Geraldine, pretending not to have heard her name, was talking to Doris and her back was toward the boys.
Bob noticed this, and then he realized that the proud city girl might consider Danny’s position in the Wainwright home a menial one.
“Sorry you are going, Dan,” Alfred now came forward. “Why don’t you wait and ride home with Sis and me?”
“Thanks,” the other replied as he reached for his great coat. “I think I would better be going now.”
Suddenly there was a crashing noise in their midst, and a loosely wrapped bundle containing a pair of skates fell to the floor from beneath Danny’s coat.
“Why, Doris,” Peggy exclaimed in astonishment, “those are your skates, aren’t they? This morning when I asked if I might borrow them, you said you weren’t able to find them.”
Bob hurried to the rescue. “Guess you must have left them in the sleigh. Good thing Danny found them for you. Well, so long, old man, if you must go. See you again.”
When the Irish boy had gone Doris glanced at Bob, wondering if he had surmised that Danny O’Neil was the real highwayman, but that boy said nothing to confirm her suspicion that evening nor ever after. However, Bob did know, and he determined that he would do all he could to help Danny O’Neil.
“Take off your things and stay a while,” Doris urged, but Merry shook her head. “No, we just came to get you. We’re so noisy when we’re all together, I know we would disturb your mother. Mums and Dad have gone to a concert and good old Katie doesn’t mind how much noise we make, so put on your duds and let’s go through the hedge. Jack shoveled a path today from your door to ours. One of his daily good deeds.”
The Drexels and Lees were next-door neighbors with a pine hedge between them, but of course there was a gate in it.
Fifteen minutes later they were in the big comfortable Lee library with the Victrola turned on. Jack at once asked Geraldine to dance with him, and since she thought him nicest of all the boys, she was pleased to accept. After a time he led her to the settee in front of the fireplace, on which a log was burning. “I’d rather talk a while,” he said, but, instead of talking, he sat looking into the fire. Geraldine, glancing at him, thought how good-looking he was. At last she asked lightly, “Are your thoughts worth a penny?” Then she added, “I don’t believe that you even know that you are here.”
The boy laughed as he replied: “I will have to confess that my thoughts had taken me far away. I was traveling years into the future when you recalled me to the present.”
Then, because of the girl’s very evident interest, the lad continued: “Dad and I had a heart to heart talk this morning. He thinks that if I plan taking up his business of building and contracting, I would better begin to specialize along those lines, but I told him that, first of all, I want to go West and try cattle ranching.”
“Oh, Jack, what a dreadful thing to do!” the girl protested.
The boy’s face was radiant as he replied: “You are mistaken. It’s great out there!”
But it was quite evident that his companion did not agree with him.
“A man who goes out to live on a desert ranch must expect to be a bachelor all his life,” Geraldine ventured, “for no girl of our class would want to live in such a desolate place.”
The boy looked up brightly. “Wrong again, Geraldine!” he said. “The girl I would want to marry would love it out there.” Then he laughingly added: “You see, I never intend to marry until I find someone who will be as fine a little homemaker as my mother is. Mom could be a rich man’s wife or a poor man’s wife and shine in either position. She can make her own dresses and hats if need be and enjoy doing it, and, as for cooking, Kate can’t compare with her. Of course I wouldn’t expect my wife to be a drudge, but I do want her to know how to do all of the things that make home a place of solid comfort. None of these pretty, dolled-up, society girls for me!”
The lad was not looking at his listener and so he did not know that the rose in her cheeks had deepened, or that she was biting her lips angrily. Although she had no real reason for thinking so, she was convinced Jack was expressing his very poor opinion of her, Geraldine Morrison. She rose and said coldly, “It is late. Alfred and I must be going.”
That night she cried for a long time, though she could not have told why, and she decided that the very next morning she would ask the Colonel to permit her to return to the city where the boys admired and understood her.
