CHAPTER XIV

THE OLD OAK CUPBOARD

THE year was passing on; day after day, week after week, month after month, following each other in quick succession, and Marjorie was keeping a private calendar of her own, and counting the days that must still pass before Christmas came, when she was to go home for her first holiday.

Daisy Bank did not alter much with the changing seasons: there was very little to mark the progression of spring, summer, and autumn. Barely a tree was in sight, and the few that were to be found were so stunted, blighted, and covered with smoke that the spring freshness of their leaves lasted but a few days. Upon the mounds grew a few coarse daisies—at least, the children called them daisies; they were a kind of feverfew with a daisy-like flower. Nothing else would grow there, which is perhaps why the place got its name, a name which had at first appeared to Marjorie to be utterly unsuitable.

During all the summer months and throughout the early autumn, her life had been most uneventful and monotonous. There was the daily routine of household duties, "the common round, the daily task," but nothing more. No one else came to see her, and from that day in June, when he had stepped into the Birmingham train, she had seen and heard nothing more of Captain Fortescue. She always thought of him by his old name, even though she knew that he had dropped the title.

The arrival of the home letters was the great event of Marjorie's week, and she read and re-read them until she almost knew them by heart. They made her home-sick at times, but she fought bravely against the feeling, and looked on hopefully to Christmas.

All this time, old Mrs. Hotchkiss had been growing more and more feeble, and as autumn advanced, she was quite unable to leave her bed. A rough girl of sixteen, who lived next door, waited upon her, and she seemed to have plenty of money to pay her, and she was never behind-hand in her rent. How she lived, Enoch did not know; he told Marjorie that she used to be very badly off, and that he had often seen her scraping up the cinders on the ash-heaps, but he fancied that now Carrie must be sending her money, as she seemed to have sufficient for all she wanted. Marjorie often took her soup, and milk puddings, which Mrs. Holtby was pleased that she should make for her, and she was always grateful for these. She much enjoyed hearing Marjorie read, and a feeble glimmer of light seemed to have penetrated to her poor dark soul.

But one day, late in October, when Marjorie went to see her, she found the old woman crying and evidently in great trouble.

"What is it, Mother Hotchkiss?"

"The doctor has been," she said, "and he says as how I won't be long now. I heard him tell Anna Maria when she let him out."

"Well, don't cry," said Marjorie; "you know what I told you when I was here last."

"Yes, I think of it all the time."

"And have you said that little prayer?"

"Yes, I have;

"'O Lord, forgive me my sins, for Jesus Christ's sake.'

"I've said it scores of times; but I don't believe He will forgive me, all the same."

"Why not?"

"Oh! Because—because! But I mustn't tell you. You see, I promised not to tell; but He'll never forgive me, I know He won't."

"But He says He will. 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.'"

"Yes, that's just it; that's just what I mean, my dear. If we confess our sins; but I haven't confessed my sin. See?"

"But, dear Mother Hotchkiss, you must confess it," said Marjorie.

"But I can't—I can't—you don't understand, my dear. It's something as I can't confess."

Marjorie talked to her for some time longer, and the old woman cried very much, and said again and again that she wanted to tell her, but she couldn't, no, she couldn't. At last Marjorie was obliged to leave her; she felt very sorry for her, and when she knelt to pray before getting into bed, she prayed very earnestly for the poor ignorant old woman who was so fast passing away, that she might find comfort and peace before the end came.

Marjorie was tired that night, and soon fell asleep. She was dreaming that she was in Borrowdale, sitting on a stone by the river, when suddenly a pebble hit the rock on which she was perched, and she looked up to see Louis's merry face on the bank above her. Then another pebble came, and she woke. No, she was not in Borrowdale, but in her little bedroom in Daisy Bank. What was that noise, then? Some one was throwing pebbles at her window! She was very much startled, but got out of bed and looked out. It was quite dark, and she could see no one. She opened her window a little way and said, "Who is there?"

"It's me, Miss," said old Enoch's voice. "Poor Mother Hotchkiss is much worse, and she wouldn't give us any peace till we said we would fetch you. She says she must see you, and she can't die happy till she has."

"Who is with her, Enoch?"

"Peggy Jones, that's Anna Maria's mother; but I've been there the last hour. They fetched me. See?"

"I'll come, Enoch."

"I'll wait for you, Miss, and take you across," he said.

Marjorie dressed quickly, and knocking at Mr. and Mrs. Holtby's door, she explained where she was going and why. Mr. Holtby got up and let her out, and then, guided through the darkness by old Enoch, she made her way to the curious old house.

Marjorie found Mrs. Hotchkiss far more ill than when she had left her that afternoon, but she raised herself in bed when Marjorie went in, and taking her hand, she held it between both her own.

"That's right, dear!" she whispered. "I've been just longing for you to come. Send them out, and I'll tell you."

