CHAPTER VIII
MRS. VAN DORN'S WINNING HAND
Helen was sitting on an ottoman and leaning her arms lightly on Mrs. Van Dorn's knees that had a soft wrap thrown over them. She fancied she felt little twinges of neuralgia in them now and then; August nights were damp.
They had been talking about the successful examination. Helen had proved the heroine of the dinner hour. Mr. Pratt admitted that he could not have answered half of the questions. Mrs. Disbrowe said she went into the High School of her town on quite as good a record. Mrs. Lessing said she did not see the need of half the tests, or of College education for women. The most satisfying destiny for a woman was a good marriage and she was quite sure men didn't care for learned women.
"You have been a very nice, cheerful, ready girl all summer, Helen. You really have been a great pleasure to me," said the lady.
"I am very glad." Helen's voice was full of emotion, and she gave the wrinkled hands a soft caress. "It has been a delightful time to me. I am so glad Mrs. Dayton thought of me when there were so many nice girls in the world. It seems to me as if I was brimming over with happiness."
She could feel the thrill in the young hands. Ah, if she had found Helen just as she was now, ten years ago. But she was good for many years yet, and she would have her sweet young life, her charming womanhood.
"Would you feel very much disappointed if you didn't go to the High School?"
"Oh, I think now, it would break my heart."
"But if something better offered?"
"Oh, could there be anything better?"
"Can't you think of anything better?"
The girl was silent. In her narrow life there had not been much room for dreams of real betterment.
"Think, all around the world."
"Well," with a half laugh and a sound like a sigh not going very deep, "there would be travel all round the world. I hope some day to earn money enough to go – well I'll take London first. Then Paris, but I do not believe I shall want to stay there long, for you see I shall not have a great deal of money. And then Rome, dear delightful Rome, with all its old haunts, where its poets have lived and died. And that isn't half, is it? Is any life long enough to see it all?"
Her face was in a glow of enthusiasm, her eyes deep and luminous.
The woman had not begun very early in life and she had seen a good deal of it. She had heard hundreds of people wish for things, but very few who were willing to earn them, like this girl who had so little envy in her composition.
"Suppose someone would say to you, here is a school where you can be taught all the higher branches as well, music, drawing, painting, literature and all the pretty society ways that make one feel at home in any company. Would you go?"
"Oh, that is like a fairy dream," and she laughed with charming softness. "Why, I am afraid to look at it lest I should want it."
"That isn't answering my question."
She raised her face and studied the one above her. It was wrinkled and the eyes were a faded blue-gray. She did not guess the eyebrows were penciled, the lips tinted, that the hair just a little sprinkled with white had come from the hair-dresser's. The curious asking expression transfixed her.
She drew a long breath. "Why, that would be wonderful to happen to a poor girl who is thinking how she can work her way along. It would be like a glimpse of heaven. I should be crazy to refuse it."
Mrs. Van Dorn took both of the warm, throbbing hands in hers. "Listen," she exclaimed. "I like you very much. When you first came, I thought only of a little maid to wait upon me, and run up and down and stay with Joanna when I wanted to be alone. I was rather curious to know whether you understood what you were about when you recited 'Hervé Riel.' You have a great deal of natural or inherited intelligence – your father was a scholar. If you were two or three years older, I should take you abroad with me and finish you on the Continent, that is, if you had not too much self-assurance that growing girls arrogate to themselves so easily. But that is not to be thought of at present – it must be some dream of the future. You need real education and you are capable of assimilating the higher part of it. I should like to send you to a school I know of where you will get the best of training. And if you develop into the girl I think you will, there may be a future before you better than any of your vague dreams."
"Oh! oh!" and Helen Grant buried her face in Mrs. Van Dorn's lap and cried, overcome by a new and strange emotion. If the elder had followed her impulse she would have lifted the face and kissed it with the passionate tenderness that was smoldering in her soul, and had never been satisfied. But her experience in people had been wide and varied, she was suspicious, she could not trust easily, and here were at least two years that would go to the shaping of this girl's character. Might she not care largely for what the money would give her?
"My dear! my dear!" she began in a muffled sort of tone from contradictory emotions.
Helen raised her face of her own accord, and her eyes were like the sun shining through a shower.
"Oh, what must you think," and her voice had a broken tremulous sound, yet was very sweet. "I didn't see how anyone could cry for joy – but I am learning something new all the time. Are you in very earnest? Would you take me with you if I were older and knew more? And would you like to have me trained and made into the kind of girl that suited you?"
