Concerning Belinda

"But there is one thing, chère Mademoiselle Ryder. I know that the other teachers – my associates – dislike the shopping. They object to chaperoning the young ladies upon the little expeditions to the shops. Me, I do not mind. I am glad to go if it will save the others from a duty that is disagreeable. It has come to me that perhaps the theatre is more popular than the shopping, that it may give pleasure to chaperon to the theatre, the opera, the concert. That is so, is it not?"

Miss Ryder admitted that there might be reason in the theory.

Mademoiselle smiled, a sweet, swift smile. "Ah, it is so. Then you will do me a favour? Yes? It would be better that for the theatre other chaperons should be chosen. Me, I will take for myself all the shopping. It will give me pleasure to have it so. I will feel that it is for the happiness of my fellow-teachers, and that will give me happiness. You will arrange it so, is it not?"

Miss Lucilla demurred. The arrangement was unfair. Shopping was the teachers' bête noire. It would not do to load all of the unpleasant duty upon one pair of shoulders.

Mademoiselle refused to be spared. She appreciated her superior's consideration, but she was bent upon being noble, and begged for martyrdom.

"After all it is not as if I, too, disliked the thing. Me, I am French. I love the shops. Fatiguing? Yes, the young ladies are slow in making up their minds, but it is all one to me."

In the end Miss Lucilla yielded, and in due course the announcement was made in faculty meeting that Mademoiselle de Courcelles would chaperon all shopping expeditions, but would do no evening chaperoning. Miss Lucilla accompanied the announcement by a few remarks concerning the cheerful spirit in which Mademoiselle de Courcelles accepted the undesirable duty. Mademoiselle looked modestly deprecatory. The teachers were surprised and pleased. Only Miss Barnes, unmoved, eyed the willing martyr with a coolly speculative glance.

Shopping was always a vital issue with a certain set of the Ryder pupils. The girls were extravagant and amply provided with pocket-money by parents foolishly indulgent. Moreover, shopping commissions from home were many; and, though one of the school rules carefully embalmed in the circulars was to the effect that no pupil could be allowed more than one shopping expedition in any one week, this rule, like many another, was more honored in the breach than in the observance.

So Mademoiselle de Courcelles found her hands full with her self-elected task, and not a day went by without her leading forth from one to fifteen girls bent upon storming the shops.

As Christmas holidays approached, the shopping fever waxed more violent, and there was no afternoon of rest for the shopping chaperon. Not only had each of the girls a long Christmas list of purchases she must make for herself, but the lists of commissions from home grew and multiplied.

Through all the strain and stress Mademoiselle de Courcelles maintained her cheerful serenity. Her amiability never wavered, her gay volatility never flagged. The girls chorused her praises. She was the most helpful of advisers, the most wise of shoppers, the most unwearying of chaperons.

Sometimes she came home to dinner with dark circles under her eyes and lines of fatigue about her mouth, but her spirits were always intact, and even Miss Barnes admitted that the Frenchwoman was good-natured and that her amiable self-sacrifice had been a boon to the rest of the resident teachers.

During the last week of the term several annoying incidents disturbed the serenity of the Misses Ryder, and caused more or less excitement among the girls. First and most distressing was the loss of Laura May Lee's pocket-book. Under ordinary circumstances this would not have been a calamity, for Laura May's pocket-money melted away as if by magic, and her pocket-book was chronically flat. But, as it happened, Mr. Lee, a wealthy Southern widower, had been confiding enough to send Laura May a check for $500, and commission her to select two rings as Christmas presents for herself and her younger sister. The rings were chosen after several expeditions to famous jewellery shops, and at last one afternoon Laura May and a group of chosen friends, chaperoned by Mademoiselle de Courcelles, set forth to bring home the spoils.

Miss Ryder had cashed the check, the $500 in cash reposed snugly in Laura May's purse; but when, at the jeweller's, Laura May opened her shopping-bag, lo! the purse had vanished and the $500 with it – gone, evidently, to swell some pickpocket's holiday harvest.

Only a few days later Mademoiselle de Courcelles, in an interview behind closed doors, reported to Miss Ryder that a small sum of money had been stolen from her trunk, and that circumstantial evidence pointed to Ellen, one of the chamber-maids, as the thief. Mademoiselle explained that she did not mind the personal loss, but as the pupils had been complaining of the disappearance of money, jewellery, silver toilet articles, etc., she felt it her duty to report her suspicions.

