ANN CROSSES A SECRET TRAIL

ANN CROSSES A SECRET TRAIL

By HARRIET PYNE GROVE

Author of

“Ann Sterling,” “The Courage of Ann,” “Ann and the Jolly Six,” “The Greycliff Girls Series,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York

Printed in U. S. A.

ANN STERLING SERIES

A SERIES FOR GIRLS 12 TO 18 YEARS OF AGE

By HARRIET PYNE GROVE

Copyright, 1926

By A. L. BURT COMPANY

ANN CROSSES A SECRET TRAIL

Made in “U. S. A.”

Ann Crosses A Secret Trail

CHAPTER I ON THE SURFACE

After the members of the Jolly Six had departed from Sterling Ranch for their respective homes, Ann Sterling suffered the usual reaction. It had been “such a wonderful house party,” she told her mother. The presence of her aunt at the ranch depressed Ann, though after talking matters over with her father, she decided once more not to worry. Little things, however, irritated her, and she had to force herself to be polite and kind and not to let it seem that she avoided her aunt. This was the easier to manage because Suzanne was there. She and her cousin enjoyed a few quiet visits with Marjorie and Clifford Hart and rode out somewhere every morning, for the good of themselves and their horses. Kendall Gordon, Clifford’s college friend, had gone and the other boys were making up for lost time on the summer’s work, though Herman Olson once brought his sister Hilda, who had been away all summer and had not seen Ann at all.

4

The beautiful little lodge among the peaks, Ann’s “very own,” was visited once more before Suzanne went East with her mother. Mr. Sterling risked his new car, to take Madam LeRoy and Mrs. Tyson there, with Ann, Suzanne and Mrs. Sterling. They drove very slowly, reaching the lodge without accident; but Madam LeRoy insisted that the slow pace was for the sake of the car, not for her, “though I can enjoy the scenery twice as well because of it,” she said. “I do not wonder, Ann,” she added, “that you love your mountains.”

Mrs. Tyson frequently asked her mother if the altitude affected her, though the elevation was not particularly great at “Sterling Heights.” But they heard no more from her about “Mother’s mind failing,” and as Madam LeRoy openly expressed her irritation at being warned about her heart, Aunt Sue desisted. On the surface, everything was pleasant and happy.

Ann’s grandmother walked about with Ann and Suzanne, admiring the falls, the rushing river, the emerald lake, the peaks with their snow, and the floating clouds. “I am glad that I decided to come up,” she said. “I would not have missed this beautiful picture, to take back East with me. Then, girls, if you are here some time without me, as you will be, of course, I shall know how to imagine what you are doing.”

“And it will be much more delightful, Grandmother,5 since you have been here,” promptly spoke Ann. “We shall have you to associate with all this. By the way, Grandmother, we want your picture, too.”

On the porch, with the background of the logs; on the lake shore, with a background of peaks and clouds; in various nooks among the trees, the girls snapped not only Madam LeRoy, but the rest of the family, alone or in groups. “These are for my family album,” laughed Ann. “I’m going to have a special album for Sterling Heights Lodge.”

“Is that what you are going to call it?” inquired Mr. Sterling.

“I think so, though I may change my mind again. I wish that I could put the beauty of the place into a name that would be appropriate.”

Madam LeRoy thought of several more improvements that she asked the privilege of helping to make another season, talking with Mrs. Ault, who promised to take care of the rugs and furniture, making things snug for the winter before she and Mr. Ault left the place. The Sterling party stayed over one night only.

Then, “at last,” Nancy said to Ann privately, as Mrs. Tyson, Suzanne, Felice and the chauffeur rolled away in the Tyson car, intending to pick up Maurice Tyson further East, when he should leave the young men with whom he was camping.

Everybody, including Grandmother, drew a sigh6 of relief. There would be no more living on the surface, trying not to express what they felt. There would be no more listening to little poisoned barbs of speech implying criticism, expressing a feigned anxiety about Madam LeRoy, in the guise of virtue and devotion.

Rita came right out one day soon after the departure and asked Ann what she thought of her aunt. “Nothing here suited her,” said Rita. “You could feel how superior she felt to us all. You would have thought that your mother had kidnaped your grandmother by the way she shook her head to me once and said that they ran a terrible risk by bringing her mother away from the sanitarium where she put her.

