Even the possession of an income of eighteen million dollars and a unique collection of clocks cannot place a woman above the making of the obvious remark.
"How you have grown!" said Mrs. Oakley.
The words seemed to melt the chill that had gathered around Betty"s heart. She had been prepared to enter into long explanations, and the knowledge that these would not be required was very comforting.
"Do you remember me?" she exclaimed.
"You are the little girl who clapped her hands at the trumpeter, but you are not little now."
"I"m not so very big," said Betty, smiling. She felt curiously at home, and pity for the loneliness of this strange old woman caused her to forget her own troubles.
"You look pretty when you smile," said Mrs. Oakley thoughtfully. She continued to look closely at her. "You are in trouble," she said.
Betty met her eyes frankly.
"Yes," she said.
The old woman bent her head over a Sevres china clock, and stroked it tenderly with her feather duster.
"Why did you run away?" she asked without looking up.
Betty had a feeling that the ground was being cut from beneath her feet. She had expected to have to explain who she was and why she had come, and behold, both were unnecessary. It was uncanny. And then the obvious explanation occurred to her.
"Did my stepfather cable?" she asked.
Mrs. Oakley laid down the feather duster and, opening a drawer, produced some sheets of paper--to the initiated eye plainly one of Mr.
Scobell"s lengthy messages.
"A wickedly extravagant cable," she said, frowning at it. "He could have expressed himself perfectly well at a quarter of the expense."
Betty began to read. The dimple on her chin appeared for a moment as she did so. The tone of the message was so obsequious. There was no trace of the old peremptory note in it. The words "dearest aunt"
occurred no fewer than six times in the course of the essay, its author being apparently reckless of the fact that it was costing him half a dollar a time. Mrs. Oakley had been quite right in her criticism. The gist of the cable was, "_Betty has run away to America dearest aunt ridiculous is sure to visit you please dearest aunt do not encourage her_." The rest was pure padding.
Mrs. Oakley watched her with a glowering eye. "If Bennie Scobell," she soliloquized, "imagines that he can dictate to me--" She ceased, leaving an impressive hiatus. Unhappy Mr. Scobell, convicted of dictation even after three dollars" worth of "dearest aunt!"
Betty handed back the cable. Her chin, emblem of war, was tilted and advanced.
"I"ll tell you why I ran away, Aunt," she said.
Mrs. Oakley listened to her story in silence. Betty did not relate it at great length, for with every word she spoke, the thought of John stabbed her afresh. She omitted much that has been told in this chronicle. But she disclosed the essential fact, that Napoleonic Mr.
Scobell had tried to force her into a marriage with a man she did not--she hesitated at the word--did not respect, she concluded.
Mrs. Oakley regarded her inscrutably for a while before replying.
"Respect!" she said at last. "I have never met a man in my life whom I could respect. Harpies! Every one of them! Every one of them! Every one of them!"
She was muttering to herself. It is possible that her thoughts were back with those persevering young aristocrats of her second widowhood.
Certainly, if she had sometimes displayed a touch of the pirate in her dealings with man, man, it must be said in fairness, had not always shown his best side to her.
"Respect!" she muttered again. "Did you like him, this Prince of yours?"
Betty"s eyes filled. She made no reply.
"Well, never mind," said Mrs. Oakley. "Don"t cry, child! I"m not going to press you. You must have hated him or else loved him very much, or you would never have run away.... Dictate to me!" she broke off, half-aloud, her mind evidently once more on Mr. Scobell"s unfortunate cable.
Betty could bear it no longer.
"I loved him!" she cried. "I loved him!"
She was shaking with dry sobs. She felt the old woman"s eyes upon her, but she could not stop.
A sudden whirr cut through the silence. One of the large clocks near the door was beginning to strike the hour. Instantly the rest began to do the same, till the room was full of the noise. And above the din there sounded sharp and clear the note of the little trumpet.
The noise died away with metallic echoings.
"Honey!"
It was a changed voice that spoke. Betty looked up, and saw that the eyes that met hers were very soft. She moved quickly to the old woman"s side.
"Honey, I"m going to tell you something about myself that n.o.body dreams of. Betty, when I was your age, _I_ ran away from a man because I loved him. It was just a little village tragedy, my dear. I think he was fond of me, but father was poor and her folks were the great people of the place, and he married her. And I ran away, like you, and went to New York."
Betty pressed her hand. It was trembling.
"I"m so sorry," she whispered.
"I went to New York because I wanted to kill my heart. And I killed it.
There"s only one way. Work! Work! Work!" She was sitting bolt upright, and the soft look had gone out of her eyes. They were hard and fiery under the drawn brows. "Work! Ah, I worked! I never rested. For two years. Two whole years. It fought back at me. It tore me to bits. But I wouldn"t stop. I worked on, I killed it."
She stopped, quivering. Betty was cold with a nameless dismay. She felt as if she were standing in the dark on the brink of an abyss.
The old woman began to speak again.
"Child, it"s the same with you. Your heart"s tearing you. Don"t let it!
It will get worse and worse if you are afraid of it. Fight it! Kill it!
Work!"
She stopped again, clenching and unclenching her fingers, as if she were strangling some living thing. There was silence for a long moment.
"What can you do?" she asked suddenly.
Her voice was calm and unemotional again. The abruptness of the transition from pa.s.sion to the practical took Betty aback. She could not speak.
"There must be something," continued Mrs. Oakley. "When I was your age I had taught myself bookkeeping, shorthand, and typewriting. What can you do? Can you use a typewriter?"
Blessed word!
"Yes," said Betty promptly.
"Well?"