"I think she has something she wants to say to me," said Marjorie to Enoch and Peggie Jones, who were standing by the window; "if you would like to rest for a little, I will take care of her."

"Don't you mind being left, Miss?" said Peggy.

"Oh no, not at all; and I will call you if she is worse."

"Rap on that wall," said Peggy; "my bed is just on the other side of it, and I'll be with you in a moment. Our house joins this, you know."

They left the room together and went down the steep stairs, and presently Marjorie heard them closing the outer door, and she knew that she was alone in the house with the dying woman.

"Are they gone, my dear?" she asked.

"Yes, they are gone," said Marjorie.

"Are we quite alone?"

"Yes, quite alone."

"You know what you said about confessing?"

"Yes! 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.'"

"I want to ask you something, dearie. Stoop your head down to me; I want to whisper. If you was to make a promise to somebody, and if it was a wicked promise that you had no business to have made, ought you to keep it?"

"Certainly not," said Marjorie. "It would be wrong to make a wicked promise, and it would also be wrong to keep it when you had made it."

"Do you think so, my dear? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Then listen, dearie, and I'll tell you. I feel as if I can't die till I do. I feel as if I must tell somebody. See? You know who Carrie is?"

"Yes; your daughter."

"Ay, and I wasn't half proud of her; a clever girl too, and such a scholar! Well, Carrie married a man as she met up in the North somewhere; and he was well-to-do and all that. I believe they had a very comfortable home, but he was awful mean to Carrie. He never would let her send anything to her poor old mother. I was nigh starved, my dear, I was indeed. If I hadn't raked in the ash-heaps, there's many a day I wouldn't have had a fire. I only had parish pay, see? And not too much of that. But one day they came to see me."

"Who did?"

"Her and her husband. And he spoke very fair, and he said if I would do a little thing for him, he'd allow me ten shillings a week as long as I lived. Well, my dear, I said I would do it, if I could. He wouldn't tell me what it was till I had promised I wouldn't tell anybody. And then he went to his hand-bag, and he brought out a tin box. It was just a common sort of box, like a small biscuit-box, and it had a bit of string tied tight round it.

"'Now, mother,' he says, 'I want you to hide this 'ere box in one of them little cupboards in the chimney corner till I send for it. I'm a-going to Ameriky,' he says, 'and when we're settled there and have got a home of our own, I'll write you word where to send it.'

"'Can't you take it with you?' I says. 'It isn't big, and it won't take much room in your boxes.'

"'No,' he says; 'I'd rather you sent it, mother, and I'll let you have the address. Old Enoch will direct it for you. You can tell him it's something as Carrie left behind her.'

"Well, my dear, it seemed a stroke of good luck for me, didn't it now? And then he said they must go; but Carrie begged and prayed him to let her stay just one night with me, as she was going so far away, and might never see her old mother again."

"And did he let her?"

"He wouldn't at first; but Carrie cried, my dear. And at last he gave in, and said she was to follow him the next day. Well, we went to bed, Carrie and me, dearie, and when she was lying beside me that night, I told her I did not much like having charge of that tin box, because folks might rob an old woman like me. And I asked her did she think it was jewels, or what was it?"

"What did she say?"

"She said it was naught but paper—some letters, she said—and then she began to cry. So I asked her what was the matter, dear. And she said she didn't like it at all; but they wouldn't listen to what she said."

"Who wouldn't?"

"Him and his sister. They'd stole this 'ere letter from some one as his sister lived with. She stole it, I believe, and then he took it and raised money on it."

"How could he do that?"

"I don't know, my dear. I can't understand these things. She called it 'hush money,' or some such name. There was somebody as didn't want what was in that letter to be known. And Josiah—that's my daughter's husband, dearie—kept on threatening him that he would tell, and then making him pay money to get him to hold his tongue. Carrie said that some day Josiah would sell this man the letter, and get hundreds of pounds for it; but he wanted first to see how much he could get out of him by threatening him, without parting with the letter."

"I wonder what it was about," said Marjorie.

"I don't know, my dear. Carrie didn't know; he wouldn't let her read it. And I've never opened the box, and I couldn't read it if I did."

"Then your daughter did not like what her husband was doing?"

"No; she was frightened, my dear. Mr. Forty Screws was in a great way about losing the letter. See? And Josiah was afraid he would put the 'tectives on them, so that's why they was going out of the country. His sister was going with them, his half-sister she was; she was the one that stole it from Mr. Forty Screws, and they didn't want to take the letter with them, lest the 'tectives should search them, and find it in their boxes. When once they got over to Ameriky they thought they was safe. See? Carrie did cry about it, though, my dear, and she said if she had her way she would give it back to Mr. Forty Screws, and have done with it all."

"What a curious name! Are you sure that it was Forty Screws?"

"Well, something like it, my dear."

"Where is the box?"

"In the cupboard below; one of those little cupboards by the fire."

"Then they never sent for it?"

