CHAPTER XXII A GIRL AND HER ROOM

Nancy found Rosa, as she suspected, disappointed and even worried.

“It was the strangest thing,” Rosa explained, “every time we thought we had found Orilla she just seemed to disappear. Of course she didn’t, but on the lake there are so many turns, and ins and outs and, being in the boat, we stayed on the water. I suppose Orilla was on land,” she finished sullenly.

“Why was it so important for you to see her to-day?” Nancy asked, innocently enough.

“I had a message for her, and that should have reached her to-day,” replied Rosa. But she did not go into details and Nancy felt that she could not question further. However, she did try to reassure Nancy that Orilla would probably be around before nightfall.

“I hope so,” Rosa said, “if not, I simply246 don’t know what I shall do. I went to all her woodland haunts that I know of, and land knows she’s got enough of them, but there wasn’t even a trace to show that human footprints had been over the ground lately. Oh, dear, isn’t it awful to be a crank? Orilla is just a crank, and I tell you I’m about sick of her ways,” Rosa pouted. “But I have to get some of the loose ends tied up before I can wash my hands of it, as Margot would say.”

“And there she is,” Nancy reminded Rosa, for at that moment Margot was coming down the path at a brisk rate.

“On the war path,” Rosa remarked. “I’ve got to surprise her with some news. Let me see! Oh, I’ll tell her about a big sale of linens down at Daws,” and forthwith Rosa rushed up the path to proclaim the glad tidings to the unsuspecting Margot—or the Margot who was pretending to be unsuspecting.

From that moment until after dinner and until almost nightfall, the cousins had not a moment to themselves, for company came, and Rosa had to entertain. Nancy also247 helped out, the visitors being most interested in her simple reports from the neighboring state. When they were leaving (they were the Drydens from the Weirs and were staying at a hotel in Craggy Bluff) Rosa drove in town with them to bring some mail to the post office, but Nancy declined to go. Rosa was to meet Dell Durand and drive back with her, and as Dell had talked to Nancy on the phone and assured her she would be back before dark (all this in coaxing Nancy to go), there seemed no danger of delay for Rosa.

When they had all gone Nancy felt herself free at last to take her favorite stroll along the lake front. The sunset was glorious; golds, purples, greens and ashes of roses, in hues too brilliant to be so tersely described. Is there anything which can beggar description as can a sunset on that great, majestic lake! Words cannot tell of it, no more than the mist can veil it.

“It looks as if heaven were leaking joy,” thought Nancy, as she watched the descending beauty.

248 Thinking of her mother, of Ted and of dear Manny, as she did every evening, this being a part of her filial love and devotion, Nancy gazed and wondered, until suddenly a step near her startled her from her reverie.

It was Orilla!

“Oh!” exclaimed Nancy. “I didn’t see you coming—”

“No, one can’t. I have so many secret little paths around here,” spoke Orilla, and Nancy noticed that her voice was very low, subdued, and her words rather well chosen.

“But I’m so glad you came,” Nancy hurried to add. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you, all day.”

“I’ve been away, to the city, and I’m so tired!” With a sigh she sank down upon the lake-side bench. “I believe I would die if I had to live in a city,” she murmured.

“It is dreadfully stuffy after air like this,” agreed Nancy. “But you are not sick, are you, Orilla?” she asked anxiously, for Orilla did seem very unlike herself.

“No, I guess not. I have an awful headache249 but—don’t let us talk about sickness,” Orilla broke off suddenly. “I have something more important to talk of to-night.”

“First, Orilla,” interrupted Nancy, “won’t you please let me give you your little bag? It has worried me—”

“If you’ll only keep it a few more days, Nancy—”

“But why? Shouldn’t your mother take care of it for you?” questioned Nancy. She had been determined to get rid of the treasure and this was her chance.

“Mother?” Orilla’s voice showed disapproval of that idea, most emphatically. “No, mother is good and has given me much freedom, but she doesn’t quite understand me, you see, Nancy,” finished the girl with one more of those weary, heavy sighs.

Before Nancy could speak again Orilla had risen and was leading the way to the other end of the spacious grounds.

“Come this way,” she said. “We won’t meet anybody and I must not delay too long.”

250 “But Rosa may be along—”

“Let me tell you alone, Nancy, please,” pleaded Orilla. “Then you may tell Rosa if you want to. I’m tired of secrets, tired of being hated and tired of fighting. Until you showed some friendliness for me, I haven’t ever remembered kindness except from mother, and, well, just a few others,” finished Orilla, evasively.

She was hurrying toward the rear of the big house and Nancy was following. The path she picked out was quite new to Nancy, who thought she had discovered every little nook and corner of the big summer place, but this was a mere strip of clearance, tunneled in under heavy wild grape vines that grew clamorously over high and low shrubbery, and even climbed into the biggest wild cherry tree.

Neither girl spoke for some minutes. Then Orilla asked Nancy if she liked Fernlode.

“Why, yes,” Nancy replied, “I love it.”

“So do I,” declared Orilla sharply, “and you know they—put me out!”

