CHAPTER VI
BILLIE IS LOYAL
Edina Tooker faced the battery of curious, amused glances like athoroughbred. Even when a ripple of laughter ruffled the sereneatmosphere of the room, she did not flinch nor cower. If anything,her back was held more stiffly erect, her head was flung back with adefiant gesture. Billie was reminded of an unbroken colt who feels theflick of the whip for the first time and is hurt and enraged by thepain even while he fails to understand the reason for his punishment.
Billie was seized by an almost irresistible desire to go and rangeherself at this girl’s side, to beat down the ridicule that surgedtoward the defenseless stranger in a merciless tide.
Edina Tooker wore a heavily pleated serge skirt, far too wide andtoo long to meet the demands of the prevailing fashion. Over this,accentuating her naturally bulky proportions, was a stiffly starchedwhite shirtwaist, adorned by a flowing red tie.
Her hair was naturally very thick and of that peculiar black whichseems to hide a bluish tinge in its depths; but it was drawn backruthlessly from her broad brow and round red face, drawn back soharshly that it pulled her heavy straight brows upward, giving an odd,almost diabolical, expression to her face.
She wore “sensible” stockings that were very thick and durable and thatserved admirably to disguise the natural shapeliness of her limbs. Onher feet were not shoes, but heavy boots that laced half-way up to herknees!
Even Billie, sensible as she was to this strange girl’s suffering,resentful as she was of her friends’ amusement, knew Edina Tooker tobe a figure of fun as she stood there in that assemblage of carefullycared for, tastefully yet simply dressed young people.
“Why doesn’t she sit down?” thought Billie, in exasperation. “Why doesshe stand there and take the limelight? It’s idiotic!”
The ripple of amusement continuing, Miss Debbs looked up fromabsorption in her meal and met the defiant gaze of Edina Tooker. MissDebbs’ face grew red.
“Another tardy one!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean, Edina Tooker, byreporting here at this late hour?”
The girl’s face grew sullen. She scraped one clumsy boot over the other.
“I couldn’t help it, Miss Debbs,” she said, in a voice scarcelyaudible. “I just come back.”
“Came,” corrected Miss Debbs in her deep, husky voice. “Try to speakgrammatical English, at least! May I ask,” she added sarcastically,“where you have been and why you have just come back?”
The ripple of amusement rose again, surging toward the girl in theoutlandish garb. Edina’s face was scarlet, her lip trembled in spite ofa gallant effort at self-control.
“I--I went for a walk,” she said.
“Ah!” declaimed Miss Debbs in her best elocutionary style. “You wentfor a walk! May I ask where you went for a walk at this time of theevening, neglecting to return to Three Towers Hall until ten minutespast the supper hour?”
Edina shifted from one foot to the other. Her scarlet face was pitifulto see. She tried to speak, but was apparently unable to bring forth asound.
Billie Bradley could bear it no longer. She got to her feet and facedthe teacher.
“If you please, Miss Debbs, I can tell you where Edina Tooker has beenand why she was late for the supper hour!”
Here was drama! There was the sound of a concerted gasp as all eyesswerved to Billie. Edina Tooker put up a trembling hand to her shiningblack hair and also gazed at Billie.
Miss Debbs looked outraged, but interested.
“What do you mean, Beatrice Bradley? Explain!” she commanded.
Without hesitation, Billie told in a low, clear voice of the trip upto Goldenrod Point, as it was called by the students of Three Towers,of her fall over the cliff, a fall which had almost had disastrousconsequences, of Edina Tooker’s brave and efficient help in a moment ofextreme peril, and of her own eventual return to safety.
She ended boldly, carried away by her own eloquence:
“I think, instead of a discredit mark, Edina Tooker deserves a medalfor heroism. I know if I had _my_ way she should have it!”
Billie made a gesture toward the door and paused, feeling ratherfoolish. Edina Tooker had disappeared!
Many pairs of eyes followed Billie’s glance toward the door and ababble of excited voices arose.
“Where has she gone?”
“What did she have to do that for?”
“Just when we were all getting ready to give her three cheers----”
“_And_ a tiger!”
Through the commotion broke the voice of Miss Debbs.
“Silence, please! You will resume your seats and your supper. You willact, if you please, as though nothing had happened. While I am incharge this confusion must cease. Silence!”
When order had been partially restored, Miss Debbs turned her attentionto Billie.
“I am obliged to you for your defense of this extraordinary girl. Onewonders whether, if you had not spoken up for her, she would have saida word in her own behalf.”
“I doubt it, Miss Debbs,” said Billie earnestly. “She’s the sort whohates thanks and I think I embarrassed her by speaking out.”
“Unfortunately,” resumed Miss Debbs, proceeding with her discourseas though Billie, by answering her query, had been guilty of animpertinence, “this girl has committed another indiscretion by leavingthis room before she was given permission to do so. She appearslamentably ignorant of the rules by which Three Towers Hall isgoverned.”
“I’ll go and call her back, Miss Debbs.” Billie rose eagerly in herplace. “I don’t think she can have got very far.”
