ON THE SPEEDWELL
“I’ve always tried my hardest to get whatever I wanted for myself no
matter how much trouble I made for other people in the getting. Now here
I am, caught in a snare. What’s hardest of all to bear, Marjorie, is
having hurt Peter the Great. Because I behaved like a vandal at Hamilton
he’s ashamed in his heart to come back to Carden Hedge to live the year
round.”
Seated opposite Marjorie on the comfortable observation platform of
Peter Cairns’ luxurious private car “Speedwell,” Leslie cast a gloomy
glance at her pretty companion out of remorseful eyes.
“That’s why I realized what a mistake it would be to have that Leila
Harper Playhouse business announced in chapel with my father’s and my
name attached,” Leslie continued. “Again if it were announced in chapel
with us left out it might start a whole lot of wondering about whom I
had sold the garage site to, et cetera. Every move Peter and I made
afterward would be watched. Of course we’d be found out. Then someone
might start a rumor that we were ashamed to come forward because of my
misdeeds. It would be true, but not very pleasant. If we wait till the
theatre is built and ready for Leila we’ll have a good chance of getting
away with it, sub rosa.”
“I like the idea of waiting until the theatre is finished before
honoring Leila in chapel,” Marjorie returned frankly. “But, Leslie, by
then you may feel differently about not wishing your name or your
father’s given.”
“No; I shan’t. I’m very sure I shan’t.” Leslie moodily shook her head.
“It can never be that way, Marjorie. I wish it could.”
It was the last afternoon of the journey across continent which Mr. and
Mrs. Dean and Marjorie were completing in Peter Cairns’ private car. The
next morning would see the travelers in New York City. From New York the
Deans were going for two weeks to their favorite summer resort, Severn
Beach.
Marjorie had not altogether relished the idea of the journey East in so
much exclusive luxury. She had looked forward to the merry more
democratic canopy of the Pullman car where from San Francisco to Chicago
they might count upon finding plenty of pleasant traveling acquaintances
in the same car with themselves. They had had great fun going West.
Yet it had seemed to her that an acceptance of Leslie’s invitation was
the only true way of showing Peter Cairns’ daughter that she held
nothing of the past against her. Leslie and her father motored to Manaña
there to extend their invitation to the Deans in person. Marjorie’s
General and Captain had left the decision to her.
During the enjoyable trip East Leslie and Marjorie had had time to grow
gradually acquainted with each other in a pleasant, half reserved
fashion which promised someday to merge into a real friendship. Thrown
in each other’s company the two girls had discussed little else except
the subject of Hamilton College. Leslie was never tired of hearing of
the funny sayings and doings of Leila, Jerry and Muriel Harding. She
discussed her own troubles with the San Soucians as their ring-leader in
a humorous fashion which Marjorie found vastly amusing. It had revealed
in Leslie a keen sense of humor which Marjorie had often suspected her
of possessing even in her lawless days.
While she talked freely of Hamilton College as she had known it when a
student there Leslie had thus far pointedly avoided mention of the one
thing she wished most to tell Marjorie. She and Marjorie had more than
once discussed her determination to present Leila with the directorship
of the theatre anonymously when the playhouse should be completed. Under
the able management of Peter Graham work on the new theatre had been
going forward steadily since the previous June.
On this last afternoon of the journey Mr. and Mrs. Dean, Peter Cairns
and his confidential secretary, Wilkins, were deep in a game of whist in
the small salon of the Speedwell. Marjorie and Leslie had the
observation platform to themselves. Soberly glancing at Leslie’s clouded
features Marjorie felt nothing but the deepest sympathy for the girl she
had once been tempted to rank as an enemy. She was understanding only
too clearly the difficulties which now beset Leslie’s proposed path of
benevolence.
“Never is such a long time, Leslie,” Marjorie’s tone was brightly
comforting. “It’s two years, you know, since you left college. Most of
the students you knew then, or who knew of you, have been graduated.
There is a much better spirit abroad on the campus, too, than in the old
days.” Marjorie stopped, flushing. “I didn’t mean to remind you—” she
began contritely.