Miss Lucilla promptly ordered Ellen's trunks and bureau drawers searched and, a gold hatpin belonging to Evangeline Marie Jenkins having materialized in one of the bureau drawers, Ellen, weeping and to the last protesting her innocence, was summarily turned out of the house.

After this excitement, school life flowed on smoothly until the last Saturday before the holiday vacation.

"The whole school's going shopping to-day," Amelia Bowers announced at the breakfast table on this particular Saturday morning. "Everybody's got a Christmas list a mile long, and it's going to be something awful. The stores will be simply jammed and it'll take an hour to buy a paper of pins."

Miss Lucilla Ryder smiled tolerantly and omitted her usual criticism of Amelia's extravagant speech.

"You will need assistance to-day, Mademoiselle de Courcelles. I will send some of the young ladies out with other teachers."

She did; but Mademoiselle's ardent admirers were faithful, and she started out at half-past nine in charge of twelve of the richest girls in the school.

From shop to shop the flock fluttered, chattering, giggling, elbowing their way through the crowds, buying many things, inspecting more, meeting smiles and good nature on every hand. There's something about the effervescent exuberance of a boarding-school crowd that thaws even the icy hauteur of the average saleswoman, and stirs any salesman to spectacular affability.

It was after a hasty and simple luncheon, beginning with lobster salad and ending with tutti-frutti ice cream and chocolate éclairs, that the Ryder expedition drifted into a well-known jewellery shop.

Belinda, helping Katherine Holland to choose a stickpin for her brother, saw the familiar faces and idly watched the girls as they bore down upon a counter where a bland salesman greeted them with welcoming smiles. She knew that Laura May was once more in quest of rings – her long-suffering father having dutifully forwarded a second cheque when told, in a tear-blotted letter, of the fate that had met the first gift – and she smiled when Laura May triumphantly fished a chamois-skin bag out of her blouse front and extracted a roll of bills which she clutched firmly in her hand, while her glance, roaming suspiciously over the surrounding crowd, glared defiance at all pickpockets.

Suddenly Belinda's smile faded. Her eyes opened wide in amazement.

She had seen a swift, deft movement of Mademoiselle's hand – but no, it was impossible. She had imagined it. Yet she stood staring in a bewildered fashion at the Frenchwoman until Katherine touched her arm.

"What's the matter, Miss Carewe? I'm ready to go."

Belinda smiled vaguely, and moved toward the door in the wake of Mademoiselle and her charges, who were also leaving. She lost sight of them in the crowd; but, as she neared the door, there was a sudden swirling eddy in the incoming and outgoing tides. Something was happening outside. The sound of excited girlish voices floated into the shop. A crowd was forming on the sidewalk.

Belinda's cheeks flamed scarlet. A look of startled comprehension gleamed in her eyes.

"Hurry," she urged curtly; and, with her hand on Katherine's arm, forged ahead through the door, unceremoniously pushing aside everyone who interfered with her rapid exit.

Once outside, she turned unhesitatingly toward a group blocking the sidewalk. A policeman's helmet loomed large above the heads of the crowd; and, as Belinda approached, the policeman's sturdy form forced a way through the circle. Following came Mademoiselle de Courcelles escorted by two men whose faces wore smiles of quiet satisfaction. Behind was a bewildered, hysterical group of girls, weeping, lamenting, protesting, entreating.

Belinda stopped the procession.

"There must be some mistake," she said falteringly. "What is wrong?"

One of the keen-eyed men took off his hat respectfully.

"Sorry, Miss; but it's French Liz, all right. We got the tip from Paris that she was working New York again, but we couldn't spot her till to-day."

"B-b-but what has she done?" stammered Belinda, to whom twelve anguish-stricken girls were attempting to cling, while a mixed audience looked on appreciatively.

"Cleverest shop-lifter in the graft," explained the detective. "She's got plenty of the goods on her right now; but I say" – and his glance wandered to the girls – "who'd a-thought of this lay except Liz? She's a bird, she is!"

He turned to Mademoiselle de Courcelles with honest admiration in his eyes, and she smiled at him recklessly, with white lips.

"You'd have been too late to-morrow. I was expecting a telegram calling me away to-night."

All the hesitation was gone from her English. She spoke fluently, and a hard metallic ring had crept into the velvety voice.

