BESS HOLDS HER TEMPER
Nan said nothing, but sat staring at the contents, a puzzled expression
on her face. The girls looked from the trunk to Nan and back to the
trunk again.
"Everything is all right, isn't it?" Bess asked the question.
"I--don't----know." Nan answered slowly and doubtfully. "Everything
seems to be as I left it. Yet somehow it's all changed too."
"What do you mean?" Grace questioned timidly.
Nan looked up from her place on the floor into the anxious faces of the
girls around her. "I'm as baffled as you are," she admitted. "I can't
really tell whether anyone has touched the things in my trunk or not.
The underwear--slips--stockings--blouses" she touched each pile of
things as she named it,--"pajamas, and even the dresses, are folded the
same and in the same places as they were when I packed. I'm sure of
that.
"Still, when that case flew open, I had a peculiar feeling that someone
besides myself had been through it and touched everything there."
"Ugh." Bess shuddered. "Don't say things like that, Nan. They give me
the creeps."
"Me too," Grace was really pale. "Especially when I remember the
expression on that hunchback's face when he asked for you."
"What are you going to do about it?" Rhoda inquired. Generally calm,
Rhoda was seriously worried now. The red-headed man had looked mean.
"Yes, what are you going to do?" Bess repeated the question. She was
more troubled than any of the rest, because she had more reason than
they to be suspicious.
"Come, Nan," Amelia urged, as Nan sat, silently considering. "You've got
to do something."
"Oh, girls, I don't know what to do," Nan finally burst forth. "It can't
be reported. The whole thing would sound silly. The purser would
probably pat us on the back, tell us to be good, and warn us not to read
so many detective stories. I'm afraid that there is just nothing to do
but keep quiet and see what happens next, if anything. After all, it
might have been a very innocent mistake."
Laura snickered. "I only hope no innocent mistakes come walking into my
cabin," she said. Then she grew serious. "Really, Nan, I'm not generally
a fraidy-cat, but if I were you, I would be careful and watch out for
red-headed men. I can't for the life of me see why anyone in the world
would be after you, but strange things do happen."
"I will be careful," Nan agreed. "Now, I wonder what that gong was I
heard a few minutes ago."
"Girls, girls, girls!" It was Dr. Prescott at the doorway. "What have
you been doing? Don't you know that the second gong for dinner has rung
and that if you don't hurry you won't get anything to eat."
"Nothing to eat! And me so starved after the whiffs I've been getting of
the fresh salt air." Laura was up and out of the room before she had
finished the sentence. Amelia followed after. Ten minutes later the
girls were headed down the corridor to the ship's dining room.
"Have you got your ticket?" Nan asked as she held up a little red card
that resembled the seat stubs in a theatre.
"Ticket, what ticket?" Laura stopped short.
"The ticket for your place in the dining room." Bess was proud of this
bit of knowledge.
"Why, I never had one," Laura declared. "They never even gave me one."
"Oh, yes they did," Bess assured her. "Remember, after the purser
looked at our passports when we came aboard ship, he sent us to a window
where the dining room steward was sitting. The steward had a plan of the
dining room before him, with all the tables pictured on it. He looked at
us and at our passports and then gave us this little stub. Remember?"
Laura looked perfectly blank. "What will I do now?" she asked.
"Here, you take mine," Bess was feeling generous. "Since I know just
where to go, I'll go up and get another. You all start eating, though.
Don't wait for me." With this she was off to the purser's office.
"Come on, Laura." Nan took Laura's arm as the girl hesitated wondering
whether, if, after all, she shouldn't get her own ticket.
"Yes, or we won't get anything to eat." Amelia was slightly impatient.
"Come, let's hurry. There doesn't seem to be anybody else around at all.
Do you know where the dining room is?" she turned to Nan with the
question.
"I do," Laura answered. "It's up on Deck B. I looked in when I first
came down to our cabin. Just follow me."