“Beatrice Bradley, you will stay where you are!” returned Miss Debbsseverely. “You will not leave this room until I give you permission todo so.”
Billie sank back in her seat with a sigh of resignation. Miss Debbs wasbeing dramatic, and when she was in that mood there was no arguing withher. Billie did not try, but finished her meal with what appetite shecould.
There was floating island for dessert and home-made chocolate cake,an ideal combination and a prime favorite with Billie. But she couldnot enjoy it for thinking of Edina wandering off somewhere by herself,Edina, heartsore and lonely and desperately rebellious.
The meal at an end, there was a general exodus of girls into the hallsand spacious grounds of Three Towers Hall. There they were permitted towander until nine o’clock when the melodious gong called them indoorsto the dormitories and “lights out.”
As usual, Billie Bradley found herself the center of a little court.About her gathered most of the worth-while girls of Three Towers Hall,students who had accomplished something in scholarship, in athletics,or both.
To-night she found herself more than ordinarily popular, becauseof the interest attached to her adventure of the afternoon and hercontact with the girl who was already becoming a source of mystery andinterested speculation to the students of Three Towers.
“You sure did champion that queer Edina Tooker, Billie,” drawled RoseBelser. Rose was tall and dark and unusually good-looking. Once anenemy of Billie, Rose was now one of her warmest, most loyal friends.“I’ve never known you to be so eloquent.”
“Even Debsy was impressed,” giggled Connie Danvers. “I think it wasrather a shock to her, Billie, to discover that you had so muchdramatic talent.”
“I was in earnest, and, you know, sincerity works wonders,” laughedBillie. “Besides,” more soberly, “I feel sorry for the girl. Shedoesn’t fit here and she knows it.”
“One wonders why she came,” murmured Rachael Carew. Rachael, morecommonly known as “Ray” Carew, was the only daughter of the wealthyCarews of Boston. While a thorough “good fellow” with those sheconsidered her equals, Ray could be a bit of a snob with those whosesocial position was not secure. “One wonders still more,” addedRachael, “how Miss Walters happened to admit a girl of that type toThree Towers Hall.”
For some reason which she could not quite fathom herself, indignationblazed up in Billie at Rachael’s patron
izing tone.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘that type of girl’, Ray. She seems tome a thoroughly good sort----”
“A diamond in the rough?” drawled Ray.
“Perhaps,” flashed Billie. “But I like her and she saved my life. I’dbe worse than ungrateful if I consented to listen to unkind remarksabout her.”
Before the girls realized her intention or could make a move to stopher, Billie had pushed through the little group and started toward thebroad, lighted portal of the Hall.
“The little spitfire!” murmured Rachael Carew. “Who would expect her tofly out at me like that? Anyone would think that queer jay of a girlwas her twin sister, to hear her talk.”
“You should know Billie well enough not to run down anyone who has doneher a favor,” Laura remarked. “Loyalty is Billie’s dominating trait,you know.”
“Of course it is,” said Rose Belser. “That’s why we all love her----”
“All except Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks,” remarked Connie Danversand began to sing softly under her breath:
“Oh, Amanda and her Shadow, Amanda and her crony, Went out to take the air one day, Aridin’ on a pony.”
A chorus of voices joined Connie in the second stanza of the verse:
“They thought they were the bees’ headlight, They thought they looked so tony, But every one they met called out, ‘Go home, your style is phony!’”
At the moment Amanda and Eliza and several of the younger girls passedclose to the group and shot them a suspicious glance, which provoked agale of mirth from the author of the “poem” and her friends.
“Let’s sing it again, louder this time,” proposed the irrepressibleConnie, but Vi put a check on the hilarity.
“We have had plenty of trouble with those two girls and will probablyhave more in the future,” she said. “There’s no use going out of ourway to look for it.”
Meanwhile Billie had gone in search of Edina Tooker.
She was not in the first year dormitory. There were several girlsgathered there, reading or studying, but they unanimously denied anyknowledge as to Edina’s whereabouts.
“She is probably mooning down by the lake somewhere,” said one of them.“She likes to get away by herself.”
Before continuing her search, Billie went down the back stairs to theroomy kitchen where the gastronomic needs of several scores of healthygirls were catered to each day.
There was a new cook, a huge black woman with skin like polished ebonyand an expansive smile that showed two rows of glistening white teeth.The negress rejoiced in the name of Clarice and she was already one ofBillie’s devoted slaves.
“I need some sandwiches, Clarice, and a big piece of that deliciouscake. I don’t know,” with calculated flattery, “when I have evertasted such scrumptious cake. I ate so much at supper, it’s only awonder I’m not sick.”
“Well, then, Miss Billie, Ah sho hopes as you don’t git no tummyacheto-night. An’ Ah’m telling you they ain’t much o’ that cake left, butyou’s welcome to what I got, yes’m.”
“You certainly are good to us, Clarice, as well as being a scrumptiouscook,” said the girl gratefully.
Five minutes later Billie crept out of a side door and made her way bya circuitous route down toward the lake. She carried a basket over herarm.