IV
“Where can Nancy be?”
Miss Preen spoke these words to Mary Carimon in a sort of flurry. After letting themselves into the house, the Petite Maison Rouge, and calling up and down it in vain for Nancy, the question as to where she could be naturally arose.
“She must be spending the evening with the friends she stayed to dine with,” said Madame Carimon.
“I don’t know where she would be likely to stay. Unless—yes—perhaps at Mrs. Hardy’s.”
“That must be it, Lavinia,” pronounced Madame Carimon.
It was then getting towards nine o’clock. They set out again for Mrs. Hardy’s to escort Nancy home. She lived in the Rue Lothaire; a long street, leading to the railway-station.
Mrs. Hardy was an elderly lady. When near her door they saw her grand-nephew, Charles Palliser, turn out of it. Charley was a good-hearted young fellow, the son of a rich merchant in London. He was staying at Sainteville for the purpose of acquiring the art of speaking French as a native.
“Looking for Miss Ann Preen!” cried he, as they explained in a word or two. “No, she is not at our house; has not been there. I saw her going off this evening by the six-o’clock train.”
“Going off by the six-o’clock train!” echoed Miss Lavinia, staring at him. “Why, what do you mean, Mr. Charles? My sister has not gone off by any train.”
“It was in this way,” answered the young man, too polite to flatly contradict a lady. “Mrs. Hardy’s cousin, Louise Soubitez, came to town this morning; she spent the day with us, and after dinner I went to see her off by the train. And there, at the station, was Miss Ann Preen.”
“But not going away by train,” returned Miss Lavinia.
“Why, yes, she was. I watched the train out of the station. She and Louise Soubitez sat in the same compartment.”
A smile stole to Charles Palliser’s face. In truth, he was amused at Miss Lavinia’s consternation. It suddenly struck her that the young man was joking.
“Did you speak to Ann, Mr. Charles?”
“Oh yes; just a few words. There was not time for much conversation; Louise was late.”
Miss Preen felt a little shaken.
“Was Ann alone?”
“No; she was with Captain Fennel.”
And, with that, a suspicion of the truth, and the full horror of it, dawned upon Lavinia Preen. She grasped Madame Carimon’s arm and turned white as death.
“It never can be,” she whispered, her lips trembling: “it never can be! She cannot have—have—run away—with that man!”
Unconsciously perhaps to herself, her eyes were fixed on Charles. He thought the question was put to him, and answered it.
“Well—I—I’m afraid it looks like it, as she seems to have said nothing to you,” he slowly said. “But I give you my word, Miss Preen, that until this moment that aspect of the matter never suggested itself to me. I supposed they were just going up the line together for some purpose or other; though, in fact, I hardly thought about it at all.”
“And perhaps that is all the mystery!” interposed Madame Carimon briskly. “He may have taken Ann to Drecques for a little jaunt, and they will be back again by the last train. It must be almost due, Lavinia.”
With one impulse they turned to the station, which was near at hand. Drecques, a village, was the first place the trains stopped at on the up-line. The passengers were already issuing from the gate. Standing aside until all had passed, and not seeing Nancy anywhere, Charley Palliser looked into the omnibuses. But she was not there.
“They may have intended to come back and missed the train, Miss Preen; it’s very easy to miss a train,” said he in his good nature.
“I think it must be so, Lavinia,” spoke up Madame Carimon. “Any way, we will assume it until we hear to the contrary. And, Charley, we had better not talk of this to-night.”
“I won’t,” answered Charley earnestly. “You may be sure of me.”
Unless Captain Fennel and Miss Ann Preen chartered a balloon, there was little probability of their reaching Sainteville that evening, for this had been the last train. Lavinia Preen passed a night of discomfort, striving to hope against hope, as the saying runs. Not a very wise saying; it might run better, striving to hope against despair.
