READJUSTMENTS
“It is incredible, Bettina’s talent for disappearing,” Mrs. Burton said
to Peggy in a low voice, torn between anxiety and anger.
But this time it was Peggy who appeared the more uneasy and required
cheering.
“I don’t think Bettina is responsible for her accident exactly, Tante,”
she returned. “And something unexpected must have happened this time. I
hate the thought of the ‘Little Princess,’ as I used to call her, being
alone in a mixed crowd like this. No one appreciates how shy she is and
she really isn’t much good at looking after herself; Aunt Betty has
always been so careful with her.”
“Well, we won’t trouble about that now,” Mrs. Burton remarked more
reassuringly, appreciating Peggy’s greater nervousness. “The thing is to
look for her; she can’t be far away and doubtless we shall find her in a
few moments. Bettina must have waited behind when we came out of the
kiva. I was so uncomfortable or I should have noticed before that she
did not follow us.”
“Bettina was not in the kiva with us; I found that out while we were
there; but it was not worth while to speak of it until we had come out
and you were better.”
Polly’s lips twitched a little with a smile not unmixed with criticism
of herself.
“Peggy, dear, I really think you ought to be Camp Fire guardian instead
of me; you have so much more sense,” she whispered, turning to go back.
“I hate being called sensible,” Peggy returned ungratefully. “I know it
makes me less attractive than other girls.” And this really is the
unreasonable attitude of a good many persons who have otherwise a
tremendous lot of sense, not realizing perhaps that good judgment is
about the most valuable human attribute.
Ten minutes afterward Peggy and Mrs. Burton, who were in advance of the
others, saw Bettina walking toward them with the Indian whom they had
said good-by to perhaps three-quarters of an hour before.
The streets were now less crowded, so it was not difficult to see them.
They were walking in silence, but Bettina’s face was pale and her lips
held close together, perhaps to keep them from trembling.
Peggy glanced quickly from Bettina’s face to her aunt’s. And her own
heart sank.
She knew that her beloved Tante was not a particularly reasonable person
at any time and that Bettina had fallen from grace, not once but several
times since their camping expedition. She also knew that Bettina was
extremely proud and reserved, and that she would not condescend to
explanations and asking forgiveness.
Peggy felt that she had rather a task before her with them both.
“I am sorry, I can’t explain now why I was delayed,” Bettina exclaimed
as she came up to them. “I only wish you had not waited for me.”
Then she turned to her companion.
“Thank you, good-by,” was all she said to him.
But she did not appear penitent or even particularly chagrined at any
inconvenience she may have caused the rest of the party.
Then she joined Ellen and Alice and walked down to their temporary camp
below the mesa with them.
Peggy kept beside her aunt whenever the descent made it possible, but
she did not talk to her a great deal, nor did she again mention Bettina.
However, Peggy realized the difficulty was not over.
Her aunt’s face was whiter than Bettina’s and her blue eyes held a
coldness which was rare to them, since they were Irish eyes, usually
warm and radiant and with a compelling power, which was a mark of her
genius.
It was self-evident that she believed Bettina’s act to have been sheer
bravado—a deliberate intention to remain and talk alone with the young
Indian, in defiance of her own expressed wish.
After a late luncheon the Camp Fire group separated, each one of them
going to some chosen spot to rest, the young men returning to the
village.
Polly went to her own tent worn out and depressed, knowing that she was
not able to talk to Bettina for the present. And, more than this, that
she must make up her mind what was best to be done in the future.
Peggy found Bettina, not in her tent but sitting some distance away with
a book but making no effort to read.
Peggy sat down beside her and put her arm across her shoulder.
This was a peculiar boyish fashion which Peggy had of expressing
affection.
“It is all right, Bettina; I don’t blame you a bit,” she remarked
loyally, “only under the circumstances I do think you ought to explain
to Tante just what happened. I have not spoken of it to either of you,
but I have seen she did not like your being friends with Tewa. Still, I
think it is partly because of what your mother would think.”
“There is nothing I can very well explain,” Bettina returned. “It is
merely a matter of my word, and I am not even sure myself of what
happened. But, of course, I will tell; I have really nothing to hide.
Then you see, Peggy, dear, I am not accustomed to having my word
doubted.”
Bettina held her chin high with a fleeting look which suggested her
mother, though she was not usually like her. And, though Peggy swallowed
a sigh, seeing Bettina had no desire even to confide in her at present,
she asked no further questions, except to add:
“You’ll go to Tante, won’t you? After all, she is our Camp Fire guardian
and must feel responsible for us. I don’t think we will get much from
our experience together unless we accept some leadership.”
And, though Bettina made no reply, Peggy’s last words did make an
impression.
“I think I’ll wait until she sends for me,” she added finally.
So the girls waited for about two hours and, by and by, Marie came to
say that Madame Burton would like to speak to Miss Bettina and that they
would find her at the edge of the peach orchard, on the other side of
their encampment.
Explaining that she knew the place because she and her aunt had walked
there together the evening before, Peggy went with her friend.
But their Camp Fire guardian did not look very formidable, nor very
impressive when the girls finally discovered her. Until one came close
up to her she looked slender and young; indeed, like a girl herself.
Marie had brought over a chair and she was sitting under a big peach
tree, with the fruit hanging rose color and the leaves green above her
head and her hands clasped together in her lap.
