CHAPTER XI

WHAT DID HE MEAN?

AS the cab drove off, bearing Adrian towards his home, the brother and sister walked on in silence for a minute or two, quite forgetting the object of their walk in the thoughts that occupied their minds.

At last Molly said, "We never used to have secrets from each other. Won't you tell me what Cousin Ted meant by calling you a thief, and saying you stole his mother's letter?"

After a minute's pause, Arthur said: "Look here, Molly, I don't know much more about the affair than you do, except this: that a letter was sent to our Mr. Langley a week or two ago, and it never reached him. Lady Mary came and saw the governor, and made a fine row about it. She told him, I believe, that her son posted the letter, but after what Ted has said to-night, I shall begin to think that neither the post office nor we lost it."

"He was tipsy, you know, Arthur," said Molly, who would far rather think the post office guilty of stealing the letter than that anyone belonging to her should be deemed guilty of the mean action.

"Yes, if he had not been tipsy, he would not have said what he did; but 'when the drink is in, the wit is out.' I wonder whether he will remember what he said when he wakes up in the morning!" said Arthur in a musing tone. "I think I ought to tell Mr. Bristow what he said, it may prove to be a clue for discovering who had the cheque."

"Who do they think stole it?" asked Molly.

"Well, you see, I have to sort the morning mailbag and distribute the letters, and so naturally the suspicion rests upon me."

"Arthur!" exclaimed the girl, stopping in the middle of the street and seizing him by the shoulders.

"Don't, Molly! Don't do that! And don't say a word to them at home."

"But—but, Arthur, nobody can really think you would do such a thing!" said poor Molly, with gasp.

"I don't know, dear, quite what people think, only I have fancied lately that Mr. Brading does, and Jack has not been in to see me as he used to the first month I was there."

"Then it is this that has made you look so pale and anxious lately? I was sure that something must have happened. You must not stay there, of course. I shall begin to think, with Annie, that you ought never to have gone to that shop!"

"Oh, I like the work very well, and Mr. Brading—"

"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Molly impatiently. "But now you must leave, of course; you cannot stay there to be insulted."

"Nobody has insulted me, Molly; and as for leaving, I must stay now until this affair is cleared up. Why, if the railway were to bring us a fortune directly, I would go to Mr. Brading and say, 'Let me stay here until I can prove that I am innocent of this theft.' It would be the only way of clearing my character in the eyes of the world. I never thought of the value of this until lately, but I can see it is the only way for me, hard as it may be. But I say, we have forgotten this letter."

And Arthur was just turning to run across the road, when he came into contact with Mr. Andrews, very much as he had done the first time he met him.

"I beg your pardon, I am very sorry," said Arthur, when he could recover the power to speak.

"You are doing the steam-engine trick again," said the lawyer.

And then he saw Molly, and asked her why she allowed her brother to be out of her keeping, seeing he was such a danger to the public when left to himself?

"This is the second time he has nearly knocked me backwards," added the old gentleman.

"I was taking a letter to your house," said Arthur. "I hope the news in it will not affect you in a similar way. I cannot say I think much of it myself at present."

"Well, well, as you say it is a high explosive, I will wait until I reach the safety of my own armchair before opening it, and I should advise you young people to go home now."

"Yes, indeed we must," said Molly, "for we have been out much longer than we intended, and Annie will be in a fright about us."

And the two shook hands with Mr. Andrews and wished him good-night.

This fortnight which had brought such an uneasiness and anxiety to Arthur had not been much more pleasant to Lady Mary. She wrote letters and sent telegrams to her lawyer, but could only get vague polite assurances from his chief clerk that her business should be attended to at the earliest possible moment, and then at last she heard that Mr. Simmons was ill, and had been obliged to leave home for rest and change. She obtained this information at last, after a personal protest to the young man left in charge of the office and business.

"Why didn't you tell me this when I first called and asked to see Mr. Simmons?" fumed Lady Mary. "What business had you to tell me that Mr. Simmons would see me the next day?"

And the Irish Jig was performed for the edification of the other two clerks, for at the thought of the hundred pounds she had paid for early information of what all the town was now talking of, she felt like tearing her hair, or else the clerk's who had managed to delay her business.

"And you mean to tell me that Mr. Simmons has not had my letters?"

"I was compelled to obey orders, my lady. The letters went up to the house, but I don't think the doctor would let him open them. I have had to keep things going here as well as I could, but as your letters were marked 'Strictly private,' why, of course they wouldn't be opened till Mr. Simmons could attend to them himself, my lady."

The young man evidently thought this ought to reassure the irate lady, but it only made her the more angry. "I might just as well have thrown my hundred pounds in the gutter, and all through setting an idiot like you to look after business! What was Simmons thinking about to trust anybody like you with his office?"

And again followed another example of the Irish jig that well-nigh made the clerks forget they were on duty, and that it was no less a personage than Lady Mary Murray that was provoking their laughter.

