Chapter 8: Found Out

MOTHER didn’t say a word. She sat down, and a queer grey look came over her face.

I stood leaning against the dresser, feeling—but I couldn’t tell what I felt. All the wrong I had done, all the falsehoods I had spoken, had been for nothing. I hadn’t even the poor little reward that I had sinned for! I had not shielded Walter from blame. Somehow or other the matter had come to light.

Mary said nothing either. She looked so sad, so pitying.

We couldn’t all have kept silence many seconds, I suppose, but it seemed an age. Before anybody spoke, father walked in.

“I haven’t a moment,” says he cheerily, “but somebody tells me Mary Russell has come, and I wanted to make sure. Why, so she is! Well, Mary, how d’you—Hallo!”

For his eyes fell on mother’s face, and then on the watch and chain lying just in front of Mary.

Father forgot to finish his greeting, and the hand he was reaching out to Mary dropped down by his side.

“Hallo! How’s this?” says he.

“I have brought back Kitty’s watch,” says Mary.

“Brought it back!” says father. “Back from where?”

Mary turned to me, speaking under her breath— “Kitty, if you haven’t told yet, tell now! tell now!” whispered she.

But father heard, and such a look of pain came into his face as might have made anybody’s heart ache. I never can bear to think of his look that moment.

“No—no!” says he. “Too late for that! I’ll have no more questioning of Kitty. I never would have believed that the word of a child of mine mightn’t be depended on! Tell me yourself, Mary, and quick, for I must be off. Where does the watch come from?”

“From Walter,” she said sorrowfully. “He has been the tempter.”

“Whose tempter?”

Mary spoke clear and firm, as if she wouldn’t mince matters, either for Walter’s sake or for mine.

“Walter was the tempter,” she said; “and Kitty has been wrong to give in to him. Walter was in difficulties, and he got the watch from Kitty to raise money on—borrowed it, he says! But—”

Father stood like one struck by a bolt, his head hanging down.

“And Kitty gave the watch to Russell. Our Kitty!” says he, in a dazed way. “Kitty! And she making believe she didn’t know aught of where it was! Telling a pack of miserable lies! Our Kitty! I wouldn’t have believed it!” says he.

“I blame Walter most,” said Mary. “He is the oldest. If he were not so weak!”

Strange to say, even in that moment, it angered me to hear her speak so of him. She might call me weak, if she liked; but not Walter.

“Well, I must be off,” father said, fetching a heavy sigh. “I never could have believed it of a child of mine. I’ll see you by-and-by, Mary, and hear all about the matter. But it’s not you that’s to blame.”

“The first I heard of it was yesterday,” says Mary, looking up into his face.

“Yes, yes—I know,” says father.

Then he was gone, walking like an old man, and never casting one glance towards me: not one.

Mother spoke next. She said in a dry sort of tone, “It’ll half kill him. He’s always thought so much of his Kitty.”

And I felt as if my heart would break: as if I couldn’t bear any more: yet I wanted to hear all that Mary had to tell. I craved to know how she’d found out about the watch; and I was frightened for Walter, with a fear that he might have to go to prison for it. Being half-strangled with sobs, I made a sort of movement like going away, not knowing whether to go or stay; and mother said in that same dry voice—

“Kitty, you are to stay.”

“I think Kitty ought to know the whole,” Mary says gently.

“I’ll have everything open and above board. Kitty is to stay,” said mother, looking at Mary, not at me.

Then the tale came out slowly, bit by bit, as much as Mary knew. I think I’d best tell it, partly at all events, in my own words; for there were some things I heard later, not just at that moment, and I couldn’t well separate them in memory.

When Mary went home from Claxton, Walter didn’t meet her at the station, as she expected; and when she got home, he wasn’t there. The little maid that they kept to help, and to set Mary free for dressmaking, told her he’d had to go off somewhere, directly after dinner; she didn’t know where, only he said it was business, and he’d be back as soon as possible. It was a half-holiday at the school, so he was able to get away.

Mary had all the afternoon and evening alone: for he never turned up till quite late, somewhere about eleven o’clock. When he got in he was vexed to find Mary sitting up still. “It was absurd,” he said, “after her illness!” and he would only talk of that, but wouldn’t tell her where he had been. “Just a matter of business,” he said. “What did women know of business?”

If Mary had not been so worried, she must have smiled; for she had twice as good a business-head as he. But she was in no smiling mood. She knew too well that secrecy on his part meant mischief.

As Walter had told me, Mary always kept a sharp look-out over the money that came into the house, more especially school-money. She told mother and me this, telling too her reason frankly, though with shame. She seemed bent on hiding nothing. When they first went to Littleburgh, she had left things more in Walter’s hands; but very soon she had found it would not do. He never could keep from spending what he had in hand; and he never cared to look forward beyond the present moment.

“Not that he means to be dishonest,” she said. “Walter never means to do wrong; but he is so easily bent. There is no strength of will. Sometimes I think weakness is the worst of evils, it leads to so much wrong-doing.”

Then she told us how she had set going a cashbox for every penny that wasn’t strictly their own, but would have to be accounted for; and every week she went into accounts with him, and paid the right amount into this box, keeping the key herself.

Before he went back to Littleburgh, leaving her ill in our house, she made him promise to go on with the same plan. Walter gave his word easily enough; and he broke it as easily. While she was away, and he was free, he spent every penny that came to him.

Then the day was fixed for Mary’s return.

Up to that moment he had not troubled himself, never looking forward; but the news of Mary’s coming sent him half desperate. He hadn’t the courage to face her displeasure. Before Mary he was a coward. I don’t think I wonder—now! There was something in those honest eyes of hers which might well make him shrink; and she had the mastery over him too, of a strong over a weak nature. I didn’t believe him to be weak then; at least, I wouldn’t let myself allow that he was; but one’s sight gets clearer as one goes on.

Well, as I say, Walter was in despair. There was the money short; and Mary would go into the matter straight, and every penny would have to be accounted for to her. If not to her, it would have to be accounted for to others, only a few weeks later. But Walter never looked far ahead, Mary said, speaking of this. He lived just in the present, and put off anxieties, and always expected everything to come straight somehow.

In his dread he fled away from the sight of Mary, building his hopes on poor little me, and resolving not to go home at all if I failed him. Getting hold of my watch wouldn’t really help him out of his trouble, of course; but all he thought of was just being tided over the moment’s pinch, and so long as he could put off the evil day he was content. Anyway, he was sure I wouldn’t betray him.