The detective looked at Belinda.

"This other fellow is the shop-detective. We'll have to take her in here and see what swag she has beside the diamonds we saw her lift. I don't know as there's any use keeping the young ladies – "

Evangeline Marie gave a smothered wail at the suggestion, and Laura May showed signs of fainting in Belinda's arms.

"Boarding-school crowd, I see. Now, Miss, if you'll just give me the name of the school and the address, you can take the bunch along home. It isn't likely that any of those babes are in the game with Liz. She's just used them for a blind. Holy smoke! but that was a good idea. Turn a crowd of boarding-school girls loose at a counter, and their teacher could steal the clerks blind without their suspecting her. Lost anything in the school?"

Belinda had a sudden vision of the disgraced Ellen's tearful face, and a thought of Laura May's pocket-book smote her, but she merely wrote the address on a card and handed it to the detective.

"If you could keep the name of the school out of the scandal it would be worth your while," she said in a low voice.

The detective nodded.

"I'll try; but I guess the papers will get it one way or another. Don't let anyone touch Liz's trunks. I'll be up to go through them just as soon as I've finished here."

For the first time, Mademoiselle faced Belinda and the wide-eyed girls.

"Ces chères demoiselles! Cette superbe Mees Ryder! Bah! It was too easy. I mention a duchess, a countess. The lofty Mees Ryder falls upon my neck. I tell stories of the French noblemen who have adored me, persecuted me with their devotion until I fled from France; poor but honest. The little schoolgirls gulp it all down and beg for more. Oh, but they are stupid – these respectable people. You have my sympathy, Mademoiselle Carewe. You must live among them. For me – give me les gens d'esprit, give me a society interesting. Adieu, mes chères. It was amusing, that boarding-school experience, but to endure it long —mon dieu, I prefer even this!"

She waved her hand airily toward the policeman and the grinning detectives, and, with a shrug, moved toward the shop door, then paused for a parting message.

"My regards to the venerable spinsters. It pains me that I shall never be able to arrange for them a meeting with the Duchesse de Rochechouart and Madame la Comtesse de Pourtales. The maid of the duchess collected stationery for me at one time. It is often of use, the stationery that carries a good crest. Adieu!"

Belinda convoyed a subdued group of girls back to the school; but, by the time they reached the door, their spirits had soared. It is sad to be disillusioned, but after all it is something to have been intimately associated with a famous criminal, and to have been an eye-witness of her capture.

Only Laura May Lee mourned and refused to be comforted.

"I will never again open my soul to anyone," she vowed hysterically.

"I said the woman was a cat," commented Miss Barnes when the news reached her ears.

What Miss Lucilla Ryder said in the first fervor of her surprise no one save Belinda knew, for their interview was behind closed doors, but when she came from her room to meet the detective Miss Lucilla's calm dignity was without a ripple.

The investigation of teachers' credentials is now her pet hobby, and she freezes at the mention of the French nobility.

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK SHEEP'S CHRISTMAS

FIVE days before Christmas the school of the Misses Ryder emptied its pupils and teachers into the bosoms of more or less gratified families, and closed its doors for the holiday season.

The principals lingered for two days after the girls left, in order to see that the furniture was covered, the furnace fires were allowed to die, the gas was turned off, the shades were decorously drawn, the regular butcher's, baker's and milkman's supplies were stopped. Then they, too, went out into the world, for they always spent Christmas with the old aunt who lived upon the ancestral Ryder acres in New Hampshire.

Five of the servants had joined the exodus. Only Ellen, the fat cook, and Rosie, the laundress, were left in the basement, and in the back hall bedroom on the top floor was the Youngest Teacher, who had submitted to enthusiastic kisses from her departing girl adorers, had responded cheerfully to pleasant adieus from her employers, and had settled down to face a somewhat depressing situation. On Christmas Eve she was still facing it pluckily.

A storm of wind and sleet was beating at the windows, and the little hall bedroom, unheated for days past, had taken on the chill that seems to have body and substance.

In a wicker chair, beside the small table, Belinda, wrapped in blankets and with a hot-water bag under her feet, sat reading by the light of a kerosene lamp which threw weird, flickering shadows on the ugly gray walls.

As a particular vicious blast shrieked at the window the girl dropped her book into her lap, drew the blankets more closely about her, looked around the room, and made a heroic effort to smile.

