"And, if you'll believe it, no sooner did he lay eyes on that cedar hull, and realize that it was my work, than he flew into a towering passion. He stamped around the room, muttering a lot of things in French that even I couldn't understand, though I caught the expression, 'The blood of that mechanic—always—always!' repeated several times. I was simply speechless with astonishment, and just stood staring at him open-mouthed.
"All of a sudden he raised his cane and hit the boat a horrible whack right on the gunwale. It made a dent that I don't suppose any amount of tinkering or painting will ever remove. Then I 'saw red,' as they say. The idea of his presuming to do such a beastly thing! I just rushed at him, tore the cane from his hand, and threw it straight through the window. It smashed the glass and sash and everything. And I shouted, 'How dare you! How dare you!' I guess I was really too furious to think what I was doing. But it had the strangest effect on Monsieur.
"He stopped suddenly, and his face, from being a brick-red with anger, went perfectly white. He drew himself up in a sort of military way, as stiff as a poker, and then bowed very low and made a military salute. 'I beg a thousand pardons, Monsieur. I am deeply sorry!' he said. I asked him what in the world he meant, anyway, but he only kept repeating that he was 'deeply humiliated at his fit of temper,' and begged me to think no more of it. Then I asked him if he didn't approve of my making the boat, and he said, 'No; that I was cut out for something better than that laborer's work.'
"That remark made me madder than ever, and I asked him if it was not a good piece of work, and oughtn't any one to be proud of doing a thing like that so well. He only replied that I had far other things to be proud of, but I noticed that he didn't say what. So I just faced him.
"'Look here,' I said. 'Just tell me one thing, like a man, won't you? What are you here for, anyway? Am I the descendant of some duke or marquis or that sort of thing, and are you here to try to get me to go back to France and be one myself?' You see, what Carol said the other day sort of stuck in my crop, and that boat business rather confirmed it. I went on to say to him, 'Because if that's so, you needn't bother. I won't go!'
"He didn't say a word for a minute or two. He just stood staring at me as if he'd never seen me before. Then he said, very quietly:
"'No, Monsieur. You are quite mistaken. It is something vastly different, and I cannot explain it now. You must be content to wait. But, be assured, it will both astonish and delight you when it is disclosed.' And with that he walked off and took to his bed again, I guess, for I haven't seen him since. But I've been 'hot under the collar' ever since at the damage he did to my boat."
"Well, all that is mighty strange," I said, another idea suddenly dawning on me. "He doesn't seem to want you to do any work. Was that why he objected to you shoveling snow yesterday?"
"The very thing," replied Louis. "I was astonished when he said to me, 'Where is that Meadows and his servant? Why are you required to do this menial work?' I tried to explain to him that I liked it and was doing it for exercise, but he simply couldn't understand. He kept exclaiming, 'It is not fitting!' till I got so disgusted that I gave it up. If this sort of thing keeps up, I'll run away to sea or do something desperate. I declare I will!"
"Are you glad, Louis, that you're not a duke or a marquis or anything like that?" I asked. "I should think you'd have thought it fine."
"I'd simply detest it, Sue," he answered. "I don't want to be anything but an American citizen—ever! But if this mystery business doesn't clear up soon, I'll be a raving lunatic."
Well, I'm disappointed myself to have Carol's nice theory all knocked to pieces, for it would have been so romantic and unusual. But if it isn't that, what on earth can it be?
And how much does that wretched little Imp know?
February 17. I'm writing this under a good deal of difficulty, for my left hand is in a sling and this blank-book slips around dreadfully. The truth is that I had quite an accident the other day, and have been laid up ever since. It was the day after I last wrote in my journal. We'd had a heavy fall of snow overnight, followed by a hard frost. The coasting on Eastward Hill was gorgeous, and we spent the whole of the next afternoon there. Just at the last the Imp suggested that we try the slide down the north slope of the hill. It's ever so much steeper than the one we usually take, and is considered rather dangerous.
Louis said we'd better not, but the Imp begged so hard that we agreed to try it just once. So Louis took Carol on his bobsled, and the Imp and I had the other. She was steering, because she's awfully good at that. They went first, and we followed. Everything went finely at the start. It's the most exciting thing going down that steep slide, and I was just enjoying it when suddenly something went wrong. I'm not sure yet just what it was, but the Imp says there must have been a buried branch or something under one of our runners.
Anyhow, the first I knew I was lying with my head in a snowbank and my left arm doubled under me in the queerest manner. The Imp had been landed in the bank, too, but she wasn't a bit hurt and was up in a jiffy, dragging me out. First I thought I was all right, but when I stood up my left arm began to hurt me so that I thought I'd die with the pain of it. They put me on one of the sleds and hustled me home in a hurry, and Louis went for the doctor.
He said it was only a sprain, but that I must stay in the house for a while and take good care of it. So here I've been ever since. The Imp has been an angel. That sounds funny, but I mean it! She nearly died of remorse at having been the cause of my accident, and she can't do enough for me. She waits on me hand and foot, and hasn't teased or been a bit exasperating once. To show how angelic she can be, I must write what she told me yesterday. She came in from a walk to the village, where she'd been to get me some grapefruit, and announced:
"What do you think? I walked back most of the way with Monsieur. His things have come."
"What things?" I asked, astonished, for I knew that his trunks came the day after he arrived.
"Oh, didn't you know? A few things he brought with him. Two or three pictures and a big lot of books."
"But what did he bring over things like that for?" I demanded. "If he's only here for a visit, it's rather queer for him to be carting books and pictures about with him. I shouldn't think he'd be staying long enough to make it worth while."
"I think he's going to stay quite a long while," the Imp replied. "Perhaps it will be a year or more, judging from what he says."
"How do you know all this?" I asked. It aroused all the old, jealous feeling again to think that she knew so much more about it than I did.
