CHAPTER IX
A QUARREL
You had your choice, at Miss Leland's, between studying, and doing what the large majority of the girls did; namely, making friends, reading novels during your study periods, and leaving it to Providence to decide whether you passed your examinations or not. The teachers were lenient souls, with the exception of Miss Drinkwater, the Latin teacher, who was unreasonably irritable when her pupils came to class armed with the seraphic smiles of ignorance, and a number of convincing excuses, which invariably failed to convince Miss Drinkwater. In consequence, very few of the girls pursued their studies in that classic tongue longer than the first month. "What point was there in doing so?" they argued coolly; none of them had any aspirations toward college, and nearly all of them harbored a dread of learning anything that might show on the surface, and thereby discourage the attentions of the college youths which were of infinitely more importance in their eyes, as indeed, in the eyes of their fond mothers, likewise, than the attainment of the scholarly graces.
Miss Leland's was one of those schools instituted primarily to meet the necessity of our young plutocrats for mingling with their own peculiar kind—"forming advantageous connections," it is called—the question of education was secondary if not quite negligible. The daughters of steel magnates came from Pittsburgh to meet the daughters of railroad magnates from New York, and incidentally to meet one another's brothers, at the small social functions which Miss Leland gave ostensibly for the purpose of developing in her charges an easy poise and the most correct drawing-room manners.
The girls, for the most part, regarded lessons as a wholly unnecessary adjunct to their school duties, and treated them as such. And this was all very well indeed, so far as they were concerned. From school they would plunge into the whirl of their débutante season, and from that into marriage—it was all clearly mapped out for them, and the shadow of any serious doubt as to the course of their careers never fell across their serenely trustful indolence.
There is something peculiarly vitiating in such an atmosphere. Pleasure was regarded not merely as an embroidery on the sober fustian of life, but as the very warp and woof of it; where the most sober consideration was that of winning popularity and the opportunity of social advantages, where the clothes to be bought and the parties to be given during the holidays were already the subject of endless absorbing discussions.
The effect of all this on each of the Prescotts was diametrically opposed. Alma had adapted herself to it as easily as to a new cloak. Not having any stubborn notions of her own, she was as malleable to such an environment as a piece of modelling clay in warm water. Pretty, good-humored, easily led, she swam into a rather meaningless popularity inside of four days. This Nancy was glad of, but her satisfaction was not unmixed. She saw Alma gradually undergoing a change that threatened to damage her own steadying influence over her sister, and to divide their sympathies. Alma was only too ready, and too well suited temperamentally, to lose sight of the difference between her own circumstances, and those of the girls with whom she was now associated. Indeed the very fact that she could do so, while Nancy could not, lay at the root of the problem that had begun to worry Nancy. Aside from minor changes in Alma, such as, for instance, a new little affectedness of manner, unconsciously borrowed from Mildred Lloyd, and her use of Mildred's particular slang phrases, Nancy had noticed in her sister at times a tinge of impatience, and a little air of superiority, with which Alma unwillingly listened to her when she tried to talk to her seriously. Nancy began to feel, unhappily, that Alma was coming to resent her efforts to guide her and advise her in regard to various small matters, and worst of all, that Alma was privately beginning to look upon her as rather unnecessarily serious, and even old-maidish.
It was impossible for Nancy to lose the feeling that she had that her mother had made a mistake in sending them to Miss Leland's, which gave them little or nothing that they could use, and was very likely to affect even her own steady vision of their circumstances and opportunities. She was continually trying to counteract the consequences of this mistake; but Alma was less than willing to take her point of view.
Nancy still clung to her plan of getting herself ready for college; never for a moment could she lose sight of the fact that in all probability she would have to make her own living, which Alma, like her mother, was very ready to forget, counting always as they did on happy chance, to smooth out the future for them into a sunny vista. It was not that Nancy was a pessimist. She simply believed that good luck was something more or less of one's own making. She was full of eagerness and enthusiasm for life, as ardent as an ambitious boy, and restive to make a trial of her own capabilities. She knew that there was a possibility of her uncle's providing for them, after all, in spite of his own very clear hints to the contrary; but on the other hand, there remained the fact that he was an eccentric old fellow, more than equally likely to bequeath his entire fortune to some freakish project, or obscure charity organization.
It was not a very easy task to study seriously at Miss Leland's. An earnest student was immediately dubbed, vividly enough, if inelegantly, a "greasy grind"—and was left more or less to her own devices; but if Nancy was not as popular as Alma, she was regarded with a good deal of respect and genuine admiration by the other girls, and in Charlotte Spencer she had found a really devoted friend.
Underneath her apparent rattle-patedness, Charlotte concealed from the view of those for whom she had no especial regard a stratum of rather unusual common sense, mingled with an idealism and a youthful ardor which few would have suspected in her nature. Opinions concerning her varied widely. Mildred Lloyd considered her crude, for example; most of the girls thought her simply amusing and odd, and hardly knew how to account for some of her queer, serious moods. In one way or another, without apparently studying at all, she managed always to take the highest marks in the school.
