She was not as nervous as Miss Peacock, but she was anxious to make no mistake. “Here?” she asked.
“Yes, there. Be careful.” Arthur snuffed the candles, and as he did so he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes searching the shadows. Then he leant over her, watching her pen.
She wrote her name, slowly and carefully. “Good!” he said, and he removed the document. He set another before her, and silently showed her with his finger where to write. She wrote her name.
“Now here,” he said. “Here! But wait! Is there enough ink in the pen?”
She dipped the pen in the inkpot to make sure, and shook it, that there might be no danger of a blot. Again she wrote her name.
“Capital!” he said. His voice betrayed relief. “That’s done, and well done! Couldn’t be better. Now it’s my turn.”
“But”—Jos looked up in doubt, the pen still in her hand—“but I’ve signed three, Arthur! I thought there were but two.”
“Three!” exclaimed the Squire, turning his head, his attention caught. “Damme!”—peevishly—“what mess has the girl made now?” It was part of his creed that in matters of business no woman was to be trusted to do the smallest thing as it should be done.
But Arthur only laughed. “No mess, sir,” he said. “Only a goose of herself! She has witnessed your trial signature as well as the others. That’s all. I thought I could make her do it, and she did it as solemnly as you like!” He laughed a little loudly. “I shall keep that Jos.”
The Squire, pleased with himself, and glad that the business was over, was in a good humor, and he joined in the laugh. “It will teach you not to be too free with your signature, my girl,” he said. “When you come some day to have a cheque book, you’ll find that that won’t do! Won’t do, at all! Well, thank God, that’s done.”