A tall woman had come into the room while they had been gone and Thankful recognized the look of her own people in her. “Don’t go near her,” Selina whispered, “she’s as hard as nails. Wait until Dinsie comes back. I can manage him.”
Thankful paid no heed. “We can’t have this arrangement.” She presented the slips to the woman. “Please give me a room to myself.”
Selina began to chatter beside her. “Probably some mistake … You remember … How well you look, Miss Haynes … My mother sent her love.”
Miss Haynes looked gravely at Thankful. “Who are you?” she asked. “And why do you want a change?”
Thankful’s steady eyes met hers under dark brows. “I am the granddaughter of Captain Curtis,” she said, “and I come from Bright Island.”
Miss Haynes nodded. “I know. Never been away before?”
Thankful felt a queer choke in her throat. “No. May I please have a room to myself? Any little one?” She had a sudden thought. “Perhaps a maid’s room?” She was grateful to Selina for the idea.
Miss Haynes continued to look at her thoughtfully. “Your grandfather thought that you would feel this way about rooming alone,” she said. “He talked with me about it when he came down to look the school over. He didn’t expect you would come so soon, you see.”
Thankful’s eyes stung with the seeing. Gramp had been down there getting things ready for her! And he hadn’t known that he was going to leave her there so soon.
Selina’s voice jerked her back. It sounded as if she were trying to cover the eagerness with sweet words. “Evelyn Norris and I are rooming together this year. You remember, Miss Haynes. You were so nice about helping us settle it. We have it all planned.…”
“Yes, yes.” Miss Haynes was suddenly impatient. “But Evelyn has unexpectedly gone to Europe with her mother for a few months. Perhaps at the Christmas holidays we can make a change. Now it must stand. This application came in so late that Evelyn’s was the only vacant place.” She brushed past them and left them staring at each other.
Selina’s prettiness was washed over by a red tide of fury. “And I must room with you!” she said.
Thankful glowered at her under dark brows. “And I must room with you!” she said.
Selina stepped back, startled.
“Hi, Selina.” The boy, Robert, peered into the room. “Well, you’re a friendly-looking pair. What’s up?”
Selina changed under their eyes and, while Thankful still stormed, laughed airily up at the boy. “Allow me to present you to my new roommate,” she said, but her voice cracked a little.
Robert whistled softly and started to speak but Selina seized his arm and pulled him toward the door. He turned and caught Thankful’s desolate look which followed them. “Oh, cheer up,” he said, “Selina’s a good egg.” And for all his light words his smile was understanding. It touched Thankful’s sore spirit.
Thankful wandered out into the hall with her 312 ticket pinched in her fingers. What now? The hail chattered like a blackbird roost. Miss Haynes, like a larger blackbird, detached herself and swooped down on Thankful. “This way,” she said.
They climbed a broad curved staircase and turned down a long corridor where through open doors girls were calling excitedly to each other. Thankful had never seen so large a house. At the end of the hall Miss Haynes opened a door with 312 on it in small brass numbers. “Your trunk will be up soon,” she said. “Dinner at seven.” She gave Thankful a worried busy smile and hurried away.
Thankful leaned against the closed door and looked around the room. The early fall twilight had darkened the corners and pressed against the shut windows. The room smelled clean and unused. Even Thankful’s unaccustomed eye knew that it was right in its cool green and white. But two beds, two chests of drawers, two mirrors, two, two, two, never herself by herself again. The shabby room under the eaves crept through these wide walls, and Thankful had to shut her eyes to send it away.
When she opened them the dark seemed nearer and she pushed a window wide to feel it, intimate and close like the island twilight. But it beat against her with that odd thick smell of land air. Leaves, she thought, getting ready to fall, and weeds and earth. We have them all on the island but the air from the sea washes them clean. It seemed somehow as if life suddenly pressed around her, in the same way, thick and dark and foreign. In a panic she leaned far out of the window for something tangible and real.
Squares of golden light spaced evenly the shadowy stone house across the campus. Thankful could hear the boys’ voices, deeper but as excited as the girls’. She tried to think how it would feel to be so glad to see people, and gave it up. Probably Robert lived over there and he was telling them about Chicago, and what a wonderful boat he had, and—oh, her own little boat! If it were only free under the stars with the gull riding in the prow …
She drew her head in and found the room quite dark. Selina must be in soon. Where was the lamp? But of course there were no lamps here filled with kerosene to be lighted with a match. What did you do to make an electric light burn? She couldn’t bear to have Selina find her sitting there in the dark.
A bang at the door. “Trunk, Miss!” It wasn’t Selina yet.
“Oh, yes. And please turn on my light.” The room flared into whiteness, and Thankful’s little trunk was sitting in the corner. As strange out of its garret as she was!
She walked over to the wall and examined some knobs. The boy had punched something here, she decided, and pushed a button. The light did not flicker. She pushed another, and the room was black. A knock sounded so close to her ear that she jumped. Selina, perhaps! In a panic she pushed both buttons.
“I’m here,” said a plaintive voice, “you don’t have to ring again,” and a neat little maid walked into the room.
