Chapter 24 A Sweet Girl Graduate by L. T. Meade
Two Extremes
“Have you heard the news?” said Rosalind Merton. She skipped into Miss Day’s room as she spoke.
“No; what?” asked that untidy person, turning round and dropping a lot of ribbon which she was converting into bows. “What’s your news, Rose? Out with it. I expect it’s a case of ‘great cry and little wool.’ However, if you want a plain opinion from me—”
“I don’t ask for your opinion, Annie. I’m quite accustomed to the scornful way in which you have received all my words lately. I need not tell you what I have heard at all, unless you wish to hear it.”
“But, of course, I wish to hear it, Rosie; you know that as well as I do. Now sit down and make yourself at home, there’s a dear.”
Rose allowed herself to be mollified.
“Well,” she said, sinking back into Miss Day’s most comfortable chair, “the feud between a certain small person and a certain great person grows apace.” Miss Day’s small eyes began to dance.
“You know I am interested in that subject,” she said. She flopped down on the floor by Rosalind Merton’s side. “Go on, my love,” she murmured; “describe the development of the enmity.”
“Little things show the way the wind is blowing,” pursued Rose. “I was coming along the corridor just now, and I met the angelic and unworldly Priscilla. Her eyelids were red as if she had been crying. She passed me without a word.”
“Well?”
“That’s all.”
“Rose, you really are too provoking. I thought you had something very fine to tell.”
“The feud grows,” pursued Rose. “I know it by many signs. Prissie is not half so often with Maggie as she used to be. Maggie means to get out of this friendship, but she is too proud not to do it gradually. There is not a more jealous girl in this college than Maggie, but neither is there a prouder. Do you suppose that anything under the sun would allow her to show her feelings because that little upstart dared to raise her eyes to Maggie’s adorable beau, Mr Hammond? But oh, she feels it; she feels it down in her secret soul. She hates Prissie; she hates this beautiful handsome lover of hers for being civil to so commonplace a person. She is only waiting for a decent pretext to drop Prissie altogether. I wish with all my heart I could give her one.”
As she spoke, Rosalind shaded her eyes with her hand; her face looked full of sweet and thoughtful contemplation.
“Get your charming Prissie to flirt a little bit more,” said Miss Day, with her harsh laugh.
“I don’t know that I can. I must not carry that brilliant idea to extremities, or I shall be found out.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Bide my time.”
Miss Day gave a listless sort of yawn.
“Let’s talk of something else,” she said, impatiently. “What are you going to wear at the Elliot-Smiths’ party next week, Rose?”
“I have got a new white dress,” said Rose, in that voice of strong animation and interest which the mere mention of dress always arouses in certain people.
“Have you? What a lot of dresses you get!”
“Indeed, you are mistaken, Annie. I have the greatest difficulty in managing my wardrobe at all.”
“Why is that? I thought your people not only belonged to the county, but were as rich as Jews.”
“We are county people, of course,” said Rose, in her most affected manner, “but county people need not invariably be rich. The fact is my father has had some losses lately, and mother says she must be careful. I wanted a great many things, and she said she simply could not give them. Oh, if only that spiteful Miss Oliphant had not prevented my getting the sealskin jacket, and if she had not raised the price of Polly’s pink coral!”
“Don’t begin that old story again, Rose. When all is said and done, you have got the lovely coral. By the way, it will come in beautifully for the Elliot-Smiths’ party. You’ll wear it, of course?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean? Of course you’ll wear it.”
“I don’t know. The fact is I have not paid the whole price for it yet.”
“Haven’t you, really? You said you’d bring the money when you returned this term.”
“Of course I thought I could, but I was absolutely afraid to tell mother what a lot the coral cost; and as she was so woefully short of funds, I had just to come away without the money. I never for a moment supposed I should have such ill luck.”
“It is awkward. What are you going to say to Polly Singleton?”
“I don’t know. I suppose you could not help me, Annie?”
“I certainly couldn’t. I never have a penny to bless myself with. I don’t know how I scrape along.” Rosalind sighed. Her pretty face looked absolutely careworn.
“Don’t fret, Rose,” said Miss Day, after a pause; “whether you have paid for the coral or not, you can wear it at the Elliot-Smiths’.”
