Puck — April 17, 1878 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Mrs. Frant was there. She-had come down, I suppose, to bid Annette good-bye, but she hardly seemed to know what she was doing, and she looked as white as a sheet. When An- nette had shaken hands with her, she turned to e. are Good-bye, Jenny,” she said. ‘I wonder if we shall ever meet again 2” She did not offer to kiss me. Caresses had not been in her way, for all her friendliness. “You had better go, child,” Mrs. Frant said to me faintly; but I did not stir, for I did not quite take in her meaning. Annette was moving towards the door when some one else just behind me said: “You have not wished me good-bye, Miss Merivale.” I started, and Annette faced round. Miss Liston was standing in the doorway of the drawing-room, and she now came forward with an outstretched hand. Annette took it at once. “‘T didn’t see you,” she explained, in her easy way. “No?” said Miss Liston. She was still hold- ing the girl's hand. What did she mean by that steady gaze—that significant smile? I glanced round for Mrs. Frant, but she had van- ished. One of the maids had just brought down Annette’s box; no one else was in sight. I felt a terrified foreboding that something was going to happen; but what? Did Annette share it? She had changed color, and I think she tried to release herself; but Miss Liston did not relax her grasp. “We have seen so little of each other,” she said, in a bland deliberate voice, ‘and I have such a high opinion of your talents, that I think Ireally must ask you to delay your departure for a little while, that we may become better acquainted. Mary,” looking over her shoulder to the maid, “ you may take Miss Merivale’s box up-stairs again to my room; and then you may tell the flyman to wait a bit. We are not quite ready for him yet.” Mary looked stupefied. Annette had freed herself now, and had made a step forward. What she was going to do or say I cannot guess; I was absorbed in observing Miss Liston. The old lady had moved briskly forward, so as to place herself between Annette and the door; and now, still eying her with the same cool smile, she took off her cap and with it the bands of white hair which I had so much admired, and, tossing them on the floor, revealed the bald head of an clderly man. Crossing his arms, this same man addressed the girl, who stood as if turned to stone, in these astounding words: “The game is up with you, you see. It has been a good game, but two can play at it, and} I flatter myself I’ve checkmated you rather neatly.” Annette laughed a short odd laugh; but the color had come back to her face, and she was herself again. “ Perhaps you'll explain,” she said compos- edly; “perhaps you'll favor me with your name, because, you see, this is rather a sur- prise, and I don’t think I’ve the pleasure of knowing you.” “No; that isa pleasure to come. I’m In- spector Webb from Scotland Yard, at your ser- vice, But I'll do something more to oblige you, I'll remind you of your name, Miss Agatha Minton, in case you chance to have forgotten it.” “Bah! the game és up, then;” and Annette glanced hastily round, as if for some way of es- cape, 5 “Ay, but we'll play it out, if you please,” returned the detective, stepping promptly for- , ward and linking his arm in his prisoner’s. “Mary, my good girl, when you've taken that box up-stairs} please to call the boy whom I saw working in the garden just now. You're’ too slippery a customer, Miss. Minton, for one pair of hands, especially when they've other work to do. And I must just overhaul that box of yours. I fancy, if I only look closely enough, I may find a document that would prove useful to a gentleman over the water.” The girl regarded him boldly.“ Find what you can,” she said. “ I'm sure you're welcome to turn over everything there.” “Ah, you think it won't strike me to look between the boards of your French dictionary. Well, and I daresay it wouldn’t if I hadn't watched you split the cover and then gum it together again. It’s astonishing how much one can see through a hole a quarter of an inch square in a wooden partition.” Annette, or Agatha, as I ought to call her, shrugged her shoulders. “I’m trapped! Well, I took my chance,” she muttered. “Yes, I thought you'd rise to those keys,” pursued the detective, with evident enjoyment, as he led her towards the stairs; “and you see how kindly anxious I was to smooth all difficul- ties away for you. No one at home but an old lady; dispatch box ready to hand.