Chapter XVII: The Mischief Discovered

"Fred!" cried Maurice, in a voice of great excitement, as he hastily pushed open the door of his cousin's room, and walked in--"Fred! what do you think has happened?"

Fred had just lain down in the shade of the bed-curtains, with the express desire of concealing the workings of his face while he made his dreaded confession; but now, in the unexpected agony of the moment, he sat hastily up, and looked full at Maurice, whose blanched cheeks and agitated manner showed that some great thing had just occurred to upset him.

"What is it, Maurice?" he inquired in a tone of no affected concern, for his very heart was beating into his mouth; "nothing bad, I hope."

"Very bad, I am sorry to say; for there has been a general destruction of all mother's most precious things in the store-room downstairs."

"Oh, what--how?"

"Well, that's just what we can none of us exactly make out; only when I went in just now with mother to get out the Japanese theatre dodge, which mother had given me leave to make a present of to you, as I knew you were fond of mechanical inventions--"

"Nonsense, Maurice; I could never have taken it from you."

"Why, then, we found, when we opened the door," continued Maurice, heedless of Fred's interruption, "everything in the most awful state of confusion you can imagine. The theatre, which I was at the moment in search of, was lying on the floor in the most terrible state of smash--the lid of the case broken right off, and all the little men and women thrown pell-mell about the place."

"My goodness, how dreadful!" responded Fred.

"Yes, poor mother is in a sad way about it, for father took such delight in seeing the little puppets dancing, and thought it so ingenious; and besides that, there was a lot more damage done, for the ladder had fallen right across the room and smashed an entire set of rare China plates and dishes in the corner under the window, besides jam-pots to no end. There was one good thing, however--"

"What?" asked Fred, drawing a quick, uneasy breath.

But Maurice paused before he replied, for a sudden consciousness had come over him that he was about to touch on an unpleasant subject, and he coloured painfully, and hesitated in momentary embarrassment.

"What?" asked Fred again, in an eager, hungry voice. It was something to know that there was even one good thing in so utterly bad a transaction.

"Mother's precious chess-box was not broken."

"Thank God!" cried Fred earnestly.

Maurice looked at him for a moment in surprise, and then went on. "You see, yesterday evening I was so thoroughly ashamed of myself for my conduct to you, and the way I had knocked you about in the afternoon, that I asked mother's leave to take the box out of the store-room and have a game with you before tea."

"Well, and what did she say?"

"She was awfully kind, and told me I might have them certainly, if I promised to take great care of them; but though I tried my best to get hold of you afterwards, I could not succeed. You remember when I met you in the shrubbery walk, don't you?"

"I do," sighed Fred hopelessly. "I was a brute, that was all."

"Now, Fred, if you say any of these kind of things again, I'll go out of the room; for I was the one who was utterly in the wrong from beginning to end,--even mother says I was."

"How so?" asked Fred.

"Oh nothing; that's to say it was only that time about the jam picking, and I--or rather she--she thought just at first there had been something wrong about the weighing of the cans; and, besides, the girls overheard something or other which puzzled us a bit, and which, I dare say, meant nothing; and I acted, as I always do, in a headlong way. However," continued Maurice, noticing the distress in his cousin's face; "however--what was I saying, Fred?"

"I--I don't remember."

"Oh yes, now I have it; it was about the chess-men. Well, as I was telling you, I asked mother's leave to take the chess-men out of the store-room to have a game with you; and then afterwards, when I could not catch hold of you, I put them by in mother's room, so as we might have a game this morning; which, as it turns out now, was a great blessing, else they would have been destroyed to a certainty, for they stood exactly on the spot where the Japanese theatre was knocked down."

"A blessing, indeed," groaned Fred, whose confession seemed every moment more and more impossible and imprudent. "But I don't understand, Maurice, how the Japanese box got upon the same shelf as the chess-men; it was not there yesterday surely. And is the word 'Fragile' printed on it also?"

