In the Very Act
DOT'S words had given something of a shock to Mrs. Cragg, and now she
was sorry that she had taken notice of them. For her side of the
matter, it might have been better if she had seemed not to hear what
was said. Her anger would only serve to fix the recollection upon the
child's mind, which otherwise might have passed away; and probably
also Pattie would not forget.
When the two had gone to church, she would be secure of a quiet hour,
the girl being out also. She meant then to restore the letters. That
done, she would have no more to do with Pattie's possessions.
But when a person gets into a coil through wrong-doing, it is not easy
to get out again.
Pattie and Dot disappeared, and Mrs. Cragg waited for the bells to
cease. Mr. Cragg always went at this time for a country walk, and she
believed that he had started.
Just as she meant to move, Cragg came in. While he was within reach
Mrs. Cragg dared take no steps. She waited with ill-concealed
impatience, answered tartly when he spoke, and asked whether he did
not mean to have a walk.
"It's a new plan, your stopping in Sunday afternoon," said she.
"I thought you always wanted fresh air, not to sit lounging about
here!"
"You seem in a great hurry to get rid of me."
"Well, you always do go out on Sunday. Why shouldn't you?"
"I do generally. I am not feeling quite the thing this afternoon—
a little out of order,—and I thought I'd take a quiet time."
"Fresh air's likely to do you good."
"Presently, perhaps. Has Pattie said anything to you about her
father's papers?"
Mrs. Cragg reddened.
"Why should she? What have I got to do with them? Of all suspicious
men, you are the very most—"
"My dear, what can you mean?" Cragg gazed in surprise. "I do not see
anything to vex you in what I have said. Nor do I understand what you
have in mind. There is no suspicion. I have asked a simple question.
Has Pattie said anything?"
"Nothing particular. Why should she?"
"I do not understand her feeling about that box. She objects
to examining the contents."
"Yes. It's ridiculous of her!"
"Then you do know?"
"I didn't see what you were driving at. She told me that. The girl's
an idiot. I said it was absurd, and she was as obstinate as a mule.
Of course her father's papers are hers now, and she ought to read
them."
"I should have said that she ought. There might be something that he
would wish done. But she has a feeling of delicacy. Perhaps that
feeling might be more frequent—with advantage—as to those who are
gone."
"I don't know what you mean. I know what Pattie means. Feeling of
delicacy, indeed! Stuff and nonsense! Pattie knows that her father
was a scamp, and she doesn't want to make it known, that's all."
"My dear! Do you know what you are saying? What reason can you have
for such a notion?"
"I know! There's a lot too much mystery. People don't go hiding up
things when there's nothing to hide. I believe he was a downright bad
man. And I believe Pattie knows it too. That's why she won't tell us
about him, and why she pretends she doesn't want to read his papers.
It's because she knows things will come out, and she doesn't want to
have to tell."
Cragg was silent. That some mystery existed, that some shade lay over
Dale's past, he could not deny. But he thought of Dale's dying
words—"Remember! I did not do it. In the sight of God I say that.
It was not me. I didn't do it."
"My dear, you are mistaken. Dale may have been unfortunate. He was not
to blame, I am sure."
"And I'm sure just the other way, Mr. Cragg. Some day you'll find out
that I am right."
Cragg remained lost in thought. Then he stood up slowly, as if
disliking further argument, and made his way from the room. Mrs. Cragg
watched impatiently for his going out, and she had to wait nearly half
an hour.
At last the coast was clear.
The letters and the bunch of keys were in readiness. Mrs. Cragg
hurried across the passage, entered Pattie's room, rushed to the
cupboard, pulled away the cardboard boxes, fitted in the key, and
turned it.
She lifted the lid, and almost fell backwards in her amazement.
The box was empty.
Had Pattie emptied it? If so, for what reason?
Mrs. Cragg sat upon her heels, staring bewilderedly. What to do next
was the question. Should she restore the stolen letters to the empty
box, trusting that Pattie would suppose herself to have overlooked
them? Should she take them away and burn them?
After considerable hesitation, Mrs. Cragg decided on the latter course
as the safer of the two. She slipped the letters into her pocket, and
locked—or tried to lock—the box.
But the key refused to turn.
Mrs. Cragg struggled, and her struggles were in vain. Again and again
she strove, and the refractory key had the best of it. Time was
getting on. In a few minutes Pattie and Dot might return. Mrs. Cragg
waxed desperate. There was nothing for it but to leave the box
unlocked. Pattie might forget, and might imagine that she had done
this herself. She tried to pull out the key, meaning to decamp with
all speed.
But the key refused to be pulled out.
