IN THE DELIGHTFUL CURRENT
Helen Grant came to Aldred House again on Friday afternoon. Miss Daisy,
who had been there but an hour, rushed down to welcome her.
"Oh, dear! If something had happened and you had _not_ come," she cried,
"I should really have been broken-hearted, and I don't see what good
Samaritan could have bound up the wounds. And most things are going to
be strange and new."
"New girls?" inquiringly.
"Yes, ever so many of them. There were several Mrs. Aldred could not
take last year. She is closeted with two now, and you may as well come
upstairs at once. I have some new pictures--we will give away the old
ones. And the sweetest new willow rocker. But what do you think has
happened to Roxy Mays?"
"Marriage," cried Helen laughingly.
"No, but a fortune. And her oldest sister was married to a designer or
something who goes abroad to illustrate Russia. The old great-aunt died
suddenly, and left a good deal of money to Mr. Mays, and ten thousand
dollars to Roxy. So her mother and the other sister and she sailed the
last week in August. Of course Roxy is in high feather. And Miss Reid
and Miss Gertrude Aldred have gone to Rome under the care of a friend of
Mrs. Aldred's. Two of the girls have gone to Leipsic. Oh, dear, I wonder
if _we_ will ever go abroad?"
"It is a lovely dream. I do hope to compass it some time," and a longing
light filled Helen's eyes.
"And there is so much to see here. We had a cousin of father's visiting
us who had spent seven years in Mexico, and knew President Diaz quite
well. He tells such interesting stories about the wonders there, the
discoveries and the traces of people who must have lived a thousand or
perhaps more years ago. Then my brother has a friend who is deep in
those marvelous exhumations in Arizona. Presently we shall be a famous
country, if we haven't castles and cathedrals."
Helen's trunk came up and she began to unpack. There were some new
gowns.
"Are you going in long skirts?" inquired Daisy.
"Not this winter. I should like to be 'only a girl' ever so long," and
Helen smiled dreamily. "It seems as if I had been only a very little
girl thirteen years or so, and now I want to be just a big girl.
Womanhood looks so strange and mysterious to me. There are so many
things to be decided then, and now you can hover about the edge, just
slip into the surf of that river called the future and then draw back.
You don't have to cross it. But some day you must, and shoulder its
responsibilities."
"How queer and solemn that sounds. And I am a whole year older, and I
ought to be ever so much ahead of you."
"You are in Latin and French. I studied up some. I met a delightful
woman,--well I saw her last summer, and oddly enough she remembered me
from the books I read,--that I never should have known about but for
Mrs. Van Dorn. She is the librarian. And we have had such a nice time.
She is a college graduate, and she has inspired me with a longing to go.
But then I want everything. Travel and music and churches and ruins and
histories of nations that have been swept away, and to climb the
pyramids, and to ask the Sphinx her mighty question----"
"_Your_ mighty question as to what secret is in her ponderous brain?"
Both girls laughed heartily, merrily.
"Well, I must say, Helen Grant, your wishes comprise enough for a
lifetime! And you have left out Paris, and that quaint, delightful,
clean, watery Holland, and Moscow, and India."
"There is too much for one lifetime. I wonder if we _do_ come back and
take some of the pleasures in the life afterward? But then we don't
remember what has gone before, so where is the benefit?"
"There are ever so many new girls," said Daisy presently.
"I wonder if we haven't a small share of duty towards them," remarked
Helen, considering. "I thought it lovely of you girls to come and
welcome me when I was a stranger."
"Roxy was splendid at that. I am not sure but there was some curiosity
in it. She liked to get down to the bottom of a girl's soul and life and
know all that had happened to her. And she was very amusing with her
bright comments and comparisons. I was desperately in love with her at
first," and Daisy colored warmly. "Then she said little things about
other girls that I didn't like. And you were so upright, so generous in
your criticisms, so ready to make allowance. And after all that mistake
about Miss Craven she was very unwilling to own she had been wrong.
Wasn't I fearfully jealous? Didn't I act like a fiend?"
There were tears in Daisy's eyes.
Helen gave a vague smile.
"I can see now that it was somewhat due to Roxy's influence. She kept
saying you were so bewitched about her, and that you were on the lookout
for new sensations, that you tried on friendships and then cast them
off. I think that was what _she_ did. What a foolishly miserable girl I
was, but I _did_ love you. And I do, I shall."
