Читать книгу Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma - Wheeler Janet D. - Страница 6

Edina Tooker faced the battery of curious, amused glances like a thoroughbred. Even when a ripple of laughter ruffled the serene atmosphere of the room, she did not flinch nor cower. If anything, her back was held more stiffly erect, her head was flung back with a defiant gesture. Billie was reminded of an unbroken colt who feels the flick of the whip for the first time and is hurt and enraged by the pain even while he fails to understand the reason for his punishment.

Billie was seized by an almost irresistible desire to go and range herself at this girl’s side, to beat down the ridicule that surged toward the defenseless stranger in a merciless tide.

Edina Tooker wore a heavily pleated serge skirt, far too wide and too long to meet the demands of the prevailing fashion. Over this, accentuating her naturally bulky proportions, was a stiffly starched white shirtwaist, adorned by a flowing red tie.

Her hair was naturally very thick and of that peculiar black which seems to hide a bluish tinge in its depths; but it was drawn back ruthlessly from her broad brow and round red face, drawn back so harshly that it pulled her heavy straight brows upward, giving an odd, almost diabolical, expression to her face.

She wore “sensible” stockings that were very thick and durable and that served admirably to disguise the natural shapeliness of her limbs. On her feet were not shoes, but heavy boots that laced half-way up to her knees!

Even Billie, sensible as she was to this strange girl’s suffering, resentful as she was of her friends’ amusement, knew Edina Tooker to be a figure of fun as she stood there in that assemblage of carefully cared for, tastefully yet simply dressed young people.

“Why doesn’t she sit down?” thought Billie, in exasperation. “Why does she stand there and take the limelight? It’s idiotic!”

The ripple of amusement continuing, Miss Debbs looked up from absorption in her meal and met the defiant gaze of Edina Tooker. Miss Debbs’ face grew red.

“Another tardy one!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean, Edina Tooker, by reporting here at this late hour?”

The girl’s face grew sullen. She scraped one clumsy boot over the other.

“I couldn’t help it, Miss Debbs,” she said, in a voice scarcely audible. “I just come back.”

“Came,” corrected Miss Debbs in her deep, husky voice. “Try to speak grammatical English, at least! May I ask,” she added sarcastically, “where you have been and why you have just come back?”

The ripple of amusement rose again, surging toward the girl in the outlandish garb. Edina’s face was scarlet, her lip trembled in spite of a gallant effort at self-control.

“I – I went for a walk,” she said.

“Ah!” declaimed Miss Debbs in her best elocutionary style. “You went for a walk! May I ask where you went for a walk at this time of the evening, neglecting to return to Three Towers Hall until ten minutes past the supper hour?”

Edina shifted from one foot to the other. Her scarlet face was pitiful to see. She tried to speak, but was apparently unable to bring forth a sound.

Billie Bradley could bear it no longer. She got to her feet and faced the teacher.

“If you please, Miss Debbs, I can tell you where Edina Tooker has been and why she was late for the supper hour!”

Here was drama! There was the sound of a concerted gasp as all eyes swerved to Billie. Edina Tooker put up a trembling hand to her shining black hair and also gazed at Billie.

Miss Debbs looked outraged, but interested.

“What do you mean, Beatrice Bradley? Explain!” she commanded.

Without hesitation, Billie told in a low, clear voice of the trip up to Goldenrod Point, as it was called by the students of Three Towers, of her fall over the cliff, a fall which had almost had disastrous consequences, of Edina Tooker’s brave and efficient help in a moment of extreme peril, and of her own eventual return to safety.

She ended boldly, carried away by her own eloquence:

“I think, instead of a discredit mark, Edina Tooker deserves a medal for heroism. I know if I had my way she should have it!”

Billie made a gesture toward the door and paused, feeling rather foolish. Edina Tooker had disappeared!

Many pairs of eyes followed Billie’s glance toward the door and a babble of excited voices arose.

“Where has she gone?”

“What did she have to do that for?”

“Just when we were all getting ready to give her three cheers – ”

“And a tiger!”

Through the commotion broke the voice of Miss Debbs.

“Silence, please! You will resume your seats and your supper. You will act, if you please, as though nothing had happened. While I am in charge this confusion must cease. Silence!”

When order had been partially restored, Miss Debbs turned her attention to Billie.

“I am obliged to you for your defense of this extraordinary girl. One wonders whether, if you had not spoken up for her, she would have said a word in her own behalf.”

“I doubt it, Miss Debbs,” said Billie earnestly. “She’s the sort who hates thanks and I think I embarrassed her by speaking out.”

“Unfortunately,” resumed Miss Debbs, proceeding with her discourse as though Billie, by answering her query, had been guilty of an impertinence, “this girl has committed another indiscretion by leaving this room before she was given permission to do so. She appears lamentably ignorant of the rules by which Three Towers Hall is governed.”