"A girl proud and honorable and truthful, sincere and grateful – "
"Oh, I would try to be all that. It seems almost as if I had been deceitful to Uncle Jason, not to tell him about the High School, but I was not sure of passing, and not sure that I could work my way through. And sometimes I don't tell Aunt Jane things because I know she would make such a fuss, and they are not bad in themselves, and often don't come to pass. But I hate falsehoods. It makes me angry when they are told to me."
Mrs. Van Dorn smiled at the impetuosity.
"But you would give up the High School for this other plan? You would be willing to go away among strangers, and trust me for the future? I will provide everything for you, you will not have a care, only to study and do your very best, and take care of yourself. Even if you should decide to teach rather than travel about with me, you would be at liberty to choose."
"I should choose you," she said frankly. "Oh, how can I thank you for anything so splendid! There are no words good enough."
She kissed the wrinkled hands fervently.
"The thanks will be your improvement. Westchester is a beautiful place, with mostly educated people. Mrs. Aldred, who is a connection, is a lady in the truest sense of the word. You will learn what the higher class girls are like – some are fine, some under a charming and well-bred exterior you will find full of petty meanness. I should hate to have you mean, grudging. I want you to keep broad, unselfish; though sometimes you will get the worst and the smallest measure in return. And you will be quite content to leave your people?"
A serious sweetness overspread Helen's countenance.
"If I had a mother who loved me, such a mother as Mrs. Dayton would make, I am afraid I would not want to leave her. Oh, I know I wouldn't," decisively. "But Aunt Jane never liked my father, and I think she didn't care much for my mother. Their desires and ideas are so different from mine, and they care very little for education, yet they are all good and kindly, and Uncle Jason is really fond of me, I think. But it seems as if when one had neither father or mother to be disappointed, one might choose what one liked best, if there was nothing wrong in it."
How did the girl come by so much good sense and uprightness?
"Then you will accept my proffer?"
"Oh, I can hardly believe anything so good can come to me. I feel as if I were dreaming." She looked up uncertain, yet her eyes were dewy sweet, her lips quivering.
"We will make it better than a dream. But we will have to disappoint your Mr. Warfield."
That gave Mrs. Van Dorn a secret gratification. She was jealous of two people who had come into Helen Grant's life, this man and Mrs. Dayton.
"Yes; he will be sorry, I know. But then he could not be my teacher, as he was last year. And, oh, how proud he will be that I passed so splendidly."
"And I shall be glad when you attain to other heights. I really think you will not need any urging. But don't go too deep in the abstruse subjects, and don't let anyone spoil your fashion of reading, for I may want you to read to me in the years to come."
"I shall be glad to do anything for you," the girl replied with deep feeling. "I wish I might spend years and years with you to repay all this generosity and kindliness. Oh, why do you go away?"
She flushed with an eagerness, a glow of excitement that gave her a frank, bewitching sweetness.
Why did she go? Mrs. Van Dorn had gone over the ground by herself. She had been tempted to settle herself for life, but did she want to help tone down the crudeness of the untrained nature, to prune the enthusiasms, to find little faults here and there? She would rather someone else would do the gardening, and she have the bloom in its first sweetness. While she was away Helen would idealize her still more, and be prepared to give her just the same girl-worship, but with more discrimination. She would think of nothing but the benefits. She would see none of the whims and queernesses that Clara Gage had grown accustomed to. She would not note her growing old every day. And then she had a longing for a change.
"Well, I had planned to spend the winter in the south of France. It is supposed to be better to have an entire change every few years. I spent one winter there. I had not been quite up to the mark, and it improved me wonderfully. Then, I have made most of my arrangements."
"But you will come back?" beseechingly. "I may not stay the whole two years. You think you will feel quite satisfied to go to Aldred House? You will be among strangers, but girls soon get acquainted. Of course, I could board you here, and have you go to the High School, but it would not be as well, and it would not make the sort of girl out of you that I should like as well, for two excellent reasons," smiling a little. "What is it?" as a grave expression touched Helen's face.
"You have the right to decide. I know I should like best to go away, but perhaps it will make some trouble for you. I think my aunt – "
"I shall have a talk with Mr. Mulford when he comes in on Saturday. A man is generally master of his house. And I will see how the plan appears to Mrs. Dayton. She is a very sensible person."
She had a talk with Mrs. Dayton that very evening. She would give Helen her two years' schooling, and then she would be old enough and capable of deciding what she would like to do for the future. If she should prefer to take up teaching, that kind of training would be necessary afterward. She had some fine capabilities, and it would be a pity not to make the best of them.
