THE BLIGHTED BEING
KATHARINE HOLLAND was distinctly unpopular during her first weeks in the
Ryder School. Miss Lucilla Ryder treated her courteously, but Miss
Lucilla's courtesy had a frappé quality not conducive to heart
expansion. Miss Emmeline showed even more than her usual gentle
propitiatory kindliness toward the quiet, unresponsive girl, but
kindliness from Miss Emmeline had the flavour of overtures from a faded
daguerreotype or a sweetly smiling porcelain miniature. It was a
slightly vague, impersonal, watery kindliness not calculated to draw a
shy or sensitive girl from her reserve.
The teachers, all save Belinda, voted Katharine difficult and
unimpressionable. As for the girls, having tried the new pupil in the
schoolgirl balance, and having found her lamentably wanting in
appreciation of their friendliness, they promptly voted her "snippy,"
and vowed that she might mope as much as she pleased for all they
cared--but that was before they knew that she was a "Blighted Being."
The moment that the cause of Katharine's entrance into the school fold
and of her listless melancholy was revealed to her schoolfellows, public
opinion turned a double back-somersault and the girl became the centre
of school interest. Her schoolmates watched her every move, hung upon
her every word, humbly accepted any smallest crumbs of attention or
comradeship she vouchsafed to them. No one dared hint at a knowledge of
her secret, but in each breast was nursed the hope that some day the
heroine of romance might throw herself upon that breast and confide the
story of her woes. Meanwhile, it was much to lavish unspoken sympathy
upon her and live in an atmosphere freighted with romance.
Amelia Bowers was the lucky mortal who first learned the new girl's
story and had the rapture of telling it under solemn pledge of secrecy
to each of the other girls. Sentiment gravitates naturally toward
Amelia. She is all heart. Possibly it would be more accurate to say she
is all heart and imagination; and if a sentimental confidence, tale, or
situation drifts within her aura it invariably seeks her out. Upon this
occasion the second-floor maid was the intermediary through which the
romantic tale flowed. She had been dusting the study while Miss Lucilla
and Miss Emmeline discussed the problem of Katharine Holland, and
happening to be close to the door--Norah emphasised the accidental
nature of the location--she had overheard the whole story.
Norah herself had loved, early and often. Her heart swelled with
sympathy, and she sped to Amelia, in whom she had discovered a kindred
and emotional soul.
Fifteen minutes later Amelia, in one of her many wrappers, and with but
one side of her hair done up in kids, burst in upon Laura May Lee and
Kittie Dayton, who were leisurely preparing for bed. Excitement was
written large upon the visitor's pink and white face. She swelled
proudly with the importance of a bearer of great tidings.
"Girls, what do you think?" She paused dramatically.
The girls evidently didn't think, but they sat down upon the bed,
big-eyed and expectant.
"Cross your hearts, hope to die?"
They crossed their hearts and solemnly hoped they might perish if they
revealed one word of what was coming.
"You know Katharine Holland?"
They did.
"Awful stick," commented Laura May.
Amelia flamed into vivid defence.
"Nothing of the sort. I guess you'd be quiet too, Laura May Lee, if your
heart was broken."
With one impulse the girls on the bed drew their knees up to their chins
and hugged them ecstatically. This was more than they had hoped for.
[Illustration: "The girls on the bed drew their knees up to their
chins"]
"Yes, sir, broken," repeated Amelia emphatically.
"How d'you know?" asked Kittie Dayton.
"Never you mind. I know all about it."
"She didn't tell you?"
"No, she didn't tell me, but I know. She's madly in love with an enemy
of her house."
"Not really?" Laura May's tone was tremulous with interest.
Kittie gave her knees an extra hug. "It's like Romeo and Juliet," she
said. Kittie was a shining light in the English Literature classes.
Satisfied with the impression she had made Amelia gathered her forces
for continuous narrative.
"You see, her folks have got lots of money, and she's their only child,
but her father's an awful crank and her mother don't dare say her soul's
her own."
"Don't Katharine's father like her?"
Amelia was annoyed.
"If you'll keep still, Kittie, I'll tell you all about it. If you can't
wait I won't tell you at all."
Kittie subsided, and the story flowed on.
"He adores her, but he's very stubborn, and there's a man he hates worse
than poison. They had some sort of a business quarrel a long time ago,
and Mr. Holland is as bitter as can be yet and never allows one of his
family to speak to one of the other family. He said he'd shoot any Clark
who stepped a foot on his grounds."
