Part 12 (1/2)
”Where are my things?” asked Gertrude with natural curiosity and perhaps unnatural calm.
”Here,” jerking the laundry bag, ”it holds a lot--brushes, soap, nightgown, toothpowder, fountain-pen, note-book, everything. Berta carried your mending basket. You needn't bother one bit.”
”I'll run back and forth for anything you want,” volunteered Berta hastily at sight of an irritable frown on the usually serene brow of handsome Gertrude.
”You're cross!” commented Bea with a cheerful vivacity that was exasperating to the highest degree, considering that everybody ought to be worn down to an un.o.btrusive state of limp inertia after the three busy months just concluded, ”you've been cross ever since Sara----”
”Berta, lend me your gossamer and rubbers, please,” when Gertrude was unreasonably provoked she had a habit of snapping out her words even more clear-cut than usual. An instant later she swept forth into the rain only to stop short and hurry in again before the door had swung shut. ”We might as well look at the study first,” she said in a more gracious tone, ”and we can draw lots to see who is to have the inside bedroom. I dare say the change to this building will be a rest.”
Berta took quick survey from the window to explore the cause for this amazing wavering of purpose.
”Ah!” she murmured in swift enlightenment, ”it's Sara. She's coming over the path.”
A peculiar expression flitted across Bea's ingenuous face--an expression half quizzical, half sorry. ”Then we'd better follow Gertrude's example, and clear the track. She'll cut us dead again--that meek little mouse of a girl! And I don't blame her for it either, so there!”
Berta tucked a pensive skip in between steps as they moved through the gloomy corridor past rain-beaten windows. ”It wasn't like Gertrude to burst out like that just because Sara came late to our domestic evening, but it did spoil the fudges and the game and everything.”
”And not to give her a chance to explain!” fumed Bea's temper always ready to flame over any injustice. ”Before she could open her lips, Gertrude blazed up, cold as an icicle----”
”What?” interpolated demure Berta with her most deeply shocked accent, ”an icicle blaze?”
”Oh, hush, you're the most disagreeable person! I wish Lila hadn't gone home. Well, she did just that. She said the artistic temperament was no excuse for discourteous falsehood--or she almost the same as said it--meaning breaking your word, you know, for Sara had promised she would come at eight, and there it was quarter to nine. She said that it might be wiser next time to invite somebody more reliable about keeping engagements. Sara did not answer a word--only went white as a sheet and walked out of the room. Now she even cuts us--because we were there--stares right over our heads when we meet her anywhere.”
”I'm sure Gertrude was sorry the minute she had spoken. And she's been working awfully hard over committees and the maids' cla.s.ses and the last play. She was tired and nervous up to the brim, and then to wait and wait and wait for Sara. Why, I was getting cross myself.”
”Well, why doesn't she beg Sara's pardon then, and make it all right?”
demanded the young judge severely. ”Sara has always simply wors.h.i.+ped her, but because she never has made mistakes nor learned how to apologize, and everybody admires her and flatters her, she is too proud to say she was wrong. It's plain vanity--that's what it is. She can't bear to make herself do it.”
”She's unhappy,--that's what I think, though she sort of pretends she doesn't care.”
”She's cross as a bear--that's what I think,” snapped Bea, ”and Sarah has dark circles under her eyes. It's dreadful--those two girls who used to be inseparable! Quarrels are--are horrible!” The impetus of this conviction almost succeeded in hurling its proprietor against the water cooler at the bathroom door. ”Say, Berta, what if you and I should quarrel, with Robbie Belle and Lila one thousand miles away?”
”I'm too amiable,” responded Berta complacently, ”sugar is sweet----”
The tin cup dropped with a flurried rattle against the fudge pan. ”Oh!” a shriek of dismay, ”my dear young and giddy friend, we're all out of sugar. What if we should want to make anything to-night? Let's run back to the grocery by the kitchen this minute.”
Owing to this delay, Gertrude had been in the study for more than ten minutes, staring out at the trees writhing in the wind, when she was startled by the sound of a suffocated shriek, followed by a scamper of four thick-soled shoes, the heels smiting the corridor floor with disgracefully mannish force. The door flew inward vehemently, and Bea shot clear across the room to collapse in the farthest corner, hiding her face in the fudge pan while her shoulders quivered and heaved terrifyingly. Berta walked in behind her, and after one reproachful look, sat down carefully in a rocker and brushed her scarlet face before beginning to giggle helplessly.
”You're the meanest person! Beatrice Leigh, you knew I was turning into the wrong alleyway, but you never said a word. You wanted to see me disgraced. The door opened like magic, and there she stood as if she had slid through the keyhole. She stood there plastered against the wall and--and--regarded us----”
”Oh!” moaned Bea in ecstasy, one fiery ear and half a cheek emerging from the kindly shelter of the fudge pan, ”she glared. She wondered why those two idiotic individuals were stalking toward her without a word or knock or smile, when suddenly the hinder one exploded and vanished, while the other ignominiously--stark, mute, inglorious--fled, ran, withdrew--so to speak----”
”Why didn't you say something?” groaned Berta. ”I simply lost my wits from the surprise. She was the very last person I expected to see anywhere around here. How in the world did she happen to borrow the next room to ours? She'll think we were making fun of her--that we did it on purpose. She's awfully sensitive anyhow!”
”Well, you two are silly!” commented Gertrude, her face again toward the driving storm. ”Who was it? Not a senior, I hope, or a faculty?”
Bea straightened herself abruptly, the laughter driven sternly out of every muscle except one little twitching dimple at the corner of her mouth. ”It was Sara,” she exclaimed, ”and she is pale as a ghost. She has never been so strong since waking up on that boat and finding a burglar trying to steal the ring off her finger during the holidays. You know how she jumps at every sudden noise, and she's been getting thinner and thinner, and I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself clear down to the ground.” Here the dimple vanished in earnest. ”I know I'm ashamed of myself, and so's Berta. Even her lips were white. Now we've hurt her feelings worse. I didn't think. Nice big splendid excuse for a soph.o.m.ore, isn't it?”
”There's the gong for luncheon,” was Gertrude's only reply as she moved toward the door.
Bea's flare of denunciation had subsided quickly in her characteristic manner. She sat absently nibbling the handle of the obliging pan, while staring after the receding figure, its girlish slenderness stiffened as if to warn away all friendliness. ”She's stubborner than ever. I say, Berta, let's reconcile them.”