The summer days went on. Mr. Edwin Fennel, with all the impudence in the
world, had taken up his abode in the Petite Maison Rouge, without saying
with your leave or by your leave.
"How could you _think_ of bringing him here, Ann?" Lavinia demanded of
her sister in the first days.
"I did not think of it; it was he thought of it," returned Mrs. Fennel
in her simple way. "I feared you would not like it, Lavinia; but what
could I do? He seemed to look upon it as a matter of course that he
should come."
Yes, there he was; "a matter of course;" making one in the home. Lavinia
could not show fight; he was Ann's husband, and the place was as much
Ann's as hers. The more Lavinia saw of him the more she disliked him;
which was perhaps unreasonable, since he made himself agreeable to her
in social intercourse, though he took care to have things his own way.
If Lavinia's will went one way in the house and his the other, she found
herself smilingly set at naught. Ann was his willing slave; and when
opinions differed she sided with her husband.
It was no light charge, having a third person in the house to live upon
their small income, especially one who studied his appetite. For a very
short time Lavinia, in her indignation at affairs generally, turned the
housekeeping over to Mrs. Fennel. But she had to take to it again. Ann
was naturally an incautious manager; she ordered in delicacies to please
her husband's palate without regard to cost, and nothing could have come
of that but debt and disaster.
That the gallant ex-Captain Fennel had married Ann Preen just to
have a roof over his head, Lavinia felt as sure of as that the moon
occasionally shone in the heavens. She did not suppose he had any other
refuge in the wide world. And through something told her by Ann she
judged that he had believed he was doing better for himself in marrying
than he had done.
The day after the marriage Mr. and Mrs. Fennel were sitting on a bench
at Dover, romantically gazing at the sea, honeymoon fashion, and talking
of course of hearts and darts. Suddenly the bridegroom turned his
thoughts to more practical things.
"Nancy, how do you receive your money--half-yearly or quarterly?" asked
he.
"Oh, quarterly," said Nancy. "It is paid punctually to us by the
acting-trustee, Colonel Selby."
"Ah, yes. Then you have thirty-five pounds every quarter?"
"Between us, we do," assented Nancy. "Lavinia has seventeen pounds ten,
and I have the same; and the colonel makes us each give a receipt for
our own share."
Captain Fennel turned his head and gazed at her with a hard stare.
"You told me your income was a hundred and forty pounds a-year."
"Yes, it is that exactly," said she quietly; "mine and Lavinia's
together. We do not each have that, Edwin; I never meant to imply----"
Mrs. Fennel broke off, frightened. On the captain's face, cruel enough
just then, there sat an expression which she might have thought
diabolical had it been any one else's face. Any way, it scared her.
"What is it?" she gasped.
Rising rapidly, Captain Fennel walked forward, caught up some pebbles,
flung them from him and waited, apparently watching to see where they
fell. Then he strolled back again.
"Were you angry with me?" faltered Nancy. "Had I done anything?"
"My dear, what should you have done? Angry?" repeated he, in a light
tone, as if intensely amused. "You must not take up fancies, Mrs.
Fennel."
"I suppose Mrs. Selby thought it would be sufficient income for us, both
living together," remarked Nancy. "If either of us should die it all
lapses to the other. We found it quite enough last year, I assure you,
Edwin; Sainteville is so cheap a place."
"Oh, delightfully cheap!" agreed the captain.
It was this conversation that Nancy repeated to Lavinia; but she did not
speak of the queer look which had frightened her. Lavinia saw that Mr.
Edwin Fennel had taken up a wrong idea of their income. Of course the
disappointment angered him.
An aspect of semi-courtesy was outwardly maintained in the intercourse
of home life. Lavinia was a gentlewoman; she had not spoken unpleasant
things to the captain's face, or hinted that he was a weight upon the
housekeeping pocket; whilst he, as yet, was quite officiously civil to
her. But there was no love lost between them; and Lavinia could not
divest her mind of an undercurrent of conviction that he was, in some
way or other, a man to be dreaded.
Thus Captain Fennel (as he was mostly called), being domiciled with the
estimable ladies in the Petite Maison Rouge, grew to be considered one
of the English colony of Sainteville, and was received as such. As
nobody knew aught against him, nobody thought anything. Major Smith had
not spoken of antecedents, neither had Miss Preen; the Carimons, who
were in the secret, never spoke ill of any one: and as the captain could
assume pleasing manners at will, he became fairly well liked by his
country-people in a passing sort of way.
Lavinia Preen sat one day upon the low edge of the pier, her back to the
sun and the sea. She had called in at the little shoe-shop on the port,
just as you turn out of the Rue Tessin, and had left her parasol there.
