A NEW DANGER
Alarmed at this news of Zara, Bessie hurried upstairs at once to the
room the two girls shared. She found her chum on the bed, crying as if
her heart would break.
"Why, Zara, what's the matter? Why are you crying?" she asked.
But try as she might, Bessie could get no answer at all from Zara for a
long time.
"Have I done anything to make you feel bad? Has anything gone wrong
here?" urged Bessie. "If you'll only tell us what's the matter, dear,
we'll straighten it out. Can't you trust me?"
"N--nothing's happened--you haven't done anything," Zara managed to say
at last.
"Surely nothing Miss Eleanor has said has hurt you, Zara? I'm certain
she'd feel terrible if she thought you were crying because of anything
she had done!"
Zara shook her head vehemently at that, but her sobs only seemed to come
harder than before.
Bessie was thoroughly puzzled. She knew that Zara, brought up in a
foreign country, did not always understand American ways. Sometimes,
when Bessie had first known her, little jesting remarks, which couldn't
have been taken amiss by any American girl, had reduced her to tears.
And Bessie thought it entirely possible that someone, either Miss
Eleanor, or her mother, or one of the Mercer servants, might have
offended Zara without in the least meaning to do so.
But Zara seemed determined to keep the cause of her woe to herself. Not
all of Bessie's pleading could make her answer the simplest questions.
Finally, seeming to feel a little better, she managed to speak more
coherently.
"Leave me alone for a little while, please, Bessie," she begged. "I'll
be all right then--really I will!"
So Bessie, reluctantly enough, had to go downstairs, since she
understood thoroughly that to keep on pressing Zara for an explanation
while she was in such a nervous state would do more harm than good.
"Could you find out what was wrong?" asked Eleanor anxiously when Bessie
came down. Charlie Jamieson was still with her on the porch, smoking a
cigar and frowning as if he were thinking of something very
unpleasant. He was, as a matter of fact. He was changing all his ideas
of the case in which Eleanor's encounter with the two girls had involved
him, since, with Brack for an opponent, he knew only too well that he was
in for a hard fight, and if, as he supposed, the opposition was entirely
without a reasonable case, a fight in which dirty and unfair methods
were sure to be employed.
Bessie shook her head.
"She wouldn't tell me anything--just begged me to leave her alone and
said she'd be all right presently," she answered. "I've seen her this
way before and, really, there's nothing to do but wait until she feels
better."
"You've seen her this way before, you say?" said Jamieson, quickly.
"What was the matter then? What made her act so? If we know why she did
it before, perhaps it will give us a clue to why she is behaving in such
a queer fashion now."
Bessie hesitated.
"She's awfully sensitive," she said. "Sometimes, when people have just
joked with her a little bit, without meaning to say anything nasty at
all, she's thought they were angry at her, or laughing at her for being
a foreigner, and she's gone off just like this. I thought at first--"
"Yes?" said Eleanor, encouragingly, when Bessie stopped. "Don't be
afraid to tell us what you think, Bessie. We just want to get to the
bottom of this strange fit of hers, you know."
"Well, it seems awfully mean to say it," said poor Bessie, "when you've
been so lovely to us, but I thought maybe someone had joked about her
in some way. You know she sometimes pronounces words in a funny fashion,
as if she'd only read them, and had never heard anyone speak them. In
Hedgeville lots of people used to laugh at her for that. I think that's
why she stopped going to school. And I thought, perhaps, that was what
was the matter--"
"It might have happened, of course," said Eleanor, "and without anyone
meaning to hurt her feelings. I'd be very careful myself, but some of
the other people around the house wouldn't know, of course. But, no,
that won't explain it, Bessie. Not this time."
"Are you sure, Eleanor!" asked Jamieson.
"Positively," she answered. "Because, after you went off, she was out
here with me for quite a long time. Then I was called inside, and I'm
quite sure no one from the house saw her at all after that until I found
her crying. She'd been outside on the porch all the time--"
"Aha!" cried Jamieson, then. "If no one in the house here talked to her,
someone from outside must have done it. Listen, Bessie. She wouldn't go
off that way just from brooding, would she, just from thinking about
things?"
"No, I'm quite sure she wouldn't, Mr. Jamieson. She's felt bad two or
three times since we left Hedgeville, when she got to thinking about her
father's troubles, and everything of that sort. But she's always told me
about it and it hasn't made her feel just as she seems to now, anyhow."
"Well, then, can't you see? No one here said anything to her, so it must
have been someone who isn't in the house--someone who spoke to her after
you left her out here alone, Eleanor. And I know who it was, too!"
"That nasty looking man you pointed out to me as we were coming along
with Mr. Norris?" cried Bessie.
"Yes, indeed--Brack!" said Jamieson. "He's just the one who would do it,
too! Oh, I tell you, one has to look out for him! He's as mean as a man
could be and still live, I guess. I've heard of more harsh, miserable
things he's done than I could tell you in a week. Whenever he's around
it's a warning to look out for trouble. Suppose you go up to her,
Bessie, and see if mentioning his name will loosen her tongue."
But just as she was entering the house Zara, with only her reddened eyes
to show that she had been crying at all, came out on the porch.
"I'm ever so ashamed of myself, Miss Eleanor," she said, smiling
pluckily. "I suppose you think I'm an awful cry-baby, but I was just
feeling bad about my father and everything, and I couldn't seem to help
it."
Bessie looked at Zara in astonishment. To the eyes of those who didn't
know her as well as Bessie, Zara might seem to be all right, but Bessie
could see that her chum was still frightened and weak. She wondered
why Zara was acting, for acting she was. She meant that Miss Mercer
and everyone should think that her fit of depression had been only
temporary, and that now everything was all right. And Bessie, loyal
as ever, decided to help her.
But when Charlie Jamieson took his leave again to go back to his office
and his interrupted work, he looked at her keenly and when he started to
go he took Bessie by the hand playfully and pulled her off the porch,
and out of sight of the others.
"Listen," he said, earnestly, "there's something more than we know about
or can guess very easily the matter with your friend, Bessie. She's been
frightened--badly frightened. And it's dollars to doughnuts that it's
that scoundrel Brack who's frightened her, too. Keep your eyes on
her--see that she doesn't get a chance to speak to him or anyone else
alone."
"Do you think there's any danger of his coming back?" asked Bessie,
alarmed by his serious tone.
"I don't know, Bessie, but I do know Brack. And I've found out this much
about him. He's like a rabbit--he'll fight when he's driven into a
corner. And the time he's most dangerous is when he seems to be beaten,
when it looks as if he hadn't a leg to stand on."
"Do you think he's beaten now, Mr. Jamieson?"
"No, I don't! And just because he's the man he is. If it were anyone
else, I'd say yes, because I don't see what they can expect to do. But
you can depend upon it that Brack has some dirty trick up his sleeve,
and from all you tell me of this man Weeks, he's the same sort of an
ugly customer. So you keep your eyes open, and if anything happens to
worry you, call me up right away. Get me at my office if it's before
five o'clock; after that, call up this number." He wrote down a
telephone number on a slip of paper and handed it to Bessie.
"That's the telephone at my home, and if I'm not there myself ask for my
servant, Farrell. He'll be there, and he'll manage to get word to me
somehow, no matter where I am."
"Oh, I do hope I shan't have to bother you, Mr. Jamieson."
"Don't you worry about that. That's what I'm here for, to be bothered,
as you call it, if there's any need of me. Remember that you can't do
everything yourself--and you may only get into trouble yourself without
really helping if you try to do it all. So call on me if there's any
need. And, whatever you do, don't let Zara go out of the house alone on
any pretence. Remember that, will you?"
"I certainly will, Mr. Jamieson. You're awfully good to us, and I know
Zara would be grateful, too, if she were herself. She will be as soon as
all this trouble is over."
"I know that, Bessie. Don't you fuss around being grateful to me until
I've really done something for you. You know, you're the sort of girl I
like. You've got pluck, and you don't get discouraged, like so many
girls--though Heaven knows you've had enough trouble to make you as
nervous as any of them."
"I get awfully frightened. Indeed, I do!"
"Of course you do, but you've got pluck enough to admit it. Remember
this: the real hero is the man who does what's right, and what he knows
he ought to do, even if he's scared so that he's shaking like a leaf.
Any fool can do a thing if it doesn't frighten him to do it, and he
doesn't deserve any special credit for that. The real bravery is the
sort a man shows when he goes into battle, for instance, and wants to
turn around and run as soon as he hears the bullets singing over his
head."
"I'm sure I would want to do just that--"
"But you wouldn't! That's the point, you see. And you always think
things are going to be all right. That's fine--because about half the
time we can control the things that happen to us. If we think everything
will come right in the end, we can usually make them work out our way.
But if we start in thinking that nothing is going to be right, why, then
we're licked before we begin, and there's not much use trying at all.
Now, you didn't say Zara would feel differently _if_ things came
out right. You said she would _when_ everything was straightened
out. And that's the spirit that wins. Try to put some more of it into
her, and try to make her tell you what happened, too."
But all of Bessie's efforts to win Zara's confidence that day were in
vain. Zara, however, seemed to be all right. She was brighter and
livelier than she had been since Bessie had known her. All day long she
laughed and burst into little snatches of song, and Miss Mercer was
delighted.
Nevertheless Bessie wasn't satisfied, and she kept a close watch on Zara
all day. It seemed time wasted, however. Zara made no attempt to keep
away from her; seemed anxious, indeed, to be with her chum, that they
might talk over their plans for winning enough honors as Camp Fire Girls
to become Fire-Makers.
Had Bessie's eyes and her perceptions been less keen she would have
thought her first idea, the one she shared with Charlie Jamieson, a
mistaken one. But more than once, when Zara thought she was unobserved,
and was therefore off her guard, Bessie saw the corners of her mouth
droop and a wistful look come into her eyes. There was fear in those
eyes, too, though of what, Bessie could not imagine.
It was long after midnight that night when Bessie was aroused, she
scarcely knew how. Some instinct led her to turn on the light--and she
could scarcely repress a scream when she saw that Zara's bed was empty!