CHAPTER XIVCLASSMATES
Bea reached for Robbie with one arm, grasped Lila with the other, and went skipping after the rest of the seniors over the lawn to their class tree. She dragged them under its spreading branches to the centre of the throng that had gathered in the June twilight. Berta was already there, mounted on a small platform that had been built against the trunk in preparation for the morrow’s Class Day ceremonies.
“She looks pretty decent,” whispered Bea to Robbie in order to frustrate the queer sensation in her throat at sight of the eager face laughing above them on this last evening together before the deluge of commencement guests. “I hope the alumnæ who are wandering around admire our taste in presidents.”
“Maybe,” Robbie spoke reflectively, “they’re almost as much interested in their classmates as we are in ours.”
“Um-m,” said Bea, “why, maybe so theyare. I never thought of that before. Robbie, you’re my liberal education. Now, then, attention! Berta is raising her hand to mark time for the songs to be rehearsed for to-morrow.”
But Berta’s hand dropped at sound of a shout from across the campus. “There!” she exclaimed, “the sophomores are coming.”
They certainly were coming, on a double-quick march, two by two, shouting for the seniors. As they approached the shouting changed to singing. When they reached the tree, they spread out and joining hands went skipping, still viva voce, around the seniors who watched them, silent and smiling. The air was sweet with the cool, spicy breath of spruces. Lila thought that she could even smell the roses in the garden beyond the evergreens. She lifted her face toward the soft evening sky, and her mouth grew wistful. Bea caught a glimpse of it, and immediately became voluble if not eloquent.
“This is impromptu,” she commented, generous with her least thoughts. “I enjoy impromptus, except speeches—or that last lecture when the man couldn’t read his ownnotes. Now my history which is to astonish the world to-morrow will doubtless glitter with extemporaneous wit which has cost me two weeks of meditation. Likewise this impromptu on the spur of the moment——”
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Robbie. She was watching Berta’s eyes as the last lingering strains died away. Oh, dear! why did they sing that good-bye serenade again? Berta was going to cry. Hark! A robin’s twilight call rose melodiously from the heart of a shadowy spruce. In the thrill of it Robbie felt the sting of sudden tears. She turned to Bea.
“Now I know how Berta feels when she listens to music. I’m beginning to understand. But I think a robin is different from a brass band.”
“Is it now? You astonish me.” Bea squeezed her understandingly, nevertheless. “I know. Being with Lila has taught me a lot. She is like a windharp—every touch finds a response. Berta’s a violin, I guess. It takes skill to play on her. And you—oh, I believe you’re a splendid big drum. You’ve been marking time for the rest of us all thefour years. As for me, I’m only an old tin horn. You need to spend all your breath to get any music. Even then it isn’t sickeningly sweet, so to speak. Still for an audience in sympathy with the performer——”
“That is what college has given us,” put in Lila who had been listening, “it gives us sympathy. Being with different persons, you know, and loving them.”
“Oh, yes!” Robbie’s sigh of intense assent left her breathless, “loving them.”
“Now, then, girls!” Berta’s hand was lifted again to beat time as the clapping for the sophomores subsided. Then the seniors sang. They sang the songs that were to be interspersed as illustrations in Bea’s class history. There was the elegant stanza which they had shouted all the way to the mountain lake that first October at college.
“’Rah, ’rah, ’rah! kerchoo, kerchoo!
We are freshmen—
Who are you?”
From that brilliant composition the selections ranged through four years of fun and sentiment with an occasional flight to thepoetry of earnest feeling as well as many a joyous swoop into hilarious inanity.
When tired of standing around the tree, the class fluttered across the campus to the broad stone steps in front of the recitation hall.
Bea clung to Robbie’s arm again and reached for Lila in their flight. “I’m ’most sure we look like nymphs flying through the glades, with our draperies blowing in the lines of swift motion. I love to run when I feel like it. Robbie Belle, shall we ever dare to run when we get home?”
Robbie did not hear her. From her seat on the steps she gazed at Berta who was standing before the ranks of familiar faces, her eager face alight with the exhilaration of the hour. Once she threw back her head, laughing at some ridiculous verse. Her eyes sought Robbie’s for an instant, smiled, then danced away again. Robbie swallowed once, unconsciously, and moved closer to Bea.
