‘Very well, my dear, if you’ve made up your mind I must yield,’ replied Mrs. Winship, getting up and smoothing her hair. ‘I don’t dare wake Elsie, she has had such an exciting day; but I’ll call Polly to help you pack, and then tell Pancho to find Anne and harness the team. While he is doing that, I’ll get you a little lunch to take with you and write a note to your mother. Perhaps you can come again before we break camp, but I’m sorry to send you home in such a sad plight.’
Chapter VIII.
Polly’s Birthday: Second Half
IN WHICH SHE WISHES SEE HAD NEVER BEEN BORN.
‘From Hebrew wit the maxim sprung,
Though feet should slip, ne’er let the tongue.
Polly came at once to the tent, where she found Laura getting her belongings together.
‘Why, Laura, it seems too bad you should go off so suddenly. What can I do to help you?’
The very spirit of evil entered Laura’s heart as she looked at Polly, so fresh and pretty and radiant, with her dimples dancing in and out, her hair ruffled with the effort of literary composition, and the glow of the day’s happiness still shining in her eyes. She felt as if Polly was ‘glad inside’ that she was poisoned; she felt sure she was internally jumping for joy at her departure; and, above all, she felt that Polly was entirely too conceited over the attention she had received that day, and needed to be ‘taken down a peg or two.’
‘Red-haired, stuck-up, saucy thing,’ she thought, ‘how I should like to give her a piece of my mind before I leave this place, if I only dared!’
‘I don’t need any help, thank you,’ she said aloud, in her iciest manner.
‘But it will only make your head ache to bend over and tug away at that valise, and I’ll be only too glad to do it.’
‘I’ve no doubt of that,’ responded Laura, meaningly. ‘It is useless for you to make any show of regret over my going, for I know perfectly well that you are glad to get me out of the way.’
‘Why, Laura, what do you mean?’ exclaimed Polly, completely dazed at this bombshell of candour.
‘I mean what I say; and I should have said it before if I could ever have found a chance. Because I didn’t mention it at the time, you needn’t suppose I’ve forgotten your getting me into trouble with Mrs. Winship, the day before the Howards came.’
‘That was not my fault,’ said Polly, hotly. ‘I didn’t speak any louder than the other girls, and I didn’t know Aunt Truth objected to Mrs. Pinkerton, and I didn’t know she was anywhere near.’
‘You roared like the bull of Bashan—that’s what you did. Perhaps you can’t help your voice, but anybody in the cañon could have heard you; and Mrs. Winship hasn’t been the same to me since, and the boys don’t take the slightest notice of me lately.’
‘You are entirely mistaken, Laura. Dr. and Mrs. Winship are just as lovely and cordial to you as they are to everybody else, and the boys do not feel well enough acquainted with you to “frolic” with you as they do with us.’
‘It isn’t so, but you are not sensitive enough to see it; and I should never have been poisoned if it hadn’t been for you!’
‘Oh, go on, do!’ said Polly, beginning to lose her self-control, which was never very great. ‘I didn’t know I was a Lucrezia Borgia in disguise. How did I poison you, pray?’
‘I didn’t say you poisoned me; but you made me so uncomfortable that day, bringing down Mrs. Winship’s lecture on my head and getting my best friend abused, that I was glad to get away from the camp, and went out with Jack for that reason when I was too tired and warm; and you are always trying to cut me out with Bell and the boys.’
‘That’s a perfectly—jet black—fib!’ cried Polly, who was now thoroughly angry; ‘and I don’t think it is very polite of you to attack the whole party, and say they haven’t been nice to you, when they’ve done everything in the world!’
‘It isn’t your party any more than mine, is it? And if I don’t know how to be polite, I certainly shan’t ask you for instruction; for I must know as much about the manners of good society as you do, inasmuch as I have certainly seen more of it!’
Polly sank into a camp-chair, too stunned for a moment to reply, while Laura, who had gone quite beyond the point where she knew or cared what she said, went on with a rush of words: ‘I mean to tell you, now that I am started, that anybody who isn’t blind can see why you toady to the Winships, who have money and social position, and why you are so anxious to keep everybody else from getting into their good graces; but they are so partial to you that they have given you an entirely false idea of yourself; and you might as well know that unless you keep yourself a little more in the background, and grow a little less bold and affected and independent, other people will not be quite as ready as the Winships to make a pet of a girl whose mother keeps a boarding-house.’
Poor Laura! It was no sooner said than she regretted it—a little, not much. But poor Polly! Where was her good angel then? Why could she not have treated this thrust with the silence and contempt it deserved? But how could Laura have detected and probed the most sensitive spot in the girl’s nature? She lost all command of herself. Her rage absolutely frightened her, for it made her deaf and blind to all considerations of propriety and self-respect, and for a moment she was only conscious of the wild desire to strike—yes, even to kill—the person who had so insulted all that was dearest to her.
‘Don’t dare to say another word!’ she panted, with such flaming cheeks and such flashing eyes that Laura involuntarily retreated towards the door, half afraid of the tempest her words had evoked. ‘Don’t dare to say another word, or I don’t know what I may do! Yes, I am glad you are going, and everybody will be glad, and the sooner you go the better! You’ve made everybody miserable ever since you came, with your jealousy and your gossip and your fine-lady airs; and if Aunt Truth hadn’t loved your mother, and if we were mean enough to tell tales, we would have repeated some of your disagreeable speeches long ago. How can you dare to say I love the Winships for anything but themselves? And if you had ever seen my darling mother, you never could have called her a boarding-house keeper, you cruel—’
Oh, but the dashing torrent of angry words stopped at the mere mention of her mother. The word recalled her to herself, but too late. It woke in her memory the clasp of her mother’s arms, the sound of the sweet, tired voice: ‘Only two of us against the big world, Polly—you and I. Be brave, little daughter, brave and patient.’ Oh, how impatient and cowardly she had been! Would she never learn to be good? The better impulses rushed back into her heart, and crowded out the bad ones so quickly that in another moment she would have flung herself at Laura’s feet, and implored her forgiveness merely to gain again her own self-respect and her mother’s approval; but there was no time for repentance (there isn’t sometimes), for the clatter of wheels announced Pancho’s approach with the team, and Mrs. Winship and Anne Burton came into view, walking rapidly towards the tent.
Laura was a good deal disconcerted at their ill-timed appearance, but reflected rapidly that if Mrs. Winship had overheard anything, it was probably Polly’s last speech, in which case that young
