A QUARREL
You had your choice, at Miss Leland's, between studying, and doing what
the large majority of the girls did; namely, making friends, reading
novels during your study periods, and leaving it to Providence to
decide whether you passed your examinations or not. The teachers were
lenient souls, with the exception of Miss Drinkwater, the Latin
teacher, who was unreasonably irritable when her pupils came to class
armed with the seraphic smiles of ignorance, and a number of convincing
excuses, which invariably failed to convince Miss Drinkwater. In
consequence, very few of the girls pursued their studies in that
classic tongue longer than the first month. "What point was there in
doing so?" they argued coolly; none of them had any aspirations toward
college, and nearly all of them harbored a dread of learning anything
that might show on the surface, and thereby discourage the attentions
of the college youths which were of infinitely more importance in their
eyes, as indeed, in the eyes of their fond mothers, likewise, than the
attainment of the scholarly graces.
Miss Leland's was one of those schools instituted primarily to meet the
necessity of our young plutocrats for mingling with their own peculiar
kind--"forming advantageous connections," it is called--the question of
education was secondary if not quite negligible. The daughters of
steel magnates came from Pittsburgh to meet the daughters of railroad
magnates from New York, and incidentally to meet one another's
brothers, at the small social functions which Miss Leland gave
ostensibly for the purpose of developing in her charges an easy poise
and the most correct drawing-room manners.
The girls, for the most part, regarded lessons as a wholly unnecessary
adjunct to their school duties, and treated them as such. And this was
all very well indeed, so far as they were concerned. From school they
would plunge into the whirl of their debutante season, and from that
into marriage--it was all clearly mapped out for them, and the shadow
of any serious doubt as to the course of their careers never fell
across their serenely trustful indolence.
There is something peculiarly vitiating in such an atmosphere.
Pleasure was regarded not merely as an embroidery on the sober fustian
of life, but as the very warp and woof of it; where the most sober
consideration was that of winning popularity and the opportunity of
social advantages, where the clothes to be bought and the parties to be
given during the holidays were already the subject of endless absorbing
discussions.
The effect of all this on each of the Prescotts was diametrically
opposed. Alma had adapted herself to it as easily as to a new cloak.
Not having any stubborn notions of her own, she was as malleable to
such an environment as a piece of modelling clay in warm water.
Pretty, good-humored, easily led, she swam into a rather meaningless
popularity inside of four days. This Nancy was glad of, but her
satisfaction was not unmixed. She saw Alma gradually undergoing a
change that threatened to damage her own steadying influence over her
sister, and to divide their sympathies. Alma was only too ready, and
too well suited temperamentally, to lose sight of the difference
between her own circumstances, and those of the girls with whom she was
now associated. Indeed the very fact that she could do so, while Nancy
could not, lay at the root of the problem that had begun to worry
Nancy. Aside from minor changes in Alma, such as, for instance, a new
little affectedness of manner, unconsciously borrowed from Mildred
Lloyd, and her use of Mildred's particular slang phrases, Nancy had
noticed in her sister at times a tinge of impatience, and a little air
of superiority, with which Alma unwillingly listened to her when she
tried to talk to her seriously. Nancy began to feel, unhappily, that
Alma was coming to resent her efforts to guide her and advise her in
regard to various small matters, and worst of all, that Alma was
privately beginning to look upon her as rather unnecessarily serious,
and even old-maidish.
It was impossible for Nancy to lose the feeling that she had that her
mother had made a mistake in sending them to Miss Leland's, which gave
them little or nothing that they could use, and was very likely to
affect even her own steady vision of their circumstances and
opportunities. She was continually trying to counteract the
consequences of this mistake; but Alma was less than willing to take
her point of view.
Nancy still clung to her plan of getting herself ready for college;
never for a moment could she lose sight of the fact that in all
probability she would have to make her own living, which Alma, like her
mother, was very ready to forget, counting always as they did on happy
chance, to smooth out the future for them into a sunny vista. It was
not that Nancy was a pessimist. She simply believed that good luck was
something more or less of one's own making. She was full of eagerness
and enthusiasm for life, as ardent as an ambitious boy, and restive to
make a trial of her own capabilities. She knew that there was a
possibility of her uncle's providing for them, after all, in spite of
his own very clear hints to the contrary; but on the other hand, there
remained the fact that he was an eccentric old fellow, more than
equally likely to bequeath his entire fortune to some freakish project,
or obscure charity organization.
