CHAPTER XII
THE COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS
The last mail came up just after dinner. It was in the Aldred House mail-bag, and Mrs. Aldred handed out the letters. One she laid on the table. But the recipient had no idea of it and was not among the applicants.
When they were all gone she took that up. It was in a modern business hand with a good deal of strength in it, not the kind of hand usual for country farmers. The post mark was North Hope.
"Will you ask Miss Grant to come to me, Becky?"
Helen flew with eager blitheness through the hall and glanced with happy inquiring eyes.
"Was there a letter for me? I did not expect one so soon."
"Is this from your uncle?" she held it up.
"Oh, no. That is from Mr. Warfield. I could tell that hand among a hundred. Isn't it strong and quite as if he knew his own mind?"
She was positively eager with delight as she reached out her hand.
"He is no relative?"
"Oh, the Principal of the school where I went. You know I told you of the interest he took in me."
"Of course you have read the school regulations in your room?"
Helen's bright face was suddenly shadowed.
"Oh, I do believe – I did forget all about it. I wrote to Mrs. Van Dorn and then to my uncle, and there seemed so many things I wanted to say to him, and I just hurried them down. You see he asked me to write to him – "
Helen paused embarrassed. She knew just where the little card was tacked beside the door. Various rules and regulations and hours and a notice that no correspondence would be allowed without permission, to any gentleman except father and brothers or guardians. And she had never thought of it at that moment.
"It must have been because he seemed to me like a guardian," she explained. "That does not excuse my inattention, but please believe me, Mrs. Aldred, that I didn't willfully break the rule. And you may read the letter."
"You have the right of the first reading of it. Sit here, will you?"
Helen cut the end of the envelope, and was soon lost in it. Smiles passed over her face, then she drew her brows in a little crease and the lips were pressed together with a touch of annoyance. Then the smiles again.
Mrs. Van Dorn had asked that Helen Grant should not be allowed to correspond with Mr. Warfield. She did not approve of his influence over Helen. It was too purely masculine. And Helen was too young to have a man friend. It might divide her school interest, and she had selected Aldred House because she wanted Helen to have the best feminine training.
Mrs. Aldred had smiled over this when she read Mrs. Van Dorn's letter. Strange that the fear should so soon have materialized.
"Will you please read it," asked Helen in a low tone. "I think he doesn't quite like a girls' school. And he is all for study. He would push anyone right straight along, and he believes my music would be wasted time. I dare say I confessed I was not very bright at it."
The letter was certainly unobjectionable, a little severe perhaps, betraying the school principal, but still showing the high esteem in which he held Helen's capabilities. Such a correspondence would not be likely to do any student harm.
"You see, Helen," she began in a tone of sweet friendliness, "I am answerable for the girls committed to my charge. Some of the older ones have young men friends who would be very glad to keep up a correspondence, and no doubt two or three years hence the girls would feel mortified at knowing letters of theirs were in the man's possession. I have known young lads to read letters aloud to their college or club friends. It is a demoralizing and indiscreet thing, and no high-minded mother would consent to her daughter doing it without her knowledge or inspection. One rule, therefore, must apply to all such correspondences without the mother's consent. A letter like this would do a girl no harm, indeed, I think your Mr. Warfield rather severe."
"I don't quite understand how I could have done it so carelessly," Helen said in her frank, honest way. "And I am very, very sorry. But I should like to write and explain to him why it is" – she cast about for a word – "inadmissable."
"Of course it is best to do that."
Helen glanced up in such a straightforward fashion. There was nothing concealed. And to make her renunciation still more earnest and the obedience more cheerful, she said:
"I don't mean that I shouldn't care for the letters, for I understand what Mr. Warfield means by every line, and sometimes it would be a pleasure to write to so good a friend, for after all I owe him the best fortune of my life. I am doing it without any demur because it is one of the rules of the school and I do honestly and truly wish to keep them."
"Thank you for your ready acquiescence," and Mrs. Aldred's smile told Helen the thoughtlessness had been condoned.
"I will bring it to you to decide upon – "
"No," the lady replied, "I can trust you to say just what is right and proper."
Helen's eyes were in a soft mist as she raised them, and picking up her letter she made a graceful obeisance as she left the room.
