CHAPTER XII

“’TWERE BETTER BY FAR TO HAVE MATCHED OUR FAIR COUSIN WITH YOUNG LOCHINVAR”

Gwen and Jan held a council of war. But it was a long time before they reached the council. It took so long to tell the history of the campaign which “Miss Lochinvar”--worthy of her name--had been waging, single-handed and alone, in her cousin’s behalf. It was a story full of “I thoughts,” and “I saids,” and “she saids”; of “I founds,” and “I heards,” and “she dids.” Gwen could not sit still to listen, but walked up and down the room, eyes flashing and cheeks burning, till Tommy Traddles--sensitive, like all cats, to perturbation in the air about him--jumped up on the top of the bookcase, and watched her with large, disapproving eyes, doubtless thinking that people who did not belong to the feline family were most foolishly excitable over trifles.

The result of the girls’ consultation--when they reached that point--was that Gwen and Jan left home early on the following morning together, and when Gladys followed later she was met at the door by Miss Larned’s maid, requesting her immediate attendance in that personage’s private room.

“Probably they’re going to expel me this time,” thought the victim of previous injustice. “I don’t care. It’s the meanest school in New York, anyway!”

She ascended the stairs slowly, “standing with reluctant feet” at the threshold of the Misses Larneds’ sanctum a moment before she knocked.

Opening the door at the permission to do so, she saw an amazing sight. There were both the august sisters sitting as if in judgment, flanked by Miss Arnold, the English teacher. There were Gwen and Jan flushed, trembling, plainly quivering with excitement. And--most wonderful of all--there was Daisy Hammond dissolved in tears, looking “as though she could not look anywhere,” as Gladys said afterward.

“Ahem! Miss Gladys Graham, we have sent for you,” began the elder Miss Larned, portentously. “We have learned that we were mistaken in thinking you guilty of a shocking action, in punishment of which you were deprived--as we supposed justly and with full cognizance on your part of the cause of our decision--of your part in the Christmas play. We have but just learned that you were absolutely guiltless of the offense.”

“I told you I hadn’t done anything, and I didn’t know what made you pounce on me,” said Gladys, so embarrassed by this flood of Johnsonian English, of which she did not understand half the words, as well as perturbed by the fact dawning on her that instead of being expelled she was being reinstated, that she expressed herself with inelegant brevity.

At another time Gladys’s “pounce” would not have passed unreproved. As it was, Miss Larned resumed what her pupils disrespectfully called “her language.”

“A letter fell into our hands, purporting to be written by you, on a certain imported paper which you alone possessed,” Miss Larned continued. Gladys started, and looked at Jan, who nodded significantly. “The letter proposed a course disgraceful in itself and injurious to the school. Miss Hammond was supposed to have been the recipient, and she had indignantly repudiated what was apparently your base proposition. We have discovered that Miss Hammond was the sole author of the letter; that by apparent accident she contrived it should fall into our hands. Her motive was envy of your superior part in the coming play and the desire to have you deprived of it, knowing that, if this were to happen, she would be assigned the part in your stead. Her plot has been so far successful. But for your cousin, Miss Howe, the true culprit would not have been discovered. Actuated by firm faith in your innocence, as well as affection, she has devoted herself to discovering the truth. Chance put into her hands the clue of what we intended--charitably to you--to retain a secret. She has worked upon that clue very cleverly, and, armed with her proofs, laid the case before us this morning. Miss Hammond, seeing the futility of doing so, has attempted no extenuation of her wrong, but confesses it fully. We therefore restore to you our confidence and regard, expressing also our regret that you have undergone this trial, which will doubtless be beneficial to you, nevertheless. And we also request that you once more assume the rôle of the princess in the play. Your sister and your cousin will resume their parts if this arrangement pleases you.”

Gladys was sustained from actual collapse by the formality of this lengthy address, but she was dreadfully upset, and had great difficulty in murmuring her agreement to this arrangement. Miss Larned, seeing that she was overwhelmed by the revelations so suddenly poured forth upon her, graciously arose and held out her hand in amicable dismissal.

