The Girl of the Woods

by Grace Livingston Hill

  She went back to her aunt’s that night and told them what she had done. Bailey Wicke was there as usual, and several of the other girls and boys, and she told it very casually in answer to her aunt’s question about where she had been that day.

  “Why, I went to the university and took an entrance examination,” she said. “I have to go in day after tomorrow for another, and two more next week, and if I pass, I’m entering the university for regular work the first of the month.”

  The room was very still for a moment, and then a great uproar of protest broke forth.

  “Why, my dear!” said her aunt quite severely. “I certainly don’t approve of that at all! That’s absurd! You haven’t time for studies. This is going to be a busy winter, and you won’t be able to study here with all that will be going on.”

  “Oh,” said Margaret quietly, “I shall not be here. I have selected a room in the dormitory, and I expect to do a lot of hard work. You know I came out here to go to school!”

  “Like fun you did!” said Bailey Wicke, suddenly rising up and stalking over to stand in front of her. “You came out here to marry me, and you’re going to do that little thing just as soon as I come of age and come into my property. That won’t be long now. And I don’t want you educated! I don’t care for awfully educated women. They think they know too much, and they’re hard to get along with. I like you better the way you are. You make a good appearance, and you talk as well as anybody, and that’s all that’s necessary for my wife! A wife as rich as you’ll be won’t have any need to know a whole lot. You’d be foolish to spend time in learning. You can have more fun without it, and I don’t approve of it. No sir! We can have a better time without any more schooling. And believe me, we are going to have the time of our life when we get married, so cut that idea out and don’t speak of it again!”

  The other girls looked at him in astonishment and caught their breath softly, but Margaret just laughed merrily.

  “Oh, Bailey!” she said brightly. “How funny you are! Who crowned you? I never had the slightest intention of marrying you, so get that thoroughly out of your head, and don’t mention it again. I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last bridegroom left in the world. Besides, I don’t want to get married! I’d rather have an education!”

  But Bailey paid no heed to her. He went on haranguing against education. He said he hadn’t been to college and didn’t intend to go, it was far too much trouble, and why should he? And besides, Margaret knew enough now.

  “There’s not a thing in the world you need to learn,” he said arrogantly, “except how to use makeup and how to get a little more peppy clothes. Oh, yes, and how to dance. But I’m going to teach you that myself. We’ll begin tomorrow evening.”

  “Oh yes?” said Margaret, still laughing. “Well, you’ve got another guess coming. I have other plans for tomorrow evening.”

  The other girls stared at her, shocked that she could so coolly turn down that sweeping proposal of marriage, even though only in fun, even though it was publicly made. Not one of them would have said no to those millions.

  Aunt Carlotta regarded her with cold disfavor and prepared to give her niece a severe lecture after the others were gone, but Margaret was suddenly feeling the freedom of having taken the initiative in this matter and smiled cheerfully on, saying bright nothings and being her own sunny self, as she hadn’t been during the last troubled days.

  While the ices and drinks were being brought in, she slipped away for a few minutes to her aunt’s telephone and sent a day letter to her guardian in the East.

  Have entered university here. Need several hundred dollars immediately. Please see check is honored when it comes. Don’t worry. Being very careful. Sure this is wise. Thanks.

  Margaret

  Having dispatched her telegram she ran back again and arrived on the scene just in time to be presented with a glass of ginger ale by Bailey, who lifted a glass of champagne and said with a flourish, “To my future wife!”

  Margaret stared at him a second and then broke into a smile of mischief.

  “Oh, lovely!” she cried. “I hope she’ll be a beautiful blond with golden curls and eyes like star sapphires.” And then amid the loud laughter that followed, Margaret drained her glass to the last drop, tossing back her own dark hair and twinkling her dark eyes at the discomfited Bailey.

  She was carefree as a bird all the next day, helping her aunt to prepare for a bridge luncheon that was on her program, and there was not time till late that night for the lecture that Aunt Carlotta had meant to give her.

  By that time Margaret had received assurance from her guardian that the money for her matriculation at the university would be forthcoming, when wanted, and she was happy as a lark.

  She was glad that she had arranged for the examinations to begin at once, for she felt mortally sure by the way her announcement had been received last night, that some insurmountable obstacle would surely be put in her way if there was the slightest delay.

  All day, whenever she was not needed, she had been quietly packing, so that her actual going tomorrow could be quickly accomplished. She had told the young people she wouldn’t have any time to see them that day because she was helping her aunt with her luncheon, but they went straight to her aunt and announced their intention of coming over immediately after dinner for the evening as usual, and she had not told them nay, so they arrived promptly.

  It was not until very late that evening when they were all gone that Aunt Carlotta had opportunity to talk with Margaret about what she called her “crazy scheme.”

  “Oh, my dear!” she said as Margaret stopped at her room. “I’ll just have to put off our talk until the morning, I’m so utterly worn out with that bridge party and all. Tomorrow morning right after breakfast we’ll go out on the side terrace under the trees and have a real talk. I’ll go into things quite fully and help you to understand just where you stand. We’ll say ten o’clock. I don’t think anybody will be over as early as that, and we’ll have the terrace all to ourselves. I have some things to tell you that I think will surprise you.”

