XII.
It was between half-past ten and eleven, and Captain and Mrs. Fennel were in their bedroom preparing to retire to rest. She stood before the glass doing her hair, having thrown a thin print cotton cape upon her shoulders as usual, to protect her dress; he had taken off his coat.
“What was that?” cried she, in startled tones.
Some sound had penetrated to their room. The captain put his coat on a chair and bent his ear. “I did not hear anything, Nancy,” he answered.
“There it is again!” exclaimed Nancy. “Oh, it is Lavinia! I do believe it is Lavinia!”
Flinging the comb from her hand, Nancy dashed out at the room-door, which was near the head of the stairs; Lavinia’s door being nearly at the end of the passage. Unmistakable sounds, now a shriek, now a wail, came from Lavinia’s chamber. Nancy flew into it, her fair hair falling on her shoulders.
“What is it, Lavinia? Oh, Edwin, Edwin, come here!” called Mrs. Fennel, beside herself with terror. Lavinia was rolling about the bed, as she had the previous day rolled on the salon floor; her face was distorted with pain, her moans and cries were agonizing.
Captain Fennel stayed to put on his coat, came to Lavinia’s door, and put his head inside it. “Is it the pain again?” he asked.
“Yes, it is the pain again,” gasped Lavinia, in answer. “I am dying, I am surely dying!”
That put the finishing-touch to timorous Nancy. “Edwin, run, run for Monsieur Dupuis!” she implored. “Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?”
Captain Fennel descended the stairs. When Nancy thought he must have been gone out at least a minute or two, he appeared again with a wine-glass of hot brandy-and-water, which he had stayed to mix.
“Try and get her to take this,” he said. “It can’t do harm; it may do good. And if you could put hot flannels to her, Nancy, it might be well; they eased the pain yesterday. I’ll bring Dupuis here as soon as I can.”
Lavinia could not take the brandy-and-water, and it was left upon the grey marble top of the chest of drawers. Her paroxysms increased; Nancy had never seen or imagined such pain, for this attack was worse than the other, and she almost lost her wits with terror. Could she see Lavinia die before her eyes?—no helping hand near to strive to save her? Just as Nancy had done before, she did again now.
Flying down the stairs and out of the house, across the yard and through the dark entry, she seized the bell-handle of Madame Veuve Sauvage’s door and pulled it frantically. The household had all retired for the night.
Presently a window above opened, and Monsieur Gustave—Nancy knew his voice—looked out.
“Who’s there?” he asked in French. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Monsieur Gustave, come in for the love of Heaven!” responded poor Nancy, looking up. “She has another attack, worse than the first; she’s dying, and there’s no one in the house but me.”
“Directly, madame; I am with you on the instant,” he kindly answered. “I but wait to put on my effects.”
He was at the Petite Maison Rouge almost as soon as she; his brother Emile followed him in, and Mariette, whom they had called, came shortly. Miss Preen lay in dreadful paroxysms; it did appear to them that she must die. Nancy and Mariette busied themselves in the kitchen, heating flannels.
The doctor did not seem to come very quickly. Captain Fennel at length made his appearance and said Monsieur Dupuis would be there in a minute or two.
“I am content to hear that,” remarked Monsieur Gustave in reply. “I was just about to despatch my brother for the first doctor he could find.”
“Never had such trouble in ringing up a doctor before,” returned Captain Fennel. “I suppose the old man sleeps too soundly to be easily aroused; many elderly people do.”
“I fear she is dying,” whispered Monsieur Gustave.
“No, no, surely not!” cried Captain Fennel, recoiling a step at the words. “What can it possibly be? What causes the attacks?”
Whilst Monsieur Gustave was shaking his head at this difficult question, Monsieur Dupuis arrived. Monsieur Emile, anxious to make himself useful, was requested by Mariette to go to Flore’s domicile and ring her up. Flore seemed to have been sleeping with her clothes on, for they came back together.
Monsieur Dupuis could do nothing for his patient. He strove to administer drops of medicinal remedies; he caused her to be nearly smothered in scalding-hot flannels—all in vain. He despatched Monsieur Emile Sauvage to bring in another doctor, Monsieur Podevin, who lived near. All in vain. Lavinia died. Just at one o’clock in the morning, before the cocks had begun to crow, Lavinia Preen died.
The shock to those in the house was great. It seemed to stun them, one and all. The brothers Sauvage, leaving a few words of heartfelt sympathy with Captain Fennel, withdrew silently to their own home. Mariette stayed. The two doctors, shut up in the salon, talked with one another, endeavouring to account for the death.
“Inflammation, no doubt,” observed Monsieur Dupuis; “but even so, the death has been too speedy.”
“More like poison,” rejoined the younger man, Monsieur Podevin. He was brother to the proprietor of the Hôtel des Princes, and was much respected by his fellow-citizens as a safe and skilful practitioner.
“The thought of poison naturally occurred to me on Sunday, when I was first called to her,” returned Monsieur Dupuis, “but it could not be borne out. You see, she had partaken of nothing, either in food or drink, but what the other inmates had taken; absolutely nothing. This was assured me by them all, herself included.”
“She seems to have taken nothing to-day, either, that could in any way harm her,” said Monsieur Podevin.
“Nothing. She took a cup of tea at five o’clock, which the servant, Flore, prepared and also partook of herself—a cup out of the same teapot. Later, when the poor lady went to bed, her sister made her a basin of arrowroot, and made herself one at the same time.”
“Well, it appears strange.”
“It could not have been a chill. The symptoms——”
“A chill?—bah!” interrupted Monsieur Podevin. “We shall know more after the post-mortem,” he added, taking up his hat. “Of course there must be one.”
Wishing his brother practitioner good-night, he left. Monsieur Dupuis went looking about for Captain Fennel, and found him in the kitchen, standing by the hot stove, and drinking a glass of hot brandy-and-water. The rest were upstairs.
“This event has shaken my nerves, doctor,” apologized the captain, in reference to the glass. “I never was so upset. Shall I mix you one?”
Monsieur Dupuis shook his head. He never took anything so strong. The most calming thing, in his opinion, was a glass of eau sucrée, with a teaspoonful of orange-flower water in it.
“Sir,” he went on, “I have been conversing with my esteemed confrère. We cannot, either of us, decide what mademoiselle has died of, being unable to see any adequate cause for it; and we wish to hold a post-mortem examination. I presume you will not object to it?”
“Certainly not; I think there should be one,” briskly spoke Captain Fennel after a moment’s pause. “For our satisfaction, if for nothing else, doctor.”
“Very well. Will nine o’clock in the morning suit you, as to time? It should be made early.”
“I—expect it will,” answered the captain, reflecting. “Do you hold it here?”
“Undoubtedly. In her own room.”