She was the only daughter of a very rich Western mine-owner, a widower, who found the problem of managing this child of his more difficult than any commercial nut he had ever had to crack. He had only the vaguest notions as to what was necessary for a girl's career, and imagined that by sending his daughter to a fashionable Eastern school, he was getting at the heart of the solution. Charlotte wanted to study music, "not like a boarding-school miss," she told Nancy. "I want to make it the real thing. I tell you I don't know anything about it—but I'm going to, yet." Old Mr. Spencer, while he had no objections to one of the arts as a ladylike accomplishment, felt that it was not exactly respectable for a girl to go into it seriously, just why, he would have been at a loss to say. "You know," Charlotte had explained, with her humorous smile, "there is a notion that it's all right for a 'lady' to dabble in anything, painting, music, or embroidery and so on, so long as she doesn't attempt to make a profession of it, or think of making money by it. Of course this idea is changing now a bit, but people like Mildred Lloyd, for instance, and all her kind, still think it's not perfectly 'nice' as she puts it." It was not in the least that Mr. Spencer had even a grain of snobbishness in his rough, vigorous makeup, so far as either himself or his three sons were concerned; his very love for his "Charlie," as he called her, made him stubborn in his ideas concerning what was best for her. He wanted her to have everything that he could give her, and he gave her what he imagined her mother would have wanted him to give. It was because Charlotte understood that his stubbornness grew out of his adoration of her, that she good-naturedly gave in to his wishes.
"In good time, I'll do what I want, of course," she said with serene self-confidence. "But the least I can do for darling old Dad is to make him believe that all the time I'm doing what he wants. He is such a lamb, you know."
The warm friendship that grew up between the two girls had a strong bond in the similarity of their position at Miss Leland's, and in the circumstances of their being there, as well as in their mutual sympathy with each other's ideas.
It was a Saturday afternoon, late in October, when the days were rapidly shortening into wintry dusks, and there was even the hint of an early snow in the slate-colored skies, against which the bare, stiff branches of the trees shivered in a nipping wind. Nancy, all ruddy, and breezy from a brisk walk with Charlotte, had come up to her room to finish an English paper. Across the hall a group of girls had gathered around Katherine Leonard's chafing dish, from which the tantalizing smell of thick, hot fudge was beginning to pervade the corridors, and distract the thoughts of the more studious from their unsocial but conscientious labors.
"Come on in, Nance," called Alma, waving a sticky spoon invitingly. "Surely you aren't going to work now, are you?"
Nancy hesitated, her hand on the door-knob. They all looked so jolly, the room so cosy, and the warm, chocolaty smell of the fudge was almost irresistible. Nancy's nose twitched at the delicious odor, and she smiled uncertainly.
"I've got to finish my English," she began.
"Oh, bother your English," cried Dolly Parker, "None of us have even looked at ours yet. Don't be a 'grind'—come on."
"You're such a shark at it, Miss Garnett wouldn't bother you if you loafed for a month," added Maizie Forrest. This was quite true—and that was the trouble. It was just because Miss Garnett was so lenient that Nancy felt the responsibility of keeping up in her work resting heavily on herself. Nearly all the girls loafed shamelessly, and Nancy had to guard against the temptation to imitate them. She knew that she would have to pass a stiff examination in English to enter college, and that it mattered nothing to Miss Garnett whether she passed or not.
"Well, the point is that I've got so little to do on it that I might as well finish it up and feel free," she said, finally. "I'll come in a little while, so don't, for goodness' sake, eat all the fudge."
"Oh, Nancy, you make me tired," pouted Alma. "If you're going to be such an old poke, you don't deserve any fudge."
Nancy only laughed in reply, and calmly went in to her room, and shut the door. She flung her sweater on her bed, sent her scarlet tam-o'-shanter after it, and then stood for a moment, her hands in the pockets of her skirt, looking about her. The Prescotts' room was certainly not the cosiest and most inviting in the school, and she had listened long to Alma's petitions for an easy chair, and a new lamp to take the place of the green-shaded student's lamp which by its hard, sharp light intensified the severe bareness of the little place. Besides the two beds, there were the two desks, two stiff desk-chairs, and the two small bureaus. Nothing had been added to soften the chilly aspect except a pair of cheap, chintz curtains at the window, and a few small cushions on the window-seat. They had no pictures or photographs, no rugs, no tea service—none of the hundred and one little knickknacks with which the other girls managed to turn their bedrooms into luxurious little dens. Consequently, they were never besieged by bands of hilarious callers, and Alma herself was never in her room any more than she could help. At night she preferred a dressing-gown chat in Mildred's room, or in Kay Leonard's; even when she studied, which occupied, indeed, little enough of her time, she sought a more congenial atmosphere, and Nancy, except for Charlotte's company, was a good deal by herself. But there was nothing to be done about it. She could not go to the expense of a new rug and an easy chair and a new lamp, and that was all there was to it. Alma felt ashamed of the mute confession of a narrow purse, expressed by the chill simplicity of the room; losing her memory of their straitened means amid the easy affluence of the other girls, she became more and more sulky against Nancy for her rigid economy. She contended that she saw no reason for it—that Nancy was carrying it to unnecessary extremes.
With a shrug of her shoulders, Nancy began to rummage in her desk for her half-finished English paper, and then sat down to it, grimly determined to concentrate on it, and to drive away all distracting thoughts. She forgot about the fudge-party, and an hour went by before she looked up with a sigh, and carefully glancing over her finished pages folded them neatly inside her copy of "Burke's Speeches." All her work was finished, and she could look forward to Sunday with a comfortable anticipation of unhampered freedom. It was still half an hour before the dressing bell would ring, so she put on her kimono and, her sociable mood having passed, tucked herself up on the window-seat with a book.
