Concerning Belinda Part 8

"Cat!" she said calmly. "Graceful, sleek, purring, ingratiatory, but cat all the same."

"She's very attractive," murmured Belinda.

"Bad eyes," Miss Barnes commented curtly.

"Handsome eyes."

"All the worse for that. Mark my words, that woman isn't to be trusted."

But Miss Barnes was alone in her verdict. Mademoiselle taught preparatory French so cleverly yet so modestly that Professor Marceau himself expressed his approval; and Professor Marceau, the distinguished and expensive French instructor-in-chief of the school, had never before unbent to a subordinate.

Under Mademoiselle's stimulus the twenty perfunctory French phrases demanded of each pupil during the progress of dinner expanded into something approaching French conversation. Amelia Bowers and Laura May Lee, who had memorized a small section of dialogue from a Labiche play, and were in the habit of reciting it to each other every evening with much expression, thereby impressing distant teachers with the idea of fluent French chat, abandoned their brilliant scheme to talk chaotic French with Mademoiselle. In the drawing-room during evening recreation hour girls who had regarded conversation with Madame Plongeon as punishment dire, crowded around Mademoiselle de Courcelles, listening breathlessly to her vivacious stories, her reminiscences of life among the French n.o.bility. The tide of flowers, fruit, candy, etc., that had flowed Belinda's way set heavily toward the new teacher. A French chaperon--once a calamity to be avoided at all costs--became the heart's desire of all shopping, theatre-going and holiday-making pupils.

"She's perfectly lovely, Miss Carewe," gushed Amelia Bowers, "and she's had the most interesting experiences. I should think you and she would be bosom friends. You couldn't help loving her if you'd just get to knowing her well. Why, every single one of our crowd has got the most dreadful crush on her. Laura May says she's just like a heroine out of a book; and you needn't think because she's so gay and jolly that she's always been happy. That's just the French way. She says the French even go to death jesting. Isn't that splendid? But she's had awful sorrows.

It would make you cry to hear her talk about them--that is, she doesn't exactly tell you about them, you know, but you can tell from the way she talks that she's had them, and that's what makes her so sympathetic and lovely about other people's troubles. Why, I could just tell her ANYTHING."

Amelia heaved a cyclonic sigh, and a.s.sumed the expression of one who could reveal much to a properly sympathetic soul.

Finding no encouragement in Belinda's face, she plunged again into praise of Mademoiselle.

"All the girls feel that way. They tell her every blessed thing that ever happened to them. Laura May says she never saw anybody before that she could reveal her most sacred feelings to. She told Mademoiselle all about Jim Benton the very first night she met her. Mademoiselle says she had almost the same sort of a time--she called it '_une affaire_'--with Comte Raoul de Cretigny, when they were both very young, but that one does get over such things. She encouraged Laura May a lot; but she said such beautiful things about first love and about how no love that came afterward could have just the same exquisite flavour--at least it wasn't exactly 'flavour' she used, and it wasn't 'bloom' either, but it was something like that. Anyway, Laura May cried bucketfuls, and yet she said she felt encouraged to hope she might forget and love again. That's like Mademoiselle. Now some people would have encouraged Laura May too much, and wouldn't have understood how sad the whole thing was, and that would have spoiled everything."

The breathless Amelia came of necessity to a full stop, and Belinda went on her way to her room with a queer little smile hovering around her lips.

Not only the emotional contingent of the school, but the sensible girls as well, appeared to come under the siren's spell.

"She's awfully clever and amusing, Miss Carewe," said Katherine Holland, Belinda's staunch and faithful satellite. "Of course I'm not dotty over her like Amelia's crowd, but she really is great fun, and I like being with her when those girls aren't around. She does talk such sentimental trash to them."

"If you want to criticise any of the teachers you may find another room and another listener, my dear." Belinda's dignified reproof was most impressive and Katherine subsided, with a murmured, "Oh, but I do like her, you know."

As the weeks pa.s.sed by the general enthusiasm gradually crystallised into particular adoration.

