WHAT DID HE MEAN?
AS the cab drove off, bearing Adrian towards his home, the brother and
sister walked on in silence for a minute or two, quite forgetting the
object of their walk in the thoughts that occupied their minds.
At last Molly said, "We never used to have secrets from each other.
Won't you tell me what Cousin Ted meant by calling you a thief, and
saying you stole his mother's letter?"
After a minute's pause, Arthur said: "Look here, Molly, I don't know
much more about the affair than you do, except this: that a letter was
sent to our Mr. Langley a week or two ago, and it never reached him.
Lady Mary came and saw the governor, and made a fine row about it. She
told him, I believe, that her son posted the letter, but after what Ted
has said to-night, I shall begin to think that neither the post office
nor we lost it."
"He was tipsy, you know, Arthur," said Molly, who would far rather
think the post office guilty of stealing the letter than that anyone
belonging to her should be deemed guilty of the mean action.
"Yes, if he had not been tipsy, he would not have said what he did;
but 'when the drink is in, the wit is out.' I wonder whether he will
remember what he said when he wakes up in the morning!" said Arthur in
a musing tone. "I think I ought to tell Mr. Bristow what he said, it
may prove to be a clue for discovering who had the cheque."
"Who do they think stole it?" asked Molly.
"Well, you see, I have to sort the morning mailbag and distribute the
letters, and so naturally the suspicion rests upon me."
"Arthur!" exclaimed the girl, stopping in the middle of the street and
seizing him by the shoulders.
"Don't, Molly! Don't do that! And don't say a word to them at home."
"But—but, Arthur, nobody can really think you would do such a thing!"
said poor Molly, with gasp.
"I don't know, dear, quite what people think, only I have fancied
lately that Mr. Brading does, and Jack has not been in to see me as he
used to the first month I was there."
"Then it is this that has made you look so pale and anxious lately? I
was sure that something must have happened. You must not stay there,
of course. I shall begin to think, with Annie, that you ought never to
have gone to that shop!"
"Oh, I like the work very well, and Mr. Brading—"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Molly impatiently. "But
now you must leave, of course; you cannot stay there to be insulted."
"Nobody has insulted me, Molly; and as for leaving, I must stay now
until this affair is cleared up. Why, if the railway were to bring us
a fortune directly, I would go to Mr. Brading and say, 'Let me stay
here until I can prove that I am innocent of this theft.' It would be
the only way of clearing my character in the eyes of the world. I never
thought of the value of this until lately, but I can see it is the
only way for me, hard as it may be. But I say, we have forgotten this
letter."
And Arthur was just turning to run across the road, when he came into
contact with Mr. Andrews, very much as he had done the first time he
met him.
"I beg your pardon, I am very sorry," said Arthur, when he could
recover the power to speak.
"You are doing the steam-engine trick again," said the lawyer.
And then he saw Molly, and asked her why she allowed her brother to be
out of her keeping, seeing he was such a danger to the public when left
to himself?
"This is the second time he has nearly knocked me backwards," added the
old gentleman.
"I was taking a letter to your house," said Arthur. "I hope the news in
it will not affect you in a similar way. I cannot say I think much of
it myself at present."
"Well, well, as you say it is a high explosive, I will wait until I
reach the safety of my own armchair before opening it, and I should
advise you young people to go home now."
"Yes, indeed we must," said Molly, "for we have been out much longer
than we intended, and Annie will be in a fright about us."
And the two shook hands with Mr. Andrews and wished him good-night.
This fortnight which had brought such an uneasiness and anxiety to
Arthur had not been much more pleasant to Lady Mary. She wrote letters
and sent telegrams to her lawyer, but could only get vague polite
assurances from his chief clerk that her business should be attended
to at the earliest possible moment, and then at last she heard that
Mr. Simmons was ill, and had been obliged to leave home for rest and
change. She obtained this information at last, after a personal protest
to the young man left in charge of the office and business.
"Why didn't you tell me this when I first called and asked to see Mr.
Simmons?" fumed Lady Mary. "What business had you to tell me that Mr.
Simmons would see me the next day?"
And the Irish Jig was performed for the edification of the other two
clerks, for at the thought of the hundred pounds she had paid for early
information of what all the town was now talking of, she felt like
tearing her hair, or else the clerk's who had managed to delay her
business.
"And you mean to tell me that Mr. Simmons has not had my letters?"
"I was compelled to obey orders, my lady. The letters went up to the
house, but I don't think the doctor would let him open them. I have had
to keep things going here as well as I could, but as your letters were
marked 'Strictly private,' why, of course they wouldn't be opened till
Mr. Simmons could attend to them himself, my lady."
The young man evidently thought this ought to reassure the irate lady,
but it only made her the more angry. "I might just as well have thrown
my hundred pounds in the gutter, and all through setting an idiot like
you to look after business! What was Simmons thinking about to trust
anybody like you with his office?"
And again followed another example of the Irish jig that well-nigh
made the clerks forget they were on duty, and that it was no less a
personage than Lady Mary Murray that was provoking their laughter.