"Never, dearie, and I haven't heard a word from them since; it's more than six months now since they sailed. There was a ship went down in them parts soon after they went; at least Enoch told me so. He saw it in the papers; and sometimes I think they all went down in it. I'm sure Carrie would have written if she'd been alive. Now I've told you, my dear. Have I done right, do you think?"

"Quite right, Mother Hotchkiss, and I think you ought to do more; you ought to send that letter back to the man from whom it was stolen."

"I don't know where he lives nor nothing about him, my dear; and then it seems mean, after taking Josiah's money, to go and tell of him."

"How can Josiah be drowned if he still sends you the money?"

"He doesn't send it now, my dear. He left enough to last for a year with Tom Noakes at the public there, and he pays it to me reg'lar, Tom does. Then Josiah said that he would send more when the year was up. See?"

"That letter ought certainly to go back to the man to whom it belongs," said Marjorie, "I am sure of that."

"But how can I tell who it is?"

"May I look at the letter? Perhaps his address is on it."

"Yes, my dear, you may if you like. Will you go and get it?"

Marjorie took the candle and went down the rickety stairs. A cold wind blew up from the vault-like dairy as she passed the flight of stone steps leading down to it. She felt almost like a thief herself, as she crossed the kitchen and made her way to the ancient fireplace. There was the old oak cupboard, the door of which had often attracted her attention by its quaint appearance.

The small cupboard was locked, but the key was in it. She turned it in the lock, and the carved door flew open. She hunted amongst the rubbish with which it was filled, but she found no box. Odds and ends of all descriptions were there, but nowhere could she discover the one thing she had come to seek.

Perhaps the letter was in the other cupboard. There was no key in that; but she found that she could open it with the key she had found in the first one. She unlocked it; and at first she thought that this second cupboard was empty; she could see nothing whatever in it.

However, as she felt along the shelf, she discovered in one corner of it, tightly jammed into the wall, and well out of sight, a small tin box. It took her some minutes to get it out, and then, by the light of her candle, she looked at it. It was tied up tightly with string, and the string was sealed in several places. She carried it upstairs and put it in the old woman's hands.

"Is that it?" she said.

"Yes, my dear, that's it. Will you open it?"

"I hardly like to do it," said Marjorie, "and yet—Did you say the name was Forty Screws? Do you think it possible, Mother Hotchkiss, that it could have been Fortescue?"

"Very likely, my dear; I never can remember names, only I thought of the screws in a box my old man used to keep 'em in. They're there yet, dear. And then I thought of forty of them. See? And I remembered it that way. But maybe I didn't hear her quite right, my dear."

Again Marjorie hesitated. But if it should be—if it was possible that it could be something that he had lost and that he wanted—something that he would be glad to have once more in his hands. Yes, she would open it; it could not be wrong—it surely could not be wrong.

She broke the seals and unfastened the string. Then it was easy to take off the lid of the box. Inside was a sheet of foolscap paper, closely covered with writing.

She glanced at the beginning, "My dear Ken."

She looked at the end, "Your loving Father, Joseph Fortescue."

Yes, it was the same! Even the handwriting was familiar to her; she had often seen it before when old Mr. Fortescue had written with the cheques which he sent to her mother.

Hastily she put the letter back in the box, closed the lid, and tied the string tightly round it; not a word of it should be seen by any one. She was trembling with agitation as she did so, and the old woman noticed it.

"You know him, my dear?"

"Yes, I know him," she said; but her teeth chattered as she spoke.

"You're cold, my dear."

"No, not cold, only so glad."

"Has he wanted it, my dear?"

"I expect so; he hasn't told me, but it may be everything to him just now, if it's good news. I hope it is."

"Will you take it to him, dear?"

"Shall I?"

"Yes, do, dear; don't tell anybody else, will you?"

"No, I won't; no one else shall know."

"Promise you'll take it to him yourself!"

"I promise."

"Now, my dear, I can say my prayer. I think He'll forgive me now."

"Yes," said Marjorie, as her tears fell fast, "dear Mother Hotchkiss, I know He will. 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.' He is faithful, because He has promised to forgive us, and so you see, He can't say no when we ask Him; and He is just, because the Lord Jesus has been punished instead of us, and so God cannot punish us too for the same sins. Do you see?"

"Yes, my dear, thank you; I shall die happy now."

Soon after this, steps were heard on the stairs, and the old woman signalled to her to hide the box, and Marjorie slipped it under her coat just as Peggy Jones came into the room.

"You'll let me come now, Miss," she said. "You must be so tired. You ought to go home and get a bit of sleep."

Marjorie stooped down and kissed the poor old face lying on the pillow, and then she crept downstairs and went out into the darkness. But she did not mind even that to-night; she felt as if she cared for nothing, so long as the box was safe. When she got to the house the door had been left on the latch, so she let herself in and crept up to bed, carrying the precious box with her.