Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, College Senior», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XXI – MISUNDERSTOOD
“For goodness’ sake what brought you home in such a hurry?” Jerry came breezily into the room just before six o’clock to find Marjorie sitting by a window. In her hand was an open book. Her eyes were not fixed upon it. They looked absently out upon the brown sweep of campus. There was a pathetic droop to her red lips which Jerry did not miss.
“What’s the matter, Bean; dearie dearest Bean?” she commiserated, going up to Marjorie and dropping her hands sympathetically upon her chum’s shoulders.
“I – oh, Jeremiah, I just feel sad – that’s all.” Marjorie’s chin quivered suspiciously.
She had turned away from Miss Susanna feeling like a child who was being sent home for bad behavior. She had been entirely misunderstood. She had quickly realized the utter futility of attempting to make herself clear under the circumstances. So she had proudly accepted her dismissal.
“Tell your old friend, Jeremiah, all about it,” coaxed Jerry. She took her hands from Marjorie’s shoulders and employed them in drawing up a chair. Placing it directly opposite Marjorie she sat down, leaned far forward and beamed on her vis-a-vis with an ingratiating show of white teeth.
The ghost of a smile reluctantly crept to Marjorie’s lips. That particular expression of Jerry’s was irresistible. She reached out and gratefully patted Jerry’s hand.
“Thanks for the pat.” Jerry continued to beam. “Next we will hear your sad story. I believe you have been crying, Marjorie Dean!” she accused in sudden concern. “Tell me what and who made you cry and I will go forth on the war path!”
“You can’t, this time. It – was Miss Susanna.” Marjorie swallowed the rising lump in her throat and steadied her voice. “She misunderstood me. I can never go to Hamilton Arms again.”
“Good night! That is tough luck! Poor Marjorie; no wonder you feel all broken up.”
Inspirited by Jerry’s warm sympathy, Marjorie related, with an occasional catch in her voice, the afternoon’s direful events.
“I wasn’t going to ask Miss Susanna not to report Miss Walbert,” Marjorie sorrowfully explained. “I was going to ask her please not to make it any harder for the other girls who have cars here than she could help. I spoke of Kathie’s accident because I wished her to know what President Matthews had said about banning automobiles at Hamilton. I was going to tell her that someone else reported Miss Cairns for running down Kathie when she stopped me. She thought I was holding Kathie up to her as a glowing example, and I never meant it that way,” Marjorie mournfully concluded.
“She had no business to cut you off without a hearing,” Jerry criticized with some resentment. “I always had an idea she was like that. Well, the gun-powder mine didn’t blow up as soon as I thought it would. This is the first squabble you two have had. She will get over it. She loves you dearly. After she descends from her pinnacle of wrath she will probably think things over and write you a note.”
Marjorie shook her head with somber positiveness. “No, she won’t. She considers me in the wrong. She didn’t even give me time to tell her Miss Walbert’s name. I should have known better than to say a word so soon after the accident. She was shaken and generally upset. I spoke before I thought. Miss Susanna seems more like one of us than an old lady. I am always forgetting her age. She is so brisk and energetic.”
“I don’t believe she will go to Doctor Matthews. She may write him a note. I doubt it, though.”
“I think she will go to see him. She was so very angry. It is my duty to write her a note and give her Miss Walbert’s name. She asked me for it, and she has a right to it.” Marjorie fell silent with the contemplation of this idea.
“Who was with the would-be-murderess of innocent pedestrians?” Jerry questioned sarcastically.
“A freshman from Alston Terrace,” Marjorie answered. “I never saw her with Miss Walbert before. I have seen her once or twice with Miss Forbes.”
“She must be fond of extremes,” commented Jerry. “Miss Run-’em-down Walbert has a horrible reputation on the campus as a driver. I wish Doctor Matthews would rise up in his might and ban her as a no-good motorist and nuisance. The Hamiltonites would tender him a laurel wreath, or a diamond medal, or something quite nice,” finished Jerry with a chuckle.
