MRS. BOXALL AND MR. STOPPER.
Lucy was not up stairs with her grandmother when Thomas went into the
room. She had arrived some time before, and had ran across to the
bookseller's to put Mattie to bed, according to promise, leaving the
door just ajar that she might not trouble her grandmother to come
down and open it for her. She had come home hoping against hope that
Thomas must by this time have complied, in some way or other, with her
request--must have written to his father, or, at least, so positively
made up his mind to tell him on his return, that he would be at the
station to meet her with the assurance, or would appear in Guild Court
some time during the evening with a response to her earnest appeal.
When she had put the child to bed, she lingered a few moments with the
bookseller in his back parlor, for the shop was shut up, telling him
about Mattie, and listening to what little bits of news the worthy man
had to impart in return. Their little chat ran something in this way:
"And how have you been, Mr. Kitely?"
"Oh, among the middlins, miss, thank you. How's yourself been?"
"Quite well, and no wonder."
"I don't know that, miss, with two young things a pullin' of you all
ways at once. I hope Mattie wasn't over and above troublesome to you."
"She was no trouble at all. You must have missed her, though."
"I couldn't ha' believed how I'd miss her. Do you know the want of her
to talk to made me do what I ain't done for twenty year?"
"What's that, Mr. Kitely? Go to church of a Sunday?"
"More than that, miss," answered the bookseller, laughing--a little
sheepishly. "Would you believe it of me? I've been to church of a
week-day more than once. Ha! ha! But then it wasn't a long rigmarole,
like--"
"You mustn't talk about it like that--to me, you know, Mr. Kitely."
"I beg your pardon, miss. I only meant he didn't give us a Sundayful
of it, you know. I never could ha' stood that. We had just a little
prayer, and a little chapter, and a little sermon--good sense, too,
upon my word. I know I altered a price or two in my catalogue when I
come home again. I don't know as I was right, but I did it, just to
relieve my mind and make believe I was doin' as the minister told me.
If they was all like Mr. Fuller, I don't know as I should ha' the heart
to say much agen them."
"So it's Mr. Fuller's church you've been going to? I'm so glad! How
often has he service, then?"
"Every day, miss. Think o' that. It don't take long, though, as I tell
you. But why should it? If there is any good in talking at all, it
comes more of being the right thing than the muchness of it, as my old
father used to say--for he was in the business afore me, miss, though I
saw a great deal more o' the world than ever he did afore I took to it
myself--says he, 'It strikes me, Jacob, there's more for your money in
some o' those eighteen mos, if you could only read 'em, than in some o'
them elephants. I ha' been a watchin',' says he, 'the sort o' man that
buys the one and that buys the tother. When a little man with a shabby
coat brings in off the stall one o' them sixpenny books in Latin, that
looks so barbarious to me, and pops it pleased like into the tail of
his coat--as if he meant to have it out again the minute he was out
of the shop--then I thinks there's something in that little book--and
something in that little man,' says father, miss. And so I stick up for
the sermons and the little prayers, miss. I've been thinking about it
since; and I think Mr. Fuller's right about the short prayers. They're
much more after the manner of the Lord's Prayer anyhow. I never heard
of anybody getting tired before _that_ was over. As you are fond of
church, miss, you'd better drop into Mr. Fuller's to-morrow mornin'. If
you go once, you'll go again."
Long after, Lucy told Mr. Fuller what the bookseller had said, and it
made him think yet again whether our long prayers--_services_, as we
call them, forsooth--are not all a mistake, and closely allied to the
worship of the Pagans, who think they shall be heard for their much
speaking.
She went out by the side-door into the archway. As she opened it, a
figure sped past her, fleet and silent. She started back. Why should it
remind her of Thomas? She had scarcely seen more in the darkness than a
deeper darkness in motion, for she came straight from the light.
She found the door not as she left it.
"Has Thomas been here, grannie?" she asked, with an alarm she could not
account for.
"No, indeed. He has favored us with little of his company this many
a day," answered grannie, speaking out of the feelings which had
gradually grown from the seeds sown by Stopper. "The sooner you're
off with him, my dear, the better, for you!" she continued. "He's no
good, I doubt." With a terrible sinking at the heart, Lucy heard her
grandmother's words. But she would fight Thomas's battles to the last.