The sun was not then out in the grey sky, and she did not miss it. Now
that the sun was shining, and the grey canopy above had become blue, she
said to herself that she had been stupid. It was September weather, so
the sun was not unbearable.
Lavinia Preen was thinner; the thraldom of the past three months had
made her so. Now and then it would cross her mind to leave the Petite
Maison Rouge to its married inmates; but for Nancy's sake she hesitated.
Nancy had made the one love of her life, and Nancy had loved her in
return. Now, the love was chiefly given to the new tie she had formed;
Lavinia was second in every respect.
"They go their way now, and I have to go mine," sighed Lavinia, as she
sat this morning on the pier. "Even my walks have to be solitary."
A cloud came sailing up and the sun went in again. Lavinia rose; she
walked onwards till she came to the end of the pier, where she again sat
down. The next moment, chancing to look the way she had come, she saw a
lady and gentleman advancing arm-in-arm.
"Oh, _they_ are on the pier, are they!" mentally spoke Lavinia. For it
was Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Fennel.
Nancy sat down beside her. "It is a long walk!" cried she, drawing a
quick breath or two. "Lavinia, what do you think we have just heard?"
"How can I tell?" returned the elder sister.
"You know those queer people, an old English aunt and three nieces, who
took Madame Gibon's rooms in the Rue Ménar? They have all disappeared
and have paid nobody," continued Nancy. "Charley Palliser told us just
how; he was laughing like anything over it."
"I never thought they looked like people to be trusted," remarked
Lavinia. "Dear me! here's the sun coming out again."
"Where is your parasol?"
Lavinia recounted her negligence in having left it at the shoe-mart.
Captain Fennel had brought out a small silk umbrella; he turned from the
end of the pier, where he stood looking out to sea, opened the umbrella,
and offered it.
"It is not much larger than a good-sized parasol," remarked he. "Pray
take it, Miss Lavinia."
Lavinia did so after a moment's imperceptible hesitation, and thanked
him. She hated to be under the slightest obligation to him, but the sun
was now full in her eyes, and might make her head ache.
The pleasant smell of a cigar caused them to look up. A youngish man,
rather remarkably tall, with a shepherd's plaid across his broad
shoulders, was striding up the pier. He sat down near Miss Preen, and
she glanced round at him. Appearing to think that she looked at his
cigar, he immediately threw it into the sea behind him.
"Oh, I am sorry you did that," said Lavinia, speaking impulsively. "I
like the smell of a cigar."
"Oh, thank you; thank you very much," he answered. "I had nearly smoked
it out."
Voice and manner were alike pleasant and easy, and Lavinia spoke
again--some trivial remark about the fine expanse of sea; upon which
they drifted into conversation. We are reserved enough with strangers
at home, we Islanders, as the world knows, but most of us are less
ungracious abroad.
"Sainteville seems a clean, healthy place," remarked the new-comer.
"Very," said Miss Lavinia. "Do you know it well?"
"I never saw it before to-day," he replied. "I have come here from Douai
to meet a friend, having two or three days to spare."
"Douai is a fine town," remarked Captain Fennel, turning to speak, for
he was still looking out over the sea, and had his opera-glasses in his
hand. "I spent a week there not long ago."
"Douai!" exclaimed Nancy. "That's the place where the great Law Courts
are, is it not? Don't you remember the man last year, Lavinia, who
committed some dreadful crime, and was taken up to Douai to be tried at
the Assizes there?"
"We have a great case coming on there as soon as the Courts meet," said
the stranger, who seemed a talkative man; "and that's what I am at Douai
for. A case of extensive swindling."
"You are a lawyer, I presume?" said Miss Preen.
The stranger nodded. "Being the only one of our London firm who can
speak French readily, and we are four of us in it, I had to come over
and watch this affair and wait for the trial. For the young fellow is
an Englishman, I am sorry to say, and his people, worthy and well-to-do
merchants, are nearly mad over it."
"But did he commit it in England?" cried Miss Preen.
"Oh no; in France, within the arrondissement of the Douai Courts. He is
in prison there. I dare say you get some swindling in a petty way even
at Sainteville," added the speaker.
"That we do," put in Nancy. "An English family of ladies ran away only
yesterday, owing twenty pounds at least, it is said."
"Ah," said the stranger, with a smile. "I think the ladies are sometimes
more clever at that game than the men. By the way," he went on briskly,
"do you know a Mr. Dangerfield at Sainteville?"
"No," replied Lavinia.
"He is staying here, I believe, or has been."
"Not that I know of," said Lavinia. "I never heard his name."
"Changed it again, probably," carelessly observed the young man.
"Is Dangerfield not his true name, then?"
"Just as much as it is mine, madam. His real name is Fennel; but he has
found it convenient to drop that on occasion."