“I spoke right up and said, ‘From what I hear there are others that have taken worse risks than that in regard to their mother.’ Of course I meant her, and I went right out of the room with my dust cloth, for fear I might say something else. Nancy told me a lot, you see, and I thought I’d better ask you if it was true.”

“What Nancy told you is probably true in the main, though I suppose that there is a lot of gossip among Grandmother’s servants that may not be true.”

“She,—I mean Mrs. Tyson—was not going to let you folks have her mother and her mother’s money, I suppose. That is what Nancy said. But it was a7 queer performance, in my opinion, to come right here, after what Nancy says she has done to your mother. It put you in a funny position, too. You couldn’t turn her out, though I think, myself, that that’s what ought to have been done!”

“We couldn’t do that, Rita,” laughed Ann. “People can’t act like ‘fish-wives’ in a fight. Can you imagine Mother’s doing anything of the sort?”

“Indeed I could not! And to be taken advantage of that way! If anything happens, we know what we know out here about the Sterling family!”

“I hope that it’s good, Rita.”

“It most certainly is!”

“Nothing is going to ‘happen,’ Rita. Grandmother knows us by this time. But you see, Rita, Aunt Sue is Grandmother’s daughter and Mother’s own sister. So it would make Mother feel bad to have any gossip about it out here.”

“You are right, Ann, and you need not warn me. I’ll not say a word outside of the family. And yet, Ann, Mrs. Tyson can’t say and do the things she does and have it all kept a secret!”

“I suppose not,” thoughtfully said Ann.

“We all liked that boy of hers, though, who stopped here on his way to your place in the mountains. My, but he is a handsome chap, and with such pleasant ways! Suzanne, too, is a pretty girl and pleasant for the way she’s been spoiled.”

Ann supposed that the spoiling of Suzanne had8 also been revealed by Nancy, from whom Rita had had so much information about the LeRoy establishment in the East.

It was characteristic of Mrs. Sterling’s reserve that she had not told Ann what took place when her sister first made her appearance at the ranch. “What did you say to her, Daddy?” Ann had asked her father, but her father passed the matter over lightly. “Very politely, Ann,” he replied, “I said to her frankly what your mother could not say, in regard to the openness of future relations and our regret that things had been misrepresented in the past, with the hope that such methods would not be used again. Then I made her welcome at the ranch and got out as quickly as I could!”

Time was all too short for all that had to be done before Ann started in on her sophomore year at school. Mrs. Sterling was tired with the strain which she had been under while her sister was there. “Never mind, Ann,” she said. “Leave all the traps that need mending behind. Perhaps we’ll have more time another summer. Your frocks are in pretty good condition and we shall have time to buy what is necessary in the East before school begins.”

“Am I going with you to Grandmother’s before school begins?” Ann joyously asked.

“Indeed you are. I would not appear there without you for anything,” her mother replied with a9 whimsical smile. “I need your courage to sustain me, little daughter, since your father is not going East with us. Just think, Ann, how many years it has been!” Mrs. Sterling looked away toward the distant mountains with a sad expression.

“See here, Mother, you are to be happy, not sad, to think about going back. Suppose Aunt Sue is there to spoil it a little. She hasn’t a bit more right there than you. I’m afraid that you have what Katherine says her father calls an ‘inferiority complex,’ when you think of your older sister. Don’t let her browbeat you, little mudder! She thinks that she is always right, or pretends to think it, and wants to run the universe. I believe that you do need your little old Ann to keep up your spirits!”

“Indeed I do, ‘Gentle Hands,’ but I am not without some spirit, my little daughter. Nobody there shall know what I feel.”

“Good. And don’t feel that you are ‘company’ there, Mother. Since Aunt Sue runs it all, I have always felt that way, but now it seems as if things ought to be different, don’t you think so?”

“We shall be Mother’s guests, of course. Yet, Ann, things cannot be changed all in a minute,—even if my mother were a younger woman, you know, able to take charge of a big establishment like that. I shall most certainly not place myself in opposition to my sister in regard to household affairs. They are not of enough importance.10 Mother is thinking matters over. Unless your Aunt Sue persists in making trouble, and I think that she has had a lesson in that respect, there will be little change, unless it is as regards financial affairs. Mother intends to look into that, she says. If they are not straight, it may make a difference.”

“I see,” said Ann. “Whatever happens, Mother, you can count on me not to embarrass you by making any trouble. I’ll be peaceful unless attacked!” Ann was laughing now.

