A Sweet Girl Graduate

Priscilla’s best in her early life always seemed but a poor affair, and she certainly neither looked nor was at her best at first here. After a few days, however, she fitted into her new grooves, took up the line of study which she intended to pursue, and was quickly absorbed in all the fascinations which it offered to a nature like hers.

Her purse was restored to her on the morning after her arrival, and neither Maggie Oliphant nor Nancy Banister ever guessed that she had overheard some words of theirs on the night of her arrival, and that these had put bitterness into her heart and nearly destroyed her faith in her fellow-students. Both Maggie and Nance made several overtures of kindness to Prissie, but the cold manner which was more or less habitual to her never thawed, and, after a time, they left her alone. There is no saying what might have happened to Prissie had she never overheard this conversation. As it was, however, after the first shock it gave her courage.

She said to herself —

“I should think very little of myself if I did not despise a girl like Miss Oliphant. Is it likely I should care to imitate one whom I despise? There was a brief, dreadful hour when I absolutely pined to have pretty things in my room as she has in hers; now I can do without them. My room shall remain bare and unadorned. In this state it will at least look unique.”

It did. The other students who lived in the same corridor came to visit Priscilla in the free and easy manner which characterised them, and made remarks the reverse of flattering. When was she going to put her pictures up? Miss Day would be delighted to help her whenever she chose to do it. When did she intend to go down to Kingsdene to order her easy-chairs and little Japanese tables, and rugs, and the other small but necessary articles which would be required to make her room habitable?

For several days Priscilla turned these inquiries aside. She blushed, stammered, looked awkward, and spoke of something else. At last, however, she summoned up courage, and, once for all, delivered herself from her tormentors. She did that remarkably brave thing which sometimes very nervous people can brace themselves to do.

It was evening, and Miss Day, Miss Marsh, and Nancy Banister had all come in for a few minutes to see Priscilla on their way to their own rooms.

“Do come and cocoa with me to-night, Miss Peel,” said Miss Day. “You’re so dreadfully unsociable, not a bit like an ordinary St. Benet’s girl. If you go on in this fashion you’ll be moped to death before your first term is over.”

“I am accustomed to a very quiet life,” responded Priscilla, “and I want to work; I have come here to work.”

“Dear, dear! anyone would suppose you were going in for a tripos. If this were your last term I could understand it – but your first!”

It was Miss Marsh who said these words. She was a bright-eyed, merry-looking girl, the reverse of over-studious herself.

“Oh, come along, dear: I’ll give you such a delicious cup of cocoa,” said Miss Day.

She crossed the room, and tried to link her hand affectionately in Prissie’s arm. Miss Peel drew back a step.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I – I – cannot come.”

“I must say you have a blunt way of refusing,” said Miss Day. She felt inclined to be offended, but Nancy Banister, who was standing by, and had not hitherto spoken, bestowed a quick glance of approval on Priscilla, and then said something soothing to Miss Day.

“May I cocoa with you instead, Annie?” she said. “I am afraid no one can accuse me of killing myself with work, but we all respect earnest workers – we must. It is for them St. Benet’s is really meant. It was endowed for them, and built for them, and we poor drones must not throw disparaging remarks on the busy bees.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Miss Marsh; “St. Benet’s was made for sociability as well as study, and I have no patience with the students who don’t try to combine the two. By the way,” she added, turning round, and speaking in a rather impertinent voice to Priscilla, “I sent you a message to say I was going down to Kingsdene this afternoon, and would be happy to take you with me if you would care to visit Spilman’s.”

“Thank you,” said Priscilla, “I got your note just too late to answer it. I was going to speak to you about it,” she added.

“Then you would have come?”

Priscilla’s face grew very red.

“No, I should not have come.”

It was Miss Marsh’s turn to get red.

“Come! Annie,” she exclaimed, turning to Miss Day, “we had better waste no more time here. Miss Banister, we’ll see you presently, won’t we? Good-night, Miss Peel. Perhaps you don’t mind my saying something very frank?”

“I do,” said Priscilla, “but that won’t prevent your saying it, will it?”

“I don’t think it will. After you have been at St. Benet’s a little longer you will know that we not only appreciate cleverness and studious ways, but also obliging and sociable and friendly manners; and – and – pretty rooms – rooms with easy-chairs, and comfortable lounges, and the thousand and one things which give one a feeling of home. Take my advice, Miss Peel, there’s no use fighting against the tide. You’ll have to do as others do in the long run, and you may as well do it at once. That is my plain opinion, and I should not have given it to you, if I had not thought you needed it. Good-night.”

“No, stop a minute,” said Priscilla. Every scrap of colour had left her face, every trace of nervousness her manner. She walked before the two girls to the door, and closed it. “Please stay just for a minute longer, Miss Day and Miss Marsh, and you too, Miss Banister, if you will.”

She went across the room again, and, opening the top drawer of her bureau, took out her purse. Out of the purse she took a key. The key fitted a small padlock, and the padlock belonged to her trunk. She unlocked her empty trunk and opened it.

