“Oh, Beth…if I’d only known,” she said, and her voice broke.
“Oh, it would only have worried you, Laur. I hoped you could see some good in Emmy. I hoped you’d learn to like her.” She looked up at Laura’s face. “I guess you were jealous of her.”
“Beth….” Laura rested her forehead against Beth’s shoulder. “Beth, I’m so sorry. I thought she was—oh, I don’t know why she didn’t just tell them about me. I was so nasty to her. I couldn’t have blamed her if she did.”
“She’s not that way, Laur. Besides, if she told them about you she’d’ve had to tell them about me.” She fingered her cigarette, musing. “But she wouldn’t have said anything anyway. She likes you, Laur…or at least, she wants to. I don’t know why.”
“Oh, Beth, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t tell me, Laur, tell Emmy.” Beth wasn’t cross with her any more. She was too worried about Emily to think about other feelings.
“Don’t cry, Laur.” She turned and held her then and chided her gently. “I’ve had all I can stand of crying today.”
Laura stopped slowly, in jerks. “Will they really blackball her, Beth?” she whispered.
“They have to. You can break the rules, but you can’t get caught.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“All we can do is remind them of what they’re going to do to Emmy: her family, her education, her friends…all the heartbreak, and things never patch up to be quite the same as they were before.”
“Never?”
“Oh, those things get all over your home town. There’s always somebody around to let them out. And once it’s out they never let you forget it.”
“Will they kick her out of school, too?”
“They’ll probably just put her on social probation. But she won’t want to stay in school. My God, when the whole damn campus knows what happened?”
Beth knew what she was talking about. In no time at all there was the secret chapter meeting of the sorority, with one of the national officers in attendance. Representatives of the alumnae were there, too.
Mary Lou was pale and distressed and she let the alumnae carry the burden of the meeting. They were impressive women, businesslike and efficient, real club women. They enjoyed tackling problems; Emmy’s was one of the juiciest in years. They spent a good bit of time congratulating the girls present on their presumed virginity and their unblemished reputations; and a good bit demolishing what was left of Emmy’s. They did it with masterful tact.
“Emmy is a good girl at heart, but….”
“Of course, you all feel terrible about this. I know she had many friends in the house….”
But an hour and a half later, Emily was an ex-Alpha Beta. Her career at the university was ruined.
Emmy was spared the meeting. She sat alone in her room while it was going on with a number of open suitcases around her and tried to find the courage to start packing.
Beth had stood up at the meeting and made an eloquent plea for her. And when that failed she got sharp and sarcastic, and still it didn’t change the vote. The sisters were sympathetic but restrained from mercy by the stifling good sense of their elders.
Laura sat in wretched silence, helpless. She couldn’t speak as well as Beth, she hadn’t nearly the influence, and yet she wanted to stand up and say something, but after Beth sat down there was nothing more to be said.
Beth and Laura went up to the room together. Emmy had one bag packed when they came in. She sat on the floor staring listlessly at her belongings, and she looked up at them when they came in. Their faces were painful to see.
“I know,” she said. Tve called home. Dad’s going to pick me up tomorrow.”
Beth went to her and said, “We did everything we could, Em.”
“I know. I knew it would happen. It had to happen, that’s all. It couldn’t be any other way. I was a fool.”
“Did you talk to Bud? They said you could call him.”
Emmy gave a bitter little smile. “Now that the damage is done, I can call him. If they’d let me talk to him before, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes. I called while you were all downstairs.”
“What’d he say?”
“Oh, you know Bud. He feels terrible. He was furious. But he doesn’t know what to do; he never could handle a problem.” Her smile became reluctantly tender. “He just rants and raves and says he’ll quit school too, as if that would do any good, and they can’t do this to me, and…. Oh, I don’t know.”
“Come on, Emmy,” Beth said gently. “I’ll help you get your things together. You don’t have to go right away. You can take a few days to pack and—” She stopped.
“I want to get out of here as fast as I can,” Emmy said harshly. “Oh, Beth, he—he cried!” she said with a sudden hard sob. “My dad cried!” And the stress of that sorrow nearly tore her apart.
Beth got Emily packed by three in the morning. Laura had tried to help but soon realized that she was neither needed nor wanted and left for the dormitory. Emily was afraid to face anybody and Beth sat up with her all night and helped her get ready to meet Bud for breakfast so they could say good-by. He promised to go to see her every weekend, he swore he loved her, he denounced the university, the sorority, the world for his mistake.
He said, “Emmy, darling, I did this to you and I’ll make it up to you somehow, by God, I will. I don’t know how, but—there must be a way. Oh, honey, I hate to see you so unhappy. And I did it, I did it.” He was so miserable that Emily had to comfort him, and it seemed to give her strength. She listened to him, knowing that he sincerely meant what he said when he said it, wondering
