CHAPTER XIV.
A LETTER THAT CAME THOUGH IT WAS NEVER SENT.
The two girls put the width of the bed between them that night. Each lay stiffly on the very edge of the mattress and silently pondered over the situation. Anger was not a self-indulgence with either of them and the attack was so unusual that it left them both unnerved and shaken. Nancy had only played with her food at dinner and Billie, who had eaten without an appetite, now felt the discomfort of a burning indigestion. At last, as the hours dragged on, they fell asleep, each profoundly unhappy.
Long ago the two friends had dropped the formality which usually exists between guest and hostess, no matter how intimate. Their relations were as those of two sisters. For the Motor Maids had become as one family in their wanderings together. But next morning, Nancy, still feeling the sting of fancied wrongs, suddenly recalled the fact that she was accepting hospitality from one who no longer liked her. It was all very absurd, but so does the young person at the awkward age between girlhood and womanhood often exaggerate trivial things and enlarge on fancied injustice.
Foolish, pretty Nancy permitted herself to slip into the most extreme state of wretchedness. She imagined that her friend, whom in her heart she loved devotedly, had treated her with unnecessary cruelty and sternness. She got it into her silly little head that Billie had confided the meeting in the garden to the others. She was ashamed and mortified and she felt indeed that the whole world had turned against her. Mr. Campbell was cold to her. Miss Helen Campbell hardly civil Mary and Elinor looked at her askance. There was not a word of truth in it, of course; it was just a figment of Nancy's morbid imaginings. Miss Campbell was bored to extinction with the continued rain. Mr. Campbell was preoccupied because of business engagements of great importance, and Mary and Elinor, if the truth must be told, were intensely homesick; and who would not have been with home on the other side of the world and rain pouring ceaselessly on this side? As for Billie, she tried to be exactly the same as usual, but the cloud of an unsettled disagreement hovered between them.
Therefore after a week of steady rain and black depression which did not seem more profound in Nancy than in anyone else, silly little Nancy took a bold step. Putting on her overshoes and mackintosh late one afternoon, she slipped out of the house and hastened down the avenue. On the road, she hailed an empty 'riksha returning from some suburban home and gave Mme. Fontaine's address in Tokyo.
Nancy was in search of sympathy and of someone who would tell her she had done right when she knew she had done wrong.
Mme. Fontaine was in and would be delighted to see Miss Brown, so she was informed at the widow's front door, and Nancy, a little frightened, now that the deed was done, was ushered into the beautiful drawing-room.
"Why, you sweet child, this is a great pleasure," exclaimed that lady herself, entering at the same moment by another door. "Where are your friends? Are you alone?" she added looking around for the others.
"Oh, yes," answered Nancy, embarrassed and agitated.
"Not even the austere old lady who chaperones you?" asked the other drawing the young girl down beside her on the couch and looking into the blue eyes which suddenly welled up with tears and overflowed,
"Why, my dear, are you unhappy? What is the matter? Tell me all about it," ejaculated Mme. Fontaine, unpinning Nancy's hat and drawing the curly head down on her shoulder.
So it happened that Nancy Brown unburdened herself to the sympathetic Widow of Shanghai, and gave an entirely biased and favorable-to-herself account of the incident in the garden.
Mme. Fontaine sat silent for a while after the story was finished, and Nancy wondered if the charming new friend had heard what she had been saying.
"Do you think Miss Campbell would consent to let you make a visit, Nancy?" she asked presently, calling her Nainsi, as if it were a French name.
Nancy drooped her long lashes.
"I don't know," she answered.
Mme. Fontaine gave one of her inscrutable Mona Lisa smiles and rose from the couch.
"We will try her and see. Does she know you were out walking?"
"No," answered Nancy struggling to keep back her tears.
"Does anyone in the house know?"
She shook her head.
