"It is quite true, Maggie," said Nancy Banister. "It _is_ about the
auction. Yes, there is no doubt about that. What possessed you to go?"
Maggie Oliphant was standing in the centre of her own room with an open
letter in her hand. Nancy was reading it over her shoulder:--
"Katharine Hall,--
"_December 3_.
"Miss Eccleston and Miss Heath request Miss Oliphant and Miss Peel to
present themselves in Miss Eccleston's private sitting-room this
evening at seven o'clock."
"That is all," said Maggie. "It sounds as solemn and unfriendly as if
one were about to be tried for some capital offence."
"It's the auction, of course," repeated Nancy. "Those girls thought
they had kept it so quiet; but someone must have `peached,' I suppose,
to curry favour. Whatever made you go, Maggie? You know you have never
mixed yourself up with that Day, and Merton, and Marsh set. As to that
poor Polly Singleton, there's no harm in her, but she's a perfect
madcap. What could have possessed you to go?"
"My evil genius," repeated Maggie, in a gloomy tone. "You don't suppose
I _wished_ to be there, Nancy; but that horrid little Merton girl said
something taunting, and then I forgot myself. Oh, dear, Nancy! what
shall I ever do with that other self of mine? It will ruin me in the
end. It gets stronger every day."
Maggie sat down on the sofa. Nancy suddenly knelt by her side.
"Dear Meg," she said, caressingly, "you're the noblest, and the
sweetest, and the most beautiful girl at St Benet's! Why can't you
live up to your true self?"
"There are two selfs in me," replied Maggie. "And if one even
approaches the faintest semblance of angelhood, the other is black as
pitch. There, it only wastes time to talk the thing over. I'm in for
the sort of scrape I hate most. See, Nancy, I bought this at the
auction."
She opened her wardrobe, and taking out Polly Singleton's magnificent
eighty-guinea sealskin jacket, slipped it on.
"Don't I look superb?" said Maggie. She shut the wardrobe-door, and
surveyed herself in its long glass. Brown was Maggie Oliphant's colour.
It harmonised with the soft tints of her delicately rounded face, with
the rich colour in her hair, with the light in her eyes. It added to
all these charms, softening them, giving to them a more perfect lustre.
"Oh, Maggie!" said Nancy, clasping her hands, "you ought always to be
dressed as you are now."
Maggie dropped her arms suddenly to her sides. The jacket, a little too
large for her, slid off her shoulders, and lay in a heap on the floor.
"What?" she said, suddenly. "Am I never to show my true and real self?
Am I always to be disguised in sham beauty and sham goodness? Oh,
Nancy, Nancy! if there is a creature I hate--I _hate_--her name is
Maggie Oliphant!"
Nancy picked up the sealskin jacket, and put it back into the wardrobe.
"I am sorry you went to the auction, Maggie," she repeated, "and I'm
more sorry still to find you bought poor Polly Singleton's sealskin.
Well, it's done now, and we have to consider how to get you out of this
scrape. There's no time for you to indulge in that morbid talk of yours
to-day, Maggie, darling. Let us consider what's best to be done."
"Nothing," retorted Maggie. "I shall simply go to Miss Heath and Miss
Eccleston, and tell them the truth. There's nothing else to be done.
No hope whatever of getting out of the affair. I went to Polly
Singleton's auction because Rosalind Merton raised the demon in me. I
tried to become the possessor of the sealskin jacket because her heart
was set on it. I won an eighty-guinea jacket for ten guineas. You see
how ignoble my motives were, also how unworthy the results. I did worse
even than that--for I will out with the truth to you, Nancy--I revenged
myself still further upon that spiteful little gnat, Rosalind, and
raised the price of her coveted coral to such an extent that I know by
her face she is pounds in debt for it. Now, my dear, what have you to
say to me? Nothing good, I know that. Let me read Aristotle for the
next hour just to calm my mind."
Maggie turned away, seated herself by her writing bureau, and tried to
lose both the past and the present in her beloved Greek.
