Memories
Betty arrived at her home before her visitors. Esther was engaged for
another half hour with a music lesson and besides Betty wished to see
that the house was in order for her visitors.
It was a curious sensation to come home alone and to wander from one end
of the big house to the other, hearing only the sound of her own
footsteps, for Mrs. Mitchell, the caretaker, was in the kitchen preparing
afternoon tea to be served the guests a little later, while her husband
was working in the yard. Betty had an uncomfortable feeling of
desolation, as though she were a kind of a ghost. First she went straight
to her mother's room, but there the pictures were covered with sheets,
the mattress rolled up, the curtains down, and the tables and mantel so
bare of ornament that Betty hurried away to her own blue sitting room
across the hall. Would her father and mother never be back? Surely they
would both be returning in the early summer when the weather would be
less severe upon her father's health and the great house would be
reopened as it had always been.
At the cabin with the other girls the time had not seemed so long to
Betty, nearly ten months now since their sailing, but here at home why it
seemed that years might have passed. A sudden fear clutched the girl's
heart--would things ever be quite the same again; did life ever repeat
itself in exactly the same old way? And yet Betty had no regrets, only
pleasure, that she had been the moving spirit in the first organization
of the Sunrise Camp Fire club. How much they had learned in their summer
and winter together! And though she might count herself as having learned
least of all, yet surely she would never be quite so spoiled and selfish
as on that May day when she had accidentally discovered Esther Clark
singing the Camp Fire hymn in their formerly deserted back room.
When her mother returned she would relieve her by taking the care of the
housekeeping upon her own shoulders and certainly she would be able to
cut down expenses. Now that her father's income was so reduced, this
would be a great assistance to him, as Mrs. Ashton had no idea of
possible household economies. Betty smiled, not in the least mournfully.
There was no thought of any real poverty to be grappled with in her mind.
She was only considering in what an unexpected fashion she was going to
be able to show to her mother and father the benefits of her Camp Fire
training, for which she had plead so earnestly not quite a year before.
The young girl was in her own room at the time of these reflections,
seated in her own blue rocking chair with her feet tucked up under her
and her chin resting in her hand, looking out her open window at the
desolate garden, for this April afternoon was just as cold and
uninspiring as that other May afternoon, and there was also no fire in
her grate, although downstairs a big blaze had been lighted for the
expected company.
That Betty had changed in the past year, her parents would be able to see
readily. Really she was prettier than ever; from her outdoor life the
color in her cheeks was deeper, her lips a more vivid scarlet and the
selfish, sometimes discontented lines about her mouth and forehead had
wholly disappeared. Now thinking of her parents return, of how she would
be able to prove her love for them by greater devotion to her father in
his ill-health; that perhaps he would even teach her something of his
business cares and responsibilities since Dick would be so long away
completing his medical studies, her expression was very thoughtful and
charming and her gray eyes unusually serious. Yet the next instant with a
gay laugh Betty jumped to her feet.
"My goodness, I must hurry downstairs and see how the drawing room
looks!" she exclaimed aloud. "I have been forgetting what an interesting
interview we are going to have this afternoon! Dear me, I wonder what the
trouble is and why Esther and I should be privileged to attend this
romantic meeting? Perhaps there is going to be some kind of marriage
contract, arranged in German fashion, and Esther, Rose and I are wanted
as witnesses. It matters not just so I am allowed in the secret." And
Betty started running down the hall.
However, before arriving at the front steps a moment's hesitation
overtook her and she paused. The next second she had gone to the end of
the passage and stood with her hand on the door-knob of the very room
where she had once surprised Esther. But to-day she could hear no sounds
of singing on the inside.
"I am going to peep into Esther's old room; I wonder if she will wish
this same one when she comes back to live with us again. Somehow it must
affect me like the locked chamber did Bluebeard's wife; there isn't the
least reason why I should be peering into this empty place to-day."
The door opened quickly and Betty gave a sudden scream of terror. The
room was not unoccupied, some one was kneeling over in a corner by a
closed window.
The figure rose slowly to its feet. "I am sorry, Betty, I didn't mean to
frighten you. Really, dear, I didn't dream of your coming in here."