Now it was a curious fact that Nancy did not hear the name which the
stranger had given as the true one. Her attention was diverted by some
men who were working at the mud in the harbour, for it was low water,
and who were loudly disputing together. Nancy had moved to the side of
the pier to look down at them.
"Is he a swindler, that Mr. Dangerfield?" asked she, half-turning her
head to speak. But the stranger did not answer.
As to Lavinia, the avowal had struck her speechless. She glanced at
Captain Fennel. He had his back to them, and stood immovable, apparently
unconcerned, possibly not having heard. A thought struck her--and
frightened her.
"Do you know that Mr. Dangerfield yourself?" she asked the stranger, in
a tone of indifference.
"No, I do not," he said; "but there's a man coming over in yonder boat
who does."
He pointed over his shoulder at the sea as he spoke. Lavinia glanced
quickly in the same direction.
"In yonder boat?" she repeated vaguely.
"I mean the London boat, which is on its way here, and will get in this
evening," he explained.
"Oh, of course," said Lavinia, as if her wits had been wool-gathering.
The young man took out his watch and looked at it. Then he rose, lifted
his hat, and, with a general good-morning, walked quickly down the pier.
Nancy was still at the side of the pier, looking down at the men.
Captain Fennel put up his glasses and sat down beside Lavinia, his
impassive face still as usual.
"I wonder who that man is?" he cried, watching the footsteps of the
retreating stranger.
"Did you hear what he said?" asked Lavinia, dropping her voice.
"Yes. Had Nancy not been here, I should have given him a taste of my
mind; but she hates even the semblance of a quarrel. He had no right to
say what he did."
"What could it have meant?" murmured Lavinia.
"It meant my brother, I expect," said Captain Fennel savagely, and, as
Lavinia thought, with every appearance of truth. "But he has never been
at Sainteville, so far as I know; the fellow is mistaken in that."
"Does he pass under the name of Dangerfield?"
"Possibly. This is the first I've heard of it. He is an extravagant man,
often in embarrassment from debt. There's nothing worse against him."
He did not say more; neither did Lavinia. They sat on in silence. The
tall figure in the Scotch plaid disappeared from sight; the men in the
harbour kept on disputing.
"How long are you going to stay here?" asked Nancy, turning towards her
husband.
"I'm ready to go now," he answered. And giving his arm to Nancy, they
walked down the pier together.
Never a word to Lavinia; never a question put by him or by Nancy, if
only to say, "Are you not coming with us?" It was ever so now. Nancy,
absorbed in her husband, neglected her sister.
Lavinia sighed. She sat on a little while longer, and then took her
departure.
The shoe-shop on the port was opposite the place in the harbour where
the London steamers were generally moored. The one now there was
taking in cargo. As Lavinia was turning into the shop for her parasol,
she heard a stentorian English voice call out to a man who was
superintending the work in his shirt-sleeves: "At what hour does this
boat leave to-night?"
"At eight o'clock, sir," was the answer. "Eight sharp; we want to get
away with the first o' the tide."
_From Miss Lavinia Preen's Diary._
_September 22nd._--The town clocks have just struck eight, and I could
almost fancy that I hear the faint sound of the boat steaming down the
harbour in the dark night, carrying Nancy away with it, and carrying
_him_. However, that is fancy and nothing else, for the sound could not
penetrate to me here.
Perhaps it surprised me, perhaps it did not, when Nancy came to me this
afternoon as I was sitting in my bedroom reading Scott's "Legend of
Montrose," which Mary Carimon had lent me from her little stock of
English books, and said she and Captain Fennel were going to London that
night by the boat. He had received a letter, he told her, calling him
thither. He might tell Nancy that if he liked, but it would not do
for me. He is going, I can only believe, in consequence of what that
gentleman in the shepherd's plaid said on the pier to-day. Can it be
that the "Mr. Dangerfield" spoken of applies to Edwin Fennel himself and
not to his brother? Is he finding himself in some dangerous strait, and
is running away from the individual coming over in the approaching boat,
who personally knows Mr. Dangerfield? "Can you lend me a five-pound
note, Lavinia?" Nancy went on, when she had told me the news; "lend it
to myself, I mean. I will repay you when I receive my next quarter's
income, which is due, you know, in a few days." I chanced to have a
five-pound note by me in my own private store, and I gave it her,
reminding her that unless she did let me have it again, it would be so
much less in hand to meet expenses with, and that I had found difficulty
enough in the past quarter. "On the other hand," said Nancy, "if I and
Edwin stay away a week or two, you will be spared our housekeeping; and
when our money comes, Lavinia, you can open my letter and repay yourself
if I am not here. I don't at all know where we are going to stay," she
said, in answer to my question. "I was beginning to ask Edwin just now
in the other room, but he was busy packing his portmanteau, and told me
not to bother him."
