"Papa, I will go and see. I am sure Verena cannot be out; I am sure she is _not_. She went into her room to dress when I went into mine. She came to me while she was dressing asking me to lend her my pearl comb; she had just broken one of the teeth of her own. She meant to come down to dinner then and was dressing for it: she had no thought of going out."
Coralie halted at the door to say all this, and then ran up the stairs.
She came down crest-fallen. Verena had stolen a march on them. In Sir Dace Fontaine"s pa.s.sionate anger, he explained the whole to us, taking but a few short sentences to do it. Verena had been beguiled into a marriage engagement with Edward Pym: he, Sir Dace, had forbidden her to go out of the house to meet him; and, as it appeared, she had set his authority at defiance. They were no doubt tramping off now to some place of amus.e.m.e.nt; a theatre, perhaps: the past evening they had gone to Madame Tussaud"s. "Will you take in Miss Fontaine, Squire?" concluded Sir Dace, with never a break between that and the explanation.
How dark and sullen he looked, I can recall even now. Deprived of my promised partner, Verena, I went down alone. Sir Dace following with Jack, into whose arm he put his own.
"I wish you joy of your chief officer, Captain Tanerton!" cried he, a sardonic smile on his lips.
It must have been, I suppose, about nine o"clock. We were all back in the drawing-room, and Coralie had been singing. But somehow the song fell flat; the contretemps about Verena, or perhaps the sullenness it had left on Sir Dace, produced a sense of general discomfort; and n.o.body asked for another. Coralie took her dainty work-box off a side-table, and sat down by me on the sofa.
"I may as well take up my netting, as not," she said to me in an undertone. "Verena began a new collar to-day--which she will be six months finishing, if she ever finishes it at all. She dislikes the work; I love it." Netting was the work most in vogue at that time. Mrs.
Todhetley had just netted herself a cap.
"Do you think we shall see your sister to-night?" I asked of Coralie in a whisper.
"Of course you will, if you don"t run away too soon. She"ll not come in later than ten o"clock."
"Don"t you fancy that it has put out Sir Dace very much?"
Coralie nodded. "It is something new for papa to attempt to control us; and he does not like to find he _can"t_. In this affair I take his part; not Verena"s. Edward Pym is not a suitable match for her in any way. For myself, I dislike him."
"I don"t much like him, either; and I am sure Captain Tanerton does not.
Your sister is in love with him, and can see no fault. Cupid"s eyes are blind, you know."
"I don"t know it at all," she laughed. "My turn with Cupid has not yet come, Johnny Ludlow. I do not much think Cupid could blind me, though he may be blind himself. If--why, what"s this?"
Slowly lifting the lid of the box, which had been resting on her lap unopened, she saw a sealed note there, lying uppermost, above the netting paraphernalia. It was addressed to herself, in Verena"s handwriting. Coralie opened it with her usual deliberation.
"DEAR CORALIE,
"As I find you and papa intend to keep me a prisoner, and as I do not choose to be kept a prisoner, and do not think you have any right to exercise this harsh control over me, I am leaving home for a few days. Tell papa that I shall be perfectly safe and well taken care of, even if I could not take care of myself--which I _can_, as you must know.
"Ever yours, "VERA."
Coralie laughed just a little. It seemed as if nothing ever put her out: she did know that Verena could, as the note phrased it, take care of herself. She went up to her father, who was standing by the fire talking with the Squire and Tanerton. Sir Dace, fresh from a hot country, was always chilly, as I have said before, and kept up a big fire whether it was warm or cold.
"Papa, here is a note from Verena. I have just found it in my work-box.
Would you like to see what she says?"
Sir Dace put his coffee-cup on the mantelpiece, and took the note from Coralie. I never saw any expression like that of his face as he read. I never saw any face go so _darkly_ white. Evidently he did not take the news in the same light way that Coralie did.
A cry broke from him. Staggering back against the shelf, he upset a vase that stood at the corner. A beautiful vase of Worcester china, with a ground of delicate gilt tracery, and a deliciously-painted landscape standing out from it. It was not at the vase, lying in pieces on the fender, we looked, but at Sir Dace. His face was contorted; his eyes were rolling. Tanerton, ever ready, caught his arm.
