In a tiny hall bedroom in one of the small brick houses that cover many
blocks in certain sections of Washington, Elizabeth Page was standing a
week later, trying to screw up her courage to a deed of daring; and
because it was for herself it seemed almost impossible for her to do it.
With her white face, her anxious eyes, and trembling hands, she seemed
again the Poor Thing who had shrunk from every one those first days at
the camp--every one but Olga.
Three times Elizabeth started to go downstairs and three times her
courage failed and she drew back. So long as she waited there was a
chance--a very faint one, but still a chance--that the thing she so
desired might come true. But the minutes were slipping away, and
finally, setting her lips desperately, she fairly ran down the stairs.
Her stepmother glanced up with a frown as the girl stood before her.
"Well, what now?" she demanded, in the sharp, fretful tone of one whose
nerves are all a-jangle.
"I've done everything--all the supper work, and fixed everything in the
kitchen ready for morning," Elizabeth said, her words tumbling over each
other in her excitement, "and O, please may I go this evening--to Miss
Laura's? It's the Camp Fire meeting, and one of the girls is going to
stop here for me, and--and O, I'll do _anything_ if only I may go!"
The frown on the woman's face deepened as Elizabeth stumbled on, and her
answer was swift and sharp.
"You are not going one step out of this house to-night--you can make up
your mind to that--not one step. I knew when I let you go off to that
camp that it would be just this way. Girls like you are never satisfied.
You want the earth. Here you've had a month--a whole month--off in the
country while I stood in that hot kitchen and did your work for you, and
now you are teasing to go stringing off again. You are _not going_."
"But," pleaded Elizabeth desperately, "I've worked so hard to-day--every
minute since five o'clock--and I washed and ironed Sadie's white dress
before supper. If there was any work I had to do it would be different.
And--and even servant girls have an afternoon and evening off every
week, and I never do. And I'm only asking now to go out one evening in a
month--just _one_!"
"There it is again!" Mrs. Page flung out. "Not this one evening, but an
evening every month; and if I agreed to that, next thing you'd be
wanting to go every week. I tell you--_no_. Now let that end it."
The tears welled up in Elizabeth's eyes as she turned slowly away; and
the sight of those tears awakened a tumult in another quarter.
Four-year-old Molly had been rocking her Teddy Bear to sleep when
Elizabeth came downstairs, and had listened, wide-eyed and wondering, to
all that passed. But tears in Elizabeth's eyes were too much. The Teddy
Bear tumbled unheeded to the floor as Molly rushed across to Elizabeth
and, clinging to her skirts, turned a small flushed face to her mother.
"Naughty, naughty mamma--make 'Lizbet' _ky_!" she cried out, stamping
her small foot angrily. "Molly love 'Lizbet' _hard_!"
Elizabeth caught up the child and turned to go, but a sharp command
stopped her. "Put that child down. I won't have you setting her against
her own mother!"
Elizabeth unclasped the little clinging arms and put the child down, but
Molly still clutched her dress, sobbing now and hiding her face from her
mother. The tinkle of the doorbell cut the tense silence that followed
Mrs. Page's last command. Sadie, an older girl, ran to open it, flashing
a triumphant glance at Elizabeth as she passed her.
As Sadie flung open the door, Elizabeth saw Olga on the step, and Olga's
quick eyes took in the scene--the frowning woman, Elizabeth's wet eyes
and drooping mouth, and little Molly clinging to her skirts as she
looked over her shoulder to see who had come. Sadie stared pertly at
Olga and waited for her to speak.
"I've come for Elizabeth. I'm Olga----"
"Elizabeth can't go. Mother won't let her," interrupted Sadie with
ill-concealed satisfaction in her narrow eyes.
Elizabeth started towards the door. "O Olga, please tell Miss Laura----"
she was beginning when Sadie unceremoniously slammed the door and
marched back with a victorious air to her mother's side.