Yes, there was the notice. How could she have let it slip from her mind. She had a vague idea that it really couldn't apply to a man like Mr. Warfield, but it was the rule and it must be kept. It did take a certain something out of her life that she could not have described, but she felt it. He was so interested in her progress. For had he not roused her and made a scholar out of her? She might never have known what the hunger meant but for him, and accepted the husks even if under protest. How much richer and finer all her life would be. She said frankly that she was sorry, and that she had counted on the letters.
He was annoyed at the foolishness as he termed it. If she were sixteen instead of fourteen it would have been different.
The days were so full and passed so rapidly to Helen. The autumn came on in all its glory and splendor. The hills, they were almost mountains, about Westchester were wonderful in their changing colors, but she thought nothing could describe those over the river until she began to read Ruskin, and that brought her nearer Mrs. Van Dorn again.
She and Daisy Bell slipped into a pleasant girl friendship. Helen was the stronger, more energetic, more ambitious. But then Daisy had only to be educated, to go home to her parents and take a place in society and marry. The girls did talk of the kind of husbands they would like and the wedding journeys they would take. Two of the seniors were really engaged.
"And you can't tell how many have lovers," Miss Mays said one evening when several were sitting, curled up on one bed. "Of course you can't write to him unless you are regularly engaged and your mother consents. But if I wanted to correspond with anyone, I'd find a way."
"And disobey the rule," declared Helen.
"Oh, a chit like you doesn't know anything about such matters. All is fair in love and war. And there are times when strategy is commendable. You find it a great resource in war as you read history."
"But you wouldn't, really, Roxy! Girls are sometimes sent home in disgrace."
"I didn't say I would. I said I could find a way if I wanted to," and she laughed with a sort of light amusement. "I often think up scenes that would do for a novel; difficulties and how to get out of them."
"I don't want any more difficulties than the lessons," declared another. "I shall be glad when school days are through with. The happiest time of life is youth! Not much!"
"What period do you think will be the happiest?" asked Daisy, thoughtfully.
"My happiest period will be going abroad on a wedding tour, and all the money I can spend on the other side."
"And mine will be the intervening years," declared Roxy. "Through school, lots of society, gayety, and admirers and a few flirtations before I settle down. I'd like to go abroad quite free, and leave the aching hearts behind."
"And you will make hearts ache, Roxy Mays."
Helen wondered at times how much she liked her, and others quite went down to her. She was piquant and could be very charming, then she said sharp and doubtful things, and had a way of twisting axioms around that was amusing and rather dangerous, too. She stood fairly well in her classes, but she was not an ambitious girl. How few of them considered what they were going to do with their education.
After a month or so, Helen began to have what Daisy called an insight into Latin. But, oh, dear, when she was fairly grounded there she would have to take up French. And when it came time to sit at the French table and ask for everything in a foreign tongue, how could she do it?
"I shall simply starve," announced Roxy. "And after Christmas that will be my fate. I shall keep crackers and cheese under my pillow and nibble on them in the long and sleepless hours of the night."
There was a good deal of fun when she came to know girls quite well, and the arguing almost to quarreling. Some girls did and then would not speak for days. Helen and Daisy agreed very well; Helen was robustly conscientious, and Daisy gently so. They were of much assistance to each other.
Besides the boarders there were the day scholars who lived in the town, and some visiting was permitted. Helen was too busy to indulge in much outside pleasure except just for exercise. She asked permission one day to go down the hill for the sake of climbing up. "And I can say over the Latin exercises, no one will think me crazy, because no one will be there to hear."
Miss Grace laughed and gave permission, and so it became quite a favorite excursion ground. If she made blunders there was no one to laugh but herself.
Cold weather came on. The crimsons turned to russet and brown, the hickories grew paler and paler until their gold had degenerated and their leaves shriveled up. There was a soft, light snow the middle of November that hung about on everything for a day or two and then winter seemed to set in. But it was so cheerful with the crowd of girls and the interested teachers that one didn't mind it.
Miss Craven was still very self-contained and reserved. She took her place in some classes, however. In music she improved rapidly, leaving Helen far behind. She spoke to Helen now and then of her own accord, but waited for the others to speak to her. Mrs. Aldred took special pains to make her feel at home.
"There's something queer about that girl," said Miss Mays one evening. "And Craven is not an attractive name, though it seems to suit her. I hope her father hasn't been a bank defaulter, nor a forger, nor a swindler! You notice that she seldom looks up at anyone. That suggests concealment."
