The School Queens

Maggie’s queer, narrow, eyes flashed fire. Suddenly she stood up. “You have something to say. Say it, and be quick, for I must go.”

“I don’t think you must go just yet, Maggie; for what I have to say cannot be said in a minute. You will have to give up your leisure hours to-day.”

“I cannot. Our entertainment is on Saturday.”

“The entertainment must wait,” said Aneta. “It is of no consequence compared to what I have to say to you.”

“Oh, have it out!” said Maggie. “You were always spying and prying on me. You always hated me. I don’t know what I have done to you. I’d have left you alone if you had left me alone; but you have interfered with me and made my life miserable. God knows, I am not too happy” – Maggie struggled with her emotion – “but you have made things twice as bad.”

“Do you really, really think that, Maggie? Please don’t say any more, then, until you hear me out to the end. I will tell you as quickly as possible; I will put you out of suspense. I could have made things very different for you, but at least I will put you out of suspense.”

“Well, go on; I am willing to listen. I hope you will be brief.”

“It is this, Maggie. I will say nothing about your past; I simply tell you what, through no fault of mine, I found out to-day. You gave the girls of this school to understand that your mother’s husband – your stepfather – was a gentleman of old family. The person called Tildy told me about Mr. Martin. He may be a gentleman by nature, but he is not one by profession.”

Maggie clutched one of her hands so tightly that the nails almost pierced her flesh.

“I won’t hurt you, Maggie, by saying much on that subject. Your own father was a gentleman, and you cannot help your mother having married beneath her.”

Maggie gasped. Such words as these from the proud Aneta!

“But there is worse to follow,” continued Aneta. “I happened to go to Pearce’s to-day.”

Maggie, who had half-risen, sank back again in her seat.

“And Pearce wants to see you in order to return a brooch which you sold him. He says that he cannot afford the right price for the brooch. He wants you to give him back the money which he lent you on it, and he wants you to have the brooch again in your possession. You, of course, know, Maggie, that in selling one of your belongings and in going out without leave you broke one of the fundamental rules of Aylmer House. You know that, therefore–Why, what is the matter?”

Maggie’s queer face was working convulsively. After a time slow, big tears gathered in her eyes. Her complexion changed from its usual dull ugliness to a vivid red; it then went white, so ghastly white that the girl might have been going to faint. All this took place in less than a minute. At the end of that time Maggie was her old disdainful, angry self once more.

“You must be very glad,” she said. “You have me in your power at last. My stepfather is a grocer. He keeps a shop at Shepherd’s Bush. He is one of the most horribly vulgar men that ever lived. Had I been at home my mother would not have consented to marry him. But my mother, although pretty and refined-looking, and in herself a lady, has little force of character, and she was quite alone and very poor indeed. You, who don’t know the meaning of the word ‘poor,’ cannot conceive what it meant to her. Little Merry guessed – dear, dear little Merry; but as to you, you think when you subscribe to this charity and the other, you think when you adopt an East End child and write letters to her, and give of your superabundance to benefit her, that you understand the poor. I tell you you don’t! Your wealth is a curse to you, not a blessing. You no more understand what people like mother and like myself have lived through than you understand what the inhabitants of Mars do – the petty shifts, the smallnesses, the queer efforts to make two ends meet! You in your lovely home, and surrounded by lovely things, and your aunt so proud of you – how can you understand what lodgings in the hot weather in Shepherd’s Bush are like? Mother understood – never any fresh air, never any tempting food; Tildy, that poor little faithful girl as servant – slavey was her right name; Tildy at every one’s beck and call, always with a smut on her cheek, and her hair so untidy, and her little person so disreputable; and mother alone, wondering how she could make two ends meet. Talk of your knowing what the poor people in my class go through!”

“I don’t pretend that I do know, Maggie,” said Aneta, who was impressed by the passion and strength of Maggie’s words. “I don’t pretend it for a moment. The poverty of such lives is to me a sealed book. But – forgive me – if you are so poor, how could you come here?”

“I don’t mind your knowing everything now,” said Maggie. “I am disgraced, and nothing will ever get me out of my trouble. I am up to my neck, and I may as well drown at once; but Mrs. Ward – she understood what a poor girl whose father was a gentleman could feel, and she – oh, she was good! – she took me for so little that mother could afford it. She made no difference between you and me, Aneta, who are so rich, and your cousins the Cardews, who are so rich too. She said, ‘Maggie Howland, your father was a gentleman and a man of honor, a man of whom his country was proud; and I will educate you, and give you your chance.’ And, oh, I was happy here! And I – and I should be happy now but for you and your prying ways.”

“You are unkind to me, Maggie. The knowledge that your stepfather was a grocer was brought to me in a most unexpected way. I was not to blame for the little person who called herself Tildy coming here to-day. Tildy felt no shame in the fact that your mother had married a grocer. She was far more lady-like about it than you are, Maggie. No one could have blamed you because your mother chose to marry beneath her. But you were to blame, Maggie, when you gave us to understand that her husband was in quite a different position from what he is.”

“And you think,” said Maggie, stamping her foot, “that the girls of this house – Kathleen O’Donnell, Sylvia St. John, Henrietta and Mary Gibson, the Cardews, the Tristrams, you yourself – would put up with me for a single moment if it was known what my mother has done?”

“I think you underrate us all,” said Aneta. Then she came close to Maggie and took one of her hands. “I want to tell you something,” she added.

