CHAPTER XVIII
INTO PARADISE--AND OUT
It was a glorious summer twilight. The air was sweet with the odor oflilacs and honeysuckle. One by one the stars shone softly out in thevelvet sky, across which troops of swallows swooped and darted,twittering softly on the wing. Near the western horizon the golden glowof sunset still lingered. It was a night for poets to sing of, a nightto revel in and to remember; but it was assuredly not a night for study.Gaslight heated one's room to the boiling point. Closed windows meantsuffocation; open ones--since there are no screens in the Hardingboarding house--let in troops of fluttering moths and burly June-bugs.
"And the moral of that is, work while it is yet light," proclaimed MaryBrooks, ringing her bicycle bell suggestively.
There was a sudden commotion on the piazza and then Betty's clear voicerose above the tumult. "We won it, one up! Isn't that fine? Oh no, notthe singles; we go on with them to-morrow, but I can't possibly win. Oh,I'm so hot!"
Eleanor Watson smiled grimly as these speeches floated up to her frombelow. She had been lounging all the breathless afternoon, trying vainlyto get rid of a headache; and the next day's lessons were still to belearned.
"Ouch, how I hate June-bugs," she muttered, stopping for the fifth timein as many minutes to drive out a buzzing intruder. She had just gottenone out when another flew straight at her unperceived and tangledhimself in her hair. That was the limit of endurance. With one swiftmovement Eleanor turned off the gas, with another she pulled down herhair and released the prisoned beetle. Then she twisted up the soft coilagain in the dark and went out into the sweet spring dusk.
At the next corner she gave an angry little exclamation and turned backtoward the house. The girls had deserted the piazza before she camedown, and now the only light seemed to be in Betty's room. Every windowthere was shut, so it was no use to call. Eleanor climbed the stairs andknocked. Katherine and Betty were just starting for a trolley ride, tocool off the champion, Katherine explained; but Helen was going to be inall the evening.
"I pity you from the bottom of my heart," said Eleanor, "but if you arereally going to be here would you tell Lil Day when she comes that Ihave an awful headache and have gone off--that I'll see her to-morrow. Icould go down there, but if she's in, her room will be fuller ofJune-bugs than mine. Hear them slam against that glass!" She turned toBetty stiffly. "I congratulate you on your victory," she said.
"Oh thank you!" answered Betty eagerly. "Christy did most of it.Would--won't you come out with us?"
"No, thank you. I feel like being all alone. I'm going down for atwilight row on Paradise."
"You'll get malaria," said Katherine.
"You'll catch cold, too, in that thin dress," added Helen.
"I don't mind, if only I don't see any June-bugs," answered Eleanor, "orany girls," she added under her breath, when she had gained the lowerhall.
The quickest way to Paradise was through the campus, but Eleanor chosean unfrequented back street, too ugly to attract the parties of girlswho swarmed over the college grounds, looking like huge white moths asthey flitted about under the trees. She walked rapidly, trying to escapethought in activity; but the thoughts ill-naturedly kept pace with her.As everybody who came in contact with Eleanor Watson was sure to remark,she was a girl brimful of strong possibilities both for good and evil;and to-night these were all awake and warring. Her year of bondage atcollege was nearly over. Only the day before she had received a letterfrom Judge Watson, coldly courteous, like all his epistles to hisrebellious daughter, inquiring if it was her wish to return to Hardinganother year, and in the same mail had come an invitation from her aunt,asking her to spend the following winter in New York. Eleanor shrewdlyguessed that in spite of her father's disapproval of his sister'scareless frivolity, he would allow her to accept this invitation, forthe obvious relief it would bring to himself and the second Mrs. Watson.He was fond of her, that she did not for a moment question, and hehonestly wished her best good; but he did not want her in his house inher present mood.
"For which I don't in the least blame him," thought Eleanor.
