Jean’s first act on shutting herself up in her castle was to fling her book across the room. Then she picked it up and tore it into fragments. Busy with destruction, she forgot to put the disordered premises to rights, and by the time that a mass of scraps in the wastebasket and a bent and inky cover were all that was left of the book, Miss Sargent came in. Finding that chaos still reigned, she made her scolding doubly sharp. The tired, nervous teacher found her pupil most exasperating, for Jean would give her only scowls and glum silence, and Miss Sargent left her with the assurance that her “disobedience and ill-temper” would be reported to Miss Carlton on her return from the city.
Slowly and wearily Jean put the room in order, tormenting herself over her grievances as she did so, and hotly rebelling against life. Suddenly, in collecting the scattered contents of her desk, she picked up the paper on which she had been copying her code of rules for the order. Her eyes fell on the heading: “The Order of the Silver Sword.” The name of that sword was Caritas,—it was a sword of love! At the very outset of her quest, Jean had forgotten her silver weapon and been worsted when she might have gained a victory! Her brave resolutions came back to her: she had decided that her own hot temper should be one of the enemies she would fight down with the sword of love; and now she had fallen in her first battle! Cecily had seen her, and all the girls must have heard her! “I founded the order, and then I got angry the first minute!” she said to herself. “And I felt as if I hated Frances and Adela! I said I’d never forgive them! They’ll all think I wasn’t in earnest in what I said about fighting our battles, and charity, and all that! I’ve disgraced myself! I can’t ever look them in the face again!”
Then came passionate longing for home. If only she could tell out the whole trouble in the comforting shelter of her mother’s arms! And the humiliation of her downfall, and the rush of homesickness, together, brought the rain after the thunder.
That evening, when the girls gathered in the gymnasium for the Saturday dance, Carol was missing. She had slipped away in her pretty white dress, and just as the music was beginning she was knocking at the door of Castle Afterglow. No answer came. She opened the door and went in. The room was dark, but the light from the hall showed Jean huddled in a forlorn bunch on the window-seat. Her head was turned away, and she was resting her forehead against the pane.
“May I come in?” asked Carol.
Jean started and looked at her visitor.
“You poor little soul, all alone here in the doleful dark!” said Carol. “May I light up? It’s against the rules to come, I know, but I can’t help it. I simply had to run up and see you! You don’t mind if I pay you a call?”
“Oh, no!” said Jean, longingly, for her heart was very hungry just then.
Carol turned on the electric light. “Why, Jean, dear!” she cried, as she saw the poor girl’s face. It was feverishly flushed, and disfigured with the burning tears that had been shed.
Jean was ashamed to have her piteous state found out, and bent her head. But Carol seated herself beside the pathetic little figure, and, putting her arms around her, drew her close and kissed her.
“You poor little girlie!” she said. “They’ve been martyring you! The idea of shutting you up in prison like this! It was an outrageous shame! Never mind! You just wait till Miss Carlton comes back, and she’ll set things straight! But I’m glad I got the book, any way! To think I might have gone on to the end of school, and never found you out, you dear!”
Jean listened to the girl who had seemed so far above her, and had suddenly come so close, and her poor, little, lonely heart began to be consoled: yet she held herself stiff and erect, for she felt her self-control giving way under kindness. The tears were rising again, and, in spite of her efforts to keep them back, down her cheeks they rolled. She tried to jerk herself away, but it was no use. Carol had seen the tears, and she drew the tired, aching head gently down on her shoulder. Then Jean gave up the struggle, and nestling close to her new friend, had her cry all over again; but all the time there was the sense of being comforted, for Carol’s arms were holding her fast, and she heard a soft voice speaking the first loving, petting words that she had heard in all those dreary months at school. Jean lifted her head at last.
“I can’t help it!” she said. “I was so homesick, and I wanted—somebody—so much! And—and—I thought—nobody cared. And I was so dreadful to-day. I got so angry! I disgraced myself so! Oh, my head! It never ached so before!” She pressed her hands to her temples where it seemed as if hammers were pounding.
“Does your head ache so, dear?” Carol stroked Jean’s forehead. “Why, you poor child! Your head’s burning!” she exclaimed. “Bed’s the place for you.”
“I don’t want to go to bed,” said Jean, too tired to stir.
“Oh, yes, you do! Then we can have the light out and let in some fresh air. This room’s cooking hot! I don’t wonder your head aches.”
