Betty Wales Senior
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Margaret Warde >> Betty Wales Senior
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"Not quite like that, I hope," laughed Eleanor, as they started off to
inspect the wedding present, a beautiful pair of tall silver
candlesticks. Madeline had ransacked New York to find them, and every
one but Babe, who clung to her turtle as far superior to any "musty old
antiques," thought them just odd and distinctive enough to please
Ethel's fastidious taste. And after that there was barely time to catch
the train they had arranged to take out to Ethel's home.
Interest in the bride and in their own part of the wedding ceremony had
caused the "Merry Hearts" to forget Dr. Eaton, and they had never once
considered that of course his college chum, John Alison, would leave the
railroad he was building in Arizona and come east to be Dr. Eaton's best
man. And it was Mr. John Alison who had "finished" Georgia Ames. He
inquired for her at once and so did his brother Tom, who was an usher,
and who explained that he had been invited to keep John in order, and to
intercede for him with the "posts."
"And in return for my services as peacemaker," he said solemnly, "I
expect to be treated with special consideration by everybody."
Subsequent events seemed to show that the special consideration referred
to meant a chance to see as much as possible of Betty Wales.
Even more surprising to three of the posts was the presence of Mr.
Richard Blake in the wedding-party--Richard Blake, editor of "The
Quiver," and one-time lecturer at Harding on the tendencies of modern
drama.
Eleanor's face was a study when she recognized him, but before Miss Hale
could begin any introductions Madeline greeted him enthusiastically and
got him into a corner, where they exchanged low-toned confidences for a
moment.
"I'm particularly glad to meet you again, Miss Watson," he said in a
tone of unmistakable sincerity, when he was presented. "We had a jolly
dinner together once, didn't we?"
"Dick's such an old dear," Madeline whispered to Betty half an hour
later. "He confided to me just now that the first evening he saw Eleanor
he thought her the most fascinating girl he had ever met, and then he
hastened to assure me that that had absolutely nothing to do with his
deciding to keep dark about her story. I don't doubt him for a
moment--Dick perfectly detests cheating. But he can't make me believe
that he's being nice to her now just on my account."
There were plenty of other men at the wedding. "We're the only girls in
the whole family," Charlotte, Ethel's younger sister explained, "and we
have thirty own cousins, most of them grown-up."
"Was that one of the thirty that you were sitting on the stairs with at
the dance?" inquired Mary Brooks sweetly.
Charlotte blushed and Bob flew to her rescue. "We all know why Mary
isn't monopolizing any one," she said. "Are you taking notes for future
use, Mary?"
Mary shrugged her shoulders loftily. "I scorn to answer such nonsense,"
she retorted. "I'm going to be an old maid and make matches for all my
friends."
"We'll come and be posts for you any time after commencement," Babe
assured her amiably. "Did you know, girls, that Mary can't stay over
with Madeline because her mother is giving a New Year's dinner-party.
Who do you suppose will be there?"
The wedding festivities were over at last. "It was all perfectly
scrumptious," Babe wrote Babbie enthusiastically, "and I'm bringing you
a little white satin slipper like those we had filled with puffed rice
for luncheon favors, and a lovely pin that Miss Hale wants you to have
just as if you had come. The nicest thing of all is that vacation isn't
over yet. Is it two weeks or two years since I saw you?"
And next came Bohemia. Before they had quite reached Washington Square
Madeline tumbled her guests hastily off their car.
"I forgot to tell Mrs. McLean when to expect us," she explained. "She is
our cook. So we'll hunt her up now and we might as well buy the luncheon
as we go along."
So first they found Mrs. McLean, a placid old Scotch woman who was not
at all surprised when Madeline announced that she was giving a
house-party for five and had forgotten to mention it sooner. She had a
delicious Scotch burr and an irresistible way of standing in the
dining-room door and saying, "Come awa', my dears," when she had served
a meal. Like everything else connected with the Ayres establishment, she
was always there when you wanted her; between times she disappeared
mysteriously, leaving the kitchen quite clear for Madeline and her
guests, and always turning up in time to wash the fudge-pan or the
chafing-dishes.
From Mrs. McLean's they went down a dirty, narrow street, stopping at a
number of funny, foreign-looking fruit and grocery shops, where they
bought whatever anybody wanted.
"Though it doesn't matter what you have to eat," said Roberta later,
pouring cream into her coffee from an adorable little Spanish jug, "as
long as you have it on this lovely old china."
