Helen Grant's Schooldays Part 28

"You are so reserved. Don't you really like girls?"

"I like you. I have ever since that day you first talked to me. But you have so many friends, and I do not want to intrude. I do not know how to make friends," hesitatingly, while the tears flooded her eyes.

"Were you compelled to live alone?" Helen did not want to seem over curious. She had visions of some queer old aunt who had shut her doors to everybody.

"Yes. I'd like to tell you some things I could not tell Mrs. Aldred; at least, my guardian's wife advised me not to be too frank about my life, since it probably would not interest anybody, or if it did they would pretend to admire me and care for the money's sake and what they could get out of me. Grandfather always said so. I don't know as he meant me to have it all, but he left no will, and as there was no one else it had to come to me."

"I'd like to hear about it if you did not mind. And--if you would like to be friends----"

"Oh, you don't know how dreary it is to be so much alone. Mrs. Davis thought the school such a foolish plan. But I was so ignorant. I didn't feel that I could go into society without knowing something. And I have learned a good deal by watching the girls. Many of them have such lovely manners. But if I had just one friend to talk things over with----"

There was such a longing in her tone that it seemed fairly to sweep through Helen.

"I don't know whether I should be a very judicious friend." Oh, if Mrs.

Van Dorn could only set this girl straight, she thought, for that lady's wisdom had come to be nearly the whole book of the world for Helen. "But if you liked to try me. I should be true, I can answer for that," and the trustiness rang in her voice.

"I've really had no one but Mrs. Davis, and I haven't been drawn to her, although she has been very kind. Yet she is so different from Mrs.

Aldred, and I can't tell which is nearer right. Only I _do_ enjoy it better here. It is more like the harmony in music. Then I am confused in a big city, and I really couldn't go into society."

"How did you come to live so much alone?" inquired Helen, feeling as if she was unraveling a story.

"Father died when Arthur and I were very little, and mother went home to his father's. It's a queer, curious place with great mountainous ridges on one side, and on the other, to the south, stretches of land, good for nothing much, being iron fields, a sort of dreary waste, not considered good enough in ore to be worked much. Grandfather had bought it twenty or thirty years before in a great speculating time, then it had dropped down. I suppose the misfortunes soured him. He had a small farm beside, kept a cow, and an old nag, and pigs and chickens. Mother was his daughter-in-law. The house up in the mountainside was old and forlorn, but as grandfather said, 'It didn't leak and it couldn't blow over.' The little town was more than a mile away. I used to go in to school when the weather wasn't too bad. Arthur died soon after we went there. He was older than I. Grandfather had not really cared for me, he was queer and morose, and that disappointed him. Girls were of very little account except to keep house and mend old clothes. I did love school and study.

"When I was about thirteen there was a very hard winter, and mother took a cold. I suppose it was consumption. She just grew weaker and thinner, and really didn't give up until a few weeks before she died. She was a good deal troubled about me. I've seen that plainer since than I did then. And she kept saying, 'If any good ever comes to you, any money or any time, get an education. And don't marry any man until you have acquired that.'

"It was very lonely when she was gone, and I had the house to keep.

Oxford village wasn't very much, three or four hundred people, and mostly farms, just one little spot with a church, schoolhouse, country store and post-office. I couldn't go to school any more, grandfather always went to town with b.u.t.ter and eggs and the produce he could spare.

I lost track of folks as one may say. Grandfather didn't believe in church-going, and I seldom had anything nice to wear. We were real hermits. You see I _was_ kept pretty busy. But I used to study the old books over. There were two or three music books, and I learned to read music just for a pastime. Then I made a sort of keyboard and used to practise. I meant to have a piano if I was fifty years old.