“I’ll go to bed later, but I want you, now.”
“Well, you’re going to have me! I’m the one that’s going to put you to bed. Come along! I’m a terrible boss, you know; and I always get my own way, so you might as well give in prettily first as last.” Merrily masterful, Carol took possession of Jean, and a few minutes afterward the patient found herself in bed.
“I love to play trained nurse,” said Carol, tucking her up. “Now I’m going to show you the way I cure Eunice when she’s studied herself into a headache. I’ll have to go and get something first. Will you be a good baby while I’m gone?”
“I’ll be good,” Jean promised, and she lay still, feeling as if the world had turned around in a very unexpected way during the last few minutes.
Carol’s “something” turned out to be cracked ice, and she returned from a trip to the lower regions with a bowlful.
“Delia was a jewel,” she said. “She’s given me enough to freeze ice cream. She’s quite broken-hearted because you wouldn’t eat any dinner, and she says she’s going to bring you up some ‘crame toast’ when she comes upstairs, to ‘timpt your appetoite.’”
While Jean cooled her parched throat with ice Carol rummaged about for handkerchiefs, taking tidy Blanche’s when she could not find Jean’s. She soaked a handkerchief, wrung it out, cooled it in her bowl of ice, and laid it on the burning forehead.
“Oh, but that feels good!” murmured Jean.
Carol put out the light, raised the window, letting in the crisp night air, and settled herself in a chair by the bedside.
“Now,” said she, “we’re as cozy as can be, and you’re going to sleep like a well brought up infant.”
She began to stroke the aching head with a soft, quieting touch. Jean closed her eyes and lay obediently still; and gradually, as the cold compresses were renewed and the gentle stroking soothed her, the hammers in her head beat less and less violently, until only a dull, throbbing pain was left. But after a while she stirred restlessly; then came a sigh; then: “How much did you read of that thing?”
“You disobedient baby!” said Carol. “I thought you were sound asleep.”
“I was, almost. But then I got thinking. I feel ever so much better now, and I’d rather talk. Carol,—you’re so dear and lovely to me!—I think you’ll understand. I think if I just talk everything out first, then maybe I’ll really go to sleep.”
“Very well, if you don’t think it’ll hurt your head,” said Carol. “That’s what I came up for, to talk it all out.”
Jean found Carol’s hand and held it gratefully; but her mind was troubled. “Tell me what you read,” she pleaded.
“I will. But first I want you to understand that nobody had the least idea of doing anything dishonorable. I didn’t mean the girls to read the book at all. But like a goose I left it out on my chiffonnier, and Nan got hold of it when I wasn’t noticing and the first thing I knew, there she was, reading away! She’s very sorry now,—we all are,—so you’ll have to forgive us all round. You would, I’m sure, if you’d heard us praising you this evening. Promise me you’ll let me have a copy of those poems.”
“I tore the old book up,” the poet confessed.
“Jean! You Goth, Vandal, and Hun! How could you!” exclaimed Carol, reproachfully. “Where are the pieces? In the scrap-basket?”
“Yes, but please don’t get them out! I don’t want ever to see that miserable old stuff any more. Please, Carol!” And, as Carol rose, Jean pulled her back.
“No, dearie, I won’t tease you when you have a headache. Only it was wicked of you,” said Carol. “Promise you won’t let the scraps be thrown away till I’ve fished out what I want. I’m going to compile all the lovely things you said about me, and send a copy to my family. Then perhaps they’ll really begin to appreciate me at last! No, dear, I’m not making fun of you,—indeed I’m not! Honest Injun! Now I’ll tell you what I read. I read all there was of the novel—”
“Oh, that idiotic old novel!” groaned Jean.
“It’s a fine old novel, and you must finish it! I’m wild to find out if I marry Arthur de Lancy! Oh, Jean! Now I know who’s been leaving me presents of candy and flowers all winter! It was Arthur!”
“Yes, it was Arthur,” said Jean laughing, and she hid her face in the pillow.
“You rogue!” cried Carol. “Please tell him the flowers were perfectly lovely, and he always picked out my favorite kinds of candy. I read the odes to myself, too,” she went on, “and my head’s so turned I’ll never get it straight again! And I read most of the poems; and, dearie, I never heard anything so pathetic as some of them! Jean, dear, have you really been so lonely and homesick all this time?”
“Oh, I’m dreadfully homesick! You see I never was away from mother, even for a night, till I came to school.”
