Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe: a Story for Girls
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 9: Two Catastrophes
One Monday soon after the mid-years Julia and Elizabeth were walking down Garden Street in the face of a rather sharp wind. Elizabeth, like all who are not Boston bred, complained of the spring winds as if they were more vicious than in her native New Jersey. Passing the old graveyard, she laughingly reminded Julia that Longfellow’s “dust is in her beautiful eyes,” applied to one who lay buried within the First Parish enclosure, and that some wit had commented that dust was always in some one’s eyes in Cambridge.
“Yet it’s an interesting old graveyard,” said Julia, “and sometime I hope to go inside and study some of the inscriptions.”
“We all mean to do those things,” responded Elizabeth, “when we are Freshmen. I did myself last year. Christ Church is almost next door to Fay House, and it’s one of the many that Washington honored. But I doubt if you go within it before your Senior year, unless you make it your regular church. But, dear me! What is that?”
A white shower was falling at their feet, and, looking up, the two saw Pamela, the very picture of despair. The three girls were almost in front of the old Dane Law School, now given up to the uses of the Co-operative Society, and the sidewalk was slightly glazed with ice. The wind, blowing strong in the faces of Julia and Elizabeth, had apparently carried the slight figure of Pamela before it. Evidently, too, she had been shopping at some Harvard Square grocer’s, and in her efforts to keep herself from slipping, her black woollen bag had turned over, and its contents were scattered. If the grocer had tied up tightly that five-pound paper bag of granulated sugar there might have been no catastrophe; but in some way the string had loosened, and Pamela stood helpless, as the stream of sugar poured itself out on the sidewalk under the very eyes of the fastidious Elizabeth Darcy. Elizabeth passed on with a gesture of annoyance. On the steps of the Co-operative she had seen two or three youths whom she knew, and she did not intend to make herself one of a ridiculous group. Julia did not follow her, as she swept up the steps of the Co-operative. Nor did the Harvard youths accompany her. Elizabeth was accustomed to attention; and though these three raised their hats politely, and although one stepped forward to open the door, she noticed that the others hastened toward Julia.
Julia, too, had recognized the young men before she began to help Pamela, and had she acted on impulse, she might have passed on with Elizabeth, for she knew that Philip was only too ready to criticise anything strange in the appearance of a Radcliffe girl. But Julia would not have been Julia had she deserted Pamela.
The bag itself had slipped from the Vermont girl’s hands, and a note-book or two, and a number of loose sheets lay on the sidewalk. To save these papers from a coming gust, Philip and Will rushed forward. Had Julia not been there they might have hesitated to intrude on Pamela. Yet their natural chivalry would probably have triumphed.
“Never mind the sugar,” whispered Julia to Pamela, and the young men as politely ignored it.
Julia, then picking up the bag, replaced the papers and note-books that had been gathered up. Pamela, thoroughly abashed, tried to take the bag from her friend, with a feeble “Let me do it,” but Julia, finishing her self-imposed task, introduced Philip and Will to Pamela.
“We’re going to the car office,” she replied in answer to Philip’s question. Therefore, across the Square, accompanied by the two young men, Pamela and Julia threaded their way between two lines of electric cars.
“We’re evidently dismissed,” said Philip, as Julia bade them good-bye at the office; and after a word or two more, Will and he went back in the direction of the Yard.
“That was rather plucky in Julia, wasn’t it?” said Will.
“What?” asked Philip, who sometimes seemed to have the obtuseness of his sister.
“Why, the way she tried to make that girl feel comfortable—I didn’t catch her name. But she’s evidently a shy creature, and she had got herself into a scrape with all that sugar on the sidewalk.”
“I thought that she was rather bright-looking,” responded Philip, “though her clothes were pretty freakish.”
“Well, I fancy we were rather in the way as long as we couldn’t help much. Julia has probably carried the girl home with her. Did she open her mouth to you?”
“Who, Julia?”
“No, the other girl. I didn’t hear her say a word.”
