Part 3 (1/2)
Looks like a dig as well as a prig, n'est-ce-pas?”
Berta's eager dark face grew sober under the swathing folds of her pillow-case. ”Maybe it isn't her fault,” she said.
But Robbie Belle unaware of this precious drop of sympathy plodded through an essay on Intellect, wrote out a laborious a.n.a.lysis, and at the stroke of the nine-thirty gong crept reluctantly back to her room. The next morning she translated her Latin, committed a geometrical demonstration to a faithful memory, consumed a silent luncheon amid a dizzying cross-fire of psychological arguments, walked around the garden, through the pines and over the orchard hill for a scrupulously full hour of exercise, read her physiology notes, and composed one page of her weekly theme before dinner time. After dinner she stood in a corner of Parlor J and watched the dancing. Then she went to chapel with Miss Cutter, returned alone in haste to dress in the concealing sheet and pillow case. It was rather difficult to manage the drapery without aid, especially in the back and at the sides. The strange junior who had chosen Robbie's name from the cla.s.s list and undertaken to escort her to the party found awaiting her a rumpled young ghost with raiment that sagged and bagged quite distressingly in unexpected places. But the eyes that shone from between the crooked bands of white were joyous with excitement. In this disguise she was sure that no one would recognize her; and so of course they would not know that she was queer, and perhaps she would have fun at last.
And at first it really seemed as if she would. Imagine a big gymnasium with jack-o'-lanterns on the rafters and a blazing wood-fire in the wide fireplace, and five hundred figures in white circling and mingling among the shadows, and at least a thousand sticks of candy, and three big dish-pans full of peanuts, and gallons and gallons of red lemonade. When her escort proposed that they should go up-stairs to look in upon the seniors and soph.o.m.ores who were having a country dance, Robbie Belle moistened her lips and said, ”If you please, don't wait for me. I enjoy it so much here.” Then at the junior's formal, ”Oh, certainly, Miss Sanders!” she remembered that often people did not understand her unless she used a bothersome number of words. So she added hastily, ”I mean that you must go with your own friends and leave me here, because I am watching some girls I know, and I want to speak to them. Please don't trouble any more about me, thank you.”
”I do know them,” she a.s.sured herself as her escort disappeared, ”and I do want to speak to them even if they don't know me. I think”--she hesitated and turned quite pale at the prospect of such daring, ”I think I shall go and play with them. They will suppose I am one of them. n.o.body will know.”
At this point the file of impudent ghosts, headed by Berta, who looked unusually tall and still angular under her flowing sheet, paraded past Robbie Belle's corner, their elbows flapping like wings. With a gasp for courage she took one step forward and found herself prancing along at the end of the line.
It was such fun! Robbie Belle had shot up to an annoying stature so comparatively early in life that her romping days seemed to have broken short off in the middle. She had never had enough of tag and hide-and-seek and coasting. She hated long skirts. Indeed that was one reason why she longed to join the enviable circle of freshmen around Berta: they wore golf skirts all day long, except when hockey called for the gymnasium costume or bicycling demanded its appropriate array. The reason why she liked Miss Abbott best of course was because her name was Roberta, too.
On this Hallowe'en, in joyous faith in her disguise, she forgot her height and breadth and the dignity imposed thereby. And anyhow Berta Abbott was just as tall, if not of such stately proportions. So Robbie Belle with exulting zest in the frolic raced up-stairs and down with the mischievous band of freshmen. They skipped saucily around members of the faculty, chased appreciative juniors, frightened the smallest forms into scuttling flight, and gave their great performance of ”There was an old woman all skin and bones,” in the middle of the upper hall, where the seniors were entertaining the soph.o.m.ores.
It was fun to howl. It was so long since Robbie Belle had grown up that she had almost forgotten the joy of using her lungs to their full capacity. With her spirits dancing in the afterglow of such vocal exercise, she marched after the others down to the hall below. There in the vestibule Berta halted her followers for final instructions.
”Now, girls, fall into line according to height. We are going to astonish----Why!” She fixed two amazed dark eyes upon the tallest, ”who are you?”
Robbie Belle heard; she felt her heart shriveling within her; her shoulders seemed to shrink together; her head drooped. Then turning away slowly she moved toward the gymnasium apartment, a loose corner of her robe trailing at her abashed heels. But she did not escape swiftly enough to avoid catching the sound of hisses.
