Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Sophomore Days
CHAPTER V.
AN UNWILLING EAVESDROPPER
Busy days followed for Molly. She had been made chairman of the committee on decoration for the sophomore-freshman reception along with all her many other duties, and had entered into it as conscientiously as she went into everything. Some days before the semi-official party for the gathering of autumn foliage and evergreens, Chairman Molly and Judy had a consultation.
"What we want is something different," Judy remarked, and Molly smiled, remembering that her friend's greatest fear in life was to appear commonplace.
"Caroline Brinton will want cheese cloth, of course," said Molly, "but I think she'll be out-voted if we can only talk to the committee beforehand. My plan is to mass all the greens around the pillars and hang strings of Japanese lanterns between the galleries."
"And," went on fanciful Judy, who adored decoration, "let's make a big primrose and violet banner exactly the same size as the Wellington banner and hang them from the center of the gymnasium, one on each side of the chandelier."
A meeting of the class was called to consider the question of the banner and it was decided not only to have the largest class banner ever seen at Wellington, but to give the entire class a hand in the making of it. The money was to be raised partly by subscription and partly by an entertainment to be given later.
The girls were very proud of the gorgeous pennant when it was completed. Every sophomore had lent a helping hand in its construction, which had taken several hours a day for the better part of a week. It was of silk, one side lavender and the other side primrose color. On the lavender side "Wellington" in yellow silk letters had been briar-stitched on by two skillful sophomores and on the primrose side was "19 – " in lavender.
The Wellington banner, a gift from the alumnae, was also of silk in the soft blue which every Wellington girl loved. It was necessary to obtain a special permission from President Walker to use this flag, which was brought out only on state occasions, and it devolved on Molly, as chairman, to make the formal request for her class. That this intrepid class of sophomores was the first ever to ask to use the banner had not occurred to her when she knocked at the door of the President's office.
Miss Walker would see her in ten minutes, she was told by Miss Maxwell, the President's secretary, and she sat down in the long drawing room to await her summons. It was a pleasant place in which to linger, Molly thought, as she leaned back in a beautiful old arm chair of the sixteenth century, which had come from a Florentine palace. Most of the furniture and ornaments in the room had been brought over from Italy by Miss Walker at various times. There were mirrors and high-backed carved chairs from Venice. Over the mantel was a beautiful frieze of singing children, and at one side was a photograph, larger even than Mary Stewart's, of the "Primavera"; on the other side of the mantel was a lovely round Madonna which Molly thought also might be a Botticelli.
As her eyes wandered from one object to another in the charming room, her tense nerves began to relax. At last her gaze rested on the photograph of a pretty, dark-haired girl in an old-fashioned black dress. There was something very appealing about the sweet face looking out from the carved gilt frame, a certain peaceful calmness in her expression. And peace had not been infused into Molly's daily life lately. What a rush things had been in; every moment of the day occupied. There were times when it was so overwhelming, this college life, that she felt she could not breast the great wave of duties and pleasures that surged about her. And now, at last, in the subdued soft light of President Walker's drawing room she found herself alone and in delightful, perfect stillness. How polished the floors were! They were like dim mirrors in which the soft colors of old hangings were reflected. Two Venetian glass vases on the mantel gave out an opalescent gleam in the twilight.
"Some day I shall have a room like this," Molly thought, closing her eyes. "I shall wear peacock blue and old rose dresses like the Florentine ladies and do my hair in a gold net – "
Her heavy eyelids fluttered and drooped, her hands slipped from the arms of her chair into her lap and her breathing came regularly and even like a child's. She was sound asleep, and while she slept Miss Maxwell peeped into the room. Seeing no one, apparently, in the dim light, she went out again. Evidently the sophomore had not waited, she decided, so she said nothing to Miss Walker about it.
Half an hour slipped noiselessly by; the sun set. For a few minutes the western window reflected a deep crimson light; then the shadows deepened and the room was almost dark.
"Never mind the lights, Mary. I'll see Miss Walker in her office at five thirty," said a voice at the door. "She expects me and I'll wait here until it's time."