In a semicircle sweeping around the group of singers, sophomores and stray juniors and many a wandering alumna in a flower-decked hat had gathered to listen. In a pause betweenthe songs. Robbie surveyed them gravely, unrecognizing any of the older guests until presently one face stood out vaguely familiar in the clear twilight. It was a beautiful face, framed by dusky hair beneath the wreath of crimson roses on her hat. The eyes were dusky too and deep-set. They were staring at Robbie with an intensity of grieving affection that contrasted sharply with the stern, almost resentful, expression of her finely cut mouth.
As Robbie gazed back in fascinated perplexity, the face suddenly curved into a smile so tenderly radiant that Robbie felt quite dazzled for a moment. Involuntarily she smiled back, while striving to grasp the dim recollection. Who could it be? She had surely seen her before somewhere. But where? At college? At home? Where was it? Slowly a vision grew distinct in her groping memory. It was a vision of Elizabeth, her sister, lifting a photograph from a pile of others. “This,” she had said, “is my Jessica. She knows all my family from their pictures, and some day she shall come home with me and meet you your own selves. She wishes Robbie Bellewere to enter college before we finish. Robbie will be a senior when we go back for our fifth year reunion.”
Robbie’s chest heaved abruptly under the shock of identifying the face amid the encircling throng. It was Jessica More, Elizabeth’s best friend at college. This was the June of her class reunion. Robbie Belle was a senior. But Elizabeth was not there, as she had planned. Jessica had been expelled before she graduated, and Elizabeth had died.
Before the singing was over, Jessica had disappeared. Then in the rush of last things Robbie forgot her for a time. Some of the seniors hurried away on hospitable duties bent, for numerous relatives had already arrived. There were to be informal gatherings in different rooms. A few went to the Phi Beta Kappa lecture in the chapel. To tell the truth, however, these were but few indeed, for to the seniors the last evenings were too precious, to be wasted on mere scholarly discourse. Probably Jessica had gone there with the rest of the alumnæ, reflected Robbie Belle as she sat beside Berta and the others in the soft sweet darkness. With arms intertwinedthey talked low or fell silent, lingering over this farewell to the dear college days.
“I love everybody in the class,” whispered Lila once.
“In the college,” amended Bea promptly.
“Oh, in the whole world!” exclaimed Berta.
Robbie nodded assent so solemnly that Bea leaned down to peer at her more closely. “A regular Chinese mandarin,” she teased, “or are you nodding in your sleep? You approve of Berta’s breadth evidently. Why do people always speak about the value of being broadened? I think it is nobler to be deep than broad, I do. I’d rather divide my heart in four pieces than in forty billion.”
“There are two hundred in the class,” said Robbie, “and there were only one hundred in my sister’s class, but I am quite sure that they did not love each other any more than we do.”
SHE HELD BOTH HANDS, SMILING
SHE HELD BOTH HANDS, SMILING
The next morning saw the seniors assemble at the amphitheatre which had been prepared for the Class Day exercises. Berta was already on the platform, assisting the committee in the arrangement of seats for the class. Among later comers who were hurrying across the campus Bea caught up with Robbie Belle.
“I am hastening across the sward,” she announced in cheerfully inane greeting, “what is a sward anyhow, and why isn’t it pronounced the same as sword?”
“It’s grass,” said Robbie Belle. Bea felt a speaking silence fall and glanced up to catch the direction of her gaze. Between them and the expanse of mingled chairs and girls around the platform against the wall of the nearest dormitory, a stranger was moving rapidly toward them, her eager eyes on Robbie.
“Little Robbie Belle! I knew you last night from your picture.” She held both hands, smiling.
Bea considered the two pairs of shoulders on a level. “Little!” she sniffed to herself, “it must be a very old alum.”
Robbie turned to introduce her. “This is my friend, Beatrice Leigh, Miss More. Bea, this is my sister’s best friend. I remembered you too, last night, Miss More. I remembered—I—I wondered——” Robbie’s tongue stumbled in embarrassment at the verge of candor.
Miss More’s mouth hardened slightly, though her eyes still smiled. “You wondered how I happen to be here for the reunion of a class from which I was expelled. Is that it? Perhaps you are unaware that I have been reinstated. The faculty has at last reconsidered their unjust decision. They acknowledge that it was based upon a misunderstanding. I have made up the work at home. To-morrow I shall receive two degrees, the Bachelor’s with your class, the Master’s with the post-graduates. I am sure you congratulate me.”
“Oh!” gasped Robbie Belle, “oh, yes!”
