Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (18 page)

T
HAT WEEK WAS ONE
of the longest and hardest the Ray family had ever known. All of them were suffering with Julia. Betsy and her mother talked of little else. Margaret made her sister a penwiper. Anna cleaned Julia's room, shaking the curtains fiercely as though they were the Epsilon Iotas.

“Whatever
they
are!” Anna muttered.

Mr. Ray tried to cheer himself by planning Julia's
trip to Germany. He said over and over again how sensible they were not to tell her the good news this week, and Mrs. Ray agreed. But on the night of the formal dinners, Mrs. Ray weakened.

“Let's call her up and tell her, Bob. She won't need to tell anyone else.”

“All right,” said Mr. Ray, yielding suddenly. “She's gone through a tough week. There's no need to make her wear a hair shirt, after all.”

Mrs. Ray flew to the telephone and called the dormitory, but Julia was out. She left word for Julia to call back. Julia didn't call, and the morning of Pledge Day Mrs. Ray 'phoned again. Again Julia was out. But she had received the message last night, the matron said.

“She doesn't want to talk to us,” Mrs. Ray exclaimed. “She can't bear to. Oh, Bob, we should have told her before she went back!”

“See here!” said Mr. Ray. “All the other little girls who have been dropped by sororities or were never rushed at all haven't got families who are going to send them to Europe. If they can take it, Julia can. If she doesn't want to talk to us, it's because she knows we're a bunch of sissies who would only weaken her courage.”

But Mr. Ray went down to the shoe store looking grim.

Julia came home next day, and according to family tradition Mr. Ray should have met her at the train
alone, bringing her home to dinner under pledge of not letting her say a word. Today, however, the whole family went to meet her.

“No telling what kind of shape she'll be in. She may want to go right to bed.”

“I'll have a hot water bottle ready,” said Anna, who was a little vague as to just what kind of calamity overhung Julia.

“I wonder, I wonder whether she'll blame us for not telling her,” Mrs. Ray kept saying.

Mr. Ray hitched up Old Mag, and, filled with mingled sympathy and dread, the family drove to the station. The train rushed down the track beside the river to a panting steaming halt and Julia stepped off wearing a radiant smile, a gigantic new spring hat and a corsage bouquet almost as big. She flew at her family kissing and hugging.

“Be careful!” Mrs. Ray cried. “Don't crush your flowers! They're so beautiful.”

“Not so beautiful as what's underneath them,” said Julia, and right on the station platform she slipped off her coat. On her shirt waist a gold pin was gleaming.

“Look! I'm pledged Epsilon Iota.”

“Julia!”

“Were you at the dinner?”

“Was that why you weren't at home when we 'phoned?”

“No,” said Julia. “I was walking all that evening. I
walked all the way to downtown Minneapolis and back. I had to keep walking to keep going. I was so unhappy. It was the worst night of my life.”

“But then—how do you happen to be wearing the pin?”

“See here!” said Mr. Ray. “We can't go into all this standing up. Pile into the surrey and I'll drive you home.”

“I won't stir one foot until we've heard it all,” Mrs. Ray replied.

“Then come on in the station and have some coffee,” said Mr. Ray, who hated standing on his feet. So over a ring of coffee mugs, with milk for Margaret, Julia told her story.

“Well, I've known all along that one girl was keeping me out.” She began to laugh. “Now I know the reason why. I've promised not to tell, so all of you must promise not to tell. It's because of Pat. Norma—the blonde, Bettina—is one of the girls I took Pat away from.
She
was blackballing me.

“The rest of the girls were just crazy to have me, and the more things I did around school—singing in
The Mikado
, acting in plays and so on—the crazier they were. They all knew Norma was voting against me, and they knew the reason why, but there wasn't anything they could do about it. Except to keep on voting over and over again, which they did. But there was always one blackball.”

“Really black?” asked Margaret, her eyes enormous.

