CHAPTER VII
MRS. PHILLIPS rushed into her brother’s room in unwonted excitement. “Humphrey, look quick! Bouncing Bet is going by, and—willyou see her! Did you ever see the like of that?”
“I saw her Monday morning, Isabel,” Meadowcroft returned quietly. “And I have noticed her a number of times since. It is certainly a singular change. It’s a genuine transformation.”
“Rather a pity, it seems to me,” Mrs. Phillips rejoined a bit sharply, for she felt he approved. “She was of the real peasant type, with broad shoulders and hips and compressed waist, and might better, in my opinion, have remained true to type. Now she looks like—anyone.”
“Isabel, you are truly absurd, talking about peasant types in America, especially in this country village where your husband grew up and went barefoot after the cows and then milked them,” her brother returned warmly. “There isn’t a child in South Paulding, so far as I know, that isn’t as American as you or I; and I fancy Betty Pogany’s forbears are quite as respectable as ours. And if you’re talking about types, that girl is nearer the Greek marble type than the peasant. I felt something monumental in her, also, when I talked to her, something essentially noble. Well—we shall see.” And Humphrey Meadowcroft sighed.
Mrs. Phillips resented the sigh, or the cause of it.She was fond of her brother and felt assured that if he would only become a genuine member of her household, instead of an alien dwelling under her roof, he would be better occupied than by a quixotic interest in stupid children which made him low-spirited. For herself, she never sighed in that manner—as if it hurt.
“Brother, let me tell you something for your own good. Stick to little Finnemore,” she said lightly. “He’s grubby, but there is something rather taking about the youngster for all that. On the other hand—believe me, it’s a big risk to allow anyone so heavy and ponderous as Bouncing Bet to settle herself on your threshold. You remember the kind-hearted traveler who invited the camel into his tent?”
Meadowcroft smiled vaguely. He scarcely heard what his sister was saying. He was marveling to see Betty Pogany making her rapid way up the street toward the corner beyond which the Harrows lived—it was Saturday, and Tommy had told him that Betty always visited her former schoolmate on the afternoon of her holiday. The girl was fairly striding. She went easily, lightly and even gracefully, too, with all her speed,—he could almost see in her a Greek Victory blown by the wind. It wasn’t that the change was marvelous in itself. It was perfectly simple and natural. The wonder was that it should have come about so quickly—instantaneously, it would seem—and that a shy child like Betty should exhibit no self-consciousness. When she had passed the house on Monday at noon (Meadowcroft had missed her in the morning, for she had gone early with her father that he might get her some sensible shoes) she had been as unconcerned and unself-conscious as if nothing hadhappened—as if she had always been a picturesque, graceful, rather charming, big little girl.
There was an explanation, however, and a very good one. Had Mr. Meadowcroft known the nature of Betty Pogany’s errand to-day he might have guessed the answer to the riddle immediately. It was that vision of Sunday morning that had flashed upon her and had dwelt with her all through the week. For six days, the girl had trodden on air, buoyed by the consciousness of that secret vision. In her absorption therein, she had so completely forgotten herself that she had fallen, almost unawares, into habitudes which must otherwise only have been acquired slowly and with repeated, perhaps painful effort. Upborne by the vision, stimulated by the adventure of it, Betty had dropped her husk of maturity as easily as a snake sloughs his skin, and, freed from the fetters of constraint and convention, had appeared naturally and almost unconsciously as the girl of twelve she really was. Only when she was reminded by Aunt Sarah’s resentful silence at home or some remark from her schoolmates, or a chance glance in the mirror (she still avoided mirrors by second nature) did Betty remember herself. Otherwise the vision wholly monopolized her.
Tommy had scarcely seen her all the week and had begged her to come in on Saturday afternoon to see him do the wonderful trick with the bottom of a glass bottle. Mr. Meadowcroft’s Herbie had collected over three dozen bottles, and as soon as his father should let him off from his Saturday morning chores Tommy was to begin on them, and he would be ready for her at any time after dinner. Betty decided to go to him first. Alleagerness as she was to get away, her rigid training and her unselfishness sustained her. She listened sympathetically to a tale of thirty-odd failures and of Tommy’s trouble with his father because of the amount of broken glass in the woodshed, and watched with her wonted hopeful interest a substitute trick he tried to perform. It wasn’t successful, and she agreed with Tommy that picking up broken glass had spoiled the sensitiveness of his hands for that day. But she gently refused to wait to see him try again, rushed down to the shop on an errand for Aunt Sarah, and, when Mr. Meadowcroft saw her and marveled, was hastening to her real journey’s end.