There was music as the girls hurried up the stairway and in through wide
double doors. "Looks like a hotel dining room," Grace whispered as the
chief steward came toward them.
"Your stubs, please?" he asked and then escorted them to a big round
table in the center of the room, a table all their own, perfectly set
for seven people.
There was a low bowl of flowers in the center and a card which read,
"To Nan Sherwood,
S. S. Lincoln,
c/o Chief Steward.
"May each day of your journey be more exciting and more pleasant than the
one past."
"Who is it from, Nan?" Even Dr. Prescott was eager to know. She had been
sitting at the table waiting for the girls to appear.
Nan turned the card over. "Why, how nice!" she exclaimed, "and how
thoughtful!" Then she looked up at Dr. Prescott and the girls waiting at
their places. "It is from a famous movie actress," she said rather
shyly, and her face was all aglow, "whom I met once in Chicago. She's a
perfectly grand person." Nan was silent as the details of that meeting
rushed through her mind, as she remembered how an unfortunate encounter
with Linda had brought it about. As she sat down, she wondered idly
whether the summer holidays that were before her would be as exciting as
those winter holidays, spent in Chicago at Grace's home, had been.
"What's happened to Elizabeth?" Dr. Prescott asked as she picked up her
menu. "Not sea-sick already, I hope?"
"Far from it," Nan laughed. "Bess is too busy being an ocean traveller
to even have time to think of such a thing. Really, Dr. Prescott," Nan
leaned across the table and said earnestly, "you can't imagine what a
kick we are getting out of all of this. It's like something girls do in
story books."
"And the journey has just begun." Dr. Prescott smiled at her young
charges. "It all brings my first trip--I was a little older than you are
now--back to me most vividly. Now, what will we have to eat?"
"Oh-h-h, will you look at this menu," Laura spoke up now. "Not much like
one of Mrs. Cupp's--" she stopped suddenly and blushed. It was hard to
remember that Dr. Prescott, the head of Lakeview Hall, was present.
Laura looked up over the top of her menu, ready to apologize. But Dr.
Prescott seemed not to have heard. She seemed wholly occupied in
choosing the mid-day meal. "What a brick she is!" Laura thought to
herself as she, too, turned to the business at hand.
"Just one warning," Dr. Prescott cautioned before the girls turned to
the table steward to give him their orders. "You eat about six times a
day on the boat--" She paused as the girls gasped. "You have a big
breakfast, bouillon and wafers in the middle of the morning, lunch, tea
and cakes in the afternoon, dinner, and then before you go to bed, there
are sandwiches and perhaps something warm to drink. If you are going to
eat each time," she went on, "you'll have to be careful. Otherwise
you'll be spending the hours in your stateroom. There," she finished,
"that is my only lecture for the day. Now, do as you will."
So they chose--carefully, except Laura, who could not resist having both
French pastry and ice-cream for desert. "Bess will never forgive me,"
she spoke up after she had ordered, "if she doesn't get here in time for
this first meal on the boat."
"She ought to be here any time now," Amelia looked at her watch. "It
doesn't take long to get your table card. You don't suppose they lock
the dining room doors when everyone is in and that they won't let her
through now?" she directed the question to Dr. Prescott.
"Why, I hardly think so." Dr. Prescott smiled. "People are coming and
going all the time, you see."
"Bess will get here. Never fear." Nan spoke up confidently. "Let's eat.
She told us not to wait." As the lunch progressed, however, from soup
through a dainty salad and slices of cold chicken to dessert, Nan grew
uneasy.
"It is strange that she doesn't appear," she finally admitted, and was
about to leave the dining room and go in search of her when Bess was
ushered to the table.
"I'm sorry to be so late," Bess murmured as she sat down and unfolded
her napkin, "but I couldn't help it." Her face was flushed. She looked
confused and angry.
"Please don't say anything now," she begged as Nan was about to speak.
"I'm afraid I'll make a scene, if you do, but if ever I see that girl
again--"
She stopped short as the steward presented her with a menu.