12 gwendoline mary and maureen
two girls were anxiously waiting for darrell to finish the pantomime. they were gwendoline and maureen. each of them saw herself in the part of cinderella. each of them crept away to the dormy on occasion, let her golden hair loose, and posed in front of the dressing-table mirrors.
“i look exactly right for cinderella,” thought gwendoline mary. “i’m the type, somehow. i could sit pensively by the fireside and look really lovely. and as the princess at the ball i’d be wonderful.”
she wrote and told her mother about the coming pantomime. “of course, we don’t know yet about the characters,” she said. “most of the girls would like me to be cinderella—they say i look the part. i don’t know what you think, mother? i’m not conceited, as you know, but i can’t help thinking i’d do it rather well. what does miss winter think?”
back came two gushing letters at once, one from her delighted mother, one from her old governess, worshipping as ever.
darling gwen,
yes, of course you must be cinderella. you would be absolutely right. your hair would look so lovely in the firelight. oh, how proud i shall be to see you sitting there pensive and sad, looking into . . .
and so on and so on. miss winter’s letter was much the same. both of them had apparently taken it completely for granted that gwendoline would have the chief part.
moira came barging into the dormy one day and discovered a startled gwendoline standing in front of her mirror, her hair all round her face, and a towel thrown over her shoulders for an evening cloak.
“gosh—what do you think you’re doing?” she said, in amazement. “washing your hair or something? are you mad, gwen? you can’t wash your hair at this time of day. you’re due for french in five minutes.”
gwendoline muttered something and flung the towel back on its rack. she went bright red. moira was puzzled.
two days later moira again came rushing into the dormy to see if the windows were open. this time she found maureen standing in front of her mirror, her hair loose down her back in a golden sheet, and one of the cubicle curtains pinned round her waist to make a train.
moira gaped. maureen went pink and began to brush her hair as if it was a perfectly ordinary thing to be found with it loose, and a curtain pinned to her waist.
moira found her voice. “what do you and gwen think you’re doing, parading about here with your hair loose and towels and curtains draped round you?” she demanded. “have you both gone crackers? every time i come into this dormy i see you or gwen with your hair loose and things draped round you. what are you up to?”
maureen couldn’t possibly tell the scornful practical moira what she was doing—merely pretending to be a beautiful cinderella with a cloud of glorious hair, and a long golden train to her dress. but moira suddenly guessed.
she laughed her loud and scornful laugh. “oh! i believe i know! you’re playing cinderella! both of you pretending to be cinderella. what a hope you’ve got! we’d never choose rabbit-teeth to play cinderella.”
and with this very cutting remark moira went out of the room, laughing loudly. maureen gazed at herself in the mirror and tears came to her eyes. rabbit-teeth! how horrible of moira. how frightfully cruel. she couldn’t help her teeth being like that. or could she? very guiltily maureen remembered how she had been told to wear a wire round her front teeth to force them back—and she hadn’t been able to get used to it, and had tucked it away in her drawer at mazeley manor.
nobody there had said anything about it. nobody had bothered. mazeley manor was a free-and-easy school, as maureen was so fond of saying, comparing it unfavourably with malory towers, and its compulsory games, its inquisitive matron and determined, responsible house-mistresses.
“if i’d been here when the dentist told me to wear that wire round my teeth, matron and miss potts would both have made me do it, even if i didn’t want to,” she thought. “and by now i’d have nice teeth—not sticking-out and ugly.”
and for the first time a doubt about that wonderful school, mazeley manor, crept into maureen’s mind. was it so good after all to be allowed to do just as you liked? to play games or not as you liked? to go for walks or not at your own choice? perhaps—yes perhaps it was better to have to do things that were good for you, whether you liked them or not, till you were old enough and responsible enough to choose.
maureen had chosen not to wear the wire when she should have done—and now she had been called rabbit-teeth, and she was sure she wouldn’t be chosen as cinderella. she did up her hair rather soberly, blinking away a few more tears, and trying to shut her lips over the protruding front teeth.
she forgot to unpin the curtain, and went out of the room, thinking so deeply that she didn’t even feel it dragging behind her. she met mam’zelle at the top of the stairs.
“tiens!” said mam’zelle, stopping in surprise. “que faites vous, maureen? what are you doing with that curtain?”
maureen cast a horrified look at her “train” and rushed back to the dormy. she unpinned it and put the curtain back into its place. feeling rather subdued she went downstairs to find gwen.
gwen was getting very very tired of maureen. the new girl had fastened on to her like a leech. she related long and boring stories of her people, her friends, her old school and especially of herself. she never seemed to think that gwen would like to talk too.
gwen sometimes broke into the middle of maureen’s boring speeches. “maureen, did i ever tell you about the time i went to norway? my word, it was super. i stayed up to dinner each night, and i was only thirteen, and . . .”
