GOLDENDEDE’S CHOICE
That which Jewel had so greatly feared proved itself to be instead the
beginning of her rise in campus popularity. Her tearful apologies to
Leslie the latter met with a smiling “Forget it.” Deciding to do some
investigating on her own account, Leslie took occasion to drop into the
“Gazette” one afternoon for an interview with the editor. She came out
of the office laughing immoderately and drove post haste for Wayland
Hall.
“Do you know yet who furnished the paper with that program and
write-up?” she asked Jewel as she came breezily into their room.
“No; you know I don’t. Of course I suspect Miss Norris of it, and of
course I can’t prove it.” Jewel could now afford to smile at the matter.
She was tasting the sweetness of being valued at last for having
achieved for herself an international fame as Le Petit Oiseau.
“Do you care now who did it?” Leslie questioned shrewdly.
“No; not now, except to be glad that I’ve no tiresome secret to bother
me.”
“All right. Then I’ll tell you who did it. It was Leila Harper.”
“_Oh, no_,” Jewel cried out in protest.
“Yes.” Leslie’s sober features broke up in laughter. “Oh, Kid, you must
let me tell it to Leila. She’s due to get a shock. That spite-chaser,
Miss Norris, gave the editor of the ‘Gazette’ the impression that she
was Miss Harper. I nearly dropped when he shot it at me. Then I
guilefully drew him into giving me a description of Miss Harper, and he
described Miss Norris instead.”
“Go and tell her,” Jewel gave laughing permission. “Tell her
_everything_.”
“Now would not that discourage even an Irish playwright?” was Leila’s
droll reception of the news of her supposed perfidy. “I am no villain,
but it seems I swank as one in editors’ offices. I shall warn Vera
against myself. Even now I may be conniving against her, and that
without even poor Midget suspecting me. Oh, wurra, wurra!”
Leslie presently left Leila, her face bright with recollection of the
Irish girl’s warm commendation. She had, partly by chance, partly by
determined resolve, managed to strike a telling blow for democracy. She
and Laura Taylor had also made a pact toward reclaiming Stephanie Norris
from the narrowness of her snobbish ways. On returning to her room on
the night of the frustrated attempt at hazing, Stephanie had sat down
and cried, saying she was not sorry the plan had failed, and blaming
Mildred Ferguson for proposing it in the beginning. Toward Laura she had
even exhibited an oddly grudging respect.
While Leslie trod the trail of democracy, Marjorie continued to help
Miss Susanna hunt for the secret drawer. Miss Hamilton had received but
one brief letter from Peter Cairns in which he wrote that he had, as
yet, nothing of special importance to report in regard to Lawyer Norris.
“Why, oh, why, can’t that miserable secret drawer open like magic, and
show itself?” grumbled Miss Susanna one November afternoon following a
fresh going over of the Chinese room. “I shan’t waste any more time in
this room. I don’t believe he ever put those papers in here. Did he?”
she inquired of a squat, severe-visaged Chinese idol that stood on top
of a teakwood cabinet. “_You_ wouldn’t tell me, if you could speak.” She
pointed an accusing finger at the squatting god.
“Could it possibly be anywhere in Mr. Brooke’s bedroom?” Marjorie said
speculatively. “We’ve never hunted much for it in there.”
“Let’s go up there and see what we may see. It wouldn’t have been like
him, though, to keep his papers there,” the old lady said a trifle
wearily.
“Leila said we’d some day find it in the last place we might guess,”
Marjorie reminded cheerfully. She understood that Miss Hamilton’s
disappointment at not having found the drawer was weighing heavily upon
her.
The large square, airy chamber that had once been Brooke Hamilton’s
contained few pieces of furniture. A four-poster mahogany bed, a
highboy, a chest of drawers, one or two tables, three chairs and a night
stand beside the bed completed the furnishings with the exception of one
other bit of furniture. It was a plain, square-topped stand of shining
mahogany that stood in a large bow window. Marjorie knew it to be Angela
Vernon’s workstand. Miss Susanna had told her its pathetic history.
Angela’s brother had given it to Brooke Hamilton as a memento of his
fiancee soon after Angela’s sudden death. It contained bright silks and
wools which she had loved to fashion into gifts for her dear ones, as
well as an unfinished bit of embroidery and still another of fairy-like
tatting.
Marjorie had once before begun a gentle search in the body of the stand,
the top of which lifted. Miss Susanna had discouraged further search by
declaring that there was no likelihood of finding it there. Entering the
room of the departed master of Hamilton Arms that sunny afternoon the
slowly descending sunlight in the west seemed to point golden fingers at
the little stand.
“I’m going to look in the little stand again, Goldendede,” she called
while Miss Susanna began a fussy ransacking of the highboy.
“Very well, but it’s a forlorn hope.”
