OUT OF THE PAST
As a result of Muriel’s show Leslie Cairns found herself in better
standing among her housemates than she had dreamed ever of attaining. It
often takes some very small thing to turn the tide of approval or
disapproval. The tide had turned in Leslie’s favor when Muriel had
quoted Hamilton’s highest tradition. Hardly a girl present but that had
experienced a secret twinge of conscience for the petition they had
signed against Leslie Cairns.
Nor had it been particularly reassuring to see Marjorie Dean, Doris
Monroe, Muriel Harding and Miss Remson firmly entrenched against them.
While they counted as the majority at the Hall the Bertram girls and the
post graduates were powers on the campus. At first Julia’s and Mildred’s
strenuous objections to Leslie had made an impression upon their
housemates. Dulcie Vale’s despicable communication had bolstered their
disapproval only at the time of hearing. Later, in thinking it over and
talking together about it, the more serious element of the girls had
cherished doubts as to its entire veracity. It was Julia’s stanchest
supporters who had started the objection when the four girls and Miss
Remson had walked in upon their meeting. In the end even they had come
shame-faced to a more charitable view of matters.
Doris had been touched to learn from Miss Remson that on the day of the
meeting Clara Carter had come to her and asked to be permitted to strike
her name from the petition. Meeting Clara face to face on the campus the
day following the meeting Doris had shaken hands with the red-haired
girl and invited her to dinner at Baretti’s. Clara had accepted with
surprised joy and had agreeably surprised Doris by her avoidance of
personal gossip. Of Julia she said nothing. Nor did Doris mention
Julia’s name.
At Hamilton Arms Marjorie was beginning to look forward to the fruits of
her planting. February was a triumphal month to her because toward the
latter part of it she completed the biography of Brooke Hamilton. On the
third Sunday in February she had completed her work except for a last
paragraph which she had purposely left to be written on a special
occasion. That Sunday having been chosen as the special occasion the
original Travelers came to Hamilton Arms to spend the afternoon and
evening. At five o’clock, the hour when Brooke Hamilton had welcomed tea
in his workshop, a reverent little company gathered in the study. There,
Marjorie, surrounded by her friends composed the final paragraph and
triumphantly wrote “The End” at the bottom of the last page of
manuscript. Then in turn the girls recited the Brooke Hamilton maxims
and Miss Susanna read a prayer, a translation from the German, of which
Brooke Hamilton had been fond. As a last tribute to him they had lifted
up their fresh young voices in the Hymn to Hamilton, filling the
departed founder’s workshop with melody while he appeared to smile
contentedly down from the wall at the sweet-voiced singers.
The manuscript for the biography was to be placed in the hands of a New
York publisher. Marjorie’s color deepened every time she happened to
recall the fact that when the biography should have been published she
would then be Marjorie Dean Macy.
“It is a relief to know the biography is done,” she said to Miss Susanna
on the morning after she had completed it in the presence of her
intimates. “There are so many other things to think of. Next week the
dormitory will be ready for the furniture. Then will come the dedication
of it. After that will be the library dedication. Then we must have a
house warming. It will take two weeks to place the furniture, and one
week to celebrate. There are three whole weeks of March gone and from
that on you know how it will be. Captain will be here, and I’ll have to
resign myself to innumerable fittings. Oh, dear!” Marjorie’s sunny smile
accompanied the half rueful exclamation.
“You are a much harrassed person.” Miss Susanna’s sympathy was too dry
to be genuine. She smiled her crinkly smile at Marjorie and said: “Are
you going to be very busy this morning. Marvelous Manager?”
“Very. I have an engagement with Miss Susanna Hamilton to do whatever
she would like to have me do.” Marjorie rose from where she had been
sitting at the study table writing to her Captain and crossed to the
small, bright-eyed figure in the doorway. She offered Miss Susanna both
hands with the pretty impulsiveness that was one of her charms.
“Come then.” Miss Susanna took Marjorie by the arm and began walking her
gently down the long hall and toward her own spacious, airy bed room. It
was a beautiful room with a big sunny bow window and handsome
old-fashioned furnishings. There was a canopied four poster bed,
high-backed mahogany chairs, with a highboy and immense dresser to
match. A gate-legged table, high desk and several other notable antiques
made up a collection which a dealer in antiques would have regarded with
envious eyes.
From girlhood it had been Miss Susanna’s room, and she had never allowed
any change to be made in it from the way in which she had found it when
she came to Hamilton Arms to live with her distinguished kinsman.
As she stepped over the threshold of her girlhood sanctum, clinging to
Marjorie’s arm, she steered the young girl across the room and brought
her to a forced, playful halt before a very large black teakwood chest.
It was purely Chinese in character, the lid being decorated with an
intricate gold pattern, the spiral complicated curves of which emanated
from the wide-open jaws of a gold dragon.
Marjorie had always greatly admired the chest. Once she had asked Miss
Susanna if it had not been brought from China by Brooke Hamilton. The
old lady had replied “Yes, my dear,” with a peculiar brevity which
Marjorie had early learned to recognize as a sign that Miss Hamilton
preferred to close the subject before it had hardly been broached.
“I brought you here with me this morning, dear child, to show you
something that belongs to the long ago. It’s something I’ve often
debated letting you see. I have decided as many times against it as for
it. But after I knew that you were going to put a cranky old person
named Hamilton in the seventh heaven of delight by getting married at
the Arms, I knew I should show you this chest, and what’s in it, and
tell you the history of it. This is only for you, Marjorie. But you may
tell your Captain, and Hal, for you must never have secrets from either
your mother, or your husband.”