“There,” she said, turning to the girls – “there,” she continued, “you will be good enough to notice that there are no photographs concealed in this trunk, no pictures, no prints.” She lifted the tray. “Empty, you see,” she added, pointing with her hand to the lower portion of the trunk – “nothing here to make my room pretty, and cosy, and home-like.” Then she shut the trunk again and locked it, and going up to where the three girls stood, gazing at her in bewilderment and some alarm, she unfastened her purse, and turned all its contents into the palm of her hand.

“Look, Miss Marsh,” she said, turning to the girl who had spoken last. “You may count what is here. One sovereign, one half-sovereign, two or three shillings, some pence. Would this money go far at Spilman’s, do you think?”

Priscilla put it all slowly back again into her purse. Her face was still absolutely colourless. She laid the purse on the top of her bureau.

“I do not suppose,” she said, in a low, sad voice, “that I am the sort of girl who often comes to a place of this sort. I am poor, and I have got to work hard, and I have no time for pleasure. Nevertheless,” she added – and now a great wave of colour swept over her face, and her eyes were lit up, and she had a sensation of feeling quite glad, and strong, and happy – “I am not going away because I am poor, and I am not going to mind what anyone thinks of me as long as I do right. My room must stay empty and bare, because I have no money to make it full and beautiful. And do you think that I would ask those – those who sent me here – to add one feather’s weight to their cares and expenses, to give me money to buy beautiful things because I am afraid of you? No, I should be awfully afraid to do that; but I am not afraid of you.”

Priscilla opened the drawer of her bureau and put her little light purse back again in its hiding-place.

“Good-night, Miss Peel,” said Miss Day, in a thin, small kind of voice.

“Good-night, Miss Peel,” said Miss Marsh. The girls went gently out of the room. They closed the door behind them, without making any noise. Nancy Banister remained behind. She came up to Priscilla, and kissed her.

“You are brave,” she said. “I admire you. I – I – am proud of you. I am glad to know that a girl like you has come to live here.”

“Don’t – don’t,” said poor Prissie. Her little burst of courage had deserted her. She covered her face with her trembling hands. She did not want Nancy Banister to see that her eyes were full of tears.

Chapter Seven

In Miss Oliphant’s Room

“My dear,” said Nancy Banister that same evening – “my dear and beloved Maggie, we have both been guilty of a huge mistake.”

“What is that?” asked Miss Oliphant. She was leaning back in a deep easy-chair, and Nancy, who did not care for luxurious seats, had perched herself on a little stool at her feet. Nancy was a small, nervous-looking person; she had a zealous face, and eager, almost too active movements. Nancy was the soul of bustling good-nature, of brightness and kindness. She often said that Maggie Oliphant’s laziness rested her.

“What is it?” said Maggie, again. “How are we in the wrong, Nance?”

She lifted her dimpled hand as she spoke, and contemplated it with a slow, satisfied sort of smile.

“We have made a mistake about Miss Peel, that is all; she is a very noble girl.”

“Oh, my dear Nance! Poor little Puritan Prissie! What next?”

“It is all very fine to call her names,” replied Nancy – here she sprang to her feet – “but I couldn’t do what she did. Do you know that she absolutely and completely turned the tables on that vulgar Annie Day and that pushing, silly little Lucy Marsh. I never saw any two look smaller or poorer than those two when they skedaddled out of her room. Yes, that’s the word – they skedaddled to the door, both of them, looking as limp as a cotton dress when it has been worn for a week, and one almost treading on the other’s heels; and I do not think Prissie will be worried by them any more.”

“Really, Nancy, you look quite pretty when you are excited! Now, what did this wonderful Miss Peel do? Did she box the ears of those two detestable girls? If so, she has my hearty congratulations.”

“More than that, Maggie – that poor, little, meek, awkward, slim creature absolutely demolished them. Oh! she did it in such a fine, simple, unworldly sort of way. I only wish you had seen her! They were twitting her about not going in for all the fun here, and, above everything, for keeping her room so bare and unattractive. You know she has been a fortnight here to-day, and she has not got an extra thing – not one. There isn’t a room in the Hall like hers – it’s so bare and unhomelike. What’s the matter, Maggie?”

“You needn’t go on, Nancy: if it’s about the room, I don’t want to hear it. You know I can’t – I can’t bear it.”

Maggie’s lips were trembling, her face was white, she shaded her eyes with her hand.

“Oh, my darling, I am so sorry. I forgot – I really did! There, you must try and think it was any room. What she did was all the same. Well, those girls had been twitting her. I expect she’s had a nice fortnight of it! She turned very white, and at last her blood was up, and she just gave it to them. She opened her little trunk. I really could have cried. It was such a poor, pathetic sort of receptacle to be capable of holding all one’s worldly goods, and she showed it to them – empty! ‘You see,’ she said, ‘that I have no pictures nor ornaments here!’ Then she turned the contents of her purse into her hand. I think, Maggie, she had about thirty shillings in the world, and she asked Lucy Marsh to count her money, and inquired how many things she thought it would purchase at Spilman’s. Then, Maggie, Priscilla turned on them. Oh, she did not look plain, then, nor awkward either. Her eyes had such a splendid, good, brave sort of light in them. And she said she had come here to work, and she meant to work, and her room must stay bare, for she had no money to make it anything else. ‘But,’ she said, ‘I am not afraid of you, but I am afraid of hurting those’ – whoever ‘those’ are – ‘those’ – oh, with such a ring on the word – ‘who have sent me here!’