CHAPTER VII
Next Morning
It must have been between nine and ten o’clock the next day when Bettina heard voices in the garden.
She was not fully awake; having slept but little during the night and only dozing fitfully since daybreak.
Except for the cold she had not suffered especial discomfort. During the early hours of the evening, accepting the inevitable result of her own action, Bettina had refused to allow herself to become frightened or miserable, as many girls would have done under the same circumstances. This was partly due to her own temperament, but perhaps more to her father’s influence and training. A poor boy, who had made his own way to a distinguished position, Senator Graham had long discussed with Bettina, with whom he was peculiarly intimate, the futility of wasting one’s energy against a set of unimportant circumstances which cannot be overcome.
So when darkness fell and the stars came out and Bettina found herself becoming lonely and unhappy, deliberately she had set about to overcome her mood. This could best be accomplished by thinking not of herself and the uneasiness she was causing Mrs. Burton and her Camp Fire friends, but by entertaining herself with an imaginary story. Having read so many stories recently the effort was not difficult.
So Bettina had pictured to herself a lady of the court of Queen Marie Antoinette, conceiving her as young, stately and reserved, with lovely fair hair, blue eyes and delicate features.
Indeed the heroine of Bettina’s self-told tale, as so often happens with the heroines of one’s imagination, bore a likeness to herself. But with the personal resemblance the analogy ceased.
In Bettina’s romance, Mademoiselle Elise Dupuy is the daughter of a poor French nobleman whose parents desire her marriage to a man of great wealth but far older than herself. Elise is one of the Maids of Honor at Queen Marie Antoinette’s court. Both the King and Queen are also anxious for her marriage, wishing to attach her fiancé to their service.
As the young French girl refuses the marriage she is banished from Court. Hoping she may reconsider her position Queen Marie Antoinette, who has an affection for her as well, has sent her to spend the winter months alone at the Little Trianon. She has a few servants to care for her, but no friends are allowed to see her and no letters are to be written her, save that now and then a letter from the Queen to ask if she has decided to submit her will to those in authority over her.
So strong was Bettina’s creative imagination and so frequent her habit of entertaining herself in secret with the stories that she hoped some day to write, that during the long hours of the night, her little French heroine became a real person to her.
She had a remarkably clear vision of Elise Dupuy walking alone in the Queen’s secret garden three centuries ago. Mam’selle Dupuy wore lovely flowered silk gowns and a flowing mantle and the picture hats which were the fashion of her day.
The point of Bettina Graham’s romance, wherein it differed from more conventional fiction, was that Elise Dupuy had no young lover who made her marriage distasteful.
Instead the young French girl desired to dedicate her life to the service of the women and children of France.
Recalling the past, one must remember that in the days of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the poor of France were starving. Among the nobility and wealthy classes there was no interest in their fate, until after the advent of the French revolution and the execution of the King and Queen.
Therefore, no one sympathized or believed in Elise Dupuy’s self imposed mission, which received no aid or support from her friends. In Bettina’s story, the young French girl, through the assistance of one of the servants at the Little Trianon, who is in accord with her, makes her escape from Versailles to Paris, and there begins her lifework among the poor.
The years pass on and Marie Antoinette is about to be beheaded. Her one friend now is Elise Dupuy, who is herself a working girl and beloved by the people and the leaders of the revolution.
Elise makes an effort to save the Queen but is unsuccessful.
One winter afternoon, returning to the secret garden near the Little Trianon, again she wanders about remembering and regretting her lost friend.
At first she is walking there alone, but later some one joins her, a young man who is her lover, a French workman, a printer by trade and a member of the Sans-Culotte.
At first he pleads vainly for Elise’s love, but in the end she agrees to their marriage, provided she is to be allowed to continue her work among the poor.
Afterwards as the young lovers walk about in the garden together, Bettina’s impressions became more confused.
Half a dozen times during the long night, while in the act of composing her story, Bettina had fallen asleep, only to awaken at intervals and go on with it. In her dreams the story had often grown strangely confused with her own personal experience.
Now, as a matter of fact, long after the coming of day, when first she heard human voices speaking close beside her in the garden, during the first few moments of waking, Bettina had still to struggle between the reality and her dream.
Several hours she had been half seated, half reclining on a small stone settee protected from the wind by evergreens. During the night she had often walked about at different periods of time in order to keep her blood in circulation.
