第40章

Nothing was more unexpected by her than the way that those last days at St.Dreots crowded about her.They should surely have been killed by the colours and interests of this new life.It appeared that they were only accentuated by them.Especially did she see that night when she had watched beside her father's dead body...she saw the stirring of the beard, the shape of the feet beneath the sheet, the flicker of the candle.Apart from this one hour of the day, however, she was happy, excited, expectant.What it was that she expected she did not exactly know, but there were so many things that life might now do for her.One thing that very evidently it did not intend to do for her was to make her tidy, careful, and a good manager.Old Martha, the Cardinal servant, was her sworn enemy, and, indeed, with reason.It seemed that Maggie could not remember the things that she was told: lighted lamps were left long after they should have been extinguished, one night the bathroom was drowned in water by a running tap, her clothes were not mended, she was never punctual at meal-times.And yet no one could call her a dreamy child.She could, about things that interested her, be remarkably sharp and penetrating.She had a swift and often successful intuition about characters; facts and details about places or people she never forgot.She had a hard, severe, entirely masculine sense of independence, an ironic contempt for sentimentality, a warm, ardent loyalty and simplicity in friendship.Her carelessness in all the details of life sprang from her long muddled years at St.Dreots, the lack of a mother's guidance and education, the careless selfishness of her father's disregard of her.She struggled, poor child, passionately to improve herself.She sat for hours in her room working at her clothes, trying to mend her stockings, the holes in her blouses, the rip of the braid at the bottom of her skirt.She waited listening for the cuckoo to call that she might be in exact time for luncheon or dinner, and then, as she listened, some thought would occur to her, and, although she did not dream, her definite tracking of her idea would lead her to forget all time.Soon there would be Martha's knock on the door and her surly ill-tempered voice:

"Quarter of an hour they've been sitting at luncheon, Miss."And her clothes! The aunts had said that she must buy what was necessary, and she had gone with Aunt Elizabeth to choose all the right things.They had, between them, bought all the wrong ones.

Maggie had no idea of whether or no something suited her; a dress, a hat that would look charming upon any one else looked terrible upon her; she did not know what was the matter, but nothing became her!

Her new friend, Caroline Smith, laughing and chattering, tried to help her.Caroline had very definite ideas about dress, and indeed spent the majority of her waking hours in contemplation of that subject.But she had never, she declared, been, in all her life, so puzzled.She was perfectly frank.

"But it looks AWFUL, Maggie dear, and yesterday in the shop it didn't seem so bad, although that old pig wouldn't let us have it the way we wanted.It's just as it is with poor mother, who gets fatter and fatter, diet herself as she may, so that she can wear nothing at all now that looks right, and is only really comfortable in her night-dress.Of course you're not FAT, Maggie darling, but it's your figure--everything's either too long or too short for you.

You don't mind my speaking so frankly, do you? I always say one's either a friend or not, and if one's a friend why then be as rude as you please.What's friendship for?"They were, in fact, the greatest possible friends.Maggie had never possessed a girl-friend before.She had, in the first days of the acquaintance, been shy and very silent--she had been afraid of going too far.But soon she had seen that she could not go too far and could not say too much.She had discovered then a multitude of new happinesses.

There was nothing, she found, too small, too unimportant to claim Caroline's interest.Caroline wished to know everything, and soon Maggie disclosed to her many things that she had told to no other human being in her life before.It could not honestly be said that Caroline had many wise comments to make on Maggie's experiences.Her attitude was one of surprised excitement.She was amazed by the most ordinary incidents and conversations.She found Maggie's life quite incredible.

"You must stop me, Maggie, if I hurt your feelings.But really!...Why, if poor father had treated me like that I'd have gone straight out of the house and never come back.I would indeed...Well, here you are now, dear, and we must just see each other as often as ever we can!"They made a strange contrast, Maggie so plain in her black dress with her hair that always looked as though it had been cut short like a boy's, her strong rough movements, and Caroline, so neat and shining and entirely feminine that her only business in the world seemed to be to fascinate, beguile and bewilder the opposite sex.

Whatever the aunts may have thought of this new friendship, they said nothing.Caroline had her way with them as with every one else.