PRISCILLA'S PRIDE
"Why, I never lose my temper! What do you mean?"
"That is what I mean. You seldom lose your temper; I should hardly say 'never.' Neither does Priscilla."
"Well, then, why won't she let me pay for the photographs?" Martine looked keenly at Amy, who had been spending an hour with her that afternoon, as if she expected to read the answer in her friend's eyes.
"I cannot tell you Priscilla's reasons, but her spirit of independence."
"Spirit of independence! Boys of '76! How tired I am of American history! Priscilla is just like one of her own Pilgrim Fathers—only more so. Probably any one of them would have let a friend pay for one of those neat silhouettes, especially if the friend had insisted on having it made, or taken, or cut, or whatever it was that they did to make silhouettes; but Priscilla is a great deal harder than Plymouth Rock, and that is saying no little."
"All the same, you and Priscilla will have to settle this affair for yourselves," and rising from her seat, after a few words of farewell, Amy left Martine to reflect on the matter they had been discussing.
Now the dispute between Priscilla and Martine, if worth dignifying by so serious a name, was not of a kind likely to make lasting trouble between friends. For some time Martine had been teasing Priscilla to have her photograph taken, and Priscilla had never given a decided answer. At last one day, as they passed a fashionable gallery, Martine had insisted that the two should go in merely to look at samples of the photographer's work. On the impulse Martine decided that it would be great fun for them to be taken together. Vainly Priscilla protested that her costume was not suitable, that she didn't feel in the mood for sitting; Martine carried her point and two or three negatives were made of Priscilla and Martine sitting or standing, side by side. Then two or three were made of the two girls, each by herself. When the proofs were sent home, the photographs of Priscilla were exceedingly good. But Priscilla hesitating about ordering the finished pictures, she did not give the whole reason to Martine. Her hesitation came from the fact that the artist was expensive and that she had already exceeded her allowance for Christmas presents.
"I do not think that I can really afford them," she said at last to Martine one day, when the latter asked her if she had made her choice among the negatives. "I should simply love," she added, "to have some for my mother and a few of my relations Christmas, but I shall have to wait a little before deciding."
Yet while she spoke she retained in her hand one proof that seemed to meet her approval.
"Then this is the one you prefer?" said Martine, taking it gently in her own hand.
"Yes, I haven't had a photograph since I was a small girl, but I am sure that mother would be delighted with this one."
A week later a box came by mail to Priscilla. Opening it she found not only a half dozen of the photographs in which she and Martine were taken together, but also a dozen of the single heads, finished in the most expensive style. For a moment she was rather upset by the packet. "Of course there's some mistake," she said. "The man must have thought that I meant to give an order like Martine's, but I can never in the world afford these, and mother would be displeased with me for ordering them. There is only one thing—I'm sure to have some money given me at Christmas, and I can use some, or all of it, to pay this bill."
No bill was contained in the package, and after a few days, when Priscilla went to the photographer's to ask for it, she was told that it was already paid. Then she sought Martine, who did not deny that she had paid the bill.
"Why, it was the proper thing for me to do," she said. "It was I who had the photographs taken, and I who ordered them finished. I can't see that you have much to do with the matter now, except to send the photographs as Christmas cards. I can tell you they'll go like hot cakes, for they are just as good as they can be."
But Priscilla was firm, and though Martine tried to be firmer, she could not get her friend to promise to accept the pictures as a gift.
"They are really not a gift, either," urged Martine, "for I myself wanted to be in a group with you, and you stood there only to oblige me; so certainly you've earned something for your trouble, and as to the single heads, I wanted a separate picture of you, and while the photographer was about it, it didn't cost much more for a dozen than for one."
Again Priscilla presented her side, adding only that she must ask Martine to wait until after Christmas for the sum she had spent.
"If I didn't like the photographs," she concluded, "the whole thing would be different; but I do like them, and I can send them away as Christmas gifts, and so I must pay the bill."
"But it came to me."
"For my photographs?"
"No, for mine; I had them taken. They wouldn't have been printed if I hadn't ordered them."
"Oh, but mine are mine."
"Why, of course they are yours—at least all that were sent to your house."
"I can't bear to be obliged to anyone else for them."
"That's one of your greatest faults, Priscilla; you hate to be obliged to anybody for anything."
So for the present the discussion was dropped, though each friend was determined that in the end she would carry her own point.
