Kitabı oku: «Concerning Belinda», sayfa 7

CHAPTER IX
A CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE

BELINDA paused in the doorway of the Primary School room, which adjoined her bedroom, and stared in amazement at the five scribes.

The girls were absorbed in their writing, but the Youngest Teacher was reasonably certain that a fine frenzy of studiousness was not the explanation of the phenomenon. When had Amelia and her "set" ever devoted recreation hour to voluntary study?

Suddenly Amelia put down her pen, sat back in her chair and spoke.

"I simply will not have Aunt Ellen ride in the third carriage. So there! She'll think she ought to because she's one of the nearest relatives, but I can't bear her, and I don't care whether she goes to the funeral at all. I'd a good deal rather put May Morton in with cousin Jennie, and cousin Sue, and Uncle Will."

"It'll make an awful fuss in the family," protested Laura May, while all the girls stopped writing to consider the problem.

"I don't care if it does," said Amelia stoutly.

"Well, I don't know," Blanche White put in, nibbling the end of her pen reflectively. "Seems as if everything ought to be sort of sweet and solemn and Christian at a time like that."

"Christian nothing!" Opposition only strengthened Amelia's opinion.

"I'd like to know whose funeral it is anyhow! If you can't have your way about your own funeral it's a funny thing. I never did like Aunt Ellen. She's always telling tales on me and saying that Mamma lets me have too much freedom, and talking about the way girls were brought up when she was young. Mamma makes me be nice to her because she's papa's sister, but when I'm dead I can be honest about her – and anyway if there's a family fuss about it, I'll be out of it. I'm not going to plan any place at all for Aunt Ellen in the carriages."

"Your father'll put her in with the rest of the family."

"No, he won't – not if I fill every single seat and say that it's my last solemn wish that people should ride just that way."

"For charity's sake, girls, tell me what it all means," urged Belinda, seating herself at one of the small desks and eyeing the sheets of paper covered with schoolgirl hieroglyphics.

"We're writing our wills, Miss Carewe," said Amelia with due solemnity.

"Your wills?"

"Yes; I think everybody ought to do it, don't you? I told the girls we all had things we'd like to leave to certain people, and of course we want our funerals arranged to suit us, and there's no telling when anybody may die. It seems to me it's right to be prepared even if we are young."

The five looked preternaturally solemn, and Belinda wrestled triumphantly with her mirth. Much of her success with the girls was due to the fact that she usually met their vagaries with outward seriousness, if with inward glee.

"Now, there's my diamond ring," Amelia went on. "I want Laura May to have it, and I'm perfectly sure they'd give it to Cousin Sue; so I'm going to say, in my will, that it's for Laura May, and she's going to will me her turquoise bracelet. She'd like to give me her sapphire and diamond ring, but she thinks her sister would expect that, and that all the family would think she ought to have it. Of course she can do as she likes, but, as for me, I think when you are making your will is the time to be perfectly independent. I'm leaving Blanche my chatelaine and my La Vallière, and I don't care what anybody thinks about it."

"Is there anything of mine you'd like to have, Miss Carewe?" Kittie Dayton asked with a benevolent air.

"I'd just love to leave you something nice, but I've given away most everything – that is, I've willed it away. Would you care about my pigskin portfolio? It's awfully swell, and Uncle Jack paid fifteen dollars for it. I know because I went to the shop the next day and priced them – but I upset the ink bottle over it twice, so it isn't so very fresh."

"I'd love to have it," said Belinda.

"I've got you down for my fan with the inlaid pearl sticks," announced Amelia, with a dubious tilt of her curly head, "but I don't know. It came from Paris, but one of the sticks is broken. Of course it can be mended, but I kind of think I'd like to leave you something whole, and I can give the fan to one of my cousins. I've got a perfect raft of cousins and they can't all expect to have whole things. There's my gold bonbonière. I might leave you that. Anyway, I've put you in the second carriage."

"The second carriage?" Belinda looked puzzled.

"Yes, at the funeral, you know. I want you to be right with the family. You see there's Papa and Mamma and my brother and George Pettingill in the first carriage."

The Youngest Teacher gasped.

"George Pettingill?" she echoed weakly.

"Yes; I know everybody'll be surprised. They don't know we're engaged. It only happened last week. That's one reason why I had to change my will. You see I was engaged to Harvey Porter before Christmas, and of course I put him in the first carriage. Mamma and Papa'd have been surprised about him too; but when it was my last will and testament, they couldn't have had the heart to object to his riding with them. I couldn't die happy if I thought George wouldn't ride in the first carriage. Poor fellow! He'll be perfectly broken-hearted."

