"There is this also." She handed me a letter, addressed to myself.
After a few words more, I took my leave. As I had some further business in Town the next day, I had taken a room at the Hummums Hotel;3 and it was to this establishment that I now repaired.
I did not immediately investigate the contents of the box. Instead, I placed it on a table in my room and proceeded to open the letter.
It was, as I had surmised, from Miss Eames, written in an unsteady hand, and dated three days before her death. I transcribe it here.
My dear Mr Carteret I do not know how much longer I may have on this earth, only that my time is short. Not wishing to pa.s.s into the hands of Almighty G.o.d without discharging my last duty to my dear friend, the late Laura Tansor, I am therefore arranging for a certain object, entrusted to me on my friend"s death, to be placed in your hands by my sister after my own departure from this life of sin, according to my friend"s wishes. When you read this, therefore, I too will have pa.s.sed beyond pain and suffering and, in the hope of being delivered of my offences by G.o.d"s grace, will walk again through all eternity with her whom I served faithfully in life.
For the last years of my friend"s life, her conscience was sorely troubled by an action taken by her some time before, which could be neither admitted nor undone. I with another was a party to that action, and my conscience, too, has been burdened, until sometimes I have thought I could stand no more. For though I tried, on several occasions, I could not dissuade my friend from the course of action she was set on taking. I once asked you never to think ill of me. I beg you now to consider what I have done, by the sin of omission, in the light of friendship and trust, in which I know you place the highest value; for I made a solemn promise, on my mother"s Bible, to keep my Lady"s secret safe, never to betray her while she lived, and to hold fast to that promise until such time as it pleased the Almighty to take me to His own. That I have done, as G.o.d is my witness, faithfully and unswervingly, through all these years. If I have done wrong in keeping faith with the dearest of friends, then I pray to be forgiven by the Lord of mercy and judgment, and by those remaining whom my silence may have injured.
And so, dear Mr Carteret, I die in the hope that what now pa.s.ses into your possession may perhaps be used by you to set right what was made wrong by my friend"s action. I do not condemn or blame her for what she did; for who is without sin? She was mortal, and her pa.s.sion born of fierce loyalty to a beloved parent blinded her. She repented of what she had done, truly repented, and sought to make amends. But she was consumed by the constant thought of her sin she saw it as such: it made her mad, and drove her at last into the arms of death. I go now to meet her, and my heart is glad.
The Lord G.o.d bless you and keep you. Pray for me, that my unrighteousness be forgiven, and my sin covered.4 J. Eames.
I laid down the letter and turned to open Lady Tansor"s writing-box.
Underneath the hinged slope were a great many papers, the majority of which appeared to be a sequence of letters from Mrs Simona Glyver, sent from the village of Sandchurch in Dorset to Evenwood and dating from the beginning of July, 1819, with one or two others written by this lady from Dinan in France to an address in Paris during the summer of the following year, and yet more sent to her Ladyship from Dorset throughout the late summer and early autumn of 1820, directed first to Paris, and then, from October onwards, to Evenwood. Though not all were dated, I quickly saw that the letters in the box partially filled the fifteen-month gap I had noticed from my earlier examination of the communications from this lady that were already in my possession. I sat down and began to read through the letters methodically.
I do not have time to record here the contents of each letter in detail. One or two were inconsequential and ephemeral, merely containing the usual harmless chatter and gossip characteristic of such exchanges between ladies. But many had an altogether different tone and purpose, especially the earlier ones, written throughout July, 1819, which seemed indicative of some great impending crisis. A few extracts from letters written to her Ladyship by Mrs Glyver during that month (in which, I deduce, Miss Eames is referred to as "Miss E.") will serve to ill.u.s.trate the point.
[Friday, 9th July, 1819. Sandchurch.]
I beg you, dearest friend, to think again. It is not yet too late. Miss E. has, I know, more than once urged reconsideration on you. I now add my voice to hers as one who loves you like a sister and who will always have your best interests at heart. I know how you have suffered, after the death of yr poor father but is not the punishment you intend out of all proportion to the offence? Even as I write the question I can antic.i.p.ate yr answer & yet still I exhort you with all my strength to stand back and consider what you are doing. I am afraid Miss E. is afraid and you should be too, for there may be consequences perhaps of the most terrible kind that you can neither foresee nor control.
