CHERRY WAS SO BUSY THE EARLY PART OF THE WEEK—Jannie was in isolation with a septic sore throat—that she had no chance to search for the doll. She had not even been able to make plans for a search when she received a message that the headmistress would like to see her in her office at three o’clock.
In a spanking fresh white uniform, Cherry arrived in the anteroom, congratulating herself. She was not only on time—she was five minutes early. She sat down and then noticed through the anteroom door that Mrs. Harrison had a visitor—a man seated with his back to Cherry.
“I’m not an ogre, you know, Alicia. I’m obliged to warn you in a friendly way that they won’t wait much longer—”
Cherry did not want to eavesdrop, so she rose and started out of the anteroom, but Mrs. Harrison called to her:
“Please stay! Do sit down.”
Reluctantly Cherry resumed her place. The headmistress could close the door if she wanted to. Cherry tried not to listen but she could not help hearing.
“Now, Alicia, when you first started making delayed payments on this mortgage, the bank didn’t bother you too much. They took my word for it, as an old friend of your family and in my capacity as a bank official, that you were a good risk.”
“I realize that I’ve frequently been slow with the payments,” Mrs. Harrison murmured.
“Not merely slow. You’ve fallen too far behind. And now that these Riverton people want to buy the chateau and grounds, I can’t intercede for you much longer. The bank wants to sell. This land is valuable and those people are making a very attractive offer.”
“It would be the end of the school! The end of my livelihood, too. But, Ralph, I can’t make a payment right now. You know I’m pinched financially. The costs of overhead have gone up. If the enrollment were larger—This summer I had to put in a new heating unit, too.” Mrs. Harrison sighed. “What am I to do?”
“I wish I knew, Alicia. I only wish I knew how to advise you or help you.”
“I’ve put so much into this school! Not only money and work, but hope—love—”
Cherry could see how distressed the headmistress was. She did not want to hear any more. She slipped out into the entrance hall until the caller came out, a few minutes later. He was a middle aged man, pleasant but worried-looking. What an unhappy situation! So this was why the staff was small, the infirmary sparsely furnished! Cherry allowed a few moments to pass for Mrs. Harrison to compose herself, then rapped on the doorframe.
“Come in, Cherry! Don’t look so embarrassed. Most of my staff knows about this situation. Everybody is being wonderfully helpful—”
What Mrs. Harrison wanted of her was to ask that the utmost economies be practiced in the infirmary—without, of course, sacrificing high quality health care. Cherry agreed wholeheartedly. She would have rolled up her sleeves and washed dishes and cleaned house if this lovely woman had asked it of her.
Cherry was careful not to repeat what she had overheard, but she did give Lisette a hint. Perhaps knowing at what sacrifice her scholarship had been awarded, Lisette might concentrate more on her studies and good relations with the other girls.
“I already suspected what you’re telling me about the school’s financial troubles,” Lisette said. She was helping Cherry turn and air the mattresses of the infirmary beds, before the day’s classes began. “I could tell you a lot more guesses I’ve made.”
“Well, don’t! I have no right to know, though I want to help. How come you guess so much?”
“Oh, well. Like the time Mrs. Harrison told me she couldn’t afford a full time gardener.” Lisette looked quietly at Cherry for a moment, then changed the subject. “Have you stumbled across anything? Any clue of the doll?”
Cherry shook her head. “Have you?”
“Nothing yet,” Lisette answered.
They agreed it was going to be a big job to search the whole house. They decided to plan this search systematically.
“Mrs. Harrison wouldn’t like us to search, either,” Cherry said slowly. “It might upset her, and she’s worried enough already.”
“But, Cherry, it’s so important to try this thing! I waited three years for this chance, ever since I found the journal in my father’s trunk. We’re not trying to deceive Mrs. Harrison, goodness knows. She trusts us; she trusts all her girls. Who’d want to deceive such a darling?”
“Yes, the girls respond well,” Cherry said. “There are a few exceptions, like Sibyl—”
“Couldn’t we just not tell her? Not yet? Until we actually find something?”
Cherry uneasily agreed to that. It was not the most desirable way to handle this unusual situation, but it was the most considerate of Mrs. Harrison. Lisette noticed that Cherry had misgivings, and said:
“We’re not hurting Mrs. Harrison, and if we’re lucky, something pretty fortunate could come out of it. It could be a real help to Mrs. Harrison, too. It’s on her property, so she deserves to share in it financially. Not that she’d believe me now. And I don’t want to raise her hopes.
