Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 14

FRIENDS ABOARD s.h.i.+P

"h.e.l.lo, down there!" Nan stretched her head over the edge of her berth and looked down to the bunk below where Bess was still sleeping. "h.e.l.lo, I say," she repeated a little louder when the first call brought no response. Then she waited. She could feel the vibration of the great s.h.i.+p as it forged ahead and hear faintly the steady throb of its engines. It was nice to be getting someplace, she thought, even while you were asleep.

"h.e.l.lo!" Nan called again. "You awake?"

Bess rubbed her eyes and leaned out so she could see Nan above. "Of course I am," she declared. "How long have you been awake?"

"Oh, for hours and hours," Nan responded. "I heard the first gong for breakfast and then the second. After that I went back to sleep."

"You didn't either!" Bess was really awake now. "But if you did," she continued half hopefully, "it's too late to get breakfast in the dining-room, so we'll just have to ring that bell over there by the door and ask the stewardess to bring our breakfast to the cabin. Just think of being able to order anything you want and having it brought to you on a big tray!"

Bess stretched luxuriously and then turned over on her side. "You know,"

she said, "I feel like a movie queen. My pajamas are of satin and fine lace. My robe is long and trailing with marabou around the neck. These bed covers are made of silk and down, and your bunk up there is not really a bunk. It's the canopy of my bed."

Nan looked over the side. "I beg your pardon?" she asked as though she hadn't heard.

Bess started to repeat, "Your bunk is the canopy"--but didn't finish, for Nan was up and on her way down the ladder which stretched from the floor to her upper berth.

"I can't sleep any longer on this canopy," she laughed. "Moreover, I'm starved and a tray would never hold all I'm going to eat this morning.

You may stay here, my movie queen, and eat daintily from a tray while your back is propped comfortably against pillows. I want bacon and eggs," she finished, as she opened the wardrobe at the end of the berths and took out a skirt and bright sweater.

"You may spend your morning in the cabin," she went on, was.h.i.+ng and dressing the while, "but I'm going out on the deck and see what's doing." She combed her hair before the mirror over the washstands and sat down at a small dressing table while she tied a three-cornered scarf around her head. With a small hand mirror, she looked at it from all sides, and then pulled a wisp of hair out at the front and looked again.

Satisfied, she put the mirror down, blew a kiss to her lazy chum, and was off.

Not waiting for the elevator, she walked up the stairs, opened a door, and stepped out. The morning sun was already high above the horizon, and the deck was bright with its light. Nan squinted her eyes. Then, as she became accustomed to the dazzle and opened them wide, she saw approaching her a merry looking, pleasant person, the s.h.i.+p's hostess.

"You are--" the stranger paused and smiled at Nan.

"Nan Sherwood." With this Nan was introduced to a group of young people her own age.

First, there was Hetty Warren, a young English girl whom Nan liked right away. She had blond hair and blue eyes and a complexion even fairer than that of most English girls. She had, she told Nan a little wistfully, just left her parents in Was.h.i.+ngton, where her father was a member of the English Emba.s.sy. Her grandmother was taking her back to London to witness an event which she said, no grandchild of hers would ever miss, the crowning of the new King and Queen.

Then, there was Jeanie MacFarland, a brown-eyed Scotch la.s.s whose father, she said proudly, was on the Edinburgh committee to buy a gift for the king. And Maureen O'Grady, Irish as her name, headed first for home and then for London. Her mother was helping to make the lace for the Queen's train.

Oh, they all had stories, these girls. One had lived once in far away India, in Bombay. Another, in the British colony in Shanghai. The father of one was a caretaker at the King's favorite castle and the brother of another, a lieutenant in His Majesty's Fleet stationed at Gibraltar.

They were coming from all corners of the world, Nan found, to be in England in May, to see the King and Queen parade in a golden coach from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Cathedral, to attend the b.a.l.l.s and the garden parties and the Colonial fairs, to see the King review the British fleet at Spithead and hear the crowds cheer the pretty little princess at her party for the English school children. Everyone, young and old, Hetty's grandmother said, was to have a part in the joyous week.

School children throughout the Empire were to have seven days of vacation. "Boy Scouts from Australia and India and British South Africa are even now," she told Nan, "coming on boats to act as a special guard for the little prince. Others, in England and Scotland have charge of the tremendously big bonfires that will be lighted on each hilltop the night after the king and queen are crowned. These beacon fires will proclaim to everyone that a new King and Queen have come to the throne.

