by Frank Cobb
CHAPTER XIII
JUST THIS ONCE
Ellen drummed restlessly on the window pane. "I'm 'most sure it would notmatter just this once. We've had the mildest sort of a fever, and I don'tsee yet why they keep us shut up so long away off here. I'm crazy to senda letter home."
Lila's thin shoulders gave an irritable little shrug under the silkenfolds of her dressing-gown, and her finely cut features screwed for aninstant into an expression of impatient dislike. It was only for aninstant--then the mask of her conventional courtesy dropped again betweenthe two convalescents.
"Why not tell the doctor or the nurse what you wish to write? They willattend to it for you. Infection may be conveyed in a dozen ways, youknow. We are beginning to peel, and that is the worst----"
"Oh, are we?" broke in Ellen excitedly, "are we really peeling?" Shelifted one hand and examined the wrist. "No, I'm not even beginning.Every morning the moment I wake up I rub and rub, but it won't peel. Itsimply won't. And I've got to stay here till I do. Are you peeling?Really?"
She darted across to her companion and seized her arm without noticingthe quiver of distaste before it lay limp in her eager grasp.
"Oh, oh, it is, it certainly is! You are peeling. You will get throughfirst and be set free and go back to the girls. I shall be left herealone. It isn't fair. We both came the same day. Think of almost sixweeks lost from college! My first spring in this beautiful place! Itdoesn't mean so much to you, because you're a junior. You don't care."
Lila had withdrawn her hand under the pretext of picking up a case knifeto sharpen her pencil. Now though her lids were lowered as she hacked atthe stubby point, she was perfectly aware of the hopeful curiosity in thefreshman's side glance at her. Lila despised the habit of side glances.For the past few days she had felt increasing scorn of a childishnessthat sought to vary by quarrels the monotony of their imprisonment.Hadn't the girl learned yet that she--Lila Allan, president of the juniorliterary society--was not to be provoked into any undignified dispute bypuerile taunts?
"You don't care," repeated Ellen from her old position at the window. "Iguess you'd rather anyhow have all your time to write poetry instead ofstudying." She glanced around just in time to see Lila's lips set in agrimmer line as the lead in the short pencil snapped beneath a moreimpatient jab of the dull knife. She laughed teasingly.
"What's the use of writing all that stuff now? You're wearing out yourpencil fast. Aren't you afraid the paper will carry infection? Or will itbe fumigated? I think it is silly to bother about germs. Oh, dear!" Shebegan to drum again on the pane. "I'm so tired of this infirmary. There'snothing to do. I can't make up poetry. My eyes ache if I try to read."Here she paused, and Lila was aware of another side glance in herdirection.
"My eyes ache if I try to read," repeated Ellen slowly, "and there is anawfully interesting story over on the table." She stopped her drummingfor a moment to listen to the steady scribble behind her. The little facewith its round features so unlike Lila's delicate outlines took on adisconsolate expression. "Do your eyes ache when you try to read," for aninstant she hesitated while a mischievous spark of daring danced into hereyes. Then she added explosively, "Lila?"
She had done it. She had done it at last. Never before through all theweeks of imprisonment together had she ventured to call Miss Allan by herfirst name. A delightful tingle of apprehension crept up to the back ofher neck. She waited. Now surely something would happen.
But nothing happened except the continued scribble of pencil on paper inthe silence. Oh, dear! this was worse than she had expected. It was worsethan a scolding or a freezing or an awful squelching. It was the queerestthing that they were not even acquainted really after the many weeks.There was a shell around this junior all the time. It made Ellen feelmeaner and smaller and more insignificant every minute. The freshmanpressed her forehead wearily against the glass.
"Oh, look! There come the girls. They're your friends away down on thelawn. Miss Abbott, I think, and Miss Leigh, and Miss Sanders. See, see!The rollicking wind and the racing clouds! Their skirts blow. They holdon their tams. They are looking up at us. They are waving something.Maybe it is violets, don't you think? Once I found violets in March.Can't you smell the air almost? I'm going to open the window. I am, I am!Who's afraid of getting chilled?"
"I would advise you not to do anything so utterly foolhardy," spokeLila's frigid voice. A certain inflection in the tone made Ellen shrinkaway instinctively. For an instant she looked full into the serene,indifferent eyes, and her own seemed to flutter as if struggling againstthe contempt she saw there. Then with a defiant lift of her head shehurried to the writing table and seized the pencil which Lila had droppedupon rising to approach the window.
A few minutes later when the older girl turned from the greetings andmessages in pantomime with her friends below, she saw Ellen's rough headbending over a paper. It was a needlessly untidy head. During the weeksof close confinement and enforced companionship, she had felt her dislikesteadily growing. The girl was on her nerves. She was whollydisagreeable. Everything about her was displeasing, her carelessenunciation, queer little face, coarse clothes, impulsive, crude ways,even occasional mistakes in grammar. She told herself that the child hadno breeding, no manners, no sense of the fitness of things. There was noreason why she should admit her into the circle of her intimates merelybecause the two had been thrown together by the exigencies of an attackof scarlet fever. Such a fortuitous relation would be severed in theshortest possible time, completely and irremediably severed. Trust LilaAllan, president of the junior literary society, to manage that.Meanwhile she intended to leave the girl severely alone. Think of theimpudence of calling her Lila! Lila, indeed! And that hint about readingaloud! The incredible impertinence of it! And to appropriate her pencil!Atrocious!
But of course she would keep on being polite. She owed that to herself,to her position, to her self-respect. Accordingly Miss Allan busiedherself graciously about other matters till Ellen had finished her note,addressed an envelope, and advanced with it to the window.
She hesitated doubtfully, with one hand on the sash.
"It won't matter just this once," she said as if arguing, "somebody willpick it up and mail it for me. It concerns something important andprivate. People are silly about infection. I'm quite sure it won't matterjust this once." She paused this time with rather an anxious little sideglance toward Lila.
That young lady said nothing. She was engaged in contemplating with astudiously inexpressive countenance the stub of her precious and onlypencil. It needed sharpening again.
Ellen raised the window half an inch. "The doctor here is so foolish,"she commented with an injured air, "she's always bothering aboutinfection or contagion or whatever you call it. It isn't necessaryeither. I know a doctor at home and he told a woman to wrap up her littlegirl and bring her down to his office, and the little girl was peelingtoo. He knew it wouldn't do any harm even if she did go in the streetcar. He was sensible."
Lila smothered a sigh of long suffering as she reached for the case knifeagain.
"And I am so tired," insisted Ellen with fretful vehemence. "I am boredto death, and nobody amuses me, and my eyes ache when I try to read, andmy wrist won't peel, and all the other girls are enjoying themselves, andmy letter is awfully important and private, and mother will be so glad toreceive it, and my little sister will snatch it quick from thepostcarrier, and they'll all be glad, and there isn't the least bit ofdanger, and I'm going to do it." She flung the sash wide and glancedaround for an instant with a face in which reckless defiance wrestledwith a frightened wish to be dissuaded. "I'm going to do it," sherepeated, "I'm going to do it--Lila!"
Miss Allan raised her head with a politely controlled shiver. "Would youmind closing the window at your earliest convenience, Miss Bright?"
The younger girl gave her one look, then turned and leaning out over thesill sent the envelope fluttering downward till it rested square andwhite on the concrete walk far below. Lila shrugged her sh
oulder andfinished sharpening her pencil.
In the course of weary time she was set at liberty. Fair and sweet anddelicate in her fresh array she walked down the corridor in the centre ofan exultant crowd of friends. In listening to the babel of chatter andlaughter, she forgot utterly her companion in imprisonment. Just once shehappened to look back from the entangling arms of Bea and Berta andRobbie Belle, and caught sight of a forlorn little figure staring afterher from the shadows of the infirmary door. In the glow of her newfreedom and heart-warming affection, Lila nodded to her with such aradiant smile that Ellen blushed with joy. On her journey to her room shetold herself that Miss Allan liked her after all. It was a solitaryjourney, for Ellen had boarded in town till February. After moving intothe dormitory she had barely begun to make acquaintances before the ogreof fever had swooped down upon her and dragged her away to his den in theisolation ward.
The vision of that smile must have remained with her through the troubledweeks that followed; for one April evening in parlor J she ventured toinvite Miss Allan to dance. Beyond distant glimpses in the corridors andchapel, Lila had seen nothing of her fellow convalescent. To tell thetruth, she had taken pains to avoid any chance association. Once she hadfound hardly time to take refuge behind an ENGAGED sign before thedreaded little freshman came tiptoeing shyly into the alleyway. Anothertime when she spied the small face waiting with an expectant wistful halfsmile at the foot of the stairs she turned to retrace her steps as if shehad suddenly recalled an errand in another direction.
On this particular evening, Lila had been the guest of honor at a seniorbirthday table. The senior whose birthday was being celebrated was chiefeditor of the Monthly. She declared that she invited Lila because of therhymes that came in so handy to fill up several pages in the last numberof the magazine. As Lila, lovely in pale rose and blue and silver, sat atthe table gay with flowers and shaded candles, she told the story of howshe had written the verses in the infirmary. On her witty tongue thestubby pencil, the dull knife, and the teasing midget of an impudentfreshman made a delightfully humorous tale. Even the explosive "Lila!"and its accompanying side glance of terrified joy in the daring developedinto a picture that sent the seniors into tempests of laughter. Somehowshe did not care to mention the letter which Ellen had dropped out of thewindow.
