The Little Colonel at Boarding-School
CHAPTER IX.
ONE RAINY AFTERNOON
THAT same Saturday afternoon following the Hallowe'en frolic, whileMaggie rehearsed the whole affair once more in the cabin, the ShadowClub discussed it at the seminary. They had met early, for Lloyd andBetty had asked permission to make candy in their room, and in order tofinish the amount of work they had planned to do at each meeting, it wasnecessary for them to begin immediately after dinner.
It was a dull November day, cloudy and damp, and while they weresettling themselves to work, the rain began to patter against thewindow-panes.
"How cosy and shut-in it makes you feel!" exclaimed Katie, lookingaround on the bright, comfortable room.
"We are shut in," answered Lloyd. "The Clark girls and Magnolia havegone home to stay ovah Sunday, and we have this whole wing to ourselves.Nobody can heah us, no mattah how loud we talk."
"Let's put up the sign, 'No admittance. Busy,' on the corridor doorleading into our hall," suggested Ida. "On a rainy afternoon like this,when the girls can't get out-doors, they're more apt to go visiting, andwe don't want to be interrupted."
"That's so," agreed Lloyd. Hastily scribbling the notice on an envelope,she ran out and fastened it on the door with a pin.
"Now we're safe," she announced on her return, and settled herselfcomfortably among the cushions of the window-seat. For half an hourtheir needles and brushes were plied rapidly, as they chattered andlaughed over the various remarks they had heard about the mysteriousHallowe'en guests. Who they were still remained an unsolved riddle inthe school.
Presently Ida dropped her embroidery-hoops and leaned back in her chairyawning. "Oh, I'm in no mood for work of this kind! My silks snarl, myneedle keeps coming unthreaded, and I stick myself nearly every time Itake a stitch. I'm making such a mess of it I'd stop only I don't wantto shirk my part when you are all working so faithfully. When myembroidery acts this way it makes me so nervous I could scream."
"Why don't you do some more burnt-work instead?" suggested Katie.
"I'm out of leather. The last lot I sent for hasn't come."
"You might read to us while we work," suggested Betty. "There's a new_St. Nicholas_ on the table."
"Yes, do," insisted Allison. "Mother said this morning that she thoughtit would be a fine plan for us to take up some good book and read it inturn while we work."
As all the girls agreed, Ida picked up the magazine and began turningthe leaves.
"What will you have?" she asked. "This scientific article doesn't lookvery entertaining, and this football story wouldn't interest anybody butboys. We can't plunge into the middle of this serial without having readthe first chapters, and, judging from the illustrations and the name ofthis girl's story, it is anything but wildly exciting."
She glanced hastily over the remaining pages, and then laid the magazineaside. "I wonder," she said, hesitatingly, "if any of you have ever reada book I have in my room, called 'The Fortunes of Daisy Dale.' It's thesweetest thing; I nearly cried my eyes out over part of it. Of courseit's a novel, and some people object to them unless they're by somegreat writer like Thackeray or Scott. I know my aunt does. But I don'tsee how this could hurt anybody. It's about a dear little English girlwhose guardian kept her almost like a prisoner, so that he could use hermoney. She had such a hard time that she ran away and got a place as agoverness when she was only sixteen. She had all sorts of trouble andmisunderstandings, but it ends happily. All the way through she has sucha beautiful influence on young Lord Rokeby and Guy Wolvering, thesquire's son, who is so wild that his father threatens to disinherithim. It is his love for her that finally reforms him. Her influence overhim is a living illustration of the motto of our club."
"Then let's read it," proposed Allison, eagerly.
"Oh, yes, go get it, Ida," called Lloyd and Kitty in the same breath.
"That is, if you don't mind reading it twice yourself," added Betty.
"No, indeed!" answered Ida, rising. "I could read it a dozen times andnever tire of it."
In a moment she was back from her room, carrying the book in one handand dragging a rocking-chair behind her with the other. She drew it upto one of the windows, and pushing the curtains farther aside, sat downand began to read, to the pattering accompaniment of the rain-drops onthe pane. She was a good reader, the best in the seminary, and her wellmodulated voice would have lent a charm to any story; but the expressionshe threw into this made it seem as if she were recounting her ownpersonal troubles.
She had not read half a chapter before Lloyd understood why it seemedso. Ida was putting herself in Daisy Dale's place. Instead of the unjustguardian there was the unreasonable aunt. Instead of the squire's son,Edwardo; and the stolen meetings and the smuggled letters and the pearlDaisy wore in secret recalled the confidences of the night in theorchard, and many that had been whispered to her since.
The Shadow Club forgot where they were presently. They ceased to noticethat the cold rain drove faster and faster against the windows. Theywere treading a winding path across a sunny English meadow with Daisyand her lover. It was June-time where they wandered. The hawthorn hedgeswere budding white, and even the crevices of the old stone wall flauntedits bloom wherever a cluster of "London pride" could find a foothold.
In a little while Katie's crochet-work slipped into her lap unheeded.With chin in hands and elbows on her knees, she leaned forward,listening with rapt attention. Betty laid down her embroidery-hoops, andKitty and Allison stopped painting. It was a wild, stormy night now, andthey were suffering with Daisy, as with clasped hands and streaming eyesshe turned her back on her old home, driven out to seek her own livingby her guardian's unbearable tyranny.
Lloyd's cheeks burned redder and redder as the story went on, and DaisyDale, established as governess at Cameron Hall, again met Guy Wolveringand listened to his vows of deathless devotion. She wondered how Idacould read on so calmly when some of those scenes had been her ownexperience. She wondered what the girls would say if they knew all thatshe knew. Then she wondered how it would feel to be the heroine in suchscenes, and be the idol of some one's whole existence, as Daisy Dale wasof Guy Wolvering's, as Ida was of Edwardo's.
"Oh, don't stop!" begged five eager voices, when Ida finally laid downthe book.
"I must. It's nearly dark, and my throat is tired. Do you realize I havebeen reading all afternoon?"
"Oh, it didn't seem more than five minutes!" exclaimed Katie. "I neverwas so interested in anything in my life. I am wild to hear the end."
"Girls!" cried Allison, tragically, starting up from her chair. "I wishyou'd look at that clock! We haven't made the candy, and we've scarcelyworked at all this whole afternoon, and now it's time to go home."
"But how can we?" queried Kitty. "It's simply pouring. Look at thosewindows. The rain is coming in torrents."
"We'll have to stay all night," laughed Katie. "Wouldn't it be fun if wecould?"
"You can," cried Lloyd, seizing the suggestion eagerly. "I'm sure thatthe matron would be willing. There's plenty of extra rooms on Satahdaynight; there's two right heah in this wing. All you have to do is totelephone home and ask yoah mothahs. I'm suah they'll let you, becauseit's such dreadful weathah. Come on, let's go and ask now. Then we canmake the candy befoah suppah, and finish the book befoah bedtime."
With the pouring rain as an excuse, it was easy to obtain the matron'spermission for them to stay, and she herself telephoned to Mrs. Waltonand Mrs. Mallard, explaining the situation and assuring them that thegirls would be well taken care of.
Both mothers gave consent so thankfully that the matron turned away fromthe telephone feeling that her hospitable insistence had made theseladies her friends for life; and she bustled away well pleased withherself, to put fresh sheets on the beds in the empty rooms in the westwing.
The Clark sisters' room, next to Lloyd and Betty's, had a closet builtopposite theirs into the same partition-wall, in the deep space besidethe chimney. When both doors were closed no sound penetrated from onero
om to the other, but if either were left ajar, any one happening tostep into either closet could hear quite distinctly what was said on theother side.
The matron, opening the closet door on her side of the wall to fold awaysome blankets that she had just taken from the beds, heard Lloyd on theother side hunting for the bottle of alcohol for the chafing-dish. ThenKatie's voice came piping through high and shrill:
"Wasn't it sweet of Mrs. Bond to telephone herself and insist on ourbeing allowed to stay? If I had been at the telephone mamma would havesaid that she would send the carriage and I needn't get wet, and couldcome home just as well as not. But she was willing to accept aninvitation from headquarters. I'm going to save Mrs. Bond some of myfudge. She's just the dearest thing that ever was."
"SHE COULD HEAR EVERY WORD OF THE CONVERSATION."]
"I shall save her some, too," said Kitty. "I'd like to give her a goodbig squeeze for being so kind to us."
Mrs. Bond stepped out into the room again with a pleased smile on hermotherly face. As she went down-stairs she began revolving a plan in hermind for the evening entertainment of these appreciative little guestswhich she thought would give them still greater pleasure. Scarcely hadshe gone when another listener took her place. This time theeavesdropping was intentional.
Mittie Dupong, crossing over to the west wing to borrow a magazine fromBetty, saw the sign on the corridor door. Knowing what such signsusually mean at five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, she softly turnedthe knob and stepped into the narrow hall. A delicious smell of boilingcandy came floating down toward her from Lloyd's room, and a peal oflaughter, in which she distinguished first Allison's voice, then Kitty'sand Katie's. She felt a trifle piqued at being left out of themerry-making.