In a little while the door opened, and Alma came in to change her frock. Nancy glanced up, and saw in an instant that Alma was annoyed. She felt troubled. It seemed as if every day they were growing farther apart. They no longer had those happy chats together which had bound them close by affection and sympathy. Alma no longer sought her as her confidant, and seemed to resent her advice rather than to seek it. Instead, the younger girl had, as it were, transferred her affection and her admiration to the headstrong and annoyingly self-assured Mildred Lloyd. Mildred had deigned to pronounce Alma pretty, and "interesting," and had "taken her up" as the phrase is, thereby completely turning poor Alma's head so that she was gradually merging even her personality into a pale imitation of Mildred's blasé expressions and mannerisms. Alma was not left ignorant of the fact that Mildred's friendship, like her fancy, was extremely variable, and that she was quite likely to turn a cold shoulder to her new chum, without deigning to provide any reason for doing so. But Alma preferred to believe that in her case Mildred's interest would not wane, just as she preferred to forget her early prejudice of their first meeting with Mildred.
An uncomfortable little silence reigned, which Nancy pretended to be unaware of, by giving a great deal of attention to her book, although the light from the window was so faint that no human eye could have spelt out the words on the page. But when, at length, she was forced by the lateness of the hour to begin dressing, it was impossible to preserve the wretched silence any longer, or to speak as if nothing were the matter.
"You—you seem worried, Alma," she began hesitatingly. "Is there something on your mind?"
"I'm not worried a bit," returned Alma coldly.
"Well—are you angry about something?"
There was a silence. Alma flung her hair over her shoulder and began to brush the ends vigorously, while Nancy watched the operation with an intentness that showed her mind to be on other things. Presently Alma said in a grave voice:
"I know that it's none of my business, of course, but I do think, Nancy, that you are making a mistake."
"A mistake," repeated Nancy, in amazement. "How? How do you mean?"
"Well, it seems to me that as far as you are concerned, it has been simply money wasted to send you here."
"Why, what on earth are you talking about, Alma?" exclaimed Nancy, her temper beginning to rise in spite of her amusement at the fluffy Alma's gravely judicial air. Inasmuch as she studied harder and more seriously than any girl in the school, and rivalled Charlotte in brilliant marks, it was interesting as well as irritating to learn that Alma considered her unsuccessful.
"Well, you know as well as I do that Mother's purpose in sending us here was for us to make friends. There isn't a girl in the school that you show the least interest in, except Charlotte, and Charlotte—well——" Alma shrugged her shoulders, expressing thereby what she hesitated to put into words. Instantly Nancy flared up. Usually the most even tempered and controlled of girls, she could not keep down her anger when it was roused by Alma's periodic fits of snobbishness.
"What about Charlotte? Why do you shrug your shoulders like that? Because Charlotte isn't considered perfectly 'nice' by Mildred? Because Mildred thinks Charlotte 'rather ordinary—a bit crude, don'tcherknow?' She's the realest girl in the school, and everyone of them knows it, too! She's the only one whose mind isn't forever running on beaux and dances and other girls' faults. She's the only one of them who has brains and a heart—she's the only real aristocrat of the whole lot! She's the only one of them whose friendship I'd give tuppence-ha'penny for——"
Alma quailed a little under Nancy's indignation—she was indeed a bit ashamed of her snobbish remark; but she did not lower her flag.
"That's no reason why you should let all the other girls know it. We need all the friends we can get, and we can't afford to lose this opportunity of making advantageous connections."
This last bit was rather an unfortunate choice of words, smacking as it did just a bit too strongly of Mildred to soothe Nancy's irate ear at just that moment.
"I didn't come here to make friends simply for what they could give me—regardless of whether I liked them or not. And I think it's the most contemptible thing in the world to toady to girls simply because they are rich or fashionable, and may invite you to parties and things that you can never repay. And it's just that snobbish selfishness—that complete loss of self-respect for the sake of self-interest that makes so many poor people contemptible. I'd rather die before I'd play the role of little sister to the rich." Her voice began to quiver, and she had a wretched feeling that she was very near tears—tears not of anger so much as of genuine unhappiness. She felt as if every word she uttered was doing more damage, and her heart ached because she was quarrelling with Alma, and because Alma was changing more every day. She longed to throw her arms around her sister, and kiss away the memory of every word she had uttered, but stubborn pride, as much a fault with Nancy as a virtue, held her back.
"Do you mean that I'm toadying?" asked Alma, her eyes growing wide. "I know now what you think of me—and I know that you're simply jealous of my fondness for Mildred," she went on passionately. "I don't know what has come over you anyway, Nancy—you don't approve of a single thing I do——"
"Oh, Alma—darling! How can you say such things?" The tears began to roll down Nancy's cheeks. "Whatever put such thoughts into your head, when you know how much I love you. It's not me, but you who have changed. Can't you see that I can't let my work go just to play around with a lot of girls who don't care a rap for me, myself? Life isn't a song and a dance for us, Alma—and we can't waste our time just for a little popularity with girls who'd forget us to-morrow. Mildred——"
"Oh, go ahead, and say a lot of mean things about Mildred," interrupted Alma bitterly. "You never liked her. You took a prejudice to her at first sight. You never even tried to know her. I never heard of anything so unjust in my life! You don't think that anyone is capable of a real friendship but you and Charlotte. Mildred is every bit as good a friend. Just because she's rich you think that she must be selfish—you're the most narrow-minded girl I ever knew. It's the same way with all my friends—you think Frank Barrows is just an idler—a conceited little——"
"What on earth did I ever say against Frank Barrows?" Nancy defended herself weakly.
"Oh, you never say anything. You just look—and I know perfectly well what you think. It seems as if we can never agree about anything, any more. Now, this afternoon you might have been just a little bit sociable—instead of that you shut yourself up, as if you thought all those girls were simply a lot of sillies; but you were able to spend an hour and a half with Charlotte."
