Miss Grantley's Girls Part 2

They had reached the pa.s.sage leading to Dobree's queer little oak-panelled room, and as the door was open, both the old men entered; Dormeur walking up to the mantel-piece, and fiddling about there with some old china cups, and other little ornaments with which it was adorned. Turned with its face to the wall was a small trumpery frame, containing as it seemed some common-looking picture; and quite absently, and as though he scarcely knew what he was doing, the old man placed his fingers on it to turn it face outwards. Anton Dormeur gave a low cry, and placed his hand upon his companion's arm.

"Where did you get this?" he said slowly, looking his old foreman in the face. "It is not old, it cannot have been painted more than a year; and yet, as a mere likeness from memory, it is wonderful. Who could have done it?--not you, Pierre, that is impossible."

Dobree had recovered himself. "You know that I came from Paris," he said, with his eyes cast down; "you know, too, how a picture may be retouched and made to look like new."

"But you are deceiving me; this is no retouching; it is clumsy--coa.r.s.e; and, except in the evidence that the face itself must have been beautiful, not a good likeness. You wonder I can talk so calmly of this, a poor resemblance of the bright fair girl--of my Sara--mine although--Dobree, tell me how you came by this."

"I will tell you to-night," muttered the old man; "I swear to you that I will tell you to-night."

"And to-night I will show you a portrait on ivory, one that will make you think you see her as you once knew her, Pierre: a picture I keep among some relics, and look at often--oftener than you think, or anyone in the world could guess. Good-bye--or rather till nine--no, ten to-night, _au revoir_."

When his grandfather had left the house, Antoine, who was restless, unhappy, and full of vague surmises, sat for some time with his head in his hands, and at last only roused himself with an effort. It was growing dusk already, for autumn had given place to winter, and the days were short. There was still light enough, however, for him to see to write a letter, and in a few lines he told his grandfather that he should be with him at nine o'clock, and would then ask him to give him back the confidence that once existed between them, or to charge him with the fault that he had committed. He felt how vague this was, and almost hesitated; but he carried the letter to the sitting-room, nevertheless, and opening the door gently advanced towards the table.

It was a large barely furnished room, and yet not without evidence of luxury, or at all events of ornament. The great carved chimney-piece was surmounted by an old mirror with sconces containing candles; a leathern chair was drawn up to the hearth; on the table itself was a silver standish with writing materials, and a tall goblet of Venetian gla.s.s, while some rare china stood on a cabinet near the window.

Antoine so rarely entered this room except at night, and to bear his grandfather company for an hour or two before bed-time, that he involuntarily glanced round it now in the fast-fading twilight. In that moment he remarked that the door of the cabinet was unlocked--a circ.u.mstance so unusual that he went towards it and looked inside to note what might be the reason of such carelessness. Then seeing this silver cup on the shelf, he carried it to the window, and looked curiously at its contents. There was some reason for his doing so. In that dim silent room--where only its master came daily, and the one domestic who, with an old housekeeper, attended to the wants of Dormeur and his grandson, and did a little dusting once a week--the silver cup had become the receptacle of small trinkets, of coins, and quaint pieces of jewellery.

It was a common custom for the old man to take it out of the cabinet when his eyes were tired with reading, and to turn over these tarnished treasures, some of which were in small morocco cases. To one of the latter Antoine's attention was directed, for it lay open as though it had been hastily placed there, and covered with a piece of torn point-lace. Removing this the young man saw a portrait, the picture of a face so sweet, and eyes so penetrating, that he uttered an involuntary cry. It was a deeper feeling than mere surprise or admiration that prompted it, however. His hand trembled as he replaced the miniature, after gazing at it with an expression of mingled wonder and terror. At that instant the watchman pa.s.sed crying the first hour after dark; and, carefully replacing the cup, he turned the key in the cabinet door and hurried from the room.

Now all of my story that remains to tell took place in the next three hours, after Antoine left the house with a strange sense of wonder and confusion in his mind; so I must explain a little the situation of the young man--the enmity of Bashley.

