“Now that’s over,” coolly Peggy remarked, “and we’ve gotten rid of Madame. Jack, I want to take Leslie to my room and talk with her a little bit. Will you be ready to take her back in the launch when we come down?”
“I surely will, but you’d better make it snappy if you don’t want to have Miss Beth worrying over what has become of her wandering sister.”
Leslie looked at her watch. There was time for a little visit only. She followed Peggy back into the attractive room with its comfortable, summer fittings.
So near the sea, the house was suitably screened from the strong winds by the pile of headland rocks with their two towers. Peggy, however, considered this a decided drawback, since there was no good view of the sea from any of the windows. “But Dad said that I would be glad sometimes not to be blown away or think that I was going to sail off with the house! He wanted it close up against the rocks, and you can see for yourself that part of the house fairly joins them. Dad has his office there and his own little library. He’s a shivery sort of man, anyhow, used to Florida in the winters, you know.”
“How would I know, sweet Peggy?”
“Probably you wouldn’t,” laughed Peggy. “That is what my own father used to call me, ‘sweet Peggy,’ after the old song.”
“Oh, then, Mr. Ives is really not your father,” said the surprised Leslie. But that accounted for some of Peggy’s rather disrespectful speeches.
“No, and I ought to be ashamed of myself for not liking him better. I can have anything I want and he doesn’t care. O Leslie, I wish that you would let me talk to you about things sometimes! You are all so happy, and we aren’t, very, here. I don’t know just what is the matter, either!”
“Why, of course you may talk to me, Peggy! It seems to me that you might be happy enough, a nice, pretty girl with everything to make you happy. Why, child, we’ve had real trouble—well, I suppose that you have been through that, too, losing your father.”
“Yes, though I was pretty small, then. Haven’t you very much to live on, either?”
Peggy was quite frank in her question, but Leslie, to whom having money or not having it was only an agreeable or disagreeable incident, did not mind. “Not so very much, Peggy,” she answered, “but enough to get along and more than some people. Then we are always expecting to do and be something wonderful, you see!” Leslie was laughing a little, but Peggy understood.
“Perhaps that’s it,” Peggy said. “Nobody here wants to do anything but have a good time. If I had been allowed to have one of my girl friends here this summer, I suppose I would have been satisfied. But when Mother invited Jack, even, Dad made a terrible to-do about it and almost said that he should not come; but he had already been invited. Dad said that he did not want any ‘curious boys’ around. Leslie, there is something funny going on and I wish I could find out what it is. I’m pretty sure that Mother doesn’t know either, and she worries. She has been worried ever since that old foreigner came to be a sort of secretary or something to Dad. He manages his business, Dad says sometimes. He’s a Count. Madame Kravetz belongs to the nobility, too.”
“From what country?” asked Leslie, interested.
“Russia, I think, though she claims to be French. Old Count Herschfeld is supposed to be Austrian. You’ll see him sometime. He has fishy eyes and is very straight and tall and pale, and has a slit for a mouth, and walks like a soldier. Probably he was some sort of a general in the war.”
“If I were you, Peggy, I wouldn’t worry over anything that you can’t help. You will be able to enjoy this wonderful place. It must be great to be in Florida for the winters, too.”
“I suppose it is. I never thought about it. Mother married Dad when I was about six years old. He was nicer then than he is now. We travel so much that I have a teacher with me all the time. But I heard Mother talking to Dad about not putting me in school, so I suppose that boarding school will be the next thing for me.”
“Do you like your governess?”
“I do not. To myself I call her ‘Crabby.’ Kravetz, Kravy, Crabby, you see. Sometime I will forget before company!”
“Better not,” smiled Leslie. “But if they let you, suppose you stay around with us a good deal this summer. You and Sarita and I will be a sort of—‘triumvirate,’ you know. Dal will be terribly busy pretty soon, building our log cabin, and we’ll have to run our launch half the time without him, and fish in the small boat, too. He is taking most of his fun now, he says, though, of course, he will like to build the house, too. He is crazy about the woods and about making things and having a house of our own. We sold our house when Elizabeth got a place to teach in a bigger town only a few miles away.”