- All fair sling. And it worked out so beautifully too. You'd no notion when you planned to go off in a huff that you were playing right into my hands,” I heard no more. Sick and stunned I crept into tae schoolroom, dreading I knew not what. I could not stay there, it was too desolate, and I stole out again across the now deserted hall to the drawing-room. ‘There, crouching over the fire and shivering as if in an ague fit, I found Mrs. Frant. She lifted her head in affright, but bowed it again when she saw that it was only me. “ Child, child,” she said feebly, “ you ought not to be here. I had forgotten you. I thought you had gone. You ought not to have seen.” “Tell me,” I entreated, creeping up to her, and slipping my hand in hers in a nervous longing for protection. “ What does it mean ? I can’t understand it.” She was silent; but I, rendered bold by very terror, repeated, “Tell me; do tell me.” “Thad better tell you, perhaps,” she mur- mured, ‘since you were here and saw. And yet I don’t know,” and she pressed her hand wearily to her brow. Just then the street-door bell rang again. I listened and heard a voice —a dear familiar voice—and in an instant I was in the hall and in my mother’s arms, “O mother, come in here!” and, almost dragging her into the schoolroom, I poured out my story. She heard it with a grave and pity- ing face. “Let us go in to poor Mrs. Frant,” she said, when I had done; and together we went across to the other room. Mrs. Frant still sat as I had left her, but her sad eyes brightened a little when she saw my mother. She knew her well, and knew how gentle and kind she was. My mother sat down beside her and took her trembling hand. “Do you care to tell us anything ?” she said softly. ‘Jenny is to be trusted, but don’t speak if it is painful to you.” “Yes, I will tell you; it will be a comfort to speak. And you know something; you know about him—my husband—and how cruelly he used me.” “Indeed I do!” my mother made answer, “When I got away from him and took shel- ter with my aunt in Paris, he followed me there, and threatened to drag me back with him, He could have done it too. I could not prove his ill-usage; he had been too crafty for that. But there was a letter; he had writ- ten it in our early married days. He didn’t know I had kept it, but he knew that, and I knew, if it were produced, it would send him to prison, and I told him that if he meddled with me I would produce it. I had never turned on him before. I had been like a whip- ped hound under his hand; but now I was des- perate, and I frightened him. He made me promise solemnly never to use that letter as long as he did not molest me; and then he left me. He knew he could trust my word. And then I came to England, and, ill and broken as I was, | tried to begin a new life.” “And you did,” said my mother tenderly. “You have done bravely.” “I thought it was all past, that dreadful time, and that some day I might almost forget it. It was twelve years ago, you know. But he—my husband—must have heard about the money my cousin left me last year, and he wanted to get a hold on me again. You see, if he had once got the letter, I and my money wonld have been at his mercy.” “1 see,” said my mother. begin to understand.” “And so he sent this girl—his niece—to steal it quietly. I had never seen her or heard of her. I thought it was only a chance like- ness 1 saw until I met the detective at Hather- field.” “And he told you?” “He told me her real name, and that was enough. He said he had been looking for a girl—-Agatha Minton—who had been mixed up in a Rotterdam fraud, and that, after a deal of trouble, he had tracked her down into our neighborhood; had lighted on her photograph in a Hatherfield shop-window, and found that she was a governess here. And then I had something to tell him, My husband’s sister had married a man named Minton, and I guessed at once that this girl had not come to my house only to hide. I used not to be sus- picious, but my husband had taught me to sus- pect /im.” She paused and sighed heavily. “ And what did you do?” my mother asked, stroking the hand that clung to hers. “I did not know what to do; I could hardly even think. I wanted Mr. Webb to come back with me and take her awsy at once; but he wouldn’t. He said his other case against her wasn't as clear as it might be, and that if this business were properly handled it might help him a good deal. I must let him manage it his own way. And then he considered a little, and asked me if 1 had any elderly relations who were not known in our village; and when I told him of my aunt he laughed and ex- plained his plan. It was a dreadful plan to me. I did not know how to bear the waiting and the risk. It made me shudder to think of letting her—that girl—get hold of the paper on which all my peace depended. I knew it was safe so far; I had seen it in my strong box that morning. But Mr. Webb would not listen to me; he said he'd warrant it not to leave my house, and I was in his hands. I was forced to let him have his own way.” “And it was a very good way,” my mother put in cheerfully. “Do you think so? Oh, if only I could be sure; but I have suffered so much it seems now as if I hadn't strength to believe or to bear.” As she spoke the door opened again, and Mr. Webb came in, habited now in a blue frock-coat. Walking up to her, he put a folded letter into her outstretched hand. “You see I have kept my word,” he said, with a grim smile; “there it is. Won't you own that it is safer than it hasever been? And now I must go and see my bird safe in her cage." As he turned away, Mrs. Frant hid her face upon my mother’s shoulder and broke into a passion of tears, the first she had shed. She tried to speak, but her sobs choked her. The “Yes. NowIl strain had been too great, and she was past feeling the relief. My mother saw how it was, comicbooks.com