When Sunday did not bring back the truants, or any news of them, the three in the secret—Mary Carimon, Lavinia, and Charley Palliser—had little doubt that the disappearance meant an elopement. Monsieur Jules Carimon, not easily understanding such an escapade, so little in accordance with the customs and manners of his own country, said in his wife’s ear he hoped it would turn out that there was a marriage in the case.
Miss Preen received a letter from Dover pretty early in the week, written by Ann. She had been married that day to Captain Fennel.
Altogether, the matter was the most bitter blow ever yet dealt to Lavinia Preen. No living being knew, or ever would know, how cruelly her heart was wrung by it. But, being a kindly woman of good sound sense, she saw that the best must be made of it, not the worst; and this she set herself out to do. She began by hoping that her own instinct, warning her against Captain Fennel, might be a mistaken one, and that he had a good home to offer his wife and would make her happy in it.
She knew no more about him—his family, his fortune, his former life, his antecedents—than she knew of the man in the moon. Major Smith perhaps did; he had been acquainted with him in the past. Nancy’s letter, though written the previous day, had been delivered by the afternoon post. As soon as she could get dinner over, Lavinia went to Major Smith’s. He lived at the top of the Rue Lambeau, a street turning out of the Grande Place. He and his wife, their own dinner just removed, were sitting together, the major indulging in a steaming glass of schiedam and water, flavoured with a slice of lemon. He was a very jolly little man, with rosy cheeks and a bald head. They welcomed Miss Lavinia warmly. She, not quite as composed as usual, opened her business without preamble; her sister Ann had married Captain Fennel, and she had come to ask Major Smith what he knew of him.
“Not very much,” answered the major.
There was something behind his tone, and Lavinia burst into tears. Compassionating her distress, the major offered her a comforting glass, similar to his own. Lavinia declined it.
“You will tell me what you know,” she said; and he proceeded to do so.
Edwin Fennel, the son of Colonel Fennel, was stationed in India with his regiment for several years. He got on well enough, but was not much liked by his brother officers: they thought him unscrupulous and deceitful. All at once, something very disagreeable occurred, which obliged Captain Fennel to quit her Majesty’s service. The affair was hushed up, out of consideration to his family and his father’s long term of service. “In fact, I believe he was allowed to retire, instead of being cashiered,” added the major, “but I am not quite sure which it was.”
“What was it that occurred—that Captain Fennel did, to necessitate his dismissal?” questioned Lavinia.
“I don’t much like to mention it,” said the major, shaking his head. “It might get about, you see, Miss Preen, which would make it awkward for him. I have no wish, or right either, to do the man a gratuitous injury.”
“I promise you it shall not get about through me,” returned Lavinia; “my sister’s being his wife will be the best guarantee for that. You must please tell me, Major Smith.”
“Well, Fennel was suspected—detected, in short—of cheating at cards.”
Lavinia drew a deep breath. “Do you know,” she said presently, in an undertone, “that when I first met the man I shrank from his face.”
“Oh my! And it has such nice features!” put in Mrs. Smith, who was but a silly little woman.
“There was something in its shifty look which spoke to me as a warning,” continued Lavinia. “It did, indeed. All my life I have been able to read faces, and my first instinct has rarely, if ever, deceived me. Each time I have seen this man since, that instinct against him has become stronger.”
Major Smith took a sip at his schiedam. “I believe—between ourselves—he is just a mauvais sujet,” said he. “He has a brother who is one, out and out; as I chance to know.”
“What is Edwin Fennel’s income, major?”
“I can’t tell at all. I should not be surprised to hear that he has none.”
“How does he live then?” asked Lavinia, her heart going at a gallop.
“Don’t know that either,” said the major. “His father is dead now and can’t help him. A very respectable man, the old colonel, but always poor.”
“He cannot live upon air; he must have some means,” debated Lavinia.
“Lives upon his wits, perhaps; some men do. He wanted to borrow ten pounds from me a short time ago,” added the major, taking another sip at his tumbler; “but I told him I had no money to lend—which was a fact. I have an idea that he got it out of Charley Palliser.”
