Chapter VIII: Yellow Covers

MADGE spent the rest of the day in Mrs. Richardson's room, and came back very penitent and humble. When Claribel put her to bed, Madge seemed very full of thought, and at last she said, throwing her arms around her friend's neck and hugging her,—

"Claribel, you will love me if I am naughty sometimes, won't you?"

"Yes," said Claribel, returning the kiss; "but, Madge, you make me very unhappy when you are naughty, just because I do love you. Besides, if you are not good and don't take pains to improve, Mrs. Richardson will perhaps think it is all my fault, and then she won't let you stay with me."

"I don't believe she will," said Madge; "she will know that it is my very own naughtiness. But I will try to be good, and I will never call you 'Mother Bunch' again if Priscilla tells me to ever so many times."

"I don't think I would, because it isn't like a Christian to call names," said Claribel; "and you know, Madge, I cannot help my looks."

"I don't want you to help them," said Madge; "I like you just as you are."

She was silent a few minutes, and Claribel thought she was asleep, and was going to leave her, when Madge put out her hand to detain her.

"Please don't go away," said she; "I am afraid."

"Oh no," said Claribel; "what are you afraid of?"

"I am afraid because I have been naughty, and because—Claribel, if Priscilla told me not to tell, ought I to tell?"

Claribel hesitated:

"Did you promise not to tell, Madge?"

"No, I didn't promise exactly: but—Claribel, why do Priscilla and Fanny read books and hide them away when anybody comes?"

"They read books to learn lessons and to amuse themselves, I suppose," said Claribel. "Everybody gets books out of the library, you know."

"These are not library books," said Madge. "They are thin books with yellow and brown covers, and pictures in them, and Priscilla puts them under the bed when anybody comes. She said some of them were yours."

"You must be mistaken, dear," said Claribel; "I haven't any such books. There! Lie down and go to sleep."

"I can't," said Madge; "I don't feel well. I wish Fanny would sleep in my bed and let me sleep with you."

"I will ask her," said Claribel; "but, Madge, what is the matter, that you don't feel well? Have you been eating anything?"

"Only a lemon and some chocolate-drops that Priscilla gave me," said Madge, unwillingly.

"Oh, Madge, that was naughty, when you know such things always make you sick," said Claribel. "But never mind now; I will put you in my bed, and perhaps you will go to sleep."

But sleep there was none for either Madge or Claribel that night. The poor child was taken very ill about midnight, and continued so for three or four days. She was quite sure she was going to die.

"I shouldn't so much mind dying," sobbed Madge—"I always did want to know how the people get out of their graves and go to heaven: but I have been so naughty, I am afraid the angels won't come after me."

There really seemed some danger that Madge would die. But after a few days she grew better, and was able to sit up and amuse herself with her dolls and animals.

Claribel had been unwearied in her attendance upon the child, who would hardly take either food or medicine from anybody else. Fanny, meantime, slept in the little room, which had a door opening out into the hall.

Fanny had been more like her old self since Madge's illness than for a long time before. She learned her lessons in her own room, and was very attentive in waiting upon and amusing Madge and relieving Claribel.

Claribel was delighted with the change, and began to hope that the old times were coming back again: but she was disappointed. Once more Fanny began to slip away to Priscilla's room at every opportunity. Her lessons were again neglected, and to Claribel's gentle remonstrances, she answered with either sullen silence or with floods of tears; declaring on one occasion that she was the wickedest and most miserable girl in the world, and she wished she was dead.

"But, Fanny dear, if you know you are wicked, why don't you try to be good?" Claribel ventured to ask.

"Because I can't," said Fanny, passionately; "I have tried, and it isn't one bit of use."

"Perhaps you didn't try in the right way."

Fanny knew this very well. She had not tried in the right way and with her whole heart. She knew what she ought to do, but she could not make up her mind to it, and so she went on stealing a guilty pleasure, ashamed and miserable and in constant fear of detection.

It was the custom of the school for all the boarders to assemble in one of the large rooms from eight to nine o'clock in the evening, and occupy themselves with some kind of needlework, while one of the teachers read aloud some interesting and amusing book. "Reading-hour" was one of the pleasantest parts of the day at Round Springs.

One evening, as they were gathered together, listening with great interest to a new book of travels, Mrs. Richardson entered the room followed by Mr. Hausen.

"You may suspend the reading a little while, Miss Foster," said Mr. Hausen.

