THE GIRL THAT TRIES HARD
The Girl That Tries Hard was giving a dance at the Country Club. The
Girl That Tries Hard was otherwise Mabel Margrave, wherein lay the only
point of difference between herself and other Girls That Try Hard. There
was hardly room in Clarkson for cliques; and yet one often heard the
expression "Mabel Margrave and her set" and this indicated that Mabel
Margrave had a following and that to some extent she was a leader. She
prided herself on doing things differently, which is what The Girl That
Tries Hard is forever doing everywhere. She was the only girl in the
town that gave dinners at the Clarkson Club; and while these functions
were not necessarily a shock to the Clarkson moral sense, yet the first
of these entertainments, at which Mabel Margrave danced a skirt dance at
the end of the dinner, caused talk in conservative circles. It might be
assumed that Mabel's father and mother could have checked her
exuberance, but the fact was that Mabel's parents wielded little
influence in their own household. Timothy Margrave was busy with his
railroad and his wife was a timid, shrinking person, who viewed her
daughter's social performances with wonder and admiration. It would
have been much better for Mabel if she had not tried so hard, but this
was something that she did not understand, and there was no one to teach
her. She derived an immense pleasure from her father's private car, in
which she had been over most of the United States, and had gone even to
Mexico. In the Margrave household it was always spoken of as "the car."
Its cook and porter were kept on the pay-roll of the company, but when
they were not on active service in the car, one of them drove the
Margrave carriage, and the other opened the Margrave front door.
The Margrave house was one of the handsomest in Clarkson. Margrave had
not coursed in the orbits of luminaries greater than himself without
acquiring wisdom. When he built a house he turned the whole matter over
to a Boston architect with instructions to go ahead just as if a
gentleman had employed him; he did not want a house which his neighbors
could say was exactly what any one would expect of the Margraves.
Clarkson was proud of the Margrave house, which was better than the
Porter house, though it lacked the setting of the Porter grounds. The
architect had done everything; Margrave kept his own hands off and sent
his wife and Mabel abroad to stay until it was ready for occupancy. When
the house was nearly completed Margrave took Warry Raridan up to see it
and displayed with pride a large and handsomely furnished library whose
ample shelves were devoid of books.
"Now, Warry," he said, "I want books for this house and I want 'em
right. I never read any books, and I never expect to, and I guess the
rest of the family ain't very literary, either. I want you to fill
these shelves, and I don't want trash. Are you on?"
The situation appealed to Warry and he had given his best attention to
Margrave's request. He took his time and bought a representative library
in good bindings. As Mrs. Margrave was a Roman Catholic, Warry thought
it well that theological literature should be represented. Mrs.
Margrave's parish priest, dining early at the new home, contemplated the
"libery," as its owner called it, with amazement.
"Ain't they all there, Father Donovan?" asked Margrave. "I hope you like
my selection."
"Couldn't be better," declared the priest, "if I'd picked them myself."
He had taken down a volume of a rare edition of Cornelius a Lapide and
passed his hand over the Latin title page with a scholar's satisfaction.
Mabel had declined to go to the convent which her mother selected for
her; convents were not fashionable; and she herself selected Tyringham
because she had once met a Tyringham graduate who was the most "stylish"
girl she had ever seen. Since her return from school she had found it
convenient to abandon, as far as possible, the church of her baptism.
There had been no other Roman Catholics at her school; the Episcopal
church was the official spiritual channel of Tyringham; and she brought
home a pretty Anglican prayer book, and attended early masses with her
mother only to the end that she might go later to the services of St.
Paul's, to the scandal of Father Donovan, and somewhat to the sneaking
delight of her father. Margrave held that religion of whatever kind was
a matter for women, and that they were entitled to their whim about it.
Tyringham is, it is well known, a place where girls of the proper
instinct and spirit acquire a manner that is everywhere unmistakable.
Mabel had given new grace and impressiveness to Tyringham itself; she
touched nothing that she did not improve, and she came home with an
ambition to give tone to Clarkson society. A great phrase with Mabel was
The Men; this did not mean the _genus homo_ in any philosophical
abstraction, but certain young gentlemen that followed much in her
train. There were a few young women who were much in Mabel's company and
who conscientiously imitated Mabel's ways. All the devices and desires
of Mabel's heart tended toward one consummation, and that was the
destruction of monotony.
Mabel had announced to a few of her cronies that she would show Evelyn
Porter how things were done; and as the Country Club was new, she chose
it as the place for her exhibition. Mabel was two years older than
Evelyn; they had never been more than casually acquainted, and now that
Evelyn's college days were over,--Mabel had "finished" several years
before,--and they were to live in the same town, it seemed expedient to
the older girl to take the initiative, to the end that their respective
positions in the community might be definitely fixed. Evelyn's name
carried far more prestige than Mabel's; the Margraves had not been in
the Clarkson Blue Book at all, until Mabel came home from school and
demonstrated her right to enlistment among the elect.
