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Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager
Chase Josephine
Josephine Chase
Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager
CHAPTER I
ACROSS THE CAMPUS
“To go, or not to go? – that is the question,” paraphrased Marjorie Dean glancing up from the open letter in her hand. She fixed her eyes on Jerry Macy, her room-mate as though trying to read what was in her chum’s mind.
“Whether ’tis nobler to eat Baretti’s turk,
And circulate upon the campus drear;
Or to take luggage and be off for home
To roost four days upon the family tree.”
Jerry aptly supplied.
“Fine, Jeremiah. I certainly would love to roost on the Deans’ family tree for four blessed days.” Marjorie’s voice rang with wistfulness. “I’ve tried to persuade myself into believing that it won’t make much difference to the dormitory girls if we decide we’d best go home for Thanksgiving. But I’m not sure.” Marjorie knitted troubled brows. “This is the tenth,” she reflected aloud. “Whether we go home, or whether we stay on the campus over Thanksgiving, we’ve enough to do beforehand to keep us hustling.” She sprang up from her chair as though animated anew by the mere recollection of work yet to be done.
“Why remind me, beautiful Bean? I’m sadly aware of the fact. What we must do is organize the new Travelers’ sorority and let them see the dormitory girls through Thanksgiving. If they do nicely,” Jerry continued in patronizing tones, “their reward’ll be more work, and lots of it. If they flivver – but they won’t. We old Travelers knew how to pick out our successors. We’re safe to go home and leave our Thanksgiving stunts to our little Traveler sisters to carry out. Ha; great intellect!” Jerry admiringly patted one of her own plump shoulders. “You always do suggest such brilliant ideas, Jeremiah,” she gushed.
“How conceited you are! Still, there’s a grain of wisdom in your vain remarks.” Marjorie patted Jerry’s other shoulder. “I hereby confer upon you the high and noble order of the pat,” she declared in a deep pompous voice. She accompanied her words with several pats, each one more forceful than the last.
“The hard and croo-il order of the whack, I’ll say.” Jerry caught the conferring hand in time to save herself one last thump. “Now that I’ve been initiated into this wonderful order what happens to me next?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. Let me think.” Marjorie fixed absent eyes on Jerry as she considered the situation. “You’re to go downstairs and telephone Kathie and Lillian to come over to dinner at the Hall this evening. If they can’t come to dinner, then they must come afterward. Tell them the time has come to open the box. That will bring them.”
“You bet it will,” Jerry made slangy concurrence.
“Then I’ll depend on you to hunt Leila, Vera, Ronny, Lucy and Muriel. They’re not to dare think of another engagement.”
“Yessum.” Jerry made a respectful, bobbing bow to Marjorie. “Please, mum, may I ask what you’ll be doing, mum, about the same time I’m rushing upstairs and down?”
“I’m going over to Silverton Hall,” Marjorie returned as she crossed the room to her dress closet and reached for coat and fur cap. “I’ll see Robin, Phil and Barbara; bring them back to dinner, if I can. Thank fortune Barbara is at Silverton Hall this year instead of Acasia House. I’ll be back by five o’clock. It’s ten minutes to four now.”
“Then you’ll have to go some,” Jerry said skeptically. “If you are back here with those three girls by six o’clock I’ll give you a prize. Remember, you can’t stay to dinner at Silverton Hall. We’ve Kathie and Lillian to consider.”
“The prize is as good as won. What are you going to give me?” Marjorie’s inquiry was slyly coaxing. She sidled confidently up to Jerry.
“Never mind now.” Jerry waved her away. “Come back at five o’clock and ask me.”
“I will. I’m going z-i-p-p across the campus. Just like that!” Marjorie made a lightning forward pass with one arm. “I’m going to have a wind sail. There’s a dandy stiff wind blowing today. Mary Raymond and I used to take our school umbrellas when we were little girls and go out on a windy day with them. It was a regular game. We named it ‘wind sails.’ We’d let the wind blow us along. Sometimes the umbrellas would turn inside out, or the wind would whisk them away from us and we’d have to chase them a long way. Once mine blew into the river, and once a big boy caught Mary’s umbrella and ran off with it. We never saw either of those bumbershoots again.”
