Polly thinks perhaps she is losing her senses, for there had been something familiar in that excited laughter which is now turning almost into a sob, and yet of course the idea was ridiculous. Polly then turned entreatingly toward Betty Ashton as her one sure rock of salvation in a vanishing world, and Betty never forgot the expression in her friend’s eyes, the look of wounded dignity, of disappointed affection, of almost resentful disbelief. For in Betty’s returning glance she found a confirmation of her worst fears.
The truth of the matter was that Betty had been suspicious of the little group of spectators of her friend’s recitation almost as soon as Polly began her speech. She was not under the pressure of so much excitement and had time and opportunity to look about and examine people and things more closely.
The woman in the long cloak – evidently her clothes were of the ready-made variety, for they certainly did not fit. Also she seemed very slender for a full grown woman, and in spite of her intention to remain unobserved was curiously nervous.
And the man? He was trying to keep his face in the shadow, but from Betty’s point of observation a ray of afternoon sunlight fell directly across his face. The line where his beard began was extremely distinct and his cheeks above it brown and boyish. Besides, though he did wear glasses, his eyes showed fear, amusement and Polly was right in a way, for they did show a certain amount of admiration, although they were certainly never the eyes of a censorious dramatic critic. For several moments Betty had been longing to interrupt Polly’s speech-making but had not known exactly how, and indeed had hardly dared. Perhaps if she could get Polly away before she ever found things out it would be best. Polly’s temper was never very good, and this would hurt her in all the ways in which she was most sensitive.
The girl’s face was white as chalk as she now ceased gazing at Betty and walked quietly across the room toward the supposedly strange woman who had risen at her approach and was trembling violently.
“It is a joke, Polly, don’t be angry; we thought if you could just see how silly play acting seemed to other people you would give it up,” the voice shook a little.
For Polly was ominously pale and quiet as she gently untied the veil and lifted off the stranger’s hat.
“So you wanted to see how much of a fool you could make of me, didn’t you, Mollie? Well, you have succeeded splendidly, dear; I can’t imagine how you could have had any greater success!” And Polly shut her lips tight together and clenched her hands. If only Betty and Meg and Mollie knew how furiously, suffocatingly angry she was they would probably be afraid to have anything to do with her.
But Meg was approaching her with her usually happy face somewhat clouded. “I am afraid you must think pretty poorly of us all, Polly, really it just looked funny to us at first, we only meant to tease you. But now, while I am willing to confess, it does seem rather hateful of us and I want to apologize to you for my part in this whole proceeding.”
Still Polly made no answer, only when Mollie rather timidly put her arms about her saying: “Please do, Polly dear, forgive us and don’t take the whole thing so seriously, you are fond enough of a joke yourself,” she quietly pushed Mollie aside and turned toward Betty.
“Please take me home then, Betty, for I am afraid I have furnished all the amusement this afternoon that I feel equal to.” But when Betty’s arms went about her, Polly trembled so violently that she had to hide her head on her friend’s shoulder and just for an instant a choked sob shook her. Both girls, however, were moving toward the closed drawing room door, but before they could leave the room a tall form barred their way.
“You can’t go until I have spoken to you,” Billy Webster said almost rudely in his determination to be obeyed. He had taken off his beard, wig and glasses and his face showed almost as white as Polly’s.
But Polly looked directly at him with eyes that apparently did not see him.
“I never wish to have to speak to you again so long as I live, Mr. Webster,” she said quietly, “And you can be quite happy, because whatever old scores you may think you owe me, you have paid me back this afternoon with interest.”
CHAPTER XVI
The Apology
“But – but I didn’t do it in that spirit in the least, Miss Polly,” the young man pleaded, still refusing to let the girls pass him unless they actually forced their way. “It was all a joke, a horribly poor one, I agree with Miss Meg. But it began by accident and then grew until none of us realized how foolish and worse than that it was. Oh, if you only knew what it is like to feel like a cad and to hate yourself through and through and yet to know that whatever you do you can never change things! We never dreamed you would take it all so seriously or be so completely deceived. We thought you would see through us pretty soon and then scold for a while and afterwards laugh along with the rest of us.”
“But Polly’s ambition is not a joke to her,” Betty returned, seeing that Polly either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. “She takes it as seriously as you can take the most serious ambition of your life. And to come here and do her best in order that all of you might make fun of her, really it is so cruel and in such bad taste I don’t feel I can like any of you for a long time, not even Meg and Mollie.” Betty’s gray eyes were so full of high-bred reproach, her face betrayed such a spiritual distaste that, if Billy Webster could have felt more humbled, which was quite impossible, he would have at this moment.
