CROSS PURPOSES
Tavia was as loyal a girl as ever stepped in shoe-leather. That was an
oft-repeated expression of Major Dale’s. He loved “the flyaway” for
this very attribute.
Tavia was now attempting to bring joy and happiness for Dorothy out of
chaos. Therefore, she felt she dared take nobody into her confidence
regarding Lance Petterby’s letter.
She replied to Lance at once, explaining more fully about Garry Knapp,
the land he was about to sell, and the fact that Eastern schemers were
trying to obtain possession of Knapp’s ranch for wheat land and at a
price far below its real worth.
Satisfaction, Tavia might feel in this attempt to help Dorothy; but
everything else in the world was colored blue—very blue, indeed!
When one’s ear has become used to the clatter of a noisy little
windmill, for instance, and the wind suddenly ceases and it remains
calm, the cessation of the mill’s clatter is almost a shock to the
nerves.
This was about the way Tavia’s sudden shift of manner struck all those
observant ones at The Cedars. As the season of joy and gladness and
good-will approached, Tavia Travers sank lower and lower into a Slough
of Despond.
Had it not been for Dorothy Dale, the others must have audibly remarked
Tavia’s lack of sparkle. Though Dorothy did not imagine that Tavia
was engaged in any attempt to help her, and because of that attempt
had refused to explain Lance Petterby’s letter to Nat White, yet she
loyally began to act as a buffer between the others and the contrary
Tavia. More than once did Dorothy fly to Tavia’s rescue when she seemed
to be in difficulties.
Tavia had a streak of secrecy in her character that sometimes placed
her in a bad light when judged by unknowing people. Dorothy, however,
felt sure that on this present occasion there was no real fault to be
found with her dear friend.
Nat refused to speak further about his feeling toward Tavia; Dorothy
knew better than to try to tempt Tavia herself to explain. The
outstanding difficulty was the letter from the Westerner. Feeling sure,
as she did, that Tavia liked Nat immensely and really cared nothing for
any other man, Dorothy refrained from hinting at the difficulty to her
chum. Let matters take their course. That was the better way, Dorothy
believed. She felt that Nat’s deeper affections had been moved and
that only the surface of his pride and jealousy were nicked. On the
other hand she knew Tavia to be a most loyal soul, and she could not
imagine that there was really any cause, other than mischief, for Tavia
to allow that letter to stand between Nat and herself.
To smooth over the rough edges and hide any unpleasantness from the
observation of the older members of the family, Dorothy became very
active in the social life of The Cedars again. No longer did she
refuse to attend the cousins and Jennie and Tavia in any venture. It
was a quintette of apparently merry young people once more; never a
quartette. Nor were Nat and Tavia seen alone together during those few
short weeks preceding Christmas.
Secretly, Dorothy was very unhappy over the misunderstanding between
her chum and Nat. That it was merely a disagreement and would not cause
a permanent break between the two was her dear hope. For she wished
to see them both happy. Although at one time she thought the steadier
Ned, the older cousin, might be a better mate for her flyaway friend,
she had come to see it differently of late. If anybody could understand
and properly appreciate Tavia Travers it was Nathaniel White. His mind,
too, was quick, his imagination colorful. Dorothy Dale, with growing
understanding of character and the mental equipment to judge her
associates better than most girls, or young women, of her age, believed
in her heart that neither Tavia nor Nat would ever get along with any
other companion as well as the two could get along together.
The two “wildfires,” as Aunt Winnie sometimes called them, had always
had occasional bickerings. But a dispute is like a thunderstorm—it
usually clears the air.
Nor did Dorothy doubt for a moment that her cousin and her friend were
deeply in love now, the one with the other. That Tavia had turned
without explanation about Lance Petterby’s letter from Nat and that the
latter had told Dorothy he was not sure he wished Tavia to answer the
important question he had put to her, sprang only from pique on Nat’s
side, and, Dorothy was sure, from something much the same in her chum’s
heart.
Light-minded and frivolous as Tavia had always appeared, Dorothy knew
well that the undercurrent of her chum’s feelings was both deep and
strong. Where she gave affection Tavia herself would have said she
“loved hard!”
Dorothy had watched, during these past few weeks especially, the
intimacy grow between her chum and Nat White. They were bound to each
other, Dorothy believed, by many ties. Disagreements did not count.
All that was on the surface. Underneath, the tide of their feelings
intermingled and flowed together. She could not believe that any
little misunderstanding could permanently divide Tavia and Nat.
But they were at cross purposes—that was plain. Nat was irritated and
Tavia was proud. Dorothy knew that her chum was just the sort of person
to be hurt most by being doubted.
Nat should have understood that if Tavia had given him reason to
believe she cared for him, her nature was so loyal that in no
particular could she be unfaithful to the trust he placed in her. His
quick appearance of doubt when he saw the letter from the West had hurt
Tavia cruelly.
Yet, Dorothy Dale did not try to make peace between the two by going
to Nat and putting these facts before him in the strong light of good
sense. She was quite sure that if she did so Nat would come to terms
and beg Tavia’s pardon. That was Nat’s way. He never took a middle
course. He must be either at one extreme of the pendulum’s swing or the
other.
And Dorothy was sure that it would not be well, either for Nat or for
Tavia, for the former to give in without question and shoulder the
entire responsibility for this lover’s quarrel. For to Dorothy Dale’s
mind there was a greater shade of fault upon her chum’s side of the
controversy than there was on Nat’s. Because of the very fact that all
her life Tavia had been flirting or making believe to flirt, there was
some reason for Nat’s show of spleen over the Petterby letter.
Dorothy did not know what had passed between Tavia and Nat the evening
before the arrival of the letter. She did not know what Tavia had
demanded of Nat before she would give him the answer he craved.
Nat kept silence. Mrs. White did not come to Tavia and ask the question
which meant so much to the warm-hearted girl. Tavia suffered in every
fiber of her being, but would not betray her feelings. And Dorothy
waited her chance to say something to her chum that might help to clear
up the unfortunate state of affairs.
So all were at cross purposes, and gradually the good times at The
Cedars became something of a mockery.