CHAPTER XV
BETWIXT TWO
"And you knew it all the time!" Daisy Bell cried indignantly. She sat curled up on her bed, her soft, pretty hair let down about her shoulders, her arms folded across her chest as if she would shut out any pleading tone from her heart, if indeed it was her heart whose racing pulsation could decide for her, and keep or banish a guest.
"Not all the time," corrected Helen. "She told me a little of her story, told it briefly, I mean, and left me to infer the rest; explained why she wanted an education, and the almost accident of her coming here. She seemed so lonely at Christmas-tide when so many of you were away in happy homes, having delightful times with plenty of love and joy and good cheer. Well, I felt rather lonely as well."
"And then I came back to you with a heart full of love, and she had crept in. Why didn't you tell me – "
Daisy's voice trembled and she loosened one hand to wipe her eyes. Helen was much moved.
"There really was nothing to tell. We had made no vows, exchanged no promises, broken no rings," with a scornful little laugh. "I set her straight on two or three points, I scolded her a little, yes, I just did, and I wanted her to mix with, and be more like other girls. I don't believe you, with joyous homes and brothers and sisters, can understand the lonely life she has led."
"As you can," with a touch of girlish sarcasm.
"Yes, as I can. I have a kindly uncle and aunt, who have cared for me since father died, and a lot of cousins growing up into commonplace men and women. There are dozens of tender ties, but no real sympathy with my desires. Aunt thought I knew quite enough, and so I would for some lives. The longing and desire for other things, better things, helps me to understand her. But it was only a week or ten days ago – some strictures of the girls made her very unhappy – "
"She shouldn't have listened. The old adage is a good one," with a scornful laugh.
"She could not help it. I think some of the girls have not treated her kindly, they have even been rude. And it was mean to try to set her age so much farther on, and to call her an old maid."
"She doesn't look young."
"She will have a guardian for almost two years longer. I suppose in law you have to give your exact age. Some of the people I love best are very far from young."
"I suppose you love a great many!" with an emphasis as bitter as her tender voice could make. She could put anger in it, but bitterness never could be part and parcel of it.
"I love a few. I am not very rich in friends. But I know I am capable of loving a good many people for different qualities."
Helen stood up very straight. She was growing tall rapidly. There was firmness and character in every line of her face, and in her tone as well.
"I don't care for the thousandth part of anyone's love. And you said you would love me the best of anybody – "
"And so I did and do when you are not" – foolish, she was going to say, but she paused. "Oh, Daisy, can't you see it is the individuality, the qualities in a person that you love. And no two are alike. You are very dear and sweet. But I dare say you loved girls last year when I was not here, and when I am gone you will love someone else. I don't ask you to love me best of all, for there are, no doubt, more charming girls and Miss Craven did not demand that of me. It was because she seemed so glad of a little crumb, and I knew no one loved her – "
Helen's voice had a break in it. She went on taking down her hair, putting away her necktie and handkerchief, then hung her skirt in the wardrobe. Would she ask Daisy to read with her? "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." But she wasn't even angry, only indignant at what looked to her like injustice.
"Daisy," she began presently, "if someone told you a story, incidents out of her life that you knew were given in a burst of confidence, under the impression that you would not repeat it, should you feel duty bound to rehearse it to your friend. I did not promise, but I felt it was her business. Mrs. Aldred knew it; Miss Grace, too, I dare say, but they did not explain it to the school."
"It was nothing disgraceful. And the girls surmised – why, I think it would have been better explained," and Daisy roused up a little.
"What right had any girl to surmise? It was admitted that Mrs. Aldred would not have taken in anyone with dishonorable antecedents. And if my father had been a criminal of any sort, could I have helped it? But Mrs. Aldred knew there was nothing except a neglected girlhood which she has been trying in the kindliest manner to remedy. When a girl surmised anything, she was willing to give color to what she did not know was true. It seems to me that is very near a falsehood."
