Chapter 15 A Sweet Girl Graduate by L. T. Meade
Polly Singleton
Miss Day was having quite a large party for cocoa in her room. She had invited not only her own chosen friends from Heath Hall, but also two or three congenial spirits from Katharine Hall. Five or six merry-looking girls were now assembled in her room. Miss Day’s room was one of the largest in the college; it was showily furnished, with an intention to produce a Japanese effect. Several paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and were suspended to wire supports, which were fastened to different articles of furniture.
In honour of Miss Day’s cocoa, the lanterns were all lit now, and the effect, on fans and pictures and on brilliant bits of colour, was grotesque and almost bizarre.
Miss Day thought her room lovely. It was dazzling, but the reverse of reposeful.
The girls were lounging about, chatting and laughing; they were having a good time, and were absolutely at their case. One, a red-haired girl, with frank, open blue eyes, and a freckled face, an inmate of Katharine Hall, was sending her companions into fits of laughter.
“Yes,” she was saying, in a high, gay voice, “I’m not a bit ashamed of it; there’s never the least use in not owning the truth. I’m used up, girls: I haven’t a penny piece to bless myself with, and this letter came from Spilman to-night. Spilman says he’ll see Miss Eccleston if I don’t pay up. Madame Clarice wrote two nights ago declaring her intention of visiting Miss Eccleston if I didn’t send her some money. I shall have no money until next term. There’s a state of affairs!”
“What do you mean to do, Polly?” asked Lucy Marsh, in a sympathising tone.
“Do? My dear creature, there’s only one thing to be done. I must have an auction on the quiet I shall sell my worldly all. I can buy things again, you know, after dad sends me his next allowance.”
“Oh, Polly, but you cannot really mean it!” Miss Marsh, Miss Day, and two or three more crowded round Polly Singleton as they spoke.
“You can’t mean to have an auction,” began Miss Day; “no one ever heard of such a thing at St. Benet’s. Why, it would be simply disgraceful!”
“No, it wouldn’t—don’t turn cross, Annie. I’ll have an auction first, and then a great feed in the empty room. I can go on tick for the feed; Jones, the confectioner, knows better than not to oblige me. He’s not like that horrid Spilman and that mean Madame Clarice.”
“But, Polly, if you write to your father, he’ll be sure to send you what you want to clear off those two debts. You have often told us he has lots of money.”
“My dears, he has more tin than he knows what to do with; but do you think I am going to have the poor old dear worried? When I was coming here he said, ‘Polly, you shall have thirty pounds every term to spend as pocket-money; not a penny more, not a penny less. And you must keep out of debt on it; mind that, Polly Singleton.’ I gave the dear old dad a hug. He’s the image of me—only with redder hair and more freckles. And I said, ‘I’ll do my best, dad, and anyhow, you sha’n’t be put out whatever happens.’”
“Then you didn’t tell him you’d keep out of debt?”
“No, for I knew I’d break my word. I’ve always been in debt ever since I could remember. I wouldn’t know how it felt not to owe a lot of money. It’s habit, and I don’t mind it a bit. But I don’t want dad to know, and I don’t want Miss Eccleston to know, for perhaps she would write to him. If those old horrors won’t wait for their money till next term, why there’s nothing for it but an auction. I have some nice things, and they’ll go very cheap; so there’s a chance for you all, girls.”
“But if Miss Eccleston finds out?” said Miss Day.
“What if she does? There’s no rule against auctions, and, as I don’t suppose any of you will have one, it isn’t worth making a rule for me alone. Anyhow, I’m resolved to risk it. My auction will be on Monday, and I shall make out an inventory of my goods to-morrow.”
“Will you advertise it on the notice-board in your hall, dear?” asked Lucy Marsh.
“Why not? A good idea! The great A. will be held in Miss Singleton’s room, from eight to ten o’clock on the evening of Monday next. Great Bargains! Enormous Sacrifice! Things absolutely given away! Oh, what fun! I’ll be my own auctioneer.”
Polly lay back in her armchair, and laughed loudly.