“We will excuse you, Miss Gwendoline and Miss Gladys Graham, from attendance on your classes to-day. You, too, Miss Howe, may be excused. And you, Miss Hammond, will hardly be in a fit condition mentally to apply yourself. You will, therefore, keep holiday to-day, reporting at the usual hour to-morrow. And I need not say, I trust, that as this melancholy affair was preserved a secret when Miss Graham was supposed to be the guilty one, so it will be close guarded now that we have learned who is really culpable, much more culpable, I regret to say, than we had thought Miss Graham in the first instance. You will not mention to any of your mates, young ladies, the matters which have been discussed, the facts which have transpired in this room this morning.” Miss Larned, Miss Agatha Larned, and Miss Arnold bowed to the four girls, who found themselves in the hall they hardly knew how.

Daisy Hammond, sobbing bitterly, held out her hand to Gladys, but she put both her hands behind her back with a movement of aversion. “No, Daisy Hammond,” she said decidedly. “I don’t say I won’t forgive you sometime, but I won’t do it now. Gwen was right about you, and I never, never will go with you again. I wouldn’t have minded anything else, because we were chums, and I never was better than you were. But I couldn’t do anything like what you did. To write a letter and pretend it was mine, and use the paper I gave you for it, and then write an answer to it yourself, and let me be put out of the play and disgraced, and never say one word! And pretend every minute you were my friend, and so sorry for me that they could hardly tease you into playing the princess--oh, my! I never heard of such a humbug! No, sir, Daisy, we’re never friends again as long as I live. And I’m dreadfully sorry--it’s the worst thing I ever heard of--you’re a regular Benedict Arnold!” And with which parting shot, drawn from her slender armory of historical lore, Gladys turned away forever from her treacherous friend, her head held high, but with tears running down her cheeks.

Gwen, Jan, and she made their way homeward with difficulty, for Gladys had to be told the whole story, and it was impossible to get her to grasp it when Gwen and Jan were talking together, and all three were dodging the carriages spinning down Fifth Avenue.

The entire day was spent in ceaseless talking over the affair. Mrs. Graham was captured, and the history of her daughter’s wrongs was poured into her indignant ears. Sydney had to learn the story on his return in the afternoon, and Jack grew so angry, and quiet Viva so excited hearing it discussed that only Jerry preserved anything like her ordinary state of mind. Jan was a heroine. Mrs. Graham could hardly express her admiration for the silent determination with which she had set to work to clear Gladys. Mr. Graham was told at night what had been going on at school, and after first declaring wrathfully that he would take Gladys away from the Misses Larneds’, he ended in hearty laughter over what he termed Jan’s pluck, and compromised on a luncheon and a theater-party to be given in her honor. This was the way in which Mr. Graham’s interference in family matters often ended.

“May I come in, Jan?” called Gladys’s voice at Jan’s door at bedtime.

“Of course,” said Jan, hastily opening to the slender figure in the blue eider-down robe which solemnly entered, and would have seated itself on Tommy Traddles in the rocking-chair but that Jan rescued him.

“I can’t say what I want to,” Gladys began, almost timidly. “But I came to thank you for what you’ve done for me. It isn’t clearing up the row--though that’s a good deal,” Gladys continued quickly as Jan started to speak. “Of course it is simply fine to get back my part, and have every one understand that the Superior Ladies [this was Gwen’s name for the Misses Larned, by a transposition of “lady superior”] were wrong about me. But it’s the way you stood by me. And I know I’ve been mean to you, Janet. I hated to have you come here, and I snubbed you, and I made fun of you, and I neglected you----”

“Oh, stop, for goodness’ sake, Gladys! That’s all right!” cried Jan, not relishing this outburst of self-abasement.

“And I called you Miss Lochinvar,” continued Gladys without heeding.

“No, it was Syd dubbed me that, and I’m proud of the name. I like it better than my own--now,” said Jan.

