Part 1 (1/2)
Beatrice Leigh at College.
by Julia Augusta Schwartz.
CHAPTER I
BEA'S ROOMMATE
Lila Allan went to college in the hope of finding an intimate friend at last. Her mother at home waited anxiously for her earliest letters, and devoured them in eager haste to discover some hint of success in the search; for being a wise woman she knew her own daughter, and understood the difficulty as well as the necessity of the case.
The first letter was written on the day of arrival. It contained a frantic appeal for enough money to buy her ticket home immediately, because she had a lonesome room away up in the north tower, and n.o.body had spoken to her all the afternoon, and her trunk had not come yet, and she did not know where the dining-room was, and the corridors were full of packing-boxes with lids scattered around, and girls were hurrying to and fro with step-ladders and kissing each other and running to hug each other, and everything.
The second letter, written the following day, said that a freshman named Beatrice Leigh had come up to help her unpack. Beatrice had a long braid too, and her hair was the loveliest auburn and curled around her face, and she laughed a good deal. Lila had noticed her the very first evening.
She was sitting at one of the tables in the middle of the big dining-room. When Lila saw her, she was giggling with her head bent down and her napkin over her eyes, while the other girls at that table smiled amused smiles. Lila knew instantly that this poor freshman had done something dreadful, and she was sorry for her. Later that same evening in Miss Merriam's room she told how she had marched in to dinner alone and plumped down at that table among all those seniors. She seemed to consider it a joke, but Lila was sure she had been almost mortified to death when she learned of her mistake, and that was why she had laughed so hard. Several other freshmen were at Miss Merriam's. Two of them were named Roberta, and one was named Gertrude something. But Lila liked Beatrice best. Miss Merriam called her Bea. Miss Merriam was a junior who had invited in all the students at that end of the corridor to drink chocolate. Lila did not care for her much, because she had a loud voice and tipped back in her chair and said yep for yes.
The third missive was only a postal card bearing a properly telegraphic communication to the effect that it was Sat.u.r.day morning, and Bea was waiting to escort her to the chapel to hear read the lists of freshman names a.s.signed to each recitation section. Mrs. Allan scanned the message with a quick throb of pleasure; then sighed as she laid it down. The indications were hopeful enough if only Lila would be careful not to drive away this friend as she had the others.
Meanwhile on that Sat.u.r.day morning Bea and Lila, silent and shy, had crowded with their two hundred cla.s.smates into chapel. The two friends sat side by side. Lila was in terror of making some horrible blunder that might overwhelm her with a vast indefinite disgrace. She leaned forward in the pew, the pencil trembling between her fingers, the blood pounding in her ears, while from the platform in front a cool voice read on evenly through page after page of names. And then at last the tragic despair of finding that she had jotted down herself for two sections in English and none in Latin! When she managed to gasp out the awful situation in Bea's ear, that young person looked worried for full half a minute. It was a very serious thing to be a freshman. Then her cheery common sense came to the rescue.
”Never mind. We'll go up and look the lists over after she has finished them all.”
”Oh, can we? Will you truly go with me?” Lila drew a quick breath of relief and grat.i.tude. This was one of the precious privileges of having found a friend. She gazed at Bea with such an adorable half-wistful, half-joyful smile on her delicate face that Bea never quite forgot the sensation of realizing that it was meant wholly for her. The memory of it returned again and again in later days when Lila's exacting ways seemed beyond endurance. For Lila's nature was one of those that give all and demand all and suffer in a myriad mysterious ways.
On the afternoon of that Sat.u.r.day when Bea skipped up the narrow tower stairs to invite Lila to go to the orchard to gather a sc.r.a.pbasket full of apples, she discovered the door locked. In answer to her lively rat-tattoo and gay call over the transom, she heard the key turn.
Bea started to dash in; then after one glance stopped and fumbled uneasily with the k.n.o.b. In her happy-go-lucky childhood with many brothers and sisters at home, tears had always an embarra.s.sing effect.
”Let's--let's go to the orchard,” she stammered. ”It's lovely, and the fresh air will help your--your headache.” She had a boyish notion that anybody would prefer to excuse heavy eyes by calling it headache rather than tears.
Lila pointed to the bed which was half made up.
”Why didn't you tell me?” she demanded in agonized reproach. ”I thought the maids attended to the beds here. I left the mattress turned over the foot all day long, and the door was wide open. Everybody in the neighborhood must have looked in and then decided that I was lazy and s.h.i.+ftless. They believe that I have been brought up to let things go undone like that. They do, they do! Miss Merriam just the same as said so. She poked in her head a minute ago and said, 'Heigho, little one, time to make up your bed. It has aired long enough and the maid is not expected to do it.' She said that to me! Oh, I hate her!” Lila caught her breath hard.
Bea opened her candid eyes wider in astonished curiosity. ”But didn't you want to know about the maid?”
”She mortified me. Do you know how it feels to be mortified? The--the awfulness--” Lila stopped and swallowed once or twice as if something stuck in her throat. ”She might have told me in a different manner so as not to wound me so heartlessly. She isn't a lady.”
”Please.” Bea twirled the door-k.n.o.b in worried protest. ”Don't talk that way. She is my friend. We live in the same town. She's nice, really.
You've only seen the outside. Please!”
”Oh, well!” Lila raised her shoulders slightly. ”She isn't worth noticing, I dare say. Such people never are. I can't help wis.h.i.+ng that you were not acquainted with her. I want you all to myself. I'm glad she belongs to another cla.s.s anyhow.”
Into Bea's puzzled face crept a troubled expression. ”You're a funny girl, Lila,” she said; ”let's go to the orchard.”
On their way across the campus, they pa.s.sed countless girls hurrying from building to building. Every doorway seemed to blossom with a chattering group, a loitering pair, or an energetic single lady on pressing business bent. Bea met every glance with a look of bright friendliness in her eager eyes and lips ready to smile, no matter whether she had ever been introduced or not. But Lila's wild-flower face, in spite of its lovely tints and outlines, seemed almost icy in its expression of haughty criticism. No wonder, then, that this miniature world of college reflected a different countenance to each.
”Aren't they the dearest, sweetest girls you ever saw!” exclaimed Bea as the two freshmen turned from the curving concrete walk into the road that led to the orchard.
”I saw only one who was truly beautiful,” commented her companion. ”I expected to find them prettier.”
”Oh, but they are so interesting,” protested Bea in quick loyalty.