Part 21 (1/2)

Chapter XIII

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FORGERIES.

One morning the man who went once a-week from old Hawker's, at the Woodlands, down to the post, brought back a letter, which he delivered to Madge at the door. She turned it over and examined it more carefully than she generally did the old man's letters, for it was directed in a clerk-like hand, and was sealed with a big and important-looking seal, and when she came to examine this seal, she saw that it bore the words ”B. and F. Bank.” ”So, they are at it again, are they?” she said. ”The deuce take 'em, I say: though for that matter I can't exactly blame the folks for looking after their own. Well, there's no mistake about one thing, he must see this letter, else some of 'em will be coming over and blowing the whole thing. He will ask me to read it for him, and I'll do so, right an end. Lord, what a breeze there'll be! I hope I shall be able to pull my lad through, though it very much depends on the old 'uns temper. However, I shall soon know.”

Old Hawker was nearly blind, and, although an avaricious, suspicious old man, as a general rule, trusted implicitly on ordinary occasions to George and Madge in the management of his accounts, reflecting, with some reason, that it could not be their interest to cheat him. Of late, however, he had been uneasy in his mind. Madge, there was no denying, had got through a great deal more money than usual, and he was not satisfied with her account of where it had gone. She, we know, was in the habit of supplying George's extravagances in a way which tried all her ingenuity to hide from him, and he, mistrusting her statements, had determined as far as he could to watch her.

On this occasion she laid the letter on the breakfast table, and waited his coming down, hoping that he might be in a good humour, so that there might be some chance of averting the storm from George. Madge was much terrified for the consequences, but was quite calm and firm.

Not long before she heard his heavy step coming down the stairs, and soon he came into the room, evidently in no favourable state of mind.

”If you don't kill or poison that black tom-cat,” was his first speech, ”by the Lord I will. I suppose you keep him for some of your witchwork.

But, if he's the devil himself, as I believe he is, I'll shoot him. I won't be kept out of my natural sleep by such a devil's brat as that.

He's been keeping up such a growling and a scrowling on the hen-house roof all night, that I thought it was Old Scratch come for you, and getting impatient. If you must keep an imp of Satan in the house, get a mole, or a rat, or some quiet beast of that sort, and not such a vicious toad as him.”

”Shoot him after breakfast if you like,” she said. ”He's no friend of mine. Get your breakfast, and don't be a fool. There's a letter for you; take and read it.”

”Yah! Read it, she says, and knows I'm blind,” said Hawker. ”You artful minx, you want to read it yourself.”

He took the letter up, and turned it over and over. He knew the seal, and shot a suspicious glance at her. Then, looking at her fixedly, he put it in his breastpocket, and b.u.t.toned up his coat.

”There!” he said. ”I'll read it. Oh yes, believe me, I'll read it. You Jezebel!”

”You'd better eat your meat like a Christian man,” she answered, ”and not make such faces as them.”

”Where's the man?” he asked.

”Outside, I suppose.”

”Tell him I want the gig. I'm going out for a drive. A pleasure drive, you know. All down the lane, and back again. Cut along and tell him before I do you a mischief.”

She saw he was in one of his evil humours, when nothing was to be done with him, and felt very uneasy. She went and ordered the gig, and when he had finished breakfast, he came out to the door.

”You'd best take your big coat,” she said, ”else you'll be getting cold, and be in a worse temper than you are,--and that's bad enough, Lord knows, for a poor woman to put up with.”

”How careful she is!” said Hawker. ”What care she takes of the old man!

I've left you ten thousand pounds in my will, ducky. Good-bye.”

He drove off, and left her standing in the porch. What a wild, tall figure she was, standing so stern and steadfast there in the morning sun!--a woman one would rather have for a friend than an enemy.

Hawker was full of other thoughts than these. Coupling his other suspicions of Madge with the receipt of this letter from the bank, he was growing very apprehensive of something being wrong. He wanted this letter read to him, but whom could he trust? Who better than his old companion Burrows, who lived in the valley below the Vicarage? So, whipping up his horse, he drove there, but found he was out. He turned back again, puzzled, going slowly, and as he came to the bottom of the hill, below the Vicarage, he saw a tall man leaning against the gate, and smoking.

”He'll do for want of a better,” he said to himself. ”He's an honest-going fellow, and we've always been good friends, and done good business together, though he is one of that cursed Vicarage lot.”

So he drew up when he came to the gate. ”I beg your pardon, Mr.

Troubridge,” he said, with a very different tone and manner to what we have been accustomed to hear him use, ”but could you do a kindness for a blind old man? I have no one about me that I can trust since my son is gone away. I have reason to believe that this letter is of importance; could you be so good as to read it to me?”

”I shall be happy to oblige you, Mr. Hawker,” said Tom. ”I am sorry to hear that your sight is so bad.”

”Yes; I'm breaking fast,” said Hawker. ”However, I shan't be much missed. I don't inquire how the Vicar is, because I know already, and because I don't think he would care much for my inquiries, after the injury my son has done him. I will break the seal. Now, may I trouble you?”