Excerpt from Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Whether the Headmistress of Appleyard College (as the local white elephant was at once re-christened in gold lettering on a handsome board at the big iron gates) had any previous experience in the educational field, was never divulged. It was unnecessary. With her high-piled greying pompadour and ample bosom, as rigidly controlled and disciplined as her private ambitions, the cameo portrait of her late husband flat on her respectable chest, the stately stranger looked precisely what the parents expected of an English Headmistress. And as looking the part is well known to be more than half the battle in any form of business enterprise from Punch and Judy to floating a loan on the Stock Exchange, the College, from the very first day, was a success; and by the end of the first year, showing a gratifying profit. All this was nearly six years before this chronicle begins.

Saint Valentine is impartial in his favours, and not only the young and beautiful were kept busy opening their cards this morning. Miranda as usual had a drawer of her wardrobe filled with lace-trimmed pledges of affection, although Baby Jonnie's home-grown cupid and row of pencilled kisses, addressed from Queensland in her father's large loving hand, held pride of place on the marble mantelpiece. Edith Horton, plain as a frog, had smugly accounted for at least eleven, and even little Miss Lumley had produced at the breakfast table a card with a bilious looking dove bearing the inscription i adore thee ever. A statement presumably coming from the drab unspeakable brother who had called on his sister last term. Who else, reasoned the budding girls, would adore the myopic junior governess, eternally garbed in brown serge and flat-heeled shoes?

'He is fond of her,' said Miranda, ever charitable. 'I saw them kissing goodbye at the hall door.'

'But darling Miranda – Reg Lumley is such a dreary creature!' laughed Irma, characteristically shaking out blue-black curls and idly wondering why the school straw hat was so unbecoming. Radiantly lovely at seventeen, the little heiress was without personal vanity or pride of possession. She loved people and things to be beautiful, and pinned a bunch of wildflowers into her coat with as much pleasure as a breathtaking diamond brooch. Sometimes just to look at Miranda's calm oval face and straight corn-yellow hair gave her a sharp little stab of pleasure. Darling Miranda now gazing dreamily out at the sunlit garden. 'What a wonderful day! I can hardly wait to get out into the country!'

'Listen to her, girls! Anyone would think that Appleyard College was in the Melbourne slums!'

'Forests,' said Miranda, 'with ferns and birds ... like we have at home.'

'And spiders,' Marion said. 'I only wish someone had sent me a map of the Hanging Rock for a Valentine, I could have taken it to the picnic.' Irma was forever being struck by the extraordinary notions of Marion Quade and now wanted to know whoever wanted to look at maps at a picnic?

'I do,' Marion truthfully said. 'I always like to know exactly where I am.' Reputed to have mastered Long Division in the cradle, Marion Quade had spent the greater part of her seventeen years in the relentless pursuit of knowledge. Small wonder that with her thin intelligent features, sensitive nose that appeared to be always on the scent of something long awaited and sought, and thin swift legs, she had come to resemble a greyhound.

The girls began discussing their Valentines. 'Somebody had the nerve to send Miss McCraw a card on squared paper, covered with little sums,' said Rosamund. Actually this card had been the inspired gesture of Irish Tom, egged on by Minnie the housemaid, for a lark. The forty-five-yearold purveyor of higher mathematics to the senior girls had received it with dry approval, figures in the eyes of Greta McCraw being a good deal more acceptable than roses and forget-me-nots. The very sight of a sheet of paper dotted over with numerals gave her a secret joy; a sense of power, knowing how with a stroke or two of a pencil they could be sorted out, divided, multiplied, re-arranged to miraculous new conclusions. Tom's Valentine, though he never knew it, was a success. His choice for Minnie was a bleeding heart embedded in roses and obviously in the last stages of a fatal disease. Minnie was enchanted, as was Mademoiselle with an old French print of a solitary rose. Thus Saint Valentine reminded the inmates of Appleyard College of the colour and variety of love.

Excerpted from Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. Copyright © 2017 by Joan Lindsay. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Classics. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.