They had their coffee in the studio, sitting around the open fire, and
while they were drinking it people began to drop in--Mr. Blake, who
roomed just across the Square, a pretty, pale girl, who was evidently an
artist because every one congratulated her on having some things "on the
line" somewhere, three newspaper men from the flat above, who being on a
morning daily had just gotten up and stopped in to say "Happy New Year"
on their way down to Park Row, and a jolly little woman whom the others
called Mrs. Bob.
"She's promised to chaperon us," Madeline explained to her guests. "She
lives down-stairs, so we can't go in or out without falling into her
terrible clutches."
Mrs. Bob, who was in a corner playing with the little black kitten that
seemed to belong with the house, like Mrs. McLean, stopped long enough
to ask if they had heard about the theatre party. They had not, so Mr.
Blake explained that by a sudden change of bill at one of the theatres
Mr. Sothern and Miss Marlowe were to give "The Merchant of Venice" that
evening.
"And I understand from Miss Watson that you people are particularly
interested in that play," he added, "so I've corraled some tickets and
Mrs. Bob and a bunch of men."
"And the Carletons will have an early dinner," put in Mrs. Bob. "Oh, I
forgot. You don't know about that either. Mrs. Carleton won't be back
from the country until four o'clock, so she asked me to give you the
invitation to have New Year's dinner with them."
"But did she know there were six of us?" asked Betty anxiously,
whereupon everybody laughed and Mrs. Bob assured her that Mrs. Carleton
had mentioned seven to her, and hadn't seemed in the least worried.
That was the way things went all through their visit. Mrs. Bob took
them shopping, with frequent intermissions for cakes and tea at queer
little tea-rooms, with alluring names like "The London Muffin Room," or
the "Yellow Tea-Pot." Her husband escorted them to the east-side
brass-shops, assuring them solemnly that it wasn't everybody he showed
his best finds to, and mourning when their rapturous enthusiasm
prevented his getting them a real bargain. The newspaper men gave a
"breakfast-luncheon" for them--breakfast for themselves, and luncheon
for their guests--which was so successful that it was continued that
same evening by a visit to a Russian puppet-show and supper in a Chinese
restaurant. The pretty artist sold one of her pictures and invited them
to help her celebrate, just as if they were old friends, who knew how
hard she had struggled and how often she hadn't had money enough to buy
herself bread and butter, to say nothing of offering jam--in the shape
of oysters on the half-shell and lobster Newburg--to other people.
It was all so gay and light-hearted and unexpected--the way things
happened in Bohemia. Nobody hurried or worried, though everybody worked
hard. It was just as Madeline had told them, only more so. The girls
said a sorrowful good-bye to Mrs. Bob, Mrs. McLean and the little black
kitten and journeyed back to Harding sure that there never had been and
never would be another such vacation for them.
"How can there be?" said Bob dejectedly. "At Easter we shall all have to
get clothes, and after that we shan't know a vacation from mid-year
week."
"Which delightful function begins in exactly fourteen days," said
Katherine Kittredge. "Is there anybody here present whose notes on Hegel
have the appearance of making sense?"
19-- took its senior midyears gaily and quite as a matter of course,
lectured its underclass friends on the evils of cramming, and kept up
its spirits by going coasting with Billy Henderson, Professor
Henderson's ten-year-old son, who had admired college girls ever since
he found that Bob Parker could beat him at steering a double-runner.
Between times they bought up the town's supply of "The Merchant of
Venice,"--"not to learn any part, you know, but because we're
interested in our play," each purchaser explained to her friends.
For there is no use in proclaiming your aspirations to be a Portia or a
Shylock until you are sure that your dramatic talent is going to be
appreciated. Of course there were exceptions to this rule, but the girl
who said at a campus dinner-table, "If I am Portia, who is there tall
enough for Bassanio?" became a college proverb in favor of keeping your
hopes to yourself, and everybody was secretly delighted when she decided
that she "really didn't care" to be in the mob.
CHAPTER X
TRYING FOR PARTS
"Teddie Wilson has gone and got herself conditioned in psych.,"
announced Bob Parker, bouncing unceremoniously through Betty's half-open
door.
"Oh, Bob!" Betty's tone was fairly tragic. "Does that mean that she
can't try for a part in the play?"
Bob nodded. "Cast-iron rule. And she'd have made a perfect Gobbo, young
or old, and a stunning Gratiano. Well, her being out of it will give K.
a better chance."
"But I'm sure Katherine wouldn't want her chance to come this way," said
Betty sadly. "Besides--oh, Bob, have you looked at the bulletin-board
this afternoon?"