  Margaret looked troubled.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Carlotta! I really couldn’t be here then. I have to leave on the early train to get to my examinations. They begin at ten o’clock. Perhaps someday, when you are to be free and have plenty of time, you can send me word and I can come out and have a talk with you, and then I’ll have a lot of things to tell you myself, I hope.”

  “Oh, but my dear! You can’t go tomorrow. Didn’t I tell you Bailey’s mother is giving a party in your honor, and it would be very rude of you to go away that very day. Didn’t I tell you about it? She asked me last week to make you keep that day free, and she has sent out a lot of invitations.”

  “Why, I’m sorry you let her do that, Aunt Carlotta, because I wouldn’t want to go to a party given in my honor. It would look as if there were really something between me and Bailey, and of course there isn’t, and never will be.”

  “My dear! You shouldn’t say anything rash like that. You are going, and you don’t really know what you might do later.”

  “No, Aunt Carlotta, that’s impossible. I should never care to marry Bailey, and he does not even appeal to me as a friend, just an acquaintance. I’m sorry if this is going to mortify you at all, but if you had told me before, I would have made it plain to you that I could never go to that house as a special guest, especially not a party given in my honor. It would give a wrong impression, and I would hate it. Besides, I couldn’t possibly change my plans now. I have already arranged for this examination. The teacher is coming down from his summer home in the mountains to meet me at the university.”

  “Oh, you could easily phone him that you couldn’t come.”

  “No, I don’t think I could. Not honorably. He has put off something he was intending to do in order to meet me tomorrow and let me get done in time to start in with my classes when they begin the first of the week.”

  “Oh, my dear
! My poor, foolish little girl! Do you have any idea what you are getting into? Don’t you know that a university course is going to cost you terribly? You couldn’t possibly afford it. Just where do you expect to get the money? I’m sorry, but I can’t help you out any. I really can’t. I have all I can do to keep my expenses down to my income now.”

  “Oh, Aunt Carlotta, I wouldn’t think of expecting you to help me. I wouldn’t accept it even if you offered it. I have my own little money, you know. It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough for that, and I have asked my guardian to see that it is ready for me in the city bank tomorrow. He expected to do that when I came out here. I was to send him word when I had decided on a college, and he is all ready for me.”

  “Oh!” said the aunt bleakly. “I didn’t know you had any money, Margaret. Surely it is only a pittance!”

  “It’s not a great deal, of course,” said Margaret reservedly, “but it was left by my father for that purpose, for my education, so you see, I shall not need to trouble anybody to help me out!”

  “But, my dear, why be so wasteful with it? Going to the university? I should think it would be so much wiser to save it to buy your wedding trousseau. You know, if you marry somebody worthwhile, you will be ashamed to go to them without a suitable wedding outfit.”

  Margaret laughed, a real cheerful little ripple.

  “You know, Aunt Carlotta, I shouldn’t mind getting married with only a few clothes, such as I always get every so often, and I’ve always had enough for that. Besides, if I didn’t, I could always make over some old ones, I am sure. Mother taught me to sew, and I like to make clothes. I’d much rather go with a small outfit than poor brains. I should really be ashamed of that, if I had had the opportunity to get them cultivated. Sorry, dear, but you’ll have to take me as I am, for I guess I don’t make over very easily. Now, you go to bed. You look so very tired. And I’ll just kiss you good-bye with my good night, so I won’t disturb you in the morning, for I shall be gone when you wake up. And I thank you so very much for all you’ve done for me since I’ve been here, and the nice times you’ve planned for me. I’m awfully sorry I was such a disappointment to you and didn’t fit into your plans. Good-night! And good-bye!”

  Margaret reached up and gave her aunt two hearty kisses and then slipped into her room. And Aunt Carlotta, puzzled beyond expression, looked despairingly after her.

  Chapter 14

  The first night that Margaret was alone in her new dormitory she felt suddenly desolate. Not that she wished herself back in Crystal Beach, for she was conscious of great relief to be away from there, but this was an utterly new experience to be in a strange city, with not a soul in all its wide reaches whom she knew. Even the professors were away tonight, attending some gathering of interest to educators. Not many students had as yet arrived, for the classes did not open until the following Monday.

  Margaret had been taking examinations all day long. She was very tired.

  It was her own fault that she had worked so hard. She was anxious to have it done and know her standing, anxious to begin real work and feel as if she was getting somewhere. She was a bright student and loved to study, and the last three months had been a weariness to her because so much of the time was spent on vapid, idle conversation that didn’t interest her. Now she was brought up against loneliness. Of course she would not feel it long, not after she got to know other students and was interested in her studies. But as she lay down on the strange bed in that strange room, unexpectedly her thoughts turned to Revel Radcliffe.

