"Come in."
Nancy entered at once.
Priscilla Peel was standing in the centre of the room. The electric
light was turned on, revealing the bareness and absence of all ornament
of the apartment; a fire was laid in the grate but not lit, and
Priscilla's ugly square trunk, its canvas covering removed, stood in a
prominent position, half on the hearthrug, half on the square of carpet,
which covered the centre of the floor. Priscilla had taken off her
jacket and hat. She had washed her hands, and removed her muddy boots,
and smoothed out her straight, light brown hair. She looked what she
felt--a very stiff and unformed specimen of girlhood. There was a great
lump in her throat, brought there by mingled nervousness and
home-sickness, but that very fact only made her manner icy and
repellent.
"Forgive me," said Nancy, blushing all over her rosy face. "I thought
perhaps you might like to know one or two things as you are quite
strange here. My name is Banister. I have a room in the same corridor,
but quite at the other end. You must come and visit me, presently. Oh,
has no one lit your fire? Wouldn't you like one? The evenings are
turning so chilly now, and a fire in one's room gives one a home-like
feeling, doesn't it? Shall I light it for you?"
"No, no, thank you," said Priscilla stiffly. She longed to rush at
Nancy, and smother her with kisses, but she could only stand in the
middle of her room, helpless and awkward, held in a terrible bondage of
shyness.
Nancy drew back a step, chilled in spite of herself.
"I see there are matches on the chimney-piece," she said, "so you can
light the fire yourself, whenever you like. The gong that will sound in
a minute will be for dinner, and Miss Heath always likes us to be
punctual for that meal. It does not matter about any other. Do you
think you can find your way to the dining-hall? Or shall I come and
fetch you?"
"No--thank you. I--I can manage."
"But I'll come with pleasure if you like me to."
"No, I'd rather you didn't trouble, please."
"Very well; if you're sure you know the way. You go down the broad
stairs, then turn to the right, then to the left. Good-bye, I must rush
off, or I shall be late."
Nancy shut the door behind her. She did it gently, although she did not
feel gentle, for she had a distinct sensation of being irritated.
Meanwhile Priscilla, clasping her hands together behind the closed door,
looked yearningly in the direction where the bright face and trim, neat
girlish figure had stood. She was trembling slightly, and her eyes
slowly filled with tears.
"I feel sick and lonely and horrid," she said, under her breath. "Talk
of nerves; oh, if Aunt Raby could see me now! why, I'm positively
shaking, I can scarcely speak, I can scarcely think properly. What
would the children say if they saw their Prissie now? And I'm the girl
who is to fight the world, and kill the dragon, and make a home for the
nestlings. Don't I feel like it! Don't I look like it! Don't I just
loathe myself! How hideously I do my hair, and what a frightful dress I
have on. Oh, I wish I weren't shaking so much. I know I shall get red
all over at dinner. I wish I weren't going to dinner. I wish, oh, I
wish I were at home again."
Crash! bang! pealed the great gong through the house. Doors were opened
all along the corridor; light steps passed Priscilla's room. She heard
the rustle of silk, and the sweet, high tinkle of girlish laughter.
She stayed in her room till the last footsteps had died away, then in
desperation made a rush for it, flew down the wide stairs in a bashful
agony, and, as a matter of course, entered the spacious dining-hall by
the door devoted to the dons.
A girl's life at one of the women's colleges is supposed to be more or
less an unfettered sort of existence; the broad rules guiding conduct
are few, and little more than those which must be exercised in any
well-organised family. But there is the unspoken etiquette made chiefly
by the students themselves, which fills the place like an atmosphere,
and which can only be transgressed at the risk of surly glances and
muttered comments, and even words of derision.
No student was expected to enter the hall by the dons' entrance, and for
this enormity to be perpetrated by a Fresher immediately made her the
cynosure of all eyes. Poor Priscilla was unconscious of any offence.
She grew scarlet under the gaze of the merciless young eyes, and further
added to her sins by sitting down at one of the tables at the top of the
hall.
No one reproved her in words, or requested her to take a lower seat, but
some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would
thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a
certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those
wretched Freshers, which must instantly be put down with a high hand.
Priscilla had choked over her soup, and was making poor way with the
fish that followed, when suddenly a sweet, low voice addressed her.
"This is your first evening at St Benet's," said the voice. "I hope
you will be happy. I know you will, after a little."
