Nevertheless, when the first temptation came Polly fell. One night she spent in indecision, wondering why Miss Margaret Adams had not written to her about her friend or why Miss Adams, their elocution teacher, had said nothing. These questions, however, Polly finally answered satisfactorily to herself, since it is usually easy to find answers that accord with one’s own desires. By morning she had made up her mind that she would go and see the stranger and have a talk with him, since no harm could come of one small visit.
The appointment was to take place at the home of Meg, whose Professor father was one of the most prominent men in the village and Polly was told to bring a chaperon, so from the standpoint of propriety she was committing no offence. She had not seen Meg for a week and so could ask her no questions, and as Betty was the only person who could be relied upon in the emergency, to Betty she confided the whole situation, not in the least asking her advice, since this was not the way with Mistress Polly, but begging Betty to be present with her during the call. If Betty demurred at first, suggesting Miss Dyer, Miss McMurtry, Miss Mary Adams, as more suitable chaperons, she did finally agree. So early on Friday afternoon the two girls started into town in their best clothes, saying that they were going in on an errand. Betty was driving Fire Star and Polly carrying a volume of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Palgrave’s Golden Treasury.” The note had suggested that since Miss Margaret Adams had had no opportunity to hear Miss O’Neill recite, the writer would be interested to know what she could do.
Polly was cold with nervous excitement all the way into town. She was not in the least sure whether she did not dread the coming interview more than anything that had ever happened to her in her life and she also had very uncomfortable twinges of conscience, since this venture of hers had no grown-up sanction. There had been no time as yet to write her mother about it and she had not confided in Mollie, who once had known all her secrets. Indeed, had she not even felt glad that Mollie had decided not to return to the cabin after school that day but to remain in town with a friend, so that no uncomfortable family questions could be raised.
By special request Betty was invited not to talk on the journey in, so that Polly could have the opportunity for repeating to herself the poems she had made up her mind to recite and go once more over Juliet’s famous lament.
The hall at the Professor’s was unusually dark when Meg herself, to the girls’ delight, opened the front door. Polly was by this time in too agitated a condition to stop for asking questions, but although Betty was not, Meg did not seem willing to answer them. Instead she kept shaking her head and pointing mysteriously toward their drawing room door. “The stranger was already in there, yes, her father knew him, Polly must not mind that the visitor had his wife with him, she was also an actress upon whose judgment he placed the greatest reliance, but the girls were not to do more than bow to her, as it bored her to meet people.”
If the hall was dark the drawing room was even darker, but then before joining the Camp Fire club Meg had been a proverbially poor housekeeper, so she probably had neglected to open the drawing room shutters and, as it was a dark February afternoon, the light that came through the slats was not sufficient. Betty felt most distinctly that she was not going to enjoy the approaching interview, that there was already something odd and uncomfortable about it, but she had no opportunity for confiding her views and Polly was not in a critical humor. As for the darkness Polly was decidedly grateful for it. If she had to get up and recite before Meg and Betty and the two strangers it would be far easier to be in the half shadow than to have their critical glances full upon her. This drawing room recitation before so small an audience did not appeal to Polly anyhow, certainly it held none of the glamour of the stage, the music, the footlights, the feeling that you were no longer your real self but a performer in some other drama in some different world.
Betty sat down at once in a far corner, as she saw no notice was to be taken of her, but Polly felt herself having her hand shaken coldly by a tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man wearing glasses, with an iron gray, pointed beard and iron gray hair pulled low down over his forehead. He seemed, however, not to have the least desire for conversation, for waving Polly toward the center of the room, he at once asked her to show what she could do, without introducing his wife nor making the least satisfactory explanation of his own presence in Woodford, his acquaintance with Miss Margaret Adams, nor his right to have solicited this meeting with Polly.
However, none of these points weighed upon the girl’s mind at the time. The man looked just as she expected an actor-manager might look, and as for his wife, she could see nothing of her but a figure dressed in a long traveling coat and wearing a hat and heavy veil, who had not even deigned to glance in her direction.
“What—what shall I begin with?” Polly inquired anxiously. “Miss Adams, our teacher of elocution at the High School, says that young girls should try simple recitations, that it is absurd for us to attempt to reveal the great emotions such as one finds in Shakespeare’s plays, or Ibsen’s or Maeterlinck’s, that we must wait until we know something more of life for them. I did not feel sure what you would think about it, but I know some English poems, very famous and very beautiful, perhaps you would like me to begin with one of them?”
