A Sheaf of Corn Part 38

Mrs Mellish, in her nightgown, came running into the room.

"Oh, Auntie! Are you ill? Are you on fire?" she cried.

The stout lady, strengthless and breathless, was lying in a chair, the jewel-case clasped laxly with one arm.

"A robber has been here," she gasped. "A robber, with black on his face, and a chloroformed handkerchief."

"Oh, Auntie! Auntie! Never!"

"Where is your husband? Is he in your room?"

No. For Augustus, ever a restless sleeper, had thought he heard something stirring in the room beneath, and, later, a footstep on the stair. He had risen, therefore, had taken the pistol, which always lay loaded by his side, and gone down to investigate.

Auntie opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without a sound; her eyes, with their most vacant stare, were turned upon her niece; she gathered her underlip loosely beneath her teeth.

It was not until the servants, also aroused by the bell, but having waited to dress, came to Auntie's room, that Mrs Mellish was at liberty to run down to seek her husband.

There was no doubt about the house having been entered, she said, on her return; Auntie had by no means _dreamt_ the burglar.

("No!" interpolated Auntie, with a solemnly emphatic shake of the head.)

A window broken in the kitchen, and a wide-open sash had showed the exploring Gussie the means of ingress. In the dining-room it was evident that a couple of gla.s.ses of brandy had been drunk, but none of the silver on the sideboard had been touched. Too clearly, Auntie and her possessions had been the objects of the attempt.

Auntie nodded gloomy affirmation, trembling and gasping in her chair.

Where was Gussie, she asked; and showed relief and satisfaction when told he had gone to give notice of the affair to the police. But not even the promise that the servants and Grace would sit beside her and watch her while she slept would induce the poor lady to go to bed again.

"Not in this house. Never again in this house," she protested.

And even when morning brought a cessation of panic and a certain sense of security to all, she could not be persuaded to change her mind.

"I should die if I ever trusted myself to fall asleep under this roof again," she said. "Let me get away from it as soon as possible. I am fifty years of age, but I've never had a bad shock before in my life. I won't risk a second."

The swarthy, fat, foolish face was pale and flabby and aged from the night's adventure and the sleepless hours following.

"Auntie, I am sure you are not well enough to travel," Grace said. But, with a grim determination, Auntie persisted.

"The first train. I should like to get away by the very first."

"It isn't our fault, remember," Grace said, firing up. "It isn't as if we _arranged_ a burglary for you, Auntie."

There was a train at 10.15 a.m., and of this Auntie would avail herself.

No policeman came to the house. Augustus did not return.

"He and the detectives have got on a track, and are following it up,"

his wife said. "Trust Gussie!"

When the ladies were about to sit down to breakfast, and still the master of the house had not returned, Grace was a little surprised. The neighbour who had played bridge with them came in. He had heard of the burglary, and was come to offer a.s.sistance, he said. He picked up a couple of newspapers lying by Mr Mellish's empty plate.

"You let those alone! Gussie hasn't seen them yet," Gussie's wife said.

The Mellishes were on terms of great intimacy with the neighbour.

"I'll take them, all the same," he laughed. "Send Gus to me for them if he wants them."

"I tell you what! I think I'll just 'phone up to the office to see if Gussie's there," Grace said. "I don't see the fun of being kept in the dark like this. I should like to know what's going on, and if they've caught anyone."

The face of the friendly neighbour changed as she disappeared to carry out this intention. He walked close to Auntie and whispered in her ear:

"Don't let her get hold of a newspaper," he said. "There's disagreeable news. I heard it last night. Mellish has got into a sc.r.a.pe--forgery, they say. I hope to heaven he's got away--H-s-s-sh!"

There was no need of the caution. Auntie, with the grand talent for silence which distinguished her, sat with a sucked-in lip looking heavily after the retreating neighbour, when Grace returned. Grace, bright and pretty in her neat morning blouse, made a laughing dash at the papers in the neighbour's hand. He flourished them a moment above her head and retired.

"Gussie's not at the office," Mrs Mellish said. "He's on the track of your burglar, Auntie, you bet. He'll catch him, too! You'll be wanted to identify him; could you swear to him, do you think?"

Auntie very hurriedly declared her inability to do this. "All the upper part of his face was covered," she said.

But she thought of a black-shaved chin below the mask, and a jaw that had worked silently, in a way of late familiar to her; and she found herself quite unable to do justice to her niece's eggs and bacon.

At the door of the first-cla.s.s railway compartment by which Auntie was to travel Grace stood.

"Gussie will be furious when he comes back and finds you gone," she said. "He'll catch the man, to the deadest certainty. He's got the brains of the whole police force in his own head. You should have stayed to enjoy the excitement."

Auntie, whitened and flabby-looking under her smart violet toque, reiterated the statement that she could not have stayed another night.

"It's been a great shock. I feel as if I might never recover from it; and I wish with all my heart I had never come," she said.

"Well, since you wish it, I wish it, too," Grace retorted, kindling.

"We must console ourselves that it has not been for long, and try to forget all about it."

"I shall be glad to be back in my own home," Auntie said.

She looked so changed from the well-satisfied, prosperous Auntie whom Grace had welcomed to her home two days before, that Mrs Mellish's resentment faded as she regarded her.

"You are sure you like best to travel alone?" she asked her, with anxious kindness.

Yes. Auntie preferred her own company. If a man got in at any of the stations, she said, so upset were her nerves, she would certainly be ill with the fright.

So Mrs Mellish found the guard and intimated to him that the lady wished to be undisturbed. Auntie stopped him when, in his officious zeal, he was about to lock the carriage door.

"I can't bear the feeling of being locked in," she said. "It makes me lose my breath."

She leaned out of the window, and kissed her niece with more demonstrativeness than was her custom. "You know my address if you--want anything. Good-bye," she said.

"Good-bye," Grace said, and shook a hand at the window. "Don't forget to eat your sandwiches--you had no breakfast, you know. You've got some brandy-and-water in your flask, remember. Take care of yourself.

Good-bye."

"Silly old goose! Making such a fuss, at her age!" she said to herself as she walked away. "Well, after all, it's a relief she's gone. I'm sure I never wanted her. It was Gussie's idea, not mine."