"Babe did," said Bob with a grin, "so you needn't worry yet, my child.
Ted says she ought to have expected it, because she'd cut a lot and let
things go awfully,--depended on the--faculty--knowing--us--well--enough--
by--this--time--to--pass--over--any small--deficiencies, and all that
sort of talk. And this just shows, she says, how well they do know her.
She's awfully plucky about it, but she cares. I didn't suppose Ted had
it in her to care so about anything," declared Bob solemnly. "But of
course it's a lot to lose--the star comedy part that was going to be
handed out to her by her admiring little classmates, who think that
nobody can act like Teddie. I wish I was as sure of a part in the mob."
"What are you going to try for, Bob?" asked Betty sympathetically.
Bob blushed. "Oh, I don't know," she said, with a fine assumption of
indifference. "Everybody says that you ought to begin at the top and
then the grateful committee won't forget to throw you a crumb when they
get to passing out the 'supers.'" Bob paused and her air of unconcern
dropped from her like a mask. "I say, Betty, I do want my family to be
proud of me for once. Promise you won't laugh if I come up for
Bassanio."
"Of course I won't," said Betty indignantly. "I'm sure you'll make love
beautifully. Do you know who's going to try for Shylock?"
"Only Jean Eastman," said Bob, "and Christy and Emily are thinking of
it. I came up from down-town with Jean just now. She thinks she's got a
sure thing, though of course she isn't goose enough to say so. If Kate
Denise gets Portia, as everybody seems to think she will, it will be
quite like freshman year, with the Hill crowd on top all around. I think
Jean has been aiming for that, and I also think--you don't mind if I say
it, Betty?"
"I haven't the least idea what you're going to say," laughed Betty, "but
I don't believe I shall mind."
"Well," said Bob earnestly, "I think Jean's counting on you to help her
with her Shylock deal."
"I help her!" said Betty in bewilderment. "How could I?"
"What a little innocent you are, Betty Wales," declared Bob. "Have you
forgotten that you are on the all-powerful play-committee, and that you
five and Miss Kingston, head of the elocution department, practically
decide upon the cast?"
"Oh!" said Betty slowly. "But I can't see why Jean should expect me to
push her, of all people."
"She'll remind you why," said Bob, "or perhaps she expects me to do it
for her. Can't you honestly think of anything that she might make a
handle of?"
Betty considered, struggling to recall her recent meetings with Jean.
"She has been extra-cordial lately," she said, "but she hasn't done
anything in particular--oh, Bob, I know what you mean. She expects me to
help her because she nominated me for the committee."
Bob nodded. "As if fifty other people wouldn't have done it if she
hadn't. I may be wrong, Betty, but she had a lot to say all the way up
from Cuyler's about how glad she was that you were on the committee, how
she felt you were the only one for the place and was glad the girls
agreed with her, how hard she had talked you up beforehand, and so
on,--all about her great and momentous efforts in your behalf. I told
her that Miss Ferris said once that you had a perfect command of the art
of dress and that every one knew you planned the costumes for the Belden
play and for the Dramatic Club's masque last spring, also that Barbara
Gordon particularly wanted you on if she was chairman, so I didn't see
that you needed any great amount of talking up. But she laughed her
horrid, sarcastic little laugh and said she guessed I hadn't had much
experience with class politics."
Betty's eyes flashed angrily. "And in return for what she did, she
expects me to work for her, no matter whether or not I think she would
make the best Shylock. Is that what you mean, Bob?"
"Yes, but perhaps I was mistaken," said Bob soothingly, "and any way I
doubt if she ever says anything to you directly. She'll just drop
judicious hints in the ears of your worldly friends, who can be trusted
to appreciate the debt of gratitude you owe her."
"Bob." Betty stared at her hard for a moment. "You don't think--oh, of
course you don't! The parts in the play ought to go to the ones who can
do them best and the committee ought not to think of anybody or anything
but that."
"And I know at least one committee woman who won't think of anybody or
anything but that," declared Bob loyally. "I only thought I'd tell you
about Jean so that, if she should say anything, you would be ready for
her. Now I must go and study Bassanio," and Bob departed murmuring,
"'What find I here?
Fair Portia's counterfeit?'"
in tones so amorous that Belden House Annie, who was sweeping on the
stairs, dropped her dust-pan with a clatter, declaring that she was
"jist overcome, that she was!"
"Which was the only compliment my acting of Bassanio ever got," Bob told
her sadly afterward.