“No, alas! that’s just what I can’t do. The fact is Polly is turning out awfully mean. She has come back this time with apparently an unlimited supply of pocket-money, and she has been doing her best to induce me to sell her the coral back again.”
“Well, why don’t you? I’m sure I would, rather than be worried about it.”
Miss Merton’s face flushed angrily.
“Nothing will induce me to give up the coral,” she said. “I bought my new white dress to wear with it. I have looked forward all during the holidays to showing it to Meta Elliot-Smith. It’s the sort of thing to subdue Meta, and I want to subdue her; no, nothing will induce me to part with my lovely coral now.”
“Well, my dear, keep it, of course, and pay for it how you can. It’s your own affair. You have not yet explained to me, however, why, when it is in your possession, you can’t wear it with your new dress at the Elliot-Smiths’ next week?”
“Because that wretched Polly has been invited also; and she is quite mean enough and underbred enough to walk up to me before everyone and ask me to give her back her property.”
“What fun if she did?” laughed Miss Day.
“Annie, you are unkind!”
“My dear, of course I don’t mean what I say, but I can’t help seeing the whole picture: you, so fine and so self-conscious, and so—so perfect in all your appointments—and looking—for all you are a little thing, Rose—a good inch above everyone else—and then our poor, good-natured, downright Polly catching sight of her unpaid-for ornaments round your sweet baby throat—all the John Bull in her instantly coming to the fore, and she demanding her rights in no measured terms. Oh, your face, Rosie! your face! and Meta Elliot-Smith’s enjoyment—oh, how delicious the picture is! Dear Rosalind, do wear the coral, and please—please get me an invitation to the Elliot-Smiths’. I’ll love you all my life if you give me leave to witness so lovely a spectacle!”
Miss Merton’s face changed colour several times while Annie Day was speaking. She clenched her small hands, and tried hard to keep back such a torrent of angry words as would have severed this so-called friendship once and for all; but Rose’s sense of prudence was greater even now than her angry passions. Miss Day was a useful ally—a dangerous foe.
With a forced laugh, which concealed none of her real feelings, she stood up and prepared to leave the room.
“You are very witty at my expense, Annie,” she said. Her lips trembled. She found herself the next moment alone in the brightly lighted corridor.
It was over a week now since the beginning of the term; lectures were once more in full swing, and all the inmates of St. Benet’s were trying, each after her kind, for the several prizes which the life they were leading held out to them. Girls of all kinds were living under these roofs—the idle as well as the busy. Both the clever and the stupid were here, both the good and the bad. Rosalind Merton was a fairly clever girl. She had that smart sort of cleverness which often passes for wide knowledge. She was liked by many of her girl-friends; she had the character of being rather good-natured; her pretty face and innocent manner, too, helped to win her golden opinions among the lecturers and dons.
Those who knew her well soon detected her want of sincerity; but then it was Rose’s endeavour to prevent many people becoming intimately acquainted with her. She had all the caution which accompanies a deceitful character, and had little doubt that she could pursue those pettinesses in which her soul delighted, and yet retain a position as a good, innocent, and fairly clever girl before the heads of the college.
Rose generally kept her angry passions in check, but, although she had managed not to betray herself while in Miss Day’s room, now as she stood alone in the brilliantly lighted corridor, she simply danced with rage. Her small hands were clenched until the nails pierced the flesh, and her delicately coloured face became livid with passion.
At that moment she hated Annie Day—she hated Polly Singleton—she hated, perhaps, most of all Maggie Oliphant.
She walked down the corridor, her heart beating fast. Her own room was on another floor; to reach it she had to pass Miss Peel’s and Miss Oliphant’s rooms. As Rose was walking slowly down the corridor, she saw a girl come out of Miss Oliphant’s room, turn quickly in the opposite direction to the one from which she was coming, and, quickening her pace to a run, disappear from view. Rose recognised this girl: she was Priscilla Peel. Rose hastened her own steps, and peeped into Maggie’s room. To her surprise, it was empty; the door had swung wide open, and the excited, perturbed girl could see into every corner. Scarcely knowing why she did it, she entered the room. Maggie’s room was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful in the college, and Rose said to herself that she was glad to have an opportunity to examine it unobserved.
She went and stood on the hearthrug and gazed around her; then she walked over to the bureau. Some Greek books were lying open here—also a pile of manuscript, several note-books, a few envelopes, and sheets of letter-paper. Still scarcely knowing why, Rose lifted the note-paper, and looked under it. The heap of paper concealed a purse.
