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BEATRICE LEIGH AT COLLEGE
A Story for Girls
by
JULIA A. SCHWARTZ
* * * * * *
A SONG-CALENDAR
BY A. L. C.
I
"When blood of autumn
Runs warm and red
In all the branches
Over head--
Sing clear bright sunshine,
And tender haze,
Sing glad beginning
Of College Days!
II
"When pines and spruces
Are bowed with snow,
When ponds are frozen
And keen winds blow--
Sing cozy corners
Or jingling sleighs,
Sing work or frolic
Of College Days!
III
"When comes sweet April,
With soft slow rain,
And earth has broken
Her frozen chain--
Sing low shy birdnotes,
And woodland ways,
Sing mirth and music
Of College Days!
IV
"When June days linger,
And warm winds blow
O'er fields of daisies
Adrift like snow--
Sing sad leave-takings
And tender praise
Of all the mem'ries
Of College Days!"
--Vassarion, '95.
* * * * * *
Cordial acknowledgment is due to the editors of the _Youth's
Companion_ for their courteous permission to reprint in the following
chapters of college life the episodes entitled respectively "Wanted:
a Friend," and "Her Freshman Valentine."
* * * * * *
BEATRICE LEIGH AT COLLEGE
A Story for Girls
by
JULIA A. SCHWARTZ
Author of
"Elinor's College Career" etc.
Illustrated by Eva M. Nagel
[Illustration: SHE HID HER FACE AGAINST MARTHA'S DRESS]
The Penn Publishing Company
Philadelphia MCMVII
Copyright 1907 by the Penn Publishing Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Bea's Roommate 9
II Enter Robbie Belle 35
III A Question of Economy 59
IV Her Freshman Valentines 81
V The Giftie Gie Us 92
VI A Wave of Reform 115
VII Four Sophomores and a Dog 145
VIII Classes in Manners 172
IX This Vain Show 198
X Consequences 214
XI A Girl to Have Friends 231
XII An Original in Math 255
XIII Just This Once 283
XIV Classmates 299
XV Victory 321
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
SHE HID HER FACE AGAINST MARTHA'S DRESS Frontispiece
Lila Stood Staring Out at the Snow 28
"Anything New?" 73
"Oh, Thank You; I Don't Want Anything to Eat" 96
We Handed Over Five Dollars Apiece 201
She Waved an Open Letter In Her Hand 276
She Held Both Hands, Smiling 301
BEATRICE LEIGH AT COLLEGE
CHAPTER I
BEA'S ROOMMATE
Lila Allan went to college in the hope of finding an intimate friend at
last. Her mother at home waited anxiously for her earliest letters, and
devoured them in eager haste to discover some hint of success in the
search; for being a wise woman she knew her own daughter, and understood
the difficulty as well as the necessity of the case.
The first letter was written on the day of arrival. It contained a
frantic appeal for enough money to buy her ticket home immediately,
because she had a lonesome room away up in the north tower, and nobody
had spoken to her all the afternoon, and her trunk had not come yet, and
she did not know where the dining-room was, and the corridors were full
of packing-boxes with lids scattered around, and girls were hurrying to
and fro with step-ladders and kissing each other and running to hug each
other, and everything.
The second letter, written the following day, said that a freshman named
Beatrice Leigh had come up to help her unpack. Beatrice had a long braid
too, and her hair was the loveliest auburn and curled around her face,
and she laughed a good deal. Lila had noticed her the very first evening.
She was sitting at one of the tables in the middle of the big
dining-room. When Lila saw her, she was giggling with her head bent down
and her napkin over her eyes, while the other girls at that table smiled
amused smiles. Lila knew instantly that this poor freshman had done
something dreadful, and she was sorry for her. Later that same evening in
Miss Merriam's room she told how she had marched in to dinner alone and
plumped down at that table among all those seniors. She seemed to
consider it a joke, but Lila was sure she had been almost mortified to
death when she learned of her mistake, and that was why she had laughed
so hard. Several other freshmen were at Miss Merriam's. Two of them were
named Roberta, and one was named Gertrude something. But Lila liked
Beatrice best. Miss Merriam called her Bea. Miss Merriam was a junior who
had invited in all the students at that end of the corridor to drink
chocolate. Lila did not care for her much, because she had a loud voice
and tipped back in her chair and said yep for yes.
