THE MYSTERIOUS GIRL
Pretty little Cathalina was buried deep in a big velvet chair in one of
the parlors, looking out at the first snow which was swirling down and
bid fair to cover everything before morning. The heavy clouds had
threatened snow before dinner when she and Hilary had taken a long walk,
down to the beach, up through the grove and to the hill beyond. It was
quite dark now, but the porch light shone out to where the masses of
shrubbery were growing heavy with their soft burden and dark pine trees
were being outlined in white.
Cathalina’s chair had happened to be turned with its back toward the
room, though it was on one side of the long French window. It was nearly
time for the evening study bell and the groups of girls that had been
chatting in the parlors or gathered about the piano had disappeared.
Cathalina felt that she must rouse herself from her rather drowsy
comfort and get upstairs to work on her lessons, when from behind her
came a quiet footstep and a young girl in a clinging black dress slipped
by the chair and stood in the window. Just then Alma came in and lowered
the lights, turning off entirely the electric ones.
Cathalina was rather timid about meeting new people, but very courteous
when she had to do so; and now, when she saw that this was the new girl
who had only been at Greycliff a few days, she rose from the chair with
a pleasant, “Good evening.”
The girl started a little and Cathalina went on, “O, excuse me, didn’t
you see that anybody was there?”
“No,” replied the recent arrival, without the courtesy of a smile. She
held herself proudly and with her chin raised let her eyes drop from
Cathalina’s face to her feet with a comprehensive glance.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. My name is Cathalina Van Buskirk. I
noticed that you just came a few days ago. I should be glad to be
acquainted and if you are the least bit lonely there are some real nice
girls here who would love to do anything for you.”
“They couldn’t do _me_ any good,” and the tears came to the new girl’s
eyes, though her expression did not soften! “My father has just been—has
just died and Mother made me come here!” There was a pause, while
Cathalina wondered what to say. “Did you say your name is Van
Buskirk?—from Holland?” A little interest showed in the girl’s face.
“O, no; not from Holland, except long ago when one of my ancestors came
over and fought in the Revolution. I’m from New York. I don’t think I
know your name.” Another brief pause. “I’m awfully sorry about your
father. But maybe you’ll feel happier when you get started in your work
and get around with the girls. I was sure that I never could stand it to
leave home, but I just love it here now,” Cathalina’s tender heart was
sorry and troubled for this young stranger with her aching heart; though
she was somewhat chilled by the girl’s attitude.
Just then the study bell rang, and with a bow, like that of one
accustomed to a formal life, the new girl left Cathalina and hurried
away. Cathalina stopped to pick up a notebook and her fountain pen from
the chair in which she had been sitting and then walked thoughtfully
upstairs, thinking as she went that she had not learned the name of the
newcomer. “Where have I seen somebody like that before?” she wondered.
“And that manner?” But when she reached the suite there was a group of
girls just leaving for their rooms and the merry chatter put an end to
her thoughts about other things.
A few days after this incident, Cathalina, with Betty Barnes, Isabel
Hunt, Eloise Winthrop and Diane Percy were sitting in the window-seat at
the head of the front stairs when this girl swiftly passed them and went
on downstairs.
“Isn’t she a _beautiful_ girl?” said Diane.
“Yes, but you can’t get acquainted with her,” replied Eloise.
“Well, she’s just lost her father,—no wonder!” Cathalina said with
sympathy.
“Where’d she come from?” asked Isabel.
“Nobody knows. She told one girl Cincinnati, another New York and Miss
West said she was from Philadelphia. Did you see them come? The machine
had an Ohio tag on it.”
“O, did you see her come?”
“Yes; Diane and Grace and I were standing on the porch. They came in a
big closed Packard,—she and a woman that looked just like her, except
that she had dark hair and a wider face. They weren’t expected, I’m
sure, and they didn’t take out any baggage for a long time and were in
Miss Randolph’s parlor for over an hour,—we must have been in the
library an hour, weren’t we, Diane? And when we came back, there they
were, coming down the steps. The chauffeur took in a lot of baggage and
the girl came out and cried and carried on and would hardly let the
woman go. She was in black, too. The chauffeur looked cross, what we
could see of his face, and hustled the woman into the car and pointed
the girl to the Hall!”
“I bet he wasn’t a chauffeur, then,—must have been one of the family.
You don’t pay chauffeurs to boss you.”
“Listen to Sherlock Holmes! What did he look like, Diane?” Cathalina was
much interested.
