Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, College Senior», sayfa 12
CHAPTER XXV – THE PROOF
The real bit of proof was nearer her hand then Augusta had dreamed. Not until the following evening did she have time to take apart the sticky effigy of herself. Then she ran her fingers into the handkerchief bag to ascertain what had been used for stuffing. She withdrew her hand, clutching something of harder substance than lace collars and handkerchiefs. She looked at her find in amazement. It was a bracelet watch. More, it did not belong to either herself or Flossie.
The heavy gold back of the little watch was monogrammed with the letters E. A. W. Gussie’s eyes lighted in triumph. Dexterously she picked open the back of the watch. She remembered that many girls had their full names written on a thin inside case, particularly if the watch were very valuable. There was more chance of a return in case of loss. Surely enough, on the inner plate appeared Elizabeth Walbert’s full name. Gussie had her bit of proof. In stuffing the handkerchief bag, the watch had evidently become unclasped and remained in the bag. In her hurry to finish and be gone the marauder had not even missed it.
Gussie’s subdued shout of elation startled Flossie, who was writing a theme. A few minutes’ talk and the two went down to Miss Remson’s office, there to remain for some time. The manager had called a meeting directly after dinner that evening. She had asked every student present, separately and on honor, whether they had any part in the outrage of the evening before. Each had answered in the negative. She was naturally at sea. It was possible that the mischief had been done by outside students.
Gussie’s information served to bring back Leila’s warning of early fall against Elizabeth Walbert. Pledging both freshmen to secrecy, Miss Remson made a lengthy call on Doctor Matthews the next morning.
The ring leader in the mischief had gone to her classes that morning feeling complacently secure. She had said “No” to Miss Remson’s stern inquiry with an expression of utter innocence in her widely-opened blue eyes. A telephone call for Elizabeth at luncheon hour, requesting her to report at Doctor Matthews’ office at two o’clock that afternoon caused her no great trepidation. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that Marjorie had at last reported her for the accident to the elderly woman on the highway. She had long since framed her defense, intending to place the blame squarely upon her accusers.
What she did not expect to see was a familiar bit of jewelry reposing on the president’s desk. Possessed of a good deal of jewelry, and very careless with it, she had not, as yet, missed the watch. She owned two others, as well, and kept poor track of them. She had forgotten all about having worn it while upsetting Gussie’s room.
Her memory was soon refreshed in a way that drove the color from her cheeks and took away her greatest prop, conceited self-assurance. She tried to deny her own watch. Her name on the inner case merely added fuel to the doctor’s wrath. Her complete downfall came with a burst of hysterical weeping, of which anger formed a large part. Pinned down to a confession, she did not hesitate to name her two allies. They were also sent for, and before they left the office sentence had been pronounced upon all three. They were given the regulation seven days to pack and notify their families. They were also held for damage to property and ordered to make monetary restitution.
Gussie and Florence utterly refused to accept a penny from the three for their personal losses. Miss Remson, however, accepted a settlement for the damage done to the room.
With their departure went the last really pernicious element in Hamilton College. Elizabeth Walbert had been, if anything, more unscrupulous than Leslie Cairns. Lack of a certain sense of balance, which Leslie had possessed, had prompted her to enjoy a kind of malicious mischief of which Leslie would not have entertained a thought.
“Well, your last enemy has been routed in confusion, beautiful Bean. I just saw her depart in a station taxi. Guess she sent her car home ahead of her.” Jerry came in from the campus late one afternoon with this pleasing information.
“Glad of it.” Marjorie looked up from a translation she was making. “She’s to blame for my trouble with Miss Susanna, indirectly. She deserved expulsion. I felt sorry for the Sans, a little. I don’t feel sorry for her. I think she was outrageous; worse even in disposition than Rowena Farnham.”
Jerry agreed, glad to see Marjorie evince resentment against the disgraced junior. She realized that nothing save the utmost bitterness of spirit could have wrung that denunciation from her charitable room-mate. Jerry knew how deeply Marjorie felt the loss of Miss Susanna’s friendship and wished she could in some way manage to set things to rights between them.
The more she thought about it the more she felt impelled to go to Hamilton Arms and “have it out” with Miss Susanna. It lacked only two days until May Day, when she definitely decided to go on May Day evening and plead Marjorie’s cause. The fact that Miss Susanna had evidently not reported Elizabeth Walbert was to Jerry an indication of her leniency toward Marjorie. Jerry shrewdly suspected that the old lady would welcome a peace ambassador.
On May Day evening, at a little after seven o’clock, she lifted the heavy knocker of the Arms and waited rather sheepishly for an answer to her ring. She had not the least idea of what she should say to Miss Susanna, provided the latter would see her.
Jonas greeted her with delighted surprise in his fine old face. “I’m so glad you came, Miss Jerry,” he said. “She’ll be glad, too. She misses the little girl, God bless her.”
