CHAPTER XXXII
BY the time school was dismissed and the extra class called upon to recite, Betty’s feelings were so wrought up that she felt like throwing her books on the floor and screaming. She couldn’t bear to look at Rose. She couldn’t endure thinking what their presence here—their absence from Dr. Vandegrift’s office—signified. And yet she could think of nothing else.
She wasn’t prepared with the lesson. After she had failed twice, Meadowcroft asked if she hadn’t studied it.
“A little,” she said.
“A little—what does that mean?”
“On the train last night,” she said. She didn’t explain that even that little preparation had been perfunctory. For in her heart she had believed that she wouldn’t be present at the recitation. She would be at Millville or on the way back.
Meadowcroft looked at her despairingly.
“And you have had nearly two hours just now,” he declared. “You have had nothing since ten minutes before two. Do you mean to tell me you wasted all that time?”
Chatter about wasting time meant little to Betty’s broken heart.
“I wasn’t studying,” she replied with quiet dignity.
Even Tommy was surprised that Meadowcroft, with no inkling of understanding, kept his patience in the face of what must have looked like extreme stubbornness.He merely warned her that it mustn’t happen again. Thereafter he would expect her to be prepared without exception for every lesson. And he would hear her recite this at noon to-morrow.
That night as Meadowcroft sat alone, depressed and disheartened, his sister came flying in with something to communicate which her manner announced to be startling and amusing. He didn’t care to see her at that moment. He felt too sore to strive to detect anything amusing in what she should offer. He was so grieved and discouraged with regard to Betty Pogany that he wished to be left alone, even though he had given up getting any light upon the matter. And yet, it seemed wrong to give up. Quite apart from his particular affection for Betty, Humphrey Meadowcroft felt that he must have been shocked and pained to see such a change in any young girl as had come over her. It was appalling to see any girl growing more unruly and stubborn from day to day and to be powerless to arrest the process.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have felt so much at sea if Betty had been a boy. In that case, however, the situation wouldn’t be the same. Tommy Finnemore, less guilty,—not guilty at all, perchance,—took his punishment blithely and was his own genial, happy, whimsical self the while; but the girl resented receiving less than her desert and haughtily demanded to be left free to choose her own course of action. What could lie at the bottom of it? If only he could get some inkling!
Isabel Phillips appearing at that instant, her brother held the question in abeyance there. But the expression on his face indicated the same thing as if she had come upon him reading, and he had closed the book with histhumb marking the place so that he could open it the moment he should be free.
“Humphrey, what do you think they have got around about Bouncing Bet?” she asked facetiously.
He started. He didn’t like to hear his sister’s gossip in regard to the school children; and he disliked to hear her speak thus of Betty, who wasn’t now, to say truth, any morebouncingthan Isabel herself. Yet he looked at her in sharp inquiry. He almost wondered if he had thought aloud and she had heard his exclamation.
“They say that she has been running away from school once a week all winter to visit a beauty specialist for treatment to reduce her flesh!” she declared eagerly.
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. But he winced secretly.
“No nonsense about it,” she retorted. “It’s plain fact.”
“But the girl doesn’t need it, Isabel,” he protested.
“Certainly not now. But she thought she did at the start. She has lost pounds and pounds and pounds. I got a good look at her myself to-day and I was struck dumb, honestly, Humphrey. She had the courage of her convictions, and yet—the silly little gump really looks shockingly now and I should think Pa Pogany would come down upon her. I wonder you haven’t noticed how white and thin she is!”
He had, indeed, noticed it. And he was shocked to recollect that he had noticed more than once that she hadn’t eaten her luncheon. Isabel’s story truly carried conviction. Greatly distressed, Meadowcroft puzzled over the matter far into the night. He hated terribly to credit such an explanation of Betty’s strange conduct, but it accounted for the girl’s behavior as nothing elsecould. To him, it seemed worse than silly. It seemed monstrous to his mind. And selfish—to think that she should have dragged Tommy and the innocent Rose into the net! He never would have believed it of Betty! And yet, every circumstance, every detail fitted into that theory and he was forced to accept it as fact.
As Betty had cried herself to sleep after hours of agony the night before, she looked worse than ever when Meadowcroft saw her at school Thursday morning. Mistaken, naughty, vain, headstrong as the girl was, his heart went out to her. He was terribly sorry for her, and he began to be less shocked. After suffering all her life because of her size, she had suddenly taken things into her own hands and resolved upon a change. He had himself given her the idea; and after all, she was only thirteen. She had felt that she had a right to secure what she felt to be a boon at almost any cost. Doubtless she had had to maintain absolute secrecy because of her Aunt Sarah; and in any event he could scarcely have expected her to confide in him in this instance. She would realize that he wouldn’t have countenanced any such thing. She had accepted his efforts to preserve order in the school as persecution, and her stubbornness doubtless seemed to herself righteous indignation.
