Читать книгу A Book of Bryn Mawr Stories - Various - Страница 5

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For the first time in many years Ellen Blake was conscious of inability. Of course she could not have expected that her good fortune would last forever. And yet, it must be confessed, that her helplessness coming, as it did, when she had every reason to feel confident, had been altogether a surprise, had, indeed, taken her at a cruel disadvantage. She was the more disconcerted at finding herself unable to do what she had promised when she thought of the serious responsibility resting upon her. It was wholly natural that she should be looking at the predicament with the eye not of an ordinary being but of a personage, whose failure would be a public calamity—no mere personal misfortune. Intellectual distinction, natural eloquence, and the personal charm that made her so marked and attractive a figure, had brought her into prominence as a leader among progressive women. If she seemed inclined to take herself a trifle seriously, no one could wonder, for the demands made upon her were neither few nor slight. And while a more selfish person might have shown a nice discrimination in the choice of duties, Ellen, in her gracious readiness to be of service, accepted as obligations all the greatnesses thrust upon her. Constantly importuned for utterances, she felt bound to answer all requests for opinions, till at last, her sense of humour grew weak in conflict with her strenuousness, she had become an oracle on all matters that were or ought to be of interest to women. And so it happened that when she had been asked to make a speech at the Women's Convention in Indianapolis, on The Educational Value of College Life, she had unhesitatingly consented. But in this instance her fame and her conscience had brought her face to face with failure, for on a subject peculiarly suited to her, she could find no words for feelings or ideas.

She was in despair, for not to make the speech would be to play the traitor to the cause of Woman, and to show the basest ingratitude to Bryn Mawr, the place that had fitted her for her life work. Taking herself to task had no effect. She wrote some sentences, read them over, found them vague and inaffective, gushing indeed. She continued to write almost feverishly only to reject sheet after sheet. At length she decided that she had no exact information, neither facts nor figures. That was the trouble. In the discussion of so weighty a matter both were important. Then, almost as an inspiration, it seemed to her, came the thought of Katherine Brewster, also a Bryn Mawrtyr, also interested in woman.

"She is certainly just the person," said Ellen, and she was soon standing on the Brewsters' doorstep. A very systematic maid opened the door and showed Ellen to a small room at the end of the hall. Katherine's quarters had always met with her approval—the little room in which she waited, communicating as she remembered with a larger room beyond, had about it an air of business and privacy. Though it had for seats only the stiffest of chairs, and for reading matter only the dullest of reports, Ellen's mood led her to envy the uncomfortable and repellent atmosphere. By force of contrast it reminded her of many miserable occasions, when she had tried to feel at ease, while interviewing some ardent reformer in the presence of her humourous if sympathetic family.

She forgot for the time being, what she could not but perceive in her less absorbed moments, that the distinction and notoriety of Katherine was the distinction and notoriety of the Brewster family; and that, in sacrificing the general comfort to the convenience of one, they were exchanging insignificance for importance; while she, however conspicuous personally, was also the daughter of Chief Justice Blake, and was "the image of her mother, the beautiful Polly Meredith." "Not so good-looking though," sighed many an old gentleman, as his thoughts reverted to the triumphs of that beauteous maid in the days when girls broke hearts, rather than conventions.

Wealth and social distinction, good-breeding and beauty were hers without an effort, without a college education; yet she knew well that there was something in her that was due to Bryn Mawr. In striving to express this she had come to Katherine Brewster, sure that from her she would get the explanation.

She had hardly sat down before the door between the rooms opened energetically and the brisk young owner appeared, cheerful and businesslike in manner.

"Oh, Ellen! How do you do? I shall be at leisure," drawing out her watch and considering a moment, "in six or seven minutes."

Without waiting for an answer, Katherine turned back to the other room. She left the door behind her open and Ellen could not but see what was going on. Her disused sense of the ridiculous stirred slightly as she took in the details. Katherine was talking, or rather giving facts, to a young man who was dotting down her words in shorthand. From the scraps of the conversation that reached her, Ellen received a confused impression of myriads of facts marshalled in excellent order. She congratulated herself that she had indeed come to the right person and would find valuable assistance in the clear brain of Katherine Brewster.

