A Sweet Girl Graduate

Priscilla knew many of Poe’s strange songs, and she found herself now murmuring some words which used to fascinate her long ago: —

“And the angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me;
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee!

“But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we, —
Of many far wiser than we;
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”

Some ashes fell from the expiring fire; Priscilla jumped up in bed with a start. Her heart was beating fast. She thought of Maggie’s exquisite face. She remembered it as she had seen it that night when they were sitting by the fire, as she had seen it last, when it turned so white, and the eyes blazed at her in anger.

Priscilla stretched out her hand for a box of matches. She would light her candle, and, as there was no chance of her going to sleep, sit up, put her dressing-jacket on, and begin to write a long letter home to Aunt Raby and to her little sisters. Such methodical work would calm nerves not often so highly strung.

She rose, and fetching her neat little leather writing-case from where she had placed it on the top of her bureau, prepared to open it.

The little case was locked. Priscilla went over to her curtained wardrobe, pushed it aside, and felt in the pocket of the dress she had worn that day for her purse. It was not there. Within that purse the little key was safely hiding, but the purse itself was nowhere to be found.

Priscilla looked all round the room. In vain; the neat brown-leather purse, which held the key, some very precious memoranda of different sorts, and her small store of worldly wealth, was nowhere to be found.

She stood still for a moment in perplexity. All her nervous fears had now completely vanished; a real calamity and a grave one stared her in the face. Suppose her purse were gone? Suppose it had been stolen? The very small supply of money which that purse contained was most precious to Priscilla. It seemed to her that nothing could well be more terrible than for her now to have to apply to Aunt Raby for fresh funds. Aunt Raby had stinted herself dreadfully to get Priscilla’s modest little outfit together, and now – oh, she would rather starve than appeal to her again.

Suddenly as she stood in the middle of her room a memory came back to her. It was the recollection of a very trivial incident. She remembered something dropping on the floor as she sat by Maggie’s side at dinner. She had felt too nervous and miserable at the time to take any notice of the slight sound made by the fall, but now it returned vividly to her memory. She was sure that her purse must have dropped out of her pocket at that moment, and was convinced that it was now lying quietly under the table where she had sat.

Priscilla felt far too excited to wait until the morning to make herself sure on this point. No; happen what might, she would set her fears at rest now, and find her way somehow through the strange and sleeping house until she discovered her lost treasure.

Partly re-dressing, she took her candle in her hand, and softly unhasped her door. It was a well-oiled lock, and made no click or noise of any kind as she turned the handle. When she opened the door wide it did not creak. The long corridor outside had a stone floor, and was richly carpeted. No fear of treacherous, creaking boards here. Priscilla prepared to walk briskly down the length of the corridor, when she was arrested by seeing a light streaming out of Maggie Oliphant’s room.

The electric lights were all extinguished, and this light alone shone like a ray in the darkness.

Prissie stood still, with a gasp of dismay. She did not want Maggie to hear her now. She would have been distressed at Maggie being acquainted with her carelessness. She felt sure that a girl like Maggie Oliphant could never understand what a little purse, which only contained a sovereign or two, would mean to her.

On tiptoe, and shading the candle with her hand, she stole past the partly open door. A rich tapestry curtain hung at the other side, and Maggie doubtless thought the door was shut.

Priscilla had almost gone past the open door, when her steps were again arrested by the sound of voices. Someone said “Priscilla Peel,” and then someone else laughed.

Priscilla stood perfectly still. Of course she had no right to listen, but she did; she waited breathless, in an agony of expectation, for the next words.

“I would not be jealous if I were you, Nancy,” said Maggie’s lazy, sweet voice. “The poor girl is as queer as her name, but it gives me a kind of aesthetic pleasure to be good to people. You have no cause to be jealous, sweet pet.”

Priscilla raised one trembling hand, and noiselessly put out her candle. Her feet seemed rooted to the spot.

Nancy murmured something, which Priscilla could not hear. Then there was the sound of one girl kissing another, and Maggie’s light laugh was heard again.

“The unfortunate girl has fallen in love with you, there’s no doubt about that, Maggie,” said Nancy.

“Well, my dear, she’ll get over that little fever presently. When I’m kind to them, they all have it. I believe I am gracious to them just because I like to see that grateful, affectionate expression in their eyes. The fact is, Nance, I have a perfectly crazy desire to excite love.”

“But do you give love, Maggie? Do you ever give it back in return?”

“Sometimes. I don’t know, I believe I am rather fond of you, for instance.”

“Maggie, was Geoffrey Hammond at St. Hilda’s this afternoon?”