"Why, this way. You see, we were walking up together, and we'd got about as far as Louis's gate when we both noticed a cart, with those things piled on it, standing there. Miss Yvonne was talking to the driver. Monsieur suddenly said, 'Ah, my things have come! That is well!' Then he turned to me and said, 'They are my most precious possessions. I never travel far without them.' I said it was too bad that they'd been delayed so long getting here from the steamer. For you know he's been here nearly a month. Then he said, 'They were not delayed, Mademoiselle Hélène. I did not send for them at once because—I was not sure I should stay. Now I feel that my stay may be long.'
"Wasn't that queer?" added the Imp. "Why do you suppose he first thought he mightn't stay long, and then decided that he would?"
"Perhaps he likes it here better than he thought he would," I suggested.
"Nothing of the sort!" answered the Imp. "He hates it. He told me the climate was abominable. He didn't see how any one could exist in it."
"Then it must be because he likes the Meadows' and Louis so much," I decided.
"I don't think that has anything to do with it," replied the Imp. "I'm certain it's something else. He's staying on because things haven't gone the way he'd planned. If they had, he'd have gone right home. I've figured that much out about him."
We didn't have any more time for talk just then, for Mother came in to say that dinner was ready. But I've been thinking and thinking ever since about what the Imp told me. She was never so communicative with me before. It's worth while to have a damaged arm, but I wonder how long it will last. I wish Carol were over here right now, so that I could tell her. But she has a cold, and I haven't seen her for two days.
It has seemed rather curious to me, right along, that we young folks were the only ones who seemed interested in Louis's affair and the new visitor. I wondered why. But something that was said at table last night made me realize that we are, after all, the only ones who know much of the inside of that affair. For instance, Mother said to Father:
"Who is that queer old gentleman visiting across the Green? He seems like a foreigner."
"Monsieur something-or-other," Father answered. "I didn't catch his name, though Louis tried to introduce us the other day, when they were passing where I was working in the north pasture. I've never quite understood the Meadows' household, anyway. They seem queer and foreign—all but Louis. He is a true American boy. I've often wondered where John Meadows hailed from. He brought Louis here as a small baby, and I never knew where he came from. He would never say much about it. By the way, Simpson wrote that we could have that new fertilizer next month."
And that's all they thought or cared about it. But, at any rate, their conversation had given me one bit of news—about Louis having been brought here as a little baby, and that folks didn't know the Meadows' people before. I'd always supposed that they had lived here all along, too. I wonder if Louis knows this? I wonder if I had better tell him? I don't know. Somehow that, and the news the Imp brought to-day, has made me feel about as mixed up as possible. I can't make head or tail of anything. I wish Carol were here.
I've just been looking over this journal from the beginning, noticing all the queer things that have come up about Louis since I began it. I think I'll put them down in order and see if it will help me to make anything out of the strange situation.
First, the queer way that Louis's folks have always treated him and the fact that he isn't any real relation. That looks to me very much as if his antecedents or his forefathers or whatever you call them must have been of some different station of life from the Meadows people. And yet Louis says their families have always been old friends. At any rate, they must feel, for some reason, responsible for him to some one, or they wouldn't be so careful about him. By the way, that some one must be "Monsieur"; who else could it be?
Next there were those mysterious cablegrams. Of course they were from "Monsieur," but what did he mean by saying, "The time is ripe"? Sounds as if some sort of plot was being hatched. And then about those papers. What are they, and where are they? Have they anything to do with Louis? I suppose they must. Does Louis himself know anything about them? He has never said a word to us.
Besides, there was that queer performance when Miss Yvonne had Louis dig in the cellar at night. I'm simply positive she must have been hunting for the papers then, and also on New Year's Eve in the attic. I believe they must be documents to prove that Louis is to come into a great fortune, perhaps one that his ancestors left him. Yes, that's a brand new idea, and I'm certain it's nearer the truth than anything we've thought of yet. "Monsieur" is probably the family lawyer in France, and has come to straighten everything out. Hurrah! I do wish Carol was here, so that we could talk this over. It's a much more sensible idea than the one that Louis is the descendant of some titled person. It would explain a number of things,—why "Monsieur" doesn't like Louis to do any work, and that sort of thing. And probably, too, that's why they would like him to go back to France and be a statesman, since he can't be a duke or a marquis and flourish around with the nobility. I suppose it's the next best thing, in their estimation.
It might even explain, too, why "Monsieur" expects to make so long a stay here to get things all straightened out. Oh, I'm so glad I thought of this! I can hardly wait for to-morrow to come, so that I can tell Carol. And I believe I'll even tell the Imp, too. She's been so decent to me of late that I'm willing to do 'most anything for her.
"Ahoy, girls! Come over and see the big smash!"
It was the Imp who thus hailed the two girls as they were coming home from the village one Saturday afternoon early in March. She was one of a group that was standing in Louis's front yard, and the girls hurried over to see what it was all about. They found that a fine old cherry-tree had been half blown over by a high wind the night before, and now it threatened to fall at the slightest jar. Its fall would do serious damage to the fence near which it stood. Louis had decided to chop it down so that it would fall in the opposite direction. It was not the first time that he had had the experience, and he rather enjoyed the thought of the task before him. It was quite evident, however, that "Monsieur" did not at all approve of this scheme. He paced back and forth on the path, muttering impatiently to himself in French and occasionally urging Louis to be extremely careful.
As this was the first time that either Sue or Carol had met "Monsieur," Louis stopped long enough to make the introductions. Monsieur bowed formally and murmured that he was "charmed to meet mesdemoiselles," but there his interest in them ended, and he continued to pace back and forth and mutter to himself.
Once the Imp poked Sue and whispered:
"He says, 'Always, always this servant's work!' He's been having a fit about this ever since they came out. But Louis was determined to get it done. Monsieur certainly does make him mad and nervous, though."
