Lucile Triumphant Part 32

Lucile regarded the speaker soberly for a moment. She was a dainty, pretty, bright-eyed little person, with a repose of manner that seemed, somehow, out of keeping with her obvious youth. Lucile had understood the softly spoken French question, but when she answered it was in the native tongue.

"I do not understand French," she said, slowly. "I am an American."

"Ah, I, too, can speak the English," said the other, with a delightful accent. "What is it I can do for you, Mam'selle?"

Lucile could have hugged her, so great was her joy at hearing her own language spoken so unexpectedly.

"If you will just be good enough to let me stay here till the storm is over," she said, "and tell me how to get to my friends, I will be very much obliged."

"Ah, Mam'selle has lost her way," said the little French girl, nodding her head quickly several times. "I know the country well and so will give you the aid you require." She spoke with painstaking correctness. "Enter, Mam'selle!"

Lucile was very glad to avail herself of the invitation, for she was tired from the long walk and her damp clothing clung to her limbs uncomfortably.

Her diminutive hostess led her into a large, low-ceiled, home-like room, whose broad window sills were abloom with fresh-cut flowers. Lucile thought that only the sun was needed to make it the cheeriest room in the world.

"If Ma'm'selle will explain to me from where she comes," the girl invited, "I will the better know how to make swift her return, since she wishes it."

"Thank you!" said Lucile, gratefully. "I wouldn't care so much for myself, but I'm afraid my folks will be terribly worried." Then she went on to describe the inn and her adventure of the morning.

When she had finished, her hostess nodded thoughtfully. "I know the place of which you speak," she said, "and I would most gladly take you there immediately, but my servant has gone to the village with the only carriage of which we are the owner and has not yet returned. I fear he may have waited for the storm to abate," and she glanced out the window, where the rain was still pouring down in torrents.

Lucile's heart sank. "Then I can't hope to get back to the folks or send word to them till the rain stops," she said.

The girl nodded confirmation. "I fear that is so, Ma'm'selle," she said; then, as though realizing her duty as hostess, she rose to her feet, saying, hurriedly, "But I forget myself. You must have hunger, Ma'm'selle. I will return at once." Then, checking herself again, she added, "But I have not yet told you my name. It is Jeanette Renard."

"And mine is Lucile Payton."

"Now are we acquainted," said Jeanette, gaily.

Lucile, left to herself, felt again, only to a greater extent, that strange sense of familiarity with her surroundings. Then, in a flash, the solution came to her. Why, how stupid she was not to have realized it before! The chateau corresponded, word for word, with M. Charloix's description. In Lucile's own words, it was it!

And her name was Jeanette! Why, of course! How absurdly simple the whole thing was! Why, this was the very scene of M. Charloix's amazing story.

But that she, Lucile, should stumble into the very midst of all this mystery----

At this point in her meditations Jeanette re-entered the room, smiling and serene. Lucile decided she was older than she looked.

"I will send a servant with a message to your people after you have finished your repast," she said.

"But the rain?" Lucile began.

"Ah, that is nothing," said the girl, shrugging her shoulders, as if dismissing the subject. "She is well used to it."

Although Lucile's excitement and curiosity were fast reaching fever heat, she tried to control herself and to answer Jeanette calmly and sanely.

A few moments later a delicious meal was spread before her, to which she did full justice, feeling by this time on the verge of starvation.

When she had finished, Lucile expressed her curiosity and admiration for the old place and Jeanette suggested that they look about--provided her guest was not too tired. Lucile replied that she felt as if the word "tired" had never been in her vocabulary--which was literally true.

At the end of a fascinating tour of inspection, during which Lucile had started many times to put pointed questions to Jeanette and stopped just in time, Jeanette paused at the foot of a winding staircase.

She ascended a step or two; then, looking down upon her guest, said, wistfully, "I am so glad you came! I have so little company and seeing you has been like--ah, like a cup of water to one dying of thirst," and underneath the little laugh that followed Lucile fancied she detected an infinite sadness.

Her warm young heart went out to the other girl, as she said, heartily, "Then I'm very glad I mistook the path this morning, since it has given me a chance to know you. But why don't you ever see anybody?" she added.

"Aren't there any girls around here?"

"Oh, yes, there are some--but it is so long a story, I would not bore you with it. Come, we will go upstairs!" And, though Lucile was dying to hear more, she wisely forbore to press the point.

While they were looking about them happily there was the sound of wheels on the drive and Jeanette, rushing to the window, exclaimed, "There's Pierre at this minute. Mam'selle will pardon if I speak with him a moment?" and for the second time that day Lucile was left alone in this house of romance and mystery.

"She won't mind if I look around by myself," and so she began to explore in earnest. She was tremendously excited.

"They say these old chateaux are full of secret pa.s.sages, but I'd never have the luck to find any. Oh, I'm afraid the girls won't believe me when I tell them about it--and I won't blame them much if they don't; I'd have to see it to believe it myself."

The attic was large and many cornered, with a sharply slanted roof, shading tiny, many-paned dormer windows. There were the regulation cobwebs, that hung in attractive festoons from the rafters. These, with the quant.i.ties of discarded but beautiful old furniture, scattered about in picturesque confusion, formed an effective background for Lucile's detective work.

She groped her way over every inch of the wall, sometimes getting down on her knees, trying to persuade herself she really hoped to find a spring that would release something hidden--she didn't care much what it was, but it must be hidden. However, after she had convinced herself that there was not a square inch of s.p.a.ce she had not investigated, she rose to her feet reluctantly, feeling as though she had been cheated.

"Horrid old thing!" she murmured, dusting the cobwebs from her hands.

"You look so nice and interesting and mysterious just on purpose to discourage promising young sleuths like me. I wish I hadn't given you the satisfaction of bothering with you," and she leaned against the wall in utter disgust.

Thus does fortune, in the very hour of our despair, place in our hands the thing for which we have been so hopelessly searching. Even as her elbow touched the panel behind her there came a sharp click and before Lucile's startled gaze a small, square door opened slowly and deliberately, trembled, seemed to hesitate, and then came to a full stop, leaving its shallow interior exposed to view.

It was not till then, when she stood, open-mouthed and open-eyed, staring dumbly at this apparition, that she realized how little she had really expected it to happen.

"Well, I'm not dreaming, that's one sure thing," she murmured, approaching the little opening with extreme caution, while chills of alternate fear and excitement coursed all over her. "It seems so weird and ghostly to see that thing open all by itself, with nothing to help it along! Ghosts or not, I'm going to see what's there," and, strengthened by this resolve, she started to place her hand in the opening, but drew it back quickly with a frightened gasp.

"You're a coward," she accused herself, angrily. "Any one would think you had touched a snake. If you don't hurry up, Jeanette will be here and spoil everything. I think she's coming now," and spurred on by the sound of approaching footsteps, she reached in and drew forth a long, rolled-up, legal-looking doc.u.ment, tied and sealed and covered with dust.

"I know it's the will. I'm right, I'm right!" she cried, joyfully. "She is _the_ Jeanette--but, oh, how the plot thickens----"

"What have you found?" said a soft voice behind her, and she turned to confront Jeanette, who was smiling and curious.

"Look!" said Lucile, waving the doc.u.ment wildly. "The door just opened--I don't know how; my elbow must have touched a spring--and this thing was in it--the opening, I mean, not the door."

"But what is it?" asked Jeanette, puzzled. "I have not the remembrance of having looked at it before."

"Then you don't know?" said Lucile, wide eyed.

The girl shook her head, eyeing the doc.u.ment with a puzzled expression.

Gradually bewilderment changed to surprise, surprise to incredulity.

"It's the will!" she cried. "The will of Henri Charloix! Oh, it cannot be so; it can't--you say you found it in here?" she questioned, and, without waiting for an answer, plunged her hand into the opening, while Lucile drew nearer to her.

"May I look?" she asked, and the girl nodded, turning luminous eyes upon the pretty, awed face at her shoulder. "You may prove to be the best friend I have ever yet known," she said, solemnly, and drew from the secret hiding-place a very ordinary tin box, with a sc.r.a.p of writing bound to it with a coa.r.s.e cord.

The wording was in French, but Jeanette, translating for her benefit, read: "To be opened by my little daughter Jeanette on the event of her twenty-first birthday. Signed, EDOUARD RENARD."