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."
"Why, it's just the thing she would do," retorted the Squire, pacing
about in a commotion. "Once she had got rid of the earring, she'd show
up here to throw suspicion off herself. And she couldn't come without
returning the half-crown: it must have gone nicely against the grain to
return _that_."
And Mrs. Todhetley, the most easily swayed spirit in the world, began to
veer round again like a weathercock, and fear we had been foolish.
"You should see her jagged-out old red shawl," cried Molly,
triumphantly. "All the red a'most washed out of it, and the edges in
tatters. _I_ know a tramp when I sees one: and the worst of all tramps
is them that do the tricks with clean hands and snow-white cap-borders."
The theme lasted us all the afternoon. I held my tongue, for it was of
no use contending against the stream. It was getting dusk when Cole
called in, on his way from the Coneys. The Squire laid the grievance
before him, demanding whether he had ever heard of two people so simple
as I and the mother.
"What did she say her name was?" asked Cole. "Nutten?--of Islip? Are you
sure she did not say Norton?"
"She said Nutt'n. We interpreted it into Nutten."
"Yes, Johnny, that's how she would say it. I'll lay a guinea it's old
Granny Norton."
"Granny Norton!" echoed the Squire. "She is respectable."
"Respectable, honest, upright as the day," replied Cole. "I have a great
respect for old Mrs. Norton. She's very poor now; but she was not always
so."
"She told us this morning that she lived in the cottage by the
dung-heap," I put in.
"Exactly: she does so. And a nice dung-heap it is; the disgrace of
Islip," added Cole.
"And you mean to say, Cole, that you know this woman--that she's not a
tramp, but Mrs. Norton?" spoke the pater.
"I know Mrs. Norton of Islip," he answered. "I saw her pass my window
this morning: she seemed to be coming from the railway-station. It was
no tramp, Squire."
"How was she dressed?" asked Mrs. Todhetley.
"Dressed? Well, her shawl was red, and her bonnet black. I've never seen
her dressed otherwise, when abroad, these ten years past."
"And--has she a daughter in service at Worcester?"
"Yes, I think so. Yes, I am sure so. It's Susan. Oh, it is the same
person: you need not doubt it."
"Then what the deuce did Luke Macintosh mean by bringing word back from
Islip that she was not known there?" fiercely demanded the Squire,
turning to me.
"But Luke said he asked for her by the name of Nutt--Mrs. Nutt. I
questioned him about it this afternoon, sir, and he said he understood
Nutt to have been the name we gave him."
This was very unsatisfactory as far as the earring went. (And we
ascertained later that poor Mrs. Norton _was_ Mrs. Norton, and had been
suspected wrongly.) For, failing the tramp view of the case, who could
have sold the earring to the professional gentleman in Worcester?
"Cripp knows what he is about; never fear," observed the Squire. "Now
that he has the case well in hand, he is sure to pull it successfully
through."
"Yes, you may trust Cripp," said the doctor. "And I hope, Mrs.
Todhetley, you will soon be gladdened by the sight of your earring
again." And Cole went out, telling us we were going to have a thaw.
Which we could have told him, for it had already set in, and the snow
was melting rapidly.
* * * * *
"To think that I should have done so stupid a thing. But I have been so
flustered this morning by that parson and his nonsense that I hardly
know what I'm about."
The speaker was Miss Timmens. She had come up in a passion, after twelve
o'clock school. Not with us, or with her errand--which was to bring one
of the new shirts to show, made after Tod's fancy--but with the young
parson. Upon arriving and unfolding the said shirt, Miss Timmens found
that she had brought the wrong shirt--one of those previously finished.
The thaw had gone on so briskly in the night that this morning the roads
were all mud and slop, and Miss Timmens had walked up in her pattens.
