The Little Colonel at Boarding School Part 15

Even Betty failed for the time to remember the "Road of the Loving Heart" she was trying to leave behind her in every one's memory; and, if the little talisman on her finger p.r.i.c.ked her tender conscience once or twice, she silenced it with the reflection that it was her duty to help punish the doer of such a contemptible deed. The name of the club finally suggested the means.

"She told all the secrets of the Shadow Club, and spoiled it," said Katie. "Now we just ought to shadow _her_. Haunt her, you know, like the Ku Klux Klan, or the White Caps, so she'll leave school and be afraid to listen again as long as she lives."

"Yes," agreed Kitty. "We'll _hoodoo_ her. That is the way."

Such a plan never would have been thought of in a Northern school. Even in this little Kentucky seminary it is doubtful if it could have been carried out had not previous events paved the way. There was scarcely a pupil in the school whose earliest impressions had not been tinged in some degree by the superst.i.tions of some old coloured nurse or family servant. Even Lloyd had not escaped them entirely, in spite of all her mother's watchful care. Mom Beck knew better than to talk of such things openly before her, but she had hinted of them to the other servants in her presence, till Lloyd had a vague uneasiness when she dreamed of muddy water, or spilled the salt, or saw a bird flying against a window.

From babyhood such happenings had been a.s.sociated in her mind with Mom Beck's portents of ill-luck.

There was not a coloured person in the neighbourhood who could have explained why so many graves in the negro cemetery had bottles or fruit-jars placed upon them, inside of which were carefully sealed the whitest of chicken feathers. Undoubtedly they were the relic of some old African fetish, and a reverence for them had been handed down from grizzled grandsire to little pickaninny since the beginning of the slave-trade. In the same way had come all those other superst.i.tions at which white people laughed, but which influenced many of them also to some extent. For many a man who scoffed most, felt more comfortable when he saw the new moon in an open sky than when he caught first sight of it through the trees; and more than one, having once started on a journey, would not have turned back, no matter what important thing was left behind, preferring to do without at any cost or inconvenience rather than risk the ill-luck the turning back would bring.

Lloyd knew more than one housekeeper in the neighbourhood who, for the same reason, would not allow the ashes emptied after sundown, or an umbrella to be raised in the house; and who would turn pale if a mirror was broken or a picture fell from the wall or a dog howled in the night.

Probably not a pupil in the school would have admitted that she believed in ghosts, yet few would have been brave enough to venture into the cellar at night after Mary Phillips' encounter with the spirit of the "veiled lady" on Hallowe'en. That had been a frequent topic of conversation since that night, and had done much to prepare the way for the plot the club concocted.

So Kitty's proposition was received with enthusiasm. The performance began next day when she slipped up behind Mittie in the cloak-room, and solemnly touched her three times in quick succession on the left ear with something she held in her hand. It felt soft and furry, and Mittie, who had a horror of caterpillars, gave a little shriek as she put up her handkerchief to brush it away.

Kitty had already disappeared into the chapel, but Katie was waiting, ready to begin her part of the performance.

"Did you see that?" she said to Janie Clung, in an awed tone, just loud enough for Mittie to hear, and yet low enough to seem confidential.

"I know people who would go stark, raving crazy if that was done to them. What for? I thought everybody knew what for. My old nurse used to say that to be touched three times on the ear by the left hind foot of a rabbit that had been killed in a graveyard in the dark of the moon by a cross-eyed person, was the worst luck anybody could have." She lowered her voice a trifle. "_It's a hoodoo-mark! You're marked for the haunts to follow you!_"

"The what?" asked another girl who stood near.

"The haunts--ghosts--you know. Jim Briddle calls them 'ha'nts.' n.o.body could be more cross-eyed than he is, and he's the one who gave that rabbit's foot to Ra.n.a.ld Walton, and Ra.n.a.ld gave it to Kitty. I should think that Mittie Dupong would feel mighty creepy if she knew what's ahead of her."

Mittie heard and did feel creepy, although she shrugged her shoulders and tried hard to appear unconcerned. The fact that the club seemed to place so much reliance in the hoodoo made a strong impression on Janie Clung, and gave it a weight it would not have possessed otherwise when the occurrence was repeated to the other girls. Before the week was over it was whispered around the school that the charm was really working.

