“Oh! Doctor, what if it should be something contagious? I don’t see why I didn’t think of that before. Besides, I sacrificed Miss Calvert’s opportunity to hear the lecture for Grace’s sake. How could I have been so thoughtless!”
“Well, Madam, I suppose because you are human as well as a schoolma’am, and love for your niece stronger than training. But don’t distress yourself. I doubt if this is anything more than a fit of indigestion. That would account, also, for the imaginary visit of a goblin, which terrified the little one. However, it might be well to isolate Miss Dorothy for a day or so, in case anything serious develops.”
By that time Dorothy was awake and sat up listening to this conversation; and when the doctor explained to her that this isolation meant that she must live quite apart from the schoolmates she so desired to know, she was bitterly disappointed.
“I haven’t been here more than twenty-four hours, yet it seems as if more unpleasant things have happened than could anywhere else in a lifetime,” she complained to Dawkins, who had come to arrange another cot for her to use and to bring the needed articles from her own little cubicle.
“Ah, lassie! When you’ve lived as long as me you’ll learn ’t a ‘lifetime’ is a goodish long spell: and if so be you can’t mix with your mates for a little few days, more’s the blessing that’s yours, alongside as you’ll be of the Lady Principal. Now, say your prayers and hop into this fine bed I’ve fixed for you, and off to Noddle Island quick as wink. Good night and sleep well.”
Surely our Dorothy had the gift of winning hearts, and other Oak Knowe girls with whom Dawkins exchanged scant speech would have been astonished by the kindly gossip with this newcomer. Also, the maid’s belief that Dorothy’s intercourse with the Lady Principal would be delightful was well founded. Miss Muriel was grateful to her pupil for her patience with troublesome Grace, and regretful that her isolation from her mates had come about in just this wise.
However, Dr. Winston had been right. Millikins-Pillikins had been allowed the run of the house and, like most children, found its kitchen its most attractive place. There her sharp tongue and amusing capers furnished amusement for the servants, who rewarded her with all sorts of “treats” and sweetmeats. The result was natural, but what was not so natural was her persistent declaration that she had been visited by an evil spirit.
“I did so see him, Auntie Princie! He had big whitey eyes, and his head was all red – ”
“No more, darling. Say no more. Just play with your blocks. See what sort of house you can build, or – ”
“Auntie Prin, I do hate blocks! And you don’t believe me. Did Millikins ever tell you a wrong story in her whole life?”
“No, darling, not to my knowledge. I’m proud to know you are a very truthful little girl. But even such can dream queer things. Ask Dorothy to play for you and me. You know this is the last day she’ll be shut up here and I’d like to hear some music.”
Dorothy laid down her book and went to fetch her violin, but the self-willed Grace would have none of that. Stamping her foot, she imperiously cried:
“No, no, no! She shall come with me and seek that old debbil. She shall so. He had hornses and his face – ”
“Grace Adelaide Tross-Kingdon! if you disobey me again by mentioning that subject, I shall send for the Bishop and brother Hugh and see what they can do with you. Do you want to be disgraced before them?”
The little girl pondered that question seriously. She could not understand why telling the truth should disgrace anybody. She loved the Bishop and fairly idolized her big brother Hugh. Her Aunt Muriel was more angry with the child than ever before in her short life and Millikins fully realized this fact.
“I’m sorry, Auntie Prin. I’m sorrier than ever was. I hate them two should think I was bad and I wish – I wish you wouldn’t not for to tell ’em. I isn’t bad, you only think so. ’Cause it’s the truthiest truth, I did see him. He had – ”
Miss Tross-Kingdon held up a warning hand and her face was sterner than any pupil had ever seen it. Such would have quailed before it, but Millikins-Pillikins quailed not at all. Rising from the carpet, where she had been sitting, she planted her sturdy legs apart, folded her arms behind her and unflinchingly regarded her aunt. The midget’s defiant attitude made Dorothy turn her head to hide a smile, while the little girl reiterated:
“I did see him. I have to tell the truth all times. You said so and I have to mind. I did see that debbil. He lives in this house. When my brother Hugh comes, he shall go with me to hunt which room he lives in, and the Bishop shall preach at him the goodest and hardest he can. This isn’t no badness, dear, angry Auntie Prin; it is the truthiest truth and when you see him, too, you’ll believe it. If Hugh would come – ”
Miss Tross-Kingdon leaned back in her chair and threw out her hand in a gesture of despair. What made her darling so incorrigible?
