Lane; but it did strike me that you might have been tempted to--to--you
know."
So it was accusation and counter-accusation. Which of the two confessed
first was uncertain; but in a short time the whole was known to the
house, and to Lady Whitney.
On the previous night the upper housemaid was in bed with some slight
illness, and it fell to Lettice Lane to put the rooms to rights after
the ladies had dressed. Instead of calling one of the other servants
she asked Mrs. Lease to help her--which must have been for nothing
but to gossip with the nurse, as Lady Whitney said. On Miss Deveen's
dressing-table stood her case of jewels, the key in the lock. Lettice
lifted the lid. On the top tray glittered a heap of ornaments, and the
two women feasted their eyes with them. Nurse Lease declared that she
never put "a finger's end" on a single article. Lettice could not say as
much. Neither (if they were to be believed) had observed the green
studs; and the upper tray was not lifted to see what was underneath.
Miss Cattledon, who made one at the uproar, put in her word at this, to
say they were telling a falsehood, and her face had enough vinegar in
it to pickle a salmon. Other people might like Miss Cattledon, but I did
not. She was in a silent rage with Miss Deveen for having chosen to keep
the jewel-case during their stay at Whitney Hall, and for carelessly
leaving the key in it. Miss Deveen took the loss calmly, and was as cool
as a cucumber.
"I don't know that the emerald studs were in the upper tray last night;
I don't remember to have seen them," Miss Deveen said, as if bearing out
the assertion of the two women.
"Begging your pardon, madam, they _were_ there," stiffly corrected Miss
Cattledon. "I saw them. I thought you would put them on, as you were
going to wear your green satin gown, and asked if I should lay them out;
but you told me you would choose for yourself."
Miss Deveen had worn diamonds; we had noticed their lustre.
"I'm sure it is a dreadful thing to have happened!" said poor Lady
Whitney, looking flurried. "I dare not tell Sir John; he would storm the
windows out of their frames. Lease, I am astonished at _you_. How could
you dare open the box?"
"I never did open it, my lady," was the answer. "When I got round from
the bed, Lettice was standing with it open before her."
"I don't think there need be much doubt as to the guilty party," struck
in Miss Cattledon with intense acrimony, her eyes swooping down upon
Lettice. And if they were not sly and crafty eyes, never you trust me
again.
"I do not think there need be so much trouble made about it," corrected
Miss Deveen. "It's not your loss, Cattledon--it is mine: and my own
fault too."
But Miss Cattledon would not take the hint. She stuck to it like a
leech, and sifted evidence as subtly as an Old Bailey lawyer. Mrs.
Lease carried innocence on the surface; no one could doubt it: Lettice
might have been taken for a seven-years' thief. She sobbed, and choked,
and rambled in her tale, and grew as confused as a hunted hare,
contradicting herself at every second word. The Australian scheme
(though it might have been nothing but foolish talk) told against her
now.
Things grew more uncomfortable as the day went on, the house being
ransacked from head to foot. Sophie Chalk cried. She was not rich, she
said to me, but she would give every shilling of money she had with her
for the studs to be found; and she thought it was very wrong to accuse
Lettice, when so many strangers had been in the house. I liked Sophie
better than I had liked her yet: she looked regularly vexed.
Sir John got to know of it: Miss Cattledon told him. He did not storm
the windows out, but he said the police must come in and see Lettice
Lane. Miss Deveen, hearing of this, went straight to Sir John, and
assured him that if he took any serious steps while the affair was so
doubtful, she would quit his house on the instant, and never put foot
in it again. He retorted that it must have been Lettice Lane--common
sense and Miss Cattledon could not be mistaken--and that it ought to
be investigated.
They came to a compromise. Lettice was not to be given into custody
at present; but she must quit the Hall. That, said Miss Deveen, was
of course as Sir John and Lady Whitney pleased. To tell the truth,
suspicion did seem strong against her.
She went away at eventide. One of the men was charged to drive her to
her mother's, about five miles off. I and Anna, hastening home from
our walk--for we had lost the others, and the stars were coming out in
the wintry sky--saw them as we passed the beeches. Lettice's face was
swollen with crying.
"We are so sorry this has happened, Lettice," Anna gently said, going up
to the gig. "I do hope it will be cleared up soon. Remember one thing--I
shall think well of you, until it is. _I_ do not suspect you."