“No harm done, Bean.” A faint lighting of Leslie’s dark features
accompanied the ridiculous nickname she had once derisively given
Marjorie. “Of course there’s a better spirit now on the campus. You won
what you fought for. But there are a certain number of students there
still who would love to pick me to pieces, given an opportunity. It
would be said of me that I was trying to make money cover my flivvers.”
“But your motive is sincere,” Marjorie cried. “Besides the theatre is
not to be built on the campus. I think you ought to brave matters out,
Leslie. The Travelers will stand by you through thick and thin. We
understand how generous you are, and in time we shall make others see
it. That is, if there should be others. Sometimes one sweeping act of
nobility such as you propose to do changes everything for the best.”
“It won’t for me,” was Leslie’s pessimistic prediction. “It’s not really
about myself I care. To honor Leila, and help the dorms along. What more
can one ask?” Leslie made an earnest gesture. “It’s like this, Marjorie.
As an unknown donor I’ll be covered with glory. As a known one I’ll be
buried under opprobrium.”
“‘Alas for him who never sees the stars shine through his cypress
trees,’” Marjorie quoted lightly with an effort toward bringing Leslie
out of her somber mood. “I still advise you to go ahead and not hide
your light under a bushel.”
“No, I can’t,” Leslie replied with a trace of her old-time gruffness.
“I’m going to tell you a secret. I went to Prexy Matthews last spring
and asked him if he would give me a chance to come back to Hamilton and
do over my senior year. When I went there I intended to tell him how
much it would mean to me on my father’s account and of how hard I would
try to redeem my past flivvers. He was frosty as a January morning with
the mercury way below zero. I had hardly mentioned what I came for when
he set his jaws and said that under the circumstances of my expulsion
from college he could not for a moment entertain such a request.”
“Leslie Cairns!” Marjorie could not repress a sympathetic exclamation.
“It’s a fact.” The blood rose to Leslie’s dark cheeks in a crimson wave.
She went on with shamed reluctance. “I thought he might say ‘no,’ but he
made me feel as though he hated even to speak to me. I know I deserved
it. I wasn’t in his office five minutes hardly. My nerve went back on
me. I had to hurry away, or else cry. I didn’t have time to tell him
anything but that I’d like to try my senior year over again.”
“Oh, that was too bad!” Marjorie reached over and laid a consoling hand
on one of Leslie’s. “Did you go to Hamilton Hall to see him, or to his
house?”
“To Hamilton Hall,” Leslie returned briefly.
“I am sorry you didn’t go to his house instead. It might have made a
difference. I can’t be sure that it would have,” she added honestly.
She was remembering President Matthews’ anger at the time of Leslie’s
expulsion from Hamilton; not only because of the hazing affair in which
she and Leslie had figured. There was also the recollection of the
misunderstanding which Leslie had made between the president and his old
friend, Miss Remson, the manager of Wayland Hall. Again there was the
ugly fact of secret collusion between Leslie and Miss Sayres, the
president’s secretary to be considered.
“Oh, it was too much to expect. I knew Prexy would frown me down without
a hearing. But I’d promised myself, that, for my father’s sake, there’d
be nothing I’d leave undone to make up for the disappointment I caused
him,” Leslie said with regretful vehemence.
“You were very brave to do it, Leslie.” Marjorie’s hand tightened its
clasp on Leslie’s.
“I was glad to try to make amends.” Leslie was silent for a moment.
“You’ve never done anything to harm another person, Marjorie,” she burst
forth. “You can’t possibly understand how my heart went down when my
father said to me last spring that he had hoped some day to live at
Carden Hedge, but that—he’d changed his mind. He never said once: ‘It’s
all your fault.’ I wish he had. And I am the one who cheated him of
happiness. He’d love to live at the Hedge—if I hadn’t made such a mess
of things at Hamilton. That’s what I did to my father, the person I love
best in the world. And all the time I thought I was doing smart things,
and getting even with you.”