"Is that a fair judgment?"
"Well, I like a person to look you straight in the eye."
"Roxy Mays, you could stare anyone out of countenance in two minutes, no matter how straight they looked at you. And hasn't someone written a verse or two about down-dropping lids and shy eyes, and eyes that seem to listen rather than look."
"As if eyes could listen!"
"Isn't every sense assisted by every other sense? And doesn't a deaf person listen with the eyes?"
"Well – I don't like her. She doesn't take hold anywhere. You must meet people half-way. Now here is Helen frank to a fault, and looking up at you like a saucy robin. One would know she has nothing to conceal."
Helen flushed and laughed. She often recurred to Mrs. Aldred's suggested caution. She occasionally heard girls tell incidents about their families that were neither amusing nor commendable, and that others turned into ridicule. Some of these, girls would laugh at Uncle Jason, and oh, what would they say about Aunt Jane! She had simply mentioned them with the utmost respect. And that a relative of Mrs. Aldred's was educating her was sufficient.
"Well, there seems to be plenty of money in the Craven exchequer. Her toilette articles are exquisite. I don't believe she had the taste to choose them, nor her clothes either."
"Oh, girls, let her alone. Isn't Miss Reid just as distant and self-contained? She never joins any of the little crowds, nor mingles in the fun."
"Well, she's of the severe order and is going to college. I'm glad I don't have to go; if I did it would be purely for fun. I'm in for all the good times I can possibly get."
How odd it was that so few girls really cared for knowledge! Of course, the fun was exhilarating, the sharpening of wits made one bright. Roxy Mays was an expert at twisting and turning and repartee, and making the worse seem the better reason. Some of it was amusing. But to magnify any trifling thing into a part of one's character, to give hard judgment on the shape of one's features or the expression of one's eyes and mouth, seemed hardly fair to Helen.
She wondered sometimes if one could grow beautiful on high and noble thoughts? One felt broader and better at heart by giving a more generous allowance. She soon found that Roxy had a bad fault, and all the girls in her set condoned it easily, while several of them grumbled about it to each other. She was always borrowing little articles and seldom returned them. "I'll take your pencil a moment," she would say. "I'll just run over this book," and you had to go after your book. It was thread and needles, buttons of various kinds, even to a shirtwaist set, and if one button or pin came up missing she was very sorry and would be sure to replace it when she went down town. Borrowing money was against the rules. There had once been a disagreeable trouble in the school about this matter, and now Mrs. Aldred kept a bank for any girl that had run ahead of her allowance, from which she was at liberty to borrow. Running up an account in the town was also forbidden.
How soon Christmas came! It fell on Saturday. Some of the girls were going home, several to visit friends or relatives, and those who remained were given a holiday. Miss Lane was to go; Madame Meran on Monday; Miss Gertrude was to have the week in New York. None of the other teachers resided in the house.
Thursday night there fell a real snow. The others had been beautiful attempts that had melted away in the next sunshine. Friday morning was dull and gray, without a breath of air. The roofs wore white hoods or blankets, the trees absolutely stood still, ermined to their finger ends, someone said. But at ten the somber clouds began to give way, growing thinner and thinner, and one spot rather to the south suddenly became glorified with silvery touches, then golden and azure, and the world was in a flood of sunshine. Helen thought she had never seen anything so glorious before.
"Oh, you beautiful, beautiful world!" she cried as she stood out on the porch, having said good-by to a group of girls. "It's a splendid thing just to live! But isn't it knowledge that enables one to understand and appreciate it all!"
She went through the hall. Miss Craven had just come downstairs.
"Oh, let us go out and look at the snow on our own small ravine. I am a country girl, and I think I have never really seen a snowstorm before," laughing. "I lived in a rather flat country."
Miss Craven's face slowly lighted up and an expression went over it like a smile that had not the courage to come out, but she followed readily.
There was the smooth expanse over to the iron fence, then the tops of trees and shrubbery, set with thousands of gems of all colors, depending on the rays of the sun. The black hollow, that was the little stream they could not see from the porch, the elevation on the other side, the houses and grounds, the men shoveling paths, children snow-balling, active life already and here the extreme of silence.
"What a picture!"
"And I lived among hills and mountains," remarked Miss Craven. "I used to get so tired of the solitude. But you can be alone – " pausing abruptly, and adding: "You are not going away?"
