Chapter XV: The Girl’s Escape

“Miss Vera, oh, where will you wait till I run and let him know? Stop a moment, oh Miss Vera, please. Let me run and let him know! However is he to come, Miss, if you won’t let me tell him! Oh Miss Vera, please!”

“Come along, come along! the train is going,” said Vera. She had taken the lead at last. She did not know what she was going to do, and had no thought of separating herself from her lover, whose suggestion had put this flight into her mind, and whose presence seemed a necessary part of it. But for the moment she was desperate, and to her excited mind it seemed that Fane must know of it by instinct. She kept hold of her maid, holding her fast. She had never gone anywhere by herself, nor been left alone in any public place. Mary was taller than she,--older,--used to moving about the world. Vera held her with a clutch on her arm,--holding her by moral force rather than physical. “I shall die if you leave me,” she said. “Come,--come; the chief thing is to get away.”

“But, Miss Vera, Mr. Fane!”

Vera made no answer, but clutched her closer, drawing her into a carriage. It was a train chiefly used by workmen and people given to very early hours. Vera thought nothing of the tickets, but Mary did; whose code of respectability was dreadfully wounded by this unauthorized intrusion into a public conveyance. And they had no luggage, either,--nothing except a small black bag, into which the maid had thrust her young mistress’s little trinkets,--many of them the useless and valueless ornaments of a child.

It was the quaintest half-comic version of the flight of the traditional princess, with her devoted attendant and her jewels. The beads and the little lockets in Mary’s bag were as unlike the casket of diamonds which the heroine of old romance was bound to take with her, as little sixteen-year-old Vera was unlike that impassioned and poetical personage. When they were fairly off, and beyond the reach of any immediate stoppage, in the carriage by themselves, it was Mary’s brain that worked the most anxiously. As for Vera, she dropped back in her corner with a sensation of rest and relief for the moment. She had escaped. Nobody more alarming than a railway guard could climb the step and look in at the window--no Miss Campbell could come and dictate to her with suspicion in her eyes,--no lover, too urgent, too impassioned, could frighten her youth with terrific suggestions of marriage. Marriage! The idea frightened her almost as much as Miss Campbell did. But for the moment both of these terrors were at a distance. No one could say “Vera, it is time for Rollin;” or “Vera, in three days we shall be married.” She was safe; and for two hours she leaned back and rested, for it was a slow train.

Mary, however, had her hands full. An elopement which did not end in a marriage was a horror to think of; and the fact that Vera’s flight was premature, that the marriage could not be for two days yet, and that Fane knew nothing of their sudden start,--this was a complication of difficulties which it required all her skill to meet. When she had extricated herself from the first of her troubles by paying the fare to the guard,--and indeed it almost emptied both their purses to do this,--she set herself to the consideration of her after-proceedings. And in her thoughts there arose a very neat little plan. She had at first intended taking her little mistress to the house of her mother, who lived near Hampstead, and who, as I have already said, had been Vera’s nurse. This had been settled when she had arranged the flight with Fane for the eve of the intended marriage day. But as two days must elapse, and there would, no doubt, be immediate pursuit, Mary evolved a more astute arrangement out of her busy brain. She resolved to take Vera,--not to her own mother, whom the pursuers would immediately think of--but to the sister of her young man,--the gallant Guardsman with whom Mary “kept company”--of whom nobody at Hyde Park Square knew anything. When she had settled this to her perfect satisfaction, Mary had leisure to rest, and indeed to dose,--a refreshment which, what with anxiety and what with early rising, she required much. She woke up only as the train arrived in London, and get her young mistress instantly into a cab.

“I’ve settled all where we’re going, Miss Vera; leave it all to me,” said Mary. Upon which Vera put back her veil, and faced her conductor with the appalling statement, “I am going to Hyde Park Square.”

“Oh, goodness gracious me! she has gone out of her senses!” cried the maid. “Oh, Miss Vera! stop a moment! think a moment! For all we know there is a telegraph after us, describing us like two thieves! Yes, Miss, William street, Stanhope street, Pentonville,--that is the address----”

“I am going,” said Vera, drawing herself up, “home to Hyde Park Square. Be quiet, if you please,--I shall do what I think right, not what you tell me,” and with that she put her head out of the window--“as if she had been a hundred,” Mary said afterwards--and gave the address to the coachman. Here was a business! Mary wept, and scolded, and remonstrated; she tried every argument she could think of; she poured out reproaches and adjurations. But Vera sat in the corner with her mouth shut tight, her face pale, her small hands clasped together. She made no answer, but she did not yield one iota, whatever her attendant might say.

