"IT was not until last spring that she sent for me to come home," went
on Betty, "and was very effusive about how much she needed me and how
she was so much better, and meant to be a real mother to me now, helping
me see the world and have a good time. She took me from one summer
resort to another. Of course it was pleasant after having been shut up
in school all those years, but she kept me close with her all the time,
and I met only the people she chose to have me meet. All the time she
kept talking about 'dear Herbert' and telling how wonderful he was and
how he had grown to be 'such a dear boy.' Finally he arrived and began
the very first evening he was with us to coax me to marry him. At first
he was very courteous and waited upon me whenever I stirred, and I
almost thought his mother was right about his being changed. But when I
told him that I did not love him and could not ever marry him I caught a
look on his face like an angry snarl, and I heard him tell his mother I
was a crazy little fool, and that he would break my neck for me after he
got me good and married. Then his mother began to come to me and cry
and tell me how dear Herbert was almost heart-broken, that he would
never lift up his head again, and that I would send him to ruin. It was
simply awful, and I didn't know how to endure it. I began to wonder
where I could go. Of course I had never been brought up to do anything,
so I could not very well expect to go out into the world and make my
living."
"Didn't you have any money at all?" interrupted Reyburn suddenly.
"Oh, yes," she said, looking up as if she had just remembered his
presence. "I had always plenty of spending money, but if I went away
where they couldn't find me, why, of course, I would have to give that
up."
"Why, where did your money come from? Was it an allowance from your
stepmother, or did your father leave it to you, or what?"
"I'm not just sure," said Betty, with troubled brow. "I never really
knew much about the money affairs. When I asked, they always put me off
and said that I was too young to be bothered with business yet, I would
be told all about it when I came of age. My stepmother harped a great
deal on keeping me young as long as possible. She said it was my
father's wish that I should be relieved of all care until I came of
age. But there were some trustees in Boston. I know that, because I had
to write to them, about once or twice a year. My stepmother was most
particular about that. I think they were old friends of my own mother,
though I don't know when I learned that. Father told me once that mother
had left me enough to keep me comfortably even without what he would
leave me, so I'm sure I shall have enough to repay you if I could once
get it."
"Don't worry about me!" he exclaimed. "It seems so terrible for you to
have been alone in a situation like that! Wasn't there any one you could
appeal to for help?"
"No, not any one whom I thought it would be right to tell. You see, in a
way it was my father's honor. She was his wife, and I'm sure he loved
her--at least at first--and she really was very good to me, except when
it was a question of her son."
"I'm afraid I can't agree with you there!" he said sternly. "I think she
was a clever actress. But excuse me. Go on, please."
"At last, when things had got so bad that I thought I must run away
somewhere, my stepmother came into my room one morning and locked the
door. She had been weeping, and she looked very sweet and pitiful. She
said she had something to tell me. She had tried not to have to do it,
for she was afraid it would grieve me and might make me have hard
feelings against my father. I told her that was impossible. Then she
told me that my father on his deathbed had called her to him and told
her that it was his wish that I should marry one of her sons, and he
wanted her to tell me. He felt that he had wronged them by hating them
for my sake and he felt that I could make it all right by marrying one
of them. My stepmother said that when she saw how infatuated dear
Herbert was with me she hoped that she would be spared having to tell
me, but now that I was treating him so she felt bound to deliver the
message. Then she handed me a paper which said virtually the same thing
which she had told me, and was signed by my father in his own
handwriting."
"Was the paper written or printed?" interrupted Reyburn.
"I think it was typewritten, but the signature was papa's. There could
be no mistake about that, and he wouldn't have signed something he
didn't mean." Betty sighed as if it were a subject she had worn into her
heart by much sorrowful thought.
"It might be quite possible for him to have done that under influence
or delirium, or when he was too sick to realize."
"Oh, do you think so?" Betty caught at the hope. "It seems so awful to
go against papa's last request."
