CHAPTER XVIII—THE HEART-BROKEN MISS WALLACE
“Lucile, are you sure?”
“Virginia, if you ask me that again, I’ll believe you think I fib. Of course I’m sure!”
“Did you see him more than once, Lucile?”
“Priscilla, I’ve told you a dozen times that I saw him one whole afternoon long at Versailles. Isn’t that long enough to remember him, I’d like to know?”
“And Miss Wallace said when she introduced him—just what did she say, anyhow?”
“Vivian Winters, you make me sick! You really do! She said—and this is the twentieth time I’ve told you—she said, ‘Lucile, I want you to meet my dear friend, Mr. Taylor.’”
“And what did he say?”
“Will you please listen this time, Dorothy, for it’s positively the last time I shall tell you. He said, ‘Any friend of Miss Wallace’s is my friend, too.’ And he gazed at her with his very soul. You forgot he had eyes at all!”
The exasperated Lucile leaned back among her pillows, and munched the candy with which she had generously supplied herself.
“You really all do make me tired,” she said between her bites. “I’ve told you over and over again that any one could see that he loved her from the way he gazed at her; that the picture she’s had all the year up to six weeks ago on her dresser was his; and that I know her heart is broken. Now, what more can I say?”
“It isn’t that we don’t believe you, Lucile,” Virginia hastened to explain. “It’s just—well, you see you do have a very romantic tendency, and—”
“Of course, I do. It’s my temperament. I’ve heard father say so a dozen times. Besides, I’ve lived in Paris, and the very stones of Paris breathe romance!”
“Well, I really think Lucile is right, sad as it seems. Miss Wallace hasn’t been herself since Easter; and it was just then that the picture disappeared from her dresser. Of course Lucile couldn’t have been with him a whole afternoon and not know his face; and, naturally, she would know how he treated her.” This announcement from Priscilla was not without effect.
“Of course I would,” reiterated the encouraged Lucile. “Didn’t I see him gaze at her, and call her ‘Margaret,’ and her, when she called him ‘Bob’?”
“Did you see him do anything but gaze?” asked Dorothy, still a little incredulous. “He seems to have gazed all the time.”
“Why, of course, right at Versailles, he wouldn’t have taken her hand, or anything like that. A gaze can speak volumes, I’ll have you to know. But when we sailed from Havre, and he stayed to study at the Sorbonne, he put his arms around her and kissed her. It was thrilling!”
This new piece of information was indisputable proof, which, placed by the side of the strange disappearance of the said Mr. Taylor’s picture, and the strange and unwonted sadness of Miss Wallace, formed a bulk of evidence, to disbelieve which was folly.
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s true,” said Virginia, echoing the misgivings of her room-mate. “She looks so quiet and sad, it just breaks my heart. I actually know she’d been crying the other day when I saw her coming out of the Retreat. Probably she went there for comfort. Poor thing! How could he have been so cruel?”
“Why, maybe it wasn’t he. Maybe he’s suffering, and pacing the streets of Paris this moment, preferring death to life.” Lucile’s imagination, so fruitless in the channels of academic thought, was certainly prolific in the flowery paths of Romance. “Perhaps Miss Wallace felt the call to service, broke her engagement, and has decided to give her very life to help others.”
“I don’t think Miss Wallace would do that,” Virginia said thoughtfully. “Not that it isn’t a wonderful thing to do; but I feel some way as though she’d rather be a mother. One evening last Thanksgiving I was in her room, and we were talking about the things girls could do in the world. I asked her what she thought was the noblest thing; and she said in the sweetest voice, ‘A real mother, Virginia.’”
“And she is just a born mother,” added Priscilla. “Mother said so at Thanksgiving. Oh, dear! Why did it have to happen?”
No one pretended to know. Lucile was inclined to attribute it to Fate; while Dorothy advanced the thought that it might be a trial sent to prove Miss Wallace’s strength.
“And it’s wonderful how strong she is,” she said. “She’s usually so jolly at table; and last night she was the very life of the party. One would never have known.”
“Yes, and she probably went home to a sleepless night,” suggested Lucile, “and tossed about till morning.”
“It seems to me she’s been happier lately.”
“She’s probably learning to bear it better—that’s all.”
“She’s never worn an engagement ring, has she?” asked the practical Vivian.
“No, but of course she wouldn’t wear it here. It would excite too much comment,” Priscilla explained.
“Without doubt she had one, and wore it around her neck, before it happened,” Lucile again suggested.
“Oh, if we could only show her in some way that we’re sorry for her! That would, perhaps, help a little,” said Virginia. “Do you suppose she’d feel we were interfering if we sent her some flowers? We needn’t say a thing, but just write ‘With sympathy’ or ‘With love’ on a card, and she’d understand. Do you think she’d like it, Priscilla?”
“Why, yes, I think she would. And ’twould relieve our minds. We’d know we’d done all we could. I suppose time will make it easier for her to bear.”
“Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding, and they’ll come together again, when they see they can’t live without each other,” said Vivian hopefully.
“Maybe, but I feel that it’s the end! And oh, if you girls could only have seen them together and known that they were made for each other! Fate is cruel!” wailed Lucile tragically.
“Well, are we going to send the flowers?” asked Virginia. She was aching for Miss Wallace, but Lucile’s romantic ravings were a little tiring. “If we do, let’s not say a word to any one. Miss Wallace, being in The Hermitage, belongs to us more anyway; and I think we ought to love her enough to guard her secret. I know she wouldn’t wish it known. Of course, as things have happened, we can’t help knowing, but we can help talking about it to others. You haven’t told any one else, have you, Lucile?”
