Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, College Senior», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XVII – THE CULMINATION OF A ROMANCE
“It’s a perfectly sweet dress! Of course it is just a wee, tiny bit better than any other you’ve ever given me, you two old dears!”
Marjorie made her usual loving onslaught upon her smiling general and captain who sat side by side on the living room davenport admiring her. It was the evening of Constance Stevens’ wedding and Marjorie was proudly parading her maid of honor frock before her indulgent parents. She had just come down stairs and was bubbling over with happiness at the beauty of the gown, her flowers, and the prospect in general directly ahead of her.
“Right face. Forward march to the end of the room,” ordered General Dean, gently holding Marjorie off from him. “Your distinguished captain and I can’t judge your fine feathers at such close range.”
Marjorie obediently paraded the length of the room and back, a vision of youthful enchantment. The pale yellow of her satin gown brought out vividly her dark hair and starry eyes. She had once given Connie a blue gown. This time Connie had been the donor. She had also insisted on furnishing even the white velvet evening coat, lined with the same satin as Marjorie’s frock, along with the other accessories of the costume. It lay across a chair, waiting for its lovely wearer. On the center table reposed a huge cluster of yellow chrysanthemums, tied with pale satin ribbon.
“Break ranks. Time for the gallant army to move on.” Mr. Dean consulted his watch.
“You didn’t say what you thought of my frock,” Marjorie reminded.
“I dare not. I have no desire to encourage vanity in my own child. Besides, soldiers don’t wear frocks. They wear uniforms,” teased Mr. Dean.
“Much obliged,” Marjorie nodded saucy thanks. “I mean for the compliment. It was a compliment, even though obscure.”
“You are so welcome,” gushed Mr. Dean. “Let me offer the army my arms.” He politely crooked his elbows to his wife and daughter.
Laughing, the two accepted his gallant offer, and the trio swept grandly from the living room.
“Captain deserves a whole lot of compliments,” Marjorie declared as they walked down the drive three abreast to the limousine. “She looks so beautiful tonight!”
“I had already observed that fact,” returned her general, his eyes admiringly resting on his wife. Always a beautiful woman, Mrs. Dean was particularly distinctive in the white lace gown she was wearing. “You haven’t complimented me yet,” he pointedly added.
“You mustn’t ask for praise. Just be nice and folks will praise you of their own accord,” Marjorie gave his arm a vigorous pinch.
“I see!” He appeared to ponder. “Pretty is as pretty does. I suppose that cruel pinch belongs with the advice.”
“It does. Want another?”
“No, thank you. One more and I shall balk. Then who will see you to the wedding?”
In this frolicsome strain the Deans set out for Gray Gables to see the beautiful culmination of a romance begun with Marjorie’s gift of a blue dress to a girl who had known little then of happiness.
As Constance had said to Marjorie, on the night of Jerry’s and Hal’s dance, only her near and dear ones were to be present at her marriage to Lawrence Armitage. This happy event was to take place at Gray Gables at eight o’clock that evening.
Due to the time of year, Constance had decided on a chrysanthemum wedding, these being her foster father, Mr. Stevens’, favorite flowers. Laurie held Mr. Stevens next to his own father in affection. He reverenced him as a master musician. Both he and Constance were glad to defer to his preference in this respect.
During the drive to Gray Gables, Marjorie found her mother’s hand and held it. She was feeling rather emotional in a very quiet fashion. Connie’s wedding was not yet quite a reality. Could it be that at eight o’clock that evening Connie was actually to be married? It seemed only yesterday that she and Constance were walking home from high school, grumbling over the length of next days’ French lesson.
Her captain understanding her sudden change of mood asked no questions, simply passed her free arm about Marjorie’s shoulders. Only the day before she had observed to her husband: “Here is our Constance on the eve of marriage. Marjorie is still nothing but a large child. Her ideas of love are very vague.”
“I am glad of it,” Mr. Dean had returned. “I hope her romance to come is still far distant.”
Arrived at Gray Gables they found the large square reception hall and drawing room had been converted into a chrysanthemum bower. The clean fresh scent of chrysanthemums filled the air. At the foot of the wide staircase were two huge vases of large, fringed, white mums. From this point a white ribboned aisle began which extended to one end of the drawing room, where an exquisite banking of palms and yellow and white mums marked the spot before which Constance and Laurie would stand to repeat their vows of deathless love and loyalty. Along each side of the ribboned way bloomed a hedge of golden and white mums of the small, bushy variety. The aisles reminded Marjorie of the chrysanthemum walk at Wayland Hall, designed by Brooke Hamilton.
