Chapter XXI: A Fortunate Accident

One morning in January Lois entered Fay House with what Clarissa would have called a “long-drawn face,” and with traces of tears in her eyes. She had a letter in her hand, crumpled shapelessly.

The postman had given it to her as she was leaving her house in Newton, and she had been carrying it without realizing that she had it. Now, as she drew off her gloves, she saw the letter, and as she smoothed it out, again her eyes filled with tears.

To a certain extent the letter seemed like a death warrant, for it contained news that the relative who had been paying Lois’ tuition could do so no longer, and that not even the payment for the second half-year would be forthcoming. This to Lois meant that with the mid-years her Radcliffe work must end. Moreover, recent family troubles made it almost necessary that it should end. The required sum was not so very large, but for Lois it was absolutely unattainable. It was too late in the year for a scholarship award, and indeed the idea of holding a scholarship was distasteful to her. There was no one from whom she could borrow, no one to whom she was willing to confide her private affairs. She knew that there were schools in some of the smaller towns where she would be accepted as a teacher even without the college degree, and immediately she decided she would go to an agency to learn where there might be a vacancy.

Among all her classmates Julia was the only one to whom she would have been at all willing to confide her trouble, and yet Julia was the very one to whom she could not go, because Julia was the one who might have helped her. To have told Julia of her difficulty would have seemed to her too much like asking a favor—an impossible thing to one of her proud spirit.

Lois carried her burden without speaking of it for several days. She meant to say nothing until the mid-years were over. She intended to keep up her courage to the end. She studied all the harder, for she meant these mid-year examinations to be the best that she had ever had. She meant to reach the highest possible mark. For although she intended to return to college when she had saved enough money, she knew that happy day might yet be some distance away. One day soon after she had received the letter that had so disturbed her, Lois remained rather late at Fay House. She had been at work in the library, for the next day the examinations would begin, and it happened that the most important was to come on that first morning. At home that evening she would finish the review of a certain very important book. She felt that she had not yet given it sufficient attention, and she realized that much depended on her understanding two or three difficult chapters. Passing through the hall where groups of merry girls were coming out from some Freshman celebration in the Auditorium, Lois, with a head throbbing from hard study, decided to walk for a mile or two before taking the car. As she walked along trying to solve a problem that touched on her examination, forgetting for the time the more personal cares that had weighed her down lately, she turned into a side street that took her a little out of her course. In the spring and early autumn she was fond of this street, because of two or three old-fashioned gardens upon whose quaint flowers she loved to gaze. The street was lonely and the houses far apart, and Lois began to walk more rapidly. In the faint light, for it was now almost dark, Lois paused for a moment to look over the fence of one of the old gardens. Near a tall tree in the corner in summer there was a bed of lilies of the valley that she had often stopped to admire. Now as she leaned absent-mindedly on the fence for a minute, she thought that she heard a groan as of some one in pain. Hastily pushing open the gate she heard the sounds growing louder as she approached the house. There were no lights in the windows, but stepping bravely up on the little piazza she entered the half-open door. She stumbled as she entered, and reaching down she touched a warm, breathing face.

“Help me!” cried a faint voice, and then another deep groan. A faint light came from a back room, and Lois, quick-witted, hurried in there, and in a second returned with matches. When she had lit the gas-jet in the hall, she saw that the sufferer was an elderly woman whom she had often noticed in the garden, and had seen occasionally at Radcliffe functions. Lois was tall and strong, and the sufferer was slight, so without delay she lifted her to a couch in the sitting-room.

“It’s my foot,” moaned the sufferer.

“I’ll go for a doctor at once,” said Lois, “but first I must put on a cold compress. It’s evidently a bad sprain. There seem to be no bones broken,” she concluded, finishing her examination.

Stripping up a cover from a pillow in an easy-chair, and finding her way to the running water in the kitchen, Lois made the bandage and put it on with a professional air.

Few words had passed between them, but as she left the room, “Dr. Brown,” said the sick woman.

“Yes,” responded Lois, “I was going for him.”

It was not far to the physician’s house, and when he had examined the foot he pronounced it, as Lois had, merely a bad sprain.

“My maid won’t be back until eleven o’clock,” said the sick woman. “I let her go to Woburn.”

