Chapter XI: In the Very Act

DOT'S words had given something of a shock to Mrs. Cragg, and now she was sorry that she had taken notice of them. For her side of the matter, it might have been better if she had seemed not to hear what was said. Her anger would only serve to fix the recollection upon the child's mind, which otherwise might have passed away; and probably also Pattie would not forget.

When the two had gone to church, she would be secure of a quiet hour, the girl being out also. She meant then to restore the letters. That done, she would have no more to do with Pattie's possessions.

But when a person gets into a coil through wrong-doing, it is not easy to get out again.

Pattie and Dot disappeared, and Mrs. Cragg waited for the bells to cease. Mr. Cragg always went at this time for a country walk, and she believed that he had started.

Just as she meant to move, Cragg came in. While he was within reach Mrs. Cragg dared take no steps. She waited with ill-concealed impatience, answered tartly when he spoke, and asked whether he did not mean to have a walk.

"It's a new plan, your stopping in Sunday afternoon," said she. "I thought you always wanted fresh air, not to sit lounging about here!"

"You seem in a great hurry to get rid of me."

"Well, you always do go out on Sunday. Why shouldn't you?"

"I do generally. I am not feeling quite the thing this afternoon— a little out of order,—and I thought I'd take a quiet time."

"Fresh air's likely to do you good."

"Presently, perhaps. Has Pattie said anything to you about her father's papers?"

Mrs. Cragg reddened.

"Why should she? What have I got to do with them? Of all suspicious men, you are the very most—"

"My dear, what can you mean?" Cragg gazed in surprise. "I do not see anything to vex you in what I have said. Nor do I understand what you have in mind. There is no suspicion. I have asked a simple question. Has Pattie said anything?"

"Nothing particular. Why should she?"

"I do not understand her feeling about that box. She objects to examining the contents."

"Yes. It's ridiculous of her!"

"Then you do know?"

"I didn't see what you were driving at. She told me that. The girl's an idiot. I said it was absurd, and she was as obstinate as a mule. Of course her father's papers are hers now, and she ought to read them."

"I should have said that she ought. There might be something that he would wish done. But she has a feeling of delicacy. Perhaps that feeling might be more frequent—with advantage—as to those who are gone."

"I don't know what you mean. I know what Pattie means. Feeling of delicacy, indeed! Stuff and nonsense! Pattie knows that her father was a scamp, and she doesn't want to make it known, that's all."

"My dear! Do you know what you are saying? What reason can you have for such a notion?"

"I know! There's a lot too much mystery. People don't go hiding up things when there's nothing to hide. I believe he was a downright bad man. And I believe Pattie knows it too. That's why she won't tell us about him, and why she pretends she doesn't want to read his papers. It's because she knows things will come out, and she doesn't want to have to tell."

Cragg was silent. That some mystery existed, that some shade lay over Dale's past, he could not deny. But he thought of Dale's dying words—"Remember! I did not do it. In the sight of God I say that. It was not me. I didn't do it."

"My dear, you are mistaken. Dale may have been unfortunate. He was not to blame, I am sure."

"And I'm sure just the other way, Mr. Cragg. Some day you'll find out that I am right."

Cragg remained lost in thought. Then he stood up slowly, as if disliking further argument, and made his way from the room. Mrs. Cragg watched impatiently for his going out, and she had to wait nearly half an hour.

At last the coast was clear.

The letters and the bunch of keys were in readiness. Mrs. Cragg hurried across the passage, entered Pattie's room, rushed to the cupboard, pulled away the cardboard boxes, fitted in the key, and turned it.

She lifted the lid, and almost fell backwards in her amazement. The box was empty.

Had Pattie emptied it? If so, for what reason?

Mrs. Cragg sat upon her heels, staring bewilderedly. What to do next was the question. Should she restore the stolen letters to the empty box, trusting that Pattie would suppose herself to have overlooked them? Should she take them away and burn them?

After considerable hesitation, Mrs. Cragg decided on the latter course as the safer of the two. She slipped the letters into her pocket, and locked—or tried to lock—the box.

But the key refused to turn.

Mrs. Cragg struggled, and her struggles were in vain. Again and again she strove, and the refractory key had the best of it. Time was getting on. In a few minutes Pattie and Dot might return. Mrs. Cragg waxed desperate. There was nothing for it but to leave the box unlocked. Pattie might forget, and might imagine that she had done this herself. She tried to pull out the key, meaning to decamp with all speed.

But the key refused to be pulled out.