“If it were she alone who would be punished, I shouldn’t care. I told Miss Susanna she deserved to be reported. It was the innocent I was thinking of; not the guilty. Cars are a convenience as well as a pleasure when they are in the hands of girls like Leila, Vera, Helen and some others. I shall write a note to Miss Susanna and try to explain myself. I can’t bear to be misjudged by her. Oh, dear! It is just one more hard thing to do that I don’t like to do.”
“Don’t write it tonight then,” advised Jerry. “You are still too close to your trouble. Wait a day or two before you write.”
“I suppose I’d better,” Marjorie listlessly agreed.
“Yes; you had.” Jerry adopted a purposely lugubrious tone.
“Stop making fun of my sorrow.” Marjorie could not resist a faint giggle at Jerry’s ridiculous imitation of herself.
“Aha! That’s more like it. Now I propose we shut up shop and go to Baretti’s for dinner. I’ve been hungrily thinking of fried chicken and hot waffles with maple syrup this P. M. They aren’t going to have ’em here for dinner, either. There’s to be beefsteak en casserole, which is all very nice, but my mind is on chicken and waffles.”
“I guess I’d rather have chicken, too. I’m beginning to be hungry in spite of my troubles.” Marjorie rose from her seat near the window. “You’re a true comforter, Jeremiah. Wait until I bathe my face and smooth my hair and I’ll go anywhere you say.”
“Fine!” returned Jerry cheerily. “It will be the first time you and I ever went out alone to dine. The girls have always been with us. Nowadays Ronny is so popular I hardly catch a glimpse of her on the campus. But the five little old Lookouts always congregate at ten-fifteen every night. That helps.”
Jerry referred to a custom begun only that year. The great popularity of the five girls, which had been steadily increasing since their freshman year, served to separate them during their leisure hours from each and one another. Muriel had proposed they gather every night at ten-fifteen for a brief chat before retiring.
Arrived at Baretti’s, Marjorie’s pensive mood still clung to her. Jerry made no direct effort to dispel it. She knew it would have to wear away of its own accord. Baretti’s delicious fried chicken and extra crisp waffles was a favorite order with the Hamilton students. Engaged presently in eating this palatable fare, Marjorie started in sudden surprise at an unfamiliar voice at her elbow. She glanced up from her plate to meet the eyes of the freshman she had seen that afternoon in Elizabeth Walbert’s car.
“Please don’t think me intrusive, Miss Dean,” the freshman was saying. “I noticed you when you came in and I was so anxious to learn whether the woman with you today on the pike was injured by Miss Walbert’s car. I begged her to turn around and go back, but she wouldn’t. She said she was sure that she hadn’t come within several feet of the woman. It looked to me as though she were almost under the wheels. Of course, I only caught a glimpse of both of you, so I couldn’t really judge exactly what happened.”
The girl paused, looking signally embarrassed as she met the clear steady gaze of Marjorie’s eyes.
“The woman was not run over. In trying to get out of the car’s way she fell. As she is an old lady, she was considerably jarred by the fall. Her coat was badly splashed with mud.” Marjorie delivered the information with impersonal courtesy.
“I’m glad to hear she wasn’t run over,” sighed the other girl, looking genuine relief. “Was – was she a relative of yours?”
“No; a friend.”
“I hope you don’t hold me to blame in any way, Miss Dean. It is the first time I ever rode in Miss Walbert’s car, and it will be the last. I was waiting for a taxicab in town and she came along and offered to ride me back to the campus. I am Miss Everest, a freshie. I don’t know what you think of me. I am awfully concerned about your elderly friend. Anyway, I feel better for having seen you and cleared myself as best I can.”
Marjorie could not overlook the evident honesty of the apology. The half appealing expression in the freshman’s eyes did not escape her notice.
“I do not blame you, in the least, Miss Everest,” she said quickly. “You were not driving the car. I blame Miss Walbert severely. Since coming to Hamilton she has had a great deal of trouble over her driving, for which she is entirely to blame. I do not know what the outcome of this affair will be for her. My friend is very angry and may take it up with Doctor Matthews. I speak frankly. If Miss Walbert receives a summons she may name you as having been in her car when she so nearly ran down my friend.”
“Oh-h-h!” The ejaculation breathed consternation. “I shouldn’t like that. Still, I am not afraid. I can only tell the truth.”
