Quicksilver Part 60

"Found out!" thought the guilty conscience, which needs no accuser.

"Now just you look here, sir," said the old housekeeper, in a loud voice, as she literally b.u.t.ton-holed the boy, by hooking one thin finger in his jacket, so that he could not get away, "I know all."

"You--you know everything," faltered the boy.

"Yes, sir. Ah, you may well look 'mure. You little thought I knew."

"How--how did you find out?" he stammered.

"Ah! how did I find out, indeed! Now, look here, am I to go straight to the doctor and tell him!"

"No, no, pray don't," whispered Dexter, catching her arm.

"Well, then, I must tell Miss Helen."

"No, no, not this time," cried Dexter imploringly; and his tone softened the old lady, who shook the borders of her cap at him.

"Well, I don't know what to say," said Mrs Millett softly. "They certainly ought to know."

Dexter gazed at her wildly. He knew that everything must come out, but it was to have been in a few hours' time, when he was far away, and deaf to the angry words and reproaches. To hear them now seemed more than he could bear. It could not be. Bob Dimsted must think and say what he liked, and be as angry and unforgiving as was possible. It could not be now. He must plead to the old housekeeper for pardon, and give up all idea of going away.

"Ah!" she said. "I see you are sorry for it, then."

"Yes, yes," he whispered. "So sorry, and--and--"

"You'll take it this time, like a good boy!"

"Take it?"

"Yes, sir. Ah! you can't deceive me. Last time I saw the empty gla.s.s I knew as well as could be that you hadn't taken it, for the outside of the gla.s.s wasn't sticky, and there were no marks of your mouth at the edge. I always put plenty of sugar in it for you, and that showed."

"The camomile-tea!" thought Dexter, a dose of which the old lady expected him to take about once a week, and which never did him any harm, if it never did him any good.

"And you'll take it to-night, sir, like a good boy!"

"Yes, yes, I will indeed," said Dexter, with the full intention of keeping his word out of grat.i.tude for his escape.

"Now, that's like being a good boy," said the old lady, smiling, and extricating her fingers from his b.u.t.ton-hole, so as to stroke his hair.

"It will do you no end of good; and how you have improved since you have been here, my dear, your hair's grown so nicely, and you've got such a good pink colour in your cheeks. It's the camomile-tea done that."

Mrs Millett leaned forward with her hands on the boy's shoulder, and kissed him in so motherly a way that Dexter felt a catching of the breath, and kissed her again.

"That's right," said the old lady. "You ain't half so bad as Maria pretends you are. 'It's only a bit of mischief now and then,' I says to her, 'and he's only a boy,' and that's what you are, ain't it, my dear?"

Dexter did not answer.

"I shall put your dose on your washstand, and you mind and take it the moment you get out of bed to-morrow morning."

"Yes," said Dexter dismally.

"No! you'll forget it. You've got to take that camomile-tea to-night, and if you don't promise me you will, I shall come and see you take it."

"I promise you," said Dexter, and the old lady nodded and went upstairs, while the boy hung about in the hall.

How was it that just now, when he was going away, people were beginning to seem more kind to him, and something began to drag at his heart to keep him from going?

He could not tell. An hour before he had felt a wild kind of elation.

He was going to be free from lessons, the doctor's admonitions, and the tame regular life at the house, to be off in search of adventure, and with Bob for his companion, going all over the world in that boat, while now, in spite of all he could do, he did not feel so satisfied and sure.

There was something else he knew that he ought to do. He could not bid Helen good-bye with his lips, but he felt that he must bid her farewell another way, for she had always been kind to him from the day he came.

He crept into the study again, this time without being seen.

There was a faint light in the pleasant room, for the doctor's lamp had been turned down, but not quite out.

A touch sent the flame brightly round the ring, and the shade cast a warm glow on the boy's busy fingers as he took out paper and envelope; and then, with trembling hand, sore heart, and a pen that spluttered, he indited another letter, this time to Helen.

My dear Miss Grayson,

I am afraid you will think me a very ungrateful boy, but I am obliged to go away to seek my fortune all over the world. You have been so kind to me, and so has Doctor Grayson sometimes, but everybody else has hated me, and made game of me because I was a workhouse boy, and I could not bear it any longer, and Bob Dimsted said he wouldn't if he was me, and we are going away together not to come back again any more.--I am,

Your Affec Friend.

Dexter Grayson.

_PS_--I mean Obed Coleby, for I ought not to call myself Dexter any more, and I would have scratched it out, only you always said it was better not to scratch out mistakes because they made the paper look so untidy.

I like you very much, and Mrs Millett too, but I can't take her fiz-- physick to-night.

Is physick spelt with a k?

There was a tear--a weak tear in each of Dexter's eyes as he wrote this letter, for it brought up many a pleasant recollection of kindnesses on Helen's part.

He had just finished, folded and directed this, when he fancied he heard a door open across the hall.

Thrusting the note into his pocket so hastily that one corner went into the toad, he caught up a piece of the doctor's foolscap, and began rapidly to make a triangle upon it, at whose sides and points he placed letters, and then, feeling like the miserable impostor he was, he rapidly let his pen trace a confused line of _A's_ and _B's_ and _C's_, and these backwards and forwards.

This went on for some minutes, so that there was a fair show upon the paper, when the door softly opened, Helen peered in, and then coming behind him bent down, and, in a very gentle and sisterly way, placed her hands over his eyes.

"Why, my poor hard-working boy," she said gently. "So this is where you are; and, oh dear, oh dear! Euclid again. That Mr Limpney will wear your brains all away. There, come along, I am going to play to papa, and then you and I will have a game at draughts."

Dexter rose with his heart beating, and that strange sensation of something tugging at his conscience. Why were they all so kind to him to-night, just when he was going away?

"Why, you look quite worn out and dazed, Dexter," said Helen merrily.

"There, come along."

"Eh? Where was he? In mischief?" said the doctor sharply, as they entered the drawing-room.