"Very well, sir," answered the maid.
Someone came softly into the room and sat down near the window, well removed from the sleeping Molly. Again the stillness was unbroken and the young girl, sitting in the antique chair in which noble lords and ladies and perhaps cardinals and archbishops had sat, began to dream. She thought the dark-haired girl in the photograph was standing beside her. She wore a long, straight, black dress that seemed to fade off into the shadows. Molly remembered the face perfectly. There was a sorrowful look on it now. Then suddenly the sadness changed inexplicably and the face was the face in the photograph, the peaceful calmness returned and the eyes looked straight into Molly's, as they did from the picture.
Molly started slightly and opened her eyes.
"I must have been asleep," she thought.
"My dear Edwin," Miss Walker's voice was saying, "this is terrible. I am so shocked and sorry. What's to be done?"
"I don't know. I haven't been able to think yet, it was all so sudden. I had just heard when I telephoned you half an hour ago. It's a great blow to the family. Grace is with them now, and she's a tower of strength, you know."
"What's to be done about Judith? She was getting on so well this year. I think her punishment last winter did her good."
"She did appear to be in a better frame of mind," said Professor Green drily.
"Is she to be told at once?"
"She has to be told about the money, of course, but the disgraceful part is to be kept from her as much as possible."
Molly's heart began to beat. What should she do? Make her presence known to Professor Green and Miss Walker? But how very embarrassing that would be, to break suddenly into this intimate conversation and confess that she had overheard a family secret.
"The thing has been kept quiet so far," went on the Professor. "The newspapers, strange to say, have not got hold of it, but it's going to take every cent the family can get together to pull out of the hole. Hardly half a dozen persons outside the family know the real state of the case. I have taken you into my confidence because you are an old and intimate friend of the family and because we must reach some decision about Judith. Her mother wants her to stay right where she is now, just as if nothing had happened. Judith has always been very proud and her mother thinks it would be too much of a come-down for her to live in cheaper quarters."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Walker. "On the contrary, I think it would do Judith good to associate with girls who are not so well off. Put her with a group of clever, hard-working girls like the ones at Queen's, for instance."
Molly's heart gave a leap. How much she would like to tell the girls this compliment the President had paid them! Then again the embarrassment of her position overwhelmed her. She was about to force herself to rise and confess that she had been an unwitting eavesdropper when she heard the Professor's voice from the door saying:
"Well, you advise me to do nothing this evening? Richard is going to call me up again in an hour on the long distance in the village for the sake of privacy. If he agrees with you, I'll wait until to-morrow."
"Where's Mr. Blount now?"
"They think he's on his way to South America. You see, Richard, in some way, found out about the fake mining deal and the family is trying to get together enough money to pay back the stockholders. There are not many local people involved. Most of it was sold in the West and South and we hope to refund all the money in the course of time. It's nearly half a million, you know, and while the Blounts have a good deal of real estate, it takes time to raise money on it."
"What did you say the name of the mine was? I have heard, but it has slipped my memory."
"'The Square Deal Mine'; a bad name, considering it was about the crookedest deal ever perpetrated."
Molly started so violently that the Venetian vases on the mantel quivered and the little table on which stood the picture in the gilt frame trembled like an aspen.
"The Square Deal Mine!" Had she heard anything else but that name all summer? Had not her mother, on the advice of an old friend, invested every cent she could rake and scrape together, except the fund for her own college expenses, in that very mine? And everybody in the neighborhood had done the same thing.
"It's a sure thing, Mrs. Brown," Colonel Gray had told her mother. "I'm going to put in all I have because an old friend at the head of one of the oldest and most reliable firms in the country is backing it."
The voices grew muffled as the President and Professor Green moved slowly down the hall. Molly felt ill and tired. Would the Blounts be able to pay back the money? Suppose they were not and she had to leave college while Judith was to be allowed to finish her education and live in the most expensive rooms in Wellington.
She pressed her lips together. Such thoughts were unworthy of her and she tried to brush them out of her mind.
"Poor Judith!" she said to herself.
