Kitabı oku: «Molly Brown's Freshman Days», sayfa 5
And not a few thrills did these young ladies experience at the prospect.
CHAPTER IX
RUMORS AND MYSTERIES
How many warm-hearted, impetuous people get themselves into holes because of those two qualities which are very closely allied indeed; and Molly Brown was one of those people. Carried away by emotions of generosity, she found herself constantly going farther than she realized at the moment. Why, for instance, could she not have put Frances Andrews off with an excuse for a day or so? Some one would surely have asked her to the Sophomore-Freshman ball.
And if she had only liked Frances, matters would have been different. If it had been an act of friendship, of deep devotion. But in spite of herself, she could not bring herself to trust that strange girl, beautiful and clever as she undoubtedly was, and sorry as Molly was for her. After all, it was rather selfish of Frances to have obtained the promise from Molly. Did she think it would reinstate her in the affections of her class to be seen in the company of the popular young freshman?
All this time, Molly said nothing to her friends, but on the morning of the ball she could not conceal from Judy and Nance her apprehension and general depression. And seeing their friend’s lack-lustre eye and drooping countenance, they held a counsel of war in Judy’s small bedroom.
At the end of this whispered conference, Judy was heard to remark:
“I’m afraid of the girl, to tell you the truth. Her fiery eyes and her two-pronged tongue seem to take all the spirit out of me.”
“I’m not afraid of her,” said Nance, who had a two-pronged tongue of her own, once she was stirred into action. “You wait here for me, and when I come back, you can go and notify the sophomores of what’s happened. Of course, Molly will get to the ball all right. The thing is to extricate her from the situation by the most tactful and surest means.”
Judy laughed.
“No,” she answered, “the thing is not to let Molly know we have saved her life.”
“If Frances hadn’t done that witch’s stunt and said all those malicious things at Molly’s Kentucky spread, I don’t think I should have minded so much. And do you know, Judy, that the report has spread abroad that she and Molly had prepared the whole thing beforehand, speeches and all and were in league together? You see, Molly was the only one who wasn’t hit.”
“You don’t mean it,” cried Judy. “Then, more than ever, I want to spare the child the humiliation she might have to suffer if she went with Frances to-night. Go forth to battle, Nance, and may the saints preserve you.”
Nance girded her sweater about her like a coat of mail, stiffened her backbone, pressed her lips together and marched out to the fray. She never told even Judy exactly what took place between Frances and her in that small room, with its bewildering array of fine trappings, silver combs and brushes, yellow silk curtains at the window, Turkish rugs, books and pictures. No one had ever seen the room except Molly the night of the spread, when it was too dark to make out what was in it.
There was no loud talking. Whatever was said was of the tense quiet kind, and presently Nance emerged unscathed from the encounter.
“She made me give my word of honor not to tell what was said,” she announced to the palpitating Judy, “but she’s writing the note to Molly now; so go quickly and inform someone that Molly has no escort for the ball.”
Judy departed much mystified and Nance remained discreetly away from her own room until she perceived Frances steal down the hall, push a note under their door and then hurry back, bang her own door and lock it.
Then, after a moment’s grace, Nance marched boldly to their chamber. Molly was reading the note.
“What do you think, Nance?” she exclaimed with a tone of evident relief in her voice, “Frances Andrews can’t go to-night.”
“Indeed, and what reason does she give?” asked Nance, feeling very much like a conspirator now that she was obliged to face Molly.
“None. She simply says ‘I’m sorry I can’t go to-night. Hope you’ll enjoy it. F. A.’ How does she expect me to get there, I wonder, at the eleventh hour?”
Nance examined her finger nails attentively.
“Perhaps she’s seen to that,” she replied after a pause.
“Nance,” said Molly, presently, “I’m so relieved that I think I’ll have to ’fess up. It’s mean of me, I know, and I feel awfully ungenerous to be so glad. You see, nobody can ever tell what strange, freakish thing she’s going to do. Of course she was the witch. I knew it from the conscious look that came into her face when I told her about it afterwards.”
“The mistake she has made is being defiant instead of repentant,” said Nance. “Instead of trying to brazen it out, she ought to ‘walk softly,’ as the Bible says, and keep quiet. She is the most embittered soul I ever met in all my life. If hatred counted for much, her hatred for her own class would burn it to a cinder.”
There was a sound of hurrying footsteps on the stairs and Judy burst into the room. Her face was aflame and she flung herself into a chair panting for breath.
