CHAPTER X
TOMMY passed on Mr. Meadowcroft’s word to Betty and the girl went in the next day after school. Prepared as he had been to see a transformation, Meadowcroft was nevertheless almost startled to see the change in the girl’s face that had been brought about within ten days. How was it possible that that mature, “settled” expression could have been displaced by the eager, almost adventurous look that is the very quintessence of youth? Even the “bee in the bonnet” theory couldn’t wholly account for the marvel. The potentiality of it must have been latent for many a day.
“I’ll come in again Saturday if you want me to, Mr. Meadowcroft,” the girl said sweetly, “but I can’t stay to-day more than fifteen minutes. I’ve got to do all my practising before I go to walk with Rose. Usually I do over half in the morning.”
“But you overslept this morning?” he guessed.
The girl shook her head.
“No, sir, but Aunt Sarah made me sweep my room all over—take everything out and sweep and dust and put ’em all back. I always do it Saturdays, but I was in a hurry last Saturday and didn’t do it very well. And Aunt Sarah was using the dust-pan and I swept the dirt all in one corner behind the door and was going to take it up after dinner and forgot it. And Aunt Sarah found it yesterday!”
The girl smiled faintly. Meadowcroft understood the rest.
“I should have come in to see you anyhow either to-day or to-morrow, even if you hadn’t sent word by Tommy, Mr. Meadowcroft,” she said. “I wanted—to ask you something.”
“That’s mighty good of you,” he declared, not dreaming the nature of her request.
Betty colored in happy confusion. That was a singular way of looking at things! She proceeded in perfect confidence.
“Tommy said he told you all about Rose,” she began, “and how Rose wants to go to high school with the rest of us. But without knowing Rose, you could never, never guess, Mr. Meadowcroft, how very, very much she wants to go. She would almost rather—well, not be alive at all, if she has to stay at home—and she could do it easily—I mean she could study and catch up. But her mother won’t let her. She won’t listen when Rose tries to talk to her about it. She’s scared to death. She thinks—O, that all sorts of awful things would happen.”
Meadowcroft frowned. To himself he said that evidently Mrs. Harrow was stupid and foolish. To Betty he said that if the lady didn’t wish her daughter to go to school, she should teach her herself or have her taught at home.
“O, but, Mr. Meadowcroft, Rose would hate that!” the girl protested. “She wants it all—the going and coming and being with the others, you see, just as much as the studies. She wants—why, just as you told me,you know. She wants to be a school-girl among school-girls.”
He smiled.
“Her father thinks just as her mother does,” Betty went on. “Mrs. Harrow really just lives for Rose, and if only she wasn’t so afraid something would happen, I think she’d give in and let her go. If someone older would talk to her, she might see that it wouldn’t be really dangerous, and—O, Mr. Meadowcroft, if you would ask her, she would do it in a minute! Would it be too much trouble? Would you be willing to?”
Her cheeks were very pink, her eyes softly bright, her lips parted eagerly. Meadowcroft stared at her a moment as if he hadn’t understood. Then he frowned.
“My dear child, is it possible you don’t know that I never go anywhere?” he asked. “I haven’t called anywhere—I haven’t been into a private house for twenty years.”
The girl’s look of wonder, of disappointment, though there was no shadow of reproach in it, acted upon Humphrey Meadowcroft like a challenge. He felt constrained to defend himself. But how could he do that? It came to the man coldly that he couldn’t explain that it was owing to his sensitiveness because of his crippled condition. He wouldn’t even have had the girl know that not for the world would he have crossed the room on his crutches before her. Frowning still, he sat silent.
Betty stifled a sigh and rose. Coming to his chair, she towered above him, a baby giant, indeed, but with a light in her soft-brown eyes that hurt and almost shamed him.
“I’m sorry if I was thoughtless, Mr. Meadowcroft,”she said gently. “I—didn’t understand. And it will be—all right.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Harrow would come in to see me?” he proposed suddenly. “I should be very glad to talk with her and would do my best to persuade her of the feasibility of her daughter’s going to the high school. Will you ask her, please, Betty, and let me know to-morrow night?”
The girl’s face lighted up as she agreed eagerly. With a shy “Good-night,” she vanished quickly. Meadowcroft sat frowningly silent and motionless. After some little time, he took his crutches, rose, and made his awkward way to a balcony in the rear whence a flight of broad, low steps led to a grass plot below enclosed by brick walls. Here, he walked for one hour daily. He had already spent an hour here this morning, but now he repeated it. At the end, he was so fatigued as almost to forget that sense of remissness that seemed like remorse.