Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma
TekstCHAPTER XII
A PERFECT DAY
Billie Bradley found Miss Arbuckle and the girls impatiently awaiting her at the Busy Bee.
“We’re starving!” they cried reproachfully. “What has been keeping you?”
“And where’s the lion cub?” another wanted to know.
Billie smiled mysteriously.
“Just wait till you see her! You’d be surprised!”
Whereupon, Billie proceeded to “fix things” with Miss Arbuckle. This was not difficult, Miss Arbuckle being a friend of Billie’s with consequent implicit belief in the girl’s good sense and judgment.
“We haven’t finished our shopping – not nearly,” Billie explained, having drawn the teacher aside so that the curious and watchful girls could not hear what was said. “If you don’t mind, Miss Arbuckle, I’d like to take Edina to lunch – just the two of us. After that we will shop some more and maybe take in a movie, if there’s time.”
“We – ell,” the teacher hesitated, “if you will give me your word to be on hand to take the school bus back – ”
“Oh, I will,” promised Billie. “Thanks so much, Miss Arbuckle. It would simply spoil everything to – to spring Edina on them now.”
A look of mutual understanding passed between teacher and pupil. Miss Arbuckle smiled.
“I suppose it would,” she agreed. “Run along to your good work, Billie. I’m entirely in sympathy with it and I wish you luck.”
“Miss Arbuckle, you’re a perfect dear!” cried Billie gratefully.
She squeezed the teacher’s hand, flashed one triumphant look at the group of curious, half-envious girls, and darted out into the street.
In the fitting room at the department store, Billie found a transformed Edina impatiently awaiting her. Billie paused in the doorway and stared at the wholly unfamiliar apparition.
“Turn yourself about, Edina,” she breathed. “Slowly – that’s right. My dear, you are a triumph! I’m proud of you – and me! Come along now and we’ll get something to eat. I’m starving. Besides, I’ve got to show you off!”
Edina Tooker would never be beautiful. Nor could she even be spoken of as a pretty girl. But Billie realized as she looked at this new, tastefully dressed Edina that the girl possessed a native dignity and poise that was more compelling than mere prettiness. Her own prophecy was being fulfilled. The girl had become a personage.
Perhaps Edina read something of this in Billie’s prolonged scrutiny.
“I’m just tryin’ to live up to my clothes,” she said, with a wistful smile. “They’re the first things I ever owned in all my life that seemed to – to belong to me. I know I look different and, somehow, I begin to feel different.”
“You will feel differenter and differenter as time goes on,” Billie prophesied gaily. “You’re a knockout, Edina. I can’t wait for the girls to see you.”
Into the eyes of Edina came a provocative gleam that was as new as her new clothes.
“Neither can I!” she confessed. “Mebbe they won’t laugh at me now.”
“They will be simply green with envy,” prophesied Billie. “I am, myself. Just think of having all those perfectly gorgeous new frocks all at once!”
Edina chuckled.
“I can’t get over the notion I should be twins,” she chuckled.
The gratified saleswoman parted from them with regret and many urgent invitations to visit her again.
“If I did that often,” chuckled Edina, “Paw would be bankrupt. As it is, I’ll have to write him for more money. He’ll like it, though,” she added in that gentler tone she always used when speaking of her parents. “Paw always wanted to do things for Maw and me. He wants us to have the best, Paw does.”
Laden with bundles, the two girls went below to the store tea room where they ordered creamed chicken on toast and apple tart.
Billie noticed that Edina ate carefully, picking up a knife or fork or spoon only when she was sure she had chosen the right one.
“Raw and crude enough,” thought Billie. “But intelligent and eager to learn. Her new clothes will give her confidence. Meantime, I am having the time of my life!”
Their appetites satisfied, the girls returned with a will to their shopping.
Shoes were bought, several pairs of them, and stockings to match. Then Billie led her protégé to the toilet goods counter where they bought creams and unguents.
“Anybody’d think I was going to be one of them movie queens,” Edina protested. “What do you suppose I’m going to do with that stuff?”
“Wear it on your face at night,” Billie retorted imperturbably.
“Not all at once!” cried Edina horrified.
Billie glanced at her to make sure she meant it, then went off into gales of giggles that made passing shoppers gaze at her curiously.
“A little at a time, you silly! Edina, you’ll be the death of me yet!”
“Well, I don’t like the idea of it, nohow – anyhow,” the girl persisted doggedly. “I ain’t never – ever – had anything but good spring water on my face up to now and I’m not yearning to go greasing myself up like an Indian at this late date.”
