EDINA SCORES
For a moment, Billie Bradley lost patience with her protégé.
“Don’t be silly!” she cried sharply. “Here I spend a whole day trying
to make you presentable and you tell me you’d rather stay here in the
dark. Do hurry, Edina. I tell you, we’ve only just time to make the
bus.”
Edina got up--and a dozen packages scattered over the floor! She
stooped to pick them up and bumped her head into the head of the old
gentleman in front who turned to glare at her wrathfully.
With an exclamation of annoyance, Billie helped gather up the scattered
purchases of the afternoon and after an interminable delay the girls
got to the street.
“We’ve got to run,” gasped Billie. “If we miss that bus, it’s all up
with us. I promised Miss Arbuckle----” The sentence went unfinished,
for at the next street corner they came in sight of the bus. Miss
Arbuckle and the girls stood beside it, talking animatedly. Billie
guessed from their gestures that she and Edina were the topic of
conversation.
Billie had been almost running. Now she slowed her pace and glanced
imperatively at Edina.
“Pull your hat down and put the collar of your coat up a little,” she
ordered. “That’s right! You look swell! Act as if you knew it.”
That was all very well for Billie Bradley, thought poor Edina; but
Billie could scarcely be expected to know how it felt to be dressed up
like a tailor’s dummy and set in a window to be stared at!
Unconsciously Edina’s face assumed the old, grim expression of
defiance. She was the “lion cub” dressed up.
With her accustomed tact and kind-heartedness, Miss Arbuckle assumed
charge of the situation. With the gesture of a motherly hen scattering
her chicks, she shooed the staring, curious girls into the bus, so
that when Billie and her companion reached it, there was no one on the
sidewalk.
Billie was in fine spirits again.
“Follow me,” she called to Edina. “And be sure to pick up the packages
I drop! It will be a mercy if we get back to Three Towers with half the
things we’ve bought.”
As Billie and Edina entered the bus, all eyes were turned upon Billie’s
companion.
The moment of amazed silence that greeted the apparition of this new
Edina Tooker was a genuine tribute to Billie’s accomplishment.
“Hello, everybody!” Billie called gaily. “Edina and I have been
shopping and we’ve bought the most marvelous things--dozens of pretty
frocks and other things. Wait till you see!”
So Billie carried the battle into the enemy’s territory. By this bold
stroke she practically forced the girls to take sides either for or
against her new friend and protégé. By it Billie said, though not in so
many words:
“You must either accept Edina or reject her--and by rejecting her, you
will reject me also.”
If Billie had not possessed quite so strong a hold upon the affection
and esteem of her schoolmates, it is quite possible that this bold bid
in Edina’s interest would have gone for nothing.
However, the girls loved Billie, and this new Edina Tooker in the
marvelous clothes was certainly far more attractive than the old Edina.
Then, too, there was the talk of new frocks--dozens of them, Billie had
said.
The atmosphere became more friendly. One could almost feel it thaw.
Jessie Brewer, a diminutive blonde with round face and infantile blue
eyes, turned the scale in Edina’s favor.
“You look stunning,” said Jessie, generously going all the way now that
she had decided on surrender. “That coat is perfectly sweet. If I’m
good, will you let me have a lend of it sometime?”
The request, with its tacit acknowledgment of equality, took Edina’s
breath away.
“Sure,” she stammered. “Any--any time you like!”
Amazingly, miraculously, Edina found herself the center of interest for
the first time since her advent at Three Towers Hall--for the first
time in all her hard, drab young life.
The ice once broken, the girls were eager to hear about her purchases.
At first Edina was unwilling to talk and Billie answered for her; but
gradually the girl’s reticence broke beneath the friendly battery of
questions. She found herself answering in a perfectly natural way--not
only that, but embellishing the events of the day with a dry humor that
captivated her audience.
Some of her packages were opened by the more curious among the girls
and passed from hand to hand for comment and inspection.
“Better watch these girls, Edina,” laughed Billie. “They are apt to
descend upon your purchases like a swarm of hungry locusts----”
“I may be hungry, but I’m no locust,” said a dark-haired girl, who was
sniffing curiously at a jar of cold cream with an exotic label and a
delicious fragrance. “Anyway, I’m sure Edina won’t mind if I just take
a dab of this stuff.”
“Take the whole thing, if you want it,” Edina offered largely; but
Billie gave a little squeal of protest.
“No use giving away everything you own, even if your father has struck
oil on that property of his and is making money hand over fist. Take
that jar of cream away, Edina, before Jessie eats it. She thinks it’s
for dessert.”
So Billie skillfully implanted the notion that Edina was already very
rich and growing richer fast. Among those who had snubbed the girl from
the West, this would have a disciplinary effect, she thought, and those
who were disposed to friendliness toward the new Edina would not be
greatly affected by it, anyway.
She could see that the girls were impressed. Edina herself appeared
somewhat startled by this frank statement of her fortunes.
“You shouldn’t ’a’ done that,” she whispered to Billie in the flurry of
getting packages together for the exodus at Three Towers Hall. “I ain’t
exactly superstitious, but seems like I don’t like to talk too much
about Paw’s money.”
Billie was sincerely surprised.
“It was true, wasn’t it, what you told me about his oil well?”
“True as rain. But Paw’s luck’s been so uncertain that I can’t hardly
believe he has really struck it rich at last. Seems like if I talk
too much about it, all his good fortune might bust up into thin air
like them--those--soap bubbles you make with a pipe. I’m just being
superstitious,” she added, with an apologetic grin. “You ain’t got
no--any--call to listen to me.”
As the bus turned into the long graveled drive leading to Three Towers
Hall and the girls began to scramble headlong from it, Edina caught
Billie’s hand gratefully in a rough paw.
“It’s been the best day I ever spent,” she muttered. “Thanks--a lot.”
Billie smiled and returned the pressure of Edina’s hand.
“I think we’ve broken the ice. From now on, it’s up to you.”
Billie went on across the school grounds in a thoughtful mood.
The day had been an unqualified success. She had done just exactly what
she wanted to do. Yet she felt depressed, deserted and forlorn.
“I’m the world’s prize idiot,” she scolded herself. “I’m tired and I
probably need my dinner.”
However, in her heart, she knew exactly what was wrong with her. She
was unhappy because neither Laura nor Vi had come out to greet the
school bus.
Were they still angry with her? Was the friendship she had thought so
strong and fine, that had been a source of happiness to her ever since
her childhood, to break up in this manner?
“All over a stranger, too,” she thought wearily. “Edina has scarcely
any claim on my affections. I’m grateful to her for saving my life that
awful day at the lake. I’m grateful to her and sorry for her, that’s
all. But Laura and Vi----” She let the thought trail off.
In the hall she pulled off her tight hat and was conscious of immediate
relief. How her head did ache!
She went up quietly to her room, exchanging greetings with the girls
she met on the way. She opened the door softly and stopped as though
transfixed.
On her bed lay Vi Farrington, face downward. She was sobbing as though
her heart would break!