IT WAS THE SPRINGTIME
The winter slipped away, and in April the little camp was to be formed,
and the officers were to remain for a couple of months. The thought of
seeing Fortescue again, brought the eloquent blood to Betty's delicate
cheeks and a new brilliance to her sparkling eyes. The spring came
early in that latitude, and the first day of April was deliciously
mild. Betty was at work in the little old-fashioned garden of Holly
Lodge. She had brought with her from Rosehill many rosebushes and a bed
of cowslips and violets. With a garden trowel in her hand, her skirts
pinned up, and a red Tam o'Shanter pushed back from her forehead,
Betty was busy digging about the rosebushes. Kettle had been of the
greatest service in making the garden. That morning he had been sent
to the post-office for the mail, and Betty was watching out for him:
he was likely to bring her a letter from Fortescue. Presently, Kettle
appeared crossing the little lawn, and passed through the garden gate.
His shrewd little mind had discovered that when he delivered to Betty a
large, square envelope, addressed in a certain masculine handwriting,
Betty was sure to smile and open the letter quickly. This happened
again, but Kettle was amazed to see Betty's dimple suddenly disappear,
her bright eyes suddenly grow sombre, and the color drop swiftly out
of her cheeks. She read the letter through slowly, and then stood with
her eyes fixed upon the ground and her lips trembling. Fortescue was
not coming with the other officers. He had just received orders to
the other side of the continent. He had asked for twenty-four hours'
leave, which would give him a chance to see Betty for about two hours
the next day. He did not know, however, whether he could get permission
in time to make the boat or not, but he would do it if mortal man
could. He hoped Betty would understand why he came. The girl knew well
enough what he meant, but the thought of three thousand miles between
them for a long time, brought its pang. The fair day suddenly lost its
beauty for Betty. The vagrant breeze seemed to sigh farewell, and the
sapphire sky above her would not be long the sky above Fortescue. She
was roused from her painful dream by Kettle's voice, and realized that
the boy had stood motionless next her for a long time.
"Miss Betty," he asked, "what's the matter with you?"
"A great deal is the matter with me," sighed Betty, putting the letter
in her pocket, and resuming her digging and trimming. What did it
matter whether the roses bloomed that June or not? And the violets and
the cowslips could not console her for Fortescue.
Betty remained a long time in the garden that morning. Kettle followed
her about like a dog, every now and then asking anxiously:
"Miss Betty, don't you feel no better?"
In spite of her sadness and disappointment, Betty was roused out of
herself by Kettle's sympathy.
"I don't feel any better now, Kettle," she said. "Perhaps I shall
to-morrow."
But although Betty might show her chagrin and despondency before
Kettle and the rosebushes and the violets and the cowslips, she
had no intention whatever of letting anybody else see it. When she
looked up and saw the Colonel coming out to take the air, pacing up
and down the garden walk in the sunny spring day, Betty, who was a
clever actress, put on her most smiling aspect. As the Colonel limped
up and down for half an hour, his arm on Betty's shoulder, he thought
he had never known her more cheerful. She told him quite naturally
that she had had a letter from Mr. Fortescue, and that he was ordered
to the Northwest, but, if possible, he would be at Rosehill the next
day for a short time, and would come over to see them. The Colonel's
emotions concerning Fortescue were very badly mixed and perplexing
even to himself. He was not so selfish as to forget Betty's happiness,
and Fortescue was a fine, upstanding young fellow, quite after the
Colonel's heart. But there was something calculated to daunt the brave
soul of the old man in the thought of his few remaining years without
Betty. He had been called upon to resign the love of his youth, his
only son, and Rosehill, and now this little one---- At the thought, the
Colonel said to himself, as he had done many times in years past, amid
the hail of bullets, with cannon thundering in his ears, or in snow and
sleet and starvation, "Courage! Courage!"
All that day, Betty was in a dream. She knew very well the answer she
would give Fortescue, but suddenly she looked into the stern face
of Life, and saw what those dreams meant. How could she leave Holly
Lodge and the Colonel and Aunt Tulip and Uncle Cesar and Kettle, and
the young chickens, just hatched? Life was a practical affair with
Betty, but, alas, sentiment and emotion were strong within her. She did
not know how the next twenty-four hours passed, except that her eyes
continually swept the narrow lane that led to the little gate of Holly
Lodge. She would rather see Fortescue in the garden, and therefore
dressed herself in her little pale yellow gown, and put on a great
straw hat, trimmed with little yellow buds and green leaves, that was
worthy of a dryad. The air was warm and soft at midday, and Betty was
walking up and down the garden path, watching, watching, watching, and
at last, just as she had turned her back to the gate and was walking
the length of the little garden path, Fortescue was at her side. He
looked so bronzed, so soldierly, so much the man, that Betty gave a
little gasp of delight. There was a tall box-hedge in the little old
garden which screened the walk from the windows of the house, so that
Fortescue could take Betty's hand and be unseen as they walked up
and down in the pleasant spring noon. Then Fortescue told her all:
that he had received his unexpected orders and must go, that it wrung
his heart to leave her, but that he was hers forever, and that though
his body might be in the far Northwest, his heart and soul would be at
Holly Lodge. Betty's eyes made answer to Fortescue, and her lips spoke
the winged words that gave her to her lover. A pair of robins beginning
housekeeping in the grape arbor at the end of the walk sang and trilled
rapturously as they watched the lovers.
