There are those who maintain that a blind man's aural and tactual senses are intensified by way of compensation for his loss of sight. It would have been a highly diverting and unusual test for such a man if he could have been present at this moment on a warm September evening in Room 4-A of Comstock Hall, an old-fashioned but still quite comfortable dormitory for unaffiliated freshmen and sophomore girls just two blocks off the campus of Marwell College. Because then he might be able to test the accuracy of that theory as to whether Eleanor Landers was taking off panties made of silk or of satin or possibly even of velvet.
She was five feet six inches in height, and her figure was breathtakingly voluptuous, as the full-length mirror on the front of her bathroom door assured her. Most of it was visible and completely unveiled as her slim creamy fingers took hold of the waistband of those snug fitting yellow panties preparatory to fucking them down over lush, rounded, resilient hips, because she had already removed a matching bra and stood in charcoal-brown nylons and high-heeled brown leather pumps. Under the cling of those molding panties, the outline of a narrow white satin-elastic garter belt could be seen, and its even narrower and tautly stretched tabs pressed very tightly along the outsides of ripely curved, firm thighs whose richly feminine contours a sculptor would have gratefully admired. The fine cleanly rounded shape of her calves was further enhanced by the gauzy embellishment of the nylon hose, whose caressing delineation also revealed the fact that her knees were suavely rounded and delightfully dimpled. In a sense, that is the final test of a woman's beauty, for too often the knees of even a Miss America suggest an angularity; Eleanor Landers' definitely did not.
She leaned forward a little to study herself in the mirror. It was still faithful to her almost exotic beauty, though it could not hide the selfish lines of the somewhat small, sensually ripe-lipped mouth nor the unbridled insolence of the delicately aquiline nose with its thin, sensuously flaring wings.
She frowned now, and her cat green eyes narrowed with exactly the suspicious look of a crafty feline; her lids were heavy and her lashes exaggeratedly thick and curly. That was artifice, as the TV commercials will tell you, and they made her look properly glamorous and sexy, which was precisely the image Eleanor Landers wished to create. Her coppery-red hair was, tonight, primly combed back from the top of her forehead and pinned into a tight oval bun at the back of her neck. It had a kind of unconvincing austerity to it, completely at variance with the breathtakingly sensual body and the creamy skin with its overtones of rosy flecks, so typical of a true redhead. A moment later, as she tugged down her panties-their rustling, slithering sound over the rich curves of her buttocks and thighs proved they were made of silk, because satin has a kind of hissing sound, and velvet a dull kind of scratchy friction as it moves over naked skin-there was still more natural evidence that she was a genuine redhead.
She opened the bathroom door and went in, then dropped the panties into the washbowl, where the bra was already soaking in a foamy detergent lather, and took down, from a wire hanger on the back of the door, a green satin bathrobe with narrow black cloth belt. She knotted the belt at the front, buttoned the lower buttons, so that the rather wide lapels of the robe gaped and exposed the glossy satin cream of throat and chest and the enticing valley between her firm breasts. A cool, calculating little smile had begun to creep over her lips, and now she opened the medicine cabinet, took out a perfume atomizer and sprayed it against the pulse hollow of her throat and the top of the cleft at her bosom.
"I think that should do it," she remarked aloud, as if wanting to reassure herself, and replaced the atomizer in the cabinet, closed the door. Then she walked back into the wide, comfortably furnished room, scanning it quickly as if appraising it for the first time.
Of all the eighty-odd girls who inhabited the three floors of Comstock Hall, Eleanor Landers was the only one to boast possession of a room and bath all to herself. Money was the answer. That and simpering flattery to old Martha Dowdale, the 62-year-old widow of a former Marwell professor who had had the job of managing the hall for the past 30 years, the then president of the college having tended it to her as a sort of consolation for her husband's tragic death. James Dowdale had been a chemistry professor and had, alas, an unfortunate tendency to imbibing martinis. And one evening, on one of his benders, he had wandered into the laboratory and concocted a sulphuric dosage of something or other with an unpronounceable name, then forgotten to empty the beaker into the sink. So, the next morning, still suffering from the hangover, he had commenced a new experiment and the combined results had been explosive; so much so that there was hardly enough of him left to bury. The college had generously overlooked his fatal penchant and given his widow the sinecure of managing this dormitory for girls who didn't belong to Greek-letter sororities.
And Eleanor Landers had taken the time to learn something about brooding old Martha Dowdale and to discover that she liked growing flowers in a box and minor English poets, and so when she had come to be interviewed as an applicant to live in the hall, she had talked so knowingly about peonies and nasturtiums and about the Restoration poets that the enchanted widow had seen to it that this appreciative and intelligent young woman simply must be given a room all to herself.
It was just another of the many tiny little triumphs the green-eyed redhead had managed to accumulate in the short span of her twenty years. A few minutes hence, she thought amusedly, the smile deepening on her sulky, sensual mouth, there would be a vastly more important one to chalk up on her ledger. Tom Jenkins was going to pay her a visit against every written and unwritten campus rule.
Tom Jenkins was one of the most eligible senior males on campus. To have got him away from Elly Douglas, the bespectacled, angel-faced, sensitive Phi Beta Kappa senior who wore his pin-and even for a single evening-was in itself a feat that would spread Eleanor Lander's fame all over the college. A single night's work would do the trick, and after tomorrow, everybody would be talking about what a daring, unconventional and exciting creature she was.
That was precisely what the redhead wanted. To attract attention to herself so that she might occupy a pedestal of importance all during the next three years. Because this was only her second week at Mar-well, and she was starting her sophomore year. It wasn't much better than being a freshman, and if you weren't pledged by an outfit like Delta Gamma Theta, you might as well curl up into a hole with a good book and die, just like the greasy grinds and teachers' pets who burned the midnight oil and never got anywhere on campus.
Having money wasn't the only answer, either. Marwell's tuition fees were slightly higher than the schools in the Chicago area where she had come from, but, after all, there were lots of girls who came from families as wealthy as hers. Samuel Landers had made his fortune manipulating stock in a brokerage firm, and earned enough from a single killing on the bear market to move her and Mom to Briarwood Terrace, Chicago's swankiest residential area. She owned her own Ford Thunderbird, a white gleaming streamlined car of which she was inordinately proud, but in the private parking lot back of the DGT house, she had already seen a Jaguar, an Imperial and an air-conditioned blue Cadillac with a stereo tape player and FM set.
At twenty, Eleanor knew that she was a bit old to be a sophomore. But then, she'd lost that one year when Dad and Mom had decided to take her along to Europe with them to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. And in Paris, where they'd spent two months, she'd fallen in love with a suave black-haired young man who was 26 and known as the Comte Henri de Rochembeau. Mom had been thrilled at the possibility of Eleanor's marrying into the nobility, and had done all she could to keep Eleanor's secret meetings with Henri an even deeper secret from Samuel Landers. Unfortunately, everything had gone wrong; Henri de Rochembeau had turned out to be a third cousin of the real count whereas he himself was a salaried doorman at a imagine department store on the other side of Paris and had taken sick leave from his job after meeting Eleanor in the hope that she would turn out to be a rich American girl he could marry in order to improve his own negligible fortune. And she herself had been so smitten with his savoir-faire and good looks that she had let him enjoy more liberties than she ought to have done, and for a dreadful time she had thought she was going to bear a child.
Mom-whom Eleanor preferred to call Laura in keeping with the sophisticated trend of treating your parents like equals, or, better still, like menials-hadn't been able to keep that secret from Dad, and so Eleanor had been lectured, given proper hell, and instead of being left in Paris at the Sorbonne as Dad had originally intended, he had taken her back to Chicago at the conclusion of the long European trip and enrolled her at Marwell. That way, she would be away from Chicago and out of mischief, so far as he was concerned. Marwell was eighty miles northward of the Windy City.
And so Eleanor had made up her mind to attract attention here on campus, to be queen bee in this little rustic town, just as if Chicago and Paris had never existed. The way to do that was to do something startling. She wouldn't make the same mistake twice; Tom Jenkins, personable and handsome though he was, wasn't going to get anywhere at all with her, even if he was coming up to her room this very night. In fact, in a few minutes, if her alarm clock was right. She'd worked it all out, and she giggled now, thinking what a neat little stunt it was.
Just last Friday Suzy Mersh, a year older than herself and a ripe curved silver-haired blonde who had had boy trouble and was being forced to repeat her sophomore year, had pointed Tom Jenkins out to her. Eleanor had been attracted by his sturdy yet athletically lean figure, his dark blue eyes and crew-cut dark brown hair and the strong jaw and firm mouth that were characteristics of determination and energy. She'd seen Elly Douglas clinging to his arm and sneered at the doting look the bespectacled brunette turned on him.
And Suzy Mersh had told her that Elly practically had a stranglehold on Tom, who was the star right halfback on the Marwell team and might even make the Little All-America team this next fall.
"They've been going steady since high school, take it from me, Eleanor. You haven't got a chance," Suzy had said. And that had been an irresistible challenge. Besides, it rather amused Eleanor Landers to think that she was competing with a girl who had the same first name as she did-though nobody ever called Eleanor Elly. That was much too plebian and vulgar. But she knew one thing: Elly Douglas was a sweet innocent who didn't know the first thing about catching a man's roaming and roving eye; and if Tom was stuck on Elly, then it must be only because he'd never met a really predatory female who could teach him more in half an hour about the opposite sex than pallid little Elly could in a lifetime.
So she had bided her time and on Saturday, at the Sweet Shoppe, where all the crowd went for scrumptious sodas and sundaes and malts and huge banana splits (bigger and cheaper than back home in Chicago, she had to admit), she'd walked in and there was Tom Jenkins cracking a book and all alone by himself in a booth. Very boldly, she'd walked over, slid into the seat opposite him, and sweetly purred, "Do you mind, Mr. Jenkins?" He'd looked up and shoved his book away and grinned, then shook his head. And that was how it had started.
Tonight was Wednesday. She'd already had one clandestine date with him under the bleachers in Crowe Field-though all she'd let him do was steal a few kisses and feel her breasts through her tight sweater. But she'd intimated that if he was really man enough to win her favors, she might let him do much more. She'd bragged of her family background, inventing an important post in the diplomatic service for Dad and a tremendously vital society role for Mom (though the best Mom could do, even with Dad's money, was be a guest at the Briarwood Country Club and an invited fourth for bridge). She'd told him about her many trips to Europe and her knowledge of exotic customs and strange ways, and she'd found out-just as she'd suspected after Suzy Mersh's comments-that Tom Jenkins was a novice in the ways of love and something of a bumpkin, a real country boy who was going to marry the first sticky, silly female who made googoo eyes at him out of the mistaken notion that a high school sweetheart was your true and only love.
"I live at Comstock Hall, Tom honey," she'd whispered as she deftly disengaged herself from his embrace. She knew she had left him panting and flushed for wanting her, and she was willing to bet her next month's allowance that he'd never ever necked with Elly Douglas. "Why don't you come up Wednesday night and we'll have fun?" And he'd gasped, shaken his head, flushed still more and blurted, "Oh, gosh, Eleanor, I couldn't. No man's ever allowed there, you know that yourself."
That was when she'd told him there was an ivy-covered drainpipe right outside her room and that she would leave her door open at ten-thirty, for fifteen minutes only. "If you're man enough to shinny up there-and it ought to be easy for a football hero, Tom sweetie," she'd cooed as her fingers brushed his cheeks, "I'll let you do all the things you've ever wanted to do to a girl." And he'd kissed her and gasped, "You mean it? I will, then!"
Only what Tom Jenkins didn't know was that all Eleanor Landers wanted from him was the gossip that she was so exciting that a star football player and leading senior would risk his reputation and chance of graduation by breaking the strictest rules on campus. Because once he got into her room, he wasn't going to get to first base with her at all.
CHAPTER TWO
Eleanor Landers lit a cigarette and walked slowly about the spacious room feeling that spicy tang which a call girl might experience at her very first assignation. Playing up to Martha Dowdale had paid off; this was the best room on the three floors of the dormitory. A big round desk and comfortable upholstered chair, a wide armchair, a low wide couch, and, in the far corner opposite the door, an old-fashioned but extremely comfortable bed with brass head and foot rails. And a bathroom all to herself, and all this for $110 a month, which was chickenfeed. Old Mrs. Dowdale went to sleep at ten, so there wouldn't be any problem when Tom Jenkins performed his heroic and spectacular feat of shinnying up the drainpipe.
She had nothing to lose. If he slid down or couldn't make it, and somebody found out, he would just look foolish and be reprimanded for the outrageous idea of trying to get into the girls' dormitory. If he did make it, nobody would find out. And when she finished with him, he wouldn't dare tell his cronies, because, first, there'd be nothing to tell, and second, he'd be laughed off campus if he told the truth about what she planned to do.
After that escapade with Henri, the spurious French count, Eleanor had decided to be a demi-vierge, or, in the parlance, a teaser. She would do it out of revenge, because suave handsome Henri had actually duped her into going to bed with him and she'd thought it was true love, not guessing that all he wanted was to marry a girl with a big dowry. Oh, sure, he'd been a marvelous lover; but the fact was, sex didn't mean all that much to her. She was too selfish and narcissistic, and, as often happens with females of that genre, she was rather more frigid than her breathtaking red-haired beauty would possibly suggest to a covetous male who saw her walk along the shady paths.
Men were really so doltishly simple. Here Suzy Mersh had been building up the big football hero and senior and power on campus to her, and it had taken just one meeting and after that one surreptitious date (and that really couldn't be called much of a date, meeting under the bleachers and doing a bit of imagine necking) to wean him away from his angelic, pure sweetheart. Oh, she didn't want him, even on a permanent basis; this was a kind of test of her own powers, which Eleanor Landers needed to restore her self-confidence after that fiasco in Paris. But once that test had come off brilliantly, as she knew it would, she'd be the envy of all the other girls. Getting into DGT would be lead pipe cinch, and she could have her pick of men. And all that attention and excitement would ease the hurt of being sent away from Chicago by her parents, because she knew very well it was a punitive measure, at least on Dad's part, old fuddy-duddy that he was. Mom wasn't so bad, though when it came down to basic issues, she was really spineless. Mom ought, for instance, to have stood up for her and made Dad give in on sending her to Illinois Extension or the U. of Chicago or even Roosevelt, just so she could be in town and available for all the gay nightlife of the Windy City. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because there was a lot of compensation in being a big frog in a small pond instead of the other way around.
She eyed herself a last time in the bathroom mirror and deftly adjusted the top of the green satin robe to show off a little more of her creamy chest and the spellbinding cleft between her firm breasts. It was for sure that Tom Jenkins had probably never seen his darling little four-eyed Elly Douglas in anything less than a fully clothed condition, so that was why it had been so easy to entice him with the promise of her own verdantly sensual, ripe body. That was what the psych profs called sublimation; Tom Jenkins probably was going to pretend it was Elly by closing his eyes and trying to make love to her...the only catch was, he wasn't going to get even that far.
Just to make sure that her exploit didn't go unnoticed, she had already tipped off six or seven of the more venturesome girls at Comstock Hall, ones she knew wouldn't blab to old Mrs. Dowdale, but who would spread the news around of how she'd lured Tom Jenkins up to her dorm room in front of God and everybody. She had also let them in on how she was going to turn him down, and they'd thought it an hilarious prank. Yes, by tomorrow, her stock would be soaring at Marwell. And that would put her a few steps ahead of Kathy Edwards.
Imagine that frumpy girl coming here to Marwell, of all places! Eleanor Landers frowned at her image in the mirror. She and Kathy had grown up on the same block, gone to Gale Grammar School together, and for a time been the closest of friends. Till, of course, Dad had started to make a killing in the stock market and moved them all away to Briarwood Terrace. Kathy's folks couldn't keep up with that change, that was for sure. Kathy's father was a mild-mannered, self-effacing little man who worked as a radio engineer in a North Side 2500-watt station. It was a steady job with fair pay, but it had no future and it was awfully dull. Eleanor didn't see how a man could be content to sit in front of a panel and watch the needles of dials move this way and that and record their movements in a log, year after year. And Kathy's mother wasn't much brighter, in her book anyway. Imagine not having servants and doing the lawn yourself and actually washing the car with a hose on Saturdays! No society woman ever did a thing like that.
Eleanor Landers conveniently forgot the many times Mrs. Edwards had invited her over to have supper with Kathy and Mr. Edwards when they'd been playing together. That was ancient history, after all, when she'd been just a child, too young to know any better. But now that she was in college and twenty, she knew the score. The only people who mattered were those who had money and background and big glamorous jobs or a reputation for being smart and imaginative. Marwell was a comedown for her in a way, and that was all the more reason why she had to start her career on campus with a real bang. And Tom Jenkins was going to furnish the fireworks!
She'd left the window halfway open, just enough so that he'd have to work to push it up far enough to climb inside. No sense making things too easy for him. Then the disappointment of being told no wouldn't hurt nearly so much as if he'd had to make a real effort.
She lit a cigarette and sat down on the couch, crossing her lovely rounded legs so that the robe hiked up enough to show off the gauzy sheaths of her nylons. And she tilted the lamp beside the couch in such a way as to focus the illumination right on her calves and knees so that he couldn't help noticing them the minute he crawled on through. She was willing to bet a month's allowance that Elly Douglas hadn't shown him much more than her prim knees in all the years they'd been dating. Tom had as much as intimated that he'd never gone very far physically with Elly, and no wonder; she was the kind who burned the midnight oil and got high marks and didn't even know what perfume and a smart hairdo could do to make a man's pulses quicken. If that was the sort of girl a handsome clean-cut athlete like Tom Jenkins preferred, he was strictly minor league, for all the talk about his being B.M.O.C.
She put the glass ashtray on the floor so that she could bend down to it and show him the d'colletage of her green satin robe. It would be amusing to see how flustered he would get when he found out that all his climb and exertion had been for nothing. She'd let him smoke a cigarette, give him one drink, maybe one brief kiss, and then send him back to the frat house a wiser and sadder hero. And he wouldn't dare smack her down for pulling a stunt like this; the girls she'd enlisted at the Hall were on her side, and they'd spread the word so fast he'd be the laughingstock of Marwell.
Sure, it was being bitchy, but what did that matter? Mady Terhune, the elegant sandy-haired tall blonde who was prexy of Delta Gamma Theta, was the sort of sorority leader who would appreciate her bid for attention. It was rumored that Mady felt that a top-notch sorority house ought to coach its girls in not being easy marks for the first fellow who offered to pin them. And Mady herself was still unpinned and playing the field.
She heard a noise outside, and giggled, tensing in expectation. Then there was nothing except the soft night breeze. September had been a hot month, with little relief even at night, except for a vagrant wind from the southeast that really didn't help cool things off much. Even the satin robe felt warm. Taking it off would make Tom Jenkins sizzle. Even if he married Elly, she was sure, the prim bespectacled senior girl wasn't the kind who would let her hubby see her in just a garter belt and high-heeled pumps and sheer hose. She would probably wear a long opaque nightie. Or pajamas. And Eleanor preferred sleeping raw herself. Not that Tom Jenkins was going to learn her preference, now or any other night.
So this was Marwell, was it? Touted as "a small but select college with full academic credits, leading to the pursuit of advanced degrees in English literature, philosophy, sociology, as well as home economics, business administration" and so on. A small stadium which housed maybe five thousand people at the most, and was packed only every November when Marwell met its traditional rival, Carthage College. Oh, they had some good names on the faculty, all right, like that Professor Leonard Wormsley, who had published two books on population explosion and was looked on as a whiz in sociology and drew foreign exchange students to his classes. One of his books had even been reprinted in paperback. Not that Eleanor Landers cared about the population explosion; at least, not studying it at Marwell. Back home in Chicago, she would have felt more at ease, and she would have had her pick of fellows to squire her to the London House for a steak and the jazz combo or down along the nightspots which mixed culture with beer and pretzels in Old Town or even the fancier rendezvous of Rush Street. Here, all there was to do was to go to the Orpheum, which changed its double features once every two weeks, and the sweet shop where she'd met Tom Jenkins and, if she felt really wicked, go into the small bar which the only decent restaurant in town offered. Only the dean of women had intimated that going unescorted wasn't proper. And besides, a hick joint like that wouldn't know how to mix a stinger or fix an authentic Gibson or a gimlet. So there was nothing to do for kicks-except what she was about to do now.
She preened herself again in the mirror, smoothed back the severe curve of the oval bun of coppery hair, and smiled at herself. She would have liked nothing better than to pose for hours on end before the mirror, altering her coiffure and makeup, her attire, so that she became a complex and many-faceted siren. Such was Eleanor Landers' narcissism; she had that peculiar bent of mind which enabled her to rationalize quickly and justify her every act. She had already forgotten the blunder with Henri de Rochembeau, and that he had bedded her, not once but several times till the liaison had been secretly obliterated with her father's money, much as a marriage might have been. So at the moment, by her own standards, Henri had never existed, therefore she was still a virgin and she knew the value of that pseudo-virginity. Wasn't it potent enough as lure to draw a perfectly respectable and reputable senior football hero to her room at this late hour?
Wait-what was that? A louder noise than before, startling against the faint chirping of the crickets. It made her giggle, because when crickets rubbed their wings to make that noise, it meant they were wooing each other. Only the human animal had to go through such an elaborate ritual of courtship, dates and wining and dining and then the clumsy pawing which passed for trying "to make out" which was the common code in most colleges these days. At least, Henri de Rochembeau had been an imaginative and skillful lover, and if he hadn't been after her money, she might have made a go of marriage. He had certainly been a handsome devil. She shivered now, remembering their first night...how he had undressed her, garment by garment, lingering to kiss and tongue the exquisite revelations which this gradual deshabille had brought about, and how wickedly erotic she had felt wearing just a half-slip and hose and garter belt and pumps while his dark head had bowed before the round turrets of her swelling breasts, his lips and tongue-tip saluting the rosebuds at their crests.
And from that elysian wooing in romantic Paris, she had come to exile in this hick town where there probably wasn't a single eligible male between twenty and fifty who could even begin to think up the spicily inventive ideas Henri had had in lovemaking.
At least this little stunt tonight had something racy to recommend it. Tom himself had gasped incredulity when she'd slyly proposed that he join her in her room. "But, gosh, Eleanor, a guy could get kicked out of college doing that!" She'd had to slap him playfully just before, for having called her "Elly"; it was too much like the name of his plain-jane girlfriend, and she'd whispered alluringly, "Tom honey, I'm not your Elly. I'm as different from her as night from day, and the only way you'll ever find out is by being alone with me in my room. Are you man enough to try it?"
And when he'd still hesitated, she'd slipped her satiny-firm bare arms round his neck and flicked the tip of her tongue just between his lips, whispering, "There. Did your Elly ever kiss you like that?" That had been the convincer. He would come climbing up the drainpipe drooling in anticipation-and then would come, as Henri might have said, the denouement.
There went the noise again, and it was definitely coming from the drainpipe. He was climbing up, a modern Romeo to her three-story Juliet. There wasn't much danger anybody would see him this time of night; the old watchman made his rounds at ten and again at eleven-thirty-she'd found that out from Suzy Mersh before that meeting under the bleachers with Tom.
She made sure that every light except the one on the night table beside the bed was extinguished. Then she arrayed herself carefully on the bed, propping up two thick pillows behind her and leaning back, fingers trailing along the sheets, cool and fresh and white and inviting. The drawn covers suggested an intimacy to follow. She thought it was a deft nuance. For a moment she felt sorry for the poor guy, shinnying up that narrow drainpipe, arriving out of breath and aching from the tortuous climb, expecting his ultimate reward-which he wasn't going to get. Then her eyes grew cool and hard and calculating. He was just an actor in the drama she was working up, nothing more nor else, and his feelings as such didn't matter a damn.
Now there was a pause; he was probably pausing to get his second wind and looking around to make sure nobody was watching. Then again the rasping sound, and now she could hear him grunting with the effort. He must be past the second floor.
She leaned back, again adjusting the bodice of the green satin bathrobe so that more of the valley of her creamy bosom was exposed. At least he had earned the right to a quick look. Besides, that would only excite him all the more. In a way, he ought to be grateful to her for having deluded him, because when he went back to that colorless girlfriend of his, he would have an idea of what a real woman could be to him. She could foresee that Elly Douglas was going to have a hard time holding her man because he was going to try to put those new ideas to work against her. So much the better! In a way, too, she was really contributing to his education as a man, and it was long overdue.
Then suddenly she saw an arm reach over the sill, a wiry hand grip the underpart of the window and shove it up. Then another gasp, and his curly brown hair and his widened, intensely concentrating eyes and furrowed forehead were seen. And then he was inside, in slacks and blue cotton T-shirt and sneakers, shaking his head and getting back his breath. "Boy, that was a climb. Slippery as the dickens. But I made it, Eleanor."
"Yes, you did, Tom. Go fix yourself a drink. There's a bottle of Scotch in the top drawer of my dresser, and the glasses are in the bathroom. Fix me one too, darling."
There was nothing in her affectatiously husky voice to indicate the end of this nocturnal sortie. She stared at him with her green eyes, making them as limpid as if she really meant to yield. But inside, she could hardly keep from laughing. That was the sort of girl Eleanor Landers was, deep down inside.
CHAPTER THREE
Lazily, like a queen enthroned and awaiting the dutiful obedience of a servant, Eleanor Landers watched him from the bed as he went to the dresser, opened the top drawer and took out the bottle of Scotch. Her secret smile kept edging her petulantly ripe mouth as she saw him stare at the label on the bottle. Poor lamb, she thought contemptuously, probably thinks he's going to have a regular orgy.
"Don't tell me you don't drink, Tom," she said condescendingly.
He looked up and grinned at her. "Sure I do. Only now that football season's starting, we're supposed to be in training."
"Well, one little drink isn't going to hurt you, you know. Besides, I'm not on the team, so let me have mine now, hm?"
"I'll say you're not," he admiringly retorted, and now for the first time since he had crawled in through the window, he seemed to look at her, to be physically conscious of her. He walked slowly towards the bed on his way to the bathroom to get the glasses, stopped at the mirrored door, faced his own reflection. Then he grinned again. "Well, hi there," he greeted himself, waving the bottle. "Look at you. In a lady's room and all."
Privately, she had to fight an impulse to giggle at his use of words. "And all" was, no doubt, his small town hick's way of implying going to bed with her. Just like all men, she thought, they have to talk about it to work up their courage. Well, go right ahead, Tom Jenkins. And then see where it gets you. Oh, is this ever going to be a scream!
Squirming indolently on the bed, she purred, "I see my mirror's the attraction for you, Tom. Would you rather look at it than at me?"
"Nope," he chuckled. "Just had to make sure it was me, all right. And it is. Up here all alone with a gorgeous gal in Comstock Hall. It's like I'm dreaming."
Then he pulled open the bathroom door, and went inside, and came out with the glasses, setting them down on the night table while he uncorked the bottle of Scotch. As he poured, he looked at her, his dark blue eyes intense and appraising, and Eleanor had to admit to herself that he was quite good looking, in an unrefined, thoroughly masculine way.
"There you are," he handed her a glass with about two fingers of Scotch. "That enough?"
"It'll do nicely, thanks. Sorry I haven't any ice or soda."
"It's the sentiment that counts, I always say." He lifted his glass. "Here's to a long and happy friendship."
"Does that leave any room for Elly?" she couldn't help being catty in her imminent moment of triumph.
"Hey, now," his voice was soft but taut, "let's leave her out of this. This is just between the two of us, you know."
"No, I don't, Tom. You mean, it's all right for you to be unfaithful to her, and I suppose, just like every man, you've got the old double standard...two for you and none for her. Suppose she was up in some fellow's room right now?"
He flushed and shifted his feet uncomfortably. "I said, cut it out. You know she isn't. A guy can't help going overboard, not for a gorgeous creature like you, and you know it. Besides, you sort of challenged me, and I've been taking a dare ever since I was old enough to walk on top of a board fence. Broke a rib that way once, when I was eight, but I did it long enough so the other kids saw I wasn't chicken."
"So you're a hero. I knew that when I met you at the sweet shop, Tom. You'll be ail-American. And the season starts next week, doesn't it?"
