Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, High School Junior», sayfa 13
CHAPTER XXVII – THE FIRST DUTY OF A SOLDIER
“And we can have the party in her room? Oh, fine! You’re awfully dear, Mrs. Dean. We’ll be there at two this afternoon. Good-bye.” Jerry Macy hung up the telephone receiver and did an energetic dance about the hall.
“Training for the Russian Ballet?” asked Hal, as, emerging from the breakfast room, he beheld Jerry in the midst of her weird dance.
“No, you goose. I’m doing a dance of rejoicing. Marjorie’s well enough to see us. We are going to have a party for her this afternoon.”
“You are a lovely girl, Jerry, and you dance beautifully.” Hal became suddenly ingratiating. “Am I invited to the party?”
“Certainly not. It’s an exclusive affair; no boys allowed. You may send Marjorie some flowers, though. You’ve only sent them twice this week.”
“I’ll do it. What time is the party?”
“Two o’clock. Get them at Braley’s. That’s the nicest place.” Jerry was obliged to shout this last after Hal, as, seizing his cap and coat, he raced out the front door.
Over two weeks had elapsed since the Thursday morning which had marked the downfall of basket ball. During that time, Marjorie had lain in her dainty pink-and-white bed, impatiently wondering if she were ever going to get well. But one thing had helped to make her trying illness endurable. Never before had she realized that she had so many friends. Her pretty “house” looked like a florist’s shop and her willow table was piled with offerings of fruit and confectionery sent her by her devoted followers. Every day the mail brought her relays of cheery letters, the burden of which was invariably, “You must hurry and get well.”
And now the day of convalescence had dawned. She was able not only to sit up, but to take brief strolls about her room. Her faithful Captain had just brought her word that Jerry and the girls would be with her that afternoon. What a lot they would have to talk about! Marjorie lay luxuriously back among her pillows and smilingly patted a fat letter from Mary Raymond. “How I wish you could be here, too, Lieutenant,” she murmured. “We need you to help us with our good time. Connie’s coming over early to help Captain dress me in my wonderful new pink negligee. It has ruffles and ruffles. I wish you could see it, Mary.”
“You are only playing invalid,” laughingly accused Constance Stevens. It was a little after one o’clock. She and Mrs. Dean had just finished arraying Marjorie in the half-fitted pink silk negligee that had been one of Captain’s cheer-up gifts to her. “I never before saw you look so pretty, Marjorie,” she declared, as she stepped back to view the effect. “You ought always to wear your hair down your back in long curls.”
“Just imagine how I’d look. And I so nearly a senior, too. Connie, do you suppose Mignon will come to my party?” Marjorie asked with sudden irrelevance.
“When I invited her to it she said she’d come,” returned Constance. “You can’t tell much about her, though. The day before Miss Archer forbade basket ball I saw Rowena stop her and walk into school with her. I thought it rather queer. She had said so much against Rowena after that night at Riverview.”
“She is a strange girl,” mused Marjorie. “I am not very sorry that Rowena Farnham has left high school. Judging from what you just said, it wouldn’t have been long until they grew chummy again. Rowena would have found a way to win Mignon over to her.”
In making this prediction Marjorie had spoken more accurately than she knew. Emboldened by her success in once more attracting Mignon’s attention to herself, Rowena had planned to follow that move with others equally strategic. But before she had found opportunity for a second interview, basket ball had been doomed and she had ceased to be a pupil of Sanford High.
Being among the first to get wind of Miss Archer’s decree and Rowena’s exodus from school, Mignon secretly rejoiced in the thought that she had not been implicated in the affair. She had fully made up her mind to accept the invitation to play on the junior team, were it extended to her. When she discovered the true state of matters, she made haste to declare openly that had she been asked, nothing would have induced her to accept the offer. As for Rowena, she should have known better. After the shabby treatment she had received from Rowena, it was ridiculous in her to dream that she, Mignon, would lend herself to anything so contemptible. A few such guileful speeches to the more credulous girls caused Mignon’s stock to rise considerably higher. Others who knew her too well looked wise and held their peace. Mignon alone knew just how narrowly she had missed falling into a pit of Rowena’s digging.
Quiet Constance entertained her own view of the incident. It coincided completely with Marjorie’s thoughtful opinion. “It’s hard to part a pair of girls like those two,” she said. “They have too much in common. Between you and me, I don’t imagine Mignon will stick to us very long. She’s not interested in us.”
“No, I suppose she thinks us rather too stiff-necked. Oh, well, we can only do our best and let the future take care of itself. There’s the doorbell, Connie. That must be Jerry. She told Captain she’d come over early. Will you go down and escort her in state to my house?”
Constance vanished to return almost immediately, but without Jerry. She had not come back empty-handed, however. A large, white pasteboard box bearing the name “Braley’s” revealed the fact that Hal had outstripped his sister.
“Oh, the gorgeous things!” gurgled Marjorie, as she lifted a great sheaf of long-stemmed pink rosebuds from the box. Her pale cheeks took color from the roses as she spied Hal’s card with a cheering message written underneath in his flowing, boyish hand. “He’s been such a comfort! Just as soon as I get well I’m going to have a little dance and invite all the boys.” Marjorie touched the fragrant token with a friendly hand. “Laurie sent me some violets yesterday. Those on the chiffonier.”
