“That’s true enough,” said Vicars: then he added, “It’s a bit of an old copybook as someone has been tearing up. Missus can’t bear a litter—that’s why I asked you. Beg your pardon, miss; I hope it’s no offence.”
“If you mean to me, I am not in the least offended,” said Janet, with her most dignified air, and Vicars, though with another searching look at her, turned away.
She watched him go back and collect carefully all the scraps in the border. Those she had seemed to burn her fingers with the impatience she felt to examine them: but in face of Vicars’ suspicious looks she would not turn back and run in as she wished to do. She had to make the whole long round sedately before she could take refuge indoors and in her own room. And by that time the afternoon had begun to grow dusk towards evening. She locked her door, and lighted her candle, with an excitement which made her temples throb, and then sat down at the table and began her task to piece the scraps together. It was by no means an easy task—no child’s puzzle was ever so difficult—the bits of paper were very small, and of the most obstinately disjointed character. A few of them, a very few, fitted into each other, and the handwriting was large and sprawling, one word going over several lines: for the paper was ruled in lines, as if it had been, as Vicars said, a copy-book. To support this idea further, Janet found, after going over the scraps which she had been able to piece together, that the same words were repeated over and over, and that on several pieces which seemed to have formed the bottom of the page there were some scrawls that looked like a name. She deciphered, by degrees, “I can’t,” and “I want,” and the word “out,” written in all kinds of letters, sometimes small and sometimes large.
The name at the end gave her still more trouble. She made out at last an Adol, Char—and then there came a piece of paper more triangular than ever, containing the following curious hieroglyphic—“esHar—w—” She pondered over this till the candle burned down and the dressing-bell rang. “esHar.” What did it mean? She dressed hurriedly, with her mind still full of this problem. It only gleamed upon her what it was as she stood, looking in the glass, putting the last touches to her dress. Sometimes, to look at your own face in the glass is like looking into the face of an intelligent friend, and it sharpens your wits. “esHar—w.” She spelt it over and over to herself—“e-s-h-a-r—w.” What did it mean?
At last Janet threw up her arms over her head and burst into a laugh, though she was alone—a laugh full of confusion and self-ridicule. Mean! Of course what it meant was as clear as daylight. Adol for Adolphus, or Dolff; Char for Charles, with the two last letters joined on to the Harwood—Adolphus Charles Harwood. What could be more clear? She might have known that it must be Dolff’s big, straggling hand. Janet laughed at herself till she cried, but subdued the sound, lest anyone should hear, and flung her scraps of paper into a box as if she had been playing at a letter game. Of course, that was what it was—an old copy-book of Dolff’s inscribed with his name—Adolphus Charles Harwood—after the usage of the school-room. How could she have been such a fool? She thought of Catherine Morland in “Northanger Abbey,” and blushed crimson and hid her face in her hands, though she was alone. How ridiculous she had made herself? Only, fortunately, nobody knew—not even Vicars knew.
There was not much music downstairs that night, for the time of the ball was now very near, and everybody was interested in talking it over—the people who were coming, and where “Dolff’s men” were to be put up, and all the details. It had given the family a great deal of trouble, as Gussy had prophesied it would, and they liked to find a recompense for these fatigues and anxieties in endless discussions. Janet found an opportunity, while they were all busy with the box of programmes which had just arrived, of looking at the autograph upon Dolff’s music. It was, to her surprise, not at all like the sprawling hieroglyphics of the copy-book; but then, to be sure, he must have been a child when he had written the others. The music was all inscribed “A. Harwood” in a neat little concise hand. He saw her looking at it, and came up to her.
“You are looking at those wretched old things of mine, Miss Summerhayes?”
“No; I was only looking at your name on it. You don’t use your second name?”
“For a very good reason—I haven’t got one. It’s a ridiculous name, isn’t it? I sign ‘D.’ always to my friends. But ‘A.’ is a good enough disguise. A great many fellows are Arthur, or Andrew or Alfred, or something like a man, so I creep among them. You never would suspect a man of being Adolphus, eh?” cried the young man, “if you saw only A. standing for his name?”
“I don’t think I should,” said Janet; “but I thought you were Adolphus Charles.”