A Sweet Girl Graduate, L. T. Meade [summer books .txt] 📗

to Kingsdene; she seemed put out about something.”

“Poor little thing. No wonder— those horrid girls!”

“Oh, Nancy, if there’s anything unpleasant, don’t tell me just now; my head aches so dreadfully, I could scarcely hear bad news.”

“You are working too hard, Maggie.”

“I am not; it is the only thing left to me.”

“Do you know that we are to have a rehearsal of The Princess to-night? If you are as ill as you look now, you can’t be present.”

“I will be present. Do you think I can’t force myself to do what is necessary?”

“Oh, I am well acquainted with the owner of your will,” answered Nancy with a laugh. “Well, good-by, dear, I am off. You may expect the carriage to arrive in half an hour.”

Meanwhile Priscilla, still blind, deaf and dumb with misery, ran, rather than walked, along the road which leads to Kingsdene. The day was lovely, with little faint wafts of spring in the air; the sky was pale blue and cloudless; there was a slight hoar frost on the grass. Priscilla chose to walk on it, rather than on the dusty road; it felt crisp under her tread.

She had not the least idea why she was going to Kingsdene. Her wish was to walk, and walk, and walk until sheer fatigue, caused by long-continued motion, brought to her temporary ease and forgetfulness.

Prissie was a very strong girl, and she knew she must walk for a long time; her feet must traverse many miles before she effected her object. Just as she was passing St. Hilda’s College she came face to face with Hammond. He was in his college cap and gown and was on his way to morning prayers in the chapel. Hammond had received Maggie’s letter that morning, and this fact caused him to look at Priscilla with new interest. On another occasion he would have passed her with a hurried bow. Now he stopped to speak. The moment he caught sight of her face, he forgot everything else in his distress at the expression of misery which it wore.

“Where are you going, Miss Peel?” he asked; “you appear to be flying from something, or, perhaps, it is to something. Must you run? See, you have almost knocked me down.” He chose light words on purpose, hoping to make Prissie smile.

“I am going for a walk,” she said. “Please let me pass.”

“I am afraid you are in trouble,” he replied then, seeing that Priscilla’s mood must be taken seriously.

His sympathy gave the poor girl a momentary thrill of comfort. She raised her eyes to his face and spoke huskily.

“A dreadful thing has happened to me,” she said.

The chapel bell stopped as she spoke. Groups of men, all in their caps and gowns, hurried by. Several of them looked from Hammond to Priscilla and smiled.

“I must go to chapel now,” he said; “but I should like to speak to you. Can I not see you after morning prayers? Would you not come to the service. You might sit in the ante-chapel, if you did not want to come into the chapel itself. You had much better do that. Whatever your trouble is, the service at St. Hilda’s ought to sustain you. Please wait for me in the ante-chapel. I shall look for you there after prayers.”

He ran off just in time to take his own place in the chapel before the doors were shut and curtains drawn.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Priscilla followed him. She entered the ante-chapel, sat down on a bench not far from the entrance door, and when the service began she dropped on her knees and covered her face with her hands.

The music came to her in soft waves of far-off harmony. The doors which divided the inner chapel from the outer gave it a faint sound, as if it were miles away; each note, however, was distinct; no sound was lost. The boys’ voices rose high in the air; they were angelic in their sweetness. Prissie was incapable, at that moment, of taking in the meaning of the words she heard, but the lovely sounds comforted her. The dreadful weight was lifted, or, at least, partially lifted, from her brain; she felt as if a hand had been laid on her hot, angry heart; as if a gentle, a very gentle, touch was soothing the sorrow there.

“I am ready now,” said Hammond when the service was over. “Will you come?”

She rose without a word and went out with him into the quadrangle. They walked down the High Street.

“Are you going back to St. Benet’s?” he asked.

“Oh, no— oh, no!”

“‘Yes,’ you mean. I will walk with you as far as the gates.”

“I am not going back.”

“Pardon me,” said Hammond, “you must go back. So young a girl cannot take long walks alone. If one of your fellow-students were with you, it would be different.”

“I would not walk with one of them now for the world.”

“Not with Miss Oliphant?”

“With her least of all.”

“That is a pity,” said Hammond gravely, “for no one can feel more kindly toward you.”

Prissie made no response.

They walked to the end of the High Street.

“This is your way,” said Hammond, “down this quiet lane. We shall get to St. Benet’s in ten minutes.”

“I am not going there. Good-by, Mr. Hammond.”

“Miss Peel, you must forgive my appearing to interfere with you, but it is absolutely wrong for a young girl, such as you are, to wander about alone in the vicinity of a large university town. Let me treat you as my sister for once and insist on accompanying you to the gates of the college.”

