Chapter XII: Those Three Letters

Pattie pointed to the keys hanging from the japanned tin box.

"Those are yours—not mine," she said.

"I can't get them out. The key has stuck."

"When did you find that you could unlock my box?" Pattie's quietness had a mastery over Mrs. Cragg, subduing her vehemence, and this question received an answer.

"I found the other day that I'd got a key to fit."

"What day?"

"When the boxes first came. I found it out directly."

"And you read—did you read anything?"

"Not then—not that day, I mean." Mrs. Cragg wondered at herself for tamely answering these queries, yet she went on doing so.

"But another day you did?"

"One or two letters."

"That was what you meant just now, when you said you had found what you wanted to know." Pattie had to sit down, for her limbs gave way under her. "And to-day—you meant to read more letters."

"No, I didn't. I meant just to put them back—the ones I had taken. I didn't want to keep them."

"Where are they?"

Mrs. Cragg brought the three sheets out of her pocket, and gave them to Pattie. The girl had grown white.

"You have read these?"

"Yes; I didn't see why I shouldn't,"—with another attempt to brazen it out. "I don't see why I shouldn't,—if you wouldn't tell me anything. It was your own fault—being so obstinate."

"If you have read them, I must read them too."

Mrs. Cragg fidgeted uneasily. Pattie sat motionless, her eyes travelling down one page after another.

"Yes," she said at the end, with a deep sigh. "That was what brought us away. I see it now. He was accused of something—and I guessed it partly. I was told, but of course I did not believe what I heard. And my father never explained. He only said it was a mistake, and he was not to blame. And I believed him—because I knew what he was. I knew he could not have done the thing he was accused of. You did not know him, and so you could not tell. And he wanted to spare me knowing about this. He knew it would make me unhappy, and so he kept it to himself. And you—you could find it out for yourself—you could pry into another's secrets! I can't say much to you, because Mr. Cragg has been so good to me, and because just now I depend upon you. But—after this, I cannot depend much longer. I must make a change as soon as possible. You have been very very cruel!"

Pattie hid her face.

"I don't see, for my part, what you've got to make a fuss about," remarked Mrs. Cragg uncomfortably. "I don't see that you need bother. It isn't more than you knew before."

"It is—much more!"

"Anyhow, I won't tell. There's no need that I should. If you like to burn those letters, nobody will hear a word."

"Ah!" and Pattie drew a long breath. "Yes —to-day you feel like that. But—another day—"

Pattie's tone was sorrowfully distrustful.

"But I promise I won't say anything. If I promise—"

Mrs. Cragg stopped. She knew suddenly that her promise had no weight, could have no weight, in Pattie's eyes. She had shown herself to be deceitful. Pattie could feel no confidence in what she might say. This fact struck home. Mrs. Cragg was unpleasantly conscious of distrust in Pattie's face. Her tone changed.

"You'll go next and tell Mr. Cragg, of course."

"No. Not what you have done. That is for you to tell him—not me. I shall tell him what I have learnt about my father, and nothing more. I shall tell him that I have read three letters, and that all the rest are burnt."

"He'll want to know why you didn't burn those three, too."

"I don't think so. Men are not so curious." Pattie spoke with unconscious rebuke. "If he should ask, I need not say much. I think, if I were you, I should feel that I ought to tell him everything. But that is for you—not for me. I have only to speak to him about what concerns my father and me."

"I can't get that key out." Mrs. Cragg spoke curtly, yet in her voice there was a new note, a something like regret.

Pattie knelt down and worked patiently at the lock. It was a long business. For more than five minutes her efforts were in vain. Then at last the key yielded, and she handed the bunch to Mrs. Cragg. After which she stooped, and pressed her lips to the lid. Mrs. Cragg waited uneasily, longing to escape, yet hardly knowing how to do so.

"Pattie, you have behaved uncommonly nice about it," she said at length. "And—I don't mind saying that I didn't mean any harm. I thought I'd a right—and I say so still. But I didn't mean any harm."

Pattie tried to speak, and failed. Tears were running over her cheeks.

"I don't see, for my part, why you should fuss about it. I don't see that it matters. What difference can it make now—about what those letters say?"

"No difference—to you—or to any one except me. Only I know better what it meant—what he had to go through. He bore it all so patiently—never a hard word about anybody. And all the time he was accused of what he had never done. And I loved him so—I love him! It doesn't matter to you—not the very least. It does to me—more than anything in all the world."

"But—" and Mrs. Cragg came to a pause.

"I don't know how to bear it. And any time it may come out—and people will believe that he did what he never could have done."

"Only, you can't be sure—you don't really know."

"He told me himself. I do know. You cannot know," Pattie said bitterly. "And if it comes out, he will not be here to defend himself. He cannot explain how things were."

