"How old are you, please?" she asked. Martha wearily announced that she was twenty-one. She was conscious of its being a terribly ordinary age. The palm-reader nodded. "Ah!" she said easily. "Well, come to me again in a year or two. I can"t really tell much now."
Martha gasped at her. "You can"t _tell_ much!"
The palm-reader took her hand again. "There"s nothing much to tell!"
she explained. "The hand isn"t really developed yet--it"s the opposite from the last young lady"s, you might say."
She became conscious of a cold silence through the room, and added a few details. "There"s a good general ability; no particular line of talent, I should say; orderly, regular habits; a very kind heart; I can"t see any events in particular; you"ve led a very quiet life, I should say; fond of reading; I shouldn"t say you"d met many people or travelled much"--she scrutinized the hand more closely--"you"ll probably develop a strong religious feeling--"
She stopped and smiled deprecatingly. "It is really impossible to say very much," she said, "just now. It"s what we call an immature hand!"
For months after that Martha woke in the night and tried to forget the nightmare of a terrible figure that led her to an amphitheatre of grinning enemies, and leered at her: _It"s what we call an Immature Hand!_ She could have suppressed the others, but the Sutton twins were beyond earthly and human suppression. It seemed to her that she never met them or pa.s.sed them in a corridor without hearing their jovial a.s.surance: "Oh, Martha Williams is all right! Why, the idea! She"s as kind a girl as ever lived--she"s nothing like that story. Gracious, no! She"s never been to Paris--she lives in Portland. Why, her father"s a Sunday School Superintendent! Oh, bother! She"s as good as Alberta May, every bit! She has a strong religious--" and somebody pa.s.sed on, a.s.sured--heavens, perhaps admiring her character! At such times Martha would read furiously in her French novels or regard the skull pensively or sit up all night, which annoyed her room-mate and the lady-in-charge. Her room-mate was an absolutely unimportant person, and does not come into the story at all.
It is now time to revert to the Twins. When they appeared in the house, two solemn-eyed, pigtailed imps from Buffalo, they were packed away together in a double room on the third floor, and except for their amazing resemblance, were absolutely unnoted. The matron uneasily fancied a certain undue disturbance on the third floor, the evening of their arrival, but on going to that level she found all as still as the grave, and immediately went back downstairs. It is only due to her, however, to say that she never again made such an error.
From that time on any abnormal quiet in the house was to her as the trumpet to the war-horse; and she mounted unerringly to the all-too-certain scene of action. Their plans for the first year were rather crude, though astonishingly effective at the time. It was they who invented the paper bag of water dropped from the fourth floor to burst far below, and waken the house with the most ghastly hollow explosion; it was they who let a pair of scissors down two flights to tap against the pane of an unfortunate enemy in the senior cla.s.s, and send her into convulsions of nervous and, as they said, guilty fear.
It was they who stuck new caramels to their door-k.n.o.b, and oblivious to the matron"s admonitions of the hour, waited till in exasperation she seized the k.n.o.b, when they met her disgust with soap and apologies; it was they who left the gas brightly burning and the door temptingly ajar at 10.15, so that the long-suffering woman pounced upon them with just recrimination, only to find her stored-up wrath directed against two night-gowned figures bowed over their little white beds, as it were two Infant Samuels. It is doubtful if a devotional exercise ever before or since has roused such mingled feelings in the bosom of the chance spectator.
It was they who beyond a shadow of doubt won the basket-ball game for the freshmen--an unprecedented victory--by their marvellous intuition of each other"s intentions and their manner of being everywhere at once and playing into each other"s hands with an uncanny certainty.
This gave them position and weight among their mates, which they duly appreciated. They were the recognized jesters of the cla.s.s, and their merry, homely faces were sure of answering grins wherever they appeared.
When they returned soph.o.m.ore year more alike than ever, with happy plans for the best double room on the second floor, they were met by quite another kind of grin: its owner, Mrs. Harrow, would have perhaps described it as firm and pleasant--the Twins referred to it bitterly as hypocritical and disgusting.
