,' said Mrs. Lacy. 'It would be so nice for Gwen.'

Poor Gwen! If she had heard all this she would have been furious. She was to get a great shock when her mother's letter came, telling her she had invited Maureen to stay for a week in the holidays.

She pulled her arm away from Maureen's as soon as the car drove out of sight. She turned on her.

'Well - I hope you've enjoyed spoiling my whole day, you beast! Telling your awful tales, and laughing your awful laugh, and sucking up like anything. Ugh!'

'But, Gwen - they said I was so like you,' said Maureen, looking puzzled. 'They liked me. How can I be so awful if I'm exactly like you?'

Gwen didn't tell her. It was a thing she really couldn't bear to think about.

18 THE DICTATOR.

THE days began to fly after half-term. Darrell and Sally got fits of panic quite regularly whenever they thought of the pantomime being performed to the parents at the end of term.

'We'll NEVER be ready!' groaned Darrell.

'No. We never imagined there'd be so much to do,' said Sally, seriously.

'If only everyone knew their parts like Mary-Lou and Mavis,' said Darrell. 'Louella drives me mad. She forgets the words of her songs every single time. I wish we hadn't chosen her to be the fairy-G.o.dmother now.'

'Oh, she'll be all right on the night,' said Sally. 'She was like that in the play she was in last year - never knew a word till the last night, and then was quite perfect.'

'Well, I only hope you're right,' groaned Darrell, amusing the steady Sally very much. Darrell went down into the dumps easily over her precious pantomime. Sally was very good for her. She refused to think anyone was hopeless, and was always ready with something comforting to say.

'Alicia's marvellous, isn't she?' she said, after a pause, looking up from the work she was doing.

'Yes. She's a born demon,' said Darrell, with a giggle. 'I get quite scared of her sometimes, the way she leaps about the stage and yells. And her conjuring is miraculous.'

'So is her juggling,' said Sally. 'And she's practised that demon-sounding voice till it really sounds quite uncanny.'

Daphne joined in with a laugh. 'Yes - and when she suddenly produces it in French cla.s.s, the amazement on Mam'zelle's face is too good to be true.'

'Alicia's a scream,' said Darrell. 'She'll be the best in the show, I think.'

There was a little silence. 'There's only one thing that really worries me,' said Darrell, in a low voice. 'And that's Moira. She's not hitting it off with Betty at all - or Alicia either. She's bossing them too much.'

'Yes. She can't seem to help it,' said Sally. 'But it's idiotic to be bossy with people like Betty and Alicia. After all, Betty's co-producer, and Alicia's a terrific help to them.'

Darrell was right to worry about Moira. Moira was intensely keen on getting the whole pantomime perfect, and made everyone work like slaves under her command. The girls resented it. Louella purposely forgot her words in order to annoy Moira. Bill purposely came in at the wrong side each time to make her shout. And Moira couldn't see that she was handling things in the wrong way.

She was a wonderful organizer, certainly. She had gone into every detail, worked out every scene with Darrell, proved herself most ingenious, and given very wise advise.

But she did it all in the wrong way. She was aggressive and opinionated, she contradicted people flatly, and she found fault too much and praised too little.

'You're a dictator, Moira,' Bill informed her at one rehearsal. 'I don't take kindly to dictators. Nor does anyone else here.'

'If you think you can produce a first-cla.s.s pantomime without giving a few orders and finding a few faults, you're wrong,' said Moira, furiously.

'I don't,' said Bill, mildly. 'I never said I did. But you can do all that without being a dictator. You sit up there like a warlord and chivy us all along unmercifully. I quite expect to be sent to prison sometimes.'

'Let's get on,' said Darrell, afraid that Moira was going to blow up. Arguing always wasted so much time. 'We'll take that bit again. Mavis, begin your song.'

Mavis sang, and a silence fell. What a lovely voice she had, low and pure and sweet. That would make the audience gasp! It wasn't often that a schoolgirl had a voice like that.

'We shall miss her when she leaves, and goes to study music and singing at the College of Music,' thought Darrell. Mavis's song came to an end, and she stepped back to let b.u.t.tons come on and do her bit.

Yes, rehearsals were hard work, but they were fun, too. Sally and Darrell began to feel more confidence as time went on. Darrell surprised herself at times, when she suddenly saw something wrong with the lines of the play, and hurried to alter them.

'I know just what's wrong and what's right now,' she thought, as she scribbled new lines. 'I adore doing this pantomime - feeling it's mine because I wrote it all. I want to do a play next. Could I write one - perhaps just a short one for next term? Shall I ever, ever be a well-known playwright?'

Gwen was a sulky actor. She hated being stuck at the back in the chorus, dressed as a servant, with nothing to say or do by herself. Maureen was much more cheerful about it. She drove Gwen nearly mad by some of the things she said.

'Of course, I don't mind having such a small, insignificant part,' she said. 'But it's different for you, Gwen. You've been here for years, and I've not been even one term. You ought to have had a good part. I couldn't expect one.'

Gwen growled.

'I shall write and tell your mother you are awfully good as a servant,' went on Maureen. 'I do think it's so kind of her to ask me to stay. Won't it be fun to be together so much, Gwen, in the hols?'

Gwen didn't answer. She was beginning to be a little afraid of Maureen. Maureen was silly and affected - but she had a cunning and sly side to her nature, too. So had Gwen, of course. She recognized it easily in Maureen because it was in herself too. That was the dreadful part of this forced friends.h.i.+p with Maureen. It was like being friends with yourself, and knowing all the false, silly, sly things that went on in your own mind.

Gwen did try to alter herself a bit, so that she wouldn't be like Maureen. She stopped her silly laugh and her wide, false smile. She stopped talking about herself too.

To her enormous annoyance n.o.body seemed to notice it. As a matter of fact, they took so little notice of her at all that if she had suddenly grown a moustache and worn riding-boots they wouldn't have bothered. Who wanted to pay any attention to Gwen? She had never done anything to make herself liked or trusted, so the best thing to do was to ignore her.

And ignore her they did, though poor Gwen was doing her best to be sensible and likeable now. She had left it a bit too late!

Two more weeks went by, and then suddenly a row flared up at a rehearsal. It began over a very silly little thing indeed, as big rows often do.

Alicia took it into her head to evolve a kind of demon-chant whenever she appeared or disappeared on the stage. She only thought of it a few minutes before rehearsal, and hadn't time to tell Darrell or Sally, so she thought she would just introduce the weird little chant without warning.

And she did. She appeared with her sudden, surprising leaps, chanting eerily. 'Oo-woo-la, woo-la, riminy-ree, oo-woo-la . . .'

Moira rapped loudly. The rehearsal stopped. 'Alicia! What on earth's that? It's not in the script, as you very well know.'

'Of course I know,' said Alicia, annoyed as always by Moira's unnecessarily sharp tone. 'I hadn't time to ask Darrell to put it in. I only thought of it just now.'

'Well, we can't insert new things now,' said Moira, coldly. 'And in any case it's not for you to suggest extraordinary chants like that. If we'd wanted one we'd have got Darrell to write one in.'

'Look here, Moira,' said Alicia, losing her temper rapidly, Tm not a first-former. I'm . . .'

Darrell interrupted hastily. 'Moira, I think that's really a good idea of Alicia's. What do you think, Betty? I never thought of a chant like that for the demon - but it does sound very demon-like, and . . .'

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