CHAPTER XIII.
TRICKERY.
It was several days before the G. F.'s had an opportunity to practiseany of their new resolutions on Frances Andrews. The eccentric girl wasin the habit of skipping meals and eating at off hours at a littlerestaurant in the village, or taking ice cream sundaes in the drugstore.
At last, however, she did appear at supper in a beautiful dinner dressof lavender crepe de chine with an immense bunch of violets pinned ather belt. She looked very handsome and the girls could not refrain fromgiving her covert glances of admiration as she took her seat stonily atthe table.
It was the impetuous, precipitate Judy who took the lead in thepromotion of kindliness and her premature act came near to cutting downthe new club in its budding infancy.
"You must be going to a party," she began, flashing one of heringratiating smiles at Frances.
Frances looked at her with an icy stare.
"I--I mean," stammered Judy, "you are wearing such an exquisite dress.It's too fine for ordinary occasions like this."
Frances rose.
"Mrs. Markham," she said to the matron of Queen's, "if I can't eat herewithout having my clothes sneered at, I shall be obliged to have mymeals carried to my room hereafter."
Then she marched out of the dining room.
Mrs. Markham looked greatly embarrassed and nobody spoke for some time.
"Good heavens!" said Judy at last in a low voice to Molly, "what's to bedone now?"
"Why don't you write her a little note," replied Molly, "and tell herthat you hadn't meant to hurt her feelings and had honestly admired herdress."
"Apologize!" exclaimed Judy, her proud spirit recoiling at the ignoblethought. "I simply couldn't."
But since her attack on Molly, Judy had been very much ashamed ofherself, and she was now taking what she called "self-control in brokendoses," like the calomel treatment; that night she actually wrote a noteto Frances and shoved it under the door. In answer to this abjectmissive she received one line, written with purple ink on highly scentedheavy note paper:
"Dear Miss Kean," it ran, "I accept your apology.
"Yours sincerely, "FRANCES LE GRAND ANDREWS."
"Le Grand, that's a good name for her," laughed Judy, sniffing at theperfumed paper with some disgust.
But she wrote an elaborate report regarding the incident and read italoud to the assembled G. F.'s at their second meeting.
In the meantime, Sallie Marks had her innings with the redoubtableFrances, and retreated, wearing the sad and martyred smile of one whois determined not to resent an insult. One by one the G.F.'s tookoccasion to be polite and kind to the scornful, suspicious Frances.Her malicious speeches were ignored and her vulgarities--and she hadmany of them--passed lightly over. Little by little she arrived atthe conclusion that refinement did not mean priggishness and thatvulgarity was not humor. Of course the change came very gradually. Notinfrequently after a sophomore snub, the whipped dog snarled savagely;or she would brazenly try to shock the supper table with a coarse,slangy speech. But with the persistent friendliness of the Queen'sgirls, the fires in her nature began to die down and the intervalsbetween flare-ups grew longer each day.
Frances Andrews was the first "subject" of the G.F.'s, and they wereas interested in her regeneration as a group of learned doctors in therecovery of a dangerously ill patient.
In the meantime, the busy college life hummed on and Molly felt her headswimming sometimes with its variety and fullness. What with coachingJudy, blacking boots, making certain delicious sweetmeats called"cloudbursts,"--the recipe of which was her own secret,--which soldlike hot cakes; keeping up the social end and the study end, Molly wasbeginning to feel tired. A wanness began to show in the dark shadowsunder her eyes and the pinched look about her lips even as early as theeventful evening when she posed for the senior living picture show.
"This child needs some make-up," the august senior president hadexclaimed. "Where's the rouge and who's got my rabbit's foot? No,burned cork makes too broad a line. Give me one of the lighter coloredeyebrow pencils. You mustn't lose your color, little girl," she said,dabbing a spot of red on each of Molly's pale cheeks. "Your roses areone of your chief attractions."