Amelia sniffed audibly and her eyes filled with tears. She was revelling in the luxury of woe.

"I hope it will be a cloudy day," she said in a choked voice. "A cloudy day always seems so much more poetic and appropriate for a funeral. Oh, but I was going to tell you about the other carriages. Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary and Cousin Dick – he's my favourite cousin – and you will be in the second carriage; and then the other relatives will be in the other carriages – all except Aunt Ellen. When I was home for Christmas, she told Mamma, right before me, that I was a sentimental chit, and that I ran after Harvey Porter. As if everybody couldn't see that Harvey was crazy over me and that I didn't have to run a step!"

"Don't you think I'd be out of place ahead of so many of the relatives?" Belinda inquired modestly.

"Oh, no; not a bit. We girls talked it over and we decided we'd all put you in the second carriages. Blanche says she thinks there's a peculiarly intimate tie between a young girl and the teacher who moulds her mind and character, and you're the only one who has moulded us a bit – and then we all simply adore you, anyway."

The Youngest Teacher bowed her head upon her hands as if overcome by emotion at the success of her moulding process or at the prospect of five free rides in second carriages, and her shoulders shook gently.

"We've talked a lot about our funerals, and I've got mine all arranged, even the hymns," continued Amelia, who was always spokesman for her crowd. "I'm going to be buried in the white chiffon dress I wore at the New Year's dance and with that big bunch of pink roses on my breast – the dried bunch in my green hatbox. I met George at that dance and he gave me the roses. I was going to wear my blue silk in my last will. Harvey loved light blue, but, anyway, white's more appropriate and sweet, don't you think so?"

The Youngest Teacher was driven, by a sense of duty, to extinguish her mirth and remonstrate.

"Do you know, girls, I think this is all very foolish and sentimental," she said sternly. "There's no probability of your dying within fifty years."

"Well, it won't do any harm to be prepared," interrupted Amelia.

"It's absolutely silly and morbid to sit down and deliberately work yourselves into a green and yellow melancholy by thinking about your deaths and your funerals. I'm disgusted with you."

"But, Miss Carewe" – Laura May's voice was plaintive – "the Bible says you ought to think about dying, and only last Sunday the rector said we were too indifferent and that we ought to realise how uncertain life is and make some preparation, instead of just going to dances, and card parties, and eating, and drinking, and doing things like that."

"I hope you don't call sickly sentimentalising over the stage effects for your funerals preparing for death. If you'd stop thinking about your silly selves altogether and think of other people, you'd come nearer preparing for the hereafter."

Amelia's plump face took on an expression of pained surprise.

"Why, Miss Carewe, you don't suppose I'm thinking about the chiffon dress and the roses and all that on my own account, do you? I'd be so dead I wouldn't know anything about it; but I think it would be perfectly sweet for George. He'd know I had planned it all because I was so devoted to him, and I should think that would be a great comfort to him, shouldn't you, Laura May?"

Laura May agreed, and Belinda shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Serious argument was always wasted upon this light-headed group of sentimentalists. There had been a time when, urged on by conscience, she had considered it necessary to labor with Amelia about her lightning-change affaires de cœur, had talked to her as she would have talked to an ordinary, reasonable girl about the folly and cheapness of such episodes, had tried to open her eyes to the fine ideals of girlhood, had urged upon her the desirability of perfect frankness and confidence in her relations with her mother and father.

Amelia had only opened her big blue eyes wider and listened politely but uncomprehendingly to a language she could not understand. She adored Miss Carewe, but she realised that the adored one had the failings common to aged folk and lacked, entirely, any understanding of love's young dream.

"You'd think Miss Carewe wasn't too old to understand," she said to Laura May later; "but perhaps she's had an unfortunate love affair that has made her bitter and suspicious." And, out of the softness of her heart, she forgave, in one who had "suffered," even a callous lack of sympathy concerning matters of the affections.

Belinda took her failure to Miss Ryder, who smiled as she listened.