At length she caught the words, "I have now given you all the information at my command, and shall trust you to make it interesting to the general public and so prepare the way for our reform." The young man could not linger in face of the finality in her manner, and before he was well out of the door Katherine had turned to her next visitor with brief friendliness.

"I'm glad to see you, Ellen, and can just fit you in between the Committee of Councils and the reporter, who was anxious to get my opinion on the new system for the disposal of garbage. I should like to tell you all about it. It is so absorbing."

"I am afraid I shall have to hold you down to another subject. I need enlightenment as well as the reporter. I have to tell the Women's Congress the value of life in a woman's college. I was sure this subject was one on which I was well informed, till I came to think what I might say—and lo! commonplaces are all I can utter. I was at a loss what to do—loath to break my promise, and helpless in my stupidity. Now, can't you give me an idea? I hate to bother you, you are so busy. But it isn't for myself only."

"Well, Ellen, I think I can help you," answered Katherine with the utmost seriousness, "but you will need pencil and paper," rising to get them, "or suppose you sit here," sweeping aside the papers littered over the desk and pointing to the chair in front of it. "I shall have to deal in figures and you might not remember them all."

Then followed a maze of numbers reeled off with surprising readiness, now and then authenticated by a glance at one of the many pigeon-holes. Ellen felt somewhat dazed; but she was conscious that the bewilderment was her contribution for the figures were arranged with precision—Health of College Women, Matrimonial Prospects of College Women, The College Woman and the Problem of Domestic Service, The Economic Results of College training for Women. Valuable facts were quoted from them, facts bristling with suggestions for the capable young woman so utterly mistress of them, but a trifle unmanageable for Ellen till she should have time thoroughly to conquer them.

She was not altogether ungrateful when the servant announced the Committee of Selectmen, and she hastened to show her deference to the fathers of the city by immediate withdrawal.

Katherine's good-bye took the form of advice, "I should certainly deal with the practical value of college life, taking up some line of thought that will show its power to make women effective citizens in the broad sense of the word."

There was no use in going directly home, for she could make nothing of facts so dull, Ellen decided, as she left the house. Besides she had no time to get down to work. It was now four o'clock, and she had promised to be at Edith Warrington's for tea at five. She could go directly there; or, better still, she might find Sara Ford and Augusta Coles at home. Their flat was near by. They would be sure to give her some ideas.

Sara was alone when Ellen reached their rooms, and gave her a warm and ready welcome, of the sort that tempted to friendly chat rather than to weighty discussion. Sara was slight and frail in appearance, and made an immediate appeal to most persons by the wistful expression of her eyes. But for all her seeming delicacy, she was full of nervous strength, and was besides very earnest, almost anxious in her devotion to her duty and in her attitude toward the responsibilities of a college woman.

There was in the room an effect of collision, of an effort to combine the possessions of a gentle, ease-loving nature, with those of one given overmuch to austerity. The room itself, sunny and old-fashioned, went far to reconcile the hostile elements, and the result was inviting, if not harmonious.

Sara had settled Ellen comfortably on the broad window-seat, and was solicitously tucking pillows behind her back, apologizing the while for Augusta's absence. "She has gone to see an authority on labor," Sara explained. "She wanted his opinion on public ownership. She won't be gone long, though."

"How does Augusta excite herself over such questions?" wondered Ellen. Sara smiled absent-mindedly, and then as though pondering, without a shade of remonstrance in her manner, said, "Augusta has the keenest insight into everyday subjects, and the most wonderful grasp of them that I have ever known. I never dare to be amused at Augusta. I can do nothing but admire her. But now, Nell," she continued, drawing her chair nearer the window where Ellen was sitting, "tell me about yourself. You are always doing interesting things. Certainly the world ought to be convinced of the value of college education by the work of such women as you and Augusta."

Ellen's mind was so firmly fixed on the object of her visit that she was unembarrassed by the flattery lavished upon her, and noted only the sympathy in the words. When she had explained her difficulties to Sara, she met with instant comprehension.

