A Sweet Girl Graduate

“Ay, but you must not be taken in by appearances. Some of them only look nice.”

“Do you mean?” began Prissie in her abrupt, anxious voice.

Hammond took alarm. He remembered her peculiar outspokenness.

“I don’t mean anything,” he said, hastily. “By the way, are you fond of pictures?”

“I have scarcely ever seen any.”

“That does not matter. I know by your face that you can appreciate some pictures.”

“But, really, I know nothing of art.”

“Never mind. If the painter who paints knows you– ”

“The painter knows me? I have never seen an artist in my life.”

“Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of characters like yours. There are some good pictures in this house – shall I show you one or two?”

Prissie sprang to her feet.

“You are most kind,” she said, effusively. “I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud voice, nor so impressively. Our neighbours will think I have bestowed half a kingdom upon you.”

Prissie blushed, and looked down.

“Don’t be shocked with me,” said Hammond; “I can read your grateful heart. Come this way.” They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or three remaining satellites. Prissie looked at her with longing, and tripped awkwardly against her chair. Hammond walked past Maggie as if she did not exist to him. Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla, and followed the back of Hammond’s head and shoulders with a supercilious, amused smile.

Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door. “Where are we going?” asked Priscilla. “Are not the pictures here?”

“Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery – here to the left, and down these steps. Now, I’m going to introduce to you a new world.”

He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather small room, lighted from the roof. It contained in all about six or eight pictures, each the work of a master.

Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a wall by itself at the further end. It represented a summer scene of deep repose. There was water in the foreground; in the back, tall forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June. Overhead was a sunset sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below. The master who painted the picture was Corot.

Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.

“There is summer,” he said; “peace, absolute repose. You have not to go to it; it comes to you.”

He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a different part of the gallery.

Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out of her face. She leant back in her chair. Her attitude partook of the quality of the picture, and became restful. Hammond did not disturb her for several moments.

“I am going to show you something different now,” he said, coming up to her almost with reluctance. “There is one sort of rest; I will now show you a higher. Here, stand so. The light falls well from this angle. Now, what do you see?”

“I don’t understand it,” said Prissie, after a long, deep gaze.

“Never mind, you see something. Tell me what you see.”

Priscilla looked again at the picture.

“I see a woman,” she said at last, in a slow, pained kind of voice. “I can’t see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in that chair, that she is old, and dreadfully tired. Oh, yes, I know well that she is tired – see her hand stretched out there – her hand and her arm – how thin they are – how worn – and – ”

“Hard worked,” interrupted Hammond. “Anyone can see by the attitude of that hand, by the starting veins and the wrinkles, that the woman has gone through a life of labour. Well, she does not occupy the whole of the picture. You see before you a tired-out worker. Don’t be so unhappy about her. Look up a little higher in the picture. Observe for yourself that her toils are ended.”

“Who is that other figure?” said Priscilla. “A woman too, but young and strong. How glad she looks, and how kind. She is carrying a little child in her arms. Who is she? What does she mean?”

“That woman, so grand and strong, represents Death, but not under the old metaphor. She comes with renewed life – the child is the type of that – she comes as a deliverer. See, she is touching that poor worn-out creature, who is so tired that she can scarcely hold her head up again. Death, with a new aspect, and a new grand strength in her face, is saying to this woman, ‘Come with me now to your rest. It is all over,’ Death says: ‘all the trouble and perplexity and strife. Come away with me and rest.’ The name of that picture is ‘The Deliverer.’ It is the work of a painter who can preach a sermon, write a book, deliver an oration, and sing a song, all through the medium of his brush. I won’t trouble you with his name just now. You will hear plenty of him and his wonderful, great pictures by-and-by, if you love art as I do.”

“Thank you,” said Prissie, simply. Some tears stole down her cheeks. She did not know she was crying; she did not attempt to wipe them away.

Chapter Twenty One

“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.