“Go on up stairs, Marjorie,” Miss Allison directed, after welcoming the Deans. “Constance looks so lovely. She is waiting anxiously for you.”
Marjorie needed no second instructions. She ran up the stairs in her usual buoyant fashion and knocked at a familiar door.
“Come in.” Constance rose from before her dressing table as Marjorie entered. The two met in the middle of the room and embraced. For a long moment they stood thus. In the eyes of each were tears which they both strove to check.
“I’m so happy, Marjorie, and sad, and my feelings are a general jumble,” half sobbed Constance.
Marjorie nodded through tears. “I know. I feel that way, too, just because it’s you. I don’t want to cry and make my eyelids pink and neither do you,” she added with a tremulous laugh.
This brought a smile to Constance’s lovely but distinctly solemn features. The first rush of emotion past, the chums felt better.
“How dear you are in your wedding gown!” Marjorie exclaimed. She had now stepped far enough away from Constance to obtain a good view of her. The dress was of heavy white satin, beautiful in its simplicity of design. On a white-covered stand nearby lay the long fine lace veil with its perfumed garniture of lilies of the valley and orange blossoms. Beside it was the bride’s bouquet, a shower of the same sweet lilies and orange blossoms.
“This is Laurie’s gift to me.” Constance touched tenderly a string of luscious pearls adorning her white throat. “I want you to help me adjust my veil. Aunt Susan’s maid wished to, but I wouldn’t let her. I preferred you to do it, Marjorie.”
“I’d love to. You know that,” Marjorie left off admiring the pearls to make this warm assurance. “Go and sit on your dressing-table chair. Then you can see me fix your veil and be sure that you are satisfied with it.”
Constance obediently complied. Marjorie lightly lifted the fairy-like bridal insignia and placed it upon her friend’s head.
“I am your fairy god-mother,” she said in a dramatic voice. “On your wedding night I come to bring you every known happiness. I place the chaplet of love upon your head and grant you a long, untroubled life.”
Both girls laughed at this bit of fancy, the oval mirror reflecting a charming picture as Marjorie carefully adjusted the veil over Connie’s golden curls.
Presently the floor clock in the room ticked off ten minutes to eight. Next Miss Allison entered with: “Are you ready, dear?”
“Yes, Auntie.” Constance rose and held out both hands to the woman whose great-heartedness had changed the current of her whole life. “I wish I could thank you for all you’ve done for me, Aunt Susan,” she said with wistful sincerity. “It is so beautiful to have this kind of wedding from the home you gave me and surrounded by my very best friends.”
“Nonsense, child,” declared Miss Allison with gentle energy. “Think of all you have given me to make me happy. Though I shall miss you more when you are in Europe, simply because you are farther away, I feel this to be a particularly wonderful ending of a Thanksgiving Day. Now I must leave you girls and go on down stairs. Be ready to descend on the first notes of the wedding march, Connie. Don’t keep your bridegroom waiting.” With this touch of humor she left them.
As Mr. Stevens, Uncle John Roland and little Charlie were detailed to give away the bride, Professor Harmon, Laurie’s old friend at Weston High School, and three members of the Sanford orchestra formerly directed by Mr. Stevens, had been invited to play the wedding music.
With the first dulcet strains of Mendelssohn’s immortal Wedding March, Constance began a slow descent of the staircase, followed by Marjorie. It seemed eminently fitting that Marjorie, who had so loyally stood by Constance through thick and thin, should now be making this short though momentous pilgrimage with her.
At the foot of the stairs, Laurie, looking handsomer than Marjorie had ever before seen him, awaited his bride. Hal, his boyhood friend, stood beside him. Marjorie flashed him a bright, friendly glance as the two of them fell in behind their chums and began the walk through the flowery aisle to the bank of chrysanthemums. There Mr. Armitage, Miss Allison, Uncle John, Mr. Stevens and Charlie awaited them. Laurie had wished matters thus arranged.
Gathered informally in the spacious room were the Lookouts of the original chapter, Miss Archer, Mr. La Salle, two or three Weston High School instructors whom Laurie had specially liked, a dozen or more of his high school comrades, two or three friends of his father’s, and his dead mother’s only sister. These made up the wedding guests. As the last telling strains of the wedding march died into that impressive silence which always immediately precedes the bridal ceremony, the company moved forward and formed a wide, worshiping circle about the wedding party. Then the rector of the Sanford Episcopal Church began the fine, old Episcopalian ring service.
