A LETTER THAT CAME THOUGH IT WAS NEVER SENT.
The two girls put the width of the bed between them that night. Each lay
stiffly on the very edge of the mattress and silently pondered over the
situation. Anger was not a self-indulgence with either of them and the
attack was so unusual that it left them both unnerved and shaken. Nancy
had only played with her food at dinner and Billie, who had eaten without
an appetite, now felt the discomfort of a burning indigestion. At last,
as the hours dragged on, they fell asleep, each profoundly unhappy.
Long ago the two friends had dropped the formality which usually exists
between guest and hostess, no matter how intimate. Their relations were
as those of two sisters. For the Motor Maids had become as one family in
their wanderings together. But next morning, Nancy, still feeling the
sting of fancied wrongs, suddenly recalled the fact that she was
accepting hospitality from one who no longer liked her. It was all very
absurd, but so does the young person at the awkward age between girlhood
and womanhood often exaggerate trivial things and enlarge on fancied
injustice.
Foolish, pretty Nancy permitted herself to slip into the most extreme
state of wretchedness. She imagined that her friend, whom in her heart
she loved devotedly, had treated her with unnecessary cruelty and
sternness. She got it into her silly little head that Billie had confided
the meeting in the garden to the others. She was ashamed and mortified
and she felt indeed that the whole world had turned against her. Mr.
Campbell was cold to her. Miss Helen Campbell hardly civil Mary and
Elinor looked at her askance. There was not a word of truth in it, of
course; it was just a figment of Nancy's morbid imaginings. Miss Campbell
was bored to extinction with the continued rain. Mr. Campbell was
preoccupied because of business engagements of great importance, and Mary
and Elinor, if the truth must be told, were intensely homesick; and who
would not have been with home on the other side of the world and rain
pouring ceaselessly on this side? As for Billie, she tried to be exactly
the same as usual, but the cloud of an unsettled disagreement hovered
between them.
Therefore after a week of steady rain and black depression which did not
seem more profound in Nancy than in anyone else, silly little Nancy took
a bold step. Putting on her overshoes and mackintosh late one afternoon,
she slipped out of the house and hastened down the avenue. On the road,
she hailed an empty 'riksha returning from some suburban home and gave
Mme. Fontaine's address in Tokyo.
Nancy was in search of sympathy and of someone who would tell her she had
done right when she knew she had done wrong.
Mme. Fontaine was in and would be delighted to see Miss Brown, so she was
informed at the widow's front door, and Nancy, a little frightened, now
that the deed was done, was ushered into the beautiful drawing-room.
"Why, you sweet child, this is a great pleasure," exclaimed that lady
herself, entering at the same moment by another door. "Where are your
friends? Are you alone?" she added looking around for the others.
"Oh, yes," answered Nancy, embarrassed and agitated.
"Not even the austere old lady who chaperones you?" asked the other
drawing the young girl down beside her on the couch and looking into the
blue eyes which suddenly welled up with tears and overflowed,
"Why, my dear, are you unhappy? What is the matter? Tell me all about
it," ejaculated Mme. Fontaine, unpinning Nancy's hat and drawing the
curly head down on her shoulder.
So it happened that Nancy Brown unburdened herself to the sympathetic
Widow of Shanghai, and gave an entirely biased and favorable-to-herself
account of the incident in the garden.
Mme. Fontaine sat silent for a while after the story was finished, and
Nancy wondered if the charming new friend had heard what she had been
saying.
"Do you think Miss Campbell would consent to let you make a visit,
Nancy?" she asked presently, calling her Nainsi, as if it were a French
name.
Nancy drooped her long lashes.
"I don't know," she answered.
Mme. Fontaine gave one of her inscrutable Mona Lisa smiles and rose from
the couch.
"We will try her and see. Does she know you were out walking?"
"No," answered Nancy struggling to keep back her tears.
"Does anyone in the house know?"
She shook her head.