"I am turned out like a criminal, Miss Anna," sobbed the girl. "They
searched me to the skin; that Miss Cattledon standing on to see that the
housekeeper did it properly; and they have searched my boxes. The only
one to speak a kind word to me as I came away, was Miss Deveen herself.
It's a disgrace I shall never get over."
"That's rubbish, Lettice, you know,"--for I thought I'd put in a good
word, too. "You will soon forget it, once the right fellow is pitched
upon. Good luck to you, Lettice."
Anna shook hands with her, and the man drove on, Lettice sobbing aloud.
Not hearing Anna's footsteps, I looked round and saw she had sat down on
one of the benches, though it was white with frost. I went back.
"Don't you go and catch cold, Anna."
"Johnny, you cannot think how this is troubling _me_."
"Why you--in particular?"
"Well--for one thing I can't believe that she is guilty. I have always
liked Lettice."
"So did we at Dyke Manor. But if she is not guilty, who is?"
"I don't know, Johnny," she continued, her eyes taking a thoughtful,
far-off look. "What I cannot help thinking, is this--though I feel
half ashamed to say it. Several visitors were in the house last night;
suppose one should have found her way into the room, and taken them?
If so, how cruel this must be on Lettice Lane."
"Sophie Chalk suggested the same thing to me to-day. But a visitor would
not do such a thing. Fancy a lady stealing jewels!"
"The open box might prove a strong temptation. People do things in such
moments, Johnny, that they would fly from at other times."
"Sophie said that too. You have been talking together."
"I have not exchanged a word with Sophie Chalk on the subject. The ideas
might occur naturally to any of us."
I did not think it at all likely to have been a visitor. How should a
visitor know there was an open jewel-box in Miss Deveen's room? The
chamber, too, was an inner one, and therefore not liable to be entered
accidentally. To get to it you had to go through Miss Cattledon's.
"The room is not easy of access, you know, Anna."
"Not very. But it might be reached."
"I say, are you saying this for any purpose?"
She turned round and looked at me rather sharply.
"Yes. Because I do not believe it was Lettice Lane."
"Was it Miss Cattledon herself, Anna? I have heard of such curious
things. Her eyes took a greedy look to-day when they rested on the
jewels."
As if the suggestion frightened her--and I hardly know how I came to
whisper it--Anna started up, and ran across the lawn, never looking
back or stopping until she reached the house.
XIV.
AT MISS DEVEEN'S.
The table was between us as we stood in the dining-room at Dyke Manor--I
and Mrs. Todhetley--and on it lay a three-cornered article of soft
geranium-coloured wool, which she called a "fichu." I had my great coat
on my arm ready for travelling, for I was going up to London on a visit
to Miss Deveen.
It was Easter now. Soon after the trouble, caused by the loss of the
emerald studs at Whitney Hall in January, the party had dispersed.
Sophie Chalk returned to London; Tod and I came home; Miss Deveen was
going to Bath. The studs had not been traced--had never been heard of
since; and Lettice Lane, after a short stay in disgrace at her mother's
cottage, had suddenly disappeared. Of course there were not wanting
people to affirm that she had gone off to her favourite land of promise,
Australia, carrying the studs with her.
The Whitneys were now in London. They did not go in for London seasons;
in fact, Lady Whitney hardly remembered to have had a season in London
at all, and she quite dreaded this one, saying she should feel like a
fish out of water. Sir John occupied a bedroom when he went up for
Parliament, and dined at his club. But Helen was nineteen, and they
thought she ought to be presented to the Queen. So Miss Deveen was
consulted about a furnished house, and she and Sir John took one for six
weeks from just before Easter. They left Whitney Hall at once to take
possession; and Bill Whitney and Tod, who got an invitation, joined them
the day before Good Friday.
The next Tuesday I received a letter from Miss Deveen. We were very good
friends at Whitney, and she had been polite enough to say she should be
glad to see me in London. I never expected to go, for three-parts of
those invitations do not come to anything. She wrote now to ask me to go
up; it might be pleasant for me, she added, as Joseph Todhetley was
staying with the Whitneys.
