Loe raamatut: «Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall: or, Solving the Campus Mystery», lehekülg 8

CHAPTER XVIII
THE MYSTERY AGAIN

The organization of the Sweetbriars had gone on apace. Two general meetings had been held. Every new-comer to the school, who had entered the Junior classes, saving Helen Cameron, had joined the new society. The committee on constitution and by-laws was now ready to report and this very afternoon Ruth and two other girls waited on Mrs. Tellingham to ask permission to hold social meetings in one of the assembly rooms on stated occasions, as the other school societies did.

The trio of Sweetbriars had to wait a little while in the hall outside the library door, for Mrs. Tellingham was engaged. Mary Cox came out first and as she passed Ruth she tossed her head and said:

"Well, are you here to tattle about somebody else?"

Ruth was stricken speechless, and the girls with her asked wonderingly what the older girl had meant.

"I – I do not know just what she means," gasped Ruth, "only that she means to hurt me if she can."

"She's mad with you," said one, "because you started the S. B.'s and wouldn't join her old Upede Club.

"That's it," said the other. "Don't you mind, Miss Fielding."

Then the maid told them they could go into the library. Mrs. Tellingham looked very grave, and sat at her desk tapping the lid thoughtfully with a pencil. This was one occasion when Dr. Tellingham was not present. The countenance of the Preceptress did not lighten at all when she saw Ruth come in.

"What is it, Miss Fielding?" she asked in her brusque way.

Ruth stated the desire of the new society briefly, and she was positive before Mrs. Tellingham replied at all that the mention of the Sweetbriars did not please the lady.

"You girls will fill your time so full, with societies and leagues, and what all, that there will be little space for studies. I am half sorry now that I ever allowed any secret, or social clubs, to be formed at Briarwood. But while we have the Forward Club, I cannot well deny the right of other girls to form similar societies.

"But I am not pleased with the Up and Doing Club. I understand that every girl but one reported out of her room after retiring bell last evening, in the West Dormitory, was a member of the Up and Doings – and the other girl was you, Miss Fielding!" she added sternly. "And you are a member of this new organization – What do you call it? The 'S. B.'s,' is it?"

"The Sweetbriars," said Ruth bravely. "And I am sorry I did anything to bring any cloud upon the name of the new club. I promise you, Mrs. Tellingham, that I will do nothing in the future to make you sorry that you sanctioned the formation of our society."

"Very well! Very well!" said the Preceptress, hastily. "You may have the same rights, and under the same conditions, that the older clubs have. And now, Miss Fielding, stop here a moment, I have another matter to speak to you about."

The other girls went away and Ruth, somewhat troubled by the manner of Mrs. Tellingham, waited her pleasure. The Preceptress took up a letter from her desk and read it through again.

"Dr. Davison you know, Ruth," she said, quietly. "He and your uncle, Mr. Jabez Potter, have arranged to send here to school a lame girl named Curtis – "

"My uncle!" gasped Ruth. "O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Tellingham. But are you sure it is my uncle who is sending Mercy Curtis?"

"With Dr. Davison – yes," the Preceptress said, in some surprise. "They have equally charged themselves with her expenses at Briarwood – if she can remain here. You know her, of course?"

"Helen and I have talked of her almost every day, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth warmly. "She is very quick and sharp. And she is much improved in disposition from what she used to be."

"I hear you speak of her so kindly, with pleasure, Miss Fielding," said the head of the school. "For it opens the way to a suggestion that Dr. Davison makes. He wishes Mercy Curtis to room with you."

"With Helen and me!" cried Ruth, in delight. "Of course, I slept in Mercy's room all the time she was at the Red Mill last summer, and we got on nicely together."

"But you do not know how Miss Cameron will receive the suggestion of having a third girl in your small room?"

"Oh, Helen is so kind!" Ruth cried. "I do not believe she will object. And she is sorry for Mercy."

"I know you have been Helen's constant companion. Do you think you have been as good friends as you were when you came to Briarwood, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Tellingham, with sharpness.

"Helen! Oh, I hope so, Mrs. Tellingham!" cried Ruth, in great distress. "I am sure I love her just the same – and always shall."

"But she evidently finds her friends among the Upedes. Why did she not join this new society that you have started?"

