Part 5 (1/2)
Mr. Fenelby hesitated.
”Of course,” he whispered, ”you won't--That is to say, you needn't tell Laura I went down--”
”Certainly not,” whispered Billy. ”It was awfully kind of you to think of it. But I'll make this one do.”
Mr. Fenelby waited at the door a moment longer as if he had something more to say, but Billy had closed the door, and he went back to his room.
It was with relief that Bridget heard the door close behind Mr.
Fenelby. She had been standing on the little landing of the back-stairs, where he had almost caught her as she was coming up. If she had been one step higher he would have seen her head. Usually she would not have minded this, for she had a perfect right to be on the back-stairs in the early morning, but this time she felt that it was her duty to remain undiscovered. Now that Mr. Fenelby was gone she softly stepped to Billy's door and knocked lightly.
”Misther Billy, sor, are ye there?” she whispered. Billy opened the door a crack and looked out.
”Mornin' to ye,” she said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. ”I'm sorry t'
disthurb ye, but Missus Fenelby axed me t' bring up th' collar ye left on th' porrch railin', an' t' let no wan know I done it, an' I just wanted t' let ye know th' reason I have not brung it up is because belike someone else has brang it already, for it is gone.”
”Thank you, Bridget,” whispered Billy. ”It doesn't matter.”
She turned away, but when he had closed the door she paused, and after hesitating a moment she tapped on his door again. He opened it.
”I have put me foot in it,” she said, ”like I always do. W'u'd ye be so good as t' fergit I mentioned th' name of Missus Fenelby, that's a dear man? I raymimber now I was not t' mention it t' ye.”
”Certainly, Bridget,” said Billy, and he closed the door and went again to the window, where he was turning his socks over and over in the streak of sunlight that warmed a part of the window sill.
It took the socks a little longer to dry than he had thought it would, and they were still damp enough to make his feet feel anything but comfortable when he heard the breakfast bell tinkle faintly. He hurried the rest of his toilet and went down the stairs, a.s.suming as he went the air of unsuspected innocence that is the inborn right of every man who knows he has done wrong. The bodily Billy was more conscious of the discomfort of his feet, but the mental Billy was all collar. He had never known a collar to be so obtrusive. He felt that he must seem all collar, even to the most casual eye, but he was upheld by the belief that no one would dare to mention collar to him in public. If he had sinned he was not the only sinner, for he was but a partner in conspiracy. He walked down the stairs boldly.
”And to think that his vanity should be the cause of robbing poor little Bobberts,” he heard a clear voice say as he neared the dining room door. ”It is too mean! I can never look up to man with the faith I have always had in man, after this. But I know they were his foot-prints, Laura.”
”Are you so sure, Kitty?” asked Mrs. Fenelby. ”Mightn't they be--mightn't they be Bridget's?”
”They were not,” said the voice of Kitty, and Billy paused where he was and stood still. ”Bridget does not go about in the wet gra.s.s in her stocking feet. Those were Billy's tracks on the porch. I am no Sherlock Holmes, but I can tell you just what he did. He stole down before we were awake, to look for that collar, and he did not find it on the railing where he had left it. Then he saw it where it had fallen and he went down on the wet lawn and got it. Watch him when he comes in to breakfast. He will be wearing a collar, and it will not be the one he wore last night.”
Billy turned and tip-toed softly up the stairs again, undoing his tie as he went. When he came down his neck was neatly, but informally swathed in a white handkerchief. Three pairs of eyes watched him as he entered, but he faced them unflinchingly. Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby let their eyes drop before his glance, but Kitty met his gaze with a challenge. There was nothing of treachery in her face, and yet she had sought to betray him. He looked at her with greater interest than he had ever known himself to feel regarding any girl, and as he looked he had a startled sense that she was fairer than she had been, and he caught his breath quickly and began to talk to Mrs. Fenelby.
”Tom,” he said, after breakfast, as Mr. Fenelby was getting ready to leave to catch his train, ”I think I'll walk over to the station with you. I have something I want to say to you.”
”Come along,” said Mr. Fenelby. ”But you will have to walk quickly.
I have just time to catch my train.”
”Did you notice anything peculiar about Miss Kitty this morning?”
asked Billy, when they had left the house.
”Peculiar?” said Mr. Fenelby. ”No, I don't think so.”
”Well, I don't want to make trouble, Tom,” said Billy, ”but I think I ought to speak about this thing. If it wasn't serious I wouldn't mention it at all, but I think you ought to know what is going on in your own house. I think you ought to know what kind of a girl Miss Kitty is, so that you can be on your guard. Now, you went down to get that collar for me, didn't you?”
”I wish you wouldn't mention that,” said Mr. Fenelby with some annoyance.
”Oh, I know all about that,” said Billy, warmly. ”You say that because you don't like to be thanked for all these nice, thoughtful things you do for a fellow. But I do thank you--just as much as if you had found the collar and had brought it up to me. That was all right. You would have paid the duty on it, and that would have been all right. But what do you think Miss Kitty did? Why do you think you could not find that collar? Do you know what she did? She brought that collar into the house--smuggled it in--and she had the nerve, the actual nerve, to give it to me. And I took it. I couldn't do anything else, could I, when a girl offered it to me? I couldn't say I wouldn't take it, could I? I had to be a gentleman about it.