Chapter 10

UNDER A CLOUD

Directly across the hall from Blue Bonnet Ashe roomed two girls--Angela Dare and Patricia Payne, the latter better known to her schoolmates as "Patty."

Angela Dare was the pride and hope of the school. She was unusually gifted in English, and gave promise of doing something brilliant in verse. She had the face and temperament of a poet--even the name--if names count for anything; for, as Ruth Biddle once said, "a lovely poem wouldn't look half so good with Susie Simpkins signed to it as Angela Dare!"

Angela had large blue eyes, as serene as a summer's day, and oddly translucent. Her head with its crown of yellow hair was charming in contour, and her face, ivory in coloring, gave her an ethereal, lily-like appearance, distinctive and unusual. She lived in a world of her own, which was satisfying and all absorbing.

It was Deborah Watts, practical and efficient, who one day found Angela in the heart of the Boston shopping district, wending her way through the busy throng, eyes heavenward, her gaze transfixed and rapturous.

"Angela--Angela Dare!" Deborah Watts said, "what are you doing? You'll be killed in all this traffic. Look where you're going. Have you any money? Do you know where you are?"

To all of these questions Angela shook her head in a dazed fashion and burst into tears, because Deborah had spoiled a poem upon which she had been working for hours.

"I almost had it, Deborah, and it was so good. Quite the best thing I've done this year. It went like this:"

Again the gaze sought the skies but the lips faltered.

"Oh, Deborah; now see what you've done! I can't get it! I never shall be able to again--not just that way, and it was so pretty--a sonnet. The lines were in three quatrains and a couplet, with the climax in the octave--you--oh, I'm so annoyed at you."

And it is recorded that the next minute Angela was steeped in regret--- not for the lost verse, but because of her ingratitude and rudeness to Wee, by which it will be seen that she had all the eccentricity of genius, combined with rare kindness of heart, a combination that endeared her to teachers and pupils.

Patty Payne was Angela's balance wheel--a rudder that safely steered her through tides and winds. Patty was the complement of Angela; a perfect foil in every way. To begin with, Patty was dark. She had snapping black eyes that could grow as soft and luminous as stars under the right conditions. She had cheeks like a winter apple, so soft and ruddy were they, and she was the president of the athletic association. She adored Angela in a splendid wholesome way; respecting her talent, her amiability, her spiritual nature--qualities negligible in Patty's own make up.

Angela's and Patty's room was known, for some reason, possibly because of Angela's name and temperament, as the "Angel's Retreat."

It was in the "Angel's Retreat" at four-thirty o'clock in the afternoon after Blue Bonnet's return from Woodford, that a number of girls were gathered. The room was filled with them. They sat on the bed, on the couch, on the floor, and the topic of conversation was personal characteristics.

Sincerity had been discussed; truthfulness disposed of; jealousy and temper aired to the satisfaction of all, and courage was now under discussion.

"I haven't very many virtues," Deborah Watts was saying, trying to assume a modest attitude, and failing; "but I think I am fairly courageous--that is, I meet big things rather well: sickness and accidents and--"

"You don't look as if you'd ever been sick in your life," Blue Bonnet said.

"I haven't," Wee admitted, "but I have absolutely no fear of it--"

"Were you ever in an accident?" Patty inquired.

"No, I can't say that I ever was--but--what I mean is, I am not nervous. I haven't any fear of things happening when I'm riding, or train wrecks or--"

"How about a mouse?" Sue Hemphill inquired. "You said the other night--"

Wee stiffened perceptibly.

"Oh, how absurd, Sue--a mouse! Nobody is afraid of a mouse--really afraid--they're just so horrid, that's all. They're such squirmy things--ugh! No, what I mean is--I guess I'm not very clear, but I hardly know what _fear_ is. I'm never afraid of being out nights--"

"I'm not either," Angela Dare said, "that is, not if my muse is along. I'm so absorbed--"

A laugh went round the room. Angela's muse was the signal for merriment.

"I think intuition is _my_ long suit," Annabel Jackson said. "Sometimes it's perfectly uncanny. I can almost read people's thoughts and know what they are going to say and do."

"How?" Sue inquired.

"Oh, I don't know how. No one can account for those things."

"I thought you might help Mary Boyd--she's short on intuition--just at present."

"What's Mary done now?" a half dozen voices inquired.

Sue laughed.

"Mary's furious," she said. "She's preparing for one of her monthly flights to Chicago. She's packing up."

The girls roared with laughter. Mary's flights home were too funny. She packed up several times a month, but she never got as far as the station.

"What's the matter this time?"

"Same old story. Fraulein! I think it is a shame those children have to have her all the time. She's ruining their dispositions. They all just hate her."

"What did Mary do, Sue?"

It was Blue Bonnet who asked this time.

