Two Little Women on a Holiday, Carolyn Wells [ink ebook reader .txt] 📗

you little minx?”

“Just what I say,” repeated Dotty, but Dolly had already fled from the room. She went in search of Mrs. Berry, and found her in her own bedroom.

“Please, Mrs. Berry,” said Dolly, controlling her sob-shaken voice, “I want to go out, all by myself, a little while. May I?”

“Goodness, child, what do you mean? Where? I’ll go with you.”

“No; I want to go alone. I have to think something out all by myself. Nobody can help me, and if I’m here, all the girls will butt in and bother me.”

“Where are you going? For a walk?”

“No, please. I want to ride on the top of a Fifth Avenue stage. I want to go alone, and then, sitting up there, with the fresh air blowing around me, I can think something out. I may go, mayn’t I, Mrs. Berry? I know all about the stages.”

“Why, yes, child, of course, you can go, if you really want to. You can’t come to any harm just riding on top of a bus. Run along. But I’d rather you’d let me help you. Or go with you.”

“No, please; I must be alone. I don’t want even Dotty. I have something very serious to decide. No one can help me. My mother could, but she isn’t here.”

“I wish you’d try me,” and the kind lady smiled endearingly.

“I would if I could, and you’re a dear to ask me. But this is a special matter, and it troubles me awfully. So, I’ll go off by myself for an hour or so, and when I come back, I’ll be all decided about it.”

Dolly got her hat and coat, without seeing the other girls at all. She went out at the front door of the big Fifth Avenue house, and walked a few blocks before she stopped to wait for a stage.

“I don’t care which way I go,” she thought to herself, “I’ll take the first bus that comes along.”

The first one chanced to be going downtown, and signalling the conductor, Dolly climbed the little winding stairs to the top.

There were only half a dozen passengers up there, and Dolly sat down near the front.

It was a clear, crisp morning. The air was full of ozone, and no sooner had Dolly settled herself into her seat, than she began to feel better. Her mind cleared and she could combat the problems that were troubling her. But she was in a dilemma. Should she go to Mr. Forbes and tell him where the jewel was,—or, should she not?

She wanted to be honest, she wanted to do right, but it would be a hard task. The more she thought it over, the more she was perplexed, and though her spirits were cheered by the pleasant ride, her troubles were as far as ever from a solution.

Down she went, down the beautiful Avenue, past the Sherman statue and the Plaza fountain. On, past the Library, down through the shopping district, and then Dolly concluded she would go on down to the Washington Arch, and stay in the same bus for the return trip.

But, before she realised it, she found the bus she was in had turned East on Thirty-second Street, and was headed for the Railroad Station. She started up, to get off the stage, but sat down again.

“What’s the use?” she thought. “I can just as well go on to the station, and come back again. I only want the ride.”

So she went on, and at the station, she was asked to take another stage. Down the stairs she climbed, and as she glanced at the great colonnade of the building she realised that from there trains went home! Home,—where mother was!

Unable to resist, Dolly obeyed an impulse to enter the station.

The warm, pleasant atmosphere of the arcade, soothed her nerves, and she walked along, thinking deeply.

She came to the stairs that led down to the waiting rooms, and a great wave of homesickness came over her.

She would go home! She had money with her, she would buy a ticket, and go straight to Berwick! She couldn’t, she simply COULD NOT face Uncle Jeff and the girls, with her secret untold, and she would not tell it!

Anyway, she couldn’t go back to the house where that horrid Fenn was! That was certain.

She looked in her pocket-book, and tucked away in its folds was the return half of her Berwick ticket! She had forgotten that she had it with her. It seemed a finger of Fate pointing the way.

“I will,” she decided. “I will go back to Berwick. I’ll ask about the trains.”

Inquiry at the Information Department told her that there would be a train for Berwick in half an hour, and Dolly went in and sat down in the waiting room.

Suddenly it struck her that the people at Mr. Forbes’ would be alarmed at her non-appearance, and would be very anxious for her safety.

That would never do. She had no wish to disturb kind Mrs. Berry or to scare Dotty half to death.

She saw the telephone booths near by, and realised how easy it would be to communicate with the house.

She asked the operator for the number of Jefferson Forbes’ residence and in a moment was in the booth.

The butler responded to her call, and Dolly did not ask for any one else.

“That you, McPherson?” she said, speaking as casually as she could.

“Yes, Miss Fayre. Will you speak with Mrs. Berry?”

“No; I’ll give you a message. Please say to Miss Rose that I have gone to Berwick.”

“To Berwick, miss?”

“Yes; and tell Mrs. Berry the same. That’s all, McPherson; no message for any one else.”

“Yes, Miss Fayre. When will you be back, Miss Fayre?”

“Not at all. Or, that is,—never mind that. Just say I have gone to Berwick. I’ll write to Miss Rose as soon as I get there.”

“Yes, Miss Fayre,” and the butler hung up his receiver. It was not his business if the ladies came or went.