“What’s your hurry?” asked Molly, slipping on her jacket. “Excuse me, I must be chasing along to French. Tell her the news, Nance.”
No need to tell Judy news, who had news of her own.
“I tell you, Nance,” she exclaimed, “there are times when I think the position of a freshman is one of the lowliest things in life. The first sophomore I met was Judith Blount. I did feel a little timid, but I told her what had happened. ‘You can tell your friend,’ she said, ‘that we sophomores are not so gullible as all that, and if her nerve has failed her at the last moment, it’s her fault, not ours.’”
“Why, Judy,” exclaimed Nance, “you didn’t know you were jumping from the frying pan right into the fire when you told that to Judith Blount, who has never liked Molly from the beginning. It’s jealousy, pure and simple, I think; although there almost seems to be something more behind it sometimes. She takes such pains to be disagreeable. Was anyone else there to hear you?”
“Oh, yes. She was surrounded by her satellites, Jennie Wren and a few others.”
The two girls sat in gloomy silence for a few minutes. After that rebuff, they hardly cared to circulate the bit of news any further in the sophomore class, which, it must be confessed, had the reputation of being run by a clique of the most arrogant and snobbish set of girls Wellington College had ever known.
“Let’s go and tell our woes to nice old Sally Marks,” suggested Judy, and off they marched in search of the good-natured funny Sally, whose room was on the floor below.
“Come in,” she called at their tap on the door, and noticing at once their serious faces, she exclaimed:
“I declare, I am beginning to feel like the Oracle at Delphi. What’s the trouble, now, my children?”
“You ought never to have gone to Judith Blount,” she continued after they had unburdened their secrets. But having gone to her, “it would be well,” so spake the Oracle, “to sit back and hold tight. The news is certain to spread, and of course only Judith and her ring would believe that Molly sent you out to find her an escort. There is one thing sure: Molly is obliged to go to the dance, not only because she has so many friends, but because she figures, I am told, so largely in ‘Jokes & Croaks,’ and it would be sport spoiled if she wasn’t there when the things are read out. Now, trot along, children, I’m cramming for an exam., and I’m busier than the busiest person in Wellington to-day.”
The afternoon dragged itself slowly along. Nance took her best dress out of its wrappings, heated a little iron and smoothed out its wrinkles. She lifted Molly’s blue crepe from its hanger and laid it on the couch.
“It was made in the simplest possible way out of the least possible goods in the least possible time,” she informed Judy, who had wickedly cut a class and sat moping in her friend’s room. “Isn’t it pretty? We made it together, and I’m really quite puffed up about the result. It’s Empire, you know,” she added proudly.
The dress did indeed show the short Empire waist. The round neck was cut out and finished with a frill of creamy lace which Molly happened to have, and there had not been much of a struggle with the sleeves, which came only to the elbow and were to all intents and purposes shapeless. But the color was the thing, as Molly had said.
“I’d be willing to drown in a color like that,” Judy observed. Judy was quite a poseuse about colors and assured her friends that she could never wear red because it inflamed her temper and made her cross; that violet quieted her nerves; green stirred her ambitions, and blue aroused her sympathies. While they were looking at the dress, Margaret Wakefield and Jessie Lynch, her roommate and boon companion, after rapping on the door, sailed into the room.
“We came to consult about clothes,” they announced. “Is this to be an evening dress affair, or what’s proper to wear?”
“The best you have,” replied Judy, “at least that’s what I was told by the oracular Sally below stairs.”
“For the love of heaven, don’t tell that to Jessie,” cried Margaret. “If you give her so much rope, she’ll be wearing purple velvet and cloth of gold.”
Jessie laughed good-naturedly. She was already considered the best dressed and prettiest girl in the freshman class, and it was a joke at Queen’s Cottage that she had been obliged to apply to the matron for more closet room, because the large one she shared with Margaret Wakefield was not nearly adequate for her numerous frocks. It had been a constant wonder to the other girls in the house that these two opposite types could have become such intimate friends; but friends they were, and continued to be throughout their college course, although Jessie never could rake up an interest in the U. S. Constitution or woman’s suffrage, either.
The two girls really formed a sort of combination of brains and beauty, and it became generally known that Jessie would hardly have pulled through the four years, except for the indefatigable efforts of her faithful friend, Margaret.
Mabel Hinton, a Queen’s Cottage freshman, now popped her head in at the door, which was half open. She was a very odd character, but she was popular with her friends, who called her “The Martian,” probably because she had a phenomenal intellect and wore enormous glasses in tortoise shell frames which made her eyes look like a pair of full moons.
