“I wouldn’t advise you to fall amongst thieves, then. They might ease you of it. The carving must be worth something.”
“It cost a great deal to buy, I have heard my aunt say. Will you be so good as to give it me, that I may finish to dress myself?”
Whitney handed him the cross. Time was up, in fact; and we had to make a race for the house. Van Rheyn was catching it hot and sharp, all the way.
One might have thought that his very meekness, the unresisting spirit in which he took things, would have disarmed the mockery. But it did not. Once go in wholesale for putting upon some particular fellow in a school, and the tyranny gains with use. I don’t think any of them meant to be really unkind to Van Rheyn; but the play had begun, and they enjoyed it.
I once saw him drowned in tears. It was at the dusk of evening. Charley had come in for it awfully at tea-time, I forget what about, and afterwards disappeared. An hour later, going into Whitney’s room for something Bill asked me to fetch, I came upon Charles Van Rheyn—who also slept there. He was sitting at the foot of his low bed, his cheek leaning on one of his hands, and the tears running down swiftly. One might have thought his heart was broken.
“What is the grievance, Charley?”
“Do not say to them that you saw me,” returned he, dashing away his tears. “I did not expect any of you would come up.”
“Look here, old fellow: I know it’s rather hard lines for you just now. But they don’t mean anything: it is done in sport, not malice. They don’t think, you see, Van Rheyn. You will be sure to live it down.”
“Yes,” he sighed, “I hope I shall. But it is so different here from what it used to be. I had such a happy home; I never had one sorrow when my mother was alive. Nobody cares for me now; nobody is kind to me: it is a great change.”
“Take heart, Charley,” I said, holding out my hand. “I know you will live it down in time.”
Of all the fellows I ever met, I think he was the most grateful for a word of kindness. As he thanked me with a glad look of hope in his eyes, I saw that he had been holding the cross clasped in his palm; for it dropped as he put his hand into mine.
“It helps me to bear,” he said, in a whisper. “My mother, who loved me so, is in heaven; my father has married Mademoiselle Thérèsine de Tocqueville. I have no one now.”
“Your father has not married that Thérèsine de Tocqueville?”
“Why, yes. I had the letter close after dinner.”
So perhaps he was crying for the home unhappiness as much as for his school grievances. It all reads strange, no doubt, and just the opposite of what might be expected of one of us English boys. The French bringing-tip is different from ours: perhaps it lay in that. On the other hand, a French boy, generally speaking, possesses a very shallow sense of religion. But Van Rheyn had been reared by his English mother; and his disposition seemed to be naturally serious and uncommonly pliable and gentle. At any rate, whether it reads improbable or probable, it is the truth.
I got what I wanted for Billy Whitney, and went down, thinking what a hard life it was for him—what a shame that we made it so. Indulged, as Van Rheyn must have always been, tenderly treated as a girl, sheltered from the world’s roughness, all that coddling must have become to him as second nature; and the remembrance lay with him still. Over here he was suddenly cut off from it, thrown into another and a rougher atmosphere, isolated from country, home, home-ties and associations; and compelled to stand the daily brunt of this petty tyranny.
Getting Tod apart that night, I put the matter to him: what a shame it was, and how sorry I felt for Charley Van Rheyn; and I asked him whether he thought he could not (he having a great deal of weight in the school) make things pleasanter for him. Tod responded that I should never be anything but a muff, and that the roasting Van Rheyn got treated to was superlatively good for him, if ever he was to be made into a man.
However, before another week ran out, Dr. Frost interfered. How he obtained an inkling of the reigning politics we never knew. One Saturday afternoon, when old Fontaine had taken Van Rheyn out with him, the doctor walked into the midst of us, to the general consternation.
Standing in the centre of the schoolroom, with a solemn face, all of us backing as much as the wall allowed, and the masters who chanced to be present rising to their feet, the doctor spoke of Van Rheyn. He had reason to suspect, he said, that we were doing our best to worry Van Rheyn’s life out of him: and he put the question deliberately to us (and made us answer it), how we, if consigned alone to a foreign home, all its inmates strangers, would liked to be served so. He did not wish, he went on, to think he had pitiful, ill-disposed boys, lacking hearts and common kindness, in his house: he felt sure that what had passed arose from a heedless love of mischief; and it would greatly oblige him to find from henceforth that our conduct towards Van Rheyn was changed: he thought, and hoped, that he had only to express a wish upon the point, to ensure obedience.
With that—and a hearty nod and smile around, as if he put it as a personal favour to himself, and wanted us to see that he did, and was not angry, he went out again. A counsel was held to determine whether we had a sneak amongst us—else how could Frost have known?—that Charley himself had not spoken, his worst enemy felt sure of. But not one could be pitched upon: every individual fellow, senior and junior, protested earnestly that he had not let out a syllable. And, to tell the truth, I don’t think we had.
However, the doctor was obeyed. From that day all real annoyance to Charles Van Rheyn ceased. I don’t say but what there would be a laugh at him now and then, and a word of raillery, or that he lost his names of Bristles and Miss Charlotte; but virtually the sting was gone. Charley was as grateful as could be, and seemed to become quite happy; and upon the arrival of a hamper by grande vitesse from Rouen, containing a huge rich wedding-cake and some packets of costly sweetmeats, he divided the whole amongst us, keeping the merest taste for himself. The school made its comments in return.
“He’s not a bad lot after all, that Van Rheyn. He will make a man yet.”
“It isn’t a bit of use your going in for this, Van Rheyn, unless you can run like a lamplighter.”
“But I can run, you know,” responded Van Rheyn.
“Yes. But can you keep the pace up?”
“Why not?”
“We may be out for three or four hours, pelting like mad all the time.”
“I feel no fear of keeping up,” said Van Rheyn. “I will go.”
“All right.”
It was on a Saturday afternoon; and we were turning out for hare and hounds. The quarter was hard upon its close, for September was passing. Van Rheyn had never seen hare and hounds: it had been let alone during the hotter weather: and it was Tod who now warned him that he might not be able to keep up the running. It requires fleet legs and easy breath, as every one knows; and Van Rheyn had never much exercised either.
“What is just the game?” he asked in his quaintly-turned phrase. And I answered him—for Tod had gone away.
“You see those strips of paper that they have torn out of old copybooks, and are twisting? That is for the scent. The hare fills his pockets with it, and drops a piece of it every now and then as he runs. We, the hounds, follow his course by means of the scent, and catch him if we can.”
“And then?” questioned Van Rheyn.
“Then the game is over.”
“And what if you not catch him?”
“The hare wins; that’s all. What he likes to do is to double upon us cunningly and lead us home again after him.”
“But in all that there is only running.”
“We vault over the obstructions—gates, and stiles, and hedges. Or, if the hedges are too high, scramble through them.”
