"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!'
"after that the two girls skedaddled; they had had enough of her, and i expect, maggie, your little puritan prissie will be left in peace in the future."
"don't call her my little puritan," said maggie. "i have nothing to say to her."
maggie was leaning back again in her chair now; her face was still pale and her soft eyes looked troubled.
"i wish you wouldn't tell me heroic stories, nancy," she remarked after a pause. "they make me feel so uncomfortable. if priscilla peel is going to be turned into a sort of heroine, she'll be much more unbearable than in her former character."
"oh, maggie, i wish you wouldn't talk in that reckless way nor pretend that you hate goodness. you know you adore it— you know you do! you know you are far and away the most lovable and bewitching, and the— the very best girl at st. benet's."
"no, dear little nance, you are quite mistaken. perhaps i'm bewitching— i suppose to a certain extent i am, for people always tell me so— but i'm not lovable and i'm not good. there, my dear, do let us turn from that uninteresting person— maggie oliphant. and so, nancy, you are going to worship priscilla peel in future?"
"oh, dear no! that's not my way. but i'm going to respect her very much. i think we have both rather shunned her lately, and i did feel sure at first that you meant to be very kind to her, maggie."
miss oliphant yawned. it was her way to get over emotion very quickly. a moment before her face had been all eloquent with feeling; now its expression was distinctly bored, and her lazy eyes were not even open to their full extent.
"perhaps i found her stupid," she said, "and so for that reason dropped her. perhaps i would have continued to be kind if she had reciprocated attentions, but she did not. i am glad now, very glad, that we are unlikely to be friends, for, after what you have just told me, i should probably find her insupportable. are you going, nancy?"
"yes, i promised to have cocoa with annie day. i had almost forgotten. good night, maggie."
nancy shut the door softly behind her, and maggie closed her eyes for a moment with a sigh of relief.
"it's nice to be alone," she said softly under her breath, "it's nice and yet it isn't nice. nancy irritated me dreadfully this evening. i don't like stories about good people. i don't wish to think about good people. i am determined that i will not allow my thoughts to dwell on that unpleasant priscilla peel, and her pathetic poverty, and her burst of heroics. it is too trying to hear footsteps in that room. no, i will not think of that room nor of its inmate. now, if i could only go to sleep!"
maggie curled herself up in her luxurious chair, arranged a soft pillow under her head and shut her eyes. in this attitude she made a charming picture: her thick black lashes lay heavily on her pale cheeks; her red lips were slightly parted; her breathing came quietly. by and by repose took the place of tension— her face looked as if it were cut out of marble. the excitement and unrest, which her words had betrayed, vanished utterly; her features were beautiful, but almost expressionless.
this lasted for a short time, perhaps ten minutes; then a trivial circumstance, the falling of a coal in the grate, disturbed the light slumber of the sleeper. maggie stirred restlessly and turned her head. she was not awake, but she was dreaming. a faint rose tint visited each cheek, and she clenched one hand, then moved it, and laid it over the other. presently tears stole from under the black eyelashes and rolled down her cheeks. she opened her eyes wide; she was awake again; unutterable regret, remorse, which might never be quieted, filled her face.
maggie rose from her chair, and, going across the room, sat down at her bureau. she turned a shaded lamp, so that the light might fall upon the pages of a book she was studying, and, pushing her hands through her thick hair, she began to read a passage from the splendid prometheus vinctus of aeschylus:
"o divine ether, o swift-winged winds!"
she muttered the opening lines to herself, then turning the page began to translate from the greek with great ease and fluency:
"o divine ether, and swift-winged winds,
o flowing rivers, and ocean with countless-dimpling
smile,
earth, mother of all, and the all-seeing circle of the
sun, to you i call;
behold me, and the things that i, a god, suffer at the
hands of gods.
behold the wrongs with which i am worn away, and
which i shall suffer through endless time.
such is the shameful bondage which the new ruler of
the blessed ones has invented for me.
alas! alas! i bewail my present and future misery——"
any one who had seen maggie in her deep and expressionless sleep but a few minutes before would have watched her now with a sensation of surprise. this queer girl was showing another phase of her complex nature. her face was no longer lacking in expression, no longer stricken with sorrow nor harrowed with unavailing regret. a fine fire filled her eyes; her brow, as she pushed back her hair, showed its rather massive proportions. now, intellect and the triumphant delight of overcoming a mental difficulty reigned supreme in her face. she read on without interruption for nearly an hour. at the end of that time her cheeks were burning like two glowing crimson roses.
a knock came at her door; she started and turned round petulantly.
"it's just my luck," muttered maggie. "i'd have got the sense of that whole magnificent passage in another hour. it was beginning to fill me: i was getting satisfied— now it's all over! i'd have had a good night if that knock hadn't come— but now— now i am maggie oliphant, the most miserable girl at st. benet's, once again."
the knock was repeated. miss oliphant sprang to her feet.
"come in," she said in a petulant voice.
the handle of the door was slowly turned, the tapestry curtain moved forward and a little fair-haired girl, with an infantile expression of face and looking years younger than her eighteen summers, tripped a few steps into the room.
"i beg your pardon, maggie," she said. "i had not a moment to come sooner— not one really. that stupid miss turner chose to raise the alarm for the fire brigade. of course i had to go, and i've only just come back and changed my dress."
"you ought to be in bed, rosalind; it's past eleven o'clock."
"oh, as if that mattered! i'll go in a minute. how cozy you look here."
"my dear, i am not going to keep you out of your beauty sleep. you can admire my room another time. if you have a message for me, rosalind, let me have it, and then— oh, cruel word, but i must say it, my love— go!"
rosalind merton had serene baby-blue eyes; they looked up now full at maggie. then her dimpled little hand slid swiftly into the pocket of her dress, came out again with a quick, little, frightened dart and deposited a square envelope with some manly writing on it on the bureau, where maggie had been studying prometheus vinctus. the letter covered the greater portion of the open page. it seemed to maggie as if the greek play had suddenly faded and gone out of sight behind a curtain.
"there," said rosalind, "that's for you. i was at kingsdene to-day— and— i— i said you should have it, and i— i promised that i'd help you, maggie. i— yes— i promised. i said i would help you, if you'd let me."
"thank you," replied miss oliphant in a lofty tone. the words came out of her lips with the coldness of ice. "and if i need you— i— promise— to ask your help. where did you say you met mr. hammond?"
maggie took up her letter and opened it slowly.
"at spilman's. he was buying something for his room. he——" rosalind blushed all over her face.
maggie took her letter out of its envelope. she looked at the first two or three words, then laid it, open as it was, on the table.
"thank you, rosalind," she said in her usual tone. "it was kind of you to bring this, certainly; but mr. hammond would have done better— yes, undoubtedly better— had he sent his letter by post. there would have been no mystery about it then, and i should have received it at least two hours ago. thank you, rosalind, all the same— good night."
rosalind merton stepped demurely out of the room. in the corridor, however, a change come over her small childish face. her blue eyes became full of angry flame and she clenched her baby hand and shook it in the direction of the closed door.
"oh, maggie oliphant, what a deceiver you are!" she murmured. "you think that i'm a baby and notice nothing, but i'm on the alert now, and i'll watch— and watch. i don't love you any longer, maggie oliphant. who loves being snubbed? oh, of course, you pretend you don't care about that letter! but i know you do care; and i'll get hold of all your secrets before many weeks are over, see if i don't!"