“Then Mystified Manager said to Goldendede, the keeper of the castle, ‘I
will obey you in all things, Goldendede, for I know you to be a wise
woman.’” Marjorie laughingly improvised. “That’s the way I feel. The
enchantment of the castle hangs over me, and I am on the way to
marvelous revelations.”
“Marvelous? I don’t know.” The old lady’s head tilted to its bird-like
angle. “I believe the only marvelous part is that I did not get married.
Now perhaps you can guess what’s in that chest.” She eyed Marjorie
shrewdly.
“Miss Susanna!” Light had suddenly dawned upon Marjorie. “You mean—” She
stopped, then cried: “Was that chest your hope—”
“It was,” came the crisp response. “In it is my wedding dress.” She
threw back the lid as she spoke, then removed a white linen cover
arranged over the contents of the chest as a protection.
Marjorie gasped in girl admiration as she caught sight of fold upon fold
of heavy pearl-seeded white satin. “Oh!” she exhaled rapturously. “How
beautiful!”
Miss Susanna lifted the billows of satin from the box. “I’ll lay out the
dress on my bed.” She gathered the creamy folds in her arms and trotted
over to her bed. Looking in the box, Marjorie saw a teakwood tray that
extended across the box. In it were a pair of long white gloves, a pair
of the most exquisitely embroidered white silk stockings she had ever
seen and an underslip of thin white Chinese silk embroidered in a
pattern of orange blossoms. The stockings also bore the same pattern
embroidered in a straight strip up and down the fronts.
“Bring over the accessories which I didn’t need, child,” Miss Susanna
directed, matter-of-fact in the midst of reminders of her own romance.
Marjorie gathered up the lovely things and carried them over to the bed.
As Miss Susanna had already walked toward the chest Marjorie laid the
dainty articles of the bridal outfit reverently upon the snowy expanse
of linen spread.
While she was engaged in the pleasant yet half sad task, Miss Susanna
returned to her side. Her eyes directed toward the wedding gown, which
was a dream of loveliness, she suddenly felt something falling down over
her head and face in misty, transparent folds. She cried out and looked
through the delicate transparency to see Miss Susanna smiling at her
with untold tenderness.
“It was to have been my wedding veil, Marjorie. I wish it to be yours.
Come over to the mirror and let me drape it on you. You are not much
taller than I. Thank fortune this veil is yards and yards in length and
width. The present-day veils are so very voluminous.”
“This veil is a poem, Goldendede,” Marjorie declared fervently; “a poem
in pearls, mist and orange blossoms. Surely, there was never its equal
on land or sea!”
She had obediently moved to the great oval mirror of the dresser,
standing slim and lovely in her white lawn morning gown. Over her head
and flowing down to her feet and far beyond them was the exquisite veil
of finest Brussels net, outlined with pearls and caught up here and
there with sprays of creamy satin orange blossoms which closely
resembled the natural blossoms. The dainty bridal cap formed by the
gathering together of the veil was banded with pearls and orange
blossoms. Squarely in front and slightly below the pearl band was a star
of matched pearls.
“Can this be I?” Marjorie cried jokingly, yet half embarrassed. The
mirror told her the story of her own beauty so clearly she felt an
unbidden desire to cry over the fact that she was beautiful in the
marvelous veil. “Where did it come from, Goldendede?” she asked
wonderingly. “It’s not that I am beautiful. It’s the veil. It could
transform the plainest person from positive homeliness to beauty.”
“It would go a long way toward it,” Miss Susanna smiled indulgently at
the enchanting vision before the mirror. “Still, I must say that I never
looked as you do in it, child. And I was a fairly pretty girl, too.
Uncle Brooke and I made a voyage to Europe on purpose to order my
trousseau. He bought the most expensive piece of net for sale in
Brussels. We took it to Paris and had the veil made there with the rest
of the trousseau. That is the history of it.”
The old lady stood back to view the effect of the veil upon Marjorie, an
absent, meditative look in her bright eyes.
“The days that followed the breaking of my engagement with Gray were
hard; hard indeed,” she continued. “His name was Grayson Landor. He was
very good-looking. But he did not love me; nor I him. He knew it when he
proposed marriage to me. I did not know until after I had steeled myself
against seeing him. He was unworthy, child; utterly unworthy. He was in
love with a poor young girl, really in love with her, yet he was content
to forsake her and marry me for my money, and because I was a Hamilton.
I am glad I found him out in time. I realize more and more that I was
chosen to carry on Uncle Brooke’s plans, and alone. I regret the years I
lost through Alec Carden’s interference.”
The mistress of the Arms sat down on the edge of a chair and folded her
hands together. “Yes; I lost so much time,” she said musingly, almost as
though she had forgotten Marjorie’s presence.
“Why did I name you Goldendede?” Marjorie demanded with severity. “What
about the dormitory site, and the Brooke Hamilton Library and the
biography, and your general generousness to Hamilton? Even when you felt
resentment against Hamilton you tried to carry out his wishes so far as
the business part of the college was concerned. Many persons placed in
the same circumstances would have refused to continue the endowment
which Mr. Brooke made Hamilton, but subject to your approval after his
death. You were truly chosen to carry out his plans. I always feel that
somewhere in eternity Mr. Brooke knows and is glad.”
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