Chapter 6
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.