“No aggressive warfare?”

“Exactly, Mother, and yet I am ready to defend you and Grandmother to the last gasp!”

“My Montana heroine!” laughed her mother, falling into Ann’s melodramatic mood. “Very good. I told you that I would not go without you, you see.”

CHAPTER II WHISK!—NEW ENGLAND AGAIN

How differently Ann felt this time as she approached the now dear home of her Grandmother on her trip from the West, no one but Ann herself could have told. Then, the mystery of her Grandmother’s attitude toward her mother was to be solved; now, her mother and grandmother were with her, peacefully talking of their plan to go South after Christmas, her mother showing nothing of any strong feeling which may have at times possessed her when she thought of it all. Then, Ann was wondering who would meet her, how her aunt’s family would regard her; now, she was returning and would count upon a warm welcome from Roy and Madge, Maurice, Suzanne, and perhaps her Uncle Tyson, though she was not sure but he might consider her responsible for any new attitude of her grandmother in respect to finances. Uncle Tyson was next to the throne, thought Ann, the throne as expressed in Aunt Sue.

Ann was eager to have her mother once inside of the old home and watched her lovingly from time to time.

12

“No,” her grandmother was saying, “I was not interested in Sue’s plan to go abroad. I do not want to go myself, and I did not feel like sacrificing myself this time, probably financing the whole thing. It will be much better to have a Christmas reunion here, if William can come on from Montana, as we hope; then we can spend the rest of the season in Florida. I have not been there for years.”

Ann wondered who would go, the older folks, of course, with, perhaps, Madge and Roy.

“What do you think of the place?” asked Madam LeRoy, as the chauffeur drove them into the drive.

“Beautiful,” said Mrs. Sterling, a smile on her face, as she looked at the familiar grounds, changed a little, to be sure, but the same, with the great trees, the old lilac and syringa bushes, the flower beds in much the same places. “There is more shrubbery and some of the young trees have grown into large ones,” Mrs. Sterling continued. “But there is the old arbor,—oh, it is good to see it again, Mother!” Mrs. Sterling’s eyes filled as she looked, and without apology she drew out her dainty handkerchief to wipe them.

Madam LeRoy looked at her daughter with some tenderness. “All this absence and misunderstanding was needless. I hope that I may remember that, to keep me strong enough in dealing with Sue.” This she said in a low tone, not to be overheard by the chauffeur.

13

Mrs. Tyson had had the good taste not to go to the station to meet them, nor was she outside, nor in the hall. A beaming Munson was at the door with a man and a maid or two to take the luggage and orders from the travelers. “Mrs. Tyson was called to the village, Madam,” said Munson, “on a matter of business. She left her apologies and said that she would be back before dinner.”

“Thank you. You may send Rose to me, please. I left Nancy at her friend’s in the village. Attend to her baggage, also, and did you see to engaging a maid for Mrs. Sterling?”

So Grandmother was going to have a maid for Mother, too! Would wonders never cease! Ann looked on with interest, while the butler indicated one of the maids at hand as the one recently engaged for Mrs. Sterling. If Mrs. Sterling were as surprised as Ann, she did not show it, and after all, it is not so difficult to fall into ways to which you have once been accustomed.

Everything was done in a matter of fact way, quiet, rather formal, yet Ann was conscious of a new feeling and atmosphere, of approval in the glances directed toward her pretty mother, so sweet, so dear, as Ann thought. Then there came an interruption. Roy, unabashed, slid straight down the stairs upon the “sacred bannister,” as Ann said afterward.

“Hello, Gramma! Awful glad to see you back.14 It’s been a terribly long time,—and Ann, I howled and yelled when I found out that they had gone and started for Montana without me! Old Maurice, too!”

Ann wondered if Roy were in for a rebuke from Madam LeRoy, but none was forthcoming. She bent over the little boy to kiss him. “Glad to see ‘Gramma’ back, are you, dear? Well, that is good. Gramma is glad to see you, too. And I have a real wild West suit for you in my trunk.”

“Oh, goody! You’re a good sport, Gramma,” he added, to the horror of Munson. But Madam LeRoy only laughed. “As soon as the trunks are brought up, Roy, come to my room. I have to rest and get ready for dinner now.”

“All right. I’ll watch for the trunks.”

