Chapter 18 The Girls of St. Wode's by L. T. Meade
THE GUILD OF ST. ELIZABETH
Immediately after dinner that evening, Leslie ran up to her room to make preparations for her visit to East Hall.
“Come, Annie,” she said to Miss Colchester, who was standing with her face to the window and her back to Leslie, “had you not better wrap a shawl about you; it is time to be off.”
“I’m not coming,” said Annie.
“Not coming? But you must. You know it is not only a request; it is an order from Miss Lauderdale. Every student is to be in East Hall at half-past eight.”
“It doesn’t matter,” replied Annie, “whether it is an order or not; I’m not coming. Say nothing about me, please. I shall stay at home to-night.”
“But why? You will only get yourself into trouble, and there is surely no use in that. Oh, Annie, I know you are dreadfully unhappy about something, and I wish I could comfort you. Do – do let me.”
Annie Colchester now turned slowly round; she looked fixedly at Leslie. There was a strained expression in her eyes, as if she did not quite know what she was looking at. Leslie approached her, and touched her hand. It burned as if with fever.
“You are ill,” said Leslie. “I ought not to leave you. You ought to lie down and see a doctor. Do let me go and tell Miss Frere. I know your being ill will make all the difference.”
Leslie had scarcely finished her sentence before Annie pushed her away.
“How dare you interfere?” she said, her eyes flashing. “You are to go, and say nothing about me. Because you happen to be my roomfellow, are you to control my actions? I am longing for you to leave the room. You don’t know what a trial it is for me to have you here. Why will you keep on prying, and fussing, and interfering. I want to be alone – go!”
“I know you don’t quite mean what you say,” said Leslie; “but of course if you really wish me – ”
“Before you came I had liberty,” interrupted Annie. “You fret me beyond endurance. Since you came I feel myself tied and bound. Yes; you annoy me more than words can tell.”
Leslie walked to her own side of the room. She had taken a deep interest in Annie; and Annie’s words cut her to the heart.
“I am quite sure it is because she is so unhappy,” she thought. “She does not know what she is saying. I ought not to mind her – I mean I ought not to be really hurt; but there is nothing for it but to leave her for the present.”
Wrapping a pretty blue shawl round her head and shoulders, she turned to Annie. “Good-by,” she said; “is there not any message you would like me to take, Annie?”
“None; only go!”
Annie stamped with her foot.
Leslie was just closing the door behind her, when Annie called after her.
“By the way,” she said; “there is no key in this lock; do you know where it is?”
“I took it out,” said Leslie.
“Took it out! And why, may I ask? Have the goodness to find it and put it back.”
“But don’t lock me out, please, Annie. You know on occasions you are absent-minded, and one-half of this room is mine when all’s said and done. I pay for it, and I have a right to it.”
The unexpected words of spirit caused Annie to become a little less rude.
“Oh, I won’t lock you out,” she said; “but I must have the key. Please find it before you go.”
Jane Heriot’s voice was heard in the passage.
“If you two are ready,” she called out, “we may as well start.”
“Coming in a moment, Jane,” answered Leslie. She found the key, which she had put in the top drawer of her wardrobe, and gave it to Annie. As she walked down the corridor she heard it being turned in the lock.
“What can this mean?” she said to herself.
Jane came up.
“What is it, Leslie?” she said; “you look as if something was worrying you.”
“Something is,” replied Leslie, “but I don’t know that I ought to tell tales out of school.”
“Oh, I won’t press you,” replied Jane.
“After all, perhaps you ought to know, Jane. I am unhappy about Annie Colchester.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Jane, “if you begin to fret about the oddities of the college you will never know a moment’s peace. I am told that that extraordinary and most unpleasant girl, Belle Acheson, has begun to take to you. Now don’t, I beg of you, get into her set.”
“Oh, I shall never do that,” replied Leslie. “I don’t want,” she added, “to get into any set: but I do wish to be kind to Belle, for I think she has good points in her. You see, all the girls except Eileen and Marjorie laugh at her, and that seems to me to make her worse.”
“I don’t quite go the length of laughing at her,” said Jane in a thoughtful voice. “But there, you are one of the ‘unco good,’ I am afraid.”
“Please don’t call me that,” said Leslie, tears now visiting her pretty eyes.
“Oh, I would not say a word to hurt you,” replied Jane, penitent on the spot. “You are quite the sweetest girl in the college, and so we all say. Now, listen; I am going to make a confession. There are times when I am a little jealous of you, for, you know, you are so wonderfully pretty, and you are so kind to everyone. They say too that you are exceedingly clever, and yet you have no jealousies and no smallnesses in you. You are a universal favorite; I envy you your popularity.”
“I don’t know that I am at all what you say; but any girl ought to be popular and good who was brought up by a mother like mine,” said Leslie with enthusiasm. “Some day, Jane, you must see her. If you are in London during the summer, you must come and pay us a visit, will you?”
“I shall be only too delighted,” cried Jane. “But now, Leslie, what is the trouble? that is, if you care to confide in me.”
“I believe poor Annie is dreadfully unhappy.”
“Poor dear, perhaps she is; but she ought to be on her way to East Hall by now. Miss Lauderdale will be very angry with anyone who does not attend.”
“That’s just it, Jane; that is what frightens me. She refuses to come.”
Jane stood still and faced Leslie.
“Refuses to come?” she cried. “She will get into an awful scrape.”
“I believe she is ill, and does not quite know what she is saying,” continued Leslie. “She was very queer when I left her just now; that was why I was a little late. I felt her hand too, and it was very hot. I am sure she is ill. She works too hard, and she – But there, I don’t know that I ought to say any more.”
“Don’t say any more,” cried Jane. “I’ll go back and speak to her. It is my duty to save her from getting into hopeless disgrace.”
