Kitabı oku: «The Automobile Girls at Newport: or, Watching the Summer Parade», sayfa 12
CHAPTER XXIV – GOOD-BYE TO NEWPORT
Early next morning Ruth and Barbara made full confession to Miss Sallie. Mollie and Grace were not surprised, for they had been told enough of the circumstances to expect the outcome. But imagine Miss Sallie!
“You mean to tell me, Ruth and Bab,” she gasped, dropping limply into the nearest chair, “that Harry Townsend is the jewel thief, the Newport Raffles? Why, you girls have walked with him, talked with him, played tennis with him! And Barbara has suspected him all the time! My heavens!” she wailed, in despair. “Did it never dawn on you, Barbara, that you might have been killed?”
Miss Stuart was overcome. “Ruth Stuart, my own niece, do you mean to tell me that you lately discovered that ‘this Townsend’ was the thief who tried to rob us in New Haven? Why was I not told at once? But then, I am grateful I was not. And you, Mollie, fourteen-year-old Mollie, you found out this wretch’s accomplice, and discovered Mrs. Cartwright’s stolen butterfly! I never would have thought it of you!”
“But I didn’t mean to, Miss Sallie. It was all an accident. I am awfully sorry for that poor woman,” answered Mollie.
“Nonsense, child!” said Miss Sallie. “I am grateful enough that such dangerous people are out of the way.”
The girls were standing in a circle round her. “Come to my arms,” she demanded of Grace. “Thank heavens, child, you have not turned detective, and can be relied on to keep me company!”
“But it was just as much Grace’s fault as it was mine that I discovered the butterfly,” argued Mollie, who could not see that Miss Sallie was joking. “She was with me when I found it out.” Everyone joined in the laugh at Mollie’s expense.
“Some one to see you in the library, miss,” announced Susan, the parlor maid. “She says she’d like to see you alone, first, and she’d rather not give her name.”
“Then you are not to go one step, Barbara Thurston,” said Miss Stuart in the voice the girls knew had to be obeyed. “There is no telling who it is waiting for you, nor what her intentions may be toward you. You’d go if you thought you’d be murdered the next minute. I never saw a girl like you. I will go myself,” announced Miss Sallie.
“Oh, no,” said the girls, all pulling together at her skirts.
Miss Sallie had to pause. “If you think, young ladies,” she said, calmly, “that, because I have not unearthed a jewel robber, nor attacked a burglar in the dark, I am therefore more of a coward than a parcel of silly girls, you are vastly mistaken. Let go of me!” Miss Sallie marched majestically forward.
“Susan, I will go down.”
“Oh, no’m,” pleaded Susan, giggling. She had no idea what all the fuss was about, but she knew it was most unnecessary. “Please’m, let me whisper to you. It’s only that Miss Gladys Le Baron, but I promised not to give her name. I am sure she means no harm, miss. She looks like she was worried and had been crying a bit, ma’am.”
“It is all right, Barbara,” said Miss Sallie. “From what Susan tells me you may go downstairs alone.”
Bab had not the faintest idea who could be waiting for her. In all the excitement, she had entirely forgotten that she had told Gladys Le Baron to come to see her this morning without fail. As soon as she opened the library door, she remembered. “Good morning,” she said, coldly.
But Gladys flung her arms about her neck and burst into a torrent of tears. “I know it all, all!” she said. “Mrs. Post and Mrs. Erwin called me into their rooms last night, and told me everything. I had expected Harry Townsend to take me home from the ball, and, when he didn’t put in his appearance, I was so angry and behaved so badly Mrs. Post said I had to be told at once. Mrs. Erwin wanted to wait until morning. O Bab, I didn’t sleep a wink last night!”
“I am sorry,” said Bab, but she didn’t really show a great deal of feeling.
“Bab,” Gladys went on, “I simply can’t believe it! And to think you knew it almost all the time! Mrs. Post says I have to believe it, now, because the whole story is out. She says she was completely deceived, too, and can understand why I thought Townsend was a gentleman. Father seemed to think he was all right. He told us all about his being an orphan, and who his rich relations were. Mrs. Erwin is so good. She just says she is sorry for me, and hasn’t uttered a word of blame. Only think, I brought that dreadful wretch to her house, and I am responsible for all the trouble! O Barbara, I can never face it!” Gladys wiped her eyes again with her handkerchief, which was already wet with her tears.
“I want to go home to mother to-day, but Mrs. Erwin says I have to stay with her a little while longer. She says that, if I rush right off now, if I disappear the very same day Harry Townsend and that woman leave, people will believe there is more between us than there really is. There wasn’t anything exactly serious, though I did like him. I am sure I shall never hold up my head again.”
“I wanted to warn you sooner, Gladys; believe me, I did,” answered Barbara; “but I knew you wouldn’t listen to me, and would not believe a word I said.”
“I know, Barbara,” said Gladys, humbly. “I have been a horrid stuck-up goose. I know, now, if you hadn’t seen him steal the necklace at Mrs. Erwin’s, we might never have found out who the thief was. Then I don’t know what dreadful thing might have happened to me, if I had gone on seeing him and never understood his true nature. Do you think he could have stolen my bracelet?”
“I know he did,” Bab answered.
“The horrid, hateful thing!” cried Gladys, with a fresh burst of tears. “Barbara, I want to ask you a favor. Will you beg Ruth to let me go back to Kingsbridge in the automobile with you? I suppose I ask you because I have been more hateful to you than to anyone else. I know if you will forgive me the other girls will. Ruth will do anything you ask her.”
“But I can’t ask Ruth such a favor as that, Gladys,” argued Barbara. “There wouldn’t be room in the car, for one thing.”
“Oh, I could sit on the little seat and I would be as nice and give as little trouble as I possibly could, if you will only ask her. I somehow feel that if you girls will stick by me, now, other people will not think so badly of me. They will know I have been a goose, and have been dreadfully deceived by Harry Townsend, but they’ll understand that I never meant any wrong, and am not really bad. You see, Bab, you and Mollie are my cousins. Everyone is sure to find out you helped to expose the awful villain; so, if I am seen with you now, it will show that you take my part, and that you knew I had only been deceived.”
“Don’t you think it is a good deal to ask of me, Gladys?” said Barbara, speaking very slowly. She was thinking of every snub, every cruel thrust Gladys had given her since they were children.
Gladys did not answer at first. Then she shook her head, and rose to go. “Yes, Barbara,” she said; “I know I don’t deserve a bit of kindness at your hands. I have been perfectly hateful to you, always. Good-bye.”
“Oh, stay, Gladys,” begged Bab, penitent in an instant. “I didn’t mean that. Of course we will all stand by you. Indeed, I shall ask Ruth if you may go back in the automobile with us, and I am sure, if Miss Stuart thinks there is room enough, Ruth will be delighted to have you. She is always the dearest, most generous girl in the world,” said Bab, her face glowing with the enthusiasm she always felt in speaking of Ruth.
“Now,” she continued, “do come on upstairs and take off your hat. You must stay to lunch with us. Oh, no; you needn’t be afraid of Miss Stuart. She won’t be unkind to you; she’s a perfect dear! She’ll just be awfully sorry for you, when you tell her how badly you feel. Come on, Gladys.” Bab took hold of her hand.
“Won’t you call Ruth down first?” urged Gladys. “I feel too much ashamed to go right on up there among all of you.”
Ruth and Bab, between them, persuaded Gladys to go to their rooms. To their surprise, Mistress Mollie was the one to be appeased. She was not so ready to kiss and make up as Bab had been, yet even Mollie’s “hard” little heart softened when she saw what a changed and chastened Gladys the girls brought upstairs with them.
“You’ll see I am going to be different,” Gladys said to Bab, “and if ever there’s a chance for me to prove how I appreciate your being so kind to me now, I shall do it. Of course, I don’t expect you to have much faith in me yet.”
“Miss Barbara Thurston is requested to spend her last day in Newport as the guest of honor of Governor and Mrs. Post on board their yacht, the ‘Penguin,’ which is at this instant awaiting her answer outside in Narragansett Bay,” said Ruth, with a flourish of a letter she held in her hand and a low bow to Barbara.
“Goose!” shot Barbara at Ruth. “But are we all invited for a sail? How jolly!”
“I am no goose, madam,” retorted Ruth. “I mean what I say. Read this.”
She handed Barbara a letter which Miss Stuart had received from Mrs. Post only a few minutes before, and which read:
My Dear Miss Stuart,
We want, in some quiet fashion, to show our appreciation of, and thanks to, the little girl who so patiently and cleverly kept her own counsel, and so materially aided in the discovery of the jewel thief. I feel that I did not do her justice. Governor Post and I both believe that it is to her wit and courage that I owe the return of my emerald necklace. I have talked matters over with Hugh, and, with your consent, I should like to give a luncheon, in her honor, on board the yacht at one o’clock to-morrow. We will spend the afternoon sailing in the bay. Only our intimate friends will be invited and we feel that no party could be complete, at Newport, without the presence of “The Automobile Girls.”
