A Colony of Girls Part 36

"What can I do?"

"Nothing at present. We must wait, and see what happens. Oh! I am very hopeful for the future."

When they were in bed and the lights were out, Nan ventured to ask:

"Don't you think Guy will ever return to Hetherford?"

"I don't know, dear," Helen replied, with a sound of tears in her voice.

Nan longed to shake her, to say "You ought to know; it depends solely upon you; why don't you do something about it?" but she felt she had gone far enough for one night, and turning over on her pillow, fell fast asleep.

Nan was only a country-bred la.s.s, and yet not all her separation from the world and from her fellow-creatures could shut her out from an unerring comprehension of human nature. Her wide sympathies taught her to understand Helen's coldness toward a lover whose one fault was that he had demanded too little and yielded too much; and she was too thorough an artist not to fully appreciate the wonderful spell that beauty such as Miss Stuart's casts upon certain natures.

The next day the rain came down in sheets, and nothing drearier could be imagined than the Hetherford station, where Helen and Nathalie awaited the arrival of their friends, who were to depart on the train which was now almost due. Presently the old omnibus backed up to the platform, and from its damp interior the Hills and Andrews slowly emerged, their faces as gloomy as the leaden sky above, as they went through the irksome task of buying tickets and checking trunks. Nan came rus.h.i.+ng in upon the scene just as the train drew up at the station. There were a few hurried words of farewell, and then, with a clanging of bells and puffing of steam, the train sped on its way to the far-off city. When the three girls clambered into the Lawrences'

great closed rockaway, they felt sorely tempted to give way to tears and lamentations. The horses splashed through the mud, the rain beat against the windowpanes, the east wind wailed and sighed through the trees. Nan got out at the parsonage, and in silence the two sisters drove on to the manor. Nathalie threw off her hat and coat, and seating herself at the big table in the center of the hall-way, began a long letter to Jean. From the fireside Helen watched her for a few moments and then mounted slowly to her room, feeling too dispirited for even Aunt Helen's society.

By and by a soft little voice from without begged for admission, and she opened the door and gladly drew Gladys into the room.

"Baby, you are just the little girlie I wanted. Sister feels very dull and lonely to-day."

"Me too," echoed Gladys, as she climbed into her lap.

"Well, well, that is too bad. We shall have to comfort each other."

"What is comfort, sister?"

"Comfort, Dolly? Why to comfort anyone is to try to make them happy when something is troubling them."

"Auntie says I'se her comfort," Gladys affirmed, with a wise little nod of her head.

"So you are, pet, and not only Auntie's, but mine too."

The child nestled down contentedly in her sister's arms. Her big eyes, wandering about the room, rested at length upon a large folding frame of photographs which stood on the mantel.

"I wish Jeanie didn't go 'way," she said in a pathetic little voice.

"What made you think of Jean, dear?"

"'Cause I just was lookin' at her picture."

Helen lifted her eyes to the mantel.

"So you were. We all miss Jean very much, don't we, darling?"

"Who's that, sister?" asked Gladys, pointing to the photograph next to the one of Jean.

"Don't you know?"

"I kind of 'member, but I ain't sure."

"Have you forgotten Mr. Appleton, Gladys--Guy Appleton?" queried Helen in a low tone.

"Oh, now I 'member," cried Gladys gleefully. "Don't you know the little kitty he gave me? Larry harnessed her to my little wed cart, an' she wan up the willow tree with it." And at the recollection, the child burst into a merry peal of laughter.

Helen laughed, too, in sympathy, and then it came back to her how nicely Guy had spoken to the children, telling them that what was fun to them was suffering to poor kitty, and impressing upon them how unkind and cowardly it was to be cruel to any living creature.

They talked on thus, this big and little sister, until twilight had come. Then Helen put the child down from her lap, and sent her off to the nursery for her supper. As she turned back into the room, her eyes could just discern the outline of the frame upon the mantel, but although the photographs within it were quite obscured by the dusk, Guy's face rose before her with startling distinctness. She dropped into a chair, and a dismal little laugh broke from her.

"Oh, dear, I wish Gladys and Nan had both kept still. Now I don't know what I do want."

Week followed week monotonously, with little to mark the flight of time save the arrival of letters from Jean and the Appletons. Jean wrote cheerfully, declaring that she was much better and in excellent spirits, but Mrs. Appleton's reports were much less encouraging.

"Jean never complains," she wrote, "and seems filled with a restless desire to keep constantly on the move, but she still looks very fragile, and I sometimes fear that all at once she will break down completely. However, you must not be anxious, about her, for perhaps I am needlessly so. Mrs. Fay expects to return home at Christmas time, and I imagine that by then Jean will be quite ready to accompany her."

The last week in November Helen went to town to spend Thanksgiving with the Hills.

"It seemed almost selfish to take you away from Nathalie," Eleanor said, as they drove rapidly away from the station through the noisy, crowded streets, "but I was longing for a sight of someone from Hetherford, and I thought it would be such fun to begin to do our Christmas shopping together. A little later the shops are so terribly overcrowded."

The first few days of Helen's visit were pa.s.sed chiefly in this wise, and partly because her time was so fully occupied, and partly because of a curiously uncomfortable feeling which she could not shake off, she neglected to let Miss Stuart know that she was in town. On the fourth evening after her arrival they dined at a famous restaurant with an uncle and aunt of Eleanor's and two youths of the _jeunesse doree_. Helen had felt very shy at first, but this was fast wearing off, and she was talking quite naturally and pleasantly with her companion, when a party of two ladies and half a dozen men entered the room, and selecting a table at a short distance from where Eleanor and her friends were seated, grouped themselves about it; their loud talking and easy a.s.surance attracting universal attention. Helen stared at them a little curiously, and then, as one of the ladies drew off her long tan gloves and let her gaze wander slowly around the room, she gave a sudden start. At the same instant the lady's glance met Helen's, and the recognition was mutual. Miss Stuart gracefully inclined her head, a certain surprise in her eyes, and Helen flushed crimson as she returned the bow.

"Why, there is Miss Stuart," exclaimed Eleanor. "I can't imagine why she chooses such a companion as Mrs. Desborough."

"And why should Miss Stuart be so particular?" laughed the man at her side. "It would be the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn't it?"

Eleanor broke in hurriedly, with some totally irrelevant remark, but the words had reached Helen's ears. The color died out of her face, and from that moment her companion found her silent and absent-minded.

As they pa.s.sed out of the restaurant, Miss Stuart bowed smilingly to Eleanor and turned a steady level glance on Helen.

"Who were you bowing to?" asked Mrs. Desborough from the other side of the table.

"To Miss Hill and her friend Miss Lawrence," Miss Stuart replied a little stiffly.

"What?" laughed the man at her side, "not that demure little girl who was dining with Miss Hill?"

"The very same. She is a great friend of mine."

"Oh, come now, don't tell me that. You two never hit it off together."

Miss Stuart frowned.

"You will oblige me by not discussing the subject," she returned, in a tone so unlike her usual careless, flippant one that her companion was impressed by it. "I like her infinitely better than any woman I have ever known."

"By Jove, I believe you are in earnest!"

"Don't believe anything," she answered sharply, and turning to the man on her left plunged at once into a reckless flirtation.

CHAPTER XIX.