CHAPTER XIII
LIFE OR DEATH?
"Is there no hope?" a voice asked despairingly.
"There is hope for a long time," answered Phyllis Alden quietly. "I have heard my father say that people may sometimes be revived after being in the water for many hours."
"She must live, or I can not bear it," declared Tom Curtis brokenly. "Oh, won't some one go for a doctor? Can't you do something else for her?"
"The man has gone for a doctor, Tom," soothed Mrs. Curtis. "Does your arm pain you much?"
"Never mind my arm," groaned Tom. "She saved my life, mother, and now she's dead." His voice broke.
"You mustn't say that," cried Phyllis sharply. "She can't be dead."
"Phil," entreated Miss Jones, "let me take your place. I am sure I can do what you are doing."
Phyllis shook her head. "I can't leave her."
Phyllis Alden knelt on the ground on one side of the unconscious girl. Jack Bolling and an old fisherman knelt opposite her. The artist, Mr. Brown, was trying to assist in restoring Madge to consciousness. Phyllis Alden had been drilled in "first aid to the drowning" by her father. Long experience with the sea had taught the sailor what to do. But Madge had resisted all their efforts to bring her to consciousness. She had battled too long with the merciless waves and her strength was gone before the fisherman, coming home in his rowboat, had spied the three figures at the moment when Madge was about to give up the fight. He had hauled her and Tom inside his boat, and poor Brownie had somehow managed to swim ashore.
On the beach the fisherman found an anxious group of picnickers watching the storm with fearful eyes. Their fear was changed to horror, however, when the fisherman deposited his ghastly freight on the beach.
Fifteen minutes after being brought to shore Tom Curtis had returned to consciousness. His first words were for Madge. Although Tom had been a longer time in the water than his rescuer, his injured arm, which was sprained, but not broken, had prevented him from making so fierce a struggle; therefore he was far less exhausted than was his companion. To those who watched anxiously for the first faint sign of returning life it seemed hours since the fisherman had laid that still form on the sand. It was none other than the old fisherman who discovered the faint spot of color which appeared in Madge's cheeks, then disappeared. After that the work of resuscitation went on more steadily than ever, and slowly and painfully Madge came back to life. Strange noises sounded in her ears. A gigantic weight was pressing upon her chest. She tried to speak, but it was choking her, crushing her. She made an heroic effort to throw it off, and then her eyes opened and dimly she beheld her friends.
"She has come back to us." Phil's voice was ineffably tender. She glanced up and her eyes met those of Jack Bolling. Forgetting her dislike for him, she smiled. She remembered only that he was Madge's cousin. Jack had always thought Phil ugly, but as he gazed into her big, black eyes and white, serious face, he decided that she had more character than any other girl he had ever met, and he would never forget the splendid effort she had made to save his cousin.
As soon as the work of resuscitation was completed and Madge declared out of danger, Mrs. Curtis insisted that on their return to the mainland her son's brave little rescuer should be taken to the Belleview Hotel, where she would be able to rest far more comfortably than if carried on board the houseboat.
A yacht was chartered to take the picnic party home. The sailboat had completely disappeared, and Tom was able to tell only a part of their strange adventure. From whence the youth whom they had taken on board their boat had come and why he had made off with their boat and left them to drown were questions which no one seemed able to answer.
It was not until two days later that the fisherman, searching along the very shore from which they had started, found the sailboat resting quietly at anchor about two miles from the pier where the picnic party had landed. The boat was uninjured, and Madge's hat, coat and skirt lay on the deck, where she had thrown them when she dived into the bay. But the wild lad who had caused the mischief had vanished completely. No one near had seen or heard of him. His identity was a mystery. If any one of the fisher folk knew his name, or where he had gone, they did not betray that knowledge. Mrs. Curtis wished to offer a reward for the fellow's capture. Tom would not consent. He intended to find his enemy himself, and to settle his own score. At night Tom used to lie awake for hours to plan how he would track the stranger and at last run him down. But in the day time he was much too fully occupied with entertaining his mother's young guest to plan revenge.
Madge had been the guest of Mrs. Curtis at the Belleview Hotel for five days. It had taken but a day for her to recover from the effect of her narrow escape from drowning. She possessed far too happy a disposition to dwell long on an uncomfortable memory, and her recent mishap soon became like a dream to her. But her feeling of affection for Mrs. Curtis was not in the least like a dream, and grew stronger with every hour she spent in her new friend's company. It was a red letter time for Madge.
Mrs. Curtis tried in every possible way to manifest her gratitude. Had not Madge saved her son's life? She felt that she could make no adequate return for the heroic service the young girl had rendered her.
She insisted that the most attractive apartment in the hotel should be Madge's and surrounded her with all sorts of luxuries. The young girl's suite consisted of a cosy little sitting room and a wonderful bedroom with white, rose-bordered walls and Circassian walnut furnishings. There was a little, white bath leading out from the bedroom and Madge reveled in her new-found treasures.
All day long her apartment was lovely with flowers. Tom Curtis ordered a box of roses to be delivered to her each day from Baltimore. The roses were presented to Madge every morning when the maid brought up her breakfast-tray, and for the first time in her life Miss Madge enjoyed the luxury of eating her breakfast in bed. Boxes of candy became so ordinary that she fairly pleaded with her friends when they came to visit her to take them back to the houseboat.
"Madge will never be happy again on the 'Merry Maid,' will she, girls?" The four girls were rowing back to their floating home after a visit to their friend.
"Yes, she will," returned Phil stoutly, though she felt a slight pang when she remembered how cheerfully Madge had kissed them goodbye.
