MONTANA MARIE DISAPPEARS
Mr. Morton answered Betty’s telegram with another:
“Coach and Six not a bit too big for my notions. Thursday O. K. for me.
Young Watson to plan improvements. Depend on you to keep him docile.”
Madeline, being inspired by the evident largeness of Mr. Morton’s
notions, retired at once to the Tally-ho loft to meditate on delightful
possibilities, and to sketch posters and a hanging sign for the
Coach and Six. But presently her eye happened to fall upon Thomas,
the door-boy, and in a moment the posters for the Coach and Six were
forgotten, and Madeline was off in hot pursuit of green broadcloth.
“Take off your coat so I can use it for a pattern,” she ordered the
bewildered Thomas on her return. “No, I suppose you can’t do without a
coat very well. Sprint home and get another suit that fits you. Tell
your mother I won’t hurt it. Hurry now.”
“The idea!” she told Betty while she waited for Thomas. “We’ve had
that boy here for six months and never once thought to dress him up in
Lincoln green, like a post-boy. Never mind! We need some new features
for commencement. We can’t have 19-- think we’re just resting on our
laurels. I’ll make new tea menus to match Thomas--little riding-crops
painted across the top, with real green ribbon rosettes stuck on the
handles. Or why not have real little riding-crops? Thomas can whittle
them out in his idle moments.”
In vain Betty suggested that the Tally-ho was well enough as it was,
and that the plans for the Coach and Six must be well advanced by
Thursday or Mr. Morton would be impatient and annoyed. Madeline calmly
branched out on to fairy menus for the Peter Pan annex, and then became
completely absorbed in a fairy play suggested to her by the menus. She
was persuaded to keep the Thursday appointment in New York only because
she wanted to read the play to Agatha Dwight. Betty, who had been busy
all the week with plans and estimates, memoranda of “things we ought to
have,” “things to speak to Jim about,” “necessary glass and silver,”
and so on, was duly grateful that Madeline consented to accompany her
on any pretext; for when Madeline was once on the ground, with the
actual site of the Coach and Six, Jim’s ideas, and Mr. Morton’s fury of
energy to inspire her, Betty knew she would forget even the fairy play
and plan a tea-shop that would dazzle “little old New York.”
And she did. Jasper J. Morton followed her delightedly about all
day, his eyes twinkling and his dry laugh cackling out at her queer,
unsystematic methods of work. He went with her to choose furniture,
to interview the famous Mr. Enderby, who, quite overcome by the
awe-inspiring combination of the irresistible Madeline Ayres and the
great Mr. Morton, promised to design anything from walls to menus; and
finally they rode off together to engage the Washington Square cook,
who blandly ignored the great Mr. Morton, but promised to come and cook
in his tea-shop any time “if you axes me, Miss Madeline, an’ bring a
black kitten as usual, if so desired.”
By the time he had watched Madeline order livery for the porters,
design costumes for the maids, pick out china, and overturn all Jim’s
plans because the fireplace wasn’t quite big enough to please her, Mr.
Morton turned to Betty with a sigh of admiration.
“She’s a steam-engine, that girl. She could tire me out, I guess. See
here, I guess she keeps you fairly busy, picking up after her, like.
She’s the beginning kind--don’t wait to put on any finishing touches.
All right. We’ll hire two or three finishers to go round after her.
She’d make several fortunes for anybody that could manage her right.
See here, Miss Ayres, couldn’t you wind up the day by inventing another
of those splasher novelties?”
Madeline shook her head laughingly. “I’m going to dinner now with
Agatha Dwight. I want to read her a play I’ve just written.”
So Mr. Morton bore off Betty and Jim for dinner with him. During the
dessert he discovered an opportune acquaintance at the next table,
who kept him talking so long that Betty had to interrupt them to say
good-bye, and Jim had to take Betty to her train. She had wanted to
stay over a day for spring shopping, but there was a Student’s Aid
trustee-meeting the next morning, and the secretary must be on hand to
report.