She had started to answer his letter immediately, as he had wished, andthen had hesitated and delayed, so that the decision involved in herreply was still before her. And yet why should she hesitate? She did notlike Harding college; she had kept the letter of her agreement to staythere for one year; surely she was free now to do as shepleased--indeed, her father had said as much. But what did sheplease--that was a point that, unaccountably, she could not settle.Lately something had changed her attitude toward the life at Harding.Perhaps it was the afternoon with Miss Ferris, with the perception ithad brought of aims and ideals as foreign to the ambitious schemes withwhich she had begun the year as to the angry indifference in which shewas finishing it. Perhaps, as poor Helen had suggested, it was themelting loveliness of spring term. At any rate, as she heard the girlsmaking their plans for the next year, squabbling amiably over the meritsof the various campus houses, choosing roommates, bargaining forfurniture, even securing partners for the commencement festivities stillthree years off, an unexplainable longing to stay on and finish the fouryears' drama with the rest had seized upon Eleanor. But each time itcame she had stifled it, reminding herself sternly that for her the fouryears held no pleasant possibilities; she had thrown away herchance--had neglected her work, alienated her friends, disappointedevery one, and most of all herself. There was nothing left for her nowbut to go away beaten--not outwardly, for she still flattered herselfthat she had proved both to students and faculty her ability to make avery brilliant record at Harding had she been so inclined, and even hersuperiority to the drudgery of the routine work and the childishrecreations. But in her heart of hearts Eleanor knew that this verydisinclination to make the most of her opportunities, this fanciedsuperiority to requirements that jarred on her undisciplined, haphazardtraining, was failure far more absolute and inexcusable than if dulnessor any other sort of real inability to meet the requirements of thecollege life had been at the bottom of it. Her father would know it too,if the matter ever came to his notice; and her brother Jim, who wasmaking such a splendid record at Cornell--he would know that, as BettyWales had said once, quoting her sister's friend, "Every nice girl likescollege, though each has a different reason." Well, Jim had thought fortwo years that she was a failure. Eleanor gulped hard to keep back thetears; she had meant to be everything to Jim, and she was only anannoyance.
It was almost dark by the time she reached the landing. A noisy crowd ofgirls, who had evidently been out with their supper, were just comingin. They exclaimed in astonishment when her canoe shot out from theboat-house.
"It's awfully hard to see your way," called one officious damsel.
"I can see in the dark like an owl," sang back Eleanor, her good-humorrestored the instant her paddle touched water,--for boating was her onepassion.
Ah, but it was lovely on the river! She glided around the point of anisland and was alone at last, with the stars, the soft, grape-scentedbreezes, and the dark water. She pulled up the stream with long, swiftstrokes, and then, where the trees hung low over the still water, shedropped the paddle, and slipping into the bottom of the canoe, leanedback against a cushioned seat and drank in the beauty of the darknessand solitude. She had never been out on Paradise River at night. "And Ishall never come again except at night," she resolved, breathing deep ofthe damp, soft air. Malaria--who cared for that? And when she was coldshe could paddle a little and be warm again in a moment.
Suddenly she heard voices and saw two shapes moving slowly along thepath on the bank.
"Oh, do hurry, Margaret," said one. "I told her I'd be there by eight.Besides, it's awfully dark and creepy here."
"I tell you I can't hurry, Lil," returned the other. "I turned my ankleterribly back there, and I must sit down and rest, creeps or no creeps."
"Oh, very well," agreed the other voice grudgingly, and the shapes sankdown on a knoll close to the water's edge.
Elea
nor had recognized them instantly; they were her sophomore friend,Lilian Day, and Margaret Payson, a junior whom Eleanor greatly admired.Her first impulse was to call out and offer to take the girls back inher canoe. Then she remembered that the little craft would hold only twowith safety, that the girls would perhaps be startled if she spoke tothem, and also that she had come down to Paradise largely to escapeLil's importunate demands that she spend a month of her vacation at theDay camp in the Adirondacks. So, certain that they would never noticeher in the darkness and the thick shadows, she lay still in the bottomof her boat and waited for them to go on.
"It's a pity about her, isn't it?" said Miss Payson, after she hadrubbed her ankle for a while in silence.
"About whom?" inquired Lilian crossly.
"Why, Eleanor Watson; you just spoke of having an engagement with her.She seems to have been a general failure here."
Eleanor started at the sound of her own name, then lay tense and rigid,waiting for Lilian's answer. She knew it was not honorable to listen,and she certainly did not care to do so; but if she cried out now, afterhaving kept silent so long, Lilian, who was absurdly nervous in thedark, might be seriously frightened. Perhaps she would disagree andchange the subject. But no----
"Yes, a complete failure," repeated Lilian distinctly. "Isn't it queer?She's really very clever, you know, and awfully amusing, besides beingso amazingly beautiful. But there is a little footless streak ofcontrariness in her--we noticed it at boarding-school,--and it seems tohave completely spoiled her."
"It is queer, if she is all that you say. Perhaps next year she'llbe----"
"Oh, she isn't coming back next year," broke in Lilian. "She hates ithere, you know, and she sees that she's made a mess of it, too, thoughshe wouldn't admit it in a torture chamber. She thinks she has shownthat college is beneath her talents, I suppose."
"Little goose! Is she so talented?"
"Yes, indeed. She sings beautifully and plays the guitar ratherwell--she'd surely have made one of the musical clubs next year--and shecan act, and write clever little stories. Oh, she'd have walked intoeverything going all right, if she hadn't been such a goose--muddled herwork and been generally offish and horrid."