"Yep, a week from Saturday. We play Mannering, the weakest team on the schedule."
She sipped her Scotch and eyed him speculatively, the mocking little smile still edging her moist red lips. She'd put on a specially alluring lipstick to give her mouth the sensual moist quality she knew was exciting to men. Henri had told her that the lips of a woman capable of passion should always be moist. Damn itshe wanted to forget that louse!
"Tom, tell me something about yourself. I really don't know much about you except that you play football and seem to have got through three years at this rustic retreat."
He sat down on the edge of the foot of the bed, nursing his drink, continuing to eye her. Inwardly, she had to smirk at the way things were going; he was looking right at the cleft of her breasts, and she was willing to bet that Elly Douglas' complexion was unhealthily pale compared with the rich cream of her bare skin.
"It's not all that bad, Eleanor. Marwell's rated pretty high scholastically. I could have gone to the U. of Chicago or Missouri, but my folks live in Galesburg and that's nice and close for driving up weekends. Besides, the English Lit course and the commercial classes are about as good as you'd find at the bigger colleges. And what I don't learn about journalism here, my dad will teach me when I get out of school."
"Oh?" She shifted back against the pillows, finishing her drink, set the empty glass down on the night table. "How, Tom?"
"He owns a string of ten small town dailies and weeklies through the state, and I'm to go to work on the least profitable when I finish next June. If I do well, maybe I'll get to edit one of the better ones."
Eleanor Landers frowned. She was mentally revising her opinion of this handsome, lanky brown-haired senior who had bitten on her very first lure at Marwell. It turned out he came from a well-heeled family; anybody that owned ten papers had to have loot. Appearances were so often deceiving; she hadn't rated him for much more than a farmer's son.
"Well, I wish you luck. And I'm sure you'll make the paper pay off, with the initiative you showed climbing up here, Tom," she teased, drawing up one stockinged knee and clasping it with both slim hands, careful to let the robe hide the fact that all she had on was a garter belt.
"You know why I did, Eleanor." He finished his drink, got up and put the glass next to hers with a clink. He grinned as he lazily came back to his place at the foot of the bed. "See? We're already starting to make music together, honey."
"Are we, Tom?" She swayed her up-drawn knee from side to side in a studied slow pattern, flexing the muscles of calf and knee so that his eyes could feast on the gauzy sheathed regalia of that flawless limb.
"Why else did you think I risked my hide and scholastic standing coming up here, baby?" Now his voice was deliberate and hard, as if he knew the score too. She frowned and reached back with her left hand to smooth the oval bun of coppery hair, aware that the gesture arched out the surging cantaloupes of her bosom tightly against the green satin robe. He was just a little too hep for a hick, and she might have a few minor problems bringing off this little coup of hers. But when the day came that she couldn't frustrate a college hayseed, she might as well give up and get out of circulation. And she certainly wouldn't prove her right to membership in Marwell's most exclusive sorority.
"Why exactly did you come, honey?" she drawled.
He chuckled harshly as he shifted his place to sit along the edge of the middle of the bed, and he put his right hand on the shapely lower curve of her upraised stockinged calf, slowly caressing the resilient flesh through the gauzy nylon. "I thought you had a yen for me, that's why, Eleanor. The way you went after me in the sweet shop and then the way we necked under the bleachers. Any guy, even a freshie, would get the same idea."
"Take your hand away, Tom, please. And don't be vulgar. Are you suggesting that I'm easy? That maybe I'd issue the same invitation to anyone in pants on campus?"
"Oh, no. You're a slick chick, I'll give you credit for that, Eleanor baby. Too slick for this little town, and you've already told yourself that. It comes right out on your face and in everything you say and the way you say it. But as it happens, you picked the one guy who knows the score about dames. Don't let my pinning Elly Douglas fool you, baby. We're going to be married in about two years, but till we are and as long as I'm reasonably discreet so she doesn't find out, I mean to have what fun I can. Not just because it's available either, Eleanor, because I'm discriminating too, you see. Or didn't you give me credit for that?"
"Now you're being insulting!" she flashed as she swung her legs down off the bed on the other side and stood up, smoothing down the robe so nothing would show. "Maybe you'd better leave. You've had your drink and we've had our chat and I know where I stand. And I certainly don't propose to be your convenience till you decide to marry that four-eyed farmer's daughter."
"Which shows how much you know about Elly Douglas, baby. You better get yourself better grapevine connections. She happens to be the daughter of a topnotch Romance language professor, and her mother has had two fair-selling novels published the past five years. They own a summer house in Kennebunkport and live the rest of the year in Wilmette, which ought to mean something to you, being from Chicago as you are."
Her cheeks were red with anger and humiliation, especially at the way he was smiling, just as if he'd seen through her little scheme. So maybe it had backfired, but she still would have the upper hand when the rumor got gossiped around campus and to the ears of the DGT prexy.
"That may be," she conceded, her head high and her voice disdainful, "but she still goes around looking like an utter droop. If I were a man in the know, I'd never announce my attachment to a girl like that, I'd simply play the field."
"Well, honey, you can start playing, because I'm the leader of the field at Marwell," he mocked her as he came round the bed and grabbed her round the waist, roughly pulled her to him.
"Just like that, hm?" Her green eyes fixed him with cold contempt, and her delicate nostril wings flared and shrank. Supremely sure of herself, Eleanor Landers didn't even try to push away his steely fingers against her waist, but relied on her hauteur to stare him down. "You're quite some chick," he appraised in a muttered voice, putting his lips to the V-top of that creamy, velvety cleft bared by the gape of her robe and rubbing his mouth slowly, sensually, over the warm quivering skin. "A teaser at heart, but you try to show how sophisticated you really are. Isn't that your game?"
"You seem to know all about me."
His mouth roamed downwards slowly, pressing through the green satin over the very crest of her left breast, and she shivered voluptuously, closing her eyes for a moment. But it would be too easy to fall into his counter-trap. "I will say you're a smoother operator than I'd counted on," she vouchsafed. "But now this has gone far enough. Why don't you be a good boy and go back to your frat house? You can dream about the way it might have been if you'd been willing to shed that devoted little girlfriend of yours. Because I'm not about to replace her as a mistress till you're ready to make it legal with her. And I'm sure she's so simon-pure she won't let you go to bed with her till you do put the ring on her finger."
"And what if I said I'd marry you? Would that make you any more ready to take that robe off and be honest for a change? You've put on a real swell act, Eleanor, and I give you credit, though I don't know what you're trying to prove."
"I honestly don't think you're the type I'd pick as a husband, Tom, to be truthful."
"I didn't think so. So then-" with a jarring laugh, he pulled her to him again, and crushed his mouth on hers, while his hands swiftly untied the bathrobe. She spluttered and tried to fend off his hands, but he had already won the advantage. And, pushing her away, he dragged the robe open and for a breathtaking moment devoured the magnificent creamy verve of her nudity, piquantly set off by the narrow garter belt whose tabs dug into the ivory columns of her palpitating thighs. "Very nice. But it's just a facade, Eleanor. Now that I've seen it, I think I'll try the freshmen contingent. I might just find a cute little number who isn't trying to impress everybody on campus and just wants a nice friendly roll in the hay. So long-and thanks for the drink."
Her face flaming, she pulled the robe closed and belted it, then slapped his face with all the strength of her arm.
"Get out of here!" she shrilled.
"I will. And thanks for that too. Now I know what you are, Eleanor Landers. A snob and a teaser. You've made a great start at Marwell. I just hope everybody else doesn't find you out the way I did."
"I said get out!" she cried, beside herself.
"Sure. Right now." He walked over to the window, shoved it up higher, sat down on the sill and swung his legs out, looking back at her with an amused grin. "It was very educational. But I'll keep your secret, teacher. I won't tell the other frat men what a fraud you are. Pity, though. You've got a gorgeous shape under that robe, but it's going to go to waste."
She took a step towards him, face contorted in frustrated rage and humiliation. His laugh floated back to her as he disappeared, and she heard him climb down the drainpipe the way he had come.
It had backfired and got out of hand. But she'd still have her triumph. Suzy Mersh would spread it all over campus tomorrow how a certain sophomore beauty from Chicago had turned the tables on a well known football hero-no names would be mentioned, but the buildup would get her the invitation she coveted from Delta Gamma Theta.
And strangely enough, even though she could anticipate that victory, it was a hollow one. For Eleanor Landers was lying face down on the bed and sobbing softly. She had almost wanted to make Tom Jenkins take his insult back, and there could have been only one way to do that. Because his vigorous male appeal had very nearly been stronger than she had reckoned.
CHAPTER FOUR
At breakfast the next morning-Martha Dowdale served the girls of Comstock Hall a tasty breakfast as part of their monthly rent, while supper was optional and also at a bargain rate-Eleanor Landers confided in silver-haired Suzy Mersh. The latter, a languorous beauty who ran more to physical enticement than mental brilliance for all her being a year older than Eleanor, was agog at the tidbit served up at coffee time by her coppery-haired crony.
"You mean he actually climbed all the way up to the third floor? My gosh, that must have been awfully dangerous, Elly!"
The redhead grimaced as she lit a cigarette. "Suzy, if I've told you once, I've told you a dozen times. I don't like to be called Elly. My name's Eleanor, and I want to be known as that. Besides, Tom Jenkins' steady girl is called Elly, and I'm definitely not that kind of Elly."
"I know, I know. Gee-you mean he came into your room and all you had on was that snazzy bathrobe?"
"Uh uh. And a garter belt and my best nylons. And the rest was little me." ' "And-and he didn't get fresh?"
"He didn't get much of a chance, Suzy. Oh, you could tell his tongue was hanging out, but I put him dead to rights right from the start," Eleanor Landers boasted. She could rely on Tom Jenkins' promise not to tell the real story, so she was free to embellish the escapade to her heart's content. And the more lurid and incredible it was, the more weight it would carry with that snooty DGT prexy. She took a puff at her cigarette and leaned back triumphantly. "I told him I just wanted to see if he was man enough to come visit me and defy the rules, that's all."
"You didn't!" Suzy Mersh admiringly exclaimed. "Gee, I got to hand it to you, Eleanor, I wouldn't have dared to do a thing like that at all."
"I know. But I want into Delta Gamma Theta, and this ought to help."
"It's bound to," Suzy Mersh enthusiastically exclaimed, borrowing one of Eleanor's cigarettes from the open pack on the table beside her." Anyhow, you wait till I tell Gert Vernon, she's a DGT herself and a good friend of Trudy's. For a fact, any girl who turns a B.M.O.C. down has got to be aces in Trudy's books, and that goes for Gert too. She's from St. Louis, you know, and she turns up her nose at the guys on this campus."
Eleanor Landers basked in her chum's approval, and began to forget the bitter taste of Tom Jenkins' taunt last night. "You're a pal, Suzy, and I won't forget it. If you like, when I go home for the Christmas holidays, I'll invite you along. Laura'll like you lots, you're her style." This much was true, for Laura Landers, Eleanor's haughty mother, had many of Suzy Mersh's characteristics, notably an extreme concern for the fripperies of dress and the relative social status of her neighbors. There could be no doubt that red-haired Eleanor had inherited some of her snobbery with her mother's milk at very birth.
"Oh, that's wonderful, Elly-I-I'm sorry, I mean Eleanor," Suzy gushed. "I'd just love to meet your folks. I've only seen Chicago once or twice, and I'm just dying to see the shops like Marshall Field's and all their windows at Christmas. And Bonwit Teller's and Saks. Well, I guess I better get to class. But I'll see Gert this afternoon at the library, and I'll tell her all about last night. I just know they'll pledge you, Eleanor."
"When do they usually do that?"
"First week in October around here. And then they have Hell Week-that's hazing-the first week of November. Only Mrs. Eggleston, the dean of women, she's told the Greek letter houses to go easy on the initiations, so it won't be much."
"I don't care," Eleanor laughed. "I wouldn't mind a little hazing to be invited into Delta Gamma Theta. It's the only exclusive thing around this dreary campus, take it from me."
"Well, they'd ask you to move into the house then, and you'd have to give up your wonderful room, wouldn't you?" Suzy Mersh got up, clutching her books to an abundant sweater-snugged bosom.
"I'd give it up like a flash, don't you worry. And you can have it," Eleanor laughingly promised.
"You mean it?" Suzy Mersh breathed, wide-eyed with delight. Eleanor nodded. "You just spread the word to Gert that you know a girl that ought to be a pledge, and when I become a DGT, I'll even pay Mrs. Dowdale the rent and let you move in-that's a promise."
"Gee!" Suzy gasped again. "You got a deal! Well, see you, honey!"
Eleanor watched her go and poured herself some more coffee, lit another cigarette. Suzy wasn't much on brains, but she seemed to be loyal and could be useful. Really, it was a pity to have to be cooped up in this nowhere town instead of being in the center of things. Maybe when she got home Christmas, she could talk Dad into letting her come back home. It was like being a princess in exile...
"Hello there, Eleanor."
The redhead glanced up irritatedly. It was Kathy Edwards. She'd forgotten that Kathy, being unaffiliated like herself, would also stay at Comstock Hall. "Oh, hi, Kathy, how's things?"
"Fine. It was such a surprise to find you registered here, Eleanor. I sort of last track of you after we got out of high school."
The redhead sniffed. She didn't exactly care to be reminded that she and Kathy Edwards had once been the best of friends. After all, there was a world of difference now between them. Her folks had money and
Kathy's didn't. And there wasn't any purpose in keeping up this childhood friendship now, because Kathy had turned out to be a goody-goody like that Elly Douglas. She even wore glasses now, and even if they were harlequin, they still made her look like a midnight oil-burner. But then she'd always seemed to do well in class, while Eleanor had larked through her studies and just got marks good enough to get by.
"Well, we moved, you know, to Briarwood Terrace," she explained.
"I hoped you'd give me a ring though, Eleanor. We were still in the phone book," Kathy said gently.
"Well, you know how it is. And then we went to Europe. I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to get in touch with half the people I know," Eleanor Landers gave a disdainful shrug by way of telling Kathy in what superior circles she moved these days. "But how did you happen to pick this place, instead of staying in Chicago?"
"I won a scholarship, and Dad thought it had a wonderful curriculum, especially in English literature. That was always my favorite subject, you know, back in high school."
Eleanor remembered. Kathy had always been mooning over books, silly, romantic stories like "Don Quixote" and Compton Mackenzie's "Winds of Love" and Richard Aldington's "All Men Are Enemies." They had been in the same English class, and Kathy was always getting her themes praised in front of the whole class. Maybe that was why Eleanor had secretly resented her, even when they had been playmates. As if knowing a lot of things out of books was really terribly important nowadays. Having money and position and social acceptance-that was all that mattered, and the smart people knew that. And that was why she was going to do her best to be a big frog in the small pond of Marwell, since that was the only worthwhile thing that mattered right now.
"That's good. So I'll see you around, I guess."
"Sure. You're in Professor Mark Torrance's class this afternoon, aren't you? So am I. Well, I've an early class, so I'll say goodbye for now." Kathy gave her a smiling nod and walked away. Eleanor scowled after her, her triumphant morning entirely ruined. She'd forgotten about Kathy and how much Kathy knew about her when they'd been kids together. And if Kathy was a blabbermouth, she could make things tough. Maybe she'd better give the poor dear a little encouragement every so often, just to keep her in line.
* * *
Professor Mark Torrance was glad he didn't have a morning class today, because last night he'd been in Chicago visiting a girl he had thought he was going to marry. As it turned out, she was going to fly to Rome to marry a handsome Italian curator of a museum who had blue blood in his veins-she'd met him in Florence last summer, and then he'd visited New York and the Museum of Modern Art last winter, so they'd seen each other.
He couldn't blame Jacqueline Mobry for changing her mind and heart. After all, here he was, a professor in a small Illinois town, and she was the daughter of a rich Chicago hotel owner and used to travel and luxuries he himself could never afford. Yet they'd had a passionate romance for three years, and he'd always had the faint hope that somehow things would work out so that she'd forego the material side of things in favor of love. Because Jacqueline Mobry, now 25 and at the peak of her glowing russet-haired, tawny-skinned svelte beauty, had been an incomparable lover.
He could use the past tense now and remind himself that he was going to have to forget her forever. Last night had been their last together. She'd phoned him yesterday noon, and fortunately he'd been eating lunch in the faculty cafeteria, so the switchboard girl had been able to find him. And when he'd picked up the phone, he'd heard that wonderfully husky voice of hers-he'd used to tease her by calling it a "voluptuous vibrato" and she was saying that she was flying to Rome the next day to get married and she had to see him for the last time. So he'd finished the afternoon class and cut short, as politely as he could, the usual after-class gabfest that usually developed in English lit, and gone back to his bungalow and driven his five-year-old Chevie into Chicago in time to meet her at the Conrad Hilton for dinner and dancing. She'd already arranged for a room for herself, and she'd told him to go down to the bar for a last drink and then come up to the twenty-first floor and she'd be waiting.
Mark Torrance had met the willowy debutante at a summer resort at The Dells four years ago. In fact, he'd saved her from drowning when she'd had a sudden cramp and gone under twice before he got to her. He'd been an assistant professor at Marwell then the full professorship had just come through last spring, and this would be his first full year as a departmental head of faculty. He'd found Jacqueline Mobry witty, well read and wholesomely unaffectatious-if anything, too much of a practical realist. She knew she had been born to family and money, but it hadn't made her a snob. Yet he also knew that her parents expected certain things from her, and she was devoted to them. And her mother had been Italian, which was how they'd happened to go to Florence and Rome and meet Ricardo Frascati, whom she was going to marry.
Yet they'd been lovers for three happy years, quite unknown to her family, and never calculatedly arranged. He had spent his last few summer vacations in Chicago, and they'd meet at a bar on Adams Street or perhaps she'd be at a table at "The Happy Medium" on Rush Street when he walked in. Though Jacqueline's parents lived in Highland Park, she kept a little apartment on North Dearborn near Huron, and it was there they had their trysts. They had a whole week together this past July, and it had been paradise. He'd told her he wanted to marry her, but she'd shaken her head and told him it wasn't possible, that she'd already met the man she was going to marry, she was very fond of him, and her parents admired him.
"It isn't money and it isn't because you're a professor, darling," she'd told him on their last night of that blissful July week. "My folks just expect me to marry Ricardo, because he's right for me. And Mother will have an excuse to go to Rome every year, and you know she's Italian. And Dad, poor dear, always works too hard and needs a vacation he won't take till Mother drags him along. This time, he won't be able to refuse, because he'll have to visit his only child and maybe his grandchild too, you know."
It had been torture for Mark Torrance to hear her speak so calmly of giving another man a child, when at that very moment he was entwined with her, his mouth on the high-perched pear globe of one tawny-skinned breast, her fingers digging into his shoulder-blades, smelling the perfume of her skin and her tumbled, flowing russet hued hair.
"Forget this Ricardo and come to Marwell with me and be my love instead," he'd whispered.
"I can't, my sweet Mark, my darting. And you haven't done the things you want yet, either. You don't want a wife now, not one who'd be out of place. And I would be in a small town. And my parents wouldn't be happy. They've given me everything and I'm grateful and I love them very much. No, marrying Ricardo is what will make them happy. And you mustn't think I'll be unhappy myself, for I care for him a great deal."
"As much as for me-this way?" he'd gasped as his lips closed over the firming nugget of her dark coral nipple.
And she'd groaned and hugged him and whispered huskily, "Of course not. I've not even been to bed with him yet. That's for our wedding night. And there'll never be anyone else like you in my life-I can't permit it, it would ruin my marriage. No, I'm going to be a faithful wife and love him and give him lots of bambinos. But for now, my darling, just take me and pretend I'm your girl and will always be."
* * *
And so, when she'd called yesterday noon to tell him that she was within twenty-four hours of flying to Rome to be with Ricardo and Ricardo's family, with her parents already waiting at the Frascati villa for her, Mark Torrance had known that he had to see Jacqueline Mobry for the last time, cost what it would to his emotions and his now staid professorial routine.
Fortunately, traffic hadn't been heavy because it was a weekday, so he'd made it to Chicago, parked the car in the lot behind the Hilton and freshened up before going into the bar, where she'd said she'd be waiting. He made it as casual as he could-that had always been one of their little rituals, seeming to meet like strangers and pretending it was their very first chance meeting and going on from there. She was sitting at the rear on the upholstered red leather bench with a little cocktail table in front of her, a Bacardi before her, and she was wearing a blue cotton print dress with floral design and a picture hat of matching blue felt, and in profile her oval face had looked provocative and enchanting, as it always did. By great good luck, there had been an unoccupied table right beside her, and he'd ambled over there and seated himself, ordered a bourbon and ginger ale from the pert brunette waitress who had come over at once at the sight of this handsome and very prepossessing young man.
Mark Torrance was indeed the kind of man who would appeal to women, but in a definitely masculine way. Half an inch under six feet tall, with curly dark brown hair and candid blue eyes and a firm mouth and chin and rugged jaw and strong Roman nose, he had a quiet assurance to him that infallibly got him prompt service at the best restaurants in town. He didn't act like an ivory tower professor in the least, and he never wanted to be like that. He had come from a lower middle class family on the West Side of Chicago, played baseball and football in high school (which hid the fact that he was valedictorian), and had been a boys' camp counselor during the summer to earn money for his college tuition. While he was getting his Master's in English lit at Northwestern, he worked Saturdays and Sundays as a waiter in an Evanston restaurant, and during the summer was a lifeguard for the city. By now, both his parents were dead, and his father had left him exactly six thousand dollars' worth of insurance and an excellent library. He knew very well he could never marry Jacqueline Mobry and give her the material luxuries to which she had been born, yet he'd hoped against hope that because of her common sense, she'd bypass that obstacle and marry him just the same.
It hadn't been a first affair for either of them. Jacqueline had been initiated at eighteen, and had purposely had a discreet liaison with a suave, mature bachelor of 35 who happened to be one of her father's business associates, for the sole reason of wanting a healthy amorous experience to rid her of any sentimental and mawkish notions about virginity. There had been two other men after him, one of them almost capturing her heart and her hand in marriage till she discovered that he was being unfaithful to her with a divorcee waitress at the same time that he was professing an undying love for her. And then Mark had come along and saved her from drowning.
As for Mark himself, he was no novice in the tourney of love, either. His father had had a Continental outlook on premarital sex and edified him at an early age on the facts of life, warning him only to be discreet, not to endanger the reputation or virginity of any girl whom he chose as his companion, and documenting him on what to do to keep from being cursed with illegitimate offspring in any liaison he effected.
So his very first venture as ambassador into the courts of Venus had been ecstatic and wholesome, not the fumbling, guilt-ridden disaster it is for so many adolescents. A week before his 17th birthday and graduation with highest honors, Mark proved his manhood with a sultry and flirtatious black-haired olive skinned Mexican girl who had admired his essays and poems in the school annual and coveted Mark's wiry, vigorous young body. His parents had gone to the theater, and Juana blithely invited herself over. She let him undress her and then undressed him herself, her hands and lips making him take joy in his virility. Competent and passionate, she was the ideal initiatress.
There had been two other girls after Juana and before Jacqueline. With one, a blonde stenographer named Alice Meredith, 26 and on the rebound from a breakup with her fianc', there had been a torrid affair and he had even thought of marriage, though he had been then five years her junior. He had met Alice in a restaurant one evening on his day off from the boys' camp, and the affair had lasted all summer. She had decided not to get married because her boss had offered her a chance to work with him in a new branch office he was opening in Honolulu, so Mark had gone back to college to finish his degree. And work had helped heal the grief at losing a very beautiful and candidly generous mistress.
For Mark Torrance was a romantic idealist, and it was exactly this rare quality which attracted women to him. He had learned the wise precept that the lover who sees to his sweetheart's satisfaction ahead of his own is--likely to derive far more delight. In Jacqueline Mobry, he believed he had found the ideal woman, passionate and imaginative as the most exotic houri, yet stubbornly loyal and mercilessly self-critical of her own flaws. That was why, as he pretended to have just met her for the first time last night at the Hilton bar, he was feeling as if he were about to attend his own funeral.
They had played their little game for the last time. After a discreet interval, he'd asked her the time, and she'd glanced at her Swiss wristwatch-which cost at least his monthly professorial salary. Then he'd offered to buy her a drink, and they'd sipped it slowly. Then they'd gone to the dining room and enjoyed a leisurely gourmet meal of steak Diane and asparagus cooked with butter, wine and mushrooms, and a bombe surprise and champagne for dessert. And she'd thanked him effusively for dinner, told him she had to leave to catch a plane, and walked out of the dining room while he paid the check. After ambling back to the bar for a nightcap, he went back to the basement lobby and took the elevator to the floor she had designated and knocked softly at the door which bore the number she had whispered into his ear as she rose to leave him.
He'd heard her call "It's unlocked, darling," and gone in and locked the door behind him. Only a little night lamp was burning, and Jacqueline was there on the bed, whose covers were invitingly drawn, wearing the sheerest of black nylon nighties, her magnificent russet tresses cascading down to her shoulders and mantling the white pillow with their shimmering silk. And he had undressed, agony and desire commingling in him at the knowledge that this would be their very last time together. And it had been devastating and delirious, and he hadn't left her till four in the morning to drive back to Marwell. And he had flung himself down on the couch in the living room of his bungalow, not wanting to undress or wash or efface the burning memory of her kisses and caresses. And when he had wakened just before noon this morning, he had felt as if a vital part of his life had ended. The thought of an afternoon class with those simpering girls staring at him and ogling him was almost as bad as having a hangover. But from now on, he was going to have to dedicate himself to that kind of life for a good long while. There wasn't anybody like Jacqueline on campus; there never would be.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the end of September, the story of Eleanor Landers' outrageously iconoclastic feat of making a prominent senior climb up to her third-floor room via the drainpipe, only to turn him down, had spread around campus. The green-eyed, coppery-haired sophomore found herself the cynosure of all eyes, both male and female, whenever she walked to and from class. In the sweet shop, afternoons, a hush would fall over the crowd when the screen door swung open to admit her, and a few low wolf whistles would rise to tribute her arrogant sensuality. She took all this like a queen who expects a retinue to fawn on her, a coy little smile about her scarlet-lip stick painted mouth, pretending not to notice, but secretly reveling in the knowledge that she had turned the spotlight of Marwell attention on herself.
Suzy Mersh, who was starting the throes of a complicated love affair with a black-haired junior of Herculean build, the son of a wealthy dairy farmer from upstate who happened to believe that a man ought to marry the girl he slept with, confided in Eleanor, whom she now considered as her golden goddess of good luck. As a matter-of-fact, she even credited Eleanor with her discovery of Sam Grunnerson-her devoted junior suitor-because she had been in the sweet shop spreading the news about Eleanor's man-destroying maneuver just when Sam wandered in for a malt and had been smitten by the animated way she was talking, leaning forward with her lush bosom just brushing the table, four girls hanging on her every word. He had smiled shyly at her, and Suzy had pretended not to notice, but she had been fascinated by his sturdy build and the dumb-calf-like worship on his face.
"He's driving me crazy, Eleanor," she said despairingly as the two girls sipped double chocolate malts this Thursday afternoon of the last week of September. "I'm nuts about the guy, and he's such an innocent lamb, I don't even think he's ever even kissed a girl. When I hint I'd love to have him take me out for a long drive over the weekend, he just blushes and hems and haws and says he's got class work to catch up on. You should see his muscles, Eleanor! I know he's mad for me, but he says he won't get married till after graduation, and that's over a year away. So I suppose I'll have to wait and give up sex till then if I want him. Now why couldn't I have gone and fallen in love with a louse who was after a romp under the covers, instead of a nice honorable sap like Sam Grunnerson?"
Privately, it was Eleanor Landers' studied opinion that Suzy was a birdbrain and ideally mated with the muscular junior, but she had the tact for once not to air that opinion. Suzy had been very useful to her, spreading the rumor all around, and it had paid off. The Delta Gamma Theta house was holding an open tea next Wednesday afternoon, and any girl might drop in and introduce herself. That would be the preliminary screening. Gert and Trudy, the two big wheels of DGT, had already found out about the nocturnal shinnying stunt, and had unofficially expressed admiration, Suzy had faithfully reported. So after the open house, the following week would see invitations mailed to a select group of unaffiliated girls who had made a good impression the week before and were considered possibles. That would be the really important interview, when the Big Sisters sized you up and decided whether to pledge you or skip you for the rest of your campus career.