Jerry felt a slight catch in her throat at the words. They were precisely like two pathetic old children, she thought, who had lost a merry playmate. Jonas’ prediction that Miss Hamilton would be glad to see her was verified. She shook hands with Jerry, then she kissed her. Next she took out her handkerchief and wiped away a few tears which had welled to her eyes. Then the two sat down for a long talk. Jerry did most of the talking. Miss Susanna listened like a thirsty plant greedily absorbing water.
“It was all my fault,” the old lady declared contritely. “I was upset by the fall, and crotchety. I wouldn’t give my poor child a hearing. Worse, I didn’t answer her letter. I was still provoked with her when I received it. Later, I came to my senses. But I haven’t forgotten her. I have done something for her that she’ll like. Just think! Two years ago she came here all by herself and hung that violet May basket! I have been happier since then. Now we must get back to our good times again. If any of you simpletons of girls had come to see me before we could have straightened this snarl long ago.”
Jerry laughed at this last. “It’s true, Miss Susanna,” she agreed, “we were simpletons. Leila spoke of coming over here once to me. I told her I would go, except I thought Marjorie would not like us to do so.”
“I should have answered her letter. I wasn’t fair to her. I am going to write her a little note this evening. Jerry, will you be my messenger? This is Uncle Brooke’s birthday, you know. Marjorie will like to hear from me tonight on that very account. You go into the Chinese room and talk to Jonas, while I’m writing it. That is his favorite haunt. He always reads his paper in there.”
Jerry was quite willing to interview Jonas in the Chinese room. She loved the room and she thought Jonas the most interesting old man she had ever seen. She wished she could induce him to speak of Brooke Hamilton. She liked the idea of having some interesting bit of information concerning the latter to take back to Marjorie.
Being an exceedingly clever young person, she skillfully drew Jonas out to talk of the founder of Hamilton. He told her several incidents of his former employer’s life that were of vivid interest. The most amazing bit of information she gleaned from Jonas, however, was the fact that the old man had attended the performance of both plays and the concert as well.
“Miss Susanna was anxious I should attend them,” he explained, his face breaking into a crinkle of little smiling lines that Jerry thought beautiful. “But I should have gone to them, at any rate. Tell our Sunshine girl so for me. Tell her, too, that if she had lived in Mr. Brooke’s time she would have been his staunchest supporter and ally. Her interest in the college he loved comes second to his own.”
The old servitor’s deep voice echoed through the spacious room. For an instant Jerry was seized by the eerie fancy that the departed Brooke Hamilton himself had been speaking.
When Jerry left Hamilton Arms it was nearly nine o’clock. Jonas insisted on accompanying her to the campus gates. Darkness had fallen and there was no moonshine until after midnight. Jerry carried with her the note and an immense round bunch of double, sweet-scented garden violets; these last, Miss Susanna’s peace-offering to Marjorie.
“Oh! Um-m! How sweet!” Marjorie caught the fragrance of the violets the moment Jerry entered the room. She cried out with pleasure as she saw the perfumed purple blossoms. “Where have you been? Who gave you those perfectly lovely violets, Jeremiah?”
“Guess where I’ve been.” Jerry advanced to the table where Marjorie sat with her books. She dropped the note and the flowers directly in front of her chum.
“Why, Jeremiah!” Marjorie cried out. First glance at the note and she had recognized that familiar fine hand. Such violets as those she now held to her flushed face grew only at Hamilton Arms. “I – I – don’t see – ” she began. Then her curly head went down on the table, supported by one rounded arm.
When she raised it again two or three tears trembled on her long lashes, but a smile irradiated her face. “I wondered where you had gone, Jerry,” she said tremulously. “Now I know. And you did it for me! I don’t have to read Miss Susanna’s note to know that everything is all right again. I only have to look at these violets. Mr. Brooke Hamilton’s favorite flower and today was his birthday! It’s just two years tonight since I hung the May basket on Miss Susanna’s door. She said after we came to know her that the violets that night seemed like a message from him. Somehow I feel that way about these violets. He planted them and tended them. They are like a fragrant message of good will from him.”
CHAPTER XXVI – THE CITATION
Before Marjorie saw Miss Susanna, who had invited her in the note to come to Hamilton Arms to dinner on Friday, another surprise was in store for her. She had paid no special attention to a notice which appeared on the main bulletin board the day after she had received the violets from Miss Susanna. It stated that a full attendance of students was requested on Friday morning in the chapel.
“What’s going to happen at chapel, I wonder, that we are all ordered to be there?” commented Muriel Harding that evening, at the usual nightly confab.
“Special notices to be read, very likely,” surmised Ronny. “From now on, we’ll begin to hear them. It’s not very long until Commencement, children.”
