“And if you’ll go on living till you’re about a hundred and five to keep me company, papa, I’ll be the oldest old maid in England with pleasure,” said she, affectionately, as she kissed his cheek and ran away upstairs.
She had some work to do this morning; work for which she must drive all thought of last night’s adventure out of her head. As soon as she reached her own room she unlocked the drawer in which she kept her trinkets, and spreading them out before her on the dressing-table, she mentally passed them in review to decide which were the most likely to be saleable. Not a bad collection for a young girl, they formed; though Olivia, ignorant as she was about the value of jewellery, thought how poor they looked from the point of view at which she was now considering them. A pair of turquoise and pearl earrings and brooch to match, a heavy gold bracelet, a set of garnets and pearls of quaint, old-fashioned design, a handsome silver chatelaine watch, a quantity of silver bangles, a few very modest-looking rings, a diamond arrow brooch, and a massive gold necklet. Everything but the arrow, which had been a present from her father on her eighteenth birthday, looked, in a strictly commercial light, clumsy or out of date. The arrow must be sacrificed, she told herself with a sigh; so must the gold necklet and bracelet, which she rightly judged to be next in value. If she could only sell these things, and get ten or twelve pounds for them, she could pay off a fair instalment of her father’s debt to Fred Williams immediately, and she must trust to luck and her own determination for the rest. So she made a parcel of the trinkets she had chosen, and, at the last moment, packed also the turquoise and pearl set; then, dressing hastily, she slipped out of the house, and started at a rapid pace on her way to Matherham.
Before she reached the high road, however, she was met by Fred Williams, who was sauntering about, pipe in mouth, at the point where the roads met, on the chance of meeting her. He surveyed her with a sidelong look of unwilling admiration.
“Good-morning, Miss Denison,” he said, curtly, pulling off his cap in a sort of grudging manner. “I suppose you have nothing fresh to say to me this morning?”
“Not at present, though I may have by-and-by,” said she, lightly.
“Oh, well, er—do you know whether your father is likely to be about this morning? I want to see him on business.”
Olivia looked at him with great contempt from under her sweeping black eyelashes.
“He is about, of course; but I don’t think you need trouble yourself to see him, for I have a message to you from him. It is this: the first instalment of the money he owes you will be paid to-day, and the remainder very shortly. And he is very sorry to have put you to any inconvenience by accepting the loan.”
With which speech, and a low bow, Olivia left Mr. Williams to the enjoyment of his own society.
Then on she sped towards Matherham, not by way of the wood and St. Cuthbert’s, but by the shorter road that went past the Towers. A great bare building it was, standing ostentatiously on very high ground, with a spire here, a minaret there, and various irregular erections springing up from the roof to make good its name. Olivia laughed to herself, and wished the lady who might ultimately obtain the hand of her mean-spirited admirer joy of her bargain. She was not unhappy; the fearful nature of her discovery of the night before had shaken her out of the depression from which she had lately been suffering. She was excited, full of indignation and of energy: her head full of wild surmises, of fears connected with the approaching crisis. As if trying to keep pace with her fantastic thoughts, her feet seemed to fly along the ground. The few persons she passed stared at or curtseyed to her without any acknowledgment; she saw no one but the people in her thoughts.