Chapter IX: Two Catastrophes

One Monday soon after the mid-years Julia and Elizabeth were walking down Garden Street in the face of a rather sharp wind. Elizabeth, like all who are not Boston bred, complained of the spring winds as if they were more vicious than in her native New Jersey. Passing the old graveyard, she laughingly reminded Julia that Longfellow’s “dust is in her beautiful eyes,” applied to one who lay buried within the First Parish enclosure, and that some wit had commented that dust was always in some one’s eyes in Cambridge.

“Yet it’s an interesting old graveyard,” said Julia, “and sometime I hope to go inside and study some of the inscriptions.”

“We all _mean_ to do those things,” responded Elizabeth, “when we are Freshmen. I did myself last year. Christ Church is almost next door to Fay House, and it’s one of the many that Washington honored. But I doubt if you go within it before your Senior year, unless you make it your regular church. But, dear me! What is that?”

A white shower was falling at their feet, and, looking up, the two saw Pamela, the very picture of despair. The three girls were almost in front of the old Dane Law School, now given up to the uses of the Co-operative Society, and the sidewalk was slightly glazed with ice. The wind, blowing strong in the faces of Julia and Elizabeth, had apparently carried the slight figure of Pamela before it. Evidently, too, she had been shopping at some Harvard Square grocer’s, and in her efforts to keep herself from slipping, her black woollen bag had turned over, and its contents were scattered. If the grocer had tied up tightly that five-pound paper bag of granulated sugar there might have been no catastrophe; but in some way the string had loosened, and Pamela stood helpless, as the stream of sugar poured itself out on the sidewalk under the very eyes of the fastidious Elizabeth Darcy. Elizabeth passed on with a gesture of annoyance. On the steps of the Co-operative she had seen two or three youths whom she knew, and she did not intend to make herself one of a ridiculous group. Julia did not follow her, as she swept up the steps of the Co-operative. Nor did the Harvard youths accompany her. Elizabeth was accustomed to attention; and though these three raised their hats politely, and although one stepped forward to open the door, she noticed that the others hastened toward Julia.

Julia, too, had recognized the young men before she began to help Pamela, and had she acted on impulse, she might have passed on with Elizabeth, for she knew that Philip was only too ready to criticise anything strange in the appearance of a Radcliffe girl. But Julia would not have been Julia had she deserted Pamela.

The bag itself had slipped from the Vermont girl’s hands, and a note-book or two, and a number of loose sheets lay on the sidewalk. To save these papers from a coming gust, Philip and Will rushed forward. Had Julia not been there they might have hesitated to intrude on Pamela. Yet their natural chivalry would probably have triumphed.

“Never mind the sugar,” whispered Julia to Pamela, and the young men as politely ignored it.

Julia, then picking up the bag, replaced the papers and note-books that had been gathered up. Pamela, thoroughly abashed, tried to take the bag from her friend, with a feeble “Let me do it,” but Julia, finishing her self-imposed task, introduced Philip and Will to Pamela.

“We’re going to the car office,” she replied in answer to Philip’s question. Therefore, across the Square, accompanied by the two young men, Pamela and Julia threaded their way between two lines of electric cars.

“We’re evidently dismissed,” said Philip, as Julia bade them good-bye at the office; and after a word or two more, Will and he went back in the direction of the Yard.

“That was rather plucky in Julia, wasn’t it?” said Will.

“What?” asked Philip, who sometimes seemed to have the obtuseness of his sister.

“Why, the way she tried to make that girl feel comfortable—I didn’t catch her name. But she’s evidently a shy creature, and she had got herself into a scrape with all that sugar on the sidewalk.”

“I thought that she was rather bright-looking,” responded Philip, “though her clothes were pretty freakish.”

“Well, I fancy we were rather in the way as long as we couldn’t help much. Julia has probably carried the girl home with her. Did she open her mouth to you?”

“Who, Julia?”

“No, the other girl. I didn’t hear her say a word.”

“Oh, she said ‘yes’ once and ‘no’ twice,” replied Philip, laughing.

“Ah!” sighed Pamela, standing beside Julia, “I hope I’ll never see any sugar again. I’m not bound to do errands for Miss Batson.” Then, as Julia looked puzzled, she began to explain. “Miss Batson is my—” she hesitated. She could not truthfully say “landlady,” so she tried again. “She has the house where I live. She has boarders, and sometimes I do errands for her. It seems easy to carry her things in my bag, but to-day—”

“Were you on your way home?” interposed Julia, to draw her mind from the recent catastrophe.

