The Girls of St. Cyprian's: A Tale of School Life

"If there's one slack, slow business in this wide world," said Bess Harrison, stretching her arms in the exigencies of a combined sigh and prodigious yawn, "it's coming back to school after the Easter holidays. Tame isn't the word for it! It's absolute milk and water. September start is some sport, because one's generally in a fresh form, and there are always changes; and even January is fairly lively; but now! Why, there's scarcely even a new girl to make a small excitement, and altogether it's about as stale as beginning again after half-term week-end."

"Worse," agreed Maggie Orton. "At half-term one hasn't had time to get out of things. One feels a little sorry for oneself, but that's all. But when one's had nearly three weeks off it's far harder to fall into harness again."

"And the burden's heavier!" urged Mona Bradley. "I've just told Miss Pollock so. We don't start in September with such a grind. No! They keep laying straw after straw on our unfortunate backs, here an exercise and there a problem, or some bit of extra prep., till in the aggregate it's more than mortal girl can bear! We're victims of over-pressure--that's what it is!"

"You don't look a victim--with cheeks like two streaky red American apples!" laughed Maudie Stearne.

"Appearances are deceptive, my good child! You'll often find the thin, wiry sort of folk can stand more than the nice, plump, rosy ones. As for me, I contend that this special botany class is the last straw. The camel's back is bending visibly, and I mean to throw over either Latin or music."

"Not music, surely!" said Kitty Fletcher. "Why, you'd miss half the fun of the school! You'd be out of all concerts and choral meetings, and you needn't flatter yourself the Dramatic would take you up instead. No, you'd just have to squat with the kids, and act audience, and I don't think that's much in your line, Mona Bradley! You're not the one to covet a back seat, as a rule."

"Why, of course I didn't intend to be out of the concerts," protested Mona plaintively. "I only thought I might drop my lessons and give up practising for a while--just during the tennis season, you know."

"Oh! I dare say! And you think Miss Jackson will let you play at recitals when you've never practised a note? Happy are the ignorant, indeed! Don't you know she wouldn't allow Margaret Hales a part in that trio, when poor old Mag had only been away ten days with 'flu'? As for putting on a girl who actually wasn't having lessons, why, the idea's preposterous! No, take your granny's advice, and knock off maths, or chemistry, or anything you can induce Miss Cartwright to let you throw overboard, but stick tight to your piano."

"True, O Queen! Yours are the words of wisdom, I admit. It's the half-hour's practising before breakfast that I so particularly loathe and abhor."

"Well, now the mornings are light, you needn't growl!"

"What a Mentor you are! You'll be quoting Dr. Watts to me next:

"'Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain, 'You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again!'

I don't mind confessing that I hate getting up in the mornings; however sunny they are, it makes no difference. And to have to do it every day for a whole term, and peg away at scales and arpeggios! Ugh! I sometimes wish I'd been born a savage in Central Africa!"

"Then they'd have made you learn the tom-tom, and no doubt that's an instrument that needs perseverance. You can't get out of it, Mona mine! I see nothing for you but a dreary prospect of early rising, and the pursuit of five-finger exercises. It's your hard, cruel, inexorable fate, the chain from which you can't escape."

Mona laughed rather unwillingly: her mirth was never very spontaneous.

"I know it's slavery! Well, I suppose I must live for the summer holidays! They let me lie in bed as long as I like, and it's my ideal of bliss."

"Then keep it, you old slacker!" said Bess Harrison. "We'll leave you to your dreams of a Mahomet's paradise. I like something livelier, and to go back to my original proposition, I think every school ought to provide a new sensation after the Easter holidays, just to wake us up, and keep us from stagnating."

"Of course there are tennis and cricket this term," suggested Maggie Orton, half apologetically.

"That I admit--but so far at St. Cyprian's we've only carried them on rather languidly. I wouldn't for the world confess it outside, but between ourselves I don't mind saying that we're far and away behind other schools at games. In music I grant you we can give anyone the lead, in languages we're fair, but at athletics we're a set of duffers."

"We oughtn't to be, then!" exploded Nell Hayward. "We're surely as physically fit as most girls, and if we laid ourselves out to train we'd astonish people. It's merely a matter of management. No one's bothered much about it before, or tried to keep us up to the mark, so of course we slacked. It's not our fault!"

"But the fact unfortunately remains the same!"

"We want some new life, certainly, put into the tennis and cricket," said Maudie Stearne. "Something to make it go. It's never been the same since Miss Pritchard left."

"She was A1."

"We shan't get another Miss Pritchard!"

"None of the Sixth seem over-keen."

"We may make up our minds that St. Cyprian's is no good at games!"

"Cease these jeremiads!" interposed Kitty Fletcher. "I'll tell you something to cheer you up. Yes, it's news--real, creditable, veritable news! Why didn't I tell it before? Because I've been keeping it up my sleeve for the pleasure of giving you a complete surprise."

"Are we to have a professional to coach us?"

"Or a special games mistress?"

"Are several female athletes going to join the school?"

"Go on, Kit, and tell, can't you?"

"I haven't heard of either athletes or games mistress, but Miss Cartwright has a grand scheme on hand. We and five other schools are to join together in an alliance, and to meet each other for all kinds of things--hockey, cricket, tennis, concerts, debates, photography, gymnasium, arts and crafts, everything that's going, in fact."

"A kind of Olympic contest? Oh, what sport!"

"Exactly. You see, one school's generally keen on one thing, and another on something else. This is supposed to spur us on, and make us more 'all roundish'."

"Hem--a little wholesome competition!" quoted Maudie, with a fair imitation of Miss Cartwright's rather scholastic voice.

"You put it in a nutshell. We won't call it rivalry, but it would certainly touch us up to be beaten in anything by Newington Green or Marston Grove!"

"Ra--ther!"

"And no doubt they'd feel the same, so it will put us all on our mettle."

"I think it's a gorgeous idea; but how's it going to be run?"

"That's just the point. Each school is to have its own separate committee, and then send delegates to a general committee. There are to be five departments: Musical, Dramatic, Arts and Handicrafts, Literary, and Games, and we're to choose two delegates for each."