Chapter XV: Betty Shares the Secret

“And the queer thing was, that we all of us saw it! Even Miss Drury!” Eve was speaking to a circle of interested listeners on the evening after the night camp in the wood.

“Weren’t you nervous?” inquired some one.

“Nervous--pooh! Of the witch, you mean? That silly story! Why, it wasn’t till this morning that a single one of us even remembered it!”

“Did the light come from the haunted cottage, do you think?” put in some one.

“I don’t know anything except that there certainly _did_ seem to be a moving light. I don’t even know, for one thing, in what part of the wood the cottage is supposed to be! I only know that I don’t believe in ‘haunts’ of any kind,” continued the narrator briskly. “I daresay it was a glow-worm of monstrous size, or a keeper, perhaps, on the prowl. Whatever it was, we saw no more of it!”

“You forget the music!” put in one of the other Pioneers.

“Oh yes, we heard that too! We all sat up on our elbows and listened to it. Like a flute playing. It probably came from the road, though it sounded, certainly, as though it issued from Witch’s Wood!” Eve laughed. “Miss Drury said that if last night instead of to-night had been Midsummer Eve we might have been in the thick of a fairy revel! But it didn’t keep us awake; we all floated off into deep slumber. Perhaps it may have been a magic lullaby, for not one of us stirred until Miss Drury fairly commanded us to wake this morning!” Eve moved off. “Well, the Pioneering’s over,” remarked she; “and Midsummer Day’s to-morrow with--whatever it brings. I only wish it could bring the Cup!”

There was no need for words; every one else was wishing the same wish too. Everybody, strange to say, at that moment except Betty!

For the last scrap of Eve’s sentence had not even been heard by her. She was remembering with all her might and main the words that had gone before. She stood speechless with surprise, still wondering, for several moments after Eve had disappeared.

_What_ had Eve said? Had she _really_ said it? Could Betty’s ears by any chance have misled her? she asked herself. That the pioneering Guides from their night camp had seen a light from Witch’s Wood! Also that they had heard the sound of flute-playing! Like a fairy revel; like a magic lullaby, Eve had said. She had been only laughing, of course; but could it be--oh, could it possibly be that the magic was true?

For a certain suspicion had been dawning in Betty’s imaginative mind ever since yesterday. It had seemed too unlikely an idea, so she had told herself at first, to be true, and she had decided not to take any one into her confidence, not even Gerry, in case her ideas should be laughed at as absurd. But now--well, she could not keep the idea to herself any more. After supper on Sunday evenings the girls were always free to walk about the grounds in couples until bedtime. To-night Gerry was to be Betty’s partner. After hearing what Eve had just said, the Mascot could hardly wait until the after-supper-time came.

“Gerry----!”

“Whatever is it?” inquired Gerry solicitously. That Betty’s state of mind was one of extreme anxiety about something or other had been evident all through supper-time. She had eaten nothing and had narrowly escaped an early dismissal to bed on account of her lack of appetite. “Though perhaps the hour outside will do you as much good as an extra hour in bed in this hot weather,” as Nurse had conceded at last. “No doubt you’re excited about your investiture to-morrow.”

“_Is_ it the investiture?” inquired Gerry now.

“It is, and it isn’t. At least it isn’t that really, except in so far as that everything’s so tremendously connected.” Betty gave a sigh. “Gerry, I’ve something to tell you. I almost told you when you asked me last night; only I couldn’t. I was afraid you might--well--that you might laugh at me, you know. And that would ‘take the bloom off’ so, like Sybil said.” Betty stopped.

“I don’t know one bit what you mean; but I shan’t laugh,” said Gerry quickly.

For even if Betty’s story were to be a queer one, yet it couldn’t be exactly a laughable one, Gerry was sure from the look in her friend’s eyes. She listened without a word until the telling was through.

But by the time the story was done Gerry’s expression of face had changed from one of amazement to one of extreme incredulity. At its last word she stood still and said nothing at all.

“You don’t believe it?” burst out Betty.

