Embroidery

Chapter 11 Part 2

A Lesson Learned

A few dozen students sat in their colorful seats as they had so many times before. Everyone acted normally except for two girls who were sitting side by side at their desks and looking at each other with an expression of sadness, shame and anxiety. Finally, after a painful wait, the door slid slowly open and someone stepped in. A curious hush fell over the children as they saw Mrs. Inches waddling in with her lips pursed bitterly and bags under her eyes.
“Morning students,” She greeted in a hoarse voice. “I am going to be teaching your history class today. Your usual teacher, Mr. Rueben, is taking a day off.”
She paused to glance nervously at Trudy and then continued to study a sheet of paper and say: “Please open your books to page forty-one.”
Throughout the lesson the children became suspicious of two things. One was if Mrs. Inches had ever taken history herself and the other was where in the world Mr. Rueben was. It all seemed rather suspicious since he had promised to reenact the battle at Thermopylae today (using tin soldiers) and now he had mysteriously vanished into thin air. Never, during the entire school day, did either Miss Winters or Miss Richards raise their hands to answer a question. They kept that same ill look upon their faces and glanced in the direction of the other quite often. After class, when the students were supposed to be studying in their own rooms, Claire crept silently into her history class. Lo! Where was everything? The African masks? The faces of famous men? The sketches? The clay sculptures? The enormous tree? The notes of accomplishments? But there in the back was a man, crouching in white overalls.
“Uncle?” Claire choked.
But as the man turned around she saw no familiar face, only a young stranger with a bucket of paint and a brush. He didn’t bother to say anything but simply dipped his brush in the pail and slid it across a chair back, covering the teal with an off white. At this sight, Claire turned and ran out of the room, but as she whipped around the corner with her eyes down, she collided with someone who was walking the opposite way.
“Excuse me,” Claire mumbled. “I was just going up to my room.”
But as she looked up, her eyes met with her own dear uncle and instead of backing away, she wrapped her arms around him where she could reach (which turned out to be around his waist) and hugged him as if he were a father back from war.
“Claire,” He said in a harsh whisper, pulling her away. “Contain yourself.”
Claire looked at him again, now at an arm’s distance and his face scared her. It wasn’t the relaxed, kind face which she had known before, but a distressed, hurt face with eyes on the verge of crying.
“Where are you going?” She demanded, letting him go.
“To the history classroom.” He said briefly, walking on.
Claire tried to keep up with his long stride.
“Where are you going after that?” She begged.
“To room 14 in The Staff Quarters.” Mr. Rueben said, coming upon the classroom which was omitting the smell of paint into the hall.
“Don’t you mean your room?” Claire said, grabbing his arm so that he couldn’t go in. “Aren’t you going to your room, Uncle?”
He looked at the door to the classroom and closed his mouth. Then he looked down at the little woman standing next to him. He laid his big hand on her bony shoulder.
“No, Claire.” He said in a voice which was painfully solemn. “No, it isn’t my room. Not anymore. After I collect the things out of my desk in here I am going up to the bedroom to collect my personal things and then I am going to catch a train.”
Shattered, Claire’s arms fell limply to her side and she didn’t watch as Mr. Rueben stepped into the classroom which used to belong to him and shut the door on the girl who still very much did.

All at once there was a feeling of friction in the air, the bell was ringing from upstairs and Claire was making a mad dash to her room.
“No one needs to be scampering about the hallways.” Miss Inches was saying. “Please remain in your rooms or else you will be punished.”
Claire and Trudy huddled together at their little window sharing a quilt. They had done all of their studying for that day. They looked out the foggy window at one of the first days winter had claimed as its own and examined the decorations which Jack Frost had left on the pane. They didn’t say anything for a long time but then they heard the front doors open and close and they both became rigid, looking out that little window and strangling the curtains to keep them out of the way. They watched for what seemed like minutes, but all too soon a figure clad in a brown coat and hat appeared with a large trunk and walked down that long straight pathway to the gate. He opened it, stepped through and shut it without looking back, and for a moment neither Claire nor Trudy could see the man. After a moment he was visible again walking down the road. Before he turned the corner on his way to Main Street, the poor man did look back. It is probably best that he couldn’t see Claire and Trudy in their window, for his heart already had enough cracks in it and to see their faces probably would have caused the break to end his life.
And so it was that the beloved Clifford Rueben was gone. He no longer held an employment at Beekman Boarding School.