This interview at her lawyer's office took place the same day that
Arthur and Molly met Adrian in the evening, and she went home from
that interview determined that no further time should be lost, and
recalling all the legal phraseology she could to her aid, she wrote to
Mr. Andrews as she imagined the lawyer would have done. At any rate she
made her meaning clear enough, which was this: that she now held all
the mortgages on the Murray property, and she intended to foreclose
at once unless the money was paid with interest up to date, and paid
within ten days.
To her utter astonishment and dismay, she received a letter from Mr.
Andrews the next day, saying that the money was ready to be paid over
when Mr. Simmons was well enough to transact business.
"Adrian! What do you think of the impudence of that lawyer Andrews? He
has actually written to say that I can have my money as soon as Simmons
is well enough to settle the business!"
"What money is that?" asked Adrian, rousing himself from his sleepy
lethargy to look across at his mother. "What money is that?" he
repeated. "You told me only yesterday that you were very short of cash
just now."
"So I am, dreadfully short!" replied the lady.
"Then I suppose you will be glad to hear that you can get this money?
And I know I am, for I want some, and you must let me have it too,"
said the young fellow in a sulky defiant tone.
"Adrian! What do you mean?" exclaimed his mother in a tone of
astonishment.
"Well, Mother, you seem to forget that I am not a school-boy, and want
money like other young men."
"What for? I am sure you have everything you can want at home here
until you go to Oxford."
"I don't know that I shall go to Oxford now. What's the good of it? I
may go to London and live in chambers like any other fellow. But now
about this money, of course it is yours, but where has it been that you
have always been so short of ready cash?"
"Lent on mortgage. Lent on land that the new railway must buy, and
buy at my price. I have been waiting for years for this to happen. My
brother, Lismore, always said it would come, sooner or later, and his
word has come true for once."
"But if lawyer Andrews says you can have your money when you like, they
don't mean to let you have the land," said Adrian roughly.
"But I won't have it! They can't pay it! Who would trust a shop-boy
with five pounds? I wouldn't, after what has happened, and I shall go
and see Andrews this morning, and ask him what he means by sending
me such a letter? Of course it was always understood that I should
foreclose when it suited me, in spite of the terms of the mortgage."
"What were the terms?" asked Adrian, who could be sharp enough where
money was concerned, however dull and indifferent he might be in other
matters. "What were the terms upon which you lent this money, Mother?"
"Well, just for form's sake, it was set down that if the money could be
repaid within fourteen days from the time that I gave notice, then of
course I could not touch the land. But they cannot repay it! I tell you
it amounts to some thousands of pounds now, and they haven't as many
farthings! I may let a little stand over, if they will agree to leave
the town and the neighbourhood, but it is not pleasant to have poor
relations close under one's nose, and I shall be glad to get rid of
them."
"So shall I! For that prig, Arthur, is always interfering with me and
my concerns. I can't even walk about the town but he is dogging my
steps and trying to get things out of me, asking me questions about my
affairs in the most impudent fashion, considering that he has disgraced
our family and name by going to serve in a shop."
"He always was a most impudent, mischievous boy, and he certainly must
be got rid of somehow."
"Well, if you can do it, I shall be glad enough. Only do it quietly,
Mother. I don't want our name dragged through the gutter, the police
called in, and all that sort of thing."
"I certainly shall call in the police, if he will not leave Fairmead
without!"
"Very well, do as you like, only let me know, for I don't mean to be
mixed up in such a disgraceful affair. I shall go to London and stay
with my uncle Lismore for a little while. So give me due notice of the
police being put on the job and I am off."
He suited the action to the word and lounged out of the morning-room
and went upstairs, for it had just occurred to him that he might as
well have his portmanteau packed in readiness in case his mother should
forget to inform him that she had consulted the police, and he should
be taken unawares, which would certainly be awkward.
Lady Mary sat considering the position of her affairs for a minute, and
then resolved to call upon Mr. Andrews and find out, if she could, just
what he meant by the letter she had received from him.
In answer to her question whether she could see Mr. Andrews, she was
shown to his private room, and was received by the lawyer with no small
surprise. "I have come to say that I am very much astonished at the
terms of your letter," she said.
"Indeed, my lady! What was there so astonishing in it?" asked the old
man.
"Well, you know I have lent my money—"
"At a very fair interest," interrupted the lawyer.
"Well, yes, I suppose it was," admitted the lady. "But still I always
understood, since I took up the other mortgages, that the land would
fall into my hands eventually. Poor Charles said many times, 'You will
foreclose, Mary, when it suits you.'"
"Certainly, and you have given me due notice of your intention to do
so, and I have replied that we, on our side, are prepared to pay over
the amount due on all the land given as security."
"But you can't do it!" stamped Lady Mary.
"I beg your pardon! There is nothing in the deeds to prevent this,
provided I have the money ready, and I may tell you that the money is
ready now, and I wrote to Mr. Simmons at the same time I wrote to you,
saying I should be glad to know when he could attend to this."
"I don't believe it!" almost screamed Lady Mary.
And having said this, she opened the door and almost ran out of the
house in her excitement and indignation.
