CHAPTER V.--THE FIRST MOTOR PICNIC.
One Saturday morning early in September Miss Helen Campbell gave abreakfast party to her four favorite Blue Birds. It was to be thebeginning of an eventful day for the young girls, three of whom were totake their first long motor trip, and, furthermore, the motor party wasto end with a visit to Shell Island, where this excited and happycompany of young people were to spend the night, motoring back to WestHaven next day.
Miss Campbell herself was excited.
"It's a novelty for me, my dears," she exclaimed, beaming on her guestsfrom behind the silver urn at the head of the breakfast table. "I'm avery dull, lonesome old woman, and having this nice child here with meis going to wake me into life again. I shall never be able to give youup, Wilhelmina. You had better write your father that you have beenadopted by a very obstinate old party, who believes that possession isnine points of the law."
"I'm quite willing to be possessed, Cousin Helen," answered Billie. "IfI could only see papa sometimes, I think I could say that I never was sogloriously happy in all my life."
Miss Campbell smiled with pleasure and the girls thought they had neverseen her look more beautiful. Her white hair glistened like a bank ofsnow in the sunshine and her soft eyes were as blue as patches of WestHaven Bay on a clear, still morning in summer.
There were times when the lonely spinster looked faded and worn, and atsuch times she used to shut herself up in her big gray stone house onCliff Street and refuse to see even her most intimate friends.
"It's just one of my lonesome moods," she used to say, "and I would notfor worlds inflict myself on innocent people when one is on me."
But Miss Campbell had not had a single attack of loneliness since Billiehad come to live with her. The vigorous, active young girl had awakenedthe entire household which had run on its steady even course for so manyyears, and now the place hardly recognized itself, filled with the happyvoices and gay laughter of Billie and her friends.
It was an unusual sight for the big mahogany table in the dining room tobe loaded with the best cut glass and silver and adorned with delicatelace doilies, which had belonged to Miss Campbell's grandmother. Thesething had been laid away for many years. In the centre of the table wasa crystal vase filled with forget-me-nots.
"They are the only flowers I could think of which were the color of yourblue birds," Miss Campbell had explained. "Besides, they are my favoritecolor. You know, I always wear blue when I don't wear gray. Sometimes Iwear black----"
"Black, Cousin Helen?" repeated Billie. "I didn't know you ever woreanything so mournful."
"You shall never see me in it, child, if I can help it. But I have ablack dress, only one, and I do wear it at times in my bedroom."
Some thirty years before Miss Campbell, then a young and beautiful girl,had come to West Haven to live with her grandfather and there she hadlived ever since, except for an occasional trip abroad. It was supposedthat she had suffered a great sorrow at some time in her life, but thereal story had never been known. Captain Campbell, her grandfather, hadbeen a jovial, pleasure loving old man, fond of company andentertaining. He liked to have his beautiful granddaughter stand at hisside and receive his guests in a brocaded ball gown, with the famousCampbell diamonds blazing in her hair and the diamond and sapphirenecklace around her throat.
But after General Campbell's death there were no more balls and dinnersin the big, old house. The long parlors were seldom opened except to becleaned and aired, and Miss Campbell, now a somewhat shrivelled pink andwhite little lady of fifty-five, interested herself only in thecharities of West Haven.
"Yes, my dear children, this household and its mistress have got intosuch a lethargy that it is time they were waked up. We have been sunk inso deep a rut, my old servants and I, that it might have closed over ourheads and the world gone on just the same."
"Lots of poor families would have gone begging at Christmas, then, MissCampbell," put in Elinor.
"And what would all those poor old seamen have done?" went on Nancy.
"And the Blue Birds," added Mary Price. "We should have had to use acorner of the gymnasium at school for our most secret society meetings."
Miss Campbell paid the rent of the Blue Bird club rooms.
"And, pray, what should I have done?" finished Billie. "I should havebeen knocking around still with papa, trying to get on with the queerpeople who live in hotels, and never have had nice girls to go with or adelightful home to stay in."
Miss Campbell blushed with pleasure.
"I have a great many surprises up my sleeve for my little Motor Maids. Ishall only tell you one, though. What would you say to a Blue BirdThanksgiving ball?"
"Oh, oh, oh! How splendid!" cried the young girls.
"Honk, honk!" went the motor horn at the front entrance, which was asignal for breakfast to come to an end and the party to be off.
A hamper of luncheon had been strapped behind the car with the suitcases. Miss Campbell sat between Elinor and Mary in the back, whileNancy took the seat now understood to be hers always, beside her friendBillie, in front. The four Campbell servants, who had grown old in theirmistress's service, stood in a row on the gravel walk to witness thestrange sight of their beloved "Miss Helen" sailing away in a redinfernal machine, her blue automobile veil streaming out behind like apiece of flying cloud.
"Don't go too fast, Billie," she exclaimed, as they turned the corner ofCliff Street, and whirled down the steep, rather slippery Main street ofWest Haven. "Remember that you have got a decrepit old woman in the backwho has never ridden behind anything faster than a pair of amblingcarriage horses in all her life."
