Cherry Ames Boxed Set 9-12

by Helen Wells

  “Really, Miss Ames! I’m not such a goop.”

  “Of course not. But are you certain it hasn’t slid down behind something in your room? Perhaps when the room was cleaned? Lisette feels dreadful about the incident.”

  “She ought to.” Sibyl touched her red-gold hair.

  “Please cooperate with me. I don’t think you’re the kind of person who’d deliberately hurt another girl,” Cherry said.

  Sibyl’s insolent expression changed to bewilderment. “I’m not trying to hurt Lisette. All I want is my bracelet. I’m not accustomed to being treated shabbily.” She bridled. “Anyway, I’m not hurting Lisette.”

  “Not on purpose, I’m sure.”

  “Those plain looking girls are always jealous. Just because I’m popular. Oh, well, what do you think I ought to do? I’ve searched for it for days!”

  “When did you wear the bracelet last?”

  “Last Saturday night when I went out with Freddie. Oh!” Sibyl’s hands flew to her lips. Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean that.”

  On that evening Sibyl was supposed to have been at the village movie with some other girls.

  Cherry knew the school did not permit its girls to have unchaperoned evening dates. So Sibyl had fibbed and slipped away with Freddie! This secret dating must be why Cora and Francie and the rest were always giggling and fluttering about Sibyl.

  “You won’t tell on me, Miss Cherry?” Sibyl coaxingly took her hand.

  “N-no, I won’t report you,” Cherry promised uneasily. She hated being a carrier of tales. She had no wish to get Sibyl into trouble with the headmistress. It would do much more good if she could prevail upon Sibyl not to go out alone with Freddie, whoever he was, again. “You know, Sibyl, the rule about no dating may be tiresome, but it’s for your own protection.”

  “Mrs. Harrison makes rules that were dandy for when she was a girl! I can take care of myself, thanks.”

  Cherry bit her lip. “Freddie knows about the rule, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he care that he’s going to get you into a jam at school?”

  “No one is scared of a few silly rules. Didn’t you ever break a few yourself?” Cherry colored slightly. “Honestly, why should I sit here when Freddie can show me a gorgeous time?”

  “Is Freddie about your age?”

  “He’s eighteen. Do you want to know where he’s taking me next time? To the Golden Door Inn! Where they have big name bands and they give prizes of French costume jewelry to the best dancers. Maybe I’ll win.” She stood up. “Tell you about it, maybe—”

  Sibyl flounced out. Cherry sat there, troubled. When she went upstairs, she was sure of one thing—with a flighty girl like Sibyl, the bracelet could be carelessly lying somewhere out of sight in her room.

  When Cherry reached the infirmary, the door was closed. It was always left a little ajar. She was annoyed—Lisette was the only one in there, and she was supposed to be in bed.

  “Why did you close the door?” Cherry asked. “You shouldn’t have gotten up.”

  Lisette looked startled. “I was just—er—looking for something.”

  Again! Cherry gave a quick, sweeping look around the infirmary and into her own room. Everything was in its usual place.

  “May I have a fresh pillowcase, Miss Cherry?”

  Cherry brought a pillowcase and went over to the bed. Lisette hastily took a thick book from under her pillow and slid it under the covers.

  “What a secretive pussycat you are!”

  “Dr. Alan did give me permission to read, Miss Cherry.”

  “It must be an awfully interesting book, the way you treasure it. Isn’t that the same book I saw you reading on the train?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Lisette did not volunteer the title. Cherry noticed that Lisette had covered it in plain wrapping paper, so that its title did not show, although, since it was a library book and library books were often soiled, she might have covered it for cleanliness.

  “Lisette, do you want to hear about a talk I had with Sibyl a few minutes ago?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  Cherry described what had been said. Nothing, really, had been accomplished. Lisette’s face fell.

  “I suppose Sibyl will believe me guilty until I prove I’m innocent. Only I don’t know how. Suppose she tells Mrs. Harrison!”

  Cherry felt almost as troubled as Lisette. It did not console the girl to say, “I’ll try to think of a way to clear you.” When suppertime came, Lisette was too miserable to eat.

