CHAPTER XXXIV
ON Wednesday afternoon, Betty and Rose set out directly after dinner, ostensibly for Paulding, in reality for Millville, with nine dollars in the little pocket of Betty’s blouse for Dr. Vandegrift. Aunt Sarah had grumbled at her going in holiday time, but Betty’s father had declared she should do as she liked not only to-day but for all the vacation and see if she couldn’t pick up a little before she went back to school.
“It seems funny to talk of your having to pick up, Betty. You have certainly changed a lot in a year,” he declared kindly.
As she flushed, the girl was prettier than ever, and Pogany put his arm about her—she was nearly as tall as he—and drew her awkwardly to himself.
“I like that style of gown on you, Betty,” he observed. “You’ll be wanting spring and summer things soon, and I hope you’ll have ’em all like that or as near like as you can get.”
He turned to his sister. “You’ll remember that, won’t you, Sarah?” he asked. “You see to it that the stuff is good, Betty’ll look after the style, and I’ll foot the bills.”
Betty kissed him gratefully and tried to show a gratification she could not feel. She couldn’t think of anything but of getting over to Millville and seeing Dr. Vandegrift. She had said to herself that they had onlyto go over for this last time and to pay him for the three visits they had lost. It might be painful explaining, of course, and Dr. Vandegrift might demand three dollars more, but—that was all. And yet, that wasn’t all. Hope dies hard, and there was probably still a spark left in Betty’s breast. Dr. Vandegrift had told them that to lose one visit was extremely hazardous and to lose more than that absolutely fatal. Still, Rose had had and had responded surprisingly to nine treatments with the eye-cup. Wasn’t there a slight chance that all was not lost?
She was very quiet all the way. Rose, however, was full of spirits and laughed and chatted as blithely as ever. And Betty felt that her hope must be far the stronger, and was alternately cheered and appalled by the realization.
It had rained last night at Paulding, but snow had fallen in Millville, the last light fall of the season. Parrot Street wasn’t, therefore, so unsavory as usual; but the building in which the doctor had his office seemed to have grown far more ramshackle in the interval. Betty supposed it was only that she had rather forgotten how dismal it was; and of course the clean white snow made it the more conspicuous. But within, she was sure that it was far worse. The stairs fairly made her shudder. Wherefore, her heart sank the more sickeningly when she tried the door and found it fast.
“The catch must be down,” she said to Rose as she knocked lightly. “Of course he wouldn’t be expecting us after three weeks—four to-day. And he’s probably busy with someone else.”
She knocked again. Still there was no response. Thesilence was so oppressive that when she knocked more sharply she was startled by the reverberation.
“Nobody home!” observed Rose coolly.
“He’s probably just stepped out to get something,” Betty explained. “Of course with that battery and the eye-cup and all those valuable things, he’d just have to lock the door. We’ll wait, Rose dear.”
Presently Rose suggested that Dr. Vandegrift might be within and had fallen asleep. Whereupon Betty began pounding upon the door. Still nothing happened. She kept it up for some time until Rose put a warning hand on her shoulder.
“Listen, Betty, what’s that?” she asked. Betty listened. A voice came up from below.
“Saaye, Mees! Saaye, Mees!” it called, and taking Rose’s arm, Betty led her down. At the foot of the stair, she saw a slatternly-looking foreign woman who smiled and moved her hands in sweeping gestures.
“Go-o,” she said, rolling her eyes grotesquely. “Go-o, go-o. Saaye, mees, cop! cop!”
“What does she mean, Rose?” Betty whispered.
“I think she wants us to go and is saying that if you make such a racket the cop’ll be after us,” Rose returned, and addressed the woman. “You want us toGO?” making the last word very emphatic.
“Ya, go-o, go-o,” the woman said, raising her hands palms outwards, and adding “cop!”
Once outside, Rose’s hand tightened on Betty’s arm. “I know why he isn’t here. You know to-morrow’s fast day. Well, he comes from another state, and it’s probably fast day there to-day.”
Betty accepted the suggestion with great relief.
“And yet, I should think he might have come just the same,” she added.
“He believes we’ve given up, of course, after all this time.”
“Yes, but all his other patients. Don’t you suppose there’s any of them that ought not to miss a week in their treatment?”
Rose shrugged her shoulders. “Well, we might as well give up now, don’t you think?” she asked coolly.
“We’ve got to pay him, so we’ll have to come next Wednesday,” Betty declared. “And—O, Rose, it may not be so bad after all. Perhaps having the nine treatments, it won’t be—too late. You could have one next week and then perhaps for next term Dr. Vandegrift would give us a later hour.”
“How about the money?” Rose asked.
“O, we’ll get the money all right,” Betty assured her.
Rose sighed. “Well, it would be an awful bother, and there’d be a row about our getting home late. And anyhow, Betty, I don’t care much,” she confessed. “I don’t really mind being blind at all. I have such good times right along and you and I are always together. Everybody is lots nicer to me than if I could see and it’s exciting doing everything—the most common, ordinary things. I can write my papers and examinations with that nice frame your father made me, and I don’t mind not taking algebra. And really, I seem to do a lot better with my music.”
Betty stopped and kissed her warmly. She didn’t at all accept Rose’s words at their face value; she simply was more than ever impressed with her bravery and self-denial. And she was more than ever determined uponmaking a desperate attempt on the following Wednesday to persuade Dr. Vandegrift to give them another chance.
That Wednesday being the regular day of the Sewing Society, she had no difficulty in getting away, and Mrs. Harrow was always lenient. The girls repeated the process of the week before only too literally, for when they had climbed the dirty stair, they found the door locked as before. Again, there was no response to Betty’s knocks and frantic appeals. She kept up, however, long after she knew it was vain, only yielding when the warning calls of the foreign woman from below made her fear lest she have them arrested, smiling as she was.
It was clear that Dr. Vandegrift had gone finally—that he came no longer for his weekly day for appointments at Paulding. Betty supposed that what he had feared had happened—that the jealous doctors had tracked him to his hiding-place and driven him away. It came to her with a terrible pang that discovery of him might have come through her—or rather through Mr. Meadowcroft. Betty was quite aware that there had been a great deal of comment at South Paulding concerning Rose and herself since Mr. Meadowcroft had made them conspicuous. Suppose from it that awful Dr. Mellen had guessed about their going to Millville and had done as Dr. Vandegrift had more than once said he had threatened to do—made it hot for the distinguished specialist! It seemed very likely. And if it were so, Mr. Meadowcroft was responsible not only for spoiling Rose’s life but for who knows what injury to Dr. Vandegrift’s other patients?
Even such painful thoughts which occupied Betty as they passed through the town were not so cruel as theutter blackness of despair that presently settled upon her as she realized that now hope had utterly vanished. Rose, who knew from her voice something of Betty’s distress, repeated her assurances of the preceding week, but to-day they only made the situation worse. Betty felt that she couldn’t bear to have Rose endeavor to keep up the struggle longer. It would be far better for her to give way. If she continued to lock such bitter anguish up in her heart, might it not prove fatal?
And then it came to the girl that perhaps that was to be the end of it all. Perhaps by the time June had come, instead of recovering her sight in the manner in which they had anticipated, Rose should have died from a broken heart! It came coldly to Betty Pogany that perhaps this was to be the answer to her prayers—the only possible answer since Mr. Meadowcroft’s interference. Perhaps Rose was indeed to recover her sight in June, but not on earth—only in paradise!