CHAPTER VIII.
SHIRLEY’S FIRST DAY.
As Miss Schiff had notified the dean about the strange resemblance, Shirley was obliged to meet no surprise on the dean’s part, or embarrassment on her own during her first conference. She found the dean dignified, receptive, kind in rather a reflective, serious way. Shirley ascribed her manner partly to the fact of the resemblance, but it was not even mentioned. Miss Irving asked her a few questions, then directed her in regard to her immediate movements.
Soon Shirley was armed with the cards on slips which admitted her to classes. These, she knew, would serve also to identify her. In consequence, she went with quiet assurance to her class rooms, determined to show no self-consciousness if she could help it.
In the college atmosphere, with her father one of the best loved professors on the faculty, Shirley had been taught to think of others, and that altruism, together with long custom in meeting teachers and crowds of young people, helped her now. These classes were small and held in pretty class rooms that pleased Shirley.
Sometimes Shirley felt a little amusement over the situation, but she thought how very annoying it must be to the other girl to have a double appear so unexpectedly, a girl who was to live under the same roof, go to the same meals, attend the same classes for a whole school year. But in spite of Shirley’s kind thought of the other girl, just how annoying it was to Sidney Thorne she could scarcely know.
As she entered the first class, Shirley was more concerned with her lack of preparation than with anything else. It was the class in English. She went at once to the desk to speak to the teacher and offer her name for enrollment. This teacher, too, must have had the word passed to her, or must have seen her at breakfast, for she showed no surprise and when Shirley said, “Of course, Miss Berry, I am not prepared this morning,” she nodded pleasantly. “You may make up such work as you have lost,” she said.
But while Shirley was detained at the desk for this enrollment, she was in full view of the class, which had gathered before Shirley came in. The conference with the dean had made her almost late.
There was a general gasp of astonishment, and a turning of heads toward the row where Sidney Thorne sat, as if the girls found it necessary to assure themselves of there being two. If any of them had seen Shirley in the halls, or even noticed her in the dining room, it was most likely that they had taken her for Sidney. That young lady was looking at Shirley in well-bred surprise.
It cost Sidney something to control her surprise and dismay, but control herself she did, turning to Hope, who sat beside her, whispering with raised eyebrows, “Who is she?”
But the teacher was calling the class to order and the amazed Hope only shook her head as unable to account for Shirley.
Madge, who sat just in front of Sidney, heard the question, turned slightly, and said out of the corner of her mouth, “my new room-mate.”
The class was conducted as usual. Shirley, who had been directed to a seat at the end of a row, was busy taking notes most of the time, for Miss Berry was reviewing the main points of the previous lesson as well as presenting the new one and calling on the different seniors for recitation or comment.
It could have been her own voice reciting, Shirley thought, when Sidney Thorne was called upon, and she wondered; yet enunciation and intonation—something was different, and Sidney was using that “Boston” variety of pronunciation at which the girls had laughed. Shirley felt interested and a little drawn toward her double in spite of her wishing that it might have not been this year, and this place of all others, when the meeting had to occur.
Not all the seniors were present in every class. Some who were not taking the regular college preparatory course were away from the Latin class or from the class in mathematics. In consequence there was usually some one to exclaim over the “new girl who looks exactly like Sidney Thorne,” as the word went around. But Shirley paid no attention to any slight commotion on her account. She could have recited in Latin, but forgot to tell the Latin teacher that fact and was not called on for a recitation. She wanted to hold up her hand several times when questions of syntax came up. But something kept her from doing so. She could wait.
She was glad now that her father had made her read that first two hundred lines of Virgil with him. How she had hated it at the time, for her schedule was already full enough, she thought. But he had insisted. “I am not going to have my girl floundering around with her first experience of Latin poetry,” said he. “It is very easy, but it will seem hard at first, and with all due respect to the teacher, whoever it may be, I should like to show you a few things myself about scansion and get you into the easy rhythm of it. Come, now, sing of arms and the hero!”
Shirley found herself thinking of her father during the recitation. Two girls recited particularly well, though they were finding Virgil none too easy at first, it was clear. They were Sidney Thorne and Olive Mason.
Nothing happened of any great annoyance to Shirley that day, though several times she was taken for Sidney. She felt that life had really begun and when she found that the only lessons so far in mathematics were in the nature of a review, her worries disappeared. She was a rapid reader. Her English would be caught up in no time. French was easy,—nothing could make a wave of trouble roll across her peaceful breast, she told Madge and Caroline.
With them and Betty Terhune, after classes were over, Shirley went out upon the campus again to wander there and in the wood and more open grove. The girls were rather enjoying the distinction of having the new girl in tow and being the center of so much interest among the girls. Shirley quite forgot that her arrival was a sensation in exploring the delights of the place. Once Caroline called her Sidney and Betty started to do so later on, but changed. “Sid—” to Shirley.
“Duck on the rock” was fun down in the midst of the sand and pebbles. Then the girls had her peep through a little window into the boat-house to see the school launch. “We call it the yacht,” said Madge, “and I guess it is a kind of one. It was given to the school, and the big boat house, too, was given by one of our alumnae. See,—there is room for the smaller boats inside, too. They all go inside to stay when real winter comes.”
Shirley looked in. There was the pretty launch with its brass railings and its mahogany finish. Shirley read the name, “Westlake,” and exclaimed over the future delights which its very existence promised. “I don’t see how I can wait for Saturday!” she cried, when Betty told her that the seniors were to go out in it Saturday.
Perhaps it was largely from curiosity, but that evening, both before and after dinner, a great many of the younger girls and most of the seniors managed in some way to meet Shirley. “Introduce me to your room-mate, Madge,” one of the girls would say. Or Betty and Cad, as Caroline was almost universally called, would come up with a bevy of girls to be introduced. Shirley appreciated Madge’s convoy, and knew that Madge wanted to keep her from the embarrassment of being alone. It was not really necessary, for Shirley was quite able to take care of herself; but the circumstances were unusual, to say the least.