"I wonder who else is in there," she thought, slipping on toward thekeyhole. Just as she was about to stoop and peep in, a sudden noiseinside as of some one coming toward her made her draw back. The doorinto the Clark girls' room stood open. She darted in and waitedbreathlessly. Lloyd was coming out into the hall, saying, "Never mindabout the lamp-chimney; I'll get Cassie's."
Mittie had barely time to spring into the closet when Lloyd entered,took the lamp from the table, and carried it back to her own room.Crouched down in her dark hiding-place Mittie discovered that the closetwas a far better situation for eavesdropping than the keyhole. She couldhear every word of the conversation without the risk of being detected.
Evidently the girls were discussing some story that they had beenreading, and a very sentimental one at that. A wicked little gleam oftriumph came into Mittie's eyes as she listened. For here were Lloyd andAllison and Kitty and Katie Mallard and Betty, actually teasing eachother about the boys they liked best. And it hadn't been a week sinceLloyd had said, with a scornful little toss of her head, "Oh, Mittie,you make me ti'ahed! Always talking about the boys!" and the four ofthem had walked off with their arms around each other as if quitedisgusted.
"Oh, won't I get even with them now for turning up their noses at me!"exclaimed Mittie to herself, and she pressed her ear closer to the thinpartition wall that divided the two closets.
Katie's voice came first: "If I'd been Daisy Dale I'd have fallen inlove with Lord Rokeby instead of the Squire's son, because he was talland fair and blue-eyed."
"Like Charlie Downs," put in Kitty, mischievously. "Oh, girls! Look ather blush!"
"I'm not blushing," protested Katie, wildly.
"But you can't deny that he's the one," insisted Kitty. "Even when wewere little and used to play 'lady come to see' you always played thatyou were Mrs. Downs, you know you did."
"I don't care," pouted Katie. "I don't do it now, and anyhow I don'tkeep an old dead rose and a valentine and a brass button all tied up ina fancy box with blue ribbon, the way you do, because Guy Ferris gavethem to you. N-ow, who's blushing?"
"Katie Mallard, that's something you promised you'd never tell as longas you live!" cried Kitty. "I didn't think you'd be so mean as to goback on your promise." She turned away with such an offended air thatKatie saw that her teasing had gone farther than she intended. Shehastened to make amends, for she couldn't be happy while there was theslightest misunderstanding between her and her best friend.
"I didn't think you'd care, Kitty. Truly I didn't. I wouldn't haveteased you before the other girls, but just here, in our own littleclub, it oughtn't to make any difference. Why, I don't mind one bittelling you girls that I like Charlie Downs better than any boy I know,and that I felt glad when my apple parings made his initials every timeI threw them over my shoulder on Hallowe'en. I don't think it's anythingto confess that much, or to care for things a boy gives you as you dofor the valentine and the rose. That's a very different matter fromtalking about the boys as Mittie Dupong does about Carter Brown."
"Well I should think so!" exclaimed Lloyd, in a tone that made Mittie,on the other side of the wall, set her teeth together angrily. "ButMittie isn't like the girls we've always gone with. She's so _common_!She plays _kissing-games_. I've nevah had any use for her since CartahBrown's birthday pahty. When they played Pillow and Post-office, everyboy in the room kissed her, and Lollie Briggs and all that set of girlsthat she goes with. I couldn't undahstand it. Some of them seemed sonice; Flynn Willis, you know, and Caddie Bailey. I wouldn't have thoughtit of them."
"I think they are all nice girls," said Betty, "even Mittie. It's justbecause they have been brought up that way. They've all come from littletowns where such games are the custom, and they really don't know anybetter. Don't be so fierce about it, Lloyd. One of the girls at ourtable ate with her knife when she first came, and took her soup out ofthe end of her spoon, and picked her pie up in her fingers. But she's asladylike in her manners as anybody now. She simply hadn't been taughthow to eat. Those girls will change, too, probably in time."
"But this is different," persisted Lloyd. "I know whom you mean. It wasthat little Prosser girl. But for all her bad table mannahs she was alady at heart. _She_ didn't take part in those games, and she wouldn'tallow a boy to take such a liberty with her as to kiss her, any moahthan one of us girls would, that had been brought up heah in the Valley.I'll always be glad we didn't ask Mittie or any of that set to join ourclub. They may be all right, but if they don't want to be considahedcommon they oughtn't to do things that make them seem so, and that areconsidahed so by the best society."
