"I am glad that you are glad. As I was observing, when you interrupted me, I am older than you--for which I have every cause to be thankful--and my experience of the world has taught me not to pay much heed to a girl"s display of temper. I undertook the management of affairs at your own request--"
"At my request? It"s not true!"
A voice came from behind me. Looking round, there, in the doorway, was cook; and, on her heels, Betsy, the remaining housemaid.
While--actually!--at the open window was Harris, the coachman, staring into the room as if what was taking place was the slightest concern of his. It was cook"s voice which I heard, raised in accents of surprise, as if my point-blank denial of the Ogre"s wicked falsehood had amazed her.
"Oh, Miss Molly, however can you say such a thing! When I heard you thanking Mr Miller with my own ears! And after all he has done for you. Well, I never did!"
"What did you hear?"
"I heard Mr Miller ask you in the hall if there was anything he could do for you, and you said you"d be very much obliged. Then he went on to say, I"m sure as kind as kind could be, that if you liked he"d take the whole trouble off your hands and manage everything; and you said,"
Thank you." And now for you to stand there and declare you didn"t, and to behave to him like this after all he"s done for you, in one so young I shouldn"t have believed that it was possible."
In the first frenzy of my grief and bewilderment I had scarcely understood what I was saying to anybody. I remembered Mr Miller coming, as cook said, but that anything which had been said on either side had been intended to bear the construction which was being put upon it was untrue.
"I was not in a state of mind to understand much of what Mr Miller was saying, but I supposed that he was offering to a.s.sist in the arrangements for mother"s funeral, and that offer I accepted."
"You did so. And what you"d have done without him I can"t think. He arranged everything--and beautifully too. He"s made the family more thought of in this neighbourhood than it ever was before. If ever helpless orphans had a friend in need you"ve had one in him--you have that."
Betsy had her say.
"He got us our black. There wouldn"t have been a word said about it by anyone if it hadn"t been for him."
"And he bought me two suits of clothes--blacks."
That was Harris, at the window.
"Bought you two suits of clothes!"
"Yes, miss," said cook, "we"ve all of us had full mourning, as was only decent. And I happen to know that Mr Miller paid for it. Indeed, he paid for everything. And considering the handsome way in which it has all been done, nothing stinted, nothing mean, a pretty penny it must have cost."
I exchanged glances with d.i.c.k and perceived that we were both of opinion that we had had enough of cook. I told her so.
"I have heard what you have had to say. And now, please, will you leave the room?"
"Excuse me, miss, but that"s exactly what I don"t intend to do--not till I know how I stand."
"How you stand?"
"I"ll soon tell you how you stand," declared d.i.c.k. "You"ll be paid a month"s wages and you"ll take yourself off."
"Oh, shall I, sir? That"s just the sort of thing I thought you would say after the way you"ve been trying to behave to Mr Miller. And in any case I shouldn"t think of stopping in the house with a pack of rude, ungrateful children. But I should like more than one month"s wages, if it"s the same to you. There"s three months nearly due. I"ve not had one penny since I"ve been inside this house."
"Not since you"ve been inside this house?"
"Not one penny; and it"s getting on for three months now."
"But I thought mother always paid you every month regularly."
"Did she, miss? Then perhaps you"ll prove it. She never paid me; nor more she didn"t Betsy. There"s three months owing to you, isn"t there, Betsy?"
"That there is."
"And so there is to you, isn"t there, Harris?"
"Well--I don"t know that it"s quite three months."
"Why, you told me yourself as how it was."
Harris tilted his hat on one side and scratched his head as if to jog his memory.
"Well--it might be."
At this d.i.c.k fired up.
"It"s all a pack of lies! I"m sure that my mother paid you your wages as they fell due, and that you"re trying to cheat us."
Then it was cook"s turn.
"Don"t you talk to me like that, not if you do call yourself a young gentleman. And I"ll learn you to know that a woman of my age is not going to be called a cheat by a young lad like you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that"s what you ought to be, standing there disgracing of yourself."
The Ogre held up his hand, as if to play the part of peacemaker.
"Gently, cook, gently. You leave it to me and I will see that you have what is due to you. We must remember how ignorant these young people are of their position, and try to make allowances. Though I grant that under the circ.u.mstances it"s a little difficult." He put his hands into his trouser pockets, tilted back the chair on which he was seated, and considered the ceiling. "What I intend to do is this. At Miss Molly"s request I have, reluctantly, incurred certain liabilities and a.s.sumed certain responsibilities. To know exactly what those responsibilities are it is necessary that I should examine thoroughly the condition of affairs. When I have done so--it cannot, I am sorry to say, be done in a moment--I will lay the results before the more responsible members of the family--if there are any such--and without waiting for the thanks which I possibly shall not receive I will at once withdraw."
Such a prospect did not commend itself to me at all. That we were already being cheated all round I was sure. That we ran a great risk of being cheated to a much more serious extent if the Ogre was allowed to do as he suggested I felt equally convinced. And in any case I did not want his interference in our private affairs. It was dreadful to think of him peering and prying into mother"s secrets, into the things which she held sacred. The way he was behaving now showed how much we could trust him and what use he would make of any knowledge he might acquire. Instead of being our friend he would be our bitterest enemy.
And yet I did not see how we were going to get rid of him without a desperate struggle--of which, after all, we might get the worst.
But I was not going to let him see that I was afraid of him.
"Where is the money which was in mother"s desk?"
"Money? What money?"
"Mother always kept a large sum of money in her desk. You have had access to her desk, though you"d no right to touch it. How much was there? and where is it now?"
"I"ve seen no money."
"Why, it is with mother"s money that you have been paying for everything."
"I wish it had been. I"ve been paying for every blessed thing out of my own pocket."
"That"s a lie!" shouted d.i.c.k. "I know there was money in her desk."
"Look here, my lad--if you"ll excuse my calling you my lad--the next time you speak to me like that I"ll make you smart for it. Now, don"t you expect another warning."
"That"s right," cried cook. "You give him a good sound thrashing, Mr Miller. He wants it. Accusing everyone of robbing him, when it"s him who"s trying to rob everybody!"