The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill.
by Margaret Vandercook.
CHAPTER I
THE VOICE
Betty Ashton sighed until the leaves of the book she held in her hand quivered, then she flung it face downward on the floor.
"Oh dear, I do wish some one would invent something new for girls!" she exclaimed, although there was no one in the room to hear her. "It seems to me that all girls do nowadays is to imitate boys. We play their games, read their old books and even do their work, when all the time girls are really wanting girl things. I agree with King Solomon: "The thing that hath been, it is that which, shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."
At least not for girls!"
Then with a laugh at her own pessimism, Betty, like Hamlet, having found relief in soliloquy, jumped up from her chair and crossing her room pressed the electric b.u.t.ton near the fireplace until the noise of its ringing reverberated through the big, quiet house.
"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered. Do the maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire? I suppose I could do it if I tried."
She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the gla.s.s of her closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into her own garden.
Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.
In spite of her petulance Betty laughed. She was wearing a blue dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet ribbon of the same shade. Her room was in blue, "Betty"s Blue" as her friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but has soft shadows in it.
Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen. She had gray eyes, a short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an effect of refinement that was almost disdain. Her mouth was a little discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though she had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for something.
"The outdoors is as dismal as I am, no wonder we used to be sun worshipers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting; "but since Prometheus stole the fire from heaven some ages ago, I really don"t see why I should have to freeze because the sun won"t shine."
Frowning and gathering her dressing gown more closely about her with another impatient gesture, Betty swept out into the hall.
The house was strangely silent for the middle of a week-day afternoon; not a sound came either from below stairs or above, not the rattle of a window blind nor the echo of a single pair of footsteps.
At some time has a sudden silence ever fallen upon you with a sense of foreboding like the hour before a storm or the moment preceding some unexpected news or change in your life?
Betty hurried toward the back-stairs. She was leaning over the banisters and had called once for one of the maids, when she ceased abruptly, and stood still for several moments with her head tilted back and her body tense with surprise.
So long as Betty could recall, there had been a vacant room in the rear of the old Ashton homestead, which had stood for more than a hundred years at the comer of Elm Street in Woodford, New Hampshire. She was stupider than other people about remembering the events of her childhood and yet she was sure that this room had never been used for any purpose save as a storehouse for old pieces of furniture, for discarded pictures, for any odds and ends that found no other resting place about the great house. It was curious because the room was a particularly attractive one, with big windows overlooking the back garden, but then there was some story or other connected with it (old houses have old memories) and this must have made it unpopular. Betty did not know what the story was and yet she had grown up with a queer, childish dread of this room and rarely went into it unless she felt compelled.
Now, though she was not a coward, it did give her an uncanny sensation to hear a low, humming sound proceeding from this supposedly empty room.
Cautiously Betty stole toward its closed door and quietly turned the k.n.o.b without making the least noise. Then she looked in.
What transformation had taken place! The room was a store place no longer, for most of the old furniture and all the other rubbish had been cleared away and what was left was arranged in a comfortable, living fashion. An old rug was spread out on the floor, a white iron bed stood in one corner with an empty bookshelf above it. There was a vase on a table holding a branch of blossoming p.u.s.s.y willow, and seated before one of the big, open windows was a strange girl whom Betty Ashton never remembered to have seen before in her life.
The girl was sewing, but this was not what kept Betty silent. She was also singing a new and strangely beautiful song.
"Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame, O Master of the Hidden Fire; Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me My soul"s desire."
Unconscious of the intruder and forgetful of everything else the singer"s voice rose clearer and sweeter with the second verse.
"In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, O Master of the Hidden Fire, That when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul"s desire."
Then in silence, as she leaned closer to the window to get a better light on her sewing, an unexpected ray of sunshine managing at this moment to break through the clouds fell directly on her bowed head. Her hair was not auburn, like Betty"s, but bright, undeniable red.
"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you mind telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you happen to be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton inquired, coolly, still keeping her position just outside the opened door.
The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously twisting her big, rather coa.r.s.e-looking hands. She was a year older than Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult to imagine two persons more unlike. Betty was slender but perfectly proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which her friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished ancestors, while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet that seemed too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin. She too had gray eyes, but while Betty"s brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this girl"s were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her eyes.
In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across the room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her unexpected charm and dignity.
