Georgina of the Rainbows

by Annie F. Johnston

Georgina sat at the table, not knowing what to do next. She felt that she had muddled things dreadfully. Instead of making Belle feel better as she hoped to do, she realized she had hurt her in some unintentional way. Presently, she slowly drew herself up from her chair and began to clear the table, piling the few dishes they had used, under the dish-pan in the sink. The house stood open to the summer breeze. It seemed so desolate and deserted with Belle upstairs, drawn in alone with her troubles and Tippy away, that she couldn’t bear to stay in the silent rooms. She wandered out into the yard and climbed up into the willow to look across the water.

Somewhere out there on those shining waves, Richard was sailing along, in the party given for Mr. Locke, and to-morrow he would be going away on the yacht. If he were at home she wouldn’t be up in the willow wondering what to do next. Well, as long as she couldn’t have a good time herself she’d think of someone else she could make happy. For several minutes she sent her thoughts wandering over the list of all the people she knew, but it seemed as if her friends were capable of making their own good times, all except poor Belle. Probably _she_ never would be happy again, no matter what anybody did to try to brighten her life. It was so discouraging when one was trying to play the game of “Rainbow Tag,” for there to be no one to tag. She wished she knew some needy person, some unfortunate soul who would be glad of her efforts to make them happy.

Once she thought of slipping off down street to the library. Miss Tupman always let her go in where the shelves were and choose her own book. Miss Tupman was always so interesting, too, more than any of the books when she had time to talk. But that grim old word Duty rose up in front of her, telling her that she ought not to run away and leave the house all open with Belle locked in her room upstairs. Somebody ought to be within hearing if the telephone rang or anyone came. She went into the house for a book which she had read many times but which never failed to interest her, and curled up in a big rocking chair on the front porch.

Late in the afternoon she smelled burning pine chips and smoke from the kitchen chimney which told that a fire was being started in the stove. After a while she went around the house to the kitchen door and peeped in, apprehensively. Belle was piling the dinner dishes into the pan, preparatory to washing them while supper was cooking. Her eyes were red and she did not look up when Georgina came in, but there was an air of silent determination about her as forcible as her Aunt Maria’s. Picking up the tea-kettle, she filled the dishpan and carried the kettle back to the stove, setting it down hard before she spoke. Then she said:

“Nobody’ll ever know what I’ve been through with, fighting this thing out with myself. I can’t go all the way yet. I can’t say the word that’ll let the blow fall on poor old Father Potter. But I don’t seem to care about my part of it any more. I see things differently from what I did that first day--you know. Even Emmett don’t seem the same any more.”

For several minutes there was a rattling of dishes, but no further speech from Belle. Georgina, not knowing what to say or do, stood poised uncertainly on the door-sill. Then Belle spoke again.

“I’m willing it should be told if only it could be kept from getting back to Father Potter, for the way Dan’s done _does_ make me want to set him square with the world. I would like to make up to him in some way for all he’s suffered on my account. I can’t get over it that it was _him_ that had all the bravery and the nobleness that I was fairly worshiping in Emmett all these years. Seems like the whole world has turned upside down.”

Georgina waited a long time, but Belle seemed to have said all that she intended to say, so presently she walked over and stood beside the sink.

“Belle,” she said slowly, “does what you said mean that you’re really willing I should tell Barby? Right away?”

Belle waited an instant before replying, then taking a deep breath as if about to make a desperate plunge into a chasm on whose brink she had long been poised, said: