Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer Part 15

"Be of the brav' heart," responded Jean confidently. "I hav' the feeling that it is for me to find the los' M'sieu' Tom. I hav' travel many times over the country w'ere he get los' an' I know it, every tree an' stone.

It is a wil' place, an' the men up there know not'ing but cut down trees. Very t'ick in the 'aid." Jean tapped his gray head significantly, better to demonstrate the vast stupidity of lumbermen in general.

"M'sieu' David is one fine young man, but he not know the big woods lak'

ol' Jean. The ot'er man, he also not know." Jean shrugged his broad shoulders. "If all Jean's life he stay in cities, it would be so wit'

him."

"But Jean, have you any idea of what might have happened to Tom?"

entreated Mrs. Gray.

Again Jean shrugged. "Many t'ings might 'appen. P'r'aps he lose the way in storm an' get hurt; mebbe he die. P'r'aps timber t'ieves get him an'

shut him up somew'ere way off hid. Of a truth, Jean cannot tell. But I go hunt for M'sieu' Tom an' fin' out. Then I tell." Jean seemed determined to impress upon his hearers that he would "fin'" Tom Gray.

"When can you start north, Jean?" Grace waited breathlessly for the answer.

"Soon; to-morrow," came the quick a.s.surance. "First I go to my cabin to mak' ready. In the morning I come here early an' say the _au revoir_.

Then I go an' fin' M'sieu' Tom. You are satisfy?" His shrewd black eyes sought the approval of the trio of tense faces bent earnestly upon him.

"We are more than satisfied." Impulsively Mrs. Gray stretched forth a little blue-veined hand. Somewhat to that estimable woman's astonishment old Jean bent and with true Gallic chivalry raised it lightly to his lips. "I am honor that you trust," he said simply.

Looking on, Grace was immeasurably touched by the woodsman's quaintly respectful act of deference toward her Fairy G.o.dmother. Her romantic fancy transformed rugged old Jean into a gallant knight about to fare forth on a dangerous errand.

"You are a true Frenchman, Jean," smiled the pleased old lady. "A lifetime spent in roughing it hasn't robbed you of inherent chivalry.

Did you know that Miss Briggs remembered you from hearsay and was the first one to suggest that you would be the very person to hunt for Tom?"

"Mam'selle Grace has said," affirmed Jean. Turning to Elfreda he continued almost humbly, "Mam'selle, I hav' only to be grateful to you that you hav' remember me. Of a certainty, I shall not forget."

Jean lingered for a little further talk, then departed for his cabin, with many quaint bobbing bows. But he left behind him an atmosphere of revivified hope.

"We must go, too, J. Elfreda," reminded Grace, a distinct ring of cheerfulness in her accents. "This is Bridget's afternoon out and I promised Mother that I'd see that neither you or I starved. Father won't be home for dinner to-night, either, so we shall dine in lonely state.

Mother went to spend the day with friends in Carrollton, and Father is to go to their house to dinner to-night and bring Mother home," Grace explained to Mrs. Gray.

"Then you had better stay with me," advised Mrs. Gray. "Left to yourselves I haven't the slightest doubt that you will talk much and eat little. Besides, I know that the mere mention of hot waffles and honey will make Elfreda linger. Stay, and we'll have an old-fashioned supper."

"I couldn't be so cruel as to tear Elfreda away from such bliss,"

laughed Grace. The stout girl's predeliction for waffles was known to all her intimate friends.

"How did you know my pet weakness?" Elfreda's round eyes grew rounder with well-simulated surprise. "Did Grace tell you? Grace, I'm amazed to think you would thus betray my fatal waffle hunger, even to Mrs. Gray."

Noting the old lady's increasing rise of good spirits, Elfreda purposely pretended ignorance with a view of keeping up the sudden access of cheer which Jean's visit had diffused.

"Don't you remember that morning you came to Wayne Hall for breakfast and asked anxiously if there would be waffles?" teased Mrs. Gray. "It was at the time Grace and I went to Overton to set Harlowe House to rights."

"Oh, yes! So it was." Elfreda looked owlishly innocent. "That was the time you got my waffle number. It seems a long while since then, doesn't it, Grace?"

"Yes." An absent gleam flickered in Grace's eyes, causing Elfreda to wish she had not asked the question. It was replaced almost instantly by a glint of pure amus.e.m.e.nt. Memories of Overton invariably brought back Emma Dean. Merely to think of Emma meant to smile. "I wonder what Emma's doing to-night," she said irrelevantly. "She must be back at Overton by this time, wrestling with the management of Harlowe House."

"We ought to make her a flying visit," proposed Elfreda, well pleased with this sudden turn in the conversation.

"I'd love to see her," agreed Grace, "but----" She hesitated. "I shouldn't care to go away from home now. After Jean goes north we are likely to hear news almost any day. You see, I have pinned my faith on his ability to accomplish miracles."

"Well, we can wait a week or so and see," declared Elfreda. "If things stay just the same and we hear nothing of interest from him, we can leave Overton on Sat.u.r.day, spend Sunday with Emma and come back to Oakdale on Monday."

"I think it would do you good to see Emma, Grace," approved Mrs. Gray with a touch of her old decision. "We can do nothing but hope, pray and wait. Your trip to New York to see Miriam married was on the whole depressing. Emma will put new life into you. She's such a comical, delightful girl. Now that our case is at last in competent hands, we must make a special effort to be cheerful. I've failed sadly this summer in practicing what I am preaching. Now I intend to try to make up for it. But if I am to make good my promise to Elfreda to feed her on waffles, I must tell Margaret to make them."

Left to themselves, the two girls conversed softly together regarding the change the advent of old Jean had wrought in their hostess. When an hour later the trio gathered in the morning room, unanimously chosen as a supper room by reason of its cosiness, the sense of oppression which had formerly held them captive had been marvelously lightened by hope.

Later the three spent a quiet evening together in the library, and it was eleven o'clock when Grace and Elfreda turned their steps homeward.

To her father and mother, who had reached home ahead of her, Grace recounted the details of Jean's visit. They received the glad tidings with a joy second only to her own.

Another hour slipped swiftly by before the household retired, and it was half-past twelve o'clock before Grace bade Elfreda good-night and softly closed the door of her room. Alone with her own thoughts, she curled up on a cushioned window seat and gazed meditatively out upon the still autumn night. Through the open window a soft wind caressingly touched her rapt face. It sighed through the trees, sending an occasional leaf to earth with a faint protesting rustle. Overhead the stars twinkled serenely down upon her, as though in tantalizing possession of the answer to the question that lay behind her musing eyes.

In close communion with the night, Grace lived over again those first rare days of her Golden Summer. The present swept aside, the past confronted her in sharpest outline. Her mind dwelt on the evening when the Eight Originals had strolled to the old Omnibus House and Nora had sung the song of Golden Summer. She could almost hear Tom say, "I'd like our lives, from this moment on, always to be one long, continued Golden Summer." She wondered if the very utterance of the wish had broken the spell. Then came the remembrance of those dear hours of preparation at Haven Home. Again she could fancy herself coming down the stairs in her wedding gown and pausing to listen as Nora sang "La Lettre."

Here her musings broke off abruptly. With the memory of "The Letter," a sudden tender resolve took possession of her. To-morrow Jean would start on his search. Very well, he should not go empty-handed. She would write a letter to Tom. When Jean found him, her letter should bridge the gap of distance between them.

Rising from the window seat she sought her desk. Seated before it, she took up her pen and laid a sheet of paper in place. Once she had begun to write it was as though an unseen power guided her to inspiration. She wondered if somewhere under the stars Tom Gray was seeking, at the same time, to send her a message. Never before had she been so thoroughly imbued with the mystical impression of his nearness to her. It was not a long letter, yet somehow she had managed exactly to convey the meaning she had intended. As she was finishing it, she heard the distant chime of the grandfather's clock downstairs, striking the half hour, and she smiled tenderly as the words of Nora's song returned to her. "I wonder: 'Is it I who write to thee, or thou to me?'"

CHAPTER XX

THE LAST CHANCE

Despite her midnight vigil, Grace rose before seven o'clock the next morning. On the previous afternoon Jean had stated that he would come early to Mrs. Gray's the following morning to bid them farewell before starting on his search for Tom. Eight o'clock found herself and Elfreda Briggs walking rapidly up Chapel Hill. They found the old hunter had stolen a march on them, however. When they entered the library he was already there, in earnest conversation with Mrs. Gray.

"I hav' wait for you," he said, after bidding them a quaint _bon jour_.

"But now the time grow short. The train, she run at nine o'clock. It is now that we must say the _au revoir_. Not long an' I see the camp and M'sieu' David. It is good that you hav' telegraph the young man. Ol'

Jean will do his best. _Le bon Dieu_ will do the rest." The hunter reverently crossed himself.

"I have a letter for you, Jean, to give to Tom." Grace was wearing her most hopeful face as she gave the cherished letter into the old man's keeping. "When you have found Tom, and I know that you will, tell him that I am waiting for him and give--him--this--letter."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "When You Have Found Tom, Give Him This Letter."]

"It shall be of a sacred trust," Jean a.s.sured, crossing himself again.

"Be of the brav' heart, Mam'selle. For you and M'sieu' Tom the 'appiness is near. Now it is time to go."

Warmly shaking hands with the two for whom he was about to "do his best," Jean turned to Elfreda and offered his hand with: "I am the lucky man to hav' meet such good frien' to Mam'selle Grace."

"Thank you, Jean." Elfreda colored with pleasure at the sincere tribute.

"Some day, when Tom Gray has been found and you are back again in Oakdale, we'll pay a visit to your cabin. Then I'll tell you what a splendid friend Grace Harlowe has been to me."

"It shall be as Mam'selle says," responded Jean gallantly. Accompanied as far as the veranda by the three women, Jean made his final adieus and strode down the pebbled drive to the gate, a st.u.r.dy, purposeful figure, despite his years. To the three who watched him almost out of sight, the determined set of his broad shoulders in itself seemed to presage the success of his mission.

"It was certainly nice in Jean to say what he did to me about my being your friend," was Elfreda's abrupt comment when, after saying good-bye to Mrs. Gray, the two young women started down Chapel Hill toward home.

"It was the highest compliment that he could pay me. If there had been time I'd have liked to tell him a few of the reasons for it. I guess he would have understood then that I had special cause to be loyal to you.

I don't mean by that that anybody would have to have special cause to be _your_ friend. One would only have to meet you once, Grace Harlowe, to know that your friendship would be the kind worth having. That is, if one had any sense. That time I plumped myself down in your seat when we were bound for Overton College to begin our freshman year, I was too much wrapped up in myself to know how lucky I was. Isn't it queer, though, how things like that are often the means by which we begin the staunchest friendships?"