"A year ago in August, a man who had a new way of separating iron ore, and was concerned with a railroad surveying a new route, struck Oxford, and was surprised that it had lain unimproved so long. A company was formed that pushed things, and they wanted to buy out grandfather. There was a great deal of wrangling and they were at the house nearly every day. The rails were laid and a big smelting furnace begun. In six months no one would have known the place. One stretch of land they were quite in doubt about buying when it was discovered to have a vein of very valuable iron in it, hemat.i.te, and then he would not sell it, but leased it to the company for five years and he was to have a percentage on every ton of iron taken out of it. He still had the farm and we went on as usual, but it seemed as if he was more and more difficult to get along with and grew more sordid in his views. Of course there was always plenty to eat, but I did long for some of the other enjoyments. To spend half of my life in that wild spot seemed unendurable.

"One bl.u.s.tering March day he had been out on the ridge all the afternoon, but though he ate a hearty supper he complained of feeling cold. I made him a hot drink and put a brick steaming with herbs to his feet. The next morning he had fever and was flighty, but he wouldn't consent to have a doctor. And when he was wild with delirium and I sent, it was too late. In five days he was dead with pneumonia. It seemed dreadful that he should die on the eve of prosperity, but I wonder if he would have done anything worth while with his wealth.

"There was no will. I was the only heir, though a cousin did come from parts unknown and was easily bought off as he had no real claim. This Mr. Davis had been doing some of the business for grandfather, and was a director I believe. There had to be an administrator and a guardian appointed for me, and then I found I was a rich young woman, with a prospect of being richer still. Mrs. Davis took me in her house and was very kind to me. But I had a feeling that I wanted the education I had so hungered for and missed. She proposed a year in a convent to be trained in ladylike ways. I had a longing to know what real girls were like; I wanted to go to some nice quiet school and have that training before I went out in the world. I was afraid of society women, and I did not want to be married out of hand.

"There was a Mrs. Howard who came to stay at the summer home of Mrs.

Davis. She was not so full of pleasure as some of the ladies, and once when they were all out on the golf links we had a walk and a talk, and she thought my desire to go to some small quiet school a very good one.

She had a niece educated here and admired her training very much. She wrote for me and forwarded me the answer, and then I wrote, and this is the result. Mrs. Aldred is kindness itself, and agreed that private lessons would be best until I could begin to compete with other girls.

What I have gathered is such desultory knowledge, and I'm like a child in some things. Oh, can't you see that? And I _am_ afraid of being laughed at.

"You all seem so bright, so ready with your talk, you know so much that I envy you. And if I am going to be a rich woman I want to know and to do some of the best things. I don't believe I could be satisfied with buying gowns and going to parties. There, it is a long story, and it is odd to tell it to you, only there is such a look in your eyes at times that it seemed to me you would understand and _not_ laugh or hold me up to ridicule."

There was an almost breathless intensity in the face, a half fear as well, but the telling of her sad story had roused her from her ordinary apathy.

"I certainly should not ridicule you," Helen began decisively. "Why, I think it is very brave of you to want to be educated when you could lead a life of ease and pleasure. And I am beginning to suspect that a love of knowledge is _not_ universal, but I like it myself. There is so much in the world that I wonder women do not keep going on as some of the men do. Only then, I suppose, they wouldn't marry. And you would have to be quite rich to do it."

CHAPTER XIII

A LITTLE SEED SOWN

The two girls rocked slowly back and forth, stealing side-wise glances at each other. Helen was very glad there was nothing derogatory in the story. She seemed to understand the sort of man grandfather Craven was; there were two or three of them about Hope, if they had no iron mines in prospect. They did not believe in education in modern methods, nor anything but saving up money. How did it look to grandfather Craven on the other side of the river, she wondered?

"I wish I could help you," Helen began presently. All her sympathy went out to the girl of nineteen who was very little older than herself, who had lost four or five of the choicest years out of her life. If it had been because her mother was an invalid all that time, one could see the use of it. Or if her grandfather had been poorly and needed care.

"Oh, you have helped me by understanding as you do," returned Miss Craven. "And now when I catch a glance of your eye it will give me courage."