"Oh, you'll have to get the particulars from her. It's as good as a vaudeville stunt to hear Mary tell it. They were having an orgy of some kind last night--"

"Was Carita in it?" Blue Bonnet asked rising, all the anxiety of a mother hen for a lost chicken in her attitude.

"I think she was. There was a room full."

Blue Bonnet started for the door.

"I must go and see," she said. "I hope Carita isn't in trouble."

"Come back again," the girls called after her. "We've something to discuss later."

Mary's room was in a state of confusion. In a corner Carita sat, weeping softly.

"Mary's going home," she said, and a sob shook her. "She says she's going to-night. Oh, I'll miss her so, Blue Bonnet."

"Going home?"

Blue Bonnet turned to Mary.

"Well, I should say I am," Mary announced, dragging out one garment after another from her closet. "I wouldn't stay in this school another day for anybody. Fraulein has acted perfectly outrageously. I think she's crazy!"

Blue Bonnet stared in amazement.

"What's she done, Mary?"

"Done! Well, she's done enough to drive me out of this school--that's all!"

She pounded a cork in a bottle of hair tonic she was getting ready to pack. The cork refused to stay in the bottle. Mary gave it another jab--the bottle broke and the contents spilled over the dresser. She tried to rescue an ivory-handled brush and mirror, but it was too late.

"There," she cried, the tears springing to her eyes; "see what I've done--perfectly ruined Peggy Austin's brush! Well, she shouldn't have left it in here."

Blue Bonnet took the brush and tried to wipe off the spots. She pushed Mary into a chair and drew one up for herself.

"Now," she said, "tell me all about it. What has Fraulein done?"

At first Mary was silent.

"Tell me," urged Blue Bonnet.

"Well, we were having a party in here last night--a sort of feast. It was Peggy's birthday and her mother sent her a box. Peggy's room is so near Fraulein's she never can have anything there, so we had it here. We waited till all the lights were out, and it was as still as could be. We were having a dandy time, when Peggy said she'd forgotten a box of candy in her room and went to get it. We waited for her, and after a while there was a knock on the door--just a little timid knock, as if Peggy were trying to fool us. She knew a knock like that would scare us to death, so we thought we'd fool her. I happened to have a pitcher of water on the stand there, so we opened the door a little way--it was pitch dark--and let her have it, full force!"

"Well?"

"Well--it wasn't Peggy--it was Fraulein! Didn't you hear her scream? It was enough to wake the dead. Miss North came running and Miss Martin--she's on this floor too, now, and--"

Carita's grief had suddenly turned to mirth. She rocked back and forth in her chair shaking with laughter.

"Oh, Blue Bonnet, you couldn't have helped laughing to save you--it was perfectly killing. Fraulein was so angry she just tore round. She threatened to have us all expelled--disgraced--everything you could think of! At least we took it for that--it was all in German--every word."

"And Miss North has taken away all my privileges for two weeks--two whole weeks! That means that I can't go to the party the girls are getting up for the twenty-second, or anything, and I'm just not going to stand it. I'm going home! You see if I don't--this time!"

She got up and began hauling more things from the closet.

"No, you're not," Blue Bonnet said gently, putting her arm round her. "You're not going to do anything of the kind, you know you're not. You'd be ashamed to. It would look as if you were afraid to face the music--and you can--you must!"

It was Mary's turn to look amazed.

"That's not why I'm going," she said. "I'm not afraid of punishment."

"That's the way it would look."

"I don't care how it would look. I wouldn't be here to see anyway."

"Then you haven't any pride."

"I guess I have as much pride as you have, or any one else!"

"Not if you're going to run away, you haven't. Besides, I can't blame Fraulein so very much for being angry. It isn't so funny to be drenched like that. She was doing her duty, wasn't she?"

"Oh, she's always snooping round, if that's what you mean. Get her on your own hall for awhile and see how you like it."

"I shouldn't like it. Not at all; but that's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"That you've made a mistake and you aren't big enough to take the blame. My uncle says that making a mistake isn't such a very grave thing in itself, it's human nature. The trouble comes in not trying to correct it."

Mary looked out of the window, a frown on her face.

"You'd better not be so preachy," she said. "Everybody hates a goody-goody--here!"

Blue Bonnet laughed.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'll never be called that by any one who knows me! I've done nothing but make mistakes and get in hot water all my life. Wasn't I doing penance last week myself?"

"Then I should think you would know how other people feel."

"I do. That's why I'm trying to advise you. I reckon it's a mighty selfish way to look at it, Mary, but you'll be a heap happier yourself to do the square thing. It gives you such a comfy sort of feeling."

"I'm perfectly comfortable now," Mary said obstinately. "I wish it had been a hose instead of a little pitcher--"

Blue Bonnet put her hand over Mary's mouth and gave her a little hug.

