Betty Vivian Part 24

"Don't have the wreath too big," said Betty; "and be sure you get the gardener to choose small marguerites. Now, be off--won't you?--for I want to continue my walk."

Sibyl, in wild delight, rushed into one of the flower-gardens. Betty watched her till she was quite out of sight. Then, quick as thought, she retraced her steps. She must find another hiding-place for the packet.

With Sibyl's knowledge, her present position was one of absolute danger.

Sibyl would tell every girl she knew all about Betty's action when she stood by the broken stump of the old tree. She would describe how Betty thrust in her hand and took something out, looked at it, and put it back again. The girls would go in a body, and poke, and examine, and try to discover for themselves what Betty had taken out of the trunk of the old oak-tree. Betty must remove the sealed packet at once, or it would be discovered.

"What a horrible danger!" thought the girl. "But I am equal to it."

She ran with all her might and main, and presently, reaching the tree, thrust her hand in, found the brown packet carefully tied up and sealed, and slipped it into her pocket. Quite close by was a little broken square of wood. Betty, hating herself for doing so, dropped it into the hollow of the tree. The bit of wood would satisfy the girls, for Sibyl had said that Betty had doubtless found some wood. Having done this, she set off to retrace her steps again, going now in the direction of the deserted gardens and the patch of common. She had no spade with her, but that did not matter. She went to the corner where the heather was growing. Very carefully working round a piece with her fingers, she loosened the roots; they had gone deep down, as is the fashion with heather. She slipped the packet underneath, replaced the heather, kissed it, said, "I am sorry to disturb you, darling, but you are doing a great work now;" and then, wiping the mud from her fingers, she walked slowly home.

The packet would certainly be safe for a day or two under the Scotch heather, which, as a matter of fact, no one thought of interfering with from one end of the year to another. Before Betty left this corner of the common she took great care to remove all trace of having disturbed the heather. Then she walked back to the Court, her heart beating high.

The tension within her was so great as to be almost unendurable. But she would not swerve from the path she had chosen.

On the occasion of the Specialities' first entertainment, Betty Vivian, by request, wore white. Her sisters, who of course would be amongst the guests, also wore white. The little beds had been removed to a distant part of the room, where a screen was placed round them. All the toilet apparatus was put out of sight. Easy-chairs and elegant bits of furniture were brought from the other rooms. Margaret Grant lent her own lovely vases, which were filled with flowers from the gardens. The beautiful big room looked fresh and fragrant when the Specialities a.s.sembled to welcome their guests. Betty stood behind Margaret. Martha West--a little ungainly as usual, but with her strong, firm, reliable face looking even stronger and more reliable since she had joined the great club of the school--was also in evidence. f.a.n.n.y Crawford stood close to Betty. Just once she looked at her, and then smiled. Betty turned when she did so, and greeted that smile with a distinct frown of displeasure. Yet every one knew that Betty was to be the heroine of the evening.

Punctual to the minute the guests arrived--Sibyl Ray in her vivid-green dress, with the marguerites in her hair.

No one made any comment as the little girl came forward; only, a minute later, f.a.n.n.y whispered to Betty, "What a ridiculous and conceited idea!

I wonder who put it into her head?"

"I did," said Betty very calmly; "But she hasn't arranged them quite right." She left her place, and going up to Sibyl, said a few words to her. Sibyl flushed and looked lovingly into Betty's face. Betty then took Sibyl behind the screen, and, lo and behold! her deft fingers put the tiny wreath into a graceful position; arranged the soft, light hair so as to produce the best possible effect; twisted a white sash round the gaudy green dress, to carry out the idea of the marguerites; and brought Sibyl back, charmed with her appearance, and looking for once almost pretty.

"What a wonder you are, Betty!" said Martha West in a pleased tone.

"Poor little Sib, she doesn't understand how to manage the flowers!"

"She looks very nice now," said Betty.

"It was sweet of you to do it for her," said Martha. "And, you know, she quite worships you; she does, really."

"There was nothing in my doing it," replied Betty. She felt inclined to add, "For she was particularly obliging to me to-day;" but she changed these words into, "I suggested the idea, so of course I had to see it carried out properly."

"The white sash makes all the difference," said Martha. "You are quite a genius, Betty!"

"Oh no," said Betty. She looked for a minute into Martha's small, gray, very honest eyes, and wished with all her heart and soul that she could change with her.

The usual high-jinks and merriment went on while the eatables were being discussed. But when every one had had as much as she could consume with comfort, and the oranges, walnuts, and crackers were put aside for the final entertainment, Margaret (being at present head-girl of the Specialities) proposed round games for an hour. "After that," she said, "we will ask Betty Vivian to tell us stories."

"Oh, but we all want the stories now!" exclaimed several voices.