Maggie had never before allowed her hand to remain for a second in Aneta’s grasp. But there was something at this moment about the young girl, a look in her eyes, which absolutely puzzled Maggie and caused her to remain mute. She had struggled for a minute, but now her hand lay still in Aneta’s clasp.

“I want to help you,” said Aneta.

“To – help me! How? I thought you hated me.”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Aneta, “I did not love you until”–

“Until?” said Maggie, her eyes shining and her little face becoming transformed in a minute.

“Until I knew what you must have suffered.”

“You do not mean to say that you love me now?”

“I believe,” said Aneta, looking fixedly at Maggie, “that I could love you.”

“Oh!” said Maggie. She snatched her hand away, and, walking to the window, looked out. The fog was thicker than ever, and she could see nothing. But that did not matter. She wanted to keep her back turned to Aneta. Presently her shoulders began to heave, and, taking her handkerchief from her pocket, she pressed it to her eyes. Then she turned round. “Go on,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Aneta.

“Say what you want to say. I am the stepdaughter of a grocer, and I have broken one of the strictest rules in the school. When will you tell Mrs. Ward? I had better leave at once.”

“You needn’t leave at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Aneta, “that if you will tell Mrs. Ward everything – all about your stepfather, and all about your selling that jewel and going out without leave – I am positively sure that dear Mrs. Ward will not expel you from the school. I am also sure, Maggie, that there will not be one girl at Aylmer House who will ever reproach you. As to your stepfather being what he is, no girl in her senses would blame you for that. You are the daughter of Professor Howland, one of the greatest explorers of his time – a man who has had a book written about him, and has largely contributed to the world’s knowledge. Don’t forget that, please; none of us are likely to forget it. As to the other thing – well, there is always the road of confession, and I am quite certain that if you will see Mrs. Ward she will be kind to you and forgive you; for her heart is very big and her sympathies very wide; and then, afterwards, I myself will, for your sake, try to understand your position, and I myself will be your true friend.”

“Oh Aneta!” said Maggie.

She ran up to Aneta; she took her hand; she raised it to her lips and kissed it.

“Give me till to-morrow,” she said. “Promise that you won’t say anything till to-morrow.”

Aneta promised. Maggie went to her room.

CHAPTER XXII.

ANETA’S PLAN

The girls downstairs wondered why Maggie Howland did not appear. After an hour of waiting Kathleen O’Donnell took the lead. The accounts were left alone, but the tableaux vivants were diligently rehearsed, the Tristrams and Jane Burns being the three critics; Rosamond Dacre, Kathleen O’Donnell, and Matty and Clara Roache the performers. But, somehow, there was no life in the acting, for the moving spirit was not there; the bright, quick eye was missed, the eager words were lacking, with the pointed and telling criticism. Then there was the scene where Maggie herself was to take a part. It was from The Talisman, and a night-scene, which she was able to render with great precision and even beauty, and the dun light would be in her favor. It was to be the crowning one, and the last of the tableaux. It was expected to bring down the house. But Maggie was not there, and the girls could not help feeling a little disconsolate and a little surprised.

At supper that evening there were eager inquiries with regard to Maggie Howland. All the girls came up to ask Aneta where the other queen was.

“She is not quite well, and has gone to bed,” said Aneta. “She does not wish to be disturbed until the morning.”

Aneta’s words had a curious effect upon every one who heard her speak. It was as though she had, for the first time in her life, absolutely taken Maggie’s part. Her eyes, when she spoke of Maggie, were full of affection. The girls were puzzled; but Merry, as they turned away, suddenly ran back to Aneta, swept her arm round the girl’s neck, and said, “Oh Neta, I do love you!”

Aneta pressed Merry’s hand. For the first time these two understood each other.

Meanwhile poor Maggie was living through one of the most dreadful periods of her life. Her mother’s intimation that she and her stepfather were coming without fail to Aylmer House on Saturday —the day, the glorious day when Maggie and her friends were to entertain Mrs. Ward and the rest of the school – drove the girl nearly wild. Aneta had discovered her secret, and Aneta had urged, as the one way out, the painful but salutary road of confession. Maggie writhed at the thought, but she writhed far more terribly at the news which her mother’s letter contained.

The girl said to herself, “I cannot stand it! I will run away! He has destroyed my last chance. I will run away and hide. I will go to-night. There is no use in waiting. Aneta is kind; she is far kinder than I could ever have given her credit for. She would, I believe, help me; and dear Mrs. Ward would help me – I am sure of that. And I don’t really mind now that it comes to the point of losing my position in the school as queen; but for all the school – for the Tristrams, for Merry Cardew, for Kathleen – to see that man is beyond my power of endurance. He will call here, and he will bring poor mother, but as I won’t be here I won’t feel anything. I will go to-night. I’ll slip downstairs and let myself out. I have some money – thank goodness for that! – and I have my father’s treasures. I can take them out of the tin box and wear them on my person, and I can sell them one by one. Yes, I will run away. There’s no help for it.”

Maggie, at Aneta’s suggestion, had got into bed, but even to think of sleep was beyond her power. She got up again presently, dressed, and sat by the foggy window. The fog was worse; it was so thick now that you could not see your way even as far as the trees in the middle of the square. There were fog-signals sounding from time to time, and cabs going very slowly, and boys carrying torches to light belated and lost passengers.

Maggie was safe enough in her room, which had, like all the other bedrooms at Aylmer House, a small fire burning in the grate. By-and-by some one tapped at the door. Maggie said, “Don’t come in”; but her words were unheeded. The door was opened an inch or two, and Merry Cardew entered.