“But I was not making fun, at least not after Miss Polly began her recitation,” he returned. “I thought it quite remarkable and I would have given a very great deal if that accident had not happened so that I might have heard her straight through. I confess I don’t approve of well-bred girls even thinking of going on the stage, and I do sincerely hope Miss Polly will give up the idea before she is much older, but if it’s a question of talent, well, I don’t think there can be much doubt of her having talent enough.”
Billy said this so earnestly and with such evident sincerity that at any other time it might have slightly appeased Polly. Now, however, her feelings were too badly wounded for any outside balm.
Mollie was crying, so that she could hardly do or say anything, but Meg walked quietly up to Billy Webster, taking him by the sleeve. “Let the girls go now, Billy, please. It is not the time to detain them. Perhaps when Polly has thought things over a little she will realize we did not intend to wound her so deeply and will remember that she has probably made mistakes with people sometimes herself. I expect Mollie had better stay all night with me so that she won’t have to discuss this question any more to-night.”
And at this Polly and Betty both looking a little relieved retired into the hall, where they found their coats and hats and put them on with Meg’s assistance, saying good-bye to her politely enough as they started toward home.
It was not necessary, however, for Polly to have to ask Betty not to talk to her on their way to the cabin, for Betty’s gift of sympathy and understanding was one of her surest charms. She even explained to Rose and the other girls on their arrival that Polly had developed a headache on the trip back from town and asked to be left alone for the rest of the evening to sleep it off. However, when supper was over, by Polly’s request, she asked that Rose would give her a few quiet moments and in those moments she made her friend’s and her own confessions. Rose was not quite so angry, or so wholly on Polly’s side, as Betty believed she should be. For in the first place Miss Dyer was vexed with the two girls for not having told her of their intentions and suggested that their interview having developed into a joke was perhaps the best way out of it. It was rather an unkind joke, but then Polly took herself far too seriously and in her heart of hearts Rose hoped the young lady might learn a useful lesson through her uncomfortable experience.
And in a measure Rose’s wish was gratified, for Polly did not soon recover from her hurt and shame and did not refer again either to Miss Adams or her own future ambition. Apparently, so far as any one knew, she had given up all thought of it, for she settled down more seriously to the work of the Camp Fire, gaining each month additional honors, and was also working to acquire a prize at school. Of course she had to forgive Mollie her part in her discomfiture; Mollie was so truly repentant once she discovered how deep was her sister’s hurt and Polly with all her faults was not one to cherish anger. Then by and by she also made up with Meg, though it was a good many years before she had exactly the same intimate feeling with her as she had with the other Camp Fire girls. In future years it was always Mollie and Meg who were particularly intimate. But there was one person whom Polly could not bring herself to pardon. For the rest of that winter she never again spoke to Billy Webster. He and Mollie remained good friends and sometimes with another girl used to take walks together, so that Polly saw him now and then at the cabin and oftentimes when she was walking or driving through his father’s woods. However, though he never failed to raise his hat to her, she always behaved as though he were made of thin air and so impossible for her to behold.
However, Polly had not given up her ambition in spite of her altered behavior. Nevertheless, the shock to her pride had, though she did not herself realize it, been extremely good for her, making her realize how silly her pretensions must seem to other people. And so through this, and by watching Esther Clark go quietly ahead with her music, working steadily without asking either for reward or admiration, she learned several valuable lessons. Besides, Polly was so truly happy in the thought that her beloved mother was to return home early in the spring.
Mrs. O’Neill had written her daughters that she was coming home in April and that she had a wonderful secret to tell them which she hoped they would rejoice in for her sake. She also said that an old Irish uncle had died during her stay abroad and had left to Mollie and Polly a legacy of two thousand dollars each, so that they need have no worry about their education. If it were possible Mrs. O’Neill hoped to see Mrs. Ashton before coming back to America, so that she could bring Betty and Dick a better report of their father’s exact condition than letters had yet been able to give them.
CHAPTER XVII
General News
The final winter months passed peacefully and fairly uneventfully at the Sunrise cabin, with the girls following a regular routine of school and Camp Fire work and receiving new honors at each monthly meeting of their Council Fire. So far Esther Clark, Mollie O’Neill and, strangely enough, Nan Graham, had earned the greatest number of honor beads, for since Nan’s unpleasant day at home a new incentive seemed to have been added to her first ambition to make herself an attractive and capable woman. What this incentive was she confided only to her two most admired friends, Rose Dyer and Polly, but by a Polly channel the news also reached Betty Ashton’s ears. Nan’s former good-for-nothing brother, Anthony, had disappeared, but had written his sister two letters declaring that he was hard at work, keeping straight, and, though he did not wish anyone to know where he was, some day when he could feel that Nan might be proud instead of ashamed of him, meant to come home. In the meantime he urged Nan to stick close to her Camp Fire friends and to work.
