CHAPTER XXII
THE ORPHAN OF THE ORCHIDS
Anxious hours at Cragsnook followed that night's storm. Reda, who had been ill in New York, had somehow managed to make her way to Bellaire when she was overtaken by the cloud-burst and stunned from fright of lightning and thunder. But with the skillful work of Dr. Whitehead, assisted by Jennie, Kate Bergen (Michael's cousin who arrived after the shower), Mrs. Dunbar and the girls, the old nurse finally opened her eyes, and showed signs of life.
"Oh, I never knew how much I loved her until I saw her lying so deathlike," Mary murmured, when Mrs. Dunbar insisted the child should leave the bedside of Reda. "If she had died, and I had not found her in time——"
"Now, Mary-love," coaxed Grace, "you know you are a scout, and we never indulge in foolish fancies like that. Just think how fine it is that she has been saved, and think how good Mrs. Dunbar is."
"Oh, I know and think of that constantly," declared Mary. "This house is nothing short of an institution since I came to it," she went on. "And do you know, Cleo," turning to the one girl who had the right there of relationship to Mrs. Dunbar, "it all frightens me when I feel so much at home here, almost as if I too belonged at Cragsnook. It is presuming, and I can't account for that in me. I have always been so timid."
"You are cured, that's why," said Cleo, urging Mary to bed, for it was well past midnight. "A girl scout simply can't be timid, that is a really, truly good as gold scout girl, and we all know you are exactly that. But not one more word to-night. I have been appointed captain and it is my duty to sound taps, or, as Benny Philow or Mally Mack might say, 'douse the glim.' I think that's the cutest expression," and to demonstrate just how "cute" it was she snapped off the lights.
Next day everything was in confusion, and excitement was too weak a word with which to describe the conditions that existed at Cragsnook. Reda had come to with all the strength characteristic of her sturdy race, and nothing but main force kept her from running away. She was frightened to death of the place, of the people around her, and nothing that Mary could say would assure her no harm could come to anyone who was within the hospitality of that generous home. And Reda had explained to Mary it was the jewels she had hidden for the child that had caused her most anxiety. She feared Janos would find them.
The advent of Katie Bergen, Michael's cousin, seemed nothing short of providential, and to her was at once entrusted the care of the obstreperous patient.
"I think, dear Mrs. Dunbar," said Mary rather timidly, "it would really be much better to take Reda back to the studio. Once there she will quiet down, and that may save her from higher fever."
"Perhaps you are right," Mrs. Dunbar agreed; "the doctor says she has been a very sick woman, and her collapse was only natural, considering what she went through. Has she told you why she was so eager to see you?"
"Partly," Mary replied. "You see, she was sort of conscious
[Transcriber's note: conscience?] stricken that something would happen
to me, and she felt obliged to warn me. And she also wanted to give me
Loved One's jewels."
"But nothing did happen," blurted out Madaline, keen on the trail of the mystery.
"Oh, do tell us, Mary," begged Grace. "It seems to me we will have so much to find out all at once it will be rather overwhelming if we don't start in."
"Well, you little scouts run along and enjoy your story," suggested Mrs. Dunbar, "and I will see about having Reda sent up to the mountain. I am sure, Mary, you are right. She may be saved a real relapse if we agree with her. And, of course, Katie is going to be your housekeeper. I would envy you if I hadn't such a treasure in Jennie. This is really her house, and I am a guest, it seems to me," and it was hoped by every little girl present that the delicious compliment floated out to Jennie, who was busy in the breakfast room just at that moment.
"Please let me tell you something first," begged Cleo, when the girls were left to themselves. "I am fairly bursting with the news. You know I wrote out the whole story to Uncle Guy. I wanted him to know all about it when he came home and also, ahem"—and the perky little head perked perceptibly—"I may as well admit, girls, I am ambitious to keep the family honors up in the writing line, so I just wrote all this glorious vacation to Uncle Guy, making it just like a summer story. I sent our pictures——"
"Mercy me, Cleo!" interrupted Grace, "I guess you will be a story writer. Just see how you have us all keyed up, and won't tell us what happened. What did your Uncle Guy say?" she demanded.
Cleo laughed triumphantly. "There, I knew I would get you excited——"
"Cleo Harris!" shouted Madaline, almost forgetting the presence of a sick person out on the enclosed side porch, where Reda was being fixed up for her journey over the mountain. "Cleo," repeated Madaline, "you tell us instantly what your Uncle Guy said!"
"Your commands are my pleasures," replied Cleo in mock dramatic emphasis. "There, doesn't that sound like a book? Uncle Guy wrote to me and to Aunt Audrey, and he merely said not to let a single kid escape. That my letter had knocked him silly, and that his cousin, whom he discovered out in the western camp, was coming home with him."
"Who is the cousin?" asked Grace.