CHAPTER XI.

A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

EVERY day since the first of November there had been a letter for Ida in the Sherman's post-office box, under cover of Lloyd's address. Lloyd had grown to dread the afternoon walks with the school, for she was in a flutter of nervousness from the moment they came in sight of the post-office until the letter was safe in Ida's possession. There was always the fear that Betty might get to the window first, or that she might catch sight of the envelope, addressed with many flourishes in a big, bold hand; or that that letter might be the only one, as it often was, and Betty might wonder why Lloyd's face should grow so red when she answered, "No, nothing for us this time."

It was easier to manage after the weather turned cold enough to furnish an excuse for carrying a m.u.f.f, but even then she fancied that Miss Mattie looked at her curiously sometimes, when she thrust the daily letter hastily out of sight without a second glance. She never went through the performance without wishing that it might be the last time that she should be placed in such an uncomfortable position; but afterward she always reproached herself for making such a wish. It seemed a very poor friendship that could not stand a little test like that. It was such a small thing to do when the happiness of her friend's whole life was at stake.

Then she had her reward in the evenings, when Ida, with her arms around her, whispered her undying grat.i.tude, or read her extracts from her letters, which gave her glimpses into a romance far more beautiful than the "Fortunes of Daisy Dale," or the "Heiress of Dorn," or any of the others they had read since.

A sort of circulating library had started since the rainy night the Shadow Club read its first volume. Ida had a pile of paper-covered books in her closet which she p.r.o.nounced fully as interesting as the one she had read aloud; so "Elsie's Wooing," "Fair but False," and the "Heiress of Dorn" began pa.s.sing in turn from the covers of Katie's geography to Kitty's, and from Lloyd's history to Betty's and Allison's. They read at recess, they read before school, and more than once some exciting chapter proved too interesting to be laid aside in study time for the work of the hour.

After a few volumes of such tales, Betty became fired with an ambition to write one herself, and soon became so absorbed in her pastime that she could think of little else. Eugene was the name of her hero, and Gladys was the maiden who combined all the beauty and virtues possible for one mundane creature to possess. The whole club was consulted as to the colour of her eyes and hair, and many points about which the little author was undecided. They came in time to regard Eugene and Gladys as real personages, in whom they had a family interest. Lloyd had bits of the story read to her sometimes when they were getting ready for bed.

Betty lost interest in everything to such an extent that she ceased to be sociable, and spent most of her time alone, dreaming out different scenes in the story, which filled her mind to the exclusion of even her lessons.

One afternoon, near the middle of November, Lloyd, hurrying through the lower hall with an open letter in her hand, met the president.

"Oh, Doctah Wells!" she exclaimed. "I was just going to yoah room. Heah is a note mothah sent you in the lettah that came to-day. She has written for some things she needs, and wants Betty and me to walk up to Locust aftah school with a message to the servants about packing them, if you'll excuse us from the regulah promenade."

"Certainly," he answered, glancing over Mrs. Sherman's gracefully written request.

"But Betty has such a bad cold," continued Lloyd, "that the matron thinks she oughtn't to go out to walk to-day, and it's lonely going back home by myself, when it's all shut up. May I take Ida Shane with me instead? She's nevah seen Locust from the inside, and I'd love to show it to her. You know," a little smile dimpling her face as she spoke, "I can't help being proud of the old place."

"You have good reason," said the professor, smiling back at her kindly.

"It is certainly a beautiful old homestead. Yes, I have no objection to Ida's going with you."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Lloyd. She hurried up the stairs to Ida's room, calling excitedly as she reached the door, "Yes, he says you may go.

Hurry and put on your things so that we can have as long time as possible up there."

Betty had gone into the matron's room in her absence. It took Lloyd only a moment to slip into her hat and coat. Then catching up her m.u.f.f and thrusting it under her arm, she started back to Ida's room, b.u.t.toning her gloves as she went. Ida had taken down her hair and was deliberately rearranging it before the mirror.

