CHAPTER XIX.

BETTY'S ESCAPADE.

June had come, a brilliantly fine June, and overpoweringly hot. Wind-swept, treeless Gorlay lay shadeless and panting under the blazing sun, and the dwellers there determined that they preferred the cutting winds and driving rains to which they were better accustomed.

Dr. Trenire had gone, and Betty and Tony had been inconsolable. The "locum," Dr. Yearsley, had come, and Jabez had long since announced that he had no great opinion of him, coming as he did from one of the northern counties.

"I don't say but what he may be a nice enough gentleman," he said; "but coming from so far up along it stands to reason he can't know nothing of we or our ailments. I s'pose the master had his reasons for choosing him, but it do seem a pity."

Aunt Pike did not approve of the newcomer, but for another reason. "He was so foolish about the children," she complained. "It is very nice to say you are fond of them, but it is perfectly absurd to make so much of them; it only encourages them to be forward and opinionated, and puts them out of their place." And to balance all this Aunt Pike herself became a little more strict than usual, and very cross. It may have been that she felt the heat very trying, and perhaps was not very well, but there was no doubt that she was very irritable and particular at that time—more so than she used to be—and nothing that the children did was, in her eyes, right.

Anna was irritable too, but there was much excuse for her, for having had pneumonia in the winter, and measles in the spring, her mother was determined that she should not have bronchitis, or rheumatism, or pneumonia again in the summer, and through that overpoweringly hot weather poor Anna was condemned to go about clothed in a fashion which might have been agreeable in the Highlands in January, but in Gorlay in the summer was really overwhelming, and kept poor Anna constantly in a state bordering on heat apoplexy, or exhaustion and collapse.

Had Dr. Trenire been at home he would have interfered, and rescued her from her wraps and shawls, heavy serge frock, woollen stockings, and innumerable warm garments; or, perhaps, if Anna had not been so afraid of her mother, but had appealed to her candidly and without fear, she might have obtained relief. This, unfortunately, was not Anna's way, for Anna's ways were still as crooked and shifty as her glances. She would think out this plan and that plan to avoid the only one that was straightforward and right, though it must be said for her that she did try to be more open and honourable—at times she tried quite hard; but since Kitty had gone, and she had been so much with her mother, all her old foolish fears of her had come back with renewed strength, and all her old mean ways and crooked plans for getting her own way and escaping scoldings.

Now, instead of asking to be relieved from some of her burdensome clothing, she made up her mind to destroy the things she detested most, and trust to not being found out; or, if she was found out—well, "the things must have been lost at the laundry." This seemed to her an excellent explanation.

So, one day when her mother was out and Betty and Tony had gone for a drive with Dr. Yearsley, Anna betook herself to the garden with some of her most loathed garments under her arm, and a box of matches in her pocket. A bonfire on a summer's day is easy to ignite, and there was just sufficient breeze to fan the flame to active life, so Anna was in the midst of her work of destruction almost before she realized it. But, while waiting for her mother to depart, Anna had forgotten that the time was hurrying on towards Betty's and Tony's return. In fact, they drove up but a moment or so after she had left the house on her guilty business.

"Miss Anna has gone up the garden," said Fanny in answer to Betty's inquiries; and Betty, following her slowly, was in time to see a blaze leaping up, and a cloud of smoke and sparks. She quickened her steps, for something interesting seemed to be happening. "Surely Anna isn't trying to smoke out that wasps' nest," she thought in sudden alarm. "She will be stung to death if she is," and Betty took to her heels to try to stop her. But when she got past the rows of peas and beans that had hidden Anna, she saw that what her cousin was poking up was not a wasps' nest, but a heap that was blazing on the ground.

"What are you doing?" gasped Betty excitedly. "What a lovely fire!"

At the sound of a voice Anna spun round quickly, the very picture of frightened guilt; but when she saw Betty her fear turned to anger, hot and uncontrollable because she was frightened.

"You are always spying and prying after me," she cried passionately. "Why can I never have a moment to myself? Other people can, and why can't I?"

Poor Anna was hot and overdone, and her nerves were so much on edge that she scarcely knew what she was doing or saying. But Betty had no knowledge of nerves, and under this unfair accusation she could make no allowance for her cousin, and her temper rose too.

"How dare you say I pry and spy! You know it is not true, Anna. I only came to ask you to play with us, and—and how was I to know that you were doing something that you didn't want any one to see? Why don't you want any one to see you? What are you burning?" Betty stepped nearer and looked more closely. "O Anna, it is your clothes that you are burning. Oh, how did it happen? You didn't do it on purpose, did you?"