“I’ll wait for you here,” said Leslie. “I have had the misfortune to irritate her a good deal during the last day or two, and you probably would have better success than I.”
“I won’t keep you a moment,” answered Jane. She turned back, ran down the corridor, and knocked at Annie’s door.
“Let me come in, Annie,” she called out. “I am Jane Heriot; I want to speak to you at once. Let me in.”
There was no reply.
Jane rattled the handle impatiently. It wanted but two minutes to the half-hour; already she and Leslie would be late.
“Aren’t you coming, Annie?” she called out; “aren’t you coming to East Hall in response to Miss Lauderdale’s orders? You will get into a most awful scrape if you don’t. Do come, Annie; don’t be such a goose. Why, they may rusticate you. Do come, Annie, do!”
Still there was no response. Jane stooped, and applied her eye to the keyhole, but she could see nothing within. In despair she came back and joined Leslie.
“She seems to have turned both deaf and dumb, and I can do nothing with her,” she answered. “It is just possible that she may have gone down the back-stairs, and be already in the hall.”
“Scarcely likely,” replied Leslie; “she told me she was determined not to come to the meeting. By the way, we ought to meet Marjorie and Eileen in the center hall.”
But Marjorie and Eileen had already departed, and Leslie and Jane found themselves among the last students to arrive at the great East Hall.
Miss Lauderdale was standing with the other tutors and principals of the different halls on a raised platform. One by one the many students filed in and took their places. Then a roll-call was gone through by one of the tutors; the only absentee was Annie Colchester. No notice was taken of this at the time, and the proceedings of the evening were immediately begun. Miss Lauderdale stepped forward, and began to address the students. She said that the object of this gathering was to propose the beginning of a new departure in their lives and work. They were all, she was glad to know, acquiring knowledge; they were also becoming strong in body.
“The physical part of your training, and also the mental part, are abundantly supplied in this great house of learning,” she continued; “but the spiritual part, it seems to me, ought now to be strengthened. I want your whole threefold nature to get the best possible training while you are under my care, and I think that you girls of St. Wode’s ought to take steps to keep the souls which God has given you, the undying souls, strong and in health.”
“Hear, hear! and once again, hear!” suddenly said the sharp voice of Belle Acheson. She uttered her strange remark standing up. Marjorie and Eileen were close to her.
“Hear, hear!” she repeated, continuing rapidly: “it was but to-day, Miss Lauderdale, I was speaking of the miserable dead souls which most of the students of St. Wode’s carry within their breasts.”
“Hush! no more speaking in hall,” said the voice of the indignant chairwoman. Miss Lauderdale, after a pause, during which her kind eyes were fixed on Belle’s excited face, spoke:
“I will talk with you, Belle Acheson, presently,” she said. “Now, please, don’t interrupt again while I continue my short address. – I propose that the girls of St. Wode’s – that is, those who choose to do so – should take up an extensive district of the poor in this large town of Wingfield. I have spoken to our rector on the subject, and he thinks that they could carry on a thorough work of supervision and of interest in the poor without endangering their own health in the very least. All those who choose to become members of our new league, which is to be called the Guild of St. Elizabeth, can do so. The names of proposed members are to be submitted to me before this day week. I will then more fully declare my plans, and show the girls who wish to join our league a programme which I hope they will approve of.”
Miss Lauderdale said a great deal more. All her words were uttered with great eloquence and much feeling. She explained to the girls that God held each of them, with their vast opportunities, their great means of culture, their abundance of money (for most of them were wealthy), responsible for their brothers and sisters.
“‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ you ask,” she continued. “God answers to each of you, ‘You are.’ The world says, ‘No, I am not,’ but God says, ‘Yes, you are.’ All men are your brothers. For all who sin, all who suffer, you are to a certain extent responsible. To each of you, in your strength, is given by God a weak brother to look after, one who has not got your opportunities, who has not got your wealth, who has not got your comforts and luxuries in life. You are responsible for him, and some day you will be asked what you have done with your responsibility. If you leave the world without having fulfilled that terrible and yet grand obligation, you will through all eternity feel the loss of what you might have gained.”
Finally the principal sat down amid loud cheering. Most of the girls were enthusiastic over the new scheme; and Marjorie and Eileen in particular felt their hearts glowing and their eyes sparkling.
After the address the girls themselves were encouraged to speak, and a very animated discussion followed. When it was over, folding-doors were thrown back, and all the students were invited into the large saloon which Miss Lauderdale reserved for very rare and special occasions. Here they were supplied with light refreshments, and presently Miss Lauderdale herself went to the organ at the end of the room, and played some splendid music. She was a musician of rare power, and Leslie listened with her heart in her eyes.
It was past ten o’clock when she left the hall. Just as she was doing so Miss Frere came up.
“Annie Colchester is your roomfellow, is she not?” she said. “Can you give me any idea why she has been absent to-night?”
“I don’t think she is quite well,” replied Leslie.
“I see by your face, Miss Gilroy, that you are distressed about something. Are you keeping anything back?”
“I am afraid I am,” replied Leslie, distress now in her tone.
“Unless Miss Colchester’s illness is really very serious and needs a doctor, she will be very severely reprimanded for this willful disobedience to the command of her principal,” continued Miss Frere. “I must see her myself early in the morning, and I am quite sure that nothing will satisfy Miss Lauderdale except a very ample apology and a full explanation of the reason why she absented herself. She has committed a very grave act of disobedience. You know, of course, that the few rules that are imposed upon the students are expected to be kept most rigorously. Excuses make no difference. The girl who breaks the rules has to be punished. Annie Colchester’s only chance is to apologize to Miss Lauderdale.”
“I will tell her. I will do my very best,” said Leslie. “I am glad you have spoken to me. I will go back now, and see her without delay.”