LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 875, 14 April 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

IDE M\ TERY OF NO. 7

(Bv Joh.nny Ludlow.)

( Continued )

‘ Mease wait a minute sir,’ he inter■upted, ‘ I haven’t finished. Lasf Sunday evening, upon getting home after service, 1 found I had left my Prayer book in church. Not wishing to lose it, for it was the one my father always used, I went back for it. However, the church was shut, so I could not get in. It was a fine evening, and I took a stroll round the churchyard. In the corner of it, near to Mr Edmund Peaheru’s tomb, they had buried poor Jane Cross but two days before—you know the spot, sir. Well, on the flat square of earth that covers her grave, stood Matilda Valentine, the greatest picture of distress you can imagine, tears streaming down her cheeks. She dried her eyes when she saw me, and we came away together. Naturally I fell to talking of Jane Cross and the death. ‘ I shall do as much as lies in my power to bring it to light,’ I said to Matilda; ‘or people may go on doubting me to the end. And I think the first step must be to find out who the man was that called in upon you the previous Wednesday night.’ Well, sir, with that, instead of making any answering remark as a Christian would, or a rati mil being, let us say. Matilda gives a smothered sobbing shriek, and dart* aw y out of the churchyard. 1 couldn’t make her out; and ad in a minute a couvic tion flashed over me, though I hardly know why, that she knew who was the author of the calamity, and was screening him; or at any rate that she had her suspicions, if sue did m t actually know. And I think so still, sir.’ I shook my head, not seeing grounds to agree with Owen. He resumed : ‘The next morning, between nine and ten, 1 was in the shop, putting a pint of cream which had been ordered into a can, when to my surprise Matilda walked in, cool and calm. She said she had come to tell me that the man I had seen leave the house was her brother. He had fallen into trouble through having become security for a fellow workman, who had all his things sold up, including his tools, and had walked every step of the way - thirty miles • to ask her if she could help him. She did help him as far as she could, giving him what little money she had by her, and Jane Cross had added ten shillings to it. He had got in only at dusk, she said, had taken some supper with them, and left again afterwards, and that she was letting him out of the gate when I must have been passing it. She did not see me, for her eyes were dim with crying ; her heart felt like to in saying farewell. That was the truth, she declared, and that her brother had had no more to do with Jane’s death than she or I had; he was away again out of Saltwater the same uighc he came into it.’

‘ Well ? Did you not believe her ?’ ‘No, sir,’ answered Owen, boldly. ‘ I did not. If this was true, why should she have gone off into that smothered shriek in the churchyard when 1 mentioned him, and rush away in a fright ?’ I could not tell. Owen’s words set me thinking. ‘ I did nat know which of the two girls it was who let the man out that Wednesday night, for I did not clearly see ; but, sir, the impression on my mind at the moment was, that it was cane Cross. Jane Cross, and not Matilda. If so, why does she tell me this tale about her brother, and say it was herself ?’ ‘ And if it was Jane Cross ?’

Owen shook his head. ‘All sorts of notions occur to me, sir. Sometimes I fancy that the man might have been Jane’s sweetheart, that he might have been there again on the Monday night, and done the mischief in a quarrel; and that Matilda is holding her tongue because it is her brother. Let the truth be what it will, Matilda’s manner convinces me of one thing : that there’s something she is concealing, and that it is half Heightening her wits out of her. You are going to leave Saltwater, I hear, sir,’ added the young man in a different tone, “ and I am glad to have the opportunity of saying this, for I should not like you to carry away a,ay doubt of me. I’ll bring the matter »o light if I can.’ Touching his hat, he walked onwards, leaving my thoughts all in a whirligig. Was Owen right in drawing these conclusions ? —or was he purposely giving a wrong colouring to facts, and seeking craftily to throw suspicion off himself? It was a nice question, one I could neither make top nor tail of. But, looking back to the fatal evening, weighing this point, sitting that, I began to see that Matilda showed more anxiety, more terror, than she need have shown before she knew that any ill bad happened. Had she a prevision, as she stood at the door with the jug of ale, in her hand, that some evil might have chanced ? Did she leave some individual in the house with Jane Cross when she went to the Swan to get the ale ?—and was it her brother ? Did she leave Owen in the house, and was she screening him ?

