CHAPTER XIII-A Place of Memories
"I wonder, Angel, if you had ever heard of my friend, Polly O"Neill, before I mentioned her name to you?" Betty Ashton asked after a few moments of silence between the two girls, when evidently Betty had been puzzling over this same question.
Angel shook her head. "Never," she returned quietly.
Five months had pa.s.sed since their first meeting and now the scene about them was a very different one from the four bare walls of a hospital, and the little French girl was almost as completely changed.
It was early spring in the New Hampshire hills and the child and young woman were seated outside a cabin of logs with their eyes resting sometimes on a small lake before them, again on a dark group of pine trees, but more often on a sun-tipped hill ahead where the meadows seemed to lie down in green homage at her feet.
Everywhere there were signs of the earth"s eternal re-birth and re-building. The grain showed only a tiny hint of its autumn harvest of gold, but the gra.s.s, the flowers, the new leaves on the bushes and trees were at their gayest and loveliest. Notwithstanding there was a breeze cool enough to make warm clothes a necessity, and Betty wore a long dark blue cloth cloak, while her companion, who was lying at full length in a steamer chair, was covered with a heavy rug. Yet the girl"s delicate white hands were busily engaged in weaving long strands of bright-colored straws together.
"Why did you think I had ever heard of your friend, Princess?" she queried after a short pause.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Why Did You Think I Had Ever Heard of Your Friend?"]
Keeping her finger in a volume of Tennyson"s poems which she had been supposed to be reading, the older girl gazed thoughtfully and yet almost unseeingly into the dark eyes of her companion. "I don"t know exactly,"
she replied thoughtfully, "only for some strange reason since our earliest acquaintance you have always made me think of Polly. You don"t look like her, of course, though there is just a suggestion in your expression now and then. Perhaps because you were so interested in her when I began telling of our Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls. I don"t believe you would ever have been able to endure me you know, Angel dear, if you had not liked hearing me talk of Polly; then think of what good times we should both have missed!"
Across the little French girl"s face a warm flush spread.
"It is like you to say "we" should have missed," she replied softly.
"But I never hated you, you were always mistaken in believing that. From the morning you first came to the hospital and ever afterwards I thought you the prettiest person I had ever seen in my life and one of the sweetest. It was only that in those early days I was too miserable to speak to any one. Always I was afraid I should break down if I tried to talk, so when the other girls attempted being nice to me I pretended I was sullen and hateful when in reality I was a coward. It was just the same when you started the "Shut-In Camp Fire" among the girls. I would not join, I would not take the slightest interest in the beginning for much the same reason. But you were always so patient and agreeable to me and so was Miss Mollie. Then there was always Cricket!" Smiling, she paused for a moment listening.
Inside Sunrise cabin both girls could hear the noise of several persons moving about as though deeply engaged in some important business.
"I suppose I ought to go in and help," Betty remarked in a slightly conscience-smitten tone, "but Mollie does so enjoy fussing about getting things ready. And in spite of all my efforts and stern Camp Fire training I shall never be so good a cook as she is. Besides, both Mollie and Cricket informed me politely, after I finished cleaning our rooms and had set the luncheon table, that I was somewhat in the way. I suppose I had best go in, though. Is there anything I can do for you first, Angel? Cricket is beating that cake batter so hard it sounds like a drum."
Betty had half risen from her chair when the expression in her companion"s face made her sit down again. "What is it?" she asked.
For a moment the other girl"s fingers ceased their busy weaving. "You have never asked me anything about myself, Princess, in spite of all the wonderful things you have done for me," she began. "I don"t want to bore you, but I should like--"
With a low laugh Betty suddenly hunched her chair forward until it was close up against the larger one.
"And I, I am perfectly dying to hear, you must know, you dear little goose, to talk about boring me! Don"t you know I am one of the most curious members of my curious s.e.x? I have not asked you questions because I did not feel I had the right unless you wished to tell. But possibly I asked that question about Polly O"Neill just to give you a chance. Really I don"t know."