"A man, a lovely man, just like Uncle Guy. He was an explorer, or still is, and has been away for some years," she glanced rather anxiously at Mary, but the latter never changed her serious expression. Then Cleo said pointedly, "Mary, your father was an explorer, wasn't he?"
"Yes, he went away in search of orchids," faltered Mary, "and you know he never came back from the sea, when the men took him out to the ocean to cool him in that frightful fever."
"And you left the island with the professor a few days after?" pressed
Cleo.
"Yes, oh yes. We had to get away. Grandie was getting sick, you know; that is how he lost—his memory."
"Yes," said Cleo, simply, but Grace and Madaline had "seen a light," which Mary still appeared blind to.
Mrs. Dunbar was very busy arranging for the removal of Reda, but in a moment of cessation she was heard talking to Crow's Nest over the phone. She gave orders to the sanitarium that Professor Benson should be brought down to Cragsnook for a ride late that afternoon, as the girls would not go up there that day. Besides, Mrs. Dunbar was declaring, the ride would do him good.
"Oh, won't that be lovely!" and Mary almost danced out of her glumps.
"Just think of Grandie here!"
"Now, Mary-love, you promised some of Reda's news. Do tell us before something else happens to put off all our delicious mysteries," implored Madaline, quite as if the telling would give the same joy to Mary as the news would furnish to herself.
"What did she want to warn you of?" prompted Grace.
"Oh, Janos and his men. They were coming out here to take all Grandie's orchids away. And they brought the monkey to scare him. He was dreadfully frightened of a monkey once in the tropics, and Janos knew it, so he just planned that awful trick on him——"
"With our lovely little Boxer! How perfectly absurd," exclaimed Grace, at the risk of spoiling all the thrilling story Mary had undertaken to tell them.
"Yes," went on Mary, "and the night you girls came, that first night, you remember?"
"Yes, when I turned on the lights," inserted Madaline.
"That was the night they first planned to scare Grandie's secret from him. They were all three out in that orchid room, just waiting to break in and—oh, I can't say what they were going to do to get Grandie's secret from him." She was now on the verge of sobbing, and the girls had no idea of letting any such thing occur.
"But Madaline turned the tables," Cleo said cheerily, "and she shooed off the—desperate thieves!" and Cleo again reverted to type as a fiction fixer.
"And the really cruel part of it all was," continued Mary, "Grandie did not know and does not know yet what became of the treasure they are all seeking. He lost it with his memory," she said almost in a whisper. "And it was daddy's just as I was his. I was to be given mother's family with the treasure as a peace offering."
"What was it?" asked Cleo. "Can you tell us now, Mary-love?" she asked gently.
"Yes, Grandie said I might tell you now, for he does not fear things as he did before he went to the sanitarium. He has recovered courage, which was simply clogged up in his congested mind. Yes, he said I might tell you now that he lost the most famous orchid in the world, the 'Spiranthes Corale.' That means coral lady tresses. It was in search of that daddy and the expedition went out. Daddy found it. It was almost beyond price. Then Loved One died, dear daddy was stricken, and all the papers and this wonderful bulb were given Grandie. He lost them! Do you wonder he almost went crazy?"
For a few minutes the girls did not speak. It seemed rather disappointing that the whole mystery should center around the bulb of an orchid.
"Oh, I know," exclaimed Cleo presently. "I have read of the famous orchid hunts and the fabulous sums of money offered for the most rare species. Of course that was the sort of expedition your folks were on, Mary-love. And, of course—why, girls, that's just what our newspaper clipping was all about. The one we found wrapped around the old stick in Mary's big clock!"
"Get it! Get it!" cried Madaline, who literally tumbled after Grace, in haste to reach the old bit of newspaper that had been carefully stored away in the scouts' desk, for they had been assigned one general and especial desk in Cragsnook.
"And the precious bulb was never found?" Cleo said to Mary, seeming to embrace her with a look, so filled was her expression with genuine affection.
"No, it has gone, and with it the one hope of Loved One's last word to me, that the famous orchid which was to be given to her mother in this country would unite me with her family, and prove daddy a real explorer."
"And don't you know who her family are?" asked Cleo, unable to suppress her increasing excitement.
"Not exactly, for Grandie begged me not to ask until he had recovered the bulb. He always felt his memory must come back. Now, of course, it is months, and we have given up hope. But I don't care any more, for I have found so many other darling loves in life." She threw her arms around Cleo, and if the latter had ever given in to tears she might have been pardoned a few just then—the kind that come with too much joy.
"Mary!" she said gently, "now I know why Professor Benson once called you the orphan of the orchids, but suppose, suppose your daddy didn't die?" she ventured.
"I have often thought of that," said the child. "But even if he lived he could never find me, for he would think I died with so many others, and I suppose I could not even look for him, until I grow up like Loved One, and go off again to search among the orchids. I wouldn't fear that fever when the goal might mean daddy!"