Chapter XXII: Part 22

"I've come after my own interests, ma'am," returned the Pater. "To find out, if I can, where Clement-Pell has gone to: and to see if I can get back any of the money I have been done out of."

"Why, it seems every one must be a creditor!" she exclaimed in surprise, on hearing this.

"I know I am one," was his answer.

"To serve _me_ such a trick,--to behave to me with this duplicity: it is infamous," went on Miss Phebus, after she had related to us the chief events of the Sunday, as connected with the story of the dying uncle and the telegram. "If I get the chance, I will have the law against them, Mr. Todhetley."

"It is what a few more of us mean to do, ma'am," he answered.

"They owe me forty pounds. Yes, Mr. Duffham, it is forty pounds: and I cannot afford to lose it. Mrs. Pell has put me off from time to time: and I supposed it to be all right; I suspected nothing. They have not treated me well lately, either. Leaving me here to take care of the house while they were enjoying themselves up in Kensington! I had a great mind to give warning then. The German governess got offended while they were in town, and left. Some friend of Fabian Pell's was rude to her."

A little man looked into the room just then; noting down the furniture with his eye. "None of these here articles must be moved, you understand, mum," he said to Miss Phebus.

"Don't talk to me," she answered wrathfully. "I am going out of the house as soon as I can put my things together." And the man went away.

"If I had only suspected!" she resumed to us, her angry tone full of pain; "and I think I might have done so, had I exercised my wits. My room is next to Mrs. Pell's; but it's not much larger than a closet, and has no fireplace in it: she only gave it me because it was not good enough for any one else. Saturday night was very hot--as you must remember--and I could not sleep. The window was open, but the room felt like an oven. After tossing about for I don't know how long, I got up and opened the door, thinking it might admit a breath of air. At that moment I heard sounds below--the quiet shutting of a door, and advancing footsteps. Wondering who could be up so late, I peeped out and saw Mrs. Pell. She came up softly, a candle in her hand, and her face quite curious and altered--aged and pale and haggard. She must be afraid of the ghosts, I thought to myself, as she turned off into her chamber--for we had been telling ghost-stories that night up to bed-time. After that, I did not get to sleep; not, as it seemed, for hours; and all the time I heard drawers being opened and shut in her bed and dressing-room. She must even then have been preparing for flight."

"And the dying uncle was invented for the occasion, I presume," remarked Mr. Duffham.

"All I know is, I never heard of an uncle before," she tartly answered. "I asked Mrs. Clement-Pell on Sunday night where the uncle lived, and how long a journey they had to go: she answered shortly that he was at his country house, and bade me not tease her. Mr. Duffham, can my own boxes be stopped?"

"I should think no one would attempt to do it," he answered. "But I'd get them out as soon as I could, were I you, Miss Phebus."

"What a wreck it will be!" she exclaimed.

"You have used the right word, ma'am," put in Mr. Brandon, who had left his horse outside. "And not only here. Wrecks they will be; and many of them."

We stood looking at one another ruefully. The Pater had come to hunt up his two hundred pounds; but there did not seem much chance of his doing it. "Look here," said he suddenly to the governess, "where was that telegram sent from?"

"We have not been able to discover. It was only seen by Mrs. Pell. After she had read it aloud, she crushed it up in her hand, as if in frightful distress, and called out about the poor dear old uncle. She took care it should not be seen: we may be very sure of that."

"But who sent the telegram?"

"I don't know," said Miss Phebus viciously. "Her husband, no doubt. Neither was the luggage that they took with them labelled: we have remembered the fact since."

"I think we might track them by that luggage," observed the Pater. "Five big boxes."

"If you do track them by it I'll eat the luggage wholesale," cried wise old Brandon. "Clement-Pell's not a fool, or his wife either. They'll go off just in the opposite direction that they appeared to go--and their boxes in another. As to Pell, he was probably unknown at the distant station the groom drove him to."

There was no end to be served in staying longer at the house, and we quitted it, leaving poor Miss Phebus to her temper. I had never much liked her; but I could not help feeling for her that unlucky morning.

"What's to be done now?" gloomily cried the Squire, while old Brandon was mounting. "It's like being in a wood that you can't get out of. If Clement-Pell had played an honest part with me: if he had come and said, 'Mr. Todhetley, I am in sore need of a little help,' and told me a bit about things: I don't say that I would have refused him the money. But to dupe me out of it in the specious way he did was nothing short of swindling; and I will bring him to book for it if I can."

That day was only the beginning of sorrow. There have been such cases since: perhaps worse; where a sort of wholesale ruin has fallen upon a neighbourhood: but none, to me, have equalled that. It was the first calamity of the kind in my experience; and in all things, whether of joy or sorrow, our earliest impressions are the most vivid. It is the first step that costs, the French tell us: and that is true of all things.

* * * * *

The ruin turned out to be wider even than was feared; the distress greater. Some had only lost part of their superfluous cash. It was mortifying; but it did not further affect their prosperity, or take from them the means of livelihood; no luxuries need be given up, or any servants dispensed with. Others had invested so much that it would throw them back years, perhaps cripple them for life. Pitiable enough, that, but not the worst. It was as nothing to those who had lost their all.

People made it their business to find out more about Mr. and Mrs. Clement-Pell than had been known before. Both were of quite obscure origin, it turned out, and he had _not_ been a lawyer in London, but only a lawyer's clerk. So much the more credit to him for getting on to be something better. If he had only had the sense to let well alone! But she?--well, all I mean to say here, is this: the farmers she had turned up her nose at were far, far better born and bred, even the smallest of them, than she was. Let that go: other women have been just as foolishly upstart as Mrs. Clement-Pell. One fact came out that I think _riled_ the public worse than any other: that his Christian name was Clement and his surname Pell. He had united the two when growing into a great man, and put a "J." before the Clement, which had no right there. Mr. Brandon had known it all along--at least he chanced to know that in early life his name was simply Clement Pell. The Squire, when he heard of this, went into a storm of reproach at old Brandon, because he had not told it.

"Nay, why should I have sought to do the man an injury?" remonstrated Mr. Brandon. "It was no business of mine, that I should interfere. We must live and let live, Squire, if we care to go through the world peaceably."

The days went on, swelling the list of creditors who came forward to declare themselves. The wonder was, that so many had been taken in. But you see, people had not made it their business to proclaim that their money lay with Clement-Pell. Gentlefolk who lived on their fortunes; professional men of all classes, including the clergy; commercial men of high and low degree; small tradespeople; widows with slender incomes, and spinsters with less. If Clement-Pell had taken the money of these people, not intentionally to swindle them, as the Squire put it in regard to his own, but only knowing there was a chance that it would not be safe, he must have been a hard and cruel man. I think the cries of the defrauded of that unhappy time must have gone direct to heaven.

He was not spared. Could hard words injure an absentee, Clement-Pell must have come in for all sorts of harm. His ears burned, I should fancy--if there's any truth in the saying that ears burn when distant friends give pepper. The queerest fact was, that no money seemed to be left. Of the millions that Clement-Pell had been worth, or had had to play with, nothing remained. It was inconceivable. What had become of the stores? The hoards of gold; the chests, popularly supposed to be filled with it; the bank-notes; the floating capital--where was it all? No one could tell. People gazed at each other with dismayed faces as they asked it. Bit by bit, the awful embarrassment in which he had been plunged for years came to light. The fictitious capital he had created had consumed itself: and the good money of the public had gone with it. Of course he had made himself secure and carried off loads, said the maddened creditors. But they might have been mistaken there.

For a week or two confusion reigned. Accountants set to work in a fog; official assignees strove to come to the bottom of the muddy waters. There existed some of what people called securities; but they were so hemmed in by claims that the only result would be that there would not be anything for any one. Clement-Pell had done well to escape, or the unhappy victims had certainly tarred and feathered him. All that time he was being searched for, and not a clue could be obtained to him. Stranger perhaps to say, there was no clue to his wife and daughters either. The five boxes had disappeared. It was ascertained that certain boxes, answering to the description, had been sent to London on the Monday from a populous station by a quick train, and were claimed at the London terminus by a gentleman who did _not_ bear any resemblance to Clement-Pell. I'm sure the excitement of the affair was something before unknown to the Squire, as he raged up hill and down dale in the August weather, and it must have been as good as a course of Turkish baths to him.

Ah me! it is all very well to write of it in a light strain at this distance of time; but God alone knows how many hearts were broken by it.

One of the worst cases was poor Jacob Palmerby's. He had saved money that brought him in about a hundred a year in his old age. Clement-Pell got hold of the money, doubled the interest, and Palmerby thought that a golden era had set in. For several years now he had enjoyed it. His wife was dead; his only son, who had been a sizar at Cambridge, was a curate in London. With the bursting up of Clement-Pell, Jacob Palmerby's means failed: he had literally not a sixpence left in the world. The blow seemed to have struck him stupid. He mostly sat in silence, his head down; his clothes neglected.

"Come, Palmerby, you must cheer up, you know," said the Squire to him one evening that we looked in at Rock Cottage, and found Mr. Brandon there.

"Me cheer up," he returned, lifting his face for a moment--and in the last fortnight it had grown ten years older. "What am I to cheer up for? There's nothing left. _I_ can go into the workhouse--but there's poor Michael."

"Michael?"

"My son, the parson. The capital that ought to have been his after me, and brought him in his hundred a year, as it did me before I drew it from the funds, is gone. Gone. It is of him I think. He has been a good son always. I hope he won't take to cursing me."

"Parsons don't curse, you know, and Michael will be a good son still," said Mr. Brandon, shrilly. "Don't you fret, Palmerby. Fretting does no good."

"It 'ud wear out a donkey--as I tell him," put in the old woman-servant, Nanny, who had brought in his supper of bread-and-milk.

He did not lift his head; just swayed it once from side to side by way of general response.

