Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager

CHAPTER XX

MARJORIE FINDS A SUPPORTER

Marjorie returned from Baretti’s full of the glorious news of the little proprietor’s triumph over Sabani in behalf of Page and Dean. Jerry was equally elated and burst into one of what she had named “Joyful Jingles to Bean.” She spouted them on special occasions.

“Thanks to our faithful dago friendThe Goblin’s schemes fell through.’Tis plainly seen, oh, upright BeanSuch trouble’s not for you.”

She did a fantastic polka step around Marjorie, keeping time with her declamation.

“You funny old goose!” Marjorie caught her and wrapped both arms about her. “Yes, the Goblin’s scheme did fall through, and, oh, rapture, the busses will begin running again tomorrow morning! What would we have done without Signor Baretti’s help? He’s splendid in his interest in our work here. He ranks with Miss Susanna, Prexy and Professor Wenderblatt as our most loyal supporters. Now I must tell you what he did.”

“Oh, save it till I go for Gus, Calista and Flossie. Let them hear it. They’ve been looking for you. They’ve something on their minds. So has Jeremiah. This is another wildly eventful day.” Jerry smiled warmly down on Marjorie who had taken off her wraps and was now lounging in one of the arm chairs. She reclined there, a graceful lissome figure in her straight gown of pale jade broadcloth, with no trimming save that of her superb young beauty to set it off.

“All the days here are somehow wildly eventful,” Marjorie said with a little devoted smile. “Something remarkable seems always to be happening.”

“Too true,” Jerry agreed with solemnity. “But some days are even more eventful than that. I will mention as an example the day before we went home for Thanksgiving.” Both girls began to laugh. “That was some day. Muriel began it right by tipping her cup of coffee into my lap. Next. I fell down three steps of the stairs. Next. I dropped a new library book in the mud. Next. I went to the gym to see Gentleman Gus and got hit on the nose with the ball. Next. I couldn’t find my suitcase in the trunk room so I had to borrow one. Do you recall any other exciting misfortunes of that particular day?” She turned innocently inquiring eyes upon Marjorie.

“Nope. You were a martyr that day, poor old Jeremiah.”

“I need your sympathy, Bean,” Jerry rejoined brokenly. “It’s a hard world for some folks. Still I’m glad I’ve survived.”

“Cheer up. Here come the Bertramites.” Marjorie’s keen ears had caught the sound of familiar voices. She went to the door and ushered in the trio of sophs.

“What’s the latest from Guiseppe, the defender?” Gussie immediately clamored to know. The three girls surrounded Marjorie while Jerry made an equally eager fourth member of the group.

It did not take long to put them in possession of the good news. They received it with enthusiasm, modified to keep within the limit of noise. Since the evening when Marjorie and Jerry had been called to the door by Miss Peyton on the head of being disturbers of quiet no more reports had been made against them. Miss Peyton’s threat that she would place the matter before President Matthews had evidently never been carried out. Marjorie could only hope that it had not. The president’s cordiality to her whenever they chanced to meet assured her of his regard. Still she disliked the idea intensely of being reported to headquarters for anything so utterly uncontrolled and childish.

“What a strange, dreadful life for a girl to lead!” exclaimed Calista Wilmot. She referred to Marjorie’s account of Leslie Cairns’ part in the bus trouble.

“Yes, it is.” Marjorie’s reply was spoken in all seriousness. “After Signor Baretti had told us of what she had done Robin and I both thought we ought not tell even you girls of it. Then we thought of the way Phil, Barbara and the rest of you helped break up her plot by coming out with your cars in the storm. We decided it was only fair to tell you the exact circumstances. The Travelers, old and new, should be, and are, I’m sure, trustworthy. None of them would circulate any of the private business of the club about the campus.”

“There’s another argument just as strong as to why Leslie Cairns’ actions shouldn’t be kept secret from the club. She doesn’t deserve to be shielded for what she did.” Gussie’s handsome, colorful face showed shocked disapproval. “Why, she has acted just like a regular old politician who goes around before election day and buys votes!”

Gussie’s comparison raised a laugh in which Marjorie joined. Long ago she and Robin had come to that conclusion.

“Well, we won’t ever say a word about her outside the Travelers,” she said, her face sobering. “Everything’s going nicely again. Now, children, my tale’s told. Jerry says you have something on your minds. Go sit on that couch, three in a row, and spout forth your news.” Marjorie indicated her couch bed. “If you don’t care to sit there, why, here is our assortment of chairs.” She grandly pointed them out.

