Читать книгу The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated) - Susan Coolidge - Страница 24

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The journey from Burnet to Hillsover was a very long one. It took the greater part of three days, and as Dr. Carr was in a hurry to get back to his patients, they travelled without stopping; spending the first night on the boat, and the second on a railroad train. Papa found this tiresome; but the girls, to whom every thing was new, thought it delightful. They enjoyed their state-room, with its narrow shelves of beds, as much as if it had been a baby house, and they two children playing in it. To tuck themselves away for the night in a car-section seemed the greatest fun in the world. When older people fretted, they laughed. Every thing was interesting, from the telegraph poles by the wayside to the faces of their fellow-passengers. It amused them to watch people, and make up stories about them,—where they were going, and what relation they could be to each other. The strange people, in their turn, cast curious glances toward the bright, happy-faced sisters; but Katy and Clover did not mind that, or, in fact, notice it. They were too much absorbed to think of themselves, or the impression they were making on others.

It was early on the third morning that the train, puffing and shrieking, ran into the Springfield depot. Other trains stood waiting; and there was such a chorus of snorts and whistles, and such clouds of smoke, that Katy was half frightened. Papa, who was half asleep, jumped up, and told the girls to collect their bags and books; for they were to breakfast here, and to meet Lilly Page, who was going on to Hillsover with them.

“Do you suppose she is here already?” asked Katy, tucking the railway guide into the shawl-strap, and closing her bag with a snap.

“Yes: we shall meet her at the Massasoit. She and her father were to pass the night there.”

The Massasoit was close at hand, and in less then five minutes the girls and papa were seated at a table in its pleasant dining-room. They were ordering their breakfast, when Mr. Page came in, accompanied by his daughter,—a pretty girl, with light hair, delicate, rather sharp features, and her mother’s stylish ease of manner. Her travelling dress was simple, but had the finish which a French dressmaker knows how to give to a simple thing; and all its appointments—boots, hat, gloves, collar, neck ribbon—were so perfect, each in its way, that Clover, glancing down at her own gray alpaca, and then at Katy’s, felt suddenly countrified and shabby.

“Well, Lilly, here they are: here are your cousins,” said Mr. Page, giving the girls a cordial greeting. Lilly only said, “How do you do?” Clover saw her glancing at the gray alpacas, and was conscious of a sudden flush. But perhaps Lilly looked at something inside the alpaca; for after a minute her manner changed, and became more friendly.

“Did you order waffles?” she asked.

“Waffles? no, I think not,” replied Katy.

“Oh! why not? Don’t you know how celebrated they are for waffles at this hotel? I thought everybody knew that.” Then she tinkled her fork against her glass, and, when the waiter came, said, “Waffles, please,” with an air which impressed Clover extremely. Lilly seemed to her like a young lady in a story,—so elegant and self-possessed. She wondered if all the girls at Hillsover were going to be like her?

The waffles came, crisp and hot, with delicious maple syrup to eat on them; and the party made a satisfactory breakfast. Lilly, in spite of all her elegance, displayed a wonderful appetite. “You see,” she explained to Clover, “I don’t expect to have another decent thing to eat till next September,—not a thing; so I’m making the most of this.” Accordingly she disposed of nine waffles, in quick succession, before she found time to utter any thing farther, except “Butter, please,” or, “May I trouble you for the molasses?” As she swallowed the last morsel, Dr. Carr, looking at his watch, said that it was time to start for the train; and they set off. As they crossed the street, Katy was surprised to see that Lilly, who had seemed quite happy only a minute before, had begun to cry. After they reached the car, her tears increased to sobs: she grew almost hysterical.

“Oh! don’t make me go, papa,” she implored, clinging to her father’s arm. “I shall be so homesick! It will kill me; I know it will. Please let me stay. Please let me go home with you.”

“Now, my darling,” protested Mr. Page, “this is foolish; you know it is.”

