Marjorie Dean Macy’sHamilton Colony

CHAPTER I

“Something fine is going to happen, Bean.”

Jerry Macy leaned back in the roomy porch rocker, half-closed blue eyes squinting prophetically up at the turquoise August sky. “Yes, sir; it is.”

“Several fine things ought to happen, but they haven’t.” Marjorie Dean Macy’s emphasis upon the “ought” was energetically wistful.

“Something celostrous is coming this way,” Jerry continued to maintain. “It’s in the air.”

“I wish it would hurry up, and come, then. Captain was to be home from the beach yesterday. She hasn’t happened. Leila owes me a letter. That hasn’t happened yet. I haven’t heard from her for over a month, or from Vera, either. And there is Hamilton Arms, still boarded up and with no sign of Miss Susanna, 4or Jonas. Where is everybody? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“I’m with you yet, Mrs. Macy,” Jerry reminded pertinently. “And incidentally, you still have a nice kind husband.” She beamed upon the lovely occupant of the porch swing with pretended solicitude.

“Thank you for reminding me of my blessings.” Marjorie nodded laughing gratitude at Jerry. “What do you think is going to happen, wise sooth-sayer?” she asked in the next breath.

“Um-m-m.” Jerry’s eyes opened a trifle wider. She thrust her dimpled chin forward at a ridiculous angle, peering owlishly about her as though about to pick an answer to Marjorie’s question out of the sunlit August air. “Search me,” she said after a moment, then giggled.

“You are a fake.” Marjorie pointed a derisive finger at Jerry.

“Nope. I’m not. I have a pleasant little hunch that we’re either going to see somebody we’ve not expected to see, or else hear from somebody we’ve not expected to hear from. Now, do you get me, Marjorie Bean Macy?”

“Who, I wonder?” Marjorie said speculatively. “Not Ronny. I used to call her the great 5unexpected. But I needn’t hope, this time, to see her. I received her first honeymoon letter to me only last week. No, Ronny will have to be counted out of your hunch, Jeremiah.” Marjorie sighed regretfully. Her affection for Veronica Lynne, her California comrade and chum, was deep-rooted.

“She certainly handed the Travelers the surprise of their lives last June. I’ll never forget that last spread in her room on Commencement night, and her calm announcement to us that she was going home to be married to Professor Leonard in July at the old mission at Mañana. She was the great unexpected that night, I’ll say. I haven’t got over it yet. I never even suspected those two were miles deep in love, and Jeremiah nearly lost her reputation then and there, for knowing something about everything.”

“Ronny was always a mystery from the first time I met her playing maid at Miss Archer’s. She was always a delightful mystery, too. Somehow, it seemed quite in keeping that she should have given us all such a surprise about Professor Leonard. I’d never even dreamed of Ronny as in love with any man. Perhaps I might have suspected last year how things were between her and Professor Leonard if I hadn’t 6been so dreadfully unsettled in mind about Hal. I doubt it, though. I’m still surprised that you let it get by you, Jeremiah.”

“And I’m even more surprised that Leila Harper never suspected them as on the brink of love,” Jerry returned.

“I’m going to tell you something, Jerry.” Marjorie was smiling reminiscently. “I promised Ronny never to tell anyone except you, something she told me just before she left Hamilton, and I was not to tell you until after we’d received her announcement cards.”

“Go ahead. Shoot.” Jerry sat suddenly straight in her chair, eyes fastened interestedly upon Marjorie’s smiling features.

“Ronny never even dreamed Professor Leonard loved her until just before my wedding. They were alone together after classes in the gymnasium on the day before my wedding. They had been talking of Hal and me, and—well—suddenly he began to tell her about himself. His mother was a Spanish Mexican of very good family, and his father met her while he was professor in a Mexican university. Professor Leonard told Ronny that he hoped someday to establish a welfare station and school for poor Mexican children in Mexico. Then quite suddenly he told her how dearly he loved 7her, but would not ask her to share such a life of sacrifice, and perhaps privation, as his future would undoubtedly hold.

“She’d known for quite a while that she cared for him, but thought he hadn’t cared for her in any other than a friendly way. She was so dumbfounded she couldn’t say a word at first. He thought he had displeased her, and she had a hard time trying to make him understand that he hadn’t; that she truly loved him, and wished more than anything else to marry him and help him carry out his great plan. She never said a word to him about his plan being one of her father’s pet dreams, but she wrote her father to come to Hamilton for a flying visit, so as to meet Professor Leonard, and talk with him. He came and stayed in town at the Hamilton house for two days, and, during that time, the three of them came to a perfect understanding of one another. No one except they two knew Mr. Lynne was in Hamilton.”