"I – I did not mean to start it without her," stammered Ruth. "It was really only my suggestion. The other Infants took it up – "

"But you named it?"

"I did suggest the name," admitted Ruth.

"And you did not join the Up and Doing Club with your chum."

"No, Mrs. Tellingham. Nor did I join the F. C.'s. I did not like the manner in which both societies went about making converts. I didn't like it the very first day we came."

"Miss Picolet, your French teacher, told me something about Mary Cox meeting the stage and getting hold of you two girls before you had reached Briarwood at all."

"Yes, ma'am."

"By the way," said the Preceptress, her brow clouding again and the stern look coming back into her face that had rested on it when Ruth had first entered the room, "you had met Miss Picolet before you arrived at the school?"

"She spoke to us in the stage – yes, ma'am."

"But before that – you had seen her?"

"Ye-es, ma'am," said Ruth, slowly, beginning to suspect that Mrs. Tellingham's curiosity was no idle matter.

"Where?"

"On the Lanawaxa– the boat coming down the lake, Mrs. Tellingham."

"Miss Picolet was alone aboard the boat?"

Ruth signified that she was.

"Did you see her speaking with anybody?"

"We saw a man speak to her. He was one of the musicians. He frightened Miss Picolet. Afterward we saw that he had followed her out upon the wharf. He was a big man who played a harp."

"And you told this to your school-fellows after you became acquainted here?"

Mrs. Tellingham spoke very sternly indeed, and her gaze never left Ruth's face. The girl from the Red Mill hesitated but an instant. She had never spoken of the man and Miss Picolet to anybody save Helen; but she knew that her chum must have told all the particulars to Mary Cox.

"I – I believe we did mention it to some of the girls. It impressed us as peculiar – especially as we did not know who Miss Picolet was until after we were in the stage-coach with her."

"Then you are sure you have not been one who has circulated stories among the girls about Miss Picolet – derogatory to her, I mean?"

"Oh, Mrs. Tellingham! Never!" cried Ruth, earnestly.

"Do you know anything about this silly story I hear whispered that the marble harp out there on the fountain was heard to play the night you and Miss Cameron arrived here?"

"Oh!" ejaculated Ruth.

"I see you know about it. Did you hear the sound?"

"Ye-es, ma'am," admitted Ruth.

"I will not ask you under what circumstances you heard it; but I do ask if you have any knowledge of any fact that might explain the mystery?"

Ruth was silent for several moments. She was greatly worried; yet she could understand how this whole matter had come to Mrs. Tellingham's knowledge. Mary Cox, angry at Miss Picolet, had tried to defame her in the mind of the Preceptress.

Now, what Ruth knew was very little indeed. What she suspected regarding a meeting between the French teacher and the man with the harp, at the campus fountain, was an entirely different matter. But Mrs. Tellingham had put her question so that Ruth did not have to tell her suspicions.

"I really know nothing about it, Mrs. Tellingham," she said, finally.

"That is all. I do not believe you – or Miss Cameron – would willingly malign an innocent person. I have known Miss Picolet some time, and I respect her. If she has a secret sorrow, I respect it. I do not think it is nice to make Miss Picolet's private affairs a subject for remark by the school.

"Now, we will leave that. Sound Miss Cameron about this Mercy Curtis. If you girls will take her in, she shall come on trial. It lies with you, and your roommate, Miss Fielding. Come to me after chapel to-morrow and tell me what you have decided."

And so Ruth was dismissed.

CHAPTER XIX
THE TRIUMVIRATE

Mercy Curtis came in a week. For Helen of course was only too delighted to fall in with Mrs. Tellingham's suggestion. Duet Number 2, West Dormitory, was amply large enough for three, and Ruth gave up her bed to the cripple and slept on a couch. Helen herself could not do too much for the comfort of the newcomer.

Dr. Davidson and Dr. Cranfew came with her; but really the lame girl bore the journey remarkably well. And how different she looked from the thin, peaked girl that Ruth and Helen remembered!

"Oh, you didn't expect to see so much flesh on my bones; did you?" said Mercy, noting their surprise, and being just as sharp and choppy in her observations as ever. "But I'm getting wickedly and scandalously fat. And I don't often have to repeat Aunt Alviry's song of 'Oh, my back and oh, my bones!'"

