Hester's Counterpart: A Story of Boarding School Life

"Poor Aunt Harriet!" said Helen. "If only she would give up hope. She is wearing herself out in this way."

Hester was delighted with this new acquaintance. She had known few boys. Jane Orr's brother, Ralph, had been her ideal of what a boy should be. Jane had not let his good qualities pass unnoticed. But Hester was inclined to think that Robert Vail surpassed Ralph in every particular. Helen had told her much of this one cousin who took the place of brother to her. He was in his last year in medical college, and had led his class for three full years. Yet he was not a bookish man. He was of a social nature, fond of company, and outdoor life, taking as much interest in cross-country walks and athletics as he did in his studies. Hester was thinking of these matters while Helen and Robert were talking. She had been sitting with her eyes upon the floor, listening in a half abstracted fashion. She raised her eyes suddenly to find Robert Vail's eyes fixed on her in scrutiny. Her cheeks grew crimson and she looked away.

"I beg pardon," cried the young man, "I seem destined to annoy you with my rudeness. The first time I met you I mistook you for Helen. The resemblance is not so marked now that I see you together."

"Yet we are often mistaken for each other," said Helen, "if the hall is just a little dark, the girls mistake us. Often I am called Hester."

"It would have to be very dark if I were to mistake you now after once seeing you together.

"I wish to explain to Miss Alden why I was looking so intently at her now. I've seen my mother sitting that way many a time. There was something about you which made me think of her."

"You told me she was very beautiful," said Hester, saucily turning toward Helen.

"Hester Alden, are you really fishing for compliments?" asked Helen, pretending to be shocked at Hester's question.

"There is really no use of fishing when the compliments are floating on the surface within your reach," said the young man gallantly.

This was all very pleasing to Hester. She had not been accustomed to receiving such compliments or attention and she felt quite grown up and elegant.

Robert Vail's gallant manner was of short duration. He looked at Hester again, and grew quite serious. Very strange ideas came to him. He had a queer feeling that somehow his mother had made a mistake in not calling at the seminary that morning, and that he stood nearer the truth than he had ever stood before. These thoughts prompted him to turn to Hester with questions which were pertinent and personal.

"Where do you live, Miss Alden?" Hester told him. She wondered as she did so why he had asked the question as though it were of moment.

"Who are your people? Have you always lived there?"

He had touched Hester on the one delicate subject of her life. She had pride enough for several girls. Not even Aunt Debby knew how her lack of parentage and name had hurt her. She had never permitted herself to think of it, lest she should grow depressed and unhappy. And to think that now this Robert Vail whom she had liked so much, had presumed to question her. Like a flash, it came to her that perhaps he had met Kate Bowerman or Abner Stout and they had told him that she had been left a waif on Debby Alden's hands and that her people had cared so little for her that they never came to find her.

For an instant, pride was up in arms. Her one thought was to defend herself at whatever cost. All Aunt Debby's precious training was flung to the winds. She raised her head proudly and looked directly at him. In her eyes was a look of defiance; the crimson of annoyance and shame flamed on her cheeks.

"Who are my people?" she repeated his question. "As my name is Alden, I presume my people also were of that name. My father and mother died when I was a babe, and my father's sister, my Aunt Debby Alden reared me."

Her annoyance was evident. Robert Vail was vexed with himself for having caused it. "I am always falling into error, Miss Alden. If you forgive me this once more, I shall promise not to annoy you again. I fancy my question was personal. I asked it because of the resemblance to my mother and cousin. It came to me that you might be a relative. Though I doubt if you would wish to claim us. We are a bad lot. I am really the only fair specimen among them."

"Such insufferable conceit," said Helen. "Everyone knows that it keeps all the other members of the family taking care of you."

"Which proves what I have just said. I am the family jewel. It behooves them to take care of me, lest I be lost or stolen." Turning to Hester, he held out his hand. "Am I forgiven?" he asked.

