The Boarded-Up House Part 5

"Then it _must_ have been the other thing that happened. Somebody did something wrong, or disappointing, or disgraceful. It must have been a dreadful thing, to make the Lovely Lady desert that house forever. I can't imagine what!"

"But what about the locked-up room?" interrupted Cynthia. "Have you any theory about that? You haven't mentioned it."

"That's something I simply can't puzzle out," confessed Joyce. "The Lovely Lady must have locked it, or the disgraceful relative may have done it, or some one entirely different. I can't make any sense out of it."

"Well, Joy," answered Cynthia, "you've a theory about what happened, and it certainly sounds sensible. Now, have you any about what relative it was? That's the next most interesting thing."

"I don't think it could have been her father or mother," replied Joyce, thoughtfully. "Parents aren't liable to cause that kind of trouble, so we'll count them out. She looks very young, not nearly old enough to have a son or daughter who would do anything very dreadful, so we'll count _them_ out. (Isn't this just like the 'elimination' in algebra!)'

That leaves only brother, sister, or husband to be thought about."

"You forget aunts, uncles, and cousins!" interposed Cynthia.

"Oh, Cyn! how absurd! They are much too distant. It _must_ have been some one nearer than that, to matter so much!"

"I think it's most likely her husband, then," decided Cynthia. "He'd matter most of all."

"Yes, I've thought of that, but here's the objection: her husband, supposing she had one would probably have owned this house. Consequently he wouldn't be likely to allow it to be shut up forever in this queer way. He'd come back after a while and do what he pleased with it. No, I don't think it was her husband, or that she was married at all. It must have been either a sister or brother,--a younger one probably,--and the Lovely Lady loved her--or him--better than any one else in the world."

"Look here!" interrupted Cynthia, suddenly. "There's the easiest way to decide all this!"

"What is it?" cried Joyce, opening her eyes wide.

"Why, just go in there and turn that picture in the drawing-room around!"

"Oh, Cynthia, you jewel! Of _course_ it will be the easiest way! What geese we are to have waited so long! Only it will be a heavy thing to lift. But the time has come when it must be done. Let's go right away!"

Full of new enthusiasm, they scrambled to their feet, approached the cellar window by a circuitous route (they were always very careful that they should not be observed in this), and were soon in the dim cellar lighting their candles. Then they scurried up-stairs, entered the drawing-room, and set their candlesticks on the table. After that they removed all the breakable ornaments from the mantel and drew another chair close to the fireplace.

"Now," commanded Joyce, stepping on the seat of one while Cynthia mounted the other, "be awfully careful. That red silk cord it hangs by is perfectly rotten. I'm surprised it hasn't given way before this.

Probably, as soon as we touch the picture the cord will break. If so, let the picture down gently to rest on the mantel. Ready!"

They reached out and grasped the heavy frame. True to Joy's prediction, the silk cord snapped at once, and the picture's whole weight rested in their hands.

"Quick!" cried Cynthia. "I can't hold it any longer!" And with a thud, the heavy burden slipped to the mantel. But there was no damage done and, feeling on the other side Joyce discovered that it had no gla.s.s.

"Now what?" asked Cynthia.

"We must turn it around as it rests here. We can easily balance it on the mantel." With infinite caution, and some threatened mishaps, they finally got it into position, right side to the front, and sprang down to get their candles. On holding them close, however, the picture was found to be so coated with gray dust that absolutely nothing was distinguishable.

"Get the dust-rag!" ordered Joyce. And Cynthia, all excitement, rushed down cellar to find it. When she returned, they carefully wiped from the painting its inch-thick coating of the dust of years, and again held their candles to illumine the result.

For one long intense moment they stared at it. And then, simultaneously, they broke into a peal of hysterical giggles.

CHAPTER VII

GOLIATH MAKES ANOTHER DISCOVERY

"Oh, Cynthia!" gasped Joy at length, "isn't it too comical! We're just as far from it all as ever!" And they both fell to chuckling again.

They were certainly no nearer the solution of their problem. For, facing the room once more, the mysterious picture looked forth--the portrait of _two babies_! They were plump, placid babies, aged probably about two or three years, and they appeared precisely alike. It took no great stretch of imagination to conjecture what they were--twins--and evidently brother and sister, for one youngster's dress, being a trifle severe in style, indicated that it was doubtless a boy. These two cherubic infants had both big brown eyes, fat red cheeks, and adorable, fluffy golden curls. They were pictured as sitting, hand in hand, on a green bank under a huge spreading tree and gazing solemnly toward a distant church steeple.

"The poor little things!" cried Cynthia. "Think of them having been turned to the wall all these years! Now what was the sense of it,--two innocent babies like that!" But Joyce had not been listening. All at once she put down her candle on the table and faced her companion.