The President's footsteps sounded on the stairs. She paused on the landing, cleared her throat and mounted the second flight.
How dark it had grown. A feeling of sickening fear came over Molly, and suddenly she rushed blindly into the hall and out of the house without once looking behind her. Down the steps she flew, and, in her headlong flight, collided with Professor Green, who had evidently started to go in one direction and, changing his mind, turned to go toward the village.
"Why, Miss Brown, has anything frightened you? You are trembling like a leaf."
"I – I was only hurrying," she replied lamely.
"Have you been to see the President?"
"I didn't see her. It was too late," answered Molly evasively.
They walked on in silence for a moment.
"I am going down to the village for a long-distance message. May I see you to your door on my way?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," said Molly, half inclined to confide to the Professor that she had just overheard his conversation. But a kind of shyness closed her lips. They began talking of other things, chiefly of the little Japanese, Molly's pupil.
At the door of Queen's, the Professor took her hand and looked down at her kindly.
"You were frightened at something," he said, smiling gravely. "Confess, now, were you not?"
"There was nothing to frighten me," she answered. "Did you ever see a picture," she continued irrelevantly, "a photograph in a gilt frame on a little table in the President's drawing room? It's a picture of a slender girl in an old-fashioned black dress. Her hair is dark and her face is rather pale-looking."
"Oh, yes. That's a photograph of Miss Elaine Walker, President Walker's sister."
"Where is she now?" asked Molly.
"She died in that house some twenty-five years ago. You know, Miss Walker succeeded her father as President and they have always lived there. Miss Elaine was in her senior year when she had typhoid fever and died. It was a good deal of a blow, I believe, to the family and to the entire University. She was very popular and very talented. She wrote charming poetry. I have read some of it. No doubt she would have done great things if she had lived."
"After all," Molly argued with herself, "I went to sleep looking at her photograph. It was the most natural thing in the world to dream about it. But why did she look so sorrowful and then so hopeful? I can't forget her face."
Once again she was on the point of speaking to Professor Green about the mine, and once again she checked her confidence. The cautious Nance had often said to her: "If there's any doubt about mentioning a thing, I never mention it."
"By the way, Miss Brown, I wonder if there are any vacant rooms here at Queen's?"
"Yes," said Molly, "there happens to be a singleton. It was to have been taken by a junior who broke her arm or something and couldn't come back to college this year. Why? Have you any more little Japs for me to tutor?"
"No, but I was thinking there might have to be some changes a little later, and Miss Blount, my cousin, would perhaps be looking for – er – less commodious quarters. But don't mention it, please. It may not be necessary."
"I may have to make some changes myself for the same reason," thought poor Molly, but she said nothing except a trembly, shaky "good-night," which made the Professor look into her face closely and then stand watching her as she hastened up the steps and was absorbed by the shadowy interior of Queen's still unlighted hallway.
CHAPTER VI.
TWO LONG DISTANCE CALLS
The President readily granted her gracious permission for the sophomores to use the Wellington alumnae banner. She was pleased at the class spirit which had engendered the request and which had also prompted the sophomores to make a banner of their own.
With reverent hands the young girls hoisted the two splendid pennants on the evening of the reception. And another unusual distinction was granted this extraordinary class of 19 – . The President and several of the faculty appeared that evening in the gallery to view the effect. Never before in the memory of students had Prexy attended a sophomore-freshman ball.
"They have certainly made the place attractive," said the President, looking down between the interstices of garlands of Japanese lanterns on the scene of whirling dancers below. "The banners are really beautiful. I feel quite proud of my sophomores this evening."
The sophomores were proud of themselves and worked hard to make the freshmen have a good time and feel at home. Molly, remembering her own timidity of the year before, took care that there were no wall flowers this gala evening.
She had invited Madeleine Petit, a lonely little Southern girl, who had a room over the post office in the village and was working her way through college somehow. In spite of her own depleted purse, Molly had sent Madeleine a bunch of violets and had hired a carriage for the evening. As for the little freshman, she was ecstatic with pleasure. She never dreamed that her sophomore escort was nearly as poor as she was. People of Molly's type never look poor. The richness of her coloring, her red gold hair and deep blue eyes and a certain graciousness of manner overcame all deficiencies in the style and material of her lavender organdy frock.