There was music in the parlors, with much lively conversation after the girls had tired of being outside. They dressed for dinner, as it was directed and their light, cool frocks were more suitable for the house when the lake breezes blew strongly. Shirley had had an opportunity to press her pretty orchid dress of soft silk, which looked suitable and was becoming. She felt more at home in it than she had been able yet to feel in the uniform, neat as it was, and comfortable.
Shirley’s wardrobe, however, was limited. It had seemed better to do the big things, like the trips and the year at school, even if economy were necessary in the doing. From the catalogue Mrs. Harcourt and Miss Dudley had found the list of garments permitted, or required. These Shirley possessed. It was good fun to be away at school, Shirley was thinking tonight. Suppose she did look like some one else. That would be a nine days’ wonder. But she noticed that Sidney Thorne did not come up to meet her. When Shirley entered the parlors with Madge, Sidney immediately found it necessary to go to her room and begin work on her lessons or some committee report. “Poor girl,” Shirley thought, as she noticed Sidney’s hurried departure, “she has had a shock!”
It was not long before Shirley herself thought that she must waste no more time with the girls. She, too must master her lessons. Madge went upstairs with her, but said that she would not study until regular hours began. Leaving Shirley to her usual concentration, Madge hurried around to Cad’s room to “indulge in a little harmless gossip,” she told her hostess. “I’m glad that Stella isn’t in. Lucky that she practices half the time.”
“Yes, and the rest of the time she is with her musical chum. It is a wonder that she does not want to room with her.”
“How did you like my room-mate?” Madge asked Betty.
“Very much. It’s eerie, though, to see how much she looks like Sidney. When you are with her for a while you do seem to see that she is different.”
“A different personality altogether,” airily stated Caroline. “It’s funny, though. She even walks like Sidney,—that light springy way, awfully independent, you know, with her chin up. But Shirley seems more interested in everything than Sidney will let herself be.”
“Sidney thinks that it is not ‘good form’ to show surprise at anything. It is new to Shirley, too. Then she isn’t as stand-offish as Sidney was when she first came here. It certainly is going to be fun to watch the differences and to tell them apart. The uniform, too, makes it worse. If they only could dress differently!”
“Sidney will have something on tomorrow, Betty,” said Madge, “depend upon it, girls, that will let her friends know which is which!”
“Yes,” replied Betty, “and poor old Sidney is thinking right now that she would like to leave and go to some other school.”
“Suppose she did!” cried Caroline.
“No,” said Betty, “I think that I know Sidney well enough to say that she will stick it out and not be driven away. She may want to go, and hate it like everything to have some one look like her very twin, but she will stay, for pride’s sake if for nothing else. And nobody will know how she hates it, either.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The Double Three will know it.”
“She may say something at first, when she is so surprised. But nobody will be sure. Maybe she will not care as much as I think she will. But I think that it would be something of a shock to any one, and especially to Sidney.”
The girls agreed that having a double who wasn’t your twin would scarcely be desirable. Still, Shirley Harcourt was a very attractive girl.
Other girls beside Madge and her friends were commenting that evening upon the sensation of the day. Some of them declared that they could see a difference in the two girls; others exclaimed that the new girl looked exactly like Sidney.
Sidney Thorne herself was very deeply annoyed, as she said frankly, though with reservations, to Fleta. “Yes, it will be a perfect nuisance to be taken for some one else or have some one taken for you. Fortunately the new senior seems to be unobjectionable so far as we can see. On the whole, I suppose that it is not very important. I shall ask the dean if I may not wear something which will identify me, to you girls, at least. In time every one will recognize some difference, I hope. We certainly can not look exactly alike and I shall adopt some different arrangement of my hair. Wouldn’t you, Irma?”
“That would be a good idea,” said Irma, who was quickly getting into something more comfortable than her dinner dress.
Sidney disappeared into her bedroom and came back with a pretty cluster of artificial flowers taken from her coat. “There,” she said, “I’ll wear this tomorrow. Everybody has seen me with this new bunch of posies.”
“You’d better wear something over your shoulders behind, too,” said Fleta. “I’d suggest a placard, ‘This is Sidney.’”
“Fleta!”
“Excuse me, Sid; I was trying to be funny.”
Sidney did not reply, but stood pulling out the flowers for a better effect. Fleta gave a quick glance at Irma, who frowned at her; and Edith, who also caught Fleta’s eye, shook her head, and lifted her hands in an expression of “It’s beyond me!”
Sidney now picked up her uniform and fastened the flowers high upon its shoulder. “Now,” she said, “that will be seen from either direction, Fleta. We can dismiss it all, I hope. It probably will not be very disagreeable as soon as it gets past the stage of mixing us up. Better not tell any of your secrets, girls, or talk about the Double Three, until you are sure it is I. Odd,—they say that twins think it fun to be taken for each other and like to mystify people.”
Fleta reported this to Dulcie, when Dulcie, in bathrobe and slippers, met her in the hall and asked her what Sidney thought of the “new girl who is her image.”
“She can’t like it very well,” Fleta answered, “but she is very dignified about it.”
“Sidney would be. I hope that she won’t make it hard for the new girl. She could, you know.”
“Yes; but Sidney never does mean things.”
“Sidney is honorable, but she can let a girl alone about as well as any one I know; and it makes a difference here, whether you are a friend of Sidney’s or not.”
“Yes,” thoughtfully Fleta assented. “She says now we must make sure that it is she we are talking to, when we tell any secrets or talk about the Double Three.”
Dulcie laughed. “We must have a pass word, then,” she said.