[Thursday, 15th July, 1819. Sandchurch.]
Your reply is as I expected & I see you are determined to proceed. I have heard separately from Miss E., who says that you will not be persuaded, and therefore must be helped to ensure that what is done is done well, and as privily as we may. For we cannot let you do this alone.
[Sat.u.r.day, 17th July, 1819. Sandchurch.]
In haste. I have made my arrangements. Miss E. will have told you the name of the hotel and I have the address of yr man in London. It will be some comfort to me though a selfish one to have this safeguard, if such it be, for the future. G.o.d forgive us for what we are about to do but never believe, my dearest L., that I shall fail you. That I shall never do though I may be called to account in this world or the next. Sister I have called you, & sister you are, and will always be. There is no one more precious to me. I am with you now unto the last.
[Friday, 30th July, 1819. Red Lion. Fareham.]
I arrived here safely this afternoon and send this on ahead to a.s.sure you that all is well. The Captain raised no objections to my leaving he neither knows nor cares what I do, as long as I put nothing in the way of his pleasures. Indeed he was charming enough to tell me I may go to the Devil as long as I leave him in peace. He was glad to hear that my accompanying you would not prove a drain on his purse! That was his main concern. I am to visit my aunt in Portsmouth tomorrow, as you know. She strongly suspects that the reason for my "condition" may not be whispered, which of course is not quite what I intended, but I shall not disabuse her in order that the waters shall remain conveniently muddied. As she cannot abide the Captain, she will say nothing to him and does not condemn me in the least in fact applauds what, if it were true, would have been an act of the most unmitigated scandal. And so I go there as a kind of heroine my aunt being a great admirer of Miss Wollstonecraft"s disregard of social propriety and seeing me as in some sort like Miss W. striking a blow for the rights of women through my transgression.5 What the Captain will say when I come back with a baby in my arms, I do not know. But the calendar will now be a witness I made sure of that (though he may not remember).6 I shall be with you as planned on Tues. morning. And so the die is cast, and two husbands will go to bed tonight wifeless. I wish there was another way but the time for all that is past. No more words. Please to destroy this on receipt, as you have done I hope with the others I have been as careful as I can & have left nothing behind.
From a receipt dated the third of August, 1819, I surmise that the two friends, perhaps with Miss Eames in attendance, met together in Folkestone. They then departed for Boulogne, on or about the fifth of that month. A letter received by her Ladyship some weeks later, from an address in Torquay, confirms (what I did not know for certain before) that Miss Eames did not accompany them to the Continent. The travellers went first by diligence to Paris, so that their pa.s.sports could be endorsed, and then made their way westwards to Rennes. After the letter quoted above, parts of which I did not fully understand at first, there seems to have been no further communications from Mrs Glyver to her Ladyship until the sixteenth of June, 1820, which to my mind, strongly suggested that they were together in France as indeed proved to be the case. However, there are letters to her Ladyship from a Mr James Martin, an aide to Sir James Stuart, the Amba.s.sador in Paris,7 written in February and March of the following year on seeing them, I remembered that this gentleman had been a guest at Evenwood on more than one occasion. The purpose of the exchange was to secure accommodation for her Ladyship in the capital over the summer. I could not help but smile, despite the growing fear I felt within me, when I saw to where Mr Martin"s replies had been directed: Hotel de Quebriac, Rue du Chapitre, Rennes.
