Laurels Are Poison

‘Tight? No. She did it to win a bet. No harm in the girl whatever. But the Principal took a Grave View, as, after all, who would not? Anyway, it didn’t matter. She went in for journalism and has never looked back. Billings, I mean. My sister knows her quite well.’

Alice and Laura did put their names down, and, the College having retained five of its netball team from the previous winter — two Third-Years, one of whom was staying on for a special course in P.T., and three Second- Years — there were only two vacancies, of which Alice obtained one without difficulty, and treated Laura and Kitty to doughnuts and coffee at the College buffet on the strength of it. Laura, whose game was hockey, scraped in, she informed the others, by sheer ability to chuck her weight about, finesse having no place, so far as she had been able to gather, in the operations of the eleven.

Kitty made one or two abortive efforts to shed lustre on herself and her friends, but without success, her most notable effort being an attempt to become a member of the Twenty-Nine Club, a highbrow society which read Russian plays and discussed the ballet.

‘But I can’t see what the devil you would have done if they had admitted you,’ said Laura frankly.

‘Why, of course you do! I should have given my impression of Hermione Baddeley giving her impression of a prima ballerina.’

‘It’s a wow, as a matter of fact. I’ve seen her do it,’ said Laura confidentially to Alice. ‘And if we have a smoking concert, or its equivalent, in Hall, at the end of the term, we must have it. It’s hardly for a mixed audience.’

In consequence of Laura’s and Alice’s inclusion in College teams, Kitty was sometimes left to her own devices. It happened that the College had fixtures for every Saturday in October, and it was on the last of these, the Saturday before Half-Term, that the next of what were referred to later by Laura as the Athelstan Incidents took place. There was an optional study-period on Saturday mornings, but it ended at noon. Lunch was at twelve-thirty on Saturdays so that students could get away early for afternoon excursions. As it happened, both Laura and Alice had matches. Kitty — to whom a period of optional study was merely time spent in happy and, in a sense, profitable idleness, for she devoted most of the study-periods to designing those fashions in hairdressing for which, five years later, she became famous — volunteered to sneak out of Hall at ten and make her way snakily into the town in order to purchase doughnuts, ginger-beer, fruit, chocolate and potato crisps. She accepted commissions from about a quarter of Athelstan, and abstracted a small suitcase from the boxroom, which was no longer locked up.

Alice had no money, except the return fare for the match and her Sunday Church collection, for it was the end of the month. Nearly everybody else was short, but Laura had had a windfall, and had floated a succession of small loans. In response to what she termed a Grade A blood-sucking letter, her people had sent her November allowance in advance, and, in addition to this, a brother who had received promotion and a rise in salary, ‘came up big,’ as his sister observed contentedly, and had sent a couple of pounds.

By half-past eleven Kitty was back, and at twenty-five to twelve she encountered the Warden on the back- staircase.

‘Ah, Miss Trevelyan, well met,’ said Mrs Bradley. Kitty, who was making valiant efforts to hide the bursting suitcase with which she was burdened, responded politely and began to make conversation about the weather, the close atmosphere of her study-bedroom, and the probability of the College winning their matches that afternoon. Mrs Bradley listened attentively. Then she stretched forth a skinny hand for the suitcase, and asked permission to inspect its contents.

‘Doughnuts,’ she pronounced. ‘How many, child?’

‘A — well, I got a couple of dozen, actually,’ said Kitty, who, with all her gifts, was no liar.

‘Threes into twenty-four goes eight. Is it wise, do you think, for Miss Menzies and Miss Boorman to eat eight doughnuts each before they play games?’

‘Well,’ said Kitty candidly, ‘I shouldn’t think Dog and Alice will have doughnuts. I mean, you see — well, it was for several of us, actually.’

‘I’ll come up with you and see fair play,’ said the Warden. So she did, and ate two doughnuts and two- pennyworth of crisps. Of the fact that one of the Principal’s rules relating to Saturday morning leave had been broken, she seemed blandly unaware.

‘You know,’ said Laura, later, ‘I like the old girl, and I don’t care who hears me say so. That was the one o’clock news, loves. In other words, the gong for lunch. And I might tell you that, from what my spies mutter, the Second-Years think the grub here has improved at least two hundred per cent since La Belle Dame sans Merci took it over. Fat Finnigan stated that if Miss Murchan got appendicitis, it was probably from eating College stew.’

‘The improvement may be due to the Deb.,’ said Alice loyally.

‘The Deb. my foot! ’ said Laura. ‘All personalities aside, and allowing fully for Samivel, my son, my son, bevare o’ the vidders, the improvement noted by our revered seniors is due simply, solely, wholly and completely to Mrs Crocodile. Besides, we’ve kept the same servants in Athelstan for nearly half a term, and that, it appears, not counting Cook, of course, is a College record.’

After lunch she and Alice went off, and Kitty decided to go down to the field to watch the Second Eleven match. The match ended and the teams went in to tea. Kitty returned to Athelstan to get her own tea from the Servery, for on Saturdays and Sundays no evening meal was provided, and the students supplied their own suppers at half-past nine.

Hall was deserted except for a couple of Second-Year students who were spending Saturday working. One was a tall, thin girl with round shoulders who appeared to have no friends; the other was a rather too popular member of her year who had been told by the Principal at the end of the previous term that unless she did some work she would be sent down for good. Her name was Cartwright. The thin student’s name was Giggs. Both were already at the Servery when Kitty arrived, but neither spoke to the other. Kitty spoke to both. As she was fond of explaining to Alice and to Laura, she was not proud, and would much rather talk to seniors than to nobody.

To Miss Giggs she said: ‘Well, what’s the pot of poison this time?’

Miss Giggs laughed dutifully, but did not supply any information. To Miss Cartwright Kitty said: ‘Anybody else staying in this afternoon?’

‘Shouldn’t think so,’ replied Miss Cartwright ‘I say, can you lend me a bob until Thursday?’

Rather reluctantly Kitty permitted this inconvenient loan to be floated out of money she herself had already borrowed from Laura.