The tree was almost ready to topple over, when an unfortunate thing happened. It may have been that Louis was nervous, or that his foot slipped on a patch of ice, or that it was a combination of both. At any rate, just as the ax was raised for one of his most telling blows, he missed his aim and brought it down directly on his left foot. With a slight groan, he dropped to the ground. An instant later blood began to pour from the wound in sickening spurts. So sudden had it all been, that his watchers hardly realized what had happened till the spouting blood revealed the accident.
Immediately all was confusion. Monsieur uttered a cry that was almost a scream and, stooping down, tried to lift Louis in his arms. Miss Yvonne rushed out, wringing her hands and screaming, too, in her excitable French fashion. Old Mr. Meadows raised the parlor-window and stood calling out all sorts of impossible directions, half in French and half in English. Carol turned as white as a sheet and looked as if she were going to faint away. She usually did at the sight of blood. Only the Imp seemed to have any sense left. She called out to Carol:
"You run to our house and telephone for any doctor you can get, either in the village or at Bridgeton!"
Then she said to Monsieur:
"Please let Louis alone. He'll bleed to death if you lift him that way."
Lastly she turned to Miss Yvonne:
"Don't you think that between us we could manage to carry Louis into the house? I'll hold his poor foot so that it won't bleed so much."
It was almost absurd to hear that small child giving everybody orders, but it was rather fine, too. And somehow it restored them to their senses. Carol went flying off to telephone, only too glad to get away. Miss Yvonne stopped screaming and lifted Louis in her strong arms, while Sue held his head and Monsieur his uninjured foot.
Louis had fainted by this time. The Imp held his injured foot in such a way that as little blood as possible escaped. Sue admitted later that she would scarcely have had the nerve to do it, even if she had been able. She was very much hampered, because her left arm was still in a sling, so that all she could do was to hold up the boy's head with her right hand.
Somehow or other they got Louis into the house. Monsieur insisted that they carry him up to his (Monsieur's) room, though the others thought it would have been better to take him to his own room on the ground floor. But Monsieur would have his way, and they got Louis there somehow. By the time they had laid him in the big brass bed, Carol came flying back to say that she couldn't reach a single doctor in town. Every one was out. But she had managed to get a promise from Dr. Langmaid in Bridgeton that he would come over directly in his car, as soon as he could leave a serious surgical case that he was treating in his office.
Meanwhile Louis's foot was still bleeding horribly. Something had to be done at once. Miss Yvonne had got his shoe and stocking off and was bathing the horrid wound, but that didn't help much. No one but Sue seemed to know how to stop the bleeding and she was practically helpless because of her hand. The reason she knew was because she had just finished a course of "First Aid to the Injured" lectures that had been given to the Young Girls' Club in school by a trained nurse. Carol didn't take the course, because she hated all that kind of thing and it made her sick. But Sue had enjoyed it. One of the principal things she had learned was about the tourniquet and bandaging. But how was she to do anything with only one hand? Suddenly the idea that she could give the Imp directions and let her do it dawned on Sue. The Imp was so quick that she would understand in a wink.
So Sue asked Miss Yvonne if she'd tear up a sheet for some bandages, and told the Imp that if she'd do as she told her, she thought they could stop the bleeding. Miss Yvonne went right to work, and the Imp followed Sue's directions well, while the latter did what she could with one hand. They used a buttonhook for a tourniquet, and in five minutes Louis's foot was bandaged roughly and not bleeding any more. Monsieur had been spending the time in bathing Louis's head and holding ammonia to his nose. Presently Louis came to and tried to ask what was the matter. But they made him stop talking, because he was so weak from loss of blood.
After that there wasn't anything to do but wait for the doctor, so they sat around the room, not talking and all looking nervous and embarrassed.
At last Dr. Langmaid arrived. He came jumping upstairs two steps at a time. After he had taken one look at Louis's foot, he said:
"Whoever did that bandaging had good common sense. Perhaps it saved his life."
That was all, but it made Sue feel proud for the Imp. The Imp, however, declared that it was Sue's work, for she would never have known how to do it herself. At any rate, after that the doctor turned out every one but Miss Yvonne, and they stayed there with Louis for an age, while all the rest waited downstairs for news. At last the doctor came down and told them that Louis had almost severed an artery, but that he had broken no bones. He sewed up the wound and left directions that Louis was to stay in bed for some time and have careful attention, lest blood-poisoning set in. But he said it was a miracle that nothing worse had happened, and left his compliments for the two young ladies who did the bandaging. At which the Imp and Sue pinched each other and took their departure.
It was after they had left the house and were walking across the Green to their own home, their knees still shaking with the excitement they had experienced, that the Imp remarked:
"Did you see the queer thing that hung on 'Monsieur's' wall, right opposite to the bed?"
"Why, no," answered Sue. "That is, I suppose I did, but I was so nervous and worried that I can't remember anything about it. I hardly took my eyes from Louis. What was it, anyway?"
"Three pictures, but the only one that I could see was the middle one. It was a life-sized picture of a little boy about six or seven, I should think. He had big brown eyes and brown wavy hair, and was quite a pretty little chap, but he was dressed awfully queerly. I guess the picture must be quite old, for his clothes weren't like anything that's been worn for years. I wonder why 'Monsieur' carts it around and has it hanging there. Must be some relation, I suppose, or some child of whom he was very fond."
"But I thought you said his clothes were so queer and old-timey," suggested Sue. "I imagined from the way you spoke that they must be of a fashion more than a hundred years old."
"I guess they were, too," admitted the Imp. "I had thought that perhaps the boy was a son or a brother, but I guess he was from way before that time."
"Must be some famous ancestor, then," said Sue. "By the way, what did you mean by saying that the boy's picture was the only one you could see? If the three pictures were all hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed, you could see the other two just as well, I should think."