“But some hedges are very thick and close: nobody could get through them,” debated Van Rheyn, taking the words, as usual, too literally.
“Then we are dished. And have to find some other way onwards, or turn back.”
“I can do what you say quite easily.”
“All right, Charley,” I repeated: as Tod had done. And neither of us, nor any one else, had the smallest thought that it was not all right.
Millichip was chosen hare. Snepp turned cranky over something or other at the last moment, and backed out of it. He made the best hare in the school: but Millichip was nearly as fleet a runner.
What with making the scent, and having it out with Snepp, time was hindered; and it must have been getting on for four o’clock when we started. Which docked the run considerably, for we had to be in at six to tea. On that account, perhaps, Millichip thought he must get over the ground the quicker; for I don’t think we had ever made so swift a course. Letting the hare get well on ahead, the signal was given, and we started after him in full cry, rending the air with shouts, and rushing along like the wind.
A right-down good hare Millichip turned out to be; doubling and twisting and finessing, and exasperating the hounds considerably. About five o’clock he had made tracks for home, as we found by the scent: but we could neither see him nor catch him. Later, I chanced to come to grief in a treacherous ditch, lost my straw hat, and tore the sleeve of my jacket. This threw me behind the rest; and when I pelted up to the next stile, there stood Van Rheyn. He had halted to rest his arms on it; his breath was coming in alarming gasps, his face whiter than a sheet.
“Halloa, Van Rheyn! What’s up? The pace is too much for you.”
“It was my breath,” said he, when he could answer. “I go on now.”
I put my hand on him. “Look here: the run’s nearly over: we shall soon be at home. Don’t go on so fast.”
“But I want to be in at what they call the death.”
“There’ll be no death to-day: the hare’s safe to win.”
“I want to keep up,” he answered, getting over the stile. “I said I could keep up, and do what the rest did.” And off he was again, full rush.
Before us, on that side of the stile, was a tolerably wide field. The pack had wound half over it during this short halt, making straight for the entrance to the coppice at the other end. We were doing our best to catch them up, when I distinctly saw a heavy stone flung into their midst. Looking at the direction it came from, there crept a dirty ragamuffin over the ground on his hands and knees. He did not see us two behind; and he flung another heavy stone. Had it struck anyone’s head it would have done serious damage.
Letting the chase go, I stole across and pounced upon him before he could get away. He twisted himself out of my hands like an eel, and stood grinning defiance and whistling to his dog. We knew the young scamp well: and could never decide whether he was a whole scamp, or half a natural. At any rate, he was vilely bad, was the pest of the neighbourhood, and had enjoyed some short sojourns in prison for trespass. Raddy was the name he went by; we knew him by no other; and how he got a living nobody could tell.
“What did you throw those stones for?”
“Shan’t tell ye. Didn’t throw ’em at you.”
“You had better mind what you are about, Mr. Raddy, unless you want to get into trouble.”
“Yah—you!” grinned Raddy.
There was nothing to be made of him; there never was anything. I should have been no match for Raddy in an encounter; and he would have killed me without the slightest compunction. Turning to go on my way, I was in time to see Van Rheyn tumble over the stile and disappear within the coppice. The rest must have nearly shot out of the other end by that time. It was a coppice that belonged to Sir John Whitney. Once through it, we were on our own grounds, and within a field of home.
I went on leisurely enough: no good to try to catch them up now. Van Rheyn would not do it, and he had more than half a field’s start of me. It must have been close upon six, for the sun was setting in a ball of fire; the amber sky around it was nearly as dazzling as the sun, and lighted up the field.
So that, plunging into the coppice, it was like going into a dungeon. For a minute or two, with the reflection of that red light lingering in my eyes, I could hardly see the narrow path; the trees were dark, thick, and met overhead. I ran along whistling: wondering whether that young Raddy was after me with his ugly dog; wondering why Sir John did not——
The whistling and the thoughts came to a summary end together. At the other end of the coppice, but a yard or two on this side the stile that divided it from the open field, there was Charles Van Rheyn on the ground, his back against the trunk of a tree, his arms stretched up, clasping it. But for that clasp, and the laboured breathing, I might have thought he was dead. For his face was ghastly, blue round the mouth, and wore the strangest expression I ever saw.
“Charley, what’s the matter?”
But he could not answer. He was panting frightfully, as though every gasp would be his last. What on earth was I to do? Down I knelt, saying never another word.
“It—gives—me—much—hurt,” said he, at length, with a long pause between every word.
“What does?”
“Here”—pointing to his chest—towards the left side.
“Did you hurt yourself? Did you fall?”
“No, I not hurt myself. I fell because I not able to run more. It is the breath. I wish papa was near me!”
Instinct told me that he must have assistance, and yet I did not like to leave him. But what if delay in getting it should be dangerous? I rose up to go.
“You—you are not going to quit me!” he cried out, putting his feeble grasp on my arm.
“But, Charley, I want to get somebody to you,” I said in an agony, “I can’t do anything for you myself: anything in the world.”
“No, you stay. I should not like to be alone if I die.”
The shock the word gave me I can recall yet. Die! If there was any fear of that, it was all the more necessary I should make a rush for Dr. Frost and Featherston. Never had I been so near my wits’ end before, in the uncertainty as to what course I ought to take.
All in a moment, there arose a shrill whistle on the other side the stile. It was like a godsend. I knew it quite well for that vicious young reptile’s, but it was welcome to me as sunshine in harvest.
“There’s Raddy, Van Rheyn. I will send him.”
Vaulting over the stile, I saw the young man standing with his back to me near the hedge, his wretched outer garment—a sack without shape—hitched up, his hands in the pockets of his dilapidated trousers, that hung in fringes below the knee. He was whistling to his dog in the coppice. They must have struck through the tangles and briars higher up, which was a difficult feat, and strictly forbidden by law. It was well Sir John’s agent did not see Mr. Raddy—whose eyes, scratched and bleeding, gave ample proof of the trespass.
“Yah!” he shrieked out, turning at the sound of me, and grinning fresh defiance.
“Raddy,” I said, speaking in persuasive tones to propitiate him in my great need, “I want you to do something for me. Go to Dr. Frost as quickly as you are able, and say——”
Of all the derisive horrible laughs, his interruption was the worst and loudest. It drowned the words.
“One of the school has fallen and hurt himself,” I said, putting it in that way. “He’s lying here, and I cannot leave him. Hush, Raddy! I want to tell you,”—advancing a step or two nearer to him and lowering my voice to a whisper,—“I think he’s dying.”
“None o’ yer gammon here; none o’ yer lies”—and in proportion as I advanced, he retreated. “You’ve got a ambush in that there coppy—all the lot on you a-waiting to be down on me! Just you try it on!”
“I am telling you the truth, Raddy. There’s not a soul in there but the one I speak of. I say I fear he is dying. He is lying helpless. I will pay you to go”—feeling in my pockets to see how much I had there.
