The Fallen Leaves Part 37

The library possessed a door of communication with the sitting-room; the bedchamber occupied by Amelius being on the other side of the cottage.

When Sally saw Toff's reconstructed room, she stood at the door, in speechless admiration of the vision of luxury revealed to her. From time to time Amelius, alone in the library, heard her dabbling in her bath, and humming the artless old English song from which she had taken her name. Once she knocked at the closed door, and made a request through it--"There is scent on the table; may I have some?" And once Toff knocked at the other door, opening into the pa.s.sage, and asked when "pretty young Miss" would be ready for supper. Events went on in the little household as if Sally had become an integral part of it already.

"What _am_ I to do?" Amelius asked himself. And Toff, entering at the moment to lay the cloth, answered respectfully, "Hurry the young person, sir, or the salmi will be spoilt."

She came out from her room, walking delicately on her sore feet--so fresh and charming, that Toff, absorbed in admiration, made a mistake in folding a napkin for the first time in his life. "Champagne, of course, sir?" he said in confidence to Amelius. The salmi of partridge appeared; the inspiriting wine sparkled in the gla.s.ses; Toff surpa.s.sed himself in all the qualities which made a servant invaluable at a supper table. Sally forgot the Home, forgot the cruel streets, and laughed and chattered as gaily as the happiest girl living. Amelius, expanding in the joyous atmosphere of youth and good spirits, shook off his sense of responsibility, and became once more the delightful companion who won everybody's love. The effervescent gaiety of the evening was at its climax; the awful forms of duty, propriety, and good sense had been long since laughed out of the room--when Nemesis, G.o.ddess of retribution, announced her arrival outside, by a crashing of carriage-wheels and a peremptory ring at the cottage bell.

There was dead silence; Amelius and Sally looked at each other. The experienced Toff at once guessed what had happened. "Is it her father or mother?" he asked of Amelius, a little anxiously. Hearing that she had never even seen her father or mother, he snapped his fingers joyously, and led the way on tiptoe into the hall. "I have my idea," he whispered.

"Let us listen."

A woman's voice, high, clear, and resolute, speaking apparently to the coachman, was the next audible sound. "Say I come from Mrs. Payson, and must see Mr. Goldenheart directly." Sally trembled and turned pale.

"The matron!" she said faintly. "Oh, don't let her in!" Amelius took the terrified girl back to the library. Toff followed them, respectfully asking to be told what a "matron" was. Receiving the necessary explanation, he expressed his contempt for matrons bent on carrying charming persons into captivity, by opening the library door and spitting into the hall. Having relieved his mind in this way, he returned to his master and laid a lank skinny forefinger cunningly along the side of his nose. "I suppose, sir, you don't want to see this furious woman?" he said. Before it was possible to say anything in reply, another ring at the bell announced that the furious woman wanted to see Amelius. Toff read his master's wishes in his master's face.

Not even this emergency could find him unprepared: he was as ready to circ.u.mvent a matron as to cook a dinner. "The shutters are up, and the curtains are drawn," he reminded Amelius. "Not a morsel of light is visible outside. Let them ring--we have all gone to bed." He turned to Sally, grinning with impish enjoyment of his own stratagem. "Ha, Miss!

what do you think of that?" There was a third pull at the bell as he spoke. "Ring away, Missess Matrone!" he cried. "We are fast asleep--wake us if you can." The fourth ring was the last. A sharp crack revealed the breaking of the bellwire, and was followed by the shrill fall of the iron handle on the pavement before the garden gate. The gate, like the palings, was protected at the top from invading cats. "Compose yourself, Miss," said Toff, "if she tries to get over the gate, she will stick on the spikes." In another moment, the sound of retiring carriage-wheels announced the defeat of the matron, and settled the serious question of receiving Sally for the night.

She sat silent by the window, when Toff had left the room, holding back the curtains and looking out at the murky sky.

"What are you looking for?" Amelius asked.

"I was looking for the stars."

Amelius joined her at the window. "There are no stars to be seen tonight."