When Mrs. Harrow opened the door, Betty’s eyes shone so deeply and her cheeks glowed so rosily, that in other circumstances that lady must have wondered. But she hadn’t seen the girl since the preceding Saturday, and there was something far more striking and startling to discover about her than shining eyes and glowing cheeks. She stared at her in utter amazement, her face, which, since Rose’s illness, had taken on a seemingly permanent expression of half-fretful, half-despairing anxiety, becoming void for the nonce of all save sheer wonderment.
“Why, Betty Pogany!” she cried. Then she recollected herself and dropped her voice to the hushed, sepulchral half-whisper which had become habitual with her and which seemed to Betty to-day worse than ever before. “What does this mean—your hair down and a short skirt and—you have left off—— I suppose it is just a Saturday afternoon frolic, but I wonder your aunt let you come out in the street so.”
“O no, it isn’t just for to-day, it’s for always—or until I am really grown-up,” Betty returned in her clear, sweet voice, which she did not lower though Mrs. Harrow’s finger flew quickly to her lips in warning. “I’m going to wear my hair in a tail and my skirts like this till I’m seventeen or eighteen; and father’s forbidden me to wear corsets.”
Mrs. Harrow looked at the girl as if she believed she was out of her head and was wondering whether she was dangerous.
“How is Rose?” Betty asked eagerly.
“About the same,” whispered Mrs. Harrow lugubriously. “Don’t say anything to her, Betty about—your clothes, you know, and your hair. You won’t, will you?”
“But, Mrs. Harrow, why not? What’s the harm?” the girl asked eagerly. And Mrs. Harrow stared harder than before.
“Why, Betty Pogany! to think of your asking that! I have always thought I could trust you just like an older person,” Mrs. Harrow whispered reproachfully, her eyes round and shocked. “You ought to know yourself that it would make Rose feel terribly, for you know how I try to keep her from thinking of old times.”
“But, Mrs. Harrow, whatcanshe think of?” the girl asked warmly. “She’s got to think of something, Rose has, and there isn’t anything but old times, is there, unless you let me talk about things going on now?”
“She can think about the book I’m reading to her,” declared Rose’s mother severely. “It is sweet and soothing and—I think, Betty, you had just better go right on with it to-day instead of talking or singing. If youtalk—your voice is different and I am sure it would excite her. And if you come to anything in the book that you think would excite her, just leave it out. But be very careful about it. Don’t stop or let her dream that you’re skipping anything. Rosy’s so nervous that——”
“Mama!” called Rose fretfully from the room beyond the passage, “why doesn’t Betty come in?”
“Poor darling, she’s very suspicious lately,” whispered Mrs. Harrow, and hurried Betty in.
“Betty had to stop in the entry a minute to—to fix something,” she explained nervously. “She came as soon as—it was all right, Rosy darling. I suppose it did seem long.”
“But, mama, what were you saying all that time?” demanded the hollow-eyed girl querulously. “I heard you whispering and whispering and whispering.”
Mrs. Harrow glanced at Betty in dismay, but she answered hurriedly.
“O, I wasn’t whispering, Rosy, but I suppose my voice was husky because of reading so long, and we were only talking about how people don’t half sew braid on skirts nowadays,” she said glibly, the while Betty’s eyes grew round with an amazement that was almost horror. “You know, darling, Betty being such a great girl and wearing long dresses has to have braid on the bottom of her skirt just as ladies do.”
Deeply shocked by such duplicity in one whom she had always respected, Betty dropped weakly into a chair. But her spirit did not fail her. And when Mrs. Harrow began to point at the open book, puckering her lips and grimacing grotesquely, though the girl knew what shemeant, she wouldn’t respond. Mrs. Harrow, however, was equal to the occasion.
“What’s that, Betty?” she asked, affably rhetorical. “O—that book? I’m reading it to Rosy and it is very sweet, indeed. I want just to run out and do my marketing before Mr. Harrow gets back, and if you want to go on with the book while I’m gone, I sha’n’t feel rushed. Page 63 is where I stopped. See, right there. You might just read that sentence over to get a good start.”
Betty took the book and read the sentence in docile fashion. She went on quietly and Mrs. Harrow, after standing on the threshold a few moments, left the room. Betty read steadily until she heard the gate slam to. Then she stopped in the midst of a sentence.