The letter from Mrs Glyver of the sixteenth of June, 1820, alluded to above, was written from Dinan to her friend in Paris, to a house in the Rue du Faubourg St Honore.8 They had left Rennes together during the second week of June, taking lodgings in Dinan before her Ladyship departed alone for Paris. In her letter, Mrs Glyver begins by speaking of her imminent return to England. And then comes this extraordinary pa.s.sage: I took the little one to see the tombs in the Salle des Gisants9 yesterday he seemed much entertained by them, though the chamber was cold & damp and we did not stay long. But as we were leaving he put his little hand out so sweetly and gently to touch the face of one of the figures, a thin old lady. Of course it was just an accident, not deliberate at all, but yet it seemed like a conscious act & I whispered to him that these were once all fine lords and ladies like his mamma and papa. And he gave me such a look as if he understood every word. We encountered Madame Bertrand at the Porte du Guichet & she walked with us for a time along the Promenade. It was such a beautiful day cloudless, a delicious soft breeze, with the river sparkling below us, & I so longed for you to be with us once more. Madame B. said again how like you he is, and indeed it is so, tho" he is still a mite. At least when I look into his dear face, with those great eyes gazing back, I feel you are close. I hate to think of you alone when we are here, longing for you to be with us, & I cried for us both last night. You were so brave when you left us. I could hardly bear it, for I knew how you suffered & how you wd suffer more when we were out of sight. Even now I wd bring him to you, if your resolve should falter. But I do not think it will and I weep for you, dearest sister. I kiss yr beautiful son every night & a.s.sure him that his mamma will love him for ever. And I shall love him too. Write soon.
Further letters from Mrs Glyver made the matter clear beyond peradventure: my Lady had given birth to a son in the city of Rennes. He had been born in the Hotel de Quebriac, Rue du Chapitre, in the month of April of the year 1820.
But there was a deeper matter even than this, of such consequence that I could scarce believe it; and yet the evidence was here in my hands, in these letters written to her Ladyship by her friend, Simona Glyver, and also in others she received in Paris from Miss Eames. Lady Tansor returned to England on the twenty-fifth of September, 1820 alone. Where, then, was the child? The thought occurred to me that he might have died; but letters from Mrs Glyver received by her Ladyship after arriving back at Evenwood contained regular reports of the child"s progress the habits he was developing, the darkening of his hair, the little sounds he made and how they were interpreted, how he loved to be taken down to the sh.o.r.e to watch the waves crashing in and the gulls soaring above them. It also appears astonishing as it is to think of that the child was brought surrept.i.tiously to Evenwood during the following summer when Lord Tansor was in Town, and much discussion ensued concerning his fascination with the white doves that fluttered around the spires and towers of the great house, and with the goldfish some of great size and age that glided silently through the dark waters of the fish-pond.
I read several of the letters over again, and then a third time, to make sure I had not deceived myself. But there was no other possible interpretation of the evidence before me. LADY TANSOR HAD BROUGHT HER HUSBAND"S RIGHTFUL HEIR SECRETLY INTO THE WORLD, ONLY TO GIVE HIM AWAY TO ANOTHER.
So I come at last to my beginning. This was the crime to which I bear witness: the denial by a premeditated act of determined duplicity and cruelty (I shall not go so far as to call it malice, though some might) of paternity to my cousin, who lives only that he might pa.s.s on what he has inherited from his forefathers to his lawfully begotten son. This was badly done by my Lady, and I say so as one who loved her dearly. I aver it was cruel beyond words to so deny my cousin what would have completed his life; that it was an act of terrible vindictiveness, no one can deny; and to my mind, insofar as it took from Lord Tansor what was rightfully his, though he remained ignorant of his loss, this act of denial was, in its effects, criminal.
And yet, having arraigned her, having presented the evidence against her, can I now condemn her? She paid a terrible price for what she did; she did not act alone others, one in particular, were guilty by a.s.sociation, though they aided her out of love and loyalty; she and they are now forever beyond the reach of earthly justice, and have been judged by Him who judges all. For who of us are without sin? No life is without secrets; and it may often be that the lesser evil is to keep such secrets hidden. Let me, as the accuser of Laura, Lady Tansor, therefore plead for clemency. Let her rest.
But the consequences of the crime remain, and they are not so easily remitted. For what accounts are still to be presented for settlement? Does the boy live? Does he know who he is? How can this be made right? Oh, my Lady! What have you done!
Since making my discovery, I have wrestled day and night with my conscience: to keep my Lady"s secret, or place what I know before my cousin? I am tormented by the knowledge I now possess, as I fear dear Miss Eames had been; but now, at last, I am impelled to take action and not only to forestall any accusation that I am withholding what I know to protect my own interests.