Betty was still hot with indignation over Bob's disclosures when Roberta
Lewis knocked on the door. Roberta was wrapped up in a fuzzy red
bath-robe, a brown sweater and a pink crepe shawl, and she looked the
picture of shivering dejection.
"What in the world is the matter?" demanded Betty, emptying her history
notebooks out of the easy-chair and tucking Roberta in with a green and
yellow afghan, which completed the variegated color scheme to
perfection.
"Please don't bother about me," said Roberta forlornly. "I'm going back
in a minute. I've lost my wedding-pin--Miss Hale's wedding-pin--well,
you know what I mean,--and caught a perfectly dreadful cold."
"You don't think that your pin was stolen?" asked Betty quickly. There
had been no robberies in the college since Christmas, and the girls were
beginning to hope that the mysterious thief had been discouraged by
their greater care in locking up their valuables, and had gone off in
search of more lucrative territory.
"Yes, I do think so," said Roberta. "I almost know it. You see I hadn't
been wearing my pin. I only took it out to show Polly Eastman, because
she hadn't happened to see one. Then K. came and we went off to walk. I
left the pin right on my dressing-table and now it's gone. But the
queerest part is that Georgia Ames was in my room almost all the time,
because hers was being swept, and before that she was in Lucy Mann's,
with the door wide open into the hall, and my door open right opposite.
And yet she never saw or heard anything. Isn't it strange?"
"She was probably busy talking and didn't notice," said Betty. "People
are everlastingly tramping through the halls, until you don't think
anything about it. Have you looked on the floor and in all your drawers?
It's probably tumbled down somewhere and got caught in a crack under the
dressing-table or the rug."
"No, I've looked in all those places," said Roberta with finality. "You
know I haven't as many things to look through as you."
"Please don't be sarcastic," laughed Betty, for Roberta's belongings
were all as trim and tailor-made as herself. "How did you get your
cold?"
"Why K. and I got caught in a miserable little snow flurry," explained
Roberta, pulling the pink shawl closer, "and--I got my feet wet. My
throat's horribly sore. It won't be well for a week, and I can't try for
the play."
Roberta struggled out of the encumbering folds of the green afghan and
trailed her other draperies swiftly to the window, whose familiar view
she seemed to find intensely absorbing.
"Oh, yes, you can," said Betty comfortingly. "Why, your throat may be
all right by to-morrow, and anyway it's only the Portia and Shylock
trials that come then. Were you going to try for either of those parts?"
"Yes," gulped Roberta thickly.
Behind Roberta's back Betty was free to pucker her mouth into a funny
little grimace that denoted amusement, surprise and sympathy, all
together. "Then I'll ask Barbara Gordon to give you a separate trial
later," she said kindly. "Nothing will be really decided to-morrow. We
only make tentative selections to submit to Mr. Masters when he comes up
next week. He's the professional coach, you know."
But Roberta turned back from the window to shake her head. "I wouldn't
have you do that for anything," she said, brushing away the tears. "I'll
try for something else if I get well in time. I'm going to bed now. Will
you please ask Annie to bring up my dinner? And Betty, don't ever say I
meant to try for Shylock. I don't know why I told you, except that you
always understand."
Betty felt that she didn't quite understand this time, but she promised
to tell Annie and come in late herself to conduct another search for
the missing pin. She had just succeeded in dismissing Ted, Jean and
Roberta from her mind and concentrating it on the next day's history
lesson, when Helen Adams appeared.
"Helen," began Betty solemnly, "if you've got any troubles connected
with trying for parts in the play, please don't divulge them. I don't
believe I can stand any more complications."
"Poor thing!" said Helen compassionately. "I know how you feel from the
times I have with the 'Argus.' Well, I shan't bother you about trying
for a part. I should just love to act, but I can't and I know it. I only
wanted to borrow some tea, and to tell you that Anne Carter has come to
return my call. You know you said you'd like to meet her."
So Betty brushed her curls smooth and, stopping to pick up Madeline on
her way, went in to meet Miss Carter, whose shyness and silence melted
rapidly before Betty's tactful advances and Madeline's appreciative
references to her verses in the last "Argus."
While Helen made the tea, Miss Carter amused them all with a droll
account of her efforts to learn to play basket-ball, "because Miss
Adams says it throws so much light on the philosophy of college life."
"Then you never played before you came here?" asked Betty idly, stirring
her tea.
Miss Carter shook her head. "I prepared for college in a convent in
Canada. The sisters would have been horribly shocked at the idea of our
tearing about in bloomers and throwing a ball just like the boys."