And so, there it is: they are gone, and I am left here all alone.
I wonder whether any Mr. Dangerfield has been at Sainteville? I think we
should have heard the name. Why, that is the door-bell! I must go and
answer it.
It was Charley Palliser. He had come with a message from Major and
Mrs. Smith. They are going to Drecques to-morrow morning by the
eleven-o'clock train with a few friends and a basket of provisions,
and had sent Charley to say they would be glad of my company. "Do
come, Miss Preen," urged Charley as I hesitated; "you are all alone
now, and I'm sure it must be dreadfully dull."
"How do you know I am alone?" I asked.
"Because," said Charley, "I have been watching the London boat out, and
I saw Captain Fennel and your sister go by it. Major and Mrs. Smith were
with me. It is a lovely night."
"Wait a moment," I said, as Charley was about to depart when I had
accepted the invitation. "Do you know whether an Englishman named
Dangerfield is living here?"
"Don't think there is; I have not met with him," said Charley. "Why,
Miss Preen?"
"Oh, only that I was asked to-day whether I knew any one of that name,"
I returned carelessly. "Good-night, Mr. Charles. Thank you for coming."
They have invited me, finding I was left alone, and I think it very kind
of them. But the Smiths are both kind-hearted people.
_September 23rd._--Half-past nine o'clock, p.m. Have just returned from
Drecques by the last train after spending a pleasant day. Quiet, of
course, for there is not much to do at Drecques except stroll over the
ruins of the old castle, or saunter about the quaint little ancient
town, and go into the grand old church. It was so fine and warm that we
had dinner on the grass, the people at the cottage bringing our plates
and knives and forks. Later in the day we took tea indoors. In the
afternoon, when all the rest were scattered about and the major sat
smoking his cigar on the bench under the trees, I sat down by him to
tell him what happened yesterday, and I begged him to give me his
opinion. It was no betrayal of confidence, for Major Smith is better
acquainted with the shady side of the Fennels than I am.
"I heard there was an English lawyer staying at the Hôtel des Princes,
and that he had come here from Douai," observed the major. "His name's
Lockett. It must have been he who spoke to you on the pier."
"Yes, of course. Do you know, major, whether any one has stayed at
Sainteville passing as Mr. Dangerfield?"
"I don't think so," replied the major. "Unless he has kept himself
remarkably quiet."
"Could it apply to Captain Fennel?"
"I never knew that he had gone under an assumed name. The accusation is
one more likely to apply to his brother than to himself. James Fennel is
unscrupulous, very incautious: notwithstanding that, I like him better
than I like the other. There's something about Edwin Fennel that repels
you; at least, it does me; but one can hardly help liking James, mauvais
sujet though he is," added the speaker, pausing to flirt off the ashes
of his cigar.
"The doubt pointing to Edwin Fennel in the affair is his suddenly
decamping," continued Major Smith. "It was quite impromptu, you say,
Miss Preen?"
"Quite so. I feel sure he had no thought of going away in the morning;
and he did not receive any letter from England later, which was the
excuse he gave Nancy for departing. Rely upon it that what he heard
about the Mr. Dangerfield on the pier drove him away."
"Well, that looks suspicious, you see."
"Oh yes, I do see it," I answered, unable to conceal the pain I felt.
"It was a bitter calamity, Major Smith, when Nancy married him."
"I'll make a few cautious inquiries in the town, and try to find out if
there's anything against him in secret, or if any man named Dangerfield
has been in the place and got into a mess. But, indeed, I don't
altogether see that it could apply to him," concluded the major after a
pause. "One can't well go under two names in the same town; and every
one knows him as Edwin Fennel.--Here they are, some of them, coming
back!" And when the wanderers were close up, they found Major Smith
arguing with me about the architecture of the castle.
Ten o'clock. Time for bed. I am in no haste to go, for I don't sleep as
well as I used to.
A thought has lately sometimes crossed me that this miserable trouble
worries me more than it ought to do. "Accept it as your cross, and
_yield_ to it, Lavinia," says Mary Carimon to me. But I _cannot_ yield
to it; that is, I cannot in the least diminish the anxiety which always
clings to me, or forget the distress and dread that lie upon me like a
shadow. I know that my life has been on the whole an easy life--that
during all the years I spent at Selby Court I never had any trouble; I
know that crosses do come to us all, earlier or later, and that I ought
not to be surprised that "no new thing has happened to me," the world
being full of such experiences. I suppose it is because I have been so
exempt from care, that I feel this the more.
Half-past ten! just half-an-hour writing these last few lines and
_thinking_! Time I put up. I wonder when I shall hear from Nancy?