“No, I was going to Fay House to study.”

“Well, then, please come home with me. Ruth and I are always at home Mondays, but you have never called on us.”

Pamela hesitated. Every hour counted in her scheme of work. But the temptation was strong, and she went on with Julia. Although the latter remembered that Pamela had never invited her to call, she realized that she herself might have done various little things to make the way pleasanter for one who was so evidently alone. She could see that Pamela would not make friends easily, and she had noticed her at none of the college affairs since that first Idler.

“College ought to be broadening,” thought Julia, “and yet I believe that it has made me extraordinarily selfish. I haven’t the least excuse to offer for neglecting Pamela, for I saw at the beginning of the term that she would need a friend.”

Pamela’s eye brightened as she stood on the threshold of Julia’s pretty room. “How lovely it is!” she exclaimed.

The open fire blazing on the hearth certainly gave the room a cheerful aspect, and the little tea-table added to the homelikeness of the scene. Poor Pamela sighed, the comfort appealed to her. There on the table lay several of the newest books,—one a volume of criticism that had attracted great attention; another, and the best of all in Pamela’s eyes, a history of Italian Art, very fully illustrated. She recognized the cover, and could hardly keep her hands from it.

The general tone of the draperies was old blue, always a restful color when not used in excess. The curtains were of a soft rep in this shade, and beneath them were spotted muslin short blinds. Two of the easy-chairs were covered in old blue corduroy, and a third, of soft brown ooze leather, was particularly inviting. There were two or three small water-colors hanging there, but the pictures on the wall were chiefly photographs from the old masters. There were three Rembrandt heads, life-size, and a Madonna of Botticelli, as well as his head of a Florentine lady. A Turner etching hung on the little space at the edge of the mantle, and two or three etchings of minor importance closed the list of pictures. Julia’s piano filled one recess, and a bookcase that she had had made especially for the room filled the other.

Before Pamela could protest that she intended to stay but a few minutes, she found herself with hat and coat off, cosily seated before the fire. Julia flung herself on the divan between the windows.

“I really feel tired! That wind was very wearing. After all, home is a good place on a day like this. I will have the tea sent up before four o’clock, or rather the hot water, for I make the tea myself. Oh, here is Ruth! Do like a good girl touch the bell. I like to start with the water hot,” explained Julia, filling her kettle with water from Mrs. Colton’s kitchen. With the aid of the alcohol lamp the water soon boiled. Then putting three coverfuls of tea from the caddy into a china teapot, she covered the teapot with an embroidered cozy.

“Please notice,” cried Ruth, “our silver caddy. An old grand-aunt of mine presented it to me in her delight that we were to have a tea-table. She had feared that college would destroy our domestic tastes.”

“Yes,” added Julia, “we have made a great impression on our relatives by demanding things for our tea-table. When they asked what we wished for our rooms they evidently expected us to say dictionaries or other books. But here is a fascinating set of spoons from my cousin Brenda—every handle different; and Aunt Anna gave me this biscuit jar, and Edith Blair worked these doilies.”

“Is that a Tanagra figure?” asked Pamela abruptly, pointing to the bookcase. “How I envy you!”

“Take it down,” said Julia, “if you wish to examine it close at hand, although it’s only a replica,” she added apologetically.

“Oh, _may_ I?” exclaimed Pamela, lifting it from the broad top of the bookcase. And while the conversation flowed on she examined the figurine, fondly noting every graceful line.

No one who looked at Pamela could fail to comprehend that she must be more or less stinted for money. She herself would have told you, had you asked her, that she knew that her gray gown was of rather dowdy make, although she might not have realized as clearly as the onlooker just where the seams were crooked, or in what particular places the skirt hung unevenly. Pamela had at the best a limited wardrobe, and her village dressmaker had not kept pace with city styles. Pamela herself, unskilled with the needle, even when she knew that a garment might be improved, had not the ability to make the change. She consoled herself with the thought that no one in Cambridge was likely to notice her. She was too obscure to be criticised. She had always admired Julia’s gowns, so pretty and so simple, yet with the hall-mark of good workmanship. Pamela was a lover of beauty in every form, and she now wished vaguely, as she watched Ruth moving about the room, that she herself possessed at least one gown that she could wear as gracefully as Ruth wore hers. Ruth was giving little touches to the furniture, moving one chair farther from the fire, pulling another out of a corner. Julia had excused herself for a moment to rearrange her hair in the inner room, “in case,” she said, “that we should have some more critical callers.”

