BETTY IN THE LION'S DEN
So that it was John who showed Betty the thing in all its beauty. It was
he, who, so to speak, called her to the mountain top, and pointed out to
her the cities of the world to be climbed above. And it seemed to little
independent-hearted Betty to be the most glorious thing in the world to
climb upon one's own feet, pulling oneself upwards with one's own hands.
She wondered how she could have ever wanted such a very ordinary
happening as for her grandfather to _adopt_ them and give them _his_
money. Here was this wonderful John Brown actually longing to give up
her grandfather--his grandfather. For he had soon convinced her that
Captain Carew was his grandfather too, and while allowing that he might
be hers, he showed her how very little in the eyes of the world _her_
relationship counted for. He, he said, was the son of his grandfather's
eldest son--that their names were different was solely owing to the fact
that his father had changed his name for private reasons. She and Cyril
and all the rest of them were merely the children of his grandfather's
_daughter_. And, as he impressed upon Betty, women didn't count for much
in the world's eyes.
Yet Betty was very earnest in her intention to be something
great--something self-made, and John was willing enough not to stand in
her way. He himself was going to start at once; _he_ was not going to
waste any more time over going to school and doing lessons. He pointed
to his grandfather as a fine example of a man who had risen _because_ he
had not wasted time in learning. He told Betty they could not begin
their "career" too early.
It was Betty who suggested waiting till the Christmas holidays, and it
was John who said--
"Perhaps you'd better wait till the next Christmas. I will have got a
bit of a start by then and will be able to help you."
But Betty was indignant at that.
"I won't be helped!" she said. "I won't be helped by you, John Brown.
Stay at home till Christmas yourself--I'm going _now_!"
Her career had to be decided upon, and very little time remained in
which to decide. John intended beginning life as an errand boy. In his
spare time, he said, he would go on with his drawing, and if an
opportunity occurred, he would work his passage out somewhere in some
ship. He was rather vague about all but the errand running; that he saw
to be the first step towards greatness.
Betty was not long before she decided he was keeping some part of his
design from her. And every afternoon when they had left school and each
other, she was nervous lest he should have gone by morning--gone and
left her to find her way into the world alone!
And here was she unable to decide upon her career! She even asked
questions about Joan of Arc and Grace Darling, and set herself to find
out if there were any other women in the history book.
"It isn't fair!" she said at last to the thoughtful John Brown. "You'd
never have known about being an errand boy and an artist only for your
books. You've got a lot of books to help you."
But John told her how he had been decided upon his "career" all his
life, ever since his father had left him alone on the station in the
country which time was, as the reader will be aware, situated somewhere
about his first birthday. But he magnanimously proposed to place his
grandfather's library at her feet, or rather to place her feet within
his grandfather's library.
"You can come and take your pick," he said.
At this period of her life Betty was not troubled with pride--the pride
of the slighted and poor relation.
She accepted his offer rapturously, only adding, "You'd better keep my
grandfather out of the way when I come."
"Come when he's having his afternoon sleep," said John.
So Betty was smuggled into her grandfather's library.
It was Saturday afternoon when she went to the great house. She had to
slip away from Dot, who was making elaborate alterations to a pretty
blue muslin frock (she was invited to spend the next Saturday and Sunday
with Alma Montague, the doctor's daughter); her mother was calling
"Betty, come here," in the front garden as she reached the track through
the bush, and Cyril and Nancy had implored her to "come and play
something."
But Betty had a "career" to think of. She ran through the bush and
arrived breathless at that part of her grandfather's fence which ran
past their coral islands. At a certain hour every afternoon, John said,
his grandfather went to sleep. It was during this sleep time that Betty
was to search the shelves of his library for a book that should
enlighten her as to the best way to become a "self-made woman."
She slipped under the fence, and into the little belt of bush that
bounded the emu run, and where she, as a ghost, had waited.
John's signal came very soon, and Betty immediately took off her bonnet
and rolled it up under her arm--the better to hear--and marched boldly
across the gravel paths to the library window where John stood.
"Where is he?" asked Betty.
"Asleep on the little verandah," said John; "he always sleeps a long
time after dinner."
Betty stepped into the room and looked around her curiously.
It was such a room as she had never seen yet, and it pleased her
greatly. Two enormous bookcases full of books stood side by side against
one wall. Another wall was book-lined for about eight feet of its height
and ten of its length. The centre-table had a dark blue cloth upon it
and bore magazines, books and newspapers and writing materials.
Betty's feet rested pleasurably on the thick rich carpet and her eyes
went from easy chair to easy chair.
"My father ought to have this room," she said, "he writes the most
beautiful books, and I know he'd write ever so many more if he lived
here."
"Here's the book I got myself from," said John, advancing to a
bookcase.
But Betty was oblivious of her errand. She lingered by the table,
turning over the covers of the magazines, and picture after picture
caught her eye.
One in particular she lingered over. It represented a bric-a-brac strewn
room.
"The boudoir of Madam S----," it said.
"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, and dropped her sun-bonnet into her grandfather's
chair. "Oh, John, when I've made myself, I'll have a room like _this_!"
