Francie (20 page)

“You don't have to apologize. I'm having a swell time,” said Glenn. “Say—” he lowered his voice, his head leaning toward her as he drove very slowly—“is Penny enjoying herself, do you think?”

“Oh yes. She's having a wonderful time. Why?”

“I just wondered. She's a nice kid, isn't she? Anyway Bob thinks so. I guess he's fallen for her. Is there anybody here she's keen on? He asked me to find out, back there where we had dinner.”

“I shouldn't think so. Penny's set on her work more than anything, and right now her head's full of plans for the future. Her stepfather is absolutely the
worst
—listen and I'll tell you.”

In conspiratorial whispers she confided to Glenn the particulars of Penny's family troubles.

The car idled along a seaside road. Now and then someone sounded a warning horn and went sweeping past them in the dark, but traffic was not heavy. In the back seat, the other young people were talking animatedly of certain famous stage productions they had witnessed in New York.

“To think Penny and I should be having a double date here in the heart of England!” murmured Francie dreamily. “Who would have expected this when I woke up this morning?”

“I hate to be a spoilsport,” said Penny at last, “but we've got to go back now, Francie, if we ever expect to get in at all. They lock the doors when it's time to turn out the lights.” She spoke with determined cheerfulness, though inside she was quaking.

“Yes, I know.” Francie moved reluctantly from her comfortable position against Glenn's shoulder. They had been watching the moonlight on the sea for some time.

“It's true, Glenn, we'll have to get going.”

“Oh, gee,” said Glenn. “Well, it's been nice while it lasted, and I'm sure glad you were both willing to take the chance.”

They drove rapidly now along the road toward Fairfields, the setting moon making their shadows grotesquely long on the white road. Francie struck a match to look at her watch. They would make it, she decided, just in good time. They would put on their hats, carry the butter-muslin parcel, and simply stroll through the front door, trusting to luck and good nature to carry them past the first awkward moments. It might be best to get out of the car a fairly good distance from the gates, of course, and not to talk loud to the boys, just in case someone was out in the grounds, snooping.…

The car sneezed, faltered, recovered, and then with a more noticeable sneeze came to a halt.

“What have you done to her?” demanded Bob, peering over the back of the seat.

“Nothing I shouldn't have,” said Glenn indignantly. “What do you think? Here, let me turn on the light … Empty! Didn't you fill her up at Kingston the way I told you?”

“Nope. Don't you remember, the filling station was closed?”

Glenn groaned. “Of all the boneheaded stunts,” he said. “To run out of gas on our first day!”

“Oh, my goodness,” said Francie. “What do we do now?” Penny only gasped. She had known it all along, she told herself. Something like this was bound to happen, by all the laws of retribution.

“Find a filling station, I guess,” Glenn said. “One of us will have to walk along and trust to luck it won't be too far away. How far back did we pass one, does anybody remember?”

“I haven't seen a station since we left the place where we ate,” said Penny flatly. “It's not so easy to find them here in the country, you know. Oh dear, what a mess!”

“One of the boys will have to thumb a ride, that's all,” said Francie.

“Yes, but what with? There hasn't been a car along here for the past half hour,” Bob reminded her. “I think I'll get out and start walking ahead, and take my chances.”

Bob got started and the others settled back to wait. There was nothing else to do, they agreed. Penny was too well disciplined to speak of the first thought in her mind: the galloping minutes, and the nemesis that waited for them at Fairfields if they should be late. Even the light-hearted Francie was depressed. It was hard to talk cheerfully as they waited for Bob to come back.

Time went on and on. At first there was a little hope, then after a while there wasn't any. The doors at Fairfields would be locked. Francie squinted at her watch; she thought she could see Penny trying to look at hers, though neither of them said anything.

“Where can Bob have gone to?” asked Glenn in peevish tones. “He's been away an hour. What does he think he's doing?”

Penny said, “He won't find it too easy, you know. Nowadays there isn't much pleasure motoring, because there's such a small ration, and people buy their petrol in tiny amounts—three gallons at a time or even less.”

Glenn whistled. “Then naturally they don't keep a lot on hand. Is that it?”

