CHAPTER I
WELLINGTON
“Wellington! Wellington!” called the conductor.
The train drew up at a platform, and as if by magic a stream of girls came pouring out of the pretty stucco station with its sloping red roof and mingled with another stream of girls emptying itself from the coaches. Everywhere appeared girls, – leaping from omnibuses; hurrying down the gravel walk from the village; hastening along the University drive; girls on foot; girls on bicycles; girls running, and girls strolling arm in arm.
Few of them wore hats; many of them wore sweaters and short walking skirts of white duck or serge, and across the front of each sweater was embroidered a large “W” in cadet blue, the mystic color of Wellington University.
In the midst of a shouting, gesticulating mob stood Mr. Murphy, baggage master, smiling good naturedly.
“Now, young ladies, one at a time, please. We’ve brought down all the baggage left over by the 9.45. If your trunk ain’t on this train, it’ll come on the next. All in good time, please.”
A tall girl with auburn hair and deep blue eyes approached the group. There was a kind of awkward grace about her, the grace which was hers by rights and the awkwardness which comes of growing too fast. She wore a shabby brown homespun suit, a shade darker than her hair, and on her head was an old brown felt which had plainly seen service the year before.
But knotted at her neck was a tie of burnt-orange silk which seemed to draw attention away from the shiny seams and frayed hem and to cry aloud:
“Look at me. I am the color of a winter sunset. Never mind the other old togs.”
Surely there was something very brave and jaunty about this young girl who now pushed her way through the crowd of students and endeavored to engage the attention of the baggage-master.
“I think my trunk was on this train,” she said timidly. “I hope it is. It came from Louisville to Philadelphia safely, and when I re-checked it they told me it would be on this train.”
Now, Murphy, the baggage master, had his own peculiar method of conducting business, and it was strictly a partial and prejudiced one. If he liked the face of a student, he always waited on her first, regardless of how many other students were ahead of her; and, as he told his wife later, he “took a fancy to that overgrown gal from the fust.”
“I beg your pardon, but Mr. Murphy is engaged,” put in a haughty looking young woman with black eyes that snapped angrily.
“Now, Miss Judith,” said the baggage master, who knew many of the students by name, “don’t go fer to git excited. I ain’t made no promises to no one. It’s plain to see this here young lady is a newcomer, and, as sich, she gits my fust consideration.”
“Oh, please excuse me,” said the girl in shabby brown. “I’m not used to – I mean I haven’t traveled very much.”
Judith turned irritably away.
“I should think you hadn’t,” she said in a low voice, but loud enough to be overheard. “Freshies have a lot to learn and one is to respect their elders.”
The new girl put down her straw suit case and leaned against the wall of the station. She looked tired and there was a streak of soot across her cheek. The trip from Kentucky in this warm September weather was not the pleasantest journey in the world. While she waited for Mr. Murphy to return with news of her trunk, her attention was claimed by two girls standing at her elbow who were talking cheerfully together.
“Yes,” said one of them, a plump, brown-eyed girl with brown hair, a slightly turned-up nose and a humorous twitch to her lips, “I have a room at Queen’s cottage. It’s the best I could do unless I went into one of the expensive suites in the dormitories, and you know I might as well expect to take the royal suite on the Mauretania and sail for Europe as do that.”
The other girl laughed.
“You’d be quite up to doing anything with your enterprising ways, Nance Oldham,” she exclaimed.
“Oh, are you going to Queen’s cottage?” here broke in the girl in shabby brown. “I’m there, too. My name is Molly Brown. I come from Kentucky. I feel awfully forlorn and homesick arriving at the University station without knowing a soul.”
There was a kind of ringing note to Molly Brown’s voice which made the other girls listen more closely.
“I wonder if she doesn’t sing,” thought Nance Oldham, giving her a quick, scrutinizing glance. “Yes, I am at Queen’s cottage,” she continued aloud, “but that’s about all I can tell you. I feel like a greeny, too. We’ll soon learn, I suppose. This is Miss Brinton, Miss Brown.”
Caroline Brinton was rather a nondescript young person with dreamy eyes and an absent-minded manner. She came from Philadelphia, and she greeted the new acquaintance rather coldly.
“Your trunk ain’t here, yet, Miss,” called the baggage master. “Like enough it’ll come on the 6.50.”
Molly looked disturbed, while the black-eyed Judith standing nearby flashed a triumphant smile, as much as to say:
“It only serves you right for pushing in out of turn.”
“What are we to do now?” she asked of her new friends, rather helplessly.
“Take the ’bus up to Wellington,” said brisk Nance Oldham. “I know that much. There’s one filling up now. We’d better hurry and get seats.”
