The Girls of St. Wode's

CHAPTER XV – BELLE’S ROOM AT ST. WODE’S

Eileen and Marjory had found their way to Belle’s hall. They were standing in the attic which she had described to them so graphically.

“I cannot imagine how you managed to furnish it in this extraordinary way,” began Eileen. “I have heard from one or two of the girls here that the furniture is put in by the heads of the college. Now, our rooms, for instance, are quite decently furnished.”

“Too much furniture,” interrupted Belle. She uttered a groan as she spoke.

“The rooms certainly possess the necessary comforts of civilized life,” pursued Eileen, “and for my part I cannot say that I am sorry. We have no luxuries; but the furniture in the room is good and neat. We have a chest of drawers each, and proper washhand-stands of course, and snug little sofa-beds, and carpets, and curtains to the windows, and – ”

“Need you quote any further from that tiresome list?” said Belle again. She was standing by her small attic window with her back to the view.

“One thing is delightful in this room,” said Eileen, running up to the window as she spoke. “You have a splendid view – much better than ours. Do step aside, Belle, and let me look out.”

“If you wish to,” said Belle drearily.

“Wish to! I always love scenery. Surely, Belle, you cannot think it wrong to look out at this lovely view?”

“No, not wrong exactly,” said Belle; “not wrong; but I have little heart to admire anything to-day. I am disappointed, and I must own it.”

“Now, what have we done to annoy you?” said Marjorie.

“Much,” replied Belle. She looked fixedly from one sister to the other. “I had hoped a great deal before you arrived; but already the keenest sense of disillusionment is mine. You are neither of you beginning your college life as I could have hoped. There are two attics on the same floor with this, which you might have got had you given me the management of your affairs. I should have gone to Miss Lauderdale and represented the case to her. I believe she would have been very glad to let them to you. The college is overfull at present, and yet no girls wish to use the attics. These attics are at present unfurnished, and the college would, doubtless, when the matter was properly represented, allow you to have them as bare as you pleased. They did so in my case. I represented that it would be a saving. I managed the thing somehow, and here I am. It is true that I dread the governors visiting my room and ordering some of those useless articles which the other girls weaken their characters by using. But you did not put the matter into my hands, your old friend; and now you are accommodated with some of the nicest rooms in college.”

“Oh, never mind; don’t worry any more about the furniture,” said Eileen. “It seems to me that one can waste time in trying to lead the existence of the anchorite as well as in endeavoring to surround one’s self with luxuries.”

“One thing, at least, we will promise you, Belle – we are not going in for any extras – no pictures nor knick-knacks for us.”

“Thank Heaven!” said Belle, with a deep sigh. “Had you done so, I must have cut you.”

“Don’t you think that would have been rather narrow of you?” said Marjorie.

“Narrow or not, I should have felt it my duty to do it. I have my eccentricities – I own to the fact – and I will cling to them through thick and thin. What you said just now was quite right, Eileen; we will drop the subject of furniture. After all, what does it matter whether one has a chest of drawers or not, whether one has a suitable washhand-stand or not? Are these the things we live at St. Wode’s for? What about the intellect, what about the development of the brain? Your brows are capable of expansion, your eyes are capable of acquiring depth, your – ”

“Hear! hear!” said Eileen.

“Do not interrupt me with that senseless remark. I speak to you from my soul. You come here to study, to forget yourselves in the great riches of the past. You are like two miners come to dig out the gold. You have heard of that awful place, Klondike, where people go mad over earthly gold. Yours is the intellectual, the spiritual, the gold which is treasured in the great storehouses of the past.”

As Belle spoke she paced up and down the room. Her dress was very untidy, and there was a great rent behind. While she was speaking there came a soft tap at the door. She did not hear it. Eileen went and opened it. Lettie stood without.

“Dear me, Lettie, do come in,” said Eileen. “We have not seen you for quite a long time – nearly twenty-four hours.”

She kissed her cousin as she spoke.

“How are you getting on?”

“Capitally,” said Lettie. “I went to your rooms in North Hall and heard that you were here. You did not visit me, so I thought Belle might be engrossing your society. How are you, Belle?”