It was nearly half-past ten when Betty drove up to the campus. She
dismissed her carriage at the little gate close to Morton Hall, which,
to her amazement, was still ablaze with lights. In a minute she
remembered why; it was the evening of the Belden-Morton play. Betty
hurried up the walk, anxious to hear how it had gone off. She thought
the door might still be open, and she tried it before she went down
to the end of the piazza to tap, as she had arranged to do, on Mrs.
Post’s sitting-room window. There was a light in the room, but the
shade was up, and between the hanging curtains Betty could see that the
room was empty, and the bedroom beyond dark. Evidently Mrs. Post was
talking over the play with her girls, utterly forgetful of her promise
to let Betty in. So Betty went back to the door and rang, and, as it
was rather a shivery spring night, she tramped down the piazza again
while she waited for somebody to come and open the door. As she turned
the corner she heard voices, and saw a man leading two saddle-horses
and a girl in a black dress and white cap and apron--evidently one of
the Morton Hall maids--come up a path that led through the shrubberies
between Morton Hall and the Students’ Building, where the play had been
given.
“I think we should try it over,” the man was saying as they stopped in
a patch of light by the back door.
“No indeed! How absurd you are, dear,” tittered the girl. “The idea of
rehearsing a thing like----”
“Oh, Miss Wales! Come right in out of the cold, you poor child.” Mrs.
Post’s kindly voice broke into the tête-à-tête by the back door. “I’m
so sorry I forgot you. Come and have some supper and hear about the
wonderful play. I’m giving the girls a little treat to make them sleep
better after all the excitement.”
The Belden-Morton production of “The Purple Ribbon” had been a grand
success. Georgia Ames, Fluffy Dutton, and the Mystery had collaborated
in writing it, and the program announced that it was a subtle
combination of Shaw, Shakespeare, and Sherlock Holmes. The Morton Hall
half of the cast, still in make-up and costumes, lined up for Betty’s
appreciative inspection. The Thorn was the villain of the piece, in
very elegant evening clothes and curling black moustaches. The twin
Digs figured respectively as the villain’s innocent young accomplice
(white flannels and very pink cheeks), and the heroine’s mother-in-law
(Mrs. Post’s second best black silk, a bonnet with strings, and white
mitts). The Mystery had fairly insisted that the freckle-faced girl who
roomed next to her should have a part, “because she wants it so awfully
much.” So she had been cast for the Enigma, who had nothing particular
to do but wear a blank and unintelligent expression and say, “Is it
so?” at intervals. This she had done so effectively that she had made
the hit of the evening. Mrs. Post and the none-acting members of Morton
Hall explained all this eagerly to Betty, and then Connie was called
into the line because she had been the Bell and the Noise Without.
“And I was the only one of the cast that had to be prompted,” Connie
confessed sadly. “I was thinking how awfully pretty my roommate looked
in black, and if Georgia hadn’t poked me hard----”
“Why, where’s Amanda O’Toole?” cut in the Thorn suddenly. “She was
Amanda the maid, Miss Wales, and she did look too cute---- Oh, there
you are, Marie. Come and let Miss Wales see how you look in the raiment
of servitude.”
Marie had borrowed her costume complete from the obliging Belden House
Annie, adding nothing but a dashing moline bow under her chin.
“Ain’t she the prettiest Amanda that ever came down the pike?” quoted
the Thorn from her part, with a genial twirl of her huge moustaches.
“I sure am, but it’s no concern of yours, Monsieur,” retorted Marie,
from her part, flirting her black skirt coquettishly as she made for a
plate of sandwiches. “Isn’t Mrs. Post the nice lady? I’m as hungry as
a bear--I couldn’t eat any dinner because I was so excited about the
play.”
“If you were so hungry, why didn’t you come in here sooner?” demanded
the Thorn incisively. “The rest of us are all through eating.”
“Oh, I was fussing around. This is the first time I was ever on the
stage, you see, and I’m that rattled.” Montana Marie took a huge
bite out of one of Mrs. Post’s ginger-cookies by way of closing the
discussion.
