A Little Rebel | Page 9

mist of angry feeling that is only half on the surface, "I am here to accompany her."
"I don't want to go for a walk--with you," says Perpetua, rudely it must be confessed, though her tone is low and studiously reserved. "I don't want to go for a walk at all." She pauses, and her voice chokes a little, and then suddenly she breaks into a small passion of vehemence. "I want to go somewhere, to see something," she cries, gazing imploringly at Curzon.
"To see something!" says her aunt, "why it was only last Sunday I took you to Westminster Abbey, where you saw the grandest edifice in all the world."
"Most interesting place," says the professor, sotto voce, with a wild but mad hope of smoothing matters down for Perpetua's sake.
If it was for Perpetua's sake, she proves herself singularly ungrateful. She turns upon him a small vivid face, alight with indignation.
"You support her," cries she. "You! Well, I shall tell you! I"--defiantly--"I don't want to go to churches at all. I want to go to theatres! There!"
There is an awful silence. Miss Majendie's face is a picture! If the girl had said she wanted to go to the devil instead of to the theatre, she could hardly have looked more horrified. She takes a step forward, closer to Perpetua.
"Go to your room! And pray--pray for a purer mind!" says she. "This is hereditary, all this! Only prayer can cast it out. And remember, this is the last word upon this subject. As long as you are under my roof you shall never go to a sinful place of amusement. I forbid you ever to speak of theatres again."
"I shall not be forbidden!" says Perpetua. She confronts her aunt with flaming eyes and crimson cheeks. "I do want to go to the theatre, and to balls, and dances, and everything. I"--passionately, and with a most cruel, despairing longing in her young voice, "want to dance, to laugh, to sing, to amuse myself--to be the gayest thing in all the world!"
She stops as if exhausted, surprised perhaps at her own daring, and there is silence for a moment, a little moment, and then Miss Majendie looks at her.
"'The gayest thing in all the world:' and your father only four months dead!" says she, slowly, remorselessly.
All in a moment, as it were, the little crimson angry face grows white--white as death itself. The professor, shocked beyond words, stands staring, and marking the sad changes in it. Perpetua is trembling from head to foot. A frightened look has come into her beautiful eyes--her breath comes quickly. She is as a thing at bay--hopeless, horrified. Her lips part as if she would say something. But no words come. She casts one anguished glance at the professor, and rushes from the room.
It was but a momentary glimpse into a heart, but it was terrible. The professor turns upon Miss Majendie in great wrath.
"That was cruel--uncalled for!" says he, a strange feeling in his heart that he has not time to stop and analyze then. "How could you hurt her so? Poor child! Poor girl! She loved him!"
"Then let her show respect to his memory," says Miss Majendie vindictively. She is unmoved--undaunted.
"She was not wanting in respect." His tone is hurried. This woman with the remorseless eye is too much for the gentle professor. "All she does want is change, amusement. She is young. Youth must enjoy."
"In moderation--and in proper ways," says Miss Majendie stonily. "In moderation," she repeats mechanically, almost unconsciously. And then suddenly her wrath gets the better of her, and she breaks out into a violent range. That one should dare to question her actions! "Who are you?" demands she fiercely, "that you should presume to dictate right and wrong to me."
"I am Miss Wynter's guardian," says the professor, who begins to see visions--and all the lower regions let loose at once. Could an original Fury look more horrible than this old woman, with her grey nodding head, and blind vindictive passion. He hears his voice faltering, and knows that he is edging towards the door. After all, what can the bravest man do with an angry old woman, except to get away from her as quickly as possible? And the professor, though brave enough in the usual ways, is not brave where women are concerned.
"Guardian or no guardian, I will thank you to remember you are in my house!" cries Miss Majendie, in a shrill tone that runs through the professor's head.
"Certainly. Certainly," says he, confusedly, and then he slips out of the room, and having felt the door close behind him, runs tumultuously down the staircase. For years he has not gone down any staircase so swiftly. A vague, if unacknowledged, feeling that he is literally making his escape from a vital