Raddy displayed his teeth: it was a trick of his when feeling particularly defiant. “What’ll yer pay me?”
“Sixpence”—showing it to him. “I will give it you when you have taken the message.”
“Give it first.”
Just for a moment I hesitated in my extremity, but I knew it would be only the sixpence thrown away. Paid beforehand, Raddy would no more do the errand than he’d fly. I told him as much.
“Then be dashed if I go!” And he passed off into a round of swearing.
Good Heavens! If I should not be able to persuade him! If Charles Van Rheyn should die for want of help!
“Did you ever have anybody to care for, Raddy? Did you ever have a mother?”
“Her’s sent over the seas, her is; and I be glad on’t. Her beated me, her did: I wasn’t a-going to stand that.”
“If you ever had anybody you cared for the least bit in the world, Raddy; if you ever did anybody a good turn in all your life, you will help this poor fellow now. Come and look at him. See whether I dare leave him.”
“None o’ yer swindles! Ye wants to get me in there, ye does. I warn’t borned yesterday.”
Well, it seemed hopeless. “Will you go for the sixpence, if I give it to you beforehand, Raddy?”
“Give it over, and see. Where the thunder have ye been?” dealing his dog a savage kick, as it came up barking. “Be I to whistle all day?” Another kick.
I had found two sixpences in my pocket; all its store. Bringing forth one, I held it out to him.
“Now listen, Raddy. I give you this sixpence now. You are to run with all your might to the house—and you can run, you know, like the wind. Say that I sent you—you know my name, Johnny Ludlow—sent you to tell them that the French boy is in the coppice dying;” for I thought it best to put it strong. “Dr. Frost, or some of them, must come to him at once, and they must send off for Mr. Featherston. You can remember that. The French boy, mind.”
“I could remember it if I tried.”
“Well, I’ll give you the sixpence. And look here—here’s another sixpence. It is all the money I have. That shall be yours also, when you have done the errand.”
I slipped one of the sixpences back into my pocket, holding out the other. But I have often wondered since that he did not stun me with a blow, and take the two. Perhaps he could not entirely divest himself of that idea of the “ambush.” I did not like the leering look on his false face as he sidled cautiously up towards the sixpence.
“Take a look at him; you can see him from the stile,” I said, closing my hand over the sixpence while I spoke; “convince yourself that he is there, and that no trickery is meant. And, Raddy,” I added, slowly opening the hand again, “perhaps you may want help one of these days yourself in some desperate need. Do this good turn for him, and the like will be done for you.”
I tossed him the sixpence. He stole cautiously to the stile, making a wide circuit round me to do it, glanced at Van Rheyn, and then made straight off in the right direction as fast as his legs would carry him, the dog barking at his heels.
Van Rheyn was better when I got back to him; his breathing easier, the mouth less blue; and his arms were no longer clutching the tree-trunk. Nevertheless, there was that in his face that gave me an awful fear and made my breath for a moment nearly as short as his. I sat down beside him, letting him lean against me, as well as the tree, for better support.
“Are you afraid, Charley? I hope they’ll not be long.”
“I am not afraid with this,” he answered with a happy smile—and, opening his hand, I saw the little cross clasped in it.
Well, that nearly did for me. It was as though he meant to imply he knew he was dying, and was not afraid to die. And he did mean it.
“You do not comprehend?” he added, mistaking the look of my face—which no doubt was desperate. “I have kept the Saviour with me here, and He will keep me with Him there.”
“Oh—but, Charley! You can’t think you are going to die.”
“Yes, I feel so,” he answered quite calmly. “My mother said, that last Sunday, might not be long after her. She drew me close to her, and held my hand, and her tears were falling with mine. It was then she said it.”
“Oh, Charley! how can I help you?” I cried out in my pain and dread. “If I could only do something for you!”
“I would like to give you this,” he said, half opening his hand again, as it rested on his breast, just to show me the cross. “My mother has seen how good you have always been for me: she said she should look down, if permitted, to watch for me till I came. Would you please keep it to my memory?”
The hardest task I’d ever had in my life was to sit there. To sit there quietly—helpless. Dying! And I could do nothing to stay him! Oh, why did they not come? If I could only have run somewhere, or done something!
In a case like this the minutes seem as long as hours. Dr. Frost was up sooner than could have been hoped for by the watch, and Featherston with him. Raddy did his errand well. Chancing to see the surgeon pass down the road as he was delivering the message at the house, he ran and arrested him. He put his ill-looking face over the stile, as they came up, and I flung him the other sixpence, and thanked him too. The French master came running; others came: I hardly saw who they were, for my eyes were troubled.
The first thing that Featherston did was to open Van Rheyn’s things at the throat, spread a coat on the ground and put his head flat down upon it. But oh, there could be no mistake. He was dying: nearly gone. Dr. Frost knelt down, the better to get at him, and said something that we did not catch.
“Thank you, sir,” answered Van Rheyn, panting again and speaking with pain, but smiling faintly his grateful smile. “Do not be sorrowful. I shall see my mother. Sir—if you please—I wish to give my cross to Johnny Ludlow.”
Dr. Frost only nodded in answer. His heart must have been full.
“Johnny Ludlow has been always good for me,” he went on. “He will guard it to my memory: a keepsake. My mother would give it to him—she has seen that Johnny has stood by me ever since that first day.”
Monsieur Fontaine spoke to him in French, and Van Rheyn answered in the same language. While giving a fond message for his father, his voice grew feeble, his face more blue, and the lids slowly closed over his eyes. Dr. Frost said something about removing him to the house, but Featherston shook his head. “Presently, presently.”
“Adieu, sir,” said Van Rheyn faintly to Dr. Frost, and partly opening his eyes again, “Adieu, Monsieur Fontaine. Adieu, all. Johnny, say my very best adieux to the boys; tell them it has been very pleasant lately; say they have been very good comrades; and say that I shall see them all again when they come to heaven. Will you hold my hand?”
Taking his left hand in mine—the other had the gold cross in it—I sat on beside him. The dusk was increasing, so that we could no longer very well see his features in the dark coppice. My tears were dropping fast and thick, just as his tears had dropped that evening when I found him sitting at the foot of his bed.
Well, it was over directly. He gave one long deep sigh, and then another after an interval, and all was over. It seemed like a dream then in the acting; it seems, looking back, like a dream now.
He had died from the running at Hare and Hounds. The violent exercise had been too much for the heart. We heard later that the French family doctor had suspected the heart was not quite sound; and that was the reason of Monsieur Rheyn’s written restrictions on the score of violent exercise. But, as Dr. Frost angrily observed, why did the father not distinctly warn him against that special danger: how was it to be suspected in a lad of hearty and healthy appearance? Monsieur Van Rheyn came over, and took what remained of Charles back to Rouen, to be laid beside his late wife. It was a great blow to him to lose his only son. And all the property went away from the Van Rheyn family to Mrs. Scott in India.
