The Pool of Stars/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
DAVID
WHEN Betsey went, two days later, along the hill road again she walked far more quickly and did not hesitate at the turning of the lane. She was on her way to Aunt Susan's to announce her determination and she felt, this time, neither irresolution nor reluctance. She went firmly up the graveled drive, asked the grave butler whether her aunt were at home, and, waiting in the big, impressive drawing room, even heard the approaching rustle of Aunt Susan's elaborate silk skirts without feeling her courage give way.
"I have made up my mind not to go."
She got it out quickly, almost before a word of greeting had passed. "My father wants me to go to college and my mother did, too. If I should leave my work now I feel sure I would not do what I have planned. So—so I must stay."
There was no need for her to say how much she wished for the journey. She felt, in fact, that it was wise to say as little as possible and to bend all her efforts to resisting the storm of arguments and protests that would be poured out upon her. Aunt Susan was a person much accustomed to having her own way and was dangerously skillful at persuading people to do her bidding.
"Think how lonely you will be," she began immediately.
Once this had been the single thought that made staying at home seem unendurable, but now even that difficulty, it seemed, could be faced. In one short afternoon at Miss Miranda's, Elizabeth had felt herself surrounded by such a warmth of friendliness that already she felt certain that here would be a refuge where she would be welcome and at home, no matter how empty and deserted her own house might seem. To come home from school, weary with the labors of the day and find no one there save Anna, busy in the kitchen and not wishing to be disturbed, to have no one glad to see her or desirous of knowing just how things had gone it had seemed a depressing prospect. But now that she knew Miss Miranda it was somehow different. Elizabeth could not have explained just why she felt, after only an hour or two of acquaintance, after only a little talk, that here was a friend to stand by her through everything. Feel it she did, however, and with the knowledge, made firm her decision. But to hold to that decision was not so easy.
"I was absolutely certain that you would come with me," Aunt Susan exclaimed, trying a new point of attack. "I had even decided what clothes you were to have. Your traveling suit was to be green faille silk with white furs."
Betsey had before had experience with dresses planned by Aunt Susan. They were apt to be of the sort in which you could not run upstairs, or that split their sleeves if you raised your arms suddenly, but they were always very beautiful. She sighed a little at the thought of the white furs.
"And I dare say you could go to school here and there in places where we stopped long enough," her aunt went on; "that ought to be all you need for keeping up your work."
She had not been to college herself and had not grasped the fact that dropping in upon one school and then another could fail to produce all the education necessary. Elizabeth tried to explain, but found it useless. She wished that, having stated her determination, she could go home at once, for the longer she stayed the more irresistible and enticing did the journey seem. She had rashly consented to stay to dinner, however, and so must prepare for a long struggle. The dinner was half enjoyable on account of the beautiful things on the table, silver and flowers and frail china that Betsey loved, and half terrifying on account of the things that Aunt Susan might be going to say next. She said a great deal, she exclaimed, she expostulated, she persuaded, until her niece was at the point of exhaustion.
"But it will be so dreary, all by yourself!" she kept insisting, in answer to which Betsey continued to maintain stoutly—
"Miss Miranda is going to be a good friend to me. I will not be entirely alone."
"Do you mean Miranda Reynolds who lives on the hill, up Somerset Lane?" Aunt Susan inquired. "I am very fond of her myself, but somehow I never seem to see much of her nowadays. How do you happen to know her?"
"She came to see me, but I was a long time in going there to return her visit. I did not know how nice her house was, or how kind she would be, or what interesting things she would tell me."
"I do not suppose," returned Aunt Susan slowly, with a shade of curiosity in her voice, "that she told you how she happens to be living in a gardener's cottage and cooking and scrubbing and tending cabbages and ducks when she might be doing—oh, very different things?"
"No," answered Betsey, "no, she did not tell me that."
Now that she thought of it, there were a great many things that Miss Miranda had not told her. She knew very little of her new friend and, in spite of questionings among acquaintances of her own age, seemed unable to learn more. She had discovered only that Miss Miranda dwelt in the cottage alone with her father, that she had a big vegetable garden on the sunny slope of the hill, that she kept ducks and chickens and, by her untiring industry, managed to make the household prosper. Elizabeth could well believe that to whatever she turned her hand, that thing would be successful.