Mercy went to bed on her arrival. But the next day she got about in the room very nicely with the aid of two canes. The handsome ebony crutches she saved for "Sunday-Best."

Ruth arranged a meeting of the Sweetbriars to welcome the cripple, and Mercy seemed really to enjoy having so many girls of her own age about her. Helen did not bring in many members of the Upedes; indeed, just then they all seemed to keep away from Duet Two, and none of them spoke to Ruth. That is, none save Jennie Stone. The fat girl was altogether too good-natured – and really too kind at heart – to treat Ruth Fielding as Jennie's roommates did.

"They say you went and told Picolet we were going to have the party in your room," Heavy said to Ruth, frankly, "and that's how you got out of it so easily. But I tell them that's all nonsense, you know. If you'd wanted to make us trouble, you would have let Helen have the party in our room, as she wanted to, and so you could have stayed home and not been in it at all."

"As she wanted to?" repeated Ruth, slowly. "Did Helen first plan to have the supper in your quartette?"

"Of course she did. It was strictly a Upede affair – or would have been if you hadn't been in it. But you're a good little thing, Ruth Fielding, and I tell them you never in this world told Picolet."

"I did not indeed, Jennie," said Ruth, sadly.

"Well, you couldn't make The Fox believe that. She's sure about it, you see," the stout girl said. "When Mary Cox wants to be mean, she can be, now I tell you!"

Indeed, Heavy was not like the other three girls in the next room. Mary, Belle and Lluella never looked at Ruth if they could help it, and never spoke to her. Ruth was not so much hurt over losing such girls for friends, for she could not honestly say she had liked them at the start; but that they should so misjudge and injure her was another matter.

She said nothing to Helen about all this; and Helen was as firmly convinced that Mary Cox and the other Upedes were jolly girls, as ever. Indeed, they were jolly enough; most of their larks were innocent fun, too. But it was a fact that most of those girls who received extra tasks during those first few weeks of the half belonged to the Up and Doing Club.

That Helen escaped punishment was more by good fortune than anything else. In the study, however, she and Ruth and Mercy had many merry times. Mercy kept both the other girls up to their school tasks, for all lessons seemed to come easy to the lame girl and she helped her two friends not a little in the preparation of their own.

"The Triumvirate" the other girls in the dormitory building called the three girls from Cheslow. Before Thanksgiving, Ruth, Helen, and Mercy began to stand high in their several classes. And Ruth was booked for the Glee Club, too. She sang every Sunday in the chorus, while Helen played second violin in the orchestra, having taken some lessons on that instrument before coming to Briarwood.

Dr. Cranfew came often at first to see Mercy; but he declared at last that he only came socially – there was no need of medical attendance. The cripple could not go to recitations without her crutches, but sometimes in the room she walked with only Ruth's strong arm for support. She was getting rosy, too, and began to take exercise in the gymnasium.

"I'll develop my biceps, if my back is crooked and my legs queer," she declared. "Then, when any of those Miss Nancy Seniors make fun of me behind my back, I can punch 'em!" for there were times when Mercy's old, cross-grained moods came upon her, and she was not so easily borne with.

Perhaps this fact was one of the things that drove the wedge deeper between Ruth and Helen. Ruth would never neglect the crippled girl. She seldom left her in the room alone. Mercy had early joined the Sweetbriars, and Ruth and she went to the frequent meetings of that society together, while Helen retained her membership in the Up and Doing Club and spent a deal of her time in the quartette room next door.

Few of the girls went home for Thanksgiving, and as Mercy was not to return to Cheslow then, the journey being considered too arduous for her, Ruth decided not to go either. There was quite a feast made by the school on Thanksgiving, and frost having set in a week before, skating on Triton Lake was in prospect. There was a small pond attached to the Briarwood property and Ruth tried Helen's skates there. She had been on the ice before, but not much; however, she found that the art came easily to her – as easily as tennis, in which, by this time, she was very proficient.

For the day following Thanksgiving there was a trip to Triton Lake planned, for that great sheet of water was ice-bound, too, and a small steamer had been caught 'way out in the middle of the lake, and was frozen in. The project to drive to the lake and skate out to the steamer (the ice was thick enough to hold up a team of horses, and plenty of provisions had been carried out to the crew) and to have a hot lunch on the boat originated in the fertile brain of Mary Cox; but as it was not a picnic patronized only by the Upedes, Mrs. Tellingham made no objection to it. Besides, it was vacation week, and the Preceptress was much more lenient.