Marjorie paused at the door to laugh at the recollection of childhood adventures. “Oh, Jerry,” she changed the subject with sudden abruptness, “we’ll have to dig up some eats for a spread. Whoever dreamed of gathering in the Travelers without feeding them?”
“I’ll ask Leila to run us into town for eats as soon as you come back. That’s an incentive to hurry,” bribed Jerry.
“There are times when I can’t help appreciating you, Jeremiah. Good-bye. I’m in such a hurry.” Marjorie breezily closed the door and made a speedy descent of the stairs.
She opened the massive front door of the Hall with the same gusty energy, and went down the front steps at a frisky jump. The brisk November wind caught her none too gently, blew a fluff of curls about her sparkling face and a brighter color into her rosy cheeks. She paused for an instant on the drive to inhale deeply the crisp, invigorating November air, then she set off across the campus at her best hiking stride.
With the wind at her back, noisily urging her along, she laughed enjoyingly, spread her arms wide in lieu of sails and ran with it. Passing a little delegation of lingering robins, strung along a tree limb, their feathers fluffed out, their red breasts making a bit of autumn color against the brown limb, she whistled cheerily to them.
“Naughty little fellows,” she playfully chided. “You should have started for the land of flowers long before now. You’ll have to hurry if you expect to get there in time to eat Thanksgiving dinner with your folks. I ought to take that advice to myself.”
Bump! Her eyes still lingering on the flock of birds, she collided forcefully with a girl who had deliberately courted collision. Muriel Harding, emerging from the library, had spied Marjorie from the library steps. Her mischievous love of teasing always uppermost, she had approached Marjorie unseen, bent on surprising her.
“Uh-h-h!” Muriel pretended to stagger back. “Why don’t you look where you’re going, lady?” she demanded gruffly.
“Why don’t you?” The two girls faced each other, flushed and laughing.
“I did. I decided to let you know I was near you,” confessed Muriel. “If you had been moderately observing you might have averted the crash.”
“I doubt it.” Marjorie looked her skepticism.
“So do I,” Muriel agreed so amiably that the pair again broke into laughter.
“You’d best come with me,” Marjorie invited. “Jerry’s hunting for you, but that’ll be all right. I’ve found you.” She went on to explain her errand to Silverton Hall. “Forward, march,” she concluded, taking hold of Muriel’s right arm. “Step lively. I’ve lost at least three precious minutes exchanging mostly impolite remarks with you.”
“I’ll hit up a pace,” Muriel slangily assured. “I’m nothing if not obliging. It’s fortunate for you that you met me. I am always so helpful.” Her brown eyes danced roguishly. “You must know that.”
“I’ve heard you say so.” Marjorie was purposely vague. “If I had been even moderately observing I might have noticed that you were. That is, if you really – ”
“Why dwell on the subject? This is the way the wild wind goes.” She began whisking Marjorie over the half frozen ground at a mad run. Marjorie sturdily kept up with her. The two girls tore across the campus toward their goal, shrieking with laughter, bubbling over with high spirits.
They were nearing Craig Hall, one of the campus houses which they had to pass on their diagonal route to Silverton Hall, when the front door of the house opened and two young women came out on the veranda, then descended the steps. Evidently their ears caught the sounds of mirth emanating from the pair of exuberant P. G.’s. Two pairs of eyes, one pair coldly green, the other small, black and shrewd, immediately fastened on Marjorie and Muriel.
“Look who’s here. Keep right on going,” Muriel muttered in Marjorie’s ear. She nodded to one of the two girls who had come from Craig Hall and were now within a few feet of her and Marjorie. Her nod was courteous rather than friendly. The response she received was a stiff inclination from Doris Monroe’s golden head.
Marjorie had obeyed Muriel’s muttered direction. For the barest instant her clear, truthful gaze met, impersonally, the narrowing, hostile eyes of Leslie Cairns. She then glanced serenely away from Leslie. She had long since ceased to regard Leslie Cairns with personal displeasure. This in spite of the ex-student’s treacherous attempt to frustrate her and Robin Page’s plans in the matter of the buying of the dormitory site.