  “Would you like some flowers, Lisette? There are still quite a lot left in the garden.”

  She sent one of the girls for a few roses and the fragrant silver spray. Lisette brightened; her whole mood cleared. “She’s a strange, changeable girl,” Cherry thought.

  By Saturday Lisette was well enough for Cherry to take the morning off. She had errands and shopping to do, and since almost the entire school was in flourishing health, Mrs. Harrison said Cherry might go to Riverton.

  On the train Cherry was pleased to bump into Dr. Alan. It was the first time he had seen her in anything but a white uniform—this morning she wore a red sports dress, and a ribbon to tie back her curls. Alan took a good, long, appreciative look.

  “Do you always glow like this first thing in the morning? Now that you’re out of uniform, Miss Cherry, I can tell you I’d like to know you in a nonprofessional capacity, too.”

  “Then we can’t mention anything medical now, can we?”

  But within two minutes they were talking away enthusiastically about Dr. Alan’s interning experiences and Cherry’s previous job.

  “We’re like the busman on a holiday who goes for a bus ride.” Cherry laughed.

  “Well, we have plenty to say to each other.” The train was pulling into town. “What about meeting me for lunch after we’ve both done our errands?”

  But there was no time for that today. Cherry and Dr. Alan parted, knowing comfortably that they’d meet soon again at the school. She was glad she’d worn her red dress.

  Cherry’s most important shopping, after a flurry of small purchases such as tooth powder and hair clips for Nancy, was to find a birthday present for her mother, so Cherry was looking for an especially nice gift. Riverton was a fair size town and its broad streets were lined with smart shops.

  Yet she found nothing in the shopwindows which her mother did not already have—scarf, purse, gloves, perfume. On a side street Cherry noticed a sign, “Antique Jewelry,” and walked down to look at the shop. Portrait miniatures, massive old gold chains, garnet brooches, and seed-pearl earrings gleamed on the velvet trays. “Must be expensive,” Cherry thought. She moved toward the side of the window where a small card read: “Anything on This Tray, Five Dollars.” She could easily afford five dollars. Then she saw it!

  At first Cherry was not sure. She looked at the dark-blue mottled stones, at the dull gold links joining them, and tried to remember whether this was one of the bracelets she had seen dangling from Sibyl Martin’s wrist.

  “Well, one way to find out is to ask questions.”

  The man who waited on her, an unhurried elderly man, was the proprietor of the shop.

  “Yes, miss, these stones are lapis lazuli. Very popular about thirty, forty years ago. I wouldn’t call the bracelet a real antique. A semiantique.”

  The bracelet could have belonged to Sibyl’s mother or grandmother, then.

  “Would you mind telling me, sir, where you obtained this bracelet?”

  “Not at all. A young man brought it in about a week ago. Yes, on a Monday afternoon. He was anxious to sell it. Needed cash, he said.”

  “Needed cash?” Cherry echoed.

  “Yes. He wanted to take his best girl to the Golden Door Inn. Told me all about it—how this would help pay for some of it. He fancied himself quite the exciting young blade, that boy.”

  “Did he tell you his name?” Cherry asked.

  The proprietor shook his head.

  “Well, I think I’ll buy it,” Cherry decided.
It might or might not be Sibyl’s; the chance was worth the investment.

  The man started to put the bracelet in tissue paper in a silver-paper box. Cherry interrupted him.

  “Just a minute! Has that box a label on it? I want a label, please, showing the name and address of this shop.”

  It would be proof of where Sibyl’s bracelet had gone to, if Cherry were on the right track. The man found a label for her and stuck it on the lid of the box.

  “Can I show you something else, miss? I acquired some handsome enamel flower pins from an estate this week—”

  She had almost forgotten the present for her mother! The enameled pansy of purple and yellow would appeal to her mother, who took pride in her bed of pansies. Then, clutching her two precious purchases, Cherry lunched on a sandwich and a glass of milk at the station, ran for the train, and arrived back at the Jamestown School in the early afternoon.