"He is enough to make a saint swear, with his absurdities and his
rubbish," went on Miss Timmens, turning from the table where lay the
unfolded shirt, and speaking of the new parson; between whom and
herself hot war waged. "You'd never believe, ma'am, what he did this
morning"--facing Mrs. Todhetley. "I had got the spelling-class up, and
the rest of the girls were at their slates and copies, and that, when in
he walked amidst the roomful. 'Miss Timmens,' says he to me, in the
hearing of them all, 'I think these children should learn a little
music. And perhaps a little drawing might not come amiss to those who
have talent for it.' 'Oh yes, of course,' says I, hardly able to keep my
temper, 'and a little dancing as well, and let 'em go out on the green
daily and step their figures to a fife and tambourine!' 'There's nothing
like education,' he goes on, staring hard at me, as if he hardly knew
whether to take my words for jest or earnest; 'and it is well to unite,
as far as we can, the ornamental with the useful, it makes life
pleasanter. It is quite right to teach girls to hem dusters and darn
stockings, but I think some fancy-work should be added to it: embroidery
and the like.' 'Oh, you great baby!' I thought to myself, and did but
just stop my tongue from saying it. 'Will embroidery and music and
drawing help these girls to scour floors, and cook dinners, and wash
petticoats?' I asked him. 'If I had a set of young ladies here, it would
be right for them to learn accomplishments; but these girls are to be
servants. And all I can say, sir, is, that if ever those new-fangled
notions are introduced, you'll have to find another mistress, for I'll
not stop to help in it. It would just lead many a girl to her ruin, sir;
that's what it would do, whoever lives to see it.' Well, he went away
with that, ma'am, but he had put my temper up--talking such dangerous
nonsense before the girls, their ears all agape to listen!--and when
twelve o'clock struck, I was not half through the spelling-class!
Altogether, it's no wonder I brought away the wrong shirt."
Miss Timmens, her errand a failure, began folding up the shirt in a
bustle, her thin face quite fiery with anger. Mrs. Todhetley shook her
head; she did not approve of nonsensical notions for these poor peasant
girls any more than did the rest of us.
"I'll bring up the right shirt this evening when school's over; and if
it suits we'll get on with the rest," concluded Miss Timmens, making her
exit with the parcel.
"What the world will come to later, Mr. Johnny, if these wild ideas get
much ground, puzzles me to think of," resumed Miss Timmens, as I went
with her, talking, along the garden-path. "We shall have no servants,
sir; none. It does not stand to reason that a girl will work for her
bread at menial offices when she has had fine notions instilled into
her. Grammar, and geography, and history, and botany, and music, and
singing, and fancy-work!--what good will they be of to her in making
beds and cleaning saucepans? The upshot will be that they won't make
beds and they won't clean saucepans; they'll be above it. The Lord
protect 'em!--for I don't see what else will; or what will become of
them. Or of the world, either, when it can get no servants. My goodness,
Master Johnny! what's that? Surely it's the lost earring?"
Close to the roots of a small fir-tree it lay: the earring that had
caused so much vexation and hunting. I picked it up: its pink topaz and
diamonds shone brightly as ever in the sun, and were quite uninjured.
Mrs. Todhetley remembered then, though it had slipped her memory before,
that in coming indoors after the interview with the woman at the gate,
she had stopped to shake this fir-tree, bowed down almost to breaking
with its weight of snow. The earring must have fallen from her ear then
into the snow, and been hidden by it.
Without giving himself time for a mouthful of lunch, the Squire tore
away to the station through the mud, as fast as his legs would carry
him, and thence to Worcester by train. What an unfortunate mistake it
would be should that professional gentleman have been accused, who had
bought something from the travelling pedlar!
"Well, Cripp, here's a fine discovery!" panted the Squire, as he went
bursting into the police-station and to the presence of Sergeant Cripp.
"The lost earring has turned up."
"I'm sure I am very glad to hear it," said the sergeant, facing round
from a letter he was writing. "How has it been found?"
And the Squire told him how.
"It was not stolen at all, then?"
"Not at all, Cripp. And the poor creature we suspected of taking it
proves to be a very respectable old body indeed, nothing of the tramp
about her. You--you have not gone any lengths yet with that professional
gentleman, I hope!" added the Squire, dropping his voice to a
confidential tone.
Cripp paused for a minute, as if not understanding.
"We have not employed any professional man at all in the matter," said
he; "have not thought of doing so."
"I don't mean that, Cripp. _You_ know. The gentleman you suspected of
having bought the earring."
Cripp stared. "I have not suspected any one."
"Goodness me! you need not be so cautious, Cripp," returned the Squire,
somewhat nettled. "Eccles made a confidant of me. He told me all about
it--except the name."
"What Eccles?" asked Cripp. "I really do not know what you are talking
of, sir."
"What Eccles--why, your Eccles. Him you sent over to me on Sunday
afternoon: a well-dressed, gentlemanly man, with a black moustache.
