GEORGE SHAW - Collected Works

“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, re-entered.

“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 a wonder,” she said, “here are two entries that are not mine. Sarah Gerram! What has she been confessing?”

“Don’t read it,” said Miss Lindsay quickly. “You know that it is the most dishonorable thing any of us can do.”

“Poch! Our little sins are not worth making such a fuss about. I always like to have my entries read: it makes me feel like an author; and so in Christian duty I always read other people’s. Listen to poor Sarah’s tale of guilt. ‘1st October. I am very sorry that I slapped Miss Chambers in the lavatory this morning, and knocked out one of her teeth. This was very wicked; but it was coming out by itself; and she has forgiven me because a new one will come in its place; and she was only pretending when she said she swallowed it. Sarah Gerram.”’

“Little fool!” said Miss Lindsay. “The idea of our having to record in the same book with brats like that!”

“Here is a touching revelation. ‘4th October. Helen Plantagenet is deeply grieved to have to confess that I took the first place in algebra yesterday unfairly. Miss Lindsay prompted me;’ and—”

“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Lindsay, reddening. “That is how she thanks me for prompting her, is it? How dare she confess my faults in the Recording Angel?”

“Serves you right for prompting her,” said Miss Carpenter. “She was always a double-faced cat; and you ought to have known better.”

“Oh, I assure you it was not for her sake that I did it,” replied Miss Lindsay. “It was to prevent that Jackson girl from getting first place. I don’t like Helen Plantagenet; but at least she is a lady.’

“Stuff, Gertrude,” said Agatha, with a touch of earnestness. “One would think, to hear you talk, that your grandmother was a cook. Don’t be such a snob.”

“Miss Wylie,” said Gertrude, becoming scarlet: “you are very—oh! oh! Stop Ag—oh! I will tell Miss—oh!” Agatha had inserted a steely finger between her ribs, and was tickling her unendurably.

“Sh-sh-sh,” whispered Miss Carpenter anxiously. “The door is open.”

“Am I Miss Wylie?” demanded Agatha, relentlessly continuing the torture. “Am I very—whatever you were going to say? Am I? am I? am I?”

“No, no,” gasped Gertrude, shrinking into a chair, almost in hysterics. “You are very unkind, Agatha. You have hurt me.”

“You deserve it. If you ever get sulky with me again, or call me Miss Wylie, I will kill you. I will tickle the soles of your feet with a feather,” (Miss Lindsay shuddered, and hid her feet beneath the chair) “until your hair turns white. And now, if you are truly repentant, come and record.”

“You must record first. It was all your fault.”

“But I am the youngest,” said Agatha.

“Well, then,” said Gertrude, afraid to press the point, but determined not to record first, “let Jane Carpenter begin. She is the eldest.”

“Oh, of course,” said Jane, with whimpering irony. “Let Jane do all the nasty things first. I think it’s very hard. You fancy that Jane is a fool; but she isn’t.”

“You are certainly not such a fool as you look, Jane,” said Agatha gravely. “But I will record first, if you like.”

“No, you shan’t,” cried Jane, snatching the pen from her. “I am the eldest; and I won’t be put out of my place.”

She dipped the pen in the ink resolutely, and prepared to write. Then she paused; considered; looked bewildered; and at last appealed piteously to Agatha.

“What shall I write?” she said. “You know how to write things down; and I don’t.”

“First put the date,” said Agatha.

“To be sure,” said Jane, writing it quickly. “I forgot that. Well?”

“Now write, ‘I am very sorry that Miss Wilson saw me when I slid down the banisters this evening. Jane Carpenter.’”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all: unless you wish to add something of your own composition.”