It was Esther Clark. In the half light Betty was now able to distinguish
her perfectly. Esther's face was extremely white, there were tears in her
large pale blue eyes and her lids were red and swollen. Her big hands
worked nervously as they had on that former occasion when Betty had
thought her so plain and unattractive looking.
"Oh, it's you, Esther," Betty exclaimed in relieved tones. "Gracious, how
you startled me! But I thought you were taking your music lesson. What in
the world is troubling you, child, and how did you get into this house
and upstairs without my knowing?"
"I came in through the kitchen and crept upstairs as quietly as possible,
since I wanted to be alone here for a few minutes," Esther explained.
"Will you please leave me for a little while?"
"Most certainly not," returned Betty in her most autocratic tones. "If
you have anything on your mind that is worrying you, come on downstairs
and tell me what it is. You have a dreadful tiresome fashion, Esther, of
just hugging your grievances to yourself, when if you just told outright
what they were, there would probably be nothing for you to fret about."
Betty was annoyed and her tone was far more irritable than usual.
Nevertheless, Esther crossed the short space between them and taking
Betty's lovely face between her hands kissed her two or three times in
succession.
"Do as I tell you, Princess, please," she spoke in unusual tones of
authority. "I will join you downstairs in a very little while, but I must
get back my self-control first."
So there seemed to be nothing left for Betty but obedience, so plainly
did Esther appear to know what she wanted. Very slowly the younger girl
walked down to the drawing room. "Esther did find it difficult to confide
things to people, but usually she was willing to tell them to her," Betty
thought. "Well, perhaps her shyness and reticence came from having been
raised in an orphan asylum where no one was really deeply interested in
her or her personal affairs. Nothing very serious could have happened,
however, since Esther had left school only about an hour before."
In the drawing room everything was far more cheerful, the fire was
burning, the window blinds were drawn up, the grand piano was open and on
it rested a vase of white roses. It was perfectly impossible for Betty
Ashton to learn to be economical all at once, and with the thought of a
possible betrothal in the house that afternoon she had stopped at a
florist's and brought the flowers in with her. Now she could not help
feeling a little glow of pride over the beauty of their old drawing room,
especially noticeable after the simplicity of the living room at the
cabin.
Feeling rather nervous over the idea that Esther might probably be
continuing with her crying upstairs and so unable to take part in the
coming interview, Betty walked slowly around the great room studying the
portraits of her ancestors,--a favorite amusement with her so long as she
could remember. They were stern persons most of them. Betty did not
believe that she could ever have such strict views of the difference
between right and wrong, be so harsh in her judgments as they had been,
but then the world had moved on to a wider vision since those days. One
of her great, great uncles had assisted in the burning of witches. Betty
turned from this self-righteous looking portrait to the picture of the
aunt whom she had always believed herself to resemble, the young woman in
the white dress with the big picture hat, then the girl smiled at her own
vanity. How absurd to think that she could look like any one so lovely!
And yet here was the auburn hair, only a shade more golden than her own,
big eyes that were blue instead of gray and a kind of proud fashion of
tilting her chin. Very probably Betty had always held her own head in
this fashion because she had always so wished to be thought like this
special great aunt.
"Well, it was a good thing to feel a certain pride of ancestry," the
young girl thought, "in spite of all of Polly's teasing. Surely the
possession of a great name ought to keep one away from littleness or
meanness, make one strive to fill an honorable position in the world. If
she had not the ability to be a great woman certainly she intended to be
a good one. And then the recollection of Esther came to her again. Poor
Esther, who had not even a name of her own! For this very reason had she
not always been more ambitious for her friend than Esther had seemed for
herself? If she had no position, no money and no family, Esther did have
a real talent and must make a place for herself some day."
But there sounded the first ring at the door bell! Let one hope it was
not Herr Crippen arriving first, since, with Esther still upstairs, how
could she ever hope to keep him entertained until the arrival of the
others? But probably the elderly violinist had never seen anything quite
so handsome as their drawing room. Betty had the grace to laugh and then
blush over her own foolishness, snobbishness Polly might call it. What
did she know of Herr Crippen, his past, what he had seen, where he had
traveled in the forty-five years or more of his life?
With a smile of welcome and her hand extended Betty then moved forward
toward the door to receive her first guest.