"Let me buy you another malted, hm, Suzy?" she proffered, and silver-haired Suzy, who had no problem with weight and could eat like a horse without showing it on her lush figure, readily assented. She beckoned to the acne-spotted youngster who was waiting on tables: "Two more of the same, Walter." Then, turning back to her chum, she whispered, "Now there's a kid that needs some love life. Bet it'd clear up his pimples in a hurry."
"Ugh!" Suzy grimaced, "don't even think of such a thing. What girl would be self-sacrificing enough to contribute to Walter's cause? Besides, my problem is contributing to Sam's without making him think I'm just a round-heeled hussy. But I just can't wait a whole year or more till the big lug gets his sheepskin! And I've got it so bad for him I couldn't think of sleeping around with anybody else."
"Just keep working on him, honey," Eleanor laughingly advised. "Expose him enough to your fatal charm and he won't want to wait a year, either, you'll see. I'll put in a good word for you if I ever meet your Prince Charming, though he's not my type."
"He'd better not be," Suzy Mersh threatened glumly. "Maybe if I got an invite from DGT, Sam might take more notice of poor little me."
"The way you talk, honey, one would think you had knock-knees and braces," Eleanor laughed. "You're a sexpot and you know it, and just because you've finally run up a naive guy who happens to have honorable intentions, you're buffaloed. Just play it by ear and let nature take its course. It usually does, you know, Suzy."
"It's easy for you to talk, you with your trips to Paris and all," Suzy dolefully complained. "But I'm just an average small-town girl with a pretty good body and not much future unless I get the right guy-and I've decided that Sam's it."
"Oh, come now, Suzy, don't downgrade yourself that way," Eleanor whimsically chided. "Suppose you were setting your cap for somebody really hard to get, like that gorgeous hunk of man who teaches our English lit class. Now that would be a real challenge."
"Oh, you mean Professor Torrance," Suzy chimed in, bobbing her silver-haired head in ready agreement. "Yes, he's awfully nice, but I get the feeling he's bored with college girls. I bet he's got himself some sexy girl friend stuck away in Chicago and goes visiting her weekends, that's what I bet." And for once, lightweight Suzy wasn't entirely off the beam.
Of course, neither she nor Eleanor Landers knew that Mark Torrance had just kissed that unknown "sexy girl friend" goodbye for the very last time, and had decided to act the part of an indifferent, bored lecturer in his own classroom.
He was doing that in virtual self-defense, because a number of girls-the class comprised fifty-two pupils, and thirty-eight were of the tender sex-had already shown overt inclinations in his direction. The usual gambit was for the girl to go up to his desk after class and ask him to explain something which, if she had been listening attentively during the hour just concluded, she would have known. Another tack was to ask if she mightn't consult him about the theme he had assigned last week because she was having trouble with it. To that hoary old chestnut, Mark Torrance calmly proposed a visit to Cobb Hall, which housed the excellent and comprehensive Marlowe library.
Eleanor Landers had already noted that Mark Torrance was a considerably interesting specimen of the male species, but at the moment she was concentrating solely on that invitation to the sorority. Once that was accomplished, there would be ample time to go after a new project, and his name topped her list in that regard. He had a vigorously resonant voice, and she liked the set of his jaw and the flash of his blue eyes when he was enthusiastic about a topic under discussion from his lecture podium.
She had already made a few preparatory notes about how to proceed with Mark Torrance. One of the most vital was that he had never really assigned any permanent seats in his classroom. You came in and sat down by preference. Of course, you usually took the same seat you had previously had. But it would be very simple to get to class a few minutes early some afternoon and take a seat in one of the front rows.
Then, with an especially sheer pair of nylons and the properly deliberate crossing of one's legs, a girl could compel even the most stolid male professor to turn his eyes in her direction. And the rest would be child's play. Particularly because Mark Torrance wasn't at all stolid in Eleanor's opinion; she rated him as a demon lover, just out of an instinctive feeling she had about him.
At the present time, she sat in the fifth row, and Kathy Andrews was in the second, way over to the right. That was the way she wanted to keep Kathy at a distance. There was nothing to be gained by renewing that childhood companionship. Kathy was now synonymous with pallid Elly Douglas in her discerning rating system.
Her first real mistake had been with Henri de Rochembeau. She had no way of knowing, impervious as she was to other people's feelings, that in so estimating Kathy Andrews, she was well on her way to committing the worst blunder of her selfish and self-centered career.
CHAPTER SIX
One sorority house is like any other, whether it be Maine or California. Apart from varying degrees of architecture and ornamental styles of furnishing, every Greek letter house was a universal common denominator. It is, though it would vigorously deny such an allegation, a kind of fancified dormitory in which are gathered girls of vaunted social, monetary or, more infrequently, scholastic prestige, all dedicated to the communal notion of heightening their individual allure to make them infinitely more desirable to the male animal.
At Marwell, the Delta Gamma Theta house was a rambling two-story brownstone affair, complete with basement recreation room (which also served as initiation chamber on such occasions as the Night of Candles and Hell Week), dining room and kitchen, and neatly furnished rooms where the exalted Big Sisters dwelt. The DGT chapter at Marwell housed thirty-seven members. There were rooms enough to quarter sixty comfortably, for many of the larger rooms on the first floor conveniently accommodated four or even five sorority sisters. The lucky pledges, when accepted, were expected to move in with their Big Sisters, whose identity would be disclosed the night of initiation-if the pledge were successful. Upon moving in, each new girl was expected to pay $350 per semester, which would entitle her to breakfast and supper but not lunch, and, of course, a room.
If you were permitted to walk into the DGT house, you would see nothing that would acquaint you with the realization that of all the Greek letter houses on campus, this was by far the most exclusive, nor would you, without documentation, ever credence the idea that only last year one girl had taken a nearly fatal overdose of sleeping pills because she had been overlooked by the pledging committee and had found no engraved invitation in her mailbox at Comstock Hall.
But this bright October afternoon, the living room was spic and span, and bunting hung from the windows, and there was a new potted geranium on the stand near the big bay window; and Mrs. Cora Emmons, the house mother (herself a DGT member from an era at least thirty-five years back and hence more than nominally indulgent to the whims and foibles of her lovely charges), had brewed pots upon pots of strong Oolong tea and baked scores of raisin and oatmeal cookies and even two of her rich chocolate Ambassador cakes. To be sure, the latter would be doled out in modest slices only to those pledges on whom the Big Sisters looked with more than nominal and polite interest. Indeed, Mrs. Emmons could have told you with a wry smile and a sparkle in her faded blue eyes that the tip-off to whom DGT was going to narrow down when it came to the really meaningful invitation to the house next week would come with the slicing and serving of her cakes. Definitely, any girl who was served a slice by a Big Sister could say that her star was in the ascendancy.
The living room was as crowded as a PTA meeting. About twenty of the sorority members had mustered themselves out in their brightest array, from Capri and toreador pants to the new bellbottom pants with provocative brief bolero jackets which exposed midriff and the glimpse of dimpled navels, to more sedate costumery like plaid dresses and pleated skirts with pullover sweaters in which the letters DGT were emblazoned in red. Strangely, Gert and Trudy were absent, and since these were the two leading officers of the sorority, it might be said that they had delegated the initial screening to their subordinates. Only Mrs. Emmons knew that this wasn't the case.
For a double crisis had struck the elegant two-story brownstone DGT house only last night. Trudy, the austere and insolent prexy, who had till now represented indomitable womanhood on an unattainable pedestal far above the reach of the male, had gone and eloped with a 34-year-old farmer's cooperative manager from Freeport, and was even now riding blissfully beside him in his Buick en route to Springfield for an educational honeymoon in the state capitol. And Gert's parents had broken up and poor Gert had given up school and flown back home to be with her mother, with whom she was going to travel abroad, possibly finishing her college at the famed Sorbonne in Paris.
So, this evening, after the formal exigencies of this open invitational tea, there would be a secret meeting of the DGT tribunal in the basement recreation room, complete with table and lighted candles and secret balloting, and a new president and secretary-treasurer would be elected from the rank and file of Big Sisters. Mrs. Emmons sat in an old rocker far at the back of the living room, peacefully crocheting, biding her time till the last of the eager freshmen or new-entry sophomore girls had had their tea and cookies-or cake, if that was the DGT verdict on them-till she could reveal the two secrets with which she was fairly bursting. It was the most exciting afternoon she had had since her initiation thirty-five years ago next month, in the same basement recreation room.
Some sixteen newcomers to the house graced the living room. Chief among them was Eleanor Landers. She had dressed with care that morning in her room at Comstock Hall before going to her first class. A trim pleated brown cotton skirt and multicolored cotton print blouse with floral design in brown and red and autumnal green; gauzy charcoal-brown nylons and brown pumps. She had taken special pains with her coppery hair, to make it elegantly prim in its oval bun at the back of her imperious head, and she had seen to it that her make-up was less flamboyant than usual with her. Seated on a couch at one end beside Deeana Mason, one of the senior Big Sisters, she was daintily posing a cup and saucer of tea on her lap and nibbling fastidiously at an oatmeal cookie which Deeana herself had served the redhead. And she was answering questions about her background with an unwonted deprecation and humility.
But not too much. First of all, it would have been impossible for her to have maintained a humble keel throughout so important and demanding an afternoon. And then besides, she was justly proud of her antecedents. And finally, she was also piqued to know whether Deeana Mason had heard the vaunted rumor of her exploit.
Deeana Mason was nearly 22, as tall as Eleanor, but more slender. She had sandy-hued hair in a becoming, short pageboy, and a whimsical, smiling, soft mouth and closely set hazel eyes and thin brows and a dainty aquiline nose. She was easygoing of nature and manner, and her voice was a pleasant contralto, and there wasn't the slightest sign of inquisition in her attitude towards the stunning redhead. Deeana was a B plus student, with chances at Phi Beta Kappa, and she would be graduated in June, with a Bachelor's degree in sociology. She intended to be a social worker, and a job in Chicago had already been promised her upon completion of her studies.
There was just one thing about Deeana Mason which Eleanor Landers didn't know. But then, none of the other girls at DGT knew it either. It was simply that Deeana Mason was Professor Mark Torrance's cousin, being the only daughter of his mother's sister.
Conversely, Deeana knew all about Eleanor's nocturnal Tantalus. Trudy and she had discussed it the very day news had drifted Trudy's way. Trudy had thought the idea quite amusing. Deeana hadn't agreed. She had thought it little short of vicious. But that was because she herself was happily in love with a young advertising copywriter back in Chicago whom she was eventually going to marry, but not till she had spent a year on her job as a case worker for the City. She had a thesis she wanted to write, and Mark had promised that if it was good enough, he would try to get it published for her.
So, while she listened pleasantly to Eleanor's attempts to be disparagingly modest about herself, she had enough background in elementary psychology to probe beneath that artificial veneer and discern that the redhead was really a conceited and selfish creature. However, she was much too good-natured to want to blackball any girl without some real proof of questionable moral character, and she was also aware that Eleanor's publicized exploit had probably been thought up by this would-be pledge as a stunt to get attention from DGT. You couldn't very well condemn an ambitious newie from wanting to make the grade just on the strength of one ballyhooed prank. And Eleanor's background spoke well enough for the redhead; having been abroad, she could doubtless regale the Big Sisters with stories of what life was like in Paris.
And so Deeana smiled and nodded, and finally said, "Eleanor, wouldn't you like to try a piece of Mrs. Emmons' cake? It's very special."
"Oh, thank you very much, Deeana. Yes, I would. It looks so tasty," the redhead purred. Intuitively, she had a hunch that this offer meant that she had passed her first test. i "Fine, I'll serve it to you. Just stay where you are," Deeana graciously proffered. Eleanor beamed gratefully at the slim sandy-haired senior, watching her walk over to the buffet table near the potted geranium where the two glossy dark chocolate cakes reposed on silver platters. Then she looked around the crowded living room, and a frown creased her creamy forehead.
Because, just opposite her, in an armchair, Kathy Andrews sat, and a pudgy, bespectacled auburn-haired girl who ought to have known better than to wear tight-fitting Capris was bringing a plate of chocolate cake over to Kathy.
It almost made Eleanor Landers ill to think that her snubbed companion from childhood days had even an outside chance of making DGT. And it was all she could do to force herself to beam again at the returning Deena and to gush her thanks for the slice of cake that the pleasant senior was handing her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It wasn't till supper that Mrs. Emmons decided to explain why Trudy and Gert weren't at their usual places at the head of the long rectangular table. "They both left notes, girls," she said, never so happy before in all these long years as now that she knew herself to be the bearer of such vital tidings. "You'll just have to elect new officers, because they aren't coming back."
"My gosh," blurted Cissy Williams, the pudgy senior who had served Kathy Andrews the coveted slice of chocolate cake that afternoon, "we better hold a conference tonight because if we don't have a president, we can't pledge or operate at all."
"That's right," cooed Mrs. Emmons, who knew her bylaws as well as any of her young charges.
"Candlelight at nine, girls," Laura Caldwell, who was vice-president and the only remaining officer of the house at the moment. She was a honey-haired senior of medium height and spectacularly ripe bosom and hips, currently deliberating between half a dozen eligible fraternity seniors who wanted to pin her and, better yet, bed her.
So at nine that night, in the basement recreation room, all the DGT girls convened, wearing white nighties and sandals. Mrs. Emmons had placed candlesticks on the tribunal table, and Laura solemnly lit them as she picked up Trudy's gavel and pounded for order. "The first order of business, fellow sisters of Delta Gamma Theta," she declaimed, "is to nominate a successor to Trudy."
"Madame Vice-President!" Joan Sowerby, a lanky ash-blonde junior who was Marwell's women's tennis champion, raised her hand. "I place in nomination the name of Deeana Mason."
Mark's sandy-haired cousin blushed with becoming modesty, and got up to propose Joan's name by way of gratitude. Two other names were offered before Laura Caldwell declared the nominations closed. Then Cissy Williams passed out slips of yellow paper and pencils, and the night-gowned sorority sisters secretively wrote down the name of their choice, folded the slips, and in stately processional, passed in front of the tribunal table to drop the slips into a small hatbox in the lid of which Mrs. Emmons had cut a sizable opening. Laura, who had secretly hoped that her sorority sisters would automatically propose her as the most logical candidate but who hadn't even been nominated, disappointedly counted the slips, opened them and announced each vote to Cissy, who sat beside her industriously keeping tally.
Joan Sowerby had six votes, Clara Ames had five, Marian Johler received eight, and Deeana Mason sixteen, a tally proving that every bona fide DGT member had voted in this most important election. Deeana, who had generously cast her own ballot for Joan, rose amid applause, her cheeks scarlet with embarrassed pleasure, and, at Laura's invitation, took her place at the head of the table. And it was she who now, as senior presiding officer of the sorority, announced the opening of balloting for the office of secretary-treasurer which Gert had let go by default. A spirited and close vote resulted in the victory of Marian Johler, a petite light brunette senior with a winsome, heart-shaped face, who was engaged to the football captain and who had rung up the second largest number of votes for the presidency.
The formal part of the meeting completed, the girls could now plan for next week's select invitational tea. It wouldn't differ much from this afternoon's festivities, except that only those newies who had made a favorable impression today and whom the sorority expected to pledge officially would be present. So Deeana promptly opened discussion on proposals of the names of the fortunate girls who might have the inside track to DGT favor.
"Madame President?" It was Lucy Moran, a patrician brunette with a gravely lovely face, the 21-year-old daughter of a prominent city official from Joliet. She planned to be pinned this Christmas by a young attorney from that same city, and was majoring in business administration so that she could be of secretarial help to her handsome husband-to-be.
"The chair recognizes Sister Moran," Deeana, much to Mrs. Emmons' pleasure, used the formal parliamentary verbiage. It was a standing tradition that every chapter meeting of DGT invite Mrs. Emmons to attend, since she herself was a chapter member of such long standing and therefore--likely to be of great help in the event of arguments over rules and procedure.
"Well, as you know, I spent some time this afternoon with Marge Jones. I think she'd make a fine DGT member. She's a sophomore, just transferred here from Ames because her father sold his farm and moved near Marwell to run the big granary."
"Any comments, pro or con?" Deeana asked. But there was nothing damning against Marge's name, so it was decided to mail her an engraved invitation to be on hand next Wednesday afternoon. And this time, there would be cake, no cookies, because all the guests would be potential candidates for DGT membership.
"Have we more names for sponsorship by Big Sisters?" Deeana went on. And Caroline Tunis, a plump brunette senior, offered the name of Roberta Mac-Donald, an 18-year-old pretty blonde freshman with whom she had chatted most of the afternoon. Roberta came from Ottawa, where her father was fire chief, and she was sweet and quiet and a good student. So there were no blackballs to be cast against her name.
Up for discussion came the names of golden-haired 18 V2-year-old Ruth Jorgenson, endowed with the body of a Venus but not without her fair share of brains, judging by her high school record; 19-year-old auburn-haired svelte Myrna Henshaw, a sophomore who had transferred from Peoria; 18-year-old petite winsome brown-haired Marcia Alton; and Kathy Edwards. All of them were accepted without challenge. And then Deeana herself proposed the name of Eleanor Landers.
"Hey, Madame President, isn't that the redhead who teased a senior frat man into climbing up to her room last month?" Cissy Williams wanted to know.
"The very same, Cissy. You remember her, I'm sure; I was sitting with her there on the couch this afternoon while you were busy with Kathy."
"Sure I remember. Snooty as all get out, if you ask me."
"Well," Deeana wryly commented, "being haughty by nature isn't exactly grounds for blackballing a pledge. Seems to me our dear departed ex-prexy was that way herself."
"I just don't cotton to her, that's all," Cissy grumbled. "Now Kathy Edwards, there's a sweet, all-around nice girl. She'll be a credit to our chapter."
"I quite agree. But we've already ruled on her application, Cissy. Are you going to blackball Eleanor Landers?"
"No, I guess not. Only you watch, she'll want her own way all the time if we let her in."
"Well, I'll offer to be her sponsor and Big Sister if that'll reassure you any, Cissy," Deeana whimsically proposed.
"Okay, it's your responsibility. I'll vote yes, then, in that case," the pudgy senior reluctantly capitulated.
That ended the order of business for the evening, except to vote Mrs. Emmons a unanimous and very hearty show of appreciation for the successful open house this past afternoon and to enlist her services for next Wednesday. Marian Johler, entering into her new office as secretary-treasurer, undertook to mail out the invitations to the lucky seven candidates on whom the choice of Delta Gamma Theta had fallen.
Eleanor Landers had achieved her goal. But it was as well that she didn't know that Kathy Edwards had equaled her in distinction. And still better, for her immediate peace of mind, that she hadn't the faintest inkling that this erstwhile childhood playmate was going to become her bitterest rival in love.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mark Torrance had done his best to forget Jacqueline Mobry, even when the Chicago papers ran the story of the lavish Rome wedding between his former inamorata and suave Ricardo Frascati, with photographs taken in Rome. Tall and white and lovely in organdy wedding gown and floating veil, she wasn't the same girl he had known so intimately; in fact, the wedding photos helped blot out the anguish of loss, because he pretended it was an entirely different girl who was marrying Frascati. The Jacqueline he had known had been gloriously and honestly wanton, abetting his every desire. But the Signora Frascati was inaccessible and forever removed from his sphere.
So he plunged into his work, and he wrote a short story for an Eastern slick magazine, ironic and sophisticated, and it was accepted and the editor wrote to ask for more. By mid-October, he had sold three stories and the editor had put him in touch with a friend who headed the editorial staff of a large paperback book publisher. Correspondence and some phone calls had been exchanged, and Mark Torrance began to try his skill at a novel. Naturally it was autobiographical, as all novels are in one way or another, and in its pages he could rhapsodically describe his frustrated love for Jacqueline. Better still, he could turn it into the happy ending that had been denied him in real life. And so this became a wholesome sublimation which eased the pangs of permanent separation.
Eleanor Landers, having received her engraved invitation to the selective tea a week after the initial meeting with her peers, basked in the smug glow of ego. She accepted Deeana Mason's invitation to move into the DGT house, paid the requisite rental and board fee, and promptly bequeathed her luxurious private room at Comstock Hall to Suzy Mersh, who was involved not only with her studies, but with the problem of getting Sam Grunnerson to be less circumspect about their relationship. Indeed, instead of the usual male approach that "if we're going to be married, we ought to try to see if we're congenial in love-making," Suzy found herself wishing she herself could use that direct appeal instead of thinking up devious and convincing ways to make Sam see the light and stop treating her like a vestal virgin. But so far, she hadn't made much headway. And when Eleanor facetiously suggested that Suzy try her own trick of inviting Sam to shinny up the convenient drainpipe, silver-haired Suzy very nearly became profane. "Mi-Gawd, if I tried to get Sam to do a thing like that, he'd be off me for life. Besides, the big clumsy goof would make so much noise the whole campus would hear him. Don't even mention such a thing!"
Eleanor really didn't care one way or another. Suzy Mersh had served her purpose, so let her work out her own love problems. It took a week to adjust to the routine at the DGT house, and soon Eleanor was inveigling herself into friendship with the girls as if she had been a member all her life. Deeana Mason, who was her Big Sister, made it easy for her, because Deeana wanted to give her spoiled prot'g'e every possible break. Besides, next month would be the initiation, and if Eleanor acted up too noticeably, the ordeal would be arranged to subdue her down to proper hat size. Moreover, the easygoing Deeana was amused to see just how far this campus novice would go. And so far, the redhead hadn't really been out of line. She'd seemed respectful and deferential to all the girls, especially to Marian Johler and Deeana herself, and she told some hilarious stories about the Left Bank in Paris. True, she liked to wear her most expensive clothes to supper, when most of the regular members were at their most casual. And she always managed to sneak in some reference to her father's clever stock manipulations or to their elite address of Briarwood Terrace back in Chicago. But those were minor sins, and Deeana Mason believed they could also be attributed to Eleanor's essential loneliness. For the truth of the matter was that she really didn't have a close friend on campus, because she was the kind who took everything and gave nothing in return.
But now that her primary objective of sorority membership had been attained, Eleanor Landers entered upon the fallow period of her sojourn at Marwell. It was high time, she decided, to arrange a more exciting emotional life for herself. And after having appraised most of the young men on campus, she devastatingly condemned them as rustics and country bumpkins. There was really only one interesting and mature male on her horizon-and that was Professor Mark Torrance.
Accordingly, she began her campaign on a Monday afternoon the third week of October by arriving a few minutes earlier than was her wont and installing herself in a front-row seat to his left. The scrawny dishwater blonde she replaced looked unhappy, but Eleanor gave her a withering, silent look, and that was that. The blonde retreated to another row, and the first step of the campaign had been gracefully effected.
English literature had always been a rather boring subject for Eleanor Landers; for that matter, practically any part of the curriculum which didn't directly refer to her life and her personality would have affected her the same way. But she was clever enough to realize that if she hoped to attract Mark Torrance's roving eye-assuming he was uninhibited and reasonably liberal, and from his looks there seemed to be no reason why he should be an ascetic-, she would have to display a certain amount of erudition along with an abundance of sensual appeal. So for the next two weeks she diligently visited Cobb Hall and faithfully carried out the reading assignments which he gave the class. Somewhat to his surprise-for he had already noticed her bold emergence into the front row of his classroom-she even turned in several commendable essays concerning analysis of the style and creative aspirations of John Donne and Alexander Pope.
But it was Kathy Edward's themes that Professor Mark Torrance most quoted from; twice a week, he spent the hour reading from his students' papers, turning the class into an open forum of criticism and exchange of ideas, which the lovely brunette found most stimulating. Eleanor didn't, mainly because, though she had got good marks on her papers, he still hadn't deemed them good enough to read for others to hear. And so, on Friday in the last week of October, she lingered after class just behind the scrawny blonde whose seat she had usurped and Kathy Edwards herself. Kathy had a legitimate question to ask of Professor Torrance, and he took pains to answer it explicitly, while Eleanor fumed and shifted from glossy high-heeled pump to pump. She wore a brown satin dress which would have been more in place at The Pump Room or the Camelia Room of the Drake than in a small college classroom, and the skirt ended just an inch above her delightfully dimpled, softly rounded knees, which were resplendently sheathed in her very finest exatra-denier charcoal-brown nylons.
Mark Torrance had, from his podium, observed those classically dimpled, enticing knees and not a little of the elegant rondure of thigh which the adjustment of Eleanor's skirt afforded. A normally healthy and virile male, he was beginning to find abstinence trying, the more so when he recalled-which he tried not to do these lonely fall nights-how Jacqueline Mobry had used to fulfill his desires. It was time, he concluded, that he began to think seriously about marriage, remembering St. Paul's precept that it is far better to marry than to burn. But at first glance, seeking a mate from among the infatuated girls of his own class appeared to be the height of folly. Most of these giddy young things were in college for a single purpose: to entrap a suitable spouse. They had very little to offer besides their bodies, and there is no marriage so dull to an intellectual as one which involves only physical infatuation, because it soon wanes and there is no common meeting-ground besides it.
To take a mistress or an occasional transient sweetheart from such a group was folly too, and even more risky. It could well cost him his professorship, and he had worked hard enough and made enough sacrifices not to care for the odds of such a gamble.
At last Kathy left the classroom, and Eleanor found herself alone with the handsome professor.
"What can I do for you, Miss Landers?" he briskly inquired.
Eleanor laughed huskily and favored him with a long sultry look from beneath lowered lashes. "A very great deal, if you weren't a coward."
She had made up her mind to attempt so audacious an approach that he couldn't help paying attention to her. There was, after all was said and done, nothing to lose and everything to gain. Last weekend she had taken the train back to Chicago, and Dad and Laura had been insufferably insistent that she stay right where she was and pursue her studies and make something of herself. Dad had even agreed to increase her allowance, which was something, but he had stood firm on the subject of her coming back to Chicago. "You'd only gad about and get yourself involved, the way you did in Paris, young lady," he had sermonized her, much to her disgust, and Laura had just stood there nodding and smiling fatuously as if Dad were speaking gospel truth. "I personally think that being cooped up in a small town and having to devote your time to your studies is the best thing that could have happened to you."
So if she had to spend three long dreary years, exiled in this rural retreat and denied the Windy City's bright lights and gayety, she was going to play it her way. All Professor Mark Torrance could say was no and banish her abruptly to the back row for the rest of the term.
But since the beginning of the fall semester, he had been doing a lot of thinking about his own future. The sudden literary success he had earned had helped him to a complete revision. Prior to that, he had been ready to renounce Jacqueline Mobry and go back to a severely monastic life. But now there wasn't any need; all it required was discretion. And the taunting challenge of the redhead before him was just piquant enough to make him want to call her bluff.
"Now that's a strange accusation to make of a man you hardly even know, Miss Landers," was his swift parry.
"I guess I was just making conversation and trying to make it more interesting than what you're accustomed from your students, Professor Torrance." Eleanor Landers stood straight and tall before him, arms calmly folded across her bosom, that inimitable mocking little smile curving her petulantly ripe mouth.
"All right, let's start all over again, Miss Landers. Your work is quite adequate for my course, and I've no doubt you'll get a better than average grade. I don't think you wanted to ask me why I consider George Meredith one of the first great original novelists, and I'm sure you haven't the slightest interest in what Thomas Hardy was trying to do when he wrote Tess of the d'Ubervilles. Am I correct?"
"More or less, yes, Professor Torrance." Her smile deepened and her green eyes had ambery flecks at their irises, an infallible emotional sign that she had come across an adversary worthy of her mettle.
"Then may I ask for a frank answer as to why you find it necessary to stay after class? Was there anything in today's discussion you didn't quite understand?"
"Not really," she shook her coppery head, the smile less cynical now. She felt she was beginning to reach him at long last, and the experiment had been well worth it.