Therefore there was only one Wood Gatherer now within the Sunrise club circle and this the small Abbie, whom Dr. Barton and Sylvia had introduced with such an amazing lack of tact on Christmas eve. For several weeks after her arrival the girls had simply permitted her to live on at the cabin enjoying their outdoor life, their healthy diet and watching the faint roses bloom in her cheeks but without the faintest idea of ever asking her to become a member of the Sunrise club. In the first place the child was too impossibly young, a bare thirteen, when most of the other girls were now approaching seventeen and grown-up-ness, and it was an unwritten Camp Fire law that the girls in a single group should be as nearly as possible of the same age. If Abbie had only been as old as her years, but she was not even that, and yet somehow this very babyishness and oddity finally won her admittance to the magic circle paradoxical as it may seem.
Perchance the club may have needed a baby now that “Little Brother” had returned, to live in his own home, anyhow, Abbie, almost before any one was aware of it, was occupying this position. Before her arrival Sylvia Wharton had been the youngest member of the Sunrise club, but there had never been anything particularly youthful or clinging about Sylvia; indeed, she had been about the most independent and self-reliant of the girls and therefore she found it very difficult to understand her own special protégé.
Abbie’s name wasn’t Abbie at all, but Abigail Faith Abbott, and once the romantic Polly made this discovery, Faith the little girl became to the entire club. Faith had lived a curiously solitary life apart from all other children. It was true her mother kept boarders in a downtown house in old Boston that had once belonged to her great-grandfather, but Faith had been kept away from them as much as possible and because of her ill health had never been allowed to go to school. It was because of her many illnesses that young Dr. Barton took an interest in the child. Her father was dead and her mother too busy with many cares to see much of her, so most of the young girl’s life had been spent in a small room at the top of an old house, which had an ever-closed window through which she could look out upon miles of chimney tops with every now and then a more aspiring steeple. So was it much of a wonder that the little lonely girl lived with fancies instead of realities and that as a result of all these things she now looked as though a harsh New Hampshire wind might easily blow her away? The children Faith had played with had never been real children at all, but two little spirit sisters whom she had imaged in her own mind for so long now that she could not remember when first she had thought of them. Nevertheless, it was with them that she constantly played and, if left alone, occasionally she spoke to them aloud. Of course Faith was old enough now to understand the absurdity of this and had made up her mind never to betray herself at the cabin. Yet within a short time after her arrival and because of her dreadful homesickness, Miss Dyer made the discovery. Unfortunately Sylvia, who had taken the little visitor’s physical training sternly in hand, also found out the fancy.
Faith did not go into town to school with the other girls, for by the doctor’s and Sylvia’s advice she was to spend all her time outdoors on the cabin front porch wrapped up in rugs. It was rather cold and dull with only the Sunrise Hill before her, the now frozen lake, where the girls skated in the late afternoons, and the long, dark avenue of pines. However, in the beginning of her experience Faith confessed to herself that she liked the loneliness far better than so many and such amazingly enterprising girls. With an almost desperate shyness she clung to Rose Dyer as the one grown-up person who faintly suggested her own mother and to Sylvia’s ministrations she yielded herself without protesting, but for some weeks she never spoke one word to any of the older girls except in answering a question addressed to her. Indeed, when evening came and the others gathered about their log fire to talk, the little stranger used to slip away to be cuddled like a baby in old Mammy’s arms until Sylvia, who wished her to retire an hour before any one else and have a special late supper of milk and eggs, would come and bear her off to be put to bed.
One morning Rose had been feeling worried at having been compelled to leave Faith so long outdoors alone without even going to the door to speak to her. The guardian’s hands had been unusually full that morning with Mammy, who ordinarily helped a little with the work while the girls were away, laid up with rheumatism. Also Rose knew that Max, the big St. Bernard dog who had arrived almost at the same time with Faith, spent most of his time with the little girl, and so she let the whole matter slip her mind until it was time to carry out her midday lunch. Then she smiled a little ruefully as she paused for a moment before opening the front door, wondering if Dr. Barton could guess just how much this child had added to her responsibilities and whether he would care seriously if he did. With his own devotion to looking after the sick (really he seemed totally indifferent to people who were well) doubtless he would take everything as a matter of course. In his visits to the cabin since Christmas certainly nothing more had been said on the subject. Rose laughed and then sighed, pausing with the door to the porch half open and listening. Faith was evidently not alone, for she could distinctly hear her talking to some one although unable to catch any answers.
