CHAPTER XXI.DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.
Scarcely half an hour had elapsed, when there was another knock at the door, and Jane Kelly, the hospital nurse, presented herself.
“Oh, you have come at last!” exclaimed the old woman. “What news this time?”
“I have come for the other ear-ring; it’s all right this time!”
“Dead?”
“Yes, dead, I gave him to my favorite nurse. The Irish woman wanted him dreadfully, and made a fuss at headquarters, but I proved that she lay in a dead sleep from drinking the very night before we sent her home, so my woman got the child and kept it to the last.”
“And it is dead, ha?”
Jane nodded her head. “Paregoric for breakfast, cordial between whiles, and laudanum at night; that nurse always has quiet babies; can lay ’em down anywhere in a corner or on a shelf. If they wake up and cry, more drops; you can’t think how nat’rally they go to the other sleep at last; it’s quite beautiful.”
“But this one? don’t talk of sleep,—is it dead?”
“As a door-nail!”
“La—a,” ejaculated the old woman, with a sort of distrustful exultation, “if I could believe you now!”
Jane fired up in an instant.
“I see—this is to get rid of paying over the other ear-ring; but it won’t do, I’m not to be taken in that way. Goodness knows the whole set wouldn’t half pay me for the trouble and risk, to say nothing of one’s soul. So it’s nouse putting on airs, I’ve earned the ear-rings, and I mean to have ’em.”
“There now, dear, there now, what an ado you are making, and all for nothing at all; dear me, who said a word about not giving you the ring? but the mate, just let me see that, and we will put them together. Earned them? indeed I think you have, dear, and more than that by a good deal. Certainly, my dear, you shall have more than that.”
“Oh, thank you! I deserve it, at any rate, though the girl did escape.”
“Deserve it, my pet, of course you do, and twice as much; but give me the ear-ring.”
“Not exactly!” answered Jane Kelly, “I was not fool enough to bring it here.”
“Then you haven’t it about you?”
“No, why should I?”
“Oh, no, why should you—but you haven’t pawned or sold it, have you?”
“Of course I haven’t; none of your fine ladies will get a chance to flourish in them diamond ear-rings now, I tell you; they cost too much for that, and what I’ve earned I can afford to wear as well as the best on ’em.”
“But why didn’t you put it in your ear to-night? I should just like to see ’em sparkling each side of them rosy cheeks; why, it’d be a treat to see them and your eyes a-flashing together. I wish you’d brought ’em, dear.”
“Well,” answered Jane, smoothing back her hair, with great complacency, “it’s no use talking about it now, for one ear-ring is safe in my trunk, at the hospital, and the other, you know, is somewhere in the room here, so it stands to reason they can’t outshine my two eyes to-night.”
“Oh, ho!” ejaculated madame, softly; “in your trunk; well, I should a thought it would have been safer in your pocket.”
“Not at all. I keep the store-room key myself, and noone gets to my trunk now, I tell you. The matron would give her eyes to see what’s in it; but, no; close bind, close find, is my motto.”
“And so you must have the mate to that ring to-night?” said Madame De Marke, after a moment’s reflection.
“Must have the mate to that ring to-night,” repeated Jane, with a self-confident toss of the head.
“Well, now, how sorry I am, dear; but the room isn’t safe for things so costly, you know, and it was only yesterday I sent it down to the bank.”
“Indeed!” drawled Jane Kelly, eying her friend distrustfully; “so you are certain there is no mistake about the bank. It don’t happen to be under the bed now, in a little morocco box, inside of one with iron clamps?”
“What, what!” exclaimed the old woman, starting up fiercely, “you know this; you have been peeping and prying about my room, eh? But it isn’t there; I sent boxes and all down to the bank; so you can try at your game there; perhaps you’ve got a skeleton-key, or something of that sort.”
“No,” said Jane, rising in a fury; “but I’ve got the power to make you suffer, and I will, if that ear-ring isn’t forthcoming by to-morrow night. My oath is good yet, and one picks up a little law now and then in the institution. It’s no joke to bribe a person to murder.”
“Ha! you’re cute, dear—very cute; so you will make oath to that, eh?”
“Yes, I will make oath to that, if the diamond ear-ring in my trunk hasn’t a mate by this time to-morrow night.”
“But you forget,” cried the old woman, “that the baby is dead.”
“Not at all, Madame De Marke; I recommended the nurse; that was all. She has had plenty of children before from the Almshouse.”
Madame De Marke moved restlessly in her seat, and alook of crafty thought stole over her face. At last she began to smile, and winding her fingers softly around each other, as if caressing herself for a pleasant idea, she said:
“Oh, very well, to-morrow night you may come again; everything shall be ready. You and I are not going to quarrel, dear; come to-morrow night; that’s a dear.”
“Yes, I will come,” answered Jane, brusquely; “depend on that.”
She arose, and, folding the shawl around her, with a defiant air, went out, muttering: “Yes, yes, we’ll settle this business to-morrow night, no mistake about that.”
After she was gone, Madame stood for a moment listening, till the sound of her footsteps died on the stairs; then she dragged forth the iron-bound box, took out the odd ear-ring, and thrust it in her bosom. Snatching up a queer old bonnet, with a crown like a muskmellon, and a front like a sugar-scoop, she framed her witch-like face in it, and stole out of the chamber, treading like a cat, and, in reality, appearing to see in the dark like one.