Читать книгу Marjorie Dean's Romance - Chase Josephine - Страница 5

“What’s on your mind, Leila Greatheart? You’ve thrown out tantalizing little scraps of what I’d call non-information ever since we left the Arms. Now stand, and deliver.” Marjorie made her plea for enlightenment as Leila closed the door of her room and favored her chums with one of her bland, wide smiles.

Dinner over at the Hall, the eight Travelers had lingered in Miss Remson’s snug office to talk to the little manager for a pleasant half hour. They had just made port in Leila’s and Vera’s room for what promised to be a most interesting session.

“What’s on my mind, Beauty?” Leila regarded Marjorie owlishly. “More than you might think, should you judge by appearance,” she said with mock seriousness. “I am enchanted with myself because of my own schemes. Sit in a circle around me and listen to the golden runes of Leila, the witch woman. I see gold, gold, gol-l-d.”

She made a sudden forward sweep of the arm toward Jerry who was about to seat herself on Vera’s couch beside Lucy Warner. Jerry raised a mild shriek of surprise, flopped against Lucy who was near the end of the couch. Unprepared for such a jolt, Lucy rolled off the end of the couch to the floor. Jerry clutched wildly at her arm. Her balance upset she followed Lucy to the floor and sat down upon her amid shouts of merriment from the six gleeful spectators to the double mishap.

“Now see where you put me.” Jerry still sat on the floor regarding Leila with an air of deep injury. Lucy had scrambled to her feet and made for a chair. “The very least you can do is help me up. Give me your hands, and don’t dare let go.” Jerry held up her hands to her still mirthful hostess.

Leila essayed the task of raising Jerry to her feet. Laughter robbed her of power to lift Jerry. It also robbed Jerry of power to raise herself from the floor. After three separate attempts at co-operation, all mirthfully unsuccessful, Jerry was hoisted to her feet by the combined efforts of Marjorie, Ronny and Muriel.

“You are an awful hostess.” Jerry opened her mouth widely on “awful” and ducked her head violently forward at Leila. “First you scare your guests by making wild sweeping swoops at them. Then you laugh at them when they come to grief. This time I’ll choose the middle of the couch, and be safe.” Very cautiously she re-seated herself on the couch, squarely in the center.

“We’ll sit one on each side of you, Jeremiah, so that you can’t fall off the couch again.” Ronny plumped down on the couch on one side of Jerry. Muriel obligingly seated herself on the other side.

“I was shoved off that couch and sat upon by Jeremiah, yet no one appears to remember it,” Lucy mournfully complained.

“I remember it. You tipped me off your lap,” accused Jerry.

“But you tipped me off the couch first,” reminded Lucy. “I forgive you, but never again will I sit on a couch beside you.”

“I always try to look upon everything that happens as for the best,” Jerry returned with angelic sweetness.

“There were no bones broken, but there was plenty of fuss made.” Leila thus summed up the accident. “Now pay attention to me, and let us have no more nonsense.” Whereupon she burst out laughing, thus starting her companions’ merriment afresh.

Quiet finally restored she began again. This time with the fine earnestness which she could readily summon when occasion demanded.

“Travelers, dear,” she addressed the now attentive seven, “we have left only six days of March, then April, May and the early part of June in which to earn money for the dormitory. We must give as many shows as we can manage between now and Commencement. We must give the Irish play the first week in May. I shall write it in one week. It will be nothing startling, but it will be a play, I grant you that. I shall have a sorry siege to make the cast learn their lines in two weeks. It must be done. We must rehearse four nights in a week. Vera will make cunning Irish token cards and we shall sell them for a silver quarter apiece.”

“First I had heard of my new job, but I accept. May I inquire into the mystery of an Irish token card?” Vera asked with an assumption of profound respect.

“You will draw many little pictures of the cast, Midget, on many little cards,” was Leila’s somewhat indefinite answer. “You will learn more about my Celtic schemes when I am not so busy.”

“Oh, very well. See that you don’t interrupt any of my busy hours. If you see me put up a busy sign on my side of the room, respect it,” warned Vera.