“What is all this noise about?” asked a refined little voice, and Rosalind Merton entered the room.
Two or three girls jumped up at once to greet her.
“Come in, Rosie; you’re just in time. What do you think Miss Singleton is going to do now?”
“I can’t tell; what?” asked Rosalind. “Something outré, I feel certain.”
Polly made a wry face, and winked her eyes at her companions.
“I know I’m not refined enough for you, Miss Merton,” she drawled. “I’m rough, like my dad, rough and ready; but, at any rate, I’m honest—at least, I think I’m honest. When I owe money, I don’t leave a stone unturned to pay what I owe. Having sinned, I repent. I enter the Valley of Humiliation, and give up all: who can do more?”
“Oh, dear, Polly, I don’t think I’d call owing a little money, sinning,” said Lucy Marsh, whose ideas were known to be somewhat lax.
“Well, my dear, there’s nothing for those in debt but to sell their possessions. My auction is on Monday. Will you come, Rosalind?”
“You don’t mean it?” said Rose, her blue eyes beginning to sparkle.
“Yes, I do, absolutely and truly mean it.”
“And you will sell your things—your lovely things?”
“My things, my lovely, lovely things must be sold.”
“But not your clothes? Your new sealskin jacket, for instance?”
Polly made a wry face for a moment. Putting her hand into her pocket she pulled out Spilman’s and Madame Clarice’s two bills.
“I owe a lot,” she said, looking with a rueful countenance at the sum total. “Yes, I even fear the sealskin must go. I don’t want to part with it; dad gave it me just before I came here.”
“It’s a lovely seal,” said Annie Day, “and it seems a sin to part with it; it’s cut in the most stylish way too, with those high shoulders.”
“Don’t praise it, please,” said Polly, lying back in her chair, and covering her eyes with her hand. “It cuts like a knife to part with dad’s last present. Well, I’m rightly punished. What a fool I was to get all those Japanese things from Spilman, and that fancy ball-dress for the theatricals. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
“Perhaps you won’t want to part with your seal, dear,” said Lucy, who was not so greedy as some of the other girls, and really pitied Polly. “You have so many beautiful things without that, that you will be sure to realise a good bit of money.”
“No, Lucy, I owe such a lot; the seal must go. Oh, what a worry it is!”
“And at auctions of this kind,” said Rosalind, in her low voice, “even beautiful things don’t realise much. How can they?”
“Rosalind is after that seal,” whispered Lucy to Annie Day.
“The seal would swallow you up, Rosie,” said Annie, in a loud voice. “Don’t aspire to it; you’d never come out alive.”
“The seal can be brought to know good manners,” retorted Rose, angrily. “His size can be diminished, and his strength abated. But I have not said that I want him at all. You do so jump to conclusions, Miss Day.”
“I know what I want,” said a girl called Hetty Jones, who had not yet spoken: “I’m going in for some of Polly’s ornaments. You won’t put too big a price upon your corals, will you, Poll?”
“I shall bid for your American rocking-chair, Polly,” exclaimed Miss Day.
“I tell you what you must do, Miss Singleton,” shouted another girl, “you must get those inventories ready as soon as possible, and send them round the college for everyone to read, for you have got such nice things that there will be sure to be a great rush at your auction.”
“Don’t sell any of the college possessions by mistake, my dear,” said Lucy Marsh. “You would get into trouble then. Indeed, as it is, I don’t see how you are to keep out of it.”
Polly pushed her hands impatiently through her bright red hair.
“Who’s afraid?” she said, and laughed.
“When are we to see your things, Polly?” asked Miss Jones. “If the auction is on Monday, there must be a show day, when we can all go round and inspect. I know that’s always done at auctions, for I’ve been at several in the country. The show day is the best fun of all. The farmers’ wives come and pinch the feather-beds between their thumbs and forefingers, and hold the blankets up to the light to see if the moths have got in.”
“Hetty, how vulgar!” interposed Miss Day. “What has Polly’s auction of her recherché things to do with blankets and feather-beds? Now the cocoa is ready. Who will help me to carry the cups round?”