“Then wait just one minute, will you, doctor, whilst I speak to my wife. Nine o’clock seems a little early, but I dare say it will suit.”
Monsieur Dupuis went back into the salon. He had waited there a short interval, when Mrs. Fennel burst in, wild with excitement. Her hair still hung down her back, her eyes were swollen with weeping, her face was one of piteous distress. She advanced to Monsieur Dupuis, and held up her trembling hands.
The old doctor understood English fairly well when it was quietly spoken; but he did not in the least understand it in a storm. Sobbing, trembling, Mrs. Fennel was beseeching him not to hold a post-mortem on her poor dead sister, for the love of mercy.
Surprised and distressed, he placed her on the sofa, soothed her into calmness, and then bade her tell him quietly what her petition was. She repeated it—begging, praying, imploring him not to disturb her sister now she was at rest; but to let her be put into her grave in peace. Well, well, said the compassionate old man; if it would pain the relatives so greatly to have it done, he and Monsieur Podevin would, of course, abandon the idea. It would be a satisfaction to them both to be able to decide upon the cause of death, but they did not wish to proceed in it against the feelings of the family.
Sainteville woke up in the morning to a shock. Half the townspeople still believed that Miss Preen was leaving that day, Tuesday, for Boulogne; and to hear that she would not go on that journey, that she would never go on any earthly journey again, that she was dead, shook them to the centre.
What had been the matter with her?—what had killed her so quickly in the midst of life and health? Groups asked this; one group meeting another. “Inflammation,” was the answer—for that report had somehow started itself. She caught a chill on the Sunday, probably when leaving the church after morning service; it induced speedy and instant inflammation, and she had died of it.
With softened steps and mournful faces, hosts of people made their way to the Place Ronde. Only to take a glimpse at the outside of the Maison Rouge brought satisfaction to excited feelings. Monsieur Gustave Sauvage had caused his white shop window-blinds to be drawn half-way down, out of respect to the dead; all the windows above had the green persiennes closed before them. The calamity had so greatly affected old Madame Sauvage that she lay in bed.
When her sons returned indoors after the death had taken place, their mother called them to her room. Nancy’s violent ringing had disturbed her, and she had lain since then in anxiety, waiting for news.
“Better not tell the mother to-night,” whispered Emile to his brother outside her door.
But the mother’s ears were quick; she was sitting up in bed, and the door was ajar. “Yes, you will tell me, my sons,” she said. “I am fearing the worst.”
“Well, mother, it is all over,” avowed Gustave. “The attack was more violent than the one last night, and the poor lady is gone.”
“May the good God have taken her to His rest!” fervently aspirated madame. But she lay down in the bed in her distress and covered her face with the white-frilled pillow and sobbed a little. Gustave and Emile related a few particulars.
“And what was really the malady? What is it that she has died of?” questioned the mother, wiping her eyes.
“That is not settled; nobody seems to know,” replied Gustave.
Madame Veuve Sauvage lay still, thinking. “I—hope—that—man—has—not—done—her—any—injury!” she slowly said.
“I hope not either; there is no appearance of it,” said Monsieur Gustave. “Any way, mother, she had two skilful doctors with her, honest men and upright. Better not admit such thoughts.”
“True, true,” murmured madame, appeased. “I fear the poor dear lady must have taken a chill, which struck inwardly. That handsome demoiselle, the cousin of Monsieur le Procureur, died of the same thing, you may remember. Good-night, my sons; you leave me very unhappy.”
About eight o’clock in the morning, Monsieur Jules Carimon heard of it. In going through the large iron entrance-gates of the college to his day’s work, he found himself accosted by one of two or three young gamins of pupils, who were also entering. It was Dion Pamart. The well-informed reader is of course aware that the French educational colleges are attended by all classes, high and low, indiscriminately.
“Monsieur, have you heard?” said the lad, with timid deprecation. “Mademoiselle is dead.”
Monsieur Jules Carimon turned his eyes on the speaker. At first he did not recognize him: his own work lay with the advanced desks.
“Ah, c’est Pamart, n’est-ce-pas?” said he. “What did you say, my boy? Some one is dead?”
Dion Pamart repeated his information. The master, inwardly shocked, took refuge in disbelief.
“I think you must be mistaken, Pamart,” said he.
“Oh no, I’m not, sir. Mademoiselle was taken frightfully ill again last night, and they fetched my mother. They had two doctors to her and all; but they couldn’t do anything for her, and she died. Grandmother gave me my breakfast just now; she said my mother was crying too much to come home. The other lady, the captain’s wife, has been in hysterics all night.”
“Go on to your desks,” commanded Monsieur Carimon to the small fry now gathered round him.
He turned back home himself. When he entered the salle-à-manger, Pauline was carrying away the last of the breakfast-things. Her mistress stood putting a little water on a musk plant in the window.
“Is it you, Jules?” she exclaimed. “Have you forgotten something?”
Monsieur Jules shut the door. “I have not forgotten anything,” he answered. “But I have heard of a sad calamity, and I have come back to prepare you, Marie, before you hear it from others.”
He spoke solemnly; he was looking solemn. His wife put down the jug of water on the table. “A calamity?” she repeated.
“Yes. You will grieve to hear it. Your friend, Miss Preen, was—was taken ill last night with the same sort of attack, but more violent; and she——”
“Oh, Jules, don’t tell me, don’t tell me!” cried Mary Carimon, lifting her hands to ward off the words with a too sure prevision of what they were going to be.
“But, my dear, you must be told sooner or later,” remonstrated he; “you cannot go through even this morning without hearing it from one person or another. Flore’s boy was my informant. In spite of all that could be done by those about her, poor lady—in spite of the two doctors who were called to her aid—she died.”
Madame Carimon was a great deal too much stunned for tears. She sank back in a chair with a face of stone, feeling that the room was turning upside down about her.
An hour later, when she had somewhat gathered her scattered senses together, she set off for the Petite Maison Rouge. Her way lay past the house of Monsieur Podevin; old Monsieur Dupuis was turning out of it as she went by. Madame Carimon stopped.
“Yes,” the doctor said, when a few words had passed, “it is a most desolating affair. But, as madame knows, when Death has laid his grasp upon a patient, medical craft loses its power to resist him.”
“Too true,” murmured Mary Carimon. “And what is it that she has died of?”
Monsieur Dupuis shook his head to indicate that he did not know.
“I could have wished for an examination, to ascertain the true cause of the seizure,” continued the doctor, “and I come now from expressing my regrets to my confrère, Monsieur Podevin. He agrees with me in deciding that we cannot press it in opposition to the family. Captain Fennel was quite willing it should take place, but his wife, poor distressed woman, altogether objects to it.”
