CHAPTER III.
IDA'S SECRET
"BETTY," said Lloyd, one morning, the third week of school, as she saton the edge of her bed lacing her shoes, "you know that littleglove-case you embroidered for my birthday present; would you feel hurtif I were to give it away?"
"No," answered Betty, slowly, turning from the mirror, brush in hand. "Imade it to please you, and if you can find more pleasure in giving itaway than in keeping it, I'd be glad for you to give it away."
"Honestly, Betty?"
"Yes, honestly." The brown eyes turned with truthful directness towardLloyd.
"Oh, you are such a comfortable sort of person to live with, BettyLewis," exclaimed the Little Colonel, with a sigh of relief. "Most girlswould think that I didn't appreciate all those fine stitches you putinto it, and didn't care for eithah the gift or the givah if I waswilling to part with it; but I was suah you would undahstand. You see,the violets on it make it such a perfect match for everything on Ida'sdressing-table, that it seems as if it ought to belong to her. I can'tlook at a violet now without thinking of her. She is so much like one,don't you think? Refined and sweet, and her eyes are such a dark blue,and have such a shy, appealing way of looking out from undah those longlashes. And have you evah noticed what delicious sachet she uses? Sofaint it's not much moah than the whispah of a smell, but there's alwaysa touch of it about everything belonging to her. I call her Violet allthe time now."
Only the mirror saw the bored expression that shaded Betty's face for aninstant. For the last week, morning, noon, and night, she had heardnothing from Lloyd but Ida's praises. A sudden intimacy had sprung upbetween the two which threatened to eclipse all Lloyd's otherfriendships. Betty began brushing her hair vigorously. "Will you promisenot to feel hurt if I give you a piece of advice?" she asked.
Lloyd nodded, lazily wondering what was coming, as she reached down topick up her other shoe. She did not put it on, however, but sat with itin her hand, staring at Betty, scarcely believing that she heardaright, the advice was so different from anything she had expected.
"Then don't call her Violet before the other girls. And if I were inyour place I don't believe I'd talk about her to them, quite as much asyou do. You see," she hurried on, noticing the quick flush ofdispleasure on Lloyd's face, "I don't suppose you realize how much youdo talk about her, or how you have changed lately. Last year you weregood friends with all the girls, ready for any fun they proposed. Theyliked that independent, bossy little way you had of deciding things forthem. That was one thing that made you so popular. But now you alwayswait to find out what Ida thinks, and what Ida wants, and they feel thatyou've not only dropped your old friends for a stranger whom you'veknown only three weeks, but that in some sort of a way--I can't explainit--you've dropped your old self too. Really, I believe that they are asjealous of the influence she has over you, as of the way she monopolizesyou."
Betty did not see the gathering storm in the Little Colonel's face, andwent serenely on brushing her hair. "You know she's so much older thanyou. They always smile so significantly when she calls you Princess, asif they thought she was doing it to flatter you. While they wouldn'tsay it openly to me, of course, I've heard them whispering amongthemselves that Ida had hoodooed you as she had Janie Clung, so that allyou live for nowadays is to wait on her and buy her candy and violets."
Bang! went Lloyd's shoe against the wall. She had sent it spinningacross the room with all her force. Betty, turning in dismay, saw thatthe advice which she had given with the kindest of motives, had arousedthe Little Colonel's temper to white heat.
"The mean, hateful things!" she cried. "They've no right to talk aboutIda that way! The idea of her stooping to such a thing as to flatter anyone for what she could get out of them! It's an outrageous--"
"But Lloyd, dear," interrupted Betty. "Listen a minute. You promisedthat you wouldn't get mad, or I wouldn't have said a word."
"I'm not mad with you, but Mittie Dupong and some of the rest of themhave been hateful to Ida from the very first." There was something likea sob in her voice. "And she's so alone in the world, too. She's told methings about her life that almost made me cry. Her aunt doesn'tundahstand her at all, and she has a misa'ble time at home."
"But she needn't feel alone in the world here," insisted Betty. "Everygirl in school would have been her friend, if she hadn't said at thestart that she didn't care for anybody but us and the Walton girls.They'd be only too glad to take her in, even now, for the sake of havingyou back again. Oh, it was so much nicer last year."