"Oh!" said Betty, with a sudden flash of recognition. "Then it was at
the convent where you got the beautiful French accent that mademoiselle
raves over. You're in my senior French class. I ought to have remembered
you."
"I'm glad you didn't," said Miss Carter bitterly, and then she flushed
and apologized. "I'm so ugly that I'm always glad not to be remembered
or noticed. But I didn't mean to say so, and I do hope you'll come to
see me, both of you,--if seniors ever do come to see sophomores."
The girls laughingly assured her that seniors did sometimes condescend
so far, and she went off with a happy look in her great gray eyes.
"We must have her in the 'Merry Hearts,'" said Madeline. "She's our kind
if she can only get over that morbid feeling about her scar."
"But we must be very careful," Helen warned them, with a vivid
remembrance of her first interview with Miss Carter. "We mustn't ask her
to join until most of us have been to see her and really made friends.
She would just hate to feel that we pitied her."
"We'll be careful," Betty promised her. "I'll go to see her, for one,
the very first of next week," and she skipped gaily off to dress for
dinner. After all there were plenty of things in the world besides the
class play with its unhappy tangle of rivalries and heartburnings.
"And what's the use of borrowing trouble?" Betty inquired the next
evening of the green lizard. "If you do, you never borrow the right
kind."
Jean, to be sure, had done a good deal to justify Bob's theory. She had
remembered an urgent message from home which must be delivered to Polly
immediately after luncheon, and she kept her innocent little cousin
busily engaged in conversation in the lower hall of the Belden House
until Betty appeared, having waited until the very last minute in the
vain hope of avoiding Jean. But when they opened the door there was
Barbara Gordon, also bound for Miss Kingston's office, and much relieved
to find that her committee were not all waiting indignantly for their
chairman's tardy arrival. So whatever Jean had meant to say to Betty in
private necessarily went unsaid.
And then, after all her worriment, Jean was the best Shylock!
"Which is perfectly comical considering Bob's suspicions," Betty told
the green lizard, the only confidant to whom she could trust the play
committee's state-secrets.
All the committee had been astonished at Jean's success, and most of
them were disappointed. Christy or Emily Davis would have been so much
pleasanter to work with, or even Kitty Lacy, whom Miss Kingston
considered very talented. But Emily was theatrical, except in funny
parts, Christy was lifeless, and Kitty Lacy had not taken the trouble
to learn the lines properly and broke down at least once in every long
speech, thereby justifying the popular inversion of her name to Lazy
Kitty, a pseudonym which some college wag had fastened upon her early in
her freshman year.
"And because she's Kitty, it isn't safe to give her another chance,"
said Miss Kingston regretfully, when the fifteen aspiring Shylocks had
played their parts and the committee were comparing opinions. "Yes, I
agree with Barbara that Jean Eastman is by far the most promising
candidate, but----"
"But you don't think she's very good, now do you, Miss Kingston?" asked
Clara Ellis, a rather lugubrious individual, who had been put on the
committee because she was a "prod" in "English lit.," and not because
she had the least bit of executive ability.
Miss Kingston hesitated. "Why no, Clara, I don't. I'm afraid she won't
work up well; she doesn't seem to take criticism very kindly. But it's
too soon to judge of that. At present she certainly has a much better
conception of the part than any of the others."
"You don't think we've been too ambitious, do you, Miss Kingston?" asked
Barbara, anxiously. Barbara knew Jean well and the prospect of managing
the play with her capricious, selfish temperament to be catered to at
every turn was not a pleasant one.
"I've thought so all along," put in Clara Ellis, decidedly, before Miss
Kingston had had a chance to answer. "I think we ought to have made sure
of a good Shylock before we voted to give this play. It will be
perfectly awful to make a fizzle of it, and everything depends on
getting a good Shylock, doesn't it, Miss Kingston?"
"A great deal certainly depends on that," agreed Miss Kingston. "But
it's much too early to decide that you can't get a good Shylock."
"Why, who else is there?" demanded Clara, dismally. "Surely every
possible and impossible person has tried to-day."
Nobody seemed ready to answer this argument, and Betty, glancing at the
doleful faces of her fellow-workers felt very much depressed until a new
idea struck her.
"Miss Kingston," she said, "there have been fifteen senior plays at
Harding, haven't there? And hasn't each one been better than any of
those that came before it?"
"So each class and its friends have thought," admitted Miss Kingston,
smiling at Betty's eagerness, "and in the main I think they have been
right."
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