“I can get a nurse,” responded the doctor. “You mustn’t be left alone.”

“I won’t have a nurse about me. You’ve often heard me say that,” cried Miss Ambrose petulantly.

“But you can’t be left alone,” rejoined the doctor firmly.

Miss Ambrose looked at Lois appealingly.

“Let me stay with you!” exclaimed Lois impulsively, forgetting her examinations, forgetting the important review, forgetting everything but the fact that before her lay a suffering human being whom she might help.

“Would I be of use?” she asked, when the doctor did not immediately reply.

“Of use!” he exclaimed. “I should say so; a girl who knows just what to do with a sprained ankle.”

So it was arranged that a telegram at Miss Ambrose’s expense should be sent to Lois’ family, saying that she would stay all night, and the physician’s name, Lois knew, would assure her mother that it was a case of necessity. “Illness of a friend,” he had put in the telegram, leaving it to Lois to make explanations when she reached home.

After the doctor left, the sick woman lay silent with her eyes closed—whether half asleep or not Lois could not tell. She had refused Lois’ offer of assistance in putting her to bed, saying that she would be more comfortable on the lounge until her maid should come.

As Lois watched her lying there, her regular features outlined against the pillow, her pale face looking even paler, surrounded with a mass of sandy, gray-streaked hair, the strangeness of the situation occurred to her, as it had not at first. Then she began to realize that she ought not to play Good Samaritan at this time, for it came back to her with overpowering force that this was the eve of an examination, that she really depended on these last few hours of review. Well! there was no reason why she should not study here, though the light was rather dim.

As she turned toward the door to bring her books from a table in the hall, Miss Ambrose started.

“Don’t leave me!” she cried.

“No, no, indeed.” Lois had quickly returned with the book under her arm.

“You are a student,” said the invalid, now wide awake. “I have often seen you pass with your books under your arm. Where is your school?”

“It’s Radcliffe.”

“Oh, how I envy you!” and Miss Ambrose sighed. “When I was your age I would have given all—”

A twinge of pain prevented her finishing the sentence. Lois laid down the book, and, lifting the coverlid, moved the foot to an easier position.

Again Miss Ambrose closed her eyes, and Lois, turning down the light, sat and watched her a little longer. It was now half-past seven and Lois felt faint. She had had nothing to eat since breakfast, except a light luncheon. Passing to the kitchen for the water for the compress, she had seen dishes piled on the table, and she judged that Miss Ambrose had had an early tea. Then Miss Ambrose opened her eyes.

“Perhaps you would like to study now; the light will not disturb me.”

“Thank you,” responded Lois. “I really need all the time I can have. I have an examination in psychology to-morrow.”

“Then pray go on without considering me. It is a great relief to me to know that you are here. But I feel so drowsy that if I fall asleep I am sure that you will excuse me.”

In a short time Miss Ambrose seemed to be really asleep, and Lois bent over her books with great zeal.

The examination in psychology was one that would require a cool head.

“Explain the utility of cerebral hemispheres.” Lois turned from the test question to her note-book. She was able to answer it satisfactorily. “In the lectures mental life was several times described as a ‘collection of interests.’ Explain the phrase, and give the chief reasons for holding it to be a true description of at least a great part of mental life.” This, too, Lois found no difficulty in answering. But occasionally she came to a question that needed something more than either memory or her lecture notes. She exerted herself to the utmost. But alas! the more she studied, the more she realized that she had the greatest need of her text-book, and this she had left at home. It was too large a book to carry back and forward to Fay House, for she had felt that she would do best to spend the last hours in a careful study of its pages.

It was nine o’clock when Lois made this discovery, and Miss Ambrose had not awaked. Lois blamed herself for not giving her college work first place in her mind when she made her offer to stay with Miss Ambrose. But Lois, in her way, was a philosopher, and since she could not have what she needed the most, she resolved to do the best possible with what she had. She devoted herself, therefore, to her note-book, and tested her knowledge of the subject with various specimen examination papers of past years. It was brain-consuming work, and Lois was so absorbed in it that she did not hear the maid when she opened the front door with her key.

“Sakes alive!” exclaimed the maid, amazed at this late hour to see a stranger seated at the centre table, while her mistress reclined on the lounge. Her loud tone woke Miss Ambrose, who at once began to explain the situation.

