CHAPTER XIII.

JESSICA ENTERS SCHOOL.

“Now, my dear, I will introduce you to your mates.”

Jessica caught her breath with a sob, but her blue eyes were dry and her face piteously white and grief-stricken. This second parting from her beloved mother had been harder than the first. It was with a feeling of utter desolation that she followed Madam Mearsom into the pleasant recreation-room where most of the pupils of the school were gathered.

These were not many in number; that number “strictly limited” to those whose guardians were willing to pay an extremely high tuition price. But it is just to add that the price was well deserved. While known as a “fashionable” establishment it was yet a most thorough one, affording its graduates as complete an education as they could have obtained at a woman’s college. In that respect, Jessica’s new home had been well chosen.

“Young ladies, I have the pleasure to present to you, Miss Jessica Trent, of Sobrante, California. I trust that you will make her very happy among you. Miss Rhinelander, Miss Trent’s desk will be next your own in the study-room. Kindly do the honors of our house.”

“Yes, madam, with great pleasure,” answered a tall, dark-eyed girl, moving forward with an air as composed and self-possessed as that of the schoolmistress herself. With a graceful, sweeping courtesy, she offered her hand to the newcomer, who accepted it gratefully enough, yet with the feeling that nothing mattered now.

Helen Rhinelander was instantly offended. She was the leader in the school, by reason of her ability and social position. Also, by a certain sort of arrogance which impressed her followers as something extremely fine and full of “distinction.” To be “_distingué_” was, at Madame Mearsom’s, the height of elegance.

Now, Miss Rhinelander’s glance swept Jessica’s simple costume, of that unadorned blue flannel her mother so greatly liked, and there was disdain in the glance. This disdain was observed and copied by a few.

“Helen’s own clothes are very simple--but then! They are of the finest, and cut with such a grace. She is style itself. Why, she’s stylish even in her nightgown!” had remarked one young miss to another, and had tried to make her own dressmaker copy this “style”--with poor result.

“Dowd!” “Common!” “pretty enough, but--Oh! my!” “She’s simply impossible! I doubt if even Madam can make that new girl over into anybody presentable.” “I think it’s a shame to admit such people to our school. My father sends me here because he believed it to be so very exclusive. She isn’t exclusive. She might be anybody. She might even live--anywhere.” “Looks as if she came from California, or some other outlandish place.” “She’s a dear. How sad she looks and how brave, not to cry when she’s so longing to.” “I’ve heard about her. She was the girl that was found in the garden of Madam Dalrymple’s mansion in Washington Square; when it was burned another girl, a flower-girl, saved her life.” These were the unspoken opinions that greeted Jessica.

“Helen--Helen isn’t--nice!” whispered Aubrey Huntington to her chum and satellite. Now when a schoolgirl is dubbed “not nice” by her mates, the chances are that she is extremely disagreeable. Also, a person may be that, yet remain perfectly well bred.

Helen prided herself on her breeding, yet she did not hesitate to elevate her eyebrows slightly, as she conducted Jessica to a low chair in the pleasantest corner of the room, where one could look out on the broad Avenue, with its passing throngs and vehicles, and through which a soft September breeze was blowing.

Jessica accepted the chair with a low “Thank you,” and turned her face toward the window. The breeze cooled her cheek, that burned beneath the glances of all these strangers, yet the throngs outside but served to increase her own loneliness. In fancy she could hear the “chug-chug” of the train bearing her dear ones far away; and before she knew it the tears were streaming down her face and she could see nothing even of the throngs. She did not attempt to stay them, she could not. Neither did she lift her handkerchief to wipe them off. She was ashamed of her own weakness, it was so un-Waldron-y, and she hoped none of those bright creatures yonder had seen it.

“If she had only let me go to my room alone! Just for a little time till I got used to it!” she thought. Then felt something soft and dainty touch her cheek, got a whiff of delicate perfume, and heard a voice whispering:

“Don’t look ’round. Stare right out the window, hard as ever. In a minute Helen and her clique’ll be going out--It’s exercise hour; and, lucky for us, I’ve a cold in my head and am excused. I always _do_ get a cold in my head, whenever I have a chance. It lets you off so many things. There! They’re going. Madam won’t insist upon you, not this first day. You’re a ‘new-er.’ ‘New-ers’ get scot of heaps of things. Now, they’ve gone; every one except Natalie, and she doesn’t count. She generally is in disgrace, Nat is. Come here, Natalie Graham. This is Jessica Trent. She’s cried my hanky full, give me yours. Hold on. You better keep it and sop her cheeks yourself while I go bring that box of choccies I hid in my bed. I had to take them out the box ’cause that would have showed, but I left ’em in the paper. Whew! Jessica Trent! I never saw a girl cry so much nor such awful great tears in all my life. Nattie’s hanky’ll be soaked, too, in a minute, if you don’t let up. See if you can’t stop before I get back. I cried, too, the day I was a ‘new-er’ but not that way. Stick to her, Nat, and make her know it’s not so bad when you get used to it. You can get used to anything, you know, even the ‘corrective medicine’ Madame has given to us, now and then, for our complexions.”