Mademoiselle was still universally popular, but with a certain clique she was a mania. All of the moneyed pupils belonged to this set, and their devotion was such that they were one and all unwilling to go for an outing save under convoy of the French chaperon. Even Evangeline Marie Jenkins was stirred to her depths by Mademoiselle's charm and, rising above the handicap of avoirdupois and temperament, became almost energetic in her shopping and theatre-going, in order to enjoy the privilege of the charmer's society.

At first Miss Lucilla Ryder was inclined to interfere in the interest of humanity, and save Mademoiselle de Courcelles from being imposed upon; but the little Frenchwoman met the kindly interference with good-natured protest.

"Ah, Miss Ryder, you are so good, so thoughtful," she said in her delicious French. "You have the kind heart; but I must earn my salary, and if it is in this way that I am most useful to you, let me show my goodwill, my devotion to your school, by going where the young ladies will. They amuse me--those dear children. I love being with them, and I am strong and well. I do not tire.

"But there is one thing, chere Mademoiselle Ryder. I know that the other teachers--my a.s.sociates--dislike the shopping. They object to chaperoning the young ladies upon the little expeditions to the shops.

Me, I do not mind. I am glad to go if it will save the others from a duty that is disagreeable. It has come to me that perhaps the theatre is more popular than the shopping, that it may give pleasure to chaperon to the theatre, the opera, the concert. That is so, is it not?"

Miss Ryder admitted that there might be reason in the theory.

Mademoiselle smiled, a sweet, swift smile. "Ah, it is so. Then you will do me a favour? Yes? It would be better that for the theatre other chaperons should be chosen. Me, I will take for myself all the shopping. It will give me pleasure to have it so. I will feel that it is for the happiness of my fellow-teachers, and that will give _me_ happiness. You will arrange it so, is it not?"

Miss Lucilla demurred. The arrangement was unfair. Shopping was the teachers' _bete noire_. It would not do to load all of the unpleasant duty upon one pair of shoulders.

Mademoiselle refused to be spared. She appreciated her superior's consideration, but she was bent upon being n.o.ble, and begged for martyrdom.

"After all it is not as if I, too, disliked the thing. Me, I am French.

I love the shops. Fatiguing? Yes, the young ladies are slow in making up their minds, but it is all one to me."

In the end Miss Lucilla yielded, and in due course the announcement was made in faculty meeting that Mademoiselle de Courcelles would chaperon all shopping expeditions, but would do no evening chaperoning. Miss Lucilla accompanied the announcement by a few remarks concerning the cheerful spirit in which Mademoiselle de Courcelles accepted the undesirable duty. Mademoiselle looked modestly deprecatory. The teachers were surprised and pleased. Only Miss Barnes, unmoved, eyed the willing martyr with a coolly speculative glance.

Shopping was always a vital issue with a certain set of the Ryder pupils. The girls were extravagant and amply provided with pocket-money by parents foolishly indulgent. Moreover, shopping commissions from home were many; and, though one of the school rules carefully embalmed in the circulars was to the effect that no pupil could be allowed more than one shopping expedition in any one week, this rule, like many another, was more honored in the breach than in the observance.

So Mademoiselle de Courcelles found her hands full with her self-elected task, and not a day went by without her leading forth from one to fifteen girls bent upon storming the shops.

As Christmas holidays approached, the shopping fever waxed more violent, and there was no afternoon of rest for the shopping chaperon. Not only had each of the girls a long Christmas list of purchases she must make for herself, but the lists of commissions from home grew and multiplied.

Through all the strain and stress Mademoiselle de Courcelles maintained her cheerful serenity. Her amiability never wavered, her gay volatility never flagged. The girls chorused her praises. She was the most helpful of advisers, the most wise of shoppers, the most unwearying of chaperons.

Sometimes she came home to dinner with dark circles under her eyes and lines of fatigue about her mouth, but her spirits were always intact, and even Miss Barnes admitted that the Frenchwoman was good-natured and that her amiable self-sacrifice had been a boon to the rest of the resident teachers.