"Hasn"t your mother told you of my coming? didn"t she ask you if you wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly. "I am sorry; my name is Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you. Your mother has asked me here to live, to take care of your clothes, to read to you, to take walks when there is no one else--"
"Oh, you mean you are to be my maid," Betty finished, coming now into the center of the room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.
"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to whether I wished to be bothered with you." Betty bit her lips, for she did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.
The older girl"s face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson.
"No, I am not to be your maid," she returned. "At least Mrs. Ashton said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for studying. Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I hope to graduate. If you don"t wish me to stay you will please explain it to your mother, only--" Esther tried to speak naturally, but her voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least until I can find some other place. I am too old to go back to the asylum."
"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed, showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that relieved her face of some of its former plainness.
"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don"t be frightened," she explained. "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there was nothing else to do with me. But you need not feel specially sorry, because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in books. Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been going to school for years. Only when your mother came last week and said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of all I wanted to know you. You will think it strange of me, but I have been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been interested in you."
Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed. "Oh, you will be sorry enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably think I am dreadfully spoiled. But do please stay for a while if you wish, at least until we find how we get on together."
Since Betty"s first speech at the door had startled her, Esther had never for a moment taken her eyes from her face. Never in all her life, even when she had seen and learned far more of the ways of the world, could this girl learn not to speak the truth. So now she slowly shook her head. "Your mother did say you were spoiled; it was one reason why she wished me to come here to live," she replied. "You see, she said that you had been too much alone and had too much done for you and that your brother was so much older that he only helped to spoil you. But,"
Esther was hardly conscious of her listener and seemed only to be thinking aloud, "I shall not mind if you are spoiled, for how can you help being when you are so pretty and fortunate and have all the things that other girls have just to dream of possessing."
It was odd, perhaps, but the new girl"s speech was made so simply and sincerely that Betty Ashton instead of feeling angry or complimented was instead a little ashamed. Had fortune been kinder to her than to other girls, kinder than to the awkward girl in front of her in her plain gray linen dress?
Betty now backed toward the door which she had so lately opened. "I am sorry to have disturbed you, but usually this room isn"t occupied and I was curious to know who could be in here. I should have knocked. Some day you must sing that lovely song to me, again, for I think I would like very much to know just what my soul"s desire is. The worst of life is not knowing just what you want."
Esther had followed Betty toward the hall. "How funny that sounds to me," she returned shyly, "because I think the hard part of life is not having what you want. I know very well. But can"t I do something for you now? Your mother said you were not well and perhaps would not wish to see me this afternoon, but I could read to you or--"
Betty"s irritability returned. "Thank you very much," she returned coldly, "but I can think of nothing in the world that would amuse me at present. I simply wish not to freeze, and to save my life I can"t get one of our tiresome maids to answer my bell."
Betty"s grand manner had returned, but in spite of her haughtiness the newcomer persisted. "Do let me make the fire for you. I am only a wood- gatherer at present, but pretty soon I shall be a real fire-maker, for I have already been working for two months."
"A wood-gatherer and fire-maker; what extraordinary things a girl was forced to become at an orphan asylum!" Betty"s sympathies were immediately aroused and her cheeks burned with resentment at the sudden vision of this girl at her side trudging through the woods, her back bent under heavy burdens. No wonder her shoulders stooped and her hands were coa.r.s.e. Betty slipped her arm through the stranger"s.
"No, I won"t trouble you to make my fire, but do come into my room and let us just talk. None of my friends have been in to see me this afternoon, not even the faithless Polly! They are too busy getting ready for the end of school to think about poor, ill me." And Betty laughed gayly at the untruthfulness of this picture of herself.
Once inside the blue room, without asking permission, Esther knelt straightway down before the bra.s.s andirons and with deft fingers placed a roll of twisted paper under a lattice-like pile of kindling, arranging three small pine logs in a triangle above it. But before setting a match to the paper she turned toward the other girl hovering about her like a b.u.t.terfly.
"I wonder if you would like me to recite the fire-maker"s song?" she asked. "I haven"t the right to say it yet, but it is so lovely that I would like you to hear it."
Betty stared and laughed. "Do fire-makers have songs?" she demanded.
"How queer that sounds! Perhaps the Indians used to have fire songs long ago when a fire really meant so much. But I can"t imagine a maid"s chanting a song before one"s fire in the morning and I don"t think I should like being wakened up by it."