Hope Benham Part 28

"You are a stranger here, Dorothea. You must remember that we never have the same freedom, or are looked upon quite the same, in a place where we are strangers, as where we have always lived," answered Hope, gently.

"Then it's all the more reason why I'd better go home, where people know me and don't think my ways so dreadful."

"Dorothea, you have told me once or twice that your cousin found fault with your ways, and perhaps--if he had not been your cousin, have known you so well--if you had been a stranger to him, he might not have made a friendly allowance for you; and, Dorothea, tell me one thing: did you ever--ever go on there at home as you have here,--receiving gifts and attentions, and going to the theatre on the--on the sly?"

"N--o."

"If you had, and it had been found out, do you think it would have been pa.s.sed over unnoticed?"

"N--o, I don't suppose it would, but I shouldn't have been treated like this,--left out like this."

"No; because--because, Dorothea, you and your family are not strangers,--because you are well known, and people forgive friends for a long time."

"Then I'd better go back to them, I'd better go back to them, and I will, I will! Oh, I can't stay here, Hope, I can't, I can't! I see how you'll all feel, how you'll think that I've been a disgrace to the school, when this gets out that Mrs. Armitage wouldn't have me at the party, and I can't, I can't stay."

"Dorothea, Dorothea!" and Hope knelt down by the couch where Dorothea had flung herself in an agony of tears,--knelt down, and putting her arms about the suffering girl begged her never for a moment to think that either she or Kate or Bessie would speak to the other girls about Mrs. Armitage's action in regard to the invitation. "No, they will never know from us, Dorothea,--never, never."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HOPE KNELT DOWN BY THE COUCH WHERE DOROTHEA HAD FLUNG HERSELF"]

"But--but what wi--will they think whe--when I--I don't--go to the party?" sobbed Dorothea.

"Of course they'll think there's been a falling out of some kind, and there has; but it isn't necessary that they should be told what it is, is it?"

"N--o, n--o, but it wi--will ge--get out somehow. You--you'll see, Hope, and I--I can't--I can't stay, and have them talking about my--my being left out on--on purpose li--like this."

"But even if the truth did get out, it would be a great deal worse for you to run away than to stay, for it would look--it would _be_--cowardly. No, no, Dorothea! you must stay, and I--I will help you all I can; I will be your friend, whatever happens, and so will Kate."

"Whatever happens." When Hope said this, she had little thought that anything further in connection with the matter was to happen. She had spoken out of her deep pity and sympathy, to soothe and sustain Dorothea through a hard crisis,--to soothe and sustain and strengthen her to do the courageous thing. She was quite sure, as she had said, that neither Bessie nor Kate would tell the story of the arrested invitation; but she made it still surer by exacting a solemn promise from them not to do so,--a promise as solemnly kept as it was made. And yet, and yet, somehow and from somewhere--was it through Mrs. Armitage or Raymond, both of whom had given their word to Bessie to make no mention of the subject?--a whisper of the truth, found its way, before the week was over, into the schoolroom circle. And before the week was over, Dorothea knew it! She knew it by the suddenly withdrawn glances as she looked up; she knew it by the suddenly changed conversation as she approached; she knew it by numberless little signs and indications in all directions.

And Hope, when she was presently beset by eager questions from one and another,--Had she heard? and what did she think? and could it be true?--poor Hope had hard work to fence and parry and hold her ground without violating the truth. She succeeded at last, however, in silencing her questioners; but she was perfectly well aware that she had _only_ silenced them as far as she herself was concerned.

Kate Van der Berg also had a good deal of the same trying experience, and bore it less amiably.

"I'm sick to death of the whole subject," she said at length to Hope. "I wish to mercy Dorothea Dering had never entered this house! But don't be alarmed!" as she caught a startled look from Hope; "I'm not going to back down. I'll be good to her, and I _do_ pity her."

"Pity her! I should think anybody _might_ pity her," cried Hope, with almost a sob. "It simply breaks my heart to see her."