The more Lavinia Preen heard of this unhappy case, the worse it seemed to be. Declining to stay for tea, as Mrs. Smith wished, she betook her miserable steps home again, rather wishing that the sea would swallow up Captain Fennel.
The next day she saw Charles Palliser. Pouncing upon him as he was airing his long legs in the Grande Place, she put the question to him in so determined a way that Charley had no chance against her. He turned red.
“I don’t know who can have set that about,” said he. “But it’s true, Miss Preen. Fennel pressed me to lend him ten pounds for a month; and I—well, I did it. I happened to have it in my pocket, you see, having just cashed a remittance from my father.”
“Has he repaid you, Mr. Charles?”
“Oh, the month’s not quite up yet,” cried Charley. “Please don’t talk of it, Miss Preen; he wouldn’t like it, you know. How on earth it has slipped out I can’t imagine.”
“No, I shall not talk of it,” said Lavinia, as she wished him good-day and walked onwards, wondering what sort of a home Captain Fennel meant to provide for Ann.
Lavinia Preen’s cup of sorrow was not yet full. A morning or two after this she was seated at breakfast with the window open, when she saw the postman come striding across the yard with a letter. It was from the bride; a very short letter, and one that Miss Lavinia did not at once understand. She read it again.
“My dear Lavinia,
“All being well, we shall be home to-morrow; that is, on the day you receive this letter; reaching Sainteville by the last train in the evening. Please get something nice and substantial for tea, Edwin says, and please see that Flore has the bedroom in good order.
“Your affectionate sister,“Ann Fennel.”
The thing that Miss Lavinia did, when comprehension came to her, was to fly into a passion.
“Come home here—he!—is that what she means?” cried she. “Never. Have that man in my house? Never, never.”
“But what has mademoiselle received?” exclaimed Flore, appearing just then with a boiled egg. “Is it bad news?”
“It is news that I will not put up with—will not tolerate,” cried Miss Lavinia. And, in the moment’s dismay, she told the woman what it was.
“Tiens!” commented Flore, taking a common-sense view of matters: “they must be coming just to show themselves to mademoiselle on their marriage. Likely enough they will not stay more than a night or two, while looking out for an apartment.”
Lavinia did not believe it; but the very suggestion somewhat soothed her. To receive that man even for a night or two, as Flore put it, would be to her most repugnant, cruel pain, and she resolved not to do it. Breakfast over, she carried the letter and her trouble to the Rue Pomme Cuite.
“But I am afraid, Lavinia, you cannot refuse to receive them,” spoke Madame Carimon, after considering the problem.
“Not refuse to receive them!” echoed Lavinia. “Why do you say that?”
“Well,” replied Mary Carimon uneasily, for she disliked to add to trouble, “you see the house is as much Ann’s as yours. It was taken in your joint names. Ann has the right to return to it; and also, I suppose”—more dubiously—“to introduce her husband into it.”
“Is that French law?”
“I think so. I’ll ask Jules when he comes home to dinner. Would it not be English law also, Lavinia?”
Lavinia was feeling wretchedly uncomfortable. With all her plain common-sense, this phase of the matter had not struck her.
“Mary,” said she—and there stopped, for she was seized with a violent shivering, which seemed difficult to be accounted for. “Mary, if that man has to take up his abode in the house, I can never remain in it. I would rather die.”
“Look here, dear friend,” whispered Mary: “life is full of trouble—as Job tells us in the Holy Scriptures—none of us are exempt from it. It attacks us all in turn. The only one thing we can do is to strive to make the best of it, under God; to ask Him to help us. I am afraid there is a severe cross before you, Lavinia; better bear it than fight against it.”
“I will never bear that,” retorted Lavinia, turning a deaf ear in her anger. “You ought not to wish me to do so.”
