Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 16

"So remember, Bess," Amelia implored, "not to say anything about Linda or about that other either."

"What other?" Bess asked, and then remembered. "Oh, you mean the cabin?"

she supplied the answer herself.

"Yes, just keep still about everything unpleasant," Rhoda warned. "We want Nan out of here as soon as possible." With this, she pushed open the white door of the s.h.i.+p's hospital and a nurse came forward.

"You've came to see Miss Sherwood," she smiled.

"Yes," Rhoda was spokesman for the group. "Is it all right for us all to go in together?"

The nurse looked doubtful a moment, noting the marks of tears that were still on Bess's cheeks. Bess felt her glance and blushed. "Oh, I'm all right now," she rea.s.sured the nurse. "I promise to be good," and she smiled so winningly that the nurse gave in.

"Well, you may go in," she said, as she looked professionally at her watch, "for half an hour. But remember, you are not to disturb the patient." With this she opened the door to a private room, and the girls went in.

There, lying in a white hospital bed, looking pale and very wan, was Nan. She smiled at their entrance. "I'm all right," she said. "Don't look so scared. Come in and sit down."

They did, and it was a few seconds, a few awkward seconds, before anyone could think of anything to say. Twice Bess opened her mouth to speak, but when her friends looked at her warningly, she closed it again.

Finally, Rhoda found her voice. "Why, Nan," she asked, and her glance, like that of the other girls was riveted on a big bouquet of red roses, "where in the world did you get those flowers?"

The color came back into Nan's cheeks. "Can't you guess?" She grinned rather defiantly at them. "They aren't from anyone on the boat."

"But how could anyone on sh.o.r.e know?" Bess already had her suspicions as to the person.

"And if he did," Grace was very positive about the "He," "How could He send them?"

"Come, Nan, spill it," Laura was as curious as the rest. "Heroines can't have secrets, you know. Their lives are public property."

"That's just what I am afraid of." Nan nodded from her place among the pillows. "However, I couldn't keep it to myself if I wanted to. They're from Walter!"

"But how--" Bess just couldn't wait.

"He sent them from sh.o.r.e when the boat was in dock and asked the steward to keep them until we were in mid-ocean. They brought them up here this morning and when I opened my eyes--there they were." Nan's eyes were s.h.i.+ning and her cheeks were almost as red as the roses.

"They are just gorgeous," Rhoda stooped over to smell them, "so red, and fragrant, and fresh."

"Aren't they though?" Nan reached out and touched them softly. "But tell me now," she looked up. "What's new?"

"You should know," Laura answered. "You are the news around here.

Everyone's talking about you. There are at least a dozen different versions of what happened last night making the rounds of this s.h.i.+p. One has it that Linda actually went over the side of the boat and that you leaped in and saved her from drowning. Then you caught hold of a rope, and a sailor, out to see that everything was s.h.i.+pshape, heard your cries, and hauled the two of you in."

"Another," Amelia said further, as Nan laughed, "has you in a fight with Linda. Oh, I mean," she corrected herself when Nan looked worried, "that Linda is supposed to have become so frightened that she didn't know what she was doing. She tore at your hair and scratched you. (Here Nan ran her hand over her face. It was perfectly whole.) Finally, when you realized that she was beyond reason, you are supposed to have hit her over the head so hard that you knocked her out!"

"And another--" Laura began.

"Oh, don't tell me any more," Nan shook her head. "I don't know how I'm ever going to go out of here and face all those people. It scares me to think of it."

"You needn't worry, Nan," Rhoda took her friend's hand in hers. "We'll all rally round. Everybody, really, is just being grand. I didn't know there were so many nice people in the world."

"Isn't it so?" Nan forgot her embarra.s.sment. "Look at that pile of cards and notes and books and magazines. Why, I believe all the pa.s.sengers on the s.h.i.+p have stopped in to ask about me and one little boy"--she stopped and giggled before she went on--"wanted my autograph!

Can you imagine anything so silly? But tell me, what did happen? I fainted, didn't I? I don't remember a thing after I found those doors were locked."

"Oh, Nan," Bess couldn't restrain herself any longer. "Maybe you were there for hours, we don't know. We only know this: after we left you out there on deck we all went into the lounge and talked and played games for a long time."

"We wondered where you were, didn't we?" She looked at the others for confirmation. They nodded their heads as Bess went on, "but we thought that you were probably off somewheres with that English girl, what is her name?"

"You mean Hetty Warren?" Nan supplied.

"Yes, that's it. Well, we thought you were with her and her grandmother until about ten o'clock when we went down to the cabin and met Hetty.

She was bringing a travel book about England to you. She said she hadn't seen you all evening.

"We were worried then, and she went with us to see whether you were with either Jeanie or Maureen. They said they hadn't seen you, either.

We didn't know what to do then, so finally we went to Dr. Beulah. She had been in her cabin all evening, because she wasn't feeling very well.

She called a steward and he said he would hunt you up. He was gone for hours, while we sat in her cabin and talked and wondered and worried.

"When he finally came back, he didn't have any news! Dr. Beulah got up and dressed then and called the Captain. He told us all to come up to his office. We went at once, and he asked a million questions about you.

Then he got busy on the phone and started a boat-wide search.

"It wasn't any time at all after that when they called Dr. Beulah and told her to come to the hospital right away." Here Bess started to cry again, for she remembered so vividly how frightened they had all been at that call.

"Oh, Bess," It was Nan speaking. "Come here, I'm so sorry I caused you all that trouble."

"Anyway," Bess grinned through her tears. "Dr. Beulah went up and the first person she saw there was Linda Riggs. I guess she was pretty disgusted herself for once, though she would never say it. Then the nurse took her in to see you."

"Oh, I remember from then on," Nan continued. "I came to when they were carrying me here, so that when Dr. Beulah came up I knew what it was all about. I was only scared for fear she would give me the scolding I deserved for going off that way by myself. But she didn't. She just took me in her arms and kissed me and then went off and talked to the nurse and doctor. I don't know what she said or did to them, but they have been fluttering around me all the time as though I was a Royal Princess."

"Wait until you get up!" Laura exclaimed. "Then you'll find out who you are." She looked both merry and mysterious as she said this last. Nan looked questioningly at her.

But there was no opportunity for any more talk. The nurse came in, felt Nan's pulse and smiled at the girls.

"I'm sorry," she said, nodding toward the door. So they got up and left, leaving Nan looking wistfully after them.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HUNCH-BACK AGAIN

"But this isn't where our cabin is!" Nan exclaimed the next morning as Bess and Rhoda, one on each side of her, walked her slowly from the hospital back to the stateroom.

"Yes, it is, Nan," Rhoda maintained.

"But ours was number 648. It was an outside cabin." Nan continued to protest. "Or have I gone completely batty?"

"I wouldn't say that," Rhoda teased, "though you do do some pretty strange things sometimes. However, this is your cabin now and it's not an outside one. There just wasn't another outside one free."

"But why did I need another? What was wrong with the one I had? What happened? Please tell me," she pleaded. The questions tumbled one after another out of Nan's mouth, for she was impatient, still somewhat shaken after her frightening experience during the storm.