More Bywords

‘I think not,’ she said quietly.

The editor was found waiting for her, with many apologies for bringing her home, and the Admiral was so delighted with his agreeableness as hardly to be able to tear himself away to bring home his wife.

The offer was, as Bessie expected, of excellent terms for a serial story—terms that proved to her what was her own value, and in which she saw education for her sister Anne’s eldest boy.

‘Of course, there would be a certain adaptation to our readers.’

She knew what that meant, and there was that in her face which drew forth the assurance.

‘Of course nothing you would not wish to say would be required, but it would be better not to press certain subjects.’

‘I understand,’ said Bessie.  ‘I doubt—’

‘Perhaps you will think it over.’

Bessie’s first thought was, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, then let my right hand forget her cunning.’  That had been the inward motto of her life.  Her second was, ‘Little Sam!  David’s mission room!’  There was no necessity to answer at once, and she knew the periodical rather by report than by reading, so she accepted the two numbers that were left with her, and promised to reply in a week.  It was a question on which to take counsel with her father, and with her own higher conscience and heavenly Guide.

The Admiral, though not much given to reading for its own sake, and perhaps inclined to think ephemeral literature the more trifling because his little daughter was a great light there, was anything but a dull man, and had an excellent judgment.  So Bessie, with all the comfort of a woman still with a wise father’s head over her, decided to commit the matter to him.  He was somewhat disappointed at finding her agreeable guest gone, and wished that dinner and bed had been offered.

Mrs. Merrifield and Susan were still a good deal excited about Arthurine’s complimentary friend, who they said seemed to belong to Fred Mytton, of whom some of the ladies had been telling most unpleasant reports, and there was much lamentation over the set into which their young neighbour had thrown herself.

‘Such a dress too!’ sighed Mrs. Merrifield.

‘And her headmistress has just arrived,’ said Susan, ‘to make her worse than ever!’

‘How comes a headmistress to be running about the country at this time of year?’ asked Bessie.

‘She has been very ill,’ said Mrs. Merrifield, ‘and they wrote to her to come down as soon as she could move.  There was a telegram this morning, and she drove up in the midst of the party, and was taken to her room at once to rest.  That was the reason Miss Arthuret was away so long.  I thought it nice in her.’

‘Perhaps she will do good,’ said Bessie.

Dinner was just over, and the Admiral had settled down with his shaded lamp to read and judge of the article that Bessie had given him as a specimen, when in came the message, ‘Mrs. Rudden wishes to speak to you, sir.’

Mrs. Rudden was the prosperous widow who continued the business in the village shop, conjointly with the little farm belonging to the Gap property.  She was a shrewd woman, had been able to do very well by her family, and was much esteemed, paying a rent which was a considerable item in the Gap means.  The ladies wondered together at the summons.  Susan hoped ‘that girl’ did not want to evict her, and Bessie suggested that a co-operative store was a more probable peril.  Presently the Admiral came back.  ‘Do any of you know Miss Arthuret’s writing?’ he said.

‘Bessie knows it best,’ said Susan.

He showed a letter. ‘That is hers—the signature,’ said Bessie. ‘I are not sure about the rest.  Why—what does it mean?’

For she read—

‘The Gap, 2d Oct.

‘MRS. RUDDEN,—You are requested to pay over to the bearer, Mr. Foxholm, fifty pounds of the rent you were about to bring me to-morrow.—I remain, etc.,

    ‘ARTHURINE ARTHURET.’

‘What does it mean?’ asked Bessie again.  ‘That’s just what Mrs. Rudden has come up to me to ask,’ said the Admiral.  ‘This fellow presented it in her shop about a quarter of an hour ago.  The good woman smelt a rat.  What do you think she did?  She looked at it and him, asked him to wait a bit, whipped out at her back door, luckily met the policeman starting on his rounds, bade him have an eye to the customer in her shop, and came off to show it to me.  That young woman is demented enough for anything, and is quite capable of doing it—for some absurd scheme.  But do you think it is hers, or a swindle?’

‘Didn’t she say she had given her autograph?’ exclaimed Susan.

‘And see here,’ said Bessie, ‘her signature is at the top of the sheet of note-paper—small paper.  And as she always writes very large, it would be easy to fill up the rest, changing the first side over.’

‘I must take it up to her at once,’ said the Admiral.  ‘Even if it be genuine, she may just as well see that it is a queer thing to have done, and not exactly the way to treat her tenants.’

‘It is strange too that this man should have known anything about Mrs. Rudden,’ said Mrs. Merrifield.

‘Mrs. Rudden says she had a message this morning, when she had come up with her rent and accounts, to say that Miss Arthuret was very much engaged, and would be glad if she would come to-morrow!  Could this fellow have been about then?’

No one knew, but Bessie breathed the word, ‘Was not that young Mytton there?’

It was not taken up, for no one liked to pronounce the obvious inference.  Besides, the Admiral was in haste, not thinking it well that Mr. Foxholm should be longer kept under surveillance in the shop, among the bread, bacon, cheeses, shoes, and tins of potted meat.

He was then called for; and on his loudly exclaiming that he had been very strangely treated, the Admiral quietly told him that Mrs. Rudden had been disturbed at so unusual a way of demanding her rent, and had come for advice on the subject; and to satisfy their minds that all was right, Mr. Foxholm would, no doubt, consent to wait till the young lady could be referred to.  Mr. Foxholm did very decidedly object; he said no one had any right to detain him when the lady’s signature was plain, and Admiral Merrifield had seen him in her society, and he began an account of the philanthropical purpose for which he said the money had been intended, but he was cut short.

‘You must be aware,’ said the Admiral, ‘that this is not an ordinary way of acting, and whatever be your purpose, Mrs. Rudden must ascertain your authority more fully before paying over so large a sum.  I give you your choice, therefore, either of accompanying us to the Gap, or of remaining in Mrs. Rudden’s parlour till we return.’

The furtive eye glanced about, and the parlour was chosen.  Did he know that the policeman stationed himself in the shop outside?

The dinner at the Gap was over, and Miss Elmore, the headmistress, was established in an arm-chair, listening to the outpouring of her former pupil and the happy mother about all the felicities and glories of their present life, the only drawback being the dullness and obstructiveness of the immediate neighbours.  ‘I thought Miss Merrifield was your neighbour—Mesa?’

‘Oh no—quite impossible!  These are Merrifields, but the daughters are two regular old goodies, wrapped up in Sunday schools and penny clubs.’

‘Well, that is odd!  The editor of the – came down in the train with me, and said he was going to see Mesa—Miss Elizabeth Merrifield.’

‘I do think it is very unfair,’ began Arthurine; but at that moment the door-bell rang.  ‘How strange at this time!’

‘Oh! perhaps the editor is coming here!’ cried Arthurine.  ‘Did you tell him I lived here, Miss Elmore?’

‘Admiral Merrifield,’ announced the parlour-maid.

He had resolved not to summon the young lady in private, as he thought there was more chance of common-sense in the mother.

‘You are surprised to see me at this time,’ he said; ‘but Mrs. Rudden is perplexed by a communication from you.’

‘Mrs. Rudden!’ exclaimed Arthurine.  ‘Why, I only sent her word that I was too busy to go through her accounts to-day, and asked her to come to-morrow.  That isn’t against the laws of the Medes and Persians, is it?’

‘Then did you send her this letter?’

‘I?’ said Arthurine, staring at it, with her eyes at their fullest extent.  ‘I! fifty pounds!  Mr. Foxholm!  What does it mean?’

‘Then you never wrote that order?’

‘No! no!  How should I?’

‘That is not your writing?’

‘No, not that.’