Daisy had heard more sneers than Helen. Her face burned with a pained consciousness. She really felt ashamed that she should have half believed the positive untruths. Gossip and ill-nature without any foundation – how despicable it looked. How could they have been amused over it?
"I don't see why she shouldn't have been willing to let us all know she was so rich," Daisy said in a sort of extenuation for the girls.
"I think it was because she wanted to do her hardest work unnoticed, for one thing, and she doesn't seem at all proud of the money though it is honorably obtained. She is very timid because she realizes her own deficiencies. I can't help feeling things would have been better with her if that Mrs. Howard had been her guardian's wife. Think, she's nineteen years old and no one has ever given her a bit of love, until – "
The great clock in the hall rolled out ten in its ponderous tones.
"Oh, good gracious!" Daisy jumped lightly from her bed. Helen put out the light and went on with her undressing. There could be no reading. She did not say a word, but knelt down presently.
It was hard to know just what was right and best. She had a feeling that she ought to go over to Daisy, since she had given the offense – it was not an offense on her part – but she could say, "I am sorry we quarreled when we meant to be such dear friends." She repeated "Our Father, who art in heaven," and then she remembered the man who prayed for wisdom, and who chose wisdom.
Two soft arms were around her neck and a tear-wet cheek was pressed against hers.
"I've been a horrid, miserable, selfish little wretch! I do wonder if you can ever love me any more? But I want you too, even if you must love her some. I'm sorry – "
Helen kissed her a dozen times. "You little darling, I love you a hundred times better than before, if such a thing were possible. And I'm glad not to have any break. Run to bed, little midget, or we shall have to confess to talking out of time."
Then they said good-night again, and so the first difference was made up, but Daisy's jealous heart was not quite comforted.
There was a difference in the demeanor of most of the girls toward Miss Craven, though few would have admitted the money had anything to do with it. Miss Bigelow simply repeated Mrs. Davis's remark, that the girl would be very rich. No one could say that she was loud or presuming, or that her retiring manner was an evidence of pride. She went her way as quietly as before. She acknowledged all the little politenesses in a shy sort of way, but she was hard to get on with. She would only talk in monosyllables, except to Helen Grant.
"She has the key to unlock her tongue," Miss Mays said. "Helen is the sort of girl who will always be looking for fresh fields and pastures new. I like her immensely, but I couldn't help feeling as if I was only one of the many to her."
Such little speeches with the utmost apparent good nature fell heavily on Daisy Bell's heart.
There were many things to attend to beside school-girl differences, which were always happening among pupils. Easter was late, and then every day counted to those who expected promotion as well as the graduates.
Still there were some splendid rambles over on the other side of the river, some rowing parties, delightful lessons in out-of-door botany, and, oh, the plans for summer! There would be eight graduates among the boarders, seven from the day scholars. Miss Reid was going abroad for a year at painting, Miss Downs to study music at Leipsic, Miss Bigelow to enter an art school in New York, three to go to college, one to be married. Most of the Senior B would step into the A division, and every class would be pushed up.
Helen could have gone in the higher division at Easter. She had studied not only with a will, but an eager interest in so many things that she wondered how girls could dawdle along. Still, if they had no aim, if it was merely to get through these intervening years, looking forward to pleasure, society, and marriage, perhaps it might be sufficient. Her future was rather doubtful, even to herself. There were suggestions about the more weighty studies from Mrs. Van Dorn, as if Helen would hardly need them. But she did it because she liked them. She wanted to go to the foundation, to know on just what her structure stood, there was nothing negative about her. One day Miss Grace said:
"Miss Grant, you would make a most excellent teacher. You are so direct and so simple, you waste no time, and you evince so much interest in the branches you like. I see your influence on two pupils, Miss Bell, who is a sweet, bright girl, but not in love with study, and mother and I feel really indebted to you for your interest in Miss Craven. When she can once venture out of her shell with the consciousness that she is not so different from the others, the Rubicon will be passed. I do believe she will do it. I am counting a good deal on next year."
"I am glad if I help ever so little," returned Helen with shining eyes, as a soft color transfused her fair face. "And since one and another has been very good to me, I ought to pass the kindness on to someone else."
"'Freely ye have received, freely give.' I am glad that purpose has taken root. There are so many things we can give that only cost us a little trouble, and do more good than the bestowal of money. It is one of the greatest lessons of life."
Miss Aldred smiled upon her pupil, and a warm glow sped through Helen's frame.
"Then I have my mind quite set upon teaching some day. Perhaps I take that from my father, who was a teacher. I saw so little of him, but this year I've wondered a good deal what he really was like, and if we should not have been splendid friends on these lines. I believe he was disappointed about my not being a boy, and it's funny" – with a bright merry laugh. "I've never wanted to be a boy at all. I think girls are nicer."
"The loveliest being to me is a fine, broad, sweet-minded, cultured woman, and I am very glad she is beginning to be thought of as the ideal woman. You have many years before you reach real womanhood, which comes later and is richer than it was twenty years ago. But you are taking some excellent steps along the way."
"Oh, thank you for the praise," said Helen pressing her hand.
If the steps were not in Latin and French she could go bounding along, she thought. In that respect she did not inherit her father's facility nor his love for the abstruse and difficult.
"I suppose I am superficial," she said to herself ruefully. "But why shouldn't one delight in the things one loves best?"
That was one charm about Miss Craven to her. She reveled in poetry. The other girls were full of nonsense chatter in the spare half hours, but they two often slipped away under some tree and read and discussed. There was a fund of romance in each one, though temperament and surroundings had been so different, the one so afraid to express her inmost thought, the other so fearless, not even minding being laughed at.
Every day seemed more crowded with all things.
"I'm glad I don't have to think about a graduation gown, or any gown," laughed Helen. "My clothes come ready-made, and all I have to do is to put them on."
"But wouldn't you like to choose sometimes?" asked one of the girls. "I shall choose my graduation gown and my wedding gown."
"Oh, no you won't. Graduation gowns have to be pretty much alike, and wedding gowns must be in the prevailing fashion. In fact, I think there is very little you do choose in this life. There's someone just in front always who lays down the law, and though you may think you will get your own way you find oftener it is the way of someone else."
"If I had my way I wouldn't come back to school."
"If I had my way I would come back to school ten years," exclaimed Helen.
"You are enough to tire anyone to death with your everlasting study plans. Thank heaven for vacation, say I."
There were some plans, indeed a great deal of planning about that. Each girl had a different desire.
Helen had written her monthly letter regularly. Sometimes she had nice chatty replies from Mrs. Van Dorn; at others, Miss Gage had written. They had been spending a month at Paris, now they were going to London, and then to some country houses. And early in June came a letter disposing of Helen's summer. She would return to Hope and spend the time between Mrs. Dayton and her uncle. "We do not know what may happen another year," she wrote; "and you are too young to be going about anywhere else."
Of course that was what she had expected to do, would be glad to do. She did want to see all her old friends again. Uncle Jason's letters had been rather queer and formal, Jenny had written twice all about herself and Joe.
Daisy came in bright and smiling. She, too, had a letter.
"I've been telling mamma such lots about you, and I asked her to let me invite you to spend a fortnight with me, and here it is. Just listen."
A very delightful invitation to be sure. Helen's heart beat high for a moment.
"Well – are you struck speechless?" a gay light dancing in her eyes.
"You are very good, just lovely, but I do not know as I can accept, I am to go home – "
"Only two weeks out of nine! Surely you can spare that!"
Helen considered. "I will consult Mrs. Aldred before I decide," with gentle gravity.
"I really do not see what she has to do with it. Your aunt and uncle would be the ones to decide. Don't you want to do it – to see what sort of a home I have? It would be just a splendid time. Mamma is half in love with you. I am almost jealous again."