Mary Carimon went on to the house of death. She saw Lavinia, looking so peaceful in her stillness. A happy smile sat on her countenance. On her white attire lay some sweet fresh primroses, which Flore had placed there. Lavinia loved primroses. She used to say that when she looked at them they brought to her mind the woods and dales of Buttermead, always carpeted with the pale, fair blossoms in the spring of the year. Mrs. Fennel lay in a heavy sleep, exhausted by her night of distress, Flore informed Madame Carimon; and the captain, anxious about her, was sitting in her room, to guard against her being disturbed.
On the next day, Wednesday, in obedience to the laws of France relating to the dead, Lavinia Preen was buried. All the English gentlemen in the town, and some Frenchmen, including Monsieur Carimon and the sons of Madame Veuve Sauvage, assembled in the Place Ronde, and fell in behind the coffin when it was brought forth. They walked after it to the portion of the cemetery consecrated to Protestants, and there witnessed the interment. The tears trickled down Charley Palliser’s face as he took his last look into the grave, and he was honest enough not to mind who saw them.
XIII.
In their new mourning, at the English Church, the Sunday after the interment of Lavinia Preen, appeared Captain and Mrs. Fennel. The congregation looked at them more than at the parson. Poor Nancy’s eyes were so blinded with tears that she could not see the letters in her Prayer-book. Only one little week ago when she had sat there, Lavinia was on the bench at her side, alive and well; and now—— It was with difficulty Nancy kept herself from breaking down.
Two or three acquaintances caught her hand on leaving the church, whispering a few words of sympathy in her ear. Not one but felt truly sorry for her. The captain’s hat, which had a wide band round it, was perpetually raised in acknowledgment of silent greetings, as he piloted his wife back to their house, the Petite Maison Rouge.
A very different dinner-table, this which the two sat down to, from last Sunday’s, in the matter of cheerfulness. Nancy was about half-way through the wing of the fowl her husband had helped her to, when a choking sob caught her throat. She dropped her knife and fork.
“Oh, Edwin, I cannot! I cannot eat for my unhappy thoughts! This time last Sunday Lavinia was seated at the table with us. Now——” Nancy’s speech collapsed altogether.
“Come, come,” said Captain Fennel. “I hope you are not going to be hysterical again, Nancy. It is frightfully sad; I know that; but this prolonged grief will do no good. Go on with your dinner; it is a very nice chicken.”
Nancy gave a great sob, and spoke impulsively, “I don’t believe you regret her one bit, Edwin!”
Edwin Fennel in turn laid down his knife and fork and stared at his wife. A curious expression sat on his face.
“Not regret her,” he repeated with emphasis. “Why, Nancy, I regret her every hour of the day. But I do not make a parade of my regrets. Why should I?—to what end? Come, come, my dear; you will be all the better for eating your dinner.”
He went on with his own as he spoke. Nancy took up her knife and fork with a hopeless sigh.
Dinner over, Captain Fennel went to his cupboard and brought in some of the chartreuse. Two glasses, this time, instead of three. He might regret Lavinia, as he said, every hour of the day; possibly he did so; but it did not seem to affect his appetite, or his relish for good things.
Most events have their dark and their light sides. It could hardly escape the mind of Edwin Fennel that by the death of Lavinia the whole income became Nancy’s. To him that must have been a satisfactory consolation.
In the afternoon he went with Nancy for a walk on the pier. She did not want to go; said she had no spirits for it; it was miserable at home; miserable out; miserable everywhere. Captain Fennel took her off, as he might have taken a child, telling her she should come and see the fishing-boats. After tea they went to church—an unusual thing for Captain Fennel. Lavinia and Nancy formerly went to evening service; he, never.
That night something curious occurred. Nancy went up to bed leaving the captain to follow, after finishing his glass of grog. He generally took one the last thing. Nancy had taken off her gown, and was standing before the glass about to undo her hair, when she heard him leave the parlour. Her bedroom-door, almost close to the head of the stairs, was not closed, and her ears were on the alert. Since Lavinia died, Nancy had felt timid in the house when alone, and she was listening for her husband to come up. She heard him lock up the spirit bottle in the little cupboard below, and begin to ascend the stairs, and she opened her door wider, that the light might guide him, for the staircase was in darkness.
Captain Fennel had nearly gained the top, when something—he never knew what—induced him to look round sharply, as though he fancied some one was close behind him. In fact, he did fancy it. In a moment, he gave a shout, dashed onwards into the bedroom, shut the door with a bang, and bolted it. Nancy, in great astonishment, turned to look at him. He seemed to have shrunk within himself in a fit of trembling, his face was ghastly, and the perspiration stood upon his brow.
“Edwin!” she exclaimed in a scared whisper, “what is the matter?”
Captain Fennel did not answer at first. He was getting up his breath.
“Has Flore not gone?” he then said.
“Flore!” exclaimed Nancy in surprise. “Why, Edwin, you know Flore goes away on Sundays in the middle of the afternoon! She left before we went on the pier. Why do you ask?”
“I—I thought—some person—followed me upstairs,” he replied, in uneasy pauses.
“Oh, my goodness!” cried timid Nancy. “Perhaps a thief has got into the house!”
She went to the door, and was about to draw it an inch open, intending to peep out gingerly and listen, when her husband pulled her back with a motion of terror, and put his back against it. This meant, she thought, that he knew a thief was there. Perhaps two of them!
“Is there more than one?” she whispered. “Lavinia’s silver—my silver, now—is in the basket on the console in the salon.”
He did not answer. He appeared to be listening. Nancy listened also. The house seemed still as death.
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” said Captain Fennel, beginning to recover himself after a bit. “I dare say I was.”
“Well, I think you must have been, Edwin; I can’t hear anything. We had better open the door.”
She undid the bolt as she spoke, and he moved away from it. Nancy cautiously took a step outside, and kept still. Not a sound met her ear. Then she brought forth the candle and looked down the staircase. Not a sign of anything or any one met her eye.
“Edwin, there’s nothing, there’s nobody; come and see. You must have fancied it.”
“No doubt,” answered Captain Fennel. But he did not go to see, for all that.
Nancy went back to the room. “Won’t you just look downstairs?” she said. “I—I don’t much mind going with you.”
“Not any necessity,” replied he, and began to undress—and slipped the bolt again.
“Why do you bolt the door to-night?” asked Nancy.
“To keep the thief out,” said he, in grim tones, which Nancy took for jesting. But she could not at all understand him.
His restlessness kept her awake. “It must have been all fancy,” she more than once heard him mutter to himself.
When he rose in the morning, his restlessness seemed still to hang upon him. Remarking to Nancy, who was only half-awake, that his nerves were out of order, and he should be all the better for a sea-bath, he dressed and left the room. Nancy got down at the usual hour, half-past eight; and was told by Flore that monsieur had left word madame was not to wait breakfast for him: he was gone to have a dip in the sea, and should probably take a long country walk after it.