“He sent me some, too,” admitted Constance rather shyly.
“How strange!” dimpled Marjorie. “Oh, there’s the bell again! That surely must be Jerry!”
Before Constance was half way downstairs, Jerry was half way up, her broad face beaming, her arms laden with a large, round object, strangely resembling a cake.
“Oh, take it!” she gasped. “My arms are breaking.”
Constance coming to her rescue, the two girls soon made haven with Marjorie and a lively chattering began. Frequent alarms at the front door denoted steadily arriving guests and a little past two found Marjorie’s strictly informal reception in full swing, with girls tucked into every convenient corner of her room. Her own particular chums, including Ellen Seymour and Esther Lind, were all there. Even Susan and Muriel, who had been busy getting well while she lay ill, were able to be present. Lucy Warner was also among the happy throng, a trifle shy, but with a new look of gentleness in her green eyes and a glad little smile on her somber face.
Mignon appeared, but did not stay to the merry-making. She was full of polite sympathy and apparently bent on doing the agreeable. But in her black eyes lay a curious, furtive expression, which Marjorie mentally decided made her look more than ever like the Evil Genius. After a sojourn of perhaps twenty minutes, during which she walked about restlessly from girl to girl, exchanging commonplaces, she pleaded an engagement and took her leave.
Her presence somewhat of a strain, her departure was not mourned. Now wholly congenial, the party dropped all reserve and became exceedingly hilarious. Despite Mrs. Dean’s protests, they had insisted on bringing their own refreshments, and later on Marjorie’s pink-and-white house was turned into a veritable picnic ground. Jerry’s weighty contribution turned out to be an immense many-layered cake, thickly iced and decorated. “A regular whale of a cake,” she styled it, and no one contradicted her. After the luncheon had been eaten to the ceaseless buzz of girlish voices, each trying to out-talk the other, the company proceeded further to amuse the lovely convalescent with various funny little stunts at their command.
“Girls,” at last reminded thoughtful Irma, “it is after four o’clock. We mustn’t tire Marjorie out. I move we go downstairs to the living room and lift up our voices for her benefit in a good, old-fashioned song. Then we’ll come back, say good-bye and run home.”
The wisdom of Irma’s proposal conceded, the singers trooped downstairs. Presently, through the open door, the sound of their clear, young voices came up to her as she lay back listening, a bright smile irradiating her delicate features. It was so beautiful to know that others cared so much about making her happy. She had so many things to be thankful for.
Afterward when all except Jerry and Constance had kissed her good-bye and departed with bubbling good wishes, she said soberly: “Girls, doesn’t it make you positively shiver when you think that next year will be our last in Sanford High? After that we’ll be scattered. Most of us are going away to college. That means we’ll only see each other during vacations. I can’t bear to think of it.”
“Some of us will still be together,” declared Jerry stoutly. “Susan, Muriel and I are going to Hamilton College if you do. You see, you can’t lose us.”
“I don’t wish to lose you.” Marjorie patted Jerry’s hand. Her brown eyes rested a trifle wistfully on Constance. Marjorie knew, as did Jerry, that Connie intended to go to New York to study grand opera as soon as her high school life was over.
“You are thinking of Connie.” Jerry’s eyes had followed Marjorie’s glance. “She won’t be lost to us. Hamilton isn’t so very far from New York. But what’s the use in worrying when we’ve some of this year left yet and another year before us? One thing at a time is my motto.”
“You are a philosopher, Jeremiah.” Marjorie brightened. “‘One thing at a time,’” she repeated. “That’s the right idea. When I go back to school again, I’m going to try my hardest to make the rest of my junior year a success. I can’t say much about my senior year. It’s still an undiscovered territory. I’m just going to remember that it’s a soldier’s first duty to go where he’s ordered and ask no questions. When I’m ordered to my senior year, all I can do is salute the colors and forward march!”
“Lead on and we’ll follow,” asserted Jerry Macy gallantly. “I guess we can hike along and leave a few landmarks on that precious senior territory. When I come into senior estate I shall use nothing but the most elegant English. As I am still a junior I can still say, ‘Geraldine, Jerry, Jeremiah, you’ve got to beat it. It’s almost five o’clock.’”
Left together, after Jerry had made extravagantly ridiculous farewells, Constance seated herself beside Marjorie’s bed. “Are you tired, Lieutenant?” was her solicitous question.
“Not a bit. I’m going to make Captain let me go downstairs to-morrow. It’s time I was up and doing again. I am way behind in my lessons.”
“You’ll catch up,” comforted Constance. Inwardly she was reflecting that she doubted whether there were any situation with which Marjorie Dean could not catch up. Her feet were set in ways of light that wandered upward to the stars. Though to those who courted darkness it might appear that she sometimes faltered, Constance knew that those same steady feet would carry her unfalteringly through her senior year to the wider life to come.
How Marjorie explored her new senior territory and what landmarks she left behind in passing will be told in “Marjorie Dean, High School Senior.”