"If ever that man dares to say a word against Thomas in my hearing,"
she said, "I'll--I'll--I'll leave the room."
O most lame and impotent conclusion! But Lucy carried it farther than
her words; for when Mr. Stopper entered the next morning, with a face
scared into the ludicrous, she, without even waiting to hear what he
had to say, though she foreboded evil, rose at once and left the room.
Mr. Stopper stood and looked after her in dismayed admiration; for
Lucy was one of those few whose anger even is of such an unselfish and
unspiteful nature, that it gives a sort of piquancy to their beauty.
"I hope I haven't offended the young lady," said Mr. Stopper, with some
concern.
"Never you mind, Mr. Stopper. I've been giving her a hint about Thomas,
and she's not got over it yet. Never you mind her. It's me you've got
to do with, and I ain't got no fancies."
"It's just as well, perhaps, that she did walk herself away," said Mr.
Stopper.
"You've got some news, Mr. Stopper. Sit ye down. Will you have a cup o'
tea?"
"No, thank you. Where's the keys, Mrs. Boxall?"
The old lady looked up at the wall, then back at Mr. Stopper.
"Why, go along! There they are in your own hand."
"Yes; but where do you think I found them?--Hanging in the door of the
safe, and all the money gone from the cash-box. I haven't got over the
shock of it yet."
"Why, good heavens! Mr. Stopper," said the old lady, who was rather
out of temper with both herself and Lucy, "you don't think _I've_ been
a-robbing of your cash-box, do you?"
Mr. Stopper laughed aloud.
"Well, ma'am, that would be a roundabout way of coming by your own. I
don't think we could make out a case against you if you had. Not quite.
But, seriously, who came into the house after I left? I hung the keys
on that wall with my own hands."
"And I saw them there when I went to bed," said Mrs. Boxall, making a
general impression ground for an individual assertion.
"Then somebody must have come in after you had gone to bed--some one
that knew the place. Did you find the street door had been tampered
with?"
"Lucy opened it this morning."
Mrs. Boxall went to the door and called her grand-daughter. Lucy came,
thinking Mr. Stopper must be gone. When she saw him there, she would
have left the room again, but her grandmother interfered.
"Come here, child," she said, peremptorily. "Was the house-door open
when you went down this morning?"
Lucy felt her face grow pale with the vaguest foreboding--associated
with the figure which had run through the archway and her finding the
door open. But she kept her self-command.
"No, grannie. The door was shut as usual."
"Did nobody call last night?" asked Mr. Stopper, who had his
suspicions, and longed to have them confirmed in order to pay off old
scores at once.
"Nobody; that I'll give my word for," answered Mrs. Boxall.
"A most unaccountable thing, ladies," said Stopper, rubbing his
forehead as if he would fain rouse an idea in his baffled brain.
"Have you lost much money?" asked the old lady.
"Oh, it's not the money; that's a flea-bite. But justice, you
know--that's the point," said Mr. Stopper, with his face full of
meaning.
"Do you suspect any one, Mr. Stopper?"
"I do. I found something on the floor. If Mr. Worboise were come," he
continued, looking hard at Lucy, "he might be able to help us out with
it. Sharp fellow that. But it's an hour past his time, and he's not
made his appearance yet. I fear he's been taking to fast ways lately.
I'll just go across the court to Mr. Molken, and see if he knows
anything about him."
"You'll oblige _me_," said Lucy, who was cold to the very heart, but
determined to keep up, "by doing nothing of the sort. I will not have
his name mentioned in the matter. Does any one but yourself know of
the--the robbery, Mr. Stopper?"
"Not a soul, miss. I wouldn't do anything till I had been to you. I was
here first, as I generally am."
"Then, if I am to have anything to say at all," she returned with
dignity, "let the matter rest in the mean time--at least till you
have some certainty. If you don't you will make suspicion fall on the
innocent. It might have been grannie or myself, for anything you can
tell yet."
"Highty-tighty, lass!" said her grandmother. "We're on our high horse,
I believe."
Before she could say more, however, Lucy had left the room. She just
managed to reach her bed, and fell fainting upon it.
Money had evidently, even in the shadow it cast before it, wrought
no good effect upon old Mrs. Boxall. The bond between her and her
grand-daughter was already weakened. She had never spoken thus to her
till now.
