CHAPTER V
AT THE BEECHES
"How good it feels to be free!" exclaimed the Little Colonel, as she pushed open the high green picket gate in front of the seminary, and held it ajar for Ida to pass through.
"This is the first time that I have been out on the road without a teachah and a flock of girls, for a whole month. I despise the way we have to line up two by two and go mah'ching through the Valley as if we were pah't of a circus parade, or inmates of an asylum, out for an airing."
Ida laughed as they started down the path, along the road leading to The Beeches. It was one of those perfect days in mid-October when it is easy to laugh; when all outdoors seems filled to the brim with a great content, and even the woods and fields, all autumn-clad, are keeping holiday. Besides it was Saturday afternoon, and they were on their way to their first club meeting.
This was their first appearance together since the night of their stolen visit to the apple orchard, a week ago. It had cost Lloyd many a pang to give up her intimacy with Ida, but she had never shown such unselfishness as she did in this devotion to her friend. Since Ida's interests demanded that she should go off with the other girls no matter how much she longed to stay, she went obediently. Although Ida no longer wore her violets, she kept her room sweet with fresh bunches of them. Although her name was constantly in her thoughts, she rarely mentioned it, even to Betty. A few whispered words in the hall, an adoring glance toward her now and then at the table, was all she could snatch in the daytime. She even allowed the school to surmise what it pleased; that Ida had quarrelled with her or had grown tired of her; for her love was of the kind that "endureth all things." But every night she lay awake, living over that scene in the moonlit orchard, happy in the consciousness that she was making Ida happy, and dreaming of the romance that she was helping on its way.
Betty had hurried on up the road to call by for Katie Mallard, with the agreement that the couple which reached the post-office first should wait there for the other.
"Let's cut through Clovercroft," suggested Lloyd.
"Mrs. Marks won't care, and it is much shortah that way. The path below her ice-house will bring us out at her woodland gate, just across the road from the depot."
"Anything to get to the post-office first," agreed Ida. "I'm sure that there'll be a letter in your box for me to-day. I can just feel that there's one there."
From the depot it was but a few steps to the post-office. One had only to cross the road, pass the country store, and stroll a short distance along the shady avenue. There it sat by the wayside, a little box of a room, that always made Lloyd think of a dove-cote; for the first time she had been taken there her grandfather had explained that all the little square places where Miss Mattie was putting the letters were pigeonholes. Presently when Miss Mattie opened the window and handed him a letter from one of those places, she cried out with a little squeal of delight which made every one smile, "Oh, white pigeon wing flied out fo' you, grandfathah!"
Afterward it grew to be a byword that they always used between themselves, when one carried home a letter for the other. "Pigeon wing for grandpa's baby," he would call fondly, even when she had grown to be a tall girl; and "White pigeon wing flied out fo' you, grandfathah deah," was the cry if she were the bearer of the missive.
From the post-office door, looking across the road to a grassy ridge beyond, one could see the big inn that the year before had been turned into a home for old Confederate soldiers. Farther on was the wide green slope of the churchyard, and the little stone church with its ivy-covered belfry. The manse stood just behind it. Next to that was the cottage with the high green gables and diamond-shaped window-panes, where the Waltons had lived one summer while their new house was being built. And next to the cottage was the new house itself, set away back in the great grove of trees which gave to the place the name of "The Beeches."
Ida stood outside the door while Lloyd went in for the mail. She was afraid that Miss Mattie might suspect that she had an interest in the letters if she went in too, so she busied herself in looking for four-leaf clovers along the path. She could not have seen one, however, had they been growing on every grass-blade, she was in such a nervous flutter of expectancy. When Lloyd came out with two letters in her hand, her face flushed crimson at sight of the familiar handwriting on one envelope.
"This is mine," she exclaimed, in a low tone, snatching it eagerly. "Let's sit down here on the step while I read it."
"I'm mighty glad it wasn't the only one," said Lloyd, glancing back over her shoulder to see if Miss Mattie still stood at the delivery-window. Peeping through the glass which covered the partition wall of pigeonholes, Lloyd saw that she had gone back to her desk by the rear window. So she continued, in a low tone:
"Suppose that had been the only letter, and Betty had asked me if I got one?"
"You would have said no, of course," said Ida, looking up from the page, impatient at the interruption. "This is not for you."