It is of no use going on until I have said a word about Tod. If ever a
fellow was hopelessly in love with a girl, he was with Sophie Chalk. I
don't mean hopeless as to the love, but as to getting out of it. On the
day that we were quitting Whitney Hall--it was on the 26th of January,
and the icicles were clustering on the trees--they had taken a long walk
together. What Tod said I don't know, but I think he let her know how
much he loved her, and asked her to wait until he should be of age and
could ask the question--would she be his wife? We went with her to the
station, and the way Tod wrapped her up in the railway-carriage was as
good as a show. (Pretty little Mrs. Hughes, who had been visiting old
Featherston, went up by the same train and in the same carriage.) They
corresponded a little, she and Tod. Nothing particular in her letters,
at any rate--nothing but what the world might see, or that she might
have written to Mrs. Todhetley, who had one from her on occasion--but I
know Tod just lived on those letters and her remembrance; he could not
hide it from me; and I saw without wishing to see or being able to help
myself. Why, he had gone up to London now in one sole hope--that of
meeting again with Miss Chalk!
Mrs. Todhetley saw it too--had seen it from the time when Sophie Chalk
was at Dyke Manor--and it grieved and worried her. But not the Squire:
he no more supposed Tod was going to take up seriously with Sophie
Chalk, than with the pink-eyed lady exhibited the past year at Pershore
Fair.
Well, that's all of explanation. This was Wednesday morning, and the
Squire was going to drive me to the station for the London train. Mrs.
Todhetley at the last moment was giving me charge of the fichu, which
she had made for Sophie Chalk's sister.
"I did not send it by Joseph; I thought it as well not to do so," she
observed, as she began to pack it up in tissue paper. "Will you take it
down to Mrs. Smith yourself, Johnny, and deliver it?"
"All right."
"I--you know, Johnny, I have the greatest dislike to anything that is
mean or underhand," she went on, dropping her voice a little. "But I do
not think it would be wrong, under the circumstances, if I ask you to
take a little notice of what these Smiths are. I don't mean in the way
of being fashionable, Johnny; I suppose they are all that; but whether
they are nice, good people. Somehow I did not like Miss Chalk, with all
her fascinations, and it is of no use to pretend that I did."
"She was too fascinating for ordinary folk, good mother."
"Yes, that was it. She seemed to put the fascinations on. And, Johnny,
though we were to hear that she had a thousand a year to her fortune, I
should be miserable if I thought Joe would choose her for his wife."
"She used to say she was poor."
"But she seemed to have a whole list of lords and ladies for her
friends, so I conclude she and her connections must be people of note.
It is not that, Johnny--rich or poor--it is that I don't like her for
herself, and I do not think she is the one to make Joe happy. She never
spoke openly about her friends, you know, or about herself. At any rate,
you take down this little parcel to Mrs. Smith, with my kind regards,
and then you'll see them for yourself. And in judgment and observation
you are worth fifty of Joe, any day."
"Not in either judgment or observation; only in instinct."
"And that's for yourself," she added, slipping a sovereign into my
pocket. "I don't know how much Mr. Todhetley has given you. Mind you
spend your money in right things, Johnny. But I am not afraid; I could
trust you all over the world."
Giles put in my portmanteau, and we drove off. The hedges were beginning
to bud; the fields looked green. From observations about the young
lambs, and a broken fence that he went into a passion over, the Squire
suddenly plunged into something else.
"You take care of yourself, sir, in London! Boys get into all kinds of
pitfalls there, if they don't mind."
"But I do not call myself a boy, sir, now."
"Not call yourself a boy!" retorted the Squire, staring. "I'd like to
know what else you are. Tod's a boy, sir, and nothing else, though he
does count twenty years. I wonder what the world's coming to!" he added,
lashing up Bob and Blister. "In my days, youngsters did not think
themselves men before they had done growing."
"What I meant was that I am old enough to take care of myself. Mrs.
Todhetley has just said she could trust me all over the world."
"Just like her foolishness! Take care you don't get your pockets picked:
there's sure to be a thief at every corner. And don't you pick them
yourself, Master Johnny. I knew a young fellow once who went up to
London with ten pounds in his pocket. He was staying at the Castle and
Falcon Hotel, near the place where the mails used to start from--and a
fine sight it was to see them bowl out, one after another, with their
lamps lighted. Well, Johnny, this young fellow got back again in four
days by one of these very mails, every shilling spent, and his fare down
not paid. You'd not think that was steady old Jacobson; but it was."
I laughed. The Squire looked more inclined to cry.
"Cleaned out, he was; not a rap left! Money melts in London--that's a
fact--and it is very necessary to be cautious. _His_ went in seeing the
shows; so he told his father. Don't you go in for too many of them,
Johnny, or you may find yourself without funds to bring you home, and
railways don't give trust. You might go to the Tower, now; and St.