"No, Martha, no. It"s no use to coax me--I can"t have it. I cannot go through another such year. If you wish to remain in the house, you must separate. You can have No. 10 with Alberta Bunting, and Kate can go in with Margaret--she says she is perfectly willing, rather than give up the room, and Helen is not coming back till next year. Now, I don"t want to have to argue about it; I think you are better apart."
No one ever accused Mrs. Harrow of tact. Her placid firmness was almost the most exasperating thing about her. Her decisions, if apparently somewhat feather-beddish, ranked, nevertheless, with those of the Medes and Persians, and the Twins walked haughtily away--beaten but defiant.
Of course it never occurred to them to leave the house, and Kate, after a time, grew quite contented, for Miss Pattison was eminently pleasant and tactful, kept the room in beautiful order, and spent a great deal of time in the Dewey with her sister, an instructor in the college, and her great friend Cornelia Burt, who was off the campus.
This left the room to the Twins, who were almost as much together as of yore. But Martha was in quite another case. In her the insult of a dictated separation rankled continually, and her hitherto mild contempt for Mrs. Harrow deepened into a positively appalling enmity.
Circ.u.mstances unfortunately a.s.sisted her feeling, for beyond a doubt Alberta May Bunting was not adapted to her new room-mate.
She was a wholesome, kindly creature, with high principles and no particular waist-line. She drank a great deal of milk, and was a source of great relief to her teachers, her recitations being practically perfect. From her soph.o.m.ore year she had been wildly, if solidly, addicted to zoology, and to her, after hours spent in the successful chase of the doomed insect, the gra.s.shopper was literally a burden, for she slew him by the basketful. She rendered the surrounding territory frogless in her zeal for laboratory practice, and in her senior year it was rumored that stray cats fled at her approach: "She"ll cut me up in my sleep," said Martha, gloomily, "and soak me in formaline in the bath-tub--the idiot!"
For, although the "h"Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day-and-the-terror-that- walketh-by-night," as Martha Williams, in a burst of inspiration, had named her, could not, of course, have known it, Sutton M., as she was most commonly called, loathed and despised bugs, reptiles, and crawling and dismembered things generally, more than aught else beside. She regarded an interest in such things as an indication of mild insanity, and as a characteristic of Alberta May"s such a predilection a.s.sumed the proportions of a malignant insult.
"It"s bad enough to have her drink milk like a cow, and eat graham crackers like a--like a _steam-engine_," she confided to her sympathetic sister, "and smell like a whole biological laboratory, and glower at me, and bobble her head like a China image whenever I open my mouth, and call me Mottha, which I despise, and say, "Why, the _idea_! Why, Mottha, the _idea_! What _do_ you _mean_, Mottha?"
without putting little bottles of Things all around, and my having to upset them. My gym suit made me sick to put on for a week because I upset some nasty little claws all pickled in something per cent.
alcohol on the sleeve, and I kept thinking the legs were walking on me--ugh! they were leggy claws!"
The h"Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day had fondly hoped that Alberta would "do Martha Sutton a world of good," because of her exemplary, regular habits and her calm, sensible nature, but this consummation, though devoutly to be wished, was fated never to be witnessed. Everyone heard the wails and gibes of Sutton M., but to few or none were the woes of Alberta May made known. But that she must have had them, her att.i.tude at the time of the crisis conclusively proved.
The Twins, in the course of their mysterious loitering, overheard a somewhat sentimental discussion between Evelyn Lyon and an extremely stiff and correct young man from Amherst, as to whether chivalry and openly expressed devotion to the fair were not disappearing from the earth. "Men like shirt-waists and golf-shoes," Evelyn had been heard to murmur, with a glance at her fluffy chiffon and bronze slippers, and the senior had protested that they did not, and that emotion, if controlled, was as deep as in the balcony-serenade days. "In fact,"
said he, finally, "Estabrook and I will serenade you Wednesday night."
