Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 36

"You should go by train: you should not walk," said Mrs. Todhetley.

"I had not the money just by me, ma'am," she answered. "It 'ud cost two shillings or half-a-crown. My daughter sent word I was to take the train and she'd pay for it: but she did not send the money, and I'd not got it just handy."

"You live at Islip, you say. What is your name?"

"Nutt'n, ma'am," said the woman, in the local dialect. Which name I interpreted into Nutten; but Mrs. Todhetley thought she said Nutt.

"I think you are telling me the truth," said the mater, some hesitation in her voice, though. "If I were a.s.sured of it I would advance you half-a-crown for the journey."

"The good Lord above us knows that I'm telling it," returned the woman earnestly, turning her face full to the glow of the sun. "It's more than I could expect you to do, ma'am, and me a stranger; but I'd repay it faithfully."

Well, the upshot was that she got the half-crown lent her; and I ran in for a drop of warm ale. Molly shrieked out at me for it, refusing to believe that the mistress gave any such order, and saying she was not going to warm ale for parish tramps. So I got the ale and the tin, and warmed it myself. The woman was very grateful, drank it, and disappeared.

"Joseph, I am so very sorry! They have made two of your shirts, and the plaits are the large ones you say you don't like."

"Then they'll just unmake them," retorted Tod, in a temper.

We were sitting round the table at tea, Mrs. Todhetley having ordered some tea to be made while she went upstairs. She came down without her bonnet, and had changed her best gown for the one she mostly wore at home: it had two shades in it, and shone like the copper tea-kettle. The Squire was not expected home yet, and we were to dine an hour later than usual.

"That Miss Timmens is not worth her salt," fired Tod, helping himself to some thin bread-and-b.u.t.ter. "What business has she to go and make my shirts wrong?"

"I fear the fault lies with me, Joseph, not with Miss Timmens. I had given her the pattern shirt, which has large plaits, you know, before you said you would prefer---- Oh, we hardly want the lamp yet, Thomas!"

broke off the mater, as old Thomas came in with the lighted lamp.

"I'm sure we do, then," cried Tod. "I can't see which side's b.u.t.ter and which bread."

"And I, not thinking Miss Timmens would put them in hand at once, did not send to her as soon as you spoke, Joseph," went on the mater, as Thomas settled the lamp on the table. "I am very sorry, my dear; but it is only two. The rest shall be done as you wish."

Something, apart from the shirts, had put Tod out. I had seen it as soon as we got in. For one thing, he had meant to go to Persh.o.r.e: and the pater, not knowing it, started without him.

"Let them unmake the two," growled Tod.

"But it would be a great pity, Joseph. They are very nicely done; the st.i.tching's beautiful. I really don't think it will signify."

"_You_ don't, perhaps. You may like odd things. A pig with one ear, for example."

"A what, Joseph?" she asked, not catching the last simile.

"I said a pig with one ear. No doubt you do like it. You are looking like one now, ma'am."

The words made me gaze at Mrs. Todhetley, for the tone bore some personal meaning, and then I saw what Tod meant: an earring was absent.

The lamp-light shone on the flashing diamonds, the bright pink topaz of the one earring; but the other ear was bare and empty.

"You have lost one of your earrings, mother!"

She put her hands to her ears, and started up in alarm. These earrings were very valuable: they had been left to her, when she was a child, in some old lady's will, and const.i.tuted her chief possession in jewellery worth boasting of. Not once in a twelvemonth did she venture to put them on; but she had got them out to-day for the christening.

Whether it was that I had gazed at the earrings when I was a little fellow and sat in her lap, I don't know; but I never saw any that I liked so well. The pink topaz was in a long drop, the slender rim of gold that encircled it being set with diamonds. Mrs. Todhetley said they were worth fifty guineas: and perhaps they were. The glittering white of the diamonds round the pink was beautiful to look upon.

The house went into a commotion. Mrs. Todhetley made for her bedroom, to see whether the earring had dropped on the floor or was lodging inside her bonnet. She shook out her grey dress, hoping it had fallen amidst the folds. Hannah searched the stairs, candle in hand; the two children were made to stand in corners for fear they should tread on it. But the search came to nothing. It seemed clear enough that the earring was not in the house.

"Did you notice, Johnny, whether I had them both in my ears when we went to the school?" the mater asked.

No, I did not. I had seen them sparkling when she got out of the carriage, but had not noticed them after.

I went out to search the garden-path that she had traversed, and the road over to the Coneys' farm. Tod helped me, forgetting his shirts and his temper. Old Coney said he remarked the earrings while Mrs. Todhetley was talking to him, and thought how beautiful they were. That is, he had remarked _one_ of them; he was sure of that; and he thought if the other had been missing, its absence would have struck him. But that was just saying nothing; for he could not be certain that both were there.

"You may hunt till to-morrow morning, and get ten lanterns to it," cried Molly, in her tart way, meeting us by the bay-tree, as we went stooping up the path again: "but you'll be none the nearer finding it. That tramp got's the earring, Master Joe."

"What tramp?" demanded Tod, straightening himself.

"A tramp that Master Johnny there must needs give hot ale to," returned Molly. "_I_ know what them tramps are worth. They'd pull rings out of ears with their own fingers, give 'em the chance: and perhaps this woman did, without the missis seeing her."

Tod turned to me for an explanation. I gave it, and he burst into a derisive laugh, meant for me and the mater. "To think we could be taken in by such a tale as that!" he cried: "we should never see tramp, or half-crown, or perhaps the earring again."

The Squire came home in the midst of the stir. He bl.u.s.tered a little, partly at the loss, chiefly at the encouragement of tramps, calling it astounding folly. Ordering Thomas to bring a lantern, he went stooping his old back down the path, and across to Coney's and back again; not believing any one had searched properly, and finally kicking the snow about.

"It's a pity this here snow's on the ground, sir," cried Thomas. "A little thing like an earring might easily slip into it in falling."

"Not a bit of it," growled the Squire. "That tramp has got the earring."

"I don't believe the tramp has," I stoutly said. "I don't think she was a tramp at all: and she seemed honest. I liked her face."

"There goes Johnny with his 'faces' again!" said the Squire, in laughing mockery: and Tod echoed it.

"It's a good thing you don't have to buy folks by their faces, Johnny: you'd get finely sold sometimes."

"And she had a true voice," I persisted, not choosing to be put down, also thinking it right to a.s.sert what was my conviction. "A voice you might trust without as much as looking at herself."

Well, the earring was not to be found; though the search continued more or less till bed-time, for every other minute somebody would be looking again on the carpets.

"It is not so much for the value I regret it," spoke Mrs. Todhetley, the tears rising in her meek eyes: "as for the old a.s.sociations connected with it. I never had the earrings out but they brought back to me the remembrance of my girlhood's home."

Early in the morning I ran down to the school-house. More snow had fallen in the night. The children were flocking in. Miss Timmens had not noticed the earrings at all, but several of the girls said they had.

Strange to say, though, most of them could not say for certain whether they saw _both_ the earrings: they thought they did; but there it ended.

Just like old Coney!

"I am sure both of them were there," spoke up a nice, clean little girl, from a back form.

"What's that, f.a.n.n.y Fairfax?" cried Miss Timmens, in her quick way.

"Stand up. How are you sure of it?"

"Please governess, I saw them both," was the answer; and the child blushed like a peony as she stood up above the others and said it.

"Are you sure you did?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure, please, governess. I was looking which o' the two shined the most. 'Twas when the lady was stooping over the shirt, and the sun came in at the window."

"What did they look like?" asked Miss Timmens.