Thankful looked at her. Now how in the world had she got her? Anyway the light was on.
“Did you want something?” the girl was asking, and Thankful heard the speech of her own coast, quick and light.
Thankful thought hard. What could she ask for? “Water?” she suggested.
“I’ll show you the bathroom,” the girl said primly.
Thankful blinked at the glitter of tiles, the white porcelain under the glare of the ceiling light. “How did you turn it on?” she pointed overhead. This was a point to be checked on before Selina arrived.
The girl laughed but her contempt did not sound ill-natured. “You must be a hick!” She pressed the button on and off. “My goodness, we’ve had electric lights for ages at Ledgtown where I live.”
“I am from Bright Island,” said Thankful proudly.
“Oh.” The girl looked at her with round eyes. “You a Curtis?”
Thankful nodded.
“Well! That’s why you got such a good room. That Selina White knows everybody. And she’s got scads of money. You’ll have a swell time!” She backed toward the stairs. “My name’s Edie. Better get dressed for dinner,” she advised.
Thankful was puzzling over the lettered faucets. When H was tempered with C, she splashed her face and hands. I’ll try that tub tonight, she thought. I hope there’ll be enough hot water to fill it. Now what did Edie mean about getting dressed for dinner? This is my best dress. She looked down distastefully at the red and black plaid.
Back in her room every chair and one of the beds was piled high with clothes. Selina, bare armed, distracted, pulled at the masses of soft colors, discarding this one, frowning at that. A wardrobe trunk gaped and another, big and important, spilled its contents on the rug. The room suddenly felt very full.
Thankful watched the upsetting process a moment. “Lost something?” she inquired.
Selina made no answer but dove into a wisp which Thankful supposed might be a dress. “Here, fasten this, will you? What was that funny name Miss Haynes called you?”
“I didn’t hear her call me anything funny,” Thankful told her without moving to touch the dress.
“Your name! That funny name! And for goodness’
sake help me!” Selina whirled impatiently toward her.
“My name is Thankful Curtis”—even to Selina the words took on dignity and beauty—“and remember I explained once about not being one of the maids.”
Selina stared at her and fumbled at her own hooks.
Thankful reached for them. “I’d be glad to help you.” How smooth and white and soft the girl was! And what kind of a party could she be going to in this lovely thing? Thankful scarcely dared touch it with her brown outdoor fingers.
“All right.” Selina became gracious as she looked at herself in the mirror. “You don’t really need to dress for dinner this first night. Lots of the trunks haven’t come.”
So this was what dressing for dinner meant! Thankful looked down at her red and black plaid. Well, she thought, they might just as well get used to seeing me this way. They can’t hate it any worse than I do.
A mellow gong sounded downstairs. Selina fled. “When you’re ready,” she flung back, “go down to the hall. Miss Haynes will give you a seat at the table.”
Thankful stared at the closed door. What had Miss Haynes told her? That they all sat where they pleased the first night. Well, it hadn’t pleased Selina to sit with her. Wouldn’t it be better to go to bed without any dinner than to face that crowd alone? Thankful considered. She had never felt so queer inside and she didn’t know whether she was ill or very hollow. It had been a long fast. She decided to break it. After all, she thought, they didn’t even see me in the bus and they’ll have something else to look at now. There’ll be Selina, for one thing. She made herself open the door and go down the long staircase. She moved as if she were walking in her sleep.
The rest was the confusion of sleep, blurred, unreal. Through a haze she saw a great golden room filled with high lights, and color, and still the same laughter. Though she was not of it, she sat there in it. The girls cast swift glances under their lids at her clothes and talked on to the boys. The boys did not see her at all. An occasional older person, perhaps a teacher, spoke to her. She had thought she could not eat with the terror of it, and then a maid slipped a small scooped dish past her, and she caught the rich buttery odor of clam chowder. And the kitchen at home! Her mother stood by the stove ladling it out into big white bowls with crisp chowder crackers. For a moment the odds were even for homesickness and hunger. She did not know which would win when she lifted the spoon automatically. Then with the taste of the hot chowder the tightness of her throat relaxed so that she could swallow again.
“Swell to get seafood again, isn’t it?” someone spoke beside her, and she answered yes, yes it was. And wished for the deep white bowl at home. Though she forgot that wish soon. The other girls touched their food lightly and left it, as they sighed over the pounds gained last term. Thankful looked at her empty plate and thought, I might have gone to bed and missed this!
Then her lids felt heavy on her eyes, and the bright room swam in her sleepiness. She pushed against the deadweight on her senses to make her ears listen to what seemed to be a speech of welcome from a pleasant dry-looking man. She rose with the rest but she stumbled a little. This numb fatigue bore no relation to the way she felt after a day of haying or digging clams. No one saw her drift away from the tide of young people in the hall. She thought that she knew how a shadow felt.
The bath was astonishing. A stream of water without end, and no pumping or heating. It stretched her out and eased her aching muscles. Though why, she thought, my legs should ache when I’ve not had a chance to use them all day, I can’t see. She dropped into the cool bed without turning on the light, and slept profoundly.
