“FOR A LAGGARD IN LOVE AND A DASTARD IN WAR”
It seemed to Jan that each day was full of happenings of late. She was
so much interested and had become so much a part of the life around her
that she had not time to be homesick any more. First of all, there was
Sydney and his affairs, which troubled her, though he had told her that
her five dollars had purchased him temporary relief, and that he was
considering ways of taking her advice and of earning money after school
hours with which to pay his indebtedness.
And, strangely enough, there was Gladys, though nothing had seemed
less likely than that this particular cousin should ever engross Jan’s
thoughts.
The vague rumors floating about the Misses Larned’s school of great
things to be done at Christmas had crystallized into the delightfully
definite announcement that the girls were to give a play. And these
thrilling tidings were followed by the still more exciting news that
Gladys had been chosen for the principal part--that of an unfortunate
princess, who, at the end of the play, came into her own again--from
which Gwen, whose talent exceeded her sister’s, was excluded because of
her height. The secret leaked out that the only competitor with Gladys
in the minds of the teachers who made the cast was Daisy Hammond, and
it did not tend to soothe the feelings of that young lady, already
deeply chagrined that Gladys had been preferred to her. But she did
not allow her wounded vanity to make any difference in her friendship
for Gladys, treating her with more rather than less affection during
these trying days, a fact to which Gladys triumphantly called Gwen’s
attention as “perfectly sweet and dear of Daisy.”
There came a day--a dreadful day--however, less than a week after the
matter of the distribution of the parts had been settled when the elder
Miss Larned--and the more awful Miss Larned, if there were degrees in
the awe-inspiring qualities of the sisters--came into the class-room
and announced that for reasons into which it was not necessary to
enter, but which were deemed quite sufficient by the faculty, the
principal part in the Christmas play had been transferred from Miss
Gladys Graham to Miss Daisy Hammond. Miss Gladys, she added, had been
assigned the rôle of second court lady.
There was a silence more profound than mere absence of speech as this
announcement fell on the ears of the first class, and it realized what
it meant. “Second court lady!” Why, it was only a “thinking part,” a
mere figure which trailed in and out, swelling the number of attendants
on the principals in the play! What could have happened? For evidently
this was a punishment inflicted upon Gladys, but for what? All eyes
turned upon the deposed princess, who sat staring at the desk whence
her sentence had proceeded, turning rapidly every shade and color of
which the human countenance is capable, tears starting to her eyes,
her lips quivering, but with such a look of blank amazement visible
through her grief that most of her mates decided on the spot that
whatever might be wrong Gladys was as ignorant of it as they were.
Daisy Hammond’s face wore a look of gentle commiseration and regret,
combined with wonder. She kept looking toward Gladys and raising her
eyebrows inquiringly, while she shook her head in a vaguely expressive
manner. As soon as recess came a buzz of voices rose on every side, and
all the girls rushed to Gladys to ask what she had done to offend Miss
Larned and receive such a crushing blow. They found Daisy Hammond with
her arms around her friend, begging her to tell her what had happened
to make Miss Larned do “such a horrid, horrid thing,” and assuring her
that she would not “think of playing a part which had been taken from
darling Gladys.”
“There hasn’t the least bit of a thing happened,” Gladys said in reply
to the chorus of inquiries. “I don’t know anything more about it than
you do. But I don’t care. If they want Daisy to play the princess, let
her play it. The only thing I hate is being disgraced like this before
the whole school, all for nothing.”
“Go to Miss Larned and ask her why she has changed her mind,” advised
Dorothy Schuyler. “Tell her we all think she is offended with you, and
you think so, too, and tell her you aren’t asking to be given the part,
but you do ask for a chance to defend yourself if she thinks you have
done wrong.”
“That’s the thing to do, Glad,” said Gwen decidedly. “Come on. I’ll go
with you, and if she isn’t fair to you I’ll throw up my part, and so
will Jan.”