“And I would not if I saw anything better for you.”
Madame Veuve Sauvage, sitting as usual at her front-window that same morning, was surprised at receiving an early call from her tenant, Miss Preen. Madame handed her into her best crimson velvet fauteuil, and they began talking.
Not to much purpose, however; for neither very well understood what the other said. Lavinia tried to explain the object of her visit, but found her French was not equal to it. Madame called her maid, Mariette, and sent her into the shop below to ask Monsieur Gustave to be good enough to step up.
Lavinia had gone to beg of them to cancel the agreement for the little house, so far as her sister was concerned, and to place it in her name only.
Monsieur Gustave, when he had mastered the request, politely answered that such a thing was not practicable; Miss Ann’s name could not be struck out of the lease without her consent, or, as he expressed it, breaking the bail. His mother and himself had every disposition to oblige Miss Preen in any way, as indeed she must know, but they had no power to act against the law.
So poor Miss Lavinia went into her home wringing her hands in despair. She was perfectly helpless.
V
The summer days went on. Mr. Edwin Fennel, with all the impudence in the world, had taken up his abode in the Petite Maison Rouge, without saying with your leave or by your leave.
“How could you think of bringing him here, Ann?” Lavinia demanded of her sister in the first days.
“I did not think of it; it was he thought of it,” returned Mrs. Fennel in her simple way. “I feared you would not like it, Lavinia; but what could I do? He seemed to look upon it as a matter of course that he should come.”
Yes, there he was; “a matter of course;” making one in the home. Lavinia could not show fight; he was Ann’s husband, and the place was as much Ann’s as hers. The more Lavinia saw of him the more she disliked him; which was perhaps unreasonable, since he made himself agreeable to her in social intercourse, though he took care to have things his own way. If Lavinia’s will went one way in the house and his the other, she found herself smilingly set at naught. Ann was his willing slave; and when opinions differed she sided with her husband.
It was no light charge, having a third person in the house to live upon their small income, especially one who studied his appetite. For a very short time Lavinia, in her indignation at affairs generally, turned the housekeeping over to Mrs. Fennel. But she had to take to it again. Ann was naturally an incautious manager; she ordered in delicacies to please her husband’s palate without regard to cost, and nothing could have come of that but debt and disaster.
That the gallant ex-Captain Fennel had married Ann Preen just to have a roof over his head, Lavinia felt as sure of as that the moon occasionally shone in the heavens. She did not suppose he had any other refuge in the wide world. And through something told her by Ann she judged that he had believed he was doing better for himself in marrying than he had done.
The day after the marriage Mr. and Mrs. Fennel were sitting on a bench at Dover, romantically gazing at the sea, honeymoon fashion, and talking of course of hearts and darts. Suddenly the bridegroom turned his thoughts to more practical things.
“Nancy, how do you receive your money—half-yearly or quarterly?” asked he.
“Oh, quarterly,” said Nancy. “It is paid punctually to us by the acting-trustee, Colonel Selby.”
“Ah, yes. Then you have thirty-five pounds every quarter?”
“Between us, we do,” assented Nancy. “Lavinia has seventeen pounds ten, and I have the same; and the colonel makes us each give a receipt for our own share.”
Captain Fennel turned his head and gazed at her with a hard stare.
“You told me your income was a hundred and forty pounds a-year.”
“Yes, it is that exactly,” said she quietly; “mine and Lavinia’s together. We do not each have that, Edwin; I never meant to imply–”
Mrs. Fennel broke off, frightened. On the captain’s face, cruel enough just then, there sat an expression which she might have thought diabolical had it been any one else’s face. Any way, it scared her.
“What is it?” she gasped.
Rising rapidly, Captain Fennel walked forward, caught up some pebbles, flung them from him and waited, apparently watching to see where they fell. Then he strolled back again.
“Were you angry with me?” faltered Nancy. “Had I done anything?”