It was not a very easy task to study seriously at Miss Leland's. An
earnest student was immediately dubbed, vividly enough, if inelegantly,
a "greasy grind"--and was left more or less to her own devices; but if
Nancy was not as popular as Alma, she was regarded with a good deal of
respect and genuine admiration by the other girls, and in Charlotte
Spencer she had found a really devoted friend.
Underneath her apparent rattle-patedness, Charlotte concealed from the
view of those for whom she had no especial regard a stratum of rather
unusual common sense, mingled with an idealism and a youthful ardor
which few would have suspected in her nature. Opinions concerning her
varied widely. Mildred Lloyd considered her crude, for example; most
of the girls thought her simply amusing and odd, and hardly knew how to
account for some of her queer, serious moods. In one way or another,
without apparently studying at all, she managed always to take the
highest marks in the school.
She was the only daughter of a very rich Western mine-owner, a widower,
who found the problem of managing this child of his more difficult than
any commercial nut he had ever had to crack. He had only the vaguest
notions as to what was necessary for a girl's career, and imagined that
by sending his daughter to a fashionable Eastern school, he was getting
at the heart of the solution. Charlotte wanted to study music, "not
like a boarding-school miss," she told Nancy. "I want to make it the
real thing. I tell you I don't know anything about it--but I'm going
to, yet." Old Mr. Spencer, while he had no objections to one of the
arts as a ladylike accomplishment, felt that it was not exactly
respectable for a girl to go into it seriously, just why, he would have
been at a loss to say. "You know," Charlotte had explained, with her
humorous smile, "there is a notion that it's all right for a 'lady' to
dabble in anything, painting, music, or embroidery and so on, so long
as she doesn't attempt to make a profession of it, or think of making
money by it. Of course this idea is changing now a bit, but people
like Mildred Lloyd, for instance, and all her kind, still think it's
not perfectly '_nice_' as she puts it." It was not in the least that
Mr. Spencer had even a grain of snobbishness in his rough, vigorous
makeup, so far as either himself or his three sons were concerned; his
very love for his "Charlie," as he called her, made him stubborn in his
ideas concerning what was best for her. He wanted her to have
everything that he could give her, and he gave her what he imagined her
mother would have wanted him to give. It was because Charlotte
understood that his stubbornness grew out of his adoration of her, that
she good-naturedly gave in to his wishes.
"In good time, I'll do what I want, of course," she said with serene
self-confidence. "But the least I can do for darling old Dad is to
make him believe that all the time I'm doing what _he_ wants. He _is_
such a lamb, you know."
The warm friendship that grew up between the two girls had a strong
bond in the similarity of their position at Miss Leland's, and in the
circumstances of their being there, as well as in their mutual sympathy
with each other's ideas.
It was a Saturday afternoon, late in October, when the days were
rapidly shortening into wintry dusks, and there was even the hint of an
early snow in the slate-colored skies, against which the bare, stiff
branches of the trees shivered in a nipping wind. Nancy, all ruddy,
and breezy from a brisk walk with Charlotte, had come up to her room to
finish an English paper. Across the hall a group of girls had gathered
around Katherine Leonard's chafing dish, from which the tantalizing
smell of thick, hot fudge was beginning to pervade the corridors, and
distract the thoughts of the more studious from their unsocial but
conscientious labors.
"Come on in, Nance," called Alma, waving a sticky spoon invitingly.
"Surely you aren't going to work now, are you?"
Nancy hesitated, her hand on the door-knob. They all looked so jolly,
the room so cosy, and the warm, chocolaty smell of the fudge was almost
irresistible. Nancy's nose twitched at the delicious odor, and she
smiled uncertainly.
"I've got to finish my English," she began.
"Oh, bother your English," cried Dolly Parker, "None of us have even
looked at ours yet. Don't be a 'grind'--come on."
"You're such a shark at it, Miss Garnett wouldn't bother you if you
loafed for a month," added Maizie Forrest. This was quite true--and
that was the trouble. It was just because Miss Garnett was so lenient
that Nancy felt the responsibility of keeping up in her work resting
heavily on herself. Nearly all the girls loafed shamelessly, and Nancy
had to guard against the temptation to imitate them. She knew that she
would have to pass a stiff examination in English to enter college, and
that it mattered nothing to Miss Garnett whether she passed or not.
"Well, the point is that I've got so little to do on it that I might as
well finish it up and feel free," she said, finally. "I'll come in a
little while, so don't, for goodness' sake, eat all the fudge."
