Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe: a Story for Girls
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 16: Who Wrote It?
“It’s bad taste, anyway,” said Annabel Harmon.
“To call it by no worse name,” responded Elizabeth Darcy.
“Almost nothing can be worse than bad taste,” rejoined Annabel.
The two girls, at a table in the conversation room, were looking eagerly at the page of a newspaper.
“Why, what’s the trouble?” asked Polly, who had been standing near the window. “Has anybody had the bad taste to commit a murder, or burglary, or some other crime? I see that you have a yellowish journal there.”
The two, absorbed in their paper, did not reply, and Polly drew near them until she could read the headlines: “Is a College Education Worth While for Girls?” “Lowering of the Standard by a University Professor to meet the Demands of Woman.”
“Dear me!” cried Polly, “this does look interesting.”
“Yes,” responded Annabel, “read further and you will find it more so. You can take the paper for a few minutes. I’m glad that I happened to buy one in the Square when I came out from town.”
Polly sat down with the newspaper. Under the large headlines were others in smaller type that showed that the professor to whom reference was made was a Harvard professor, and then she began to read. Surely there was something very familiar in what followed. It purported to be the transcript of a few pages from the history note-book of a student at Radcliffe. It was all very familiar. Why, of course! Clarissa’s notes! No one who had ever gazed upon them could mistake the style. She remembered having read this very lecture last year when preparing for her examinations. Clarissa was always generous in lending her note-books, and Polly had had the use of this for a day or two. But what had seemed only funny within the covers of a note-book seemed very impertinent thus exposed to the gaze of every one who cared to buy a penny paper. Reading further, Polly learned that the article was copied from an obscure magazine to which the Radcliffe notes had been sent with a plaintive inquiry whether such lectures could greatly benefit woman.
“Poor Professor Z!” sighed Polly. “He certainly lectures in this style sometimes. For my own part, I used to enjoy the colloquialisms, and he used to give us so much besides that it isn’t fair to pillory him.”
“What do you think of Clarissa now?” asked Elizabeth Darcy.
“Clarissa?” repeated Polly. “What has she to do with it?”
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. “Most of us have seen Clarissa’s note-books; if she didn’t write this, who did?”
“I won’t say that this is not Clarissa’s style, I won’t even say that these are not her notes; but I will say that she didn’t print them.”
“I wish that I had your confidence in Clarissa.” Elizabeth spoke with an accent of pity. “You must admit that she loves to make fun of people.”
“She is not half as bad as I am,” rejoined Polly, stoutly defending her friend. “Why, I have even made fun of her, —that was before I knew her so well. But she bore me no malice. In fact, she never takes revenge, and there is malice in this article.”
“You admit that these are Clarissa’s notes, and yet you don’t think them malicious.”
The last speaker was Annabel, who had joined the group.
“Come, Miss Harmon, be fair; it is one thing to write nonsense intended only for one’s own eyes, and another to put it before the public. Clarissa, I know, did not have the notes published.” Then Polly turned away.
Polly was by no means comfortable as she left Fay House, and the better to disprove the accusation made by Elizabeth, she went to the stationer’s in the Square to buy a copy of the newspaper. It was the last one to be had. “It’s been in the greatest demand,” explained the attendant. “Some kind of a college article, I believe; I haven’t had time to look at it myself.”
Polly folded the paper and walked down Brattle Street. “I believe I’ll ask Clarissa point blank.” Polly had a slightly uncomfortable doubt as she thought of the article, and it happened, as it so often does happen in such cases, that when she met Clarissa she could not ask the question. “If she hasn’t heard, it would only disturb her,” was her excuse. Afterwards she was sorry that she had not at once gone to her.
Within twenty-four hours almost every one at Radcliffe had read the article. Those who did not own papers borrowed them, and the critics and partisans of Clarissa ranged themselves strongly on one side or the other. Some, while blaming Clarissa for letting her notes get into print, said that it was no more than Professor Z deserved, since the tone of his lectures had never been sufficiently academic. Others were glad that he was now absent on his Sabbatical year, for if he were lecturing in Cambridge they were sure that his wrath would have been pretty keenly felt. Ruth, of course, took Annabel Harmon’s view of the affair. Julia, while loath to think that Clarissa had done this in a spirit of malice, thought that she had allowed herself to be carried away by the spirit of fun, without realizing that the whole thing was a deflection from the straight line of honor. She and Pamela discussed the matter at some length, and very quickly agreed that the relation of a professor to a small class was a confidential relation, and that only an instructor who was on very good terms with his class would talk to them after the fashion of Professor Z. Consequently, to quote his direct language was like telling family secrets.
Yet with it all nobody dared speak to Clarissa. They quoted what this professor or that professor’s wife had said; how one had declared that nothing would induce him to lecture at Radcliffe, how another had termed this the natural result of trying to benefit women, —they would merely hold up their benefactors to ridicule, —and still no one dared reprove Clarissa. The Western girl wrapped herself in a forbidding manner, and not even Polly dared speak of the article or its effects.
But one day, turning the matter over in her mind, she came to a decision. “A party will be the very thing,” she said to herself, “and Clarissa shall give it. Ruth and Julia and Lois Forsaith, oh, yes, and Pamela, and two or three others, —as many as she can afford chairs for, —it will be the very thing.”
Clarissa’s room was in a small, neat house in a neat side street. Her landlady had other boarders, but she took a real interest in them all.
Clarissa’s room looked on a little yard filled with pear trees, and the children of the neighborhood played constantly under her windows. This did not disturb her, for her nerves were not near the surface. Sometimes she called the children to her room and gave them a treat of fruit or sweet things. Mrs. Freeman’s other boarders thought Clarissa rather frivolous. One of them was a timid Freshman who studied unremittingly. Two of the others were graduate students, delving into zoölogy, and other “mussy sciences” (Clarissa’s phraseology), and the fifth was an inoffensive Sophomore. The two graduates roomed together. Clarissa had the best room in the house, but the Freshman had a small room under the eaves. The Freshman sometimes complained that she had made a mistake, and that she should have had a room in a lodging-house where she could have boarded herself with the aid of a chafing-dish and gas stove.
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