"Keep up your heart, my dear," she whispered. "Things may grow brighter for you some time."
When I got back, Mr. Eccles had nearly finished the sirloin, some cheese, and a large tankard of ale. The Squire sat by, hospitably pressing him to take more, whenever his knife and fork gave signs of flagging. Tod stood looking on, his back against the mantelpiece. Mrs.
Todhetley soon appeared with a little cardboard box, where the solitary earring was lying on a bed of wool.
Rising from the table, the detective carried the box to the window, and stood there examining the earring; first in the box, then out of it. He turned it about in his hand, and looked at it on all sides; it took him a good three minutes.
"Madam," said he, breaking the silence, "will you entrust this earring to us for a day or two? It will be under Sergeant Cripp"s charge, and perfectly safe."
"Of course, of course," interposed the Squire, before any one could speak. "You are welcome to take it."
"You see, it is possible--indeed, most probable--that only one of us may be able to obtain sight of the other earring. Should it be Cripp, my having seen this one will be nearly useless to him. It is essential that he should see it also: and it will not do to waste time."
"Pray take charge of it, sir," said Mrs. Todhetley, mentally recalling what I had said of his errand to her and Lucy Bird. "I know it will be safe in your hands and Sergeant Cripp"s. I am only too glad that there is a probability of the other one being found."
"And look here," added the Squire to Eccles, while the latter carefully wrapped the box in paper, and put it into his inner breast-pocket, "don"t you and Cripp let that confounded gipsy escape. Have her up and punish her."
"Trust us for that," was the detective"s answer, given with an emphatic nod. "_She is already as good as taken_, and her confederate also.
There"s not a doubt--I avow it to you--that the other earring is yours.
We only wait to verify it."
And, with that, he b.u.t.toned his coat, and bowed himself out, the Squire himself attending him to the door.
"He is as much like a detective as I"m like a Dutchman," commented Tod.
"At least, according to what have been all my previous notions of one.
Live and learn."
"He seems quite a polished man, has quite the manners of society," added the mater. "I do hope he will get back my poor earring."
"Mother, is Lucy Bird in more trouble than usual?" I asked.
"She is no doubt in deep distress of some kind, Johnny. But she is never out of it. I wish Robert Ashton could induce her to leave that most worthless husband of hers!"
The Squire, after watching off the visitor, came in, rubbing his hands and looking as delighted as old Punch. He a.s.sumed that the earring was as good as restored, and was immensely taken with Mr. Eccles.
"A most intelligent, superior man," cried he. "I suppose he is what is called a gentleman-detective: he told me he had been to college. I"m sure it seems quite a condescension in him to work with Cripp and the rest."
And the whole of tea-time and all the way to church, the praises were being rung of Mr. Eccles. I"m not sure but that he was more to us that night than the sermon.
"I confess I feel mortified about that woman, though," confessed Mrs.
Todhetley. "You heard him say that she was as good as taken: they must have traced the earring to her. I did think she was one to be trusted.
How one may be deceived in people!"
"I"d have trusted her with a twenty-pound note, mother."
"Hark at Johnny!" cried Tod. "This will be a lesson for you, lad."
Monday morning. The Squire and Tod had gone over to South Crabb. Mrs.
Todhetley sat at the window, adding up some bills, her nose red with the cold: and I was boxing Hugh"s ears, for he was in one of his frightfully troublesome moods, when Molly came stealing in at the door, as covertly as if she had been committing murder.
"Ma"am! ma"am!--there"s that tramp in the yard!"
"What?" cried the mater, turning round.
"I vow it"s her; I know the old red shawl again," pursued Molly, with as much importance as though she had caught half the thieves in Christendom. "She turned into the yard as bold as bra.s.s; so I just slipped the bolt o" the door against her, and come away. You"ll have her took up on the instant, ma"am, won"t you?"
"But if she has come back, I don"t think she can be guilty," cried Mrs.
Todhetley, after a bewildered pause. "We had better see what she wants.
What do you say, Johnny?"
"Why, of course we had. I"ll go to her, as Molly"s afraid."
Rushing out of hearing of Molly"s vindictive answer, I went round through the snow to the yard, and found the woman meekly tapping at the kitchen-door--the old red shawl, and the black bonnet, and the white muslin cap border, all the same as before. Before I got quite up, the kitchen-door was cautiously drawn open, and Mrs. Todhetley looked out.
The poor old woman dropped a curtsy and held out half-a-crown on the palm of her withered hand.
"I"ve made bold to call at the door to leave it, lady. And I can never thank you enough, ma"am," she added, the tears rising to her eyes; "my tongue would fail if I tried it. "Tis not many as would have trusted a stranger; and, that, a poor body like me. I got over to Worcester quick and comfortable, ma"am, thanks to you, and found my daughter better nor I had hoped for."
The same feeling of reliance, of trust, arose within me as I saw her face and heard her voice and words. If this woman was what they had been fancying her, I"d never eat tarts again.
"Come in," said Mrs. Todhetley; and Molly, looking daggers as she heard it, approached her mistress with a whisper.
"Don"t, ma"am. It"s all a laid-out plan. She has heard that she"s suspected, and brings back the half-crown, thinking to put us off the scent."
"Step this way," went on Mrs. Todhetley, giving no heed to Molly, except by a nod--and she took the woman into the little store-room where she kept her jam-pots and things, and bade her go to the fire.
"What did you tell me your name was," she asked, "when you were here on Friday?"
"Nutt"n, ma"am."
"Nutten," repeated the mater, glancing at me. "But I sent over to Islip, and no one there knew anything about you--they denied that any one of your name lived there."
"Why, how could they do that?" returned the woman, with every appearance of surprise. "They must have mistook somehow. I live in the little cottage, ma"am, by the dung-heap. I"ve lived there for five-and-twenty year, and brought up my children there, and never had parish pay."
"And gone always by the name of Nutten?"
"Not never by no other, ma"am. Why should I?"
Was she to be believed? There was the half-crown in Mrs. Todhetley"s hand, and there was the honest wrinkled old face looking up at us openly. But, on the other side, there was the a.s.sertion of the Islip people; and there was the earring.
"What was the matter with your daughter, and in what part of Worcester does she live?" queried the mater.
"She"s second servant to a family in Melcheapen Street, ma"am, minds the children and does the beds, and answers the door, and that. When I got there--and sick enough my heart felt all the way, thinking what the matter could be--I found that she had fell from the parlour window that she"d got outside to clean, and broke her arm and scarred her face, and frighted and shook herself finely. But thankful enough I was that "twas no worse. Her father, ma"am, died of an accident, and I can never abear to hear tell of one."
"I--I lost an earring out of my ear that afternoon," said Mrs.
Todhetley, plunging into the matter, but not without hesitation. "I think I must have lost it just about the time I was talking to you. Did you pick it up?"
"No, ma"am, I didn"t. I should have gave it to you if I had."