Priscilla turned, and met the full gaze of lovely eyes, brown like a
nut, soft and deep as the thick pile of velvet, and yet with a latent
flash and glow in them which gave them a red, half-wild gleam now and
then. The lips that belonged to this face were slightly parted in a
smile; the smile and the expression in the eyes stole straight down with
a glow of delicious comfort into Priscilla's heart.
"Thank you," she said, in her stiff, wooden tone; but her eyes did not
look stiff, and the girl began to talk again.
"I believe my room is next to yours. My name is Oliphant--Margaret
Oliphant, but everyone calls me Maggie. That is, of course, I mean my
friends do. Would you like to come into my room, and let me tell you
some of the rules?"
"Thank you," said Priscilla again. She longed to add, "I should love
beyond words to come into your room;" but instead she remarked icily, "I
think Miss Heath has given me printed rules."
"Oh, you have seen our dear Dorothea--I mean Miss Heath. Isn't she
lovely?"
"I don't know," answered Priscilla. "I think she's rather a plain
person."
"My dear Miss--(I have not caught your name)--you really are too
deliciously prosaic. Stay here for a month, and then tell me if you
think Dorothea--I mean Miss Heath--plain. No, I won't say any more.
You must find out for yourself. But now, about the rules. I don't mean
the _printed_ rules. We have, I assure you, at St Benet's all kinds of
little etiquettes which we expect each other to observe. We are
supposed to be democratic, and inclined to go in for all that is
advanced in womanhood. But, oh dear, oh dear! let any student dare to
break one of our own little pet proprieties, and you will see how
conservative we can be."
"Have I broken any of them?" asked Priscilla in alarm. "I did notice
that everyone stared at me when I came into the hall, but I thought it
was because my face was fresh, and I hoped people would get accustomed
to me by-and-by."
"You poor dear child, there are lots of fresh faces here besides yours.
You should have come down under the shelter of my wing, then it would
have been all right."
"But what have I done? Do tell me. I'd much rather know."
"Well, dear, you have _only_ come into the hall by the dons' entrance,
and you have _only_ seated yourself at the top of the table, where the
learned students who are going in for a tripos take their august meals.
That is pretty good for a Fresher. Forgive me, we call the new girls
Freshers for a week or two. Oh, you have done nothing wrong. Of course
not, how could you know any better? Only I think it would be nice to
put you up to our little rules, would it not?"
"I should be very much obliged," said Priscilla. "And please tell me
now where I ought to sit at dinner."
Miss Oliphant's merry eyes twinkled.
"Look down this long hall," she said. "Observe that door at the farther
end--that is the students' door; through that door you ought to have
entered."
"Yes--well, well?"
"What an impatient `Well, well.' I shall make you quite an enthusiastic
Benetite before dinner is over."
Priscilla blushed.
"I am sorry I spoke too eagerly," she said.
"Oh, no, not a bit too eagerly."
"But please tell me where I ought to have seated myself."
"There is a table near that lower entrance, Miss--"
"Peel," interposed Priscilla. "My name is Priscilla Peel."
"How quaint and great-grandmotherly. Quite delicious! Well, Miss Peel,
by that entrance door is a table, a table rather in a draught, and
consecrated to the Freshers--there the Freshers humbly partake of
nourishment."
"I see. Then I am as far from the right place as I can be."
"About as far as you can be."
"And that is why all the girls have stared so at me."
"Yes, of course; but let them stare. Who minds such a trifle?"
Priscilla sat silent for a few moments. One of the neat waiting-maids
removed her plate; her almost untasted dinner lay upon it. Miss
Oliphant turned to attack some roast mutton with truly British vigour.
By-and-by Priscilla's voice, stiff but with a break in it, fell upon her
ear.
"I think the students at St Benet's must be very cruel."
"My dear Miss Peel, the honour of the most fascinating college in
England is imperilled. Unsay those words."
Maggie Oliphant was joking. Her voice was gay with badinage, her eyes
brimful of laughter. But Priscilla, unaccustomed to light repartee or
chaff in any form, replied to her with heavy and pained seriousness.
"I think the students here are cruel," she repeated. "How can a
stranger know which is the dons' entrance, and which is the right seat
to take at table? If nobody shows her, how can a stranger know? I do
think the students are cruel, and I am sorry--I am very sorry I came."