"I had to finish my English paper, and that's all there was to it," retorted Nancy. "In any other school under the sun work has to come before play. Neither one of us can afford to take advantage of the leniency of the teachers here—if I did only what they required I wouldn't get to college in ten years. And I've got to get to college, no matter what Mildred thinks of me. I'm sorry she doesn't approve of my behavior, but it can't be helped." In her hurt anger, she had lost her head a little bit, or she would not have thrown that last stone at Alma's chosen friend. For the time being at least, it was impossible to repair the breach that the two wounded, indignant girls had made between each other.
Too sick at heart for tears, too despairingly conscious of the uselessness of any attempt at reconciliation, Nancy began to dress in a miserable silence.
During dinner Nancy made a pretense at eating, but she could not join in the chatter with the other girls. Once or twice Charlotte glanced at her, but with her instinctive gentle tact appeared not to notice Nancy's blues.
At her table, Alma was feverishly gay; as a matter of fact she was on the point of tears. Never before had they had such a quarrel, never before had she seen Nancy so heedlessly angry, never before had they deliberately tried to say things to hurt each other. Waves of desperate homesickness assailed her, and with the memory of happy nights when they had gossiped together in their room at the little brown house, a lump ached in her throat. She wanted Nancy more than anyone else in the world. What was it they had said to each other that had caused such a dreadful coldness between them? She tried to tell herself that Nancy had misjudged her, that Nancy was wrong, and that she was right in maintaining her ground; but listening to the banter that went on around her, struggling to keep up her own end of it bravely, she felt that not one girl in the room, nor any pleasure in the world was of the slightest value to her so long as she did not have Nancy as her confidant and dearest friend.
With these thoughts battering at the foolish pride in their hearts it would have taken only a whispered word to send the sisters into one another's embrace, but the reconciliation for which they were both longing so piteously was postponed by an incident which threatened to make their quarrel even more serious. It was simply the outcome of an unfortunate chance. For some time both the girls had known that Miss Leland had planned to give them different roommates, since she thought it a good idea for sisters to be separated so that they could make closer friendships with other girls.
After dinner she spoke of this again, not to Nancy but to Alma, leaving it to the younger girl to announce the change to Nancy. She had, of course, no knowledge of their quarrel, nor could she have possibly gauged the unfortunate timing of the change.
Nancy went up to her room directly after dinner, not waiting for the usual hour of music and dancing, and giving as her excuse the pretense that she had some mending to do.
She did, indeed, get out her work-basket as a sort of defense against unwelcome intrusion, but with a stocking drawn over her hand, she sat with her back to the door, and gave herself up to the sad consolation of tears. In a little while the door opened. Someone came in. Nancy bent over her stocking, and began to run a threadless needle through a "Jacob's-ladder"; from the corner of her eye she saw Alma busily engaged in taking some of her things out of the bureau-drawers. Alma was as painstaking in keeping her own face concealed as Nancy, though she tried to hum a tune under her breath. The silence became intolerable, but diffidence weighted their tongues. Each one of them longed to throw her pride to the winds and sue for a reconciliation; but the fear of having her overtures met with coldness held her back. At length Alma said in a voice which she vainly tried to make natural and casual:
"Miss Leland has changed us. Charlotte Spencer is going to be your roommate from now on—and—and I'm going in with—with Mildred."
"That's—a—a good idea," replied Nancy; sarcasm was a thousand miles from her mind, and she spoke really only for the sake of sounding as if all differences had been forgotten; but a more ill-chosen sentence could not have fallen from her lips.
"I suppose—you—you're glad to be rid of me," said Alma, her lips quivering. "Anyway, you'll have Charlotte, and she's ever so much more congenial with you than I am."
Nancy did not answer. If Alma had not made that last reference to Charlotte she would have had Nancy back in a moment, but there is a little devil who takes a delight in twisting people's tongues when they most need to be inspired with the right thing to say.
With her night-gown and dressing-gown over her arm, and her sponge-bag in her hand, Alma walked in silence to the door. There she paused, and like Lot's wife flung back at Nancy one piteous parting look, which, alas, met only the back of Nancy's down-bent head. The door closed.
Nancy sprang up, and crossed the room, running, while the spools from her overturned basket rolled off placidly under the bed. Then she paused; pride conquered the tenderness in her heart at that moment, bringing in its trail a sequence of unhappy days.
"No—-it won't do to admit I'm wrong. I'm not, and I'll just let her find it out."
And having voiced this stern resolution, she flung herself down on the bed and, burying her face in the pillows, cried herself into a doze; while, separated from her by a thin partition of lath and plaster, Alma made up her new bed, and bedewed it with her doleful tears.
CHAPTER X
THE OGRE REAPPEARS
"Hope you haven't forgotten that you've bound yourself in an engagement with me for the theatre to-morrow, Nannie, old dear," called Charlotte from her customary location during leisure hours—namely the piano bench. "I've reserved seats for 'The Countess Betsey'—nice, light, loads of good Viennese tunes—nothing lofty about it. Miss Drinkwater had a cute little plan for us—wanted us to go to hear—or see—I don't know just what the right word is—some production of Euripides in the original. I said 'No'—very politely. Too politely perhaps—I had to repeat it three separate and distinct times. I explained to her that while I just adored Euripides, and loved nothing better than Greek as she is spoke, my constitution craved something a bit gayer than 'Medea'—in the original. I hinted modestly that I'd been overworking a bit lately—and that my mighty brain needed something that it didn't have to chew eighty-five times before swallowing. Aren't you going to thank me?"
"Oh, I do—thanks horribly," laughed Nancy. "Can't you see us sitting through a merry little Greek play, trying to weep in the right places, and not to laugh when everyone but the villainess had been stabbed or poisoned or fed to the lions?"