"No. But you shiver. Are you cold? Let us go upstairs to my room and have a talk. I shall be alone until next Saturday night. Daisy Bell has gone off to have a lovely time. There was no one who wanted me enough to petition for me, though I believe I was not to go home until next summer."
"Oh, you have a home?"
"Yes; and relatives. Come in," as they had reached the room. "We who remain have a holiday, and just now I do not feel in the humor for any serious thing. Let us compare our work. You are doing very well in music, Madame said. I ask about you;" and there was an expression of real interest in Helen's face that called a pleased flush to that of Miss Craven.
"Yes, but I do love it so;" and there was an intensity in her tone that aroused Helen. "If I were not so ignorant of other things I would devote my whole time to it. And if I could sing! You have such a fine voice."
"It is strong enough to lead a forlorn hope. I'd like it to be a contralto. There is so much depth and feeling and pathos in a contralto voice. Did you hear Miss Morgan sing 'Mary o' the Dee' a few evenings ago? Madame thinks she ought to settle upon music as a profession."
Helen had placed Daisy's rocking chair for her guest. There was a slant ray of sunshine coming in the window, and the room had a habitable air that some people always give. Daisy Bell possessed this in an eminent degree.
"I sometimes wish I were not alone," began Miss Craven. "Only I feel that girls are not attracted to me. I suppose I am too old for girls, and I don't know enough for the young ladies. I almost made up my mind that I wouldn't stay, but Mrs. Aldred has been so kind. And perhaps it would not be better anywhere else. I am nineteen."
The girls had speculated about her age. Miss Mays said she was at least twenty-five.
"And I'm not fifteen yet," laughing brightly.
"I wish I could be fifteen, but I would not like to go back and live the four years over again. My life has been a very dreary one."
"You are so reserved. Don't you really like girls?"
"I like you. I have ever since that day you first talked to me. But you have so many friends, and I do not want to intrude. I do not know how to make friends," hesitatingly, while the tears flooded her eyes.
"Were you compelled to live alone?" Helen did not want to seem over curious. She had visions of some queer old aunt who had shut her doors to everybody.
"Yes. I'd like to tell you some things I could not tell Mrs. Aldred; at least, my guardian's wife advised me not to be too frank about my life, since it probably would not interest anybody, or if it did they would pretend to admire me and care for the money's sake and what they could get out of me. Grandfather always said so. I don't know as he meant me to have it all, but he left no will, and as there was no one else it had to come to me."
"I'd like to hear about it if you did not mind. And – if you would like to be friends – "
"Oh, you don't know how dreary it is to be so much alone. Mrs. Davis thought the school such a foolish plan. But I was so ignorant. I didn't feel that I could go into society without knowing something. And I have learned a good deal by watching the girls. Many of them have such lovely manners. But if I had just one friend to talk things over with – "
There was such a longing in her tone that it seemed fairly to sweep through Helen.
"I don't know whether I should be a very judicious friend." Oh, if Mrs. Van Dorn could only set this girl straight, she thought, for that lady's wisdom had come to be nearly the whole book of the world for Helen. "But if you liked to try me. I should be true, I can answer for that," and the trustiness rang in her voice.
"I've really had no one but Mrs. Davis, and I haven't been drawn to her, although she has been very kind. Yet she is so different from Mrs. Aldred, and I can't tell which is nearer right. Only I do enjoy it better here. It is more like the harmony in music. Then I am confused in a big city, and I really couldn't go into society."
"How did you come to live so much alone?" inquired Helen, feeling as if she was unraveling a story.
"Father died when Arthur and I were very little, and mother went home to his father's. It's a queer, curious place with great mountainous ridges on one side, and on the other, to the south, stretches of land, good for nothing much, being iron fields, a sort of dreary waste, not considered good enough in ore to be worked much. Grandfather had bought it twenty or thirty years before in a great speculating time, then it had dropped down. I suppose the misfortunes soured him. He had a small farm beside, kept a cow, and an old nag, and pigs and chickens. Mother was his daughter-in-law. The house up in the mountainside was old and forlorn, but as grandfather said, 'It didn't leak and it couldn't blow over.' The little town was more than a mile away. I used to go in to school when the weather wasn't too bad. Arthur died soon after we went there. He was older than I. Grandfather had not really cared for me, he was queer and morose, and that disappointed him. Girls were of very little account except to keep house and mend old clothes. I did love school and study.
