a row with your hoofs! I can’t hear … Wait a minute while I get a pencil … Hi! … Pencil! Peggy! … All right now … Ready … Go on … Reply paid … I heard that … Never mind about the address … ‘Are … you … alone … at … Beckfoot … when … does … your … mother … return … Maria Turner … ’ Gosh! Sorry. Nothing. I was talking to somebody else. Yes … That’s all right. I’ll send the answer in a minute or two. Thank you.” She hung up the receiver. “Gosh!” she said again. “Giminy! It’s the Great Aunt. She’s found out about Mother being away.”
“What business is it of hers?” said Cook. “You come along and eat your pudding. No call for you to get worried. Miss Turner’s far enough from here. And she can’t stop your mother now.”
“We’ve got to send an answer,” said Nancy. “It was reply paid.”
“Time enough for that,” said Cook.
Nancy, while eating her pudding, scribbled between mouthfuls. She covered a sheet of notepaper with possible telegrams, not one of which seemed fit to send. “The main thing is to quiet her down,” she said. “How can we squash her in twelve words?”
“We can’t,” said Peggy.
“We couldn’t in twelve thousand,” said Nancy. “But we’ve got to do something. Don’t you see? It’s Mother she’s getting at, not us. ‘Are you alone at Beckfoot?’ She’s prickly with disapproval.”
“We aren’t alone,” said Peggy. “Tell her Cook’s here.”
“Twelve words,” said Nancy. “And the address takes four. That’s eight for what we’ve got to say.” She crossed out a few words on her last draft, added three more, and read the result. “No. Cook is here. Mother comes back thirteenth. Nancy.”
“You could say ‘returns’ instead of ‘comes back’,” said Peggy. “And, I say, won’t you have to sign it ‘Ruth’ for the G.A.?”
Nancy made a face, crossed out “Nancy,” wrote “Ruth” with an angry pencil, and saved a word by using “returns”.
Peggy read it. “She’ll think it means we are alone. She’ll read ‘No Cook is here,’ because of their never bothering to put in stops. She’ll think it means ‘Not even Cook’.”
“Shiver my timbers!” said Nancy, and altered the telegram again. “Not alone. Cook here. Mother returns thirteenth. Ruth.” “Ugh! Ruth! That makes twelve words with the address.”
She showed the telegram to Cook.
Cook read it aloud, word by word. “You ought to tell her there’s nowt amiss,” she said.
“Extra words,” said Nancy. “But perhaps I’d better. After ‘Cook here,’ I’ll put in ‘Everything scrumptious’.”
“Slang,” said Peggy, doubtfully. “She won’t like that.”
“Everything splendid,” said Nancy. “She won’t really like that either. I’ll just put ‘All very well.’ Three words. Only threepence anyhow. Worth it. And it’ll be in the telephone account. Mother won’t mind.”
She went to the telephone with Peggy and Cook, neither of whom could think of any improvements. She rang up the exchange, asked for “Telegrams”, gave the Beckfoot number, explained that this was the answer to the reply-paid telegram, gave Miss Turner’s address in Harrogate, and read out the final version:
“Not alone. Cook here. All very well. Mother returns thirteenth. Ruth.”
She waited while the telegraph clerk repeated the message, said that it was all right, and put down the receiver. She looked at Cook. “I hope it is all right,” she said. “Anyway, it’s the best we could do.”
“You can’t do better,” said Cook. “Eh, but I’d like a word with the meddlesome busybody that let Miss Turner know your mother was away.”
“She can’t do anything about it now,” said Nancy, “but I bet she’ll go and be beastly to Mother as soon as she comes back.”
“Mother’ll have had her holiday by then, so it won’t matter,” said Peggy. “At least not as much as if she’d got at her before she started.”
“Bother Aunt Maria,” said Nancy. “Keel haul her. Fry, frizzle and boil her.”
“You’ve sent your telegram now,” said Cook. “Best forget it. Time’s running on and we’ve enough to do with them two coming.”
“Giminy!” said Nancy. “It’s a good thing whoever told her Mother was away didn’t tell her we were going to have visitors.”
“They’ll be here before you’re ready for them,” said Cook. “One of you ought to run round to Mrs. Lewthwaite’s to tell Billy he’ll be wanted to drive the car.”
“We’re not going to meet them in Rattletrap,” said Nancy. “They wouldn’t care twopence about driving round the head of the lake. They’ll want to sail across. And they’ll want to look at the new boat.”
“And what about their luggage?”
“They won’t bring much. We’ll get it down to the steamer pier in the bus.”
“And if there’s more than what you can carry?”
“Billy Lewthwaite can fetch it in Rattletrap to-morrow. Come on, Peggy. We haven’t finished the decorations yet. And we’ve got the boathouse to get ready for Scarab. And we didn’t finish Amazon’s rigging.”
“It won’t do for you to be late at the station,” said Cook.
“We aren’t going to be. Come on, Peggy. That black paint’ll be dry by now.”
CHAPTER II
THE VISITORS ARRIVE
WHILE NANCY AND Peggy at Beckfoot were making ready for their visitors, the train for the North, flashing through all but the biggest stations, was bringing Dick and Dorothea. Dorothea had been seen off by her mother at Euston. Dick, coming straight from school, had joined the train at Crewe, after a frantic run along the platform before he had found the through carriage and seen Dorothea waving from a window. After the first few minutes of exchanging news, and rejoicing that they had been allowed to go North at once instead of having to waste the first fortnight of the holidays sweltering in London, Dick had opened his suitcase and taken out a thin blue book, Sailing, by E. F. Knight, on which he meant to put in some hard work during the journey.
“What are the other books?” asked Dorothea.
“Pocket Book of Birds,” said Dick, “and Common Objects of the Countryside … ”
“Oh,” said Dorothea. “Nothing to read at all?”
“You really ought to read the sailing book, too,” said Dick. “Perhaps we’ll be launching Scarab tonight, and it’ll be awful to make mistakes with Nancy and Peggy watching.”
“I’m halfway through The
