The New Mistress: A Tale

by George Manville Fenn

She had not opened it before during many months, but in imagination she had pictured its contends—a number of little white packets tied up with cotton lying one upon the other in a sort of neat chaos. Instead of this there were the pieces of paper certainly, but they had been opened, and the scraps of cotton were lying about with the crumpled paper and a number of pence.

It struck her as strange, that was all. She did not for the moment remember placing pence in the box, but she must have done so once, probably when she could not get them changed for silver. It was hard to recall what she had done in the course of so many weeks, and after trying for a few moments, she let the effort go, and picked up two or three of the pieces of paper to read her memorandums on the outer side. This one was six shillings and fivepence, that five and elevenpence, then a heavier one that had held ten shillings and sixpence; and again another, evidently when some arrears had been paid up, for it had contained eleven shillings and ninepence.

Then the paper dropped from Hazel’s hand, and, with lips parted and a look of astonishment in her eyes, she hurriedly took out the heap of pieces of paper, to find that, one and all, they had been emptied, and that at the bottom of the box lay about five shillings’ worth of coppers, not a single silver coin remaining behind.

“Ah!” ejaculated Hazel, and a chill of horror ran through her, followed by a peculiar sinking sensation of dread. Where was the money left in her charge—where were the contents of those little packets which she had so carefully tied up and entered? Not one remained untouched, for the box had been opened, and she had been robbed!

No: it was impossible. Who could know of the existence of that money? Strangers might know that she received the money weekly, but no one would be aware of the fact that she placed it in that box, locked it, and then locked the box in her drawer.

She must have made some mistake. It was impossible that she could have been robbed. It was a mistake certainly, and she hurriedly turned out the contents of the box upon the bed, and counted up the pence first—four shillings and ninepence. Then there were the empty papers.

Hazel put her hand to her head, feeling bewildered, and wondering whether she had not made some strange mistake. Did she know what she was doing, or was her memory failing from over-study?

Making a determined effort to be cool, she took the papers, arranged them by their dates, and checked them off by the statement which she had drawn up, to find that they tallied exactly; but when she had done that she was no further than before, and at last she stood there in a state of helpless despair, face to face with the fact that she had at last been called upon to give an account of her stewardship and the moneys that should have been ready for handing over to the churchwarden were gone.

Hazel sank down upon the floor with her hands clenched and her brain dizzy, to try and think out the meaning of this strange problem.

She recalled that she had had other difficult questions to solve before now—puzzles that had seemed perfectly insurmountable, but that they had grown less formidable by degrees, and the difficulties had been surmounted. Perhaps, then, this would prove less black after a time, and she would make out how it was.