The Girl Scouts at Bellaire Part 15

"No, indeed," Grace enthusiastically seconded this opinion. "What we are doing with you is a positive joy."

"I don't know what would have become of us in Bellaire if we hadn't met you," Cleo chimed in, serious beyond contention. "Of course, we met a few girls, but we are so accustomed to adventures and activities. I guess we require more things to happen than do most girls. Now, Mary, we will go with you up to the studio, if I can find a boy to take a message to Jennie. I don't want to phone, as she might not understand."

The small boy, not difficult to find around soda fountains on summer afternoons, was glad to accept the offer of a nickel to take a note to Cragsnook, and thereupon the girls set out for Second Mountain.

Mary led the way, romping over vacant lots, climbing fences and otherwise taking short cuts to the hillside.

"We accidentally found your mountain cave one day in a shower," Cleo told her, as they neared that cedar covered mountain table. "We were up here in that dreadful storm the other day."

"Oh, were you? Reda and I had been to the village for Grandie's medicine, and we were also caught in it," said Mary.

No reference was made to the overheard conversation. Not that Cleo wanted to be secretive, but because she felt it might be embarra.s.sing to refer to it.

In spite of the fortifying suns.h.i.+ne, and the fact that Mary had talked of neighbors not far from the studio, the girls each felt a certain apprehension as they neared the scene of their recent exciting adventure. Madaline was noticeably quiet, and not even a beautiful gray squirrel, that hopped directly in their path, with a saucy flirt of its bushy tail, evoked so much as a joyous shout from her. Still she wanted to go to the studio, and now they were in full sight of the low terra cottage lodge.

"Oh, it will seem so strange without Grandie," Mary commented, "but I am so happy that his memory is coming back. If only he could remember--" She checked herself, as she always did, when accidentally she might mention the urgent necessity for Professor Benson "remembering."

In a very business-like way, quite astonis.h.i.+ng to her companions, Mary slipped her finger in a tiny pocket, made in her black velvet belt, produced from it a latch key, and with this opened the big, heavy door.

Grace and Cleo were at her heels, determined to show their courage, but within the room everything was still, too still to be pleasant.

"Reda put things in order before she left," Grace remarked. "What a pretty, low, rumbly place this is!"

"How can you be sure Reda is gone?" Cleo asked, staring at the gla.s.s door through which the queer lights had warned them of the intruders'

danger the night before.

"Here's her everyday fichu," Mary replied. "She never goes out without one--even wears it around the house, so she has donned her best. Yes, she has gone to New York. Here's her yellow handkerchief; she has dressed all up in her nicest things. Let's see if she has taken her bag."

Opening a small door off the hall, opposite the sinister gla.s.s portal, Mary entered a sleeping room profusely trimmed up with the brightest of chintz draperies and colorful hangings.

"Yes, her bag is also gone. Well, girls," and Mary turned to them with a frank smile, "I did like Reda, of course, but sometimes she has frightened me so, and then Janos was so awfully rough with dear Grandie."

"But whatever will you do without a housekeeper?" asked Cleo.

"I don't know really"--and she blinked threateningly--"but at any rate I am glad to be free!"

A sense of security had now come to the girls, and they were flitting around, looking at this thing and that, quite as if they had just stepped into some attractive shop to inspect its wares. But they did not go near the leaded gla.s.s door!

"Now, girls," Mary called quite soberly, emerging from Reda's room, "I am going to give you a real treat. Just watch."

She sprang to the big gla.s.s door and, pressing the set in the lock, the portal slid smoothly back.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" The exclamation was a soft cadenza, uttered by all three spectators.

The open door revealed a glorious collection of blooming orchids!

CHAPTER XV

ORCHIDIA

"Oh, how perfectly gorgeous!" This a solo from Grace.

"Heavenly, I think!" Cleo chimed in.

"Wherever did you get them all?" asked Grace.

Like a little floral queen, Mary ushered her visitors into this mysterious room, the orchid sanctum of Professor Benson. It was all that the girls had proclaimed it, gorgeous, heavenly and wonderful!

The variegated tones of lavendar, known only as orchid, were as elusive as the subtle scent of this tropical bloom. The whole diffusing into something so indescribable that even the spontaneous girls failed for once to rally immediately to a sense of reality. It seemed like a dream, like a picture book, or even a wonderful pastel!

Never before had Mary's quaint personality seemed so well set as she flitted about, bringing her face down to the affectionate shade of flower upon flower, yet never touching with so much as a finger tip the perishable bloom.

The room was, or always had been, a conservatory--the original owner, the famous artist Imlay, delighting in bringing to perfection there the many rare plants and flowers. So the place lent itself exactly to the work of Professor Benson. Many of the orchids hung in leafy baskets, seemingly not requiring soil, but subsisting, as they so peculiarly do, almost in air.

"What are they all for?" stammered Grace.

"Girls, I wish I could tell you all about our orchids, but you see----"

Mary hesitated, put her finger to her lips and her eyes went blank.

"I am sure you will soon, Mary-love," Cleo a.s.sisted the perplexed child, "and we wouldn't want to know anything of your affairs that you are not at liberty to tell. Whenever we ask a question that is out of order, as we say at our scout meetings, just you answer 'secret' and we will at once change the subject. There, isn't that fair?"

"You are all so fair and thoughtful," Mary replied. "I just feel I can hardly wait to see Grandie, and get his permission to tell you at least a part of our story. But now let me show you some of our rarest orchids. Come over here and see these growing on the side of this rubber tree."

Time pa.s.sed quickly in such delightful surroundings, and when Cleo glanced at her wrist watch she discovered two hours had been consumed in the time since leaving home, and Jennie should not be made anxious, they had subsequently decided. Consequently the orchid room could not longer be enjoyed on this first visit.

"You see, the wires Grandie uses to give a very light heat," Mary explained. "He is working on a new electric system, and had just turned the current on to try it last night. It is off now. I know how to throw on and off the switch," she a.s.sured the girls, as Madaline edged gingerly from the room.

"Don't be afraid, Madie," said Grace. "The wires are now all as dead as fish hooks, and much less dangerous."

"What do you suppose the strange men intended to do?" ventured Cleo.

"Just say 'secret' if I am on the wrong track."

"Oh, I know they meant to harm Grandie," replied Mary, soberly. "They pretended, I suppose, that they came to buy orchids, but more likely they came to steal them. Then Janos is always wanting Grandie to take his old queer medicines, and I know they do not make him better. But do come along, girls, they really might be daring enough to come back."

At this Grace and Madaline made a bee-line for the front door, which stood safely wide open. Cleo remained back with Mary, who was most particular about spraying a few precious plants with water from an atomizer before she left.

"No danger of those men coming back to Bellaire by train," said Cleo, as Mary finally sprang the lock on the big door, "but, of course, they might come by auto," she added.

"I heard Janos say he could not get a license to drive a car," Mary said, "and I was glad of that. You see, these foreigners know very little about machinery."

"But they could hire a driver," suggested Grace.

"They would not," Mary insisted, shaking her head. "They are too secretive, and would be afraid others would find them out. Oh dear,"

and she sighed deeply. "I do not see why we have to suffer so. I have been so happy with you girls I can almost forget, but when I come up here it all rushes back!"

"Now--now, now," warned Grace in her boyish way. "No fair getting glumpy. You are just exactly like a perfectly different girl, Mary-love. We do not intend to let you do any back-sliding. You can learn that much scouting right off, and I think, Cleo, as soon as we get back home we will make her--yes, make her," and she raised her voice in mock severity, "take our scout pledge of good cheer."