Dorothy at Oak Knowe Part 11

Only one who might have enjoyed the fun was out of it. Gwendolyn was in the hospital, in the furthest west wing: for the time being a nervous and physical wreck from her experience at the Maiden's Bath.

Even yet n.o.body dared speak to her of that terrible time, for it made her so hysterical; and for some reason she shrank from Dorothy's visits of inquiry and sympathy more than from any other's. But this seemed ungrateful to Lady Jane, her mother, now in residence at the school to care for and be near her daughter. She determined this "nonsense" must be overcome and had especially begged Dolly to come to the sick room, dressed for the party, and to relate in detail all that had happened on that dreadful day.

So Dorothy had slipped away from her mates, to oblige Lady Jane, but dreading to meet the girl she had saved, yet who still seemed to dislike her. She wore her gipsy costume of scarlet, a little costume that she had worn at home at a similar party, and a dainty scarlet mask would be added later on. She looked so graceful and winsome, as she tapped at the door, that Lady Jane exclaimed as she admitted her:

"Why, you darling! What a picture you have made of yourself! I must give you a good kiss--two of them! One for myself and Gwen and one for the Aunt Betty you love."

Then the lady led her in to the low chair beside Gwen's bed, with a tenderness so motherly that Dorothy lost all feeling of awkwardness with the sick girl.

"Now, my child, I must hear every detail of that afternoon. My darling daughter is really much better. I want her to get over this dread of what is past, and safely so. I'm sure your story of the matter will help her to think of it calmly."

She waited for Dorothy to begin, and at last she did, making as light of the affair as of an ordinary playground happening.

"Why, it wasn't anything. Really, it wasn't, except that Gwen took such a cold and grieved so because other folks had to find where the hidden cascade was. She just got so eager with her drawing that she didn't notice how close she got to the edge of the rock. If I had stayed awake, instead of going to sleep, I should have seen and caught her before she slipped. I can't forgive myself for that."

The Lady Jane shook a protesting head.

"That was no fault in you, Dorothy. Go on."

"When I waked up, she was in the water, and she didn't understand how to get out. She couldn't swim, you know, but I can. So, course, I just jumped in and caught her. There was a big branch bent down low and I caught hold of that. She caught hold of me, but not both my arms, and so--so--I could pull us both out."

Dorothy did not add that her arm had been so strained she could not yet use it without pain.

"Oh! thank G.o.d for you, my dear!" cried the mother, laying her hand upon Gwendolyn's shoulder, who had turned toward the wall and lay with her face hidden. "And after that? Somebody said you stripped off your own jacket and wrapped it around her."

"It wasn't as nice as hers, but you see she was cold, and I thought she wouldn't mind for once. I borrowed her bathrobe once and she didn't like it, and now she'd borrowed my jacket and didn't like that, I suppose."

"Like it! Doubtless it helped to save her life, too, or her from pneumonia. Oh! if you hadn't been there! If--" sobbed the mother.

"But there wasn't any 'if,' Lady Jane; 'cause if I hadn't seen the falls and made her see them, too, she wouldn't have been near hand. If she'd gone with the girl she wanted to, nothing at all would have happened. Some way it got mixed up so she had to walk with me and that's all. Only once we got out of the water onto the ground, I started yelling, and I must have done it terrible loud. Else Mr. Hugh wouldn't have heard me and followed my yells. He'd gone long past us, hunting with his gun, and he heard me and came hurrying to where the sound was. So he just put his coat around her and made her get up and walk. He had to speak to her real cross before she would, she was so dazed and mis'able. But she did at last, and he knew all those woods by heart. And the directions of them, which way was north, or south, or all ways.

"It was a right smart road he took for roughness, so that sometimes we girls stumbled and fell, but he wouldn't stop. He kept telling us that, and saying: 'Only a little further now!' though it did seem to the end of the world. And by and by we came out of the woods to a level road, and after a time to a little farmhouse. Mr. Hugh made the farmer hitch up his horse mighty quick and wrap us in blankets and drove us home--fast as fast. And, that's all. I'm sorry Gwendolyn took such a cold and I hope when she gets well she'll forgive me for going to sleep that time. And, please, Lady Jane, may I go now? Some of the girls are waiting for me, 'cause they want me in the parade."

"Surely, my dear: and thank you for telling me so long a story. I wanted it at first hands and I wanted Gwendolyn to hear it, too. Good night and a happy, happy evening. It's really your own party, I hear; begged by yourself from the Bishop for your schoolmates' pleasure. I trust the lion's share of that pleasure may be your own."

As Dorothy left the room, with her graceful farewell curtsey, the girl on the bed turned back toward her mother and lifted a tear-wet face.

"Why, Gwen, dearest, surely she didn't make you nervous again, did she? She described your accident so simply and in such a matter of course way. She seemed to blame the whole matter on herself; first her discovery of the waterfall, then her falling asleep. She is a brave, unselfish girl. Hoping you 'would forgive' her--for saving your life!"

"Oh, mother, don't! You can't guess how that hurts me. 'Forgive her'!

Can she ever in this world forgive me!" And again the invalid's face was hidden in the covers, while her body shook with sobs; that convinced Lady Jane that n.o.body, not even her anxious self, knew how seriously ill her daughter was.

"My child, my child, don't grieve so! It is all past and gone. I made a mistake in forcing you to meet the companion of your disaster and hearing the story from her, but please do forget it for my sake. You are well--or soon will be; and the sooner you gain some strength, you'll be as happy as ever."

"I shall never be happy again--never. I want to go away from here. I never want to see Oak Knowe again!" wailed Gwendolyn with fresh tears.