As for Doris Monroe, Marjorie had been rebuffed by chilling looks on three different occasions when she had encountered and spoken to the haughty sophomore. She now claimed the privilege of one repeatedly ignored, to ignore in return. She had not given up the idea of carrying out a certain gracious little plan she had in mind to further the popularity of her beautiful “fairy-tale princess.” Marjorie was too great of spirit to harbor resentment against Doris Monroe, simply because Doris did not like her. Instead she found herself experiencing the anxiety of one who had suddenly encountered a friend in a dangerous position.
CHAPTER II
A DISQUIETING REMINDER
“Br-r-r!” Muriel made a pretense of shivering. “Did you notice how the Ice Queen scorned us? And what a noted person she had with her?” She waited until they had put a few yards between themselves and the other pair of girls before sarcastically launching the inquiries.
“Yes, I saw,” Marjorie returned composedly. “I’m sorry. I knew Leslie Cairns was living in the town of Hamilton. This is the first time I have seen her since last summer.”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen her since before she left college,” Muriel replied. “She’s homelier than ever, but that cheviot sports suit and hat she has on are dreams. What a splendid combination – the Hob-goblin and the Ice Queen!” Muriel’s private pet name for Leslie Cairns had always been the “Hob-goblin.” “Sounds like the title of a fairy tale, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly.” Marjorie nodded abstractedly. She had forgotten Muriel’s uncomplimentary name for Leslie. With the return of it to memory came her own imaginative fancy regarding Doris Monroe. Yes, Doris was truly like an enchanted princess. Now Leslie Cairns had suddenly appeared, bearing fanciful resemblance to a wicked wizard. Marjorie smiled to herself at her own absurdity of thought. Still it made a certain impression on her which time did not obliterate.
“What are you thinking about, Marvelous Manager?” Muriel gave her chum’s arm an emphatic tug. The two had kept up their swinging stride and were now nearing Silverton Hall. “Come down out of the clouds.”
“Wasn’t up in them,” Marjorie smilingly denied. “I was thinking about Miss Monroe, and – ”
“And the fatal results of cultivating Leslie Cairns,” interrupted Muriel mockingly. “Don’t worry, Marjorie. Trust the icy Ice Queen to look out for her own interests. Greek has met Greek. I’ve roomed long enough with the Ice Queen to know that she always pleases herself first. This being Leslie Cairns’ motto, we may presently expect to find them on the outs.”
“I hope so.” Marjorie was not sanguine. “I’ve learned by experience, Muriel, not to under-rate Leslie Cairns’ capacity for making trouble.”
“Oh, I know she’s a star trouble maker, even if she has never succeeded in anything she tried to do to injure us,” Muriel readily admitted. “But you stood so staunchly for the right, Marjorie Dean, in all the fusses we had with her and the rest of the Sans, things simply had to turn out O. K. at the last.”
“I didn’t stand out more strongly for the right than any of the other Travelers,” Marjorie hastily corrected, her reply bordering on vexation.
“Certainly, you did, Modest Manager,” Muriel cheerfully contradicted. “I have all the proofs of the case at my tongue’s end.”
“Keep them there,” Marjorie told her with feigned displeasure.
“Oh, very well.” Muriel was all amiability. “I may think of some other sweet little thing about you later.”
Readers of the “Marjorie Dean High School Series,” which comprises four volumes, and the “Marjorie Dean College Series,” also in four volumes, are thoroughly at home with Marjorie Dean and her many friends. “Marjorie Dean, College Post Graduate,” forms the initial volume in the “Marjorie Dean Post Graduate Series.” Returned to Hamilton College as a post graduate Marjorie took up the work she had set her heart upon doing. Surrounded by a devoted circle of girls who had kept pace with her in college, Marjorie felt that her most momentous year of enterprise and accomplishment had come.
Lack of unity at Wayland Hall had distressed her not a little since her return to the campus. She had dreamed rosy dreams of a unified Hamilton which she had fondly hoped might come true that very year. Instead, Wayland Hall, the house she loved best of all the campus houses, and her own roof tree, was brimming with dissention. She was now reflecting rather dispiritedly concerning this very thing. The encounter with Leslie Cairns and Doris Monroe had brought it foremost to her mind.