The girls looked at each other, wondering what was coming. "I have found this book lying out under the tree in the grove," said he, holding up a thick, yellow-covered paper book with some tremendous pictures on the cover. "John Warner, the gardener, tells me that he saw one of the young ladies reading it in that place, but he does not know who it was. The book is one unfit to be touched, much less read, by any young lady, but it may have fallen into somebody's hands by accident, or have been left where it was found by one of the servants. I hope, if any of you have had it, you will tell the truth about it."

There was a dead silence, but Claribel felt her cheeks burn. She had seen the book before, but not lately.

"Remember that suspicion must rest upon everybody unless we can get at the truth," said Mr. Hausen.

"The book is my cousin Claribel's," said Priscilla.

Every one looked at Claribel, who sat still and looked at the floor.

"What do you say, Claribel?" asked Mr. "Is this book yours?"

"I believe it is, Mr. Hausen," said Claribel. "I had such a book once. I bought it on the cars one day last spring before I came here, but I never read more than a few pages of it. Then I threw it away in the garret at my aunt's, and I have never seen it since. I don't know how it should have come here."

"You are sure you did not bring it with you?"

"Quite sure; I never saw it again after I put it away in the garret. I thought it was not a good book, and very silly, besides."

"Do you know anything about it, Priscilla?" asked Mr. Hausen, turning to her.

"I know it is Claribel's book, and that it has been in her room since I came here," answered Priscilla, coolly; "Fanny has seen it there as well as myself. I am sorry to say so, and I wish I had held my peace; but as long as Claribel seems to want to throw the blame on me, I must tell the truth."

"What do you say, Fanny? Have you seen this book in Claribel's hands?"

"No, sir, not in her hands," answered Fanny, with some difficulty.

"But you saw it in her room?"

"Yes, sir;" and Fanny began to cry so that nothing more could be got out of her.

"I shall suspend my judgment on this matter for the present," said Mr. Hausen; "there is evidently an untruth somewhere. But remember this, all of you, that the truth is likely to come out some time or other."

Mr. Hausen then made some remarks on the evils of bad books, and dismissed the girls, requesting Claribel to remain behind for a while.

Of course the subject was talked over in all its bearings. Almost all the girls took sides with Claribel.

"But Claribel does go away in the grove to read almost every day," said one.

"What of that?" demanded Tilly. "It doesn't follow that she reads bad books, does it? I think I have heard of people who went away by themselves for other purposes. I no more believe that Claribel read that book than that I did."

"Who do you think did read it, then?" asked Rebecca. "If you say it wasn't Claribel, you accuse somebody else. Who do you think it was?"

"Who do I think it was?" repeated Tilly, turning upon her. "Well, if you want to know, I think it may have been a girl who gets over the back fence and runs away down to Sawyer's to buy candy and papers, if you know any such person."

"What do you mean, Tilly?" asked one of the girls.

"Never mind," said Tilly; "I know what I mean, and so does somebody else, perhaps. That book may have been Claribel's, as she says, but she never brought it here."

"Then if you think she didn't, I suppose you think I did?" said Priscilla. "What do you think of Fanny's seeing it in her room?"

"I think Fanny knows more than she chooses to tell," answered Tilly.

"Well, I don't see why you should all take Claribel's part," said Priscilla. "Of course I am glad you do, because she is my cousin; only that you can't excuse her without accusing me. If she did not bring it here, who did?"

"Perhaps it is not hers, after all," suggested Percy. "Of course there would be a great many of the same kind."

"Yes, but it is hers, because her name is written in it in two or three places," said Rebecca.

"How does thee know that?" asked Eva Church, who had not spoken before.

"Because I saw it."

"I don't very well understand how thee could see it when the book never left Robert Hausen's hands all the time he was talking," said Eva. "I think that is rather curious, Rebecca."

"Think what you like," interposed Priscilla. "Come, Rebecca, don't let us stand here in the cold all night. It is all nonsense, anyway, making such a fuss about a trumpery novel. What business is it of his what we read, so long as we learn our lessons? I am sure I never would have come here if I had known what sort of place it was."

"And I am sure I wish you never had," was Tilly's parting salute.