“Yes, it suits you,” said Gladys in the same monotonously melancholy tone. “I read over the poem to-day, and you’re very much like him. Brave and straight, and everything you try goes through. But I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it nastily. But I have learned a great deal, Janet. I shall never be such a foolish girl again. It is an awful thing to find out your friends are perfectly horrid.”

Jan tried not to laugh, but did not succeed very well. Gladys could not be quite simple even under sincere feeling, such as Jan felt sure was moving her now.

“You haven’t found that out about everybody, Gladys. And, honestly, I think the Hammond-Gilsey crowd isn’t much of a loss,” she said.

“No,” said Gladys sadly. “Gwen was right. They’re vulgar, ill-bred girls. But I don’t see why I couldn’t know that as well as Gwen did. And, besides, I’m kind of sorry I know it now. But I haven’t found out you’re mean. I have found out you’re the very nicest girl I ever saw. And what I wanted to ask you was if you thought, after a while--a long, long while--you could forgive me, and like me a little bit?”

“Why, Glad, I don’t even remember I have anything to forgive!” cried Jan, throwing her arms impulsively around the neck of the small figure of humble contrition. “And I do like you now--no, I don’t! I love you--aren’t you my own cousin, and aren’t we going to be friends?”

“I am going to be _your_ friend, and I’m going to try to be the kind of girl you are,” said Gladys, returning Jan’s warm kisses heartily, but in a chastened manner. “I would rather you wouldn’t say you love me yet, because if you do it must be just for Gwen’s sake, or because I’m your cousin, and I want you to love me anyway--because I’m worth loving.”

“Of course you’re worth loving, Gladys. And I think this trouble at school is a perfect blessing!” cried Jan. “You were all mixed up with that worldly, silly lot of girls, and it was just as bad for you! You’ll be ever so much more sensible and nicer when you are done with them.”

“I hope so,” returned Gladys, evidently not in a mood to take a hopeful view of herself. “If I had been sensible I wouldn’t have liked them--Gwen didn’t. You never can like me as well as Gwen, because she really is sensible, and she’s dreadfully clever, and then she’s been pretty nice to you all along. Just think of my caring because those girls knew you hadn’t any money! Shouldn’t you have supposed I’d have known they weren’t ladies, and that you were, and not have cared--just despised them?”

“Yes,” said Jan, stifling a yawn, for an exciting day had left her too sleepy to enter into discussions, moral or social. “I guess people are like things to eat--you like some from the start, and others you have to learn to like. The Hammonds were a sort of puff paste, and too much of them gives you indigestion. Don’t you bother any more about me, Gladys. We’ll have such good times together that you’ll forget you ever were mortified by your Western cousin.”

“Don’t, Jan,” said Gladys gravely. “I’m so ashamed.”

“Now that’s a healthy feeling. I’m always an angel for several days after I’ve been ashamed of myself,” laughed Jan, kissing her crushed visitor good night.

Jan fell asleep with Tommy Traddles purring at her feet and something very like a purr in her own heart, so full of content it was. For the first time she felt that her peaceful conquest of the Graham family was accomplished, that there was not one under that roof that night that did not love her, and to whom her coming was not a matter for which to be glad. Sydney had been indifferent, but now they were the best of friends. Gladys had disliked her, but she bade fair to love her more than Gwen did. And her Aunt Tina had bade her good night with positive affection in her kiss, a kiss that was not usually given when she left her to sleep. Jan felt very happy, very grateful for the love that was springing up around her, not realizing that it was a case of the mirror of which her mother had written her, which Thackeray had said gave back one’s own expression.

Jan was so full of unselfish love that she diffused warmth, and the chill of the big brownstone house was fast disappearing in the glow of her unconscious girlish sweetness.

But it was part of her charm that she should never think such thoughts as these. Instead, she wondered happily and sleepily how it was that everybody was proving so nice, and resolved to do all she could to make the Christmas play a complete success.