And to Dorothea, who came to her with this further trouble,--who said to her, "You see, you see, it has all come out just as I thought it would,"--to Dorothea she was an angel indeed, this sweet-souled Hope,--an angel of real help in the stanch devotion of her companionship, and the constant influence it exerted in soothing and encouraging her to accept the condition of things as they were, and make the best of them by making no aggressive protest. It was not easy for Dorothea to pursue this course, and Hope could not help admiring the new spirit of dignity which she seemed to develop in sticking to it.

But there was a new element of knowledge coming to Dorothea through her bitter experience. She had always heretofore been ready to fight against any and every opposition, as I have shown. Now, for the first time, she was beginning to feel the pressure of that great power of the great world which we call the sentiment of society, and dimly but surely to perceive that she must submit to it, or at least that, if she tried to fight against it, it would be to her own destruction. But this new sense of things, valuable though it was in its present restraining influence and its promise of right development, did not tend to make Dorothea feel easier or happier at the moment. Rather, the restraint chafed and depressed her. In spite of this depression, however, she said no more about going back to Brookside. She was discovering for herself that Hope was right,--that it would be not only cowardly for her to run away, but prejudicial to her interests in every direction. But how difficult it was for her to live through these days with apparent calmness, only Hope guessed. What Hope did not guess was the extent and power of her own helpfulness at this crisis. Dorothea, however, was fully aware of it; and one day,--it was the morning after the Valentine party,--when the girls had naturally been very voluble in their reminiscences of the evening, she said to Hope,--

"Hope, you've helped me to _live_ through this thing, and I shall always remember it, and always, always love you for it. But for you I could never have stayed here and stood things,--never, never, never!"

Yet not then had she received the full measure of Hope's help. It was when the days went by, and she found that the curiosity about herself had subsided, she also found that in the indifference that had succeeded this curiosity there was a shadow of something that she could give no name to,--that she could not at once understand,--but that by and by she came to know was that shadow of the world's disapproval that she had been made acquainted with through Mrs. Armitage. It was then, when the girl felt herself in the settled atmosphere of this shadow, that Hope showed the full measure of her power to help.

Not immediately realizing the condition of things, she could not comprehend what seemed to her Dorothea's persistent shrinking from the companionship of the others, and at last remonstrated with her in this wise:--

"Dorothea, you mustn't keep by yourself, and neglect the girls, as you do. It isn't right or sensible."

And to this Dorothea had replied, with a mirthless laugh,--

"Neglect them! If there is any neglect going on, _I'm_ not guilty of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. _I'm_ not neglecting anybody."

"You mean--that--that they are neglecting _you_?"

Dorothea nodded. She could not command her voice to speak further.

Hope was about to protest,--to say that there must be a mistake,--that _she_ had seen nothing, when suddenly the meaning of certain little things, that she had but vaguely noticed at the time, flashed over her, bringing the instantaneous conviction that Dorothea was right. And with this conviction there sprung up in Hope's heart a hot flame of indignation, and she set herself to think what further she could do--what strong measure could be taken--to show these girls that they were not to sit in judgment in this wholesale fashion, and to show them, too, that Dorothea had stanch friends who believed in her virtues, even while they admitted her faults, and would stand by her through thick and thin.

But what _could_ she do further? She had indicated to the girls how friendly she felt toward Dorothea, by bestowing upon her whatever kindly attentions she could,--had walked with her and talked with her, and made little visits to her room, which latter she had never been in the habit of doing before. She had also influenced Kate to join her in these attentions, and Kate had tried to do so,--not always successfully, however; and yet all this had seemed to go for nothing against the tide that had risen against the girl. What more _could_ be done? There was nothing, nothing more.

Yes, yes, yes, there _was_--there _was_ something more, there _was_ something! And as this "something" flashed into Hope's mind, she seized Dorothea's hands in hers, and--

"Dorothea, Dorothea!" she cried, "I have a plan,--something I want you to do _for_ me and _with_ me. I am to play, you know, at the May festival,--first, something Mr. Kolb has written specially for me; then, later, a waltz also by Mr. Kolb. It is a duet, and Fraulein Schiller was to play it with me; but she has got news of the illness of her mother, and has gone home to Germany, and I have to choose some one to fill her place; and I choose you, if you will take it."