Claribel came to her room rather later, looking very unhappy indeed. She knew that she had told the truth, but appearances were against her, and she felt that she was distrusted. But she would not have minded so much, she thought, if only Fanny had not turned against her and told lies about her. Fanny said she had seen the book in Claribel's room, which Claribel was sure had never been there. Oh, it was very, very hard! How could she bear it? And again came the old thought, "They would never treat me so if I were like other people. It is just because I am a poor lame hunchback that every one is against me."

She took her Bible and tried to read, but could not fix her attention on the words. She knew that it was late, and that her light ought to be out, so she extinguished it and knelt down in the dark to say her prayers. It was very hard, and at first she could say no more than—

"Oh, help me! Make me good! Show me what to do!"

But she grew calmer, and by degrees a sense of peace and comfort stole into her heart, and she became sensible that she was not left to bear her trouble alone. Many precious promises, the full value of which the dark hour of affliction only can disclose, came back to her mind, and she felt, as many another burdened soul has done, the force of those wonderful words,—

"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you."

Claribel was young, and her religious life was young also; but it was a real life, and she had this great advantage, that she was no halfhearted Christian. She was not trying to serve God as little and herself as much as she dared, but her eye was single and her heart united, and thus she had confidence toward God.

She lay down at last, but she could not sleep. She had lately been troubled with palpitation of the heart and a little difficulty of breathing, and it seemed to her, as she turned restlessly from side to side, as if she had a trip-hammer beating in her breast. She sat up in bed and piled the pillows behind her, and at last fell into a troubled slumber, from which she awoke with a sense of suffocation. The room seemed very close, and she got up, and putting on her flannel wrapper and a shawl, she softly opened the window.

As she did so, she saw that a bright light shone out of Fanny's window, which was next hers, for Fanny still slept in the little room. Her first thought was that Fanny must be ill when she heard a sound of something knocked down and a shrill scream from Fanny. She sprang to the door, and was met by Fanny with her night-dress all on fire, just bursting into a blaze.

In an instant, Claribel snatched up the blazing cotton, and gathering it in her hands and crushing it between her knees she succeeded in putting it out.

Fanny's screams had alarmed the house, but by the time Mrs. Richardson, who slept nearest, had reached the scene of action, the danger from fire was over.

Fanny, who had escaped with only a slight scorching, was crying bitterly, and Claribel lay back in her chair gasping for breath and with her hands terribly burned. She was quite unable to speak, and it was some time before Fanny was able to give any explanation.

"I suppose Claribel was sick and Fanny overset the light in getting up to do something for her," said Priscilla, who had come to her cousin's room, casting at the same time a meaning glance at Fanny.

"It wasn't, either, any such thing," sobbed Fanny, finding her voice at last. "And I have been as wicked as I could be since you took me from Claribel: and I am not going to tell any more lies for anybody; so there, Priscilla Westcott!"

"How was it, then?" asked Mrs. Richardson.

"I was reading in bed," said Fanny, "and I heard Claribel get up, and thought she would catch me, and I went to put the candle out and tipped it over. And I should have been burned to death only for Claribel, and she saved my life after I had told such a wicked story about her."

And again Fanny began to cry. "I said I saw that book in her room, and I did, because I had it in there reading it when she was away, and I have run away and done everything that was bad: but oh, Claribel, you will forgive me, won't you?"

"I am sure I do," answered Claribel, faintly.

Mrs. Richardson was very quick-sighted. In the midst of all her anxiety for Claribel, she had seen the look which Priscilla had bestowed on Fanny and her glance of rage when Fanny had insisted upon telling her own story. And she drew her conclusions and took her measures accordingly.

"We will hear the whole story in the morning," said she. "Go to bed now, Fanny, and don't cry any more. Priscilla, you will go directly to my room and go to bed there."

"Why can't I go to my own room?" asked Priscilla.

"Because I prefer you should go to mine," answered Mrs. Richardson, quietly.

"I suppose I can get my things to put on in the morning?" said Priscilla.

"No; Miss Foster will bring you everything you need. Miss Foster, you will please lock up Priscilla's room and keep the key."

"I don't know what I have done to be treated in this way," said Priscilla, turning pale.

"I don't say that you have done anything," answered Mrs. Richardson; "surely it is no great hardship to sleep in one room instead of another for one night. My room is fully as comfortable as your own."

There was no help for it, and Priscilla was obliged to submit.

Claribel's hands were by this time wrapped in clean soft cotton wadding, and some quieting medicine administered. Miss Foster took Madge to her own bed, and the house was once more quiet.