Leslie looked drearily away across the green fleeing landscape, her face
bleak and somber.
“Don’t feel so crushed, Leslie. You are anxious to please your father.
After a while you will find a way. To be willing is half the battle.
First thing you know some good will come of it.”
“I wish I could make myself believe it.” Leslie still kept her head
turned away. “The one thing I’d like most to do, I can’t do. That’s to
try over again my senior year at Hamilton. If only Prexy had softened
and said I might! After I had been graduated from Hamilton, the way
would have been smooth for my father and me to live at the Hedge and be
happy. After Prexy turned me down so frigidly I knew he’d never permit
my name to be announced at chapel as the giver of the theatre. I’ll
never put foot on the campus again, not even to see Doris Monroe. Would
you?”
“No; not in the present circumstances,” Marjorie made frank reply.
“There is no reason why you shouldn’t come to the Arms to see Miss
Susanna and Jerry and me. We’ll welcome you.”
“I’ll come.” Leslie brightened. “Mrs. Gaylord and I will have our old
apartment at the Hamilton House. There’s really no place else for us in
Hamilton. I want to stay on there to watch the building of the theatre.
My father will be off and away. There is nothing to keep him in a small
place like Hamilton. If we lived at the Hedge, he’d be keen on
gardening, and beautifying the estate. He’d enjoy the Hamilton links,
and probably get up a polo team. He’s a wonder at polo.”
Leslie clasped her hands behind her head in a quick, nervous motion. She
closed her eyes, forcing back the tears which were gathering behind her
tightly-shut eyelids.
Marjorie stole a sympathetic, furtive glance at her. She thought the
touches of vivid cherry color on Leslie’s sleeveless gray wash satin
frock charmingly lightened her companion’s dark skin and irregular
features. She guessed Leslie to be perilously near tears and noted that
her subdued pensive expression had softened her face to a peculiar
attractiveness.
While Leslie had given up all hope of a return to Hamilton campus as a
student, Marjorie was just beginning to consider how such a miracle
might be brought to pass. She wondered if an appeal on her part to
President Matthews would help Leslie’s case. At least she could put
forward to the president a generous side of Leslie of which he was not
yet aware. She resolved to tell him of Leslie’s love for her father, of
her deep regret at being unable to make the restitution she so greatly
desired to make, of her anxiety to promote his happiness.
Recollection of Doctor Matthews’ stern face, on the fateful day when the
San Soucians had been arraigned before him and the College Board,
returned vividly to Marjorie. For an instant her impulsive determination
to seek such an interview with him in behalf of Leslie wavered.
What argument could she present to the learned man of affairs which
should be strong enough to justify her request for another trial for
Leslie at Hamilton College? She could not but believe that no such
request had ever been made to him before. Then, again, Leslie was rated
by the Hamilton executive board as the most lawless student who had ever
enrolled at that college.
Leslie watched the fleeting scenery as the train rushed eastward, her
eyes misted and unseeing. She was not even aware of the shifting
panorama of woods, meadows, streams and houses as the train steamed on
its way. Instead she was seeing herself as she had been when she
flaunted through college, unscrupulous, bullying and untruthful.
She was amazed to think that she had lasted until her senior year. Her
one redeeming trait had been her ability to keep up in her classes. She
had always been able to make fair recitations on a small amount of
study. She wished with desperate fervor now that she had been a “dig”
instead of a thorn to the faculty. No; she had been foolish in imagining
that she could live down her past unenviable reputation were she to
return to the campus.
“Oh!” Marjorie straightened in her chair with a suddenness that made
Leslie open her eyes.
“Is that all?” Leslie smiled faintly as she saw Marjorie carefully brush
a large cinder from the skirt of her white frock. She folded her hands
again behind her head and resumed her dark musing.
Marjorie smiled, too, but said nothing. She might have told Leslie that
it was not the appearance of the cinder which had brought forth the
“Oh!” She had inadvertently stumbled upon a truth relative to a possible
return to the campus of Leslie which she believed could not fail to
impress President Matthews.
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