CHAPTER II

SECRETS

"Where's Nan?" Rhoda whispered as she stuck her head into Bess and Nan's room at Lakeview Hall.

Bess got up from the gayly covered studio couch where she had been reading and opened wide the door. "It's all right. Come on in," she invited. "Nan's gone away for the afternoon, down to old Mrs. Bagley's to see how she's getting along."

"How did you manage?" Rhoda asked as she pulled off her pretty brown sports coat. "Do you think she smells a plot."

"Oh, I don't think so. She's been intending to go down there for some time, and today was the first free time she has had. I'm sure she doesn't suspect, but we will have to be careful."

"I know it! Nan's so smart that she will catch on in a minute if we make her suspicious at all." Rhoda lowered her voice to a whisper as someone passed by the door. "When are the others coming?" she asked when the footsteps had died away.

"They'll be here any time now," Bess answered. "I can hardly wait, can you? I'm so anxious to get things started."

Rhoda nodded as she peered out of the double windows near her to see if she could sight her friends coming up the long hill from the village.

"Anyone coming, Sister Anne?" Bess laughed.

Rhoda grinned. "Do you always feel like the sister of Bluebeard's wife, too, when you keep watching for someone?" she asked.

"Always. For some reason, that gory fairy tale and Cinderella were my favorites when I was a kid."

"I liked them, too," Rhoda agreed, "but they weren't my favorites, not by any means. I was brought up on stories of buried treasure, tales that have been handed down from generation to generation till no one knows whether they are true or false."

Rhoda's eyes were alight as she spoke, and her face had a far away look on it. She was recalling the tales an old Spanish maid had regaled her with as a child. They were tales of bloody massacres, of hidden treasure, of gold and silver and rubies and sapphires locked in heavy Spanish chests and concealed in caves, of lost mines, richer than any man has ever remembered, of wandering tribes who knew the answers but would never tell lest the wrath of God descend upon them and wipe them all away.

She sighed softly.

Bess sat quietly, waiting and hoping that Rhoda would talk more. But the girl was silent, as she once more looked down the hill. "You're expecting Grace Mason, Procrastination Boggs, and Laura Polk, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes, they've been the closest friends Nan has had here," Bess returned. "So I asked them all."

Bess was right. They were Nan's closest friends, as anyone who has read the complete Nan Sherwood series knows. Of all the girls, Bess is the only one who has been with Nan since the beginning. She made her appearance in the very first volume of the series, "Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp, or the Old Lumberman's Secret." This volume opens with Nan living happily on Amity Street in Tillbury with her mother and dad.

She goes to Tillbury High School, enjoys sports, makes good grades, and is popular with her classmates. Her only real regret, which she carefully conceals from her parents, is the knowledge that she cannot afford to accompany Bess Harley to Lakeview Hall where they had both always hoped to go together. Suddenly Papa Sherwood loses his job and Mama inherits a fortune in Scotland that makes it necessary for the two to cross the ocean, leaving Nan behind. The plucky young girl then accompanies her uncle, a bluff, hearty lumberman, to Northern Michigan. There in a series of adventures that follow one on the other in swift succession, Nan clears up the mystery surrounding her uncle's title to a valuable piece of property and wins the admiration of all whom she meets.

In "Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall or the Mystery of the Haunted Boathouse," the two girls arrive at the big boarding school on the bluff overlooking Lake Huron and immediately find themselves in trouble with Laura Riggs. In chapter after chapter of fun and excitement and thrills galore we see the two girls at school. Constantly getting in and out of difficulties themselves, they involve their new friends, Grace Mason, whose acquaintance you have already made in this book, Laura Polk, a lively red-headed girl with a vivid imagination, and Amelia "Procrastination" Boggs, a serious soul with a roomful of clocks. But perhaps the principal character is a ghost that nearly does away with Mrs. Cupp, the stern watchful assistant of Dr. Beulah Prescott, the school's principal. Nan meets the ghost and conquers it with some help from Walter Mason, Grace's brother, amid much mystery and much trouble.

This over, the Masons invite Nan and her friends to spend the Christmas holidays with them in Chicago. So, in "Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays or Rescuing the Runaways" we see her continuing her adventures in the biggest city she has ever visited. How she makes friends with a famous movie star and solves the mystery of the disappearance of two young farm girls who have come to the city to make their fortunes is told in this volume.

In her next big adventure, recounted in "Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch or The Old Mexican's Treasure", our heroine and her friends meet Rhoda Hammond a pretty, young westerner at school and accompany her to her home, a big ranch, for their vacation. What a vacation that is! A raid! An antelope hunt! A stampede! Lost treasure! And a pretty Mexican girl, Juanita! This is a volume brimming over with new experiences.

From Rose Ranch, Nan and her chums return once more to Lakeview to work and study. They do well, so when Mrs. Mason invites them all to accompany Grace and Walter to Florida, they have no trouble getting permission from home. In "Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach or Strange Adventures among the Orange Groves" they all have a part in solving poor old Mrs. Bagley's troubles, and Walter has cause to admire again the boundlessness of Nan's pluck.

