CHAPTER IX
MRS. BLAIR REGRETS
It had taken a long time for concern to spread among the picnickers.
The sudden shower had sent them all scurrying for shelter, and when theclimb was resumed, they crossed the river on those wide, flatstepping-stones that Johnny Byrd had missed, and re-formed inself-absorbed little twos and threes that failed to take note of theabsence of the laggards.
When Ruth remembered to call back, "Where's Ri-Ri?" to her mother, Mrs.Blair only glanced over her shoulder and answered, "She's coming," withno thought of anxiety.
It did occur to her, however, somewhat later, that the girl wasloitering a little too significantly with young Byrd, and she made apoint of suggesting to Ruth, when she passed her in a short time, thatshe wait for her cousin who was probably finding the climb toostrenuous.
"Who? Me?" said Ruth amazedly. "Gee, what do you want me to do--fan her?Let Johnny do it," and cheerfully she went on photographing a group upona fallen log, and Mrs. Blair went on with the lawyer from Washington whowas a rapid walker.
And Ruth, with the casual thought that neither Ri-Ri nor Johnny Byrdwould relish such attendance, promptly let the thought of them dissolvefrom her memory.
She was immersed in her own particular world that afternoon.
Life was at a crisis for her. Robert Martin had been drifting faster andfaster with the current of his admiration for her, and now seemed tohave been brought up on very definite solid ground. He felt he knewwhere he was. And he wanted to know where Ruth was.
And Ruth found herself in that special quandary reserved for independentAmerican girls who want to have their cake and eat it, too.
She wanted Bob Martin, and she wanted to be gratifyingly sure that BobMartin wanted her--and then she wanted affairs to stand still at thatpleasant pass, while she played about and invited adventure.
Life was so desirable as it was . . . especially with Bob Martin in thescene. But if he were unsatisfied he wouldn't remain there as part ofthe adjacent landscape.
Bob was no pursuing Lochinvar.
It was very delicate. She couldn't explain all her hesitationsatisfactorily to herself, so she had made rather a poor job of it whenshe tried to explain to Bob.
Part of it was young unreadiness for the decisions and responsibilitiesof life, part of it was reprehensible aversion about shutting the doorto other adventures, and part of it was her native energy, as yetunemployed, aware of a larger world and anxious to play some undivinedpart in its destinies.
She had always been furious that the war had come too soon for her. Shewould have loved to have gone over there, and known the mud anddoughnuts and doughboys . . . and the excitement and the officers. . . .
But Bob wasn't going to dangle much longer. He hadn't a doubt but thateverything was all right and he was in haste to taste the assurance.
And Ruth wasn't going to lose him.
These hesitations of hers would convey nothing to his youthfulmasculinity but that she didn't care enough. And his was not the agethat appreciates the temporizing half loaf.
So that trip up the mountain meant for them much youthful discussion,much searching of wills and hearts and motives, a threatening gloom uponhis part, and a struggling defensiveness upon hers.
Small wonder that Maria Angelina and her companion were not remembered!
It was not until she was at the very top of old Baldy, and again a partof the general group that Ruth had the thought to look about her andrecognize her cousin's absence.
"They _are_ taking their time," she remarked to Bob.
"Glad they're enjoying it," he gave back with a disgruntled air thatRuth determinedly ignored.
"I guess Ri-Ri's no good at a climb," she said. "This little oldmountain must have got her."
"Oh, Johnny's strong right arm will do the work," he returnedindifferently.
"But they ought to be here now. You don't suppose they missed the way?"Mrs. Blair, overhearing, suggested, and turned to look down the steeppath that they had come.
Bob scouted the idea of such a mishap.
"Johnny knows his way about. They'll be along when they feel like it,"he predicted easily, and Mrs. Blair turned to the arrangement of supperwith a slight anxiety which she dissembled beneath casual cheerfulness.
In her heart she was vexed. Dreadfully noticeable, she thought, thatpersistent lagging of theirs. She might have expected it of JohnnyByrd--he had a way of making new girls conspicuous--but she had lookedfor better things from Maria Angelina.
