A DISCOVERY.
Maurice was as good as his word. He never uttered another syllable
to Fred, nor did he relax his guard over the shelf where stood the
coveted box, but still kept his position on the ladder, arranging in
order the various trays of jams, carried down by the others; and
after a time, as Fred also remained perfectly silent and inactive in
the corner, the "row" was partially forgotten, and jokes and laughter
began again to be heard in the halls and passages.
Meantime Fred, who had sat in a kind of gloomy abstraction for nearly
half an hour, only showing that he was not asleep by the occasional
red gleam from his eyes which shone strangely out of the sombre
obscurity of his retreat, suddenly awoke to a strange and thrilling
discovery which made his heart beat quick and loud against his side,
and which almost tempted him to doubt the evidence of his senses.
And this discovery was brought about in the following manner:--His
shoulder, which had been so sorely bruised in the fall, ached
terribly for a long time after the other effects of his misfortunes
had passed away, till at length, in a vexed and sullen spirit, he
searched about and around the place to see against what sharp thing
he could have struck when falling, or what accident could have caused
the wound which kept on aching so wearily.
For a long time he could see nothing; for the corner where he sat was
so dark that objects only revealed themselves slowly to his sight,
and it was not for many minutes after he had sat down that he even
found out that the platform on which he was seated was used evidently
for drying candles and soap, as many squares of the latter were
spread out on it, and bundles of candles in orderly rows side by side
were also arranged with the same neatness and method; and the roof of
the store-room being formed by the stairs overhead it was of
necessity a sloping one, and over the shelf on which Fred sat it came
slanting down so low as almost to touch his head, so that to rise
upright would have been impossible. At some distance behind him the
room ended in a dark angle where nothing taller than a cat or a rat
could creep along, and as well as Fred's eye could discern, this low
nook was used only as a receptacle for old sacks, files of bills,
mouse traps and so forth. But so great was Fred's natural curiosity
that he longed to pry into its depths, and had he been alone he would
certainly have crept on hands and knees along the platform and
examined minutely all there was to be seen there; but as it was, he
had a character for proud indifference to keep up just now, so he
found sufficient interest in searching for the origin of his present
suffering, wondering vaguely how it could have been caused.
At length his shoulder became so painful and his back ached so badly,
he shoved himself along the wooden platform on which he was seated to
the nearest wall of the store-room, so that he might lean his side
against it for support, and it was then he awoke suddenly to the
discovery which caused him so much surprise and excitement; for as he
pressed his head forward toward the wall he again came in contact
with something hard and cold protruding from the wooden partition
which formed one side of the store-room, and the blow which it gave
him, coming, as it did, on the side of his head, caused him almost to
cry aloud from pain.
Fred rubbed his wounded ear for a moment or so with his finger and
muttered angrily to himself; then, feeling all up the wall with the
palm of his hand, he sought to discover the knob or nail which had,
as it seemed to him, purposely wounded him.
And he was not long in coming on it. It was an iron knob protruding
from the wall, very hard and cold and round, and evidently fastened
to the wooden panelling by screws or clamps of some kind or other.
Fred turned and fixed his eyes narrowly on the spot; his curiosity
was fully aroused, and he determined to get at the root of the
matter. As he gazed, it seemed to him as if a silver rod ran down
the whole length of the wall beside him, shining quite brightly, and
almost glowing in the surrounding darkness.
Fred now ran his fingers down this rod, but found to his surprise
that it was nothing tangible; only a long seam of light, which,
entering by a crack or fissure in the panels of the wall, gave the
appearance of a metal bar; for when some one passed by outside in the
passage, the silver bar disappeared, but again returned when the
obstruction had moved on.
Once more he ran his fingers up the crack, to ascertain its width,
and this time his knuckles came in contact with another knob similar
in shape and size to the one he had discovered below, only so high
was it placed as to be but an inch or so below the slanting roof of
the store-room.
Fred paused for a moment, and with his eyes still eagerly peering
into the darkness, drew a long breath. It was just then his heart
gave the first great throb, and that the blood tingled so curiously
down to his finger-tips.