There was a slight hesitation in Polly’s voice because personally she found the simple poems much more difficult than the big ones and her taste did not incline toward Whitcomb Riley, or Eugene Field, toward any of the simple character work, which would have been the best possible training for her at the present time.
But the critic fortunately agreeing with Polly’s point of view shook his head gravely over her suggestion of English verses.
“No,” he said a little pompously, it must be confessed, “try the most difficult thing you know and even if you do not make an entire success of it I will be better able to judge what you can do.” The man spoke in a hoarse, strained voice which to Betty’s ears sounded forced and peculiar.
“Would you—would you think it very foolish if I tried Juliet’s speech before she takes the poison?” Polly then asked timidly. “I know I can’t do it very well, it is one of the greatest speeches in the whole world of acting, but perhaps for that very reason I like to attempt it.”
Polly had thrown off her red coat and hat in the hall, but she was wearing her best frock, a simple cashmere made in a single piece, with a crushed velvet belt of a darker shade and a collar and cuffs of real Irish lace which her mother had sent as a Christmas gift from Ireland. Her hair was very dark and her coloring vivid, so perhaps she did not look so utterly unlike the Italian Juliet, whom it is difficult for us to believe was only fourteen at the time of her tragic love story.
“Farewell,—and God knows when we shall meet again,” Polly began in a far less melodramatic fashion than one might have expected; indeed, Betty thought her voice exquisitely pathetic and appealing and even Meg, who had not the slightest sympathy with Polly’s dramatic aspirations, was subtly impressed.
“I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,That almost freezes up the heat of life.I’ll call them back again to comfort me.—Nurse!—What should she do here?My dismal scene I needs must act alone.Come, phial.What if this mixture do not work at all,Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?No, no;—this shall forbid it:—lie thou there—”
“I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.—
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, phial.
What if this mixture do not work at all,
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?
No, no;—this shall forbid it:—lie thou there—”
And here Polly is being carried away by the thrill of her own performance. Almost she believes she beholds a slight suggestion of admiration in the blue eyes of the critic who most assuredly is watching her efforts with a great deal of interest. Unhappily, however, in her preparation for this great occasion, Polly has forgotten the necessary stage equipment and now at this instant remembers that Juliet requires a dagger to make this moment properly realistic. The girl is in a delicious state of excitement. For the time being actually she is feeling herself the terrified and yet superbly courageous Juliet, and there on the parlor table, as though by direct inspiration, is reposing a steel paper cutter of the Professor’s.
With a quick movement of her hand Polly seizes the desired dagger, but also she seizes something else along with it, for the table cover comes off at the same instant, almost overwhelming Juliet in a rain of papers, ornaments and books.
Polly feels as though she would faint with chagrin and mortification, so suddenly and so uncomfortably is she brought back to the hard realities. “I am so dreadfully sorry,” she starts to say, but before she has finished, her attention is arrested by the behavior of the mysterious veiled lady.
She had given a hysterical giggle, first one, then another, as though she were never going to be able to stop. Meg’s face is also crimson with the effort to control her laughter, although she is looking nervously, almost imploringly, toward her strange visitor.
The solitary man in the room has simply turned his back upon the whole situation and is gazing steadfastly at the closed windows.
Polly thinks perhaps she is losing her senses, for there had been something familiar in that excited laughter which is now turning almost into a sob, and yet of course the idea was ridiculous. Polly then turned entreatingly toward Betty Ashton as her one sure rock of salvation in a vanishing world, and Betty never forgot the expression in her friend’s eyes, the look of wounded dignity, of disappointed affection, of almost resentful disbelief. For in Betty’s returning glance she found a confirmation of her worst fears.
The truth of the matter was that Betty had been suspicious of the little group of spectators of her friend’s recitation almost as soon as Polly began her speech. She was not under the pressure of so much excitement and had time and opportunity to look about and examine people and things more closely.
The woman in the long cloak—evidently her clothes were of the ready-made variety, for they certainly did not fit. Also she seemed very slender for a full grown woman, and in spite of her intention to remain unobserved was curiously nervous.