Yet, when they were near enough, Peggy, who understood her aunt better,
saw a strained look of regret and suffering about her face, but also a
look of determination, which the friends of Polly O’Neill’s and of Polly
Burton’s understood very well. Possibly, if she had not been an
obstinate person, she would never have succeeded as she had in her work.
“I am sorry to have you come so far to me, Bettina,” she began, “but I
preferred having our talk away from the other girls. I did not expect
you, Peggy, but after all it is as well you are here. Bettina may tell
you what she does not think it worth while to confide in me and that is
why—with, so far as I can see, no real end to gain—she defies my wish.”
The beginning was unfortunate. The woman and the two girls realized it
at once and perhaps they were all sorry.
But Bettina’s face flushed and her lips closed firmly together. Nether
girl sat down and Bettina held her hands clasped tight together before
her. She looked very pretty and of such delicate high breeding that,
watching her, Mrs. Burton felt a sensation of self-distrust.
But Bettina was also determined to be obstinate and ungrateful.
“If you believe I made any effort to deceive you, it is not worth while
my telling you differently, is there?” Bettina said in a low voice. “I
don’t know how it occurred; I was stupid, I know, but, as I started out
of the Indian house this morning just as I got to the door, it closed
and fastened on the outside. I tried to push it open but could not
manage it.”
Mrs. Burton was sitting straight upright with her eyes fastened on
Bettina’s.
“But, my dear child, that sounds ridiculous, you know. The door could
not have latched itself; it was too crude and clumsy an affair. Besides,
why did you not call out? We could not have gotten far away.” Always she
had been too impatient with the people who did not think and act
quickly, Polly Burton should have remembered. Also, she might have
remembered the spirit in which she was apt to receive criticism when she
was young. But this is another something which older persons forget.
“I did call,” Bettina replied. “But I think I was too surprised at
first. Then I thought some one would surely come back and open it for
me.”
“And Tewa did come?” Mrs. Burton asked.
The question was a distrustful and an unkind one, and there was a
painful silence afterwards.
“Tewa did come, but not for some time afterwards. The house must have
been empty until then, else I thought the Indian woman or Dawapa would
have heard. But I did not mean them. I thought whoever closed the door—”
Bettina answered, however, with no perceptible change in her voice.
“But who did close the door?”
Polly was sorry for her last question. Even if she did suspect Bettina
of disobedience to her, and of a very obstinate determination to have
her own way, she did not appreciate just how unlovely her own view of
Bettina’s deception was, until she had given it expression.
“I am not sure,” Bettina replied. “Besides, I would rather not talk on
the subject any more. Feeling as you do about me—and for what reason I
don’t understand—I think I would rather go home as soon as you can
arrange it for me.”
Bettina had spoken, but all three of them knew it was the idea which had
been in their Camp Fire guardian’s mind.
Sorry she was, of course, and perhaps bitterly disappointed, but the act
appeared inevitable. There could not be misunderstanding and mutual
antagonism between a Camp Fire guardian and one of her own group of
girls, and particularly away from home and in the Camp Fire guardian’s
charge.
“I am sorrier than I can say, Bettina,” Mrs. Burton added, more gently
than she had yet spoken. “But I am afraid we don’t understand each other
and, as you are not willing to trust my judgment rather than your own,
why perhaps it is best. Only your mother will be grieved and angry and
disappointed with both of us.”
And Polly Burton’s voice was suddenly full of tears. The thought of
Bettina being Betty’s daughter and causing the first real trouble that
had ever come between them in so many devoted years, filled her with
sorrow and bitterness. After all, she had hoped to give Bettina a great
deal of pleasure; this was the only possible reason for bringing her or
any of the Camp Fire girls west, and had she asked a great deal in
return?
And although Bettina heard her Camp Fire guardian’s reply in silence,
she too felt as if she were in the midst of a wretched dream from which
there seemed to be no way of awaking. The whole difficulty was such a
matter of misunderstanding, so “much ado about nothing.” And her mother
and father would be both disappointed and offended with her. They both
loved and admired Mrs. Burton more than almost anyone in the world. It
would not be easy for them to understand why their daughter should make
so manifest a failure with her.
Clearly Bettina also realized that she was also forfeiting her position
as a Camp Fire girl. Every effort might be made to conceal the reason
for her being sent home, but the truth would inevitably become known,
or, if not the truth, something more trying.
However, Bettina did not speak; it would not have been possible at the
moment. She was saved from it by Peggy.
Peggy, who never had cried since she was a baby—about whom it was a joke
in her family that she had not the usual feminine fountain of woe—now
had her eyes full of tears and her lips shook.
“If Bettina has to go back home, I am going with her,” she replied
firmly, although her voice was lower than usual.
Mrs. Burton looked at her in astonishment.
“You, Peggy! Then you mean that you prefer to take Bettina’s view of the
question, rather than mine; that you think she has a right to do as she
likes, without respect to my judgment!”
Really, Polly’s tone expressed only surprise for the instant, as she was
too amazed over Peggy’s lack of loyalty for any other emotion.
Peggy shook her head. “No, dear; it isn’t that, and you know I care for
you more than anybody in the world, almost; but I don’t think you are
being fair to Bettina. If she goes home alone, not only her own family
but mine and all our friends who find out, will think she has done
something dreadful. And she has not done anything dreadful so far as I
can see. No one will ever know how I hate giving up our camping
together, yet I feel I must go.”
“Very well, Peggy,” Mrs. Burton answered in a voice she had never used
to the girl before. “Suppose we go back now to camp.”