CHAPTER IX CAROL MAKES A DISCOVERY OF HER OWN
To Sue, the night that followed seemed endless. The mere idea that Carol had actually discovered something, and then hadn't even had a chance to give her the faintest inkling about it, was enough to keep her from a wink of sleep. But dawn came at last, and with the first light she was up and dressing frantically. If she had thought of it, she might have known that her chum would not be about for the next three hours. Breakfast on that day was only an empty form, and no sooner was it over than Sue snatched up her books and rushed madly from the house, much to the amazement of the rest of her family.
Never doubting that she would hear the whole story from Carol as they walked to the village, she was filled with despair when she found that Carol's Aunt Agatha proposed to walk down with them, in order that they might assist her to carry a heavy basket of things she was taking to some sick woman in the village. Aunt Agatha's progress was slow, and to Sue's agonized signals Carol could only shake her head and dumbly signify that her friend must wait till later for revelations.
But even this was not the end. Also waiting for the trolley was Louis.
"Do you mind telling him, too?" whispered Sue.
"I'd rather not," returned Carol. "I really don't think I ought to yet!"
This only added to the mystery. Louis wondered much at their unresponsiveness that morning, and, in fact, during all the school day and the returning trip that afternoon. For not another moment offered itself as entirely suitable to the tale that Carol was to unfold. Once they had reached the Green, however, Louis betook himself about his own affairs, and the two girls were left alone with their secret.
"Come up to the den in our barn," said Carol. "That's where I want to tell you."
"But it'll be cold," objected Sue. "Can't you come into the house?"
"No. I don't want to be interrupted, and I've something to show you," insisted Carol darkly.
Consumed with wonder, Sue obediently followed her up the hay-loft ladder, and they locked themselves into the chilly, hay-scented den.
"Now do begin at once!" exclaimed Sue. "I never spent such an awful, maddening day of suspense in my life. Don't wait a minute!"
"I'm just as crazy to tell you as you are to hear it," responded Carol. "Do you think I haven't been boiling with impatience all day? Well, here goes! Susette, it's the queerest thing in the world, the way I happened across this. It's all through Miss Cullingford. That day, after I'd described the picture to her as well as I could, I remember that she looked puzzled and said, 'That somehow sounds familiar to me.' But I didn't think anything of the remark at the time, because I was too interested in what she was going to say about my poem, and I soon forgot it. But yesterday, when I went to her after school, she asked me if I'd recognize the picture if I saw it again, and I said that of course I would. Then she suddenly drew a book out of her desk and opened it at a certain page. And, Sue, will you believe me when I tell you? There was a copy of that very same picture, right before my eyes!"
"Well, for goodness sake, tell me who it was, or I'll die of curiosity!" cried Sue impatiently.
"That's just what I don't know," Carol answered. "But I have the book here. It belongs to Miss Cullingford, and she offered to lend it to me. Of course, when I saw it, I acted surprised, but not half as much so as I felt, because I didn't want to have to tell her anything about Louis. I only said that it seemed to be the same picture, and she said it must have been some copy that I'd seen, for the portrait was a famous one, painted by a famous artist. Then she went on to criticize my poem, and made one or two suggestions about some little changes in it. She said that if I made them, she thought the poem stood a fair chance of winning the prize. Then she offered to lend me the book to take home and read, because she thought I might be interested in it. She little knew how desperately interested I was! But come! Let's look at it for ourselves, and see if we can find out anything we'd like to know."
Carol took the book out of a desk where she had locked it, and opened it at a certain page. And there, staring right up at them, was the selfsame picture that hung in Monsieur's room,—the "boy of nut-brown hair and smiling eyes." Only of course the picture was in black and white, not colored as in the oil-painting. But it was the same; you couldn't mistake it. And underneath the portrait it said, "The Dauphin of France."
"Carol," said Sue, after she'd read it, "will you tell me what on earth a 'dauphin' is?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," answered the other. "I never heard the word before, and I haven't had a chance to look it up anywhere. It looks something like the word 'dolphin.' Perhaps it's the French for it. And yet I don't think that is likely. A dolphin is some kind of a sea-creature, like a porpoise, isn't it? So it couldn't have any such meaning here."
"But what is this book?" asked Sue.
They looked at the title, and it was, "Memoirs of Madame Lebrun." Carol said that Miss Cullingford had told her that it was an account of the life of a famous French artist and of the pictures she had painted. As that didn't give them any special help, they turned the pages eagerly, but couldn't seem to find out a thing about this particular picture that interested them.
"Wait a minute," said Carol. "I'll run into the house and look up the word in our big dictionary. Maybe I can find it there."
She came flying back after a few moments, all excitement, panting:
"It was there! I didn't dare hope it would be. It gave a whole lot about how the word originated. We weren't so far off the track when we thought of 'dolphin.' It did come from that! But anyhow, the principal meaning was, 'The eldest son of the King of France. The heir to the throne.' It also says that there isn't any such title in France now."
After that they just sat and stared at the picture in silent amazement. What in the world could it all mean? If they'd been confused before, they were now more muddled than ever. Suddenly an idea occurred to Sue.