"But it is addressed to me," persisted Lloyd. "Suppose Miss Mattie heard me say no to such a question, or that Betty saw me take it out of the box?"
Again Ida looked up impatiently, but seeing the distressed expression of Lloyd's face, said, soothingly, "I know what you are thinking, Princess. It has just occurred to you that your helping me to carry on this correspondence under cover of your name seems a little bit underhanded. But if you could just read this letter you'd never be troubled by such a thought again. It makes me feel that I am carrying out the motto of our club in the very highest way possible.
"'Our shadow-selves – our influence – may fall
Where we can never be.'"
she quoted, softly, looking dreamily away toward the ivy-grown belfry.
"I cannot be with Edwardo, but at least half of this letter is taken up with telling me how much my letters have helped and influenced him. That the thought of me off here, true to him in spite of all that has been done to separate us, is keeping him straight as nothing else could do. Somehow it seems a good omen for the club that I should get such a letter on my way to the first meeting."
Ida's manner was convincing, and Lloyd's face brightened as she listened, but she breathed more freely when she saw the envelope bearing her name torn into little bits too small to tell tales, and dropped down the crack behind the doorstep.
Betty and Katie joined them presently, and two by two they rustled along through the fallen leaves which filled the path, to The Beeches. Long before three o'clock the six members of the Shadow Club were assembled around the big table in the dining-room, with their materials spread out for Mrs. Walton's inspection. Piles of brightly coloured tissue-paper, embroidery silks, zephyr, and ribbon, made a gay showing. Mrs. Walton entered into their plans for the fair enthusiastically, as she helped wind a skein of Iceland wool for Katie's crocheting.
"The beauty of this club," remarked Kitty, as she opened her paint-box and carefully selected a brush, "is that there's no fuss and feathers about it. No election of officers, no dues, no rules, no tiresome minutes to read. All we have to do when we begin is to begin."
"And to remember our motto," suggested Betty, to whom the purpose of the club appealed strongly.
"Ida has made something to help us do that," said Lloyd. "Give them to us now, Ida, while Mrs. Walton is here to see them, please," she urged.
Ida, who had delayed showing them for that very reason, glanced shyly toward her hostess, and then hesitatingly opened the case which held her pyrography outfit.
"It's only some little blotting-pads for your writing-desks," she said, with a blush. "It seems to me that the verse is especially appropriate at letter-writing time, when we consciously cast our shadow-selves where we cannot be."
There was a chorus of delighted exclamations as she passed the packages around. Only two narrow slips of white blotting-paper held together by a white silken cord, but the cover was of soft gray kid, on which she had burned with her pyrography needle the club's motto in old English letters. Mrs. Walton leaned over the table to read the one on Allison's:
"This learned I from the shadow of a tree
That to and fro did sway upon a wall,
Our shadow-selves – our influence – may fall
Where we can never be."
"It is beautifully done, my dear," she exclaimed, smiling down into the shy violet eyes raised gratefully to hers in acknowledgment of her lavish praise. "The club is certainly to be congratulated on having a member who can not only make such pretty things, but who can think of such sweet, suggestive ways in which to keep its purpose always in view."
Lloyd's hand, groping along under the table, found Ida's and gave it a squeeze of sympathetic delight.
"There's something to write to your aunt," she whispered. While the girls were still admiring their blotters, the maid came in to announce a visitor for Mrs. Walton in the library.
Several minutes after she had left them to themselves, Kitty exclaimed, "Oh, mamma forgot to give me those little brass clamps to fasten the candle-shades, and now she has company, and I haven't the faintest idea where to look for them."
"They may be in the hat-rack drawer in the hall," suggested Allison. "I think I saw them in there this morning, but I am not sure."
Kitty skipped out of the room to look for them, and a few minutes later came back, her black eyes shining teasingly.
"I have a trade-last for you, Ida," she said. "Mrs. Mallard is in the library, discussing our club, and I heard mother say something awfully nice about you."
"Tell it!" demanded Lloyd.
"No, I said a trade-last."
"Oh, fishing for a compliment!" sang Katie. "Don't tell her, Ida, even if you have heard one. It will make her vain."
"Besides," put in Allison, "Miss Bina McCannister said it was common and silly to play trade-last."
