CHAPTER XIX
A DEEP, DARK PLOT
"Heavy is actually losing flesh," Helen declared to Ruth. "I can seeit."
"You mean you _can't_ see it," laughed her chum. "That is, you can't seeso much of it as there used to be. If she keeps on with the rowingmachine work in the gym and the basket ball practise and dancing, shewill soon be the thinnest girl who ever came to Ardmore."
"Oh, never!" cried Helen. "I don't believe I should like Heavy so muchif she wasn't a _little_ fat."
People who had not seen Jennie Stone for some time observed the changein her appearance more particularly than did her two close friends. Thiswas proved when Mr. Cameron and Tom arrived.
For, as the girls did not go home for just a few days, Helen's fatherand her twin unexpectedly appeared at college on Christmas Eve, andtheir company delighted the chums immensely.
On Friday evenings the girls could have company, and on all Saturdayafternoons, even during the college term. Also a girl could have a youngman call on her Sunday evening, provided he took her to service atchapel.
The three Briarwood friends had had no such company heretofore. Theymade the most of Mr. Cameron and Tom, therefore, during Christmas week.
There was splendid sleighing, and the skating on the lake was at itsvery best. Ruth insisted upon including Rebecca Frayne in some of theirparties, and Rebecca proved to be good fun.
Tom stared at Jennie Stone, round-eyed, when first he saw her.
"What's the matter with you, Tom Cameron?" the fleshy girl asked, rathertartly. "Didn't you ever see a good-looking girl before?"
"But say, Jennie!" he cried, "are you going into a decline?"
"I decline to answer," she responded. But she dimpled when she said it,and evidently considered Tom's rather blunt remark a compliment.
The Christmas holidays were over all too soon, it seemed to the girls.Yet they took up the class work again with vigor.
Their acquaintanceship was broadening daily, both in the student bodyand among the instructors. Most of the strangeness of this new collegeworld had worn off. Ruth and Helen and Jennie were full-fledged"Ardmores" now, quite as devoted to the college as they had been to dearold Briarwood.
After New Year's there was a raw and rainy spell that spoiled many ofthe outdoor sports. Practice in the gymnasium increased, and Helen saidthat Jennie Stone was bound to work herself down to a veritable shadowif the bad weather continued long.
Ruth was in Rebecca's room one dingy, rainy afternoon, having skippedgymnasium work of all kind for the day. The proprietor of the room hadfinished her baby blue cap and had worn it the first time that week.
"I feel that they are not all staring at me now," she confessed to Ruth.
Ruth was at the piles of old papers which Rebecca had hidden under ahalf-worn portierre she had brought from home.
"Do you know," the girl of the Red Mill said reflectively, "these oldthings are awfully interesting, Becky?"
"What old things?"
"These papers. I've opened one bundle. They were all printed in Richmondduring the Civil War. Why, paper must have been awfully scarce then.Some of these are actually printed on wrapping paper--you can scarcelyread the print."
"Ought to look at those Charleston papers," said Rebecca, carelessly."There are full files of those, too, I believe. Why, some of them areprinted on wall paper."
"No!"
"Yes they are. Ridiculous, wasn't it?"
Ruth sat silent for a while. Finally she asked:
"Are you sure, Becky, that you have quite complete files here of thisRichmond paper? For all the war time, I mean?"
"Yes. And of the South Carolina paper, too. Father collected them duringand immediately following the war. He was down there for years, yousee."
"I see," Ruth said quietly, and for a long time said nothing more.
But that evening she wrote several letters which she did not show Helen,and took them herself to the mailbag in the lower hall.
Before this, Mrs. Jaynes, Dr. McCurdy's sister-in-law, was settled inthe room which had formerly been used by the girls as their ownparticular sitting-room. She was not an attractive woman at all; so itwas not hard for her youthful associates on that corridor of Dare Hallto declare war upon Mrs. Jaynes.
Indeed, without having been introduced to a single girl there, Mrs.Jaynes eyed them all as though she suspected they belonged to a tribe ofBushmen.
Naturally, during hours of relaxation, and occasionally at other times,the girls joked and laughed and raced through the halls and sang andotherwise acted as a crowd of young people usually act.
Mrs. Jaynes was plainly of that sort that believes that all youthfulnessand ebullition of spirits should be suppressed. Luckily, she met thegirls but seldom--only when she was going to and from her room. Onstormy days she remained shut up in her apartment most of the time, andMrs. Ebbetts sent a maid up with her tray at meal time. She never ate inthe Dare Hall dining-room.
Meantime, Jennie Stone had several mysterious sessions with certain ofthe girls who felt quite as she did regarding the usurpation of Dr.McCurdy's sister-in-law of the spare room. Had Ruth not been so busy inother directions she would have realized that a plot of some kind was inprocess of formation, for Helen was in it, as well.
Jennie Stone had made a friend of Clara Mayberry on the floor above. Infact, a number of the girls on the lower corridor affected by thepresence of Mrs. Jaynes, were in and out of Clara's room all day long.None of these girls remained long at a time--not more than half an hour;but another visitor always appeared before the first left, right throughthe day, from breakfast call till "lights out." And after retiring hourthere began to be seen figures stealing through the corridors and on thestairway between the two floors. That is, there would have been seensuch ghostly marauders had there been anybody to watch.
Mrs. Jaynes crossly complained to Mrs. Ebbetts that she was kept awakeall night long--and all day, for that matter! But as she never put herhead out of her room after the lights were lowered in the corridors, shedid not discover the soft-footed spectres of the night.
"But," she complained to Mrs. Ebbetts, "it is the noisiest room I everwas in. Such a squeaking you never heard! And all the time, day andnight."
"I do not understand that at all," said the puzzled housekeeper.
"I'd like to know how the girl who had that room before I took it, stoodthat awful squeaking noise," said the visitor.
"Why, Mrs. Jaynes," said the housekeeper, "no girl slept there. It was asitting-room."
"Even so, I cannot understand how anybody could endure the noise. If Ibelieved in such things I should declare the room was haunted."
"Indeed, Madam!" gasped the housekeeper. "I do not understand it."
"Well, I cannot endure it. I shall tell my sister that I cannot remainhere at Ardmore unless she finds me other lodgings. That awful _squeak,squeak, squeak_ continues day and night. It is unbearable."
In the end, Dr. McCurdy found lodgings for his sister-in-law inGreenburg. The girls of Ruth's corridor were delighted, and that nightheld a regular orgy in the recovered sitting-room.
"Thank goodness!" sighed Jennie Stone, "no more up and down all nightfor us, either. We may sleep in peace, as well as occupy the room inpeace."
"What _do_ you mean, Heavy?" demanded Ruth.
"Oh, Ruthie! That's one time we put one over on you, dear," said thefleshy girl sweetly. "You were not asked to join in the conspiracy. Wefeared your known sympathetic nature would revolt."
"But explain!"
"Why, Clara let us use her rocking chair," Jennie said demurely. "It's avery nice chair. We all rocked in it, one after another, half-hourwatches being assigned----"
"Not at night?" cried the horror-stricken Ruth.
"Oh, yes. All day and all night. Every little minute that rocker wasgoing upon the squeaky board. It's a wonder the board is not worn out,"chuckled the wicked Jennie.
"Well, I never!" proclaimed Ruth, aghast. "What won't you think of next,Jen
nie Stone?"
"I don't know. I know I'm awfully smart," sighed Jennie. "I did so muchof the rocking myself, however, that I don't much care if I never see arocking-chair again."