“I wish Elizabeth taught me,” said Peggy. “I could learn more if I liked the teacher and was sure that what she said was true.”
Leslie was quite impressed by that statement. She had not liked the face of the governess either.
“I’m going to be real good and see if they will not let me off from lessons, though Mother said that Madame Kravy needed the money and the place. But she could stay just the same. Dad said the other day that he needed some one ‘to help him in his office.’”
Leslie wondered what his business could be that he carried it on in this remote spot. But he might be some big executive who had to keep in touch with affairs and write “letters and things.”
Busily they talked. Peggy thanked Leslie for asking her to be a member of a “triumvirate” and said that if Sarita did not mind she surely would belong. “Jack is sort of lost, too, without anybody of his own age. Perhaps Dalton would not mind if he hung around when he was building.”
“Well, Peggy, I think that I ought to tell you something, if you promise not to say a word to Elizabeth about it. You see Beth was all used up when school was out, and if she can only have a little while to be happy and get strong again, why then it won’t make so much difference what happens, and I suppose that she will have to know about this. Now it might interfere with the ‘triumvirate.’”
“Tell, me. I’ll not say a word. I can’t imagine what it is.”
“I’m sure you never could. You see, Peggy, your father may not want you to come to see us, or have us out here, or anything. Was he there when your mother sent word for us to come?”
“No.”
“I thought so.” Then Leslie gave the details of their first meeting with Mr. Ives, summing up the case quite clearly. “So, you see, if Mr. Ives wants to get us off the land, and we stand up for what we think are our rights, it may not be so very pleasantall around. We’d always like you, Peggy, but it might be embarrassing for you to have much to do with us.”
“It would be a great deal more pleasant than not to have anything to do with you. Little Peggy will try diplomacy. I’ll find out what Dad is up to; but if I don’t, and the position in the triumvirate is still open, I’ll fill it, you can be sure.”
“Well, then, Peggy, don’t do anything you oughtn’t for our sakes.”
“How about little Peggy’s sake, Leslie?”
“Same thing. But if your mother lets you, you will certainly be welcome on the Sea Crest and in the Eyrie pretty soon.”
“When shall we have the first meeting of the‘triumvirate’?”
“Say to-morrow.”
“To-morrow it is.”
The faintly ticking little wrist watches announced to the girls who glanced at them that they must bring the visit to a close. They ran downstairs and Leslie strolled out, while Peggy hunted up her cousin. In a few minutes the three were going down the steps to the Ives’ launch, which carried them past the foaming rocks and into the bay toward Leslie’s homing spot, the little rude dock at the base of the Secrest headland. Pirates’ Cove looked just as interesting and deadly as ever, as they passed it. The Sea Crest bobbed up and down gently in recognition of the other boat, and Jack gallantly handed Leslie to a safe foothold and saw her up the more difficult steps, before he took the wheel from Peggy and waved a goodbye. The littl
e launch chugged away. Leslie stopped at the top to lean upon a rock and watch the boat and her new friends. What a queer household there was at Steeple Rocks. Mr. Ives was not Peggy’s father. She was glad of that. She was sure that others there beside Madame Kravetz were foreign. The lady who waited for Mrs. Ives and joined her had spoken to her in French, probably because Mrs. Ives knew French; for she heard the guest “jabber” something else to another lady that followed them.
There was something queer going on, Peggy had said. Of course. It was that, perhaps, that made Mr. Ives try to send them all away. Leslie’s thoughts were busy with impressions received at Steeple Rocks.
CHAPTER VII
RIGHTS ASSURED
On Leslie’s arrival in camp, she found only Beth there. Something savory was steaming on the portable stove, which stood out under the trees, protected from any breeze too strong both by the natural screen and one manufactured from canvas.
“Soup tonight, Leslie,” said Beth. “Sarita thought that she could enjoy it. Step into the tent and see what you think of that water color. I finished it. Tell me that the sky looks like the one we see here!”
