CRULLERS’ PAROLE
“Oh, grandfather, dear—” exclaimed Polly, holding up a slice temptingly
on a plate, “Shortcake?”
“No, Polly, don’t coax me. Not a bite to eat. I’ve just been riding
along the river. And girls, that reminds me.” The Admiral sank into one
of the deep-seated garden chairs, and held up his finger at them all
mysteriously. “I have seen her again.”
“The same girl?” asked Polly eagerly, bending forward and even
forgetting the shortcake.
“The same one. I never saw a girl ride so splendidly in all my life. She
is the admiration of every one along the river road. I heard Senator
Yates telling somebody about her at dinner last evening, and bless my
heart, she isn’t any larger than Isabel here. Yet, she must be older,
but she does not appear so mounted. I can always rely on meeting her
Friday afternoons about this hour. Never have I seen her on the street,
mind—but ride! Polly, if you could sit a horse like that, and take the
road as she does, I’d—why, I don’t know what I would do as a reward of
merit.”
Polly leaned back, puzzled, and thinking hard.
“I don’t see who it can be, girls. Grandfather says he sees her every
Friday afternoon, and has for weeks this spring, and I don’t know her at
all. Maybe it is a guest at one of the houses outside of Queen’s Ferry.”
“Maybe it’s the ghost of the Lady Kathleen,” Ruth suggested gravely.
“Don’t you remember her?
“Along the dark highway, at night there is seen,
The ghost of a horse and its rider, Kathleen.
And when some stray traveler calls out a hail,
Upon the bleak nightwind is borne back a wail.”
“I think you made that up, Ruth,” Polly cried, merrily. “Is the Lady
Kathleen blonde or brunette, grandfather dear?”
“I should say she was rather sorrel,” remarked the Admiral judicially.
“But I strongly advise this board of lady managers to discover her
identity, and gather her into your circle. I can usually tell a
thoroughbred, can’t I, Polly?”
“What color are her eyes, Admiral Page?” asked Isabel.
“Bless my heart, child, I did not get near enough for that. But if you
will watch the river road about five any Friday afternoon, you will find
her. Now, I must go and dress for dinner.”
“How can we find out who she is?” asked Isabel, when the Admiral left
them for his late stroll by the river. “I don’t know anybody around
Queen’s Landing that looks like that.”
“We’ll ask Miss Calvert on Monday,” Ruth declared. “She knows everybody
who is anybody in this vicinity, and their pedigree back to the days
when the first English ship sailed into Jamestown harbor. We must be
going, Polly, and your shortcake was dandy. Next Friday it is my treat,
girls. Don’t forget.”
Polly walked with them to the tall green hedge that separated Glenwood
from the road, and waved good-bye. Then she hurried back to the arbor,
and called Stoney up from the garden.
“I want the little green basket, Stoney, and a nice fresh pitcher of
whipped cream, and then you and I will go for a walk up to the Hall.”
Aunty Welcome’s turbaned head appeared at the side door as the two
started away.
“Whar’ you-all gwine to, Mis’ Polly chile?”
“Just up to the Hall, Aunty dear. I won’t be late for dinner, truly. And
I’m taking some of your lovely shortcake to Crullers.”
Aunty smiled and shook her head.
“Nevah did see sech a chile for squiggling out of trouble. Yo’ jes’
think yo’ done cotched her safe and sound, and if she ain’t a-dancin’
away, and always leavin’ yo’ feelin’ so good, too. Stoney, you hold that
basket steady, boy.”
Polly walked on up the broad, beautiful old street, Stoney in the rear.
She had stopped to gather a great bouquet of lilac blossoms, white and
purple. Those were for Miss Calvert, and when she reached the Hall, she
left Stoney to carry them out into the fragrant old garden, while she
went upstairs with her offering for Crullers the unfortunate. Polly was
first and last a believer in diplomacy. As the Admiral was fond of
remarking, she had inherited that trait from him.
There were two dormitories at Calvert Hall, one where the younger girls
slept, the other for the Seniors. But even the dormitories had
distinctive features. Each girl had her own cot, chair, washstand, and
chiffonier. Around each individual corner were horizontal poles, from
which hung long curtains that could be swung back, or enclosed, as the
occupant saw fit. This gave privacy to each girl, and yet they were all
in the same room.
The curtains hung soberly all about Crullers’ nook this day, just like a
yellow and white catafalque. It was too early for the other girls to
come upstairs, yet. Polly went softly to the curtains, and called
gently.
“Crullers!”
There was no response.
“Crullers, I have brought you some shortcake.”
“I’ll be right out, Polly, dear,” called back Crullers, with a hasty
change of heart. “Or, no, you may come in. I’m not even allowed to get
out of bed.”
Polly pushed back the curtains, and there was Crullers, her hair braided
in two long pigtails, one over each shoulder, undressed, with her pink
kimono over her nightgown, and her face full of utter misery.
“You look just like somebody in history, and I can’t think who it is,”
laughed Polly. “Somebody who sat up in bed at the last minute, and told
everybody just what she thought of them before she died. Was it
Catherine de Medici, or Queen Katherine?”
“Oh, Polly, don’t, please. Give me the shortcake quick. My heart is
broken.”
“And your poor ‘tummy’ is all empty.” Polly handed her the basket, and
sat down beside her. “Half of it is for Miss Murray.”