It was attached to a large bunch, well known in the household as belonging to herself. Mrs. Cragg pulled, hauled, coaxed, struggled—all in vain. The key remained firmly fixed. It could neither be turned nor withdrawn. Mrs. Cragg, heated and alarmed, tried to loosen it from the bunch. The ring was of a new patent make, difficult to manage, and in her flurry she could not open it.

Then the front door creaked, and Dot's little voice asked in shrill accents:

"Were I a dood lickle girl, Pattie?"

"Very good, Dot."

"Nor I didn't fidget, nor make no noise, Pattie?"

"No, darling. Dot was the best little girl that ever was. I'll take Dot again to church another Sunday."

The bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Cragg stood up, crimson and defiant. Since she could no longer hope to escape detection, she resolved to take refuge in bluster.

"Well," she said, with a harsh laugh; "so you thought you'd cheat me out of it, did you? You thought you'd keep me from finding out anything, eh? But you haven't. I've been one too many for you this time. I've found out what I wanted to know—just that, exactly —and you'd better have told me at once, and made no fuss. Pretending that you didn't mean to read the letters, and then doing it on the sly, as soon as ever my back was turned! I understand what it all means. But you're too late, with all your cunning."

Pattie grew as pale as if she, and not Mrs. Cragg, had been the guilty person. Her lips parted, and a grieved tremor passed over them. She turned, without a word, and went to the door.

"Dot, dear, run away. Run to the nursery. I'll come there presently."

"I wants to tome into Pattie's loom."

"No, not now. I am busy, Dot."

"P'ease do let me," entreated the little voice.

"No, dear. Dot must be good and run away." Pattie came back, shut the door, and stood looking at Mrs. Cragg, her face full of wonderment. The cupboard door was open, the cardboard boxes were displaced, the bunch of keys hung from the lock of the open and empty tin box.

"You needn't have been at all that bother and fuss—sending Dot away. It don't matter. I don't care who knows," declared Mrs. Cragg hardily, while unable to meet Pattie's gaze. "I told you I'd a right, and so I have. If you don't choose to tell me things, I've got to find them out for myself, that's all. And I mean to do it. I shall do it again next time there's something I ought to know. I've a right, and I mean to do it. It don't matter Dot nor anybody knowing."

"I'm so sorry—oh, so sorry!" murmured Pattie. Tears filled her eyes. "I didn't think you could."

"You took mighty good care to empty the box, anyway. I s'pose you thought you'd make sure I shouldn't find out your secrets. But I've been one too many for you."

"I did not empty the box because of that—because I ever could have dreamt that you would look." Pattie spoke with difficulty. "How could I think of such a thing? Mr. Cragg was speaking to me about the letters a day or two ago. He said I might feel free to read them all, and he advised me to do it. He said he thought I ought. And I could not feel as he did. How could I know what my father would like? I was afraid of being made in the end to do what Mr. Cragg wished—and what I could not feel to be right. And so—I took all the letters out, and— I burnt them. I took them into the kitchen, and put them into the stove."

"Then you're a greater fool than I thought you even!" Mrs. Cragg replied roughly. "Why, there might be money—there might be something written to yourself."

"No. Mr. Cragg said that too, and I looked through all the packets carefully—not reading, but just seeing the names and dates. There was no money anywhere, and there were no papers for me. None at all. All of them were letters to my father, and most were quite old—written a great many years ago. They were not meant for me to see. And you— you would have read them!" Pattie said this in a tone of unbelieving amazement. "You would have read them! You couldn't, surely, have meant to do that!"

A faint sense of shame kept Mrs. Cragg silent. Pattie came a step nearer.

"If Dot had seen—only think, if little Dot had seen!" she said. "Dot—who ought only to know you as true! Think—if she had known!"

"A baby like her! As if it mattered!"

"But it does matter—very much. Promise me that Dot shall never hear about this."

Mrs. Cragg broke into a laugh.

"And you are not sorry! You do not mind! Not in the very least."

There was a short silence. Mrs. Cragg had some ado to keep up her hardness before that grieved face.

"It's all your fault," she said at length. "You've been past everything with your fancies, not telling anything I'd a right to know, and pretending you couldn't read the letters. As if everybody didn't read other people's letters when they're dead! And so of course I thought I'd see for myself. There was no reason why I shouldn't. Mr. Cragg and I are giving you a home, and we have a right to know about you."

"Not to find it out in that way," said Pattie gravely. "And it was no pretending. I have thought it wrong to read the letters. Other people thinking differently did not make it right for me. I could not do what I felt to be wrong."