CHAPTER XVI
THE HEART OF A SNOB
The Colonel glanced anxiously at his young guest the next morning. She had been so bright and animated for days that the good man was beginning to hope that the city girl was becoming acclimated, but again she was looking pale and disinterested. When she had finished her breakfast and had retired to her room, the Colonel called Mrs. Gray into his study and together they had a long talk about Geraldine.
“Poor little girl,” the kind old lady said. “She has never known a mother’s love and I would be glad to help her, but I can’t reach her heart. She treats me courteously, but her attitude says as plainly as words: ‘Mrs. Gray, you are only an upper servant from whom I wish no familiarity.’ I have tried ever since I came to find something which would be the open sesame of this stone barrier which the little girl has raised between us, but I am beginning to think that there is none.”
“Try just once more,” the Colonel said anxiously, “and then, if you do not succeed, I will comply with her father’s suggestion and send her away to a boarding school if she is unhappy here.”
The little old lady went directly to Geraldine’s room and tapped on the door. There was no reply and so she softly entered.
The girl had thrown herself down on the window seat and her shoulders were shaken with sobs. Strangely enough in one hand she held a stocking which she had evidently been attempting to darn.
Truly touched, the kind old lady went toward her and said with infinite tenderness: “Dear, dear little girl! Won’t you tell me why you are unhappy?” She sat beside Geraldine and smoothed her hair.
“Oh, why didn’t my mother live?” was the sobbing reply. “She would have taught me the things that other girls know how to do, and then no one could have called me a pretty dolled-up butterfly.”
Mrs. Grey realized that someone had deeply hurt Geraldine’s pride, but perhaps this was the very cleft in the stone wall for which she had been seeking.
“Little girl,” she said kindly, “you cannot know how my heart has yearned through the years, first for a daughter of my own and then for a granddaughter to whom I might teach the things that would help her to become a truly womanly woman. It would mean so much to me, Geraldine; it would give me so much happiness, if you would let me just pretend that you are that little girl.”
The wondering lassie sat up, her beautiful violet eyes brimming with unshed tears. There were also tears in the eyes of the old lady, and, perhaps, for the first time in her sixteen years the girl felt a rush of sympathy in her heart for someone not herself.
“You, too, are lonely, Mrs. Gray?” she asked. Then she added sorrowfully: “I guess I never really knew what I had missed until I heard the boys and girls here telling about their wonderful mothers. Father has often told me that my mother was wonderful, too. She would have taught me to sew and make my own dresses and hats and to cook, if that is what a girl should know.”
The housekeeper marveled. This was not the Geraldine of yesterday. What had happened? Mrs. Gray could not know, but what she did know was that it was a moment to seize upon, and this she did.
“Geraldine,” she said, “let me teach you these things.”
“Oh, will you?” was the eager reply. “How long will it take me to learn, do you think? May I begin a dress today?”
Mrs. Gray laughed, and, stooping, she kissed the girl’s wet cheek, then she said: “Get on your coat, dearie, and we will go into town and buy the material.”
This was the beginning of happy days for these two.
&n
bsp; A week later Geraldine stood in front of the long mirror in her sun-flooded room, gazing with shining eyes at her own graceful self, clothed, for the very first time, in a garment of her own making.
She had begged Mrs. Gray to permit her to put in every stitch so that she might truthfully say that she made it all herself. To whom she wished to say this, the little old lady could not surmise.
“Isn’t it the prettiest color, Mrs. Gray?” Geraldine asked for the twentieth time as she looked at the clinging folds of soft blue cashmere.
“It is indeed, dearie,” the housekeeper replied, “and it’s the blue that makes your eyes look like two lovely violets.”
The girl’s gaze wandered to the reflection of her face and she smiled. “Daddy says that my eyes are just like Mother’s. I’m so glad.” Then she added happily: “It’s all done, isn’t it, Mrs. Gray, except a collar, and we haven’t decided how to make that yet, have we? Oh, there’s the telephone. I wonder who it is?”
Skipping to the little table near her bed, she lifted the receiver and called, “Good morning.”