"My dear Miss Carewe," she said, when the tale was ended, "you are right in being conscientious, but you mustn't tilt at windmills. There are girls and girls. Fortunately, a majority of them are amenable to reason, simple minded and comparatively sensible. They have had wise mothers and proper home training. But I've seen a great many girls of Amelia's type, too far advanced in foolishness before they come to us to be straightened out here. They pass silly girlhoods and usually develop into plump, amiable women, devoted to husbands and babies, and given to talking about servants and clothes when they don't talk about the husbands and babies. We must do all we can for such girls, see that they are carefully taught and zealously guarded. No young gentleman calls here on reception night unless I have had a written permission from the parents of the girl upon whom he calls; but because a few of the girls are silly, I will not shut the sensible girls away from social training.

"You can influence the Amelias – but within certain limitations. As for making them see things in the sane way – the thing isn't humanly possible. Do your best with them, but don't take their absurdities too seriously."

In time Belinda had learned that her employer's philosophy was wise, though it did not altogether agree with certain theories set forth in the school prospectus; so the funeral problem did not distress her. It was only one phase of a monumental sentimentality and it would pass as a host of other phases quite as foolish had passed.

The girls gathered up their writing materials as the retiring bell rang, but Amelia lingered for a private word with her teacher.

"Miss Carewe," she said, as the last petticoat whisked down the stairs, "I wish you'd think of something nice to put on my tombstone. You know such a lot about poetry and things of that kind. I've thought and thought, and I went through a whole book of Bible verses, and that Dictionary of Familiar Quotations down in the library, but I couldn't find a single thing that really suited me – and then the ones I did like best seemed sort of conceited for me to pick out. Now, if you'd select something nice and pathetic and complimentary, I could just say, in my will, that you wanted me to have that epitaph and that I had promised you I would."

She checked her eloquence, and waited in the hall until the teacher had turned out the school-room lights and joined her; then the tide of prattle swept on.

"Do you know, Miss Carewe, I'd simply love to be buried in that Protestant cemetery in Rome – the one where Sheets and Kelly are buried."

"Keats and Shelley," corrected the teacher of English literature, with lively horror written on her face.

"Oh, was it that way? Well, anyway, the men who wrote Deserted Village and Childe Harold and the other things. You told us all about the graveyard in literature class, and it sounded so perfectly lovely and romantic, with the big Roman wall, and old what's-his-name's pyramid, and daisies and violets and things running all over everything – and that epitaph on Keats' stone was simply splendid – something about his name being made out of water, wasn't it? I don't remember it exactly, but I just loved it. It was so sort of discouraged and blue and mournful. We girls talked about it that night and we all cried like everything over the poor fellow – only Blanche said she did wish his father hadn't been a butcher. You know Blanche is awfully cranky about families, because her mother was a Lee of Virginia and her aunt married a Randolph. It was awfully sad anyway, even if his father was a butcher, and that epitaph was lovely. I do wish I could think of something as good as that for myself. You'll try, won't you, Miss Carewe? Good-night."

"Good-night," replied Belinda in smothered tones, as she closed her bedroom door. There are times when the Youngest Teacher's sense of humour and her dignity meet in mortal combat, and she felt that one of the times was close at hand.

She had rather fancied that talk of hers about Keats, and had been flattered by the sympathetic interest displayed by even the most shallow members of the class. She sighed in the midst of her laughter – if only one could make even the Amelias understand world beauty and world pathos! – but the laughter triumphed. "Sheets and Kelly" could not be viewed seriously.

Nothing more was heard of the Funeral Association, Limited, until a week later, when Belinda, noticing a light in the third-floor classroom, investigated and found Amelia and Laura May bending over one sheet of foolscap.

"More wills?" asked the teacher.

Amelia lifted a flushed and tear-stained face.

"I'm cutting Blanche White out of my will. I've been deceived in her, Miss Carewe. She isn't a true friend, is she, Laura May?"

Laura May shook her head emphatically.

"Perhaps you are mistaken," Belinda suggested, in the interests of peace.

"I heard her!" Amelia's tone was tragic.

"She told Lizzie Folsom that I was a conceited thing and always wanted to run everything and that I thought every boy that looked at me was in love with me, and that she'd heard lots of boys make fun of me. I was in the next room and couldn't help hearing, so I walked right straight out in front of them and told Blanche what I thought of her.

"'You're a false, double-dealing hypocrite,' I said, 'and I'd scorn to have you for a friend,' and then I walked out of the room, and I could hardly wait till after study hour to come up here and change my will. Just to think that if anything had happened to me last week, that horrid thing would have had my chatelaine and my La Vallière! Sometimes I don't believe anybody's true – except Laura May. I told everything to Blanche, and I suppose she's betrayed every single thing to that freckled Lizzie Folsom. It's just because Lizzie has so much money for matinées and Huylers."