Flore was making the coffee at the kitchen stove; her mistress stood by, as if wanting to watch the process. These last few days, since Lavinia had been carried from the house, Nancy had felt easier in Flore’s company than when alone with her own.
“That’s to steady his nerves; they are out of order,” replied Nancy, who had as much idea of reticence as a child. “Monsieur had a great fright last night, Flore.”
“Truly!” said Flore, much occupied just then with her coffee-pot.
“He was coming up to bed between ten and eleven; I had gone on. When nearly at the top of the stairs he thought he heard some one behind him. It startled him frightfully. Not being prepared for it, supposing that the house was empty, you see, Flore, of course it would startle him.”
“Naturally, madame.”
“He cried out, and dashed into the bedroom and bolted the door. I never saw any one in such a state of terror, Flore; he was trembling all over; his face was whiter than your apron.”
“Vraiment!” returned Flore, turning to look at her mistress in a little surprise. “But, madame, what had terrified him? What was it that he had seen?”
“Why, he could have seen nothing,” corrected Mrs. Fennel. “There was nothing to see.”
“Madame has reason; there could have been nothing, the house being empty. But then, what could have frightened him?” repeated Flore.
“Why, he must have fancied it, I suppose. Any way, he fancied some one was there. The first question he asked me was, whether you were in the house.”
“Moi! Monsieur might have known I should not be in the house at that hour, madame. And why should he show terror if he thought it was me?”
Mrs. Fennel shrugged her shoulders. “It was a moment’s scare; just that, I conclude; and it upset his nerves. A sea-bath will put him all right again.”
Flore carried the coffee into the salon, and her mistress sat down to breakfast.
Now it chanced that this same week a guest came to stay with Madame Carimon. Stella Featherston, from Buttermead, was about to make a sojourn in Paris, and she took Sainteville on her route that she might stay a few days with her cousin, Mary Carimon, whom she had not seen for several years.
Lavinia and Ann Preen had once been very intimate with Miss Featherston, who reached Madame Carimon’s on the Thursday. On the Friday morning Mrs. Fennel called to see her—and, in Nancy’s impromptu way, she invited her and Mary Carimon to take tea at seven o’clock that same evening at the Petite Maison Rouge.
Nancy went home delighted. It was a little divertissement to her present saddened life. Captain Fennel knitted his brow when he heard of the arrangement, but made no objection in words. His wife shrank at the frown.
“Don’t you like my having invited Miss Featherston to tea, Edwin?”
“Oh! I’ve no objection to it,” he carelessly replied. “I am not in love with either Carimon or his wife, and don’t care how little I see of them.”
“He cannot come, having a private class on to-night. And I could not invite Miss Featherston without Mary Carimon,” pleaded Nancy.
“Just so. I am not objecting.”
With this somewhat ungracious assent, Nancy had to content herself. She ordered a gâteau Suisse, the nicest sort of gâteau to be had at Sainteville; and told Flore that she must for once remain for the evening.
The guests appeared punctually at seven o’clock. Such a thing as being invited for one hour, and strolling in an hour or two after it, was a mark of English breeding never yet heard of in the simple-mannered French town. Miss Featherston, a smart, lively young woman, wore a cherry-coloured silk; Mary Carimon was in black; she had gone into slight mourning for Lavinia. Good little Monsieur Jules had put a small band on his hat.
Captain Fennel was not at home to tea, and the ladies had it all their own way in the matter of talking. What with items of news from the old home, Buttermead, and Stella’s telling about her own plans, the conversation never flagged a moment.
“Yes, that’s what I am going to Paris for,” said Stella, explaining her plans. “I don’t seem likely to marry, for nobody comes to ask me, and I mean to go out in the world and make a little money. It is a sin and a shame that a healthy girl, the eldest of three sisters, should be living upon her poor mother in idleness. Not much of a girl, you may say, for I was three-and-thirty last week! but we all like to pay ourselves compliments when age is in question.”
Nancy laughed. Almost the first time she had laughed since Lavinia’s death.
“So you are going to Paris to learn French, Stella!”
“I am going to Paris to learn French, Nancy,” assented Miss Featherston. “I know it pretty well, but when I come to speak it I am all at sea; and you can’t get out as a governess now unless you speak it fluently. At each of the two situations I applied for in Worcestershire, it was the one fatal objection: ‘We should have liked you, Miss Featherston, but we can only engage a lady who will speak French with the children.’ So I made my mind up to speak French; and I wrote to good Monsieur Jules Carimon, and he has found me a place to go to in Paris, where not a soul in the household speaks English. He says, and I say, that in six months I shall chatter away like a native,” she concluded, laughing.
XIV.
About nine o’clock Captain Fennel came home. He was gracious to the visitors. Stella Featherston thought his manners were pleasing. Shortly afterwards Charley Palliser called. He apologized for the lateness of the hour, but his errand was a good-natured one. His aunt, Mrs. Hardy, had received a box of delicious candied fruits from Marseilles; she had sent him with a few to Mrs. Fennel, if that lady would kindly accept them. The truth was, every one in Sainteville felt sorry just now for poor Nancy Fennel.
Nancy looked as delighted as a child. She called to Flore to bring plates, turned out the fruits and handed them round. Flore also brought in the gâteau Suisse and glasses, and a bottle of Picardin wine, that the company might regale themselves. Charley Palliser suddenly spoke; he had just thought of something.
“Would it be too much trouble to give me back that book which I lent you a week or two ago—about the plans of the fortifications?” he asked, turning to Captain Fennel. “I want it sometimes for reference in my studies.”
“Not at all; I ought to have returned it to you before this—but the trouble here has driven other things out of my head,” replied Captain Fennel. “Let me see—where did I put it? Nancy, do you remember where that book is?—the heavy one, you know, with red edges and a mottled cover.”
“That book? Why, it is on the drawers in our bedroom,” replied Nancy.
“To be sure; I’ll get it,” said Captain Fennel.
His wife called after him to bring down the dominoes also; some one might like a game. The captain did not intend to take the trouble of going himself; he meant to send Flore. But Flore was not in the kitchen, and he took it for granted she was upstairs. In fact, Flore was in the yard at the pump; but he never thought of the yard or the pump. Lighting a candle, he strode upstairs.
He was coming down again, the open box of dominoes and Charley Palliser’s book in one hand, the candlestick in the other, when the same sort of thing seemed to occur which had occurred on Sunday night. Hearing, as he thought, some one close behind him, almost treading, as it were, upon his heels, and thinking it was Flore, he turned his head round, intending to tell her to keep her distance.
Then, with a frightful yell, down dashed Captain Fennel the few remaining stairs, the book, the candlestick, and the box of dominoes all falling in the passage from his nerveless hands. The dominoes were hard and strong, and made a great crash. But it was the yell which had frightened the company in the salon.
