Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. A Sweet Girl Graduate by L. T. Meade (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: L. T. Meade
Book online «A Sweet Girl Graduate by L. T. Meade (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖». Author L. T. Meade
As they entered the town they saw Rosalind Merton coming to meet them. There was nothing in this, for Rosalind was a gay young person and had many friends in Kingsdene. Few days passed that did not see her in the old town on her way to visit this friend or that, or to perpetrate some little piece of extravagance at Spilman’s or at her dressmaker’s.
On this occasion, however, Rosalind was neither at Spilman’s or the dressmaker’s. She was walking demurely down the High Street, daintily dressed and charming to look at, in Hammond’s company. Rosalind was talking eagerly and earnestly, and Hammond, who was very tall, was bending down to catch her words, when the other three girls came briskly round a corner and in full view of the pair.
“Oh!” exclaimed Priscilla aloud in her abrupt, startled way. Her face became suffused with a flood of the deepest crimson, and Maggie, who felt a little annoyed at seeing Hammond in Rosalind’s company, could not help noticing Priscilla’s almost uncontrollable agitation.
Rosalind, too, blushed, but prettily, when she saw the other three girls come up.
“I will say good-by now, Mr. Hammond,” she said, “for I must get back to St. Benet’s in good time tonight.”
She held out her hand, which the young man took and shook cordially.
“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said.
Maggie was near enough to hear his words. Rosalind tripped past her three fellow-students with an airy little nod and the faint beginning of a mocking curtsy.
Hammond came up to the three girls and joined them at once.
“Are you going to the Marshalls’?” he said to Maggie.
“Yes.”
“So am I. What a lucky rencontre.”
He said another word or two and then the four turned to walk down the High Street. Maggie walked on in front with Constance. Hammond fell to Priscilla’s share.
“I am delighted to see you again,” she said in her eager, agitated, abrupt way.
“Are you?” he replied in some astonishment. Then he hastened to say something polite. “I forgot, we had not ended our discussion. You almost convinced me with regard to the superior merits of the Odyssey, but not quite. Shall we renew the subject now?”
“No, please don’t. That’s not why I’m glad to see you. It’s for something quite, quite different. I want to say something to you, and it’s most important. Can’t we just keep back a little from the others? I don’t want Maggie to hear.”
Now why were Miss Oliphant’s ears so sharp that afternoon? Why, even in the midst of her gay chatter to Constance, did she hear every word of Priscilla’s queer, garbled speech? And why did astonishment and even anger steal into her heart?
What she did, however, was to gratify Prissie immensely by hurrying on with her companion, so that she and Hammond were left comfortably in the background.
“I don’t quite know what you mean,” he said stiffly. “What can you possibly have of importance to say to me?”
“I don’t want Maggie to hear,” repeated Prissie in her earnest voice. She knew far too little of the world to be in the least alarmed at Hammond’s stately tones.
“What I want to say is about Maggie, and yet it isn’t.”
“About Miss Oliphant?”
“Oh, yes, but she’s Maggie to me. She’s the dearest, the best— there’s no one like her, no one. I didn’t understand her at first, but now I know how noble she is. I had no idea until I knew Maggie that a person could have faults and yet be noble. It’s a new sort of experience to me.”
Prissie’s eyes, in which even in her worst moments there always sat the soul of a far-reaching sort of intelligence, were shining now through tears. Hammond saw the tears, and the lovely expression in the eyes, and said to himself:
“Good heavens, could I ever have regarded that dear child as plain?” Aloud he said in a softened voice, “I’m awfully obliged to you for saying these sorts of things of Miss— Miss Oliphant, but you must know, at least you must guess, that I— I have thought them for myself long, long ago.”
“Yes, of course, I know that. But have you much faith? Do you keep to what you believe?”
“This is a most extraordinary girl!” murmured Hammond. Then he said aloud, “I fail to understand you.”
They had now nearly reached the Marshalls’ door. The other two were waiting for them.
“It’s this,” said Prissie, clasping her hands hard and speaking in her most emphatic and distressful way. “There are unkind things being said of Maggie, and there’s one girl who is horrid to her— horrid! I want you not to believe a word that girl says.”
“What girl do you mean?”
“You were walking with her just now.”
“Really, Miss Peel, you are the most extraordinary—”
But Maggie Oliphant’s clear, sweet voice interrupted them.
“Had we not better come into the house?” she said. “The door has been open for quite half a minute.”
Poor Prissie rushed in first, covered with shame; Miss Field hastened after, to bear her company; and Hammond and Maggie brought up the rear.
A PAINTER
The Marshalls were always at home to their friend on Friday afternoons, and there were already several guests in the beautiful, quaint old drawing-room when the quartet entered. Mrs. Marshall, her white hair looking lovely under her soft lace cap, came forward to meet her visitors. Her kind eyes looked with appreciation and welcome at one and all. Blushing and shame-faced Prissie received a pleasant word of greeting, which seemed in some wonderful way to steady her nerves. Hammond and Maggie were received as special and very dear friends, and Helen Marshall, the old lady’s pretty grand-daughter, rushed forward to embrace her particular friend, Constance Field.