A great many students and some of the faculty had bought tickets forthis notable occasion, and the gymnasium was well filled before thecurtain was drawn back from a gigantic gold frame disclosing MaryStewart as Joan of Arc in the picture by Bastien Le Page, which hangsin the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There was no attempt toreproduce the atmospheric visions of the angel and the knight in armor,only the poor peasant girl standing in the cabbage patch, her facetransfigured with inspiration. When Molly saw Mary Stewart pose in thispicture at the dress rehearsal, she could not help recalling the storyof the bootblack father.
"She has a wonderful face, and I call it beautiful, if other peopledon't," she said to herself.
As for our little freshman, so dazed and heavy was she with fatigue,the night of the entertainment, that she never knew she had created asensation, first as Botticelli's "Flora," barefooted and wearing a Greekdress constructed of cheesecloth, and then as "Mrs. Hamilton," in theblue crepe with a gauzy fichu around her neck.
After the exhibition, when all the actors were endeavoring to collecttheir belongings in the confusion of the green room, Sallie Marks camerunning behind the scenes.
"Prexy has specially requested you to repeat the Flora picture," sheannounced, breathlessly.
"Is Prexy here?" they demanded, with much excitement.
"She is so," answered Sallie. "She's up in the balcony with ProfessorGreen and Miss Pomeroy."
"Well, what do you think, we've been performing before 'Queen Victoriaand other members of the royal family,' like P. T. Barnum, and neverknew a thing about it," said a funny snub-nosed senior. "'Dailydemonstrations by the delighted multitude almost taking the form ofovations,'" she proceeded.
"Don't talk so much, Lulu, and help us, for Heaven's sake! Where's MollyBrown of Kentucky?" called the distracted President.
Molly came forth at the summons. Overcome by an extreme fatigue, she hadbeen sitting on a bench in a remote corner of the room behind some stageproperty.
"Here, little one, take off your shoes and stockings, and get into yourFlora costume, quick, by order of Prexy."
In a few minutes, Molly stood poised on the tips of her toes in the goldframe. The lights went down, the bell rang, and the curtains were partedby two freshmen appointed for this duty. For one brief fleeting glancethe audience saw the immortal Flora floating on thin air apparently, andthen the entire gymnasium was in total darkness.
A wave of conversation and giggling filled the void of blackness, whileon the stage the seniors were rushing around, falling over each otherand calling for matches.
"Who's light manager?"
"Where's Lulu?"
"Lulu! Lulu!"
"Where's the switch?"
"Lulu's asleep at the switch," sang a chorus of juniors from theaudience.
"I'm not," called Lulu. "I'm here on the job, but the switch doesn'twork."
"Telephone to the engineer."
"Light the gas somebody."
But there were no matches, and the only man in the house was in thebalcony. However, he managed to grope his way to the steps leading tothe platform, where he suddenly struck a match, to the wild joy of theaudience. Choruses from various quarters had been calling:
"Don't blow out the gas!"
"Keep it dark!"
And one girl created a laugh by announcing:
"The present picture represents a 'Nocturne' by Whistler."
Then the janitor began lighting gas jets along the wall and finally alonesome gas jet on the stage faintly illumined the scene of confusion.
The gigantic gilt frame outlined a dark picture of hurrying forms, andhuddled in the foreground lay a limp white object, for Botticelli's"Flora" had fainted away.
/> The confusion increased. The President joined the excited seniors andpresently the doctor appeared, fetched by the Professor of EnglishLiterature. "Flora" was lifted onto a couch; her own gray cape thrownover her, and opening her eyes in a few minutes, she became Molly Brownof Kentucky. She gazed confusedly at the faces hovering over her in thehalf light; the doctor at one side, the President at the other; MaryStewart and Professor Green standing at the foot and a crowd of seniorslike a mob in the background.
