THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
AT least once every week Betty dropped into Mrs. Post’s room to talk
over the progress of their charges and the state of the house in
general.
“The Goop is as bad as ever,” Betty complained one windy afternoon
in March. “I’ve just been up in her room--she’s begun again throwing
whatever she doesn’t need at the moment under her bed, and whenever
she’s in a hurry or especially happy at meal times she shovels things
in with her knife. Do you think she ought to be allowed to stay here
another year?”
“Maybe she’ll decide to stop studying and teach for a while,” suggested
the optimistic Mrs. Post. “She’s thinking of it. But if it’s important
for her to learn tidiness and table manners--which it certainly is--she
certainly is more likely to do it here than anywhere else, with me
nagging at her and you looking sweet and sorry. Now I’ll warrant she’s
down on her knees this very minute clearing up her floor, because
you saw it looking disorderly. She thinks a lot of pleasing you. And
the other girls don’t mind her habits much; she’s good for them as a
horrible example.”
“The Twin Digs have been reported again for lights after ten,” said
Betty, who was in a downhearted mood.
“Only once since--since--well, I’m afraid I can’t truthfully say since
Christmas,” laughed Mrs. Post. “I guess what those two need is a show
of firmness. I’ll see them to-night and tell them that the very next
time means a report to President Wallace.”
“Miss Romance has had three callers again this week, hasn’t she?”
“Three calls, but only one caller. She’s settled down to one now, and I
guess he’s all right--he seems to be a real nice country boy. He lives
in the little place where she does, and he walks six miles and back
each time he comes to call. Seems to me that shows he’s fond enough of
her to mean business. As for her, college is all nonsense for a girl
like that. She hasn’t sense enough to take it in. She’d better be at
work or helping her mother, or making a home of her own. She’ll always
be silly and rattle-pated and provoking to sensible people, as long as
she lives. I’ve told her so--I mean I’ve advised her not to struggle
along here through the whole course.”
Betty sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Not every girl is capable of
getting much out of college. Well, anyway, there’s always the Thorn
to congratulate ourselves on. She’s really turning out to be a very
pleasant, helpful person to have in the house.”
Mrs. Post nodded. “She’s your triumph, and Esther Bond is mine. She
says she’s been happier down in this room talking to me about my three
girls and the weather and the price of eggs and the way the laundry
tears our linen than she’s been before in her whole life. I wish I
could make her see that if she enjoys being friends with a stupid old
lady like me, she’d enjoy ten times more being intimate with girls of
her own age. She doesn’t dispute me. She just smiles that terribly
tragic smile of hers, shakes her head, and changes the subject.”
“Do you suppose some one has hurt her feelings?” asked Betty. “Or is
she just naturally secretive and reserved?”
“She’s naturally very confiding,” declared Mrs. Post. “Seems as if she
was friends with everybody in the village where she lived when she was
little. Something’s happened, and it’s happened since she came here, I
think. But whatever it is she’s bound nobody shall ever know about it.
And when she makes up her mind she makes it up hard and to stay.”
“I wonder if the ghost noises have stopped, or if the Thorn has just
suppressed the reports?” Betty queried. “I never quite understood why
the Mystery didn’t complain the day they nearly battered down her door.”
“She’s never even mentioned it to me,” Mrs. Post declared. “She seems
to hate to talk about anything connected with her college life. She
acts smart enough. She doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with her
classes, does she?”
Betty shook her head. “She’s very good in most things--I asked Miss
Ferris about her--only she never answers except when she’s asked
directly, and then she says just as little as she can. Miss Raymond
had her over one day this winter to tell her that her themes were very
promising, only they stopped just when the reader was beginning to
be interested. But Miss Bond said she always wrote down all that she
thought of on each subject, and she acted so frightened and unhappy
that Miss Raymond let her go home and hasn’t tried to encourage her
since. It must be dreadful to be so shy that every one thinks you’re
offish, and even the faculty don’t dare to pursue their efforts to
help you along. Just think, Mrs. Post! She might be one of the leading
writers in her class, if she’d only let Miss Raymond take an interest
in her work. Couldn’t you talk to her about it? I’m sure she’d enjoy
the recognition, and perhaps when she felt that she had a position of
her own in the college she’d be willing to come out of her shell and
make friends.”
“I’ll try to lead up to it some way,” Mrs. Post promised warily. “She
never wants to talk about college affairs, you see.”
A night or two later Betty was awakened out of a sound sleep by one
of the Twin Digs, who stood over her with a candle, explaining in a
sepulchral whisper, “There’s a girl in a fire-escape dangling outside
my window.”
Betty rubbed her eyes, sat up, and, having thus assured herself that
she was not dreaming nonsense, asked the Dig what she meant.
“Why, there’s a girl in a fire-escape dangling outside my window,”
repeated the Dig hopelessly. “You know the new rope fire-escapes that
are in all our rooms? Well, she evidently got into one up on the fourth
floor, and started to slide to the ground, and somehow it’s stuck
with her half-way down. I mean the part you put over your shoulders,
that’s on a pulley to slide down the rope, has stuck and won’t slide. I
couldn’t possibly pull her in alone, and I thought I’d better call you.”
“Yes, of course.” Betty jumped out of bed, and followed her incoherent
informant up-stairs to a third floor single. The window was wide open
and, sure enough, just out of reach, a girl, clearly visible in the
moonlight, hung in mid-air, clinging to a dangling rope. When she saw
the two figures appear in the lighted window, instead of calling to
them or asking help or advice, she threw her whole weight on the rope
and gave one furious jerk. The pulley suddenly began to work again and,
caught unprepared, she lost her hold on the rope. It slipped swiftly
through her fingers and she was carried downward at a terrific rate,
landing with a thud on the rose bed under the window.
Betty and the Dig had watched her descent in helpless horror. Now Betty
seized the candle and raced down-stairs and out into the cold night,
the Dig automatically following. Round to the back of the house they
went, both expecting to find a senseless body, bruised and bleeding, on
the ground. Instead a girl was walking rather stiffly out from among
the burlap-swathed rose-bushes.
“I’m not hurt,” she called softly. “You’ll catch cold. Run back to your
beds, please, and don’t mind me.”
Betty paused in amazement, and suddenly realizing that it was indeed
bitterly cold for kimonos and Turkish slippers over bare feet she
thrust the candle, which the moonlight rendered useless, into the Dig’s
hands, and ordered her back into the house.
“I’ll come and see you later,” she explained. “Take the catch off the
door for me. I want to be sure she really isn’t hurt, and----”
Betty hurried off. It wasn’t necessary to explain to the Dig how
college discipline demanded that she discover the identity of the
girl, and her reasons for making an exit from Morton Hall in so
unconventional a fashion.
The girl was limping down the road toward the Belden House. “Wait!”
Betty called, running after her. “It’s Miss Wales. I must speak to you
a minute.”
The girl paused, glanced around as if counting the chances of escape,
and waited.
“Aren’t you hurt?” Betty demanded as she came closer. “We thought the
fall would surely stun you. Your hands must be terribly cut.”
“Oh, not much,” the girl answered, putting them resolutely behind
her. “I had on gloves. And there was a little snow on the ground
close to the house, to break the fall. You want to know who I am,
Miss Wales, and what I was doing in the Morton so late. Well, it’s
all very simple. I’m Helena Mason. I was up talking to Esther Bond
and we got interested and didn’t hear either of the bells. I hated
to bother any one to let me out, so I told Esther I’d slide down the
fire-escape--it’s good practice for a fire. And because it stuck for a
minute some silly girl imagined I needed help and called you. I’m sorry
you were disturbed. The night-watchman will be along soon--if I can’t
make some girl hear me right away and let me in. Won’t you please go
back now?”
Betty was shivering with cold. “Yes, and you must come with me,” she
said. “You limp dreadfully. Waiting out in the cold after a fall like
that would be positively dangerous. The girl who rooms next to me is
away, and you can go to bed there.”
“But I’d much rather go home,” Helena demurred. “I won’t have to wait
but a minute, and I’m not at all cold.”
“You’re shivering this minute,” Betty told her, “and your hands are cut
so that they’re bleeding on to the ground. You must come and let me fix
them for you.” And putting her arm through Helena’s she hurried her
back to Morton Hall.
Helena submitted in silence while Betty bathed and bandaged the torn
hands, and helped her to undress.
“Now shall I tell Esther to come and say good-night?” she asked. “I’m
going to tell the girl who discovered you that you’re really all
right--we couldn’t believe our eyes when you got up and walked off--and
I’ll go on up and tell Esther too. She must have seen you fall and
she’ll be worrying.”