“My dear, what should you have done? Angry?” repeated he, in a light tone, as if intensely amused. “You must not take up fancies, Mrs. Fennel.”
“I suppose Mrs. Selby thought it would be sufficient income for us, both living together,” remarked Nancy. “If either of us should die it all lapses to the other. We found it quite enough last year, I assure you, Edwin; Sainteville is so cheap a place.”
“Oh, delightfully cheap!” agreed the captain.
It was this conversation that Nancy repeated to Lavinia; but she did not speak of the queer look which had frightened her. Lavinia saw that Mr. Edwin Fennel had taken up a wrong idea of their income. Of course the disappointment angered him.
An aspect of semi-courtesy was outwardly maintained in the intercourse of home life. Lavinia was a gentlewoman; she had not spoken unpleasant things to the captain’s face, or hinted that he was a weight upon the housekeeping pocket; whilst he, as yet, was quite officiously civil to her. But there was no love lost between them; and Lavinia could not divest her mind of an undercurrent of conviction that he was, in some way or other, a man to be dreaded.
Thus Captain Fennel (as he was mostly called), being domiciled with the estimable ladies in the Petite Maison Rouge, grew to be considered one of the English colony of Sainteville, and was received as such. As nobody knew aught against him, nobody thought anything. Major Smith had not spoken of antecedents, neither had Miss Preen; the Carimons, who were in the secret, never spoke ill of any one: and as the captain could assume pleasing manners at will, he became fairly well liked by his country-people in a passing sort of way.
Lavinia Preen sat one day upon the low edge of the pier, her back to the sun and the sea. She had called in at the little shoe-shop on the port, just as you turn out of the Rue Tessin, and had left her parasol there. The sun was not then out in the grey sky, and she did not miss it. Now that the sun was shining, and the grey canopy above had become blue, she said to herself that she had been stupid. It was September weather, so the sun was not unbearable.
Lavinia Preen was thinner; the thraldom of the past three months had made her so. Now and then it would cross her mind to leave the Petite Maison Rouge to its married inmates; but for Nancy’s sake she hesitated. Nancy had made the one love of her life, and Nancy had loved her in return. Now, the love was chiefly given to the new tie she had formed; Lavinia was second in every respect.
“They go their way now, and I have to go mine,” sighed Lavinia, as she sat this morning on the pier. “Even my walks have to be solitary.”
A cloud came sailing up and the sun went in again. Lavinia rose; she walked onwards till she came to the end of the pier, where she again sat down. The next moment, chancing to look the way she had come, she saw a lady and gentleman advancing arm-in-arm.
“Oh, they are on the pier, are they!” mentally spoke Lavinia. For it was Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Fennel.
Nancy sat down beside her. “It is a long walk!” cried she, drawing a quick breath or two. “Lavinia, what do you think we have just heard?”
“How can I tell?” returned the elder sister.
“You know those queer people, an old English aunt and three nieces, who took Madame Gibon’s rooms in the Rue Ménar? They have all disappeared and have paid nobody,” continued Nancy. “Charley Palliser told us just how; he was laughing like anything over it.”
“I never thought they looked like people to be trusted,” remarked Lavinia. “Dear me! here’s the sun coming out again.”
“Where is your parasol?”
Lavinia recounted her negligence in having left it at the shoe-mart. Captain Fennel had brought out a small silk umbrella; he turned from the end of the pier, where he stood looking out to sea, opened the umbrella, and offered it.
“It is not much larger than a good-sized parasol,” remarked he. “Pray take it, Miss Lavinia.”
Lavinia did so after a moment’s imperceptible hesitation, and thanked him. She hated to be under the slightest obligation to him, but the sun was now full in her eyes, and might make her head ache.
The pleasant smell of a cigar caused them to look up. A youngish man, rather remarkably tall, with a shepherd’s plaid across his broad shoulders, was striding up the pier. He sat down near Miss Preen, and she glanced round at him. Appearing to think that she looked at his cigar, he immediately threw it into the sea behind him.