The three girls crowded into the long, narrow side-seated vehicle already half filled with students. Even at this early stage in their acquaintance, the bonds of loneliness and sympathy had drawn them together.
“I’m a stranger in a strange land,” Molly Brown had confided to the listening ear of Nance Oldham. “I had made up my mind not to be homesick. I really didn’t know what the feeling was like, because I have never had a chance to learn. But I know now it’s a kind of an all-gone sensation. I suppose little orphans have it when they first go into an orphan asylum.”
“Oh, you’ll soon get over it,” answered Nance. “It’s because you live so far away. Kentucky, didn’t you say?”
Molly nodded and looked the other way. The memory of an old brick house with broad piazzas and many windows blurred her vision for a moment. But she resolutely pressed her lips together and began to watch the passing scenery, as new and strange to her as the scenery in a foreign land.
The road leading to Wellington University skirted a pretty village and then plunged straight into the country between rolling meadow lands tinged a golden brown with the autumn sun. And there in the distance were the gray towers of Wellington, silhouetted against the sky like a mediæval castle.
Molly Brown clasped her hands and smiled a heavenly smile.
“Is that it?” she exclaimed rapturously.
“It must be,” answered Nance, who also felt some quiet and reserved flutterings.
“It is,” said Miss Brinton. “I came down to engage my room, so I know.”
In the meantime, there was a busy conversation going on around them.
“I’m going to cut gym this year. It interferes too much,” exclaimed a tiny girl with birdlike motions and intelligent, beady little eyes as bright and alert as the eyes of a little brown bird.
But evidently Molly was not the only person who had noticed this resemblance, for one of the students called out:
“Now, Jennie Wren, you must admit that gym never had any charms for you and it’s a great relief to give it up.”
“Of course she must,” put in another girl. “The only exercise Jennie Wren ever takes is to hop about on the lawn and prune her feathers.”
“Never!” cried Jennie Wren. “I never wear them, not even quills. I belong to the S. P. C. A.”
“Is there much out-of-door life here?” asked Molly Brown, of a tall, somewhat older girl sitting opposite her.
“This new girl may have timid manners,” thought Nance Oldham; “but she is not afraid to talk to strangers. I suppose that’s the friendly Southern way. She hasn’t been in Wellington a quarter of an hour and she has already made three friends, – Caroline and the station-master and me. And now she’s getting on famously with that older girl. What I like about her is that she isn’t a bit self-conscious and she takes it for granted everybody’s going to be kind.”
“Oh, yes, lots of it,” the older girl was saying to Molly kindly. “If you have a taste for that kind of thing, you may indulge it to your heart’s content. There is a splendid swimming pool attached to the gym, and there are golf links, of course. You know they are quite famous in this part of the world. Then, there are the tennis courts, and we’ll still have some canoeing on the lake before the weather gets too cold and later glorious skating. Besides all that, there are perfectly ripping walks for miles around. The college has several Saturday afternoon walking clubs.”
“But don’t these things interfere with – with lectures?” asked Molly, who was really quite ignorant regarding college life, although she had passed her entrance examinations without any conditions whatever.
The older girl laughed pleasantly. She was not good looking, but she had a fine face and Molly liked her immensely.
“Oh, no, you’ll find there’s plenty of time for everything you want to get in, because most things have their season, and most girls specialize, anyhow. A golf fiend is seldom a tennis fiend, and there are lots of walking fiends who don’t like either.”
Molly’s liking for this big girl and her grave, fine face increased as the conversation progressed. She had a most reassuring, kindly manner and Molly noticed that the other girls treated her with a kind of deferential respect and called her “Miss Stewart.” She learned afterward that Miss Stewart was a senior and a member of the “Octogons,” the most coveted society in the University. She led in all the athletic sports, was quite a wonderful musician and had composed an operetta for her class and most of the music for the class songs. It was whispered also that she was very rich, though no one would ever have guessed this secret from Mary Stewart herself, who was careful never to allude to money and dressed very simply and plainly.
The omnibus now turned into the avenue which led to the college campus and there was general excitement of a subdued sort among the new girls and greetings and calls from the older girls as they caught glimpses of friends strolling on the lawn.
“Queen’s Cottage,” called the driver and Molly stood up promptly, shrinking a little as twenty pairs of eyes turned curiously in her direction.
Then the big girl leaned over and took her hand kindly.
“Won’t you look me up to-morrow?” she said. “My name is Mary Stewart, and I stop at No. 16 on the Quadrangle. Perhaps I can help you get things straightened out a bit and show you the ropes.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Molly, with that musical ring to her voice which never failed to thrill her hearers. “It’s awfully nice of you. What time shall I come?”
