My lady desired me to ring the bell, and order the washing-book. She
remained with us until it was produced, in case Sergeant Cuff had any
further request to make of her after looking at it.
The washing-book was brought in by Rosanna Spearman. The girl had
come down to breakfast that morning miserably pale and haggard, but
sufficiently recovered from her illness of the previous day to do her
usual work. Sergeant Cuff looked attentively at our second housemaid--at
her face, when she came in; at her crooked shoulder, when she went out.
"Have you anything more to say to me?" asked my lady, still as eager as
ever to be out of the Sergeant's society.
The great Cuff opened the washing-book, understood it perfectly in half
a minute, and shut it up again. "I venture to trouble your ladyship with
one last question," he said. "Has the young woman who brought us this
book been in your employment as long as the other servants?"
"Why do you ask?" said my lady.
"The last time I saw her," answered the Sergeant, "she was in prison for
theft."
After that, there was no help for it, but to tell him the truth. My
mistress dwelt strongly on Rosanna's good conduct in her service, and
on the high opinion entertained of her by the matron at the reformatory.
"You don't suspect her, I hope?" my lady added, in conclusion, very
earnestly.
"I have already told your ladyship that I don't suspect any person in
the house of thieving--up to the present time."
After that answer, my lady rose to go up-stairs, and ask for Miss
Rachel's keys. The Sergeant was before-hand with me in opening the door
for her. He made a very low bow. My lady shuddered as she passed him.
We waited, and waited, and no keys appeared. Sergeant Cuff made no
remark to me. He turned his melancholy face to the window; he put his
lanky hands into his pockets; and he whistled "The Last Rose of Summer"
softly to himself.
At last, Samuel came in, not with the keys, but with a morsel of paper
for me. I got at my spectacles, with some fumbling and difficulty,
feeling the Sergeant's dismal eyes fixed on me all the time. There were
two or three lines on the paper, written in pencil by my lady. They
informed me that Miss Rachel flatly refused to have her wardrobe
examined. Asked for her reasons, she had burst out crying. Asked again,
she had said: "I won't, because I won't. I must yield to force if
you use it, but I will yield to nothing else." I understood my lady's
disinclination to face Sergeant Cuff with such an answer from her
daughter as that. If I had not been too old for the amiable weaknesses
of youth, I believe I should have blushed at the notion of facing him
myself.