Suddenly Molly sat up. She brushed her auburn hair from her face andpointed vaguely toward the hall:
"I saw her when she----" she began. Her eye caught Professor Green's,and she fell back on the couch.
"You saw what, my child?" asked the President kindly.
"I reckon I was just dreaming," answered Molly, her Southern accent moremarked than ever before.
The President of the senior class now hurried up to the President ofWellington University.
"Miss Walker," she exclaimed, her voice trembling with indignation, "wehave just found out, or, rather, the engineer has discovered, that someone has cut the electric wires. It was a clean cut, right through. I dothink it was an outrage." She was almost sobbing in her righteousanger.
The President's face looked very grave.
"Are you sure of this?" she asked.
"It's true, ma'am," put in the engineer, who had followed close on theheels of the senior.
Without a word, President Walker rose and walked to the centre of theplatform. With much subdued merriment the students were leaving thegymnasium in a body. Lifting a small chair standing near, she rappedwith it on the floor for order. Instantly, every student faced theplatform, and those who had not reached the aisles sat down.
"Young ladies," began the President in her calm, cultivated tones thatcould strike terror to the heart of any erring student, "I wish to speaka word with you before you leave the gymnasium to-night. Probably mostof you are aware by this time that the accident to the electric lightingwas really not an accident at all, but the result of a deliberate act bysome one in this room. Of course, I realize, that in so large a body ofstudents as we have at Wellington University there must, of necessity,be some black sheep. These we endeavor, by every effort, to regenerateand by mid-years it is usually not a difficult matter to discover thosewho are in earnest and those who consider Wellington College merely aplace of amusement. Those who do consider it as such, naturally, donot--er--remain with us after mid-years."
To Molly, sitting on the platform, and to other trembling freshmen inthe audience, the President seemed for the moment like a great and sternjudge, who had appointed mid-years as the time for a general executionof criminals.
"I consider," went on the speaker in slow and even tones, "idleness amost unfortunate quality, and I am prepared to combat it and to convinceany of my girls who show that tendency that good hard work and only goodhard work will bring success. A great many girls come here preferringidleness and learn to repent it--before mid-years."
A wave of subdued laughter swept over the audience.
"But," said the President, her voice growing louder and sterner, "youngladies, I am not prepared to combat chicanery and trickery by anythingexcept the most severe measures, and if there is one among you whothinks and believes she can commit such despicable follies as thatwhich has been done to-night, and escape--I would say to her that she ismistaken. I shall not endure such treachery. It shall be rooted out. Forthe honor and the illustrious name of this institution, I now ask eachone of you to help me, and if there is one among you who knows theculprit and does not report it to me at once, I shall hold that girl asresponsible as the real culprit. You may go now, and think well overwhat I have said."
The President retired and the students filed soberly and quietly fromthe gymnasium.
"How do you feel now, dear?" asked President Walker, leaning over Mollyand taking her hand.
"Much better, thank you," answered Molly, timidly.
"Could you hear what I was saying to the girls?" continued thePresident, looking at her closely.
"Yes," faltered Molly.
"Think over it, then. And you had better stay in bed a few days untilyou feel better. Have you prescribed for her, doctor?"
The doctor nodded. He was a bluff, kindly Scotchman.
"A little anaemic and tired out. A good tonic and more sleep will put herto rights."
Mary Stewart had telephoned for a carriage to take Molly home, and Judy,filled with passionate devotion when anything was the matter, hurriedahead to turn down the bed, lay out gown and wrapper and make a cup ofbouillon out of hot water and a beef juice capsule; and finally assisther beloved friend--whom she occasionally chastened--to remove herclothes and get into bed.
"I may not have many chances to wait on you, Molly, darling," sheexclaimed, when Molly protested at so much devotion. "I may not have achance after mid-years."
If she had mentioned death itself, she could not have used a more tragictone.
"Judy," cried Molly, slipping her arms around her friend's neck, "I'mnot going to let you go at mid-years if I have to study for two."