Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, College Junior», sayfa 10

“She thinks a lot of you or she wouldn’t be so friendly with you. She looks at you in the most affectionate way. I’ve noticed it every time we have been to the Arms with you.”

“I am glad of it. I was fond of her before I met her. Captain would like her. So would your mother, Jeremiah. Next year when our mothers come to Hamilton to see us graduate, I hope Miss Susanna will like to meet them. Only one more year after this. Oh, dear! I do love college, don’t you?” Marjorie began removing her hat and coat, an absent look in her brown eyes.

“I have seen worse ranches,” Jerry conceded with a grin. “Speaking of ranches reminds me of the West. The West reminds me of Ronny. Ronny promised to help me with my French tonight. Mind if I leave you? Such partings wring the heart; mine I mean. You go galavanting off to tea with no regard for my feelings.” Jerry gave a bad imitation of a sob, giggled, and began gathering up her books.

“I’ll try to have more consideration for your feelings hereafter,” Marjorie assured, a merry twinkle in her eyes.

“I’ll believe that when I see signs of reform,” Jerry threw back over her shoulder as she exited.

Left alone, Marjorie tried to shut out the memory of Hamilton Arms and settle down to her studying. The fascination the old house held for her remained with her long after she had left it behind her on her now fairly frequent visits there. Nicely launched on the tide of psychology, an uncertain rapping at the door startled her from her absorption of the subject in hand. It flashed across her as she rose to answer the knocking that it had been done by an unfamiliar hand. None of the girls she knew rapped on the door in that weak, hesitating fashion.

As she swung open the door she made no effort to force back the expression of complete astonishment which she knew had appeared on her face. Her caller was Dulcie Vale.

CHAPTER XXIII – AN AMAZING PROPOSAL

“I – are you alone, Miss Dean? I would like to talk with you, but not unless you are alone.” Dulcie spoke just above a whisper, peering past Marjorie into the room so far as she could see from where she was standing.

“Yes, I am alone. Miss Macy will not be back for an hour, perhaps. Will you come in, Miss Vale?” Marjorie endeavored to make the invitation courteous. She could not feign cordiality.

“I am glad you are alone.” This idea seemed uppermost in Dulcie’s mind. “I know you don’t like me, Miss Dean. You haven’t any reason to after the way you were treated by the Sans last Saint Valentine’s night. Of course, I know you know who we were that night.” She paused, as though considering what to say next.

“I saw no faces, but I knew Miss Cairns’ and Miss Weyman’s voices,” Marjorie said with a suspicion of stiffness. She was not pleased to hear Dulcie preface her remarks with implied aspersions against the Sans. She knew that the latter had quarreled with her. She guessed that pique might have actuated the call.

“You never told anyone a single thing about it, did you?” The question was close to wistful. It seemed remarkable to Dulcie that Marjorie could have kept the matter secret.

“No.” Marjorie shook her head slightly.

“Did your friends ever say a word about it? Those were your friends who burst in on us and made such a noise, weren’t they? Who was the one who looked so horrible and blew out the candles?” Dulcie seemed suddenly to give over to curiosity.

“I can’t answer your questions, Miss Vale.” Marjorie could not repress the tiny smile that would not stay in seclusion. “I wish you would sit down and tell me frankly why you came to see me. You have not been in my room since the night of my arrival at Wayland Hall as a freshman.”

“I know.” Dulcie’s gaze shifted uneasily from Marjorie’s face. “I thought I would come again,” she excused, “but – ”

The steadiness of Marjorie’s eyes forbade further untruth. She became suddenly silent. Very humbly she accepted the chair her puzzled hostess shoved forward. Marjorie sat down in one at the other side of the center table.

“I suppose you’ve heard all about my trouble with the Sans,” the visitor commenced afresh and awkwardly. “I don’t belong to the Sans Soucians now. I wouldn’t stay in a club with such dishonorable girls. I simply made Leslie Cairns accept my resignation. She was wild about it.”

Now safely launched upon her story, Dulcie began to gather up her self-confidence. “You see, my father, who is president of the L. T. and M. Railroad, has done a great deal for the Sans. You know we have always come to Hamilton in the fall in his private car. I have lent the Sans money and done them endless favors, yet they couldn’t be even moderately square with me.” She fixed her eyes on Marjorie after this outburst as though waiting for sympathy.

“I have heard nothing in regard to your having left the Sans Soucians. I have noticed that you were no longer at the table where you formerly sat at meals.” Marjorie could not honestly concede less than this.

“Didn’t you hear us fussing one night in Leslie’s room? It was before Christmas. That was the night I called them all down. I was so angry! I went into a perfect frenzy! I’m so temperamental! When I am really in a rage it simply shakes me from head to foot.” There was a faint impetus toward complacency in the statement.