‘ Why, Matilda ! Is it you ?’ It was fourteen months later, and autumn weather, and 1 had just arrived in London at Miss Deveeu’s, My question to Matilda, who came into my dressing-room with some warm water to wash off the travelling dust, was not made in surprise at seeing her, for I supposed she was still in service at Miss Deveen’s, but at seeing the change in her. Instead of the healthy and, so to say, hand some girl known at Saltwater, I saw a worn, weary, anxious looking shadow, with a feverish fire in her wild dark eyes. ‘ Have you been, iH, Matilda ?’ ‘No, sir, not at all. lam quite well.’ ‘ Yon have grown very thin.' ‘lt s the London air, sir. 1 think everybody must get thin that lives in it.’ Very civilly and respectfully, but yet with an unmistakable air of reticence, spoke she. Somehow the girl was changed, and greatly changed, I’erhapa she had been grieving after Jane Cross, Perhaps the secret of what had happened (if in truth Matilda knew ft) lay upon her with too heavy a weight ? | *Ho you lind Matilda a good servant ?’ I ;askcd of Miss Heveeu, later, she and I being alone together. 1 ‘ A very good servant, Johnny. But she is going to leave me.’ : ‘ls she ? Why ?’ * Miss Deveen only nodded, in answer to [the first query, passing over the last. I supposed she did not wish to say. ‘ I think her so much altered.’

J l ln what way, Johnny?’ ‘ln lo lies: 1 ,-oks an.l manner. She i? just j a shadow. me might- say she had passed •hrongh a mui •'.!»:<’ fevi-r Ami ha >■ curious li -ht ‘ r V o-« !' ’ Sim h.is ai w.«y >to r ,j a - x'r h the ide i ■ f naving some gr-if. c re upo'i n—. None can mistake that die is a sorrowful woman. I hear that the other servants accuse her of having been ‘crossed in love,’ added Miss Deveen, with a smile. 1 She is thinner even than Miss Chattledon.’ ‘ And that, I daresay you think, need not he, Johnny!’ Miss Cattledon, by the way, is rather hard upon Matilda just now : calls her a ‘ demon.’ ” ‘ A demon ! Why does she ?’ ‘ Well, I’ll you you. Though it is but a little domestic manner, one tha* - - perhaps you will hardly care to hear. You must know (to begin with) that Matilda has never made herself sociable with the other servants here ; in return they have become somewhat prejudiced against her, and have been ready to play her tricks, tease her, and what not. But you must understand, Johnny, that I knew nothing of the state of affairs below ; such matters rarely reach me. My cook, Hall, was especially at war with Matilda; in fact, I believe there was no love lost between the two. The girl’s melancholy—for at times she does seem very melancholy—was openly put down by the rest to the assumption that she must have bad some Jove affair in which the swain had played her false. They were continually plaguing her on tins score, and it. no doubt irritated Matilda; but she rarely retart ed, preferring rather to leave them and take refuge in her room.’ ‘ Why could they not let her alone ?’ ‘ People can’t let one another alone, as I believe, Johnny If they did, the world world would he pleasanter to live in.’ ‘ And I suppose Matilda got tired at last, and g um warning ?’ ‘ No.’ Some two or three weeks back it appears that, by some means or other, Hall obtained access to a small trunk ; one that Matilda keeps her treasures in, and has cautiously kept locked. If I thought Hall had opened this trunk with a key of her own, as Matilda accuses her of doing, I would not keep the woman in my house another day. But she declares to me most earn sfcly—for I had her before me here to question her - that Matilda, called suddenly out of her chamber, left the trunk open there, and the letter, of which I am about to tell you, lying, also open, by its side. Hall says that she went into the room—it adjoins her own - for something she wanted, and that all she did - and she admits this much—was to pick up the letter, carry it downstairs, read it to the other servants, and make fun of it.’ ‘ What letter was it V ‘ Strictly speaking, it was only part of a letter: one begun but not concluded. It was in Matilda’s own hand, apparently written a long while ago, for the ink was pale and faded, and it began ‘ Dearest Thomas Owen. The ’ ” ‘ Thomas Owen!’ .1 exclaimed, starting in my chair. ‘ Why, that is tha milkman at Saltwater. ’ ‘ I’m sure I don’t know who he is, Johnny, and 1 don’t suppose it matters. Only a few lines followed, three or four, speaking of some private conversation that she had held with him on coming out of church the day before, and of some reproach that she had then made to him respecting Jane Cross. '1 ho words broke suddenly off there, as if the writer had been interrupted. But why Matilda did not complete the letter and send it, and why she should have kept it by her all this while, must be best known to herself.’

ITo he continued.)

LOST, on Friday, a BLACK STONE back of LOCKET, with square and compasses on; also, a ladj’s portrait. The finder will be rewarded on returning it to O. Lezard, Jeweller, High street. 5309