PRIDE PAYS THE PRICE
The Colonel was playing on his violin as Betty entered the
sitting-room, and what he had chosen was the sad old air of "Love Not,
Love Not, Ye Hapless Sons of Men." He laid down his violin, and noticed
that Betty's face was pale, in spite of the sharp winter air, and that
she spoke with suppressed fury in her voice.
"Grandfather," she said, "it is all over between Mr. Fortescue and me.
Please don't ask me about it. We didn't disagree about a trifle, but
about something important. We are perfectly friendly, and mean to keep
so, because we don't want the people in the county talking about us
and worrying us with questions. But it is all over, quite over."
The Colonel started and studied Betty closely. He knew the resolute
character, the stubborn pride, that lay beneath all of Betty's
frivolities. She could do things as foolish as any girl of her age, but
she could suffer more than most. The Colonel sighed as he looked at
her pale, unsmiling face, her eyes full of angry light. He understood
the sharp pain of those who have not learned the awful lesson of life,
the haughty attitude of the young who have never known defeat, the
sufferings of mortified pride and wounded vanity, and, above all, he
had an inward conviction that Betty in her heart loved Fortescue.
Man-like, the Colonel was not so sure of Fortescue, and a resentment,
grim and stern, rose within him. Until the young officer appeared,
Betty had been quite happy and satisfied at Holly Lodge. In time, she
would have married some one in the county perhaps, and would have led
that peaceful life on the sunny side of the wall, which only the quiet
lives know. But with Fortescue's appearance had come the disturbing
vision of a possible return to Rosehill, of a life in the great outside
world, going from place to place, of the breaking of all the old
ties. Betty had asked him not to question her, but the Colonel felt
justified in asking precisely one question.
"Elizabeth, has Mr. Fortescue acted dishonorably?" he inquired,
straightening up his old figure, still soldierly.
"No," replied Betty promptly. "Mr. Fortescue couldn't do anything
dishonorable."
"I am glad to hear it," answered the Colonel grimly. "If he had, I
should have felt called upon to chastise him according to the code in
which I was reared and have lived and shall die."
Betty's heart was quivering, her pride was up in arms, the whole world
seemed full of tears; but when the Colonel talked about chastising
Fortescue's young strength, her sense of humor overwhelmed her pain,
and she suddenly laughed a little. She did not tell the Colonel the
cause of her ripple of laughter, and in another minute her eyes grew
sombre and her heart once more hardened against Fortescue.
"You may be quite satisfied, Grandfather," she said. "All that has
happened was my own act."
Betty turned and went out of the room. Being Christmas time, and there
being no household tasks awaiting her, no sewing to do, because she
had planned that this Christmas time should be one of perfect leisure,
that she might be free to entertain her great guest, First Love, there
was nothing for her to do. She went aimlessly up to her room. Then,
suddenly, she felt a sharp headache. Her mental suffering produced a
physical pain. She was rather glad of it, as it gave her an excuse for
keeping to her room and lying down. The little room was flooded with
winter sunshine, and a pretty fire was smouldering on the hearth. Betty
drew the curtains, glancing meanwhile toward Rosehill. Her keen eyes
caught sight of Fortescue crossing the lawn rapidly. A great buzzard
was wheeling majestically over the Rosehill house, and a group of the
servants, one of the men with a gun, was standing on the edge of the
lawn, prepared to fire at the bird. Fortescue walked up and, taking
the gun, sighted and fired, and the buzzard fell upon the roof of the
house. This little act wrung Betty's heart.
"How little he cares!" she thought bitterly. "Any trifle can distract
him. Well, it was better to find it out in time."
Then, for the first time, Betty turned her eyes away as the Colonel
turned his away from Rosehill. She loved the place, and deep in her
heart had grown the wish to preside there once more, as Fortescue's
wife. It was impossible, quite impossible, now. She could not forget
Fortescue--Betty was honest enough with herself to know that, and
honorable enough to respect her own affection. Love is not killed in
an hour or even a day. The great stretch of life ahead of her loomed
before Betty's eyes as one stands on the edge of a parched desert
and thinks of the weary journey across it. For Betty Beverley, the
coquette, was the soul of constancy. These thoughts and many others and
a racking headache drove Betty to her bed. She threw herself on it,
with all the sunshine shut out of her room, just as it had been shut
suddenly out of her life.
At the midday dinner, Kettle, who had almost supplanted Uncle Cesar as
butler, came up, and, opening Betty's door and putting in his little
woolly head, said softly:
"Miss Betty, dinner done ready."
"I can't come down to dinner," answered Betty. "Tell the Colonel that I
have a bad headache. It will be better to-night, and I am going to the
party just the same. But when dinner is over, Kettle, you may bring me
up some tea and toast."
