"There is no honesty in such dealing."--_Shakespeare_.
One day when Sophy had been trusted to go out alone to carry a few veal
cutlets from luncheon to Judith, she found the door on the latch, but no
one in the room downstairs, the chair empty, the fire out, and all more
dreary than usual, only a voice from above called out, "Please come up."
Sophy, pleased with the adventure, mounted the dark and rickety stairs,
and found herself in the open space above, cut off from the stairs by a
screen, and containing a press-bed, where Judith lay, covered by an
elaborate patchwork quilt. There was a tiny dressing-table under the
narrow lattice window, and one chair, also a big trunk-box, with a
waggon-shaped lid, such as servants used to have in those days, covered
with paper, where big purple spots of paint concealed the old print of
some story or newspaper. On the wall hung a few black profiles, and all
was very fairly neat, whatever the room might be shut off by a wooden
partition, whence came a peculiar sour smell.
"Oh, it is Miss Sophia!" exclaimed Judith. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, I
thought it was Dame Spurrell, who said she would come and look in on me,
or I would not have troubled you to come up."
"I am glad I did, Judith; I like to see where you live. Only, are you
worse?"
"No, miss, only as my back is sometimes, and my sister and all the
children are gone to the hiring fair, so it was not handy to get me up."
"And this is your room!" said Sophy, looking about her. "Isn't it very
cold?"
"Johnnie heats me a brick to keep me warm at night; but my feet are
always cold downstairs. It does not make much difference."
"Oh dear! And you have a screen, I see. Oh! Why, that is our
drawing-room paper."
She sat transfixed at the recognition, while Judith observed, quite
innocently, with a free conscience--
"Yes, miss, my brother-in-law brought it home, and told me it was just a
scrap that was left over, and he was free to have, though I said I did
wonder the lady did not want to keep it in case of an accident
happening."
"Yes," said Sophy, "I don't think he had any business to have it, for
all one division of the paper is put on upside down. The laburnums
point up instead of hanging down, and I am sure Mary would have altered
it if she could. It was beautiful French paper that Edmund brought home
from Paris and laid up for the furnishing their house."
This, of course, Mrs Carbonel and Dora would never have told poor
Judith, but Sophy was young and unguarded, and apt to talk when she had
better have held her tongue.
"I am sorry to hear it, miss, indeed I am. I am afraid one could not
take it off the screen to put it back again where it did ought to be."
Sophy looked, but it was manifestly impossible. Spoiling the screen
would not mend the wall of the drawing-room.
"Perhaps Molly might have another bit left," she said, only thinking of
the triumph of carrying home the means of repairing the deficiency by
her own unassisted sagacity.
"I will ask her, miss. I am sure I never thought Dan would go for to do
such a thing," mourned Judith, though, even as she spoke, there came
back on her recollections of times when she had tried to be blind and
deaf. "But if Mrs Carbonel would let me pay for it, miss, I should be
easier in my mind. I have a shilling, though no doubt that is not the
worth of it." And she began feeling for a little box under her pillow,
never mentioning that she had already paid Dan a shilling for it.
"No, no; nonsense, Judith! Of course my sister would not take it for
the world; but if any one could find another bit, just to patch up the
part above the book-case, it would be nice."
"I will do what in me lays, Miss Sophy," answered Judith.
So Sophy took her leave and trotted home, very proud of her discovery,
which she communicated in an eager voice as the phaeton drew up at the
front door.
"Oh, Edmund, I have found the rest of the drawing-room paper!"
"Hush! not so loud, my dear," said Dora, getting out of the back seat,
and Edmund, being busy in telling the groom to attend to something in
the harness, did not heed at first.
"Did you know, Dora?" asked Sophy, in a lower voice, being struck by
something in her repressive manner.
"Yes; but I did not tell, because Edmund was so much vexed, and it was
of no use now."