"You don't wish anything of the kind. You're angry. When people are angry they aren't responsible. I'm going to tell you something I did last summer to one of my very best friends when I was angry."

She told Mary of how she had almost let Kitty Clark drown in the swimming pool of the Texas stream; how Kitty had cut her head on the rock, and of the consternation that followed.

Mary listened almost unbelievingly.

"You did--that, Blue Bonnet?"

"I did, Mary, and it was a dear lesson. I've had a line on my temper ever since--sometimes it gets away, for a while, but not so often. Now come on, be a thoroughbred! Go and talk to Fraulein."

Mary shrank away protesting.

Blue Bonnet shrugged her shoulders and started to pick up the room.

"All right, Mary, if you've got a damp cotton cord for a back bone--"

Mary got up out of her chair instantly.

"_That's_ something I haven't got. I'll just show you, Miss Blue Bonnet Ashe."

She flew out of the room and Carita ran to the door to watch her.

"She's knocking on Fraulein's door, as sure as you live," she announced, coming back.

"Of course," Blue Bonnet said, hanging a couple of dresses back in the closet. "Mary's all right. She doesn't mean half she says."

A few of the girls were waiting for Blue Bonnet in the "Angel's Retreat."

"Hurry up," Ruth Biddle said, as she entered the room. "We've a lot to say to you--too much for ten minutes."

"Go ahead, then, I'm listening."

"You are about to have a great honor conferred upon you," Ruth continued.

"'Some achieve greatness--some have it thrust upon them,'" Blue Bonnet quoted. "This is the thrusting kind, I suppose--"

"We want you to join our club, Blue Bonnet," Annabel said. "We haven't time to be frivolous. I have a lesson in exactly seven minutes with Mrs. White. Will you?"

Blue Bonnet looked stunned.

"A club!" she said. "What kind of a club?"

"Oh, just a club--something like a sorority. I'm the president, if that's any inducement."

"It certainly would be, Annabel, but--you see I belong to one club--a little one in Woodford. I don't know how the girls would feel about my joining another."

"You won't be in Woodford much from now on," Annabel said. "You'd better take the 'good the gods provide,'--it's some club!"

"I don't doubt that--but--what do you do?"

"We don't give our private affairs to the public," Sue said, laughing to take the edge off the rather bald statement. "Do you, in your club?"

"Well--there isn't much to tell."

"There is, in ours. We have a serious purpose--sometimes."

"Who's in it?"

Ruth counted on her fingers.

"Annabel, Sue, Wee, Angela and Patty--myself, of course, and you, if you'll come."

"Why, it would be another We Are Sevens," Blue Bonnet said. "That's the name of our club. Isn't that odd?"

"Sleep over it, Blue Bonnet, and let us know to-morrow. It'll keep," Wee Watts suggested.

"All right, suppose I do. I'll try to let you know to-morrow if I can. I'd really like to write to the girls--"

A knock at the door interrupted the sentence.

"Is Miss Ashe here?" Martha inquired. "If she is, Miss North would like to see her in the office."

"Mercy, how popular some people are!" Ruth remarked. "What is it, Blue Bonnet? More trouble?"

"Not this time," Blue Bonnet said, her head up, her eyes shining. "My conscience is clear anyway."

Miss North, as usual, was busy. She motioned Blue Bonnet to a chair and went on with her work. When she had finished, she unlocked a drawer in her desk and taking out a book, handed it to Blue Bonnet.

"Is this your property, Miss Ashe?" she inquired.

Blue Bonnet took the book, opened it, looked it over from cover to cover and handed it back.

"No," she said, "it isn't mine. It's French. I couldn't translate it."

"You are quite sure that it is not your book, or one that you borrowed?"

Blue Bonnet glanced at the book again.

"Perfectly sure, Miss North. I never saw it before."

"That is very strange, Miss Ashe. The book was found in your drawer while you were at home for the week-end. Miss Martin found it covered with some underwear."

The puzzled expression on Blue Bonnet's face would have cleared her in any court of justice; but Miss North had dealt with consummate actresses in her time. She was on her guard.

Blue Bonnet took the book again in her hands and turned over a few leaves, her face still surprised and bewildered.

"In _my_ drawer! Who do you suppose could have put it there?"

She looked Miss North clearly in the eyes.

"That is what I am trying to find out. It is the kind of book that is expressly forbidden in the school, Miss Ashe. This is a very serious matter."

Blue Bonnet laid the book on the desk instantly, giving it a little push as if contaminated by the touch.

"And you think, Miss North, that _I_ would have a book like that in my drawer?"

"I should not like to think it, Miss Ashe, but--"

Blue Bonnet did not let her finish the sentence.

"Doesn't my word count for anything? I am in the habit of telling the truth."

Miss North hesitated. She believed the girl innocent, but she had had so many experiences--boarding-school was a hotbed for them, she sometimes thought. Her position was a trying one.