“Well, thank you,” replied Belle, in an absent voice. “By the way, are you? – oh, yes! I remember now; you are – the girl who ought never to have come to St. Wode’s.”

“You are quite mistaken,” replied Letitia with spirit. “I am a girl who will be very much benefited by the pleasant life which I see opening before me. By the way, Eileen and Marjory, I am going to the Broad now. There are a lot of things I require for my room. I thought perhaps you would like to come too. You will want shelves for your books and a few knick-knacks and – ”

“If you go with that young person – ” said Belle, making a step forward. She approached Eileen and almost glared into her face.

Eileen laughed.

“Dear Belle, do finish your sentence,” she said. “What is to happen to me if I dare to go to the Broad with poor Lettie?”

“You make my soul sink in despair,” said Belle. “I scarcely know what I feel; my heart is wrung. Oh! how you disappoint me!”

“Whether you buy things or not, Eileen, do come with me,” said Lettie. “I don’t know my way to the Broad at present, and would rather be with you than alone. Whatever you may do in the future, please remember that I am your first cousin, almost your sister, and we have lived together all our lives.”

“Of course, dear Lettie, we will both come,” said Eileen. “Belle, we will visit you another day; we are only interrupting your work now.”

“I was resting when you arrived,” said Belle. She threw herself tragically back against one of the hard-bottomed chairs. “Go – yes go; I don’t expect to see much of any of you. It is the fate of those who would explore, who would delve in the mines of the past, to bring up diamonds alone; we are solitary in our labor. I had a hope, it is true, when I saw you in London; but never mind. Go, all of you; there is the door – go!”

“I wish you’d let me mend your dress first,” said Lettie, whipping a neat little housewife out of her pocket and preparing to thread a needle.

“Mend my dress?” said Belle. “What do you mean?”

“If you will just stand with your back to the light, you can go on thinking and talking; I won’t be a minute sewing up that awful rent. You are not respectable as you are. Now, do let me.”

“Yes, do, Belle; don’t be a goose,” said Marjorie.

Belle’s eyes flashed. Lettie was already attacking her with needle and thread. The rent was presently sewn up.

“I tell you what it is,” said Lettie good-humoredly, “I’m not half such a bad soul as you make me out. Now that I happen to be in the same hall – ”

Belle shivered.

“I’ll run up to this desolate attic, now and then, and look after your wardrobe.”

“You won’t; for I shan’t admit you,” said Belle.

“Yes, I will. I shall take opportunities of coming in when you are absent. You are a friend of Marjorie and Eileen; and, for the sake of their respectability, you must not go about in absolute rags. Now, come, girls, and leave her in peace.”

Belle approached her attic window. She stood now with her back to the girls and her face to the view; but it is to be doubted if she saw it. Her dress, a dirty serge, trailed along the floor, one wisp of her thin hair had escaped from the little knot at the back of her head, and was lying on her shoulder.

“Poor Belle,” said Eileen, with a sigh.

“I tell you what it is, girls,” said Lettie, as she went downstairs. “Belle is such an oddity that, if something is not done to save her, she will soon lose her senses. I mean to hunt her up. I was wondering last night what my mission in this place could be. I little thought that I was to be inflicted with Belle Acheson.”

“She certainly doesn’t wish for you, Lettie, so you needn’t take her up unless you like,” said Eileen.

“Oh, I must do something,” said Lettie; “that fact has been well borne in upon me – it is to be Belle Acheson or nothing. No trial could well be greater. I hope I shall benefit by it. But come now; I want to order my things.”

“Must you order them to-day?”

“Of course I must. My room is disgracefully bare; and as I have plenty of money I mean to make it as pretty and cheerful as possible, and as like a dream.”

“Have your lectures been decided for you yet?” said Eileen, in a would-be stern voice.

“Yes; I saw Miss Browning after breakfast. I am going to work a little bit at literature.”

“A little bit at literature! Lettie, you are perfectly awful.”