"Gee—but couldn't we be lofty when we got back?" said Charlotte. "I'd say, 'How sublime were those lines in Act II, Scene 4, where, in a voice thrilling with sublime hate, the frenzied woman shrieks "Logos Nike anthropos Socrates!"' And you would glow with fervor, and say 'Zoue mou sas agapo.' I tell you what, when it comes to dead languages——"
"It's too late, I hope, for you to get enthusiastic about the idea now," interrupted Nancy, firmly. "It wouldn't be a bit unlike you to get so carried away with it, that you'd suddenly change your mind about not going—and I'll tell you right now, that if you do I am emphatically not with you. I don't like to improve my mind when I'm on a holiday—and Saturdays come only once a week."
"You should thirst for every opportunity to improve your understanding," reproved Charlotte, who could chatter away like a magpie, while her nimble fingers never lost a note, or stumbled in the rhythm of the lively dance tune she was playing.
"Don't forget our little party, Alma," said Mildred Lloyd. "Mademoiselle is going to chaperone us—I asked her yesterday. We're going in on the eleven-fifty-four, and the boys are going to meet us at Delmonico's at one."
Charlotte cast a sidelong glance at Nancy; she understood that Alma possessed all this information already, and that Mildred was making the announcement simply to excite the other girls' curiosity.
Since their quarrel Alma and Nancy, chiefly for the sake of outward appearances, had called an armistice. But while Nancy had not confided the first hint of the quarrel to Charlotte, poor Alma, who could never smother anything in her own heart, had unbosomed herself completely to Mildred. Needless to say, Mildred, who had disliked Nancy from the beginning, was not warmed toward her by any of the details in Alma's narrative that concerned herself. She knew that Alma had not told Nancy about their arrangements to go to the theatre, meeting two boys in town, of whom Frank Barrows was to be Alma's cavalier; and consequently, she surmised, quite correctly, that Nancy would be hurt when she spoke about the plan.
Alma shot a quick, uncertain look at her sister, and blushed; but Nancy only smiled, and asked, casually:
"What are you going to see?"
Alma's expression changed to one of relief.
"'Oh, Trixie!' Aren't we, Mildred?"
"Uh-huh. Everyone says it's a scream, and the music is perfect. I wanted to go to a regular play, but then I thought the boys would like a musical comedy better. By the way, Alma, I think I'll ask Miss Leland to let us go in on the ten-fourteen—I want to do some shopping. It'll get us in at eleven, and we'll have two hours. I promised Madame Lepage that I'd come in to talk over a dress I want for the holidays—and then I've simply got to get a new hat."
The following morning, after the first study period, which closed the labors of the day at nine-thirty, Nancy heard a timid knock at the door. It was Alma, gloved and bonneted in her "Sunday-best," but with an agitated expression that was ill-suited to her festive appearance. It was the first time that she had seen Nancy alone since the night of their quarrel.
"Oh, Charlotte's not here, is she?" she said, evidently much relieved.
"No, she walked up to the village to post a letter. We aren't going in until the eleven-fifty-four. Did you want to see her?"
"No, oh, no. You see, I—I——" Alma stammered, turning scarlet, and fidgeting nervously with the button on her glove. "You see, I wondered if you could lend me—lend me just a little bit of money. I—I'll pay it right back. You see, I don't want Mildred—I mean this is a sort of Dutch treat——"
"Why, of course," laughed Nancy, touched and a little bit hurt by Alma's embarrassment. Heretofore they had borrowed and lent to each other without the thought of explaining why they needed the money, and her sister's constraint marked with painful clearness her sense of the coldness between them. "How much do you want?"
"Could you lend me—ten dollars? Or seven would do. I won't use it all, of course, but—but it's better to have it."
Ten dollars was a good bit more than either of the girls had spent on any pleasure before the Porterbridges' dance; but Nancy said nothing, and going to her top bureau drawer, took out her pocketbook and gave Alma the bill without a second glance into the purse.
"Oh, thank you—oh, Nancy!" Alma looked into her sister's face, and the tears came suddenly to her eyes.
"Goodness, you don't have to thank me like that," said Nancy, flushing. "You know that it's no more my money than yours, dear——"
"You're—you're so good to me, Nancy—-oh—I didn't mean——" and all at once Alma, who could restrain her sweet impulses no more easily than her weak ones, flung her arms around Nancy, and burst out crying. "Oh, darling Nancy, don't be angry with me any more. I can't bear it!"
"Alma, dearest—-I'm not angry—oh, I'm so glad—so glad!" cried Nancy, in tears, too; they clung together fiercely, every hard word forgotten in the joy of "making up."
"There, darling, you'll miss your train. There now, it's all just as it was. Oh, see, your hat's all over your eye"—they began to laugh tremulously. "You'd better put a little cold water on your face, sweetheart—and dust a little powder over it."
They hugged each other again, and, as Alma ran down the hall, Nancy stood at the door watching her, with brighter eyes than she had had for a week. But when Alma had disappeared below the landing of the stairs, she walked back into the room with a sober expression.