"Oh, Nancy, you make me tired," pouted Alma. "If you're going to be
such an old poke, you don't deserve any fudge."
Nancy only laughed in reply, and calmly went in to her room, and shut
the door. She flung her sweater on her bed, sent her scarlet
tam-o'-shanter after it, and then stood for a moment, her hands in the
pockets of her skirt, looking about her. The Prescotts' room was
certainly not the cosiest and most inviting in the school, and she had
listened long to Alma's petitions for an easy chair, and a new lamp to
take the place of the green-shaded student's lamp which by its hard,
sharp light intensified the severe bareness of the little place.
Besides the two beds, there were the two desks, two stiff desk-chairs,
and the two small bureaus. Nothing had been added to soften the chilly
aspect except a pair of cheap, chintz curtains at the window, and a few
small cushions on the window-seat. They had no pictures or
photographs, no rugs, no tea service--none of the hundred and one
little knickknacks with which the other girls managed to turn their
bedrooms into luxurious little dens. Consequently, they were never
besieged by bands of hilarious callers, and Alma herself was never in
her room any more than she could help. At night she preferred a
dressing-gown chat in Mildred's room, or in Kay Leonard's; even when
she studied, which occupied, indeed, little enough of her time, she
sought a more congenial atmosphere, and Nancy, except for Charlotte's
company, was a good deal by herself. But there was nothing to be done
about it. She could not go to the expense of a new rug and an easy
chair and a new lamp, and that was all there was to it. Alma felt
ashamed of the mute confession of a narrow purse, expressed by the
chill simplicity of the room; losing her memory of their straitened
means amid the easy affluence of the other girls, she became more and
more sulky against Nancy for her rigid economy. She contended that she
saw no reason for it--that Nancy was carrying it to unnecessary
extremes.
With a shrug of her shoulders, Nancy began to rummage in her desk for
her half-finished English paper, and then sat down to it, grimly
determined to concentrate on it, and to drive away all distracting
thoughts. She forgot about the fudge-party, and an hour went by before
she looked up with a sigh, and carefully glancing over her finished
pages folded them neatly inside her copy of "Burke's Speeches." All
her work was finished, and she could look forward to Sunday with a
comfortable anticipation of unhampered freedom. It was still half an
hour before the dressing bell would ring, so she put on her kimono and,
her sociable mood having passed, tucked herself up on the window-seat
with a book.
In a little while the door opened, and Alma came in to change her
frock. Nancy glanced up, and saw in an instant that Alma was annoyed.
She felt troubled. It seemed as if every day they were growing farther
apart. They no longer had those happy chats together which had bound
them close by affection and sympathy. Alma no longer sought her as her
confidant, and seemed to resent her advice rather than to seek it.
Instead, the younger girl had, as it were, transferred her affection
and her admiration to the headstrong and annoyingly self-assured
Mildred Lloyd. Mildred had deigned to pronounce Alma pretty, and
"interesting," and had "taken her up" as the phrase is, thereby
completely turning poor Alma's head so that she was gradually merging
even her personality into a pale imitation of Mildred's blase
expressions and mannerisms. Alma was not left ignorant of the fact
that Mildred's friendship, like her fancy, was extremely variable, and
that she was quite likely to turn a cold shoulder to her new chum,
without deigning to provide any reason for doing so. But Alma
preferred to believe that in her case Mildred's interest would not
wane, just as she preferred to forget her early prejudice of their
first meeting with Mildred.
An uncomfortable little silence reigned, which Nancy pretended to be
unaware of, by giving a great deal of attention to her book, although
the light from the window was so faint that no human eye could have
spelt out the words on the page. But when, at length, she was forced
by the lateness of the hour to begin dressing, it was impossible to
preserve the wretched silence any longer, or to speak as if nothing
were the matter.
"You--you seem worried, Alma," she began hesitatingly. "Is there
something on your mind?"
"I'm not worried a bit," returned Alma coldly.
"Well--are you angry about something?"
There was a silence. Alma flung her hair over her shoulder and began
to brush the ends vigorously, while Nancy watched the operation with an
intentness that showed her mind to be on other things. Presently Alma
said in a grave voice:
"I know that it's none of my business, of course, but I _do_ think,
Nancy, that you are making a mistake."
"A mistake," repeated Nancy, in amazement. "How? How do you mean?"
"Well, it seems to me that as far as you are concerned, it has been
simply money wasted to send you here."
"Why, what on earth are you talking about, Alma?" exclaimed Nancy, her
temper beginning to rise in spite of her amusement at the fluffy Alma's
gravely judicial air. Inasmuch as she studied harder and more
seriously than any girl in the school, and rivalled Charlotte in
brilliant marks, it was interesting as well as irritating to learn that
Alma considered her unsuccessful.
"Well, you know as well as I do that Mother's purpose in sending us
here was for us to make friends. There isn't a girl in the school that
you show the least interest in, except Charlotte, and
Charlotte--well----" Alma shrugged her shoulders, expressing thereby
what she hesitated to put into words. Instantly Nancy flared up.
Usually the most even tempered and controlled of girls, she could not
keep down her anger when it was roused by Alma's periodic fits of
snobbishness.
"What about Charlotte? Why do you shrug your shoulders like that?
Because Charlotte isn't considered perfectly 'nice' by Mildred?
Because Mildred thinks Charlotte 'rather ordinary--a bit crude,
don'tcherknow?' She's the _realest_ girl in the school, and everyone
of them knows it, too! She's the only one whose mind isn't forever
running on beaux and dances and other girls' faults. She's the only
one of them who has brains and a heart--she's the only real aristocrat
of the whole lot! She's the only one of them whose friendship I'd give
tuppence-ha'penny for----"
Alma quailed a little under Nancy's indignation--she was indeed a bit
ashamed of her snobbish remark; but she did not lower her flag.
"That's no reason why you should let all the other girls know it. We
need all the friends we can get, and we can't _afford_ to lose this
opportunity of making advantageous connections."
This last bit was rather an unfortunate choice of words, smacking as it
did just a bit too strongly of Mildred to soothe Nancy's irate ear at
just that moment.
"_I_ didn't come here to make friends simply for what they could give
me--regardless of whether I liked them or not. And I think it's the
most _contemptible_ thing in the world to toady to girls simply because
they are rich or fashionable, and may invite you to parties and things
that you can never repay. And it's just that snobbish
selfishness--that complete loss of self-respect for the sake of
self-interest that makes so many poor people contemptible. I'd rather
die before I'd play the role of little sister to the rich." Her voice
began to quiver, and she had a wretched feeling that she was very near
tears--tears not of anger so much as of genuine unhappiness. She felt
as if every word she uttered was doing more damage, and her heart ached
because she was quarrelling with Alma, and because Alma was changing
more every day. She longed to throw her arms around her sister, and
kiss away the memory of every word she had uttered, but stubborn pride,
as much a fault with Nancy as a virtue, held her back.
"Do you mean that I'm toadying?" asked Alma, her eyes growing wide. "I
know now what you think of me--and I know that you're simply jealous of
my fondness for Mildred," she went on passionately. "I don't know what
has come over you anyway, Nancy--you don't approve of a single thing I
do----"
"Oh, Alma--darling! How _can_ you say such things?" The tears began
to roll down Nancy's cheeks. "Whatever put such thoughts into your
head, when you _know_ how much I love you. It's not me, but you who
have changed. Can't you see that I can't let my work go just to play
around with a lot of girls who don't care a rap for me, myself? Life
isn't a song and a dance for _us_, Alma--and we can't waste our time
just for a little popularity with girls who'd forget us to-morrow.
Mildred----"
"Oh, go ahead, and say a lot of mean things about Mildred," interrupted
Alma bitterly. "You never liked her. You took a prejudice to her at
first sight. You never even tried to know her. I never heard of
anything so unjust in my life! You don't think that anyone is capable
of a real friendship but you and Charlotte. Mildred is every bit as
good a friend. Just because she's rich you think that she must be
selfish--you're the most narrow-minded girl I ever knew. It's the same
way with all my friends--you think Frank Barrows is just an idler--a
conceited little----"
"What on earth did I ever say against Frank Barrows?" Nancy defended
herself weakly.
"Oh, you never _say_ anything. You just look--and I know perfectly
well what you think. It seems as if we can never agree about anything,
any more. Now, this afternoon you might have been just a little bit
sociable--instead of that you shut yourself up, as if you thought all
those girls were simply a lot of sillies; but you were able to spend an
hour and a half with Charlotte."
"I had to finish my English paper, and that's all there was to it,"
retorted Nancy. "In any other school under the sun work has to come
before play. Neither one of us can afford to take advantage of the
leniency of the teachers here--if I did only what they required I
wouldn't get to college in ten years. And I've got to get to college,
no matter what _Mildred_ thinks of me. I'm sorry she doesn't approve
of my behavior, but it can't be helped." In her hurt anger, she had
lost her head a little bit, or she would not have thrown that last
stone at Alma's chosen friend. For the time being at least, it was
impossible to repair the breach that the two wounded, indignant girls
had made between each other.