"Too bad," said Miss Payson, rising with a groan. "Who do you think arethe bright and shining stars among the freshmen, Lil?"
"Why Marion Lustig for literary ability, of course, and Emily Davis forstunts and Christy Mason for general all-around fineness, andsocially--oh, let me think--the B's, I should say, and--I forget hername--the little girl that Dottie King is so fond of. Here, take my arm,Margaret. You've got to get home some way, you know."
Their voices trailed off into murmurs that grew fainter and fainteruntil the silence of the river and the wood was again unbroken. Eleanorsat up stiffly and stretched her arms above her head in sheer physicalrelief after the strain of utter stillness. Then, with a little sobbingcry, she leaned forward, bowing her head in her hands. Paradise--hadthey named it so because one ate there of the fruit of the tree ofknowledge?
"A little footless streak!"
"An utter failure!"
What did it matter? She had known it all before. She had said those verywords herself. But she had thought--she had been sure that other peopledid not understand it that way. Well, perhaps most people did not. No,that was nonsense. Lilian Day had achieved a position of prominence inher class purely through a remarkable alertness to public sentiment.Margaret Payson, a girl of a very different and much finer type, stoodfor the best of that sentiment. Eleanor had often admired her for herclear-sightedness and good judgment. They had said unhesitatingly thatshe was a failure; then the college thought so. Well, it was JeanEastman's fault then, and Caroline's, and Betty Wales's. Nonsense! itwas her own. Should she go off in June and leave her name spellingfailure behind her? Or should she come back and somehow change thefailure to success? Could she?
She had no idea how long she sat there, turning the matter over in hermind, viewing it this way and that, considering what she could do if shecame back, veering between a desire to go away and forget it all in thegay bustle of a New York winter, and the fierce revolt of the famousWatson pride, that found any amount of effort preferable to open andacknowledged defeat. But it must have been a long time, for when shepulled herself on to her seat and caught up the paddle, she wasshivering with cold and her thin dress was dripping wet with the mistthat lay thick over the river. Slowly she felt her way down-stream,pushing through the bank of fog, often running in shore in spite of hercaution, and fearful every moment of striking a hidden rock or snag.Soft rustlings in the wood, strange plashings in the stream startledher. Lower down was the bewildering net-work of islands. Surely therewere never so many before. Was the boat-house straight across from thelast island, or a little down-stream? Which was straight across? Andwhere was the last island? She had missed it somehow in the mist. Shewas below it, out in the wide mill-pond. Somewhere on the other side wasthe boat-house, and further down was a dam. Down-stream must be straightto the left. All at once the roar of the descending water sounded inEleanor's ears, and to her horror it did not come from the left. Butwhen she tried to tell from which direction it did come, she could notdecide; it seemed to reverberate from all sides at once; it wasperilously near and it grew louder and more terrible every moment.
Suddenly a fierce, unreasoning fear took possession of Eleanor. She toldherself sternly that there was no danger; the current in Paradise Riverwas not so strong but that a good paddler could stem it with ease. In amoment the mist would lift and she could see the outline of one shore orthe other. But the mist did not lift; instead it grew denser and morestifling, and although she turned her canoe this way and that andpaddled with all her strength, the roar from the dam grew steadily to anominous thunder. Then she remembered a gruesome legend that hung aboutthe dam and the foaming pool in the shadow of the old mill far below,and dropped her paddle in an agony of fear. She might hurry herself overthe dam in striving to escape it!
And still the deafening torrent pounded in her ears. If only she couldget away from it--somewhere--anywhere just to be quiet. Would it bequiet in the pool by the mill? Eleanor slipped unsteadily into thebottom of her boat and tried to peer through the darkness at the blackwater, and to feel about with her hands for the current. As she did so,a bell rang up on the campus. It must be twenty minutes to ten. Eleanorgave a harsh, mirthless laugh. How stupid she had been! She would call,of course. If she could hear their bell, they could hear her voice andcome for her. There would be an awkward moment of explanation, but whatof that?
"Hallo! Hallo--o-o!" she called. Only the boom of the water answered.
"Hallo! Hallo--o-o!"
Again the boom of the water swallowed her cry and drowned it.
It was no use to call,--only a waste of strength.
Eleanor caught up her paddle and began to back water with all her might.That was what she should have done from the first, of course. She wascold all at once and very tired, but she would not give up yet.
She had quite forgotten that only a little while before it had notseemed to matter much what became of her. "But if I can't keep at it allnight----" she said to the mist and the river.
Betty Wales, Freshman Page 18