CHAPTER XXI ENTANGLEMENTS

A week passed and still Nancy guarded the bag, but in that time had neither seen Orilla nor heard from her. The girl’s promise to meet her at the lakeside, on the evening following that upon which she had imposed the trust upon Nancy, had not been kept. Nancy waited until dark, and even a little later than she felt comfortable, out there alone away from everyone, and at a considerable distance from the house; but Orilla did not come.

Nancy imagined many reasons for her failure to appear. Perhaps she had feared detection, as she had the person she suspected of being after her money. Or perhaps her mother was keeping watch. Mrs. Rigney had been around Fernlode almost daily in the past week, and more than once Nancy heard her talking to Margot, as if she were in distress.235 Orilla’s name was mentioned often, but Nancy knew nothing more than that.

Finally, it was Rosa who broke the spell. She burst in upon Nancy one morning before breakfast.

“Nancy!” she exclaimed, “I’m just worried to death about Orilla. There’s a reason why, but I just can’t explain, if you don’t mind. You’ve been such a dear, I perfectly hate to go at things this way again,” and Rosa’s face bore out that statement. “But if you’ll only trust me this once more—”

“Of course I trust you, Rosa—”

“I knew you would. Then don’t worry about me this morning. I’ve just got to go off and find her—”

“I’ll go with you.”

“If you don’t mind, dear, I’d rather go alone.”

“But I want to go, Rosa. I’m interested in finding her. In fact, I’ve got a reason—”

“Really! Are we both having secrets about Orilla? That would be funny if we weren’t so worried, wouldn’t it? But, Nancy, please236 let me find her and then I’ll tell you where she is. I hate to seem secretive but—well, I just have to this time.”

Nancy was baffled. Rosa was so positive in wanting to go off alone. And she, Nancy, was just as anxious to get in touch with Orilla. Why shouldn’t they both go together?

“Rosa,” she began again, “I’d love to tell you my secret, but you see I promised Orilla—”

“So did I,” interrupted Rosa, smiling in spite of herself. “And, you see, if we both went she would believe we both told.”

This sounded reasonable and Nancy hesitated. Rosa saw her chance and pressed it further.

“I’ll come back as quickly as I can,” she promised, “and then you can go talk to her.”

“But you haven’t had breakfast—”

“Yes, I have. I couldn’t rest. I got to fussing and I went downstairs before even Margot was around. Don’t worry about me, Nancy love,” begged Rosa, pressing her cousin’s hand impulsively. “I’ll take good237 care of myself this time, and I promise not to cut down a single tree.”

“But you are not going on the lake alone?”

“No; a friend is going to take me in her motor boat.”

“Not Dell, nor Gar?”

“No. But someone just as trustworthy. You know Katherine Walters you met last week at Durand’s? She’s a regular old sea captain on the lake, and runs a boat like one.”

“I saw her out the other day, in a big green launch—”

“The Cucumber. That’s her boat and that’s the one we’re going in.”

“Who else is going?” asked Nancy. “Why couldn’t I sit in the boat with Katherine—”

“If Orilla saw you along she would never believe me,” persisted Rosa, a little disconsolately.

“Don’t you think we are humoring her an awful lot, Rosa?” Nancy asked in a strained voice; she too was bothered.

“Well, I suppose I am; not you. But just this once. You see, Nancy, Orilla hasn’t238 much in life and she expected such a lot.”

“You’re good to her, Rosa, perhaps too good. But I hope you’re not making another mistake; you know how she influences you.”

“She couldn’t now, Coz. I’m not in need of her services. You see, my doctor is a resident. I have her with me all the time,” and again she flung her arms affectionately around Nancy.

There seemed nothing to do but agree, so after many admonitions from Nancy and promises from Rosa, the latter started off. She had arranged things with Margot so as to allay her suspicions, and when Rosa waved to Nancy from the green launch, called the Cucumber, Nancy sighed in spite of the beautiful morning and all other favorable circumstances.

Hours dragged by slowly. First Nancy wrote letters—it would soon be time for homecomings—then she drew a pen and ink sketch for Ted. She even finished the little handkerchief she was hemstitching for Manny, but yet there remained a full half hour before lunch time. And no sign of Rosa!

239 It might have been that Nancy had not yet gotten over that anxious search for Rosa, when she and the Durands finally found her on Mushroom Island, at any rate, all that morning Nancy worried.

Lunch time came but Rosa did not. One, two, three o’clock! Nancy could stand it no longer. She made some excuse to Margot and hurried over to Durand’s.

It happened that Paul was there, and, of course, Gar was with him; but Dell had gone out.

“Look for Rosa!” shouted Gar, just as she knew he would when she told why she had come. “Say, Nance, what is this, anyway? A bureau of missing persons?”

She explained without fully explaining, and the boys gladly enough set sail in the Whitecap, once more to search for the illusive Rosa.

“But no wood carving, wood chopping, nor wood lugging,” declared Gar, gayly. Then he told Paul about his previous experience in that line, embellishing the story with extravagant240 little touches peculiar to the style of Garfield Durand.

Paul and Nancy, as usual, found many things to talk about, to discuss and even to disagree over, for Paul proclaimed the beauties of New Hampshire while Nancy held with unswerving loyalty to the glories of Massachusetts.

But her anxiety over the delay of Rosa’s return was not even thinly covered by these assumed interests, and only Gar’s continual threats to do something dreadful to the runaway “this time sure” and his repeated avowals that he positively, absolutely and unquestionably would not “dig up the woods nor chop down trees in this search,” kept Nancy’s real worry from being mentioned.

“We don’t have to go on the islands to look for the Cucumber,” Gar insisted. “The girls couldn’t hide that boat if they tried. It’s so green you can hear it, to say nothing of the noise that engine makes.”

“Oh, no, we don’t have to go inland at all,” Nancy agreed with elaborate indifference.241 “I just wanted to look around and hurry Rosa along. She has a way of staying over, if it’s only to gather weeds. Rosa doesn’t seem to worry, ever, about keeping her appointments, but I didn’t want Margot to spoil any of our fun, just because Rosa stayed out all day, you see,” finished Nancy, quite confused from the length of her speech and its utter improbability.

“Let’s skirt around these islands,” proposed Paul, “and if we don’t spy the Cuke we better try over at the Point. They may be picnicking. Katherine loves the lollypops they sell at the Point—I know.”

“All right,” agreed, Gar, “but after that I’ve got to get back. Promised to drive down for Dell, you know, and she isn’t walking off fat.”

They skirted the islands but did not discover the long green boat at any landing or out upon the lake. Then they proceeded to navigate in the direction of the Point. Here they encountered many boats of many descriptions, for the Point was not only a pretty point of land extending out into the water, but242 it was also a point of recreation and general interest for summer folk for miles around.

“Not here,” reported Paul, for there was no sign of the girls, and the boat was nowhere to be seen. “Better go back home. They could have gone in through the cove, you know.”

“Of course they could, and I’ll bet they have,” declared Gar. “Well, we had a fine sail, anyway. Hope you enjoyed it, Miss Brandon?” he finished in assumed formality.

“Very much,” simpered Nancy imitating Gar’s affectation. “I had been rather dull all day, but this—” she swept the lake with a broad gesture—“this is glorious.”

“Joking aside,” said Paul, “are you having any fun, Nancy? That cousin of yours is as hard to manage as a young colt, I’d say.”

“Oh, no, she isn’t, really,” replied Nancy. “We have wonderful times now, much better than we did at first when we didn’t understand each other.”

“And you claim to understand Rosa now?” asked Gar, swerving his boat into the small243 cove that lay beside his own summer home and Fernlode.

“Well, yes, I think I do,” spoke up Nancy. “But then, Rosa’s my own cousin and that makes it easier.”

“Maybe that’s it,” retorted Gar, “because I’m not so dreadfully stupid, I hope, yet I can’t understand her a-tall.”

“Now look!” cried Paul suddenly, standing up and pointing to Fernlode. “There they are! What did I tell you!”

“That,” replied Gar, crisply, slowing down his engine.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” breathed Nancy, in her joy betraying how anxious she had been. “But the boat is going off!”

“Yes, but your dear little Rosalind is all right, standing there all by her little self. See her?” said Gar, as usual teasing about Rosa.

It took but a few moments to pull up to the long landing, but the Cucumber had already steamed off and, as Gar had said, Rosa stood there, waiting alone.

244 One look at her cousin’s face and Nancy knew she had been disappointed. She had not found Orilla.