"There is nothing awful but the idea of your being tied to that--beast!"
said Reyburn with unexpected fervor. Betty looked at him gratefully and
went on:
"I was simply appalled. I couldn't think, and I made my stepmother go
away and leave me for a little while, but things got blacker and blacker
and I thought I was going crazy. I couldn't marry Herbert even to please
my father. The next day Bessemer arrived. He had been worrying his
mother a lot about money, and when he arrived I couldn't help hearing
what they said to him. They charged him with all sort of dreadful
things. They called him a disgrace, and threatened to let him be
arrested, and a great many more such things. Finally his mother ended up
by telling him she never had loved him and that if he made any more
trouble about money she would cut him off without a cent. I was sitting
upstairs in my room with my windows open, and all their talk floated
right up to me. It made me feel sick, and yet I felt sorry for Bessemer,
for lately whenever he had been around he had been kind to me, and
sometimes I had stayed near him to get rid of Herbert. We often talked
over our troubles together and sympathized with one another. He felt
sorry for me, but he was weak himself and couldn't see any way out for
either of us.
"They had pretty stormy times all that day. Late in the afternoon
Herbert and Bessemer went to their mother's room and were closeted with
her for two hours, after which Herbert went away in the car with his
suitcase and bags as if he were not coming back soon. I watched him from
my window, and in great relief went down to take a little walk, for I
had stayed closely in my room all day trying to plan what to do. One
thing that held me from running away was that it would be such a
disgrace to the family, and I knew my father would have felt it so
keenly. That was always the great trouble when the boys got into scrapes
at college, my father would groan and say he felt disgraced to be so
conspicuous before the world. So I hesitated to do what would have been
a sorrow to him had he been alive.
"Half an hour later I was sitting alone in the twilight on one of the
porches, and Bessemer came out and sat down beside me.
"He looked so sort of homely and lonesome that I put my hand on his arm
and told him I was awfully sorry for him, and suddenly he turned around
and said:
"'Say, Betty, why don't you marry _me_? Then they can't say a word to
either of us. Your father's wishes will be carried out and Herb'll have
to whistle.'
"At first I was horrified, but we talked a long time about it, and he
told me how lonely he had always been, and how nobody had ever loved
him, and he knew he wasn't attractive, and all that; and then he said
that if I married him we would go away and live by ourselves and he
would let me do just as I wanted to. He wouldn't bother me about
anything. If I didn't love him he would keep out of my sight, and things
like that, till I got very sorry for him, and began to think that
perhaps after all it was the best thing that would ever come for either
of us. So I said I would.
"It surprised me a little that my stepmother took it so calmly when we
told her. She cried a little, but did it very prettily, and kissed
Bessemer, and told him he was fortunate. Then she kissed me and said I
was a darling, and that she would be so happy if it only weren't for
poor dear Herbert.
"But after that they began to rush things for a grand wedding, and I let
them do it because I didn't see anything else in the world for me."
Betty raised her eyes and encountered the clear grave gaze of Reyburn
fixed on her, and the color flew into her cheeks:
"I know you think I'm dreadful," she said, shrinking. "I've thought so
myself a thousand times, but truly I didn't realize then what an awful
thing it would be to marry a man I didn't love. I only wanted to hurry
up and get it done before Herbert came home. They said he had been
called away by important business and might be at home any day. I gave
my consent to everything they wanted to do, and they fixed it all just
as they pleased. One thing that happened upset me terribly. When the
wedding invitations came home my stepmother carried them off to her
room. I was too sad to pay much attention anyway. But the next morning I
happened to be down in the kitchen looking over the papers that the maid
had taken down from the waste baskets to search for a missing letter and
there in the pile I found one of the invitations partly addressed and
flung aside, and the invitation was still in the envelope. I pulled it
out with a ghastly kind of curiosity to see how I looked on paper, and
there it read, Mrs. Charles Garland Stanhope invites you to be present
at the marriage of her daughter Elizabeth to _Mr. Herbert Hutton_!
"My heart just stood still. With the paper in my hand I rushed up to my
stepmother's room and demanded to know what that meant. She smiled and
said she was so sorry I had been annoyed that way, that that was a
mistake, the invitations had come wrongly engraved and she had had to
send them back and have them done over again. She was afraid I might be
superstitious about it, so she hadn't told me. She was very gentle and
sweet and tried to soothe me, and called me 'Betty,' the name my father
always had for me, and at last I went back to my room feeling quite
comfortable. She had said she always felt troubled for poor Bessemer,
that nobody could love him right, he was so homely, and now I was going
to make everything right by marrying him. She was going to try to forget
what I had done to poor dear Herbert, and just be happy about Bessemer.