After dinner Lila pressed on with the others to the dancing in parlor J.The applause and admiration surrounding her made her look her prettiestand talk her wittiest, for Lila's nature was always one that throve bestin an atmosphere of praise. She felt as if whirling through fairyland. Inthe midst of the gayety of music, lights, and circling figures, shelifted her head in gliding past the great mirror and beheld her ownradiant face smiling back at her from the flower-tinted throng. Just atthat moment through a rift in the throng she caught a glimpse of two bigtroubled eyes in a queer small face atop of a drooping ill-clad form.Half a minute later as she leaned breathless and glowing against themirror's gilt frame, she became aware of a timid touch on her arm.Turning quickly she saw Ellen beside her. Her smile faded to anexpression of formally polite and distant questioning as she drew herskirts a few inches away.
"Will you----" the freshman swallowed once, then pushed out the wordswith a desperate rush, "will you dance with me?"
"Oh, Miss Bright," exclaimed Lila in an overwhelmingly effusive manner,"I am so dreadfully sorry, but I regret to say that I am already engagedfor every number. Good-bye!" She slid her hand about her partner's waistand propelled her swiftly into the concealing vortex of waltzers.
The partner in question happened to be a certain lively and independentyoung person called Bea by her friends. "Lila Allan," she scolded as soonas she could steer their steps to a sheltered eddy in a corner, "why inthe world did you snub that poor child so unmercifully? After six weekstogether in the infirmary too! I'm downright ashamed of you. You ought tobe above snobbishness. And it isn't a point of snobbishness either. It isplain cruelty to children. Didn't you see how you hurt her? And the poorlittle thing has enough trouble without your adding to the burden."
"Trouble?" echoed Lila uneasily.
"Yes, trouble. Haven't you heard? Her little sister is desperately illwith scarlet fever. Infection conveyed in a letter, I understand. Atelegram may come for her any hour. And then when she tries to cheer up,you treat her so abominably! Lila, you are growing more and more spoiledevery day. People praise you too much. You were born with a silver spoonin your mouth. You've improved a lot since you first began to room withme, but still----"
Lila had vanished. Winding her swift way between the circling pairs, shehurried into the corridor where girls were strolling idly as they waitedfor the gong to summon them to chapel. Beyond the broad staircase Ellen'sdisconsolate little figure stood in the glare of the gas-jet over thebulletin-board.
Lila hastened toward her. "Miss Bright, oh, Miss Bright, I did not know.I am exceedingly sorry. You will keep me posted? If there is anythingthat I can do, of course--I feel--I feel--so guilty."
Ellen raised her face. Her mouth was trembling at the corners. "I sentthe letter," she said, "I'm waiting." She winked rapidly and her oddfeatures worked convulsively for a moment. "If--if they telegraph----"
"Miss Bright." It was the voice of a messenger girl who had that instantemerged from an adjacent apartment. "Will you step into the office atonce, if you please? There is a message----"
Ellen was gone like a flash. Lila walked across to the staircase and verydeliberately seated herself with her head resting against the banisters.It was there that Bea found her a few minutes later when the stream ofstudents was beginning to set toward the chapel doors.
Bea was startled. "Lila, what is it? You look like a ghost. Shall I getsome water?"
Lila opened her eyes. "I think that her little sister is dead," she said.
"Oh!" Bea clasped her hands in pity. "How can we help?"
"I think that I killed her," said Lila.
"What!" It was almost a shout. Then noticing that several girls turned tostare curiously in passing, Bea put out her hand. "Come, Lila, get up.It's time to go to chapel. You don't realize what you're saying."
She rose obediently in mechanical response to the gesture.
"It was my fault because I was the older and I knew the danger. She wasonly a freshman. She wanted me to persuade her not to drop that letterfrom the window. I could have kept her from feeling lonely. I made herreckless. It wasn't her fault. But now her little sister is dead."
"How do you know she is?" asked Bea.
"A message came."
"Hush!" They slipped into a pew near the rear of the chapel. During thereading of Scripture, Lila sat gazing blankly straight before her overthe rows of heads, dark and fair. As if in a dream she rose with theothers for the singing of the hymn. Still as though moving in a mist, shesank again into her seat and bowed her forehead upon the pew in front.While the rustling murmur was subsiding into a hush before the prayer,she stirred and lifting her face turned for one fleeting moment towardthe wide doors at the back. Ah! She raised her head higher to watch,motionless, breathless. The doors were noiselessly swinging shut behind agirl with a queer small face atop of an ill-clad little figure. But theface instead of being crumpled in grief was alight with joy; and thelittle figure advanced with a lilt and a swing, as if just freed from aburden.
The message had been a message of good tidings.
Lila watched the child slip exultantly into a convenient corner. Thenwith a sudden, swift movement the older girl dropped full upon her kneesand covered her eyes with her hands.