"Never you mind what the wench says," she went on to Stopper. "The
money's none of hers, and shan't be except I please. You just do as you
think proper, Mr. Stopper. If that young vagabond has taken the money,
why you take him, and see what the law will say to it. The sooner our
Lucy is shut of him the better for her--and may be for you too, Mr.
Stopper," added the old lady, looking insinuatingly at him.
But whether the head clerk had any design upon Lucy or not, he seemed
to think that her favor was of as much consequence as that of her
grandmother. He might have reasoned in this way--that he could not
expose Thomas without making Lucy his enemy, both from her regard to
him and because of the disgrace that would come upon her by having
her name associated with his; and Mrs. Boxall was old, and Lucy might
take her place any day in the course of nature. Whereas, so long as
he kept the secret and strengthened the conclusions against Thomas
without divulging them, he had a hold over Lucy, even a claim upon her
gratitude, he would say, which he might employ as he saw occasion,
and as prudence should direct, holding his revenge still ready in his
hands in case there should be nothing to be gained by foregoing it.
Therefore, when the clerk in whose charge the money-box was, opened it,
he found in it only a ticket with Mr. Stopper's initials, and the sum
abstracted in figures, by which it was implied that Mr. Stopper had
taken the contents for his own use. So, although it seemed queer that
he should have emptied it of the whole sum, even to the few coppers,
there was nothing to be said, and hardly anything to be conjectured
even.
As Thomas did not make his appearance all day, not a doubt remained
upon Mr. Stopper's mind that he had committed the robbery. But he was
so well acquainted with the minutest details of the business that he
knew very well that the firm was the gainer by Thomas's absconding as
nearly as possible to the same amount that he had taken. This small
alleviation of Thomas's crime, however, Mr. Stopper took no pains
to communicate to Lucy, chuckling only over his own good fortune in
getting rid of him so opportunely; for he would no longer stand in his
way, even if he were to venture on making advances to Lucy; she could
never have anything more to do with a fellow who could be tried for
burglary if he chose to apply for a warrant for his apprehension.
Intending that his forbearance should have the full weight of
obedience to her wishes, Mr. Stopper went up in the evening after the
counting-house was closed. Lucy was not there. She had not left her
room since the morning, and the old woman's tenderness had revived a
little.
"Perhaps you'd better not hang them keys up there, Mr. Stopper. I don't
care about the blame of them. I've had enough of it. There's Lucy,
poor dear, lying on her bed like a dead thing; and neither bit nor sup
passed her lips all day. Take your keys away with you, Mr. Stopper.
I'll have nothing more to do wi' them, I can tell you. And don't you go
and take away that young man's character, Mr. Stopper."
"Indeed I should be very sorry, Mrs. Boxall. He hasn't been here all
day, but I haven't even made a remark on his absence to any one about
the place."
"That's very right, Mr. Stopper. The young gentleman may be at home
with a headache."
"Very likely," answered Mr. Stopper, dryly. "Good-night, Mrs. Boxall.
And as the keys must have an unpleasant look after what has happened,
I'll just put them in my pocket and take them home with me."
"Do ye that, Mr. Stopper. And good-night to you. And if the young man
comes back to-morrow, don't 'ee take no notice of what's come and gone.
If you're sure he took it, you can keep it off his salary, with a wink
for a warning, you know."
"All right, ma'am," said Mr. Stopper, taking his departure in less good
humor than he showed.
I will not say much about Lucy's feelings. For some time she was so
stunned by the blow as to be past conscious suffering. Then commenced
a slow oscillation of feeling: for one half hour, unknown to her as
time, she would be declaring him unworthy of occasioning her trouble;
for the next she would be accusing his attachment to her, and her own
want of decision in not absolutely refusing to occupy the questionable
position in which she found herself, as the combined causes of his
ruin: for as ruin she could not but regard such a fall as his. She
had no answer to her letter--heard nothing of him all day, and in
the evening her grandmother brought her the statement of Mr. Stopper
that Thomas had not been there. She turned her face away toward the
wall, and her grandmother left her, grumbling at girls generally, and
girls in love especially. Meantime a cherub was on its way toward her,
bearing a little bottle of comfort under its wing.