Miss Bostal shut the door when the detective had gone, drew a shivering
sigh as she folded the shawl more tightly about her thin person, and
went into the dining-room.
Sitting on one of the horsehair-covered chairs in the darkness, was
Nell. Miss Bostal sighed again as she placed carefully upon the table
the lighted candle she had brought with her from the drawing-room.
“I feel very guilty and ashamed of myself,” she murmured, rather
peevishly, “for having told the man you were gone when I knew you had
gone no farther than this. But I had to choose the less of two evils,
for I was afraid, my dear, that you could not bear another long,
worrying cross-examination from him just now.”
“You were quite right, Miss Theodora, and as kind as you always are,”
said Nell, affectionately.
The poor girl looked indeed worn out, and the words she uttered seemed
to come mechanically from weary lips.
“Come into the kitchen, child, where it is warm,” said Miss Bostal,
briskly. “I will make you a nice, hot cup of tea, and then you will
feel better.”
“Has Jem Stickels gone, then?” asked Nell, apprehensively.
“Oh, yes! I sent him off very quickly.”
“Do you--” Nell faltered and began to blush and to tremble--“do you
think he told the--the detective--anything?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, dear. These men are so exceedingly reticent, it
is impossible to tell what they do know,” answered the elder lady.
Nell watched her and gathered from her manner that Hemming had told her
nothing disquieting. For Miss Bostal’s whole attention was devoted, at
that moment, to measuring out the smallest possible quantity of tea
which could be made to supply two persons.
“And besides,” went on Miss Bostal, when she had shut up the tea-caddy,
“what could Stickels have to tell him? And what trust could be put in
Stickels’s stories?”
Nell looked at her with wide eyes of wonder and terror.
“Didn’t I tell you,” she said, in a husky whisper, “that Jem told me
he had seen--the thief--with his own eyes? He told me he could give
proofs--_proofs_!”
“Well, well, my dear,” returned the elder lady, composedly, as she put
her little brown teapot tenderly on the stove to draw, “what if he did?
My own idea is that Stickels made up a story in order to get you to
talk to him; for it’s evident the poor lad is crazy about you.”
Nell made a gesture of disgust.
“Ah, but you shouldn’t treat him so hardly; it makes him desperate.”
Nell rose from her chair, and came close to the lady’s side.
“Miss Theodora,” she whispered, with a face full of fear, “it was not
to get an excuse to talk to me that Jem said--what he did. He told
me--he advised me to confide in you--to tell you what he told me,
and--everything!”
“Well, my dear, tell me if you like,” said Miss Bostal, putting a kind
hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Shall I?”
Nell’s face was deathlike in its ashy whiteness.
“Why, my child, yes, tell me, of course. Come, come, what is there to
get so miserable about? If you really think Jem Stickels did see the
thief, and can prove who it is, you ought to be glad, and certainly
not let your kindness of heart prevent you from telling him to speak
out.”
“But, you don’t know who--who--Jem thinks it was!”
“Ah, you mustn’t trouble your head about that! A thief is a thief, and
should be punished. And if it is a person you know, you may be sorry;
but you must not shrink from your duty, which is to bring the criminal
to justice.”
Nell withdrew herself with a sad smile from the lady’s caressing hand,
and shuddered.
“Supposing it were--it were some one you knew--and loved. What would
you say?”
Miss Bostal shook her head deprecatingly.
“My dear,” she said, “I can see what it is: Stickels has been
threatening to tell the detective that he can prove you to be the
thief. And you let yourself be frightened like that! Why, child, you
forget that everybody in the place knows he would give the world for a
kind word from you; and they will know that he has made up this tale
out of revenge for your taking no notice of him! You are a goose,
child, a little goose, to let yourself be worried by such a thing as
that!”
Nell drew a long breath of relief. Then she stood up.
“You have taken a great load off my mind,” said she, in a low,
thankful voice. “I shall tell him when I see him. What shall I tell
him?” she asked, with a sudden change to a little fear again.
“I should tell him, if I were you, that what he has seen--if he has
seen anything--is not your affair, but that of the police. But at the
same time, Nell, I wouldn’t be so unkind to the poor young fellow,
if I were you. I was quite touched this evening by the way he spoke
of you. I believe he would give his right hand for you, I do really.
And although it is no business of mine, dear, I really think you are
neglecting your opportunities of doing good in a true sense by not
urging him to better things. Your influence might turn him into a good
man, my dear, I do, indeed, believe.”
But Nell frowned haughtily.
“You are so good yourself, Miss Theodora, that you don’t know anything
about people who are not like you. Jem has had plenty of opportunities
to reform. It is by his own choice that he idles about instead of going
to sea.”
“But it is to be near you, dear,” suggested the sentimental old maid.
