“Come,” said Miss Zillah with the voice of authority, “don’t be talking nonsense. We will get to our beds.”
So they slipped in softly behind the great chimney and the pretty screens to their own quaint makeshift of bedroom, leaving Mary Cecily on a cot near her brother. The windows and doors all stood open to the night, and the girls could hear the soft rustlings of the wood and the tinkle of the brook. The whippoorwills were very distant and their insistent cry sounded sweet and mournful, though it could be hectoring enough when it was near at hand. But nothing was hectoring this night, except that foolish, wistful longing in Azalea’s restless young heart, because Keefe and Mary Cecily were so happy in themselves, and because it was taken for granted that she, Azalea, was always to be so brave and so eager for service, and was to be a missionary to the mountain folk and was never to have any joy of her own—no real, selfish, glorious joy! Yet only the other day she had told Carin how clearly the finger of fate pointed to her as one set apart to “do good.” She would never marry, she had said—never, never—because she could not marry a “gentleman” and because she would marry no one who could not lay claim to that name. And they had taken her at her word—or at least, they had almost done so. She was to be Azalea McBirney, the adopted daughter of the mountain folk, the little sister to all the unfortunates, and was to live apart and be good!
Azalea lay quite on the edge of her bed, very straight and rigid, and looked up at the stars through her open window. They were cold, unsympathetic looking stars! Azalea had not previously noticed how very haughty and remote they could appear, or how indifferent they could be to the woes and doubts, the frets and flurries of one self-centered young person called Azalea McBirney—one reneging, horrid young person, who was secretly going back on all her declarations of faith and service, and wanting nothing in the world so much as merely to be happy!
Life, decided Azalea, was a puzzle. Once it had seemed simple. Some things had plainly been right to do; others, as plainly wrong. In those days she had believed she had only, at any time, to listen to her conscience to find out precisely what she ought to do, and therefore what she wanted to do. Because, of course, she wanted to do what was right.
Now she was finding out that there were all sorts of matters which were neither right nor wrong, about which she had to decide. At present she was tormented with a longing to share in the joy and in the lives of Keefe and Mary Cecily. Something in them called to her. Their quick gayety, their sudden sadnesses, their caring about pictures and poetry more than they did about food or work, or sleep, or any usual, dutiful thing, made them seem the very kin of her soul. She couldn’t account for it. It was merely a fact. She began to understand that there might have been something of the sort in her own poor little mother. When she took to wandering the roads with a cheap “show” perhaps it was not merely necessity, but some half-formed dream of wildness and gayety and art that had led her on. She too had loved the night and laughter and dancing, singing and pictures. Not anything evil—Oh, no, on the contrary, only happily, brightly good things, things that lightened the heart and set the brain moving so that glittering little thoughts shone in it like stars in the night.
The Carsons, gentle and kind, formal and polite, were Azalea’s tried and trusted friends; the McBirneys, generous and loving, lived in the inner chamber of her heart; Annie Laurie was a gallant girl and her own true friend; but the soft gay laughter of Keefe and Mary Cecily was as fairy bells in her ears, and that night she could hear nothing else, it seemed—not even the voices of the dear old friends—for the tinkling of them.
So, very stiff, very straight, very miserable, she lay upon her edge of the bed and counted the hours. Carin, soft as a kitten, curled down well in the center of the mattress and slept as babies sleep.
“What’s come over me?” demanded Azalea of herself. “Haven’t I any heart? Haven’t I any sense? Can’t I see anybody else happy without being jealous of them? Am I an Everlasting Pig?”
Haughty and remote stars do not answer questions like that. Along in the latter part of the night Azalea fell asleep with the question hanging in the fast-chilling air. When she awoke, the day was already bright, and outside the door sounded the voice of Miles McEvoy making arrangements to carry Mary Cecily and Keefe to Rowantree Hall.
Azalea sprang out of bed with decision. Her lips were set in a hard little line.