The widow sat down at a carved desk inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and
wrote the following note:
"My dear Miss Campbell:
"I trust you will not think I have been unpardonably presumptuous in
keeping one of your girls over night with me. She had evidently set out
for a long walk and chance brought us together. The child was wet and
tired and I have kept her for tea. As the rain is still pouring, she has
consented to remain over night with your permission which I cannot but
feel sure will be granted under the circumstances. With the very kindest
regards for you and your household, I am,
"Faithfully yours,
"ANIELA FONTAINE."
Never was cordial and polite note couched in more non-committal language.
It was sent out by a messenger and Miss Campbell sat painfully up in bed
to read it. Both knees and one wrist were swathed in bandages of
wintergreen liniment and a hot water bottle lay against one hip,
"Why, I didn't know the child had left the house," she exclaimed, when
she had finished reading the letter and passed it on to the three
remaining Motor Maids. "How did she happen to go alone on a tramp like
that? What am I to do? I can't order her to return without being
exceedingly rude, but I do wish Nancy hadn't been so reckless. She ought
never to have left the grounds alone. Surely the garden is quite large
enough for exercising in, if anyone wanted to make the effort."
The little spinster groaned and slipped down among her pillows again.
The girls were silent. Mary secretly sympathized with Nancy. It would be
rather fascinating to spend a night in the widow's interesting home.
Elinor disapproved slightly at this unconventional visit, but it is
doubtful if she would have declined the invitation if she had been in
Nancy's place. As for Billie, she was puzzled and unhappy. She felt sure
that there was something back of the departure of her friend. She wished
with all her heart they had made up their differences. She yearned for
Nancy and her soul was filled with forebodings. She felt somehow as if
Nancy had died. That night, with the sheet over her head, she indulged in
a fit of weeping and resolved to settle all differences the first moment
they could get alone.
Why should Nancy Brown have unexpectedly grown up like this and become so
independent and secretive? Elinor, the eldest of the four girls, had
never shown a disposition to have affairs and write notes. For her part,
Billie would have liked to go on in the same jolly old way forever, with
or without beaux. It was all one to her. But Nancy was different. The
society of her friends was no longer an unmixed pleasure and she was
beginning to crave more excitement and admiration than was good for her.
The next day was like a dozen of its fellows, wet and muggy. The roads
were too slippery for the "Comet," and as Miss Campbell still kept her
bed with rheumatism, it was decided that Billie should go alone for Nancy
in a 'riksha.
She was so eager to make up with her friend, that she felt as if the
reconciliation had already taken place and her faithful heart was filled
with happiness. She had made up her mind to humble herself by offering
Nancy an apology. After all, was it the act of true friendship to pick
out all the defects and flaws in a friend's nature?
"A real friend is blind to everything but the best in another friend,"
reasoned Billie, as her 'riksha splashed along the road, drawn by
Komatsu.
So, prepared to embrace Nancy tenderly and let bygones be bygones, Billie
could scarcely wait to leap down from the 'riksha and ring the widow's
bell. The house had a shut-up appearance, but all Japanese houses look
thus in rainy weather. Somehow, Billie's inflated enthusiasm received a
prick when the bell echoed through the rooms with a hollow, empty sound.
She waited impatiently but no one came to answer it. Usually Mme.
Fontaine's well-trained maid was bowing and smiling almost before the
vibrations of the bell had ceased. Billie rang again and again, and
still there was no answer. She walked around the side of the house and
peered through the slats of the Venetian blinds but all was dark within.
What could it mean? Where was Nancy? Where was Mme. Fontaine?
"Oh, dear; oh, dear," ejaculated Billie, wiping away the tears that would
trickle down her cheeks.
But of course they had gone shopping, and the maid was at market,
perhaps. That was the only explanation.
There was a bench on the piazza and Billie sat down to wait. Komatsu
stood patiently under his oiled paper umbrella which he always placed in
the bottom of the 'riksha in bad weather.
Exactly one hour they waited and at last Billie, disconsolate and
disappointed, returned to the 'riksha and ordered Komatsu to take her to
some of the shops. Everywhere she watched for the familiar gleam of
Nancy's blue mackintosh, but there was no sign of it anywhere. Finally
they returned to Mme. Fontaine's house, to find it still closed.