"Why, Nellie dear, I know just how you feel," was the prompt response to Ellen's statement. "You are conscious of an overwhelming desire to honour Bryn Mawr, of a responsibility to woman's education, and you would not by a word injure the one or retard the other."

"Of course, I feel that. But what am I going to do? I've thought and thought till I haven't an idea left. Katherine Brewster has loaded me down with statistics, but I need something more. Can't you give me a hint? There is so much of the picturesque in the college life that is not at all frivolous, and yet when I put pen to paper it is gone."

"I am always conscious of just that state of mind," assented Sara, "when I try to express my feeling about college. The beauty of the place, the glamour over everything! One can't describe it."

It was becoming evident to Ellen that Sara was but echoing her own words, was giving sympathy rather than advice. She had just made up her mind to be off, when the door opened to admit Sara's room-mate.

A cursory, modern greeting was all that Augusta Barneson Coles vouchsafed her visitor.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Augusta, drawing off her gloves, and with the greatest precision pulling out the fingers. When she had finished this operation she laid the gloves on the table. Augusta maintained, against all comers, that neatness alone was to be considered in dress, and showed herself consistent by appearing at a formal dinner party in an immaculate shirt waist and short skirt. In the obtrusive simplicity of the shapeless coat, the uncompromising hat, the well-hung but skimped skirt, the severely arranged tie, the colourless hair smoothed in defiance of the wind, the stout shoes and correct stockings, you perceived the care of one who had a character to preserve.

Ellen straightened herself and assumed a thrifty exactness in her speech, setting aside preamble and apology; for in talk with Augusta she felt that the amenities of life were worse than wasted, they were insulting.

"Yes, Augusta, tell me what you can say for women's colleges, as distinguished from other modes of training."

"They will redeem the world from its present deplorable condition by teaching women to live by ideas," was the succinct if sweeping assertion.

"I am afraid I don't understand," murmured Ellen.

"By removing them from the sordid pressure of the practical," Augusta went on, "and that at a critical period in the mind's development and bringing them into an atmosphere of pure ideas, till the concrete no longer exists for them."

This statement seemed somewhat nonsensical to Ellen, but she had come for information and persisted. "That's all very well, but to make it more personal. I can't express what my college education has meant to me. What has it meant to you?"

"Experience meetings of any sort are distasteful to me," answered Augusta brusquely, "they make impossible abstract thought and result in commonplaces of undisciplined sentiment. They bend the idea to the individual, not the individual to the idea."

There was no doubt that Augusta had given all that was in her power and that Ellen would only lose time by urging her to closer definition. So far she had received opinions almost irreconcilable one with the other, the practical views of Katherine and the abstractions of Augusta. She was indeed amused rather than disappointed at the failure of her visit. How absurd she had been to expect fertile suggestions from Sara, always ready to reflect the mood of her companion—a quality often soothing and endearing but hardly useful in moments of perplexity;—or from Augusta with her futile theories and ridiculous jargon.

She had still one hope, Bertha Christie, who had gathered about her a group of Bryn Mawr graduates, all anxious to indulge the scholastic passion. Research and literature occupied them for the most part; but, in the intervals of study, they cultivated self-consciousness and held dress-rehearsals that they might perfect themselves in the parts selected. Phrase-making was their pastime and tricks of face and manner their delight. Their duty to themselves led them to withdraw from their families, thus liberating themselves from the exigencies of an unappreciative society. So sedulous were these artists in life to free themselves from tyranny to the individual that they regarded all outside demands as impertinent intrusions. They courted criticism and experience and craved æsthetic satisfaction.

The only one of the band at home when Ellen was shown in, was Bertha Christie. Had she been seen in the midst of commonplace surroundings, dressed in a less studied fashion, she would in all likelihood have passed unnoticed. But the clinging folds of her dress, exquisite in colour and texture, the deliberately loosened hair, the poise of the head, and the languid grace of motion as she moved forward to greet Ellen, suggested something of the romantic, something of the ascetic, with just a seasoning of coquetry. She had the artistic temperament, but abilities critical rather than creative. She read poetry but measured life by her intellect. Hers was a disposition susceptible to impressions, but cruel in the analysis of them.

