He was so strong and dictatorial, so certain of his own judgment and opinions. And Mollie so gentle and yielding! She smiled over her foolish romancing, and yet there was no use pretending that they would not make a suitable match should things turn out that way. Mollie and Polly might possibly never be exactly what they had been to each other in the past, and Mrs. Wharton had re-married, and Sylvia would soon be going away to study nursing.
But some one was pa.s.sing close by and trying to attract her attention.
Betty waved her hand, but when she had gone frowned a little anxiously.
Edith Norton was dancing with the friend whom she had persuaded Meg to ask to her Camp Fire dinner, although none of the rest of the girls liked him. He was a good deal older than their other young men acquaintances and a stranger to most of them, having only come to Woodford in the past six months and opened a drug store. But he had been entirely devoted to Edith since, and of course as she was nearly twenty she should know her own mind. Notwithstanding, Betty felt uneasy and uncomfortable. They had been hearing things not to Frederick Howard"s credit in the village, and Edith had always been unlike the rest of their Sunrise Camp Fire girls. She was vainer and more frivolous and dreadfully tired of working in a millinery shop in Woodford. This much she had confided to Betty after coming to live in the Ashton house. And both Rose Dyer and Miss McMurtry were afraid that Edith might for this reason accept the first opportunity that apparently offered to make life easier for her. So they had asked Betty to use her influence whenever it was possible. Betty it was who had first brought Edith into their club, and Edith had always cared for her and admired her more than any other of her a.s.sociates.
Betty stirred restlessly. Would she never be able to get away from serious thoughts tonight? But the next instant she had jumped to her feet with a quickly smothered cry and stood with her hands clasped tightly over her eyes. For all around her, in her hair falling down upon her shoulders and about her face were glittering sparks of heat and light. They were scorching her; already she could smell the odor of her burning hair. One movement the girl made to protect her head, then in a flash her hands were covering her eyes again. She wanted to run, and yet some subconscious idea restrained her. Running would only make the flames leap faster and higher. And surely in an instant some one must come to her a.s.sistance; for her own low cry had been echoed by a dozen other voices.
Then Betty felt herself roughly seized and dragged stumbling away from her former position, while a sudden, smothering darkness destroyed her breath and vision; and none too tender hands seemed to be pressing down the top of her head.
Another moment and she was pulling feebly at the scorched coat enveloping her.
"Please take it off. I am all right now. The fire must be out, and I"m stifling," she pleaded.
But about her there followed another firm closing in of the heavy material. And then the darkness lifted, showing Anthony Graham standing close beside her in his shabby shirt sleeves, holding his ruined coat in his hands. In a terrified group near by was every other human being in the room, excepting Jim Meade and Frank Wharton, who were pulling down the burning pine and cedar branches from the wall and stamping out the last sparks of fire caused by the overturning of one of the candles.
"What happened to me? Am I much burned?" Betty asked, trying to smile and yet feeling her lips quiver tremulously. "Won"t somebody please take me home?" Now she dared not put up her hands toward her pretty hair, for it was enough to try and bear the pain that seemed to be covering her head and shoulders like a blanket of fire.
Surely the faces before her must look whiter and more terror-stricken than her own. Mollie and Faith were both crying. Betty wondered just why. And Anthony Graham was staring at her with such a strange expression. She wanted to thank him, to say that she was sorry and grateful at the same time, but could not recall exactly what had happened. Then that funny Herr Crippen was shaking all over and saying "Mein liebes Kind," just as though it were Esther who had been hurt.
At last, however, Rose Dyer and Dr. Barton, each with an arm about her, were leading her across the length of that interminable and now pitch-black room with a floor that seemed to be rising before her eyes like the waves of the sea. And afterwards, she did not know just when, the cold night air brought back to her a returning consciousness, but with the consciousness came an even greater sense of pain.