He sat down at his desk, opened the top drawer, took out a pack of Pall Malls, offered her one, then lit it, then one for himself. Leaning back, he took a long puff and sent a wreath of smoke rising to the ceiling. His candid blue eyes regarded her impartially. There was no doubt she was a tasty morsel; also, there was no doubt she was reasonably experienced, and certainly mature enough to be well over the age of consent. Also, she had a superior opinion of herself-but that didn't discredit her in his eyes, for Mark Torrance felt that if a person had no ego or confidence, that person lacked initiative.
"All right. I've a few minutes for small talk, if you're so inclined, Miss Landers," he said jovially.
"Wouldn't it be nicer over cocktails and dinner?"
"Very much nicer," he blandly agreed. "But hardly in this vicinity."
"Oh, Professor. I suppose you're afraid I'd compromise you."
"Just the other way around. I don't think our Dean of Women would very much approve of a bachelor professor taking one of his most attractive pupils out for cocktails and dinner. All sorts of nasty inferences would follow, and both of us would have occasion to regret an otherwise very pleasant interlude."
"Is that all you think it would be, an interlude?" She took a step forward, arching out her bosom, the ambery flecks in her eyes very luminous now. She found Mark Torrance extremely exciting, and quite surprisingly sophisticated. It wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought. He wasn't entirely a diamond in the rough; there was much more polish to him than met the casual eye.
"Perhaps not. But what else could it possibly lead to?" he bantered, taking another puff at his cigarette.
"Whatever you cared to have it lead to, Professor Torrance."
"You know, I'm going to call your bluff, Miss Landers," he said after a lengthy pause. "Either you're doing this on a dare-maybe it's part of the sorority initiation for all I know-or else you enjoy embarrassing a man who happens to be more vulnerable than most. As a professor, I refuse to dine and wine you. As a man, I could very easily do it, but, as I said before, not around these parts. Only let's get one thing straight, Miss Landers."
"Whatever you say-Mark," her voice was low and husky, and it wasn't entirely affected this time. Eleanor Landers was experiencing strange new sensations; she was being trapped by her own trap. Because this very personable professor hadn't backed down or blushed or acted at all as she'd expected him to.
"All right. Do you happen to own a car?"
"As it happens, I do." She was glad she had persuaded her stuffy father to let her take her Ford Thunderbird along to Marwell, though he had made her promise she'd park it at a garage somewhere in town and use it only on weekends. He'd told her that he'd feel she wasn't gallivanting around every night riding college wolves in it and neglecting her studies. And since she hadn't been really interested in any of the men on campus till right now, she'd kept her promise. Now she was glad she had.
"Fine. Well, about twenty miles south of here, there's a town called Hanneford. They have a pretty fair restaurant there because the Illinois Central discharges lots of passengers at the station, and they do a nice business. When I get tired of so-called home-cooked meals, I drive over there for an evening. Why don't you meet me there at, say, seven-thirty tonight? But let's get this one thing straight first before we meet."
"I already agreed to it in advance, if you remember."
"So you did. All right, here it is. like I said, I propose to call your bluff. But we'll meet as boy meets girl. And don't think that because I'm escorting you tonight, you're to get any advantages as a pupil in my class. Just let me catch you making any overt gestures like sweet smiles or wrigglings in my direction during my lectures, young lady, and I'll flunk you and that's a promise. Is that understood?"
"Perfectly. And I'm not that obvious."
"Aren't you?" he chuckled as he regarded her. "You were just now, waiting to be last to see me."
"That, Professor," she purred as she walked slowly to the door, "was because it says somewhere in my book of maxims that the last shall be first. See you tonight at seven-thirty."
CHAPTER NINE
Eleanor Landers took particular pains with her make-up and attire. She had been given a room which three other new pledges-Ruth Jorgenson, Myrna Henshaw and Marcia Alton-shared with her. Kathy Edwards, she had learned, and much to her relief, was rooming with Roberta MacDonald and Marge Jones, with the sophomore DGT member brunette Liz Valcour teaming up with the newly pledged trio to help give them tips in how to adhere to the sorority code. Cissy Williams visited the room where Eleanor and her three colleagues were quartered, every now and then, just to give them a pep talk on the responsibilities of being a DGT. Eleanor had the feeling Cissy didn't much like her, and it was mutual so far as she was concerned.
There wasn't too much trouble getting the bathroom for a shower, because her three roommates didn't have any weekend dates and were content just to laze around before Mrs. Emmons rang the gong for supper. Eleanor stood under the shower spray and reveled in the stinging cold splash of water against her creamy nudity, feeling alive and eager for the night ahead. And when she had dried herself with a big thick Turkish towel, she sprayed just a hint of Chanel Number Five at the elbow and armpits and her slim wrists. As for make-up, just a touch of green eye shadow and black mascara to the lashes, and very little lipstick. For once, she wanted to have a man judge her by her natural physical attributes. That was why the dress was a good deal more important than make-up.
The dress was one she'd packed away and hadn't worn yet, and it was hanging in a plastic wardrobe bag in the big closet she shared with the other three pledges. When she walked back into the spacious room with its double bed on one side and low wide couch on the other, she was wearing gauzy off-black nylons and black leather pumps, a white satin-elastic panty girdle and matching strapless bra with the narrowest of bandeaus. And svelte Myrna Henshaw whistled admiringly: "Hey, lookit Elly! Whose heart are you gonna break tonight?"
"Don't call me Elly, please," Eleanor said stiffly. She felt a mature woman in comparison with these ingenuous teenagers, even if they were attending college. Ruth was just a big beautiful blonde, built for home and a family but not the long haul of an academic career, and she was first to admit it. And Myrna, for all her pert looks, had been a baker's daughter back in Peoria and helped out on Saturdays by selling to customers in her dad's store. As for Marcia Alton, that petite charmer didn't have an ounce of sophistry to her make-up.
"Oh, so sorry, Your Majesty," Myrna made a low curtsy. "But seriously speaking, you've got a perfectly scrumptious figure. I used to think being slim was an advantage with boys, but one look at you and I've got my doubts."
"I forgive you for calling me Elly," Eleanor grinned, both amused and pleased by this flattering avowal. "Now I want your opinion on this dress."
She brought it out of the closet, slipped off the plastic wardrobe bag, and then slowly donned it. Even Marcia and Ruth joined in the "Oohs" and "Ahhs" that Myrna exhaled. It was made of silver lam' and at the cleft of the breasts it had a sheer black net panel in the shape of an oval, which revealed the inner curves of those magnificent round love globes and enhanced the creamy satin of the bare flesh just beneath. It was an off-the-shoulder dress, with sewn-in slip, and it clung lovingly to Eleanor's alluringly smooth-curved hips and rounded thighs as if she had been poured into it.
"Wow!" Myrna murmured, shaking her head. "It must have cost a fortune."
"It's a Balenciaga, dear. I got it in Paris," Eleanor purred, hugely satisfied with the effect. She could have hoped for no better tribute, because girls are usually catty about one another's clothes. But the looks of awe and envy shining on those three lovely faces about her left no room for doubts.
"Well, we better be getting down to supper. It's lamb stew," Marcia said reluctantly. "I don't have to ask whether you're joining us, do I, Eleanor?"
"No, darling. And don't wait up."
"Who's the lucky boy?" June wanted to know.
"Really, dear," Eleanor drawled languidly, putting a hand to the carefully styled oval bun at the back of her regal head, "can you see me going out on a date with some clumsy boy in a dress like this? Never you mind who it is. He's mine, and one of these days you'll see a 'Hands Off sign on him. When the proper time comes, never fear. So, enjoy your lamb stew. And give Madame President my best regards. I don't want to make her too envious, seeing this dress, so I'll sneak off right now. Bye, all!"
The white Ford Thunderbird was parked in a little garage in Marwell, about five miles away from campus. But Eleanor had anticipated how to get to it without trouble. She had asked Dave Vandenburg, a big, gangling junior who sat in the back row in the English Lit class, if he'd be a perfect angel and come by and pick her up about six-ish this evening. She wanted, she had told him, to ask his advice on doing a theme about James Joyce's "Ulysses." And Dave, she knew, had eyed her so avidly and longingly ever since she had started that class, that she knew he'd grab at the chance to be alone with her. Sure enough, there was his old blue Nash parked at the curb of the DGT house, and he was grinning from ear to ear. She wore a light cloth coat with a Peter Pan collar, smart and expensive and acquired at Bonwit Teller just before she'd come to Marwell.
"Thanks, Dave. It was sweet of you to pick me up.
Can you drive me into town?"
"You know it, Eleanor. Gee, I was thinkin' maybe we could grab a steak and-"
She put a hand on his knee and stared soulfully into his calf-like brown eyes. "Oh, I'm so dreadfully sorry, Dave dear. You see, my car's parked in that garage next to the grocery store. And I have to drive to Springfield to see a sick cousin. We'll do it some other time. But while we're driving there, I did so want to hear your ideas about that Joyce book. I can't seem to make head or tail of it, and I just know a smart fellow like you has it all doped out."
"Well, now," he grinned sheepishly, "I don't like to brag, but I do know a lot about Joyce. You see, my dad used to teach high school, and-"
For the next ten minutes, Dave Vandenburg rambled on and on about Joyce and "Ulysses" and how the author had made use of the technique of "stream of consciousness" so that you could identify with his train of thought. Eleanor Landers nodded and put in an admiring, "My gracious, how smart you are to have figured all that out!" at a propitious moment every so often, and the serious-faced junior was in seventh heaven and, needless to say, completely taken in by Eleanor's trumped-up story about the sick cousin. He insisted on driving the Thunderbird out of the garage himself and making sure it was gassed and oiled up sufficiently for the trip to Springfield. And after the big white car vanished in the distance, he stood looking after it with adoration in his eyes, shaking his head and sighing, "Gosh." Eleanor Landers had made another conquest. But it was hardly--likely to occupy her mind for very long. She was, however, careful to head the Thunderbird in the direction of Springfield, knowing that Dave was watching. Because Hanneford was, as anybody knew, in the opposite direction...
She had an hour for twenty miles, but she wanted that extra time for thinking things out. She could foresee what might happen tonight. This Balenciaga dress was going to work him up if he were any kind of man at all, and she was very sure he was very much a man. And mature and a bachelor; she had checked very carefully on Mark Torrance, because Tonia Morris, another devoted friend from Comstock Hall, worked in the registrar's office and had access to the files on faculty as well as students. And Tonia had confirmed Mark Torrance's quite eligible status. And he was a full professor, which meant high academic standing. It was certainly true that he couldn't afford to be involved in any kind of scandal. Once a teacher has the black mark of dalliance with one of his female pupils against his record, future jobs become as scarce as the proverbial hens' teeth.
If he were one of those fumbling campus males, she could expect mauling, whining or sullen anger, or maybe even a hectic struggle to defend her virtue. With a man like Mark Torrance, there wasn't any such danger. You said yes or no to a man like that, and he accepted it because he knew the score. He might just catch her imagine enough to want to have him around for a long time, maybe even as a husband. Marriage to a professor would please both Dad and Laura, and put an end to their policing her. At the same time, it would also leave her free to flirt all she liked and have any number of discreet little affairs, just to prove her powers. What she wanted was a court, a retinue as in the days of yore, as if she were a princess with everyone bowing to pay her tribute. Mark could very well be her prince, and there would be others happy to play the role of court jester or intimate attendant.
Of course she had no intention of yielding to his importunities this very first date. She was quite certain he would try to get her to go to bed with him, and she was anticipating how she would rebuff him. She would tempt him till he was mad for her, always with the promise of eventual fulfillment, and then it would be the ring, bell, book and candle or nothing. And she was prepared for his saying nothing too. Or she would be their next date. She was going to drive back to Chicago next weekend and buy one of those tiny transistorized tape recorders which could fit inside a purse. She would let him go on hoping he was going to score, let the little recorder take down all his foolish, impassioned protestations of undying love. And then, when she would tell him that he had to make it legal before he could take her to bed, if he refused, the tape recorder would be the convincer. Playing it to the dean of women wouldn't exactly help his reputation on campus. He would be looked upon as a corrupter of young womanhood, a defiler of trusting, hopeful innocence. She was going to pay him back a little for his cynicism this afternoon, or her name wasn't Eleanor Landers.
She had smoked half a dozen cigarettes and driven in a wide circle around the edge of Hanneford. Glancing at her wrist watch, she saw that it was twenty after seven.
He was waiting for her in a booth at the back of the cozy little restaurant. There weren't many customers around, and no one she recognized. He rose to meet her and to help her off with her coat. When he removed it, his eyes widened and he remarked softly, "I ought to have told you that Hanneford isn't quite Chicago. I'm afraid that imagine dress is going to be wasted. And it won't make their steaks one bit better."
"You think it'll be wasted, Mark?" she murmured back as she seated herself at the very back of the booth. There was a light fixture overhead, and she wanted the light above and behind her to intensify the aura of the silver lam'". She could tell by his frown as he sat down opposite her that it was already beginning to work. He couldn't help stealing a covert glance at the net panel which exposed the tempting inner curves of her round breasts. And that was hardly a professorial glance he had stolen, either.
"To answer your question, no," he finally said as he looked around for the waitress. She was a little bespectacled plump woman who greeted them cordially and handed each a large menu, volunteering, "In case you folks aren't fish eaters on Friday, we've got some gorgeous filet mignons tonight."
"Say no more," Mark chuckled, handing her back the menu. "Thick, medium, covered with mushrooms and crisp shoestring potatoes. A tossed salad with vinegar and olive oil, and have the chef just rub the bowl with garlic, not leave it in. Hm-a shrimp cocktail to start with. Black coffee with strawberry shortcake for dessert-and cover the shortcake with berries, never mind the whipped cream. Any wine tonight, Miss?"
"Just domestic," the waitress said apologetically.
"A bottle of red then-and please don't chill it. Well, Eleanor, how does that sound?"
"Heavenly, when I think of the lamb stew they were going to have at the house tonight," she laughed. "The very same for me, except I like my steak rare."
"Right away," the waitress bobbed her head and hastened off to the kitchen.
"You sound bloodthirsty with that preference for rare meat," Mark chuckled, offering her a cigarette. Eleanor purposely leaned forward more than was necessary to accept it; she was well aware how her bosom surged against the sheer net paneling of the silver lame dress. And when he struck a match to light it for her, she could see the open admiration in his blue eyes. It was going to be ever so simple. He might be the smartest English Lit professor anywhere in the U.S., but he would just be duck soup for her. It was a pity she hadn't thought of the little tape recorder earlier. But then she had to give him credit for having a little more polish than a B.M.O.C.; he was hardly--likely to go overboard in his protestations of undying love their very first date. And there would be others. Quite a few others.
"Oh, I'm not. You've misjudged me," she said airily.
"Have I?"
"Yes. You think I'm a scheming, conniving girl."
"I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't noticed a hint of it in your personality, Eleanor. And I'm interested in finding out why you want to date a stick in the mud like myself. I'm just a professor at a small Illinois college, not overly distinguished. And you don't have to impress me with your charm and beauty-which are considerable-to get a good grade. You're not that stupid."
"Did you ever stop to think that sometimes a girl has to pretend it's leap year, when she wants to go after a man she just happens to like? Or maybe you can't help thinking what you do because you are a professor and I am one of your students. But I do wish you would, just the same."
He waited till the waitress had set down their shrimp cocktails and a bottle of special sauce. "Well, that's at least a fairly original line, I'll give you that," he countered.
She dug a fork viciously into an unoffending shrimp and glared at him as she jabbed the fork towards him. "You said we were going to meet as boy and girl. Why don't you start acting that way, then, Mark? I don't want to feel like one of your students. But if you keep twisting my words and making fun of me, I'll start thinking that maybe I misjudged you instead."
"Oh? You've already formed some opinions about me?"
She put the fork daintily to her red mouth, watched him as she chewed the tender baby shrimp and swallowed it. Then she nodded very slowly. "A few."
"For instance?"
"That you're not exactly the woman-hater you want me to think you are, Mark. That you're probably as lonesome as I am. Sure I'm lonesome. Just because I'm in a sorority doesn't mean I've got what I want out of life. I come from Chicago, from a very wealthy family. There's night life there, and the orchestra and opera, and wonderful restaurants, and sports and everything. And the most marvelous shops. And here I'm cooped up in a little college town, and I don't dare do anything I shouldn't-where back home it would be lots easier. And I don't much care for the inane, immature fellows that all the other girls seem to be crazy about."
"I noticed you talking to Dave Vandenburg the other day after class."
"Oh, him," Eleanor sniffed contemptuously. "I just wanted him to drive me to town so I could get my car and meet you here, you idiot. Do you honestly think I'd go for that big ape, all arms and legs and that sappy grin of his? Give me some credit, Mark, please!"
"He's a pretty fair student. I think he's going to teach when he finishes here."
"I didn't come all this way to meet you just to talk about Dave Vandenburg," she hissed, again jabbing her fork into the depleted cocktail glass.
"I'm sorry. I guess I have been teasing you a little," he confessed with a boyish grin. "Let's start all over again. I'm glad you did brazen it out and ask me to date you. Sure I'm lonesome too. Even a professor has feelings. And the girl in that pulse-quickening silver dress is definitely not the girl I see in class every afternoon from two to three. In fact, she's far more beautiful."
"Well, that's more like it," Eleanor Landers breathed. She put down her fork and leaned back, turning her most fascinating smile on him. It was going to be so easy. She could sound him out this first date, and then, the next time, she would be ready to let him talk all he liked about how desirable she was. She had an even more revealing dress hanging in the closet in her room back at the sorority house. And he had just admitted he was lonesome too.
CHAPTER TEN
Eleanor didn't expect Mark Torrance to invite her back to the house he occupied on Faculty Row, nor did he. The steaks were as good as any she had eaten in Chicago, which wasn't surprising because the farmers did their own slaughtering and fed their cattle on corn in the pens right on their own farms close by. When they left the restaurant, he got into his car and let her follow behind him as he took the highway back towards Marwell, turning off under a viaduct about twelve miles from the little college town.
There was an abandoned farm to the right, off the highway, and the barbed-wire fence had already been cut at a dozen or more places. He beckoned to her and took her hand as she walked up to him, and together they made their way through a yawning section of the fence and on eastward.
A full harvest moon shone in the sky, and the weather was unseasonably warm. There would be a cold spell next week, the radio had warned. But for now, it was almost seventy-five degrees with a gentle breeze from the west.
"I'll bet you've never been on a farm before, city girl," he said jokingly, turning to her after they had gone a few paces.
"You'd win your bet, country boy," she laughed huskily, and gave his hand a suggestive squeeze. Did the guy actually think he was going to take her in her sparkling silver lam' dress off to some abandoned haystack and maul her around? If he did, he had another think coming.
As if he had read her mind, Mark Torrance banteringly remarked, "I suppose you think I brought you out here to neck."
"Well, didn't you?"
"Not in the least. I'm a firm believer in the old slogan of never trying to make out the first date."
"Now that's a singular expression for a college professor to use."
"Oh, I'm not a dry-as-dust professor yet, Eleanor. I'm only thirty, after all. And I even write paperback novels. At least, I'm trying my hand at it. Sold a couple of pretty good short stories to a national magazine a little while back."
"I'd love to read your novel when it's finished."
"I'll give you a personally autographed copy. I'm using a pen name, naturally. The powers that be might just be a bit stuffy if they found out their English literature professor was the author of a sexy romance. But at least it's youthful writing."
"If it deals with sex, then I know I want to read it."
"Everything deals with sex in one way or another. Only the bluenoses and the reformers pretend it doesn't exist or try to bowdlerize it out of literature. Take 'Ulysses', for example. A generation, our courts banned it as obscene. Now it's recognized as a classic, which it always was. It's just a matter of intellectual honesty. We'd be better off if people stopped trying to censor what's natural and tried to eliminate bigotry and prejudice and ignorance and fear. The efforts they waste in burning books or trying to burn them could be put to wonderfully better use in emancipating all of us from economic poverty and illiteracy and a lot of other evils far more deadly than a so-called racy book. There. I had to get that out as a man who teaches literature and tries to get his students to approach the subject with an open mind. Lecture finished for the night. Come on, let's walk."
"Isn't this private property?"
"Yes, and it still is. But the man who owns it wants to sell. He's an old man, and his wife died three years ago and his only son was killed in Vietnam last spring. So he's living with a younger brother a few miles from here. I might even buy the place some day. I like the idea of being a gentleman farmer. And it's close enough to Chicago to drive in when I want to hear the orchestra or go to the opera or maybe even a night club, which we don't have in this area at all, as you probably know."
"I can't exactly picture you as a farmer, Mark."
He chuckled, squatted down, took up a handful of earth and sifted it through his fingers. "I can't either, to tell the truth. But if I have any luck writing and decide in a few years to make a career out of it instead of just teaching, this would be a wonderful spot. See that wide low hill over to the left? It's part of the property, and I could build a little cottage there, just for writing, with my living quarters off where Mr. Crozier's dilapidated house still stands. And I could either do some of the work myself or hire a tenant hand to work the land for me. That way, I could have my food bills at least halved. Of course, I wouldn't do that till I got married-and that's not--likely for a while, anyhow."
"Oh? You prefer being a bachelor?"
"No. But I'm not sure I'm exactly monogamous by instinct. I like girls, but that doesn't narrow it down to one for life. Not now, anyway."
"Then maybe there was someone once you might have narrowed down for?"
"You're very perceptive, Eleanor. I keep having to revise my opinion of you."
"I hope it's favorable."
He looked at her for a moment, and she straightened with unconscious pride of bearing, knowing herself to be on display. It was as if the two of them were the only ones left alive in the world. Rows on rows of un-tended, dying cornstalks, and, over two hundred yards to the right, a clearing where once there might have been soybeans or tomatoes. In the distance, the vague outline of the old farmhouse, a two-story wooden frame building with Gothic arch at the rooftop, wood that had once been white and was now dirty gray and merging with the darkness of night as the moon's rays played on it.
"Let's see," he said at last, taking her by the wrist and drawing her towards him. She uttered a soft laugh of acquiescence as his left arm curved round her waist and his mouth came down on hers. His kiss was impersonal, almost clinical.
"Well?" she asked tauntingly.
"You smell of Chanel Number Five, one of my favorite scents. And you don't have too much lipstick, which is good because it won't be incriminating."
"I think you could write detective stories, Professor Torrance."
"Possibly. Now let's try again."
This time, his fingers sank into her shoulder blades, forcing her round breasts hard against his chest and his lips were demanding, even cruel. Eleanor moaned softly, and then her creamy arms clasped round him and she found herself responding. The almost cynical, elemental force of his kiss piqued her like a kind of insistent challenge; and it was out of character, for it was she who was the challenger, not the challenged.
"That's better," he said hoarsely. Let's walk some more."
"What are you thinking?"
"That it would be fun to have you in a room with a locked door and a comfortably wide bed, and that it isn't going to happen. Not at Marwell anyway."
"There must be motels in the vicinity."
"Oh, there are. But I'm too well known in the community, and so are you."
"What do you mean, Mark?" she asked wonderingly.
He uttered a short, ironic laugh. "There's a very effective grapevine at Marwell. Almost every professor on campus has heard about the sophomore who dared a young man to climb up to her room in Comstock Hall and then sent him packing."
Eleanor Landers impulsively giggled. Suzy Mersh had really toiled in her behalf. It had been worth the offer of paying Suzy's rent on that lucky room.
"I did that to get attention so they'd pledge me at a very important sorority, Mark. Can you blame a big-city girl who finds herself exiled to a prison like Marwell? My folks thought I needed isolating, but I swore I'd have fun anyway in spite of that."
"No, I don't entirely blame you. I might be more inclined to blame your parents for not having taken a hairbrush to you at a tender age when you could still be influenced in the right direction."
"Now you're being nasty."
"I just don't like teasers, honey. Either you're all woman or not, but there's no halfway stage in my book-or any of the ones I'm going to write."
"That particular young man didn't mean a thing to me. Besides, he's got a steady girl. I just proved he was like any other man-an opportunist who thought he'd sneak himself some fun with another girl while his financee wasn't looking."
"So you proved your point, men are human. How about you?"
She drew back her hand to slap his face, but he caught her wrist and his other arm went round her supple waist to pull her to him as his mouth brutally fused on hers to stifle her cry of indignant anger. Eleanor writhed against him, and then again her sensual senses surged to the fore as his vitality encompassed her. Her hands locked at his neck so that he could feel her sharp nails, and her lips parted under his, and he felt the sudden stab of her adroit pink tongue.
Now his hands roamed at will over her back and hips, caressing the glossy-smooth silver lam' as it plaqued over the rotundities of her firm resilient buttocks and hips and upper thighs, while Eleanor writhed and gasped, roused to fulmination by the audacity of his caressing. It was better than it had been with Henri; doing it outdoors standing up like this alone in a deserted cornfield under the moon invested this amorous byplay with a spicy tang that excited her. Yet one part of her mind was craftily figuring just how to turn his desire into her profit. The recorder for sure their next date. Oh, there would be a next date, and a next after that one. The way his fingers were stroking her, she knew he wanted to have her. It was so easy. Even the most intellectual men could be governed by the law of the flesh.
"No, darling, not so fast, please-you-you're making me giddy," she protested, feigning a near-swooning ecstasy as she drew her face away from his.
Instantly he released her, his face taut and darkened with desire. But he too was in full control of his senses. "You're quite a woman, Eleanor," he said. "And now it's time to go back. You in your car, I in mine. And Monday, I'll expect you to sit decorously in my classroom and devote your attention to the lecture."
"Mayn't I even cross my legs, darling?" she teased him, tracing her forefinger tip over his nose, then his rugged jaw.
"What's the point? You've already convinced me you've got gorgeous legs. Why flaunt it in class, where I can't do anything about it?"
"Oh? Then you want to see me again, outside of class, I take it."
"You knew I would when we started out tonight, honey. Let's be completely honest. Only we aren't going to rush this. Everything gains by prolongation and waiting. Let's make sure this isn't just playacting and sham."
"It isn't. I don't kiss every man the way I just did you, Mark dear."
"Good. We'll leave it at that tonight. Come on, Eleanor. It's turning a bit chilly."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Her roommates were asleep when Eleanor tiptoed into the room and hastily undressed. Her flesh tingled from the feel of his fingers, and she hugged herself narcissistically as she stood in the bathroom studying her reflection in the cabinet mirror. "It's going to be fun taking him down a couple of pegs, Eleanor girl," she told herself triumphantly. "So he knows about your making a fool out of Tom Jenkins, only he doesn't know who the guy was. And of course he's so smugly superior, he's sure it couldn't happen to him. I'm going to teach him not to take me for granted because I happen to be a girl, that's what. Life around here is going to be interesting, after all."
She crept into bed on the couch, still smiling with anticipatory victory. If she acknowledged the pangs of denial-which Mark Torrance's stimulating kisses and caresses had engendered in her psyche-she could dismiss them as a small price to pay for the greater triumph in store for her. And the next step would be to quash any hopes that goody-goody little Kathy Edwards had in Mark's direction. She was willing to bet that dreamy-eyed little Kathy was cherishing ideas of making Mark take notice of her as a female not just as an honor student. Well, once she put the sign of "Hands Off" on Mark, Kathy and everybody else would know what the score was.
Three Fridays from now, DGT would hold its initiation ceremonies. She looked forward to them. Since the prexy of DGT herself, Deeana Mason, would sponsor her as Big Sister, she was going to confide in Deeana. She was going to make Deeana see to it that when Kathy Edwards got initiated, they would be much harder on her than usual. She knew how she would do it. She would strike up a sudden friendship with Kathy, and then report to Deeana that Kathy had griped about some of the members of the sorority or the rules or something. And then just wait till Kathy had to go through the paddle line!
Hugging herself, with a happy smile on her small ripe mouth, Eleanor Landers drifted off into dreamless sleep...
After breakfast on Sunday morning, Eleanor, who had put on the casual attire of black satin toreador pants and white satin short-sleeved blouse and sandals, began her campaign against Kathy Edwards. As the brunette rose to leave the table, Eleanor quickly pushed back her chair and asked Deeana, who sat next to her, to excuse her. The sandy-haired senior smilingly nodded assent, then turned to chat with Marian Johler.