“Don’t speak of it.” Jerry held up a protesting hand. “I think I ought to have at least four more years of education. I’m not half educated. I don’t want to leave Hamilton this June, knowing I’m not coming back to it.”
This in a measure was the attitude the others were gradually taking. With the growth of the new dormitory project came the earnest longing “to stay just one more year” and see its furtherance. On the other hand there were the home folks to be considered. Marjorie in particular felt that her captain would not care to spare her away from home another year. Nor would she ask that permission.
When on Friday morning row upon row of more or less lovely girl faces, each with its own particular charm of youth, lined the large auditorium of the chapel, no pair of bright eyes missed the significance of Doctor Matthews’ presence and that of the entire Board. Something out of the ordinary was about to take place.
Morning exercises over, Doctor Matthews proceeded to address the scrupulously attentive assemblage.
“It may not be known to many students present,” he said, “that the college has very little data concerning its noble founder, Brooke Hamilton. We know that he planned this monument to learning on a broad and magnificent scale. We know that he superintended the erection of the buildings. We know that he spent his life near it, at Hamilton Arms; that the town of Hamilton, Hamilton Highway, West Hamilton – all these bear his honored name.”
At the words, “Brooke Hamilton,” the sharper interest of the original Nine Travelers became focussed upon the president. Something of exceptional interest to them was certain to follow the mention of that name. Nor was the pith of the doctor’s discourse long in coming. Their interest deepened to astonishment as they heard him presently take up the subject of the maxims of Hamilton’s founder. Not only did he quote the five already framed and hung in the college buildings. He also quoted the other ten on the illuminated oblong in the founder’s study at Hamilton Arms.
Jerry was the first to catch the drift of the address. She recalled Miss Susanna’s words in speaking of Marjorie: “I have done something for her that she’ll like.” She thought she now understood. Marjorie was to receive a citation. Miss Susanna had planned the honor undoubtedly.
Jerry had not gone so far as even to dream that there might be others also entitled to this high honor. The announcement of Marjorie’s name presently confirmed her conjecture. When Leila’s, Helen’s, her own name, and, in fact, those of the others who made up Miss Susanna’s nine young friends followed Marjorie’s, Jerry began to see stars. The tenth name, Robin Page, sent an electric shock through them all. Robin had not known Miss Susanna, but the latter had certainly known her through Marjorie’s generous praise.
Asked to rise in their places, the ten seniors, thus to be honored, listened to a citation of their good deeds which made their cheeks burn and their hearts beat faster. Miss Susanna Hamilton, it appeared, had been very busy in their behalf.
President Matthews addressed each girl in turn by name, reciting the maxim to be hung in her honor and stating the place on the campus the framed tribute would occupy. Miss Susanna had shown her marked affection for Marjorie in the choice of motto she had made. Marjorie’s maxim was, “The ways of light reach upward toward eternity.”
While no demonstrations of approbation were permitted in chapel, the air was full of repressed acclamation which would be presently set free outside. The turn of the tide for democracy had occurred almost four years before when the ten seniors thus elevated to distinction and a few other loyal spirits had set their faces firmly against snobbery and false principles. Now they were to experience the full sweep of the waves of approbation on which their classmates proposed to launch them.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten morning. Everyone was late to first recitations, and no one cared. Aside from the citations themselves, another glorious fact stood forth clearly. In some marvelous manner those who had received the honor of citation had been instrumental in ending the estrangement of long standing between the college and the great-niece of its reverend founder.
Coming in late that afternoon, Marjorie found a summons to Doctor Matthews’ office awaiting her. The time set was three o’clock of the following afternoon. She smiled as she read the few lines penned by the doctor. She was fairly positive that he wished to question her regarding her friendship with Miss Susanna. Lucy had said at luncheon that the doctor was anxious to talk with her.
In the midst of her own happiness, Marjorie thought rather sadly of how different had been the purpose of the summons received by the Sans and Elizabeth Walbert. She wondered if the parents of many of these girls had not been cut to the heart over their utter failure. A silent song of rejoicing welled within her soul that she had nothing but good reports to present to her superior officers. She was glad her ways had been ways of light.
CHAPTER XXVII – CONCLUSION
“I can’t believe it’s true. Pinch my arm, Robin; not very hard, just enough to make me know I’m awake.” It was Marjorie who made this request.
It was late in the afternoon of Commencement Day and the original Nine Travelers, Robin and Phyllis Moore, were holding a brief farewell rendezvous in Marjorie’s and Jerry’s room. Their elders and relatives who had come to Hamilton to see their own graduated were scattered about the campus. The eleven girls had claimed the privilege of one last little private session as an expression of their overflowing feelings. Jerry, the zealous, had managed to “round them up” and order them to report at four o’clock in hers and Marjorie’s room.
“It’s true.” Robin accompanied the assurance with a gentle pinch. “Out of the darkness has come light. I wish we could do something for Miss Susanna to prove our gratitude.”
