CHAPTER XVITHE MYSTERY DEEPENS
Atleast once every week Betty dropped into Mrs. Post’s room to talk over the progress of their charges and the state of the house in general.
“The Goop is as bad as ever,” Betty complained one windy afternoon in March. “I’ve just been up in her room—she’s begun again throwing whatever she doesn’t need at the moment under her bed, and whenever she’s in a hurry or especially happy at meal times she shovels things in with her knife. Do you think she ought to be allowed to stay here another year?”
“Maybe she’ll decide to stop studying and teach for a while,” suggested the optimistic Mrs. Post. “She’s thinking of it. But if it’s important for her to learn tidiness and table manners—which it certainly is—she certainly is more likely to do it here than anywhere else, with me nagging at her and you looking sweet and sorry. Now I’ll warrant she’s downon her knees this very minute clearing up her floor, because you saw it looking disorderly. She thinks a lot of pleasing you. And the other girls don’t mind her habits much; she’s good for them as a horrible example.”
“The Twin Digs have been reported again for lights after ten,” said Betty, who was in a downhearted mood.
“Only once since—since—well, I’m afraid I can’t truthfully say since Christmas,” laughed Mrs. Post. “I guess what those two need is a show of firmness. I’ll see them to-night and tell them that the very next time means a report to President Wallace.”
“Miss Romance has had three callers again this week, hasn’t she?”
“Three calls, but only one caller. She’s settled down to one now, and I guess he’s all right—he seems to be a real nice country boy. He lives in the little place where she does, and he walks six miles and back each time he comes to call. Seems to me that shows he’s fond enough of her to mean business. As for her, college is all nonsense for a girl like that. She hasn’t sense enough to take it in. She’d better be at work or helpingher mother, or making a home of her own. She’ll always be silly and rattle-pated and provoking to sensible people, as long as she lives. I’ve told her so—I mean I’ve advised her not to struggle along here through the whole course.”
Betty sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Not every girl is capable of getting much out of college. Well, anyway, there’s always the Thorn to congratulate ourselves on. She’s really turning out to be a very pleasant, helpful person to have in the house.”
Mrs. Post nodded. “She’s your triumph, and Esther Bond is mine. She says she’s been happier down in this room talking to me about my three girls and the weather and the price of eggs and the way the laundry tears our linen than she’s been before in her whole life. I wish I could make her see that if she enjoys being friends with a stupid old lady like me, she’d enjoy ten times more being intimate with girls of her own age. She doesn’t dispute me. She just smiles that terribly tragic smile of hers, shakes her head, and changes the subject.”
“Do you suppose some one has hurt herfeelings?” asked Betty. “Or is she just naturally secretive and reserved?”
“She’s naturally very confiding,” declared Mrs. Post. “Seems as if she was friends with everybody in the village where she lived when she was little. Something’s happened, and it’s happened since she came here, I think. But whatever it is she’s bound nobody shall ever know about it. And when she makes up her mind she makes it up hard and to stay.”
“I wonder if the ghost noises have stopped, or if the Thorn has just suppressed the reports?” Betty queried. “I never quite understood why the Mystery didn’t complain the day they nearly battered down her door.”
“She’s never even mentioned it to me,” Mrs. Post declared. “She seems to hate to talk about anything connected with her college life. She acts smart enough. She doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with her classes, does she?”
Betty shook her head. “She’s very good in most things—I asked Miss Ferris about her—only she never answers except when she’s asked directly, and then she says just as littleas she can. Miss Raymond had her over one day this winter to tell her that her themes were very promising, only they stopped just when the reader was beginning to be interested. But Miss Bond said she always wrote down all that she thought of on each subject, and she acted so frightened and unhappy that Miss Raymond let her go home and hasn’t tried to encourage her since. It must be dreadful to be so shy that every one thinks you’re offish, and even the faculty don’t dare to pursue their efforts to help you along. Just think, Mrs. Post! She might be one of the leading writers in her class, if she’d only let Miss Raymond take an interest in her work. Couldn’t you talk to her about it? I’m sure she’d enjoy the recognition, and perhaps when she felt that she had a position of her own in the college she’d be willing to come out of her shell and make friends.”
“I’ll try to lead up to it some way,” Mrs. Post promised warily. “She never wants to talk about college affairs, you see.”
