the travel scholarships. If she answers by cable today, in a few hours we will know what to expect. If she answers by letter, we will have to wait six or seven days. And now, off to your studies and your work!”
“Six days!” whined that rascal Tony Renault, “I’ll never make it!”
Perhaps he was expressing some of his classmates’ feelings as well—Hubert Perkins, Niels Harboe, Axel Wickborn—whose temperaments were almost as volatile as his. Louis Clodion and Roger Hinsdale, the contest’s two ex æquo, showed more poise. As far as the Swedish and the Dutch, they did not stray from their typical demeanor. But had the Antillean School had any American boarders, the prize for patience would very probably not have been given to them.
In reality, the extreme excitement of their young minds was understandable: not knowing the region of the world where Mrs. Seymour was going to send them! Furthermore, we must mention that it was only mid-June and, if the time devoted to the trip was going to fall during the vacation period, the departure would not take place for another six weeks.
Mr. Ardagh believed, as did the majority of the Antillean School, this was the most likely case. Under these conditions, the young scholars’ absence would not last more than two months. They would be back for the beginning of classes in October, which would satisfy both the families and the school’s personnel.
Consequently, given the duration of summer vacation, it could not be an expedition to very distant regions. The wisest ones thus avoided imagining travel through the steppes of Siberia, the desert of central Asia, the forests of Africa, or the grassy plains of America. Without leaving the old continent or even Europe, there were many interesting regions to visit outside of the United Kingdom: Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Greece! What memories to record in a tourist journal and what new impressions for those young Antilleans who were, for the most part, only children when they had crossed the Atlantic coming from America to Europe. Even reduced to the countries neighboring England, this trip would thoroughly excite their impatience and curiosity.
Since the telegram did not arrive that day nor in the days immediately following, it seemed the one sent by the director would have a letter for an answer, a letter sent from Barbados addressed to Mr. Julian Ardagh, the Antillean School, 314 Oxford Street, London, United Kingdom, Great Britain.
It is time for an explanation about the word “Antillean” that appeared over the door of the institution. No one doubts that it was created on purpose. Indeed, in the terminology of British geography, the Antilles are called Carribee Islands.19 On the maps from the United Kingdom as on those from America, they are not called anything else. But Carribee Islands means “islands of the Caribbean,” and that word recalls too vividly the fierce natives of the archipelago, scenes of massacre and cannibalism that were the scourge of the West Indies. Could one imagine that abominable title on the prospectus of the establishment: Caribbean School? Would it not make one think that students there were taught the art of killing each other or recipes for cooking humans?20 Therefore, “Antillean School” had seemed more appropriate for the young men coming from the Antilles, to whom it provided a purely European education.
So, without a telegram, they had to wait for a letter—unless this contest for travel scholarships had been nothing but a bad joke. Of course not! Mrs. Seymour and Mr. Ardagh had exchanged correspondence. The generous lady was not an imaginary being at all; she lived in Barbados, she had been known there for a long time, and she was believed to be one of the richest proprietors in the island.
Now, there was nothing left to do except show a good amount of patience and watch the mail from overseas every morning and every evening. It goes without saying, it was above all the nine laureates who occupied the windows facing Oxford Street in order to spot the neighborhood’s mailman. No matter how far away his red tunic appeared—and we know that red can be seen at a great distance—those students descended the stairs four at a time, emerged into the main courtyard, ran toward the big gate, called the mailman, made him dizzy with all their questions, and stopped just short of grabbing his mail box.
No! No letters from the Antilles, none! Was it not time to send a second cable to Mrs. Seymour in order to be sure that the first one had arrived at her address, and to suggest that she telegraph her answer?
And so, inside those vivid imaginations sprung a thousand fears explaining this inexplicable delay. Had bad weather stranded the ship that carries the mail between the Antilles and England? Had it sunk following a collision? Had it crashed into some unknown reef? Had Barbados disappeared in one of those earthquakes that are so horrible in the West Indies? Had the generous lady perished in one of these cataclysms? Had France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, or the United Kingdom just lost the most important assets of their colonial empires in the New World?
“No, no,” repeated Mr. Ardagh, “such a catastrophe would be known! All the details would have appeared in the newspapers!”
“Hey!” answered Tony Renault. “If the transatlantic ships carried pigeons, we would always know if they are on the right course!”
Very true, but such “colombogrammes” were not yet in service at that time, which the boarders of the Antillean School regretted.
Nonetheless, this state of affairs could not last long. The teachers were not succeeding in calming their troubled minds. No student worked anymore in class or in the study halls. Not only the contest laureates, but also their classmates—all the students—were thinking about everything other than their studies.
Pure exaggeration, of course. As for Mr. Ardagh, he felt no worry. Was it not perfectly natural that Mrs. Seymour had not responded by a telegram, which would not have been explicit enough? Only a letter, and a detailed letter at that, could contain the instructions they would have to follow; make known what this trip would be, under what conditions it would be carried out, at what time it would take place, how long it would last, how the expenses would be paid, and what would be the amount of the scholarships made available to the nine winners. These explanations, at the very least, demanded two or three pages and could not be formulated in that negro-grammatical language that the blacks in the Indian colonies still speak.21
But all these observations had no effect on them, and their concerns would not subside. And then, the students who did not earn high rankings in the competition, jealous of their classmates’ success, began to mock them, to “scoff” at them,22 to use an expression that will soon appear as an acceptable word in the dictionary of the French Academy. It had all been a big joke … There was not a penny or a farthing for those so-called travel scholarships. That Maecenas23 in skirts whose name was Mrs. Seymour did not even exist! The contest had only been one of those “humbugs”24 imported from America, that land where most of them originate!
Finally, Mr. Ardagh agreed to this plan: he would await the arrival in Liverpool of the next ship that brought the mail from the Antilles, scheduled for the twenty-third of this month. That day, if there was not a letter from Mrs. Seymour addressed to him, he would send her a second cablegram.
It was not necessary. On the twenty-third, in the afternoon mail, came a letter stamped from Barbados. This letter was in Mrs. Seymour’s handwriting and, according to the lady’s wishes—and what everyone wanted to know—the scholarships were to be used for a trip to the Antilles.
2 Mrs. Seymour’s Ideas
A voyage to diverse islands in the West Indies is what Mrs. Seymour’s generosity had reserved for them! Indeed, it seemed that the laureates had every reason to be pleased.
Of course they would have to give up any ideas of faraway explorations