“What is to become of Mr. Fane?” said Mary; “he can’t come to you there, Miss, after he’s been forbid the house. Jervis ’d do a deal for me, or for you either, Miss Vera; but to do that is as much as his place is worth; and what’s to become of the poor young gentleman as thinks you the light of his eyes? And what’s to become of me, Miss Vera?” she continued with an outburst of tears. “I’m ruined for ever and ever if that’s what you’re agoing to do. Your papa will turn me off without a character; and I can’t blame him either, for all as I’ve been doing it’s been for you. I’ve been a-thinking of your happiness, and master will say as it’s ’is orders I ought to ’a been thinking of. And oh, goodness gracious! what am I to do?”

“Do not be frightened, Mary,” said Vera, like a little princess. “I shall write to papa--he is not at home, and there will be time to explain everything, and to show him that it was Miss Campbell who did it all. I have done wrong too,” said Vera, faltering; “but I will tell him everything, and I hope he will forgive us all. We must try and do right now.”

“That is all very well, Miss, after you’re married,--they always does, after they’re married, go down on their knees, and say as they’re sorry. But how are you ever to be married, Miss Vera, going like this, as bold as brass, and quite open, to the Square?”

“I don’t want to be married, Mary,” said Vera, growing very red, and speaking very low.

Upon which Mary uttered a scream of disgust and horror. “Oh, how could you go deceiving him--how could you take him in like this!--to break his heart, poor young gentleman!” she said. “If he goes to the bad after, you mark my words, Miss Vera, it’ll be all along of you!”

This blanched Vera’s cheeks once more, though it did not change her resolution. She did not wish to break Fane’s heart,--very, very far from that. What she would have liked would have been to see him every evening,--to get those letters,--to be always the one woman in the world,--his princess,--his better life. None of these privileges was she willing to part with; and perhaps after a long time it might be possible to reconcile herself to the appalling idea of being married, only not at present;--but indeed the very last thing in the world that would have occurred to her was to break his heart.

She had her way, however; and went in spite of all opposition, to Hyde Park Square, where her appearance startled very much the small household, consisting of Jervis and a charwoman, who were left in charge. Mary, however, making the best of a bad business, explained very glibly that she had come with her young mistress on a variety of businesses; deputed by Miss Campbell to take her place,--to go to the dentist’s, to go to the dressmaker’s, and various other missions beside; and Jervis was willing to be deceived, while the charwoman was strong in the happy conviction that it was none of her business. Fane, whom the clever young woman contrived to summon by telegram just as Miss Campbell summoned Mr. Tremenheere, arrived that afternoon, and had an interview with Vera in the deserted shades of Kensington Gardens. He was in a great fright to find that she had gone home; but afterwards was brought to approve by the plea brought forth by Mary--that it was the last place in which they were likely to look for the fugitives.

When she got home after this interview, during which, in terror of her lover’s remonstrances, the poor child had dissembled, and said nothing about her newly-formed resolution, Vera wrote to her father a long account of how it all was,--how she could not bear Miss Campbell any longer; how Oswald Fane wished her to marry him, but she would rather wait if papa would only come at once and stand by her. To this, however, she added an energetic postscript, announcing her intention not to give up Oswald Fane. And then she wrote to that personage himself, begging him to pardon her,--calling him for the first time her “dear Oswald,” assuring him that she should always love him,--always think of him; and perhaps, some time after, when she was older--if he still wished it--But how could she--how could she be married now?--Mary carried this last letter to him and comforted him in his terror, declaring that all girls felt just like that at the last moment, but that there was nothing really to be apprehended.

“It can’t be said but what she’s dreadful young, if you come to think of it,” said Mary--“six years younger than me.”

“But girls are often married at sixteen,” said Fane,--he had not his wits sufficiently about him to pay Mary a compliment, as she expected. He too felt it to be very serious. Poor little tender darling! Was his love cruel to her? Ought he to have waited without being bidden? Ought he to have taken advantage of her helplessness and loneliness? This thought made Oswald’s pillow very uneasy that night. He was a better man than he himself knew. Though it was hard, it seemed to him almost as if he could sacrifice himself for Vera’s good. But then, who would take care of her as he would? To give her back into the hands of her father and Miss Campbell would be barbarous. He could not do so,--certainly, he said to himself, that could not be for Vera’s good.

Thus Tuesday passed; Mr. Tremenheere, posting through London on the Wednesday morning, had not time to go to his deserted house, nor did he think it necessary; and again the long day crept on while he went to the villa, and her mother resumed the search in London, hurrying from one place to another,--to the house of Miss Meadows, to Fane’s lodgings--who was denied to her, although he watched her with great trepidation from an upper window--and to the house of the nurse at Hampstead. Vera passed the day in the gloomy house at Hyde Park Square, scarcely venturing to look out,--wondering what was going to happen to her,--if her father would arrive in time, or if she should have to be married, or what was to be done. Jervis, too, had many thoughts in his mind. There was “something up,” he felt sure, as the servants did at the villa; and Jervis, an old family servant, began to consider whether he ought not to take some active part in it. He would have made up his mind, probably, and written to somebody--he could not tell whom--after all the mischief was done.

Mrs. Tremenheere and her son drove about the town all the afternoon. Miss Meadows was gone, and Vera had not been heard of there. Asking after Fane at his club, they were told he was in Scotland--and at his lodgings--that he was not at home. Then they went to the detective who had traced him, and had seen him in close conversation with two young women in Kensington Gardens, but being directed to look after the gentleman, had paid little attention to the women, and had let them steal away, he could not tell where. “That must have been Vera and her maid,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, and immediately drove to Hampstead, where, after some trouble, she found Mary’s mother, who declared she knew nothing; but did it with so guilty an air that the pursuers went back to get another detective, and sent him to keep up a vain watch on the old woman’s house. In reality, she was as innocent and ignorant as either of them; but she had received an intimation from her daughter that it was possible Vera might come to her house, and therefore looked guilty when the question was put to her. By the time this was done, it was growing late, and the more unsuccessful Mrs. Tremenheere was, the more anxious she grew. “Another night! and my child somewhere about, with no one to take care of her!” she said, wringing her hands. “I cannot leave London to-night, Eddy; she must be here!”

“But my father,--how anxious he will be! You cannot do anything during the night.”

“I can be on the spot,” she said, with an unconscious emphasis, poor soul. “Go down to him, my dear boy, and comfort him, and tell him I will stay. You can come back with him to-morrow, for she is evidently in London. No, better not do anything till I telegraph; he looked dreadfully worn and shaken. He is not so young as he used to be. Be kind to him, Eddy, and let him know I don’t blame him,--at least not at this moment. I daresay he never thought what harm he might do.”

“I shall say nothing about harm or blame either,” said Edward; “he looked very miserable. If you don’t telegraph, I shall bring him up to town by the eleven o’clock train. And, mother, where shall you go?”

Then Mrs. Tremenheere repeated that strange return to common sense of which Vera had been the originator. She looked at her son, and said gently, “I am going to Hyde Park Square.”

“Mother!”

“Yes, it is the fittest place,--I never ought to have left it. If your father pleases, I will go back again for good. We have done harm enough by our divisions. My pride shall not stand in the way any longer. If only my poor Vera, my innocent little darling, may be found!”

Edward went away confounded, home to his father, in the house which was not his father’s. The boy did not know how he should like it. He felt half ashamed, and wholly startled and taken aback,--something as a boy might feel whose mother had told him she was about to marry again.

And Mrs. Tremenheere, with a heavy heart, drove to Hyde Park Square. It was the fittest place for her to go,--the fittest place to take her lost child to, should she find her. She smiled sadly at Jervis’s astonished face when he saw her.

“Yes, Jervis, you may be surprised; it is trouble that has brought me, but I hope not trouble that will last. Mr. Tremenheere knows that I have come, and I dare say you can manage to give me a bed. What is that I hear up-stairs? Jervis! Has the man gone crazy! Are you having visitors in the house while the family is away?”

She stood in the hall, looking up the big dingy London staircase, wondering at the sound of voices,--crying and exclamations, and a kind of struggle. Then a light young step came rushing down the stairs,--a little white figure, like a ghost, with floods of hair about its shoulders, flashed round the windings,--appeared,--disappeared,--threw itself with a shriek of joy into Mrs. Tremenheere’s arms.

“Vera!” she said, with a great cry. Where, but at home, and by her mother, should the child have been found?