Chapter 20 The Girls of St. Wode's by L. T. Meade
NOT A BIT LIKE IT
At the appointed hour, Leslie Gilroy went across to Belle Acheson’s room. That young lady was in and received her with a fair amount of graciousness.
“Sit down, pray,” she said. “You will like that chair which faces the view. I prefer the one with my back to it. That view upsets me when I am very busy over my studies. But enough about Ego for the present. Let me look at you steadily.”
Leslie seated herself on the very stiff and uncomfortable chair pointed out by her companion, and Belle eyed her from head to foot.
“Yours is a very great temptation,” she said at last slowly. “I pity you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Mine is a very great temptation!” repeated Leslie. She colored, and for a moment felt slightly alarmed. Was it possible that Belle knew about her anxiety with regard to Annie? But her companion’s next remark dispelled this illusion.
“I refer to your good looks,” she said. “Those like you who are condemned to the trial of regular features, bright eyes, and masses of hair, have a struggle to fulfil their part worthily in life’s battle. But there, I will add no more.”
“I totally and completely disagree with you,” cried Leslie. “If you and I are to be friends, you must allow me to speak out quite frankly. Miss Acheson, I heartily respect you. I know that you are earnest and clever, and – ”
“Don’t flatter; a flatterer is indeed a false friend.”
“But I am not flattering you. I do think what I have just said to you most truly and sincerely; but now I must speak on my own account. I have been taught by a very wise and good mother to regard a pleasant and pretty face as a blessing, as a talent sent from God. I have to use it aright in influencing for good my fellowmen. Beauty is a power which can be used for good. If one thinks of it in that way one need never be vain.”
“And you have the audacity to tell me that you think yourself good-looking?”
“I do,” answered Leslie calmly. “I know I have a very pretty face; it would be the height of affectation for me to say anything else. But do not let us talk any more about personal appearance. Surely you did not want me to visit you to discuss my looks?”
“By no means. From Eileen or Marjorie the words you have just uttered would disgust me so completely that I should ask the one who had so spoken to leave the room; but you have something queer about you, something earnest and out of the common; you are not an ordinary girl, and cannot be judged by ordinary standards. I am convinced that you will never take life frivolously.”
“I hope I never shall, Belle.”
“Belle! You call me Belle, and you only met me for the first time yesterday!”
“I hope you do not think me presuming,” said Leslie – she held out her hand to Belle as she spoke – “but I feel somehow that we are going to be friends.”
Belle’s thin hand was immediately outstretched, and for an instant she clasped Leslie’s – she then let it drop with a sigh.
“Why had I not a sister like you?” she said. “It is hard to go through life without sympathy, and I get little.”
“If you will allow me, I will give you plenty in the future.”
“If I will allow you! But there, perhaps this is a temptation. Are we really to be friends? If so, you will promise not to tempt me.”
“In what way? How can I?”
“You will not insert the thin end of the wedge; you will not cause me to allow luxuries to creep into my life? Oh, I have set myself so strenuously against all that sort of thing. I live so fixedly by rule. Now, a carpet to the floor, an easy-chair to lounge in, curtains to the windows to keep out the racking heat of the midday sun – all these things would be sins in a person like me. You will not insist, too, upon my spending money – money, that precious gift – on dress. Oh, I assure you the simplest covering does. You know how short our lives are; and our bodies, are they not just clothes for the soul? Why need we pamper the body. It is the soul that lives forever; it alone requires careful attention.”
“Why, Belle, you ought to have been in a nunnery.”
“There, now, you are laughing at me.”
“I am not, indeed; but I do feel that the soul is more comfortable, and more likely to thrive, if it is lodged in a nicely cared for body. Why should it not have a nice, pretty house to live in? And as to dress, I do hope you will allow me to say one thing: that a dress, however simple, ought to be whole and decent-looking and clean.”
“Oh, of course, I admit that; but is anything the matter with mine?”
“Have you a clothes brush, dear: I should so like to brush off the mud from the tail of your skirt.”
“Thank you, thank you; but I cannot permit it. You are now verging into the commonplace. You resemble that terrible young person, Letitia Chetwynd. She is really, I assure you, one of the trials of my life. She is a butterfly, impossible to be suppressed. She visits me in my room and insists upon talking her frivolous nonsense until my head aches. I repeat the words of the great masters of literature, under my breath, when she is present. She sees me muttering, and yet she will not go. There she sits with needle and thread repairing my garments, and I – I permit it.”
“I think she is awfully kind to you,” said Leslie. “You ought to be grateful.”