“You poor little thing; it must be fearfully hard for you! And coming all the way from Brazil! It’s very different from being able to go home every vacation like the rest of us! We ought to have a good shaking, every one of us, for not joining together and petting you. But you sha’n’t be lonely any more—no, you sha’n’t! Now, dear, tell me, for I’m puzzled to death. How did you ever come to choose me, and talk as if I really were your best friend, and write all those beautiful things to me?”
“I did want a friend so,” Jean answered. “I mean a real intimate friend. Every girl in school has one except me, and it hurts so to be left out! I don’t mean the girls aren’t friendly enough, but they all have their own chums, and I don’t like to push myself in. I can’t make friends somehow! And so I thought if I couldn’t have a real friend, I could play I had one, anyway. And I thought I’d rather have you than any one else in the world. You’re so beautiful, and—”
“Jean! You have the wildest imagination!”
“But you are beautiful; all the girls think so.”
“They don’t.”
“They do. And then you’re so—so sort of splendid, you know!”
“Oh, mercy!” gasped Carol. “No, I don’t know! I’m anything but splendid!”
“Well, you are splendid. And I just imagined you were my best friend. You know if you imagine hard enough, you can make anything seem true. And,—please don’t think me a perfect goose,—sometimes I pretend we’re having lovely times together. I can stop homesick fits that way.”
“Jean, darling,” said Carol. “Why didn’t you come right to me? Then we really would have had lovely times together. But how was I to know you wanted me, when you never came near me?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to bother with a little snip like me. You’re so high up, you know!”
“Please just where between heaven and earth do I hang?” Carol inquired.
“Oh, well, you know what I mean. You’re president of the senior class, and you’re so popular; everybody just adores you! Carol, do you think I’m terribly crazy and queer?”
“I think you’re a darling,” said Carol, and kissed her. “And I think we were a set of horrid, old, blind bats not to see you needed looking after! And I think I want to have you for my friend just as much as you want me for yours, so we’ll turn the make-believe into real, won’t we? Just you come right straight to me, whenever you want me. Will you, dear?”
For answer Jean raised herself in bed and flung her arms around Carol’s neck.
“The real me isn’t half as nice as the make-believe,” said Carol, “but I’ll do the best I can.”
“You’re a million times nicer!” declared Jean. “But won’t you get tired of me?” she added. “I’ll want to be coming to you all the time.”
“Very well, come all the time,” said Carol. “Come and tell your ‘best friend’ all your troubles, and I’ll pet you up. I think everybody needs some one to tell troubles to.”
“I’m sure I do,” sighed Jean. “I always had mother at home; but here,—why, I can’t even write them to her, because she’s such an invalid now, and she’d worry. Oh, I’m so glad I can tell you! I have such stacks of troubles, all the time! Something goes wrong about every day. I have such a dreadful temper!”
“Nobody else ever had one, you know!” remarked Carol.
“Nobody ever had such a dreadful one. I get so furious, I don’t know what I’m saying or doing,—as I did to-day!”
“Shake hands, Jeanie, I’m a terrible pepper-pot, myself!” said Carol.
“Carol! I don’t believe it! I know you’re always perfectly lovely.”
“‘Distance lends enchantment,’” quoted Carol. “Wait till you know me better.”
“Do you really mean you have a quick temper too?” asked Jean, delighted to find this link between herself and Carol.
“Indeed I have! Why, Fräulein Bunsen named me the ‘Storm Child,’ the first year I came here.”
“Storm Child?” exclaimed Jean.
“Yes. I was only fourteen when I came, and I skylarked straight through my first year. I used to get into tempers, too; and once there was a blizzard raging out-of-doors, and little Carol Armstrong was raging away indoors, and Fräulein Bunsen came out from her German class just then, and she said: ‘You are like that tempest, liebchen! I shall call you the Sturm Kind—the Storm Child.’ She said it in the cunningest way. But it made me feel so ashamed of myself that I did try to hold my tongue after that.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t call you that now,” said Jean.
“Oh, yes, she does! It’s her pet name for me. And I call her ‘Bunny.’ Little Fräulein and I are regular chums.”
“I think you’d better call me Storm Child. It exactly suits me,” said Jean.
“I’ll name you ‘Storm Child the Second,’” replied Carol. “Now, Storm Child the Second, next time you feel tempestuous, just come and pay Storm Child the First a visit; because, you see, I know just how hard it is to keep from blazing out.”