A quarter of an hour later she went again to the top bureau drawer to get out her gloves, and then thinking for the first time of the amount of money she had left herself, realized that she could have barely sufficient, if that, to defray her expenses of her own day in town. Each of the girls had taken fifteen dollars to last them as pocket money up until Thanksgiving—a little she had already spent on shoe-laces, ribbons and so on, and she had given Alma ten. A glance into her purse showed her to her dismay that she had left herself exactly fifty-four cents. She knew, of course, that she could easily borrow from Charlotte, but this she was absolutely unwilling to do, first because she did not want to have to write to her mother for more money, and secondly because she did not want to do anything that she would not have Alma do. To borrow from Charlotte was one thing, but to have Alma follow her precedent was unwise; for in the first place, Alma would borrow from Mildred Lloyd or Kay Leonard, and in the second place, Alma might not know just where to set her limits. Nancy dropped the purse, and shut the drawer quietly. After all, she told herself, she had not deprived herself of so much pleasure that she should pity herself. It was a beautiful day, clear and sparkling, and she would enjoy herself just as much on a walk across country as at the "Countess Betsey." Nancy had the happy faculty of banishing any regrets for a pleasure which she could not reasonably take, and finding a substitute for it with perfect cheerfulness. The prospect of a free day, which she could spend as she liked, was as full of attraction for her as her original plan for the matinée had been, and when Charlotte strolled in upon her, she was whistling softly as she pulled on her scarlet tam-o'-shanter.
"Listen, Charlotte—don't kill me—but I'm afraid I've got to stay here after all. Do you mind awfully?" Naturally she could not give the reasons for her default on the theatre party; and because she had forgotten to think up a plausible excuse she flushed slightly.
"Oh, come now!" howled Charlotte in dismay. "You can't do anything like that. There's not an earthly reason why you should stay here, and you know it." Then quickly her singularly delicate tact warned her not to press Nancy. The very fact that her friend had not given a reason for breaking their engagement was enough for Charlotte to know that she should not ask for one. The two girls understood each other so well that they knew instinctively when to respect one another's silences.
"Well, if you can't, you can't, I suppose," she said quietly. "I'm awfully sorry; but we can go in next Saturday. If you have anything to do, however, there's no point in my staying around out here. I'll go on in anyway. Do you want me to get anything for you?"
"Not a thing," replied Nancy, feeling an intense gratitude toward Charlotte for not disputing her decision with her. "I'm glad you are going."
"Well, sit down and talk to me while I'm dressing. Alma's gone, hasn't she?"
"Yes. Oh, wear your brown hat, Charlotte—the one with the little feather on it."
"My dear, what does it matter—Drinkwater won't appreciate it."
"Doesn't matter. You'll be a thing of beauty whether she knows it or not, and that's reason enough for wearing it."
"Want me to bring out a pound of those scrumptious soft chocolates from Mailliards? Then we can have a regular festival on 'em to-night, if you're a good girl while I'm gone."
When Charlotte had taken her departure, Nancy, who had walked over to the station with her, struck out through the village for a good walk before luncheon. The country beyond Broadmore was picturesque, and Nancy loved nothing better than to swing along without plan or purpose, cutting across a field here, or turning into a bit of glowing woodland there, as her fancy prompted. In her short full skirt, her small feet laced into sturdy low-heeled boots, she could negotiate fences and brooks with the freedom of a boy, revelling in a feeling of adventurousness and liberty. The sun had melted the frost of the early morning, the ground was soft, and the air mild though bracing. In the wide puddles which had gathered in the depressions of the country roads, a sky mottled with huge, lazy clouds was reflected. A cock crowed on some distant haystack. Now and then a mischievous wind rose, bending the long brown grass as it swept along, and making Nancy catch her breath in a sort of jubilant excitement, as it blew into her face, and spun out wisps of her hair behind her.
She had turned after about two miles of walking, and was approaching the pike on the school side of the railroad station, when she heard behind her the patient creaking of the old hack, and the familiar clucking of the driver to his lean and melancholy steed. As it came beside her, she glanced up curiously; then her eyes grew round, and she stared in incredulous amazement. For, bolt upright on the decrepit back seat, his head erect under its wide-brimmed black felt hat, his thin hands folded on the crook of his cane, sat—her Uncle Thomas. She lacked breath to speak to him; but just then he turned his eyes and saw her. For a moment he merely gazed at her without a glimmer of recognition and she had half persuaded herself that his brief visit to the cottage had not been long enough to have fixed her features in his mind, when his face suddenly broke into an almost boyish smile.
"Hey, driver—stop! Whoa! Why, my dear child—bless me, this is very fortunate!" With one foot on the step, he leaned out and clasped her hand. "Get in, get in, my dear—I was on my way to see you. And I nearly missed you, eh?" Nancy clambered up beside him, and the driver, not receiving any orders to the contrary, clucked to his steed, which continued on its interrupted way.
"Were you really going to visit us, Uncle?" asked Nancy. "It's a pity that Alma isn't here. She went in to the city—and it was just luck that I didn't go, too." She smiled to herself, wondering if, after all, Providence had had some hand in the events of the morning which had kept her where she was.
"Luck? Well, I should say so. I'd have been badly disappointed if my surprise had fallen through," chuckled Uncle Thomas, who was evidently in the best of spirits. "Well, well—you're as ruddy as a ripe pomegranate, my dear."
"I've just walked four miles," said Nancy.
"Walked? By yourself? Now, that's a taste you've inherited from me. Fond of walking, aren't you? Now, tell me how you are getting along—at school, I mean. Like it, eh?" He looked at her keenly, a twinkle hiding just under the surface of his gray eyes.
"Yes, I like it. I'm working awfully hard—I have to, or I wouldn't get anywhere, because it would be awfully easy to loaf at Miss Leland's," laughed Nancy; she had a feeling that he was waiting to get her opinion of the school, and she was afraid of sounding priggish, or as if she were trying to impress him with an idea of her industry. So she chatted away about the girls, telling him about Charlotte particularly, describing the teachers, giving him an account of the routine, and so on, to all of which he listened as intently as if he were her father.
"So you're swimming along. Good. And how is my other niece? Is she working very hard? Has she made lots of friends, eh?" Again Nancy felt that he was pumping her, but she told him casually about Alma, taking care to say nothing that might sound as if she said it for effect, and he listened, nodding his head, and smiling.
"Well, now—even if we can't have Alma with us, what do you say to giving up a holiday to an old gentleman? Is that too much to ask? The whim took me to run over here to-day and kidnap my two nieces; but if I can only have one, I'll take her, if she'll let me. Will your 'schoolma'am' let you come away with me? I'd like to have you until to-morrow, and I'll get you back safe and sound."
Nancy laughed. Six months before, if anyone had told her that she would be going to visit her Uncle Thomas on that particular day, she would have thought the prophet quite mad; as it was she could hardly believe her ears.
"I'd love to do it. Here's the school now—it won't take me a minute to get ready. You speak to Miss Leland, Uncle Thomas. I'm quite sure that I can go."
A little more than an hour later Nancy found herself turning in the very old gate through the unfriendly bars of which she and Alma had peered on that distant rainy afternoon, feeling that they were gazing into a forbidden country. Yet now nothing, it seemed, could be more natural than that she should be sitting beside her uncle, chatting away with him unconstrainedly. Only the fact that he never mentioned her mother, nor suggested that she should even peep into the little brown house, made her feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, he showed the same coldness on the subject of Alma, so that, in a way, Nancy felt that somehow she had almost unfairly won his affection for herself alone, and that she was enjoying a pleasure in which her mother and sister should have had an equal share. On the other hand, she decided, at length, to say nothing either to Alma or to Mrs. Prescott about her visit; only because she was afraid that the knowledge of it might again lead them to false hopes, and to follies stimulated by those hopes. She felt sure that her uncle had come to see her, only because he had taken her at her word; that is to say, that he counted on her not in any way misunderstanding the purpose of his visit, or fancying that it gave promise of his relenting in his long-standing determination not to solve their financial problems for them.
Aside from the fact that, although within a mile of the little brown cottage, she might have been a league away, and that she experienced several bad qualms of homesickness, Nancy thoroughly enjoyed that day. She lunched with her uncle in the big dining-room, sitting at the head of his table, while he placed himself at the foot. And afterwards he showed her about the huge old house, taking her to his laboratory, explaining a great deal about scientific experiments which she did not understand, showing her his books and his curios. As they passed along the corridor on the second floor, he paused a moment outside a room which was closed. Then as if on a sudden impulse, he took a key out of his pocket, and opened the door, without saying anything. It was a small room, rather bare, furnished with an almost Spartan simplicity; the sunlight beamed in, striking its full, red rays on the faded wall above the narrow, white iron bed, over which hung a picture of a lion-hunt, evidently cut out of some book or magazine—just such a picture as would strike the imagination of a lad of twelve. The rest of the wall was mottled with other pictures, many of them unframed, clipped out of colored newspapers, and fixed to the wall-paper with pins; pictures of horses and steeple-chases, and Greek athletes, and American heroes; one, the largest, was a vivid representation of the Battle of Trafalgar, showing a perfect inferno of red and yellow flames and bursting bombs, and splintered ships, and drowning sailors clinging to planks and spars. On the table between the windows stood a row of books, a few ill-treated looking lesson books hobnobbing like poor relations with other more self-confident works on "Woodcraft" and "Adventure." The mantelpiece was burdened with a heterogeneous collection of boyish knickknacks, such as a sling, a bird's-nest, a rusty bowie-knife, and a decrepit old horse-pistol.
For a moment Nancy looked about her in astonishment, then, as she understood, the tears came to her eyes, and she looked up at her uncle. The room had not been changed since her father had left it for boarding-school, twenty, thirty years before. Mr. Prescott said nothing; but after a moment closed the door, locked it again, and walked away.
"I'm going to have visitors for tea," he remarked, to turn the subject. "It's quite an eventful day for me; I rarely see anyone, as you know. But I thought that it might be pleasant for you to renew an acquaintance with a lady who seems to have taken a great fancy to you, and who, incidentally, is the only woman I know who has a full-sized allowance of common sense. Though at times she is very unreasonable and quite as inconsistent as any of her sex."
Nancy looked at him inquiringly, and he explained:
"Miss Elizabeth Bancroft." Whether he considered Miss Bancroft in the plural, as being a lady of many parts, or whether he had used the word "visitors" because she would be accompanied or followed by others, and if so how many others he expected he did not trouble himself to make clear; but the matter explained itself, when toward five o'clock, the sound of carriage wheels rattled out on the gravel drive, and in due time, Miss Bancroft laboriously descended from her equipage, assisted by her nephew, George Arnold.
"My dear child, how delightful this is! I'm so really glad to see you," exclaimed Miss Bancroft, taking Nancy's hands in both her own, as if she had known her all her life. Her frank cordial manner sent a glow of pleasure to Nancy's cheeks. "I hope you remember that you met my nephew—for his sake. The idea that you might possibly have forgotten him has been troubling his vanity for a good eight hours."
Nancy laughingly murmuring that she did remember Mr. Arnold, and blushing with shyness, shook hands with him. She noticed, without dreaming of connecting the fact with herself, that he seemed to be in remarkably good spirits, and that they quite overflowed when he told her how nice it was to see her again, and what a jolly, funny sort of party the whole thing was anyway.