"It's the way he goes on all day, masters," whispered Nanny when we went out. "His heart's a-breaking--and I wish it was that knave of a Pell's instead. All these purty flowers to be left," pointing to the clusters of roses and geraniums and honeysuckles within the gate, "and the chairs and tables to be sold, and the very beds to be took from under us!"

"Nay, nay, Nanny, it may turn out better than that," spoke the Squire.

"Why, how can it turn out better, sirs?" she asked. "Pell didn't pay the dividends this two times past: and the master, believing as all his excuses was gospel, never thought of pressing for it. If we be in debt to the landlord and others, is it our fault? But the sticks and stones must be sold to pay, and the place be given up. There be the work'us for me; I know that, and it don't much matter; but it'll be a crying shame if the poor master have to move into it."

So it would be. And there were others in a similar plight to his; nothing else but the workhouse before them.

"He won't never live to go--that's one consolation," was Nanny's last comment as she held the gate open. "Good evening to ye, sirs; good evening, Master Johnny."

What with talking to Dobbs the blacksmith, and staying with Duffham to drink what he called a dish of tea, it was almost dark when I set out home; the Squire and Mr. Brandon having gone off without me. I was vaulting over the stile the near way across the fields, expecting to catch it for staying, when a man shot into my path from behind the hedge.

"Johnny Ludlow."

Well, I did feel surprised. It was Gusty Pell!

"Halloa!" said I. "I thought you were in Scotland."

"I was there," he answered. And then, while we looked at one another, he began to tell me the reason of his coming away. Why it is that all kinds of people seem to put confidence in me and trust me with matters they'd never speak of to others, I have never found out. Had it been Tod, for instance, Gusty Pell would never have shown himself out of the hedge to talk to him.

Gusty, shooting the grouse on the moors, had found his purse emptied of its last coin. He wrote to his father for more money: wrote and wrote; but none arrived: neither money nor letter. Being particularly in want of supplies, he borrowed a sovereign or two from his friends, and came off direct to see the reason why. Arrived within a few miles of home he heard very ugly rumours; stories that startled him. So he waited and came on by night, thinking it more prudent not to show himself.

"Tell me all about it, Johnny Ludlow, for the love of goodness!" he cried, his voice a little hoarse with agitation, his hand grasping my arm like a vice. "I have been taking a look at the place outside"--pointing up the road towards Parrifer Hall--"but it seems to be empty."

It was empty, except for a man who had charge of the things until the sale could take place. Softening the narrative a little, and not calling everything by the name the public called it, I gave the facts to Gusty.

He drew a deep breath at the end, like a hundred sighs in one. Then I asked him how it was he had not heard these things--had not been written to.

"I don't know," he said. "I have been moving about Scotland: perhaps a letter of theirs may have miscarried; and I suppose my later letters did not reach them. The last letter I had was from Constance, giving me an account of some grand fête here that had taken place the previous day."

"Yes. I was at it with Todhetley and the Whitneys. The--the crisis came three or four days after that."

"Johnny, where's my father?" he asked, after a pause, his voice sunk to a whisper.

"It is not known where he is."

"Is it true that he is being--looked for?"

"I am afraid it is."

"And, if they find him--what then? Why don't you speak?" he added impatiently.

"I don't know what. Some people say it will only be a bad case of bankruptcy."

"Any way, it is a complete smash."

"Yes, it's that."

"Will it, do you think, be ruin, Johnny? Ruin utter and unmitigated?"

"It is that already--to many persons round about."

"But I mean to my own people," said he, impatiently.

"Well, I should fear it would be."

Gusty took off his hat to wipe his brow. He looked white in the starlight.

"What will become of me? I must fly too," he muttered, as if to the stars. "And what of Fabian?--he cannot remain in his regiment. Johnny Ludlow, this blow is like death to me."

And it struck me that of the two calamities, Gusty Pell, non-religious though he was, would rather have met death. I felt dreadfully sorry for him.

"Where's James?" he suddenly asked. "Is he gone too?"

"James disappeared on the Sunday, it is said. It would hardly have been safe for him to remain: the popular feeling is very bitter."

"Well, I must make myself scarce again also," he said, after a pause. "Could you lend me a pound or so, Johnny, if you've got it about you?"

I told him I wished I had; he should have been heartily welcome to it. Pulling out my pockets, I counted it all up--two shillings and fivepence. Gusty turned from it with disdain.

"Well, good evening, Johnny. Thank you for your good wishes--and for telling me what you have. I don't know to whom else I could have applied: and I am glad to have chanced to meet you."

He gave another deep sigh, shook my hand, got over the stile, and crept away, keeping close to the hedge, as if he intended to make for Alcester, I stood and watched him until he was lost in the shadows.

And so the Pells, one and all, went into exile in some unknown region, and the poor duped people stayed to face their ruin at home. It was an awful time, and that's the truth.

XXV.

OVER THE WATER.

We had what they called the "dead-lights" put in the ladies' cabin at Gravesend: that will show what the weather was expected to be in the open sea. In the saloon, things were pitching about before we reached Margate. Rounding the point off Broadstairs, the steamer caught it strong and sharp.