“Yes; I heard a commotion going on up there one evening, but only faintly. My door was closed. I didn’t pay any attention to the noise, for it did not concern me.” Marjorie was struggling against an irresistible desire to laugh. To her mind Dulcie was the last person she would have classed as temperamental.

“The rest of that crowd were just as noisy as I, but Leslie Cairns blamed me for it all. She told Miss Remson it was I alone who made the disturbance. I’ll never forgive her; never. What I thought was this, Miss Dean. The Sans deserve to be punished for hazing you. I was a victim, too, that night. They made me go along with them, and I didn’t wish to go. I came home with my eye blackened. I won’t say how it happened, only that Leslie Cairns was to blame. I know about the whole plan for the hazing. Leslie rented that house for six months and paid the rent in advance so as to have a good place to take you. She would have left you there all night but Nell Ray and I said we would not stand for that. We were the only ones who stood up for you. Leslie Cairns was the Red Mask.

“You know that Doctor Matthews is awfully down on hazing,” Dulcie continued, taking a fresh supply of breath. “I thought if you would go with me to his office we could put the case before him. So long as I have all the facts of that affair and you and I were the ones hazed, he would certainly expel those Sans from Hamilton. You could say, just to clear me, that you knew I was hazed, too. That is, I was forced to go with them against my will. You see I had said I wouldn’t have a thing to do with it. I put on a domino that night over my costume and started across the campus by myself. Half a dozen of the Sans headed me off and simply dragged me along with them. I couldn’t get away from them, either. If that wasn’t hazing, then what was it?”

Marjorie was sorely tempted to reply, “Nothing but a yarn.” She did not credit Dulcie’s story and was growing momentarily more disgusted with the author of it.

“I can get away with it nicely if you will help me.” Dulcie evidently took Marjorie’s silence as favorable to her plan. “I’ve resigned from the Sans of my own accord. That will be in my favor. Matthews doesn’t like Leslie. You know she received a summons after Miss Langly was hurt. Maybe the doctor didn’t call her down! With you on my side. Oh, fine! I can see the Sans packing to leave Hamilton in a hurry!” Dulcie brightened visibly at the dire picture her mind had painted of her enemies’ disaster. “I can tell you a lot more things against them, too. Leslie is afraid all the time that Miss Remson will find out how she worked that stunt to keep us our rooms here. She – ”

Marjorie interrupted with a quick, stern: “Stop, Miss Vale! I don’t wish to hear such things. I listened to what you said about the hazing as that concerned myself only. I have no desire to know the Sans’ private affairs. Whatever they may have done that is against the rules and traditions of Hamilton they will have to answer for. In the long run they will not be happy. I would not inform against them to President Matthews or anyone else.”

“Would you let them go on and be graduated after what they have done against both of us?” demanded Dulcie, her voice rising.

“It has not hurt me; being hazed, I mean,” was the calm reply. “I do not approve of hazing. I would not take part in any such disgraceful thing. Still, I do not believe in tale-bearing. You will gain more, Miss Vale, by going on as though all that has annoyed and hurt you had never been. Whoever has wronged you will be punished, eventually. The higher law, the law of compensation, provides for that.”

“I don’t know a thing about law. I wouldn’t care to take the matter into court.” Marjorie’s little preachment had gone entirely over the stupid senior’s head. Leslie had often remarked, and with truth, that Dulc was “thick.”

“I mean by the higher law, ‘As ye mete it out to others, so shall it be measured back to you again,’” Marjorie quoted with reverence.

“Oh, I see. You mean what the Bible says. Uh-huh! That’s true, I guess.” Dulcie looked vague. “I’m sorry you won’t help me, Miss Dean. I feel that Doctor Matthews ought to know what’s going on, when it is as serious as hazing.”

Marjorie felt her patience winging away. She wished Jerry would suddenly return and thus end the interview. It was evident Dulcie intended to report the hazing, despite her refusal to become a party to the report. That meant she would be dragged into the affair.

“I wish you would not go to Doctor Matthews about the hazing, Miss Vale,” she said abruptly. “If I, who was put to more inconvenience than you by it, have never reported it, I see no reason why you should. If you should succeed in having your former chums expelled you would feel miserably afterward for having betrayed them, no matter how much they might have deserved it.”

“I surely should not.” Dulcie’s short upper lip lifted in scorn. “I would love to see them disgraced. They tried to down me. I have a splendid case against them because you are so well-liked on the campus. The use of your name will be of great help. Sorry you won’t stand by me. You’ll have to admit the truth if you are sent for at the office,” she ended as a triumphant afterthought.

