HER PENSION
"Good luck never rains but it pours, as well as bad luck, mother,"
Betty Ashton said one morning nearly a week later. She had just put
down a big tray of breakfast on a small table before Mrs. Ashton and
now seated herself on the opposite side.
Mrs. Ashton sighed. "If your good luck storm has any reference to us,
Betty dear, I am sure I don't get your point of view. For if anything
but misfortune has followed our footsteps since your father's death I
am sure I should like to hear what it is." And Mrs. Ashton shivered,
drawing her light woolen shawl closer about her shoulders.
There are some persons in this world whom troubles brace. After the
first shock of a sorrow or calamity has passed they stand reinforced
with new strength and new courage. These are the world's successful
people. For after a while, ill luck, finding that it can never down a
really valiant spirit, grows weary and leaves it alone. Then the good
things have their turn--health, better and more admiring friends, fame,
money, love. Whatever the struggle has been made for, if it has been
sufficiently brave and persistent, the reward is sure. But there are
other men and women, or girls and boys, for age makes no difference,
who go down like wilted flowers in the teeth of the first storm. And
on them life is apt to trample, misfortunes to pile up.
Mrs. Ashton was one of these women. She had made things doubly hard
for Betty and Dick. Indeed, except for his sister, Richard Ashton
would never have had the strength of purpose to sail for Germany to
complete his medical studies. He would simply have surrendered and
commenced his practice of medicine in Woodford without being properly
equipped for perhaps the greatest of all the professions--the struggle
to conquer disease. Yet somehow Betty had had a clearer vision than
can be expected of most girls of her age. In a vague way she had
understood that it is oftentimes wiser to make a present sacrifice for
some greater future gain. So she had persuaded Dick to use the little
money that he had for his work, assuring him that she and her mother
could get on perfectly well together at home. And with half a dozen
summer boarders at the time of his leaving, it did look to Dick as
though her confidence was not misplaced.
Now in answer to her mother's speech Betty said nothing at first. So
that several tears sliding down Mrs. Ashton's cheeks watered her hot
buttered toast.
"I am sure I never expected to live to see this day, my dear, when you
would have to cook your own breakfast and mine before you could leave
for school," she murmured. "Why, I never thought that you would have
to turn over your hand even to look after yourself. Until you
developed that Camp Fire enthusiasm you had not been taught a single
useful thing. After all, perhaps it might have been better for you if
I had never been your mother, if----"
Betty laughed teasingly. "My dear Mrs. Ashton, you talk as if you
could have avoided that affliction! You could not very well have
helped being my mother, could you? You did not deliberately choose me
out from a lot of girls. Because if you did, I should have very little
respect for your good judgment. Think, if you might have selected
either Polly or Esther! Why, then you would be sure to be rich again
some day. For one of them would act so marvelously that she would be
able to cast laurels at your feet, while the other would sing you back
to fortune. But as it is, you will just have to put up with poor me
until Dick gets his chance. Now do eat your breakfast while I relate
the details of our good luck storm. In the first place, we are not
going to have to give up our beloved house. At least not yet, and
perhaps never if our German-American Pension plan turns out
satisfactorily."
Betty drank a swallow of coffee, hardly appreciating what she was
doing, so deep was her absorption in their affairs.
"Honestly, mother, I should never have dreamed of being so interested
in this plan of Rose's and Miss McMurtry's for us, if it had not been
for Dick's letters. But if German ladies can keep successful pensions,
why not Americans? Remember what a funny lot of people Dick has
described--the fat widow with the two musical daughters. I hope one of
them won't set her cap for Dick, he loves music so dearly. Then you
know the young boy student who was nearly starving when Dick rescued
him, and the old Baron who wears a wig, and the half dozen others? But
no matter how queer and funny they may be, they can be no more so than
our pensioners. There is Miss McMurtry herself and Anthony Graham, and
Dr. Barton moving into town to have an office in our old library. I
wonder sometimes if he and Rose are still friends. They had a
disagreement once out at the cabin and she just speaks to him since."
Then Betty Ashton hesitated and devoted herself to finishing her
breakfast.
"I am sure I don't understand why you fail to mention Herr Crippen,
child, who is to have a room here with us and teach his pupils in our
big drawing room. I am glad he has been so successful with his music
pupils that he is able to give Esther the advantage of studying in New
York. I wish you did not have such a ridiculous prejudice against him.
Indeed, my dear, I have a very strong reason for insisting that you be
kind to him. He is Esther's father and----"
Mrs. Ashton spoke more firmly than was usual with her.
But Betty shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly. "Oh, of course I am
glad enough to have the Professor here and I have never said I did not
like him. But I am specially happy that Edith Norton's family has
moved away so she is to have a room with us. I am kind of lonely
without Polly and Esther, and somehow Edith,"----Betty broke off
abruptly. Not even to her mother did she feel like mentioning the fact
that Edith did not seem to be turning out quite so well as the other
Sunrise Camp Fire girls.