"It doesn't matter to you how it happened. If you don't want to wear things you hate, you just go and tell tales to your father. You can get everything you want. But I haven't any one to stick up for me, and I've got to do things for myself."

"Then you set this on fire on purpose! Oh, how wicked; and they cost such a lot too! I wonder you aren't afraid to be so wicked!" cried Betty indignantly.

"I don't care," said Anna, trying to put on a bold front. "I never did want the things, and I never shall. I should die if I went about much longer a perfect mountain of clothes. How would you like to wear a 'hug-me-tight' under a serge coat in this weather?"

"Not at all. But what shall you say to Aunt Pike?"

"I shan't say anything; but I suppose you will," sneered Anna. "I do wish you wouldn't be always poking and prying about where you are not wanted. You might know that people like to be left alone sometimes."

"I am sure," cried Betty, quite losing her temper at that, "I would leave you quite alone always, if I could; and I am not a sneak, and that you know. It would have been better for Kitty if I had been. I don't know how you can say such things as you do, Anna, when you know what we have had to bear for you. I suppose you think I don't know that it was you who should have been sent away from Miss Richards's, and not Kitty! But I do know—I have known it all the time, though Kitty wouldn't tell me—and I think that you and Lettice Kitson are the two meanest, wickedest girls in all the world to let Kitty bear the blame all this time and never clear her. But after this—"

"Betty!" Aunt Pike's voice rose almost to a scream to get above the torrent of Betty's indignation. "How dare you speak to Anna so! How dare you say such shocking things! You dreadful, naughty child, you are in such a passion you don't know what you are saying, and you are making Anna quite ill! Look at her, poor child!—Anna dear, come to me; you look almost fainting, and I really don't wonder."

Anna was certainly ghastly white, and trembling uncontrollably, but as much at the sight of her mother as from Betty's fiery onslaught. "Yes—I do feel faint," she gasped, but she was able to walk quickly to her mother's side, and to lead her at a brisk step away from that smouldering heap on the ground.

"Poor child, I will take you to your room. You must lie down and keep very quiet for a time.—Elizabeth, follow us, please, and wait for me in the dining-room. I will come and speak to you there when I have seen to Anna. In the meantime try to calm yourself, and prepare to apologize for the dreadful things I heard you saying."

Betty did not reply, nor for a few moments did she attempt to follow. Her aunt's determination to believe Anna all that was good and innocent and injured, and herself and Kitty all that was mean and bad, increased her resentment a thousand times. Betty could never endure injustice.

"I won't apologize. I won't. I can't. I couldn't. I have nothing to apologize for," she thought indignantly. "It is Aunt Pike who ought to do that, and Anna, and ask us to forgive them. I've a good mind to tell everything. I think it is my duty to Kitty and all of us!" and Betty strutted down the garden looking very determined and important. Her childlike face was undaunted, her little mouth set firm.

"It is my duty to all of us," she kept repeating to herself; "it really is. I am not going to let Kitty bear the blame always. I know that most people feel quite sure that she really did carry those letters, and then wouldn't own up, but told stories about it, and Aunt Pike has never been nice to her since, and Lady Kitson scarcely speaks to her, and Miss Richards doesn't speak at all, and—and that mean Anna won't clear her, and—"

"Well, Elizabeth, I have come to hear your explanations and apologies for your shocking attack on Anna."

"It was Anna who attacked me," said Betty. "It was only when she called me a pry and a spy that I—that I—"

"Hurled all sorts of wicked accusations at her. Oh, I heard you.
You said the most shocking and untrue things in your passion."

"I didn't say a word that wasn't true," said Betty firmly, "and—and Anna knows it. Anna could have cleared Kitty, but she wouldn't, and I am not going to let Kitty bear the blame for her and Lettice any longer; and if they won't clear her, I will. Anna called me a sneak, and I said she was mean and bad, and I meant it; and so she is, to let Kitty go on bearing the blame and the disgrace all her life because she is too honourable to tell how mean they are."

"Did you say that Anna knew who went to Lettice with that letter that night, and that—it wasn't Kafcherine?" asked Aunt Pike, but so quietly and strangely that Betty was really quite frightened by her curious voice and manner.

"Oh, I wish I had not told," was the thought that rushed through her mind, while her cheeks grew hot with nervousness. But it was too late now to draw back; she must stick to her guns. "Yes," she said, but with evident reluctance. "Ask Anna, please. I—I mustn't say any more. Father wouldn't like—"

"Was it—Anna—herself?" asked Mrs. Pike, still in that strange low voice, only it sounded stranger and farther away this time.