The school went into a state that night, when we got in from the coppice, and I gave them Van Rheyn’s message. They knew something was up with him, but never suspected it could be death.
“I say, though,” cried Harry Parker, in a great access of remorse, speaking up amidst the general consternation, “we would never have worried him had we foreseen this. Poor Van Rheyn!”
And I have his gold cross by me this day. Sometimes, when looking at it, a fancy comes over me that he, looking down from heaven, sees it too.
Again we had been spending the Christmas at Crabb Cot. It was January weather, cold and bright, the sun above and the white snow on the ground. Mrs. Todhetley had been over to Timberdale Court, to the christening of Robert and Jane Ashton’s baby: a year had gone by since their marriage. The mater went to represent Mrs. Coney, who was godmother. Jane was not strong enough to sit out a christening dinner, and that was to be given later. After some mid-day feasting, the party dispersed.
I went out to help Mrs. Todhetley from the carriage when she got back. The Squire was at Pershore for the day. It was only three o’clock, and the sun quite warm in spite of the snow.
“It is so fine, Johnny, that I think I’ll walk to the school,” she said, as she stepped down. “It may not be like this to-morrow, and I must see about those shirts.”
The parish school was making Tod a set of new shirts; and some bother had arisen about them. Orders had been given for large plaits in front, when Tod suddenly announced that he would have the plaits small.
“Only—— Can I go as I am?” cried Mrs. Todhetley, suddenly stopping in indecision, as she remembered her fine clothes: a silver-grey gown that shone like silver, white shawl of china crape, and be-feathered bonnet.
“Why, yes, of course you can go as you are, good mother. And look all the nicer for it.”
“I fear the children will stare! But then—if the shirts get made wrong! Well, will you go with me, Johnny?”
We reached the school-house, I waiting outside while she went in. It was during that time of strike that I have told of before, when Eliza Hoar died of it. The strike was in full swing still; the men looked discontented, the women miserable, the children pinched.
“I don’t know what in the world Joseph will say!” cried Mrs. Todhetley, as we were walking back. “Two of the shirts are finished with the large plaits. I ought to have seen about it earlier; but I did not think they would begin them quite so soon. We’ll just step into Mrs. Coney’s, Johnny, as we go home. I must tell her about the christening.”
For Mrs. Coney was a prisoner from an attack of rheumatism. It had kept her from the festivity. She was asleep, however, when we got in: and Mr. Coney thought she had better not be disturbed, even for the news of the little grandson’s christening, as she had lain awake all the past night in pain; so we left again.
“Why, Johnny! who’s that?”
Leaning against the gate of our house, in the red light of the setting sun, was an elderly woman, dark as a gipsy.
“A tramp,” I whispered, noticing her poor clothes.
“Do you want anything, my good woman?” asked Mrs. Todhetley.
She was half kneeling in the snow, and lifted her face at the words: a sickly face, that somehow I liked now I saw it closer. Her tale was this. She had set out from her home, three miles off, to walk to Worcester, word having been sent her that her daughter, who was in service there, had met with an accident. She had not been strong of late, and a faintness came over her as she was passing the gate. But for leaning on it she must have fallen.
“You should go by train: you should not walk,” said Mrs. Todhetley.
“I had not the money just by me, ma’am,” she answered. “It ’ud cost two shillings or half-a-crown. My daughter sent word I was to take the train and she’d pay for it: but she did not send the money, and I’d not got it just handy.”
“You live at Islip, you say. What is your name?”
“Nutt’n, ma’am,” said the woman, in the local dialect. Which name I interpreted into Nutten; but Mrs. Todhetley thought she said Nutt.
“I think you are telling me the truth,” said the mater, some hesitation in her voice, though. “If I were assured of it I would advance you half-a-crown for the journey.”
“The good Lord above us knows that I’m telling it,” returned the woman earnestly, turning her face full to the glow of the sun. “It’s more than I could expect you to do, ma’am, and me a stranger; but I’d repay it faithfully.”
Well, the upshot was that she got the half-crown lent her; and I ran in for a drop of warm ale. Molly shrieked out at me for it, refusing to believe that the mistress gave any such order, and saying she was not going to warm ale for parish tramps. So I got the ale and the tin, and warmed it myself. The woman was very grateful, drank it, and disappeared.
“Joseph, I am so very sorry! They have made two of your shirts, and the plaits are the large ones you say you don’t like.”
“Then they’ll just unmake them,” retorted Tod, in a temper.
We were sitting round the table at tea, Mrs. Todhetley having ordered some tea to be made while she went upstairs. She came down without her bonnet, and had changed her best gown for the one she mostly wore at home: it had two shades in it, and shone like the copper tea-kettle. The Squire was not expected home yet, and we were to dine an hour later than usual.
“That Miss Timmens is not worth her salt,” fired Tod, helping himself to some thin bread-and-butter. “What business has she to go and make my shirts wrong?”
“I fear the fault lies with me, Joseph, not with Miss Timmens. I had given her the pattern shirt, which has large plaits, you know, before you said you would prefer—— Oh, we hardly want the lamp yet, Thomas!” broke off the mater, as old Thomas came in with the lighted lamp.
“I’m sure we do, then,” cried Tod. “I can’t see which side’s butter and which bread.”
“And I, not thinking Miss Timmens would put them in hand at once, did not send to her as soon as you spoke, Joseph,” went on the mater, as Thomas settled the lamp on the table. “I am very sorry, my dear; but it is only two. The rest shall be done as you wish.”
Something, apart from the shirts, had put Tod out. I had seen it as soon as we got in. For one thing, he had meant to go to Pershore: and the pater, not knowing it, started without him.
“Let them unmake the two,” growled Tod.
“But it would be a great pity, Joseph. They are very nicely done; the stitching’s beautiful. I really don’t think it will signify.”
“You don’t, perhaps. You may like odd things. A pig with one ear, for example.”
“A what, Joseph?” she asked, not catching the last simile.
“I said a pig with one ear. No doubt you do like it. You are looking like one now, ma’am.”
The words made me gaze at Mrs. Todhetley, for the tone bore some personal meaning, and then I saw what Tod meant: an earring was absent. The lamp-light shone on the flashing diamonds, the bright pink topaz of the one earring; but the other ear was bare and empty.
“You have lost one of your earrings, mother!”
She put her hands to her ears, and started up in alarm. These earrings were very valuable: they had been left to her, when she was a child, in some old lady’s will, and constituted her chief possession in jewellery worth boasting of. Not once in a twelvemonth did she venture to put them on; but she had got them out to-day for the christening.