“I’m not – I can’t be. She and I are abhorrent each to the other. As the poles are we asunder. But do not let us waste these precious moments talking of her. I want so much to hear about yourself – your ambitions, your hopes, your desires. What, for instance, are your aims with regard to literature? You will take honors, of course?”
“I don’t know,” replied Leslie. “It requires a great deal of talent to take honors in work like mine; but I will admit that I am struggling very hard with that object in view.”
“Then, let me help you. Let us talk over our mutual studies. Here, sit close to me, draw up your chair near mine. It is sometimes permitted for those whose souls are akin to clasp their earthly hands together. Now then, let us speak. Ah! when you are almost intoxicated with those great and stimulating thoughts, does not your soul burn, does not you brain seem to expand until it almost bursts?”
“Never,” said Leslie: “if it did I should feel very much alarmed about myself.”
Belle uttered a sigh.
“We are differently affected by these things, I see,” she remarked. “I cannot explain to you the intense, the passionate pleasure I feel when I am engaged over hard mental work. There is no stimulant like it. You are not laughing at me?”
“Indeed I am not,” said Leslie. “I said before that I respected you as I respect anyone else who is wholly in earnest.”
“In earnest,” said Belle; “yes, indeed, I am that. I am ever thinking of Kingsley’s passionate words, ‘Be earnest, earnest, earnest; mad if thou wilt.’ Oh, Miss Gilroy, do think of the frivolity of the greater number of our sex. Even in this house of learning frivolity creeps in.”
Leslie smiled and endeavored to draw her companion into more reasonable conversation.
“Do you know what my aim in life is?” said Belle at last. “I will whisper it to you; but not even to Marjorie or Eileen have I yet confided it.”
“I will respect your secret, and I am very glad you are going to tell me,” replied Leslie, for she thought to herself that nothing would do this queer girl more good than to have a confidante.
“Well,” continued Belle, “my mother is fairly well off – of course not nearly so rich as the Chetwynds; but as I am her only child, she gives me plenty of money for my own personal use. Quite apart from the fees and general expenses of the college, I receive twenty-five pounds a term. Now, I have managed since I came here to spend something under five pounds a term, therefore I have already a nice little sum put by. In that humble little desk there lies in notes and gold over eighty pounds. I will show you my little bank.”
She jumped up hastily, unlocked her desk, and taking out a canvas bag, poured the contents into her lap.
“My savings,” she cried; “what I have secured in place of flowers, in place of cocoa-parties, in place of luxurious furniture, in place of the fal-lals and prettinesses which take the tone out of life. Do you know what this money is the nest-egg for?”
“Some good purpose, I am sure,” replied Leslie.
“An excellent purpose. I mean by and by to found a nunnery on a new line. A college after Tennyson’s idea will be realized by me, where those girls who wish to devote themselves wholly and completely to study shall live their lives. I shall begin my house of learning in a humble cottage. I shall take in my girl residents on the cheapest terms. The house will be small, the furniture of the plainest, the food just what is sufficient to sustain life. I could keep a niche for you if you signified your wish at an early date.”
“Thank you,” answered Leslie, rising as she spoke, “but I could not accept it. My work will be in the midst of the busy world – not in any hermitage. Belle, you have a great deal in you; but you are mistaken on many points. You need some lessons in life – ”
“Oh, don’t, don’t,” said Belle, putting her fingers to her ears. “This visit has been so refreshing, and I like you so much: but don’t spoil it by an inopportune and ineffectual lecture. Go away, take your beautiful face out of my sight; don’t haunt me with it a moment longer. It is possible that I may see it to-night instead of the pure, pale lineament of Spenser’s Faerie Queene – instead of Dante’s Beatrice – instead of the divine Althea in Richard Lovelace’s matchless verses. Good-by, good-by.”
Leslie went to the door, and Belle saw her off.
In some wonder, and feeling almost dazed by her recent conversation, she returned to her own room in North Hall.
Just half an hour before dinner Annie walked in. She entered the room briskly, greeted Leslie with a hard and yet excited laugh, and, tossing off her hat, seated herself on the side of her sofa-bed.
“I had a good day in town,” she exclaimed. “What are you staring at me for?”
“I am sorry. I did not know I was staring at you,” answered Leslie. “I am glad you are back again; but why did you not tell me this morning that you were going to town?”
“And why should I tell you? I never knew that I was obliged to make confidences to you. Well, I don’t want to say anything offensive now; and I am in good spirits, very good indeed. I had to go to town on urgent business. It was necessary to get Miss Lauderdale’s leave. She was kind enough to forgive me for my apparent rudeness of last night, and also to give me the necessary permission to spend to-day in London.”
“I am rather surprised,” answered Leslie; “but of course, as you say, it is not my affair.”