Then she smiled spontaneously at the lamentable failure of the attempt, but the smile left the corners of her mouth drooping.

She was tired of being brave.

Somewhere out across the night there were love and laughter and friends. She wondered what the home folk were doing. Probably they missed her, but they were together and they had no idea how things were with her, for her letters had been framed to suggest festive plans and a school full of holiday sojourners.

She had written those letters with one eye upon the Recording Angel and the other upon her mother's loving, anxious face, and it had seemed to her that the Recording Angel's smile promised absolution.

She was glad she hadn't been frank, but – she wanted her mother.

The quivering face was buried in the rough folds of the blankets, and a queer, stifled sound mingled with the noise of the storm.

The Youngest Teacher was only twenty-two, and this was her first Christmas away from home.

But the surrender did not last long. Belinda sprang to her feet, hurled a remark that sounded like "maudlin idiot" at a dishevelled vision in the mirror, picked up the lamp, and went down to the gymnasium on the second floor. When she came back she was too warm to notice the chill of the room, too tired to think. She pulled down the folding bed, tumbled into it, and dreamed of home.

Christmas morning was clear and cold.

Belinda awoke late, and, as the realities crowded in upon her, shut her eyes and tried to dodge the fact that there was no one to wish her a merry Christmas.

She was crying softly into her pillow when the room door was opened cautiously and two ruddy Irish faces peered through the crack.

"A merry Christmas to ye, Miss!" shouted two voices rich in creamy brogue.

Belinda opened her eyes.

"Sure, Oi said to Rosie, 'It's a shame,' sez Oi, 'the young leddy up there wid divil a wan to wish her luck. Let's go up,' sez Oi. So we come."

Then Ellen, who was an excellent cook and a tough citizen, had the surprise of her life, for a slim, pretty girl sprang out of bed, threw her arms around the cook's portly form, and kissed the broad, red face. Rosie had her turn while Ellen was staggering under the shock.

"Bless you both," said Belinda, looking at them through wet eyes.

The cook opened and shut her mouth feebly, but her own eyes held a responsive moisture.

"Aarrah, now, was it ez bad ez that?" she asked with rough gentleness.

"We were thinkin' maybe we'd be so bold as to ask wud ye come down to the kitchen and have a drop av coffee and a bit av toast wid us. It's bitter cold the mornin' to be goin' out to an eatin'-house, and there's a grand foire in the stove."

The invitation was accepted, and the guest stayed in the warm kitchen until Rosie's young man materialised. Then Belinda retreated to her own room, made her bed, tucked herself up snugly in the big chair, and once more turned to the consolations of literature.

She was still grimly reading when, at eleven o'clock, Ellen tapped on the door.

"If ye plaze, Miss, there's a man wud loike to be spakin' wid yez."

Belinda looked blankly incredulous. Then a gleam of hope flashed across her face. By a miracle, Jack's boat might have come back – or somebody from home —

"Yis; he sez his name's Ryder."

"Ryder?" echoed Belinda.

"He wuz afther askin' fer Miss Ryder and Miss Emmiline furrst, and he luked queer loike when I told him they wuz gone away.

"'Who's here, onyway,' sez he, sort o' grinnin' as if it hurt him.

"'There's Miss Carewe,' sez Oi, 'wan av th' tachers.'

"'Ask her will she see me fer a minute,' sez he; an' wid that I come fer yez."

"What's he like, Ellen?"

"Well, he's bigger than most and kind av gruff spoken, as though he'd as lave hit ye if he didn't loike yer answers; but it's nice eyes and good clothes he has. He's a foine figger av a man, and he do be remindin' me some way av Miss Ryder. I doubt he's a relation."

Belinda was straightening her hair and putting cologne on her swollen eyelids.

"I'll have to go down. Where is he?"

"In the back parlour, Miss."

"Did you raise the shades?"

"Divil a bit. It's ez cheerful ez a buryin' vault in there."

It was. John Ryder had grasped that fact as he sat waiting, upon one of the shrouded chairs. He turned up his coat collar with a shiver.

"Lord, how natural it seems," he muttered. "They did the same sort of thing at home. Give me the ranch."

The portière before the hall door was pushed aside and the man rose. He was prepared for a gaunt, forbidding, elderly spinster. He saw a girl in a dark blue frock that clung to the curves of the slender figure as though it loved them. He saw a waving mass of sunny brown hair that rippled into high lights even in the darkened room and framed a piquant face whose woeful brown eyes were shadow-circled.