Detective Eccles."
"I do not know any Detective Eccles."
"Dear me, my good man, you must be losing your memory!" retorted the
Squire, in wrath. "He came straight to me from you on Sunday; you sent
him off in haste without his dinner."
"Quite a mistake, sir," said the sergeant. "It was not I who sent him."
"Why, bless my heart and mind, Cripp, you'll be for telling me next the
sun never shone! Where's your recollection gone to?"
"I hope my recollection is where it always has been, Squire. We must be
at cross-purposes. I do not know any one of the name of Eccles, and I
have not sent any one to you. As a proof that I could not have done it,
I may tell you, sir, that I was summoned to Gloucester on business last
Friday directly after I saw you, and did not get back here until this
morning."
The Squire rubbed his face, whilst he revolved probabilities, and
thought Cripp must be dreaming.
"He came direct from you--from yourself, Cripp; and he disclosed to me
your reasons for hoping you had found the earring, and your doubts of
the honesty of the man who had bought it--the lawyer, you remember. And
he brought back the other earring to you that you might compare them."
"Eh--what?" cried Cripp, briskly. "Brought away the other earring, do
you say, sir?"
"To be sure he did. What else did you send him for?"
"And he has not returned it to you?"
"Returned it! of course not. You hold it, don't you?"
"Then, Squire Todhetley, you have been cleverly robbed of this second
earring," cried Cripp, quietly. "_Dodged_ out of it, sir. The man who
went over to you must have been a member of the swell-mob. Well-dressed,
and a black moustache!"
"He was a college man, had been at Oxford," debated the unfortunate
pater, sitting on a chair in awful doubt. "He told me so."
"You did not see him there, sir," said the sergeant, with a suppressed
laugh. "I might tell you I had a duke for a grandmother; but it would be
none nearer the fact."
"Mercy upon us all!" groaned the Squire. "What a mortification it will
be if that other earring's gone! Don't you think some one in your
station here may have sent him, if you were out yourself?"
"I will inquire, for your satisfaction, Squire Todhetley," said the
sergeant, opening the door; "but I can answer for it beforehand that it
will be useless."
It was as Cripp thought. Eccles was not known at the station, and no one
had been sent to us.
"It all comes of that advertisement you put in, Squire," finished up
Cripp, by way of consolation. "The swell-mob would not have known there
was a valuable jewel missing but for that, or the address of those who
had missed it."
The pater came home more crestfallen than a whipped schoolboy, after
leaving stringent orders with Cripp and his men to track out the
swindler. It was a blow to all of us.
"I said he looked as much like a detective as I'm like a Dutchman,"
quoth Tod.
"Well, it's frightfully mortifying," said the Squire.
"And the way he polished off that beef, and drank down the ale! I wonder
he did not contrive to walk off with the silver tankard!"
"Be quiet, Joe! You are laughing, sir! Do you think it is a laughing
matter?"
"Well, I don't know," said bold Tod. "It was cleverly done."
Up rose the pater in a passion. Vowing vengeance against the swindlers
who went about the world, got up in good clothes and a moustache; and
heartily promising the absent and unconscious Cripp to be down upon him
if he did not speedily run the man to earth.
And that's how Mrs. Todhetley lost the other earring.
IX.
A TALE OF SIN.
+Part the first.+
If I don't relate this quite as usual, and it is found to be different
from what I generally write, it is because I know less about it than
others know. The history is Duffham's; not mine. And there are diaries
in it, and all kinds of foreign things. That is, foreign to me. Duffham
holds all the papers, and has lent them to me to use. It came about in
this way.
"Whilst you are picking up the sea-breezes, Johnny," he said, when
I called to tell him where I was going, "you can be getting on with
another paper or two for us, I hope; for we like your stories."
"But I am going away for a rest, Mr. Duffham; not to work. I don't want
to be ransacking memory for materials during any holiday, and then
weaving them into what you call a story. Much rest that would be!"
"I'll give you the materials for one," he said; "plenty of them: it
won't take much weaving; you'll have it all before your eyes. It will be
nothing but play-work to you; just a bit of copying."
"But I don't care to put fiction on paper and send it forth as though it
were true. What I tell of has mostly happened, you know."
Duffham laughed a little. "If everything told in print were as true as
this, Johnny Ludlow, the world would have witnessed some strange events.