“Doctor Matthews is a very fine and just man. If any such thing occurs he will not censure you for Miss Walbert’s fault.” Marjorie smiled up brightly into the half clouded face above her. In answer to an imperative touch of one of Jerry’s feet against hers, she said: “This is my room-mate and dear friend, Miss Macy.”
Both girls bowed. Jerry affably invited the freshman to join them at dessert. She was with another freshman at a table farther down the room and declined. She appeared highly gratified at such cordiality on the part of the two seniors and left them with glowing cheeks and happy eyes.
“Drop one acquaintance from Kill-’em-off Walbert’s list,” observed Jerry as the freshman departed. “That freshie is done with her for good and all. Too bad our amateur motorist didn’t enlist for overseas service in the late war. She would have done great execution driving a tank. She’d have sent the enemy fleeing in all directions.”
Marjorie could do no less than laugh at this far-fetched conceit. “I thought I had best warn Miss Everest of what she might expect,” she said, her face sobering. “What I said about Miss Walbert was deliberate. I mentioned Miss Susanna as my friend and I may never have a chance to speak to her again.” Marjorie added this with a kind of sad bitterness.
“Oh, yes, you will. Don’t be down-hearted, beautiful Bean,” hopefully assured Jerry. “Write your letter to your offended lady of the Arms and see what happens. She can’t misunderstand you after she reads it.”
“Maybe she won’t misunderstand me, but that doesn’t mean she will be friendly with me or even with you girls again. She detested girls until she met us. She’ll probably think she was foolish ever to bother with us. Even if she felt she had misjudged me, she is such an odd, proud little person she might not be able to bring herself to write me. If she doesn’t answer my letter, then I shall never write her again. I’ll understand that she did not care to continue the friendship.”
CHAPTER XXII – A DISMAYED PLOTTER
The author of the mischief, Elizabeth Walbert, was not concerning herself over what had occurred on Saturday afternoon on Hamilton Highway. She had not the remotest idea as to the identity of the elderly woman she had come so nearly injuring. She knew that Marjorie had been with the woman. Very scornfully she had derided Miss Everest’s worried conjectures as to who the woman might be, or, if she had been badly injured.
“An old scrub woman or some sort of servant, very likely,” she had airily said. “Don’t be a silly. Those two had no business to be walking along the middle of the pike. The pike is for autos, not pedestrians.” She had utterly flouted the suggestion that she go back and ascertain what had happened as the result of her reckless dash around a corner.
Afterward, when alone, she resolved not to bother again with Jane Everest. She was just another of those stupid freshies who had no daring or spirit in them. Elizabeth was at that very moment sulking because she could not persuade certain freshmen at Wayland Hall who had until recently been her allies to waylay Augusta Forbes some evening on the campus and give her the “good scare” she had fondly planned. Gussie often spent an evening at Acasia House with a freshman who recited Greek in her section. The two girls were wont to prepare the lesson together. Thus Gussie never started for Wayland Hall much before ten o’clock. Elizabeth had learned this fact from an Acasia House freshie. Her idea had been this: Half a dozen girls, headed by herself, were to dress in sheets and glide out upon Augusta from a huge clump of bushes which she must pass in taking the most direct route from the one campus house to the other. Gussie was then to be surrounded, hustled to a neighboring tree and tied to it. The industrious specters were then to leave her to free herself as best she could. The deed was to be done on a moonless night when the weather was not severely cold.
“Suppose she can’t free herself?” one of the freshmen had put to Elizabeth on hearing her plan. “We wouldn’t dare leave her there all night. You say you know she comes from Acasia House often at about ten. We’d not have time to come back and untie her before the ten-thirty bell.”
“It wouldn’t hurt her to stay out there awhile if it weren’t cold,” was the cruel response. “I would slip down and out of the Hall about midnight, creep up behind her and cut the rope with a very sharp knife.”
“Until midnight!” had gasped one girl. “No, sir; not for me. Besides, you might cut her hand in the dark while trying to free her. You are crazy, Bess. Give up such daring schemes. They’ll only get you into trouble.”
“We might easily be seen, dressed in sheets,” another had objected. “Remember it is winter and there aren’t any leaves on those bushes.”
“That wouldn’t make any difference if the night were dark. I see plainly you girls aren’t nervy enough for a little fun that wouldn’t do the baby elephant any harm. In fact it would be the best thing that could happen to her. She has bragged a lot of not being afraid of anything. Never mind. I’ll think of some nice little plan, all by myself.”
This last icy assurance, delivered with a haughty crest of her empty head had not impressed her hearers. She had gone a step too far with them. From then on they began to drop away from her.
Disgusted with their lack of support, she undertook to interest certain juniors in her plan. She dared not come out frankly with it. Her vague allusions as to what might be done met with utter defeat. Her classmates, such as had even voted for her for the freshman presidency, knew her better now. They tolerated her but disliked her.
Finding no one interested in her schemes for revenge, she was none the less determined to haze Gussie. On the Sunday afternoon following the disaster to Miss Susanna, she called Leslie Cairns on the telephone and asked her to go for a ride. Leslie accepted the invitation cannily, stipulating that they should use her roadster. She was to meet Leslie in front of Baretti’s.
Since the first day of their meeting in the Ivy, Elizabeth had not dared mention the subject of Leslie’s expulsion from college. Leslie had talked of it a little herself that day. Then she had put up the bars. What Elizabeth burned to consult her on was what she might do to haze Augusta.
Anxious to keep Leslie in a good humor, she racked her brain for campus gossip that would interest the ex-senior.
“Go ahead. Let’s hear the news from the knowledge shop,” ordered Leslie as the roadster sped south under her practical hands. “Then I have a bit of news for you. Maybe you won’t like it for a second or two. After you get used to it, you will.”
“What is it? You tell me first. My scraps of news can wait.” Eager curiosity animated the junior’s vapid features.
“No; I’m anxious to hear what’s happened over there.” Leslie made a backward movement of the head in the direction of the college.
“All right.” Elizabeth gave in, slightly sulky. Soon she forgot to sulk as she weirdly embellished truth for her companion’s gratification.
Leslie listened, calmly sorting out in her own mind the proportion of truth contained in the other’s narrations.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you about yesterday,” Elizabeth declared, when her budget of gossip was exhausted. “I was out driving with a freshie who has an awful crush on me and I nearly ran over Bean and a scrub woman, or servant – anyway an old fossil she was with. They were marching along the middle of the pike near the Carden Estate. I came around the corner pretty fast. I was on my own side of the pike, though. I’m sure of that. I know – ”
A sudden deep scowl corrugated Leslie’s forehead. “You are positive you didn’t hit either of them, are you?” she asked in an odd, sharp voice.
“Of course not. Everest, the freshie, said I knocked the old lady down. It scared the silly goose. She grew quite panicky over it. I knew I didn’t come within six feet of either of them. She wanted me to go back. I was too wise to do that.”
“What did this woman look like?” again came the tight, tense tones. “I suppose, though, you couldn’t tell much about her.”
“No, I couldn’t. Evie said she was dressed in black and small.”
“You should have gone back.” Leslie’s loose lips tightened in displeasure. It was easy enough to give advice which she herself had not followed on a similar occasion. “For all you know that woman may have been faculty. Bean’s on very good terms with them.”
“Oh, pshaw! This woman looked old, from the glimpse I caught of her – too old to be faculty. She’d have nothing to report anyway. They had no business on the pike in the very path of machines, coming and going.”
“Bess, you don’t seem to have good sense.” Leslie had grown caustic. “You know Matthews threatened to ban cars when I ran down Langly. If you are reported for this, you’re done with your buzz wagon at Hamilton. So are all the other students. Oh, this is too bad! And all because you are either too stubborn or else too stupid to learn to drive!”
“I don’t understand you, Leslie, and you will kindly stop calling me stupid,” sputtered Elizabeth, her face very red.
“You will understand in a minute. As it happens, your punk driving may have seriously interfered with a business venture of mine. Since I left college I have been looking about for a chance to go into business for myself. One of my ventures is to be a garage near Hamilton College.” Leslie spoke rapidly and with displeased force. “Now I chose to even my score with Bean at the same time. That’s why I wanted you to find out about those properties. I heard last year before I was fired from college about a wonderful dormitory the little prigs were going to try to build near the campus, for the benefit of plebeian beggars who want to go through college on nothing a year.