“Oh! I wish he would come, I certainly wish he would! This thing is beyond me or anything in my experience. I almost begin to believe that Bible days have returned and you are possessed of the evil spirit.”
Millikins-Pillikins returned to her play in supreme indifference. She knew what she knew. Couldn’t a body believe one’s own eyes? Didn’t the chef often say that “Seeing is believing,” when the scullery maid stole the raisins and he found them in her pocket? She couldn’t help Auntie Prin being stupid; and —
“Oh, oh, oh! Hughie’s come! Hughie’s come! Oh! you darling brother boy, let’s go and seek that debbil!”
The youth who entered and into whose arms his little sister had sprung, held her away from him and gasped. Then answered merrily:
“That gentleman doesn’t belong in good society, kiddie. It’s not good form even to mention him. I’d rather go the other way.”
Then he set her gently down and turned to acknowledge his aunt’s introduction to Dorothy. He was well used to meeting the Oak Knowe girls, but wondered a little at finding one at this hour in the Lady Principal’s private parlor. As he opened his lips to address some courteous remark to her, a shriek of utter terror rang through the house and a housemaid burst unceremoniously in, white and almost breathless, yet managing to say:
“Oh! Ma’am, I’m leavin’ – I’m leavin’ the now! Sure, ’tis a haunted house and Satan hisself dwells in it!”
CHAPTER VI
AT THE FALL OF THE MAIDEN’S BATH
There had, indeed, been strange happenings at Oak Knowe. Beginning on that first day of Dorothy’s life there, with the crash outside the dining-room door. That had been caused by the tripping and falling with a loaded tray of one of the best waitresses employed. Afterward it was discovered that a wire had been stretched across the doorway, low down near to the floor, and not easily noticeable in the dim passage. Who had done this thing?
Miss Tross-Kingdon paid scant attention to the incident, apparently, although she caused a very thorough investigation to be secretly made. Nothing came of it.
Matters went so wrong in the servants’ quarters that they became demoralized and several threatened to leave. Thefts from one and another were frequent; yet as often the missing article was found in some unusual place where, as Dawkins declared:
“Nobody but a crazy person would ha’ puttin’ it.”
One morning the chef’s spotless marble molding-board was found decorated by a death’s-head and bones, done in red paint, and his angry accusations of his fellow-workers brought the Lady Principal to the kitchen to restore peace. But peace did not last long. The head laundress, who personally “did up” the finest pieces in “the wash,” found her pile of them deluged with blueing, so that her work had to be done all over again. These were but samples of the strange happenings; and though most of the servants had been so long at Oak Knowe that they considered it their real home, some of the most loyal to its interests felt they couldn’t endure this state of things much longer.
Then had come the fright of little Grace, followed by that of the housemaid, whom no arguments could calm, and who rushed out of Miss Muriel’s parlor as she rushed into it, departing that hour for good and all and to spread far and near ill reports of the great school.
However, after that day nothing further happened. At a secret meeting of the faculty it was decided to take no outward notice of these disturbances, but to keep silent watch until such a time as the culprit, or culprits, should betray themselves.
“He or she is bound to do so, after a time. There’s always a hitch somewhere in such mischievous schemes and nothing worse than mortal hands has performed this ‘witch work,’” said the Bishop calmly, though vexed that such foolishness could be found at his beloved Oak Knowe.
Then for many days the disturbances ceased.
Dorothy fell into the daily life of the school with all her heart, making friends with her mates in her own Form and even with some of the older girls. Best of all, she had lost all fear of the Lady Principal, whose heart she had won by her devotion to little Millikins. She even begged forgiveness for Winifred, against whom the teacher still felt some resentment; saying to Dolly:
“It isn’t what she did – in itself – so much as her broken trust. She has been with me so long, she has been taught so constantly, that I feel indignant at her deception. Anything but deception, Dorothy. Remember that a treacherous person is more to be feared than an openly wicked one.”
