Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 15

"Reed is not a man to say he did not do a thing if he did," interrupted Tod.

The Major glared at him for an instant, and then put out of hand a big gold pencil he was waving majestically.

"Clear the room of spectators," said he to the policeman.

Which was all Tod got for interfering. We had to go out: and in a minute or two Reed came out also, handcuffed as before; not in charge of old Jones, but of the county police. He had been sentenced to a month's imprisonment. Major Parrifer had wanted to make it three months; he said something about six; but the other two thought they saw some slightly extenuating circ.u.mstances in the case. A solicitor who was intimate with the Sterlings, and knew Reed very well, had been present towards the end.

"Could you not have spoken in my defence, sir?" asked Reed, as he pa.s.sed this gentleman in coming out.

"I would had I been able. But you see, my man, when the law gets broken----"

"The devil take the law," said Reed, savagely. "What I want is justice."

"And the administrators of it are determined to uphold it, what can be said?" went on the solicitor equably, as if there had been no interruption.

"You would make out that I broke the law, just doing what I did; and I swear it was no more? That I can be legally punished for it?"

"Don't, Reed; it's of no use. The Major and his witnesses swore you were at work. And it appears that you were."

"I asked them to take a fine--if I must be punished. I might have found friends to advance it for me."

"Just so. And for that reason of course they did not take it," said the candid lawyer.

"What is my wife to do while I am in prison? And the children? I may come out to find them starved. A month's long enough to starve them in such weather as this."

Reed was allowed time for no more. He would not have been allowed that, but for having been jammed by the crowd at the doorway. He caught my eye as they were getting clear.

"Master Johnny, will you go to the Court for me--your own place, sir--and tell the master that I swear I am innocent? Perhaps he'll let a few s.h.i.+llings go to the wife weekly; tell him with my duty that I'll work it out as soon as I am released. All this is done out of revenge, sir, because Major Parrifer couldn't get me from my cottage. May the Lord repay him!"

It caused a commotion, I can tell you, this imprisonment of Reed's; the place was ringing with it between the Court and d.y.k.e Manor. Our two houses seemed to have more to do with it than other people's; first, because Reed worked at the Court; secondly, because I, who owned both the Court and the cottage, lived at the Manor. People took it up pretty warmly, and Mrs. Reed and the children were cared for. Mr. Sterling paid her five s.h.i.+llings a week; and Mr. Brandon and the Squire helped her on the quiet, and there were others also. In small country localities gentlemen don't like to say openly that their neighbours are in the wrong: at any rate, they rarely _do_ anything by way of remedy. Some spoke of an appeal to the Home Secretary, but it came to nothing, and no steps were taken to liberate Reed. Bill Whitney, who was staying a week with us, wrote and told his mother about it; she sent back a sovereign for Mrs. Reed; we three took it to her, and went about saying old Parrifer ought to be kicked, which was a relief to our feelings.

But there's something to tell about Cathy. On the day that Reed was taken up, it was not known at his home immediately. The neighbours, aware that the wife was ill, said nothing to her--for old Duffham thought she was going to have a fever, and ordered her to be kept quiet.

For one thing, they did not know what there was to tell; except that Reed had been marched off from his work in handcuffs by Jones the constable. In the evening, when news came of his committal, it was agreed that an excuse should be made to Mrs. Reed that her husband had gone out on a business job for his master; and that Cathy--who could not fail to hear the truth from one or another--should be warned not to say anything.

"Tell Cathy to come out here," said the woman, looking over the gate. It was the little girl they spoke to; who could talk well: and she answered that Cathy was not there. So Ann Perkins, Mrs. Reed's sister, was called out.

"Where's Cathy?" cried they.

Ann Perkins answered in a pa.s.sion--that she did not know where Cathy was, but would uncommonly like to know, and she only wished she was behind her--keeping her there with her sister when she ought to be at her own home! Then the women told Ann Perkins what they had intended to tell Cathy, and looked out for the latter.

She did not come back. The night pa.s.sed, and the next day pa.s.sed, and Cathy was not seen or heard of. The only person who appeared to have met her was Goody Picker. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, Tuesday, and Cathy had her best bonnet on. Mother Picker remarked upon her looking so smart, and asked where she was going to. Cathy answered that her uncle (who lived at Evesham) had sent to say she must go over there at once. "But when she came to the two roads, she turned off quite on the contrairy way to Evesham, and I thought the young woman must be daft," concluded Mrs. Picker.

The month pa.s.sed away, and Reed came out; but Cathy had not returned.

He got home on foot, in the afternoon, his hair cut close, and seemed as quiet as a lamb. The man had been daunted. It was an awful insult to put upon him; a slur on his good name for life; and some of them said George Reed would never hold up his head again. Had he been cruel or vindictive, he might have revenged himself on Major Parrifer, personally, in a manner the Major would have found it difficult to forget.