“I wonder how long Miss Monroe has known Miss Cairns?” she now mused aloud.
“Long enough to know better. There you go again, worrying over that selfish iceberg,” Muriel cried impatiently. “I might beneficently warn her against the snares of the Hob-goblin, but would she be grateful? Far from it. No, no, Muriel. Never contemplate such folly.” Muriel answered her own question in a prim, horrified tone.
“I quite agree with Muriel,” Marjorie smiled faintly.
“Some of the upper class girls may tell her a few things about Leslie Cairns. They’d not forget her and the Sans in a hurry. If you had to room with her you’d lose your crush on her. She’s exasperating.”
“I can’t help admiring her. She is so beautiful,” Marjorie made frank avowal. “I always have to stop and remember that she isn’t amiable. There was one thing in particular that I noticed on the night last summer when we invited her downstairs to Miss Remson’s spread. She was truthful. She didn’t say she was too tired, or make any other excuses. She said flatly that she didn’t care to come downstairs. Again, afterward, when we were in Vera’s car and met her out walking one Sunday afternoon, we asked her to ride with us. She refused our invitation in the same scornful way. Still it was the real way she felt. A girl who wouldn’t bother to deceive others must have principle,” Marjorie earnestly advanced.
“Hum-m. That remains to be seen.” Muriel was not thus easily convinced. “But will I be the one to see? At present the Ice Queen and I are as intimate as the North and South Poles. We don’t even study at the same table.”
“Poor old Muriel. Was it lonesome?” Marjorie flung an arm across Muriel’s shoulders. They were now turning in at the flagstone walk in front of Silverton Hall.
“Yes, it was,” grumbled Muriel. “But it’s my own fault. I took that half a room to please myself. You girls ought to appreciate me and make a fuss over me because I refused to be separated from the Sanfordites.”
“I’ll call a special meeting after the Travelers go tonight and remind the Sanfordites of their duty,” Marjorie teasingly promised as they went up the steps of the Hall.
The blended harmony of violin and piano outside Robin Page’s room halted the visitors before the closed door. They had no more than willingly paused to listen when the music stopped.
“My last A string,” mourned a voice. “I’ll have to go clear to town for another. How provoking!”
Marjorie knocked three times in quick succession on the door, hers and Robin’s particular rap. There was a scurry of light feet across the floor then Robin joyfully opened the door.
“What luck!” she exulted as she did a pleased little prance around the callers. “I was coming over to Wayland Hall directly after dinner. I’ve such a lot of things to get off my chest.” She sighed. “I’m fairly stuffed with responsibility. Hello, Muriel Harding. I haven’t seen you for as much as two days. Where have you been keeping yourself? I want you for a singing number I’m going to have in our first show. We’re going to open with a revue, you know.”
“My A string just snapped,” Phyllis Moore was ruefully informing Marjorie. “So aggravating. I was going to put in two hours of practice this evening. The only store in Hamilton where I can get another string closes at five o’clock. Goodness knows when I’ll be imbued again with such a laudable desire to practice.”
“You couldn’t practice tonight if you had fifty A strings,” Marjorie told her. “The time has come to open the box, Phil.”
“Oh, lovely!” Phyllis’ charming face lighted with pleasure. “Away with practice.” She waved both arms outward with a buoyant releasing gesture.
“You’re to come over to Wayland Hall now; you and Robin. Where’s Barbara?”
“In her room, stuck with a theme. Hope she’s struggled through it by this time. If she hasn’t, I’ll make her leave it; just as though it was a finished literary triumph. I’ll go for her now.” Phil dashed out the door and down the hall to Barbara Severn’s room.
She returned in an incredibly short space of time with Barbara, the latter in outdoor attire.
“Hello, Red Bird,” greeted Muriel. “Who so gay as you?” She shook Barbara by both hands, then turned her around so as to inspect her coat and cap of a wonderful shade of deep crimson, the gorgeous hue accentuated by wide collar, cuffs and bandings of bear’s fur. “What a love of a coat and cap!”
“Isn’t it, though? I am always planning to waylay Barbara on the campus some fine dark evening and strip her of that de luxe red coat and cap.” Phil made threatening eyes at Barbara.