Margaret laughed. "Do you know," she said, "it is only a little past seven o'clock, and we cannot expect poor Betty to tell stories for close on two hours? We'll play all sorts of pleasant and exciting games until eight o'clock, and then perhaps Betty will keep her word."

Betty had purposely asked to be excused from joining in these games, and every one said she understood the reason. Betty was too precious and valuable and altogether fascinating to be expected to rush about playing Blind-Man's Buff, and Puss-in-the-Corner, and Charades, and Telegrams, and all those games which schoolgirls love.

The sound from the Vivians' bedroom was very hilarious for the next three-quarters of an hour; but presently Margaret came forward and asked all the girls if they would seat themselves, as Betty was going to tell stories.

"With the lights down! Oh, please, please, don't forget that! All the lights down except one," said Susie Rushworth.

"Yes, with all the lights down except one," said Margaret. "Betty, will you come and sit here? We will cl.u.s.ter round in a semi-circle. We shall be in shadow, but there must be sufficient light for us to see your face."

The lights were arranged to produce this effect. There was now only one light in the room, and that streamed over Betty as she sat cross-legged on the floor, her customary att.i.tude when she was thoroughly at home and excited. There was not a sc.r.a.p of self-consciousness about Betty at these moments. She had been working herself up all day for the time when she might pour out her heart. At home she used to do so for the benefit of Donald and Jean Macfarlane and of her little sisters. But, up to the present, no one at school had heard of Betty's wild stories. At last, however, an opportunity had come. She forgot all her pain in the exercise of her strong faculty for narrative.

"I see something," she began. She had rather a thrilling voice--not high, but very clear, and with a sweet ring in it. "I see," she continued, looking straight before her as she spoke, "a great, great, a very great plain. And it is night, or nearly so--I mean it is dusk; for there is never actual night in my Scotland in the middle of summer. I see the great plain, and a girl sitting in the middle of it, and the heather is beginning to come out. It has been asleep all the winter; but it is coming out now, and the air is full of music. For, of course, you all understand," she continued--bending forward so that her eyes shone, growing very large, and at the same moment black and bright--"you all know that the great heather-plants are the last homes left in England for the fairies. The fairies live in the heather-bells; and during the winter, when the heather is dead, the poor fairies are cold, being turned out of their homes."

"Where do they go, then, I wonder?" asked a m.u.f.fled voice in the darkened circle of listeners.

"Back to the fairies' palace, of course, underground," said Betty. "But they like the world best, they're such sociable little darlings; and when the heather-bells are coming out they all return, and each fairy takes possession of a bell and lives there. She makes it her home. And the brownies--they live under the leaves of the heather, and attend to the fairies, and dance with them at night just over the vast heather commons. Then, by a magical kind of movement, each little fairy sets her own heather-bell ringing, and you can't by any possibility imagine what the music is like. It is so sweet--oh, it is so sweet that no music one has ever heard, made by man, can compare to it! You can imagine for yourselves what it is like--millions upon millions of bells of heather, and millions upon millions of fairies, and each little bell ringing its own sweet chime, but all in the most perfect harmony. Well, that is what the fairies do."

"Have you ever seen them?" asked the much-excited voice of Susie Rushworth.

"I see them now," said Betty. She shut her eyes as she spoke.

"Oh, do tell us what they are like?" asked a girl in the background.

Betty opened her eyes wide. "I couldn't," she answered. "No one can describe a fairy. You've got to see it to know what it is like."

"Tell us more, please, Betty?" asked an eager voice.

"Give me a minute," said Betty. She shut her eyes. Her face was deadly white. Presently she opened her eyes again. "I see the same great, vast moor, and it is winter-time, and the moor from one end to the other is covered--yes, covered--with snow. And there's a gray house built of great blocks of stone--a very strong house, but small; and there's a kitchen in that house, and an old man with grizzled hair sits by the fire, and a dear old woman sits near him, and there are two dogs lying by the hearth. I won't tell you their names, for their names are--well, sacred. The old man and woman talk together, and presently girls come in and join them and talk to them for a little bit. Then one of the girls goes out all alone, for she wants air and freedom, and she is never afraid on the vast white moor. She walks and walks and walks. Presently she loses sight of the gray house; but she is not afraid, for fear never enters her breast. She walks so fast that her blood gets very warm and tingles within her, and she feels her spirits rising higher and higher; and she thinks that the moor covered with snow is even more lovely and glorious than the moor was in summer, when the fairy bells were ringing and the fairies were dancing all over the place.

"I see her," continued Betty; "she is tired, and yet not tired. She has walked a very long way, and has not met one soul. She is very glad of that; she loves great solitudes, and she pa.s.sionately loves nature and cold cannot hurt her when her heart is so warm and so happy. But by-and-by she thinks of the old couple by the fireside and of the girls she has left behind. She turns to go back. I see her when she turns."