Bea succeeded in depressing somewhat the round-eyed stare with which she had listened to this extraordinary speech. “I think it is perfectly lovely, Miss More,” she said. “Your class must be delighted. It is a triumph—a splendid triumph. Oh,—ah!” She turned at the sound of a faint call behind her: “Jessica!”
From a group of alumnæ under a cluster of spruces, somebody was walking quickly toward the three. Bea recognized in her a brilliant young instructor at the college.
“Jessica, I am—glad. How do you do?” She put out her hand.
Miss More lifted her eyes, coolly scanned the other woman from the tip of her russet shoes to the crown of her sailor hat, then gazed vacantly over her head, before addressing Robbie again.
“Then to-morrow, Robbie. Don’t forget that I wish to see you after the commencement exercises for a few minutes. There are questions I desire to ask. Your mother is well, I hope.”
Two minutes later Robbie had reached one of the chairs and dropped into it with a limpness strangely inharmonious with her statuesque proportions. “Bea, they belong to the same class.”
Bea sank down beside her. “That was awful—awful. Those others were watching her from the path. Why did she do it? I don’t understand.”
Robbie passed her hand across her forehead. “I don’t quite remember everything,” she said, “but I have an impression that it was Miss Whiton who was to blame for having Miss More expelled. She was class president, orsomething, and felt responsible. Elizabeth said she thought it was for the honor of the college. She meant to do right. And now to think it was all a mistake! Miss More will receive her degrees to-morrow.”
“Did Miss Whiton accuse her of any wrong or make complaint?”
“No, not exactly. I think she believed that Miss More’s behavior somewhere reflected on the college, and she considered it her duty to report the circumstances. Or maybe it was appearances—it seems now that it must have been only appearances. That started the trouble, and Miss More resented it. She was stubborn or indifferent about some requirements. I don’t remember quite what, and Elizabeth never liked to talk about it. Elizabeth wrote to her every week until she—until she left us.” Robbie’s lip twitched suddenly. Bea saw it and gently passing her arm through the other’s arm drew her on to join the class assembled at the amphitheatre.
The next day brought commencement. Bea from her place among the rows of white-clad seniors in the body of the chapel could by bending forward slightly catch a glimpseof Miss More’s profile at the head of the front pew at the right. When she raised her eyes she could see Miss Whiton’s coldly regular features conspicuous in their clean-cut fairness among the younger instructors in the choir-seats behind the trustees on the platform. Bea had never liked Miss Whiton. It seemed to her now, as she studied the immobile face, that she had always recognized there a suggestion of the self-righteous Pharisee. There could be nothing but misunderstanding and antagonism between the possessor of such a countenance and Miss More with those eyes of hers, that nose and that mouth. Bea’s labors over the classes in manners had included some research in the subject of physiognomy. Now she leaned forward to secure another view of that profile in the front pew. Then she settled back with the contented sigh of an investigator whose surmise has proved correct. Miss More’s features certainly expressed an impulsive, reckless and lovable temperament as opposed to Miss Whiton’s conscientious and calculating prudence. Oh, yes, there was conscience enough in the icily handsome face among the instructors. It was consciencedoubtless that had driven her across the campus to speak to Miss More on Class Day morning. Bea sighed again, this time with a faint twinge of sympathy. She generally meant well herself. A conscience was a very queer thing—she thought so still even if she had heard it all explained and analyzed in senior ethics.
“Surgite.” That was Prexie’s voice. The class rose in obedience to the word. Bea found herself standing with the others while the Latin sentences rolled melodiously over their heads. She never could translate from hearing. Absently her glance sought the front pew where Miss More had turned to watch them. The girl’s wistful gaze caught the expression of passionate regret in her deep-set eyes, and clung there fascinated for an endless moment before tearing itself free.
After it was over, after the class had filed upon the platform to receive their diplomas, after Prexie had delivered his annual address and the procession of graduates, alumnæ and faculty had marched out into the golden sunshine, Bea drew aside to wait under an elm.Berta spied her and beckoned, then came hurrying.
“Lila is over at the doors on guard to capture the various relatives and start them toward the cottages for dinner. The trustees entertain the alumnæ in the main dining-room. The seniors will go to Strong Hall. Aren’t you ready?”
“I’m getting an impression,” answered Bea, “gothic portals, graceful elms, bare-headed girls in white, sun-flecked lawns and glimpse of the sparkling lake beyond, groups intermingling——”
“I’ll help give you that impression.”