Marjorie contemplated her visitor in some wonder. The small, mean soul of the vengeful girl stood forth in the smile that accompanied her threatening utterance. It seemed strange to the upright lieutenant that a young woman with every material advantage in life could be so devoid of principle.

“Do not count on me.” Marjorie’s reply rang out with deliberate contempt. “If I were to be summoned to Doctor Matthews’ office concerning the hazing, I would answer no questions and give no information.”

This time it was Dulcie who lost patience. She rose with an angry flounce. Sulkiness at being thus thwarted replaced her earlier attempt at amenability.

“I might have known better than ask you,” she sputtered, giving free rein to her displeasure. “I shall do just as I please about going to Matthews. I hope he sends for you. He will make you admit you were hazed by the Sans. Goodnight.” She switched to the door. Her hand on the knob, she called over one shoulder: “I don’t blame Les for having named you ‘Bean.’ You are just about as stupid as one.”

CHAPTER XXIV – “THERE’S MANY A SLIP”

Dulcie’s parting fling drove away Marjorie’s righteous indignation. It was so utterly childish. She smiled as she arranged her books and papers to her mind and sat down to study. Two or three times in the course of study the remark re-occurred to her and she giggled softly. The name ‘Bean,’ as applied to her by Leslie Cairns, had invariably made her laugh whenever she had heard it.

When Jerry finally put in an appearance, Lucy and Ronny at her heels, Marjorie related to them the incident of Dulcie’s call.

“Oh, oh, oh!” groaned Jerry. “Why wasn’t I here? I always miss the most exciting moments of life.”

“I wished with all my heart that you would walk in and end the interview. She had so little honor about her I felt once as though I couldn’t endure having her here another minute. Then she took herself off so suddenly I was amazed.”

“Do you think she will go to Doctor Matthews?” Ronny asked rather skeptically. “Possibly what you said will take hold on her after all.”

“No. She will go,” Marjorie predicted with conviction. “She is determined on that. Maybe not right away. Goodness knows how much trouble it will stir up.”

“You’re right,” nodded Jerry. “Bring the Sans to carpet and they will probably name us as the crowd who broke in on their ridiculous tribunal. What then?”

“If we are accused of any such thing we can only tell the truth,” smiled Lucy. “We were in our masquerade costumes. We weren’t wearing dominos, but our own coats and scarfs. We went to rescue Marjorie. We were not out on a hazing expedition.”

“The only thing we should not have done, perhaps, was to blow out the candles,” declared Ronny with a reminiscent chuckle. “That was my doing. Some of the Sans might have been quite seriously hurt in the dark. They deserved the few bumps they garnered. I’m not sorry for that part of our rescue dash on them.”

“What a wonderful time we’ll have if we are brought up to face the Sans in Doctor Matthews’ office. Lead me to it; away from it, I had better say.” Jerry made a wry face.

“Don’t worry. I shall be on outpost duty,” laughed Lucy. “I am going to begin substituting for the Doctor tomorrow morning. Miss Humphrey sent for me after biology this P.M. to ask me if I would. Miss Sayres has bronchitis. I am so far ahead in my subjects I can spare two weeks to the doctor’s work. I was at Lillian’s house for dinner tonight, so I didn’t have a chance to tell you girls the news. If this affair comes up while I am working for the doctor, I shall no doubt hear of it. So long as we are all concerned in it, I shall feel I have the right to tell you if Miss Vale starts trouble.”

The Lookouts were not in the least worried over their own position in the matter. While they might not escape reprimand, they had done nothing underhanded nor disgraceful. According to Jerry they had “sprung a beautiful scare where it was needed.”

During the first week of her secretaryship for the doctor, Lucy heard nothing that would indicate the promised exposé on Dulcie’s part. They saw her several times on the campus or driving with Elizabeth Walbert, apparently well pleased with herself. It was Jerry’s opinion that she had built upon Marjorie’s aid. Being denied this, she had abandoned the project as too risky to undertake alone.

One thing lynx-eyed Lucy discovered concerning the secretary was her extreme carelessness in filing. More than once the doctor’s patience and her own were taxed by protracted hunts on her part for correspondence on file.

“I exonerate you from blame for this, Miss Warner,” the kindly doctor declared more than once. “I have spoken to Miss Sayres of this fault. I shall take it up with her again when she returns.”

As the first week merged into the second and the second into the third, and still Lucy remained as the doctor’s secretary, the two began to be on the best of terms. Quick to appreciate Lucy’s remarkable brilliancy as a student, not to mention her perfect work as secretary, the doctor and she had several long talks on biology, mathematics, and the affairs of Hamilton College as well.

