A Sweet Girl Graduate by L. T. Meade (most read book in the world TXT) 📗

Most of the girls who sat at those dinner-tables had fringed or tousled or curled locks. Priscilla’s were brushed simply away from her broad forehead. After saying her last words, she bent her head low over her plate and longed even for the protection of a fringe to hide her burning blushes. Her momentary courage had evaporated; she was shocked at having betrayed herself to a stranger; her brief fit of passion left her stiffer and shyer than ever. Blinding tears rushed to Priscilla’s eyes, and her terror was that they would drop on to her plate. Suppose some of those horrid girls saw her crying? Hateful thought. She would rather die than show emotion before them.

At this moment a soft, plump little hand was slipped into hers and the sweetest of voices said:

“I am so sorry anything has seemed unkind to you. Believe me, we are not what you imagine. We have our fun and our prejudices, of course, but we are not what you think we are.”

Priscilla could not help smiling, nor could she resist slightly squeezing the fingers which touched hers.

“You are not unkind, I know,” she answered; and she ate the rest of her dinner in a comforted frame of mind.

After dinner one of the lecturers who resided at Heath Hall, a pleasant, bright girl of two- or three-and-twenty, came and introduced herself, and presently took Priscilla with her to her own room, to talk over the line of study which the young girl proposed to take up. This conference lasted some little time, and then Priscilla, in the lecturer’s company, returned to the hall for tea.

A great many girls kept coming in and out. Some stayed to have tea, but most helped themselves to tea and bread and butter and took them away to partake of in their own private rooms.

Maggie Oliphant and Nancy Banister presently rushed in for this purpose. Maggie, seeing Priscilla, ran up to her.

“How are you getting on?” she asked brightly. “Oh, by-the-by, will you cocoa with me to-night at half-past ten?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Priscilla. “But I’ll do it,” she added, her eyes brightening.

“All right, I’ll explain the simple ceremony when you come. My room is next to yours, so you’ll have no difficulty in finding me out. I don’t expect to have any one present except Miss Banister,” nodding her head in Nancy’s direction, “and perhaps one other girl. By-by, I’ll see you at half-past ten.”

Maggie turned to leave the hall, but Nancy lingered for a moment by Priscilla’s side.

“Wouldn’t you like to take your tea up to your room?” she asked. “We most of us do it. You may, you know.”

“I don’t think I wish to,” answered Priscilla in an uncertain voice.

Nancy half turned to go, then came back.

“You are going to unpack by and by, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, when I get back to my room.”

“Perhaps you ought to know beforehand; the girls will be coming to call.”

Priscilla raised her eyes.

“What girls?” she asked, alarm in her tone.

“Oh, most of the students in your corridor. They always call on a fresher the first night in her room. You need not bother yourself about them; they’ll just talk for a little while and then go away. What is the matter, Miss Peel? Maggie has told me your name, you see.”

“What you tell me sounds so very— very formal.”

“But it isn’t— not really. Shall I come and help you to entertain them?”

“I wish——” began Priscilla. She hesitated; the words seemed to stick in her throat.

“What did you say?” Nancy bent forward a little impatiently.

“I wish— yes, do come,” with a violent effort.

“All right, you may expect me.”

Nancy flew after Maggie Oliphant, and Priscilla went slowly up the wide, luxurious stairs. She turned down the corridor which led to her own room. There were doors leading out of this corridor at both sides, and Priscilla caught glimpses of luxurious rooms bright with flowers and electric light. Girls were laughing and chatting in them; she saw pictures on the walls and lounges and chairs scattered about. Her own room was at the far end of the corridor. The electric light was also brightening it, but the fire was unlit, and the presence of the unpacked trunk, taking up a position of prominence on the floor, gave it a very unhomelike feel. In itself the room was particularly picturesque. It had two charming lattice windows, set in deep square bays. One window faced the fireplace, the other the door. The effect was slightly irregular, but for that very reason all the more charming. The walls of the room were painted light blue; there was a looking-glass over the mantel-piece set in a frame of the palest, most delicate blue. A picture-rail ran round the room about six feet from the ground, and the high frieze above had a scroll of wild roses painted on it in bold, free relief.

The panels of the doors were also decorated with sprays of wild flowers in picturesque confusion. Both the flowers and the scroll were boldly designed, but were unfinished, the final and completing touches remaining yet to be given.

Priscilla looked hungrily at these unexpected trophies of art. She could have shouted with glee as she recognized some of her dear, wild Devonshire flowers, among the groups on the door panels. She wondered if all the rest of the students were treated to these artistic decorations and grew a little happier and less homesick at the thought.

Priscilla could have been an artist herself had the opportunity arisen, but she was one of those girls all alive with aspiration and longing who never up to the present had come in the way of special culture in any style.

She stood for some time gazing at the groups of wild flowers, then remembering with horror that she was to receive visitors that night, she looked round the room to see if she could do anything to make it appear homelike and inviting.

It was a nice room, certainly. Priscilla had never before in her whole life occupied such a luxurious apartment, and yet it had a cold, dreary, uninhabited feel. She had an intuition that none of the other students’ rooms looked like hers. She rushed to light the fire, but could not find the matches, which had been removed from their place on the mantel-piece, and felt far too shy to ring the electric bell. It was Priscilla’s fashion to clasp her hands together when she felt a sense of dismay, and she did so now as she looked around the pretty room, which yet with all its luxuries looked to her cold and dreary.

The furniture was excellent of its kind. A Turkey carpet covered the center of the floor, the boards round the edge were stained and brightly polished. In one corner of the room was a little bed, made to look like a sofa by day, with a Liberty cretonne covering. A curtain of the same shut away the wardrobe and washing apparatus. Just under one of the bay windows stood a writing-table, so contrived as to form a writing-table, and a bookcase at the top, and a chest of drawers to hold linen below. Besides this there was a small square table for tea in the room and a couple of chairs. The whole effect was undoubtedly bare.

Priscilla was hesitating whether to begin to unpack her trunk or not when a light knock was heard at her door. She said “Come in,” and two girls burst rather noisily into the apartment.

“How do you do?” they said, favoring the fresh girl with a brief nod. “You came to-day, didn’t you? What are you going to study? Are you clever?”

These queries issued rapidly from the lips of the tallest of the girls. She had red hair, tousled and tossed about her head. Her face was essentially commonplace; her small restless eyes now glanced at Priscilla, now wandered over the room. She did not wait for a reply to any of her queries, but turned rapidly to her companion.

“I told you so, Polly,” she said. “I was quite sure that she was going to be put into Miss Lee’s room. You see, I’m right; this is Annabel Lee’s old room; it has never been occupied since.”

“Hush!” said the other girl.

The two walked across the apartment and seated themselves on Priscilla’s bed.

There came a fresh knock at the door, and this time three students entered. They barely nodded to Priscilla and then rushed across the room with cries of rapture to greet the girls who were seated on the bed.

“How do you do, Miss Atkins? How do you do, Miss Jones?”

Miss Jones and Miss Atkins exchanged kisses with Miss Phillips, Miss Marsh and Miss Day. The babel of tongues rose high, and every one had something to say with regard to the room which had been assigned to Priscilla.

“Look,” said Miss Day, “it was in that corner she had her rocking-chair. Girls, do you remember Annabel’s rocking-chair, and how she used to sway herself backward and forward in it and half-shut her lovely eyes?”

“Oh, and don’t I just seem to see that little red tea-table of hers near the fire,” burst from Miss Marsh. “That Japanese table, with the Japanese tea-set— oh dear, oh dear! those cups of tea— those cakes! Well, the room was luxurious, was worth coming to see in Annabel’s time.”

“It’s more than it is now,” laughed Miss Jones in a harsh voice. “How bare the walls look without her pictures. It was in that recess the large figure of Hope by Burne-Jones used to hang, and there, that queer, wild, wonderful head looking out of clouds. You know she never would tell us the artist’s name. Yes, she