A glare of light struck her across her eyes and brought her up with a confused sense that it was lightning and that her mother wanted her to shut the windows before the storm broke. She sat up while sleep drifted away like a fog and let her see through it. This was not home, and that girl tossing things from her bed was Selina with whom she must share her life. She wished that it had been lightning, and that it had struck her. She lay down again and tried to close her eyes against the white glare overhead.
When Selina banged out to the bathroom, Thankful rose and pressed the button which she hoped was the right one. Selina muttered angrily when she stumbled back into the dark room, but she turned on the soft bedside light. She closed all of the windows except the one over Thankful’s bed which she could not reach. Then after some odd and elaborate preparation of her hair, she turned out the light and Thankful knew by her deep breathing that she slept almost at once.
Again the dark pressed around Thankful, thick and foreign. She sat up and tried to get the air from her window but it seemed so small an amount that it wasn’t worth struggling for. Not a light on the campus. But no quiet. The screech, screech, screeching of the crickets she recognized from her mainland experience, but that quick angry scrape which beat regularly through their rasp was a file on her tired nerves. “It’s probably katydids,” she told herself, remembering how she had always wanted to hear them. “I wish they’d stop!”
Her first deep sleep broken, that path of escape was closed. She must lie in this airless black space with only the realization of how inevitably it must go on—and on—and on. Its very limitless expanse dazed her imagination into sleep again. The first day was over.
Learning that Lies in Books
Thankful listened and watched. With people all around her she could not think. Easy enough at the old kitchen table with her mother moving quietly about, now and then bending over her, a spicy cake pan in her hand, or sitting in the rocker while Thankful chanted her Latin at her. Easy enough to see what the words and the figures meant then.
She felt that she might have learned to think along with a room full of people if they had all been together, after the same thing. But she was aware of the little clashing thoughts all around her, girls about boys, boys about girls, clothes, hair waves, chances to fool the teacher, all the little ideas running about and into each other. Endless noise and confusion, though the room was quiet. She sat dumb, and listened and watched.
At last she saw that the time would come when she must take her turn at marshalling her thoughts into speech for them all to hear. She was frozen with terror. At the end of the first week, Dr. Davis, the principal, was to decide the puzzling question of how to rank her, this girl who had never been to school. She knew now what he would do. Send her home. And if she could have gone without disgrace, she hoped he might. But to go because she could not do the work—Thankful’s pride stung her like a whip.
She had stood, tall and pale when they called on her, and had stood quiet until pityingly they had called on another. Her voice would not come. There was nothing for it to say. Selina made the struggle no easier. “You’ll last just about this first week if you don’t open your mouth and recite,” she told her.
“Well then,” agreed Thankful, “you’ll have your room to yourself, won’t you?”
“Tongue sharp enough sometimes,” grumbled Selina.
But Thankful was not aware of sharpness. She was scudding under bare poles now and it needed little more to wreck her. She had no attention for the lesser irritations of Selina. They saw each other seldom except as they saw the furniture of the room. Selina’s light quick mind spent little time in work, and Thankful’s mind was defending itself against certain doom. She had nothing left in her for the friendly gay encounters which she saw about her. Among the other girls and boys she was still a shadow.
Toward the end of the week she had tried all of the first year classes, and known that she could not go back to them. It was small satisfaction to her that the lessons when she looked at them in her room were so easy that she could hardly remember when she had not known all about them. All knowledge fled with that terrible pressure of human curiosity and conflict.
She had heard Selina’s moans about the Latin and the man who taught it. “He hates us all and he’s so beautiful! We adore him! And he’s using us only so that he can get another degree. You wait till he gets
hold of you. That will finish you!”
Thankful was sure that it would, but she only wanted it over with. She sat in Mr. Fletcher’s room and waited for him to finish her. Now that the outcome was certain she relaxed into numb indifference. She even had some attention for the personality of the man, and liked it. He showed off a bit, she thought, but she was used to men. And she recognized the reality of his feeling for Cicero. It was like her mother’s. No wonder he raged at the way they read it. She wasn’t sure but what he enjoyed being savage. He caught her reflective eye and gave her a brusque nod. “Read that next paragraph as if you were a Roman,” he snapped. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Thankful Curtis,” she said and he checked it off while the class giggled faintly.
“All right, go on,” he said, and waited intolerantly.
But Thankful had spoken. She had heard her own voice. She had pronounced her own name. She had announced herself, and she was no longer a shadow. She was real, at least for the moment.
She stood and read the words to him, the old familiar words. How many times had her mother said, “Read them as if you were a Roman,” and had read them to her until Thankful saw her a Roman matron instead of a Scotch woman kneading bread. She read them as she knew them, unaware of amused glances and lifted eyebrows.
Mr. Fletcher slammed his book and she jumped, startled into silence. Around her all that pressure, all that criticism, and the man at the desk staring at her …
“For the love of heaven,” he said as if he could not bear it, “where did you go to school?”
The class applauded him with a giggle. He scowled at them.
Thankful reached the end of her endurance. “Nowhere,” she said clearly and she did not care what any of them thought. “I live on an island and my mother taught me.” She was indifferent to the wholehearted laughter of the class.
Bright Island Page 7