“Cherry,” Lisette continued, “it’s wonderful that you’re going to help me. You know a lot about—things a nurse is trained in, and we’re going to need technical knowledge.” She smiled anxiously at Cherry.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure out a plan of search this evening.”
In the corridor the bell rang, announcing it was five minutes before the first class. Lisette gathered up her books and hockey tunic, and moved toward the door. She hesitated.
“Tell you what I am worried about. It’s l’affaire bracelet. Sibyl Martin hasn’t come back yet, and I don’t know which is making me more jittery—imagining what’s going to happen or actually facing it.”
“You are a worrier. Sibyl can’t eat you alive.”
“That’s what you think! She’ll be back before this week is out.” The last warning bell rang. “Excuse me, now,” and Lisette left at a run.
Cherry, too, was impatient to settle once and for all the matter of the lapis lazuli bracelet.
On Thursday the plan was ready, and she and Lisette managed to spend the evening together. Almost all the rest of the school went off by bus to a Gilbert and Sullivan production in Riverton. Lisette had pleaded, in all honesty, that Gilbert and Sullivan put her to sleep, and could she be excused from going? Now the two friends had the house practically to themselves and were able to search in earnest for the doll.
They had done much debating about where to start searching, after all these years. Lisette did not know whether it was a big doll or a tiny one; a breakable bisque doll or a rag doll; that could be a factor in where it lay hidden. However, they agreed there was no point in looking on kitchen or library shelves, since nothing could remain hidden for long in these much used rooms, nor in the remodeled, newly furnished rooms. This meant the girls would concentrate on the downstairs sitting room and dining room, which had not been remodeled, and upstairs on the infirmary and faculty sitting room which were still big, old-fashioned rooms. Further, Cherry and Lisette had decided that they would examine first the older pieces of furniture which dated from the greatgrandfather’s day.
The dining room, though furnished with antiques, yielded nothing of interest. They would try the sitting room next, and its old rosewood furniture.
“Still,” Lisette said, as they stood on the threshold, “before this house was opened as a school, and that was before Mrs. Harrison took it over, some of the original pieces of furniture must have been removed. And all the closets and cabinets must have been cleared out.”
“So we may never find the doll. Try to think,” Cherry urged. “Doesn’t the journal give any hint where he hid the doll?”
“No, none.”
It took boldness to slip into the sitting room and search, with a light showing under the sliding doors from the headmistress’s office. They’d thought Mrs. Harrison had gone to the theater. As they tiptoed upstairs, they saw her golden head bent over her desk.
The upstairs was not, as Lisette said, the most encouraging place to search because of extensive remodeling. She believed, from chats with Mrs. Harrison, that the infirmary and faculty sitting room were pretty much as they had been originally, with only minor changes. They decided to try the infirmary first. The oldest piece of furniture in there was probably the extra chest.
“Would the doll be sleeping all these years in the old fruitwood chest?” Cherry wondered aloud.
The worn, roomy chest stood in the infirmary to provide extra drawer space, but Cherry had never needed to use it except once. She had stored in its top drawer some new linens which Mrs. Harrison had ordered earlier, and which she kept in reserve. Having found nothing in the top drawer or in the drawer beneath, and not needing extra drawer space, Cherry had seen no reason to go through all the many drawers of the chest.
But now she and Lisette did so. They found nothing. The bottom drawer stuck. Lisette burst out laughing at Cherry’s struggle with the balky drawer. It was wedged so tight that Cherry teetered back on her heels. “This drawer is trying to knock me down!”
Both girls bent and pulled and got the bottom drawer open. They found only a bundle of old rags wedged in there.
“Anyway, I hope the drawer won’t stick any more,” Cherry said. It stuck a little just the same, and they laughed.
They tried to be quiet in the infirmary, moving around directly above the headmistress’s office. The infirmary yielded nothing. Cherry’s room yielded neither doll nor clue. With their hearts in their mouths—“though I have a right to be in here,” said Cherry—they hastily searched the faculty sitting room. Nothing to be found there, either. This evening they exhausted their careful plan—without result. They were disheartened.
“Are you certain there is a doll?” Cherry asked.
“The journal says so. I’ll show it to you tomorrow. Maybe if you look at the journal, you’ll notice a clue I missed. Listen!”
They both listened. The chartered bus with its load of girls and instructors was rumbling into the driveway.
“I’m supposed to be in bed by now!” Lisette exclaimed. “Good night!”
