CHAPTER IX
CLORISSA'S SECRET
Clorissa's "someday" to tell Mimi her troublesome secret came soonerthan either expected. The revelation came about unexpectedly Fridaynight. It was the surprise climax to an unplanned party.
Study hall had not subdued the suite mates. They were still excitedover Mimi's honor of being chosen cheer leader and over the campusdiscussion Mimi's notes would cause.
Mimi tried to lie still so that Chloe could go to sleep. She could hearSue and Betsy turning and whispering. Then Sue spoke aloud.
"I am going to get up. I have a bad case of something, a cross betweenthe heebie-jeebies and the jitters. I'm naturally wild on Friday nightsand want to celebrate."
"Believe I'll get up, too," Mimi whispered.
"Let's all get up," Betsy said and they were all four out of bed andtiptoeing to the bathroom by the time she finished.
Mimi with her hands in front of her, walked slowly and slipped her feetalong. She mustn't run into a door facing with that nose.
Betsy fumbled for a match, checked to see that the bathroom shade wasdown, and then lighted a candle. Keeping the flame shaded carefullywith her hands, she dripped some tallow in the bottom of the bathtuband stuck the candle in the thickening puddle.
"Success!" she breathed as she withdrew her hands and the candle stoodalone.
"What do we eat?" Sue asked. "I'm starving."
"No!" Mimi teased and almost giggled out.
"Sh-sh." Betsy warned. She had been to too many such after-lights-outparties. Keeping quiet was rule one.
"Alas the cupboard is bare," Mimi wailed, as she stepped down from theside of the tub where she had climbed to search the high shelf.
"The treasure chest is empty, too," Betsy lamented.
"We do have some white sugar and some cocoa in the sitting room," Chloeremembered.
"My kingdom, not for a horse, but for a cow! We need only butter andmilk to have fudge." Sue had them all giggling now. "Let's make hotchocolate--sugar, cocoa, water--not rich, but I could drink ink withsugar in it."
"Far be it from me to be a kill-joy, but, we have no canned heat."Betsy sounded hopeless. "Why did we ever bring up food at all? I washungry but not ravenous until we talked about fudge. If we go to bednow, and there seems nothing left to do, I'll be delirious with visionsof fudge and sugar plums dancing through my head. Oh me, oh my. Mymother had such hungry children!"
"Fudge? Did you ask for fudge, ladies? You shall have it. I finisheverything I start," Sue's eyes were round with excitement. "Dit'sroommate keeps canned heat all the time and I am going to borrow some."
"Sue! You mean you'll go to college hall?" Betsy asked. That meantgetting safely through the intervening corridor and stepping in to thelighted halls. The chances of being caught were great.
"I'd walk a mile for--fudge." Sue concluded.
"I'll go with you, then," Betsy said. "Now if we can get to the firstfloor-bath and luckily catch some one we know well enough, we can hidein a shower while she goes and borrows the canned heat."
Betsy certainly knew her way around.
"If you all get caught I'll die," Chloe whispered after them.
"We won't," Betsy assured her. "Into the valley of death strode----"Betsy and Sue were out the door.
"Gee! I've been thinking about Daddy and Mother so much since I gothurt," Mimi confided as she and Chloe huddled on the bathroom floor inthe dim light. "You'd love my Mother and Daddy. They're keen! My Daddyis the best doctor in the world and Mother is a darling. When theyvisited me at camp this summer all the girls raved over them. Some ofthem who have cranky old 'stick-in-the-mud' parents, envied me."
"I'd envy you any kind of mother and daddy--even old fogies." Chloe'swhisper was pathetically small and lonely.
Mimi didn't know what to say. She wanted to ask, "Where are your Motherand Daddy?" but somehow she couldn't. She reached over and squeezedChloe's hand and continued staring ahead. Minutes passed and Mimi couldnot find her tongue.
"I believe I hear them coming back," Chloe said. Both girls stiffenedand sat up straight.
The door to two hundred and nine opened almost noiselessly, thenclicked to. Mimi and Chloe rushed to meet Betsy and Sue.
"We have it!" Sue could hardly keep from shouting. "Not a whole can,but enough."
"Sh--sh--" Betsy cautioned again. "We nearly got caught. Oh Gosh! Mrs.Cole, of all people, was over there. She stopped right outside thefloor bath door and talked to Virginia, I thought she'd never go on.Whew!"
Sigh of relief all around.
"Now for the dirty work at the crossroads." Betsy said. "Chloe get thechafing dish. Sue, stuff towels against the bottom of the doors intothe hall. Can't have this larupin' good smell oozing out. We'd havehalf of Prep Hall in here, not to mention Mrs. Cole. Mimi get tostirring, we'd better cook in the tub. The light won't show so plain."
The whispered instructions were carried out silently and quickly. Fiveminutes after the daring visit to College Hall, sugar and water andcocoa fudge was boiling away in the chafing dish which stood in thebottom of the bathtub. Mimi was stirring away, foamy brown bubbles. Shemustn't let it boil over, not waste a precious drop----
"Want a cup of water to test it?" Chloe asked.