"I am sure you are right. And if some of the girls knew your story----"

"Oh, no, no!" with quick, pained apprehension, "I shouldn't want them to. I hope you----"

Juliet Craven felt she could trust this girl without a word, that it would be almost an insult to doubt her integrity. Why, she did not know.

She was not sufficiently versed in human nature to explain its intricacies.

"If you mean that I could not betray a confidence, you are just right there," with a heightened color. "But Miss Grace is wise and judicious and understands girls."

"Only--I don't know as I can make it clear, but I am afraid of almost everybody. I have lived alone so much, I think I am like someone who has been blind for years and whose eyes are suddenly opened, and he cannot judge accurately of anything. I hear the girls at times mapping out characters with such a degree of certainty that I envy them. I do not seem to know how to judge anyone."

"And their judgment isn't right half the time," laughed Helen. "It takes a great deal of wisdom and experience to do this, and I do not believe any young schoolgirl has enough. I haven't. I've changed my mind ever so many times about some of the girls until I almost began to think I hadn't any mind at all."

Juliet Craven smiled at that. If this bright girl could not judge correctly--but then she was not fifteen, and she, Juliet, more than four years older.

"I am glad someone knows it all. I have only told half to Mrs. Aldred, though I suppose Mrs. Howard explained why I was so backward. Oh, do you think I shall ever catch up?" and there was a piteous anxiety in her voice.

"Why, you have done a great deal in music in this brief time."

"But I love music so. And literature enchants me. But a.n.a.lysis of language, and higher mathematics--I never shall master them I know. I think no one could trip me up on spelling, however. When I found a difficult word in a book I spelled it over for days," and the faint impression of a smile crossed her lips. "But the meanings puzzle me. It is hard oftentimes to think of the correct word, and that makes me afraid to talk."

"I have always had a good many to talk to, and that must make a difference," and the thought of living almost alone on a mountain, out of the reach of people, crossed Helen's mind and gave her a shudder.

"Oh, I don't see how you lived so alone!" she cried vehemently.

"It was dreadful after mother was gone. If I could have gone down in town once in awhile, but there was so much to do, and grandfather always said he didn't want women folks bothering round when he went anywhere.

Then it was so far to church, though I did go once in a great while when I had anything to wear. But the girls I had known in school forgot me, and were married, or busy about other things. And I somehow grew used to talking to the dumb creatures and the denizens of the woods. I always kept thinking that something would happen and I'd have a chance. And I resolved that I would go to school and get an education as mother wished. But I never thought how hard it would be to begin back like a child a dozen or so years old. You see grandfather was seventy-six when mother died, and my vague plan was when he had gone, to sell everything and go away. I couldn't ever have dreamed of so much money. And now I don't know what to do with it. Mrs. Davis said it would all come right when I married some nice man, who would take care of it and manage it for me, but Mrs. Howard said get some education first, and I would be better able to know what I wanted. Though I am sure I don't want to be married."

"The education will certainly be best," Helen returned with the gravity of twenty. "And I think you ought not be discouraged so soon."

"There is so much more to learn than I had any idea of. And when I look ahead----"

"Oh, don't look ahead," cried Helen laughingly. "Just live day by day, 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,' and I wonder if the good will not be sufficient also! It is only about a year ago that I cared anything for education, I was just a country girl too, and suddenly roused, I didn't know how I _could_ compa.s.s it when a way was opened. I can have two splendid years, and I mean to crowd them full. I don't know what will happen after that, and I am not going to worry about it. You can have all the years you are minded to take, and you will succeed, I know."

The tone was buoyant, inspiriting. To Helen the prospect was enchanting.

Already she had learned what a factor money was, what a blessing to have enough of it that one need not feel anxious about the future. She would settle her plans at once. Stay three years here at Aldred House, then go to college. During the four years there would be plenty of time to arrange the rest. In her case it would be teaching.

"How comforting you are!" and there was both depth and sincerity in the tone.