“Well, I’m not going to kill myself, darling, if that’s what you mean. Of course I shall work for so many hours a day; but I don’t think I shall take honors. If I get through my pass exam., I shall consider that I am doing admirably. Now do come, girls; hurry up. You must have tea with me to-morrow in my room. I expect I shall know all the nicest girls in the place; they are going to call on me most likely this evening. Oh, I shall make my room perfectly sweet. You will all love to come to me; and if I can wheedle that poor old Belle out of her den, I shall feel that I have achieved a triumph. But tell me now, girls, how you are both getting on?”

“Very well, indeed,” said Eileen.

“And you are not going to buy pretty things for your rooms?”

“No.”

“At least let me recommend you to provide yourselves with a tea-service each; because if other girls invite you to tea you must return the compliment. Then they give endless cocoa parties here, and you will be expected to take your share.”

“I don’t see that at all,” replied Eileen. “If we are bound to entertain a great deal at St. Wode’s, we may just as well stay with mother in London. I mean to ask Miss Frere about the poor; surely we can visit them if we like?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Letitia. “To quote your own words, you have come here to study. Surely you can visit the poor when you college life is over?”

“We can at least make clothes for them; that is a good idea,” said Marjorie.

“Much better than visiting them,” cried Letitia. “You can buy yards of holland and any other stiff, disagreeable, pricky material you like, and work away in your leisure hours when the rest of us are having fun. By the way, have you seen Miss Gilroy this morning?”

“Two or three times. Poor girl, I rather pity her. She is in a room with a dreadful creature of the name of Annie Colchester.”

“How pretty Miss Gilroy is,” said Lettie. “Might we not call and ask her to come to the Broad with us? She is sure to want things for her room.”

“Just as you please,” said Eileen. “I’ll run up to Miss Colchester’s room and find out if she is in.”

Lettie and Marjorie remained on the sweep of gravel outside the hall. Eileen ran into the house. In a few minutes she returned, accompanied by Leslie.

“This is really kind of you,” said Leslie. “I was wondering how I could get to the Broad, for I don’t know many girls yet; but I am told that some of the students will call on me to-night.”

“They are to call on us, too,” said Eileen. “It is rather formidable, is it not?”

“But, Miss Gilroy, don’t you want to buy things for your room?”

“A few things I must have,” said Leslie, “but I rather despair of making a room shared with Miss Colchester pretty; all the same, I will do my best.”

The girls visited Hunt’s well-known shop in the Broad and gave their orders. Lettie’s were extensive. She must have pictures. Burne-Jones’ “Love among the Ruins,” “The Happy Warrior” by Watts, “St. Cecilia and a Choir of Angels” by Van Eyck, and other treasures were secured. Knick-knacks also were bought by the young lady, who had a keen eye to effect. She bought big jars of dark-blue china, a few cups and saucers, two or three plates, a fan or two, a couple of screens, a few æsthetic-looking tablecloths, and a piano-cloth to cover the back of her chest of drawers. A pretty little tea-service, a brass kettle, and a tea-table which could fold up and be put out of the way when not needed for use, were also secured. Finally she treated herself to a great bunch of flowers and some flowering plants.

Her purchases took time, and in spite of themselves Eileen and Marjorie were interested. After a great deal of persuasion they were induced to buy a table and some very plain cups and saucers.

“We will not get any more; it is downright sinful waste,” said Marjorie, frowning as she spoke.

“All right,” said Lettie. “I am not going to influence you. You are at present under the awful eye of Belle Acheson. By and by you will see for yourselves that it is the height of nonsense not to live in comfort when you can. Now, look at Miss Gilroy; she has more sense than to make herself miserable when she need not.”

“I certainly do not intend to make myself miserable,” said Leslie. “There are several useful purchases that I must make. I have the misfortune,” she continued, glancing from one girl to the other, “to sleep in the room with a genius, and must provide accordingly.”

“It is such a pity you cannot have a room to yourself,” said Eileen. “I trust the annoyance won’t last long.”

“I hope not,” said Leslie. “Yes, I must have one of those pretty art table-cloths, and then I want to go to a grocer’s where I can buy cocoa and biscuits and tinned milk.”