“Oh, she said ‘yes’ once and ‘no’ twice,” replied Philip, laughing.
“Ah!” sighed Pamela, standing beside Julia, “I hope I’ll never see any sugar again. I’m not bound to do errands for Miss Batson.” Then, as Julia looked puzzled, she began to explain. “Miss Batson is my—” she hesitated. She could not truthfully say “landlady,” so she tried again. “She has the house where I live. She has boarders, and sometimes I do errands for her. It seems easy to carry her things in my bag, but to-day—”
“Were you on your way home?” interposed Julia, to draw her mind from the recent catastrophe.
“No, I was going to Fay House to study.”
“Well, then, please come home with me. Ruth and I are always at home Mondays, but you have never called on us.”
Pamela hesitated. Every hour counted in her scheme of work. But the temptation was strong, and she went on with Julia. Although the latter remembered that Pamela had never invited her to call, she realized that she herself might have done various little things to make the way pleasanter for one who was so evidently alone. She could see that Pamela would not make friends easily, and she had noticed her at none of the college affairs since that first Idler.
“College ought to be broadening,” thought Julia, “and yet I believe that it has made me extraordinarily selfish. I haven’t the least excuse to offer for neglecting Pamela, for I saw at the beginning of the term that she would need a friend.”
Pamela’s eye brightened as she stood on the threshold of Julia’s pretty room. “How lovely it is!” she exclaimed.
The open fire blazing on the hearth certainly gave the room a cheerful aspect, and the little tea-table added to the homelikeness of the scene. Poor Pamela sighed, the comfort appealed to her. There on the table lay several of the newest books, —one a volume of criticism that had attracted great attention; another, and the best of all in Pamela’s eyes, a history of Italian Art, very fully illustrated. She recognized the cover, and could hardly keep her hands from it.
The general tone of the draperies was old blue, always a restful color when not used in excess. The curtains were of a soft rep in this shade, and beneath them were spotted muslin short blinds. Two of the easy-chairs were covered in old blue corduroy, and a third, of soft brown ooze leather, was particularly inviting. There were two or three small water-colors hanging there, but the pictures on the wall were chiefly photographs from the old masters. There were three Rembrandt heads, life-size, and a Madonna of Botticelli, as well as his head of a Florentine lady. A Turner etching hung on the little space at the edge of the mantle, and two or three etchings of minor importance closed the list of pictures. Julia’s piano filled one recess, and a bookcase that she had had made especially for the room filled the other.
Before Pamela could protest that she intended to stay but a few minutes, she found herself with hat and coat off, cosily seated before the fire. Julia flung herself on the divan between the windows.
“I really feel tired! That wind was very wearing. After all, home is a good place on a day like this. I will have the tea sent up before four o’clock, or rather the hot water, for I make the tea myself. Oh, here is Ruth! Do like a good girl touch the bell. I like to start with the water hot,” explained Julia, filling her kettle with water from Mrs. Colton’s kitchen. With the aid of the alcohol lamp the water soon boiled. Then putting three coverfuls of tea from the caddy into a china teapot, she covered the teapot with an embroidered cozy.
“Please notice,” cried Ruth, “our silver caddy. An old grand-aunt of mine presented it to me in her delight that we were to have a tea-table. She had feared that college would destroy our domestic tastes.”
“Yes,” added Julia, “we have made a great impression on our relatives by demanding things for our tea-table. When they asked what we wished for our rooms they evidently expected us to say dictionaries or other books. But here is a fascinating set of spoons from my cousin Brenda—every handle different; and Aunt Anna gave me this biscuit jar, and Edith Blair worked these doilies.”
“Is that a Tanagra figure?” asked Pamela abruptly, pointing to the bookcase. “How I envy you!”
“Take it down,” said Julia, “if you wish to examine it close at hand, although it’s only a replica,” she added apologetically.
“Oh, may I?” exclaimed Pamela, lifting it from the broad top of the bookcase. And while the conversation flowed on she examined the figurine, fondly noting every graceful line.
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