LESLIE AND LEILA
“Can you blame me?” Leslie had finally managed to make herself heard
above the gale of laughter that had attended her mishap. She still sat
on the floor, regarding her laughing companions with half sheepish
reproach.
“No-o,” Leila made mirthful answer. “Let us be assisting the new manager
to rise, Jeremiah, since we are the strongest of this crowd.”
“Thank you. I can assist myself.” Leslie sprang to her feet, resuming
her former seat on the davenport. “You certainly have handed me a jolt,
Leila Harper. It’s the last thing I ever thought of.”
“Then let it be the first now.” There was a vibration of earnestness in
Leila’s reply. “Summed up in three little words: ‘I need you.’ There’s
no other girl on the campus so well-fitted as you for the job. You’re a
good business person, Leslie. Better still, you’re thoroughly
cosmopolitan.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Flushing at the praise, Leslie shook her head.
“It’s my self-assured manner that gives me the impression of knowing a
whole lot more than I really do,” she explained frankly.
“Rubbish!” came energetically from Vera. “You are what you are, Leslie
Cairns—clever as—as,” she groped mentally for a fitting comparison,—“as
Leila.”
“Listen to that.” Leila made Vera a killingly appreciative bow.
“Nothing like it. I wish I were,” Leslie said regretfully.
“Let us have a contest, so that we may learn whether you are more clever
than I, or, I than you,” Leila proposed blandly. “If you will have pity
on a distracted Irish playwright, and help her out, then we shall both
be in a fair way to out-do each other in cleverness.”
Leila had scented refusal of the honor she wished to do Leslie in the
latter’s undecided manner. She now proposed to give her no chance to
refuse. “We shall have fine times consulting together since we shall be
near each other at Wayland Hall,” she smoothly pointed out.
“I’d love to manage the Playhouse, and I know Peter the Great would be
delighted to have me do it, except for one thing.” Leslie spoke in her
direct way. “There’d surely be ill-natured criticisms raised about it.
Suppose it was said that Peter hadn’t been disinterested in giving the
Playhouse to Hamilton College; that he had given it with the idea of
making me foremost, and important, in campus affairs. Probably more
spiteful remarks than that might be circulated.”
She stopped, staring half moodily at Leila. “‘The way of the
transgressor is hard.’” She gave a short mirthless laugh. “Those first
three years of mine on the campus were a mess. I behaved like a villain.
Now it’s up to me to stand the gaff.”
“No, Leslie, it isn’t.” Marjorie cut in decidedly. “You have more than
retrieved whatever mistakes you made during your first three years at
Hamilton by what you did last year. Leila needs you this year. You would
be an ideal manager for the Playhouse. Don’t allow anything else to
matter. Depend upon it, Leila has already thought up some nice way of
arrangement for you. I can see it in that beaming smile of hers.”
“I have fine arrangements for all occasions.” Leila was now grinning
broadly. “When college opens I shall write an article for the ‘Campus
Echo,’” she continued. “In it I shall outline the policy of the
Playhouse, and give a resumé of what I intend to do in the way of plays
during the college year. I shall also state that I have asked Leslie to
assume the managership of the theatre, because of her extreme
capability. Then let anyone start anything, and watch Irish Leila take
the field, five feet at a bound, shillalah in hand.”
“Give us an imitation now of that five-foot bound,” coaxed Jerry.
“Not until I have first practiced it in private,” Leila declared with
canny firmness. “And I suppose all is now settled, as amiably as you
please, and the Playhouse has a new manager.” She turned ingratiatingly
to Leslie, who could not help smiling, despite her doubts.
“I don’t know.” Leslie still demurred. “I——” she glanced about her at
the little group of friendly, interested faces. She understood that her
friends were hoping she might say “yes.” “I guess—so,” she said
uncertainly. “Yes, I’ll accept the honor, mostly, though, to please you
girls, and—Peter the Great.”
“Hurrah, hurray, hurroo!” Leila sent up a jubilant little cheer. “The
world shall yet hear of us. Cairns and Harper, the greatest living
promoters of high-class campus drama. That is what people will presently
be saying about us.”
“Nothing succeeds like nerve,” Jerry declared.
“And it is experience that teaches the truth of that fine sentiment,”
Leila came back with an innocent air that raised a general laugh at
Jerry’s expense.
“I am a most thoughtless and inhospitable hostess!” Marjorie exclaimed
as the wave of laughter subsided. “I should have told Delia to make
ready a feast, and then——”
“_Delia!_” came in a concerted, delighted shriek from Leila and Vera.
