SECRETS
It was sundown. The big Ashton house, although so filled with people,
was oddly quiet. Betty Ashton slipped out of her own room into the
hall and hurried along the empty corridor. Once only she stopped and
smiled, partly from amusement and partly from satisfaction. Herr
Crippen's door was half open and so was Miss McMurtry's and the
Professor was playing on his violin. Such sentimental love ditties!
The air throbbed with German love songs.
And Betty had a mischievous desire to stick her head into Miss
McMurtry's room and see if she was engaged in some maiden-like
occupation, such as marking school papers or reading the _Woodford
Gazette_. Or was she sitting, as she should be, with her hands idly
folded in her lap and her heart and mind absorbed in the music? Never
had Betty given up her idea that a romance was in the making between
their first Camp Fire guardian and Esther's father. And often since
their coming to live in her house had she not seen slight but
convincing evidences? Why should Donna so often appear with a single
white rose pinned to her dress or take to playing the same tunes on the
piano that the Professor played on his violin, particularly when she
was an exceedingly poor pianist?
Nevertheless it was not awe of her teacher and guardian that kept Betty
from investigating the state of her emotions at this moment; neither
was it any fear of antagonism between them, for since Esther's
departure to study in New York, Miss McMurtry apparently felt more
affection for Betty than for any of the other Camp Fire girls. No, it
was simply because she had a very definite purpose which she wished to
accomplish without interruption or opposition.
The next instant and she had paused outside a closed door and stood
listening tensely. There were no noises inside, no voices, nor the
stir of any person moving about. Betty put her hand on the knob and
opened it silently.
Instantly there was a little cry and Betty and Polly O'Neill were in
each other's arms.
"Betty, you darling," Polly gasped, "turn on every light in this room
and let me stare and stare at you. There isn't anything in the world
the matter with you. You are as lovely as you ever were. Oh, I have
been so frightened! I have not believed what anybody told me, and it
seemed it must be a part of my punishment that you had been injured.
It is absurd of me, I suppose, but I have had a kind of feeling that
perhaps if I had been at Meg's party I should have been with you at the
time so that it couldn't have happened."
"Foolish Polly! But when was Polly anything but foolish?" the other
girl returned, taking off her cap and pushing back her hair. "You see
I am a sight, dear, but it does not matter a great deal. I am kind of
getting used to myself these last few days. So I didn't see any reason
why, since you are better and I am perfectly well, we could not be
together. Even if it does give you a kind of a shock to look at me,
you'll get over it, won't you?"
In reply Polly had one of her rather rare outbursts of affection. She
was never so demonstrative as the other girls. Her devotions had ways
of expressing themselves in an occasional compliment tendered perhaps
in some whimsical, back-handed fashion, or in a fleeting caress, which
came and was gone like the touch of a butterfly's wing.
Now, however, she took her friend's face between her two hands and
kissed her quietly, almost solemnly upon the line of her injury.
"Never say a thing like that to me again as long as you live, Betty
Ashton. Perhaps I haven't as much affection as other people. Mother
and Mollie are both insisting it lately. Still I know that----but how
silly we are to talk of it! You are not changed. Of course I am sorry
that your hair had to be cut off, but it will grow out again and the
scar will disappear. I wish I could get rid of my"--Polly
hesitated--"blemishes so easily," she finished.
Betty looked puzzled. "What do you mean? Sylvia says you are very
much better and that there is no reason why you should not get up. She
declares that it is only that you won't and that she does not intend
nursing you or letting any one else take care of you after a few days,
unless you do what Dr. Barton tells you. Sylvia is a dreadfully firm
person. She was quite angry with me when I said that I did not believe
you were well and that I was quite strong enough now to take care of
you and you should not get out of bed until you had entirely recovered."
"But I have entirely recovered and I am well and somehow I can't manage
to deceive Sylvia Wharton no matter how hard I try," Polly announced in
a half-amused and half-annoyed manner.
"Then why are you trying to?" Betty naturally queried. Of course one
never actually expected to understand Polly O'Neill's whims, but now
and then one of them appeared a trifle more mysterious than the others.
"If you are still tired and feel you prefer to remain in bed, that is a
sure sign you are not strong enough to get up, and Dr. Barton and
Sylvia ought to realize it," she continued, still on the defensive.
But Polly only smiled at her. "But, dear, I don't prefer to remain in
bed. I am so deadly bored with it that as soon as I am left alone I
get up and dance in the middle of the floor just to have a little
relief. Can't you and mother and Mollie understand (I don't believe
any one does except Sylvia) that I don't want to get up because I don't
want to have to face the music?"