"Never heed a bit of pitching: we've the wind all for us, and shall make a short passage," said the captain in hearty tones, by way of consolation to the passengers generally. "A bit o' breeze at sea is rather pleasant."

Pleasant it might be to him, Captain Tune, taking in a good dinner, as much at ease as if he had been sitting in his dining-room ashore. Not so pleasant, though, for some of us, his passengers.

Ramsgate and other landmarks passed, and away in the open sea it was just a gale. That, and nothing less. Some one said so to the man at the wheel: a tall, middle-aged, bronzed-faced fellow in shirt sleeves and open blue waistcoat.

"Bless y're ignorance! This a gale! Why, 'taint half a one. It'll be a downright fair passage, this 'un will, shorter nor ord'nary."

"What do you call a gale--if this is not one?"

"I ain't allowed to talk: you may see it writ up."

"Writ up," it was. "Passengers are requested not to talk to the man at the wheel." But if he had been allowed to talk, and talked till now, he would never have convinced some of the unhappy creatures around, that the state of wind then blowing was not a gale.

It whistled in the sails, it roared over the paddle-wheels, it seemed to play at pitch-and-toss with the sea. The waves rose with mountain force, and then broke like mad: the steamer rolled and lurched, and righted herself; and then lurched and rolled again. Captain Tune stood on the bridge, apparently enjoying it, the gold band on his cap glistening in the sun. We got his name from the boat bills; and a jolly, courteous, attentive captain he seemed to be. But for the pitching and tossing and general discomfort, it would have been called beautiful weather. The air was bright; the sun as hot as it is in July, although September was all but out.

"Johnny. Johnny Ludlow."

The voice--Mr. Brandon's--was too faint to be squeaky. He sat amidships on a camp stool, his back against the cabin wall--or whatever the boarding was--wrapped in a plaid. A yellow handkerchief was tied over his head, partly to keep his cap on, partly to protect his ears. The handkerchief hid most of his face, except his little nose; which looked pinched and about as yellow as the silk.

"Did you call me, sir?"

"I wish you'd see if you can get to my tail pocket, Johnny. I've been trying this ten minutes, and do nothing but find my hands hopelessly entangled in the plaid. There's a tin box of lozenges there."

"Do you feel ill, sir?" I asked, as I found the box, and gave it to him.

"Never was ill at sea in my life, Johnny, in the way you mean. But the motion always gives me the most frightful headache imaginable. How are you?"

The less said about how I was, the better. All I hoped was he wouldn't keep me talking.

"Where's the Squire?" he asked.

I pointed to a distant heap on the deck, from which groans came forth occasionally: and just managed to speak in answer.

"He seems uncommonly ill, sir."

"Well, he _would_ come, you know, Johnny. Tell him he ought to take----"

What he ought to take was lost in the rush of a wave which came dashing over us.

After all, I suppose it was a quick and good, though rough passage, for Boulogne-sur-Mer was sighted before we thought for. As the stiller I kept the better I was, there was nothing to do but to sit motionless and stare at it.

You'll never guess what was taking us across the Channel. Old Brandon called it from the first a wild-goose chase; but, go, the Squire would. He was after that gentleman who had played havoc with many people's hearts and money, who had, so to say, scattered ruin wholesale--Mr. Clement-Pell.

Not a trace had the public been able to obtain as to the direction of the Pells' flight; not a clue to the spot in which they might be hiding themselves. The weeks had gone on since their departure: August passed into September, September was passing: and for all that could be discovered of them, they might as well never have existed. The committee for winding up the miserable affairs raged and fumed and pitied, and wished they could just put their hands on the man who had wrought the evil; Squire Todhetley raged and fumed also on his own score; but none of them were any the nearer finding Pell. In my whole life I had never seen the Squire so much put out. It was not altogether the loss of the two hundred pounds he had been (as he persisted in calling it) swindled out of; it was the distress he had to witness daily around him. I do think nothing would have given him more satisfaction than to join a mob in administering lynch law to Clement-Pell, and to tar and feather him first. Before this happened, the Squire had talked of going to the seaside: but he would not listen to a word on the subject now: only to speak of it put him out of temper. Tod was away. He received an invitation to stay with some people in Gloucestershire, who had good game preserves; and was off the next day. And things were in this lively state at home: the Squire grumbling, Mrs. Todhetley driving about with one or other of the children in the mild donkey-cart, and I fit to eat my head off with having nothing to do: when some news arrived of the probable sojourning place of the Clement-Pells.

The news was not much. And perhaps hardly to be relied on. Mr. and Mrs. Sterling at the Court had been over to Paris for a fortnight: taking the baby with them. I must say that Mrs. Sterling was always having babies--if any one cares for the information. Before one could walk another was sure to arrive. And not only the baby had been to Paris, but the baby's nursemaid, Charlotte. Old Brandon, remarking upon it, said he'd rather travel with half a score of mischievous growing boys than one baby: and _they_ were about the greatest calamity he could think of.