251 “Oh, no, Orilla, they didn’t do that,” Nancy hurried to correct her. “When Uncle Frederic married—”

“I know all that, Nancy, but don’t let’s talk of it. It makes me furious, even now. Don’t talk any more—some one might hear us. Just come quietly after me,” she whispered.

Where could she be leading her, Nancy wondered? Surely this was the end of the house just back of the servant’s dining room—

Orilla stepped up to the corner of the building, and then Nancy saw that they faced a small door. It was situated at the extreme end of the first floor and almost hidden in heavy shrubbery. While Nancy waited, Orilla surprised her still further by taking a key from her dress and turning it in the lock.

The door opened!

“Orilla!”

“Hush! Just keep close,” whispered the girl. “It is only dark at the entrance.”

By keeping close Nancy soon found herself in a quarter of Fernlode she had never before explored. She knew that it must be the servants’252 quarters, and before she could speculate further, Orilla had unlocked another door and they both found themselves in a pleasant little room!

“This is—my—room!”

Nancy could scarcely breathe, she was so frightened at the tone in which Orilla said that.

Her room!

“You see, these are all my things, and I come here whenever I get a chance,” Orilla confessed. “No one ever thinks of looking in here, and I never take anything away. I wouldn’t do that, you know,” she said very positively, as if fearing Nancy’s opinion.

“Your—room!” Nancy was too surprised to get past that unbelievable statement.

“Yes; and no one else cares for it or needs it.” Orilla was straightening around the brown reed chairs and patting the small table cover, and as she touched a thing, her affectionate interest in it was plain even to Nancy’s excited gaze.

“Doesn’t Rosa know?” Nancy asked finally.

253 “No. Rosa has been away a lot, you know, and besides, the Fernells only come here in summer. I was born in these mountains, and as a child mother brought me here. She’s a nurse, you know, and a wonderful mother.” Orilla sat down and pointed out a chair to Nancy, which the latter gratefully accepted.

Nancy knew little about Mrs. Rigney, but she guessed now that probably her love for Orilla had led her into the mistake of allowing her daughter to grow up believing Fernlode to be her own home.

As if divining Nancy’s thoughts, Orilla said almost that very thing.

“Mother was devoted to the real Mrs. Fernell,” she said, thereby disputing Lady Betty’s later claim, “and Mrs. Fernell was lovely to me. While Rosa was away at school I played around here as—well—you can imagine how I felt to be put out of this room!” she again challenged.

In vain did Nancy try to explain the situation, defending Lady Betty’s purpose in keeping no one but servants on Fernlode, but254 Orilla would not be convinced of its justice. Suddenly she threw herself upon the bed with such secret enjoyment, that Nancy knew the girl’s mind had become morbid on the subject of ownership.

As so often happens with those who are physically delicate, her reasoning also was at fault. She imagined she had been unjustly treated, whereas nothing of the sort had happened. Mr. Fernell had been generous to the point of bounty in educating Orilla and in giving a sum of money to the mother. This had all been done because of Mrs. Rigney’s devotion to Nancy’s Aunt Katherine, the first Mrs. Fernell, and Nancy knew the story well.

“Yes,” Orilla began again, “it was not mother’s fault. And she has tried to make me see things her way; but I can’t. I’ve always been a wild mountain girl and all that I’ve loved has been here. You don’t think I did wrong to come back here once in a while, do you?” she asked plaintively.

Nancy gazed silently at the girl upon the bed. Her hair, always so fiery red, did not255 look quite so peculiar on that pillow—Orilla’s own pillow, that she had so long loved. The room was musty and needed a thorough airing, but Nancy noticed a small casement window opened slightly—this was, she reasoned, Orilla’s way of secretly ventilating the room.

“I don’t see what could be very wrong about your coming here,” Nancy finally answered Orilla’s question. “But why didn’t you ask?”

“Ask? After being turned away?”

“You were not turned away, Orilla, and that’s a foolish thing to say. Uncle Frederic simply changed his plans and there was no need of a nurse here,” stoutly and emphatically proclaimed Nancy.

“And they didn’t like me to be with Rosa—”

“Now, Orilla, you can’t deny you were not a suitable companion for Rosa, because you could make her do anything. You are older, and you worked on her sympathies,” Nancy felt obliged to point out.

“I’ll admit that now, Nancy, to you, but it didn’t seem that way before. I never told anyone, not even mother, how I felt, and it256 just all piled up inside of me until I imagined myself like a volcano, always ready to—erupt.”

This was the first time that Nancy had noticed any depth to Orilla’s character, and she had continually wondered where the educational influences, said to have been provided by her uncle, had been hidden in the girl’s personality. But the confession of her morbid, morose state of mind was plainly the answer. She had fought down culture, choosing to be simply a wild girl of the mountains.

“My mother always insists upon us talking things out,” said Nancy quietly. “It’s so much better to share our worries—”

“I know that now. I feel like a different girl, just from talking to you, and you’re only a kid,” said Orilla, again betraying her disregard of polite English. “I’m through with secrets, Nancy,” she continued, jumping up suddenly from the bed, with evident nervousness. “One secret leads to another until I am fairly smothered in them. Now, this one is not so heavy, but there—are—more.”