  In the sleepy warmth of a mid-September Saturday afternoon, the chateau and its grounds were deserted. Most of the girls had gone off, the seniors to shop and the younger ones on a hike. Only two others, who, like Lisette, had forfeited their Saturday privileges, were on the porch. Cherry found Lisette dressed and shakily sitting on the conservatory steps, in the sun.

  “Lean over toward me,” Cherry said in a low voice. “I have something rather confidential to show you.”

  She undid the silver-paper box and gave Lisette a glimpse of the bracelet.

  “Is it Sibyl’s?” Lisette whispered.

  “Not sure, but I think so,” Cherry answered.

  “Cherry—I mean, Miss Cherry—where did you find it? You don’t know what a relief this is to me! I feel as if you’re rescuing me from some awful fate.”

  “Well, I was trying.”

  Lisette threw her arms around Cherry and hugged her. “I felt all along that you were my friend. Now I know it!”

  Cherry, too, felt closer friends now. She told Lisette that “some man” had brought the bracelet to the antique shop. She did not feel it fair to divulge that the “man” was probably Sibyl’s date, Freddie.

  “How do you suppose the man happened to have the bracelet?” Lisette asked. “Do you think Sibyl lost it and he found it?”

  “It’s a fair guess,” Cherry said wryly. “Only Sibyl can answer that.”

  During the afternoon she debated going to the headmistress with the bracelet and decided it was too drastic, not necessary. A nicer way would be to show the bracelet to Sibyl first, and give her a chance to say what had taken place. She found Francie, one of Sibyl’s friends, shampooing her hair.

  “Is Sibyl around? Or coming back for dinner?”

  “Didn’t you hear, Miss Cherry? She’s gone home for a few days to attend her sister’s wedding. Sibyl’s going to be maid of honor, and she has the most gorgeous dress!”

  Inwardly Cherry chafed at the delay in settling the matter of the bracelet. She hoped Sibyl would not squeeze in another date with Freddie on her way back to school. Certainly his character was questionable. But at the moment Cherry was more concerned with Lisette’s problem—the accusation of theft. Until Sibyl returned, she could not be cleared.

  Late that night Cherry wondered if her concern for Lisette was warranted.

  It was to be Lisette’s last night in the infirmary, so Cherry, half asleep in her adjoining room, did not bother to get up when she heard Lisette get out of bed and tiptoe around the room. Probably she wanted a glass of water. Then Cherry heard a soft, strange, persistent tapping. The sound seemed to come not from the floor but from a wall somewhere.

  Cherry listened, waiting in the dark for Lisette to return to bed. When that did not happen, Cherry got up, slipped on her robe, and entered the infirmary. She snapped on the light.

  Lisette looked out of the big supply closet. Her hand was still upraised—arrested in the act of tapping the wall. She stammered, “Now you’re really going to be angry with me.”

  “I certainly am going to scold you for your behavior! No wonder you are suspected of theft when you go prowling like a thief!”

  “I’m not a thief!” Lisette wailed.

  “What’s the use of my trying to clear you when you go creeping around like this at night? This afternoon you said we’re friends and now I find you—”

  “We are friends,” Lisette choked out. “I’m not deceiving you. I’m only searching for something.”

  “At midnight? What for?”

  Lisette wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Please let’s turn out the ceiling light, or someone will notice and come in and ask questions.”

  Cherry darkened the room, leaving only the night light turning. Lisette paced up and down.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” Cherry reminded her, more gently. “It’s just that I want my patients to behave themselves in the infirmary.”

  “I already told you about what it’s like at home!” Lisette burst out. She talked rather incoherently of her mother’s financial straits and her long time desire to come to this school. “And now that I’m here, I won’t let anyone stand in my way! Not even you, Cherry.”

  “I stand in your way? Why, surely you can see I’ve been trying to help you.”

  Lisette stopped her pacing. “Yes, you’re very patient with me. You’re the only person in this whole school who’s really and truly my friend.”

