The Essential G. B. Shaw: Celebrated Plays, Novels, Personal Letters, Essays & Articles. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ bother!” said Miss Wylie. “The Lady Abbess takes good care to shut out all the noise we make. Let us—”

      “Girls,” said the lady above, calling down quietly, but with ominous distinctness.

      Silence and utter confusion ensued. Then came a reply, in a tone of honeyed sweetness, from Miss Wylie:

      “Did you call us, DEAR Miss Wilson?”

      “Yes. Come up here, if you please, all three.”

      There was some hesitation among them, each offering the other precedence. At last they went up slowly, in the order, though not at all in the manner, of their flying descent; followed Miss Wilson into the classroom; and stood in a row before her, illumined through three western windows with a glow of ruddy orange light. Miss Carpenter, the largest of the three, was red and confused. Her arms hung by her sides, her fingers twisting the folds of her dress. Miss Gertrude Lindsay, in pale sea-green, had a small head, delicate complexion, and pearly teeth. She stood erect, with an expression of cold distaste for reproof of any sort. The holland dress of the third offender had changed from yellow to white as she passed from the gray eastern twilight on the staircase into the warm western glow in the room. Her face had a bright olive tone, and seemed to have a golden mica in its composition. Her eyes and hair were hazel-nut color; and her teeth, the upper row of which she displayed freely, were like fine Portland stone, and sloped outward enough to have spoilt her mouth, had they not been supported by a rich under lip, and a finely curved, impudent chin. Her half cajoling, half mocking air, and her ready smile, were difficult to confront with severity; and Miss Wilson knew it; for she would not look at her even when attracted by a convulsive start and an angry side glance from Miss Lindsay, who had just been indented between the ribs by a finger tip.

      “You are aware that you have broken the rules,” said Miss Wilson quietly.

      “We didn’t intend to. We really did not,” said the girl in holland, coaxingly.

      “Pray what was your intention then, Miss Wylie?”

      Miss Wylie unexpectedly treated this as a smart repartee instead of a rebuke. She sent up a strange little scream, which exploded in a cascade of laughter.

      “Pray be silent, Agatha,” said Miss Wilson severely. Agatha looked contrite. Miss Wilson turned hastily to the eldest of the three, and continued:

      “I am especially surprised at you, Miss Carpenter. Since you have no desire to keep faith with me by upholding the rules, of which you are quite old enough to understand the necessity, I shall not trouble you with reproaches, or appeals to which I am now convinced that you would not respond,” (here Miss Carpenter, with an inarticulate protest, burst into tears); “but you should at least think of the danger into which your juniors are led by your childishness. How should you feel if Agatha had broken her neck?”

      “Oh!” exclaimed Agatha, putting her hand quickly to her neck.

      “I didn’t think there was any danger,” said Miss Carpenter, struggling with her tears. “Agatha has done it so oft — oh dear! you have torn me.” Miss Wylie had pulled at her schoolfellow’s skirt, and pulled too hard.

      “Miss Wylie,” said Miss Wilson, flushing slightly, “I must ask you to leave the room.”

      “Oh, no,” exclaimed Agatha, clasping her hands in distress. “Please don’t, dear Miss Wilson. I am so sorry. I beg your pardon.”

      “Since you will not do what I ask, I must go myself,” said Miss Wilson sternly. “Come with me to my study,” she added to the two other girls. “If you attempt to follow, Miss Wylie, I shall regard it as an intrusion.”

      “But I will go away if you wish it. I didn’t mean to diso—”

      “I shall not trouble you now. Come, girls.”

      The three went out; and Miss Wylie, left behind in disgrace, made a surpassing grimace at Miss Lindsay, who glanced back at her. When she was alone, her vivacity subsided. She went slowly to the window, and gazed disparagingly at the landscape. Once, when a sound of voices above reached her, her eyes brightened, and her ready lip moved; but the next silent moment she relapsed into moody indifference, which was not relieved until her two companions, looking very serious, reentered.

      “Well,” she said gaily, “has moral force been applied? Are you going to the Recording Angel?”

      “Hush, Agatha,” said Miss Carpenter. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

      “No, but you ought, you goose. A nice row you have got me into!”

      “It was your own fault. You tore my dress.”

      “Yes, when you were blurting out that I sometimes slide down the banisters.”

      “Oh!” said Miss Carpenter slowly, as if this reason had not occurred to her before. “Was that why you pulled me?”

      “Dear me! It has actually dawned upon you. You are a most awfully silly girl, Jane. What did the Lady Abbess say?”

      Miss Carpenter again gave her tears way, and could not reply.

      “She is disgusted with us, and no wonder,” said Miss Lindsay.

      “She said it was all your fault,” sobbed Miss Carpenter.

      “Well, never mind, dear,” said Agatha soothingly. “Put it in the Recording Angel.”

      “I won’t write a word in the Recording Angel unless you do so first,” said Miss Lindsay angrily. “You are more in fault than we are.”

      “Certainly, my dear,” replied Agatha. “A whole page, if you wish.”

      “I b-believe you LIKE writing in the Recording Angel,” said Miss Carpenter spitefully.

      “Yes, Jane. It is the best fun the place affords.”

      “It may be fun to you,” said Miss Lindsay sharply; “but it is not very creditable to me, as Miss Wilson said just now, to take a prize in moral science and then have to write down that I don’t know how to behave myself. Besides, I do not like to be told that I am ill-bred!”

      Agatha laughed. “What a deep old thing she is! She knows all our weaknesses, and stabs at us through them. Catch her telling me, or Jane there, that we are ill-bred!”

      “I don’t understand you,” said Miss Lindsay, haughtily.

      “Of course not. That’s because you don’t know as much moral science as I, though I never took a prize in it.”

      “You never took a prize in anything,” said Miss Carpenter.

      “And I hope I never shall,” said Agatha. “I would as soon scramble for hot pennies in the snow, like the street boys, as scramble to see who can answer most questions. Dr. Watts is enough moral science for me. Now for the Recording Angel.”

      She went to a shelf and took down a heavy quarto, bound in black leather, and inscribed, in red letters, MY FAULTS. This she threw irreverently on a desk, and tossed its pages over until she came to one only partly covered with manuscript confessions.

      “For СКАЧАТЬ