Marjorie Dean, College Senior Part 20

I am going to take him a basket of fruit and dainties. I am not fond of making calls, but I always try to look after my people when they have sickness or are in distress."

"I'd love to go with you," Marjorie heartily a.s.sured. "I'll carry the basket in memory of one other day when I carried a basket for you."

"A very fortunate day it was for me." Miss Susanna smiled brightly upon the pretty senior. Her affection for Marjorie was the brightest spot in her secluded life.

"We can't avoid taking the highway for some distance," deplored the old lady as they walked down the drive toward the entrance gates. "My gardener lives not far from it, but almost half a mile from here. There is a gardener's house on the estate, but he owns his home and prefers to live there. This is just the kind of day for your Hamilton girls to be filling the highway with their automobiles. It is taking one's life into one's hands to venture along the road when they and their cars are out in numbers."

There was distinct aggressiveness in the speech. Miss Hamilton cherished a rooted antipathy for automobiles. She still kept in the Arms stable a pair of thoroughbred coach horses for her own use. Nothing could tempt her to ride in a motor car.

From Hamilton Arms to the adjoining estate the pike was broad, with wide level footpaths on each side. They could travel this portion of it without fear of accident from pa.s.sing automobiles. A gradual curve in the road at the beginning of the next estate and it narrowed, continuing for two hundred yards or more between two slight elevations. It was the only "tricky" stretch of the highway, as Leila had often remarked when driving over it.

The top of these elevations formed footpaths only wide enough to permit the pa.s.sing of persons, single file. The February thaw had left them too muddy to be used by pedestrians. It was a case of either take to the pike itself or walk in the mud.

"A nice state of affairs!" Miss Susanna exclaimed, her eyes snapping.

"This is the way those good-for-nothing Cardens left their part of the highway. These banks should be leveled even with the roadbed. Then they would be fit to walk on. Catch the Cardens spending any money for the good of the public! Compare the appearance of their estate with that of Hamilton Arms! Quite a difference, isn't there?"

"I should say so." Interested in what Miss Susanna was saying, Marjorie had relaxed for a moment her vigilant watch on the road. She now gazed critically at the wide, but not specially ornamental grounds surrounding the colonial residence which housed the hated Cardens when at home. She saw clearly the inferiority of this estate as compared to the dignity of ever-beautiful Hamilton Arms.

A sharp little shout of alarm, and her attention leaped to the road again. Around the curve, coming toward them, a car had dashed at full speed. Miss Susanna had cried out as she attempted to dodge it. So abruptly had it appeared around the curve she had not seen it until it was directly upon her. The driver lacked the skill to turn the car aside quickly enough to avert the calamity. Marjorie added her cry of horror to Miss Hamilton's. Before she could drag her elderly friend out of danger, she saw her apparently flung to one side. The devastating motor car gave a wicked lurch and whizzed on.

Bewildered by the suddenness of the accident, Marjorie stared unbelievingly when she next beheld Miss Susanna not only move but raise herself from the ground to a sitting posture. Sight of this apparent miracle galvanized her into action. She sprang to Miss Hamilton calling out:

"Oh, Miss Susanna, I'm so thankful you weren't run over. Tell me where you are hurt. I saw the car fling you and--"

"The car didn't touch me. I made a leap and fell down just beyond it by not more than an inch or two. My foot slipped in the soft mud. I am all right. Help me up, child."

Marjorie had not attempted to raise the old lady to her feet before ascertaining whether she were able to stand. She now lifted her up with her grateful, young strength, exclaiming indignant sympathy over the muddy condition of Miss Hamilton's long coat of fine black broadcloth.

"Can you walk, Miss Susanna, or do you feel too much shaken? Perhaps you ought to stand still for a few minutes until you recover from the shock.

Plenty of taxicabs from the station or the taxi stand below the campus pa.s.s here. I could hail one for you if you would ride in it to the gardener's house."

"No, not for me," refused the old lady with sharp decision. "I shall turn back and go home. I will send Jonas with the basket this evening."

"Take my arm. I can carry the basket with my other hand." As she talked Marjorie had busied herself in brus.h.i.+ng off what she could of the mud from the old lady's coat. Miss Susanna's hat was still jammed over one eye. Her small, st.u.r.dy hands were plastered with sticky mud. "Let me straighten your hat. There! Now hold out your hands." Marjorie wiped them with her own handkerchief.

"Such a catastrophe," scolded Miss Hamilton, "and at my age! And all on account of a reckless girl driver! I think I had better take your arm, Marjorie. Can you manage to support me and carry that basket, too?"

a.s.suring Miss Hamilton that she could, the two slowly retraced their steps. A reaction soon setting in, Miss Susanna became silent for a time. Marjorie said nothing, fearing conversation might prove an undue strain upon the victim of the accident.

"The least that young savage could have done was to come back and see if there were any casualties," Miss Hamilton burst forth abruptly as they entered the gateway of the Arms. She had now sufficiently recovered from the shock to feel belligerent toward the culprit. "A Hamilton girl, I suppose. Did you recognize her, Marjorie?"

"Yes; I know who she is," Marjorie replied reluctantly.

"Very good. I shall report her to President Matthews," announced Miss Susanna, wagging her head. "You are to tell me her name, or, better still, you and I will go together to his office and report her."