"But you don't think I would go and make it known now, do you?"

Pattie stood up. She had been kneeling by the box hitherto. Her lips moved, but no sound passed them.

"Why should I? It wouldn't do any good. I wanted to know—because I thought I'd a right. But you might be sure that I wouldn't tell anybody else."

"How can I be sure?"

"Why, what should make me tell?"

"I do not know what should make you not tell."

"Only, if I promise—"

A look of distrust again.

"You needn't put on that sort of air. If I promise that I'll never tell anybody what I know—and if I mean it—"

"You do not mean to say anything to-day. But another day, if you happened to be vexed, and wished to show that you were, you would tell the whole. It would be only natural—for you!" Pattie glanced at the keys, which still hung from Mrs. Cragg's hand.

There lay the gist of the matter. Mrs. Cragg had deceived her. For a long while to come Pattie could never feel sure that she was not being again deceived by Mrs. Cragg.

If Mrs. Cragg had never been abashed before, she was so now before that tear-stained face with its truthful gaze. There was no unkindness in Pattie's expression, no lack of forgiveness; but there was entire lack of confidence. Her look said plainly what her words implied,—how could she feel sure? Mrs. Cragg had proved herself untrustworthy. That fact once shown, trust in the person concerned becomes a thing impossible. There may be kindness, forgiveness, pity—there may even be an appearance of trust put on, for one reason or another—but real trust is out of the question.

Nothing more was seen of Pattie until half-past five o'clock, when they were wont to meet for a more substantial meal than on other days. Dot was always present at tea-time, and on Sunday she reckoned upon extra sweets and cakes, as well as upon extra leisure on the part of Mr. Cragg to pet and spoil her. Pattie was silent, and looked grave, and her eyelids were reddened, but otherwise manner was as usual. She sat with her back to the light, so that Mr. Cragg did not quickly note the signs of tears. Dot claimed all his attention, as she eagerly related how she had gone to church, and how she had been "dood," and how Pattie had praised her. After which she launched into a description of what a lot the Vicar had "talked," and how Pattie had told her to listen, "so's I can tell you, dadda, all about it," she beamingly declared in the intervals of cake.

"Tell me, Dot, what did the clergyman say?"

"Lots," declared Dot, eyeing the jam.

"Well, let's have it. Make haste, because I'm going to church this evening, and so is Pattie, and I want to hear about the afternoon sermon."

Dot did what some older people are sometimes capable of doing. Since memory failed to recall the address in question, she calmly substituted something else.

"Gazi went and telled a wicked tory, and got hims whited all over," she asserted.

"No, Dot, it wasn't that," Pattie interposed. She felt the subject a dangerous one under the circumstances. "Not Gehazi—you're forgetting. That was what we talked about before we went to church. The Vicar preached something different. Don't you remember? About the little boat on the lake."

Dot declined to remember, and her small head was shaken with a positive air.

"Gazi was a wicked wicked mans, and he wented and telled a wicked wicked tory. And when he done that, Lisha made him all white, and he went off and he was most dreadful sorry; and lots of peoples tell tories, dad, and they'se all got to be whited."

"All right, don't stop the child," said Cragg, when Pattie would have spoken. "I like her to speak out what is in her little mind. After all, the important question is what has made an impression on her, not what might make an impression on you or me. Go on, Dot. What else did Gehazi do?"

Pattie would not look towards Mrs. Cragg, and Mrs. Cragg, remembering former errors, held herself in.

"He wented and he got focks and coats and lots of fings, and he hided them away, and he saided it was Lisha what had sented him, and Lisha didn't. It was all a bad tory, dadda. And Lisha was dreadful angry, and so Gazi got all whited. Poor Gazi! Ain't you sorry for Gazi?"

"But perhaps Gehazi deserved it, Dot."

Dot cheerfully assented to that view of the question.

"Naughty bad Gazi!" she remarked. "And Lisha wasn't naughty, was he, Pattie? Lisha was good. I saw Lisha in the picture, frowning at Gazi most dreadful. It's Pattie's little picture. And lots of focks and coats all hided away."

"But you couldn't see the frocks and coats in the picture, Dot?"

"O no, dadda, 'cause they was hided away, and Gazi telled a wicked tory, and saided he hadn't not been nowhere. 'N then he was whited. Does everybody get whited what tells wicked tories? Does ma-ma when she tells tories?"

Mrs. Cragg was the reverse of white at this instant. Cragg uttered a hasty "Sh-sh-sh!" glancing at his wife as he did so. Something in her face made him repeat the look, even while he said again, "Hush! Hush! Little girls must never talk so. Hold your little tongue, Dot; that won't do at all."

Then his eyes fell upon Pattie. She had moved slightly, under the stress of feeling, and he could see her better than before.

"Why, Pattie, you've been crying!" he exclaimed.