CHAPTER IV

A SHOCK FOR BETTY

One immediate consequence of the golf-bag-purse-vanishing episode narrated above, was a delay of two hours in Betty Thompson's arrival in London, which delay meant that Hiram Baxter and his wife, having waited vainly at Charing Cross station for the expected traveler, had now returned, quite out of sorts, especially Mrs. Baxter, to their rooms at the Savoy Hotel.

"I think it's very inconsiderate of Betty to be so careless about her trains. You wired her, didn't you?" said the wife as she stood before a cheval glass preparatory to removing a new and very large green velvet picture hat, with gold-brown plumes and drooping brim. Beneath this effective covering her hair was discreetly shadowed, her eyes, if they were calculating, seemed only pensive, and the pouting of her mouth was transformed to an expression of winsome pleading--so much for the wizardry of a woman's hat.

As she stood before the mirror Mrs. Baxter's half-turned face wore that sidelong, disquieted look with which a woman always regards her newest hat, half pleasure of possession and half regret for that other hat, the one in the shop that she did not buy and whose fetching colors and enticing lines have ever since haunted her. A pleasing panel picture she made in the black framed oval of the cheval glass, a harmony in green and golden brown. Boldini might have painted that mirror picture of Eleanor Baxter. She was a harmony of insincerities, a woman who seemed to have youth and height and slenderness, but who really had none of these. This, however, was a secret between Mrs. Baxter and her looking-glass.

"I wired her all right," answered Hiram.

"It quite upsets my plans," complained Eleanor. "Of course I was glad to come to town yesterday, dear, to meet you when you arrived from the steamer, but it's most annoying to be kept in London now. All the relatives are expecting you, Hiram."

"Are, eh? How many of 'em?"

"Only Cousin Harriet and Cousin Horatio and Cousin Lionel and the countess. The dear baroness left yesterday. I'm sorry she couldn't stay to see you."

"Yes, it's a pity the dear baroness couldn't stay to see me," said Hiram dryly.

"I'm glad we won't miss the bazaar to-morrow afternoon," Eleanor rattled on; "the Progressive Mothers' bazaar. You know Cousin Horatio delivers the address, and I want you particularly to be there, Hiram."

Baxter nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose so." Then his face gradually broke into a smile. "Progressive Mothers! Say, can ye beat that? I always thought old-fashioned mothers were about right, but the Bish says----"

"Hiram! Please do be more careful of your language!" Eleanor's voice was petulant.

"Oh, I see! It ain't the thing to call old Bunchester, Bish. All right, dearie. What I started to say was that his Lordship o' Bunchester tells me we ain't begun to hear the last word yet in the matter o' raisin' children. He got five hundred out o' me--I mean dollars."

By this time Mrs. Baxter had composed herself in a comfortable arm-chair, and, having nothing else to do, was studying her husband critically.

"You look tired, Hiram," she decided.

"I'm tired, all right," he nodded.

"You look worried, too."

The big fellow reflected a moment and then said slowly: "Well, I admit I'll feel better when I see Independent Copper about twenty points higher."

Mrs. Baxter eyed him keenly. "Nothing has happened? Nothing is wrong?" she asked with growing alarm.

For a few moments Hiram sat silent, then closing his lips with decision, he answered kindly: "Eleanor, I guess ye'll have to know exactly how things are. Since we've been married, and that's a good many years, I've done my best to make ye happy. I've tried to give ye everything ye wanted. I never thought the time would come, dearie, when I'd have to ask ye to economize, but----"

He hesitated while she listened with widening, startled eyes.

"Hiram!" she gasped.

He bowed with a slow impressiveness that struck terror into her worldly soul. "I'm awful sorry, but the time has come."

"Economize!" repeated Eleanor in a daze. "It isn't possible."

Again Hiram nodded. "Yes, it is. I'm pretty well tied up with the obligations I've undertaken, and--dearie, we've got to economize."

"Oh, if you had only kept out of this copper speculation!" she lamented.

"I couldn't keep out. You knew I couldn't. Bryce Thompson was my partner, my friend, and--he's dead. I ain't goin' to have any slur on his memory. I've paid his debts, dollar fer dollar, and I'm carryin' his copper stock. Bryce made a mistake, but he meant well. He did it fer his daughter, Betty, and"--here Baxter's voice grew tender as he saw Eleanor's distress--"don't you worry, little woman, we'll come out o' this copper fight on top."

These comforting words seemed only to arouse a sharper resentment in Mrs. Baxter, who turned on her husband angrily. "Meantime, our whole household must be upset, and--we must economize. I suppose you're going to discharge some of the servants?"

Hiram answered with his most winning smile: "Say, ye guessed it the first time. We've got a dozen servants up at Ipping House, and I believe five could do the work just as well--or better."

"Absurd!"

"Bet ye seven dollars and a quarter five servants could do the work if we cut out some o' your relatives."

"You needn't say they're all my relatives. How about Betty Thompson? She's more extravagant than any of the others."

"Bet ye she'll be the first one to take her coat off and hustle--when she knows."

Eleanor's lips tightened for another indignant outburst, but, by a great effort, she controlled herself and spoke with her most irritating manner of lofty disapproval: "Hiram! I wish you wouldn't use that vulgar American word."

Baxter stroked his chin thoughtfully under his white mustache. "Think it's vulgar, eh? The English aristocracy think it's vulgar to hustle, but tell me where the English aristocracy would be if it wasn't for the dollars that American fellers like me have hustled for?"

At this juncture Eleanor's maid appeared with word that Miss Betty Thompson had arrived and had gone to her apartment, which, it appeared, did not please her. She wanted a sitting-room overlooking the Thames, whereas this one opened on a court-yard.

"Tell Miss Thompson I'll see her in a moment," said Mrs. Baxter. Then, when the maid had gone: "There! You see Mistress Betty must have the most expensive rooms in the hotel."

"Well, why not?" retorted Baxter. "She thinks she's a rich girl and can afford 'em." He sat looking thoughtfully at his big strong hands while Eleanor rose to go. "I hate to tell her, but--I s'pose I must."

"Of course you must tell her. You should have told her long ago."

"Perhaps. But--remember, Eleanor, not a word about her father's speculations." He spoke with sudden authority.

"I don't see why Betty Thompson shouldn't know the truth about her father. Why should she be spared any more than the rest of us?"

"Because I say so," answered Baxter, with a glance from under his heavy brows that his wife had rarely seen. "It would make her unhappy and it wouldn't do any good." Then in a low tone and with sudden tenderness he added: "Ye know who Betty makes me think of, dearie? Of our little sunshine girl that's--that's gone. She's got the same eyes and--the same pretty ways, and--say, I wish ye'd send Betty in here, I want to talk to her."

Eleanor looked at her husband without replying, and something changed in her face--something beyond the wizardry of any picture hat to conceal. Then, quietly, she gathered up her things and left the room. And a few minutes later Betty Thompson appeared, a radiant vision of youth and sweetness that brought joy to old Baxter's heart.

"Why, Betty!" he exclaimed, stretching out both his hands, and she came to him quickly, her eyes shining with fondness.

"Dear Guardy! I'm so glad to see you," she murmured, as he held her in his strong arms and deepened the roses of her cheeks with two vigorous and affectionate smacks.

"Ain't too big fer an old fellow like me to kiss, are ye?"

Then he held her off at arm's length and admired her lovely, eager face, and her slender, lithe figure in its garb of Paris finery. "Well, well! Yer the real thing, ain't ye?"

Betty's eyes danced with pleasure. "Do you like this frock, Guardy?"

With wise nods of wondering approval Hiram studied Paquin's exquisitely suave creation of amethyst gray velvet, with its narrow trimming of black fox. Thrown carelessly over the girl's shoulders was a chiffon scarf of cobweb thinness, marvelously shaded from jonquil yellow to rosy pomegranate. And Betty's burnished brown hair melted glowingly into the purple lining of her white brimmed leghorn hat, with its knot of pale mauve pansies and its tossing topaz plume.

Hiram nodded in approval. "Like the frock and like the girl inside it. Sit down and tell me about things. How d'ye come to be so late? Miss yer train, or--what?"

"Why, we had an adventure," laughed Betty, "a most exciting adventure. Everything went well until we reached Chatham Junction. The bishop was perfectly lovely. He talked of all sorts of things, especially golf. I happened to have my golf bag with me and--you know, he's a great golfer."