“That's it. Some of the stations are simply closed down for good. And the others even if they're open in the daytime might be locked up after tea. Just now we're not a very go-ahead nation, Glenn.”

“Well, but … Then what do you think he's going to do?”

“If he gets a lift anywhere,” Francie contributed, “he'll have to telephone some big garage where they'd be keeping a man on the premises all night, and I expect that's what he's doing, waiting for a relief car. They allow hire-cars and that sort of thing, fortunately. He'll be getting a car like that to bring him back.

“That's dandy. But what is going to happen to you kids?”

“Time,” said Francie, “will tell.”

It seemed very late when they heard the car coming, and saw a glow around the curve of the road. It was a shock to Francie when she looked at her watch to see that it was only nine-thirty. Nine-thirty! Sometimes in Jefferson they would only just be starting out to a dance at the Country Club by that time. Yet for Fairfields it was really terribly late.

The thought of Fairfields sent a premonitory chill down her back. She exchanged a long, sober look with Penny, and then the hire-car arrived, and there was Bob bustling out of it with a petrol can.

After that they hurried in a silence that might almost be called grim. Glenn handed over coupons and money, and told Bob to get into the car, while the hire-car driver poured the gasoline into their tank. “Pretty soft for us, I guess he's thinking,” said Glenn as the driver went off. “We get practically all the gasoline we want, and yet you who live here—”

“Well, that's the way they want it, or they wouldn't do it,” said Francie. “Come on, Glenn, less philosophy and more action. Let's get going. Penny and I have got a lot more to go through tonight, don't forget.”

“It's a shame,” said Bob. “Would it help any if we came in with you and tried to explain to this she-dragon?”

“It would not,” said Penny flatly. “The best thing you can do is get away before the fireworks start.”

“But it seems so cowardly!”

“You can stand by if you like,” said Francie. “Give us the name of your hotel, and if we're still alive tomorrow morning, and if there's time before you start off on your travels, we'll let you know how things turn out. Otherwise we'll write you in Paris. Won't we, Penny?”

“We're almost there,” said Penny, who had been sitting up straight, watching the road. “Slow up, Glenn; we don't want to drive too close … That's it, better stop here. Well, good night, boys. It's been charming.”

Francie hastily kissed Glenn, and recovered the butter-muslin, which she had nearly forgotten. They whispered now. “Wait until we've had the chance to get indoors,” she said, “and then drive off as quietly as you can, while their attention's being distracted. You never know; we may smuggle ourselves in without any noise.”

On tiptoe the girls approached the house. Somewhat to their surprise, it was not blazing with lights and loud with search parties. In fact, the place looked remarkably dark. The gates stood open, but then they usually did; nobody ever closed them. Fairfields seemed fast asleep in the gathering dark as the moon was whirled around to the other side of the planet. It was almost disappointing, when they were so keyed up. Only as they drew nearer, around the corner of one of the turrets, Francie saw a light.

“That's in staff headquarters,” Penny whispered when her attention was drawn to it. “It doesn't mean anything. Listen, Francie, I'm going to try the cloakroom window. It isn't often locked.”

“Good egg!” Francie would never have thought of that for herself.

The cloakroom window could be reached from outside if you stepped on a sloping part of the wall underneath it. Sometimes in wet weather this could not be done because the slope was precipitous, and when it was slippery as well the thing was hopeless. Besides, you had to hang on to the ivy, and you had to pick your bit of ivy carefully. Francie was not at all sure they would be able to negotiate it, but it was worth trying. She felt a nervous desire to giggle, but stifled the impulse and with Penny crept carefully around the house to the right spot.

Penny went first. With Francie holding her around the waist she stood on the sloping bit of wall and with excruciatingly silent care she attempted to raise the sash. After a breathless moment, it went up quietly. Francie breathed easier; half the battle was won.

Carefully Penny made her way through the window, with Francie pushing her in the small of the back. Inside, she turned to help her friend; Francie could see her face, white and earnest in what was left of the moonlight. Penny held out her hand to help.

Francie took it, placed her foot on the slope, and with her other hand took firm hold of a bit of ivy. She swung up. She was going to make it—then the ivy gave way.

