Betty Trevor Part 7

"Six! Oh, and I had Pam's music-lesson at half-past five! How awful of me to forget! You were so interesting, and I was enjoying myself so much. I must fly!"

"It's no use, I'm afraid. You can't put the clock back. There's one comfort--Pam will forgive you! That's the little one, I suppose, with the kitten face. I must get to know her soon."

Mrs Vanburgh tripped downstairs by Betty's side, and shook hands with the geniality of a lifelong friendship.

"Remember Sat.u.r.day!" she cried. "Three o'clock punctually, and bring all your stores of small talk with you, for the first half-hour."

Betty ran across the darkened street and let herself into her own house, aglow with pleasurable excitement. Life looked quite a different thing in the last few hours, wherein a friend and a vocation had alike sprung into being. After all, it was a delightful old world! She would never grumble again, since at any moment such delightful surprises might arise.

The door swung open. How cold and grey the hall appeared after the glowing richness of Mrs Vanburgh's carpets and hangings! Betty made a little grimace at the linoleum, and lifting her eyes was suddenly aware of a wrathful figure confronting her from the threshold of the dining- room--Jill, standing with arms akimbo, flushed cheeks, and flashing eyes.

"So you have deigned to come back, have you? What business had you to go to tea with her at all, I should like to know? She's my friend! I knew her first! What right had you to go poking yourself forward?"

"I didn't poke. She asked me! Mother can tell you that she did. I'm going again on Sat.u.r.day."

Jill's wrath gave way to an overwhelming anxiety.

"And me? And me? I am sure she asked me too."

"No, she didn't. It's a grown-up party. She'll ask you another time with Pam. She said she wanted to know Pam."

It was the last straw to be cla.s.sed with Pam, a child of eight summers!

Jill stuttered with mortified rage.

"S-neak! Just like you! Mark my word, Elizabeth Trevor, _I'll be even with you about this_!"

CHAPTER NINE.

A VISIT TO THE VICTIM.

During the next week Betty's thoughts were continually winging across the Square to her new friend, Mrs Vanburgh, though her own time was so fully occupied, that, with the exception of a sudden encounter in the street, they did not see anything of each other until the great Sat.u.r.day arrived.

Meantime it rankled in Jill's mind that she had been unfairly treated, and, in consequence, she was constantly endeavouring to hit on some scheme which would at once vindicate her own importance and put Betty's adventure in the shade. General Digby, as a new and striking personality in her small circle of acquaintances, naturally suggested himself as a fitting object for the enterprise, and she lost no time in consulting her ally.

"I say, Jack, when you saw the 'Victim' home the other night, did you notice the address?"

"What do you take me for, silly? I have eyes, haven't I? Of course I noticed it."

"You may have eyes, but you certainly haven't a memory. Do you happen to remember where it was?"

"No, I don't, but I wrote it down in my pocket-book, so I could soon find out if I wanted to. Why?"

"Because I think we ought to call and ask how he is."

"Father says he's all right except for his gout."

"I know--but it would be polite to call. Mother always does, even when she knows they are better. And as we were the--er--what do you call it?--cause of the accident--"

"Innocent?"

"No, that's not it! A much finer word--un--un--_unwitting_!--that's it, so it's all the more proper that we should inquire. How far off is it?

Could we meet and go together after school this afternoon?"

"It's near enough, as far as that goes--one of those swagger flats in Prince's Square. I suppose we could manage all right. Will you tell mother about it?"

"Not till we get back. I am sure she would think it very nice and kind of us, but she'd want me to put on best things, and worry about my hair.

I wish I'd been born a savage! I do so loathe being bothered about clothes."

"Never mind. No one would think to look at you that you ever bothered about them at all," quoth Jack, with somewhat unflattering sympathy.

"I'll wait for you at the corner of Prince's Square. I'm not going to meet all those sn.i.g.g.e.ring girls if I know it."

So it was arranged, and Jill swelled with importance for the rest of the day, longing for four o'clock to arrive, and set her free from her duties.

Pam went to the door with her sister after lunch, and stood shivering upon the top step while they exchanged farewells. She herself attended only the morning school, and was apt to find the afternoons rather lonely when the twins were out, and Betty was absorbed in her studies.

"Come back quickly," she pleaded. "Do come back quickly, and 'muse me!"

and Jill nodded a bright a.s.sent.

"I'll amuse you finely--when I come!"

She pranced off, tossing back her hair, and swinging her satchel to and fro, while Pam looked after her with admiring envy. How lovely to be old like that--quite old--old enough to do your own hair, and walk to school by yourself! Pam heaved another sigh, and glanced wistfully up and down the Square--the look of a captive who longs to escape. A policeman was strolling along his beat. Emily and Hannah were taking their places in the old-fashioned barouche preparatory to starting on their afternoon amble. Just across the road old "All a-growing all a- blowing" was standing by his barrow, loudly urging a pa.s.ser-by to purchase one of his plants.

Pam looked longingly at the branching palms as his guttural accents came to her ear--

"Buy a palm, lidy, won't you, lidy? Very cheap--cheaper than you could buy 'em anywhere in the City. If you've got such a thing as an old dress or a pair of trousers, of the master's, I'd allow you 'ansome for them. I'd rather have clothes nor money. I'm a married man, lidy, with a fam'ly of children--"

"Pam, Pam," cried Mrs Trevor's voice, "don't stand out there, darling.

It's far too cold. Come in here to me."

Pam obediently shut the door, and settled down to the afternoon duties of plain sewing and practice, which her soul abhorred. It was characteristic of her that she never rebelled against authority, nor expressed her distaste in words. A meek, uncomplaining little martyr, she sat perched on the piano-stool, wrestling with the "Blue Bells of Scotland," the while the wildest rebellion surged within her soul.

"I wish pianos had never been born! I wish I'd been made a boy. When I'm a lidy," (unconscious intonation of "All a-blowing!") "I'll have no pianos in the house, nor no needles, and my little girls shall 'muse themselves however they like. The--Blue--Bells--of--Scot--land... It doesn't go a bit nice in the ba.s.s! Don't believe I shall ever get it right if I live a hundred thousand years?"

The moment school was over Jill made a rush for the dressing-room, scrambled into her outdoor clothes, and hurried to the appointed meeting-place, where Jack found her a few minutes later. It was already dusk, and they set off at a brisk trot towards the mansions in which General Digby's flat was situated, in great hopes of finding that gentleman at home and disengaged.

"It's too damp for him to be out. Gout's a kind of rheumatism, and that always has to be kept dry," Jill declared learnedly. "He's sure to be in, but I've got a card, just in case. It's a correspondence one cut down, and I've printed our names on it, and 'Kind inquiries' in the corner, like mother puts. It's fine! When I cough it will mean that I don't know what to say next, so you must go on while I think. If he asks us to stay to tea, we must say we can't, until he begs us again."

"But suppose he didn't--that would be a pretty sell! I shan't do anything so silly," said cautious Jack. "I'll accept at once."

"Well--perhaps. But it's politer to make a fuss. Is it a man who opens the door, or a woman?"

"A man--looks like an old soldier himself."

"What's the proper way to tell him our names?"

"Jack and Mary Trevor, of course."