But, in spite of her glowing cheeks and outward gaiety, Molly was far from being happy that night. No word had come to her from her family all the week, although they were the most prolific letter writers, all of them. No doubt they hesitated for a while to let her know the truth about the Square Deal Mine. Molly was prepared for anything; prepared to give up college at mid-years and get a position to teach school in the country somewhere; prepared to look the worst in the face bravely. But Wellington was like a second home to her now. She loved its twin gray towers, its classic quadrangle and beautiful cloisters; its spacious campus shaded with elm trees.
How dear these things had grown to her now that the thought of leaving them forced its way into her mind!
She was debating these questions inwardly, as she gallantly led her partner over to the lemonade table, where Mary Stewart, in a beautiful liberty dress of pigeon blue that matched her eyes, was presiding with Judith Blount and two other juniors.
"Why, Molly Brown," exclaimed Mary, "in spite of all your glowingness, you don't seem quite like yourself this evening. Has anything happened to roughen your gentle disposition? No bad news from home, I hope?"
"Oh, no," returned Molly. "No news at all. I haven't heard all week."
Judith, who still had a grudge against Queen's girls, although she was endeavoring to overcome it, here remarked:
"Why, I think you are looking particularly well to-night, Molly. Such a becoming dress!"
Molly flushed as she glanced hastily down at her two-year-old organdy. Mary Stewart put a hand over her cold, slim fingers.
"You always wear becoming dresses, Molly, dear. In fact, they are so becoming that no one ever looks at the dress for looking at you."
Molly smiled and pressed her friend's hand in return. She was wondering if Judith Blount would learn to curb her tongue when she had to curb her expenses.
"I want you to meet Miss Petit," she said, introducing the little freshman to the two older girls.
Mary Stewart shook hands kindly and Judith bowed distantly. Certainly Judith was in a bad humor that night.
"How do you like Wellington?" asked Mary of Miss Petit by way of making conversation.
"I think it's jus' lovely," drawled the little Southerner with her inimitable Louisiana accent. "I never danced on a better flo' befo' in all my life."
Mary Stewart smiled. The soft, melodious voice was music to her ears.
"You live in the Quadrangle, don't you? I think I saw you there the other day," continued Mary.
"Oh, no, I reckon you saw some other girl. I live over the post office in the village."
"She has a charming room," broke in Molly, when she was interrupted by a stifled laugh. Looking up quickly, they were confronted with Judith and one of her boon companions, their faces crimson with suppressed laughter.
Miss Petit regarded the two juniors with a kind of gentle amazement. Then, without the slightest embarrassment, she said to Mary and Molly:
"What lovely manners some of the Wellington girls have!"
At this uncomfortable juncture Edith Williams sailed up.
"This is my dance isn't it, Mademoiselle Petite? And while we dance, I want you to talk all the time so that my ears can drink in your liquid tones. Have you heard her speak, Miss Stewart? Isn't it beautiful? It's like the call of the wood-pigeon, so soft and persuasive and delicious."
"Now, you're flattering me," said little Miss Petit, "but I'm glad it doesn't make you laugh, anyhow," and she floated off in the arms of the tall Edith as gracefully as a fluffy little cloud carried along by the breezes.
"Isn't she sweet?" said Molly presently. "And you can't imagine what she is doing to make both ends meet here. She won a scholarship which pays her tuition, but she has to earn the money for board and clothes and all the rest. She washes dishes at a boarding house for her dinners and cooks her own breakfasts in her room and eats, well, any old thing, for her lunch. On her door is a sign that says, 'Darning, copying, pressing and fine laundry work, shampooing and manicuring.' It makes me feel awfully ashamed of my small efforts."
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Mary. "How can I help her, Molly, without her knowing it? She seems to be a proud little thing."
