PARTINGS
COMMENCEMENT Day was over and it had passed much as Janet had declared
that it would when she arranged her bulletin for the benefit of Mr.
Evans some months before. During the week there was a constant influx
of visiting parents, friends, and relatives.
Stuart and a company of his friends were on hand to send flowers
and to occupy every moment not necessarily taken up in exercises
and ceremonies. Departing students came and went from the various
dormitories and lodgings, making farewell calls. Groups gathered about
the grounds. Few students were seen walking alone for almost every one
had some friend among her classmates from whom it would be hard to
part, and the melancholy countenances were beginning to outnumber the
merry ones.
As Janet walked arm in arm with Teddy across the campus after the
alumnae dinner, she saw Mr. Evans waiting at the gate just ahead.
"Bless me!" she ejaculated.
"What is the matter?" asked Teddy.
"Nothing except that I promised Mr. Evans long ago that I would try
to afford him an opportunity to-day to receive my congratulations. I
suppose I must walk a little way with him," she said apologetically.
"Don't wait for me, Ted. I'll be back before long," and she turned off
leaving Teddy to join Cordelia and Lee who were not far behind.
An hour later she came into the twilight quiet of the room where Teddy
sat with her elbows on the window-sill gazing out into the dusky
street. There were boxes and trunks standing about ready to be sent off
in the morning, and overhead was a tramping back and forth. Lee, who
had put off her packing till the last minute, was now giving all her
attention to getting her trunks and boxes ready. Peals of laughter now
and then floated in through the open window, and up the street came an
excited chatter from groups of girls and young men passing by.
Janet seated herself by Teddy's side. "All by her loney, is she? Where
is everybody, Ted?"
"Papa and mamma have gone to dine with the Whitelys'."
"Why didn't you go?"
"I didn't want to."
"It is too bad that we must be deprived of the boys' company this
evening. Stuart said they must take the seven-thirty if they would
reach the university in time for some sort of lark they were going to
have. I wonder if we will be as enthusiastic alumnae as they are. The
parents wanted to take in all the fun going, so they decided to go on
with the laddies and leave me to follow. They actually believed I would
be ready to go with them. Mamma understood, but I had hard work making
father and Stuart see that I simply could not leave till to-morrow.
Come, Ted, let's go up and see the girls. We know Lee is packing, but
we also know that Lee would rather have the interruption than not, and
maybe we can help her. If we can't be of any use, it will be fun to
watch her, and we'll keep Cordelia from badgering her. I am glad there
is nothing compelling this evening, and that we are left to follow the
dictates of our own sweet wills. The alumnae dinner was quite as much
as we could stand after the rest of the excitement."
Bright lights were burning in the rooms overhead which were strewn from
end to end with Lee's possessions. "If you can find an inch not already
occupied, you may have it," said Cordelia looking around at them from
behind a pile of boxes.
"How will I ever get through?" said Lee pausing in her frantic rush. "I
have always made it my rule never to do to-day what I can put off till
to-morrow, but there are moments when I wish I were not so virtuous
about it. My, but I am warm."
"We will all pitch in and help," said Janet, "and then we'll have time
to cool off before bedtime."
"I am too dead tired to move," said Cordelia. "I was ambitious enough
to get up early and finish my packing this morning by crack o' day. I
knew if I didn't do that, I should find half of Lee's belongings in my
trunks when I got home and half of mine would be in hers. I simply had
to do it in self-defense, but I feel as if I had not been in bed for a
week."
"And we have to start so early," complained Lee. "They will come for
the trunks at six o'clock."
"All the more reason that we should get things straightened out so
you won't have to be up half the night. Goodness, if my impedimenta
cluttered up Teddy's room in this way, I'd hear from her."
"I can't help it," said Lee from the depths of a clothes-press. "I
thought I had so little that it wouldn't take me any time to pack but I
have been dragging out stuff for the last hour and there is no end to
it. Where did I get it all? What do I want with it? How am I going to
dispose of it? I feel as if I had nightmare."
"Lee's bump of order ought to have developed in all these years she has
been pounding away at mathematics," said Teddy, "but I don't believe
the bump is one bit bigger. Let me feel, Lee," and she began to tousle
Lee's hair, already in a disheveled condition from frequent divings
into closets and trunks.
"Don't get into a scrap, girls," said Cordelia; "it's too warm. There
you go, Lee. I knew that tower of boxes would fall before you got them
stowed away."
"I'll pick them up," said Teddy, pouncing upon scattered sewing
materials, stocks, and ribbons. "Come, Janet, you and I will take one
trunk and pack it decently so that when Lee gets home she will at least
have part of her wardrobe in presentable condition. You fold and I'll
pack."
"Angels of light!" exclaimed Lee gratefully. "You have saved my life."