My cousin"s determination to adopt Phoebus Daunt as his heir in law, the device to which he has pledged himself in order to make good the deficit Nature has apparently inflicted upon him, renders it imperative that I make the truth known, so that steps may immediately be taken to find the true heir, if he lives. I can no longer keep silent on this matter; for if the true-born heir be yet living, then everything must be done to discover him, and so prevent the disastrous course of action upon which my cousin is set. And there is another matter of concern to me.
I had just entered the Library, late one afternoon in April, 1853, when I witnessed Mr Phoebus Daunt softly closing the door of my work-room, where he had no business to be, and then looking about him to make sure that he was un.o.bserved. A man, I thought, is never more himself than when he thinks he is alone. I waited, out of sight, for him to quit the Library through one of the terrace doors. When I got to my room it was immediately clear that some of the papers on my desk had been disturbed; likewise, when I ascended to the Muniments Room, I saw that some items from Lady Tansor"s correspondence that I had been examining earlier were not in the order in which I had left them.
Over the course of succeeding weeks, I would frequently encounter Mr Daunt in the Library, apparently engaged upon reading some volume or other, or occasionally writing at one of the tables. I suspected, however, that his real purpose was to seek an opportunity to enter my work-room, and so gain access to the Muniments Room. But he never could, for I now always locked the door that led from the Library whenever I left my room.
This was not the first occasion on which I had found reason to suspect my dear friend"s son of frankly despicable behaviour. Did I say suspect? Let me be blunt. I know him to have been guilty of reading Lord Tansor"s private correspondence including letters of a highly confidential nature when he had not been given permission to do so. I should have spoken out, and it is a matter of the greatest regret that I did not do so. But the point I wish to make most strongly is this: What action might an unscrupulous person contemplate if he felt that his expectations his most considerable expectations were threatened in any way? I answer that such a person would stop at nothing to preserve his position.
Midnight.
He is there, though I cannot see him now he seems to melt away into the darkness, to become a shadow. But he was there is there. I thought at first that it was John Brine, but it cannot be him. He stands so still, in the shadow of the cypress tree watching, waiting; but then when I opened the window, he was gone, taken up by the darkness.
I have seen him before on many occasions, but always just out of sight, often at dusk when I have been returning home across the Park, and more frequently of late.
And then I am certain that there was an attempt last week to break into my study, where I am now writing, though I could find nothing taken. (My work-room in the great house I now keep locked at all times, even when I am inside it.) A ladder had been taken from one of the out-buildings and was found discarded in the shrubbery, and the woodwork of my window had been damaged.
I feel constantly under his eyes, even when I cannot not see him. What does it mean? Nothing good, I fear.
For I think I know who sets this watcher on me, and who it is that desires to know what I now know. He smiles, and asks me how I am, and he shines like the sun in the estimation of the world; but there is evil in his heart.
My candle is burning low and I must finish.
To those who may read this deposition I say again, that what I have written is the entire truth, as far as it is known to me, and that I have claimed nothing that has not been based on evidence provided by the doc.u.ments in my possession, personal knowledge, and direct observation.
This I swear on everything I hold most sacred.
By my hand, the ninth of May, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
P. Carteret.
To Mr Glapthorn SIR,- If this comes into your hands, then fatal harm will certainly have been done to me, and you will do me the great kindness of delivering what I have written herein to your employer, Mr Christopher Tredgold.
The letters from my Lady"s writing-box have been removed to a place of safety, but I shall have recovered them before our meeting. There is more to tell, but I am much fatigued and must sleep.
I am not a superst.i.tious man, but I encountered a magpie this afternoon, strutting across the front lawn, and failed to raise my hat to him, as my mother always encouraged me to do. This has been on my mind all this evening, but I shall hope that the morning sun will make me rational once more.
Only one more thing.
I said there is more and may as well tell it quickly.
A slip of paper, enclosed with the letter I received from Miss Eames. The following phrase on it, in capital letters: SURSUM CORDA. I have only just realized to my shame what this may signify, and shall wish to present a possible course of action to you tomorrow relating to it.