Lloyd faced her indignantly. "Betty Lewis!" she exclaimed. "You'reagainst her too, or you wouldn't say that."
"No, I'm not," insisted Betty. "I like her now just as much as I did thefirst day I saw her. I think she is sweet and lovable, and I don'twonder that you are very fond of her; but I must say that I'm sorry thatshe's in the school, for you don't seem to care for anything now butbeing with her, and that spoils all the good times we had planned tohave."
Dead silence followed Betty's speech. The Little Colonel walked acrossthe room, picked up her shoe and put it on, jerking the laces savagely.It was the first time that she had ever been angry with Betty, and herwrath was more than Betty could endure.
"Please don't feel hurt, Lloyd," she begged. "I can't bear to have youangry with me. I wouldn't have said a word, only I thought that if itwas explained to you how we all felt, you'd be willing to spend alittle more time with the others, and gradually they'd get interested inIda and be nice to her for your sake, and things would go on as theyused to, when we all had such good times together."
Again the painful silence, so deep that Betty felt as if a wall hadrisen between them.
"Please, Lloyd," she begged, with tears in her eyes. But Lloyd, with anair of injured dignity, went on dressing, without a word, until the lastbow was tied, and the last pin in place.
"And she knew all the time that Ida is my dearest friend," Lloyd keptsaying angrily to herself, as she moved about the room. "I could haveforgiven her saying mean things about _me_, but for her to stand up andsay to my very face that she is sorry Ida is in the school, and that herbeing here spoils all the good times, when she _knows_ what I think ofIda, that is simply a plain insult, and I can nevah feel the same toBetty Lewis again!"
By the time the breakfast-bell rang, both the girls were almost intears; for the longer Betty's speech rankled in Lloyd's mind the worseit hurt, and the longer the angry silence continued the worse Bettyfelt.
"It is not like Lloyd to be so unfair," thought Betty. "She's just soblinded by her infatuation for Ida that she can't see my side of thematter at all."
It was on the point of her tongue to speak her thought, but realizingthat it would only add fuel to the flame, she checked the impulse, andin the same uncomfortable silence they marched stiffly down the stairsto breakfast.
It was a miserable day for both. To peace-loving Betty it seemedendless. She could hardly keep the tears back when she stood up torecite, and instead of joining the other girls at recess she wanderedoff with a pencil and note-book. Sitting in one of the swings she wrotesome verses about broken friendships that made her cry. They began:
"Dead are the snowy daisies! Dead are the flowers of May! The winds are hoarse and voiceless, The skies are cold and gray!"
And yet a more gloriously golden October day had never shone in theValley. The sun on the sumach bushes and sweet gum-trees turned theirleaves to a flaming red that the heart of a ruby might have envied, andthe dogwood berries, redder than any rose, glowed like living fire inthe depths of the woods.
For the last week Lloyd and Ida had spent every recess together,wandering off by themselves to a far corner of the apple orchard, wherethe trunk of a fallen tree provided them with a seat, and its twistedbranches with a rustic screen; but this day when Lloyd needed sympathyand companionship more than on any other, it was suddenly denied her.
Ida had a worried, absent-minded air when she came out at recess afterthe distribu
tion of the morning mail. She came up to Lloyd in the hallwith a grave face. "I am in trouble, Princess," she said, in a low tone."I'll explain sometime before long, but I must go to my room now. I havean important letter to write."
With heavy forebodings Lloyd wandered back to her desk and sat lookinglistlessly out of the open window. She could hear laughter and merryvoices in conversation outside. Nuts rattled down from the oldhickory-tree by the well, and an odour of wild grapes floated in fromthe vine that trailed over it, where some belated bunches hung too highfor any fingers but the frost's to touch. She took no interest inanything.
The afternoon recess passed in the same way. Miss Bina McCannister ledthe procession when they went for their afternoon walk. Ida had beenexcused from joining them, so Lloyd walked beside Janie Clung, in stonysilence. Betty was in front of them, and Lloyd, almost stepping on herheels, could think of nothing but the remark that had changed her wholeday to gall and wormwood. She resented it doubly, now that poor Ida wasin some mysterious trouble.