"Go away? Why, darling, you have always been happier here than in any other place. At home you complain of your brothers, and you think my home rules harder than the Lady Princ.i.p.al's. Besides, I've just settled the boys at school and with you here, I felt free to make all my plans for a winter abroad. Don't be nonsensical. Don't spoil everything by foolishness concerning an accident that ended so well.

I don't understand you, dearest, I certainly do not."

a.s.sembly Hall had been cleared for the entertainment. Most of the chairs had been removed, only a row of them being left around the walls for the benefit of the invited guests. These were the friends and patrons of the school from the near by city and from the country houses round about.

Conspicuous among these was old John Gilpin in his Sunday suit, his long beard brushed till each hair hung smooth and separate, his bald head polished till it shone, and himself the most ill at ease of all the company. Beside him sat the little widow, Robin's mother; without whom, John had declared, he would "not stir hand nor hoof" toward any such frivolity, and the good Dame abetting him in the matter. She had said:

"No, Mrs. Locke, no more he shall. I can't go, it's bread-settin'

night, and with my being so unwieldy and awkward like--I'd ruther by far stay home. Robin will be all right. The dear lad's become the very apple of my eye and I e'enamost dread his gettin' well enough to go to work again. A bit of nonsense, like this of Dorothy's gettin'-up, 'll do you more good nor medicine. I've said my say and leave it said. If John could go in his clean smock, he'd be all right, even to face that Lady Princ.i.p.al that caught him cavortin' like a silly calf. But 'twould be an obligement to me if you'd go along and keep him in countenance."

Of course, Mrs. Locke could do no less for a neighbor who had so befriended her and Robin: so here she was, looking as much the lady in her cheap black gown as any richer woman there. Also, so absorbed she was in keeping old John from trying to "cut and run," or doing anything else that would have mortified his wife.

The Lady Princ.i.p.al had herself hesitated somewhat before the cottagers were invited, fearing their presence would be offensive to more aristocratic guests, but the good Bishop had heartily endorsed Dorothy's plea for them and she accepted his decision.

In any case, she need not have feared. For suddenly there sounded from the distance the wailing of a violin, so weird and suggestive of uncanny things, that all talking ceased and all eyes turned toward the wide entrance doors, through which the masqueraders must come.

Everything within the great room had been arranged with due attention to "effect." In its center a great "witches' caldron" hung suspended from three poles, and a lantern hung above it, where the bobbing for apples would take place. Dishes of salt, witch-cakes of meal, jack-o'-lanterns dimly lighted, odors of brimstone, daubs of phosphorus here and there--in fact, everything that the imaginations of the maskers could conceive, or reading suggest as fit for Hallowe'en, had been prepared.

The doleful music drew nearer and nearer and as the lights in the Hall went out, leaving only the pale glimmer of the lanterns, even the most indifferent guests felt a little thrill run through their nerves. Then the doors slowly opened and there came through them a ghostly company that seemed endless. From head to foot each "ghost" was draped in white, even the extended hand which held a lighted taper was gloved in white, and the whole procession moved slowly to the dirge which the unseen musicians played.

After a circuit of the great room, they began a curious dance which, in reality, was a calisthenic movement familiar to the everyday life of these young actors, but, as now performed, seemed weird and nerve-trying even to themselves. Its effect upon others was even more powerful and upon John Gilpin, to send him into a shivering fit that alarmed Mrs. Locke.

"Why, Mr. Gilpin, what's the matter? Are you ill?"

"Seems if--seems if--my last hour's come! Needn't tell me--them's--just--just plain schoolgirls! They--they're spooks right out the graveyard, sure as preachin' and I wish--I hadn't come! And there's no end of 'em! And it means--somethin' terr'ble! I wish--do you suppose--Ain't there a winder some'ers nigh? Is this Hall high up?

Could I--could I climb out it?"

The poor little widow was growing very nervous herself. Her companion's positive terror was infecting her and she felt that if this were her promised "fun" she'd had quite enough of it, and would be as glad as he to desert the gathering.

Suddenly the movement changed. The slowly circling ghosts fell into step with the altered music, which, still a wailing minor, grew fast and faster, until with a crash its mad measure ended. At that instant, and before the lights were turned on, came another most peculiar sound. It was like the patter of small hoofs, the "ih-ih-ihing" of some terrified beast; and all ears were strained to listen while through those open doors came bounding and leaping, as if to escape its own self--What?

From her perch on Dr. Winston's knees, Miss Millikins-Pillikins identified it as:

"The debbil! The debbil!"

Old John sprang to his feet and shrieked, while, as if attracted by his cry, the horrible object made straight for him and with one vicious thrust of its dreadful head knocked him down.

CHAPTER VIII

PEER AND COMMONER

The lights flashed out. The ghostly wrappings fell from the figures which had been halted by the sudden apparition that had selected poor John Gilpin as its victim, though, in knocking him down it had knocked common sense back into his head. For as he lay sprawled on the floor the thrusts of that demoniac head continued and now, instead of frightening, angered him. For there was something familiar in the action of his a.s.sailant. Recovering his breath, he sat up and seized the horns that were prodding his Sunday suit, and yelled:

"Quit that, Baal, you old rascal! Dressin' up like the Old Boy, be ye?

Well, you never could ha' picked out a closer fit! But I'll strip ye bare--you cantankerous old goat, you Baal!"

Away flew the mask of the evil spirit which some ingenious hand had fastened to the animal's head, and up rose such a shout of laughter as made the great room ring. The recent "ghosts" swarmed about the pair, still in masks and costumes, and a lively chase of Baal followed.

The goat had broken away from the irate old man, as soon as might be, and John had risen stiffly to his feet. But his bashfulness was past.

Also, his lameness was again forgotten, as one masquerader after another whirled about him, catching his coat skirts or his arm and laughingly daring him: