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 tryingto make you presentable and you tell me you’d rather stay here in thedark. Do hurry, Edina. I tell you, we’ve only just time to make thebus.”
Edina got up--and a dozen packages scattered over the floor! Shestooped to pick them up and bumped her head into the head of the oldgentleman in front who turned to glare at her wrathfully.
With an exclamation of annoyance, Billie helped gather up the scatteredpurchases of the afternoon and after an interminable delay the girlsgot to the street.
“We’ve got to run,” gasped Billie. “If we miss that bus, it’s all upwith us. I promised Miss Arbuckle----” The sentence went unfinished,for at the next street corner they came in sight of the bus. MissArbuckle and the girls stood beside it, talking animatedly. Billieguessed from their gestures that she and Edina were the topic ofconversation.
Billie had been almost running. Now she slowed her pace and glancedimperatively at Edina.
“Pull your hat down and put the collar of your coat up a little,” sheordered. “That’s right! You look swell! Act as if you knew it.”
That was all very well for Billie Bradley, thought poor Edina; butBillie could scarcely be expected to know how it felt to be dressed uplike a tailor’s dummy and set in a window to be stared at!
Unconsciously Edina’s face assumed the old, grim expression ofdefiance. She was the “lion cub” dressed up.
With her accustomed tact and kind-heartedness, Miss Arbuckle assumedcharge of the situation. With the gesture of a motherly hen scatteringher chicks, she shooed the staring, curious girls into the bus, sothat when Billie and her companion reached it, there was no one on thesidewalk.
Billie was in fine spirits again.
“Follow me,” she called to Edina. “And be sure to pick up the packagesI drop! It will be a mercy if we get back to Three Towers with half thethings we’ve bought.”
As Billie and Edina entered the bus, all eyes were turned upon Billie’scompanion.
The moment of amazed silence that greeted the apparition of this newEdina Tooker was a genuine tribute to Billie’s accomplishment.
“Hello, everybody!” Billie called gaily. “Edina and I have beenshopping and we’ve bought the most marvelous things--dozens of prettyfrocks and other things. Wait till you see!”
So Billie carried the battle into the enemy’s territory. By this boldstroke she practically forced the girls to take sides either for oragainst her new friend and protégé. By it Billie said, though not in somany words:
“You must either accept Edina or reject her--and by rejecting her, youwill reject me also.”
If Billie had not possessed quite so strong a hold upon the affectionand esteem of her schoolmates, it is quite possible that this bold bidin Edina’s interest would have gone for nothing.
However, the girls loved Billie, and this new Edina Tooker in themarvelous clothes was certainly far more attractive than the old Edina.Then, too, there was the talk of new frocks--dozens of them, Billie hadsaid.
The atmosphere became more friendly. One could almost feel it thaw.
Jessie Brewer, a diminutive blonde with round face and infantile blueeyes, turned the scale in Edina’s favor.
“You look stunning,” said Jessie, generously going all the way now thatshe had decided on surrender. “That coat is perfectly sweet. If I’mgood, will you let me have a lend of it sometime?”
The request, with its tacit acknowledgment of equality, took Edina’sbreath away.
“Sure,” she stammered. “Any--any time you like!”
Amazingly, miraculously, Edina found herself the center of interest forthe first time since her advent at Three Towers Hall--for the firsttime 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; butgradually the girl’s reticence broke beneath the friendly battery ofquestions. She found herself answering in a perfectly natural way--notonly that, but embellishing the events of the day with a dry humor thatcaptivated her audience.
Some of her packages were opened by the more curious among the girlsand passed from hand to hand for comment and inspection.
“Better watch these girls, Edina,” laughed Billie. “They are apt todescend upon your purchases like a swarm of hungry locusts----”
“I may be hungry, but I’m no locust,” said a dark-haired girl, who wassniffing curiously at a jar of cold cream with an exotic label and adelicious fragrance. “Anyway, I’m sure Edina won’t mind if I just takea dab of this stuff.”
“Take the whole thing, if you want it,” Edina offered largely; butBillie gave a little squeal of protest.
“No use giving away everything you own, even if your father has struckoil on that property of his and is making money hand over fist. Takethat jar of cream away, Edina, before Jessie eats it. She thinks it’sfor dessert.”
So Billie skillfully implanted the notion that Edina was already veryrich and growing richer fast. Among those who had snubbed the girl fromthe West, this would have a disciplinary effect, she thought, and thosewho were disposed to friendliness toward the new Edina would not begreatly affected by it, anyway.
She could see that the girls were impressed. Edina herself appearedsomewhat startled by this frank statement of her fortunes.
“You shouldn’t ’a’ done that,” she whispered to Billie in the flurry ofgetting packages together for the exodus at Three Towers Hall. “I ain’texactly superstitious, but seems like I don’t like to talk too muchabout 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 hardlybelieve he has really struck it rich at last. Seems like if I talktoo much about it, all his good fortune might bust up into thin airlike them--those--soap bubbles you make with a pipe. I’m just beingsuperstitious,” she added, with an apologetic grin. “You ain’t gotno--any--call to listen to me.”
As the bus turned into the long graveled drive leading to Three TowersHall and the girls began to scramble headlong from it, Edina caughtBillie’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 whatshe wanted to do. Yet she felt depressed, deserted and forlorn.
“I’m the world’s prize idiot,” she scolded herself. “I’m tired and Iprobably need my dinner.”
However, in her heart, she knew exactly what was wrong with her. Shewas unhappy because neither Laura nor Vi had come out to greet theschool bus.
Were they still angry with her? Was the friendship she had thought sostrong and fine, that had been a source of happiness to her ever sinceher childhood, to break up in this manner?
“All over a stranger, too,” she thought wearily. “Edina has scarcelyany claim on my affections. I’m grateful to her for saving my life thatawful day at the lake. I’m grateful to her and sorry for her, that’sall. But Laura and Vi----” She let the thought trail off.
In the hall she pulled off her tight hat and was conscious of immediaterelief. How her head did ache!
She went up quietly to her room, exchanging greetings with the girlsshe met on the way. She opened the door softly and stopped as thoughtransfixed.
On her bed lay Vi Farrington, face downward. She was sobbing as thoughher heart would break!