Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, Post-Graduate», sayfa 6
CHAPTER XII. – IN LINE FOR TROUBLE
“Truly, Leslie Cairns, you make me tired!” Natalie Weyman clasped her bare arms behind her head with a jerk so petulant as to plainly convey her complete dissatisfaction. She surveyed Leslie, who lay stretched at ease on a brocaded chaise longue, with cold, displeased eyes.
“So you’ve often said,” was the laconic return. Leslie did not even trouble to look toward Natalie. She was not in the least concerned at the ungracious opinion of her chum. – “Well, I mean it,” scolded Natalie. “Why must you go running off to Hamilton in the very middle of the summer when we’re having a good time here at Newport?”
“Glad you hail it as a good time,” Leslie’s plain, roughly hewed features relaxed from the stoical expression she carefully cultivated to a half satiric grin. “I think Newport’s a dead burg this summer. Never saw such a collection of stupids gathered in one village before.”
“You only say that,” derided Natalie. “You’ve simply taken a notion to go to Hamilton. Goodness knows why. You’re the most stubborn, obdurate girl!”
“I haven’t asked you to go there with me, have I?” The questioned bordered on a sneer.
“I wouldn’t go if you were to beg me to,” Natalie flashed back.
“You’d go if I made a point of it,” Leslie contradicted with assured insolence. She raised herself from the couch on one elbow and eyed her friend disdainfully.
“No, Leslie, I would not.” Natalie seemed very certain on this point. “I’d not go within fifty miles of Hamilton College again after the way we left it. I really wonder at your nerve in doing it.”
“Going to weep over one small flivver?” Leslie grew more ironical. “Forget it. You know how much I love to talk of it.”
“I don’t mention it very often,” Natalie said bitterly.
“The less often, the better. If I hadn’t business of my own to attend to I’d go after Dulcie Vale’s scalp. Venomous little traitor!” A deep scowl did not add to Leslie’s appearance.
“She’s in Europe. She crossed on the same steamer with Joan Myers. She tried to talk to Joan, but Joan couldn’t see her for a minute. I had a letter from Joan from Paris.” Natalie volunteered this information.
“Hm-m. Looks as though she’d keep her scalp for awhile,” Leslie observed with grim humor. “I’ll catch her sometime – coming or going. What I’d rather do is hang around dear old Hamilton,” Leslie put mocking sarcasm into the last three words, “and see what I can put over on Bean.”
“What do you mean?” Natalie looked mystified. “What could you do now? Bean has a home, I believe. One would naturally suppose she’d go to it after having been graduated with honors at Hamilton.” The bitterness of Natalie’s tone indicated the jealous envy which mention of Marjorie Dean had aroused afresh.
“That’s as much as you know about it. I happen to know that Bean will be in Hamilton and on the campus soon, if she’s not there already.”
“How do you happen to know it?” Natalie’s face registered incredulity, then curiosity. Second thought caused her to remember that Leslie had ways of her own of finding out things.
“Never mind how.” Leslie turned tantalizing. “‘Nuff’ said.”
“I can’t think of anything you could do to spite Bean. You tried your last trick when you bought that property you thought she wanted for her precious dormitory. What happened?” was the sarcastic retaliation.
“You’ll never be celebrated as a great thinker, Nat,” Leslie drawled, ignoring her companion’s displeasing question. “Leave it to me to make matters hum for Bean. I’m going to Hamilton on the six-thirty train in the morning. I’ll have something to tell you, you’d better believe when I come back.”
“Oh, yes, ‘Leave it to me,’” mimicked Natalie, an angry light in her gray-blue eyes. “You’re crazy, Leslie Cairns,” was her added scathing opinion.
“I’m not so much of a nut. What?” Leslie took no more umbrage at Natalie’s rudeness than she would have at the buzzing of a fly. “Try to get it across your brain that I’m a business shark now, Nat. Will you?” she said with exaggerated patience. “I’ve sixty thousand dollars tied in a hard knot in that bunch of rickety shacks just off the campus. Those ancient corn cribs have to come down. What about my garage?”
“That for your garage.” Natalie snapped contemptuous fingers. Leslie’s insinuation that she was “thick” was the final drain on her patience. “You’ll never make a go of it. It’s too far from the campus,” was her wet blanket prediction.
Leslie merely threw back her head and laughed in the noiseless, hobgoblin fashion for which she was noted among her few friends. Her silent, insolent merriment stung Natalie far more deeply than a retort could have done.
“Well it is.” Natalie repeated, determined to hold her own.
The laughter died out of the other girl’s face to be replaced by a lowering, bullying scowl.
“I tell you it is not,” she emphasized in tones intended to forbid further contradiction. “Because it isn’t in the same vicinity as the other garages is no sign it won’t pay me to put up a garage on my new property. I’m going to build the kind of garage the Hamilton gang will cry for. I may run it myself.”
“Wha-t-t!” In her astonishment Natalie half rose from her chair. She sat down again and gave Leslie a long-suffering glance, as if she could not credit what she had just heard.
Leslie was enjoying her chum’s amazement. Of the eighteen girls who had composed the San Soucians, the club of girls who had been expelled from Hamilton College during their senior year, Natalie Weyman was the only one who had remained friendly with Leslie Cairns. The other members of the Sans, though betrayed into expulsion by the treachery of Dulcie Vale, chose to place the major share of the blame upon Leslie’s shoulders. If Leslie had not arraigned Dulcie and ousted her from the Sans in their assembled presence, Dulcie would not have betrayed them. Or thus they argued. Leslie, who had been their leader, became a detested stranger.
While Natalie Weyman had cultivated Leslie assiduously at college because of her unlimited purse and flagrant disregard for rules, she had grown to like Leslie for herself. Because she was thoroughly selfish she inwardly approved of Leslie’s calloused selfishness. After the Sans’ expulsion from college she had not failed to keep in touch with Leslie.
At present she was entertaining Leslie at “Wavecrest,” the Weyman’s Newport villa. Leslie had arrived there only three days before with the drawling announcement: “I may stay, if you can rustle up some excitement.” Natalie had gladly promised “the excitement” in the shape of a round of smart social events. Now with her plans nicely formulated Leslie had ungratefully taken it into her head to go to Hamilton.
“I’ll say it once more. Be sure you get it this time. I may run my garage myself.”
“You wouldn’t.” Natalie shook an unbelieving head.
“Why not?” Leslie coolly returned. “Think what an opportunity I’d have to keep a line on the knowledge shop.”
“Why should you care what goes on there now?” Natalie cried in exasperation. “You’re out of it, and ought to be glad of it. I am, I’m finding out every day that no one really in society cares much whether one was graduated from college or not. Smart schools for girls count for more.”
“I care, but not in the way you think.” Leslie suddenly swung her feet from the chaise longue to the floor. She sat very straight and viewed her chum somberly. “I don’t care a hoot for Hamilton because it is Hamilton,” she continued, her voice gruff. “It’s Bean’s performances that interest me. Not one of the Sans lost out as I did in getting the sack from Hamilton. I lost my father. He’s the only person I know that I ever loved. I like you, Nat, even though we can’t keep on affable terms five minutes at a stretch. But I worship my father.” Leslie’s heavy features went from merely heavy to downcast. “Bean is to blame for everything that went against me at Hamilton,” was her sulky accusation.
“Oh, Les, you know that is ridiculous – to blame even that little prig for everything!” Natalie had truth enough in her shallow composition to realize the utter fallacy of such a statement.
“She was there, wasn’t she? Well, then, what more do you want?” Leslie did not wait for her friend to answer her questions. “Bean was a disturber. I knew she would be the instant I first saw her. I did what I could to keep her down, but she bobbed up on every corner. Her crowd stuck to her; mine double-crossed me. She won; I lost my sheepskin and – my father. I’m not likely to forget that. She butted into the way the Sans had things regulated at Hamilton and tried to turn an exclusive college into a public school. She did it purposely. That makes her responsible, her and her Beanstalks, for everything. I chose to look at it in that way. So I’m going back to dear old Hamilton to mind my own business and maybe snarl up Bean’s affairs a trifle. What?”
“You are foolish to think of such a thing. Stick to your own affairs and let Bean alone. You’ll land in a snarl if you try to start mischief, Les.” There was anxious warning in the advice.
“Save your breath.” Leslie rose to her feet, her eyes on the jeweled watch encircling her wrist. “I’m going to hit the down. I must be up in time for the six forty-five train in the morning. Thank goodness I won’t have to trail Gaylord along this time.” Mrs. Alice Gaylord, Leslie’s hired chaperon, had been graciously given permission to visit a sister while Leslie visited Natalie. Leslie had determined that she would make the trip to Hamilton alone, defying convention.
“When are you coming back, Les?” At the last Natalie gave in half amiably to what she could not change.
“Ask me something easier. It depends upon how long Bean lingers on the campus. I’m only going up there now to plan my campaign. I may not pull down my corn cribs till fall. As for landing in a snarl – not friend Leslie.” She strolled to the door of Natalie’s boudoir, where the two had been lounging. Hand on the door, she paused. “Bean is in line for trouble.” Her heavy brows drew together ominously. “I told you I was a business shark. I intend she shall know it, too.”
CHAPTER XIII. – AN UNGRACIOUS BEAUTY
True to their word the five Travelers left Hamilton Arms at a quarter to nine o’clock in order to spend a little time with Miss Remson before retiring. On the way to Wayland Hall the letter written by the master of the Arms in the heyday of his youth to the Marquis de Lafayette, his mature counsellor and friend, formed the chief topic of conversation.
“One might call that letter the cornerstone of Hamilton,” Leila said thoughtfully.
“Yes,” chimed in Vera. “Lafayette seems to have been the favored confidant of Mr. Brooke’s magnificent idea. At that time many of the country’s ablest men did not believe in the higher education for women. He was unique for those days.”
“It was because he loved his mother so dearly that he could understand what a college would mean in the training of girls,” was Robin’s sober conjecture. “I hope he copied the letter and sent it.”
“Oh, I am sure he sent it,” Marjorie sprang into ready defense of her idol. “I imagine he always tried to finish whatever he set out to accomplish. Otherwise he could never have become the founder of Hamilton College.
“It seems strange to hear read a letter from one great man of long ago to another. Lafayette seems longer ago in time than he really was. My uncle has a letter which was written by George Washington. It describes a horse Washington offered a certain man for sale. The horse’s name was Magnolia. My uncle bought the letter from a dealer in rare books and letters. I’ll write him and ask him to send me a typed copy of it,” Robin volunteered.
“Do; then I shall believe that Washington was no fairy tale. When I was a little girl didn’t I believe that he belonged in an American fairy tale? It was my old nurse who told me that he was an American king who had cut down one hundred cherry trees at a stroke and who went to war in an invisible coat of mail so that he was never hurt. She had ideas of her own about him.” Leila gave an enjoying chuckle.
It was the signal for more chuckles from her companions. It was difficult to say which was more diverting, Leila’s droll remarks, or her inimitable manner of making them.
A brief lull in the conversation followed laughter. Marjorie broke it. She said with sudden irrelevance: “I’m not curious to know Miss Susanna’s grievance against the Board. I only wish it could be adjusted. It doesn’t seem right that Mr. Brooke Hamilton, who gave his time and heart and soul and spirit to such a noble enterprise, should remain a mystery. Miss Susanna feels so about it at times. She has said so to me. But there are more times when she doesn’t; when she thinks only of her own grievance,” Marjorie ended ruefully.
“That’s the most I ever heard you say on such a ticklish subject, Beauty.” Seated beside her in the tonneau, Leila laid a light hand over one of Marjorie’s.
“I don’t know whether it is the most I’ll ever say, or not,” Marjorie responded. “I’d rather not say it to Miss Susanna, but I would if I felt that I should,” she continued with honest conviction.