Merry’s voice said: “Geraldine, we want you to come over this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there!” the seamstress replied, and then, whirling around, she exclaimed: “It was Merry Lee. She wants me to be at her house about three. How I wish I could wear my new dress.”
“Why, so you can, dearie. I’ll cut out a deep muslin collar and you can sew tiny ruffles around the edge and the dress will be complete long before that hour.”
In the early afternoon, all alone, Geraldine tramped down the snowy road and her heart was singing. She could not understand why she felt so happy.
The girls were gathered in the cheerful library of the Lee home when Geraldine entered.
They welcomed her gladly, and when her wraps were removed Merry, in little girl fashion, exclaimed: “Oh, do look, everybody. Isn’t that the sweetest new dress Geraldine has on?”
The wearer of the dress, with flushed cheeks and glowing eyes, turned around that the girls might all examine her gown, and then, unable longer to keep her wonderful secret, she exclaimed: “You’ll never believe it, but it’s honestly true. I made every stitch of this dress myself. Of course, Mrs. Gray cut it out and showed me how, but truly I made it, and I never enjoyed doing anything more in my whole life.”
Then it was that Geraldine chanced to glance at the open door of the music room, and the rose in her cheeks deepened, for Jack, with book in hand, was standing there. Luckily he had completely forgotten the conversation of the week before and so he did not even dream that his theories had been the incentive for Geraldine’s experiments in dressmaking.
“Jack,” his sister called, “isn’t this a pretty dress? Geraldine made it all herself.”
“It surely is!” the lad replied as he entered the room. “It’s the color I like best.” Then, as Merry and Doris served hot chocolate and cookies, the lad sat on the window seat beside Geraldine and talked about his favorite subject, cattle-raising in Arizona. An hour later, when the girls were about to depart, he reappeared to announce that he would take them all home in his father’s big sleigh if they did not mind being crowded. It was with a happy heart that Geraldine noticed that one by one Jack left the town girls at their homes, and then went round the longest way to the Wainwright place.
CHAPTER XVII
FIRST DAY IN A NEW SCHOOL
It had been decided between Mr. Morrison and the Colonel, who had been corresponding about the matter, not to start Geraldine in the Sunnyside Seminary until she appeared to be quite contented to stay in the village. But on the Monday morning following the making of her dress, Geraldine herself appeared in the breakfast room unusually early and asked her “uncle-colonel” if he would not take her out to the seminary and introduce her to Miss Demorest. How the old gentleman’s face brightened as he asked: “And so you are really content to stay and be the sunshine of my home?”
Impulsively the girl kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you want me,” she said sincerely, “and I’ll try to be sunny.” Then, as Mrs. Gray had entered the room with a cheery good morning, the Colonel shared the good news. There was a mistiness in the grey eyes of the little old lady and a song of thanksgiving in her heart. Geraldine, to prove to them that her heart was changed, went over and kissed Mrs. Gray also as she said: “My dear little Make-believe Grandmother is helping me to see things in a different light, more as I would have seen them if Mother had lived.”
Then into the room came Alfred, and the good news was told to him. “That’s great!” he exclaimed. “Dad will be so pleased. He certainly has a soft spot in his big heart for this little old town. Say, Mrs. Gray, do you mind if I eat in a rush? I’m afraid I’ll be late for the students’ special if I don’t hurry.”
Alfred and Jack went every morning to the “Prep” school in Dorchester.
During the sleigh ride to the seminary Geraldine chatted happily about how surprised the girls would be to see her there. She had purposely timed their going, when classes would be occupied, that she might surprise them at the recess of which they had told her.
And that is just what happened. After making arrangements with Miss Demorest for his ward to complete the winter term at the seminary, the Colonel departed, promising to return at the closing hour, but Geraldine said that she would like to walk to town with the other girls and that she would wait at Merry Lee’s house until Jack and Alfred returned from Dorchester. Then she and her brother could return together.
The Colonel noticed a slight flushing of her pretty face as she made the suggestion, and he wondered about it as he drove home through the crisp, sunlit morning.
