The at the Seashore Part 4 (1/2)
”I don't believe she meant to insult us a bit,” said Dolly. ”I don't think she thought much about us. It's just that she has always been brought up to feel a certain way about things, and she couldn't change all at once. A whole lot of girls, while they believed just what she did, and hated the whole idea just as much, would never have dared to say so, when they knew no one agreed with them.”
”Yes, it's just as Miss Eleanor said,” said Bessie. ”She's not a hypocrite, no matter what her other faults are. She's not afraid to say just what she thinks--and that's pretty fine, after all.”
”I wish she could hear you,” said Marcia, indignantly. ”Oh, it's splendid of you, but I can't feel that way, and there's no use pretending. I suppose the real reason I'm so angry is that I'm really very fond of Gladys, and I hate to see her acting this way. She's making a perfect fool of herself, I think.”
”But just think of how splendid it will be when she sees she is wrong, Marcia,” said Bessie. ”Because you want to remember if she's plucky enough to hold out against all her friends this way she will be plucky enough to own up when she sees the truth, too.”
”Yes, and she'll be a convert worth making, too,” said Dolly. ”There's just one thing I'm thinking of, Marcia. Will she stay here? Don't you suppose she'll go home right away? I know I would. I wouldn't want to stay around this beach after what happened at the Council Fire to-night.”
They never heard Marcia's answer to that question, for in the darkness, Gladys herself, shaking with anger, rose and confronted them.
”You bet I'm going to stay!” she declared, furiously. ”And I'll get even with you, Dolly Ransom, and your nasty old Miss Mercer, and the whole crew of you! Maybe you've been able to set all my friends against me--I'm glad of it!”
”No one is set against you, Gladys,” said Marcia, gently.
”Maybe you don't call it that, Marcia Bates, but I've got my own opinion of a lot of girls who call themselves my friends and side against me the way you've done!”
”Why, Gladys, I haven't done a thing--”
”That's just it, you sneak! Why, do you suppose I'd have let them treat you as I was treated to-night? If it had happened to you, and I'd joined before, I'd have got up and thrown their nasty old ring back at them! I don't want their old ring! I've got much prettier ones of my own--gold, and set with sapphires and diamonds!”
”I'm very glad you're going to stay, Gladys!” said Dolly. ”I'm sorry I've been cross when I spoke to you lately two or three times, and I hope you'll forgive me. And I think you'll see soon that we're not at all what you think we are in the Camp Fire.”
”Oh, you needn't talk that way to me, Dolly Ransom! You can pretend all you like to be a saint, but I've known you too long to swallow all that! You've done just as many mean things as anyone else! And now you stand around and act as if you were ashamed to know me. Just you wait! I'll get even with you, and all the rest of your new friends, if it's the last thing I ever do!”
Bessie's hand reached out for Dolly's. She knew her chum well enough to understand that if Dolly controlled her temper now it would only be by the exercise of the grimmest determination. Sure enough, Dolly's hand was trembling, and Bessie could almost feel the hot anger that was swelling up in her. But Dolly mastered herself n.o.bly.
”You can't make me angry now, Gladys,” said Dolly, finally. ”You're perfectly right; I've done things that are meaner than anything you did at Lake Dean. And I'm just as sorry for them now as you will be when you understand better.”
”Well, you needn't preach to me!” said Gladys, fiercely. ”And you can give up expecting me to run away. I'm not a coward, whatever else I may be! And I'd never be able to hold up my head if I thought a lot of common girls had frightened me into running away from this place. I'm going to stay here, and I'm going to have a good time, and you'd better look out for yourselves--that's all I can say! Maybe I know more about you than you think.”
And then she turned on her heel and left them.
”Whew!” said Marcia. ”I don't see how you kept your temper, Dolly. If she'd said half as much to me as she did to you, I never could have stood it, I can tell you! Whatever did she mean by what she said just then about knowing more than we thought?”
”I don't know,” said Dolly, rather anxiously. ”But look here, Marcia, I might as well tell you now. There's likely to be a good deal of excitement here.”
”Yes,” said Bessie, rather bitterly. ”And it's all my fault--mine and Zara's, that is.”
”I don't see what you can mean,” said Marcia, mystified.
”Well, it's quite a long story, but I really think you'd better know all about it, Marcia,” said Dolly.
And so, with occasional help from Bessie herself, when Dolly forgot something, or when Bessie's ideas disagreed with hers, Dolly poured the story of the adventures of Bessie and Zara since their flight from Hedgeville into Marcia's ears.
”Why, I never heard of such a thing!” Marcia exclaimed, when the story was told. ”So that fire last night wasn't an accident at all?”
”We're quite sure it wasn't, Marcia. And don't you think it looks as if we were right?”
”It certainly does, and I think it's dreadful, Dolly--just dreadful. Oh, Bessie, I am so sorry for you!”
She threw her arms about Bessie impulsively and kissed her, while Dolly, delighted, looked on.
”Doesn't it make you love her more than ever?” she said. ”And Bessie is so foolish about it sometimes. She seems to think that girls won't want to have anything to do with her, because she hasn't had a home and parents like the rest of us--or like most of us.”
”That is awfully silly, Bessie,” said Marcia. ”As if it was your fault! People are going to like you for what you are, and for the way you behave--not on account of things that you really haven't a thing to do with. Sensible people, I mean. Of course, if they're like Gladys--but then most people aren't, I think.”
”Of course they're not!” said Dolly, stoutly. ”And, besides, I'm just sure that Bessie is going to find out about her father and mother some day. I don't believe Mr. Holmes would be taking all the trouble he has about her unless there were something very surprising about her history that we don't know anything about. Do you, Marcia?”
”Of course not! He's got something up his sleeve. Probably she is heiress to a fortune, or something like that, and he wants to get hold of it. He's a very rich man, isn't he, Dolly?”
”Yes. You know he's the owner of a great big department store at home. And Bessie says that it can't be any question of money that makes him so anxious to get hold of her and of Zara, because he has so much already.”
”H'm! I guess people who have money like to make more, Dolly. I've heard my father talk about that. He says they're never content, and that's one reason why so many men work themselves to death, simply because they haven't got sense enough to stop and rest when they have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.”
”That's another thing I've told her. And she says that can't be the reason, but just the same she never suggests a better one to take its place.”
”Look here,” said Marcia, thoughtfully. ”If Mr. Holmes is spending so much money, doesn't it cost a whole lot to stop him from doing what he's trying to do, whatever that is? I'm just thinking--my father has ever so much, you know, and I know if I told him, he'd be glad to spend whatever was needed--”
Bessie flushed unhappily.
”Oh, that's one thing that is worrying me terribly!” she cried. ”I just know that Miss Eleanor and Mr. Jamieson must have spent a terrible lot on my affairs already, and I don't see how I'm ever going to pay them back! And if I ever mention it, Miss Eleanor gets almost angry, and says I mustn't talk about it at all, even think of it.”
”Why, of course you mustn't. It would be awful to think that those horrid people were able to get hold of you and make you unhappy just because they had money and you didn't, Bessie.”
And Dolly echoed her exclamation. Naturally enough, Marcia, whose parents were among the richest people in the state, thought little of money, and Dolly, who had always had plenty, even though her family was by no means as rich as Marcia's, felt the same way about the matter. Neither of them valued money particularly; but Bessie, because she had lived ever since she could remember in a family where the pinch of actual poverty was always felt, had a much truer appreciation of the value of money.
She did not want to possess money, but she had a good deal of native pride, and it worried her constantly to think that her good friends were spending money that she could see no prospect, however remote, of repaying.
”I wish there was some way to keep me from having to take all the money they spend on me,” she said, wistfully. ”As soon as we get back to the city, I'm going to find some work to do, so that I can support myself.”
She half expected Marcia to a.s.sail that idea, for it seemed to her that, nice as she was, she belonged, like Gladys Cooper, to the cla.s.s that looked down on work and workers. But to her surprise, Marcia gave a cry of admiration.
”It's splendid for you to feel that way, Bessie!” she said. ”But, just the same, I believe you'll have to wait until things are more settled. It would be so much easier for Mr. Holmes to get hold of you if you were working, you know.”
”She's going to come and stay with me just as long as she wants to,” said Dolly. ”And, anyhow, I really believe things are going to be settled for her. Perhaps I've heard something, too!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHALLENGE.
When Bessie and Dolly returned to their own camp they found Eleanor Mercer waiting for them, and as soon as she was alone with them, she did something that, for her, was very rare. She asked them about their talk with Marcia Bates.
”You know that as a rule I don't interfere,” she said. ”Unless there is something that makes it positively necessary for me to intrude myself, I leave you to yourselves.”
”Why, we would have told you all about it, anyhow, Miss Eleanor,” said Dolly, surprised.