“I can’t help it,” blubbered Lilly. “I ca—n’t help it. Oh! don’t make me go. Don’t, papa dear. I ca—n’t bear it.”

Katy and Clover felt embarrassed during this scene. They had always been used to considering tears as things to be rather ashamed of,— to be kept back, if possible; or, if not, shed in private corners, in dark closets, or behind the bed in the nursery. To see the stylish Lilly crying like a baby in the midst of a railway carriage, with strangers looking on, quite shocked them. It did not last long, however. The whistle sounded; the conductor shouted, “All aboard!” and Mr. Page, giving Lilly a last kiss, disengaged her clinging arms, put her into the seat beside Clover, and hurried out of the car. Lilly sobbed loudly for a few seconds; then she dried her eyes, lifted her head, adjusted her veil and the wrists of her three- buttoned gloves, and remarked,—

“I always go on in this way. Ma says I am a real cry-baby; and I suppose I am. I don’t see how people can be calm and composed when they’re leaving home, do you? You’ll be just as bad to-morrow, when you come to say good-by to your papa.”

“Oh! I hope not,” said Katy. “Because papa would feel so badly.”

Lilly stared. “I shall think you real cold-hearted if you don’t,” she said, in an offended tone.

Katy took no notice of the tone; and before long Lilly recovered from her pettishness, and began to talk about the school. Katy and Clover asked eager questions. They were eager to hear all that Lily could tell.

“You’ll adore Mrs. Florence,” she said. “All the girls do. She’s the most fascinating woman! She does just what she likes with everybody. Why, even the students think her perfectly splendid, and yet she’s just as strict as she can be.”

“Strict with the students?” asked Clover, looking puzzled.

“No; strict with us girls. She never lets any one call, unless it’s a brother or a first cousin; and then you have to have a letter from you parents, asking permission. I wanted ma to write and say that George Hickman might call on me. He isn’t a first cousin exactly, but his father married pa’s sister-in-law’s sister. So it’s just as good. But ma was real mean about it. She says I’m too young to have gentlemen coming to see me! I can’t think why. Ever so many girls have them, who are younger than I.”

“Which Row are you going to room in?” she went on.

“I don’t know. Nobody told us that there were any rows.”

“Oh, yes! Shaker Row and Quaker Row and Attic Row. Attic Row is the

nicest, because it’s highest up, and furthest away from Mrs. Florence.

My room is in Attic Row. Annie Silsbie and I engaged it last term.

You’ll be in Quaker Row, I guess. Most of the new girls are.”

“Is that a nice row?” asked Clover, greatly interested.

“Pretty nice. It isn’t so good as Attic, but it’s ever so much better than Shaker; Because there you’re close to Mrs. Florence, and can’t have a bit of fun without her hearing you. I’d try to get the end room, if I were you. Mary Andrews and I had it once. There is a splendid view of Berry Searles’s window.”

“Berry Searles?”

“Yes; President Searles, you know; his youngest son. He’s an elegant fellow. All the girls are cracked about him,—perfectly cracked! The president’s house is next door to the Nunnery, you know; and Berry rooms at the very end of the back building, just opposite Quaker Row. It used to be such fun! He’d sit at his window, and we’d sit at ours, in silent study hour, you know; and he’d pretend to read, and all the time keep looking over the top of his book at us, and trying to make us laugh. Once Mary did laugh right out; and Miss Jane heard her, and came in. But Berry is just as quick as a flash, and he ducked down under the window-sill; so she didn’t see him. It was such fun!”

“Who’s Miss Jane?” asked Katy.

“The horridest old thing. She’s Mrs. Florence’s niece, and engaged to a missionary. Mrs. Florence keeps her on purpose to spy us girls, and report when we break the rules. Oh, those rules! Just wait till you come to read ‘em over. They’re nailed up on all the doors,— thirty-two of them, and you can’t help breaking ‘em if you try ever so much.”

“What are they? what sort of rules?” cried Katy and Clover in a breath.