Whether it was that I had gazed at the earrings when I was a little fellow and sat in her lap, I don’t know; but I never saw any that I liked so well. The pink topaz was in a long drop, the slender rim of gold that encircled it being set with diamonds. Mrs. Todhetley said they were worth fifty guineas: and perhaps they were. The glittering white of the diamonds round the pink was beautiful to look upon.
The house went into a commotion. Mrs. Todhetley made for her bedroom, to see whether the earring had dropped on the floor or was lodging inside her bonnet. She shook out her grey dress, hoping it had fallen amidst the folds. Hannah searched the stairs, candle in hand; the two children were made to stand in corners for fear they should tread on it. But the search came to nothing. It seemed clear enough that the earring was not in the house.
“Did you notice, Johnny, whether I had them both in my ears when we went to the school?” the mater asked.
No, I did not. I had seen them sparkling when she got out of the carriage, but had not noticed them after.
I went out to search the garden-path that she had traversed, and the road over to the Coneys’ farm. Tod helped me, forgetting his shirts and his temper. Old Coney said he remarked the earrings while Mrs. Todhetley was talking to him, and thought how beautiful they were. That is, he had remarked one of them; he was sure of that; and he thought if the other had been missing, its absence would have struck him. But that was just saying nothing; for he could not be certain that both were there.
“You may hunt till to-morrow morning, and get ten lanterns to it,” cried Molly, in her tart way, meeting us by the bay-tree, as we went stooping up the path again: “but you’ll be none the nearer finding it. That tramp got’s the earring, Master Joe.”
“What tramp?” demanded Tod, straightening himself.
“A tramp that Master Johnny there must needs give hot ale to,” returned Molly. “I know what them tramps are worth. They’d pull rings out of ears with their own fingers, give ’em the chance: and perhaps this woman did, without the missis seeing her.”
Tod turned to me for an explanation. I gave it, and he burst into a derisive laugh, meant for me and the mater. “To think we could be taken in by such a tale as that!” he cried: “we should never see tramp, or half-crown, or perhaps the earring again.”
The Squire came home in the midst of the stir. He blustered a little, partly at the loss, chiefly at the encouragement of tramps, calling it astounding folly. Ordering Thomas to bring a lantern, he went stooping his old back down the path, and across to Coney’s and back again; not believing any one had searched properly, and finally kicking the snow about.
“It’s a pity this here snow’s on the ground, sir,” cried Thomas. “A little thing like an earring might easily slip into it in falling.”
“Not a bit of it,” growled the Squire. “That tramp has got the earring.”
“I don’t believe the tramp has,” I stoutly said. “I don’t think she was a tramp at all: and she seemed honest. I liked her face.”
“There goes Johnny with his ‘faces’ again!” said the Squire, in laughing mockery: and Tod echoed it.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have to buy folks by their faces, Johnny: you’d get finely sold sometimes.”
“And she had a true voice,” I persisted, not choosing to be put down, also thinking it right to assert what was my conviction. “A voice you might trust without as much as looking at herself.”
Well, the earring was not to be found; though the search continued more or less till bed-time, for every other minute somebody would be looking again on the carpets.
“It is not so much for the value I regret it,” spoke Mrs. Todhetley, the tears rising in her meek eyes: “as for the old associations connected with it. I never had the earrings out but they brought back to me the remembrance of my girlhood’s home.”
Early in the morning I ran down to the school-house. More snow had fallen in the night. The children were flocking in. Miss Timmens had not noticed the earrings at all, but several of the girls said they had. Strange to say, though, most of them could not say for certain whether they saw both the earrings: they thought they did; but there it ended. Just like old Coney!
“I am sure both of them were there,” spoke up a nice, clean little girl, from a back form.
“What’s that, Fanny Fairfax?” cried Miss Timmens, in her quick way. “Stand up. How are you sure of it?”
“Please governess, I saw them both,” was the answer; and the child blushed like a peony as she stood up above the others and said it.
“Are you sure you did?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure, please, governess. I was looking which o’ the two shined the most. ’Twas when the lady was stooping over the shirt, and the sun came in at the window.”
“What did they look like?” asked Miss Timmens.
“They looked——” and there the young speaker came to a standstill.
“Come, Fanny Fairfax!” cried Miss Timmens, sharply. “What d’you stop for? I ask you what the earrings looked like. You must be able to tell if you saw them.”
“They were red, please, governess, and had shining things round them like the ice when it glitters.”
“She’s right, Master Johnny,” nodded Miss Timmens to me: “and she’s a very correct child in general. I think she must have seen both of them.”
I ran home with the news. They were at breakfast still.
“What a set of muffs the children must be, not to have taken better notice!” cried Tod. “Why, when I saw only the one earring in, it struck my eye at once.”
“And for that reason it is almost sure that both of them were in at the school-house,” I rejoined. “The children did not particularly observe the two, but they would have remarked it directly had only one been in. Old Coney said the same.”
“Ay: it’s that tramp that has got it,” said the Squire. “While your mother was talking to her, it must have slipped out of the ear, and she managed to secure it. Those tramps lay their hands on anything; nothing comes amiss to them; they are as bad as gipsies. I dare say this was a gipsy—dark as she was. I’ll be off to Worcester and see the police: we’ll soon have her found. You had better come with me, Johnny; you’ll be able to describe her.”
We went off without delay, caught a passing train, and were soon at Worcester and at the police-station. The Squire asked for Sergeant Cripp: who came to him, and prepared to listen to his tale.
He began it in his impulsive way; saying outright that the earring had been stolen by a gipsy-tramp. I tried to say that it might have been only lost, but the pater scoffed at that, and told me to hold my tongue.
“And now, Cripp, what’s to be done?” he demanded, not having given the sergeant an opportunity to put in a word edgeways. “We must get the earring back; it is of value, and much prized, apart from that, by Mrs. Todhetley. The woman must be found, you know.”
“Yes, she must be found,” agreed the sergeant. “Can you give me a description of her?”
“Johnny—this young gentleman can,” said the Squire, rubbing his brow with his yellow silk handkerchief, for he had put himself into a heat, in spite of the frosty atmosphere that surrounded us. “He was with Mrs. Todhetley when she talked to the woman.”
“A thin woman of middle height, stooped a good deal, face pale and quiet, wrinkles on it, brown eyes,” wrote the sergeant, taking down what I said. “Black poke bonnet, clean cap border, old red woollen shawl with the fringe torn off in places. Can’t remember gown: except that it was dark and shabby.”
“And, of course, sir, you’ve no clue to her name?” cried the sergeant, looking at me.
“Yes: she said it was Nutten—as I understood it; but Mrs. Todhetley thought she said Nutt.” And I went on to relate the tale the woman told. Sergeant Cripp’s lips extended themselves in a silent smile.
“It was well got up, that tale,” said he, when I finished. “Just the thing to win over a warm-hearted lady.”
