Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 7

"Yes," Laura laughed and tried to yawn, "it's all in a day's work."

"The thing that tickles me," Bess spoke up at last, she had been quite silent since the party, unable yet to accept the fact that she was, after all, going to Europe with her chum, "is the way Dr. Beulah kept my name until last. Did you see the twinkle in her eye when she finally read it off? I almost died of suspense when she said 'Elizabeth' and then hesitated for so long before she said 'Harley'."

"I did, too," Nan said. "Really, Bess, if your name hadn't been on that list with all the others I would have wept bitter tears with you. I don't believe I could have gone without you."

"Nan, do you mean that, honestly?" Bess asked.

"Honest and truly," Nan reiterated. "But, girls," she cried suddenly to them all, "there's something I know that none of you do."

"What is it?" they all chorused.

"Oh, I don't know whether I ought to tell or not," Nan teased.

"Nan Sherwood," Bess threatened, "if you don't break right down and tell us at once I'll--I'll--I'll throw this pillow at you." With this, she picked up one big soft pillow and raised her arm as though to pitch it right at Nan.

"I'll give up," Nan capitulated amid much laughter. "Do you know," she said slowly and solemnly as though to give her words greater weight, "That Professor Krenner is going to Europe, too, this summer, that he will be in London when we are, and that he will take us on some of the sight-seeing tours that we are to take?"

"Oh, that's nothing," Grace Mason depreciated. "I know something better, that none of you know. My mother and father are going to London and they are going to meet us there before we leave! What's more, they are going to take Walter with them!"

Nan blushed. She had been secretly wondering whether or not Walter was going to get a chance to go to Europe this summer. She had been reluctant to ask Grace, because she hated so to be teased. Now she tried to be nonchalant about it.

"Oh, that's nice," she said, trying to act very much disinterested. The girls exchanged significant glances.

"Yes, _isn't_ it," they emphasized.

Nan was dying to ask how it happened that Walter was going and who it was that had told Grace, but she didn't dare to ask any questions. She held her peace and hoped that someone else would solve the riddle.

For a few moments, no one said anything. It was like a mutual conspiracy to tantalize Nan, but after a while, Bess' own curiosity got the better of her. "How do you know, Grace," she asked, "surely no mail has come through to you lately?"

"Not a particle!" Grace exploded. "But Dr. Beulah says that everyone has been so busy with these plans, writing back and forth, checking and rechecking on details, that there was no time to write just ordinary letters. It was she who told me that dad is going over on business and that Walter and mother are going along with him. Why, I'm almost as pleased as Nan," she tormented her friend further, though she was secretly pleased that Nan liked her brother so much.

"But tell me, Nan," she begged. "What were you and Dr. Beulah talking about so earnestly in the corner over your tea. I wanted like everything to interrupt, but even though everything was so informal that no less a person than Mrs. Cupp condescended to congratulate us, I hesitated to break in on one of Dr. Beulah's tete-a-tetes. I hope she doesn't scare the life out of me, while we are away. Imagine, being with her every day, eating--you do eat on a boat, don't you?--at her table, walking the deck with her, and perhaps even sharing your cabin with her!"

Nan laughed heartily at Grace's last exclamation. "Why, Grace Mason,"

she burst forth, after she had wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, "If you were dressed in clothes instead of those pajamas, I'd take you by the ear right now and march you straight over to Dr. Beulah's apartment and introduce her to you. She doesn't bite. She's one of the nicest, if not the very nicest, person I have ever known. I can't imagine a pleasanter person in all this wide world to take us on this trip.

"She was telling me," she added as an afterthought and in answer to Grace's question, "that we are to go over on a steams.h.i.+p line that will land us in Glasgow, for we are to stop first at Emberon. It seems some distant relatives of mine want to be the first to welcome us when we land."

"What fun!" Bess exclaimed. "All the words about going sound like magic, don't they? Sailing, walking on deck, landing, and pa.s.sports and visas and going through customs. Do you know," she admitted, "it almost scares me, when I think of all the strange new things that are going to happen.

