Johnny Ludlow, Second Series. Mrs. Henry Wood
(and he was so in all respects) could have made her his wife seemed to me to be a seven days’ wonder. She had a nose as long as from Timberdale to Crabb Ravine; and her hair and face were red, and her flounces gaudy. As common a woman as you’d see in a summer’s day, with a broad Brummagem accent. But she was very capable, and not unkindly natured. The worst Timberdale said of her was, that she had done her best to spoil that ugly son of hers.
Putting her head, ornamented with yellow curl-papers, round the door-post, she saw us seated there, and drew it away again. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she had on a coarse apron; altogether was not dressed for company. Letting the door stand ajar, she asked again if anything was amiss, and went on with her work at the same time: which sounded like chopping suet. Mr. Rymer replied in a curt word or two, as if he felt annoyed she should interfere. She would not be put off: strong-minded women never are: and he had to give her the explanation. A five-pound bank-note had been mysteriously lost out of a letter addressed to Mrs. Todhetley. The chopping stopped.
“Stolen out of it?”
“Well—yes; it may be said so.”
“But why do you call it mysterious?”
Mr. Rymer said why. That the bank-note had not, in one sense, been stolen; since another of the same value had been substituted for it.
Chop, chop, chop: Mrs. Rymer had begun again vigorously.
“I’d like to know who’s to make top or tail of such a story as that,” she called out presently. “Has anything been lost, or not?”
“Yes, I tell you, Susannah: a five-pound note.”
Forgetting her curl-papers and the apron, Mrs. Rymer came boldly inside the room, chopping-knife in hand, and requested further enlightenment. We told her between us: she stood with her back against the door-post while she listened.
“When do you say this took place, young gents?”
“On Wednesday night, or Thursday morning. When the letter reached us at breakfast-time, the job was done.”
She said no more then, but went back and chopped faster than ever. Tod and I had got up to go when she came in again.
“The odd part about it is their putting in a note for the same value,” cried she. “I never heard of such a thing as that. Why not spend the other note, and make no bother over it?”
“You would be quite justified in doing so under the circumstances, Mr. Todhetley,” said the quieter husband.
“But we can’t,” returned Tod, hotly—and all but said more than he was to say.
“Why not?” asked she.
“Because it’s not ours; there, Mrs. Rymer.”
“Well, I know what I’d say—if the chance was given me,” returned she, resenting Tod’s manner. “That the note found in the letter was the one put into it at Worcester. Changed in the post! It does not stand to reason.”
“But, my dear——” her husband was beginning.
“Now, Thomas Rymer, that’s what I think: and so would you, if you had a grain of sense beyond a gander’s. And now good-morning, young gents: my pudding won’t get done for dinner at this rate.”
Mr. Rymer came with us through the shop to the door. I shook hands with him: and Tod’s nose went up in the air. But I think it lies in what you see a man is, by mind and nature, whether he is your equal, and you feel proud to think he is so—not in the fact of his wearing an apron. There are some lords in the land I wouldn’t half care to shake hands with as I would with Thomas Rymer.
“I hope you will pardon me for reverting to my first opinion, Mr. Todhetley,” he said, turning to Tod—“but indeed I think there must be some mistake. Mrs. Rymer may be right—that the note found in the letter was the one put into it.”
Tod flung away. The facts he had obstinately refused to believe at first, he had so fully adopted now, that any other opinion offended him. He was in a passion when I caught him up.
“To think that the pater should have sent us there like two fools, Johnny! Closing our mouths so that we could not speak the truth.”
“Rymer only three parts believes it. His wife not at all.”
“His wife be sugared! It’s nothing to her. And all through the suggestion of that precious calf, Cole. Johnny, I think I shall act on my own judgment, and go back and tell Rymer the note was a stolen one.”
“The pater told us not to.”
“Stuff! Circumstances alter cases. He would have told it himself before he had been with Rymer two minutes. The man’s hands are partly tied, you see; knowing only half the tale.”
“Well, I won’t tell him.”
“Nobody asked you. Here goes. And the Squire will say I’ve done right.”
Rymer was standing at his door still. The shop was empty, and there were no ears near. Tod lowered his voice, though.
“The truth is, Mr. Rymer, that the note, substituted in the letter for ours, was one of those two lost by the butcher at Tewkesbury. I conclude you heard of the robbery.”
“One of those two!” exclaimed Rymer.
“Yes: Salmon at South Crabb recognized it yesterday when we were asking him to give change for it.”
“But why not have told me this at once, Mr. Joseph?”
“Because the Squire and Cole, laying their wise heads together this morning, thought it might be better not to let that get abroad: it would put people on their guard, they said. You see now where the motive lay for exchanging the notes.”
“Of course I do,” said Mr. Rymer in his quiet way. “But it is very unaccountable. I cannot imagine where the treason lies.”
“Not on this side, seemingly,” remarked Tod: “The letter appears to have passed through no one’s hands but Lee’s: and he is safe.”
“Safe and sure. It must have been accomplished at Worcester. Or—in the railway train,” he slowly added. “I have heard of such things.”
“You had better keep counsel at present as to the stolen note, Mr. Rymer.”
“I will until you give me leave to speak. All I can do to assist in the discovery is heartily at Squire Todhetley’s service. I’d transport these rogues, for my part.”
We carried our report home—that the thing had not been, and could not have been, effected on the Timberdale side, unless old Lee was to be suspected: which was out of the question.
Time went on, and it grew into more of a mystery than ever. Not as to the fact itself or the stolen note, for all that was soon known high and low. The Worcester office exonerated itself from suspicion, as did the railway letter-van. The van let off its resentment in a little private sneering: but the office waxed hot, and declared the fraud must lie at the door of Timberdale. And so the matter was given up for a bad job, the Squire submitting to the loss of his note.
But a curious circumstance occurred, connected with Thomas Rymer. And, to me, his behaviour had seemed almost curious throughout. Not at that first interview—as I said, he was open, and, so to say, indifferent then; but soon afterwards his manner changed.
On the day following that interview, the Squire, who was very restless over it, wanting the thing to come to light in no time, sent me again to Rymer’s, to know if he had learned any news. Rymer said he had not; and his manner was just what it had been the past day. I could have staked my life, if necessary, that the man believed what he said—that news must be looked for elsewhere, not at Timberdale. I am sure that he thought it impossible that the theft could have been effected after the letters came into his hands. But some days later on, when the whole