"Here we are, safe and sound! It has been adventurous, but all"s well that ends well. Have you been anxious, mother dear? I do hope not."
She bent to kiss her mother with an unwonted tenderness, which brought a flush of pleasure into the thin cheek.
"How sweet that child looks to-night! Did you notice?" she said to her husband when they were once more alone. "And she was so gentle and considerate. It"s such a pleasure to see her like that, for she is sometimes so difficult."
Dr Trevor smiled.
"She is mellowing, dear, she is mellowing! I told you it would come.
The child is turning into a woman--and a bonnie woman she will be too.
Dear little Betty!"
And in the shelter of her attic bedroom the child woman was holding a lighted candle before the looking-gla.s.s, and staring half abashed into an oval face with dilated eyes, and dark hair twisted by the damp into a cloud of tiny ringlets.
"Did he--did he think me--nice?" she was asking of herself.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
THE SISTERS.
Upon the first quiet opportunity Betty confided the history of her walk to her mother, who listened with the deepest interest and sympathy.
"It was a great opportunity, dear, and you made the most of it. I am proud of my daughter," she said. "I will join with you in praying that the poor fellow may be kept true to his pledge. It"s not the first step which costs in these struggles, whatever the proverb may say; the hardest part of the fight comes later on, when the first excitement is over, and progress seems so pitifully slow. So don"t let yourself grow weary in well-doing, dear Betty. Your poor friend will need your prayers more and more, not less and less."
"Oh no, I shall never grow tired," said Betty confidently. Then her face clouded, and she sighed. "Mother, do you suppose I shall ever--see him again?"
"It is very unlikely, dear. He is going so far away, and will have no money to spare for visits home. It must be a large sum which he has to repay, if the loss of it necessitated such a change in his friend"s household. With everything in his favour it would take a long time to earn."
"How long, mother?"
"Dear child, what a question! It is impossible to say. It would be extraordinary, I should think, if he managed it in less than a dozen years."
"A dozen years! I should be thirty! I shall be hideous at thirty,"
thought Betty ruefully, recalling the vision of the sweet, flushed face which had looked at her from the mirror the day before. Could it be possible that a dozen years--twelve whole years--could pa.s.s by without bringing her any tidings of "Ralph"? In the state of exaltation which had possessed her last night she had felt raised above the need of words, but already reaction had set in, and with it a strange sense of depression at the thought of the future.
It was good to know that there was Cynthia to talk to--Cynthia, who might not be able to advise and strengthen as wisely as mother did, but who was a girl, and knew how girls felt--"up and down, and in and out, and--oh, and so topsy-turvy upside down!" thought poor Betty to herself.
A breathless, "I want to speak to you; I have something dreadfully interesting to tell!" whispered in a chance encounter in the street, brought an immediate invitation to tea "in my own room, where we shan"t be bothered"; and under these happy auspices the adventure was once more related, while Cynthia"s grey eyes grew wide with excitement.
"Dear Betty, how glorious for you!" she cried ecstatically. "What a wonderful thing to remember! You can never be blue again, and say that you are no use in the world. To have saved a man"s life, and started him on the right road--at eighteen--not eighteen! You are the most fortunate girl in the whole world! It"s so strange that this chance should have come to you on that particular day, because your brother and I had been talking about the different work of men and women as we walked over the Park to the Albert Hall, and he said that if it was men"s province to make the greatest things in the world, it was women"s work to make the men; and that was what you did, Betty dear. You helped G.o.d to make a man!"
Betty raised her brows in a surprise which was not altogether agreeable.
"Miles--_Miles_ said so! How extraordinary! He never talks like that to me, and he hardly knew you at all. However did you come to discuss such a subject?"
"I asked him about his work, and envied him for being able to do something real. He is a nice boy. I like him very much," said Cynthia placidly.
Imagine being favoured with confidences from Miles, and remaining quite cool and unconcerned! For a good two moments Betty forgot all about her own affairs in sheer wonder at such an astonishing state of mind. Then remembrance came back, and she asked eagerly--
"Cynthia, do you think I shall ever hear anything more about him?
Mother says it will take years and years to save so much money. Do you think I shall ever know?"
"Yes!" said Cynthia confidently. "Of course you will know. He will find some way of telling you. You told him your address, so it was the easiest thing in the world to find out your name. You will get something from him every year--perhaps on Christmas Day, perhaps in summer, perhaps on the anniversary of the night. It may be only a newspaper, it may be a letter, it may be just a flower--like the man in _The Prisoner of Zenda_ sent to the princess, but it will be _something_! He mayn"t sign his name or give his address, but he will want you to know--he will feel you ought to know that he is alive and remembering."