"Oh, I can't think of anything more delightful," Helen cried eagerly, and Daisy did not need to doubt the pleasure illumining her face. "But Mrs. Van Dorn has planned – "
"Oh, write to her and tell her how much you want to come," beseechingly.
"There would hardly be time."
"It would be nicer to take you home with me, but you could come afterward."
"Why yes. However, I will see what Mrs. Aldred thinks."
"Oh, go at once. I want to write back," exclaimed Daisy impatiently.
Mrs. Aldred looked up from the pile of reports on her table, and said in a pleasantly inquiring tone, "Well?" then listened, but there was a tint of perplexity in her face.
"I had a note from Mrs. Van Dorn by the last steamer also. She seems very well satisfied with your progress, only she is rather exigent about the French, and I wish you would do all you can at it during vacation. But she is very explicit about the summer. I think she prefers that you should spend it in Hope."
She had been rather more than explicit, and said she did not approve of such young girls visiting about. Mr. Castles would send a trusty person for Helen and see her safely on the train for Hope.
"Do you not think I might write to her about it for a visit later on?"
"Yes, you could. But Mrs. Van Dorn is certain of her own wishes in any matter, and generally has good reasons. I do not imagine a visit like this would do you any harm, but you are young, and I do suppose you owe your own people some respect. I think I should accept the fiat."
Helen felt bitterly disappointed. She did not dream her girlish enthusiasm about Daisy Bell had been one of the factors in this command, as it really was, that Mrs. Van Dorn did not want any girl to gain a strong influence over Helen, but she need not have felt suspicious, as the influence was all the other way.
It had come like a sudden vision, and now it was quenched in bitter regret, with the unappeased want back of it.
"I do object to indiscriminate visiting for such young girls. If Mrs. Van Dorn were here and could see just the kind of girl Miss Daisy is, it would be different, but I suppose, if she thought at all, it was about the generality of girls, who sometimes are quite lawless in their own homes. Since you have accepted her direction for the next two years, it is best to do it cheerfully," advised Mrs. Aldred.
"Yes, I do owe her that much," returned Helen in a convinced tone, if the disappointment had not all gone out of it.
Then Daisy and she had an unpleasant disagreement about it, and Helen felt sorrier than ever.
Juliet Craven's happening was a comforting one for her. Mrs. Davis had gone abroad with a clear conscience. Her friend, Mrs. Howard, was to look after the ward who was neither woman or child.
Then came the rush of examinations, the excitement to know who had passed, and what the marks were, and the graduation exercises which began at three in the afternoon and were to end with a lawn party in the moonlight.
Some of the pupils were secretly mortified at not attaining a higher rate, a few really did not care, and they were not sufficiently above the ordinary to make a mark anywhere. Some others were a credit to the training and culture of Aldred House, and went their way with a grateful remembrance of their teacher friend and her admirable daughter.
Helen had a part in the singing, there was some excellent playing, recitations, and essays. The house was crowded, it was one of the summer events at Westchester. There were congratulations and good wishes, and an evening of unbounded delight, as many of the young people were invited, and for this evening the youthful masculines, among them a number of law students, were welcomed.
Was it only a year ago Helen Grant had recited Hervé Riel in the old schoolhouse at Hope Center? Oh, how many things had happened since then. Why, it was like a fairy story. She could hardly believe it herself.
She recited it again out on a corner of the lawn, and before she was half through her audience had doubled, and listened with flattering attention. The young son of Mr. Danforth, just home from college, was standing near.
"That's enough to inspire one," he said. "I shall take one line back with me and recall the very ring of your voice:
"Sirs, believe me, there's a way.'"
Helen flushed with pleasure. She had not given up her old hero, though there had been new candidates for her favor.
Then followed the partings the next morning. Some would be for life perhaps. Every graduate counted on coming back to Aldred House some day, but there were many chances and changes and more than one was never to see it again, only hold its happy times in remembrance.