"How about the five-thirty express, Cousin Helen?" Billie called overher shoulder.
"A locomotive with an engineer is a very different thing from a younggirl guiding a scarlet comet," the little lady answered; but as theyleft the street for the country road and Billie gradually increased thespeed, Miss Campbell leaned back with a look of blissful enjoyment onher face.
"It is one of the most exhilarating things I have ever experienced," sheconfided to Elinor.
At noon they stopped for lunch. The road now lay along a high cliffoverlooking the ocean, which on this calm September morning was asserenely blue and still as a mill pond. White sails dotted it here andthere, and an occasional wave rippled on the pebbly beach with amurmuring, drowsy sound.
They had pulled up at the side of a little pine grove just off the roadand spread the lunch cloth on a carpet of pine needles.
Then the delicious cakes and sandwiches which Miss Campbell had orderedfrom Mrs. Price were arranged in neat piles, while Elinor opened her teabasket, a present from an aunt in Ireland, and made tea for the company.
It was all very delightful and they were enjoying themselves thoroughly,when Billie and Nancy, who were seated facing the others, received aslight shock. A tall, slender woman, dressed in black, with a long blackchiffon veil completely concealing her face, suddenly emerged frombehind a clump of dwarf oak and bay trees at the far end of the groveand beckoned to them.
The two girls exchanged glances of amazement and Nancy was about to say:"Why, look at that woman!" when the woman, herself, put her finger toher lips and shook her head violently.
"I think she's crazy, Nancy," said Billie, in a low voice, under coverof the conversation of the others. "We had better not take any notice.It would just alarm Cousin Helen and spoil the day."
Nancy agreed with her, and the two girls were about to suggest that theystart on again, when the woman began making the most extraordinarymotions of entreaty, imploring them with outstretched arms, beseechingthem with every gesture to come to her. And still the two girls hungback. Then the woman raised the sleeve of her loose black silk wrap andshowed her arm bound with a bloody handkerchief.
Nancy gasped at this. The sight of blood was always sickening to her.But, seeing Billie's meaning glance in Miss Campbell's direction, shepretended that she had choked on her tea.
The other
three were deep in a conversation. Miss Campbell wasdescribing a beautiful ball she had once been to where she had dancedwith a real prince, and they hardly noticed when Nancy and Billiestrolled over to the clump of bushes.
The woman, who had been waiting for them, seized Billie's arm and in alow, rapid voice said:
"I see that you are both unusually nice girls whom I can trust. I am ingreat trouble. You will help me, will you not? It is very simple, what Iam going to ask you. You see, I have been in a wreck."
"A motor wreck?" asked Billie.
"Yes, yes," replied the woman, not impatiently but as if she were verymuch pressed for time. "The car rolled over the embankment. You will seeit below there. It happened just in the curve of the road. There was noexcuse except that we were going too fast and the wheels did--what is ityou call it? Skidded? We saved ourselves, all three, by jumping.Fortunately the back wheels were caught in the sand and there was justtime to climb out as the car was overturned. The others have left me.They will return at any moment now with another car. Hidden under theseat of the wrecked car is a small box. I must have it. I must indeed. Icannot get it myself. I have sprained my knee, and can stand only bysupporting myself against this tree. Will you get that box for me andplace me in your debt always, always? You cannot understand howimportant it is for me to have it."
"Of course, we will," Billie assured her, "and won't you let us help youover to our party, or make you comfortable here with the cushions untilyour friends come back?"
"No, no, no," replied the stranger. "I do not wish to be seen ifpossible. I only beg you to make haste. I will wait here."
As the woman grew more in earnest, her voice seemed to deepen andvibrate like a musical instrument, and the girls almost forgot to listento her words under the spell of its wonderful tones; and when she threwback her veil, they still stood rooted to the spot, for she was reallyquite the most beautiful person they had either of them ever seen. Hereyes and hair were dark, her skin rather creamy in texture; there was agenerous curve to her lips, a straight nose and full, rounded chin. Shesmiled a little as she noticed the admiration of the two girls, showingtwo rows of white, even teeth.
"You will not refuse?" she asked again.
And they helped her to sit down on the ground and hurried out of thegrove to the roadside. There, sure enough, lying on its side in thesand, some forty feet below the road, was the wrecked motor car.
"Nancy, I would do anything for her," observed Billie, as they clambereddown the embankment.
"Isn't she perfect?" exclaimed Nancy. "And still, Billie, I can't helpbelieving that she's slightly off in her upper story. She was so queer.But a shock like that would be enough to turn anybody delirious, jumpingout of an automobile as it turned over an embankment."
"It'll all depend on whether we find the box. If it is just a deliriousdream, there won't be any box and we will have had our climb fornothing."
