LONELINESS
NEVER in her entire career had Polly O'Neill felt more depressed. She
was, of course, accustomed to a very busy life filled with people and
excitement. Nothing else is possible to an actor or actress, although
Miss O'Neill had tried to keep her private life as quiet as possible.
But here in her little hotel about a mile or more from the celebrated
Colorado Springs she was finding existence duller than she had bargained
for. In the first place, on her arrival she had let it be known that she
desired no callers or acquaintances. Her reason for giving up her work
at the present time was that she was greatly in need of a rest cure, so
visitors to the Springs had taken her at her word and Miss O'Neill had
been left to recover her health unmolested. Now and then some unknown
admirer had appeared at her hotel or sent books and flowers.
Nevertheless, she had so far made no acquaintances.
However, after several weeks of the wonderful, brilliant air, with
nothing to do except sleep and write an occasional letter, Polly felt a
good deal stronger. Yet she did not feel that she was well enough to
return to Woodford, and today the news from home had been depressing.
You see, Mollie had never been told that her sister was ill and
considered that if she only required rest it might as well be enjoyed at
her own lovely big farm as among strangers in the West. So this morning
her letter had urged Polly's return home and had also imparted a great
variety of dispiriting reasons. In the first place, Mollie told at great
length that Dan, who was Polly's favorite of her sister's children, was
not in good health and that he was showing certain oddities of
disposition which struck his aunt as very like her own. Indeed, she
believed that neither her sister nor brother-in-law understood the
delicate, difficult little fellow, and she would have liked to have been
near enough to have helped him through a trying time. Then more
disquieting had been Mollie's information about their mother, Mrs.
Wharton, who was beginning to show her age. Moreover, Mr. Wharton seemed
somewhat depressed over his business affairs. Then finally the most
mystifying and in a way disturbing of Mollie's statements had been her
account of Betty Graham.
For several weeks there had been no line to Polly from her dearest
friend, which in itself had made Polly vaguely uneasy. It was so unlike
Betty ever to fail in her weekly letter which had always followed her
friend to whatever part of the world she happened to be. But now Mollie
announced that Betty had been on a visit to her mother, Mrs. Ashton, in
Woodford, and that she had seemed entirely unlike herself. Instead of
having a great deal to say she had been strangely quiet, almost sad.
Moreover, the new Governor's enemies were said to be making a tremendous
effort to destroy his reputation and there was a great deal of talk
going on about some matter which Mollie did not claim to understand.
Possibly Anthony's annoyances may have been worrying his wife.
Polly had been sitting alone on her small, private veranda which
commanded a wonderful view of a rim of hills, when her sister's letter
had been given her along with her other mail.
Before glancing at the other communications she had eagerly opened this.
But now she sat with the pages fluttering in her lap and her eyes filled
with tears.
Naturally Mollie had not intended to be so depressing; people seldom do
seem to realize just what effects their letters may produce. Often they
write merely to relieve their own feelings and once having put down all
the gloomy possibilities that worry them at the time, rise up and go
cheerfully about their business with the evils forgotten.
So naturally it remains for the unfortunate recipient of the letter to
become even more depressed than the writer had been.
Moreover, Polly really wanted desperately to go home. It had been many
months since she had seen her own people, and though they often
believed her to have less affection than other women, it was not in the
least true. She had given up many things for her art and had sometimes
seemed selfish and cold-blooded. But it wasn't fair that her sister,
Mollie, always seemed to think that she had never desired a home of her
own, babies and some one to care for her supremely, that she had never
grown tired of the wandering life her stage career forced her to lead.
Finally, however, Polly managed to smile and give a characteristic shrug
over her own self-pity. There was nothing in the world so silly. Like
the rest of us she knew this to be true, yet, like the rest of us, now
and then even this famous, grown-up woman, who had most of the things
that people would give worlds to possess, indulged in attacks of being
sorry for herself. Moreover, the day before she had sent for her doctor
and he had positively refused to consider her leaving Colorado for the
present.
You may remember that Polly had a certain inherited delicacy that used
to keep her mother uneasy, and lately it had troubled her. It was this
fact she had concealed from her family and friends, so that now, though
she was better, her physician had scouted the idea of a return East.