They flocked out in doubt and wonder. The candle had gone out; and Charley Palliser was bringing forth the lamp to light up the darkness, when he was nearly knocked down by Captain Fennel. Flore, returning from the pump with her own candle, much damaged by the air of the yard, held it up to survey the scene.
Captain Fennel swept past Charley into the salon, and threw himself into a chair behind the door, after trying to dash it to; but they were trooping in behind him. His breath was short, his terrified face looked livid as one meet for the grave.
“Why, what has happened to you, sir?” asked Charles, intensely surprised.
“Oh! he must have seen the thief again!” shrieked Nancy.
“Shut the door; bolt it!” called out the stricken man.
They did as they were bid. This order, as it struck them all, could only have reference to keeping out some nefarious intruder, such as a thief. Flore had followed them in, after picking up the débris. She put the book and the dominoes on the table, and stood staring over her mistress’s shoulder.
“Has the thief got in again, Edwin?” repeated Mrs. Fennel, who was beginning to tremble. “Did you see him?—or hear him?”
“My foot slipped; it sent me headforemost down the stairs,” spoke the captain at last, conscious, perhaps, that something must be said to satisfy the inquisitive faces around him. “I heard Flore behind me, and——”
“Not me, sir,” put in Flore in her best English. “I was not upstairs at all; I was out at the pump. There is nobody upstairs, sir; there can’t be.” But Captain Fennel only glared at her in answer.
“What did you cry out at?” asked Charles Palliser, speaking soothingly, for he saw that the man was pitiably unstrung. “Have you had a thief in the house? Did you think you saw one?”
“I saw no thief; there has been no thief in the house that I know of; I tell you I slipped—and it startled me,” retorted the captain, his tones becoming savage.
“Then—why did you have the door bolted, captain?” struck in Miss Stella Featherston, who was extremely practical and matter-of-fact, and who could not understand the scene at all.
This time the captain glared at her. Only for a moment; a sickly smile then stole over his countenance.
“Somebody here talked about a thief: I said bolt him out,” answered he.
With this general explanation they had to be contented; but to none of them did it sound natural or straightforward.
Order was restored. The ladies took a glass of wine each and some of the gâteau, which Flore handed round. Charles Palliser said good-night and departed with his book. Captain Fennel went out at the same time. He turned into the café on the Place Ronde, and drank three small glasses of cognac in succession.
“Nancy, what did you mean by talking about a thief?” began Madame Carimon, the whole thing much exercising her mind.
Upon which, Mrs. Fennel treated them all, including Flore, to an elaborate account of her husband’s fright on the Sunday night.
“It was on the stairs; just as it was again now,” she said. “He thought he heard some one following behind him as he came up to bed. He fancied it was Flore; but Flore had left hours before. I never saw any one show such terror in all my life. He said it was Flore behind him to-night, and you saw how terrified he was.”
“But if he took it to be Flore, why should he be frightened?” returned Mary Carimon.
“Pardon, mesdames, but it is the same argument I made bold to use to madame,” interposed Flore from the background, where she stood. “There is not anything in me to give people fright.”
“I—think—it must have been,” said Mrs. Fennel, speaking slowly, “that he grew alarmed when he found it was not Flore he saw. Both times.”
“Then who was it that he did see—to startle him like that?” asked Mary Carimon.
“Why, he must have thought it was a thief,” replied Nancy. “There’s nothing else for it.”
At this juncture the argument was brought to a close by the entrance of Monsieur Jules Carimon, who had come to escort his wife and Stella Featherston home.
These curious attacks of terror were repeated; not often, but at a few days’ interval; so that at length Captain Fennel took care not to go about the house alone in the dark. He went up to bed when his wife did; he would not go to the door, if a ring came after Flore’s departure, without a light in his hand. By-and-by he improvised a lamp, which he kept on the slab.
What was it that he was scared at? An impression arose in the minds of the two or three people who were privy to this, that he saw, or fancied he saw, in the house the spectre of one who had just been carried out of it, Lavinia Preen. Nancy had no such suspicion as yet; she only thought her husband could not be well. She was much occupied about that time, having at length nerved herself to the task of looking over her poor sister’s effects.
One afternoon, when sitting in Lavinia’s room (Flore—who stayed with her for company—had run down to the kitchen to see that the dinner did not burn), Nancy came upon a small, thin green case. Between its leaves she found three one-hundred-franc notes—twelve pounds in English value. She rightly judged that it was all that remained of her sister’s nest-egg, and that she had intended to take it with her to Boulogne.
“Poor Lavinia!” she aspirated, the tears dropping from her eyes. “Every farthing remaining of the quarter’s money she left with me for housekeeping.”
But now a thought came to Nancy. Placing the case on the floor near her, intending to show it to her husband—she was sitting on a stool before one of Lavinia’s boxes—it suddenly occurred to her that it might be as well to say nothing to him about it. He would be sure to appropriate the money to his own private uses: and Nancy knew that she should need some for hers. There would be her mourning to pay for; and——
The room-door was wide open, and at this point in her reflections Nancy heard the captain enter the house with his latch-key, and march straight upstairs. In hasty confusion, she thrust the little case into the nearest hiding-place, which happened to be the front of her black dress bodice.
“Nancy, I have to go to England,” cried the captain. “How hot you look! Can’t you manage to do that without stooping?”
“To go to England!” repeated Nancy, lifting her flushed face.
“Here’s a letter from my brother; the postman gave it me as I was crossing the Place Ronde. It’s only a line or two,” he added, tossing it to her. “I must take this evening’s boat.”
Nancy read the letter. Only a line or two, as he said, just telling the captain to go over with all speed upon a pressing matter of business, and that he could return before the week was ended.
“Oh, but, Edwin, you can’t go,” began Nancy, in alarm. “I cannot stay here by myself.”
“Not go! Why, I must go,” he said very decisively. “How do I know what it is that I am wanted for? Perhaps that property which we are always expecting to fall in.”
“But I should be so lonely. I could not stay here alone.”
“Nonsense!” he sharply answered. “I shall not be away above one clear day; two days at the furthest. This is Thursday, and I shall return by Sunday’s boat. You will only be alone to-morrow and Saturday.”
He turned away, thus putting an end to the discussion, and entered their own room. As Nancy looked after him in despair, it suddenly struck her how very thin and ill he had become; his face worn and grey.
“He wants a change,” she said to herself; “our trouble here has upset him as much as it did me. I’ll say no more; I must not be selfish. Poor Lavinia used to warn me against selfishness.”
So Captain Fennel went off without further opposition, his wife enjoining him to be sure to return on Sunday. The steamer was starting that night at eight o’clock; it was a fine evening, and Nancy walked down to the port with her husband and saw him on board. Nancy met an acquaintance down there; no other than Charley Palliser. They strolled a little in the wake of the departing steamer; Charley then saw her as far as the Place Ronde, and there wished her good-night.
