CHAPTER X
A TRIP TO TOWN
For the first time during all the years of their mutual associationand friendship, there was a rift between Billie Bradley and her chums.Edina Tooker was the cause of it, as Edina herself very well knew.
Laura and Vi did not like Edina. They saw her as raw, uncouth,ill-tempered. Edina, who was always one to return either friendship orenmity with interest, did not go out of her way to alter their opinionof her. She disliked Laura and Vi openly, and this they took as apersonal affront.
The fact that their adored Billie, despite all that had been said anddone to discourage her, still clung to her original intention in regardto this girl, they also took as a personal affront.
“It seems that she might consider our feelings in the matter!” Laurahad exclaimed on one occasion when she felt that her patience had beentaxed to the limit. “Can’t she see that our fun is being spoiled byhaving that Edina Tooker dragged into everything we do? Why, Billiehad her out on the tennis courts yesterday, coaching her, actuallycoaching her!”
Vi nodded and giggled reminiscently.
“I was watching,” she confessed. “Edina has a service that would smasheverything in sight if she ever should get it going properly.”
“Yes, and she’s death on tennis balls. She wrecked two yesterday andlost a third. It was a scream. Connie and Rose Belser and Nellie Banewere on the sidelines, laughing themselves sick. And all this time,”she added resentfully, “I was dying to have a set with Billie myself.”
“Not much fun for us,” agreed Vi, with a thoughtful shake of the head.“You know Billie promised to help me with my math--I _am_ worried aboutthat, Laura, and with good reason--but these days she has no time foranything but Edina. Old friends don’t count.”
“I heard her offer to help you yesterday afternoon,” Laura remarked.
“Yes, while that horror was with her,” flared Vi. “Do you think I couldconcentrate on three unknown quantities with Edina Tooker looking overmy shoulder?”
It was Laura’s turn to chuckle.
“I could imagine easier things,” she admitted.
There was a moment of silence, while Billie’s two closest chumsreviewed their grievances. Laura asked suddenly:
“What about this mysterious trip to Fleetsburg to-morrow? Billie’staking Edina, isn’t she?”
“So I understand.”
“Do you know what’s on the carpet?”
“Haven’t the slightest idea. Two or three times I’ve hinted to Billie,hoping she might have a change of heart and confide in me, but she’sbeen as mum as a clam.”
“There you are! Having secrets with this western coyote that she can’tor won’t confide to her dearest friends. If that’s loyalty, then Idon’t know it!”
Laura took an excited turn or two about the room, then came to standbefore Vi, her hands in the pockets of her sport coat, her chin thrustforward aggressively.
“I tell you, Vi, if it was anybody but Billie I wouldn’t stand for itfor a minute! I’m just about fed up with this lion cub! I wish she’d goback to her mountain cave where she belongs!”
This was Laura’s angle of it, and Vi’s. Billie’s was quite different.
Angered by the open hostility of her friends toward Edina, hurt by whatshe considered a misunderstanding of her own motives in regard to thegirl, Billie had repressed a natural desire to confide in Laura and Viconcerning her plans for Edina. While they felt that Billie had failedthem, Billie was equally sure that they had failed her. So began thegradual rift in their long and loyal friendship.
Several times during the process of dressing on the morning of theshopping expedition in Fleetsburg, it was on the tip of Billie’stongue to confide, belatedly, in Laura and Vi. But the two girls,nursing their resentment, were cool and distant, assuming an attitudediscouraging to confidences.
“Very well!” thought Billie. “If that’s the way you feel about it, I’lltell you nothing!”
She went down to breakfast with her nose in the air and a hurt in herheart. She had counted upon Laura and Vi, and they were failing her.
At nine o’clock the school bus drew up to the door, and those of thegirls who were lucky enough to have secured permission for a day’sholiday in Fleetsburg came thronging out, all clad in their prettiest,faces turned with bright eagerness toward this break in the schoolroutine.