This steadfast holding to her purpose was what Martine called Priscilla's "ill-temper," in describing the affair to Amy. Though she inwardly approved of her friend's independence, she felt that after she had approved of it Priscilla ought then to be ready to yield to her.
"It is strange," she said, "that I can never get Priscilla to accept anything from me. 'Pride goeth before destruction,' and that will be the way with Priscilla. Something will surely happen to her if she keeps on like this."
In the early summer, a few months before, Priscilla and Martine had first become really acquainted, when as travelling companions they made a journey with Amy and her mother. For some time the two seemed far from congenial; each looked at life from a very different standpoint. Priscilla, brought up rather strictly and economically, prided herself, perhaps unduly, on her unworldliness, and found it hard to understand the extravagant, fun-loving Martine. But each girl at last accepted the other's good qualities, and before they had left Canadian soil the two had begun to be good friends. When Martine's plans were finally settled, Priscilla was delighted that she and the young Chicagoan were to be at the same school.
Now Priscilla, although for a long time she had spent several weeks of each year in Boston with her aunt, Mrs. Tilworth, had made few friends among the girls of her own age whose parents her mother or her aunt knew. Her natural shyness stood in her way when they came to call on her, and when she returned their calls she progressed no further.
Often she was invited to their parties, and when she could not escape it, she accepted their invitations. Though she took part in their games in a quiet way, no one paid much attention to the pale little girl who always seemed ill at ease.
One awful day Mrs. Tilworth decided that she must give a party for Priscilla; in vain Priscilla protested that she hated parties. The invitations were written and sent out, and on the appointed afternoon Priscilla, in a ruffled muslin gown, had to stand beside her aunt to receive her guests. When she had safely passed through this ordeal she slipped away to a corner, where she sat for a while looking on. When she found that no one tried to draw her out, she managed to slip still farther away. "They don't need me," she murmured. Later, when they looked for her, that she might take her place at the head of the table—for it was a children's party, with a sit-down supper at six o'clock—there was a great uproar when she could not be found. At last two or three of the children went to Priscilla's room, and entering without knocking, they saw her seated in an easy-chair by the droplight on the little centre table. She was so engrossed in the book she was reading that at first she did not hear them, and when one of them snatched the volume out of her hand to read the title, they discovered that it was a little history of Mary Queen of Scots.
"Those children tired me," she explained later to her aunt. "They played so hard, and I just thought I'd go upstairs and read for a while."
Somehow the story got out. Mrs. Tilworth repeated it to one of the older girls, and for a long time Priscilla was called behind her back "Mary Queen of Scots," only someone said, "She will never lose her head, her neck is so stiff."
Martine, when Brenda told her of this story, could not help laughing, in spite of her desire to be loyal to her friend.
"Priscilla is still stiff-necked," she said, "but already since she's had my acquaintance she's been forced to unbend a little, and before another summer comes round her education will be much further advanced."
Priscilla was conscious of her own shyness, and often envied those girls who seemed to have so much fun together.
"I shouldn't expect Priscilla to be very cheerful while she lives with Mrs. Tilworth; the house is really gloomy; it has plenty of windows, but the curtains are always pulled down, and the furniture is so heavy and primly arranged that it naturally affects Priscilla's disposition."
What Martine said was true to a great extent. Mrs. Tilworth's house was halfway up the hill, not so very far from the Mansion School, but its whole aspect, inside and out, was far less attractive than Mrs. DuLaunuy's. It was furnished in the heavy style of about fifty years ago, lacking the elegance of real antiquity. Priscilla's room was large and overfurnished, with its great black walnut bedstead and marble-top table and heavy rocking-chairs. But it wasn't exactly a young girl's room, and the gilt-framed steel engravings on the wall gave her no inspiration for study or work. Secretly she envied Martine her cheerful room in Brenda's apartment, with its couch covered in pink and white cretonne, its white enamelled dressing-table and oval mirror, brass bedstead, and rattan chairs cushioned to match the divan. She did not express her envy of these pretty belongings, lest she should appear ungrateful to Mrs. Tilworth; for she knew that her aunt wished her to be comfortable and happy, according to her own standard of comfort and happiness. Indeed most people who knew Mrs. Tilworth thought Priscilla exceedingly fortunate in having so good a home offered her at a time when her mother was especially burdened with care.
