CHAPTER XXI.
‘BUT PROVE ME WHAT IT IS I WOULD NOT DO.’
Fromthe house of death Cyril went straight to the Vicarage, to tell his Vicar all that had happened, and to entreat for immediate freedom. He could not rest a day until he had given Christian Harefield’s letter into Beatrix’s hands.
Clement Dulcimer was all indulgence, his wife all sympathy.
‘We shall miss you sorely, as we missed you before,’ said the Vicar, ‘but we shall manage to get on somehow, as we managed before, and you will come back to us, will you not, when you have accomplished your mission?’
‘Without fail I shall return, though it will not be to remain long with you, dear friend. Now that my health is restored I begin to long for a wider field.’
Then go as soon as you like, and God be withyou,’ said the Vicar, heartily. ‘But I’m afraid you will have some trouble to find the runaway heiress.’
‘I will find her,’ said Cyril, ‘if I have to wander over all the earth in search of her.’
‘And you will marry her, and she will be Lady Culverhouse after all, for of course if you married you would have to take up your title,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘It may be weak-minded on my part, but I should like Beatrix to have the title. I always used to think of her as Lady Culverhouse. Poor Kenrick!’
‘I will take her that letter, her father’s last letter—a letter which I cannot doubt contains a statement of his fatal intention—the indisputable proof of her innocence. I will put that letter in her hand, and then she shall deal with me as she likes. It must be for her to decide my fate.’
‘Why not put an advertisement in theTimes,’ suggested the Vicar, ‘a carefully worded advertisement, telling her that a letter written by her father on the night before his death has come to hand, and begging her to come home, where it awaits her?’
‘If she is abroad she is not likely to see theTimes,’ answered Cyril. ‘Besides, I would not vulgarize her family secrets by putting them in an advertisement, however enigmatically worded. No, it shall be my business to find her. It is a small thing for me to do—a small sacrifice, even if I were to spend seven years of my life upon the task—a small atonement for the cruel wrong I have done her.’
‘If you think that, you may as well set out,’ said the Vicar. ‘But I don’t believe your quest will take seven years of your life. Our modern civilization has set its heel on knightly enterprise. Now-a-days a man could not be chivalrous if he tried ever so hard. Railways, post-offices, electric telegraphs, have made all things easy. Romance is dead. Yes, Cyril, you must be content to be a common-place lover. You remember what old Aubrey says, “The divine arts of printing and gunpowder have frightened away Robin Goodfellow and the fairies.”’
‘You had a letter from Beatrix after she left us, Clement,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘That might be some use.’
‘Not much, I fear,’ answered the Vicar. ‘She wrote to me from Paris within a week of her leavingus, asking my forgiveness for all the trouble she had caused me. My forgiveness, poor child! As if it were not her own life she had to dispose of, and her own soul to which she was responsible for her deeds. It was a sad sweet letter, full of affection and good feeling, but it told me very little of her plans for the future, except that she meant to wander about the Continent with Madame Leonard, and that in the course of her travels she intended to visit Italy, the scene of her mother’s youth and of her mother’s death.’
‘That would be a natural desire,’ said Cyril.
‘I cannot conceive that there can be much difficulty in finding her,’ continued the Vicar. ‘A young woman of landed estate cannot hide herself under a bushel. She has a banker to whom she must apply when she wants funds for her travelling expenses. He must know something of her whereabouts.’
‘Where does she bank?’ asked Cyril.
‘At Hodge and Turner’s, at Great Yafford, the County Bank.’
‘I will go at once and see if there is anything to be learned there.’
Cyril walked to Great Yafford that afternoon, saw the bank manager, and ascertained from him that Miss Harefield had written to the bank, from Paris, for six hundred pounds in circular notes, almost immediately after she left Little Yafford. She had drawn nothing since that time. The circular notes had been obtained by Messrs. Hodge and Turner, through their London agents, from the Temple Bar branch of the Union Bank.
‘The circular notes would go back to the bank that issued them, would they not?’ asked Cyril.
‘Naturally, but there is no rule as to the time of their return. The local banker who cashed a note might hold it over until he had other bills to transmit. A considerable time might elapse before the notes got back to the bank that issued them.’
‘I shall go to the Union and try to find out when and where the notes were cashed. Miss Harefield has been away more than six months. Some of the notes, at least, must have come back to the bank. Will you give me a letter of introduction to the manager?’
Cyril had already explained that he had a documentof vital importance to convey to Miss Harefield, that it was in her interest he sought her.
The letter was written, and Cyril started by the midday train for London. He saw the manager of the Temple Bar branch early next day, and from his courtesy obtained the following information:—
Three notes had been cashed in Paris on the 21st of April.
Five notes had been cashed in Florence during the months of May and June.
A note had been cashed at Brest in August, one at Rennes in the same month, two at St. Malo in September. There was nothing later than this.
The notes bore the address as well as the signature of the writer. On those last notes cashed at St. Malo the address was,
Hotel Chateaubriand,St. Servans.
Hotel Chateaubriand,St. Servans.
It was the beginning of November. Cyril was in a position to trace Miss Harefield’s movements up to the 29th of September. She might have remained even longer at St. Malo. It was clearly there that he must go.
Happily for his impatience, which was extreme, the St. Malo boat sailed that night from Southampton. Within twenty-four hours after he left the Union Bank, Cyril was in the broad windy street of St. Servans.
The proprietress of the hotel perfectly remembered Miss Harefield. They had many English visitors, but this lady was so distinguished. She was at once so amiable and so dignified. She and her companion had always dined in their ownsalon. They had never appeared at thetable d’hôte. They had engaged a carriage for their express use, and had driven about to all the interesting places in the neighbourhood. The landlady was obligingly communicative, but when she was asked where Miss Harefield went upon leaving St. Servans, her information came to a stop. There was the visitors’ book, in which Miss Harefield and Madame Leonard had written their names, but beyond their names nothing.
‘But these ladies must surely have given instructions for their letters being sent after them,’ said Cyril.
‘But no, Monsieur. They received no letters while they were here; they appeared to expect none.’
‘Did you never hear them talk of where they meant to go?’
‘No, Monsieur, they were ladies of an extreme reserve—silent even—all that there is of the most gracious—but never communicative. They left St. Malo by the railway—that is all I can tell you. They did not leave by the English boat.’
Cyril was at a standstill. He seemed no nearer Beatrix now, at St. Malo, than he had been at Little Yafford. Six weeks ago she had been an inmate of this hotel, but in six weeks she might have travelled to the other end of Europe. She, who was as free as the wind, would hardly care to dawdle about the quiet old towns of Brittany.
‘Was Miss Harefield well—did she seem in good spirits?’ he asked the landlady.
‘Alas, no! she had been suffering. She came to St. Servans for the sea baths. She needed strength. She had the air of one who had suffered much grief. Madame Leonard was always bright and cheerful, and devoted to the young lady; but the English miss was not happy. That showed itself to the eye.’
‘Had she any medical attendant while she was with you?’
‘No. She mocked herself of doctors.’
Cyril thanked the kindly proprietress, and strolled idly away from the hotel. He knew not which direction to take. The prospect was discouraging. Perhaps, after all, he would be compelled to put an advertisement in theTimes, informing Beatrix, in veiled words, that a letter of her father’s awaited her at a certain address. But even if he did this, how could he be sure she would see the paper? He knew of old how difficult it is to find an English newspaper in a French provincial town. No, he must find her himself; but to his impatience the thing seemed hopeless at the outset. He walked through the well-remembered streets, by the ever-improving fortifications, white stone walls looking out upon a bright blue sea. The yellow sands by the Grand Bé were deserted by their holiday crowd. The cold autumn winds swept over the long low shores. Everything had a desolate look.
Cyril went into St. Malo to see the churches, which he remembered years ago. He spent a coupleof hours looking at painted windows and sculptured tombs. And then he wasted another hour strolling about the streets and the quay, watching the boat being loaded, and wondering what he should do next. And then he went to the railway station to find out all about the trains, with a vague hope that some idea might suggest itself as to Beatrix’s journey when she left St. Malo. He was on his way to the station when a face flashed upon him in one of the narrow streets, and passed him by before he had time to remember where he had seen it.
Whose face could it be, and why was it so familiar?
He stopped to consider, and looked back to see if the owner of the face was still in sight. Yes, there she was, walking briskly along the narrow pavement, threading her way dexterously through the crowd, a little woman, neatly dressed in a black silk gown and a gray mantle.
Dimly, as in a dream, did he remember that face. It must have been a memory of long ago, he thought. And then in a moment he recalled the scene to which that face belonged—his sick room at Bridford—theold-fashioned wainscoted bedroom, with its dull brown walls, four-post bedstead and drab hangings—the weariness of fever and delirium—the bright black eyes peering at him from the shadow of the nun’s white hood.
‘It is my little nurse,’ he said to himself, ‘the elder of those two good women.’
He turned and followed the lady in the gray mantle. It was strange to see her in a dress so different from her nun-like habit, but then she had told him that she belonged to no conventual order. Once having given her the start, it was not easy to gain upon her, she tripped along so briskly, and the street here close to the market was crowded. Cyril was almost breathless when he caught her.
‘Pray, Madame, do not deny yourself to one who is deeply indebted to you,’ he said, hat in hand, gasping a little. ‘When you passed me just now I recognised you as one I well remembered, but I could not for the moment recall the circumstances of our acquaintance. I have so longed to see you again, to be able to thank you.’
The little Frenchwoman looked at him with a most innocent stare.
‘Monsieur deceives himself,’ she said in her own language. ‘I have not the honour of his acquaintance.’
‘Nay, Madame, you cannot forget one who owes you so much—perhaps life itself. You cannot have forgotten your fever patient at Bridford.’
‘Bridford,’ echoed the lady, ‘what is that?’
‘Oh, Madame, you are trifling with me. It is not possible I can be mistaken. Do you not belong to a nursing sisterhood, a band of holy women, who, bound by no religious order, go about doing good, attending their ailing fellow-creatures, without fee or reward?’
‘No, sir, I do not. I never even heard of such a sisterhood,’ replied the lady, resolutely.
‘I must ask you to pardon me, then. But it is a most wonderful likeness. I am deeply disappointed,’ said Cyril, allowing the lady to pass, with a respectful bow.
He was more than disappointed, he was mystified. In spite of the lady’s assertion he could not bring himself to believe that hers was not the face which he had seen by his sick bed in those long hours oflanguor and prostration, when he had nothing to do but watch his nurse’s kindly countenance, and listen to her friendly talk.
Yet, if this was his nurse, why should she deny herself to him? Was that one of the rules of her order? Was the order a kind of masonic association in good works?—a secret band of holy women, who disavowed their benevolent deeds after they were done?