Still the other girl looked puzzled.
"Can't you see that as long as I have been able to be sick nobody has
dared to say very much to me about my escapade in New York? Oh, of
course I know what they think and mother did manage to say a good deal
before we came home; still, there is a great deal more retribution
awaiting me. In the first place, I shall have to go home to the
Wharton house. I realize it has been dreadful, my being sick here, but
I am everlastingly grateful to you and your mother. Mr. Wharton won't
say anything much; he really is very kind to me; but naturally I know
what he thinks. And then when Frank Wharton is there it will be so
much worse. You see, Frank and I quarreled once, because I thought he
was rude to mother. And of course he considers my disobedience worse
than his rudeness. And as he is perfectly right, I can't imagine how I
shall answer him back the next time we argue."
As Polly talked she had risen into a sitting posture in bed and was now
leaning her chin on her hand in a characteristic attitude and quite
unconscious of the amusing side to her argument until Betty laughed.
Polly had on a scarlet flannel dressing sacque and her hair was tied
with scarlet ribbons. And indeed her cheeks were almost equally vivid
in color.
"But there isn't anything funny about my punishment, Betty dear. And
the worst of it is that I know I deserve all of it and more and shan't
ever have the right to complain. Mother declares that she does not
expect to allow me to leave Woodford again until I am twenty-one, since
she has no more faith in me. And then, and then--" Polly's entire face
now changed expression--"has any one told you that my behavior is to be
openly discussed at the next meeting of our Camp Fire Club? Perhaps I
won't be allowed to be a member any longer."
Instantly Betty jumped up from her kneeling position by the bed and
commenced walking up and down the length of the room, saying nothing at
first, but with her lips set in obstinate lines.
"But it isn't the custom of Camp Fire clubs to act as both judge and
jury, is it, Polly?" she inquired. "At least, I have never heard of
any other club's undertaking such a task. We are allowed, I know, to
be fairly free in what we do in our individual clubs, but somehow this
action seems unkind and dangerous. For if once we begin criticising
one another's faults or mistakes, after a while there won't be any
club. Right now Edith Norton is behaving very foolishly, I think, but
I wouldn't dream of even discussing her with you or any one of the
girls. I----" Betty paused to get her breath, her indignation and
opposition to Polly's information overwhelming her.
But Polly held out both hands, entreating her to sit beside her again.
"You are mistaken. I did not explain the circumstances to you as I
should have. It is all my idea and my plan to have the girls consider
my misconduct and find out how they feel about me," Polly explained
quietly. "I spoke of it first to Rose and then to Miss McMurtry and at
first they thought in a measure as you do. But I don't agree with you.
You remember that our honor beads come to us for obedience and service
to our Camp Fire laws. Why should not disobedience make us unworthy to
wear them? In the old days if an Indian offended against the laws of
his tribe he was made to suffer the penalty. And I don't want you
girls to keep me in our club just because you are sorry for me and are
too kind to be just. Mollie has told me how horrified Meg and Eleanor
and Nan are, and of course Rose and Donna have not pretended to hide
their disapproval, even during their consolation visits to me as an
invalid. But you will forgive me, won't you, Betty?" Polly ended with
more penitence than she had yet shown to any one save her mother.
"Of course I forgive you. But if you had not gotten well I should
never have forgiven Esther," the other girl answered.
Two fingers were laid quickly across Betty Ashton's lips.
"Don't be unfair and absurd," Polly protested; "for some day you may be
sorry if you don't understand just how big and generous Esther Crippen
is. It isn't only that she would sacrifice her own desires for other
people's, but that she actually has. I would not be surprised if
Esther did not have some secret or other." And Polly stopped suddenly,
biting her tongue. Not for worlds would she even in the slightest
fashion betray a suspicion or inference of her own concerning the
friend who had been so loyal and devoted to her.
Fortunately Betty was too intent upon her own thoughts to have heard
her.
"I have to go back to my own room now, but you are not to worry, Polly
mine, not about anything. In the first place, you are not to go home
very soon. I have talked to your mother and mine and persuaded them
that I need to have you stay on here with me. I do need you, Polly.
It is queer, but I want you to come and sleep in the old back room with
me. I have gotten nervous being in there by myself. There is a
mystery about the room greater than I have dreamed. I have only been
joking half the time when I have spoken of it. But the other day I got
mother to the point where there was no possible excuse for her not
explaining the entire reason for her attitude and Dick's toward the
place, when suddenly she broke down and left me. We might amuse
ourselves while we are invalids discovering whether or not it is
haunted. Only I don't exactly wish to make the discovery alone."