"Oh, bother old Miss Bina!" said the disrespectful Kitty. "Well, I'll tell you, anyhow. I heard mother tell Mrs. Mallard that she thought you were a charming girl, one of the sweetest that she had met in a long time. She said she was glad we had chosen you in the club instead of a younger girl, for she thought you would have a quieting, refining influence on us, especially me! Think of that now! Me! And she said on that account she would like to have you here often."
Again Lloyd's hand met Ida's under the table in a quick squeeze. "Something else to write to your aunt," she whispered.
Several pretty candle-shades, two doll tam-o'-shanter caps, and three calendars in water-colours were laid aside finished, as the result of that afternoon's work. Besides, Lloyd and Betty had each made considerable progress on the centrepieces they had undertaken to embroider, and the magazine-cover Ida was burning in an elaborate design of dragons was half-done. Allison packed the finished articles away in a hat-box after supper, and put them up on a shelf in her closet.
"Our first meeting has surely been a success," she exclaimed. "At this rate we'll have enough things made by Easter to hold a splendid big fair. We ought to be able to cast our shadows quite a distance with the money we'll make, if we do this well every time."
"Come cast your shadows on this sheet, girls," called Mrs. Walton from the next room, where she had pinned some strips of white paper to a sheet hung on the wall, and placed a lamp at the proper distance for making silhouettes. "The name of your club suggested an old amusement of ours. Come, see how clever you are at drawing each other's shadows."
It proved to be an amusing undertaking, for whenever they laughed during the process, it changed their profiles into all sorts of ridiculous outlines. But finally some very creditable silhouettes were made, and each member of the club carried home her own shadow as a souvenir of the first meeting.
Katie's father called for her at half-past eight, and escorted the seminary girls as far as the high green gate.
"What a perfectly lovely time we've had!" exclaimed Betty, as she and Lloyd and Ida strolled slowly on toward the house, when they had bidden Katie and Mr. Mallard good night.
"And what a delicious suppah we had!" sighed Lloyd. "Oh, if we could only have shaded candles, and pretty silvah, and flowahs at bo'ding-school! I'm so tiahed of that long bare table. Everything tasted so good to-night. Those deah little beaten biscuit made me homesick. I haven't had any since I left Locust."
"The club is certainly an inspiration to do something and be something worth while," said Betty. "What Mrs. Walton said at supper, and afterward when she was showing us the general's sword, made me feel that way. Somehow, to-night, the world seems so much lovelier to be in than ever it did before; so full of opportunities, when one little person can cast such a tremendously long shadow." She looked back at hers, stretching down the path behind her, in the light from the hall lamp, till it seemed the length of a giant.
They passed on into the house, and up the stairs together. As Betty went ahead to light the lamp in their room, Ida caught Lloyd impetuously around the waist and gave her a grateful hug.
"Oh, Princess," she exclaimed, "I've had such a happy day, and I owe it all to you! If it hadn't been for you I'd have had neither the visit to The Beeches nor Edwardo's letter. You're such a comfort!"
CHAPTER VI
UNINVITED GUESTS
"This is the last day of October," announced Betty, one morning, tearing a leaf from the calendar, as was her habit as soon as she finished dressing. "To-night will be Hallowe'en."
"Do you realize," answered Lloyd, "that we have been at school six whole weeks without doing a single thing we had planned? We have been painfully good. Yestahday when I passed the music-room where Professah Steinwig was giving a violin lesson, I heard him say, 'Ach, you must let down der strings when you have feenish playing. If you keep him keyed to von high pitch alway, some day bif! He go break!' That's just the way I feel this morning; that I've been thinking so much about my shadow-self, and the work we've undehtaken for the mountain people, that it's kept me keyed up to too high a pitch of goodness. I've got to let down and get into some sort of mischief, or bif! I'll go break!"
Betty laughed. "Maybe the changes in the atmosphere affect people as well as fiddle-strings, and it is because it's Hallowe'en, and witches are in the air, that you feel so."
It may have been that the faculty were of Betty's opinion, and felt the spell lurking in the atmosphere. Warned by some mysterious "pricking of the thumbs" of coming wickedness, they sought to avert it. It was announced at breakfast that the usual rules would be suspended that night, and that from seven until eleven the resident pupils would be at liberty to observe the customs of Hallowe'en anywhere in the building, and that a spread of nuts, gingerbread, and apples would be furnished in the gymnasium.