"That doesn't sound well, Amelia." Belinda's tone was reproving. "Lizzie is a very attractive girl, and though Blanche wasn't very loyal, she may have said some things that were true. I'd advise you to think her criticisms over and see if any of them fit. As for her repeating what you've told her, when one doesn't want things known, one would better keep them to herself. You talk too much."

"I could tell Laura May anything."

Laura May looked modest.

"And I'm going to leave my chatelaine and La Vallière to Laura May."

The Only True One's face brightened.

"Besides the pearl ring?" she asked.

"Yes."

Laura May beamed self-righteously. Apparently true friendship was practically remunerative as well as theoretically fine.

The next night Amelia spent with a day pupil who was to have a birthday party; and the following evening she was in the Primary room as soon as she could escape from study hour. There Belinda found her alone, and the girl looked slightly confused as she met the teacher's questioning glance.

"Another quarrel?"

Amelia blushed.

"Oh, no; I was just changing the carriages a little. I had a heavenly time last night, Miss Carewe."

"Pretty party, was it?"

"Perfectly lovely. Do you know many Columbia men, Miss Carewe?"

"A few."

"Don't you think they're splendid?"

"Well, some of them are pleasant enough."

"I simply adore Columbia men. Their colors are lovely, aren't they?"

"Rather wishy-washy."

"Oh, Miss Carewe, I don't see how you can think that. I think light blue and white are perfectly sweet together – not a bit crude and loud like orange and black or red and black or that ugly bright blue."

Belinda wakened to suspicion.

"Why, Amelia, I thought George Pettingill was a Yale man."

Amelia examined carefully a picture on the other side of the room.

"Well, he is, but only a Freshman, and I don't think bright blue's a nice color. The Yale men are sort of like the color too. Don't you think they're a little bit loud and conceited, Miss Carewe?"

This was rank heresy. Belinda smiled and waited.

"There was a Columbia man at Daisy's party – a Sophomore. He's the most elegant dancer. His name's Lawrence – Charlie Lawrence. He says my step just suits his. We had five two-steps and three waltzes."

For a few moments Amelia lapsed into reminiscent silence, but silence is not her métier.

"He has three brothers, but no sister at all, and he says a fellow needs a girl's influence to keep him straight. There's such a lot of wickedness in college life, and by the time you're a Sophomore, you know the world mighty well."

There was the glibness of quotation about the recital, and Belinda indulged in a little smiling reminiscence on her own account. She, too, in earlier days, had been in Arcady – with desperately wicked and blasé Sophomores who needed a nice girl's gentle influence. Verily, the old methods wear well.

"He's coming to see me next reception night, if I can get permission from Mamma before then," said Amelia.

"Miss Carewe!" called a voice in the hall. Belinda turned to go.

"But what was wrong with the carriages?" she asked.

Amelia bent her fair head over the will until her face was hidden, but the tips of her ears reddened.

"Oh, I was just thinking that it didn't seem very respectful to Mamma and Papa to put George in the first carriage with them when they haven't known anything about him, so I thought I'd move him back a little way."

"Oh!" commented Belinda, with comprehension in her voice.

A quarrel between Amelia and Laura May, the Only True One, necessitated much remodelling of the unstable will during the next week, but the trouble was finally smoothed over and the pearl ring clause reinstated, though the chatelaine and La Vallière were lost to Laura May forever.

Friday evening was reception evening, and on Saturday morning Amelia flew to the Primary room immediately after breakfast.

She lifted a beaming face when Belinda looked in upon her.

"Do you believe in love at first sight, Miss Carewe?" she asked.

"No."

"Oh, don't you? Why, I know it's possible."

Belinda didn't argue the question.

"I'm writing out a whole new will. The other was all mussy and scratched up from being changed so often. Doesn't that look neat?"

She held up a sheet of paper which bore, in systematic grouping, a plan for filling the funeral carriages. Belinda glanced at it.

"Why, where's George Pettingill?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

Amelia tossed her head.

"If he goes to my funeral he can take the trolley," she said with profound indifference. "You see I've only put three people down for the first carriage. I thought I'd just leave one place vacant, in case – "

"Exactly," said Belinda.

Before the successor to the Columbia Sophomore appeared upon the horizon to complicate the carriage problem anew, the funeral fad had run its course and the wills of Amelia and her satellites had gone the way of all waste paper.