"Choose me,--_me_? Oh, Hope, Hope, Hope, I don't care for anything else now,--not anything else! But, oh, _can_ I, _can_ I,--I'm afraid it's too hard, that it's beyond me."

"No, it isn't too hard, but I'll give you lessons; I'll practise with you every day, if you'll study hard."

"Study! I'll study every minute that I can get;" and then, quivering with excitement, Dorothea flung herself upon the floor, and, putting her head down on Hope's lap, cried brokenly,--

"Oh, Hope, Hope, how angelic of you to do this for me _now, now_!"

It was the last of March when this proposition was made, and the festival was to come off the last of May, that being the end of the school year at Miss Marr's; the festival itself being a sort of celebration of the year's work,--a grand general cla.s.s day.

To have a special part a.s.signed to one in the program of this day was to be specially honored, and great was the surprise when it was found that Dorothea had been thus honored.

There were two or three others--outside pupils, to be sure, but Fraulein Schiller was an outside pupil--from whom it was expected that Hope would make her choice, as they were known to be, if not particularly brilliant, yet very faithful students of the violin; and to pa.s.s these by for Dorothea was surprising indeed, and not to be explained by any mere good-nature. Hope Benham _was_ a very good-natured girl, and had been very kind and polite to Dorothea, the little school circle decided; but they all knew how refined and fastidious and very, _very_ sensitive she was, and what she thought about things; and if she thought seriously that Dorothea had really--_really_ been so dreadfully loud and horrid as they had heard, she would never have chosen her to stand up there before all that festival audience with her. And arguing thus, this little world, so like the big world under like circ.u.mstances, began to re-consider things,--to think that perhaps--perhaps it might have made mistakes in ranging itself so decidedly, and that it might be well in that case to be a little less censorious in one's att.i.tude. From this there arose a slight change of tactics,--slight, but significant enough if one were on the alert to take note of them; but Dorothea--Dorothea was no longer so sensitively alert in these directions,--for morning, noon, and night, at every regular practice hour, and sometimes at irregular ones, her fiddle bow could be heard diligently at work, under Hope's tutelage; and as she worked, as she surmounted difficulty after difficulty in the musical score, she became so absorbed in her occupation that she had little time to bestow upon other difficulties.

And so, day after day, the weeks went by, and brought at last the great day they were all antic.i.p.ating so anxiously,--the day of the May Festival.

It looked like the very heart of summer in the great hall at the top of the house that festival morning, for it was literally made into a perfect bower of wood and garden glories; windows, dome, aisles, and stage wreathed and hung with forest growths, and set about with flowering plants. At the back of the stage the arched doorway that led into the anteroom was so skilfully decorated that it appeared like a natural opening into some woodland way; and as the audience began to fill the seats, and there came to them through this sylvan opening a soft overture from unseen violins and piano, there was at first a hush of delight and then a general burst of applause. The group of girls who were not to take special parts and who sat together well down in front, looked at each other inquiringly. The overture was a surprise to them, as it was to all but the two or three behind the scenes.

"It is Hope's doing, of course," one girl whispered. "And of course the second violin is Dorothea!" whispered another, and then presently still another whisper arose. It was Hope's doing, of course--because--Dorothea probably had failed to perfect herself in the duet she had undertaken--or--or Hope herself perhaps had failed in her courage to--to stand up there before that festival-audience with Dorothea! This last suggestion was caught at and turned over and over, until at length it seemed to become a certainty. Yes, that was the only explanation of this little overture being sprung upon them without warning. Hope's courage had failed, and to console Dorothea in a measure, she had brought her into this new arrangement!