“I’m safe. She doesn’t quite dare risk her dignity as president of the senior class,” laughed Barbara.
Robin had already donned her wraps. It took energetic Phil not more than a minute to snatch her own smart coat of gray tweed from its accustomed hanger. She pulled a black soft Tam-o’-shanter with its huge fluffy black pom-pom down upon her crinkling yellow-brown hair at a truly artistic angle.
“Phil looks more like a wandering musician than ever in that Tam,” was Marjorie’s admiring opinion. The individuality of Phyllis’ clothes and the careless, artistic grace with which the tall, supple girl wore them were a joy to Marjorie.
Down the stairs and out of the house trooped the five friends, bent on making as good time to Wayland Hall as they could. Robin, Phil and Marjorie were anxious to have a talk before dinner about the program for the coming revue and their entertainment plans for Thanksgiving. Muriel had decided to go to town with Jerry and Leila in the car to help buy the eats for the spread. Barbara was eager to see Lucy Warner and glean from her certain biological pointers of which she stood in need. The group sped across the campus, reaching the Hall at just five o’clock.
“No mail for Muriel. What’s the matter with the population of Sanford that I don’t get any letters?” Muriel demanded severely as she turned away disappointedly from the Hall bulletin board.
“I had no idea of your vast importance in Sanford,” giggled Barbara. “You talk as though you were the mayor of the town.”
“Not yet,” grinned Muriel. “I may be the mayoress of Sanford some day – say in about a hundred years from now.” She duplicated Barbara’s giggle. “Marjorie’s the scintillating social star of Sanford.”
Marjorie said not a word as she picked several letters from the bulletin board. Her eyes were glowing like stars at the harvest of mail. There was a letter from General; another from Captain; a third in Mary Raymond’s neat vertical script, had come from far-off Colorado. There was a fourth from Constance Armitage. Fifth and last was a letter in the sprawling childish writing of Charlie Stevens. She and Charlie, the latter now grown into a tall sturdy youngster of thirteen, were regular and enthusiastic correspondents.
In the rack above her own mail she caught sight of two letters for Jerry. One of them was in Helen Trent’s familiar hand. The other – A swift blush overspread Marjorie’s cheeks as she took the two letters from the board and placed them with her own. She knew only too well whose hand had dashed the address across the envelope.
Immersed as she had been in college matters she had given her old pal, Hal Macy, scant thought since her return to Hamilton campus. Sight of his letter to Jerry gave her pause; reminded her of something which intruded itself upon her not quite agreeably. Hal had not answered the latest letter she had written him. It had really been a long while since she had heard from him.
CHAPTER III
LOYAL TO NO ONE
In the dining-room at Wayland Hall that evening plenty of curious and speculative glances were cast at the round dozen of Hamilton’s staunchest children as they made merry at a special table which Miss Remson had provided for them.
From the next table to theirs the five Bertram girls exchanged occasional laughing signals and remarks with the distinguished little group of post graduates, seniors and one member of the faculty, the youngest though she happened to be. Aside from the warm friendliness of Gussie Forbes and her four chums there emanated from the other table of girls a peculiarly chilling atmosphere. It hinted of displeasure; a displeasure which stopped just this side of hostility.
“The sophs and freshies in the house can’t see us for a minute,” Jerry said to Leila in an undertone as they were awaiting the serving of the dessert. “Feel the chill. Get me?”
“Tell me nothing.” Leila cast a grim glance about the dining-room. Suddenly her grimness vanished into a characteristic flash of white teeth which always signified her utter amusement. “It is the Battle of Wayland Hall we shall be fighting before spring with a number of distinguished P. G. generals in the thick of the fray. It is the sophs who are ready now to roar at us. The freshies here will but echo the sophs’ roars.”
“Wayland Hall has been a regular hot-bed of trouble since the soph president was elected.” Jerry used the same guarded tones. “With Gus and the disappointed Ice Queen under the same roof can you wonder?”
“I cannot.” Leila’s shrug was eloquent. “I have not been so completely disgusted with a set of girls since the bad days of the Sans.”
“Bad days of the Sans?” Vera, seated at Leila’s left, had caught the Irish girl’s words. She now repeated them inquiringly. “What tales of ancient history am I hearing?”