P.C.
34:.
Quaere verum1 ____________*
Overwhelmed by the experience of reading Mr Carteret"s Deposition, I sank back, exhausted and bewildered, in my chair. The dead had spoken after all, and what a world of new prospects the words had revealed!
I had been deeply affected by the account of Lady Tansor"s last years, and of her terrible death; and then to learn, in those carefully composed pages, of my birth in the Rue du Chapitre, and how I had been taken to the town of Dinan, and of the making of the box in which, I was sure, "Miss Lamb" had placed her gift of two hundred sovereigns. It filled me with amazement to read these things; for, since the death of her whom I had once called mother, I had believed these privities were mine and mine alone to know. But here they were, written down in another"s hand, like cold universal fact. The sensation was alarming like turning a corner and meeting oneself.
And to know that I had also been taken to Evenwood as a child! How my heart danced with a kind of anguished elation! That bewitching palace-castle, with its soaring towers, which I had beheld in my dreams when young, had been real after all had been no figment of fancy, but the perpetuated memory of my father"s house, which would one day be mine.
Yet there were still so many unanswered questions, still so much to know. I read Mr Carteret"s words over a second time, and then a third. Late into the night I sat, re-reading, thinking, wondering.
I appeared to myself like a man in a dream who rushes headlong, heart fit to burst, towards some eternally receding end: the faster I ran towards my goal, the more it remained tantalizingly out of reach, always just within sight, but never attainable. Yet again, I had been shown a fragment of the whole; but the greater truth, of which the Deposition was a part, was still hidden from me.
The truth? It is always the truth we seek, is it not? A conformity with known fact, or with some agreed standard, or with what experience tells us is the inescapable nature of existence. But there is something beyond the merely "true". What we commonly call "true that "A" equals "B", or that Death waits quietly for us all is often but a shadow or replica of something greater. Only when this shadow-truth conjoins with meaning, and above all with meaning experienced, do we see the substance itself, the Truth of truth. I had no doubt that Mr Carteret"s words had been those of a truthful man; yet still they were but portions of an elusive entireness.
I was sensible, of course, that I now possessed something that considerably advanced my claim to be Lord Tansor"s heir; but I had seen enough clever barristers at work to know that Mr Carteret"s Deposition was susceptible to serious legal objection, and so could not allow myself to believe that it provided the final, incontestable validation I had been seeking. In the first place, the original doc.u.ments from which Mr Carteret had quoted could not now be produced: they had been in his bag when he had been attacked. How, then, could it be proved that these letters had actually existed, and that the words cited by Mr Carteret were accurate and truthful, and had not been his own invention? His character and known probity might argue against such an a.s.sertion; but a lawyer who knew his business could still make much of the inherent doubt. Or it might be argued that Mr Carteret had produced his Deposition at my behest. I had made a little progress through this doc.u.ment coming into my hands; and, as far as my own position was concerned, the Deposition offered valuable circ.u.mstantial corroboration of what had been written in my mother"s journals. But it was not enough.
In other ways, however, the doc.u.ment shone a clear bright light on what had heretofore seemed mysterious. It was apparent that anyone reading Mr Carteret"s Deposition might make the reasonable presumption that Lord Tansor could have a living heir, who had grown up in ignorance of his true parentage. As I considered this point, turning it over in my mind and examining it from every possible angle, it suddenly became clear to me why Mr Carteret had been attacked.
What a clod I had been! It was only necessary to ask one question to prise out the truth: Cui bono?2 Suppose that someone unexpectedly comes into possession of information which, if publicly known, would disbar another person from realizing an expected inheritance of immense worth. Suppose, further, that this second person is a man of overweening ambition, and also unscrupulous and conscienceless in the pursuit of his interests. Would not such a man feel it imperative to secure this information, so that it might be put beyond human knowledge once and for all, and so secure his inheritance? Thus I reasoned; and thus I convinced myself that only one person stood to gain from acquiring the doc.u.ments Mr Carteret had been carrying in his bag. Who had Mr Carteret himself named as having pryed into Lord Tansor"s private affairs, and as being guilty of worse, though unspecified, transgressions? Who had also shown an eager interest in the papers of the first Lady Tansor? Who desired to know what Mr Carteret knew? And at whose implied instigation had a watch been set on him?
