“Welcome to St. Benet’s?” said Maggie, going up and taking Priscilla’s hand cordially within her own. “Now you’ll have to get into this low chair, and make yourself quite at home and happy.”
“How snug you are here,” said Prissie, her eyes brightening, and a pink colour mounting into her cheeks. She was glad that Maggie was alone; she felt more at ease with her than with anyone, but the next moment she said, with a look of apparent regret —
“I thought Miss Banister was in your room?”
“No; Nancy has gone to her own room at the end of the corridor to do some work for an hour. She will come back to say good-night. She always does. Are you sorry to have me by myself?”
“Indeed I am not,” said Priscilla. The smile, which made her rather plain face attractive, crept slowly back to it. Maggie poured out a cup of cocoa and brought it to her, then, drawing another chair forward, she seated herself in it, sipped her own cocoa, and began to talk.
Long afterwards Priscilla remembered that talk. It was not what Maggie said, for her conversation in itself was not at all brilliant, but it was the sound of her rich, calm, rather lazy voice, the different lights which glanced and gleamed in her eyes, the dimples about her mouth, the attitude she put herself in. Maggie had a way of changing colour, too, which added to her fascinations. Sometimes the beautiful oval of her face would be almost ivory white, but then again a rosy cloud would well up and up the cheeks, and even slightly suffuse the broad, low forehead. Her face was never long the same, never more than a moment in repose; eyes, mouth, brow, even the very waves of her hair seemed to Priscilla, this first night as she sat by her hearth, to be all speech.
The girls grew cosy and confidential together. Priscilla told Maggie about her home, a little also about her past history, and her motive in coming to St. Benet’s. Maggie sympathised with all the expression she was capable of. At last Priscilla bade her new friend good-night, and, rising from her luxurious chair, prepared to go back to her own room.
She had just reached the door of Maggie’s room, and was about to turn the handle, when a sudden thought arrested her. She came back a few steps.
“May I ask you a question?” she said.
“Certainly,” replied Miss Oliphant.
“Who is the girl who used to live in my room? Annabel Lee, the other girls call her. Who is she? What is there remarkable about her?”
To Priscilla’s astonishment Maggie started a step forward, her eyes blazed with an expression which was half frightened – half angry. She interlocked one soft hand inside the other, her face grew white, hard, and strained.
“You must not ask me about Annabel Lee,” she said in a whisper, “for I – I can tell you nothing about her. I can never tell you about her – never.”
Then she rushed to her sofa-bed, flung herself upon it face downwards, and burst into queer, silent, distressful tears.
Someone touched Priscilla softly on her shoulder.
“Let me take you to your room, Miss Peel,” said Nancy Banister. “Don’t take any notice of Maggie; she will be all right by-and-by.”
Nancy took Priscilla’s hand, and walked with her across the corridor.
“I am so sorry I said anything to hurt Miss Oliphant,” said Priscilla.
“Oh, you were not to blame. You could not know any better. Of course, now that you do know, you will never do it again.”
“But I don’t know anything now. Please will you tell me who Annabel Lee is?”
“Hush! don’t speak so loud. Annabel Lee – ” Nancy’s eyes filled with tears – “no girl in the college was so popular.”
“Why do you say was? and why do you cry?”
“I did not know that I cried. Annabel Lee is dead.”
“Oh!”
Priscilla walked into her room, and Nancy went back to Maggie Oliphant.
Chapter Four
An Eavesdropper
The students at St. Benet’s were accustomed to unlimited licence in the matter of sitting up at night. At a certain hour the electric lights were put out, but each girl was well supplied with candles, and could sit up and pursue her studies into the small hours, if she willed.
It was late when Priscilla left Maggie Oliphant’s room on this first night, but, long as her journey had been, and tired as she undoubtedly felt, the events of the evening had excited her, and she did not care to go to bed. Her fire was now burning well, and her room was warm and cosy. She drew the bolt of her door, and, unlocking her trunk, began to unpack. She was a methodical girl, and well trained. Miss Rachel Peel had instilled order into Priscilla from her earliest days, and she now quickly disposed of her small but neat wardrobe. Her linen would just fit into the drawers of the bureau. Her two or three dresses and jackets were hung tidily away behind the curtain which formed her wardrobe.
Priscilla pushed her empty trunk against the wall, folded up the bits of string and paper which lay scattered about, and then, slowly undressing, she got into bed.
She undressed with a certain sense of luxuriousness and pleasure. Her room began to look charming to her now that her things were unpacked, and the first sharp pain of her home-sickness was greatly softened since she had fallen in love with Maggie Oliphant.
Priscilla had not often in the course of her life undressed by a fire, but then had she ever spent an evening like this one? All was fresh to her, new, exciting. Now she was really very tired, and the moment she laid her head on her pillow would doubtless be asleep.
She got into bed, and, putting out her candle, lay down. The firelight played on the pale blue walls, and lit up the bold design of the briar-roses, which ran round the frieze at the top of the room.
Priscilla wondered why she did not drop asleep at once. She felt vexed with herself when she discovered that each instant the chance of slumber was flying before her, that every moment her tired body became more restless and wide-awake. She could not help gazing at that scroll of briar-roses; she could not help thinking of the hand that had painted the flowers, of the girl whose presence had once made the room in which she now lay so charming.
Priscilla had not yet been twelve hours at St. Benet’s, and yet almost every student she had met had spoken of Annabel Lee – had spoken of her with interest, with regret. One girl had gone further than this; she had breathed her name with bitter sorrow.
Priscilla wished she had not been put into this room. She felt absolutely nervous; she had a sense of usurping someone else’s place, of turning somebody else out into the cold. She did not believe in ghosts, but she had an uncomfortable sensation, and it would not have greatly surprised her if Annabel had come gliding back in the night watches to put the finishing touches to those scrolls of wild flowers which ornamented the panels of the doors, and to the design of the briar-rose, which ran round the frieze of the room. Annabel might come in, and pursue this work in stealthy spirit fashion, and then glide up to her, and ask her to get out of this little white bed, and let the strange visitor, to whom it had once belonged, rest in it herself once more.
Annabel Lee! It was a queer name – a wild, bewitching sort of a name – the name of a girl in a song.
Priscilla knew many of Poe’s strange songs, and she found herself now murmuring some words which used to fascinate her long ago: —
“And the angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me;
Yes!