  “I think Mrs. Harrison, who gave you a scholarship, is your friend. So is Mlle. Gabriel, and Nancy and Mary—”

  “I can’t tell them anything. They’d laugh at me.” The girl studied Cherry. “You said just now you want to help me. Do you really mean it?”

  Cherry nodded. Lisette sat down. Cautiously, she confided that this house was originally her greatgrandfather’s, who came from France.

  “That’s why I’m a little—well—sad about the Chateau Larose. The other girls think I’m snobbish, but it’s not that.”

  Cherry did not understand what there was to feel sad about. Lisette gave a shaky laugh.

  “You know what? This big infirmary used to be one of the master bedrooms. For all I know, it may have been my great grandfather’s bedroom. I asked Mrs. Harrison but she didn’t know.” She began talking rapidly. “Don’t you think it’s striking that I should be overlooking the very same garden he describes in his journal?”

  “So he left a journal! In French? What else did he write about?”

  Lisette looked as if she could bite her tongue for letting mention of his journal slip out.

  “Oh, nothing much,” she said, elaborately casual. Then she admitted, “I brought the journal to school with me. Nobody knows it’s here except you—and except my mother, of course.”

  “Is that the book you keep under your pillow?”

  “N-no. It isn’t a regular book, just a sort of old diary—”

  A wave of scented air blew in from the garden. Cherry asked, “Did your great grandfather plant the garden originally?”

  “Yes, he did.” Lisette seemed to he indulging in one of her dreams again, then said earnestly:

  “You see, Cherry, there’s a secret concealed somewhere in this old house and I must find it. I must! There isn’t much time.”

  “Wha-a-at? Does Mrs. Harrison know about this?”

  “No, and I don’t want to worry her. Cherry, you said you’d help me.”

  Cherry hesitated. She would not fail Lisette, but she could not rush heedlessly into a fantastic- sounding situation. A secret concealed somewhere in this old house. Well, perhaps some sort of secret lingered here. The important thing was that Lisette wanted so urgently to search for it, and was asking Cherry’s help. There returned to Cherry the headmistress’s comment to her on her arrival at the chateau: that much of her nursing would be applied psychology. Perhaps now, with Lisette, understanding would benefit the girl more than further medication. Perhaps here was the nurse’s opportunity to draw Lisette out of her secretiveness and strangeness. All this went through Cherry’s mind in a flash. She said:

  “Of co
urse I want to help you, you know that. But naturally I’d like to know what I’d be getting into.”

  Lisette answered guardedly. “Well, the first thing we must find is a doll. That’s our first step.”

  “A doll! Lisette, are you running a fever again?” Cherry said, half laughing.

  “I’m serious. It’s a doll that dates from my greatgrandfather’s time, it’s hidden somewhere in this house. And it is a secret.”

  Cherry felt doubtful about embarking on a secret search, without Mrs. Harrison’s knowledge or permission, for a doll which might or might not exist. Had there even been such a doll? If so, could it actually still be in the chateau after four generations? Could a doll have survived different tenants, including a school, and all the moving of furniture, all the years of house cleaning? Wouldn’t the chance of finding anything so perishable as a doll be pretty remote? Cherry asked Lisette these things, tactfully.

  “We can find the doll,” Lisette insisted. “I believe that because the journal refers quite definitely to a hidden doll. Do you know what I think? Maybe great-grandfather hid it well, so that it’s still safe.”

  “We-ell, maybe. It could be like searching for a needle in a haystack. But you haven’t told me why we must find this doll.”

  “Because,” Lisette said, struggling to remain patient, “the doll holds the clue to what I’m here at the chateau for! Please, won’t you take my word that it’s important? I tell you, Cherry, everything depends on finding the doll—”

  “‘Everything’? If finding the doll is only the first step, what’s your ultimate goal? Can’t you tell me?” Cherry urged. “If I trust you, won’t you trust me, too?”

  Even now Lisette was reluctant to confide too much of her secret. From her expression Cherry thought she was going to withdraw again into her aloofness and moodiness, and Cherry did not want that to happen, having made this much progress with her. Lisette said:

  “I wish you’d trust me and just take my word for it.”