“Oh, I am sorry you did that,” said Lavinia, speaking impulsively. “I like the smell of a cigar.”
“Oh, thank you; thank you very much,” he answered. “I had nearly smoked it out.”
Voice and manner were alike pleasant and easy, and Lavinia spoke again—some trivial remark about the fine expanse of sea; upon which they drifted into conversation. We are reserved enough with strangers at home, we Islanders, as the world knows, but most of us are less ungracious abroad.
“Sainteville seems a clean, healthy place,” remarked the new-comer.
“Very,” said Miss Lavinia. “Do you know it well?”
“I never saw it before to-day,” he replied. “I have come here from Douai to meet a friend, having two or three days to spare.”
“Douai is a fine town,” remarked Captain Fennel, turning to speak, for he was still looking out over the sea, and had his opera-glasses in his hand. “I spent a week there not long ago.”
“Douai!” exclaimed Nancy. “That’s the place where the great Law Courts are, is it not? Don’t you remember the man last year, Lavinia, who committed some dreadful crime, and was taken up to Douai to be tried at the Assizes there?”
“We have a great case coming on there as soon as the Courts meet,” said the stranger, who seemed a talkative man; “and that’s what I am at Douai for. A case of extensive swindling.”
“You are a lawyer, I presume?” said Miss Preen.
The stranger nodded. “Being the only one of our London firm who can speak French readily, and we are four of us in it, I had to come over and watch this affair and wait for the trial. For the young fellow is an Englishman, I am sorry to say, and his people, worthy and well-to-do merchants, are nearly mad over it.”
“But did he commit it in England?” cried Miss Preen.
“Oh no; in France, within the arrondissement of the Douai Courts. He is in prison there. I dare say you get some swindling in a petty way even at Sainteville,” added the speaker.
“That we do,” put in Nancy. “An English family of ladies ran away only yesterday, owing twenty pounds at least, it is said.”
“Ah,” said the stranger, with a smile. “I think the ladies are sometimes more clever at that game than the men. By the way,” he went on briskly, “do you know a Mr. Dangerfield at Sainteville?”
“No,” replied Lavinia.
“He is staying here, I believe, or has been.”
“Not that I know of,” said Lavinia. “I never heard his name.”
“Changed it again, probably,” carelessly observed the young man.
“Is Dangerfield not his true name, then?”
“Just as much as it is mine, madam. His real name is Fennel; but he has found it convenient to drop that on occasion.”
Now it was a curious fact that Nancy did not hear the name which the stranger had given as the true one. Her attention was diverted by some men who were working at the mud in the harbour, for it was low water, and who were loudly disputing together. Nancy had moved to the side of the pier to look down at them.
“Is he a swindler, that Mr. Dangerfield?” asked she, half-turning her head to speak. But the stranger did not answer.
As to Lavinia, the avowal had struck her speechless. She glanced at Captain Fennel. He had his back to them, and stood immovable, apparently unconcerned, possibly not having heard. A thought struck her—and frightened her.
“Do you know that Mr. Dangerfield yourself?” she asked the stranger, in a tone of indifference.
“No, I do not,” he said; “but there’s a man coming over in yonder boat who does.”
He pointed over his shoulder at the sea as he spoke. Lavinia glanced quickly in the same direction.
“In yonder boat?” she repeated vaguely.
“I mean the London boat, which is on its way here, and will get in this evening,” he explained.
“Oh, of course,” said Lavinia, as if her wits had been wool-gathering.
The young man took out his watch and looked at it. Then he rose, lifted his hat, and, with a general good-morning, walked quickly down the pier.
Nancy was still at the side of the pier, looking down at the men. Captain Fennel put up his glasses and sat down beside Lavinia, his impassive face still as usual.
“I wonder who that man is?” he cried, watching the footsteps of the retreating stranger.