It was attached to a large bunch, well known in the household as
belonging to herself. Mrs. Cragg pulled, hauled, coaxed, struggled—all
in vain. The key remained firmly fixed. It could neither be turned nor
withdrawn. Mrs. Cragg, heated and alarmed, tried to loosen it from the
bunch. The ring was of a new patent make, difficult to manage, and in
her flurry she could not open it.
Then the front door creaked, and Dot's little voice asked in shrill
accents:
"Were I a dood lickle girl, Pattie?"
"Very good, Dot."
"Nor I didn't fidget, nor make no noise, Pattie?"
"No, darling. Dot was the best little girl that ever was. I'll take
Dot again to church another Sunday."
The bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Cragg stood up, crimson and defiant.
Since she could no longer hope to escape detection, she resolved to
take refuge in bluster.
"Well," she said, with a harsh laugh; "so you thought you'd cheat me
out of it, did you? You thought you'd keep me from finding out
anything, eh? But you haven't. I've been one too many for you this
time. I've found out what I wanted to know—just that, exactly —and
you'd better have told me at once, and made no fuss. Pretending that
you didn't mean to read the letters, and then doing it on the sly,
as soon as ever my back was turned! I understand what it all means.
But you're too late, with all your cunning."
Pattie grew as pale as if she, and not Mrs. Cragg, had been the guilty
person. Her lips parted, and a grieved tremor passed over them.
She turned, without a word, and went to the door.
"Dot, dear, run away. Run to the nursery. I'll come there presently."
"I wants to tome into Pattie's loom."
"No, not now. I am busy, Dot."
"P'ease do let me," entreated the little voice.
"No, dear. Dot must be good and run away." Pattie came back, shut the
door, and stood looking at Mrs. Cragg, her face full of wonderment.
The cupboard door was open, the cardboard boxes were displaced, the
bunch of keys hung from the lock of the open and empty tin box.
"You needn't have been at all that bother and fuss—sending Dot away.
It don't matter. I don't care who knows," declared Mrs. Cragg hardily,
while unable to meet Pattie's gaze. "I told you I'd a right, and so I
have. If you don't choose to tell me things, I've got to find them out
for myself, that's all. And I mean to do it. I shall do it again next
time there's something I ought to know. I've a right, and I mean to do
it. It don't matter Dot nor anybody knowing."
"I'm so sorry—oh, so sorry!" murmured Pattie. Tears filled her eyes.
"I didn't think you could."
"You took mighty good care to empty the box, anyway. I s'pose you
thought you'd make sure I shouldn't find out your secrets. But I've
been one too many for you."
"I did not empty the box because of that—because I ever could have
dreamt that you would look." Pattie spoke with difficulty. "How could
I think of such a thing? Mr. Cragg was speaking to me about the
letters a day or two ago. He said I might feel free to read them all,
and he advised me to do it. He said he thought I ought. And I could
not feel as he did. How could I know what my father would like? I was
afraid of being made in the end to do what Mr. Cragg wished—and what I
could not feel to be right. And so—I took all the letters out, and—
I burnt them. I took them into the kitchen, and put them into the
stove."
"Then you're a greater fool than I thought you even!" Mrs. Cragg
replied roughly. "Why, there might be money—there might be something
written to yourself."
"No. Mr. Cragg said that too, and I looked through all the packets
carefully—not reading, but just seeing the names and dates. There was
no money anywhere, and there were no papers for me. None at all. All
of them were letters to my father, and most were quite old—written
a great many years ago. They were not meant for me to see. And you—
you would have read them!" Pattie said this in a tone of unbelieving
amazement. "You would have read them! You couldn't, surely, have meant
to do that!"
A faint sense of shame kept Mrs. Cragg silent. Pattie came a step
nearer.
"If Dot had seen—only think, if little Dot had seen!" she said.
"Dot—who ought only to know you as true! Think—if she had known!"
"A baby like her! As if it mattered!"
"But it does matter—very much. Promise me that Dot shall never hear
about this."
Mrs. Cragg broke into a laugh.
"And you are not sorry! You do not mind! Not in the very least."
There was a short silence. Mrs. Cragg had some ado to keep up her
hardness before that grieved face.
"It's all your fault," she said at length. "You've been past
everything with your fancies, not telling anything I'd a right to
know, and pretending you couldn't read the letters. As if everybody
didn't read other people's letters when they're dead! And so of course
I thought I'd see for myself. There was no reason why I shouldn't.
Mr. Cragg and I are giving you a home, and we have a right to know
about you."
"Not to find it out in that way," said Pattie gravely. "And it was no
pretending. I have thought it wrong to read the letters. Other people
thinking differently did not make it right for me. I could not do what
I felt to be wrong."