“Of course. How could the Deans and the Macys ever get along without
Delia? She’s our own, heart and soul.”
“Lead us to her,” begged Leila. “We’re not famished, Beauty. We bumped
into Leslie on the train, and the three of us had luncheon together. Ah,
but there was a happy pow-wow when we met, subdued and ladylike you may
be sure. So it is not Delia’s delectable eats, but delectable Delia
herself we are bent upon seeing.”
“Come along then.” Marjorie waved them kitchenward.
The visiting party burst into the kitchen upon Delia who sat placidly in
her kitchen rocker shelling peas and humming to herself.
“I knew you’d be askin’ right away for me, Miss Leila.” Delia sprang up,
hastily dumping a lapful of pea shells into a nearby splint basket. She
came forward to meet Leila, her face bright with beaming confidence. “I
saw you from the kitchen garden when the taxi stopped on the drive. I
just thought then how surprised Miss, I mean, Mrs. Macy must be to see
you.” Delia giggled at her own slip of title. “I can’t remember to call
Miss Marjorie by her married name,” she confessed.
“I’m not quite used myself to my new name,” was Marjorie’s laughing
comment. “Once in a while Jerry calls me Mrs. Macy, but not with proper
respect. I’m very fond of my Bean name.” She dimpled at Leslie whose
answering smile was a mixture of amusement and confusion.
“The tea is ready now, Mrs. Macy. Everything’s on the tea wagon in the
pantry. I thought you girls would need a little bit to eat until dinner.
I was just goin’ to wheel the lunch into the livin’ room when you come
out here. I feel so glad to think you come to see me,” Delia looked her
pleased pride of the invasion.
“It’s here we shall take our tea, in honor of you,” Leila said. “I am
the one to pour it, and we shall all wait on you.”
“Fine.” Jerry dashed for the pantry, to return trundling the tea wagon.
Vera was already bowing Delia back into her rocker. “Stay seated most
magnificent and highly-esteemed Delia,” she directed grandly.
“Te, he, he,” Delia chuckled at the flowery encomium.
“Oh, Delia! I forgot you’d never before met Leslie. This is Leslie
Cairns, Delia. Leslie shake hands with Delia.” Marjorie gaily performed
the introduction. “Leslie is going to be our neighbor at Carden Hedge,
at Christmas, Delia. Won’t that be fine?”
“It will,” Delia nodded, all smiles. “The more of Miss Marjorie’s
friends that come to live near her, the better it is for her. I’m glad
to know you, Miss Leslie.”
Leslie shook hands warmly with Delia, pleased by the maid’s friendly
sincerity. She could not help mentally contrasting her present
democratic attitude with that of her former snobbish contempt for
persons in humbler circumstances than herself. “Cairns II, you’re
improving,” was her whimsical thought. “There’s a lot of room yet for
improvement, though, so don’t get chesty.”
The tea party proved to be a hilariously happy event, with Delia the
guest of honor, despite her half-abashed, good-natured expostulations.
“I’m going to tear you all away from Delia now,” Marjorie finally made
firm announcement. “I’m going to see you safely to your own little
corners of Travelers’ Rest. Then I must come back to the kitchen and
help Delia, or you won’t have any dinner tonight.” She shot Delia a
mischievous glance.
“Oh, now, Miss Marjorie——” Delia began. “Jus’s though I couldn’t get
along without Alice. It’s Alice’s day out,” she explained to the newly
arrived guests, referring to the absent maid.
“Jerry can keep on playing porter. Only, I’ll be kind to you, and help
you with the girls’ luggage, Jeremiah.”
“I’m the one to be helpin’ with the luggage,” Delia insisted.
“Be aisy.” Leila lapsed purposely into brogue. “It’s ourselves’ll be
after luggin’ our own luggage up the stairs.”
They were soon ascending the broad open staircase at the back of the
reception hall, their happy voices blending in cheerful harmony.
Having triumphantly established Leslie in her room, the rest of the gay
party went on to the room which Leila and Vera were to occupy together.
“Close the door, Beauty; and close it softly,” Leila drew a long breath
of sheer contentment as the four chums, who had stood shoulder to
shoulder, through both adversity and joy, at Hamilton, were once more
alone together. “Not that I love Leslie less, but Beauty and Jeremiah
more,” she added in light explanation. “Try as I may, I am not yet
altogether used to Leslie Cairns as one of us. I’m glad she is, but
there’s still an odd strangeness about it. Who could possibly have
guessed when we waged war against the San Soucians, for democracy’s
sake, that we should one day capture and tame their ringleader?”