“Miss Murray!” Crullers pushed the cake from her indignantly. “Then I
won’t eat a bit of it, Polly Page. How could you?”
Crullers turned right over, and buried her face in the pillow, sobbing,
while the green basket barely escaped being capsized.
“How could I what?” asked Polly in astonishment. “Don’t you like Bonnie
Jean?”
Then she stopped short, because, all at once, down at the far end of the
dormitory, she saw Miss Murray, the teacher from out West, coming
towards them with her quick, easy walk, and she was in riding habit.
“How are you, Polly?” she called, pleasantly. “Isn’t it a gem of a day?”
Polly looked at Crullers, doubled up beneath the blankets, and rose
determinedly. But she left the shortcake in the basket within easy
reach. If anything could take away Crullers’ trouble, it would be that.
“Could I talk with—you, Miss Murray please?” she asked. “I came
expressly to see you.”
“Won’t it keep until Monday, Polly?” smiled back Jean, unpinning her
black sailor hat, and letting down her long skirt. “I’ve only half an
hour to dress for dinner. You know on Fridays I run away after the girls
are through. This is my one weekly holiday.”
Polly leaned forward, looking up at the tall, slender figure in
unconcealed admiration. Dearly did Polly love blow-away hair, as she
would have called it. Curly, fluffy masses of blonde hair just verging
on red, swept back from Jean’s low, broad forehead. Her face was rather
broad, and her mouth was broad too, but so was her smile, and her teeth
were even and white as new corn. There was a fine sprinkling of freckles
over her nose. Her eyes were blue, not gray, nor hazel, but blue as
forget-me-nots, and they always looked straight at you without blinking.
“I don’t want to bother you,” Polly said doubtfully. “It’s only about
Crullers,—I mean Jane Daphne Adams. You know we girls always call her
Crullers.”
“Jane Daphne is on my mind too, Polly,” Miss Murray rejoined. “Come up
to my room, Polly, and we’ll talk it over.”
As they left the dormitory, Crullers’ tousled head and red moist face
appeared from beneath the quilt, and she reached for the green basket
and its contents with a sigh. She knew she was in the wrong, and that
even Polly would not uphold her, when she heard the truth. And it
troubled her, for Polly’s opinion was her court of last appeal in all
things at Calvert Hall.
Ever since she had come there as a pupil the previous year, she had been
under Polly’s wing, for none of the other girls could put up with her
slow ways and blunders. And yet, as she sat up in the bed now, eating
the shortcake with sad and deliberate relish, and dropping salt tears on
the whipped cream, she could not see why everybody should have “jumped
on” her just because she had rescued a stray cat, and hidden it in the
dormitory closet. It was a live cat. She had fully intended feeding it.
And it wasn’t her fault that the lock had snapped. She had been told to
appear for sentence in Miss Calvert’s study the following morning, and
there she had faced both the principal and Miss Murray. The latter was
in charge of the dormitory Tuesdays and Fridays, and it was on a Tuesday
night the cat had been found.
“Jane Daphne Adams,” Miss Calvert had said, in her stateliest manner,
“you will bring my gray hair in sorrow to the grave. Ever since you came
to the Hall, there has been trouble.”
“I didn’t mean to, Miss Calvert,” Crullers had said, helplessly.
“That is the only excuse you ever make for anything you do, Jane,”
returned Miss Calvert with dignity. “You are totally irresponsible. I
shall have to put you on parole for a week, and you are not to leave the
grounds under any pretext whatever. Miss Murray will report to me
nightly on your good behavior.”
After that it had seemed to Crullers as though she had a prison guard
mounted over her. She was in disgrace. All the girls knew of it. It was
tacitly understood at the Hall that no pupil was to associate with
another pupil on parole. They were sent to Coventry and lived a life
apart. The girls dreaded it more than any other form of punishment, and
Crullers had dared to break her parole. That was the worst of it. Dearly
did Crullers love pickled limes and doughnuts as a combination lunch,
and there was one little cozy shop in Queen’s Landing where the best of
both were found. So Crullers had slipped out the side gate of the
kitchen garden, and had tried to get to the shop and back at noon. And
she had been caught red-handed, with the warm doughnuts in one bag, and
the pickled limes leaking out of another.
Polly heard all about it now. She followed Miss Murray out of the
dormitory, and up to the third floor of the old square mansion. On each
side of it, a wing stretched out. The west wing that overlooked the
river, was the prettier, and the large room on its third floor had been
given up to the young teacher from the West. Compared with the spacious
rooms below, the ceiling seemed rather low, and the windows opened
outward, lattice like. As they came in, the breeze from the river was
blowing back the short, frilly muslin curtains.
“Here we are, Polly,” said Miss Murray, happily, laying aside her hat,
and smiling at her guest. “This is the nearest approach to home that I
have here. Sit down while I change my dress for dinner, and we will talk
about poor, careless Jane Daphne. This room used to be Diantha Calvert’s
nursery when she was a little girl—did you know that? She used to tell
me all about it, and I always hoped that some day I might see it, but I
never thought I should live in it myself.”
Polly turned quickly from the window, where she had been admiring the
wide-spread view.
“Why, Miss Murray, I didn’t know that you knew Miss Diantha,” she cried,
“I didn’t even know that she was still alive. You know Miss Calvert
never talks to us girls about her at all. We always wondered if there
was a mystery about her. Do you know?”