Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe: a Story for Girls
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 21: A Fortunate Accident
One morning in January Lois entered Fay House with what Clarissa would have called a “long-drawn face,” and with traces of tears in her eyes. She had a letter in her hand, crumpled shapelessly.
The postman had given it to her as she was leaving her house in Newton, and she had been carrying it without realizing that she had it. Now, as she drew off her gloves, she saw the letter, and as she smoothed it out, again her eyes filled with tears.
To a certain extent the letter seemed like a death warrant, for it contained news that the relative who had been paying Lois’ tuition could do so no longer, and that not even the payment for the second half-year would be forthcoming. This to Lois meant that with the mid-years her Radcliffe work must end. Moreover, recent family troubles made it almost necessary that it should end. The required sum was not so very large, but for Lois it was absolutely unattainable. It was too late in the year for a scholarship award, and indeed the idea of holding a scholarship was distasteful to her. There was no one from whom she could borrow, no one to whom she was willing to confide her private affairs. She knew that there were schools in some of the smaller towns where she would be accepted as a teacher even without the college degree, and immediately she decided she would go to an agency to learn where there might be a vacancy.
Among all her classmates Julia was the only one to whom she would have been at all willing to confide her trouble, and yet Julia was the very one to whom she could not go, because Julia was the one who might have helped her. To have told Julia of her difficulty would have seemed to her too much like asking a favor—an impossible thing to one of her proud spirit.
Lois carried her burden without speaking of it for several days. She meant to say nothing until the mid-years were over. She intended to keep up her courage to the end. She studied all the harder, for she meant these mid-year examinations to be the best that she had ever had. She meant to reach the highest possible mark. For although she intended to return to college when she had saved enough money, she knew that happy day might yet be some distance away. One day soon after she had received the letter that had so disturbed her, Lois remained rather late at Fay House. She had been at work in the library, for the next day the examinations would begin, and it happened that the most important was to come on that first morning. At home that evening she would finish the review of a certain very important book. She felt that she had not yet given it sufficient attention, and she realized that much depended on her understanding two or three difficult chapters. Passing through the hall where groups of merry girls were coming out from some Freshman celebration in the Auditorium, Lois, with a head throbbing from hard study, decided to walk for a mile or two before taking the car. As she walked along trying to solve a problem that touched on her examination, forgetting for the time the more personal cares that had weighed her down lately, she turned into a side street that took her a little out of her course. In the spring and early autumn she was fond of this street, because of two or three old-fashioned gardens upon whose quaint flowers she loved to gaze. The street was lonely and the houses far apart, and Lois began to walk more rapidly. In the faint light, for it was now almost dark, Lois paused for a moment to look over the fence of one of the old gardens. Near a tall tree in the corner in summer there was a bed of lilies of the valley that she had often stopped to admire. Now as she leaned absent-mindedly on the fence for a minute, she thought that she heard a groan as of some one in pain. Hastily pushing open the gate she heard the sounds growing louder as she approached the house. There were no lights in the windows, but stepping bravely up on the little piazza she entered the half-open door. She stumbled as she entered, and reaching down she touched a warm, breathing face.
“Help me!” cried a faint voice, and then another deep groan. A faint light came from a back room, and Lois, quick-witted, hurried in there, and in a second returned with matches. When she had lit the gas-jet in the hall, she saw that the sufferer was an elderly woman whom she had often noticed in the garden, and had seen occasionally at Radcliffe functions. Lois was tall and strong, and the sufferer was slight, so without delay she lifted her to a couch in the sitting-room.
“It’s my foot,” moaned the sufferer.
“I’ll go for a doctor at once,” said Lois, “but first I must put on a cold compress. It’s evidently a bad sprain. There seem to be no bones broken,” she concluded, finishing her examination.
Stripping up a cover from a pillow in an easy-chair, and finding her way to the running water in the kitchen, Lois made the bandage and put it on with a professional air.
Few words had passed between them, but as she left the room, “Dr. Brown,” said the sick woman.
“Yes,” responded Lois, “I was going for him.”
It was not far to the physician’s house, and when he had examined the foot he pronounced it, as Lois had, merely a bad sprain.
“My maid won’t be back until eleven o’clock,” said the sick woman. “I let her go to Woburn.”
“I can get a nurse,” responded the doctor. “You mustn’t be left alone.”
“I won’t have a nurse about me. You’ve often heard me say that,” cried Miss Ambrose petulantly.
“But you can’t be left alone,” rejoined the doctor firmly.
Miss Ambrose looked at Lois appealingly.
“Let me stay with you!” exclaimed Lois impulsively, forgetting her examinations, forgetting the important review, forgetting everything but the fact that before her lay a suffering human being whom she might help.
“Would I be of use?” she asked, when the doctor did not immediately reply.
“Of use!” he exclaimed. “I should say so; a girl who knows just what to do with a sprained ankle.”
So it was arranged that a telegram at Miss Ambrose’s expense should be sent to Lois’ family, saying that she would stay all night, and the physician’s name, Lois knew, would assure her mother that it was a case of necessity. “Illness of a friend,” he had put in the telegram, leaving it to Lois to make explanations when she reached home.
After the doctor left, the sick woman lay silent with her eyes closed—whether half asleep or not Lois could not tell. She had refused Lois’ offer of assistance in putting her to bed, saying that she would be more comfortable on the lounge until her maid should come.
As Lois watched her lying there, her regular features outlined against the pillow, her pale face looking even paler, surrounded with a mass of sandy, gray-streaked hair, the strangeness of the situation occurred to her, as it had not at first. Then she began to realize that she ought not to play Good Samaritan at this time, for it came back to her with overpowering force that this was the eve of an examination, that she really depended on these last few hours of review. Well! there was no reason why she should not study here, though the light was rather dim.
As she turned toward the door to bring her books from a table in the hall, Miss Ambrose started.
“Don’t leave me!” she cried.
“No, no, indeed.” Lois had quickly returned with the book under her arm.
“You are a student,” said the invalid, now wide awake. “I have often seen you pass with your books under your arm. Where is your school?”
“It’s Radcliffe.”
“Oh, how I envy you!” and Miss Ambrose sighed. “When I was your age I would have given all—”
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