Besides, I didn"t mind _Bessemer_ so _much_--he was always kind--though we never had much to do with each other----"
"Well, I don"t think I"d have stopped around long to please a father that didn"t care any more for me than to want me to marry somebody I felt that way about!" said Jane, indignantly. "I haven"t much use for a father like that!"
"Oh, but he wasn"t like that!" said Betty, rising up in her eagerness and looking at Jane through her shining curls that were falling all about her eager, troubled young face, "and he did love me, Jane, he loved me better than anything else in the whole world! That was why I was willing to sacrifice almost anything to please him."
"Well, I"ll be darned!" said Jane Carson, sitting up squarely in bed and staring at the spot of light on the wall. "That gets my goat! How could a man love you and yet want to torment you?"
"Well, you see, Jane, he hadn"t been very fond of them when they were boys"--she spoke it with dignity and a little gasp as if she were committing a breach of loyalty to explain, but realized that it was necessary--"and he felt when he was dying that he wanted to make reparation, so he thought if I should marry one of them it would show them that he had forgiven them----"
"It--may--be--so," drawled Jane slowly, nodding her head deliberately with each word, "but--I don"t see it that _way_! What kind of a man was this father of yours, anyway?"
"Oh, a wonderful man, Jane!" Betty eagerly hastened to explain. "He was all the world to me, and he used to come up to school week-ends and take me on beautiful trips and we had the best times together, and he would tell me about my own dear mother----"
Betty"s hand grasped Jane"s convulsively and her voice died out, in a sudden sob. Jane"s hand went quickly to the bright head on the pillow:
"There! there!" she whispered tenderly, "don"t take on so, I didn"t mean anything. I was just trying to dope it out; get it through my bean what in thunder----! Say! Did _he_ TELL _you_ he wanted you to marry those guys?"
"Oh, no, he left word--it was his dying request."
"Who"d he request it to?"
"My stepmother."
"H"m! I thought so! How"d you know he did? How"d you know but she was lyin"?"
"No," said Betty sorrowfully, "she wasn"t lying, she showed me the paper it was written on. There couldn"t be any mistake. And his name was signed to it, his dear hand-writing, just as he always wrote it with the little quirl to the S that wasn"t like anybody else. It went through me just like a knife when I saw it, that my dear father should have asked me to do what was so very very hard for me to think of. It was so much harder to have it come that way. If he had only asked me himself and we could have talked it over, perhaps he would have helped me to be strong enough to do it, but to have _her_ have to _tell me_! She felt that herself. She tried to be kind, I think. She said she wanted to have him wake me up and tell me himself, but she saw his strength was going and he was so anxious to have her write it down quick and let him sign it that she did as he asked----"
"Well, you may depend on it he never wrote it at all--or anyhow, never knew what he was signing. Like as not she dragged it out of him some way while he was out of his mind or so near dying he didn"t know what he was about. Besides, they mightta some of "em forged his name. It"s easy to copy signatures. Lotsa people do it real good. If I was you I wouldn"t think another mite about it. If he was a man like you say he is, he couldn"ta done a thing like that to his own little girl, not on his life! It ain"t like real fathers and mothers to. I know, fer I"ve got a mother that"s a peach and no mistake! No, you may depend on it, he never knew a thing about that, and marrying a guy like that is the last thing on earth he"d want you to do."
"Oh, do you really think so? Oh, are you _sure_?" cried Betty, clinging to Jane eagerly, the tears raining down her white cheeks. "I"ve thought so a thousand times, but I didn"t dare trust myself to decide."
"Yes, I"m sure!" said Jane, gathering her in her arms and hugging her tight, just as she would have done with a little sister who had waked up in the night with a bad dream. "Now, look here, you stop crying and don"t you worry another bit. Just tell me the rest if there"s any rest, so I"ll know what to bank on. Who is the other guy, the one you didn"t mind marryin"? What became of him?"
"Why, that"s the queer part," said Betty, troubled again. "He didn"t seem to be anywhere, and when they carried me into the room back of the church and fanned me and got water to bathe my face, a doctor came and gave me some medicine and sent them all out, and I asked him to send Bessemer to me. I wanted to find out why he hadn"t been standing up there by the minister the way I expected. I heard the doctor go out and ask for Bessemer and I heard my stepmother"s voice say, "Why Bessemer isn"t here! He"s gone down to the sh.o.r.e!" and then somebody said, "Hush," and they shut the door, and I was so frightened that I got up and tried all the doors till I found one that led down some stairs, and I locked it behind me and ran and found you!"
"You poor little kid!" cried Jane, cuddling her again. "I sure am glad I was on the job! But now, tell me, what"s your idea? Will they make a big noise and come huntin" you?"
