Further Chronicles of Avonlea Page 15

years, during which The Maples was given over to moths

  and rust, while I enjoyed life elsewhere. I did enjoy

  it hugely, but always under protest, for I felt that a

  broken-hearted man ought not to enjoy himself as I did.

  It jarred on my sense of fitness, and I tried to

  moderate my zest, and think more of the past than I

  did. It was no use; the present insisted on being

  intrusive and pleasant; as for the future . . . well,

  there was no future.

  Then Jack Churchill, poor fellow, died. A year after

  his death, I went home and again asked Sara to marry

  me, as in duty bound. Sara again declined, alleging

  that her heart was buried in Jack's grave, or words to

  that effect. I found that it did not much matter . . .

  of course, at thirty-two one does not take these things

  to heart as at twenty-two. I had enough to occupy me in

  getting The Maples into working order, and beginning to

  educate Betty.

  Betty was Sara's ten year-old daughter, and she had

  been thoroughly spoiled. That is to say, she had been

  allowed her own way in everything and, having inherited

  her father's outdoor tastes, had simply run wild. She

  was a thorough tomboy, a thin, scrawny little thing

  with a trace of Sara's beauty. Betty took after her

  father's dark, tall race and, on the occasion of my

  first introduction to her, seemed to be all legs and

  neck. There were points about her, though, which I

  considered promising. She had fine, almond-shaped,

  hazel eyes, the smallest and most shapely hands and

  feet I ever saw, and two enormous braids of thick, nut-

  brown hair.

  For Jack's sake I decided to bring his daughter up

  properly. Sara couldn't do it, and didn't try. I saw

  that, if somebody didn't take Betty in hand, wisely and

  firmly, she would certainly be ruined. There seemed to

  be nobody except myself at all interested in the

  matter, so I determined to see what an old bachelor

  could do as regards bringing up a girl in the way she

  should go. I might have been her father; as it was, her

  father had been my best friend. Who had a better right

  to watch over his daughter? I determined to be a father

  to Betty, and do all for her that the most devoted

  parent could do. It was, self-evidently, my duty.

  I told Sara I was going to take Betty in hand. Sara

  sighed one of the plaintive little sighs which I had

  once thought so charming, but now, to my surprise,

  found faintly irritating, and said that she would be

  very much obliged if I would.

  "I feel that I am not able to cope with the problem of

  Betty's education, Stephen," she admitted, "Betty is a

  strange child . . . all Churchill. Her poor father

  indulged her in everything, and she has a will of her

  own, I assure you. I have really no control over her,

  whatever. She does as she pleases, and is ruining her

  complexion by running and galloping out of doors the

  whole time. Not that she had much complexion to start

  with. The Churchills never had, you know." . . . Sara

  cast a complacent glance at her delicately tinted

  reflection in the mirror. . . . "I tried to make Betty

  wear a sunbonnet this summer, but I might as well have

  talked to the wind."

  A vision of Betty in a sunbonnet presented itself to my

  mind, and afforded me so much amusement that I was

  grateful to Sara for having furnished it. I rewarded

  her with a compliment.

  "It is to be regretted that Betty has not inherited her

  mother's charming color," I said, "but we must do the

  best we can for her under her limitations. She may have

  improved vastly by the time she has grown up. And, at

  least, we must make a lady of her; she is a most

  alarming tomboy at present, but there is good material

  to work upon . . . there must be, in the Churchill and

  Currie blend. But even the best material may be spoiled

  by unwise handling. I think I can promise you that I

  will not spoil it. I feel that Betty is my vocation;

  and I shall set myself up as a rival of Wordsworth's

  'nature,' of whose methods I have always had a decided

  distrust, in spite of his insidious verses."

  Sara did not understand me in the least; but, then, she

  did not pretend to.

  "I confide Betty's education entirely to you, Stephen,"

  she said, with another plaintive sigh. "I feel sure I

  could not put it into better hands. You have always

  been a person who could be thoroughly depended on."

  Well, that was something by way of reward for a life-

  long devotion. I felt that I was satisfied with my

  position as unofficial advisor-in-chief to Sara and

  self-appointed guardian of Betty. I also felt that, for

  the furtherance of the cause I had taken to heart, it

  was a good thing that Sara had again refused to marry

  me. I had a sixth sense which informed me that a staid

  old family friend might succeed with Betty where a

  stepfather would have signally failed. Betty's loyalty

  to her father's memory was passionate, and vehement;

  she would view his supplanter with resentment and

  distrust; but his old familiar comrade was a person to

  be taken to her heart.

  Fortunately for the success of my enterprise, Betty

  liked me. She told me this with the same engaging

  candor she would have used in informing me that she

  hated me, if she had happened to take a bias in that

  direction, saying frankly:

  "You are one of the very nicest old folks I know,

  Stephen. Yes, you are a ripping good fellow!"

  This made my task a comparatively easy one; I sometimes

  shudder to think what it might have been if Betty had

  not thought I was a "ripping good fellow." I should

  have stuck to it, because that is my way; but Betty

  would have made my life a misery to me. She had

  startling capacities for tormenting people when she

  chose to exert them; I certainly should not have liked

  to be numbered among Betty's foes.

