CHAPTER XIX
BETTY CONFESSES
Betty woke up the next morning with a sense of deadly depressionweighing her down. For a few moments she lay staring up at the ceilingtrying to collect her thoughts. Then the events of the day before cameback to her and she frowned unhappily.
The whereabouts of poor little Dodo and Paul was still a mystery, andWill Ford, whom she had come to regard almost as a brother, was terriblywounded somewhere in France. She probably would never see him again.
And there was Allen too, to worry about every minute of the day andnight. She had not heard from him in--oh, ages. Yes, it must be everybit of two weeks since she had read his last letter. For all she knew,he might be worse off than poor Will.
"Oh, well," she sighed, and, turning on her side, looked out of thewindow.
There was no relief there from the gloom of her thoughts, for the skywas leaden and overcast, looking as if it, too, were mourning for thetroubles of the world, and the surf beat loud and threateningly on theshore.
"Guess it's going to rain and make things still more cheerful," shesaid, and at the sound Grace opened heavy eyes and turned overrestlessly.
"What are you mumbling about?" she asked sleepily, closing her eyesagain and sighing a little.
"Nothing but the weather," replied Betty, adding, with unusualgentleness: "It's early, so you can turn over and get forty winks."
"What has happened to you?" asked Grace, opening her eyes again insurprise at this unheard of advice. Then as the full force of hertrouble came home to her she turned over noisily and burrowed her headinto the pillow.
"Guess I will," she said in a muffled voice. "Don't any one dare wake meup till they have some good news to tell me. I'm going to be another RipVan Winkle."
"Goodness, I hope it won't be that long before we have any good news,"said Betty, trying to speak lightly. This would never do, she thought.They simply had to find some way out of this terrible slough ofdespondency before it mastered them completely.
"I'm going to get up," she announced briskly, jumping out of bed. "I'vegot to find something to keep me busy till that good news of ours feelslike coming along. I'm getting absolutely morbid just sitting around andthinking."
"Well, what is there to do?" asked Grace, rolling over and regarding herlistlessly.
"There's the house to be put in order," Betty pointed out, recovering alittle of her old spirits, now that she had decided on a definite planof action. "And we never have really unpacked our trunks because Molliehas been undecided about staying."
"Yes, I know. And my clothes are a perfect wreck. I haven't a thing toput on that doesn't look as if it had been through the wars," Graceagreed. "Not that it really matters," she added indifferently.
"Of course it makes a difference," returned Betty sharply. She wasdetermined to rouse Grace out of her lethargy, no matter what means shehad to take. "Don't you know that when you are dressed neatly andbecomingly everything seems brighter and more hopeful? And, anyway," sheadded, watching Grace out of the corner of her eye, "it isn't like youto be careless about your dress."
"Well, it isn't like me either to go moping around as if I had one footin the grave and the other was slipping," retorted Grace, with a spiritthat showed the experiment had worked. "I don't think it's nice for youto make remarks like that when you know how I'm feeling and the excuse Ihave."
"Nobody has any excuse for giving up and acting as if everything werelost when it isn't," said Betty decidedly. "If our soldiers did that thefirst time they had to retreat, how long do you suppose our army wouldlast?"
"But Will isn't your brother," insisted Grace stubbornly. "If he were,maybe you would feel differently."
There was a moment's pause.
"No he isn't my brother," returned Betty, knowing she was going to hurther friend but believing that the result would justify the means. "Butif he were I would try to behave so that when he came back he would havea right to be proud of me."
"Betty Nelson!" Grace sprang out of bed with her eyes blazing, "do youknow what you are saying? Do you mean that if Will should come back, hewouldn't be proud of me?"
"Not if you keep on taking your trouble lying down," said Betty,sticking gamely to her guns, though she was a little frightened at thesuccess of her experiment.
"I may," she thought to herself, "have done not wisely, but too well."
However, after one outraged and enraged stare at Betty, Grace pointedlyturned her back and began hastily to pull on her clothes. She finisheddressing before Betty, and without a word left the room.
"Now you have done it, Betty, my dear," said Betty making a little faceat her pretty reflection in the mirror. "I shouldn't wonder if Gracewould never speak to you again. Poor Gracie, perhaps I shouldn't havesaid what I did, but I simply had to start something."
On her way downstairs she tapped at Mollie's door and found that she andAmy were both up and dressing.
"Come in," called Mollie; "I need your help. Amy's eyes are so swollen,"she explained, as Betty obeyed, "that she can't see to do me up. Justthe middle one, Betty. That's a dear."
As Betty obligingly did the "middle one" she stole a glance at Amy, whowas absently doing up her hair without looking in the mirror.
"Look out!" she cried suddenly, making both the girls jump. "You nearlystuck that hairpin in your eye, Amy," she explained, as they looked ather reproachfully, "and that isn't the place for it you know."
Amy smiled a crooked little smile and put the unruly hairpin in theright place.