Olga was left staring at the outside of the door, and if a look could
have demolished it and annihilated Miss Sadie, both these things might
have happened then and there. But the door stood firm, and there was no
reason to think that anything untoward had happened to Sadie; so after a
moment Olga turned, flew down the steps, and hurrying over to the
car-line, hailed the first car that appeared. Fifteen minutes later she
was ringing the bell at the door of Judge Haven's big stone house on
Wyoming Avenue. The servants in that house never turned away any girl
asking for Miss Laura, so this one was promptly shown into the library.
Laura rose to meet her with a cordial greeting, but Olga neither heard
nor heeded.
"She can't come. Elizabeth can't come!" she cried out. "They wouldn't
even let me speak to her, though she was right there in the hall--nor
let her give me a message for you. Her sister slammed the door in my
face. Miss Laura, I'd like to _kill_ that girl and her mother!"
"Hush, hush, my dear!" Laura said gently. "Sit down and tell me quietly
just what happened."
Olga flung herself into a chair and told her story, but she could not
tell it quietly. She told it with eyes flashing under frowning brows and
her words were full of bitterness.
"Elizabeth's just a slave to them--worse than a servant!" she stormed.
"She never goes anywhere--_never_! They wouldn't have let her go to the
camp if she hadn't been sick and the doctor said she'd die if she didn't
have a rest and change, and so Miss Grandis got her off. O Miss Laura,
can't you do something about it? Elizabeth _wanted_ so to come--she was
crying. I know how she was counting on it before we left the camp."
Laura shook her head sorrowfully. "I don't know what I can do. You see
she is not yet of age, and her father has a right--a legal right, I
mean--to keep her at home."
"But it isn't her father, it's that woman--his wife," Olga declared.
"She won't even let Elizabeth call her mother--not that I should think
she'd want to--but when I asked Elizabeth why she called her Mrs. Page
she said her stepmother told her when she first came there that she
didn't want a great girl that didn't belong to her calling her mother."
"Elizabeth is seventeen?" Laura questioned.
Olga nodded. "She won't be eighteen till next April. _I_ wouldn't stay
there till I was eighteen. I'd clear out. She could earn her own living
and not work half as hard somewhere else, and go out when she liked,
too." She was silent for a moment, then half aloud she added, "I'll find
a way to fix that woman yet!"
"Olga," Laura looked straight into the sombre angry eyes, "you must not
interfere in this matter. Two wrongs will never make a right. If there
is anything that can be done for Elizabeth, be sure that I will do it.
And if not--it is only seven months to April."
"Seven months!" echoed Olga passionately. "Miss Laura, how would you
live through seven months without ever getting out _any_where?"
Laura shook her head. "We will hope that Elizabeth will not have to do
that," she said gently. "But I hear some of the girls. Come."
In the wide hall were half a dozen girls who had just arrived, and Laura
led the way to a large room on the third floor. At the door of this
room, the girls broke into cries and exclamations of pleasure.
"It's like a bit of the camp," Mary Hastings cried, and Rose Anderson
exclaimed,
"It's just the sweetest room I ever saw!" and she sniffed delightedly
the spicy fragrance of the pines and balsam firs that stood in great
green tubs about the walls. On the floor was a grass rug of green and
wood-colour, and against the walls stood several long low settees of
brown rattan, backs and seats cushioned in cretonne of soft greens and
cream-colour, and a few chairs of like pattern were scattered about.
Curtains of cream-coloured cheesecloth, with a stencilled design of pine
cones in shaded browns, draped the windows, and in the wide fireplace a
fire was laid ready for lighting. The low mantelpiece above it held only
three brass candlesticks with bayberry candles, and above it,
beautifully lettered in sepia, were the words,
"'Whoso shall stand by this hearthstone,
Flame-fanned,
Shall never, never stand alone:
Whose house is dark and bare and cold,
Whose house is cold,
This is his own.'"