Amelia's face was radiant with satisfaction. Her voice was hushed for
dramatic effect.
"There's a Clark boy," she went on; then, not pleased with the ring of
her sentence, began again.
"The hated enemy has a son." That was much better, and it gave her a
good running start. "He's handsome as a prince, and perfectly lovely in
every way." Miss Lucilla hadn't confided this fact to Miss Emmeline, but
there are some things one knows instinctively, and Amelia believes in
poetic license as applied to drama. "He's been away at school, but he
came home last June, and he and Katharine got acquainted somewhere. She
didn't dare tell her father she had met him, but she loved him
desperately at first sight." Once more Miss Lucilla's bald facts were
being elaborated.
"Did he fall in love that way, too?" Kittie was athirst for detail.
"He was crazy over her the minute he set eyes on her, and he just had to
see her again, and he got a friend to take her walking and let him meet
them, and it went on that way until they got so well acquainted that he
could make love to her, and then they got rid of the friend and used to
go walking all by themselves, and finally somebody saw them and told
Katharine's father. My, but he was mad. He sent for Katharine and she
wouldn't lie to him. She said she and the young man were engaged and
she was going to marry him, and her father swore something awful, and
her mother cried, and Katharine was just as white as marble, but she
kept perfectly calm." Amelia was warming to her work. "And they
imprisoned her in her room, and her father used to go and try to make
her promise she'd never speak to her lover again, and her mother used to
cry and beg her to give him up. But they couldn't break her spirit or
make her false to her vows, and finally they decided to send her away,
so they wrote to Miss Lucilla and told her all about it. Miss Lucilla
said she hated to have such a responsibility, but that they offered so
much money she didn't feel she could refuse to take the girl--and that,
anyway, the parents probably knew best, and it was for Katharine's best
interests she should be separated from the boy. So Mr. Holland brought
Katharine here, and she's not to stir out without a teacher, and she's
not to have any mail save what passes through Miss Lucilla's hands and
is opened by her, and she's not to receive any callers unless they bring
a note from her father, and she's not to write letters except to her
mother."
"How'll they help it, I'd like to know? They can't watch her all the
time," chorused the two listeners, each mentally devoting her inkstand,
pen, stationery and services as postman to the cause of unfortunate
love.
"How we've misjudged her," sighed Laura May.
"I thought it was funny she came here when she's so old. She must be
eighteen, isn't she?" asked Kittie.
"Pretty near. I'd elope and defy my cruel parents if I was eighteen, but
she says she won't elope--that she'll wait until she's twenty-one, and
then if her father won't give in, and can't show her anything bad about
the man, she'll marry him anyhow. Miss Lucilla had a talk with her, and
she said Katharine seemed to be a very nice girl and very reasonable
except when it came to breaking off her love affair, but that she was
just as stubborn as a rock about that."
"What do you suppose they'll do?"
Amelia meditated, turning the searchlight of memory upon her favourite
novels.
"Well, she may waste away. She's pretty thin. I guess her father would
feel dreadful when he stood by her deathbed. And then her lover may
persuade her to fly with him. I wish she'd let me help her fly. Or she
may just wait till she's twenty-one and then leave home with her
father's curses on her head, and if she did that her mother'd probably
die of grief, and everything her father'd touch would fail, and finally
he'd be a lonely, miserable old man and send for Katharine to forgive
him, and she'd bring her little daughter to him and----"
"Why, Amelia Bowers!" protested Kittie, whose slow brain had been
following the rapid pace with difficulty, and who had not lost her
schoolmate in the cursed and married heroine.
"Well, it's pretty dreadful any way you fix it. She's a Blighted Being,"
said Amelia cheerfully. "We must be very considerate of her.
Good-night."
She hurried away, intent upon spreading her news before the "lights-out"
bell should ring, and with each telling the tale grew in detail and
picturesqueness.
The next morning the girls began being considerate of Katharine. If the
Blighted Being noticed the sudden change of attitude it must have
occasioned her some wonder, if not considerable annoyance. She was not a
girl to air her wrongs nor bid for sympathy, although she was not brave
enough to assume a cheerful manner and keep her heartache out of her
face. She learned her lessons, did her tasks, was respectful to the
teachers, polite to the girls, but she held aloof from everyone--was, in
the arrogant fashion of youth, absorbed in her own unhappiness.
