"Whew!" he whistled in mock alarm; and though it was not a pretty thing for a girl of seventeen to say to a man whose hair was beginning to turn grey, I finished hotly, "Or you'll get scratched!" and turned and dashed into the house.
CHAPTER V
IN thinking over my career at boarding-school I always recall three remarks which were made to me in the smoky Hilton Station as I waited for my train. Father and Alec and Juliet who, the dear old trump, had actually cut school to see me off, were at the station.
Alec had said, "Go slowly, Bobbie, and know only the best girls," and I had replied, pop-full of confidence, "Of course, Alec."
"And whatever else you do," exclaimed Juliet, "don't you dare to get a swelled head, Lucy Vars." "I won't," I had assured her.
Father, dear kind Father, his hand on my shoulder, had commanded: "Dear child, discover some one less fortunate than yourself and be kind to her." And I had promised, tussling with the painful lump in my throat, "I will, dear Father."
Father had slipped a paper bag into my hand then—a bag of lemon-drops (Father always buys lemon-drops) and two sticks of colt's-foot. The poor dear man had forgotten that I didn't like colt's-foot, but when I opened the bag in the train and saw those two little brown sticks, somehow I loved dear Father harder than ever. I put them into my travelling bag very tenderly, and have kept them ever since.
I don't know how to explain my impressions of boarding-school. I realise now that in spite of the pain at leaving home I did have buried in the bottom of my heart dreams of the vague, unknown joys of room-mates and spreads. Every young girl has such dreams, I guess. Even as I sped along in the train, trying desperately to dissolve that lump in my throat with Father's lemon-drops, I was wondering about the new bosom friends I should make. Edith Campbell, an awfully popular older girl in our town and a friend of Alec's, had been to a fashionable boarding-school in New York ever since she was a child, and she was forever bringing home girls to visit her, or whisking off herself to ball-games and Proms with "a Room-mate's brother" or "a Best-friend's cousin." I could hardly realise that I, Lucy Vars, was about to step within the same fascinating circle. Fifty girls to eat and sleep and walk with; fifty girls to choose my friends from; fifty girls to bring home with me for over a holiday; fifty girls for me to visit; and fifty girls with brothers or cousins at Harvard and Yale and Princeton. Perhaps that very winter some college man would invite me to a Prom; I would dance till morning, and become such a dazzling belle that by Easter-time I would look upon the twins as mere boys. Probably by summer I would be dashing about to house-parties, and talking to real grown-up men over a cup of tea like Dolly in the "Dolly Dialogues." Perhaps I would be president of my class at school, like Tom at college. Perhaps—perhaps—oh, I am forced to smile at myself now as I look back and see the funny little short-skirted, pig-tailed creature that I was, sitting there in the train, gazing out of the window, building my absurd little air-castles by the score, on the very way to the destruction of every dream I ever had. I didn't make a single friend at boarding-school. I didn't meet a man. Here it is almost summer, and house-parties seem as remote from me as they did ten years ago. I must try to explain why I made such a flat failure of things. It isn't a pleasant story, but here goes:
The first instant that I stepped into that school I knew that I was a curiosity to everybody there. Never shall I forget that first evening when Miss Brown ushered me into the big school dining-room and seated me beside her. It looked like fairy-land to me—red candles on a dozen little round tables and all the girls in soft, light dresses with Dutch necks. When I finally dared look up from my plate and glance round, I thought I had never seen such beautiful creatures. I couldn't find a homely girl among them; and such lovely hair as they had, done soft and full and fluffy with large ribbon-bows tied at the back of their necks. The girls at our table had the whitest hands and the prettiest soft arms, with bracelets jingling on them.
After supper Miss Brown seated herself in a big armchair by a low lamp in the drawing-room and read aloud from "Pride and Prejudice." The girls all gathered about her and did fancy work on big hoops. I didn't have any work and tried to make myself comfortable on a little high silk-brocaded chair. I felt horribly embarrassed. Every time a girl looked up from her work and scrutinised me from top to toe, I felt like saying, "I know I'm a perfect mess. I see it. I know my hands are like sandpaper, and my shoes thick-soled, and my dress a sight. I know my hair is ridiculous braided and bobbed up with a black ribbon like a horse's tail. I know it." I couldn't listen to a word that Miss Brown was reading. I was awfully disturbed thinking about my trunk on its way to me, filled with its queer collection, and wondering what in the name of heaven I could put on the next night. My blue cashmere haunted me like a bad dream. I think that first evening at boarding-school was the first time I really missed having a mother. She would have known the blue cashmere was ugly; she would have known that little bronze slippers with stockings to match were the proper thing; she would have known that girls at boarding-school wore Dutch necks and wide ribbons tied low, at the back of their necks. I simply dreaded unpacking that pitiful little trunk of mine. I wished it could be lost.
My room-mate's name was Gabriella Atherton, but when I entered the room which I was supposed to share with her I wished she had been plain Mary Jane. The bureau was simply loaded with silver things—silver brushes and mirrors and powder-boxes, and at least three silver frames with the stunningest men's pictures in them you ever saw. The walls were covered with college flags, and the window-seat was banked with college sofa-cushions. Why, I didn't know a single man, except high school boys, great awkward creatures like the twins. I hoped Gabriella wouldn't find out that I had never been to a college football game in my life, nor been invited to one either. My one last hope for consolation lay in the possibility that Gabriella was older than I. I thought she must be at least twenty to know so many men. When we were finally alone, getting ready to go to bed I asked her. My heart sank when she announced that she was only sixteen. I know exactly how a mother feels now when another person's baby born a month before hers talks first and shows signs of greater intelligence. I remember I was standing before my chiffonier braiding my hair for the night, pulling it flat back as I always did and fixing it in one tight short little braid, when Gabriella announced she was sixteen. Why, she looked old enough to be married, and I—I gazed at my reflection—I looked like poor Sarah Carew in the garret. No wonder the family wanted to send the old spoon away to be polished. No wonder!
"One of the girls," Gabriella went on to say, "has had a Box from home. She's asked the whole school to a Kimono Spread in her room. Do you want to go?"
A Spread! My heart leaped! And then I got a glimpse of Gabriella in the glass before me. She was a vision in a flowing pink silk kimono with white birds on it. She had her hair fluffed up on top and tied with a wide pink taffeta ribbon—she actually slept in it—and little pink shoes on her feet.
"I guess I won't to-night, thanks," I said, not turning around, for I didn't want her to see what a peeled onion I looked like; "the train made me car-sick." And I snapped the elastic band around the end of my braid.
After Gabriella had gone I turned out the light and crawled into the little brass bed, which Miss Brown had said was mine; but I didn't go to sleep. I just lay there listening to the muffled laughter and chatter at the end of the hall. It was only nine o'clock and lights were not due to be out until ten. I hated lying there wide awake and I kept wondering how I could get dressed in the morning without letting my room-mate see all my plain ugly things. Then I remembered that I had left my common cheap little wooden brush, the shellac all washed off with weekly scrubbings, on top of my chiffonier. I jumped up quickly and hid it in the top drawer; then suddenly I turned on the light, sat down in my horrid red wool wrapper, and wrote something like this to Alec, blubbering and dabbing tears all through