“I had some fun to-day,” said Rosalind, when each of the girls, provided with their cups of cocoa, sat round and began to sip. “I took Miss Propriety to town with me.”
“Oh, did you, darling? Do tell us all about it!” said Annie Day, running up to Rosalind and taking her hand.
“There isn’t much to tell. She behaved as I expected; her manners are not graceful, but she’s a deep one.”
“Anybody can see that who looks at her,” remarked Lucy Marsh.
“We went to the Elliot-Smiths’,” continued Rosalind.
“Good gracious, Rosie!” interrupted Hetty Jones. “You don’t mean to say you took Propriety to that house?”
“Yes; why not? It’s the jolliest house in Kingsdene.”
“But fancy taking poor Propriety there. What did she say?”
“Say? She scolded a good deal.”
“Scolded! Poor little proper thing! How I should have liked to have seen her. Did she open her purse, and exhibit its emptiness to the company at large? Did she stand on a chair and lecture the frivolous people who assemble in that house on the emptiness of life? Oh, how I wish I could have looked on at the fun!”
“You’d have beheld an edifying sight then, my dear,” said Rosalind. “Prissie’s whole behaviour was one to be copied. No words can describe her tact and grace.”
“But what did she do, Rosie? I wish you would speak out and tell us. You know you are keeping something back.”
“Whenever she saw me she scolded me, and she tripped over my dress several times.”
“Oh, you dear, good, patient Rosalind, what a bore she must have been.”
“No, she wasn’t, for I scarcely saw anything of her. She amused herself capitally without me, I can tell you.”
“Amused herself? Propriety amused herself? How diverting! Could she stoop to it?”
“She did. She stooped and—conquered. She secured for herself an adorer.”
“Rosalind, how absurd you are! Poor, Plain Propriety!”
“As long as I live I shall hate the letter P,” suddenly interrupted Annie Day, “for since that disagreeable girl has got into the house we are always using it.”
“Never mind, Rosalind; go on with your story,” said Miss Jones. “What did Plain Propriety do?” Rosalind threw up her hands, rolled her eyes skywards, and uttered the terse remark—
“She flirted!”
“Oh, Rosie! who would flirt with her? I suppose she got hold of some old rusty, musty don. But then I do not suppose you’d find that sort of man at the Elliot-Smiths’.”
This remark came from Lucy Marsh. Rosalind Merton, who was leaning her fair head against a dark velvet cushion, looked as if she enjoyed the situation immensely.
“What do you say to a Senior Wrangler?” she asked, in a gentle voice.
“Rosalind, what—not the Senior Wrangler?” Rosalind nodded.
“Oh! oh! oh! what could he see—Geoffrey Hammond, of all people! He’s so exclusive, too.”
“Well,” said Hetty Jones, standing up reluctantly, for she felt it was time to return to her neglected studies, “wonders will never cease! I could not have supposed that Mr Hammond would condescend to go near the Elliot-Smiths’, and most certainly I should never have guessed that he would look at a girl like Priscilla Peel.”
“Well, he flirted with her,” said Rosalind, “and she with him. They were so delighted with one another that I could scarcely get Prissie away when it was time to leave. They looked quite engrossed—you know the kind of air—there was no mistaking it!”
“Miss Peel must have thanked you for taking her.”
“Thanked me? That’s not Miss Prissie’s style. I could see she was awfully vexed at being disturbed.”
“Well, it’s rather shabby,” said Polly Singleton, speaking for the first time. “Everyone at St. Benet’s knows to whom Mr Hammond belongs.”
“Yes, yes, of course, of course,” cried several voices.
“And Maggie has been so kind to Miss Peel,” continued Polly.
“Yes—shame!—how mean of little Propriety!” the voices echoed again.
Rosalind gave a meaning glance at Annie Day. Annie raised her eyebrows, looked interrogative, then her face subsided into a satisfied expression. She asked no further questions, but she gave Rosalind an affectionate pat on the shoulder.
Soon the other girls came up one by one to say good-night. Rosalind, Annie, and Lucy were alone. They drew their chairs together, and began to talk.