“Blacker than ink,” said Julia. “And the night before Pledge Day they had the formal dinner without me, and I was walking the streets.

“But it seems that alumnae are very important in a sorority. They put up the money for houses and things. And one of the alumnae, who had seen me in
The Mikado
, was determined I was going to be an Epsilon Iota. That night, while I was walking the streets and weeping, she was gathering up a lot of other alumnae and after the banquet they all descended on the Chapter House and said, ‘We want Julia Ray! We want Julia Ray!'” Julia chanted as at a football game.

“They called for a ballot and there was still one vote against me. They kept right on voting all night long and poor Norma couldn't hold out. At last, when it was almost morning, everyone was voting yes. So they sent my invitation over by messenger—they had had it all ready, lying on the table. It reached me at the dormitory yesterday morning and I went to the Epsilon Iota house and was pledged right along with the rest.”

“Well for Pete's sake!” said Mr. Ray.

“That doesn't sound very…idealistic,” Betsy remarked. “It isn't a bit the way I imagined sisterhoods were.”

“How did you find out all this?” Mrs. Ray asked.

“Oh, I stayed at the house last night,” Julia replied. “I slept with Patty and she told me the whole story. Of course, I promised not to tell. So don't you.”

“And you don't mind joining now?” asked Betsy.

“Why, no. Everyone except Norma wanted me all along. Even Norma seemed to want me today. She cried when she kissed me good-by. And they sent me these flowers to make up for all I've gone through.”

“They ought to have sent some flowers to your mother, too,” Mr. Ray observed.

“And to me!” cried Betsy. “And to Margaret! And for that matter to Anna. She has a hot water bottle in your bed.”

“A hot water bottle? For heaven's sake, why?” They all began to laugh but it was half crying. They got up and went out to the surrey, Julia with her arm around her mother. They piled in and drove to High Street.

Julia rushed into the house and kissed and hugged Anna and put her bouquet in the ice box and started flinging things about. She sat down at the piano and began to play a new tune.

“I brought you all the
Stubborn Cinderella
music, Bettina.”

Mr. Ray didn't go back to the shoe store, and it was like a holiday.

In the evening Tony and Cab and Dennie and Tacy and Katie and Tib came in, and there was more music, and peanut fudge and excitement. Everyone examined Julia's pledge pin and she talked constantly about Epsilon Iota—the house, the girls, plans for the spring formal dance and whether or not she would take Pat.

“I don't think I will,” she confided to Betsy, “on account of Norma. After all, she's my sister in Epsilon Iota now.”

Usually when young people were rampaging through the house, Mr. and Mrs. Ray went to bed, although Mrs. Ray never went to sleep until the girls came up. Tonight, however, they stayed in the parlor, and when everyone went home about eleven o'clock, Julia and Betsy joined them.

Mr. Ray sat in his big chair, his legs crossed, smoking a cigar. Mrs. Ray, very bright-eyed, sat in her slender rocker. Julia flung herself down on the couch but Betsy stood in the doorway, sensing that her father and mother were now going to make their stupendous announcement.

“Julia,” said Mr. Ray, “I want to have a talk with you.”

His tone was so serious that Julia sat upright.

“What is it, Papa?”

“It's a talk I might postpone,” he went on, “except
for one reason. I suppose there's some expense involved in this Epsilon Iota?”

“Yes, there's an initiation fee. A hundred dollars or so. Are you worried about the money, Papa?”

“Not if you're going back to the University next year. But if you aren't, you may have to make a choice.”

“But, of course, I'm going back. I thought that was all settled. I was planning to stay at the U even if the Epsilon Iotas didn't bid me.”

“I know,” said Mr. Ray. “But your mother and I have been doing a lot of talking. We've made some plans we want to talk over with you. I thought of going into this last week when you were feeling so badly, but it seemed like giving you some help you hadn't asked for and didn't need. It seemed best to let you go through Rush Week on your own steam.”

“Which I did,” said Julia proudly.

