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It dawned at last on the well-meaning Mrs Shuckleford that no good was being done by prolonging her neighbour's suspense any further. "Well, well! It's only that I'm afraid he's been doing something well dreadful. Oh, Mrs Cruden, how sorry I am for you!" Mrs Cruden lay motionless, like one who had received a stab. "What has he done?" she whispered slowly.
"Oh, I'll tell you," said the girl; "I don't care what they do to me. I'd sooner be sent to prison than go on at it. He told me to do it, and threatened me all sorts of things if I didn't. Oh dear! oh dear!" "Who told you?" "Why, Mr Shuckleford.
For Reginald was a gentleman, and the sound of these rude words in his own voice startled him into a sense of shame and confusion tenfold worse than any Miss Shuckleford had succeeded in producing. "I beg your pardon," he gasped hurriedly. "I I didn't mean to be rude." Now was the hour of Miss Jemima's triumph. She had the unhappy youth at her mercy, and she took full advantage of her power.
Accordingly that same evening, while Samuel was pleading eloquently on behalf of our dumb fellow-creatures, and Jemima, having recovered from her tears, was sitting abstractedly over a shorthand exercise in her own bedroom, Mrs Shuckleford took upon herself to pay a friendly call at Number 6. It happened to be one of Horace's late evenings, so that Mrs Cruden was alone.
Mrs Shuckleford, deeming it prudent not to refer again to the unpleasant subject which had been the immediate cause of Mrs Cruden's seizure, waited till she was assured that at present she could be of no further use, and then withdrew, full of sympathy and commiseration, which she manifested in all sorts of womanly ways during her neighbour's illness.
"Why, what's wrong?" said Horace. "Don't you think she's nice?" "She is; but Shuckleford, Cruden, is not." "Hullo, you two," said the voice of the gentleman in question at this moment; "you seem jolly thick. Oh, of course, shopmates; I forgot; both in the news line. Eh? Now, who's for musical chairs? Don't all speak at once."
It had been during this period that he had made the acquaintance of Shuckleford, and the prospect of revenge which that intimacy opened to him was a welcome diversion to the monotony of his existence.
"No you don't, Mrs Cruden," said the effusive Mrs Shuckleford; "'ere you are, and 'ere you stays I am so 'appy to see you. You and I can 'ave a cosy chat in the corner while the young folk enjoy theirselves. Jemima, put a chair for Mrs C. alongside o' mine; and, Sam, take the boys and see they have some one to talk to 'em."
The Shucklefords such was the name of this amiable family were comparatively recent sojourners in Dull Street. They had come there six years previously, on the death of Mr Shuckleford, a respectable wharfinger, who had saved up money enough to leave his wife a small annuity.
"But after all, Mrs Shuckleford," said Mrs Cruden, "there are worse troubles in this life than separation." "You're right. Oh, I'm so sorry for you." "Why for me? I have only the lighter sorrow." "Oh, Mrs Cruden, do you call a wicked son a light sorrow?" "Certainly not, but my sons, thank God, are good, brave boys, both of them." "And who told you 'e was a good, brave boy? Reggie, I mean."
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