GEORGE SHAW - Collected Works

“You will know soon enough, Jane,” replied Agatha, suddenly grave. “It is someone who made an impudent entry in the Recording Angel.”

Fear stole upon Jane, and she became very red. “Agatha,” she said, “it was you who told me what to write. You know you did, and you can’t deny it.”

“I can’t deny it, can’t I? I am ready to swear that I never dictated a word to you in my life.”

“Gertrude knows you did,” exclaimed Jane, appalled, and almost in tears.

“There,” said Agatha, petting her as if she were a vast baby. “It shall not be expelled, so it shan’t. Have you seen the Recording Angel lately, either of you?”

“Not since our last entry,” said Gertrude.

“Chips,” said Agatha, calling to the flaxen-haired child, “go upstairs to No. 6, and, if Miss Wilson isn’t there, fetch me the Recording Angel.”

The little girl grumbled inarticulately and did not stir.

“Chips,” resumed Agatha, “did you ever wish that you had never been born?”

“Why don’t you go yourself?” said the child pettishly, but evidently alarmed.

“Because,” continued Agatha, ignoring the question, “you shall wish yourself dead and buried under the blackest flag in the coal cellar if you don’t bring me the book before I count sixteen. One—two—”

“Go at once and do as you are told, you disagreeable little thing,” said Gertrude sharply. “How dare you be so disobliging?”

“—nine—ten—eleven—” pursued Agatha.

The child quailed, went out, and presently returned, hugging the Recording Angel in her arms.

“You are a good little darling—when your better qualities are brought out by a judicious application of moral force,” said Agatha, good-humoredly. “Remind me to save the raisins out of my pudding for you to-morrow. Now, Jane, you shall see the entry for which the best-hearted girl in the college is to be expelled. Voila!”

The two girls read and were awestruck; Jane opening her mouth and gasping, Gertrude closing hers and looking very serious.

“Do you mean to say that you had the dreadful cheek to let the Lady Abbess see that?” said Jane.

“Pooh! she would have forgiven that. You should have heard what I said to her! She fainted three times.”

“That’s a story,” said Gertrude gravely.

“I beg your pardon,” said Agatha, swiftly grasping Gertrude’s knee.

“Nothing,” cried Gertrude, flinching hysterically. “Don’t, Agatha.”

“How many times did Miss Wilson faint?”

“Three times. I will scream, Agatha; I will indeed.”

“Three times, as you say. And I wonder that a girl brought up as you have been, by moral force, should be capable of repeating such a falsehood. But we had an awful row, really and truly. She lost her temper. Fortunately, I never lose mine.”

“Well, I’m browed!” exclaimed Jane incredulously. “I like that.”

“For a girl of county family, you are inexcusably vulgar, Jane. I don’t know what I said; but she will never forgive me for profaning her pet book. I shall be expelled as certainly as I am sitting here.”

“And do you mean to say that you are going away?” said Jane, faltering as she began to realize the consequences.

“I do. And what is to become of you when I am not here to get you out of your scrapes, or of Gertrude without me to check her inveterate snobbishness, is more than I can foresee.”

“I am not snobbish,” said Gertrude, “although I do not choose to make friends with everyone. But I never objected to you, Agatha.”

“No; I should like to catch you at it. Hallo, Jane!” (who had suddenly burst into tears): “what’s the matter? I trust you are not permitting yourself to take the liberty of crying for me.”

“Indeed,” sobbed Jane indignantly, “I know that I am a f—fool for my pains. You have no heart.”

“You certainly are a f—fool, as you aptly express it,” said Agatha, passing her arm round Jane, and disregarding an angry attempt to shake it off; “but if I had any heart it would be touched by this proof of your attachment.”

“I never said you had no heart,” protested Jane; “but I hate when you speak like a book.”

“You hate when I speak like a book, do you? My dear, silly old Jane! I shall miss you greatly.”

“Yes, I dare say,” said Jane, with tearful sarcasm. “At least my snoring will never keep you awake again.”

“You don’t snore, Jane. We have been in a conspiracy to make you believe that you do, that’s all. Isn’t it good of me to tell you?”

Jane was overcome by this revelation. After a long pause, she said with deep conviction, “I always knew that I didn’t. Oh, the way you kept it up! I solemnly declare that from this time forth I will believe nobody.”

“Well, and what do you think of it all?” said Agatha, transferring her attention to Gertrude, who was very grave.

“I think—I am now speaking seriously, Agatha—I think you are in the wrong.”

“Why do you think that, pray?” demanded Agatha, a little roused.

“You must be, or Miss Wilson would not be angry with you. Of course, according to your own account, you are always in the right, and everyone else is always wrong; but you shouldn’t have written that in the book. You know I speak as your friend.”

“And pray what does your wretched little soul know of my motives and feelings?”

“It is easy enough to understand you,” retorted Gertrude, nettled. “Self-conceit is not so uncommon that one need be at a loss to recognize it. And mind, Agatha Wylie,” she continued, as if goaded by some unbearable reminiscence, “if you are really going, I don’t care whether we part friends or not. I have not forgotten the day when you called me a spiteful cat.”

“I have repented,” said Agatha, unmoved. “One day I sat down and watched Bacchus seated on the hearthrug, with his moony eyes looking into space so thoughtfully and patiently that I apologized for comparing you to him. If I were to call him a spiteful cat he would only not believe me.”

“Because he is a cat,” said Jane, with the giggle which was seldom far behind her tears.

“No; but because he is not spiteful. Gertrude keeps a recording angel inside her little head, and it is so full of other people’s faults, written in large hand and read through a magnifying glass, that there is no room to enter her own.”

“You are very poetic,” said Gertrude; “but I understand what you mean, and shall not forget it.”

“You ungrateful wretch,” exclaimed Agatha, turning upon her so suddenly and imperiously that she involuntarily shrank aside: “how often, when you have tried to be insolent and false with me, have I not driven away your bad angel—by tickling you? Had you a friend in the college, except half-a-dozen toadies, until I came? And now, because I have sometimes, for your own good, shown you your faults, you bear malice against me, and say that you don’t care whether we part friends or not!”

“I didn’t say so.”

“Oh, Gertrude, you know you did,” said Jane.

“You seem to think that I have no conscience,” said Gertrude querulously.

“I wish you hadn’t,” said Agatha. “Look at me! I have no conscience, and see how much pleasanter I am!”

“You care for no one but yourself,” said Gertrude. “You never think that other people have feelings too. No one ever considers me.”

“Oh, I like to hear you talk,” cried Jane ironically. “You are considered a great deal more than is good for you; and the more you are considered the more you want to be considered.”

“As if,” declaimed Agatha theatrically, “increase of appetite did grow by what it fed on. Shakespeare!”

“Bother Shakespeare,” said Jane, impetuously, “—old fool that expects credit for saying things that everybody knows! But if you complain of not being considered, Gertrude, how would you like to be me, whom everybody sets down as a fool? But I am not such a fool as—”