It was the first wedding in which Marjorie had taken a part more important than that of guest. Constance was also the first one of the Lookouts to be married. So thoroughly impressed was she with Constance and Laurie, she gave no special thought to Hal. He was wondering with might and main if Marjorie might possibly awaken to love as a result of the marriage of the best friend of each of them. Hal had learned his lesson, however, on the night of the dance he and Jerry had given. He had then understood definitely that Marjorie wished to keep far away from any sentiment for him deeper than friendship. He was resolved to keep to this plane, no matter how bitterly it grieved him. He would never give Marjorie up as his prospective wife until he heard from her own lips that she did not love him. Still, he would never again make the faintest approach toward sentiment unless he saw for himself that it was not distasteful to her. He had set a hard task for himself. He was determined to carry it through. Boyishly, he told himself that if ever he asked Marjorie to marry him and she refused him, he would never marry.
The ceremony over, Constance was passed from one to another of her dear ones, while Laurie received the firm handclasps of his men friends. As the hands of Hal and Laurie met, their eyes exchanged glances. In Laurie’s was untold sympathy. In Hal’s was an expression which might have been either fortitude or proud resignation. Laurie could not judge which. He could only hope, as he had recently told Constance, that Marjorie would wake up some day to what a real prince old Hal was.
Solemnity, even momentary, could not long survive the unique presence of Charlie Stevens. Hardly had the first congratulations been extended when Charlie loudly expressed himself to Marjorie.
“I was going to marry you myself, Marj’rie, but I sha’n’t. You’re a good deal too tall and old to make me a nice wife,” he pleasantly observed. “That’s quite a pretty dress you’ve got on. Someone else, maybe someone as tall as Laurie or Hal might like to marry you – someday. I wouldn’t. I like you, Marj’rie, ’bout the best of all, next to Connie and Mary Raymond, but I’d rather stay at home with Uncle John than get married.”
“I think it is just as well you changed your mind, Charlie.” Marjorie joined in the laughter at her expense. Her color had deepened a trifle at Charlie’s hopeful prophecy that someone as tall as Hal might like to marry her some day.
“I think so, too,” Charlie agreed importantly. “I may get married when I’m about a hundred. I’ll be a good deal taller then. I and my wife will come to your house to see Delia and have her give us some choc’lit cake.”
Well satisfied with this plan, he trotted off after his idol, Uncle John Roland, who could not look at Connie without tears. He had left the group gathered about the bridal couple until he was again able to control his emotions.
Laurie and Constance had elected to spend a week’s honeymoon in the Armitages’ New York home, which Laurie had been preparing for his bride for three months before their marriage. From there they would sail for Europe. They were to leave Sanford on the eleven o’clock express for New York.
Constance’s last act before changing her wedding dress for travel attire was to throw her bouquet from the open staircase down among her girl friends. Muriel Harding captured it, thereby bringing down upon herself plenty of good-natured raillery. Marjorie had tried with the others to catch the bouquet, as a matter of sport. She was secretly glad when it fled past her and almost into Muriel’s hands. While she had taken the utmost interest in Connie’s wedding, she did not wish to be reminded, even by a fragrant floral sign, that somewhere in the future lurked a wedding day for herself.
CHAPTER XVIII – BLACK DISAPPOINTMENT
Returned to Hamilton from the Thanksgiving holiday, the most important subject on Marjorie’s horizon was that of the real estate transaction she and Robin Page hoped to close with Mr. Cutler. He had stated that the owner of the boarding house properties would be in Hamilton after Thanksgiving. Both she and Robin were impatient to hear from the agent, yet neither felt like forcing matters.
It was over a week after Thanksgiving when Marjorie joyfully pounced upon a letter in the Hall bulletin board, addressed to her, and bearing the agent’s printed address in the upper left hand corner. The four typed lines which comprised the letter stated that the owner of the properties in which they were interested would be in Hamilton on the following Monday. Mr. Cutler requested them to call at his office at four o’clock of the succeeding Wednesday afternoon.
“I’ll be glad to have this part of our great undertaking settled and off my mind,” Marjorie buoyantly told Robin that afternoon as the two girls left Science Hall together. Marjorie had stopped at the Biological Laboratory for Robin in order to acquaint her with the welcome news.
“When we know definitely how much the properties are going to cost us we will have more incentive to go ahead and rush our first show of the season through. Nothing like knowing exactly where one stands, is there?” Robin finished interrogatively.
Marjorie quickly agreed with this statement. Her naturally orderly mind clamored for the suspense to end so that the real work might begin.