Betty went to bed humming a gay little tune. She was thinking of the
house-play that Roberta Lewis had starred in so splendidly years ago,
of the Coach and Six, of the Student’s Aid meeting in the morning,--she
must get up early to write her report,--and finally of Jim Watson’s
comical struggle between strong personal annoyance at her having added
another to her too-numerous interests and responsibilities and his
equally strong artistic approval of Madeline’s ideas for the Coach and
Six and of Mr. Morton’s lavishness in carrying them out.
“I smell lilacs!” Betty decided suddenly, and turning off her lights
she leaned far out into the dark, eagerly drinking in the sweet spring
odors. And then, as her eyes fell on the patch of light by the back
door, she remembered the anxious groom and the tittering maid, whom
she had heard arguing by the back porch, and she wondered idly what
kind of thing it was you didn’t rehearse, in the opinion of said
tittering maid. Probably she had been telling the groom all about the
play, and they were discussing some point in the plot. The maids were
always as keen as the girls about the house-plays. Then she wondered,
thinking of the two saddle-horses, if the Moonshiners’ riding club had
been revived, and she decided to ask Georgia if she might go off on
some of their spring trips. Harding was so lovely in the spring--no
other place was quite like it. But--those Student’s Aid trustees met at
ten o’clock sharp. Betty resolutely dismissed plays and picnics and the
disturbing scent of lilacs from her mind, and courted sleep; for her
alarm clock was set for six and she must be ready for a hard morning’s
work.
It was an exciting day, altogether. One of the Student’s Aid trustees
had secured a big gift for the Association. In return she wanted
to dictate important policies, and particularly to lay out the
secretary’s work. The other trustees resented her assumption of
superior authority. Both factions took Betty into their confidence. One
insisted on giving her lunch; the other asked her to dinner. Mr. Morton
telegraphed for impossible details. Mrs. Post had hit upon this busiest
day of the year for cleaning Betty’s room. Feeling very young and
inadequate, and very, very sleepy, Betty escaped as soon as possible
from the trustees’ dinner, put a “Do not disturb” sign on her door and
went to bed.
The pale morning sun was creeping faintly in at her window, though she
was sure she hadn’t been asleep ten minutes, when somebody knocked on
her door. Somebody had to keep on knocking for an embarrassing interval
before Betty woke up enough to realize what was happening, and to open
the door. Connie stood outside. She was attired in a scarlet silk
kimono, the gift of her generous but thoughtless roommate. For Connie’s
washed-out hair had a decided suspicion of red in its dull tints, and
her complexion was the sort that went with red hair and should never
go with a scarlet kimono. In the dim light of the corridor her sallow,
anxious little face looked frightened and quite ghostly.
“Did I wake you up, Miss Wales?” she demanded stupidly. “It’s four
o’clock in the morning. I saw your ‘Don’t disturb’ sign, but I suppose
it was meant for last night. Besides I--you see, Miss Wales, Marie has
disappeared.”
Betty stifled a tremendous yawn and tried to consider Connie’s news
with becoming seriousness.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said at last. “You mean she isn’t
in your room? Are you sure she isn’t in some one’s else?”
Connie nodded. “Yes--she--I’m quite sure, Miss Wales. She’s
disappeared.”
“When?” asked Betty, who was wide awake now.
“I don’t know, Miss Wales. About ten was when I really saw her last.
She had a chafing-dish party last night. I was studying with Matilda
Jones. I kept expecting Marie to come for me, as she usually does
just before they disperse, to have some of the refreshments. When the
ten-minute bell rang, I went to our room. She was there, but she went
right out for something. When she came back it was after ten, so she
undressed in the dark. At least I supposed she undressed. When I woke
up just now she was gone.”
“Oh, well,” said Betty pleasantly, “she’s somewhere in the house, of
course. She ought to be in her room in bed, but----”
“Her saddle and that big felt hat she wears when she rides, and her
corduroy suit have disappeared too, Miss Wales.”
Betty started. “They have? Then she’s probably gone on some
early-morning riding-party. Oh, dear, those crazy girls! What won’t
they think of next?”
“I don’t believe it’s a regular riding-party, Miss Wales. From things
Marie has been saying lately, I think it’s an elopement.”
Betty’s eyes grew round, and her voice quivered with anxiety. “Please
tell me all that you know about it, Miss Payson, as quickly as you can.