“I’ll see you in Chapel in the morning, and we’ll fix the time then,” called Miss Stewart as Molly climbed out, dragging her straw telescope over the knees of the other passengers, followed by Nance Oldham, who had waited for her to take the initiative.
As the two girls stood watching the disappearing vehicle, they became the prey to the most extreme loneliness.
“I feel as if I had just left the tumbrel on the way to my execution,” observed Molly, trying to laugh, although the corners of her mouth turned persistently down.
“But, anyway, I’m glad we are together,” she continued, slipping her arm through Nance’s. “Queen’s Cottage does seem so remote and lonesome, doesn’t it? Just a thing apart.”
The two girls gazed uncertainly at the rather dismal-looking shingled house, stained brown and covered with a mantle of old vines which appeared to have been prematurely stripped of their foliage. It was somewhat isolated, at least it seemed so at first. The next house was quite half a block on and was a cheerful place, all stucco and red roof like the station.
“Well, here goes,” Molly went on. “If it’s Queen’s, why then, so be it,” and she marched up the walk and rang the front door bell, which resounded through the hall with a metallic clang.
“Shure, I’m after bein’ wit’ you in a moment,” called a voice from above. “You’re the new young ladies, I’m thinkin’, and glad I am to see you.”
There was the sound of heavy footsteps down the stairs and the door was opened by Mrs. Murphy, wife of the baggage master and housekeeper for Queen’s Cottage. She was a middle-aged Irish woman with a round, good-natured face and she beamed on the girls with motherly interest as she ushered them into the parlor.
“Since ye be the fust comers, ye may be the fust choosers,” she said; “and if ye be friends, ye may like to be roommates, surely, and that’s a good thing. It’s better to room with a friend than a stranger.”
The two girls looked at each other with a new interest. It had not occurred to them that they might be roommates, but had not they already, with the swiftness peculiar to girls, bridged the gulf which separates total strangers, and were now on the very verge of plunging into intimate friendship? Would it not be better to seize this opportunity than to wait for other chances which might not prove so agreeable?
“Shall we not?” asked Molly with that charming, cordial manner which appeared to win her friends wherever she went.
“It would be a great relief,” answered Nance, who was yet to learn the value of showing real pleasure when she felt it. Nevertheless, Nance, under her whimsical, rather sarcastic outer shell, had a warm and loyal heart.
Thus Molly Brown and Nance Oldham, quite opposites in looks and temperaments, became roommates during their freshman year at Wellington College and thus, from this small beginning, the seeds of a life-long friendship were sown.
The two girls chose a big sunny room on the third floor looking over a portion of the golf links. Molly liked it because it had blue wallpaper and Nance because it had a really commodious closet.
CHAPTER II
THEIR NEIGHBOR
Molly Brown was the youngest member of a numerous family of older brothers and sisters. Her father had been dead many years, and in order to rear and educate her children, Mrs. Brown had been obliged to mortgage, acre by acre, the fine old place where Molly and her brothers and sisters had been born and brought up. Every time anybody in the Brown family wanted to do anything that was particularly nice, something had to go, either a cow or a colt or a piece of land, according to the needs of the moment. A two-acre lot represented Molly’s college education – two perfectly good acres of orchard.
“If you don’t bring back at least one golden apple in return for all these nice juicy ones that are going for your education, Molly, you are no child of mine,” Mrs. Brown had laughingly exclaimed when she kissed her daughter good-bye.
“I’ll bring back the three golden apples of the Hesperides, mother, and make the family rich and happy,” cried Molly, and from that moment the three golden apples became a secret symbol to her, although she had not decided in her mind exactly what they represented.
“But,” as Molly observed to herself, “anybody who has had two acres of winter sweets, pippins and greenings spent on her, must necessarily engage to win a few.”
Those two fruitful acres, however, while they provided a fund for an education, did not extend far into the margin and there was little left for clothes. That was perhaps one of the reasons why Molly had felt so disturbed about the delay in receiving her trunk.
“I can stand traveling in this old brown rag for economy’s sake,” she thought; “but I would like to put on the one decent thing I own for my first day at college. I was a chump not to have brought something in my suit case besides a blouse. However, what’s done can’t be undone,” and she stoically went to work to remove the stains of travel and put on a fresh blue linen shirtwaist; while Nance Oldham, who had been more far-sighted, made herself spic and span in a duck skirt and a white linen blouse. She had little to say during the process of making her toilet, and Molly wondered if, after all, she would like a roommate so peculiarly reserved and whimsical as this new friend. She hoped there would be lots of nice girls in the house of the right sort, girls who meant business, for while Molly meant to enjoy herself immensely, she meant business decidedly, and she didn’t want to get into a play set and be torn away from her studies. As these thoughts flitted through her mind she heard voices coming up the stairs.
