Isabelle was not forced to abrogate her reign, after all. Somehow her
cleverness and her oddity always kept the spotlight focussed upon her.
Needless to state Wally did not repeat his visit, and the spring term
came to its end.
With its expiration came a letter from Mrs. Bryce asking whether the
Benjamins would keep Isabelle at Hill Top until the end of August, as
the Bryces were going to Europe and did not wish to take her with them.
It never occurred to Mrs. Bryce to consult the girl's pleasure in the
matter, but Mrs. Benjamin carried the letter to her at once.
"Would thee like to stay, Isabelle?"
"Like it? I'd adore it!" cried that young person, with the explosive
over-emphasis of youth.
Mrs. Benjamin smiled and patted her hand.
"We would like it, too. I will write thy mother."
So it was arranged, and Isabelle stayed on. Two other girls were to
remain also. By special petition to Wally Isabelle was permitted to have
the Peruvian horse to spend the summer with her.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten holiday for those three girls. They took
part in all the activities of the farm. They picked fruit and helped
Mrs. Benjamin and the cook to can the big supplies of jam and jelly for
the school. They helped in the garden with the vegetables or worked and
weeded Mrs. Benjamin's beloved flowers. They pitched hay, they drove the
rake and the grass cutter. They were busy in the open from morning until
night and as happy as field larks.
Lessons had stopped, but education went on. They read aloud with Mrs.
Benjamin; they studied and learned, first hand, of Nature's prodigality
or niggardliness. Always there was the cultivation of the spirit. Love
and fair dealing made the foundation upon which these simple Quaker folk
had builded their lives, and no one could live in the home of their
making without feeling that these were as essential to life as
breathing.
Isabelle had long, wild gallops over the hills on her horse, during
which she pondered "the long, long thoughts of youth" and brought the
resulting problems to Mrs. Benjamin in the weekly letters, or in some of
their intimate talks.
"It is hard to believe that this is the freakish sullen child who came
to us less than a year ago," Mrs. Benjamin commented as the girls went
off to bed one night.
"No, it is wonderful. Thou hast made a new being of her."
"Thou hast done it as much as I have. It is evidently her first
experience of being understood and loved."
"What strange excrescences do grow up on our so-called civilization," he
said.
"Is thee calling the rich an excrescence?" she smiled.
"I know that they are just human beings like ourselves, but how do they
get things so awry? They put such a slight upon parenthood, with their
servant-made children."
She nodded, and he went on developing his thought.
"It is ominous when the basic relationships are so abused--marriage held
so lightly, children disdaining their own parents, as our Isabelle does.
Where is it leading us, Phoebe?"
"Dear knows--dear knows!" she sighed, shaking her head.
It was a well-worn theme with them. They had to ponder deeply these
tendencies, for it was their work to try to counteract these destructive
forces--to build up in the hearts of these servant-made children, as Mr.
Benjamin called them, a respect for God and man and the holy things that
grow out of their relationship.
* * * * *
The summer passed almost without event. The three girls, hard and brown
as Indians, were beginning to plan for the fall, when the others would
return.
It was in early September that the blow fell upon Isabelle. A telegram
from Wally had appraised his daughter of their arrival in New York. They
were to spend the fall at the Club house near The Beeches. He hoped she
was well. Did she want him to come and see her?
She answered this briefly, also a note from her mother. As Mrs. Bryce
rarely troubled to write letters to any one, Isabelle pondered the
reason for this amiable epistle. It was soon to be explained. Mrs.
Benjamin received a letter from Mrs. Bryce saying that notification had
arrived that Isabelle would be admitted this October to Miss Vantine's
Finishing School, where her name had been entered for years. She wished
the girl sent directly to this address in New York on the last day of
September, as she was to board at the school for the present until it
was decided whether the Bryces would open their town house.
Mr. Benjamin shook his head sadly over this letter, and carried it to
his wife.
"Adam--Adam, we cannot let her go to _that_ school! It will be her
ruination," she exclaimed.
"My dear, it is the most fashionable school in New York," he replied,
with a sigh.
"It is shoddy, and artificial and false!" she protested in unwonted
heat. "My poor, dear Isabelle! Adam, couldn't we make a plea for
her?--tell her mother how she improves here, how fast she progresses?"
"Phoebe dear, dost thou think that that would interest this lady?"
"But we can't let her go without one effort to save her. I think it is
as serious as that, at this stage of the girl's development."
"Suppose thee writes a letter to Mrs. Bryce."
"I will. Let us not speak of it to Isabelle until I have her mother's
answer."
"Very well, dear heart."
Mrs. Benjamin wrote and re-wrote the letter. Finally one was despatched
and she anxiously awaited the reply. It was long in coming, and it fell
like a blow on her heart. Mrs. Bryce was glad to have such a good report
of Isabelle, but her plan had always been that the girl should spend,
at Miss Vantine's school, the two years previous to her debut, as she
herself had done. All the girls of her daughter's set went there, and
she wished Isabelle to be with them. Thanking Mrs. Benjamin for her
interest, etc., etc.
The Benjamins had a conference of disappointment over it, and it was
decided that Isabelle must be told. Mrs. Benjamin's face was so rueful
over it that her husband offered to do the telling. He and Isabelle were
going off on an expedition together, which would give him an opportunity,
and Mrs. Benjamin could provide the comfort that must follow.
