"Will you give a message to Hatty?" I said.
"If it be not too long to remember."
"Tell her I wanted her to spend the day, and my Aunt Dorothea writ to
ask her to come, and Mrs Crossland returned answer that she had too bad
a catarrh, and must keep indoors for some days."
"Did she--to Mrs Desborough?" said Amelia, with a surprised look. "I
rather wonder at that, too."
"Emily, help me!" I said. "These Crosslands want to keep Hatty and me
apart. There is something wrong going on. Do help us, if you ever
cared for either of us."
Amelia looked quite astonished and nuzzled.
"Really, I knew nothing about it! Of course I care for you, Cary. But
what can I do?"
"Give that message to Hatty. Bid her, from me, break through the
snares, and come. Then we can see what must be done next."
"I will give her the message," said Amelia, with what was energy for
her. "Cary, I have had nothing to do with it, if something be wrong. I
never even guessed it."
"I don't believe you have," said I. "But tell me one thing, Emily: are
they scheming to make Hatty marry Mr Crossland?"
"Most certainly not!" cried Amelia, with more warmth than I had thought
was in her. "Impossible! Why, Mr Crossland is engaged to Marianne
Newton."
"Is Miss Marianne Newton a friend of yours?"
"Yes, the dearest friend I have."
"Then you will be on my side. Keep your eyes and ears open, and find
out what it is. I tell you, something is wrong. Put yourself in the
breach; help Miss Marianne, if you like; but, for pity's sake, save
Hatty!"
"But what makes you suppose that what is wrong has anything to do with
Mr Crossland?"
"I do not know why I fancy it; but I do. I cannot let the idea go. I
do not like the look of him. He does not look like a true man."
"Cary, you have grown up since you came to London."
"I feel like somebody's grandmother," said I. "But I think I have been
growing; to it, Amelia, since I left Brocklebank."
"Well, you certainly are much less of a child than you were. I will do
my best, Cary." And Amelia looked as if she meant it.
"But take no one into your confidence," said I.--"Least of all
Charlotte."
"Thank you, I don't need that warning!" said Amelia, with her languid
laugh, as she furled her fan and turned away. And as I passed on the
other side I came upon Ephraim Hebblethwaite.
All at once my resolution was taken.
"Come this way, Ephraim," said I; "I want to show you my Uncle Charles's
new engravings."
I lifted down the large portfolio, with Ephraim's help,--I don't think
Ephraim would let a cat jump down by itself if he thought the jump too
far,--set it on a little table, and under cover of the engravings I told
him the whole story, and all my uneasiness about Hatty. He listened
very attentively, but without showing either the surprise or the
perplexity which Amelia had done.
"If you suspect rightly," said he, when I had finished my tale, "the
first thing to be done is to get her out of Charles Street."
"Do you think me too ready to suspect?" I replied.
"No," was his answer; "I am afraid you are right."
"But what do they want to do with her, or to her?" cried I, under my
breath.
"Cary," said Ephraim, gravely, "I am very glad you have told me this. I
will go so far as to tell you in return that I too have my suspicions of
young Crossland, though they are of rather a different kind from yours.
You suspect him, so far as I understand you, of matrimonial designs on
Hatty, real or feigned. I am afraid rather that these appearances are a
blind to hide something deeper and worse. I know something of this man,
not enough to let me speak with certainty, but just sufficient to make
me doubt him, and to guide me in what direction to look. We must walk
carefully on this path, for if I mistake not, the ground is strewn with
snares."
"What do you mean?" I cried, feeling terrified.
"I would rather not tell you till I know more. I will try to do that as
soon as possible."
"I never thought of anything worse," said I, "than that knowing, as he
is likely to do, that Hatty will some day have a few hundreds a year of
her own, he is trying to inveigle her to marry him, and is not a man
likely to be kind to her and make her happy."
"He is certainly likely to make her very unhappy," replied Ephraim.
"But I do not believe that he has any intentions of marriage, towards
Hatty or anybody else."
"But don't you think he may make her think so? Amelia told me he was
engaged in marriage with a gentlewoman she knows."
"I am sorry for the gentlewoman. Make her think so? Yes, and under
cover of that, work out his plot. I would advise Miss Bracewell to
beware that she is not made a catspaw."