“Oh, no, she didn’t,” Helena assured her. “Please don’t disturb her,
Miss Wales. I’m sure she’s sound asleep. And Miss Wales--will you have
to tell the other girl--the one who saw me--who I am? I’d so much
rather not. People will laugh at me so.”
“You ought to be thankful they haven’t got to mourn for you,” laughed
Betty. “I can’t see how you escaped being badly hurt. Well, I won’t
mention any name then, Miss Mason; only in return you must promise me
never to go out of our house by such a dangerous route again.”
“I won’t,” agreed the girl. “You see I didn’t know you or Mrs. Post,
and I thought you might be awfully cross at my having stayed after
ten.”
“But Esther knew us,” Betty protested. “She oughtn’t to have let you
try such a thing in the dark and cold unless there was a real necessity
for it.”
“She had nothing to say about it, Miss Wales,” explained Helena coldly.
“I’ve often--I’m not a bit afraid of a fire-escape, and I just said so
and went ahead. She had nothing to do with it at all.”
The Dig was awake and waiting for Betty. She listened eagerly to the
scant news that was vouchsafed her, and pointedly did not inquire
Helena’s name.
“She knows who it was,” Betty guessed shrewdly.
“Let’s not say anything about it,” she suggested aloud. “It might
frighten the girls about trying the new fire-escapes, and it will make
this particular girl seem very absurd.”
“All right,” agreed the Dig briskly. “But such things always do get
out, Miss Wales. Other people must have seen her hanging there or heard
her fall and then the talking afterward.”
Betty crept up to the fourth floor, and knocked very softly on Esther
Bond’s door. Instantly the door was unlocked, and Esther demanded
nervously what the matter was.
“Nothing at all,” Betty quieted her, “but I thought you might know that
Helena got carried down too fast on her fire-escape, so I came to tell
you that she’s all right, only bruised a little and her hands are cut.”
“No, I didn’t know she fell,” said Esther apathetically, “but I heard
you talking to her, and wondered why you had gone out after her. I’m
glad she’s not hurt.”
“Next time you mustn’t let her try such a thing,” Betty told her
gravely. “Call me and I’ll let out anybody who has stayed too late by
mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake, Miss Wales,” Esther explained calmly. “Helena
wasn’t ready to go at ten, so she stayed; that’s all. She comes here
when she likes and goes when she likes, and as she likes. If you’re
blaming me for this you don’t know Helena Mason.”
Helena insisted upon leaving before breakfast the next morning. Her
hands were sore, and she was stiff and bruised all over, but she
managed to dress without help, and insisted that she was well enough
to get her books and go to her classes. At noon she was back again,
nervously inquiring for Betty.
“I lost a paper last night, Miss Wales,” she explained. “I had tucked
it into my ulster pocket. Did you pick it up, or has anybody in this
house found it and brought it to you or Mrs. Post?”
Betty had not seen the paper, but she promised to inquire. The Thorn,
it developed, had found it that morning and given it to Esther Bond.
“It was in her writing,” she explained. “It was a Lit. paper, and a
dandy one too. I read it. Wish I’d seen it before I handed mine in.”
She grinned cheerfully. “I can say that to you, Miss Wales, because you
can tell a joke when you see one. Helena Mason can’t. Rather than be
laughed at for her fire-escape escapade she’s given the impression that
she burned her hands with her student lamp. And the people who know
what really happened are smiling a little and wondering a lot.”
A week later the Thorn came to Betty again, her eyes round with
amazement. “I’m not a gossip, Miss Wales,” she began, “but that
paper--the one in Esther Bond’s writing that Miss Mason lost and I
found--was read to-day in Lit. 6, as the best one handed in. And it
was signed by Helena Mason. I wish now that I hadn’t read it. I never
thought there was any harm in reading a theme that you happened to pick
up.”
“There’s a lot of harm in jumping to conclusions,” Betty warned her
hastily. “Helena’s writing may be so like Esther’s that it deceived
you, or Esther may have copied Helena’s paper for her. That’s the right
explanation, I’m sure. A good many girls hire their papers copied, you
know.”
The Thorn sighed and stared at Betty admiringly. “And I never saw any
possibility except that Helena Mason had hired her theme written. I
must have a horrid, suspicious mind, I suppose, Miss Wales. I’m glad
I came right to you first, and I shan’t mention the matter to any one
else.”