“I don’t mean to say the young man is, in any sense, your equal. But I
think if you really cared for him--”
“But I don’t!” protested Nell, indignantly. “I have never thought
about the creature, for a moment, except to wish he would go away from
the place altogether. And if he has dared to say that I ever gave him
the slightest encouragement--”
“He has not, he has not,” said the old maid, hastily. “He has never
been anything but most humble and submissive.”
“In _your_ presence,” added Nell, significantly. “But when he isn’t
with you, he presumes to be rude, and even jealous. As if he had the
slightest right to be jealous,” she added, angrily.
Miss Bostal’s lips tightened with disapproval.
“I see how it is,” she said. “Poor Jem is right. He complains that you
have had your head turned by the young men who were here in the autumn.
He says you have never had a good word for him since the coming of that
particularly worldly and frivolous young man who calls himself Clifford
King.”
Nell drew herself up.
“Miss Theodora,” she said, very quietly, “I know you will not say
anything more about Mr. King, when I tell you that I--I--that if it
were not for the misfortune which hangs over us now, I should be his
wife some day.”
But poor Miss Bostal was horror-struck at this disclosure, and she
proceeded to read the girl such a lecture on the evils of marrying
above one’s station, and, above all, of marrying a man of the exact
type of Clifford King, that, although she did not succeed in convincing
Nell, she sent her home very unhappy and on the verge of tears.
The worst of it was that the sentimental little old maid, under the
pretext of curing her _protégée_ of her unfortunate attachment, by
diverting her thoughts to a more appropriate channel, took Jem Stickels
in hand herself, promised him every assistance with Nell if he would
promise to reform, and encouraged the fisherman to persecute Nell more
than ever. It was she who persuaded Jem to woo with a less arrogant
air, with offers to “turn over a new leaf” for her sake, and other
similar blandishments.
And although Nell guessed who it was that had inspired this alteration,
the girl was obliged to take a different attitude to her unwelcome
wooer in consequence. It is easy to be haughty and studiously frigid
to a presumptuous person; but when that person becomes meek and almost
servile in his endeavors to make himself useful, even in the humblest
capacity, when he insists upon chopping your wood and carrying your
water, then it is difficult to maintain a properly freezing attitude.
The climax came one afternoon when Nell was invited to tea by Miss
Bostal, and was let in on her arrival by the detested Jem.
Nell looked quite shocked when, on entering the house, she learned from
the young man’s lips that he had been invited, too.
The young girl turned to the door of the dining-room, where a small
fire burned in honor of the occasion, to go in search of her hostess.
Jem, who was in his Sunday clothes, in which he presented a stronger
contrast than ever to the refined, delicate-handed girl, said awkwardly
that Miss Bostal would be down directly. As Nell, taking no notice of
this intimation, was about to leave the room, he suddenly found courage
to place himself before the door.
“It’s done a-purpose; she done it a-purpose,” he explained, growing
more rustic than usual in his speech under pressure of his excitement,
“so I might have a chance of speaking to you.”
Nell looked angry and anxious; but she looked him in the face with an
expression which daunted him a little.
“She don’t know what I want to say to you,” he went on in a hoarse
whisper. “She thinks I want to ask you to marry me, as if I should be
such a precious fool! No, what I want to say is, that the chap Hemming
is still hanging about; he’s staying at the Bell at Stroan, and he’s
offered me a five-pound note if I’ll tell him what I told you, and I’ve
refused. There!”
And, fairly overwhelmed by the contemplation of his own greatness of
soul, Jem slapped his chest and made his eyes round.
Nell listened, with fear and repulsion struggling in her breast. Should
she brave the man, with the knowledge which she knew that he possessed,
or should she conquer her own loathing and temporize? Miss Bostal had
advised her to brave him; but then, Miss Bostal did not know what she
knew. Nell shivered as the man came a step toward her.
“I don’t understand you,” she said at last. “What do you want?”
“I want you to give me a kiss.” The girl started and made a gesture
of abhorrence. “Come,” persisted Jem; “it isn’t much, considering,
’specially as I could take one myself if I had a mind.”
And as he spoke, he took another step, threatening to fulfill this
menace. But Nell was too quick for him; she was at the other side of
the table before the words were well out of his mouth.
“Miss Bostal,” she said, quietly, as if his proposition had been
unworthy of remark, “advises me to let you make what use of your
information you please. She says no one would believe you.”
“And do you think that?” he asked, with an indescribably cunning leer.
The sudden anxiety which overspread her face at the question showed him
his opportunity.