In obedience to orders, McPherson went to Mrs. Berry and delivered the message.

“The dear child,” said the housekeeper, and the tears came to her eyes. Of course, she knew about the earring episode, and until now she hadn’t suspected that Dolly really took it. But to run away practically proved her guilt. So she had meant to go when she asked permission to go on the bus! Mrs. Berry’s heart was torn, for she loved Dolly best of the four, and it was a blow to be thus forced to believe her guilty. She quizzed the butler, but he had no further information to give.

“She only said she was going, ma’am, and said for me to tell you and Miss Rose. That’s all.”

“I will tell Miss Rose,” said Mrs. Berry, and dismissed the man.

She thought deeply before going to find Dotty. She wondered if she might yet stay Dolly’s flight and persuade her to return. She looked up a timetable, and found that the train for Berwick would leave in ten minutes. Doubtless Dolly was already in the car.

However, being a woman of energetic nature, Mrs. Berry telephoned to the Railroad Station. She asked for a porter, and begged him to try to find Dolly, whom she described, and ask her to come to the telephone.

“I remember seeing that girl,” said the negro porter. “She was walking around sort of sad-like, and sort of uncertain. But I don’t see her now.”

“Look on the Berwick train,” commanded Mrs. Berry, “and do it quickly. If she’s on the train, ask her to get off and answer my call. I think she’ll do it. Go quickly! I’ll hold the wire.”

But it was within a few minutes of starting time; the train was crowded, and after a short search the porter came back with the word that he couldn’t find her. “I could of,” he said, “if I’d ‘a’ had a minute more. But the Train Despatcher put me off, and they started. Sorry, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry, too,” and Mrs. Berry sighed as she realised how near she had come to success, only to fail.

She thought a few moments longer, then she went to find Dotty.

That young person, she discovered, to her astonishment, was up in Mr. Forbes’ own study, on the fourth floor. Dotty had insisted on an interview with her host after the stormy time she had with his secretary.

Mr. Forbes had received her, not at all unwillingly, for he wanted to get at the truth of the unpleasant matter.

“Dolly never took it!” Mrs. Berry heard Dotty, declare, as she approached the door. “Either it’s just lost, or else Mr. Fenn stole it,—or else—”

“Or else what?” asked Mr. Forbes, as Dotty paused.

“I don’t like to say,” and Dotty twisted her finger nervously; “I do suspect somebody,—at least, I fear maybe I do, a little bit, but I won’t say anything about it, unless you keep on blaming Dolly. Then I will!”

“I have something to tell you,” said Mrs. Berry, entering. “Dolly has gone home.”

“What!” cried Mr. Forbes and Dotty simultaneously. Lewis Fenn smiled.

“Yes,” continued Mrs. Berry, “she has gone home to Berwick. She came to me and asked if she might go for a ride on top of a Fifth Avenue stage, to think things out by herself,—she said. Then, a little later, she telephoned from the Pennsylvania Station that she was just taking the train for Berwick.”

“I don’t believe it!” cried Dotty. “Who told you?”

“McPherson. He took the message. Dolly said to tell you, Dotty, and to tell me, but she sent no word to any one else.”

“Looks bad,” said Mr. Forbes, shaking his head.

“I told you so!” said Lewis Fenn, nodding his. “I knew when I flatly accused Miss Fayre this morning of taking the earring, that she was the guilty one. Understand me, she didn’t mean to steal. She didn’t look upon it as theft. She only took a fancy to the bauble, and appropriated it without really thinking it wrong. As a child would take a worthless little trinket, you know.”

Dotty looked stunned. She paid no attention to Fenn’s talk; she stared at Mrs. Berry, saying, “Has she really gone?”

“Yes, dear,” answered the sympathetic lady, “she has. Perhaps it’s the best thing. She’ll tell her mother all about it, and then we’ll know the truth.”

“Yes, she’ll confess to her mother,” said Fenn, and he grinned in satisfaction.

“Shut up, Fenn,” said Mr. Forbes. “I’m not at all sure Dolly is the culprit. If I know that girl, she wouldn’t run away if she were guilty,—but she might if she were unjustly accused.”

“That’s generous of you, sir,” said the secretary, “but you know yourself that when I taxed Miss Fayre definitely with the deed, she immediately went off, pretending that she was just going for a ride, and would return. That piece of deception doesn’t look like innocence, I think you must admit!”

“No, no, it doesn’t. Dotty, did you say you had some other suspicion? What is it?”

“I can’t tell it now. I can’t understand Dolly. I know, oh, I KNOW she never took the earring, but I can’t understand her going off like that. She never pretends. She’s never deceitful—”

“She surely was this time,” and Fenn seemed to exult in the fact.

“Maybe she changed her plan after she started,” suggested Dotty delorously.

“Not likely,” mused Mr. Forbes. “It was unprecedented for her to go alone for a bus ride, but if it was because she wanted to get off home secretly, it is, of course, very plausible. She didn’t want any of you girls to know she was going, lest you persuade her not to. She didn’t want