And now an extraordinary thing happened. As Mrs. Fennel opened the door with her latch-key, Flore having left, and was about to enter the dark passage, the same curious and unaccountable terror seized her which had been wont to attack Lavinia. Leaving the door wide open, she dashed up the passage, felt for the match-box, and struck a light. Then, candle in hand, she returned to shut the door; but her whole frame trembled with fear.
“Why, it’s just what poor Lavinia felt!” she gasped. “What on earth can it be? Why should it come to me? I will take care not to go out to-morrow night or Saturday.”
And she held to her decision. Mrs. Hardy sent Charley Palliser to invite her for either day, or both days; Mary Carimon sent Pauline with a note to the same effect; but Nancy returned a refusal in both cases, with her best thanks.
The boat came in on Sunday night, but it did not bring Captain Fennel. On the Sunday morning the post had brought Nancy a few lines from him, saying he found the business on which he had been called to London was of great importance, and he was obliged to remain another day or two.
Nancy was frightfully put out: not only vexed, but angry. Edwin had no business to leave her alone like that so soon after Lavinia’s death. She bemoaned her hard fate to several friends on coming out of church, and Mrs. Smith carried her off to dinner. The major was not out that morning—a twinge of gout in the right foot had kept him indoors.
This involved Nancy’s going home alone in the evening, for the major could not walk with her. She did not like it. The same horror came over her before opening the door. She entered somehow, and dashed into the kitchen, hoping the stove was alight: a very silly hope, for Flore had been gone since the afternoon.
Nancy lighted the candle in the kitchen, and then fancied she saw some one looking at her from the open kitchen-door. It looked like Lavinia. It certainly was Lavinia. Nancy stood spell-bound; then she gave a cry of desperate horror and dropped the candlestick.
How she picked it up she never knew; the light had not gone out. Nothing was to be seen then. The apparition, if it had been one, had vanished. She got up to bed somehow, and lay shivering under the bedclothes until morning.
Quite early, when Nancy was at breakfast, Madame Carimon came in. She had already been to the fish-market, and came on to invite Nancy to her house for the day, having heard that Mr. Fennel was still absent. With a scared face and trembling lips, Nancy told her about the previous night—the strange horror of entering which had begun to attack her, the figure of Lavinia at the kitchen-door.
Madame Carimon, listening gravely, took, or appeared to take, a sensible view of it. “You have caught up this fear of entering the house, Nancy, through remembering that it attacked poor Lavinia,” she said. “Impressionable minds—and yours is one of them—take fright just as children catch measles. As to thinking you saw Lavinia——”
“She had on the gown she wore the Sunday she was taken ill: her silver-grey silk, you know,” interrupted Nancy. “She looked at me with a mournful, appealing gaze, just as if she wanted something.”
“Ay, you were just in the mood to fancy something of the kind,” lightly spoke Madame Carimon. “The fright of coming in had done that for you. I dare say you had been talking of Lavinia at Major Smith’s.”
“Well, so we had,” confessed Nancy.
“Just so; she was already on your mind, and therefore that and the fright you were in caused you to fancy you saw her. Nancy, my dear, you cannot imagine the foolish illusions our fancies play us.”
Easily persuaded, Mrs. Fennel agreed that it might have been so. She strove to forget the matter, and went out there and then with Mary Carimon.
But this state of things was to continue. Captain Fennel did not return, and Nancy grew frightened to death at being alone in the house after dark. Flore was unable to stay longer than the time originally agreed for, her old mother being dangerously ill. As dusk approached, Nancy began to hate her destiny. Apart from nervousness, she was sociably inclined, and yearned for company. Now and again the inclination to accept an invitation was too strong to be resisted, or she went out after dinner, uninvited, to this friend or that. But the pleasure was counterbalanced by having to go in again at night; the horror clung to her.
If a servant attended her home, or any gentleman from the house where she had been, she made them go indoors with her whilst she lighted her candle; once she got Monsieur Gustave’s errand-boy to do so. But it was almost as bad with the lighted candle—the first feeling of being in the lonely house after they had gone. She wrote letter after letter, imploring her husband to return. Captain Fennel’s replies were rich in promises: he would be back the very instant business permitted; probably “to-morrow, or the next day.” But he did not come.
One Sunday, when he had been gone about three weeks, and Nancy had been spending the day in the Rue Pomme Cuite, Mary Carimon walked home with her in the evening. Monsieur Jules had gone to see his cousin off by the nine-o’clock train—Mademoiselle Priscille Carimon, who had come in to spend the day with them. She lived at Drecques.
“You will come in with me, Mary?” said Ann Fennel, as they gained the door.
“To be sure I will,” replied Madame Carimon, laughing lightly, for none knew about the fears better than she.
Nancy took her hand as they went up the passage. She lighted the candle at the slab, and they went into the salon. Madame Carimon sat down for a few minutes, by way of reassuring her. Nancy took off her bonnet and mantle. On the table was a small tray with the tea-things upon it. Flore had left it there in readiness, not quite certain whether her mistress would come in to tea or not.
“I had such a curious dream last night,” began Nancy; “those tea-things put me in mind of it. Lavinia——”
“For goodness’ sake don’t begin upon dreams to-night!” interposed Madame Carimon. “You know they always frighten you.”
“Oh, but this was a pleasant dream, Mary. I thought that I and Lavinia were seated at a little table, with two teacups between us full of tea. The cups were very pretty; pale amber with gilt scrolls, and the china so thin as to be transparent. I can see them now. And Lavinia said something which made me smile; but I don’t remember what it was. Ah, Mary! if she were only back again with us!”
“She is better off, you know,” said Mary Carimon in tender tones.
“All the same, it was a cruel fate that took her; I shall never think otherwise. I wish I knew what it was she died of! Flore told me one day that Monsieur Podevin quite laughed at the idea of its being a chill.”
“Well, Nancy, it was you who stopped it, you know.”
“Stopped what?” asked Nancy.
“The investigation the doctors would have made after death. Both of them were much put out at your forbidding it: for their own satisfaction they wished to ascertain particulars. I may tell you now that I thought you were wrong to interfere.”
“It was Captain Fennel,” said Nancy calmly.
“Captain Fennel!” echoed Mary Carimon. “Monsieur Dupuis told me that Captain Fennel wished for it as much as he and Monsieur Podevin.”
Captain Fennel’s wife shook her head. “They asked him about it before they left, after she died. He came to me, and I said, Oh, let them do what they would; it could not hurt her now she was dead. I was in such terrible distress, Mary, that I hardly knew or cared what I said. Then Edwin drew so dreadful a picture of what post-mortems are, and how barbarously her poor neck and arms would be cut and slashed, that I grew sick and frightened.”
“And so you stopped it—by reason of the picture he drew?”