It had happened, then, some months before, that Bashley being away for a day's holiday, Antoine took his place at the scale; for it was a slack time, and few workpeople were there to be served. He believed he had given out the last skein of silk, and had weighed the last bobbin, so shutting the slide, and putting up the bar, he unlocked an inner door, and went into the house and up the stairs. Pausing on the first landing, as he frequently did, to look thoughtfully over the bal.u.s.trade and down the well-staircase, he became aware that one person yet remained quietly seated on the bench below. As he uttered some slight exclamation at his own negligence, a face was turned upward towards his own--a face of such sweet, pure, girlish beauty that he held his breath lest it should be bent from his searching gaze--as indeed it was, but not before the plain straw bonnet had fallen backward and left a wealth of sunny hair glowing beneath the light that shone down upon it. A confused sense of some picture of an angel upon Jacob's ladder that he had seen in an old family Bible came into Antoine's thoughts as he stood and looked; but in another moment the girl had replaced her bonnet, and with her face bent down sat waiting as before.

In a minute he was beside her.

"Pardon me," he said, with an involuntary bow; "I thought everyone had gone. What is it that I can do for you?"

There was no embarra.s.sment except that of modesty as she curtseyed before him. She might have been a young d.u.c.h.ess by the frankness with which she met his look.

"I come from Marie Rondeau," she said, "who has sprained her foot and cannot walk. Mr. Bashley said she might send for the money due to her if she was still lame."

"Your name then is--" he inquired, pausing for her to fill up the question by her answer.

"Sara Rondeau," she said simply; "it is for my aunt that I come. I live with my aunt."

"And Bashley, does he--did he--has he visited you to bring you money?"

Already the lad felt a short jealous pang, but knew not what it was.

"He has been to measure our work, but not to bring money. My aunt comes here herself."

But Bashley had been there, and the image of this young girl had roused his sordid fancy. Is it a wonder that he soon began to hate his young master?

Antoine felt the warm blood in his face as he wrapped in a paper the few s.h.i.+llings that were due.

"Do not come again on such an errand," he said. "I will call and see if your aunt is better, and will, if necessary, bring some more money myself."

There is little need to say that Antoine kept his promise; that merry bustling little Marie Rondeau (how unlike her niece she was, to be sure!) was in a constant tremor when the little wicket-gate of her garden clicked, and she, looking through the leaden cas.e.m.e.nt of the upper room, saw the young master coming along the little path, with its two rows of oyster-sh.e.l.ls dividing it from the gay plots of gilliflowers, double-stocks, and sweet-williams. She trembled too for the peace of the fair girl, who had too soon learned to know his footstep, and to flush with pleasure at his approach.

Already trouble seemed to threaten them, for Bashley had warned her, and in a coa.r.s.e insolent way had said he meant to be Sara's sweetheart himself--or they might seek work elsewhere.

One night, when Antoine entered the garden, he was surprised to find old Pierre Dobree there.

"You must come no more yet, if you would spare this child from sorrow,"

he said, after talking long and earnestly. "Your new foreman watches you, and already hints to your grandfather that you are engaged in some mean intrigue. You bring evil where I would have you do good, Master Antoine. Come no more, I entreat you."

"And Sara--does she wish that also?" said the young fellow, reddening.

"I have never spoken a word to her that could not be said before her aunt. Why do you interpose, Peter Dobree?"

"Excuse me. The aunt is my cousin, the child my ward, and I know your grandfather well. For a month you must not come, but trust me and give me your word, and all may yet go well."

So it was a month since Antoine had been to the little house in Bethnal Green--and in all that slack time neither Sara nor her aunt had been to the warehouse for work or money.

But on that night, when Antoine was to sup with his grandfather, the month's probation was at an end. Even had it not been, he would have felt that he must break his promise, for on that very morning as he stood at the door after the warehouse had been opened, a boy ran up and placed a note in his hand--a mere slip of paper, on which was scrawled--

_"Will you never come again?--S. R."_

His sensitive nature was shocked at such a summons, and for the first time he had a sharp pang of doubt whether he was not to be awakened from a foolish dream. It was with a heavy heart that he bent his steps along the narrow tangle of streets that lay between his house and the edge of a great piece of waste ground known as Hare Street Fields, and even had he been less preoccupied he might not have noticed that he was followed by two men, who kept close to him in the shadows of the houses, and walked as noiselessly as cats, and with the same stealthy tread.

