Part 11 (1/2)

”Stay with them, if you 'd like to,” suggested Jane, softly, as she put away her work and prepared to accept his invitation. ”You know they always like to have you--every one of them--and I can slip across by myself. I 'll take her some of my mignonette and June roses.”

”Thank you for your kind permission,” answered Murray, following Jane's white-clad figure slowly down to the mignonette-bed at the farther end of the garden, ”but I 'd rather accept it some evening when Miss Jane Bell is to be at home. 'Hamlet' with Ophelia left out would n't be much more of a play than it would be minus the melancholy gentleman himself.”

Armed with a great bunch of the fragrant blossoms from the garden, Jane accompanied Murray across Gay Street, through the gate in the high hedge, and over the lawn and round the house to the great sheltered porch on the other side, its tall columns making it as great a contrast to the miniature place she had just left as could be imagined. Rugs carpeted the floor, big bamboo and rush chairs invited repose, and screens hung ready to be dropped, and to shut it quite away from invading breezes.

On a wide, richly cus.h.i.+oned settee lay Olive, listless and unhappy. She scanned Jane closely, noted that her visitor was not less attractively, if far less expensively, dressed than herself, and lifted to her face eyes into which had suddenly come a look of relief and interest.

”For me?” she asked, as Jane put the flowers into her outstretched hands. ”Oh, how sweet! Why don't we have such mignonette as that in our gardens?”

”There are a lot of flowers,” thought Murray, as he watched Jane take her seat by his sister and begin to entertain her, ”that they grow in Gay Street which we don't know the smell of over here. If we could just transplant the one I brought over to-night, what a beginning of a garden we should have!”

CHAPTER VII

JANE PUTS A QUESTION

On her way home from a trip to a not far-distant fruit-shop, Nancy Bell caught sight of her friend, s.h.i.+rley Townsend, waving an eagerly summoning hand from the gateway in the hedge.

It was a hot morning in early July, and Nancy, after running into the house to report her return to her mother, joined s.h.i.+rley in a shady corner under the shrubbery, which had become a favourite trysting-place of the two children.

Half an hour afterward Nancy, her eyes wide with excitement, sought out her mother and Jane upon the small back porch, where each was busy with the morning's work--at this moment the looking-over of raspberries and the sh.e.l.ling of peas.

”O mother--O Jane!” the child began, ”the dreadfullest thing has happened over at the big house! Forrest Townsend 's run away, and they don't know where he is!”

”Why, Nan!” Jane's busy fingers, red with raspberry stains, stopped their work, as she stared at her sister in dismay. ”That can't be so!”

”Yes, it can--it is! s.h.i.+rley told me. He's been gone three days, but they thought he must be off on a visit till they got a letter this morning. And they don't even know where the letter was mailed from.

Mrs. Townsend 's sick in bed about it, and s.h.i.+rley says her father won't say a word--just looks white and angry and queer.”

”The poor father and mother!” murmured Mrs. Bell, her eyes full of sympathy.

”But he can't have gone away to stay,” said Jane, staring at Nancy, still incredulous. ”He's an impulsive fellow--quick tempered, hot-headed--and he and his father don't get on well together. But to run away----”

”But he has,” persisted Nancy. ”The letter said it was no use looking for him; he'd come back some time when he 'd shown he could look after his own--oh, I don't remember just what he said--s.h.i.+rley was n't sure what it meant. But she said her mother just cried and cried, and told her father she'd always known his harsh ways----”

”Don't, dear--don't tell us!” Mrs. Bell interrupted, quickly. ”s.h.i.+rley should n't have told you anything that was said; we have no right to know. When people are hurt and sad, they say bitter things they are very sorry for afterward. The only thing for us to know is that this trouble has come to our neighbours. We must think how we can help them.

I would go over at once if I thought I could be of use to poor Mrs.

Townsend--and were sure she was willing I should know.”

They discussed the situation, Mrs. Bell and Jane, as they went on with their work; and Jane told her mother all she knew of Forrest's differences with his father. ”It bothers me so,” she ended, sorrowfully, ”that I did n't realise he was in earnest about taking things into his own hands, and do something to let the others know. Do you suppose that foolish threat about enlisting in the army could really have been what he meant to do? Do you suppose he has done it?”

”It is a possible clue. I think they ought to know it, if they have nothing else to guide them. When your father comes home I will talk with him about it, and he may think it best to go to Mr. Townsend himself, tell him what we know, and offer to help.”

But it proved not necessary to wait until the evening to consult about offering sympathy and counsel to the troubled family in Worthington Square. Early in the afternoon, while Mrs. Bell lay resting in her room, and Nancy and Jane sat in the shadow of one of the big maples at the end of the garden--their special retreat on hot days--the tap of Murray's cane was heard on the walk outside.

”Run into the house, dear, please!” Jane whispered, quickly. ”It 's Murray, and I believe he's come to talk with me about Forrest.”

Her surmise proved correct, as she knew from her first glance at the pale face and grave eyes of her friend. He was her friend--that she had come to know very clearly in the last few weeks--her friend in quite a different way from that in which Forrest had shown her friends.h.i.+p. There had developed a genuine congeniality of interests between the quiet, book-loving youth and the girl who had not gone to college, but who was persistently giving herself the higher education she longed for. Books he was lending her, lessons in French and German he had been lately begging to be allowed to give her, and many inspiring talks he had with her on the subjects both loved, whenever a chance offered or he could make one.