“Now, Mrs. Murphy, I do hope you’ve got something really decent. You know, I hadn’t expected to come back this year. I thought I would stay in France with grandmamma, but at the last moment I changed my mind, and I’ve come right here from the ship without engaging a thing at all. I’ll take anything that’s a single.”
The voice had a spoiled, imperious sound, like that of a person in the habit of having her own way.
“I have a single, Miss, but it’s a small one, and they do say you’ve got a deal of belongings.”
“Let’s see it. Let’s see it, quick, Granny Murphy,” and from the noise without our two young persons judged that this despotic stranger had placed her hands on Mrs. Murphy’s shoulders and was running her along the passage.
“Now, you’ll be giving me apoplexy, Miss, surely, with your goings-on,” cried the woman breathlessly, as she opened the door next theirs.
“Who’s in there? Two freshies?”
“Yes, Miss. They only just arrived an hour ago.”
“Greenies from Greenville, Green County,” chanted the young woman, who did not seem to mind being overheard by the entire household. “Very well, I’ll take this little hole-in-the-wall. I won’t move any of my things in, except some books and cushions. And now, off wit’ yer. Here’s something for your trouble.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, Miss.”
The two girls seemed to hear the Irish woman being shoved out in the hall. Then the door was banged after her and was locked.
“Dear me, what an obstreperous person,” observed Nance. “I wonder if she’s going to give us a continuous performance.”
“I don’t know,” answered Molly. “She’ll be a noisy neighbor if she does. But she sounds interesting, living in France with her grandmamma and so on.”
Nance glanced at her watch.
“Wouldn’t you like to go for a stroll before supper? We have an hour yet. I’m dying to see the famous Quadrangle and the Cloisters and a few other celebrated spots I’ve heard about. Aren’t you?”
“And incidentally rub off a little of our greenness,” said Molly, recalling the words of the girl next door.
As the two girls closed the door to their room and paused on the landing, the door adjoining burst open and a human whirlwind blew out of the single room and almost knocked them over.
“I beg your pardon,” said Nance stiffly, giving the human whirlwind a long, cool, brown glance.
Molly, a little behind her friend, examined the stranger with much curiosity. She could not quite tell why she had imagined her to be a small black-eyed, black-haired person, when here stood a tall, very beautiful young woman. Her hair was light brown and perfectly straight. She had peculiarly passionate, fiery eyes of very dark gray, of the “smouldering kind,” as Nance described them later; her features were regular and her mouth so expressive of her humors that her friends could almost read her thoughts by the curve of her sensitive lips. Even in that flashing glimpse the girls could see that she was beautifully dressed in a white serge suit and a stunning hat of dull blue, trimmed with wings.
But instead of continuing her mad rush, which seemed to be her usual manner of doing things, the young woman became suddenly a zephyr of mildness and gentleness.
“Excuse my precipitate methods,” she said. “I never do things slowly, even when there’s no occasion to hurry. It’s my way, I suppose. Are you freshmen? Perhaps you’d like for me to show you around college. I’m a soph. I’m fairly familiar.”
Nance pressed her lips together. She was not in the habit of making friends off-hand. Molly, in fact, was almost her first experience in this kind of friendship. But Molly Brown, who had never consciously done a rude thing in her life, exclaimed:
“That would be awfully nice. Thanks, we’ll come.”
They followed her rather timidly down the steps. Across the campus the pile of gray buildings, in the September twilight, more than ever resembled a fine old castle. As they hastened along, the sophomore gave them each a quick, comprehensive glance.
“My name is Frances Andrews,” she began suddenly, and added with a peculiar intonation, “I was called ‘Frank’ last year. I’m so glad we are to be neighbors. I hope we shall have lots of good times together.”
Molly considered this a particular mark of good nature on the part of an older girl to two freshmen, and she promptly made known their names to Frances Andrews. All this time Nance had remained impassive and quiet.
Ten girls, arm in arm, were strolling toward them across the soft green turf of the campus, singing as in one voice to the tune of “Maryland, My Maryland”:
“Oh, Wellington, My Wellington,
Oh, how I love my Wellington!”
Suddenly Frances Andrews, who was walking between the two young girls, took them each firmly by the arm and led them straight across the campus, giving the ten girls a wide berth. There was so much fierce determination in her action that Molly and Nance looked at her with amazement.
“Are those seniors?” asked Nance, thinking perhaps it was not college etiquette to break through a line of established and dignified characters like seniors.
“No; they are sophomores singing their class song,” answered Frances.
“Aren’t you a sophomore?” demanded Nance quickly.
“Yes.”
“Curious she doesn’t want to meet her friends,” thought Molly.
But there were more interesting sights to occupy her attention just then.
They had reached the great gray stone archway which formed the entrance to the Quadrangle, a grassy courtyard enclosed on all sides by the walls of the building. Heavy oak doors of an antique design opened straight onto the court from the various corridors and lecture rooms and at one end was the library, a beautiful room with a groined roof and stained glass windows, like a chapel. Low stone benches were ranged along the arcade of the court, whereon sat numerous girls laughing and talking together.
Although she considered that undue honors were being paid them by having as guide this dashing sophomore, somehow Molly still felt the icy grip of homesickness on her heart. Nance seemed so unsympathetic and reserved and there was a kind of hardness about this Frances Andrews that made the warm-hearted, affectionate Molly a bit uncomfortable. Suddenly Nance spied her old friend, Caroline Brinton, in the distance, and rushed over to join her. As she left, three girls came toward them, talking animatedly.
“Hello, Jennie Wren!” called Frances gayly. It was the same little bird-like person who had been in the bus. “Howdy, Rosamond. How are you, Lotta? It’s awfully nice to be back at the old stand again. Let me introduce you to my new almost-roommate, Miss Brown,” went on Frances hurriedly, as if to fill up the gaps of silence which greeted them.
“How do you do, Miss Andrews,” said Jennie Wren, stiffly.
Rosamond Chase, who had a plump figure and a round, good-natured face, was slightly warmer in her greeting.
“How are you, Frankie? I thought you were going to France this winter.”
The other girl who had a turned-up nose and blonde hair, and was called “Peggy Parsons,” sniffed slightly and put her hands behind her back as if she wished to avoid shaking hands.
Molly was so shocked that she felt the tears rising to her eyes. “I wish I had never come to college,” she thought, “if this is the way old friends treat each other.”
She slipped her arm through Frances Andrews’ and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.
“Won’t you show me the Cloisters?” she said. “I’m pining to see what they are like.”
“Come along,” said Frances, quite cheerfully, in spite of the fact that she had just been snubbed by three of her own classmates.
Lifting the latch of a small oak door fitted under a pointed arch, she led the way through a passage to another oak door which opened directly on the Cloisters. Molly gave an exclamation of pleasure.
“Oh,” she cried, “are we really allowed to walk in this wonderful place?”
“As much as you like before six P. M.,” answered Frances. “How do you do, Miss Pembroke?”
A tall woman with a grave, handsome face was waiting under the arched arcade to go through the door.
“So you decided to come back to us, Miss Andrews. I’m very glad of it. Come into my office a moment. I want a few words with you before supper.”
“You can find your way back to Queen’s by yourself, can’t you, Miss Brown?” asked Frances. “I’ll see you later.”
And in another moment, Molly Brown was quite alone in the Cloisters. She was glad to be alone. She wanted to think. She paced slowly along the cloistered walk, each stone arch of which framed a picture of the grassy court with an Italian fountain in the center.
“It’s exactly like an old monastery,” she said to herself. “I wonder anybody could ever be frivolous or flippant in such an old world spot as this. I could easily imagine myself a monk, telling my beads.”
She sat down on a stone bench and folded her hands meditatively.
“So far, I’ve really only made one friend at college,” she thought to herself, for Nance Oldham was too reserved to be called a friend yet, “and that friend is Frances Andrews. Who is she? What is she? Why do her classmates snub her and why did Miss Pembroke, who belonged to the faculty, wish to speak with her in her private office?” It was all queer, very queer. Somehow, it seemed to Molly now that what she had taken for whirlwind manners was really a tremendous excitement under which Frances Andrews was laboring. She was trying to brazen out something.
“Just the same, I’m sorry for her,” she said out loud.
At that moment, a musical, deep-throated bell boomed out six times in the stillness of the cloisters. There was the sound of a door opening, a pause and the door closed with a clicking noise. Molly started from her reverie. It was six o’clock. She rushed to the door of antique design through which she had entered just fifteen minutes before. It was closed and locked securely. She knocked loudly and called:
“Let me out! Let me out! I’m locked in!”
Then she waited, but no one answered. In the stillness of the twilit courtyard she could hear the sounds of laughter and talking from the Quadrangle. They grew fainter and fainter. A gray chill settled down over the place and Molly looked about her with a feeling of utter desolation. She had been locked in the Cloisters for the night.