Kathie, occupying one of the small seats of the tonneau, now leaned forward. “Professor Wenderblatt told me the other day that there had been several changes made in Board members since Miss Susanna’s disagreement with them. I wonder if she knows it?” she said speculatively. “If she doesn’t, and were to be told of it, perhaps it might make a difference in her attitude.”
“I’ve never mentioned the Board to her. She has always spoken of it first to me, and then not often. I’m sure it would displease her if I were to speak of it first to her. It’s too hard a matter for me to decide just now. She’s been generous to Hamilton through us in the way Mr. Brooke would have been. I couldn’t bear to displease her. It would seem so ungrateful. On the other hand, there’s our Alma Mater. We children should stand bravely for her welfare,” Marjorie reasoned loyally.
“I believe it will all work out for the best.” Katherine was steadily hopeful of tone. “I think what Epictetus said about such conditions is consoling. He said: ‘Do not choose to have all things happen as you would have them happen, but rather choose to have them happen as they will. Then shall the current of your life flow free.’”
“Thank you, Kathie.” Marjorie’s half pensive features brightened wonderfully. “That’s an inspiring quotation, and I shall learn it this instant so as to have it handy to cheer me when I need to be ‘chirked’ up, as Delia our maid says. Please repeat it, and slowly.”
Katherine obligingly repeated the quotation several times. Marjorie repeated it softly after her. Leila was so busy leaning forward, talking in Robin’s ear she did not hear it.
“All passengers kindly get out of this car and walk. Step lively.” Vera’s voice, raised to a mild shout, broke in upon the bit of memorizing the two were earnestly engaging in. She had brought the roadster to a stop before the main gates of the campus and was now cheerfully inviting her companions to vacate it.
“A nice way to take us out to ride,” Leila grumbled. “Are we not good enough to be carried to our own doorstep? What a treacherous disposition you have, Midget. Now I have found you out, and in time. I thank my stars.” Leila left the car in her most leisurely manner.
“Oh, hurry up, slowpoke,” giggled Vera, taking hold of Leila’s arm to forward her progress from the car to the drive. “Robin likes my disposition. She hasn’t found me out yet. She and I are going to take the car to the garage. Anybody else want to go, too?”
“Not I. I know when I’m unwelcome.” Leila tossed her head with a haughty air.
Katherine and Marjorie, far from resenting the sudden order to “get out and walk” were already strolling slowly up the drive. Leila turned her back on Vera with a great show of scorn and overtook the strolling two. They found Miss Remson on the veranda, seated in a large willow rocker which made her appear unusually small.
“Back at last,” she greeted in her lively tones. “What cheer? Was it dinner at Baretti’s or tea at Miss Hamilton’s?”
“Miss Susanna had a late tea on purpose for us,” Marjorie replied. “Life has been one glorious succession of eats today since I got off the train at Hamilton station.” This with an accompanying sigh of utter well-being.
“Don’t forget the spread,” the little manager reminded. “It’s ready.”
“So are we,” declared Katherine brightly, “or we shall be when Vera and Robin come from the garage.”
“No true Hamiltonite could resist a ten o’clock spread even if she had been lunched, toasted and tea’d,” Marjorie cheerily asserted.
“No one could resist Ellen’s cream cake, either. I know that,” supplemented Kathie.
Vera and Robin presently returned and the quintette accompanied Miss Remson into the dining room where the “ten o’clock spread” awaited them. There was not only Ellen’s delicious cream cake but dainty sandwiches and fruit salad as well. Though none of them were actually hungry, a spread was a spread on any occasion and therefore not to be passed by.
As they sat about one of the smaller tables, enjoying the little good-night feast, Miss Remson said with a kind of hesitating abruptness: “Girls, I have broken my rule of rules for the first time since I undertook the management of Wayland Hall. I have accepted a freshman far in advance of the regular opening of the Hall.”
Interest flashed strongly into five pairs of eyes fixed on Miss Remson. The grim set of the little woman’s jaw indicated her evident displeasure with herself at the departure from her few iron-clad rules. With the half chagrined admission came to each girl simultaneously a remembrance of the stranger they had seen in the late afternoon when leaving the Hall for Hamilton Arms.
“Do you mean the girl who came here this afternoon in a taxi as we were starting for the Arms?” Vera lifted the silence that had ensued after the manager’s remarks.
“She is the one I mean.” Miss Remson nodded slowly and without enthusiasm.
“The fairy-tale princess!” Marjorie exclaimed involuntarily, then laughed.
“She had that look, I grant you,” Leila agreed. “Only it’s from Paris she comes, and not out of a fairy tale.”
“Correct, Leila. She arrived at New York City yesterday on a French steamer, and came straight from New York to Hamilton. Early last spring her father wrote me, applying for admission for her at the Hall to begin with the week before the opening of college and during her college year, provided she should pass her entrance examinations. Instead of abiding by the agreement which I made with him her father has sent her to the Hall several weeks too soon. There is nothing to be done in the matter save to allow her to remain. She tells me that her father sailed for Africa several days before she sailed for the United States. He joined an exploring expedition up the Amazon River.” Miss Remson’s face registered her disapproval in the matter.
“Don’t worry, Miss Remson,” Marjorie comforted. “We will take this would-be freshie under our august P. G. wings and bring her up a credit to Hamilton.”
“The five Travelers to the rescue!” promised Robin with a wave of the hand.
Leila, Vera and Katherine were equally ready to extend a welcoming hand to the stranger from across the sea. Miss Remson surveyed her guests, a bright smile gradually driving away her annoyed expression.
“You girls are more hospitable than I. I ought to be ashamed of myself. I must try to live up to you.” She paused, then proposed: “Suppose you go to her room and invite her to the spread? She has number 8.”
“You’re a jewel, Miss Remson.” Vera patted one of the manager’s hands.
“Nothing like social eats to promote acquaintance,” nodded Robin.
“Come on.” Leila was already half way to the door. “Let us visit our would-be in a body and speak to her as with one voice. What shall we say, so that we may all say the same, and not gabble at her like geese?”
“I don’t fancy the concert invitation plan,” Vera objected. “You do the inviting, Marjorie. You’ve a wonderful way with you.”
“So have I,” Leila hastily assured Vera. “Never forget that, Midget. I will praise myself rather than not be praised.”
Laughing and joking the five post graduates hurried lightly up the stairs and down the second floor hall to room number 8. Nor when Vera knocked lightly on the door had it been decided as to which one of them should be spokesman.
The girl who answered the knock seemed lovelier to her callers than when they had seen her alighting from the taxicab that afternoon. She wore a pale primrose negligee which fell in straight soft folds to her feet. Its flowing sleeves dropped away from her white, rounded arms and the collarless cut of the negligee brought out the beauty of her shapely throat. Her peculiarly colored eyes roved from one face to another. They held a certain veiled inquiry not far from insolence. She was silent; evidently waiting for her callers to speak first.
“Good evening.” While Marjorie had not consented to begin the making of friendly overtures with the prospective student she felt impelled to break the silence. “We are having a spread downstairs in the dining room. Miss Remson is giving it. Won’t you join us?” she invited with pleasant directness.
“Oh, no, thank you. You could hardly expect me to come down en deshabille.” Contempt for invitation and callers lurked faintly in the answer; a contempt which the girls felt rather than heard.
“That need make no difference,” Marjorie composedly returned. “There are no persons other than ourselves and the servants in the house. You know how purely informal a spread must be in order to be a success.”
“I don’t enjoy spreads,” came the indifferent reply. “Besides sweets late in the evening are so hard on one’s complexion.” One of the blonde girl’s white, beautifully kept hands found the door and rested against the knob. Whether by accident or design was hard to say.
“I am sorry you do not care to come,” Marjorie said with the gentle courtesy which never seemed to fail her in the face of rebuff. “Pardon me for being so remiss. Let me introduce my friends and myself to you. Miss Remson has told us that you are Miss Monroe.”
The indifferent expression on the girl’s face appeared to increase rather than diminish. She merely stared at the group and said not a word. Marjorie felt uncomfortable embarrassment seize her. Nevertheless friendliness continued in her tone as she named her chums to the other girl. Miss Monroe had the grace to acknowledge the introduction. She nodded carelessly to each girl in turn, the air of furtive contempt which had visited her at sight of the callers returning.