The widow sat down at a carved desk inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and wrote the following note:
"My dear Miss Campbell:
"I trust you will not think I have been unpardonably presumptuous in keeping one of your girls over night with me. She had evidently set out for a long walk and chance brought us together. The child was wet and tired and I have kept her for tea. As the rain is still pouring, she has consented to remain over night with your permission which I cannot but feel sure will be granted under the circumstances. With the very kindest regards for you and your household, I am,
"Faithfully yours,
"ANIELA FONTAINE."
Never was cordial and polite note couched in more non-committal language. It was sent out by a messenger and Miss Campbell sat painfully up in bed to read it. Both knees and one wrist were swathed in bandages of wintergreen liniment and a hot water bottle lay against one hip,
"Why, I didn't know the child had left the house," she exclaimed, when she had finished reading the letter and passed it on to the three remaining Motor Maids. "How did she happen to go alone on a tramp like that? What am I to do? I can't order her to return without being exceedingly rude, but I do wish Nancy hadn't been so reckless. She ought never to have left the grounds alone. Surely the garden is quite large enough for exercising in, if anyone wanted to make the effort."
The little spinster groaned and slipped down among her pillows again.
The girls were silent. Mary secretly sympathized with Nancy. It would be rather fascinating to spend a night in the widow's interesting home. Elinor disapproved slightly at this unconventional visit, but it is doubtful if she would have declined the invitation if she had been in Nancy's place. As for Billie, she was puzzled and unhappy. She felt sure that there was something back of the departure of her friend. She wished with all her heart they had made up their differences. She yearned for Nancy and her soul was filled with forebodings. She felt somehow as if Nancy had died. That night, with the sheet over her head, she indulged in a fit of weeping and resolved to settle all differences the first moment they could get alone.
Why should Nancy Brown have unexpectedly grown up like this and become so independent and secretive? Elinor, the eldest of the four girls, had never shown a disposition to have affairs and write notes. For her part, Billie would have liked to go on in the same jolly old way forever, with or without beaux. It was all one to her. But Nancy was different. The society of her friends was no longer an unmixed pleasure and she was beginning to crave more excitement and admiration than was good for her.
The next day was like a dozen of its fellows, wet and muggy. The roads were too slippery for the "Comet," and as Miss Campbell still kept her bed with rheumatism, it was decided that Billie should go alone for Nancy in a 'riksha.
She was so eager to make up with her friend, that she felt as if the reconciliation had already taken place and her faithful heart was filled with happiness. She had made up her mind to humble herself by offering Nancy an apology. After all, was it the act of true friendship to pick out all the defects and flaws in a friend's nature?
"A real friend is blind to everything but the best in another friend," reasoned Billie, as her 'riksha splashed along the road, drawn by Komatsu.
So, prepared to embrace Nancy tenderly and let bygones be bygones, Billie could scarcely wait to leap down from the 'riksha and ring the widow's bell. The house had a shut-up appearance, but all Japanese houses look thus in rainy weather. Somehow, Billie's inflated enthusiasm received a prick when the bell echoed through the rooms with a hollow, empty sound. She waited impatiently but no one came to answer it. Usually Mme. Fontaine's well-trained maid was bowing and smiling almost before the vibrations of the bell had ceased. Billie rang again and again, and still there was no answer. She walked around the side of the house and peered through the slats of the Venetian blinds but all was dark within.
What could it mean? Where was Nancy? Where was Mme. Fontaine?
"Oh, dear; oh, dear," ejaculated Billie, wiping away the tears that would trickle down her cheeks.
But of course they had gone shopping, and the maid was at market, perhaps. That was the only explanation.
There was a bench on the piazza and Billie sat down to wait. Komatsu stood patiently under his oiled paper umbrella which he always placed in the bottom of the 'riksha in bad weather.
Exactly one hour they waited and at last Billie, disconsolate and disappointed, returned to the 'riksha and ordered Komatsu to take her to some of the shops. Everywhere she watched for the familiar gleam of Nancy's blue mackintosh, but there was no sign of it anywhere. Finally they returned to Mme. Fontaine's house, to find it still closed.