Too sick at heart for tears, too despairingly conscious of the
uselessness of any attempt at reconciliation, Nancy began to dress in a
miserable silence.
During dinner Nancy made a pretense at eating, but she could not join
in the chatter with the other girls. Once or twice Charlotte glanced
at her, but with her instinctive gentle tact appeared not to notice
Nancy's blues.
At her table, Alma was feverishly gay; as a matter of fact she was on
the point of tears. Never before had they had such a quarrel, never
before had she seen Nancy so heedlessly angry, never before had they
deliberately tried to say things to hurt each other. Waves of
desperate homesickness assailed her, and with the memory of happy
nights when they had gossiped together in their room at the little
brown house, a lump ached in her throat. She wanted Nancy more than
anyone else in the world. What was it they had said to each other that
had caused such a dreadful coldness between them? She tried to tell
herself that Nancy had misjudged her, that Nancy was wrong, and that
she was right in maintaining her ground; but listening to the banter
that went on around her, struggling to keep up her own end of it
bravely, she felt that not one girl in the room, nor any pleasure in
the world was of the slightest value to her so long as she did not have
Nancy as her confidant and dearest friend.
With these thoughts battering at the foolish pride in their hearts it
would have taken only a whispered word to send the sisters into one
another's embrace, but the reconciliation for which they were both
longing so piteously was postponed by an incident which threatened to
make their quarrel even more serious. It was simply the outcome of an
unfortunate chance. For some time both the girls had known that Miss
Leland had planned to give them different roommates, since she thought
it a good idea for sisters to be separated so that they could make
closer friendships with other girls.
After dinner she spoke of this again, not to Nancy but to Alma, leaving
it to the younger girl to announce the change to Nancy. She had, of
course, no knowledge of their quarrel, nor could she have possibly
gauged the unfortunate timing of the change.
Nancy went up to her room directly after dinner, not waiting for the
usual hour of music and dancing, and giving as her excuse the pretense
that she had some mending to do.
She did, indeed, get out her work-basket as a sort of defense against
unwelcome intrusion, but with a stocking drawn over her hand, she sat
with her back to the door, and gave herself up to the sad consolation
of tears. In a little while the door opened. Someone came in. Nancy
bent over her stocking, and began to run a threadless needle through a
"Jacob's-ladder"; from the corner of her eye she saw Alma busily
engaged in taking some of her things out of the bureau-drawers. Alma
was as painstaking in keeping her own face concealed as Nancy, though
she tried to hum a tune under her breath. The silence became
intolerable, but diffidence weighted their tongues. Each one of them
longed to throw her pride to the winds and sue for a reconciliation;
but the fear of having her overtures met with coldness held her back.
At length Alma said in a voice which she vainly tried to make natural
and casual:
"Miss Leland has changed us. Charlotte Spencer is going to be your
roommate from now on--and--and I'm going in with--with Mildred."
"That's--a--a good idea," replied Nancy; sarcasm was a thousand miles
from her mind, and she spoke really only for the sake of sounding as if
all differences had been forgotten; but a more ill-chosen sentence
could not have fallen from her lips.
"I suppose--you--you're glad to be rid of me," said Alma, her lips
quivering. "Anyway, you'll have Charlotte, and she's ever so much more
congenial with you than I am."
Nancy did not answer. If Alma had not made that last reference to
Charlotte she would have had Nancy back in a moment, but there is a
little devil who takes a delight in twisting people's tongues when they
most need to be inspired with the right thing to say.
With her night-gown and dressing-gown over her arm, and her sponge-bag
in her hand, Alma walked in silence to the door. There she paused, and
like Lot's wife flung back at Nancy one piteous parting look, which,
alas, met only the back of Nancy's down-bent head. The door closed.
Nancy sprang up, and crossed the room, running, while the spools from
her overturned basket rolled off placidly under the bed. Then she
paused; pride conquered the tenderness in her heart at that moment,
bringing in its trail a sequence of unhappy days.
"No---it won't do to admit I'm wrong. I'm not, and I'll just let her
find it out."
And having voiced this stern resolution, she flung herself down on the
bed and, burying her face in the pillows, cried herself into a doze;
while, separated from her by a thin partition of lath and plaster, Alma
made up her new bed, and bedewed it with her doleful tears.