RIGHT ABOUT, FACE
Tory toiled up the long, hot street, her arms filled with packages,
her face flushed.
How different the atmosphere from the cool green shade of Beechwood
Forest!
At the end of the street upon a rise of ground stood the Old Gray
House. This had been Katherine Moore's name for the house, accepted
and used by the town of Westhaven. To-day it appeared what it actually
was: the village orphan asylum.
No longer could Kara's optimism conceal reality from Victoria Drew.
The house showed blistered and bare of paint. The open space of yard,
green and fresh in the springtime, when she and Kara oftentimes sat
outdoors to dream and plan, was now baked brown and sere.
The children playing in the yard behind the tall iron fence looked
tired and cross, a little like prisoners to Tory's present state of
mind.
She had come in from camp early in the day and had spent several hours
at home with her uncle, Mr. Richard Fenton. Their own house was empty
save for his presence. Miss Victoria had gone for a month's holiday to
the sea.
After a talk with her uncle and an hour's shopping, she was now on her
way to call upon Kara.
She saw a mental picture of Kara's small room on the top floor of the
Gray House. How proud Kara had been because she need share her room
with no one!
And what a place to be shut up in when one was ill!
For Kara's sake Tory had endeavored to view this room with Kara's
eyes. Kara loved it and the old Gray House that had sheltered her
since babyhood, her refuge when apparently deserted by the parents she
had never known.
Victoria Drew was an artist. This did not mean that necessarily she
was possessed of an artist's talent, but of the artist's temperament.
Besides, had she not lived with her artist father wandering about the
most beautiful countries in Europe[A] until her arrival in Westhaven
the winter before?
If this temperament oftentimes allowed Tory to color humdrumness with
rose, it also gave her a sensitive distaste to what other people might
not feel so intensely.
With half a dozen of the children in the yard of the Gray House, Tory
now stopped to talk a few moments. Never before could she recall
wanting to see Kara so much and so little at the same time.
Of the two children who had been Kara's special charges and her own
favorites, only the boy remained.
His eyes bluer and more wistful than formerly, Billy Duncan came
forward to speak to Tory.
He seemed older and thinner and less the cherub she remembered.
The children who were his playmates could have told her that Billy had
altered since the departure of his adored companion, Lucy Martin, the
little girl who had been adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Hammond a few
months before.
Lucy Martin had been an odd little girl, full of fire and passion and
wilfulness. Blindly and adoringly Billy had followed her until her
departure from the Gray House.
Afterwards he never spoke of her or asked for her, although at first
she often demanded his presence and came to the Gray House to see him.
Of late, however, Lucy had ceased to appear.
"Do you miss Lucy?" Tory inquired at this instant and was sorry for
her own stupidity.
Billy merely shook his head. He always had been a dull little boy. One
had been fond of him because of his sweetness and placidity, not for
any brilliance.
Slipping a gift inside Billy's pockets, Tory ran on up to the Gray
House, comforting herself with the idea that the little boy was
incapable of feeling anything deeply.
The fact that Lucy had lost her affection for Kara, who had been like
a devoted older sister, was more serious.
The door stood open so that Tory entered the wide hall of the old
house without ringing the bell. She had come often enough during the
past winter and spring to be a privileged character.
At the bottom of the long flight of stairs she paused a moment. Warm
and out of breath, she did not wish Kara to guess at her rebellious
mood when she arrived at the little room up under the eaves.
"You won't find Kara upstairs in her old room. Let me show you where
she is," a voice called, as Tory placed her foot on the first stair.
The big room had been a back parlor in the days when the Gray House
had been the residence of a prosperous farmer. This was before the
village of Westhaven had drawn so close to it.
By the window in a wheeled chair sat a small figure crouched so low
that had she not known it could be no one else, Tory would scarcely
have recognized her.
Since her night and Kara's together on the hillside only a week had
gone by. Could one week have altered Kara's appearance and her nature?
Her impulse to go toward the figure and gather her in her arms, Tory
carefully repressed.
Kara's expression, as she raised her eyes at her approach, was almost
forbidding.
Tory also repressed the exclamation that rose to her lips.
How white and thin the other girl's face appeared! The humorous, gayly
challenging look with which she had met former trials and difficulties
had vanished. The lines of Kara's mouth were tired and old, the gray
eyes with the long dark lashes, her one claim to beauty, were dark and
rebellious.
