Chapter XXII: Annabel and Clarissa

The skating this winter of Julia’s Junior year was unusually good, and during late January and early February crowds went each afternoon to Fresh Pond. Julia, Ruth, Polly, and Clarissa were particularly zealous, and they were all fine skaters. Annabel excelled them all, and none were unwilling to admit her superiority. During her residence abroad she had spent a winter at Copenhagen, and she could accomplish all kinds of wonderful feats learned there in a most graceful way.

“If she were as genuine in other things as in this, we wouldn’t criticise her so, would we, Julia?” and Polly linked her arm in Julia’s for another turn round the pond.

Annabel, indeed, distanced some of the Harvard youths who hung about her. It pleased her to show that she did not need their assistance.

Skating was Annabel’s one outdoor accomplishment, for she was not generally fond of athletics. One afternoon a dozen or more Seniors were up at Fresh Pond. Clarissa skated almost as well as Annabel, but Polly and Julia were less expert, although they were both better skaters than Ruth. “Don’t go over by the ice-houses,” cried Polly, skimming past Julia and Clarissa. “There’s a thin place there and they are just going to rope it off. I was asked to warn everybody.”

“Oh, we know it is thin, thank you,” responded Julia.

“Yes,” added Polly, “only a goose would skate over there; any one can see it’s thin, the ice is so dark. Only a goose would skate near it—or a person who was absorbed in showing off,” and she pointed toward the dangerous spot, which Annabel was approaching.

“Didn’t you warn her?” asked Clarissa, turning to Polly. “You passed her on the way.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t. I was thinking only of you.”

“Oh, Annabel knows so much, she would have known the ice wasn’t thin, even if you had told her.”

But even while they spoke, Clarissa had started off at full speed, and as the others turned to watch her they saw Annabel on the very edge of the dark ice. Polly knew that this was the dangerous place, and called out loudly to Julia to follow her. These things take almost as long in the telling as in the happening, and before Julia and Polly could reach the other two, Annabel had gone through the ice just as Clarissa had almost overtaken her. Without a moment’s hesitation Clarissa threw herself into the chasm, and for a moment it looked as if she would only make a bad matter worse. But Clarissa knew that they were near the shore, and that with even a few strokes she could get herself into shallow water. She had thrown off her coat as she ran, and her arms were unencumbered. Moreover, she had felt justified in making the bold plunge, because she had seen several young men approaching from the crowd of skaters at the opposite end of the pond. Dragging Annabel somewhat roughly then, she struggled on toward the bank, and to her great joy she soon found her feet touching the bottom. Ready hands were stretched out to her from the shore, where already a crowd had assembled, and indeed two youths had plunged into the water to help her support Annabel. The latter was altogether overcome by the shock. Although she had not exactly fainted, she was so benumbed as to be helpless. But for Clarissa’s quick action she might have suffered much more. Hardly were they out of the water when a student returned with a sleigh, whose driver he had stopped in passing. The two drenched girls were bundled under the robes, and taken to a house not far away. Julia and Polly drove quickly down to Cambridge for fresh clothes, and before sunset Annabel and Clarissa were back in their own rooms. Annabel, however, really suffered from her mishap. She had struck her head on the ice in falling, and in consequence a slight fever set in which at first seemed rather serious. Her friends kept her room filled with flowers, and all her classmates showed great sympathy when it was rumored that she might have to drop out of the class for the rest of the year. Clarissa had never fully realized Annabel’s unfriendliness, and so when the latter sent for her she was only too glad to go to see her. She thought that Annabel’s thanks were warmer than they need have been, for Clarissa assured her that she had really been in little danger, and that even without her help, she would not have been long in the water. Annabel in her rôle of invalid, reclining in an easy-chair, with her room filled with flowers, was indeed picturesque.

“Some day,” she said faintly, “when I feel a little stronger I must have a long talk with you. I feel that I have done you an injustice.”

“Nonsense,” replied Clarissa, “I am sure that you have not.”

“Well,” sighed Annabel, “I will tell you sometime. It is hard now to explain.”

