Midwinter

To the Sunrise Camp Fire girls the closing in of winter about Tahawus cabin brought a new experience of life. Never in the many seasons spent together under varying conditions had they been so thrown upon their own resources for happiness and growth!

Of the outside world of companionship and stimulation, they had no one and nothing upon which they might depend, and this following two eventful years in Europe during the close and in the months after the great war.

Yet they had been told what they must expect, the quiet, the loneliness, the shut-in-ness of their existence.

Discovering that her health made it unwise to attempt returning to the stage during the winter, Mrs. Burton anticipated spending the winter alone in the Adirondacks save for occasional visits from her husband and Aunt Patricia, her sister and possibly her friend, Betty Graham.
93

However, Miss Patricia Lord had been first to decry an arrangement of this character, protesting that since Polly O’Neill Burton appeared unable to look after herself when she was not ill, what could one expect of her under other conditions! Personally she had no idea of permitting her to make further trouble for her husband and friends. This was of course Miss Patricia’s fashion of confessing that nothing could separate her from the individual she loved best in the world, so long as her care, devotion and wealth could be of service.

Without Mrs. Burton’s knowledge Captain Burton and Miss Patricia made a journey to the Adirondacks, where they secured the lease of Tahawus cabin for a year with the privilege of a longer term, and here, a few weeks later, Mrs. Burton found herself established under Miss Patricia’s guardianship, her husband being forced to return to his work in Washington.
94

The maid who accompanied them Miss Patricia soon dismissed, announcing that she gave more trouble than assistance. And, although regretting her loss, seeing that the girl herself was lonely and unhappy and unable to live in peace with Miss Patricia, Mrs. Burton felt obliged to consent. Later she made a number of efforts to secure another maid (Marie, who had lived with her so many years, having been left behind in France), but up to the present time no one had been discovered agreeable to Miss Patricia.

Annoyed and unhappy over the amount of work Miss Patricia insisted upon undertaking, Mrs. Burton found her protests and efforts toward aid both set aside. Moreover, as rest was essential to her recovery, she dared not undertake heavy tasks.

During the latter part of the summer and the early fall, therefore, she and Miss Patricia lived alone at the cabin, although for various reasons neither of them particularly content.

Miss Patricia’s anxiety revealed itself in an increasing sternness and solicitude which left her charge small opportunity for peace.
95

Mrs. Burton, who was not seriously ill so long as she was resting and in a proper environment, oftentimes found herself lonely and restless, and ashamed of her discontent.

She was surrounded with every comfort and a good deal of luxury. Her room, twenty feet square, had four large windows facing the south and west; the plastered walls were painted a pale yellow with curtains of a deeper shade. Upholstered in yellow silk with half a dozen yellow and brown silk curtains, was the couch Miss Patricia had ordered from New York to be in keeping with the room. Supplies of magazines and books were sent weekly from town, letters arrived in generous number, occasionally a visitor appeared from one of the hotels or cottages a few miles off, but oftentimes was sent away unseen by Mrs. Burton, Aunt Patricia concluding that she were better left alone if the visitor happened to be not a friend but an acquaintance merely desiring to do homage to a famous woman.

Fortunately Miss Patricia looked with favor upon the physician who made weekly calls upon his patient. Miss Lord had secured a cabin in this particular neighborhood in order that the younger woman might be under his care.
96

One afternoon during the first week in September, Miss Patricia and Mrs. Burton were sitting in her bed-room between five and six o’clock. The twilight was beginning to close gently in so that a single lamp was lighted on a table which stood near Mrs. Burton’s couch. Lying upon the couch, she was holding a newspaper open in her hand, but at the moment was not reading.

A few feet away Miss Patricia sat grimly hemming dish towels.

Neither had spoken in the last ten minutes, not since Dr. Larimer, after an hour’s visit, had driven away.

“You are an extremely entertaining companion, Polly. Do you realize you scarcely have spoken to me all day, and yet you seemed to find a great deal to discuss with Dr. Larimer; perhaps because he is a man and I am only a woman.”

Swiftly Mrs. Burton dropped the paper which had been hiding her face.

“I am so sorry, dear, to have been so stupid; I have been reading since Dr. Larimer’s visit. But it is unkind of you to say I preferred talking to Dr. Larimer for such a reason, when you know what I wanted to discuss with him.”
97

“Yes, and his answer was exactly what I anticipated,” Miss Patricia answered severely, although her eyes were now searching the younger woman’s face. “Polly, I desire you to be truthful, even when the truth appears less complimentary to me. In the last few minutes you have not read a single line. I have been watching you and——”

The paper slid to the floor as Mrs. Burton sat up clasping her arms about her knees. Her corded yellow silk gown with a soft fall of lace about her throat had been put on in honor of the doctor’s call; her black hair was loosely coiled on top of her head, her cheeks too brightly flushed, her blue eyes less clear than usual.

“Come and sit beside me, Aunt Patricia, please do as I want to make a confession. It is true I have not been reading these last few minutes because a few moments ago I read the announcement of a brilliant new play produced in New York City last week and I was envious and rebellious. Of course I really expected to have Dr. Larimer declare that I must remain all winter in the mountains and yet I must have hoped he would allow me to return to town after a few more months. I am sorry of course, but really, Aunt Patricia, you must not bury yourself here with me, when I am such a burden besides being a stupid companion.”
98

“Don’t talk nonsense, Polly, if you can avoid it,” was Miss Patricia’s reply. Yet she came and seated herself on the couch beside the younger woman, and by and by her arm was about her.

“See here, my child,” she announced a few moments later, “the truth is, I am neither lonely nor dissatisfied, but you are. I am never unhappy when I am with you. However, that is neither here nor there. Naturally you need other companionship than an excessively disagreeable old woman. Your husband cannot be with you this winter, his work makes it impossible. I have been thinking for several days of an idea which I discussed with the doctor this afternoon after his conversation with you. Why not have your own Camp Fire girls to spend the winter at the cabin with you? You are accustomed to them and they would keep you interested and able to give less time to thinking of yourself. Dr. Larimer has no objection; says you will grow stronger as soon as you are in a more cheerful frame of mind. Would you like to have the girls, dear, because if so, in the last ten moments before I reproached you for not speaking, I had been planning a letter to each one of the girls which I shall write to-night, once you are asleep.”
99

“I am afraid they won’t care to join us here, Aunt Patricia. The winter will be so long and cold and at present the Camp Fire girls are in their own homes. You must not on my account ask them to come to us; we shall be happy alone, except now and then when I am especially tir............