"No, I couldn't; and for a very queer reason," replied the Imp darkly.
"Oh, for gracious sake, don't begin to tease!" cried Sue impatiently, suspecting that the Imp was up to one of her usual tricks. "Things have been so exciting, and you've been such a dear, that I hate to have you spoil it by beginning that 'mysterious' business."
"But it was mysterious," argued the Imp, "and you'd have seen it for yourself, if you'd only had your eyes about you."
"Well, what was it?" sighed Sue. "I'm afraid you're making a whole lot out of nothing."
"I'm not!" cried the Imp. "And I'll prove it this minute. I couldn't see those two other pictures because—they both had a heavy, dark silk covering of some kind stretched completely over them, frames and all! Now will you believe me?"
At this curious bit of information even doubting Sue had to admit that the Imp was right.
March 8, 1914. I thought the last entries in this journal were pretty exciting, with two accidents to tell about, but they were just nothing to what's been happening since. My arm is all right again; no trouble at all, except for a slight stiffness. So that's all about that. But Louis!
For the first two days after his accident he seemed to be doing nicely. None of us saw him, for the doctor had ordered that he be kept very quiet. When we went to inquire, Miss Yvonne said he was better and in no pain, and that he wanted to see us all, but that he must be quiet for a while. Then, on the third day, her face was very grave.
"He has fever," she said. "It is not high, but the doctor is not pleased. Louis is restless, and his foot is swollen. We are all anxious about him."
I repeated her words to Father, and he said:
"Poor boy! Blood-poisoning, probably. I'm sorry for him. Was that ax very rusty?"
I replied that it was, for I remember that Louis remarked about it at the time and said he could do better work if the ax was cleaned and was sharper. Father shook his head and said they'd have to keep a careful watch on him now.
Next day matters became worse. From then till this evening we have been frightfully anxious, and the Meadows' family and Monsieur grew almost frantic. It was blood-poisoning, and the doctor said it was so bad that he doubted if he could save Louis's foot. At that, Monsieur sent post-haste to the city for a famous surgeon, and after days of working over him Louis is to-night pronounced out of danger. When I went over this evening to get the news, Miss Yvonne cried when she told me. I cried, too, and I saw Monsieur coming downstairs, his eyes suspiciously moist. What a relief!
They have had two trained nurses, and one of them will stay till Louis is much stronger. Miss Yvonne is quite worn out with work and worry, and she looks like a shadow of herself. Old Mr. Meadows appears to have grown ten years older in a week, and seems very feeble. As for Monsieur, in the few glimpses I've had of him he looks as if he hadn't had a wink of sleep for four days. As a matter of fact, I heard that he hadn't gone to bed and slept since Louis became so ill,—just napped while sitting in a chair.
I haven't slept well myself, and neither has Carol. Even the Imp has been very much concerned. She continues to be awfully decent to us, but I wonder how much longer it will last. Not long, I'm pretty sure, after Louis is well again. I know her too thoroughly to be deceived into thinking she has turned over a new leaf for good!
Now for bed and a long, peaceful sleep for the first time in a week!
March 13. To-day, for the first time, I have seen Louis. He was much better, and he wanted to see us so much that Miss Yvonne sent over the servant to tell us that we three could come over (Dave had gone yesterday), but that we all had better not see him at once. Carol and the Imp and I went over. One by one we were allowed to go up to the room. But we were warned that no one must stay more than five minutes, and that we mustn't talk to Louis about anything exciting.
Carol went first, but she didn't stay anywhere near her five minutes, for I timed her by the parlor clock. It seemed as if she had scarcely had time to go up and walk into the room before she must have walked out again. She came down looking awfully solemn and scared, and whispered:
"He looks awful,—as if he'd been so sick! I was frightened. The trained nurse was there, and Monsieur, too. I didn't know what on earth to say, so I didn't stay but a minute."
Then the Imp went up, and I guess she was more successful, for she stayed two minutes over her time. We heard her say, "Hello, old sport!" as she entered the room, and we even heard a sound like Louis's laugh. Then there was a great chattering in French, and I knew that she and Monsieur were talking together. When she came down she said that Monsieur had been thanking her for what she did on the day of the accident, and that she had been trying to convince him she hadn't done anything, except to obey my directions. He wouldn't stand for that, however, and insisted that she had been the means of saving Louis's life. Nothing she could say would persuade him differently.
Then it came my turn, and I went up with my knees shaking, like the silly goose I am, for there was nothing on earth to be afraid of. But somehow it always did seem a solemn thing to me to see a person for the first time after he has been so near to death. But they shook worse when I got into the room and saw how really awful Louis looked. He is like a thin shadow of his former self, and so white and hollow-eyed. He's never been sick before, to any extent, so I never dreamed he could look like that.
I murmured something or other to Louis,—I can't remember what,—and then Monsieur began to thank me in very elaborate and formal English for what I had done on the day of the accident. I tried to answer that it wasn't anything, and I could easily see that he didn't think it was so much, compared to what the Imp had done. But Louis spoke up in the weakest voice, and declared:
"Sue is a trump! I know what she did, for I wasn't unconscious all of the time. Between them they patched me up beautifully."
But Monsieur wasn't much impressed. It's plain to be seen that the Imp is his favorite. I don't care a scrap, however, since Louis said what he did!
Well, I couldn't think of another thing to say, so I bade Louis good-bye and took my departure. But before I left the room I snatched a good long look at those pictures. I've been thinking of them constantly, ever since that first day, and longing to see them. It certainly was queer to see those two so tightly covered. There's something about the one of the boy that haunts me, though. I don't know why. Carol and I have talked it over and over, and we can't make it out. The trouble is that she practically hasn't seen it at all. That day of the accident she didn't come into the room, for she was telephoning the doctor. She didn't want to come in, anyway, because she knew she couldn't stand it. And to-day she only caught the smallest glimpse of it, because she was so upset when she came out of the room.
The nurse says that next time we go to see Louis we can probably stay a little longer, if he continues to improve.
March 15. We all went in again to-day. Monsieur was not there, to Carol's and my great relief, but the nurse was. I warned Carol beforehand to take a good look at the portrait this time, and she did. She says she feels as I do about it, as if she'd seen it, or some one like it, somewhere before. And yet she's sure she hasn't, really. I don't understand it.
Louis is beginning to make all sorts of plans about what he will do when he's well again. He's wild at having to be away from school and lose so much time, but we've promised to keep all our notes for him, and that will help a lot when he goes back.
The Imp has returned to her old tricks again. I knew she would when the excitement was over. She told me that she met Monsieur on her way to school this morning, and that she walked all the way to the village with him. He was going down to get some medicine for Louis. But she startled me to pieces when she added:
"I asked him who that nice little boy was whose picture he had in his room. He said he'd tell me if I'd promise to keep it a secret. I said that I certainly would, cross my heart."
"So he told you?" I asked, trying not to act as if I cared a bit.
"Why, certainly," the Imp answered, with that wicked gleam in her eye. "He did as he said he would. I'd be glad to tell you, but, of course, I've promised not to."
"Did you ask him why he kept the other two pictures covered?" I inquired.
"Yes, I asked him that, too, but he said it was for a reason he couldn't explain at present."
The Imp wouldn't have told me if he had explained. I'm positive of that. And what's more, I simply can't believe that he told her all about the other one. She can make things sound so mysterious, when there's really nothing to them at all. However, I can't be certain, even of this. Maybe he really did explain, though why he should make her promise not to tell is a puzzle.
I'm not going to think about it any more just now. It makes me too furious.
March 22. Such a strange, strange thing happened to-day. Dave went with me to see Louis this afternoon, for the Imp had to go on an errand to the village, and Carol was in the house with another severe cold. Dave went up first, stayed quite a while, and then went on home.
Miss Yvonne took me up and told me that the nurse was out for the afternoon, and that Monsieur was lying down in Louis's room. So, for the first time since his accident, I actually saw Louis without a lot of other people in the room. We chatted for a while about school matters and what we had all been doing while he was laid up. And Louis told me how much better he was, how he was soon going to be allowed to get up, and that the nurse was going in a few days. After that we were both quiet for a few moments. It was one of those pauses that sometimes come in conversation, which get so prolonged that you hardly know how to break them. Then, just to end the silence, I asked Louis why Monsieur had insisted on his being in this room, and how inconvenient it must have been for Monsieur. To my surprise, Louis became much excited and said:
"I can't think whatever made him do it that day! I didn't want to be here. I'm horribly uncomfortable about it all the time. I hate it! It would have been so much more sensible to have put me in my own room on the ground floor. And, Sue, what do you think?" Here Louis sank his voice to a whisper. "I came to myself one day, out of a sort of stupor that I'd been in, and found him kneeling by the side of the bed and actually kissing my hand! I was so astonished and disgusted that I snatched it away, weak as I was. He never said a word, but rose and walked out of the room. What does it all mean?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Louis," I replied; "but tell me, do you know anything about those portraits that hang on the wall opposite your bed? Why are two covered up, and who is that boy in the middle?"
To my astonishment, Louis seized hold of my arm and whispered:
"Sue, Sue, I hate those pictures. I hate that one in the middle. I'm afraid of it! I—"
Before he could say any more we heard Miss Yvonne coming up the stairs to tell me that my time was up and that Louis must rest. And so he couldn't go on.
But why, why does Louis hate the picture of that boy, and why, above all things, is he afraid of it? Was there ever so curious a mystery?
Despite the fact that Sue and Carol boiled with impatience for over a week, conjecturing what it could possibly be that made Louis afraid of the picture in Monsieur's room, they found out nothing new on the subject, for the simple reason that there was never a moment when they again saw him alone. To ask him about it when others were in the room was impossible. Two days after Sue's last visit he was allowed to sit up, and a day or two after that he was permitted to walk about for a few steps. Then the nurse took her leave, and Louis insisted on returning to his own room on the ground floor.
"And only to think," sighed Sue, when she heard of it, "now we'll probably never see those strange pictures on Monsieur's wall again. I could cry with vexation when I think of it. Carol, do you feel as if there were something terribly mysterious about them,—not only the two covered ones, but the boy's, also? I wonder if it haunts you the same as it does me?"
"It certainly does," admitted Carol, "and yesterday I wrote a little poem about it. Here it is. What do you think of it?"
She handed Sue a scrap of paper on which the verses were written. The two girls had dropped off the trolley on their way home from high school, and were bound for the library. Sue took the paper and studied it carefully as she walked.
"I like it a lot," she acknowledged, as she handed it back. "Especially those last two lines:
Really, it's awfully pretty and the best thing you've done yet. Why don't you show it to Miss Cullingford. It hasn't any direct reference to Louis's affairs in it, and I'll warrant she'd recommend it to be published in our high school paper, The Argus."
"Well, perhaps I will," agreed Carol, visibly pleased with Sue's unstinted praise. She folded the paper back into a book as they went up the steps of the library.
It was while the two were wandering round the big, sunny room, scanning the shelves for an interesting book, that they made a startling discovery.
"Will you look at that!" whispered Carol, suddenly pinching Sue as they were passing the door of the smaller reference room, a spot they themselves seldom entered. There, near a shelf of immense volumes, stood—who but the Imp! She was deeply engrossed in the pages of a tome nearly as large as herself. The sight was the more amazing because the Imp was neither a member of the library, so far as they knew, nor did she ever enter it, if she could help it, except rarely to get a book for the girls.
The two stood rooted to the spot with astonishment. Suddenly the Imp caught sight of them. She promptly closed the book and slipped it back on the shelf. All she would admit in reply to what she felt to be their intrusive inquiries was the statement:
"I'm looking up something on the advice of Miss Hastings. I guess I don't have to explain everything to you." After which remark she marched majestically out of the room.
The girls tried to guess from the shelf where she had stood what book she had been consulting, but as it was a long row of encyclopedias, all exactly alike, they could not glean the least inkling. Giving up that course, they questioned the librarian on the way out, and found that the Imp had joined the library several days before.
"Did you ever know anything to beat it?" demanded Sue, as they passed down the steps. "What can she be up to? I know she's awfully bright and reads lots of books that interest grown-folks, but she's so lazy about things and so crazy just to be outdoors that she never thought it worth while to join the library before."
"She said," Carol reminded her, "that her teacher, Miss Hastings, advised her to look up something. You know she always tells the truth, at least."
"That's true," admitted Sue, "but it must be something out of the ordinary, or she would simply have come to us and bribed us to go and do it for her. And besides, in her class they don't have to look up things in encyclopedias; they haven't got to that yet. No, I'm certain it's something else."
Wondering about the Imp's strange behavior, they harked back, as they walked homeward, to that other subject that was constantly puzzling them.
"Do you know," said Carol, "I believe that I've come to agree with you in your theory about Louis and Monsieur. You know I didn't when you first told me, because I was awfully disappointed about his not being a count or a duke. But now I think that you're right. Monsieur is probably the family lawyer, and Louis is going to inherit a big French fortune. But if that is the case, why is it that Monsieur seems to be trying so hard to make Louis like him? You remember, Louis said the other day that he constantly feels as if Monsieur were doing everything in his power to win his affection, for some reason or other. If he were only a family lawyer, he wouldn't care a penny whether Louis liked him or not. And why was he kissing his hand the other day? I'm half-inclined to believe that he's some relative—a grandfather or an uncle or something. Yet he could scarcely be that, and the lawyer, too. Isn't it a puzzle?"
"But don't you remember that Miss Yvonne told Louis he wasn't any relative?" Sue reminded her; "only an old friend of the family."
"Susette," remarked Carol solemnly, stopping stock still in the middle of the road, "you may call me all kinds of an idiot if you like, but I want to tell you one thing. I've been feeling lately that there's some mystery here, bigger than anything you or I imagine. It's just a feeling I have, but it haunts me continually. I'm certain something is going to happen that will make us gasp with astonishment. And when that does happen, I want you to remind me of what I've said to-day. I'm sure I'm right. I feel it in my very bones, as Aunt Agatha often says."
And Sue, much impressed, as solemnly promised to remind her.
March 27. There's something that the Imp is up to,—something that she has discovered. I'm as certain of it as I am that my name is Susette Birdsey. The reason I know this is because of what happened to-day.
Carol and I had gone down this afternoon to Anita Brown's to go over some English history with her for an exam we're going to have in a day or two. Anita is great on history, and somehow can make it seem so simple and sensible and easy to remember. I don't know how she does it, but we always like to study that subject with her and get her to explain all about the succession of kings and what relation they were to each other. She has the knack of making them seem like real people.
Well, we had stopped at her house on the way from high school, so we hadn't been home this afternoon. About half-past four we left, and happened to come out of her gate just a little behind two people who were walking up the road. (Anita lives about half-way between our house and the village.) It didn't take us an instant to recognize those two people as Monsieur and the Imp. Carol was all for hurrying along to join them, but I said no, we might just as well keep to ourselves, for they probably didn't care for our company, anyway. So we kept on behind them, and they were talking so fast and hard that they didn't even notice us.
Presently the Imp did a queer thing. She opened her school-bag, took out a book—it wasn't a school-book, either!—opened it at a certain page, and showed something to Monsieur. Whatever it was, it had the strangest effect on him. He gave one look at the page, then stopped stock still in the road and stared at the Imp, making a queer sound in his throat, as if he were trying to clear it and didn't succeed very well. Then he said something in French that we caught the sound of but couldn't understand. But the Imp was evidently so excited that she forgot to speak French, for we heard her say in English:
"Then I'm right, Monsieur? It's the same? I was sure it was."
And he answered:
"Oui, oui, petite mademoiselle!" (I know enough French to translate this as "Yes, yes.")
After that the Imp went right on to chatter in French. But by this time we'd made up our minds that it was high time we were let in to that little secret, so we hurried to catch up with them. But the Imp saw us too quickly. She shut the book, slipped it back in her school-bag, and by the time we had joined them they were conversing sedately in English about the weather.
When we reached our own gate the Imp went off about her own devices, with never a word about the queer performance on the street. But Carol and I made up our mind that we'd take a peep at that book in her school-bag when she wasn't around. So when she had gone upstairs for a while, we opened the school-bag that she had flung down on the couch in the living-room.
But when did we ever manage to get ahead of the Imp? She had carefully removed that book, and it was nowhere to be found. I remember noticing that it was a thick book with a light green cover, and there was nothing even faintly resembling it anywhere about, so far as we could discover. What she could have done with it, or when she could have taken it out without our notice, beats me. Leave it to the Imp, however, to accomplish that sort of trick.
Of course we plainly saw that there was nothing we could do, except to question her, and we debated the longest time about whether to do so or not. It's such a hopeless performance, if the Imp has made up her mind beforehand that you're not going to find out anything from her. Carol suggested that we ask her right out what she had discovered that Monsieur was so interested in. I told her there was only one kind of answer to expect to that, so what on earth was the use?
I thought I had a better scheme. The Imp has been wild for a long time to have a fountain-pen like the one I bought in Bridgeton two months ago for a dollar. I was going to save up and give her one for her birthday. But that's a long way off yet. So I suggested to Carol that I offer to let the Imp have mine, and then buy a new one with the dollar Uncle Ben gave me at Christmas. She said it was an awful waste of a good pen, and might not accomplish what we wanted, anyway, but that I could try it if I liked.
So a little later, when the Imp came in where we were studying, I began on the subject, but very carefully, so that she wouldn't suspect something right at the start and spoil everything. After she had settled herself to read—it was my book, by the way!—I began thus:
"You and Monsieur seemed to be having a nice time while you were coming up the road this afternoon. Does he think you talk good French?"
The Imp glanced at me warily, but replied in an amiable manner:
"Oh, yes. He says I'm the only person he's met in America, except Louis and his folks, who speaks it with a decent accent."
Then she went on reading. It was plain that she wasn't going to give us any opening, if she could help it.
"Do you always talk to him in French?" I went on cautiously.
"Yes, always. He likes it best," she answered, without looking up again.
"But we heard you say something to him in English this afternoon," I ventured, for I had a scheme as to just how I was going to trap her. For a wonder, she fell into it.
"I didn't! I don't remember saying a word in English."
This was just what I had thought. She was so excited at the time that she hadn't remembered.
"Oh, but you did!" broke in Carol. "We heard you say: 'Then I'm right? It is the same? I was sure it was.'"
"You horrid things!" burst out the Imp. "Always tracking me around and eavesdropping! You once accused me of that, but I think the tables are turned now."
"Look here," I said, and I felt downright mad, "you know perfectly well we weren't doing anything of the kind. We happened to come out of Anita's house right behind you, and we refrained from joining you at first because we knew you didn't want us. We couldn't help it if you talked so loud that we could hear what you said."
She calmed down at that, and I seized the advantage and determined on a bold stroke.
"Bobs dear," I said, in as friendly a way as I could, "we know you've discovered something about Monsieur or Louis or some one from what you said and did this afternoon. Won't you tell us about it, too? You know we're awfully interested. And just to show you that we only mean to be friendly, I'll give you that new fountain-pen of mine, if you care to have it. I don't mean it as a bribe, but only to make you feel that we aren't really hateful."
At this her eyes fairly sparkled for a moment. Then she shook her head.
"I can't do it, girls, much as I'm crazy to have that pen. Honest, I can't. I'm not teasing you about it this time, either. I really have discovered something quite important, and it just happened by accident, too. But Monsieur was so upset about it, and asked me so politely not to say anything to any one, that I just feel it wouldn't be right. I think I took him terribly by surprise. I don't know what it all means yet myself. There's something awfully mysterious about things over at Louis's. And really, you've been so decent to me lately that I'd tell you if I could, even without the pen."
Well, that was too much for me. I knew she meant every word she said, and I could understand, too, why she felt she couldn't tell us. So I just gave her the pen, anyway, and she was so happy and grateful. She said:
"It's all right, girls. You're trumps! And I'll do something for you yet, never you fear."
But only to think that it was the Imp who made the first real, important discovery about this mystery! Well, things do happen queerly. I wonder what in the world she can have discovered?
It was well into April before Louis came back to school, looking a trifle thin and pale, but otherwise not impaired by his serious accident. Carol and Sue traveled back and forth with him on the trolley several times, but never once picked up courage to ask him the question, the answer to which they were burning to know,—why had he been afraid of the strange portrait in Monsieur's room?
It was not till one evening when he had come over to see Dave that the subject was broached. Dave was detained out in the barn, helping his father with a sick farm-horse, and while they were waiting for him in the living-room the talk drifted to Monsieur and his devoted kindness during Louis's illness.
"He simply couldn't do enough for me," the boy asserted. "Beginning with his insisting on my having his room, he loaded me with delicacies and attentions of every sort the whole time. I began by quite despising him, but he's been so jolly good to me that I've just got to like him, whether or no! Honestly, it's almost pathetic sometimes, he tries so hard. I feel like a brute if I don't respond in just the way he wants me to. He's stopped talking about all the things he knows I don't care for, and even stands for my talking about mechanical engineering and that sort of thing. And that's going some for him!"
"Louis," ventured Sue, a little timidly, "do you mind telling us now why you hated and were afraid of that portrait? You were going to tell me that day, if you remember, when we were interrupted."
The boy looked hesitant for a moment. Then he replied:
"I believe I might as well. It can't hurt any one that I can see. I've had the most peculiar feeling about that picture ever since my accident. Before that I'd seen it, of course, but had never thought much about it, and those two others that are covered I only thought were just another eccentricity of Monsieur's. He's awfully eccentric, anyway, about a number of things. But after I landed in that room with my chopped foot, and had to stay there when I didn't want to and lie staring day and night at that picture at the foot of my bed, first I began to hate it and then I actually became afraid of it. You'll hardly believe me, girls, when I tell you that I covered up my head with the bedclothes at times, when I was alone in the room, so that I wouldn't have to look at it."
"But why?" interrupted Carol. "What was strange about it?"
"Well," Louis answered, "it's not so much that there's anything strange about the picture itself; it's more the way it made me feel and the way Monsieur acted about it and—well, a dream I had about it one night."
"A dream?" the girls exclaimed. "What was it?"
"I'll get to that presently," he said. "But first I want to tell you what Monsieur said about it. A day or two after I was taken to that room I asked him whose portrait it was. He said he would tell me all about it some time, but that all he could say at present was that the child had been one of the world's heroic martyrs. That, of course, didn't give me much information, but it made me a little more interested, and I used to lie and stare at it by the hour, wondering how in the world a youngster of six or seven could have been what he said.
"Then came the time when I took that turn for the worse, and they thought it was all up with me. I had a terrible fever and was delirious, too, I guess. And that wretched picture haunted me the whole time. Sometimes it seemed to be coming toward me rapidly, growing larger and larger, and the eyes would glow like balls of fire. I used to scream out loud, because it somehow seemed as if it would wrap itself round me and crush me. Then it would seem to retreat way off where I could hardly see it, and almost disappear through the wall. At other times it would turn over, hang upside down, and cut up all sorts of antics. And all the time I couldn't seem to take my eyes from it.
"The last night that I was so very ill I had an awful dream about it. I thought that suddenly I looked at it, and a queer change had happened to the whole thing. Instead of the youngster being dressed up in that natty little silk coat with lace frills at his neck and wrists and the jewelled star on his chest and the little riding-whip, his clothes were all queer and ragged. He had a bright red cap of some kind on his head, and his hair was matted and tangled. Instead of being plump and smiling, he was thin and half-starved looking, and the tears were running down his cheeks. And while I looked, he suddenly held out his arms to me, as if for help. I felt as if I must get right out of bed and give him some assistance,—I simply must. And I guess I tried, too, for I remember the nurses held me down. Even after I was much better, I couldn't seem to get over the horror of that dream. I hated to look at the picture after that, for fear I'd see it again the same way."
"But you also said," Sue reminded him, "that Monsieur acted queerly about the picture, too. What did he do?"
"Oh, yes, that's another thing," added Louis. "He used to stand in front of it the longest time, gazing at it as steadily as if it were the most wonderful thing on earth. Next he would turn and stare at me, and then look back again at the picture, till I could have yelled, it made me so nervous. It was mostly when he thought I was asleep or in a stupor, but I wasn't either one of those things half as much as they thought I was. Once he came and stood over me, after I had had my eyes shut for a long time, and I heard him muttering something about 'the temple look,' whatever he could have meant by that. It all seemed horribly uncanny. I didn't like it at all. I never was so glad of anything in my life as to get out of that place and back to my own room at last."
"But, Louis," began Carol, in an awed tone, "whatever do you suppose caused you to have that queer dream? It's one of the queerest things I ever heard. Did Monsieur ever say anything to you about the picture that would make you think of a thing like that?"
"Not a single thing," declared the boy stoutly, "except what he said about the 'heroic martyr' business, and I can't believe I would have made up the rest out of my head. It's singular—"
At this moment, however, Dave came in, and the conversation shifted to other topics.
April 8. Carol and I debated a long while as to whether it would be a good idea to tell the Imp what Louis had told us last night. At first Carol was shocked at the idea of such a thing, and she looked at me as though I'd proposed to dynamite her house. But I reminded her that the Imp had been awfully amiable to us of late, and really it mightn't be such a bad scheme to let her into this, especially as she had some inside information of her own that some time she might be able to give us the benefit of. This settled Carol's doubts, so to-day we told the Imp.
When we came to the part about Louis's dream, she grabbed my arm and said:
"Are you making this up, or is it really true?" I never saw her so excited before.
"Of course it's true!" I said. "It's just exactly what Louis told us."
"Then it's the queerest thing I ever heard of," she exclaimed. "O girls, I wish I could tell you what I know! You'd be so startled that you'd jump out of your boots. If only Monsieur hadn't asked me not to mention it to any one!"
"Haven't you even told Louis?" I asked.
"No. Monsieur particularly asked me not to speak of it to Louis. He asked me to promise him that I would not, and he seemed so upset about it. But I think I know why now. I've tracked down a whole heap of things lately. Some time I'll let you two in on it, if I can do so without breaking any promises."
The Imp can be a trump when she wants to be. I wonder if we have permanently got on the right side of her at last?
To-day I persuaded Carol to show her poem, "The Mysterious Portrait," to Miss Cullingford. She only agreed to do so for this reason. Our paper, The Argus, is offering a prize of five dollars for the best poem handed in by any member of the freshman class. I don't believe there's another one who can write as well as Carol, and this is her best piece of work. So at last she consented to let Miss Cullingford criticize it for her, before she submits it to the contest committee. I'm just crazy to have Carol get the prize.
She says Miss Cullingford took it and read it over,—it's not very long,—and then began to ask her some questions about it. They were principally about where she'd seen this portrait. Carol told her it was in the house of a friend, but didn't say anything that would give Miss Cullingford any clue as to where it really was. Miss Cullingford told her that the poem was very good, and asked her to describe the portrait to her a little more in detail. Carol did this as well as she could from memory. At last Miss Cullingford told Carol to leave the verses with her for a day or two, as she would like to consider them at her leisure. It looks rather promising for Carol, I think.
April 9. Another awfully strange thing happened to-day. Our last hour for the day was English literature, and when it was over Miss Cullingford asked Carol to come to her after dismissal, as she wanted to talk to her a while about her poem. So Carol went to her room, but I didn't wait, because I was anxious to get home and help Mother with a new dress she's been making for me. I told Carol that I'd watch out for her when she came home, and run out to the gate to hear what Miss Cullingford had said about the poem. Carol said she wouldn't have but a minute to spare, because her mother and her Aunt Agatha were going to take her to dinner with some friends at Bridgeton, and so would be anxious for her to hurry and dress so they could catch the four o'clock trolley.
I went home by myself and sewed hard for an hour or so. About five minutes of four Carol came rushing up the road and dashed in at her gate, late as usual. I grabbed up my coat, and hurried out to catch her before she went into the house. She was breathless with running, and her eyes had the wildest look. I thought it was because she was so late, but she panted out:
"O Susette! I'd give anything if I only had the time to talk, but Mother and Aunt Agatha will be wild at me, as it is. I'm so late! But what do you think? You'll never guess. I've found out whose portrait that is in Monsieur's room!"
I was simply stunned.
"I don't believe you!" I cried. "This is just a trick. You can't catch me that way."
"No, no! It isn't a trick. It's true!" she panted. "You'll have to wait till to-morrow. I'll tell you all about it then." And she was gone into the house without another word.
This is simply horrible. Can I ever wait till to-morrow?