Chapter XVII The Return
The entire house party was down at the landing to meet the little boat which was to bring the Camp Fire guardian back to the “House by the Blue Lagoon.”
She was seen standing on the deck looking younger and slighter than ever with Miss Patricia Lord’s tall, gaunt figure beside her.
The instant the boat reached the shore, after receiving an enthusiastic welcome, Alice Ashton and Vera Lagerloff took Miss Patricia by the arm in an effort to separate her from the others, while Bettina, Sally, Mary Gilchrist, Marguerite Arnot and the two younger girls, Elce and Maida, surrounded Mrs. Burton.
Mrs. Graham seized the opportunity to whisper as she kissed her friend.
“Hail, the conquering hero comes, Polly!” to have the other woman murmur:
“Oh, do be careful, please, Betty. I’ll tell you everything when we are alone. You don’t know what I have been through and how little like a conqueror I feel.”
Then Mrs. Graham left her and supplanted Alice by Miss Patricia’s side.
“Don’t you think Polly is looking pretty well, Aunt Patricia?”
Pausing in her long strides, Miss Patricia frowned.
“Fairly well, better perhaps that I expected, but never so strong as we would have her, Betty. However, she is a wilful woman and it cannot be helped. It has nearly broken my heart, Betty, to have been separated from her so long, and the fault was altogether her own. Polly agrees that it was.”
“Certainly, Aunt Patricia, if you and Polly feel this to be true, I have no thought of differing with you. Here is David Hale wanting to speak to you. Bettina and I gave our masculine guests the instruction this morning that they were to keep in the background until we were allowed to welcome you. You and David are such old friends he seems not to intend to wait his turn.”
“I insist that Miss Patricia allow me to carry her bag. I have seen her decline to allow Miss Ashton or Miss Lagerloff to touch it, but whether it contains bonds or precious stones I will not run away with it, Aunt Patricia.”
Entering her own room, followed by Mrs. Graham and Miss Lord, Mrs. Burton moved quickly across and opened the door of the room adjoining.
She then turned:
“Betty, where is Juliet? I wondered why she did not come to meet me with the other girls and now she is not in her room. Is anything the matter?”
Picking up the letter from the desk Mrs. Graham extended it toward her friend.
“I don’t think so, Polly, although I scarcely know. Juliet Temple left here without telling me that she intended to leave; it was only a day or so ago and we decided it best to await your return. The letter she addressed to you will probably explain. We concluded that she was homesick without you here and has gone to your apartment.”
“I am sorry, Betty, I am afraid Juliet has not been polite, when I especially asked your permission to allow her to join us.
“Juliet Temple has written me that she has forged my check for two thousand five hundred dollars and has gone with her brother to Canada. She is perfectly frank, poor child, and tells how and why. The fault is partly through my carelessness! A few days before I left Juliet asked me to sign a check for two hundred and fifty dollars for the rent of my New York apartment. I was in a hurry at the time and I believe took her word for it and did not look at the check. She tells me she had so arranged that she could change the amount, which she did at once.
“Her brother was in the army and stationed not far from here. She has been in the habit of seeing him since we have been on the island. Juliet has always insisted that he was the one person in the world she cared for and that he had given her nothing but sorrow. It seems that he has been committing a number of offences and expected to be court-martialed, but instead of submitting, had planned to desert. For his sake Juliet appears to have lost all sense of honor or duty toward me. She seems convinced that I will not prosecute her. She tells me she was leaving immediately for New York, where she will have the check cashed (she is in the habit of cashing my checks). Afterwards, she and her brother intend to make their home in Canada and never return to the United States! A pretty desperate situation, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Polly, but I’ll telegraph to Anthony in Washington and, if it can be accomplished, he will see that the girl is found and brought back. I am so distressed for you, it is such a large sum of money and you have trusted the girl so completely.”
“Yes, Betty, but I don’t want Juliet found and punished. I have no right to feel or behave like this and every one of you must say exactly what you like to me. I know I am absolutely wrong and that she ought to be made to suffer the legal penalty, but I simply haven’t the force of character or the courage. I could not endure to think of a girl who has been so near me, who has lived as a member of my family and been good to me in many small ways, shut up in prison for the rest of her youth.”