“You’ll get used to it,” prophesied Billie cheerfully. “You can get used to anything. Besides, now that you have all those beautiful dresses, you must grow a complexion to match.”
“How you talk! A complexion ain’t – isn’t – like shoes and stockings – that it’s got to match up with your clothes.”
“It’s even more important,” said Billie firmly. “Don’t argue. Come along!”
Laden with boxes and bundles, they found their way to a movie picture palace in the vicinity.
The scenario of the picture happened to be laid in the West – one of those blood-and-thunder films replete with villains, dashing ponies, lariats, and heroic cowboys. During the entire entertainment, Edina kept up a running fire of comment and criticism that provided Billie with more entertainment than the film, much to the annoyance of a dignified and portly old gentleman who had the seat in front of them.
At the end of the picture Billie glanced at her wrist watch and tugged at the sleeves of Edina’s new coat.
“We have to go. If we miss the school bus we will get about sixteen demerits apiece and I’ll be barred from boating and tennis for the rest of the fall term, and that I could never stand! We’ll have to bolt for it.”
Edina was seized by sudden panic.
“I don’t want to go,” she said, in a strained, tight voice. “I feel such a fool, all togged out like this! I – I’d ruther stay here in the dark!”
CHAPTER XIII
EDINA SCORES
For a moment, Billie Bradley lost patience with her protégé.
“Don’t be silly!” she cried sharply. “Here I spend a whole day trying to make you presentable and you tell me you’d rather stay here in the dark. Do hurry, Edina. I tell you, we’ve only just time to make the bus.”
Edina got up – and a dozen packages scattered over the floor! She stooped to pick them up and bumped her head into the head of the old gentleman in front who turned to glare at her wrathfully.
With an exclamation of annoyance, Billie helped gather up the scattered purchases of the afternoon and after an interminable delay the girls got to the street.
“We’ve got to run,” gasped Billie. “If we miss that bus, it’s all up with us. I promised Miss Arbuckle – ” The sentence went unfinished, for at the next street corner they came in sight of the bus. Miss Arbuckle and the girls stood beside it, talking animatedly. Billie guessed from their gestures that she and Edina were the topic of conversation.
Billie had been almost running. Now she slowed her pace and glanced imperatively at Edina.
“Pull your hat down and put the collar of your coat up a little,” she ordered. “That’s right! You look swell! Act as if you knew it.”
That was all very well for Billie Bradley, thought poor Edina; but Billie could scarcely be expected to know how it felt to be dressed up like a tailor’s dummy and set in a window to be stared at!
Unconsciously Edina’s face assumed the old, grim expression of defiance. She was the “lion cub” dressed up.
With her accustomed tact and kind-heartedness, Miss Arbuckle assumed charge of the situation. With the gesture of a motherly hen scattering her chicks, she shooed the staring, curious girls into the bus, so that when Billie and her companion reached it, there was no one on the sidewalk.
Billie was in fine spirits again.
“Follow me,” she called to Edina. “And be sure to pick up the packages I drop! It will be a mercy if we get back to Three Towers with half the things we’ve bought.”
As Billie and Edina entered the bus, all eyes were turned upon Billie’s companion.
The moment of amazed silence that greeted the apparition of this new Edina Tooker was a genuine tribute to Billie’s accomplishment.
“Hello, everybody!” Billie called gaily. “Edina and I have been shopping and we’ve bought the most marvelous things – dozens of pretty frocks and other things. Wait till you see!”
So Billie carried the battle into the enemy’s territory. By this bold stroke she practically forced the girls to take sides either for or against her new friend and protégé. By it Billie said, though not in so many words:
“You must either accept Edina or reject her – and by rejecting her, you will reject me also.”
If Billie had not possessed quite so strong a hold upon the affection and esteem of her schoolmates, it is quite possible that this bold bid in Edina’s interest would have gone for nothing.
However, the girls loved Billie, and this new Edina Tooker in the marvelous clothes was certainly far more attractive than the old Edina. Then, too, there was the talk of new frocks – dozens of them, Billie had said.
The atmosphere became more friendly. One could almost feel it thaw.
Jessie Brewer, a diminutive blonde with round face and infantile blue eyes, turned the scale in Edina’s favor.
“You look stunning,” said Jessie, generously going all the way now that she had decided on surrender. “That coat is perfectly sweet. If I’m good, will you let me have a lend of it sometime?”
The request, with its tacit acknowledgment of equality, took Edina’s breath away.
“Sure,” she stammered. “Any – any time you like!”