"Komatsu, where are they?" asked Billie desperately.
"Not know, but honorable young lady not look inside?"
"I can't get inside. The doors are locked. Besides, I don't like to break
in on a private house like a burglar."
But to the Japanese the end justifies the means, and being on a search
for Nancy, Komatsu was willing to go to any strategic lengths to find
her.
"All same look and see," he said and together they followed the gallery
around the entire house.
"Komatsu make to go up," he said after a fruitless search for an
entrance. He pointed to one of the slender pillars which upheld the roof
of the lower gallery forming the floor of the upper one. The next moment
he had shinned up the pole and Billie could hear him walking softly on
the wooden floor above. Presently he returned and placed in Billie's lap
the fragments of a letter which had been pieced together and pasted on
a sheet of paper.
"Top muchly more easy than bottom," he said smiling. "Empty house but all
same muchly inside."
Billie glanced hastily at the scraps of paper and saw her own name in one
corner.
"Why, it's to me," she exclaimed, and sitting on the bench, she began to
decipher the pieced letter.
"Dear Billie:
"Since you all hate and disapprove of me, I do not wish to stay with you
any longer. You have been anything but a friend to me, but I will not say
anything more about that. I will only say that I can never forgive what
you said to me the other day. I think I have outgrown you. You are just a
child still and it will be a long time before you understand the ways of
the world, or sympathize with me when I say that I want to broaden my
life. Now, Mme. Fontaine, who knows everything, has promised--"
Here the letter broke off.
On the other side of the sheet were some more fragments of paper
carefully pieced together.
"--do not wish to stay because--father's work--he should not--Mme.
Fontaine thinks--"
Billie folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket. Tears were
rolling down her cheeks and she felt suddenly stiff and tired. Komatsu
regarded her from a distance with respectful sympathy.
"Back home," she ordered, and all the way she indulged in the bitterest
weeping she had ever known in her life.
"Nancy, Nancy, how could you?" she kept repeating to herself.
Before she reached the house she dried her eyes and leaning out of the
'riksha let the rain beat against her face.
"I must think of something to tell them," she said to herself. "What did
she mean about Papa's work?"
Again Billie read the last part of the note.
"I believe it's that woman who made her do this," she cried out suddenly.
"She worked her up to the point--'broaden her life'--'papa's work,' and
all that. How could Nancy have thought of such things? And then after
Nancy wrote the letter she repented--or perhaps the widow wouldn't let
her send it--but how did it happen to be pieced together like this?"
It was all very puzzling and strange. Billie wanted time to think about
it and work it out in her own mind, and she was sorry when at last
Komatsu came to a full stop at their own front door. Slowly she descended
and walked into the house. Suddenly there was a cry of joy from the back.
It was the other girls rushing to meet Nancy who had not come, Billie
thought miserably.
And, lo, it was Nancy herself, laughing and crying at once and embracing
her beloved Billie, as if they had been separated for a year and a day.
"Where did you come from?" Billie managed to gasp in a bewildered voice.
"I got back a little while ago and oh, I've been so homesick. Are you
glad to see me, Billie, dearest?"
"I should think I was," said Billie, kissing Nancy's soft round cheek.
"It seems an age instead of just one night."
"Mme. Fontaine invited me to make her a visit," went on Nancy, "but--but
I was too lonesome--I never slept a wink last night."
"We are all of us quite jealous of you, Nancy," put in Mary, who, with
Elinor, had come upon the scene a moment before.
Billie put her hand in her pocket and felt the pieced-together letter. It
almost seemed like a bad dream now.
"So you decided to come back to us, Nancy?" she asked, trying to smile
naturally.
"If I almost passed away from homesickness in one night, how should I
have borne it for--for longer?" answered Nancy, flushing.
"We missed you terribly," was all Billie could trust herself to say as
she hurried to her room to take off her wet things.
Just then Onoye sounded the Japanese chimes to announce that luncheon was
served and presently they were all assembled around the table.
But never a word did Nancy say about the torn letter which some one had
so carefully pieced together.