Yet now, trying to rise and ask for aid and also to explain her presence in the garden, Bettina found herself scarcely able to move. She had not realized that she had grown so benumbed and cramped from her exposure to the winter night.
She made an effort to cry out, but found speech as difficult as movement. The voices which had sounded so nearby a short time before were growing less distinct. Unless she could attract some one’s attention immediately, she must remain an indefinite length of time, half frozen and half starved in the Queen’s garden. In all probability no one ever entered it save the gardeners who came in now and then to take care of it.
Bettina’s second effort to call for help was more successful.
The following instant she became aware of a puzzled silence. Then the voices addressed each other again, as if they were questioning their own ears.
A third time Bettina called, making another effort to move forward. Then she knew that some one must have heard her, because the footsteps which had been dying away a short time before were now approaching.
There was a figure in marble nearby, the figure of a Greek girl, and against this Bettina leaned for support, scarcely conscious of what she was doing.
The next moment two persons were standing within a few feet of her, both faces betraying an almost equal astonishment.
The one was an old Frenchman’s, evidently one of the park gardeners, since he had on his working clothes and the insignia of his occupation. His skin, which was weather beaten and wrinkled at all times, now seemed to crinkle into fresh lines through surprise and consternation.
“Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed, staring blankly and offering no further aid or suggestion.
His companion was a young man, whom, in spite of her exhausted condition, Bettina recognized at once as one of her own countrymen.
Instantly, whatever his secret astonishment, he came forward and without asking permission, slipped his arm through Bettina’s, having realized that she was hardly able to stand alone.
Yet he had seen an extraordinary picture he was not likely to forget. Against the background of an early winter morning landscape, her arm resting for support upon the arm of a piece of Greek statuary, was a young girl, almost as pale as the marble image.
Her eyes were a deep cornflower blue, her fair hair pushed up under her small fur hat, her lips and the tip of her nose blue with cold. Fortunately for her she wore a close-fitting long fur coat. Yet, in spite of her physical discomfort, she did not look especially disconcerted.
“I am afraid I am rather an unexpected apparition,” she began, speaking slowly and yet finding her voice growing stronger with each word. “Neither have I a very satisfactory explanation for my presence here in this garden, which I know tourists are not supposed to enter. But I was passing by yesterday and seeing an opening in the wall I came in here for a few moments. It is the old story with persons who are too curious. I was not able to find the gate afterwards and spent the night here alone. Will either of you be kind enough to show me the way out? I am afraid my friends have spent a very uncomfortable time because of my stupidity.”
Appreciating the kindness of his intention, nevertheless, Bettina drew her arm from her companion’s clasp, and turned to the French gardener.
She observed an expression in the old man’s face which made her glad of the unexpected presence of one of her own countrymen. The man’s look was undoubtedly troubled and suspicious, and a moment later Bettina was able to appreciate his discomfiture.
“You are looking tired; I am sorry to be compelled to doubt your story,” he responded, speaking in French and with a Frenchman’s innate courtesy.
Then he turned to the younger man.
“You understand my position, sir, I will not be doing my duty unless the young lady can prove that what she has just told me is true. Ever since the war began we have been forced to doubt every story. Now that the war is over until peace is actually declared, and afterwards maybe, France has got to be pretty careful to see that no harm comes to her again from her enemy. The old palace at Versailles is closed just at present, but the Germans are to sign the peace terms in the old Hall of Peace, and it wouldn’t look well if trouble should come to anybody here at Versailles. I have been a gardener in this park for something over a quarter of a century. The young lady must go with me to the proper authorities. They will understand what she has to say better than I can, though it is true she speaks the French language very well.”
Recognizing the justice of the old gardener’s point of view, in spite of her fatigue, Bettina nodded.
“Certainly, I will do whatever you think best. Only I am so very tired and cold and hungry, may I have something to eat and a chance to get warm before I try to talk to anybody?”
Then she turned to the young American.
“I wonder if you would be so good as to telephone my friends and tell them I am all right. I know they have been dreadfully worried about me and, although my story does sound rather improbable, I am sure I shall have no difficulty in proving it. If you will please call up Mrs. Richard Burton, 27 Rue de Varennes, I shall be deeply grateful. My name is Bettina Graham; my father is Senator Graham of Washington and I have been in France for some time helping with the reclamation work.”
“I say, Miss Graham, then I know your father slightly!” the young man exclaimed. “I have been living in Washington for several years, only for the past few weeks I have been in France as one of the unimportant members of the United States Peace Commission.
“My name is David Hale. Of course I will telephone your friends with pleasure, but I think you had best allow me to go along with you afterwards as perhaps I may be useful. I am boarding in Versailles at present because the hotels in Paris are so crowded and by a lucky chance I was allowed to pay a visit to the Queen’s secret garden this morning. I don’t have to go into Paris for several hours, not until the afternoon session of the Peace Commission.”
At this the old gardener, evidently relieved by the turn events had taken, started off, Bettina and her new acquaintance following.
A few feet further along, David Hale, added unexpectedly:
“See here, Miss Graham, you probably may not appreciate the fact, but I have seen you before. I was in Paris the day the armistice was signed, having been sent over to France on a special mission a little time before. On the morning of the great day an American woman, a friend of mine whose son had been killed fighting in France, asked me to place a bouquet on the statue of Alsace Lorraine in the Place de la Concorde. It is queer I should remember perhaps, but you were standing close beside the monument. I call this a piece of good luck.”
Bettina smiled, although not feeling in a particularly cheerful mood.
“I am sure the good luck is mine.”
CHAPTER VIII
A Home in Versailles
It was toward dusk.
In a large, low grate inside a French drawing-room a freshly lighted fire was burning. Curtains of heavy, dark red silk were closely drawn over the long windows.
Before the fire a young girl was seated in a chair beside a Madame Recamier couch upon which an older woman was lying.
They were both apparently dressed for a late dinner, the girl in a costume of dull blue crepe, her companion in what appeared to be a combination of tea gown and dinner dress. The gown was of pale grey silk and chiffon with a lining of rose. The sofa was piled with a number of grey and rose colored cushions.
The drawing-room was a fashionable one revealing wealth and taste in its furnishings and following the usual French design.
The walls were ivory in tone and embellished with garlands of cupids and flowers. The larger rug, which covered the entire floor, was of French tapestry, the furniture of the drawing-room had been copied from a set of the furniture of the great Napoleon, preserved in the Louvre Gallery in Paris.
On the white mantel there was a tall French clock and two beautiful Sevres vases and a small crystal bowl of flowers.
The woman and girl evidently had been talking for some time.
“Well, Bettina,” Mrs. Burton continued, “after all perhaps you are fairly fortunate to have gotten out of last night’s adventure as well as you have! You look a little more rested since your sleep and you insist you have not taken cold. Last night there was nothing which could occur in the most sensational novel, which I did not imagine had happened to you. Yet what did occur was more unexpected and more picturesque than any of my fears!”
Bettina smiled.
“A pity, wasn’t it, that such a romantic experience should have befallen me rather than one of the other Camp Fire girls! I am really such a prosaic person! All night I did my best to entertain myself by composing a long drawn out story for my own amusement, and yet all the time I knew that I was cold and hungry and dreadfully homesick for you. I really never shed a tear, although I should have liked to shed floods of them. But I am sorry you had to suffer such anxiety. Small wonder that Aunt Patricia received my return so ungraciously. I believe her first remark when we met in the hall, was, that either I was to sail for home at once, or you were, as she would not have you so harassed.
“I found it somewhat difficult under the circumstances to maintain my dignity before my rescuer, when Aunt Patricia began her lecture. If I had not showed signs of breaking down and demanded to be taken to you at once, goodness knows what might not have happened!
“I was sorry to leave Mr. Hale with Aunt Patricia when he had been so kind; I suppose he received the rest of the lecture which was intended for me. At present I am grateful to possess a distinguished father; not only did Mr. Hale know him, but when he explained to the French officials that I was Senator Graham’s daughter, they became much more lenient in their manner toward me. Perhaps though I am not yet through the unfortunate results of my curiosity. It would not surprise me if I were kept under surveillance for some time by the French authorities. They must be convinced I had no sinister motive in concealing myself in the secret garden. The old gardener helped me by explaining that he had accidentally left the little gate open and closed it before dusk without entering the garden again.”
Stretching out her hand Mrs. Burton now placed it on Bettina’s hair, lit with gold from the flame of the fire.
“Promise me, Bettina, and each one of you Camp Fire girls must make me the same promise, you are never to go out alone again while we are together in France. I was worried over Sally’s coming back without you, although I then supposed you to be with Peggy and Ralph. In fact I did not know you had not returned with them until hours later. Aunt Patricia insisted that the information be kept a secret from me and ordered me to lie down in my own room under the usual pretence of my health. But I think I was suspicious all evening. I always feel restless when anything is going wrong with one of you Camp Fire girls, and hearing the talking and confusion in the house later in the night I demanded to be told the difficulty. You must forgive Aunt Patricia’s reception of you, however, Bettina as she was wretched about you. You know she is devoted to your mother and we both had visions of having to cable to your father and mother that their beloved daughter had vanished, been swallowed up in this foreign land.
