



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Turquoise and Ruby
By L.T. Meade
Published by Grosset and Dunlap, New York.
This edition dated 1906.

Turquoise and Ruby, by L.T. Meade.

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TURQUOISE AND RUBY, BY L.T. MEADE.

CHAPTER ONE.

GREAT REFUSAL.

"Nora, Nora!  Where are you?" called a clear, girlish voice, and Cara
Burt dashed headlong into a pretty bedroom all draped in white, where a
tall girl was standing by an open window.  "Nora!" she cried, "what are
you doing up in your room at this hour, when we are all busy in the
garden preparing our tableaux?  Mrs Hazlitt says that she herself will
recite `A Dream of Fair Women,' and by unanimous consent you are to be
Helen of Troy.  Did any one ever suit the part so well?  `Divinely tall,
and most divinely fair.'  Why, what is the matter, Honora?  Why have you
that frown between your pretty brows, and why aren't you just delighted?
There is not a girl in the school who does not envy you the part.  Why
are you staying here, all by yourself, instead of joining in the fun
downstairs?  It's a heavenly evening, and Mrs Hazlitt is in the best of
humours, and we are all choosing our parts and our dresses for the grand
scene.  Oh, do come along, they are all calling you!  There's that
tiresome little Deborah Duke--Mrs Hazlitt's right hand, as we call
her--shouting your name now, downstairs.  Why _don't_ you come; what is
the matter?"

"There is this the matter!" said Honora Beverley, and she turned and
flashed two dark brown eyes out of a marvellously fair face full at her
companion.  "I won't take the part of Helen of Troy; she was not a good
woman, and I will have nothing to do with her.  I will be Jephtha's
daughter, or Iphigenia, or anything else you like, but I will not be
Helen of Troy."

"Oh, how tiresome you are, Nora!  What does the character of Helen
matter?  Besides, we are not supposed to know whether she is good or
bad.  Tennyson speaks of her--oh, so beautifully; and we have just to
listen to his words, and the audience won't know, why should they?  All
you have to do is just to steal out of the dusky wood and stand for a
minute with the limelight falling all over you, and then go back again.
It's the simplest thing in the world, and there's no one else in the
school who can take the part, for there's no one else tall enough, or
fair enough.  Now, don't be a goose; come along, this minute."

"It's just because I won't be a goose that I have determined not to act
Helen of Troy," replied Honora.  "Leave me alone, Cara; take the part
yourself, if you wish."

"I?" said Cara, with a laugh.  "Just look at me, and see if I should
make a worthy Helen of Troy!"

Now, Cara was exceedingly dark, not to say sallow, and was slightly
below middle height and also rather thickly built, and even Nora laughed
when she saw how unsuited her friend would be to the part.

"Well, I won't be it, anyhow," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
"I don't want to take part in the tableaux, at all."

"Then you will disappoint Mrs Hazlitt very cruelly," said Cara, her
voice changing.  "Ah, and here comes Deborah.  Dear old Deb!  Now,
Deborah, I am going to leave this naughty girl in your hands.  She is
the most obstreperous person in the entire school, and the most beloved,
for that matter.  Just say a few words of wisdom to her and bring her
down within five minutes to join the rest of us in the garden.  I will
manage to make an excuse for her non-appearance until then."

As Cara spoke, she waved her hand lightly towards Nora, who was still
standing by the open window, and then vanished from the room as quickly
as she had entered it.  After she had gone, there was a moment's
silence.

Nora Beverley was close on seventeen years of age.  She was practically
the head girl of the school of Hazlitt Chase--so-called after its
mistress, who was adored by her pupils and was one of the best
headmistresses in England.  Mrs Hazlitt possessed all the
qualifications of a first-rate high-school mistress, with those gentle
home attributes and that real understanding of the young, which is given
to but few.  She had married, and had lost her only child; husband and
child had both been taken from her.  But she did not mourn as one
without hope.  Her endeavour was to help girls to be good, and true, and
noble in the best sense.  Her education was, therefore, threefold,
embracing body, mind, and soul.  Her school was not an especially large
one, never consisting of more than thirty girls,