Hester, ashamed and abashed, laid her hand within his. "I am sorry I spoke so hastily," she said. But the red did not leave her cheeks, nor the hurt look from her eyes. She blushed for the statement she had made. "'My father was Aunt Debby's brother.' It was a lie – nothing less than a lie," she kept saying to herself and the thought spoiled the entire day for her. It spoiled more than that, too. Perhaps, had she told the truth, she would never again have need to blush for her lack of name or to misunderstand her people for not coming in search for her. Her little sin bore its own fruits with it; yet Hester believed she was paying the debt by being sorry and ashamed.

"About your going with me," Robert turned to his cousin. "Mother said I was to play escort and take you anywhere you wished to go."

"Aunt Harriet's not coming may make a difference. The preceptress gave me permission to go with the understanding that we were in your mother's charge."

"I shall take as good care of you as mother. Better care, I fancy, for she would be helpless if she had to manage a machine."

"It is the idea of not living up to the conditions," replied Helen. "If you and Hester will excuse me, I will explain to Miss Burkham. Perhaps, she will not object to my going with you. She would if you were not a cousin."

She went directly to the preceptress and in a few moments returned with that lady herself, who listened to the story of the difficulties.

"We intended stopping to see Aunt Debby," said Hester. "I wrote her a note yesterday, telling her to expect us."

"You may go under these conditions," said Miss Burkham, "that you go directly to Miss Alden's aunt's. If she can accompany you further, very well. Otherwise you remain at her home until you are ready to return to school. Under any circumstances you must be here before five o'clock. Be kind enough to set your timepieces with the tower clock. Then there will be no excuse for not being here on or before the hour appointed. You may get your wraps. I shall entertain Mr. Vail until your return."

Miss Burkham was always exacting. Her speech was frank and sometimes even blunt; but she had such a sense of justice and fitness of things, that her decisive words were never galling, even to the most sensitive of the girls. Her manner was gracious and her smile kindly. She would put herself to no end of trouble to add to the happiness of the pupils; on the other hand, she would go to no end of trouble to see that the rules of the school were rigidly enforced and that the girls under her care would do nothing unbecoming a lady or which might bring criticism upon their heads.

Soon the three were on their way. For three days, Hester Alden had enjoyed the ride in anticipation. But now something had gone from it. The buoyancy of spirit which was generally hers and the power of enjoying the most trifling affairs had deserted her. She sat silent until Helen rallied her. Then she made an effort to be her usual bright talkative self; but it was plainly an effort. She was forcing an interest in what was going on about her. Her mind dwelt only on the statement she had made to Robert Vail.

"It was a lie, a lie," she kept repeating to herself. She was almost afraid to meet Aunt Debby. How Aunt Debby despised anything of that kind! Hester felt that her clear gray eyes would look straight down into her heart and read the lie which had made a mark there.

Robert Vail observed that Hester was more than quiet. She was depressed and anxious.

Debby Alden was prepared to receive the guests. She, with Miss Richards, had a lunch ready to serve. She had smiled when she arranged her table service. She had given it the right touch of daintiness and refinement. There had come to her, the remembrance of certain conditions of her life and her manner of doing things before Hester had come into her life. She had spoken her thoughts to Miss Richards.

"I have been a different woman ever since I found Hester," she said. "Life holds so much more for me than it did before – a great deal more than I ever hoped to have it hold. I wonder what I would have been had Hester gone her way that day and not have come into my life."

"You would have been Debby Alden," said Miss Richards, "a woman of conscience and principle. You would have been the same Debby – only with the narrower view of life. You would have been an old woman instead of a bright, interesting, beautiful, young girl of forty."

Debby Alden had blushed at the speech.

"You and Hester have conspired to spoil me. I think you are leagued together to make me vain and worldly. What one does not think of, the other does. It was only last week that Hester wrote me some very silly nonsense about not one of the women at the reception, looking half so fine as I. Of course, I know the child does it merely to please me."

Miss Richards nodded her head in negation. "You know she means every word she says, Debby. Hester could not prevaricate, even to please you. As to its being nonsense, you know it is not. We think what we say and you like to hear us say it. Why not express ourselves? There is nothing in the world that is as great as love. The greatest thing in the world! Why then should we go through life with silent lips, or lips which open only for criticism while all the time love is really in our hearts? Is it not lovelier and kinder to express our love while the loved ones are here to listen?"

This had been Miss Richards's philosophy of life. It had been her love as well as Hester's which had brightened and developed Debby Alden. Their words concerning Debby's being beautiful were not flattering. She was beautiful with the beauty which comes from fine principle, high ideals, and a warm, love-filled heart. People had turned in the streets for a second look at Debby Alden, while she, wholly unconscious that she had grown so attractive, moved on her way without knowing of the eyes turned in her direction.

Debby went down to the gate to meet her guests. She took Hester in her arms. In an instant her intuition told her that something was wrong.

"What is troubling my little girl?" she asked.

"Nothing, Aunt Debby. Nothing at all. Oh, how sweet to be back home!" She threw her arms about Debby Alden's neck and hugged her with a vehemence which caused that lady to gasp for breath.

Helen and Miss Alden had never met. Debby at once noticed the resemblance between Helen and Hester. She greeted the former as she had done her own little girl. Then she turned to Robert Vail and holding out her hand, said merrily, "I shall forgive and believe now, since I know you have a cousin Helen and she does resemble Hester. Until this time, I thought it all a myth of your own making, manufactured for the sole purpose of annoying two plain country folk."

Rob Vail laughed as he took her hand in his own firm clasp. "I do not know whether I shall allow myself to be forgiven under such circumstances. You would not have faith in me until I presented the proof and that is really no faith at all. I wish to be trusted without evidence."

He laughed again and held Miss Debby's hand tight in his own while they moved up the walk toward the tiny cottage.

"From this time, I shall have faith in you, though evidence is lacking," she said.

She liked the boy. She had never before been so pleasantly impressed by a young man as she had been by him. He was wholesome, clear-eyed and unaffected.

Debby Alden recognized these virtues in him and received him at once into her home and friendship. She liked his college talk; his bright way of making his smile and voice put his words at fault. Yet, while he entertained her she was not wholly unconscious of two things – that Hester was not herself, and that the resemblance between the two girls was not the result of mere chance. Suddenly she turned to Helen with the question:

"Have you any sisters? Did you ever have any?"

"No, unfortunately, I am an only child," was the reply.

"Which may account for any peculiar little traits of character or manner," said Robert Vail. "Only a brother or sister is able to 'comb one' thoroughly smooth. They trim the plant of self-esteem; they nip the bud of selfishness before it can bloom; they serve their purpose, nuisances though they are – these brothers and sisters."

"How unfortunate that you never had any. You might have been – " Helen left the sentence unfinished, implying by her tone that he might have been all that he was not.

"But you served the same purpose, cousin. You have never failed in your duty toward me. You are worth a dozen brothers and sisters when it comes to 'combing one down.'" They laughed at the sally and might have carried it further had not Miss Alden led the way to the lunch table.

CHAPTER X

Hester Alden barely escaped being campused for dancing her way through the main hall and shrieking in wild excess of spirits. To add to the enormity of the offense, the day on which this had occurred was the day when the ice-cream wagon came in from Flemington and disposed of its wares at the front entrance of the campus. At the time of her exhibition of high spirits, Hester had held high in her hand a paper butter-dish filled with cream, which had melted and was trickling over the edge of the dish and down her sleeve. The German teacher had heard the unusual commotion and appeared on the scene.

"Ach, Fraulein Alden, what matters it by you? To your room go you at once. To Miss Burkham, I such conduct shall report."

Hester in the exuberance of spirit, hugged the little German lady who was as fat as a dumpling. "Fraulein Franz, you are a dear old soul if you do get your English verbs confused. You would dance and laugh and spill your ice-cream too, if you were to play on the scrub team."

"Gra-shus," said Fraulein. "Pardon me, I did not know the cause. I wonder not that you much rejoice."

She retired to her room. Hester laughed again, but softly this time for Miss Burkham's office was not a great distance away.

"The dear old Fraulein! To think of her begging my pardon for reprimanding me. I am only too glad it was not Miss Burkham. If she had seen me, I'd had two weeks on the campus and someone else would have been compelled to carry my cream from the wagon to the coping."

The other east dormitory girls had heard the news and were quite as well pleased as Hester. Mame Cross had been forbidden by her father to play any but practice games. He thought she grew too excited for her own good. It was her place on the second squad which Hester was to fill.

Helen had used her influence in behalf of her roommate; for there were ten other players who would have been as well pleased as Hester was, had it fallen to their lot to substitute. Fortunately they were a liberal, broad-minded set of girls. They were not envious, but rejoiced with Hester in her good fortune.

As Hester hurried down the main hall to the dormitory stairs, she found her own particular set of friends waiting for her on the landing.

"Here she is!" cried Erma. "We have been looking everywhere for you. Isn't it simply grand to think that one of our set got on?"

"I'm glad you've got it, since I couldn't," said Mame. She had always the expression of one on whom Fortune had frowned. On the contrary, she had fairly basked in that lady's smiles, since the first day of her babyhood.

"I don't see why father will not let me play. There's no danger of my hurting myself, and what if I should? He has an idea that I am such a precious article that I should be done up in cotton. One thing, Hester, if you play a match game, you'll look better than I do. My basket-ball suit was a fright; but then, I never do have anything that looks like other girls."

Hester was about to express herself contrary to this sentiment, when an audacious remark from Erma caused her to fall back in silence.

"You see how it is, Hester," explained Erma later as the two walked arm in arm down the hall. "Mame is the best dresser in school. She has the best-made clothes and the best taste about choosing them, and you never see a pin or hook loose. Yet we never yet have heard her say she was satisfied. So we just concluded that we wouldn't encourage her. When she begins to complain and find fault with her lot, we'd look as though we pitied her. It isn't a bit of use of trying to convince her how lucky she is.

"Now, I am always the other way." Here Erma paused long enough to laugh merrily. "I'm satisfied with everything. My father is simply grand; I just adore this old seminary, and I think the girls on our hall are the sweetest things, and I never had a dress in all my life that wasn't simply a dream."

The girls rejoiced with Hester, all except Berenice. She went through with the form of congratulations, but her voice had a sarcastic touch and her eyes had narrowed themselves into mere slits. Her words were a little uncertain as to meaning; but Hester to whom all things appeared beautiful, was in no mood to take exception.

"I'm sure I'm glad you're on the scrub," she said slowly. "I'm always glad to see people get what they work so hard for."

"Thank you, Berenice. You girls have all been lovely. You do not have a bit of jealousy about letting a 'freshie' step in ahead of some who have been here two and three years."

"We want to win games," cried Louise Reed. "Whoever makes goals for us, suits us whether she's a freshman or a senior. Get the pennant and we'll carry you home on our shoulders."

They had come to Sixty-two. Erma and Mame in company with Berenice walked on down the corridor.

"I'd love to have been put on; but since I wasn't I am glad that Hester was. It was fair, too. She's played better than any other one on the team. She gets excited but she doesn't lose her head."

Berenice sneered. "To get on the team, one must learn to toady," she said. "No doubt if you had played lackey to Helen Loraine, you would have been playing scrub."

Erma turned suddenly to look at the speaker. There was no laughter now in either her eyes or voice as she, gazing steadily at Berenice, asked, "Do you mean to say that Hester Alden plays lackey to Helen? Do you mean to say that Helen would permit it if Hester were foolish enough to do so, and furthermore do you mean to say that Hester was not chosen for the simple reason that she is the steadiest player among the substitutes?"

Berenice shrugged her shoulders. Her little beady eyes had their lashes drawn down upon them until they had narrowed into a mere slit.

"How you do fly up, Erma! I really did not think you had such a temper; but one thing you may rest assured of: it is always you sweet girls who fly into a passion at the slightest word."

"I have never posed as being a sweet girl, and I am not in a passion now. I have asked you a question which you have evaded. You have insinuated things about girls who call me their friend and I will never let such matters pass. I wish you to answer my question before we go one step further."