“Of course not. Don’t you suppose I know better than all of you that life would be simply impossible to her if she thought the world knew. Remember, I’ve seen them together!”
“What kind of flowers do you think we’d better send?”
“Pink carnations.”
“Oh, no, carnations are too common!”
“Violets then.”
“Oh, spare her that! He gave her violets that afternoon at Versailles!”
“Roses, why not?”
“Anything but red roses. They mean undying love, and hers is dead.”
“Why not send her daffodils?” proposed Virginia. “They’re so cheery and hopeful, and look like spring.”
Every one seemed agreed that, under the circumstances, Virginia’s choice was the most appropriate. It was thereupon decided that daffodils be sent to Miss Wallace; but that, to save her possible embarrassment, the names of the donors be kept secret. Dorothy and Vivian were delegated to go to Hillcrest and make the purchase, while the others tried to enliven their sympathetic hearts by tennis.
Meanwhile, during this session of sympathy in her behalf, Miss Wallace sat in her school-room, correcting an avalanche of themes, which seemed to have no end. “Dear me!” she sighed to herself, “no girl in this whole school will be so glad of vacation as I. I’ve never taught through such a year.”
It certainly had been a hard and trying year. In the fall Miss Green’s tactlessness had required an extra amount of discretion on the part of Miss Wallace; in the winter the German Measles had broken into the regularity necessary for good work; and all through the year she had been required to watch, which occupation she found harder than any other—watch a girl, to whom she had never been able to come close, and whom she had failed to influence toward better things. She could not really blame herself for her failure in helping Imogene, but she felt sorry, because, knowing Imogene, she feared that life would never hold what it might for her. Altogether, it had been a hard year; and she would not have been human had she not at times looked tired, thoughtful, and even sad.
“You need a rest, my dear,” said the old Hillcrest doctor, meeting her one day in the village. “You’re quite tired out, working for those nice girls up there.” But that pile of themes did not look like immediate rest; and, sharpening her red pencil, she went to work again.
She left the school-room just as the warning-bell was ringing and crossed the campus to The Hermitage, longing for letters. On her desk she found a package and a telegram, which, when she had read it, made her tired face glow with happiness. “Dear Bob!” she said to herself. “He deserves it all. I’m so glad!”
“His picture has come back, too,” she added, untying the package, “just in time for the good news. You dear old fellow! You deserve a silver frame, and the nicest girl in the world.”
There came a knock at her door just then, and the maid passed her a long box from the florist’s. Surprised, she opened it to find dozens of yellow daffodils, and a card, which said in carefully disguised handwriting, “With deepest love, and tenderest sympathy.”
“Why, what can it mean?” she thought mystified. “I always need the love, but I certainly don’t need sympathy. I never was so happy in my life!”
The supper-bell rang just then, and put a stop to her wonderings. She dressed hurriedly, placed some daffodils at her waist, and descended to the dining-room, a trifle late, but wholly radiant.
“She surely doesn’t look sad to-night,” mused more than one at the table. “Could the flowers have made her happier so soon, or what is it?”
Half an hour before study hour, Miss Wallace called Virginia to her room.
“I know you love daffodils, Virginia,” she said, “and I want you to see this gorgeous quantity which some mysterious person has sent me. And the strangest part about it is that they come with ‘tenderest sympathy.’ It’s especially funny to-night, because I’m so happy. I think I really must tell you about it.”
Virginia’s heart beat fast with excitement. Was this beloved teacher of hers really going to confide in her? Her eyes followed Miss Wallace’s to the dresser, and there, reclothed in a shining silver frame, was Mr. Taylor—Miss Wallace’s own Mr. Taylor! So it had been only a misunderstanding after all! The dream of Miss Wallace’s life was not dead, but living, and she was happy! One glance at her face was proof of that! Virginia was so happy herself that she longed to tell her so; but perhaps she had best not just now. Besides, what was Miss Wallace saying?
“I don’t know that I’ve ever told you about my cousin, Robert Taylor, Virginia. You’ve seen his picture of course—that is till recently when I sent it away to have it framed. To-night I had a cable from him, telling me that he’s actually engaged to the dearest girl I know. We’ve both been hoping for it for months—I almost as much as he—and Mary’s just decided that she can’t get along without him. I’m so delighted!”
It seemed impossible that Virginia’s heart could have undergone such a metamorphosis as it had in the last minute.
“Is—? is—he your cousin?” she asked in a queer, strained little voice. But Miss Wallace was so happy that she did not notice it.
“Why, yes, he’s really my cousin, but he seems like my brother, for his mother died when he was a baby, and my mother brought him up. So we’ve always lived together, just like brother and sister, and I never think of any difference. Why, my dear, where are you going? The bell hasn’t rung.” For Virginia was half way out of the door.
“I—must go,” she stammered. “The girls are waiting for me up-stairs.”
Four more crestfallen and unromantic girls never existed than those which looked at one another at the conclusion of Virginia’s story.
“I never felt so silly in my life!” she added, after the last rainbow-colored bubble had been burst.
“Nor I!” cried Priscilla.
“Let’s be everlastingly grateful we didn’t sign our names,” said Dorothy.
“And he was just away being framed!” moaned Vivian.
“Where’s Lucile?”
“Oh, she’s probably moaning in her room over Fate!”
“She needs a tonic!” said Priscilla. “Let’s go and tell her so.”
“It won’t do a bit of good,” Virginia observed, as they started down the hall to employ the remaining five minutes in disciplining Lucile. “It’s her temperament, you know; and, besides, the very stones of Paris breathe Romance!”