“Good night!” Jerry thus vented her astonishment. “I know one thing, Ronny would have told you. She’d have included you in that little family confab, too, if you hadn’t been up North, on your own honeymoon.”

“Yes, she told me she would have,” Marjorie admitted, coloring. “But that was only because 8I was the first friend she made in Sanford, you know.”

“Yep. I know. Bing, bang; here goes a new jingle.” Jerry raised a declaiming hand and recited:

“If your jingle were about someone else, I’d praise it as a triumphant inspiration. Since it isn’t—you’re a ridiculous person, Jeremiah. I think I’ve told you that before now.” Marjorie was regarding Jerry with tolerant amusement. “Kindly repeat that jingle, before you forget it. Oh, yes, and wait until I go for a pencil and paper. I promised Leila faithfully never to let the fruits of your jingling get by me, complimentary to me, or no.”

Laughing, Marjorie sprang from the swing and hurried lightly into the house. She was smiling to herself in pure contentment of spirit as she passed through the reception hall and on into the library. Her new home, to which she had come only two weeks before from a lengthy honeymoon, spent in the Adirondacks, 9was still a matter of delighted wonder to her. During Hal’s and her absence, Mr. and Mrs. Dean had been happily occupied in putting the new home of the happy pair to rights, against the day when they should turn their faces toward Hamilton Estates.

Readers of the Marjorie Dean High School, College and Post Graduate Series can already claim Marjorie and her intimate girl-associates as old friends. They have followed the fortunes of this particular band of devoted chums through both bright and stormy days.

Marjorie Dean Macy saw the happy culmination of the romance between Marjorie and Hal Macy in her marriage to him, on a balmy May Day evening at Hamilton Arms, the home of her friend, Miss Susanna Hamilton.

It was now the last of August. Marjorie and Hal had taken possession of their new home the middle of August in order to see Mr. and Mrs. Dean off for a two weeks’ stay at their old standby, Severn Beach. Jerry Macy, deep in preparations for her marriage to Danny Seabrooke to take place on the eighth of September, had been unable to resist Marjorie’s affectionate invitation to come to her and Hal’s new home as the first guest to enter the hospitable portals of “Travelers’ Rest.”

10“I’ve been here over a week, Mrs. M. D. Macy,” she announced as Marjorie returned to the veranda with a pencil and small leather note book. “I simply must hit the trail for Sanford, not later than day after tomorrow. Danny’ll think I’ve lost interest in the marriage idea, and quit him cold.”

“I know you ought to go,” Marjorie nodded. “I’ve loved having you here with Hal and me.”

“You might have a worse sister-in-law,” Jerry pointed out with a sly grin.

“I couldn’t have a better one. I know that,” came with quick loyalty from Marjorie. “What a lot of wonderful things have happened to the Big Six since they paraded home from high school together in good old Sanford.”

“Um-m-m. I should say there had. But, do you know, Marjorie, I used to hope, back in those days that some day you’d marry Hal, and become my sister-in-law. After we entered Hamilton and you seemed to care nothing at all for him, except as a friend, it made me feel blue as sixty, at times. Honestly, I never believed then you would finally wake up and fall in love with him.” Jerry’s chubby features grew reminiscently solemn.

“I wonder now that I could have been so hard-hearted,” Marjorie made frank reply. “How 11could I have hurt Hal so deeply? That’s what I ask myself sometimes in the midst of the happiness his love has brought me. I can understand now how Brooke Hamilton must have grieved over Angela. It was his diary that woke me up. And to think! I almost missed love.” Marjorie was looking very sober herself.

“Here we sit, solemn as two owls, talking about what didn’t happen, thank goodness.” Jerry’s roguish smile crinkled her lips. “While we’re on the subject, I’ll tell you a secret. It was the way you turned Hal down that started me to thinking seriously about Danny. I’d always liked Danny a whole lot, but, somehow, I could never take him seriously. Whenever he’d show signs of growing serious, I’d laugh at him. Finally, when you and Hal flivvered, it worried both Danny and me. We did manage one or two serious talks about that. It drew us closer together in sympathy, somehow, and the night we went sailing in the Oriole, you remember that night, I realized that he meant a great deal more to me than I’d believed he could. That very night, while we were at the wheel together, I fell in love with him. And you’re the first person I ever told it to, and you’ll be the last. 12Believe me, I never let him suspect it, though, until a whole year later.”

