Chapter XIX: That Girl Bess!

"GOOD evening," Nancy said pleasantly, as she reached Bess, and was about to pass her.

But Bess, with a sudden movement, placed herself in front of Nancy.

"You don't never say one word more!" she burst out. "And I wish you would."

Nancy looked at her in surprise. "Why—what do you want me to say?" she asked. "I don't understand."

Bess hung her head and was silent. She had spoken under a momentary impulse, and now shyness seized upon her. Rough-mannered Bess was by no means wont to suffer from shyness, and the sensation came as a novelty.

"I'd like to walk along the lane with you," she muttered at length.

Nancy was perplexed, knowing well that her mother would strongly disapprove of any intercourse beyond the exchange of bare civilities between Bess and herself. She stood still, thinking.

"I ain't good enough for you. But I'd like a talk with you sometimes. Don't see why I shouldn't. Might make me better, you know," continued Bess awkwardly.

"I should like to help anybody," Nancy said, speaking slowly. "Anybody that wants help. I should like to help you—if I could," and she hesitated, "but—"

"But you don't choose to be seen walking along of me," cried Bess, in loud tones.

"It isn't choosing—indeed it is not," said Nancy, distressed at the other's look. "Bess, please believe me. It is only—I always tell mother first—and then—"

But Bess flung herself away, and rushed off, hurt and angry. Nancy felt sorrowful, fearing that she might have acted unwisely, and done harm.

When, however, she reached the end of the lane, and turned into a broader road, there stood Bess.

"I say," the strange girl burst out, "you aren't angered?"

"No," Nancy answered, with a little smile; "I'm only sorry."

"I say," repeated the other, "d'you mean to say you do just as your mother tells you?"

"I hope so," Nancy said gravely. "Why, Bess, doesn't the Bible tell us to obey our parents? And she's such a dear good mother, I couldn't bear to make her unhappy."

"Oh, well; mine's a different sort from that," said Bess.

"But if she is—if she were—that wouldn't make any difference about what's right for you," urged Nancy.

"Oh, I think it does! I've had pretty near enough of my home," said Bess recklessly. "I'll go and live with somebody else."

"O no, Bess, you won't," said Nancy seriously.

"But I mean to," responded Bess. "So there! I did think I'd have a talk with you—and you won't."

Nancy's eyes looked into those of Bess.

"Don't be vexed," the gentle girl urged. "I'll have a talk with mother, and she'll let me see you, I'm sure."

"She don't like girls as wears hair like mine. I know," said Bess, with a careless shake of the unkempt mass which descended low on her freckled forehead. "I've seen her look me over. I know."

"Mother doesn't think that sort of thing respectable for girls in our position, Bess," said Nancy quietly.

"Nor you don't neither," said Bess.

"No," said Nancy.

Bess shoved back the loose mass, stared at Nancy and suddenly burst into tears.

"I'd be respectable if I could," she sobbed. "Nobody's never taught me; and I don't know how. I'd learn from you, that I would—and you won't help me! I'd best give up, that's what I'd best do! I'll give up, and I'll never speak one word to you again, that I won't."

But Nancy's hand was on Bess' arm, detaining her, when she would have rushed away.

"No, Bess," Nancy said, "you won't give up. You'll try harder. And you'll come home with me now and see mother, and she'll tell you what to do."

"Come home! With you!" gasped Bess.

"Yes; come straight home with me now."

Bess said not another word. She gave herself up to Nancy's guidance, and followed her meekly into Woodbine Cottage. The two girls hardly spoke by the way; and indeed the distance was very short.

Susan Dunn happened to be alone indoors, her husband having taken out the two children for a short walk. Susan was busy over some mending. She looked up with a smile on Nancy's entrance, but the smile passed into an expression of doubtful welcome, as her eyes fell on Nancy's companion.

"Mother, I've brought Bess Gardiner to you," said Nancy simply. "She isn't happy at home, and she wants some one to help her to be better. And I didn't know what you'd like me to do, so I've brought her to you. I knew you'd be glad."

Was Susan glad? With all her kind-heartedness, she had very particular notions about proper acquaintances for herself and her children, more especially for Nancy. And she had taken such pains to avoid any kind of intimacy with those Gardiners. For a moment Susan really did feel quite provoked, and the only answer she made to Nancy's appeal was a slow, "Well—sit down."

Bess stood doggedly upright.

"I told you so!" she muttered to Nancy. "And I'm not a-going to stay where I'm not wanted."

"Mother, Bess isn't happy, and she wants help," pleaded Nancy.

"Not likely to be happy with their sort of way of going on," said Susan. "But if there's anything I can do—Sit down," she repeated.

No, Bess declined to obey. She came a step forward, with glowering eyes.

"It wasn't my wish to come," she declared. "I'm not one of them who'll go where they're not wanted. And she'd ought to have known better than to bring me. I don't say I'm fit company for her, neither. Only, she's always got a kind word for me—and I did think—maybe—but it don't matter! I'll go my own way, and I'll never trouble nobody again—never! It don't matter. Folks are born to be miserable, I suppose. And there's nobody to care. It don't matter. So, good-bye."

