by Frank Cobb
CHAPTER V
THE GIFTIE GIE US
It had been raining for a week. Berta was writing a poem, her elbows onthe desk, her hair clutched in one hand, her pen in the other. At thewindow Robbie Belle was working happily over her curve-tracing, now andthen drawing back to gaze with admiration at the sweeping lines of herproblem. Once the slanting beat of the drops against the pane caught hereye, and she paused for a moment to consider their angle of incidence.She decided that she liked curves better than angles. She did not wonderwhy, as Berta would have done, but having recognized the fact ofpreference turned placidly back to her instruments.
Splash! came a fiercer gust of rain, and Berta stirred uneasily, tossingher head as if striving subconsciously to shake off a vague irritation ofhearing. Another heavier sound was mingling with the steady patter.Rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub! Robbie Belle glanced up and listened, herpencil uplifted.
"It's Bea," she said, "she's drumming with her knuckles on the floor inthe corridor. She says that it is against her principles to knock on thedoor when it has an engaged sign on it. Shall I say come?"
Apparently Berta did not hear the question. With her chin grasped firmlyin one fist, she was staring very hard at a corner of the ceiling wherethere was nothing in particular. Robbie looked at her and sighed, but theresignation in the sigh was transfigured by loving awe. She picked up herpencil in patient acquiescence. Berta must not be disturbed.
"Chir-awhirr, chir-awhirr, tweet, tweet, tweet!" It was Bea's bestsoprano, with several extra trills strewn between the consonants. "Listento the mocking-bird. Oh, the mocking-bird is singing on the bough. Bravo,encore! Chir-awhirr! Encore!
"'Make me over, Mother April, When the sap begins to stir. When thy flowery hand delivers All the mountain-prisoned rivers, And thy great heart throbs and quivers To revive the joys that were, Make me over, Mother April, When the sap begins to stir.'"
Robbie Belle was leaning back in her chair to listen in serene enjoyment.She loved to hear Bea sing. Berta was listening, too, but with an absentexpression, as if still in a dream.
The voice outside the door declared itself again. "Ahem, written by BlissCarmen. Sung by Beatrice Leigh. Ahem!" It was a noticeably emphatic ahem,and certainly deserved a more appreciative reply than continued silencefrom within. After a minute's inviting pause, the singer piped up afresh.
"'Make me over in the morning From the rag-bag of the world. Scraps of deeds and duds of daring, Home-brought stuff from far-sea faring, Faded colors once so flaring, Shreds of banners long since furled, Hues of ash and hints of glory From the rag-bag of the world.' Ahem!"
The concluding cough was so successfully convulsive that Robbie Belle'smouth opened suddenly.
"It must be something important," she said.
Berta woke up from her trance. "Come!" she called.
At the first breath of the syllable, the door flew open with a speciallyprepared bang, and Bea shot in with an instantaneous and voluntaryvelocity that carried her to the centre of the rug.
"Oh, girls!" she exclaimed in the excited tone of a breathless anddelighted messenger bringing great and astonishing news, "it's raining!"
In the ensuing stillness, she could almost hear the disgusted thud ofexpectation dashed to earth.
"Villain!" said Berta, and swung around to her interrupted poem.
Robbie's puzzled stare developed slowly into a smile. "I think that is ajoke," she said.
Then Bea laughed. She collapsed on the sofa and shook from her boots toher curls. It was contagious laughter that made Robbie chuckle insympathy and Berta grin broadly at a discreet pigeon-hole of her desk.When the visitor resumed sufficient self-possession to enable her toenunciate, she sat up and inquired anxiously,
"Did you hear me sing?"
Berta regarded her solemnly. "We did," she answered.
"Yes," said Robbie Belle.
"Well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to change. I'm going to bemade over, Mother April. I'm going to turn into a genius for a while.I've always wanted to be a genius. It's no fun to be systematic andsteady and conscientious, and so forth, is it, Robbie Belle? At least itisn't very much fun, considering what might be done with ouropportunities. So I intend to behave as if I had an artistic temperament.I am going to let my work pile up, cut late, skip meals, breakengagements, never answer letters, give in to moods, be generallyirresponsible, and so forth, just like Berta. I'm going to----"
"What!"
