Hester's Counterpart Part 14

"Poor Aunt Harriet!" said Helen. "If only she would give up hope. She is wearing herself out in this way."

Hester was delighted with this new acquaintance. She had known few boys.

Jane Orr's brother, Ralph, had been her ideal of what a boy should be.

Jane had not let his good qualities pa.s.s unnoticed. But Hester was inclined to think that Robert Vail surpa.s.sed Ralph in every particular.

Helen had told her much of this one cousin who took the place of brother to her. He was in his last year in medical college, and had led his cla.s.s for three full years. Yet he was not a bookish man. He was of a social nature, fond of company, and outdoor life, taking as much interest in cross-country walks and athletics as he did in his studies.

Hester was thinking of these matters while Helen and Robert were talking. She had been sitting with her eyes upon the floor, listening in a half abstracted fashion. She raised her eyes suddenly to find Robert Vail's eyes fixed on her in scrutiny. Her cheeks grew crimson and she looked away.

"I beg pardon," cried the young man, "I seem destined to annoy you with my rudeness. The first time I met you I mistook you for Helen. The resemblance is not so marked now that I see you together."

"Yet we are often mistaken for each other," said Helen, "if the hall is just a little dark, the girls mistake us. Often I am called Hester."

"It would have to be very dark if I were to mistake you now after once seeing you together.

"I wish to explain to Miss Alden why I was looking so intently at her now. I've seen my mother sitting that way many a time. There was something about you which made me think of her."

"You told me she was very beautiful," said Hester, saucily turning toward Helen.

"Hester Alden, are you really fishing for compliments?" asked Helen, pretending to be shocked at Hester's question.

"There is really no use of fishing when the compliments are floating on the surface within your reach," said the young man gallantly.

This was all very pleasing to Hester. She had not been accustomed to receiving such compliments or attention and she felt quite grown up and elegant.

Robert Vail's gallant manner was of short duration. He looked at Hester again, and grew quite serious. Very strange ideas came to him. He had a queer feeling that somehow his mother had made a mistake in not calling at the seminary that morning, and that he stood nearer the truth than he had ever stood before. These thoughts prompted him to turn to Hester with questions which were pertinent and personal.

"Where do you live, Miss Alden?" Hester told him. She wondered as she did so why he had asked the question as though it were of moment.

"Who are your people? Have you always lived there?"

He had touched Hester on the one delicate subject of her life. She had pride enough for several girls. Not even Aunt Debby knew how her lack of parentage and name had hurt her. She had never permitted herself to think of it, lest she should grow depressed and unhappy. And to think that now this Robert Vail whom she had liked so much, had presumed to question her. Like a flash, it came to her that perhaps he had met Kate Bowerman or Abner Stout and they had told him that she had been left a waif on Debby Alden's hands and that her people had cared so little for her that they never came to find her.

For an instant, pride was up in arms. Her one thought was to defend herself at whatever cost. All Aunt Debby's precious training was flung to the winds. She raised her head proudly and looked directly at him. In her eyes was a look of defiance; the crimson of annoyance and shame flamed on her cheeks.

"Who are my people?" she repeated his question. "As my name is Alden, I presume my people also were of that name. My father and mother died when I was a babe, and my father's sister, my Aunt Debby Alden reared me."

Her annoyance was evident. Robert Vail was vexed with himself for having caused it. "I am always falling into error, Miss Alden. If you forgive me this once more, I shall promise not to annoy you again. I fancy my question was personal. I asked it because of the resemblance to my mother and cousin. It came to me that you might be a relative. Though I doubt if you would wish to claim us. We are a bad lot. I am really the only fair specimen among them."

"Such insufferable conceit," said Helen. "Everyone knows that it keeps all the other members of the family taking care of you."

"Which proves what I have just said. I am the family jewel. It behooves them to take care of me, lest I be lost or stolen." Turning to Hester, he held out his hand. "Am I forgiven?" he asked.

Hester, ashamed and abashed, laid her hand within his. "I am sorry I spoke so hastily," she said. But the red did not leave her cheeks, nor the hurt look from her eyes. She blushed for the statement she had made.

"'My father was Aunt Debby's brother.' It was a lie--nothing less than a lie," she kept saying to herself and the thought spoiled the entire day for her. It spoiled more than that, too. Perhaps, had she told the truth, she would never again have need to blush for her lack of name or to misunderstand her people for not coming in search for her. Her little sin bore its own fruits with it; yet Hester believed she was paying the debt by being sorry and ashamed.

"About your going with me," Robert turned to his cousin. "Mother said I was to play escort and take you anywhere you wished to go."

"Aunt Harriet's not coming may make a difference. The preceptress gave me permission to go with the understanding that we were in your mother's charge."

"I shall take as good care of you as mother. Better care, I fancy, for she would be helpless if she had to manage a machine."