"Help me to find her, my friends!" he gasped, when the threatened fit had pa.s.sed. "Help me this night to find my daughter! As sure as we are living, that base man will marry her to-morrow, if we do not, and then it will be too late."
"Goodness bless me, yes!" cried the Squire, brushing his hair the wrong way, his good old red face all excitement, "Let us start at once!
Johnny, you come with me. Where can we go first?"
That was the question for them all--where to go? London was a large place; and to set out to look for a young lady in it, not knowing where to look, was as bad as looking for the needle in the bottle of hay.
"She may be at that villain"s place," panted Sir Dace, whose breath seemed to be all wrong. "Where does he live? You know, I suppose,"
appealing to Jack.
"No, I don"t," said Jack. "But I can find out. I dare say it is in Ship Street. Most of----"
"Where is Ship Street?" interrupted the Squire, looking more helpless than a lunatic.
"Ship Street, Tower Hill," explained Jack; and I dare say the Squire was as wise as before. "Quite a colony of officers live there, while their vessels are lying in St. Katherine"s Docks. Ship Street lies handy, you see; they have to be on board by six in the morning."
"I knew a young fellow who lodged all the way down at Poplar, because it was near to his ship," contended the Squire.
"No doubt. His ship must have been berthed in the East India Docks; they are much further off. I will go away at once, then. But," added Jack, arresting his steps, and turning to Sir Dace, "don"t you think it may be as well to question the household? Your daughter may have left some indication of her movements."
Jack"s thought was not a bad one. Coralie rang the bell for their own maid, Esther, a dull, silent kind of young woman. But Esther knew nothing. She had not helped Miss Verena to dress that evening, only Miss Coralie. Miss Verena said she did not want her. She believed Maria saw her go out.
Maria, the housemaid, was called: a smart young woman, with curled hair and a pink bow in her cap. Her tale was this. While the young ladies were dressing for dinner, she entered the drawing-room to attend to the fire, and found it very low. She went on her knees to coax it up, when Miss Verena came in in her white petticoat, a little shawl on her neck.
She walked straight up to Miss Fontaine"s work-box, opened it and shut it, and then went out of the room again.
"Did she speak to you?" asked John Tanerton.
"Yes, sir. Leastways she made just a remark--"What, that fire out again?" she said. That was all, sir."
"Go on," sharply cried Sir Dace.
"About ten minutes later, I was at the front-door, letting out the water-rate--who is sure to call, as my missis told him, at the most ill-convenient time--when Miss Verena came softly down the stairs with her bonnet and mantle on. I felt surprised. "Don"t shut me in, Maria, when I want to go out," she said to me in a laughing sort of way, and I pulled the door back and begged her pardon. That was all, sir."
"How was she dressed?" asked Coralie.
"I couldn"t say," answered the girl; "except that her clothes were dark.
Her black veil was down over her face; I noticed that; and she had a little carpet-bag in her hand."
So there we were, no wiser than before. Verena had taken flight, and it was impossible to say whither.
They were for running all over the world. The Squire would have started forthwith, and taken the top of the Monument to begin with. John Tanerton, departing on his search to find Pym"s lodgings, found we all meant to attend him, including Ozias.
"Better let me go alone," said Jack. "I am Pym"s master at sea, and can perhaps exercise some little authority on sh.o.r.e. Johnny Ludlow can go with me."
"And you, papa, and Mr. Todhetley might pay a visit to Madame Tussaud"s," put in Coralie, who had not lost her equanimity the least in the world, seeming to look upon the escapade as more of a joke than otherwise. "They will very probably be found at Madame Tussaud"s: it is a safe place of resort when people want to talk secrets and be under shelter."
There might be reason in what Coralie said. Certainly there was no need for a procession of live people and two cabs to invade the regions of Tower Hill. So Jack, b.u.t.toning his light over-coat over his dinner toggery, got into a hansom with me, and the two old gentlemen went off to see the kings and queens.
"Drive like the wind," said Jack to the cabman. "No. 23, Ship Street, Tower Hill."
"I thought you did not know his number," I said, as we went skimming over the stones.
"I do not know Pym"s: am not sure that he puts up in Ship Street. My second mate, Mark Ferrar, lives at No. 23, and I dare say he can direct me to Pym"s."
Mark Ferrar! The name struck on my memory. "Does Ferrar come from Worcester, do you know, Jack? Is he related to the Battleys of Crabb?"