"I wasn't going to bring George," observed Miss Bancroft. "He's usually so tiresomely lazy about tearing himself away from his books or his own company, that I thought I wouldn't bother him to-day. Then lo, and behold, he gets into an unbearable fit of sulks, complains that I'm always ready enough to drag him around with people who bore him to death, and leave him alone whenever anyone interesting turns up—in a word goes into a tantrum, and all but weeps with rage, so I had to bring him." With that she indulged in a chuckle of mischievous laughter, and patted Nancy's cheek.
A big wood-fire crackled noisily inside the huge stone chimney place in the living-room, and around it they all gathered in that comfortable, sociable spirit which is the characteristic mood for tea-time; everyone felt that they had really known everyone else rather longer than they had, and while Miss Bancroft poured out their tea, and chattered away with Uncle Thomas, who stood upright on the hearth-rug, drinking his tea from the mantelpiece, Nancy and Mr. Arnold chatted away as if it were impossible to say everything they wanted to in the course of one short hour or so. As a rule Nancy had a very hard time overcoming her shyness when she had to talk to a young man. She always felt that she might say something that they wouldn't understand, or which they might think affected or priggish—which were the two last sins in the world which she would have wished to be accused of, or with which anyone could accuse her. But with Mr. Arnold, she lost every atom of self-consciousness. He had travelled a great deal, and he had seen the world through a prism of mingled humor and sensitiveness, which gave his conversation the charm of a very original viewpoint on everything. He told her droll stories about his school days in England and Switzerland; recounted innumerable anecdotes about the various people he had seen, many of whom were celebrated for their brains or their follies; and altogether managed to make an hour shorter than many a minute. And in some way, while he talked, he had a way of flattering the shy young girl not by words, but by a hundred indescribable little attentions, paid unconsciously, no doubt, and simply because he was thoroughly delighted to see her again.
"My dear, you mustn't fail to pay me a visit during the holidays," Miss Bancroft urged. "Remember that your father was a very great favorite of mine—and I should like to be a favorite of yours, if Uncle Thomas doesn't supplant me, quite."
The old lady bent and kissed Nancy warmly as she prepared to take her departure.
When the carriage had driven away Nancy and her uncle sat before the fire for a long time. To remember that afternoon was always a delight to Nancy; and she particularly liked to recall the memory of sitting there, as the dusk grew deeper in the room and the daylight faded away into pale tints, and then into a deep, quiet blue, while they sat and watched the fire. The flames had died down, but the long logs were wrapped in a hot, red glow, and every now and then they would pop softly and a spark would drop down into the ruddy embers.
When dinner was over they sat by that fireside until bedtime, chatting away with a thoroughly delightful sense of camaraderie.
Absolutely forgetting her mother and sister's ground of interest in Uncle Thomas, Nancy talked to him quite freely about her ambitions without the slightest feeling of constraint, impressing him unconsciously more than she could have done by the most fervid protestations with her sincerely eager wish to make her life for herself and by herself. And he liked her earnest, youthful spirit of independence, perfectly innocent of any pose of "strong-mindedness"—which to a man like Mr. Prescott would have constituted one of the most unforgivable of feminine failings, ranking equally with the other extreme, of which poor, pretty, helpless Mrs. Prescott was an example.
"So you want to work your way through college? What's the idea?" he asked a bit gruffly. "A pretty girl like you, I should think, would only be planning to marry and settle down in a home of her own."
Nancy colored.
"That would be awfully nice, but one can't make it a business, Uncle Thomas, or all the niceness would go out of it. I think one ought to plan out all the difficult things, and leave all the—the dreadfully nice things to Chance, or Providence,—or—well, just let them happen where they belong."
"You're a little Madame Solomon, aren't you, eh?" said Uncle Thomas with a short chuckle. "And how are you going to work your way through college? I shouldn't think that Miss Leland's would be exactly the place for a young lady with your ideas."
"It wouldn't be, if I aired them all over the place—but I've learned to keep my ideas to myself," said Nancy, thinking how Mildred Lloyd would scoff at her "highbrow" ambitions. Uncle Thomas shot a quick, keen glance at her from under his bushy brows.
"Well, you are a wise young lady. Now, who in the world taught you that—to keep your ideas to yourself? Eh?"
"Why, there's nothing very wise in that," said Nancy, surprised at his tone of warm approval. "I know what I want, and if I'm with people who think it's a foolish thing to want, why, I don't talk about it—that's all."
"Well, my dear, permit me to say that I think that in time you are going to have even more sense than my good Elizabeth."
"You—you aren't laughing at me, Uncle Thomas? Do you think I'm trying to show off?" asked Nancy timidly, unwilling to believe his sincere praise; and she looked anxiously and shyly into his face to detect a smile if there was one. But there wasn't.
"Laughing at you? My dear child—what nonsense! Bless my soul, but you are certainly my boy's daughter!"
Then, after a short silence, and just as Nancy was on the point of telling him an amusing little incident about Charlotte, he interrupted her abruptly and irrelevantly:
"I say,—you like that young man, eh?"
"What young man?" gasped Nancy, turning scarlet.
"That young man," repeated Uncle Thomas, pettishly. "Elizabeth's boy—Arnold—that author-person."
"Author?"
"Yes. Bless me, didn't he tell you how famous he is? Do you like him, I say?" Uncle Thomas was quite fierce.
"Why, yes. I think he's awfully nice. I—I don't know him very well," said Nancy, in astonishment.
"Hum. Well, he's a nice fellow. Clever chap. Elizabeth dotes on him, but he doesn't let her think for him. But he's not good enough for you. You go along to college. If you won't get any silly notions about marrying and all that nonsense, I—I'll—well, maybe I'll give you a lift here and there, though it's strictly against my principles." After which involved and very cryptic remark Uncle Thomas stiffly offered her his cheek to kiss, and sent her to bed.