Paul's; and the British Museum; they are steady places. I wouldn't
advise a theatre, unless it's just once--some good, respectable play;
and mind you go straight home after it. Some young men slink off to
singing-shops now, they say, but I am sure such places can bring no
good."
"Being with Miss Deveen, sir, I don't suppose I shall have the
opportunity of getting into much harm."
"Well, it's right in me to caution you, Johnny. London is a dreadful
place, full of sharpers and bad people. It used to be in the old days,
and I don't suppose it has improved in these. You have no father,
Johnny, and I stand to you in the light of one, to give you these
warnings. Enjoy your visit rationally, my boy, and come home with a true
report and a good conscience. That's the charge my old father always
gave to me."
Miss Deveen lived in a very nice house, north-westward, away from the
bustle of London. The road was wide, the houses were semi-detached, with
gardens around and plenty of trees in view. Somehow I had hoped Tod
would be at the Paddington terminus, and was disappointed, so I took a
cab and went on. Miss Deveen came into the hall to receive me, and said
she did not consider me too big to be kissed, considering she was over
sixty. Miss Cattledon, sitting in the drawing-room, gave me a finger to
shake, and did not seem to like my coming. Her waist and throat were
thinner and longer than ever; her stays creaked like parchment.
If I'd never had a surprise in my life, I had one before I was in the
house an hour. Coming down from the bedroom to which they had shown me,
a maid-servant passed me on the first-floor landing. It was Lettice
Lane! I wondered--believe me or not, as you will--I wondered whether I
saw a ghost, and stood back against the pillar of the banisters.
"Why, Lettice, is it you?"
"Yes, sir."
"But--what are you doing _here_?"
"I am here in service, sir."
She ran on upstairs. Lettice in Miss Deveen's house. It was worse than
a Chinese puzzle.
"Is that you, Johnny? Step in here?"
The voice--Miss Deveen's--came from a half-opened door, close at hand.
It was a small, pretty sitting-room, with light blue curtains and
chairs. Miss Deveen sat by the fire, ready for dinner. In her white body
shone amethyst studs, quite as beautiful as the lost emeralds.
"We call this the blue-room, Johnny. It is my own exclusively, and no
one enters it except upon invitation. Sit down. Were you surprised to
see Lettice Lane?"
"I don't think I was ever so much surprised in all my life. She says she
is living here."
"Yes; I sent for her to help my housemaid."
I was thoroughly mystified. Miss Deveen put down her book and
spectacles.
"I have taken to glasses, Johnny."
"But I thought you saw so well."
"So I do, for anything but very small type--and that book seems to have
been printed for none but the youngest eyes. And I see people as well as
things," she added significantly.
I felt sure of that.
"Do you remember, Johnny, the day after the uproar at Whitney Hall, that
I asked you to pilot me to Lettice Lane's mother's, and to say nothing
about it?"
"Yes, certainly. You walked the whole four miles of the way. It is five
by road."
"And back again. I am good for more yet than some of the young folk are,
Johnny; but I always was an excellent walker. Next day the party broke
up; that pretty girl, Sophie Chalk, departed for London, and you and
young Todhetley left later. When you reached your home in the evening,
I don't suppose you thought I had been to Dyke Manor the same day."
"No! Had you really, Miss Deveen?"
"Really and truly. I'll tell you now the reason of those journeys
of mine. As Lettice Lane was being turned out of the Hall, she made
a remark in the moment of departure, accidentally I am sure, which
caused me to be almost certain she was not guilty of stealing the
studs. Before, whilst they were all condemning her as guilty, _I_ had
felt doubtful of it; but of course I could not be sure, and Miss
Cattledon reproaches me with thinking every one innocent under every
circumstance--which is a mistake of hers. Mind, Johnny, the few words
Lettice said might have been used designedly, by one crafty and guilty,
on purpose to throw me off suspicion: but I felt almost persuaded
that the girl had spoken them in unconscious innocence. I went to her
mother's to see them both; I am fond of looking into things with my own
eyes; and I came away with my good opinion strengthened. I went next to
Mrs. Todhetley's to hear what she said of the girl; I saw her and your
old nurse, Hannah, making my request to both not to speak of my visit.