"Could it be?" he murmured, almost aloud; and then he took a furtive
glance towards the stalwart figure of Maurice, who stood with his
back turned, and perched on the top of the ladder. He ran his
fingers no longer up the wall, but across it; and then he paused
again, while the throbbing at his heart became more violent and
uncomfortable. "Yes, it was what he suspected it to be." Quite far
back he could feel hinges, one above and one below, corresponding
exactly to the knobs on the opposite side of the panel. And these
knobs, what were they? what could they be? Why, bolts of course;
which, closing tightly on the silvery bar of light, kept this hidden
egress from the room safe from the visits of intruders.
This was a discovery; as great and significant at the moment to Fred
as if he had stumbled on a treasure of pure gold hidden away in some
nook or cranny of the wall.
Then came the next question,--could the bolts move, or had long
disuse rendered them stiff, and cramped, and useless? That they had
not been opened for a long time, the cobwebs which stuck closely over
them could testify; sticky gray cobwebs which clung to Fred's fingers
and the knees of his trousers, and made him feel as if spiders were
running down the back of his neck.
He must try whether the bolts would stir at his bidding or not; but
oh! how cautiously must this essay be made, lest Maurice, ever on the
alert, should look round and catch him in the act. Fred leaned his
head once more in an attitude of weariness against the wall, and with
one hand and arm thrust behind him, took the knob in his fingers and
pressed, first gently, then a little harder; but no, it would not
move, he must push more strongly still. But supposing it were to fly
suddenly back, the door might leap open--oh! what a triumph for
Maurice, what bitterness of defeat for him.
So Fred continued to push, ever so gently and gingerly, yet at the
same time firmly, till at last there was a sharp creak and a grating
squeak which could be heard all over the store-room.
Maurice turned hastily round and peered into the darkness; but there
was Fred still sitting disconsolately on the step with his head
against the wall. Maurice knew nothing of this secret door, so he
only remarked, as if in answer to his own thoughts, "Rats," and
turned away again carelessly to resume his work.
[Illustration: "Another pot of strawberry, if you please."]
Meanwhile, Fred's eye had become riveted on a dish, on which lay
heaped one on the top of the other sundry pounds of butter, evidently
fresh from the churn. It had been placed on the same shelf where he
sat, only at a safe distance from the aroma of the soap and candles;
but a quick movement, now that Maurice's back was turned, would
easily reach it; and Fred, stretching out his hand, like a flash of
lightning removed a small piece from off the nearest roll, and
conveying it to his other fingers, cautiously rubbed the rusty lock
with the oily but most opportune "find."
This operation was decidedly successful; the next time he tried the
bolt it moved, and no creak followed to betray him. The upper lock
was greased in the same way, and it also moved, though a slight groan
issued from its iron-moulded joints, which caused Maurice once again
to turn his head, and murmur "Rats," while he wondered vaguely how
such a cowardly fellow as Fred could be content to sit quietly over
there in the dark, in such close proximity to rats and other vermin.
Perhaps it was the weary dejected position in which Fred sat, with
his head resting against the wall, that caused a momentary gleam of
contrition and remorse in Maurice's bosom; for presently, in a voice
which betrayed an evident struggle between pride and pity, he said,
turning towards his cousin,--
"I advise you strongly not to take up your position in that corner,
Fred; for the place is alive with cockroaches, and they will be
crawling up your leg if you don't take care."
"I have not seen one," replied Fred shortly and sullenly.
"They are there for all that: it was only a few nights ago, when I
came down here to fetch up some night-lights for mother, that I came
on one as large as a cow, with horns that could have tossed me into
the middle of next week. I never saw such a brute; he was more like
an old stag cantering along the wall than a human being."
"I never knew cockroaches were human beings before," laughed one of
Maurice's sisters, who was standing patiently at the foot of the
table with a heavy load of jam in her extended arms, waiting for her
brother to arrange them on the shelf above.
"My dear child, who ever supposed you did? But for all that I'm not
so far out, for all men are animals, ain't they? and if a cockroach
is not an ugly beast of an animal, what else is it? therefore _a
fortiori_ it follows, that if both are animals, there is no
difference between them."
"All men are animals, but all animals are not men," replied Alice
Brinsley, quoting somewhat sententiously from one of her well-read
lesson books.