"I've got it!" she announced. "It came to me all of a sudden. Of course those babies are twins, brother and sister. Any one can tell that! Well, don't you see, one of them--the girl--was our Lovely Lady. The other was her twin brother. It's all as clear as day! The twin brother did something she didn't like, and she turned his picture to the wall. Hers happened to be in the same frame too, but she evidently didn't care about that. Now what have you to say, Cynthia Sprague?"

"You must be right," admitted Cynthia. "I thought we were 'stumped'

again when I first saw that picture, but it's been of some use, after all. Do you suppose the miniature was a copy of the same thing?"

"It may have been, or perhaps it was just the brother alone when he was older. We can't tell about that." All this while Cynthia had been standing, candle in one hand and dust-cloth in the other. At that point she put the candlestick on the table and stood gazing intently at the dust-cloth. Presently she spoke:

"Joyce, _do_ you think there would be any harm in my doing something I've longed to do ever since we first entered this house?"

"What in the world is that?" queried Joyce.

"Why, I want to _dust_ this place, and clear out of the way some of the dirt and cobwebs! They worry me terribly. And, besides, I'd like to see what this lovely furniture looks like without such quant.i.ties of dust all over it."

"Good scheme, Cyn!" cried Joyce, instantly delighted with the new idea.

"I'll tell you what! We'll come in here this afternoon with old clothes on, and have a regular _house-cleaning_! It can't hurt anything, I'm sure, for we won't disturb things at all. I'll bring a dust-cloth, too, and an old broom. But let's go and finish our studying now, and get that out of the way. Hurrah for house-cleaning, this afternoon!"

Filled with fresh enthusiasm, the two girls rushed out to hurry through the necessary studies before the antic.i.p.ated picnic of the afternoon. If their respective mothers had requested them to perform so arduous a task as this at home, they would, without doubt, have been instantly plunged into deep despair. But because they were to execute the work in an old deserted mansion saturated with mystery, no pleasure they could think of was to be compared with it. This thought, however, did not enter the heads of the enthusiastic pair.

Smuggling the house-cleaning paraphernalia into the cellar window, un.o.bserved, that afternoon, proved no easy task, for Cynthia had added a whisk-broom and dust-pan to the outfit. Joyce came to the fray with an old broom and a dust-cloth, which latter she thought she had carefully concealed under her sweater. But a long end soon worked out and trailed behind her unnoticed, till Goliath, basking on the veranda steps, spied it. The lure proved too much for him, and he came sporting after it, as friskily as a young kitten, much to Cynthia's delight when she caught sight of him.

"Oh, let him come along!" she urged. "I do love to see him about that old house. He makes it sort of cozier. And, besides, he seems to belong to it, anyway. You know he discovered it first!" And so Goliath followed into the Boarded-up House.

They began on the drawing-room. Before they had been at work very long, they found that they had "let themselves in" for a bigger task than they had dreamed. Added to that, performing it by dim candle-light did not lessen its difficulties, but rather increased them tenfold. First they took turns sweeping, as best they could, with a very ancient and frowsy broom, the thick, moth-eaten carpet. When they had gone over it once, and taken up what seemed like a small cart-load of dust, they found that, after all, there remained almost as much as ever on the floor.

Cynthia was for going over it again.

"Oh, never mind it!" sighed Joyce. "My arms ache and so do yours. We'll do it again another time. Now let's dust the furniture and pictures."

And they fell to work with whisk-broom and dust-cloths. Half an hour later, exhausted and grimy, they dropped into chairs and surveyed the results. It was, of course, as but a drop in the bucket, in comparison with all the scrubbing and cleaning that was needed. Yet, little as it was, it had already made a vast difference in the aspect of the room.

Surface dust at least had been removed, and the fine old furniture gave a hint of its real elegance and polish. Joyce glanced at the big hanging candelabrum and sighed with weariness. Then she suddenly remarked:

"Cynthia, we have the _dimmest_ light here with only those two candles!

Why not have some more burning?"

"We've only three left," commented Cynthia, practical as ever. "And my pocket-money is getting low again, and you haven't any left, as usual.

So we'd better economize till allowance day!"

"Tell you what!" cried Joyce, freshly inspired. "I've the loveliest idea! Don't you just long to know what this room would look like with that big candelabrum going? I do. They say illumination by candle-light is the prettiest in the world. Sometime I'm going to buy enough wax candles to fill that whole chandelier--or candelabrum rather--and we'll light it just once and see how it makes things look. What do you say?"

"It'll cost you a good deal more than a dollar," remarked Cynthia, after an interval spent in calculation. "Of course I'd like to see it too, so I'll go halves with you on the expense. And I don't believe we can get nice _wax_ candles, only penny tallow ones. But they'll have to do. I wonder, though, if people could see the light from the street, through any c.h.i.n.ks in the boarding?"