“Yes, Polly, I know, let us not talk of this now. Painful as it is, you cannot allow yourself to be so sentimental and cowardly, dear! Besides, the money is a great deal more than you and Richard can possibly afford to lose!”
“Goodness, I had forgotten that! It is not only more than we can afford to lose, it is nearly all the money we possess at present. Juliet must have known. We saved from the amount I earned last winter only what we thought sufficient to last through the summer, until I returned to work in the autumn; the rest Richard has devoted to the payments he and I feel called upon to make.”
“Yes, and a nice time, Polly Burton, for you to assume the added responsibility of an old woman to support!” Miss Patricia said harshly.
“Do you think, Aunt Patricia, that this is the time for you to say unkind things to me? Don’t you think I have a good deal to bear and that you might not make it harder?”
Too overcome to speak, Miss Patricia nodded and actually two tears rolled unchecked down her gaunt cheeks.
“I am afraid Richard will be terribly worried and annoyed over my carelessness,” Mrs. Burton said childishly.
“Richard Burton! Let him dare utter a word! Who was it brought that unpleasant girl, whom I never liked at any time, into our home at Half Moon Lake? I remember his saying something or other about being a knight errant!” Miss Patricia snorted, and the girls, Polly Burton and Betty Graham broke into hysterical laughter that saved the situation.
“I fear that from the first Juliet Temple realized that I was an easy person to deceive. In her letter she also confides the fact that when she told me she had been wrongfully accused in her office in Washington, she did this in order that I might be impressed with the idea that she would not have confessed had she been guilty.* Well, at least I rejoice that you girls were never deceived by her and that Juliet was never a member of our Sunrise Camp Fire. Let us speak of her as little as possible in the future.”
“And Polly, you are not to worry over money; of course Anthony and I are not rich, but you may have anything that we possess. Why not make me the happiest of human beings and you and Aunt Patricia and Richard spend the summer here with me in the ‘House by the Blue Lagoon’? You may do whatever you wish and we’ll not trouble you,” Mrs. Graham urged.
“You are an angel, Betty, but Aunt Patricia and Richard and I must hide somewhere where I can work and study, if I can find a play for next winter. Now may I lie down for a little while?”
A few moments later, in Miss Patricia’s bedroom, she and her hostess continued the discussion.
“What do you think, Aunt Patricia? Ought we allow Polly to permit this girl to go free, in spite of her deceit and treachery?”
“I don’t know what else is possible, Betty. Polly is wrong, she nearly always is wrong, and yet to punish the girl would have a most disastrous effect upon her. There is a sweetness about her and a generosity; Polly has been most generous and sweet to me, Betty, when I have behaved very badly and so I would not care to influence her, if I could, to be severe upon any one else.”
“Don’t, Aunt Patricia, speak of yourself in any such connection! But about the money, Polly will never allow us to help her. She never would accept anything from anyone save you, and now you can no longer afford to help.”
A moment Miss Patricia sat crumpling a large, masculine-looking handkerchief in her capable hands, while a flush spread over her face that amazed her companion.
“Betty Graham, I desire to make a confession to you and to request you to keep my secret until such time as I may be willing to speak of it myself. The truth is I am not so poor as I have allowed you and Polly and the Camp Fire girls to believe. I have lost money, my home for French orphans is costing twice the amount I had expected it would cost, and I have found it an excellent arrangement to rent my house near Boston and to live as economically as possible, but I am not a pauper. Now do use your intelligence and understand why I have wished you to be deceived.
“Apparently I had hopelessly estranged Polly and had reached a point where I could not any longer endure being apart from her. Some weeks ago she sent me word through Richard that never so long as she lived would she accept anything more at my hands and that she had entreated me to make friends with her for the last time. There are occasions you know when Polly can be singularly obstinate. So what was I to do? Appeal to her sympathy, make her believe there was something she could do for me. Mavourneen, I knew she would fly to my rescue. So I sent out the word and she came and now I shall be parted from her no more. But, Betty, my dear, Polly shall never suffer. Do not believe that I shall fail to keep sufficient money to see she has all she desires. For the present let us have our little house and our summer together and Polly the belief that she is caring for me. I shall dread the day when she learns what I have told you.”
Notes
* See “Camp Fire Girls at Half Moon Lake.”