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Page 21
Mary's popularity was not without its effect upon Ethelinda, especially
the Lady Evelyn's evident interest in her. It argued that she was worth
knowing. Then, too, it would have been a hard heart which could have
steeled itself against Mary's persistent efforts to be friendly. It was
a tactful effort also, making her daily put herself in Ethelinda's place
and consider everything from her view-point before speaking. Many a time
it helped her curb her active little tongue, and many a time it helped
her to condone the one fault which particularly irritated her.
"Of course it is hard for her to keep her half of the room in order,"
she would say to herself. "She's always had a maid to wait on her, and
has never been obliged to pick up even her own stockings. She doesn't
know how to be neat, and probably I shouldn't, either, if I hadn't been
so carefully trained."
Then she would hang the rumpled skirts back in the wardrobe where they
belonged, rescue her overturned work-basket from some garment that
Ethelinda had carelessly thrown across it, and patiently straighten out
the confusion of books and papers on the table they shared in common.
Although there were no more frozen silences between them their
conversations were far from satisfactory. They were totally uncongenial.
But after the first week, that part of their relationship did not
affect Mary materially. She was too happily absorbed in the work and
play of school life, throwing herself into every recitation, every
excursion and every experience with a zest that left no time for
mourning over what might have been. At bed-time there was always her
shadow-chum to share the recollections of the day. One of her letters to
Joyce gave a description of the state of resignation to which she
finally attained.
"Think of it!" she wrote. "Me with my Puritan conscience and big bump of
order, and my r.m. calmly embroidering this Sabbath afternoon! Her
dressing table, her bed and the chairs look like rubbish heaps. Her
bed-room slippers in the middle of the floor this time of day make me
want to gnash my teeth. Really it is a disaster to live with some one
who scrambles her things in with yours all the time. The disorder gets
on my nerves some days till I want to scream. There are times when I
think I shall be obliged to rise up in my wrath like old Samson, and
smite her 'hip and thigh with a great slaughter.'
"In most things I have been able to 'compromise.' Margaret Elwood, one
of the Juniors, taught me that. She tried it with one of her
room-mates, now happily a back number. Margaret said this girl loved
cheap perfumes, for instance, and she herself loathed them. So she
filled all the drawers and wardrobes with those nasty camphor
moth-balls, which the r.m. couldn't endure, and when she protested,
Margaret offered a compromise. She would cut out the moth-balls, even at
the expense of having her clothes ruined, if the r.m. would swear off on
musk and the like.
"I tried that plan to break E. of keeping the light on when I was
sleepy. One night I lay awake until I couldn't stand it any longer, and
then began to hum in a low, droning chant, sort of under my breath, like
an exasperating mosquito: '_Laugh_-ing _wa_-ter! _Big_ chief's
_daugh_-ter!' till I nearly drove my own self distracted. I could see
her frown and change her position as if she were terribly annoyed, and
after I had hummed it about a thousand times she asked, 'For heaven's
sake, Mary, is there anything that will induce you to stop singing that
thing? I can't read a word.'
"'Why, yes,' I answered sweetly. 'Does it annoy you? I was only singing
to pass the time till you turn off the light. I can't sleep a wink.
We'll just compromise.'
"She turned it out in a jiffy and didn't say a word, but I notice that
she pays attention to the signals now, and does her reading before they
sound 'taps.' All this is teaching yours truly a wonderful amount of
self control, and I have come to the conclusion that everything at
Warwick Hall, disagreeables and all, are working together for my good."
So matters went on for several weeks. Mary meekly hung up Ethelinda's
dresses and put the room in order whenever it was disarranged, and
Ethelinda, always accustomed to being waited upon, took it as a service
due her from one whom necessity had placed in a position always to
serve. If she had accepted it silently Mary might have gone on to the
end of the term making excuses for her, and making good her neglect; but
Ethelinda remarked one day to one of the Sophomores that if Mary Ware
ever wanted a recommendation as lady's maid she would gladly give it.
She seemed naturally cut out for that.
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