"Merry Christmas!" he said abruptly.

"Merry Christmas!" Belinda replied before she realised the absurdity of it.

"You don't look it," commented John Ryder frankly.

Belinda crossed the room, threw up the shades, and turned to look at the amazing visitor, who stood the scrutiny with imperturbable calm.

"I am Miss Carewe. You wish to see me?"

The tone was frigid, but its temperature had no apparent effect.

"Yes. I'm John Ryder," the man announced tranquilly; then, seeing that she didn't look enlightened, he added, "I'm Miss Ryder's brother, you know."

Belinda thawed.

"Why, I didn't know – " she began, then stopped awkwardly.

"Didn't know the girls had a brother. No; I fancy they haven't talked about me much. You see, I'm the 'black sheep.'"

The statement was brusque, but the smile was disarming.

"I've been thoroughly bleached, Miss Carewe. Don't turn me out."

She had no intention of turning him out. His voice had an honest note, his eyes were very kind, and she lacked supreme confidence in her employers' sense of values; so she sat down upon an imposing chair swathed in brown Holland and looked at the "Black Sheep."

"What have they been doing to you?" he asked.

"I'm homesick." She essayed gay self-derision, but her lips trembled, and to John Ryder's surprise he found his blood boiling, despite the icy temperature of the room.

"Did they leave you here all alone?"

"Nobody left me. I stayed."

Belinda was conscious that the conversation had taken an amazing leap into intimacy, and clutched at her dignity, but she felt bewildered. There was something overpowering and masterful about this big, boyish man.

"Nobody else here?"

"Servants."

"House shut up like this?"

"Naturally."

"No heat?"

"I can't see that the matter concerns you, Mr. Ryder – unless – "

"Oh, no. I'm not thinking of staying."

Her attempt at rebuff had not the smallest effect.

"No gas, either, I suppose?"

She didn't answer.

He said something under his breath that appeared to afford him relief.

"No friends in town, evidently?"

Belinda rose with fine stateliness.

"If there's nothing I can do for you, Mr. Ryder – "

"Sit down."

She sat down involuntarily, and then felt egregiously foolish because she had done it; but John Ryder was leaning forward with his honest eyes holding hers and was talking earnestly.

"Please don't be angry. I've been out in the Australian bush so long that I've forgotten my parlour tricks. Men say what they think, and ask for what they want, and do pretty well as they please – or can – out there. I've hardly seen a woman. I suppose they'd cut down the independence if they entered into the game. But, see here, Miss Carewe, you're homesick. I'm homesick, too – and I'm worse off than you, for I'm homesick at home. It's rather dreadful being homesick at home."

There was a note, half bitter, half regretful, in the voice and a look in the eyes that was an appeal to generosity.

Belinda's conventionality crumpled up and her heart warmed toward the fellow-waif.

"I've been counting a good deal upon a home Christmas," he went on; "more than I realised; and this isn't exactly the real thing."

Belinda nodded comprehension.

The "Black Sheep" read the sympathy in her eyes.

"It's good of you to listen. You see, I've been away twenty years. It's a long time."

He sat silent for a moment staring straight before him, but seeing something that she could not see. Then he came back to her.

"Yes; it's a long time. One imagines the things one has left stand still, but they don't. I thought I'd find everything pretty much the same. Of course I might have known better, but – well, a fellow's memory and imagination play tricks upon his intelligence sometimes. I liked New York, you know. It's the only place, but I made the mistake of thinking I could fill it, and it was bigger than I had supposed. I swelled as much as I could, but I finally burst, like the ambitious frog in the fable. I'd made a good many different kinds of a fool of myself, Miss Carewe."

He hesitated, but her eyes encouraged him.

"I'd made an awful mess of things, and the family were down on me – right they were, too. The girls were pretty bitter. It was hard on them, you see, and I deserved all I got. Emmy would have forgiven me, but Lou was just rather than merciful. You know justice is Lou's long suit. Well, I cut away to Australia, and I didn't write – first because I hadn't anything good to tell, and then because I didn't believe anybody'd care to hear, and finally because it had got to be habit. It'd a' been different if mother had been alive. Probably I'd never have run – or if I had run I'd have written, but sisters – sisters are different. Mothers are – "