“Oh, it does, Beth,” called Leslie in a moment from the tent. Then she came out to help. “It is lovely, Beth, the prettiest thing you have done yet. Where is Sarita?”
“Back in the woods with her glass. The last I saw of her she was trailing a warbler and trying to find its nest. I think that she called it a redstart. She is ever so much better, though rather weak after that headache. Her throat is a little raw, but she will escape any further trouble, I think. I hope that Dal will get back in time for supper. I was almost worried about you, gone so long.”
“Peggy and Jack picked me up from the beach and I had a trip to Steeple Rocks. There doesn’t seem to be anything to do, Beth—do you care if I go to hunt Sarita?”
“Not at all.”
Back into the fragrant woods Leslie strolled and met Sarita coming with Dalton by the little trail, now quite a path of their making, that led through the woods from the road.
The two were laughing and talking as they came and Dalton waved triumphantly a letter as he saw Leslie. “Letter from Jim Lyon, Leslie. We have the abstract of title safely reposing in our deposit box, where Jim says it had better stay. We are to refer Mr. Ives to him. This land never did belong to Mr. Ives. He sent me a little list of names of the owners. So Mr. Ives is—mistaken! In other words, it’s all a bluff, for some unknown reason, to get rid of us, or grab the land, or something.”
“Then we can go right on and have our shack! How grand! Sarita, if your head wasn’t shaky, we’d have a war-dance right here where they used to have ’em!”
“What’s the matter with Sarita?” Dalton inquired. “She does look a little peaked.”
“Oh, I’m all right now, Dal. Beth was sure that I was going to be sick, but it was only a sick headache, I think. Beth’s been doctoring me all day. My throat is a little raw and that’s all. Let’s hurry up to tell Beth the good news.”
“You have forgotten that she does not know the bad news.”
“Sure enough. Why not tell her now?”
“No—I—think not,” hesitatingly said Dalton. “I’ve another letter for her from Jim—I told him that she did not know what Mr. Ives said and that we are trying to keep her from worry. I transacted some business about the building, and that will be enough news for Beth about my trip. If Beth and Peggy don’t know, it will make relations less strained, I think.”
“I told Peggy today, Dal. I almost had to. Do you mind?”
“You have as much right as I have, Leslie, to manage affairs with Peggy. Tell me about it.”
“I will. I’ll tell nearly everything at supper, then we’ll have a private confab later. What do you think? I was at the very stronghold of the enemy—Steeple Rocks!”
Leslie enjoyed the surprise of Dalton and Sarita, but she continued to speak of Beth. “We’d better let her have a little longer time to rest. This doesn’t spoil our fun at all, but she might worry and not sleep.”
Dalton wore a wide grin. “Your freedom from care shows your confidence in your natural protector,” said he, tapping his chest.
Leslie laughed with Sarita, but told her brother that he was more nearly right than he thought. “Under these circumstances I’d certainly hate to be here without you!”
“Thanks for the tribute, Les; I’m almost overcome, but I think that I can manage to get into camp without assistance.”
But Dalton pretended to stagger a little, while both laughing girls ran to his support just as they emerged from the deeper wood into the clearing. Elizabeth, watching the soup, looked up, startled to see Dalton apparently in need of help, but it was evident in a moment that it was only what she termed “some silly joke” as she summoned them to supper.
“Now Beth, don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” jovially urged Dalton. “See this letter that I have for you? Don’t halt supper, though, while you read it. I’m half starved.”
“I think that I can manage to wait until after supper,” dryly returned Elizabeth, but she flushed when she saw the letter.
“Nice old Beth,” crooned Leslie. “I’m doing all the clearing up after supper, and you shall have a free day to-morrow, too, shan’t she, Sarita?”
“I think so! Poor Beth would just get into some inspiring mood for her latest masterpiece, when she would happen to think that I ought to have some medicine, or a drink, or something.”
“Nonsense! I had a lovely, quiet day.”