Although Mrs. Tilworth had never expressed herself on the subject, Martine believed that she did not approve of persons who lived in apartments. The little original prejudice that she had against Martine as an outsider was probably somewhat stronger from this fact.
"I should think," she had said to Priscilla, "that Mrs. Stratford must have been greatly disappointed that Mrs. Montgomery could not take Martine this winter; it would have been so much better for her to live in a house."
"But an apartment is just as pleasant," Priscilla had responded, "and it's a fine thing that Brenda Weston was able to take her. Brenda lives in a flat because it's more economical."
"Don't say 'flat'; you've learned that from Martine; in Boston we always say 'apartment.' But an apartment on the Avenue is not economical, my dear child. A whole house on Chestnut Street would cost no more, and though I would not make anyone else's business my own, I can't understand how anyone who might live in a house can prefer a few rooms high up in the air."
"It's very homelike there," sighed Priscilla, casting a glance around the large, gloomy dining-room, where they sat at dinner. "I always enjoy myself at Brenda's—"
Mrs. Tilworth, noticing the sigh, looked sharply at her niece. "I hope you are perfectly happy with me," she said.
"Oh, yes, indeed I am; you are certainly very kind."
Yet even as she spoke, Priscilla realized that in some ways she wasn't benefiting as she should from her aunt's kindness, and she began to wonder if the fault might not lie a little with herself.
A few days after the discussion about the photographs, Priscilla came to school with a letter in her hand.
"It's from Eunice," she said, as she and Martine sat together near a window, a quarter of an hour before the time for the school to begin.
"Oh, read me what she says," urged Martine. "Her letters are always entertaining, because they are so old-fashioned."
Eunice Airton was a young girl near Priscilla's age, whose acquaintance Mrs. Redmond and her party had made during their stay in Annapolis. She was especially Priscilla's friend, while her brother Balfour was Martine's ideal of an independent college boy; and it was rather because she hoped to hear some news of Balfour that Martine urged Priscilla to read the letter.
"I am sorry to say," wrote Eunice, "that I hardly think it will be possible for me to go to college. It will be very difficult for me to overcome the prejudices of my mother, who still does not think it is quite proper for a girl to have the same education as a man. But the fact that you are planning to go to college will have much weight with her, for, as you perhaps know, she thinks you quite a model and says that she never can realize that you are an American."
Martine smiled at this expression of Mrs. Airton's opinion, which indeed she had heard more than once before. "Eunice," she said to Priscilla, "is too polite to repeat all that her mother said in speaking of you. She probably contrasted you with me, whom, I am sure, she considers the typical Yankee girl."
"Oh, no, of course not," protested Priscilla, continuing to read Eunice's letter.
"Before I tell you of any of my own personal affairs, I must mention something that will interest you more deeply. There is an Acadian family living in Annapolis, and whom do you suppose they have had visiting them lately? Why, the little Yvonne, the blind girl, of whom I have heard you speak, who is the special protégée, if I remember, of Miss Stratford. It is indeed due to her kindness, I understand, that Yvonne has been able to make this journey from Meteghan, and I am told that she is to stay here three months under the care of a physician who thinks that he can help her eyes. She is also to take lessons on the piano, as those who are interested in her think that it is better for her to let her voice rest for the present, but to play the piano well enough to accompany her songs will some time be a great advantage to her."
"There," exclaimed Martine, excitedly, "that's a fine idea! I wonder who suggested it to the Babets. It isn't likely that the doctor can do so very much for her eyes, but it will be splendid for her to get a start in music. When I see papa at Christmas I intend to persuade him to have Yvonne brought to Boston for a year."
"Oh, that would be a great expense," said Priscilla, "and someone would have to take care of her."
"That could be managed easily enough, if I can only get papa thoroughly interested."
"I think he has already done his part, for it's through the money he gave you for Yvonne that she is able to be in Annapolis now."
"I wonder how Eunice used her money; did she ever tell you, Priscilla?"
"No," replied Priscilla; "but she may have helped her mother about the mortgage, and perhaps she may have put a little aside for a college nest-egg. She is so practical."
"It's wonderful—isn't it, Priscilla?—that you should have met a girl you approve of so thoroughly in a corner of the world that isn't Plymouth or even Boston."
Priscilla, as she folded up her letter, looked questioningly at Martine. There was something that she did not quite understand in Martine's attitude toward Eunice.
Whatever question she had in mind remained for the time unspoken. It was time for school to begin, and they hurried to their places.