“But don’t worry over Aunt Patricia’s treatment of your new acquaintance, Mr. Hale. She is as grateful to him as you and I, rather more so, since she has asked him to dine with us tonight when I should have preferred to have you girls alone.”
At this moment Mrs. Burton leaned back upon the cushions of her couch, while Bettina gazed into the fire without replying. She was more unhappy over the events of the past night than she wished to confess.
Undoubtedly her mother would be seriously annoyed when the story of her escapade reached her. Before the present occasion Bettina had offended her mother’s ideas of conventional propriety, and she had really so little excuse for last night’s proceeding. Was there a possibility that the French authorities at Versailles might report the matter and that her father might be asked to substantiate her story?
Without realizing what she was doing, Bettina sighed.
“Don’t worry, Bettina,” Mrs. Burton answered, divining her train of thought. “I will write your mother immediately and explain the situation. It was my fault to have allowed you girls to go into the Park too independently. Your mother is always convinced of my innate unconventionality and that I need some one to look after me as much as you do.
“Besides, don’t let us take a simple circumstance too seriously. I much prefer there be as little discussion as possible of your recent adventure. I mean to speak of this to Mr. Hale when he dines with us tonight and I am sure he will agree with me. We do not wish any gossip in the village, or any chance for the newspapers to get hold of the story.
“I am rather amused over Aunt Patricia. It is my idea that we are to have rather a superior dinner tonight in order to impress this Mr. David Hale, who by the way has an extremely nice name and agreeable manners. Aunt Patricia may protest that our present elegance is a reward to you Camp Fire girls for the simplicity and hard work at our farmhouse on the Aisne, and also to restore me more speedily to health. But I don’t think she is above enjoying our temporary grandeur herself and of showing off just the least little bit to other people. I have also observed that violent as her attacks are upon men in a general fashion, she is always apt to take their side in a personal situation. I never have the least hope of her assuming I am ever right in any argument I may have with my husband. Now she and Captain Burton are determined to send me back to the United States as soon as our stay at Versailles is ended, while I want very much to spend the summer in England before we return home.”
As Mrs. Burton had intended it should be, Bettina’s attention was diverted from her own difficulty.
“Don’t try to explain Aunt Patricia to any one of her present family at this late date,” she replied, smiling reminiscently. “I think your group of Camp Fire girls has come to understand her fairly well by this time. At least we feel we owe your life to the splendid fight she made for your life after you were wounded by the German shell. When both the surgeon from Paris and Captain Burton had no further hope, she would fight on.
“Then think of all she has done for us since our arrival in glorious France, first at our farmhouse on the Aisne and now as guests in this charming French house! Why, we are actually wearing the clothes she has insisted upon having made for us, not only that we may be dressed in a proper holiday fashion to celebrate the approach of peace, but that she may keep her little French dressmaker Marguerite Arnot, her latest protégé, constantly employed. What an artist Marguerite is! If I could persuade her to return to Washington with me, mother would forgive me every fault.
“I suppose you also know that she rented this house in Versailles not alone for our pleasure and because it is such a charming home, but because she heard that Madame Forêt, whom we met at our pension in Paris, had no other income left since the war save the income from this house. She has two little girls to support; both her sons were killed in the war!”
Mrs. Burton nodded.
“Yes, Aunt Patricia’s kindness leaves one nearly defenceless. It is dreadfully difficult sometimes to be forced to disagree with her.”
She was silent a moment and then added:
“Sometimes, do you know, Bettina, I feel it is selfish even to rejoice over the approach of peace! There is still so much sorrow and suffering in the world! Only this morning I received a letter from my sister, Mrs. Webster, saying that her son, Dan Webster, is still a prisoner in Germany. I am glad not to have heard of his imprisonment until the war was over; I suppose now he will be released very soon. Moreover, Yvonne continues to worry over not receiving a letter from her brother, Lieutenant Fleury, although she knows he is only doing border duty with the Army of Occupation. I presume she fears he has not completely recovered from the injury through which Sally Ashton nursed him in such a surprising fashion.”