”Ha! an interloper!”
”Hist! ye false intruder!”
”Seize him! To the shambles!”
”To the guillotine! Ho, brothers! pursue!”
That made Robbie Belle flee so fast that she was able to take refuge behind Prexie himself while the vengeful furies withdrew to a respectful distance. That night when she was shaking her pillow back into its case Robbie noticed some damp spots amid its creases. A few minutes later she laid her head down on it and proceeded to create some more. There was only one comfort in the throng of scorching reflections: this was that it had not been Berta's voice that had called her an intruder. Perhaps Berta did not think she had done something so awfully wicked after all.
This faint hope infused more dreadful bitterness into the incident that happened in mathematics C on Monday. Anybody would have believed that Berta was offended past forgiveness. She sat next to Robbie. She was not very well prepared that morning, possibly in consequence of Sat.u.r.day's excitement. The instructor was more than usually curt and crisp with an unsmiling sternness that struck terror to palpitating freshman hearts. In the middle of the hour Berta became aware that a problem was traveling rapidly down the row toward her; and she had not been paying attention.
She had not even noticed the statement of it, for it had started at an apparently safe distance from her seat. Turning with a swift motion of the lips she asked Robbie Belle to tell her. And Robbie Belle--how she longed to tell it! It had almost leaped from her lips while conscience reasoned wildly against it as deceit. It would not be honest. And yet--and yet--the girls would think she was queer. They would say she was mean and priggish, for she might have told Berta as easily as not.
There! the third girl from Berta was trying to explain her own ignorance and failing brilliantly. Now the second was stammering through a transparent bluff. Berta had settled back, coolly resigned to fate. How she must suffer, after having stooped to ask for aid! Poor Robbie Belle!
Poor, lonely, disappointed Robbie Belle! For strange to say she flunked too and the question journeyed on triumphantly to the mathematical prodigy at the end of the row.
In the corridor outside Berta exerted her nimble self to overtake Miss Sanders, who was sidling away in a strikingly unprincesslike manner, her eyes s.h.i.+fting guiltily.
”So you didn't know the answer either? Wasn't that the biggest joke on me! And really, Miss Sanders, I beg your pardon for asking. It popped out before I could gather my wits. I am scared to death in that cla.s.s, though of course that is no excuse for sponging. I'm glad you didn't know it enough to tell me after all.”
Robbie Belle lifted the lashes from her flushed cheeks. ”I--I did know it,” she said with a gulp.
”Oh!” said Berta, and stared, ”how--how peculiar!”
Robbie Belle held back the tears till she had reached her room, seized her hat and s.n.a.t.c.hed her thickest veil. Then she fled to the loneliest walk among the pines. Her veil was a rarity that rendered her an object of curiosity to everybody she pa.s.sed on the way. But she hurried on, somewhat comforted by the conviction that no one could mark her reddened eyelids. In truth she had good need of comfort, for Berta Abbott herself had said that she was peculiar. And peculiar meant queer!
That evening Robbie sat down to study for the Latin test announced for the next day. Miss Cutter was studying, too, harder than ever. The green shade was pulled so fiercely forward that a fringe of hair stood up in a crown where the elastic had rumpled it. Her grammar, lexicon and text-book occupied most of the table, but Robbie did not complain. She could manage very well by laying her books, one on the open face of another, in her lap. For once she was grateful that an ENGAGED sign s.h.i.+elded them from interruptions, for Latin was her shakiest subject, especially the rules of indirect discourse. The instructor had warned the cla.s.s that this weak spot was to be the point of attack. If Robbie Belle should not succeed in drumming the rules into her head before the ideas in it began to spin around and around in their usual dizzy fas.h.i.+on when she waxed sleepy, she might just as well stay away from the recitation room. Or better perhaps, for in absence there was a possibility of both doubt and hope: hope on Robbie Belle's part that she might have been able to answer the questions if she had been there, on the teacher's part doubt concerning the exact extent of the pupil's knowledge.
At the end of the corridor just outside their door a narrow stairway led to the north tower rooms on the floor above. Beatrice Leigh and Lila Allan and a number of their liveliest friends lived up there on the fifth, with Berta Abbott at the foot of the stairs near Robbie's place of abode.