She let the curtain fall to again. "I was thinking of night-time at the Home," she said. "You see, I got on pretty well, in the day, with my reading and writing. I wanted so to improve myself. My mind was troubled with the fear of your despising such an ignorant creature as I am; so I kept on at my lessons. I thought I might surprise you by writing you a pretty letter some day. One of the teachers (she's gone away ill) was very good to me. I used to talk to her; and, when I said a wrong word, she took me up, and told me the right one. She said you would think better of me when you heard me speak properly--and I do speak better, don't I? All this was in the day. It was the night that was the hard time to get through--when the other girls were all asleep, and I had nothing to think of but how far away I was from you. I used to get up, and put the counterpane round me, and stand at the window. On fine nights the stars were company to me. There were two stars, near together, that I got to know. Don't laugh at me--I used to think one of them was you, and one of them me. I wondered whether you would die, or I should die, before I saw you again. And, most always, it was my star that went out first. Lord, how I used to cry! It got into my poor stupid head that I should never see you again. I do believe I ran away because of that. You won't tell anybody, will you? It was so foolish, I am ashamed of it now. I wanted to see your star and my star tonight. I don't know why. Oh, I'm so fond of you!" She dropped on her knees, and took his hand, and put it on her head. "It's burning hot," she said, "and your kind hand cools it."

Amelius raised her gently, and led her to the door of her room. "My poor Sally, you are quite worn out. You want rest and sleep. Let us say good night."

"I will do anything you tell me," she answered. "If Mrs. Payson comes tomorrow, you won't let her take me away? Thank you. Goodnight." She put her hands on his shoulders, with innocent familiarity, and lifted herself to him on tiptoe, and kissed him as a sister might have kissed him.

Long after Sally was asleep in her bed, Amelius sat by the library fire, thinking.

The revival of the crushed feeling and fancy in the girl's nature, so artlessly revealed in her sad little story of the stars that were "company to her," not only touched and interested him, but clouded his view of the future with doubts and anxieties which had never troubled him until that moment. The mysterious influences under which the girl's development was advancing were working morally and physically together.

Weeks might pa.s.s harmlessly, months might pa.s.s harmlessly--but the time must come when the innocent relations between them would be beset by peril. Unable, as yet, fully to realize these truths, Amelius nevertheless felt them vaguely. His face was troubled, as he lit the candle at last to go to his bed. "I don't see my way as clearly as I could wish," he reflected. "How will it end?"

How indeed!

CHAPTER 4

At eight o'clock the next morning, Amelius was awakened by Toff. A letter had arrived, marked "Immediate," and the messenger was waiting for an answer.

The letter was from Mrs. Payson. She wrote briefly, and in formal terms.

After referring to the matron's fruitless visit to the cottage on the previous night, Mrs. Payson proceeded in these words:--"I request you will immediately let me know whether Sally has taken refuge with you, and has pa.s.sed the night under your roof. If I am right in believing that she has done so, I have only to inform you that the doors of the Home are henceforth closed to her, in conformity with our rules. If I am wrong, it will be my painful duty to lose no time in placing the matter in the hands of the police."

Amelius began his reply, acting on impulse as usual. He wrote, vehemently remonstrating with Mrs. Payson on the unforgiving and unchristian nature of the rules at the Home. Before he was halfway through his composition, the person who had brought the letter sent a message to say that he was expected back immediately, and that he hoped Mr. Goldenheart would not get a poor man into trouble by keeping him much longer. Checked in the full flow of his eloquence, Amelius angrily tore up the unfinished remonstrance, and matched Mrs. Payson's briefly business-like language by an answer in one line:--"I beg to inform you that you are quite right." On reflection, he felt that the second letter was not only discourteous as a reply to a lady, but also ungrateful as addressed to Mrs. Payson personally. At the third attempt, he wrote becomingly as well as briefly. "Sally has pa.s.sed the night here, as my guest. She was suffering from severe fatigue; it would have been an act of downright inhumanity to send her away. I regret your decision, but of course I submit to it. You once said, you believed implicitly in the purity of my motives. Do me the justice, however you may blame my conduct, to believe in me still."