Marjorie smiled to herself as she raised the lid of the stand and
applied careful hands to the old-time handiwork of Brooke Hamilton’s
sweetheart. Bereft of its treasures the two bare compartments of the
stand showed no promise of either a secret compartment, or drawer.
She returned the contents with a little romantic breath. It would be
fitting, she thought, to have found the drawer in the dear, cunning
stand, once Angela Vernon’s.
“Nothing.” She shook her curly head as Miss Susanna glanced inquiringly
toward her.
“No; it’s not much more than a toy stand, Marjorie. Would you mind
moving it over here. It used always to be in the corner on the left of
Uncle Brooke’s bed.”
“It’s heavier than one might believe,” Marjorie said as she grasped it
firmly by the two front comers and lifted it. Of a sudden she heard an
odd, whirring sound, something shot out of the stand, striking her
smartly against the knees, sending her staggering backward. She uttered
a startled cry as her downward glance caught the white of neatly-folded
papers reposing in orderly fashion in a shallow drawer that had sprung
open from the lower part of the box-like square which formed the
compartments.
“Child, child,” Miss Susanna had now dropped to the floor and sat
hugging the paper-filled little drawer. “There was a false bottom to
that stand, and I never even suspected it. It belonged to Angela
Vernon’s great-grand-mother. Those were the palmy days of such secret
devices. How ever did you happen to hit upon the mechanism?”
“I don’t know. I might ask however did the mechanism happen to hit me?”
Marjorie returned, face glowing with the happiness of the unexpected
discovery.
“We’ll take the drawer to the study at once and go over these papers.
Come along, Chickie.” Miss Susanna started from the room with a degree
of triumphant briskness.
“Just as I imagined,” she said an hour later as she laid the penned
agreement made between her kinsman and Lawyer Norris upon the table.
“This agreement distinctly specifies that, in the event of Uncle
Brooke’s death, I was then to be apprised of this agreement and, also,
that the privilege of choosing ‘the one’ was to be mine after I had
reached the age of eighteen. Norris was to receive two thousand dollars
a year for his services. The fifty thousand dollar check was deposited
in the Surety Trust Bank of New York City. Now we shall make headway. I
shall write Peter to come here at once. With the actual facts now at our
command we shall be able to trace Norris’s movements, and learn what
became of him and his trust after Uncle died.”
“Dear, dear Goldendede,” Marjorie rubbed a soft cheek against the old
lady’s wrinkled one, “I’d rather not be the one. Please choose Leila
instead. She’s done such splendid work for Hamilton.”
“It can’t be done, Marjorie.” The shadow of a frown touched Miss
Hamilton’s brows. “You are the ‘one’ in the sense Uncle Brooke dreamed
of; Leila is a splendid girl; a genius. Still she came to Hamilton a
whole year before you came, accomplishing nothing beyond success in her
college studies. Suppose I were to choose her as the ‘one’ I should meet
with plenty of dissenters. Suppose I should name you. I shall, you know.
No use in trying to escape me. The whole college would rise up and call
me level-headed. You understand now what I mean?”
“Yes; but there’s my side, too, to consider. You must understand the way
I feel about it,” Marjorie gently argued.
“You’ve often said you wished to try to carry on even a small part of
Uncle Brooke’s work at Hamilton. Because you have been a devoted friend
to his college you are chosen to enrich it by fifty thousand dollars.
Isn’t that worth the great discomfort of having been chosen by me as the
‘One’?” There was a hint of growing irritation in the old lady’s
question. She resented being crossed in so important a matter even by
Marjorie.
“It’s not a great discomfort—only—. It’s not the glory of having worked
for Hamilton that I care about. It’s the work itself I glory in. I wish
to carry on Mr. Brooke’s work still, whenever I can. Couldn’t we have a
very private presentation, Goldendede, with only you and Prexy, and the
girls and a few other of my close friends in attendance?” she put
wistfully.
“No; we couldn’t.” Miss Susanna laid the paper she had been examining on
the table with an irritated little flip. “We may not have it at all,”
she snapped as she hustled toward the door.
Marjorie heard the door close behind the old lady. She looked up with a
brave, but rueful face at the portrait on the wall. “I’m sorry, but I
don’t wish to be the one; not even a tiny bit,” she said childishly
aloud.
“I had to come back, dear child,” Miss Susanna had softly opened the
door in time to hear Marjorie’s sober comment. “Forgive this old
crosspatch. Here is the letter he wrote Lawyer Norris that has shown me
strongly how much his heart was in the idea of the Honor Fund, and the
One. Read it.”
Silence settled down in the sun-bright study as youth and age sat
reading the words of one long passed. Finally Marjorie laid down the
bulky letter she had just finished. “You win,” she nodded to the
portrait.
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