"Komatsu, where are they?" asked Billie desperately.
"Not know, but honorable young lady not look inside?"
"I can't get inside. The doors are locked. Besides, I don't like to break in on a private house like a burglar."
But to the Japanese the end justifies the means, and being on a search for Nancy, Komatsu was willing to go to any strategic lengths to find her.
"All same look and see," he said and together they followed the gallery around the entire house.
"Komatsu make to go up," he said after a fruitless search for an entrance. He pointed to one of the slender pillars which upheld the roof of the lower gallery forming the floor of the upper one. The next moment he had shinned up the pole and Billie could hear him walking softly on the wooden floor above. Presently he returned and placed in Billie's lap the fragments of a letter which had been pieced together and pasted on a sheet of paper.
"Top muchly more easy than bottom," he said smiling. "Empty house but all same muchly inside."
Billie glanced hastily at the scraps of paper and saw her own name in one corner.
"Why, it's to me," she exclaimed, and sitting on the bench, she began to decipher the pieced letter.
"Dear Billie:
"Since you all hate and disapprove of me, I do not wish to stay with you any longer. You have been anything but a friend to me, but I will not say anything more about that. I will only say that I can never forgive what you said to me the other day. I think I have outgrown you. You are just a child still and it will be a long time before you understand the ways of the world, or sympathize with me when I say that I want to broaden my life. Now, Mme. Fontaine, who knows everything, has promised—"
Here the letter broke off.
On the other side of the sheet were some more fragments of paper carefully pieced together.
"—do not wish to stay because—father's work—he should not—Mme. Fontaine thinks—"
Billie folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she felt suddenly stiff and tired. Komatsu regarded her from a distance with respectful sympathy.
"Back home," she ordered, and all the way she indulged in the bitterest weeping she had ever known in her life.
"Nancy, Nancy, how could you?" she kept repeating to herself.
Before she reached the house she dried her eyes and leaning out of the 'riksha let the rain beat against her face.
"I must think of something to tell them," she said to herself. "What did she mean about Papa's work?"
Again Billie read the last part of the note.
"I believe it's that woman who made her do this," she cried out suddenly. "She worked her up to the point—'broaden her life'—'papa's work,' and all that. How could Nancy have thought of such things? And then after Nancy wrote the letter she repented—or perhaps the widow wouldn't let her send it—but how did it happen to be pieced together like this?"
It was all very puzzling and strange. Billie wanted time to think about it and work it out in her own mind, and she was sorry when at last Komatsu came to a full stop at their own front door. Slowly she descended and walked into the house. Suddenly there was a cry of joy from the back. It was the other girls rushing to meet Nancy who had not come, Billie thought miserably.
And, lo, it was Nancy herself, laughing and crying at once and embracing her beloved Billie, as if they had been separated for a year and a day.
"Where did you come from?" Billie managed to gasp in a bewildered voice.
"I got back a little while ago and oh, I've been so homesick. Are you glad to see me, Billie, dearest?"
"I should think I was," said Billie, kissing Nancy's soft round cheek.
"It seems an age instead of just one night."
"Mme. Fontaine invited me to make her a visit," went on Nancy, "but—but
I was too lonesome—I never slept a wink last night."
"We are all of us quite jealous of you, Nancy," put in Mary, who, with
Elinor, had come upon the scene a moment before.
Billie put her hand in her pocket and felt the pieced-together letter. It almost seemed like a bad dream now.
"So you decided to come back to us, Nancy?" she asked, trying to smile naturally.
"If I almost passed away from homesickness in one night, how should I have borne it for—for longer?" answered Nancy, flushing.
"We missed you terribly," was all Billie could trust herself to say as she hurried to her room to take off her wet things.
Just then Onoye sounded the Japanese chimes to announce that luncheon was served and presently they were all assembled around the table.
But never a word did Nancy say about the torn letter which some one had so carefully pieced together.