Brenda's Ward Part 12

"If aunt Tilworth doesn't happen to come in."

"What are you afraid of, my dear Prissie? You surely don't expect your aunt to whip you like a baby?"

"Of course not. My aunt doesn't mean to be unkind, only she is very particular."

"I should say so. Her house shows that she was meant to be a regular old maid. How I should love to stir things up a little. I don't suppose you dropped that ink on purpose, though the room certainly looks far less prim than when I saw it a day or two ago."

Priscilla bore Martine's teasing fairly well, but at last she said firmly, "I have wasted a lot of time over this ink-spot. Now I must go back to my work. I haven't even prepared my lessons for Monday. I know you will excuse me, Martine, and I am ever so much obliged for your help."

"On this hint I'll act," replied Martine, gayly. "Your spot is certainly worse than the one in Macbeth, though I won't use the language that Macbeth--or was it her Ladyship?--used regarding it. But don't worry, Prissie dear. I will arrange things so that no one will know what happened." And suiting her action to her words, Martine carefully replaced the scarf on the table and set a large pincushion over the ink-spot, so that not a vestige of the spot, or of the attempts to remove it, could be seen.

Then with a word or two more of absurd advice to Priscilla, Martine, bidding her friend good-bye, tripped lightly downstairs.

When Martine reached the lower story all was still. Priscilla had said that her aunt was at a meeting. Evidently she had not yet returned.

On her way downstairs a mischievous plan had been forming in Martine's brain.

"I'll never have a better chance," she said to herself, and she tiptoed into the drawing-room.

A noise from the direction of the dining-room made her start. Then glancing around she took heart.

"I think I can do it," she murmured, "before any one appears on the scene."

Again she felt discouraged as she noted how ma.s.sive, how immovable most of the furniture appeared. A large centre-table in the middle of the room pleased her; she pushed it from its place into a distant corner.

Over it she threw a scarf that had decorated a sofa. Then from the great bookcase in the hall she took two or three volumes that she laid on the table open and face downward.

"Everything seems glued to the walls," she murmured, "and these tidies are so ugly. There can't be much harm in folding them up and putting them under the sofa."

Then she paused. "This little scarf--it is Roman, too,--is just the thing for Julius Caesar." And tying the striped scarf around the neck of the great conqueror, she bolstered the bust on an easy-chair, draping an afghan around him to conceal his lack of body and limbs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'This little scarf--it is Roman, too,--is just the thing for Julius Caesar.'"]

Then with one or two minor touches to the room she hurried away.

CHAPTER VIII

A PRIZE WINNER

While Martine was thus mischievously occupied, Priscilla, unconscious of what was going on, continued her work.

She had not heard her aunt come in, but when she went down to dinner she instantly realized that Mrs. Tilworth was displeased. Was there any possibility that the injury to the bureau-scarf had been discovered? At once Priscilla dismissed that thought, knowing Mrs. Tilworth could not have been in her room, as she herself had not left it.

As the young girl turned toward the dining-room Mrs. Tilworth laid her hand on her shoulder.

"This way, please," she said briefly, pointing toward the room where Julius Caesar was enthroned in his easy-chair.

Priscilla could not suppress a smile at the absurd sight.

"Then you did it?"

"I? Why of course not! I haven't been downstairs."

Then Priscilla stopped. She remembered her visit to the kitchen, and for the present she was not anxious to explain the gla.s.s of milk.

"But who could have done this ridiculous thing? An earthquake couldn't have done much more."

Priscilla hardly dared glance around the dishevelled room. Some of the results accomplished by Martine were foolish, others were improvements on the original arrangement of things.

"You must have had a visitor," continued Mrs. Tilworth, pursuing her search for information.

Priscilla was silent. She perceived that Martine had been the mischief-maker, and for the moment she was indignant with her friend.

Martine might have realized that an act of this kind would bring Mrs.

Tilworth's wrath on Priscilla as well as on the absent perpetrator of the mischief.

"Then it was Martine Stratford!" continued Mrs. Tilworth. "I am glad that you had no hand in this foolishness, Priscilla. For I take your word that you have not been downstairs. But I am disappointed in Martine. She has attractive manners, and lately she seemed to be toning down. Certainly she appeared very well at the dinner the other evening.

Her mother, too, is a sensible woman. So it must be her father who spoils Martine. The girl has had a training very different from yours, and her sense of responsibility is small."

"She didn't mean anything, I am sure of that," protested Priscilla.

"Didn't mean anything! That's just the trouble. After this I must ask you to see less of Martine. Really I ought not to have let you spend so much time with her."

"Mamma knows all about Martine. She does not object."

"She _will_ object when she learns how disrespectful Martine has been to me. As if I did not know how to arrange my own furniture."

Again Priscilla felt like smiling. Martine's hints had been understood, even though they might not be followed.

Mrs. Tilworth was a fair-minded woman, and after expressing herself clearly on the subject of Martine's misdeeds, she did not try to make her niece more uncomfortable. Nevertheless, Priscilla's dinner hour that evening was far from cheerful. She wondered if it might not be wiser, as well as more honest, to tell her aunt of her own mishap of the afternoon. Yet the more she thought of it, the less inclined was she to do this. She clung to the hope that with a further effort she could make the scarf as good as new.

That night she dreamed of wading through rivers of ink, and in her dreams she saw the bust of Julius Caesar sitting on a bridge with many small black ink-spots mottling the bald head.

In the intervals between her dreams she tossed about restlessly, and she thought of all the little criticisms that she had ever heard anyone make about Mrs. Tilworth.

"After all, she isn't my real aunt," she murmured; "only my uncle's widow, and I suppose she just hates to have me here. But she has a kind of family pride, and thinks that it will help mamma. I know the house is furnished queerly. I heard mamma say that it is neither antique, nor modern--only second-rate. Those black walnut things are always ugly, even Martine knows better."

Yet in all her ruminations Priscilla had to admit that Mrs. Tilworth had always treated her kindly. She had no real grievance against her aunt.

She was merely afraid of the reproof that her carelessness merited.

Now it was one of Mrs. Tilworth's theories that a girl should make her own bed and dust her own furniture. It was a theory, too, that she put into practice. Except on sweeping days, Priscilla took entire care of her own room. Sometimes she begrudged the time that she had to spend in this way. But on the morning after Martine's visit she was pleased that no housemaid had the right to handle the things on her bureau. Now, as this was Sat.u.r.day morning, Priscilla took more time than usual dusting and arranging things generally. She did not dare move the corpulent pincushion lest someone should come in upon her while she was examining the ink mark. She knew that her aunt had a morning engagement, and while she worked she listened eagerly for the closing of the front door that would show that her aunt had departed.

But alas for her calculations! While she was still dusting her mantle-piece, Mrs. Tilworth, with hat and coat on, entered the room.

"My dear," began Mrs. Tilworth, kindly, "you must not take to yourself all that I said about Martine Stratford. You and she are really very different, and although I cannot say that her acquaintance was forced upon you, still it came about almost by accident. Had you not both gone to Acadia in Mrs. Redmond's care, you never would have known each other so well. You are not careless--I see you have been putting your room in order. It looks very well, but this pincushion is too near the edge.

Dear me, what is this?"