Having despatched these lines, the mind of Amelius was at ease again, He went into the library, and listened to hear if Sally was moving.

The perfect silence on the other side of the door informed him that the weary girl was still fast asleep. He gave directions that she was on no account to be disturbed, and sat down to breakfast by himself.

While he was still at table, Toff appeared, with profound mystery in his manner, and discreet confidence in the tones of his voice. "Here's another one, sir!" the Frenchman announced, in his master's ear.

"Another one?" Amelius repeated. "What do you mean?"

"She is not like the sweet little sleeping Miss." Toff explained. "This time, sir, it's the beauty of the devil himself, as we say in France.

She refuses to confide in me; and she appears to be agitated--both bad signs. Shall I get rid of her before the other Miss wakes?"

"Hasn't she got a name?" Amelius asked.

Toff answered, in his foreign accent, "One name only--Faybay."

"Do you mean Phoebe?"

"Have I not said it, sir?"

"Show her in directly."

Toff glanced at the door of Sally's room, shrugged his shoulders, and obeyed his instructions.

Phoebe appeared, looking pale and anxious. Her customary a.s.surance of manner had completely deserted her: she stopped in the doorway, as if she was afraid to enter the room.

"Come in, and sit down," said Amelius. "What's the matter?"

"I'm troubled in my mind, sir," Phoebe answered. "I know it's taking a liberty to come to you. But I went yesterday to ask Miss Regina's advice, and found she had gone abroad with her uncle. I have something to say about Mrs. Farnaby, sir; and there's no time to be lost in saying it. I know of n.o.body but you that I can speak to, now Miss Regina is away. The footman told me where you lived."

She stopped, evidently in the greatest embarra.s.sment. Amelius tried to encourage her. "If I can be of any use to Mrs. Farnaby," he said, "tell me at once what to do."

Phoebe's eyes dropped before his straightforward look as he spoke to her.

"I must ask you to please excuse my mentioning names, sir," she resumed confusedly. "There's a person I'm interested in, whom I wouldn't get into trouble for the whole world. He's been misled--I'm sure he's been misled by another person--a wicked drunken old woman, who ought to be in prison if she had her deserts. I'm not free from blame myself--I know I'm not. I listened, sir, to what I oughtn't to have heard; and I told it again (I'm sure in the strictest confidence, and not meaning anything wrong) to the person I've mentioned. Not the old women--I mean the person I'm interested in. I hope you understand me, sir? I wish to speak openly, excepting the names, on account of Mrs. Farnaby."

Amelius thought of Phoebe's vindictive language the last time he had seen her. He looked towards a cabinet in a corner of the room, in which he had placed Mrs. Farnaby's letter. An instinctive distrust of his visitor began to rise in his mind. His manner altered--he turned to his plate, and went on with his breakfast. "Can't you speak to me plainly?"

he said. "Is Mrs. Farnaby in any trouble?"

"Yes, sir."

"And can I do anything to help her out of it?"

"I am sure you can, sir--if you only know where to find her."

"I do know where to find her. She has written to tell me. The last time I saw you, you expressed yourself very improperly about Mrs. Farnaby; you spoke as if you meant some harm to her."

"I mean nothing but good to her now, sir."

"Very well, then. Can't you go and speak to her yourself, if I give you the address?"

Phoebe's pale face flushed a little. "I couldn't do that, sir," she answered, "after the way Mrs. Farnaby has treated me. Besides, if she knew that I had listened to what pa.s.sed between her and you--" She stopped again, more painfully embarra.s.sed than ever.

Amelius laid down his knife and fork. "Look here!" he said; "this sort of thing is not in my way. If you can't make a clean breast of it, let's talk of something else. I'm very much afraid," he went on, with his customary absence of all concealment, "you're not the harmless sort of girl I once took you for. What do you mean by 'what pa.s.sed between Mrs.

Farnaby and me'?"