“Oh! about being punctual to prayers, and turning you mattress, and smoothing over the under-sheet before you leave your room, and never speaking a word in the hall, or in private study hour, and hanging your towel on your own nail in the wash-room, and all that.”

“Wash-room? what do you mean?” said Katy, aghast.

“At the head of Quaker Row, you know. All the girls wash there, except on Saturdays when they go to the bath-house. You have your own bowl and soap-dish, and a hook for you towel. Why, what’s the matter? How big your eyes are!”

“I never heard any thing so horrid!” cried Katy, when she had recovered her breath. “Do you really mean that girls don’t have wash-stands in their own rooms?”

“You’ll get used to it. All the girls do,” responded Lilly.

“I don’t want to get used to it,” said Katy, resolving to appeal to papa; but papa had gone into the smoking-car, and she had to wait. Meantime Lilly went on talking.

“If you have that end room in Quaker Row, you’ll see all the fun that goes on at commencement time. Mrs. Searles always has a big party, and you can look right in, and watch the people and the supper-table, just as if you were there. Last summer, Berry and Alpheus Seccomb got a lot of cakes and mottoes from the table and came out into the yard, and threw them up one by one to Rose Red and her room-mate. They didn’t have the end room, though; but the one next to it.”

“What a funny name!—Rose Red,” said Clover.

“Oh! her real name is Rosamond Redding; but the girls call her Rose Red. She’s the greatest witch in the school; not exactly pretty, you know, but sort of killing and fascinating. She’s always getting into the most awful scrapes. Mrs. Florence would had expelled her long ago, if she hadn’t been such a favorite; and Mr. Redding’s daughter, beside. He’s a member of Congress, you know, and all that; and Mrs. Florence is quite proud of having Rose in her school.

“Berry Searles is so funny!” she continued. “His mother is a horrid old thing, and always interfering with him. Sometimes when he has a party of fellows in his room, and they’re playing cards, we can see her coming with her candle through the house; and when she gets to his door, she tries it, and then she knocks, and calls out, ‘Abernathy, my son!’ And the fellows whip the cards into their pockets, and stick the bottles under the table, and get out their books and dictionaries like a flash; and when Berry unlocks the door, there they sit, studying away; and Mrs. Searles looks so disappointed! I thought I should die one night, Mary Andrews and I laughed so.”

I verily believe that if Dr. Carr had been present at this conversation, he would have stopped at the next station, and taken the girls back to Burnet. But he did not return from the smoking-car till the anecdotes about Berry were finished, and Lilly had begun again on Mrs. Florence.

“She’s a sort of queen, you know. Everybody minds her. She’s tall, and always dresses beautifully. Her eyes are lovely; but, when she gets angry, they’re perfectly awful. Rose Red says she’d rather face a mad bull any day than Mrs. Florence in a fury; and Rose ought to know, for she’s had more reprimands than any girl in school.”

“How many girls are there?” inquired Dr. Carr.

“There were forty-eight last term. I don’t know how many there’ll be this, for they say Mrs. Florence is going to give up. It’s she who makes the school so popular.”

All this time the train was moving northward. With every mile the country grew prettier. Spring had not fairly opened; but the grass was green, and the buds on the tress gave a tender mist-like color to the woods. The road followed the river, which here and there turned upon itself in long links and windings. Ranges of blue hills closed the distance. Now and then a nearer mountain rose, single and alone, from the plain. The air was cool, and full of brilliant zest, which the Western girls had never before tasted. Katy felt as if she were drinking champagne. She and Clover flew from window to window, exclaiming with such delight that Lilly was surprised.

“I can’t see what there is to make such a fuss about,” she remarked.

“That’s only Deerfield. It’s quite a small place.”

“But how pretty it looks, nestled in among the hills! Hills are lovely, Clover, aren’t they?”

“These hills are nothing. You should see the White Mountains,” said the experienced Lilly. “Ma and I spent three weeks at the Profile House last vacation. It was perfectly elegant.”