Betty occasionally cast an anxious glance backward. "She'll surely makeup before the sun goes down," she thought. But the sun went down as theystrolled homeward, the moon came up, and lights twinkled from all theseminary windows. The supper-bell rang, and a horde of hungry girlspoured into the dining-room, but through all the cheerful clatter ofdishes and hum of voices, Lloyd kept her dignified silence toward Bettyunbroken. Ida had evidently been crying, and had little to say. She leftthe table before the others were through.
When Betty went to her room for the study hour, she found Lloyd sittingwith her elbows on the table before the lamp, seemingly so absorbed inher history lesson that she did not notice the opening of the door. Witha sigh Betty sank into a chair on the opposite side of the table, anddrew her arithmetic toward her, but she could not fix her mind on thenext day's problems. She was rehearsing a dozen different ways in whichto open a conversation, and trying to screw her courage to the point ofbeginning.
While she hesitated there was a slight tap at the door and Miss Edithlooked in. It was her evening to make the round of inspection. Seeingboth girls apparently absorbed in their books, she closed the door andpassed on. Five minutes went by, in which Betty kept glancing at Lloyd,almost on the point of speaking. There was another tap at the door, andbefore either could call Come, Ida opened it and beckoned. With ananswering nod as if she understood, Lloyd gathered up her books andjoined her in the hall. There was a whispered consultation, then Bettyheard them go into Ida's room and close the door.
Feeling that the breach between them was growing wider every hour, andthat Lloyd never intended to be friendly with her again, Betty laid herhead down on her arms and began to cry. Not since she had lain ill andneglected in the bare little room at the Cuckoo's Nest, the time she hadthe fever, had she felt so miserable and lonely. Not once in all thetime since she had been at Locust had she cried like that, with chokingsobs that shook her whole body, and seemed to come from the depths ofher poor little aching heart.
She was crying so bitterly that she did not hear Ida's door open againor light footsteps go cautiously down to the end of the hall. Somebodyslowly and carefully slipped back the bolt that barred the door leadingto the outside stairway. Then the knob turned, and two muffled figuresstood outside in the moonlight.
"Hurry!" whispered Ida, catching Lloyd by the hand. Like two shadowsthey tiptoed down the stairs and across a little open space in the rearof the kitchen, till they reached the cover of heavier shadows, underthe protecting trees. Then they ran on as if pursued, keeping close tothe high picket fence.
Down in the old apple orchard, in the far corner where the fallen treelay, they stopped at last, and Ida dropped breathlessly to a seat on thelog, and leaned back among the twisted branches.
"There!" she exclaimed, throwing off the heavy golf-cape in which shehad muffled herself. "Now I can breathe. Oh, I've been so upset all day,Princess. I felt as if I should choke if I stayed in that old buildinganother minute. Besides, walls do have ears sometimes, and I wouldn'thave anybody find out what I am going to tell you for worlds! It wouldget me into no end of trouble, and aunt would take me out of schoolagain."
She paused a moment, and Lloyd, waiting expectantly, felt the witcheryof the moonlighted night stealing over her. She had been Ida'sconfidante often of late. She knew the history of each friendshiprepresented by each boy's photograph in Ida's collection, and she hadfound them all interesting, even when told in prosaic daylight. Beyondthe shadowy old orchard a row of yellow-leaved maples gleamed a ghostlysilver in the moonlight, and from the direction of Clovercroft stole themusic of a violin. Some one was playing Schubert's Serenade. It stirredher strangely.
"Will you promise that you'll never tell a living, breathing soul?"asked Ida, finally, in a low voice.
"Of co'se I wouldn't tell," said Lloyd. "You know that perfectly well,Violet."
"Well, _I'm engaged_."
"You're what?" exclaimed Lloyd, with such a start of astonishment thatshe nearly slipped off the log.
"Sh!" whispered Ida. "Somebody'll hear us if you talk so loud."
"SHE TURNED HER WHITE FINGERS IN THE MOONLIGHT."]
Feeling as if a chapter of some thrilling romance had suddenly openedbefore her, Lloyd sat up straight, waiting for the heroine to speakagain. The moonlight gave Ida's face an almost unearthly whiteness, andthere were dark shadows under her eyes. She had been crying.
"Aunt never wanted me to have anything to do with Edwardo," she began,in a low tone. "That isn't his real name, but I always call him that.She took me out of the Lexington school because he lived near there. Shethought that sending me down here would put an end to ourcorrespondence, but it didn't, of course. We kept on corresponding, justthe same. Some way she has found it out. She doesn't know that we areengaged. I don't know what she would be tempted to do if she knew. Sheis angry enough just about the letters. I had one from her this morning,and I saw one on the table addressed to President Wells, in herhandwriting. There is no mistaking it. I am sure she has written to himto watch my mail and intercept his letters. I wouldn't have her get holdof them for anything, because she scorns anything like sentiment. Sheseems to think it is something wicked for young people to care for eachother, and Edwardo's letters simply _breathe_ devotion in everyword."
The faint strains of the distant violin swelled louder as Ida held outher hand from which she had taken all the rings but one. She turned herwhite fingers in the moonlight, to show the glimmer of a pearl.
"He has told me so many times that that is what my life seems like tohim," she said, with a sob in her voice, "--a pearl. I know he has beenawfully wild and fast, but when he tells me that only my influence overhim can make him the man I want him to be, and that if it were not formy love and prayers he wouldn't care what became of him, or what he did,do you blame me for disregarding aunt's wishes? Don't you think it iscruel of her to interfere?"
Lloyd, listening with breathless interest to the friend whom she lovedwith all a little girl's adoring enthusiasm for an older one whom shehas taken as her model, gave a passionate assent.
"Oh, I knew you'd feel that way about it," said Ida, reaching out toclasp Lloyd's hand with the white one on which glimmered the pearl. "Itis _so_ good to have some one to talk to who can understand andsympathize."
An eloquent silence fell between them, broken only by the rustle of thedead leaves and the wailing voice of the violin, repeating its plaintiverefrain like a human cry. The music and the witchery of the moonlightlaid an ever-deepening spell on the listening child, till she felt thatshe was part of some old tale in which Ida was the ladye fair, andEdwardo the most interesting of heroes, held apart by a cruel fate. Shedrank in every word eagerly, seeing in her imagination a tall, handsomeman with a haughty, dark face, who stood with outstretched hands,murmuring, "Oh, my Pearl, you can make of my life what you will!"
When Ida took a tiny locket from a chain around her neck and opened itto show her his picture, Lloyd felt a distinct twinge of disappoi
ntment.It was not at all like the face she had pictured. But Ida explained thatit was not a good likeness, only a head cut from a group picture inwhich he had been taken with the members of his football team. She had afine photograph of him in her trunk, but had to keep it hidden, notknowing what day her aunt might swoop down upon her for a visit ofinspection.
"Seems to me as if I had seen that face befoah somewhere," said theLittle Colonel, studying it intently in the dim light. There was afamiliarity about it that puzzled her.
Ida slipped the locket back and gathered up her cape about her. "Wewon't dare stay here much longer," she said. Then she hesitated."Princess, I have told you all this because I need your help and amgoing to ask a great favour of you. Your mail doesn't have to go throughthe principal's hands. Will you be willing to let Edwardo address myletters to you? It couldn't do you any harm, simply to take them fromthe post-office box and hand them to me, and it would make a world ofdifference to me--and to him," she added, softly. "If I were to refuseto let him write to me, as aunt wants me to do, and were to break offour engagement, I think it would make him so reckless that he would dosomething desperate. Knowing that, I feel so responsible for him.Princess, I'd give my life to keep him straight."
As Ida rose in her earnestness, the tears glistening in her eyes, sheseemed to Lloyd like some fair guardian angel, and from that moment shewas set apart in her imagination as if she had been a saint on apedestal. With such a noble example of devotion to one in need, itseemed a very small thing for Lloyd to consent to the favour she asked,and she gave her promise gladly.
"I shall do everything I can to keep any one from suspecting that he issending letters to me through you," said Ida, as they strolled slowlyback toward the house. "I can't let your friendship for me get you intotrouble. They'll watch me very closely now, so maybe it will be as wellfor me not to appear so intimate with you as I have been. We'll not comeoff here alone any more at recess. By and by, when I feel that I can,I'll try to interest myself in the other girls. We'll still have ourlittle confidential meetings just the same, but no one must suspect us.