Bea slipped nimbly out of reach in time to escape the promised pinch—or it may have been a squeeze.
“I’ve got it already—a hundred of them. You’re in two or three. And Robbie—do you see Robbie anywhere?”
Robbie approached at the moment. “Bea, have you noticed Miss More pass? I found something last night in my sister’s college scrapbook—her memory-bill, you know. It is something for Miss More.”
“Yes, over there half way to the mainbuilding. Look—that one in white all alone. You can overtake her if you hurry, Robbie. Oh, Berta!” Bea turned and held out one hand impulsively. “If you could only have seen her eyes while she watched us in chapel! She was thinking of her own class, how she had been driven away from them in disgrace. It was tragic. She—she——” Bea gulped and caught herself back from falling over the brink into the pit of palpable emotion. “In fact, I am almost sure she—hm-m,—envied us.”
She glanced apprehensively at her companion in dread of the usual quick teasing rejoinder; but Berta was soberly gazing after Robbie.
“Robbie has dropped a paper, Bea,” she said, “I saw it flutter. Come.”
Bea flitted across the grass, her bright hair an aureole in the sunlight. Her fingers seized the bit of white; her eyes read the message:
“Sunday evening after Bible lecture.
“Jessica and the rest of us are choosing mottoes to live out just for experiment this week.
“Marian: ‘Love seeketh not her own.’ (She always gets to places first.)
“Alice: ‘Is not easily provoked.’ (Oh, oh!)
“Louise: ‘Is not puffed up.’ (Ah!)
“Jessica: ‘is kind.’ (And when she is good, she is very, very good.)
Elizabeth: “envieth not.” (My brain doesn’t suit.)
“Jessica says hers is the easiest because it means just to keep from hating anybody, and she loves the whole college.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to read it.” Bea almost clapped her hand over her impetuous eyes. “Robbie,” she broke into a run, “Robbie Belle, here is something you dropped.”
As Robbie turned at the call, one of the trustees, an elderly woman whose white hair seemed to soften the effect of her energetic manner and keen gaze, paused to speak to Miss More. The two seniors strolled on at a leisurely pace while waiting for an opportunity to ask attention without interrupting a speech. The distance intervening lessened step by step till Bea could not help overhearing the trustee’s distinct low tones.
“——exceedingly difficult to choose between the two candidates. Their qualifications balance distractingly. Personally I incline to Miss Whiton, and I should very much like to see her win this unusual position. Her original work certainly deserves it. However I know her so slightly that I am reluctant to give my decisive vote until I learn more of her from her contemporaries. You were in her class, Miss More, I understand.”
“Yes.”
At the smothered intensity of that simple word, Bea’s head rotated swiftly to stare at the source of it. She had never seen that beautiful face like this before. On the campus Class Day morning it had been friendly though with the hint of hardness about the mouth. In chapel it had been tragic with regret over the irrevocable. Now the dusky eyes were blazing with the light of coming triumph over an enemy at last delivered into her power.
“It is an exceptional distinction for so young a woman,” continued the trustee, “and because it means so much to each of the rivals, a feather’s weight of evidence may turnthe scales for one or the other. I am anxious to be impartial. I invite this discussion merely to assure myself of Miss Whiton’s irreproachable record. I wish sincerely to see her win.”
“You never heard the exact circumstances that led to my expulsion from college?”
The defiant ring of this abrupt question brought Bea to her sense of the situation. She put out one hand to draw Robbie beyond earshot. But Robbie did not notice her. She was already touching Miss More’s arm.
“Miss More, pardon me. I have hurried to give you this. I—I think Elizabeth would have enjoyed showing it to you. I—wish—she could have been here to-day. She would have been—glad.”
Miss More took the paper mechanically. “Thank you, Robbie Belle. Will you wait one moment, dear? I want to speak to you.” She turned again to the older woman. “It may be an enlightening little tale,” she began, “and Miss Whiton plays a part in it. These are the facts.”
Bea watched her, fascinated. The eyes seemed to be gazing away beyond the evergreensat old, unhappy, far-off things. Slowly they returned to nearer objects, dropped suddenly and caught for an instant upon some one passing by. At sight of the swift gleam of bitter recognition, Bea followed the direction, and beheld Miss Whiton. She looked back again in time to see a wonderful change as Miss More’s glance traveled unconsciously to the paper in her hand.