It was too bad. It showed that as soon as you gave those cloisteredgirls an inch they took an ell.
Outwardly she spoke with praise of her charge. Julia Martin, a youthfulaunt of Bob's, was curious about the girl.
"She's the loveliest creature," she declared with facile enthusiasm, asshe and Mrs. Blair delved into a hamper that the Martins' chauffeur andbutler had shouldered up before the picnickers.
"And so naively young--I don't see how her mother dared let her come sofar away."
"Oh--her mother wanted her to see America," Mrs. Blair gave back.
"She must be having a wonderful time," pursued the young lady. "She wassimply a picture at the dance. . . . Think of giving a mountain climbthe night after the dance," she added in a lower voice. "Bob and hismother are perfectly mad. I think they want to kill their guestsoff--perhaps there's method in their madness. . . . I never saw anythingquite like her," she resumed upon Maria Angelina. "I fancy Johnny Byrdhasn't either!"
"Wasn't she pretty?" agreed Mrs. Blair with pleasantness, laying out thespoons. "Yes, it's very interesting for her to have this," she went on,"before she really knows Roman society. . . . She will come out as soonas she returns from America, I suppose. The eldest sister is beingmarried this fall, and the next sister and Maria Angelina are about ofan age."
"Little hard on the sister unless she is a raving, tearing beauty," saidthe intuitive Miss Martin with a laugh. "Perhaps they are sending MariaAngelina away to keep her in abeyance!"
"Perhaps," Mrs. Blair assented. "At any rate, with this preliminaryexperience, I fancy that little Ri-Ri will make quite a sensation overthere."
It was as if she said plainly to the curious young aunt that thispilgrimage was only a prelude in Maria Angelina's career, and shecertainly did not take its possibilities for any serious finalities.
But the youthful aunt was not intimidated.
"She'll make a sensation over _here_ if she carries off the Byrdmillions," she threw out smartly.
Mrs. Blair smiled with an effect of remote amusement. Inwardly she knewsharp annoyance. She wished she could smack that loitering child. . . .Very certainly she would betray no degrading interest in her fortunes.The Martins were not to think that she was intent on placing _any one_!
"Johnny Byrd's a child," said she indifferently.
"He's been of age two years," said the youthful aunt, "and he's out ofcollege now and very much a catch--all his vacations used to behairbreadth escapes. Of course he courts danger," she threw in with alittle laugh and a sidelong look.
But Mrs. Blair was not laughing. She was blaming herself for thenegligence which had made this situation possible, although--extenuationmade haste to add within her--no one could humanly be expected to begoing up and down a trail all afternoon to gather in the stragglers. Andshe had told Ruth to wait.
"She's probably just tired out," said the stout widower with strongaccents of sympathy. "Climb too much for her, and very sensibly they'veturned back."
"If I could only be sure. If I could only be sure she wasn't hurt--orlost," said Mrs. Blair doubtfully.
"Lost!" Bob Martin derided. "Lost--on a straight trail. Not unless theyjolly wanted to!"
"Don't spoil the party, mother," was Ruth's edged advice. "Ri-Ri hasn'tbroken any legs or necks. And she wasn't alone to get lost. She justgave up and Johnny Byrd took her home. I know her foot was blistered atthe dance last night and that's probably the matter."
It was the explanation they dec
ided to adopt.
Mrs. Blair, recalling that this was not her expedition, made a doubleduty of appearing sensibly at ease, although the nervous haste withwhich a sudden noise would bring her to alertness, facing the path,revealed some inner tension.
The young people were inclined to be hilarious over the affair,inventing fresh reasons for the absent ones, reasons that ranged fromelopement to wood pussies.
"There was one around last night," the tennis champion insisted.
But the hilarity was only a flash in the pan. After its flare the partydragged. Curiosity preoccupied some; uneasiness communicated itself toothers. And the frank abstraction of Ruth and Bob had a depressingeffect upon the atmosphere.
And the runaways were missed. Johnny Byrd had an infectious way ofmaking a party go and Maria Angelina's sweet soprano had become so mucha part of every gathering that its absence now made song a dejection.
Other things of Maria Angelina than her soprano were missed, also.
Julia Martin found the popular bachelor decidedly absent-minded. Thecrack young polo player thought the scenery disappointing. Decidedly, itwas a dull party.
And the weather was threatening.
So after supper had been disposed of and there had been a bonfire and aneffort at singing about it, a dispirited silence spread until a decentinterval was felt to have elapsed and allowed the suggestion of return.
Once it was suggested everybody seemed ready for the start, even withoutthe moon, for the path was fairly clear and the men had pocketflashlights, so down in the dark they started, proceeding cautiouslyand gingerly, and accumulating mental reservations about mountains andmountain climbing until the moon suddenly overtook them and sent asilvering wash of light into the valley at their feet.
They had gained the main path before the moon deserted them, and thefirst of the gusty showers sent them hurrying along in shiveringimpatience for the open fires of homes.
"We'll find that pair of short sports toasting their toes and giving usthe laugh," predicted Bob, tramping along, a hand on Ruth's arm now.
Ruth was wearing his huge college sweater over her silk one and feltindefinably less adventurous and independent than on her upward trip.Bob seemed very stable, very desirable, as she stumbled wearily on. Shewasn't quite sure what she had wanted to gain time for, that afternoon.Already the barriers of custom and common-sense were raising their solidheads.
And Bob was romance, too. It was silly to be unready for surrender. Sherealized that if she lost him. . . .
At the Lodge she gave him back a quick look that set him astir.
"Hold on," he called as she broke from him to follow her mother.
The cars from the Martin house party had been left at the Lodge inreadiness and with perfunctory warmth of farewells the tiredmountaineers were hastening either to the Lodge or the motors.
"Here's Johnny's car," he sung out. "He's probably inside----" and Bobswung hastily after Ruth and her mother.
He was up the steps beside them and opened the door into the wide hallwhere a group was lingering about the open fire.
A glance told them Johnny Byrd was not of the company. Bob and Ruth wentto the door of the music room. It was deserted. Mrs. Blair went swiftlyto the clerk's desk at the side entrance.
She came back, looking upset. Maria Angelina had not returned, to theclerk's knowledge. No one had telephoned any news.
"I'll go up and make sure," offered Ruth, and sped up the stairs only toreturn in a few minutes with a face of dawning excitement.
"They must be lost!" she announced in a voice that drew instantattention.
"Did you look to see if her things were there?" said her mother in anagitated undertone.
Bob Martin met her glance with swift intelligence.
"Johnny's car is out there," he told them. "It isn't _that_--they aresimply lost, as Ruth says. Wait--I must tell them before they get away,"and he hurried out into the increasing downpour.
Mrs. Blair turned on her daughter a face of pale misgiving.
"I knew it," she said direfully. "I felt it all along. . . . She'slost."
"Well, she'll be found," said Ruth lightly, with an indisputable liftof excitement. "The bears won't eat them."
Mrs. Blair's eyes shifted uneasily to meet the advancing circle from thefire.
"There are worse bites than bears'," she found time to throw out, beforeshe had to voice the best possible version of Maria Angelina'sdisappearance.
Instantly a babble of facile comfort rose.
They would be here any moment now.
Some one had picked them up--they were safe and sound, this instant.
There wasn't a thing that could happen--it wasn't as though these were_wilds_.
Just telephone about--she mustn't worry. As soon as it was light someone would go out and track them.
Why, Judge Carney's boys had been lost all night and breakfasted onblueberries. It wasn't uncommon.
And nothing could happen to her--with Johnny Byrd along.
Oh, Johnny would take care of her--by morning everything would be allright.
But how in the world had it happened? That was such an _easy_ trail!
And that was the question that stared, Argus-eyed, at Jane Blair. It wasthe question, she knew, that they were all asking themselves--and theothers--in covert curiosity.
What had happened? And how had it happened?
The Innocent Adventuress Page 9