“I couldn’t tell how he looked, except cross, as Eloise says. He had a
cap and goggles, you know, and was big and tall—and that’s all.”
“‘Pome’ by Diane Percy: ‘Big and tall, and that’s all.’”
“I can only talk in rhyme,” simpered Diane in falsetto.
Eloise took up the story again: “Miss Randolph came out, then, looking
worried, and we went on to our suite. I think she _is_ very handsome, as
Diane says, but there is something different about her,—I don’t know
what it is, something that isn’t _in_ her face and—O, I can’t tell what
I do mean, but I’m sure I shall never try to make her acquaintance.”
“But perhaps that is the very thing she needs,” said Cathalina. “I know
how you feel when you are shy and sort of proud too,—”
“O, _you_, Cathalina,” said Isabel, “you aren’t a bit like her. _Your_
face is sweet and hers isn’t.”
Cathalina then told of her experience in the reception room. “We must be
nice, anyway, and as good to her as possible, as she’ll let us be. I
have a funny feeling that I’ve seen her somewhere or some one with the
same features, but I can’t remember.”
“Who’s her roommate?”
“She is in the single room on the first floor, around at the end of the
corridor running west from Miss Randolph’s rooms. She just goes around
with her head in the air that way all the time, I guess, and unless she
gets over it she’ll not make many friends.”
“Well, let’s speak to her when she’ll let us. I have an idea that she’ll
change after a while. I introduced myself, but she did not tell me her
name. Do any of you know what it is?”
Nobody did.
“The Mysterious Girl of Single Room Number Blank! Betty, here’s our
title for that story we have to write in English.”
Betty had hardly said a word during this conversation, but now remarked,
“I suppose there are girls here with queer stories in their lives. If we
knew them we’d learn a whole lot.”
“Yes; maybe it’s just as well we don’t. But I guess Miss Randolph is
very careful about what girls come here. Aunt Knickerbocker said so.”
This, Isabel declared, was mystery number one at Greycliff and what was
a boarding school without _some_ mystery? To mystery number two she was
introduced that night, by no desire of her own.
The Hall was wrapped in slumber, usually quite profound, for while the
girls often grumbled about putting out lights on time, they slept
soundly and morning came all too soon. But about midnight Cathalina and
Hilary were wakened by a loud shriek that reverberated through the halls
and was followed by another; then, silence. Both frightened girls sat up
in bed and by one impulse slipped into bath robes and slippers and
opened their door, peering out, half afraid but curious, in the
corridor. This was dark, lighted only by one dim gas light at the
further end. But they could see Avalon’s ghostly face at her half open
door and Isabel leaning against the wall not far away, her face hidden
in her arm. She was shaking all over. “Sh-sh!” said Avalon, her first
thought of the teachers.
“What on earth’s the matter?” asked Hilary in a low voice. “Somebody was
screaming to beat the band!”
“O,” gasped Isabel, as she heard Hilary’s voice, and ran with open arms
toward the two girls. “I was just scared to death,” she whispered. “O,
I’ll not sleep one wink this night!”
Cathalina went on toward Avalon, whom she found trembling with fright.
“Come over to our room and tell us what the trouble was. Who screamed?”
“Isabel!”
The girls hurried into suite fifty-two, as if Satan and his legions were
after them, while Hilary was torn between a desire to laugh and
curiosity to know what was the matter. “Get right into our beds,”
ordered Hilary. So Avalon with Cathalina and Isabel with Hilary crawled
into the twin beds, which proved somewhat narrow for two. “Now tell us.”
At this point there came a tap at the outer door and Hilary jumped up to
answer it, while Isabel hastily put the covers over her head. “Who is
it?” inquired Hilary, as she unlocked the door again.
“Me,—Betty,” came the reply in Lilian’s voice. “We saw you all go in,
and Isabel’s door open,—what happened and what was that awful shriek?”
“Come on in, we’re just going to hear about it, too. Isabel did the
yelling. She was scared to death about something and the girls are in
our beds with us. I don’t know what we’ll do with you!” Hilary laughed
and pulled some blankets out of her cedar chest. “Here, take these and
pile on the bed. I shut the windows down, but it’s pretty chilly.”
By this time Isabel had recovered from her first terror and felt
strengthened by the number around her. She sat up in Hilary’s bed and
leaned over toward the other girls to say solemnly, “Well, girls, you
know the ‘Woman in Black,’ don’t you? I saw her!”
“Nonsense, Isabel, what is the ‘woman in black,’ a ghost?” This was
Hilary, of course.
“You and Betty know about her, don’t you?” persisted Isabel, turning to
Lilian.
“Why, yes,” said Lilian. “There’s a tradition at Greycliff about a
‘Woman in Black’ that walks around the halls sometimes, so they say.”
Avalon shivered and Cathalina put an arm around her. “Hurry up and tell
us, Isabel. What did she look like and how did you happen to be in the
hall or did she come into your room?” Cathalina was laughing, yet it was
“sort of spooky”, as she admitted later.
“No, she did not come in. Avalon was feeling sick and finally had such a
headache that I said I’d get up and go over to see if one of you did not
have something that would help her. I didn’t want to go up to the third
and wake Miss Wood and maybe have Avalon taken to the pest house, and
anyhow I don’t like these old dark halls. So I was kind of sleepy and
didn’t turn on the light in our room for fear some teacher would see
it—and I just got out into the hall when I heard a sort of moan and
something all black and floaty and tall, like a big shadow whisked by me
and disappeared around the corner. So there!”
“What’s your story, Avalon? Got your headache yet?”
“Not much; scared out of me, I guess. Why, I just heard Isabel scream
and went to the door and saw you and Cathalina.”
“Maybe it was a thief.”
“Or one of the servants.”
“Maybe it was the ‘mysterious girl’!”
“What would she be doing snooping around on this floor at midnight?”
“It’s a wonder all the girls are not awake—the way you screamed,
Isabel.”
“I couldn’t help it. Wouldn’t you have screamed too?”
“I suppose I would, or maybe I’d be too frightened to make a sound! But
I don’t believe it was a ‘ghost’ or would hurt anybody. Come on, we’d
better get to sleep. We’ll all take you and Avalon to your room and see
that there isn’t anybody there and then you can lock your door.”
“Wait till I fix Avalon some peppermint and soda,” said Hilary. “That’s
Mother’s favorite remedy.”
The peppermint and soda taken, a dose for Isabel as well, and the two
younger girls were escorted back to their own beds, Avalon tucked in,
while Isabel with her flashlight waited to lock the door after the girls
had departed. Hilary had wanted to take flashlights down the halls and
look for the “Woman in Black,” but Cathalina said that it would be
foolish to do it, for somebody bad might really be about and nobody
wanted to find her—or him.
“Do you suppose we ought to wake up one of the teachers, then?” asked
Hilary.
“No; I believe Isabel imagined half, or else it was one of the girls
that had been sitting up studying and didn’t want to be caught or wanted
to scare Isabel or something.”
But the next morning Alma came to Isabel’s room and told her that Miss
Randolph wanted to see her right away. Isabel immediately rushed to
Cathalina. “O, Cathalina, Alma says I’m to come to Miss Randolph’s room
right away. What do you suppose she’s going to do to me?”
“Nothing, goosey, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But I broke a rule to be out of my room.”
“You had a good reason. Just tell her the way you would your own
mother—,” then Cathalina wished she had not said just that, for Isabel
had never even know her mother. “I mean that she is kind and nice.”
“Well, anyhow, please,—_please_, Cathalina, go with me!”
“O, that would not do at all if she did not send for me.”
“Just to stay outside the door, then!”
The two girls went downstairs together, Isabel to her doom, as she said,
and Cathalina for moral support outside the door. Presently, Isabel came
out, flushed and relieved, to join Cathalina and walk with her up to her
suite. “What did Miss Randolph do?”
“She was just as nice as could be, said she had heard some of us were
frightened last night and wanted me to tell her all about it. So I did.
And all she said to me was that I’d better not say anything about it to
frighten all the girls and that there wasn’t any such thing as a ghost,
and that anyhow she is going to put on an extra night watchman, and have
somebody go through the halls occasionally at night, ‘Not to make you
feel that there is any danger, but that you are being watched over,’ she
said. Isn’t she _wonderful_?” Miss Randolph had gained another staunch
supporter in Isabel.
“How do you suppose she found out? I’m going to ask every one who told
her so early.”
“Neither Hilary or I did, I’m sure.” And when later in the day the six
girls met, not one of them was found to have taken the news to Miss
Randolph.
“Somebody must have overheard the girls talking and told her. Or perhaps
some one else was awake last night and knew it was Isabel.” So concluded
Cathalina and the rest agreed.
“But _who_ was the ‘woman in black’? because I really _saw_ one!”
declared Isabel. “I’m going to be a Sherlock Holmes from now on,—that
is, if I have time!” she wisely added.