of you to bring this, certainly; but Mr Hammond would have done better – yes, undoubtedly better – had he sent his letter by post. There would have been no mystery about it then, and I should have received it at least two hours ago. Thank you, Rosalind, all the same – good-night.” Rosalind Merton stepped demurely out of the room. In the corridor, however, a change came over her small childish face. Her blue eyes became full of angry flame, and she clenched her baby hand and shook it in the direction of the closed door.
“Oh, Maggie Oliphant, what a deceiver you are!” she murmured. “You think that I’m a baby, and notice nothing, but I’m on the alert now, and I’ll watch – and watch. I don’t love you any longer, Maggie Oliphant. Who loves being snubbed? Oh, of course, you pretend you don’t care about that letter! But I know you do care; and I’ll get hold of all your secrets before many weeks are over, see if I don’t!”
Chapter Eight
The Kindest and Most Comforting Way
Maggie was once more alone. She stood quite still for nearly half a minute in the centre of her room. Her hands were clasped tightly together. The expression of her face and her attitude showed such intense feeling as to be almost theatrical. This was no acting, however; it was Maggie’s nature to throw herself into attitudes before spectators or alone. She required some vent for all her passionate excitement, and what her girl-friends called Miss Oliphant’s poses may have afforded her a certain measure of relief.
After standing still for these few seconds, she ran to the door and drew the bolt; then, sinking down once more in her easy-chair, she took up the letter which Rosalind Merton had brought her, and began to read the contents. Four sides of a sheet of paper were covered with small, close writing, the neat somewhat cramped hand which at that time characterised the men of St. Hilda’s College.
Maggie’s eyes seemed to fly over the writing; they absorbed the sense, they took the full meaning out of each word. At last all was known to her, burnt in, indeed, upon her brain.
She crushed the letter suddenly in one of her hands, then raised it to her lips and kissed it; then fiercely, as though she hated it, tossed it into the fire. After this she sat quiet, her hands folded meekly, her head slightly bent. The colour gradually left her cheeks. She looked dead tired and languid. After a time she arose, and, walking very slowly across her room, sat down by her bureau, and drew a sheet of paper before her. As she did so her eyes fell for a moment on the Greek play which had fascinated her an hour ago. She found herself again murmuring some lines from Prometheus Vinctus: —
“O divine ether, and swift-winged winds – ”
She interrupted herself with a petulant movement. “Folly!” she murmured, pushing the book aside. “Even glorious, great thoughts like those don’t satisfy me. Whoever supposed they would? What was I given a heart for? Why does it beat so fiercely, and long, and love? and why is it wrong – wrong of me to love? Oh, Annabel Lee! oh, darling! if only your wretched Maggie Oliphant had never known you!”
Maggie dashed some heavy tears from her eyes, then, taking up her pen, she began to write.
“Heath Hall, —
“St. Benet’s. —
“Dear Mr Hammond —
“I should prefer that you did not in future give letters for me to any of my friends here. I do not wish to receive them through the medium of any of my fellow-students. Please understand this. When you have anything to say to me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand.
“I shall try to be at the Marshalls’ on Sunday afternoon, but I have nothing to say in reply to your letter. My views are unalterable.
“Yours sincerely, —
“Margaret Oliphant.”
Maggie did not read the letter after she had written it. She put it into an envelope and directed it. Hers was a large and bold hand, and the address was swiftly written —
“Geoffrey Hammond, Esq,
“St. Hilda’s,
“Kingsdene.”
She stamped her letter and, late as it was, took it down herself, and deposited it in the post-bag.
The next morning, when the students strolled in to breakfast, many pairs of eyes were raised with a new curiosity to watch Priscilla Peel. Even Maggie, as she drank her coffee, and munched a piece of dry toast, for she was a very poor eater, could not help flashing a keen and interested glance at the young girl as she came into the room.
Prissie was the reverse of fashionable in her attire; her neat brown cashmere dress had been made by Aunt Raby. The hemming, the stitching, the gathering, the frilling, which went to make up this useful garment were neat, were even exquisite; but then, Aunt Raby was not gifted with a stylish cut. Prissie’s hair was smoothly parted, but the thick plait on the back of the neck was by no means artistically coiled. The girl’s plain pale face was not set off by the severity of her toilet; there was no touch of spring or brightness anywhere, no look or note which should belong to one so young, unless it was the extreme thinness of her figure.
The curious eyes of the students were raised when she appeared, and one or two laughed and turned their heads away. They had heard of her exploit of the night before. Miss Day and Miss Marsh had repeated this good story. It had impressed them at the time, but they did not tell it to others in an impressive way, and the girls, who had not seen Prissie, but had only heard the tale, spoke of her to one another as an “insufferable little prig.”
“Isn’t it too absurd,” said Rosalind Merton, sidling up to Maggie, and casting some disdainful glances at poor Priscilla, “the conceit of some people! Of all forms of conceit, preserve me from the priggish style.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Maggie, raising her eyes and speaking in her lazy voice. “Are there any prigs about? I don’t see them. Oh, Miss Peel,” – she jumped up hastily – “won’t you sit here by me? I have been reserving this place for you, for I have been so anxious to know if you would do me a kindness. Please sit down, and I’ll tell you what it is. You needn’t wait, Rosalind. What I have got to say is only for Miss Peel’s ears.”
Rosalind retired in dudgeon to the other end of the room, and, if the laughing and muttering continued, they now only reached Maggie and Priscilla in the form of very distant murmurs.
“How pale you look,” said Maggie, turning to the girl, “and how cold you are! Yes, I am quite sure you are bitterly cold. Now you shall have a good breakfast. Let me help you. Please, do. I’ll go to the side-table, and bring you something so tempting; wait and see.”
“You mustn’t trouble, really,” began Prissie Miss Oliphant flashed a brilliant smile at her; Prissie found her words arrested, and, in spite of herself, her coldness began to thaw. Maggie ran over to the side-table, and Priscilla kept repeating under her breath —
“She’s not true – she’s beautiful, but she’s false; she has the kindest, sweetest, most comforting way in the world, but she only does it for the sake of an aesthetic pleasure. I ought not to let her. I ought not to speak to her. I ought to go away, and have nothing to do with her proffers of goodwill, and yet somehow or other I can’t resist her.”
Maggie came back with some delicately carved chicken and ham, and a hot cup of delicious coffee.
“Is not this nice?” she said; “now eat it all up, and speak to me afterwards. Oh, how dreadfully cold you do look!”
“I feel cold – in spirit as well as physically,” retorted Priscilla.
“Well, let breakfast warm you – and – and – a small dose of the tonic of sympathy, if I may dare to offer it.”
Priscilla turned her eyes full upon Miss Oliphant.
“Do you mean it?” she said, in a choked kind of voice. “Is that quite true what you said just now?”
“True?