"Headed off again!" exclaimed one of the larger girls who sat near Lloyd. "It's good of them to grant us such privileges, but we won't have half the fun that we could have had if they hadn't put us on our honour this way. I had planned to slip out and go over to Julia Ferris's to-night. Some of the cadets from the Lyndon military school are coming up. I wouldn't have hesitated a moment if they had shut down on our having some fun here, but now they've treated us so handsomely, even to furnishing a spread, of course I can't go. Hallowe'en is stupid with just a lot of girls – the same old set we've been going with straight along."
"We might have a masquerade," suggested Susie Figgs. "That would make us feel as if we were meeting strangers."
The suggestion ran along the table like wild-fire, and was so enthusiastically received that Susie felt herself a public benefactor, and beamed with importance the rest of the day.
"Oh, what shall I go as?" was the despairing question immediately heard in every quarter, for the time was short in which to improvise costumes. The matron was besieged by distracted borrowers with requests for everything, from a blanket for Pocahontas, to a sunshade and watering-pot for "Mistress Mary, quite contrary."
Lloyd's costume cost her little trouble aside from borrowing a horn from one of the children in the neighbourhood; for Mom Beck, coming in with the laundry before school, volunteered her services. In an old chest in the linen-room at Locust were many odds and ends left over from private theatricals and fancy-dress occasions. Mom Beck remembered an old blue velvet skirt that she thought could be made into a suit for Little Boy Blue before night, if Aunt Cindy's daughter would help her with the knickerbockers, and hurried away to begin, carrying Lloyd's measure and a Zouave jacket belonging to one of her summer suits, for a pattern.
From that same chest came a dress and hat which Mrs. Sherman had worn in a tableau years before as a Dresden shepherdess, which transformed Betty into the prettiest little Bo-Peep that could be imagined.
Allison and Kitty, taking advantage of the relaxed rules, slipped up the stairs before going home after school, to look at the costumes lying spread out on Lloyd's bed.
"I think it's a shame that day pupils can't come, too," said Allison, wrathfully. "We're left out all around, for we're not old enough to be invited to Julia Ferris's party. We were going to have a party at our house, but mother and auntie had to go to town to stay all night. Aunt Elise is entertaining some old army officer's wife. So we can't have any fun."
"Don't you think that for a moment!" exclaimed Kitty. "Mrs. Mallard said that Katie might come and stay all night with us. Mother telephoned to her just before she started to town."
A daring thought popped into Lloyd's mind. "Why don't you come to-night? It's a masquerade. You could slip in heah to our room befoah they unmask, and nobody would evah find out who you were. It couldn't be moah fortunately arranged. Little Elise is in town with yoah mothah, and you could easily slip away from Barbry and the cook. You could sleep in heah with us, and run home early in the mawning befoah anybody was up. I'll unlock the doah at the head of the outside stairs, and you can sneak in back way while we are at suppah."
"Oh, how I'd love to!" began Allison, "but I'm sure that mother and Mrs. Mallard wouldn't like it, and – "
"Now, Allison," interrupted Kitty, "you know that nobody ever told us not to come, did they? It wouldn't be disobeying unless we'd been forbidden."
"All sorts of larks are allowed on Hallowe'en," urged Lloyd. "Not a soul outside of the Shadow Club will know who you are, and it will be such fun to set everybody to guessing who you are and where you've gone, when you suddenly disappear."
"Yes, we'll come," said Kitty, seizing Allison by the waist and dancing her toward the door. "I'll take the blame if there is any. Hurry up, old Grandma Prim, we'll have to hustle. We've barely time to run home and eat our supper and get dressed and back here before the affair begins."
Kitty's enthusiasm, like an energetic young whirlwind, swept away every objection her sister could offer, and a few minutes later they were on their way home, eagerly discussing with Katie Mallard what costumes they could get ready in an hour.
Lloyd, who had followed them to the head of the stairs, turned back to her room with a naughty thrill of enjoyment. This escapade would add a spice of excitement to the evening, and she already tingled with the anticipation of it. There was a mischievous smile on her face as she walked down the hall. But it disappeared as she caught the muffled sound of some one sobbing. She stood still to listen. It seemed to come from Magnolia Budine's room, the door of which stood ajar.