“It certainly is not, and I trust you won’t interfere further in the matter. Keep your own counsel, that is all I ask of you.”
As Annie spoke she started up, removing her jacket, and, going to her toilet table, began to arrange her fuzzy locks. With brush in hand she turned round and looked at Leslie.
“I am sorry I have been rude to you of late,” she said: “but the fact is, I was so worried I scarcely knew what I was doing. I don’t pretend for a moment that you have not been good to me, very good; now it is my turn to be good to you. I shall make myself as cheerful and pleasant as I can in the future. I shan’t slave so hard over books either. I have found out for myself that much study is a weariness to the flesh. But there, I am much better this evening, much better.”
Leslie did not make any reply. A moment or two later the girls went down to dinner together. At dinner, Annie, contrary to her wont, talked not only with Leslie but with the other girls who sat near. She laughed a good deal, described some of her adventures in town in a spirited manner, and was to all appearance in the best of spirits. Leslie, as she watched her, could not help wondering if she had got the money she wanted so badly. She hated to follow Annie with her eyes, and yet the thought of her and her trouble was never really absent from her mind.
Leslie was engaged to attend a cocoa-party at West Hall that evening; but even there she could not get Annie out of her head. When between ten and eleven that night she returned to her own room, Annie had already gone to bed and was fast asleep. Leslie gave a sigh of relief as she watched her in this peaceful slumber.
The next day, immediately after lunch, as Annie and Leslie were both engaged over their respective tasks, a servant came up and knocked at the door. She brought in a card on a salver.
“A gentleman is downstairs, Miss Gilroy,” she said. “He wants to know if he can see you?”
Leslie took up the card and read the name: “Mr. Charles Parker.” She uttered an exclamation of astonishment. Annie, who was buried, not in her studies but in a novel, did not even look up; and Leslie, saying she would see the gentleman immediately, left the room.
She ran quickly downstairs to the common room, where her visitor was waiting for her.
“This is very kind of you, Mr. Parker,” she said, holding out her hand to him; “but I trust nothing is wrong at home?”
“Nothing whatever, young lady, and I am delighted to see you,” replied that individual, rubbing his hands and looking affectionately and yet with anxiety at Leslie.
“It was good of you to come to see me,” said Leslie, “and of course I am ever so pleased. When did you see mother last?”
“Three or four days ago. All the young ’uns are doing well, and your mother looks, if I may use the word, blooming. She is not working quite so hard. By the way, Miss Leslie, I have a great respect for that fine young brother of yours, Llewellyn; he has the right stuff in him. I am only biding my time to give him a leg up.”
“But I don’t think Llewellyn means to take a leg up, as you call it, from anyone; he is very independent, Mr. Parker.”
“Aye, aye; but there are ways and means of helping an honest lad, and I am not the one to shirk my duty. But now, Miss Leslie, I have come down here because I am a little alarmed with regard to you.”
“A little alarmed with regard to me! What can you mean?” said Leslie.
“Let us go out somewhere,” said Mr. Parker. “Somehow it seems to me that these walls may have ears, and there are such a lot of girls coming and going. So this is what you call a college, is it?”
“This is one of the houses of residence at St. Wode’s College,” replied Leslie. “The college and lecture-rooms themselves are in a separate building; but of course we attend a great many lectures at the men’s halls.”
“Very improper, indeed, young lady; but if it’s the fashion, why, I can’t say a word. In my time such an opportunity for indiscriminate flirtation – ”
“Oh, we none of us dream of flirting,” said Leslie with a laugh; “and then we are properly chaperoned, you know. I assure you the thing is most correct and proper.”
“Well, I’ll take your word for it, though I don’t quite believe it all the same. When pretty girls are about, and young men to the fore, we always know what that sort of thing means.”
“You ought to come here for a time, Mr. Parker; seeing is believing.”
“Not I, not I, young lady. Do you think I’d mix myself up in a mare’s nest of this sort? No, no; but I am bound to believe the words of a pretty girl like yourself.”
“Would you really care to go for a walk, Mr. Parker?”
“Yes, Miss Leslie. I have got something to say, something not too pleasant either, but which of course you must be in a manner prepared for.” Here Mr. Parker tried to fix Leslie with his eyes. She gazed up at him in astonishment. He sighed and felt himself coloring.
“You remind me of my own girl,” he said. “You don’t know what a keen pleasure it is to me to do anything for you on that account; but there, time presses, and I must go back by the five-o’clock train.”
“Well, I will just get my hat. I am most anxious to know how you can possibly have heard bad news of me.”
“She does not look a bit like it,” muttered the merchant to himself as Leslie ran out of the room.