"I DETEST IT."
Shortly after the girls got home that evening, they received letters in
their rooms to inform them that Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston had come
to the resolution not to report the affair of the auction to the college
authorities. They would trust to the honour of the students at St
Benet's not to allow such a proceeding to occur again, and would say
nothing further on the matter.
Prissie's eyes filled again with tears as she read the carefully worded
note. Holding it open in her hand she rushed to Maggie's room and
knocked. To her surprise, instead of the usual cheerful "Come in," with
which Miss Oliphant always assured her young friend of a welcome, Maggie
said from the other side of the locked door--
"I am very busy just now--I cannot see anyone."
Priscilla felt a curious sense of being chilled; her whole afternoon had
been one of elation, and Maggie's words came as a kind of cold _douche_.
She went back to her room, tried not to mind, and occupied herself
looking over her beloved Greek until the dinner-gong sounded.
After dinner Priscilla again looked with anxious, loving eyes at Maggie.
Maggie did not stop, as was her custom, to say a kind word or two as
she passed. She was talking to another girl, and laughing gaily. Her
dress was as picturesque as her face and figure were beautiful. But was
Priscilla mistaken, or was her anxious observation too close? She felt
sure as Miss Oliphant brushed past her that her eyelids were slightly
reddened, as if she had been weeping.
Prissie put out a timid hand and touched Maggie on the arm. She turned
abruptly.
"I forgot," she said to her companion. "Please wait for me outside,
Hester; I'll join you in a moment, I have just a word to say to Miss
Peel. What is it, Prissie?" said Maggie, then, when the other girl had
walked out of hearing. "Why did you touch me?"
"Oh, for nothing much," replied Prissie, half frightened at her manner,
which was sweet enough, but had an intangible hardness about it, which
Priscilla felt, but could not fathom. "I thought you'd be so glad about
the decision Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston have come to."
"No, I am not particularly glad. I can't stay now to talk it over,
however; Hester Stuart wants, me to practise a duet with her."
"May I come to your room later on, Maggie?"
"Not to-night, I think; I shall be very busy." Miss Oliphant nodded
brightly, and disappeared out of the dining-hall.
Two girls were standing not far off. They had watched this little
scene, and they now observed that Prissie clasped her hands, and that a
woe-begone expression crossed her face.
"The spell is beginning to work," whispered one to the other. "When the
knight proves unfaithful the most gracious lady must suffer resentment."
Priscilla did not hear these words. She went slowly upstairs and back
to her own room, where she wrote letters home, and made copious notes
from her last lectures, and tried not to think of the little cloud which
seemed to have come between her and Maggie.
Late, on that same evening, Polly Singleton, who had just been
entertaining a chosen bevy of friends in her own room, after the last
had bidden her an affectionate "Good-night," was startled at hearing a
low knock at her door. She opened it at once. Miss Oliphant stood
without.
"May I come in?" she asked.
"Why, of course. I'm delighted to see you. How kind of you to come.
Where will you sit? I'm afraid you won't find things very comfortable,
for most of my furniture is gone. But there's the bed; do you mind
sitting on the bed?"
"If I want to sit at all the bed is as snug a place as any," replied
Maggie. "But I'm not going to stay a moment, for it is very late. See,
I have brought you this back."
Polly looked, and for the first time observed that her own sealskin
jacket hung on Maggie's arm.
"What do you mean?" she said. "My sealskin jacket! Oh, my beauty! But
it isn't mine, it's yours now. Why do you worry me--showing it to me
again?"
"I don't want to worry you, Miss Singleton. I mean what I say. I have
brought your jacket back."
"But it is yours--you bought it."
"I gave a nominal price for it, but that doesn't make it mine. Anyhow,
I have no use for it. Please take it back again."
Poor Polly blushed very red all over her face.
"I wish I could," she said. "If there has been anything I regretted in
the auction, besides getting all you girls into a mess, it has been my
sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never
made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the
night he brought it home. He said, `Look here, Poll, I paid a whole
sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty
guineas, I'm told it's cheap at the price. Put it on, and let me see
how you look in it,' he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round,
and chucked me under the chin, and said I was `a bouncer.' Poor old
dad! He was as proud as Punch of me in that jacket I never saw anything
like it."
"Well, he can be as proud as Punch of you again. Here is the jacket for
your very own once more. Good-night."
She walked to the door, but Miss Singleton ran after her.
"I can't take it back," she said. "I'm not as mean as all that comes
to. It's yours now; you got it as fair as possible."
"Listen, Miss Singleton," said Maggie. "If I keep that jacket I shall
never wear it. I detest sealskin jackets. It won't be the least scrap
of use to me."
"You detest sealskin jackets? How can you? Oh, the lovely things they
are. Let me stroke the beauty down."
"Stroke your beauty, and pet it as much as you like, only let me say
`Good-night,' now."
"But, please, Miss Oliphant, please, I'd do anything in the world to get
the jacket back, of course. But I've ten guineas of yours, and
honestly, I can't pay them back."
"Allow me to lend them to you until next term. You can return me the
money then, can you not?" Polly's face became on the instant a show of
shining eyes, gleaming white teeth, and glowing cheeks.
"Of course I could pay you back, you--_darling_," she said with
enthusiasm. "Oh, what a relief this is to me; I'd have done anything in
all the world to have my jacket back again."
"It's a bargain, then. Good-night, Miss Singleton."
Maggie tossed the jacket on Polly's bed, touched her hand lightly with
one of her own, and left the room. She went quickly back to her own
pretty sitting-room, locked her door, threw herself on her knees by her
bureau, and sobbed long and passionately.
During the few days which now remained before the end of the term no one
quite knew what was wrong with Miss Oliphant. She worked hard in
preparation for her lectures, and when seen in public was always very
merry. But there was a certain hardness about her mirth which her best
friends detected, and which caused Nancy Banister a good deal of puzzled
pain.
Priscilla was treated very kindly by Maggie; she still helped her
willingly with her Greek, and even invited her into her room once or
twice. But all the little half-beginnings of confidence which, now and
then, used to burst from Maggie's lips, the allusions to old times, the
sentences which revealed deep thoughts and high aspirations, all these,
which made the essence of true friendship, vanished out of her
conversation.
Priscilla said to herself over and over that there was really no
difference--that Miss Oliphant was still as kind to her, as valued a
friend as ever--but in her heart she knew that this was not the case.
Maggie startled all her friends by making one request. Might they
postpone the acting of _The Princess_ until the middle of the following
term?
"I cannot do it justice now," she said. "I cannot throw my heart and
soul into my part. If you act the play now you must allow me to
withdraw."
The other girls, Constance Field in particular, were astonished. They
even felt resentful. All arrangements had been made for this especial
play. Maggie was to be the Princess herself; no one could possibly take
her place. It was most unreasonable of her to withdraw now.
But it was one of the facts well-known at St Benet's that, fascinating
as Miss Oliphant was, she was also unreasonable. On certain occasions
she could even be disobliging. In short, when Maggie "took the bit
between her teeth," to employ an old metaphor, she could neither be led
nor driven. After a great deal of heated discussion and indignant
words, she had her will. The play was deferred till the following term,
and one or two slight comedies, which had been acted before, were
revived in a hurry to take its place.