"Fine, fine, couldn't be better. You know, I'm afraid I've been so terribly busy with classes and trying to get pledged here that I've ignored you dreadfully, dear. Can you forgive me?"
"Of course," Kathy was lovely when she smiled; it was generous and natural. She adjusted her harlequin glasses, continuing to smile. "I suppose, too, you're keeping in touch with Chicago."
"Naturally. My parents expect at least one long letter a week. But then they think I'm a social butterfly. Of course, around here, there isn't anything like that. Don't you find it dreary, really, after a big city?"
"Oh, no. The kids are so nice and friendly, really. And I just love this sorority. Of course, I never dreamed they'd pledge me. I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. Because I never was-well, you know, Eleanor. The popular kind. Back home, when we were kids, you were about the only friend I had."
"And I still am, dear," Eleanor purred as she took Kathy's arm. "Come on, let's walk off that big breakfast. Or better still, since it's nippy out and I don't feel like going upstairs for a coat, how about a game of ping pong down in the recreation room?"
"Okay, sure," Kathy readily agreed.
"You take first serve," Eleanor proffered as she planted herself on the table side nearest the farthest wall. She was mentally comparing Kathy with herself and finding the latter at a considerable disadvantage. Without the glasses, Kathy's face had a shy innocence to it, and that wasn't the quality a sophisticated man like Mark Torrance would go for. Oh, the girl had a decent enough figure, but her clothes weren't smart and didn't emphasize her good points. like that casual shirred-collar blouse Kathy was wearing; it was loose-fitting and hardly showed off her breasts. And the tweed skirt was a bit too bulky to mould out her hips. Her thighs looked to be a bit too short. And the way she did her hair today was just ghastly; an upsweep and a ribbon, of all things. Made it look stringy, and there wasn't much glint to it. Almost mousy. No, she didn't have to worry about Kathy's being competition with Mark Torrance.
"Good shot!" Occupied as she was with her disparaging appraisal, Eleanor let a stinging backhand go past her without any attempt at return.
"Just lucky," Kathy modestly countered.
"No, you're real good. Now, let's see if you can get that serve past me this time-uh uh, right back at you!" Eleanor crashed it towards her partner, and Kathy managed to flick it up at the last second and send it spinning towards the net. It trickled over and Eleanor made an ineffectual swipe on it and sprawled forward on her side of the table. Furious at herself, she raised her head to catch Kathy giggling, and a savage swirl of rage stormed through her. That four-eyed brunette would pay for laughing at her expense-just wait till Hell Week!
Mastering her anger, she strove to keep her voice airily level: "You're too good for me. Give me a second to catch my breath and then I'll show you." Won't I just, Kathy girl, you watch and see, she greedily promised herself.
"So you like it at the DGT house, Kathy?" she cagily resumed after a new serve had put the ball back and forth in easier, more relaxed lobs between the two girls.
"Oh, it's very nice. Of course, it'd be lots more comfy to have a room all by oneself, but I don't expect it."
"I've got three roommates myself, you know. How's the food?"
"Mrs. Emmons is a perfectly wonderful cook, don't you think so?" Kathy countered as she leaned over to take a backhand cut at an angling ball to her left.
"Fair. You know, two weeks from Friday, we pledges get initiated. Maybe then you won't be so happy about joining up. I hear they paddle you pretty good."
"Oh, it can't be too bad, Eleanor. The school authorities wouldn't allow any really drastic initiations. And I can stand a little paddling. I'm pretty well padded."
Eleanor frowned. She hadn't yet induced her former chum to say anything damning about DGT. "But don't you think it's a perfectly awful rule about not letting any pledge date a fellow till after Hell Week?"
"I suppose," Kathy laughed, "if I was stuck on a fellow and couldn't see him for two months, I'd resent the rule. But as it happens, I don't have that problem."
"Don't you really, dear?" Eleanor cattily purred. "I thought you'd have at least four or five boys mad about you by now."
"Oh, no," Kathy was blushing now as she started to serve. "I really don't know anyone at Marwell. And there wasn't anyone really serious back home. But you're the siren on campus, Eleanor, from all I hear."
"Oh? What exactly do you hear, honey?"
"I don't like to repeat gossip."
"You mean about that silly senior who climbed the drainpipe to my room, don't you?"
"Well, yes, now that you mention it. Ruth Jorgenson told me. Wasn't it awfully daring?"
"Yes, I suppose it was," Eleanor said loftily. "It got me pledged here, didn't it? So it was worth the gamble. And nothing happened, of course."
"I'm sure not, though it's none of by. business," Kathy gently replied.
"True," Eleanor haughtily responded as she lobbed the ball back, "but I just want you to have your facts straight. How do you like your classes?"
"They're marvelous. I like the teachers very much. It's better being at a small college, because you get more individual attention."
"Yes, I've noticed. Especially in English lit. You're Professor Torrance's star pupil, looks like, the way he keeps reading everything you write."
"Why, he's very generous, really. I don't think I'm as good as that. But English lit was always my best subject, even in high school."
"Of course, they probably didn't have such a good-looking man teacher for it then," Eleanor couldn't help remarking, and narrowly watched Kathy blush again.
"He-he's very competent at the subject, and I enjoy the group discussions."
"Especially when he calls on you all the time."
"Eleanor, you know that's not so."
"I'll bet you're stuck on him, that's what."
Kathy swung wildly at an easy lob and knocked it into the net. "You're hateful to say a thing like that, Eleanor Landers," she sniffled, and the redhead gloated to see tears glinting in her eyes. "I think he's a very fine person, but he doesn't even notice me apart from being one of his students, and that's the way it's supposed to be."
"Now don't take it so hard, I was only teasing, honey," Eleanor feigned solicitude. "Besides, he's not my type anyway, so you're welcome to him." She crossed the forefinger and middle finger of her left hand behind her back. "Only it just occurred to me that the rule about new pledges not dating till after Hell Week wouldn't apply to professors, only frat men or unattached fellows on campus." She had known that rule in advance before having accepted a date with Mark Torrance, and her three roommates had faithfully promised not to say a word about her having gone out-though of course she hadn't told them with whom it was to be.
"I-I wouldn't think of pushing myself forward to him, Eleanor, and I know he'd never date one of his pupils," Kathy shakily responded. "I-I don't think I want to play any more. Thank you for the game."
"Oh, you're very welcome," Eleanor was grinning nastily, knowing she had at last got under Kathy's skin. "Only I don't think you've much sporting instinct, dear. And this sorority doesn't like quitters."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Kathy flashed as she laid the ping-pong paddle down and started to walk away.
"No, I guess not," Eleanor sneered, "you're so high-minded. I'm talking about men, darling, and Mark Torrance in particular. And if you don't want him, I'll be glad to take him off your hands."
Kathy bit her lips and stared at the redhead, frustrated anguish in her widened eyes. "Oh ho, so little Miss Innocent really does have a yen for that big handsome curly-haired professor after all," Eleanor gleefully exclaimed. "Well, you're not his type, take it from me. You're much too wishy-washy, if you want to know. So much so that I'm willing to bet you'll drop out when Hell Week starts getting a little rough on your tender hide."
"I can take it every bit as much as you can," Kathy shakily declared, but her lips were trembling. "And
I'd be very grateful to you if you'd stop that nasty, malicious talk about Professor Torrance. Yes, I do like him very, very much, but that doesn't mean what you're trying to imply. And I won't stay here any longer and listen to such talk."
Eleanor watched her go up the winding stairs to the main floor of the sorority house, her eyes sparkling with venomous delight. "That's right, run away, fraidy-cat," she murmured. "I'll make you wish you'd never tried to be a copycat and get into DGT. Or into the same class with Mark Torrance."
* * *
There was time, Eleanor calculated, for just two more Friday evening dates with the handsome English literature professor before the opening of Hell Week. And by that time, she had decisively planned, Kathy's goose would be cooked at DGT as well as with Mark Torrance. On Monday after the English lit class-during which she gave no sign of having graduated to a greater degree of intimacy with him than any other pupil in the classroom-she closeted herself with Deeana Mason on the pretext of wanting to find out in advance what she would be expected to wear and how she was to schedule her time for the weekend during which the DGT initiation ceremonies began.
Deeana had just finished a long letter, which she had begun over the past weekend, to her advertising copywriter in Chicago, and was sealing the envelope as Eleanor sauntered into her room, which the DGT prexy shared with Marian Johler.
"Oh, hi, Eleanor. Something I can do for you?"
"Uh huh. Can I talk to you for a few minutes, Dee?"
"Of course. Sit down. Well, how're things going?"
"Just fine, thanks. I love it here. I can hardly wait to be an official member."
"That'll start two weeks from this coming Friday, as you know, Eleanor. And as a rule, we don't disqualify many pledges once they go through initiation."
"Oh, I wasn't worried about that. I won't even ask the usual questions about what you'll put us through. I can take it. No, I wanted to ask, is there any special outfit we ought to wear-you know-for Hell Week?"
"Just casuals. I wouldn't wear that silver lame" dress if I were you," Deeana laughed pleasantly.
"Don't worry, I won't! I wouldn't dare bend over in it, it's tight enough anyway. Okay, so maybe toreador pants and blouse, okay?"
"Good enough. Oh-by the way, I suppose you've kept the rule about not dating any boy on campus till you're officially initiated, Eleanor?"
"Oh, sure, Dee. I did go out last Friday night, but I met a-a relative in Hanneford. No Marwell man. I know the rules and I want to abide by them."
"Fine. I'm glad you told me of your own accord that you'd gone out. We work on the honor system here. It so happens that Cissy saw you leaving the house and getting into a car, and she noticed that imagine dress of yours, that's why I said what I did about the silver lam'."
"Oh, yes, I know. You see, Dee, I own a Thunder-bird, but I store it in a garage in Marwell. So I asked Dave Vandenburg would he pick me up and drive me to the garage so I could get my car and drive to Hanneford. That's the gospel."
"I believe you. So forget it," Dee laughed. "Anything else on your mind?"
"One more thing. About Hell Week. How long does it last?"
"Well, we've only got the seven pledges including you to initiate, so generally speaking I'd say we'd finish up Friday evening. Sometimes, though, it gets carried over through Saturday night. Then, skipping Sunday as a day of rest, the remainder of the week till the next Friday, all the initiated pledges have to serve their Big Sisters as maids and do whatever they're told, just to show their humility and willingness to serve.
And that next Friday night, you're free as a bird to date whomever you please."
"Great. Thanks so very much for tipping me off. Oh-can I mail that letter for you? I'm going for a walk."
"That'd be nice of you, thanks, Eleanor." Deeana smiled at the redhead as she handed her the envelope. "You're doing very well so far, I'll say that for you. Just keep it up and we'll all be happy to welcome you as officially one of us in a few short weeks."
"I'm going to do my best to make that happen, Dee. And thanks again for being so swell."
She walked out of Deana's room and headed upstairs for her room. She'd get her coat and walk to the mailbox on Sneed Road, two blocks away. She wanted time to think out her plans for next Friday. Yesterday she had left after breakfast and walked the five miles to the garage where her Thunderbird was parked, and driven all the way into Chicago, though she hadn't phoned Dad or Laura that she was in town. She'd made just one stop, at Allied Radio, and picked up that pocket-size tape recorder with the sensitive built-in microphone. It was all-transistorized, and operated at just I 7/8 inches per second, but that was quite good enough to transcribe the human voice, though it wouldn't have done for music. It slipped into her purse very neatly, without taking up any room at all, really.
And the salesman, a serious young man with horn rimmed glasses and a shock of wheat colored hair, had been ever so helpful explaining to her just how much it could pick up because of the special mike. You pressed a button, and the whole gadget was ready to record anything that was said in a radius of twenty feet. If you had it on the table beside the bed when you were making love, you could get even whispers. She knew because she'd asked the salesman to put it on the counter and stand about ten feet away and whisper-and sure enough, she had been able to hear almost every word. Well, if she and Mark Torrance got to bed, they wouldn't whisper-she'd see to that. The recorder had set her back nearly $250, but it was well worth it. It would get Mark Torrance just where she wanted him. She could even use it later on to pick up snide remarks against DGT by the other pledges-or maybe even one of the officers. Then wouldn't she be sitting pretty! Why, inside of a year, it was entirely possible she could be prexy herself. And she could make life hell for Kathy Edwards then.
She stopped midway down the hall and glanced at the letter in her hand. Then a slow smile curved her pouting red lips, and her green eyes narrowed with malicious calculation. Kathy had gone out for a walk, she'd seen her leave just before she'd gone to visit Deeana. The letter...she'd hide it in Kathy's things or in Kathy's coat, maybe, and then she could always say she'd given it to Kathy to mail and Kathy had forgotten it.
The door to Kathy's room was open. Only Ruth Jorgenson was there, lounging on the couch in blue Capri pants and matching cotton blouse and sandals, and she was intent on the book she was reading. Swiftly Eleanor moved to the dresser, then decided against it; she wasn't sure she could recognize Kathy's things. But the closet door was open too, and she saw Kathy's brown cloth coat. It would be just the place, in the pocket. Before Ruth could look up, she'd slipped it into the pocket, and then turned so that she faced the attractive young blonde pledge.
"Oh, hi, Eleanor. Looking for somebody?"
"I guess she's having breakfast. Never mind, I'll see her later." Eleanor congratulated herself on not having specified exactly whom she had come to see. That way, Ruth wouldn't think it was Kathy and probably say nothing to the latter. Good. Things were working out just fine.
She went back to her room and waited till she saw Kathy, wearing a blue coat, come back to her room.
Then, very sweetly, intercepting the brunette in the hall, she cooed, "Oh, Kathy, I'm ashamed of myself the way I behaved yesterday when we were playing ping pong. I take it back-you know. Will you forgive me and start all over again?"
"Of course," Kathy gave her a warm smile. "I've already forgotten all about it. I couldn't really stay angry at you very long anyway, Eleanor. I can't forget how we used to be such good friends when we were kids back in Chicago."
"That's just fine, because I want us to be that way too," Eleanor's smile was honeyed, her tone falsely enthusiastic. "And I wish you luck when Hell Week comes."
Yes, I do, she thought as she nodded and walked back to her room. Lots of luck-all the very worst.
CHAPTER TWELVE
To ingratiate herself with Deeana Mason, Eleanor Landers had made one other purchase at Allied Radio this past Saturday: the best pocket transistorized radio that money could buy, and she had had it neatly wrapped with a gushingly written card of appreciation. On Thursday afternoon, she waited to see Mark Torrance again after class. He had again read one of Kathy's essays on 19th-century English poets, and commended Kathy's logic and clarity of writing style, much to Eleanor's disgust. Her own composition had, she knew, been quite skimpy, because she hadn't devoted much time to it over the weekend; the Chicago trip had taken up most of Saturday, and then she'd had that run-in with Kathy on Sunday. But it didn't matter; she was doing at least B work in Mark's class, and it wasn't grades she wanted to discuss with him this rainy afternoon.
"Something I can do for you today, Miss Landers?" he impersonally inquired, sorting a sheaf of student papers before him on the desk.
"Not today, tomorrow evening, Mark," she said in a husky low voice. "Haven't I behaved nicely all this week?"
"Very nicely. And you haven't crossed those lovely legs once, I'll give you credit."
"Uh huh. Because you asked me not to. So I thought you might like to get a better look at them tomorrow night. Couldn't we have dinner at that nice restaurant in Hanneford?"
"We could, if you'd like. Only this time, why don't you skip driving your car and walk to the garage and I'll pick you up there about six?"
"Wonderful!"
"I wouldn't recommend that slinky dress again. I might just take you back to Old Man Crozier's farm."
"Is that a promise or a threat?"
"A little of both, my girl. I've got to find out if you're just trifling with my attentions, or if you're being honest for once."
"Now that's a fine romantic thing to say!" she flashed indignantly.
"I've got plenty of romantic things to say if I feel the mood is right and the girl is, too," he chuckled. "Oh, by the way, are you sure it's all right to have a date with me? Seems to me I heard that sorority pledges aren't allowed to date till after initiation, just the same as frat men can't take a girl out till they've been officially taken into the house."
"That's true, but it applies only to students on campus. You aren't a student, so it's all right."
"I'm a student of Eleanor Landers, though, and finding her a very interesting study."
"I hope to keep you properly engrossed tomorrow night. And I'll wear something very casual. I only hope it doesn't rain."
"If it does, we can always sit it out in the farmhouse. By the way, I talked to Mr. Crozier the other evening. Drove down to where he's staying. He's not asking as much for the place as I figured. More and more, the idea appeals to me. But I'll know better once I finish this novel and see what sort of financial future I can make with my offbeat writing."
She put her hand over his and looked down at him, her lips parted and very soft, her green eyes luminous. "I hope maybe that future will include me, Mark. That's what I want to talk about tomorrow night, darling. Don't be embarrassed-I never saw a man blush before! Good!" she laughed delightedly. "I'll go now. Meet you tomorrow night at six at the garage."
* * *
It was cold and rainy again most of Friday afternoon, much to Eleanor's vexation. But she was quickly adaptable to circumstance. It didn't take long to visit Dave Vandenburg where he worked out at handball in the big gym, and to have one of the fellows call him to come out to the door and see her. And a provocative smile and a few soft endearments, with the dangled promise of a "real nice date" as soon as she became a DGT, made him ardently agree to call for her in the blue Nash about quarter of six. Only this time, she'd walk over to Sneed Road where the mailbox was, so the other girls wouldn't see him call for her. The restrictions.
"Sure," Dave agreed. He was in shorts and T-shirt and sneakers, panting from the energetic workout in the handball court. He was quite a brawny specimen, and really quite homely. Those big hands and those hairy, sturdily muscled thighs could really overpower a girl. She didn't ever want to cross him, because she suspected he had a temper. Right now, though, he was still on the upbeat of his almost drooling admiration for her, and she knew, as she sweetly thanked him and turned to walk away, that he was still standing in the doorway staring at her legs and hips. Well, let him stare. It didn't really take much to lead a man on, when all was said and done. And she'd never actually promised him anything. A date, maybe. Sure-a malt or coke date at the sweet shop, after she was officially engaged to Mark Torrance. Then Dave couldn't get ugly.
She'd heard from Sue Kalish, one of the girls she'd been on good terms with at Comstock Hall, that Dave had been going steady last term with a Kappa Rho Phi who had pretended he was the light of her life and then given him back his pin and announced she was going to date one of Dave's fraternity brothers. Sue had said that Dave had slapped the girl's face so hard he'd nearly broken her jaw. So he could be an ugly customer. And it was a cinch that he didn't want an intellectual friendship with her. Eleanor prided herself at being at least discriminating with her selection of male suitors. Henri had been suave and handsome, maybe a bit too oily by American standards. But Mark was really an elegant specimen. Tonight she was going to find out just how far she could get him to go with her-especially verbally. If she had to dole out her virtue in the process, it wouldn't hurt any. Not if she could get him to incriminate himself on that tiny spool of magnetic recording tape...
The rain had continued into the early evening, so Eleanor had worn a two-piece coat-skirt combination, sheer off-black nylons and black leather pumps, and garter belt and slip, as well as her heaviest cloth coat with the thin plastic raincoat drawn over it. She quivered with anticipation as she sat beside Dave Vandenburg in the narrow front seat of the old Nash. The thought of going to that deserted farmhouse with Mark Torrance was intensely exciting. He might think it would be a casual one-night stand, but he would be oh so very wrong. The little recorder was in her alligator-skin purse, primed and ready.
"Well, here we are, Princess," Dave drawled as he slowed the car. "You sure you'll be okay? Pretty lousy night."
"I'll be fine, Dave. like I told you, one of my relatives is driving in from Chicago to pick me up, and we'll go on maybe to Galesburg or Springfield."
"Okay, okay, whatever you say, Elly." She winced at the diminutive; she was remembering Tom Jenkins again. One of the girls had told her that Elly Douglas and Tom Jenkins seemed to be having a cooling-off period; they hadn't been seen together as often as usual. Well, that wasn't her fault. Tom was the one who wanted to cheat on his vapid little girlfriend, and, after all, she'd kept him from doing it. "Say, Elly."
"What is it, Dave?"
He grinned oafishly. "I hope you're gonna be nice to me one of these days after you get 'nishiated. Remember, you owe me a date for doin' you these favors. I know the rules too. No pledge's is s'posed to date any guy till after she's a reg'lar member of the sorority house, same as us frat men when we're on probation."
"I told you it was one of my relatives, just like last week. I know the rules, too, Dave."
"Just wanted to tip you off, Elly baby. You know, I go for you in a big way. I haven't had much chance to say nuttin', but when we have that date, I will, you watch'n see."
"I'm very flattered. Thanks for the ride, Dave, and I'll be perfectly all right." She started to get out of the car, but he put his big hand on her thigh, then grabbed her by a wrist with his other hand and crushed his mouth on hers. "There," he triumphantly panted, "I been wantin' to do that since the first time I saw you, Elly baby. Don't forget, we got a date, a real date comin' up, huh?"
"S-sure," she stammered nervously as she got out of the car. The big brute had sunk his fingers into her thigh so hard she was sure there'd be black and blue marks the next morning. She watched him drive away, waving his hand at her, a grin on his homely face. She grimaced as he disappeared. It would be a long, long time before Dave Vandenburg even got that malt or coke date...
The steaks were every bit as good as last week's, and they seemed to taste better because of the bitingly cold weather. Mark Torrance was in a buoyant mood. He had had a long-distance phone call just after Eleanor had left his classroom, from the New York editor who had read the first five chapters of his novel, and the verdict was highly favorable. There would be a contract and a sizable advance in the mail.
"I'm so glad for you, Mark. It's like starting a brand-new life, isn't it?" she leaned forward across the narrow table of the booth to smile at him. She wanted to be more alluring than ever. She had a hunch that latching onto Mark Torrance was going to be the smartest thing she had ever done in her whole life. Look at James Jones-an unknown till he wrote that "From Here to Eternity." Well, Mark could make it big too, and to be the wife of a famous and money-making author would suit her just fine. As for the gentleman farmer business, she could talk him out of that easily enough. Oh, he could buy the place if he wanted to, but if he got famous, he could afford to take her to Paris and Rome and the Riviera. She reached into her purse for a pack of cigarettes, her slim fingers brushing the concealed little rectangular shape of the transistorized recorder.
"Yes, it is, Eleanor. Maybe you've brought me luck. One of my characters-almost the heroine, I'd say-is something like you. Beautiful and seductive and intelligent."
Eleanor Landers almost purred with delight. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, darling," she murmured huskily. "Why don't we go for that drive while we're both in such a congenial mood?"
* * *
The rain had pelted her face as Mark led her through the abandoned cornfield towards the farmhouse, but she'd never felt so alive and eager. Mark's arm was round her waist, and they'd kissed passionately as they walked under the viaduct. She felt her thigh trembling with sharpened anticipation. It had been a long time since a virile man had made love to her. But tonight was all that Mark was going to get till he put a ring on her finger. She would let him find out just how exciting and seductive she could be-and then he wouldn't be able to get her out of his system.
"Are you sure it'll be all right to go into Mr. Crozier's house, dear?" she murmured as they approached the weather-beaten door. Flaked white paint had peeled off in desultory streaks, and the wood was a dirty gray. The dark panes of window glass had yellowing shades halfway down, and seemed to stare gloomily at her with their lower halves.
"Of course it will. And much less compromising to us both than some motel. Here, the door isn't locked. And there's a kerosene lamp in the living room. I know because I've already taken the inspection tour this summer, when I first thought of the idea of buying it. Oh, the place has electricity and water, but of course they're turned off. We'll manage tonight."
"I know we will, darling," she whispered evocatively, tightening her arm round his waist and turning her face up to be kissed.
The door creaked open, and Eleanor shivered. What ghosts lurked in the shadows, she wondered. And then the flare of the kerosene lamp drove them away, and she saw him bending over the lamp, his face taut and absorbed, and her vitals seemed to churn with longing for him...a longing in which gloating triumph at her own ingenuity was merged so keenly that it was hard to differentiate the one from the other.
"It wouldn't take much to turn this into a very comfortable house, Eleanor," he told her as he came towards her. "Here, let me take your coat."
"You see, I didn't wear the silver dress. See how I'm taking instruction from you, darling?"
"Yes, I do. I rather enjoy it. Not that I want a submissive girl, you understand, just a reasonably cooperative one."
"Why do you think I'm here, Mark?" she whispered, and as he took her in his arms, she looked over his shoulder, smiling with secret pleasure. It was unfolding just as she had planned. And she knew that he could smell the fragrance of her hair and skin; she had used plenty of Chanel Number Five.
"I'm hoping it's because you're meeting me on my own terms, Eleanor. No angles, no gimmicks, no twists. Just boy meets girl. Hackneyed but unbeatable-any novelist will tell you that."
"I don't want to hear what any novelist can tell me-only what you want to, darling."
Her arms went round his neck as she arched on tiptoe to him, pressing herself tightly against his sinewy male body, her mouth already moist and open to his ardent kiss. She felt his hands slide down from her waist, over her hips, and she knew that he must be discovering that only a single veil hid her tingling flesh beneath the skirt.
The kerosene lamp cast eerie, flickering shadows on the wall of the large living room. Gargoyles and imps and leprechauns seemed to dance over the faded blue and white floral-designed wallpaper, and she smiled back at them as she rested her chin on his shoulder. She felt his lips brush her hair, then her forehead, and she turned her face so that he could find her lips ready and eager for him once again.
"Oh, Mark, Mark, it's so thrilling being with you this way," she breathed.
"I think maybe the girl is for real tonight," he said aloud, as if communing with himself.
"Try her and see," she whispered, tantalizing him with the flick of her tongue against his upper lip.
He picked her up in his arms and strode out of the living room down the dark hall. "Wait-my purse, darling," she whispered, biting at his earlobe.
"Of all things, at a time like this," he grumbled. "Well, I suppose I might as well show you I'm still athletic enough to carry you about in my arms."
"And how I love it, and how I've dreamed of being there, Mark, you don't know how much." She clung to him protectively as he walked back into the living room, and she reached down to the round wicker table where she had left her purse. "There. Now you can carry me back wherever you meant to carry me."
Deftly she reached into the purse, touched the little switch which turned on the recorder, and clutched the purse against her swelling bosom as he carried her into the big bedroom at the end of the hall on the first floor of the old house. "I'll get the lamp," he muttered hoarsely as he laid her down on the big old-fashioned brass-frame bed.
"No, darling, don't leave me alone, even for a minute," she whispered fiercely. "Make love to me before I get afraid of the dark-please, Mark?"
"I haven't asked you, Eleanor, and maybe I've taken too much for granted-"
"Silly darling-I'm not a virgin, if that's what you're hinting at. But there was only one man before you, Mark, and he's in Europe and it was a mistake-when I was young and very foolish. I'm all yours now."
Yes, there was a table near the bed, and quickly she stretched out her arm and laid the open purse atop it. There. Now the hidden recorder would faithfully perpetuate whatever was said in this dark room. The bed was enormously wide. Outside, she could hear the sudden northeast wind driving the rain against the windows. She felt him beside her, beginning to unfasten the buttons of the suit coat, and she sat up to help him take it off. His hands brushed the round solidity of her swelling breasts through the thin white silk shirtwaist-blouse, and she moaned with the intensity of longing that was throbbing in her.
"I don't want this to be just an incident, darling," he said hoarsely as his palms gently pressed over the peaks of her quivering bosom, his lips brushing her chin and nose. "And I don't want to make any problems for you."
Her lips pressed against his ear, her tongue flicked out in a delicate swirl, and then she whispered, "I was a forward, shameless hussy, dearest. You needn't worry about a thing-I won't give you a baby till you marry me."
"Eleanor! You mean you'd actually be content to be a professor's wife?"
"Uh huh. If you were the professor, my darling." She was smiling in the darkness as her own fingers reached for the buttons on the shirtwaist-blouse, because what he had just said was as binding as any formal proposal. And it was all down on tape.