“Oh, I rather think that I can wait, if you can. You make me think of Pamela, whose conscience is always too active to be healthy,” rejoined Clarissa, with a smile.

“Ah!” exclaimed Annabel dramatically, “you will believe me when I tell you all, but not now. Yet believe that I shall feel forever indebted to you.”

“Yes, yes,” responded Clarissa, “if it makes you happier to put it that way. But really—” Here they were interrupted by the arrival of other callers, and Clarissa soon took her departure. She had only a vague idea of Annabel’s meaning, although she thought that she undoubtedly had some reference to the publication of Professor Z’s lecture.

She did not permit herself to dwell long on a subject that concerned herself so entirely. Recitations were to begin again in a few days, and she was very anxious to have a meeting of the class called to consider the question of the Presidency of the Idler. It was the custom to appoint to this office the girl who had been Vice-President in the Junior year. It happened, however, that Regina Andrews, the girl now in office, had announced her intention of spending the next year in Europe instead of in the regular work of the Senior year. Polly and Clarissa, therefore, had at once begun to work up a strong sentiment in favor of Lois.

Lois, had she known of their well-meant efforts, would probably have stopped them by explaining that she herself had lost not merely the prospect of being a Senior, but even of finishing the work of her Junior year.

She had agreed to take the position in the Village High School, twenty miles away, and she was to go there February 15th. Until the opening of the recitation period at the close of the mid-years, she intended to say nothing about her changed plans.

Yet Clarissa and Polly could not help seeing that she took little interest when they told her of Regina Andrews’ resignation from the Vice-Presidency.

“We’re bound you shall have it, Lois. We think that you are the very best girl for the place.”

“There’s Julia.”

“Yes, we’d all like Julia, but she says that nothing would induce her to take it. She hates presiding, and she has made us promise not even to let her name come up. She is particularly anxious to have you,” and Polly’s tone would have been convincing to any one but a girl who had put a task upon herself in which class honors had no part. There had been times, of course, when popularity and the thought of being Idler President would have given her a great joy. But now—ah! in a day or two Polly and Clarissa would know just how matters stood.

On Saturday Julia invited her to luncheon, and afterwards they were going to town to a concert. Ruth had gone home over Sunday, as had been her habit this year.

“I’m perfectly delighted, Lois, that you are to be the next Idler President, for Polly says that there isn’t a shadow of a doubt. She has been so determined that the office should not go to Annabel that she has turned into a regular wire-puller. Even Annabel’s illness has made little difference to her, although I think that Clarissa has a more friendly feeling toward her.”

“There!” exclaimed Lois, “I must talk seriously with Polly and Clarissa. I have told them that I could not stand, but they won’t believe me.”

“But why, Lois, why should you not take the office if it comes to you? You preside so well, and you are not timid, as I am, and—”

“Because, Julia”—Lois knew now that it was best to explain the whole matter—“because I may not be here next year.”

Then in as few words as possible, Lois told Julia that loss of money and other things made it expedient for her to take a year or more away from college.

“I cannot bear to be counted out of this class, but there is no help for it.”

Julia very wisely did not attempt to dissuade Lois from her purpose of teaching, although already a little plan had begun to form in her mind. Yet she was sympathetic, and told Lois that it was simply impossible to think of the class as ready to graduate without her.

“Why, we’ll all have to stay out a year, just to keep up with you,” she said.

But in her own room that evening, Julia pondered long over the perversity of Fate, that hampered girls like Jane and Pamela and Lois, who loved study for its own sake, while many others were able to glide through college with no thought of the great privileges that were open to them. “The worst of it is, the girls whom one would like to help are always the proudest.” Then Julia put her mind on the subject, and decided that if she could help it Lois should not leave college.