Well, in coming home, the Sterling party had, to make the short crossing, put themselves on board the Folkestone boat at Boulogne, and the nursemaid was sitting on deck with the baby on her lap, when, just as the steamer was moving away, she saw, or thought she saw, Constance Pell, standing on the shore a little apart from the people gathered there to watch the boat off. Mrs. Sterling told the nurse she must be mistaken: but Charlotte held to it that she was not. As chance had it, Squire Todhetley was at the Court with old Sterling when they got home; and he heard this. It put him into a commotion. He questioned Charlotte closely, but she never wavered in her statement.

"I am positive it was Miss Constance Pell, sir," she repeated. "She had on a thick blue veil, and one of them new-fashioned large round capes. Just as I happened to be looking at her--not thinking it was anybody I knew--a gust of wind took the veil right up above her bonnet, and I saw it was Miss Constance Pell. She pulled at the veil with both her hands, in a scuffle like, to get it down again."

"Then I'll go off to Boulogne," said the Squire, with stern resolution. And back he came to Dyke Manor full of it.

"It will be a wild-goose chase," observed Mr. Brandon, who had called in. "If Pell has taken himself no further away than Boulogne--that is, allowing he has got out of England at all--he is a greater fool than I took him for."

"Wild-goose chase or not, I shall go," said the Pater, hotly. "And I shall take Johnny; he'll be useful as an interpreter."

"I will go with you," came the unexpected rejoinder of Mr. Brandon. "I want a bit of a change."

And so we went up to London to take the steamer there. And here we were, all three of us, ploughing the waves _en route_ for Boulogne, on the wild-goose chase after Clement-Pell.

Just as the passengers had come to the conclusion that they must die of it, the steamer shot into Boulogne harbour. She was tolerably long swinging round; then was made fast, and we began to land. Mr. Brandon took off his yellow turban and shook his cap out.

"Johnny, I'd never have come if I had known it was going to be like this," moaned the poor Squire--and every trace of red had gone out of his face. "No, not even to catch Clement-Pell. What on earth is that crowd for?"

It looked about five hundred people; they were pushing and crushing each other, fighting for places to see us land and go through the custom-house. No need to tell of this: not a reader of you, but you must know it well.

The first thing, patent to my senses amidst the general confusion, was hearing my name shouted out by the Squire in the custom-house.

"Johnny Ludlow!"

He was standing before two Frenchmen in queer hats, who sat behind a table or counter, asking him questions and preparing to write down the answers: what his name was, and what his age, and where he was born, just as though he were a footman in want of a place. Not a word could he understand, and looked round for me helplessly. As to my French--well, I knew it pretty well, and talked often with our French master at Dr. Frost's: but you must not think I was as fluent in it as though I'd been a born Frenchman. It was rather the other way.

We put up at the Hôtel des Bains. A good hotel--as is well known--but nothing to look at from the street. Mr. Brandon had been in Boulogne before, and always used it. The _table d'hôte_ restored the Squire's colour and spirits together: and by the time dinner was over, he felt ready to encounter the sea again. As to Mr. Brandon, he made his meal of some watery broth, two slices of melon, and a bowlful of pounded sugar.

The great question was--to discover whether the Clement-Pells were in the town; and, if so, to find them out. Mr. Brandon's opinion never varied--that Charlotte had been mistaken and they were not in the place at all. Allowing, for argument's sake, that they were there, he said, they would no doubt be living partly in concealment; and it might not answer for us to go inquiring about them openly, lest they got to hear of it, and took measures to secure themselves. There was sense in that.

The next day we went strolling up to the post-office in the Rue des Vieillards, the wind blowing us round the corners sharply; and there inquired for the address of the Clement-Pells. The people were not very civil; stared as if they'd never been asked for an address before; and shortly affirmed that no such name was known _there_.

"Why, of course not," said old Brandon quietly, as we strolled down again. "They wouldn't be in the town under their own name--if they are here at all."

And there would lie the difficulty.

That wind, that the man at the wheel had scoffed at when called a gale, had been at any rate the beginning of one. It grew higher and higher, chopping round to the south-west, and for three days we had it kindly. On the second day not a boat could get out or in; and there were no bathing-machines to be had. The sea was surging, full of tumult--but it was a grand sight to see. The waves dashed over the pier, ducking the three or four venturesome spirits who went there. I was one of them--and received a good blowing up from Mr. Brandon for my pains.

The gale passed. The weather set in again calm and lovely; but we seemed to be no nearer hearing anything of the Clement-Pells. So far as that went, the time was being wasted: but I don't think any of us cared much about that. We kept our eyes open, looking out for them, and asked questions in a quiet way: at the _établissement_, where the dancing went on; at the libraries; and of the pew women at the churches. No; no success: and time went on to the second week in October. On account of the remarkably fine weather, the season and amusements were protracted.

One Friday morning I was sitting on the pier in the sunshine, listening to a couple of musicians, who appeared there every day. He had a violin; she played a guitar, and sang "Figaro." An old gentleman by me said he had heard her sing the same song for nearly a score of years past. The town kept very full, for the weather was more like summer than autumn. There were moments, and this was one of them, that I wished more than ever Tod was over.