  I rode over to Glenby the next morning after my

  paternal interview with Sara, intending to have a frank

  talk with Betty and lay the foundations of a good

  understanding on both sides. Betty was a sharp child,

  with a disconcerting knack of seeing straight through

  grindstones; she would certainly perceive and probably

  resent any underhanded management. I thought it best to

  tell her plainly that I was going to look after her.

  When, however, I encountered Betty, tearing madly down

  the beech avenue with a couple of dogs, her loosened

  hair streaming behind her like a banner of

  independence, and had lifted her, hatless and

  breathless, up before me on my mare, I found that Sara

  had saved me the trouble of an explanation.

  "Mother says you are going to take charge of my

  education, Stephen," said Betty, as soon a
s she could

  speak. "I'm glad, because I think that, for an old

  person, you have a good deal of sense. I suppose my

  education has to be seen to, some time or other, and

  I'd rather you'd do it than anybody else I know."

  "Thank you, Betty," I said gravely. "I hope I shall

  deserve your good opinion of my sense. I shall expect

  you to do as I tell you, and be guided by my advice in

  everything."

  "Yes, I will," said Betty, "because I'm sure you won't

  tell me to do anything I'd really hate to do. You won't

  shut me up in a room and make me sew, will you? Because

  I won't do it."

  I assured her I would not.

  "Nor send me to a boarding-school," pursued Betty.

  "Mother's always threatening to send me to one. I

  suppose she would have done it before this, only she

  knew I'd run away. You won't send me to a boarding-

  school, will you, Stephen? Because I won't go."

  "No," I said obligingly. "I won't. I should never dream

  of cooping a wild little thing, like you, up in a

  boarding-school. You'd fret your heart out like a caged

  skylark."

  "I know you and I are going to get along together

  splendidly, Stephen," said Betty, rubbing her brown

  cheek chummily against my shoulder. "You are so good at

  understanding. Very few people are. Even dad darling

  didn't understand. He let me do just as I wanted to,

  just because I wanted to, not because he really

  understood that I couldn't be tame and play with dolls.

  I hate dolls! Real live babies are jolly; but dogs and

  horses are ever so much nicer than dolls."

  "But you must have lessons, Betty. I shall select your

  teachers and superintend your studies, and I shall

  expect you to do me credit along that line, as well as

  along all others."

  "I'll try, honest and true, Stephen," declared Betty.

  And she kept her word.

  At first I looked upon Betty's education as a duty; in

  a very short time it had become a pleasure . . . the

  deepest and most abiding interest of my life. As I had

  premised, Betty was good material, and responded to my

  training with gratifying plasticity. Day by day, week

  by week, month by month, her character and temperament

  unfolded naturally under my watchful eye. It was like

  beholding the gradual development of some rare flower

  in one's garden. A little checking and pruning here, a

  careful training of shoot and tendril there, and, lo,

  the reward of grace and symmetry!

  Betty grew up as I would have wished Jack Churchill's

  girl to grow - spirited and proud, with the fine spirit

  and gracious pride of pure womanhood, loyal and loving,

  with the loyalty and love of a frank and unspoiled

  nature; true to her heart's core, hating falsehood and

  sham - as crystal-clear a mirror of maidenhood as ever

  man looked into and saw himself reflected back in such

  a halo as made him ashamed of not being more worthy of

  it. Betty was kind enough to say that I had taught her

  everything she knew. But what had she not taught me? If

  there were a debt between us, it was on my side.

  Sara was fairly well satisfied. It was not my fault

  that Betty was not better looking, she said. I had

  certainly done everything for her mind and character

  that could be done. Sara's manner implied that these

  unimportant details did not count for much, balanced

  against the lack of a pink-and-white skin and dimpled

  elbows; but she was generous enough not to blame me.

  "When Betty is twenty-five," I said patiently - I had

  grown used to speaking patiently to Sara - "she will be

  a magnificent woman - far handsomer than you ever were,

  Sara, in your pinkest and whitest prime. Where are your

  eyes, my dear lady, that you can't see the promise of

  loveliness in Betty?"

  "Betty is seventeen, and she is as lanky and brown as

  ever she was," sighed Sara. "When I was seventeen I was

  the belle of the county and had had five proposals. I

  don't believe the thought of a lover has ever entered

  Betty's head."

  "I hope not," I said shortly. Somehow, I did not like

  the suggestion. "Betty is a child yet. For pity's sake,

  Sara, don't go putting nonsensical ideas into her

  head."

  "I'm afraid I can't," mourned Sara, as if it were

  something to be regretted. "You have filled it too full

  of books and things like that. I've every confidence in

  your judgment, Stephen - and really you've done wonders

  with Betty. But don't you think you've made her rather

  too clever? Men don't like women who are too clever.

  Her poor father, now - he always said that a woman who

  liked books better than beaux was an unnatural

  creature."

  I didn't believe Jack had ever said anything so

  foolish. Sara imagined things. But I resented the

  aspersion of blue-stockingness cast on Betty.

  "When the time comes for Betty to be interested in

  beaux," I said severely, "she will probably give them

  all due attention. Just at present her head is a great

  deal better filled with books than with silly premature

  fancies and sentimentalities. I'm a critical old fellow

  - but I'm satisfied with Betty, Sara - perfectly

  satisfied."

  Sara sighed.

  "Oh, I dare say she is all right, Stephen. And I'm

  really grateful to you. I'm sure I could have done

  nothing at all with her. It's not your fault, of

  course, - but I can't help wishing she were a little

  more like other girls."

  I galloped away from Glenby in a rage. What a blessing

  Sara had not married me in my absurd youth! She would

  have driven me wild with her sighs and her obtuseness

  and her everlasting pink-and-whiteness. But there -

  there - there - gently! She was a sweet, good-hearted

  little woman; she had made Jack happy; and she had

  contrived, heaven only knew how, to bring a rare

  creature like Betty into the world. For that, much

  might be forgiven her. By the time I reached The Maples

  and had flung myself down in an old, kinky, comfortable

  chair in my library I had forgiven her and was even

  paying her the compliment of thinking seriously over

  what she had said.

  Was Betty really unlike other girls? That is to say,

  unlike them in any respect wherein she should resemble

  them? I did not wish this; although I was a crusty old

  bachelor I approved of girls, holding them the sweetest

  things the good God has made. I wanted Betty to have

  her full complement of girlhood in all its best and

  highest manifestation. Was there anything lacking?

  I observed Betty very closely during the next week or

  so, riding over to Glenby every day and riding back at

  night, meditating upon my observations. Eventually I

  concluded to do what I had never thought myself in the />
  least likely to do. I would send Betty to a boarding-

  school for a year. It was necessary that she should

  learn how to live with other girls.

  I went over to Glenby the next day and found Betty

  under the beeches on the lawn, just back from a canter.

  She was sitting on the dappled mare I had given her on

  her last birthday, and was laughing at the antics of

  her rejoicing dogs around her. I looked at her with

  much pleasure; it gladdened me to see how much, nay,

  how totally a child she still was, despite her

  Churchill height. Her hair, under her velvet cap, still

  hung over her shoulders in the same thick plaits; her

  face had the firm leanness of early youth, but its

  curves were very fine and delicate. The brown skin,

  that worried Sara so, was flushed through with dusky

  color from her gallop; her long, dark eyes were filled

  with the beautiful unconsciousness of childhood. More

  than all, the soul in her was still the soul of a

  child. I found myself wishing that it could always

  remain so. But I knew it could not; the woman must

  blossom out some day; it was my duty to see that the

  flower fulfilled the promise of the bud.

  When I told Betty that she must go away to a school for

  a year, she shrugged, frowned and consented. Betty had

  learned that she must consent to what I decreed, even

  when my decrees were opposed to her likings, as she had

  once fondly believed they never would be. But Betty had

  acquired confidence in me to the beautiful extent of

  acquiescing in everything I commanded.

  "I'll go, of course, since you wish it, Stephen," she

  said. "But why do you want me to go? You must have a

  reason - you always have a reason for anything you do.

  What is it?"

  "That is for you to find out, Betty," I said. "By the

  time you come back you will have discovered it, I

  think. If not, it will not have proved itself a good

  reason and shall be forgotten."

  When Betty went away I bade her good-by without

  burdening her with any useless words of advice.

  "Write to me every week, and remember that you are

  Betty Churchill," I said.

  Betty was standing on the steps above, among her dogs.

  She came down a step and put her arms about my neck.

  "I'll remember that you are my friend and that I must

  live up to you," she said. "Good-by, Stephen."

  She kissed me two or three times - good, hearty smacks!

  did I not say she was still a child? - and stood waving

  her hand to me as I rode away. I looked back at the end

  of the avenue and saw her standing there, short-skirted

  and hatless, fronting the lowering sun with those

  fearless eyes of hers. So I looked my last on the child

  Betty.

  That was a lonely year. My occupation was gone and I

  began to fear that I had outlived my usefulness. Life

  seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable. Betty's weekly

  letters were all that lent it any savor. They were

  spicy and piquant enough. Betty was discovered to have

  unsuspected talents in the epistolary line. At first

  she was dolefully homesick, and begged me to let her

  come home. When I refused - it was amazingly hard to

  refuse - she sulked through three letters, then cheered

  up and began to enjoy herself. But it was nearly the

  end of the year when she wrote:

  "I've found out why you sent me here, Stephen - and I'm

  glad you did."

  I had to be away from home on unavoidable business the

  day Betty returned to Glenby. But the next afternoon I

  went over. I found Betty out and Sara in. The latter

  was beaming. Betty was so much improved, she declared

  delightedly. I would hardly know "the dear child."

  This alarmed me terribly. What on earth had they done

  to Betty? I found that she had gone up to the pineland

  for a walk, and thither I betook myself speedily. When

  I saw her coming down a long, golden-brown alley I

  stepped behind a tree to watch her - I wished to see

  her, myself unseen. As she drew near I gazed at her

  with pride, and admiration and amazement - and, under

  it all, a strange, dreadful, heart-sinking, which I

  could not understand and which I had never in all my

  life experienced before - no, not even when Sara had

  refused me.