By this time the “sopping” process had been thoroughly accomplished, Jessica had ceased to weep from sheer astonishment, and the lively, whispering comforter had betaken herself in search of prohibited “Choccies,” otherwise a rich chocolate dainty. The proprietor of these had never known a grief that a pound of “Huyler’s” could not cure.

Jessica looked after the plump, retreating figure, with its starched and sadly berumpled white frock, its extravagantly large bows that stood out from a brilliant red head at absurd angles, and its odd air of being made up of bits, rudely flung together in great haste. The effect was amusing enough to bring a smile even to her lips, sad though she was, and she demanded of the “sopper” who remained:

“Who is that? Is she a pupil here?”

“That’s Aubrey Huntington. Yes, she’s a pupil, that is, she’s here; but she doesn’t pupil very much. She’s in so many scrapes she doesn’t have time. Anyway, she doesn’t need. She’s so awful rich. Her father is, I mean, and he gives Aubrey heaps and heaps of spending-money, even though Madame doesn’t approve. Why, he’s richer even than Helen Rhinelander’s mother, and that family think they own the earth. Helen’s father is dead, and she’s an heiress. She’s awful smart. Stands head in all her classes and plays the piano to beat the band. Oh! I ought not to have said that. It’s slang, and Madame is very particular about our using slang. There isn’t much of anything that Madame isn’t particular about. But I love her. I certainly do. She’s just like a mother to us if we’re in trouble, or ill, or anything; except, well, except when we get into scrapes and then she’s more like a--a father. My name is Natalie Graham. Oh! I forgot, Aubrey told you. She and I are sort of cousins and Madame used to let us room together. This year she won’t. She says Aubrey does me a great deal of harm and I’m not the restriction on Aubrey that I should be, being six months older, so. Some of the girls room alone. I guess you will, ’cause all the double rooms are full. I guess you’ll be in our form, too. Aubrey can draw lovely. I mean she can draw funny; but her folks have forbidden her drawing any more because they want her to study the piano. Her father says he must have somebody in the family that can make a little music and soothe an idle hour and Aubrey’s the only child there is, so she’s shut off on drawing and pinned down to practising. She won’t be long, though. She can coax her father to let her do ’most anything. She says it’s a great deal easier to buy a pianola and let the music play itself on that, and she’s in for a pianola. She says she’s going to be a comic illustrator and make pictures for the funny papers. She could do it, too.

“Seems as if she were gone a long time. I--I bet something’s happened! Ah! Here she comes now. Have you got done crying? Choccies won’t taste half as nice, if you haven’t, with tears on them. Heigho! Aub! What kept you?”

“The ‘Snooper.’ She’s in with a headache, or a fit of the ‘snoops’ more like. She’s got it into her long head that I’ve been doing something forbidden again, and just casually strayed into my room to find out. First thing she did she sat right down on my bed, kerflump! And there, in that very spot, between the sheets were these precious sweeties. Look at them, will you? Isn’t that enough to try the soul of a saint? Which I’m not. Poor choccies! To be smashed by the ‘Snooper.’

“So I sat down in the chair and she sat on the bed; and I said just as politely deportment-y as I could: ‘Beg pardon, Miss Stewart, but I’m excused from exercise, to-day, on account of my bad cold, and I’ve retired to my room for a little privacy and--and meditation.’ That’s where I made a mistake. Saying ‘meditation.’ ‘Snooper’s’ a faddist on meditation. Says it so improves our souls and a lot more bosh. So she decided she’d stay and meditate with me. And she did. But I ousted her at last. _I sang!_ As soon as I began she put up her hand to make me stop, but the higher she held it the more I warbled, and in time she fled. But not till after she’d squashed these dear choccies all flat. Never mind. They were in the waxed paper and we can lick ’em off. Try some, Jessica. There’s nothing so good for a broken heart as a fresh cream drop.”

Nobody could withstand this nonsensical, merry girl. Certainly not Jessica Trent, even though she did wince at that reference to “broken hearts;” and in another moment the trio were deep in the enjoyment of the sweets which two of them knew were prohibited “between meals” though the “new-er” did not. Also, each was frankly imparting all the facts of her personal history, and the stranger was swiftly learning that there was still a good deal of happiness left in life. Here were “girls,” that race of which she knew so little; here was no grave talk of “duty” and “trusts” and the serious matters which interested grown folks; and here, once more, Jessica began to feel as she had used in the old home at Sobrante before any troubles came to it, to make her thoughtful beyond her years.

Suddenly said Aubrey:

“Pooh! My cold in the head isn’t bad. It’s stuffy in here. It’s recreation afternoon, anyway, and no lessons till study hour at night. Let’s get our things and take a walk.”

“Why, Aubrey! How can we without a teacher?”

“A great deal better than with one. It’s teacher’s day off, too, our class walking one. Oh! come on, Natalie. Don’t be tiresome.”

“I don’t want to be tiresome. I want to go. I’ll run ask Madame. Probably she’ll tell Miss Leonard to look after us, or she might even send the groom.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Natalie Graham. Madame has a managers’ meeting in the big drawing-room. I heard them managing as I went through the upper hall. Miss Leonard is too strict. I’d rather stay at home than go out with that linen-room woman. Come on. I’m off.”

Alas! Where Aubrey led the way, the weaker Natalie was apt to follow. Therefore, the first act of Jessica’s life at school was one of disobedience. The strictest rule of Madame Mearsom’s establishment was against her pupils’ going upon the streets alone, without the protection of someone in authority.

But Aubrey was a born New Yorker. She knew, or fancied that she knew, all its streets and avenues, having seen many of them from the safety of her father’s carriage--rarely from the point of a pedestrian--save on those prim walks of the scholars, such as most of them were now taking.

Once upon the street, she advised:

“Don’t let’s go the regular route. There’s no fun meeting the others. If we do we’ll have to fall into line and go, ‘miminy-piminy’ just as usual. New York is all in squares. Let’s go by this east square and then around the block home again. We can do that as many times as we like and stay out till we’re tired.”

“All right. Let’s,” agreed Natalie, seeing nothing dangerous in such a plan. Nor did Jessica object. She followed in all innocence and ignorance whatever the affectionate Aubrey suggested. But after one round of the block, that lively girl tired of it.

“Pshaw! There’s nothing to see here. I want to see something. Something except brown-stone houses and a few carriages before them. Hark! I hear music! Guess it is a hand-organ! Oh! I love hand-organs! Especially if they have monkeys to them. Hurry up! Come on! Isn’t this a lark?”

Natalie made a vain clutch at the starched and fleeing skirt, which eluded her grasp as its wearer dashed onward around the next corner and eastward along a cross street.

“It _is_ a hand-organ! And there _is_ a monkey--The dearest, delightfullest one ever! Hurry up, girls, do hurry up. See? There are children dancing on the pavement. Oh! how pretty and how jolly!”

It was both pretty and extremely “jolly.” Older eyes than these have watched the unconscious, small street-dancers, lured from their poor homes by the melody of “Money Musk” or its like, though wheezed from a weather-beaten hurdy-gurdy; and none of these three now remembered aught they should.

For them there was also lure in the music and in the antics of the red-clad monkey.

“Oh! how perfectly, delightfully ‘plebeian!’” cried Aubrey, her own nimble feet keeping time to those entrancing strains and catching Jessica about the waist to make her join in that mad whirl. “I can just fancy Helen Rhinelander’s face when I tell her, to-night, where we have been and what we’ve done. Ever been to dancing school, Jessica?”

“No, indeed, never.”

“I thought so. Never mind, you’ll learn soon. We have the finest teacher in the city. Come on, Nat! Let’s take a turn!”

Not one but many; and soon the surroundings changed and even reckless Aubrey paused and exclaimed:

“Heigho! I guess we’d better be going back. The man is putting up his monkey, he isn’t going to play any more, it must be nearly supper time. We _must_ go back.”

“Yes we must,” agreed Natalie, earnestly. “You walk between us, Jessie Trent. I’m so glad you’ve come to our school. We’ll have the very nicest times together, we three. Won’t we, Aubrey?”

“Indeed, we will,” answered she.

But her companions noticed that her voice had lost its usual enthusiasm, and that she now paused to look about her with a puzzled air. As a leader she suddenly felt responsible for her comrades in mischief and remarked, rather soberly:

“This isn’t the way. We’re going wrong. The numbers on the houses--I didn’t know there were such poor houses anywhere, so dingy and so small; but the numbers run up high, as you go north. I know that. In time we’ll get to Madame Mearsom’s if we watch the numbers.”

Unfortunately to have watched the numbers of the streets would have been the safer way, than those upon the houses. These continually grew larger and larger and as constantly more uninviting. Finally, poor Aubrey stopped short. Her ruddy face had grown quite pale, and her breath came fast, as she announced:

“Girls, we are--lost! But we mustn’t get scared nor say a word to anybody, nor ask a single question. We must just find our own way home. Else we’ll be taken to a station-house, or worse--be kidnapped! That’s what my father is always afraid of, that somebody will kidnap me, big as I am, so as to make him pay a lot of money to get me back again.”

“What’s ‘kidnapped?’” asked Jessica in awed and wondering ignorance. Nor did her heart grow lighter when these two, long ago enlightened on that dread subject by the words of maids and nurses, explained to her its awful meaning.

“Then we mustn’t ask, as you say. Else I would have called that policeman yonder, just as Mr. Hale and my Cousin Margaret always bade me do if I was in trouble. We’ll just walk right straight along, with our heads high up as if we weren’t afraid and didn’t care at all, and after a while we’ll get somewhere!”

“O Jessica, you darling! You’re just the nicest ever. You give me lots of courage. Yes, we’ll do that. Stop crying, Natalie. Come on.”

So they set valiantly forth, though the early nightfall was now swiftly coming; but the “somewhere” they sought was far and hard to find.