Oh, the beauty of a girl confidante! How truly she understands the art of comfort!
"And shall I ever see him again?"
"Yes--if you both live. He will want to see you again more than anything in the world, except paying off his debt. When that is done, he will rush straight off to you and say, "Here I am. I have worked hard and kept my promise. To-day I can look the whole world in the face, for I owe not any man. I have regained my friend and my position, and it is your doing. _You_ saved me! All these years the thought of you has been my inspiration. I have lived in the thought of seeing your face again--""
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Betty, gasping. "And I shall be hideous, Cynthia, hideous! Fancy, I may be thirty! What will he think, when he sees me so changed?"
"He won"t mind a bit--they never do. He will say, "Though worn and haggard, you are still in my eyes the most beautiful woman in the world!"" cried Cynthia.
And then, being only eighteen--nearly eighteen--each girl suddenly descended from her high horse, and went off into peal after peal of laughter, merry, heart-whole laughter, which floated to Mrs Alliot"s ears as she lay on her couch in the drawing-room, and brought a smile to her pale face. This new friendship was doing great things for her lonely girl!
Towards the end of the Christmas holidays the great news circulated that Mrs Vanburgh was coming home, and bringing her two younger sisters for a few weeks" shopping in town. Agatha and Christabel had just returned from two years" sojourn abroad, and were presumably "finished" young ladies. Cynthia and Betty wondered how much finished, and whether finished enough to look down with contempt upon unfinished damsels still undergoing the thraldom of "cla.s.ses!"
It was a thrilling occasion when they were bidden to tea "to meet my sisters," and Betty felt she would hardly have had courage to face the ordeal but for the fact of a new blouse and that fascinating buckle on her belt. She had a sensation of being all arms and legs--a horrible, almost forgotten remnant of schoolroom days--as she crossed Mrs Vanburgh"s drawing-room to be introduced to the two strange figures on the sofa.
One was dark and one was fair; both possessed a wonderful wealth of beautiful glossy hair, gold in the one case, in the other brown, rolling back from the brow in upstanding pompadours, which were, however, more picturesque than stiff, and rolled into coil after coil at the back of the neck. Done-up hair--that was very "finished" indeed! Both were distinctly good-looking, and the younger, though the smaller of the two, possessed a personality which at once seemed to const.i.tute her mistress of the ceremonies. Both were perfectly at ease, and so full of conversation that they talked both at the same time, emphasising every second or third word after a quaint fashion of their own which Betty found very amusing.
They were fear-fully pleased to see her. They had heard such _reams_ about her from Nan. It was so charming for Nan to have girl friends.
Nan was _devoted_ to girls. It was such _sport_ to be staying with Nan.
They had been simply _dying_ to live in town. My dear, they had not a _rag_ to wear! n.o.body wore decent clothes in Germany. Frumps, my dear, per-fect frumps! They were on their own allowance. Was Betty on her own allowance? Lucky girl! It was simply _agonising_ to have to buy _everything_ you needed on a quarter"s allowance. They had lain awake for _hours_ considering the problem. They were in _despair_! Nan had given them each a dress for Christmas. Nan was an _angel_! They wanted Nan to give a dance for them while they were in town.
Betty"s heart leapt, but Mrs Vanburgh shook her head, and said--
"Sorry, but Nan can"t! Mother wouldn"t like it, as you have only just left school, and are not properly out yet."
"Well, I shall _leak_ out, then! I am not going to wait another year, if I know it. There"s a dance coming on at home in February, and I"m going to it, or my name is not Christabel Rendell. I"m going to buy a dress and all the _et-ceteras_, and then mother won"t have the _heart_ to say No. Nan, if you won"t give us a dance, what _are_ you going to do? You can"t be so mean as to provide _no_ evening jollification!"
"My dear, remembah! You were a girl yourself!" echoed Agatha, in deep- toned remonstrance, and then they began rattling out a list of suggestions.
"Tableaux--"
"Progressive games--"
"Dinner-party. No old fogies! We will choose the guests."
"Music and conversation. You do the music, and we"ll converse."
"General frolic, and supper to finish up. If it develops into a dance, so much the better! It"s not coming out to dance on a carpet."
"Really, Nan, it"s piteous to think how _stodgy_ you have grown!
Married sisters are a delusion. We used to imagine coming to stay, and doing whatever we liked, and eating all sorts of indigestible things that we mayn"t have at home. But now Maud can think of nothing but that baby, and you are so prim--too fearfully prim for words."