"I am glad we are to keep together next year," exclaimed Daisy Bell. "And I do think I shall be a better student. The year following we shall graduate together. And all the rest of our lives I hope we shall be friends, even if we do have tiffs now and then."
Juliet Craven asked rather timidly if she might write to Helen.
"Oh, I should be disappointed if you did not. I count on it as one of my pleasures," Helen returned warmly. There were other promises, several of them not kept. And by twos and threes the group dwindled until at dinner all the remainder were invited to the table of state as guests.
The next morning a thin, rather somber-looking man came with a note from Mr. Castles. Helen's eyes were swimming in tears as she said good-by to Mrs. Aldred and Miss Grace.
It was an uneventful journey until they reached New York. They stopped at Mr. Castles' office, and he questioned Helen about her past year, took her out to lunch, and then put her aboard her own train with several papers and a magazine, and wished her a pleasant journey.
And pleasant it was, though she had a seat to herself. She could not read, hardly look at the tempting array of pictures, there were so many thoughts crowding in and through her mind. She had been very happy. Schooldays were delightful. She wanted years and years of them.
Some ten miles before they reached Hope the passengers had to leave the main line. She made her change without any difficulty, and saw that her trunk was safely bestowed. Then on and on past farms and a few straggling villages, when the train began to slow up and the conductor called out – "North Hope."
Half bewildered, as if it were a strange place, she felt the conductor take her arm. Then someone else grasped it, a rather tall figure with a familiar face, and a delighted voice at his side exclaimed:
"Why, Helen Grant! You have grown almost out of recollection!"
"Oh, Mrs. Dayton! Oh, Mr. Warfield!"
That was all she could say at first. Mr. Warfield looked after her trunk; Mrs. Dayton surveyed her from head to foot.
"You'll have to go in long dresses," she began in an amused tone.
"Oh, I don't want to grow up, Mrs. Dayton. I don't want to be a young lady. Girls have such a good time, and in my heart and all over me I am just a girl," she exclaimed vehemently.
"I am glad of that, too. Joanna wondered if you had forgotten how to dry glass and china, and would be clear spoiled at boarding school. You haven't changed a bit in looks, and your face isn't a day older, but you are almost as tall as I. Just now I haven't but two or three boarders, and I want all of you that I can have for the pure pleasure of the thing."
Mr. Warfield soon joined them. Here was the library in which she had taken such pleasure, the street with the stores, the window in which she had seen her Madonna, and now she knew so much about the old ones and their painters. A turn in this quiet street and here they were. She would not have been startled to see Mrs. Van Dorn on the porch. There were an old lady and an old gentleman, both silver-haired and placid, she in an almost quakerish garb, but looking very sweet.
"You are tired and dusty, I know, and want a bit of freshening up. Mr. Warfield is going to stay to dinner, and then you can have your talk. His school just closed yesterday, and he goes away to-morrow. We have almost quarreled about you; he hates girls' boarding schools and was sure you would come back a niminy, priminy Miss with high heels and trains and all that," laughing gayly.
"He doesn't know anything about Aldred House," Helen replied, amused.
"Here, you are to have a room to yourself, though I expect to-morrow Uncle Jason will whisk you off. That old couple downstairs, Mr. and Mrs. White, have Mrs. Van Dorn's room. And she's careering around Europe like any young thing! She does surprise me. Now when you are ready come down, for we are just dying to inspect you and see how much you have changed."
Helen recalled the fact that a year ago she thought this the most beautiful place imaginable. There was the tall, slim rowan-tree, full of green berries that would hang out beads of red flame in the autumn, the tamarack with its sprays of delicate leaves, the big, burly, black walnut on the corner, the wild clematis and Virginia creeper, the prim flower-beds.
"There will be plenty of time to look at them through the summer," she thought, so she bathed her face, brushed her hair, shook out the pretty plissé shirtwaist she had in her satchel, tied a blue ribbon round her neck and looked as fresh as a just opened flower.