And, with the lighting of the fires, the people all over the British Empire will sing 'G.o.d Save the King.'"

"Yes, and the Girl Scouts," Hetty went on, "are having a big party in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. The little princess will be there and the Queen too. A thousand poor children have been invited and the princess has a gift for each one. They have a gift for the princess too, and one for the Queen. Oh, I can hardly wait until the big day arrives."

"And," Jeanie contributed, "All over Scotland, the wee la.s.sies and laddies have each given a tuppence piece to their school teachers. When the King and Queen come to Edinburgh after the golden crowns have been put on their heads, all this money will be put in a golden bag and presented to the Queen. Her Majesty will use it to help the children whose fathers were killed in the wars. An orphan from one of Her Majesty's orphanages will present it at a banquet which the Lord Mayor will give."

"Will you be there?" Nan was wide-eyed,

"If I only could." Jeanie's voice was full of longing.

"If we only could," Hetty echoed the statement and included everybody.

"But it's not for the likes of us," Maureen shook her head as everyone fell silent. "It's for the great ladies, they who live up in the castles on the hills and in the palaces in the cities. They were born to such things. No, it's not for the likes of us," she repeated.

"Don't, Maureen," Hetty said earnestly. "Don't say that. Don't say it isn't for the likes of us!"

Hetty's grandmother smiled at the seriousness of her grand-daughter.

"Hetty is remembering," she said, "the time the Queen stopped at our country cottage."

"Were you there?" The girls all looked at Hetty.

"No, it was before she was born," the bright-eyed old lady went on. "It was back in the days of the good Queen Victoria before people drove around in gasoline buggies." She stopped as though she had finished, but Nan saw a twinkle in her eye.

"Please go on," she begged. "Please tell us all about it."

"Now, Grandmother," Hetty laughed, "you know you want to."

The old lady ruffled her grand-daughter's hair playfully, as she continued, "We were sitting in the kitchen, my mother and I. She, like the model housewife she was, G.o.d bless her soul, was scouring pots and pans and giving me a few instructions on the proper behavior of a young lady.

"'Mind what I say about your curiosity,' she was telling me, when a crash outside interrupted. She dropped everything, making such a clatter as I've never heard since and nearly fell over me in her anxiety to get to the window.

"'Glory be!' I heard her exclaim and ran after her. There, in front of the house a big coach had broken down. Two coachmen had climbed down from their high seats and were helping three ladies out the door and up the path to our house.

"My mother whisked off her blue checked ap.r.o.n, smoothed down her hair and opened the door. I stood back--afrighted, as the three grand ladies came into the front parlor. Then I disappeared back into the kitchen.

Mother made tea and gave them shortbread and was so a-flutter herself that she broke one of her company dishes.

"They wanted to pay for it, but she wouldn't let them. She said it was nothing at all. After they went, I saw her wiping a tear out of her eye and she scoured the pans harder than she ever scoured them before. That night she told my father that she was never going to pay any attention to any big coaches again.

"But weeks later when another big coach stopped in front of the house, she was at the door again. This time a man came and left a big box.

Mother said it wasn't for her, but he insisted it was. Finally, she accepted it, and he had hardly driven away, before she and I were opening it." The old lady paused here to enjoy the eager faces of the young girls around her. Then she cleared her throat and went on.

"Inside we found a dozen dainty cups and saucers and a card. Our visitors had been two princesses and Her Majesty, Queen Victoria!"

"And great-grandmother always said," Hetty added, "that the great Queen herself painted the cups. So, Maureen," she ended triumphantly, "you don't know, really, what there is for the likes of us."

"No, you don't," her grandmother agreed, "so make the most of today.

Now, begone with you all, and gather up the news of the s.h.i.+p and bring it all back to me. There are many strange people aboard," she ended, closing her eyes and so dismissing the girls.

CHAPTER XIV

A STORM AT SEA

"How strange the sky looks!" Nan exclaimed. She and her Lakeview Hall companions were standing on deck watching the sun drop below the horizon.

"How cold!" Grace added, as she pulled her coat around her, held it in place with her hand, and then huddled closer to Nan as if for protection.