“I can’t possibly say,” replied Maggie, in a cold voice. Then she added excitedly, “I don’t believe the door is shut! You are so careless, Nannie, so indifferent to the fact that there may be eavesdroppers about.”

Priscilla crept back to her room. She had forgotten all about her purse; every other feeling was completely swallowed up in a burning, choking sense of anger.

Chapter Five

Why Priscilla Peel went to St. Benet’s

Priscilla had received a shock, and hers was not the sort of nature to take such a blow easily. She was a reserved girl, but her feelings were deep, her affections very strong. Priscilla had a rather commonplace past, but it was the sort of past to foster and deepen the peculiarities of her character. Her father had died when she was twelve, her mother when she was fourteen. They were north-country folk, and they possessed all the best characteristics of their class. They were rigidly upright people, they never went in debt; they considered luxuries bad for the soul, and the smaller refinements of life altogether unnecessary.

Mr Peel managed to save a little money out of his earnings. He took year by year these savings to the nearest County Bank, and invested them to the best of his ability. The bank broke, and in one fell stroke he lost all the savings of a life. This affected his health, and he never held up his head or recovered his vigour of mind and body again.

He died, and two years afterwards his wife followed him. Priscilla was then fourteen, and there were three little sisters several years younger. They were merry little children, strong, healthy, untouched by care. Priscilla, on the contrary, was grave, and looked much older than her years.

On the night their mother was buried, Aunt Rachel Peel, their father’s sister, came from her home far away on the borders of Devonshire, and told the four desolate children that she was going to take them away to live on her little farm with her.

Aunt Raby spoke in a very frank manner. She concealed nothing.

“It’s only fair to tell you, Prissie,” she said, addressing the tall, gawky girl, who stood with her hands folded in front of her – “it’s only fair to tell you that hitherto I’ve just made two ends meet for one mouth alone, and how I’m to fill four extra ones the Lord knows, but I don’t. Still, I’m going to try, for it shall never be said that Andrew Peel’s children wanted bread while his sister, Rachel Peel, lived.”

“We have none of us big appetites,” said Priscilla, after a long, solemn pause; “we can do with very little food – very little. The only one who ever is really hungry is Hattie.”

Aunt Raby looked up at the pale face, for Prissie was taller than her aunt even then, and said in a shocked voice —

“Good gracious, child! do you think I’d stint one of you? You ought all to be hearty, and I hope you will be. No, no, it isn’t that, Prissie, but there’ll be no luxuries, so don’t you expect them.”

“I don’t want them,” answered Priscilla.

The children all went to Devonshire, and Aunt Raby toiled, as perhaps no woman had ever toiled before, to put bread into their mouths. Katie had a fever, which made her pale and thin, and took away that look of robustness which had characterised the little Yorkshire maiden. Nobody thought about the children’s education, and they might have grown up without any were it not for Priscilla, who taught them what she knew herself. Nobody thought Priscilla clever; she had no brilliance about her in any way, but she had a great gift for acquiring knowledge. Wherever she went she picked up a fresh fact, or a fresh fancy, or a new idea, and these she turned over and over in her active, strong, young brain, until she assimilated them, and made them part of herself.

Amongst the few things that had been saved from her early home there was a box of her father’s old books, and as these comprised several of the early poets and essayists, she might have gone farther and fared worse.

One day the old clergyman who lived at a small vicarage near called to see Miss Peel. He discovered Priscilla deep over Carlyle’s “History of the French Revolution.” The young girl had become absorbed in the fascination of the wild and terrible tale. Some of the horror of it had got into her eyes as she raised them to return Mr Hayes’ courteous greeting. His attention was arrested by the look she gave him. He questioned her about her reading, and presently offered to help her. From this hour Priscilla made rapid progress. She was not taught in the ordinary fashion, but she was being really educated. Her life was full now; she knew nothing about the world, nothing about society. She had no ambitions, and she did not trouble herself to look very far ahead. The old classics which she studied from morning till night abundantly satisfied her really strong intellectual nature.

Mr Hayes allowed her to talk with him, even to argue points with him. He always liked her to draw her own conclusions; he encouraged her really original ideas; he was proud of his pupil, and he grew fond of her. It was not Priscilla’s way to say a word about it, but she soon loved the old clergyman as if he were her father.

Some time between her sixteenth and seventeenth birthday that awakening came which altered the whole course of her life. It was a summer’s day. Priscilla was seated in the old wainscotted parlour of the cottage, devouring a book lent to her by Mr Hayes on the origin of the Greek Drama, and occasionally bending to kiss little Katie, who sat curled up in her arms, when the two elder children rushed in with the information that Aunt Raby had suddenly lain flat down in the hayfield, and they thought she was asleep.