Her expression of indifference became one of scornful amusement as she listened to Ellen's earnest setting forth of her errand. A skilled fencer in words she succeeded in parrying the insistent queries, without revealing the triviality of her ideas. The impression left on Ellen's mind by this conversation was really disturbing. Up to this point she had no doubts about the value of college life, but now she wondered if there were not more to be said against it than for it. Was it not responsible for the selfishness and affectation of Bertha Christie? She looked at the clock on a near-by steeple and saw that she was already late for her engagement with Edith. In her annoyance at her wasted effort she was not sorry to think that at her next stopping-place she might dismiss business from her thoughts and enjoy the consolation and diversion she was sure to find.

It was significant of her attitude that, although she had meant all along to drop in on Edith, on her way home, and knew besides that she was certain to find one or two more of her college friends, she had no thought of them in connection with her speech. She had unconsciously drifted into imagining, as did all outsiders, that Augusta Coles and Bertha Christie were the types and her own friends the anomalies among college women. Her friendships and her activities were no longer brought into contact. So long as Ellen was looking for companionship, she still showed herself capable of appreciating wisdom as well as cleverness, good sense as well as originality; but just so soon as she desired enlightenment, she forgot that her own friends might hold opinions worthy of consideration, and singled out the eccentric or visionary among her acquaintances. In doing so she was not consciously seeking singularity, she was rather showing her instinctive reverence for experience. Having become something of a doctrinaire, she went for her instruction to those more advanced than herself.

Had Edith Warrington been true to what seemed to Ellen the best in her, she might have been set among the sages, but Edith had voluntarily forfeited all right to be considered really earnest, for after she had determined to devote her life to study, she had been turned aside by a mere trifle. In the second year of her post-graduate study, she had had a call from an old lady whom she had always found most entertaining and had been bored with the random gossip so delightful hitherto.

"It's the last straw," she said, in talking to one of her friends of the occurrence, "when Mrs. Astruther bores me there's something the matter. I've noticed an indifference to everything but my work growing upon me of late, but have ignored it. This shock has brought me to my senses and shows me that I prefer people to things." She was urged not to generalize too hastily, by the friends who were eager to see her fulfil her promise as a scholar. She had now been married about five years, and, because the memory of her scholarship was still fresh, she was spoken of as one lost past recovery; for, though she never lost her student ways, she was no longer called a student.

When Ellen came within sight of the house, she heard some one tap on the pane and on looking up saw Edith signalling to her not to ring.

"Here you are at last, Nell," was her greeting. "I was looking for you. What kept you so late? Some old committee?"

"Oh, I'm dead tired. I have had a miserable afternoon."

"You poor thing! Come along and be amused. Louise and Evelyn are here. They're having a heated discussion about matrimony. It's a bit personal and very funny."

"Louise and Evelyn? It must be absurd."

"Yes, they think they're talking on broad general principles, but they're just talking about Dick Fisher and Mr. Brandon."

"You know him?" asked Ellen. "I've never met him and since Evelyn's engagement was announced I've been curious about him."

"Oh, he is a very nice fellow—really charming."

"But not good enough for Evelyn, I'm sure."

"They never are, are they, Nell?" and Edith turned with an amused smile.

"No, not even Mr. Warrington," laughed Ellen. "I don't agree about him yet."

When they reached the little study, Ellen nodded to the two girls sitting near the window and flung herself into an easy chair by the tea table, glad to rest her mind with a counter distraction. She knew the disputants well and felt as much at home with them as with Edith.

Louise Fisher had been her room-mate at college, distinguished for her common sense and independent ways and a warm advocate of the business career for women, all women married or single. Many a satirical picture had Ellen drawn in those days, of Louise's ideal of domestic happiness. But Louise had become engaged before she graduated, to a man immeasurably her superior in mental ability, and she had settled down to echoing his opinions. Ellen often wondered if no ghosts sat opposite to Louise at the breakfast table; but she could not disturb her by any amount of banter.