“I started upstairs, after going to the front door for my paper, and when I reached the top I remembered that I had left the door half open. Some way I slipped as I turned around, and fell the whole way. If it hadn’t been for this young lady I might have been there yet with my foot twisted under me,” and Miss Ambrose raised her hand to her eyes, greatly disturbed by the thought of what might have been. “She’s going to stay all night,” she added, after a moment’s pause. “See that the spare room’s ready.”

“Yes’m, but I wonder if the young lady mightn’t like something to eat before going to bed.”

“Bless me,” said Miss Ambrose, almost attempting to rise from her couch. “I dare say the child hasn’t had any tea. I’d had mine before she came, but I never thought to ask her.”

“I should think not,” responded Lois, “with your lame foot.”

But pressed for an answer, she admitted that she had eaten little since breakfast, and when Dr. Brown returned at eleven, he found Lois at a side table with a cup of chocolate and a plate of bread and sliced cold beef before her. With his help Miss Ambrose was carried to her room upstairs, and he assured her that with patience and the care that Maggie would give her, he knew that she would soon be herself again.

“How soon?” asked Miss Ambrose anxiously.

“Well,” he replied cautiously, “it’s a matter of weeks rather than months, but I can hardly undertake to say precisely how long it will take.”

As Lois went to the room prepared for her the doctor gave her a word of commendation for her kindness to Miss Ambrose. “Your bandage had a professional touch,” he said.

“Thank you,” she responded, “you know I wish to study medicine.”

“So I’ve heard,” replied Dr. Brown, who had a slight acquaintance with Lois’ family, “although you understand, I suppose, that it’s a long and hard road, especially for a woman.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, less cheerfully, perhaps, than her wont. Indeed, as she sat in Miss Ambrose’s quaintly furnished spare room, the professional course for which she hoped seemed farther away than ever. With one last glance at her notes before she went to bed, she heard the clock strike twelve before she fell asleep. In the morning she woke early, and was again at her work, with a sigh for the text-book which she could not see until she reached Fay House, where there was a copy in the library. It was hardly seven when Maggie knocked on the door, to say that breakfast would be ready at eight, and that Miss Ambrose would be glad to see her at any time.

“You have been very kind indeed to stay with me, and you must promise to come to see me as soon as you can. I shall certainly be here for the next two or three weeks.” Miss Ambrose smiled faintly.

“Yes, it’s too bad.” The voice of Lois had the ring of true sympathy. “The next two or three weeks will be pretty busy for me, as all the mid-years come then, you know. But I shall drop in, in passing, for I shall be very anxious to see how you are getting along.”

“Thank you, it will please me so. There is so much that I wish to ask about the college. When I was young there were no colleges for girls, and my parents would not have let me go away from home. But I had a brother fitting for college, and by myself I studied just the same things that he did. How I envied him his chances! Ah! he didn’t half appreciate them.” Then Miss Ambrose paused, as if weighed down by sad memories. “Well, afterwards my mother tried to get permission for me to study at Harvard, or even to have examinations on subjects that I had studied at home. But it was useless. Nothing could be done about it, although we had relatives in the Faculty and many influential friends.”

“Did they approve of your wishing to go?”

“Well, not altogether. In fact, some of them thought me bold to talk about it. But—well, I’m glad that the girls of this generation have the chance that I longed for.”

Later Lois learned from those who knew Miss Ambrose that she was really a very accomplished woman, and that she had studied many subjects under eminent professors. The brother, who had had the chance for which she had vainly longed, had not turned out well, and had had to leave college without his degree. Ill-health in later years had somewhat interfered with Miss Ambrose’s studying, and she had a wistful expression, such as one often notes on the faces of those who have missed their highest ambition.

Lois, walking down to Fay House in the fresh morning air, thought of the contrariness of Fate. Here was Miss Ambrose, who so evidently might have afforded the luxury of a Harvard course, had this been a possibility in her youth, and here was she, Lois, longing for it, yet likely to be debarred from completing her work from the mere need of a little money. But brushing these thoughts aside, as unworthy a sensible girl, Lois returned to her psychology, and mentally worked out a problem or two before she reached Fay House.