Beatrice Leigh at College Part 6

"O Lila,--my magnanimous roommate,--are you asleep? Do you want to listen to my last valentines? I intend to run down and put them in the senior caldron presently. Is this sentimental? When I read it to Berta, she laughed at it.

"My Music

"At thy birth were gathered voices of the sea, Murmur of the breezes in the forest tree, Songs of birds and laughter--"

At this point an open umbrella, which hid the pillow on the farther narrow bed, gave a convulsive s.h.i.+ver, and a fretful voice complained:

"Will you turn off that gas and stop your nonsense? Here it is midnight, if it's an hour, and I haven't slept a wink, with that light blazing. I know I shall fail in the written test to-morrow, Valentine's day or not."

Bea stared pensively at the Topsy-like corona above the flushed face. "I don't believe she ever puts her hair up in curlers now, do you? She is superior to such vanities, and anyway, it is naturally curly, you know, and that probably makes a difference. I wonder if she even stoops to making verses. Do you suppose she sends valentines to other girls? Of course, she doesn't care a snap whether she receives more than any, and is declared the most popular senior. H'm-m-m!" drifting into reverie afresh. "I dare say I could compose a poem on that idea. For instance:

"I know a senior all sedate--"

The umbrella bounced tempestuously across the floor, and was followed by a pillow driven hard and straight at a tousled head that ducked just in time.

"U-huh!" ferociously. "Well,

"I know a freshman, sure as fate!

Who shall no longer sit up late, Because her long-suffering roommate--"

Here the gas flared suddenly into darkness, and slippered feet scurried away from the desk. The door opened and shut quickly; and Bea, her valentines clutched safely against her dressing gown, was speeding through the dark corridors toward the senior parlor. There a kettle, overflowing with bits of white, swung from a tripod before the shadowy folds of the parlor portieres.

Ah! Bea, bending toward the caldron with arm extended, stiffened without moving. She had heard something. Yes, there it was again--a m.u.f.fled footfall on the stairs near by. Hark! Down the black shaft from the cave above came stealing a second slender figure in a flowing robe of some pale woolly stuff. In her hands also was clasped a packet of envelopes.

"h.e.l.lo, Berta!" Bea said.

"Oh, good-morning, Miss Leigh!" responded Berta, advancing with a tread the stateliness of which was somewhat impaired by a loosely flapping sole. "Did you rise early in order to prepare for the Latin test?"

Bea brushed aside the query with the contempt it deserved. "Are all those for your senior? I don't think it's fair for you to copy verses out of any old book, while every one of mine is original; and yet yours count exactly as much. Well, anyway, I wouldn't send my senior anything that was ordinary and unworthy of her acceptance. How many have you?"

This ign.o.ble curiosity was likewise ignored by Miss Berta, who proceeded with dignified slowness to drop her valentines one by one into the caldron. Bea, with lingering care, deposited her contribution on the very top. One slid over the edge, and in rescuing it she disturbed a fold of the portiere. A glimpse within set her eyes to sparkling.

"Berta, there's an open fire in the senior parlor, and it's still red!"

"Ho," whispered Berta, in reply to the unspoken challenge, "I'm not afraid! Let's," and two flowing, woolly robes glided into the warm room, with its heart of glowing coals. One bold intruder nestled in the biggest arm-chair, the other fumbled for the tongs.

"Aren't we wicked! Robbie wouldn't do it." Berta cuddled deeper among the comforting cus.h.i.+ons. "But--oh!--doesn't it feel good in here!"

Bea poked a coal until it split into a faint blue blaze. "We're worse than wicked. We're cheeky,--that's what,--coming into this room without being invited. Suppose some senior should discover us!" She paused, smitten by the terror of the new thought. "Just suppose my senior should find me here! She has a horror of anything underhanded or sly. I should die of shame!" It was a genuine groan, and Berta was too startled to laugh.

"I guess it isn't very nice of us," she acknowledged meekly.

"I'm going this instant." Bea's hand was on the portiere when a rustling in the kettle caught her attention. Through a rift between the folds she spied lace ruffles about a delicate hand that was dropping envelopes down upon the others. Over the tripod a face appeared for one moment in the dim light, and then was gone. Light steps retreated swiftly, and a door closed not far away on the senior corridor. Bea had recognized her senior.

When the two midnight visitors stole timorously forth a moment later, Bea's eyes traveled wistfully toward the big envelope lying squarely on top of all the valentines.

Berta regarded her keenly. "Why don't you march up and read the name, if you want to so much?" was her blunt question.