"And maybe live in this old house once I got it remodeled and renovated?"
"I think it could be arranged, if you asked me properly, Mark dearest. But for now, why don't you find out my grades in this particular department? Ohh-yes-yes-darling!" For now his hands, groping for hers, had encountered the satiny warmth of her palpitating naked skin as the blouse yawned and the hemispheres of her firm thrusting breasts jutted out against the thin slip as if yearning for tactual and lingual adoration. His mouth came down on hers, and her arms folded round him as she sank willingly back onto the thick, comfortable mattress of the old bed. His left hand moved under her head, began to fumble at the prim coil of coppery hair. "Let me let it down, darling. like Rapunzel's in the fairy tale," he muttered thickly, his lips nuzzling at her creamy throat where the pulse throbbed furiously now, his other hand cupping the resilient, satiny-textured cone of one gloriously proffered breast. "Anything you want of me, Mark...anything-oh darling, darling, listen to the rain outside. I'm scared in the dark. Did you know that? That's why I need you so now...oh, yes, hurry...take it off."
She arched and turned so that the white slip slithered readily off her voluptuous body, kicking off her pumps to hear them fall with a sharp clatter on the bare floor. She felt his lips move here and there over her quivering body, brushing the deep dimple of the belly, the exquisite curve of the haunch, the gracefully narrowing pastureland of her supple waist, and then avowing amorous adoration to the tumultuously heaving love-globes of her sensitized and shivering breasts.
"Take me, take me, dearest-oh, Mark-hurry, come to me," she moaned, stretching out her creamy arms to him. She heard him undress, and then she almost cried out with the frenzy of skin against skin, of feeling his wiry, trim, virile body adjoining and abetting hers.
She was on fire with her self-sacrifice. Nor did she yield grudgingly to Mark Torrance. There was no need to be stingy with the gifts of love-not for this one magical night. He had already paid her coveted price, and the recorder in the purse would keep that coin in rare premium till she was ready to use it to barter for the conquest and position that would so easily be hers. She had won him, and beyond Kathy Edwards' wildest hope of winning him. Here and now, on this bed in the deserted farmhouse, she was binding him to her with infrangible bonds of sensual sorcery and wanton surrender. After tonight, he couldn't possibly want a milksop like little Kathy. Even if he did, it wouldn't do him any good; he had as much as proposed marriage to her, and if he reneged, she had only to let the dean of women hear this recording and denounce him for having taken her to bed under fraudulent pretenses. It would destroy his career, not only as a teacher, but as a publicized writer. Oh, no, he wouldn't get away from her.
So now she could relax that cunning vigilance of hers and just for once succumb to passion. For he was more competent than even Henri. She writhed beneath him, her nails scoring his shoulders, her teeth chattering against his in the savage fury of their mating kiss. The rain-driving wind that howled outside against the rattling window panes was echoed inwardly by the tempest of desire that the two of them were summoning up.
And even as her senses reeled at the moment of cataclysmic achievement, she could hear him gasp, "Oh, Eleanor-yes-I love you-God, what a woman you are!"
And a tiny part of her mind could still recollect that this supreme avowal was being saved for posterity too, thanks to her own foresight and to the advance of modern science which reposed in the yawningly open alligator-skin purse which lay only a few feet away from this altar of hymeneal and carnal unison. It was a vasdy comforting thought even in the midst of her own surprisingly genuine physical surrender. And in the darkness there, his arms steely vises round her writhing satiny body, knowing her unstinted response, how could he possibly divine what motivation had prompted the generous abandon of her senses!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The storm didn't let up till nearly dawn, but Eleanor Landers wasn't at all disappointed by the inclement weather. It had made Mark Torrance tarry longer than he had planned, and the brass-frame bed was a thrilling haven. He was a demanding and magnificently capable lover, whose almost boyish gusto and inventive romanticism made it very easy for her to forget Henri de Rochembeau. Despite her demi-vierge proclivities, the green-eyed redhead had no difficulty in adapting herself to his ardent lovemaking; she was exhilarated by her belief that she had completely conquered him (the lasting evidence lay hidden in her purse) as much as by her own gloating sense of erotic superiority over Kathy. Thus she gave the semblance of being totally generous and uninhibited, and when at last Mark murmured, "Darling, the storm's over and I'd better be getting you back to Marwell," she sighed dreamily, "Oh, darling, is it over so soon?" Sprawled in delicious languor, her fingers gently stroking his face, her loosened coppery hair tumbling over one rhythmically swelling creamy breast, she felt totally at peace with the world; she had achieved all her goals.
Except one-the permanent relegation of Kathy Edwards to the sidelines. She hadn't forgotten the humiliating moment of being laughed at down there in the recreation room. That little snip had had the audacity to giggle at her. Well, she herself would have the last laugh. If she could induce Deeana Mason to make the initiation tough on Kathy, that would be sweet revenge, the frosting on the cake she had just shared with Mark Torrance.
Languidly, she swung her nylon-sheathed legs down from the bed, reached for her purse and snapped it shut. "I do so hate to leave this lovely place, darling," she murmured wistfully, bending down to kiss him as he reached up for her, his hands fondling the ripe gourds of her swelling breasts. "I'll never forget this night we've had. And we can't do this again, my very dearest, till after Hell Week...till maybe you decide I'd be the right one to share this house with you later on."
"Right now I haven't any doubts," he lazily murmured, pulling her down for a last long kiss. She smiled beatifically. There was no need to deny him anything-for now. But next Monday, when she came to class, it would be once again as a student, and there would be nothing more between them till he made that proposal official. And if he didn't, she had the reminder that she needed to compel him to keep his word.
They walked back through the cornfield. The roseate ball of the early sun was rising in the east, and the sky was clear. The air felt fresh and cool and moist from the rain, and she inhaled it sensually. She'd pinned up her hair before leaving the farmhouse; it was a kind of symbol. Just as she had restored the unruffled propriety of her coiffure, so she had terminated till further notice the secret clamoring urgency of her blood and flesh. She thought she had handled the situation extremely well; Mark Torrance knew the scope of her latent passion as a lover, yet he would respect her intention to remain chaste till he could formally and legally make her his lasting love. To agree to another tryst would have been to intimate that she was wanton with her favors.
He stopped at a service station on the highway for gas and oil while she disappeared to freshen herself. When she emerged, her make-up was bright enough to belie the shadows of that night-long wooing, and she had resumed her aloof, cool poise of bearing and conversation. He glanced at her admiringly. She had been a wonderful love partner, unexpectedly so. He had been spellbound by the uninhibited ardor she had displayed towards him; it had flattered his male ego and also banished the spectre of Jacqueline Mobry. He thought that he was very much in love with Eleanor Landers.
He let her out of the car a block away from the little restaurant across the street from the garage where she parked the Thunderbird, for she wanted breakfast. A quick kiss, a whispered phrase of homage, a promise to meet again after Hell Week when perhaps they could openly declare their affection for each other, and then he drove back to Faculty Row, drowsy and happy with fulfillment. Eleanor stood outside the restaurant, her lips pursed in a satisfied smile. And once again her green eyes narrowed in calculation...
When she got back to the DGT house about nine, Cissy Williams was waiting for her, lips tight with disapproval. "Deeana wants to see you pronto, pledge," she snapped.
"Oh? Do you know what it's about, Cissy?"
"I can tell you in advance, Landers. You're not supposed to date till after Hell Week, you know that. That's two Friday nights in a row you've been out, and this time you made it an all-night job. Better have a good story ready for Deeana, I can tell you. We don't like rule-breakers at DGT." Cissy sniffed and walked away. Eleanor made a few behind her back. Who did she think she was, anyhow? Deeana was her Big Sister, and there wouldn't be any problem at all. Oh, yes, that little present; now was the propitious time to bestow it. She went upstairs to her room, got the wrapped parcel, and brought it back down to Deeana's room. The door was closed, so she knocked and was told to come in.
"Oh, hi, Deeana. Cissy says you wanted to see me," Eleanor tried to look especially meek.
Deeana Mason was wearing tailored slacks and pullover blue wool sweater with the Greek letters of the sorority sewn across the bosom in bright red. She frowned, lit a cigarette and gestured to the davenport. "Sit down, Eleanor. I have to say this for the sake of the other girls. Last week, you told me you went to see a relative, and you explained about Dave Vandenburg. That was all right. The only trouble is, last night you were gone again and you're just now getting in. Besides Cissy, Marian and a few other girls noticed it, and they started talking. You're a big girl, Eleanor, and you know the rules, and I don't want to have to take any disciplinary action till I hear your explanation. But please, next time you feel like taking off, do me the courtesy of asking my permission in advance. It's just good common sense to stop a lot of idle rumors. And you know how rumors spread around a small-town campus."
This last, the redhead sensed, was a sly dig at her drainpipe stunt with Tom Jenkins. "First, may I give you this, Deeana," she purred placatingly, handing the wrapped parcel to the sandy-haired prexy. "I got it in Chicago last Saturday when I went up to see my folks, because I thought you'd like it. And I wanted to show my appreciation for the interest you've shown in me."
"You didn't have to do this, Eleanor." Deeana, seated beside her on the davenport, unwrapped the parcel. "No, really, I shouldn't accept this. It's too obvious."
"I'd want to give it to you anyway even if you weren't the president, Dee," Eleanor wheedled with her sweetest smile. "I count you as a friend, and I always give my friends little mementos-please say you'll keep it."
"We'll talk about it later. But for now, suppose you tell me why you were out all night. And I want the truth, Eleanor," Deeana said gravely.
Eleanor bit her lips, frantically groping. Then it came to her: why not tell the truth? It couldn't be challenged, and Deeana would keep the secret. As one woman to another and head of the snootiest Greek letter house on campus, it stood to reason she'd have to admire
Eleanor's making off with Marwell's most eligible bachelor.
"All right, if you promise never to tell anybody else, I'll tell you, Dee," she began after a dramatic pause.
"So you did have a date last night!" Deeana Mason sternly interposed.
"Yes, but I still didn't break the DGT rule, Dee. Listen. It wasn't with any boy on campus, I swear it on the Bible. It-it was with one of the faculty. Now, is that breaking the rule?"
"That's hedging, and you know it. But we'll bypass that for the moment. With whom was your date, Eleanor? You've my word I won't tell anybody else. But as head of this house, I've the right to know."
"Yes, of course you do, Dee. And I'm going to tell you. It-it was with Professor Mark Torrance."
Seeing Deeana's eyes widen and her brows arch with surprise, the redhead giggled triumphantly, pleased with the effect she had created. "You can see why I had to tell the girls-and even you-last week that I was seeing a relative. I didn't want to do anything to hurt Mark, now that we mean so much to each other."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I don't usually discuss my most intimate affairs, Dee, but with you it's different. If you'll promise to keep it a secret till we formally announce our engagement, I can tell you this in confidence-Mark and I are going to be married."
"Married?" Deeana echoed, her face tense.
Eleanor nodded gleefully. "I'm so happy, and I'm glad you're the very first to know."
"Did he actually propose, Eleanor?"
"In bed, when we were making out." Eleanor gave Deeana a worldly wink, slow-lidded and mocking. "But he won't forget, even if he was under the influence of being all sexed up. Little Eleanor isn't a silly round-heeled ing'nue with ideals, you know, Dee. I had a tape recorder with me. In my purse. It's got a very sensitive mike, and I'm sure it picked up everything we both said. And he said plenty. Now you know."
"Yes," Deeana Mason murmured, almost like a robot, "now I know."
"And you won't kick me out of DGT? Because, after all, I really didn't break the rule. I'm not boy-hunting, I got my man, so I don't need to spread myself around."
"No, you certainly don't," Deeana frostily agreed. "And I shan't discuss this with any of the girls. I'm satisfied with your explanation, Eleanor. I don't think you'd lie and involve Professor Torrance just to save getting kicked out of DGT."
"Of course I wouldn't, Dee honey. It means too much to me to belong to the best house on campus. It's a privilege."
"That it surely is," Deeana nodded solemnly," and that's why we don't invite many pledges each new term. We want to screen just those who'll make members we can be proud of representing our chapter. I just want you to remember that, Eleanor."
The redhead rose from the davenport, smoothing her skirt. "I will, I promise. Is that all, Dee?"
"Yes, I think so."
"And you'll keep my gift? I swear it's not a bribe."
"By your standards, it isn't. Let's say I'll keep it for the house and let everyone enjoy it."
Eleanor eyed the sandy-haired senior, then imperceptibly shrugged her soft rounded shoulders. "Sure. Maybe that's better, now that I think of it. But I meant the part I said about being grateful to you, Dee."
"Thank you. Oh-wait a minute, there was something else I wanted to ask you, after all, Eleanor."
"Yes?" The redhead turned from the door, eyes questioning.
"Remember that letter I gave you to mail last Sunday?"
"Uh huh." Color momentarily flooded Eleanor's creamy cheeks as she was caught off guard. But she hadn't relaxed so completely after passing this ordeal that her wits weren't quickly reliable: "Kathy was going out before I was, as it turned out, so I had her drop it in the box. I guess I ought to have told you. But I'm sure it's mailed."
"I guess so. Well, fine, Eleanor. And congratulations on last night. He's quite a guy, that Professor Torrance. We all like him and want him to stay with us. Maybe you'll be the one who helps keep him on campus for a long time."
"I'm sure going to try, Dee. And thanks for being so swell about everything," Eleanor smilingly nodded, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
She didn't see Deeana Mason get up from the davenport, cross over to the wastebasket, and drop the transistorized pocket radio into it with a grimace of distaste. Her own expression, as she went back to her room, was that of the proverbial cat that has swallowed the canary.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next two weeks before the Delta Gamma Theta initiation went off smoothly enough, so far as Eleanor Landers was concerned. There was only one real fly in the ointment she had so industriously concocted. That was Mark Torrance's sudden renewed attention to Kathy Edwards in class. Not that Eleanor could find a really justifiable basis for resenting what he did, because, after all, it was entirely concerned with classwork. Just the same, she was furiously jealous.
It began the Wednesday after her session with Deeana Mason. Mark Torrance had asked his students to write an original short story, taking one of the classic plots from the great writers of the 19th century and adapting it to modern setting and action. The assignment had been given on Monday, and a number of students turned theirs in by Wednesday, though the deadline was the following Monday. Kathy Edwards was one of these, and Eleanor saw her linger after class to hand the handsome brown-haired professor a neatly typed manuscript which he took with a smile. And as she went out the door, she couldn't help seeing that he was talking to Kathy, who was smiling happily and nodding.
For her own theme, Eleanor decided to borrow the idea of De Maupassant's "The Necklace," that classic short story which relates how a woman of modest means borrows an expensive necklace from her best friend, loses it and spends the rest of her life in abject poverty trying to replace it, only to learn that the necklace was made of paste. Blithely, she adapted it around two young men who were after the same girl, whom they venerated as the paragon of all feminine graces and virtues. One of the suitors went heavily into debt trying to build his job and social status to an economic level that would give his beloved all the material advantages she could ever desire. Meanwhile, the other married her, only to find that she was a sham and cheat; at the end of the story, Eleanor had the two men meet and the husband offered to free the girl to the rival, who accepted because now she had come down to his own level.
When she turned it in on the following Monday, Mark Torrance curtly nodded and thanked her as she took her seat. She smiled to herself. He was so adorable when he looked stern and forbidding; only she in the whole class knew that he was just the reverse when it came to things that really mattered, like making love. He was sure to sell his novel and it would be a bestseller; she could daydream about the wonderful trips they would take, the sights they would see, the parties she would give as the beautifully dressed, patrician wife of the famous Mark Torrance.
Midway through the period, he informed the students that he was going to read one of the entries submitted, because in his opinion it was good enough for magazine publication after a few minor revisions and copy editing had been made. And to Eleanor's annoyance, he proceeded to read Kathy Edwards' effort. Grudgingly, she had to admit to herself that it was good, so far as writing style was concerned. As to the plot, she thought it simpering, just like Kathy herself.
Then Thursday, the day before the start of Hell Week, she was walking on campus back to the GDT house after her final class when Dave Vandenburg, sauntering along with two heavily set seniors, hove into view. He stopped her with a loud, jovial, "Hi, Elly baby! How's about that date this weekend? You know you promised me one."
His two cronies eyed her with an insolent deliberate-ness that made her cheeks flush; it was the kind of stare which a fellow gives a girl when he is mentally undressing her. Tossing her head, she retorted, "I know I did, Dave. But you ought to know the rule. I can't date anybody on campus till after Hell Week."
"Hey, that's right. It starts tomorrow night, doesn't it?" He nudged the senior to his left, a black-haired, surly-faced youth whose flattened nose and bruised cheekbones suggested that he had either been in a good melee or else was on the football team. "Hey, Bob, I always had me a yen to watch how gals 'nishiate one another, didn't you?"
"Me, I'd sure like to 'nishiate this one right here," Bob guffawed, and the other senior, florid of complexion, with a cowlick of ash-blonde hair growing out over his forehead, grunted assent: "Any time, boy. Any time at all. Hi, sweet stuff! My name's Pat Guffy. If Dave don't take a shine to you, I'll give you a break."
"Thank you very much, but no thanks. I've got to go now. Nice meeting you fellows. I'll see you later, maybe next week or so, Dave. Goodbye," Eleanor's voice was edgy with annoyance as she moved past the trio. The wolf whistles Bob and Pat launched after her made her cheeks flame even more hotly. She bit her lips irritatedly; Dave Vandenburg was going to be difficult to handle. Those two frat brothers of his weren't a helpful influence. She could remember when he had been worshipfully awed by standing next to her; now, under their aegis, he had greeted her as if she were a call girl whose services he had recently purchased. Being with two seniors had undoubtedly given him, a junior, reckless courage.
But the imminent event of Hell Week made her quickly dismiss the unpleasant incident from her mind, along with Kathy Edwards' preferential treatment in Mark's classroom. The next order of business was becoming a Delta Gamma Theta member, off probation and at last accepted as one of the reigning beauties of Marwell's most elite social groups. Eleanor believed that a logical mind was one of the most important things there was. First things first, each item neatly in its place.
After that, the next. And the next would be the announcement of her engagement to Professor Mark Torrance...
"Well, this is it, I guess!" Eleanor turned to her three roommates, Ruth Jorgenson, Myrna Henshaw and Marcia Alton, her eyes sparkling, her color high. It was just two minutes of eight, and Deeana Mason had just knocked at the door of their room to call out, "Get ready for summons, pledges!"
The seven newcomers to Delta Gamma Theta had been locked in their rooms as soon as they had come back from final class this Friday afternoon, and Mrs. Emmons had served them supper on a tray at six, then locked them up again, remarking only that they were to be dressed and ready for initiation promptly at eight.
Eleanor had taken special pains with her make-up and costume for the festivities which opened Hell Week. She had shampooed her hair and, to make herself look more demurely innocent, combed it away from her forehead, then made a Psyche knot at the back so that an ingenuous sheaf dangled like a corn tassel in the wind. The eyebrow pencil had widened and deepened the arch of her coppery brows to make her green eyes seem more child-like, and she had applied an indelible soft orange shade to her lips and sought to hide the all too obvious flaw of her small, sensually ripe mouth. She wore green satin toreador pants with a black, tooled leather belt that snugged in her waist excitingly, with a soft shirred white silk blouse whose sleeves gathered at the wrists. Charcoal-brown nylons and strap-on brown leather thong sandals completed the ensemble. And through her deliberate toilette, she had quipped to her roommates about how the victim takes extra care with an appearance before the guillotine and other remarks of that ilk, to show how flippantly unconcerned she was with the proceedings.
It was like a child whistling in the dark, because, to tell the truth, Eleanor Landers was inexplicably scared. The past week, even her Big Sister and sponsor, Deeana
Mason, had seemed impersonally cool towards her. Cissy, of course, had given her scathing and reproachful looks, but Cissy didn't like her anyway; Deeana did, or so she had thought. But perhaps it was that with Hell Week so close, no impartiality could be shown. After it was all over, everybody would be good friends again. She liked the DGT girls, or at least most of them. She would ask Mark to let her have a special party for just them to break the news of the engagement. And then, during the Christmas holidays, she'd take Mark up to Chicago to meet her parents. Dad would be impressed for once. He'd see that she hadn't wasted her time even in this exile to which he'd sent her. And Laura would have something to talk about at all her society teas and bridge parties. A real professor, and a famous novelist into the bargain! Life was going to be just perfect in a few short weeks. And once they were married, she would try to be a good wife to Mark. He had turned out to be such a surprisingly assertive lover that she might not have to look for any consolation beyond her own bedroom...
The door suddenly opened, and Cissy Williams stood on the threshold. "Pledge Jorgenson, step forward. You shall be first to be tested," she announced.
Golden-haired Ruth gulped, looked nervously at her comrades. "Are-aren't we all going together?" she quavered.
"Silence, pledge," was Cissy's curt reply. "You have only to obey. Advance towards me at once."
Ruth was wearing the same blue Capris and matching blouse she had had on that Sunday when Eleanor had sneaked Deeana's letter into Kathy's coat pocket. She was an exceptionally attractive girl, her golden hair falling in a long thick pageboy about her dimpled shoulders, her hips and bosom maturely ample yet temptingly firm, her skin a baby's pink, with big blue eyes and a sweet, ripe, tremulous mouth distinctive features of her classically heart-shaped face. As she slowly and reluctantly approached Cissy Williams, that lovely, kissable mouth was visibly quivering.
"Oh no-d-don't blindfold me, please!" she quavered as the pudgy senior swiftly whisked a black bandanna over her dilated eyes and deftly knotted it tightly at the back of her head.
"Silence, I said, pledge! Now come along. I'll lead you, you won't fall!"
With a despairing sigh, Ruth let herself be led by the wrist, and Cissy closed the door and locked it, then led the frightened pledge down the stairs and on to the kitchen, where the closet door opened on a narrow stairway that led to the rear of the basement recreation room.
"G-gosh," Myrna Henshaw nervously giggled, "wonder what they're going to do?"
"I hope it's not too tough. I'm just a big baby," Marcia Alton shyly confessed. But Eleanor lit a cigarette, sat down on the couch and crossed her lovely legs, waggling a sandaled foot with the utmost nonchalance. "Relax, girls," she drawled, "it's strictly kid stuff. They'll just try to scare you, that's all. You know the faculty'd never let them get away with tough hazing."
"Looks like they're going to take us one at a time. I'd feel better if I had company," Myrna Henshaw avowed...
The recreation room had been divided into two sections for Hell Week hazing. A thick chintz curtain hung exactly in the middle, separating the vast chamber. In the back section, through which Ruth Jorgenson was to be led, there were ping-pong tables, a billiard table, lounging chairs and couches, a projection screen and movie projector, even a miniature soda fountain-the gift of an affluent mother of a girl whom DGT had accepted five years ago. On the other side of the curtain, the rugs had been rolled up and the stone floor was bare. Right in front of the curtain was a rectangular table at which the officers were to sit, and in front of each of the side walls as well as along the wall of the main entrance, there were loveseats, flat wooden benches, straight-backed chairs and even two small divans, to make room for the sorority sisters.
Marian Johler, Laura Caldwell and Deeana Mason sat at the table. There was a full attendance of the chapter tonight, thirty-two members besides the three officers at the tribunal table. DGT pennants were scotch-taped on the walls on this side of the curtain. But there were other preparations visible for the ensuing and traditional "tests of courage." Several wide deep metal buckets, containing tepid water and coils of spaghetti-the well-known "worms" which are a standby for nearly every sorority initiation, whether it be high school or college-were placed on the floor near the main door. Another bucket, closer to the tribunal table, contained a cake of ice, and blonde buxom Bessie Quilici, a senior DGT member, was using a small saw to hack out dagger-like pieces to be used as "branding irons."
Finally, on the flat wooden benches against the walls, one saw an array of pinewood paddles of assorted sizes and shapes, with short taped handles and the sorority letters burned deep into the wood. All was in readiness. As Deeana heard the hesitant steps of the first pledge led on by Cissy behind the curtain, she put her finger to her lips to command silence, and a hush fell over the assemblage.
"I demand admission for a humble acolyte who comes before her peers to be tested for the right to sit among them," Cissy called in a sonorous voice from the other side of the curtain.
"Advance, then, and identify this unworthy neophyte," called Deeana. Before her and her two officer cohorts, three tall white candles stood, which she now proceeded to light.
Cissy drew aside the curtain at the edge of the wall, and led the awed and not a little frightened Ruth Jorgenson to the end of the room, then turned her at the door to face the tribunal table. "I speak in petition for Pledge Ruth Jorgenson," she announced.
"Is she ready to undergo the three rigorous tests by which we mean to test her worthiness to join our exalted ranks, Sister Williams?" Deeana solemnly inquired.
"She is, Illustrious Madame President."
"Prepare her for the first test, then. To you, pledge, I say, courage and be valiant."
"Oh-g-gosh, w-what are they g-going to do?" Ruth whispered, loudly enough for the waiting girls to hear, and stifled giggles savored her growing trepidation. Cissy knelt down and removed Ruth's sandals and bobby sox, so that her shapely feet were bare. Then she led the trembling golden-haired young Venus to one of the wide pails of "worms," and bade her lift one foot and lower it, then the other. Ruth squealed and tried to grab for her blindfold; but Cissy, aided by a handsome, tall, black-haired junior DGT member, Jean Fergosa, held her by the wrists and compelled her to stand for five minutes in the "worms." During that sojourn in the pail, Marian Johler, to the suppressed delight of the watching girls, described Ruth's ordeal with lurid terms like "Do you feel the giant angleworms crawling about your toes, pledge?" till poor Ruth was frantic with aversion.
She was then led forward to the table, forced down on her knees and maintained by two girls, each of whom bore down on one of her shoulders, while a third girl knelt behind her and grasped her wrists tightly behind her back.
"Now, pledge," Deeana intoned, "if you are to become our worthy sister and to share the mystic secrets of our rituals, you must agree to be branded with the secret letters of our society."
"B-branded?" Ruth stammered, squirming on her knees, "oooh, no, no, please, no, don't!"
"Can it be, Sister Williams, that this lowly pledge lacks courage? Must we then expel her in disgrace from our midst before she has even endured the second of the required tests?" Deeana demanded.
Cissy Williams, her face working convulsively as she strove to hold her back bent down to the blonde: "Now, Ruthie honey, you don't want to let your Big Sister down, do you? Why, I was branded myself-three times, and it didn't kill me. If you don't agree of your own free will, you'll be black-balled, do you want that?"
"N-no," Ruth whispered in a dying voice, "only tell them to make it quick! Ohh, migosh!"
Cissy nodded to the two girls who were pinning the pledge's shoulders; they at once unbuttoned her blouse, revealing her magnificent, closely spaced breasts sheathed in a tight beige-nylon bra. Ruth uttered a hoarse cry of fright and embarrassment. "I'll brand you myself, as a Big Sister should," Cissy told the wriggling candidate, while the two girls resumed their tight grip of her shoulders. Taking a rubber glove and donning it on her right hand, Cissy went over to the pail of ice and selected a long dagger-like sliver, then slowly approached Ruth Jorgenson. The girls pulled her back, while the third girl took a firmer grip on the blonde's slim wrists with one hand and tugged on her curls with the other. Cissy approached the gleaming sliver towards the pink satiny chest, and a piercing yell resounded as Ruth tried to throw herself even farther back and away from the supposed branding iron.
But Cissy went on till she had drawn the initials "DGT" on the flinching bare skin of the sobbing pledge, and then straightened. "She has passed the second test, Madame President," she announced.
"Then there remains only the last and most rigorous of all. She shall run the gantlet of our Amazonian warriors to determine her stamina," Deeana pronounced, and made a sign.
Cissy took hold of Ruth's wrist and lifted the still whimpering blonde pledge to her feet, whispered something into her ear which seemed to quiet the girl's fears, and then led her back to the door, had her get down on all fours. After assuring herself that Ruth's blindfold was still in place, she walked forward to the double line which had been formed by the sorority sisters and took her place at the very head. Thus seventeen girls stood facing one another, each holding a paddle at the ready, while Cissy, alone at the very start of the gantlet, awaited her sponsored charge. "Now, pledge, crawl forward till you are told to stop," she called. And slowly, her face taut with anxiety of the unknown ordeal, Ruth advanced.
