Chapter 19 The School Queens by L. T. Meade
THE LETTER
Maggie got out and came back again without any apparent adventure. She had five pounds in her pocket, and thought herself rich beyond the dreams of avarice. What a delightful fairy-gift had been handed down to her by her dear dead father! She did not miss the brooch in the least, but she valued the small sum she had obtained for it exceedingly.
But while Maggie thought herself so secure, and while the pleasant jingle of the sovereigns as she touched them with her little hand comforted her inexpressibly, things quite against Maggie Howland’s supposed interests were transpiring in another part of the school.
It was a strange fact that on this special afternoon both the queens should be prostrated with headache. It is true that Queen Maggie’s headache was only a fiction, but poor Queen Aneta’s was real enough. She was lying down in her pretty bedroom, hoping that quiet might still the throbbing of her temples, when the door was very softly opened, and Merry Cardew brought in a letter and laid it by her side.
“May I bring you some tea upstairs, Aneta?” she said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Oh no, darling,” said Aneta. “I can’t eat or drink; but if I stay very still I shall be better by-and-by. Leave me now, dear; all I want is perfect quiet.”
“I am so sorry for you, Aneta,” said Merry.
“What are you doing downstairs?” said Aneta as the girl turned away.
“Well, Maggie has a headache too.”
“Oh!” said Aneta.
“So we are without our queens,” continued Merry; “but Maggie’s girls have taken possession of our sitting-room, and we are all in the schoolroom. We’re having great fun and are very happy, so don’t worry about us at all, Aneta.”
“I won’t,” said Aneta, closing her eyes, while a feeling of drowsy relief stole over her.
Her anxiety with regard to Maggie was really making her ill. Her sense of responsibility with reference to the Cardew girls seemed to oppress her usually calm spirit. She could not conceal the fact from herself that Merry loved Maggie, most passionately. The knowledge, therefore, that Maggie was not downstairs gave her such a sense of comfort that she dropped into a doze, and when she awoke a short time afterwards her headache was gone.
Yes, her headache had departed, but there lay by her pillow what is a great treasure to all schoolgirls – an unopened letter. She looked at the handwriting, and saw that it was from her aunt, Lady Lysle. Aneta was very fond of Lady Lysle; and, sitting up against her pillows, she tore open the letter and began to read. She was surprised to see that it was dated from Meredith Manor.
“My dear Aneta” – it ran – “I have been staying with the dear Cardews for the last week. We have been having a very pleasant time; although, of course, the house is vastly different without Cicely and Merry. But the dear Cardews are so sensible that they never would regret anything that was for the real benefit of their children.
“Your letter assuring me that the children were happy at school gave me great delight, and when I told the Cardews they were equally pleased. Altogether, this school-venture seems likely to turn out most satisfactory, and the dear children will be properly equipped for the brilliant life which lies before them.
“But now I have a curious piece of information for you. You told me about Miss Howland and her mother’s second marriage to one of the Martyns of The Meadows. Well, dear, we went there yesterday, and I happened incidentally to speak on the subject; and, whatever may be the position of Miss Howland’s stepfather, he certainly is no relation to our dear friends the Martyns. They have no uncles or cousins in England at all. All their people come from Australia, and they assured me that such a marriage as I have described has, in the first place, never reached their ears, and, in the next, is impossible, for they have no marriageable relations in the country. I mention this to show that your friend has made a mistake. At the same time, it is strange of her to say that her mother, has married into such a well-known and distinguished family. I can add no more now. – Yours, with love, and in haste,
Lucia Lysle.”
Aneta thought over this letter for some time. Her face was very grave as she tried to put two and two together. She rose from her bed, dressed herself with her usual immaculate neatness, and came down to supper, which took place each evening at half-past seven.
All the girls were present, and each and all were in the best of good-humor. Maggie was radiant. Why not? She had performed a difficult task discreetly, and she had five lovely golden sovereigns in her drawer upstairs. She could put the required money into the bag for the school-treat, and she would have plenty over to buy chocolates and little things that she might require for herself. She did not in the least miss that one small brooch which her father had left her; but she thought with a feeling of intense satisfaction of her treasures. She need no longer be a penniless girl. She had but at rare intervals to visit Pearce the jeweler, and her pocket would be well lined. She had no romantic feeling with regard to those beautiful things which her father had collected on his travels. She had been so poor all her life that money to her represented power. She even thought of getting a couple of new dresses made by a fashionable dressmaker. She resolved to consult Lucy on the subject. She was never quite as well dressed as the other girls, although very plain clothes were the order of the hour at school.
