CHAPTER XIII
The windows of the Rainbow Lodge stood open to the sun and wind. In the bedrooms once occupied by the old Ranch Girls the new Ranch Girls were arranging their possessions. Yet only a week had gone by since their decision to rent the big house and already it was being prepared to receive tenants.
Mrs. Perry, who did not desire to continue a guest of Peter Stevens, nor to leave Cecil in order to return to her Long Island home, had been delighted with the opportunity.
She had telegraphed a number of friends to join her and shortly expected to fill Rainbow Castle with guests.
At this early hour of the morning Lina Colter was folding and putting away her clothes in the drawers of an old-fashioned pine bureau. She had carried a number of things over by hand in order to avoid the trouble of packing and unpacking so promptly.
During the summer months Lina's appearance had altered for the better. She was prettier and less serious looking than upon the afternoon when the arrow of silver had appeared out of space. Until this summer her tastes and inclinations had kept her too often indoors. She had studied and read too much to be good for her health, preferring books to human beings.
Her stepmother's influence and her growing friendship with Cecil Perry had altered this. Different as were their tastes and temperaments, she and her stepmother were developing a delightful relation. They were helping each other in various ways without thought of the difference in their age and positions.
Moreover, for the first time in their girlhood, one of their boy acquaintances was open in his declaration of liking her better than Jeanette. As Cecil Perry wished to learn to ride and swim, shoot, play tennis, Lina had done her best to be useful. Not so skillful at any sport as Jeanette, Cecil had preferred her aid to Jeanette's half scornful attitude.
At present Lina had chosen to occupy the room at the Rainbow Lodge that had been her own mother's. About the walls she could see faded pictures of the four original Ranch Girls. These she intended to tear down and replace with her own and her sisters' photographs. In the pauses of her work Lina kept studying them, finding the idea of destroying the old relics more difficult than she had anticipated.
Here was a photograph of her own stepmother, then Jacqueline Ralston, mounted on her pony. Here was another, standing at the edge of the Rainbow Mine, the origin of their fortune.
In another group were Jacqueline and Frieda Ralston, Olive in an Indian costume, taken soon after her discovery by the Ranch Girls and her arrival at the ranch, Jean, who was their cousin and adopted sister.
As this especial group picture was faded almost past recognition, after staring at it, Lina slowly tore it off the wall, tossing it aside into a waste-paper basket. She and Eda were to occupy this bedroom. The lodge was not large enough to allow each member of the family a separate room. Not pleased with the prospect, she and the other girls were accepting it as a part of their sacrifice. Via and Jeanette were to be together.
At present Lina could hear Jeanette moving about in the room adjoining her own. Her stepmother was to occupy the room which had been hers as a girl. At the present moment she was downstairs in the old living-room of the lodge, seeing that it was put in order.
As a matter of fact Jack was actually standing before the big, old-fashioned fireplace, with her hands thrust into the pockets of her corduroy coat. Her eyes were filled with tears.
It was not easy coming back to the old lodge where she had lived as a girl with a family of half-grown daughters, who were not really her own.
These first weeks and months of making friends with her stepdaughters in her new relation to them, Jack had found as difficult as any in her career. So far as Lina and Via were concerned, she was no longer nervous or overanxious. She was devoted to them and they seemed to care for her. Via's health was not so strong as it should have been and a matter of worry to her family, but there was no immediate cause for unhappiness.
Eda was still a child with a little half-wild streak in her, part shyness and oddly fascinating. The time would surely come when she and Eda would be drawn close together.
Jeanette was the problem. If she had been difficult from the beginning, she was more a problem now.
What troubled Jack at this instant, however, was not Jeanette's weakness or faults of character, but her own. From the outset she had not resented Jeanette's antagonism toward her, understanding and hoping in time to overcome it. Since the day of their riding contest, she realized that she could no longer like Jeanette. Probably she could not be fair to her.
Jeanette had revealed the traits of character she most disliked. In a crisis she had not been honorable. This did not seem possible in her father's daughter, yet with days and weeks in which to confess her fault, she had shown no sign of wishing to speak, not the slightest inclination toward repentance.
Jeanette's one expressed wish had been to turn her back upon her family and friends and completely change her environment. By this she expected to escape any consequences of her own misdoing.
Was she altogether sure of this? Had there never been moments when she had glimpsed an altered expression upon Jeanette's face, an unconscious drooping of her shoulders, a more wistful curve to her lips.
Gazing about the old lodge sitting-room, still filled with so many recollections of her own girlhood and the girlhood of the former Ranch Girls, Jack, now the wife of her former guardian, was more concerned with the problem of her own nature than with the faults of her stepdaughter.
In the last ten days she realized that she no longer liked Jeanette, nor wished her to continue a member of their household. No longer did she desire to gain her friendship, or to bring her to a different state of mind.
It was her chief weakness of character to feel an insufficient charity toward the human beings who offended against her own code. If Jeanette had no sense of honor she would never be able to teach her to acquire it.
Within the next few moments Jack was expecting her husband to join her. Should she confess to him that she did not wish Jeanette to remain at home? Should she tell him that the problem was too great for her and was making her unhappy? He would at once consent that Jeanette go away to school and even allow her to pay Jeanette's expenses rather than see her disturbed. In their original discussion of the subject this side of the question had not occurred to him.
Some one was riding toward the house.
Walking over to the window, Jack looked out.
The figure on horseback was not her husband, whom she looked for, but Cecil Perry.
He stopped his horse and waved his hand toward her.
A moment later he began calling, not Lina's name as she expected, but Jeanette's.
Soon after Jeanette ran downstairs and they stood talking together.
A few moments after, still waiting for her husband and watching idly from her window, Mrs. Colter saw Cecil and Jeanette start off together in the direction of the big house. Cecil was leading his horse.
As always, apparently they were in the midst of a heated discussion.