“But, dear Miss Muriel, Winifred will never cheat again. Never, I know. She won’t go off bounds a step now, even though her ‘restriction’s’ taken off. And she keeps away from me till she makes me feel dreadfully. Says she doesn’t want to ‘contaminate’ and get me into trouble again. Please let her go nutting this afternoon with Miss Aldrich’s class.”
“Very well. She may go.”
“One thing more, Miss Tross-Kingdon. When may I, may we, go to see Robin?”
The lady smiled. A sudden memory of the scene upon which she had entered that rainy evening of her first visit to the cottage amused her, and she answered graciously:
“Probably on Saturday, if you wish. Though I am still doubtful whether your guardians would approve.”
“I can answer for them, dear Miss Muriel. They are just the kind that would like me to go. Some of Aunt Betty’s dearest friends are very poor. She finds them honester and more generous than the rich ones. As for darling Uncle Seth, he learned to be a regular blacksmith, just so he could live among them on ‘even terms,’ he said. Yet he’s the wisest, best man in all the world.”
In the Lady Principal’s private opinion he was also the most eccentric; but she did not dash Dorothy’s enthusiasm further than to say:
“To me it seems wisest to content one’s self with the station in which one has been born. To step aside from the normal path in life – ”
Foreseeing a “lecture,” Dorothy interrupted:
“Beg pardon, Miss Muriel, but there’s Win yonder this minute, walking with her head down as if she were worrying. She thought her father was coming home next week and he isn’t, and she’s so disappointed. She’s reading his letter over again. She said, when I asked her why she was so blue, that it didn’t seem like home here any longer with you offended, and he wasn’t coming, and she had no real home anywhere. Oh! you needn’t be afraid of darling Win doing anything crooked again. Do love her and take her back into your trust, and may I go now to tell her she can go nutting and about Saturday, and may I hurry up?”
Without waiting an instant longer, Dorothy took permission for granted and ran out of the house. In reality, she had grieved far more over Winifred’s punishment, by being kept on bounds and denied some other privileges, than that lively young person had herself.
Winifred was ashamed, but she wasn’t unhappy. Only now this letter of her father’s, and the longing to see him, had sobered her greatly. Yet she was ready enough for the next amusement that might offer and looked up eagerly as Dorothy ran towards her across the lawn, crying:
“Don’t look so forlorn, Win! We can go – you can go – ”
“They can go!” finished the other, her mood quickly changing at sight of Dorothy’s beaming face. “Where can they go, how can they go, when can they go, Teacher?”
“Nutting, with Miss Aldrich’s class. On their feet. With baskets and bags and the boot-boy with poles to thresh the trees and carry the nuts! and on Saturday to old John’s cottage to hear the Robin sing!”
“Oh! do you mean it? Do you? Then I know I’m all right with Miss Muriel again and I must go and thank her.”
Away hurried the impulsive girl and in the Lady Principal’s room was presently an interview that was delightful to both. For in her heart, beneath a cold manner, Miss Tross-Kingdon kept a warm love for this wild pupil of hers; and was as ready to believe in Winifred’s promises as the girl was to make them.
The late autumn day was uncommonly fine. Not only Miss Aldrich, but most of the other teachers, were to take their classes to a distant forest on their annual nutting excursion, from which, this year, Winifred had felt she would be excluded. Miss Aldrich was not her own class director, but the girls in it were her especial friends and belonged to her gymnasium class. They were all “Commons,” except Marjorie Lancaster, a gentle little “Peer,” whom haughty Gwendolyn kept well reminded of her rank.
“I don’t like your being so chummy with those girls, and, worst of all, with that Dorothy Calvert. She’s a pert sort of girl, with no manner at all. Why, Marjorie, I’ve seen her leaning against the Bishop just as if he were a post! The Bishop, mind you!”