Bea laughed again mischievously at the sound of outraged dignity inBerta's voice. "Yes, I am. I have the spring fever: I don't want to doanything, and I don't want to do nothing either. In fact, this is thesingle solitary thing I do want to do. That's the reason why it will beso agreeable to be a genius. At least, it will be agreeable to me, if notto my contemporaries and companions. I shall do exactly as I please atthe moment. Another reason will be the thrill of novelty--I'm simplydying for excitement."
"Thrill of novelty!" groaned Berta. "I infer that you never do as youplease. You continually 'sackerifice' yourself----"
"Yes, yes, of course, but I was afraid you hadn't noticed." Bea raisedher fingers to smooth the corners of her mouth straight. "Now, you'vebeen growing worse--I mean, more and more of a genius ever since enteringcollege. I myself ought to be called Prexie's Assistant, somewhat afterthe order of Miss Edgeworth's 'Parent's Assistant,' you know, because mycareer has been such an awful warning to the undergraduate. But you're anexample----"
"I am not a genius," Berta spoke with biting severity of accent; "LucineBrett is a genius, and I despise her."
"You used to despise her," put in Robbie Belle gently.
Berta caught her lip between her teeth for a fleeting instant ofirritation, for she was not naturally meek. Then she glanced at Robbiewith a quick smile all the sweeter for the under-throb of repentance overher impatient impulse. "All right, I used to long ago. But to return toour guest. I am not a genius, I hasten to remark again. Furthermore Ishall be excessively obliged if Miss Leigh will march out of thisapartment and stay where she belongs."
In the pause which was occupied by Bea in considering a choice of retortsstupendous, Robbie spoke again.
"I think Bea misses Lila while she is in the infirmary," she said.
Bea swung magnificently on her heel. "I have decided that the properrejoinder is a crushing silence. I wish you good afternoon." At the doorshe halted. "And I shall be a genius for a spell. You just watch me andsee. Shelley was lawless, you know, and Burns and Carlyle, I guess, andGoethe and George Eliot----"
"OH, THANK YOU; I DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO EAT"]
"What!"
This was a shout of such indignation that Bea vanished instanter. Amoment later she poked her head around the lintel.
"Well, they were," she said, "and so are you. It is a marvel to me howyou hoodwink Prexie about your work. Pure luck! Vale!"
Berta's repartee consisted of a sofa pillow aimed accurately at thediminishing crack.
The next day was Saturday. Bea failed to appear at breakfast--acatastrophe which had not occurred before in the memory of the oldestjunior. Berta who usually arrived herself half an hour late headed aprocession of inquiring friends, three of whom bore glasses of milk andplates of rolls to supply the dire omission. A succession of crescendotaps at her door was at length rewarded by a drowsy-eyed apparition inbath-robe and worsted slippers.
"Oh, thank----" she exclaimed at sight of the sympathetic group, andsuddenly remembered that she must be different from her ordinary self. "Idon't want anything to eat. I didn't feel exactly like getting up early.I seem to prefer to be alone this morning." And she managed, though witha hand that faltered at the misdeed, to shut the door in their astonishedfaces.
"Well, I never!" "What has happened?" "Was it a te
legram?" "How perfectlyatrocious!" "Is she sick?" "Beatrice Leigh to treat us with suchunutterable rudeness!"
Berta listened with a queer little smile on her sensitively cut lips.Once she noticed a hasty twist of the knob as if Bea had snatched at itfrom the other side under the prick of the comments floating over thetransom. As she walked slowly away the smile faded before a shadowingrecollection. She was wondering if her own manner had truly been sounpardonable on that autumn morning when Robbie had carried her a bakedapple with cream on it and plum bread besides. It had certainly beenirritating to be interrupted in the middle of that rondel for the sake ofwhich she had skipped Sunday breakfast. She had not forgotten how amazedand disappointed Robbie had looked with the saucer in one hand, the platein the other, while the door swung impatiently back to its place. Butthen, the poem was sufficient excuse for that discourtesy, Berta assuredherself in anxiety to justify her behavior. If she had waited to bepolite, the thought and the rhymes would doubtless have scattered beyondrecall. Nobody could condemn her for slamming the door and hurrying againto her desk. She had saved the rondel, and it had been printed in theMonthly. That was worth some sacrifice, even of manners to dear oldRobbie. She always understood and forgave such small transgressions ofthe laws of friendship. Only it certainly looked different when somebodyelse did it.