Why, we will be foreigners in a strange country!" she ended in amazement.

"Yes, and I hope they don't treat us as we treat them sometimes," Nan added.

"Well, they hadn't better," Bess retorted indignantly, as all the girls joined heartily in laughing at her. Bess laughed too, when she realized what she had said, "What I mean is--"

"Never mind, Bessie," Nan comforted. "We know you are not as rude as you sound, and that you don't mean half of what you say," she ended teasingly.

"Oh, I don't care what you say," Bess returned n.o.bly, "I feel so happy that I am going to be on that boat with all of you that there is nothing that you could say that would bother me."

"Not even," Laura goaded her, "the statement that we are going over cabin cla.s.s while Linda Riggs is going first cla.s.s on the same boat."

"It's not true," Bess denied without thinking.

"Of course it isn't, Bess," Rhoda looked reprovingly across at Laura.

"No one has heard a thing about Linda for months now. She might just as well be living in another world so far as we are concerned."

"I wish she was." Bess pouted somewhat as she made the statement. The truth was that she was secretly triumphant at the thought that if Linda was going to Europe, she was too. She half hoped that somewhere they would meet, that sometime she would be able to embarra.s.s Linda as Linda had frequently, in the past embarra.s.sed her. But even as the thought crossed her mind, Nan whisked it away by saying, "I wonder what it will all be like!"

CHAPTER VII

A MYSTERIOUS LETTER

"Oh, Nan, there's so much to do before we go that I sometimes think we never will get started!" Bess exclaimed to her roommate one morning several weeks later.

She was sitting on the floor sorting a boxful of things she had been saving for her memory book and was holding the dance program of the Grand Guard Ball they had attended during their first year at Lakeview, when she spoke.

Nan did not answer.

"Nan, aren't you listening to what I say?" she asked without looking up.

She flourished the dance program in the air. "Doesn't this bring up memories though," she said half wistfully. "When I remember what a jewel Walter was that night, I'm almost jealous," she went on.

Again there was no answer. Bess looked up.

"Why, Nan Sherwood, whatever is the matter?" she cried when she saw the expression on Nan's face. Dropping the things in her lap on the floor, she got up and went over to the day-bed where Nan was reading a letter.

"Nan, tell me," she urged. "Don't sit there looking as though the bottom had dropped out of everything. What's happened?"

"Oh, don't be silly," Nan forced a smile, "I just received a letter from home and it made me homesick. That's all."

"You homesick!" Bess didn't believe a word of it.

"Yes," Nan reiterated rather crossly, "I began to think how far away we are going and how seldom it is we see our parents these days. It made me sad for a while."

Bess accepted the explanation without further comment. She knew that it wasn't altogether true, just as she knew that it would be utterly impossible to drag the real facts from Nan at the moment. However, she determined not to forget the incident. But despite her resolve, it was not until several weeks later when they were on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean that the subject was reopened. Then it was not Bess who reopened it, but a set of very peculiar circ.u.mstances.

Now, to further divert Bess' attention, Nan put her letter away, most carefully, and began to busy herself about the room. So, they were both sorting out their belongings when Grace broke in on them.

"What do you think?" She was breathless with excitement for she had run all the way from the mail boxes where she had read the letter she was now waving in her hand, "I've just had a letter from home and mother and dad say that you should all come to Chicago with me for a few days during the holidays.

"They say that it is almost necessary," she continued as she noted the doubtful look on Nan's face and Bess' too. "Because you can take care of your pa.s.sports and visas much easier there than from Freeling.

"Mother says further," and Grace turned to her letter to read directly from that,

"'Dad and I have at last given Walter our consent to take his car along with him. He wants to so much! We feel that since it might be the only time he ever makes the trip that we will let him do as he wishes in so far as possible. So you and the girls may plan on taking a few side trips to Stratford-on-Avon, Canterbury, Eton, Windsor, and wherever else you have a mind to go by auto--that is, and this always holds true, if Dr. Prescott is willing. You are to be in her hands entirely, you know.