“Well, if he wanted her to, what harm, Gwen? Somebody said he knew her people over in the States and that’s why she was sent away up here to his school. I like her ever so much. She’s so full of fun and so willing to help a girl, any girl, with her lessons. She learns so easy and I’m so stupid!” protested Marjorie, who was, indeed, more noted for her failures than her successes at recitations.
“But I don’t like it. If you must have an intimate, why not choose her from ‘our set’?”
“The ‘Commons’ are lots jollier. They’re not all the time thinking about their clothes, or who’s higher ranked than another. I’m thankful I belong with the Aldrich ten. We have splendid times.”
Gwendolyn sighed. She found it very difficult to keep many of her “set” up to their duty as peers of the realm. “Class distinction” fell from her nimble tongue a dozen times a day in reprimands to other “Peers” who would hobnob with untitled schoolmates despite all she could do; and now to preserve Marjorie from mingling too much with the “Commons,” she declared:
“Well, if you won’t come with us, I shall go with you. My director will let me. She always does let me do about as I like. She’s lots more agreeable than the Lady Principal, who ought to appreciate what I try to do for the good of the school. When I told her how Florita Sheraton had complained she just couldn’t get enough to eat here, she was cross as two sticks and said: ‘Gwendolyn, if you are a real Honorable, you’ll not descend to tale-bearing!’ Hateful thing. And she comes of a titled family, too, somebody said. Yes, I’m sure my teacher will let me.”
“Even a worm will turn,” and mild little Marjorie murmured under her breath:
“I wish she wouldn’t! But, of course, she will, ’cause it’s the easiest way to get along. Yet you’ll spoil sport – sure!”
But the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard was already moving away to announce her intention to her greatly relieved director. For it was usually the case, that wherever this young aristocrat went, trouble followed; for, like the ‘twelfth juryman,’ she never could understand why the ‘eleven contrary ones’ didn’t agree with him.
Nobody stayed at Oak Knowe, that day, who was able to join this outing: and when nearly three hundred girls take the road, they are a goodly sight worth seeing. Each had been provided with her own little parcel of lunch packed in the small basket that was to be carried home full of nuts, and each carried a stout alpenstock, such as the experienced teachers had found a help on their pupils’ long walks.
“A walk that is less than five miles long is no walk at all for healthy girls,” had been Dr. Winston’s remark; adding, for the Lady Principal’s ear alone: “That’ll take the kinks out of them and they’ll give you less trouble, skylarking. Teach them the art of walking and let them go!”
To escape Gwendolyn, Marjorie had hurried to the fore of her “Ten” and slipped her arm into Winifred’s, who had expected Dorothy instead. But she couldn’t refuse Marjorie’s pleading:
“Don’t look like you didn’t want me, Winnie dear. Gwen is bound so to take care of me and I don’t need her care. I don’t see any difference between you ‘Commons’ and we ‘Peers’ except that you’re nicer.”
“Why, of course, I want you, Marjorie. Can you see Dorothy Calvert anywhere behind? It’s so narrow here and the hedge so thick I can’t look back.”
From her outer place and lower height Marjorie could stoop and peer around the curve, and gleefully cried:
“Of all things! The girls have paired off so as to leave Gwen and Dolly together at the very end! Another class is so close behind they can’t change very well and I wonder what Gwendolyn will do!”
“I’m sorry for Dolly, but she’ll get on. Gwen has pretended not to see her so many times that Dorothy can hardly put up with it. Under all her good nature she has a hot temper. You’d ought to have seen her pitch into one of the scullery boys for tormenting a cat. And she said once that she’d make Gwendolyn like her yet or know the reason why. Now’s her chance to try it! It’s all that silly imagination of Gwen’s that makes her act so. Made up her mind that Dolly is a ‘charity’ girl, when anybody with common sense would know better. There are some at Oak Knowe, course: we all know that, for it’s one of the Bishop’s notions he must give any girl an education who wants it and can’t pay for it. But I don’t know which ones are; do you?”
“No, indeed! And if I did, I’d never let them know I knew.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. No gentlewoman would, except that stuck-up Gwen. Her mother, Lady Jane’s so different. She’s almost as jolly and simple as her brother, Dr. Winston. But her Honorable young daughter just makes me tired! Peek again. What are they doing now?”
