CHAPTER XVI DOOMED TO DISASTER

How that next day went by Nancy never knew. It seemed made up of moments, minutes, hours, and then a day of such confusion!

First thing in the morning there was general excitement over the breaking of the beautiful fernery. It had been one of Lady Betty’s pet pieces, and one of her bridal gifts. Also, Margot herself had tended and coaxed the beautiful ferns and flowers in the long, narrow basket to their fullest perfection, so that Margot felt a sense of personal loss in its destruction.

And it had really been destroyed; not only knocked over and broken, but the fine enameled pottery was completely demolished, and the beautiful growing stuff crushed to a pulp!

No prowling dog could have been so thorough in its work, everyone said, but only179 Nancy knew who had been prowling about, and only Nancy knew who, that very evening, had said things against the luxuries of the rich. And the fernery was a luxury.

Already the secret, which had been so curiously thrust upon her, was bringing its bitter penalty to Nancy. She had acted from the highest and most honorable motives, and yet, that little intrigue with Orilla, secretly knowing that she had been not only on the premises but actually in the house, through the rooms—all this brought to Nancy a sense of guilt.

Then, the broken fernery! Was that a part of Orilla’s depredation? Would she really destroy things in her dislike for the people of Fernlode? It was before lunch that Rosa, first intent upon a swim, suddenly changed her mind and without explanation ran off some place; where, Nancy didn’t know.

“Back in a jiffy!” Rosa had called as she went as fast as her weight allowed, toward Gar’s waiting car.

And she hadn’t even invited Nancy to go along!

180 From that time until the lunch bell rang, Nancy could not entirely fight down her feelings.

“I don’t have to be treated this way,” she decided, “I can go to Manny at any time. Manny made me promise I would, if I were not happy here.”

But, when Rosa came back just in time for lunch, and made her take a pretty new fan she had bought for the evening’s dance, reasonably, Nancy had to excuse her.

The postponed swim was taken in the afternoon, Rosa going out to the big rock and perching herself like a nice, fat bird upon it, while Nancy spent most of her time practising diving from the long dock.

All along the banks of the summer colony young folks were enjoying the water sports, and Nancy quite forgot her new anxieties as she too indulged in the pleasant aquatic exercise.

Just once Rosa became confidential. She asked Nancy if she knew anything about reducing systems.

181 “Why?” laughed Nancy. “You are not going to try one, I hope.”

“One!” exclaimed Rosa. “I’ve tried dozens of them. Want to see me do the twelve-pound roll?” and without waiting for any encouragement Rosa raced out of the water, ran up the little sandy road that led from a hill down to the water’s edge, and then proceeded to roll!

“Oh, don’t, Rosa!” yelled Nancy. “You might strike a rock!”

But Rosa was rolling on.

Down, down she came, gathering speed with every turn and adding to her peril with it.

“Oh, Rosa! Grab something!” yelled Nancy. “You’ll hit your head on those rocks!”

“No—no—I won’t,” Rosa managed to eject, each little word puffing out like a small explosion.

“I’ll stop you,” offered Nancy, jumping out in the path of the whirlwind.

“No, don’t! I must—go—all—the way!”

“But how silly! You’re a cloud of dust182 and—and—just see those rocks!” entreated Nancy.

Still Rosa kept on tumbling along, first down the very steep sand slope, and then over a sharp turn not intended to be used as a road. It was the end of the hill slope that twined in to the boat house, and the lakeside drive did not connect with this, as the lake and its drive were at right angles.

It was over that sharp edge of rocks that Rosa tumbled, then, with one more blind turn, her heavy little body splashed into the lake at least ten feet below!

“Oh, Rosa!”

Nancy’s yell was one of terror, but she did not wait to hear its effect, for the next moment she too was over the dock and into the water, grappling with the stunned girl, who seemed prone to go under the water every time Nancy attempted to assist her.

“Put your hand on my shoulder,” Nancy ordered, “but don’t grab me. Rosa! Rosa! Can’t you hear?”

Then, realizing that her cousin must indeed183 be stunned, Nancy shouted lustily for help.

“Help! Help! At the landing!” she screamed, meanwhile getting hold of Rosa’s little skirt and trying desperately to raise the girl to the surface of the water.

The moments were agonizing, but Nancy tried to keep up her courage, calling as she struggled. But there was very little hope for immediate response, since each estate encompassed a large strip of territory and the bathers were now scattered, in canoes, most of them following the sun to dry out, down near the big float.

Finally, Nancy heard the welcome sound of disturbed water, and then saw approaching the Fernlode dock, a small launch.