“I’m highly honored, Jeremiah.” Marjorie’s words held fond appreciation. “I’m so glad you wished me to know about you and Danny. Frankly, I’d often wondered when and how you and he came to an understanding. You’re such a secretive old dear. I used to imagine you didn’t care the least little bit about Danny. I was sure he cared for you, though.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Jerry made blunt response. “I mean, not until that summer we were at Severn Beach.” Jerry became silent, an absent gleam springing into her merry blue eyes. “And I’m going home day after tomorrow to get ready to be married to Dan-yell,” she suddenly broke out with a half humorous inflection. “Can you beat that?”

“No, I can’t.” Marjorie shook a smiling head. “I think it’s——”

“There’s the mail man!” Jerry sang out, the absent gleam in her eyes changing to one of eager expectation. “Come on.” She sprang up from her chair, and ran down the steps, waving a beckoning arm to Marjorie.

The porch swing rocked wildly as Marjorie left it in a quick rush after Jerry. The pair raced down the wide stone walk to the high 13arched stone gateway, bringing up, laughing, beside the mail box, fastened to a post, just inside the entrance gates.

“Oh, bother! I forgot the key!” Marjorie exclaimed in mild vexation.

“I have it. I brought it out on the veranda with me. Kindly recall that I’ve been expecting a love letter from my intended,” she reminded, chuckling. “I got ready to grab it.” She fished the little key from a diminutive, lace-trimmed pocket of her frock.

“You’re a life-saver,” Marjorie sighed relief.

Jerry had already busied herself with fitting the key to the lock. “Great guns!” she ejaculated, as she swung open the little door of the box. “Some mail.”

There were eleven letters, according to her pleasantly-excited count.

“Seven for you, two for old Hal, and three for me,” she announced, handing Marjorie her letters and Hal’s. “One of mine is from Mother. I’ll say it’s a ‘Why don’t you come home, Jerry,’ message. One’s from Ronny. It’s high time she wrote me. This one’s from Muriel Harding, and it’s postmarked ‘New York.’ Now what the dickens is she doing in New York? I thought she was at Severn Beach. Curiosity wins. I’ll read hers first.”

14Jerry conducted this lively monologue as she hastily tore open an end of the envelope addressed in Muriel Harding’s familiar swinging hand. She extracted the letter from the envelope, glanced quickly down the first page, then gave a funny little shout of surprise.

“Catch me,” she implored. “I’m going to drop dead of surprise. Muriel Harding, you rascal. I told you something was going to happen, Bean. Well, has it happened? I guess, yes.”

CHAPTER II A JOLT FOR LESLIE

“What is it? Hurry up, and tell me.” Marjorie gave Jerry’s arm a playfully impatient little shake, her own letters for the moment forgotten.

“Listen to this,” Jerry began.

“Dear Old Jeremiah:

“When you read this letter I shall be Mrs. Harry Lenox, and on my way with Harry to South America. Some little jolt, Jeremiah, but you’ll survive it. Harry’s father, now Muriel’s highly-respected papa-in-law, has important business interests in the Argentine. It was impossible for him to make the trip to the Argentine at present, so Harry had to fall in line. That meant he would not return to Sanford until next summer. Poor Muriel. She had grown so used to having Harry around. As you know, we expected to be married in November. Harry said, ‘Why not now?’ I said, ‘It does seem as though something ought to be 16done about it.’ And that’s what it’s all about.

“Father and Mother went to New York with us, and we were married in the parsonage of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church last Monday afternoon, August twenty-fifth. Don’t forget the date. I was married in the ducky pale tan traveling ensemble that I had had made for my November going-away gown. I hadn’t yet decided upon my wedding dress, and it was a good thing.

“I’m not yet over my own surprise at the sudden way all my nice, artistic wedding plans went up in the air. One thing, however, I insisted upon—a great big wedding cake. You and Marjorie, and all my other good little pals, will receive a piece of that glorious cake by parcel post.

“It seems awfully strange to be hurrying away from the good old U. S., adventure-bound. I’d always planned a wonderful wedding, with the big Sanford Six strictly on the job. Love is really a serious matter. There could be only one thing more serious, to me—not to be in love.