After planning with Miss Demorest about the classes she would enter, Geraldine was told that she might wait in the library, where a cheerful fire was burning in the hearth, and that, after the midmorning recreation, she might accompany her friends to Miss Preen’s English class.
As Geraldine sat in the big comfortable chair in front of the fire, she had time to think how very different her stay in Sunnyside was turning out from what she had expected. How she had dreaded it, and how selfish and stubborn she had been! It was a wonder that the Colonel had even wanted her to stay; and how could that dear Mrs. Gray be so nice to her when she had snubbed her so rudely? Even the girls had been generous to overlook her snobbishness when they came to call upon her. She actually laughed aloud when she thought of the prank they had played upon her. Then she curled up in the chair and tried to hide, for the gong was announcing recess. A moment later merry laughter was heard as doors up and down the long corridor opened and the day pupils and boarding pupils emerged from their classes. Geraldine was wondering where her group of friends would go. She had hoped they would flock to the library, nor was she disappointed. Although she could not see them, she knew their voices. Merry was saying, “Girls, come in the library a minute. I have some news for you.”
“Is it secret?” Bertha asked.
“I’ll say it is—that is, just at first; after a time we’ll tell it to Geraldine. Are we all here? Close the door, will you; nobody will notice.”
“No, we’re not all here. Gertrude isn’t. Where can she be? Why didn’t she come to school today?” Rose wondered.
“That’s why I have called this special meeting,” Merry explained. “Gertrude has gone to Dorchester to spend the winter. It was very sudden; she didn’t have time even to call you all up to say good-bye. Her mother’s sister was taken very ill last night and they sent for Gertrude to take care of the children. Her aunt thinks everything of Trudie, and as she has to go to the hospital for an operation, she said she just couldn’t go contentedly unless Gertrude was there to look after her two babies. It will be spring before she can return.”
“Oh, I say, that is too bad! She’ll miss all the fun we’ve planned for this winter,” Bertha said. “But you have more to tell, Merry. What is it?”
“Yes, I have,” their president confessed. “Gertrude suggested that, since we ne
ed seven girls in our secret society, she would like us to invite—”
There was a sudden rustling noise. “Hark! There’s someone in this room,” Peggy announced.
The girl in hiding sprang up. “I’m terribly sorry, girls,” she said. “I didn’t want to eavesdrop. I was crouching down so that I could leap out and surprise you when you came over by the fire, as I supposed of course you would.”
With a glad cry of surprise her friends surrounded Geraldine, asking a dozen questions at once. How did she happen to be there? Was she going to stay?
And when she had answered them all satisfactorily, Merry announced: “This is like a play. Characters enter just when they’re needed.”
Geraldine’s face was beaming. “Oh, I am so glad, if I am wanted even,” she told them. “I can’t understand, though, how I can be needed.”
“We’ll have to tell you later,” the president announced. “The ten-minute recess is over. Hear that cruel gong! Now, Gerry, what class are you to start in?”
“Miss Demorest said that if I would accompany Merry Lee everywhere that she went, I couldn’t go wrong.”
“Oh, goodie-good!” Betty Byrd exclaimed. “That means we are all in Miss Preen’s English class.”
“Shh! Come on!” Rose called to them from the open doorway.
Merry introduced the new pupil to the angular Miss Preen and Geraldine thought she never had seen a thinner person or one with sharper eyes. She felt sure that she would heartily dislike the English teacher, but what did that matter as long as she was in the class with all of her friends.
Before the hour was over Geraldine had, at least, to acknowledge to herself that Miss Preen knew how to teach and that she made the subject very interesting. After all, what more did one require in a teacher?
From there they went to a song service conducted in the basement recreation hall by Professor Lowsley, whose hair, soft, grey and wavy, rested on his shoulders. His near-sighted eyes were gentle and light blue, and his manner one of infinite patience. For half an hour the forty girls in the school practiced vocal scales all together, then sang songs, some old and some new, until the gong announced for them a change of activities. Geraldine was interested to know what was to happen next.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 298