“I thought I heard a racket,” she said in her crisp, catchy voice. “I suppose you are all discussing the news.”
“News? What news?” they demanded.
She closed the door carefully and came farther into the room.
“Gather around me, girls,” she said mysteriously, enjoying their curiosity.
“But what is it, Mabel? Don’t keep us in suspense,” cried Judy, always impatient.
“Well, there is evidence that someone was going to set fire to the gym. to-night,” she began, in a whisper. “This morning a bundle of oil-soaked rags was discovered in a closet, and then they began to search and found several other bundles like the first. There was a lot of excitement, and the Prex came over. They tried to keep it quiet, but the story leaked out, of course, and is still leaking – ” she smiled.
The girls exchanged horrified glances. What terrible disaster might not have befallen them if the rags had not been discovered?
“Of course it was the work of an insane person,” said Margaret Wakefield.
“Of course, but who? Is she one of the students or some outside person?”
With a common instinct, Judy and Nance looked up at the same moment. Their glances met. Without making a sound, Judy’s lips formed the word “Frances.”
“Is the dance to take place, then?” asked Jessie.
“Oh, yes. It’s all been hushed up and things will go on just as usual. I’m going to look on from the balcony. I shan’t mingle with the dancers, because they knock off my spectacles and generally upset my equilibrium.”
The door opened and Molly appeared in their midst like a gracefully angular wraith, for her face looked white, her shoulders drooped and her long slim arms hung down at her sides dejectedly.
“Why, Molly, dear, has anything happened to you?” cried Nance.
“No, I won’t say that nothing has happened,” answered Molly, sinking into a chair and resting her chin on her hand. “I have been put through an ordeal this day, why, I can never tell you, but I am glad you are all here so that I can tell you about it.”
They pressed about her, full of sympathy and friendliness, while Judy, who loved comfort and recognized the needs of the flesh under the most trying circumstances, lit Nance’s alcohol lamp and put on the kettle to make tea.
“But what is it?” they all demanded, seeing that Molly had fallen into a silence.
“I’ve been with the President for the last hour,” she said, “though for what reason I can’t explain. I can’t imagine why I was sent for and brought to her private office. She was very nice and kind. She asked me a lot of questions about myself and all of Queen’s girls. I was glad enough to answer them, because we have nothing to be ashamed of, have we, girls?” Molly rose and stood before them, spreading out her hands with a kind of deprecating gesture. The circle of faces before her almost seemed abashed under the steady gaze of her clear blue eyes. “It was a pleasure to tell her what nice girls were stopping at Queen’s Cottage.”
“Did she mention?” began Judy and pointed to the dividing wall of the next room.
“Oh, yes, I was coming to that. But what do I know about – ” Mollie stopped short and caught her breath. Her eyes turned towards the door, which was opened softly. There stood Frances Andrews.
She had evidently just come in, for she still wore her sweater and tam o’ shanter, and brought with her the smell of the fresh piney air.
“It’s all right about your escort for to-night, Miss Brown. You are to go with Miss Stewart, who has got special privilege from the sophomore president to take you. Good-bye. I hope you’ll have a ripping time. I shan’t see you at supper. I’m going off on the 6.15 train and won’t be back until Sunday night.”
There was such a tense feeling in the circle of freshmen as Frances stood there, that, as Judy remarked afterwards, they almost crackled with electricity.
It was quite late, and as most of the girls intended to dress for the party before supper, they took their departure immediately without any comment.
“Is anything special the matter?” asked Molly, after they had gone and she was left alone with her friends.
They told her the strange story which Mabel Hinton had reported to them a little while before.
“But that is the work of a lunatic,” exclaimed Molly, horrified.
“And I suppose,” went on Nance, “that the reason Prexy sent for you was that she suspected a certain person, who shall be nameless, and she was told that you were the only person who had ever been nice to her, and furthermore that you were going to the dance with her.”
“Of course that must be the reason,” said Molly, “and of course it’s absurd, I mean suspecting Frances Andrews. She might be accused of many things, but she is certainly in her right mind. She’s much cleverer than lots of the girls in her class.”
“Clever, yes. But should you call her balanced?”
Molly did not answer. She felt anxious and frightened, and a rap on the door at that moment made her jump with nervousness. It proved to be one of the maids of the house with two boxes of flowers, both for Molly. One was pink roses and contained the card of Mary Stewart, and the other was violets, and contained no card whatever.
