for the next two weeks irene and lorna were strictly "gated," a great deprivation, for it would have been their turns to go shopping with miss morley, and irene at least was anxious to sample some of the quaint wares spread forth so temptingly in the fossato stores. with the exception of church-going they did not have a chance to step outside the grounds of the villa camellia. the sunday expedition came as a welcome relief to break the monotony. the school liked the little british church at fossato. it was so utterly different from anything to which they had been accustomed in england or america. to begin with it was not an ecclesiastical building at all, but simply a big room in the basement of the hôtel anglais. the walls had been exquisitely decorated by a french artist with conventionalized designs of iris in purple and gold, and through the windows there was a gorgeous peep over the bay. the girls used to exercise much maneuvering to secure the seats with the best view, and somehow that bright stretch of the mediterranean seemed to blend in as part and parcel of all the praise and thanksgiving that was being offered.[82]
punctually at twenty minutes to eleven on sunday mornings the fifty-six pupils and the seven mistresses would leave the great gate of the villa camellia and march into the town, along the esplanade under the grove of palm trees, then through the beautiful sheltered garden of the hôtel anglais, where many exotic flowers and shrubs were blooming and the white arum lilies were like an easter festival, to the doorway, under the jessamine-covered veranda, that led to the eglise anglaise et américaine. the school practically made half the congregation, but there were visitors from the various hotels, and a sprinkling of british residents who had houses at fossato. when the service was over there followed a very pleasant quarter of an hour in the piazza of the hotel; the clergyman and his wife would speak personally to many of the girls, and any of the pupils who met friends were allowed to talk to them. fossato was a popular week-end resort from naples, so relatives often turned up on sundays and there were many joyous reunions. kind little canon clark and his small bird-like wife were great favorites at the villa camellia. they were always invited to school functions, and each term the girls, in relays of about ten at a time, were offered hospitality at the "villa bleue," a tiny dwelling that served as parsonage for the british chaplain. to go to tea at the dear wee house—color-washed blue, and with pink geraniums in its window-boxes—was considered a treat, and irene and lorna looked very glum indeed when[83] miss rodgers kept severely to their punishment, and substituted agnes and elsie for themselves in the next contingent of guests.
"you'll go later on," consoled peachy. "miss rodgers is really very decent in that way. she'll see that you get your turn once in a term at any rate. last time i went we had hot brown scones and molasses. oh, they were good! there! i oughtn't to have told you that when your turn's off. never mind. it will be something to look forward to. we always play paper games there, and they're such fun. there i am again! well, if you went to-day it would be over and done with by to-morrow, and it's still all to come. that's one way of taking it."
"oh, it's all very well to moralize!" grumped lorna, who was feeling thoroughly cross. "it's easy enough to count up other people's blessings. i'm a blighted blossom!"
"poor little thing!
she lived all the winter
and died in the spring,"
quoted peachy with an extra wide grin. "cheer up! don't you realize it's only ten days to half-term? oh, do, for goodness' sake, look less like a statue of melancholy! do you know, child, that you're getting permanent wrinkles along that forehead of yours, and it makes you more like fifty than fifteen. you're too sedate. that's what's the matter with you, lorna carson! it's a fault that ought to be over[84]come. copy delia and me. we know how to enjoy ourselves. there—my lecture is over and now let's talk of earthquakes."
"it's all very well for you, you've got everything you want," murmured lorna bitterly under her breath. "some people haven't half the luck, and it's hard to be content with a short allowance and pretend you're the same as every one else. it can't always be done."
she turned away as she said it, so peachy only caught the sound of a grumble and did not hear the actual words. had she done so she might possibly have exhibited more sympathy, for she was a very kind-hearted girl. neither she nor anybody at the villa camellia understood lorna in the least. so far their classmate had been somewhat of a chestnut-bur, and nobody in the transition had ever penetrated her husk of reserve. there is generally a reason for most things in life, if we could only know it, and poor lorna's morose and hermit attitude at school was really the result of matters at home. to get into her innermost confidence we must follow her to naples on her half-term holiday and see for ourselves the peculiar circumstances amid which she had been placed, and the disadvantages that had caused her to differ from other girls.
lorna's family was the smallest possible, for it consisted only of her father. nobody at the villa camellia had ever seen mr. carson—not even miss rodgers. he had communicated with her by writing[85] when he wished to place his daughter at the school, but he had never paid a single visit to fossato. he pleaded stress of business as the excuse for this remissness, but lorna herself knew only too well that he had no intention of coming. except to the office at which he was employed he never went to any place where he would be likely to meet english visitors. the furnished rooms where he lived were in the strictly italian portion of naples, and not in the vicinity of the big hotels. secretly lorna dreaded her holidays. there was nothing for her to do while her father was at the office. she was not allowed to go out alone, and unless she could induce fat signora fiorenza, their landlady, to be philanthropic and chaperon her to look at the shops, she was obliged to amuse herself in the house during the day as best she could. in the evening things were certainly better. her father would take her to dine at an italian restaurant, and would sometimes treat her to a performance at a theater or cinema close at hand, or would escort her for a lamplight walk along the streets, but these brief expeditions were evidently made out of a sense of duty, and mr. carson was plainly unhappy until he was once more ensconced in his own sitting-room with his favorite books and his reading-lamp. he had seen so little of his daughter during the five years they had lived at naples that, though in a sense he was fond of her, she was more of an embarrassment to him than an asset. lorna realized this only too keenly.[86] her sensitive disposition shrank away from her father. she was shy in his presence, and never knew what to say to him. she seemed always aware of some enormous shadow that hung over their lives and darkened the daylight. what this was she had no means of guessing, but it was emphatically there. she had learned, by bitter experience, never to ask to be taken to the fashionable portions of the city; she knew that the sound of a voice speaking english at a neighboring table was enough to cause her father to finish his meal in a hurry and leave the restaurant. they never went to the british church, and even such cosmopolitan spots as the aquarium or the museum were equally taboo.
long and often did lorna puzzle over this idiosyncrasy of her father. she retained vague memories of her early childhood, when he had surely been utterly different and would come into the nursery to romp with her. it had not been altogether her mother's death; that had happened when she was only six years old, and there were bright memories after it of happy times together. no—it was when she was ten years old that the unknown catastrophe must have occurred which had ruined her father's life. she could remember plainly the visit of several gentlemen, and of loud angry voices talking inside the drawing-room; she was standing on the stairs as they came out into the hall, and her father had told her roughly to run away. then had followed a hasty removal, and they had left their comfortable[87] home in london and had come to live in naples. after a dreary time in a second-rate italian boarding-house she had been sent to the villa camellia, and all link with england was lost and broken. no aunt or cousins ever wrote to her, and the earlier portion of her life seemed a period that was utterly ended.
so far lorna had never had the courage to make any inquiries into the why and wherefore of this unsatisfactory state of affairs. if a question rose to her lips the sight of her father's forbidding face effectually curbed her curiosity. that some tragedy had been concealed from her she was positive. the suspicion, nay the absolute certainty, was sufficient to place a division between herself and other girls. she would hear her schoolfellows discussing their homes, relations, and friends, and when she contrasted their gay doings with her own barren holidays she shrank into her shell, and would make no allusion to her private affairs.
"lorna's an absolute oyster, you can get nothing out of her," was the universal verdict of her form.
but if she said little she thought a great deal. she would listen jealously to the accounts of other people's fun, and a bitter feeling had grown in her heart. why should her life be so shadowed? she had as much right to happiness as the rest of the school. why should she seem singled out by a vindictive fate and separated from her companions?
in justice to the girls at the villa camellia it is[88] only fair to say that any separation was entirely of lorna's own making. had she been more expansive she would have readily enough found friends. no one knew of the misery of her home life, and she was simply judged as what her schoolfellows thought her—a queer-tempered crank who refused to join in the general fun of the place, and in consequence was left out of most things.
irene, pleasant and hail-fellow-well-met with all comers, had at once noticed this attitude of the others towards lorna. at the drawing of lots in the sorority she had somehow realized that everybody was extremely thankful to have escaped having her unpopular chum as a buddy. chance remarks and slight allusions, hardly noticed at the time, but remembered later, had confirmed this.
"they're not exactly unkind, but they're down on that girl," she had concluded. "i haven't made up my mind yet whether i altogether like her, but i'm going to be decent to her all the same."
as the very first who had treated her on a real equality of girlhood irene had been placed on a pedestal in lorna's empty heart. the separation between the two added to the loneliness of the latter's brief half-term holiday. she had never missed school so much before, or hated her surroundings so entirely. the long week-end dragged itself slowly away. sunday was wet and they stayed all day in the little sitting-room, mr. carson reading as usual, and lorna trying to amuse herself with italian maga[89]zines and fidgeting as much as she dared. towards evening the rain cleared a little and her father went out, refusing, however, to allow her to accompany him. at the end of an hour he returned and flung himself heavily into his chair. he was in a state such as she had never witnessed before, violently excited, with glaring eyes and twitching hands.