Erma stood still. The others did as she did. Berenice laughed lightly. "How very silly. A perfect tempest in a tea-cup simply because I choose to get off a joke."

"If that is a joke, it is in horribly bad taste," was Erma's retort.

"You are unjust, Erma. How many times have I heard you laugh at Helen for trying to stand in with the teachers, and for letting Mame copy her translations."

"Hundreds of times, but you always heard me laugh and jest when the girls themselves were present and when every one who heard, knew that it was mere fun. It was mere give and take between every one of our set who were present. You have yet to hear me criticise an absent girl, or jest about her."

Again Berenice shrugged her shoulders as though she would dismiss the subject.

"I am glad I am not ugly-tempered," she said and walked away without a backward glance at the others. For a moment, Erma was wounded. Then the humor of the situation came to her. She laughed until the silvery echoes rang from one end of the corridor to the other; and the girls begged to be quiet lest the hall-teacher follow in their footsteps and they be sentenced to solitary confinement on the campus.

After receiving the congratulations of her friends, Hester had gone to her room. Helen was busy preparing a lesson for the session the following morning.

"Of course, you know what has happened," cried Hester. "Of course you do. I can see by your eyes. Miss Watson sent for me to come to her and then told me. I knew who proposed my name. It was you, Helen Loraine. I cannot possibly thank you, and I never in the world can repay you."

Flinging her arms about her roommate's neck, Hester embraced her warmly all the while declaring that she would never be able to repay her.

"Yes, you surely can," said Helen. "Play a good game and justify my recommending you. That will please me best of all."

"I shall do that for your sake, for my own, and for the team's."

Helen stood silent a moment, considering whether she had better tell Hester all her plans. She decided that she would and drawing Hester down on the cosy corner, which had been improvised from trunks, she continued: "For several reasons you must play well the next two weeks. Three weeks from next Saturday, we play the girls from Exeter Hall. They are the hardest squad we'll meet. Their coach is a college woman and a specialist in physical culture and athletics. The Exeter team is the best-trained one we'll come up against. We'll take along four substitutes. Maud plays well for the first half, but she tires easily. I intend to substitute for her on the second half, and if you justify my doing it, I'll let you take her place."

"Really?" That one word was all that Hester Alden could command at that moment; but it spoke volumes. To the girl it seemed as though the one ambition of her school life was about to be fulfilled – to play on the first team.

She did not consider herself alone in this. Aunt Debby was always first in her thoughts. Ever since Mary Bowerman had taunted her with being a waif, Hester had realized how much the foster aunt had done for her, and what sacrifice of time and money, she had made. The one way which Hester saw to repay the obligation, was to do those things which would reflect credit on the Alden name. Playing on the first team would do that very thing for never before in the history of Dickinson, had a freshman been so honored.

Hester had reached such a degree of happiness that she lacked expression either by words or motion. She could but sit still in the cosy corner, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes looking steadily before her. So she sat for some minutes but in those minutes, she anticipated every play in the coming game. She saw the goals she would make; she could hear the referee call out the score and read the figures which the score makers were writing down. She could see Aunt Debby sitting in the gallery; she could hear the applause which swept over the hall.

"Really? Do you really think there is the least chance for me?" she asked at last.

"I really think so. I might say I am quite sure," replied Helen. "Miss Watson always permits me to choose my substitutes. I would almost promise but – "

"Don't promise. I would not have you do that. During the next two weeks I might lose my head and not play well at all," she said.

"I'm not afraid of that," replied Helen. "But it does not seem fair to the other girls to have me pledge myself to you, before you have had a single practice on the scrub. I try to be just, but sometimes I am afraid I am a little partial in choosing the ones I love best. Because you are you, I might be unjust to the others. Do you understand why I would rather not promise, little roommate?"

"Yes, I know."

The subject ended there. Helen went back to her work. Hester tried to keep her mind upon her books; but one might as well have tried to charm a butterfly. Her thoughts flew from the game to Aunt Debby, and back to Helen and the attitude she had taken in regard to the game.