Amazingly, miraculously, Edina found herself the center of interest for the first time since her advent at Three Towers Hall – for the first time in all her hard, drab young life.
The ice once broken, the girls were eager to hear about her purchases. At first Edina was unwilling to talk and Billie answered for her; but gradually the girl’s reticence broke beneath the friendly battery of questions. She found herself answering in a perfectly natural way – not only that, but embellishing the events of the day with a dry humor that captivated her audience.
Some of her packages were opened by the more curious among the girls and passed from hand to hand for comment and inspection.
“Better watch these girls, Edina,” laughed Billie. “They are apt to descend upon your purchases like a swarm of hungry locusts – ”
“I may be hungry, but I’m no locust,” said a dark-haired girl, who was sniffing curiously at a jar of cold cream with an exotic label and a delicious fragrance. “Anyway, I’m sure Edina won’t mind if I just take a dab of this stuff.”
“Take the whole thing, if you want it,” Edina offered largely; but Billie gave a little squeal of protest.
“No use giving away everything you own, even if your father has struck oil on that property of his and is making money hand over fist. Take that jar of cream away, Edina, before Jessie eats it. She thinks it’s for dessert.”
So Billie skillfully implanted the notion that Edina was already very rich and growing richer fast. Among those who had snubbed the girl from the West, this would have a disciplinary effect, she thought, and those who were disposed to friendliness toward the new Edina would not be greatly affected by it, anyway.
She could see that the girls were impressed. Edina herself appeared somewhat startled by this frank statement of her fortunes.
“You shouldn’t ’a’ done that,” she whispered to Billie in the flurry of getting packages together for the exodus at Three Towers Hall. “I ain’t exactly superstitious, but seems like I don’t like to talk too much about Paw’s money.”
Billie was sincerely surprised.
“It was true, wasn’t it, what you told me about his oil well?”
“True as rain. But Paw’s luck’s been so uncertain that I can’t hardly believe he has really struck it rich at last. Seems like if I talk too much about it, all his good fortune might bust up into thin air like them – those – soap bubbles you make with a pipe. I’m just being superstitious,” she added, with an apologetic grin. “You ain’t got no – any – call to listen to me.”
As the bus turned into the long graveled drive leading to Three Towers Hall and the girls began to scramble headlong from it, Edina caught Billie’s hand gratefully in a rough paw.
“It’s been the best day I ever spent,” she muttered. “Thanks – a lot.”
Billie smiled and returned the pressure of Edina’s hand.
“I think we’ve broken the ice. From now on, it’s up to you.”
Billie went on across the school grounds in a thoughtful mood.
The day had been an unqualified success. She had done just exactly what she wanted to do. Yet she felt depressed, deserted and forlorn.
“I’m the world’s prize idiot,” she scolded herself. “I’m tired and I probably need my dinner.”
However, in her heart, she knew exactly what was wrong with her. She was unhappy because neither Laura nor Vi had come out to greet the school bus.
Were they still angry with her? Was the friendship she had thought so strong and fine, that had been a source of happiness to her ever since her childhood, to break up in this manner?
“All over a stranger, too,” she thought wearily. “Edina has scarcely any claim on my affections. I’m grateful to her for saving my life that awful day at the lake. I’m grateful to her and sorry for her, that’s all. But Laura and Vi – ” She let the thought trail off.
In the hall she pulled off her tight hat and was conscious of immediate relief. How her head did ache!
She went up quietly to her room, exchanging greetings with the girls she met on the way. She opened the door softly and stopped as though transfixed.
On her bed lay Vi Farrington, face downward. She was sobbing as though her heart would break!
CHAPTER XIV
AN OLD ENEMY
In a moment, Billie Bradley forgot her own weariness and the fact that her head ached worse than ever. She ran to the bed and flung herself to her knees beside the sobbing girl.
“Vi! Vi Farrington! What is it, dear?”
Vi gave a sharp exclamation and sat up, trying to dry her eyes on her pocket handkerchief.
“Oh, it’s you! I didn’t mean any one to catch me at this baby trick, Billie, truly I never did. But I’m so wretched.”
“What about?”
Vi eyed her fiercely and accepted the clean handkerchief that Billie thrust into her hands.
“You, for one thing. You have been perfectly horrid, Billie Bradley, with that wild girl of yours and never having even half an eye for the rest of us – ”
“Vi, you silly! I never – ”
“Yes, you have! Don’t you suppose I know? And then it’s that wretched math. I – I’ve gone and done it again.”
Vi threatened to dissolve in tears and Billie shook her rudely.