And the man? He was trying to keep his face in the shadow, but from Betty’s point of observation a ray of afternoon sunlight fell directly across his face. The line where his beard began was extremely distinct and his cheeks above it brown and boyish. Besides, though he did wear glasses, his eyes showed fear, amusement and Polly was right in a way, for they did show a certain amount of admiration, although they were certainly never the eyes of a censorious dramatic critic. For several moments Betty had been longing to interrupt Polly’s speech-making but had not known exactly how, and indeed had hardly dared. Perhaps if she could get Polly away before she ever found things out it would be best. Polly’s temper was never very good, and this would hurt her in all the ways in which she was most sensitive.
The girl’s face was white as chalk as she now ceased gazing at Betty and walked quietly across the room toward the supposedly strange woman who had risen at her approach and was trembling violently.
“It is a joke, Polly, don’t be angry; we thought if you could just see how silly play acting seemed to other people you would give it up,” the voice shook a little.
For Polly was ominously pale and quiet as she gently untied the veil and lifted off the stranger’s hat.
“So you wanted to see how much of a fool you could make of me, didn’t you, Mollie? Well, you have succeeded splendidly, dear; I can’t imagine how you could have had any greater success!” And Polly shut her lips tight together and clenched her hands. If only Betty and Meg and Mollie knew how furiously, suffocatingly angry she was they would probably be afraid to have anything to do with her.
But Meg was approaching her with her usually happy face somewhat clouded. “I am afraid you must think pretty poorly of us all, Polly, really it just looked funny to us at first, we only meant to tease you. But now, while I am willing to confess, it does seem rather hateful of us and I want to apologize to you for my part in this whole proceeding.”
Still Polly made no answer, only when Mollie rather timidly put her arms about her saying: “Please do, Polly dear, forgive us and don’t take the whole thing so seriously, you are fond enough of a joke yourself,” she quietly pushed Mollie aside and turned toward Betty.
“Please take me home then, Betty, for I am afraid I have furnished all the amusement this afternoon that I feel equal to.” But when Betty’s arms went about her, Polly trembled so violently that she had to hide her head on her friend’s shoulder and just for an instant a choked sob shook her. Both girls, however, were moving toward the closed drawing room door, but before they could leave the room a tall form barred their way.
“You can’t go until I have spoken to you,” Billy Webster said almost rudely in his determination to be obeyed. He had taken off his beard, wig and glasses and his face showed almost as white as Polly’s.
But Polly looked directly at him with eyes that apparently did not see him.
“I never wish to have to speak to you again so long as I live, Mr. Webster,” she said quietly, “And you can be quite happy, because whatever old scores you may think you owe me, you have paid me back this afternoon with interest.”
“But—but I didn’t do it in that spirit in the least, Miss Polly,” the young man pleaded, still refusing to let the girls pass him unless they actually forced their way. “It was all a joke, a horribly poor one, I agree with Miss Meg. But it began by accident and then grew until none of us realized how foolish and worse than that it was. Oh, if you only knew what it is like to feel like a cad and to hate yourself through and through and yet to know that whatever you do you can never change things! We never dreamed you would take it all so seriously or be so completely deceived. We thought you would see through us pretty soon and then scold for a while and afterwards laugh along with the rest of us.”
“But Polly’s ambition is not a joke to her,” Betty returned, seeing that Polly either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. “She takes it as seriously as you can take the most serious ambition of your life. And to come here and do her best in order that all of you might make fun of her, really it is so cruel and in such bad taste I don’t feel I can like any of you for a long time, not even Meg and Mollie.” Betty’s gray eyes were so full of high-bred reproach, her face betrayed such a spiritual distaste that, if Billy Webster could have felt more humbled, which was quite impossible, he would have at this moment.
“But I was not making fun, at least not after Miss Polly began her recitation,” he returned. “I thought it quite remarkable and I would have given a very great deal if that accident had not happened so that I might have heard her straight through. I confess I don’t approve of well-bred girls even thinking of going on the stage, and I do sincerely hope Miss Polly will give up the idea before she is much older, but if it’s a question of talent, well, I don’t think there can be much doubt of her having talent enough.”
Billy said this so earnestly and with such evident sincerity that at any other time it might have slightly appeased Polly. Now, however, her feelings were too badly wounded for any outside balm.