“I was the one who couldn't quite stand it,” said Mrs. Ray. “That's why we telephoned you Thursday night. I'm glad now we couldn't get you.”

“You know why I didn't call back,” said Julia. “I was feeling too badly to talk. The next morning I found out what was in the wind, but I wanted to be sure before I called you, and after that I wanted to surprise you with my pin.” She patted it fondly. Then her expression grew serious. “What do you want to
talk about, Papa? If you've got any worries I don't need to join Epsilon Iota right now.”

Everyone was smiling, but Mr. Ray grew sober. “Julia,” he said, “how would you like to go to Germany next year and study with Fraulein von Blatz?”

Julia stared at him. Betsy saw the color drain out of her face.

“I thought,” said Julia, “that was out of the question. I thought you felt strongly about my putting that off.”

“I did,” said Mr. Ray. “But I've come to see that your singing is all you really care for. And Fraulein von Blatz is not only an excellent teacher, Mrs. Poppy says; she's a very fine woman and will have a big class of young Americans living near her in Berlin. It sounds safe enough and your mother and I have to let you go some day. We want you to go now if it's best for you, and I believe it is.”

Now Julia was silent, deeply and intensely silent. The parlor quivered with her silence.

“The reason I brought it up now,” said Mr. Ray, “is that it has some bearing on your joining Epsilon Iota. Germany would be, Mrs. Poppy tells me, quite an expensive business. You don't just study singing when you go abroad to study singing. You study acting, too, and languages and a lot of other things. I can swing it, but I won't have any money to spare. I wouldn't want you to go to the expense of joining a sorority—”

Julia interrupted. Yet she didn't actually interrupt for she seemed not to have heard the last few things he had said. She got up, still pale, and crossed the room. She put her arms around her father and tears began running down her cheeks.

“But you don't want me to be an opera singer!” she said.

“I never said I didn't.”

“You'd rather I just got married. That's why you wanted me to go to the University first.”

“I don't want you to be an opera singer unless you're darn' well sure you want to be,” said Mr. Ray. “It's a hard life. But your mother has seen all winter that your heart was only in your singing. That's why you went off your nut about the sorority thing. Perhaps you know best about what you ought to do. I'm willing to send you to Germany next year, if you want to go.”

Julia finished crying with her head on her father's shoulder, and then she went to her mother and cried, and to Betsy and cried some more, hugging and swinging her around.

“You'll never be sorry!” she said, turning a joyful face to her father. “You'll never be sorry!”

“Julia,” said Mrs. Ray. “You haven't answered Papa's question about Epsilon Iota. I'm afraid you're disappointed not to join after being pledged and all. But you'll have to make a choice.”

“What choice?” asked Julia. “There isn't any choice. The girls are swell; it was nice of them to ask me. But I don't know what choice you mean.”

“Then you're going next fall,” began Mrs. Ray, but Mr. Ray interrupted.

“Here's something I haven't told your mother. There's a good chance to send you in June. The Rev. Mr. Lewis is taking a party over for European travel. They will visit London, Rome and Paris and wind up in Germany. He can leave you there when he brings the rest home. How does that sound to you all?”

Julia began to cry again but she dashed the tears away as though she couldn't be bothered with them.

“In June! Papa! I must be dreaming. Oh, dear, I must hurry and give back Pat's fraternity pin.”

“But you're not wearing it!” Betsy cried. “Are you crazy? There's nothing but your Epsilon Iota pledge pin on your shirt waist.”

“I'm wearing his pin on my corset cover,” Julia said. “It's more romantic that way. Oh, dear, dear, dear! I'm so happy!”

“Well, I'll go put the coffee pot on,” said Mr. Ray, moving toward the kitchen.

“Is it too late to 'phone Mrs. Poppy? I wonder what roles I'll be singing? She'll start me on Mozart, probably,” said Julia, pacing back and forth across the parlor, a smile on her tear-wet face.