Dora really hoped no one had heard, as Mary was busy with her parcels,
and she was too fond of Judith not to wish to shield her family; but it
was too late. The captain came in with, "What's this about the
drawing-room paper?"
Sophy was delighted to pour out the history of her discovery, and tell
how it appeared on the screen that sheltered poor Judith Grey.
"Exactly as I supposed," said Captain Carbonel. "I always believed that
fellow was a thief."
"But it is not poor Judith's fault," exclaimed the sisters, with one
voice.
"She knew nothing about it. She wanted to pay the shilling for it,"
said Sophia.
The captain laughed a little.
"And she is going to search for a bit to go up there!" continued the
girl more vehemently; and he laughed again.
"Yes," said Mary, "if you only saw something of her, you would be
convinced that her whole character is very different from that of the
rest of the family."
"Don't you be taken in by plausibility," said the captain. "I know that
fellow Dan is a thief. I meant to tell his relation, George, that I
won't allow him to be employed on the new schoolroom. I shall do so
now."
"Would it not be better to forget what happened so long ago?" Mary
ventured to say.
"And suppose Judith restores it," added Sophia.
"Pshaw!" said the captain; but Mary followed him to the study, and what
she did with him there her sisters did not know, but it resulted in his
allowing that Dan might have another trial, with a sharp eye over him.
So unused was Uphill to the visits of ladies, that when the piece of
French paper was sold to Judith, no one had thought of her being sought
out in her bedroom. Molly came home with the children in the evening,
tired out but excited--for all had had rather more beer than was good
for them, and the children a great many more sweets. Jem and Judy were
quarrelling over a wooden horse covered with white spots, but whose mane
had already disappeared, Lizzie was sick, cross, and stupid, Polly had
broken the string of her new yellow necklace, and was crying about it,
and nobody had recollected the aunt except Johnnie, who presented her
with a piece of thin gingerbread representing King George the Fourth, in
white, pink, and gilt! Molly herself was very tired, though she said it
was all very fine, and she had seen a lot of people, and the big sleeves
they wore were quite a wonder. Then she scolded Polly with all her
might for crying and never setting the tea, nor boiling the kettle; and,
after all, it was Johnnie who made up the fire, fetched water, and set
the kettle boiling. They all wrangled together over their purchases,
and the sights they had seen, or not seen, while Judith was glad to be
out of the way of seeing, though not of hearing. Then the girls trailed
themselves upstairs. Judy slept with her aunt, Polly and Lizzie had a
kind of shake-down on a mattress of chaff or hulls, as she called it, by
her side. Judith always insisted on their prayers, but they said they
were much too tired to-night, and could not say anything but "Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John," which was all they knew except the Lord's Prayer.
Judith had taught them this, but they thought the repeating it a very
difficult ceremony, far too hard when they were tired.
Their mother went to bed soon afterwards, taking Jem with her, and so
did Johnnie, all being anxious to get what sleep they could before the
dreaded moment of father's return. Public-houses were not obliged to
close at any special time in those days, and the home-coming, especially
on a fair day, was apt to be a terrible affair. It was not till past
one o'clock that shouts, broken bursts of singing, and howls of
quarrelling announced the break-up of the riotous party, and presently
the door bounced open, and with oaths at the darkness, though there was
bright moonlight, Dan stumbled in and staggered upstairs, overturning
the unlucky screen upon Polly as he did so, cursing and swearing at them
all, and ordering his wife to get up and open the door, which he was
past finding. He did not attack Judith, though he almost fell over her
bed, and the two girls lay trembling, not daring to lift off the screen
till the door of the bedroom was shut on them; and then came the only
too well-known sound of their mother scolding and crying, and his
swearing and beating her.
They were only too much used to such disturbance, and were asleep again
before it was over; but Judith could only lie on, shaking with terror--
not personal--but at the awful words she heard, and praying that they
might not be visited on that unhappy household, but that God would
forgive.