"When I was about thirteen there was a very hard winter, and mother took a cold. I suppose it was consumption. She just grew weaker and thinner, and really didn't give up until a few weeks before she died. She was a good deal troubled about me. I've seen that plainer since than I did then. And she kept saying, 'If any good ever comes to you, any money or any time, get an education. And don't marry any man until you have acquired that.'
"It was very lonely when she was gone, and I had the house to keep. Oxford village wasn't very much, three or four hundred people, and mostly farms, just one little spot with a church, schoolhouse, country store and post-office. I couldn't go to school any more, grandfather always went to town with butter and eggs and the produce he could spare. I lost track of folks as one may say. Grandfather didn't believe in church-going, and I seldom had anything nice to wear. We were real hermits. You see I was kept pretty busy. But I used to study the old books over. There were two or three music books, and I learned to read music just for a pastime. Then I made a sort of keyboard and used to practise. I meant to have a piano if I was fifty years old.
"A year ago in August, a man who had a new way of separating iron ore, and was concerned with a railroad surveying a new route, struck Oxford, and was surprised that it had lain unimproved so long. A company was formed that pushed things, and they wanted to buy out grandfather. There was a great deal of wrangling and they were at the house nearly every day. The rails were laid and a big smelting furnace begun. In six months no one would have known the place. One stretch of land they were quite in doubt about buying when it was discovered to have a vein of very valuable iron in it, hematite, and then he would not sell it, but leased it to the company for five years and he was to have a percentage on every ton of iron taken out of it. He still had the farm and we went on as usual, but it seemed as if he was more and more difficult to get along with and grew more sordid in his views. Of course there was always plenty to eat, but I did long for some of the other enjoyments. To spend half of my life in that wild spot seemed unendurable.
"One blustering March day he had been out on the ridge all the afternoon, but though he ate a hearty supper he complained of feeling cold. I made him a hot drink and put a brick steaming with herbs to his feet. The next morning he had fever and was flighty, but he wouldn't consent to have a doctor. And when he was wild with delirium and I sent, it was too late. In five days he was dead with pneumonia. It seemed dreadful that he should die on the eve of prosperity, but I wonder if he would have done anything worth while with his wealth.
"There was no will. I was the only heir, though a cousin did come from parts unknown and was easily bought off as he had no real claim. This Mr. Davis had been doing some of the business for grandfather, and was a director I believe. There had to be an administrator and a guardian appointed for me, and then I found I was a rich young woman, with a prospect of being richer still. Mrs. Davis took me in her house and was very kind to me. But I had a feeling that I wanted the education I had so hungered for and missed. She proposed a year in a convent to be trained in ladylike ways. I had a longing to know what real girls were like; I wanted to go to some nice quiet school and have that training before I went out in the world. I was afraid of society women, and I did not want to be married out of hand.
"There was a Mrs. Howard who came to stay at the summer home of Mrs. Davis. She was not so full of pleasure as some of the ladies, and once when they were all out on the golf links we had a walk and a talk, and she thought my desire to go to some small quiet school a very good one. She had a niece educated here and admired her training very much. She wrote for me and forwarded me the answer, and then I wrote, and this is the result. Mrs. Aldred is kindness itself, and agreed that private lessons would be best until I could begin to compete with other girls. What I have gathered is such desultory knowledge, and I'm like a child in some things. Oh, can't you see that? And I am afraid of being laughed at.
"You all seem so bright, so ready with your talk, you know so much that I envy you. And if I am going to be a rich woman I want to know and to do some of the best things. I don't believe I could be satisfied with buying gowns and going to parties. There, it is a long story, and it is odd to tell it to you, only there is such a look in your eyes at times that it seemed to me you would understand and not laugh or hold me up to ridicule."
There was an almost breathless intensity in the face, a half fear as well, but the telling of her sad story had roused her from her ordinary apathy.
"I certainly should not ridicule you," Helen began decisively. "Why, I think it is very brave of you to want to be educated when you could lead a life of ease and pleasure. And I am beginning to suspect that a love of knowledge is not universal, but I like it myself. There is so much in the world that I wonder women do not keep going on as some of the men do. Only then, I suppose, they wouldn't marry. And you would have to be quite rich to do it."