“We should be glad to show you about Hamilton and the campus,” Vera rallied to Marjorie’s assistance. “We are visiting Miss Remson for a short time. We shall return to college in the fall and shall live at Wayland Hall. So we shall be your neighbors. Miss Harper’s and my room is 10. We are using our old room now, and it will be ours again when we come back in the fall.”
“I expect to try for the sophomore class.” Miss Monroe crested her golden head. “I hope to escape the odious freshman class. I detest the bare idea of being kept down. Thank you for your offer to show me about.” She favored Vera with an inconsequential smile.
“You are welcome.” Vera tried to keep reserve out of the response. She did not enjoy being snubbed, either.
“You are sure to like Wayland Hall. It is the oldest and has been reckoned as the favorite house on the campus.” Leila now broke into the conversation. “All of us except Miss Page have lived here since we entered Hamilton. We are P. G.’s.” Leila gave the information in a perfectly level tone. There was an inscrutable light in her bright blue eyes which Miss Monroe did not miss. She colored slightly and hastily looked away from Leila.
Her remarkable blue-green eyes wandered to Marjorie again and rested curiously upon her. In that instant’s survey she saw what she had not yet allowed herself to note. She saw a girl whose claim to great beauty was as strong as her own. The discovery did not contribute to her happiness, but she was too clever to allow even a shade of rising jealousy to cross her beautiful face.
“I suppose ‘P. G.’ stands for post graduate?” she returned with a questioning inflection. “I really know very little of American colleges. I am sure I shall find college such a bore. My father insists that I shall become a student of Hamilton. So tiresome in him!”
The five Travelers still stood in a half circle outside the door. Miss Monroe had no intention of inviting them in, it appeared.
“We’ve had the very happiest kind of times in college,” Robin was quick to defend her Alma Mater. “One gets out of college precisely what one puts into it. You’ll feel differently about it after college opens and everything is in full swing.”
“If we can help you at any time to feel at home here, or can do anything for you to add to your welfare, please let us know. We were strangers here, too, once upon a time.” Marjorie smiled sunnily at discourteous Miss Monroe. There was finality in her little speech. “Miss Remson will expect us back,” she said to her companions.
“You are very kind. I daresay I shall get on here.” Miss Monroe moved her shoulders indifferently. “I prefer France or England to America. Of course it’s bound to seem very ghastly here for a while.” Sullen discontent lived for an instant on her pretty features. Marjorie’s friendly offer seemed to annoy rather than please her.
“Not half so ghastly as though you were condemned to an English private school for girls.” Leila assured with a flash of white teeth which appeared the extreme of affability. Her companions read into it another meaning. They knew if the haughty newcomer did not that Leila was blandly watching the self-centered girl measure off the rope with which to hang herself.
“I don’t in the least understand your meaning.” There crept into Miss Monroe’s voice a decidedly petulant note.
“I know that very well, indeed,” Leila replied with smiling imperturbability. “I was born in Ireland and half educated in Europe; partly in England, partly in Paris. The other half, the more important half of my education I received at Hamilton College. The best I can wish for you is that you may find at Hamilton what I found. I shall be glad to make Hamilton seem less ghastly to you, if I can. Good night.”
Leila turned away from the door. Characteristic of her was the virtue of finality. She could not dwaddle over a situation.
Her retreat was a signal to the other four girls. They made conscientious effort to say good-night as pleasantly as they had saluted Miss Monroe. She, on the contrary, began to show a first faint sign of interest in her callers. Leila’s information caused the Irish girl to rise in her opinion. She decided that she might be entertained by a little further talk with her.
“Will you – er – won’t you – ?” She spoke directly to Leila’s back as the latter continued to move slowly down the corridor. Leila did not turn her head. Marjorie, walking behind her heard and turned her face toward the girl in the doorway. Again Miss Monroe subjected her to a protracted, nearly hostile stare. Then she went into her room and closed the door with a force that was anything but indifferent.