"I am sure she is well enough to come home now," burst forth Lillian, "only Mrs. Curtis and Tom won't hear of it. Dear me! I suppose our little captain is happy at last. She has always dreamed of what it would feel like to be rich and a heroine, and now she is both. But nothing seems quite the same on the boat," she added wistfully. "I think we are all homesick for her."
Miss Jennie Ann laughed at their doleful faces. "She will soon be with us again," she declared. "I'll tell you a secret. She is coming home to the houseboat day after to-morrow. She whispered to me to-day that there was really no reason why she should stay any longer with Mrs. Curtis, and that she did not wish to presume on her hospitality. Mrs. Curtis is very fond of her. She does not wish Madge to leave her." Miss Jones looked so mysterious that the girls regarded her curiously. "I think it is a good thing for Madge and for Mrs. Curtis to spend a few days together. Mrs. Curtis is lonely and needs good company," added Miss Jones.
"So do we," murmured Phil, with a rueful laugh. "We need Madge as much as Mrs. Curtis does."
After the girls had left her, Madge lay back luxuriously among her linen pillows. She was looking very lovely in a pale pink silk tea gown Mrs. Curtis had insisted on her wearing, for Madge had arrived at the hotel with no clothes other than the wet garments she had on when rescued from the waves. Her fine clothes occupied very little of her thoughts, however. She had something of far greater import on her mind.
The time had come to tell Mrs. Curtis that she must go back to the houseboat. She was not sorry to go; she was only sorry to leave her new friends. During her stay at the hotel Mrs. Curtis had treated Madge as though she were her own daughter. The imaginative young girl was completely fascinated with the beautiful, white-haired woman, whose sad face seemed to indicate that she had suffered some tragedy in her life. While Madge lay thinking of the most courteous way in which to announce that she must return to the "Merry Maid" a light knock sounded on her door. Tom's mother came softly into the room, gowned in an exquisite afternoon costume of violet organdie and fine lace, which was very becoming to her white hair and youthful face.
"Are you awake, Madge?" were her first words. "How do you feel?"
Her guest smilingly raised herself from her pillows. "I am awake as can be, and as well as can be! To tell you the truth, Mrs. Curtis, I have never been in the least ill from my adventure. I was tired the day after it happened, but since that time I am afraid I have allowed you and Tom to believe that I was sick because I liked to be petted and made much of." Madge laughed frankly at her own confession. "You have been so good to me, and I do appreciate it, but now I must go home to my comrades. Eleanor was awfully disappointed to-day when I told her I was not going back with them this afternoon."
"I wish you would stay with me longer," pleaded Mrs. Curtis, taking the girl's firm brown hand in hers and looking down at it gravely, as it lay in her soft white one. She gazed earnestly at Madge's clear-cut, expressive face. "Tom and I will be lonely without you," she said. "I want a daughter dreadfully, and Tom needs a sister. If only you were my own daughter."
Madge sighed happily. "It has been beautiful to pretend that I was your real daughter. It has been like the games I used to play when I was a little girl. I have been lying here in the afternoons, when you thought I was asleep, making up the nicest 'supposes.' I supposed that I was your real daughter, that I had been lost and you had found me after many years. Just at first you did not know me, because time had made such a change in me. But—— Why, Mrs. Curtis, what is the matter?" There was wonder and concern in Madge's question. "You don't mind what I have said, do you? I have been making up things to amuse myself ever since I was a little girl." She looked anxiously into the face of the older woman. It was very white, and seemed suddenly to have become drawn and old.
"My dear child, I love to have you tell me of your little dreams and fancies," said Mrs. Curtis affectionately, laying her hand on Madge's head. "What made you think I didn't?"
"You looked as though what I said hurt your feelings," returned Madge, coloring at her own frankness.
"It was only that something you said brought back a painful memory," explained the older woman. "I would prefer not to talk of it. Tell me, is there nothing I can do to induce you to remain with me a little longer?"
Her guest shook her head. "Thank you," she replied gratefully, "but I must go back to my chums. It won't be going away, really, for I will come to see you as often as you like, and you and Tom and Jack must visit us on the houseboat. I want you to like the other girls almost as well as you do me," smiled Madge. "Please don't like them quite as well, though. That doesn't sound very generous, but I should like to feel that I was first in your heart."
"You shall be, my dear." Mrs. Curtis bent and kissed the young girl's soft cheek. "And to prove just how much I do care for you I wish to give you something which I hope you will like and keep as a remembrance of me. I know your uncle and aunt will be willing to let you have this little gift when they learn of the spirit which prompted the giving of it." Mrs. Curtis drew from a little lavender and gold bag which she carried a square, white silk box and laid it in the astonished little captain's hand.
"What—why—is it for me?" stammered Madge, sitting up suddenly, her eyes fastened on the box.
"It is for no one else," was the smiling answer. "Shall I open it for you?"
Mrs. Curtis touched a tiny spring in the white box. It flew open!
There before Madge's wondering gaze, coiled on its dainty silk bed, lay a string of creamy pearls. They were not large, but each pearl was perfect, an exquisite bit of jewelry. Mrs. Curtis took the necklace from its case. She leaned over and clasped it about Madge's slender throat, saying: "Tom and I talked a long time about what we wished to give you as a slight remembrance of our appreciation of what you did for us. At last we decided upon this as being particularly suitable to you. Then, too, we wished to give you something that came up out of the sea."
"It is the loveliest necklace in the world," declared Madge happily, touching the pearls. "It is far too beautiful for me. I shall love it all my life and never, never part with it. You have been too good to me, Mrs. Curtis," she added earnestly.
"But think what you did for me," reminded the stately, white-haired woman.
"That isn't worth remembering. I did only what any one else would have done if placed in the same circumstances."
"But you saved my son's life, and that is the greatest service you could possibly render me."
Yet before her vacation was over Madge Morton was to perform for her friend a further service equally great.