"She must be pretty fond of somebody," whispered Bea, "if she stayed up till now just to write valentines for her. I wish----"

"Do you think it is sneaking to look?" persisted Berta. "If she objected to having it seen, she might have turned it address down."

"It is address down," murmured Bea, sadly, "and I know it would be dishonorable to try to see it. She herself would call any act like that contemptible."

At this crisis Berta sneezed--sneezed hard and long and with suspicious vehemence. And when Bea cast one lingering farewell glance toward the caldron, she perceived that the topmost missives were sliding over the edge in the breeze raised by that gusty sneeze. The big square envelope tumbled clumsily down upon its back and lay staring, quite close to the flickering gas. Bea's wilful eyes rested on it one illuminating instant, and then leaped away, while her cheeks whitened suddenly. The name on the valentine was that of the senior herself.

Poor little Bea! After the first dazed moment she began to select and gather up the fifteen valentines which she had deposited five minutes before.

"Why, Beatrice Leigh!" gasped Berta. "You haven't any right to take them back after you have mailed them!"

"Do you imagine for one moment that I shall give valentines to a girl who sends them to herself? And the senior who receives the most is declared the most popular in the cla.s.s!"

"But--but," stammered Berta, "perhaps she thought--perhaps she didn't think----"

"And I was afraid a girl who could do a thing like that might blame us for entering the senior parlor uninvited!"

Bea's hands fell listlessly at her sides as she walked away. "I don't care," she said. And Berta, who was wise in some unexpected ways, wondered why people always said they did not care just when they cared the most.

Next day various anonymous verses were delivered at the door where Lila Allan wrestled with the rules for indirect discourse, while her roommate, chin in hand, stared gloomily out at the snow-darkened sky. Valentines were silly, anyway, and it was a shame for any one to waste time and energy in hunting foolish rhymes for eyes and hair and smiles and hearts.

How could a person be sure about anybody, if a girl with a face like a white flower could send valentines to herself with the address side down?

All day long the senior caldron bubbled notes faithfully till the very last minute. After chapel the cla.s.s fluttered into their little parlor, with its fire blazing merrily and its shaded lamps glowing. Somebody, disguised in a long gray beard and flowing gray robe, stalked in amid laughter and clapping, and began to distribute the contents of the kettle.

Berta, hanging at a perilous angle over the stairway just outside, felt some one halt silently beside her, and glanced up into Bea's eyes.

"h.e.l.lo!" she said, in an excited whisper. "Can you see all right, Bea? I think she has called my senior's name about twenty times already. Look how the valentines are heaped in her lap! Where's your senior?"

"That person with the gray beard," began Bea, calmly, only to be interrupted by, "Why, so it is! What fun! Where does she put the envelopes addressed to herself? Oh, yes, I see. Why----" Berta caught Bea's skirts in a firm grasp. "See here, young lady, you'll go over the banisters head first if you don't undouble yourself pretty soon.

You'll----"

"That's the very valentine--that big, square envelope in her hand this instant! She sent it to herself----"

Bea saw Saint Valentine read aloud the name, and then stop short, staring at the address in a puzzled way. She turned the envelope over to examine its back, and study the waxen seal. Suddenly she bent her head in the delighted laughter that Bea once had thought so charming. She laughed till the long gray beard threatened to shake itself free.

"Isn't that the greatest joke! I was scribbling verses last night till I was too sleepy to see straight. I didn't mean to send this to myself. How perfectly ridiculous!" and she tossed the innocent missive into the fire.

Outside on the shadowy stairway Berta gave a little squeal of pain.

"Ouch! You're pinching me black and blue! Why, Bea, Bea Leigh, whatever in the world----"

A packet of white, bound with an elastic, went flying through the air, to fall with a rustling plop into the half-empty caldron. An inquisitive senior going out to investigate spied only the deserted stairs, and heard nothing but four scampering feet on the corridor overhead. Saint Valentine, with a voice that dropped lower and lower into a m.u.f.fled murmur, read her own name fifteen times in succession, and blushed rose-pink, from gray beard to powdered hair, while the other seniors laughed and laughed.

Two minutes after the valentines had been counted and the result announced Bea was waltzing about Berta's room, with that unwilling captive in her arms.

"Ho! Who says your senior is more popular than my senior now?" she jeered. "Who won that time, I want to know?"

"Before I'd have a senior who sends valentines to herself!" grumbled Berta wickedly, to the ceiling.

"Ho!" chanted shameless Bea. "I knew it was a mistake all along. That's the reason I didn't tear up my valentines."