“I will!” and Jean squeezed her friend’s hand tight.
“Well, have we talked it all out, or are there any more troubles that want to be told?” asked Carol, as Jean lay silent.
“There’s a great big trouble.”
“A great big trouble! Well, let’s hear it.”
“Why, one reason I felt so terribly was because we were getting up an order. I started it. It was the Order of the Silver Sword.” And won to confidence Jean poured out the story of the band of battle maids who were to conquer by love, and of her own miserable defeat.
“Oh, just think of my talking so hard about Caritas, and then being so bad and wicked the next minute! I’ll have to give it all up! I’ve ruined everything,” she ended, with a choke in her voice. “I won’t dare to say a word about the Silver Sword again, ever! They’ll think I didn’t mean what I said! Oh, dear! I wish I needn’t ever see the girls again!”
“Why, Battle Maid, are you going to cry ‘Quarter’ as easily as all that?” said Carol, cheerily. “You’ve only been unhorsed in the first fight, and that was always happening to the knights, wasn’t it? They were unhorsed, and then they got up again and fought on foot, didn’t they? That’s what you’ll have to do. Now, you’re up! Now go for the enemy again with your silver sword. You’ll beat him next time!”
“But they won’t want me in the order after the way I behaved,” said Jean.
“Won’t they? You ought to see how the girls are all up in arms for you! I pity those poor Mice when they come out of their hole! Why, everybody’s on your side!”
“I thought I’d spoiled the whole order,” said Jean with a sigh of relief.
“No, indeed, you haven’t. And Jean, dear, I’m just as sure as sure can be that you’ll conquer in the end, with Caritas for your sword.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Jean wistfully.
“I know you will. And I know your order is going to do ever so much good in the school. It’s a splendid idea of yours: the sword of love and the shield of truth! They’re just the things that are needed, I’m sure. And I’m sure a girl like you, who can think of an order like the Silver Sword, can be a fine influence in her class. You don’t know how much good you can do, Jean!”
“Carol! not really! Do you think there’s a chance?”
“Indeed you can,” said the president of the seniors. “You have no idea what an influence one single girl can have if she stands up steadily for what’s right.”
A step sounded in the hall just then. The door opened,—and there stood Miss Carlton herself.
“Jean, my little girl!” she said softly. “Why, Carol—are you here!” as Carol turned on the light.
“Miss Carlton, Jean’s sick with a bad headache,” Carol explained.
“My poor child! It often ends so, doesn’t it?” said Miss Carlton. She bent down and kissed Jean, then took Carol’s place by the bedside.
“I’m sorry I broke the rules,” said Jean. “I lost my head when I found we were locked in.”
“I’m sorry you could not control yourself better, dear,” said Miss Carlton. “If you had waited quietly as Cecily did, this trouble would not have come. Now tell me exactly how it all happened.”
Jean began to explain, but her vague remarks about looking for something in Frances’ and Adela’s room, and her hesitation and distress made Miss Carlton turn to Carol and ask her if she could finish the story. Carol could and did, with no qualms of conscience about bringing the Mice to justice.
“My child, you have had a hard trial to-day,” said Miss Carlton, when she had heard it all. “Frances and Adela have done a very wrong and dishonorable thing, and one which they will be heartily sorry for. And when they come to make their peace with you, as they will have to do, you must meet them more than halfway, as we say, and treat them like the warmhearted, generous girl that you are.”
“I told them I’d never forgive them,” whispered Jean, penitently. “I was so angry!”
“Ah, little girl,” said Miss Carlton, “we can never unsay the things our bad tempers make us say. But cheer up, now, for I am trying to help you fight your battle, and I fancy Carol is too.” Bending over the tired girl for a good-night kiss, she added: “And wait till the house is on fire before you let your nervous fears send you on the roof again. Poor Miss Sargent is trembling still, I’m afraid.”
“I am going to be good, now; I will be good,” answered Jean softly, with a grateful kiss in return.
While Jean rested contentedly on her pillow, Carol followed Miss Carlton into the hall.
“Miss Carlton, I ought to confess,” said she with more glee than repentance in her face, “I’m here without permission.”
“I thought so, Carol,” replied Miss Carlton. “But I understand. I know your loving heart could not resist going to comfort that poor little lonely girl. Carol, you have won Jean’s admiration and love, and I believe you can help her a great deal in the battle she has to fight. Will you take her for your little sister for the rest of the year?”