Miss Arnott's Marriage

Miss Arnott was endeavouring to see through the situation in her mind, finding herself suddenly confronted by the unforeseen. It was impossible that the girl could mean what she seemed to mean; a raw country wench in her teens!

"Wilson, you seem to be behaving in a very strange manner, and to be forgetting yourself altogether. It is not strange that Evans has her doubts of you. Give me those things which you have in your hands at once."

"Begging your pardon, miss, I can't."

"They're not yours."

"No, miss, I know they're not."

"Then, if you're an honest girl, as you pretend, what possible reason can you have for refusing to give me my own property, which you have taken out of my drawer in a manner which is at least suspicious?"

"Because Jim Baker, he's my mother's cousin; and Mr Granger he's my uncle."

"What possible justification can that be for your trying to steal what belongs to me?"

Then it came out.

"My uncle he says to me, 'I don't believe Jim Baker done it-I don't believe he did anything to the chap beyond peppering him. Jim's no liar. 'Twill be a shame if they hang him. No, my girl,' Mr Granger says, 'it's my belief that they know more over at Exham Park than they pretend, or, at least, someone does. You keep your eyes wide open. We don't want to have no one hung in our family, specially for just peppering a chap. If you come across anything suspicious, you let me know and you let me have a look at it, if so be you can. Your mother don't want to have Jim Baker hung, nor more don't I.' Miss Arnott, you put them things in the drawer the time that you came home, the time that chap was murdered, the time that you was out in the woods till all hours. They haven't found the knife what did it yet, and this knife's all covered with blood; so's the things. I'm going to let Mr Granger see what I've got here, and tell him where I found them. If there's nothing wrong about them I'll have to suffer, but show them to him I will."

Miss Arnott, perceiving that here was an emergency in which prompt action was the one thing needful, glanced at Evans, who was quick to take the hint. She advanced towards Wilson with designs which that young woman considered sufficiently obvious. To evade her, still holding her booty behind her to secure it from Evans, she turned her back to Miss Arnott who was not slow to avail herself of the opportunity to grip her wrists and tear the knife and camisole away from her. The wench, finding herself outwitted, sprang at her mistress, screaming, -

"Give them to me! give them to me! You give them back to me!"

But Miss Arnott had already dropped them into the open wardrobe drawer, shut the drawer and turned the key. While she kept the girl at arms' length, to prevent her wresting from her the key, Miss Arnott issued her instructions to the lady's-maid.

"Evans, ring the bell, keep on ringing."

There was a lively minute or so. Then Bevan, Mr Day's understudy, appeared in the doorway, to stare at the proceedings open-eyed. Miss Arnott had succeeded in retaining possession of the key, though she had not found the excited girl easy to manage. Bevan, striding forward, spun the housemaid round on her feet as if she were a teetotum.

"Now, then," he demanded, "what do you think you're doing? Are you mad?"

"Bevan," exclaimed Miss Arnott, "Wilson has been misbehaving herself. See that she is paid her wages and sent about her business at once."

Wilson, who by now was more than half hysterical, shrieked defiance.

"Mr Bevan, you make her give me that knife! you make her. I believe she killed that chap in Cooper's Spinney. She's got the knife she killed him with shut up in that drawer there! You make her give it me! I'm going to show it to my uncle!"

Bevan was unsympathetic.

"Now, then, out you go!" was the only answer he made to her appeal.

But Mr Granger's niece was not disposed to go in compliance with his mere request. When he essayed persuasion of a more active kind she began to fight him tooth and nail. Reinforcements had to be brought upon the scene. When, finally, she was borne from the room, she was kicking and struggling like some wild cat. A pretty tumult she managed to create as they conveyed her down the stairs.

Miss Arnott and her maid, left alone together, surveyed each other with startled looks. The plumage of both had been something more than ruffled; a tress of hair which was hanging down Miss Arnott's back was proof of the housemaid's earnestness. Evans was the first to speak.

"I wish you'd let me do as I said, miss-break that drawer open, and let me wash those things."

"But who would have thought she was such a creature! Is she mad?"

"Oh, she's sane enough after her own fashion; though, if she's one of that Baker and Granger set, she's mad enough for anything. I can't abide that village lot, and they know it. I wish you'd let me do as I said!"

"I wish I had. As for my clothes, you can wash them now-if you don't mind, that is."

"I'll wash them fast enough. I've done some washing in my time. Though, after those stains have been in them all this time, they'll want some soaking. What are you going to do about that knife, miss? If I had known it was there I'd have broken open that drawer first and asked your permission afterwards."

"I'll see to that."

"You'll see to it! But, miss, you'll never get these stains out, never! not now! They're eaten into the steel! Nothing will get them out except re-burnishing. If that Wilson gets down to that fool of a Granger it's quite likely that we'll have him here with a search warrant, and then Heaven help us! No, miss, you'll give me that knife, if you please. I'll make it safe enough."

Miss Arnott was struck by the singularity of the woman's manner; she yielded to a sudden impulse.

"Evans, I fancy you are under a misapprehension. If so, let me remove it from your mind, if it can be removed. I believe you think that I am responsible for what happened to that man in Cooper's Spinney. I'm not. I had no hand in it whatever."

"You didn't kill him?"

"Emphatically, no. I had nothing to do with killing him; nothing."

"Miss, are you sure?"

"I am quite sure; quite."

"I believe you, miss, I believe you. But-I don't understand-the stains upon your things; the knife? If you didn't kill him yourself you know who did."

"I thought I did; that is why the knife is in my possession. Bringing it home-inside my bodice-caused the stains."

"Whose knife is it? Did it belong to the-man who was killed?"

"No; it did not. I would rather not tell you to whom it did belong-at least, not now."

"You know?"

"Oh, yes, I know. Evans, I believe you're disposed to be my friend, and I'm in need of a friend."

"You are, miss, in more need than you have perhaps a notion of. I don't want to use any big words, but there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, and be glad to do it, as, maybe, before all's done, I'll prove. But I wish you'd trust me, miss-trust me all the way. I wish you'd tell me whose knife that is and how you came to have it."

"I'd rather not, and for this reason. I was convinced that the owner of that knife was the murderer. That is why, when I found it, I brought it home with me.

"To screen him?"

"You must not ask me that. Quite lately I have begun to think that I was wrong, that the owner of that knife is as innocent as I am. It's a tangle. I was quite close when it happened; I heard it all happening; yet now I am conscious that I have no more real knowledge of who did it than you have. You mustn't ask me any questions; I may tell you more some other time-I may have to-not now! not now! I want to think! But, Evans, there is one thing I wish to say to you-do you believe that I'm a somnambulist?"

"A somnambulist? A sleep-walker do you mean? Whatever has put that idea into your head?"

"Have you heard the tales they're telling-about my having been seen in the woods at night in my nightdress?"

"I've heard some stuff; it's all a pack of nonsense! What next?"

"Do you know Briggs the postman? What sort of man is he?"