"Oh, I don't know. Give her some jabots to do up or have your hair shampooed. She does hand-painting on china, too, but I don't think you could quite go her pink rose designs. She'll out-grow hand-painted china in another year, just as I outgrew framed lithographs and antimacassars in one evening, after seeing your rooms in the Quadrangle."
"By the way, Molly, have you invited anyone for the Glee Club concert yet?"
"No, because I didn't know anyone well enough to ask except Lawrence Upton from Exmoor, and Judith has already asked him."
"Good," said Mary. "Then, will you do me a favor? Brother Willie is coming down to the concert and expects to bring two friends. Will you take one of them under your wing?"
Molly was only too delighted to be of service to the friend who had done so much for her.
"It will be a pleasure and a joy," she said, as she hastened away to find her small partner for the next waltz.
The "Jokes and Croaks" stage of the sophomore-freshman reception had been reached, and Katherine Williams, speaking through the megaphone, was saying:
"An art contribution from the juniors, with accompanying verse:
"'I never saw a purple cow,
And never hope to see one;
But this I know, I vow, I trow:
I'd rather see than be one.'"
While Katherine read the verse, another girl held up a large picture entitled "The Flight of the Royal Family." In the foreground was a little purple cow grazing on purple turf, and in the background, running at full speed, with every indication of extreme terror on their faces, were a dozen queens, wearing gold crowns and lavender and primrose robes.
Hardly a girl at Wellington but had heard of the absurd adventure of the Queen's girls, and a tremendous laugh shook the walls of the gymnasium. In the midst of this uproar, someone touched Molly on the shoulder. It was a junior known to her only by sight, who whispered:
"You're wanted on the telephone."
Now, all telegrams to Wellington College were received at the telegraph office in the village and telephoned over, and when Molly was notified that there was a message for her, she felt instinctively that it was a telegram from home; and they would only telegraph bad news, she was certain.
Her face was pale and her heart thumping as she hurried out of the gymnasium. Nance and Judy rose and followed her. If anything was the matter with their beloved friend, they were determined to share her trouble.
Molly hastened to the telephone booths in the main corridor.
"Is it a telegram?" she asked the young woman in charge of the switchboard; for, in the last few years telephones had been installed in all the houses of the faculty and their respective offices as well, thereby saving many steps and much time.
"Hello! Long distance?" called the girl, without answering Molly's question. "Here's your party. Booth No. 2," she ordered.
The operator had very little patience with college girls, and this Adamless Eden palled on her city-bred soul.
"Hello!" said Molly.
Then came a small, thin voice, an immense distance away, but strangely familiar.
"Is this Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is Richard Blount. Have you forgotten me?"
"Of course not."
"Is your mother Mrs. Mildred Carmichael Brown, of Carmichael Station, Kentucky?"
"Yes."
"Um! I suppose you think it's very strange, Miss Brown, my asking you this question," called the thin, far-away voice. "I had a very good reason for asking it. Have you heard from home lately?"
"Not for a week. Is anything the matter with my family besides the – "
"No, no, nothing that I know of."
"Is it about the mine?"
"Yes, but you are not to worry. You understand, you are not to worry one instant. Everything will come out all right."
"It was nearly ten thousand dollars," said Molly, almost sobbing; "our house and garden and the rest of the apple orchard that was sending me to college – " Here she broke down completely. "I may have to give up all this – I may – "
"Now, Miss Molly, you mustn't cry. You make me feel like the very – very unhappy, way off here."
"Five minutes up," called the voice of the exchange.
"Good-by, good-by," called Molly. "I'm sorry I cried, Mr. Blount."
Poor man! It was all terribly hard on him, and it was cruel of her to have given way, but it had come so unawares!
From a corner of her eye, she could see her friends waiting anxiously outside the booth. She pretended to be writing something on the telephone pad with a stubby pencil tied to a string, until she recovered her composure.
"What's the matter?" demanded the two girls as she emerged from the booth.
"It was just a long distance from Richard Blount," said Molly, not knowing what else to say.
"I didn't know you had asked him to go to the Glee Club concert," said Nance.
"He can't go," Molly replied quickly, relieved that they had been willing to accept this explanation.
