Grace Harlowe's Problem Part 18

Grace could not trust herself to answer. Humiliated to the last degree by Miss Wharton's bald injustice, she felt as though she wished never to see or hear of Jean Brent again. It was not until they were half way across the campus that she found her voice. She was dimly surprised at the resentment in her tones. "You chose your own course, Miss Brent, regardless of what I thought. That course has not only involved you in serious difficulty, but me as well. If you had obeyed me in the beginning, I would not be leaving Miss Wharton's office this afternoon, under a cloud. I quite agree with you, however, that to tell Miss Wharton your secret now would not help matters. I must leave you here. I am going on to Wayne Hall."

With a curt inclination of her head, Grace walked away, leaving Jean standing in the middle of the campus, looking moodily after her.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BLOTTED ESCUTCHEON

But Grace was destined to receive another shock before the long day was done. The shadows of early twilight were beginning to blot out the short winter day when she let herself into Harlowe House. Stepping into her office she reached eagerly for the pile of mail lying on the sliding shelf of her desk. The handwriting on the first letter of the pile was Tom's. Grace eyed it gloomily. It was not warranted to lighten her present unhappy mood. She opened it slowly, almost hesitatingly. Unlike Tom's long, newsy letters, there was but one sheet of paper. Then she strained her eyes in the rapidly failing daylight and read:

"DEAR GRACE:

"When you receive this letter I shall be out at sea and on my way to South America. I have resigned my position with the Forestry Department to go on an expedition up the Amazon River with Burton Graham, the naturalist. He is the man who collected so many rare specimens of birds and mammals for the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute while in Africa, two years ago. It is hard to say when I shall return, and, as it takes almost a month for a letter to reach the United States, you are not likely to hear often from me.

"Aunt Rose is deeply grieved at my going. Still she understands that, for me, it is best. When last I saw you in Oakdale I had no idea of leaving civilization for tropical wildernesses. Mr.

Graham's invitation to join his expedition was wholly unexpected, and I was not slow to take advantage of it.

"I would ask you to write me, but, unfortunately, I can give you no forwarding address. Mr. Graham's plans as to location are a little uncertain. Perhaps, until I can bring myself to think of you in the way you wish me to think, silence between us will be happiest for us both. G.o.d bless you, Grace, and give you the greatest possible success in your work. With best wishes,

"Your friend, "TOM."

Grace stared at the sheet of paper before her, with tear-blurred eyes.

She hastily wiped her tears away, but they only fell the faster. Miss Wharton's injustice, Jean Brent's selfishness, together with the sudden shock of Tom's departure out of the country and out of her life, were too much for her high-strung, sensitive nature. Dropping into the chair before her desk, she bowed her head on the slide and wept unrestrainedly.

Her overflow of feelings was brief, however. Given little to tears, after her first outburst she exerted all her will power to control herself. The girls were dropping in by ones and twos from their cla.s.ses, the maid would soon come into the living room to turn on the lights, and at almost any moment some one might ask for her. She would not care to be discovered in tears.

Grace picked up the rest of her mail, lying still unopened, and went upstairs to her room with the proud determination to cry no more. She was quite sure she would not have cried over Tom's letter had all else been well. It was her interview with Miss Wharton that had hurt her so cruelly. Yet, with the reading of Tom's farewell message, deep down in her heart lurked a curiously uncomfortable sense of loss. It was as though for the first time in her life she had actually began to miss Tom. She had not expected fate to cut him off so sharply from her. She knew that her refusal to marry him had been the primary cause of his going away. Mrs. Gray would perhaps blame her. These expeditions were dangerous to say the least. More than one naturalist had died of fever or snakebite, or had been killed by savages. Suppose Tom were never to come back. Grace shuddered at the bare idea of such a calamity. And he did not intend to write to her, so she could only wonder as the days, weeks and months went by what had befallen him. She would never know.

While she was sadly ruminating over Tom's unexpected exit from her little world, Emma Dean's brisk step sounded outside. The door swung open. Emma gave a soft exclamation as she saw the room in darkness.

Pressing the b.u.t.ton at the side of the door, she flooded the room with light, only to behold Grace standing in the middle of the floor, still wearing her outdoor wraps, an open letter in her hand.

"Good gracious, Gracious, how you startled me! What is going on? Tell your worthless dog of a servant, what means this studied pose in the middle of the room in the dark? Not to mention posing in your hat and coat. And, yes," Emma drew nearer and peered into her friend's face with her kind, near-sighted eyes, "you've been crying. This will never do.

Tell me the base varlet that hath caused these tears," she rumbled in a deep voice, "and be he lord of fifty realms I'll have his blood.