“Yes. I came running down here to Monsieur Dupuis—Monsieur Podevin had gone—for Edwin said it must be my decision, not his, and his name had better not be mentioned; and I begged and prayed Monsieur Dupuis not to hold it. I think I startled him, good old man. I was almost out of my mind; quite wild with agitation; and he promised me it should be as I wished. That’s how it all was, Mary.”
Mary Carimon’s face wore a curious look. Then she rallied, speaking even lightly.
“Well, well; it could not have brought her back to life; and I repeat that we must remember she is better off. And now, Nancy, I want you to show me the pretty purse that Miss Perry has knitted for you, if you have it at hand.”
Nancy rose, opened her workbox, which stood on the side-table, and brought forth the purse. Of course Madame Carimon’s motive had been to change her thoughts. After admiring the purse, and talking of other pleasant matters, Mary took her departure.
And the moment the outer door had closed upon her that feeling of terror seized upon Nancy. Catching up her mantle with one hand and the candle with the other, she made for the staircase, leaving her bonnet and gloves in the salon. The staircase struck cold to her, and she could hear the wind whistling, for it was a windy night. As to the candle, it seemed to burn with a pale flame and not to give half its usual light.
In her nervous agitation, just as she gained the uppermost stair, she dropped her mantle. Raising her head from stooping to pick it up, she suddenly saw some figure before her at the end of the passage. It stood beyond the door of her own room, close to that which had been her sister’s.
It was Lavinia. She appeared to be habited in the silver-grey silk already spoken of. Her gaze was fixed upon Nancy, with the same imploring aspect of appeal, as if she wanted something; her pale face was inexpressibly mournful. With a terrible cry, Nancy tore into her own room, the mantle trailing after her. She shut the door and bolted it, and buried her face in the counterpane in wild agony.
And in that moment a revelation came to Ann Fennel. It was this apparition which had been wont to haunt her husband in the house and terrify him beyond control. Not a thief; not Flore—but Lavinia!
XV.
On the Monday morning Flore found her mistress in so sick and suffering and strange a state, that she sent for Madame Carimon. In vain Mary Carimon, after hearing Nancy’s tale, strove to convince her that what she saw was fancy, the effect of diseased nerves. Nancy was more obstinate than a mule.
“What I saw was Lavinia,” she shivered. “Lavinia’s apparition. No good to tell me it was not; I have seen it now twice. It was as clear and evident to me, both times, as ever she herself was in life. That’s what Edwin used to see; I know it now; and he became unable to bear the house. I seem to read it all as in a book, Mary. He got his brother to send for him, and he is staying away because he dreads to come back again. But you know I cannot stay here alone now.”
Madame Carimon wrote off at once to Captain Fennel, Nancy supplying the address. She told him that his wife was ill; in a nervous state; fancying she saw Lavinia in the house. Such a report, she added, should if possible be kept from spreading to the town, and therefore she must advise him to return without delay.
The letter brought back Captain Fennel, Flore having meanwhile remained entirely at the Petite Maison Rouge. Perhaps the captain did not in secret like that little remark of its being well to keep it from the public; he may have considered it suggestive, coming from Mary Carimon. He believed she read him pretty correctly, and he hated her accordingly. Any way, he deemed it well to be on the spot. Left to herself, there was no telling what ridiculous things Nancy might be saying or fancying.
Edwin Fennel did not return alone. His brother’s wife was with him. Mrs. James, they called her, James being the brother’s Christian name. Mrs. James was not a lady in herself or in manner; but she was lively and very good-natured, and these qualities were what the Petite Maison Rouge wanted in it just now; and perhaps that was Captain Fennel’s motive in bringing her. Nancy was delighted. She almost forgot her fears and fancies. Flore was agreeable also, for she was now at liberty to return to ordinary arrangements. Thus there was a lull in the storm. They walked out with Mrs. James on the pier, and took her to see the different points of interest in the town; they even gave a little soirée for her, and in return were invited to other houses.
One day, when the two ladies were gossiping together, Nancy, in the openness of her heart, related to Mrs. James the particulars of Lavinia’s unexpected and rather mysterious death, and of her appearing in the house again after it. Captain Fennel disturbed them in the midst of the story. His wife was taking his name in vain at the moment of his entrance, saying how scared he had been at the apparition.
“Hold your peace, you foolish woman!” he thundered, looking as if he meant to strike her. “Don’t trouble Mrs. James’s head with such miserable rubbish as that.”
Mrs. James did not appear to mind it. She burst into a hearty laugh. She never had seen a ghost, she said, and was sure she never should; there were no such things. But she should like to hear all about poor Miss Preen’s death.
“There was nothing else to hear,” the captain growled. “She caught a chill on the Sunday, coming out of the hot church after morning service. It struck inwardly, bringing on inflammation, which the medical men could not subdue.”
“But you know, Edwin, the church never is hot, and you know the doctors decided it was not a chill. Monsieur Podevin especially denied it,” dissented Nancy, who possessed about as much insight as a goose, and a little less tact.
“Then what did she die of?” questioned Mrs. James. “Was she poisoned?”
“Oh, how can you suggest so dreadful a thing!” shrieked Nancy. “Poisoned! Who would be so wicked as to poison Lavinia? Every one loved her.”
Which again amused the listening lady. “You have a quick imagination, Mrs. Edwin,” she laughed. “I was thinking of mushrooms.”
“And I of tinned meats and copper saucepans,” supplemented Captain Fennel. “However, there could be no suspicion even of that sort in Lavinia’s case, since she had touched nothing but what we all partook of. She died of inflammation, Mrs. James.”
“Little doubt of it,” acquiesced Mrs. James. “A friend of mine went, not twelve months ago, to a funeral at Brompton Cemetery; the ground was damp, and she caught a chill. In four days she was dead.”
“Women have no business at funerals,” growled Edwin Fennel. “Why should they parade their grief abroad? You see nothing of the kind in France.”
“In truth I think you are not far wrong,” said Mrs. James. “It is a fashion which has sprung up of late. A few years ago it was as much unknown with us as it is with the French.”
“They will be catching it up next, I suppose,” retorted the captain, as if the thing were a personal grievance to him.
“Little doubt of it,” laughed Mrs. James.
After staying at Sainteville for a month, Mrs. James Fennel took her departure for London. Captain Fennel proposed to escort her over; but his wife went into so wild a state at the mere mention of it, that he had to give it up.
“I dare not stay in the house by myself, Edwin,” she shuddered. “I should go to the Vice-Consul and to other influential people here, and tell them of my misery—that I am afraid of seeing Lavinia.”
And Captain Fennel believed she would be capable of doing it. So he remained with her.