After a good deal of time spent in making their various purchases, the girls returned to the college well laden. They met several of their companions, who nodded to them kindly.

“I consider that we are now settled in college and that our real life begins to-morrow,” said Leslie. “I have arranged about my work, and mean to study hard after dinner to-night.”

“You won’t have much chance of that,” said a merry voice, and Jane Heriot came up.

“Why so?” asked Leslie.

“How do you do?” said Jane, nodding to the two Chetwynd girls. She then turned to Leslie.

“I will tell you why you won’t have any chance, Miss Gilroy. A whole party are coming to visit you in your rooms this evening; it is the custom, and you must submit. You will see half of us to-night and half of us to-morrow; but after that you will be left in peace. If you like our society you can have it; if you don’t – why, you can keep as lonely as you like. But this evening and to-morrow you must put up with us; it is the fate of all freshers.”

CHAPTER XVI – FRESHERS

In less than a week’s time the four freshers were completely settled into the life at St. Wode’s. They had their work marked out for them, the lectures they were to attend were definitely arranged, the books they were to read were selected, some from the library, some from Green’s in the Broad. They joined the tennis, racquets, and boating clubs; Eileen and Marjorie, having submitted to the necessary test, were made full-blown members of the latter club immediately. Leslie had to take a few swimming lessons before she could do so.

Annie Colchester had begun to make friends with Leslie. She submitted to her roomfellow’s ministrations at night, gulping down the cup of hot cocoa which Leslie, evening after evening, presented to her, drinking it, it is true, as one in a dream, her red-brown eyes looking far ahead of her, her heavy brows contracted in an anxious frown. Nevertheless she got into bed in reasonable time, and Leslie saw that her feet were no longer cold nor her forehead burning.

Leslie determined to try for honors in English language and literature. Her tastes all lay in this direction, her idea being by and by to follow her mother’s profession of journalism, for which she already showed considerable aptitude. As she intended to aim at a first, or, at least, second class, her range of study was very wide; and German, French, and Italian literature had to be more or less understood in order to give her a thorough and complete grip of her subject. But Leslie was a healthy girl; she had been well trained, she had plenty of self-possession, and an abundance of strong common-sense. She had no idea of allowing herself to break down. In order to avoid such a catastrophe, she divided her hours carefully, allowing a certain amount for recreation and a certain amount also for the guiding of her wayward companion, to whom, as the days went on, she became really attached.

As to Annie herself, this was the first time she had ever permitted the advances of any student. This large room at St. Wode’s had been more or less of a worry to the governors, and it was finally settled, when Annie’s time to leave the college arrived, that it should be divided by a partition and let in future to two students. Up to the present no girl had ever stayed more than one term with Annie. Remembering this, Annie, one day toward the middle of the term, raised her eyes from her books and fixed them on Leslie.

“You will be glad when the term is over, won’t you?” she said abruptly.

“What do you mean?” replied Leslie.

“Why, you will be parting from me, you know. I won’t be the constant worry and plague of your life. If I take honors I shall be leaving St. Wode’s. In any case, you are quite certain to wish for another room, and to get it also next term. If I do remain, therefore, I shall be plagued with some terrible student of the Florrie Smart or Jane Heriot style. I nearly went mad over the last one; you can scarcely guess what a relief you are, by way of contrast.”

“Thank you very much indeed for saying anything so nice,” replied Leslie; “and perhaps now you will allow me in my turn to make a remark. It is this: If by any chance you don’t leave St. Wode’s, Annie, I hope you will allow me to be your roomfellow again next term.”

“Do you mean it?” said Annie, a flash of light coming into her eyes, and then leaving them. “But,” she added abruptly, “you speak of something which must not take place. I must pass in honors; if I don’t I shall die.”

“And you are certain to succeed,” said Leslie in a tone of sympathy. “I wish I could feel as sure of taking honors by and by in literature. I find these modern languages so very stiff.”

“What are you studying now?” asked Annie.

“I have to take German literature from 1500 to the death of Goethe,” said Leslie. “The course is enormous, and I am sometimes almost in despair.”