A night or two later Betty was awakened out of a sound sleep by one of the Twin Digs, who stood over her with a candle, explainingin a sepulchral whisper, “There’s a girl in a fire-escape dangling outside my window.”
Betty rubbed her eyes, sat up, and, having thus assured herself that she was not dreaming nonsense, asked the Dig what she meant.
“Why, there’s a girl in a fire-escape dangling outside my window,” repeated the Dig hopelessly. “You know the new rope fire-escapes that are in all our rooms? Well, she evidently got into one up on the fourth floor, and started to slide to the ground, and somehow it’s stuck with her half-way down. I mean the part you put over your shoulders, that’s on a pulley to slide down the rope, has stuck and won’t slide. I couldn’t possibly pull her in alone, and I thought I’d better call you.”
“Yes, of course.” Betty jumped out of bed, and followed her incoherent informant up-stairs to a third floor single. The window was wide open and, sure enough, just out of reach, a girl, clearly visible in the moonlight, hung in mid-air, clinging to a dangling rope. When she saw the two figures appear in the lighted window, instead of calling to them or asking help or advice, she threw her wholeweight on the rope and gave one furious jerk. The pulley suddenly began to work again and, caught unprepared, she lost her hold on the rope. It slipped swiftly through her fingers and she was carried downward at a terrific rate, landing with a thud on the rose bed under the window.
Betty and the Dig had watched her descent in helpless horror. Now Betty seized the candle and raced down-stairs and out into the cold night, the Dig automatically following. Round to the back of the house they went, both expecting to find a senseless body, bruised and bleeding, on the ground. Instead a girl was walking rather stiffly out from among the burlap-swathed rose-bushes.
“I’m not hurt,” she called softly. “You’ll catch cold. Run back to your beds, please, and don’t mind me.”
Betty paused in amazement, and suddenly realizing that it was indeed bitterly cold for kimonos and Turkish slippers over bare feet she thrust the candle, which the moonlight rendered useless, into the Dig’s hands, and ordered her back into the house.
“I’ll come and see you later,” she explained.“Take the catch off the door for me. I want to be sure she really isn’t hurt, and——”
Betty hurried off. It wasn’t necessary to explain to the Dig how college discipline demanded that she discover the identity of the girl, and her reasons for making an exit from Morton Hall in so unconventional a fashion.
The girl was limping down the road toward the Belden House. “Wait!” Betty called, running after her. “It’s Miss Wales. I must speak to you a minute.”
The girl paused, glanced around as if counting the chances of escape, and waited.
“Aren’t you hurt?” Betty demanded as she came closer. “We thought the fall would surely stun you. Your hands must be terribly cut.”
“Oh, not much,” the girl answered, putting them resolutely behind her. “I had on gloves. And there was a little snow on the ground close to the house, to break the fall. You want to know who I am, Miss Wales, and what I was doing in the Morton so late. Well, it’s all very simple. I’m Helena Mason. I was up talking to Esther Bond and we gotinterested and didn’t hear either of the bells. I hated to bother any one to let me out, so I told Esther I’d slide down the fire-escape—it’s good practice for a fire. And because it stuck for a minute some silly girl imagined I needed help and called you. I’m sorry you were disturbed. The night-watchman will be along soon—if I can’t make some girl hear me right away and let me in. Won’t you please go back now?”
Betty was shivering with cold. “Yes, and you must come with me,” she said. “You limp dreadfully. Waiting out in the cold after a fall like that would be positively dangerous. The girl who rooms next to me is away, and you can go to bed there.”
“But I’d much rather go home,” Helena demurred. “I won’t have to wait but a minute, and I’m not at all cold.”
“You’re shivering this minute,” Betty told her, “and your hands are cut so that they’re bleeding on to the ground. You must come and let me fix them for you.” And putting her arm through Helena’s she hurried her back to Morton Hall.
Helena submitted in silence while Bettybathed and bandaged the torn hands, and helped her to undress.
“Now shall I tell Esther to come and say good-night?” she asked. “I’m going to tell the girl who discovered you that you’re really all right—we couldn’t believe our eyes when you got up and walked off—and I’ll go on up and tell Esther too. She must have seen you fall and she’ll be worrying.”