The little group of girls would not have owned to the disappointment that they felt as they settled down upon this explanation; but with all the Armitages, except Raymond, present in full force, every girl of the group had somehow counted upon rather a sensation when Dorothea appeared. How Bessie would stare, they had thought--Bessie, who had not been back to school since her birthday party,--how she would stare and wonder, and how surprised Mrs. Armitage would look to see the girl that she had so disapproved of brought forward so conspicuously! But now--well, things began to fall a trifle flat in the failure of such a delectable sensation, and they gave a somewhat wavering attention to what immediately followed. They brightened up, however, as Hope played her "Mayflowers," and, applauding vigorously, found time to wonder what that queer sub-t.i.tle, "Ten Cents a Bunch," meant, and resolved that they would ask her sometime; and then they yawned and fidgeted, and looked at their little chatelaine watches, and craned their necks to look at the people behind them, and nodded at this one and that one, and finally fell to studying their programs, and glanced significantly, and with a little air of "I told you so," at each other, as they saw that the duet number had just been pa.s.sed over. After this they settled themselves comfortably back to wait for the close of the exercises, when the best of the festival to their thinking was to come,--the meeting with their friends, the introductions to the other girls' friends, the gay talking and walking about, and the merry end of it all, when, as if by magic, the pretty bowery stage was to be converted into a sylvan tea-room, presided over by a chosen number of the school-girls.

Only two brief exercises,--a short essay by Anna Fleming and a little aria of Schumann's by Myra Donaldson, and then ho, for the antic.i.p.ated festival fun, these waiting girls jubilantly thought; and so absorbed were they in this thought that their attention was only half given to Anna's clever little essay upon School Friendships, which had some sharp hits in it; but they nevertheless joined in the vigorous applause, though by that time their attention had entirely wandered from the stage to the movements of a new late arrival just outside the doorway,--a tall fine-looking man that Mrs. Sibley, Hope's friend, was smiling radiantly upon, and beckoning to her seat. Who _could_ he be? But hark! what--what sound was that? A violin? But Schumann's aria was a solo,--Hope was not to play with Myra! No, no, Hope was not to play with Myra, for there--there upon the stage, Hope in her white dress was standing beside--Dorothea! The duet had not been omitted then, only carried forward!

No more yawning and fidgeting now from the group of girls; with eager interest they leaned forward to see the two white-robed figures as they stood there side by side,--one with her waving golden-brown hair, her golden-brown eyes, and fair soft coloring; the other with her shining black locks, her great sombre orbs,--for there was no light of laughter in them at this moment,--and the strange pallor of coloring that at that instant lent almost a tragic look to her face. No, no more yawning and fidgeting now, and no more doubt or question of Dorothea's ability to play her part, as the sweet full strains rose harmoniously together.

Dorothea had studied, indeed,--had studied so ardently that she had greatly surprised Hope at the last by her accuracy and finish. But as she stood there before the festival audience, she surprised her still further by the something more than the accuracy and finish,--that something that every musical artist recognizes, that Hope at once recognized,--the touch of living, breathing, individual emotion, of pa.s.sionate personal appeal. With a thrill of sympathy, Hope instinctively responded to this, and there arose a strain of such moving, melting power that the audience, listening in breathless delight, broke forth at the end in a little whirlwind of applause.

The aria that followed was beautifully rendered, but the audience could not seem to fix its attention upon it as it should have done; and Myra had scarcely struck her last note when there was a general uprising, and hastening forward toward the little flock of girl-students who had taken part in the exercises. In the centre of this flock, standing together, were Hope and Dorothea, and there was a buzz of girl talk going on about them,--a buzz of congratulation, of enthusiasm, not one of the girls hanging back,--when over it all, Hope suddenly caught the sound of another voice,--a deep manly voice,--the voice of--of--oh, could it be?

Yes, yes, it was; and starting forward, she cried joyfully, "Oh it _is_--it _is_ my father!" and the next instant her father's arms were round her, and his kisses on her cheek.

Her father! Dorothea glanced up eagerly. _That_, that distinguished-looking man the man who was once a locomotive engineer!