For a second Francie stood on one foot, wildly reaching with the other for foothold, and trying to grab Penny's wrist with her free hand. It was no use. She hung, as it were, in space, and then she fell. The crash sounded appallingly loud.

She had barely time to climb to her feet and feel herself for broken bones when a light went on in the passage beyond Penny's head. Francie, holding her breath, heard a shocked whisper inside the window, and then Miss West's voice no longer bothering to whisper.

“Penelope! What in the world are you doing here? And who is that outside?”

Francie on tiptoe pulled herself up to the window sill.

“It's me, Miss West,” she said. “Please can you help me in, or open the door or something?”

CHAPTER 11

Francie woke in the morning, blinking in sleepy, stupid surprise at her new surroundings. The sun was coming in at an unaccustomed angle and the first thing her eyes fell on was a white washstand that she could not remember having seen before.

“What in the world …”

Then it all poured into her consciousness at once, appallingly. She was in isolation. She and Penny were in disgrace, and had been sent to the sickroom and an unused guest room, separately, for the night. They were moral lepers. They were to stay there, Miss West had said, until she could tell Miss Maitland about their sin, and a decision could be made as to their fate.

“As if we were about eight years old,” said Francie to herself scoffingly, but she could not rally her spirits with mockery. No matter how often she told herself that it couldn't make any real difference to her, she was apprehensive. Of what? She could not have said. Pop, she was sure, would not be terribly angry, because in his philosophy her crime would not seem great. He would see her point of view, she was sure. He was her Pop, her own property. That was why it had been maddeningly narrow of Miss Maitland not to take her word for it, and assume that Pop's permission would have been forthcoming if he had been asked; and Miss Maitland had been in the wrong, too, in hinting that Francie might lie to get her own way. Oh, very much in the wrong! Francie could still make herself angry at the thought of it.

And yet, and yet—hadn't Pop told her that she must try to accept the code of the place where she was living? He would take a poor view of her failure to do that. No, Pop would not be pleased, nor would he be quite whole-heartedly on her side … “But he won't punish me,” she reassured herself. “He'll scold me, I suppose, and make me feel ashamed, but that's as far as it can go. When it comes to the point he'll back me up. And what can Miss Maitland do that would be worse? Nothing. She can kick me out, but who cares?”

The answer came, out of the middle of the sore place on Francie's conscience. Penny would care.

Francie's heart sank like a stone. Not only herself, but Penny would get into a mess. Penny would be sent home, not to an indulgent, understanding Pop, but to that mean-eyed, conceited, bigoted Uncle Jim. And just at the most critical time, too, for Penny's hopes and chances. Underneath their deliberately pessimistic forecasts, both girls had clung to the last hope of a scholarship for Penny in the dramatic school. If that came through, they had been confident, Uncle Jim would not be able to hold out. Mrs. Stewart would take her stand on Penny's side, and with the financial question settled Uncle Jim's misgivings as to the suitability of such a career would not be enough to support his objections. Now, Penny would undoubtedly be expelled. There would be no possible chance under those circumstances of a scholarship.

“And it's all my fault,” mused Francie miserably. “She only came along because of me. She didn't even know what she was going to be in for, at the beginning, and then, just to show she was my friend …”

She jumped out of bed and began to dress, burning with anxiety to undo the harm she had done. Now at last she was really frightened.

Her toilet was completed before she remembered that Miss West had told her with severe emphasis that she must remain in that room until summoned. How could she bear the delay? She fretted like the prisoner she was. She walked up and down the room, now and then pausing to peer miserably from the window for signs of life. She had evidently waked up earlier than usual, and the time crawled along. “I
would
wake early,” she thought. Moreover, the window of this room didn't overlook the driveway, so there was no method of knowing whether or not the girls were up and about, taking their exercise. The suspense grew worse and worse. What were those schoolmistresses doing all this time? Perhaps they were already at work, ruining Penny's career and her very life before Francie could so much as put in a word for the hapless victim. Oh, she could not bear it; soon she would go out of the room, orders or no orders, to find Miss Maitland and speak her mind. At the thought of Miss Maitland's face should she actually do just that, Francie giggled hysterically. The giggle was throttled in her throat; the door opened.