"You have taken your own time to come to see me, Tory. I have been
here at the orphan asylum nearly a week and this is the first time you
or any member of my Girl Scout Patrol has honored me with a call. I
can't say I altogether blame you. It certainly is pleasanter at our
camp in Beechwood Forest than in this place!"
Tory's arms went around Kara's shoulders, her bright red lips touched
the other girl's brown hair.
"You know I have wanted to come to you every minute in the twenty-four
hours, dear, and every member of your Patrol has wanted to come as
well, besides Miss Mason and Miss Frean and all the rest. To-day I am
regarded as the most privileged person in the camp because I am first
to see you. Dr. McClain only consented last night to allow me to come.
I am to bring you everybody's love and to demand that you stay away
from camp only the shortest time. Otherwise we intend to call on Dr.
McClain in a body and assert our authority as Girl Scouts to bring you
home to Beechwood Forest. Anyone save a doctor would know you would
sooner grow strong again there than here."
As she talked, partly as a relief from nervousness and to hide her
consternation over Kara's changed appearance, Tory was moving about
the room arranging her gifts.
In a vase filled with water from a pitcher standing on a table she
placed a bouquet of faded wild flowers.
The room became fragrant with the scent of wild hyacinths, ragged
robins, cornflowers and daisies. By a low bowl piled with peaches and
grapes, she put two magazines and a new book.
"Uncle Richard sent you the things to read, Kara. I should like to
have brought more, but could not manage to carry them."
Still Kara made no reply. She scarcely had glanced at the offerings.
"Sorry the flowers are so faded. I think they will look better after a
time. I had not the cruelty to decline to bring them, as Edith Linder
and Teresa Peterson rose up this morning and gathered them in the dew
to send you. I have brought our camp log for the past week."
Conscious of the wall between herself and her companion, Tory was
aware that she was talking of trivialities until the moment when Kara
would admit her inside her closed citadel.
How long before she would speak a second time?
Walking over toward Kara, Tory took a low seat beside the wheeled
chair.
With a swift gesture of affection she placed a square book on Kara's
lap. The book was of heavy paper, golden in color back and front and
with silver-gray leaves inside. On the outside cover was a painting of
an eagle's wing.
"This is the first time we have ever had a written history of our week
at camp, Kara dear. But we decided the other night at our Troop
meeting to arrange this to bring to you. So whatever we dropped into
the big box in front of Miss Mason's tent we put inside this book. I
have made some sketches and Joan Peters has written a poem dedicated
to you. Please look for yourself, won't you?"
Kara turned away her eyes.
Still Tory had no sensation of anger, only a kind of nervous fear.
More than any one who ever knew her could have imagined here was a
different Kara!
She now pushed aside the little magazine with a gesture of annoyance.
"I don't want to know what you have been doing at camp, Tory. I never
want to hear any mention of our Girl Scouts again. You must erase my
name from our Patrol list and find some one else to fill my place."
A valiant effort, Tory's to smile, when in the other girl's voice and
manner there was so much to make smiling difficult.
"When that day arrives, Kara, I presume I also shall wish to resign
from the Girl Scouts. It is hard to imagine when we both care so
deeply. Has anyone or anything offended you? Do you feel I am
responsible for your accident? If you realized how many times during
the past week I have wondered if this were true. I did ask Miss Mason
for permission to allow us to go for the day alone. I told her that I
could sketch so much better without any companion save you. She
reproaches herself now as much as I do and says as our Troop Captain
the mistake was hers. But we promised not to go far from camp and were
accustomed to the neighborhood."
"Don't be stupid, Tory. I have not forgotten that I first suggested
the plan to you. We wanted a day to ourselves."
Kara had spoken. At least this much had been accomplished, although
her tone remained hard and uninterested.
Suddenly her head went down until her face was hidden.
"Don't you know, Tory, darling? Has no one told you or the other Girl
Scouts of our Troop? Dr. McClain promised me that he would tell you. I
can't come back to our camp in Beechwood Forest, I cannot be a Girl
Scout. I may never be able to walk again. No, I do not suffer, I never
have suffered, that is the dreadful part of it."
Kara's hands now clutched the other girl's shoulders.
"Tory, don't look at me like that. It may not be true always."
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[A] See "Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing."