by Ellen Wood
“I don’t like it, Jules; I don’t indeed,” she said. “It has made a strangely disagreeable impression on me. What is your opinion?”
Placid Monsieur Jules did not seem to have much opinion one way or the other. Upon the superstitious portion of the tale he, being a practical Frenchman, totally declined to have any at all. He was very sorry for the uncomfortable position Miss Preen found herself in, and he certainly was not surprised she should wish to quit the Petite Maison Rouge if affairs could not be made more agreeable there. As to the Capitaine Fennel, he felt free to confess there was something about him which he did not like: and he was sure no man of honour ought to have run away clandestinely, as he did, with Miss Nancy.
“You see, Jules, what the man aims at is to get hold of Nancy’s income and apply it to his own uses — and for Lavinia to keep them upon hers.”
“I see,” said Jules.
“And Lavinia cannot do it; she has not half enough. It troubles me very much,” flashed Madame Carimon. “She says she shall stay with them until Easter is over. I should not; I should leave them to it to-morrow.”
“Yes, my dear, that’s all very well,” nodded Monsieur Jules; “but we cannot always do precisely what we would. Miss Preen is responsible for the rent of that house, and if Fennel and his wife do not pay it, she would have to. She must have a thorough understanding upon that point before she leaves it.”
By the nine-o’clock train that night they came home, Lavinia, pleading a bad headache and feeling altogether out of sorts, got Flore to remain for once, and went herself to bed. She dreaded the very sight of Captain Fennel.
In the morning she saw that the paper had disappeared from the mantelpiece. He was quite jaunty at breakfast, talking to her and Nancy about Pontipette; and things passed pleasantly. About eleven o’clock he began brushing his hat to go out.
“I’m going to have a look at Griffin, and see how he’s getting on,” he remarked. “Perhaps the old man would enjoy a drive this fine day; if so, you may not see me back till dinner-time.”
But just as Captain Fennel turned out of the Place Ronde to the Rue Tessin, he came upon Charles Palliser, strolling along.
“Fine day, Mr. Charles,” he remarked graciously.
“Capital,” assented Charles, “and I’m glad of it; the old gentleman will have a good passage. I’ve just seen him off by the eleven train.”
“Seems to me you spend your time in seeing people off by trains. Which old gentleman is it now? — him from below?”
Charley laughed. “It’s Griffin this time,” said he. “Being feeble, I thought I might be of use in starting him, and went up.”
“Griffin!” exclaimed Captain Fennel. “Why, where’s he gone to?”
“To Calais. En route for Dover and — —”
“What’s he gone for? When’s he coming back?” interrupted the captain, speaking like a man in great amazement.
“He is not coming back at all; he has gone for good,” said Charley. “His daughter came to fetch him.”
“Why on earth should she do that?”
“It seems that her husband, a clergyman at Kensington, fell across Major Smith last week in London, and put some pretty close questions to him about the old man, for they had been made uneasy by his letters of late. The major — —”
“What business had the major in London?” questioned Captain Fennel impatiently.
“You can ask him,” said Charles equably, “I didn’t. He is back again. Well, Major Smith, being questioned, made no bones about it at all; said Griffin and Griffin’s money both wanted looking after. Upon that, the daughter came straight off, arriving here on Sunday morning; she settled things yesterday, and has carried her father away to-day. He was as pleased as Punch, poor childish old fellow, at the prospect of a voyage in the boat.”
Whether this information put a check upon any little plan Captain Fennel may have been entertaining, Charles Palliser could not positively know; but he thought he had never seen so evil an eye as the one glaring upon him. Only for a moment; just a flash; and then the face was smoothed again. Charley had his ideas — and all his wits about him; and old Griffin had babbled publicly.
Captain Fennel strolled by his side towards the port, talking of Pontipette and other matters of indifference. When in sight of the harbour, he halted.
“I must wish you good-day now, Palliser; I have letters to write,” said he; and walked briskly back again.
Lavinia and Nancy were sitting together in the salon when he reached home. Nancy was looking scared.
“Edwin,” she said, leaving her chair to meet him— “Edwin, what do you think Lavinia has been saying? That she is going to leave us.”
“Oh, indeed,” he carelessly answered.
“But it is true, Edwin; she means it.”
“Yes, I mean it,” interposed Lavinia very quietly. “You and Nancy will be better without me; perhaps happier.”
He looked at her for a full minute in silence, then laughed a little. “Like Darby and Joan,” he remarked, as he put his writing-case on the table and sat down to it.
Mrs. Fennel returned to her chair by Lavinia, who was sitting close to the window mending a lace collar which had been torn in the ironing. As usual Nancy was doing nothing.
“You couldn’t leave me, Lavinia, you know,” she said in coaxing tones.
“I know that I never thought to do so, Ann, but circumstances alter cases,” answered the elder sister. Both of them had dropped their voices to a low key, not to disturb the letter-writer. But he could hear if he chose to listen. “I began putting my things together yesterday, and shall finish doing it at leisure. I will stay over Easter with you; but go then I shall.”
“You must be cruel to think of such a thing, Lavinia.”
“Not cruel,” corrected Lavinia. “I am sorry, Ann, but the step is forced upon me. The anxieties in regard to money matters are wearing me out; they would wear me out altogether if I did not end them. And there are other things which urge upon me the expediency of departure from this house.”
“What things?”
“I cannot speak of them. Never mind what they are, Ann. They concern myself; not you.”
Ann Fennel sat twirling one of her fair silken ringlets between her thumb and finger; a habit of hers when thinking.
“Where shall you live, Lavinia, if you do leave? Take another apartment at Sainteville?”
“I think not. It is a puzzling question. Possibly I may go back to Buttermead, and get some family to take me in as a boarder,” dreamily answered Lavinia. “Seventy pounds a-year will not keep me luxuriously.”
Captain Fennel lifted his face. “If it will not keep one, how is it to keep two?” he demanded, in rather defiant tones.
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Lavinia civilly. “I have not two to keep; only one.”
Nancy chanced to catch a glimpse of his face just then, and its look frightened her. Lavinia had her back to him, and did not see it. Nancy began to cry quietly.
“Oh, Lavinia, you will think better of this; you will not leave us!” she implored. “We could not do at all without you and your half of the money.”
Lavinia had finished her collar, and rose to take it upstairs. “Don’t be distressed, Nancy,” she paused to say; “it is a thing that must be. I am very sorry; but it is not my fault. As you — —”
“You can stay in the house if you choose!” flashed Nancy, growing feebly angry.
“No, I cannot. I cannot,” repeated Lavinia. “I begin to foresee that I might — might die of it.”
XI.
Sainteville felt surprised and sorry to hear that Miss Preen was going to leave it to its own devices, for the town had grown to like her. Lavinia did not herself talk about going, but the news somehow got wind. People wondered why she went. Matters, as connected with the financial department of the Petite Maison Rouge, were known but imperfectly — to most people not known at all; so that reason was not thought of. It was qui
te understood that Ann Preen’s stolen marriage, capped by the bringing home of her husband to the Petite Maison Rouge, had been a sharp blow to Miss Preen: perhaps, said Sainteville now, she had tried living with them and found it did not answer. Or perhaps she was only going away for a change, and would return after a while.
Passion week passed, and Easter week came in, and Lavinia made her arrangements for the succeeding one. On the Tuesday in that next week, all being well, she would quit Sainteville. Her preparations were made; her larger box was already packed and corded. Nancy, of shallow temperament and elastic spirits, seemed quite to have recovered from the sting of the proposed parting; she helped Lavinia to put up her laces and other little fine things, prattling all the time. Captain Fennel maintained his suavity. Beyond the words he had spoken — as to how she expected the income to keep two if it would not keep one — he had said nothing. It might be that he hardly yet believed Lavinia would positively go.
But she was going. At first only to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Monsieur Jules Carimon had a cousin, Madame Degravier, who kept a superior boarding-house there, much patronized by the English; he had written to her to introduce Miss Preen, and to intimate that it would oblige him if the terms were made très facile. Madame had written back to Lavinia most satisfactorily, and, so far, that was arranged.
Once at Boulogne in peace and quietness, Lavinia would have leisure to decide upon her future plans. She hoped to pay a visit to Buttermead in the summer-time, for she had begun to yearn for a sight of the old place and its people. After that — well, she should see. If things went on pleasantly at Sainteville — that is, if Captain Fennel and Nancy were still in the Petite Maison Rouge, and he was enabled to find means to continue in it — then, perhaps, she might return to the town. Not to make one of the household — never again that; but she might find a little pied-à-terre in some other home.
Meanwhile, Lavinia heard no more of the procès, and she wondered how the captain was meeting it. During the Easter week she made her farewell calls. That week she was not very much at home; one or other of her old acquaintances wanted her. Major and Mrs. Smith had her to spend a day with them; the Miss Bosanquets invited her also; and so on.
One call, involving also private business, she made upon old Madame Sauvage, Mary Carimon accompanying her. Monsieur Gustave was called up to the salon to assist at the conference. Lavinia partly explained her position to them in strict confidence, and the motive, as touching pecuniary affairs, which was taking her away: she said nothing of that other and greater motive, her superstitious fear.
“I have come to speak of the rent,” she said to Monsieur Gustave, and Mary Carimon repeated the words in French to old Madame Sauvage. “You must in future look to Captain Fennel for it; you must make him pay it if possible. At the same time, I admit my own responsibility,” added Lavinia, “and if it be found totally impracticable to get it from Captain Fennel or my sister, I shall pay it to you. This must, of course, be kept strictly between ourselves, Monsieur Gustave; you and madame understand that. If Captain Fennel gained any intimation of it, he would take care not to pay it.”
Monsieur Gustave and madame his mother assured her that they fully understood, and that she might rely upon their honour. They were grieved to lose so excellent a tenant and neighbour as Miss Preen, and wished circumstances had been more kindly. One thing she might rest assured of — that they should feel at least as mortified at having to apply to her for the rent as she herself would be, and they would not leave a stone unturned to extract it from the hands of Captain Fennel.
“It has altogether been a most bitter trial to me,” sighed Lavinia, as she stood up to say farewell to madame.
The old lady understood, and the tears came into her compassionate eyes as she held Lavinia’s hands between her own. “Ay, for certain,” she replied in French. “She and her sons had said so privately to one another ever since the abrupt coming home of the strange captain to the petite maison à côté.”
On Sunday, Lavinia, accompanied by Nancy and Captain Fennel, attended morning service for the last time. She spoke to several acquaintances coming out, wishing them good-bye, and was hastening to overtake her sister, when she heard rapid steps behind her, and a voice speaking. Turning, she saw Charley Palliser.
“Miss Preen,” cried he, “my aunt wants you to come home and dine with us. See, she is waiting for you. You could not come any one day last week, you know.”
“I was not able to come to you last week, Mr. Charles; I had so much to do, and so many engagements,” said Lavinia, as she walked back to Mrs. Hardy, who stood smiling.
“But you will come to-day, dear Miss Preen,” said old Mrs. Hardy, who had caught the words. “We have a lovely fricandeau of veal, and — —”
“Why, that is just our own dinner,” interrupted Lavinia gaily. “I should like to come to you, Mrs. Hardy, but I cannot. It is my last Sunday at home, and I could not well go out and leave them.”
They saw the force of the objection. Mrs. Hardy asked whether she should be at church in the evening. Lavinia replied that she intended to be, and they agreed to bid each other farewell then.
“You don’t know what you’ve lost, Miss Preen,” said Charley comically. “There’s a huge cream tart — lovely.”
Captain Fennel was quite lively at the dinner-table. He related a rather laughable story which had been told him by Major Smith, with whom he had walked for ten minutes after church, and was otherwise gracious.
After dinner, while Flore was taking away the things, he left the room, and came back with three glasses of liqueur, on a small waiter, handing one to Lavinia, another to his wife, and keeping the third himself. It was the yellow chartreuse; Captain Fennel kept a bottle of it and of one or two other choice liqueurs in the little cupboard at the end of the passage, and treated them to a glass sometimes.