During the last week of the term several annoying incidents disturbed the serenity of the Misses Ryder, and caused more or less excitement among the girls. First and most distressing was the loss of Laura May Lee's pocket-book. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances this would not have been a calamity, for Laura May's pocket-money melted away as if by magic, and her pocket-book was chronically flat. But, as it happened, Mr. Lee, a wealthy Southern widower, had been confiding enough to send Laura May a check for $500, and commission her to select two rings as Christmas presents for herself and her younger sister. The rings were chosen after several expeditions to famous jewellery shops, and at last one afternoon Laura May and a group of chosen friends, chaperoned by Mademoiselle de Courcelles, set forth to bring home the spoils.

Miss Ryder had cashed the check, the $500 in cash reposed snugly in Laura May's purse; but when, at the jeweller's, Laura May opened her shopping-bag, lo! the purse had vanished and the $500 with it--gone, evidently, to swell some pickpocket's holiday harvest.

Only a few days later Mademoiselle de Courcelles, in an interview behind closed doors, reported to Miss Ryder that a small sum of money had been stolen from her trunk, and that circ.u.mstantial evidence pointed to Ellen, one of the chamber-maids, as the thief. Mademoiselle explained that she did not mind the personal loss, but as the pupils had been complaining of the disappearance of money, jewellery, silver toilet articles, etc., she felt it her duty to report her suspicions.

Miss Lucilla promptly ordered Ellen's trunks and bureau drawers searched and, a gold hatpin belonging to Evangeline Marie Jenkins having materialized in one of the bureau drawers, Ellen, weeping and to the last protesting her innocence, was summarily turned out of the house.

After this excitement, school life flowed on smoothly until the last Sat.u.r.day before the holiday vacation.

"The whole school's going shopping to-day," Amelia Bowers announced at the breakfast table on this particular Sat.u.r.day morning. "Everybody's got a Christmas list a mile long, and it's going to be something awful.

The stores will be simply jammed and it'll take an hour to buy a paper of pins."

Miss Lucilla Ryder smiled tolerantly and omitted her usual criticism of Amelia's extravagant speech.

"You will need a.s.sistance to-day, Mademoiselle de Courcelles. I will send some of the young ladies out with other teachers."

She did; but Mademoiselle's ardent admirers were faithful, and she started out at half-past nine in charge of twelve of the richest girls in the school.

From shop to shop the flock fluttered, chattering, giggling, elbowing their way through the crowds, buying many things, inspecting more, meeting smiles and good nature on every hand. There's something about the effervescent exuberance of a boarding-school crowd that thaws even the icy hauteur of the average saleswoman, and stirs any salesman to spectacular affability.

It was after a hasty and simple luncheon, beginning with lobster salad and ending with tutti-frutti ice cream and chocolate eclairs, that the Ryder expedition drifted into a well-known jewellery shop.

Belinda, helping Katherine Holland to choose a stickpin for her brother, saw the familiar faces and idly watched the girls as they bore down upon a counter where a bland salesman greeted them with welcoming smiles. She knew that Laura May was once more in quest of rings--her long-suffering father having dutifully forwarded a second cheque when told, in a tear-blotted letter, of the fate that had met the first gift--and she smiled when Laura May triumphantly fished a chamois-skin bag out of her blouse front and extracted a roll of bills which she clutched firmly in her hand, while her glance, roaming suspiciously over the surrounding crowd, glared defiance at all pickpockets.

Suddenly Belinda's smile faded. Her eyes opened wide in amazement.

She had seen a swift, deft movement of Mademoiselle's hand--but no, it was impossible. She had imagined it. Yet she stood staring in a bewildered fashion at the Frenchwoman until Katherine touched her arm.

"What's the matter, Miss Carewe? I'm ready to go."

Belinda smiled vaguely, and moved toward the door in the wake of Mademoiselle and her charges, who were also leaving. She lost sight of them in the crowd; but, as she neared the door, there was a sudden swirling eddy in the incoming and outgoing tides. Something was happening outside. The sound of excited girlish voices floated into the shop. A crowd was forming on the sidewalk.

Belinda's cheeks flamed scarlet. A look of startled comprehension gleamed in her eyes.