[Illustration: "BUT IF YOU LOVE ME----"]
There could be no question of their being married immediately, as
Fortescue would be on the wing for the next four months, and he knew
nothing of his new station or duties, except that both were trying and
the conditions unsuited to a woman. But later, after he had seen what
the conditions were, perhaps he could take Betty with him.
"I am asking a great deal of you, Betty," he said. "The wife of
a junior officer has to go from place to place, to be uprooted
constantly. It is true that I am lucky in having money enough to make
it as easy as it can be made, still, it is hard, hard, all the same.
But if you love me----"
Betty said one little word which settled that point, though her eyes
were grave.
"How can I leave my grandfather?" she asked suddenly.
"You need not leave him," promptly replied Fortescue. "We can carry the
old gentleman and the whole outfit around with us."
But Betty shook her head.
"You don't know my grandfather," she said. "He has a very independent
spirit. How could a man who has lived his life here for so many years
go from place to place? He must live and die here."
"He can go and live at Rosehill if he wants to," answered Fortescue,
who was disposed to brush away all obstacles. "My father is pretty good
to me, and he will do anything I ask him about the place."
"But Granddaddy would never consent to be a pensioner on anybody, I am
sure," continued Betty, with a doleful little smile. "So we can't be
married until you are retired, thirty-six years from now."
Fortescue scouted this proposition, but he saw in Betty Beverley
something that gave him pain and yet made him proud. This was a fixed
loyalty to her duty. It was that which made Fortescue, who could have
led a life of idle luxury, lead the stern life of a soldier. He would
not have loved Betty half so well if she had shown too much willingness
to cast off the old ties for the new. But, as Fortescue told himself
and Betty, there are a great many troublesome questions coming up all
the time concerning human beings, horses, cows, gardens, and everything
else. There was one small scrap of comfort. It was:
"And the only thing is, Betty," he said, "that we shall love each other
and stand by each other, and some way out of it will be found."
It was possible that in December, when the great Northwest was
snow-bound, Fortescue might get a month's leave. If he came to Virginia
and back, it would give him a week, perhaps ten days, at Rosehill.
Of course, he would have to spend a day or two with his father and
brothers but they could meet him somewhere on the way.
"I've got a fine old dad," Fortescue said, "and he is always saying
that the men of to-day have no devotion to women; so the old gentleman
wouldn't think me game if I didn't spend most of my leave with you, eh,
Betty?"
It seemed to them but a little space of time that they had been in
the garden together, when Fortescue, suddenly looking at his watch,
found that he had barely time to go into the house and speak to the
Colonel and then catch the boat at the landing. The friendly hedge that
had screened the lovers witnessed the last throbbing kiss. Outwardly
serene, but inwardly palpitating, they went quickly into the house.
Betty had warned Fortescue, as they ran down the garden path, to say
nothing to her grandfather.
"It will only distress him and keep him awake at night, and I will
choose a time to tell him."
"All right," answered Fortescue. "Just give me notice, and I will write
him the conventional letter. But to tell you the truth, Betty, I would
just as soon be out of the way when the Colonel turns those pathetic
eyes on you, as you talk about getting married."
Colonel Beverley had seen so many young men walking up and down the
garden path with Betty, and had watched the rise and fall of so many
flirtations, that he attached little consequence to Fortescue's visit.
He was sorry that the young officer would not be among the party in
the camp, and added with a grim smile that no doubt the young ladies in
the county would miss him extremely and would be forced to take comfort
in other second lieutenants, just as it had been in his day. Then with
best wishes and a handshake, and a soft pressure of Betty's fingers,
Fortescue was gone.
"A fine, personable youngster," said the Colonel to Betty. "Very
creditable of him, serving in the army, and he the son of a rich man.
He could be, if he wished, of the idle rich."
"If he were an idle rich man, I don't think I should care much about
him," said Betty significantly.