Mollie was crying, so that she could hardly do or say anything, but Meg walked quietly up to Billy Webster, taking him by the sleeve. “Let the girls go now, Billy, please. It is not the time to detain them. Perhaps when Polly has thought things over a little she will realize we did not intend to wound her so deeply and will remember that she has probably made mistakes with people sometimes herself. I expect Mollie had better stay all night with me so that she won’t have to discuss this question any more to-night.”
And at this Polly and Betty both looking a little relieved retired into the hall, where they found their coats and hats and put them on with Meg’s assistance, saying good-bye to her politely enough as they started toward home.
It was not necessary, however, for Polly to have to ask Betty not to talk to her on their way to the cabin, for Betty’s gift of sympathy and understanding was one of her surest charms. She even explained to Rose and the other girls on their arrival that Polly had developed a headache on the trip back from town and asked to be left alone for the rest of the evening to sleep it off. However, when supper was over, by Polly’s request, she asked that Rose would give her a few quiet moments and in those moments she made her friend’s and her own confessions. Rose was not quite so angry, or so wholly on Polly’s side, as Betty believed she should be. For in the first place Miss Dyer was vexed with the two girls for not having told her of their intentions and suggested that their interview having developed into a joke was perhaps the best way out of it. It was rather an unkind joke, but then Polly took herself far too seriously and in her heart of hearts Rose hoped the young lady might learn a useful lesson through her uncomfortable experience.
And in a measure Rose’s wish was gratified, for Polly did not soon recover from her hurt and shame and did not refer again either to Miss Adams or her own future ambition. Apparently, so far as any one knew, she had given up all thought of it, for she settled down more seriously to the work of the Camp Fire, gaining each month additional honors, and was also working to acquire a prize at school. Of course she had to forgive Mollie her part in her discomfiture; Mollie was so truly repentant once she discovered how deep was her sister’s hurt and Polly with all her faults was not one to cherish anger. Then by and by she also made up with Meg, though it was a good many years before she had exactly the same intimate feeling with her as she had with the other Camp Fire girls. In future years it was always Mollie and Meg who were particularly intimate. But there was one person whom Polly could not bring herself to pardon. For the rest of that winter she never again spoke to Billy Webster. He and Mollie remained good friends and sometimes with another girl used to take walks together, so that Polly saw him now and then at the cabin and oftentimes when she was walking or driving through his father’s woods. However, though he never failed to raise his hat to her, she always behaved as though he were made of thin air and so impossible for her to behold.
However, Polly had not given up her ambition in spite of her altered behavior. Nevertheless, the shock to her pride had, though she did not herself realize it, been extremely good for her, making her realize how silly her pretensions must seem to other people. And so through this, and by watching Esther Clark go quietly ahead with her music, working steadily without asking either for reward or admiration, she learned several valuable lessons. Besides, Polly was so truly happy in the thought that her beloved mother was to return home early in the spring.
Mrs. O’Neill had written her daughters that she was coming home in April and that she had a wonderful secret to tell them which she hoped they would rejoice in for her sake. She also said that an old Irish uncle had died during her stay abroad and had left to Mollie and Polly a legacy of two thousand dollars each, so that they need have no worry about their education. If it were possible Mrs. O’Neill hoped to see Mrs. Ashton before coming back to America, so that she could bring Betty and Dick a better report of their father’s exact condition than letters had yet been able to give them.
The final winter months passed peacefully and fairly uneventfully at the Sunrise cabin, with the girls following a regular routine of school and Camp Fire work and receiving new honors at each monthly meeting of their Council Fire. So far Esther Clark, Mollie O’Neill and, strangely enough, Nan Graham, had earned the greatest number of honor beads, for since Nan’s unpleasant day at home a new incentive seemed to have been added to her first ambition to make herself an attractive and capable woman. What this incentive was she confided only to her two most admired friends, Rose Dyer and Polly, but by a Polly channel the news also reached Betty Ashton’s ears. Nan’s former good-for-nothing brother, Anthony, had disappeared, but had written his sister two letters declaring that he was hard at work, keeping straight, and, though he did not wish anyone to know where he was, some day when he could feel that Nan might be proud instead of ashamed of him, meant to come home. In the meantime he urged Nan to stick close to her Camp Fire friends and to work.
