Two Little Women on a Holiday, Carolyn Wells [ink ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Carolyn Wells
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“I go to an awfully nice school,” Corinne Bell said. “It’s quite near my house and I can go alone every day. We have such interesting teachers, and such a jolly lot of girls. You’d love it, Alicia.”
“Yes, I’d love it, but how could I go there? It isn’t a boarding school, is it?”
“No; but couldn’t you board somewhere in New York?”
“Alone! No, I should say not! You know I live out in the western wilds, at least the middle western wilds, and I think they’re wilder than the far west. This little New York visit is all poor Alicia will see of the glittering metropolis for,—oh, well, it may be for years and it may be forever!”
“What do you do in vacation time?” asked Janet.
“Oh, Dad and I go to summery places. Couldn’t come to New York then, you know. But when I get married, I’m going to live in New York, you can bet on that!”
“You’re not thinking of marrying soon, I hope,” and Janet laughed.
“Never can tell!” said Alicia, smiling saucily. “I have all sorts of wonderful schemes in my noodle. Some of ‘em materialise,—some don’t. But trust little Alicia to do something big! Oh, girls, my secret is just TOO splendid!”
“Is it—is it all right?” and Dolly stammered, as she looked at Alicia with a doubtful glance.
“Is it all right! You little sanctimonious-eyed prude! You bet it’s all right! Maybe we’ll meet again, Janet. You can’t ‘most always sometimes tell.”
“I hope you’ll come to Berwick to visit me, Alicia,” said Bernice; “I think as we’re cousins we ought to see more of each other.”
“I’d love to, Bernie. Maybe I’ll come this summer.”
“We could have a sort of reunion at our house,” went on Bernice; “Muriel and you girls could come for a few days, and the two D’s and I would be there, and we’d scare up a lot of fun.”
“‘Deed we would! I’ll surely come if it can be arranged. But I never know Dad’s plans from one day to the next,” Alicia said.
“Hello, girls,” sang out a boyish voice, and in came Geordie Knapp with half a dozen comrades. “We just sorter, kinder thought we’d see a bunch of peaches here about this time o’ day! Hello, everybody!”
Marly Turner was not among the group, and Dolly looked anxiously at Geordie, as if to ask him what he knew concerning him.
“What is it, Dolly?” asked Geordie, with a blank look.
“Secret!” laughed Dolly, “come over here and whisper to me.”
“Oh, how rude!” cried Alicia; “even out West we don’t whisper in polite society!”
“But this is a special case,” and Dolly smiled and dimpled, as if about to discuss the most trivial subject with Geordie.
The boy looked surprised when Dolly spoke to him about what they had overheard the night before.
“Why,” he said, “I never gave it another thought! I don’t believe they really meant what we thought they did.”
“Yes, they did,” asserted Dolly. “All day, Alicia has been keyed up to some great excitement. She had a letter from Marly this morning, and she expects a telephone from him. Also, she said things that could only mean that they really are going to elope to-night.”
“Such as what?”
“She said maybe she’d live in New York soon, and said she had a big, wonderful secret and we’d know it tomorrow,—why, she even said she expects to live in New York after she’s married!”
“Whew! that’s going some! Still, Dolly, I don’t just see what we can do.”
“I think I ought to tell Mr. Forbes, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I do hate tell other people’s secrets.”
“Yes; so do I. Perhaps I’ll just tell Mrs. Berry.”
“I say, I’ve an idea! Suppose I get hold of Turner, and get him to go home and spend the evening with me. I’ll insist upon it, you know, and if he objects, I’ll ask him what’s up.”
“Oh, yes, Geordie, that will be fine! You do that, will you?”
“Yes; suppose I telephone him now, and ask him.”
“Go ahead, and then tell me what he says.”
Geordie excused himself and went off to the telephone booth.
“You seem to have a lot of secrets, too, Dolly,” said Alicia.
“Yes, I have,” and Dolly looked demure. “Can’t let you have all the fun, ‘Licia.”
“Nothing doing,” Geordie reported to Dolly, as he came back, and his face looked more serious. He made an opportunity to speak to her alone again, and he said, “I got him all right, and he said he couldn’t see me this evening, for he’s awful busy. Said he was busy with his father.”
“His father! Why, Mr. Turner is an actor, isn’t he?”
“Sure he is, one of the best.”
“Then how can Marly be with him? Isn’t Mr. Turner acting?”
“Not just now. He’s rehearsing, I think.”
“Well, I believe Marly made that up. He’s planning the elopement.”
“I’m afraid he is. He was sort of queer and didn’t answer as straightforwardly as he usually does. Oh, what a silly performance to cut up! Why, they’re just a couple of kids!”
“I know it. I never was mixed up in a thing like this before.”
“You’re not mixed up in this.”
“No; not unless I mix in purposely. And I believe I shall have to. You see, I’m only a country girl, and I don’t know what’s right to do in this case. But I’m going to follow my instinct, and tell either Mr. Forbes or Mrs. Berry. I don’t think I’ll tell Dot or Bernice, for they’d have no more knowledge of what’s right to do, than I have myself.”
“You’re a good deal of a trump, Dolly Fayre. But I think you’re in a hard place. I wish I could help you, and I’ll do anything you say.”
“Couldn’t you go to Mr. Turner?”
“I’d hate to. Yer see, us fellows don’t tell on each other,—it isn’t done—” “I know. Well, let’s hope we’re mistaken.”
“But I don’t see how we can be,–after what we heard.”
“Neither do I. I’ve a mind to speak straight out to Alicia about it.”
“Do, if you think best.”
“Well, I’ll see.”
Still uncertain what she’d do, Dolly went home with the rest of the quartette.
Alicia was in high spirits, constantly exclaiming, “Oh, if you only knew what I know!” or “I’m terribly excited over my secret! Just you wait till tomorrow!” or some such speech.
And as they entered the Forbes house she flew to Mrs. Berry demanding to know if a telephone message had arrived for her.
“Yes,” replied the good-natured housekeeper. “Marly Turner called up, and he asked me to tell you that everything was all right, and he’d pull it off to-night, sure.”
“Oh, goody!” cried Alicia, “are you sure that’s just what he said?”
“Yes,” asseverated Mrs. Berry, “see, I wrote it down, so I shouldn’t forget.”
Dolly had to eavesdrop a little to overhear this conversation, as Alicia had drawn Mrs. Berry aside, to make her inquiries. And it was with a heavy heart that Dolly went upstairs to lay off her wraps.
“Oh, girls, I’m so happy!” cried Alicia, as she flung herself into a chair. “But don’t ask me why, for I refuse to tell you. Now, do we dress for to-night’s party before dinner or after?”
“Before, please,” said Mrs. Berry, who had followed the girls to their rooms. “Mr. Forbes asked me to tell you that he wants an interview in the drawing-room before you go to Muriel’s, and so you’d better be dressed.”
“Ah, those drawing-room interviews!” exclaimed Bernice. “How they frightened me at first; then they rather bored me; but in the last few days I’ve come to like them!”
“So have I,” said Dotty. “I like Mr. Forbes himself a whole lot better than I did at first. He’s so much more get-at-able.”
“He ought to be,” laughed Alicia, “with four girls to train him up in the way he should go! What frocks, ladies? Our very bestest?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Bernice. “This is our last night, and we must ‘go out in a blaze of glory’! And scoot, you two D’s. We’ve none too much time to dress.”
Dolly and Dotty went to their room, and it was rather a silent Dolly who sat down to the dressing-table to brush her golden locks.
“Whatamatter, Dollums?” said her chum. “Sad at thoughts of going home?”
“Oh, no; really, Dot, I’m glad to go home. We’ve had a magnificent time here, but I’m—well, I s’pect I’m homesick.”
“So’m I, a little, now that you mention it. But we’ve enough to remember and think over for a long time, haven’t we?”
“Of course. My but I’m glad that earring was found! Oh, Dot, wouldn’t it have been awful if we had gone home with that doubt hanging over us?”
“It would, indeed, old girl. And, now if you’ll proceed to do up that taffy-coloured mass on top of your head, I’ll accept the dressing mirror for a while.”
Dolly twisted up her golden mop, and decorated it with a ribbon band, and then gave over her place to Dotty.
And, shortly, four very much dressed-up girls went down to the extra elaborate dinner that was served in honour of the last night of their visit.
The chat at table was far more gay and spontaneous than it had been on the night of their arrival, for all had become used to each other’s ways, and had grown to like each other very much. Mr. Forbes, too, had changed from a stiff, somewhat embarrassed host to a genial, even gay comrade. He asked all about their doings of the day, and they told him, with gay stories of funny episodes.
Dolly watched Alicia, but except that her eyes were unusually bright and her laughter very frequent, the Western girl showed no especial excitement.
After dinner they all went to the drawing-room, and it was with a feeling of real sadness that Dolly realised it was for the last time.
Mr. Forbes walked up and down the room as he often did, and then paused in front of the group of girls who were standing by the piano.
“Sit down, girlies,” he said; “Alicia and Bernice, sit on that sofa, please,—you two D’s on that one.”
Uncle Jeff was smiling, but still, there seemed to be an undercurrent of seriousness in his tone, that implied a special talk.
“Did it ever occur to any of you,” he began, “that I invited you here for something beside a mere desire to give you young people some pleasure?”
“Why, you’ve practically said so to us, Uncle Jeff,” laughed Alicia; “are you going to tell us your reason?”
“Yes, I am. And I’m going to tell you now.”
Mr. Forbes sat down in an easy chair, in such a position that he could look straight at all the girls, but his gaze rested on his two nieces.
“My reason,” he said, slowly, “is, I admit, a selfish one. If you girls have enjoyed your visit, I’m very glad, but what I wanted, was to study you.”
“I knew it!” exclaimed Bernice. “I thought you were studying us—our characters.”
“Yes, just that. And I wanted to study the characters of my two nieces. Now you know you can’t judge much of girls, unless you see them with their comrades, their chums; or at least with other girls of their own age. So I asked you each to bring a girl friend with you. As it happened, Bernie brought two, and Alicia none, but that didn’t matter. And I’m exceedingly glad to have met and known the two D’s.”
The courteous old gentleman bowed to Dotty and Dolly who
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