The Crime and the Criminal Part 48

The day before a servant had offered herself as a candidate to fill the place of the one I had dismissed. She referred me for her character to her late mistress. When she told me who her late mistress was I stared.

It was Mrs. Tennant. It occurred to me, very forcibly, that one of Tommy's servants would hardly do for me. Things might get about, and tales be told. I gave her application scant consideration.

Now, in the middle of my rage, it struck me that here was an opportunity to get rid of some of it--on some one else's head. I might bait Mrs. Tennant. I could pretend to go and ask about the servant's character, and give the servant's mistress one, just by the way. I went and put my hat on, and made myself look as nice as I knew how, and off I trotted there and then.

I thought it more than possible that I should not be admitted--in her position some people would have declined to see strangers on business of any sort or kind. But I was. At the door they asked my name and what I wanted. When I said I had come about a servant's character, I was shown into a sitting-room. And presently in came Tommy's wife.

Directly I saw her I knew I had made a big mistake. I perceived at a glance that she was not anybody in particular--I mean that she was not a lady, or much to look at. She was just a woman. But, all the same, I knew that if I tried to close with her the odds were that I should get a fall.

She was just that kind!

She waited for me to begin. So I began--quite a thrill going through me when I realised that I was actually talking to Tommy's wife.

"I have called about a servant named Jane Parsons." She moved her head--the motion was scarcely equivalent to a bow. "She tells me that she was in your service. She has referred me to you for a character."

"I have nothing to say against the way in which Jane Parsons performed her duties."

Her voice was of that peculiar kind which you never hear issuing from between the lips of any but an Englishwoman, and from but few of them. Sweet, soft, gentle, yet incisive and clear. It may seem ridiculous--one can only speak of one's own experience--but I have never known it to be a possession of any but a good woman. It is apt, when I hear it, to have a most absurd effect upon me--for some occult reason, which I do not pretend to understand, it makes me go ashamed all over.

"May I ask why she left you?"

She flushed, though very slightly; and, perhaps unconsciously, she drew herself up straighter. I saw that, unwittingly, I had rubbed against a raw.

"Did she not tell you?"

Jane Parsons had not told me. I said so, though I did not think it necessary to explain that I had got rid of her before she had had a chance to get as far.

She hesitated, as if mentally selecting the fittest words.

"Jane Parsons left me because I was in trouble."

At once I perceived my opportunity. I saw what it was she meant, though I pretended innocence.

"In trouble? Indeed? Was there illness in the house?"

"There was worse than illness. To do Jane justice, I do not think she would have left me merely because there was illness in the house."

"I am afraid I do not understand."

Mrs. Tennant smiled--very faintly, and not with joy.

"It is immaterial. The point is, I did not discharge the girl. She left me of her own accord. I should have been glad to have kept her. She is sober, clean, honest, and industrious. As good a servant as I should wish to have."

I pretended to look at a little memorandum book which I took from my purse.

"Your name is Tennant--Mrs. Tennant?"

She nodded her head, still faintly smiling.

"My name is Tennant."

"I perceive that the names are similar; but I take it that, in spite of the similarity, you are in no way connected with the Three Bridges murderer?"

The shot sped straight home. She went red all over, then white as a sheet. Her lips trembled. I thought for a moment that she was going to cry. But she didn't.

"I don't know what it matters to you or how it concerns a servant's character; but I am the wife of the Mr. Thomas Tennant who is being wrongfully accused of murder, but who is wholly innocent of any crime."

Then, with what was very like a hysterical outburst, she added, "He is the dearest and the best husband in the world."

"Dear me!" I rose from my seat. I went to the door. "I had no notion that you were in any way connected with that dreadful creature, or I certainly should not have troubled you. To think that you can be the wife of such a man! Of course it is altogether out of the question that I could knowingly engage a servant who had lived in such a house as this!"

Without waiting for her to summon a servant to escort me to the door, I showed myself out into the street.

I had given her one. But now that I had done it I was not by any means proud of the gift I had bestowed. Indeed, when I got indoors I could have bit and slapped and scratched and pinched myself--and worse. Women are cats. There is no doubt of it. Especially to each other! I know it, to my sorrow, of my own experience. If there was one thing on which I had always prided myself, it was that--at any rate, in that respect, I was not like other women. Whatever else I was, I was not a cat.

And now I had been the cat of all the cats!

And all because of that stupid paragraph in that stupid paper.

When I thought of that pale-faced woman, with her sweet, true mouth, and brown eyes, and of all the trouble she had to bear, and of how I had gone out of my way to add to the bitterness of it all, and to rub it in, I could have banged my head against the wall.

But there! the thing was done. And when a thing is done--especially a thing like that--it is not the least use being sorry. One may as well pretend that one is glad. And, after all, the engagement was announced.

And why did they announce it, if they did not want to drive me into a rage?

Poor Tommy! He bade fair to have the most to suffer. After his next examination before the magistrates, they committed him for trial.

According to the newspapers, it would take place almost immediately.

Things were moving fast. It was time that I should move as well. It was time that I should come to an understanding with my friend the gentleman.

So I wrote to him to come and see me, putting a touch or two into my note which I knew would bring him.

And he came.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MR. TOWNSEND IS MADE TO UNDERSTAND.

I wondered if he had an inkling of what it was that I might have to say to him. He showed no signs of it. But one could not tell. I felt, instinctively, that his intuition was every whit as keen as mine. While as for his appearance of perfect ease, it clothed him like a skin.

As he lounged in an easy-chair I drank in, as it were, the atmosphere of his grace and elegance and charm of manner. I felt that I was going to enjoy myself. I believe that the fighting instinct is the strongest instinct that I have. I knew that, at least, for once in a way, I was going to cross swords with a foeman who was worthy of my steel.

I began to play with him, as a preliminary to the earnest which was to follow.

"I hear that I am to congratulate you, Mr. Townsend." He made a slight movement with his hands--it was a pretty little trick he had. "I understand that you are about to make a change in your condition of life. You are about to be married."

"In that respect I do deserve your congratulations, for if ever there was a marriage which, to one of the parties at any rate, promised all that the heart of man could desire, it is that on which I am about to enter. Therefore, Mrs. Carruth, I do solicit your congratulations."

He looked me straight in the face as he said this, a smile peeping from the corners of his lips. The first score had been with him. And I felt he knew it.