“Let Gus tell it. She began it,” declared Flossie. The three friends had bumped themselves down on the couch, with much interference one with another and little bursts of laughter.

“Your fairy-tale Princess and Leslie Cairns had a fuss at the Colonial today. They were together there when the three of us went into the place for ices.” Gussie said in matter-of-fact tones. “Miss Monroe was ripping mad. We heard her say that something wasn’t true, and that she wouldn’t be bullied. She was so angry she talked louder than she intended. I think she knew it for all in a minute she dropped her voice away down. I wanted to be the one to tell you about this, Marjorie, for a certain reason.” Her tone was flattering to Marjorie’s dignity.

“Speak, Gentleman Gus,” laughed Marjorie, amused by the very solemn expression of Gussie’s face.

“Just because Miss Monroe was opposed to me at class election is no sign that I should have any hard feeling toward her,” Gussie began. “I haven’t. I know you think she’s going to – to – well, be more congenial some day. She won’t be, though, if she keeps on associating with Miss Cairns. She’ll begin to break rules, too. First thing she knows she’ll do something serious and be expelled from Hamilton. I can’t forget how sweet she looked the other night at the hop. I thought, since she seemed to be peeved with Miss Cairns that maybe you could think of some way to link her to Hamilton. So she’ll like the campus better than she does Leslie Cairns.”

“I have thought of a way, Gussie,” Marjorie’s eyes sparkled. At last she had a supporter in the cause of the difficult fairy-tale princess.

“We ought to forget there is any such person,” Calista said. “After the way she reported us for being noisy on the day we got here. But you see what forgiving natures we have.” She gave a whimsical little shrug and smile.

“I decided to forget that she reported us,” came from Gussie magnanimously. “She’s awfully thorny and hard to approach. She doesn’t seem to care much for Miss Peyton and Miss Carter. They make great effort toward being chummy with her.”

“Leila knows I’d like to have a Beauty contest; the kind of one she got up when we were freshmen and she and Vera were sophs,” Marjorie told them animatedly. “If we had one – ”

“Good old M. M. thinks the Ice Queen would win it. That would let M. M. out of being the college beauty – so she innocently schemes,” translated Jerry. “We’d still be privileged to our own opinion, Ahem.” She coughed suggestively. Next instant she had gone to the door in answer to a rapping on it.

“You’re just in time,” she greeted, stepping back to allow Leila to enter.

“In time for what, may I ask?” Leila’s bright blue eyes roved speculatively about the room.

“For the Beauty contest,” returned Calista promptly.

“Then I must have won it. I see no one half as beautiful as myself here,” was Leila’s modest opinion. “But have you seen Vera? Midget is gone, unless you may be hiding her away in some small corner.”

“She went to town with Phil. Robin and I met them when we came from Baretti’s.” Marjorie continued with a brief account of Robin’s and her call at the inn.

“Once more she has dropped her gold into the sea,” was Leila’s thoroughly Irish comment. “It is the same old story, Beauty. She never wins.”

“Bean hopes to be Bean without beauty,” Jerry said briskly to Leila. “Can it be done?”

“I shall have to consult the stars.” Leila rolled her eyes mysteriously at Marjorie.

“Never mind me, Leila, won’t you please help me about the Beauty contest. You know why I am so determined to have it. Gussie feels the same as I do about Miss Monroe. So does Calista. I’ve two on my side.”

“Count me in, Bean. Never forget your friend.” Jerry sprang to Marjorie’s support.

“And me,” echoed Flossie Hart.

“I’m sorry, Beauty, but I can’t help you with the contest.” Leila pursed her lips and shook her black head. “Now, why should you bother your head about it?”

“Because I think it is the one thing to do for Miss Monroe. I want to do it, Leila. Why won’t you help me?” Marjorie sent Leila a puzzled, almost hurt glance.

“Why won’t I help you? Because – ” Leila’s smile burst forth from her sober face like sunlight through a cloud – “I shall be busy managing the Beauty contest myself.”

CHAPTER XXI

NEWS FROM MISS SUSANNA

“I’m going out to mail a letter,” Jerry told Marjorie, when, later, the girls had gone to their own rooms.

“How nice. You may have the pleasure of mailing two for me,” Marjorie reached in the table drawer for the letters. “I put them in the drawer for safe keeping and went out without them, she explained.