“But she could not have halted at the gate, expecting to steal the earring?”
“Of course not. She was prowling about to see what she could steal, perhaps watching her opportunity to get into the house. The earring fell in her way, a more valuable prize than she expected, and she made off with it.”
“You’ll be able to hunt her up if she’s in Worcester, Cripp,” put in the pater. “Don’t lose time.”
“If she’s in Worcester,” returned Mr. Cripp, with emphasis. “She’s about as likely to be in Worcester, Squire Todhetley, as I am to be at this present minute in Brummagem,” he familiarly added. “After saying she was coming to Worcester, she’d strike off in the most opposite direction to it.”
“Where on earth are we to look for her, then?” asked the pater, in commotion.
“Leave it to us, Squire. We’ll try and track her. And—I hope—get back the earring.”
“And about the advertisement for the newspapers, Cripp? We ought to put one in.”
Sergeant Cripp twirled the pen in his fingers while he reflected. “I think, sir, we will let the advertisement alone for a day or two,” he presently said. “Sometimes these advertisements do more harm than good: they put thieves on their guard.”
“Do they? Well, I suppose they do.”
“If the earring had been simply lost, then I should send an advertisement to the papers at once. But if it has been stolen by this tramp, and you appear to consider that point pretty conclusive——”
“Oh, quite conclusive,” interrupted the pater. “She has that earring as sure as this is an umbrella in Johnny Ludlow’s hand. Had it been dropped anywhere on the ground, we must have found it.”
“Then we won’t advertise it. At least not in to-morrow’s papers,” concluded Sergeant Cripp. And telling us to leave the matter entirely in his hands, he showed us out.
The Squire went up the street with his hands in his pockets, looking rather glum.
“I’m not sure that he’s right about the advertisement, Johnny,” he said at length. “I lay awake last night in bed, making up the wording of it in my own mind. Perhaps he knows best, though.”
“I suppose he does, sir.”
And he went on again, up one street, and down another, deep in thought.
“Let’s see—we have nothing to do here to-day, have we, Johnny?”
“Except to get the pills made up. The mother said we were to be sure and not forget them.”
“Oh, ay. And that’s all the way down in Sidbury! Couldn’t we as well get them made up by a druggist nearer?”
“But it is the Sidbury druggist who holds the prescription.”
“What a bother! Well, lad, let us put our best leg foremost, for I want to catch the one-o’clock train, if I can.”
Barely had we reached Sidbury, when who should come swinging along the pavement but old Coney, in a rough white great-coat and top-boots. Not being market-day, we were surprised to see him.
“I had to come in about some oats,” he explained. And then the Squire told him of our visit to the place, and the sergeant’s opinion about the advertisement.
“Cripp’s wrong,” said Coney, decisively. “Not advertise the earring!—why, it is the first step that ought to be taken.”
“Well, so I thought,” said the pater.
“The thing’s not obliged to have been stolen, Squire; it may have been dropped out of the ear in the road, and picked up by some one. The offering of a reward might bring it back again.”
“And I’ll be shot if I don’t do it,” exclaimed the pater. “I can see as far through a millstone as Cripp can.”
Turning into the Hare and Hounds, which was old Coney’s inn, they sat down at a table, called for pen and ink, and began to draw out an advertisement between them. “Lost! An earring of great value, pink topaz and diamonds,” wrote the Squire on a leaf of his pocket-book; and when he had got as far as that he looked up.
“Johnny, you go over to Eaton’s for a sheet or two of writing-paper. We’ll have it in all three of the newspapers. And look here, lad—you can run for the pills at the same time. Take care of the street slides. I nearly came down on one just now, you know.”
When I got back with the paper and pills, the advertisement was finished. It concluded with an offer of £5 reward. Applications to be made to Mr. Sergeant Cripp, or to Squire Todhetley of Crabb Cot. And, leaving it at the offices of the Herald, Journal, and Chronicle, we returned home. It would appear on the next day, Saturday; to the edification, no doubt, of Sergeant Cripp.
“Any news of the earring?” was the Squire’s first question when we got in.
No, there was no news of it, Mrs. Todhetley answered. And she had sent Luke Macintosh over to the little hamlet, Islip; who reported when he came back that there was no Mrs. Nutt, or Nutten, known there.
“Just what I expected,” observed the pater. “That woman was a thieving tramp, and she has the earring.”
Saturday passed over, and Sunday came. When the Worcester paper arrived on Saturday morning the advertisement was in it as large as life, and the pater read it out to us. Friday and Saturday had been very dull, with storms of snow; on Sunday the sun shone again, and the air was crisp.
It was about three o’clock, and we were sitting at the dessert-table cracking filberts, for on Sundays we always dined early, after morning service—when Thomas came in and said a stranger had called, and was asking if he could see Mrs. Todhetley. But the mater, putting a shawl over her head and cap, had just stepped over to sit a bit with sick Mrs. Coney.
“Who is it, Thomas?” asked the Squire. “A stranger! Tell him to send his name in.”
“His name’s Eccles, sir,” said Thomas, coming back again. “He comes, he says, from Sergeant Cripp.”
“My goodness!—it must be about the earring,” cried the Squire.
“That it is, sir,” said old Thomas. “The first word he put to me was an inquiry whether you had heard news of it.”
I followed the pater into the study. Tod did not leave his filberts. Standing by the fire was a tall, well-dressed man, with a black moustache and blue silk necktie. I think the Squire was a little taken aback at the fashionable appearance of the visitor. He had expected to see an ordinary policeman.
“Have you brought tidings of Mrs. Todhetley’s earring?” began the pater, all in a flutter of eagerness.
“I beg a thousand pardons for intruding upon you on a Sunday,” returned the stranger, cool and calm as a cucumber, “but the loss of an hour is sometimes most critical in these cases. I have the honour, I believe, of speaking to Squire Todhetley?”
The Squire nodded. “Am I mistaken in supposing that you come about the earring?” he reiterated. “I understood my servant to mention Sergeant Cripp. But—you do not, I presume, belong to the police force?”
“Only as a detective officer,” was the answer, given with a taking smile. “A private officer,” he added, putting a stress upon the word. “My name is Eccles.”
“Take a seat, Mr. Eccles,” said the Squire, sitting down himself, while I stood back by the window. “I do hope you have brought tidings of the earring.”
“Yes—and no,” replied Mr. Eccles, with another fascinating smile, as he unbuttoned his top-coat. “We think we have traced it; but we cannot yet be sure.”
“And where is it?—who has it?” cried the Squire, eagerly.
“It is a very delicate matter, and requires delicate handling,” observed the detective, after a slight pause. “For that reason I have come over to-day myself. Cripp did not choose to entrust it to one of his men.”
“I am sure I am much obliged to him, and to you too,” said the Squire, his face beaming. “Where is the earring?”
