Читать книгу The Gypsy Shawl: Mystery Stories for Girls - Roy J. Snell - Страница 5

Table of Contents

As Florence left the ruined chateau she noted with some alarm that the sky had grown quite dark and that night was coming down with alarming suddenness.

Hurrying as fast as she could, she arrived at the camp to find everything in commotion. Madame was struggling to harness the pony while Betty indiscriminately crowded dishes, silverware and food into the baskets.

“There is little time. We must make haste,” said Madame. “There will be a great storm. We must go into the village for the night. And there are so few accommodations in these small villages. What shall we do?”

“It can’t be far to the nearest inn,” said Florence. “If you like, I will go ahead and see what can be done.”

“That is well,” said Madame. “We will finish packing. Then we will drive straight down this street. You must stop us and tell us what you have found.”

Florence departed and the others continued their packing.

To her consternation Florence found that the town was much larger than she had thought. It was one of those long and narrow villages that go straggling on and on for all the world as if it had started on a springtime stroll and forgotten to stop.

She had walked for fully fifteen minutes, with the sky growing blacker and the night darker, when she began to be truly alarmed.

Meeting a Frenchman hurrying home, she enquired in very bad French the way to the nearest hotel.

“A droit un,” he shouted at her, “la gauche trois, à droit un.”

“A block to the right, three to the left and one to the right,” she interpreted, greatly relieved. “That is really only two blocks off this street. I will go there, make arrangements, then return to wait for the cart.”

The thing was not so simple as she imagined. Once she had left the river road, she found the streets narrow and angling. Which was right? Which left? Which straight ahead? This she could not surely tell. She had been walking for ten minutes when she began to suspect that she was hopelessly lost. There was no hotel in sight, only low buildings and a small, very ancient church. Which direction lay the road she had left? This she could not say.

She looked wildly about her. The streets were deserted. Suddenly a huge drop of rain struck her on the cheek. Others spattered on the pavement all about her.

“Must get in somewhere,” she told herself. A low cottage lay just before her. The door was open. She darted inside. Not a second too soon. A perfect deluge of cold rain came crashing down upon the pavement. She found herself in a dark corner before a door.

“Can’t do a thing now,” she told herself. “Might as well go inside. Peasant people. Probably got a fire. Perhaps a kettle boiling on the hearth.”

She knocked several times. No response.

“That’s strange.”

She tried the door. It gave to her touch. The passage before her was dark. “Hallway,” she thought.

It was not a hallway, but a narrow room. Once more she came to a door. Once again she knocked. Still no response.

She opened the second door. Still silence. She groped about the place, but found nothing.

“This is the queerest thing I have ever known—a cottage in France kept in good repair but not tenanted,” she told herself. There was a strained note in her voice.

“But then,” she thought more quietly, “I am safe from the storm. How it rains!”

She thought of Madame and Betty. “Hope they found some safe shelter. Sorry I blundered so.”

She could do nothing about that now. Her own future was of great concern. Her future for the present narrowed itself down to a seat on a hard floor and plenty of time to think in the dark.

Think she did, and her thoughts were not all pleasant. What if this were the haunt of gypsies? What if a door across the room should open and a dim candlelight should reveal the ugly face of that gypsy woman she had fought on the lonely road? She shuddered.

“But such things happen only in a book,” she reassured herself. “This is merely an untenanted house. The storm will pass. I will join my friends. Together we will find shelter and sleep. To-morrow will be another day.”

Thus quieted in mind and body, she sank to a place in one corner of the room and gave herself over to thoughts of many things.

She meditated upon the strangeness of their mode of travel. In the end she blessed the name of the benefactress who had made this visit to France possible.

“We will learn a great deal more about France and her interesting people than we could possibly do in any other way,” she told herself.

She thought of Patrick O’Farrel and his strange story. She wished she had asked him more questions when he told his story that day by the roadside. How could he have been so sure that the statue of Joan of Arc was made of pure gold?

“The whole affair may be but a dream fancy that has come to him,” she told herself. “Perhaps his mind has been a little unbalanced by the terrors of war. So many minds were ruined in this way.”

Yet she could but believe that the story had some foundation in truth. She hoped they might again meet this wandering soldier.

“One part of the story most certainly is true,” she told herself. “These people of the highlands of France do revere the name of Joan of Arc. Napoleon is not their hero. It is Joan. There is no village so poor but it can boast a statue erected to her memory.”