“I remembered it after I left Hamilton. That’s why I came back and took up a residence here. I made up my mind I’d find out the site they were after and take it away from them. The woman I am with is my chaperon, not my aunt. I tried to get Alida and Lola interested in the affair, but couldn’t. I knew you could help me, so I decided to forget the past and be friends with you again.”
“Why didn’t you explain all this to me in the beginning, instead of deceiving me so?” burst forth Elizabeth rancorously.
“It had to be kept a dead secret. You would have told it to someone, sure as fate. I’m telling you now. That’s soon enough,” returned Leslie coolly. “Now listen to the rest. I have bought those boarding-house properties west of the campus – the block that contains the seven houses. I paid sixty thousand dollars for them and I am going to have ’em torn down and a mammoth garage put up there. You see what will happen to my investment if cars are banned at Hamilton.”
“Oh, bother your old investment!” Elizabeth had grown angrier as she listened to Leslie. “It will never amount to a string of glass beads. Am I to blame because people won’t keep out of the path of my car?”
“The path of your car!” Leslie repeated with a sarcastic snicker. She was equally incensed at her companion’s disparagement of her business venture. “Where is that wonderful path? All over the road, I’ll say. The state ought to issue you a non-license instead of a license.”
Thus began a quarrel which raged hotly for several minutes. Elizabeth was furious at having been deceived by Leslie. The latter was utterly out of temper over the seeds of catastrophe to her plans which the junior had sown. They were a long way from Hamilton when the altercation began. In the midst of it Leslie turned the roadster about and started back over the route they had come. By the time the campus wall appeared in sight a black silence had fallen between them. Nor was it broken until Leslie brought her car to an even stop at the eastern entrance.
“You may as well get out here,” she sullenly dictated.
“Sorry I didn’t have my own car. I needn’t have troubled you then,” vituperated Elizabeth, as she hastily bundled herself out of the roadster.
“A good thing for public safety you didn’t have it,” Leslie sneered. “If my investment turns out unprofitable, it will be your fault.”
With that she drove on, her brief connection with Elizabeth Walbert at an end. At the height of her anger, a cool ruthlessness behind it informed her that the time had come to drop the junior irrevocably. She no longer needed her services. If cars should be banned at Hamilton College, as a result of Elizabeth’s reckless blundering, she would know it soon enough. Shrewd use of her eyes would quickly furnish her with the information. She laughed to herself as she recalled the junior’s rage.
The serious side of the situation returning, all signs of mirth faded from her rugged face. The investment she had made had been planned with a view toward placating her father. Once she had the garage ready for business she intended writing him of what she had done. There was no large garage near the college. Students owning cars were obliged to place them wherever they could find a vacant space in the several garages between the college and the town of Hamilton. A few students even had been obliged that year, owing to lack of accommodations, to leave their automobiles in town.
Leslie’s idea of building a large garage near the campus would not have appealed to a present-day business man. The expense for site, the outlay in tearing down, in order to rebuild, not to mention the cost of erecting the garage – these items would have made the day of large profits too far distant. Leslie, however, was not considering either expense or profits. Her double aim was to even her score with Marjorie Dean, at the same time impressing her unforgiving father with her great business ability.
Now disaster threatened, precipitated by the very pawn she had used to further her own ends. She could only hope that Elizabeth’s blundering had not caused mishap. She was sure Marjorie would not report the matter. What her companion might do remained to be seen. It would depend entirely upon the identity of the elderly woman in black.
While Elizabeth Walbert and Leslie Cairns were engaged in altercation, Marjorie was trying to frame a letter to the offended mistress of Hamilton Arms. She was alone in her room, Jerry having wisely decided to leave her in absolute quiet while she composed the difficult message. She wrote and rewrote, tore into bits what she had written and began again. What she set down seemed a poor expression of her mind in the matter.
The shadows of late afternoon had begun to lengthen when she finally sealed the product of her painful industry and addressed the envelope to her offended friend. Though her heart was heavy, her mind was more at ease. Miss Susanna might ignore her written explanation so far as acknowledging it went. Nevertheless, Marjorie felt that she could not ignore the truth it contained.