Next morning Cherry started to throw away the bundle of rags. She noticed an edge of faded, flowersprigged dimity—a scrap of sheer cotton fabric from an old dress?—and out of curiosity unrolled the cloths. She felt a hard core inside the bundle. Unrolling faster, Cherry’s fingers began to make out the shape of it. With the last wrapping removed, she found herself holding a doll which stared at her with painted eyes. If she hadn’t noticed the dimity—!
It was a charming little figure, about eight or nine inches high. Judging by its jointed wooden body, its painted head and hands and high button shoes, it must be quite old. The doll wore a long, draped Victorian dress of plum silk, and her black painted hair was demurely parted in the middle. She carried a deep reticule or handbag, its ribbon drawstring tied to her wooden wrist.
“I must show her to Lisette right away! Or at lunch hour, at least tell her what I’ve found!”
Lisette had a full day’s lessons, and Cherry did a full day’s work, before they were able to meet in the early evening. Lisette came dashing into the infirmary hugging a flat tissue papered parcel under her arm.
“Let’s see it, Cherry! I’m ready to burst! Oh, where is la poupée?”
Cherry ran to the balky drawer where the doll had lived for so many years. “Close the door, Lisette. Here’s your doll!”
“Not mine, my great grandfather’s—or rather, his sister’s. She brought it from France. Great grandfather kept it after his sister died. Isn’t she a funny, stiff little thing?”
“Has she a name?” Cherry asked.
“The journal doesn’t refer to the doll by name, but it does say something intriguing about her. Look!”
Lisette removed the tissue paper and put the old diary in Cherry’s hands. Cherry understood that now Lisette trusted her fully. Its brown leather covers were crumbling at the edges. Within were pages filled with spidery Spencerian script in faded ink, written in French.
“You’ll have to translate, Lisette.”
“I can do it. Did you know I studied hard by myself to master French—we didn’t speak that much French at home—so that I’d be able to read this old journal?” She leafed through, looking for passages concerning the doll. “Here it is—
“The best I can do under these unhappy circumstances is to cache my secret and rely upon the doll to unlock my story, if that day ever comes.”
The two girls stared at each other. It was as if a voice three generations back had spoken, a voice sad or troubled, but urgent. Why were the words veiled?
“Whatever does he mean?” Cherry asked. “You’ve read the entire journal, I imagine.”
“I only know that great grandfather Pierre Gauthier left behind a valuable and lovely secret in this house. The whole journal is written in this cautious way. You and I will have to sort of decipher it.”
They reread the doll passage. “Cache my secret”—they debated that. To cache meant to hide something, a tangible thing, but was that what the phrase said? Lisette insisted she was translating the words literally and this was not an idiom which had a second meaning. Unable to understand the first phrase, they went on to “rely upon the doll to unlock my story.”
“Unlock,” Cherry mused. “A key? Does the doll contain a key?”
Their fingers shook as they tried to unscrew its head—but this was nailed and jointed on. Next, they felt the folds of its voluminous dress, and looked inside its reticule.
“It’s here! It’s in here!”
Lisette extracted a narrow key with a filigree handle.
Someone knocked at the door. The two girls jumped. “Just a minute,” Cherry called.
Quickly they put the doll, key, and journal into the bottom drawer. The drawer would not close entirely, so they stuffed a towel on top.
“Coming!” Cherry called, and whispered to Lisette, “Throw away that tissue paper, too.”
Then she went to the door, slightly out of breath, and opened it. There stood Dr. Alan Wilcox. He looked as firmly planted as an oak tree.
“Thought you weren’t going to let me in. We came to pay a more or less social call.” He nodded hello to Lisette.
“Who’s we?”
“My father, Leaping Lena, and I. Leaping Lena is my car. Can you come out for a drive? We can guarantee moon, stars, and Jamestown’s finest ice cream cone.”
Cherry knew that it was out of the question—not with the records that needed to be filled out and special diets to be made up.
She accompanied Dr. Alan downstairs to meet his father. The senior Dr. Wilcox was a quiet, graying man. He asked businesslike questions of the nurse. His smile, like his son’s, was full of humor and kindness.
“I hope I didn’t detain you, sir,” said Cherry.
“Not at all, Miss Cherry.”
Dr. Alan said in his most formal professional manner, “You girls were so slow in opening the door, I thought you must be digging for buried treasure, or something.”
“You never can tell.” Cherry chuckled. “Will you come and dig with us, Dr. Alan?”
He thought she was joking, but great grandfather Pierre Gauthier was not the only one who was obliged to speak in riddles.