Robbie’s wistful regard was also lingering upon the paper.
“Elizabeth loved it all—the class—the whole college.”
The trustee was evidently in haste. “And this enlightening little tale of yours, Miss More? Pardon me for urging you on. The importance of the issue—ah!” Bea saw her nod acquiescence in response to a gesture from some one who was waiting at the porte cochere. “I fear I shall not have time for it now. May I consult you later? You are sure, Miss More, that the story is something that I ought to hear?”
Miss More hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It may have been merely a schoolgirl misunderstanding. I will—thinkit over and let you know after the dinner. In any event, I thank you for your confidence. Miss Whiton certainly merits the honor.”
It seemed to Bea that Miss More looked after the older woman with an expression of half-puzzled surprise at her own indecision. Then she turned to Robbie.
“I remember that evening,” she spoke in a curiously softened tone. “Elizabeth sat in the glow of the drop-light and scribbled this card, while the rest of us watched her idly, and talked, half serious, half in fun over the novelty of choosing our mottoes. It was Elizabeth who had proposed it. She had such a shy, sweet, humorous way of being good. Everybody loved her.”
Robbie nodded speechlessly. After a moment she said, “The rest of your verse is ‘Love suffereth long and is kind.’”
The deep-set eyes clouded again under the dusky hair.
“I—have—suffered,” she said slowly.
Bea pinched her own arm in a quick agony of vicarious embarrassment. How could a person show her feelings right out like that before anybody? What was the use of goingaround talking about such things? It was not very polite to make other people uncomfortable. Bea smothered a quick little sob and walked on, staring straight ahead.
It was Robbie who turned to look into the face so near her own. She saw the clouds lift before the dawning of an exquisite smile like a ray of sunshine after a stormy day.
“‘Love suffereth long and is kind,’” repeated the oddly gentle voice. “I have suffered, and I will try—to be kind. I think Elizabeth would have been glad.”
“Elizabeth is glad,” said Robbie Belle.
CHAPTER XVVICTORY
At her escape into the corridor Berta paused for a moment in the shadow of the staircase to brush the excitement from her glowing face. She winked rapidly once or twice in hopes of smothering the sparkle in her eyes, but succeeded only in nicking a happy tear drop from her lashes. Then she smoothed the dimple from her cheek and tried to straighten her lips into the sober dignity proper for a senior who was on the honor list and had just come from an interview with the critic of her commencement essay.
Her efforts were all in vain, however, for at the very minute that the dimple came dancing out again and the rebellious mouth quivered back into its joyous curves, somebody with a swift tap-tap-tap of light heels flew down the stairs in a rustle and a flutter and darted toward Berta.
“They’ve come! They’re here! The Board of Editors is going to meet in the lecture room immediately to open the boxes. Four big beautiful boxes full of splendid great books all in green with gilt lettering. Hurry! Hurry quick yourself! You’re head literary editor. It’s really your book—the ideas, editorials, verses, farce, everything! The sale opens at five. Everybody’s crazy to see the new senior Annual. Our Annual! Oh, Berta!” She seized the taller girl around the waist and whirled her down the hall till loose sheets of paper from her dangling note-book flitted merrily hither and yon.
“Bea, take care! You’re crumpling my essay.”
“Your essay? Oh, that’s so! Senior president, Annual editor, honor girl, commencement speaker, graduate fellow-heigho! She ‘bore her blushing honors thick upon her.’ No wonder you look uplifted. Listen! Behold! Tell me, do her little feet really touch the solid humble earth?”
As mischievous Bea stopped, with anxiety and awe written large on her saucy features to investigate Berta’s shoes, a door near themopened and a slender woman with fast-graying hair and a curiously still face emerged. There was the ghost of a twinkle in her gray eyes. The transom had not been entirely closed.
“Miss Abbott, may I take that essay again, for a few minor suggestions? If you will drop in after chapel I shall have it ready for you. Permit me once more to congratulate you on its excellence and originality. It has never been my pleasure to read any undergraduate work of greater promise.” She withdrew after the nicker of a quizzical smile in Bea’s direction.
That young lady gasped and then happening to notice that her mouth was ajar carefully closed it with the aid of both hands.
“Berta Abbott! To have your essay praised by Miss Thorne the terrible, who never approves of anything, and yet you stand there like a common mortal! You live, you breathe, you walk, you talk, just the same as you used to do! She says it has promise. I do believe that she never said as much before about anybody except maybeShakespeare when he was young. Oh, just wait until she sees the Annual!”