In the course of the afternoon, Katy drew papa away to a distant seat, and confided her distress about the wash-stands.

“Don’t you think it is horrid, papa? Aunt Izzie always said that it isn’t lady-like not to take a sponge-bath every morning; but how can we, with forty-eight girls in the room? I don’t see what we are going to do.”

“I fancy we can arrange it; don’t be distressed, my dear,” replied Dr. Carr. And Katy was satisfied; for when papa undertook to arrange things, they were very apt to be done.

It was almost evening when they reached their final stopping place.

“Now, two miles in the stage, and then we’re at the horrid old

Nunnery,” said Lilly. “Ugh! look at that snow. It never melts here

till long after it’s all gone at home. How I do hate this station!

I’m going to be awfully homesick: I know I am.”

But just then she caught sight of the stagecoach, which stood waiting; and her mood changed, for the stage was full of girls who had come by the other train.

“Hurrah! there’s Mary Edwards and Mary Silver,” she exclaimed; “and I declare, Rose Red! O you precious darling! how do you do?” Scrambling up the steps, who plunged at a girl with waving hair, and a rosy, mischievous face; and began kissing her with effusion.

Rose Red did not seem equally enchanted.

“Well, Lilly, how are you?” she said, and then went on talking to a girl who sat by her side, and whose hand she held; while Lilly rushed up and down the line, embracing and being embraced. She did not introduce Katy and Clover; and, as papa was outside, on the driver’s box, they felt a little lonely, and strange. All the rest were chattering merrily, and were evidently well acquainted: they were the only ones left out.

Clover watched Rose Red, to whose face she had taken a fancy. It made her think of a pink carnation, or of a twinkling wild rose, with saucy whiskers of brown calyx. Whatever she said or did seemed full of a flavor especially her own. Here eyes, which were blue, and not very large, sparkled with fun and mischief. Her cheeks were round and soft, like a baby’s; when she laughed, two dimples broke their pink, and, and made you want to laugh too. A cunning white throat supported this pretty head, as a stem supports a flower; and, altogether, she was like a flower, except that flowers don’t talk, and she talked all the time. What she said seemed droll, for the girls about here were in fits of laughter; but Clover only caught a word now and then, the stage made such a noise.

Suddenly Rose Red leaned forward, and touched Clover’s hand.

“What’s your name?” she said. “You’ve got eyes like my sister’s. Are you coming to the Nunnery?”

“Yes,” replied Clover, smiling back. “My name is Clover,—Clover Carr.”

“What a dear little name! It sounds just as you look!”

“So does your name,—Rose Red,” said Clover, shyly.

“It’s a ridiculous name,” protested Rose Red, trying to pout. Just then the stage stopped.

“Why? Who’s going to the hotel?” cried the school-girls, in a chorus.

“I am,” said Dr. Carr, putting his head in at the door, with a smile which captivated every girl there. “Come, Katy; come, Clover. I’ve decided that you sha’n’t begin school till to-morrow.”

“Oh, my! Don’t I wish he was my pa!” cried Rose Red. Then the stage moved on.

“Who are they? What’s their name?” asked the girls. “They look nice.”

“They’re sort of cousins of mine, and they come from the West,” replied Lilly, not unwilling to own the relationship, now that she perceived that Dr. Carr had made a favorable impression.

“Why on earth didn’t you introduce them, then? I declare that was just like you, Lilly Page,” put in Rose Red, indignantly. “They looked so lonesome that I wanted to pat and stroke both of ‘em. That little one has the sweetest eyes!”

Meantime Katy and Clover entered the hotel, very glad of the reprieve, and of one more quiet evening alone with papa. They needed to get their ideas straightened out and put to rights, after the confusions of the day and Lilly’s extraordinary talk. It was very evident that the Nunnery was to be quite different from their expectations; but another thing was equally evident,—it would not be dull! Rose Red by herself, and without any one to help her, would be enough to prevent that!