Hardly had she left when there came a loud rapping at the door.

“Come in!” cried Ruth. “It must be Percy Colton. He often runs up after school,” she added in an aside to Pamela.

The door was thrown open with a bang, and there on the threshold stood Clarissa, tall, almost overpoweringly tall, with a smile on her face, a flush of crimson on her cheeks, and a winter coat of a much brighter crimson on her back. Two other girls were with her, whom she immediately introduced to Ruth as Miss Burlap, of Kansas, and Miss Creighton, of Maine.

“It is so much better,” she said, immediately explaining, “to know from just what State a girl comes. You know what to talk about from the start, and you can account sooner for her peculiarities.”

Ruth smiled at this sally, although she was not inclined to approve much that Clarissa said or did, and she was glad to see Julia emerging from the bedroom. Julia’s greeting was very cordial to Clarissa and her companions, and Clarissa when she caught sight of Pamela greeted her as a long-lost friend.

Hardly, however, was the interchange of greetings over when the half-open door was pushed open wider. “More visitors!” exclaimed Ruth. “How exciting!”

Mrs. Blair entered Julia’s study with lorgnette raised. The action was involuntary. She had found the stairway at Mrs. Colton’s rather narrower than stairways she was accustomed to, and had used the lorgnette to help her find her way. Julia hastened forward to greet her, while Edith and Brenda, with less ceremony, pushed past Mrs. Blair into the centre of the room.

“Why, how perfectly delightful!” cried Ruth, and “What a surprise!” said Julia; and the room which a few minutes before had seemed large and comparatively quiet now appeared small, crowded, and bustling. The four girls who knew one another best were chattering, and the four other girls, Pamela, Clarissa, and the two friends of the latter, tried not to show too much interest in the trio that had just entered. Mrs. Blair continued to survey the scene through her lorgnette until she had seated herself in an easy-chair.

“Why, it’s even prettier than when I was here before,” cried Brenda in her rather high-pitched voice. “You have two new chairs and a new etching and several cups,—at least there are certainly two new ones.”

“I dare say,” responded Julia; “you must remember that you have been here only once this year.”

“It is really a very pleasant room,” added Mrs. Blair, looking about her; “not nearly as unconventional as I had supposed.” Mrs. Blair had hesitated a little before the last word. “Feared” was what she would have said had she not corrected herself in time.

“Ever since you’ve been at Radcliffe,” said Edith, “mamma has been awfully afraid that you would turn into something unconventional. That’s one reason we brought her out here to-day. We wished her to see that even in a college room you could still be yourself.”

“Now Edith,” cried Mrs. Blair, “I knew that Julia could not change, but of course I can’t quite get used to a girl’s having rooms just like a Harvard student.”

“Well now, Mrs. Blair, you can see that ours are not just like theirs. I only wish that they were. There’s no such luck in sight as yet for Radcliffe students as a fine dormitory for our own use like Claverly or Hastings—or even Holworthy. We can’t have suites of rooms and private bath-rooms, and all the fine things that Philip and his friends have.”

“No,” added Ruth, “we haven’t any proctor, even, to keep watch over us.”

“That’s one of the things that would trouble me a little. _Whom_ do you have for chaperons?”

Clarissa could no longer keep silent.

“An American girl”—she spoke with emphasis—“is her own best chaperon. I’ve travelled hundreds of miles alone myself. I’ve even gone to lectures alone—at night—and no one ever was rude to me. Indeed, I’d like to see any one try to be! He wouldn’t try it a second time.”

Julia and Ruth looked slightly uncomfortable during this outburst. Brenda and Edith began to giggle, and the others discreetly kept their eyes cast down.

Mrs. Blair unconsciously raised her lorgnette again.

“Why, certainly,” she said, “a young girl need not look for rudeness. I was merely thinking that she would be better with her own family.”

“Oh, but if she can’t have her own family, isn’t it the next best thing for some other person’s family to offer her a home?”

“But I do not like the idea,” said Mrs. Blair, “of your living outside of dormitories.”