Berta had colored hotly. “Bea, don’t tell anybody, please. Of course, I care what she says. I care most of all—I care heaps—about her opinion that the qualities are—are promising. But if I should fizzle out and never amount to anything! It’s all in the future, you see, and I’d be so ashamed to have the girls quoting her now. If I shouldn’t win the fellowship, if I had to go to teaching next year and give it up——”
Bea pounced upon her. “You’re a nice sweet girl, and I love you to distraction. Don’t you worry about that fellowship, but trot up-stairs with me this instant and help hammer the covers off those boxes. You’ll be surprised!”
“Shall I?” said Berta idly, as she followed in Bea’s eddying wake, “I don’t see how, since I read the proof and corrected the lists of names.”
“Hm!” Bea turned confidentially and shot an alarming sentence toward her companion. “Well, I’ll tell you; everything you wrote is signed. The other editors did it lastthing—sometimes your initials, sometimes your name. It’s for the sake of your reputation.”
“My reputation!” exclaimed the victim. “Oh,” she groaned, “they did that? Oh, my land! My name on everything. I shall sink through the floor. Run, run quick!”
The corridors were almost deserted during that recitation period. There was no stray freshman in sight to gaze scandalized at the vision of two reverend seniors racing toward the lecture room door. Berta dashed in just as the chairman of the board, with hair flying and cheeks flushed from the exertion, was brandishing a hatchet in one hand and a splintered fragment of wood in the other. The business editor hammered away with characteristic energy at the ragged remnants. The rest stood around waiting as patiently as possible in their weaponless zeal. Several glanced up and grinned provokingly at the appearance of their head literary editor.
“So you’ve heard the news, have you?” began the artist, “you look wild. We knew you’d never consent to sign the things yourself, and it was rank injustice to let you dothe work and receive no special credit. Even the ideas are yours, but we couldn’t tag a name to them. Wish we could. That one for the main feature—the pictures of distinguished alumnæ——”
“Hold on!” the chairman backed into a convenient corner before Berta’s frenzied reproaches, “it’s all right. We added a note of explanation. Nobody will blame you for writing so well. And the initials are very small anyhow. Here, look!” She made a dive for the box, ripped off a second board with quick blows, snatched away the wrapping paper underneath, and dislodged a handsome green volume from its snug nest. She thrust it into Berta’s hands. “It’s your book really more than anybody’s—your first published book.”
Berta took it, sat down in a desk-chair near by, and turned the leaves slowly with fingers that trembled from nervousness.
Bea bent over her shoulder. “It seems as if that name of yours is on every page,” she teased, “pretty name, don’t you think? And isn’t it a beautiful, beautiful book! Wide margins, heavy paper, clear print, fine reproductions.Won’t the girls be delighted with those pictures of the basket ball teams! See, ah, there is the page of photographs. You suggested that the editors should appear as the babies they used to be forty years or so ago. What a dear little curly-head you were at the age of two, Berta! I want to hug you.”
The embarrassment began to fade from Berta’s expression as she gazed at the baby faces before her. “That’s the great thing I miss at college, don’t you, Bea? There aren’t any babies here. We ought to borrow some once in a while to vary the monotony of books. I have three little nieces at home, you know. Such darlings! I wish I had one here now this minute.”
“Which do you choose—the baby or the book? Oh, Berta! Would you sacrifice this book for a mere child? This beautiful, splendid, green book with gilt lettering and your name scrawled everywhere?”
“The oldest baby looks a good deal like that photograph of me,” continued Berta softly, “she is named after me, too. I wish you could see her. The way she holds up her littlearms and clings to you! I haven’t seen her since last September.”
“Hark!” Bea sprang from her perch on a desk-arm. “There are the girls now clamoring for admission. It must be the hour for the sale to begin. Isn’t it fun! Fly, Berta Abbott, flee and bury your blushes. The play is now on.”
Berta fled. She felt an impulse to creep away into some dark corner till all the excitement—and criticism—had subsided. Of course, it was rather pleasant, she acknowledged reluctantly to her candid self. There was something down underneath tingling and glowing. Very likely it was gratified vanity. Everybody liked to be praised and admired, but not too much, for that was uncomfortable. It was like being set upon a pinnacle and stared at. And she did care. She had worked hard and long for success. She had proved that she could work. Now if she should be granted the foreign fellowship, she could go on and on, step by step, till some day perhaps she might become a famous college professor or maybe the president of a university. That would be accomplishing a career worth while.