An hour or so later while Berta was bending devotedly over her notes inthe history alcove of the library, she was vaguely aware of a newcomersauntering carelessly behind her chair. A heavy book clattered to thefloor, and somebody's elbow in stooping to pick it up nudged her arm. Herpen went scratching in a mad zigzag across the neat page and deposited abig tear of red ink where it suddenly stopped.
"Oh, I'm sorry," exclaimed Bea repentantly, for she was indeed theculprit; "it's horrid to be heedless on purpose. I didn't know it wouldreally do any harm."
Berta glanced up quickly from her blotter. So Bea considered a recklessdisregard for books and persons also a quality of genius. Berta felt aslow blush creeping up to her brow at the candid memory of her tendencyto bump into things and brush against people when in a dreamy mood--andto pass on without even a beg pardon.
"You're evidently new to the business, my cautious and calculating youngfriend," she whispered, "you should have ignored the resultant calamity.Ah--why, child!" she stared in surprise, "your collar is pinned crookedand your turnover is flying loose at one end, and your hair is comingdown. You look scandalous."
Bea looked triumphant also. "It's an artistic disarray," she explained."It's hard work because I've slipped into the habit of being prim andprecise, and I had to bend a pin intentionally. Four girls already havewarned me about my hair falling down. It worries me a lot and yet itdoesn't give the same effect as yours. Does yours feel loose andstraggly?"
Berta's hand flew to her head. "You sinner! Mine is just as usual."
"Yes, I know it," assented Bea innocently, "it's a negligee style. I'mbeing a geni----"
"Go away!" Berta snatched up her bottle of red ink. "Fly, villain,depart, withdraw, retreat, abscond, decamp,--in short, go away!"
Bea went, holding her neck stiffly on one side to balance the sensationof unsteadiness above her ears. Berta watched her with a waveringexpression that veered from wrathful amusement to uneasy reflectiveness.Was it really true that she dressed so untidily as this little scamp madeout? Perhaps she did slight details once in a while, but though notscrupulously dainty like Lila, still she tried to be neat enough on thewhole. Could it be possible that the other girls criticised her soseverely as this?
The suspicion bothered her so effectually that she left the library fiveminutes early and hurried to her room for a few renovating touches beforeluncheon. Her hair caused her such extraordinary pains that she was latein reaching the table. She found that Bea had usurped her place at thehead, but forgot to object in the confusion of being greeted with:"Heigho, Berta, what's happened?" "You're spick and span enough for aparty." "Are you going to town this afternoon?"
"Young ladies!" Berta ignored the warm color that she felt rising slowlyunder her dark skin, "I am astonished at your manners. Don't you knowthat you should never refer to an individual's personal appearance? Iread that in a book on etiquette. You may allude to my money, to mybrains, to the beauty of my soul, but you must not remark upon my looks.I don't understand the principle of the thing, unless it is thatcompliments on the other three articles fail to injure the character,whereas flattery with regard to my pulchritude----"
Bea's hand shot into the air and waved frantically.
"Please, teacher, what is that funny word?"
"Go to the Latin lexicon, thou ignoramus."
"I can't," said Bea, "you borrowed mine and never brought it back. It'sbeing a----"
"But aren't you going anywhere?" asked Robbie Belle who had been fillingBerta's plate and pouring her milk during the discourse.
Bea sent a bewitching smile straight into Berta's eyes. "I'm 'most sureshe is going to give me a swimming lesson at half past four. Then if itis still raining this evening, we can all swim over to the chapel for theconcert. Please, Berta."
"All right," acquiesced Berta carelessly. "I will do it because I am sonoble and you are a literary person, though how in this world ofincomprehensibilities you managed to get elected to that editorial boardpasses my powers of apperception. Robbie, will you be so kind as to reachme that saltcellar?"