“But the great charm of our life here is its independence,” said Julia politely. “You know, too, that our boarding-places must be approved by the Dean; and if we are very hard to manage, we can be reported by our landladies.”

“But do they ever do it?”

“Well, I have heard that no Radcliffe girl has ever had to be reprimanded severely. For my own part, I feel bound to behave even better here than I would at home.” In her eagerness to do her college justice, Ruth forgot that she was taking Clarissa’s side of the argument.

“Besides,” added Julia, “many Radcliffe girls live at home in Boston, or Cambridge, or the suburbs, coming to the college only for lectures, so that we ought not to be under more restrictions than they.”

“I did not mean to start so serious a discussion,” said Mrs. Blair. “I’m glad to see your piano here, Julia; music is so womanly an accomplishment;” and Mrs. Blair sipped her tea with satisfaction. “You make a good cup of tea, too.”

“Then you can report that we are fairly feminine?”

“Yes, indeed, Julia. But come, girls, we promised to look in on Philip toward five o’clock.”

While Brenda and Edith were saying their last words Pamela in her corner sat unnoticed with the Tanagra figure in her lap. Clarissa, meanwhile, talked to Mrs. Blair with surprising ease.

Mrs. Blair was accustomed to deference even from her special friends, and it seemed strange to have this young person meet her on impersonal grounds, and talk to her merely as any girl might to any woman. Mrs. Blair looked at Clarissa intently, without the lorgnette. She had always heard that there was something queer about college girls. Here was one of the species close at hand, and those other girls in the corner, who had had so little to say to her. They were all rather badly dressed, at least one could see that their gowns were not tailor-made. Julia, of course, was not an ordinary college girl. She was Mr. Barlow’s niece who had chosen to go to college, and it did seem a pity that she had to know all kinds of people. These were the thoughts flitting through Mrs. Blair’s mind as she stood there waiting for Brenda and Edith. As they stood there the handle of her umbrella became entangled in her lorgnette chain. “Permit me,” said Clarissa, trying to help her. But after a little effort a sudden jerk sent the umbrella against the brass fender, and a bit of the delicate ivory carving was broken.

“Now, it’s of no consequence,” protested Mrs. Blair, as Clarissa apologized for her carelessness. Then with a farewell that was as cordial for Clarissa as for the others, Mrs. Blair, with her furs and rustling skirts and polished manner, had departed, and the room seemed large and quiet again.

“After all,” sighed Clarissa, “there is something in a society manner, for I suppose that’s what you’d call Mrs. Blair’s pleasant way of saying things that she doesn’t exactly mean. Though I must have seemed a clumsy creature, she almost made me believe that I’d done right in breaking that bit of ivory. It’s the first time I’ve seen a grande dame at close range, and it’s refreshing—for a change. Dear me!” and Clarissa turned to Pamela, “nursing a doll? I hadn’t noticed before just what you were doing.”

Pamela reddened under this chaffing, for at Clarissa’s words Miss Burlap, of Kansas, and Miss Creighton, of Maine, turned their eyes toward her.

“It’s a Tanagra figure,” said Pamela; “it belongs to Miss Bourne.”

“Oh, I’m just as wise as I was before. It looks like some kind of a heathen idol, and you gaze at it as if you adored it.”

“Come, Miss Herter,” said Julia, hastening to the relief of Pamela. “Even Freshmen in Cambridge are expected to know something about Greek Art. You’d better get a catalogue of the Boston Art Museum, and the next time you go there you can study the Tanagra figures.”

“Well,” replied Clarissa, “I’ll take your advice. But now I must be off. ‘Answers to Correspondents’ always declare that it’s rude to outstay an earlier caller, but Mrs. Blair and your cousin so fascinated me that I forgot my manners.”

So Clarissa and her friends went away, but Pamela, at Julia’s request, stayed a little longer. Two or three other pleasant Radcliffe girls dropped in, and she enjoyed their bright, informal conversation. She found afterwards that to meet any one at Miss Bourne’s was sure to open a pleasanter acquaintance than any casual introduction.

The memory of this Monday afternoon cheered her as she set the table that evening, and waited on Miss Batson, and washed the dishes. Fate, indeed, had been particularly kind to her, for Miss Batson, who was apt to be absent-minded, had herself bought sugar that afternoon, forgetting entirely that she had asked Pamela to get it.