It was not till the next day when the house was tolerably quiet, and
Molly, rather fretful and grumbling, had helped Judith down to her place
by the fire, that she ventured the question, "Molly, you have not a bit
more of that pretty wall-paper you gave me for my screen?"
"Did it get broke last night in Dan's drunken tantrums?"
"Not more than I can mend, but little Miss Sophia, she says that the
paper in the Greenhow drawing-room is quite spoilt for want of a piece
to cover up a bit that was put on wrong."
"My patience! And how did Miss Sophia come to know anything about it?"
"She came up to see me, and bring those cutlets that you are warming up
now."
"Bless me! Well, Dan will be vexed," said Molly. "Such mean folk as
they are, a-peeping and a-prying after everything! They knows how to
look after whatever they chooses to say is their own; and the captain,
he made a row before about that there trumpery yard or two of paper that
was the parkisit of them that hung it."
"Miss Sophy says it spoilt the room."
"Sp'ilt it! They've little to vex 'em that is terrified about that!"
"But have you got the bit, Molly?"
"I never had it! Dan kept it in the outhouse. He may have a scrap
left, that he used to make caps for the Christmas boys when he used the
rest to paper Mrs Hunter's closet with down at Downhill. Your piece
was left over of that, and may be there was half-a-yard more; but he
locks that there workshop of his, so as one can't get in to get a bit of
shavings to light the fire. So you must ask him. I am sure I dare not
do it. He's _that_ angry if one does but look into his shop."
"I must try and get it!" said Judith.
"Not now, I wouldn't," entreated Molly. "What is it to the ladies? And
father, he will be fit to tear the place down if he hears of it! Them
Gobblealls is set again him already, and 'tis just taking away our bread
to say a bit more about it to them folks. George Hewlett is particular
enough already, without having a work about this."
Poor Judith, she felt as if she could never be at peace with her
conscience, while she had those yellow laburnums in sight in her room,
and she did not see how restitution and confession could injure her
brother-in-law; but her code of right and wrong was very different from
that of either husband or wife.
Molly went on maundering about the hardship of having taken in a poor
helpless thing, and having stood between her and the workhouse, only
that she should turn a viper and a spy, and take her poor children's
bread out of their mouths, forgetting that Jem was at the very moment
eating up the piece of apple-pie that had come with the cutlets.
Judith tried to get her thoughts together, and decided that, however
much she might dread Dan's anger, and care for his interest and family
peace, it was her duty to do her best to recover whatever remnant was
possible of his booty. So when he came home to dinner she ventured to
ask him if he had a piece left of that paper of her screen.
"Why?" he asked, turning on her, as if he hoped to make more of whatever
he had.
She told him timidly, and it was as she had feared. He began abusing
her violently for letting spies up into her room, and turning against
him, that let her have her house-room, and "worriting" them all with her
hypocritical ways. He could tell her there was nothing between her and
the workhouse, and all was interspersed with oaths, terrible to hear.
Molly began taking her part, and declaring that Judith could not help it
if little miss would come into her room; but Dan, who had qualified last
night's revel with another mug of ale, was quite past all reason, and
declared that Judith called the girl up on purpose to bring him into
trouble, and that nothing but harm had ever come of her canting, Methody
ways, and he had a good mind to kick her out at once to the workhouse,
and would do so, if she brought them Gobblealls down on him again.
There had been nothing but plague ever since they came into the parish,
and he wouldn't have them come poll-prying about his house. No, he
wouldn't.
Judith knew this was a vain threat, for he was always out of the house
when they came, and she also knew that he was the last man to give up
the small payment that she was in the habit of making quarterly, or what
was begged from her besides, so she was not afraid of any such measure;
but she was much shaken, and felt quite ill afterwards, and Molly did
not stint her blame and lamentations. Nothing happened in consequence,
except that, from that time forward, Dan's incipient dislike to "they
Gobblealls" was increased, and they could do nothing which he did not
find fault with; though his wife, grumbling at them all the time, was
quite willing to get everything possible out of them.