"I should think he couldn't," put in Judy, in a low voice. "Mamma has just written me such news about the Blounts. The letter came by the late mail and I didn't have a chance to read it until a little while ago. Mr. Blount has failed and gone away, no one knows where. They thought they could pay off his creditors and his family found that he had mortgaged all his property and there wasn't any money left."
In the dimly-lighted corridor the girls had not noticed that Molly had turned perfectly white and was clasping and unclasping her hands convulsively in an effort to retain her self-control.
"No money left?" she repeated in a low voice.
"Not a cent," said Judy. "Papa knows because he had some friends who lost money in a mine or something Mr. Blount owned."
"Poor Judith," observed Nance. "Do you suppose she hasn't been told?"
"Of course not. She wouldn't be flaunting around here to-night if she knew her family were in trouble."
"How strange for us to know and for her not to!" pursued Nance.
"It isn't generally known. Mamma says the papers haven't got hold of it yet, and I'm not to tell. You see mamma and I met Judith Blount one afternoon at a matinee just before college opened. That's why she was interested, because she remembered that Judith was Mr. Blount's daughter."
All this time Molly's mind was busy working out the problem of how to remain at college without any money. Of course, the Blounts couldn't pay their father's debts on nothing, although Richard Blount had told her not to worry. The family would have to move out of their old home, she supposed, and take a small house in town, and everybody would have to just turn in and go to work. Oh, why had her mother heeded the advice of old Colonel Gray? He had assured her that she would make at least fifteen thousand from the money invested, while he, poor man, had squandered his entire inheritance in the enterprise, just because an old and intimate friend was backing it. That old and intimate friend was Mr. Blount, and Molly had never guessed it.
Pretty soon it was time to go home. Molly found herself in the carriage, trying to listen politely to the ceaseless flow of Miss Petit's conversation, while she wrapped her old, gray eider-down cape about her and thought and thought. Suddenly the words of Madeleine Petit pierced her troubled mind.
"Do you write, Miss Brown? I wish I could. I'd like to try for some of the prizes for short stories. Think of winning a thousand dollars for one story! Wouldn't it be glorious? Then, there are some advertisement prizes, too. One for five hundred dollars; think of that! I always cut out every one I see, meaning to compete, but I never do. It isn't in my line, you see. I'm going to major in mathematics."
Molly smiled that the dainty little creature should have chosen that hated subject for her life's work.
"You say you saved the clippings about prizes?" she asked when they had reached Madeleine's lodging.
"Oh, yes; I have them all in my room. Would you like to see some of them? Tell the man to wait, and I'll bring them down."
Molly reached Queen's that night before the other girls, and hastening to the student's lamp, she proceeded to look over the clippings.
One was from a leading woman's magazine; one from a magazine of short stories; several from advertising firms – the best jingle about a stove polish; the best catchy phrase about a laundry soap; the best advertisement in verse or prose for a real estate company which had purchased an entire mountain and was engaged in erecting numbers of Swiss chalets for summer residents. The pictures of these pretty little houses were very attractive. Many of them had poetical names. One of them, called "The Chalet of the West Wind," occupied the centre of the page. From its broad gallery could be seen a long vista of valley, flanked by mountain ranges.
"What a charming place!" thought Molly, and that night she went to bed with the "Chalet of the West Wind" so deeply photographed in her mind that she almost felt as if she had been there herself. She could see it perched on the side of the mountain, looking across the valley. It was at the very edge of the forest. The picture showed that, and in her imagination she scented the wild flowers that must grow at its feet in the springtime. No doubt the west wind, which symbolized health and happiness, fair weather and sunshine, blew softly through its open casements and across its spacious galleries.
She went to sleep dreaming of the "Chalet of the West Wind," and in the morning something throbbed in her pulses. It was a kind of muffled pounding at first, like the beginning of a long distance call, "lumpty-tum-tum; lumpty-tum-tum." But gradually a poem took shape in her mind, and as the fragments came to her she wrote them down on scraps of paper and hid them carefully in her desk.