"I _want_ to believe that you are telling the truth. Miss Ashe, but--I am sorry to say that I have known girls, who thought they were truthful, to dissemble--to--"

"I am not one of those girls, Miss North. I give you my word of honor that I never saw that book, or one like it, in my life, until this minute. That is all I can say--you may believe me or not."

She started to leave the room, her head held a trifle higher than usual, her eyes bright and snapping.

"One moment, Miss Ashe. There is no need for anger. This, as I stated before, is a serious matter. It is possible that the girl who brought this book into the school did not realize its full import; its true significance. No girl could read it without taking away much of the bloom that it is our privilege to guard and preserve. Even I, at middle age, should find this book--obnoxious."

"And you think that I would secrete a book of that kind in my drawer? That I would touch it any more than you would?"

Blue Bonnet's eyes were appealing now, almost pathetic in their mute inquiry.

"Do you know of any one who would be likely to put the book in your drawer, Miss Ashe?"

Miss North had ignored Blue Bonnet's question for a moment.

"No, Miss North, I do not. I don't believe any of the girls I know would have done it."

"Very well. You may go now. The matter will be thoroughly investigated."

"And in the meantime I remain under suspicion?"

Blue Bonnet looked as if she had been struck a blow. It was the first time in her life that her word had ever been doubted in the slightest particular. She had a great reverence for the truth. It was an inheritance. "Straight and true like an Ashe, Honey"--the words rang in her ears now--would always--like an armor they wrapped themselves about her--protected her....

"We have many of us rested under an injustice, Miss Ashe, but right always triumphs. I am old fashioned enough to believe that. The matter will be sifted to the bottom."

Blue Bonnet went up to her room feeling that a cloud had settled upon her--a cloud black and ominous.

Joy Cross sat in her accustomed seat by the window, reading. She did not glance up as Blue Bonnet entered, but, if anything, turned her face farther away.

Blue Bonnet sat down listlessly. Her first thought was to question Joy in regard to the book, but she hated to mention it; to have any one know that she was mixed up in such an unsavory affair. Who could have done such a thing--such a contemptible, cowardly thing? Who, in school, disliked her enough to put her in such a position? How had it happened?

Round and round in a groove went her thoughts, bringing no solution. She got up after a while, and opening her top bureau drawer, took out a small box safely guarded in one corner. From the box she drew a miniature which she gazed at long and tenderly.

Joy Cross put away her book and left the room.

Blue Bonnet took the miniature to the light. Her throat ached with the sobs that she had suppressed in Joy's presence. Now the torrent broke.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" she cried, sinking into a chair, "why can't I have you to tell me what to do?--why did you have to leave me when I needed you so?--other girls have mothers--fathers, too--"

So violent was her grief that she did not hear the door open softly, nor see the gentle, sweet-faced woman who came swiftly toward her and knelt beside her.

"Why, Miss Ashe! Blue Bonnet, dear--what is all this about? What is the matter? Can I help you?"

The girl raised her face and struggled with her tears.

"I just wanted my mother--for a minute," she said slowly. "Sometimes I need her so--want her--nobody knows how much! I suppose girls never do get used to being without a mother, do they, Mrs. White--no matter how kind and dear one's friends and relatives may be?"

"Couldn't you tell me what the trouble is? Perhaps I could help you?"

Blue Bonnet shook her head.

Mrs. White lifted the girl's wet face and held it between her cool, firm hands.

"Did you know," she said after a moment, "that I was a mother once--for ever so short a while--a little daughter, dear. She would have been almost your age if she had been spared to me. I, too, know how terrible death is--how it robs us--"

"Oh, were you--were you?" Blue Bonnet cried, her own sorrow for the moment forgotten in another's grief. "It must have been awful to give her up--awful! I'm so sorry."

There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then Blue Bonnet thrust the miniature into Mrs. White's hands.

"Did I ever show you this? It's my mother. I got it last year on my sixteenth birthday. I love it better than anything in the world."

Mrs. White gazed at the likeness for some minutes.

"It is a lovely face," she said, handing it back. "A lovely face--_better_ than lovely--womanly. One feels the spirit back of it. When you are lonely again, think what a gift such a mother has been. What a privilege to follow in her footsteps--carry out her hopes of you--her ideals."

She was gone, her own cup overflowing, before Blue Bonnet could reply. Just before the gong sounded for dinner she came back for a moment, smiling and serene.

"I brought you this," she said. "I tore it off my calendar a few moments ago. It has a little message for you. Let's pin it up here in your mirror for a day or two, so you will see it every time you dress."

And over Mrs. White's shoulder Blue Bonnet read:

"Life is mostly froth and bubble, One thing stands like stone: Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in one's own."

Under the "courage in one's own," a faint line had been drawn.