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 circumstances.

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 passports 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.

"'Now, don't fail to keep in touch with me, Grace. I want to know at every step how your plans are progressing.

"'My love, "'Mother.'"

"Isn't--that----just------grand!" Bess was the first to speak after the letter was finished. "Oh, Grace, your mother and dad are so good to us. Think of it, Nan, we will be able to take some drives over the lovely English countryside in the spring of the year."

"I am," Nan answered quietly, though inside she was really more excited than Bess. She liked Walter's car and had already had some pleasant drives in it. Now, she could see herself in imagination skimming over the English roads. "By the way," she turned to Grace, "when is it Walter will be crossing?"

"Oh, not until several weeks after we do," Grace answered. "Dad's going to be busy until well into April. But we'll all be together for the coronation, I am sure. Did I tell you this? Mother says someplace at the beginning of her letter that a business acquaintance of Dad's has written that we may watch the procession go by from his offices. It seems he is right down in Piccadilly and has an ideal location. The King and Queen and all of them will pass right by there on their way to Westminster from Buckingham Palace to be crowned. Then, they will pass by, too, on their way back. Why, dad says that if we bought such seats, we would have to pay at least a hundred dollars apiece!"

"Oh, Grace, what would we do without you!" Nan exclaimed. "That's the biggest piece of news yet! Dr. Prescott has been having trouble getting good seats for us, I know, for we put in our bid so late. I wrote to the solicitors in Edinburgh who handled mother's inheritance just the other day to find out whether anything could be done. It will be almost a month before I can possibly hear, and I was so afraid that it would be too late! Now, you have settled the problem entirely."

Grace blushed. She adored Nan. Praise from her sent her spirits skyward. Now she returned to her original question. "Will you stop in Chicago at the beginning or the end of the vacation," she persisted.

"Oh, at the end," Nan capitulated. "I couldn't possibly stop at the beginning, I am that anxious to get home and see Momsey! There are at least a million questions I want to ask her about all of this. I wish the Easter vacation was twice as long as it is and that it was going to begin tomorrow. Then I wish that we were leaving the day after vacation ends. Oh, girls, I sometimes feel I'm going to burst!

"If you only knew how much I've wanted to see all those places Momsey and Papa wrote about when they were over in Scotland a year or so ago! They tell me that the old castle that belonged to the ancient Lairds of Emberon is a queer spooky old place. Most of it is not in use anymore, but there are a few rooms that have never been closed. These are the ones that are to be ours for the time we stay there. Sounds thrilling, doesn't it?"

"Thrilling!" Bess took up the word. "Why, there's nothing like this trip ever happened to us before!"

"What are you people cooking up now?" It was Laura's voice that broke in on them. "I declare, sometimes I think I'd better move my trunk and belongings right into this room. Then I'd be on the spot when things happened."

"My sentiments exactly," Rhoda chimed in as she entered.

"Late as usual," Laura observed as Amelia also came in. "Now tell us what we've been missing."

"Oh, we're all to stop at Grace's in Chicago before we come back to school. Her mother has a whole list of things that can best be done from there." Bess couldn't wait for Grace to extend the invitation.

"Yes, that's the truth," Nan verified Bess' statement. "Now you'd all better clear out of here," she laughed. "I love every hair of your funny heads, but I can't accomplish a thing when you're around. Do you realize that after all, we're at school, and that trip or no trip, we've got to get through with exams before we leave?"

The girls sobered up at once.

"Ooh Nan, don't bring them up," Laura begged. "I just remembered that I faithfully promised the French Prof that I'd prepare my lesson for tomorrow. She declared today that she was utterly disgusted with the assignments I had been handing in. Poor thing! I have been trying her patience."

"And I and I and I," they all chorused.

"Now, get out!" Nan laughed, but never-the-less achieved firmness.

"Well, guess we'd better take the hint." Laura started for the door and the others followed. "Bet I get a better French grade than any of you, tomorrow," she challenged, just before the door was closed behind them with an air of finality.

"Such people!" Nan laughed to Bess when they were once more alone. "There's one thing I'm sure of--"

"And that?" Bess looked up.

"Mrs. Cupp is going to be so happy when the bus drives away from the entrance of this school carrying all of us and our baggage, that, if she were human at all, she'd dance a little jig of joy."

Bess giggled. "If I thought she'd do that I'd almost be willing to stay, for that would be something worth seeing."

"Bess, there are so many things worth seeing," Nan took up the end of the sentence seriously, "that I wish I were quintuplets so that I could be in at least five places at once."

"You and me, too," Bess agreed, "but just now the one me that is here is going to buckle down to work. Those exams are no joke."

So the two girls took out their books, and before long there was no sound to be heard in the room but the ticking of the clock and the occasional turning of a page. They studied until the signal came, "Lights out!"