So she thought on and on. The storm appeared to have no end. The day had been long and tiring. She became drowsy. Her head sank lower and lower upon her breast until at last, oblivious to all about her in that narrow chamber and the great world outside, she slept the sleep of exhaustion.

How long she slept she will never know. What woke her? Beyond doubt it was a ray of light. The storm had passed. Off somewhere on a hillside a motor car was moving. For a space of ten seconds its light played upon the wall of that narrow room. It wakened her and remained there just long enough to reveal an inscription upon the wall.

“In this chamber,” so the inscription ran, “Joan of Arc was born.”

There was more to the inscription. More she could not read, for the light from the window whisked away, leaving the room darker than before.

She did not need to read more. A sudden warmth came over her. This was the childhood home of France’s most beloved child. She, Florence Huyler, had slept in the immortal Joan’s bedchamber. What American girl could say that? No other in all the world, surely.

She sprang to her feet. “The storm is over. I must go find my friends.”

Oddly enough, in another part of the village Madame and Betty were at that moment listening to a tale that had to do with the statue of Joan, the statue of gold.

An hour later, in a very narrow bed and a chamber as small as was that of the immortal Joan, Florence and Betty lay side by side awaiting sleep that, because of the excitement of the day, did not come at once.

Florence had made her way back through the crooked streets, to discover their cart, well canvassed over, standing before a tiny peasant home. A generous French matron had taken Madame and Betty in from the storm and had agreed to keep them for the night.

“It’s the strangest thing!” said Betty, giving Florence an impulsive hug beneath the blankets. “Just think of our being driven by the rain into this cottage. And Marie, as she calls herself, is the only person in all the village who could assure us that the statue of gold is a reality and not a dream. It looks like Providence.”

“It is Providence,” said Florence. “Things do not just happen in this world of ours. Everything in the world—the rain, the sunshine, the birds, the flowers, even the flowers that grew in that iron hat—are under the direction of a kind and wise God. And do you know,” her tone grew serious, impressive, “do you know, Betty, I believe something very wonderful will come of all these curious adventures.”

“Adventures,” said Betty, enviously, “you have all the adventures. Just think of falling asleep in that marvelous place, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, and not knowing about it till afterward!”

“You wait,” said Florence. “Your share of adventures will come. Never fear. But tell me, how do you know that the statue of gold is a reality?”

“Marie told us,” Betty replied. “After we had a cup of tea we sat about that adorable little fireplace in the kitchen and she told us this was not her native town, but that she had been a refugee during the war.

“Her village, she said, had been taken by the enemy. Then she began to tell us what a remarkable village it had been before the war. Tourists came to it from all parts of the world then. But now it is shabby and poor. Tourists do not come now.”

“Why?”

“Their art treasure was carried away.”

“What art treasure?”

“The very treasure that Patrick O’Farrel saw in that German dugout in the side of the hill!”

“No!” said Florence, sitting up.

“There can be no doubt about it. She described it all, the gnomes, the angels, the peasants, the marble and bronze, even the statue of gold, just as he told it.”

“But how could all that be in one small village?”

“That village was the birthplace of a famous sculptor and artist. He was a trifle strange. He believed that art should be enjoyed by the commonest people. So he returned to his native village to complete his life work. He built a small art museum at the center of the village. He began filling it with his finest creations. Each year saw the collection enriched by several new pieces in bronze and marble.

“The people of the village grew very proud of him and of their museum. Strangers heard of him and came from afar to talk with him and to see his works of art. The village became prosperous. Then the people came to him and said, ‘You must make us a statue of the great Joan.’

“He said, ‘I will make one, but only of gold. And you must furnish the gold. The size of the statue will be the measure of your devotion to France’s great child.’

“The people went home and gathered together their gold. They were not rich, but each family possessed a little, one gold plate, a chain, a ring. All these were brought together and the statue was made.

“And that statue,” said Betty, “is the statue Patrick O’Farrel saw in the dugout. It must still be there, for though the enemy attacked in force and shelled the place with heavy batteries in an attempt to recapture the hill, they never succeeded. Oh, Florence!” she cried. “Think what it would mean if we were to find that statue and the other works of art and restore them to the village from which the terrible war took so much!”

“We must try to find Patrick O’Farrel and see if he can tell us more about it,” said Florence, pulling Betty down beneath the covers and wrapping the blankets about her. “But now we must sleep.”

Strangely enough, just as she dropped off to sleep Florence had a mental picture of the iron hat filled with blooming flowers.

“As if it had something to do with it all,” she told herself, sleepily.