This interview at her lawyer's office took place the same day that Arthur and Molly met Adrian in the evening, and she went home from that interview determined that no further time should be lost, and recalling all the legal phraseology she could to her aid, she wrote to Mr. Andrews as she imagined the lawyer would have done. At any rate she made her meaning clear enough, which was this: that she now held all the mortgages on the Murray property, and she intended to foreclose at once unless the money was paid with interest up to date, and paid within ten days.

To her utter astonishment and dismay, she received a letter from Mr. Andrews the next day, saying that the money was ready to be paid over when Mr. Simmons was well enough to transact business.

"Adrian! What do you think of the impudence of that lawyer Andrews? He has actually written to say that I can have my money as soon as Simmons is well enough to settle the business!"

"What money is that?" asked Adrian, rousing himself from his sleepy lethargy to look across at his mother. "What money is that?" he repeated. "You told me only yesterday that you were very short of cash just now."

"So I am, dreadfully short!" replied the lady.

"Then I suppose you will be glad to hear that you can get this money? And I know I am, for I want some, and you must let me have it too," said the young fellow in a sulky defiant tone.

"Adrian! What do you mean?" exclaimed his mother in a tone of astonishment.

"Well, Mother, you seem to forget that I am not a school-boy, and want money like other young men."

"What for? I am sure you have everything you can want at home here until you go to Oxford."

"I don't know that I shall go to Oxford now. What's the good of it? I may go to London and live in chambers like any other fellow. But now about this money, of course it is yours, but where has it been that you have always been so short of ready cash?"

"Lent on mortgage. Lent on land that the new railway must buy, and buy at my price. I have been waiting for years for this to happen. My brother, Lismore, always said it would come, sooner or later, and his word has come true for once."

"But if lawyer Andrews says you can have your money when you like, they don't mean to let you have the land," said Adrian roughly.

"But I won't have it! They can't pay it! Who would trust a shop-boy with five pounds? I wouldn't, after what has happened, and I shall go and see Andrews this morning, and ask him what he means by sending me such a letter? Of course it was always understood that I should foreclose when it suited me, in spite of the terms of the mortgage."

"What were the terms?" asked Adrian, who could be sharp enough where money was concerned, however dull and indifferent he might be in other matters. "What were the terms upon which you lent this money, Mother?"

"Well, just for form's sake, it was set down that if the money could be repaid within fourteen days from the time that I gave notice, then of course I could not touch the land. But they cannot repay it! I tell you it amounts to some thousands of pounds now, and they haven't as many farthings! I may let a little stand over, if they will agree to leave the town and the neighbourhood, but it is not pleasant to have poor relations close under one's nose, and I shall be glad to get rid of them."

"So shall I! For that prig, Arthur, is always interfering with me and my concerns. I can't even walk about the town but he is dogging my steps and trying to get things out of me, asking me questions about my affairs in the most impudent fashion, considering that he has disgraced our family and name by going to serve in a shop."

"He always was a most impudent, mischievous boy, and he certainly must be got rid of somehow."

"Well, if you can do it, I shall be glad enough. Only do it quietly, Mother. I don't want our name dragged through the gutter, the police called in, and all that sort of thing."

"I certainly shall call in the police, if he will not leave Fairmead without!"

"Very well, do as you like, only let me know, for I don't mean to be mixed up in such a disgraceful affair. I shall go to London and stay with my uncle Lismore for a little while. So give me due notice of the police being put on the job and I am off."

He suited the action to the word and lounged out of the morning-room and went upstairs, for it had just occurred to him that he might as well have his portmanteau packed in readiness in case his mother should forget to inform him that she had consulted the police, and he should be taken unawares, which would certainly be awkward.

Lady Mary sat considering the position of her affairs for a minute, and then resolved to call upon Mr. Andrews and find out, if she could, just what he meant by the letter she had received from him.

In answer to her question whether she could see Mr. Andrews, she was shown to his private room, and was received by the lawyer with no small surprise. "I have come to say that I am very much astonished at the terms of your letter," she said.

"Indeed, my lady! What was there so astonishing in it?" asked the old man.

"Well, you know I have lent my money—"

"At a very fair interest," interrupted the lawyer.

"Well, yes, I suppose it was," admitted the lady. "But still I always understood, since I took up the other mortgages, that the land would fall into my hands eventually. Poor Charles said many times, 'You will foreclose, Mary, when it suits you.'"

"Certainly, and you have given me due notice of your intention to do so, and I have replied that we, on our side, are prepared to pay over the amount due on all the land given as security."

"But you can't do it!" stamped Lady Mary.

"I beg your pardon! There is nothing in the deeds to prevent this, provided I have the money ready, and I may tell you that the money is ready now, and I wrote to Mr. Simmons at the same time I wrote to you, saying I should be glad to know when he could attend to this."

"I don't believe it!" almost screamed Lady Mary.

And having said this, she opened the door and almost ran out of the house in her excitement and indignation.

