"Of course she wants me."
"Or of course you want her? Very good. Yours is the responsibility, not mine. Her address is the Hotel d"Angleterre. Shall I write it down for you? There it is. "Hotel d"Angleterre, Berne." Now you will not forget.
She will remain there for one fortnight only. After that, I cannot say whither she may go. And, as all her things have been sent away, and as I am going away, I am not likely to hear."
"Oh I must go to her. I must find her!" cried the woman earnestly; "if it is only to make sure that no evil is intended for her."
"That is your business. For my own part, I know of no one who can wish her ladyship any evil."
"Is my lord with her?"
"I don"t know whether that is your business. I have already told you that he is gone. If you join your mistress in Berne, you will very soon find out if he is there as well." Something in his tone made f.a.n.n.y look up quickly. But his face revealed nothing. "What shall you do then?"
asked the doctor. "You must make up your mind quickly whether you will go back to England or whether you will go on to Switzerland. You cannot stay here, because I am putting together the last things, and I shall give the landlord the key of the house this evening. All the bills are paid, and I am going to leave the place."
"I do not understand. There is the patient," she murmured vaguely.
"What does it mean? I cannot understand."
"My good creature," he replied roughly, "what the devil does it matter to me whether you understand or whether you do not understand? Her ladyship is, as I have told you, at Berne. If you please to follow her there, do so. It is your own affair, not mine. If you prefer to go back to London, do so. Still--your own affair. Is there anything else to say?"
Nothing. f.a.n.n.y took up her box--this time the doctor did not offer to carry it for her.
"Where are you going?" he asked. "What have you decided?"
"I can get round by the Chemin de Fer de Ceinture to the Lyons station.
I shall take the first cheap train which will take me to Berne."
"Bon voyage!" said the doctor, cheerfully, and shut the door.
It is a long journey from Paris to Berne even for those who can travel first cla.s.s and express--that is, if sixteen hours can be called a long journey. For those who have to jog along by third cla.s.s, stopping at all the little country stations, it is a long and tedious journey indeed. The longest journey ends at last. The train rolled slowly into the station of Berne, and f.a.n.n.y descended with her box. Her wanderings were over for the present. She would find her mistress and be at rest.
She asked to be directed to the Hotel d"Angleterre. The Swiss guardian of the peace with the c.o.c.ked hat stared at her. She repeated the question.
"Hotel d"Angleterre?" he echoed. "There is no Hotel d"Angleterre in Berne."
"Yes, yes; there is. I am the maid of a lady who is staying at that hotel."
"No; there is no Hotel d"Angleterre," he reported. "There is the Hotel Bernehof."
"No." She took out the paper and showed it to him--"Lady Harry Norland, Hotel d"Angleterre, Berne."
"There is the Hotel de Belle Vue, the Hotel du Faucon, the Hotel Victoria, the Hotel Schweizerhof. There is the Hotel schrodel, the Hotel Schneider, the Pension Simkin."
f.a.n.n.y as yet had no other suspicion than that the doctor had accidentally written a wrong name. Her mistress was at Berne: she would be in one of the hotels. Berne is not a large place. Very good; she would go round to the hotels and inquire. She did so. There are not, in fact, more than half a dozen hotels in Berne where an English lady could possibly stay. f.a.n.n.y went to every one of these. No one had heard of any such lady: they showed her the lists of their visitors. She inquired at the post-office. No lady of that name had asked for letters. She asked if there were any pensions, and went round them all--uselessly.
No other conclusion was possible. The doctor had deceived her wilfully.
To get her out of the way he sent her to Berne. He would have sent her to Jericho if her purse had been long enough to pay the fare. She was tricked.
She counted her money. There was exactly twenty-eight shillings and tenpence in her purse.
She went back to the cheapest (and dirtiest) of the pensions she had visited. She stated her case--she had missed milady her mistress--she must stay until she should receive orders to go on, and money--would they take her in until one or the other arrived? Certainly. They would take her in, at five francs a day, payable every morning in advance.
She made a little calculation--she had twenty-eight and tenpence; exactly thirty-five francs--enough for seven days. If she wrote to Mrs.
Vimpany at once she could get an answer in five days.
She accepted the offer, paid her five shillings, was shown into a room, and was informed that the dinner was served at six o"clock.
Very good. Here she could rest, at any rate, and think what was to be done. And first she wrote two letters--one to Mrs. Vimpany and one to Mr. Mountjoy.