There may be no time to lose.” Betty closed the door softly and began
hurriedly to put on her clothes, while she listened to Connie’s story.
“Well,” began Connie eagerly, “she’s been writing letters lately--oh,
quantities of them! She always writes a good many, but lately she’s
spent most of her time at it. And she’s cut classes a good deal. She’s
never done that before. And a few days ago she gave me six of her
dresses--two perfectly new ones. She said she shouldn’t want so many
clothes much longer. Then day before yesterday a man came to call. I
heard the girls say it was the same one she was with the night of the
prom. She was very much excited that evening, and it wasn’t about the
play, because when I spoke about that to her she didn’t know what I
meant at first, and then she said, ‘Oh, the play!’ as if it wasn’t of
any consequence to her. Yesterday morning when I came into our room
after a class she was rolling a lot of things up in her rain-coat.
I asked her what in the world she was doing, and she--she kissed
me”--Connie blushed at the intimate confession--“and said she was just
seeing how much you could tie on to a saddle, because some one had
asked her to find out. And now”--Connie’s lips and voice quivered--“and
now she’s gone. That’s all I know, Miss Wales. I think she’s eloped on
horseback with that man from her home in Montana.”
“But that would be so perfectly absurd!” Betty was dressed by this
time. She twisted her hair into a hasty knot, and put on a droopy hat
to hide the snarls. “Have you ever heard Marie speak of riding to any
of the little towns around here, Miss Payson? Was she especially fond
of any little village near here?”
Connie considered for a minute. “She likes the ride to Gay’s Mills,
because it’s all the way through the woods. And she’s been over there
twice lately. She went riding day before yesterday,--we all thought it
was queer for her to go riding on the day of the play--and I think from
something she said that she lost the girl she started out with, and
maybe met some one else.”
“What girl did she start with?”
Connie mentioned the name of the sophomore who, being proverbially
unlucky with horses, had fallen off on the famous Mountain Day ride.
“I see,” said Betty curtly. She was perfectly sure that, unless Montana
Marie had meant to lose her, she would never have gone riding with
that particular girl. “Please telephone Grant’s garage,” Betty ordered
swiftly. “Tell them to send up a car at once, and a man who knows the
country roads. Say it’s for me. If they object to the early start tell
them it’s a matter of vital importance. If that’s not enough, hold the
wire and call me. I shall be in Mrs. Post’s room. I hate to bother her,
but I can’t very well go alone.”
“Couldn’t you take me?” asked Connie eagerly.
Betty considered. “Why--yes--yes, that might be quite as well. Then you
go and get ready, while I do the telephoning.”
Twenty minutes later Connie and Betty were flying along the road to
Gay’s Mills. It was a slender chance, but in the absence of other clues
it must serve. Connie confided to Betty that she had never been in an
automobile before.
“It doesn’t matter,” Betty told her absently. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I
don’t believe I quite understood what you said.”
Connie lapsed into rather frightened silence, and Betty was left free
to consider the situation. “Undertaking” Montana Marie O’Toole looked,
this morning, like a pretty serious business. If she really had eloped,
what would Mrs. O’Toole say? And what would President Wallace think?
Not much use getting her through mid-years for an ending like this. But
somehow Betty couldn’t believe that her freshman would be so foolish.
She almost ordered the chauffeur to drive back to the campus; she was
sure they would find that Georgia was missing too, and the other riding
people. Then suddenly she remembered the maid and the groom, as she had
thought them, talking by the Morton House door, and Montana Marie’s
belated arrival at Mrs. Post’s treat. Was an elopement perhaps the kind
of thing that you didn’t rehearse? Betty’s heart sank. Perhaps she
ought to have called Mrs. Post and divided responsibilities. Perhaps
she ought even to have aroused Prexy. Certainly she ought to have had a
better reason than Connie’s vague surmises for choosing the Gay’s Mills
road. The Gay’s Mills road turned sharply just then, and Betty saw two
horseback riders trotting decorously to meet her--Montana Marie in her
Western riding things, including the forbidden magenta handkerchief,
and a man whom Connie identified briefly with an excited ungrammatical
little squeak.
“It’s him!”