"I know," said Baxter. "It gets me how many o' these brainy men like to waste time battin' them foolish little balls around a field. Guess I'll have to tackle it myself one o' these days. Well, what was the adventure?"

Betty's face grew serious, and she described, as clearly as she could, the bishop's misfortune on the train.

"Five thousand pounds!" exclaimed Hiram. "Well, well! Poor old Bish! Ain't that a shame?"

"There was a young woman in the carriage with us," went on Betty, "such an interesting face--rather foreign looking, and, when the bishop found that his purse was gone, he called the guard and the guard called the police and--they insisted on searching this young woman. I was so sorry. I knew she was innocent, and sure enough she was."

"How d'ye know she was innocent?"

"I could see it. She had large, dark eyes, so appealing and--she told me a most pathetic story afterward--and--why do you smile, Guardy?"

"I s'pose ye gave her all the money ye had with ye?" chuckled Baxter.

"I couldn't give her very much. I only had five pounds," answered the young American, her dignity somewhat ruffled.

"Hm! And ye gave her that?"

"Why, yes. I'm going to send her more. I take a great interest in that girl."

"Do, eh? Well, I wouldn't send her any more money. I wouldn't do it, Betty."

There was something in her guardian's tone that made Miss Thompson look at him in surprise and vague apprehension.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I guess you an' me'd better have a little talk, Betty," said Baxter kindly. "Ye remember I wrote ye a couple o' times about yer expenses in Paris and ye sent me back some pretty sharp opinions, the gist of it bein' that ye wanted to spend yer money accordin' to yer own ideas."

"Why shouldn't I? Father left me the money and I'm spending it in a way that he would approve of."

A sharp note sounded in her voice, but Hiram answered with unchanging gentleness. "I know, Betty, Bryce Thompson would have approved of your goin' to the South Pole to pick strawberries, if ye wanted to. He couldn't refuse ye a thing, he never did refuse ye; but I've been left your guardian, Betty, and it's my duty to tell ye that our present state o' finances don't justify givin' away five-pound notes to strange women ye meet on railway trains."

"I'd rather give my money to unfortunate girls who've never had a chance," retorted Betty with increasing spirit, "than--than to gamble it away in Wall Street!"

"Is that a little friendly jab at me?"

Betty tried vainly to control her emotion. "You've always been so good to me, Guardy, so considerate that I hate to say anything unkind, but I read the papers and--I understand more than you think about business."

"Do, eh? Such as--what?"

"I know there's a fight going on between two copper companies and--and you're in it, aren't you?"

Baxter smiled grimly. "I guess I'm in it, all right."

"And one company or the other may be ruined. Isn't that true?"

"Well," drawled her guardian, "I guess one comp'ny or the other's liable to find out that the thing they've been monkeyin' with ain't precisely a Sunday school picnic."

Betty's face was tense now with the earnestness of her convictions. "You may think me foolish, and perhaps I shouldn't say this, but Guardy, I don't approve of your using father's money like that."

"Don't, eh?" grunted Hiram, then rising from his chair, he walked back and forth with frowns and queer little nods of his massive head. Presently his face cleared and, stopping before Betty, he laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder.

"Child, it looks as if I'll have to explain a few things to you," he said, "that I didn't mean to talk about. You say ye don't approve of speculatin' in Wall Street. Neither do I. I got into this copper campaign because--well, it ain't exactly my fault and--anyhow, there are times when a man's got to fight fer his life. It's that way with me just now. As to usin' yer father's money----" He hesitated before the steady challenge of her waiting eyes. "Bryce Thompson and I were partners in business for twenty-five years. He was my best friend and--ye know I wouldn't breathe a word against his memory?"

"I know," said the girl. "Go on."

"Betty, yer father didn't leave any money." He spoke tenderly but firmly.

In a dull way she repeated the words. "He--he didn't leave any--money." Her voice trailed off into sickening silence.

"Ye know how generous yer father was and--he made unfortunate investments and--when his estate was settled up there wasn't anything left."

"Nothing left!" she murmured, then rousing herself as a new thought came. "But--all this money that you've been sending me?"