“Before I answer that question, will you be so kind as to relate to me, in a few concise words, the precise circumstances under which the earring was lost?”
The pater entered on the story, and I helped him. Mr. Eccles listened attentively.
“Exactly so,” said he, when it was over. “Those are the facts Cripp gave me; but it was only second-hand, you see, and I preferred to hear them direct from yourselves. They serve to confirm our suspicion.”
“But where is the earring?” repeated the pater.
“If it is where we believe it to be, it is in a gentleman’s house at Worcester. At least he may be called a gentleman. He is a professional man: a lawyer, in fact. But I may not give names in the present stage of the affair.”
“And how did the earring get into his house?” pursued the Squire, all aglow with interest.
“News reached us last evening,” began Mr. Eccles, after searching in his pockets for something that he apparently could not find: perhaps a note-case—“reached us in a very singular way, too—that this gentleman had been making a small purchase of jewellery in the course of yesterday; had been making it in private, and did not wish it talked of. A travelling pedlar—that was the description we received—had come in contact with him and offered him an article for sale, which he, after some haggling, purchased. By dint of questioning, we discovered this article to be an earring: one earring, not a pair. Naturally Mr. Cripp’s suspicion was at once aroused: he thought it might be the very self-same earring that you have lost. We consulted together, and the result is, I decided to come over and see you.”
“I’d lay all I’ve got it is the earring!” exclaimed the Squire, in excitement. “The travelling pedlar that sold it must have been that woman tramp.”
“Well, no,” returned the detective, quietly. “It was a man. Her husband, perhaps; or some confederate of hers.”
“No doubt of that! And how can we get back the earring?”
“We shall get it, sir, never fear; if it be the earring you have lost. But, as I have just observed, it is a matter that will require extreme delicacy and caution in the handling. First of all, we must assure ourselves beyond doubt that the earring is the one in question. To take any steps upon an uncertainty would not do: this gentleman might turn round upon us unpleasantly.”
“Well, let him,” cried the Squire.
The visitor smiled his candid smile again, and shook his head. “For instance, if, after taking means to obtain possession of the earring, we found it to be coral set with pearls, or opal set with emeralds, instead of a pink topaz with diamonds, we should not only look foolish ourselves, but draw down upon us the wrath of the present possessor.”
“Is he a respectable man?” asked the pater. “I know most of the lawyers——”
“He stands high enough in the estimation of the town, but I have known him do some very dirty actions in his profession,” interrupted Mr. Eccles, speaking rapidly. “With a man like him to deal with, we must necessarily be wary.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“The first step, Squire Todhetley, is to make ourselves sure that the earring is the one we are in quest of. With this view, I am here to request Mrs. Todhetley to allow me to see the fellow-earring. Cripp has organized a plan by which he believes we can get to see the one I have been telling you of; but it will be of no use our seeing it unless we can identify it.”
“Of course not. By all means. Johnny, go over and ask your mother to come in,” added the Squire, eagerly. “I’m sure I don’t know where she keeps her things, and might look in her places for ever without finding it. Meanwhile, Mr. Eccles, can I offer you some refreshment? We have just dined off a beautiful sirloin of beef: it’s partly cold now, but perhaps you won’t mind that.”
Mr. Eccles said he would take a little, as the Squire was so good as to offer it, for he had come off by the first train after morning service, and so lost his dinner. Taking my hat, I dashed open the dining-room door in passing. Tod was at the nuts still, Hugh and Lena on either side of him.
“I say, Tod, do you want to see a real live detective? There’s one in the study.”
Who should be seated in the Coneys’ drawing-room, her bonnet and shawl on, and her veil nearly hiding her sad face, but Lucy Bird—Lucy Ashton that used to be. It always gave me a turn when I saw her: bringing up all kinds of ugly sorrows and troubles. I shook hands, and asked after Captain Bird.
She believed he was very well, she said, but she had been spending the time since yesterday at Timberdale Court with Robert and Jane. To-day she had been dining with the Coneys—who were always kind to her, she added, with a sigh—and she was now about to go off to the station to take the train for Worcester.
The mater was in Mrs. Coney’s bedroom with old Coney and Cole the doctor, who was paying his daily visit. One might have thought they were settling all the cases of rheumatism in the parish by the time they took over it. While I waited, I told Mrs. Bird about the earring and the present visit of Detective Eccles. Mrs. Todhetley came down in the midst of it; and lifted her hands at the prospect of facing a detective.
“Dear me! Is he anything dreadful to look at, Johnny? Very rough? Has he any handcuffs?”
It made me laugh. “He is a regular good-looking fellow—quite a gentleman. Tall and slender, and well-dressed: gold studs and a blue necktie. He has a ring on his finger and wears a black moustache.”
Mrs. Bird suddenly lifted her head, and stared at me: perhaps the description surprised her. The mater seemed inclined to question my words; but she said nothing, and came away after bidding good-bye to Lucy.
“Keep up your heart, my dear,” she whispered. “Things may grow brighter for you some time.”
When I got back, Mr. Eccles had nearly finished the sirloin, some cheese, and a large tankard of ale. The Squire sat by, hospitably pressing him to take more, whenever his knife and fork gave signs of flagging. Tod stood looking on, his back against the mantelpiece. Mrs. Todhetley soon appeared with a little cardboard box, where the solitary earring was lying on a bed of wool.
Rising from the table, the detective carried the box to the window, and stood there examining the earring; first in the box, then out of it. He turned it about in his hand, and looked at it on all sides; it took him a good three minutes.
“Madam,” said he, breaking the silence, “will you entrust this earring to us for a day or two? It will be under Sergeant Cripp’s charge, and perfectly safe.”
“Of course, of course,” interposed the Squire, before any one could speak. “You are welcome to take it.”
“You see, it is possible—indeed, most probable—that only one of us may be able to obtain sight of the other earring. Should it be Cripp, my having seen this one will be nearly useless to him. It is essential that he should see it also: and it will not do to waste time.”
“Pray take charge of it, sir,” said Mrs. Todhetley, mentally recalling what I had said of his errand to her and Lucy Bird. “I know it will be safe in your hands and Sergeant Cripp’s. I am only too glad that there is a probability of the other one being found.”
“And look here,” added the Squire to Eccles, while the latter carefully wrapped the box in paper, and put it into his inner breast-pocket, “don’t you and Cripp let that confounded gipsy escape. Have her up and punish her.”
“Trust us for that,” was the detective’s answer, given with an emphatic nod. “She is already as good as taken, and her confederate also. There’s not a doubt—I avow it to you—that the other earring is yours. We only wait to verify it.”
And, with that, he buttoned his coat, and bowed himself out, the Squire himself attending him to the door.
“He is as much like a detective as I’m like a Dutchman,” commented Tod. “At least, according to what have been all my previous notions of one. Live and learn.”
