are severe, Bart. I hope to be a novelist myself."
"We need one, sir. For the most part them as write now ain't novelists, if that means telling anything as is new. But I must go upstairs, sir. Miss Sylvia said I was to tell her when you came."
"Oh, yes – er – er – that is – she wants to see a photograph of my old home. I promised to show it to her." Paul took a parcel out of his pocket. "Can't I go up?"
"No, sir. 'Twouldn't be wise. The old man may come back, and if he knew as you'd been in his house," Bart jerked his head towards the ceiling, "he'd take a fit."
"Why? He doesn't think I'm after the silver?"
"Lor' bless you no, sir. It ain't that. What's valuable – silver and gold and jewels and such like – is down there." Bart nodded towards the floor. "But Mr. Norman don't like people coming into his private rooms. He's never let in anyone for years."
"Perhaps he fears to lose the fairest jewel he has."
Bart was what the Scotch call "quick in the uptake." "He don't think so much of her as he ought to, sir," said he, gloomily. "But I know he loves her, and wants to make her a great heiress. When he goes to the worms Miss Sylvia will have a pretty penny. I only hope," added Bart, looking slyly at Paul, "that he who has her to wife won't squander what the old man has worked for."
Beecot colored still more at this direct hint, and would have replied, but at this moment a large, red-faced, ponderous woman dashed into the shop from a side door. "There," said she, clapping her hands in a childish way, "I know'd his vice, an' I ses to Miss Sylvia, as is sittin' doing needlework, which she do do lovely, I ses 'That's him,' and she ses, with a lovely color, 'Oh, Deborah, jus' see, fur m'eart's abeating too loud for me t'ear 'is vice.' So I ses – "
Here she became breathless and clapped her hands again, so as to prevent interruption. But Paul did interrupt her, knowing from experience that when once set going Deborah would go on until pulled up. "Can't I go up to Miss Norman?" he asked.
"You may murder me, and slay me, and trample on my corp," said Deborah, solemnly, "but go up you can't. Master would send me to walk the streets if I dared to let you, innocent as you are, go up them stairs."
Paul knew long ago how prejudiced the old man was in this respect. During all the six months he had known Sylvia he had never been permitted to mount the stairs in question. It was strange that Aaron should be so particular on this point, but connecting it with his downcast eye and frightened air, Paul concluded, though without much reason, that the old man had something to conceal. More, that he was frightened of someone. However, he did not argue the point, but suggested a meeting-place. "Can't I see her in the cellar?" he asked. "Mr. Norman said I could go down to wait for him."
"Sir," said Deborah, plunging forward a step, like a stumbling 'bus horse, "don't tell me as you want to pawn."
"Well, I do," replied Paul, softly, "but you needn't tell everyone."
"It's only Bart," cried Deborah, casting a fierce look in the direction of the slim, sharp-faced young man, "and if he was to talk I'd take his tongue out. That I would. I'm a-training him to be my husband, as I don't hold with the ready-made article, and married he shall be, by parsing and clark if he's a good boy and don't talk of what don't matter to him."
"I ain't goin' to chatter," said Bart, with a wink. "Lor' bless you, sir, I've seen gentlemen as noble as yourself pawning things down there" – he nodded again towards the floor – "ah, and ladies too, but – "
"Hold your tongue," cried Deborah, pitching herself across the floor like a ship in distress. "Your a-talking now of what you ain't a right to be a-talkin' of, drat you. Come this way, Mr. Beecot, to the place where old Nick have his home, for that he is when seven strikes."
"You shouldn't speak of your master in that way," protested Paul.
"Oh, shouldn't I," snorted the maid, with a snort surprisingly loud. "And who have a better right, sir? I've been here twenty year as servant and nuss and friend and 'umble well-wisher to Miss Sylvia, coming a slip of a girl at ten, which makes me thirty, I don't deny; not that it's too old to marry Bart, though he's but twenty, and makes up in wickedness for twice that age. I know master, and when the sun's up there ain't a better man living, but turn on the gas and he's an old Nick. Bart, attend to your business and don't open them long ears of yours too wide. I won't have a listening husband, I can tell you. This way, sir. Mind the steps."
By this time Deborah had convoyed Paul to a dark corner behind the counter and jerked back a trap door. Here he saw a flight of wooden steps which led downwards into darkness. But Miss Junk snatched up a lantern on the top step, and having lighted it dropped down, holding it above her red and touzelled head. Far below her voice was heard crying to Beecot to "Come on"; therefore he followed as quickly as he could, and soon found himself in the cellar. All around was dark, but Deborah lighted a couple of flaring gas-jets, and then turned, with her arms akimbo, on the visitor.
"Now then, sir, you and me must have a talk, confidential like," said she in her breathless way. "It's pawning is it? By which I knows that you ain't brought that overbearing pa of yours to his knees."
Paul sat down in a clumsy mahogany chair, which stood near a plain deal table, and stared at the handmaiden. "I never told you about my father," he said, exhibiting surprise.
"Oh, no, of course not" – Miss Junk tossed her head – "me being a babe an' a suckling, not fit to be told anything. But you told Miss Sylvia and she told me, as she tells everything to her Debby, God bless her for a pretty flower!" She pointed a coarse, red finger at Paul. "If you were a gay deceiver, Mr. Beecot, I'd trample on your corp this very minute if I was to die at Old Bailey for the doing of it."
Seeing Deborah was breathless again, Paul seized his chance. "There is no reason you shouldn't know all about me, and – "
"No, indeed, I should think not, begging your pardon, sir. But when you comes here six months back, I ses to Miss Sylvia, I ses, 'He's making eyes at you, my lily,' and she ses to me, she says, 'Oh, Debby, I love him, that I do.' And then I ses, ses I, 'My pretty, he looks a gent born and bred, but that's the wust kind, so we'll find out if he's a liar before you loses your dear heart to him.'"
"But I'm not a liar – " began Paul, only to be cut short again.
"As well I knows," burst out Miss Junk, her arms akimbo again. "Do you think, sir, as I'd ha' let you come loving my pretty one and me not knowing if you was Judas or Jezebel? Not me, if I never drank my nightly drop of beer again. What you told Miss Sylvia of your frantic pa and your loving ma she told me. Pumping you may call it," shouted Deborah, emphasising again with the red finger, "but everything you told in your lover way she told her old silly Debby. I ses to Bart, if you loves me, Bart, go down to Wargrove, wherever it may be – if in England, which I doubt – and if he – meaning you – don't tell the truth, out he goes if I have the chucking of him myself and a police-court summings over it. So Bart goes to Wargrove, and he find out that you speaks true, which means that you're a gent, sir, if ever there was one, in spite of your frantic pa, so I hopes as you'll marry my flower, and make her happy – bless you," and Deborah spread a large pair of mottled arms over Paul's head.
"It's all true," said he, good-naturedly; "my father and I don't get on well together, and I came to make a name in London. But for all you know, Deborah, I may be a scamp."
"That you are not," she burst out. "Why, Bart's been follerin' you everywhere, and he and me, which is to be his lawful wife and master, knows all about you and that there place in Bloomsbury, and where you go and where you don't go. And let me tell you, sir," again she lifted her finger threateningly, "if you wasn't what you oughter be,