He found it no easy task. As he looked at his sturdy young companion,
listened to her picturesque talk, he felt that he was called upon to
tell a young vestal virgin that she was to be sacrificed to the god of
mammon.
"This is good air, isn't it!" she said, breathing deeply. "How do people
live in cities, do you suppose?"
Mr. Benjamin longed to shirk, but he took himself in hand.
"I have had a letter from thy mother, Isabelle."
She glanced at him suspiciously.
"What does she want?"
"She wants thee to go to a school in New York this winter."
She stopped and faced him in alarm.
"To leave Hill Top?"
"I'm afraid so, little sister."
"But I won't! I won't go away from here. I love it here, I love you and
Mrs. Benjamin. Oh, why does Max always interfere with me? I hate her!"
she cried, passionately.
Mr. Benjamin laid a steadying hand on her shoulder, and walked beside
her.
"I understand what a blow this is to thee, and how unhappy it makes
thee. But one of the things that we want our girls to learn is to honour
and respect their parents," he said gently.
"But how can I respect Max, Mr. Benjamin? She never respects me."
He saw the justice of her remark and strove not to play the moralist.
"Thee can put a curb on thy lips, my dear. I wish that thee might show
Mrs. Benjamin and me that thy life here with us has meant something to
thee, by obeying thy mother as cheerfully and willingly as thee can."
He felt the young body under his hand shudder with the effort for
control. She lifted stricken eyes to him, as he said afterward, and
nodded without a word. He helped her as well as he could, by talking of
other things, but he felt her suffering as keenly as if it had been his
own.
When they came back to the house, she went to her room, and he carried
the report to his wife.
"Sorrow goes so deep with them, at this age," he said, tenderly.
"Poor, passionate child; she will always be torn by life," sighed Mrs.
Benjamin. "I will not go to her yet. I'll let her try solitude first."
She did not appear at lunch, so Mrs. Benjamin carried a tray to her. The
girl was not crying, she was sitting by the window, looking out over
the hills, in a sort of dumb agony.
"I want thee to eat some lunch, my Isabelle."
A white face turned toward her. The very sun-brown seemed to have been
seared off by suffering.
"I can't eat, dear Mrs. Benjamin," she said.
"I've been thinking that we might make a plan, dear," the older woman
said, setting the tray aside and dismissing it. She drew a chair beside
the girl and took her cold hands. "Thou wilt go to this school, as thy
mother wishes, but when thou hast finished--it is only two years--if
thee thinks the kind of life thy mother plans for thee too uncongenial,
thee must come back to us, and help us with the school. There will
always be a place for thee here, my child."
"But two years in that loathsome school!"
"Thee dost not know that it's loathsome. I've no doubt that if thee will
take the right spirit with thee, it may be very good for thee. There are
opportunities in that great city which Hill Top cannot offer."
"But there won't be any Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin! Oh, Mrs. Benjamin, why
couldn't you have been my mother?"
"I should have been proud to be, Isabelle," she answered simply. "Thou
art as dear to me as a daughter."
Isabelle bent and kissed the kind hands that held her own, but she shed
no tears.
"We all have bitter, disappointing things to meet. I shall expect my
daughter to meet them with a fine courage," she smiled.
"I'll try," said Isabelle; "but I'd rather die than leave here."
"Thee has met life very squarely, so far as I have known thee. This is a
test of thy quality, and I know thee will meet it like my true
daughter."
The girl's eyes brimmed at that, but she looked off over the hills and
merely nodded. Presently she rose and leaned her cheek for a second
against Mrs. Benjamin's hair.
"It's all right, mother Benjamin," she said, with the old ring in her
voice.
The subject was not mentioned again. Save for a somewhat closer
affection, a tenderer devotion on Isabelle's part, no one would have
known that they were facing a separation, which was an agony of dread to
the girl. As Mr. Benjamin had said, of his wisdom: "Sorrow strikes so
deep at that age."
She took her part in the duties and pleasures of the days. But the
Benjamins' loving eyes marked a change. She brought no yeoman's appetite
to the table, she had to be urged to eat. The morning often brought her
downstairs with dark circles about her eyes.
"Did thee sleep, dear child?"
"Oh, yes, thanks," was the invariable answer.
"She's getting all eyes again," grumbled Mr. Benjamin.
Not until the very last day were the two other girls told of her coming
departure. The last days were packed to the brim with duties, so that
she might have no leisure to be sad. She put up a plucky fight; not a
tear had she shed. But on the last day, when the clear bugle call
roused her, she sprang from her bed, and ran to the window. Nature was
at her painting again; splashes of red and yellow and russet brown
streaked the hills. A sort of delicate mist enfolded them. Was it only a
year ago that she had looked at these blessed hills for the first time?
Again father Benjamin's salute to the day rang out. She leaned her head
against the window, and her body shook with sobs, though no tears came.
When Mr. Benjamin drove up to the door in the wide surrey behind the
fat, dappled horses, she kissed the girls smilingly, she clung to Mrs.
Benjamin for a long second, then she took her seat beside her friend.
She looked up at them, in the doorway, waving their good-byes.
"If I didn't know that I was coming back in two years to stay, I
couldn't bear it, mother Benjamin," she called back. Then the fat horses
started off briskly, down the road.