The Fallen Leaves Part 38

Phoebe put her handkerchief to her eyes. "It's very hard to speak to me so harshly," she said, "when I'm sorry for what I've done, and am only anxious to prevent harm coming of it."

_"What_ have you done?" cried honest Amelius, weary of the woman's inveterately indirect way of explaining herself to him.

The flash of his quick temper in his eyes, as he put that straightforward question, roused a responsive temper in Phoebe which stung her into speaking openly at last. She told Amelius what she had heard in the kitchen as plainly as she had told it to Jervy--with this one difference, that she spoke without insolence when she referred to Mrs. Farnaby.

Listening in silence until she had done, Amelius started to his feet, and opening the cabinet, took from it Mrs. Farnaby's letter. He read the letter, keeping his back towards Phoebe--waited a moment thinking--and suddenly turned on the woman with a look that made her shrink in her chair. "You wretch!" he said; "you detestable wretch!"

In the terror of the moment, Phoebe attempted to leave the room. Amelius stopped her instantly. "Sit down again," he said; "I mean to have the whole truth out of you, now."

Phoebe recovered her courage. "You have had the whole truth, sir; I could tell you no more if I was on my deathbed."

Amelius refused to believe her. "There is a vile conspiracy against Mrs.

Farnaby," he said. "Do you mean to tell me you are not in it?"

"So help me G.o.d, sir, I never even heard of it till yesterday!"

The tone in which she spoke shook the conviction of Amelius; the indescribable ring of truth was in it.

"There are two people who are cruelly deluding and plundering this poor lady," he went on. "Who are they?"

"I told you, if you remember, that I couldn't mention names, sir."

Amelius looked again at the letter. After what he had heard, there was no difficulty in identifying the invisible "young man," alluded to by Mrs. Farnaby, with the unnamed "person" in whom Phoebe was interested.

Who was he? As the question pa.s.sed through his mind, Amelius remembered the vagabond whom he had recognized with Phoebe, in the street. There was no doubt of it now--the man who was directing the conspiracy in the dark was Jervy! Amelius would unquestionably have been rash enough to reveal this discovery, if Phoebe had not stopped him. His renewed reference to Mrs. Farnaby's letter and his sudden silence after looking at it roused the woman's suspicions. "If you're planning to get my friend into trouble," she burst out, "not another word shall pa.s.s my lips!"

Even Amelius profited by the warning which that threat unintentionally conveyed to him.

"Keep your own secrets," he said; "I only want to spare Mrs. Farnaby a dreadful disappointment. But I must know what I am talking about when I go to her. Can't you tell me how you found out this abominable swindle?"

Phoebe was perfectly willing to tell him. Interpreting her long involved narrative into plain English, with the names added, these were the facts related:--Mrs. Sowler, bearing in mind some talk which had pa.s.sed between them on the occasion of a supper, had called at Phoebe's lodgings on the previous day, and had tried to entrap her into communicating what she knew of Mrs. Farnaby's secrets. The trap failing, Mrs. Sowler had tried bribery next; had promised Phoebe a large sum of money, to be equally divided between them, if she would only speak; had declared that Jervy was perfectly capable of breaking his promise of marriage, and "leaving them both in the lurch, if he once got the money into his own pocket" and had thus informed Phoebe, that the conspiracy, which she supposed to have been abandoned, was really in full progress, without her knowledge. She had temporised with Mrs. Sowler, being afraid to set such a person openly at defiance; and had hurried away at once, to have an explanation with Jervy. He was reported to be "not at home."

Her fruitless visit to Regina had followed--and there, so far as facts were concerned, was an end of the story.

Amelius asked her no questions, and spoke as briefly as possible when she had done. "I will go to Mrs. Farnaby this morning," was all he said.

"Would you please let me hear how it ends?" Phoebe asked.

Amelius pushed his pocket-book and pencil across the table to her, pointing to a blank leaf on which she could write her address. While she was thus employed the attentive Toff came in, and (with his eye on Phoebe) whispered in his master's ear. He had heard Sally moving about.

Would it be more convenient, under the circ.u.mstances, if she had her breakfast in her own room? Toff's astonishment was a sight to see when Amelius answered, "Certainly not. Let her breakfast here."

Phoebe rose to go. Her parting words revealed the double-sided nature that was in her; the good and evil in perpetual conflict which should be uppermost.

"Please don't mention me, sir, to Mrs. Farnaby," she said. "I don't forgive her for what she's done to me; I don't say I won't be even with her yet. But not in _that_ way! I won't have her death laid at my door.

