Good Luck

"Of course she took the law into her own hands, Mr. Shaw. 'Taint likely that a girl wot has come of the Phippses and the Reeds would stand that sort of conduct. I'm her grandmother, born a Phipps, and I ought to know. You used rough words, sir, and you shamed her before everyone, and you refused her a character, so she can't get another place. Yes, sir, you have taken her character and her bread from her by the same hact, and wot I have come to say is that I won't have it."

Mr. Shaw began to lose his temper – little Mrs. Reed had long ago lost hers.

"Look here, my good woman," he said, "it's very fine for you to talk in that high-handed style to me, but you can't get over the fact that five pounds are missing."

"I 'aven't got over it, sir; and it is because I 'aven't that I've come to talk to you to-day. The money must be found. You must not leave a stone unturned until it is found, for Alison must be cleared of this charge. That is wot I have come to say. There's someone else a thief in your house, sir, but it aint my girl."

"I am inclined to agree with you," said Shaw, in a thoughtful voice, "and I may as well say now that I regret having acted on the impulse of the moment. The facts of the case are these: Between eleven and twelve o'clock to-day, one of my best customers came here and asked me to give him change for a five-pound note. I went to the till and did so, taking out four sovereigns and a sovereign's worth of silver, and dropped the five-pound note into the till in exchange. In my hurry I left the key in the till. Miss Reed was standing close to me, waiting to ask me a question, while I was attending to my customer. As soon as he had gone she began to speak about some orders which had not been properly executed. While I was replying to her, and promising to look into the matter, a couple of customers came in. Miss Reed began to attend to them. They bought some ribbons and gloves, and put down a sovereign to pay for them. She asked me for change, and being in a hurry at the moment, I told her to go to the till and help herself. She did so, bringing back the change, and at the same time giving me the key of the till. I put the key into my pocket, and the usual business of the morning proceeded. After a time I went to open the till to take out the contents in order to carry the money to the bank. I immediately missed the five-pound note. You will see for yourself, Mrs. Reed, that suspicion could not but point to your granddaughter. She had seen the whole transaction. To my certain knowledge no one else could have gone to the till without being noticed. I put the five-pound note into the till with my own hands. Miss Reed went at my request to get change for a customer. She locked the till and brought me the key, and when I next went to it the five-pound note had disappeared."

"And you think that evidence sufficient to ruin the whole life and character of a respectable girl?" said Mrs. Reed.

"There is no use in your taking that high tone, madam. The evidence against Miss Reed was sufficient to make me question her."

"Accuse her, you mean," said Mrs. Reed.

"Accuse her, if you like then, madam, of the theft."

"Which she denied, Mr. Shaw."

"Naturally she would deny it, Mrs. Reed."

"And then you had her searched."

"I was obliged to do so for the credit of the whole establishment, and the protection of my other workpeople; the affair had to be gone properly into."

"But you found nothing on her."

"As you say, I found nothing. If Miss Reed took the money she must have hidden it somewhere else."

"Do you still think she took it?"

"I am inclined to believe she did not, but the puzzle is, who did? for no one else had the opportunity."

"You may be certain," said Mrs. Reed, "that someone else did have the opportunity, even without your knowing it. Clever thieves can do that sort of thing wonderful sharp, I have heard say; but Alison aint that sort. Now, what do you mean to do to clear my granddaughter?"

"I tell you what I'll do," said Shaw, after a pause. "I like your granddaughter. I am inclined to believe, in spite of appearances, that she is innocent. I must confess that she acted very insolently to me this morning, and for the sake of the other shop people she must apologize; but if she will apologize I will have her back – there, I can't act fairer than that."

"Nothing will make her step inside your shop, sir, until she is cleared."

"Oh, well!" said Mr. Shaw, rising, "she must take the consequence. She is a great fool, for she'll never get such a chance again. Suspicion is strong against her. I am willing to overlook everything, and to let the affair of the five pounds sink into oblivion. Your granddaughter is useful to me, and, upon my word, I believe she is innocent. If she does not come back, she will find it extremely difficult to get another situation."

"Sir," said Mrs. Reed, "you don't know Alison. Nothing will make her set her foot inside this shop until the real thief is found. Are you going to find him or are you not?"

"I will do my best, madam, and if that is your last word, perhaps you will have the goodness not to take up any more of my valuable time."

CHAPTER II

Mrs. Reed left the shop, and went home as quickly as her small, active feet could carry her. She was feeling quite brisked up by her interview with Shaw, and her indignation supplied her with strength. She got back to the model lodging in Sparrow Street, mounted to her own floor, and opened the door with a latch-key. Alison was sitting by the window, busy over the needlework which Grannie would have done had she been at home. Alison was but an indifferent worker, whereas Grannie was a very beautiful one. Few people could do more lovely hand work than Mrs. Reed. She was famous for her work, and got, as such things go, good prices for it. The very best shops in the West End employed her. She was seldom without a good job on hand. She had invented a new pattern in feather-stitching which was greatly admired, and which she was secretly very proud of – it was an intricate pattern, and it made a very good show. No other workwoman knew how to do it, and Grannie was very careful not to impart her secret to the trade. This feather-stitching alone gave her a sort of monopoly, and she was too good a woman of business not to avail herself of it. It was the feather-stitching which had mostly tried her poor hand and arm, and brought on the horrid pain which the doctor had called writers' cramp.