"I was glad to do it, Betty."

"It wasn't my money? I had no right to it? Oh!" She stared at him helplessly as the full realization broke upon her.

"I'd never have mentioned it, only----"

"You should have told me long ago. I'm so--sorry and ashamed."

"There, now! It's all right!" He took her two slim hands in his and patted them kindly.

"You've sent me thousands of dollars. I can never pay it back."

"Ye don't have to pay it back."

"But--why did you do it? Why?"

"I'll tell ye why," answered Hiram thoughtfully. "Because I loved yer father, that's one reason, and another is I--I've always loved you, Betty, ever since ye was little."

"Guardy!" she whispered tenderly. "But you must see that----"

"Wait, Betty! The bookkeepin' of life is a queer thing. Ye don't have to make the deservin' column and the lovin' column balance. When ye love ye don't give things because ye owe 'em; ye don't use a scale or a measurin' cup, ye just give and give, and ye can't give enough--because ye love."

The girl's eyes filled with tears; she tried to speak, but the words choked in her throat.

"It ain't only because yer a sweet, plucky girl that I've loved ye," he went on. "It's because ye make me think of----" there was a break in his voice. "Ye know, we had a little girl once and--we lost her. She was only three years old when she--went away. That ain't very old, is it? But, say, she had the cinches around our hearts all right! I can see her now, in her blue dress, with her little hands full o' flowers. She had eyes like yours, Betty, and a pretty way--like yours and----" the grim, old fellow stopped and wiped his eyes. "Well, I guess ye understand now why I'd do 'most anything in the world to make you happy."

"I've been so foolish, so extravagant," she murmured in distressed self-reproach.

"Not a bit! All I want ye to do is to ease up a few notches until----"

"And you've been hard pressed for money. Oh, if I could only help you! I will help you. I'll work. Yes, I mean it. I can earn money with my singing and--besides, I'm practical. I can use a typewriter--I could be your secretary, Guardy. I'm sure I could. Would you let me try? Please let me."

"Holy cats!" exclaimed Baxter. "Is there anything an American girl won't think of? I'm proud of ye, Betty, fer wantin' to do it, but it ain't necessary. You just stay with us like one of the family."

"No, no! There are too many staying with you like one of the family. I'm going to be your secretary, that is," her face fell, "unless you have one already?"

"I had one in New York, but I didn't bring her over because--the fact is, there was a leak in the office and--I fired her."

"Then you need some one to help you?" cried Betty eagerly. "And I do know about business--at least I can learn and--I can do what I'm told. Please, Guardy."

Betty's whole soul was in the words and, for many a day, Hiram Baxter remembered the loving radiance that illumined her face as she held out her hands in a sweet impulse to help.

"Yer a little thoroughbred, all right," he reflected. "And I could trust ye. That's a whole lot more'n I can say of the last one. Hm!"

He reflected a moment, and then, holding out his hand with a cheery smile: "Betty, yer my kind! Yer Bryce Thompson's daughter! There! I don't mind tellin' ye this fits in with a plan I had and--yes, ye can try it. Ye can be my secretary. Say, won't that shame the relatives?"

Thus they settled upon an arrangement that was destined to have important consequences.

This night they spent in town for the pleasure of a theatre, and the next morning Betty passed in a flutter of hurried preparations, for she suddenly realized that one of her Paquin gowns was not the most suitable garment for a serious-minded secretary to be wearing when she arrived at the scene of her duties. There was no reason why she should give Mrs. Baxter's relatives (who did not know her, thank heaven) the satisfaction of realizing, by any outward sign, how complete was the downfall of poor Betty Thompson. So she hurried into her plainest black frock, a very chic creation, nevertheless, and was waiting demurely in the taxicab when Hiram and his wife appeared.

And now, just as they were starting for the station, there came a long distance telephone message for Baxter, something important, the operator said.

"Who d'ye s'pose it was, Eleanor?" beamed Hiram a few moments later, as he hurried back. "Ye'll have to get a move on, friend," he warned the driver, as they shot away.

"The Baroness Dunwoodie?" guessed Mrs. Baxter.

"The Bishop of Bunchester?" guessed Betty.

