A Sweet Girl Graduate

by L. T. Meade

In the days that followed people knew that she was one of those rare and brilliant creatures who, like a lovely but too ethereal flower, must quickly bloom into perfection and then pass away. Annabel was destined to a short life, and after her death the high tone of Heath Hall deteriorated considerably.

This girl was a born leader. When she died no other girl in the college could take her place, and for many a long day those who had loved her were conscious of a sense which meant a loss of headship. In short, they were without their leader.

If Annabel in her gaiety and brightness could influence girls who were scarcely more than acquaintances, the effect of her strong personality on Maggie was supreme. Maggie often said that she never knew what love meant until she met Annabel. The two girls were inseparable; their love for each other was compared to that of Jonathan and David of Bible story, and of Orestes and Pylades of Greek legend. The society of each gave the other the warmest pleasure.

Annabel and Maggie were both so beautiful in appearance, so far above the average girl in their pose, their walk, their manner, that people noticed these friends wherever they went. A young and rising artist, who saw them once at St. Hilda’s, begged permission to make a picture of the pair. It was done during the summer recess before Annabel died, and made a sensation in the next year’s Academy. Many of the visitors who went there stopped and looked at the two faces, both in the perfection of their youthful bloom and beauty; few guessed that one even now had gone to the Home best fitted for so ardent and high a spirit.

Annabel Lee died a year before Priscilla came to the college. Whatever Maggie inwardly felt, she had got over her first grief; her smile was again as brilliant as when Annabel was by her side, her laugh was as merry; but the very few who could look a little way into Maggie’s perverse and passionate heart, knew well that something had died in her which could never live again, that her laugh was often hollow, and her brilliant smile had only a foundation in bitterness.

Maggie did not only grieve for her friend when she mourned for Annabel. She had loved her most deeply, and love alone would have caused her agony in such a loss; but Maggie’s keenest and most terrible feelings were caused by an unavailing regret.

This regret was connected with Geoffrey Hammond.

He had known Annabel from her childhood. He was an old friend of some of her friends, and during those last, long summer holidays, which the two girls spent together under the roof of Maggie’s guardian, Hammond, who was staying with relations not far away, came to see them almost daily. He was the kind of man who could win both respect and admiration; he was grave in his nature; and his aspirations, aims, and ambitions were high. In their conversations during this lovely summer weather these young people dreamt happy dreams together, and planned a future which meant good to all mankind. Maggie, to all appearance, was heart and soul with Annabel and Geoffrey in what they thought and said.

Nothing could have been simpler or more unconventional than the intercourse between these young people. Miss Lee had known Hammond all her life; Maggie always spoke and thought of herself as second to Annabel in Geoffrey Hammond’s regard. One brilliant autumn day, however, he surprised Maggie by asking her to take a long walk alone with him. No words were said during this ramble to open Maggie Oliphant’s eyes to the true state of Hammond’s feelings for her, but, when she returned from her walk, she could not help noticing Annabel Lee’s unaccountable depression. It was not until later, however, that Maggie attributed a certain pathetic, almost heart-broken, look in her friend’s lovely eyes to its true cause.

Hammond was a graduate of St. Hilda’s College at Kingsdene, and the three friends often talked of the happy meetings they would have during the coming winter. He was a man of large property, and the favourite amusement of these young people was in talking over the brilliant life which lay before Hammond when he took possession of his estates. He would be the ideal landlord of his age; the people who lived on his property would, when he attained his majority, enter into a millennium of bliss.