"lorna!" he exclaimed in quick panting accents, "i have met my enemy. the man who ruined me! yes, the man who deliberately blackened and ruined me!"
lorna turned to him half frightened.
"what is it, father?" she asked. "have you an enemy? you've never let me know before. oh, i wish you'd tell me! i'm fifteen now, and surely old enough to hear. it's so horrible to feel there's something you're always keeping from me."
"i suppose you'll find out some time, so i may as well tell you myself," replied mr. carson grimly. "i'm a wronged, ruined man, lorna, suffering for the sin of another who goes scotfree. the world judged me guilty of embezzlement, but before god i am innocent! i never touched a penny of the money. do you believe me innocent? surely my own daughter won't turn against me?"
"no, no, father! indeed i believe you innocent. tell me how it happened. was it when we left london? i seem to remember the trouble there was then, though you never explained. we had a different name then, hadn't we?"[90]
"you were too young at the time to understand, and it wasn't a subject i wished to revive. briefly, a big sum, for which i was responsible, disappeared. the head of the firm believed me guilty, but for the sake of old associations he would not prosecute; he simply told me to go. i consulted my lawyer, and, if there had been the slightest chance of clearing myself, i'd have fought the matter to a finish, but he told me my case hadn't a leg to stand on, and that, if i were foolish enough to bring it into court, i should certainly be convicted of embezzlement, and sent to penal servitude; that it was only the clemency of my chief's attitude that saved me, and that he advised me to go abroad while i could. so i left england in a hurry, a disgraced man, disowned by his family and his friends. i changed my name to carson, and through the kindness of a business acquaintance i was offered a clerkship in an italian counting-house in naples, which post i have kept ever since. how i should otherwise have made a living god only knows! it's always my haunting fear that some one in naples will recognize me and tell them at the office who i am. if that old story leaks out i may once more be ruined."
"but who did it, father?" asked lorna. "had you no clew at all?"
"not enough to convict, only a strong suspicion, so strong that it is practically a certainty. the man who ruined me was once my friend. now for five long years, he has been my bitterest enemy. we[91] were both heads of departments in the firm of burgess and co. probably he's a partner now, as i ought to have been. i've never heard news of him since i left london, but to-day i saw him in the corso. i saw him plainly without any possibility of mistake. what is he doing in naples? has he come here to ruin me again?"
"no, no, dad, surely not! perhaps he doesn't know you're in italy. probably he's only taking a holiday and will go back to england soon," faltered lorna, suddenly realizing that in her father's excited nervous condition she ought to offer consolation and soothe him instead of adding to his agitation. "it's very unlikely that he would find you out. dad, don't grieve so, please!"
she went near to her father's chair and laid a timid hand on his shoulder. an immense gush of pity for him flooded her heart. if she had known this story before, she would have understood, and instead of thinking him unkind and misanthropic she would have tried to be a better daughter to him. the new-found knowledge illuminated all the past and seemed to draw them closely together.
"mother would have believed in you, dad," she ventured to say.
"thank god she never knew! she was spared that at any rate. i raged against providence when i lost her, but afterwards i felt she had been 'taken away from the evil to come.' her relations thought me guilty. i went to them and explained, but they[92] practically told me i was lying. when i went abroad i never sent them my address. i just wished to vanish. i don't suppose they have ever troubled to inquire for me. who cares about a ruined and disgraced man?"
"i care, dad," said lorna. "i'm only fifteen and i can't understand everything, but if you'll let me the least little bit take mother's place, may i try? i'm not much, but perhaps i'm better than nobody, and we two seem all alone in the world."
for the first time in five years the barrier between them was down, and lorna was hugging her father as in the old happy childish days. to know all is to forgive all, and her resentment against his treatment of her turned into a deep pitying love. she would never be frightened of him again. a new impulse seemed to have come to her. if she could in any way comfort him for what he had suffered, it would be something to live for.
"he's my father, and i'll stick to him through thick and thin," she said to herself fiercely, as she went to bed that night. "i don't know who this enemy is, but if ever i meet him i'll hate him and all belonging to him. i say it, and i don't go back on my word. i'll be my own witness as nobody else is present. lorna carson, you've taken up a feud and you've got to carry it through. may all the bad luck in the world come down upon you if you break your oath."