CHAPTER XVIII
The Stupidity of Men
"BUT, my dear, there isn't the least use of your denying it. The fact that you are unhappy is as plain as the nose on your face. Of course if you don't want to tell me the reason you need not, but don't expect me to be so stupid as not to see it," Polly concluded solemnly.
Actually the two friends were in the time-honored old living room in Sunrise Cabin. With their own hands they had brought in twigs and logs from outdoors and lighted an enormous fire in the big fireplace. Then Polly had produced three candles from her handbag and had stuck them into the tarnished brass candlesticks that were still ornamenting the mantel, where they were now burning fitfully.
With their coats off both of the old Camp Fire girls sat on rickety chairs before the fire, their chins resting in their hands and gazing none too happily into the flames.
"But I tell you, you are mistaken, Polly. There is nothing the matter with me. Of course one can't expect to be happy when one grows older, as in our old irresponsible Camp Fire days. Maybe it is old age that is troubling me, for I am a most uninterestingly healthy person."
In replying Betty tried to make her tones as light as possible; nevertheless her companion only frowned the more unbelievingly.
"Our Camp Fire days were never irresponsible ones for me, Betty child," Polly responded, gazing thoughtfully around the dear, dismantled room. "Often I feel I never learned so much at any other time in my life as I did then. But the fact remains that you are not happy as I want you to be, and I wish with all my heart that you loved me enough to tell me the reason why. You see, Betty, I am rather a lonely, good-for-nothing old maid and I can't expect much for myself. But you have absolutely everything in the world any woman could wish. And I think it is positively wicked of you not to be the same gay, sweet Betty."
At this Polly got out a small handkerchief and began dabbing her Irish blue eyes, that were shedding tears partly from the smoke of the fire and partly from a general sense of discouragement.
In return Betty stared back at her with equal severity. "What a perfectly absurd fashion for you to talk, Polly O'Neill!" she replied. "You know perfectly well that if you had chosen to marry you might have had what I have. Only you didn't want to marry; you wanted a career and to be famous and to make money instead. Well, haven't you succeeded? Is that what you are crying about?"
Polly nodded. "I expect there isn't any law about wanting everything, is there, Betty Ashton Graham? So long as women are women, no matter what they may try to do or be, there will be times when they cry for nice husbands and babies. But I wasn't crying about me, it was about you," she continued ungrammatically and with her usual logic. "Here you are growing more beautiful every day you live. Everybody loves you; you have hundreds of friends, the two most fascinating children in the world, except Mollie's, and a husband who is about the best and cleverest man in the state, and who simply adores you, and yet you are wretched and cross and unlike yourself. I watched you yesterday, Betty, and you never smiled a single time when you thought no one was looking and you never once spoke to Anthony. The poor fellow appeared dreadfully troubled too. Whatever is the matter, I am much sorrier for him than I am for you," Polly concluded somewhat vindictively.
"Oh!" Betty faltered and then was so silent that Polly humped her stool nearer until her shoulder touched that of her friend.
"That last remark wasn't true, of course, Betty," Polly apologized. "For if Anthony is really a snake in the grass and treats you badly when he looks so noble and kind, why, I shall simply come to Concord and tell him what I think of him right in the Governor's mansion. I don't care whether he puts me into the state prison or not."
Then, although she had been tremblingly near tears herself the moment before, Betty was compelled to laugh. Whoever could do anything else in Polly O'Neill's society? The thought of Anthony's thrusting a very noisy and protesting Polly into prison was a picture to dispel almost any degree of gloom.
Betty slipped her arm across her friend's shoulder. "No, dear, you must not think Anthony is unkind to me; it isn't that," she responded slowly. "Only I don't believe he exactly 'adores' me as much as he used to. Sometimes men get tired of their wives."
"Nonsense, goose! What put that notion in your head?" Polly returned lightly, although she was a little frightened by her friend's reply.
Really she had not believed that anything could have come between Anthony and Betty. Her suggestion had only been made in order to induce Betty to deny it. The next moment she leaned over and put several fresh logs on the fire.
"Nothing and no one in this world could ever persuade me, Betty dearest, that Anthony does not adore you," Polly then continued with convincing earnestness. "You see, he began when you were sixteen years old and he never knew that any other girl lived in the world. He does not know it now, for he never even glanced at a single one of us yesterday, if he could help it. But you see Princess, dear, you are a good deal spoiled. You always have been ever since you were a baby, by your family and all your friends. Even the Camp Fire Club used to look up to you and be more devoted to you than any one else. Esther has always been your slave and now your little French girl seems to feel about you just as Esther used to do. Really, Betty, I expect you need discipline."
Yet even as she spoke Betty's auburn hair glistened with such exquisite colors in the firelight that Polly stroked it softly with her slender fingers.
The Governor's wife was thinking too deeply to notice her.
"I wonder if things are my fault, Polly. I almost hope they are," she answered wistfully. "You see, it has seemed to me lately that Anthony has been dreadfully unreasonable. He won't do the things I ask him to and though he is too busy to be with me himself, he isn't willing for me to spend much time even with my oldest friends."
"Oh, ho!" whistled Polly softly. "What friends, for instance, Princess?"
"Oh, Meg Emmet and – John Everett. Isn't it absurd? But Anthony has always felt a prejudice against John ever since we were boys and girls together here in Woodford," Betty explained. "I don't care particularly for John now myself. He has grown kind of stupid and thinks too much about what he eats, but it would look utterly ridiculous of me to cut him for no reason except that Anthony is absurd."
Polly dug her chin deeper into the palm of her hand as she so often did in moments of abstraction.
"Seems like a little enough thing to do if Anthony wishes it and you could do it very gracefully you know, Princess dear," Polly replied. "Besides, I am not so sure Anthony has no reason for his prejudice. I never liked John Everett a cent myself when we were all young. He was always trying to lord it over the rest of us and pretend to be very rich and grand and superior. Besides, Betty Graham, I don't believe I should care to have a husband who would do every solitary thing I asked him to do. Somehow, I think I would like him to have a little judgment of his own now and then. So you really wish Anthony to do exactly as he is told. I wonder if your children are as obedient? But come along, dear, it is getting so late Mollie will be having fits about us. Fortunately you are a more sensible woman than I am. A perfectly obedient husband is about the last thing in this world I require. To what dreadful end would I bring him!"
But Betty did not stir from her stool even when her companion had crossed over the room and now stood holding out her long fur coat, waiting for her to put her arms inside it.
"Dear, if there is one thing I am more sure of at this moment than of anything else, it is that I am not so sensible a woman as Polly O'Neill. Though goodness knows I never could have believed it!" Betty whispered, laughing and yet profoundly in earnest. "It was a most excellent sermon and I mean to do my best to profit by it. Truly I have been behaving like a spoiled child for weeks. I know Anthony has a great many things that trouble him and I ought to have been more considerate. Somehow I expect this marriage is really more the girl's business than the man's. He has to make the living for the family in most cases and the Camp Fire taught us that home making was a girl's highest privilege."
Then Betty got up and slipped on her beautiful long coat and the two friends started back toward Mollie's big farm together.
In all their girlhood they had never felt more intimate or more devoted. Yet neither one of them talked much during the long walk, just an occasional question now and then.
The sun was going down, but there was an after-glow in the sky and because of the whiteness of the snow there was still sufficient light. At least Polly and Betty could see each other's faces with perfect distinctness.
They had nearly reached the farm-house when Betty suddenly stopped and put both hands on Polly's shoulders.
"Look me directly in the eyes, Polly," she commanded.
And Polly attempted doing as she was bid, but her lashes drooped until they touched her cheeks.
"Have you fallen in love with some one recently, Polly? Is that why you talked about yourself in such a discouraged fashion just now and lectured me so severely?" Betty inquired.
Polly shook her head. "I don't know whether you would call it falling in love recently, Betty, or whether I have been in love for the last ten years. But I saw Richard Hunt again when I was in Colorado and he was even nicer than he used to be. He don't care a single thing about me any more, Betty. He hasn't even sent me a Christmas card! The letter I had from him a few days ago was all about Bobbin. He wasn't even interested enough to inquire if I was well."
