Miss Arnott's Marriage Part 38

The housemaid was equal to the requirements of the occasion.

"I did come with it to you. I came with it straight to this bedroom.

They told me you were here; it wasn't my fault if you weren't."

"Oh dear no! And, I suppose, it wasn't your fault if, finding I wasn't here, you unlocked the drawer!"

"I only wanted to see if it was the lost key I had found; I meant no harm."

Again Miss Arnott.

"Now, Evans, will you be silent! Well, Wilson, I don't see that, so far, you have been guilty of anything very reprehensible. It's quite possible that, somehow, the key may have slipped into the hem of your skirt; such accidents have been known. When you had tried the key and found that it was the one which had been mislaid; when you had opened the drawer with it, what did you do then?"

Again the lady's-maid was not to be denied. Orders or no orders, she refused to be silent.

"Yes, what did she do? I'll tell you what she did; don't you listen to anything she says, miss. She took liberties with everything that was inside that drawer, just as if the things was her own. She turned all the things out that was in it; you can see for yourself that it's empty! and she's got some of them now. Though I've asked her for them she won't give them up; yet she has the face to say she didn't mean to steal 'em!"

This time the housemaid was silent. Miss Arnott became conscious that not only had she been all the time holding herself very upright, but, also, that she was keeping her hands behind her back--in short, that her att.i.tude more than suggested defiance.

"Wilson, is this true?"

The answer was wholly unlooked for.

"My mother is Jim Baker's cousin, miss."

"Your mother--" Miss Arnott stopped short to stare. "And what has that to do with your having in your possession property which is not your own?"

Her next answer was equally unexpected.

"And Mr Granger, he's my uncle, miss."

"Mr Granger? What Mr Granger?"

"The policeman down in the village, miss."

"Apparently, Wilson, you are to be congratulated on your relations, but I don't see what they have to do with what Evans was saying."

"I can't help that, miss."

"You can't help what? Your manner is very strange. What do you mean?"

The girl was silent. Miss Arnott turned to the lady's-maid. "Evans, what does she mean?"

"Don't ask me, miss; she don't know herself. The girl's wrong in her head, that's what's the matter with her. She'll get herself into hot water, if she don't look out; and that before very long. Now, then, you give me what you've got there!"

"Don't you lay your hands on me, Mrs Evans, or you'll be sorry."

"Evans!--Wilson!"

Kit had not been for Miss Arnott's presence it looked very much as if the two would have indulged in a scrimmage then and there. The lady's-maid showed a strong inclination to resort to physical force, which the other evinced an equal willingness to resent.

"Wilson, what is it which you are holding behind your back? I insist upon your showing me at once."

"This, miss--and this."

CHAPTER XXVII

A CONFIDANT

In her right hand Wilson held a knife--the knife. Miss Arnott needed no second glance to convince her of its ident.i.ty. In her left a dainty feminine garment--a camisole, compact of lace and filmy lawn. The instant she disclosed them Evans moved forward, as if to s.n.a.t.c.h from her at least the knife. But Wilson was as quick as she was--quicker.

Whipping her hands behind her back again she retreated out of reach.

"No, you don't! hands off! you try to s.n.a.t.c.h, you do!"

The baffled lady's-maid turned to her mistress.

"You see, miss, what she's like! and yet she wants to make out that she's no thief!"

Miss Arnott was endeavouring to see through the situation in her mind, finding herself suddenly confronted by the unforeseen. It was impossible that the girl could mean what she seemed to mean; a raw country wench in her teens!

"Wilson, you seem to be behaving in a very strange manner, and to be forgetting yourself altogether. It is not strange that Evans has her doubts of you. Give me those things which you have in your hands at once."

"Begging your pardon, miss, I can't."

"They're not yours."

"No, miss, I know they're not."

"Then, if you're an honest girl, as you pretend, what possible reason can you have for refusing to give me my own property, which you have taken out of my drawer in a manner which is at least suspicious?"

"Because Jim Baker, he's my mother's cousin; and Mr Granger he's my uncle."

"What possible justification can that be for your trying to steal what belongs to me?"

Then it came out.

"My uncle he says to me, 'I don't believe Jim Baker done it--I don't believe he did anything to the chap beyond peppering him. Jim's no liar. 'Twill be a shame if they hang him. No, my girl,' Mr Granger says, 'it's my belief that they know more over at Exham Park than they pretend, or, at least, someone does. You keep your eyes wide open. We don't want to have no one hung in our family, specially for just peppering a chap. If you come across anything suspicious, you let me know and you let me have a look at it, if so be you can. Your mother don't want to have Jim Baker hung, nor more don't I.' Miss Arnott, you put them things in the drawer the time that you came home, the time that chap was murdered, the time that you was out in the woods till all hours. They haven't found the knife what did it yet, and this knife's all covered with blood; so's the things. I'm going to let Mr Granger see what I've got here, and tell him where I found them. If there's nothing wrong about them I'll have to suffer, but show them to him I will."

Miss Arnott, perceiving that here was an emergency in which prompt action was the one thing needful, glanced at Evans, who was quick to take the hint. She advanced towards Wilson with designs which that young woman considered sufficiently obvious. To evade her, still holding her booty behind her to secure it from Evans, she turned her back to Miss Arnott who was not slow to avail herself of the opportunity to grip her wrists and tear the knife and camisole away from her. The wench, finding herself outwitted, sprang at her mistress, screaming,--

"Give them to me! give them to me! You give them back to me!"

But Miss Arnott had already dropped them into the open wardrobe drawer, shut the drawer and turned the key. While she kept the girl at arms'

length, to prevent her wresting from her the key, Miss Arnott issued her instructions to the lady's-maid.

"Evans, ring the bell, keep on ringing."