A moment Bettina gazed at the older woman, hesitating to ask a question. Then she said slowly and with some embarrassment:
“I know it is one of our Camp Fire rules not to gossip about one another. But do you mind telling me, Tante, what do you think has caused the change in Sally Ashton? She is so unlike the Sally we formerly knew! Yet she declares there is nothing the matter and is angry if one suggests she is ill. The doctor Sally saw in Paris said she had suffered a nervous breakdown. Perhaps it is absurdly sentimental of me, but I have wondered if she could have fallen in love with Lieutenant Fleury after her care of him?”
Sitting up a second time and resting her chin upon her hands, with the palms folded together in a characteristic attitude, Mrs. Burton answered:
“No, we must not gossip, Bettina dear. Yet I must say I am as much in the dark as you can be over Sally. So far she has not taken me into her confidence. If anything has made her unhappy in the past, or is troubling her now, Aunt Patricia alone may have some idea of the cause. I saw the transformation in Sally on the very day we met along the roadside during our retreat with the French refugees toward Paris. At that time I did not like to ask Sally what had affected her so seriously and I have never asked her since then.
“It is my own impression that something unfortunate must have occurred in the few days which Sally spent with Vera Lagerloff and Aunt Patricia at the farmhouse, after the rest of us started on in advance to the Château Yvonne. Sometimes I wonder if any of you girls will go back to your own country in the least like you were when we came to France to organize the first French Camp Fire? I suppose not, you have seen too much of courage and suffering among the French people. But I hope you will spare me any other engagement than Peggy’s and Ralph’s. I do wish you children were not growing up and away from our Camp Fire life together. You make me feel so dreadfully old these days!”
“But geniuses never grow old, do they?” Bettina asked, and then as Mrs. Burton smiled at her tactful rejoinder, Bettina added: “Don’t worry over me. But there is something I wish to suggest. Suppose we have a Camp Fire meeting as soon as there is an opportunity and discuss what work we should undertake in the next few months, while we await the coming of peace! Now the war has ended we must begin to make other plans. I was thinking of this last night as well as of my French romance in the long hours I was alone.”
Just as the Camp Fire guardian was about to reply, suddenly the drawing-room door opened and two persons entered the room. They were Miss Patricia Lord and Sally Ashton.
Immediately Miss Patricia switched on the electric lights so that the room, which had been in semi-darkness the instant before, at once became illuminated.
“What in the world are you and Bettina doing here in the dark, Polly? I never can endure darkness. I presume you are exchanging confidences and rejoicing over Bettina’s last night’s adventure, since you both are more romantic than sensible. Personally I am very much ashamed of such an escapade, and as a Camp Fire guardian you should be equally so. However, I do wish you and Bettina would both go to your rooms and dress for dinner. I hope to induce Mr. Hale to realize we are not the character of people he must suppose us to be. The young man tells me he is associated with the work of the Peace Conference. I presume he has heard that you are an actress, Polly Burton, and so naturally expects to find us all Bohemians.”
Always sensitive to any criticism of her career, Mrs. Burton flushed, but answered good naturedly:
“Very well, Aunt Patricia, I shall try to be as conventional tonight as possible, to persuade Bettina’s rescuer that we do not ordinarily permit our Camp Fire girls to spend their nights alone in secret gardens. But so far as dressing is concerned, why Bettina and I are both under the impression we are already dressed. We had our tea together in my room, where we were both lying down, and dressed afterwards.”
Miss Patricia Lord, who was wearing a dingy black costume which she had purchased at a reduced price some months before at the Bon Marché and had worn almost constantly since, now eyed Mrs. Burton’s grey and rose colored gown with extreme disfavor.
“You were not intending to appear at dinner in your dressing gown, were you, Polly Burton? Is that your idea of making a suitable impression upon our guest? I had a gown sent to you today from a shop in Paris. It is now on your bed ready for you to put on. If you do not happen to like it, it does not matter as I admire it very much. It will make you look older than the absurd clothes you ordinarily wear and is also more appropriate for a Camp Fire guardian. Sally Ashton will go to your room with you and help you to dress. Not that you should require assistance, or that your maid Marie is ever occupied with useful work, but because Sally has something she wishes to say to you alone.”
Miss Patricia’s manner then became slightly more gracious.
“You are looking fairly well, Bettina. Marguerite seems to have a gift for understanding the style of costume each one of you Camp Fire girls should affect. You need not change your dress unless you like. Dinner is to be served at eight.”