Therefore there was only one Wood Gatherer now within the Sunrise club circle and this the small Abbie, whom Dr. Barton and Sylvia had introduced with such an amazing lack of tact on Christmas eve. For several weeks after her arrival the girls had simply permitted her to live on at the cabin enjoying their outdoor life, their healthy diet and watching the faint roses bloom in her cheeks but without the faintest idea of ever asking her to become a member of the Sunrise club. In the first place the child was too impossibly young, a bare thirteen, when most of the other girls were now approaching seventeen and grown-up-ness, and it was an unwritten Camp Fire law that the girls in a single group should be as nearly as possible of the same age. If Abbie had only been as old as her years, but she was not even that, and yet somehow this very babyishness and oddity finally won her admittance to the magic circle paradoxical as it may seem.
Perchance the club may have needed a baby now that “Little Brother” had returned, to live in his own home, anyhow, Abbie, almost before any one was aware of it, was occupying this position. Before her arrival Sylvia Wharton had been the youngest member of the Sunrise club, but there had never been anything particularly youthful or clinging about Sylvia; indeed, she had been about the most independent and self-reliant of the girls and therefore she found it very difficult to understand her own special protégé.
Abbie’s name wasn’t Abbie at all, but Abigail Faith Abbott, and once the romantic Polly made this discovery, Faith the little girl became to the entire club. Faith had lived a curiously solitary life apart from all other children. It was true her mother kept boarders in a downtown house in old Boston that had once belonged to her great-grandfather, but Faith had been kept away from them as much as possible and because of her ill health had never been allowed to go to school. It was because of her many illnesses that young Dr. Barton took an interest in the child. Her father was dead and her mother too busy with many cares to see much of her, so most of the young girl’s life had been spent in a small room at the top of an old house, which had an ever-closed window through which she could look out upon miles of chimney tops with every now and then a more aspiring steeple. So was it much of a wonder that the little lonely girl lived with fancies instead of realities and that as a result of all these things she now looked as though a harsh New Hampshire wind might easily blow her away? The children Faith had played with had never been real children at all, but two little spirit sisters whom she had imaged in her own mind for so long now that she could not remember when first she had thought of them. Nevertheless, it was with them that she constantly played and, if left alone, occasionally she spoke to them aloud. Of course Faith was old enough now to understand the absurdity of this and had made up her mind never to betray herself at the cabin. Yet within a short time after her arrival and because of her dreadful homesickness, Miss Dyer made the discovery. Unfortunately Sylvia, who had taken the little visitor’s physical training sternly in hand, also found out the fancy.
Faith did not go into town to school with the other girls, for by the doctor’s and Sylvia’s advice she was to spend all her time outdoors on the cabin front porch wrapped up in rugs. It was rather cold and dull with only the Sunrise Hill before her, the now frozen lake, where the girls skated in the late afternoons, and the long, dark avenue of pines. However, in the beginning of her experience Faith confessed to herself that she liked the loneliness far better than so many and such amazingly enterprising girls. With an almost desperate shyness she clung to Rose Dyer as the one grown-up person who faintly suggested her own mother and to Sylvia’s ministrations she yielded herself without protesting, but for some weeks she never spoke one word to any of the older girls except in answering a question addressed to her. Indeed, when evening came and the others gathered about their log fire to talk, the little stranger used to slip away to be cuddled like a baby in old Mammy’s arms until Sylvia, who wished her to retire an hour before any one else and have a special late supper of milk and eggs, would come and bear her off to be put to bed.
One morning Rose had been feeling worried at having been compelled to leave Faith so long outdoors alone without even going to the door to speak to her. The guardian’s hands had been unusually full that morning with Mammy, who ordinarily helped a little with the work while the girls were away, laid up with rheumatism. Also Rose knew that Max, the big St. Bernard dog who had arrived almost at the same time with Faith, spent most of his time with the little girl, and so she let the whole matter slip her mind until it was time to carry out her midday lunch. Then she smiled a little ruefully as she paused for a moment before opening the front door, wondering if Dr. Barton could guess just how much this child had added to her responsibilities and whether he would care seriously if he did. With his own devotion to looking after the sick (really he seemed totally indifferent to people who were well) doubtless he would take everything as a matter of course. In his visits to the cabin since Christmas certainly nothing more had been said on the subject. Rose laughed and then sighed, pausing with the door to the porch half open and listening. Faith was evidently not alone, for she could distinctly hear her talking to some one although unable to catch any answers.