"Of course it is. And as to its being on the shelf why, I put it there myself last night: for I was afraid, what with the weight of all the new jam-pots and crowds of other dodge-my-eyes upon the shelf where it stood, it might come to grief, and so, as I thought, I gave it a much safer berth; but you can see for yourself I am always an unlucky dog. Though how it all happened is the marvel, for not a living soul could have got into the place: the door was locked; and the window, goodness knows, is sufficiently well barred to keep out a host of robbers. The only thing mother and I can think is, that when the housekeeper went in late last night to lock up some honey, which, by-the-by, was upset and smeared about the whole place--" Here Maurice paused for a moment, as if some sudden thought or suggestion had passed like lightning through his brain, and in the pause Fred's cheeks darkened to almost a purple colour, so vividly did the blush of guilt deepen on his face.

Maurice could not but look at him and wonder, and in doing so he for a moment lost the thread of his recital, and once again he had to apply to his cousin for aid. "What was I saying, Fred?"

"About the honey."

"Oh ay, about the honey. Mother thinks that when the housekeeper carried it in at night, the kitchen cat must have darted in after her; for there are rats and mice in there, I believe. You heard them yesterday, didn't you?"

"I--I don't remember."

"That time I said you must have cheese-parings in your pocket."

"I was not listening much to what you were saying just then," replied Fred hoarsely.

"I am not surprised at that; I only wonder you took it half so well. But the point is, how, if it were the cat that did it, she managed to get out again without either mother or my seeing her; for we both went in at the same time, and she could scarcely have slipped through our feet without one or other of us noticing it. What do you think, Fred?"

"I--I really don't know what to think."

"Mother is certain, at least as nearly certain as one can be in such a matter, that it was the cat; so I suppose she must be right: but it's a rum affair from beginning to end, ain't it now?"

"I suppose she must," murmured Fred, scarcely conscious of what he was saying, for he was undergoing at that moment the most furious assault of a new and unexpected temptation; a temptation which he could not have foreseen, having hitherto deemed it impossible that any valid excuse could be discovered which would screen him from the consequences of hie but now his aunt had laid the blame of all the sin,--mischief on shoulders which could bear no corresponding punishment, and why, why need he thrust himself forward as the centre point of guilt and shame?

"I am afraid I am worrying you with my talk. I was forgetting about your headache," said Maurice apologetically, as he noticed Fred's absent manner.

"Oh, not in the least; I was only thinking."

"Thinking of what?"

"Not thinking, exactly; only wondering."

"Wondering! what do you mean?"

"I--I don't exactly know what I mean, except if it were the cat, then,--then of course the cat could not have done it.

"My dear fellow, what do you mean?" and Maurice looked gravely into his cousin's face, fearing that perhaps the sharp blow on the side of his head had done him some serious injury.

The sudden cloud on his cousin's brow, and the intent anxious gaze fixed on his own face, filled Fred with alarm; and under Maurice's searching scrutiny all the blood rushed back upon Fred's heart, leaving him ashy white and trembling.

"Fred," cried Maurice, leaning forward excitedly, "now I am certain--"

"Yes, yes, it is quite true; only don't, don't stare at me in that awful way. I--I could not help it."

"You could not help what?"

"Help it! I didn't say that, did I? I meant of course that--that you--you drove me to it."

"Drove you," echoed Maurice, becoming every moment more terrified and bewildered by his cousin's manner, "how did I drive you? I don't know what you are talking about, Fred."

"Nonsense, it was you yourself who said it first, and accused me of it."

"Accused you of what?"

"Everything. You knew quite well, when you came up here, all about it; and you only wanted to try and wring it out of me, by fair means or foul." Here Fred, worn out by excitement and anxiety, burst into a passionate fit of tears, and, leaning his face forward, buried it completely in the counterpane of his bed. When he looked up again a moment afterwards, surprised at Maurice's silence, he found his cousin gone and the room empty.

"Ah, no wonder he has left me," cried Fred bitterly; and then in his despair he clasped his hands and lifted up his heart to God, asking earnestly for the help he so sorely needed, and the forgiveness he scarcely dared to crave.