“i’ve never been to norway,” maureen would interrupt. “but my aunt went there last summer. she sent me a whole lot of post-cards. i’ll find them to show you. you’ll be interested to see them, i’m sure.”
gwen wasn’t interested. she was never interested in anything anyone else ever showed her. in fact, like maureen, she wasn’t interested in anything except herself.
the only time that maureen ever really listened to her was when she told unkind tales of the others in the form. then maureen would listen with great interest. “i wouldn’t have thought it of darrell,” she would say. “good gracious, did daphne really do that? oh, i say—fancy bill being so deceitful!”
gwen was forced to play games and not only that but to take part in a lot of practices. she was made to do gym properly, and never allowed to get out of it by announcing she didn’t feel too well. she had to go for every walk that was planned, fuming and furious.
it was june that enlightened maureen about all this assiduous attendance at games, gym and walks. she told her gleefully the history of gwen’s weak heart the term before.
“gwen wanted to get out of the school cert. exam, so she foxed and said she’d a weak heart that fluttered like a bird!” grinned june. “her mother took her home. and then it was discovered gwen was pretending and back she came just in time for the exam—and ever since she’s been made to go in for games and gym like anything. she’s a humbug!”
june had no right to say all this to a senior, and maureen had no right to listen to her. but, like gwen, she loved a bit of spiteful gossip, and she stored the information up in her mind, though she said nothing to gwen about it.
the two girls were forced to be together a great deal. almost everyone else in the form had their own friend. moira had no particular friend, but went with catherine, who was always at anyone’s disposal. so gwen and maureen, being odd ones out, had to walk together, and were left together very often when everyone else was doing something.
gwen grew to detest maureen. horrid, conceited, selfish creature! she hated the sound of her voice. she tried to avoid her when she could. she made excuses not to be with her.
but maureen wouldn’t let her go. gwen was the only one available to be talked to, and boasted to, and on occasion, when she had fallen foul of miss james, to be wailed to.
maureen thought she could draw as well as belinda—or almost as well. she thought she could sing beautifully—and, indeed, she had an astonishingly powerful voice which, alas, continually went off the true note, and was flat. she was certain she could compose tunes as well as irene. and she even drove darrell to distraction by offering to write a few verses for her.
“what are we to do with this pest of a maureen?” complained janet, one evening. “she comes and asks if she can help me and then if i give her the simplest thing to sew, she goes and botches it up so that i have to undo it.”
“and she had the sauce to come and tell me she didn’t like some of my chords in the opening chorus of ‘cinderella’,” snorted irene. “i ticked her off. but she won’t learn she’s not wanted. she won’t learn she’s no good! she’s so thick-skinned that i’m sure a bullet would bounce off her if she was shot!”
“she wants a lesson,” said alicia. “my word—if she comes and offers to show me how to juggle, i’ll juggle her! i’ll juggle her all down the corridor and back again, and down into the garden and on to the rocks and into the pool!”
“gwen’s looking pretty sick these days,” said belinda. “she doesn’t like having a double that clings to her like maureen does. i wonder if she knows how like her maureen is. in silliness and boringness and conceitedness and boastfulness and . . .”
“oh, i say,” said the saintly catherine, protesting. “aren’t you being rather unkind, belinda?”
belinda looked at catherine. “there are times to be kind and times to be unkind, dear sweet catherine,” she said. “but you don’t seem to know them. you think you’re being kind to me when you sharpen all my pencils to a pin-point—but you’re not. you’re just being interfering. i don’t want all my pencils like that. i keep some of them blunt on purpose. and about this being unkind to maureen. sometimes unkindness is a short-cut to putting something right. i guess that’s what maureen wants—a dose of good hard common-sense administered sharply. and that’s what she’ll get if she doesn’t stop this silly nonsense of hers.”
catherine put on her martyr-like air. “you know best, of course, belinda. i wouldn’t dream of disagreeing with you. i’m sorry about the pencils. i just go round seeing what i can do to help, that’s all.”
“shall i show you how you look in your own thoughts, catherine?” said belinda, suddenly. everyone listened, most amused at belinda’s sudden outburst. she was usually so very good-natured—but people like maureen, gwen and catherine could be very very trying.
belinda’s pencil flew over a big sheet of paper. she worked at it for five minutes, then took up a pin. “i’ll pin it to the wall, girls,” she said. “catherine will simply love it. it’s the living image of her as she imagines herself.”
she took the sheet to the wall and pinned it up. the girls crowded round. catherine, consumed with curiosity, went too.
it was a picture of her standing in a stained-glass window, a gleaming halo round her head. underneath, in big bold letters belinda had written five words:
our blessed martyr, st. catherine
catherine fled away from the shrieks of delighted laughter. “she’s got what she wanted!” said darrell. “catherine, come back! how do you like being a saint in a stained-glass window?”