Kettle had never known Betty to have an ache or a pain since he had
been established at Holly Lodge, and the sight of her pale face, and
the weariness in her voice, frightened him. He began to argue with
Betty:
"Miss Betty, you better come down ter dinner. Aunt Tulip, she done
cook some of the bes' sweet 'taters you ever see in your life, Miss
Betty--got sugar on 'em, an' butter too."
"I don't care for any, thank you," said Betty, her heart far away from
sweet potatoes with sugar and butter.
Kettle paused for a minute in order to think of some other inducement.
"Aunt Tulip, she got a rice pudden' wid gre't big raisins in it, mos'
as big as my fist," urged Kettle.
"No, thank you," replied Betty absently.
But Kettle's sympathy could not be bottled up.
"Miss Betty," pleaded Kettle, "lemme go out an' crack you up some
wun'nuts," by which Kettle meant walnuts.
Betty's patience was giving out.
"No, Kettle," she said sharply. "I don't want anything except tea and
toast, as I told you."
"But, Miss Betty," persisted Kettle, edging toward the door, "I got
a big bag o' chestnuts, an' they mighty good roasted on the kitchen
shovel."
Betty's nerves and her temper could stand no more.
"Go away, Kettle," she cried impatiently. "Go downstairs this minute
and serve the Colonel's soup."
The tone could not be mistaken, and Kettle went out of the door as if
shot out of a gun. Once outside, however, his little faithful heart
was still torn for Betty, and he was prepared to take great risks. He
turned the door-knob noiselessly, and, putting his round, black head in
the door, whispered:
"Miss Betty, Miss Betty, when I bring up yo' tea, lemme bring you up a
hard b'iled aig!"
Betty's answer was to throw a pillow at Kettle, who dodged it and went
clattering downstairs.
What a strange, unnatural day it was for Betty! Here in the brilliant
afternoon, when she was wont to be her brightest and best, she lay
huddled up in her bed, racked with physical and mental pain. Her
sunny room was dark, and her active little feet felt like lead. The
prospect of a party, the music, the dancing, the bright interchange of
looks and words that was the wine of life to Betty's pleasure-loving
temperament, seemed to her now a dreadful ordeal, to be gone through
with courage, and by a stupendous effort to let no one suspect the
agony of her mind. Never before had she felt humiliated in the presence
of any man, but she felt a sharp humiliation at the thought that in the
first encounter of her will with Fortescue's, she had been defeated;
whether by her own unreason or his, was equally painful. But there was
no back-down in Betty, and she never dreamed of staying away from the
party or giving up the fight because of an aching heart.
The old Colonel downstairs in the sitting-room felt his heart wrung
for his little Betty. Too soon had come to her those shocks and
disappointments against which youth rebels. The young demand happiness
of life, and are in despair when they first find they cannot secure it.
Kettle, after having taken up Betty's tea, came downstairs again, and,
instead of going into the kitchen, where he belonged, came into the
sitting-room and, perching his small, black, and miserable self upon
a little cricket, fixed his eyes upon the Colonel's grave, gray face,
outlined against the window-pane. The boy sat so still and silent that
the Colonel at last roused himself and asked kindly:
"What's the matter, Kettle?"
"Ain' nothin' 'tall matter wid me, suh, but sumpin' is the matter wid
Miss Betty, an' it kinder makes me feel bad."
The Colonel sighed; it made him feel bad, too.
All the afternoon, Kettle sat there until it was time to milk old
Bossy, a duty which he had monopolized for some time past. Then there
was wood and water to be brought, and all the other duties which Aunt
Tulip had devised for him. But when they were over Kettle crept softly
upstairs and seated himself on the top step close to Betty's door. At
seven o'clock, Betty opened the door that she might call down to Aunt
Tulip to assist her in getting into her gown. She almost fell over
Kettle.
"What are you doing here, Kettle?"
"Jes' waitin' ter see ef you don' want nothin'," was Kettle's excuse.
The boy's inarticulate sympathy touched Betty's heart in the midst of
her own unhappiness.
"I do want something," she said kindly. "I want you to tell Aunt Tulip
to come here, and to bring up some more wood, and to do all sorts of
things that nobody can do for me except you, Kettle."
Kettle's black face beamed. He ran downstairs after Aunt Tulip, and
then began bringing wood, toiling up the stairs with as much as he
could carry.
Although Betty was dressed as gaily as usual for a party, and took as
much pains with her beautiful brown hair and the wreath of ivy-leaves
upon it, Kettle's sharp eyes were not deceived. Something was wrong
with Miss Betty.
When old Whitey pulled the rockaway up to the door, Betty came down to
show herself as usual to the Colonel. The unspoken pity in his eyes
moved Betty.
"Don't be afraid, Grandfather," she said. "I haven't any more cowardice
in me than there is in you. I intend to be just as happy to-night as
ever I was, and to dance and laugh and sing as I always do."
And then poor Betty laughed a laugh so forced, so full of pain, so
unlike her usual rippling laughter, that the Colonel's heart was wrung
more than ever. But he knew better than to offer Betty pity.