Once near New York he was sure she would begin to talk business with her
theatrical manager, or even undertake to study a new play.
No, she must undoubtedly remain at her post a while longer. And yet was
it really necessary to have her post quite so lonely?
Just as this idea occurred to her, a slight noise attracting her
attention, Polly glanced down into the garden below her veranda.
There stood Bobbin and the next moment she had flung a poor little
bouquet at her feet. It was a strange offering, all prickly cactus
leaves with a single white flower in their midst. For some absurd reason
it flashed through Polly's mind to wonder if her offering could be in
any way symbolic of the girl who had given it her. Could there be
something beautiful hidden within the child's peculiarities?
For this was not the first token of affection that Bobbin had presented.
Indeed, many queer, small gifts had been brought to the strange lady
since their first meeting, so that Polly had been curiously touched. For
of course Bobbin's offerings came straight from her heart. In her
pathetic, shut-in world she had no way of knowing anything of the
history of the woman whom she so plainly admired.
Yet inside Polly O'Neill's sitting room at this moment there were four
or five tokens of affection that must have come from her. They were too
extraordinary for any one else to have sent them and had been laid at
her shrine in too unusual a way. For most of them had been literally
flung on her veranda. A few of them, when she happened to be sitting
outdoors as she was doing at the present moment, and the others when no
one had seen or known of their appearance.
One of the gifts was a beautiful blue feather that must have fallen from
some unusual bird flying over the western lands, another a stone that
shone like the finest crystal, in the sun, and a third a horseshoe some
small broncho must have shed in trotting across the plains.
However, never once had Polly been able to thank her new friend for her
gifts. For always at the slightest movement on her part Bobbin had
turned and run away more fleetly than any one else could. For since Miss
O'Neill's report that she had found the girl living with such rough
people Bobbin had been recaptured and brought back to the village to
school. Notwithstanding, she had once more escaped and now either no one
knew just where she had gone or else no one had taken the trouble to
capture her a second time.
It occurred to Polly at this moment that she would like to try and
influence the girl, or at any rate show her gratitude. Besides, anything
would be better than spending the rest of the day bewailing her own
loneliness. Moreover, it would do her good for a moment to compare her
own loneliness with Bobbin's!
Without a movement or a sign to the girl to betray that she had even
caught sight of her, Polly at once slipped into her bedroom and put on
her coat and hat. And she was down in her yard and had stretched out her
hand to touch her visitor before the girl became aware of her.
Yet the very next instant Bobbin started and began running as swiftly as
she had at their first meeting. And this time, even more impetuously and
with less reason, Miss O'Neill pursued her.
It was ridiculous of Polly and utterly undignified and unbecoming. No
other person in the world in her position would have done such a thing.
Yet she had no more thought of its oddity and the attention that she
might create than if she had been a Camp Fire girl in the New Hampshire
woods nearly fifteen years before.
Of course the woman could not run half so fast as Bobbin in these days,
but it was only because she was not well, Polly said to herself angrily.
She had been the swiftest runner of all the girls for short distances in
their old Sunrise Hill Club. Of course Sylvia had used to get the better
of her in long distance tests. Still, even now she was managing to keep
Bobbin in sight, although she had a horrid stitch in her side and was
already out of breath.
Fortunately, however, for Miss Polly O'Neill's reputation she was not
at the present time within the fashionable precincts of Colorado
Springs, else she might possibly have been thought to have gone suddenly
mad. Her hotel was some distance out in the country and there were but
few houses in its neighborhood. Moreover, Bobbin was running away from
the town and not toward it.
The road was a level, hard one, but all at once Polly felt a queer pain
that took her breath completely away and then a sudden darkness.
She did not fall, however, because some one who was walking in the
direction of her hotel reached her just in time.
Then to her amazement Polly heard an exclamation that had in some
unexplainable way a familiar note in it. The next moment when
straightening up and opening her eyes she seemed to be reposing in the
arms of a tall man with dark eyes and gray hair, whom she had once known
extremely well, but had not seen in the past five years.