'The Gap, 2D OCT.
'MRS. RUDDEN,--You are requested to pay over to the bearer, Mr.
Foxholm, fifty pounds of the rent you were about to bring me to-
morrow.--I remain, etc.,
'ARTHURINE ARTHURET.'
'What does it mean?' asked Bessie again. 'That's just what Mrs.
Rudden has come up to me to ask,' said the Admiral. 'This fellow
presented it in her shop about a quarter of an hour ago. The good
woman smelt a rat. What do you think she did? She looked at it and
him, asked him to wait a bit, whipped out at her back door, luckily
met the policeman starting on his rounds, bade him have an eye to
the customer in her shop, and came off to show it to me. That young
woman is demented enough for anything, and is quite capable of doing
it--for some absurd scheme. But do you think it is hers, or a
swindle?'
'Didn't she say she had given her autograph?' exclaimed Susan.
'And see here,' said Bessie, 'her signature is at the top of the
sheet of note-paper--small paper. And as she always writes very
large, it would be easy to fill up the rest, changing the first side
over.'
'I must take it up to her at once,' said the Admiral. 'Even if it
be genuine, she may just as well see that it is a queer thing to
have done, and not exactly the way to treat her tenants.'
'It is strange too that this man should have known anything about
Mrs. Rudden,' said Mrs. Merrifield.
'Mrs. Rudden says she had a message this morning, when she had come
up with her rent and accounts, to say that Miss Arthuret was very
much engaged, and would be glad if she would come to-morrow! Could
this fellow have been about then?'
No one knew, but Bessie breathed the word, 'Was not that young
Mytton there?'
It was not taken up, for no one liked to pronounce the obvious
inference. Besides, the Admiral was in haste, not thinking it well
that Mr. Foxholm should be longer kept under surveillance in the
shop, among the bread, bacon, cheeses, shoes, and tins of potted
meat.
He was then called for; and on his loudly exclaiming that he had
been very strangely treated, the Admiral quietly told him that Mrs.
Rudden had been disturbed at so unusual a way of demanding her rent,
and had come for advice on the subject; and to satisfy their minds
that all was right, Mr. Foxholm would, no doubt, consent to wait
till the young lady could be referred to. Mr. Foxholm did very
decidedly object; he said no one had any right to detain him when
the lady's signature was plain, and Admiral Merrifield had seen him
in her society, and he began an account of the philanthropical
purpose for which he said the money had been intended, but he was
cut short.
'You must be aware,' said the Admiral, 'that this is not an ordinary
way of acting, and whatever be your purpose, Mrs. Rudden must
ascertain your authority more fully before paying over so large a
sum. I give you your choice, therefore, either of accompanying us
to the Gap, or of remaining in Mrs. Rudden's parlour till we
return.'
The furtive eye glanced about, and the parlour was chosen. Did he
know that the policeman stationed himself in the shop outside?
The dinner at the Gap was over, and Miss Elmore, the headmistress,
was established in an arm-chair, listening to the outpouring of her
former pupil and the happy mother about all the felicities and
glories of their present life, the only drawback being the dullness
and obstructiveness of the immediate neighbours. 'I thought Miss
Merrifield was your neighbour--Mesa?'
'Oh no--quite impossible! These are Merrifields, but the daughters
are two regular old goodies, wrapped up in Sunday schools and penny
clubs.'
'Well, that is odd! The editor of the --- came down in the train
with me, and said he was going to see Mesa--Miss Elizabeth
Merrifield.'
'I do think it is very unfair,' began Arthurine; but at that moment
the door-bell rang. 'How strange at this time!'
'Oh! perhaps the editor is coming here!' cried Arthurine. 'Did you
tell him _I_ lived here, Miss Elmore?'
'Admiral Merrifield,' announced the parlour-maid.
He had resolved not to summon the young lady in private, as he
thought there was more chance of common-sense in the mother.
'You are surprised to see me at this time,' he said; 'but Mrs.
Rudden is perplexed by a communication from you.'
'Mrs. Rudden!' exclaimed Arthurine. 'Why, I only sent her word that
I was too busy to go through her accounts to-day, and asked her to
come to-morrow. That isn't against the laws of the Medes and
Persians, is it?'
'Then did you send her this letter?'
'I?' said Arthurine, staring at it, with her eyes at their fullest
extent. 'I! fifty pounds! Mr. Foxholm! What does it mean?'
'Then you never wrote that order?'
'No! no! How should I?'
'That is not your writing?'
'No, not that.'
'Look at the signature.'
'Oh! oh! oh!'--and she dropped into a chair. 'The horrible man!
That's the autograph I gave him this afternoon.'
'You are sure?'
'Quite; for my pen spluttered in the slope of the A. Has she gone
and given it to him?'
'No. She brought it to me, and set the policeman to watch him.'
'What a dear, good woman! Shall you send him to prison, Admiral
Merrifield? What can be done to him?' said Arthurine, not looking
at all as if she would like to abrogate capital punishment.
'Well, I had been thinking,' said the Admiral. 'You see he did not
get it, and though I could commit him for endeavouring to obtain
money on false pretences, I very much doubt whether the prosecution
would not be worse for you than for him.'
'That is very kind of you, Admiral!' exclaimed the mother. 'It
would be terribly awkward for dear Arthurine to stand up and say he
cajoled her into giving her autograph. It might always be
remembered against her!'
'Exactly so,' said the Admiral; 'and perhaps there may be another
reason for not pushing the matter to extremity. The man is a
stranger here, I believe.'
'He has been staying at Bonchamp,' said Mrs. Arthuret. 'It was
young Mr. Mytton who brought him over this afternoon.'
'Just so. And how did he come to be aware that Mrs. Rudden owed you
any money?'