A Girl of the People by L. T. Meade (distant reading TXT) 📕

and I'll stay ef you'll take me on my own terms. Not unless—mind you that—not unless."

Granger was a little the worse for drink. He was not really tipsy, but he had taken enough slightly to confuse his brain; and the altered aspect of the room and the sudden apparition of his daughter almost paralyzed him.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, and he sank down, an abject-looking figure, on the nearest chair.

"Do you hear me, father?" said Bet. She came up close and stood over him. "I ha' come back, Ef you give me my terms, I'll stay. I'll stay, and I don't mind owning that I've been conquered. I'll do for you, and tend you, and keep the place tidy for you, same as I did when mother was alive, and what money I earns you shall share. I'll be as true a daughter to you, father, as ef—as ef you was good. You want some one to cosset you up, don't you father? You give me my way, and I'll do it. Cosy will be no name for you, father, and snug no word for this yer room."

Here Bet knelt down, and laid her shapely hand on Granger's arm; her eyes looked into his, and her lips, so hard and firm a minute ago, absolutely smiled.

"You're none so young as you were," she continued; "you're getting on in years, and your step's a bit shaky, and your hairs are turning white. You wants your comforts, father—course you do. Why, this room—it was shameful when I come in, and look at it now!—it's a bit spry, ain't it now?"

"For sure, yes; it is spry," said Granger, glancing round him in a nervous, anxious manner.

His daughter's strange demeanor and unusual gentleness by no means reassured him.

"What are you arter, Bet?" he said, as gruffly as he could manage to speak. "You don't bring honeyed words like them 'ere into this house for nothing. Tell out what you wants, and don't talk flummery."

"I wants you and Dent to take the shame off Will Scarlett," said Bet. "There's no flummery there—that's my meaning, spoke out plain. You two ha' put shame on Will, and cast him into prison, and I want you to take him out again, and lift the shameful lie off him. That's all—it ain't much, and it 'ull be the better for your souls—ef you have any souls—that you should do it."

Granger burst into a loud laugh.

"You have the cheek!" he said. "And for you to wed him, I suppose, the werry minute as he gets his liberty! No, no, Bet—none of that. I ain't much—for sure I ain't much; but a gel brought up in Sparrer Street shan't wed with no thief. There—I'm going out. I know nought about Will Scarlett. Neither Dent nor me could open his prison doors for him. You talk rubbish, Bet, and I'm 'shamed to hear you. I'm going out—you can set by the fire as long as you pleases, or you can go back to Paradise Row."

Granger turned to the door. But Bet was before him. She turned the key in the lock and put it in her pocket.

"No, no, father; you don't go out until you hear my terms," she said.

CHAPTER XIX.

All her softness had deserted her. She looked like what she was—a wild, untamed creature brought to bay.

"You ha' got to hear my terms, father," she said. "I'll be a good daughter to you, but I want Will out of prison. You don't suppose as I don't know what you and Isaac Dent ha' done to my Will. You was mad as I should be happy with Will, and Isaac Dent was mad 'cause I shouldn't mate with he; and Isaac Dent stole the five-pound notes and the purse, and other money besides, and he knew as the number of the notes was took, and he was frightened, and so he give the notes to Will, and pretended as he wanted to buy his berth in the 'Good Queen Anne.' But Dent didn't sail in that ship, father, and Dent's in Liverpool now—I know he is, for you axed me to meet him here some time back, and Mother Bunch seed you and a sailor lad in the Star and Garter this week, and she heerd you plotting and planning, and she knew—she guessed as there wor mischief brewing. There's a case agin' you and Dent, father, and you'd better come to my terms, or it 'ull fare worse with you. No harm'll come to you; but Dent—he must be found, and Will must be set free. There—you've got to do that; do you hear me?"

Granger crouched near the door. He neither liked Bet's manner nor her words. She knew a great deal more than he had the least idea of. Mother Bunch having overheard him and Dent as they laid their plans together in the Star and Garter was an awkward circumstance. The whole thing looked ugly. He wished he were out of it. More particularly as he had never received any of Dent's promised gold.

It behoved him, howe'er, to be careful,—on no account must he betray himself or his fears to this astute daughter.

"You needn't speak so loud, Bet—I ain't deaf. It's a queer world,—it's a nice state, so to speak, of society when a gel takes to bullying of her own father. You're quite mistook ef you suppose Dent is in Liverpool. A life on the ocean wave, with its storms and its fogs and its dangers, is poor Dent's life at present. But I don't say," continued Granger, lowering his voice, and trying to speak in a seductive manner, "I don't say as I couldn't get word with him. I won't say how, and I won't say when; and I won't say, either, but what he's as innocent as a babe; but word with him I might be able to get ef,—now, what's the matter, Bet?"

"Nothing, father—nothing much—only set you down by the fire and make yourself cosy. There—you're all trembling; you're not as strong as you ought for to be—you wants your comforts. You'd like a cup of tea now, wouldn't you? And no one can make tea like Bet—now, can they?"

