A Sweet Girl Graduate, L. T. Meade [summer books .txt] 📗
- Author: L. T. Meade
Book online «A Sweet Girl Graduate, L. T. Meade [summer books .txt] 📗». Author L. T. Meade
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 forever— 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. Afterward 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 listen,” 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.
A MYSTERIOUS EPISODE
When she was alone, Maggie Oliphant sat down in her favorite chair and covered her face with her hands. “It is horrible to listen to stories like that,” she murmured under her breath. “Such stories get on the nerves. I shall not sleep to-night. Fancy any people calling themselves ladies wanting meat, wanting clothes, wanting warmth. Oh, my God! this is horrible. Poor Prissie! Poor, brave Prissie!” Maggie started from her chair and paced the length of her room once or twice. “I must help these people,” she said; “I must help this Aunt Raby and those three little sisters. Penywern Cottage shall no longer be without coal, and food, and warmth. How shall I do this? One thing is quite evident— Prissie must not know. Prissie is as proud as I am. How shall I manage this?” She clasped her hands, her brow was contracted with the fulness of her thought. After a long while she left her room, and, going to the other end of the long corridor, knocked at Nancy Banister’s door. Nancy was within. It did not take Maggie long to tell the tale which she had just heard from Priscilla’s lips. Prissie had told her simple story with force, but it lost nothing in Maggie’s hands. She had a fine command of language, and she drew a picture of such pathos that Nancy’s honest blue eyes filled with tears.
“That dear little Prissie!” she exclaimed.
“I don’t know that she is dear,” said Maggie. “I don’t profess quite to understand her; however, that is not the point. The poverty at Penywern Cottage is an undoubted fact. It is also a fact that Prissie is forced to give up her classical education. She shall not! she has a genius for the old tongues. Now, Nancy, help me; use your common sense on my behalf. How am I to send money to Penywern Cottage?”
Nancy thought for several minutes.
“I have an idea,” she exclaimed at last.
“What is that?”
“I believe Mr. Hammond could help us.”
Maggie colored.
“How?” she asked. “Why should Geoffrey Hammond be dragged into Priscilla’s affairs? What can he possibly know about Penywern Cottage and the people who live in it?”
“Only this,” said Nancy: “I remember his once talking about that part of Devonshire where Prissie’s home is and saying that his uncle has a parish there. Mr. Hammond’s uncle is the man to help us.”
Miss Oliphant was silent for a moment.
“Very well,” she said; “will you write to Mr. Hammond and ask him for his uncle’s address?”
“Why should I do this, Maggie? Geoffrey Hammond is your friend; he would think it strange for me to write.”
Maggie’s tone grew as cold as her expressive face had suddenly become. “I can write if you think it best,” she said; “but you are mistaken in supposing that Mr. Hammond is any longer a person of special interest to me.”
“Oh, Maggie, Maggie, if you only would—”
“Good night, Nancy,” interrupted Maggie. She kissed her friend and went back to her room. There she sat down before her bureau and prepared to write a letter. “I must not lose any time,” she said to herself; “I must help these people substantially; I must do something to rescue poor Prissie from a life of drudgery. Fancy Prissie, with her genius, living the life of an ordinary underpaid teacher: it is not to be thought of for a moment! Something must be done to put the whole family on a different footing, but that, of course, is for the future. From Priscilla’s account they want immediate aid. I have two five-pound notes in my purse: Geoffrey shall have them and enclose them to the clergyman who is his relation and who lives near Priscilla’s home.”
Maggie wrote her letter rapidly. She thought it cold; she meant it to be a purely business note; she did not intend Hammond to see even the glimpse of her warm heart under the carefully studied words. “I am sick of money,” she said to him, “but to some people it is as the bread of life. Ask your friend to provide food and warmth without a moment’s delay for these poor people out of the trifle I enclose. Ask him also to write directly to me, for the ten pounds I now send is only the beginning of what I mean really to do to help them.”
When her letter was finished, Maggie put her hand in her pocket to take out her purse. It was not there. She searched on the table, looked under piles of books and papers and presently found it. She unclasped the purse and opened an inner pocket for the purpose of taking out two five-pound notes which she had placed there this morning. To her astonishment and perplexity, this portion of the purse now contained only one of the notes. Maggie felt her face turning crimson. Quick as a flash of lightning a horrible thought assailed her— Priscilla had been alone in her room for nearly an hour— Priscilla’s people were starving: had Priscilla taken the note?
“Oh, hateful!” said Maggie to herself; “what am I coming to, to suspect the brave, the noble— I won’t, I can’t. Oh, how shall I look her in the face and feel that I ever, even for a second, thought of her so dreadfully.” Maggie searched through her purse again. “Perhaps I dreamt that I put two notes here this morning,” she said to herself. “But no, it is no dream; I put two notes into this division of my purse, I put four sovereigns here; the sovereigns are safe— one of the notes is gone.”
She thought deeply for a few moments longer, then added a postscript to her letter:
“I am very sorry, but I can only send you one note for five pounds to-night. Even this, however, is better than nothing. I will give further help as soon as I hear from your friend.” Maggie then folded her letter, addressed, stamped it and took it downstairs.
Miss Oliphant was an heiress; she was also an orphan; her father and mother were mere memories to her; she had neither brothers nor sisters; she did not particularly like her guardian, who was old and worldly wise, as different as possible from the bright, enthusiastic, impulsive girl. Mr. Oliphant thought money the aim and object of life: when he spoke to Maggie about it, she professed to hate it. In reality she was indifferent to it; money was valueless to her because she had never felt its want.
She lay awake for a long time that night, thinking of Penywern Cottage, of tired Aunt Raby, of the little girls who wanted food, and education, and care, and love. After a time she fell asleep. In her sleep she ceased to think of Priscilla’s relations: all her thoughts were with Priscilla herself. She dreamt that she saw Priscilla move stealthily in her room, take up her purse with wary fingers, open it, remove a note for five pounds and hide the purse once more under books and papers.
When Maggie awoke she professed not to believe in her dream; but, nevertheless, she had a headache, and her heart was heavy within her.
At breakfast that morning Miss Oliphant made a rather startling announcement. “I wish to say something,” she remarked in her full, rich voice. “A strange thing happened to me last night. I am not accounting for it; I am casting no aspersions on any one; I don’t even intend to investigate the matter; still, I wish publicly to state a fact— a five-pound note has been taken out of my purse!”
There were no dons or lecturers present when Miss Oliphant made this startling announcement, but Nancy Banister, Rosalind Merton, Priscilla Peel, Miss Day, Miss Marsh and several other girls were all in the room; they, each of them, looked at the speaker with startled and anxious inquiry.
Maggie herself did not return the glances; she was lazily helping herself to some marmalade.
“How perfectly shameful!” burst at last from the lips of Miss Day. “You have lost five pounds, Miss Oliphant; you are positively certain that five pounds have been taken out of your purse. Where was your purse?” Maggie was spreading the marmalade on her bread and butter; her eyes were still fixed on her plate. “I don’t wish a fuss made,” she said.
“Oh, that’s all very fine!” continued Miss Day, “but if five pounds are lost out of your purse, some one has taken them! Some one, therefore, whether servant or student, is a thief.
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