Helen kissed her fondly.
"And mamma thought it was very kind in you to take up Miss Craven. She
is curiously interested in her, wondering how she will develop. Papa
says the Craven mines are remarkable, the new one with all that hematite
is a fortune by itself. I hope she comes back."
That evening they made acquaintance with a few of the new girls. And the
next day came a crowd, new and old, Miss Craven among them.
Juliet Craven had changed wonderfully under the influence of a woman who
had always longed for a daughter and had three sons instead. There was a
brightness about her, a kind of new interest that shone in her eyes and
brought a tint to her cheeks. A little contrast would have made her
quite a pretty girl, for her features were fairly good, but she was too
much of a nondescript.
For the first time she had known personal interest and affection from a
woman who might have been her mother, and who certainly had no ulterior
object. She had outgrown some of her timidity, she stood up straighter,
as if she was more conscious of her own power, and she dared to meet the
eyes of the other girls, to answer their smiles. She was to go in most
of the classes this year, though the girls would be much younger, but
Mrs. Aldred judged that the companionship would prove beneficial.
There were several changes in the teaching corps. A Mrs. Wiley,
middle-aged and experienced, who had been employed in a girls' college
in the West, shared with Miss Grace the duties of the senior classes.
Her daughter, Miss Esther, taught in the younger day-school classes and
was a pupil in several studies. After a month matters ran along
smoothly.
Not that the girls fell into the traces without any friction. Some were
pert and self-sufficient, others consequential, and several not
remarkable for anything, taking mental culture along objective lines,
and a few ambitious, intellectual, loving study for the sake of the
sweet kernel knowledge when you had cracked the rough outer shell. There
were the bright and sweet, who had no aims above the average, and who
would get trained into nice, wholesome girls and make good wives and
mothers.
Helen enjoyed her studies immensely. The botany rambles were one of her
great pleasures, and when she went at the wonders of astronomy she was
enraptured.
"Such a student is worth having; she inspires the rest," Mrs. Wiley said
to Mrs. Aldred. "There is a girl who should go to college."
"Yes, she ought," but in her secret soul Mrs. Aldred feared that was not
Mrs. Van Dorn's design.
She was beginning to understand and love Latin, and doing very well at
French. She did not display much aptitude for drawing, though she had a
certain artistic taste in arrangement.
"But I really do not see any use of hammering away at music," she
protested. "I never shall make a fine player."
"You will make a fine singer and you want some thorough knowledge for
that," said Madame Meran.
"It was one of the branches Mrs. Van Dorn is very particular about,"
Mrs. Aldred added, in a tone that left no room for demur.
There was the usual fun and perhaps a little sly flirting among the
newer students with the young men in the law offices. Autumn was quite a
lively time, since court was in session. The girls were allowed to visit
the fairs and entertainments of their respective churches, and
occasionally spend Saturday afternoon with an outside acquaintance.
During the holidays Mrs. Dayton wrote that one of the High-School
teachers had resigned and Mr. Warfield had gained the appointment, being
much delighted with it, and would board with her. From home she heard
that Jenny had a little son and they were all very joyous. Fan was going
to spend the winter with her. Aurelia had been taken out of school as
she didn't learn anything worth while, and Aunt Jane believed in making
her girls useful.
"I don't wonder teachers get discouraged in a small country place," she
thought, "when the parents care so little for education." She was glad
Mr. Warfield had gone to the High School, where he could have a more
congenial atmosphere.
Helen often wondered in these days what her father had been like, and
how he came to drift to such a dull place as Hope Center. Twenty years
before it had been a center of several things. The Church was
flourishing. In the winter the large boys and girls came to school and
the old-fashioned alligation, mensuration, and surveying were taught and
made useful, the history of the country, parsing out of Milton's
Paradise Lost, learning as much about the older English essayists and
writers as was taught in the High School.
Now, the children, before they were fairly grown, went into shops or
learned a trade. There had been a fine debating society in the Center,
and people drove in from miles around to listen to the arguments, which
were generally on stirring questions of the day, psychological fads
being unknown, or the highest truth in them called by some other name.
Then the railroad had really cut it off. North Hope had grown at its
expense.