"Wrong, both of ye." Then he turned to his wife with a happy smile. "Dearie, it's Bob."

"Bob!" exclaimed the mother.

"Bob Baxter, sure as guns!"

"But Bob is in New York? You left him there?"

"I left him there, but he didn't stay there. He jumped on the _Lusitania_ the day after I sailed on the _Olympic_ and they nearly beat us in. He came right across from Liverpool and he's up at Ipping House this minute. Wanted to know if he should come to town and I said we were on our way back and to wait where he was."

"My boy!" murmured Mrs. Baxter, and not all the picture hats in Piccadilly could give her the look of joy that her face wore now.

"Seems Bob found trouble in the office that he couldn't write about, so he just came over." The old fellow turned to Betty. "I told ye there was a leak in that New York office."

It was not until they were seated in the train that Eleanor was enlightened as to Miss Thompson's new purpose.

"Mr. Baxter's secretary? It's absurd!" she declared.

"Please don't say that, Mrs. Baxter," pleaded Betty. "I've only just found out about--Father and--I couldn't respect myself if I just did nothing and let Mr. Baxter support me."

"There's the American spirit for ye," approved Hiram.

The train rushed on and presently, as happens in railway journeys, the three lapsed into silence. Hiram thought of his business worries and of his plan for solving the problem of the relatives; Eleanor thought of her son, and Betty thought of various things. Poor child, she had enough to think of! What a sad awakening after all her bright dreams! She wondered who would live now in her lovely Paris apartment that would never be hers again. Who would stand of summer evenings, as she had stood so often, on the balcony outside her bedroom and watch the swallows circling over the chestnut trees on the Champs Élysêes? Perhaps she would never see Paris again!

Then she thought of Bob Baxter, the playmate of her childhood, whom she had not seen for years and years, not since she was a little thing with yellow braids down her back and freckles on her nose. A homely little thing, they always said. She wondered if Bob remembered her as a homely little thing. Perhaps he did not remember her at all.

She turned toward the fleeing landscape and, in the window, caught the reflection of her own lovely face. Miss Betty Thompson, if you please, a poor dependent, a drudging secretary! It was sickening, maddening; she could not bear it. And then, through the torture of her thoughts, came tripping brightly a whimsical fancy that brought back the laughter to her eyes. And the laughing eyes in the window seemed to say: "How could he possibly remember you?"

"Guardy," she asked softly, "would you do something for me?"

"Sure I would," said Hiram.

"Even if it seems silly--just to make me happy?"

Baxter nodded his big head slowly. "Try me, little girl."

"You said it would shame the relatives--what I am going to do?"

"It will--you bet it will--when they know."

"But I don't want them to know. That's the point. It isn't any snobbish reason. I'm not ashamed of working, but----" She threw all her feminine power into one swift, bewitching appeal. "Guardy, I don't want them to know that I am Betty Thompson. I don't want anyone to know it except you and Mrs. Baxter. Please let me have my way. Let me just be your new secretary, Miss--er--I'll take some other name."

"No, no, I won't stand fer any fake name. Take yer own name. I'll introduce ye as Miss Thompson, my new secretary. They'll never suspect that yer Betty Thompson."

"But some of the relatives will be sure to know you," objected Eleanor.

"The relatives have never seen me," said Betty.

"Bob has seen you."

"Not since I was ten years old--that's eleven years ago. Was I terribly homely, Mrs. Baxter?"

"Well, my dear, you were by no means a beauty."

"You certainly have changed," put in Hiram admiringly.

"Thank you, Guardy. Then it's all settled. I'm to be the new secretary, Miss Thompson? Not Miss Thompson, the new secretary--you see, there's a difference. Is it a bargain?" she asked, giving them her two hands, while a mischievous light danced in her eyes. "Is it? You don't mind, do you? I'll work, I'll do anything, but I want your promise that I'm going to be the new secretary, Miss Thompson."

"I give ye my promise," said Baxter, and he held out his big hand, which she first patted affectionately and then hugged in her warm, white palms.

"And you?" Betty turned to Eleanor. "Please! Perhaps we'll only keep it up for a few days?"

"What a tease!" laughed Eleanor. "Very well, Miss Thompson, I give my promise."

