Some of the children cried when school practice was over and Kitty was compelled to say good-bye. She returned to Hall laden with late chrysanthemums, two hyacinth bulbs vouched for ‘to come up’ in the spring, and a collection of confectionery.
‘Hullo, Kitty? Got a cold?’ asked the slightly obtuse Alice, when she met her.
‘No. I’ve been having a howl,’ said Kitty, frankly.
‘What on earth for? The Deb. didn’t come in, did she?’
‘No. But those blinking kids. You just get fond of them, and then you don’t go any more.’
‘You are an ass!’ said Laura, when she heard it. But the words were comforting, for Laura, in her way, was as acute a psychologist as Mrs Bradley.
School practice having been concluded, and holiday reading having been settled by the various lecturers with their groups, work came to a close and thoughts turned pleasurably to the end of term dance. This was not exciting, in the sense that the summer term dance was exciting for no visitors were allowed, but it was anticipated eagerly by students a little jaded by the exigencies of school practice. The various committees met twice on Saturday and again on Monday morning, to have all the necessary arguments about an orchestra, Christmas decorations, the arrangement of the programme, printing, catering and the vexed question of whether the Principal would allow the proceedings to continue until midnight for once.
Laura was on the programme committee, and was, as she herself expressed it, ‘lost to sight, to memory dear,’ for most of Saturday. Alice had a pleasant voice, and was to sing from the platform in the interval, so she had gone off to the Music Room for a practice. Kitty went back to Athelstan and ironed the three dance frocks for Tuesday.
The week-end passed without untoward incident, the programme was settled, and willing hands rolled out copies of it by the score on the College duplicator, the supper was decided upon and the books balanced. Each student contributed one shilling and sixpence towards the cost of the festivities, and all lecturers were invited, free of charge. Decorators (the Advanced Art group, mostly, assisted by such gifted amateurs as Kitty, who insisted upon helping ‘put up the stuff’ and proved a practical and experienced workman, and a steady and even daring performer upon step-ladders) did their bit towards contributing to the success of the evening, and a ladies’ orchestra was hired from Bradford and arrangements made to feed it and bed it down since it could not get back by train that night, particularly if the principal should relax the ‘eleven o’clock rule’ and allow the party to continue until midnight.
This she refused to do, although a deputation, made up of first years, second years and third years, waited upon her with eloquence, great respect and some special pleading.
‘I am sorry, students,’ she said, when she had listened patiently to all their arguments, ‘but it will be past midnight by the time you get to your beds, and some of you are catching the seven-thirty train on the morrow. It isn’t fair on the servants.’
This ‘time-honoured gag,’ as the disgusted Laura put it, clinched all arguments, and the deputation, completely deflated, filed out.
The next petitioner was Mrs Bradley, but upon a different matter.
‘I want you to allow me, Miss du Mugne,’ she said, ‘as part of my attempt to account for Miss Murchan’s disappearance, to supply the College with a band of Thugs. For one night only,’ she added; and proceeded to supply footnotes. The Principal, without relish — in fact, with complete and awful disapproval — listened carefully to Mrs Bradley’s plans, and, against her will, agreed to them.
‘ “Now it is the time of night”,’ observed Laura, gazing critically at herself in the mirror, ‘ “that the graves, all gaping wide…” Kitty, lovey, do up my zip, would you? If I bend, be it never so slightly, I can’t get it to do its stuff. I seem to have put on flesh since I came to this glory hole.’
‘And then,’ said Kitty, ‘I’d better just re-arrange your hair. I told you to be careful of it when you put your dress on, and you haven’t been careful. You’ve completely mussed it up.’
She had been, needless to say, hairdresser in chief, not only to her two comrades, but to half of Athelstan. All those, as Laura observed, who had one lock of hair to lay beside another, had clamoured for her skilful ministrations. Kitty had responded nobly, and the Athelstan contingent formed ‘a bevy of fashion and beauty unequalled in the annals of the College,’ as Laura announced with pride, surveying the happy faces and ‘gala get-up’ — her phrase again — of the young girls ‘ere Time’s fell hand had touched them.’
‘You seem in form tonight,’ observed Miss Cartwright, who had attempted sophistication in a scarlet frock and a good deal of rouge, and was not too certain whether the end justified the means.
‘Wait till you see the Warden,’ said Laura mysteriously.
‘I’ve seen the Deb, and I must say she looks too beautiful for a wicked world,’ said Miss Cartwright. ‘In fact, she makes me look quite Tottenham Court Road, and I rather relished the look of myself before.’
Kitty had waylaid Deborah on the previous afternoon.
‘You’ve had it set,’ she said, without preamble.
‘Yes,’ said Deborah nervously, conscious of a professional eye upon her coiffure.
‘You come to me an hour before tea tomorrow,’ said Kitty. ‘It isn’t bad. I’ll be able to do something there.’
Deborah had laughed, but, in the end, was compelled to promise. But Kitty’s great triumph was to come. Mrs Bradley, who had something to talk over with Miss Topas, dressed early, in an orange and royal blue evening frock which was then in its fourth season, and encountered Kitty, who was on her way to the bathroom, as she herself was about to descend the stairs.
Kitty’s jaw dropped; her eyes opened wide. She made odd, gurgling noises. Mrs Bradley halted.
‘Goodness me, Miss Trevelyan!’ she said. ‘Are you ill, child?’
‘Well, you might call it that, Warden,’ replied the sufferer.
‘But what is the matter, my poor dear?’
‘Warden,’ said Kitty, with the desperate honesty of the artist, ‘you can’t go over to College looking like that.’
It was a statement which many of Mrs Bradley’s relatives, notably her sister-in-law, Lady Selina, and her nephew’s wife, Jenny Lestrange, would have given much for the courage to make.
‘Why, what’s the matter with it?’ asked the head of the house, genuinely surprised by the passionate outburst.
‘Well, nothing, of course, Warden. It’s like my cheek… only, haven’t you got something…?’
‘Come and rummage,’ said Mrs Bradley, grinning. ‘But I mustn’t be long. I’ve got to see Miss Topas before the dance begins.’
Kitty accepted the invitation with alacrity, but, confronting the contents of Mrs Bradley’s wardrobe, her face fell.
‘No?’ said the Warden, in Kitty’s opinion unnecessarily and wrong-headedly amused by the proceedings.
‘I might do something if you’d let me put on a touch of Miss Cartwright’s rouge. It’s perfectly horrible on her — wrong shade altogether — but it would make this dress quite wearable on you. It’s a lovely frock…’ She took it down, and, laying it on the bed, brooded over it, and then looked critically at Mrs Bradley’s raven hair, black eyes and yellow countenance.