“I think perhaps I can keep on bearing it, Anastasia,” Faith said in a voice that was only fairly brave, “if only you will stay with me and not let all those strange girls drive you and Gloria away. When they talk so much it seems as though I can’t remember you and it makes me want to gohome.”
Her voice broke and Rose peering out was deeply mystified. The little half-sick girl was plainly alone and plainly dreadfully homesick, but with whom could she be talking?
“I don’t mind the Rose one so much, Gloria,” she continued, “but Dr. Ned said she was as nice as my mother, even nicer I believe he thought her. Yet he does not even look at her and hardly speaks to her when he comes to visit me.” And here Faith dropped her pale face into her small gloved hands and began to cry just as Rose appeared with her lunch.
Nevertheless, by the exercise of as much tact and patience as Miss Dyer had ever used in her society days to charm the coldest and most obdurate of her critics, finally she managed to persuade Faith to explain to her with whom she had been talking and just who were the mysterious persons Gloria and Anastasia. Of course, with many blushes Faith made her confession, understanding that she was now far too old for any such fanciful nonsense. Yet she did tell Rose with a good deal of pleasure toward the last that the two names represented two older sisters with whom she had been pretending to play ever since she was a baby and who were really dearer to her and more actual than real people. Naturally the new Camp Fire guardian was puzzled over this wholly new problem, with a so much younger girl, and after thinking it over for a long time made up her mind to consult with Dr. Barton. For if ever the little girl were to recover her normal health under their Camp Fire rules she must certainly put away her morbid fancies. But the consultation gave the new guardian no satisfaction, appearing to estrange her more than ever from the young physician. For he and Rose disagreed about the method of Faith’s cure completely and it was ever the young man’s obstinacy that Rose had found it hardest to forgive. Actually Dr. Barton had the stupidity to lecture Faith about her cherished secret and even to betray her to Sylvia, who tried reasoning with her every night while putting her to bed. Fortunately, however, Rose Dyer had not had a colored Mammy for nothing, having grown up on splendid fairy and folk-lore stories, so that by degrees she managed to interest little Faith in the things outside her own mind, in real Camp Fire games and work, and finally in the girls themselves, until, growing less afraid, Faith found Mollie, Polly and Betty better substitutes than the sisters of her dreams. And by and by through their guardian’s advice the little girl was permitted to enter the Sunrise club as a Wood Gatherer. There she grew to be more and more faithful to its rules and ideals, until after a while her too vivid imagination seemed to be fairly well under her control. If later in life, however, her fancy was to lead her into strange experiences, soon no one would have guessed it, for March found Faith stronger than ever before in her life and utterly attached to Rose Dyer. Still looking like our little golden haired Christmas angel, Polly once remarked, but like the angel after she had eaten the Christmas dinner.
Nevertheless, though Sylvia fully understood that all Faith’s devotion was now bestowed on their Camp Fire guardian, now and then she used to wonder why Faith did not show any liking for her. Certainly she had given her the tenderest physical care, making her follow faithfully every Camp Fire health rule, live outdoors, sleep and eat all she should.
It was also puzzling to Sylvia, just as it has often been to older persons, why after a few weeks every girl in the Sunrise camp seemed to feel a special affection for little Faith. She never appeared to do anything to try to deserve it, except to be pretty and have curly light hair, big gentle, blue eyes and a timid and appealing manner, while Sylvia, who spent most of her time making herself as useful as possible to her friends, was not particularly loved, not even by Polly. And for Polly O’Neill, Sylvia Wharton’s devotion has never for a single instant wavered and never will, even when the future puts it to many difficult tests. For faithfulness to an idea, a conviction or a person will ever be Sylvia’s predominant trait of character, and while it may not make her appear on the surface as loving or lovable as some of her companions, it would be well if she could now know that it will be to her the other girls will always turn in after years when they stand in need of sensible advice or even of real practical assistance. And this was to be particularly true of Polly O’Neill in her not very peaceful life, so it was unfortunate that poor Sylvia had now to fight down many pangs of foolish jealousy through seeing that Polly as well as the other girls made a special pet and plaything of the newest comer.
But if Faith had unconsciously made Sylvia suffer now and then, she also accomplished another result. Just at first Betty Ashton had imagined that there might be some unknown bond of interest between Rose Dyer and young Dr. Barton, cemented before Rose’s entrance into their club as guardian. But now she gave up the impression, believing thoroughly that Rose found the cold, puritanical young man actually distasteful in spite of his many acts of kindness to the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.