The third missive was only a postal card bearing a properly telegraphic
communication to the effect that it was Saturday morning, and Bea was
waiting to escort her to the chapel to hear read the lists of freshman
names assigned to each recitation section. Mrs. Allan scanned the message
with a quick throb of pleasure; then sighed as she laid it down. The
indications were hopeful enough if only Lila would be careful not to
drive away this friend as she had the others.
Meanwhile on that Saturday morning Bea and Lila, silent and shy, had
crowded with their two hundred classmates into chapel. The two friends
sat side by side. Lila was in terror of making some horrible blunder that
might overwhelm her with a vast indefinite disgrace. She leaned forward
in the pew, the pencil trembling between her fingers, the blood pounding
in her ears, while from the platform in front a cool voice read on evenly
through page after page of names. And then at last the tragic despair of
finding that she had jotted down herself for two sections in English and
none in Latin! When she managed to gasp out the awful situation in Bea's
ear, that young person looked worried for full half a minute. It was a
very serious thing to be a freshman. Then her cheery common sense came to
the rescue.
"Never mind. We'll go up and look the lists over after she has finished
them all."
"Oh, can we? Will you truly go with me?" Lila drew a quick breath of
relief and gratitude. This was one of the precious privileges of having
found a friend. She gazed at Bea with such an adorable half-wistful,
half-joyful smile on her delicate face that Bea never quite forgot the
sensation of realizing that it was meant wholly for her. The memory of it
returned again and again in later days when Lila's exacting ways seemed
beyond endurance. For Lila's nature was one of those that give all and
demand all and suffer in a myriad mysterious ways.
On the afternoon of that Saturday when Bea skipped up the narrow tower
stairs to invite Lila to go to the orchard to gather a scrapbasket full
of apples, she discovered the door locked. In answer to her lively
rat-tattoo and gay call over the transom, she heard the key turn.
Bea started to dash in; then after one glance stopped and fumbled
uneasily with the knob. In her happy-go-lucky childhood with many
brothers and sisters at home, tears had always an embarrassing effect.
"Let's--let's go to the orchard," she stammered. "It's lovely, and the
fresh air will help your--your headache." She had a boyish notion that
anybody would prefer to excuse heavy eyes by calling it headache rather
than tears.
Lila pointed to the bed which was half made up.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded in agonized reproach. "I thought
the maids attended to the beds here. I left the mattress turned over the
foot all day long, and the door was wide open. Everybody in the
neighborhood must have looked in and then decided that I was lazy and
shiftless. They believe that I have been brought up to let things go
undone like that. They do, they do! Miss Merriam just the same as said
so. She poked in her head a minute ago and said, 'Heigho, little one,
time to make up your bed. It has aired long enough and the maid is not
expected to do it.' She said that to me! Oh, I hate her!" Lila caught her
breath hard.
Bea opened her candid eyes wider in astonished curiosity. "But didn't you
want to know about the maid?"
"She mortified me. Do you know how it feels to be mortified? The--the
awfulness--" Lila stopped and swallowed once or twice as if something
stuck in her throat. "She might have told me in a different manner so as
not to wound me so heartlessly. She isn't a lady."
"Please." Bea twirled the door-knob in worried protest. "Don't talk that
way. She is my friend. We live in the same town. She's nice, really.
You've only seen the outside. Please!"
"Oh, well!" Lila raised her shoulders slightly. "She isn't worth
noticing, I dare say. Such people never are. I can't help wishing that
you were not acquainted with her. I want you all to myself. I'm glad she
belongs to another class anyhow."
Into Bea's puzzled face crept a troubled expression. "You're a funny
girl, Lila," she said; "let's go to the orchard."
On their way across the campus, they passed countless girls hurrying from
building to building. Every doorway seemed to blossom with a chattering
group, a loitering pair, or an energetic single lady on pressing business
bent. Bea met every glance with a look of bright friendliness in her
eager eyes and lips ready to smile, no matter whether she had ever been
introduced or not. But Lila's wild-flower face, in spite of its lovely
tints and outlines, seemed almost icy in its expression of haughty
criticism. No wonder, then, that this miniature world of college
reflected a different countenance to each.
"Aren't they the dearest, sweetest girls you ever saw!" exclaimed Bea as
the two freshmen turned from the curving concrete walk into the road that
led to the orchard.
"I saw only one who was truly beautiful," commented her companion. "I
expected to find them prettier."
"Oh, but they are so interesting," protested Bea in quick loyalty.
"Nearly everybody appears prettier after you get acquainted. I've noticed
that myself. It is better to dawn than to dazzle, don't you think? Sue
Merriam, for instance, improves and grows nicer and nicer after you know
her. You will learn to love her dearly."
"Never!"
At the tone Bea gave an involuntary whistle; then checked herself at
sight of Lila's quivering lips. "Oh, well, don't bother. Let's go on to
the orchard. Look! There comes Roberta Abbott with about a bushel of
russets. She is a funny girl too. To judge from her appearance, you would
say she was sad and dignified. She has the most tragic dark eyes and
mouth. But just wait till you hear her talk. Didn't you meet her last
night at Sue's?"
"Yes." Lila turned away to hide the flicker of jealousy, for she had
learned long since how transparently every emotion showed in her
features. "I think we ought not to waste any time now. And anyway I'd
rather get acquainted with you all alone this afternoon."
Bea stared. "You're the funniest girl!" She walked on after waving a
sociable hand at Roberta. "It is interesting to have friends that are
different, don't you think?"
"To have one friend who is different," corrected Lila.
"All right," laughed Bea. "Oh, see what a gorgeous glorious place this
is, with the trees and scarlet woodbine and the lake sparkling away over
there, and girls, girls, girls! But I don't believe that there is a
single other one exactly like you."
During the next week this thought recurred to her more than once. By
means of some diplomatic maneuvering, the two friends managed to have
their single rooms exchanged for a double. After moving in, Lila seized a
moment of solitude to plan a beautiful cozy corner for Bea. She dragged
her own desk into a dusky recess and set Bea's at an artistic angle at
the left side of the sunniest window. Just as she was hanging her
favorite picture above it, Bea came rushing in with her arms full of new
books.
"Oh, no, no, no!" she exclaimed impulsively, "that won't do at all. You
must put it at the right so that the light will fall over the left
shoulder. Otherwise the shadow of your hand will go scrambling over the
paper ahead of your pen. Here, let me show you."
By the time she had hauled the desk across to its new position, Lila had
vanished. Bea found her huddled in a woe-begone heap behind the wardrobe
door in her bedroom, and flew to her in dismay.
"Oh, Lila, dearie, did you smash your finger or drop something on your
foot? There, don't cry. I'll get the witch-hazel and arnica and
court-plaster. What is it? Where? Why-ee!" she gasped bewildered, "why,
Lila!" for her weeping roommate had pushed her gently away and turned her
face to the wall.
"I was doing it for you," she sobbed. "I was trying to please you, and
then you were so cr-cr-cruel! You were cruel."
"Cruel?" echoed Bea, "why, how? I haven't done a thing except buy the
books I ordered last week. Yours were down in the office, too, but I
didn't have enough money for all, because Sue Merriam borrowed four
dollars. She asked after you and said----" Bea hesitated, smitten with
novel doubt that she ought to begin to think three times before speaking
once where such a sensitive person was concerned.
Lila sat up in swift attention and winked away her tears. "Said what?"
"Oh, nothing much." Bea wriggled. "Just talking."
"I insist."
"Oh, well, it doesn't signify. I was only thinking----" Bea paused again
before blurting out. "She said that roommates are good for the
character."
At this Lila rose with such an air of patient endurance that poor Bea
felt clumsy, remorseful, injured and perplexed simultaneously. A cloud of
resentful silence hovered over them both through the weary hours of the
afternoon. Not until the ten o'clock gong sent the echoes booming through
the deserted corridors, did Lila break down in a storm of weeping that
terrified Bea. She found herself begging pardon, apologizing, caressing,
explaining and repenting wholesale of rudeness about the desk, of selfish
neglect in the case of the books, of disloyalty in giving ear to Miss
Merriam's gratuitous comments. This gale blew over, leaving one girl with
darker circles under her eyes and a more pathetic droop at the corners of
her mouth, leaving the other with a fellow feeling for any unfortunate
bull who happens to get into a china shop, intentionally or otherwise.
Life at college promised to be like walking over exceedingly thin ice
every day and all day long.
And yet, after she had learned to make allowances for the
oversensitiveness, Bea found Lila more lovable and winning week by week.
She was philosopher enough to recognize the fact that every one has the
"defects of his qualities." The very quality that sent Lila hurrying
up-stairs in an agony of mortification because a senior had forgotten to
bow to her, was the one that inclined her to enter into Bea's varying
moods with exquisite responsiveness. It was delightful to have a friend
who was ever ready to answer gayety with gayety and sober thoughts with
sympathy. Indeed, when Lila was not wrapped up in her own suffering, she
could not be surpassed in the priceless gift of sympathy. For the sake of
that, much might be forgiven.
Much but not everything. Just before the midyear examinations came a
crisis in the growth of their friendship. One afternoon Lila reached the
head of the stairs barely in time to make a sudden swerve out of Miss
Merriam's breezy path.
"Heigho, Eliza Allan," she called in careless teasing, "why don't you
spell your name the way it is in the catalogue? More dignified, I think.
By the way, I've been into your room and left some burned cork for your
chapter play. We had more than we needed last night. By-bye."
Lila walked on in frosty silence. By-bye, indeed! And to address her as
Eliza, too, on this very afternoon when she had as much as she could bear
anyhow. To hear her essay read aloud and criticised before the class, and
then to have it handed to her across the desk, so that anybody could see
the awful REWRITE in red ink scrawled on the outside! To be sure, all the
essays had been distributed at the same time, and nobody knew for sure
that hers had been the one read aloud. Still they might have seen the
name on it or noticed how red and pale she turned, or something. And
worse still, the examinations were coming soon, and she was sure she
would fail. If it were not for leaving Bea, she would go home that night.
She certainly would!
As she entered, Bea looked up brightly from the cardboard which she was
cutting into squares.
"Here you are!" she exclaimed in cheery greeting, though her eyes had
shadowed instantly at sight of the unhappy drooping of every line. "Sue
Merriam has been in to show me how to make you up for the play next
month. It takes quite an artistic touch to darken the brows and touch up
the lashes. Catch these corks and put them away. They're messing up my
dinner-cards."
Lila's shoulders quivered as if pricked by a spur even while she
mechanically caught the bits of black and fumbled them in her fingers.
"She meant that my brows are too thin and my lashes too light. I would
thank her to keep her criticism until it is called for."
For half a minute Bea kept her head down while her chest heaved over a
sigh of weary anticipation. Then she turned with an affectionate query:
"What has happened now, Lila? Tell me, dear."
Upon hearing about the affair of the essay, she expostulated consolingly,
"Of course that is no disgrace. She is severe with all the girls, tears
their essays into strips and empties the red ink over them. She doesn't
mean it personally, you know. How can we learn anything if nobody
corrects our mistakes? Anyway it was an honor to have it read aloud. Very
likely the girls did not see the REWRITE. She never bothers much with the
utterly hopeless papers. Come, cheer up! The red ink was a compliment."
"Do you really think so?" Lila smiled a little doubtfully. "It sounds
like one of the sophists--'to make the worse appear the better reason.'
I'd love to believe it, and you are sweet to me." She laid one arm
caressingly across Bea's shoulders. "It is queer that I don't mind more
when you scold me so outrageously."
"Scold you?" repeated the other in amazement at such a description of her
soothing speech.
Lila nodded. "I never stood it from anybody else. Maybe it is because you
are my special dearest friend. That is why I came to college, you know.
At home the girls disappointed me. There were several in the high school
who might have been my friends if they had been different from what they
were. Ena Brownell and I were inseparable for weeks till one morning she
went off with another girl instead of waiting for me on the corner,
though I had telephoned that I would meet her there. Even if I was a few
minutes late, she would have waited if she had really cared. I cried
myself to sleep every night for a long time but I never forgave her."
"Um-m-m," muttered Bea, her head again bent over the cardboard, "how
horrid! See, isn't this a lovely daisy I'm drawing? They're to be dinner
cards for my next spread. This is for your place."
"It's sweet. I think you are the most talented girl in the class." Lila
stooped for a hug but carefully so as not to interfere with the growth of
the silvery petals. "There was another girl, and her name was Daisy. She
seemed perfect till I discovered that she prized her own vanity more
highly than my happiness. She refused to take gym work the third hour
when I was obliged to have it. She said the shower bath spoiled the wave
in her hair, and so she chose the sixth hour class. Yet she knew very
well that I had Latin at that period. I don't care for that selfish kind
of friendship, do you?"
"Um-m, no!" Bea's brush dropped an impatient splash of yellow in the
heart of the flower. Then she glanced up with a penitent smile.
"You're so awfully loyal yourself, Lila," she said. "You try to measure
everybody up to that standard. I shan't forget that day in hygiene when
you declined to answer the question that floored me. It was like that
poem about the girl who wouldn't spell a word that the boy had missed,
because she hated to go above him. And at the tennis tournament you
wouldn't leave till I had finished the match, though you shivered and
shook in the frosty October air. You do a lot for me, and I am downright
ashamed sometimes. See, behold the completed posy!"
"It is too pretty for a mere dinner card." Lila dropped into a rattan
chair and idly tossed the corks from hand to hand. "Aren't you planning a
long time ahead? Your family knows exactly what to send in a box. That
last was the most delicious thing! I suppose we'll just ask our crowd of
freshmen, Berta and Gertrude and the rest."
Lila's eyes were so intent upon the dancing corks that she failed to note
the swift glance which Bea darted in her direction.
"Um-m-m," she said cautiously, "I think I might like an upper class girl
or two. Some of them have been awfully kind to me this year. Sue Merriam
escorted me to the first Hall Play, and she proposed our names for Alpha,
and on her birthday she asked me to sit at her table and meet some
seniors as an invited guest. She said the "invited" with such a thump on
it that my heart almost broke. Isn't she the greatest tease?"
No answer.
"It was mostly due to her that I came to college," continued Bea with an
effort to speak naturally though her fingers shook the least bit in their
grasp of the brush, and one anxious eye was watching Lila's face. "I've
known her all my life. She persuaded the family to send me, and she
tutored me last summer and helped in a million different ways. You don't
understand how much I owe her. It is such a little thing to invite her to
my--to our party. I'd love to do it, Lila."
Still no answer. The silence lengthened out minute after minute. Finally
Bea ventured to raise her head and hold up another card for inspection.
"See, a new daisy, but this one has a different disposition. Do you
observe the expression--sort of grinning and cheerful? This is like Sue,
while the first one is like you, an earnest young person, not one bit
impudent. See it, lady. The dearest flower-face. I love it."
"And yet"--Lila's voice sounded choked, "you want to invite her to the
party. You know it will spoil my pleasure. You--know--I--hate--her."
Bea's frame trembled once in a nervous shiver. Her fascinated eyes
followed Lila to the window, where she stood staring out at the dazzling
winter world of snow.
"You must choose between Susan Merriam and me. I have a right to demand
it. I have a right. I have a right."
Bea saw Lila lift her arm as if to brush away the tears. Then one hand
fumbled for her handkerchief, while the other squeezed the burned corks
with unconscious force. She was certainly wiping her eyes.
"You must--you must--choose to-day--between Susan Merriam and me. If you
choose her, I shall never speak to you again. If you choose me, you must
have nothing to do with her. Nothing! You must drop her acquaintance. You
cannot have both."
Bea suddenly tipped back in her chair, teetered to and fro for a frantic
moment, then brought it down with a bump on all four feet.
"Nonsense!" she snapped.
Lila stood motionless so long that Bea had time to notice the ticking of
her watch. Then she turned slowly around from the window.
"And this is friendsh----"
[Illustration: LILA STOOD STARING OUT AT THE SNOW]
"Oh!" squealed Bea, "oh, oh, oh! Ha, ha, ha!" Flinging her arms out
over the desk she buried her face upon them and shook with
uncontrollable laughter.
Lila crimsoned to her hair, then went white with anger. Without a word
she walked into her own room and locked the door.
Half an hour later when she rose from the bed and began to pour out a
basinful of water to bathe her smarting eyes, she heard a rustle on the
threshold. Glancing quickly around she saw a square of white paper being
thrust beneath the door. It was a letter from home on the five o'clock
mail. Lila picked it up and opened it listlessly. The fit of weeping had
left her exhausted.
"My darling daughter," she read,
"This is a hasty note to say that your great aunt Sarah is on her way
east, and will stop at the college for a day's visit with you. I wish to
caution you, dear girl, against even the semblance of a slight in your
treatment of her. Do not forget to inquire after Gyp the terrier, Rex the
angora cat, Dandy the parrot, and Ellen the maid. Your aunt is
exceedingly sensitive about such small attentions. You might invite your
friends to meet her at afternoon tea, and if you can manage it tactfully
you might warn them not to discuss topics with which she is unacquainted.
She has, as you know, a very peculiar disposition. The least suspicion of
neglect or hint of criticism exasperates her beyond endurance. In her
childhood she suffered continually because of this oversensitive nature.
I suspect that she made no effort to conquer the fault. Indeed so far as
I may judge from her present attitude, she has always considered it a
proof of superior delicacy and refinement. She has cherished her
selfishness instead of fighting it. As a consequence her life has been
embittered and unspeakably lonely. I believe that she has not a friend on
earth except her pets, and even Gyp has learned not to frisk with joy at
sight of anybody but his mistress.
"I am sure I may trust you, dear, to make her visit as happy as possible,
although in truth it seems irony to speak of real happiness in connection
with such a temperament. You may not be aware that even your Aunt Sarah
was once the heroine of a romance. He was an extraordinarily fine man, and
she would have found happiness with him, if with anybody. But one day in
the rush of an important law-suit, he forgot to keep an engagement with
her, and she never forgave the slight. After that disappointment--and it
was a grievous disappointment, however self-inflicted--especially grievous
to such an expert in self-torture--her nature grew rapidly and steadily
more self-absorbed and unlovely.
"My darling little daughter, sometimes I have feared that you may have
inherited a similar tendency. It has been difficult, dearest, to guide
aright where even the slightest word of criticism stings and burns and
lashes. You, more than many girls, need the discipline of wisest,
frankest friendship with others of your own age. I see that during your
high school days I did wrong in trying to supply their place to you with
my own companionship. A child, however precious, cannot be forever kept
wrapped in cotton-wool.
"So, dearest daughter, you will understand how joyful I am this year in
hearing of your new friends. Don't let them slip away through any fault
of yours. Whatever is worth winning is worth keeping, even at the cost of
many a sacrifice of foolish pride.
"When you see your aunt, be sure to remember me to her.
"With a heart full of love,
"Mother."
Lila read the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and walking across the
little room threw herself again face downward on the bed. After a while
the dressing-gong whirred its tidings through the corridors. Lila slid to
her feet and began to walk mechanically toward the mirror.
"But Bea laughed. She laughed at me. Mother doesn't know that Bea
laughed. And I thought she was my friend." Lila felt another sob come
tearing up toward her throat and clenched her teeth in the struggle to
choke it back. Blinded by a rush of fresh tears, she opened the top
drawer of the bureau and felt for her brush with groping fingers.
"She laughed right in my face. I--I--could have forgiven everything
else. But--but mother doesn't know that Bea in-insulted me.
She--laughed--right--in--my----"
Then through the blur Lila happened to catch sight of her reflection in
the looking-glass. The last sob broke off sheer in the middle, and left
her with her lips still parted in an unfinished quiver.
The horrified face that stared back at her from the mirror was striped
and rayed with startling streaks of black. The astonished eyes shone out
from white circles framed in ebony sunbursts; the nose was like an islet
washed by jetty waves; the mouth slowly widened under a fiercely upcurved
line of inky hue.
In the study on the other side of the door, remorseful Bea was wearing
several paths in their best rug, as she waited for some sign. Suddenly a
new sound welled up and she bent her head to listen, in quick dread of
another storm of weeping. But, no! This was different. It was not a sob,
though it did seem rather gaspy. It bubbled and chuckled. It was
laughter.
"Lila!" cried Bea, and made a dash toward the room. Lila flung open the
door.
"Bea!" she answered, "I am going to give a tea for my Aunt Sarah. Do you
think Sue Merriam will come if I invite her?"