All three worked away faithfully till finally the room began to assume
a more orderly appearance, and Cordelia breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh,
you blessed friends in need," she exclaimed, "how I shall miss you. It
is a mournful time if one dwells upon it. Even Charity Shepherd broke
down this afternoon and as for Pen Robbins, she fairly swam away in her
own tears. What shall you do when you get home, Ted?"
"Oh, I don't know. I shall probably be very industrious for a time, and
will join clubs of an inspiring nature, and will be so didactic and
superior for a year that all my friends will begin to hate me, then
I'll gradually ease down till I get like ordinary mortals and it will
be possible to live with me. What shall you do, Cordelia?"
"Oh, I suppose I shall teach. Lee and I have a great scheme of getting
positions together, but probably she will be in Maine and I will go to
Florida; it generally works that way."
"Any one who has received a fellowship as you have done, Cordelia,
ought certainly to be able to find a good position nearer home, when
she is ready to take it."
"Maybe. I am not planning very far ahead. What do you mean to do,
Janet?"
A happy, half dreamy look came into Janet's eyes. "I am not looking
ahead very far, either," she replied. "Sufficient unto the day is the
joy thereof. I am going to have home and mother first of all, and I
want to gloat over them. I want to soak myself in the bliss of being
at home for the next month and after that comes Polly and Ted and the
Lilly of the field."
"You're not going to be bothered with that Starr child, are you?" asked
Lee pushing back her hair from a perspiring face. "I think it is too
funny how Janet has always had a silly little freshman tagging after
her ever since she became a soph."
"You can't call Polly silly," said Janet on the defensive, "and of
course I shall invite Lillie to visit me when she was good enough to
have me last Easter. Surely you haven't forgotten that."
Lee clashed a tray into a big trunk and sat down with a sigh of relief.
"Of course I remember it," she said reproachfully, "and I think it is
high time you told us about that, you provoking secretive creature."
"It is my last chance, isn't it?" said Janet putting her feet up
comfortably on a low box. "Well, girls, I will satisfy your curiosity
since it is positively our last evening together. The Starrs have
the loveliest home imaginable; beautiful grounds and a most artistic
interior. Mr. Starr is a man of fine parts, as they used to say, and
Mrs. Starr is one of the most cultivated women I have met for some
time. They were simply adorable and I was fêted and entertained without
stint. I met several celebrities at their house. I was invited to dine
with the governor and altogether I had a perfectly stunning time."
She paused and in a half embarrassed way said: "I don't suppose any of
you ever knew that Mark, the perfect man, is a cousin of the Starrs and
that he was their guest at the same time that I was."
"Janet Ferguson!" Lee flung down the box she was tying up. "The idea of
your never telling us that before. I think that was horridly mean of
you."
"Why?" asked Janet. "Are you specially interested in the information?"
"No,—yes, I mean," Lee replied. "I'd have been much nicer to him if I
had known."
Janet laughed. "You little wretch. I believe you would, and yet you
have always half despised Lillie."
"I haven't really," Lee told her, "but I liked to tease you because
you had always been so sly and mum about that visit to her. I took the
pains to inquire about her and knew she belonged to the four hundred."
"Then you deserve that I should tell you nothing. I suppose," Janet
went on with a show of indifference, "that you all know that Mr. Evans
is full professor, or will be next year."
"I heard it rumored, but I did not know that it was an absolute fact,"
said Cordelia. "I am glad they chose him, for I think he deserves it.
How did you hear, Janet?"
"He told me himself this evening."
"Why, of course; you know him quite well after spending ten days in
the same house with him. You certainly can't be charged with being
expansive, Janet, and yet you aren't usually reticent. I should never
have called you an uncommunicative person."
Janet only smiled in reply and Lee announced that as she had no more
receptacles for her belongings, that what she couldn't pack, she would
have to give away.
"I'll bestow them all upon the washerwoman," she said with a
comprehensive sweep of the hand which included the scattered articles
remaining upon bed, chairs and floor. "Let's go into the other room;
it's pretty well stripped, but it is cooler than in here."
"It is still cooler in our rooms," said Janet, "for we haven't had any
lights. You two had better come down there and cool off."
"I couldn't," said Lee. "Every bone in my body aches. I might get there
by sliding down the balusters, but I never could get back again. No,
thank you, Janet; I'll stand by the old ship till I have to be taken
off by a life-line."
Teddy and Janet lingered by the door with many words of regretful
parting, and then went down to their own rooms.
"Well, Ted, it's all over; we are no longer undergraduates," said
Janet, striking a match and lighting the gas.
"And this is the last evening you and I will ever be here together,"
said Teddy, with a catch in her voice.
Janet turned and looked at her.
The tears were running down Teddy's cheeks. "Why, Ted, why, Ted," she
said commiseratingly.
"Oh, I know it doesn't mean so much to you," said Teddy, reckless of
disclosing her real feelings. "You never cared very much. You always
loved Polly more, and even Lillie, but I loved you best, Janet. I
always did. Nobody else ever came first, and now we are going to
part and you will drift away from me altogether. We shall never be
classmates and roommates as we have been in this old place; never
again."
"Why, Ted, why, Ted," Janet spoke in an expostulatory voice, for Teddy
was now sobbing broken-heartedly.
"It is all true," said Teddy. "You never loved me half as much as I
have loved you."
Janet knelt down by the side of the bowed figure and put her arms
around the weeping girl. "You dear Teddy," she said, "just because I
am so used to you and haven't been demonstrative, do you think I don't
care? Do you think that any one will ever quite take your place? Teddy,
why you are a part of me, almost. I shouldn't think of making much fuss
over my own right hand for example. Have you felt that way all along?
Have you been hurt and indignant when I have made love to Polly? Have
you, Ted? Have I hurt you?"
"Sometimes," acknowledged Teddy with tears in her voice.
"You dear old goose, don't you ever feel so again. Don't cry, Ted, you
blessed old stand-by. I shall have to do without Polly and I shall be
able to very well, and as for Lillie I don't care a picayune about that
baby's blandishments, but Ted, I could never get along without you.
Don't you believe me?" She drew Teddy closer to her and snuggled her
face down against the wet cheek. "Please don't cry, Ted," she urged.
"I won't if I can help it," said Teddy sitting up and drying her eyes,
"but now I have started, I don't seem to be able to stop. I know I am
silly, Janet. I don't usually make such a show of myself, do I? But,"
the tears flowed again, "it's so hard to part from you," she sobbed.
"But you believe that I love you, and that you must always come first
among all my girl friends, you do believe it?"
"Yes, I do now."
"And you are satisfied?"
"Yes, oh, yes. Kiss me, Janet; you never do, you know."
Janet put her arms around her and kissed the trembling lips again and
again, the tears standing in her own eyes. "We are going to see each
other again in a month, remember," she said, "and Ted, let me tell you
something; I'd rather have you for my sister than any girl under the
sun. I think—I hope some day you will be. Do you hope so, too, Ted?"
Teddy did not answer, but buried her face on Janet's shoulder. "Stuart
never liked a girl so well as he does you," Janet went on, "and when he
has finished his medical course, why then, Ted—"
"Don't say any more," pleaded Teddy in muffled tones, "or I shall cry
again."
"There's something else I want to tell you," Janet continued. "Not
another soul knows it. Ted, I don't think this is the last time we
shall be together in this old town, for Ted—"
Teddy lifted up her head. "Janet, I believe I can guess; it is Mark,
the perfect man."
Janet nodded, then said hastily: "Oh, not yet. Some day, two or three
years from now, maybe. He—he told me this evening. I didn't suppose,"
she continued half to herself, "that was what he meant by its being
encouraging."
"What encouraging?"
"I told him once that if I ever had to choose another place of
residence than my own home I'd prefer this to any. Wasn't I a goose to
tell him that? But I never dreamed then."
"Dreamed what?" Teddy was never very subtle.
"That he—that he would say what he did this evening. I never began to
suspect till last Easter when we were both at the Starrs'."
"You never told me that he was there," said Teddy reproachfully. "You
might have trusted me, Janet."
"I know I might, but I couldn't. I was half scared and half happy and I
wasn't sure and I remembered 'the hero,' and so I made Lillie promise
that she wouldn't say anything about it, because she was beginning
to tease me and I told her it might be the means of breaking up my
friendship with Mark—the perfect man, I mean. I was just in that state
of mind when a little too much one way or the other would have made all
the difference in the world, so I scared her into keeping quiet about
it, and I wouldn't let him see me very often for the same reason. I've
told you first of all, Ted, and that is why I can't cry to-night; I am
too happy."
By common consent, they moved toward the dimness of the outer room,
and sat together by the window, arms on sill and heads touching. The
twinkling lights of Hopper Hall on the other side of the college campus
began to disappear one by one. The tramping up-stairs had ceased.
From the gardens across the way came a night breeze rose-sweet. The
honeysuckle climbing over the porch below the window, sent up a waft of
perfume now and then from its few opened buds. A rapid footstep echoed
along the pavement once in a while. Then came silence and the coolness
of the night's late hours. The two girls sat without speaking for a
long time, then Janet arose and laid a caressing hand on Teddy's head.
"It's all over for Cordelia, and Lee and the others, but for me it has
just commenced. There will be much more of it in the years ahead of us,
Teddy, for where I go you will have to come."
Presently their lights, too, were out, and only the shining stars
looked down upon the sleeping town.