Sawn Off Part 28

A complete change seemed to have come over the man, as he darted to the door and swung it open, just as there was the rush of rapid footsteps along the paved court, and he ran off in pursuit; while Mrs Shingle and Hopper followed.

They met d.i.c.k at the entrance, coming back panting; and he motioned them into the house, and closed the door.

"Mother," he panted, in a voice that trembled with grief and pa.s.sion, "I've left it to you to train our girl while I earned--no, tried to earn--the bread; and it's been my pride through it all to hold up my head and point to our Jessie, and say to folks, `Look at her--she's not like the rest as go to the warehouse for work.'"

"But, d.i.c.k--dear d.i.c.k, don't, pray don't judge hastily," cried Mrs Shingle.

"I won't," said d.i.c.k hoa.r.s.ely. "All I say is there was a man out there, and she was talking to him on the sly. Is that right, Hopper? I say, is that right?"

The old man looked at him vacantly, and seemed not to hear.

"Curse him! whoever he was," cried d.i.c.k hoa.r.s.ely; "he was ashamed to meet me. It was Tom Fraser, I'll swear; and he's not the man I thought him. Here," he cried, swinging open the door that led upstairs, "Jessie--Jessie, come down! Hopper, old man, you're like one of us--you needn't go."

The visitor, with a sorrowful look upon his face, had already reached the door, where he stood, leaning upon his stick, as Jessie slowly descended, looking very pale, and glancing anxiously from one to the other.

Mrs Shingle was crossing--mother-like--to her child's side; but d.i.c.k motioned her back.

"Stop there!" he said fiercely; and then, taking a step forward--"Jessie, you were talking to some one outer window just now?"

She did not answer for a moment, but gazed at him in a frightened way.

"I say you were talking to some one outer window?"

"Yes, father," she faltered.

"It was to Tom Fraser," he said, in a low, angry voice. "And he's a sneak."

There was no answer.

"I say it was--to Tom Fraser."

"No, father, it was not," said Jessie, in a low clear voice.

"Who was it, then?" cried d.i.c.k.

There was no answer.

"I say, who was it, then?"

"It was to his brother Fred, father," said Jessie, almost in a whisper.

But all the same Tom Fraser had stood at the entrance to the court, and been a witness of the scene.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.

AFTER A LAPSE.

Max Shingle lived in the unfashionable district of Pentonville; but he had a goodly house there, and well furnished, at the head of a square of little residences that some ingenious builder had erected to look like a plantation of young Wesleyan chapels, growing up ready for transplanting at such times as they were needed to supply a want.

Mrs Max, relict of the late Mr Fraser, was a tall, bony, washed-out woman, with a false look about her hair, teeth, and figure; large ears, in each of which, fitting close to the lobe, was a large pearl, looking like a b.u.t.ton, to hold it back against her head. She was seated in her drawing-room, but not alone; for opposite to her, in a studied, graceful att.i.tude, sat Max's ward, Violante, daughter of a late deacon of his chapel--a rather good-looking girl in profile, but terribly disfigured, on looking her full in the face, by a weakness in one eye, the effect of which was that it never worked with its twin sister, but was always left behind. Thus, whereas her right eye turned sharply upon you, and looked you through and through, the left did not come up to its work until the right had about finished and gone off to do duty on something else. The consequence was that when talking to her you found you had her attention for a few moments; and then, just as you seemed to have lost it, eye Number 2 came up to the charge, and generally puzzled and confused a stranger to a remarkable extent.

"Dear me! Hark at the wind!" said Mrs Max; "and look at it. Give me my smelling bottle, Violante. I'm always giddy when the wind gets under the carpet like that."

The smelling bottle was duly sniffed; and then, changing her position so that her fair hair and white eyebrows and lashes were full in the light, Mrs Max looked more than ever as if there had been too much soda used in the water ever since she was born; and she sighed, and took up her work, which was a large illuminated text on perforated cardboard.

In fact, Max Shingle's house shone in brightly coloured cards and many-tinted silken pieces of tapestry, formed to improve the sinful mind. Moral aphorisms about honesty and contentment looked at you from over the hat-pegs in the hall; pious precepts peeped at you between the bal.u.s.ters as you went upstairs, and furnished the drawing-room to the displacement of pictures. Many of them lost their point, from being illuminated to such an extent that the brilliancy and wondrous windings of the letters dazzled the eye, and carried the mind into a mental maze, as you tried to decipher what they meant; but there they were, and Mrs Max and the ward spent their days in constantly adding to the number.

The hall mat, instead of "Cave canem," bore the legend "Friend, do not swear; it is a sinful habit," and always exasperated visitors; while, if you put your feet upon a stool, you withdrew them directly, feeling that you had been guilty of an irreverent act; for there would be a line worked in white beads, with a reference to "Romans xii." or "2 Corinthians ii." If you opened a book there was a marker within bidding you "flee," or "cease," or "turn," or "stand fast." If you dined there, and sat near the fire, a screen was hung on your chair, which was so covered with quotations that it made you feel as if you were turning your back on the Christian religion. But still, look which way you would, you felt as if you were in the house of a good man.

Pictures there were, of course. There was a large engraving of Ruth and Boaz, to which Mrs Max always drew your attention with--

"Would not you suppose that Mr Shingle had sat for Boaz?"

And when you agreed that he might, Violante always joined in, directing one eye at you, and saying--

"People always think, too, that the Ruth is so like Mrs Maximilian."

Then the other eye came slowly up to finish the first one's task, and seemed to say, "Now, then, what do you think of that?"

The place was well furnished, but, from the pictures to the carpets, everything was of an ecclesiastical pattern; and when Max came in, with a white cravat, you felt that you were in the presence of a substantial rector, if he were not a canon, or a dean.

In a wicked fit, d.i.c.k had once dubbed his brother and sister-in-law "Sage and Onions"--the one from his solid, learned look; the other from her being always strangely scented, and her weakness for bursting into tears.

Upon the present occasion, she sat for a few minutes, and then, taking out her handkerchief, began to weep silently.

"Your guardian is always late for dinner, my dear; and everything will be spoilt. Where is Tom?"

"Gone hanging about after Miss Jessie, I suppose," said Violante, with a roll of one eye. "And Fred as well," she added, with the other.

"It is a strange infatuation on the part of my two sons. Your dear guardian's Esau and Jacob," said Mrs Max, wiping her eyes. "I wonder how it is that poor creature, Richard Shingle, makes his money."

"I don't know," said Violante. "They've set up a very handsome carriage."

"Dear me! It is a mystery," said Mrs Max, still weeping. "Two years ago Richard was our poor tenant; now he must be worth thousands. I hope he is honest."

"Perhaps we had better work him some texts," said Violante, maliciously.

Then, raising her other eye, "They might do him good."

"I don't know," sighed Mrs Max; "we never see them now they have grown so rich. It is very shocking."

Violante did not seem to see that it was shocking, for she only tossed her head.

"Has Tom been any more attentive to you lately, my dear?"

"No, not a bit," said the girl spitefully, and one eye flashed at Mrs Max; "nor Fred neither," she continued, bestowing a milder ray with the other.

"The infatuation will wear off," said Mrs Max, wringing her hands, but seeming as if wringing her pocket-handkerchief, "and then one of them will come to his senses."

"I shall never marry Tom," cried the girl decidedly. "Don't speak so, my child," said Mrs Max. "You know your guardian has so arranged it; and he can withhold your money if you are disobedient."