An irrepressible gleam of triumph which shot across Daisy Hammond’s
face before she could repress it, and a quick glance between her and
Ida Hammond and Flossie Gilsey, did not escape the keen eyes of “Miss
Lochinvar,” whose suspicions were alert. Nor was she less sure that she
had seen the glance when Flossie Gilsey said sweetly: “You won’t spoil
the play, Gwen! You know no one could take your place.”
This was strictly true, for Gwen had real dramatic talent and had been
given a rôle requiring more acting than that of the heroine, for she
was the leader of the princess’s enemies and had some telling lines and
situations.
“I certainly shall not care about spoiling the play, even if my getting
out of it did spoil it, if my sister is unjustly treated,” said Gwen.
“Come on, Gladys. We’ll let you know, girls, what Miss Larned says.”
The Grahams came back before many minutes, Gladys in tears, Gwen with
a flushed and angry face. “She won’t explain one bit,” said Gwen. “She
says it is a matter of which the least said the sooner it’s mended.
She insists that Gladys understands, and she says that is all that is
necessary.”
“But you don’t understand, Gladys?” asked Cena North.
Gladys gave her head a despairing shake. “Not any more than you do--not
any more than if I had just landed from China and couldn’t speak a word
of English,” she said. “I do think it is the meanest thing!”
The summons to return to the class-room came at that moment, as a
corroborative murmur arose on all sides.
“Did you tell her you wouldn’t act?” whispered Daisy Hammond to
Gwen. But Gwen shook her head. “I said nothing about any one but
Gladys--_yet_,” she replied. Gwen, like Jan, was suspicious of
treachery.
Gladys was escorted home by the sympathizing trio with whom she
most consorted, but Gwen and Jan walked home together, holding an
indignation meeting as they walked.
“Those Hammonds are as sweet as pie to Glad, but I wouldn’t trust
them,” Gwen said. “Daisy Hammond was wild to be the princess, and she
knew if Gladys could be got out of it she would be put in, for she was
second choice for the part in the first place. I’m just certain that
crowd is at the bottom of it!”
“So am I,” Jan agreed. “Let’s try to find out what they’ve done and
straighten it out! It’s a perfect shame not to give a girl a chance to
explain. I’m so sorry for Gladys! I’ll never rest till it’s made right.”
“What a trump you are, Jan,” said Gwen, stopping short to gaze
admiringly at her cousin. “You never bear the least grudge. Glad has
been perfectly nasty to you often, and now she’s in trouble you’d do
anything to pull her through!”
Jan colored. “I’m not a saint, Gwen,” she said. “I don’t enjoy being
snubbed, but I think it’s mean and low to try to get square with
people. If you can’t fight a thing out at the time, drop it, I say. I
just despise people who keep up and keep up and dwell on fusses--even
if they were in the right in the first place that puts them in the
wrong, to my way of thinking. I don’t believe that’s goodness in me.
I do so hate such petty ways of quarreling. I’d feel low and ill-bred
if I remembered rows and waited a chance to get square. However, as
to Gladys, I don’t want to get square with her. I’ve been sorry she
didn’t like me, but I don’t feel any spite toward her. Besides, she’s
my cousin, my blessed mother’s own niece, and your sister, and Syd’s
sister, and the sister of all of you, and it would be a queer thing if
I wouldn’t stand by my own cousin.”
Gwen, remembering how she had scolded Gladys for not standing by this
very “own cousin” of hers, still thought it fine in Jan to be so
generous, but she continued her way without further expression of that
opinion, resuming her animated discussion of Gladys’s wrongs.
That afternoon Gwen and Jan went to see the Misses Larned in the
freedom of hours out of school. They intended firmly, though
respectfully to decline to appear in the play if their teachers
persisted in refusing to allow Gladys opportunity of clearing herself
of whatever she might be accused.
Jan’s part was insignificant, for she was not suspected of histrionic
ability, nor was her experience in acting in the barn in distant
Crescendo known to “the Hydra’s” heads, but Gwen was a loss which
threatened the play with disaster, and Miss Larned--the elder and the
only one whom the girls found at home--stooped from her dignified
height to expostulate with her.
“It is quite natural and in one sense laudable that you should espouse
Gladys’s cause, Gwendoline,” she said. “But I assure you, you are
mistaken in so doing. We are justified in making the change that has
been made, and we are acting kindly in making it with no complaint of
Gladys--merely making it. Gladys understands perfectly why it is done,
and you should trust us--trust me, in fact--sufficiently to assume that
I am acting wisely.”
“Miss Larned,” said Gwen, trying to control the wrath this stately
speech aroused, but betraying it in her heightened color, “you think
you are acting wisely, but I think--we all think--you are dreadfully
mistaken. As to Gladys’s knowing what all this is about, I was with her
when she solemnly told you that she did not know. Gladys has plenty of
faults, but in all the fourteen years of her life I never knew her to
tell an untruth if you asked her anything straight out, as you did this
morning. When Gladys says she doesn’t know, _she doesn’t know_.
And if it comes to trusting any one, I must trust my own sister’s word
when I know I can. If Gladys was untruthful I would be fair enough to
own it--to myself, anyway--and keep still. But lying is not a Graham
fault, and I know Gladys is in the dark about what makes you take her
part from her. And I want to ask you if you think it is fair to condemn
any one without a hearing?”
“I can not allow you to question my judgment, Gwendoline,” said Miss
Larned. “The matter is closed.”
“Very well. Then I must ask to be excused from taking any part in the
play, Miss Larned,” said Gwen rising, with hardly less dignity than
Miss Larned herself.
“Gwendoline, you will put us to serious inconvenience. There is no one
in the school competent to act the part assigned you save yourself,”
said Miss Larned. “You should have the success of the play, the honor
of your school, when strangers will come to witness your efforts,
sufficiently at heart to sacrifice something for it.”
“I have the honor of my sister a little nearer my heart than the honor
of the school, Miss Larned,” said Gwen. “I care more what people think
of Gladys than what they think of the acting, though I would have
worked hard to make that play go. But as to any one taking my place,
my Cousin Janet here has been trying my part at home and she acts it
better than I do. She has acted a great deal before she came to New
York. She could do it, if she would. I certainly must resign it under
the circumstances.”
Jan looked at Gwen in surprise at this suggestion, not guessing that it
was a bit of pure malice, intended to heighten Miss Larned’s regret.
That lady turned to Jan graciously. “Janet an actress!” she exclaimed.
“I am surprised. Though Janet has shown such admirable scholarship
since we had the pleasure of receiving her into our care, I do not know
why I should wonder at discovering this accomplishment to be hers.
Then, my child, if your cousin persists in her refusal to listen to
reason, and to injure herself and us for her sister’s sake, I will give
her part to you, if you are as capable of performing it as she thinks
you.”
“Thank you, Miss Larned,” said Jan hastily, “but I wouldn’t take it for
the world. I feel just as Gwen does about Gladys--of course, because
an own cousin is the very next thing to your sister--and I must give
up even the little part in the play which I have already learned. I
wouldn’t take part in it for anything unless Gladys has a chance to
clear herself of whatever you think she has done and is proved guilty.
Neither Gwen nor I would take her part if she deserved punishment. We
only want you, please, to let her know what she is accused of.”
“I have told you that she already knows. If she does not choose to tell
you, that is her own affair. I must wish you good-day, young ladies.
I really have no time to waste on arguments with my pupils.” And Miss
Larned made them a curt bow of dismissal and sailed from the room,
leaving them to find their way out as they could. She was not dull
enough to fail to perceive that Gwen had suggested Jan’s acting merely
for the pleasure of hearing the girl refuse to accept the part.
With this small satisfaction to comfort her, Gwen returned slowly
with Jan to her home. It was maddening to feel that the Christmas
festivities were to end in disgrace to Gladys, loss of her own part in
the play, which Gwen could not help knowing she could act well, and
universal discomfort. And still less endurable was the situation to
both Gwen and Jan that they felt convinced that Gladys’s friends had
acted treacherously toward her and that they were powerless to prove
their theory or bring about justice.