She is as generous as she is plucky, and so the Saturday afternoon on which this chapter opens, Nan is down in Freeling, the village below Lakeview Hall, working away in Mrs. Bagley's cottage.

"By the way, how is Mrs. Bagley?" Rhoda asked, in an effort to keep herself from watching the windows so constantly.

"Oh, she's getting along all right, I think, since she got her money. But you know how Nan is. She's always afraid something might happen. Why, I honestly believe that she still fears that those horrid men who tried to get the deed to Mrs. Bagley's property away from her might turn up again after they get out of prison."

"Why, Bess Harley, I don't believe she thinks any such thing!" Rhoda exclaimed. "You are the one. You know you have been frightened half to death of the dark ever since Nan had those awful scares down in Palm Beach!"

Bess looked guilty. "Well, maybe it is me," she conceded ungrammatically. "But I do worry, at times about Nan. Sometime something's going to happen to her--"

"Going to happen to whom?" queried a new voice and Laura Polk, red-headed and freckle faced and homely but withal very likable, bounded into the room.

In the confusion that followed the question went unanswered. Grace and Amelia Boggs were right at Laura's heels. "Don't ask me why we are late," Laura grinned impishly, "Or I might tell."

"That is just what I am afraid of," Bess replied.

"--And if you don't, I'll tell anyway," Laura continued. "We met a tall handsome dark-haired man--"

"You didn't either," Bess interrupted.

"Well, then he was short and fat."

"Laura Polk, you know very well that you didn't meet any man at all. You either lingered too long over the chocolate soda that you have spilled on that plaid skirt or, and this is more likely, you relied on Amelia's watch which is always slow."

"If it isn't old Sherlock Holmes himself! And what a disguise! Why, Sherlock, if it weren't for your super intellect and your remarkable powers of observation, which no one could mistake, I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that you were Elizabeth Harley of Lakeview Hall, otherwise known to her intimates as Lunch-Box Lizz. Really, Sherlock, you amaze me," Laura continued as she turned Bess slowly around. "Amazing, truly amazing."

Bess laughed and blushed. "Lunch-Box Lizz" was an appellation that was hard to swallow, but she knew from of old that there was absolutely no use in trying to silence Laura.

"Anyway," she retorted, as she winked at Rhoda, "You missed the fudge that Mrs. Cupp sent up to us."

"If Mrs. Cupp sent you up fudge, then I'm a monkey," Laura returned. Nevertheless, she proceeded to look around for the empty plate, muttering the while that if Bess was any kind of friend at all she'd have saved some of the loot.

Bess watched her for a few seconds. Then feeling anxious to get on with the business of the day, she laughed, "There's no plate and no crumbs and no fudge, but you're a monkey, anyway, Laura Polk."

Laura laughed, as the other girls joined in. "Well, you see it's like this," she explained, "It's been so long since I've had anything besides a chocolate soda, that I'm just starved for something good to eat. But, Bess, since I wouldn't eat any old chocolate fudge even if you offered it to me on a great big silver platter, will you please break down and tell me what all the mystery is about."

"Yes, for Pete's sake," Amelia exploded, "What have you got on your mind? You and Rhoda have been going around the last two days looking as though you knew the answer to why Dr. Beulah wanted to know if our parents were at home this winter. What a question that was! I wrote home right away to find out what was up. What happened? Nothing. I don't even get an answer."

"What's more, I don't either," Rhoda joined in. "Do you know I haven't had a letter from my mother for two weeks now! I hope that if Dr. Beulah has something to write home, she is getting more response than I am."

"Oh, we're all neglected," Laura dismissed the question. "What I want to know is, what have you two companions in mystery cooked up now? Come on, spill it," she looked menacingly at Bess.

Bess turned to Rhoda, "You tell them," she said.

Rhoda shook her head, "No, it's your idea. Come, Bess, they are dying to know."

Bess cleared her throat. "Well--", and she looked around the room at the girls sitting on the chairs and cross-legged on the floor. It was nice to be there holding their attention.

"Bess Harley," Laura threatened, "Don't you go trying to pull any of my stunts. It's all right for me to go round working up suspense, but I won't have you doing it. I can't stand it. Are you going to tell what's eating you, or aren't you?"

Bess got up, went to the door and looked up and down the hall, "Just want to make sure that Linda Riggs isn't around," she explained.

"Oh, she's not here at all now and you know it," Laura laughed. "Come on, you tell us your secret and I'll tell you really and truly what Grace and Amelia and I were doing down in the village this afternoon."

Bess looked doubtful. "She will, honestly," Grace couldn't contain herself any longer. "If she doesn't, I will. Now come on, Bess, don't be mean."

"Can't you guess?" Bess asked. "Can't you guess, when you know as I do that Nan will be leaving about the end of April to go away?"

"Can't you guess," Rhoda chimed in, "When you know that it's a secret, that it's about Nan, that you are all--"

"Invited," supplied Amelia.

"That there will be food," Grace put in her bit.

"That everybody will know eventually," Bess added.

"That it's to be a great big surprise party on Nan!" they all chorused together, and then laughed.

"Sh! Did I hear somebody at the door?" Bess broke in on the confusion.

Immediately everybody was silent. The room was quiet as a tomb, as Bess got up and went to the door.