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The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; or a Wreck and a Rescue, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 20. Missing |
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_ CHAPTER XX. MISSING Mollie took the paper from Betty's unresisting hand, smoothed it out, traced her finger down the column and finally came to the name she sought. "Sergeant Allen Washburn," she read in a small, awed voice, while the other girls crowded close to look over her shoulder. "Dead?" queried Grace breathlessly. "No," Mollie shook her head. "He's among the missing." "That means," said Betty, lifting a face so still and white that it startled the girls, "that he is either dead or worse than dead. I would a thousand times rather he were dead than have him taken prisoner by the Germans." "But we don't know that he has been captured--" "That's what missing almost always means," insisted Betty, still in that strange, lifeless voice. "That," she added, as though speaking to herself, "was the column I always read first, because I was most afraid of it. I think," she got up unsteadily, and Mollie ran around to her, "that if you don't mind, I'll go upstairs a little while." She started for the door while the girls watched her dumbly, not knowing what to do or say. Then suddenly Grace ran after her. "Betty, darling!" she cried, her own grief forgotten in her pity for her chum, "let me come too, won't you? I don't suppose I'd be any good to you just now, but I'd do my best." "Let us all come, won't you, Dear?" begged Mollie, while Amy's eyes silently pleaded. But Betty only shook her head, smiling a pitiful little white smile, at them. "Not just now--please," she said. "After a while I'll--I'll call you." They watched her run upstairs and heard her door close quietly, oh, so quietly, behind her. Left behind, the girls looked at one another with wide frightened eyes. "Girls, she worries me," said Mollie, speaking in a whisper, almost as if there were death in the house. "She is so quiet and still. And when one knows Betty--" "If she could only cry a little," said Grace, speaking in the same tone. "It makes things so much worse when you keep them bottled up that way." "Betty's so proud and so brave," said Amy gently, as she sank into a chair and looked up, wide-eyed, at the other two. "Only this afternoon she let us see how terribly she cared." "And no wonder," said Grace, for there was real grief in her heart. "There never was a finer fellow than Allen. He made us all love him." "But there we go again, speaking as if he were dead," protested Mollie. "There is always hope, since his name is only among the missing." "Yes, of course; but it is generally as Betty said," returned Grace. "Nine-tenths of the men reported missing are either dead or have fallen into the hands of the Germans." Mollie shuddered. "Poor little Betty," she said. "The very thought of it is enough to drive her crazy." "If she would only let us comfort her," sighed Amy. "I--I really think that if she doesn't call us in a few minutes, we'd better go up anyway," said Grace nervously. "She looked so terribly queer and unlike herself that I'm worried to death. Hark! Did you hear something?" The girls listened, but all they could hear was the sighing of the wind about the house. Then, far off in the distance, came a soft rumble of thunder. "Oh, I hope it doesn't storm," cried Amy, shivering. "That would be about the last straw." And upstairs, in the room that Betty shared with Grace, grief and fear and horror stalked about unfettered and gazed upon the little figure on the bed. So still and white and rigid it was that the girls would have been still more frightened could they have seen it. For, propped on her elbows, with grim, set face supported by her clenched fists, Betty was gazing unseeingly out at the darkness beyond the square of window pane. "Somewhere he's out there," she kept saying over and over to herself. "If he's dead, there's the mud and grime--" she shuddered "--and blood too--rivers of it. But if he's captured--Oh, I can't think--I mustn't think--" And then she would begin all over again-- "Allen is lying out there--" over and over again, till her brain whirled and her head ached and she felt faint and sick. Still she could not cry. Her heart was frozen--that was it. And how could one cry when one's heart was frozen? Oh, Allen! Allen! How could she go on living without him? If she could only cry--if she could only cry! What was that? Thunder. The artillery of heaven! Did they have war in heaven, she wondered. With a queer little laugh she got up and walked to the window. A flash of lightning greeted her, illumining the world outside, flashing into bold relief the familiar objects of the little room. She knelt down by the window, regardless of danger, and lifted her face to the rising wind. She welcomed the storm. It seemed, in some mysterious way, to quiet the tumult within her. She stretched out her arms to it and cried aloud her misery. "Allen, my Allen, you will come back to me, won't you, dear? You promised. Oh, Allen, if you're alive are you thinking of me now? Are you thinking of Betty?" A sharper clap of thunder seemed to answer her, and then quite suddenly the ice melted from about her heart. Her head went down upon her arms and great sobs shook her from head to foot. It was so the girls found her a few minutes later, and with cries of pity lifted her to her feet and half-led, half-carried her back to the bed. "We didn't know whether to come up or not," Mollie said hesitatingly. "But we thought maybe you would need us, Dear. If you would rather be alone--" But Betty shook her head and reached out an unsteady little hand which Mollie instantly took in her warm clasp. "No, I want you to stay," she said, trying desperately to choke back her sobs. "If some one will--just please--give me a--h-handkerchief." Amy slipped one into her hand, and Betty dabbed fiercely at the tears which still would come. "Don't try not to cry, Honey," whispered Mollie, putting an understanding arm about the Little Captain's shoulders and holding her close. "Tears are just the very best things in the world to help one through a crisis." "Yes," added Grace, gently smoothing the hair back from Betty's hot forehead, while Amy sprinkled some toilet water on a fresh handkerchief and slipped it unobtrusively into Betty's other hand, "we'll just sit here and wait till you're all through." "Then we're going to take you down and give you some hot tea and toast and love you a little," finished Amy. All of which loving sympathy very nearly caused a fresh outburst on Betty's part. However, she finally got the better of the storm within her and even managed a little smile for the benefit of the girls. Then she wiped away the last tear, sighed, and walked over to the window. "The storm didn't amount to much after all," she said, after a while, very quietly. "Perhaps," and her voice was very wistful, "it's a good omen. We'll all hope so, anyway." "Betty, Betty, you're so wonderful," cried Mollie adoringly. "I never saw any one so brave. You make me ashamed of myself." "Oh, but I'm not brave," denied Betty, turning back to them. "I'm not the least little bit brave. I--I went all to pieces a few minutes ago. But he isn't reported dead," she added, drawing herself up, while two defiant spots of color burned in her face. "And until he is, I'm going to hold on to the hope that he is coming back. Nobody can take that from me, anyway!" "Now, you're making me ashamed of myself," said Grace in a small voice, while the tears glistened in her eyes. "Here I've been imagining the very worst, while you-- Oh, Betty, forgive me, won't you, Dear?" Betty looked at her in real surprise. "I haven't anything to forgive," she said. _ |
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