Strolling back off the pier and along the port, picking my way amidst the ropes of the fishing-boats, stretched across my path, I met face to face--Constance Pell. The thick blue veil, just as Charlotte had described it, was drawn over her bonnet: but something in her form struck me, and I saw her features through the veil. She saw me too, and turned her head sharply towards the harbour.

I went on without notice, making believe not to have seen her. Glancing round presently, I saw her cross the road and begin to come back on the other side by the houses. Knowing that the only chance was to trace her home, and not to let her see I was doing it, I stopped before one of the boats, and began talking to a fisherman, never turning my head towards her at all. She passed quickly, on to the long street, once glancing back at me. When she was fairly on her way, I went at the top of my speed to the port entrance of the hotel; ran straight through the yard and up to my room, which faced the street. There she was, walking onwards, and very quickly. Close by the chemist's shop at the opposite corner, she turned to look back; no doubt looking after me, and no doubt gratified that I was nowhere to be seen. Then she went on again.

Neither the Squire nor Mr. Brandon was in the hotel, that I could find; so I had to take the matter in hand myself, and do the best I could. Letting her get well ahead, I followed cautiously. She turned up the Grande Rue, and I turned also, keeping her in view. The streets were tolerably full, and though she looked back several times, I am sure she did not see me.

Up the hill of the Grande Rue, past the Vice-Consulate, under the gateway of the Upper Town, through the Upper Town itself, and out by another gateway. I thought she was never going to stop. Away further yet, to the neighbourhood of a little place called Mâquétra--but I am not sure that I spell the word properly. There she turned into a small house that had a garden before it.

They call me a muff at home, as you have heard often: and there's no doubt I have shown myself a muff more than once in my life. I was one then. What I ought to have done was, to have gone back the instant I had seen her enter; what I really did was, to linger about behind the hedge, and try to get a glimpse through it. It skirted the garden: a long, narrow garden, running down from the side of the house.

It was only a minute or two in all. And I was really turning back when a maid-servant in a kind of short brown bedgown (so Hannah called the things at home), black petticoat, grey stockings and wooden sabots, came out at the gate, carrying a flat basket made of black and white straw.

"Does Monsieur Pell live there?" I asked, waiting until she had come up.

"Monsieur _Qui_?" said the girl.

"Pell. Or Clement-Pell."

"There is no gentlemans at all lives there," returned she, changing her language to very decent English. "Only one Madame and her young meesses."

I seemed to take in the truth in a minute: they were there, but he was not. "I think they must be the friends I am in search of," was my remark. "What is the name?"

"Brune."

"Brune?--Oh, Brown. A lady and four young ladies?"

"Yes, that's it. Bon jour, monsieur."

She hurried onwards, the sabots clattering. I turned leisurely to take another look at the hedge and the little gate in it, and saw a blue veil fluttering inwards. Constance Pell, deeper than I, had been gazing after me.

Where had the Squire and old Brandon got to? Getting back to the hotel, I could not find either of them. Mr. Brandon might be taking a warm sea-bath, the waiters thought, and the Squire a cold one. I went about to every likely place, and went in vain. The dinner-bell was ringing when they got in--tired to death; having been for some prolonged ramble over beyond Capécure. I told them in their rooms while they were washing their hands--but as to stirring in it before dinner, both were too exhausted for it.

"I said I thought they must be here, Brandon," cried the Squire, in triumph.

"He is not here now, according to Johnny," squeaked old Brandon.

After dinner more time was lost. First of all, in discussing what they should do; next, in whether it should be done that night. You see, it was not Mrs. Pell they wanted, but her husband. As it was then dark, it was thought best to leave it until morning.

We went up in state about half-past ten; taking a coach, and passing _en route_ the busy market scene. The coach seemed to have no springs: Mr. Brandon complained that it shook him to pieces. This was Saturday, you know. The Squire meant to be distantly polite to Mrs. and the Miss Pells, but to insist upon having the address given him of Mr. Pell. "We'll not take the coach quite up to the door," said he, "or we may not get in." Indeed, the getting in seemed to be a matter of doubt: old Brandon's opinion was that they'd keep every window and door barred, rather than admit us.

So the coach set us down outside the furthermost barrier of the Upper Town, and we walked on to the gate, went up the path, and knocked at the door.

As soon as the servant opened it--she had the same brown bedgown on, the same grey stockings, and wooden sabots--the Squire dexterously slipped past her into the passage to make sure of a footing. She offered no opposition: drew back, in fact, to make room.

"I must come in; I have business here," said he, almost as if in apology.

"The Messieurs are free to enter," was her answer; "but they come to a house empty."

"I want to speak to Madame Brown," returned the Squire, in a determined tone.

"Madame Brown and the Mees Browns are depart," she said. "They depart at daylight this morning, by the first convoi."

We were in the front parlour then: a small room, barely furnished. The Squire flew into one of his tempers: he thought the servant was playing with him. Old Brandon sat down against the wall, and nodded his head. He saw how it was--they had really gone.