During one of these talks a gleam of light shone for a moment on the mystery Lucy never gave up hoping to solve. In mentioning Wayland Hall, the president referred to Miss Remson as one of his oldest friends on the campus. “I have not seen Miss Remson for a very long time,” he said with a slight frown. “Let me see. It will be – can it be possible? – two years in June. And she living so near me! She used to be a fairly frequent visitor at our house. I must ask Mrs. Matthews to write her to dine with us soon. Kindly remind me of that, Miss Warner; say this afternoon before you leave. I will make a note of it.”

Lucy reminded him of the matter that afternoon with a glad heart. She confided it to her Lookout chums and they rejoiced with her. She would have liked to tell Miss Remson the good news but courtesy forbade the doing. The Lookouts agreed among themselves that it showed very plainly who was responsible for the misunderstanding.

At the beginning of the fourth week Miss Sayres returned. Lucy could only hope that Doctor Matthews had not forgotten to remind his wife of the dinner invitation. She was sure, had Miss Remson received it, that she would have mentioned it to them. She would have wished the Nine Travelers to know it. Whether Miss Remson would have accepted it was a question. She had her own proper pride in the matter. The girls had agreed that should she mention it, Lucy was then to tell her of the conversation with Doctor Matthews.

“Queer, but Miss Remson hasn’t said a word about receiving that invitation,” Ronny said to Lucy one evening shortly before the closing of college for the Easter holidays. “The doctor must have forgotten all about it. That shows his conscience is clear. It would appear that he doesn’t even suspect Miss Remson has a grievance against him.”

“I am sure he forgot it.” Lucy looked rather gloomy over the doctor’s omission. “It was such a fine opportunity, and now it’s lost. If I should work for him again I might remind him of it. If I did, I’d do more than mere reminding. I’d ask him to try to see Miss Remson and tell him I thought there had been a misunderstanding. I would have said so this time, but when he spoke of inviting her to their house for dinner, I supposed the tangle would be straightened post haste.”

“He may happen to recall it months from now,” Ronny consoled. “That’s the way my father does. Men of affairs hardly ever forget things for good. Sooner or later a memory of that kind crops up again.”

While Lucy worried because the doctor had forgotten his kindly intention toward their faithful elderly friend, Leslie Cairns was plunged in the depths of apprehension because of Lucy’s substitution for Laura Sayres. Each day she wondered if the sword would fall. She visited Laura and made her worse by her irritating questions regarding the secretary’s methods of filing. Was there any danger of old Matthews going through the files himself? Was Laura sure that she had eliminated every bit of evidence against them? Was she positive she had destroyed the letter Miss Remson had written him, supposedly? Nor had Leslie any mercy on the secretary’s weakened condition. Laura bore her unfeeling selfishness without much protest. Leslie had given her one hundred dollars in her first visit. This palliated the senior’s faults.

When at the end of the third week nothing had occurred of a dismaying nature, Leslie began to believe that her college career was safe. With Easter just ahead, a very late Easter, too, only two months stretched between her and Commencement, that dear day of honor and freedom for her. She had worried but little over Dulcie’s threats. Elizabeth Walbert’s parting shot, “You’ll be sorry,” crossed her mind occasionally. She attached not much importance to it at first and less as winter drew on toward spring.

Dulcie Vale, however, was only biding her time. She never relinquished for an hour her resolve to bring disgrace upon the Sans. Leslie having ordered her chums to steer clear of Bess Walbert, the latter also burned for revenge. She and Dulcie, after one glorious quarrel over what each had said about the other to Leslie, had made up and joined forces. They had a common object. Thus they clung together. They made elaborate plans for retaliation, only to abandon them for the one great plan, the betrayal of the Sans to Doctor Matthews.

Dulcie had at first decided to go to the president of Hamilton College within a few days after her unsuccessful talk with Marjorie. Then she thought of something else which pleased her better. She would wait until after Easter. If the Sans were expelled from college just before Easter, they would endeavor to slip away quietly, making it appear that they had left of their own accord. If she waited until they had returned, the blow would be far more crushing.

Regarding herself, Dulcie had her own plans. Her family, including her father, were in Europe. Her mother would not return until the next July. Her father, luckily for her, was to be in Paris until the following January. Her mother allowed her to do as she pleased. What Dulcie intended to do to please herself was to leave Hamilton on the Easter vacation not to return. She was not too stupid to realize that the Sans, accused of many faults by her, would turn on her en masse and implicate her. She could not hold out against them if arraigned in the presence of Doctor Matthews. She was also too heavily conditioned to graduate, and she hated college since her ostracization by the Sans. She was more than ready to leave. She would walk out and let her former chums bear the consequences. They had not spared her. She would not spare them.