Without waiting to think what her next step should be, she walked as fast as she could to Arthur's home, and knocked so loudly at the door that the little maid dropped the plate she was washing, in her hurry to dry her hands and be ready to receive the important visitor at the door.

The two young ladies were out, she told the imposing-looking lady, dropping a curtsy in her awe of the stately stranger.

"I can see Mrs. Murray, I suppose?" said the visitor, pushing past the little maid and going to the stair.

"I will go and ask the mistress," said Alice in an awe-struck tone, as she ran after her.

"You need not trouble yourself," said Lady Mary. "I am an old friend of Mrs. Murray's. You need not look like that; I am not going to eat her."

"Oh, Mary, I thought you had quite forgotten us!"

Alice heard her mistress say these words, and then she went back to the kitchen to finish her dish-washing. She soon came to the conclusion, from the sounds that reached her from the upstairs room, that the door was not closed when the visitor went in, and that the two ladies were having what she called "a jolly row."

"I hope it's about them beastly cats as Missis is so fond of," muttered Alice, as she stood near the half-opened kitchen door.

She could not hear a word that was said distinctly, but she could distinguish Lady Mary's loud imperious tones, and then her mistress seemed to protest in a thin piping voice that only made the other more angry.

Then after a time, the heavy footstep came downstairs, and before she could get to the street door to open it, she heard it closed with a bang.

Then Alice went into the scullery to scour some dirty sauce-pans, and amused herself by singing a popular ditty at the top of her voice, which she was not always so free to do as she was this morning.

She had finished her scullery work, to her own satisfaction at least, and was tying on a clean apron preparatory to setting the dinner-table, when there came a knock at the door which she instantly recognized as Miss Molly's, and ran to open it.

"Thank you, Alice!" said Molly pleasantly, and then she went to the foot of the stairs and called: "We have come home, Mamma."

There was no reply from the upper room, and Molly remarked:

"She must have shut her door, I think."

"Have you been singing, Alice?" asked Annie.

"Just a little," admitted Alice, with a heightened colour. "But I didn't begin while the lady was here."

"The lady, what lady?" asked Molly quickly.

But Alice could only shake her head.

"Did she go up to see your mistress?" asked Annie.

"Yes, ma'am. She said she knowed the missis ever so long, and she did too, for I heard the misses say, 'Oh, Mary!' And then I come downstairs and let 'em have their row to themselves."

The two girls stood and looked at Alice in amazement.

"What do you mean?" said Molly angrily.

"I ain't saying no harm, Miss Molly, for it's true as I'm here that the lady and the missis had a jolly row, and then the lady went away, and I began my sauce-pans with that silver sand I bought of the man."

But while Molly was questioning and listening to Alice, Annie ran upstairs to her mother's room, and Molly and Alice both heard her calling, "Mamma! Mamma! Where are you? Where are you hiding?"

Molly ran up then, closely followed by the little servant.

"Well, if this don't beat all!" she exclaimed, as she stood staring in at the sitting-room door.

While the sisters went from bedroom to sitting-room and back again, looking, and calling, "Mamma! Mamma!"

"What sort of a lady was it who came? Was there a carriage at the gate?" asked Annie, wondering whether one of their old friends had called to take the invalid out for a drive, as the weather was so pleasant.

"There warn't no carriage, and the lady were too big for most," said Alice.

"Then it was Aunt Mary. But where can she have taken Mamma? Did you see the lady go out?" asked Annie.

Alice shook her head. "She were too quick for a little 'un like me. She was down the stairs and out of the house in a winking, before I could wipe my hands out of the dishes."

"And then did you hear my mother moving afterwards?" asked Molly.

"I jest heard nothing, Miss Molly, for I threw my dish-water away and began my scouring—"

"And singing too, I suppose?" said Annie.

"Yes 'm, I sung a bit, for I thought I couldn't hurt the missis or her head out there in the scullery; and I never heard nothing till I opened the door for you just now."

"You may go down now, Alice, and set the dinner things," said Annie.

The two sisters stood and looked at each other and the vacant room after the little maid had left them, each lost in wondering amazement, until Molly suggested that they should see whether her mother's bonnet had been moved out of the deep drawer of the wardrobe.

When her husband died, Mrs. Murray insisted that a widow's bonnet and mantle should be provided for her, although she was little likely to wear it. And now they saw that bonnet and mantle were both missing, so that, whatever Alice might say to the contrary, it was evident that Mrs. Murray had gone out, and she must have gone with Lady Mary on some important errand.

This was the conclusion the sisters arrived at, after talking the matter over. But they were none the less anxious about their mother, for what effect the unwonted excitement might have upon her they could not tell.

"I do wish we had not gone out this morning!" exclaimed Annie.

"I am sorry too; but who would have thought of Aunt Mary coming this morning? It was just because we were both out," concluded Molly, who went and sat near the window, instead of at the dinner-table, that she might catch the first glimpse of her mother coming along the road when she should return.