"Oh, yes!" said Betty wearily. "I suppose they will. I _know_ they will, in fact. Herbert won"t be balked in anything he wants----Bessemer won"t count. He never counts. I"m sort of sorry for him, though I don"t like him much. You see they had been making an awful fuss with him, too, about some actress down at the sh.o.r.e that he was sending flowers to, and I knew he didn"t have a very easy time. So when he came in one day and asked me why I didn"t marry _him_ and settle the whole thing that way, I was horrified at first, but I finally thought perhaps that would be the best thing to do. He said he wouldn"t bother me any, if I wouldn"t bother him; and we thought perhaps the others would let us alone then.
But I might have known Herbert wouldn"t give in! Bessemer is easily led--Herbert could have hired him to go away to-night--or they may have _made_ him ask me to marry him. He"s like that," sadly. "You can"t depend on him. I don"t know. You see, it was kind of queer about the invitations. They came with Herbert"s name in them first, and my stepmother tried to keep me from seeing them. She said they were late and she had them all sent off; but I found one, and when I went to my stepmother with it she said it was a mistake. She hadn"t meant me to be annoyed by seeing it; and she didn"t know how it happened; she must have misspoken herself--but it had been corrected and they would rush it through and send them right from the store this time so there wouldn"t be any delay. I tried to think it was all right, but it troubled me, for I saw that Herbert hadn"t given up at all--though he pretended to go away, and I hoped I wouldn"t have any more trouble--but I might have known! Herbert never gave up anything in his life, not even when father was living. He always managed to get his way, somehow----"
"Did he love you so much?" Jane asked awesomely.
Betty shuddered:
"Oh, I don"t know whether it was love or hate! It was all the same. I hate to think about him--he is--_unbearable_, Jane! Why, Jane, once he told me if he ever got me in his power he"d break my will or kill me in the attempt!"
"Well, now, there, Kid! Don"t you think another bit about him, the old brute! You just lie down and sleep as easy as if you was miles away.
They won"t any of "em ever find you here with me, and I"ve pulled the washstand in front of the door, so you needn"t be dreaming of anybody coming in and finding you. Now go to sleep, and to-morrow I"ll sneak you away to a place where they can"t ever find you. Good night, Kid!" and Jane leaned down and kissed the soft hair on the pillow beside her.
Betty flung her arms about her new-found friend and kissed her tenderly:
"Oh, you"ve been so good to me! What should I ever have done if I hadn"t found you. You were like an angel. I think surely G.o.d must have sent you to help me."
"I shouldn"t wonder if he did!" said Jane thoughtfully. "An angel in a mackintosh! Some angel!"
Jane Carson with her eyes wide open lay staring into the darkness and thinking it all over. She did not waste much time marvelling over the wonder that it had all happened to her. That would do for afterward when there was nothing else to be done about it. Now there must be some plans made and she was the one to make them. It was quite plain that the wonderful and beautiful Elizabeth Stanhope, the plans for whose wedding had been blazoned in the papers for days beforehand, was not at present capable of making or carrying out anything effective. Jane was. She knew it. She was a born leader and promoter. She liked nothing better than to work out a difficult situation. But this was the most difficult proposition that she had ever come up against. When her father died and her mother was left with the little house and the three younger children to support in a small country village, and only plain sewing and now and then a boarder to eke out a living for them all, she had sought and found, through a summer visitor who had taught her Sunday school cla.s.s for a few weeks, a good position in this big Eastern city. She had made good and been promoted until her wages not only kept herself with strict economy, but justified her in looking forward to the time when she might send for her next younger sister. Her deft fingers kept her meagre wardrobe in neatness--and a tolerable deference to fashion, so that she had been able to annex the "gentleman friend" and take a little outing with him now and then at a moving picture theatre or a Sunday evening service. She had met and vanquished the devil on more than one battlefield in the course of her experience with different department heads; and she was wise beyond her years in the ways of the world. But this situation was different. Here was a girl who had been brought up "by hand," as she would have said with a sneer a few hours before, and she would have despised her for it. She raised up on one elbow and leaned over once more to watch the delicate profile of this gentle maiden, in the dim fitful light of the city night that came through the one little window. There had been something appealing in the beauty and frankness of the girl bride, something appalling in the situation she had found herself in. Jane Carson didn"t know whether she was doing right or not to help this stray bride. It made her catch her breath to think how she might be bringing all the power of the law and of money upon her reckless young head, but she meant to do it, just the same.
Elizabeth Stanhope! What a beautiful name! It fitted right in with all the romance Jane had ever dreamed. If she only could write scenarios, what a thriller this would make!
Then she lay down and fell to planning.