"Shoot no," Mimi answered. "I can tell by the way it boils when it'sdone. When it begins to boil heavy and the bubbles spit little balls,it's ready to beat. Can I wait or can I wait?"
Betsy in the meantime had greased a platter with cold cream.
"I really feel like I'm at boarding school now," Mimi murmured happilyas she continued stirring.
"You'll _know_ you are at boarding school if Mrs. Cole catches us andyou get _campused_," Betsy warned. "What a divine smell!"
"Look!" Chloe was pointing at the canned heat. Her face was tragic."It's going out!" Slowly the blaze flickered, flared up, and while theanxious girls looked on, sputtered out.
"There goes the old ball game," Mimi whispered.
"Not for me, I'll eat it with a spoon." Sue declared.
"Never say die," Betsy said. "It's nearly done, I know it is. Lift itup Mimi and we'll finish it over the candle. We mustn't let it stopboiling. Here."
"Dit has an electric perculator," Sue volunteered. "She's made tomatosoup in it. Why not fudge?"
"Don't be silly," Chloe said.
"No," agreed Mimi, "you'd better thank your lucky stars you made thelast trip safely. Besides, the lights are out over there now."
After ten slow passing minutes of feeble boiling over the candle, Mimideclared the candy finished. The candle was about gone, too.
"Pour it up, please--" Sue urged.
"Control yourself, Wimpy," Mimi teased Sue.
After each girl beat and beat, the candy was poured up, setting as itfell, spreading in circles which heaped higher and higher to the centerleaving a topknot.
"Dubs on licking the pan."
"Go to it, but no holes in the chafing dish please," Mimi cautioned,handing her the pan. "We might want it again, sometime."
Betsy dried the nail file she had been scrubbing and while the fudgewas still hot, she cut it with the file. Then spreading an oiled breadpaper flat on the floor she turned the platter upside down. Slowly thefudge fell out.
"Let's eat one piece apiece now and let the rest cool," Mimi suggested.
"Since I licked the pan, maybe I can hold off," Sue agreed, turning ona slow stream of water and putting the pan to soak.
"Knock on wood y'all, but we've had better luck with our firstafter-lights fudge party than my great Aunt Patricia and her crowd did."
"What happened to them?" Chloe wanted to know.
"You know, my great Aunt Patricia, Pattie to her chums, came here whenSheridan was a Seminary for young ladies, I mean ladies. Did they haveit easy? Needle work, china painting, French and grammar. Penmanshipwas a heavy course. Imagine! I've heard Aunt Pattie tell what anenormous place Sheridan seemed to her when Uncle Mose and
her fatherdrove her up the drive in the family barouche. Prep Hall was all therewas here then. The rest of the building has been added. She was beingleft all of twenty-two miles from home. Think where my Mother and Daddyare! Uncle Mose, the coachman begged his little Missie not to forgethim while she was 'getting edicated' and her father kissed her solemnlyon the forehead and gave her a Bible marked with daily readings."
"But what about the fudge party?" Betsy interrupted. She knew all aboutthe founding of Sheridan and its growth from a small private Seminaryto a Preparatory School with college course added; how it wasoutgrowing finishing school requirements and, by abolishing thepreparatory department all together next year, would be an A-1accredited college for women. Not that Sheridan tradition bored her,but tonight her main interest was fudge. "It's cool enough forseconds," she added, as Mimi continued.
"Aunt Pattie was full of fun. She didn't do anything bad or break anybig rules, but she got plenty of demerits."
"Don't we all?" interpolated Sue.
"This night of the fudge party things were just getting in full swing,when there was a rap on the door. Some one snuffed the candle quickly.The window was open and they hoped the smell would go out. Each girlsat or stood as she had been, you know like slinging statutes--andhoped that the matron would go on. But she didn't!
"Aunt Pattie had all the demerits she could have that term so she wasscared stiff. In spite of all her hopes the door opened and there stoodthe matron holding an old timey oil lamp in front of her. The hallproctor was close behind her. Before either of them had time to makeout any of the girls' faces, the suction sucked the light out. AuntPattie did some desperate thinking and then did a desperate thing.
"Knowing that if the matron succeeded in lighting her lamp again theywere all in for it, while the matron fumbled for a match, Aunt Pattiecrept toward her on all fours. When her hair lightly brushed thematron's heavy skirt, she stopped. For one calculating second shechecked her bearing, then swift as a shot and sure as a good marksman,she jumped up to her full height knocking the lamp out of the matron'shands! Wide flew the oil, the wick, the base.
"In the panic which followed the girls fled to their rooms. Other thanthe girls who were hostesses to the party, only one girl was caught--"
"Not Aunt Pattie?" from three distressed voices.
"Yes, Aunt Pattie."
"But how?"