“This way! This way!” she yelled frantically, her own strength ebbing from her continued paddling to keep afloat, and grabbing for a better hold on Rosa, for the water off the big bank at the side of the dock was suddenly deep, and decidedly treacherous, real depth being necessary for boat landings.

The launch was now alongside.

184 “Oh, quickly, please!” begged Nancy. “I think she’s stunned.”

Then she saw that the boat was being run by Orilla! And she was, as usual, alone.

“Don’t get so excited,” snapped the girl. “I don’t see what you’re so scared of. She could wade out of there.”

“But she hasn’t spoken. Oh, Orilla, please get hold of her. I tell you she’s—stunned!”

In spite of her seeming indifference, Orilla was leaning over the side of the launch, and with her help Nancy had managed to get Rosa to the surface. She opened her eyes, sputtered water from her mouth, gasped, gagged and gurgled as if she were almost choked with water. Holding to the low side of the launch, Nancy ordered and bossed like a real life saver, but Rosa, although now able to help herself, made little headway at doing so.

Orilla scolded and grumbled. She hadn’t time for such foolishness, and a girl who couldn’t get up on her own dock ought to drown—according to her.

“She’s got to get into your boat,” insisted185 Nancy, “she can’t climb to the dock.”

“All right, then, get in,” growled Orilla, “and be quick about it. I’ve got to hurry!”

“You always have,” retorted Nancy, none too pleasantly. “It seems to me, you might try to be—human, once in a while.”

“Good enough for you to talk,” flung back the other girl. “But you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” Rosa managed to gurgle, “and it’s all your fault, Orilla Rigney, I’ve never had any—any peace since—”

“Cut it!” yelled the red-haired girl, so sharply that even Nancy, who was on the end of the dock, turned suddenly to see the girl’s face masked in rage.

Rosa was now in the launch, Nancy sat, exhausted, on the end of the dock, but Orilla, at the engine, looked so peculiarly excited that instinctively Nancy shouted:

“Wait! Don’t—start!”

But the engine had picked up and that launch was steaming off, Rosa still apparently186 too stunned to protest, and Nancy was powerless!

“Where are you going?” Nancy shouted, quickly as she could recover from her surprise.

But no answer came back; nothing but the chug-chug of the engine, and the boat’s daring cut through the water.

“Rosa!” yelled the distracted Nancy. “Come back—”

Rosa turned and waved a fluttering hand, not gayly but sort of resignedly. And Nancy knew that all she, herself, could do was to—wait!

Certainly Orilla was heading her boat across the narrow end of the lake, at which point the water was sucked up by any number of little land patches, hills and foothills of the mountains. To land in any one of these would mean almost complete seclusion—for the thick evergreens made tiny forests of the islands. It was among these little islands that Nancy watched, impotently, for the last speck of color that identified the launch.

“Oh, what shall I do!” she moaned aloud.187 “Rosa is not fit to go off with that girl. And who can go after her?”

The memory of Mrs. Pixley’s plight out on No Man’s Land, the evening that Rosa and Nancy went to her rescue, now came back to Nancy, with Rosa placed in the same predicament.

“If she ever leaves her out there alone,” she worried, this time without speaking aloud, “we may not be able to find the spot.”

“Hello! What’s the mermaid pondering—”

“Oh, Gar!” gasped Nancy, turning to find their friend almost beside her upon the dock. “That girl, Orilla, has gone off with Rosa. And Rosa had been stunned from a fall down the hill into the water.”

“Seems to me, Nancy, you’re pretty well stunned yourself,” spoke up the boy. “You look all in.”

“Don’t mind me, please! But think, quickly! What can we do to get—Rosa!”

“What makes you so dreadfully worried?”

Then poor Nancy tried to explain what had happened. As she talked she did feel her own188 loss of strength, as Gar had said, she was almost exhausted herself.

“Don’t worry,” comforted the boy. “I’ll get Paul and we’ll race out in our launch. I guess Orilla Rigney can’t beat the Whitecap and I guess she doesn’t know any more about mushroom islands than I do. You want to come along, Nancy?”

“Oh, yes, I couldn’t stand the anxiety of waiting,” Nancy answered. “I’ll get into dry things—”

“And I’ll pull in here for you in a couple of jiffs,” Gar assured her, offering her his hand as she left the dock by the shortest cut—the hill that had proved too much for Rosa’s rolling exercise.

“Do you think I had better tell Margot?” Nancy asked, when they had reached the point where their paths divided.

“Oh, no, better not. You see, when we get Rosa and fetch her back she’ll just think we have all been off for a sail.”

And Nancy knew as he spoke, that here was another boy with a disposition very much like Ted’s.