“I can’t stop to write any more just now. It is almost ten o’clock, and we have to be on board the steamer by eleven. We are to sail for Buenos Aires on the Maraquita at midnight. 17There’s no use in trying to tell you how sorry I am about going so far away without having you and the girls on hand to wish me bon voyage. You and Marjorie, my dear comrades of years, can understand, above all others, just how I feel about it. I’ll write you a long letter as soon as I’m settled on shipboard. Be good, Jeremiah, and remember me to Dan-yell. More about everything then, including several pages of regrets at not being able to join your bridesmaid line on the fateful eighth of September. Oceans of love. You’ll hear from me again soon.

“What do you think of that?” Jerry’s tone conveyed her own feelings. “Muriel was right about the jolt. After all, it’s just about what one might expect of Muriel Harding. Maybe I shan’t miss her, though. We’d planned a lot of things to do in Sanford next winter.” She vented a long, regretful sigh.

“Your hunch came true, Jeremiah. We hadn’t expected to hear from Muriel Harding Lenox, in New York, and all ready to sail for South America. You’re the only one of the Big Six still single. And your fate is sealed. Four 18of us are married to the boys who were our high school cavaliers. You’re going to marry yours. Susan Atwell is the only one of us who has loved and married far away from Sanford.” Marjorie’s lovely features had grown dreamily reminiscent.

“There’s no use in denying it. We’re getting old, Bean; getting old.” Jerry gave an elaborately disconsolate sniffle.

It set both chums to giggling as whole-heartedly as in the days when they were freshmen at Sanford High, with the future a closed book, the pages of which neither was curious to scan.

“I’ve a letter here from Muriel, too,” Marjorie said. “Let’s go back to the veranda and have a letter-reading bee. One of mine is from Leslie Cairns,” Marjorie was busily going over the envelopes in her hand, “and this one’s from Robin Page. This one looks like a high-class advertisement. Oh, here’s one from Gussie Forbes, postmarked California. Then I’ve a Paris one from Connie, and last and best one from General. That means he and Captain aren’t coming home just yet. Hurry up, Jerry.” She began to tow Jerry speedily up the walk to the house. “I’m in a grand rush to begin the bee.”

Marjorie laid the two letters for Hal on the 19willow porch stand, hurriedly returning to the swing, there to enjoy her own. Jerry had plumped down again in her rocker and was already perusing her mother’s letter. “What did I tell you?” she commented to Marjorie as she continued to read. “Mother is worrying like mad because I’m lingering longer here than becomes the station of one, Jerry Macy, about to be wed. It’s time for me to hit the home plate. I can see that.”

“Never mind. We’ll all be together again soon,” Marjorie reminded.

“And that rascal, Muriel Harding was to have been my maid of honor,” Jerry groaned. “Why can’t you be my matron of honor, since she’s left me in the lurch. I’d rather have you as a first aid to the altar than anyone else.” She turned coaxingly to Marjorie.

“I’d love to be, except for one thing. I’d rather stand aside in favor of the unmarried girls,” Marjorie said simply. “Let me see. You’re going to have Leila, Vera, Leslie, Lucy, Helen Trent and Robin Page as your bridesmaids.” She wrinkled her dark brows in a reflective frown. After a moment’s silence she spoke: “Jerry, why don’t you have Lucy as your maid of honor? Next to the Big Six, she’s 20really nearest to us all. It would make her wonderfully happy.”

“Luciferous?” Jerry eyed Marjorie with a contemplative squint. “I never thought of her. I was thinking just this minute that I might ask Helen Trent to take Muriel’s place. Helen was my first Hamilton chum, you know. Lucy——” Jerry became suddenly silent. “Right, as usual, beneficent Bean.” She nodded conclusively. “I ought to ask Lucy to be my maid of honor. I’ll do it, too. Mother says in her letter that the girls’ gowns are finished, and waiting for a grand try-on. Lucy’s will have to be altered, though. She’s considerably shorter than Muriel.”

“You haven’t told me about the dresses yet, Jeremiah,” Marjorie dimpled as she made ingratiating reminder. Thus far Jerry had declined to give details. “I’m going to give you a treat, Bean, so don’t ask questions,” had been her reply.

“And I’m not going to, either,” Jerry came back with her tantalizing grin. “I’ll invite you to the try-on. Curb your curiosity till then, or I’ll compose a jingle about it,” she now threatened.

“You’re awfully mean,” Marjorie’s amused tone belied her words.

21“Don’t you want to be delightfully surprised?” Jerry demanded.

“Of course I do. I was only funning, my dear Miss Macy.”