“Let me take the negus to Jemmy,” said Franceline, when there was a break in the stream and she was able to edge in a word. “I will explain why you could not go.”
“Oh! that’s just like you to be so kind, my dear; but I promised, you see, and I really must go myself. What can Keziah be about?”
“Then go, and I will wait and keep the house until either of you comes back,” suggested Franceline.
“Oh! that is a bright idea. That is as witty as it is kind. Well, then, I will just run off. I shall find you here when I return. I won’t be twenty minutes away, and you can amuse yourself looking over Robinson Crusoe till I come back; here it is!” And the old lady rooted out a book from under a pile of all sorts of odds and ends on the table, and handed it to Franceline. “Sit down, now, and read that; there’s nothing I enjoyed like that book when I was your age, and, indeed, I make a point of reading it at least once every year regularly.”
With this she took up her wine-flask, well wrapped in flannel to protect her from the scalding-hot contents, and bustled away.
“If any one rings, am I to let them in?” inquired Franceline, running into the hall after her.
“Oh! no, certainly not, unless it happens to be Mr. Langrove; you would not mind opening the door to him, would you?”
“Not the least; but how shall I know it is he?”
“You will be sure to hear the footsteps first and the click of the gate outside, and then run out and peep through this,” pointing to the narrow latticed window in the entry; “but you must be quick, or else they will be close to the door and see you.”
Franceline promised to keep a sharp lookout for the warning steps, closed the door on Miss Merrywig, and went back to Robinson Crusoe; but she was not in a mood to enjoy Friday’s philosophy, so she sat down and began to look about her in the queer little apartment. It was much more like a lumber-room than a sitting-room; the large round table in the middle was littered with every description of rubbish—the letters of two generations of Miss Merrywig’s correspondents, old pamphlets, odds and ends of ribbon and lace, little boxes, bags of stale biscuits that were kept for the pet dogs of her friends when they came to visit her, quantities of china cats and worsted monkeys, samplers made for her by great-grandnieces, newspapers of the year one, tracts and books of hymns, all huddled pell-mell together. Fifty years’ smoke and lamp-light had painted the ceiling all over in dense black clouds, and the cobwebs of innumerable defunct spiders festooned the cornices. The carpet had half a century ago been bright with poppies and bluebells and ferns; but these vanities, like the memory of the unrighteous man, had been blotted out, and had left no trace behind them. Franceline was considering how singular it was that anything so bright and simple and happy as Miss Merrywig should be the presiding genius of this abode of incongruous rubbish, and wishing she could make a clean sweep of it all, and tidy the place a little, when her attention was roused by a sound of footsteps. She ran out at once to look through the lattice; but she had waited too long. There was only time to shrink behind the door when the visitors had come up and the bell was sounding through the cottage. There were two persons, if not more; she knew this by the footsteps. Presently some one spoke; it was Mr. Charlton. He was continuing, in a low voice, a conversation already begun. Then another voice answered, speaking in a still lower key; but every word was distinctly audible through the open casement, which was so covered by an outer iron bar and the straggling stem of a japonica that no one from the outside would see that it was open, unless they looked very close. The words Franceline overheard had nothing in them to make her turn pale; but the voice was Clide de Winton’s. What fatality was this that brought them so near again, and yet kept them apart, and condemned her to hide and listen to him like an eavesdropper? There was a pause after the first ring. Mr. Charlton knew the ways of the house; he said something laughingly, and rang again. Then they reverted to the conversation that had been interrupted. Good God! did Franceline’s ears deceive her, or what were these words she heard coupled with her father’s name? She put her hand to her lips with a sudden movement to stifle the cry that leaped up from her heart of hearts. She heard Clide giving an emphatic denial: “I don’t believe it. I tell you it is some mistake—one of those unaccountable mistakes that we can’t explain or understand, but which we know must be mistakes.”