Never in after years could Betty Ashton wholly forget the drive home that followed. Rose Dyer and Miss McMurtry sat on either side of her, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet, and now and then gently touching her bandaged hands. Occasionally Dr. Barton asked her a question, to which she replied as calmly and intelligently as possible. Otherwise she made no movement that she could help and no sound. Anthony Graham drove silently and grimly forward at the utmost speed that the two livery-stable horses could attain. And although to Betty the journey seemed to last half a lifetime, in reality it had seldom been accomplished in so short a time.
CHAPTER XIII
THE INVALIDS
Sylvia Wharton wearing a trained nurse"s costume tiptoed into a darkened room.
Instantly the figure upon the bed turned and sighed.
"I don"t see why she does not come to me, if she is no worse than you say she is," the voice said. "Really, Sylvia, I think it would be better for you or some one to tell me the truth."
Sylvia hesitated. "She isn"t so well, Betty dear. Perhaps Dr. Barton may be angry with me, as he distinctly said that you were not to be worried. But as you are worrying anyhow, possibly talking things over with me may make you feel better. It has all been most unfortunate, Polly"s being ill here in your house when you were enduring so much yourself. But it all comes of mother"s and everybody"s yielding to whatever Polly O"Neill wishes."
Sylvia sat down upon the side of the bed, taking one of Betty"s hands in hers. Ten days had pa.s.sed since the accident at the cabin and the burns on Betty"s hands had almost entirely healed, but over her eyes and the upper part of her face was a linen covering, so that it was still impossible to guess the extent of her injury. She was apt to be quieter, however, Sylvia had found out, when she could feel some one touching her. And now the news of Polly for the time being kept her interested.
"You see, mother"s first mistake was in not bringing Polly straight back home as soon as she found out what she was doing in New York.
Polly had a slight cold then and it kept getting worse each night. But of course Polly pretended that it amounted to nothing and that the stars would fall unless she finished her engagement. So finish it she did, and then hearing of your accident toward the last, as mother and Esther had kept the news a secret from her for some time, why come here she would instead of immediately going home. She wanted to help nurse and amuse you and you had said that you wanted her with you. And then of course Polly was embarra.s.sed over meeting father and Frank. And father was angry at her disobedience and her frightening mother and Mollie. However, that cold of hers has kept on getting worse and she will have to stay in bed now for a few days anyhow. For I won"t let Polly O"Neill have her own way this time."
A faint smile showed itself on Betty"s lips which Sylvia stooped low enough to see. And then in spite of her own stolid and supposedly cold temperament, the younger girl"s expression changed. For it meant a good deal for any one to have succeeded in making Betty Ashton smile in these last few days.
"But you"re fonder of Polly than you are of the rest of us, even Mollie, Sylvia, and you let her lead you around," Betty argued.
Sylvia"s flaxen head was resolutely shaken. She no longer wore her hair in two tight pigtails, but in almost as closely bound braids wound in a circle about her face. Her complexion was still colorless and her eyes nondescript, but Sylvia"s square chin and her resolute expression often made persons take a second look at her. It was seldom that one saw so much character in so young a girl.
"Yes, I am fond of Polly," she agreed, "but you are mistaken if you think I let her influence me. Some one has to take Polly O"Neill sensibly for her own sake." And Sylvia just in time stifled a sigh.
For of course her stepsister was in a more serious condition than she had confessed to the other girl. It was well enough to call the illness a bad cold--it was that, but possibly something worse, bronchitis, pneumonia--Dr. Barton had not yet given it a name. She was only to be kept quiet and watched. Later on he would know better what to say. Her const.i.tution was not strong.
Some telepathic message, however, must have pa.s.sed from one friend to the other, for at this instant Betty sat up suddenly with more energy than she had yet shown.
"If anything dreadful happens to Polly, I shall never forgive Esther as long as I live. It is all very well for Polly and your mother to insist that Esther was not in any possible way responsible. Mollie and I both feel differently. Esther should have told----"
By the fashion in which Sylvia Wharton arose and walked away from the bed, Betty realized how intensely their opinions disagreed, although the younger girl moved quietly, with no anger or flurry and made no reply.