Berta never quite remembered how she screwed up resolution enough to enter the dining-room that night and face the storm of congratulations, affectionate jests, and laughing taunts over her eminence. The last copy of the Annual had been sold before the gong whirred out its summons to dinner; and dozens of dilatory students were already besieging the chairman for an extra edition. After dinner Berta was captured for a dance in parlor J till chapel time. The lilt of the music was still echoing in her ears, her heart beating in happy rhythm to its harmony, when at last she slipped into the back pew and leaned her head against the wall, her lips relaxing in happy curves, her hands lying idle in her lap.
Prexie’s voice sounded soothingly far away. Generally he read a chapter first, then gave out the hymn, and after the singing he always led in prayer. It hardly seemed worth while to listen when one’s own thoughts were so pleasant. Berta dropped her lashes to hide the shining light of gladness. Weren’t they dear, dear unselfish girls to rejoice with her and for her! She loved them and they loved her. The best part of any triumph was theconsciousness that victory would please her friends and her family. Her mother would be glad, and her father, the small brothers and sisters, and even the pretty little sister-in-law. Eva would not understand entirely, for she hated to read and cared about nothing but the babies since Robert had died. Robert would have sympathized, since he had loved study almost as much as he had loved Eva. When he decided to marry, he gave up his science and went into a bank. He chose a wife and children instead of congenial ambition. If he had lived, he would have been glad in Berta’s success. Maybe when the baby nieces grew old enough to understand, they would be proud of their famous aunt. It was very, very sweet to feel that people were proud of her.
Listen! Berta straightened suddenly and then leaned forward. What was Prexie saying? Why, he hadn’t even opened the Bible yet. “—and so, as the essays submitted in competition were all remarkably good, the judges would have experienced great difficulty in reaching a decision if it had not been for one exceptional even among the dozen most excellent papers. The prize for the bestShakespearean essay has been unanimously awarded to Miss Roberta Abbott.”
A low murmur swept over the bright-hued congregation. Several faces in the pew before her turned to smile at Berta. She smiled back half involuntarily and gripped her fingers together, conscious only of a smothering sensation and a wonder that her chest kept heaving faster and faster. It frightened her to have things happen like this one after another. She had won the Shakespearean prize. How much was it? Thirty dollars? Fifty? It didn’t matter. She could take baby Berta to the seashore with her. She had won. The girls would get tired of congratulating her.
Hark! Prexie had gone on speaking.
“Accordingly,” he was saying as Berta braced herself once more to attention, “I am sure you will agree with me that the faculty acted justly and wisely this afternoon in electing Miss Roberta Abbott to hold the European Fellowship this coming year.”
The murmur this time swelled to a soft tumult of fluttering and whispering, which broke here and there into a muffled clapping, for everybody liked Berta. But when morefaces turned in joyous nodding toward the back pew they found no answering smile. Berta in panic had slipped down the aisle and vanished through the swinging doors into the dusky corridor.
“Ah, Miss Abbott!” The messenger girl overtook her at the foot of the broad staircase. “Here is a special delivery letter for you. It was brought from town five minutes ago.”
Berta glanced at the address. Yes, it was from her sister-in-law as she had expected. Eva was always falling into foolish little flurries and rushing to consult friends and relatives by mail or wire or word of mouth. Possibly this important communication was a request for advice about the babies’ pique coats. It could wait for a reading till Berta had found a safe refuge from the girls who would certainly surround her as soon as chapel was over. They would follow Robbie and Bea.
Where could she go to escape the enthusiasm? Her room would be the first point of attack, and Bea’s the second. Ah, now she recalled Miss Thorne’s speech about calling for the commencement essay at this hour. She might as well go there now and wait till hercritic should return from services, if indeed she had attended them to-night.
At the door Berta knocked and bent her head to listen, then knocked again. Still no answer. She waited another minute, her eyes absently hovering over the plants that banked the wide window there at the end of the transverse corridor. The evening breeze sweet from loitering in clover fields drifted in through the open casement. Miss Thorne was very fond of flowers. That was a queer trait in a person who seemed to care so little for persons. There always seemed something frozen about this gray-haired, immobile-faced woman with her stern manner and steely eyes. Sometimes Berta thought of her as like a dying fire that smoldered under smothering ashes.