Prissie looked up at him. “It is very good of you to take any notice of me,” she said after a pause. “You won’t ever again after— after you know what I have been accused of. If you wish me to go back to St. Benet’s, I will; after all, it does not matter, for I can go out by and by somewhere else.”

Hammond smiled to himself at Prissie’s very qualified submission. Just then a carriage came up and drove slowly past them. Miss Oliphant, in her velvet and sables, was seated in it. Hammond sprang forward with heightened color and an eager exclamation on his lips. She did not motion to the coachman to stop, however, but gave the young man a careless, cold bow. She did not notice Priscilla at all. The carriage quickly drove out of sight, and Hammond, after a pause, said gravely;

“You must tell me your troubles, Miss Peel.”

“I will,” said Prissie. “Some one has stolen a five pound note out of Maggie Oliphant’s purse. She missed it late at night and spoke about it at breakfast this morning. I said that I did not know how it could have been taken, for I had been studying my Greek in her room during the whole afternoon. Maggie spoke about her loss in the dining-hall, and after she left the room Miss Day and Miss Merton accused me of having stolen the money.” Priscilla stopped speaking abruptly; she turned her head away; a dull red suffused her face and neck.

“Well?” said Hammond.

“That is all. The girls at St. Benet’s think I am a thief. They think I took my kindest friend’s money. I have nothing more to say: nothing possibly could be more dreadful to me. I shall speak to Miss Heath and ask leave to go away from the college at once.”

“You certainly ought not to do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you went from St. Benet’s now, people might be induced to think that you really were guilty.”

“But they think that now.”

“I am quite certain that those students whose friendship is worth retaining think nothing of the sort.”

“Why are you certain?” asked Prissie, turning swiftly round and a sudden ray of sunshine illuminating her whole face. “Do you think that I am not a thief?”

“I am as certain of that fact as I am of my own identity.”

“Oh!” said the girl with a gasp. She made a sudden dart forward, and seizing Hammond’s hand, squeezed it passionately between both her own.

“And Miss Oliphant does not think of you as a thief,” continued Hammond.

“I don’t know— I can’t say.”

“You have no right to be so unjust to her,” he replied with fervor.

“I don’t care so much for the opinion of the others now,” said Prissie; “you believe in me.” She walked erect again; her footsteps were light as if she trod on air. “You are a very good man,” she said. “I would do anything for you— anything.”

Hammond smiled. Her innocence, her enthusiasm, her childishness were too apparent for him to take her words for more than they were worth.

“Do you know,” he said after a pause, “that I am in a certain measure entitled to help you? In the first place, Miss Oliphant takes a great interest in you.”

“You are mistaken, she does not— not now.”

“I am not mistaken; she takes a great interest in you. Priscilla, you must have guessed— you have guessed— what Maggie Oliphant is to me; I should like, therefore, to help her friend. That is one tie between us, but there is another— Mr. Hayes, your parish clergyman——”

“Oh!” said Prissie, “do you know Mr. Hayes?”

“I not only know him,” replied Hammond, smiling, “but he is my uncle. I am going to see him this evening.”

“Oh!”

“Of course, I shall tell him nothing of this, but I shall probably talk of you. Have you a message for him?”

“I can send him no message to-day.”

They had now reached the college gates. Hammond took Priscilla’s hand. “Good-by,” he said; “I believe in you and so does Miss Oliphant. If her money was stolen, the thief was certainly not the most upright, the most sincere girl in the college. My advice to you, Miss Peel, is to hold your head up bravely, to confront this charge by that sense of absolute innocence which you possess. In the meanwhile I have not the least doubt that the real thief will be found. Don’t make a fuss; don’t go about in wild despair— have faith in God.” He pressed her hand and turned away.

Priscilla took her usual place that day at the luncheon table. The girls who had witnessed her wild behavior in the morning watched her in perplexity and astonishment. She ate her food with appetite; her face looked serene— all the passion and agony had left it.

Rosalind Merton ventured on a sly allusion to the scene of the morning. Priscilla did not make the smallest comment. Her face remained pale, her eyes untroubled. There was a new dignity about her.

“What’s up now?” said Rosalind to her friend, Miss Day. “Is the little Puritan going to defy us all?”

“Oh, don’t worry any more about her,” said Annie, who, for some reason, was in a particularly bad humor. “I only wish, for my part, Miss Peel had never come to St. Benet’s; I don’t like anything about her, Her heroics are as unpleasant to me as her stoicisms. But I may as well say frankly, Rosalind, before I drop this detestable subject, that I am quite sure she never stole that five-pound note: she was as little likely to do it as you, so there!”

There came a knock at the door. Rosalind flew to open it. By so doing she hoped that Miss Day would not notice the sudden color which filled her cheeks.