Oh, but I know her temper--and I say it's as likely as not to kill her or drive her mad, if she isn't warned about it in time. Never mind her losing her money. If it's lost, it's lost, and she's got plenty more.

She may be robbed a dozen times over for all I care. But don't let her set her heart on seeing her child, and then find it's all a swindle. I hate her; but I can't and won't, let _that_ go on. Good-morning, sir."

Amelius was relieved by her departure. For a minute or two, he sat absently stirring his coffee, and considering how he might most safely perform the terrible duty of putting Mrs. Farnaby on her guard.

Toff interrupted his meditations by preparing the table for Sally's breakfast; and, almost at the same moment, Sally herself, fresh and rosy, opened her door a little way, and looked in.

"You have had a fine long sleep," said Amelius. "Have you quite got over your walk yesterday?"

"Oh yes," she answered gaily; "I only feel my long walk now in my feet.

It hurts me to put my boots on. Can you lend me a pair of slippers?"

"A pair of my slippers? Why, Sally, you would be lost in them! What's the matter with your feet?"

"They're both sore. And I think one of them has got a blister on it."

"Come in, and let's have a look at it?"

She came limping in, with her feet bare. "Don't scold me," she pleaded, "I couldn't put my stockings on again, without washing them; and they're not dry yet."

"I'll get you new stockings and slippers," said Amelius. "Which is the foot with the blister?"

"The left foot," she answered, pointing to it.

CHAPTER 5

"Let me see the blister," said Amelius.

Sally looked longingly at the fire.

"May I warm my feet first?" she asked; "they are so cold."

In those words she innocently deferred the discovery which, if it had been made at the moment, might have altered the whole after-course of events. Amelius only thought now of preventing her from catching cold.

He sent Toff for a pair of the warmest socks that he possessed, and asked if he should put them on for her. She smiled, and shook her head, and put them on for herself.

When they had done laughing at the absurd appearance of the little feet in the large socks, they only drifted farther and farther away from the subject of the blistered foot. Sally remembered the terrible matron, and asked if anything had been heard of her that morning. Being told that Mrs. Payson had written, and that the doors of the inst.i.tution were closed to her, she recovered her spirits, and began to wonder whether the offended authorities would let her have her clothes. Toff offered to go and make the inquiry, later in the day; suggesting the purchase of slippers and stockings, in the mean time, while Sally was having her breakfast. Amelius approved of the suggestion; and Toff set off on his errand, with one of Sally's boots for a pattern.

The morning had, by that time, advanced to ten o'clock.

Amelius stood before the fire talking, while Sally had her breakfast.

Having first explained the reasons which made it impossible that she should live at the cottage in the capacity of his servant, he astonished her by announcing that he meant to undertake the superintendence of her education himself. They were to be master and pupil, while the lessons were in progress; and brother and sister at other times--and they were to see how they got on together, on this plan, without indulging in any needless anxiety about the future. Amelius believed with perfect sincerity that he had hit on the only sensible arrangement, under the circ.u.mstances; and Sally cried joyously, "Oh, how good you are to me; the happy life has come at last!" At the hour when those words pa.s.sed the daughter's lips, the discovery of the conspiracy burst upon the mother in all its baseness and in all its horror.

The suspicion of her infamous employer, which had induced Mrs. Sowler to attempt to intrude herself into Phoebe's confidence, led her to make a visit of investigation at Jervy's lodgings later in the day. Informed, as Phoebe had been informed, that he was not at home, she called again some hours afterwards. By that time, the landlord had discovered that Jervy's luggage had been secretly conveyed away, and that his tenant had left him, in debt for rent of the two best rooms in the house.

No longer in any doubt of what had happened, Mrs. Sowler employed the remaining hours of the evening in making inquiries after the missing man. Not a trace of him had been discovered up to eight o'clock on the next morning.

Shortly after nine o'clock--that is to say, towards the hour at which Phoebe paid her visit to Amelius--Mrs. Sowler, resolute to know the worst, made her appearance at the apartments occupied by Mrs. Farnaby.

"I wish to speak to you," she began abruptly, "about that young man we both know of. Have you seen anything of him lately?"

Mrs. Farnaby, steadily on her guard, deferred answering the question.

"Why do you want to know?" she said.

The reply was instantly ready. "Because I have reason to believe he has bolted, with your money in his pocket."

"He has done nothing of the sort," Mrs. Farnaby rejoined.