Since the day that the old autograph-album had been put into her hands, Lloyd had felt a peculiar interest in the child who prayed every night that some day she might "grow nice enough for the Princess to like her." She had showed this interest by many little attentions which kept Magnolia in a flutter of happiness for hours afterward. Although she still coloured with embarrassment to the roots of her flaxen hair when the Princess stooped to speak to her, she no longer choked and swallowed her chewing-gum. In fact, she no longer chewed, since she noticed that the Princess disdained the habit.
It was Elise who confided this fact to Lloyd, and many other things which not only flattered her vanity, but aroused a real affection for the ardent little soul who showed her admiration by copying her in every way possible.
"She looks up to me as I look up to Ida," thought Lloyd. "I ought to be good to the poor little thing."
As she paused an instant in the hall, wondering whether it would be kinder to go in and offer comfort or to go away showing no sign of having overheard her sobs, it suddenly occurred to her what was the cause of Magnolia's grief. Probably she had no costume for the masquerade. Nothing the huge carpet-bag held could be made into one. There was no one to help her, and she felt left out of the Hallowe'en frolic. Lloyd hesitated no longer. The next moment she was wiping Magnolia's eyes, and restoring her to her usual blushing cheerfulness.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," she said. "We'll run over to Clovercroft, and ask Miss Katherine to lend us something. I have to go, anyhow, to borrow a horn. Mrs. Marks told me that I could have one that Buddy left there last summah. He's one of her grandchildren. Miss Katherine is an artist. She has a great big camera in her studio, and takes bettah pictuahs than any professional photographah could, because she thinks of all sorts of beautiful things to pose people for. She gets a medal or a prize every time she places a pictuah on exhibition, and I'm suah she can think of something for you to be."
In such a state of rapture that she felt she must be dreaming, Magnolia followed Lloyd down-stairs to ask the principal's permission to go over to Clovercroft.
"I know a place where there are two pickets loose," said Lloyd, as they hurried across the lawn. "If you can squeeze through the fence we'll save time. Every minute is precious now."
Breathless and panting from their run, the children reached the side door just as the coloured man opened it on his way out for an armful of wood.
"Frazer, we want to see Miss Katherine," announced Lloyd, who was enough at home at Clovercroft to know all the servants.
"She's in the music-room, Miss Lloyd," he answered. "You all kin walk right in."
"Is there any company there? We want to see her alone," said Lloyd, with a dignified air that made Magnolia look at her admiringly.
"No'm, jes' she an' her maw, listenin' to Miss Flora play." He held the door open for them to enter, and motioned toward the music-room door, which stood ajar. A bright fire blazed on the white tiled hearth. On one side sat a gentle, sweet-faced lady in black; "Buddy's grandmother," thought Magnolia, as she noticed her gray hair. On the other side, on a low stool, with her hands clasped over her knees, sat Miss Katherine, looking into the embers. The firelight shone on her red dress, and cast a rosy glow to every part of the cheerful room. Both were listening so intently to the soft nocturne that Miss Flora was playing, that Lloyd's knock made them start with surprise.
"Well, well! It's the Little Colonel!" exclaimed the lady in black, holding out her hand to welcome her. "Come up to the fire, my dear. Both of you." She smiled reassuringly at Magnolia, who leaned against a chair by the door, staring around her with big blue eyes, like a frightened kitten.
Lloyd plunged into her story at once, for the time was too short to stand on ceremony. At the mention of costumes Miss Katherine was all attention, and turned to Magnolia with critical interest.
"Suppose you take her hair out of those tight little tails," she suggested "and let me see how long it is."
Lloyd obeyed instantly, and the soft, light hair, released from its plaits, stood out in a short, frizzy crop, reaching only a little below her collar. It was very becoming. Lloyd was amazed at the change it made in the child's appearance.
"The very thing I want for my Knave of Hearts!" cried Miss Katherine, clasping her hands enthusiastically, and turning toward her mother. "I am illustrating that old jingle about the Queen of Hearts who made some tarts upon a summer day. I've a lovely picture for the queen, but I haven't been able to find a suitable boy for the knave 'who spied those tarts and stole them all away.' But there she stands. Her hair is exactly the right length, and she's so fat and cute that if I can just get her to roll those round blue eyes the way I want them, it will make a perfect love of a picture."