Without waiting to think what her next step should be, she walked as
fast as she could to Arthur's home, and knocked so loudly at the door
that the little maid dropped the plate she was washing, in her hurry to
dry her hands and be ready to receive the important visitor at the door.
The two young ladies were out, she told the imposing-looking lady,
dropping a curtsy in her awe of the stately stranger.
"I can see Mrs. Murray, I suppose?" said the visitor, pushing past the
little maid and going to the stair.
"I will go and ask the mistress," said Alice in an awe-struck tone, as
she ran after her.
"You need not trouble yourself," said Lady Mary. "I am an old friend of
Mrs. Murray's. You need not look like that; I am not going to eat her."
"Oh, Mary, I thought you had quite forgotten us!"
Alice heard her mistress say these words, and then she went back to the
kitchen to finish her dish-washing. She soon came to the conclusion,
from the sounds that reached her from the upstairs room, that the door
was not closed when the visitor went in, and that the two ladies were
having what she called "a jolly row."
"I hope it's about them beastly cats as Missis is so fond of," muttered
Alice, as she stood near the half-opened kitchen door.
She could not hear a word that was said distinctly, but she could
distinguish Lady Mary's loud imperious tones, and then her mistress
seemed to protest in a thin piping voice that only made the other more
angry.
Then after a time, the heavy footstep came downstairs, and before she
could get to the street door to open it, she heard it closed with a
bang.
Then Alice went into the scullery to scour some dirty sauce-pans, and
amused herself by singing a popular ditty at the top of her voice,
which she was not always so free to do as she was this morning.
She had finished her scullery work, to her own satisfaction at least,
and was tying on a clean apron preparatory to setting the dinner-table,
when there came a knock at the door which she instantly recognized as
Miss Molly's, and ran to open it.
"Thank you, Alice!" said Molly pleasantly, and then she went to the
foot of the stairs and called: "We have come home, Mamma."
There was no reply from the upper room, and Molly remarked:
"She must have shut her door, I think."
"Have you been singing, Alice?" asked Annie.
"Just a little," admitted Alice, with a heightened colour. "But I
didn't begin while the lady was here."
"The lady, what lady?" asked Molly quickly.
But Alice could only shake her head.
"Did she go up to see your mistress?" asked Annie.
"Yes, ma'am. She said she knowed the missis ever so long, and she did
too, for I heard the misses say, 'Oh, Mary!' And then I come downstairs
and let 'em have their row to themselves."
The two girls stood and looked at Alice in amazement.
"What do you mean?" said Molly angrily.
"I ain't saying no harm, Miss Molly, for it's true as I'm here that the
lady and the missis had a jolly row, and then the lady went away, and I
began my sauce-pans with that silver sand I bought of the man."
But while Molly was questioning and listening to Alice, Annie ran
upstairs to her mother's room, and Molly and Alice both heard her
calling, "Mamma! Mamma! Where are you? Where are you hiding?"
Molly ran up then, closely followed by the little servant.
"Well, if this don't beat all!" she exclaimed, as she stood staring in
at the sitting-room door.
While the sisters went from bedroom to sitting-room and back again,
looking, and calling, "Mamma! Mamma!"
"What sort of a lady was it who came? Was there a carriage at the
gate?" asked Annie, wondering whether one of their old friends had
called to take the invalid out for a drive, as the weather was so
pleasant.
"There warn't no carriage, and the lady were too big for most," said
Alice.
"Then it was Aunt Mary. But where can she have taken Mamma? Did you see
the lady go out?" asked Annie.
Alice shook her head. "She were too quick for a little 'un like me. She
was down the stairs and out of the house in a winking, before I could
wipe my hands out of the dishes."
"And then did you hear my mother moving afterwards?" asked Molly.
"I jest heard nothing, Miss Molly, for I threw my dish-water away and
began my scouring—"
"And singing too, I suppose?" said Annie.
"Yes 'm, I sung a bit, for I thought I couldn't hurt the missis or her
head out there in the scullery; and I never heard nothing till I opened
the door for you just now."
"You may go down now, Alice, and set the dinner things," said Annie.
The two sisters stood and looked at each other and the vacant room
after the little maid had left them, each lost in wondering amazement,
until Molly suggested that they should see whether her mother's bonnet
had been moved out of the deep drawer of the wardrobe.
When her husband died, Mrs. Murray insisted that a widow's bonnet and
mantle should be provided for her, although she was little likely to
wear it. And now they saw that bonnet and mantle were both missing, so
that, whatever Alice might say to the contrary, it was evident that
Mrs. Murray had gone out, and she must have gone with Lady Mary on some
important errand.
This was the conclusion the sisters arrived at, after talking the
matter over. But they were none the less anxious about their mother,
for what effect the unwonted excitement might have upon her they could
not tell.
"I do wish we had not gone out this morning!" exclaimed Annie.
"I am sorry too; but who would have thought of Aunt Mary coming this
morning? It was just because we were both out," concluded Molly, who
went and sat near the window, instead of at the dinner-table, that she
might catch the first glimpse of her mother coming along the road when
she should return.