But Beth was tired and after reading her letter she went to bed, while Leslie cleared away the evidences of the meal and washed the dishes with Sarita’s help. Dalton then built a fire out on the rocks which overlooked bay and sea and there they toasted marshmallows and talked, Sarita wrapped like a mummy, as she declared, to keep her from too strong a breeze. They put her in a sheltered spot, but they sat for a long time about the cheerful blaze, talking over the events of the day and other things.
Dalton gave the details of his trip to town more fully than he had done before Beth at supper. By the firelight the girls read again the letter from Mr. Lyon to Dalton. “Here’s what he says, Sarita,” said Leslie, leaning where the light would fall upon the page.
“‘I’m glad that you suggested our coming to Maine, Dalton. It may be possible, though we do not want to drive with a big camping outfit. Can such things be purchased near you? I believe that you ordered yours sent on. I may as well take my vacation there.’” Here Leslie pursed up her mouth and gave Sarita a comical glance.
“‘You may imagine how the children shouted when I read them your message. Marsh can not come, but Mary looked as if the mere suggestion of Maine breezes were refreshing. We are having very hot weather. I will wait to hear again from you before making definite plans.’”
“He will also wait to hear what Beth thinks, I imagine,” said Sarita.
“We can let them use the bungalow tent if we get some building done by the time they want to come,” Dalton suggested. “Now that we’ve had the brilliant idea of an Eyrie first, here on the rocks, that ought to be finished pronto, and its one big room will do for you girls if our company comes before the shack in the woods gets finished. That will take longer. But I’ve ordered lumber for the Eyrie and it’s going to back right up against the rocks. We are going to have a frame inside, then use the rocks around here for the outside, a real stone house, you see, girls, and I shall have it built with a little window looking over the rocks and out to sea, our real ‘lookout.’ You girls can help gather the smaller stones if you want to, and Beth may have, some artistic ideas.
“A man is coming to help me. I’ve ordered a wheelbarrow and a lot of things. Just wait till the truck comes to-morrow!”
“Shall you begin to cut down the trees that you have marked, Dal, now that you know our title is all right?”
“I am not sure. Cutting down trees will mean that someone from Steeple Rocks will be right over. I think that it m
ight be better to get the Eyrie right up, with a lock on the door.”
“Aha! Our castle, Sarita!” cried Leslie. “You are right, Dal. Now let me tell you all about Peggy. She wants to be with us as much as possible, Sarita. It was too pathetic. Imagine not being happy with all the advantages that she has! But she told me that Mr. Ives is not her real father.”
Leslie paused to let this statement take effect. “Good!” Sarita exclaimed, and Dalton, too, nodded his approval.
“Then, her governess, too, is Some queer foreigner and an old Count Somebody, that is in some business or other with Mr. Ives, is there and her mother has worried ever since he appeared on the scene somewhere in Florida—”
“I admire your definite way of telling the facts,” Dalton remarked.
“I want you to get only the main fact, Dal, the‘atmosphere’ of Steeple Rocks. From what Peggy says it is clear that she is uneasy and that there is some mystery there. If we take Peggy into our society, Sarita, we are very likely to find out what it is, and anyhow the kiddie needs us, I think. She may be as old as we are in some ways, and again she is just a little girl. But she is true blue, I believe, nothing deceitful about her.”
“You can take her around on our launch, Les,” Dalton suggested. “I’ll be too busy for a while to take out the boats, and you can run the launch as well as I can now.”
“I’ll do it. We’ll cruise around and fish sometimes. By the way, Jack Morgan may come over to ‘help you with the building,’ he said, when he deposited me on our rocks; and Peggy announced that both of them would be over to-morrow.”
Dalton’s grin was again in evidence. “We’ll see who wins out, the folks that want to get rid of us, or those that want us to stay,” and to emphasize his remark, he threw another stick on the fire.
By the flickering light they strolled around to look at the place where the Eyrie was to be built. As in the case of the Steeple Rocks home, it could be built against the protecting rocks, in a natural “corner,” where the rocks of the headland might form almost two walls. But Dalton explained that it would be better to have a good frame inside, and both girls said that as Dal always knew what he was about they would leave it to him to show them by doing it.
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