"Stiffen up, my dear," he said. "Life is full of disappointments.
Fortescue is not the man you took him for, that is all. Put him out of
your mind."
"I will," replied Betty stoutly, without the slightest ability to keep
her word in the matter.
Driving along the hard country road in the wintry night, Betty thought
of all those things she might do by which a headstrong, proud, and
deeply sensitive girl may inflict pain upon herself as well as another.
She would, of course, give Fortescue back his ring that night, and the
next day there were to be returned a few trifles other than books and
flowers that he had sent her. The ring was a simple thing, a little
ruby heart surrounded with small pearls. She had never worn it in
public, for fear it might attract attention--people in the country are
observant of trifles. But she loved the little ring as a symbol.
That night the party was at Red Plains, and Betty knew she would meet
the whole county. There was no hall for dancing at Red Plains, but the
drawing-room was cleared of furniture, and there the dancing went on.
As Betty entered the drawing-room, almost the first person she saw was
Fortescue dancing vigorously with Sally Carteret. Betty was besieged
with partners, and immediately whirled off with one of them. When the
music stopped, she found herself close to Fortescue, near the great
fireplace in which the Christmas fire burned. They both spoke cordially
and smiling, but as Betty withdrew her hand from Fortescue's grasp,
she left in it the little ring. Fortescue was exasperated, as any man
would be, by the promptness of this stab, and, while talking gaily with
Betty, dropped the ring into the open fire, unseen by any except her.
Betty's heart gave a great throb of pain. She loved her little ring,
and it seemed to her an insult that Fortescue should destroy it before
her eyes.
They danced together, and talked so merrily that no one suspected the
gulf which they themselves had dug between them, so great is the folly,
the rashness, the headlong pride, of youth. Each had a fierce pride
which prevented them from showing their self-inflicted wounds to the
world, or making an outcry at that dreadful, gratuitous and unnecessary
pain which the young inflict upon themselves. As Betty danced,
she thought about the poor princess who had to walk upon burning
plough-shares. If she were a real princess, Betty thought, she smiled
bravely during her agony.
The merriment, the dancing, the pretty Christmas observances, that
Betty had loved so much, all seemed now to her wearisome and joyless.
She longed for the time to come when the ball would be over, and she
could be alone, and thought with distaste of the half a dozen parties
ahead of her. This was very much increased by the news spread abroad
that a ball was to be given at Rosehill on Christmas Eve. Fortescue
invited everybody cordially and pleasantly to his ball, saying he could
not hope to do things as picturesquely as they did them, but he would
do his best. Everybody had accepted his invitation with alacrity. He
had made himself popular in a community where newcomers were usually
looked upon askant, and the prospect of Rosehill being once more opened
at Christmas time pleased the young people immensely.
"Of course, Miss Betty, you will come," said Fortescue cordially, his
heart hardening against Betty as he spoke.
"Certainly, I will," she answered, with a brilliant smile. "I shall be
glad to see Rosehill gay once more."
When the ball was over, in the early hours of the morning, with the
earth still wrapped in pitch darkness, and Betty was driving home,
a faint moan escaped her lips. It was bad enough to have to meet
Fortescue constantly, but to go to Rosehill---- She might, it is true,
deceive everybody in the county on a pretense of illness, but she could
not deceive Fortescue, the person whom she most wished to deceive. She
would go, no matter what it cost her.
The ball at Rosehill was a torturing thing to Betty. By that time, as
it is with the wild hearts of youth, she had a settled and burning
resentment against Fortescue, which she concealed from the world
with pretty smiles and gay words. Fortescue, as he said, could not
do things as the county people did, but with well meant generosity
he did everything well at his ball so far as money could go. There
was a profusion of flowers ordered from Baltimore, along with the
conventional supper, totally unlike what the county people had, and
a band of music beside which the fiddles of Isaac Minkins and Uncle
Cesar and the "lap organ" paled. These novelties pleased everybody
except Betty, who walked through the rooms where she had spent nineteen
years of her short life, and looked around her with a supercilious
smile that infuriated Fortescue.
The ball kept up late. Fortescue was an admirable host, and his guests
enjoyed themselves. It was quite five o'clock before the last guest had
left, and during the night there had been a fall of snow. The lights
were out, and Fortescue, in his bedroom, which had once been Betty's,
was smoking his last cigar, and cursing the treachery of a woman--of
Betty Beverley, who had won his brave and honest heart, and then,
through sheer unreason and heartlessness, had cast him off. He threw
the stump of his cigar savagely into the fire, and, going to the window
which looked toward Holly Lodge, put it up to inhale the cold, clear
air. The blackness and darkness had given way to a pale gray, which
preceded the dawn, and by the ghostly half-light, he saw from the roof
of Holly Lodge a great cloud of black smoke ascend, and little tongues
of flame leaping wickedly.