At last she passed before Cissy Williams, who drew back her paddle and swung it vigorously across the plump jutting hindquarters so impudently molded out by the tight Capri pants. Ruth wailed and scrambled forward amid gales of laughter. But they weren't too harsh on her, for Ruth Jorgenson was generally well liked. Nonetheless, by the time she crawled past Laura and Deeana, tears were running down her flushed cheeks and when she was allowed to rise and remove her blindfold, she began to hop from foot to foot, woefully rubbing her well paddled posterior with both hands. Cissy, an arm round Ruth's shaking shoulders, consoled and congratulated her; she was now officially a member of Delta Gamma Theta. And then she was led out of the recreation room by her Big Sister, who took her to one of the sorority girls' rooms so that she couldn't tell her companions what awaited them...
Myrna was summoned next, and Eleanor Landers glowered with impatience at this nerve-wracking suspense. Marcia Alton was beginning to pace up and down, and the redhead irritably snapped, "Cut it out, Marcia. That won't hurry it up any! Damn it, why didn't they take us all at once?"
It seemed ages before again the sound of the key in the lock was heard and then the door opened. It was Jean Fergosa, Big Sister to Marcia Alton, and it was Marcia who was told to advance and submit to blindfolding. Once again, the door was closed and locked on Eleanor, who found herself alone with her thoughts. The tension was beginning to get under her skin. She got up and paced the floor for a few minutes, oblivious to the fact that she had chided Marcia Alton for the very same show of nervousness. Then she lit a cigarette, crushed it out after a moment, only to light another almost immediately.
Glancing at her wristwatch, she saw that it was nearly eleven. What the devil were they doing to the girls, anyway? She could guess why they hadn't brought Ruth and Myrna back to the room; it was so they wouldn't reveal the things that had been done to them. Well, it wouldn't faze her; the only thing that bothered her was this frightfully long delay. She had been ready three hours ago. Why did it take so long?
Beads of sweat had begun to glisten on her creamy forehead. She lit still another cigarette, got up, went over to the window and peered out into the darkness. The first snow of winter had fallen late this afternoon. In another month, she'd be getting ready for Christmas and the triumphant homecoming with her fianc', Professor Mark Torrance. That and acceptance by Delta Gamma Theta in four short months-no other girl on campus could boast such achievements. Yes, and besting timid little Kathy Edwards. That was something too, though of course it paled by comparison with the other two goals attained.
The key turned in the lock, the door opened, and Deeana Mason stood on the threshold, dressed in the white robe of office, with the red Greek letters sewn across her bosom, her face grave and stern.
"Pledge Landers, step forward and submit yourself to the tests of courage," she said.
"Sure, I'm ready, Dee," Eleanor's voice trembled despite her relief that the atrocious suspense had finally come to an end.
"I'm going to blindfold you, Eleanor."
"Go ahead. We're all equal tonight, aren't we, Dee? I don't want any special privileges." Eleanor forced an ingratiating smile as Deeana stepped forward and wound the black bandanna tightly over her eyes.
"I'm going to be your Big Sister tonight, Eleanor," Deeana's voice was somber, "but I'm also acting as president, you understand. There's just one thing I have to tell you. We've decided to initiate you and Kathy Edwards together. Come along. I'll lead you down the stairs safely. You can trust me, Eleanor."
"Kathy and me together?"
"Yes. It's unusual, but there are reasons. Now come along. They're waiting."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cautiously, following the directions of Deeana Mason, Eleanor descended the stairs and, led by the wrist like all the other pledges, at last came down the narrow flight that led to the recreation room. As with the others, the presiding officer of the sorority-this time it was Laura Caldwell-demanded to know who was being brought before the secret group, and Deeana spoke for Eleanor, while, a moment later, and from across the room, Liz Valcour announced the appearance of Kathy before her peers.
Eleanor couldn't help smiling when Laura ordered her prepared for the first test and she felt Deeana draw off her pumps. "You'd better take off those toreador pants because you can't keep your stockings on, pledge," Deeana sharply whispered. "Oh, sure, I know what's coming," Eleanor said aloud. "This is silly, really."
"Silence, pledge, and obey the instructions of your Big Sister," Laura reprimanded her for the tribunal table. Eleanor shrugged, then removed the belt, next tugged down the zipper of the toreador pants and wriggled out of them. She wore white silk panties and a white satin-elastic garter belt, and the murmurs of admiration at the display of her superb legs and hips consoled her for this humiliation of having to undress. She couldn't help whispering to Deeana, who was busily engaged in undoing the garter belt tabs from the charcoal-brown nylons and then expertly drawing off the gauzy sheaths, "Make Kathy show her figure off too, Dee. Let's see who's got a nicer shape, hm?"
Barelegged at last, Eleanor was led by Deeana to the wide bucket, and told to step into it. To her right, she could hear Liz Valcour telling Kathy, in a low voice, to do the same thing. If this wasn't the stupidest initiation-anybody with brains knew these weren't real worms, just plain old spaghetti. Well, let them have their childish fun. Tomorrow, she'd be one of them, with the privilege of initiating the next crop of pledges-that is, if she was still at Marwell. Well, she would be, but not as a student. She'd be Mrs. Mark Torrance.
"Now what?" she whispered to Deeana after the latter had at last told her she might step out of the pail.
"Just do as you're told for a change," was the sandy-haired prexy's terse reply.
And then Laura Caldwell ordered the two rivals prepared for the second test. Forced to kneel down, Eleanor protested against the indignity: "I can do it myself, just tell me what you want me to do," and was again reprimanded for her outburst. Told that she was to submit to the ritualistic brand, she giggled. "Rub the ice on me, I'm ready."
But instead of the expected cold sting of the ice sliver against her chest-her blouse having been removed just as Ruth's had been at the commencement of these ceremonies-Eleanor suddenly uttered an angry cry and lunged forward against her captors. A paddle had landed full across her jutting buttocks, all too thinly covered by the snug white silk panties. "Hey, no fair!" she cried out.
"That's for impudence, pledge," Laura told her. "Now will you keep quiet till you're told to speak?"
"Oh, all right," Eleanor grumbled, and was rewarded with a second, even more vigorous swat. "Owww! What do you want me to say?"
"You're still a lowly pledge, Landers, and we expect humility and deference. Now let's try again," Laura prompted. "Are you ready for the test?"
Squirming uncomfortably on her bare knees, Eleanor controlled the impulse to express herself vehemently, and muttered in a low voice, "Yes, I'm ready."
Prepared though she was for the ice, she couldn't suppress a gasp and shiver as its sharp point pressed home against her creamy skin and traced the letters of DGT. Then she was ordered to rise, and Deeana, taking her by the wrist, led her back to the main entry of the recreation room.
"Take off your blouse," Deeana ordered, and Eleanor, her head held high with defiance, dragged the unbuttoned blouse over each wrist in turn, then flung it to the floor, fuming with insolence. So now they were going to make her run the mill. All right, she was ready, and then it would be all over. But she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of the slightest outcry.
"On all fours, pledge, and crawl forward till you are told to stop," Deeana said to her, and Eleanor, flushing at the humiliation, complied. Well, at least that milksop Kathy would be going through the same ordeal. She'd show the DGT crowd that she had more guts than that four-eyed little goody-good!
Liz Valcour, over to her right, was readying Kathy Edwards for the gauntlet. Her glasses first removed and then the bandanna bound over her eyes like the other pledges, the charming young brunette had chosen a pleated white cotton skirt and matching blouse, sandals and half-sox as her initiation costume; now she was barefooted and crouching on palms and knees, awaiting the signal to proceed. Deeana Mason, walking over to one of the wooden benches on which the paddles had been piled, chose a narrow oval-shaped instrument whose surface had been carefully sandpapered to smoothness, springy and flexible and went back to the tribunal table. Meanwhile, the sorority members lined up in two rows, single file, each row facing one of the waiting pledges, spreading their legs and brandishing their paddles. Eleanor and Kathy would crawl "through the mill."
"Go ahead, pledges," Deeana called aloud, and the gauntlet began. Eleanor, determined to get this last ordeal over with as quickly as possible, hastened forward. But she couldn't help calling out to Kathy over to her right, "I'll bet I get through before you do, and I'll bet they make you cry before I do, too, teacher's pet!"
But now the moment of truth had come. First in the line of seventeen girls facing blindfolded, approaching Eleanor was grimfaced Cissy Williams. And as the redhead scrambled between her stocky legs, the DGT senior clamped her legs round Eleanor's waist and dealt her a wickedly smacking swat with her rectangular-shaped paddle over her upturned, panty-sheathed behind. The sonorous impact rang out noisily, and Eleanor, startled by the furious bruising shock, uttered an indignant "Oww!" which was answered by giggles from the others waiting ahead of Cissy to "welcome" the haughty candidate for DGT sisterhood.
Gritting her teeth, the blindfolded redhead squirmed and wriggled onward through the maze of straddled legs. But her progress wasn't so swift as she had hoped, for every now and then, she would feel the clutch of one of the girls' legs against her middle and the thudding crack of the paddle punctuated this involuntary pause. Infuriated at the indignity of this public chastisement, her face reddened, her lips tightly compressed, she struggled on, scrambling forward as fast as she could, always slowed by the flurry of descending blows from the flexible pinewood paddles lofted over her, her bare knees chafed against the cold stone floor.
It seemed like an eternity before she passed between the legs of the last girl in tine, Laura Caldwell, the vice-president, who swept her paddle down with all her might and drew a strident "Damn it, that hurts!" from the gasping, squirming redhead. And then she sensed that it was over, because there were no more paddles landing against her throbbing posterior, and she crouched, panting for breath, shifting from knee to knee to ease the intolerably smarting pangs of this final test.
"Thank goodness it's over," she exclaimed aloud. "Now can I get up and take this silly blindfold off."
"Not quite yet, pledge," Deeana Mason's voice was straight ahead of her as the sandy-haired prexy coldly regarded the crouching blindfolded redhead from her seat at the head of the table. "Before we can admit you to rightful membership in our ranks, we must submit you to an interrogation. Prepare her for it, sisters! And let the other pledge be equally prepared!"
"What do you mean-what's this all about-I-hey, take your hands off of me," Eleanor angrily protested as two girls seized her by the wrists and drew her to her feet, then pulled her over toward the table. Planting her feet, she tried to hold back, but two other DGT members behind her applied their paddles crisply over the thin white panties, and with a yell of pain Eleanor lunged forward. She was drawn over the table, draped along it, while her first two captors stood behind it, holding her wrists as tightly as they could. Meanwhile, two other girls had led Kathy Edwards forward to the table, about four feet to the right of the struggling, raging Eleanor, and held her down in similar fashion.
At Deeana's sign, Cissy Williams stationed herself to the left of the redhead, paddle at the ready, while Liz Valcour placed herself behind and slightly to Kathy's left, paddle in hand.
Silence had fallen on the recreation room, broken only by Eleanor's panting gasps as she tugged at her captors' grasp to break her wrists free of their relentless hold. "I've had enough of this nonsense, do you hear?" she cried out. "I went through the mill, I passed the tests, so why don't you take me in? What's this interrogation all about?"
"Pledge Landers," Deeana rose from her seat at the head of the table, whence she faced both draped-over blindfolded pledges, "you've been with us on probation in our house long enough to know our rules and our code of ethics. Yes, you've passed the tests. But I am still not satisfied that you've shown your worthiness as a true Delta Gamma Theta member. For we expect every DGT girl to be truthful and honest in her dealings with her fellow sisters as with others, and never to accuse or falsely involve another member in her own wrongdoing."
"Oh, stop sounding off like a preacher, Dee!" Eleanor exasperatedly cried, again tugging at her wrists. "Get to the point and get this silliness done with so I can put my clothes back on."
"Keep still, pledge," Deeana Mason snapped, "Cissy and Liz, get ready for my signal."
"We hear and obey, Madame President," Liz pertly responded, taking a firmer grip on the taped handle of her paddle and eyeing Kathy's voluptuous nether curves, temptingly thrusting against the cling of the white pleated skirt.
"Now then, Pledge Landers," Deeana's voice was crisp and imperious, "try to refresh your memory. Do you recall the letter you volunteered to mail when you came to my room that Sunday?"
"Y-yes, of course."
"And you told me you met Kathy and since she was going out first, you gave it to her to mail?"
"T-that's what I said, y-yes," Eleanor quavered, wetting her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
"Oh, it's not so," Kathy exclaimed fervently from her bent-over position across the tribunal table.
Deeana raised her right hand slowly. Simultaneously, Cissy and Liz lifted their paddles, then brought them down with emphasis over the flinching rotundities so vulnerably at their disposal. There was a muffled gasp from Kathy, who stiffened and raised her blindfolded face; Eleanor uttered an angry cry of pain: "Damn it, cut that out, haven't you paddled me enough already? I'll be black and blue for a week!"
"It seems, Pledge Landers, that your companion doesn't confirm your story about the letter. Let's try again. You still maintain you gave it to Kathy?"
Eleanor squirmed uncomfortably, drawn tightly across the top of the table as she was, her smarting flesh ruefully reminding her of the spreading, irksome warmth in the most prominent portion of her delectable anatomy. She drew a shuddering breath. "I-I slipped it into her coat, and-and I thought she'd mail it when she went out," she at last averred in a low, quivering voice.
"Ah, that's a little different from your original version, isn't it, Pledge Landers? And yet, when I asked you about it the other day, you assured me it was mailed, didn't you?"
"I-I-" Eleanor began, feverishly searching for the right words to extricate herself from this supremely mortifying predicament. Then she dragged against her captors' hold. "Let me up, you've got no right to be so highhanded, and-Owwww!" For Deeana's hand had risen again, and Cissy Williams, grinning with vindictive delight, launched another clacking stroke of the paddle over the redhead's scantily veiled and now furiously inflamed seat.
"Goddamn you!" Eleanor swore hysterically, kicking and twisting with all her might, "you cut that out! I mean it!"
Again she made the sign with her right hand, and for the third time Cissy's paddle collided sharply with Eleanor's frantically squirming rear.
"Ahrrr! Stop it, you're hurting me! Yes-yes-I said it was mailed-now let me up, do you hear? If this is the way you treat people, I'm not so sure I want to join your lousy old sorority anyway!" Eleanor stormed, her voice quivering with angry sobs.
"I'm not so sure we want you either, for that matter, Landers," Deeana icily rejoined. She nodded to the girls holding Kathy's wrists, and the brunette was promptly freed, Liz moving over to whisper something into the charming pledge's ear. Kathy slowly rubbed her seat, then stood, arms at her sides, facing the tribunal table.
"Now then," Deeana continued, motioning to Liz Valcour to take a place at Eleanor's right, "I want the absolute truth, or you'll be sorry, Landers. Didn't you put that letter in Kathy's coat with the express purpose of blaming its not being mailed on her, because you don't like her?"
"I don't have to answer a question like that, you-oww-ahrr-oh stop it, stop it!" For this time both paddles swung across the redhead's but-thrust panty-sheathed bottom, and Eleanor tugged madly at her tethered wrists.
"Talk, or you'll get it till you do, pledge," Deeana exclaimed, standing up and leaning forward to watch the contorted, tearstained blindfolded face of the culprit. Again she lifted her right hand, and again both paddles swept over Eleanor's exacerbated posterior.
"Ahrr-stop, stop, yes, yes, I did it-now let me go! Damn you to hell, all of you, for torturing me this way!" Eleanor cried hysterically, beside herself.
"That's better. We've already shown you to be a liar and a deliberately malicious cheat. That's bad enough, and pledges have been dropped from DGT for far less, I can assure you. But so that all of us can be satisfied as to your real nature, I'm going to ask you to recall one final conversation you had with me concerning two Friday night dates."
"I don't have to tell you anything more, Dee! Why are you persecuting me? I thought you were my friend-"
Deeana Mason ignored the redhead's overwrought protest, and addressed the other girls: "You know, fellow sisters, we have a rule that no pledge shall date anyone on campus till after Hell Week and her official acceptance into our ranks. Pledge Landers on two successive Friday nights left the house and met a man, by her own admission-"
"I won't have you talking about my private life-you've got no right, I told you in confidence-" Eleanor screamed out. But again the sandy-haired senior prexy of DGT ignored her: "When I asked Pledge Landers about this, she informed me that she hadn't broken the letter of the rule, because she had dated a member of the faculty-"
"No! Damn you to hell, Deeana Mason, I forbid you, I-oww-ahrr-ohh don't-ohh stop it!" Deeana Mason had whirled and raised her right hand and waved it in the air; Cissy and Liz applied a series of three simultaneous spanks across the tightly proffered pantie-snugged posterior of the raging, struggling redhead. When they stopped, Eleanor burst into convulsive sobs, shifting from bare foot to foot, tugging relendessly at her captors' grasp on her slim wrists.
"A member of the faculty," Deeana went on as if she hadn't been interrupted. "She confided in me-and it's true I told her I wouldn't reveal the secret-that this professor had proposed to her. But just in case he forgot, she told me, she had taken the precaution of bringing along a miniature tape recorder to the rendezvous, with the full intention of blackmailing him into marrying her later on in case the offer wasn't forthcoming as she expected. I submit, fellow sisters of DGT, that we have no room for such an unscrupulous pledge. How do you vote?"
"Blackball her!" came a chorused shout from the breathlessly watching girls.
Crushed, shamed, agonized by the paddling, Eleanor hysterically cried out a last defiance: "Okay, okay, so blackball me! Who the hell wants to join a crummy group of small-town hicks like you anyway? I've got what I wanted. Yes, he'll marry me, and then you'll all see!"
"I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, Landers," Deeana said calmly. "You see, it's Professor Mark Torrance you dated. And it happens that he's my cousin."
"Your-your c-cousin?" Eleanor incredulously repeated as tears streamed down her flushed cheeks.
"Yes. I saw no need to mention it. After all, he's a mature adult, quite capable of making his own decisions. But then, after Kathy found the letter in her coat pocket and came to me with it, and told me how you'd acted towards her here in the house and in class-which she did, I may add, entirely at my insistent request for information and asking me at the time please not to hurt you in any way because she had been obliged to talk about the matter-I felt that I couldn't keep your secret any longer. To take a recorder along when you go to bed with a man and to boast to me that you did, cousin or no cousin, confidence or no confidence, is absolutely shocking and contemptible. Let her go, girls!"
Eleanor slowly straightened, wincing with pain and rushing both hands to her burning rear. Cissy disdainfully unknotted the bandanna, and Eleanor found herself looking into the lovely, grave face of Deeana Mason.
"You've been blackballed, Landers, so we expect you to pack your things and leave the house as soon as possible. Help her dress, Cissy. I declare this secret initiation session of Delta Gamma Theta at an end."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eleanor Landers didn't even bother to spend Friday night at the DGT house, but collected her belongings in two suitcases, and painfully trudged over to Comstock Hall, where she managed to rouse the sleeping Suzy Mersh, for it was nearly one in the morning. The silver-haired blonde, rubbing her eyes and yawning, was adorable in yellow silk pajamas, but her somnolent state was swiftly dispersed when she heard the harrowing tale of Eleanor's ejection from the DGT house. And naturally the infuriated and vengeance-swearing redhead invented her own version of how her expulsion from the sorority had come about.
"Since I've been paying your rent here every month, Suzy, and the room's big enough for both of us, I'm moving back in," Eleanor declared. "Sure, Eleanor, sure, you don't hear me saying anything, do you?" Suzy assented. "Only for gosh sakes, please let's go to sleep right away-darn it, I was havin' the nicest dream about Sam Grunnerson when you started hammerin' at the door. I wanna get right back to it."
"No luck yet getting him to show he really loves you, Suzy?" Eleanor teased as she hastily unpacked her lingerie in the big chest of drawers, hung up her dresses and coats in the closet. Then she began to undress to bra and panties. Suzy was wide-eyed now; the thin white panties couldn't hide the angrily swollen hue of her chum's severely paddled seat, and she pointed with a gasp: "Oh migosh, no wonder you up and left them, Eleanor! They treated you just dreadful! I don't blame you for walkin' out on 'em! Why, if they'd 'nishiated me that way, I'd have told the dean of women and had them closed down, you can bet I would!"
Eleanor carefully crawled into the big comfortable bed, rolled over onto her stomach, grimacing; every movement sent waves of new torment through the chastised area. "I'll get even," she muttered, her eyes bright with cold, shrewd spleen, "not with those stupid girls, they only did what Deeana told them to! I'm going to make Kathy Edwards pay for the way they tortured me tonight, Suzy! Just you watch! Stealing my guy and then sneaking off to Deeana to spill the beans-the treacherous, vicious little sneak-I'll show her!"
The weekend was dismal indeed for Eleanor Landers, in keeping with the blustery weather of mid-November. Even Suzy Mersh had a date-with Sam Grunnerson on Saturday night, and Suzy gleefully informed her that Sam had asked her to a dance given in the American Legion post in Croyden, ten miles to the west of Marwell. "He'll actually have his arms around me, the lamb," the silver-haired blonde rapturously declared, "and even if it is in public, he ought to get the idea how crazy I am for him! Well, honey, I'm awful sorry to leave you all alone like this, but you know how it is."
So Eleanor stayed in her room over Saturday and Sunday, pondering on the cruel blows that fate had dealt her, and it was typical of her nature that she didn't consider herself at all to blame for their occurrence. She couldn't reach Deeana-though it had been vicious, she still felt, for the sorority prexy not to have let people know she was Mark Torrance's cousin-but it would be Kathy who would be the target for her revenge.
Yet she had to have one last showdown with Mark Torrance. Maybe Deeana hadn't really told him. Maybe Deeana was just saying that to scare her away, because she didn't want her to get Mark. The possibility served to brighten her black mood-but Monday afternoon robbed her of even that faint hope.
She hadn't taken her seat in the front row as usual, but selected one way at the back. How handsome Mark looked, his face grave and studious, and how she would love to run her fingers through that curly brown hair of his, she thought. And then he was discussing the work for the day, and then, just before the class ended, he remarked, "By the way, class, I thought you'd like to know that Kathy Edwards revised her short story and I've sent it in to an editor I know in New York. I think it's good enough for him to print, so let's all wish her luck." And there was applause, and from her distant seat, Eleanor could see brown-haired Kathy modestly bend her head and nod to someone beside her, and a slow wave of rage spread through Eleanor's system like a cancer. Yes, let's wish her luck, she thought, and let's change it for the worst there is.
Then the bell sounded, and she stayed in her seat way at the back till everyone had filed out, keeping very quiet and trying to make herself small in her seat so that Mark wouldn't notice. Kathy was at his desk now, and the rage grew inside her till it seemed actually to swirl in black spots before her narrowed green eyes, and her nails dug into her palms. And then Kathy was holding out her hand, and Mark was shaking it and beaming at that four-eyed sneak-tears of self-pity stung Eleanor's eyes. It was too much to be endured, after all she and Mark had meant to each other.
When she opened her eyes again, the classroom was empty, except for Mark sitting at his desk correcting papers. Slowly she got up and walked towards him.
"M-Mark?" she quavered.
"Yes, Miss Landers?" He didn't even glance up.
"Mark-can-can I talk to you?"
He put down the papers and looked up now. "If you like."
"Mark. I-I don't know what she told you, but I can explain-you can't judge me on what somebody else says-please-you and I-we were so happy that night-"
"I hesitate to discuss personalities in the classroom.
Eleanor, and you are due an explanation. It's true you couldn't have known that Deeana's my cousin. But then, ever since she entered Marwell, she's kept it to herself because she didn't want any privileges or advantages. It was just unfortunate that you had to boast of your ingenious little plot to her. But the fact is, I don't think she would have betrayed your confidence if it had been only that. It was what you tried to do to Kathy, because you hated to see her get ahead of you in class and you thought I might be getting too fond of her. That was why Deeana came to tell me about the tape recorder."
"But-but, Mark darling, I swear-"
"You wouldn't have needed that kind of guarantee to force me into marrying you. That night, it was wonderful with you. Yes, Eleanor. I was on the rebound after a girl I'd known for a very long time, a girl who just married someone else and who went to Europe to live, so I probably shan't ever see her again. And I thought I'd found that someone. I was thinking of marriage, I give you my word of honor, so I wouldn't have had to be coerced into it. But to hide Deeana's letter in Kathy's coat and then try to brazen it out so maybe the sorority would go hard on initiating poor Kathy-that shows a malice I can't possibly admire. And that, coupled with your boastful admission to my cousin and to your previous little scheme with Tom Jenkins, doesn't encourage me to think of planning a future with you, Eleanor. I'm sorry, but that's the way I feel."
"All right. But-but you can't blame a woman in love for being jealous, darling-"
He winced and held up his hand. "Stop it, Eleanor. I'm probably to blame more than you because I accepted your challenge. But I went into it with my eyes wide open-so I thought. I didn't seduce you or make any false promises to you. And when I told you that we could share the old Crozier place some day, I meant it sincerely then. But you were too greedy, too much in a hurry for things to happen. Well, they happened. But not the way you wanted. And I'm sorry for you, because your way of thinking is based on deluding yourself. You hurt yourself more than the people you try to hurt, if you only knew."
"I don't need a sermon from you on morality, Professor Torrance," she sneered, her face very pale. "And thanks for the night we had. But I think I'll survive. I'll bet I can find another man who'll accept me for what I am. He might be even more of a man than you."
"For your sake, I hope so, Eleanor. But be careful you don't find someone down at your own scheming level. He might not be so polite as I am when he finds out how you operate." He turned back to his papers. She stiffened at the implication. Then she turned and quickly went out of the room.
* * *
The next two weeks were torture for the sophisticated redhead. Deeana Mason had kept the story of her expulsion from Delta Gamma Theta a secret among the sorority members themselves, but Eleanor had boasted so of being invited to join while she had been staying at Comstock Hall that many of the girls there rubbed salt on the raw wounds by innocently asking why she wasn't living over at the DGT house. And Eleanor had had to fabricate a story that would cover the truth without losing stature among those first chums at Marwell.
And then there was Dave Vandenburg.
Exactly a week after the Hell Week debacle, the homely, gangling junior stopped her on the sidewalk outside Noyes Hall, just as she was going on to Professor Torrance's class for the final Friday session. "Hi, there, Elly! Well, I guess you can relax and have some fun now, huh?"
"What do you mean, Dave? I've got to get to class."
"Aw, come on, don't be so snooty, honey. Hell
Week's over, so it's okay for you to date. And you know you promised me one. Now, you gonna keep your word like a nice sweet girl? I'm mighty fond of you, Elly. I can show you a real good time if you'll gimme a chance. And I got dough too. None of this small-town stuff for me."
"What do you mean, you've got dough?"
He chuckled. "See, you never gave me a real chance to get better acquainted with you. My dad's a big real estate operator back in East St. Louis, and I'm going into business when him soon as I get my degree and then my license. He's loaded, and I'm the only kid he's got, so I never have no trouble about ready cash for good times. We could drive to Cairo or Peoria and have ourselves some fun this weekend-whatddya say?"
"I-I don't know you well enough to spend a weekend with you, Dave." She patted his burly shoulder. "But we can have a date around here, though."
"Great! How about my buying you supper at the Fandango? That's a night club out by Croyden. Pretty good eats and they got liquor."
"Sure."
"Where'll I call for you, huh, Elly?"
"Dave, I don't like being called Elly, you know that. If we're going to be good friends, be a name and call me Eleanor, please?"
"Sure, sure, anything you say, baby." He seemed to have a cocky assurance she hadn't noticed before; she remembered how brash he had been that afternoon in the company of the two seniors.
"Fine. Say six o'clock over at Comstock Hall? I'll come out in front and wait for you."
"Comstock Hall? I thought you were over at the DGT house, Elly-I mean Eleanor.
She flushed self-consciously. "No, I didn't like the girls over at the house, so I decided not to join, Dave. I'm a loner. I like it that way."
"Uh huh. So am I. We ought to get along fine, just fine. Well, see you at six then. Gosh, we're gonna have fun."