She thought, too, not a little about her own future. What would happen
at the close of the school year. At the first of January she and Daisy
Bell and a Miss Gardiner went into Senior B. In another year she would
graduate.
There was something in Mrs. Van Dorn's letters that appealed to her
deeply at times, an interest that gave her a curious thrill. She wrote
more earnestly herself, she realized what a great thing this had been to
her, lifting her out of the common groove and giving her a decided
standing among Hope people. And, oh! it had afforded her such splendid
experiences with cultured people, some friends who might go a long way
through life with her and enrich her path with their life.
"If you were going to college, I should want to go too," Daisy Bell said
one day. "Papa would be delighted, I am sure. And though you are
younger, I do not know so very much more," laughingly. "You always study
in such desperate earnest. We should keep step together. Oh, don't you
wish we could see into the future?"
Yes, she really did.
Her friendship with Juliet Craven touched another side of her nature.
Miss Craven had a vein of peculiar romance. She improvised in music, she
could imitate bird-songs in rare melody, she could go to depths of
feeling in a few chords that stirred one's very soul. It was absolute
genius.
"These are the things I used to sing to myself in the old home," she
would say. "Sometimes I would put words to them."
"Why, that would be poetry. Why don't you try to write them down?" Helen
inquired with newborn interest.
"There are so many things to study, to learn, to do. I am not pretty
enough to attract people, but of course, I know the money would.
Sometimes I wish I had only just enough for my own wants. Another year I
shall come into actual possession of a large sum, and three years later,
if the mines should be sold, there will be--well, I haven't any idea how
much more. Mrs. Davis' plan is to take me abroad and find someone with a
title to marry me. What could I do in that kind of life? I want
something quiet, far-reaching. I should like to make unfortunate people
happy. I wonder if there are any young girls in the world as lonely and
as unfortunate as I was! I shudder when I think I might have gone on
with grandfather until all the best years of my life were spent. Mrs.
Howard advises me to stay here and get a thorough education, and I think
that is best."
Helen was very decided in her opinion that it was by far the best. How
queer that money should be so unequally divided, Miss Craven having so
much more than she could use, Mrs. Van Dorn having so much, and some of
the girls with such rich fathers, then others just squeezing through,
she really having none at all.
Mrs. Van Dorn was doing just what Miss Craven longed to do. No, not
_just_. If Helen had been unpromising she realized keenly that she might
have gone back to Uncle Jason, or worked her way through the High School
as she best might. She knew now, most girls of sixteen do, that an
attractive face and manner was an excellent capital. She sometimes gave
herself a little mental hug at the thought of having just the right
share of good looks, enough to please, and not enough to be vain of,
and not the sort of fascination Roxy Mays had possessed. There were
several beautiful girls in school. Daisy Bell had many charms, a lovely,
subtle, easily-flushing complexion that was like pink and pearl,
beautiful even teeth, tender and loving eyes.
"My face is just like me," she comforted herself, looking in the glass.
"It is strong, earnest, and capable. And I do mean to do something with
life before I die. I hope God will put me in the way of it."
Toward spring there was an episode that now and then happens in a girls'
school in spite of the closest supervision. Mrs. Aldred tried to train
the girls to a high sense of honor, and allowed them a certain liberty,
though no one girl ever went out alone. Among the new scholars was a
pretty, saucy little thing, bright with her lessons and full of fun,
seemingly innocent enough. But she had adroitly managed a flirtation
with the brother of one of the day scholars. Letters had passed between
them, and she had eluded supervision and taken several strolls with him
by climbing over the fence at the back of the grounds, with the
assistance of her admirer. The daring went a little too far, and one
evening Miss Wiley saw the return of the culprit, who begged and pleaded
a little at first, and then became defiant.
"I don't care," she said angrily. "We are engaged. I knew I wouldn't be
allowed to see him alone if he called, and I had a right to his visits."
Mrs. Aldred was surprised and had a rather stormy time with the girl,
who was sent home at once.