“Did you hear what he said?” asked Lavinia, dropping her voice.
“Yes. Had Nancy not been here, I should have given him a taste of my mind; but she hates even the semblance of a quarrel. He had no right to say what he did.”
“What could it have meant?” murmured Lavinia.
“It meant my brother, I expect,” said Captain Fennel savagely, and, as Lavinia thought, with every appearance of truth. “But he has never been at Sainteville, so far as I know; the fellow is mistaken in that.”
“Does he pass under the name of Dangerfield?”
“Possibly. This is the first I’ve heard of it. He is an extravagant man, often in embarrassment from debt. There’s nothing worse against him.”
He did not say more; neither did Lavinia. They sat on in silence. The tall figure in the Scotch plaid disappeared from sight; the men in the harbour kept on disputing.
“How long are you going to stay here?” asked Nancy, turning towards her husband.
“I’m ready to go now,” he answered. And giving his arm to Nancy, they walked down the pier together.
Never a word to Lavinia; never a question put by him or by Nancy, if only to say, “Are you not coming with us?” It was ever so now. Nancy, absorbed in her husband, neglected her sister.
Lavinia sighed. She sat on a little while longer, and then took her departure.
The shoe-shop on the port was opposite the place in the harbour where the London steamers were generally moored. The one now there was taking in cargo. As Lavinia was turning into the shop for her parasol, she heard a stentorian English voice call out to a man who was superintending the work in his shirt-sleeves: “At what hour does this boat leave to-night?”
“At eight o’clock, sir,” was the answer. “Eight sharp; we want to get away with the first o’ the tide.”
From Miss Lavinia Preen’s Diary
September 22nd.—The town clocks have just struck eight, and I could almost fancy that I hear the faint sound of the boat steaming down the harbour in the dark night, carrying Nancy away with it, and carrying him. However, that is fancy and nothing else, for the sound could not penetrate to me here.
Perhaps it surprised me, perhaps it did not, when Nancy came to me this afternoon as I was sitting in my bedroom reading Scott’s “Legend of Montrose,” which Mary Carimon had lent me from her little stock of English books, and said she and Captain Fennel were going to London that night by the boat. He had received a letter, he told her, calling him thither. He might tell Nancy that if he liked, but it would not do for me. He is going, I can only believe, in consequence of what that gentleman in the shepherd’s plaid said on the pier to-day. Can it be that the “Mr. Dangerfield” spoken of applies to Edwin Fennel himself and not to his brother? Is he finding himself in some dangerous strait, and is running away from the individual coming over in the approaching boat, who personally knows Mr. Dangerfield? “Can you lend me a five-pound note, Lavinia?” Nancy went on, when she had told me the news; “lend it to myself, I mean. I will repay you when I receive my next quarter’s income, which is due, you know, in a few days.” I chanced to have a five-pound note by me in my own private store, and I gave it her, reminding her that unless she did let me have it again, it would be so much less in hand to meet expenses with, and that I had found difficulty enough in the past quarter. “On the other hand,” said Nancy, “if I and Edwin stay away a week or two, you will be spared our housekeeping; and when our money comes, Lavinia, you can open my letter and repay yourself if I am not here. I don’t at all know where we are going to stay,” she said, in answer to my question. “I was beginning to ask Edwin just now in the other room, but he was busy packing his portmanteau, and told me not to bother him.”
And so, there it is: they are gone, and I am left here all alone.
I wonder whether any Mr. Dangerfield has been at Sainteville? I think we should have heard the name. Why, that is the door-bell! I must go and answer it.
It was Charley Palliser. He had come with a message from Major and Mrs. Smith. They are going to Drecques to-morrow morning by the eleven-o’clock train with a few friends and a basket of provisions, and had sent Charley to say they would be glad of my company. “Do come, Miss Preen,” urged Charley as I hesitated; “you are all alone now, and I’m sure it must be dreadfully dull.”