Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/372

 17, 1864.], I wondered how she knew it was Lewis, and I’ve wondered since. Judy said his name must have been in the newspaper I had took up to her to read while she had her tea, but I looked in it after she was dead, and I couldn’t see it. I saw his name, ‘Mr. Carlton,’ but I couldn’t see ‘Lewis

"Is Mr. Carlton’s name Lewis?”

Mrs. Gould opened her eyes at the question. “I thought all South Wennock knew that.”

Perhaps all South Wennock did know it; nevertheless Mrs. Smith did not. It was a singular fact that Mrs. Smith until that hour had remained ignorant of Mr. Carlton’s Christian name. She might possibly have heard it before, but if so it had escaped her notice. The plate on his door was no longer “Mr. Lewis Carlton;” it had been changed to “Mr. Carlton” upon his father’s death.

This little incident, the revelation of the name and Mr. Carlton’s uncalled for anger, had made a great impression on Mrs. Smith. She had always surmised that Lewis must have been the Christian name of Mrs. Crane’s husband, and her doubts of Mr. Carlton were certainly aroused. She had said to Lady Jane this present morning that she was trying to “put two and two together,” and could not do it. In plain English, had she but spoken out, she would have said she was suspecting Mr. Carlton, but wanted the clue to unite facts with doubts. After she had made this remark, Lady Jane showed her the letter, and she thought Mrs. Smith would never have ﬁnished looking at it, which she did in silence, making no comment.

“Would you mind leaving this note with me for an hour or two, my lady?” she then asked. “I should like to think it over when I am alone.”

Lady Jane saw no reason why she should not leave the note: she still thought it had been written to Mr. Crane; and after her departure from the cottage, Mrs. Smith sat down, note in hand, and deliberated; not upon whether Mr. Carlton was guilty or not; the letter, which she saw correctly, had completely settled that doubt in her own mind: but upon what her course should be to work it home to him, to bring him to his punishment. Never for a moment had Mrs. Smith wavered in her intention to bring Clarice Beauchamp’s destroyer to justice if she succeeded in discovering him, and that she knew she had done now. Lady Jane Chesney in her own home felt not more sure of Mr. Carlton’s guilt, now that she had heard Judith’s story, than did Mrs. Smith in her home at Tupper’s cottage, not having heard it.

“What had I best do?” she communed with herself. “See a magistrate at once, and tell my story; or see a lawyer, and get him to act? I have not been much in the way of these things, thank Heaven, and I hardly know the right manner to set about it. But I’ll do one of the two this blessed night.”

When the mind is in this excited, determined frame, action is almost imperative, and Mrs. Smith put on her bonnet to go out. But she found her progress frustrated. The young woman-servant, who had been away all the afternoon, and only came back to the cottage when Lady Jane was leaving it, positively declined to be left alone in the house with the little dead boy.

“You great simpleton!” exclaimed Mrs. Smith in her indignation. “You are old enough to know better. What do you suppose that dead baby would do to you?”

The girl could not say what; had no very defined idea what; but she wholly refused to try. If Mrs. Smith went out, she’d go out too; she’d not dare to stop.

The difficulty was solved by an arrival, that of Mrs. Pepperfly. Never had the old woman been so welcome to Mrs. Smith, and she contented to stay the evening. In point of fact, it was just the intention she had come with.

“Who are the magistrates here?” asked Mrs. Smith.

“Magistrates?” repeated Mrs. Pepperfly, looking astonished.

“Are there any living about here? I wanted to see one.”

Mrs. Pepperfly could not get over the surprise. Magistrates and their places of domicile were not much in her line of knowledge, and she really could give no information. “If it’s to register the boy’s death, it ain’t a magistrate you must go to,” she said. “And you’ll want a certificate from Mr. Carlton. Them register men won’t do nothing without one.”

“It’s not to register the death, that’s done; it’s for something else—a little private matter of my own. Perhaps you can recommend me to a clever lawyer?—he might do for me better than a magistrate.”

“The cleverest lawyer I know is Mr. Drone, two doors from the Red Lion,” returned Mrs. Pepperfly. “He haven’t got his equal in the place. Let anybody in a bit o’ trouble go to him, and he’s safe to pull ’em through it. He’s what they call the justices’ clerk.”

Accepting the recommendation, Mrs. Smith set forth on her night walk. She passed down the Rise, and through the town as far as the Red Lion. Just beyond, on the door of a private house, she read “Mr. Drone, Solicitor;” she rang at the bell, and asked to see him.

Mr. Drone was anything but an exempliﬁcation of his name; he was a little man, particularly brisk and active. He came to Mrs.