That the spectre of the dead-and-gone Lavinia did at times appear to them, or else their fancies conjured up the vision, was all too certain. Three times during the visit of Mrs. James the captain had been betrayed into one of his fits of terror: no need to ask what had caused it. After her departure the same thing took place. Nancy had not again seen anything, but she knew he had.
“We shall not be able to stay in the house, Edwin,” his wife said to him one evening when they were sitting in the salon at dusk after Flore’s departure; nothing having led up to the remark.
“I fancy we should be as well out of it,” replied he.
“Oh, Edwin, let us go! If we can! There will be all the rent to pay up first.”
“All the what?” said he.
“The rent,” repeated Nancy; “up to the end of the term we took it for. About three years longer, I think, Edwin. That would be sixty pounds.”
“And where do you suppose the sixty pounds would come from?”
“I don’t know. There’s the impediment, you see,” remarked Nancy blankly. “We cannot leave without paying up.”
“Unless we made a moonlight flitting of it, my dear.”
“That I never will,” she rejoined, with a firmness he could not mistake. “You are only jesting, Edwin.”
“It would be no jesting matter to pay up that claim, and others; for there are others. Our better plan, Nancy, will be to go off by the London boat some night, and not let any one know where we are until I can come back to pay. You may see it is the only thing to be done, and you must bring your mind to it.”
“Never by me,” said Nancy, strong in her innate rectitude. “As to hiding ourselves anywhere, that can never be; I should not conceal my address from Mary Carimon—I could not conceal it from Colonel Selby.”
Captain Fennel ground his teeth. “Suppose I say that this shall be, that we will go, and order you to obey me? What then?”
“No, Edwin, I could not. I should go in to Monsieur Gustave Sauvage, and say to him, ‘We were thinking of running away, but I cannot do it; please put me in prison until I can pay the debt.’ And then——”
“Are you an idiot?” asked Captain Fennel, staring at her.
“And then, when I was in prison,” went on Nancy, “I should write to tell William Selby; and perhaps he would come over and release me. Please don’t talk in this kind of way again, Edwin. I should keep my word.”
Mr. Edwin Fennel could not have felt more astounded had his wife then and there turned into a dromedary before his eyes. She had hitherto been tractable as a child. But he had never tried her in a thing that touched her honour, and he saw that the card which he had intended to play was lost.
Captain Fennel played another. He went away himself.
Making the best he could of the house and its haunted state (though day by day saw him looking more and more like a walking skeleton) throughout the greater part of June, for the summer had come in, he despatched his wife to Pontipette one market day—Saturday—to remain there until the following Wednesday. Old Mrs. Hardy had gone to the homely but comfortable hotel at Pontipette for a change, and she wrote to invite Nancy to stay a short time with her. Charles Palliser was in England. Captain Fennel proceeded to London by that same Saturday night’s boat, armed with a letter from his wife to Colonel Selby, requesting the colonel to pay over to her husband her quarterly instalment instead of sending it to herself. Captain Fennel had bidden her do this; and Nancy, of strict probity in regard to other people’s money, could not resist signing over her own.
“But you will be sure to bring it all back, won’t you, Edwin? and to be here by Wednesday, the day I return?” she said to him.
“Why, of course I shall, my dear.”
“It will be a double portion now—thirty-five pounds.”
“And a good thing, too; we shall want it,” he returned.
“Indeed, yes; there’s such a heap of things owing for,” concluded Nancy.
Thus the captain went over to England in great glee, carrying with him the order for the money. But he was reckoning without his host.
Upon presenting himself at the bank in the City on Monday morning, he found Colonel Selby absent; not expected to return before the end of that week, or the beginning of the next. This was a check for Captain Fennel. He quite glared at the gentleman who thus informed him—Mr. West, who sat in the colonel’s room, and was his locum tenens for the time being.
“Business is transacted all the same, I conclude?” said he snappishly.
“Why, certainly,” replied Mr. West, marvelling at the absurdity of the question. “What can I do for you?”
Captain Fennel produced his wife’s letter, requesting that her quarter’s money should be paid over to him, and handed in her receipt for the same. Mr. West read them both, the letter twice, and then looked direct through his silver-rimmed spectacles at the applicant.
“I cannot do this,” said he; “it is a private matter of Colonel Selby’s.”
“It is not more private than any other payment you may have to make,” retorted Captain Fennel.
“Pardon me, it is. This really does not concern the bank at all. I cannot pay it without Colonel Selby’s authority: he has neither given it nor mentioned it to me. Another thing: the payment, as I gather from the wording of Mrs. Ann Fennel’s letter, is not yet due. Upon that score, apart from any other, I should decline to pay it.”
“It will be due in two or three days. Colonel Selby would not object to forestall the time by that short period.”
“That would, of course, be for the colonel’s own consideration.”
“I particularly wish to receive the money this morning.”
Mr. West shook his head in answer. “If you will leave Mrs. Fennel’s letter and receipt in my charge, sir, I will place them before the colonel as soon as he returns. That is all I can do. Or perhaps you would prefer to retain the latter,” he added, handing back the receipt over the desk.
“Business men are the very devil to stick at straws,” muttered Captain Fennel under his breath. He saw it was no use trying to move the one before him, and went out, saying he would call in a day or two.
Now it happened that Colonel Selby, who was only staying at Brighton for a rest (for he had been very unwell of late), took a run up to town that same Monday morning to see his medical attendant. His visit paid, he went on to the bank, surprising Mr. West there about one o’clock. After some conference upon business matters, Mr. West spoke of Captain Fennel’s visit, and handed over the letter he had left.
Colonel Selby drew in his lips as he read it. He did not like Mr. Edwin Fennel; and he would most assuredly not pay Ann Fennel’s money to him. He returned the letter to Mr. West.
“Should the man come here again, West, tell him, as you did this morning, that he can see me on my return—which will probably be on this day week,” said the colonel. “No need to say I have been up here to-day.”
And on the following day, Tuesday, Colonel Selby, being then at Brighton, drew out a cheque for the quarter almost due and sent it by post to Nancy at Sainteville.
Thus checkmated in regard to the money, Captain Fennel did not return home at the time he promised, even if he had had any intention of doing so. When Nancy returned to Sainteville on the Wednesday from Pontipette, he was not there. The first thing she saw waiting for her on the table was Colonel Selby’s letter containing the cheque for five-and-thirty pounds.
“How glad I am it has come to me so soon!” cried Nancy; “I can pay the bills now. I suppose William Selby thinks it would not be legal to pay it to Edwin.”
The week went on. Each time a boat came in, Nancy was promenading the port, expecting to see her husband land from it. On the Sunday morning Nancy received a letter from him, in which he told her he was waiting to see Colonel Selby, to get the money paid to him. Nancy wrote back hastily, saying it had been received by herself, and that she had paid it nearly all away in settling the bills. She begged him to come back by the next boat. Flore was staying in the house altogether, but at an inconvenience.