She divided the violets in half and made her two friends wear them that night to the dance.
CHAPTER X
JOKES AND CROAKS
“I’m beginning to feel that we shall issue happily out of all our troubles,” cried Judy Kean, bursting into her friends’ room without knocking, “and the reason why I feel that way is because when I am clothed in silk attire my soul is clothed in joy. Especially when there’s dancing to follow. Button me up, someone, please, so that I may take a good look at my resplendent form in your mirror. I can’t see more than a square inch of neck in my own two by four.”
The girls stood back to admire their friend, who indulged her artistic fancy in rather theatrical clothes much too old for her, but who usually succeeded in gaining the effect she sought.
“Dear me, ‘she walks in beauty like the night,’” said Molly laughing. “You look like a charming and very youthful widow-lady, Judy, but how comes it you are wearing black?”
“Black is for certain types,” replied Judy sagely, “and I am one of them. Next to black my bilious skin takes on a dazzling, creamy tint and my mouse-colored hair assumes a yellow glint that is not its own.”
The girls laughed at their erratic friend, who was, indeed, dressed in black chiffon, from the fluffy folds of which her vivacious young face glowed like a flower.
“If you object to me, wait until you see Jessie,” cried Judy. “She might be going to the opera, she is so fine. She is wearing pink satin that glistens all over like a Christmas tree with little shiny things.”
As a matter of fact, Nance, whose well balanced and correct tastes in most things rarely failed her, was the most suitably dressed of our girls, in her pretty white lingerie frock.
At eight o’clock that evening Molly rolled away luxuriously in a village hack with Mary Stewart, holding her roses tenderly and carefully under her gray eiderdown cape, so as not to crush them.
“I’m awfully glad I was so lucky as to draw you this evening, Molly,” the older girl was saying.
“I’m the lucky one,” answered Molly, her thoughts reverting to the strange discovery of the morning. “Oh, Miss Stewart, what did Frances Andrews do last year to get herself into such a mess and be frozen out by all her class this year?”
“I’ll tell you perhaps some day, but not to-night. We want to enjoy ourselves to-night. Can you guide, Molly?”
“Like a streak. I always guided at home at the school dances, because I was the tallest girl in my class.”
“I’m a guider, too,” laughed Mary, “and when two guiders come together, I imagine it’s a good deal like a tug of war.”
During the ride over to the gymnasium, neither of the girls mentioned the thing uppermost in their minds: the attempt to set the gymnasium on fire that night. Nor was the rumor referred to by anyone at the dance later. It was a strictly forbidden topic, the President herself having issued orders.
The great room was a mass of foliage and bunting, Japanese lanterns and incandescent lights in many colors, and it was really quite a brilliant affair according to Molly’s notions, who had never seen anything but small country dances usually given at the schoolhouse several miles from her home. Lovely music floated from behind a screen of palms and lovely girls floated on the floor in couples, to the strains of the latest waltz.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be an awful wallflower,” thought Molly, feeling suddenly overgrown and awkward in the midst of this swirling mass of grace and beauty. “I can’t help feeling queer and I don’t seem to recognize anybody.”
But Molly had plenty of partners that evening, and after that first delightful waltz, it was nearly an hour before she caught a glimpse of Mary Stewart again in the crowd of dancers.
“Isn’t it jolly?” called Judy, as they dashed past each other in a romping barn dance.
“I never thought I could have such a good time at a manless party,” Jessie Lynch confided to Molly while they rested against the wall later. “But, really, it’s quite as good fun.”
“Isn’t it?” replied Molly. “I think I never had a better time in my life. But I’m afraid our roommates and friends are not enjoying it very much,” she added ruefully, pointing to the gallery, where seated in a silent bored row were Margaret Wakefield, Nance Oldham and Mabel Hinton.
“Of course,” said Jessie, “you would never expect Mabel to join this mad throng, but I’m surprised at Nance and Margaret.”
“Margaret prefers conversation parties, I suppose, and Nance is not fond of dancing, either. She would always rather look on, she says.”
The two girls were standing near the musicians and from the other side of the screen of palms they now heard a voice say:
“Have you danced with the fantastic Empress Josephine as yet?”
“Not as yet,” came the answer with a laugh. “But be careful, she is near – ”
Molly moved away hastily, her face crimson.
Jessie had heard the question also and recognized the voice of Judith Blount.
“Why, Molly,” she exclaimed, glancing at her face, “you don’t think they meant – ”
“Yes,” said Molly, trying to smile naturally, “I do.”
She glanced down at her home-made dress. Perhaps it did look amateurish. She and Nance had worked very hard over it, but, after all, they were not experienced dressmakers.
“Why, you look perfectly charming,” went on Jessie generously. “The color is exactly right for you – ”
“Yes, color,” answered Molly, “but there ought to be something besides color to a dress, you know. Never mind, I shouldn’t be such a sensitive plant, Jessie. One ought not to mind being called fantastic. It’s not nearly so bad as being called – well, malicious – cruel. I’d rather be fantastic than any of those things. But I did think the dress was pretty when we made it.”
“Come along, and let’s get some lemonade, Molly. Your dress is sweet and suits you exactly, so there.”
Then someone came up and claimed Jessie for the next dance, but Molly was grateful to the pretty butterfly creature for her assurances and she resolved to forget all about her dress. As she lingered in the corner, uncertain whether to stay where she was or join her friends in the gallery, Mary Stewart made her way through the crowd and called:
“Oh, here you are. Some of the seniors are just outside and want to meet you. Will you come?”
“I should think I would,” replied Molly, joyfully. Fantastic, or not, she had one good friend among the older girls.
“This is Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky,” announced Mary Stewart presently to a dozen august seniors who shook her hand and began asking her questions.
“We had two reasons for wanting to meet you, Miss Brown,” here put in a very handsome big girl, who spoke in an authoritative tone, which made everybody stop and listen. (She was, in fact, the President of the senior class.) “One of course was just to make your acquaintance, and the other was to ask if you would do us a favor. We are going to have a living picture show Friday week for the benefit of the Students’ Fund, and we wondered if you would pose in one of the pictures, maybe several, we haven’t decided on them yet. But that dress must be in one of them, don’t you think so, Mary? One of Romney’s Lady Hamilton pictures for instance, with a white gauze fichu; or a Sir Thomas Lawrence portrait – ”
“You don’t think it’s too fantastic?” asked Molly.
“What, that lovely blue thing? Heavens, no! it’s charming – ”
Molly had barely time to thank her and accept the invitation, when she and Mary were dragged off to make up the big circle of “right and left all around,” which wound up the dance. After this whirling romp, three loud raps were heard and gradually the noise of talking and laughter subsided into absolute silence. A girl had mounted the platform. She carried a megaphone in one hand and a book in the other. She was the official reader of her class, and now proceeded to recite through the megaphone all the best and most amusing material from “Jokes & Croaks.” According to time honored custom, the jokes were greeted with applause and laughter, and the croaks with groans and laughter, and anybody who groaned at a joke or applauded a croak, if she happened to be caught, was publicly humiliated by being made to stand up and face the jeers of the multitude. The girls finally decided, after many ludicrous mistakes, that the jokes were on the sophomores and the croaks were on the freshmen. For instance, here was a croak:
“A lady of notable luck,
Who cared not for turkey or duck,
Cried, ‘Give me old ham
And I don’t give a slam,
If it comes from Vermont or Kaintuck.’”
This was greeted with laughing groans, and Molly for the first time realized the significance of her roommate’s name.
Margaret Wakefield figured in several croaks, as “the Suffragette of Queen’s.” In fact Queen’s girls came in for a good many croaks and began to wait fearfully for what was to come next. But the witticisms were all quite good-natured, even the last, which called forth so many merry groans that they soon ceased to be groans at all and became uproarious laughter, and Molly, very red and laughing, too, was the centre of all eyes. This was the croak:
“They have locked me in the Cloisters,
They have fastened up the gate!
Oh, let me out; Oh, let me out.
It’s getting very late.
’Tis said the ghosts of classes gone
Do wander here at night.
Oh, let me out; Oh, let me out,
Before I die of fright!
And then there rang a clarion voice.
It’s tone was loud and clear.
‘Oh, dry your eyes and cease your cries,
For help, I ween, is near.
But promise me one little thing
Before I ope the gate:
Oh, never pass the coffee tray,
If I am sitting nigh;
Or, if you pass the coffee tray,
Oh, then, just pass me by!’”
It was all very jolly and delightful, and for the first time the girls felt that they were really a part of the college life.
Mary Stewart was very sweet to Molly when she took her home that night, and the young freshman never realized until long afterwards, when she was a senior herself, what a nice thing her friend had done; for sophomore-freshman receptions were an old story to Mary Stewart.