Maggie felt sore; she scarcely knew why. Her voice was bright, her eyes shining, her cheeks radiant in their rich and lovely bloom. But there was a quality in her voice which Hammond recognized— a certain ring which meant defiance and which prophesied to those who knew her well that one of her bad half-hours was not very far off.
Maggie seated herself near a girl who was a comparative stranger and began to talk. Hammond drew near and made a third in the conversation. Maggie talked in the brilliant, somewhat reckless fashion which she occasionally adopted. Hammond listened, now and then uttered a short sentence, now and then was silent, with disapproval in his eyes.
Maggie read their expression like a book.
“He shall be angry with me,” she said to herself. Her words became a little wilder. The sentiments she uttered were the reverse of those Hammond held.
Soon a few old friends came up. They were jolly, merry, good-humored girls, who were all prepared to look up to Maggie Oliphant and to worship her beauty and cleverness if she would allow them. Maggie welcomed the girls with effusion, let them metaphorically sit at her feet and proceeded to disenchant them as hard as she could.
Some garbled accounts of the auction at St. Benet’s had reached them, and they were anxious to get a full report from Miss Oliphant. Did she not think it a scandalous sort of thing to have occurred?
“Not at all,” answered Maggie in her sweetest tones; “it was capital fun, I assure you.”
“Were you really there?” asked Miss Duncan, the eldest of the girls. “We heard it, of course, bur could scarcely believe it possible.”
“Of course I was there,” replied Maggie. “Whenever there is something really amusing going on, I am always in the thick of it.”
“Well!” Emily Duncan looked at her sister Susan. Susan raised her brows. Hammond took a photograph from a table which stood near and pretended to examine it.
“Shall I tell you about the auction?” asked Maggie.
“Oh, please, if you would be so kind. I suppose, as you were present, such a thing could not really lower the standard of the college?” These words came from Susan Duncan, who looked at Hammond as she spoke. She was his cousin and very fond of him.
“Please tell us about the auction,” he said, looking full at Maggie.
“I will,” she replied, answering his gaze with a flash of repressed irritation. “The auction was splendid fun! One of our girls was in debt, and she had to sell her things. Oh, it was capital! I wish you could have seen her acting as her own auctioneer. Some of us were greedy and wanted her best things. I was one of those. She sold a sealskin jacket, an expensive one, quite new. There is a legend in the college that eighty guineas were expended on it. Well, I bid for the sealskin and it was knocked down to me for ten. It is a little too big for me, of course, but when it is cut to my figure, it will make a superb winter garment.”
Maggie was clothed now in velvet and sable; nothing could be richer than her attire; nothing more mocking than her words.
“You were fortunate,” said Susan Duncan. “You got your sealskin at a great bargain. Didn’t she, Geoffrey?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Hammond.
“Why not? Oh, do tell us why not,” cried the sisters eagerly.
He bowed to them, laughed as lightly as Maggie would have done and said in a careless tone: “My reasons are complex and too many to mention. I will only say now that what is objectionable to possess can never be a bargain to obtain. In my opinion, sealskin jackets are detestable.”
With these words he strode across the room and seated himself with a sigh of relief by Priscilla’s side.
“What are you doing all by yourself?” he said cheerfully. “Is no one attending to you? Are you always to be left like a poor little forsaken mouse in the background?”
“I am not at all lonely,” said Prissie.
“I thought you hated to be alone.”
“I did, the other day, in that drawing-room; but not in this. People are all kind in this.”
“You are right. Our hostess is most genial and sympathetic.”
“And the guests are nice, too,” said Prissie; “at least, they look nice.”
“Ay, but you must not be taken in by appearances. Some of them only look nice.”
“Do you mean—” began Prissie in her abrupt, anxious voice.
Hammond took alarm. He remembered her peculiar outspokenness.
“I don’t mean anything,” he said hastily. “By the way, are you fond of pictures?”
“I have scarcely ever seen any.”
“That does not matter. I know by your face that you can appreciate some pictures.”
“But, really, I know nothing of art.”
“Never mind. If the painter who paints knows you——”
“The painter knows me? I have never seen an artist in my life.”
“Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of characters like yours. There are some good pictures in this house. Shall I show you one or two?”
Prissie sprang to her feet.
“You are most kind,” she said elusively. “I really don’t know how to thank you.”
“You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud voice, not so impressively. Our neighbors will think I have bestowed half a kingdom upon you.”
Prissie blushed and looked down.
“Don’t be shocked, with me,” said Hammond. “I can read your grateful heart. Come this way”
They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or three remaining satellites. Prissie looked at her with longing and tripped awkwardly against her chair. Hammond walked past Maggie as if she did not exist to him. Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla and followed the back of Hammond’s head and shoulders with a supercilious, amused smile.
Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door.
“Where are we going?” asked Priscilla. “Are not the pictures here?”
“Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery— here to the left and down these steps. Now, I’m going to introduce you to a new world.”
He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather small room, lighted from the roof. It contained in all about six or eight pictures, each the work of a master.
Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a wall by itself at the further end. It represented a summer scene of deep repose. There was water in the foreground, in the back tall forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June. Overhead was a sunset sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below. The master who painted the picture was Corot.
Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.
“There is summer.” he said; “peace, absolute repose. You have not to go to it; it comes to you.”
He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a different part of the gallery.
Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out
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