THE MISCHIEF DISCOVERED.
"Fred!" cried Maurice, in a voice of great excitement, as he hastily
pushed open the door of his cousin's room, and walked in--"Fred! what
do you think has happened?"
Fred had just lain down in the shade of the bed-curtains, with the
express desire of concealing the workings of his face while he made
his dreaded confession; but now, in the unexpected agony of the
moment, he sat hastily up, and looked full at Maurice, whose blanched
cheeks and agitated manner showed that some great thing had just
occurred to upset him.
"What is it, Maurice?" he inquired in a tone of no affected concern,
for his very heart was beating into his mouth; "nothing bad, I hope."
"Very bad, I am sorry to say; for there has been a general
destruction of all mother's most precious things in the store-room
downstairs."
"Oh, what--how?"
"Well, that's just what we can none of us exactly make out; only when
I went in just now with mother to get out the Japanese theatre dodge,
which mother had given me leave to make a present of to you, as I
knew you were fond of mechanical inventions--"
"Nonsense, Maurice; I could never have taken it from you."
"Why, then, we found, when we opened the door," continued Maurice,
heedless of Fred's interruption, "everything in the most awful state
of confusion you can imagine. The theatre, which I was at the moment
in search of, was lying on the floor in the most terrible state of
smash--the lid of the case broken right off, and all the little men
and women thrown pell-mell about the place."
"My goodness, how dreadful!" responded Fred.
"Yes, poor mother is in a sad way about it, for father took such
delight in seeing the little puppets dancing, and thought it so
ingenious; and besides that, there was a lot more damage done, for
the ladder had fallen right across the room and smashed an entire set
of rare China plates and dishes in the corner under the window,
besides jam-pots to no end. There was one good thing, however--"
"What?" asked Fred, drawing a quick, uneasy breath.
But Maurice paused before he replied, for a sudden consciousness had
come over him that he was about to touch on an unpleasant subject,
and he coloured painfully, and hesitated in momentary embarrassment.
"What?" asked Fred again, in an eager, hungry voice. It was
something to know that there was even one good thing in so utterly
bad a transaction.
"Mother's precious chess-box was not broken."
"Thank God!" cried Fred earnestly.
Maurice looked at him for a moment in surprise, and then went on.
"You see, yesterday evening I was so thoroughly ashamed of myself for
my conduct to you, and the way I had knocked you about in the
afternoon, that I asked mother's leave to take the box out of the
store-room and have a game with you before tea."
"Well, and what did she say?"
"She was awfully kind, and told me I might have them certainly, if I
promised to take great care of them; but though I tried my best to
get hold of you afterwards, I could not succeed. You remember when I
met you in the shrubbery walk, don't you?"
"I do," sighed Fred hopelessly. "I was a brute, that was all."
"Now, Fred, if you say any of these kind of things again, I'll go out
of the room; for I was the one who was utterly in the wrong from
beginning to end,--even mother says I was."
"How so?" asked Fred.
"Oh nothing; that's to say it was only that time about the jam
picking, and I--or rather she--she thought just at first there had
been something wrong about the weighing of the cans; and, besides,
the girls overheard something or other which puzzled us a bit, and
which, I dare say, meant nothing; and I acted, as I always do, in a
headlong way. However," continued Maurice, noticing the distress in
his cousin's face; "however--what was I saying, Fred?"
"I--I don't remember."
"Oh yes, now I have it; it was about the chess-men. Well, as I was
telling you, I asked mother's leave to take the chess-men out of the
store-room to have a game with you; and then afterwards, when I could
not catch hold of you, I put them by in mother's room, so as we might
have a game this morning; which, as it turns out now, was a great
blessing, else they would have been destroyed to a certainty, for
they stood exactly on the spot where the Japanese theatre was knocked
down."
"A blessing, indeed," groaned Fred, whose confession seemed every
moment more and more impossible and imprudent. "But I don't
understand, Maurice, how the Japanese box got upon the same shelf as
the chess-men; it was not there yesterday surely. And is the word
'Fragile' printed on it also?"
"Of course it is. And as to its being on the shelf why, I put it
there myself last night: for I was afraid, what with the weight of
all the new jam-pots and crowds of other dodge-my-eyes upon the shelf
where it stood, it might come to grief, and so, as I thought, I gave
it a much safer berth; but you can see for yourself I am always an
unlucky dog. Though how it all happened is the marvel, for not a
living soul could have got into the place: the door was locked; and
the window, goodness knows, is sufficiently well barred to keep out a
host of robbers. The only thing mother and I can think is, that when
the housekeeper went in late last night to lock up some honey, which,
by-the-by, was upset and smeared about the whole place--" Here
Maurice paused for a moment, as if some sudden thought or suggestion
had passed like lightning through his brain, and in the pause Fred's
cheeks darkened to almost a purple colour, so vividly did the blush
of guilt deepen on his face.
Maurice could not but look at him and wonder, and in doing so he for
a moment lost the thread of his recital, and once again he had to
apply to his cousin for aid. "What was I saying, Fred?"
"About the honey."
"Oh ay, about the honey. Mother thinks that when the housekeeper
carried it in at night, the kitchen cat must have darted in after
her; for there are rats and mice in there, I believe. You heard them
yesterday, didn't you?"
"I--I don't remember."
"That time I said you must have cheese-parings in your pocket."
"I was not listening much to what you were saying just then," replied
Fred hoarsely.
"I am not surprised at that; I only wonder you took it half so well.
But the point is, how, if it were the cat that did it, she managed to
get out again without either mother or my seeing her; for we both
went in at the same time, and she could scarcely have slipped through
our feet without one or other of us noticing it. What do you think,
Fred?"
"I--I really don't know what to think."
"Mother is certain, at least as nearly certain as one can be in such
a matter, that it was the cat; so I suppose she must be right: but
it's a rum affair from beginning to end, ain't it now?"
"I suppose she must," murmured Fred, scarcely conscious of what he
was saying, for he was undergoing at that moment the most furious
assault of a new and unexpected temptation; a temptation which he
could not have foreseen, having hitherto deemed it impossible that
any valid excuse could be discovered which would screen him from the
consequences of hie but now his aunt had laid the blame of all the
sin,--mischief on shoulders which could bear no corresponding
punishment, and why, why need he thrust himself forward as the centre
point of guilt and shame?
"I am afraid I am worrying you with my talk. I was forgetting about
your headache," said Maurice apologetically, as he noticed Fred's
absent manner.
"Oh, not in the least; I was only thinking."
"Thinking of what?"
"Not thinking, exactly; only wondering."
"Wondering! what do you mean?"
"I--I don't exactly know what I mean, except if it were the cat,
then,--then of course the cat could not have done it.
"My dear fellow, what do you mean?" and Maurice looked gravely into
his cousin's face, fearing that perhaps the sharp blow on the side of
his head had done him some serious injury.
The sudden cloud on his cousin's brow, and the intent anxious gaze
fixed on his own face, filled Fred with alarm; and under Maurice's
searching scrutiny all the blood rushed back upon Fred's heart,
leaving him ashy white and trembling.
"Fred," cried Maurice, leaning forward excitedly, "now I am certain--"
"Yes, yes, it is quite true; only don't, don't stare at me in that
awful way. I--I could not help it."
"You could not help what?"
"Help it! I didn't say that, did I? I meant of course that--that
you--you drove me to it."
"Drove you," echoed Maurice, becoming every moment more terrified and
bewildered by his cousin's manner, "how did I drive you? I don't
know what you are talking about, Fred."
"Nonsense, it was you yourself who said it first, and accused me of
it."
"Accused you of what?"
"Everything. You knew quite well, when you came up here, all about
it; and you only wanted to try and wring it out of me, by fair means
or foul." Here Fred, worn out by excitement and anxiety, burst into
a passionate fit of tears, and, leaning his face forward, buried it
completely in the counterpane of his bed. When he looked up again a
moment afterwards, surprised at Maurice's silence, he found his
cousin gone and the room empty.
"Ah, no wonder he has left me," cried Fred bitterly; and then in his
despair he clasped his hands and lifted up his heart to God, asking
earnestly for the help he so sorely needed, and the forgiveness he
scarcely dared to crave.