Rose, who had given Ann a welcoming smile, in remembrance of one trying day when she had served Ann to a lunch, eaten in worried loneliness, so far as the family was concerned, respectfully followed the travelers upstairs and showed Mrs. Sterling, with her new maid, the room that was to be hers. It was next to Ann’s, who was told that her mother’s maid would also serve her. “I’ll not be much bother to you, Adeline,” said Ann. “Take good care of Mother, for she is worn out.”

This was luxury. Her own room, her own bath, a maid when she needed one,—and Mother next15 door! “I wonder,” thought Ann, “if it is the room she used to have.” It was, as Ann found a little later.

Suzanne was away with Madeline for a week end visit in Boston, it seemed. Maurice had driven his mother to the village. Madge, thinner than ever, and much taller, waited for Ann, sitting outside her door, as Ann found when she started out after dressing. “Why, Madge, dear child! Why didn’t you knock?”

“I promised I wouldn’t. But I was going to be right here, just the same!”

Ann embraced the child and accompanied her, down the stairs and out to the lawn, where they wandered around the walks a little while, Madge picking a few flowers for Ann. “You have grown so, Madge,” said the surprised Ann. “I have not seen you, though, for almost a year. I missed seeing you at the spring vacation.”

“Yes; why didn’t you stay, then, Ann? Miss White said that she saw you when you were leaving. Was it because Grandmother wasn’t here? Don’t you care for the rest of us? I asked Mother about your coming, and she wouldn’t tell. ‘Run along, Madge, and be a good girl,’ she said. And then they went out to your ranch and did not take us! But then, we ought to be used to that, I suppose. Mother does not like to be bothered with us.”

16

All Madge’s grievances came out at once. Ann’s quick sympathy went out to the little girl who had so little real mothering.

“There was a good reason for my not staying, Madge, that time I came for such a short stay. Yes, I care a great deal for Grandmother, and there was a reason why I had to see her, Madge; but I do care very much for you and Roy and I was sorry not to see you. Some day, Madge, I hope that you may come with me out West and see our ranch and the lovely place in the mountains that my father gave me. But after all, it is not good for little girls to travel so much. I could not when I was as young as you are.”

“Couldn’t you? But then I think that your mother stayed with you, didn’t she?”

“Yes. Mother and Father taught me my lessons.”

Madge thought a little before she spoke. “Well, I’m rather glad that Mother does not teach me. I suppose that she knows a lot, but we couldn’t tease her the way we tease Miss White and our other teachers.”

“It doesn’t seem to me, Madge, that it is a very good thing to tease your governess. She can not teach you so much.”

“Oh, it’s all so stupid anyhow. I learn more when I read in the library the things I want to read.”

Ann said nothing to this, realizing that Madge’s17 teaching must be poor indeed, or Madge unusually hard to interest, if such were the case.

As they walked along the hedge of shrubbery at the far side of the lawn, Mrs. Tyson’s small car, Maurice driving, came in and up to the manor. Maurice saw Ann, though she was at some distance from the drive, and saluted as he swept by. Mrs. Tyson looked out and bowed, as Maurice mentioned the fact that Ann was there. “So they came,” she said.

“As they telegraphed they would,” dryly remarked her son. He opened the door for his mother, assisted her out of the car and carried several packages up the steps, handing them to the butler. Then he rapidly left the verandah, crossed the lawn, and made his way to where Ann and his little sister were standing.

“I would have met you, Ann, if Mother had not insisted on my driving her to the bank. This is fine—having you here again.” It was a charming Maurice that met Ann without the familiarity that had embarrassed her before, yet with a real warmth of feeling that Ann enjoyed. He, at least, was glad to see her. Always clean and spotless of attire, the fresh tints of youth were good to look upon in Maurice. This was not the Maurice it seemed, that said goodbye with such daring and impertinence upon the mountain heights!

“We were well taken care of, Maurice. Yes, I18 am glad to be here again. I love this place, and it seems different now that Mother is here, too.”

“I am glad that she is,” soberly said Maurice. “I want to get acquainted with my aunt Elizabeth. I see no reason why this should not be a happy visit, do you, Ann?”

Ann hesitated a moment. “Suppose that we try our best to make it so, Maurice?”

“It is a bargain. Madge, will you be good, too?” Maurice rumpled Madge’s short locks with a brotherly hand.

“Depends upon what you mean by being good. I find that the different members of the family have different notions about that. If you mean by my being good that I’m to let you and Ann visit, and go away, then I’m not going to do it!”