Occasionally, when she met Belinda's smiling, friendly eyes, her face
softened and an answering smile hovered around her sensitive lips, but
the relaxing went no further.
Amelia and her mates found the victim of parental tyranny an absorbing
interest. They missed no word or act or movement of hers when she was
with them. They offered her caramels and fudge with an air of fervent
sympathy. They left the best orange for her at breakfast. They allowed
her to head the crocodile during morning walk, day after day, and
allotted the honor of walking with her to a different girl each day, the
names being taken in alphabetical order.
[Illustration: "They offered her caramels with fervent sympathy"]
They gave her the end seat on the open cars, in church, at the theatre.
They surreptitiously sharpened her pencils and cleaned her desk for her.
They made offerings of flowers. They volunteered to loan her their
novels even before they had read them.
And Katharine, not understanding the spring from which all this
friendliness flowed, unbent slightly as the days went by, paid more
attention to the life around her, yet kept the tightly closed lips and
the unhappy eyes. She was very young, very much in love, and her pride
suffered even more than her heart. Mr. Holland's method of parental
government was, to put it mildly, not diplomatic.
James, the handy man of the school, was the only person upon whom she
was ever actually seen to smile, but she appeared to have a liking for
James. Amelia several times saw her talking to the man in the hall, and
once something white and square passed from the girl's hands to the
man's.
"She's getting James to mail letters," announced Amelia breathlessly,
breaking in upon Laura May and Kittie.
"Bully for James!" crowed Kittie inelegantly. "But won't he catch it if
Miss Lucilla finds out."
Miss Lucilla didn't find out, but an avenging Nemesis apparently
overtook James, for a few days later he failed to appear at the school
in the morning, and the cook had to attend to the furnace.
Later came a most apologetic note from the missing handy man. He was
ill--seriously ill. The doctor had forbidden his leaving the house for
at least a week. He was greatly distressed--in English of remarkable
spelling--because he was inconveniencing Miss Ryder, but he didn't want
to give up the place altogether, and if he might be allowed to send a
substitute for a week or so he would surely be able to take up work
again at the end of that time. He had a friend in mind--a nice,
respectable young fellow who would do the work well and could be trusted
even with the silver--a bit youngish, perhaps, but willing and handy.
Should he send him?
Miss Lucilla answered by messenger. The young man was to come at once.
The snow must be shoveled from the steps and walk before time for the
day scholars to arrive. She hoped James would soon be able to return,
but she would give his friend a trial.
Half an hour later a manly young fellow in very shabby clothes presented
himself, had an interview with Miss Lucilla, who told her sister that he
seemed a very decent person, and adjusted to his shoulders the burden of
duties laid down by James. He bore the burden lightly, did his work
with cheerful conscientiousness, and made himself useful in many ways
unknown to the former incumbent. Norah and the other maid smiled upon
him ineffectively.
"Always ready to lend ye a hand at an odd job, but divil a kiss or a bit
of love-making behind the door," Norah explained to Amelia, who had
sniffed an incipient romance below stairs when she first saw the new
man.
Miss Lucilla congratulated herself upon the addition to her staff of
servants and sought an excuse for letting James go altogether and
cleaving to his friend. The teachers sang the praises of Augustus, the
girls found him obliging and resourceful in smuggling, the servants
couldn't pick quarrels with him. Evidently here was a gem of purest ray
serene--that pearl beyond price, a perfect servant.
The incomparable Augustus was seldom in evidence above the basement,
save when he went to the study for orders, moved the furniture, or did
odd jobs of carpentering; but he was intrusted with the cleaning and
setting in order of the big schoolroom, and Katharine Holland was
occasionally in his way there. She liked to study before breakfast.
One Tuesday night, when study hour was over, the girls had gone to their
rooms, and the downstairs lights were out, Belinda sat in her room,
correcting examination papers. She struggled through the pile, reached
the last paper, and found that several sheets of it were missing. A
careful search in the room failed to bring them to light; and the
Youngest Teacher, with a frown of vexation between her pretty brows,
picked up a match, girded her dressing gown about her, and making no
noise in her knitted bedside slippers, went swiftly down the stairs.