Not that you'll find anything strange in this tale: it is quite
matter-of-fact. There's no romance about it; nothing but stern reality."
"Well, let me see the papers."
Duffham went out of the surgery, and came back with his spectacles on,
and carrying some papers tied up with pink tape.
"You'll find a sort of narrative begun, Johnny," he said, untying the
tape, "for I tried my own hand at it. But I found I could not get
on well. Writing manuscripts is not so much in my line as doctoring
patients."
"Why, here's Lady Chavasse's name in it!" I exclaimed, glancing over the
papers. "Is it about _her_?"
"You'll see who it's about and who it's not about, Johnny," he answered,
rolling them up again. "I should like you to retain the title I have put
to it."
"What is the title?"
Duffham undid the first sheet, and held it in silence for me to read. "A
Tale of Sin." It took me aback. Sundry considerations naturally struck
me.
"I say, Mr. Duffham, if it is about sin, and the people are still
living, how will they like to see it talked about in print?"
"You leave the responsibility to me," he said; "I'll take it on my own
shoulders. All you have to do is to put it into ship-shape, Johnny. That
is a matter of course."
And so I took the papers. But the tale is Duffham's; not mine.
* * * * *
To begin with, and make it explainable, we have to go ever so many years
back: but it won't be for long.
Duffham's predecessor as general practitioner at Church Dykely was a Mr.
Layne. Some of the poor would spell it without the "y," "Lane," but the
other was the proper way. This Mr. Layne was of rather good family,
whilst his wife was only a small working farmer's daughter. Mr. Layne
lived in a pretty red-brick house, opposite to Duffham's present
residence. It stood a yard or two back from the path, and had woodbines
and jessamine creeping up its walls; the door was in the middle,
a window on each side; and there was a side-door round the little
garden-path, that opened into the surgery. The house was his own.
Nearly a mile beyond the village, along the straight highway, stood the
gates and lodge of a fine place called Chavasse Grange, belonging to Sir
Peter Chavasse. He remained an old bachelor up to nearly the end of his
life. And then, when it seemed to be getting time for him to prepare for
the grave, he suddenly got married. The young lady was a Miss Gertrude
Cust: as might have been read in the newspapers of the day, announcing
the wedding.
But, when Sir Peter brought her home, the wonder to the neighbourhood
was, what could have induced the young lady to have him; for she turned
out to be a mere child in years, and very beautiful. It was whispered
that her family, high, poor, and haughty, had wished her to make a
different match; to a broken-down old nobleman, ten times richer than
Sir Peter; but that she hated the man. Sir Peter had five thousand
a-year, and his baronetcy was not of ancient creation. The new lady was
found to be very pleasant: she went into the village often, and made
acquaintance with everybody.
It was just about eight months after the marriage that Sir Peter died.
The death was sudden. Mr. Layne was sent for in haste to the Grange,
and found he was too late. Too late for Sir Peter: but Lady Chavasse,
overcome with grief and terror, was in great need of his services.
There was a baby expected at the Grange. Not yet: in three or four
months to come. And, until this child should be born, the baronetcy had
to lie in abeyance. If it proved to be a boy, he would take his father's
title and fortune; if a girl, both title and fortune would lapse to some
distant cousin; a young man, compared with Sir Peter; who was in the
navy, and was called Parker Chavasse.
And now we must give a line or two from one of the diaries I spoke of.
It is Mr. Layne's: and it appears to have been partly kept as a
professional note-book, partly as a private journal. At this time Mr.
Layne was a middle-aged man, with three young children, girls; he had
married later than some men do.
[_From an Old Note-book of Mr. Layne's._]
_May 18th._--Have had a fatiguing day. Upon getting home from my visit
to Lady Chavasse, there were five different messages waiting for me. It
never rains but it pours. Ten o'clock P.M., and I am dead tired; but I
must write my notes before going to bed.
I wish I could get some strength and spirit into Lady Chavasse. This
listlessness tells sadly against her. Over and over again it has been on
the tip of my tongue to say it may go hard with her unless she uses more
exertion; but I don't like to frighten her. Nearly four months now since
Sir Peter died, and she has never been out but to church--and to that
she goes in the pony-carriage. "My lady, you ought to walk; my lady, you
must walk," say I. And it is just as though I spoke to the post at the
lodge-gates.