"And all girls are donkeys, though all donkeys aren't girls. I
declare, Alice, I think you are the most assified old cockroach in
the whole place; for a fellow can't make the most simple and natural
observation in the world, but you thrust out your horns and pin him
to the wall, while every scrap of knowledge that you have in your
shallow pate could be found bound up between the two covers of
Mangnall's Questions, beginning at the date when William the
Conqueror threw the famous bucket of cold water over his brother
Robert le Diable, down to the chap who found out how to square the
circle, and make lemon pudding out of pigs' whiskers. There take
that;" and Maurice concluded his exordium by seizing a large ball of
cord from the shelf beside him, and flinging it right at his sister's
uplifted nose, from which it sprang aside and rolled into the dark
corner where Fred still sat with his head against the wall,
apparently gloomy and abstracted.
But oh! how his face and attitude belied his real feelings,
especially now he beheld the ball of cord, which for the last ten
minutes he had been gazing at with covetous eyes, actually rolling
forward to his very feet. Surely Maurice must have read his
thoughts, and fathomed the scheme by which his cousin hoped to
retrieve his vantage ground, and make good his angry boast. He must
have caught a glimpse of the hungry eyes fixed on the coil of cord
above his head, and putting two and two together, must have resolved
to aid and abet his enemy, by conniving at his plans, and only
planning the more completely and fatally to overthrow and destroy him.
These doubts made Fred hesitate for some minutes whether to avail
himself of the unlooked-for assistance, during which time he watched
his cousin closely, and narrowly scanned the fluctuating expression
of his face; an expression all the more difficult to decipher, as
Maurice, having lighted on a jar of French plums, had crammed about a
dozen of them into his mouth at one time, and was now making the most
frightful grimaces, struggling to eat them without choking or
swallowing any of the stones.
But Maurice was perfectly innocent of any plan or plot being laid to
undermine his pride; and as soon as he could find room to move his
tongue, he again resumed his attack upon his sister, whose arms ached
from the weight of the jam pots she still held in her hands, and from
which he seemed in no hurry to relieve her.
"Here, Alice, are some rare seeds for you; or as Mangnall would call
them, umbelliferous stones," cried Maurice, removing some of the
kernels from his mouth, and placing them on the tray before her; "if
you plant them in some good farinaceous kind of earth, and water them
four times an hour, for fifteen minutes at a go, you'll have in the
course of time a magnificent French-plum forest, similar in size and
appearance to the famous forest of Ardennes, where Henry the Eighth
killed the horrible wild boar, and was afterwards horribly bored to
death himself by, I forget how many wives, with patent reversible
heads, which could be taken off and on without any trouble; and
which, according to Mangnall, was the origin of the penny stamp
movement, which was called ever after Anne Boleyn's tragic end, a
Queen's head.--Another pot of strawberry, if you please, and then the
upper row will be quite full; and give us another handful of French
plummers at the same time, that's a good girl, and then I shall be
quite full also."
"My dear Maurice, you will really make yourself ill; and besides, you
will certainly swallow some of the stones."
"And if I do, what harm? for if you have studied page 40 of
Mangnall's 'Internal Economy,' you will find that a stone or apple
allowed to fall inside a given circle, proves the gravitation of the
Earth. But, good gracious, did you hear those rats again? I say,
Fred, have you cheese-parings or what in your pockets, that you seem
to be tempting them out of their holes at this time of day?"
To this Fred did not deign a reply, or, if he spoke, the answer was
uttered in such a low voice that no one heard him; and Maurice, with
a nod of his head, indicative of careless contempt, turned away for
good from his cousin, and made no further effort to draw him into
conversation.
Fred, meantime, had not been idle; he had, with his penknife, cut off
two pieces of cord from the ball which lay, apparently still
untouched, at his feet. At the end of each piece of cord he had made
a running knot, and this knot he had skilfully placed like a noose
over the neck of each bolt, and then drawn the knot tightly with his
hands; but the greatest difficulty remained still unsurmounted. The
bolts could, of course, be easily withdrawn by any one within the
store-room, even without the aid of the cord; but the point which
Fred was now eagerly debating in his mind was, how to get the ends of
the cord on the other side of the panel, and thus give the power to
an outsider to enter at any time he pleased.
The bolts, he had definitely discovered, were screwed to the door,
and shot into iron clamps on the wall; so, in order to draw them back
from the outside, the ends of the string would have to be passed
through some aperture behind the head of the bolt; and how to make
this opening without exciting suspicion, was the present
stumbling-block in Fred's path. But as he moved himself a little
further back on the shelf to get a clearer view of the door, he
observed that just beneath the hinges there was also a faint glimmer
of daylight, and this discovery solved the problem so satisfactorily,
that in a few moments, with the aid of his penknife, he had thrust
the end of the cord nearest to him out through the chink into the
passage beyond, and he had only to wait patiently for a favourable
opportunity to secure the other in the like manner.
Nor had he to wait long, as Maurice had begun to grow tired of his
elevated position, and presently, coming down off the ladder, he
began arranging the jam on some of the lower shelves, and in this
work became so occupied and interested, that he temporarily forgot
Fred and his corner, and only paused in his work to make some absurd
remarks to his friends.
Fred seized a favourable opportunity when Maurice's back was turned,
and no one else was in the store-room, to rise slightly from the
shelf, and thrust the second piece of cord through the upper hinge;
which effort was so successful, that he felt quite elated, and sat
down quietly for a few moments to think out the probable result of
his plot.
That he could enter the store-room secretly at some future time, and
there and then make good his boast to Maurice, there seemed now no
doubt, and Fred glanced up triumphantly at the two pieces of cord
securely fastened to the knobs or handles of the bolt and stretching
out to the hinges; but how, when he had got in, he was to get out
again, without the open door betraying his ingress and egress, was
the subject now uppermost in his mind. Was there no plan by which he
could shut the door as well as open it? He almost thought there must
be; and in order to consider this point thoroughly, he leaned his
elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands, and to a speculative
eye looked, if possible, even more disconsolate and inscrutable than
ever.
Maurice gave one or two side glances towards his cousin, but thought
it wiser not to break the unpleasant silence, but to allow Fred's
sulky mood to pass over without remark, as all interference seemed
only to increase his gloom and reticence; but he determined, at the
same time, that when once it had passed over, it would not be his
fault if he quarrelled with Fred again, or allowed any guest in his
house to feel as uncomfortable and depressed as he had caused Fred to
be all the afternoon. And as Maurice made these good resolutions, he
whistled softly to himself; and a better and much pleasanter light
came into his eyes, as he put aside a box of candied fruit with a
beautiful picture on the top of it, as a peace-offering for his
cousin, whenever the favourable moment for presenting it should
arrive. Little he knew what burning thoughts were passing through
Fred's mind, or what a fire of revengeful feelings was smouldering
under the quiet attitude and dispirited appearance of his cousin.
Fred meanwhile had not only thought out his new plan, but had
actually begun to carry it into execution. Once more, unseen, he had
picked up the ball of cord, and cut two pieces from it; and now he
was busy, while Maurice's back was turned, making slip knots on these
also. And when Maurice leaned across the shelf to take down the
prettiest box of preserved fruits for the proposed gift, Fred quickly
drew these second loops over the two bolts, and with the ends hanging
down beside him, only waited for a further opportunity of pushing
them through the hinge of the large door which stood conveniently
near its neighbour, and on the very side which would enable him to
draw the bolts of the latter securely back into their places.
The gong sounding for dressing soon afforded him the desired moment
for action, and when the store-room was nearly full of the guests
assembling around Maurice, preparatory to their departure upstairs,
Fred stood up, and drawing into the shadow of the large door, which
opened inwardly, he thrust the cords carefully through the slit
beneath the hinges, and then passing out almost unobserved into the
passage, he delayed just sufficiently long to see that they were all
well out, and ready for action, and also to assure himself that they
would be quite invisible to the eye of a passer-by, as the light
painting of the wood corresponded so nearly in shade to the colour of
the cord, that unless a person had intentionally sought for the
strings, they would never have their attention drawn to the spot.
At any rate, Fred reasoned with himself, the afternoon was already
fast closing in, and every moment the hall and staircase would be
growing darker; the gas jet in the passage was purposely fixed so as
to throw its light in through the window of the store-room, and thus
the outside walls lay in comparative shadow; and there was no need to
think of to-morrow, for what could be done at once without danger
ought not to be deferred until suspicion might be aroused; and Fred,
full of a deep and earnest purpose, walked slowly up to his own room
and began to dress for dinner.