CHAPTER XIX
A Cry in the Night
BECAUSE she was tired from her long walk and her conversation and from other reasons Polly went up-stairs to bed sooner than her sister and brother-in-law.
As a special privilege the children had begged that Bobbin should be allowed to sleep in the nursery with them, and rather against her will Polly had consented. The little girl had previously occupied a small room connected with her own.
However, she was too weary for argument, and besides Mollie's babies were cross and unreasonable. They had been playing all afternoon with the Christmas tree which stood in the big back parlor just under Polly's room. Anything to get them safely stowed in bed and the house quiet!
For Polly had expected to lie awake for a number of hours, reflecting on many things, when in point of fact immediately after retiring she sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Moreover, about ten o'clock Mollie and Billy also decided to follow their sister's example. And it was Billy himself who closed up the windows and made the house ready for the night. Only he failed to go into the back parlor where the Christmas tree stood and where the floor was now littered with discarded toys and games and the walls hung with dried-out evergreens.
He was under the impression that the windows in this room had been closed and locked when the children departed to bed. Moreover, locking up at the farm-house was more of a custom than a necessity. No one had any real fear of burglars or tramps. Besides, the windows in the back parlor were locked and no danger was to come from the outside.
But it must have been only about three hours later when Mollie suddenly awoke with a scream and start. A hand had passed lightly over her face.
The next instant and Billy jumped up and seized hold of the intruder.
Yet his hands clasped only a slight, childish form in a white gown. It was too dark in the room to see who it could be until Mollie lit the candle which stood always by their bedside.
Then they both discovered Bobbin, not walking in her sleep as they supposed, but with her face very white and making queer little movements with her hands and lips.
"The child is frightened; something must have to disturbed her," Billy suggested, still only half awake himself.
But Mollie had jumped out of bed and was already on her way to the nursery. Naturally she presumed that something had happened to one of the children and that Bobbin had come to call her. Poor little girl, she had no other way of calling than to touch with her hands!
However, half way down the hall Mollie turned and ran back into her own bedroom.
"Get up please, Billy, in a hurry, won't you? I do believe I smell smoke somewhere in the house. Something must be on fire. Of course Bobbin could detect it before the rest of us; she is sure to have a keener sense of smell."
A moment later and Billy had jumped almost all the way down the long flight of old-fashioned country stairs.
"Don't be frightened, dear, but get the children up and put clothes on them," he shouted back. "It is too cold for you to go out in the snow undressed and we are miles from a neighbor. I will call the men and we will fight the fire. Don't forget to waken Polly!"
With this last injunction in her mind Mollie stopped to hammer on her sister's door before she ran on to the nursery.
She was certain that she heard Polly answer her. Besides, by this time the house was filled with an excited tumult, Mollie's little boys were dancing about in the hall, half pleased and half frightened with the excitement, their nurse was scolding and crying and vainly endeavoring to dress the small Polly.
So it was plain enough that for the next few minutes Mollie had difficulty enough in keeping her wits about her and in quieting her family, especially as every now and then she could hear her husband's voice from below calling on her to hurry as quickly as possible.
Only Bobbin at once slipped into a heavy, long coat and shoes and rushed back to Polly's room. The door was locked, but she pounded patiently and automatically on the outside, unable, of course, to hear the answering voice from within.
Then there came a sudden hoarse shout from below stairs and in that instant Mr. Webster, dashing up a flight of steps almost at one bound, returned with the baby in his arms, while Mollie led one of the small boys and the nurse the other.
"Come on, you and Polly, at once!" Mollie cried, waving her hands and pointing toward the great hall to show that there was no time for further delay.
But this was evident enough to Bobbin without being told, for the smoke was pouring out of the parlor into the hall and coming up the stairs like a great advancing army.
However, Bobbin would not leave her post. There was not the faintest thought in her brain of ever stirring from without that locked door until the one person whom she loved in the world should come forth from it. And she was not conscious of feeling particularly afraid, only she could not understand why Miss O'Neill would not hurry.
A moment later, however, and Bobbin found herself outside standing alone in the snow.