As Lois had finished her examinations in the first two weeks, she found time for more than one brief call on Miss Ambrose. It was so easy to drop in for a half-hour in passing, and the interest of the older woman in all her affairs was so genuine, that it was a delight to tell all that she could about college life. One day she stayed to luncheon, and enjoyed the service of quaint, old-fashioned china and silver, and she stole glances of admiration as she ate, at the massive mahogany sideboard and the spindle-legged serving table and the delicate steel engravings on the wall. Then in Miss Ambrose’s sitting-room she found so much to gratify her love of antiquities. There was the cabinet, for example, with its wedgewood vases, and the mosaics collected in Europe, and the little book-shelf with its tiny volumes of the Italian poets, bound in vellum, and the half-dozen miniatures on the mantle-piece of Miss Ambrose’s parents and other relatives,—all these and many other things claimed Lois’ attention, although most interesting of all was Miss Ambrose herself. A well-cultivated mind has always a strong charm for a thoughtful girl, and Miss Ambrose had certainly more culture than belongs to the average college graduate, man or woman. She had travelled and she had studied, yet she always seemed ready to hear Lois’ views on any subject of general interest.

“You look pale,” said Miss Ambrose abruptly on this particular day; “you look pale, and if you will pardon my saying it, a trifle worried. A young person should never show the touch of care.”

“Why, I ought not to look worried,” said Lois soberly. “I am sorry to appear so—so stupid.”

“You could never appear stupid,” rejoined Miss Ambrose, “but you are certainly paler. I hope that you are not working too hard.”

“Oh, no, work always agrees with me.”

“Then something is troubling you,” persisted Miss Ambrose firmly. “I fear that you were less successful than you would have been had you not taken care of me the night when I sprained my foot. I know that you were to have an examination the next day.”

“Oh, no,” and Lois smiled like her usual self. “Oh, no, I came out better than I expected in that. I had an ‘A.’”

“Then I am really puzzled,” said Miss Ambrose, adding, with a slight touch of severity, “I should think that you might trust me sufficiently to tell me what the trouble really is.”

Now even a fortnight earlier, Lois would hardly have believed any one who had told her that after a brief acquaintance she could have found it possible to open her heart to one whom she had known so short a time. Yet although she confided comparatively little, Miss Ambrose, reading between the lines, saw that the young girl was making a great sacrifice in stopping her course at this stage. “Sacrifice” is not perhaps exactly the right term, for on the part of Lois it was involuntary. Until she could earn money, it was not possible for her to continue her course. Yet when Lois had told Miss Ambrose all her reasons for leaving, the older woman merely expressed the conventional words of regret. Her eyes held rather more than their usual look of absent-mindedness.

Great, therefore, was the surprise of Lois, on reaching home on that Saturday evening after she had been with Julia, to find a letter awaiting her from Miss Ambrose. From between the pages a thin blue slip fluttered to the floor.

“You must accept this,” wrote Miss Ambrose in her fine, pointed handwriting, “as a very slight tribute of my indebtedness to you. I do not refer merely to the sacrifice you made in staying with me the evening when I was hurt; but you have done me a great favor in bringing me in touch with the woman’s college. You have given me an insight into the life of a college girl. I know that you will continue to keep me informed about it, and thus I shall enjoy through another a little of what I so longed for in my youth. From this time I intend to contribute a certain amount toward the education of one or two students, and I am sure that you will oblige me by being the first to give me the privilege of doing something for the honor of good scholarship.”

Picking up the blue slip, Lois saw that it was a check for one hundred and fifty dollars. The amount took her breath away. It meant not only the payment of her tuition for the next half-year, but it gave her a margin for other things, something even to save toward the expenses of the next year, for Lois was a good manager, and her pulses beat to fever heat as she thought of all that she could do with this money.

She found that her parents made no objection to her keeping the check, and she had no hesitation in breaking her engagement with the Village School, as she knew that another approved candidate for the position had been sadly disappointed when it was given to her.

Lois felt that she had done nothing to deserve this good fortune, and yet she was too sensible to decline what came in her way. She realized that her own greatest usefulness in the world would come from finishing her college course, and she lost no time in thanking Miss Ambrose, and in assuring her that she would do her best to deserve her confidence. Then Miss Ambrose smiled a contented smile. At last she had a direct interest in the woman’s college.