“Oh, no, she didn’t,” Helena assured her. “Please don’t disturb her, Miss Wales. I’m sure she’s sound asleep. And Miss Wales—will you have to tell the other girl—the one who saw me—who I am? I’d so much rather not. People will laugh at me so.”
“You ought to be thankful they haven’t got to mourn for you,” laughed Betty. “I can’t see how you escaped being badly hurt. Well, I won’t mention any name then, Miss Mason; only in return you must promise me never to go out of our house by such a dangerous route again.”
“I won’t,” agreed the girl. “You see I didn’t know you or Mrs. Post, and I thought you might be awfully cross at my having stayed after ten.”
“But Esther knew us,” Betty protested. “She oughtn’t to have let you try such a thing in the dark and cold unless there was a real necessity for it.”
“She had nothing to say about it, Miss Wales,” explained Helena coldly. “I’ve often—I’m not a bit afraid of a fire-escape, and I just said so and went ahead. She had nothing to do with it at all.”
The Dig was awake and waiting for Betty. She listened eagerly to the scant news that was vouchsafed her, and pointedly did not inquire Helena’s name.
“She knows who it was,” Betty guessed shrewdly.
“Let’s not say anything about it,” she suggested aloud. “It might frighten the girls about trying the new fire-escapes, and it will make this particular girl seem very absurd.”
“All right,” agreed the Dig briskly. “But such things always do get out, Miss Wales. Other people must have seen her hanging there or heard her fall and then the talking afterward.”
Betty crept up to the fourth floor, and knocked very softly on Esther Bond’s door.Instantly the door was unlocked, and Esther demanded nervously what the matter was.
“Nothing at all,” Betty quieted her, “but I thought you might know that Helena got carried down too fast on her fire-escape, so I came to tell you that she’s all right, only bruised a little and her hands are cut.”
“No, I didn’t know she fell,” said Esther apathetically, “but I heard you talking to her, and wondered why you had gone out after her. I’m glad she’s not hurt.”
“Next time you mustn’t let her try such a thing,” Betty told her gravely. “Call me and I’ll let out anybody who has stayed too late by mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake, Miss Wales,” Esther explained calmly. “Helena wasn’t ready to go at ten, so she stayed; that’s all. She comes here when she likes and goes when she likes, and as she likes. If you’re blaming me for this you don’t know Helena Mason.”
Helena insisted upon leaving before breakfast the next morning. Her hands were sore, and she was stiff and bruised all over, but she managed to dress without help, and insisted that she was well enough to get her booksand go to her classes. At noon she was back again, nervously inquiring for Betty.
“I lost a paper last night, Miss Wales,” she explained. “I had tucked it into my ulster pocket. Did you pick it up, or has anybody in this house found it and brought it to you or Mrs. Post?”
Betty had not seen the paper, but she promised to inquire. The Thorn, it developed, had found it that morning and given it to Esther Bond.
“It was in her writing,” she explained. “It was a Lit. paper, and a dandy one too. I read it. Wish I’d seen it before I handed mine in.” She grinned cheerfully. “I can say that to you, Miss Wales, because you can tell a joke when you see one. Helena Mason can’t. Rather than be laughed at for her fire-escape escapade she’s given the impression that she burned her hands with her student lamp. And the people who know what really happened are smiling a little and wondering a lot.”
A week later the Thorn came to Betty again, her eyes round with amazement. “I’m not a gossip, Miss Wales,” she began, “butthat paper—the one in Esther Bond’s writing that Miss Mason lost and I found—was read to-day in Lit. 6, as the best one handed in. And it was signed by Helena Mason. I wish now that I hadn’t read it. I never thought there was any harm in reading a theme that you happened to pick up.”
“There’s a lot of harm in jumping to conclusions,” Betty warned her hastily. “Helena’s writing may be so like Esther’s that it deceived you, or Esther may have copied Helena’s paper for her. That’s the right explanation, I’m sure. A good many girls hire their papers copied, you know.”
The Thorn sighed and stared at Betty admiringly. “And I never saw any possibility except that Helena Mason had hired her theme written. I must have a horrid, suspicious mind, I suppose, Miss Wales. I’m glad I came right to you first, and I shan’t mention the matter to any one else.”