They searched the upturned car and there was nothing in it. The groundwas strewn with wreckage. Cushions and rugs were scattered about in wildconfusion. The girls searched the place hurriedly all the way down tothe foot of the cliff.
"There is no need of wasting any more time, Nancy, dear," said Billie atlast. "It's very evident to me that the beautiful lady was out of hermind and we've been 'stung,' as the boys say. Let's go back. Perhaps shewill let us help her get somewhere."
Half buried in the sand was a small box of highlypolished wood.]
"Yes, I am afraid it's just a case of King George's men marched up thehill and then marched down again," said Nancy.
"And I got two grass stains when I fell down just now," added Billie,looking ruefully at her white serge skirt.
"My shoes are full of sand, and I've soiled my white stockings," went onNancy. "Look," she cried suddenly; "look, Billie, here it is right underour noses. I suppose that little bay tree hid it from us on our waydown. I ask the beautiful lady's pardon; but I still can't imagine whyher own friends couldn't have got it for her just as well as we could."
Half buried in the sand was a small box of highly polished wood, six oreight inches square. Two broad bands of silver reinforced it at the backand sides, and a little silver combination lock took the place of thekeyhole. In the middle of the box was a small, round silver plate, onwhich a coat of arms was engraved.
"This is the box, all right enough," said Billie, examining it with muchcuriosity. "Now let's return it to that mysterious lovely person and goon our ways, rejoicing."
But they were not destined to get rid of the box that day nor for manyanother day. Just as they reached the top of the cliff they heard thewhirring of a motor engine. A car was just starting from the grove. Twomen were on the front seat, while the owner of the box was lying almosthelplessly in the back seat, her veil thrown back and her face white anddrawn. There was no top to the car and the girls could see her plainly.They thought she must have fainted, but when Nancy called: "Wait, pleasewait," she raised herself quickly, put her finger to her lips in tokenof silence and dropped a card into the road.
The next instant the strange motor car was lost to sight around thecurve. Billie picked up the card with some irritation.
"How silly," she exclaimed, "What are we to do with this thing? Whycouldn't she have waited a minute?"
"Because she didn't want the men to know she had the box, goosey,"answered Nancy. "It's as plain as the nose on your face. What does thecard say?"
It was a man's business card and read:
"Pierre Lafitte, Avocat, Rue----21. Paris."
On the back of the card had been painfully written with a pencil:
"I knew when you were gone so long that you would be too late. If you are merciful and kind, keep the box a secret from all the world. You will not regret it. Send your name to this address and you shall be relieved at once."
"Burdened with another secret," cried Billie, in a resigned voice."Where can we hide the thing?"
"I'll sit on it for the time being," answered Nancy, laughing. "Therecome the girls."
"What are you two infants up to?" called Elinor, appearing just then atthe edge of the grove. "We thought you had gone in the other directionand we've been looking everywhere for you."
"We have--er----" hesitated Billie, who never could tell fibs. "Whathave we been doing, Nancy?"
"We've been looking at a wreck. Don't you want to see it?"
"Nancy Brown," cried her friend Mary, putting her hands on Nancy'sshoulders and gazing into her face, "you've got a secret. I can tell byyour expression. You are hiding something."
"I'm trying to hide it, but I find it rather difficult. I feel like abantam hen sitting on a goose egg."
"Let's push her off her goose egg," cried Elinor, "and see what itreally is."
"Help, Billie, help!" screamed Nancy, while the four friends engaged ina school girl romp, and Miss Campbell, who was dozing in the grove, halfopened her eyes and smiled.
"Is there anything more charming and sweeter than the sound ofchildren's voices out of doors?" she said to herself. She could neverget used to the idea that Billie was not still the little eight-year-oldgirl who had spent a summer in West Haven seven years before.
In the meantime, the guardian of the box was well defended by Billieuntil she began to laugh, and when Nancy was taken with the giggles herfather used to say she was nothing but an abandoned lunatic. The placerang with the joyous peals and the other girls were obliged to pause inthe struggle and join in. Then this foolishly happy child rolledhelplessly onto the ground, upsetting the box.
But there came a sudden end to the laughter, for the top of the box hadsprung open and its contents were scattered on the roadside.
The girls clasped their hands excitedly and gazed at each other withwide-eyed amazement, for at their feet glittered dozens of the mostbeautiful jewels. There were a diamond and sapphire necklace, strings ofpearls, earrings, rings, and broaches.
"Great heavens, what have you girls been doing?" exclaimed Mary.
"Nan
cy, you explain," answered Billie, grown very grave, all of asudden. "I'll gather these things up and get them out of sight asquickly as possible. I think my suit case is the safest place for thetime being, and we can take it into the front of the car with us. Thenwe can discuss later what we had better do."
While the girls listened to Nancy's strange story of the beautifulinjured woman, Billie collected and replaced the jewels in the box withthe card, and packed it in the bottom of her suit case.
In another ten minutes the motor party was on the road again, theyounger members somewhat sobered by the secret responsibility which hadbeen thrust upon them.