“See that you do not again interrupt me,” flung back Leila, scowling portentously at her diminutive roommate.

Everyone else interrupted, however, and Leila had to come to a laughing stop in her harangue until she had enlightened the party regarding “Irish token cards.”

Like her artist father, Vera was gifted with the ability to draw. Leila’s idea of having small, head-and-shoulder, pen-and-ink sketches of the various characters in the play drawn on oblong cards, three by one and a half inches, was decidedly interesting from an artistic as well as a financial standpoint. Below the sketch would appear the stage name of the character, the true name and the date of the play.

“Vera won’t be able to do many cards, Leila. She won’t have time. She can’t make the rough sketches until we have our costumes and know ourselves how we are going to look,” was Ronny’s doubtful view of the feature.

“Oh, I can draw the different characters as they ought to look. Leila can show me the style of costume to be followed by the actors. I’ll draw each character once, leaving out the features till I know who will be who. Then I can fill in the blanks with the familiar eyes, noses, mouths and ears of the illustrious cast. After that it will only mean hours and hours of tedious copying my originals.” Vera made a triumphant outspreading gesture of the arms indicative of her mastery of the situation.

“How we do miss Ethel Laird,” sighed Ronny. “She was so clever. Do you remember how gorgeous those posters for the first show were that she painted. What became of them, Marvelous Manager?” She looked quickly toward Marjorie as though seized with a sudden idea.

“They’re with the other properties in the Page and Dean section of the garret,” Marjorie replied. “At least they were still there the last time I was up garret. That was after the Valentine masquerade. What is it, Ronny? I see you have something on your mind.”

“Let’s have an auction,” eagerly proposed Ronny.

“Not now; not until the first of June. We could clear up all the stuff we have used for advertising the shows, and other treasures of our own that have campus history, and auction them off. Let Jerry be the auctioneer. Oh, lovely! What?”

“Oh, lovely,” mimicked Jerry. “There is nothing very lovely about hard labor.”

“No use in pretending, Jeremiah. You know you’d revel in being an auctioneer.” Ronny shook her finger at Jerry.

“I’ve heard of worse stunts,” Jerry admitted with a grin.

“I have nearly as good an opinion of you, Ronny, as I have of myself,” Leila graciously conceded. “You and Jeremiah have my permission to manage the auction. You may collect all the wares for it, and do all the work. Between times, when you have little to do, you may dance in my shows.”

“Your shows?” Ronny’s eyebrows ascended to a politely satiric height.

“My shows,” repeated Leila with great firmness. “Have you not yet learned that Page and Dean amount to little without me. It is Harper and Harper who should have all the credit.”

“Right-o!” exclaimed Marjorie and Robin exactly together.

“Now why did you agree with me?” Leila demanded, her tone full of innocent Celtic surprise. “That was merely one of my Celtic jests.”

“‘Many a true word,’ you know,” cited Robin.

“We’ll make you senior partner in the firm, Leila Greatheart,” was Marjorie’s generous proposal. “Harper, Page and Dean has a fine, dignified sound.”

“Away with you!” Leila waved off the suggestion. “I am deaf to such a sound. Say no more, or I shall fly into one of my fierce frenzies. Now I am here not to rage, but to keep Midget in order, and conduct this meeting.”

“In order?” Vera interrogated in an awful voice. “Kindly state when I have been out of order since this go-as-you-please session began.”

“Not at all, Midget; not at all – as yet,” Leila laid significant stress on “as yet.” “So we may hope for the best and change the subject,” she hastily added.

“It’s high time it was changed,” Vera said loftily.

Leila turned comical eyes upon the company. Then she continued: “Now we have the Irish play and the auction on the carpet. Soon we shall be giving Kathie’s new play: ‘The Knight of the Northern Sun.’ Gentleman Gus will be featured in that. Kathie had finished the writing of it. Luciferous has already typed the parts. And I have picked a fine heroine. The Ice Queen is to play the part of Nageda, the Norse princess.”