The School Queens

“Oh, well, well, mother, perhaps that can be managed. But now we needn’t talk any more about my future until after Mr. Martin has had tea with you to-day. If you have any news for me when I return from Richmond you can let me know.”

“You are a very independent girl to go to Richmond by yourself.”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Maggie in a cheerful tone.

“Have you anything else to say to me?”

“Yes. You know all that beautiful jewellery that my dear father brought back with him from those different countries where he spent his life.”

Mrs. Howland looked mysterious and frightened.

“It was meant for me eventually, was it not?” said Maggie.

“Oh, well, I suppose so; only, somehow, I have a life-interest in it.”

“You won’t want for jewellery when you are Mr. Martin’s wife.”

“Indeed no; why, he has given me a diamond ornament for my hair already. He means to take me out a great deal, he says.”

“Out! – oh mother – in his set!”

“Well, dear child, I shall get accustomed to that.”

“Don’t you think you might give me father’s jewellery?” said Maggie.

“Is it worth a great deal?” said Mrs. Howland. “I never could bear to look at it – that is, since he died.”

“You haven’t given it to Mr. Martin, have you, mother?”

“No, nor said a word about it to him either.”

“Well, suppose, now that we have a quiet time, we look at the jewellery?” said Maggie.

“Very well,” said Mrs. Howland. Then she added, “I was half-tempted to sell some of it; but your father was so queer, and the things seemed so very ugly and unlike what is worn, that I never had the heart to part with them. I don’t suppose they’d fetch a great deal.”

“Let’s look at them,” said Maggie.

Mrs. Howland half-rose from her chair, then sank back again.

“No,” she said, “I am afraid of them. Your father told me so many stories about each and all. He courted death to get some of them, and others came into his hands through such extraordinary adventures that I shudder at night when I recall what he said. I want to forget them. Mr. Martin would never admire them at all. I want to forget all my past life absolutely. You’re like your father, and perhaps you admire that sort of thing; but they are not to my taste. Here’s the key of my wardrobe. You will find the tin boxes which hold the jewels. You can take them; only never let out a word to your stepfather. He doesn’t know I posses them – no one does.”

“Thank you, mother,” said Maggie in a low voice. “Will you lie down on the sofa, mums? Oh, here’s a nice new novel for you to read. I bought it coming up in the train yesterday. You read and rest and feel quite contented, and let me go to the bedroom to look at the jewels.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Howland; “you can have them. I consider them of little or no importance; only don’t tell your stepfather.”

“He is not that yet, mums.”

“Well, well,” said Mrs. Howland, “what does a fortnight matter? He’ll be your stepfather in a fortnight. Yes, take the key and go. I shall be glad to rest on the sofa. You’re in a much more reasonable frame of mind to-day.”

“Thank you, dear mother,” said Maggie.

She entered the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her. She held her mother’s bunch of keys in her hand. First of all she unlocked the wardrobe, and then, removing the tin boxes, laid them on the table which stood at the foot of the bed. She took the precaution first, however, to lock the bedroom door. Having done this, she seated herself at the table, and, selecting the proper keys, unlocked the two tin boxes. One of them contained the twelve famous bracelets which Maggie had described to Molly and Isabel Tristram. She would keep her word: she would give a bracelet to each girl. She recognized at once the two which she considered suitable for the girls, and then examined the others with minute care.

Her mother could not admire what was strange in pattern and dimmed by neglect; but Maggie, with her wider knowledge, knew well that she possessed great treasures, which, if possible, she would keep, but which, if necessary, she could sell for sums of money which would enable her to start in life according to her own ideas.

She put the twelve bracelets back into their case, and then, opening the second tin box, took from it many quaint curios, the value of which she had no means of ascertaining. There was a great deal of gold and silver, and queer beaten-work in brass, and there were pendants and long chains and brooches and queer ornaments of all kinds.

“Poor father!” thought the girl. She felt a lump in her throat – a choking sensation, which seemed to make her mother’s present conduct all the more intolerable. How was she to live in the future with the knowledge that her father’s memory was, as she felt, profaned? But at least she had got his treasures.

She relocked the two tin boxes, and, stowing them carefully away in her own trunk, transferred the keys from her mother’s bunch to her own, and brought her mother’s keys back to Mrs. Howland.

“Have you looked at them? Are they worth anything, Maggie?”

“Memories mostly,” said Maggie evasively.

“Oh, then,” said Mrs. Howland, “I am glad you have them; for I hate memories.”

“Mother,” said Maggie, and she went on her knees to her parent, “you have really given them to me?”

“Well, of course, child. Didn’t I say so? I don’t want them. I haven’t looked at the things for years.”

“I wonder, mums, if you would write something on a piece of paper for me.”

“Oh dear! oh dear!” said Mrs. Howland. “Mr. Martin doesn’t approve of what he calls documents.”

“Darling mother, you’re not Mr. Martin’s wife yet. I want you to put on paper that you have given me father’s curios. He always meant them for me, didn’t he?”

“He did! he did!” said Mrs. Howland. “One of the very last things he said – in his letter, I mean, for you know he died in Africa – was: ‘The treasures I am sending home will be appreciated by my little girl.’”

“Oh mother! yes, and they are. Please, mother, write something on this bit of paper.”

“My head is so weak. I haven’t an idea what to say.”

“I’ll dictate it to you, if I may.”

“Very well, child; I suppose I can’t prevent you.”

Maggie brought paper, blotting-pad, and pen, and Mrs. Howland presently wrote: “I have given, on the eve of my marriage to Mr. Martin, her father’s treasures to my daughter, Margaret Howland.”

“Thank you, mother,” said Maggie.

The date was affixed. Mrs. Howland added the name she was so soon to resign, and Maggie almost skipped into the bedroom.

“It’s all right now,” she said to herself.

She unlocked her trunk, also unlocking one of the tin boxes. In the box which contained the twelve bracelets she put the piece of paper in her mother’s handwriting. She then relocked the box, relocked the trunk, and came back to her mother, restored to perfect good-humor.

Maggie was in her element when she was planning things. Yesterday was a day of despair, but to-day was a day of hope. She sat down by her mother’s desk and wrote a long letter to Molly Tristram, in which she told Molly that her mother was about to be married again to a very rich man. She mentioned the coming marriage in a few brief words, and then went on to speak of herself, and of how delightful it would be to welcome Molly and Isabel when they arrived at Aylmer House. Not by the faintest suggestion did she give her friend to understand the step down in the social scale which Mrs. Howland’s marriage with Mr. Martin meant.