The blue blood of an old patrician family, proud of its traditions andproud of its generations of gentle breeding was coursing hotly throughthe Little Colonel's veins as she spoke. Mittie could imagine how shelooked as she stood there passing judgment, her head haughtily lifted, aflush on the high-bred little face. The mortified eavesdropper could notfeel that she had really done anything wrong at the party, for as Bettyhad said, such games were always played in the country place where shecame from, even in the presence of grown people. And the sport was oftenrough and boisterous, as it is among the peasant class of the oldercountries. But measuring herself by Lloyd's exacting standard, shesomehow felt that she had been found sadly wanting, and she angrilyresented the verdict of this little patrician, who, dainty and refinedto the very finger-tips, made her seem less of a lady, less worthy ofrespect than herself.
The next instant Lloyd's scornful tone changed to one of cheerfulsweetness, as she called, "Bring the buttered plates, Betty, please. Thefudge is ready to pour out."
Hiding there in the dark closet, Mittie heard many things during thenext half-hour, which she stored away in her memory for futurerepetition. The secret of the Shadow Club was one, for they discussed itfreely, regretting that they had accomplished so little that afternoon,and discussing the place of the next meeting.
With the curtains drawn, and the red lamp-shade casting a soft rosy glowover the room, it seemed a time for confidences. The rain came harderand harder in stormy gusts against the windows, but the curtains thatshut out the night seemed to shut them in with the warmth and cheer ofthe cosy room. As they drew their chairs around the table, rockingcomfortably back and forth, with th
e candy passing from hand to hand,they felt more closely drawn together themselves than they ever hadbefore. And they talked of things they had never mentioned to each otherbefore. "The Fortunes of Daisy Dale" had turned their thoughts towardthe far-off future, and standing before its closed gate as if it werethe portal to some unexplored Paradise, they questioned each other witheager wondering, as to what might lie in store for them on the otherside.
"Well," exclaimed Katie, at length, "when I grow up, I hope the man whoproposes to me will do it just as Guy did. I think it's so pretty, thatscene in the cherry lane." She quoted, softly: "'The cherry lane is allin bridal white, my Marguerite, and when it blooms again I'll come toclaim my bride--my pearl.'"
"I wonder if they all talk that way," mused Kitty.
"Of course not," said Betty, with a laugh. "It wouldn't fit in mostcases. Imagine old Mr. Andrews calling his little black skinny wife hisJane Maria, his pearl! I suppose most people do it in as commonplace away as Laurie proposed to Amy, in 'Little Women.'"
"I'm going to ask papa what _he_ said," declared Katie.
Then the supper-bell rang, and Mittie heard no more. As soon as it wassafe to venture from her hiding-place, she followed them down to thedining-room.
Anxious to get back to the reading of the book, the members of theShadow Club could hardly conceal their disappointment when Mrs. Bondinvited them into her parlour after supper, to try some new games whichshe thought would interest them. Under the circumstances they felt itwould be impolite to refuse. They whispered to each other that theywould slip away early, but one thing after another kept them, and itwas bedtime before they started up-stairs.
"Oh, I'm so dreadfully disappointed!" wailed Katie; "I won't be able tosleep a wink to-night for wondering how that story is going to end."
"We'll never have such a good chance to finish it again," said Allison,"and even if Ida should loan us the book, we'll not enjoy it as much asif she could read it to us. Her reading adds so much to it."
Kitty expressed the same opinion, and openly envied Lloyd and Betty,who, being in the same building, might have future opportunities whichwould be denied them. At last Ida proposed that they finish the bookafter the curfew signal, and preparations were hastily made.
As soon as Kitty and Katie were ready for bed, they took possession, asbefore, of Lloyd's bed. Lloyd and Betty climbed into the one on theother side of the room. Allison carried blankets and pillows from thenext room to the divan, where she made herself comfortable, and Ida,putting a heavy woollen bathrobe over her night-dress, and stretchingout in a steamer-chair with a shawl over her, began to read. There was agolf cape draped over the transom. Paper was stuffed in the keyholes,the outside shutters were tightly closed, the blinds drawn, and thecurtains pinned together over them, so that not a single telltale ray oflight could betray them to the outside world. Three lamps stood in a rowon the table, so that they might be burned in turn, and no one of thembe found with the oil entirely consumed in the morning.
Everywhere in the big building was silence and sleep, save in that oneroom in the west wing. There Ida's voice went musically on, and, witheyes wide open and every sense alert, the girls lay and listened. Therain still poured on, and the wind rattled the casements. Down-stairsthe clock struck ten, eleven, twelve; but not till the bride-bells rangout in the last chapter from the steeple of the little stone church inthe English village did they lose interest for a moment in the "Fortunesof Daisy Dale." The beautiful ending was something for them to dreamover for weeks. It was Sunday morning before Ida and the three guestsstole to their rooms, and crept shivering between the cold sheets.