"Some doctors are out-and-out fools," murmured the old woman to herself. "He were a very nice spoke gentleman – tall and genteel, and he treated me like a lady, which any true man would; but when he said I had got writers' cramp in this hand, it must have been nonsense. For there, I never write; ef I spell through a letter once in six months to my poor sister's only child in Australia, it's the very most that I can do. Writers' cramp, indeed! Well, it's a comfort to know that he must be wrong. I wonder how Ally has got on with the work. Poor dear! I'll have to do more of that feather-stitching than ever, now that Ally has lost her situation."

Alison looked up and saw her grandmother standing near her. She had, of course, been taught the feather-stitching. Mrs. Reed had confided this important secret to her once in a time of serious illness.

"For I may die, and it may go out of the fam'ly," she said. "It was begun by my grandmother, who got the first notion of it in the sort of trail of the leaves. My grandmother was a Simpson – most respectable folk – farmers of the best sort. She had wonderful linen, as fine as silk. She made it all herself, and then she hemmed it and marked it and feather-stitched it with them trailing leaves. She taught the trail to my mother, who married Phipps, and mother had a turn for needlework, and she gave it that little twist and rise which makes it so wonderful pretty and neat; but 'twas I popped on the real finish, quilting it, so to speak, and making it the richest trimming, and the most dainty you could find. You must learn it, Alison; it would be a sin and a shame for it to die with me. It must stay in the fam'ly, and you must 'ave it on yer wedding linen, that you must."

Grannie had taken great pains teaching Alison, and Alison had tried hard to learn, but, unlike the Phippses and the Simpsons, she had no real turn for fine needlework. She learned the wonderful stitch, it is true, but only in a sort of fashion.

Now, the secret of that stitch it is not for me to disclose. It had to be done with a twist here, and a loop there, and a sudden clever bringing round of the thread from the left to the right at a critical moment; then followed a still more clever darting of the needle through a loop, which suddenly appeared just when it was least expected. The feather-stitching involved many movements of the hand and arm, and certainly gave a splendid effect to the fine linen or cambric on which it was worked. Grannie could do it almost with her eyes shut, but Alison, who thought she knew all about it, found when she began to practice that she had not taken the right loop nor the proper twist, and she quite forgot the clever under-movement which brought the thread from left to right, and made that sort of crinkled scroll which all the other workwomen in West London tried to imitate in vain. Grannie was trimming some beautiful underlinen for a titled lady; it was made of the finest cambric, and the feather-stitching was to be a special feature.

She stood now, looked down at her pretty grandchild, and saw that she had ruined the work.

"Poor dear," muttered the old woman to herself, "she dint got the turn of it, or maybe her head is confused. No wonder, I'm sure; for a cleverer nor neater girl than Alison don't live."

"There, my love," she said, speaking aloud, "I've come back. You can put away the work now."

"Oh, Grannie!" said the girl, looking up with flushed cheeks, "have I done it right? It looks wrong somehow; it aint a bit rich like what you do."

"Dearie me," said the old woman, "as ef that mattered. You pop it back into my drawer now."

"But have I done any harm?"

"Of course not, lovey. Pop it into the drawer and come and make yourself smart for Jim."

"For Jim?" said Alison, looking up with a glow on her cheeks, her eyes shining. "You speak as if you had good news; has anything been discovered?"

Grannie had made up her mind to cheer Alison by every means in her power. She sat down now on the nearest chair, untied her bonnet-strings, and looked affectionately at the girl.

"I have good news," she said; "yes, all things considered, I have."

"Is the money found, grandmother?"

"You couldn't expect it to be yet. Of course, she wot took it hid it – wot else can you expect?"

"Oh, then nothing matters!" said Alison, her head drooping.

"Dearie me, child, that's no way to take misfortin. The whole thing from first to last was just a bit of bad luck, and luck's the queerest thing in life. I have thought over luck all my long years, and am not far from seventy, thank the Lord for his goodness, and I can't understand it yet. Luck's agen yer, and nothing you can do will make it for yer, jest for a spell. Then, for no rhyme or reason, it 'll turn round, and it's for yer, and everything prospers as yer touches, and you're jest as fort'nate as you were t'other way. With a young thing like you, Ally, young and pretty and genteel, luck aint never 'ard; it soon turns, and it will with you. No, the money's not found yet," continued the old woman, rising and taking off her bonnet and giving it a little shake; "but it's sure to be to-night or to-morrow, for I've got the promise of the master that he won't leave a stone unturned to find out the thief. I did give him my mind, Alison. I wish you could have heard me. I let out on him. I let him see what sort of breed I am' – a Phipps wot married a Reed."

"Oh, as if that mattered!" groaned Alison.

"Well, it did with him, love. Breed allers tells. You may be low-born and nothing will 'ide it – not all the dress and not all the, by way of, fine manners. It's jest like veneer – it peels off at a minute's notice. But breed's true to the core; it wears. Alison, it wears to the end."

"Well, Grannie," said Alison, who had often heard these remarks before, "what did Mr. Shaw really say?"

"My love, he treated me werry respectful. He told me the whole story, calm and quiet, and then he said that he was quite sure himself that you was innocent."

"He didn't say that, really?"

"I tell you he did, child; and wot's more, he offered you the place back again."