The Boarded-Up House Part 7

"Come on!" urged Joyce. "Whatever is the matter with you, standing here like that?"

"I was just thinking--seems to me I remember something about the first day we got into the B. U. H. Didn't you tell me that you knew the house was left furnished, that somebody had told your father so?"

"Why, _of course_!" cried Joyce, excited at once. "I certainly did, and what a stupid I am not to have thought of it since!" And she herself stopped short and stood thinking.

"Well, what is it?" demanded Cynthia, impatiently. "Who's stopping and staring now?"

"The trouble is," said Joyce, slowly, "that the whole thing's not very clear in my mind. It was several years ago that I heard Father mention it. Somebody was visiting us when we first moved here, and asked him at the table about the old house next door. And Father said, I think, that he didn't know anything much about it only that it was a queer old place, and once he had met an elderly lady who happened to mention to him that she knew the house was left furnished, just as it was, and she didn't think the owners would ever live in it again. I don't know why I happened to remember this. It must have made quite an impression on me, because I was a good deal younger and didn't generally listen much to what they were saying at table."

"Well," announced Cynthia, still standing where she had stopped, and speaking with great positiveness, "there's only one thing to do now, and that is, find out who the old lady is and hunt her up!"

"I suppose I can find out her name from Father--if he remembers it--but what then? I can't go and sc.r.a.pe up an acquaintance with a perfectly strange person, and she _may_ live in Timbuctoo!" objected Joyce.

"It's the only thing left, the 'last resort' as they say in stories,"

said Cynthia. "But, of course, you can do as you like. You're engineering this business!"

"Well, I will," conceded Joyce, not very hopefully, however. "I'll lead Father round to talking of her this evening, if I can, and see what comes of it."

Joyce was as good as her word. That evening when she and her father were seated cozily in the library, she studying, her father smoking and reading his paper, while her mother was temporarily out of the room, she began diplomatically:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Do you know any real elderly people, Father?"]

"Do you know any real elderly people, Father?" He looked up with a quizzical expression.

"Well, a few. Most people do, don't they? What do you inquire for, Duckie? Thinking of founding an old people's home?" he asked teasingly.

"Oh, no! But who are they, Father? Do you mind telling me?"

"Mercy, Joyce! I can't think just now of all of them!" He was deep in a preelection article in his paper, and wanted to return to it.

"But can't you think of just a _few_?" she implored.

"Well, you are the queerest child! There's Grandfather Lambert, and your Great-aunt Lucia, and old Mr. Selby, and--oh, I can't think, Joyce!

What's all this foolishness anyway?" Joyce saw at once that she was getting at nothing very definite along this line and determined on a bold move.

"Well, who is the old lady that you spoke of once, who, you said, knew something about that queer old boarded-up house next door?"

"Now, why in the world didn't you say so at once, without first making me go through the whole list of my elderly acquaintances?" he laughed.

"That was your Great-aunt Lucia."

"_What!_" Joyce almost shouted in her astonishment.

"Why, certainly! What's queer about that? She used to live in New York City, and knew all the best families for miles around. When we first moved here, next to that ramshackle old place, I remember her telling me she'd known the people who used to live there."

"Who were they?" demanded Joyce, eagerly.

"Oh, I don't remember their name! I don't know that she ever mentioned it. She only said she knew them, and they'd gone away rather suddenly and left their house all furnished and never came back. Now _do_ let me finish my paper in peace, Duckie dear!"

Joyce said no more, and turned again to her studies; but her brain was in a whirl, and she could not concentrate her thoughts on her work.

_Great-aunt Lucia!_--of all people! And here she had been wondering how she could ever get to know some stranger well enough to put her questions. But, for that matter, there were difficulties in the way of questioning even Great-aunt Lucia. She was a very old lady, a confirmed invalid, who lived in Poughkeepsie. For many years she had not left her home, and the family seldom saw her; but her father paid a visit to the old lady once in a while when he was in that vicinity.

Joyce then fell to planning how she could get into communication with this Great-aunt Lucia. She couldn't _write_ her inquiries,--that certainly would never do! If she could only visit her and get her to talk about it! But Joyce had never visited this relative in her life, and never particularly wanted to, and it would appear strange to seem suddenly so anxious to see the old lady. This, however, was obviously the only solution, and she began to wonder how it could be arranged.

Very prudently, she waited till her father had finished his pipe and laid aside his paper. Then she commenced afresh, but casually, as though the idea had just entered her mind:

"Great-aunt Lucia must be a very interesting old lady, Father!"

"She is, she certainly is! I was always very fond of her. My! how she can talk, and the stories she can tell about old times!" said Mr.

Kenway, waxing enthusiastic.

"Oh, I _wish_ I could visit her!" exclaimed Joyce.

"Well, you certainly may, if you really want to. I've always wanted her to see you since you've grown so, and I've proposed a number of times that you go with me on the trip. But you've always refused to be separated from your precious Cynthia, and I couldn't think of inflicting _two_ youngsters on her." Joyce remembered now, with a good deal of self-reproach, how many times she had begged off from accompanying her father. It had not seemed very interesting then, and, as he had said, she did not want to leave Cynthia, even for two or three days. She realized now that she had not only been a little selfish about it, but had plainly missed a golden opportunity.

"Oh, Father," she cried in real contrition, "I was mean to refuse you! I didn't realize that you _wanted_ me to go. I thought you only did it to give me a good time, and, somehow, it didn't seem like a good time--then! When are you going again? And won't you take me?"

"I haven't been there in two years," he mused. "I _ought_ to go again soon. The old lady may not live very long, she's so feeble. Let's see!

Suppose we make it the week-end before election. I'll write to her to-morrow that we're all coming, you and Mother and I."

"Oh, but, Father!" exclaimed Joyce. "Couldn't we go sooner? That's nearly a month off!"

"Best I can do, Duckie dear! I simply can't get away before. What's your hurry anyway? First you won't be hired to go and see her, and then you want to rush off and do it at once! What a funny little daughter it is!"

He kissed her laughingly, as she bade him good night.

But Joyce slept little that night. She was wild for morning to come so that she could tell Cynthia, and wilder with impatience to think of the long dragging month ahead before the visit to Great-aunt Lucia, and the solution of the mystery.

CHAPTER IX

THE MEMORIES OF GREAT-AUNT LUCIA

Cynthia sat at her desk in high school, alternately staring out of the window, gazing intently across the room at Joyce, and scowling at the blackboard where the cryptic symbols

(a + b)^2 = a^2 + 2ab + b^2

were being laboriously expounded by the professor of mathematics. Of this exposition, it is safe to say, Cynthia comprehended not a word for the following simple reason. Early that morning Joyce had returned from the visit to her great-aunt Lucia and had entered the cla.s.s-room late.

Cynthia had not yet had a moment in which to speak with her alone. It was now the last period of the day, and her impatience had completely conquered her usual absorbed attention to her studies.

The professor droned on. The cla.s.s feverishly copied more cryptic symbols in its notebooks. But at last the closing-bell rang, and after what seemed interminable and totally unnecessary delays, Cynthia found herself out of doors, arm-in-arm with Joyce. Then all she could find to say was:

"Now--_tell me_!" But Joyce was very serious, and very mysterious too.

"Not here," she answered. "I couldn't! Wait!"

"Well, where and when, then?" cried Cynthia.

"Home," said Joyce. Then, after a moment,--"No, I'll tell you in the Boarded-up House! That's the most appropriate place. We'll go there straight after we get home." So Cynthia was obliged to repress her impatience a little longer. But at length they had crept through the cellar window, lighted their candles, and were proceeding up-stairs.