"She will do it, too," whispered Nancy as she left the room. "No one
ever was made quite like Maggie. She can feel tortures, and yet the
next moment she can be in ecstasy. She is so tantalising that at times
you are almost brought to believe her own stories about herself. You
are almost sure that she has got the black self as well as the white
self. But through it all, yes, through it all, you love her. Dear
Maggie! Whatever happens, I must always--always love her."
Nancy was walking slowly down the corridor when a room door was gently
opened, and the sweet childish innocent face of Rosalind peeped out.
"Nancy, is that you? Do, for Heaven's sake, come in and speak to me for
a moment."
"What about, Rosalind? I have only a minute or two to spare. My German
lecture is to begin immediately."
"Oh, what does that signify? You don't know the awful trouble we've got
into."
"You mean about the auction?"
"Yes--yes; so you have heard?"
"Of course I've heard. If that is all, Rosalind, I cannot wait to
discuss the matter now. I am very sorry for you, of course, but as I
said to Maggie, why did you do it?"
"Oh, you've been talking to Miss Oliphant? Thank goodness she'll have
to answer for her sins as well as the rest of us."
"Maggie is my friend, so you need not abuse her, Rosalind."
"Lucky for her that she has got one true friend!" retorted Rosalind.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say. Maggie is making such a fool of herself that we are
all laughing at her behind her back."
"Indeed? I fail to understand you."
"You are being made a fool of, too, Nancy. Oh, I did think you'd have
had more sense."
"How? Speak. Say at once what you want to say, Rosalind, and stop
talking riddles, for I must fly to my work."
"Fly, then," retorted Rosalind, "only think twice before you give your
confidence to a _certain person_. A person who makes a fine parade of
poverty and so-called honesty of purpose, but who can, and who does,
betray her kindest and best friend behind her back. It is my private
belief we have to thank this virtuous being for getting us into the
pleasant scrape we are in. I am convinced she has tried to curry favour
by telling Miss Heath all about poor Polly's auction."
"You mean Priscilla Peel?" said Nancy, in a firm voice. She forgot her
German lecture now. "You have no right to say words of that kind. You
have taken a dislike to Prissie, no one knows why. She is not as
interesting nor as beautiful as Maggie, but she is good, and you should
respect her."
Rosalind laughed bitterly.
"Good? Is she? Ask Mr Hammond. You say she is not beautiful nor
interesting. Perhaps he finds her both. Ask him."
"Rosalind, I shall tell Maggie what you say. This is not the first time
you have hinted unkind things about Priscilla. It is better to sift a
matter of this kind to the bottom than to hint it all over the college
as you are doing Maggie shall take it in hand."
"Let her! I shall only be too delighted! What a jolly time the saintly
Priscilla will have."
"I can't stay any longer, Rosalind."
"But, Nancy, just one moment. I want to put accounts right with Polly
before to-night. Mother sent me ten pounds to buy something at the
auction. The coral cost fourteen guineas. I have written to mother for
the balance, and it may come by any post. _Do_ lend it to me until it
comes! _Do_, kind Nancy!"
"I have not got so much in the world, I have not really, Rosalind.
Good-bye; my lecture will have begun."
Nancy ran out of the room, and Miss Merton turned to survey ruefully her
empty purse, and to read again a letter which had already arrived from
her mother:--
"My Dear Rosalind--
"I have not the additional money to spare you, my poor child. The ten
pounds which I weakly yielded at your first earnest request was, in
reality, taken from the money which is to buy your sisters their
winter dresses. I dare not encroach any further on it, or your father
would certainly ask me why the girls were dressed so shabbily.
Fourteen guineas for coral! You know, my dear child, we cannot afford
this extravagance. My advice is to return it to your friend, and to
ask her to let you have the ten guineas back. You might return it to
me in a Postal Order, for I want it badly. It was one thing to
struggle to let you have it in the hopes that you would secure a
really valuable garment like a sealskin jacket, and another to give it
to you for some rather useless ornaments.
"Your affectionate mother,--
"Alice Merton."