“I said that to her this morning,” Marjorie returned. “She said ‘there is only one thing any of you could do for me, – come back to Hamilton next year. Now I know you are not free to do that. It rests with your parents. I suppose you will not be coming back to college. Well, you can at least make me a visit; singly, doubly, severally, or all at once.’”
“Would you like to come back, Marjorie?” asked Phyllis. “I ask because I know how your heart has been set on furthering the dormitory project.”
“Yes, I should,” Marjorie answered honestly. “Now that this wonderful thing has happened, I can’t bear not to be here next year. I know that you and Barbara and the new Travelers we’ve chosen will look after things as well, if not better, than we have, but it seems hard to be so far away when the real work is going to begin. I understand why Mr. Brooke Hamilton wished to be near the campus when the college buildings were being erected.”
The “wonderful thing” to which Marjorie referred was in the nature of an announcement made at the Commencement exercises that morning. Miss Susanna Hamilton had, through the offices of President Matthews, presented to her young friend, Marjorie Dean, a clear title to the lower block of houses west of the campus, formerly owned by her.
“Miss Dean has devoted her earnest effort to securing a site on which to erect a dormitory to be devoted to the housing of students in reduced circumstances. Such students are entitled to their time for study rather than the performance of extra work in order to pay their expenses. It is my wish that Miss Dean shall use the properties with which I now present her as a site for the dormitory of her dreams.
“Signed,“SUSANNA CRAIG HAMILTON.”
This last paragraph of a letter, written to Doctor Matthews by Miss Hamilton, and read out at the exercises, produced a sensation in collegiate circles. Doctor Matthews had called on Miss Hamilton, shortly before Commencement Day, asking her to attend the exercises as his honored guest. The eccentric old lady had refused flatly.
“No, I haven’t forgiven the college, altogether. You must let me alone. I am what I am, and I don’t often change. I owed my little friend, Marjorie Dean, a reparation. I have made it in the way I thought she would like best. Personally, you are the most sensible and true gentleman I have known on a college staff since my great-uncle passed out. If they had all been like you – but they haven’t been.”
The good doctor had smiled openly at Miss Susanna’s avowed hard-heartedness. He had an idea that time would do its perfect work in closing the breach between herself and Hamilton, now that Marjorie had pointed the way.
“While we are on the subject,” declared Leila, “I wonder how many of us here could come back if we wished. Don’t all speak at once. As for Irish Leila, – her time is as good here as anywhere.”
“I can come back,” Vera immediately said. “I have really nothing in the way of social aspirations. Father would let me come back for one year; maybe more. If I come back for five or six years, I’d be a colossus of learning if not one in stature.”
“I’m not sure that I can, but I’ll coax hard at home,” assured Helen. “Miss Remson said last night that she would hold our rooms until the middle of July for any of us who knew by that time we were coming back.”
“Kathie’s already here. If mother will let me, I’ll add another year of biology and work for the doctor to my collegiate budget.” Lucy made this announcement with a touch of excitement.
“I can come back if I feel like it.” Jerry cast an almost gloomy look at Marjorie as she spoke. She was not relishing the prospect without Marjorie as a room-mate.
“I’m not sure. It will depend on what my father says. I have been away from him the greater part of four years.” This from Ronny. “Last summer he talked of spending a winter in the East. If he decides to do that he will be in New York. In that event I could probably come back to Hamilton, but,” – Ronny also looked straight at Marjorie.
“I can do as I please about coming back. I thought I might, if – ” Robin’s eyes found the same resting place as those of the others. “We want you to come back, too, Marjorie. We can’t get along without you,” she said with friendly abruptness.
“I don’t know.” A hint of distress crept into Marjorie’s brown eyes. “I have never mentioned such a thing to Captain. I’d feel selfish in doing so. She has waited patiently for me to finish college so that I may be at home with her. She has never said she wanted me to stay at home after I was graduated. I suppose she never thought I would care to come back as a P. G. If you girls are free to come back, I wish you would. You could be of so much help to the others. I’ll be able to get here two or three times during the college year, at least. Robin and I will have to come here sometime this summer to see how the work of tearing down those properties is progressing. I’ll say this. If the way should happen to clear for me to come back a P. G., that means if Captain should be willing and really anxious for me to return to Hamilton, because she knows how greatly my heart is in our enterprise, then I’ll certainly be here next fall. That is as much of a promise as I can make.”
“I feel in my prophetic Celtic bones that you will come back,” predicted Leila. “Your Captain is too wise not to know your secret ambitions. She will be presently driving you back to college. You may expect me in my same old room next year, and – ” Leila smiled her wide, engaging smile, “I shall expect to see you, Beauty, ornamenting the campus as of old. You may tell me then that I am a soothsayer.”