However, if none of the Camp Fire girls thought of a possible romance between their new guardian and the young physician, now established as the regular visiting doctor at the Sunrise cabin, when the month of March was passing and the New Hampshire snows beginning to show every now and then a tendency toward melting, indicating the return of the ever romantic spring, there was a good deal of carefully whispered discussion about the chief Camp Fire guardian, Miss Martha McMurtry. Their guardian of the preceding summer liked best that the girls should call her by her Camp Fire title, “The Madonna of the Hill,” shortened for use into the Italian “Donna.” In the first weeks at camp the summer before, Miss McMurtry had seemed to some of the Camp Fire girls a sort of heaven-appointed old maid, a regular born and bred one. As she had lived and worked through the outdoor months with such a variety of girls, gradually this old-maidish appearance had worn off, until now there were actually self-evident reasons for believing that Donna had a realbona fideadmirer in the person of the poor German gentleman who had rescued Betty and Esther on that memorable December evening in the snow and, through their acquaintance, had since come to know every member of the club.
It is but natural to suppose that the first breath of this suggestion may have been introduced by Esther Clark, since she had best opportunities for making observations. Yet actually it was Betty Ashton who first whispered it to Esther, next to Polly, and afterward it traveled very naturally about the select Camp Fire circle.
Esther had been continuing her lessons with the German professor once every week since before Christmas. Not that he was a singing master, but he proved to be a thoroughly trained musician who understood the piano almost as well as the violin, so that he was able to give Esther splendid assistance with her piano training so necessary to the singing later on.
And this he insisted on doing without payment in spite of his poverty, showing a very decided interest in Esther’s possible future. In spite of her own seriously reduced income, however, Betty had at first suggested that she be allowed to contribute a small sum for the lessons, but Esther had positively refused to accept anything more than her singing lessons from her friend. She explained that Herr Crippen said she rendered him sufficient aid in his other work to pay for what he was doing for her, and closing with the more truthful statement that, for a reason which he could not now set forth, he felt particularly hopeful fordas gnädige Fräulein.
And yet notwithstanding the fact that Betty was extremely grateful to him for his kindness to Esther, from their first acquaintance she had never been able to resist the inclination to make fun of the poor gentleman on every possible occasion, in the face of Esther’s open protests, that is, when it could be done without hurting his feelings. Under most circumstances Esther felt that Betty could do no wrong, but her jokes at the Herr Professor’s expense made Esther suffer a variety of emotions which she could not exactly explain even to herself. The poor man was so shabby and shy, such an apparent failure in life, without money, position, friends or family, none of the things which Betty still considered absolutely essential. Though she never thought she had betrayed herself, in a way it is just possible that Herr Crippen was all that winter guessing what was going on in regard to him in the back of Betty Ashton’s mind. He had a pleading, almost apologetic expression as he gazed into her lovely face as though vaguely asking her not to be too hard in her judgment and to be kind to him if she could.
Once or twice it is just possible that he asked Miss McMurtry questions about her in his semi-weekly visits to the older Camp Fire guardian, but of this Betty of course had no knowledge.
It was on one Saturday night, when Miss McMurtry happened to be staying at the cabin to afford Rose Dyer a holiday in town, that Betty’s suspicions of a possible romance were first aroused. Promptly at eight o’clock that evening the Herr Professor, dressed in his best clothes, made his appearance at the front door, wearing a large clean collar considerably frayed at the ends and a flowing black silk necktie.
By chance there happened to be but a few of the Sunrise girls at home that evening, for Mollie O’Neill was staying all night with Meg, Eleanor Meade was to remain over Sunday with her mother and Nan had gone home to take her father to church the next day as he had solemnly promised to be her companion. So as Edith had not come out for her regular week-end visit there were only the five girls in camp. However, Sylvia was so busily engaged in seeing Faith to bed that when the Professor arrived there were only Betty, Polly and Esther about to be in the way. Yet half an hour or so after his arrival and in the midst of quite an interesting general conversation Herr Crippen, seeming to be overwhelmed with emotion, suddenly asked Miss McMurtry to take a walk outside with him and this when it was not even a particularly warm or agreeable late March evening.