"O mother!" cried Nancy in distress, tears filling her eyes, as Bess turned away.

But it was not Nancy's cry which made Susan Dunn stand up and move swiftly between Bess and the door, with a face which had softened all at once into motherly pity. Another thought had come to Susan—the thought of One who did care, who cared so much for poor rough Bess as to have given up His life for her on Calvary. How would it be in His eyes, if Susan let this poor untaught girl wander away without the help which she craved?

"Good-bye; I'm going," repeated Bess hoarsely. "Let me go."

"No, my dear. You're not going yet," said Susan, in resolute tones. "Nannie's right to bring you in. You're not going yet. You just take your shawl off your head, and sit down and tell me what's the matter. And you needn't say again that nobody cares. Come, child, sit down!"

That conquered Bess. She took the seat indicated and laying her head on the table, broke into heavy sobs.

"Come, now—come!" repeated Susan. "Don't you be so upset. Tell me what's wrong, and we'll see if I can't help you put things right." Then, with a sudden thought, "Is it anything my Nannie shouldn't hear? I'll send her away, if it is. She don't know the bad ways of some of you girls; and I don't choose she should, as long as I can keep her from it."

Bess choked down her sobs, and sat up with heaving chest.

"I wouldn't tell her neither," she said earnestly. "I'm not so bad as that. She ain't like us; and I wouldn't be the one to make her like my sort. I'd sooner learn to be like her—if I could."

"And of course you can," said Susan encouragingly. "I'd begin this minute, if I was you."

"Begin to be like Nancy! This minute!" Bess said, in a wondering tone, as if the idea were a new one.

"To be sure I would," said Susan.

Whatever Susan Dunn did or did not mean in a practical sense, Bess evidently had some distinct notions on the subject, for she sat more upright, gazed hard at Nancy, then walked to a small looking-glass hung over the mantel-shelf and surveyed herself. Susan and Nancy said nothing for a few seconds. On the dresser stood a basin full of water, and Bess' next move was to plunge her rough unshawled head into this water. It came out dripping; and she parted the flattened thick mass with her fingers, pushing it back on either side.

"How they'll jeer!" she burst out then.

"Who will?" asked Susan.

"They! When I'm seen like this."

"The girls that you've made your friends? But you'll have to leave them, and choose a better sort of friends," said Susan.

Bess walked back to her vacated seat.

"Won't you mind Nancy being seen along of me now?" she demanded.

Susan was rather perplexed. Certain other changes would be needed beside the possession of a neat head, if Bess Gardiner was to be counted a fit companion for Nancy Dunn; yet she could not bear to check the poor ignorant girl in her first effort to take a right turn.

"What makes you want that so much?" she inquired.

"Because—" Bess' voice suddenly faltered. "Because there ain't nobody like her—and I—I—I'd do anything in all the world that ever I could for her—I would!"

Mother and daughter exchanged looks, tears in Nancy's eyes, and something very like tears in Susan's.

"If Nannie's to be the one who can help you to what's right, I'm not the woman to hinder," she said, with a touch of huskiness. "Seems to me it may be God's will for you both. But look here, Bess. You've got to make your choice. You can't do both, you know. If you want to be in and out here, and to learn from my Nannie, you'll have to leave your bad companions, and drop your old ways. There's to be no bad words spoken, and no taking of God's Holy Name in vain, and no saying of things which a pure-minded girl shouldn't hear. And you'll have to stop going about in that sort of dress I saw you in last Sunday. I wouldn't have my Nannie seen in the street with a girl dressed like that—no, not for anything you could mention. I'm not speaking unkindly; but I do mean what I say. You've had your old friends, and you've gone on in their ways. If Nannie's to be your friend now, you'll have to take to new ways."

Bess's low brow was frowning anxiously.

"I'd do anything," she said; "anything you'll tell me. And I mean it. I told mother I'd go right off and board with them Joneses, because father did storm at me so. And I won't now."

"No," Susan said, in decisive tones. "It's the Joneses or Nancy. Not both."

Bess shook her head.

"Couldn't be both," she assented. "But my! Won't they be at me!"

"It won't be an easy time for you," said Susan gravely, "It never is, when a girl tries to leave evil and turn to good. And mind, Bess, it isn't only just a leaving off of one thing or another that you've got to think of. That's not enough. You'll have to be whole and thorough—give yourself up to serve God, and do His will. For if you haven't His Power to keep you straight, nothing else 'll be of much use."

"Parson said so too," Bess remarked briefly. "He stopped me one day, and I jeered, and he had his say out and never minded. I've thought of it a many times since."

"What did he tell you, Bess?" asked Nancy.

Bess was in difficulties. She evidently retained no clear recollection of the words spoken. Yet, as evidently, a distinct impression had been made. By dint of questioning, Susan came a vague remembrance of "something about God caring."

"And he said I just hadn't ought to go on a-troubling of Him with my bad ways," added Bess. "Him as was nailed up on the Cross. I didn't know nothing about it troubling Him before. And I thought—maybe—Nancy 'ud tell me what to do."