"That's true enough, my gel—you can be a comfort ef you have a mind. No mistake on that point. Well, as I said, I might get word of Dent,—only hark you, Bet, you'll stay at home—there'll be no larks back to Paradise Row, and no bringing Mother Bunch to the front? You'll stay here, and be a comfort to your father?"

"Yes, father, I said I would,—oh, I can make you real cosy, there's no doubt on that point."

"And you'll bring the lads back, and not play no fool about them no more? They're my lads, and you has treated me shameful in the matter. But you'll bring 'em back, to be under the shelter of their honest father's roof? You understand—I'll do nought about finding Dent unless you comes back here—you and them boys." Bet's face was convulsed for a moment.

"They shall come back," she said, then—"that's the 'greement: me and them living here as of old, and Will let out of his prison."

"And there'll be no talk of your marrying yourself to the thief? I'll do nought ef you give me that feller as a son-in-law. I'd rather a sight leave him in prison—why, Bet, how white you air—I wouldn't be doing my dooty as a father ef I seed you a flinging of your 'andsome self away on a thief feller."

Granger was right when he said Bet's face had grown white. Her long fast, all the anguish and agitation she had undergone, and now this terrible last clause in the agreement she was making with her father, proved too much for her. She did not faint, as she had done in the morning; but she was absolutely incapable of replying. Her lips opened, it is true, but no articulate sound came from them.

"I'm a bit weak," she managed to gasp at last; "I han't eaten nought to-day."

Granger fetched her a little water, and then volunteered to go out to bring in bread and tea. He was still considerably puzzled and annoyed at Bet's knowledge of his doings; but he was glad to have the girl and the boys once more in his power, and had great faith in Dent's diplomacy.

Dent would soon settle things, and Bet should be his wife as quickly as the license could be purchased.

CHAPTER XX.

The police were searching everywhere for a sailor called Dent. They set detectives to work, and had little doubt that long before the week had expired for which Will had been remanded they would find their man, and establish the truth, or otherwise, of Will's story.

When it commenced it seemed quite an easy search; but the days flew quickly, and neither about the docks, nor loafing round the quays, could anyone least bearing Isaac Dent's description be found. His name was not on any ship's log, and the police came to the conclusion that Liverpool really did not contain him. They advertised—they even offered rewards for the slightest information; but no clue could they obtain. On the seventh day of Will's captivity they gave the matter up as a bad job, and said that the sailor Dent was not in the city.

They were mistaken. Dent had never left his native shores. He was not particular as to his quarters—he was clever at disguising himself; and as there are in Liverpool courts and slums into which no policeman cares to venture, it was not very difficult for Dent to elude these worthies.

Granger, however, had found him out, and Granger and he had many colloquies, but not in a place where Mother Bunch could overhear.

"I ain't afeard," said Dent. "They can do nought to me, nor to you neither, mate. I'd like to go to the police court—and I will, too. But it won't be to clear Will—by no means, but quite the contrairy. Only I don't choose the police to be dragging of me forward. I'll go when I has made terms with Bet, and not afore."

Then the men whispered together again, and laid their plans, which were quite as deep, and quite as wicked, as the most unprincipled could desire.

Bet lived once more in Sparrow Street, earning thereby Mother Bunch's contempt, and a queer, puzzled look from Hester Wright, who would not forsake her, but who certainly failed to understand either her or her motive. She brought the boys home; and now her father's room in Sparrow Street was kept fairly neat, and the lads resumed the life which had been broken off at their mother's death. They shrank from their father, who, absorbed in other things, did not trouble them much just then; and they looked with great wonder and perplexity at Bet. She was not the Bet of old; she took scarcely any notice of them; she never smiled when they came near her; she said nothing at all now about their being good boys, and never by any chance did she allude to their mother's name before them.

She spent her whole time watching and listening,—starting and changing color at the merest sound, looking eagerly at her father whenever he came into the house, avoiding Hester Wright, eating next to nothing, wearing away her sleeping hours in long, exhausting fits of weeping. Will's week in prison was nearly over, and Bet in the time had changed—changed so much that it almost seemed as if years had gone over her head. Her cheeks were thin, all the color had left her face, and her eyes looked now too bright and large for beauty.

On the day previous to Will's again appearing before the magistrates the poor girl's restlessness became almost unbearable. Granger still gave her to understand that Dent was not in Liverpool. He would find him—yes, he said, he was certain to find him; but Bet did not know that he had done so, and her terrors were proportionately great. She could not sit still for a moment—but paced up and down, up and down the small room where her mother had died, like a caged animal.

The captain and the general were off on expeditions of their own; hours passed, but no one came near the unhappy girl.

At last, when her impatience had almost burst bounds, Granger arrived.

"I ha' done it, Bet," he said. "It rests with you now—Dent is found."

"Thank God!" she exclaimed, involuntarily. She fell on her knees before her father and clasped his hands. "Feel how my heart beats," she said—"I were nearly going mad. Father, there'll never be a better daughter to you than me in all Christendom, from this time out. You ha' found Isaac Dent, and he'll be in the witness-box to save Will to-morrow. Thank God Almighty!