Betty was a little vexed, for they had just been talking of the old-time history of Woodford, of the names of some of the old families in the town and the immediate neighborhood. This was always a subject of keen interest to Betty, as her own family, the Ashtons, had been among the first settlers in the village and through each generation had furnished some of its most distinguished men and women. Indeed, it was Betty’s grandfather who had built the orphan asylum where Esther had lived as a child. Consequently, she felt an interest in it for her own as well as Esther’s sake when Herr Crippen asked Miss McMurtry if she had not once taught some of the children at the asylum as a kind of practice work before graduating at the Normal School. And directly after this question when Miss McMurtry had quietly answered, “yes,” she and her Professor had disappeared out into the moonlight.
Then immediately after this, Esther had slipped over to the piano and presently begun playing over a new Camp Fire song, which Frank Wharton had just sent his sister from headquarters in New York, hearing that the girls were particularly anxious for the latest Camp Fire music. Polly, who had been rather annoyed at the interruption of a visitor, returned once more to the reading of her book, so that it was left to Betty, who was in an idle mood, to wander over casually to the window and there, without the least intention of spying, behold what certainly looked like a very interesting scene.
Instead of walking up and down outside as the Professor had suggested, Herr Crippen’s hands were clasped imploringly together and his face wore a strangely beseeching expression. Indeed, if Betty had been near enough she might have seen actual tears in his eyes as there had been on the Christmas eve when he had his conversation with Esther. The very next instant Betty had of course turned hurriedly away, feeling ashamed of herself for having even innocently seen what was so plainly not intended for her eyes. And yet at the same moment she could not restrain a giggle, a giggle which grew later on into a confession of what she had witnessed. Still as she explained it was merely a suspicion, nothing more, for Betty had not seen how Donna had received the Professor’s suit nor did she really know what kind of a question he had asked.
However, when a few days later Miss McMurtry actually asked for a leave of absence from school in order to have a quiet talk alone with Rose Dyer at the cabin, what had been an idle suspicion now looked as though it might be a reality.
Notwithstanding, the girls had to suffer for some time with ungratified curiosity, since Rose made no mention even of having had an unexpected visit from the older woman. Indeed, she tried to go about her regular Camp Fire work from day to day as though nothing had happened, as though there were nothing of special interest or importance on her mind, but this she did not quite succeed in doing, at least not to the watchful eyes of Betty, Esther and Polly, who were the most interested of the girls. For Rose’s face, when she supposed that no one was looking, wore an expression of surprise, of uncertainty and even of worry and uneasiness.
It was odd, Betty thought, why Rose should take Miss McMurtry’s love affair so seriously and what could there be in it to trouble over, anyhow? Either Miss Martha did or did not care for the funny old German who must have been fifteen years her senior, and who certainly was not a desirable catch from a worldly point of view. It never occurred to Betty that there could be any possibility of love not running smoothly with two such elderly persons.
However, as Rose made no confidences, after a week had passed the whole subject vanished into the background of everybody’s minds and most of the girls believed that the whole idea had been a mistaken one from the beginning.
And then one afternoon in the early part of April, Rose called Betty aside and asked her if on the following afternoon she and Esther could meet Miss McMurtry, Herr Crippen and herself in the drawing room at the Ashton house in Woodford. There was a question which had to be discussed and it was not possible to have any privacy at the cabin. Miss Dyer’s own house was closed, but a caretaker had been left in charge of the Ashton home, as it was too beautiful a place to remain for so many months unguarded.
Betty arrived at her home before her visitors. Esther was engaged for another half hour with a music lesson and besides Betty wished to see that the house was in order for her visitors.
It was a curious sensation to come home alone and to wander from one end of the big house to the other, hearing only the sound of her own footsteps, for Mrs. Mitchell, the caretaker, was in the kitchen preparing afternoon tea to be served the guests a little later, while her husband was working in the yard. Betty had an uncomfortable feeling of desolation, as though she were a kind of a ghost. First she went straight to her mother’s room, but there the pictures were covered with sheets, the mattress rolled up, the curtains down, and the tables and mantel so bare of ornament that Betty hurried away to her own blue sitting room across the hall. Would her father and mother never be back? Surely they would both be returning in the early summer when the weather would be less severe upon her father’s health and the great house would be reopened as it had always been.