The wife was about again, but sickly: the little ones did not at first know their father. One of the first people he asked after was Cathy.

The girl was not at hand to welcome him, and he took it in the light of a reproach. When men come for the first time out of jail, they are sensitive.

"Mr. Sterling called in yesterday, George, to say you were to go to your work again as soon as ever you came home," said the wife, evading the question about Cathy. "Everybody has been so kind; they know you didn't deserve what you got."

"Ah," said Reed, carelessly. "Where's Cathy?"

Mrs. Reed felt obliged to tell him. No diplomatist, she brought out the news abruptly: Cathy had not been seen or heard of since the afternoon he was sent to prison. That aroused Reed: nothing else seemed to have done it: and he got up from his chair.

"Why, where is she? What's become of her?"

The neighbours had been indulging in sundry speculations on the same question, which they had obligingly favoured Mrs. Reed with; but she did not think it necessary to impart them to her husband.

"Cathy was a good girl on the whole, George; putting aside that she'd do no work, and spent her time reading good-for-nothing books. What I think is this--that she heard of your misfortune after she left, and wouldn't come home to face it. She is eighteen now, you know."

"Come home from where?"

Mrs. Reed had to tell the whole truth. That Cathy, dressed up in her best things, had left home without saying a word to any one, stealing out of the house unseen; she had been met in the road by Mrs. Picker, and told her what has already been said. But the uncle at Evesham had seen nothing of her.

Forgetting his cropped hair--as he would have to forget it until it should grow again--George Reed went tramping off, there and then, the nearly two miles of way to Mother Picker's. She could not tell him much more than he already knew. "Cathy was all in her best, her curls 'iled, and her pink ribbons as fresh as her cheeks, and said in answer to questions that she had been sent for sudden to her uncle's at Evesham: but she had turned off quite the contrairy road." From thence, Reed walked on to his brother's at Evesham; and learnt that Cathy had not been sent for, and had not come.

When Reed got home, he was dead-beat. How many miles the man had walked that bleak February day, he did not stay to think--perhaps twenty. When excitement buoys up the spirit, the body does not feel fatigue. Mrs.

Reed put supper before her husband, and he ate mechanically, lost in thought.

"It fairly 'mazes me," he said, presently, in local phraseology. "But for going out in her best, I should think some accident had come to her.

There's ponds about, and young girls might slip in unawares. But the putting on her best things shows she was going somewhere."

"She put 'em on, and went off unseen," repeated Mrs. Reed, snuffing the candle. "_I_ should have thought she'd maybe gone off to some wake--only there wasn't one agate within range."

"Cathy had no bad acquaintance to lead her astray," he resumed. "The girls about here are decent, and mind their work."

"Which Cathy didn't," thought Mrs. Reed. "Cathy held her head above 'em," she said, aloud. "It's my belief she used to fancy herself one o' them fine ladies in her halfpenny books. She didn't seem to make acquaintance with n.o.body but that young Parrifer. She'd talk to him by the hour together, and I couldn't get her indoors."

Reed lifted his head. "Young Parrifer!--what--_his_ son?" turning his thumb in the direction of Parrifer Hall. "Cathy talked to him?"

"By the hour together," reiterated Mrs. Reed. "He'd be on that side the gate, a-talking, and laughing, and leaning on it; and Cathy, she'd be in the path by the tall hollyhocks, talking back to him, and fondling the children."

Reed rose up, a strange look on his face. "How long was that going on?"

"Ever so long; I can't just remember. But young Parrifer is only at the Hall by fits and starts."

"And you never told me, woman!"

"I thought no harm of it. I don't think harm of it now," emphatically added Mrs. Reed. "The worst of young Parrifer, that I've seen, is that he's as soft as a tomt.i.t."

Reed put on his hat without another word, and walked out. Late as it was, he was going to the Hall. He rang a peal at it, more like a lord than a labourer just let out of prison. There was some delay in opening the door: the household had gone upstairs; but a man came at last.

"I want to see Major Parrifer."

The words were so authoritative; the man's appearance so strange, with his tall figure and his clipped hair, as he pushed forward into the hall, that the servant momentarily lost his wits. A light, in a room on the left, guided Reed; he entered it, and found himself face to face with Major Parrifer, who was seated in an easy-chair before a good fire, spirits on the table, and a cigar in his mouth. What with the smoke from that, what with the faint light--for all the candles had been put out but one--the Major did not at first distinguish his late visitor's face.

When the bare head and the resolute eyes met his, he certainly paled a little, and the cigar fell on to the carpet.

"I want my daughter, Major Parrifer."