Faithfully yours,Katherine Post.
“What larks!” cried Barbara, blushing with pleasure. “Has Miss Sallie said we could go?”
“Certainly she has,” rejoined Ruth. “I told Hugh so at once.”
Columbia, the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine of each patriot’s devotion —
The young people were in the bow of the yacht when the music commenced. “Why, Hugh,” Bab whispered to him in an undertone, “have we a band on board? How perfectly delightful!”
“Young Miss America,” Hugh answered, “you needn’t think, for one minute, that this party on the ‘Penguin’ is going to enjoy any ordinary entertainment to-day. The band is not half. Just you wait, and see all the remarkable things that are to take place on this blessed boat excursion.”
Earlier in the day, when Ruth and Grace first came aboard, they passed through the salon on their way to the upper deck. Grace caught hold of Ruth’s sleeve and drew her back to whisper to her: “Has it ever occurred to you that Harry Townsend might have stolen your fifty dollars that disappeared after we spent our first day on the yacht? I have been thinking that he must have been dreadfully hard up, or he never would have tried the robbery at New Haven, or have stolen such a small sum from you afterwards.”
“Yes, I have thought about it,” said Ruth, shaking her head, with a forlorn gesture. “Isn’t it too dreadful? Let’s forget all about him to-day.”
The luncheon was announced promptly at one.
“‘The Automobile Girls,’ including Miss Sallie, will kindly stay on deck until they are summoned,” called Mrs. Post, sweeping on ahead, followed by her other guests.
Miss Sallie and the girls waited in some excitement. The sun was shining gayly on the deck of the little ship, which sailed through the water like a white bird. All the flags were flying in Barbara’s honor, as the governor explained, when she came on board.
Suddenly Hugh’s smiling face appeared at the open door. “Come in, now,” he requested.
Miss Sallie and the girls marched into the long salon dining-room, while the band played “Liberty Bell.”
In the center of the luncheon table, raised on a moss-covered stand, was a miniature automobile. In it sat five dolls wearing automobile veils of different colors and long dust coats. Two of the dolls were blondes, the other two were brunettes. But the stateliest and handsomest doll of the lot had soft, white hair and reclined against a violet cushion. A pale blue flag flew over the car. It bore the inscription: “The Automobile Girls – Long May They Flourish!”
At either end of the table stood Hugh’s and Ruth’s silver cups, won at the tennis tournament.
As Miss Sallie and the four girls took their places, Hugh raised one cup, his mother the other. “We will drink from these loving cups,” he said, “to the health of our guests of honor, ‘The Automobile Girls.’” He then passed the cups, filled with a fruit punch, around the table.
At the close of the luncheon, Hugh again rose to his feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I am going to make a speech.”
“Don’t do it, Hugh,” laughed Ralph.
“All right, Ralph,” said Hugh; “I won’t. Barbara,” Hugh leaned over to attract her attention, and Barbara turned a rosy red, “here’s a souvenir of Newport for you. I guess it’s a gift from us all.” He motioned to his friends around the table and handed to Bab a small green velvet box. “For the girl who is always on the watch,” he ended.
Barbara’s eyes were full of tears. They came partly from embarrassment, but most of all from pleasure. Inside the velvet case was a tiny gold watch, set in a circle of small emeralds.
But Mollie was calling Bab to look at her gift. Mrs. Cartwright, who sat next her favorite of the girls, had pinned a little, pearl butterfly in the lace yoke of Mollie’s gown. Ruth and Grace were each rejoicing in their gifts, silver pins representing tennis racquets, their souvenirs of the luncheon and their month’s stay in Newport.
“It has been just too lovely!” said Mollie to Mrs. Post, as she bade her good-night. “Yes, we start for home the first thing in the morning. In a few days there will be no more ‘Automobile Girls,’” she ended with a sigh.
“Oh,” said Ruth, laughing and coming up beside her, “who knows? You never can tell! Good-bye, everyone,” she said, taking hold of Bab’s hand. “We have had the time of our lives, just as we hoped we would. Till we meet again,” she finished with a smile.
The four girls ran down the gangplank and rejoined Miss Sallie.
As many of our readers will guess, the return to Kingsbridge did not bring an end to the adventures of the natural and charming girls in their automobile. Further adventures and a host of new things remain to be told, but these must be deferred for narration in the next volume, which will be entitled, “The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires; or, The Ghost of Lost Man’s Trail.”
