Nicky-Nan, Reservist Part 31

As the exchange was made he backed upon Mrs Pengelly's shop door, and the impact set a bell clanging. The sense of it shot up his spine of a sudden, and at each stroke of the clapper he felt he had sold his soul to the devil. But Miss Oliver stood in front of him, with a smile on her face that seemed to waver the more she fixed it: and at this moment the voice of Mrs Pengelly--a deep contralto--called--

"Come in!"

Some women are comfortable, others uncomfortable. In the language of Polpier, "there be bitter and there be bowerly." Mrs Pengelly was a bowerly woman, and traded in lollipops. Miss Oliver--

Anyhow, the child 'Biades turned and took refuge in the shop, hurling back the door-flap and its clanging bell.

This left Miss Oliver without, in the awkwardest of situations: since she had a conscience as well as curiosity. In her palm lay a guinea-piece: which meant that (at the very least, or the current rate of exchange) she had swindled a child out of twenty shillings and tenpence. This would never do, of course. . . . Yet she could not very well follow in at this moment and explain to Mrs Pengelly.

Moreover, here was a mystery connected with Nanjivell. In the midst of her embarra.s.sment she felt a secret a.s.surance that she was in luck; that she held a clue; that she had in her grasp something to open Mrs Polsue's eyes in envy.

"The first thing," she decided, "is to take this piece of gold to the child's mother, and instanter."

But, as fate would have it, she had scarcely reached the porch of the Old Doctor's house when Nicky-Nan himself emerged from it: and at the sight of him her fatal curiosity triumphed.

"Mr Nanjivell!" she called.

Nicky-Nan turned about. "Good mornin', Miss. Was that you a-callin'?"

Having yielded to her impulse, Miss Oliver suddenly found herself at a loss how to proceed. Confusion and the call to improvise an opening movement mantled her cheeks with that crimson tint which her friend Mary-Martha so often alleged to be unbecoming.

"I stopped you," she answered, stammering a little, "because, with all our little differences in Polpier, we're all one family in a sense, are we not? We have a sort of fellow-feeling--eh?--whether in trouble _or_ prosperity. And as a Polpier woman, born and bred, I'd like to be one of the first to wish you joy of your good fortune."

Nicky-Nan's face did not flush. On the contrary, it turned to an ashen grey, as he stood before her and leant for support on his stick. He was making inarticulate sounds in his throat.

"Who told you?" he gasped hoa.r.s.ely. Recollecting himself, he hastily changed the form of the question. "What lies have they been tellin'

up about me now?"

Miss Oliver had meant to disclose the guinea in her palm, and tell him of her meeting with the child 'Biades. But now she clutched the coin closer, and it gave her confidence--a feeling that she held her trump card in reserve.

"Why, of course, they have been putting up lies, as you say," she answered cunningly. "There was never such a place as Polpier for t.i.ttle-tattle. They've even gone so far as to set it about that it came from Germany: which was the reason you haven't joined up with the colours."

"_What_ came from Germany?"

"And of course it is partly your own fault, isn't it?--if you _will_ make such a secret of the thing? . . . Yet, I'm sure I don't blame you. Living the solitary life you do must make it specially trying to feel that every one is canva.s.sing your affairs. For my part, I said, 'If it _does_ come from Germany,' I said, 'you may be sure 'tis through one of those lotteries.'" On a swift thought she added, "But that tale is all nonsense, of course: because the Germans wouldn't pay in guineas, would they?"

"'Guineas'?" repeated Nicky-Nan, as the solid earth seemed to fail beneath his feet and his supporting stick.

Miss Oliver, grasping the advantage of his evident distress, decided in a flash (1) that here, before her, stood the wreck of a well-connected man, cleanly in person, not ill to look upon; and (2) that she would a little longer withhold disclosure of the guinea.

"Well, I _heard_ it took the form of guineas, Mr Nanjivell. But of course I don't wish to be inquisitive."

"That devil Pamphlett has been talkin'," muttered Nicky-Nan to himself.

"I only suggest," Miss Oliver went on, "that if 'twas known--I don't seek to know the amount: but if I had your authority to say that 'twas all in good coin of this realm--with my opportunities I might hush up half this silly talk about your being a spy and in German pay--"

"What? . . . ME, a German spy?" The words seemed fairly to strangle him.

"It's a positive fact, I a.s.sure you. I mean it's a positive fact _somebody_ has been putting that story about."

"If I knawed the critter, male or female--" Nicky-Nan gripped his stick.

Miss Oliver could not help admiring his demeanour, his manly indignation. The man had fine features, too--a touch of ancestry.

She grew bolder.

"Well, I rather think I _do_ know the creature, as you put it-though I am not going to tell you," she added almost archly. Then, of a sudden, "Has Constable Rat-it-all been paying you any attention lately?"

"Well . . . I'll be danged!"

Miss Oliver laughed pleasantly. "The fact is, Mr Nanjivell, you want a woman's wit to warn you, as every man does in your position.

And just now it took me of a sudden, happening upon you in this way and knowing how you were surrounded by evil tongues, that I'd cast prudence to the winds and speak to you openly for your good, as a neighbour. You don't think the worse of me, I hope?"

"Why, no, Miss Oliver. Contrariwise I ought to be--if you hadn'

taken me so sudden!" he concluded lamely.

"We'll say no more about that. All I suggest is that, until you find some one worthier of your confidence, if you care to count on me as an old friend and neighbour--"

"Good Lord!" Nicky-Nan cast a hand to his brow. "You'll excuse my manners, Miss--but if you'll let me go off an' think it over--"

He turned as if to flee into the house. Then, as if headed off by the noise of hammering within, he faced about and made across the bridge for the quay-head and his favourite bollard. There, as a man in a dream, he found a seat, and vainly for ten minutes strove to collect and arrange his thoughts. Suspicion, fear, wild anger wove dances in his brain--witch-dances immingled with cursings upon the heads of Pamphlett and Policeman Rat-it-all. . . . Of a sudden he sat up and stiffened with a new fright.

"By the manner of her conversation, that woman was makin' love to me!"

Left to herself, and as Nicky-Nan pa.s.sed out of sight around the corner beyond the bridge, Miss Charity Oliver warily opened her palm and examined the guinea.

"By rights," she mused, "I ought to take this in to Mrs Penhaligon at once, and caution her about Alcibiades. . . . No, I won't, though.

I'll call first and have it out with Mary-Martha. She thinks she knows everything, and she has a way of making others believe it.

But she has proved herself a broken reed over this affair: and,"

said Miss Oliver to herself with decision, "I rather fancy I'll make Mary-Martha sensible of it."

CHAPTER XXI.

FAIRY GOLD.

"So you see, Mary-Martha, that for once in a way you were wrong and I was right."

"You're too fond of sweepin' statements, Charity Oliver. I doubt your first, and your second I not only doubt but deny. So far as I remember, I said the man was probably in German pay, while you insisted that he'd won the money in a lottery."

"I didn't insist: I merely suggested. It was you who started to talk about German money: and I answered you that, even if the money _was_ German, there might be an innocent way of explaining it before you took upon yourself to warn the police."

Mrs Polsue glanced at her friend sharply. "You seem to be gettin'

very hot over it," was her comment. "Why, I can't think.

You certainly wouldn't if you gave any thought to your appearance."

"I'm not hot in the least," hotly protested Miss Oliver. "I'm simply proving to you that you've made a mistake: which you could never in your life bear to be told. The money is English gold, with King George the Something's head on it: and _that_ you can't deny, try as you may."