There had been no possible outcry on her part, no explanation and no argument, of course. Only when one of the farm laborers rushing up-stairs had seen the little girl loitering in the hall, without saying by your leave, he had seized her in his arms and borne her struggling through the now stifling smoke.
Outside in the yard Bobbin for a moment felt weak and confused. For all at once the place seemed to be swarming with excited people.
There were a dozen men and their families living on the big farm with houses of their own. And now the ringing of a great bell had brought them all out with their wives and children as well.
The women were swarming about Mollie with their children, crying, gesticulating, talking. It was a clear, white night and Bobbin could see them easily. The men were engaged in rushing back and forth with pails of water, fearing that the water might freeze on the way.
But there was nowhere any sign of Polly!
Bobbin did not try to attract attention. In the instant it did not even occur to her that she might not have been able to make any one understand. Simply and without being seen she slipped into one of the big front windows, opened by the men as a passage-way, and started fighting her way again up the black, smoke-laden steps.
There seemed to be no more air, it was all a thick, foggy substance that got into your throat and made you unable to breathe and into your eyes so that you could not see. But Bobbin went resolutely on.
She clung to the banisters and dragged herself upward, either too stupid or too intent on her errand to suffer fear. Nevertheless, through the smoke she could see that long tongues of flame were bursting out of the doors of the back parlor into the hall beneath her.
Only, once more at Polly's bedroom door Bobbin lost heart and the only real terror she ever remembered enduring seized hold on her. For Polly's door was still locked and she had no means of making her hear.
All that she could accomplish by hammering and kicking she had done before. Of course, she tried this again, yet the door did not open and so far as Bobbin could know there was no movement from the inside.
Yet next Miss O'Neill's room there was her own room and the door of this was unfastened. With a kind of half-blind impulse Bobbin staggered into it. She had no clear or definite idea of what she intended doing, yet fortunately this room was only partially filled with smoke so that she could in a measure see her way about.
There in the corner stood an old-fashioned, heavy wooden chair. Almost instinctively Bobbin seized hold on it. She was curiously strong, doubly so to any other girl of her age, since she had lived outdoors always like a little barbarian. Besides, there was nothing else that could be done. She must break down Miss O'Neill's door.
With all her force the girl hurled the heavy chair against the oak door. There were a few marks on its surface, yet the door remained absolutely firm, for the Webster house had been built in the days when wood had been plentiful in the New Hampshire hills and homes had been expected to endure.
Nevertheless Bobbin pounded again and again, almost automatically her thin arms seemed to work, and yet all her effort was without avail.
During these moments no one can guess exactly what emotions tore at the girl's heart. If only she could have cried out her alarm and her desire, surely she would have been answered!
Bobbin's face worked strangely, there was a kind of throbbing in her ears and her lips moved. "Polly!" she called in a hoarse little whisper, and this was the first word she had ever spoken in her life.
Inside in her smoke-filled room Polly O'Neill could not possibly have heard her. For the past fifteen minutes, during all the excitement due to the fire, she had been lying upon her bed in a stifled condition. For no one had realized that as Polly's room was immediately above the back parlor, where the fire had been smouldering ever since the children had gone up-stairs to bed, her room had been first to be filled with smoke. Yet the smoke had come so slowly, so gradually as she lay in a kind of exhausted sleep, that she had been stupefied rather than awakened by it.
Now was it the miracle rather than the sound of Bobbin's speaking her name that penetrated slowly to Polly's consciousness, or was it the noise of the repeated pounding of the heavy chair against her door? Whatever the cause, she came back to the world, choking, blinded, fighting with her hands to keep off the black substance that was crowding into her lungs.
Then somehow she managed to crawl across her room, remembering that the smoke would be denser higher up in the atmosphere. Unlocking the door, she turned the handle and Bobbin caught her as she half fell into the hall.
With a quick movement the girl put her arm about the older woman's waist and started for the stairway, for the hall was dense with smoke and now and then a tongue of flame leaped up from below and seemed to dance for a moment in the air about them.
It was overpowering, unendurable. Polly was already dazed and exhausted and her lungs were always delicate. At the top of the stairs she became a dead weight on her companion's arms. Besides, by this time Bobbin too was very weary.