A Sweet Girl Graduate Part 43

"Maggie ought to marry Mr. Hammond. Maggie loves him and he loves her, but a bogie stands in the way." Night and day Miss Heath had pondered these words. Now, looking at the fair face, whose roundness of outline was slightly worn, at the eyes which had looked at her for a moment through a veil of sudden tears, she resolved to take the initiative in a matter which she considered quite outside her province.

"Sit down, Maggie," she said. "I think the time has come for me to tell you something which has lain as a secret on my heart for over a year."

Maggie looked up in surprise, then dropped into a chair and folded her hands in her lap. She was slightly surprised at Miss Heath's tone, but not as yet intensely interested.

"You know, my dear," she said, "that I never interfere with the life a student lives outside this hall. Provided she obeys the rules and mentions the names of the friends she visits, she is at liberty, practically, to do as she pleases in those hours which are not devoted to lectures. A girl at St. Benet's may have a great, a very great friend at Kingsdene or elsewhere of whom the princ.i.p.als of the college know nothing. I think I may add with truth that were the girl to confide in the princ.i.p.al of her college in case of any friendship developing into-- into love, she would receive the deepest sympathy and the tenderest counsels that the case would admit of. The princ.i.p.al who was confided in would regard herself for the time being as the young girl's mother."

Maggie's eyes were lowered now; her lips trembled; she played nervously with a flower which she held in her hand.

"I must apologize," continued Miss Heath, "for having alluded to a subject which may not in the least concern you, my dear. My excuse for doing so is that what I have to tell you directly bears on the question of marriage. I would have spoken to you long ago, but, until lately, until a few days ago, I had not the faintest idea that such a subject had even distantly visited your mind."

"Who told you that it had?" questioned Maggie. She spoke with anger.

"Who has dared to interfere-- to spread rumors? I am not going to marry. I shall never marry."

"It is not in my power at present to tell you how the rumor has reached me," continued Miss Heath, "but, having reached me, I want to say a few words about-- about Annabel Lee."

"Oh, don't!" said Maggie, rising to her feet, her face pale as death.

She put her hand to her heart as she spoke. A pang, not so much mental as bodily, had gone through it.

"My dear, I think you must listen to me while I give you a message from one whom you dearly loved, whose death has changed you, Maggie, whose death we have all deeply mourned."

"A message?" said Maggie; "a message from Annabel! What message?"

"I regarded it as the effects of delirium at the time," continued Miss Heath, "and as you had fever immediately afterward, dreaded referring to the subject. Now I blame myself for not having told you sooner, for I believe that Annabel was conscious and that she had a distinct meaning in her words."

"What did she say? Please don't keep me in suspense."

"It was shortly before she died," continued Miss Heath; "the fever had run very high, and she was weak, and I could scarcely catch her words.

She looked at me. You know how Annabel could look, Maggie; you know how expressive those eyes could be, how that voice could move one."

Maggie had sunk back again in her chair; her face was covered with her trembling hands.

"Annabel said," continued Miss Heath, "'tell Maggie not to mistake me.

I am happy. I am glad she will marry'-- I think she tried to say a name, but I could not catch it-- tell her to marry him, and that I am very glad.'"

A sob broke from Maggie Oliphant's lips. "You might have told me before!" she said in a choked voice.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE PRINCESS

THE great event of the term was to take place that evening. The Princess was to be acted by the girls of St. Benet's, and, by the kind permission of Miss Vincent, the princ.i.p.al of the entire college, several visitors were invited to witness the entertainment. The members of the Dramatic Society had taken immense pains; the rehearsals had been many, the dresses all carefully chosen, the scenery appropriate-- in short, no pains had been spared to render this lovely poem of Tennyson's a dramatic success. The absence of Rosalind Merton had, for a short time, caused a little dismay among the actors. She had been cast for the part of Melissa:

"A rosy blonde, and in a college gown That clad her like an April daffodilly."

But now it must be taken my some one else.

