Chapter 5 MISS DUCK HAS A WORD TO SAY.

Mr. Duck was at breakfast one morning in his eight-roomed house at Dalston, and his revered sister, Miss Georgina, was pouring out the first cup of tea in the pot for him, and selecting the worst piece of bacon and the most suspicious-looking egg from the dish before her. Having jerked these delicacies on to his plate, and thus ensured the survival of the fittest, she proceeded to help herself to the remainder.

'Jabez,' said Miss Georgina suddenly, 'some day you will die!'

'Lor', Georgie, don't!' exclaimed Jabez, bolting a particularly cindery piece of bacon, and thereby nearly bringing his sister's prophecy off there and then.

When he had coughed and choked and increased in shininess from ten to thirty candle power, he gradually recovered, and, polishing his perspiring face with a large red handkerchief, proceeded to expostulate with Georgina on the impropriety of talking of death to a man with his mouth full.

'You are a weak-minded idiot, Jabez!' answered the lady. 'All men are. Do you imagine that you won't die?'

'No, my dear; of course not. Only, why remind me of an unpleasant fact just when I'm having my breakfast?'

'Because it is only at breakfast I see you, and I think you ought to make your will while you are in a sound state of mind. You've changed lately, brother Jabez-changed very much for the worse. You don't come home to tea, and you have ceased to take me into your confidence.'

'Nonsense, my dear!' stammered Mr. Duck, going very red. 'A little business has detained me the last night or two, I confess, but--'

'Jabez Duck, you're deceiving me. You're making a fool of yourself.'

'Georgina-really, upon my word--'

'Hold your tongue. I've looked after you and managed your house for more than twenty years, and I'm not going to desert you now. I will protect you against designing minxes with the last drop of my blood.'

Miss Duck waved her teaspoon in the air at an imaginary minx, and brought it down on her cup with a clang, as though she were striking her shield with a sword, and inviting the foes of Jabez Duck to come on.

Jabez grew very uncomfortable, and fidgeted about on his chair. The eagle eye of Georgina was reading his soul. He knew it was. He felt that the name of Susan Turvey was written on his guilty brow, and that Georgina was spelling it out.

He plucked up a little determination, and inquired, in a quavering voice, if his sister would kindly drop conundrums and come to the point.

Yes, she would come to the point. There was an old frump of a housekeeper at Mr. Egerton's-that was the point.

'Oh, indeed!' said Jabez. 'And pray who has been telling you this fine cock-and-bull story?'

'You yourself,' answered Miss Georgina triumphantly.

Herewith she put her hand into her pocket, and drew forth a crumpled piece of paper, which she handed to him.

'I found this in your trousers pocket.'

Jabez rose in wrath. The cloud on his brow quite obscured the skin for a moment.

'Georgina, you've no business at my trousers pockets! It's-dash it-it's embezzlement!'

Miss Duck laughed, an irritating, satirical little laugh, and, seizing the piece of paper which her brother held in his hand, she spread it out and read it aloud.

'Dear Mrs. Turvey-may I say Susan?-Dr. Birnie tells me, my own, you are progressing favourably, and may see visitors in a week's time. I count the hours. As the poet says:-

'"Thou wert all the world to me, love,

For which my soul did pine;

A green isle in the sea, love,

To be your valentine."

Oh, Susan, when reason returns, and health mantles your cheek once more, may I hope that you will grant the prayer of your ever-devoted Jabez?'

'Give it to me!' shrieked Mr. Duck, making a violent effort to seize his crumpled billet-doux.

'Certainly,' said Miss Georgina, tossing it contemptuously across the table to her brother, who tore it into fragments, and jumped upon it.

'How dare you, Georgina?' he exclaimed-how dare you interfere with my business? It's a crime to steal a letter. You could be prosecuted by the Postmaster-General.'

'Postmaster fiddlestick! I hope you didn't send any sane woman such twaddle as that, Jabez.'

'No, I didn't; I thought better of it,' stammered Mr. Duck.