  She hadn’t written to him lately, for she saw by his letters that he was interested in his work and had little time for just letter writing, and she did not want to be a burden to him. But now she suddenly wished she could talk to him for a few minutes. She felt that he would understand why she had come away and what it was that made it so impossible for her to stay at her aunt’s. Perhaps it might even be that his prayers had helped to influence her move. Who knew?

  Margaret had not been thinking much of Revel the past few weeks. He had not seemed to fit with the atmosphere in which she had found herself. Yet now tonight her thoughts turned toward him. Almost she was moved to write him another letter. Yet she did not owe him one. And the last letter he had written had closed with the words, “I’ll be letting you know if anything new turns up.” That sort of closed the communication on his end, didn’t it? And if there was anything she despised, it was a girl who tagged after a boy and forced herself upon him. After all, their friendship was only casual, and it was his place to write if he wanted to hear from her again. Of course, if he wrote to Crystal Beach, his letter would be forwarded to her. Better not write again yet. Give him time to write if he wanted to. But she would like to see him a few minutes. So after a moment she went and got out Revel’s letters and read them over, just to get the companionable atmosphere and make herself feel that she had had a pleasant talk with him.

  And it worked. She really felt refreshed and not so lonely after she had read those friendly boy-letters and gone over in her mind their brief contacts.

  Over in her window there stood a little flowerpot, set on a small stand of twisted white china lattice. The small plants that lifted their heads from the pots looked brave and well intentioned. She had dug them up very early that morning and slid them carefully into the pot, concealing the pot among her baggage and guarding them at every move. She was hoping they would live through the winter till she could find a way and a place to plant them again. How strange it was that she should feel so much more at home with this stranger-boy who had given them to her, than with the other young people she had met since. Thinking back over that one evening she had met him, she drifted off into pleasant sleep, with a memory of Revel’s warm lips upon hers in that quick farewell in the dark beside the bushes. How different that was from the kind of kisses Bailey Wicke had tried to force upon her, and never quite succeeded! How glad she was to have escaped from him. Or had she?

  For the very next day Bailey Wicke came traveling up to the city in a handsome automobile belonging to his father, to take her a-riding and a-dining.

  But Margaret did not go with him. Instead, she met him down in a small reception room of the university and dismissed him with a smiling thanks, told him she had arranged an appointment with one of her professors and she couldn’t tell how long it was going to take her. Wouldn’t she set another time or day when she could go, he asked. No, she would not. She had not come to the university to spend her time going out with friends. She had come here to study, and much as he thought women should not improve their minds, he would have to understand that there was one girl who intended to get all the culture she could. It was all very friendly and laughing, but it was so definite that he finally left, promising, however, that he would return.

  And return he did, not only once but many times, until Margaret felt compelled to invent excuses not to see him, so much annoyed she was. So one day she sat down pleasantly beside him in the reception room and told him carefully and gently that she wished he would not come to see her anymore. That she was only a very young girl and had no desire to be taken out away from her work on any pretext. She told him she would think much better of him as a friend if he would stop trying to make her go out with him.

  “But I love you, Margaret,” he said blandly, as if that settled it.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, Bailey. You just think you do. You’re too young to love anybody that way, and so am I. Besides I don’t want to. And you’ll get over it.”

  So then the next time he came, he enlisted Aunt Carlotta and brought her along.

  “Your aunt was getting homesick to see you,” he said persuasively, “and I offered to bring her up. She wants to see you and have a nice little quiet talk with you, and there’s no place where you can talk as well without interruption as in the backseat of my car. So come on. Get your togs on, Margaret, and I’ll show you some of the sights of the town.”

  And there seemed nothing for Margaret to do but
go, for Aunt Carlotta was as pleased as a child at the arrangement. She had plans for a Christmas party that she wanted to talk over with Margaret, because she insisted that she couldn’t have a Christmas party without her dear niece, that the young people would never come just for an old woman.

  So there was that to be done. She had to do, of course.

  But there was this about it: Bailey Wicke was much more tractable since her serious talk with him than he had been before, and less possessive.

  But Margaret did not go to her aunt’s for Christmas as she had expected she must. Instead a holiday job suddenly dropped into her lap, which might promise more afterward if she proved satisfactory, and she felt she must take it. One of the professors had an invitation for himself and his wife to take a trip during the holiday vacation, and in looking about to find someone to look after their three children and grandmother, and make them have a pleasant time, they pitched upon Margaret as the most likely entertainer for both the young ones and the old lady, so Margaret stayed in the city and had Christmas with the children. There was a servant so she had no housework to do, and it really was a nice rest for her.

  She selected a charming little ivory figurine for her aunt, and some lovely Christmas cards for the young people she knew. Her aunt had promised to forward any mail that should come for her, but day after day went by and nothing came, and Margaret found a growing disappointment that there was no word of any sort from Revel. In vain she reflected that Revel was only a boy, and a boy in college with lots of interests and lots of hard work. Besides, he would not be lonely anymore as he was when she first knew him, and he would not be needing word from her to keep up his spirits. It was ridiculous, of course, that she should think anything about him. It showed how lonely she was that she should miss a thing like this.