Immediately after supper those girls who required to look over their lessons went into the schoolroom and spent a quiet time there; but the others, as a rule, joined Mrs. Ward in the drawing-room. There those who could play were requested to do so, and those who could sing did likewise. Mrs. Ward was very fond of needlework. She could do rare and wonderful embroideries, and knew some of the tapestry stitches which were in vogue hundreds of years ago. The girls who cared to be taught those things she was only too glad to instruct; but she never pressed any one into her working-party. This was always an hour of relaxation for those girls who had all their lessons ready for the following day.
Maggie, who was exceedingly clever and learned with the utmost ease, was generally a member of the drawing-room coterie. She wore a white dress on this evening, with a somewhat crude pink sash round her waist. She hated the crudity of the color, and it occurred to her that she could get some soft and becoming sashes out of part of the money which Pearce had given her for the brooch.
By-and-by she found herself near Aneta. Aneta was working a center-piece which she meant to present to Lady Lysle at Christmas. Maggie was no good whatever at needlework, and seldom joined the band of needlewomen. But Aneta now motioned the girl to come and sit by her side. Maggie did so. Aneta looked full in her face.
“Is your headache better, Maggie?” she asked.
Maggie had to reflect for a time, she had so absolutely forgotten that she had pretended to have a headache that afternoon! Then she said, with a slight flush and a suspicious narrowing of her eyes, “Oh yes; thank you, I am quite all right again.” Maggie had not heard of Aneta’s headache. She, therefore, did not ask about it.
“I pity people who have headaches,” said Aneta. “I suffer from them very badly myself. Nothing cures me but perfect rest. I was lying down all the afternoon. Merry came to see me, and told me that you were also prostrated with headache. I was sorry for you.”
“Oh, thank you so much!” said Maggie. “Mine is quite gone; is yours?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Aneta sat quiet and very still. When her face was in repose she never moved her body. There was an absolute sense of rest about her which was refreshing to those who really knew her well. But Maggie hated it. She wanted to leave her; she wanted to go and talk to Merry, who was playing a solitary game of patience in a distant part of the drawing-room; she wanted to do anything rather than remain by Aneta’s side.
Then Aneta looked up. “I had a letter this afternoon from my aunt, Lady Lysle.”
“Oh!” said Maggie. She could not quite understand why her heart beat so fast, but she had undoubtedly a premonition of some sort of trouble ahead.
“Aunt Lucia is staying with the Cardews,” continued Aneta.
“Is she?” said Maggie. “Oh, that sweet and beautiful place!” she continued.
“Yes,” said Aneta, “Meredith Manor will always be lovely. There is no season of the year when it is not, in my opinion, more charming than any other place I know.”
“Is your aunt going to stay there long?” asked Maggie, who felt that she need not say anything further with regard to the delights of Meredith Manor just now.
“I cannot tell you,” replied Aneta. “She mentioned something rather curious. It is connected with you.”
“With poor little me?” said Maggie.
“With you,” said Aneta. “You remember telling me that your stepfather is one of the Martyns of The Meadows?”
Maggie’s face grew crimson, then turned pale.
“Well,” said Aneta, bringing out her words with great calmness, “it turns out to be a mistake. Your stepfather is no relation whatever to our friends the Martyns. Aunt Lucia and Mrs. Cardew went to call on them the other day, and asked the question. You made a mistake in announcing your stepfather as being a connection of our friends.”
“Did I? Perhaps so,” said Maggie. “I thought he was, that’s all.”
“You thought wrong,” said Aneta. “I felt I would mention it to you. He may be just as well connected,” she added quietly; “but he is not related to the Martyns of The Meadows.”
“You speak in a very disagreeable tone,” said Maggie.
“I don’t mean to,” replied Aneta; “but I thought I would tell you in order that you should not spread the report any further.”
“I am sure I don’t want to. My stepfather has just as good connections as any one else.”
“No doubt,” said Aneta gently; “only, he is not related to our special friends. You might let Merry and Cicely know.”
“Why?” asked Maggie in a dogged voice.
“You can please yourself. I shall tell them if you don’t.”
“Why do you hate me so much, Aneta?” said Maggie then.
“I hate subterfuge and untruth,” said Aneta. “I don’t hate you. If you would be straight and open and above-board you would find me your best friend.”
“Thank you so much!” said Maggie in a sneering tone. “When I require you for my best friend it will be time enough for you to offer me that enviable position.” Then she added, speaking in a low tone of intense dislike, “Is it likely that any girl would wish to make a best friend of another girl who accused her of subterfuge and want of truthfulness?”
The delicate pink rose in Aneta’s cheeks. She raised her eyes and looked full up at Maggie. Her clear, calm eyes seemed like mirrors. Maggie felt that she could not meet them.