And so it was arranged.

It was half-past four when they reached the little station, where guests for Ipping House left the train. Betty's heart beat with excitement and surprise as a splendid looking young fellow, tall and broad-shouldered, came forward to meet them.

"Bob!" "Mother!" "Dad!" came the quick, happy cries and then, after an awkward moment, the young American was presented to Betty.

"Bob, I want ye to know my new secretary, Miss Thompson," said Hiram, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Miss Thompson!"

"Mr. Baxter!"

Their eyes met and that first quick scrutiny brought an impression, a swift sensation that neither ever forgot.

After seeing the ladies comfortably disposed in the tonneau, Hiram climbed into the front seat beside his son and the car, after a preliminary fit of monstrous ague, leaped forward with a dragon-like snort and swiftly rounded the grass-bordered flower-bed where the ambitious station master had spelled the name of Ippingford in sprawling and almost illegible nasturtiums.

A blur of whitish gray varied with deep green and momentary splashes of every possible rose color was all Betty saw of the village street. For a fraction of a second her eyes caught and held the fantastic image of a cat on a swinging sign--A Blue Cat--with golden feet, or were they golden boots? Before her mind had pieced the picture together the little tavern was left far behind. Now they were gliding swiftly and silently, save for the murmur of the motor, through a shimmering twilight of moss-grown beeches and ivy-covered oaks, where high hawthorn hedges shadowed miniature jungles of interlacing leaves and ferns and nestling flowers. Like a blue-green tapestry it shut them in on either side. Only as the car slowed for an instant when rounding a corner could one make out a detail of harebell, foxglove, wild rose, or honeysuckle. It was Betty's first sight of a rambling English lane, and her mind flew back to the stolid French country roads lined with staid, orderly poplars.

"This is mad, quite mad, by comparison," she said to herself, "but exquisitely mad like Ophelia." Then aloud to Mrs. Baxter, as she leaned back: "How cozy they are, these English lanes!"

Now they were speeding down a narrow green alley, where the hawthorn hedges met overhead and the sound was as if they were going through a tunnel. Mrs. Baxter did not hear, but she nodded and smiled to save Betty from the necessity of shouting.

Betty sat directly behind Mr. Baxter at the other side of the car from Bob, and, though she could study him unobserved, she had, after the first shock of meeting, avoided looking at him. She had wanted to be alone--quite, quite alone. She wanted to think it all over, to reconstruct herself, as it were, to adjust herself to this new, this totally unexpected edition of her old playmate. So she had welcomed the distraction of this intoxicating beauty that swam past her in the golden midsummer haze.

If it did not leave her to herself, at least it took her away from this Bob, this disturbing giant, with his broad shoulders bent forward easily in the business of steering, and who now, at last, held her eyes and would not let them go. Not even the wild roses could drag her glance away, and they continued their mad backward race with the foxgloves and ferns and harebells and honeysuckle, all unobserved by Miss Betty Thompson.

And presently she found herself waiting for the moment when he would turn again to speak to his father, when she would once more see his profile. Something Hiram Baxter had just said caused Bob to laugh as he lifted his head, and Betty laughed aloud for sheer sympathy. A moment before Bob had been frowning and, with the heavy Baxter eyebrows and pugnacious jaw, unrelieved by the regularly modeled features of his handsome father, Bob's face in repose only just missed being plain, just missed it, Betty thought, by that miss that is as good as a mile. And now when he laughed every feature, every line of his honest face seemed to collaborate in the expression of irresistible mirth.

They were turning in at the park gate of Ipping House. For a moment the car came to a standstill, chuttering impatiently while a small, apple-faced child, a little girl with reddish hair and wondering eyes, who had watched their approach from the steps of the lodge, swung the iron gate slowly open.

As the car lunged forward again Betty gave a backward look along the shaded roadway. The figure of a young woman in a scarlet cloak, slim, dark, foreign looking, a gypsy, perhaps, was standing in the shadow at a turn of the road watching them intently. The next instant she had disappeared among the trees. It happened so quickly that, as the iron gate clanged behind them, the scarlet of the girl's cloak was all that Betty's mind retained of the instantaneous picture. It was a peculiar shade of scarlet. Where had she seen it before?