Phoebus Daunt was that person; and by possessing himself of Lady Tansor"s incriminating correspondence, he had no doubt thought to deny the lost heir, if he was still alive, of ever claiming his birthright. But premeditated murder? Was even Daunt capable of that?
I closed my eyes and saw again poor Mr Carteret"s face, beaten and b.l.o.o.d.y. And in that moment I knew, with instinctive certainty, who had done it. Those terrible injuries const.i.tuted the violent signature of Josiah Pluckrose, seen first on the face of Mary Baker"s sister, Agnes, and more recently, if I was not very much mistaken, on that of Lewis Pettingale. Pluckrose, acting on the orders of Phoebus Daunt, had first kept watch on Mr Carteret and then attacked him as he entered Evenwood Park through the western gates. I saw it all clearly and distinctly in my mind. Whether the intention had been to murder Mr Carteret, or merely to steal his bag, might still be an open question. But of the ident.i.ty of the perpetrators I now had no doubt.
But then, as I further traced the logical course of my inferences and deductions, I began to conceive the possibility that I, too, might be in danger, if Daunt were to discover that Edward Glapthorn, the representative of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr, was none other than Edward Glyver, the lost heir. For something told me the game is afoot; that my enemy was even now trying to seek out his old schoolfellow, and for only one purpose that I could divine. Edward Glyver alive was a perpetual threat. Edward Glyver dead made all secure.
Yet though he should seek through all the world for Edward Glyver, where can he be found? There is no one now at Sandchurch who can tell him. No letters are directed to him from there anymore. He might look in the Post-office Directory for him, but in vain. He will not be there. No door-plate, and no headstone either, bears his name. He has vanished from the earth. And yet he lives and breathes in me! I am Edward Glapthorn, who was Edward Glyver, who will be Edward Duport. Oh Phoebus, light of the age! How will you catch this phantom, this wraith, who is now one man, now another?
He is here; he is there; he is nowhere. He is behind you.
But I have another advantage. Though he does not yet know me, I know him. I have become his father"s friend, and may walk through the front-door of his house any time I please. I am invisible to him, as he walks to his club, or strolls through the Park at Evenwood of an evening. Only think, mighty Phoebus, what this means! The man who sits opposite you when you take the train back from the country: does he have a familiar look? There is something about him, perhaps, that stirs your memory; but only for a moment. You return to reading your newspaper, and do not see that his eye is fixed upon you. He is nothing to you, another traveller merely; but you should be more careful. There is a fog tonight, the streets are deserted; no one will hear you cry out. For where is your shield, where your armour, against a man whom you cannot see, whom you cannot name, whom you do not know? I find myself laughing out loud, laughing so much that the tears roll down my face.
And when the laughter stops, I see clearly where all this will end. But who will be the hunter, and who the hunted?
A note from Lizzie Brine, delivered to me by messenger three days later, informed me that Miss Carteret and her friend, Mademoiselle Buisson, would be visiting the National Gallery on the following Monday afternoon. Accordingly, at just after two o"clock, I walked over to Trafalgar-square and stationed myself at the foot of the Gallery"s steps.
At a little before half-past three, I saw her step out into the autumn sunlight, with Mademoiselle Buisson at her side. They began to descend the steps as I, with an air of complete nonchalance, started to ascend them.
"Miss Carteret! What an extraordinary coincidence!"
She made me no reply, and for several moments not a scintilla of recognition was discernible in her expression. Instead she stood regarding me through her round spectacles as though I were a complete stranger until at last her companion spoke up.
"Emilie, ma chere, est-ce que tu vas me presenter a ce monsieur?"
Only with these words did her features relax. Turning to Mademoiselle Buisson she introduced me as "Mr Edward Glapthorn, the gentleman I told you about." Then, more deliberately, "Mr Glapthorn has spent some time in Paris, and is a fluent French speaker."
"Ah," said Mademoiselle Buisson, raising her eyebrows in a singularly charming way, "then we shall be unable to talk about him without his knowing what we say."
