Janice Meredith Part 5

"Not for me," a.s.serted Miss Meredith, proudly virtuous, as she walked on.

If Miss Drinker had searched for a twelve-month she could scarce have found a more provoking remark than her spontaneous exclamation, "Oh! how beautiful she is!"

Janice halted, though she had the moral stamina not to turn.

"What? The chain?" she asked.

"No! The miniature," responded her interlocutor, in a tone expressing the most unbounded admiration and delight.

"Such an elegant creature, Jan, and such--"

Her speech ended there, as a crashing in the bushes alarmed her, and she darted past Janice, who, infected by the guilt of her companion, likewise broke into a run, which neither ceased till they had covered a goodly distance. Then Tabitha, for want of breath, came to a stop, and allowed her friend to overtake her.

She held up the chain and miniature in her hand. "What shall I do?" she panted.

"Tibbie, how could you?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed her horrified friend.

"His coming frighted me so that--oh, I didn't drop it!"

"You must take it back!"

"I'd never dare!"

"Black shame on--!"

"A nice creature, thou, Jan!" interrupted Miss Drinker, with a sudden carrying of the war into the enemy's camp.

"To tell me to go back when he's sure to be dressing! No wonder thee makes indelicate speeches."

Miss Meredith, without deigning to reply to this shameful implication, walked away toward the house.

That Tibbie intended to shirk the consequences of her misdemeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith was at the sight, she lifted and examined the trinket.

Bred in colonial simplicity, it seemed to the maid that she had never seen anything quite so exquisite. A gold case, richly set with brilliants, encompa.s.sed the portrait of a girl of very positive beauty. After a rapt dwelling on the portrait for some minutes, further examination revealed the letters W. H.

J. B. interlaced on the back.

Taking the miniature when her toilet had been perfected, Janice descended to the parlour. As she entered, Tabitha, already there, jumped up from a chair, in which, a moment previous she had been carrying on a brown study that apparently was not enjoyable, and tripped nonchalantly across the room to the spinet. Seating herself, she struck the keys, and broke out into a song ent.i.tled, "Taste Life's Glad Moments as They Glide."

Not in the least deflected from her intention, Miss Meredith marched up to the culprit, the bondsman's property in her hand, and demanded, "Dost intend to turn thief?"

"Prithee, who 's curious now?" evaded Tibbie. "I knew thee 'd look at it, for all thy airs."

"Very well, miss," threatened Janice, with much dignity.

"Then I shall take it to him, and narrate to him all the circ.u.mstances."

"Tattle-tale, tattle-tale!" retorted Tabitha, scornfully.

With even greater scorn her friend turned her back, and leaving the house, walked toward the stable. This took her through the old-fashioned, hedge-begirt kitchen garden, in which flowers were grown as if they were vegetables, and vegetables were grown as if they were flowers. The moment Janice had pa.s.sed within the tall row of box, her expression of mingled haughtiness and determination ended; she came to a sudden halt, said "Oh!" and then pretended to be greatly interested in a b.u.t.terfly. The bravest army can be stampeded by a surprise, and after having screwed up her spirit to the point of facing Fownes in his fortress, the stable, Miss Meredith's courage deserted her on almost stumbling over him a hundred yards nearer than she expected. So taken aback was she that all the glib explanation she had planned was forgotten, and she held out the miniature to him without a single word.

Charles had been walking to the house, and only paused at meeting Miss Meredith. He glanced at the outstretched hand, and then let his eyes come back to the girl's face, without making the slightest motion to take his property.

Tongue-tied and doubly embarra.s.sed by his calm scrutiny, the young lady stood with flushed cheeks, and with long black lashes dropped to hide a pair of very shamed eyes, the personification, in appearance, of guilt.

Whether the girl would have found her tongue, or would have ended the incident as she was longing to do by taking to her heels, it is impossible to say. Ere she had time to do either, the angry voice of the squire broke in upon them.

"Ho, there ye are! Twice have I looked for ye this afternoon, and I warn ye I'm not the man to take such conduct from any one, least of all from one of my own servants," he said as he came toward the pair, the emphasis of his walking stick and his heels both telling the story of his anger. "What mean ye, fellow," he continued, "by neglecting the work I set ye?"

Absolutely unmoved by the reproof, Charles stood as heedless of it as he had been of the outstretched hand of the daughter, a hand which had promptly disappeared in the folds of Miss Meredith's skirt at the first sound of her father's voice.

"A taste of my walking stick ye should have if ye had your deserts!" went on the squire, now face to face with the servant.

Without taking his eyes from the girl, Charles laughed.

"Is it fear of me," he challenged, "or fear of the law that prevents you?"

"What know ye of the law, sirrah?" demanded Mr. Meredith.

"Nothing, when I was fool enough to indenture myself,"

snapped the servant; "but Bagby tells me that 't is forbidden, under penalty of fine, for a master to strike a servant."

"Joe Bagby!" roared the squire, more angry than ever.

"And how come ye to have anything to do with that scampy lawyer! Hast been up to some mischief already?"

Again the man laughed. "That is for His Majesty's Justices of the Peace to discover. Till they do, I shall maintain that I consulted him concerning the laws governing bond-servants."

"A pretty state the country 's come to!" raged the squire.

"No wonder there is no governing the land, when even servants think to have the law against their masters. But, harkee, my fine fellow. If I may not punish ye myself, the Justices may order ye whipped, and unless ye change your manners I will have ye up before their next sitting. Meantime, saddle Joggles as soon as supper is done, and take this paper over to Brunswick, and post it on the proclamation board of the Town Hall. And no tarrying, and consulting of tricky lawyers, understand. If ye are not back by nine, ye shall hear from me."

Striking a sunflower with his cane as a slight vent to his anger, the master strode away to the house.

His back turned. Janice once again held out the miniature.

"Won't you please take it?" she begged.

"Art tired of it already?" jeered the man.

"I did not take it, Charles," she stammered, "but I knew of its taking and so brought it back to you."

The man shrugged his shoulders. "'T is not mine, nor is it aught to me," he said, and pa.s.sing the girl, walked to the house.

V THE VALUE OF HAIR

At the evening meal the farm hands and negro house-servants remarked in Fownes not merely his customary unsocial silence, but an abstraction more obvious than usual. A gird or two from the rougher of his fellow-labourers was wholly unnoted by him, and though he ate heartily, it was with such entire unconsciousness of what he was eating as to make the cook, Sukey, who was inclined to favour him, question if after all he deserved special consideration at her hands.

The meal despatched, Charles took his way to the stable, but some motive caused him to stop at the horse trough, lean over it, and examine the reflection of his face. Evidently what he saw was not gratifying, for he vainly tried to smooth down his short hair, and then pa.s.sed his hand over the scrub of his beard. "'T is said clothes make the gentleman," he muttered, "but methinks 't is really the barber. How many of the belles of the Pump Room and the Crescent would take me for other than a clodhopper? 'T was not Charles Lor--Charles what?

--to whom they curtesied and ogled and smirked, 't was to a becoming wig and a smooth chin." Snapping his fingers contemptuously, he went in and began to saddle the horse.

A half-hour later, the man rode up the village street of Brunswick. Hitching Joggles to a post in front of the King George tavern, he walked to the board on the side of the Town Hall and Court House. Here, over a three months' old proclamation, he posted the anonymous note recently received by the squire, which had been wafered to a sheet of pro patria paper, and below which the squire had written--

This is to give notice that I despise too much the cowardly villain who wrote and nailed this on my door to pay any attention to him. A Reward of two pounds will be given for any information leading to the discovery of said cowardly villain.

Lambert Meredith.