"Here are some more roses, Betty, that John Everett sent you. Shall I put them near enough your bed to have you enjoy their fragrance?"
Sylvia asked. "John seems to be buying up all the flowers near Dartmouth. I told Meg that you would rather he did not send so many.
But she says she can"t stop him. For somehow John feels kind of responsible for your getting hurt, as he arranged for you to sit under those particular candles. Then he did not notice when you first called for help and let Anthony Graham rescue you. Meg is downstairs now with your mother. Would you like to see her?"
Betty shook her head. "Please don"t let Meg know, but I don"t feel like talking, somehow. The girls are so sweet and sympathetic. And I try to be brave, but until I know----"
With magically quick footsteps the younger girl had again crossed the room and her firm arms were soon about her friend"s shoulders.
"You are going to be all right, dear. Dr. Barton is almost sure of it and I am quite. There won"t be any scars that will last and your eyes--why, you protected them marvelously, and they only need resting.
You are too beautiful, Betty dear, to have anything happen that could in any way mar you. I can"t, I won"t believe it."
And somehow Sylvia was one of those people in whose judgment and faith one must always find healing. Betty said nothing more, only put out her hand with an appealing gesture and caught hold of Sylvia"s dress.
"I don"t want to talk or to see people, and I"m tired of being read to.
What is there for me to do, Sylvia child, to make the hours pa.s.s?"
Rather desperately the younger girl looked about the great, sunshiny room. It was not Betty"s old blue room, but the room once used as a store-room and afterwards occupied by Esther, into which Betty had moved a short while before her accident. Imagination was not Sylvia Wharton"s strong point. She was an excellent nurse, quiet, firm and patient and always to be relied upon. But what to do to make Betty Ashton stop thinking of what might await her at the end of her weeks of suffering must have taxed a far more fertile brain than Sylvia"s.
However, the suggestion did not have to come from her; for at this instant there was a knock at the door, so gentle that it was difficult to be sure that it really was a knock.
Outside stood the German professor with his violin under his arm. And he looked so utterly wretched and uneasy that Sylvia wondered how he could feel so great an emotion over Betty, although the entire village seemed to be worrying as though in reality she had been their own "Princess." No one could talk of anything else until her condition became finally known; but Herr Crippen was a newcomer and Betty had never cared for him.
"Would the little _Fraulein_ like it that I should play for her?" he now asked gently.
And Sylvia turned to the girl on the bed.
At first Betty had shaken her head, but now she evidently changed her mind.
"You are very kind. I think I should enjoy it," she answered. And a few moments afterwards Sylvia stole away.
So there was no one in the room to notice how frequently Herr Crippen had to wipe his gla.s.ses as he looked down upon the girl of whose face he could see nothing now save the delicately rounded chin and full red lips.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The professor had to wipe his gla.s.ses]
Then without worrying her he began to play: in the beginning not Beethoven nor Mozart, nor any of the cla.s.sic music he most loved, but the Camp Fire songs, which he had lately arranged for the violin because of his interest in the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls, and which he was playing for the first time before an audience.
And Betty listened silently, not voicing her surprise. The song of "The Soul"s Desire," what memories it brought back of Esther and their first meeting in this room! No wonder that Esther had so great talent with such a queer, gifted father. Betty wondered idly what the mother could have been like. She was an American and beautiful, so much she remembered having been told.
Then ceasing to think of Esther she began thinking of herself. Could she ever again even try to follow the Law of the Camp Fire, which had meant so much to her in the past few years, if this dreadful tragedy which hovered over her, sleeping or waking, should be not just a terrible fear, but a living fact. Should she be scarred from her accident, or worse fear, should her eyes be affected by the scorching heat of the flames?
Softly under her breath, even while listening with all her soul to the music, Betty repeated the Camp Fire Law.