CHAPTER V
THE morning dawned, and still no word from the missing bride. But the brief guarded sentences which Herbert Hutton had telephoned to the newspapers had been somehow sidetracked, and in their place a ghastly story had leaked out which some poor, hard-pressed reporter had gleaned from the gossip in the church and hurried off to put into type before there was time for it to be denied. Hot foot the story had run, and great headlines proclaimed the escape of Betty even while the family were carefully paving the way for the report of a protracted illness and absence, if need be, till they could find trace of her. The sun rose brightly and made weird gleaming of the silver wire on which the dying roses hung. The air was heavy with their breath, and the rooms in the early garish light looked out of place as if some fairy wand had failed to break the incantation at the right hour and left a piece of Magicland behind. The parlor maid went about uncertainly, scarcely knowing what to do and what to leave undone, and the milk cars, and newsboys, and early laborers began to make a clatter of every day on the streets. The morning paper, flung across the steps with Betty"s picture, where Betty"s reluctant feet had gone a few hours before, seemed to mock at life, and upstairs the man that Betty thought she went out to marry, lay in a heavy stupor of sleep. Happy Betty, to be resting beneath the coa.r.s.e sheet of the kindly working girl, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion and youth in safety, two miles from the rose-bowered rooms!
Long before day had really started in the great city Jane Carson was up and at work. She dressed swiftly and silently, then went to her little trunk, and from it selected a simple wardrobe of coa.r.s.e clean garments.
One needed mending and two b.u.t.tons were off. She sat by the dingy window and strained her eyes in the dawn to make the necessary repairs. She hesitated long over the pasteboard suit-box that she drew from under the bed. It contained a new dark blue serge dress for which she had saved a long time and in which she had intended to appear at church next Sabbath. She was divided between her desire to robe the exquisite little guest in its pristine folds and her longing to wear it herself. There was a sense of justice also which entered into the matter. If that elegant wedding dress was to be hers, and all those wonderful silk underclothes, which very likely she would never allow herself to wear, for they would be out of place on a poor working girl, it was not fair to repay their donor in old clothes. She decided to give the runaway bride her new blue serge. With just a regretful bit of a sigh she laid it out on the foot of the bed, and carefully spread out the tissue papers and folded the white satin garments away out of sight, finishing the bundle with a thick wrapping of old newspapers from a pile behind the door and tying it securely. She added a few pins to make the matter more sure, and got out a stub of a pencil and labeled it in large letters, "My summer dresses," then shoved it far back under the bed. If any seeking detective came he would not be likely to bother with that, and he might search her trunk in vain for white satin slippers and wedding veils.
Breakfast was next, and she put on her cloak and hurried out for supplies for the larder had been heavily depleted the night before to provide for her guest. With a tender glance toward the sleeper she slipped the key from the lock and placed it in the outside of the door, silently locking her guest within. Now there would be no danger of any one spiriting her away while she was gone, and no danger that the girl might wake up and depart in her absence.
She stopped a newsboy on his way to the subway and bought a paper, thrilling at the thought that there might be something in it about the girl who lay asleep in her little hall bedroom.
While she waited for her bundles she stole a glance at her paper, and there on the front page in big letters ran the heading:
STANHOPE WEDDING HELD UP AT ALTAR BY UNCONSCIOUS BRIDE
_Relatives Seek Runaway Girl Who is Thought to be Insane_
She caught her breath and rolled the paper in a little wad, stuffing it carelessly into her pocket. She could not read any more of that in public. She hastened back to her room.
Betty was still sleeping. Jane stood watching her for a full minute with awe in her face. She could not but recognize the difference between herself and this fine sweet product of civilization and wealth. With the gold curls tossed back like a ripple of sunshine, and a pathetic little droop at the corners of her sweet mouth, nothing lovelier could be. Jane hurried to the window and turned her back on the bed while she perused the paper, her rage rising at the theories put forth. It was even hinted that her mother had been insane. Jane turned again and looked hard at the young sleeper, and the idea crossed her mind that even she might be deceived. Still, she was willing to trust her judgment that this girl was entirely sane, and anyhow she meant to help her! She stuffed the paper down behind the trunk and began to get breakfast. When it was almost ready she gently awoke the sleeper.
Betty started at the light touch on her shoulder and looked wildly around at the strange room and stranger face of the other girl. In the dim light of the evening she had scarcely got to know Jane"s face. But in a moment all the happenings of the day before came back, and she sat up excitedly.
"I ought to have got away before it was light," she said gripping her hands together. "I wonder where I could go, Jane?" It was pleasant to call this girl by her first name. Betty felt that she was a tower of strength, and so kind.
"I have this ring," she said, slipping off an exquisite diamond and holding it out. "Do you suppose there would be any way I could get money enough to travel somewhere with this? If I can"t I"ll have to walk, and I can"t get far in a day that way."
Betty was almost light-hearted, and smiling. The night had pa.s.sed and no one had come. Perhaps after all she was going to get away without being stopped.
Jane"s face set grimly.
"I guess there won"t be any walking for you. You"ll have to travel regular. It wouldn"t be safe. And you don"t want no rich jewelry along either. Was that your wedding ring?"
"Oh, no; father gave it to me. It was mother"s, but I guess they"d want me to use it now. I haven"t anything else."