Her English was perfectly expressed and enunciated, with barely a trace of a Gallic accent. With fetching, girlish volubility, she expressed herself delighted to make my acquaintance and began at once, as if we already knew each other, to describe some of the exhibits they had seen, with a breathless enthusiasm that was most engaging. Mrs Rowthorn had told me that she was of an age with Miss Carteret, but she had a simple unaffected prettiness about her which made her seem younger than she was. They made odd companions, certainly: Mademoiselle Buisson was animated, expressive, and forthcoming, dressed gaily a la mode, and displaying a natural exuberance of spirit. Miss Carteret, sombre and stately in her mourning black, stood watchfully silently, like a tolerant older sister, as her companion flittered and giggled. Yet it was impossible not to sense the closeness of their connection the way Mademoiselle Buisson would turn to her friend as she made a particular point and place her hand on Miss Carteret"s arm, with that same unthinking familiarity I had seen her display at Evenwood after the funeral; the little complicit glances, eye meeting eye, speaking of confidences shared, and secrets kept safe.
"May I ask how long you will be staying in London, Miss Carteret?"
"With such prescience as you possess, Mr Glapthorn," she replied, "I imagine you can answer that question for yourself."
"Prescience? What can you mean?"
"You wish me to suppose, then, that meeting you here is coincidental?"
"You may suppose what you wish," I said, as genially as I could, "or, if you cannot accept the fact of coincidence, perhaps you would be more comfortable with the notion of Fate."
At this she managed a contrite little smile and asked to be excused for her ill humour.
"Your kind note of acceptance to my father"s interment was received," she went on, "but we were disappointed not to have observed you amongst the company."
"I am afraid I was a little late in arriving. I paid my respects to your father as my firm"s representative, as well as in a personal capacity after the carriages had departed; and then, having an urgent engagement here in Town, and not wishing to intrude on you or your family, I returned immediately."
"We were hoping to receive you at the Dower House again," she said, taking off her gla.s.ses and placing them in her reticule. "You were expected, you know. But you had your own reasons for not coming, I dare say."
"I did not wish to intrude, as I said."
"As you said. But you put yourself to a great deal of trouble on our account in travelling all the way to Northamptonshire only to return immediately. I hope you met your engagement?"
"It was no trouble, I a.s.sure you."
"You are kind to say so, Mr Glapthorn. And now, if you will excuse us. Perhaps coincidence or Fate will arrange for our paths to cross again."
Mademoiselle Buisson gave me a curtsey and a smile; but Miss Carteret merely inclined her head a little, in the way I had seen her do to Daunt, and pa.s.sed on down the steps.
Of course I could not allow them to go and so, feigning a sudden disinclination to spend such an uncommonly fine November day looking at dull pictures, requested the honour of accompanying them a little way, if they were proceeding on foot. Mademoiselle Buisson announced that they had thought of walking down to Green Park, which I agreed was a capital prospect on such an afternoon.
"Then come with us, by all means, Mr Glapthorn!" cried Mademoiselle. "You don"t mind, do you Emily?"
"I do not mind, if you do not, and if Mr Glapthorn has nothing better to do," came the reply.
"Then it is settled," said her friend, clapping her hands. "How delightful!"
And so off we set together across the Square, Miss Carteret on my right hand, Mademoiselle Buisson on my left.
Once in the open s.p.a.ces of the Park, Miss Carteret"s earlier irritation seemed to lessen. Little by little, we began to speak of things other than the late tragic events at Evenwood, and by the end of the afternoon, with the sun beginning to decline, we were talking openly and easily, as if we had all been old friends.
Towards four o"clock we walked into Piccadilly, and the ladies waited by the kerb while I secured a hansom.
"May I tell the driver where you wish to be taken?" I asked innocently.
She gave the address of her aunt"s house in Wilton-crescent and I handed her into the cab, followed by Mademoiselle Buisson, who smiled at me in a dreamy way as she settled herself into her seat.
"Miss Carteret, it is presumptuous, I know, but will you allow me to call on you and Mademoiselle Buisson?"