Little Ada Hardy, who was about Rosalind's height, and had the real innocence which, alas! poor Rosalind lacked, was sent for in a hurry, and, carefully drilled by Constance Field and Maggie Oliphant, by the time the night arrived she was sufficiently prepared to act the character, slight in itself, which was a.s.signed to her. The other actors were, of course, fully prepared to take their several parts, and a number of girls were invested in the

"Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold."

Nothing could have been more picturesque, and there was a buzz of hearty applause from the many spectators who crowded the galleries and front seats of the little theater when the curtain rose on the well-known garden scene, where the Prince, Florian and Cyril saw the maidens of that first college for women-- that poet's vision, so amply fulfilled in the happy life at St. Benet's.

There One walk'd, reciting by herself, and one In this hand held a volume as to read, And smoothed a petted peac.o.c.k down with that: Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, Or under arches of the marble bridge Hung, shadow'd from the heat: some hid and sought In the orange thickets: others tost a ball Above the fountain jets, and back again With laughter: others lay about the lawns, Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May Was pa.s.sing: what was learning unto them?

They wish'd to marry: they could rule a house; Men hated learned women... ."

The girls walked slowly about among the orange groves and by the fountain jets. In the distance the chapel bells tolled faint and sweet. More maidens appeared, and Tennyson's lovely lines were again represented with such skill, the effect of mult.i.tude was so skilfully managed that the

"Six hundred maidens, clad in purest white,"

appeared really to fill the gardens,

"While the great organ almost burst his pipes, Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court A long melodious thunder to the sound Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies."

The curtain fell, to rise in a few moments amid a burst of applause.

The Princess herself now appeared for the first time on the little stage. Nothing could have been more admirable than the grouping of this tableau. All the pride of mien, of race, of indomitable purpose was visible on the face of the young girl who acted the part of the Princess Ida.

"She stood Among her maidens, higher by the head, Her back against a pillar."

It was impossible, of course, to represent the tame leopards, but the maidens who gathered round the Princess prevented this want being apparent, and Maggie Oliphant's att.i.tude and the expression which filled her bright eyes left nothing to be desired.

"Perfect!" exclaimed the spectators: the interest of every one present was more than aroused; each individual in the little theater felt, though no one could exactly tell why, that Maggie was not merely acting her part, she was living it.

Suddenly she raised her head and looked steadily at the visitors in the gallery: a wave of rosy red swept over the whitness of her face.

It was evident that she had encountered a glance which disturbed her composure.

The play proceeded brilliantly, and now the power and originality of Priscilla's acting divided the attention of the house. Surely there never was a more impa.s.sioned Prince.

Priscilla could sing; her voice was not powerful, but it was low and rather deeply set. The well-known and familiar song with which the Prince tried to woo Ida lost little at her hands.

"O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee.

"O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North.

"Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

"O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

"O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her that I follow thee."

The wooing which followed made a curious impression; this impression was not only produced upon the house, but upon both Prince and Princess.

Priscilla, too, had encountered Hammond's earnest gaze. That gaze fired her heart, and she became once again not herself but he; poor, awkward and gauche little Prissie sank out of sight; she was Hammond pleading his own cause, she was wooing Maggie for him in the words of Tennyson's Prince. This fact was the secret of Priscilla's power; she had felt it more or less whenever she acted the part of the Prince; but, on this occasion, she communicated the sensations which animated her own breast to Maggie. Maggie, too, felt that Hammond was speaking to her through Priscilla's voice.

"I cannot cease to follow you, as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health-- yours, yours, not mine-- but half Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves You worthiest, and howe'er you block and bar Your heart with system out from mine, I hold That it becomes no man to nurse despair, But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms To follow up the worthiest till he die."

In the impa.s.sioned reply which followed this address it was noticed for the first time by the spectators that Maggie scarcely did herself justice. Her exclamation--

"I wed with thee! I, bound by precontract Your bride, your bondslave!"

was scarcely uttered with the scorn which such a girl would throw into the words if her heart went with them.