'Sdeath! Odds bodkins! Let me smite the villain. I could slay and slay, and be a teacher still. Provided the faculty didn't object, and I wasn't arrested," she ended practically.

Grace's woe-be-gone face brightened at Emma's nonsense. "You always succeed in making me smile when I am the bluest of the blue," she said fondly.

"I can't see why such strongly dramatic language as I used should make you laugh. It was really quite Shakespearian. You see I have 'the bard'

on the brain. We have been taking up Elizabethan English in one of my cla.s.ses, and once I become thoroughly saturated with Shakespearian verse I am likely to quote it on all occasions. Don't be surprised if I burst forth into blank verse at the table or any other public place. But here I've been running along like a talking machine when you are 'full fathom five' in the blues. Can't you tell your aged and estimable friend, Emma, what is troubling you?"

"You were right, Emma. The summons came." Grace's voice was husky. "I've just had a session with Miss Wharton."

"About Miss Brent?"

"Yes. She sent for both of us. She asked Miss Brent to explain certain things which she could, but would not, explain. I was in Miss Brent's confidence. As you know, she told me about herself after I came back from the Thanksgiving holiday. It entirely changed my opinion of her. I wish I could tell you everything, but I can't. I gave her my word of honor that I would keep her secret. But, to-day, when she saw how unjustly Miss Wharton reprimanded me I thought she might have strained a point and told Miss Wharton her story. Still I don't know that it would have helped much." Grace sighed wearily. "Miss Wharton is not Miss Wilder. She is a hard, narrow-minded, cruel woman," Grace's dispirited tones gathered sudden vehemence, "and she would misjudge Miss Brent just as she misjudged me. She is going to send for us again in a few days, and she declares that, if I do not tell her everything, she will take measures to have me removed from my position here." Grace turned tragic eyes to her friend.

"The idea!" rang out Emma's indignant cry. "Just as though she could.

Why, Harlowe House was named for you. If Mrs. Gray knew she even hinted such thing she'd be so angry. I believe she'd turn Indian giver and take back her gift to Overton."

"Oh, no, she wouldn't do quite that, Emma." Heartsick though she was, Grace smiled faintly. "She would be angry, though. She must never know it. It made her so happy to give Harlowe House to Overton. She would be so hurt, for my sake, that she would never again take a particle of pleasure in it. When Miss Wharton sends for me I shall ask her point-blank if she really intends to try to have me removed from my position by the Board. If she says 'yes,' I'll resign, then and there."

"Grace Harlowe, you don't mean it? You've always fought valiantly for other girls' rights, why won't you fight for your own? The whole affair is ridiculous and unjust. If worse comes to worst you can go before the Board and defend yourself. The members will believe you."

Grace shook her head sadly, but positively. "I'd never do that, Emma. If it comes to a point where I must fight to be house mother here, then I'd much rather resign. I couldn't bear to have the story creep about the college that I had even been criticized by the Board. I've loved my work so dearly, and I've tried so hard to do it wisely that I'd rather give it up and go quietly away, feeling in my heart that I have done my best, than to fight and win at last nothing but a blotted escutcheon. You understand how it is with me, dear old comrade."

"Grace, it breaks my heart to hear you say such things! You mustn't talk of going away." Emma sprang from the chair into which she had dropped and drew Grace into her protecting embrace. Grace's head was bowed for a moment on Emma's shoulder.

"Don't cry, dear," soothed Emma.

"I'm not crying, Emma. See, I haven't shed a tear. I did all my crying a while ago." Grace raised her head and regarded Emma with two dry eyes that were wells of pain. "I have had another shock, too, since I came home. Tom Gray has resigned his position with the Forestry Department at Was.h.i.+ngton, and has sailed for South America.

I--never--thought--he'd--go--away. He isn't even going to write to me, Emma, and I don't know when he will come back. Perhaps never. You know how dangerous those South American expeditions are?"

"Poor Gracious," comforted Emma, "you have had enough sorrows for one day. You need a little cheering up. You and I are not going to eat dinner at Harlowe House to-night. We are going to let Louise Sampson look after things while we go gallivanting down to Vinton's for a high tea. I'm going to telephone Kathleen and Patience. There will be just four of us, and no more of us to the tea party. They will have to come, engagements or no engagements."

"I don't care to see any one to-night, Emma," pleaded Grace.

"You only think you don't. Seeing the girls will do you good. If you stay here you'll brood and grieve all evening."

"All right, I'll go; just to please you. I must see Louise and tell her we are going."

"You stay here. I'll do all the seeing. Take off your hat and bathe your face. You'll feel better." Emma hurried out of the room and up the next flight of stairs to Louise Sampson's room, thinking only of Grace and how she might best comfort her. She was more aroused than she cared to let Grace see over Miss Wharton's harsh edict. She made a secret vow that if Grace would not fight for her rights _she_, Emma Dean, would.

Then she remembered Grace's words, "I'd rather give it up and go quietly away, feeling in my heart that I have done my best, than to fight and, at last, win nothing but a blotted escutcheon." No, she could not take upon herself Grace's wrongs, unless Grace bade her do so, and that would never happen.

Fortunately Kathleen and Patience were both at home. Better still, neither had an engagement for that evening, and at half-past six o'clock the four faithful friends were seated at their favorite mission alcove table at Vinton's, ordering their dinner, while Grace tried earnestly to put away her sorrow and be her usual sunny self.

But while Grace had been pa.s.sing through the Valley of Humiliation, there was another person under the same roof who was equally unhappy.

That person was Jean Brent. On leaving Grace she had gone directly to Harlowe House. Ascending the stairs to her room with a dispirited step, she had tossed aside her wraps and seated herself before the window. She sat staring out with unseeing eyes, remorseful and sick at heart.

Grace's bitter words, "If you had obeyed me I would not be leaving Miss Wharton's office this afternoon, under a cloud," still rang in her ears.

How basely she had repaid Miss Harlowe, was her conscience-stricken thought. Miss Harlowe had advised and helped her in every possible way.

She had taken her into Harlowe House on trust. She had sympathized with her when Jean had told her her secret, and she had brought upon herself the dean's disapproval, would perhaps leave Harlowe House, rather than betray the girl who had confided in her. Jean's conscience lashed her sharply for her stubbornness and selfish ingrat.i.tude. If only she had been frank in the beginning. Miss Harlowe would have explained all to Miss Wilder, and Miss Wilder would have been satisfied. Then she would have had no sale of her wardrobe, and Miss Harlowe would have been spared all this miserable trouble.

What a failure she had made of her freshman year? She had made few friends except Althea and her chums. They were shallow and selfish to a fault. She had held herself aloof from the Harlowe House girls, who, notwithstanding their good nature, showed a slight resentment of her proud att.i.tude toward them and her absolute refusal to join in the work of the club. Since the day when Evelyn had taken her to task for disobeying Grace the two girls had exchanged no words other than those which necessity forced them to exchange. Evelyn had not forgiven Jean for her pa.s.sionate advice to her to mind her own affairs. Jean, knowing Evelyn's resentment to be just, cloaked herself in defiance and ignored her roommate. Little by little, however, the cloak dropped away and Jean began to long for Evelyn's companions.h.i.+p. The yellow crepe gown and the beautiful evening coat still lay in the bottom of Jean's trunk. In her own mind she knew that she had begun to hope for the time when she and Evelyn would settle their differences. She would then give Evelyn the belated Christmas gift. She grew daily more unhappy over their estrangement, and heartily wished for a reconciliation. Yet she was still too proud to make the first advances.

It was hardly likely that Evelyn would make the first sign. Her pride was equal to, if not greater, than Jean's. She, who abhorred prying and inquisitiveness, had been accused by Jean of meddling in her affairs.

Evelyn vowed inwardly never to forgive Jean. So these two young girls, each stiff-necked and implacable, dressed, studied and slept in the same room in stony silence, pa.s.sing in and out like two offended shadows.

Gradually this strained att.i.tude became so intolerable to Jean that she longed for some pretext on which to make peace. As she sat at the window wondering what she could do to atone for her fault the door opened and Evelyn entered the room. A swift impulse seized Jean to lift the veil of resentment that hung between them. She half rose from her chair as though to address Evelyn. The latter turned her head in Jean's direction. Her blue eyes rested upon the other girl with the cold, impersonal gaze of a stranger. Beneath that maddening, ignoring glance Jean's good intentions curled up and withered like leaves that are touched by frost, and her aching desire for reconciliation was once more driven out of her heart by her pride.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SWORD OF SUSPENSE

When Miss Wharton sent Jean Brent and Grace Harlowe from her office with the threat of dismissal hanging over them she fully intended to keep her word. From the moment she had first beheld Grace Harlowe she had conceived for her a rooted dislike such as only persons of strong prejudices can entertain. Her whole life had been lived narrowly, and with repression, therefore she was not in sympathy with youth or its enthusiasm. According to her belief no young woman of Grace's age and appearance was competent to a.s.sume the responsibility of managing an establishment like Harlowe House. She had again delivered this opinion most forcefully in Miss Wilder's presence after Grace had left the office on the afternoon of their first meeting, and Miss Wilder's earnest a.s.surances to the contrary served only to deepen Miss Wharton's disapproval of the bright-faced, clear-eyed girl whose quiet self-possession indicated a capability of managing her own affairs that was a distinct affront to the woman who hoped to discover in her such faults as would triumphantly bear out her unkind criticism.