“The ‘Peer’ is walking like a soldier on parade, stiff as can be, thumping her alpenstock up and down plumpety-plump, hard as nails. But Dorothy seems to be chattering away like a good one!”
Winifred stooped and peered between the bobbing rows of girls and branches of trees and caught Dorothy’s eye, to whom she beckoned: “Forward!” But Dorothy smilingly signaled “No!”
“Well, one of that pair is happy, but it isn’t Lady Jane’s daughter! I fancy we’d best leave them to ‘fight it out on that line,’” decided Winifred, facing about again. “I know Queen Baltimore will down Honorable England at the end.”
Despite her own stiffness, Dorothy’s continued chatter at last began to interest Gwendolyn, and the perfect good nature with which she accepted the marked coldness of the haughty girl to make her ashamed. Also, she was surprised to see how the girl from the States enjoyed the novelty of everything Canadian. The wild flowers especially interested her, and Gwendolyn was compelled to admire the stranger’s love and knowledge of growing things.
With more decency than she had hitherto shown, she finally asked:
“However did you come to know so much botany, Miss Calvert?”
“Why, my Uncle Seth, the Blacksmith, taught me; he lived in the woods and loved them to that degree – my heart! he would no sooner hurt a plant than a person! He was that way. Some people are, who make friends of little things. And he was so happy, always, in his smithy under the Great Tree, which people from all the countryside came to see, it was so monstrous big. Oh! I wish you could see dear Uncle Seth, sitting at the smithy door, reading or talking to the blacksmith inside at the anvil, a man who worked for him and adored him.”
The Honorable Gwendolyn stiffened again, and walked along in freezing silence. She would have joined some other girl ahead, but none invited her, and she was too proud to beg for a place beside those who should have felt it an honor to have her. Besides, pride kept her to her place in the rear.
“Huh! I’ll show this Yankee farrier’s niece that I am above caring who is near me. But it’s horrid to be forced into such a position and I wish I hadn’t come. Goodness! how her tongue runs! And now what freak sets her ‘Oh-ing!’ and ‘Ah-ing!’ that style?” ran Gwendolyn’s thoughts, and she showed her annoyance by asking:
“Miss Calvert, will you oblige me by not screaming quite so loud? It’s wretched form and gets on my nerves, for I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
“Neither am I!” laughed Dorothy; “but you see, I never saw anything so lovely as that glimpse before. I couldn’t help crying out – we came upon it so suddenly. Do see yonder!”
Her finger pointed westward, then was promptly drawn back, as she admitted:
“Pointing is ‘bad form,’ too, I’ve been taught. But do look – do look! It’s just like fairyland!”
Gwendolyn did look, though rather against her will, and paused, as charmed as Dorothy, but in a quieter fashion. She was a considerable artist and her gift in painting her one great talent. Oddly enough, too, she cared less for the praise of others than for the delight of handling her brush.
Beyond, a sudden break in the thick wood revealed a tumbling waterfall, descending from a cliff by almost regular steps into a sunlit pool below. Bordering it on both sides were trees of gorgeous coloring and mountain ashes laden with their brilliant berries; while a shimmering vapor rose from the pool beneath, half veiling the little cascade, foaming white upon the rocks.
For a moment Gwendolyn regarded the scene in silence but with shining eyes and parted lips. Then she exclaimed:
“The very spot we’ve searched for so often and never found! ‘The Maiden’s Bath,’ it’s called. I’ve heard about it so much. The story is that there was an Indian girl so lovely and pure that it was thought a mortal sin for mortal eyes to look upon her. She had devoted herself to the service of the Great Spirit and, to reward her, He formed this beautiful Bath for her use alone, hid it so deep in the heart of the forest that no one could find it but she. There was but one trail which led to it and – we’ve found it, we’ve found it! Hurry up! Come.”