"You would never dare," said Evelyn, with a glance at his eye-gla.s.ses and collar, which for height and circ.u.mference might have been a cuff.
"You"d be afraid the girls would laugh." The senior looked nettled.
"Expect us at ten on Wednesday next," said he. "It won"t necessarily be the Glee and Banjo Club, you understand, but it will be a real, old-fashioned serenade." Then, as Evelyn smiled maliciously, he added, "Only you must appear at the cas.e.m.e.nt, and throw flowers, you know--that"s what they did." Evelyn frowned, but agreed. "At the end of the song, I will," she said, with visions of the night-watchman hasting to the scene.
The Twins were unaccountably strolling about as the senior left the house, and wondered with great distinctness and repet.i.tion why on earth Evelyn should say she"d be in 14 at the front when of course she"d be in the East corner on the first floor. "She has some game up," shrieked Martha, and Kate called back, "Of course she has--some one will be awfully left, that"s all!"
The senior listened, grinned, muttered that women told everything they knew, and went his way. On next Wednesday night, the entire house being congregated in the hall near No. 14, where Evelyn, not to be found wanting in case they _should_ get through a verse, was sorting carnations, a husky burst of song enlivened the East corner, a mandolin and a guitar having raced through a confused prelude under the spur of a youth hopping with nervousness and sputtering as he punched the mandolin-player: "Hang it all, Pete, get along, get along!
He"ll be here in a minute--whoop it up, can"t you?"
A m.u.f.fled baritone began, standing so close to the window with a light in it that its owner could have touched the sill with his shoulder:
Last night the nightingale waked me, Last night when all was--
The shade went up, the window followed, and the eyes of the musicians beheld, below an audience of house-maids, the only people at present on that side of the house, an enormous woman, with gray hair in curling-kids, and a blanket-wrapper which added to her size, grasping a lamp in her hand and regarding them with a mingling of amazement, irritation, and authority that caused their blood to curdle and their voices to cease. Pattering feet, a lantern turned on them, and a voice: ""Ere, "ere, what you doing? H"all h"off the campus after ten--get along, now!" completed their confusion, and they left, with an attempt at dignity and a slowness which they had occasion to curse; for as they pa.s.sed the front of the house, from out of the air above their heads, apparently, two sweet and boyish voices, a first and second soprano, lifted up to the fresh October sky an ancient and beautiful hymn:
Some_times_ a _light_ sur_pri_ses The _Chris_tian _while_ he _sings_, It _is_--
A window banged forcibly, and the minstrels stood upon no order but fled to their carriage and rattled out of town.
Evelyn Lyon, with set teeth and artistically loosened hair, rushed down the hall behind Martha Sutton, who made the room she was aiming for, slammed the door, realized that the key was lost, and dragged the first piece of furniture that came to hand against it. This was Alberta May"s desk, and upon it were the collected results of her vacation work at Wood"s Holl. Six jars upset under the impact of Evelyn"s weight, a dozen mounted cross-sections jingled in the dark, a pint bottle of ink soaked a thick and beautifully ill.u.s.trated note-book; and as the Terror-that-walketh-by-night headed Evelyn to her door and mounted a flight to quell the rising tumult, Sutton M., with a hysterical sob, for she was tingling with a delicious excitement, huddled the desk back into the corner, hoped none of the bugs were around the floor, and dropped into bed, wondering how ever Alberta May could sleep through such a night.
And now--though perhaps you may have imagined that there was never going to be any story--now we are coming to it, and though it is short, all the characters appear. Alberta May, with an ugly brick-red flush, told Sutton M. that she need never speak to her again, for no answer would be forthcoming, and that she must have her things out of the room before night. Martha was really horribly frightened, and begged to be allowed to copy the note-book and hire some one to make the slides and re-pickle the scattered Things; but Alberta May merely shook her head, replied that she accepted apologies but could not speak again, and kept her word, for she never noticed Martha from then till the 22d of June.