"When Aunt Patty went down to breakfast the matron was standing in thedoorway supposedly saying good-morning to the girls but she was reallyplaying detective, or better, bloodhound. She had been doing somedesperate thinking, too, and had found an excellent clue. Carefully shelooked down on each girl who entered. Not that one, nor that one. Shewas about to despair when Aunt Pattie came tripping in, in her floweredcashmere.
"Pattie come to my office immediately after your meal."
"Aunt Pattie pitifully murmured, 'yes, ma'am.' She was dumbfounded."
"But how did she know it was Pattie?"
"She had been sniffing each girl and when Aunt Pattie passed she simplyreeked of kerosene. When she upset the lamp she had baptized herself inoil. Scrubbing had changed her appearance but the smell lingered.
"What did they do to her?"
"Sent her home I think. Aunt Pattie always avoided that part. Shedidn't want me to know any of my family had ever been kicked out."
The candle was out and the fudge had disappeared miraculously.
"We'd better get to bed, I expect," Sue suggested. Full and warm, shewas ready to cuddle down.
"I wish y'all weren't too sleepy to hear about _my_ family," Chloe saidfaintly. "You see, I've tried to tell you so many times and somehowcouldn't. While it is so dark and nobody is running in and out, maybe Icould tell you."
"See that's it." Mimi hated herself for thinking. "She's ashamed ofthem!" but she was the first to say encouragingly--"Do tell us, Chloe.I'll admit I've wondered why you told about your Aunt Marcia, so muchand never mentioned your Mother and Father."
"I haven't any," Chloe said bluntly. There it was out. Mimi felt herquiver. They were all crowded together in a small circle, crossed legstouching.
"Oh." Three soft Oh's again. What else could they say?
"You mean, they're--dead?" Sue whispered. Her tender heartbreak was inher voice.
"I--don't--know," Chloe replied.
"Don't know if your own Mother and Father are dead?" Mimi prayed thatwasn't rude. The question had popped out of its own accord.
"No. I don't know. You see--"
"Yes?"
"I was--kidnapped."
Chloe's whisper left them paralyzed. Their excited breathing rasped thesilence. All the eager questions died unspoken. Now that the ice wasbroken Chloe was the calmest of the four. In her soft, lanquid voicelouder than a whisper, but much lower than her usual speaking tone,Chloe lisped her heartbreaking story. Telling it helped. She spokeeasier as she went along. When she had finished it was as if she hadunclasped an iron necklace and left her throat free from chokingbruises.
"Aunt Marcia is not my aunt at all. She selected me at The Home andadopted me. There is only one incident I remember about my real family.
"When I was very small, I couldn't have been more than three, I wasplaying under two big trees by a big white gate at the end of a drive.Two men slowed up in a touring car and watched me play, then drove on.Soon they came back. The big one with the tattooed arms jumped out ofthe car and grabbed me. As he slung me over his shoulder like a sack ofcotton seed and ran for the car, I heard a shriek. My head was hangingdown over his shoulder bumping up and down as the man, whom I laterlearned to call Fritzie, ran. I couldn't see very well, but I shallalways remember the blurred picture I saw. A beautiful lady was runningdown the drive screaming frantically. As long as I could see she keptholding out her arms running after us and pleading. She must have beenmy Mother. She must have loved me very much."
Chloe's voice died away.
Not a soul moved. Even the raspy breathing was stilled. The whole nighthad paused to hear Chloe's touching story.
Chloe's voice and girls breathed again.
"The little man drove us miles and miles. Fritzie put coveralls on overmy dress. Threw my little white shoes away and put sandals on me. Thebuckles pinched. Then Fritzie took some big scissors out of the carpocket and cut my hair off until I must have looked like a little boy.When the little man put Fritzie and me on the train he said, 'So longSonny.'
"Then there was a time, I have no idea how long, that I lived on a farmwith Fritzie and a large slow moving woman called Freida. Callersseldom came but when they did I was hidden in the cellar.
"After a time something happened. I don't know what but Fritzie andFreida packed up and left, leaving me at The Home. I stayed there 'tilthat happy day Aunt Marcia came."
"But why didn't you tell the people at The Home you'd been kidnapped?"Mimi asked.
"I tried to once and the nurse said I'd had a bad dream. Of course, Ididn't know the word kidnapped and I remembered so little by then. Ieven had a new name and didn't know the old one. When I'd say--'two mengrabbed me,' the nurse would say, 'there, there; no one is going to getyou' and move on to the next child. You see there were so many of us inThe Home.
"Once I tried to tell Aunt Marcia. I could tell by her eyes she wasscared but she turned it off as if I didn't know what I was talkingabout."
"She's afraid some one would identify you and take you away from her."Mimi was shrewd.
"I've thought of that. It's awfully nice to know somebody wants me, butI wonder all the time who I really am. Sometimes I wake up in the nightand think I hear my real mother screaming."
"You are just you, honey, and that's good enough for us." Mimi spokefor all three. "We swear we'll never breathe a word of your secret."
How could Mimi ever concentrate on geometry again when she was livingin the midst of an unsolved mystery?