“Look here,” he went on, in a tone which was meant to be persuasive,
but which was to Nell repellant in its coarse assumption of
familiarity, “I don’t want to rush you into anything. You know what I
have to sell, and you know what the price is. If you don’t care to pay
it, well, you know how I can pay myself in coin of the realm. Now I’ll
give you till to-morrow night. If you’ll see me to-morrow, down at your
own garden fence, where you’ll be quite safe, mind, for I mean quite
fair and above board, and if you’ll speak me fair and be civil, I’ll
hold my tongue, and wild horses nor all the tecs in Lon’on shouldn’t
make me peach; but if you don’t choose to do this, and it’s a precious
small thing to make such a fuss about, why, then, I’ll go off to
Hemming and get the five pounds, and you can guess what’ll happen, if
you don’t know.”
As the man looked at her, with bloodshot, inflamed eyes, enjoying in
anticipation the kiss which he felt she was bound to give him, Nell’s
heart sank. He would not surely speak in this tone to her, if the
proofs of which he had spoken were not very strong ones.
“You must give me time to think,” she faltered, turning her head away
to escape the gaze of the lustful eyes, but keeping a sharp eye on his
movements all the time.
She felt keen resentment against Miss Theodora, who, in her amiable
folly, had exposed her to this persecution. Luckily that lady herself
appeared a few seconds later, and then Nell at once made the excuse of
going to fetch the tea-things to get out of the room.
Once outside the door, however, she ran through the passage to the back
of the house, slipped out into the garden, and ran home across the
fields as fast as her fleet little feet could carry her.
“Since she likes his society so much, she may enjoy a _tête-à-tête_
with him!” she said to herself, not without a bitter feeling that her
old friend and protectress had betrayed her in her eagerness to reclaim
the prodigal.
Before she reached the Blue Lion, Nell had made up her mind what to do.
She felt that she must have some advice of a more solid, more worldly
kind than that of kindly, sentimental, narrow-minded Miss Theodora. So
she wrote a little note, the first she had ever sent him, to Clifford
King, and sent it by a safe hand to Stroan to catch the night mail.
Her note was very short, containing as it did only the following
words:--
“DEAR MR. KING:
“If it would not be too inconvenient to you to come down to Stroan
to-morrow, I should be very glad of the opportunity of asking your
advice upon a matter in which I do not dare to trust my own judgment,
and do not dare to consult my uncle.
“With apologies for my audacity in asking such a great favor,
“Believe me, yours sincerely,
“NELL CLARIS.”
Then she passed a sleepless night, torturing herself by wondering what
Jem Stickels would do, and whether Clifford would come--this she did
not greatly doubt--and how she should tell him if he came.
And on the following evening, just when she had given up all hope of
seeing him, and just when the time appointed by Jem Stickels for her to
meet him was approaching, she saw Clifford, from her seat by the open
door of the sitting-room, walk into the bar.
Nell sprang up with a little cry, and Clifford, catching sight of her,
flushed a deeper red than his walk had given him, and going quickly
through the bar and along the passage, pushed open the door of the
little sitting-room, and stood before her.
The girl had been so anxious for his coming that all her little
maidenly arts of affected surprise, of indifference, of reserve,
were in abeyance; and he saw before him the girl he loved, with love
confessed in her blue eyes. For one moment he stood looking at her,
a little awe-struck, as a lover ought to be, at discovering how much
more beautiful she was than he remembered her. Then, not unnaturally
taking her summons for just a little more than it was intended to be,
he caught her in his arms, and pressing her against his breast, covered
her face with kisses.
Nell uttered a little cry; she thought it expressed consternation,
alarm; but Clifford read the sound differently, and kissed her again.
“Oh, Mr. King!” panted the girl, as soon as she could draw back her
head enough to speak, “you don’t understand. I sent for you to advise
me, that’s all. I--”
“I quite understood,” replied Clifford, calmly, not letting her go
very far. “And I am longing to put my professional knowledge at your
service. But first--”
He stopped short, arrested in the middle of his speech by a violent
start on the part of Nell, who was looking with eyes full of alarm at
the door which led into the garden.
The upper part of this door was of glass, and she had suddenly
perceived that a face was pressed close to the outer side.
“Who is it?” asked Clifford, as soon as he saw what had arrested her
attention.
And without waiting for an answer, he sprang across the little room,
toward the glass door. Nell sprang after him, and clutched at his
sleeve.
“Never mind. Don’t go,” she whispered apprehensively. “It is only Jem
Stickels. Don’t open the door.”
But as Clifford stopped, under the pressure of her earnest entreaty,
the sound of a hoarsely uttered curse reached their ears; the face was
quickly withdrawn, and the next moment, with a loud crash of broken
glass, Jem’s fist came through the upper part of the door, and struck
Clifford full in chest.
Nell saw, even before the blow was dealt, that there was an open knife
in the fisherman’s hand. But, although she threw herself upon her
lover, trying to drag him back from the danger, she was not in time.
With a howl of savage delight, Jem drew back his knife, covered with
blood.