“I’ll go and call her back, Miss Debbs.” Billie rose eagerly in her place. “I don’t think she can have got very far.”

“Beatrice Bradley, you will stay where you are!” returned Miss Debbs severely. “You will not leave this room until I give you permission to do so.”

Billie sank back in her seat with a sigh of resignation. Miss Debbs was being dramatic, and when she was in that mood there was no arguing with her. Billie did not try, but finished her meal with what appetite she could.

There was floating island for dessert and home-made chocolate cake, an ideal combination and a prime favorite with Billie. But she could not enjoy it for thinking of Edina wandering off somewhere by herself, Edina, heartsore and lonely and desperately rebellious.

The meal at an end, there was a general exodus of girls into the halls and spacious grounds of Three Towers Hall. There they were permitted to wander until nine o’clock when the melodious gong called them indoors to the dormitories and “lights out.”

As usual, Billie Bradley found herself the center of a little court. About her gathered most of the worth-while girls of Three Towers Hall, students who had accomplished something in scholarship, in athletics, or both.

To-night she found herself more than ordinarily popular, because of the interest attached to her adventure of the afternoon and her contact with the girl who was already becoming a source of mystery and interested speculation to the students of Three Towers.

“You sure did champion that queer Edina Tooker, Billie,” drawled Rose Belser. Rose was tall and dark and unusually good-looking. Once an enemy of Billie, Rose was now one of her warmest, most loyal friends. “I’ve never known you to be so eloquent.”

“Even Debsy was impressed,” giggled Connie Danvers. “I think it was rather a shock to her, Billie, to discover that you had so much dramatic talent.”

“I was in earnest, and, you know, sincerity works wonders,” laughed Billie. “Besides,” more soberly, “I feel sorry for the girl. She doesn’t fit here and she knows it.”

“One wonders why she came,” murmured Rachael Carew. Rachael, more commonly known as “Ray” Carew, was the only daughter of the wealthy Carews of Boston. While a thorough “good fellow” with those she considered her equals, Ray could be a bit of a snob with those whose social position was not secure. “One wonders still more,” added Rachael, “how Miss Walters happened to admit a girl of that type to Three Towers Hall.”

For some reason which she could not quite fathom herself, indignation blazed up in Billie at Rachael’s patronizing tone.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘that type of girl’, Ray. She seems to me a thoroughly good sort – ”

“A diamond in the rough?” drawled Ray.

“Perhaps,” flashed Billie. “But I like her and she saved my life. I’d be worse than ungrateful if I consented to listen to unkind remarks about her.”

Before the girls realized her intention or could make a move to stop her, Billie had pushed through the little group and started toward the broad, lighted portal of the Hall.

“The little spitfire!” murmured Rachael Carew. “Who would expect her to fly out at me like that? Anyone would think that queer jay of a girl was her twin sister, to hear her talk.”

“You should know Billie well enough not to run down anyone who has done her a favor,” Laura remarked. “Loyalty is Billie’s dominating trait, you know.”

“Of course it is,” said Rose Belser. “That’s why we all love her – ”

“All except Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks,” remarked Connie Danvers and began to sing softly under her breath:

A chorus of voices joined Connie in the second stanza of the verse:

At the moment Amanda and Eliza and several of the younger girls passed close to the group and shot them a suspicious glance, which provoked a gale of mirth from the author of the “poem” and her friends.

“Let’s sing it again, louder this time,” proposed the irrepressible Connie, but Vi put a check on the hilarity.

“We have had plenty of trouble with those two girls and will probably have more in the future,” she said. “There’s no use going out of our way to look for it.”

Meanwhile Billie had gone in search of Edina Tooker.

She was not in the first year dormitory. There were several girls gathered there, reading or studying, but they unanimously denied any knowledge as to Edina’s whereabouts.

“She is probably mooning down by the lake somewhere,” said one of them. “She likes to get away by herself.”

Before continuing her search, Billie went down the back stairs to the roomy kitchen where the gastronomic needs of several scores of healthy girls were catered to each day.

There was a new cook, a huge black woman with skin like polished ebony and an expansive smile that showed two rows of glistening white teeth. The negress rejoiced in the name of Clarice and she was already one of Billie’s devoted slaves.

“I need some sandwiches, Clarice, and a big piece of that delicious cake. I don’t know,” with calculated flattery, “when I have ever tasted such scrumptious cake. I ate so much at supper, it’s only a wonder I’m not sick.”

“Well, then, Miss Billie, Ah sho hopes as you don’t git no tummyache to-night. An’ Ah’m telling you they ain’t much o’ that cake left, but you’s welcome to what I got, yes’m.”

“You certainly are good to us, Clarice, as well as being a scrumptious cook,” said the girl gratefully.

Five minutes later Billie crept out of a side door and made her way by a circuitous route down toward the lake. She carried a basket over her arm.