"Oh, I can't tell you! I can't tell you!" cried Betty, shrinking now from telling the dreadful truth.

"There—is—no—need to," gasped Aunt Pike; but she spoke so low that Betty hardly heard the words, and the next moment the poor, shocked, stricken mother had slipped from her chair to the ground unconscious.

Betty saw her fall, and flew from the room screaming for help. Help was not long in coming. Dr. Yearsley ran from the study and the servants from the kitchen, and very soon they had raised her and laid her on the couch. But none of the restoratives they applied were of any avail, and presently they carried her upstairs and laid her on her bed.

But before that had happened, Betty, terrified almost out of her senses by the result of her indiscretion, had flown—flown out of the room and out of the house.

"Oh, what have I done! what have I done!" she moaned. "Father didn't want her to know, and Kitty didn't want her to, and now I have told her and it has killed her. I am sure I have killed her. And father is away, and Kitty—oh, what can I do? I can never go home any more. P'r'aps if I'm lost they'll be sorry and will forgive me," and Betty ran on, nearly frantic with fear, and weeping at the pathetic picture of her own disappearance.

The next morning Kitty, on her way from the music-room, where she had been practising before breakfast, saw the morning's letters lying on the hall table, and amongst them one directed to herself in Betty's hand. Without waiting to have it given to her in the usual way, she picked it up, and, little dreaming of the news it held, opened it at once.

"Dear Kitty," she read, "I have run away for ever, and I am never going home any more. I think I have killed Aunt Pike. I told her something, and she fell right down on the floor. She was dead, I am sure, and I ran away. I am too frightened to go home, so do not ask me to. I am going to earn my living. I am hiding at the farm. Mrs. Henderson thinks I am going home soon, but I am not; and if she won't let me sleep here, I shall sleep in the woods. To-morrow I shall try to get a place as a servant or something. I wish I looked older, and that I had one of your long skirts. I can put my hair up, but my dress is so short. Good-bye for ever.—

"Your loving Betty."

"S.P.—Give my love to father if he will except it from me, and tell him
I did not mean to be a bad child to him."

Kitty stood staring blankly at the letter, scarcely able to grasp its meaning. It seemed too wild, too improbable to be true. Betty had run away; was frightened, desperate, too frightened to go home; had been out all night alone; and they were all far away from her, all but Tony. Kitty felt stunned by the unexpectedness and greatness of the trouble, but she realized that she must act, and act quickly.

Miss Pidsley and Miss Hammond were gone to an early service at the church, but it never occurred to Kitty to wait for them and consult them. She only realized that a train left for Gorlay in twenty minutes' time, and that if she could catch it she could be at home in little more than two hours, and on the spot to seek for Betty. She cleared the stairs two at a time, and in less than three minutes was flying down them again and out of the house, buttoning her coat as she went, and had vanished round the corner and down the road. She felt absolutely no fear of meeting her teachers, for it never entered her head that she was doing anything wrong. Miss Pidsley had once said that if she was wanted at home she could go, and Kitty had never, since then, felt herself a prisoner at school. She did hope that she might not meet them, or any one else she knew, for time was very precious, and explanations would cause delay; but that they might forbid her to go never once entered her head. Her mind was full of but one thought—Betty was lost, and no one but herself had any clue as to her whereabouts.

But the only person that Kitty met was a telegraph boy. Miss Pidsley and Miss Hammond, coming home by another route, met the telegraph boy too at the gate, and took the telegram from him.

"Oh," exclaimed Miss Pidsley as she opened it and mastered its contents, "dear, dear! This brings bad news for Katherine Trenire. Listen," and she read aloud, "Mrs. Pike seriously ill. Send Miss Trenire at once. Yearsley."

"Shall I break it to the poor child?" asked Miss Hammond anxiously.

"Please."

Miss Hammond hurried into the house and to the schoolroom, but Kitty was not there. Then she went to the music-room, but there was no Kitty there; then by degrees they searched the whole house and garden, but in vain, and at last stood gazing at each other, perplexed and alarmed. Kitty, with never a thought of all the trouble she was causing, had caught her train and was speeding home, little dreaming, though, of all that lay before her, for in her alarm for Betty she had quite failed to grasp the other and more serious news that Betty had written; and, as the long minutes dragged by, and the train seemed but to crawl, it was only for Betty that her anxiety increased, is her mind had time to dwell on what had happened, and picture all the dreadful things that might have occurred to her.