Berta turned the knob gently and entered. A faint rosy glow from the lowered drop-light shone on the piles of papers and scattered books on the library table. The curtains rippled in the sudden draught caused by the opening of the door, and a whiff of fragrance from a jar of apple-blossoms on the bookcase floated past the visitor. Berta glanced aroundwith a little shrug that was half a shiver. A room frequently partakes of the nature of its occupant; and the atmosphere of this one always made her heart sink with a quiver of loneliness over the strange chill of lifelessness there in spite of the rosy drop-light, the fluttering curtains, and the drifting breath of flowers. It was a large room with many easy chairs in it—and they were all empty. Even when Miss Thorne was there it seemed lonesome, perhaps because she was such a slender little woman and so icily quiet.
Berta chose one of the empty chairs and read the letter. Then she let the sheets fall loose in her lap and sat there without moving while the minutes went creeping by and the transparent curtains rippled now and then in the evening breeze. Through the window she could see a great star hanging above the peak of a shadowy evergreen that stirred softly to and fro against the fading sky. Once the twilight call of a distant robin sounded its long-drawn plaintive music, and Berta felt her lip tremble. She raised her hand half unconsciously to soothe the ache in her throat.
Miss Thorne glided in. “Good evening, Miss Abbott. May I add my congratulations, or am I right in concluding that you have taken refuge here from the persecutions of your friends? It is a great pleasure to me to know that you will have the opportunity to keep on with your studying this next year. You must allow me to say so much at least. And now, with regard to the essay——”
Berta watched the slight figure move noiselessly about in the act of making tea.
“I wished to call your attention particularly, Miss Abbott, to the qualities which strike me as most promising. A vast amount of futile effort is wasted every year by workers who have not yet recognized their special talents. There is continual friction between the round peg and the square hole, and vice versa. Now in your case, when you are ready to plan your course of study for your graduate work abroad——”
“Don’t!”
The tone was so sharp that Miss Thorne lifted her head quickly and shot a keen glance at the girl before her. The attractive facehad grown strained and the eyes were burning restlessly.
“What is it, Berta?” No student had ever heard her voice so soft before. “You are in trouble.”
Berta looked at her for a moment without replying. Then she picked up her letter, folded it carefully in its original creases, and fitted it into the envelope. “Yes,” she said at last, “I am in trouble. My sister-in-law has lost her income from a foolish investment, entirely her own fault, and she is utterly helpless. My parents have no money to spare. There is nobody else but me to support her and the three babies. She writes that a position in the high school will be vacant next year and I ought to apply at once.”
Miss Thorne sat silent. “And there is no other way?” she asked after what seemed a long, long time.
“None,” answered Berta.
“You will give up the fellowship, your hopes of doing exceptional work? You will sacrifice all your ambition and take up the drudgery of teaching in an uncongenial sphere for the rest of your life?”
“Well, I can’t let the babies go to an orphan asylum, can I?” demanded the girl brusquely to conceal the pain, “there is no one else, I tell you.”
The woman rose and put both arms around the girl. “Berta, dear,” she said, “you are right. Once I hesitated at the point where you are now. I had to choose between the demands of home and the invitation of ambition. I let the home-ties snap, and—here is my empty room. Now there is nobody that cares.”
Berta glanced around again with a little shiver. “There isn’t any question about it for me,” she said, “I’ve got to take care of the babies. And”—she straightened her shoulders suddenly as if throwing off a weight, “it won’t be so hard when I get used to the idea, because, you see, I—love them.”
Faithful Robbie Belle had found out her refuge somehow and was waiting in the corridor. With that comforting arm across her shoulders, Berta poured out the story of her sudden disappointment.
At first Robbie was silent. Then she spoke gently: “But, Berta, you have had the fouryears at college, you know, and four years are a good deal. There are thousands and thousands of girls who never have even that.”
“I know,” answered Berta, her voice smothered against the convenient shoulder. “And that thought helps—at least, I think it will help to-morrow.”
Robbie’s strong, warm hand sought and clasped Berta’s nervous fingers. “All right,” she acquiesced cheerily. “Now who do you suppose wrote that epilogue in last year’s Annual?
“‘We go to meet the future, strong of soul,
In sunlight or in shadow, holding fast
The inviolable gift the years enroll;
The Past is ours; nothing can change the Past.’”