Soldiers of the Queen

"Then if you don't want to be forgiven," returned the other with a sneer, "why d'you come and say you're sorry?"

Jack turned away in a rage, feeling that he had at all events got the worst of this encounter, and that it was entirely his own fault for having laid himself open to the rebuff.

He felt vexed with Helen for telling his aunt what had taken place, and with the latter for influencing him to offer Raymond an apology. Altogether the atmosphere around him seemed charged with discomfort and annoyance, and even the merry tinkle of the tea-bell was not so welcome as usual.

"Where's Raymond?" asked Queen Mab.

"I think he's putting his things in his bag," answered Valentine. "Shall I go and call him?"

At that moment the subject of their conversation entered the room. He walked round to his place in silence, pausing for a moment to take something down from the mantelpiece.

"Who owns a key with a scrap of steel chain tied on to it?"

"I do," answered Jack. "It belongs to my play-box."

"Well, here it is," returned the other. "I picked it up among the bushes. Do you notice anything peculiar about it?"

"No."

"You don't? Well, here's something belonging to it," and so saying, the speaker flipped across the table the little metal fragment which had been taken from the lock in the cupboard door.

"Confound it!" said Jack. "The thief must have used my key!"

"Faugh!" ejaculated Raymond, bitterly.

Jack looked up quickly with an expression of anger and astonishment.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "D'you mean to say I took the watch?"

"I've said nothing of the kind," answered the other coldly; "though I remember you did say you'd a good mind to steal it. I've simply given you back your key."

If a thunderbolt had fallen in the middle of the pretty tea-table, it could not have caused more astonishment and dismay than this last speech of Raymond's. Every one for the moment was too much taken aback to speak.

The smouldering fire of Jack's wrath had only needed this breeze to set it into a flame. His undisciplined spirit immediately showed itself in an outburst of ungovernable anger.

"You are a cad and a liar!" he said. "Wait till I get you outside."

"Hush! hush!" interrupted Miss Fenleigh, fearing a repetition of the previous encounter. "I can't have such words used here. Perhaps Raymond may be mistaken."

The last words were spoken thoughtlessly, in the heat of the moment. Jack in his anger resented that "may" and "perhaps," as implying doubt as to his honesty, and regarded the silence of the others as a sign that they also considered him guilty. In his wild, reckless manner he dashed his knife down upon the table, and with a parting glare at his accuser, marched straight out of the room.

Valentine rose to follow him.

"No, Val," said Miss Fenleigh, in an agitated voice. "Leave him to himself for a little while. He'll be calmer directly."

Ten minutes later the front door closed with a bang.

"He's going out to get cool, I suppose," said Raymond scornfully. "He didn't seem to relish my finding his play-box key. However, perhaps he'll explain matters when he comes back."

But Jack did not come back. The blind fury of the moment gave place to a dogged, unreasoning sense of wrong and injustice. He had been accused of robbing the person he loved best on earth, and she believed him to be guilty. The old, wayward spirit once more took full possession of his heart, and in a moment he was ready to throw overboard all that he prized most dearly.

He had some money in his pocket, enough to carry him home if he walked to Melchester, and his luggage could come on another time. The plan was formed, and he did not hesitate to put it into immediate execution.

It was not until nearly an hour after his departure that Queen Mab realized what had become of him, and then her distress was great.

"Why didn't he wait to speak to us!" she cried. "We must all write him a letter by to-night's post, to tell him that, of course, we don't think he's the thief, and to beg him to come back."

"If you like to do it at once," said Raymond, "I'll post them at Grenford. They'll reach him then the first thing in the morning."

The letters were written; even Barbara, who never could be got to handle a pen except under strong compulsion, scribbled nearly four pages, and filled up the blank space at the end with innumerable kisses.

About two hours later the scapegoat tramped, footsore and weary, into the Melchester railway station; and at nearly the same moment, Raymond Fosberton, on his way home, took from his pocket the letters which had been entrusted to his care, tore them to fragments, and dropped them over the low wall of a bridge into the canal.

"Now we're about quits!" he said.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SOUND OF THE DRUM

"'I believe I must go out into the world again,' said the duckling." – The Ugly Duckling.

The summers came and went, but Jack Fenleigh remained a rebel, refusing to join the annual gathering at Brenlands, and to pay his homage at the court of Queen Mab.

One bright September morning, about four years after the holidays described in the previous chapter, he was sitting at an untidy breakfast-table, evidently eating against time, and endeavouring to divide his attention between swallowing down the meal and reading a letter which lay open in front of him. The teapot, bread, butter, and other provisions had been gathered round him in a disorderly group, so as to be near his hand; the loaf was lying on the tablecloth, the bacon was cold, and the milk-jug was minus a handle. It was, on the whole, a very different display from the breakfast-table at Brenlands; and perhaps it was this very thought that crossed the young man's mind as he turned and dug viciously at the salt, which had caked nearly into a solid block.

In outward appearance, to a casual observer, Jack had altered very little since the day when he knocked Master Raymond Fosberton into the laurel bush; yet there was a change. He had broadened, and grown to look older, and more of a man, though the old impatient look seemed to have deepened in his face like the lines between his eyebrows.

The party at Brenlands had waited in vain for a reply to their letters. Within a week, Miss Fenleigh had written again, assuring the runaway that neither she nor his cousins for one moment suspected him of having stolen the watch; but in the meantime the mischief had been done.

"They think I did it," muttered Jack to himself, "or they'd have written at once. Aunt Mabel wants to forgive me, and smooth it over; but they know I'm a scamp, and now they believe I'm a thief!"

Again he hardened his heart, and though his feelings towards Queen Mab and his cousins never changed, yet his mind was made up to cut himself adrift from the benefit of their society. He left Valentine's letter unanswered, and refused all his aunt's pressing invitations to visit her again.

Every year these were renewed with the same warmth and regularity, and it was one which now lay open beside his plate.

"I suppose," ran the letter, "that you have heard how well Val passed out of Sandhurst. He is coming down to see me before joining his regiment, and will bring Helen and Barbara with him. I want you to come too, and then we shall all be together once more, and have the same dear old times over again. I shan't put up with any excuses, as I know you take your holiday about this time, so just write and say when you are coming."

Jack lifted his eyes from the letter, and made a grab at the loaf.

"I should like to go," he muttered; "how jolly the place must look! – but no, I've left it too long. I ought to have gone back at once, or never to have run away like that. Of course, now they must think that I stole the watch. Yet, perhaps, if I gave them my word of honour, they'd believe me; I know Aunt Mabel would."

At this moment the door opened, and a gentleman entered the room. He was wearing a shabby-looking dressing-gown, a couple of ragged quill pens were stuck in his mouth, and he carried in his hand a bundle of closely-written sheets of foolscap. Mr. Basil Fenleigh, to tell the truth, was about to issue an invitation to a "few friends" to join him in starting an advertisement and bill-posting agency business; to be conducted, so said the rough copy of the circular, on entirely novel lines, which could not fail to ensure success, and the drafting out of which had occupied most of his leisure time during the past twelve months.

"Humph!" he exclaimed sourly. "Down at your usual time, eh? You'll be late again at your office."

"No, I shan't," answered the son, glancing up at the clock. "I can get there in ten minutes."

"You can't. You know very well Mr. Caston complained only the other day of your coming behind your time. The next thing will be that you'll lose your situation."