In spite of this small confession, not for worlds would Betty Ashton have allowed the sensitive little French girl to have learned another reason for her questioning. It was odd and certainly unreasonable, yet in all her recent kindness and care of Angelique she had continued to feel that in some mysterious fashion her friend, Polly O"Neill, was encouraging and aiding her. There was some one at work, a.s.suredly, though she had no shadow of right in believing it to be Polly. For though she had confided in no one, the first anonymous letter in regard to the ill girl had not been the last one. In truth there must have been half a dozen in all, postmarked at different places and all of them unsigned and yet showing a remarkably intimate knowledge of the growing friendship between the two girls.
The first step had been natural and simple enough. For with her usual enthusiasm after her visit to the hospital Betty had immediately set about forming a Camp Fire. She had sent for all the literature she could find on the subject, the club manual and songs. Then she and Mollie, during her visit, and sometimes Meg, had taught the new club members as much as possible of what they had themselves learned during the old days at Sunrise Hill.
For the first few meetings of the club in the great, sunny hospital room there was one solitary girl who would not show the least interest in the new and delightful proceedings. Indeed she kept on with her stupid gazing up toward the ceiling as if she were both deaf and blind.
However, one day when she believed no one looking and while the other girls were talking of their future aims and ambitions and of the ways in which their new club might help them, unexpectedly Betty Ashton had caught sight of Angelique, with her dark eyes fixed almost despairingly upon her.
The other girls were all busy, some of them sewing on their new ceremonial Camp Fire costumes of khaki, others making bead bands or working at basket weaving. In the meanwhile they were talking of Camp Fire honors to be won in the future and of the new names which they might hope to attain.
Therefore, almost unnoticed by any one else, Betty was able to cross over to the side of the French girl"s bed.
"I was wondering if I could not also do some of that pretty work with my hands," the girl began at once, speaking as composedly as if she had been talking to Betty every day since their first meeting, although this was only the second time that she had ever voluntarily addressed a word to her.
Without commenting or appearing surprised, Betty brought over to her bedside a quant.i.ty of bright straw and straightaway commenced showing the girl the first principles of the art of basket-weaving which she had learned in the Sunrise Camp Fire. Very little instruction was necessary; for, before the first lesson was over, the pupil had learned almost as much as her teacher. Indeed the French girl"s skill with her hands was an amazement to everybody. With her third effort and without a.s.sistance, Angel manufactured so charming a basket that Betty bore it home in triumph to show to her brother and sister. Then quite by accident the basket was left in Esther"s sitting room, where a visitor, seeing it and hearing the story of its weaving, asked permission to purchase it.
After some discussion, and fearful of how the girl might receive the offer, Betty finally summoned courage to tell Angelique. Thus unexpectedly Betty came upon one of the secrets of her new friend"s nature. Angel had an inordinate, a pa.s.sionate desire for making money.
She was older than any one had imagined her, between fourteen and fifteen. Now her hands were no longer clenched on her coverlid nor did her eyes turn resolutely to gaze at nothingness. Propped up on her pillows, her white fingers were ever busy at dozens of tasks. Betty had found a place in Boston where her baskets were sold almost as fast as she could make them. Then Angelique knew quite amazing things about sewing, so that Esther sent her several tiny white frocks to be delicately embroidered, and always the other girls at the hospital were asking her aid and advice.
Quite astonishing the doctors considered the girl"s rapid improvement.
Perhaps no one had told them the secret, for she now had an interest in life and a chance not to be always useless. Was it curious that she no longer disliked Betty Ashton and that she soon became the leading spirit in the new Camp Fire?
Afterwards the Wohelo candles were placed on a small table near Angel"s bed while the girls formed their group about her.
Then one day in early April the Princess had whispered something in Angel"s ear. It was only a hope or at best a plan, yet, after all, Betty Ashton was a kind of fairy G.o.dmother to whom all impossible things were possible.
For Sunrise cabin was undoubtedly open once again with four girls as its occupants-Betty Ashton and Mollie O"Neill, Cricket and "The Angel."
"I am afraid you won"t find my story as interesting as you would like it to be," Angel said after a moment. "And perhaps it may prejudice you against me. I don"t believe Americans think of these things as French people do. But my father was a ballet master and ever since I was the tiniest little girl I had been taught to dance and dance, almost to do nothing else. You see I was to be a premiere danseuse some day," Angel continued quite simply and calmly, scarcely noticing that Betty"s face had paled through sympathy and that she was biting her lips and resolutely turning away her eyes from the fragile figure stretched out in the long steamer chair.
