SIDNEY’S “GHOST.”
About lunchtime the next day, Mrs. Holland answered the telephone to
find Mr. Thorne on the line. After some preliminary conversation, he
came to the point of his message. “I called you to inquire about Hope
and her guest. We were so interested yesterday in meeting the young
lady who looks so much like Sidney, that Mrs. Thorne and I would like
to meet her again. Sidney’s guests left yesterday and we have just seen
Sidney off; but if your girls are not going till later, could we not
have them for dinner. I seem to remember that Miss Harcourt spoke of
its being doubtful about her leaving till late to-day. Mrs. Thorne is
right here and she will speak to you when I am through.”
“Thank you Mr. Thorne; the girls may not get off until to-morrow
morning. Hope is wretched and I am not sure whether it is too much
Christmas holiday excitement or an attack of _la grippe_ coming on.
Shirley says that she will wait to go with her, if she is able, in the
morning. They will scarcely miss anything. Oh, is this Mrs. Thorne now?
How are you, my dear? Yes, Shirley can come,--I will properly present
the invitation,--but Hope is too miserable. Wait a moment, please.”
Mrs. Holland duly called Shirley, who said that she would be very happy
to go. Mr. Thorne, again at the telephone, said that he would call for
her on his way home.
“Hope, what have you gotten me in for by being sick?” queried Shirley
of Hope, who was lying in bed, being plied with various remedies at
different intervals.
“A pleasant acquaintance, I hope, that will make up for Sidney’s
snippiness! Has Caroline gone, do you know?”
“Yes; I forgot to tell you. She telephoned early and she very likely
took the same train as Sidney. I rather dread going to Sidney’s home,
and what will she think--my being invited after she has gone?”
“Mr. Thorne evidently wants to see you and perhaps he’d rather have Sid
out of the way, especially if he saw that she feels as she does about
it.”
“Well, I’ll try to be a ‘good girl!’”
“I don’t think that they will try to find out about how it went at
school. You might think up some of the mistakes to amuse them, though.
But don’t you imagine that Mr. Thorne wants to see if any relationship
can be traced between the families?”
“Perhaps.”
Shirley dressed for dinner early. There was no telling when Mr.
Thorne might come. She was ready to slip on coat, hat and furs when
the chauffeur rang the bell. Soon she was in the car which she had so
mistaken yesterday and in conversation with Mr. Thorne, who looked at
her in puzzled but kindly fashion. “Even your voice, Miss Shirley, is
like my daughter’s. Wearing her clothes, you might utterly deceive me
if you tried.”
“I shall not try, Mr. Thorne; but you would find differences, if you
were with me for any length of time. Try to find them this time; I
shall not mind.”
“What I thought, that I might find is some common ancestor who may
account for this,” smiled Mr. Thorne. “You must tell us all about your
family and I want Mrs. Thorne to hear it. Now you must tell me how you
like Chicago. Have you been up in our sky-scrapers, and have you seen
the other features that we can furnish?”
“I did most of that last summer, when I was here. It was a better time
than the winter, though the weather has been better than usual, Mrs.
Holland says, for the ‘Windy City.’”
It was a curious experience for Shirley. She found Sidney’s home
more beautiful and luxurious than that of the Hollands. Mrs. Thorne
was charmingly gracious, as puzzled as her husband, and even more
interested in affairs of Shirley’s family. Served by the butler at
the table, Shirley tried not to make any mistakes, for the sake of
her mother, whose household was conducted just as daintily, but by
necessity, much more simply.
“Yes,” said Shirley, when asked about her ancestry, “my aunt, Miss
Dudley, takes a great interest in those things. She says that we
are descended from Governor Thomas Dudley, the second governor of
Massachusetts, and that ’way back we came from William the Conqueror.
That is on Mother’s side, and I think she said Harcourt was a name in
the line, too.”
“Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Thorne to her husband, “Aunt Abby found that
the Thornes are descended from William the Conqueror through Mary
Thorne, who was the mother of Susanna Thorne; and Susanna Thorne, if I
remember correctly, was the mother of Governor Dudley.”
Mrs. Thorne sent a maid for a certain book in the library which
contained the proper authority for her statement, together with a
paper on which Miss Standish, who was “Aunt Abby,” Shirley found, had
recorded the Standish and Thorne lines. So Sidney had been brought up
on this!
“My aunt,” said Mrs. Thorne, “is very proud of our Standish line and
has made Sidney think more of that than of her father’s, especially as
he makes fun of it all. Here is your Dudley motto, Shirley: ‘Nec gladio
nec arcu.’ Can you translate it?”
“Neither by sword nor by bow,” quickly said Shirley.
“She is the daughter of a Latin professor, my dear. Well, I think that
we have discovered a common ancestry for the two girls. Do you suppose
that this style of beauty breaks out occasionally during the centuries?”
Mr. Thorne was laughing as he spoke, but Mrs. Thorne was quite serious
when she said that it could be accounted for in no other way. “Take it
up in your club, dear,” said he. “They will settle it!”
But after Shirley had been again safely delivered at the Holland
residence, Mr. Thorne in his car gave himself to serious reflection.
Shirley, too, was thoughtful. What a queer experience,--to be sent to
Sidney’s room, to see the fine pictures, the handsome rugs, the large
rooms, with all their tasteful furniture and fittings, and to be, in a
sense, in Sidney’s place, temporarily. They were dear people, Sidney’s
father and mother.
“I almost played Sidney’s ghost, Hope. You don’t know how strange it
seemed to be there, in Sidney’s home, without Sidney. It was odd for
Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, too. But I can see that they wanted to know me and
everything about me. We found that the Thornes are in the same line,
’way back, as the Dudleys, my mother’s people, and Mrs. Thorne thinks
that accounts for our resemblance. But Mr. Thorne did not think so, and
joked her about having her club decide it.”
Meanwhile Mr. Thorne was saying to his wife that he thought she more
than half believed all the stuff that her aunt, Miss Standish, had
taught Sidney. “You have made a mistake, I am afraid, my dear, to let
Sidney get those ideas. They will make her snobbish,--and perhaps
unhappy.”
“I never have the heart to stop Auntie, and what is the harm?”
“This resemblance, little wife, is very odd.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Nothing at present.”
But Sidney’s Ghost went back to school, where busy days waited for both
girls; and Mr. Thorne was plunged into such a rush of affairs, with
some new undertakings in which he was interested, that any importance
attaching in his mind to the fact of Sidney’s having a “double,” was
at least partly erased by more immediately important matters.
One little fear in the back of Shirley’s consciousness caused her
enough uneasiness to make her write about her latest experiences in
Chicago to her mother. It was after the second term was well started
and followed the first long letter and several cards. It was her first
reference to the resemblance.
She gave the details of the accidental meeting and of her visit at
Sidney’s home. Then she asked the question. “Mother,” she wrote, “you
don’t suppose that I am anybody’s child but yours, do you? You haven’t
adopted me? I am your child as little Betty used to say ‘by borning?’
I feel sure that I am, and yet this queer likeness has given me a
miserable doubt, when I let myself get foolish about it. I don’t want
to say anything to Auntie, so I write straight to you. Tell me what you
think, or know, the next time you write, please.
“Meanwhile, I’ll not worry, for everything about school is going
wonderfully. I’ve written reams, I know; but you had to be told about
the various complications. I like Sidney, in spite of her being such a
proud piece of humanity. Several days after we came back to school she
said to me, going in to class, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you had
been out to our house?’ I was surprised to find her behind me and I
said, ‘I’d have been glad to if there had been a suitable opportunity.’
And Sidney flushed up at that, for she had not been near me, and the
only time I ever went to her room to speak to her she was not exactly
hospitable.”