"But the costume," suggested Mrs. Marks. "It is so elaborate, and the time is short."
Miss Katherine looked at the clock. "One can do wonders in an hour," she said, and burying her face in her hands a moment, she thought intently.
"Genius burns," she announced in a moment, looking up at her sister. "Where's that little white duck suit that Lucien outgrew and left here one summer? I saved it for just such an emergency. I'm sure it will fit her."
"Packed away in the tower-room," answered Miss Flora. "I know just where to put my hand on it, though. Is there anything else you want while I am up there?"
"Yes, some scraps of red velvet if there are any left in the piece-bag. I have everything else we'll need, in the studio. That red canton flannel I sometimes use for draping backgrounds, will make a long flowing cape to hang from the back of his neck and sweep the ground behind him."
Magnolia felt as if she were a big doll as she was handed around from one to another in the trying on process, when Miss Flora came back with the suit. It did fit her passably well, and she and Lloyd were set to work at once, cutting out dozens of red velvet hearts.
"Makes me think of the time that I was the Queen of Hearts at Gingah's valentine pah'ty, and the old bear that the boys tied to the bedpost frightened us neahly to death," said Lloyd.
Snip, snip went both pair of scissors, and as fast as the hearts were cut, Miss Katherine and Miss Flora sewed them on to the little white duck blouse and knickerbockers. Even Mrs. Marks helped, fastening frills of black ribbon and great gilt buckles on some old red house-slippers of Buddy's. It grew dark while they worked. Frazer lighted the lamps and piled more wood on the fire, and Lloyd began to think uneasily that the supper-bell would be ringing at the seminary soon.
But in shorter time than seemed possible, everything was done. When Magnolia was led to the long hall mirror to look at herself, she was unable to believe that what she saw was her own reflection. It looked like some bright-coloured illustration taken from a lovely picture-book.
Red hearts dotted the white duck suit, and white hearts the long red cape which trailed gracefully from her shoulders. A funny little crown copied in red and white pasteboard from the one they found on the Jack of Hearts in a deck of cards, rested on the short, light hair, curling up around her ears. There were lace ruffles at her wrists, and a tin sword at her side, and in her outstretched hands a little pie-tin, borrowed from the cook.
"Turn your head to one side, as if you were looking over your shoulder," commanded Miss Katherine, "and hold the tart up high in front. Now lift your feet and sway back as if you were cake-walking. There, mamma, isn't that a perfect reproduction of the picture in our old Mother Goose? I'm charmed!"
The dropping of the tight-waisted, old-fashioned blue dress for this story-book attire changed the child's appearance so completely that she looked into the mirror half-frightened, feeling that her old self had run away from her. But there were Mrs. Marks and Miss Flora exclaiming "How pretty!" and the Princess clapping her hands and fluttering around her, calling out that she was perfectly lovely, and made the darlingest little Knave of Hearts that ever was seen, and Miss Katherine saying that if she would come over the next day at noon she would take her photograph.
No one had even called her pretty before, and she had never had her picture taken. Her eyes sparkled and her face lighted up as she turned again to the mirror.
"You and Betty come over to-morrow, too," said Miss Katherine to Lloyd, as she buttoned up the blue dress again, so that Magnolia could go back to supper. "I'd like to add Boy Blue and Bo-Peep to my Mother Goose gallery."
It was dark when Lloyd and Magnolia squeezed through the fence again and ran up the stairs to the room. As Lloyd passed the portière at the end of the hall she pushed it aside and drew back the bolt, as she had promised Kitty to do. They had barely time to lay their bundles on Magnolia's bed when the supper-bell rang, and they ran down to the dining-room. Lloyd was all aglow with excitement and pleasure over the success of the last hour's work, but Magnolia had shrunk back into the same timid little creature she was before her transformation. She had put her hair back into the tight little tails again before leaving Clovercroft, so that her disguise would be the more complete when she unloosed it and appeared as the little knave.
Meantime, Allison and Kitty, hurrying home with their guest, had delighted Norah by a demand for early supper. She and Barbry were expecting some friends from Rollington, a little Irish village near the Valley, and would be glad to be through with their work an hour earlier than usual.
"And you needn't light up for us down-stairs, except in the dining-room," said Allison, "for we're going straight to our rooms after supper, and we don't want to be disturbed till to-morrow morning."