In both of these letters she told exactly what she had found: neither Lord Harry nor his wife at the cottage, the place vacated, and the doctor on the point of going away. In both letters she told how she had been sent all the way into Switzerland on a fool"s errand, and now found herself planted there without the means of getting home. In the letter to Mrs. Vimpany she added the remarkable detail that the man whom she had seen on the Thursday morning apparently dead, whose actual poisoning she thought she had witnessed, was reported on the Sat.u.r.day to have walked out of the cottage, carrying his things, if he had any, and proposing to make his way to London in order to find out his old nurse. "Make what you can out of that," she said. "For my own part, I understand nothing."
In the letter which she wrote to Mr. Mountjoy she added a pet.i.tion that he would send her money to bring her home. This, she said, her mistress she knew would willingly defray.
She posted these letters on Tuesday, and waited for the answers.
Mrs. Vimpany wrote back by return post.
"My dear f.a.n.n.y," she said, "I have read your letter with the greatest interest. I am not only afraid that some villainy is afloat, but I am perfectly sure of it. One can only hope and pray that her ladyship may be kept out of its influence. You will be pleased to hear that Mr.
Mountjoy is better. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to stand the shock of violent emotion, I put Lady Harry"s letter into his hands.
It was well that I had kept it from him, for he fell into such a violence of grief and indignation that I thought he would have had a serious relapse. "Can any woman," he cried, "be justified in going back to an utterly unworthy husband until he has proved a complete change?
What if she had received a thousand letters of penitence? Penitence should be shown by acts, not words: she should have waited." He wrote her a letter, which he showed me. "Is there," he asked, "anything in the letter which could justly offend her?" I could find nothing. He told her, but I fear too late, that she risks degradation--perhaps worse, if there is anything worse--if she persists in returning to her unworthy husband. If she refuses to be guided by his advice, on the last occasion on which he would presume to offer any device, he begged that she would not answer. Let her silence say--No. That was the substance of his letter. Up to the present moment no answer has been received from Lady Harry. Nor has he received so much as an acknowledgment of the letter. What can be understood by this silence?
Clearly, refusal.
"You must return by way of Paris, though it is longer than by Basle and Laon. Mr. Mountjoy, I know, will send you the money you want. He has told me as much. "I have done with Lady Harry," he said. "Her movements no longer concern me, though I can never want interest in what she does. But since the girl is right to stick to her mistress, I will send her the money--not as a loan to be paid back by Iris, but as a gift from myself."
"Therefore, my dear f.a.n.n.y, stop in Paris for one night at least, and learn what has been done if you can. Find out the nurse, and ask her what really happened. With the knowledge that you already possess, it will be hard, indeed, if we cannot arrive at the truth. There must be people who supplied things to the cottage--the restaurant, the _pharmacien,_ the laundress. See them all--you know them already, and we will put the facts together. As for finding her ladyship, that will depend entirely upon herself. I shall expect you back in about a week.
If anything happens here I shall be able to tell you when you arrive.
"Yours affectionately,
L. Vimpany."
This letter exactly coincided with f.a.n.n.y"s own views. The doctor was now gone. She was pretty certain that he was not going to remain alone in the cottage; and the suburb of Pa.s.sy, though charming in many ways, is not exactly the place for a man of Dr. Vimpany"s temperament. She would stay a day, or even two days or more, if necessary, at Pa.s.sy. She would make those inquiries.
The second letter, which reached her the same day, was from Mr.
Mountjoy. He told her what he had told Mrs. Vimpany: he would give her the money, because he recognised the spirit of fidelity which caused f.a.n.n.y to go first to Paris and then to Berne.
But he could not pretend to any right to interference in the affairs of Lord and Lady Harry Norland. He enclosed a _mandat postal_ for a hundred and twenty-five francs, which he hoped would be sufficient for her immediate wants.
She started on her return-journey on the same day--namely, Sat.u.r.day. On Sunday evening she was in a pension at Pa.s.sy, ready to make those inquiries. The first person whom she sought out was the _rentier_--the landlord of the cottage. He was a retired tradesman--one who had made his modest fortune in a _charcuterie_ and had invested it in house property. f.a.n.n.y told him that she had been lady"s-maid to Lady Harry Norland, in the recent occupancy of the cottage, and that she was anxious to know her present address.
"Merci, mon Dieu! que sais-je? What do I know about it?" he replied.
"The wife of the English milord is so much attached to her husband that she leaves him in his long illness--"
"His long illness?"
"Certainly--Mademoiselle is not, perhaps, acquainted with the circ.u.mstances--his long illness; and does not come even to see his dead body after he is dead. There is a wife for you--a wife of the English fashion!"