She began to read and her eyes smiled. Then she sank down on the floor,
carrying the book with her, and leaning her back against a table-leg she
lost herself in an interview with Madam S----.
Madam replied to several searching questions blithely. She told a little
story about her large family of brothers and sisters, their extreme
poverty and her own inordinate love of music. Then there was a pathetic
touch when sickness, poverty and hunger darkened the poor little home,
and she, a mite of eight, had stood at a street corner in a foreign
city and sung a simple song. A crowd had soon collected, and a
keen-eyed, bent-shouldered man had been passing by hurriedly, and had
stopped, caught by a "something" in the little singer's voice, and face,
and attitude. He had finally pushed his way through the crowd and stood
beside the little girl in the tattered frock.
_That_ song and _that_ interview had been the beginning of a great
career. Hard work and small pay had intervened, but success had followed
success, and now not one of her concerts to-day meant less to her than
hundreds of pounds. Dukes threw flowers at her feet, Princes loaded her
with diamond brooches, tiaras, necklaces, bangles; kings and queens and
emperors "commanded her to sing before them," and gave her beautiful
mementos.
Betty was breathing quickly as she came to this stage of Madam S----'s
career. She turned a leaf, and a face smiling under a coronet looked at
her.
"Madame S----, present day," the words below said.
A neighbouring photograph showed a mite with a pinched face and a
tattered frock.
"Madame S----, at eight years old!" was the inscription.
"And I'm twelve," said Betty. "Twelve and a bit."
She turned her head, then raised it sharply. There standing beside her
was her grandfather.
The two looked at each other.
What Betty saw at first--it must be confessed--was the keen-eyed,
bent-shouldered individual who had appeared to the little street singer,
and the silly little imaginative maiden waited for him to speak.
What the grandfather saw was a small girl of "twelve and a bit," in a
pink print frock; a small girl with a brown shining face, golden-brown
hair and brown eyes, and parted red lips, a little person in every way
different from the pale-faced ghost who had visited him awhile back--so
different that he did not know her.
He simply took her for a little school-girl and no more.
Then Betty remembered who he was--who she was--where she was--and a few
other matters of similar importance, and a red, red flush spread over
her face and to the tips of her small pink ears.
The sea-captain opened his mouth in a jocular roar.
"Who's been sitting in my room?" he demanded. "Why, here she is!"
Betty's lip quivered. She _was_ beginning to be afraid--or rather she
was afraid.
"I--I just wanted to see a book," she said.
"And what book did you _just_ want to see?"
He took the magazine from her and noticed two things--how her hand shook
and how bravely her eyes met his.
His glance wandered over the open page, and a wonderment came to him
what there was here to interest such a child.
The next second the fatal question was on his lips.
"And what is your name?" he asked.
Betty's lips moved, but no sound left them. She just sat dumbly there
gazing into her grandsire's face.
The old man sat down on the pink bonnet. He was not in the least
anxious over her name. She was a schoolmate of John's, of course; he had
often stumbled over these active eager little creatures in the back
yard, in the near paddock, by the emus' run, near the pigeon-boxes, on
the staircase. _Only_ hitherto they had been of John's own sex. This
pretty little nervous girl interested him.
He drew her magazine towards him.
"We're waiting for the name--aren't we, Jack?" he said.
Then Betty realized that her hour was indeed come. She rose to her feet
and stood in front of him gulping down a few hard breaths.
"I--I didn't come to get us adopted this time," she quavered.
"Eh?" said Captain Carew. He spoke dully, yet the faintest glimmerings
of light were beginning to break on him. Her attitude, something
familiar in her voice, her height and shining curly head brought that
evening to his mind, when she had owned to an intention of wishing to
frighten him. A slow anger stirred him, anger against this child, her
parents, and himself.
"Your name!" he said harshly.
And at the sound of his own voice his anger grew. His lip thrust itself
out when he had spoken, and his whole face wore its hardest, most
unlovely look.
"Your name, girl?"
And Betty hesitated no longer. Her only point of pride at this age lay
in assuming bravery whether she had it or not. "We Bruces are afraid of
no one," being her favourite speech, and as inspiriting to her as the
sound of the war-drum to a warrior bold.
She stood straight and her brown eyes looked straight into his brown
eyes.
"Elizabeth Bruce," she said.
The old man's anger blazed fiercely.
"Look here my girl," he said, "you can tell your father it's a bit late
in the day for these games. Tell him I've got the only grandchild here
that ever I want. Now--go."
But Betty stood her ground.
"My father didn't send me," she said, and her face went from red to
white. "He didn't know I was coming at all--and--sure's death! he never
knew anything about the ghosts. I came to get Cyril adopted because he's
getting tired of cutting wood an' only getting a penny a week."
The old man broke into a hoarse laugh.
"And this time to get yourself adopted," he said.
But Betty shook her head vigorously.
"No, I only wanted to see what sort of woman to be," she said. She
walked to the open window.
"I'm not going to adopt you," said the old man, "so go--GO! Never let me
see you inside my gates again--by day or by night. Go!"
And once more Betty took a swift departure by way of the balcony door.
And again she left a bonnet behind her.