“How delightful!” cried Nancy, who liked chartreuse and anything else that was good.
They sat and sipped it, talking pleasantly together. The captain soon finished his, and said he should take a stroll on the pier. It was a bright day with a brisk wind, which seemed to be getting higher.
“The London boat ought to be in about four o’clock,” he remarked. “It’s catching it sweetly, I know; passengers will look like ghosts. Au revoir; don’t get quarrelling.” And thus, nodding to the two ladies, he went out gaily.
Not much danger of their quarrelling. They turned their chairs to the fire, and plunged into conversation, which chanced to turn upon Buttermead. In calling up one reminiscence of the old place after another, now Lavinia, now Nancy, the time passed on. Lavinia wore her silver-grey silk dress that day, with some yellowish-looking lace falling at the throat and wrists.
Flore came in to bring the tea-tray; she always put it on the table in readiness on a Sunday afternoon. The water, she said, would be on the boil in the kitchen by the time they wanted it. And then she went away as usual for the rest of the day.
Not long afterwards, Lavinia, who was speaking, suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence. She started up in her chair, fell back again, and clasped her hands below her chest with a great cry.
“Oh, Nancy! — Nancy!”
Nancy dashed across the hearthrug. “What is it?” she exclaimed. “What is it, Lavinia?”
Lavinia apparently could not say what it was. She seemed to be in the greatest agony; her face had turned livid. Nancy was next door to an imbecile in any emergency, and fairly wrung her hands in her distress.
“Oh, what can be the matter with me?” gasped Lavinia. “Nancy, I think I am dying.”
The next moment she had glided from the chair to the floor, and lay there shrieking and writhing. Bursting away, Nancy ran round to the next house, all closed to-day, rang wildly at the private door, and when it was opened by Mariette, rushed upstairs to madame’s salon.
Madame Veuve Sauvage, comprehending that something was amiss, without understanding Nancy’s frantic words, put a shawl on her shoulders to hasten
to the other house, ordering Mariette to follow her. Her sons were out.
There lay Lavinia, in the greatest agony. Madame Sauvage sent Mariette off for Monsieur Dupuis, and told her to fly. “Better bring Monsieur Henri Dupuis, Mariette,” she called after her: “he will get quicker over the ground than his old father.”
But Monsieur Henri Dupuis, as it turned out, was absent. He had left that morning for Calais with his wife, to spend two days with her friends who lived there, purposing to be back early on Tuesday morning. Old Monsieur Dupuis came very quickly. He thought Mademoiselle Preen must have inward inflammation, he said to Madame Sauvage, and inquired what she had eaten for dinner. Nancy told him as well as she could between her sobs and her broken speech.
A fricandeau of veal, potatoes, a cauliflower au gratin, and a frangipane tart from the pastrycook’s. No fruit or any other dessert. They took a little Bordeaux wine with dinner, and a liqueur glass of chartreuse afterwards.
All very wholesome, pronounced Monsieur Dupuis, with satisfaction; not at all likely to disagree with mademoiselle. Possibly she had caught a chill.
Mariette had run for Flore, who came in great consternation. Between them all they got Lavinia upstairs, undressed her and laid her in bed, applying hot flannels to the pain — and Monsieur Dupuis administered in a wine-glass of water every quarter-of-an-hour some drops from a glass phial which he had brought in his pocket.
It was close upon half-past five when Captain Fennel came in. He expressed much surprise and concern, saying, like the doctor, that she must have eaten something which had disagreed with her. The doctor avowed that he could not otherwise account for the seizure; he did not altogether think it was produced by a chill; and he spoke again of the dinner. Captain Fennel observed that as to the dinner they had all three partaken of it, one the same as another; he did not see why it should affect his sister-in-law and not himself or his wife. This reasoning was evident, admitted Monsieur Dupuis; but Miss Preen had touched nothing since her breakfast, except at dinner. In point of fact, he felt very much at a loss, he did not scruple to add; but the more acute symptoms were showing a slight improvement, he was thankful to perceive, and he trusted to bring her round.