“He seems quite a polished man, has quite the manners of society,” added the mater. “I do hope he will get back my poor earring.”
“Mother, is Lucy Bird in more trouble than usual?” I asked.
“She is no doubt in deep distress of some kind, Johnny. But she is never out of it. I wish Robert Ashton could induce her to leave that most worthless husband of hers!”
The Squire, after watching off the visitor, came in, rubbing his hands and looking as delighted as old Punch. He assumed that the earring was as good as restored, and was immensely taken with Mr. Eccles.
“A most intelligent, superior man,” cried he. “I suppose he is what is called a gentleman-detective: he told me he had been to college. I’m sure it seems quite a condescension in him to work with Cripp and the rest.”
And the whole of tea-time and all the way to church, the praises were being rung of Mr. Eccles. I’m not sure but that he was more to us that night than the sermon.
“I confess I feel mortified about that woman, though,” confessed Mrs. Todhetley. “You heard him say that she was as good as taken: they must have traced the earring to her. I did think she was one to be trusted. How one may be deceived in people!”
“I’d have trusted her with a twenty-pound note, mother.”
“Hark at Johnny!” cried Tod. “This will be a lesson for you, lad.”
Monday morning. The Squire and Tod had gone over to South Crabb. Mrs. Todhetley sat at the window, adding up some bills, her nose red with the cold: and I was boxing Hugh’s ears, for he was in one of his frightfully troublesome moods, when Molly came stealing in at the door, as covertly as if she had been committing murder.
“Ma’am! ma’am!—there’s that tramp in the yard!”
“What?” cried the mater, turning round.
“I vow it’s her; I know the old red shawl again,” pursued Molly, with as much importance as though she had caught half the thieves in Christendom. “She turned into the yard as bold as brass; so I just slipped the bolt o’ the door against her, and come away. You’ll have her took up on the instant, ma’am, won’t you?”
“But if she has come back, I don’t think she can be guilty,” cried Mrs. Todhetley, after a bewildered pause. “We had better see what she wants. What do you say, Johnny?”
“Why, of course we had. I’ll go to her, as Molly’s afraid.”
Rushing out of hearing of Molly’s vindictive answer, I went round through the snow to the yard, and found the woman meekly tapping at the kitchen-door—the old red shawl, and the black bonnet, and the white muslin cap border, all the same as before. Before I got quite up, the kitchen-door was cautiously drawn open, and Mrs. Todhetley looked out. The poor old woman dropped a curtsy and held out half-a-crown on the palm of her withered hand.
“I’ve made bold to call at the door to leave it, lady. And I can never thank you enough, ma’am,” she added, the tears rising to her eyes; “my tongue would fail if I tried it. ’Tis not many as would have trusted a stranger; and, that, a poor body like me. I got over to Worcester quick and comfortable, ma’am, thanks to you, and found my daughter better nor I had hoped for.”
The same feeling of reliance, of trust, arose within me as I saw her face and heard her voice and words. If this woman was what they had been fancying her, I’d never eat tarts again.
“Come in,” said Mrs. Todhetley; and Molly, looking daggers as she heard it, approached her mistress with a whisper.
“Don’t, ma’am. It’s all a laid-out plan. She has heard that she’s suspected, and brings back the half-crown, thinking to put us off the scent.”
“Step this way,” went on Mrs. Todhetley, giving no heed to Molly, except by a nod—and she took the woman into the little store-room where she kept her jam-pots and things, and bade her go to the fire.
“What did you tell me your name was,” she asked, “when you were here on Friday?”
“Nutt’n, ma’am.”
“Nutten,” repeated the mater, glancing at me. “But I sent over to Islip, and no one there knew anything about you—they denied that any one of your name lived there.”
“Why, how could they do that?” returned the woman, with every appearance of surprise. “They must have mistook somehow. I live in the little cottage, ma’am, by the dung-heap. I’ve lived there for five-and-twenty year, and brought up my children there, and never had parish pay.”
“And gone always by the name of Nutten?”
“Not never by no other, ma’am. Why should I?”
Was she to be believed? There was the half-crown in Mrs. Todhetley’s hand, and there was the honest wrinkled old face looking up at us openly. But, on the other side, there was the assertion of the Islip people; and there was the earring.
“What was the matter with your daughter, and in what part of Worcester does she live?” queried the mater.
“She’s second servant to a family in Melcheapen Street, ma’am, minds the children and does the beds, and answers the door, and that. When I got there—and sick enough my heart felt all the way, thinking what the matter could be—I found that she had fell from the parlour window that she’d got outside to clean, and broke her arm and scarred her face, and frighted and shook herself finely. But thankful enough I was that ’twas no worse. Her father, ma’am, died of an accident, and I can never abear to hear tell of one.”
“I—I lost an earring out of my ear that afternoon,” said Mrs. Todhetley, plunging into the matter, but not without hesitation. “I think I must have lost it just about the time I was talking to you. Did you pick it up?”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t. I should have gave it to you if I had.”
“You did not carry it off with you, I suppose!” interrupted wrathful Molly; who had come in to get some eggs, under pretence that the batter-pudding was waiting for them.
And whether it was Molly’s sharp and significant tone, or our silence and looks, I don’t know; but the woman saw it all then, and what she was suspected of.
“Oh, ma’am, were you thinking that ill of me?”—and the hands shook as they were raised, and the white border seemed to lift itself from the horror-stricken face. “Did you think I could do so ill a turn, and after all the kindness showed me? The good Lord above knows I’m not a thief. Dear heart! I never set eyes, lady, on the thing you’ve lost.”
“No, I am sure you didn’t,” I cried; “I said so all along. It might have dropped anywhere in the road.”
“I never see it, nor touched it, sir,” she reiterated, the tears raining down her cheeks. “Oh, ma’am, do believe me!”
Molly tossed her head as she went out with the eggs in her apron; but I would sooner have believed myself guilty than that poor woman. Mrs. Todhetley thought with me. She offered her some warm ale and a crust; but the old woman shook her head in refusal, and went off in a fit of crying.
“She knows no more of the earring than I know of it, mother.”
“I feel sure she does not, Johnny.”
“That Molly’s getting unbearable. I wonder you don’t send her away.”
“She has her good points, dear,” sighed Mrs. Todhetley. “Only think of her cooking! and of what a thrifty, careful manager she is!”
The Squire and Tod got home for lunch. Nothing could come up to their ridicule when they heard what had occurred, saying that the mother and I were two muffs, fit to go about the world in a caravan as specimens of credulity. Like Molly, they thought we ought to have secured the woman.
“But you see she was honest in the matter of the half-crown,” debated Mrs. Todhetley, in her mild way. “She brought that back. It does not stand to reason that she would have dared to come within miles of the place, if she had taken the earring.”