A sealskin purse with gold clasps. Rose snatched her hands away, flung down the note-paper as if she had been stung, and walked back again to the hearthrug. Once more the colour rushed into her cheeks; once more it retreated, leaving her small, young, pretty face white as marble.
She was assailed by a frightful temptation, and she was scarcely the girl to resist it long. In cold blood she might have shrunk from the siren voice, which bade her release herself from all her present troubles by theft, but at this moment she was excited, worried, scarcely capable of calm thought. Here was her unexpected opportunity. It lay in her power now to revenge herself on Miss Oliphant, on Prissie, on Polly Singleton, and also to get out of her own difficulties.
How tempting was Maggie’s purse! how rich its contents were likely to prove! Maggie was so rich and so careless, that, it was quite possible she might never miss the small sum which Rose meant to take. If she did, it would be absolutely impossible for her to trace the theft to innocent baby Rose Merton. No; if Maggie missed her money and suspected anyone, she would be almost forced to lay the crime to the door of the girl she no longer, in her heart, eared about—Priscilla Peel.
A very rich flood of crimson covered Rose’s cheeks as this consequence of her sin flashed before her vision. Less even than before was she capable of seeing right from wrong. The opportunity was far too good to lose; by one small act she would not only free herself, but accomplish the object on which she had set her mean little heart: she would effectually destroy the friendship of Maggie and Priscilla.
Stealthily, with her cheeks burning and her eyes bright with agitation, she once more approached the bureau, took from under the pile of papers the little sealskin purse, opened it, removed a five-pound note, clasped the purse again, and restored it to its hiding-place, then flew on the wings of the wind from the room.
A moment or two later Priscilla came back, sat calmly down in one of Maggie’s comfortable chairs, and, taking up her Greek edition of Euripides, began to read and translate with eagerness.
As Prissie read she made notes with a pencil in a small book which lay in her lap. The splendid thoughts appealed to her powerfully; her face glowed with pleasure. She lived in the noble past; she was a Greek with the old Greeks; she forgot the nineteenth century, with its smallness, its money worries—above all, she forgot her own cares.
At last in her reading she came to a difficult sentence, which, try as she would, she could not render into English to her own satisfaction. She was a very careful student, and always disliked shirking difficulties; the pleasure of her reading would be lost if she did not do full justice to the lines which puzzled her. She resolved to read no further until Maggie appeared: Maggie Oliphant, with her superior information, would soon cut the knot for her. She closed the copy of Euripides with reluctance, and, putting her hand into her pocket, took out a note she had just received, to mark the place.
A moment or two later Maggie came in.
“Still here, Prissie!” she exclaimed, in her somewhat indifferent but good-natured voice. “What a bookworm you are turning into!”
“I have been waiting for you to help me, if you will, Maggie,” said Priscilla. “I have lost the right clue to the full sense of this passage—see! Can you give it to me?”
Maggie sat down at once, took up the book, glanced her eyes over the difficult words, and translated them with ease.
“How lovely!” said Prissie, clasping her hands, and giving herself up to a feeling of enjoyment. “Don’t stop, Maggie, please; do read some more!” Miss Oliphant smiled.
“Enthusiast!” she murmured.
She translated with brilliancy to the end of the page; then, throwing the book on her knee, repeated the whole passage aloud in Greek.
The note that Prissie put in as a mark fell on the floor. She was so lost in delighted listening that she did not notice it, but, when Maggie at last stopped for want of breath, Priscilla saw the little note, stooped forward to pick it up, glanced at the handwriting, and a shadow swept over her expressive face.
“Oh! thank you, Maggie, thank you,” she exclaimed; “it is beautiful, entrancing! It made me forget everything for a short time, but I must not listen to any more; it is, indeed, most beautiful; but not for me.”
“What do you mean, you little goose? You will soon read Euripides as well as I do. What is more, you will surpass me, Priscilla; your talent is greater than mine.”
“Don’t say that, Maggie; I can scarcely bear it when you do.”
“Why do you say you can scarcely bear it? Do you love me so well that you hate to excel me? Silly child, as if I cared!”
“Maggie, I know you are really too great to be possessed by petty weaknesses. If I ever did excel you, which is most unlikely, I know you would be glad both for me and yourself. No, it is not that; I am unhappy because of no fancy.”
“What worries you then?”
“Maggie, do you see this note?”
“Yes; it is from Miss Heath, is it not?”
“It is. I am to see her to-night.”
“Well, Prissie, you must be quick with your revelation, for I have some notes to look over.”
“I won’t keep you a moment. I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—” Prissie paused. Her face grew deadly white. “I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—to tell her—that I.—Oh, Maggie! I must give up my classics. I must; it’s all settled. Don’t say anything. Don’t tempt me to reconsider the question. It can’t be reconsidered, and my mind is made up. That’s it; it’s a trouble, but I must go through with it. Good-night, Maggie.”
Prissie held out her long, unformed hand; Miss Oliphant clasped it between both her own.
“You are trembling,” she said, standing up and drawing the girl towards her. “I don’t want to argue the point if you so firmly forbid me. I think you quite mad, of course. It is absolutely impossible for me to sympathise with such wild folly. Still, if your mind is made up, I won’t interfere. But, seeing that at one time we were very firm friends, you might give me your reasons, Priscilla.”
Priscilla slowly and stiffly withdrew her hands; her lips moved. She was repeating Miss Oliphant’s words under her breath—
“At one time we were friends.”
“Won’t you speak?” said Maggie, impatiently.
“Oh, yes, I’ll speak; I’ll tell you the reason. You won’t understand, but you had better know—” Prissie paused again; she seemed to swallow something; her next words came out slowly with great difficulty: “When I went home for the Christmas recess I found Aunt Raby worse. You don’t know what my home is like, Miss Oliphant; it is small and poor. At home we are often cold, and often hungry. I have three little sisters, and they want clothes and education; they want training, they want love, they want care. Aunt Raby is too weak to do much for them now; she is very, very ill. You have not an idea—not an idea—Miss Oliphant, in your wealth and your luxury what the poverty of Penywern Cottage is like. What does such poverty mean? How shall I describe it to you? we are sometimes glad of a piece of bread; butter is a luxury; meat we scarcely taste.” Prissie again broke off to think and consider her next words. Maggie, whose sympathies were always keenly aroused by any real emotion, tried once again to take her hands; Prissie put them behind her. “Aunt Raby is a good woman,” continued Priscilla; “she is brave, she is a heroine. Although she is just a commonplace old woman, no one has ever led a grander life in its way. She wears poor clothes—oh, the poorest; she has an uncouth appearance, worse even than I have, but I am quite sure that God—God respects her—God thinks her worthy. When my father and mother died (I was fourteen when my dear mother died) Aunt Raby came and took me home and my three little sisters. She gave us bread to eat. Oh, yes, we never quite wanted food, but before we came Aunt Raby had enough money to feed herself, and no more. She took us all in and supported us, because she worked so very, very hard. Ever since I was fourteen—I am eighteen now—Aunt Raby has done this. Well,” continued Priscilla, slow tears coming to her eyes and making themselves felt in her voice, “this hard work is killing her; Aunt Raby is dying because she has worked so hard for us. Before my three years have come to an end here, she will be far, far away: she will be at rest for ever—God will be making up to her for all she has done here. Her hard life which God will have thought beautiful will be having its reward. Afterwards I have to support and educate the three little girls. I spoke to Mr Hayes—my dear clergyman, about whom I have told you, and who taught me all I know—and he agrees with me that I know enough of Greek and Latin now for rudimentary teaching, and that I shall be better qualified to take a good paying situation if I devote the whole of my time while at St. Benet’s to learning and perfecting myself in modern languages. It’s the end of a lovely dream, of course, but there is no doubt—no doubt whatever—what is right for me to do.”
Prissie stopped speaking; Maggie went up again and tried to take her hand; she drew back a step or two, pretending not to see.
“It has been very kind of you to listed,” she said; “I am very grateful to you, for now, whatever we may be to each other in future, you will understand that I don’t give up what I love lightly. Thank you, you have helped me much. Now I must go and tell Miss Heath what I have said to you. I have had a happy reading of Euripides and have enjoyed listening to you. I meant to give myself that one last treat—now it is over. Good-night.”
Priscilla left the room—she did not even kiss Maggie as she generally did at parting for the night.