CHAPTER II
MRS. PHILLIPS had friends in Paulding and other towns nearby, and though she was in mourning and did not go out much, entertained constantly at home. But on this particular night she and her brother were alone at dinner, and he took occasion to ask her about the young girl in whom he already felt warm interest. For though Mrs. Phillips did not associate with the village people, she knew the history of everyone and was always informed as to what was going on about her.
“O—Bouncing Bet, you mean?” she exclaimed, and laughed in her pretty, artificial way. “I wonder, Humphrey, if you remember a story we read as children—at least, I did—called ‘The Baby Giant’?”
Meadowcroft did not recall it.
“Well, Bouncing Bet always makes me think of the pictures in that story—there’s one where he’s climbing over a wall, and is stuck, I believe—she’s just so big and lumbering, with just such a big baby face and placid sort of cow-like expression. Then there’s another where the baby giant is crying—such an absurd spectacle, his mouth puckered up, fists in his eyes, and baby tears rolling down the cheeks of a six- or eight- or I-don’t-know-how-many-footer. Well, when Bouncing Bet was ever so much younger, but big as a girl of twelve really, she used to cry if the children called her names; and, Humphrey, she was the baby giant over again. I just wish you could have seen her.”
Her brother didn’t echo her wish. He changed the subject rather abruptly. He didn’t like the idea of a woman recalling with unmixed amusement the picture of a big little girl crying because her feelings were hurt. And he felt the more concerned for the girl.
He watched for her rather eagerly next morning. Presently he caught sight of her coming towards the house, head and shoulders above her companion. She walked slowly, of a truth, as Tommy had said, and he had opportunity for a searching scrutiny.
Tall and very large, Meadowcroft saw that the girl was square and massive, so to speak, rather than fat. She was altogether too large—he couldn’t gainsay that—but she wasn’t shapeless or clumsy. With different clothing her figure wouldn’t, Meadowcroft decided, be bad; it would be rather like certain Greek statues, indeed, though her proportions probably exceeded the most ample of those marbles, and she was, perhaps, too big even for an Amazon.
But her style of dress was most unfortunate, as if it had been designed to call attention to her size. She wore a white blouse drawn in very tightly at the waist under a leather belt, bulging out below which a dark stuff skirt reached her ankles. Her hat was small and suited to an old lady, and her fair hair, which waved prettily about her ears, was drawn into a tight knob at her neck. And while the other school-girls wore attractive shoes with ribbon lacings, she wore ugly, pointed-toed, high-heeled boots which looked too tight and made her heavy step mincing at the same time.
Meadowcroft had not sufficient time to study her face to catch its expression—or, according to his sister, lackof expression. But he saw that though her face was large and square, it was not what is called plump. Rather, there was a flatness, a sort of Indian cast to her features. Her profile was good, with a clear-cut chin, and her color clear and fine. Perhaps, indeed, that sweet pink in her cheeks gave her a kindlier resemblance to the pretty posy whence her nickname had come than her size to its flaunting and rather inappropriate name.
Meantime, having passed the Phillips house, Betty Pogany turned and glanced shyly back. Tommy had left the kindlings he had been chopping and run down the lane on which his house stood to tell her that the lame gentleman at Mrs. Phillips’s wanted her to come to see him just as soon as she possibly could, and she felt pleased and rather excited. If only Aunt Sarah wouldn’t object too seriously. She would be sure to object and strenuously. Scarcely anyone in South Paulding liked Mrs. Phillips and Aunt Sarah couldn’t bear her, and if she had her way wouldn’t allow Betty to enter her house. But as the lady did a great deal of trading with Betty’s father, who was a hardware merchant, there was an even chance of her being allowed to accept the invitation given by Mrs. Phillips’s brother.
It proved more than even. Aunt Sarah, who was an extremely exacting woman and almost always had her way, told Betty that she certainly should not go a step, talked about Mrs. Phillips for a quarter of an hour, and upbraided the girl for wishing to enter the house of one who thought herself so much better than her neighbors. But that evening when she bade her brother forbid Betty to visit the mansion, George Pogany decided that if Mr. Meadowcroft wanted to see his daughter, she should go.She needn’t, however, let it interfere with her practising. She must wait until Saturday afternoon.
“Of course, father,” the girl assented seriously.
“But that doesn’t mean, I hope, that you’ll neglect Rosy, Betty?” he demanded. And Betty, who was highly elated, declared that she should of course go first to the Harrows’.
“Well, then, it’ll surely be a case of the lame, the halt, and the blind,” her father remarked facetiously.
“For my part, I don’t call a man that passes his days in a wheeled chair and rides out in a broughamlame. I should call him a cripple, just as everybody would if he didn’t live in the finest house in the country with that stuck-up Mrs. Phillips,” declared Miss Pogany severely.
Betty knew that it wasn’t a brougham but a victoria Mr. Meadowcroft drove in, and as Tommy had told her about the crutches, she believed the wordlameadmissible. But she said nothing. It was almost second nature to the girl to repress her thoughts and feelings. Perhaps it was long experience of repression that had molded her countenance to that impassive, Indian-like type which only Humphrey Meadowcroft had noticed.
But when she was alone in her room, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Betty Pogany sighed more than once, despite the fact that she had the coveted permission to call on the stranger whom Tommy found enchanting. It hurt her almost cruelly to have Aunt Sarah call him a cripple in that cold, scornful fashion. Furthermore, she knew that she had a number of very uncomfortable days before her. Had Betty’s father confirmed her decision, Aunt Sarah would have had nothing further tosay. As it was, she would be very resentful; she would bring up the matter again and again and Betty would have no peace except while she was at school and during the evenings when her father wasn’t at the shop.