"Oh, what did you do that for?" cried Lloyd, half-impatiently. "It looked all right as it was. We're not going to see any one but the servants. There's no use wearing your best hat." She glanced at the ma.s.s of velvet and plumes lying on the bed. "Just pin your hair up any fashion and stick on your mortar-board. That'll do."

"Shut the door, please," said Ida, in a low tone. "I have something to tell you." She bent nearer the mirror, drawing the comb through the fluffy pompadour. "We _are_ going to see some one this afternoon.

_Edwardo is in the Valley._"

Lloyd dropped her m.u.f.f at this surprising announcement, but Ida went on, calmly. "I've been expecting him for several days. He comes to Lloydsboro sometimes to visit his cousin. I've lain awake nights trying to arrange some way to see him. This is a thousand times better than any way I could think of. I'm the luckiest girl that ever lived to have such a friend as you to plan for me, Princess."

"I don't know what you mean," exclaimed Lloyd. "I haven't planned anything."

"No, not intentionally, but look how easy you have made it for me to have an interview. He'll be on the watch for the seminary girls to pa.s.s by the store, for I was to manage to leave a note there for him, telling him where I can see him. All I have to do now is to signal him to follow, and we can have a good long talk at Locust while you are giving the servants their orders. You don't mind, do you?" she asked, as Lloyd continued to stare at her without saying anything.

"No. Oh, no! Of co'se not," answered Lloyd, with a confused laugh. "Only it makes me feel so que'ah to think that I'm really going to see him.

It's just as if Lord Rokeby or the squire's son had stepped out of the book. I feel as if I were in a book myself since you told me that. This is the way it would be on the page, if we could stand off and read about ourselves: 'And Violet's little friend led the way down the long avenue, and there on the threshold of her home, after months of cruel separation, the reunited lovers kept their tryst.'"

Ida laughed happily. "You'll have a book written before Betty is half-started if you go on at that rate. Now tell me. Do I look all right?"

She was settling the big picture-hat in place over her soft hair as she anxiously asked the question. Lloyd regarded her critically, tipping her head a trifle to one side as she looked.

"Put your hat a hairbreadth farther over your face," she exclaimed.

"There! That's lovely. Oh, Violet, that shade of velvet is _so_ becoming to you. It's just the colah of yoah eyes. I nevah saw you look so beautiful."

A becoming pink flushed Ida's cheeks. She bent her head over the bunch of violets pinned on the lapel of her coat. "It's dear of you to think so," she said, "and it's dear of you to send me these violets every week. These are unusually sweet. I'm so glad I have a fresh bunch for to-day--this happy day."

Lloyd took the keenest delight in watching the graceful girl sweep down the hall ahead of her. From the plumes of the picture-hat to the hem of her stylish gown she thoroughly satisfied Lloyd's artistic instinct for the beautiful. She gave her arm an adoring little squeeze as they pa.s.sed down the stairs together.

Out on the road she glanced up at Ida again. Happiness had not made her radiant, as it did Daisy Dale, but there was a soft light in the violet eyes which made Lloyd think of a picture she had seen of a vestal maiden on her way to guard the holy altar fires.

Lloyd's heart began to beat faster as she realized that every step was taking them nearer to Edwardo. She pictured him again in her imagination, as she had done so many times before. She would know that pale, serious face with its flashing eyes anywhere she might meet him, she was sure.

Neither of them spoke as they hurried along the path through the lower part of Clovercroft and pushed open the woodland gate. But as they stepped up on the platform in front of the depot, Lloyd said, "Let's cross the track heah, and go up on the othah side of the road. Then we'll not have to pa.s.s the waiting-rooms. There's always so many people loafing around the window of the telegraph-office."

Instinctively she felt that while a little girl like herself would attract no attention, Ida in her long sweeping dress that she held up so gracefully, and the big hat drooping over her pretty face, and the stylish fur collar, and the violets on her coat, made a picture that any one would turn to look at twice. She could not bear to think of the bold glances that might be cast after her by the loafers around the depot. It seemed to her little short of sacrilege, although she could not have put the feeling into words, for any eyes but Edwardo's to rest upon her as she went on her way to this meeting with that vestal-maiden look upon her face.

"Very well," a.s.sented Ida. "You know we want to stop at the store. I want to get some chocolate creams if they have any fresh ones."