The Road to Understanding
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 21: The Play Begins
“I shall take you over, myself,” said Helen to her daughter as they rose from the breakfast table that first day of October. “And I shall show you carefully just how to come back this afternoon; but I’m afraid I shall have to let you come back alone, dear. In the first place, I shouldn’t know when you were ready; and in the second place, I shouldn’t want to go and wait for you.”
“Of course not!” cried Betty. “As if I’d let you—and you don’t even have to go with me. I can find out by asking.”
“No, I shall go with you.” Betty noticed that her mother’s cheeks were very pink and her eyes very bright. “Don’t forget the doctor’s letter; and remember, dear, just be—be your own dear sweet self.”
“Why, mother, you’re—crying!” exclaimed the dismayed Betty.
“Crying? Not a bit of it!” The head came proudly erect.
“But does it mean so much to you that I—that I—that he—likes me?” asked Betty softly.
The next moment, alarmed and amazed, she found her mother’s convulsive arms about her, her mother’s trembling voice in her ears.
“It’ll mean all the world to me, Betty—oh, Betty, my baby!”
“Why, mother!” exclaimed the girl, aghast and shaken.
But already her mother had drawn herself up, and was laughing through her tears.
“Dear, dear, but only look at the fuss this old mother-bird is making at the first flight of her young one!” she chattered gayly. “Come, no more of this! We’ll be late. We’ll get ready right away. You say you have the letter from the doctor. Don’t forget that.”
“No, I won’t. I have it all safe,” tossed the girl over her shoulder, as she hurried away for her hat and coat. A minute later she came back to find her mother shrouding herself in the black veil. “Oh, mother, dear, please! You aren’t going to wear that horrid veil to-day, are you?” she remonstrated.
“Why, yes, dear. Why not?”
“I don’t like it a bit. And it’s so thick! I can’t see a bit of you through it.”
“Can’t you? Good!” (Vaguely Betty wondered at the almost gleeful tone of the voice.) “Then nobody can see my eyes—and know that I’ve been crying.”
“Ho! they wouldn’t, anyway,” frowned Betty. “Your eyes aren’t red at all, mother.”
But the mother only laughed again gleefully—and fastened the veil with still another pin. A minute later mother and daughter left the house together.
It was not a long ride to the foot of the street that led up the hill to Burke Denby’s home. With carefully minute directions as to the return home at night, Helen left her daughter halfway up the hill, with the huge wrought-iron gates of the Denby driveway just before her.
“And now remember everything—everything, dear,” she faltered, clinging a little convulsively to her daughter’s arm. “Dear, dear, but I’m not sure I ought to let you go—after all,” she choked.
“Nonsense, mumsey! Of course you ought to let me go!”
“Then you must remember to tell me everything—when you come home to-night—everything. I shall want to know every single little thing that’s happened!”
“I will, dear, I will. And don’t worry. I’m sure I’m going to do all right,” comforted the girl, plainly trying to quiet the anxious fear in her mother’s voice. “And what a beautiful old place it is!” she went on, her admiring eyes sweeping the handsome house and spacious grounds beyond the gates. “I shall love it there, I know. And I’m so glad the doctor got it for me. Now, don’t worry!” she finished with a gay wave of her hand as she turned and sped up the hill.
The mother, with a last lingering look and a sob fortunately smothered in the enshrouding veil, turned and hurried away in the opposite direction.
Many times before Betty’s return late that afternoon, Helen wondered that a day, just one little day, could be so long. It seemed to her that each minute was an hour, and each hour a day, so slowly did the clock tick the time away. She tried to work, to sew, to read. But there seemed really nothing that she wanted to do except to stand at one of the windows, her eyes on the massive, white-pillared old house set in its wide sweep of green on the opposite hill.
What was happening over there? Was there a possible chance that Burke would question, suspect, discover—anything? How would he like—Betty? How would Betty like him? How would Betty do, anyway, in such a position? It was Betty’s first experience in—in working for any one; and Betty—sweet and dear and loving as she was—had something of the Denby will and temper, as her mother had long since discovered. Betty was fearless and high-spirited. If she did not like—but what was happening over there?
And what would the outcome be? After all, perhaps, as the doctor had said, it was something of a comic opera and farce all in one—this thing she was doing. Very likely the whole thing, from the first, when she ran away years ago, had been absurd and preposterous, just as the doctor had said. And very likely Burke himself, when he found out, would think so, too. It was a fearsome thing—to take matters in her own hands as she had done, and attempt to twist the thread in Fate’s hands, and wrest it away from what she feared was destruction—as if her own puny fingers could deal with Destiny!
And might it not be, after all, that she had been chasing a will-o’-the-wisp of fancied “culture” all these years? True, she no longer said “swell” and “grand,” and she knew how to eat her soup quietly; but was that going to make Burke—love her? She realized now something of what it was that she had undertaken when she fled to the doctor years ago. She realized, too, that during these intervening years there had come to her a very real sense of what love, marriage, and a happy home ought to mean—and what they must mean if she were ever to be happy with Burke, or to make him happy.
But what was taking place—over there?
At ten minutes before five Betty reached home. Her mother met her halfway down the stairs.
“Oh, Betty, you—you are here!” she panted. “Now, tell me everything—every single thing,” she reiterated, almost dragging the girl into the apartment, in her haste and excitement. “Don’t skip anything—not the least little thing; for a little thing might mean so much—to me.”
“Why, mother!” exclaimed Betty, her laughing eyes growing vaguely troubled. “Do you really care so much?”
With a sudden tightening of the throat Helen pulled herself up sharply. She gave a light laugh.
“Care? Of course I care! Don’t you suppose I want to know what my baby has been doing all the long day away from me? Now, tell me. Sit right down and tell me from the beginning.”
“All right, I will,” smiled Betty. To herself she said: “Poor mother! As if I wouldn’t work my fingers off before I’d fail her, when she cares so much—when she needs so much—what I earn!” Then, aloud, cheerily, she began:—
“Well, first, I walked up that long, long walk through that beautiful lawn to the house; but for a minute I didn’t ring the bell. It was so beautiful—the view from that veranda, with the sun on the reds and browns and yellows of the trees everywhere! Then I remembered suddenly that I hadn’t come to make a call and admire the view, but that I was a business woman now. So I rang the bell. There was a lovely old brass knocker on the great door; but I saw a very conspicuous push-button, and I concluded that was for real use.”
“Yes, yes. And were you—frightened, dear?”
“Well, ‘nervous,’ we’ll call it. Then, as I was planning just what to say, the door opened and the oldest little old man I ever saw stood before me.”
“Yes, go on!”
“He was the butler, I found out afterwards. They called him Benton. He seemed surprised, somehow, to see me, or frightened, or something. Anyway, he started queerly, as his eyes met mine, and he muttered a quick something under his breath; but all I could hear was the last, ‘No, no, it couldn’t be!’”
“Yes—yes!” breathed Helen, her face a little white.
“The next minute he became so stiff and straight and dignified that even his English cousin might have envied him. I told him I was Miss Darling, and that I had a note to Mr. Denby from Dr. Gleason.
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