"Which dauphin do you suppose it was?" she questioned. "There must have been a lot of them."
"Maybe we could find out if we read the book through," suggested Carol helplessly.
The task, indeed, appeared herculean. Neither of the girls were in the least interested in memoirs, or in any other literature of that "dull" class. Both had frequently acknowledged that only stories of adventure and mystery and excitement contained the least interest for them. There seemed, however, no other way out of this tangle.
"Well, all right! If we must, we must, I suppose," said Sue. "I'd attempt 'most anything for the sake of solving this mystery. Suppose we read it aloud, turn and turn about. But for goodness sake, don't let's try to do it up here. We'll freeze. What if people do see us with it? They'll probably only think we're reading it for study. The Imp might suspect something, but she—"
Suddenly Carol interrupted with:
"See here! Why not tell the Imp? She's evidently found out a lot of things on her own hook, and she even said she might tell us about them some time, if she could. Perhaps we've got ahead of her on this. I'd just enjoy getting ahead of her for once! Let's tell her and see what happens."
It was now Sue's turn to demur. Carol was so insistent, however, that she finally gave a reluctant consent, and they went out to hunt up the Imp. A little triumphantly Sue led her younger sister up to the loft, and with just a touch of patronage she promised her the surprise of her life when she got there. But to their intense chagrin, the two girls found, as they had discovered many times before, that they had, so to speak, to get up very early in the morning to get ahead of the Imp.
"Look!" cried Carol, exhibiting the picture. "What do you think of that?"
The Imp gave it only one disdainful glance.
"Huh!" she sniffed. "Aren't you a little late in the day? I discovered the same thing about a month ago in the same book, or in one just like it!"
The two sat staring at her in stunned silence. Then Carol glanced at the book.
"It's so, Sue," she murmured. "It's the very same kind of a book that we saw her showing to Monsieur that day. Look at the light green cover."
It was indeed the same! But the Imp had had her triumph and now could afford to be magnanimous.
"Since you've discovered the same thing," she said, "I'll tell you how I happened to come across it. Our teacher, Miss Hastings, recently brought and hung up in the schoolroom some pretty new pictures. One that I liked very much was called 'The Girl with the Muff.' One day I asked Miss Hastings something about it, and she told me who the artist was and said there was a book in the library about her, with pictures of her other paintings in it. Next day she brought the book to school and let me look at it. And, girls, it was this book, or one like it, and while I was looking it over I almost jumped out of my shoes to come across this very picture. I didn't say a word about it, though, but just went and joined the library and got the book out and read it all."
"And did you find out who this dauphin was?" Sue asked breathlessly.
"I certainly did," answered the Imp, "and a whole lot more besides."
"Well, who was he, then?"
"I wonder if I ought to tell you?" said the Imp reflectively. "You see I promised Monsieur I wouldn't say anything about what I had discovered. As you can guess now, I showed it to him, and it quite took him off his feet with surprise. He begged me to say nothing about it to any one."
"Look here!" exclaimed Sue suddenly. "You told us once, quite a long while ago, that you asked Monsieur one day who the picture of the 'nice little boy' in his room was, and that he told you then. So how could he be surprised when you found it out later?"
Sue thought she'd surely caught the Imp that time. But the other only laughed.
"He only told me just what you said he told Louis—that it was one of the world's 'heroic martyrs.' I was teasing you girls into thinking I knew it all. You'd been pretty hateful to me just around that time."
"I thought as much!" said Sue. "But we'll forgive you now, if you'll tell us what you know. There can't be any harm in it, since we've discovered just what you have."
But the Imp wouldn't have been herself, if she had acted in a way like ordinary folks. She stood and thought it over for a moment, keeping them on tenter-hooks all the time. Then she remarked:
"No, I don't honestly think it would be keeping my promise, if I said a word to you about it. I'm going to keep that, whatever else I do. But I'll open the book at one picture before I go, and that's all the hint I'm going to give you." She took the book and laid it open at a certain place, and then dashed down the stairs before they had time to say another word.
The two girls almost fell over each other in their hurry to see what the picture was. It was a beautiful woman, and underneath it were the words, "Marie Antoinette."
"What in the world has she got to do with it?" demanded Sue. "Of course we all know who she was. Didn't she get killed, or something, in the French Revolution? But what has that to do with this dauphin?"
"Perhaps she was some relation," suggested Carol. "If she was the queen, maybe he was her son?"
"Tell you what!" Sue interrupted. "Let's go to the library to-morrow and hunt up some book on the French Revolution, or some other French history, and see if we can clear this thing up. I'm not going to wade through this book. It doesn't seem to say a thing about what we want to know."
Carol agreed that this seemed the best course to pursue. Plainly, it would be useless to consult "Madame Lebrun" any further. They took the green book that had given them its startling revelation and hid it safely in the desk. Then they turned to go. Suddenly Carol faced her friend.
"Susette Birdsey, what do you make of all this, anyway? What has it to do with Monsieur and—with Louis?"
"I'm as much at sea as ever," admitted Sue.
"Well, you remember what I told you the other day," remarked Carol impressively. "There's more here than we have ever dreamed. I'm more firmly convinced of that than ever!"