“Hand them over.” Jerry took them and was gone. She had decided to say nothing to anyone about the letter she had written to Louise Walker until she had seen the outcome. Like the sleuth she had laughingly vowed to be, at the time when Marjorie had received the letter from Louise Walker and also the one signed “Senior sports’ committee,” she preferred to keep matters a secret until she had completed her case.

On the way back across the campus from the nearest mail box she saw a mail carrier leaving the Hall. In going out she had noted that the bulletin board in the hall was empty of mail. Now a flock of letters roosted in its alphabetical, shallow pockets. Near the top under D she plucked one for Marjorie addressed in Miss Susanna Hamilton’s individual hand.

“You’re in luck,” Jerry said as she entered the room to find Marjorie sitting at the table, elbows braced upon it, hands cupping her chin. A rare old book on chemistry lay near her on the table. It had been given her by Miss Hamilton during her senior year at Hamilton. She had brought it from her bookshelf to read. Instead she had fallen into a reverie concerning the giver of the book. Miss Susanna had told her that it was the only copy of the work on chemistry known to be in the United States. It had belonged to Mr. Brooke Hamilton. Marjorie could hardly believe at times that she was actually in possession of a book that had belonged to the founder of Hamilton College.

“Why am I in luck?” Marjorie’s head was quickly raised from her hands. “I never seem to be much out of it, Jeremiah. I have so much more of happiness than I deserve.”

“There’s a reason.” The envelope in Jerry’s hand dropped on the table in front of Marjorie.

“Oh-h-h!” Marjorie exultantly snatched up the letter. “I was just thinking of her, Jerry. I’ve had only one letter from her since she has been in New York. Doesn’t it seem odd to think of Miss Susanna as being in New York? She’s been away from the Arms almost six weeks, too.”

Marjorie’s hands were already busy with the envelope. She drew from it the folded letter, spread it open and glanced eagerly at the headlines. Then she read aloud to Jerry who had seated herself on one end of the table, feet swinging free.

“My Dearest Child:

“I am still in this roaring, clattering, over-populated city they call New York. I shall be glad to see the last of it. It has changed a good deal since I visited it twenty years ago. This is the day of motor vehicles, skyscrapers and crowded streets filled with strange foreign faces. I long to be home to that haven of peace, the Arms.

“There is no use in attempting to tell you by letter of my stay in the metropolis. I am coming home on Tuesday, December fourth. Will you and Jerry come to the Arms to dinner on Wednesday evening? I should have written you more often, but I have been very busy by day and tired by night. At any rate I have seen the New York of today. But I could never grow used to the helter-skelter, rush-and-a-bounce way of living that appears to prevail here.

“Give my love to my girls with my fond devotion for yourself.

“Susanna Craig Hamilton.”

“She’ll be home tomorrow. Oh, goody!” Marjorie sprang from her chair and essayed a little prancing step about the room, looking like a delighted youngster. Miss Susanna’s pet name of “child” was particularly applicable.

“And Wednesday we’ll see her!” Jerry contributed a few hops and skips to the dance Marjorie had started. The two met, clasped each other and the dance became wilder. Breathless and laughing, they landed with a bang against the door. They managed for a moment to keep out Ronny who was at the door, hand on the knob, when the dancers crashed against it.

“I got in, even if you did try to hold the door against me,” she asserted with twinkling eyes.

“My, but you are suspicious!” Jerry accused. “That’s not the way we treat our friends. Didn’t you know it?”

“Am I really your friend?” Ronny asked with gushing sweetness.

“You were, you are, but you won’t be long if you ask me any more such foolish questions.”

“Miss Susanna will be home tomorrow, Ronny,” Marjorie said happily. “She sent her love to you girls. Here’s her letter. I’m sure she’d like you to read it.” Marjorie was still holding the letter. She now handed it to Ronny.

Ronny took it and quickly read it. “Why did she go to New York, I wonder, after having stayed so long away from it?” she questioned half musingly. “It would take an especially strong reason to draw her away from the Arms for six weeks.”

“Whatever the reason may have been, we’ll probably know it tomorrow evening,” Jerry commented. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been planning something for the dormitory and had had to go to New York to find just what she wanted.”

“We don’t wish her to do anything more for the dormitory,” Marjorie said sturdily. “She has done too much for us already.”

“Precisely my opinion. You won’t let me throw my money around in the dormitory cause. Why should Miss Susanna be allowed to do what I’m not?” Ronny propounded with one of her dazzling, patronizing smiles.