The girls were like a flock of butterflies in their gay clothes andsmart trappings; all save Edina Tooker who, in her mannish tweed coat,heavy boots, and queer hat looked like something out of a curiosityshop.
The worst of it was that Edina realized to the full the gulf thatseparated her from these smart, happy, “just-right” girls. Every amusedglance in her direction was a keen shaft of pain in her heart. Sheclung to Billie as though the girl were her one protection againstintolerable suffering.
Billie, herself a little dream of “just-rightness” in a coat of somesoft, greenish-gray material, gray slippers, sheer stockings, a smallgray cloche with a green buckle snuggled over one ear, felt her heartburn with indignation at what she considered the callous cruelty of herfellow students.
“Never you mind,” she whispered to Edina, whose face was grim and morethan ordinarily plain. “We’ll show them! Coming back will be different.Oh, very, very different!”
Under her breath, Edina said fiercely:
“They’re horrid! I hate them! I’ll always hate them!”
Billie sighed. At that moment she realized, more clearly than everbefore, how difficult a problem she had undertaken. The self-appointedguardian of an Edina Tooker could expect no easy time of it!
As the bus started off, Billie looked among the crowd that had gatheredon the school steps to see them off. Laura and Vi were not there. Theyhad not even come out to see her off!
However, she caught sight of Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks, standingclose together, giggling, and pointing toward Edina Tooker.
Billie turned away. Her color was heightened, her lips set.
“I won’t let anyone spoil this day’s fun for me! I won’t!” she cried,and was angry past all bearing because there were tears of exasperationin her eyes.
However, the morning was fine; Billie was young and about to perform afascinating experiment. The school bus had barely lumbered through thegates of Three Towers and started out along the lake road before Billiehad forgotten her vexation in eager anticipation of what the next fewhours might bring forth.
The girls were all in high spirits, bandying jokes back and forth andlaughing at their own witticisms until it seemed a wonder the bus didnot rock with their mirth.
Billie took her fair share of the merrymaking, answering quips in herinimitable way until Miss Arbuckle herself began to smile and thedriver of the bus looked back over his shoulder from time to time witha wide-mouthed grin.
During all the fun, Edina sat grim and unsmiling. The merry sallieswere never addressed to her. Had they been she would not have been ableto retort in kind. She was as aloof as a snow-capped mountain. Perhapsonly Billie Bradley guessed that under her aloof exterior Edina was asmuch a girl as any of them and that she suffered intensely because ofher inability to join in their fun.
The bus passed through Molata at a merry pace and rattled on towardFleetsburg.
Billie turned to Edina, her face radiant.
“We’ll be there soon. And then such an orgy of shopping as we’ll have!I hope,” she hesitated and regarded the other girl laughingly, “I dohope you have brought plenty of money with you!”
Edina looked anxious.
“I’ve brought five hundred dollars. Will that be enough?”
Billie was staggered.
“Five hundred! Why, Edina, what did you think we were going to do--buythe town?”
“Well--how was I to know? Everything these girls wear looks as if itwould run into a heap o’ money.”
“So it does. Nevertheless, five hundred dollars should give us a prettygood running start! Here we are, Edina! Come alo
ng!”
There was a riotous exodus from the bus, and in the general confusionBillie nearly lost sight of Edina. She found her finally on the edge ofthe crowd, clinging to her pocketbook and looking scared.
“Come along,” said Billie. “I’ve already fixed things with MissArbuckle. We’re to meet the girls at the Busy Bee at twelve o’clocksharp. Until then, our time’s our own.”
When they reached the center of town, Billie paused and lookedabout her thoughtfully. Then her eyes came back from their tour ofinvestigation and rested musingly on her protégé.
“It must have been fate that made us stop before this barber shop,”she dimpled. “Come inside, Edina. You are going to have your hair cut!”
Edina protested. She shied like a skittish pony at the barrier. ButBillie had her way.
“Either you do as I say or you don’t,” cried Billie sternly. “Do youwant to go back to Three Towers Hall _as you are_?”
“No!” said Edina.
Like a prisoner marching to execution, she entered the barber shop.