The h"Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day gave Martha an address that reduced her to a pulp, and having sent the Twins off to cry in each other"s arms till dinner-time and got the doctor for Evelyn, who had sprained her ankle in the rush, she sat down to a cup of tea and council.
To her entered Biscuits, and they talked of odds and ends till Mrs.
Harrow had grown a little calm. The girls in the house accused Biscuits of a hypocritical and unnatural interest in the h"Arrow: Biscuits denied this, alleging that she was merely ordinarily courteous and saw no occasion for treating her like a dog, which somewhat strong language was addressed with intention to a few of her friends who certainly did not display any undue consideration in their manner to the lady in question. She was wont to add calmly that she saw no sense in having those in authority hate you when a little politeness would so easily prevent it. And many times had she successfully interceded for the offender and gained seats for guests and obtained the parlor for dancing purposes on nights not mentioned in the bond. On these accounts she made an unusually fine house president in her senior year, and though as a soph.o.m.ore she had been but suspiciously regarded by that officer, she made as firm a bond as is perhaps possible between powers so hostile as those with which she struggled.
To-day she listened sympathetically as Mrs. Harrow held forth, concluding with,--
"Now, Bertha, something _must_ be done. I hate dreadfully to make a change, so early in the year, too, but Alberta is decided, and says that she will leave the house to-morrow unless Martha leaves to-night.
And Alberta is perfectly justified: n.o.body could be expected to put up with it. I don"t know whom to put her with: she certainly can"t be trusted with her friends, and I can"t feel that I have any right to put her anywhere else. I hate to have to admit that I can"t manage them--Miss Roberts insists that they"re fine girls and will outgrow it all, and I have great respect for her opinion, and yet--think of that disgraceful performance last night! It would have done credit to a boarding-school! I was so disgusted--"
"Yes, indeed, and I"ve talked to them, Mrs. Harrow, and told them just how the house feels about it, but don"t you think that it was rather boarding-schoolish in Evelyn? She started it all, you know."
"Oh, well, of course. Evelyn shouldn"t have--but then she is a good, quiet girl, and--Oh, not that I would excuse her!"
"Certainly not," said Biscuits, briskly. This was good management on her part, for Evelyn had one friend in the house to the Twins" ten, though a favorite with Mrs. Harrow.
"Now, Mrs. Harrow, I"ve got an idea, and truly, I think it would work," she added persuasively. When she had unfolded the idea, the lady-in-charge could hardly believe her ears.
"Why, Bertha Kitts, you must be crazy! Nothing could induce me to think of it for a moment--nothing! It would be the worst possible influence!"
Biscuits argued gently. Her three years of consistent good sense and politeness stood in her favor, and though Mrs. Harrow had no sense of humor whatever, she was enabled to perceive a certain poetic justice in the plan set before her.
"You know, Mrs. Harrow," she concluded, "that at bottom they"re both nice girls! They"re awfully irritating at times, and of course you feel that they"ve both occasioned a great deal of trouble; but they"re both honorable, and I"m sure it will be all right: truly, I"d be willing to take the responsibility--if I can get them to consent to it!"
"Very well," said Mrs. Harrow, unwillingly, "you know them both better than I do, Bertha, of course, and it certainly couldn"t be any worse than it is! But at the first outbreak I shall take the matter into my own hands, and act very severely, if necessary!"
Biscuits went directly upstairs and sought out Martha Williams, who lounged on the couch with Loti in her hand and a bag of chocolate peppermints in her lap. Her room-mate, observing that Biscuits glanced at the clock as she entered, murmured something about getting a History note-book and obligingly disappeared.
"That"s a good harmless creature," observed Biscuits, approvingly.
"Yes, she"s in very good training," the creature"s room-mate returned.
"Have a peppermint?"
"Pity _she_ can"t room with Alberta May," said Biscuits, lightly; "_she"d_ give her no trouble!"