The door of the large schoolroom, where she expected to find her missing
papers, was closed; and as Belinda stopped before it she fancied that
she heard a murmur of voices beyond the door. She hesitated, smiled at
herself, struck a match sharply, and threw open the door.
There was a sudden movement in the room--a smothered exclamation. The
light of the match fell full upon a man who held a girl in his arms.
So much Belinda saw before she put out her hand to the electric button
and turned on the light.
Before her stood the incomparable Augustus, shabby, handsome, defiant;
and to his arm clung Katharine Holland, white and frightened, but with
her head up and a challenge in her eyes.
Belinda stared for a second in bewilderment. Then she understood. She
tried to remember that she was a teacher and to fix the culprits with an
icy glare, but Belinda is not very old herself, and in common with all
the world she loves a lover. The situation was shocking--but--the look
on the girl's face was too much for the Youngest Teacher's severity.
Impulsively Belinda held out her arms.
"Oh, you poor child," she said. "You poor, foolish, hurt child." Her
voice was athrill with tenderness. Her face was aglow with the
mother-love that lives in the woman heart from doll days to the end of
life.
With a little sob the girl moved forward blindly. Belinda's arms went
round her and drew her close.
"Hush, dear. Don't cry. This is all wrong, but you've been very unhappy
and you didn't mean to do wrong."
The Youngest Teacher's eyes met those of the boy who stood,
crimson-cheeked, uncertain, under the glare of the electric light; and
she studied his face--a good-looking, determined face, with honest
manliness under its boyish recklessness.
"It wasn't fair," she said softly. "It wasn't fair to her. You would
take care of her better than this if you loved her."
The recklessness faded, leaving the manliness.
"They've treated us abominably."
"Yes, I know, but she is only seventeen--and clandestine meetings are
vulgar and dangerous."
"Her father can't give any reason except that ridiculous family feud."
"A scandal would furnish an excellent reason, and justify him in his
attitude toward you."
"But there isn't going to be any scandal."
"Suppose someone else had found you here and told the story broadcast."
He winced.
"But I can't live without seeing her sometimes."
"Then your love is a very small, boyish thing. A man who loved her could
wait."
He had come forward now and was looking straight into her accusing face.
"I suppose you are going to tell Miss Ryder, and Katharine will be sent
home in disgrace?"
Belinda shook her head. "What I do depends upon you. Perhaps I ought to
tell. I owe a duty to Miss Ryder--but then I owe something to Katharine,
too. She needs sympathy and sane counsel more than harshness. I think
you are honest--though that was a dishonest, underhand trick of yours.
If you will give me your word of honour as a gentleman not to try to see
Katharine again while she is here I will say nothing about this."
He hesitated, looked down at the rumpled head upon Belinda's shoulder.
"Shall I do it, Katharine?"
Belinda's face flamed indignantly.
"Are you coward enough to shift the responsibility to her? Aren't you
man enough to do what is best for her, no matter what she says?"
The broad shoulders squared themselves.
"I'll promise."
"Does any one know about this escapade?"
"James."
"Can you shut his mouth securely?"
"I will."
"You would better go now."
He moved a step nearer.
"Good-by, dear."
Katharine lifted a tear-stained face.
"You'll not stop caring?" There was a sob in her voice.
"It's only a question of waiting, sweetheart," he said gently; "and we
love each other well enough to wait."
He looked beseechingly at the Youngest Teacher, who, being a very human
pedagogue, turned her back upon the tragic young things; but a moment
later she held out a friendly hand to the departing lover.
"Good-by. I'll trust you."
"Good-by. You may. I do love her. Be good to her," he added brokenly as
he disappeared through the door.
Belinda was good to her; and long after the girl was asleep, the
Youngest Teacher lay awake, puzzling over problems of right and wrong,
of duty and impulse, of justice and mercy.
"They are only children," she said from her pinnacle of two-and-twenty
years.
"But children's hurts are hard to bear while they last," her heart
answered promptly.
"Perhaps I was all wrong. Probably I ought to have been more severe--but
now I've promised"--and Belinda was asleep.
The next morning the incomparable Augustus had disappeared from the
horizon. The faithful James, attired in a sporty new suit, new shoes and
necktie, and looking astonishingly well and prosperous for a man who
reported himself as just back from the gates of death, was once more in
his accustomed place.
"James is a good soul, but Augustus had so much more resourcefulness and
initiative," said Miss Lucilla regretfully.
"He had," agreed Belinda.