She talked so nicely that I kissed her, a thing I hadn't done in years,
not since she was first married to father. But somehow the shock of
seeing Herbert's name on the invitation stayed with me, and I began to
feel gloomier about it all and to wonder if perhaps I had done right.
The last day I was terribly depressed and when I got to the church that
night it suddenly came to me that perhaps after all I was not going to
be free at all as I had hoped, but was just tying myself up to them all
for life. I was thinking that as I walked up the aisle, and my throat
had a big lump in it the way it always does when I am frightened, and
then I looked up hoping a glimpse of poor Bessemer's face would steady
me and he wasn't there at all! And right over me, waiting beside the
minister, to marry me stood _Herbert_! My knees just gave way under me,
and everything got black so I couldn't go on another step, nor even
stand up. I had to drop. I wasn't unconscious as you all thought--I
heard everything that went on, but I couldn't do anything about it.
"After they had carried me into the other room and given me things to
drink, and I could get my breath again I saw it all clearly. Herbert
hadn't given up at all. He meant to marry me anyway. He had had the
invitations printed with his name on purpose and they probably hadn't
been changed at all. Everybody in that great church out there was
_expecting_ me to marry Herbert Hutton, and I _was not going to do it_!
I didn't quite know how I was going to stop it, but I knew I had to! You
see I was brought up to think a great deal about what people would think
of me if I did anything out of the usual, and it seemed to me I had
disgraced myself forever by dropping down in the aisle. I knew Herbert
well enough to be sure he would carry that wedding through now if he had
to hold me up in his arms till the ceremony was over, and I was
desperate. I would have given everything I had in the world if the floor
had opened and swallowed me up then, but of course I knew wild thoughts
like that wouldn't get me anywhere, so I just shut my eyes and tried to
think of a way; and then I asked them all to go out a minute and let me
be quiet. The doctor who had come out of the church told them to go. I
shall always bless that man, whoever he was! Then when they were gone I
opened a door that had a key in it, and I locked it behind me and ran
away down some stairs and out a passage that led to the street. That
girl, Jane Carson, was passing and she put her own coat on me and took
me to her room and sent me here. Oh, it's been so good to get here! Do
you think they can take me away against my will?"
"Certainly not!" said the young man. "Not without some foul play, but I
don't intend to give them any chance for that. By the way, when do you
come of age?"
"In three weeks," said Betty, looking troubled. "Why, would I be safe
after I was of age?"
"You certainly would not be under their guardianship any longer," said
the young lawyer, "and they would have no right to control your actions,
unless of course you were incapacitated somehow and unfit to manage your
own affairs."
Betty looked troubled.
"I've thought sometimes, ever since I saw that paper in which they
hinted that I was temporarily insane, that they might try to shut me up
in an insane asylum. Herbert wouldn't stop at anything. Could he do
that?"
"They would have to get a doctor to swear that you were mentally
unsound," said Reyburn, looking troubled. "Does he really love you, do
you think or does he only want to get you in his power for some reason?"
"It is more like that," said Betty sorrowfully, "he couldn't really love
anybody but himself."
"Well, don't you worry. I'm going at the case at once, and I'll put
those people where they'll have to walk a chalk line before many hours
are over. The first thing I must do is to see those trustees of yours.
Can you give me the names and addresses?"
He got out his fountain pen, and Betty told him all he wanted to know,
that is, all she knew herself, and then suddenly it was train time and
he hurried away. On the steps he paused and said in a low tone:
"Are you perfectly comfortable with these people for a few days until I
can get you better accommodations where you will be safe?"
"Entirely," said Betty eagerly. "I wouldn't want to go elsewhere."
"But it must be very hard for one like you to be thrown constantly with
illiterate, uncultured people."
Betty smiled dreamily:
"I don't think they are exactly uncultured," she said slowly.
"They--well, you see, they make a friend of God, and somehow I think
that makes a difference. Don't you think it would?"
"I should think it would," said Warren Reyburn reverently with a light
in his eyes. "I think, perhaps, if you don't mind my saying it, that
you, too, have been making a friend of God."
"I've been trying to," said Betty softly, with a shy glow on her face
that he remembered all the way back to the city.