“Done what again? Don’t you dare cry – ”
“Failed, of course. What did you suppose? Miss Walters called me into the office to-day and she said, oh, B-Billie – I – I can’t tell you!”
“You’ve got to tell me,” returned Billie. “Go on, dear. What did Miss Walters say?”
“Well, she told me if I didn’t do better in my math she would have to write a note home to Dad. Can you imagine Dad getting a note like that, Billie – or Mother? It would just about k-kill them! And I’m so perfectly d-dumb at figures!”
Billie got up and began to walk about the room. She took off her coat and smoothed back her hair while Vi watched her with tear-dimmed eyes.
“B-Billie, aren’t you going to do something?”
“Nothing else, but!” returned Billie cheerfully. “I’m merely clearing the decks for action. Suppose you get out your books and papers and things and we’ll try to find out what’s wrong. I reckon we’ll get to the root of this matter in a jiffy.”
“Oh, B-Billie! When you talk like that I know that everything is going to be all right. If you will only help – ”
Billie glanced up briefly into Vi’s tear-stained face.
“You knew I’d help, didn’t you, Vi?”
Vi’s glance wavered, fell.
“I know I’ve been a fool, Billie. But I did think you were sort of side-tracking Laura and me for that wild and woolly Edina Tooker.”
Billie shook her head reproachfully.
“You didn’t really think that, Vi. Not in your heart. Now, let’s get down to business.”
It was so that Laura found them, some time later, heads close together, working out a problem in algebra.
“Say, you two, don’t you know it’s almost time for the supper bell to ring?”
“Don’t bother us!” muttered Vi. “We’ve almost got it. There! There, that’s the right answer, isn’t it, Billie? Did I get it?”
“You did!” Billie’s smile was congratulatory. “And in record time, too. We’re coming on, Vi!”
She glanced up to find Laura’s eyes fixed upon her curiously.
“Billie Bradley, what have you done to Edina? I met her in the hall downstairs. She isn’t the same person at all.”
Billie smiled enigmatically.
“Clothes do make a difference!” she observed.
That was the beginning of the old status between the three chums. It was the beginning of many things, especially for Edina.
Billie’s friendship, her new clothes, and the general belief that her father was rapidly becoming a fabulously rich man, all these things conspired to lift Edina from obscurity to an enviable position among her schoolmates. She was sincerely liked by some, tolerated by many, and toadied to by a few who thought that she might some day become a powerful and colorful influence in the school life of Three Towers Hall.
In other words, as Billie had predicted, Edina was rapidly becoming a personage.
To be sure, there were some who still disliked and distrusted the girl from Oklahoma, decrying her rough language and crude ways. Among this small minority were Rose Belser and Ray Carew, who stood, figuratively speaking, upon the fringe of the crowd, skeptically looking on at this transformation of Edina Tooker.
“No good will come of it, Billie,” Rose said, more than once. “You may tame the lion cub; but underneath, it remains a lion cub just the same. Some day it will begin to scratch and claw. Then – look out!”
About this time an incident occurred that afforded Billie a good deal of amusement and Edina no little satisfaction.
The girls spent much of their recreation time on Lake Molata during the pleasant fall weather, boating and, weather permitting, swimming from the end of the dock.
Billie attempted to initiate Edina into these water sports, much to the not-too-well disguised amusement of her fellow students. Edina disliked the water. She could not swim and she was not keen about rowing – that is, she was not keen about it until she found that Billie was.
This is how it came about.
One day while Billie and Edina were rowing in desultory fashion some distance from the dock, they were overhauled by Ray Carew and Rose Belser in a boat, the twin of theirs.
“Give you a race,” called Rose, as she had called many times before when Laura or Vi had been in the boat with Billie. However, Edina was neither Laura nor Vi, a fact of which Rose Belser was well and mischievously aware. Edina rowed with a stroke all her own and possessed a positive genius for entangling her oar with that of her stroke mate.
Still Billie could not refuse the challenge.
“All right, race you to the island!” she returned.
“But, Billie!” cried Edina, aghast, “you oughtn’t to’ve said that. I can’t row!”
“Stop talking!” Billie commanded, her jaw set. “Stop talking and row!”
Such rowing! Edina’s oar did everything but stroke the water. It sat upon the top of it, it splashed spray into the boat, it entangled itself with Billie’s. By the time Ray and Rose had reached the island, Billie’s boat had succeeded in turning its nose about and was headed the other way!
That incident was a lesson to Billie. She told Edina firmly:
“You’ve got to learn to row. That’s all there is to it. The sooner we begin the better.”
“All right,” returned Edina resignedly. “Anything you say.”
This was the beginning of much secret practice for Edina in a secluded cove, screened by much bright-colored foliage from both Three Towers and Boxton Academy.
Came a day when Billie admitted satisfaction in her pupil.
“The next time Rose – or any one else – challenges us to a race, we’ll give it to her.”
Their chance came two days later when Rose and Ray Carew again drew up alongside them and Ray asked laughingly if they cared to have revenge for the other day.
“Like nothing better,” said Billie coolly. “What shall the mark be?”
“The big rock that juts out from the Point – if you can get that far,” proposed Ray.
“We’ll try it,” Billie said calmly.
As the boat moved off to get into position for the start, Ray was heard to murmur:
“Some folks are just plain gluttons for punishment!”
Billie and Edina exchanged smiling glances and Billie leaned over to whisper:
“Remember what I’ve told you. Take it easy at the start and save your breath. Ready?”
“Ready!” returned Edina.
Billie gave the word to go, and they were off, swinging easily over the glassy water. For some distance they maintained the same pace, bow to bow. Then, by degrees, Rose’s boat drew ahead.
“Steady!” cautioned Billie, as Edina’s hand tightened nervously on the oar. “Watch my stroke and time yours with it That’s it! Easy now!”
The other craft was two boat-lengths ahead. Ray shouted a derisive challenge.
“Now!” said Billie. “Keep time with me, Edina. Faster – a little faster. Now then! Let’s show the speed of that good right arm!”
The oars struck the water in perfect unison, poised, struck, poised again, swifter, swifter, increasing that rhythmic stroke.
“Now!” cried Billie. “Put your back into it, Edina!”
With a magnificent final burst of speed, the boat swept through the water, reaching the point well ahead of its rival.
Billie waved exultantly.
“Well,” she jeered happily, “you wanted to give us revenge, didn’t you? And we are nothing if not obliging!”
Rose and Ray were generous in defeat.
“Whatever you have done to Edina, it’s plenty,” Rose admitted. “We other oarsmen will have to speed up if we intend to stay in the same class with her!”
“At least,” said Billie, with a mischievous glance at her pupil, “we don’t go about in circles any more!”
Despite this signal victory on the lake, Billie was far from satisfied with herself. Rowing was one thing – tennis was quite another. On the courts her old-time skill appeared to have deserted her. She had lost a good deal of her old speed and power. She was slower, and her opponents found it easier to catch her napping.
Even Vi beat her one day, which worried the loyal Vi greatly.
“What’s wrong, Billie? You are absolutely off your form. Aren’t you well?”
“Quite,” replied Billie, and added with a worried frown: “It’s my knee, Vi. Don’t tell anybody, but ever since that awful day when I fell over the cliff, my knee has been acting queerly. Gives out under me when I least expect it. To-day, on the courts, I almost fell. Perhaps you noticed.”
“I’ll say I did. It was so unlike you that I thought maybe you were putting it on – just to give me a chance to win, you know.”
Billie’s brief smile flashed out.
“I’m not quite that generous. Hello – what’s this?”
Billie looked up to see that Amanda Peabody had planted herself straight in the patch.
Billie said coolly:
“Did you want to speak to me, Amanda?”
Amanda’s smile was malicious.
“Not particularly. I just wanted to congratulate you on the fine showing you made against Vi on the courts. From your performance in that last set, I should say that every day, in every way, you are getting better and better.”
“It wasn’t Billie’s fault,” Vi blurted out indignantly. “There’s something the matter with – ”
“Vi!” cried Billie sharply. “I asked you to keep quiet about that.”
Amanda’s malicious grin widened until it seemed to stretch from ear to ear.
“You don’t need to be so quiet about it. Everybody at Three Towers knows that there is something the matter with Billie Bradley’s tennis. It isn’t any secret if that’s what you mean.”
Vi started to speak again, but Billie squeezed her arm sharply and drew her past the outrageous girl.
“I challenge you,” Amanda called after them, her voice shrill with triumph. “I challenge you right now to a set, Billie Bradley.”
As Billie continued onward to the Hall without even a backward glance, Amanda’s mocking laughter followed her.
“You’re afraid, Billie Bradley. You’re afraid!”
Once inside the door, Billie turned to Vi. Her hands were clenched so hard that the nails bit into the palms.
“Some day,” she promised vengefully, “I’m going to give that girl such a beating on the courts that she’ll cry for mercy. You mark my words, Vi Farrington!”
“She’ll get something worse than a beating on the courts, if you leave it to me, the horrid, spiteful old thing!” declared Vi furiously.