With a hurried movement she next picked up the breakfast tray,
exclaiming:
"Thank heavens we are not going to have to give our lodgers anything
but their rooms and that Martha is coming back to do our cooking and
the cleaning. Good old soul to offer to do it without pay. She said
that she could not bear living anywhere except with us and that she had
enough of father's money stored away in bank not to need any more. But
we could not have had her work without pay." Betty kissed her mother
lightly on the forehead. "If any one else turns up today and wishes a
room, just refer them to me. I'm afraid I won't leave us a bed to
sleep in. I am getting so anxious to surprise Dick by really earning a
lot of money."
"Well, don't rent the back room that Esther used to have, Betty. You
may move into it yourself some day if you like, but I would rather not
have a stranger occupy it. I----"
"What on earth is queer about that room?" Betty interrupted. "I have
not time to listen now, but you _must_ tell me. You talk as though it
were a kind of Bluebeard's Chamber of Horrors. Yet I don't suppose you
would put me in it if I were likely to have my head cut off in
consequence. Good-bye, dear." And Betty fled out into the hall,
realizing that it must be almost school time.
The door of Esther's old room happened by accident to be standing open,
and still holding on to her tray, Betty paused before it for a few
moments. She was not thinking of a possible mystery or secret in
connection with the room, only wondering if Esther and Polly were to be
at home for the Christmas holidays. They both wanted to come, she
thought. But Esther was not sure of being able to afford it and Polly
was uncertain of whether she wished to stay in her stepfather's house
at a time when her stepbrother, Frank Wharton, whom she disliked so
much, should also be at home for his holidays. The girl's face was a
little wistful. She so longed to see both her friends. Without them
and without Dick, this first Christmas under such changed conditions at
home might be rather trying.
"Oh!" Betty exclaimed a trifle indignantly, with her arm shaking so
that the dishes in her hands rattled dangerously. "What in the world
are you doing in the house at this hour, Anthony Graham? You
frightened me nearly to death, turning up at my elbow in such an
unexpected fashion. I thought you had been gone hours!"
Anthony put down his coal scuttle and took hold of Betty's tray. "I
have been away, but I came back for a moment because your mother wished
me to do something for her as soon as I had the spare time." His tone
was so surly that Betty smiled. Anthony had been brought up with such
a different class of people that he was unable to understand sarcasm or
pretense of any kind. Whatever one said he accepted in exactly the
words in which it was spoken. And Betty and her friends had always
been accustomed to joking with one another, to saying one thing, often
meaning another. Anthony should have had the sense to realize that she
was not really cross, that her indignation was partly assumed.
Therefore she did not intend taking the trouble to set him right in the
present instance.
"I'll carry the dishes down myself. I have plenty of time," she
protested coldly.
But Anthony only held the more firmly to the tray, with his face
crimsoning.
The truth was that he had been appreciating in the past few days a
truth of which the girl herself was as yet unconscious. Betty's manner
toward him had noticeably changed. In the excitement of their
Thanksgiving day meeting and his romantic return of the money which she
had completely forgotten, she had shown far more interest and
friendliness than she now did. On that occasion Betty had overlooked
the young fellow's roughness, his lack of education and family
advantages. Really Anthony had never been taught even the common
civilities of life and had to trust to a kind of instinct, even in
knowing when to take off his hat, when to shake hands, how to enter or
leave a room. And he understood keenly enough his own limitations.
Yet the change in Betty's attitude had hurt him, even though he
acknowledged to himself his failure to deserve even her original
kindness. She was still kind enough of course in the things which she
thought counted. She was cordial about his having his room in the
house with her mother and herself and most careful of thanking him for
any assistance which he rendered them. Yet the difference was there.
For neither in heart nor mind had Betty yet grown big enough to feel
real comradeship with a boy so beneath her in social position and
opportunities.
Nevertheless she did not mean to be ungracious and something in the
carriage of the young man's head as he moved off down the hall
suggested that he was either hurt or angry, although exactly why Betty
could not understand.
"Don't go for a second, Anthony," she called after him. "I wanted to
tell you that you are living in a house with a haunted chamber. At
least I don't know whether this room is exactly haunted, but there is
something queer about it that my mother and brother have never confided
to me. Perhaps I shall move in and find out for myself what it is. I
will if there is a chance of my friends, Esther Crippen and Polly
O'Neill, coming home for the holidays. For it is so big that we could
stay in it together. And perhaps Mrs. O'Neill will let Polly come here
and visit me for a little while. Both the girls are doing wonderful
things in New York City. And I am afraid if they don't come home
pretty soon they will both have outgrown me. It is so horrid to be a
perfectly ordinary person."
As Betty moved off, the expression on her companion's face did not
suggest that he thought of her as entirely ordinary.