But the Squire stormed a little, and would not believe it. The girl, catching one word in ten, for he talked very fast, wondered at his anger.

The young gentlemans was at the place yesterday, she said, glancing at me: it was a malheur but they had come up before the morning, if they wanted so much to see Madame.

"She has not gone: I know better," roared the Squire. "Look here, young woman--what's your name, though?"

"Mathilde," said she, standing quite at ease, her hands turned on her hips and her elbows out.

"Well, then, I warn you that it's of no use your trying to deceive _me_. I shall go into every room of this house till I find Madame Brown--and if you attempt to stop me, I'll bring the police up here. Tell her that in French, Johnny."

"I hear," said Mathilde, who had a very deliberate way of speaking. "I comprehend. The Messieurs go into the rooms if they like, but I go with, to see they not carry off any of the articles. This is the salon."

Waiting for no further permission, he was out of the salon like a shot. Mr. Brandon stayed nodding against the wall; he had not the slightest reverence for the Squire's diplomacy at any time. The girl slipped off her sabots and put her feet into some green worsted slippers that stood in the narrow passage. My belief was she thought we wanted to look over the house with a view to taking it.

"It was small, but great enough for a salle à manger," she said, showing the room behind--a little place that had literally nothing in it but an oval dining-table, some matting, and six common chairs against the walls. Upstairs were four bedrooms, bare also. As to the fear of our carrying off any of the articles, we might have found a difficulty in doing so. Except beds, chairs, drawers, and wash-hand-stands, there was nothing to carry. Mrs. Brown and the Miss Browns were not there: and the rooms were in as much order as if they had not been occupied for a month. Mathilde had been at them all the morning. The Squire's face was a picture when he went down: he began to realize the fact that he was once more left in the lurch.

"It is much health up here, and the house fine," said the girl, leaving her shoes in the passage side by side with the sabots, and walking into the salon in her stockings, without ceremony; "and if the Messieurs thought to let it, and would desire to have a good servant with it, I would be happy to serve them, me. I sleep in the house, or at home, as my patrons please; and I very good to make the kitchen; and I----"

"So you have not found them," interrupted old Brandon, sarcastically.

The Squire gave a groan. He was put out, and no mistake. Mathilde, in answer to questions, readily told all she knew.

About six weeks ago, she thought it was--but no, it must be seven, now she remembered--Madame Brown and the four Mees Browns took this house of the propriétaire, one Monsieur Bourgeois, marchand d'épicerie, and engaged her as servant, recommended to Madame by M. Bourgeois. Madame and the young ladies had lived very quietly, giving but little trouble; entrusted her to do all the commissions at the butcher's and elsewhere, and never questioned her fidelity in the matter of the sous received in change at market. The previous day when she got home with some pork and sausages, which she was going after when the young gentlemans spoke to her--nodding to me--Madame was all bouleversée; first because Mees Constance had been down to the town, which Madame did not like her to do; next because of a letter----

At this point the Squire interrupted. Did she mean to imply that the ladies never went out?

No, never, continued Mathilde. Madame found herself not strong to walk out, and it was not proper for the young demoiselles to go walk without her--as the Messieurs would doubtless understand. But Mees Constance had ennui with that, and three or four times she had walked out without Madame's knowing. Yesterday, par exemple, Madame was storming at her when she (Mathilde) came home with the meat, and the young ladies her sisters stormed at her----

"There; enough of that," snapped the Squire. "What took them away?"

That was the letter, resumed the girl in her deliberate manner. It was the other thing, that letter was, that had contributed to Madame's bouleversement. The letter had been delivered by hand, she supposed, while she was gone to the pork-shop; it told Madame the triste news of the illness of a dear relative; and Madame had to leave at once, in consequence. There was confusion. Madame and the young ladies packing, and she (Mathilde), when her dinner had been cooked and eaten, running quick for the propriétaire, who came back with her. Madame paid him up to the end of the next week, when the month would be finished and--that was all.

Old Brandon took up the word. "Mr. Brown?--He was not here at all, was he?"

"Not at all," replied Mathilde. "Madame's fancy figured to her he might be coming one of these soon days: if so, I refer him to M. Bourgeois."

"Refer him for what?"

"Nay, I not ask, monsieur. For the information, I conclude, of where Madame go and why she go. Madame talk to the propriétaire with the salon door shut."

So that was all we got. Mathilde readily gave M. Bourgeois's address, and we went away. She had been civil through it all, and the Squire slipped a franc into her hand. From the profusion of thanks he received in return, it might have been a louis d'or.

Monsieur Bourgeois's shop was in the Upper Town, not far from the convent of the Dames Ursulines. He said--speaking from behind his counter while weighing out some coffee--that Madame Brown had entrusted him with a sealed letter to Monsieur Brown in case he arrived. It contained, Madame had remarked to him, only a line or two to explain where they had gone, as he would naturally be disappointed at not finding them; and she had confided the trust to him that he would only deliver it into M. Brown's own hand. _He_ did not know where Madame had gone. As M. Bourgeois did not speak a word of English, or the Squire a word of French, it's hard to say when they would have arrived at an explanation, left to themselves.

"Now look here," said Mr. Brandon, in his dry, but uncommonly clear-sighted way, as we went home, "_Clement-Pell's expected here_. We must keep a sharp watch on the boats."

The Squire did not see it. "As if he'd remain in England all this time, Brandon!"

"We don't know where he has stayed. I have thought all along he was as likely to be in England as elsewhere: there's no place a man's safer in, well concealed. The very fact of his wife and daughters remaining in this frontier town would be nearly enough to prove that he was still in England."

"Then why on earth _did_ he stay there?" retorted the Squire. "Why has he not got away before?"

"I don't know. Might fear there was danger perhaps in making the attempt. He has lain perdu in some quiet corner; and now that he thinks the matter has partly blown over and the scent is less keen, he means to come over. That's what his wife has waited for."

The Squire seemed to grasp the whole at once. "I wonder when he will be here?"

"Within a day or two, you may be sure, or not at all," said Mr. Brandon, with a nod. "She'll write to stop his coming, if she knows where to write to. The sight of Johnny Ludlow has startled her. You were a great muff to let yourself be seen, young Johnny."

"Yes, sir, I know I was."

"Live and learn, live and learn," said he, bringing out his tin box. "One cannot put old heads upon young shoulders."

* * * * *

Sunday morning. After breakfast I and Mr. Brandon were standing under the porte-cochère, looking about us. At the banking house opposite; at a man going into the chemist's shop with his hand tied up; at the marchand-de-coco with his gay attire and jingling bells and noisy tra-la-la-la: at anything, in short, there might be to see, and so while away the half-hour before church-time. The Squire had gone strolling out, saying he should be back in time for service. People were passing down towards the port, little groups of them in twos and threes; apart from the maid-servants in their white caps, who were coming back from mass. One of the hotel waiters stood near us, his white napkin in his hand. He suddenly remarked, with the easy affability of the French of his class (which, so far as I know, and I have seen more of France since then, never degenerates into disrespect), that some of these people might be expecting friends by the excursion boat, and were going down to see it come in.

"What excursion boat?" asked Mr. Brandon of the waiter, quicker than he generally spoke.

"One from Ramsgate," the man replied. "It was to leave the other side very early, so as to get to Boulogne by ten o'clock; and to depart again at six in the afternoon." Mr. Brandon looked at the speaker; and then at me. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he drew me towards the port; charging the waiter to be sure and tell Mr. Todhetley when he returned, that we had gone to see the Ramsgate boat come in. It was past ten then.

"_If Clement-Pell comes at all it will be by this excursion boat_, Johnny," said he impressively, as we hurried on.

"Why do you think so, Mr. Brandon?"

"Well, I do think so. The people who make excursion trips are not those likely to know him, or of whom he would be afraid. He will conceal himself on it amongst the crowd. It is Sunday also--another reason. What flag is that up on the signal-post by the pier house, Johnny? Your eyes are younger than mine."

"It is the red one, sir"

"For a steamer in sight. She is not in yet then. It must be for _her_. It's hardly likely there would be another one coming in this morning."

"There she is!" I exclaimed. For at that moment I caught sight in the distance of a steamer riding on close up to the harbour mouth, pitching a little in her course.

"Run you on, Johnny," said Mr. Brandon, in excitement. "I'll come as quickly as I can, but my legs are not as fleet as yours. Get a place close to the cords, and look out sharply."

It was a bright day, somewhat colder than it had been, and the wind high enough to make it tolerably rough for any but good sailors--as the sparkles of white foam on the blue sea betrayed. I secured a good place behind the cord, close to the landing-stage: a regular crowd had collected, early though it was, Sunday being an idle day with some of the French. The boat came in, was being moored fast below us, and was crowded with pale faces.

Up came the passengers, mounting the almost perpendicular gangway: assisted by the boatmen, below; and by two appariteurs, in their cocked hats and Sunday clothes, above. It was nearly low water: another quarter-of-an-hour and they'd have missed their tide: pleasant, that would have been, for the excursionists. As only one could ascend the ladder at once, I had the opportunity of seeing them all.

Scores came: my sight was growing half-confused: and there had been no one resembling Clement-Pell. Some of them looked fearfully ill still, and had not put up the ears of their caps or turned down their coat collars; so that to get a good view of these faces was not possible--and Clement-Pell might have already landed, for all I could be sure of to the contrary. Cloaks were common in those days, and travelling caps had long ears to them.

It was quite a stroke of fortune. A lady with a little boy behind her came up the ladder, and the man standing next to me--he was vary tall and big--went at once into a state of excitement. "C'est toi! c'est toi, ma soeur!" he called out. She turned at the voice, and a batch of kissing ensued. A stout dame pushed forward frantically to share the kissing: but a douanier angrily marched off the passenger towards the custom-house. She retorted on him not to be so _difficile_, turned round and said she must wait for her other little one. Altogether there was no end of chatter and commotion. I was eclipsed and pushed back into the shade.