Evelyn Ames, the other disputant, had been an enigma at college. She had attracted many on first acquaintance; but had baffled them at the point where acquaintance ripens into intimacy. No one dared call herself Evelyn's friend, except such as were content with the formal graciousness of her ways. And yet she had been a force in college life, had shown both courage and enthusiasm at critical moments.

She had recently announced her engagement, and was naïve in her disclosures of her own feelings in the present discussion. She was thoroughly at her ease with her companions; for since she had left college, she had surprised many, whom she had before held at a distance, into very real friendships, taking them unawares by her affection for Bryn Mawr and its associations. These three had discovered that her inaptitude for fellowship at college was the result of a former starvation of her affections. The daughter of a widow, a woman of small means, of cold nature and social ambition, Evelyn had not been allowed to find out the softer side of her nature, till she had been sent to Bryn Mawr by a rich and domineering relative.

When Edith and Ellen joined them, Louise was saying, "The only way is to try to divert his mind from his work."

"But that doesn't seem to me at all the nicest way," said Evelyn. "I think you ought to be able to help a man in his work."

"At that rate," said Edith, as she poured out a cup of tea, "Ellen should marry a public man and help him write his——"

"Yes," sniffed Louise contemptuously, "like Mrs. Jones, Dick says——"

"Oh, Nell," and Evelyn turned quickly to Ellen, "somebody told me about the speech you're to make. What a splendid chance you've got."

"I don't know about that," answered Ellen, "it's the hardest thing I ever had to do. I can't for the life of me——"

"But just think," interrupted Evelyn, "it means Bryn Mawr. That's what we think of when we think of college. Oh! I wish I could just for once say what I think of the dear place. But I never can talk about it in a sensible way."

"Just as well," put in Edith, "it's one of the things it doesn't pay to be sensible about."

"Edith, what do you mean?" interjected Louise, "when you speak in public you can't talk twaddle. Dick says, common sense is the only thing that holds people."

"He's faithful to his opinions anyway," answered Edith with a friendly nod, "you've just as much as ever."

"But, Nell," asked Evelyn, leaning forward in her interest, "what are you going to say?"

"That's what I don't know. I've gone from pillar to post trying to find out and——"

"No wonder you're weary," said Edith, "wasting your time that way. Why on earth didn't you ask us? Please tell us where you did go."

"Oh, to several places," answered Ellen evasively. "I never thought of bothering you people, you have so many outside things to attend to."

"Yes to be sure, husbands and children and all the——"

"You know that isn't what I mean," objected Ellen, setting down her teacup. "You always say you aren't interested in movements."

"Oh, no!" corrected Edith, "not movements."—

"Well, anyway I didn't succeed with the other people. 'College training fits us to be citizens'; 'college teaches us to live by ideas'; 'college is of value to none but those gifted with a susceptibility for the exquisite refinements of the intellectual existence.' What am I to do with that?"

Edith and Evelyn exchanged amused glances, while Louise looked scornful. Ellen continued, "I have to think how my words will affect Bryn Mawr, and also how they will strike my audience."

"Don't forget yourself," said Edith. "You've a way of leaving a bit of yourself behind when you get to work."

"Oh, it will come to you, don't fear," broke in Evelyn. "You do all that sort of thing so well, you'll be sure to make a hit. You couldn't help it talking about Bryn Mawr. If only I could do it. My four years there made life worth living."

"Come now, Evelyn," said Edith teasingly, "it will never do for you to say things like that, and you just engaged. Please think of poor Mr. Brandon. He'll get to hate Bryn Mawr, and I won't blame him a scrap. You must——"

"That has nothing to do with it," protested Evelyn, looking embarrassed, "but I know nothing could have been at all as it is if I hadn't gone there. With me the trouble wasn't so much a dearth of resources as a lack of opportunity for devotion. When I got to college I found that the thing demanded of me was devotion to Bryn Mawr. Every one expected it and I gave myself up to serving the first thing that needed me."

"But that wasn't anything in Bryn Mawr," objected Louise, "that was you."