"It was a wet night, and it was a very dark one, and such strange sounds
fill a wood at night, and—oh, I hope she kept away from the river!
If anything chased her, and she ran, and in the darkness fell in—
O Betty, Betty!"

Then "Gorlay at last!" she cried in intense relief as she recognized the well-known landmarks. Long before the train could possibly draw up, she got up and stood by the door with the handle in her hand, a sense of strangeness, of unreality, growing upon her. She felt as though she were some one else, some one older and more experienced, who was accustomed to moving amidst tragedies and the serious events of life. Even the old familiar platform, the white palings, the 'bus and the drowsy horses that she knew so well, seemed to her to have changed too, and to wear quite a different aspect.

"I feel like a person just waking out of a dream, not knowing whether it is dream or reality," she thought to herself as she opened the door and stepped out on to the platform. "I suppose I am not dreaming?"

But as she stood there for a moment trying to collect herself, Weller, the 'busman, came up to her, and he was real enough, and his anxious face was no dream-face.

"Good-morning, missie," he said sympathetically. "I'm sorry enough, I'm sure, to see you come home on such an errant. 'Tis wisht, sure enough."

Kitty was startled. She thought he was referring to Betty, and wondered how he could know of her escapade. "You knew she was gone?" she asked anxiously.

The man looked shocked. "Gone! Is she, poor lady? Law now, miss, you don't say so! I hadn't heard it. She was just conscious when I called fore this morning to inquire, and they 'ad 'opes that she'd rally."

"Then they have found her; but—but is she ill? Did she get hurt?—the river!—O Weller, do tell me quickly. I came home on purpose to go to look for her. Is she very ill?" Poor Kitty was nearly exhausted with anxiety and the shocks she had received.

Weller looked puzzled. "Why," he said slowly, "I never heard nothing about any river. She was took ill and fell down in the room, missie. Haven't you heard? They told me they was going to tellygraff for you so soon as the office was open, 'cause your poor aunt said your name once or twice—almost the only words they've been able to make out since she was took ill; and with the master away and you the eldest, they thought you ought to be sent for."

Then the rest of Betty's letter came back to her mind, and as the importance of it was borne in on her, Kitty's heart sank indeed in the face of such a double trouble.

"Oh, if only father were home!" was her first thought. "But even if we send at once he can't be here for ever so long." A moment later, though, she remembered his health, and how bad such news would be for him, with all those miles between, too; and she felt that unless it was absolutely necessary, they must spare him this trouble.

Rowe, the driver, came forward to help her to her seat. "I think you'd best go outside, missie," he said gently, "you'm looking so white. P'r'aps the air'll do 'ee good. I'm afraid you've had a bad shock."

"I—I think I have," gasped Kitty, as, very grateful for his sympathy, she mounted obediently.

Then Weller, who had suddenly disappeared, came back carrying a cup of steaming tea and a plate of bread and butter. "Drink this, missie, and eat a bit," he said, clambering carefully up with his precious burden, "then you'll feel better. You look as if you hadn't tasted nothing but trouble lately," he added sympathetically, as he arranged the tray on the seat beside her, and hurried down again to escape any thanks.

Tears of gratitude were in Kitty's eyes as she ate and drank; and from sheer desire to show how much she appreciated his kindness, she finished all he had brought her, knowing that that would gratify him more than any thanks could.

She certainly felt better for the food, and more fit to face the long drive home; and never to her life's end did she forget that drive on that sunny June morning—the dazzling white dusty road stretching before them, the hedges powdered with dust, the scent of the dog-roses and meadow-sweet blossoming so bravely and sending up their fragrance, in spite of their dusty covering, to cheer the passers-by. Then, when at last they reached the town, familiar faces looked up and recognized her, and most of them greeted her sympathetically.

It was all so natural, so unchanged; yet to Kitty, seeing it for the first time with eyes dazed with trouble, it seemed as though she had never seen it before—at least, not as it looked to her now. She tried to realize that it was only she who had changed, that all the rest was just as it had always been. She felt suddenly very much older, that life was a more serious and important thing than it had been—so serious and important that it struck her as strange that any one could smile or seem gay.

With kind thoughtfulness Rowe did not stop at all on his way as usual, but drove the 'bus straight up to the house at once. As they drew near, Kitty, glancing up to speak to him, saw him look anxiously up over the front of the house. "It's all right," he murmured to himself; then aloud he said more cheerfully, "I'm hoping, missie, you may find your poor aunt better," and Kitty knew that he had feared lest they might find the blinds drawn down.