"It is the idea of not living up to the conditions," replied Helen. "If you and Hester will excuse me, I will explain to Miss Burkham. Perhaps, she will not object to my going with you. She would if you were not a cousin."

She went directly to the preceptress and in a few moments returned with that lady herself, who listened to the story of the difficulties.

"We intended stopping to see Aunt Debby," said Hester. "I wrote her a note yesterday, telling her to expect us."

"You may go under these conditions," said Miss Burkham, "that you go directly to Miss Alden's aunt's. If she can accompany you further, very well. Otherwise you remain at her home until you are ready to return to school. Under any circ.u.mstances you must be here before five o'clock. Be kind enough to set your timepieces with the tower clock. Then there will be no excuse for not being here on or before the hour appointed. You may get your wraps. I shall entertain Mr. Vail until your return."

Miss Burkham was always exacting. Her speech was frank and sometimes even blunt; but she had such a sense of justice and fitness of things, that her decisive words were never galling, even to the most sensitive of the girls. Her manner was gracious and her smile kindly. She would put herself to no end of trouble to add to the happiness of the pupils; on the other hand, she would go to no end of trouble to see that the rules of the school were rigidly enforced and that the girls under her care would do nothing unbecoming a lady or which might bring criticism upon their heads.

Soon the three were on their way. For three days, Hester Alden had enjoyed the ride in antic.i.p.ation. But now something had gone from it.

The buoyancy of spirit which was generally hers and the power of enjoying the most trifling affairs had deserted her. She sat silent until Helen rallied her. Then she made an effort to be her usual bright talkative self; but it was plainly an effort. She was forcing an interest in what was going on about her. Her mind dwelt only on the statement she had made to Robert Vail.

"It was a lie, a lie," she kept repeating to herself. She was almost afraid to meet Aunt Debby. How Aunt Debby despised anything of that kind! Hester felt that her clear gray eyes would look straight down into her heart and read the lie which had made a mark there.

Robert Vail observed that Hester was more than quiet. She was depressed and anxious.

Debby Alden was prepared to receive the guests. She, with Miss Richards, had a lunch ready to serve. She had smiled when she arranged her table service. She had given it the right touch of daintiness and refinement.

There had come to her, the remembrance of certain conditions of her life and her manner of doing things before Hester had come into her life.

She had spoken her thoughts to Miss Richards.

"I have been a different woman ever since I found Hester," she said.

"Life holds so much more for me than it did before--a great deal more than I ever hoped to have it hold. I wonder what I would have been had Hester gone her way that day and not have come into my life."

"You would have been Debby Alden," said Miss Richards, "a woman of conscience and principle. You would have been the same Debby--only with the narrower view of life. You would have been an old woman instead of a bright, interesting, beautiful, young girl of forty."

Debby Alden had blushed at the speech.

"You and Hester have conspired to spoil me. I think you are leagued together to make me vain and worldly. What one does not think of, the other does. It was only last week that Hester wrote me some very silly nonsense about not one of the women at the reception, looking half so fine as I. Of course, I know the child does it merely to please me."

Miss Richards nodded her head in negation. "You know she means every word she says, Debby. Hester could not prevaricate, even to please you.

As to its being nonsense, you know it is not. We think what we say and you like to hear us say it. Why not express ourselves? There is nothing in the world that is as great as love. The greatest thing in the world!

Why then should we go through life with silent lips, or lips which open only for criticism while all the time love is really in our hearts? Is it not lovelier and kinder to express our love while the loved ones are here to listen?"

This had been Miss Richards's philosophy of life. It had been her love as well as Hester's which had brightened and developed Debby Alden.

Their words concerning Debby's being beautiful were not flattering. She was beautiful with the beauty which comes from fine principle, high ideals, and a warm, love-filled heart. People had turned in the streets for a second look at Debby Alden, while she, wholly unconscious that she had grown so attractive, moved on her way without knowing of the eyes turned in her direction.

Debby went down to the gate to meet her guests. She took Hester in her arms. In an instant her intuition told her that something was wrong.

"What is troubling my little girl?" she asked.

"Nothing, Aunt Debby. Nothing at all. Oh, how sweet to be back home!"

She threw her arms about Debby Alden's neck and hugged her with a vehemence which caused that lady to gasp for breath.

Helen and Miss Alden had never met. Debby at once noticed the resemblance between Helen and Hester. She greeted the former as she had done her own little girl. Then she turned to Robert Vail and holding out her hand, said merrily, "I shall forgive and believe now, since I know you have a cousin Helen and she does resemble Hester. Until this time, I thought it all a myth of your own making, manufactured for the sole purpose of annoying two plain country folk."

Rob Vail laughed as he took her hand in his own firm clasp. "I do not know whether I shall allow myself to be forgiven under such circ.u.mstances. You would not have faith in me until I presented the proof and that is really no faith at all. I wish to be trusted without evidence."