"You ought to say, 'Salt!' at the beginning, and then while you areputting in the rest of the words, she can be handing it over," advisedBea; "ah, what was the thought I was about to think?"
She paused in dispensing the main dish and rolled up her eyes vacantlyfor a moment before she dropped the spoon without a glance at the clothto see if it left a stain and rising walked dreamily out of thedining-room.
The other girls stared. Robbie looked alarmed till Gertrude caught thelikeness and explained: "It's 'sincerest flattery' for you, Berta.Imitation, you understand. When an idea strikes you, you drop everythingand wander away while Robbie or Bea picks up the spoon and goes onladling out the stuff in the dish at your place. What a monkey!"
"No, a missionary," corrected Berta, her eyes and mouth contradictingeach other as usual. This time her eyes tried to hide a troubled spark intheir depths while her mouth twitched over the joke of it all. "She isposing as an awful example."
"Here I am again!" Bea appeared suddenly in her seat. "I find I'mconsiderably hungry still," she vouchsafed in response to a chorus oftaunts and jeers. "Ideas aren't filling, so to speak. At least, minearen't--and they most of them belong to other people; hence I infer thatother people's aren't either. Is that plain, my dear young and giddyfriends? Now, somebody, applesauce!" she called, and added politely,"please pass it."
Berta regarded her sternly. "Beatrice Leigh, you are running this schemepretty far into the ground. When you reach bed-rock, something is likelyto get a bump. Take care! Remember!"
"Thank you, yes, Berta. Half-past four at the swimming-tank in thegymnasium. I'll be there. Trust me!"
"Trust you!" echoed Berta in withering scorn.
Bea lifted a face bearing a suitably wounded expression.
"I trust you," she murmured in touchingly plaintive tones. "I shall be inthe water at the stroke of the half hour--in the icy water. Promise thatyou will not fail me."
"All right!" Berta dismissed the engagement from her mind with a heedlessassent. An hour later while she was absorbed in looking over the week'sdaily themes which she had found in the box, Robbie walked in ratherdisconsolately.
"Bea's writing a poem, too," she said; "she scowled at me."
Berta frowned in abstraction. "Yes," she muttered, "yes, yes."
Robbie looked at her and then stared out at the steady pall of rain. "Ithink I shall go swimming with you, if you want me."
"Do come." It was a mechanical response while Berta's eyes narrowed inthe intensity of her application. "Now I wonder what that question-markon the margin can mean. She is the vaguest critic I ever had. Suggestive,I re
ckon, and nothing else."
Robbie sighed. "Bea always used to be interested in everything. I wishshe wouldn't write poems. She walked right past four girls and didn't seethem. They were astonished. They asked me if she was sick or anything.Her eyes were sort of rolled up in her head, as if she were beingoblivious on purpose."
"Um-m," replied Berta brilliantly from the depths of her ownobliviousness, "quite likely. Alas! there is another questionablequestion-mark. I do wish she weren't so stingy with her red ink."
Robbie sighed again and looked at the clock. "It will be half past fourin two hours," she volunteered.
Berta pushed back her hair with an impatient gesture. "Robbie Belle, thelonger it rains, the more loquacious you become. Do go and write a noteto Lila, or darn stockings or something. I have a committee meeting atthree, and you bother me dreadfully, with your chatter. Do run along,there's a dear."
Robbie rose and wandered away forlornly. Even though she did not feellike studying, she half wished that she had not finished the preparationof Monday's lessons. College on a rainy Saturday afternoon, when all yourfriends are writing poems, is not a very cheerful place.
At half-past four Berta was in the midst of a fiery argument about theprogram for the Junior Party to the seniors. The dispute concerned somefine point of aesthetic taste in the choice of paper and position ofmonogram. The stroke of the half hour reminded her of the engagement withBea, but she lightly pushed aside the thought as of no consequence incomparison with the present emergency.
It was ten minutes to five when she seized an umbrella and scurriedacross the campus to the gymnasium. There in the dusk of fading lightfrom the clouded sky outside she beheld the swimming-tank deserted, itssurface still glinting in soft ripples as if from recent plunging.
At sound of a rustle in one of the dressing-rooms, Berta called Bea'sname. It was Robbie's voice that answered her.
"Bea's gone out walking."
"Out walking?" echoed Berta scandalized and incredulous.
"Yes, she was here in the water at half-past four, just as she had saidshe would be. She waited for you, and tried to swim at the end of acurtain pole. I held it steady for her, but when she was the teacher, shelet me duck under. And we weren't sure about the stroke anyhow. And wekept getting colder and colder."
"Oh!" the voice sounded as if suddenly enlightened. "At what time did yougo in?"
"It was after three, and she waited for you till twenty minutes to five.Then she said she thought it would be interesting to go up to the orchardand gather apple-blossoms with rain-drops fresh on the petals. She saidit would be poetic and erratic and a lot of fun. So she went. She said itwould be more like a real genius if she went alone, and so I didn't gowith her. Besides that, she took my umbrella, and it isn't big enough fortwo."
"It is queer that she did not wait longer," commented Berta wonderingly.
"She said it would be more whimsical and unexpected to stroll off in thateccentric way. She explained how she is being made over, Mother April,from the rag-bag of the world; and so she has to be different."
"I hope that she gets very wet indeed," said Berta, "and I don't see whyI should worry."
Robbie's voice answered, "Bea worried about you that day last fall whenyou went off alone in that storm to find fringed gentians. The brancheswere crashing down in the wind, and one girl had seen a tramp out on thatlonely road. You said you could take care of yourself, but we worried."
"Oh, that was different," exclaimed Berta. "I am perfectly capable ofjudging for myself. But Bea is such a scatterbrain that I can't helpfeeling"--she hesitated, then added as if to herself, "There isn't anysense in feeling responsible. She is old enough----"
"I can't hear when you mumble," called Robbie.
"Bea is an awful idiot," replied Berta in a louder key. "Did you catchthat valuable bit of information, Robbie Belle?"
"It sounds," spoke Robbie with unexpected astuteness, "as if you arereally worrying after all."
"Does it?" groaned Berta; "well, then I am an idiot too."
She sternly refused to look anxious even when the dressing-gong found thewanderer still absent in the rain. At six Berta started for thedining-room, leaving Robbie hovering at Bea's open door with a supply ofhot water, rough towels, dry stockings, and spirits of camphor. In theleaden twilight of the lower corridor a draggled figure passed with asodden drip of heavy skirts and the dull squashing of water in soakedshoes.
"Where are the apple-blossoms?" asked Berta in polite greeting as theymet at the elevator.
"I've b-b-b-been studying b-b-b-bobolinks," Bea's teeth chattered. "It'soriginal to follow birds in the rain."
"But"--Berta's eyes snapped, "I myself when I did it I wore a gym suitand a mackintosh and rubber boots. Of all the idiots!"
"'O wad some power the giftie gie us,'" chanted Bea's tongue betweenclicks,
"'To see oursels as ithers see us, It wad fra mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion.'"
Then as Berta took a threatening step in her direction, she broke into arun. "I think I'll take some exercise now," she called back mockingly asshe fled up the stairs.
At midnight Berta was roused wide awake by an insistent rapping on thewall between her room and Bea's. Startled at last wide awake, she askedwhat was the trouble. Upon receiving no audible reply, she hurried aroundthrough the corridor to the door. She heard the key turned as she graspedthe knob. An instant later she felt Bea sway against her and standchoking for breath, her hands to her chest.
"It's croup," she gasped. "The doctor! Run!"
Berta ran. She ran as she had never run before. Down the endless corridorand up the stairs, two steps at a time. Then a hail of frantic knocks onthe doctor's door brought her rushing to answer. In four minutes theywere back beside Bea's bed, and the doctor's orders kept Berta flying,till after a limitless space of horror and struggle she heard dimly fromthe distance: "She'll do now." Whereupon Berta sat down quietly in achair and fainted.
The next day was Sunday. Berta carried Bea her breakfast.
"Good-morning, Beatrice," she said. "I've decided that I am tired ofbeing a genius."
"So am I," said Bea.
"No more poems!" cried Robbie Belle and clapped her hands. "Oh, goodie!"