Before, she had looked upon him as just another admiring swain, one of many in the coterie of admirers, whom she could exploit and use to do her errands or dance attendance on her. But now there was something subtly different about Dave Vandenburg. The way he looked at her-not exactly with awed reverence like a mortal before a goddess, not the way he had used to when the semester had started. Still, she needed an ally. A scheme was vaguely being formed in her devious mind on how to get back at Kathy Edwards. What Kathy needed was a lesson, a roughing-up such as she herself had been subjected to in the basement recreation room of the DGT house. And the most humiliating thing about it all had been Kathy's being there to hear her being put through that damned inquisition by Deeana and the awful paddling that had accompanied it. She couldn't see or think of Kathy any more without remembering those moments of pain and shame and despair when her world, so carefully built brick by ingenious brick, had toppled down upon her...
Croyden was a little town of about six thousand inhabitants, but it boasted a movie house and the Fandango, the latter being little more than a tavern-restaurant with a three-piece combo at the far back and a small waxed floor for dancing. It was across the street from the American Legion building where Suzy Mersh had had her dance with idealistic Sam Grunnerson. And, this Friday night, in spite of inclement weather, it was packed to the rafters.
Dave Vandenburg was affable and garrulous, enjoying his new role as Eleanor's escort. He ordered the best steaks in the house, highballs before them and beer with them, and a brandy with coffee. Eleanor sat glumly listening to him boast about his father's real estate successes. They were, surprisingly enough, not un-like her own father's stock manipulations; the fast sell, the successful con game, the speculative risk, characterized both types of operation. Then, flushed and inordinately cheerful, he pushed back his chair at the end of the meal, and invited her to dance.
There wasn't any point in protesting, in being a spoilsport. So she resigned herself to being mauled on the narrow dance floor and jammed up against other couples. He wasn't too bad a dancer, she had to admit, but he liked to dance much too close and his hand had a way of slipping down past her waist and resting on one of her hips as if he were thinking of squeezing her. She could compare him, miserably aware of her loss, with Mark Torrance. He had an animal vitality, and strength in his hands. She wouldn't want him for an enemy, she knew. As a lover? That was even more unthinkable.
But if she was going to stay on campus and keep up appearances till she could talk Dad and Laura into bringing her back home where she belonged-and her grades would be good enough, she knew, to lull their fears that she had been gallivanting around, to use Dad's silly expression-she would need a steady date. And Dave Vandenburg was the handiest and most--likely candidate.
So, when the liquor he had consumed began to make him less inhibited and when his hand did finally apply an intimate squeeze now and then as they danced, she didn't upbraid him or wither him with her scorn. She giggled and pressed closer to him, and was rewarded by having him mutter in her ear, "Hey, Elly, you're all right. I figured you for sorta snobbish, a big city deb, but you're okay in my book. You and me's gonna hit it off just right."
So she agreed to a date the following Friday, and she let him park the car off the road midway back to Marwell and cup her breasts and squeeze her thighs and try to thrust his tongue between her lips when they kissed. It didn't mean anything to her and it was payment of a kind. If she didn't yield anything, he'd be disgruntled and the prospect of future dates wouldn't exist. And she needed him. She needed him as part of her plan to get back at Kathy. Yes, and at Mark too.
Kathy was a prissy, stick-in-the-mud virgin, she was willing to bet. She'd never go to that farmhouse alone with Mark Torrance and let him make love to her. And even if she did, she'd never in a million years be able to rouse the passion which Eleanor knew she had roused that never-to-be-forgotten night. She wondered what Kathy would do if she had to fend off a hulking brute like Dave Vandenburg, or those two friends of his. Probably faint. If they could throw a scare into Kathy, rough her up a little, humiliate and shame her, and maybe beat up Mark-
It was a wild scheme, and she knew it, but the visual images it created in her vengeful brain tempted and tortured her. It would have to be planned very carefully, and besides it had to be off campus, so that nobody would find out. She would have to talk Dave into it, and pretend it was a stunt, a prank. And she would have to promise him some kind of reward to do such a thing for her. She knew what she would promise. In the old Nash, just before she had playfully pretended that he was too much for her and would have to stop, he had whispered that he'd give anything to go to bed with her, yes, even marry her. Well, she could promise him that. Now that he had kissed and felt her, his adulatory homage for her had crystallized into the sharp goad of physical lust; she knew that. She knew so much more about men than that stupid little four-eyed Kathy. How Mark Torrance could possibly prefer Kathy to her-oh, it was damnable!
And so she made her plans, as craftily as she had done to bring off the coup with Tom Jenkins, to get her invitation to DGT, to get Mark Torrance to love her. The next Friday, they went back to Croyden, and again she let him maul her about the little dance floor, and then, in the car coming back home, slide his hands under her dress and French kiss her till he was panting with frustrated desire.
"Honey, we mustn't, not in the car," she murmured, flicking his ear with the tip of her tongue. "I want it too, as much as you do, but not here. Please, Dave darling."
"I gotta have you, baby, You feel it too, don'tcha?"
"Of course I do, Dave honey. A girl's got feelings just as much as a man. And I want us to be together. But you've got to wait. There's a favor I want to ask of you, Dave darling. But not yet. I promise it'll be soon, though. Please? Now take me home." It had taken all her feminine cunning to sidetrack his burning yen for her into a sort of morose obeisance to her wish. And when he had let her out in front of Comstock Hall, he'd grabbed her and kissed her hard on the mouth and muttered, "You just better not double-cross me, Elly baby. I get nasty when people cross me, specially dames. You know how nuts I am for you. And I told you I'd even marry you-what more do you want?"
"The time and the place, Dave honey. Now be a good boy and go back to the frat house and dream of me till next Friday. Yes, we'll have a date then. And by then maybe I'll have figured it out for us."
"Okay, okay, Elly honey. I'll be waitin'. "
She blew him a kiss as he got back into the car. When the car had pulled away, her fatuous smile faded and her lips curled with disgust. "The big, stupid animal," she murmured. "I'll figure it out, all right. You'll do what I want, Dave Vandenburg, and you'll take what I decide to give you and like it, too."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On the Wednesday of the week after her second date with Dave Vandenburg, Eleanor Landers got her chance to "figure things out." In English literature that afternoon, Mark Torrance had announced that Kathy Edwards' story had been purchased by the New York magazine editor for $250, and that his own first novel had been accepted by a paperback publisher. When the period ended, most of the students crowded around the desk to congratulate him and to ask about the novel. Eleanor waited too. That noon, in the sweet shop where she'd gone for a sandwhich and hot cocoa, Suzy Mersh had brought her stunning news.
"Gosh, Eleanor, I just heard the hottest news that ever hit this campus! Guess what?"
"You and Sam have finally set the date."
"Well, gee, how did you know?" Suzy giggled, then turned a most becoming red. "The big lug finally decided last Friday night not to wait till he got his degree and all. He actually proposed, would you believe it? And-and we're going to be married over Christmas. I'm going up this weekend to meet his folks. Oh, Eleanor, I'm so thrilled I could shout it all over campus! But that's not what I mean."
"Oh?"
"Uh uh. You'd never guess in a million years. I only heard it from Marian Johler, you know, the DGT secretary-treasurer. And she happens to be an awfully close friend of Sam's sister, so she's been sorta nice to me even if I'm not a member. You know."
"Yes, yes, get to the point, Suzy," Eleanor impatiently urged. .
"It's that matinee idol prof you got in English lit, Eleanor. Mark Torrance."
"Well, what about him?"
"He and Kathy Edwards are engaged! Marian said she heard it straight from Dee Mason, and she says Dee's close enough to the Torrance family to know."
"Yes...she is. She happens to be his cousin, for your information, Suzy. Are you sure?"
"Sure as you're born, Elly-I mean Eleanor. Marian says he's going to buy an old farm somewhere near here. And he and Kathy are going to look the place over this weekend. They're going to be married over Christmas too-isn't it exciting?"
"Very much."
"Say, weren't you sort of stuck on Professor Torrance yourself, Elly?"
Distractedly, the redhead didn't even notice that Suzy had forgotten to apologize for the diminutive. "That's ancient history now. I had what you might call a flirtation with him. He's really not my type. I go more for the he-man species, like Dave Vandenburg."
"Yeah, I heard you two are getting thick as thieves. He's loaded with dough. But I guess if the prof sold his book, he might be awfully rich some day, maybe if they buy it for the movies."
"I'm really not at all interested in what happens to Mark Torrance. Anyway, I've got to get to one o'clock class, Suzy. Thanks for all the dope."
And so, sitting there watching all the others crowd around Mark Torrance and seeing Kathy shyly standing off to one side, her eyes glowing and her soft mouth curved in a happy smile, Eleanor Landers glowered with the injustice of it all. What a fast worker that little two-timing four-eyed schemer had turned out to be! How could she possibly have lured him to propose marriage, when she probably hadn't even gone to bed with him yet? But if the two of them were going out to the Crozier farm this weekend, the setup would be just perfect for what she had had in mind ever since
Dave Vandenburg had shown her what a yen he had for her.
She waited till everyone except Kathy had gone, and then she walked up to the desk and held out her hand and said, "Congratulations to you both, Professor Torrance, and you too, Kathy. I'm so glad for both of you, I really am."
He looked pleasantly surprised. "Thanks, Miss Landers. I was just lucky, but she wrote a great story. She deserves all the credit."
"Oh, come now, you know what I mean. About the two of you being engaged."
He frowned. "I was hoping you wouldn't hear it, not till after-"
"Your marriage?" she finished with a gay little laugh. "But I'm glad for you both, I sincerely am. Kathy suits you better than I ever could. And you've got your work in common. I wish you both every happiness."
"T-thank you, E-Eleanor. I-I want to say how sorry I am Dee made me-"
"Forget it, honey," Eleanor turned to Kathy. "I messed everything up, and I got possessive and jealous. I ought to have known you were my real friend from the days when we used to play together as kids. So I learned my lesson. No hard feelings at all."
"That's very nice of you, Eleanor," Kathy murmured, glancing fondly at Mark.
"Yes, it is. And I hope you have the best of everything you want," he added.
"I hear you're going to buy the old Crozier place, Professor Torrance, and be a gentleman farmer after all."
He flushed nervously, his blue eyes fixing her with a kind of appeal. She knew very well what he wanted to communicate to her: to keep silent about their brief relationship. Well, she wouldn't embarrass him. Or his sticky-sweet bride-to-be, either.
"Er, yes, I finally decided. Mr. Crozier's quite ill and wants to dispose of the property as soon as he can. And I got a sizable check from my publisher, so I turned it over to him." He reached for Kathy's hand. "We're going to look at it Friday evening, aren't we, Kathy?"
"Oh, yes, I'm dying to see it," Kathy eagerly responded.
"But you'll go on teaching?" Eleanor politely asked.
"Oh, yes, and Kathy's going to go on and get her degree. And writing, too, I hope. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she surpassed me in a few years, she's that good."
"Oh, Mark darling, don't say such flattering things, I'll never be able to live up to them," Kathy blushed. Eleanor ground her teeth at the radiant look she sent Mark Torrance.
"Well, again, my very best wishes to you both," she said genially. "I'd like to be maid of honor for Kathy at the wedding-if she'll forgive me for having been so nasty."
"Of course, Eleanor, I'd love to have you. It'll be the last day of the year. There'll be just a few of our closest friends. My aunt, and Mark's uncle is coming in from Chicago, and some of the sorority girls like Dee and Marian. We'll let you know, won't we, Mark darling?" Again she sent him a look of joyous love.
"Sure we will. Thanks for being nice, Eleanor." His voice was friendlier now and he used her first name. He held out his hand and Eleanor shook it, a fixed smile on her lips. Then she walked over to Kathy and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm so glad for you, Kathy honey," she purred. Then, her head high, she walked nonchalantly out of the classroom.
* * *
"It's crazy, Elly. Why'd you wanna have this guy and his doll roughed up, anyhow?"
"I've already told you, darling." She was sitting with
Dave Vandenburg in the back of the Nash, parked around the corner of his fraternity house. She'd phoned him at the house right after leaving English literature and told him she had to see him because it was important to them both. And first she had had to let him maul and kiss her a while before she could get him to digress long enough to listen to what she had to say. "That little sneak got me kicked out of DGT because she lied about me. Then she stole my guy. Yes, I'll admit to you I was going to marry Professor Torrance, but she poisoned his mind against me. Now do you understand why I hate her so?"
"But I could get into plenty of trouble pullin' a stunt like that, Elly."
"Look. Friday night, they're going to drive up to the old Crozier farm. I'll show you where it is. We can drive there after supper, so you know just how to get there. And your friends Bob and Pat could come along Friday. You could wear masks, and you'd never be recognized. I don't want them hurt, you understand. Just scared. And maybe you can muss Kathy's clothes up a little. She's a dish, but a holier-than-thou virgin, take it from me."
He grinned crookedly as he reached for her again. "Well, I don't mind a little shivaree myself. Guess maybe if we only scared 'em, they couldn't really make it tough for us. And the three of us play football and basketball, so we could sure take on an English prof. Yeah, sounds like it might be fun. Only, if I get the guys to do this for me, baby, what're you gonna do for me, huh?"
"You want me to marry you, don't you, Dave honey?"
"Boy, do I ever! If that's the only way I can get you on a mattress, name the day!"
"Then you do this for me, and I'll marry you whenever you say."
"Ohh, baby, you're enough to drive a guy crazy," he moaned, pulling her to him again. Eleanor closed her eyes and passively submitted as his tongue forced open her lips and one hand slipped down under her sweater and into one of the cups of her tight silk bra.
"Honey, I better go," she murmured after a moment, "we don't want your fraternity brothers to catch us this way, do we?"
"Uh uh. Not--likely," he chuckled thickly, releasing her and reaching for a handkerchief to rub off her lipstick. "Bob'n Pat'n me's good friends from way back when we all went to the same high school. But I'm not about to share you with any other guy, Elly honey. Okay, I'll meet you after supper right on the usual corner, huh? Then you can show me where this place is. And I'll tip Bob and Pat off. They like a lark as much as I do. Only don't you go forgetting your bargain, cutie. I'd get real mad if you backed out now, especially when I'm about to do you this big favor."
"I won't back out. Just you keep your part of the bargain, and I'll go with you to the license bureau any day you say, Dave darling. Now I've got to get back. See you after supper, lover."
"Mmmmm, that sounds super elegant," he grinned, and pinched her bottom as she got out of the car. "Won't be long before I show you, you didn't make no mistake when you called me that."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Snow had fallen most of Friday, but it was clear and the stars were out that night along the highway leading from Marwell to the Crozier farm. Eleanor had readily accepted Dave Vandenburg's invitation to accompany his cronies Bob Talbot and Pat Guffy in Pat's big Buick sedan. She wanted to see the fun, to gloat over Kathy's cries for help and the girl's shame when the three hulking collegians stripped her. She wouldn't be hurt at all, and they'd just knock Mark around a little. That would be her wedding present to them both. And then she'd tell Dave she had to go back to Chicago for Christmas to let her folks know the good news-but she wouldn't ever come back. She wanted no more of this small-town college and the unhappy memories it had brought her. She wanted to be back in circulation with sophisticated, knowing people. Men like Henri de Rochembeau-or the Mark Torrance who had made love to her in this very farmhouse.:
The Buick was parked to the other side of the viaduct, just off the narrow road. And she and Dave and his two friends had got to the farmhouse by six. Dave had had the foresight to bring a hamper packed with sandwiches and bottles of beer, and a couple of flashlights so they could see their way around. He had inspected the bedroom, turned the flashlight on the big brass-frame bed, and sniggered lewdly, glancing back at Eleanor: "Hey, now, that'd sure be big enough for the two of us, wouldn't it, Elly baby?" And Bob and Pat had been right outside in the hall and heard it, and she'd turned crimson with angry embarrassment and hissed, "Shut your mouth, you big oaf! Do you have to blab everything you're thinking?"
"Oh, come off it, sweet stuff," he chuckled, slipping his arm round her waist. "The guys know we're gonna get hitched. Matter of fact, Pat's gonna be my best man, and Bob's gonna throw a wingding over at the frat house after we tie the knot."
"I-I meant to tell you, darling, I want my parents to see us get married."
"Sure, sure, Elly. Why not? Show 'em what a great guy you picked. That's the idea!" He slapped her jovially on the rump, and she ground her teeth as she heard his two friends laugh knowingly.
"What I mean is, honey, I'll go up to Chicago, do some quick shopping for a trousseau and bring them back with me. Why don't we make it-say January 2nd?"
"I don't like the idea of your goin' away over the holidays and leavin' me, Elly honey."
She put an arm round his neck and flicked her tongue against his lips. "Oh, be nice, darling. Then you'll see how nice I can be," her voice was wheedling and sensual, with the promise of unspeakable delights. Dave Vandenburg put his hands on her buttocks and pulled her to him, crushing her mouth with his. "Okay, okay, whatever you want-so long as I get you where I want you, gorgeous," he growled affably. "Now let's get at that chow. This cold weather makes me hungry as a bear."
They ate their sandwiches and drank their beer in the kitchen, with the kerosene lamp turned high. Eleanor shivered as its flickering glow cast strange shadows on their faces, distorting them, making them seem more like vicious thugs than college students. Pat and Bob eyed her throughout the improvised meal, and both the youths insinuatingly commented on what a lucky guy their pal Dave was to find a smart looker like her. She could have dispensed with that. She didn't care for them at all, and in their company Dave Vandenburg seemed to get coarser and coarser in both speech and manners. He actually slipped his arm round her and tried to run his hand down under her sweater and into her bra, with them both avidly looking on.
The minutes ticked by till the alarm clock on the window sill by the sink, which Dave had wound up, showed ten minutes of eight. "Maybe they won't show," Bob grumbled, lighting a cigarette.
"I'm sure they will. I heard them say they'd be here tonight to look the place over," Eleanor insisted, her nerves frayed by the tension as well as by being isolated in the company of this uncouth trio. If only Mark had been more reasonable, more understanding. It could as well have been she here tonight alone with him, entwined on that big comfortable bed. But he'd been taken in by that whiny, sticky-sweet little sneak Kathy. So what he was going to get served him right. And some day he'd know what he had really missed.
"Hey, I hear a car comin!" Bob stood up, his scowling face tautened with wariness.
"Yeah you're right. Okay, let's get those Halloween mask on. Good thing we kept 'em after that 'nishiation we had last month," Dave exclaimed. Going to the hamper, he pulled out three black felt face masks, with heavy elastic bands, tossed two to his friends and donned the third one himself. "Now easy does it. Elly, you stay here in the kitchen, and don't let a peep outa you, see?"
"I won't! Oh, do it to them good," she hissed malevolently, her blood throbbing in her veins, her eyes shining with sadistic excitement.
Dave crossed back to the table, blew out the kerosene lamp, then bent down and cupped Eleanor's swelling breasts through her sweater, his big heavy fingers cruelly digging into their resilience as his mouth greedily fused to hers. "Wish me luck, baby. Now you'll see how a real man protects your honor, huh? Just listen!"
And he and Bob and Pat hurried to the living room.
Eleanor crept to the kitchen window, which looked out on the cornfield. The quarter moon cast enough light for her to see two dark figures in the distance, slowly approaching the house. Yes, it was Mark and Kathy!
She dug her nails into her sweating palms, crouching on her knees on the floor, peering out into the snow-covered field, her mind racing with the vindictive thoughts of her imminent revenge. Kathy was holding onto Mark's hand, staring at him with those cow-like eyes of hers through the harlequin glasses. She'd probably even wear them to bed her wedding night to look helpless. It would be like being married to an innocent child, not the wild, exotic ecstasy Mark had known with her.
In the still night, their voices carried. She could hear Kathy say, "We could be all by ourselves, away from the whole world here, Mark darling." And his answer: "Yes, and yet whenever we wanted to go back to civilization, it'd be only a little time away. I can write here, darling, and so can you. There'll be a creative link between us always."
Sure, Eleanor thought to herself, you two can sit up together in bed reading aloud to each other. Have fun!
And then she held her breath, for they were at the front door. And then there was the sound of a scuffle, and Kathy's shrill scream: "Oh, Mark, look out-stop-oh, let me go-"
Give it to them, give it to them good, rape her, kill him, her mind raced in the ferocity of this vicarious participation in her own so carefully planned vengeance.
She heard Dave yell, "Oww, you're breaking my arm!" And then the sound of a thud, then more scuffling, and then Kathy's scream again. Then the sharp smack of a fist and another thud, and then, to her horror, Mark's voice, panting but stern: "All right, you young hoodlums! Take off those masks! No? I can dish out a little more, if you'd like. I take judo lessons every now and then."
And Dave's voice, moaning, "Oh, Gawd, you like, to broke my arm. We didn't mean to do nuttin', Professor Torrance!"
"Oh, it's you, Vandenburg. And two of your fraternity brothers, I dare say. I thought so. Now whose little scheme was it to lie in wait for us here tonight, hm? Or would you rather talk to the sheriff? I could have you all jailed for assault and attempted rape. Get up there, you sniveling idiot!"
"D-don't hit me again, lay off," it was Bob Talbot whining.
"I ought to smash your jaw for trying to tear Kathy's clothes, you hoodlum. Now then, Vandenburg, who dreamed up this little reception? I'll break your arm if you don't tell me, so help me!"
Cowering back against the window, Eleanor was ghastly pale; she'd never dreamed Mark could sound so angry.
"It-it was Elly Landers, Prof," Dave blurted. "Honest. We weren't gonna do anything 'cept give you both a little scare. She said you had it comin'-said that girl of yours got her kicked outa the sorority and stole you away from her-honest, it's the truth."
You cowardly bastard you, Eleanor's lips worked silently.
"I don't have to tell you I could get you all kicked out of school, Vandenburg."
"Yes sir," Dave was stammering. "Jeez, my arm, Prof, it hurts like hell, you damn near twisted it out of the socket. Please, we-I swear we didn't mean nuttin' like-like what you said about her-"
"All right. Where is Miss Landers?"
"In-in the kitchen."
Eleanor's lips curled back, baring her teeth, like a trapped animal. Slowly she straightened, then began to back up towards the kitchen door, just as Mark Torrance strode in. He looked at her, then shook his head. "I think, Miss Landers, you had better plan on resigning from Marwell. Probably the best thing would be to go home for the holidays and just not return. You understand?"
She nodded, speechless, numb with shock. Tears had begun to well up in her dilated green eyes.
"You're amoral, vicious, undisciplined. If I wanted to be vengeful the way you are-and it's well within my rights, I can assure you-I'd prefer charges against you as well as your three amenable friends. You understand that, don't you?"
Slowly she nodded, lowering her eyes, and color surged across her pale cheeks.
"But first, I'm going to let Kathy punish you, the way a child is punished. And in front of your friends. Vandenburg, you and your football heroes, get in here pronto!" He turned back and shouted.
In a few moments the three youths were assembled, looking sullen and sheepish by turns. Mark Torrance pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, gestured to Kathy to sit down. As soon as she had complied, he walked over to Eleanor and, grabbing her by the wrist, drew her over to Kathy and forced her down over Kathy's lap. "Now spank her, Kathy."
"Oh, no, no, Mark, for God's sake, no, please!" Eleanor burst into hysterical sobs.
"You, Vandenburg, get on your knees and use your good arm to hold her down for it," Mark commanded as Eleanor tried to rise.
"Damn right I will," Dave swore, his face ugly. With his left palm, as he knelt beside the chair, he pinned Eleanor's shoulders down.
"Please, Mark, I don't want to. She's been punished enough," Kathy said softly, pleadingly looking up at the handsome English literature professor.
"You're much too tenderhearted and forgiving by nature, darling." Mark shrugged. "All right. You won't have to do it. But I will."
So saying, bending over the kicking and struggling redhead, he proceeded to lay about fifteen hard whacks with the flat of his right hand, and Eleanor wailed like a banshee. It hurt worse than the DGT paddles, both physically and in her pride.
"There," he said breathlessly, straightening." Now then, Vandenburg, take her and your friends and yourself out of here. I'm going to watch your scholastic and behavior records very carefully the next few months, and God help you if you get into trouble again. Get me?"
"Y-yes, sir...and...and thanks for letting us off. I swear-"
"Spare me your apologies. Just beat it."
Dave Vandenburg got up, his face twisted with mingled anger and relief. Then he plunged the fingers of his left hand into Eleanor Landers' thick coppery oval bun of hair and dragged her, wailing, off Kathy's lap and to her feet. "Come on, you," he snarled. "Okay, Bob, Pat, let's beat it. We done enough wrong tonight. Now we're gonna do some good." Eleanor tried to pull back, to look back to Mark Torrance, but Bob and Pat had taken hold of her elbows, and quick-marched her out of the house. The door slammed behind them. Kathy and Mark looked out of the window to see the quartet make their way back through the snow-covered cornfield.
Then the reaction hit Kathy, and she ran to him, burying her tearstained face in his chest. "Oh, Mark, Mark, darling, I was so afraid for you!" she sobbed.
"Sweetheart, I was afraid for you, not myself. I love you very much, Kathy."
"I-I can't seem to believe it yet, though you've told me, Mark darling. It-it's like a dream."
"Listen, I want to tell you the truth. I was infatuated with Eleanor. You know how that can happen. I've told you about Jacqueline, and I was emotionally low and feeling sorry for myself. And then she came at me, provocation personified, and almost convinced me she was sincere. I'm glad my cousin Dee broke the rule of keeping a confidence to tell me how she planned to trap me. Because if it had worked, I'd never have realized what a wonderful, sweet, warmhearted person you are, Kathy dearest."
She looked up at him shyly, an adorable little smile curving her frank sweet mouth. "Are you sure it isn't the rebound again this time, Professor Torrance?" she teased.
"I'm very sure."
"But I'm not," she pursued roguishly. "There's only one way to convince me right now."
"And what's that?"
She blushed, then whispered something in his ear.
"Kathy Edwards! You abandoned little baggage!" he gasped. "Do you realize what you're saying? Not till we're married, young lady."
"But we're going to be, ever so soon. And I want you very much, Mark. I want what Eleanor had, just once before we make it legal and proper and nice. I want to feel sinful. Because she once called me a milksop, did you know that? She doesn't think I know how to hold a man. And I think she's wrong."
"Kathy, I-" he began. But he got no farther. Her slim arms locked round him, and her mouth merged to his, and then he felt the unexpected rapier of her soft warm little tongue.
"Why, Kathy Edwards!" he gasped.
"Now then, Professor Torrance, are you going to carry this little baggage to bed, or are you going to let her stand out here all night in this cold kitchen?" she demanded, eyes twinkling with saucy merriment.
He laughed joyously. Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her down the dark hallway into the room with the brass-frame bed...
It's February now, and Kathy and Mark Torrance are married. Mark's first novel will be out on the stands by April, and Kathy thinks she ought to have news of their first rightful heir by that time too.
Eleanor Landers isn't at Marwell anymore. She's married too, to Dave Vandenburg. Everybody on campus is talking about it. Dave's still attending class, but Eleanor's home with his parents, learning how to be a good wife, and especially how to cook, clean the house, sew and do other chores Dave and his folks think even a modern girl should know. Her parents are delighted, once the shock of learning that their elegant daughter had decided to marry a small-town boy was over. It's sure to straighten her out, even Laura Landers feels.
It's just as well neither Laura Landers nor Eleanor's father knows just how the marriage was brought about. You see, Dave and his two friends Bob and Pat felt they'd been had but good, and they took it out on Eleanor. There's a ramshackle barn about two miles on the other side of the Crozier farm, and they took her there. First Dave had her, and then he invited his two buddies to enjoy their reward for the night's escapade. After which Dave talked cold turkey to the weeping redhead. That was for double-crossing them, he told her. But he was going to keep his word and marry her. Only if she ever pulled a double cross again, he'd take his belt to her. And if she didn't marry him, he'd spread the word around campus that she was an easy mark for any boy with sex on his mind.
So the erstwhile sorority snob is graduating from the college of life at last. At least this way, there's some hope for her redemption. And Mark Torrance's words to Eleanor Landers did come true, after all, when he said she might find someone at her own level. Or at least someone as clever as she was.