"I'm apt to do anything to-day," she said, with a sigh that seemed tocome from her toes. "If any of you want to live, you had just betterkeep out of my way, that's all."
"Isn't it just wonderful weather?" said Mollie sarcastically, gazing outat the leaden landscape. "Just the kind of a day to put the J into Joy."
"If something doesn't happen pretty soon," put in Amy, with another deepsigh, "I'll just naturally pass away. I wonder," she added, lookingreally interested in the subject, "if anybody ever did die of theblues."
"I don't believe so--but there's always hope," said Betty dryly, addingwith sudden spirit; "Now look here, girls, something's got to be doneabout this. We really will make ourselves sick if we don't try to lookon the hopeful side of things. It won't do anybody, least of all,ourselves, any good to sit here and mope all day. We've just got tofight against depression and cheer up."
"That's all very well for you, Betty," Amy voiced almost the samesentiment as Grace had only a few moments ago, "but you are the only oneof us who hasn't been hurt personally. Suppose it were Allen. Would youfeel the same way then--about cheering up and taking it bravely?"
Betty flushed angrily, at the same time feeling a wild desire to go awayand cry.
"I hope I would," she said steadily. "And if I didn't, I would surelyfeel ashamed of myself. It isn't," she paused at the door and lookedback at them, "as though Will or the twins were dead. We have hope inboth cases, so I don't see any use of giving up. You talk," she chokedback a sob, "as though I didn't sympathize, as if I were an outsiderjust because nothing has happened to--Allen--yet--" her voice choked ina real sob this time and she fled from the room.
The girls gazed after her unhappily.
"Did you ever!" gasped Mollie.
"I didn't mean to make her feel bad. Betty, of all people!" said Amy,conscience stricken. "And of course she's right about our trying tocheer up. Only, I don't want to, someway."
"Betty's a darling," said Mollie thoughtfully. "But of course she can'tquite realize how badly we feel. If it were her little brother andsister, now--"
And so gradually Betty came to feel herself more or less of an outsiderwith these girls who were so close to her. And it was all because theymisunderstood her effort to cheer them up and thought she could notfeel for them because nothing terrible had happened to her yet.
"I'll show them," she told herself fiercely, "if anything should happento Allen--" But she shivered and turned away shudderingly from thethou
ght. Allen--if only she could see him for five minutes--just fiveminutes--
Some way the days dragged through until a week passed, then part ofanother. Still there had been no clue to the whereabouts of the twins,nor any further news of Will.
"And this is the wonderful vacation we planned!" said Grace with a wrysmile, breaking one of the long silences that had become common with theOutdoor Girls these days.
They were, as usual, sitting on the sand and trying to occupy theirminds with sewing or reading, yet always with an eye to the road inreadiness to rush to their red-headed combination of delivery boy andpostman whenever he saw fit to put in an appearance.
Betty opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. She hadlearned that any suggestion she might make would be wrongly interpretedby the girls who were engrossed in their own troubles, and so she hadwisely decided to say nothing.
"I haven't heard from Frank for ever so long," said Mollie, as if thefact had just occurred to her. "I wonder if anything can have happenedto him?"
"I didn't see any name we knew in the casualty list last night,"ventured Betty.
"Betty, is that what you read so carefully every night?" asked Mollie,wide-eyed. "Oh, I don't see how you ever have the courage!" as Bettynodded. "If I saw the name of anybody I--I--cared for in that dreadfullist, I don't know what I'd do."
"Oh, I don't know," returned the Little Captain, while a wistful lightgrew in her eyes and her lips quivered. "When I don't find--what I'mafraid to find--I feel like a criminal who has been reprieved, and itgives me courage to face another day."
Then suddenly the girls saw Betty in her true light. Why, she wassuffering too! Think of her reading that awful list every night withfear in her heart! And in the light of this revelation, her braveefforts to cheer them seemed suddenly heroic.
"Betty dear," Mollie moved over toward her friend and put an arm abouther. "Do you care that much?"
A little sob of pent-up misery broke from Betty and she dropped her headon Mollie's shoulder.
"Oh, so much!" she whispered brokenly.
Then everybody cried a little and the girls called themselves all sortsof awful names for being "brutes" to their adored Little Captain, andwhen the storm cleared up everything seemed brighter and they could evensmile a little.
Then that night, when the little god of hope seemed about to take hisaccustomed place in the hearts of the Outdoor Girls, there came anotherblow, even more staggering than the ones that had gone before.
As Betty was scanning the casualty list with terrified, yet eager, eyes,she gave a little cry, half gasp and half sob that brought the girlsrunning to her.
Her face was ashen pale, and she pointed with trembling finger to a namehalf-way down in the column.
"Oh, girls, it's come--it's come! Allen! Allen! It can't be true!" andshe dropped her head upon her arms, crumpling the paper in her hand.
The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; Or a Wreck and a Rescue Page 20