“It will be a good thing to have it off our chests by Wednesday,” she congratulated. “Saturday’s the first freshie-soph game, you know. We will have to be present. I can look forward to enjoying it, with this important question settled.”
“Did that Miss Hurst answer your note?” Robin inquired. “I meant to ask you that before and kept forgetting it.”
“No, she did not. The team practiced on the Friday after I wrote it. I dropped in purposely to watch those four girls. There were at least fifty students there besides myself. Miss Forbes made a beautiful toss to basket. You should have heard the applause. The four kickers looked miffed but they didn’t try any hatefulness with her, so far as I could see. I asked her that evening if matters had improved in that respect and she said they certainly had. I haven’t been to practice since Thanksgiving.”
“I stopped at the gym yesterday to watch the freshies. Phil was anxious to see them work. Miss Forbes was leading the team, as usual, in fast work. She seemed to be getting along with them very well. Your letter had a potent effect, I guess. I have no patience with small natures.” Robin frowned her utter contempt for such marked ignobility.
“Nor I. If Miss Forbes should play a brilliant game on next Saturday she would be established as a star and her team-mates would have to be very careful how they treated her afterward. I hope she does. I believe she will.”
With that Marjorie changed the subject by asking Robin to go to the Hall with her and remain to dinner. “We can go a long way toward planning our next entertainment. I imagine a play would be interesting for a starter. Leila makes a fine stage manager. Katherine Langly wrote a romantic play called ‘The Maid of Honor.’ It is a truly thrilling drama of the English Court during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. During my soph year we talked of giving it. Miss Remson said there was a large cedar chest in the attic of the Hall full of courtier costumes. The students of several years back used them in giving Shakespearian plays.” Marjorie’s usual resourcefulness came to the surface.
“That would be great!” Robin was all enthusiasm at the proposal. “Katherine Langly ought to become a writer or a playwright or something literary. She has written articles and verses and short stories, so I have heard, just for literary practice. She has never tried to sell one of them. She belongs to the Silver Pen, doesn’t she?”
“Yes. She was invited to join it during her freshman year. Think of that! She composed a theme for her English class, and the style was so perfect, Miss Faber read it out to the class,” related Marjorie. “Soon after that she was invited to join the Silver Pen. Leila has often spoken of what fine girls some of the seniors were that year. She belongs to the Silver Pen, too. She was invited to join in her soph year.”
“Portia belongs,” returned Robin. “She is the only one of our crowd who made it. The others of us incline more toward music, I suppose. Phil is thinking of founding a musical sorority. That would be an innovation at Hamilton.”
Full of the new project of producing Katherine’s play, Marjorie and Robin could not resist going over to Randolph House that evening to see Kathie and ask her permission to their plan. At first she demurred. Finally she went to the trouble of hunting for it in the bottom of her trunk so that Robin might read it. The fact that the two girls desired it as a money-maker for their worthy undertaking carried weight with her. She gave her consent, her only objection having been that it was only “trash” and not good enough for a production in a literary sense.
When Marjorie opened her eyes the following Wednesday, on a cold December morning, her first thought was of her appointment that day. She half dreaded consulting the Hall bulletin board for fear of finding another disappointing letter from the agent. None appeared. She met Robin at half-past two that afternoon. They hailed a taxicab for the town of Hamilton, arriving at Mr. Cutler’s office a few minutes before three.
As they were a little early, they were obliged to wait for the agent to finish the business he was transacting with two men. Marjorie drew a long expectant breath as the door to the street closed finally on the agent’s masculine callers.
“Will you young ladies please come into my private office?” he said, after greeting them in his courteous fashion. He opened the door for them and stood aside for them to enter.
The trio seated in the inner office, Mr. Cutler faced the two seniors with an expression that vaguely discomfited Marjorie. While she never tried to read the faces of those with whom she came into contact, she had a peculiar sense of divination which rarely failed her. The agent’s features betrayed no indication of having pleasant news to offer them. On the contrary they were rather tensely set.
“I am very sorry to tell you,” he began, and the hearts of both girls sank, “that the properties which you wished to buy have been sold.” He jerked the words out as though anxious to be done with the disheartening information.
“Sold?” came the questioning chorus. Marjorie and Robin stared at Mr. Cutler, then at each other.
“Yes. Let me explain. When I wrote you, Miss Dean, and made the appointment for today, I did not know this. The properties were unsold when Mr. Saxe, the owner, went to Chicago. In fact, there had been no demand for them. The surprising part of the affair is that the purchaser, on learning that Mr. Saxe was in Chicago, went there to see him. I did not furnish the address nor the information concerning these properties. The sale was conducted entirely away from me. The purchaser must have wanted them very much. Mr. Saxe was offered sixty thousand dollars for them. Naturally he accepted, at once.”
“Sixty thousand dollars!” exclaimed Robin in a wondering tone. “That is a great deal more than we could have paid.”
“I asked him what his own price would have been,” continued Mr. Cutler. “He put it at forty thousand dollars. Not far, you see, from my estimate. They were purchased by a young woman, a Miss Cairns, I believe her name was. She may have been acting as agent for a private party. I don’t know. It is rather a mystery to me – the whole transaction. I was sorry for myself as well,” he added whimsically. “It lost me a good fat commission.”
Neither Marjorie nor Robin said a word. It had taken not more than an instant’s reckoning to decide that “Miss Cairns” must be Leslie Cairns, ex-student of Hamilton College. They knew she had been staying in the town of Hamilton. They knew of no other Miss Cairns.
“She must have known we wanted them!” Robin cried out resentfully, forgetting for a second the agent’s presence.
“Did I understand you to say – ” Mr. Cutler stopped. He did not in the least understand Robin’s remark.
“Then there is no use in our wasting your time, Mr. Cutler,” Marjorie said, rising. “We are disappointed, of course. We must look about us for another site. That’s all. When we find one we will come to you and have you make the inquiries about it. We shall build our dormitory somewhere in the neighborhood of the campus, some day.” She flashed the agent a dauntless little smile.
“It is too bad; too bad,” he repeated. “I was greatly interested in your plan. Do either of you, by chance, know this Miss Cairns? The name is unfamiliar to me as of this town.”
“We know of her. We do not know her personally. She is a very rich woman, in her own right, I have been told.” It was Robin who now made answer.
“Mr. Saxe said she paid cash for the properties,” nodded the agent.
“So far as we are concerned, we could have paid the price in cash of sixty thousand dollars. One of our sorority members had offered to finance us. We were to pay the debt to her at leisure. We felt it not right to tax the students-to-come, at Hamilton, with too heavy a burden of debt. We are in our senior year and just starting this movement. We shall appoint certain students to replace us in this work when we have been graduated from Hamilton. They in turn will choose their successors.” Marjorie took the trouble to make this explanation because of Mr. Cutler’s genuine interest in their venture.
“Well, it is a noble ambition,” praised the agent. “I will remember your need and look about me for a suitable site for your dormitory. One never knows what may develop. Now if you could buy that open strip of ground belonging to the Carden estate, it would be ideal for your purpose. The Cardens, those left of the family, are in Europe most of the time. They might decide suddenly to sell their estate. I’ll keep you in mind,” he assured.
“What do you think of that?” were Robin’s first words, spoken out of earshot of the agent.
“What do you think?” countered Marjorie. Her tones bordered on bitterness. She was disturbed far more than she had shown while in the office.
“Just what I said in there.” Robin indicated the office with a backward movement of her head. “She knew we wanted them and bought them on purpose to thwart us. She has been in Hamilton since last summer. How did she find out our plan, I wonder?”
“That’s a question hard to answer. She must have heard something concerning it last year after our show. It wasn’t what one could call a secret. I mean the talk of building a dormitory. What seems queer to me is this. The moment we got in touch with Mr. Cutler, Miss Cairns hurried to Chicago to head off this Mr. Saxe before we could see him. We know Mr. Cutler did not tell her of us. He said he had never met her. She has heard something about it this fall.”
“Then she must be friendly and in communication with certain students on the campus,” was Robin’s conjecture.
“Undoubtedly.” Marjorie did not mention what she had observed on her way to mail the letter before the Thanksgiving vacation. It was of no particular use, she reflected. The properties were gone, the subject of them and their present owner might better be entirely dismissed.
“Hateful old snake!” was Robin’s wrathful opinion of Leslie Cairns. “The idea of her coming back and living near the college after the disgrace of having been expelled!”
“We’ll have to make the best of it. It needn’t hinder us from going on and giving our play. The more money we earn, the more of our own we’ll have when we find a site. Never say die, Robin. That is the only way to do.” Marjorie was recovering from the damper she had lately received. “It will all come out for the best. Remember what I say, and see if it doesn’t. Some day we may be very glad we didn’t get those properties. That is poor consolation just now, I know.”
“Oh, I’m not cast into the depths,” Robin replied in a lighter tone. “Nothing worth while is ever gained without a struggle. Leslie Cairns may find one of these days that she’d far rather have her sixty thousand dollars back than be the owner of those properties. I only hope she does.”