He longed to speak some word of comfort to the child, but he had no opportunity. He longed also to protest against her mad course of action, but he didn’t feel that he could, for he had no definite information. But he wondered why someone else didn’t speak to her, didn’t warn her that she was going too far. What did the girl want, anyhow? Did she wish to become a skeleton?
A week passed. Meadowcroft saw that Betty continuedthe process of starvation. She scarcely tasted her luncheon. But she ceased to struggle. Apparently resigned to the inevitable, she kept up with her lessons and helped Rose as ever with hers. On the Wednesday, the day of her weekly visit to the mysterious beauty specialist, she was noticeably restless—poor, silly child, she was, indeed, almost tragically so. And on the second Thursday she looked really ill. Meadowcroft was extremely concerned, but he hardly knew how to approach her. She was uniformly and frigidly polite towards him, but manifestly she wished to have nothing to say to him beyond what was absolutely necessary.
He began to feel more kindly towards Rose than he had ever done. Though he had been moved to admiration by her dramatic appeal to Betty’s father in the late summer, he had forgotten it in the course of the year, and had unconsciously cherished almost a grudge against the girl because she had so monopolized Betty and had seemed to take her devotion for granted. Now he felt that Rose had redeemed herself rather handsomely. He understood the girl sufficiently to be aware that the audacity of the course Betty had taken would appeal strongly to her; but she had gone on sharing the peril when it had gone beyond mere risk; she had shared the blame and the punishment without a word. She was, in a word, as loyal as Tommy himself to their erring friend.
The days passed rather drearily. The last Wednesday of the term, which found Meadowcroft seriously depressed, found Betty Pogany utterly forlorn. Again, as on the preceding days when the train had gone to Millville without them, wild thoughts of flight came to thegirl, only to be wearily dismissed. It was too late now, anyhow. Having missed two weeks, the third meant nothing—nor the twenty-third. Everything was lost! There was nothing to do but to wait for the first Wednesday in the Easter vacation, go to Dr. Vandegrift to explain the situation and pay him the nine—or would it be twelve?—dollars that would be his due.
But even that would be difficult—getting the money together. Obliged as they had been to ride home every night for the three weeks, with a few stormy mornings additional, she and Rose had saved only two dollars. And of Tommy’s gift of five dollars but three remained. Moreover, Tommy’s father, since his punishment at school, had ceased to allow him the money he saved on railroad fares, so he was unable to contribute further. After much hesitation and anxiety, Betty finally decided, on that Wednesday, to appeal to her father. She would beg him for a loan which she would return on her birthday in July.
She was spared the necessity of so doing. Pogany, who was a very busy man and spent most of his evenings at the shop, was the last to notice how badly his daughter was looking. But when, shortly before the day when Betty determined to speak to him, he was suddenly struck by the change in her, he was startled and deeply concerned.
He knew that Betty was being kept after school every night as a punishment, but had no idea what her fault had been. His sister had come to him when Betty had refused to explain to her and asked him to compel her to do so, reminding him that when they were children and had been punished at school, they had been punishedagain at home. But he had bidden Sarah leave the girl alone. He hadn’t felt like being stern with the child. Betty was a good girl. Over and over during this first year of her going to school at Paulding, he had himself been impressed by her sweetness and goodness; and his old friend Bob Harrow had come to him more than once with tears in his eyes to dwell upon her wonderful kindness to his little, afflicted Rosy. Her Aunt Sarah, he had realized, had always been hard on Betty, and he feared he had rather backed her up in it. But he hadn’t done it of late, and certainly he wouldn’t now. He hardly knew what he ought to do. Had the girl’s mother lived, she would have known—though quite likely had Bess been alive it would never have happened.
It hurt him to see how the girl grieved over her punishment, and on the night when she was hanging about to get a chance to ask him for the money, he spoke to her. They had finished tea, and Miss Pogany went into the pantry to mix bread.
“Betty, my child,” he said with awkward kindness, “I am afraid you are taking your medicine pretty hard. Now see here, don’t you mind it any more. Whatever you did is over and done with and can’t be helped. I shouldn’t wonder at all if Mr. Meadowcroft had been a mite too particular and severe. He’s a fine man and we’re all proud to have him in our midst and hope he will remain; but I don’t suppose he knows much about boys and girls. And then, people that have always been rich and used to being waited on can hardly help being rather high and mighty and overbearing. But the term is almost over now, and Mr. Appleton will be back and everything will be merry again. And I want my littlegirl to be merry. I want you to cheer up right away. I’m going to give you five dollars to get you something gay and pretty. You can go over to Paulding to spend it any day you like in your holidays and meanwhile you can be planning what you’ll buy.”
Betty tried to speak. Then she went to her father, dropped her head on his shoulder, and wept silently.
“There, there, cry if you like, child,” he murmured, drawing her to his knee and stroking her hair gently with his big bony hand. “Cry it out and then put your mind on the pretty thing you can buy with your money.”
“By the way, George,” Miss Pogany began before she reached the dining room. And Betty, slipping down, fled precipitately. But her father followed her to the stair, tucked a five-dollar note into her hand, squeezed it, and returned to his sister.