She dressed herself as sumptuously as she dared for a morning call and
drove the highest trap that Clarkson had ever seen up Porter Hill. The
man beside her was the only correctly liveried adjunct of any Clarkson
stable,--at least this was Mabel's opinion. Whatever people said of
Mabel and her ways, they could not deny that her clothes were good,
though they were usually a trifle pronounced in color and cut. She wore
about her neck a long, thin chain from which dangled a silver heart.
Mabel's was the largest that could be found at any Chicago jeweler's.
Its purpose in Mabel's case was to convey to the curious the impression
that there was a photograph of a young man inside. This was no fraud on
Mabel's part, for she carried in this trinket the photograph of a
popular actor, whose pictures were purchasable anywhere in the country
at twenty-five cents each. While Mabel waited for Evelyn to appear, she
threw open her new driving coat, which forced the season a trifle, and
studied the furnishings of the Porter parlor, criticising them
adversely. She was not clear in her mind whether she should call Evelyn
"Miss Porter" or not. Clarkson people usually said "Evelyn Porter" when
speaking of her. In Mabel's own case they all said "Mabel."
When Evelyn came into the parlor she seemed very tall to Mabel, and
impulse solved the problem of how to address her.
"Good morning, Miss Porter."
She gave her hand to Evelyn, thrusting it out straight before her, yet
hanging back from it archly as if in rebuke of her own forwardness. This
was decidedly Tyringhamesque, and was only one of the many amiable and
useful things she had learned at Miss Alton's school.
Mabel sat up very straight in her chair when she talked, and played
with the silver heart.
"I didn't ask for the others, as it's a wretchedly indecent hour to be
making a call."
"Oh, the girls are up and about," said Evelyn. "I shall be glad--"
"Oh, please don't trouble to call them! I came on an errand. You know
the Country Club has just taken a new lease of life. Have you been out
yet? It's a bit crude"--this phrase was taught as a separate course at
Tyringham--"but there's the making of a lovely place there."
"Yes, I've barely seen it. I went out the other day to look at the golf
course. The golf wave seems to be sweeping the country."
"Do you play?"
"A little; we had a course near the college that we used."
"You college girls are awfully athletic. I'm crazy about golf. I thought
it might be good sport to ask a few girls and some of the men to go to
the club for supper,--we really couldn't have dinner there, you know.
This heavenly weather won't last always. We'll get a drag and Captain
Wheelock will see that I don't drive you into trouble. He's a very safe
whip, you know, if I'm not; and we'll come back in the moonlight. This
includes your guests, of course."
"That will be delightful," said Evelyn. "I'm sure we'll all be glad to
go. I'm anxious to have the girls see as much as possible. I want them
to be favorably impressed, and this will be an event."
When Mabel had taken herself off, Evelyn returned to the tower where
Belle Marshall and Annie Warren awaited her. These young women were
lounging in the low window-seat exchanging reminiscences of college
days.
"It was Mabel Margrave," explained Evelyn. "She's asked us to go
coaching with her to the Country Club and have supper there and I took
the liberty of accepting for you."
"What's she like?" asked Annie.
"Tyringham," said Evelyn succinctly.
"Oh! your words affect me strangely, child," drawled Belle, casting up
her eyes in a pretended imitation of the Tyringham manner.
"How are her _a's_?" asked Annie.
"Broader than the Atlantic. I think she wants to patronize me. She's a
real Tyringham in that she thinks us college women very slow."
"Well, they do have a style," said Belle, sighing. "You can always tell
one of Miss Alton's girls."
"Yes, there's no doubt about that," retorted Annie coolly. She had taken
her education seriously and was disposed to look down upon the product
of fashionable boarding schools.
"Cheer up! The worst is yet to come," declared Evelyn. "You'd better not
encourage the idea here that we are different from young women of any
other sort. I've got to live here! I'm going to be pretty lonely too,
the first thing you know, after you desert me."
"You'll have plenty of chances to root for the college," suggested
Belle. "You won't have anything like the time I'll have. In Virginia we
have traditions that I've got to reconcile myself to, in some way; out
here, you can start even."
"Yes, and we have the Tyringham type, and a few of the convent sort, and
a few of the co-eds to combat."
"Well, there's nothing so radically wrong with the co-eds, is there?"
asked Annie, who believed in education for its own sake.
"Only the ones that want to go in for politics and that sort of thing.
There's a lady--I said lady--doctor of philosophy here in town who
casually invited me to become a candidate for school commissioner a few
weeks ago."
"I'm not sure that you oughtn't to have done it," said Annie, "assuming
that you declined. It would have been a good stroke for alma mater."
"No; that's what it wouldn't have been," said Evelyn seriously. "If you
and I believe that college education is good for women, we'd better
suppress this notion that's abroad in the world that college makes a
woman different. I hold that we're not necessarily unlike our sisters of
the convent, or the Tyringham teach-you-how-to-enter-a-room variety."
Evelyn drew herself up with an oratorical gesture and inflection. "I'm
here to defend my rights as a human being--"
"You will be hit with a pillow in a minute," remarked Belle, rising and
preparing to make her threat good. "Let's talk about what to wear to
Lady Tyringham's party."