IN HONOR OF MARCELLE
"I think you ought to preside, Kit," Charity said as she arranged the tea
table more handily before the corner couch. "It's your party, and you
ought to pour."
"Takes too much concentration," Kit returned. "Anne'll help you. I want to
have my mind perfectly clear to manage the thing. You see, Marcelle
doesn't know a blessed thing about it yet, and there's no knowing how
she'll take it. Wouldn't it be funny if she got proud and haughty, and
marched away from our Founders' Tea?"
"I don't think you ought to spring it until after we've had refreshments.
Food has such a mellowing effect on human nature. It's all a question of
tact, though. If I were you, I'd talk to them in an intimate sort of way
instead of lingering too much on the historic value. Better straighten
Malcolm, over yonder; he looks kind of topply."
Kit regarded the framed steel engraving of Malcolm Douglas almost fondly.
It had been taken from a history of early Wisconsin, together with some
other founders fortunate enough to be included on the roll of honor, and
had hung down in the Dean's room. Now it occupied a prominent spot
specially cleared for it in the middle of the wall, and Kit had twined a
long, double tendril of southern smilax around it, culled from the local
florist's supply for any chance Delphi festivities.
Backed by Miss Daphne's approval and interest, Kit had called at several
homes where lived the descendants of other founders, and the results were
manifest. Mrs. Peter Bradbury had contributed two Indian blankets and a
hunting-bag, besides an old pair of saddle bags used by her father, one of
the early missionary bishops of the northwest, in his travels through the
wilderness. Two fine timber wolf pelts lay on the floor, and of these Kit
was specially proud. She had beguiled them from the treasure store of old
Madame Giron, whose husband could still tell with fiery eyes and thrilling
tone of how he had killed the animals not a quarter of a mile from the
site of Hope College, in the old settler days.
From the cabinet in the Dean's room had come mostly records, old documents
carefully framed, and several letters written by the founders themselves.
"You know," Kit said, as she gave a last touch to her exhibit, "of course
these are important, but I like the Indian and hunting things best. I wish
I could run away with that double pair of buffalo horns that belonged to
Dr. Gleason's granduncle or somebody. I like them better than anything."
A quick rap came on the door, and before Charity could even call "come in"
Peggy entered with her usual galaxy behind her, Amy, Norma, and a newcomer
from Iowa, Henrietta Jinks, whom the girls had instantly dubbed "the
Jinx," because of her infallible habit of everlastingly doing the
inopportune thing.
"If it wasn't that her father was a congressman, she'd never get by with
it," Amy had said, "but as it is, if you'll just remember that she's been
reared on rhetoric and torch-light parades, you can understand that little
abrupt way she has. I think it's rather interesting to be a 'Jinx,' it's
so different, and the boys only have mascots. This way, it shows we have a
fine, proud disregard for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Kit, my child, did you hear that? I'll be playing Ophelia before the New
Year dawns."
"Tony Conyers sent word she'd be ready in five minutes," said Norma. "I
think she's dressing up as something symbolical, and she's got a lot of
the girls in there with her. Charity, I think this is a perfectly
stupendous idea of yours."
"'Tisn't mine," retorted Charity, hurtling cushions handily from one couch
to another in order to balance the room. "It's Kit's. This is her party.
Her coming out party at Hope."
"Oh, are you the founder's granddaughter?" Amy inquired, her blue eyes
opening widely.
"No, precious, I'm not," replied Kit, happily. "I wish this minute I could
mount yon rostrum, Mid declaim the feats of my ancestors. They were
pathfinders and Cavaliers, but I don't know of a single blessed founder
among them. Peggy, don't sit on the almonds. They're right behind you in
that glass dish."
The room filled up rapidly with members of the freshman class, and Kit
declared after she had been the rounds four times that she felt exactly
like the lecturer in the curio hall in a museum, telling the history of
the relics over and over again. Nobody but Anne knew how anxious she
became as the moments slipped by and no Marcelle appeared. It would never
do to have a climax happen without the surprise of her presence to carry
it off. The refreshments had all been served, and the little bronze dragon
clock on top of the book shelves showed the hour of five, when Charity
called:
"You'd better start in on your Founders' talk, Kit; we've only got about
half an hour."
There was a baffled look in Kit's eyes, as she picked up the challenge and
rose from the brown willow chair. Charity must know perfectly well how
untimely it was to start to spring the surprise while there was a running
chance of Marcelle appearing. Still there was a hush, and the girls faced
her expectantly.
"As you all know," began Kit, "the old bronze tablet in the lower hall
carries names on its roll of honor which not only uphold the glory of Hope
College, but also of the entire town of Delphi, of the entire state, I may
say, of Wisconsin."
"Kit," murmured Peggy, sotto voce, "if you start declaiming like that
you'll have 'the Jinx' after your scalp. First thing we know, you'll
begin, 'Ladies and fellow constituents.'"