So Mrs. Van Dorn very clearly defined her own position in the matter, without betraying her full intentions.
"If she doesn't get spoiled," commented the listener with an odd smile. "It is a very generous proffer, and I believe Helen is capable of appreciating it to the full. It would be a hard thing for her to remain here and work her way through school, though I had a plan for easing it up somewhat. She is above the ordinary run of girls, though I didn't think of that so much when I asked her to come here. The qualities that decided me then were her cheerfulness and her readiness. I do not believe her aunt half appreciates her."
"She is of a little different kind," returned Mrs. Van Dorn. That lady possessed much cynical enlightenment as to the kinds. "There is a deal of talk about goodness in this world, and even an east wind may be good for something, but it isn't pleasant. You find an immense deal of narrowness in these old country places. Saturday when Mr. Mulford comes I want to have a talk with him."
Mrs. Dayton was really glad that the first explanation was not to come from her.
Miss Gage arrived the next day at noon. She was a quiet, sensible-looking girl, who might have posed for a very attractive one, if she had known how to make the best of herself. She had a fine clear complexion, quite regular features, an abundance of soft, light brown hair, and a slim, graceful figure. But she had begun life weighting herself up with care, and made many little things a matter of conscience that were merely matters of choice. She was honest to a fault, obliging, and with that rare gift of being serviceable. At first Mrs. Van Dorn had been much pleased with her, but she was too proud to accept many favors, and her heart was centered in her own family; perhaps selfishly so.
Helen seemed released from almost every duty, and was glad to devote her time to Mrs. Dayton.
"I should like to know what Mr. Warfield will think of the plan," commented the lady.
"Oh, he will hold up both hands for me to go," laughed Helen. "Everybody will, but Aunt Jane."
The boarders were all out Saturday afternoon; a party had gone picnicking to a pretty, shady nook on the Piqua River, where a little decline and a bed of rock made a dainty waterfall. So Mrs. Van Dorn and Mr. Mulford had the end of the porch to themselves.
She stated her plan in a very straightforward manner. For two years she would send Helen to school, assuming all the expense. After that the girl might take her choice as to what she would like to follow, and she would be willing to assist her in any pursuit for which she was best fitted.
Mr. Mulford gave a long whistle, and stared at Mrs. Van Dorn. There was something so amusing in his surprise that she could hardly refrain from smiling.
"Well, I swow! You must think a mighty sight of her, ma'am, to be willing to spend that money out and out, when she could get her schoolin' right here for nothin'."
"I think of her capabilities. She is ambitious, and can fill an excellent place in the world."
"She's a smart girl in everything, but the book learnin' she takes from her father. Mother's missed her quick handy ways about the house, and I'm afraid she won't agree to givin' her up. And back there, ma'am, I used a word not strictly orthodox, and I'm a deacon of the church. But I was so took aback."
Mrs. Van Dorn nodded her pardon. "You see," she said quietly, "that it isn't quite as if she had been given to you. Her father might have returned and taken her. Then, when a child is fourteen she is allowed to choose her guardians. I shall stand in that capacity for the next two years. I shall arrange matters with my legal man in New York, so that, even if anything should happen to me she would have her two years at school. People lose their wits, sometimes."
"I don't believe you will lose yours. You're wonderfully well kept," he said with blunt admiration. "Well, I d'know as we could do anything if we wanted to. Mother's had other plans for her, but the child didn't fall in with them. She was mighty glad to come over here. There isn't much Mulford about her," with an abrupt sort of laugh. "We never just got along with her father, but he was a good enough sort of man. We've tried to do by Helen as one of our own, and Mother would now. But I can't think it would be quite right to stand in the child's way."
"No, it would not," decisively. "She has her life to live, and you can't do that for her. She has some fine natural gifts which it would be a sin to traverse. I will have my lawyer draw up an agreement that you will not interfere during the next two years – "
"But are we not to see her?" he interrupted, quite aghast at the prospect.
"Yes; you may visit her, and she can spend her vacations at home, and write as often as she has time. I should change my opinion of her if she was glad to go away, and forget you altogether. I am sure, then, I could not trust her gratitude to me," she said decisively.
"No, ma'am, that you couldn't," he subjoined earnestly. "Helen isn't that kind, I'm sure. And we wouldn't like to have her go out of our lives altogether."
"I should not desire her to."
"But, ma'am, after she's had all this fine living and everything, I'm afraid we'll seem very common. You don't think she'd better go to school here, and keep nearer her own folks?"
"Well, the other plan seems best to me. But after she has tried it a year, if she doesn't like it she shall be at liberty to come back to Hope."
"That's fair, I'm sure. Thank you, ma'am. And I don't just know what to say, only that I think it's mighty generous of you, though she's welcome to my home and all I have. I've never grudged her a penny."
"I am sure of that. Will you explain the matter to your wife? The agreement will come next week. And at the last I shall take her to New York to be fitted out with clothes. If there is any point you do not quite understand I shall be very willing to explain."
He rose in a dazed kind of fashion, and made an awkward bow, then went round to the kitchen end, where Helen had been sorting over blackberries.
"Oh, my child," he cried with a new tenderness. "I can't bear to think of your going away!"
Helen gave a long, sighing breath, then smiled.
"Miss Gage is to be taken to Europe, and her folks are willing," she subjoined.
"And this place isn't so far away. You can write and come home in vacation."
Then he would consent. She felt relieved that there was to be no argument.
"What do you think Aunt Jane will say?" she inquired, clasping his arm.
"Well, she'll be mighty set against it. I'll have a hard row to hoe when I go home. There'll be weeds of last year and year before," laughing brusquely. "I wish the old lady had to tackle her."
"But I don't. Aunt Jane says a good many things at first that she doesn't mean. It's the wrong side of something full of seams and knots, but when you get it turned out it is ever so much smoother."
"You're right. You're just right. You've quick sight in a good many things, Helen, and I should hate awfully to have you spoiled, and get so grand you'd look down on us. Mother aint much for book learnin', and Jen's as smart as a steel trap, if she is ours. Oh, and there's the wedding. Why I don't see how we can do without you," and he looked really alarmed.
"Perhaps I won't have to go so soon." Somehow she was almost afraid she wouldn't go at all. It was one of the happenings that seemed too good to be true, too wonderful for her.
"Well, I must get along. Mother'll wonder what kept me."
"And, oh, Uncle Jason, don't ever feel afraid that I shall forget you, and all your goodness."
Helen flung her arms around his neck and kissed his rough cheek tenderly.
"No, my girl, no. I should hope not. We'll hear soon, I suppose. And you will come over."
"Yes." Helen felt a little conscience smitten. She could go over and spend Sunday, but he did not ask it, and she did not proffer. She could imagine the time there would be, and oh, she would so much rather be out of it.
Mrs. Van Dorn said he was much more amenable to reason than she had feared. She explained about the agreement, and her plans to go the last of next week. Helen was transfixed with amazement.
Monday afternoon Mr. Warfield made his appearance. Miss Gage had gone out with Mrs. Van Dorn. Helen was very glad to have Mrs. Dayton explain the proposal, and point out its advantages.
"I don't like it," he exclaimed brusquely. "And you didn't take the examination?"
"Oh, yes, I did, and it was splendid! I'll show you the papers. But why don't you like it?" apprehensively.
"If you are going to teach in a public school, the discipline and advantages of the public school education are immeasurably the best. I don't like boarding schools except for the high up people who care most for accomplishments. And I have been thinking it over, and had a plan to propose to Mrs. Dayton."
"My schooldays seem a great perplexity all around," said Helen with a dubious sort of laugh.
"I do suppose Helen could have worked her way through. I had decided to give her a home, or her other expenses if a pleasant home offered. I would much rather not have her put on the level of a domestic. We may have some very fine theories on this subject, but Helen would have many snubs to endure. And if she resolves to learn what is useful, she will learn it as well there."
"But the experience will be so different. And two years will fit her for just nothing at all. Every year more real education is demanded. I am studying up for a college degree myself."
"Oh, dear!" Helen sighed lugubriously.
"Then, here, I should have had an oversight of your studies, and kept you up to the mark."
"I am resolved I won't fall below anywhere," she replied resolutely; yet there were tears in her eyes.
"But you don't know what the standard will be."
"Don't be discouraging, Mr. Warfield. Helen, go and get your papers," interposed Mrs. Dayton.
"Is that old body going to have Helen trained for a lady's maid?" Mr. Warfield asked in an imperious manner; his lips touched with a bit of scorn.
"You don't do her justice. At the end of two years Helen will be free to choose her future course. She will be only sixteen then."
"And spoiled utterly. Full of airs and graces. She is too fine a girl to be made a sort of puppet. There wasn't a girl in my class equal to her, and some had had much better advantages. I should not want her to go on living with the Mulfords."
Helen returned bright and eager, proud of her success as she handed him her examination papers. But Mr. Warfield would not be reconciled to the boarding school plan, and when he saw Mrs. Van Dorn step out of the carriage in her fine attire, he felt that he hated her; that she was an officious old body.