"Her father was quite•a great man in his day," her aunt went on thoughtfully. "He had a good deal of a name as an expert in scientific mechanics. One never hears of him now. I suppose he does not accomplish much since he has grown old. I am continually thinking that I will go over to see Miranda, yet I have so many engagements that I never do. She sent me some delightful asparagus from her garden lately; I have meant to give her some of Simmonds' grapes in return. You can leave them there to-night when the motor takes you home. Yes, you will have a good friend in her, but you are very wrong and foolish not to go with me, just the same."
As Elizabeth, leaning back in the big car, rolled along the smooth road on her way home, she could not help wondering how it would be to have just such luxury at her command for the next few months, to travel in splendor with Aunt Susan and to see all the wonderful things of which she had just heard such dazzling description.
"It is not too late yet, if you want to change your mind," had been her aunt's last words. Betsey was nearer to wavering at this moment than ever before. The thought of the still, empty house to which she was coming home, seemed suddenly very dreary indeed.
The car stopped at the Reynolds' gate and Elizabeth went in herself with the basket of grapes. The curtains were not drawn, so that she could see Miss Miranda sitting with her work beside the table. She could even see her look up, startled and alarmed as she had been before, when there came a step at the door. She was so calm, so quiet and cheerful in all other matters it was hard to imagine why this one thing should trouble her so. After the basket was delivered, Elizabeth lingered at the door, unwilling to say good night, while Miss Miranda, too, seemed reluctant to have her go. When at last Betsey took her departure and the car moved away from the gate, she found that her wavering doubts, felt so keenly at Aunt Susan's, had vanished again. She would not be too lonely if she had Miss Miranda, of that she now felt doubly assured; but there was something more. She had an odd, protective feeling for her new friend, as though she were staying at home, not only to carry out her own plans, but to take care of Miss Miranda.
There is sometimes a vague knowledge of things that comes without words. It was clear enough to Elizabeth, long afterwards, just what heavy trouble was brooding over the little household of the cottage, and just what part she was destined to play in dispelling it. Yet it was curious indeed, that she should have begun to feel, so early and so distinctly, that here she was really needed and that here she would give, in return for Miss Miranda's friendship, not only small services but great ones.
The sunny garden on the hillside was being planted on the afternoon that she came to the cottage again. She had said good-by to Aunt Susan that morning and had seen her depart in a great flutter of veils and furs and feathers. The train had rolled away carrying with it Betsey's last vision of snow-capped mountains, sparkling blue seas, tropical shores and white, flower-crowned cliffs. Her mind would still linger, in spite of herself, on the pleasures that she had renounced so that she was glad to find some absorbing diversion and to turn her abundant energy to helping Miss Miranda.
The peas were already pushing their pert green noses through the warm soil, and the scattered lettuce plants showed all along the row. Betsey became so entranced with the task of setting out beans that she would have filled the whole garden with them had not Miss Miranda warned her that there must be a little space left for beets and carrots and sweet corn.
Old Michael Martin, bent and weatherbeaten, the hero of the tale she had heard on her first visit, was at work spading the far end of the garden. He seemed a silent, crabbed person, who did not like to answer even when spoken to, so that Betsey found him rather disappointing. He would stop his work now and then, however, to hurl a few words of rather bewildering advice at the two among the bean rows.
"If you are to plant lettuce again.. Miss Miranda," he remarked suddenly, standing with both hands resting on his spade, "you had best be doing it to-day. It is the very last of the light of the moon."
"What does he mean?" inquired Elizabeth in an undertone when he had gone on with his work again. She had no notion that moonlight need be considered in the matter of growing vegetables.
"He thinks that everything in a garden goes by signs and wonders," Miss Miranda answered. "He says charms for luck when he puts in the cabbage plants, and he thinks that if the first peas are not sown on Saint Patrick's Day, they will none of them come up at all. It is high time to set out the onions to-day, but he would be so disturbed at putting them in before the dark of the moon that I have not the heart to insist on it. All crops that grow under ground, he claims, must be planted in the dark of the moon, and those that ripen above, some time between its waxing and waning. So to-day is the day for lettuce and next week he will plant potatoes and beets and carrots and after I have tended them like babies all summer he will nod wisely when they grow big and say, 'Oh, yes, of course they can't help flourishing if you plant the right things in the dark and the light of the moon.' But it does happen to be a good day for the lettuce. I am afraid that I have left the seeds on the kitchen table."
Elizabeth volunteered to get them, and went up the path from the garden, past the big pen where the ducks and chickens were, and where a dozen brown-yellow ducklings were waddling solemnly forth on their first expedition into the outside world. She stopped to drive them back and then went on, across the lawn, to the open door of the cottage.
When she first came up the lane that day, she had noticed that the same big white horse that she had seen in the poplar-bordered cart track was now plowing in the field opposite the Reynolds' cottage. It was guided by the same red-haired boy, who went plodding up and down the rows, leaving behind them a straight, blue-black ribbon of upturned soil. She stopped to watch for a moment as they came near the fence and she thought that he looked up and saw her, for she caught sight of a pair of very blue eyes and a fair, much-freckled face.
As she paused, however, there arose suddenly in the workshop wing of the cottage, such a wild crashing, such a commotion of whirring wheels and creaking machinery that she flew to the door to see what had happened. The crow's voice mingled with the din, upraised in caws of loud excitement, while finally, during a faint lull, Mr. Reynolds was also to be heard, calling in the familiar tone of worried helplessness—
"Miranda, oh, Miranda."
At first she could not make out what was happening, so full did the place seem to be of flapping black wings, whirling wheels and spinning pulleys. At last, however, she managed to understand that one of the big machines at the end of the shop was in violent motion and that a broken rod was flying round and round with the spinning wheel, smashing and crashing against everything that came in its way. Even in the midst of the noise Mr. Reynolds must have heard Elizabeth come in, for he glanced at her quickly over his shoulder.
"Climb up on that stool and throw the switch there above the workbench," he directed. "That is the only way to stop this thing and I can't leave the broken crank-shaft."
Even in her haste Betsey noticed how quiet and cool he was, and with what quick skill he was adjusting valves and closing cylinder cocks, all the time keeping out of the way of the plunging and slashing of the broken rod. The switch was so stiff that she tugged at it to no purpose; she jerked and struggled but without effect. Mr. Reynolds looked back at her anxiously as the whirring and crashing grew every moment more violent. She thought of Miss Miranda, but she was far away in the garden and perhaps would not have sufficient strength, nor would Michael. With sudden inspiration she jumped down and sped through the door and across the lawn. The boy and his white horse were just turning a furrow beside the fence, only the breadth of the road away.
"Come quickly," she called in unceremonious haste. "We need you."
The boy dropped his reins, left the horse standing in the furrow and vaulted over the fence. His face, his white shirt and his blue trousers were all coated alike with dust but she noted with satisfaction how broad his shoulders were and how quickly he moved. In one second he was at the door, in another seemed to know entirely what to do. The stiff handle groaned as he jerked the switch and flung it over to break the current, the wildly spinning wheels began to slow down and finally, imperceptibly, came to rest. The old man turned about to thank them, his gray eyes under heavy white brows, alight with high excitement.
"Did you have an accident?" Betsey inquired breathlessly. "I don't understand what happened. Are you hurt?"
"The rod caught me a crack across the knuckles when it first gave way, but it does not signify," he replied cheerily.
The boy had come nearer and was examining the machine with what seemed a practiced eye.
"It was a flaw in the steel, I suppose," he said. "But what is this machine? I never saw anything like it before."
Mr. Reynolds began explaining as fully as though the stranger were a fellow engineer, just how he was trying to perfect a new power engine that would run on less fuel than the old ones. "For," he said, "as there grows to be less and less of coal and oil in the world, men must be keeping their wits alive to improve mechanics and keep the wheels of industry turning." The boy became more and more interested, asking quick questions and receiving eager answers. Elizabeth began to feel a little left out as technical terms flew back and forth concerning things she did not understand. She stood soothing black Dick who, still excited, was talking to himself in a corner.
"I have tried a good many models," Mr. Reynolds was saying, "but this one is the newest and it developed so much more power than I expected, that it came near to tearing itself to pieces before you came to my rescue. If it had been wrecked I should have had to begin all over again at the beginning."
"I believe you should not have tried it when you were all alone," commented Betsey sagely. "You should have made sure that some one was within call."
The old man smiled, a gentle smile lit with the warmth of much affection.
"I thought it better to try it when Miranda was not in the house," he answered. "If it had refused to run I did not want any one to know of it. My daughter is always very quick to see when I am disappointed, and I do not like to give her pain."
He took up a wrench to loosen a bolt but found it jammed and immovable. With ready skill the boy took the tool from him and unscrewed the obstinate nut.
"By the way," questioned the old man, "ought I to remember your name? Have I ever seen you before?"
His confessed absent-mindedness was so disarming that the boy laughed.
"Miss Miranda knows me," he said, "but you have never seen me, at least you have never noticed me. My name is David Warren, and I am staying with my uncle who owns the place on the east side of this hill. He is farming a great part of it this year and finds labor so difficult to get that I am working for him for the spring and summer. And I think old Dobbin will be wondering where I have gone and will be dragging his plow all across the field. You have a wonderful thing here, this machine. I—I would like to come and see it run again."
He was out of the door and across the road before a word could be said to thank him. Elizabeth, still feeling rather dazed with the suddenness of the whole affair, returned to her forgotten errand of fetching the lettuce seeds, which Miss Miranda would surely be needing by now. However, on coming back to the garden, she found that her long absence had been scarcely noticed. The brown ducklings had escaped again and even Michael had been obliged to put down his spade and go in pursuit of them.
"Shoo, ye varmints," he was saying, as the fat balls of down, their lemon-colored bills wide open in faint baby quackings, went scuttling in a dozen different directions from between his feet. "You might know they would be wild creatures, they were hatched out in a thunderstorm!"
The afternoon had been cheerful, but the evening was long and lonely, with Anna plunged into one of her blackest moods. Yet, though the hours dragged, they did not suffice for the mastering of to-morrow's lesson. Geometry and history were Betsey's two great difficulties, so great indeed that, with the college examinations coming nearer, they began vaguely to threaten real disaster. She sighed as she turned for the tenth time to the worn page in her textbook, dealing with the volume of the frustum of a pyramid. She knew the drawing and the text drearily by heart, but would she ever understand it? Would the looming bulk of this misshapen figure grow bigger and bigger until it blocked her road to higher education? As she crept away to bed she was thinking that it was only that morning that Aunt Susan had left her, proclaiming to the last Betsey's mistaken foolishness in remaining behind. Perhaps, after all, Aunt Susan had been right!
She awoke next morning still depressed, more discouraged than ever when her eye fell upon the cover of her geometry book. It would be a good plan to set off for school early, she decided, and go around by Somerset Lane for a cheering moment of talk with Miss Miranda. Her heart felt lighter as soon as she thought of it.
A she turned in at the gate her glance swept the field across the way, but found it empty. No sturdy white horse was plowing it to-day, no erect, copper-haired figure was visible, only rows of furrows, drying in the sun. The little house, also, seemed unusually quiet as she first rang at the bell, then went across the grass to knock at the kitchen door. She could hear Mr. Reynolds tinkering in the shop, she could see Michael's bent back where he was toiling alone in the garden. She saw, presently, when the door opened, the unattractive face of a totally strange woman who was apparently presiding over Miss Miranda's kitchen. In the fewest and shortest words possible the stranger explained to Betsey that Miss Miranda was gone.
"Gone? Gone where? For how long?" cried Elizabeth in unbearable disappointment.
But she received no answer for the woman had already closed the door.