Of course, Helen was going; but Ruth had her doubts. Mercy could not go, and the girl of the Red Mill hated to leave her poor little crippled friend alone. But Mercy was as sharp of perception as she was of tongue. When Helen blurted out the story of the skating frolic, Ruth said "she would see" about going; she said she wasn't sure that she would care to go.

"I'm such a new skater, you know," she laughed. "Maybe I'd break down skating out to the steamboat, and wouldn't get there, and while all you folks were eating that nice hot lunch I'd be freezing to death – poor little me! – 'way out there on the ice."

But Mercy, with her head on one side and her sharp blue eyes looking from Helen to Ruth, shot out:

"Now, don't you think you're smart, Ruth Fielding? Why, I can see right through you – just as though you were a rag of torn mosquito netting! You won't go because I'll be left alone."

"No," said Ruth, but flushing.

"Yes," shot back Mercy. "And I don't have to turn red about it, either. Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie! you can't even tell a white one without blushing about it."

"I – don't – know – "

"I do know!" declared Mercy. "You're going. I've got plenty to do. You girls can go on and freeze your noses and your toeses, if you like. Me for the steam-heated room and a box of bonbons. But I hope the girls who go will be nicer to you than some of those Upedes have been lately, Ruthie."

Helen blushed now; but Ruth hastened to say: "Oh, don't you fuss about me, Mercy. Some of the Sweetbriars mean to go. This isn't confined to one club in particular. Madge Steele is going, too, and Miss Polk. And Miss Reynolds, Mrs. Tellingham's first assistant, is going with the party. I heard all about it at supper. Poor Heavy was full of it; but she says she can't go because she never could skate so far. And then – the ice might break under her."

"Whisper!" added Helen, her eyes dancing. "I'll tell you something else – and this I know you don't know!"

"What is it?"

"Maybe Tom will be there. Good old Tom! Just think – I haven't seen him since we left home. Won't it be just scrumptious to see old Tom again?"

And Ruth Fielding really thought it would be.

CHAPTER XX
AT TRITON LAKE

So on the morning following the feast-day there were two wagonettes waiting at the entrance to the Briarwood grounds to take the girls two miles by road to a certain boathouse on Triton Lake. When Ruth and Helen came out of their room, leaving Mercy cozily ensconced in the window-seat with her books and the box of bonbons, the door of the quartette was open and a faint groan sounded from within.

Helen's eyes twinkled, as she said: "The others have gone, but Jennie's up in dry-dock for repairs. No wonder she wouldn't promise to be one of the skating party. The pleasures of the table must be paid for – How do you feel now, Heavy?" she added, putting her head in at the door.

"No better. Oh!" came back the complaining voice. "I do have such dreadful ill-fortune. I can't eat just a little bit without its distressing me abominably!"

The chums ran down to the wagonettes and found most of the girls who were going already there. Ruth, seeing that there was more room in the second carriage, whisked into it, and Helen was following her when Mary Cox came up.

"Going to get in here, Cameron?" she said. "Well, I'll get in with you – no, I won't!" she suddenly exclaimed, seeing Ruth peering out. "Come on to the other wagonette; Belle and Lluella are there."

For a moment Helen hesitated. Then Mary said, jerking at her sleeve:

"Come on! We want to start in a minute. I've heard from the boys and I want to tell you. They've sent a whole sleighload of things out to the Minnetonka– the boat that's frozen in, you know – and music, and we'll have great fun. Sh! Miss Reynolds don't know. She's such a fuss-budget! If she knew the boys were coming – well!"

"Oh, Tom, too!" gasped Helen, delighted. Then she turned and said, in a whisper: "Ruth!"

"Come on and let that tattle-tale alone!" exclaimed Mary Cox. "Tell her, and she'll run to Miss Reynolds with it."

Helen went with her.

Had Ruth Fielding possessed the power of movement just then, she would have gotten out of the wagon and run away to the dormitory. But she was stricken motionless as well as speechless by her chum's defection, and before she could recover her poise the wagons had begun to move, rattling over the frozen road toward Triton Lake.

Ah! how it hurt! For weeks Ruth had endured slights, and haughty looks, and innuendoes from Mary Cox and her Upedes – and the girl from the Red Mill had accepted all uncomplainingly. She had heretofore believed Helen only thoughtless. But this was more than Ruth Fielding could bear. She was the last girl to get into the wagonette, and she turned her head away, that her companions might not see her tears.

The other girls chattered, and laughed, and sang, and enjoyed themselves. Ruth Fielding passed the few minutes which elapsed during the drive to the boathouse in trying to stifle her sobs and remove the traces of her emotion. She was tempted to remain in the wagonette and go back to the school at once – for the carriages would return to town, coming out again for the party of Briarwood students late in the afternoon.

This thought was her first intention; but as her sobs subsided she felt more the hurt of the treatment she had received. And this hurt stirred within her a self-assertion that was becoming a more prominent characteristic of Ruth every day. Why should she relapse into tears because her chum had done a cruel thing? Hurt as she was, why should she give The Fox the satisfaction of knowing she felt the slight?

Ruth began to take herself to task for her "softness." Let Helen go with the Upedes if she wished. Here were nice girls all about her, and all the Sweetbriars particularly thought a great deal of her, Ruth knew. She need not mope and weep just because Helen Cameron, her oldest friend, had neglected her. The other girls stood ready to be her friends.

They had not noticed Ruth's silence and abstraction – much less her tears. She wiped her eyes hard, gulped down her sobs, and determined to have a good time in spite of either the Upedes or Helen's hardness of heart.

The first wagonette reached the shore of the lake some time ahead of the second. And perhaps this fact, as well as the placing of Miss Reynolds in the latter, had been arranged by the wily Miss Cox.

"Oh, Mary Cox!" cried Helen, looking out, "there's a whole lot of folks here – BOYS!"

But when one of the boys came running to help her down the steps, Helen shouted with delight. She came "flopping" down into Tom Cameron's arms.

"How scrumptious you look, Nell!" cried her brother, kissing her frankly. "Here is Bob Steele – I want you to know him. He's my bunkie at Seven Oaks. Isn't his sister with you – Madge Steele?"

"Yes. Miss Steele's here," gasped Helen.

"But where's Ruth?" demanded the excited Tom. "Come on and get her. We want to get our skates on and make for the steamer. The ice is like glass."

"Why – Ruth's in the other wagonette," said Helen.

"She's not with you?" exclaimed Tom, rather chagrined. "Why, how's that?"

"We – we happened to get into different ones," said his sister.

To tell the truth, she had not thought of Ruth since leaving the school.

"Is that the other one coming – 'way back on the road there?"

"Yes," said Helen. "Here's Miss Cox, Tom. Mary, this is my brother."

Bob Steele, who was a tall, blond fellow, was at hand to be introduced, too. His sister jumped out of the wagon and said: "Hullo, Bobbie! How's your poor croup?" Madge was a year and a half older than her brother and always treated him as though he were a very small boy in knickerbockers – if not actually in pinafores.

The girls giggled over this, and Bob Steele blushed. But he took his sister's chaffing good-naturedly. Tom Cameron, however, was very much disturbed over the absence of Ruth Fielding.

"We'd better hurry out on the ice. We've got an awful strict teacher with us," said Mary Cox, hastily.

"You take care of my sister, too; will you, Bob?" said Tom, bluntly. "I shall wait and bring Miss Fielding down."

"Oh, she'll look out for herself," said Mary Cox, slightingly. "We must hurry if we want any fun."

"Helen and I wouldn't have much fun if Ruth were left behind," declared Master Tom, firmly. "Go on, Bob; we'll catch up with you."

"Hadn't you better come, too, Tom?" whispered Helen, doubtfully.

"Why, we want Ruth with us; don't we?" demanded the puzzled Tom, looking at her in wonder. "Go on, Nell. We'll be with you shortly."

"Why, I want to introduce you to the other girls," said Helen, pouting. "And I haven't seen you myself for so long."

"It's too bad you got separated from your spoon, Nell," said her brother, calmly. "But I shall wait and bring her."

The others – even Madge Steele – were already trooping down to the landing, where there were settees for the girls to sit on while their skates were being adjusted. Helen had to run after them, and Tom waited alone the arrival of the second wagonette from Briarwood Hall.