“I call for a change of subject,” laughed Marjorie.

“And my question not answered,” Ronny sighed plaintively.

“The answer to your question is the road to argument.” Marjorie cannily shook a finger at Veronica.

“All right. You’ve suppressed me for the time being. Never fear. I’ll bob up again on the finance question when you least expect it,” she made cheerful prediction.

“It’s a sweet, precious pet, and it sha’n’t be suppressed.” Marjorie reached out and stroked Ronny’s arm.

“That’s what you call Ruffle when you are trying to coax him to jump through your arms. You can’t hope that I’ll be much impressed by such blarney,” Ronny pointed out with hastily assumed dignity. “I’m going to leave you now. I came here for a purpose, but I’ve forgotten what it was. I’ll have to go back to our room and consult Luciferous. Luckily, I confided in her before starting out.” Ronny flitted from the room in her graceful, light-footed fashion.

“I wish I could see fluffy old Ruffle and squabble with him and General for our favorite chair.” Marjorie’s eyes grew suddenly wistful. “And, Captain! I miss her most of all. More so this year than I did before I was graduated.”

“I miss Father and Mother sometimes, but Hal is the one I miss.” Jerry’s color heightened a little as she mentioned her brother’s name to Marjorie. “You know Hal and I were pally at home. Outside the house he was always with the boys, but inside we spent many hours together. He taught me to box, fence, swim and ride. And during the past two summers at the beach you’ve seen for yourself how much we have been together.”

During the short Thanksgiving vacation in Sanford Jerry had been faintly encouraged by Marjorie’s warmly cordial manner to Hal. The strain between them which her keen intuition had detected when at the beach had vanished. As a matter of fact, Marjorie welcomed the four days of pleasure and happiness at home as a release from responsibility. She wished to think of nothing but home and its charms. She hailed Hal frankly as her cavalier of old and treated him with all the gay graciousness of her first acquaintance with him.

Hal was too deeply in love with Marjorie not to understand her. He knew that she was not behaving toward him according to some carefully laid plan of her own. Her overflowing gaiety was spontaneous. She was like a blithe, lovely child, full of the joy of living, who looked to him to be her playmate. So Hal made a Herculean effort to crowd the love she did not want into his heart and close the door upon it. He resolutely forbade himself to think of her as other than his old-time “girl.”

“Hal is the finest young man I ever met, or ever expect to meet,” Marjorie said with an energy of enthusiasm far removed from love. “I hope he will find a girl who is as splendid as he is, and marry her. I wish Hal would fall in love with Ronny, and Ronny with Hal. They would be worthy of each other.”

Marjorie laughed as she caught the variety of expressions struggling for place on Jerry’s round face. “You look so funny, Jeremiah.”

“Can you wonder? Ronny never occurred to me in the light of a sister-in-law.” Jerry’s variegated expression dissolved in a broad smile. “You take my breath. I’ll have to mention it to her when she comes in again. Her views on the subject might give me another shock.”

“Jerry Macy, if you do, I’ll – I’ll – ” Marjorie caught Jerry by her well-cushioned shoulders and began to shake her with playful force. “Don’t you dare, Jeremiah.” She emphasized her words with little shakes. “Promise me you won’t.”

“What do you take me for?” Jerry asked reproachfully. “I’d never have the nerve to mention old Hal to Ronny. No, Marvelous Match Maker, you’ll never be able to marry Hal off so easily as that. There are scads and oodles and slathers of lovely girls in the world, but there’s one grand reason why none of them will ever give me a glad hand as a sister-in-law. Hal saw you first.”

CHAPTER XXII

HOME AGAIN

“Yes, little girls, I’m so glad to be home again! I’ve been outdoors tramping around the estate since early this morning. Do give me another cup of tea, Jerry.” Miss Susanna had ordered the dinner dessert served in the tea room with tea as an after-dinner beverage instead of coffee.

“Yours truly.” Jerry refilled the thin priceless cup, it belonged to the famous Chinese tea set, and offered it to Miss Susanna.

“It has seemed so strange without you, Miss Susanna.” Marjorie bent affectionate eyes on the upright little figure in black silk. “Not to see you for six weeks during the college year is a long time now.”

“So it is; so it is,” nodded the old lady. “I had no intention of leaving the Arms for that shrieking demon of noise, New York. The last time you had tea with me, Marjorie, was just before Hallowe’en. I was thinking then about having a Hallowe’en frolic for you girls. Then Jonas brought me a letter from an old friend of mine who lives in New York. In the letter he mentioned something so interesting that it set me to thinking hard. The upshot of it was I told Jonas I intended to go to New York. He nearly collapsed with amazement.” Miss Susanna chuckled at the recollection of Jonas’s unbelieving surprise. “When I went on to tell him why I was going he was as much pleased with my plan as I was.”

Miss Hamilton paused. Her alert dark eyes were dancing with some secret of her own which gave promise of being signally amusing. Jerry and Marjorie knew the signs. Miss Susanna was on the verge of imparting to them something in the nature of a pleasant surprise. Jerry’s surmise of the afternoon that the last of the Hamiltons had gone to New York in the interests of the dormitory flashed into the minds of both girls.

“The odd feature of the whole affair is, Jonas has been elected to go to New York, now that I’ve returned to the Arms.” Miss Susanna’s gleeful, child-like chuckle was heard. “Poor Jonas. He looked so horrified when I informed him of what I had in store for him.”

“Shall we inquire what it’s all about?” Jerry flashed Marjorie the pretense of a bewildered glance.

“It’s the only way we’ll ever find out,” sighed Marjorie in an exaggeratedly hopeless tone. “Unless we pounce upon Jonas in the hall and bully him into telling us.” She turned the merest fraction of a glance on Miss Hamilton as she proposed this violent means of obtaining information.

“A good plan,” heartily approved Jerry. “I’ll improve upon it. I suggest that we rush him, or anyone else around here who may happen to know something we don’t, but would like to know. Let’s begin now.”

“Come on.” Marjorie rose and brandished two bare, smooth, dimpled arms threateningly in Miss Susanna’s direction. Jerry followed suit, even more menacing of gesture. Her ridiculous, desperado thrust of chin, the slow, determined advance of the pair upon the little, bright-eyed figure in the chair further added to the astonishment of Jonas as he suddenly appeared in the tea room to refill the tea-pot.

“I guess I got here just in time,” he slyly declared, his mouth drawing into a humorous pucker as he picked up the tea-pot to refill it with fresh tea.

“In time to land yourself in difficulties; not to save me,” Miss Susanna told him between chuckles. “We’re both threatened with attack, Jonas, unless we stand and deliver our great secret.”

Miss Susanna had thrown herself into the spirit of the bit of by-play with the merry zest of a child. Since she had known Marjorie and the light-hearted, fun-loving coterie of Hamilton girls she had appeared to grow younger and younger. That particular, congenial galaxy of youth Miss Susanna had taken to her heart as a charm against crabbed old age.

“Maybe we’d better not make any resistance, Miss Susanna,” Jonas advised with a timid air. It reduced the two desperadoes to a state of giggles which utterly broke up their threatening aspect.

“Maybe we hadn’t,” the old lady agreed with brisk amusement. “You sit down at the table with us and have a cup of tea, Jonas. There’s safety in numbers.” She graciously waved Jonas into the one vacant chair of the four around the table. Had he been her elder brother instead of her major-domo of many years she could not have treated him with more kindly affection.

“It’s mean in me to tease you children,” she said, flashing her guests one of her bright smiles. “Forgive me. I’m really going to tell you all about it now.”

“The past is forgot,” Jerry moaned ungrammatically.

“Thank you,” Miss Susanna responded gratefully. “I was hoping it might be. Now for the tale of my adventures in New York. My lawyer, who was young when I was, left Hamilton many years ago and established himself in New York. His name is Richard Henry Garrett. He never married. During our younger days we lost track of each other. Later we met again and after Uncle Brooke’s death I engaged him to attend to the legalities of the estate. Uncle Brooke’s lawyer died shortly after my great uncle’s decease.

“Since the laying of the dormitory corner stone last fall,” Miss Susanna continued, “I have often wondered what I could give the girls who are to live there that would be of use and benefit to all. When the dormitory is completed I shall carry out a certain wish of Uncle Brooke’s of which at present I prefer not to speak. What I was anxious to do was something personal for the girls’ welfare. In the midst of my quandary I received my old friend Richard’s letter. I had not finished reading it when the very idea I was seeking came to me. Let me read you the paragraph of his letter which furnished my inspiration.”

Miss Susanna drew from an ornamental ruffled silk pocket of her skirt the folded sheets of a letter. She unfolded them; hunted them for the desired paragraph. She quickly found it and read in her brisk tones: