THE SURPRISE
Up and down, up and down the old wharf, with his eyes turned ever
toward the sea, a young man walked. His face was tanned, but it had a
haggard look under the sun-burn. Tom Curtis, alone among all the
friends and relatives, believed that news might yet be heard of the
lost girls. That day he had crossed over to Portsmouth to receive the
report from a boat that had been specially sent out with a dredging
machine to drag the bottom of the bay near the spot where the houseboat
had been anchored. The report received was--no news! No news was good
news--from such a source.
The houseboat party had hardly realized the tremendous anxiety and
excitement that their mysterious disappearance off the face of the
waters had caused. Mr. and Mrs. Butler had come from their home to
devote every hour of the day and night to searching for the lost girls.
Mr. and Mrs. Seldon had only gone back to Philadelphia the day before,
as Tom had promised to telegraph them the moment that any news was
received. Dr. Alden had left his patients to take care of themselves
while he endeavored to trace the whereabouts of his beloved Phil. Even
Miss Matilda Tolliver, principal and proprietor of the Select Seminary
for Girls at Harborpoint, Maryland, had departed from her school for
the space of forty-eight hours to make the proper personal
investigations for her four lost pupils and her teacher. Until she
appeared on the scene herself, she felt sure no really intelligent
effort had been made to find them.
Mrs. Curtis was still at Old Point Comfort with Tom. Madeleine had gone
back to New York. Mrs. Curtis felt herself to be responsible for the
whole disaster of the lost houseboat. If she had not invited the girls
to anchor in such dangerous waters, their boat would never have torn
loose from its moorings.
Tom was idling on the dock, simply because there was nothing else to
do, no place to go, except to return to his mother with the report from
the dredging crew. He took no special interest in the slow approach of
another great battleship from the waters of Hampton Roads. Although it
was usually good fun to watch the sailors come ashore after they had
been away on a long cruise, to-day nothing was worth while. His
thoughts were on the lost girls.
Just before the boat got in he concluded that he was bored with fooling
around the wharf; he would take a walk through the town. He turned his
back on his friends and deliberately strolled away from the water.
Once Tom Curtis did turn his head. He had heard an unusual stir behind
him. The sailors, who were lined up preparatory to going ashore, had
given the houseboat party a rousing cheer as they left the ship. But
even with this chance for discovering his friends, Tom was blind. The
crowd hid the little party of women from view, and Tom strode on faster
than ever up the river bank toward one of the narrow streets of the
town.
"O Miss Jenny Ann!" pleaded Madge as soon as her feet touched land, "I
saw Tom Curtis leave the pier just a second ago. He can't be very far
away. Won't you let me run after him? I will find him and bring him
back in a minute."
Without waiting to hear her chaperon's reply Madge darted up the street
at full speed.
Run as hard as she would, Madge could not catch up with Tom. Every time
she arrived at one end of a street Tom was about in the act of crossing
over to the next one. She could keep him in sight, but she could not
reach him. She forgot that Miss Jenny Ann and the rest of her party
were waiting for her, and that she really ought to have given up her
chase, remembered nothing but the fact that she must see Tom. As she
plunged recklessly across a side street, an automobile whirled into it.
At the opposite end of the square Tom Curtis's attention was arrested
sharply. He heard the shrill, harsh protest from an automobile horn,
then a cry of terror from a girl's throat. Her cry was taken up by half
a dozen voices. There was no need to ask questions. He knew what had
happened. An automobile had run down a young girl.
It took but a minute for Tom to run back the entire length of the
block. But before he got to the spot where the accident had occurred a
crowd had risen up as though by magic. It was impossible to see at once
who had been hurt. Tom pushed his way through the outer fringe of the
crowd. There was a woman in tears, offering her bottle of smelling
salts to a girl. A flushed man was bending over the same girl,
entreating her forgiveness. A fat policeman was demanding everybody's
name.
Tom heard the girl say: "I am not hurt a bit, thank you. I was
frightened; that was why I screamed. The front of your car just grazed
me, but you stopped it in time. No, policeman, I don't wish to have
anybody arrested. Please let me go. I was trying to catch up with a
friend. He will be out of sight if I don't hurry."
And it was thus that Tom beheld Madge, whom, a minute before, in his
gloomy reverie, he had given up for lost!
"O Tom!" she cried joyously as he hurried toward her, "I did make you
look around, after all. We were not drowned. Aren't you glad to see
me?"
Tom held Madge's small brown hands in his. "Madge!" was all he found
words for.
Tom Curtis was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes as he looked at
Madge. The first moment he had feared that she was an apparition that
might vanish while he gazed upon it.
"I'm real, Tom; please don't look at me like that," faltered Madge,
feeling her own eyes fill with tears. "We have been lost on a desert
island, and a battleship brought us home to-day. Why did you run away
from me when I tried so hard to catch up with you? I am sure it does
not become a young woman to go dashing through the streets after a man
who won't even glance back her way."
Madge spoke in this flippant fashion to hide the real emotion she felt
in seeing her friend again.
"But, Tom, we must hurry back to the wharf. Miss Jenny Ann and the
girls promised to wait on the dock for me until I brought you back. I
am afraid they will think I have been gone an awfully long time. Let's
go at once."
Madge was amazed to discover how far she had followed Tom when they
turned back. She tried to make Tom understand the story as they hurried
along. But Tom simply couldn't take in all the facts. He knew that
Madge and the houseboat party were alive and well, and, for the time
being, this was news enough.
It took them nearly twenty minutes to get back to the spot where Madge
had told Miss Jenny Ann to wait for her. When they reached the end of
the pier there was no chaperon, no Lieutenant Lawton, no Jeff! The
place was almost entirely deserted. Madge's chase through the street,
her automobile accident, her conversation with Tom, and their return
had occupied nearly three-quarters of an hour.
When first they came ashore, Phil, Lillian and Eleanor had waited
patiently for the return of their companion. Five minutes passed, then
ten, soon fifteen. The girls were thinking of their fathers and mothers
and the telegrams that should be sent.
At last Phil turned to Lieutenant Lawton. "Lieutenant Jimmy, won't you
take me to the nearest telegraph station?" she demanded. "I am sorry
not to wait for Madge and Tom, but I must telegraph to my father."
Lillian and Eleanor were in the same state of mind. They also went
along with Lieutenant Lawton. It was arranged that Miss Jenny Ann and
Jeff should wait for the truant. They would then bring Madge and Tom to
the hotel at Portsmouth where they arranged to have dinner.
Miss Jones and Jeff lingered in the same place for half an hour. Miss
Jenny Ann then concluded to walk up the river bank to the square to
inquire if an accident had happened to the run-away. She must have been
in the square when Madge and Tom passed without seeing her. A few
minutes later Miss Jenny Ann concluded to go on up to the hotel, where
the other girls were expecting her. She thought that Tom and Madge must
have met the rest of the party and gone on to the hotel with them. She
would find them there.
Tom and Madge searched everywhere along the wharf. They stopped half a
dozen people to inquire for a party of four women and two men. No one
had seen any such group.
"Does everyone in the houseboat crowd look as well as you do?" asked
Tom, as they hurried along the street. "If they do, you ought to be
ashamed of yourselves. Here we have been grieving ourselves to death,
believing you were lost, and you have been having the jolliest kind of
a lark on a little Robinson Crusoe island. You watch me go duck
shooting there some day."
But after half an hour of vain inquiry for her friends Madge grew
impatient.
"I don't see why the girls didn't wait for me. They went away without
letting me know where they were going," she scolded. "Won't you please
take me to your mother, Tom? I suppose Miss Jenny Ann will come to Old
Point some time to-night."
There had been no plan made, before Madge went away, for spending the
night in Portsmouth.
Tom was only too happy to be the little captain's escort. He liked to
think of his mother's joy at seeing her. They had a jolly supper on the
big, comfortable steamer that travels between Portsmouth and Fortress
Monroe, arriving at Old Point a little after dusk.
The streets were almost deserted. It was cool enough for fires, and
there was little lingering outdoors. Madge sat down on a bench in a
small park, while Tom went to the nearest drug-store to telephone to
his mother. He thought it wise to break the news of the discovery of
the houseboat party by degrees. Also he wished to know if his mother
had yet heard from Miss Jenny Ann and knew where she was.
Madge felt a grateful sense of happiness steal over her as she waited
for Tom's return. It was, indeed, pleasant to be with her old friends
who cared so much for her. To-day Fortress Monroe did not frown down
upon the little home-comer from its stern battlements. The old fort
seemed to offer her protection against her enemies.
A few soldiers on leave of absence from their barracks passed her in
groups of twos and threes. But no one else appeared for several
minutes. Tom was taking some time with his telephoning.
Finally an old man and a young girl came down the street in Madge's
direction. The old man leaned heavily on the girl's arm. In the half
light she could see that they were talking very earnestly and not
looking about them. When they were close to her Madge Morton discovered
them to be Flora Harris and her grandfather, Admiral Gifford.
Madge turned away her head. She hoped that she would not be observed. A
few minutes before she had been so happy and so content. Why should the
first person she saw at Old Point Comfort be the only person in the
world who would take some of the pleasure away from her home-coming?
If only they would pass without seeing her! It was almost dark, and she
was not even supposed to be in the land of the living, so she sat
absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe.
Neither the old admiral, whose eyes were dimmed with age, nor his
grand-daughter, saw the little figure on the bench as they walked
toward it. They passed close by her. Some unseen force must have made
Flora Harris turn her head as she came directly opposite Madge.
Flora gave one terrified scream, then began shaking as though with a
chill.
"What is it, Flora?" her grandfather demanded. "Are you ill?"
Flora pointed a trembling finger at the other girl.
The old gentleman turned in confusion to glance at Madge. He saw only a
young girl sitting quietly on a bench. He could not connect her with
Flora's unexpected outcry. The admiral was not familiar with Madge's
appearance. He had seen her only a few times, and he had not remembered
her face.
Flora was now crying bitterly. She did not cease to stare at Madge, yet
she did not speak.
The little captain sprang to her feet. "Don't be frightened, Miss
Harris," she said quietly. "I am sorry I startled you. I hope you don't
take me for a ghost. We have been shipwrecked for several weeks and
only got in this afternoon----"
"Then I haven't murdered you!" Flora sobbed, running forward and
flinging her arms about the other girl's neck. "I know that I am
hateful and snobbish, and that I like to make other people
uncomfortable, but I didn't mean any real harm to come to the houseboat
when I asked Alfred Thornton to cut her loose from her moorings. I just
wanted you not to come back here again. And I have not let Alfred
Thornton confess that he cut your boat away from the anchor, because I
was afraid we would both be put in jail."
Tom Curtis had come upon the little scene and stood listening in
silence to Flora's surprising confession. He put his arm through
Madge's and drew her quietly away from Flora's embrace. "It is too late
to confess this dreadful story to-night, Miss Harris," he declared
coolly. "Miss Morton has just arrived, and I am taking her to my
mother. Her friends are spending the night at Portsmouth. My mother has
just told me they have telegraphed her that they will be here
to-morrow. If you will come to see us in the morning we can talk
matters over more quietly; the street is not the place for this
discussion."
Flora bowed humbly to Tom's verdict. "I'll come at eleven," she
answered. The girl seemed so happy to know that the girls had not been
drowned that she did not seem to care what punishment or disgrace might
be in store for her.