'That's nothing. It wasn't a copy of a letter at all. It was an exercise of the imagination, that's all.'

'Well, don't leave your exercises in your pockets, Jabez.'

'I'll empty my pockets, Georgina-rely on that. Never do you have another coat or waistcoat of mine to brush till it's been searched as if it were a shoplifter brought into the police station. Give me my hat and coat. I'm going. Good morning, Georgina.'

Mr. Jabez burst out of the room in a towering passion. He brushed his hat the wrong way and quite took the shine off it; and when he jumped up on the box seat of his regular omnibus, there was so little shine in his face that the driver looked round to see if there was any fog about.

Mr. Duck was excessively annoyed that his sister had found this copy of his first love-letter in his pocket. He had intended her to know nothing about the matter till it was all arranged. In fact he wasn't quite sure that he should let her know anything about it till the ceremony was over, and he couldn't be bullied out of his resolve. He went in mortal terror of Georgina. She had a sharp tongue and a sharp eye, and she persisted in looking upon him as a weak-minded man, who could only prosper with her assistance.

When he had called at Mr. Egerton's house on the morning after the tea party, he had only seen Topsey, and Topsey had told him her aunt was very ill and couldn't see anybody, because she'd seen a ghost. She, Topsey, had seen the ghost too, and she described it. Mr. Duck's horror was intense when he found the apparition the child described was the exact counterpart of the firm's drowned client. It was coming away from the house that he met Dr. Birnie, and sent him in to see what was the matter with the housekeeper. From the doctor he learned the particulars of the case. Mrs. Turvey declared she had seen the ghost of her master, and the child corroborated her.

It couldn't be Gurth Egerton in flesh and blood, because he would have come in and spoken to them. He would have said, 'Here I am,' or made some observation.

But this ghost said nothing, and when Topsey, who had seized her aunt, and hidden her face, looked up, the door was shut and the ghost was gone.

Mrs. Turvey came to herself to find Topsey sobbing beside her and white with terror. They got downstairs the best way they could, and locked themselves in, and had the gas on full all night.

The next morning Mrs. Turvey was very ill, and Dr. Birnie had attended her ever since.

Jabez, who could keep very little to himself, had told this ghost story, with sundry reservations, to his sister, and she, finding the draft of a tender declaration in the pocket of a pair of trousers he had left out to be brushed, immediately put two and two together, like the clever woman that she was, and determined to tackle her brother at once.

Miss Georgina Duck was a strong-minded, hard-featured damsel, who had passed sweet seventeen some thirty years ago. She was mistress of a house without being plagued with a husband. She managed her brother's home, and her word was law. She ruled him, and she ruled the lodgers in the first floor, and she ruled the charwoman who came in to help occasionally, and she ruled the butcher and the baker and the milkman, and everybody in the neighbourhood who came within the circle of her magic influence.

She even ruled the cats. No cats came into her garden, or if by chance they did cross it en route for the gardens beyond, it was always in fear and trembling. Before the eye of Georgina Duck the most daring Tom would quail, and it was wonderful how quickly the whole of the neighbouring feline colony learned to shun a conflict with Miss Duck.

Now this was hardly the woman quietly to resign her sceptre after a long despotic reign just because her elderly idiot of a brother had taken a fancy to an old woman's legacy.

'A pretty thing, indeed,' said Miss Duck to her bosom friend, Miss Jackson, from over the road, 'for him to go making a fool of himself at his age! The house wouldn't hold her and me long. I suppose I should be expected to turn out. Not me!'

The idea of Miss Duck turning out so shocked Miss Jackson that she fell upon her friend's neck and wept.

Miss Jackson always wept. Tears with her supplied the place of speech.

'Don't be a fool, 'Lizer,' said Miss Duck, harshly. 'There's nothing to cry about. He hasn't done it yet. And he isn't going to!''

If Mr. Duck had been present he would have accepted his fate there and then, and resigned Mrs. Turvey without a struggle. Fortunately, he still believed that he could evade the watchful guardianship of Georgina, and did not allow his little plans to be disconcerted.

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