Marjorie felt consternation rise within her. The last thing in the world she wished to do was to go to President Matthews' office on such an errand, even with Miss Susanna. Quick as a flash came the reminder of the president's threat to ban automobiles at Hamilton, made at the time of the accident to Katherine Langly.

"Miss Susanna," she began impulsively, hardly knowing how to speak her mind without giving offense, "I know that girl who nearly ran you down deserves to be reported. She has the reputation of being a poor driver, and a very reckless one. Most of the Hamilton girls who drive cars are careful. Two years ago, Miss Cairns, the one who bought the properties from us, ran down Katherine. She was ill two weeks from the shock. She just missed having her spine permanently injured. She did not report Miss Cairns to President Matthews but--"

"And you think because Katherine was simpleton enough to allow a murderous act like that to go unpunished that I ought to do likewise,"

supplied Miss Susanna in a whip-like tone of anger which Marjorie had never before heard her use. "You are--"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Susanna, I did not mean--" Marjorie re-commenced in a distressed voice.

"Listen to me." The irate old lady held up her hand by way of command.

"You are talking utter nonsense." The last of the Hamiltons was not accustomed to being crossed. Shaken by her fall, she was now in a highly querulous state, common to those over sixty. "Not report that young heathen-ridiculous! This girl must be a friend of yours whom you are trying to s.h.i.+eld. Certainly I shall report her. I hold it important to do so. You may know how important I consider reporting her when I propose going to your president myself. I-who have not set foot on the campus for years. I find I am not well enough to have you at the Arms to dinner this evening. I will bid you good afternoon. Set the basket on the steps."

They had reached the broad flight of stone steps leading to the veranda of the Arms as the offended great-niece of Brooke Hamilton snapped out these pithy statements.

"Good afternoon, Miss Susanna." The piteous light in Marjorie's eyes changed to one of justly wounded pride. Very gently she set the basket on the top step and turned away. Her friends.h.i.+p with the last of the Hamiltons had terminated as abruptly as it had begun.

CHAPTER XXI-MISUNDERSTOOD

"For goodness' sake what brought you home in such a hurry?" Jerry came breezily into the room just before six o'clock to find Marjorie sitting by a window. In her hand was an open book. Her eyes were not fixed upon it. They looked absently out upon the brown sweep of campus. There was a pathetic droop to her red lips which Jerry did not miss.

"What's the matter, Bean; dearie dearest Bean?" she commiserated, going up to Marjorie and dropping her hands sympathetically upon her chum's shoulders.

"I-oh, Jeremiah, I just feel sad-that's all." Marjorie's chin quivered suspiciously.

She had turned away from Miss Susanna feeling like a child who was being sent home for bad behavior. She had been entirely misunderstood. She had quickly realized the utter futility of attempting to make herself clear under the circ.u.mstances. So she had proudly accepted her dismissal.

"Tell your old friend, Jeremiah, all about it," coaxed Jerry. She took her hands from Marjorie's shoulders and employed them in drawing up a chair. Placing it directly opposite Marjorie she sat down, leaned far forward and beamed on her vis-a-vis with an ingratiating show of white teeth.

The ghost of a smile reluctantly crept to Marjorie's lips. That particular expression of Jerry's was irresistible. She reached out and gratefully patted Jerry's hand.

"Thanks for the pat." Jerry continued to beam. "Next we will hear your sad story. I believe you have been crying, Marjorie Dean!" she accused in sudden concern. "Tell me what and who made you cry and I will go forth on the war path!"

"You can't, this time. It-was Miss Susanna." Marjorie swallowed the rising lump in her throat and steadied her voice. "She misunderstood me.

I can never go to Hamilton Arms again."

"Good night! That _is_ tough luck! Poor Marjorie; no wonder you feel all broken up."

Inspirited by Jerry's warm sympathy, Marjorie related, with an occasional catch in her voice, the afternoon's direful events.

"I wasn't going to ask Miss Susanna not to report Miss Walbert,"

Marjorie sorrowfully explained. "I was going to ask her please not to make it any harder for the other girls who have cars here than she could help. I spoke of Kathie's accident because I wished her to know what President Matthews had said about banning automobiles at Hamilton. I was going to tell her that someone else reported Miss Cairns for running down Kathie when she stopped me. She thought I was holding Kathie up to her as a glowing example, and I never meant it that way," Marjorie mournfully concluded.

"She had no business to cut you off without a hearing," Jerry criticized with some resentment. "I always had an idea she was like that. Well, the gun-powder mine didn't blow up as soon as I thought it would. This is the first squabble you two have had. She will get over it. She loves you dearly. After she descends from her pinnacle of wrath she will probably think things over and write you a note."

Marjorie shook her head with somber positiveness. "No, she won't. She considers me in the wrong. She didn't even give me time to tell her Miss Walbert's name. I should have known better than to say a word so soon after the accident. She was shaken and generally upset. I spoke before I thought. Miss Susanna seems more like one of us than an old lady. I am always forgetting her age. She is so brisk and energetic."

"I don't believe she will go to Doctor Matthews. She may write him a note. I doubt it, though."

"I think she will go to see him. She was so very angry. It is my duty to write her a note and give her Miss Walbert's name. She asked me for it, and she has a right to it." Marjorie fell silent with the contemplation of this idea.