They gave the girl a good character for honesty; Mrs. Todhetley thought
her quite incapable of taking the studs; Hannah could not say what a
foolish girl with roving ideas of Australia in her head might do in a
moment of temptation. In less than a fortnight I was back in London,
having paid my visit to Bath. I had been reflecting all that time,
Johnny, on the cruel blight this must be on Lettice Lane, supposing
that she was innocent. I thought the probabilities were that she _was_
innocent, not guilty; and I determined to offer her a home in my own
house during the uncertainty. She seemed only too glad to accept it, and
here she is. If the girl should eventually turn out to be innocent, I
shall have done her a real service; if guilty, why I shall not regret
having held out a helping hand to her, that may perhaps save her for the
future."
"It was very kind and thoughtful of you, Miss Deveen!"
"My chief difficulty lay in keeping the suspicion lying on Lettice Lane
a secret from my household. Fortunately I had taken no servants with me
to Whitney Hall, my maid having been ill at the time; but Cattledon is
outrageously virtuous, and of course proportionally bitter against
Lettice. You saw that at Whitney."
"She would have been the first to tell of her."
"Yes. I had to put the thing rather strongly to Miss Cattledon--'Hold
your tongue or leave me.' It answered, Johnny. Cattledon likes her
place here, and acts accordingly. She picks up her petticoats from
contamination when she meets the unfortunate Lettice; but she takes
care to hold her tongue."
"Do you think it will ever be found out, Miss Deveen?"
"I hope it will."
"But who--could have taken them?" And the thought of what I had said to
Anna Whitney, that it might be Miss Cattledon herself, flashed over me
as I put the question.
"I think"--Miss Deveen glanced round as if to make sure we were alone,
and dropped her voice a little--"that it must have been one of the
guests who came to Whitney Hall that night. Cattledon let out one thing,
but not until after we were at home again, for the fact seemed not to
have made the least impression on her memory at the time; but it came
back afterwards. When she was quitting her room after dressing that
evening--I being already out of mine and downstairs--she saw the shawl
she had worn in the afternoon lying across a chair just as she had
thrown it off. She is very careful of her clothes; and hesitated, she
said, whether to go back then and fold it; but, knowing she was late,
did not do so. She had been downstairs about ten minutes, when I asked
her to fetch my fan, which I had forgotten. Upon going through her
room to mine, she saw the shawl lying on the floor, and picked it up,
wondering how it could have come there. At that time the maids had not
been in to put either her room or mine to rights. Now, what I infer,
Johnny, is that my jewel-case was visited and the studs were stolen
_before_ Lettice Lane and Mrs. Lease went near the rooms, and that the
thief, in her hurry to escape, brushed against the shawl and threw it
down."
"And cannot Miss Cattledon see the probability of that?"
"She will not see it. Lettice Lane is guilty with her and no one else.
Prejudice goes a long way in this world, Johnny. The people who came to
the dance that night were taking off their things in the next room to
Miss Cattledon's, and I think it likely that some one of them may have
found a way into my chamber, perhaps even by accident, and the sight of
the brilliant emerald studs--they were more beautiful than any they
were lying with--was too much for human equanimity. It was my fault for
leaving the dressing-case open--and do you know, Johnny, I believe I
left it literally _open_--I can never forget that."
"But Lettice Lane said it was shut; shut but not locked."
"Well, it is upon my conscience that I left it open. Whoever took
the studs may have shut down the lid, in caution or forgetfulness.
Meanwhile, Johnny, don't you say anything of what I have told you; at
the Whitneys' or elsewhere. They do not know that Lettice Lane is with
me; they are prejudiced against her, especially Sir John; and Lettice
has orders to keep out of the way of visitors. Should they by chance see
her, why, I shall say that as the case was at best doubtful, I am giving
the girl a chance to redeem her good name. We are going there after
dinner. So mind you keep counsel."
"To the Whitneys'?"
"It is only next door, as you may say. I did not mention that you were
coming up," she added, "so there will be a surprise for them. And now we
will go down. Here, carry my book for me, Johnny."
In the drawing-room we found a grey-haired curate, with a mild voice;
Miss Cattledon was simpering and smiling upon him. I gathered that he
did duty in the church hard by, and had come to dinner by invitation. He
took in Miss Deveen, and that other blessed lady fell to me. It was a
very good dinner, uncommonly good to me after my journey. Miss Deveen
carved. And didn't she make me eat! She said she knew what boys'
appetites were. The curate took his leave, but Miss Deveen sat on; she
fancied to have heard that the Whitneys were to have friends to dinner
that night, and would not go in too early.