"I wish Mrs. Walton would invite me to her house sometimes," she said,impulsively, when they had walked a few minutes in silence. "If I couldfill up a long letter to aunt about that, it would make her feel that Iwas interested in something besides Edwardo, and would appease herwonderfully."
"I'll ask her to," said Lloyd, eagerly. "Mrs. Walton told mothah sheintended to have Betty and me at The Beeches very often while she wasaway. The first time she invites us I'll ask her to have you too. She'sso kind and sweet, that I'd as soon do it as not. All she seems to livefor is just to make othah people happy."
"Oh, Princess, if you only would!" exclaimed Ida, giving her a delightedhug. "Aunt would be so pleased, for it would be in all the home papersthat I had been entertained at the home of the late General Walton. Shewould consider it such an honour, and feel that in one way, at least, Iwas a credit to her. Aunt thinks so much of attentions fromdistinguished people. It is one of her hobbies. I would like to pleaseher as much as possible in every way I can, as long as I have todisregard her wishes about--what I just told you, you know. Sh! We'retoo near the house to talk any more."
The rest of the way they slipped along in silence under the shadow ofthe trees. Up the creaking stairway they crept, pausing a moment beforethey opened the door. Then they shot the rusty bolt noiselessly back inplace, dropped the portiere, and listened again.
"It's all right," whispered Ida, giving Lloyd's hand a reassuringsqueeze as they tiptoed down the hall. "Oh, you're _such_ a comfort!You'll never know what a load you've taken off my mind. Good night!"
In those few moments of silence between the orchard and the house,Lloyd's thoughts travelled rapidly. Her quarrel with Betty had faded sofar into the background, that it seemed ridiculously trivial now. Shehad forgotten her grievance in listening to the tale of larger trouble.And since Ida had made it clear to her that it would be to her interestto be friendly with all the girls, she was eager to enlist Betty'ssympathies and help. She wished fervently that she could share hersecret with her. She burst into the room, her eyes shining withexcitement, and blinking as they met the bright lamplight.
Betty was standing in her nightgown, ready for bed. She saw at the firstglance that Lloyd's anger was over, and she drew a great sigh of relief.
"Oh, Betty," began Lloyd, impetuously, "I'm awfully sorry I made such amountain out of a mole-hill this mawning and got into a tempah aboutwhat you said. You were right, aftah all. Ida thinks just as you do,that we oughtn't to go off by ourselves all the time, and she wants tobe friends with the othah girls if they'll let her. I'm going back tothe old ways to-morrow, and try not to let anything spoil the good timesyou talked about. Ida is so unhappy. I wish I could tell you, but Ihaven't any right--what she told me was in confidence. But if you onlyknew, you'd do all you could to help make it easiah for her with thegirls."
"I'll do anything on earth you want me to!" exclaimed Betty. "This hasbeen the longest, miserablest day I ever spent."
"Oh," cried the Little Colonel, a look of distress in her face. "ThenI've spoiled 'The Road of the Loving Heart' that I wanted to leave inyoah memory. I haven't been true to my ring." She looked down at thetalisman on her finger, the little lover's knot of gold, and turned itaround regretfully.
"No, you haven't spoiled anything!" cried Betty. "It was my fault too.You're the dearest girl in the world, and I'll always think of you thatway. Let's don't say another word about to-day. That's the best way toforget."
Lloyd began undressing, and Betty knelt down to say her prayers. Thegong rang presently for all lights to be put out. The seminary settleditself to silence, then to sleep. But long after Betty's soft, regularbreathing showed that she was in dreamland, Lloyd lay with wide-open,wakeful eyes. The moonlight streaming through the open window lay in awhite square on the floor by her bed. She heard the clock in the halltoll eleven, twelve, and one before she fell asleep. The spell of theorchard was still upon her; the moonlight, the faint strains of music,Ida's white face with the tears in the violet eyes, and the glimmer ofthe pearl on her white hand came again and again in her fitful dreams,all through the night.