Kit waited until the laugh had subsided, and Peggy had replaced the shell
pins from her tumbled braids after a tussle with "the Jinx," who took all
political allusions as personal affronts.
"There are few of us here to-day, if any," continued Kit, slowly, one eye
watching the concrete walk across the campus from the nearest window, "who
can boast of a Hope founder in her family."
"I can, almost," interrupted Antoinette, otherwise Tony; "my big sister
Marie was engaged for a very little while to Bernard Giron. If she had
only married him, we would have had a 'Founder' in the family."
"Tony," said Kit, severely, "I am dealing with facts, not prospects, and
you ought not to reveal any family secrets, either. I say it is a great
honor to be a direct descendant of a 'Founder,' and we have one in our
class. A girl, too modest to take advantage of her grandfather's record."
She paused impressively, but with a quickening gleam in her eyes, as there
suddenly have in view a hurrying figure in gray sweater and dark crimson
cap on the campus walk. It was Marcelle herself, late, but in time to
create the desired sensation.
Kit drew a deep breath, and plunged back to her subject, considering
exactly the time it would take for the belated guest to reach the study.
"Since all the girls here belong to this dormitory, it seems appropriate
that the founder whose memory we honor should be Malcolm Douglas. His
portrait hangs upon the wall, evidently taken from an old likeness." Oh,
how she wished the home folks could hear her roll her phrases! "There is
no more adventurous or thrilling career in the annals of historic Delphi
than that of the illustrious Scotchman. Making his way through the perils
of the wilderness, he came from Quebec with a party of fur traders and
pioneer explorers."
"Don't hit too far back, Kit," interrupted Peggy, alertly. "If he was a
founder in '71, you can't have him trotting over wilderness trails with
Marquette and Lasalle, you know."
"Nevertheless," responded Kit, ignoring the levity of her nearest
neighbor, "he is one of the heroes of our Wisconsin pioneer times. He
came here in his early twenties, and married Lucia, the daughter of
Captain Peter Morton. Their daughter was Mary, and, girls, she was the
mother of one of our classmates, the very same Mary who went through Hope
and graduated with high honors. You'll find her initials carved in Number
10 across the hall, and her portrait--the only one I could find--is in
this graduating group."
The girls all crowded forward to look at the group photograph which Kit
held out to them, just as a knock came at the door. For one dramatic
instant Kit held the knob, her back against the door as she announced in
almost a whisper:
"The granddaughter of Malcolm Douglas."
The girls leaned forward, eagerly, every eye fixed upon the door. As Kit
said afterwards, laughingly to Anne:
"Goodness knows who they expected to see, but I almost felt as though I
had promised them the excitement of a live mummy and then had sprung
Marcelle. Oh, but wasn't she splendid, Anne? The way she stood the
introduction and the shock of finding herself the guest of honor. As I
looked at her, I thought to myself, you may be Douglas, and you may be
Morton, fine old Scotch and English stock, but if it wasn't for the dash
of debonair Beaubien in you too, you could never carry this off the way
you are doing."
Marcelle was not the only person present who had to fall back on inherent
caste for their manners of the moment, but Tony was the only one that gave
an audible gasp. Even Peggy and Norma smiled, and greeted the Founder's
granddaughter in the proper spirit.
She was dressed in white, just a plain kilted skirt and smock, but Kit
gloried in the way she took her place beside Charity at the tea table, and
parried the questions of the girls with laughing ease.
"Of course," she said, with the little slight accent she seemed to have
caught from her father and old Grandmother Beaubien, "I thought every one
in Delphi knew. For myself, I am proud of him, and of all my mother's
people, but I am also proud of being a Beaubien. You girls do not know
perhaps that some of my father's people helped to found Fort Dearborn, and
they were very brave and courageous voyagers in the early days of New
France."
Peggy really rose to the occasion remarkably, Kit thought. Probably the
most zealously guarded membership in Hope's freshman class was that of the
Portia Club, and yet, before the tea was over, she had invited Marcelle to
attend the next meeting and be proposed for membership.
"We're not going to try a whole play at first, just famous scenes, and I
know you'd fit in somewhere and enjoy it. Don't you want to, Marcelle?"
Marcelle shrugged her shoulders, deprecatingly.
"I shall be glad to help always," she said, with simple dignity, "if you
wish to make me one of you. We have an old copy of Shakespeare at home
that was my mother's, and I have read much of it in the long winter
evenings. I think," she added, whimsically, "that I would rather play
parts like Shylock or Hamlet than the girl rôles, and best of all, I
should love dearly to play Prince Hal."
"What do you think of that?" Anne said on the way home. "The idea of her
being interested in Shakespeare at all or knowing anything about it, after
living all her life in that little sand dump. Kit, you certainly have
discovered a flower that was born to blush unseen."
"It will take her out of her shell, anyway," Kit replied, happily. "And I
do think the girls came up to the mark splendidly. Heaven knows how they
are talking about us now, behind our backs, but they acted their parts
nobly when I swung that door open, and there stood, just Marcelle!"