“But you have only just come; you can easily manage, and in any case, even if you fail – ”

“I do not mean to fail any more than you do,” replied Leslie.

Annie did not smile. Her queer red-brown eyes with their distended pupils gazed straight before her.

“It can never mean the same to you,” she said at last in a solemn voice, and then she looked down again at her book, pushed her hands through her red locks, and resumed her contemplation of the problem which lay before her.

A few moments later there came a tap at the door. Annie did not hear it. Leslie opened the door.

Jane Heriot stood without.

“These letters have just come for you and Annie Colchester,” she said: “and, as I was coming upstairs, I thought I would leave them with you.”

Leslie thanked her and eagerly grasped the little parcel. There were two letters for herself – one from her mother and one from Llewellyn. Her eyes shone with pleasure at the anticipation of the delightful time she would have reveling in the home news; the other letter was directed to Annie Colchester.

Now Leslie had not failed to remark that Annie seldom or never got letters, that she had made no real friends in the college, and that, as far as she could tell, she seemed to have no special friend anywhere.

“Here is a letter for you, Annie,” cried Leslie. “I am so glad that you have got one at last – ”

She took the letter as she spoke over to Annie, who started up, dropped her pen, and stood with both hands outstretched.

“It has come,” she cried: “at last I have news.”

Her face grew suddenly white as death.

“What is it, dear?” said Leslie with sympathy.

“At last I have news,” repeated Annie. “I have been starving, or, rather, I have been thirsting. You cannot tell what a thirst like mine means; and this, this is a cup of cold water.”

“Well, read it in peace,” said Leslie. “I won’t disturb you. I am truly glad it has come.”

Leslie seated herself with her back to her companion and opened her own letters. After a time she looked round. Annie was standing just where she was when she received the letter; both her hands were clutching it tightly, her eyes were fixed upon the written words, and her face was white.

“Have you had bad news?” said Leslie.

“Don’t notice me,” replied Annie. She crushed the letter up tight, thrust it into her pocket, and said abruptly, “What is the hour?”

“It is quite late – between ten and eleven.”

“I don’t care. I must go into the grounds; the air is stifling.”

“But they are just shutting up.”

“I shall go – I know a way. Don’t say a word. I’ll be back presently.”

She seized a small cloth cap which she was fond of wearing, and ran out of the room.

Leslie stood and thought about her for a moment or two; but then her own correspondence absorbed her, and she did not notice when eleven and even twelve struck.

Just after midnight she rose with a sigh to prepare for bed. She looked round the room. There was no sign of Annie Colchester.

“How stupid of me to have forgotten about her,” she thought with compunction. “She ought to have been in bed and to have taken her cocoa an hour ago. Oh! now I remember; she got a letter which upset her very much and went out. Dear, dear! where can she be?”

Leslie went to the window and flung it open; she put her head out, and tried to peer into the darkness; but the moon had already set, and she could not see more than a couple of yards in front of her. She ventured to call Annie’s name softly; there was no reply. She shut the window.

“There is nothing for it but for me to go and look for her,” she said to herself. “She is a very queer, erratic creature; and that letter – there was bad news in that letter. Poor girl, she spoke of it as cold water to the thirsty; she looked when I saw her last as if it had half killed her. What can she be doing out by herself? Yes, I must find her without delay.”

Leslie left the room; but she had scarcely gone a dozen paces down the corridor before she met Annie returning. Annie’s eyes were very bright, her cheeks were no longer pale, and there was a brilliant color in them. She did not take the least notice of Leslie; but, going into the room, shut the door. Leslie opened it and followed her.

“Dear me, Annie!” she said, “I was quite frightened about you.”

“Don’t begin,” said Annie.

“Don’t begin! What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t want you to begin to ask questions. I am going to get into bed, and to remain perfectly quiet, and you are not to ask me one question about anything. I want to sleep. I walked up and down as fast as ever I could outside in order to make myself sleepy. Don’t talk to me, Leslie; don’t say a single word. I shall go off to sleep – that is all I care for.”

“But your letter, dear?”