"Don't you think," interposed Edith, "that the personal romance of our lives takes the place of all impersonal romance of that sort in time?"

"Perhaps," assented Evelyn slowly, "but it is the one romance that hasn't to rub up against realities. We lived there in a world of our own creation—a land of dreams. Our dreams for Bryn Mawr may always be realized; they are never shown to be impossible."

"Well, really," exclaimed Louise, "you seem to be getting very high falutin, all of you. My feeling about college is that if it hadn't been for my friends it would have been a hateful place—all hard work and nothing else. It's the friendships you make there that count."

"To be sure they count," said Edith, "but you might say the same of boarding-school. I know what it is. It's the student government."

"Now just listen to that," cried Ellen, "you're as bad as other people, you don't agree at all. You, Edith, talk of self-government, but that isn't general. And I can't tie myself down to Bryn Mawr. We all think Bryn Mawr the best of——"

"Twenty years hence this weather

May tempt us from office stools;

We may be slow on the feather,

And seem to the boys old fools.

But we'll still swing together

And swear by the best of schools,"

sang a merry voice in the doorway and with one accord the girls sprang to their feet to welcome the singer. But she continued serenely—"The same idea may be found in the lines of another well-known song:

"'When the cares of life o'ertake us—'"

The last lines were lost in the vehemence with which Ellen and Edith greeted the newcomer.

"You piece of absurdity," urged Edith impatiently, "stop your mimicry and tell us how you got here."

"Without adventure, my excitable Edith, till I came upon this strange gathering, perhaps the strangest gathering ever known to the scientist—for as Leuwenhoek says——" The change of voice in the last words, and the immediate response from her listeners showed a traditional joke. But she went on immediately, "I'm on my way to Bryn Mawr and I dropped in to remind you that you've all promised to bear me company. I was afraid you might forget. A trip there from Philadelphia is less of an undertaking than one from Emmonsville, Montana. And I'm going to pass the night with you, fair Ellen. I wrote to you warning you of my intention about two weeks ago. My trunk is already at your house, and I have been there; but was sent to bring you home. Your mother was afraid you would forget you were to dine with Mrs. Boughton and help her with a Dean or a Bishop—something architectural and impressive."

"I had forgotten all about it and I haven't a minute to lose," said Ellen, as she and Marjorie hurried off amid the protests of the others.

Ellen begged Marjorie to come upstairs with her and amuse her while she dressed; but Marjorie refused to talk, insisting on hearing all about Ellen's visits of the afternoon. She passed her comment on the characters in the narrative, comment genial, friendly, sympathetic, till Ellen came to Bertha Christie's part. On a sudden Marjorie's indignation blazed out.

"Ellen, is it that you have failed to understand Bryn Mawr, or that you have willfully misunderstood? You have accepted the judgment of the outside world and have treated those freaks as representatives of Bryn Mawr. Have you forgotten how they were ignored, jeered at, anything but accepted by everybody but a few freshmen? They defied college spirit, mocked at common sense and still do. And the world sets them down as types! Bertha Christie with her menagerie of intimates intolerant of the commonplace! I could pity them if people like you didn't make them of so much importance."

"Intolerant, maybe I am," in answer to a feeble protest from Ellen, "I'm rather proud of being intolerant of a set of sophisticated hermit-crabs, a few puling nuns who've gone to school to the melancholy Jacques. No wonder I hear queer things about Bryn Mawr when you go to them for ideas and pass by Edith and Evelyn and a host of others. It's enough to make one turn cynic. Tolerance! Tolerance of evil, breadth of mind it calls itself, is the most discouraging thing I meet with. And yet how absurd it all is. You, so well-balanced, so lofty in your aims, going to those geese to learn wisdom——"

"They're not geese," protested Ellen at length, "they're unusually clever girls."

"'A goose,' please remember," quoted Marjorie, regaining her temper with the reassertion of her sense of humour, "is none the less a goose, though sun and stars be minced to yield him stuffing! You'd better be off or you'll have to apologize to the Bishop for keeping him from his dinner."