“I get you. I feel about the same as you sometimes in regard to Leslie,”
Jerry said quickly. “How about you, Vera?”
“I like her immensely,” Vera responded with a little emphatic nod. “I
believe she has tried, harder than any other student who has ever
enrolled at Hamilton, to conquer her faults. Leila feels the same, only
she’s handicapped by a certain sardonic sense of humor.”
“It is the truth,” Leila affirmed solemnly, then she began to smile. “I
look at her as she is now, and for the life of me I cannot help
remembering the dance she led us for three years about the campus. And
it is at her amazing reform that I am ignoble enough, at times, to grin.
Only, I shall have a care to grin over it strictly in private,” she
finished, her broad, humorous smile still in mischievous evidence.
“Just the same it is splendid in you to wish Leslie to be manager of the
Playhouse.” Marjorie spoke with admiring warmth. “Think what it will
mean to her, girls.” She turned to Jerry and Vera. “Her father will be
so proud of her.”
“And think of the hard work it will save me,” Leila adroitly shunted off
Marjorie’s compliment.
“Don’t try to slide out of your good deeds, Leila Greatheart. You’re the
same slippery person, when it comes to that, you always were.” Marjorie
made one of her funny little-girl rushes at Leila, arms widespread. She
caught Leila about the neck and gave her a bear hug.
“Now I thought I had changed for the better.” Leila cocked her head to
one side, looking down at Marjorie with her own particular quizzical
air. “But you, Beauty, I see little sign in you of the sedate dignity of
a Mrs. with a newly-acquired husband, and a manor house.”
“Bean is Bean,” Jerry cut in, “so much the same old Beanie that I was
inspired to chant a jingle to her this afternoon.”
“Where then is the jingle?” Leila held out a demanding hand for a copy
of it.
“Now you know perfectly well I never set down my works of genius. Apply
to Marjorie for it. She got it before we both for-got it.”
“I saved it for you, Leila,” Marjorie assured.
“Uh-h-h.” Leila received the assurance with a gratified gurgle.
“Oh, girls, it’s so satisfying to see you both again, and the four of us
have such a lot to talk about,” Marjorie said with a happy little intake
of breath, “but,” she paused, her eyes unconsciously roving in the
direction of Leslie’s room. “It’s a case of ‘Remember the stranger
within thy gates.’” She went on brightly. “We’ve plenty of time before
dinner for one of our famous confabs, but it’s apt to be more or less
noisy. If Leslie should hear us laughing and talking, it might make her
feel—well, rather out of things here. She’s grown as sensitive as she
used to be hard since she found herself. We must make it our special
pleasure to show her we like to have her with us.”
“The confab is hereby postponed, but it will keep.” Leila nodded
understandingly.
“We were going to shoo you two out of here, anyway,” Vera mercilessly
announced. “If you were to continue to hang around in here until we
unpacked our bags you might see”—she put on a mysterious air,—“well,
something that you’re not to see, until later.”
Before Marjorie could reply in kind the loud honk, honk of a motor horn
came up to the four friends from the drive.
“Oh, that’s Hal. He’s home earlier than I had expected. I won’t wait to
be shooed out of here.” The color had deepened charmingly in Marjorie’s
pink cheeks. A warm tender light had leaped into her brown eyes. “Pardon
me, children. I’ll see you again in a little while.” She was at the door
as she spoke.
An insistent repetition of the call sent her scurrying down the stairs
and on to a side door of the house that opened upon the drive.
“Come here, girls, if you want to see—er—well—my ideal of perfect love.”
Jerry had crossed the room to one of the windows, which looked down upon
the drive, and was beckoning to Leila and Vera.
Peering down, the three girls were just in time to see the meeting
between the two who had once so nearly drifted apart forever, but had at
the last found love in all its tender glory.
Marjorie had run down the steps of the veranda in the same instant in
which Hal had sprung from the driver’s seat of the roadster. They met
midway on the walk, catching hold of hands, and laughing like two
children. No embrace passed between them, other than the cling of hands,
but there was a light upon both young faces that told its own story.
“You know whereof you speak, Jeremiah.” It was Leila who lifted the
brief silence that had fallen upon the three unseen watchers at the
window after Hal had taken Marjorie by an arm and piloted her fondly up
the steps and into the house. “There is an old Irish saying,” she
continued: “‘Love is like a four-leaved shamrock, hard to find, but of
great good luck to the finder.’ And it’s easy to point out the two lucky
finders.”
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