"I was born in Paris, but when I was only a few years old my father came to New York and was one of the a.s.sistant ballet masters at your great opera house. Ten years later, I think it must have been, I was trying a very difficult dance and in some way I had a fall. I did not know it was very bad, we paid no attention to it, then this came." The little French girl shrugged her shoulders. "My father died soon after and mother tried taking care of us both. She did sewing at the theaters and anything else she could. She wasn"t very successful. One day a chance came for me to have special treatment in Boston. I was sent there and mother got some other work to do. I have only seen her once in months and months. But you can understand now why I am so anxious to make money. I was afraid perhaps you would not. I don"t want to be a burden on mother always and now I think perhaps I need not be."
Angel spoke with entire cheerfulness and decision. It did not seem even to have occurred to her that she had been telling her friend an amazingly tragic little history. Nor did Betty Ashton wish her to realize how deeply affected she was by it. So, jumping up with rather an affectation of hurry and surprise, she kissed her companion lightly on the cheek.
"Thank you a thousand times for confiding in me, dear, and please don"t be hopeless about never getting well. See how much you have improved!
But there comes the first of our guests to lunch, a whole half hour too soon. But as long as Billy Webster promised to bring us the mail from Woodford I suppose I must forgive him. Anyhow I must try to keep him from worrying Mollie. She would be dreadfully bored to have him see her before she is dressed." Betty walked away for a few steps and then came back again.
"You will never understand perhaps, Angel, how much my learning to know you this winter has done for me. I was dreadfully unhappy over something myself, and perhaps I am still, but coming to visit you in Boston and then our being together down here has cheered me immensely. I know you are a great deal younger than I am, but if Polly O"Neill never writes me again or wishes to have anything more to do with me, perhaps some day you may be willing to be my very, very intimate friend. You see I have not had even a single line from Polly in months and months and I can"t even guess what on earth has become of her."
CHAPTER XIV-A Sudden Summons
Though Billy Webster had brought with him from the village half a dozen letters and as many papers, no one of the dwellers in Sunrise cabin was able to read anything for three or four hours after his arrival.
For Betty and Mollie were having an informal luncheon. But indeed, ever since taking up their abode at the cabin several weeks before, they had never pa.s.sed a single day without guests. For it was too much like old times for their Woodford friends to find the door of the little house once more hospitably open, with a log fire burning in the big fire place in the living room and the movement and laughter of girls inside the old cabin and out.
At present there were only the four of them living there together with the Ashton"s old Irish cook, Ann, as their guardian, chaperon and first aid in domestic difficulties. Later on, there would be other members of the Sunrise Hill club, who were already looking forward to spending their holidays at the cabin.
As a matter of course, Billy Webster was at present their most frequent visitor, although his calls were ordinarily short. Almost every morning he used to ride up to the cabin on horseback to see if things had gone well with his friends during the night, or to ask if there were any errands in the village which he could do or have done for them. For you may remember that the land on which the cabin stood had been bought from Billy"s father and was not far from their farm. Billy now seemed to be the only one of their former boy friends who was able to come often to the old cabin.
John Everett was at work in the broker"s office in New York City, Frank Wharton had only just returned from his honeymoon journey with Eleanor Meade, and Anthony Graham was attending a session of the New Hampshire Legislature and probably spending his week ends in visits to Meg Everett. There were other men friends, a.s.suredly, who appeared at the cabin now and then, but they had fewer a.s.sociations with the past.
Betty was looking forward to John Everett"s coming a little later; but she had begged him to wait until they were more comfortably settled and the two younger girls had grown accustomed to their new surroundings.
Today Rose Barton and Faith had driven out to the cabin for luncheon and Mrs. Crippen, Betty"s step-mother with the new small step-brother, who was an adorable red-haired baby with the pinkest of cheeks and the bluest eyes in the world. Then, soon after lunch, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wharton appeared in their up-to-date motor car, which had been Frank"s wedding gift from his father.