Betty paused a minute. "The sky is very still," she continued. "The sky has millions of stars blazing in its blue, and there isn't a cloud anywhere; and she clasps her hands with ecstasy, and thanks G.o.d for having made such a beautiful world. Then she starts to go home; but----"

Up to this point Betty's voice was glad and triumphant. Now its tone altered. "I see her. She is warm still, and her heart glows with happiness; and she does not want anything else in all the world except the gray house and the girls she left behind, and the dogs by the fireside, and the old couple in the kitchen. But presently she discovers that, try as she will, and walk as hard as she may, she cannot find the gray stone house. She is not frightened--that isn't a bit her way; but she knows at once what has happened, for she has heard of such things happening to others.

"It is midnight--a bitterly cold midnight--and she is lost in the snow!

She knows it. She does not hesitate for a single minute what to do, for the old man in the gray house has told her so many stories about other people who have been lost in the snow. He has told her how they fell asleep and died, and she knows quite well that she must not fall asleep.

When the morning dawns she will find her way back right enough; but there are long, long hours between now and the morning. She finds a place where the snow is soft, and she digs and digs in it, and then lies down in it and covers herself up. The snow is so dry that even with the heat of her body it hardly melts at all, and the great weight of snow over her keeps her warm. So now she knows she is all right, provided always she does not go to sleep.

"She is the sort of girls who will never, by any possibility, give in while there is the most remote chance of her saving the situation. She has covered every sc.r.a.p of herself except her face, and she is--oh, quite warm and comfortable! And she knows that if she keeps her thoughts very busy she may not sleep. There is no clock anywhere near, there is no sound whatever to break the deep stillness. The only way she can keep herself awake is by thinking. So she thinks very hard. That girl has often had a hard think--a very hard think--in the course of her life; but never, never one like this before, when she buries herself in the snow and forces her brain to keep her body awake.

"She tries first of all to count the minutes as they pa.s.s; but that is sleepy work, more particularly as she is tired, and really sometimes almost forgets herself for a minute. So she works away at some stiff, long sums in arithmetic, doing mental arithmetic as rapidly as ever she can. And so one hour pa.s.ses, perhaps two. At the end of the second hour something very strange happens. All of a sudden she feels that arithmetic is pure nonsense--that it never leads anywhere nor does any one any good; and she feels also that never in the whole course of her life has she lain in a snugger bed than her snow-bed. And she remembers the fairies and their music in the middle of the summer night; and--hark! hark!--she hears them again! Why have they left their palace underground to come and see her? It is sweet of them, it is beautiful!

They sit on her chest, they press close to her face, they kiss her with their wee lips, they bring comforting thoughts into her heart, they whisper lovely things into her ears. She has not felt alone from the very first; but now that the fairies have come she never, never could be happier than she is now. And then, away from the fairies (who stay close to her all the time), she lifts her eyes and looks at the stars; and oh, the stars are so bright! And, somehow, she remembers that G.o.d is up there; and she thinks about white-clad angels who came down once, straight from the stars, by means of a ladder, to help a good man in a Bible story; and she really sees the ladder again, and the angels going up and coming down--going up and coming down--and she gives a cry and says, 'Oh, take me too! Oh, take me too!' One angel more beautiful than she could possibly describe comes towards her, and the fairies give a little cry--for, sweet as they are, they have nothing to do with angels--and disappear. The angel has his strong arms round her, and he says, 'Your bed of snow is not so beautiful as where you shall lie in the land where no trouble can come.' Then she remembers no more."

At this point in her narrative Betty made a dramatic pause. Then she continued abruptly and in an ordinary tone, "It is the dogs who find her, and they dig her out of the snow, and the dear old shepherd and his wife and some other people come with them; and so she is brought back to the gray house, and never reaches the open doors where the angels ladder would have led her through. She is sorry--for days she is terribly sorry; for she is ill, and suffers a good bit of pain. But she is all right again now; only, somehow, she can never forget that experience. I think I have told you all I can tell you to-night."

Instantly, at a touch, the lights were turned on again, and the room was full of brilliancy. Betty jumped up from her posture on the floor. The girls flocked round her.

"But, oh Betty! Betty! say, please say, was it you?"

"I am going to reveal no secrets," said Betty. "I said I saw the girl.

Well, I did see her."

"Then she must have been you! She must have been you!" echoed voice after voice. "And were you really nearly killed in the snow? And did you fall asleep in your snow-bed? And did--oh, did the fairies come, and afterwards the angels? Oh Betty, do tell!"

But Betty's lips were mute.