It was just at that moment that Cicely Cardew, in a state of suppressed excitement, came into the room.
“Maggie,” she said, coming straight up to Maggie Howland, “there’s a very large parcel addressed to you in the hall. It has been paid for; we are all dying with curiosity to know what it is.”
Maggie rose abruptly.
“I will go and look at it myself,” she said. “A large parcel addressed to me! Who can have sent me anything?”
“It looks like a huge dress-box,” said Cicely. “We’re all curious about it.”
Before any girl could leave the drawing-room it was necessary that she should ask Mrs. Ward’s permission. So Maggie now went up to that good lady and asked if she might go and look at her parcel.
“A parcel for you, dear?” said Mrs. Ward. “And you want to see its contents? But bring it in here; we shall all be delighted to look at it – sha’n’t we, girls?”
Maggie went away, wondering a good deal. Cicely accompanied her. Miss Johnson also appeared on the scene.
“Why, Maggie,” she said, “what can you have got? Such a huge box, and all covered over with brown paper! I don’t suppose Mrs. Ward would really like that box to be brought into the drawing-room. I’ll just go and ask her.”
One of Mrs. Ward’s peculiarities, and perhaps one of the reasons why she was such a favorite and led her girls with such gentle, silken cords, was her power of entering into their pleasures. She used to confess with a smile that she was like a child herself over an unopened parcel; and when Miss Johnson appeared with the information that the box was large and cumbersome, Mrs. Ward still gave directions that it was to be brought into the drawing-room.
“You can put some of the brown paper on the floor, if you like, Lucy,” she said, “and Maggie can show us its contents.”
Now, one glance at the parcel told Maggie Howland who had sent it. She recognized her stepfather’s writing. That bold commercial hand was painfully visible on the label. She would have given worlds not to have anything selected for her by Martin exhibited in the drawing-room at Aylmer House. But to refuse to show the contents of the box would but raise strong suspicion against her. She therefore, although very unwillingly, followed Miss Johnson into the drawing-room. The box was laid on the floor. The lid was removed, some tissue-paper was next extricated, and beneath lay a wardrobe such as poor Maggie even in her wildest dreams had never imagined. There was a letter lying on the top which she clutched and put into her pocket. This letter was in her stepfather’s writing. She could not read it before the others. Aneta and all the girls of her set, also Kathleen O’Donnell, Rosamond Dacre, Matty and Clara Roache, Janet Barns, the Tristrams, the Cardews, all clustered round the box.
“Oh, what fun!” said Kathleen. “A box of dresses for you! You lucky Queen Maggie! How I wish some one would send me some clothes!”
“Take them out, dear, and let us look at them,” said Mrs. Ward.
The first dress to be removed was a magenta cachemire. It was made with a short skirt trimmed with little frills of the same. The bodice had sleeves to the elbows, and long, coarse cream-colored lace sleeves below. The front of the dress was also much bedizened by the same coarse cream lace.
Maggie felt her face nearly purple with rage. “Oh, why must all these things be looked at here?” she said; and there was a piteous note in her voice.
“I don’t see the necessity, dear,” said Mrs. Ward kindly.
“But, oh! please, please,” said Kathleen, “we must see the others. Here’s a sage-green dress trimmed with bands of black silk: that will be quite useful in the winter, won’t it, Mags?”
She tried to speak kindly, for the sage-green dress was as little to her taste as the impossible magenta. Under the two dresses were ribbons of different shades and hues, some strong, coarse stockings, some square-toed shoes, and finally, below everything else, an evening-dress made of voile, and deep blue in tone.
“Some of the things will he very useful,” said Miss Johnson. “I will put them all back again now.”
“But whom have they come from?” said Mrs. Ward. “I saw you take a note and put it into your pocket, Maggie.”
“Yes, these are a present from my stepfather,” said Maggie.
“Miss Johnson, you will take them upstairs, won’t you?” said Mrs. Ward. – “It is kind of your stepfather to think of you, Maggie.”
Maggie looked up and met Aneta’s glance. Was Aneta thinking of the Martyns of The Meadows? The color rushed all over Maggie’s face. She clenched her hands. “I hate the horrid, horrid things!” she said. “I won’t wear one of them.”
“Oh, come, dear,” said Mrs. Ward kindly; “your stepfather means very well indeed by you. He has doubtless had very little to do with dressing a lady before. – We can slightly alter those dresses, can we not, Miss Johnson?”
Miss Johnson had now placed all the hideous garments back in the box. She said with a smile, “The sage-green dress can be made quite useful; but I rather despair of the magenta.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ward, “it was meant kindly. Perhaps, Maggie, if you gave me your stepfather’s address I might write to him and tell him the sort of things that I like my girls to wear.”