Trudy’s hair, swinging side to side and gleaming like cinnamon tea in the sunshine was the first thing the customers of The Hattery noticed as she approached the door. Stepping inside she removed her gloves and blew out a breath of the crisp outside air.
“Good morning young lady,” Said the woman at the desk. “How can I help you?”
Trudy’s eyes danced from shelf to shelf, her old mischievous self shining out from beneath her lashes.
“Can you give me a telephone number?” She asked, with a softer voice than her friends usually heard.
“Well,” The old woman said. “That depends. Who is it that you need to call?”
“The train station.” Trudy answered.
She rubbed her hands together vigorously to try to rid herself of the sting. It was the first very cold day that year.
“Oh, alright.” The woman said slowly. “Well, why don’t you ask the operator?”
Trudy, who was very fashionable, knew who “the operator” was, and took the woman’s advice.
“Beekman New York Train Station,” Trudy requested of the receiver.
Soon she was speaking to a man who apparently had a thick mustache and a cigar in his mouth. It tickled Trudy just to think about his whiskers.
“Yes,” She said, looking a little less comfortable than a moment ago. “Have you had anyone board your train in the last couple of days by the name of Clifford Rueben?”
She paused for a moment and smiled at the clerk.
“Yes!” She suddenly squealed. “That’s the one! What train did he take? Where did that go?”
By now, every customer had paused, some of them with hats in their hands or on their heads, to hear what the commotion was.
“Thank you, sir! Thank you! Goodbye!” Trudy was saying, bouncing up and down from her toes to her heals like a key on a typewriter.
She hung up the telephone and shook hands with the clerk, who will remain nameless, and galloped out the door into the glaring sunlight.
You see, Claire and Trudy were on a desperate search to find their dear teacher. Claire had been hoping to go to The Hattery herself, but she predicted that Miss Victory would ban her from it and so Trudy, who felt that she needed to redeem herself, offered to do it instead. She rushed through the gate and up the stairs where she had left her beloved Claire, sitting on the floor, surrounded by letters. She was spending the afternoon helping in her own way, searching for clues to where Mr. Rueben may have gone, for they had, over the months, written several missives back and forth.
“Tru!” Claire said, as Trudy popped through the door. “Don’t you think he’s going home for the holidays? I mean, Thanksgiving Day is right around the bend after all. It is a shame we don’t know where his family lives…”
Trudy shook her head.
“No Claire, I don’t!” She said, tossing her scarf on the bed post. “First of all, he doesn’t seem to get along with his old man, and secondly, I’ve contacted the train station and they say he’s off to the big city!”
Claire stood up like a regular jack-in-the-box.
“New York City?” She gasped. “Oh, that’s marvelous. We know where that is!”
“But,” Trudy added. “It is a very, very big city. He could be anywhere in it. He’s like a needle in a haystack there.”
This prospect dampened their spirits a little, but they vowed to persevere until they had obtained an address for him. Time passed and the girls, in a way, went back to their ordinary boarding school routines.
They were both a little more soft-spoken and less involved in the tomfoolery of the other students now, but, for the most part, didn't seem suspicious. Trudy and Jack Cameron drifted apart, Jack being more interested in tennis than in Trudy and Trudy being more interested in locating Mr. Rueben. Claire studied hard, wrote religiously to her parents every week and, for the most part laid low. But she never lost hope for finding her beloved teacher, and, because of this, she never stopped thinking of ways she could make her way to The Big City herself or contact someone who was already there. She never thought of what she would do once she found him, but she knew that this couldn’t be the end of the story, so she persevered. Weeks passed, the students celebrated the first snow and, just when Christmas break was around the bend, there came a visitor.
Claire was sitting outside in the courtyard at this time, totally uninterested in the gossip and skipping rope. She and Trudy had found the quietest corner (which wasn’t very quiet at all) and Claire was embroidering something mundane while Trudy read aloud from a ladies magazine. Claire was just threading her needle with a lavender thread when she noticed something. There was an eerie feeling going up her spine and a shadow falling across her stitchery. She whipped around to see what was behind her and then gasped! There, in an overhanging tree was Emit Dawson!
“Shh!” He was saying, finger-over-mouth.
Claire only stared, mouth open. Trudy, totally oblivious, was still murmuring on:
“…this can be ironed with a warm iron if it is made of cotton. Wool is never to be ironed and never needs to be, seeing as it is naturally smooth, but for cotton, ironing is necessary, especially in the case of a table cloth…”
Claire, finally coming to her senses, leaned over her friend’s magazine.
“Trudy!” She said in an abrasive whisper. “Emit Dawson is here!”
“Where?!” Trudy said, much less quietly than Claire had expected.
“Shh!” Claire scolded. “On the wall!”
Now both girls were looking back and Emit was sinking back into the leafy branches of the tree.
“I don’t want to cause any problems,” He said. “I just wanted to see if you were still here.”
Claire grinned.
“Yes, I’m still here.” She said. “Emit, this is my dear friend Trudy Richards. Trudy, this is Emit Dawson…the one who rescued me when I fainted.”
“I know, I know!” Trudy was saying. “I’ve heard all about you, Mr. Dawson! But I’ve never heard that you were a monkey!”
Claire blushed.
“Trudy,” She said, when she meant “Be polite!”
“What? Don’t you think we should invite Mr. Dawson in? Or over is more like it!”
“We’ve been in enough trouble lately Tru…” Claire couldn’t help saying.
“Oh,” Emit cut in. “I hope I didn’t cause any problems…”
“No, no!” Both girls said.
“It was really just a…misunderstanding.” Claire added, giving Trudy a look of plea.
“Well good,” Emit said, picking a twig out of his curls. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you, ladies. I really should go though. I just wanted to know that you were well.”
He looked at Claire.
“Oh, quite well, thank you.” Claire said, looking everywhere at once.
“Good then,” Emit said, looking especially handsome as he prepared to dismount from his branch.
“I guess we’ll see you again soon…?” Trudy said, for no apparent reason.
“Yes…” Emit began. “I mean no! I am actually leaving for a trip in the morning. But I’ll be back in a week’s time.”
“A trip?” Claire said, standing up and shading her eyes (for the sun was setting behind Emit.)
“Yes, to New York City.” Emit said briefly.
“New York City!” Claire said. “How wonderful! I wish I could be there this very moment.”
“Oh no,” Emit said. “It ‘tisn’t a place for ladies…if you ask me. It is rather rough around those parts…purely for business is why I’d linger there more than a day.”
“Oh yes, yes.” Claire said in a rush. “But I have a friend who recently moved there…or at least we think he did, and I just wish I could go and find out where he was living to see him or, at least get his address.”
Emit’s face puzzled.
“A friend?” He asked.
“Yes, a professor who used to work here.” Claire said immediately.
“Oh,” Emit said. “So he’s an…older gentleman?”
“Not so very old…” Claire said, now looking puzzled as well.
“Could be her father!” Trudy burst out, trying to help the situation.
Claire is too naive to ever realize anyone was sweet on her! Trudy thought to herself.
Just then, the voices of a bunch of girls could be heard rounding the corner.
“Quick!” Trudy said. “Jump down!”
“But wait for us!” Claire added, snatching up the discarded magazine.
When Malvina laid eyes on Claire and Trudy, Claire was continually flipping the pages of a magazine, seemingly uninterested in every page, and Trudy was jabbing a needle aimlessly into a handkerchief with no apparent purpose.
“Trudy,” Malvina said scratchily. “I didn’t know you embroidered.”
“Just took it up!” Trudy said, overly casually.
After lingering around for a painful ten minutes, they passed, talking about Jack Cameron’s new hair cut, and left Claire and Trudy alone but on edge.
Trudy, being the stronger of the two, gave Claire a boost, and Claire heaved up to the wall and whispered: “Emit!”
Emit looked up from the ground where he was weaving a daisy chain.
“The friend’s name is Clifford Rueben, he has brown hair and blue eyes and is tall. If you happen to have a chance, please look him up or ask the operator or whatever you do to learn someone’s telephone number!”
“I’ll be sure to!” Emit promised.
“Goodbye then,” Claire said. “Have a good trip!”
“Thank you, Goodbye Claire.” Emit said, pulling a cap over his curls.
“Goodbye Mr. Dawson!” Came the voice from the other side of the wall.
“Goodbye Miss Richards!” Emit chuckled.