“I don’t see how I could. Betty, how could _any_ one? It seems so impossible.” Gerry’s eyes were thoughtful. “Just because you found that bit of patrol ribbon in the hedge which might possibly have come off the Cup!”

“It did. It did. I recognized the bow,” put in Betty.

“Well, even if it did, it needn’t mean that the witch had taken the Cup! Particularly when, after all, there isn’t one--a witch, I mean! How _could_ there be? Guides don’t believe in such things!”

“I didn’t say exactly a witch!” put in Betty vehemently. “I said the magic that was there might have had something to do with the losing of the Cup! You never saw the cottage, and I _did_!”

“I know,” agreed Gerry. “And I must say I can’t think why you didn’t mention it before, if you thought----”

“I didn’t think; and I mean, I was trying to ‘keep the bloom on’; because it all seemed so strange and lovely for magic to be keeping the cottage so sweet and flowery. And I thought ‘I shan’t tell any one’; and then the idea came to me afterwards that perhaps I oughtn’t to have stepped inside, and that the magic had punished me for trespassing by taking away the Cup, you see,” finished up Betty lamely. “Oh, I know it sounds silly! I told you you would want to laugh. And it _has_ ‘taken the bloom off’ to tell it,” said Betty, almost in tears. “But when the Pioneers did see a light in the wood, and _did_ hear the fairy piper, why, I thought I ought--for the sake of every one----”

“I’m not laughing,” said Gerry; and she certainly wasn’t. She was staring straight at Betty as though she could make neither head nor tail of her story. “As to going into Witch’s Wood, though, to-night, and looking in the cottage to see whether the Cup’s there, you simply _can’t_ do that! And you would never get leave to do it, I’m sure, if you asked. Truly, I do think it’s all rather--well, far-fetched,” she finished up, wrinkling her brows.

“Oh dear,” Betty sighed. But in the light of her friend’s common-sensible remarks she was beginning to think how helter-skelter again her imaginings must have been. After all, perhaps it was just a coincidence that the Pioneers had heard music in the night. The sounds might have come from the far road, as some one had suggested, and the light might have issued from a hundred other more likely sources than that of a magic lamp! Gerry was probably right; but Betty sighed.

“If only--” said she. “I somehow don’t feel as though it could be right for me to wear my Tenderfoot’s badge until the Cup is found!”

She went upstairs soberly enough, and got into bed that night without a word. To-morrow was Midsummer Day, and the Cup was lost; to-morrow she was to be admitted into the Daisy patrol. But-- There was a very great deal of twisting and turning before Betty fell asleep that night.

She woke early, too, on the next morning. Half-past six o’clock was sounding from the village church tower as she opened her eyes and became conscious of the scents and sounds and sights of the early Midsummer morning. To-day was the day of the investiture, but the Cup was still lost! To-day she was to be enrolled as one of the Daisies; but owing to her own carelessness the Cup which her patrol had held in trust for a year was lost not only to them but to the entire company of Guides. Betty was blinking back tears, hidden as she was in the fastness of her own cubicle, while the rest of the dormitory still slumbered round her, when she suddenly remembered Sybil’s words of the wood, “Don’t _fuss_ about it!”

Betty _wouldn’t_ fuss, she told herself. She pulled herself together, though, with a considerable effort. To lie in bed without worrying was too difficult; she got up very quickly and began to dress.

It was quite usual at St. Benedick’s for any Guide who woke early to appear in the gardens before breakfast-time. Betty had often risen early before, but never so early as on this particular day. “Eve said the sweet peas had got blown about and the stakes needed looking at,” she reminded herself. “Well, that will be something that I can do! There may be other girls in the gardens too!”

There were not, however. As it happened, Betty found herself working alone; and for a while she gardened on busily and happily enough while the school still slept.

It was just as she was standing back and surveying her work with her face turned from the fence which divided the gardens from the school wood that she suddenly heard a voice. The sound of her own name, too, called in no uncertain tones from the bushes of the wood.

Betty turned and stared at the unexpected apparition before her eyes.