"Now that Roxy Mays will never come back," said Daisy gravely, "I will
say to you that she did go as far as the letters once. It was with the
clerk in Adams' drug store. He gave a note to me and said it was a
prescription, and she laughed about it, saying she only did it to prove
how easily a girl could write letters and get answers, but that she was
not going to follow it up, and she knew I would not betray her. It was
the very week before school closed, and though it wasn't just right I
let it pass. She still corresponds with him, but now her mother must
know it. It doesn't seem real fun to me to break rules that way. I
sometimes wonder what would have happened if she had returned to
school!"
Helen smiled, thinking of her innocent letter to Mr. Warfield. And now
Mrs. Dayton quoted him so often she wondered if that was quite right.
But she did enjoy writing to Mrs. Van Dorn. Often there was only a few
lines from her, the rest finished by Miss Gage, who had a very
methodical manner of going over their doings.
In April an announcement was made that surprised and troubled many of
the scholars. Mrs. Aldred had decided to go to Europe, taking her
daughter Grace and chaperoning several other young ladies. Gertrude, who
had been studying hard in Paris, would join them, and they would spend
the ensuing winter in Rome. Mrs. Wiley and her daughter would take the
school, keeping it on the same lines.
"I wish you could remain another year and graduate," she said to Helen.
"I shall write to Mrs. Van Dorn about it. Then you would be fitted for
whatever might happen afterward."
"Oh, thank you!" Helen replied earnestly. "I have been troubled about
it, and thought I ought to inquire. I should be so sorry to have my
schooldays end. I have been so happy here."
No one could doubt it to look at her radiant face. Mrs. Aldred was much
gratified.
Yes, she should hate to part with Daisy now that they were growing so
dear to each other. And she felt as if she wanted a life interest in
Miss Craven, to know the sort of woman she would make and what she would
do with her fortune.
It was May when the reply came, a reply that so astounded Helen, even
after reading the letter over two or three times, that she was still
bewildered. She took it to Mrs. Aldred.
"Yes," that lady rejoined, "you may read mine. Mrs. Van Dorn keeps her
mind as fresh as a person of half her age, and she is past eighty. She
has made all the arrangements."
And the arrangements were that Mrs. Aldred should bring Helen to Paris
with the other young ladies. She was going there and would be ready to
receive her. She was very grateful for the care bestowed upon Helen, she
had been very much gratified with the girl's letters, and this must
answer until she could express the rest in person.
"And you think--I can't make it seem true," faltered Helen,--"that such
a thing should happen to me?"
"It does not altogether surprise me," Mrs. Aldred answered in a
reassuring tone. "I surmised this from the beginning. Mrs. Van Dorn took
an unusual fancy to you, and knowing you these two years I must give her
penetration great credit. For certain reasons, I regret you cannot go on
with your education. But you will learn a great deal abroad."
"I feel as if all of life is a school, and you are learning right along
to do what comes next. I have worked hard at the French, and now I see
the use of it. I dare say it will be so with other things. I wish I were
a better musician."
"Mrs. Van Dorn will care more for your voice. You can take excellent
singing lessons abroad. Helen, I _do_ congratulate you from the bottom
of my heart. And whatever happens I shall always want to be considered
your sincere friend. I have been very much interested in your
development, and shall continue so to be."
She bent over and kissed Helen, who returned the caress with much
warmth.
"You will answer your letter to go by noon to-morrow."
Helen bowed, too much moved to speak.
It was still strange to her. One might dream of an event coming in the
future, but to have it _here_, to put your hand on it, as one might say,
dazed her. Daisy was at a music practice, though she did not think she
could talk it over with anyone just now.
Miss Craven stood hesitatingly in the half open doorway, with beseeching
eyes.
"If you are not too very busy--I'm in trouble about the Latin. Oh, if I
could be quick to see into things!" in a passion of regret that
emphasized every line of her face where last year it would have been
unmoved.
"I had an awful time about it, too, so we can sympathize," smiling
cheerfully. "I just wanted something to start up my energies."
"Oh, what should I do without you? Shall I ever be able to go on alone?"
"Think what you have accomplished in the two years," was the reassuring
answer.
There was a saunter around the grounds afterwards, meeting several
groups of girls and flinging bright jests at each other. Then dinner,
the study period, some conversation and it was bedtime. But Helen could
not sleep. She smiled to herself as she wondered what Mr. Warfield would
say and there was a consciousness that he would think her only half
educated. Well, could one ever be wholly educated at sixteen?--even at
sixty, professors are learning new things. And, oh, what a stir it would
make all through the Hopes!
She was up early the next morning. Daisy was asleep in her little white
bed with a smile on her face. Yes, she would hate to leave her and Miss
Craven, and several others. She slipped on her lovely Japanese silk
morning gown, she reveled in pretty garments nowadays, though they were
all befitting a girl of sixteen, and picking up her portfolio she glided
softly down to the study room.
Oh, what a morning it was! The sun was throwing out long shining rays in
the east and they glistened on the tree-tops, on the distant hills, on
the wide slopes, leaving the nooks and haunts in suggestive darkness.
Just a dainty little mist fit for dryad robes lingered about. And here
at the back, down to the small stream, dogwoods and late red maples and
horse-chestnuts were in bloom. Could there be a lovelier picture? Had
Europe anything better? And the fragrance might have come from Araby the
blest. It was all youth and freshness, and it took her back to the
summer of two years ago when everything wonderful had just dawned upon
her.
In this mood she wrote her letter. All her life long she was glad she
had not come to second thoughts, about the matter, but kept the first
thoughts of joyous youth and gladness and gratefulness. The rising bell
rang and she hurried along, wrote her last word at the next summons and
sealed her letter.
"Where have you been?" cried Daisy at the apparition in trailing gown,
as she opened her eyes.
"Writing a letter in the study." Then she hurried into skirt and waist
and joined the group going downstairs, giving bright good-mornings to
one and another.
"I can't think what ails you," cried Daisy in astonishment. "You
look--enchanted and--frightened."
"I will tell you--the first of anybody. It is so strange I hardly
believe it myself."
They were all striving their utmost, this group of girls. Examinations
were so near, pictures were to be finished, little gifts made to be
exchanged, remembrances of one's handiwork. An excursion across the
river to add pages to their lore on wild flowers which were to be
pressed and put in books. A lecture on Browning that evening down at the
town-hall, and Mrs. Wiley was to take a host of girls.
"If he only would read 'Herve Riel'!" said Helen. And to think she might
see the very place where the ships came in safely. It would be worth
much to her.
There is always a reaction from an exalted state, and this came to Helen
Grant. By degrees she remembered what she might be giving up, what she
might be called upon to do. If Miss Gage was coming home, she would take
her place, and be companion, have the whims, the impatience, and the
restlessness to contend with. She had experienced some of it already.
Past eighty--why, that was old age, decrepitude presently, loss of
memory--some old people had to be told things over and over again. She
had never thought of real old age in connection with Mrs. Van Dorn. And
she would spend all her bright young years--there would be no further
delightful school, no graduation, no college, and she _did_ love study
so.
Mrs. Van Dorn had given her these two splendid years, but if she asked
back ten, and she was so confident of living to ninety--oh, could she
grant it cheerfully? There would have to be some greater grace than her
own. And if God gave her this to do--if the friends of girlhood were
denied her, if Mrs. Van Dorn claimed _all_, would she have to submit?
It was a hard question for sixteen who had only enjoyed two years of
freedom about the things she loved best, the thing she wanted most,
education.
She told Daisy Bell, who didn't know whether to rejoice or not. It was
splendid, of course, but if she should be away for years and all their
lovely friendship come to an end!
"For I am sure I shall never find a girl I love so thoroughly, that I
depend on, that is a strong tower to me. Mamma said my letters had been
her treasures this year, I was taking so much more serious and sacred
views of life. And they will be dismal enough next winter."
"Then I am afraid I haven't done you much good," Helen smiled through
tears.
"Yes, you have. And I will try to remember all the nice talks we have
had and keep strong on them. We will appoint one hour in the day when we
shall always think of each other."
"And pray that God may give us grace to remember for years if there is
need," Helen returned solemnly.
Miss Craven was glad for her. "It must be wonderful to have a person
care that much for you," she said, "to want to keep you near her. Why,
it is almost as mothers feel, I suppose. I couldn't bear the thought of
you being away alone--if you _were_ alone I should ask you to come and
be a sister to me. I don't know how I can get along without you, but I
must try and comfort myself with the thought of what you have been to
me. And, oh, if you should be absent years, I will come over. Why, I
should like to see the dear old lady who loves you so."
Helen felt almost convicted of ingratitude.