Mrs. Rondeau was sitting in her lower room, sewing by the light of a weaver's oil-lamp which hung from a string fastened to the mantel-piece.

The place was very bare. Few of the little ornaments that usually decorate even a poor home remained, and the good woman's eyes were red with recent crying. The loom in the upper part of the house was empty, and so was the cupboard, or very nearly so.

"There goes the quarter," she said, as she heard the chiming of a distant clock. "I wish I'd gone myself instead of sending the poor child. What would Peter say if he knew--ah! and what would that old flinty-hearted wretch say if _he_ knew! How I wish she would come, even if she came back without the money!"

The night had set in gloomily enough, as Sara Rondeau went quickly through the now almost deserted streets on her way to a dim shop, where three golden b.a.l.l.s hung to an iron bracket at the door, to show that a p.a.w.nbroker's business was carried on within. It was not the first visit she had made to this establishment, for the poor little household ornaments, the loss of which had left her home so bleak and bare, were now in the safekeeping of the proprietor; but still she shrank back as she approached a dim side entrance in a narrow street, and drawing her bonnet closer over her face, pushed open a baize door, and entered a dark pa.s.sage divided on one side into a row of narrow cells, separated from each other by wooden part.i.tions.

She made so little noise, and still kept so far back in the pervading gloom, that her presence was unnoticed by a shabby-looking man, who was just then engaged in earnest conversation with somebody in the next box.

Before she had spoken, and while she was yet in the shadow of the part.i.tion, she thought she recognized the voice of the person who was speaking as that of Bashley, and held her breath to listen, for a name was mentioned which sent the blood back to her heart and made her feel sick and faint.

"Well, as long as everything's safe," said the p.a.w.nbroker's a.s.sistant, who leaned his elbows on the counter, so that his head was close to the part.i.tion; "but we've got a good deal here now, you know, and if the thing should be found out--."

"Yah! who's to find it out?" retorted Bashley; "I tell you everything's ready, and the risk's mine. Old Dormeur's half childish; and as to the young one, I tell you he's safe enough for a week, if I like to keep him so. He'd an appointment to supper with the old man to-night, and he won't keep it. If he's not on his way now to see the girl, he's tied up neck and heels, by this time, and in a safe place out of harm's way. I tell you I can be back here in an hour or two. You're too deep in now to draw back; and besides, who can swear to raw silk? I shall go first, and look after the girl; then I mean to call on the old man, and send him out on a wild-goose chase. The rest's easy, for I've a key, and a light cart at the back of the warehouse will bring the silk here in no time.

The game's in my hands now, and I shall play to win."

"But when the young one tells his version of the story?"

"How can he? He comes out without knowing where from; and if ever he did, he's been in an empty house. A pretty story! No, no; if the old man believes it, he won't face the disgrace, for he more than half suspects his grandson as it is. Come now, will you or won't you?"

Sara Rondeau, crouching by the door, hears this with an undefined fear which paralyses her for a moment, but leaves one thought in her troubled mind.

Some foul plot is hatching against Antoine, and she is powerless to hinder it. No--one thing she can do, if only she can creep back unnoticed. She will use all her strength to reach Mr. Dormeur's house, and tell him what she has heard.

It is a question of minutes. Walking backward and pressing slowly against the noiseless door, she slips out again, and, like one pursued, begins to run at her utmost speed through the darkened streets.

Anton Dormeur sits alone in the grim old house. Cook and housekeeper have gone to market for the means of providing supper. Not a footfall sounds in the street; only the wailing voice of the watchman calling the hour at a distance breaks the dead silence, amidst which the old man can hear the ticking of the gold repeater in his pocket, the tinkle of the ashes that stir in the old wide grate, where a fire has been lighted, and the gnawing of a mouse behind the wainscot. He sits with the silver goblet beside him on the table, his knees towards the fire, his furrowed face quivering as he bends it down over the miniature he has taken from its case, the miniature of his younger daughter, dead and--no, not unforgiven--dead and mourned for now, with a silent grief that speaks of years of desolation and remorse.

The light of the shaded lamp falling on the picture in his hands seems to expand its lineaments; the tears that gather in his eyes almost give quivering motion to the face before him. A strange emotion masters him.