Maggie turned crimson. That would indeed be the final straw. She murmured something which Mrs. Ward did not choose to hear. To her great relief, the hour for bed had arrived, and all the girls went to their rooms.
Miss Johnson came down again after she had deposited the hideous dresses in Maggie’s wardrobe. “I quite pity poor little Maggie,” she said. “What frightful taste! There is really nothing in the whole of that box that she can possibly wear.”
“I must write to Mr. Martyn,” said Mrs. Ward. “Didn’t somebody tell me that he was a country gentleman – a relation of the Martyns of The Meadows? Such particularly nice people!”
“I know nothing about that,” said Miss Johnson. “I only know that the contents of the box are simply atrocious.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ward, “we won’t say anything to annoy Maggie to-night; I could see that the poor dear child was greatly mortified. I only regret that I had the box opened here; but you know it is one of our customs to share all our pleasures. Poor little Maggie! The thing was most unlucky.”
Up in her room, Maggie had locked her door. She would unlock it again, but she must read that frightful letter without any chance of being disturbed. She opened it, tore it from its envelope, and read the contents:
“Dear Popsy, – I came across a cheap lot of frocks the other day at a bankrupt’s sale, and thought at once of Little-sing and her daughter Popsy-wopsy. I am sending the dresses off to you without saying a word to Little-sing. You will be well off now for some time, and won’t require the five pounds from me for dress at Christmas. Hope you’re enjoying your fine young ladies and fine life. Neither Little-sing nor me miss you a bit; but, all the same, your room will be ready for you at Christmas. Take care of those good clothes, for I can’t often spend as much on you.
“Good-bye for the present. – Your affectionate father,
“Bo-peep.
“P.S.– I have a good mind to call on that fine-lady schoolmistress of yours, Mrs. Ward. There’s no saying but that Little-sing and me may come along some afternoon when you least expect us.”
Maggie crushed the letter in her hand. Fresh terrors seemed to surround her. Dreadful as the impossible clothes were, they were nothing to what the appearance on the scene would be of the impossible stepfather and her poor mother. Oh, why had she concealed the position of the man whom her mother had married? Already Aneta had detected her little act of deception with regard to the Martyns of The Meadows. But that, Maggie felt, could be got over. It was easy for a girl to make a mistake in a matter of that kind, and surely there were other Martyns in the country high-born and respectable and all that was desirable. But James Martin who kept a grocer’s shop at Shepherd’s Bush – James Martin, with “grocer” written all over him! – rich, it is true; but, oh, so vulgarly rich! Were he to appear and announce his relationship to her at the school, she felt that, as far as she was concerned, the end of the world would have arrived. What was she to do? There was not a minute to be lost. In one way or another she had seen a good deal of Bo-peep during the last half of those dreadful summer holidays, and she knew that he was, as he expressed it, as good as his word.
Her only chance was in writing to her mother. But then, if, by any chance, Maggie’s letter got into the hands of Bo-peep, his wrath would be so great that he would, in all probability, take her from the school at once. What was to be done? Poor Maggie felt herself between two fires. In either direction was danger. On the whole, she resolved to throw herself on her mother’s mercy. Mrs. Martin, as she was now, would much prefer Maggie to remain at school, and she might be clever enough to keep Maggie’s stepfather from putting in an appearance at Aylmer House.
Maggie wrote a short and frantic letter. She was in the midst of it when there came a tap at her room-door.
“It’s I, Maggie,” said Miss Johnson’s voice from without. “Your light is still burning; you ought to be in bed.”
Maggie flew and opened the door. “I am sorry,” she said. “I was a good deal upset about those detestable clothes. I am writing to my mother. Please, Lucy, let me finish the letter. When it’s done – and I won’t be a minute longer – I’ll put it in the post-box myself, so that it can go by the first post in the morning.”
“Very well, dear,” said Lucy, who was too kind not to be good to any girl in the school; “only be quick, Maggie,” she said, “for you know you are breaking the rules.”
“Yes! oh yes!” said Maggie; “and I will never do it again.”
Miss Johnson left her, and Maggie flew back to bend over her paper and continue her writing:
“Darling, you must not let him come here. He threatens to come, but you must keep him away. All will be up with me if he is seen at the school. I beseech of you have a little mercy on me. For the sake of my own father, keep him – do keep him – from Aylmer House. – Your distracted daughter,
“Maggie Howland.”
This letter was addressed to Mrs. Martin (spelt this time with an “i”), Laburnum Villa, Clapham. Maggie stamped it, and, flying downstairs, popped it into the box which held the letters.