Dorothy stared. Here seemed a new Gwendolyn, whose tongue ran quite as rapidly as her own had ever done, and whose haughty face was now transformed by eager delight. As the young artist ran forward toward the spot, Dolly noticed that no other girl was in sight. They two had turned a little aside from the smoother path which the rest had taken, Dorothy following the lure of some new wild flower and Gwendolyn stiffly following her. Only a minute before the chatter and laughter of many girls had filled the air; now, save for their own footsteps on the fallen leaves, there was no sound.
“I wonder where the rest are! Did you see which way they went, Gwendolyn?”
“No. I didn’t notice. But they’re just around the next turn, I fancy. Oh! to think I’ve found the Bath at last. I must make a little sketch of it and come back as soon as I can with my color box. How the studio girls will envy me! Every time we’ve been in these woods we’ve searched for it and now to come upon it all at once, never dreaming, makes me proud! But —don’t you tell. I’d begun something else for next exhibition, but I shall drop that and do this. I’ll get leave to do it in my recreation hours in some empty class room, and bring it out as a surprise. I wish I’d found it alone. I wish nobody knew it but me. It must be kept a secret – so don’t you dare to tell. Come on.”
“Huh! I reckon if you’ll stick to facts, it was I – not you – who found it. I don’t see why I should keep it secret. It doesn’t belong to either of us, it belongs to the whole world. I wish everybody who loves beauty could enjoy it,” answered Dorothy, warmly.
“Well, go tell then, tattle-tale! You might know a common girl like you would be hateful to her betters, if she got a chance!” retorted Gwendolyn, angrily.
It rose to Dorothy’s lips to respond: “Tattle-tale and mischief-maker is what all the girls know you are!” but she kept the hard words back, “counting ten” vigorously, and also listening for some sound of her now invisible schoolmates. She wasn’t a timid girl, but the silence of this deep forest startled her, nor looking around could she discover by what path they had come to this place.
Then Gwendolyn was hurrying forward, carrying the pocket-pad and pencil without which she went nowhere, and careless of everything but to get her sketch. So Dorothy followed, forgetting her resentment in watching her companion. To see Gwen’s head turning this way, then that, squinting her eyes and holding her pencil before them, measuring distance thus and seeking the “right light,” interested the watcher for the time.
Finally, the artist had secured a point which suited her and, seating herself, rapidly drew a picture of one view. She worked so deftly and confidently, that Dorothy’s only feeling now was one of admiration.
Then a new position was sought and another sketch made, but Gwen permitted no talk between them.
“I can’t work and talk, too; please be still, can’t you?” she asked, looking up from her work.
And again the real earnestness of the girl she disliked made Dorothy obedient, again rising to follow while Gwen chose another view still, high up near the top of the wonderful cascade. Her face had grown pink and animated and her eyes glowed with enthusiasm.
“I shall paint that misty-veil with a glaze of ultramarine. There should be an underwash of madder, and maybe terre verte. Oh! if I can only make it look one atom as I see it! We must come here again and again, you and I, Miss Calvert, and you must – you simply must keep the secret of our finding till after I’ve exhibited my picture.”
“All right. How long will it be before we can go find the others? you know we can’t gather any nuts right here. I don’t see a single nut tree.”
“I don’t know how long I shall be, and why care about nuts while we can have – this?” returned Gwen, indifferently.
“Very well, I guess I’ll take a nap. Seems terrible close in this shut-in nook and my walk has made me sleepy. I reckon I’ll take a nap. Wake me up when you get through.”
So saying, Dorothy curled down upon a mass of mighty ferns, laid her head on her arm and went to sleep. For how long she never knew, but her awakening was sudden and startling. She had been roused from a dream of Bellevieu, her Baltimore home, and of dear Aunt Betty feeding her pets, the Great Danes.
Brushing the slumber from her eyes, she gazed about her, wondering for an instant, where she was. Then – that frantic shriek again:
“Help! Help! I’m dr – ”
The cry died in a gurgle and Dorothy sprang to her feet in terror. She had warned Gwendolyn not to take that high seat so close to that slippery rock, from beneath which the cascade began its downward flow.
“If you fall, it will be straight into the pool. Do be careful, Gwen, how you move.”
But the warning had been useless – Gwendolyn was already in the pool.