“I think perhaps I can keep on bearing it, Anastasia,” Faith said in a voice that was only fairly brave, “if only you will stay with me and not let all those strange girls drive you and Gloria away. When they talk so much it seems as though I can’t remember you and it makes me want to go home.”
Her voice broke and Rose peering out was deeply mystified. The little half-sick girl was plainly alone and plainly dreadfully homesick, but with whom could she be talking?
“I don’t mind the Rose one so much, Gloria,” she continued, “but Dr. Ned said she was as nice as my mother, even nicer I believe he thought her. Yet he does not even look at her and hardly speaks to her when he comes to visit me.” And here Faith dropped her pale face into her small gloved hands and began to cry just as Rose appeared with her lunch.
Nevertheless, by the exercise of as much tact and patience as Miss Dyer had ever used in her society days to charm the coldest and most obdurate of her critics, finally she managed to persuade Faith to explain to her with whom she had been talking and just who were the mysterious persons Gloria and Anastasia. Of course, with many blushes Faith made her confession, understanding that she was now far too old for any such fanciful nonsense. Yet she did tell Rose with a good deal of pleasure toward the last that the two names represented two older sisters with whom she had been pretending to play ever since she was a baby and who were really dearer to her and more actual than real people. Naturally the new Camp Fire guardian was puzzled over this wholly new problem, with a so much younger girl, and after thinking it over for a long time made up her mind to consult with Dr. Barton. For if ever the little girl were to recover her normal health under their Camp Fire rules she must certainly put away her morbid fancies. But the consultation gave the new guardian no satisfaction, appearing to estrange her more than ever from the young physician. For he and Rose disagreed about the method of Faith’s cure completely and it was ever the young man’s obstinacy that Rose had found it hardest to forgive. Actually Dr. Barton had the stupidity to lecture Faith about her cherished secret and even to betray her to Sylvia, who tried reasoning with her every night while putting her to bed. Fortunately, however, Rose Dyer had not had a colored Mammy for nothing, having grown up on splendid fairy and folk-lore stories, so that by degrees she managed to interest little Faith in the things outside her own mind, in real Camp Fire games and work, and finally in the girls themselves, until, growing less afraid, Faith found Mollie, Polly and Betty better substitutes than the sisters of her dreams. And by and by through their guardian’s advice the little girl was permitted to enter the Sunrise club as a Wood Gatherer. There she grew to be more and more faithful to its rules and ideals, until after a while her too vivid imagination seemed to be fairly well under her control. If later in life, however, her fancy was to lead her into strange experiences, soon no one would have guessed it, for March found Faith stronger than ever before in her life and utterly attached to Rose Dyer. Still looking like our little golden haired Christmas angel, Polly once remarked, but like the angel after she had eaten the Christmas dinner.
Nevertheless, though Sylvia fully understood that all Faith’s devotion was now bestowed on their Camp Fire guardian, now and then she used to wonder why Faith did not show any liking for her. Certainly she had given her the tenderest physical care, making her follow faithfully every Camp Fire health rule, live outdoors, sleep and eat all she should.
It was also puzzling to Sylvia, just as it has often been to older persons, why after a few weeks every girl in the Sunrise camp seemed to feel a special affection for little Faith. She never appeared to do anything to try to deserve it, except to be pretty and have curly light hair, big gentle, blue eyes and a timid and appealing manner, while Sylvia, who spent most of her time making herself as useful as possible to her friends, was not particularly loved, not even by Polly. And for Polly O’Neill, Sylvia Wharton’s devotion has never for a single instant wavered and never will, even when the future puts it to many difficult tests. For faithfulness to an idea, a conviction or a person will ever be Sylvia’s predominant trait of character, and while it may not make her appear on the surface as loving or lovable as some of her companions, it would be well if she could now know that it will be to her the other girls will always turn in after years when they stand in need of sensible advice or even of real practical assistance. And this was to be particularly true of Polly O’Neill in her not very peaceful life, so it was unfortunate that poor Sylvia had now to fight down many pangs of foolish jealousy through seeing that Polly as well as the other girls made a special pet and plaything of the newest comer.
But if Faith had unconsciously made Sylvia suffer now and then, she also accomplished another result. Just at first Betty Ashton had imagined that there might be some unknown bond of interest between Rose Dyer and young Dr. Barton, cemented before Rose’s entrance into their club as guardian. But now she gave up the impression, believing thoroughly that Rose found the cold, puritanical young man actually distasteful in spite of his many acts of kindness to the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.