FUGITIVES.
Hanbury had, during the past few days, carefully avoided meeting
friends or acquaintances. He went near no club and kept in the house a
good deal. When he went abroad he drove. He did not wish to be asked
questions of the most ordinary kind respecting the Ashtons.
The discovery of his foreign extraction had not yet got abroad, but,
although Mrs. Grace and her grand-daughter were under his mother's
roof, and they were the only persons besides his mother in whom he had
confided, he felt as though every one must know. Such things got about
in most unaccountable ways.
That morning he had seen in a newspaper that Mr., Mrs., and Miss
Ashton were leaving for a tour in Norway and Sweden. That was all the
paragraph said.
At the very moment Hanbury was speaking to Oscar Leigh, the Ashton
family were leaving Curzon Street.
When Dora Ashton sat that afternoon in her own room, after writing to
her lover, she knew the engagement was at an end, and realized the
knowledge. But she had not said anything of it. When she got his
answer all was over beyond any chance whatever. He had apologized
amply for his offence, and accepted her decision.
His letter had a bracing effect upon her. She had been perfectly
sincere in writing her letter and she had never wavered in her
resolution of breaking off the engagement, yet deep down in her
nature was a formless hope, which she would not acknowledge to herself
for a moment, that he might disregard her request and insist upon her
re-consideration. But with the advent of his letter, that hope
vanished wholly, and she felt more firm and secure. Now all was plain.
She should tell her mother, and tell her, moreover, in an easy and
light manner. The letter had been a tonic. If he were so easily
dismissed, he had not been very much in earnest.
She went to Mrs. Ashton at once, and said, "Of course, mother, you
knew that there was something between John Hanbury and me."
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Ashton in surprise that grew as she looked at
the girl.
"Well, I have come to say that we have decided it would be better to
put an end to it; we have come to the conclusion it would not be for
our happiness it should go on any further. It is all over."
"All over! my dear! All over! But I thought it was fully arranged that
you were to be married as soon as he had made a beginning in the
world."
"I am sure, mother, you do not want me to say more than I wish to say,
and I don't think speaking about the affair can do good to anyone. He
and I understand each other fully. This is no mere quarrel. At my
suggestion the affair has been broken off. I wrote to him, saying I
desired it broken off, and gave him my reasons, and he wrote me back
saying that he is very sorry, and that it is to be as I wish."
"But, my dear, although I judge by your manner you are not very much
distressed, I cannot help feeling a good deal of concern about you."
"Oh," said the girl with a smile, "you must not imagine I am
desperate. I am not, I assure you. The breaking off has been done in
two very sensible letters, and we have arranged to be fast friends,
and to meet one another as though there never had been anything but
friendship between us. You see, mother, there are a great many things
upon which we don't agree, and most likely never should, and it would
never do to risk life-long bickering. I assure you we behaved more
like two elderly people with money or something else practical in
view, than two of our age. You know I am not a sentimental girl, and
although the thing is unpleasant I shall I am certain never regret the
step I have taken in putting an end to what could not otherwise end
well for either of us. And now mother do me one favour, will you?"
"Oh, yes, my darling. My darling Dora. My own poor child."
For a moment the girl was compelled to pause to steady her lips and
her voice. "Do not speak to me again about this until I speak to you,
and--and--and don't let father speak to me either."
"It will kill you, child. It will kill you, my Dora."
Again the girl was compelled to pause. "No. It will not. And mother,
don't treat me in any other way than as if it had not occurred. Be
just the same to me."
"My darling."
"And," again she had to stop, "above all don't be more affectionate.
That would break my heart. Promise."
"I promise."
The girl threw her arms round her mother's neck and kissed her, and
the mother burst out crying, and the girl hushed her and petted her,
and tried to console her, and asked her to bear up and not to cry.
"I'll try, child, I'll try; but it's very hard, darling."
"Yes, mother, but bear up for me, for my sake."
"I will, dear! I will indeed. We shall not stop here. We shall go away
at once."
"Very well. Just what you please, mother."
"I couldn't bear to stay here and see you, my child."
"If you wish it, mother, let us go away at once. Look at me how brave
I am. Do not give way. Do not give way, for my sake."
"I will try--I will try."
The grief seemed to be all the mother's, and the duty of consolation
all the daughter's duty.
It is the sorrows of others that most hurt noble natures, and the
natures of noble women most of all.
That night it was settled that the Ashtons should go to Norway and
Sweden for three months. Norway and Sweden had been put into Mr.
Ashton's head by the announcement of Sir Julius Whinfield months ago
that he was making up a party for his yacht to go north that summer,
and that the Dowager Lady Forcar and Mrs. Lawrence, Sir Julius's
married sister, and her husband, Mr. James Lawrence, had promised to
be of the party. "We can arrange to meet somewhere," said Mr. Ashton,
and so the expedition was arranged.
When John Hanbury left Dr. Shaw's, he thought that now, all being over
with Leigh, he was bound in common rectitude to disclose the source of
the gold which Leigh had intended passing off as the result of his
imaginary discovery in chemistry or alchemy. The simplest course would
be to go to Scotland Yard and there tell all he knew. Against this
course prudence suggested that perhaps the name and address given were
imaginary, and that there was no such man or street. He was not
anxious to pass through streets in which he was known, and he was glad
of anything to do. How better could he employ an hour than by driving
to London Road and trying to find out if any such man as Timmons
existed? He did not like the whole thing, but he could not rest easy
while he had the name of a man whom Leigh said dealt largely in the
fruit of robberies and thefts. At all events, supposing the whole
story told him by the dwarf was fiction, no harm could come of a visit
to Tunbridge Street.
He jumped into a hansom and was rapidly driven to London Road, and
alighted at the end of Tunbridge Street.
Yes, sure enough, there was the name and the place: "John Timmons,
Marine Store Dealer." But how did one get in, supposing one wanted to
get in? The place was all shut up, and he could see no door.
A man was busy with one of the many up-ended carts. He had the wheel
off and was leisurely greasing the axletree.
"Has Mr. Timmons left this place, please?" he asked of the man.
"I think so. Ay, he has."
"Do you know how long?"
"A few days. Since Monday, I think. Anyway, the place hasn't been open
since Monday, and I hear that he is gone since Saturday night."
"Have you any notion where he's gone?"
The man stopped greasing the wheel and looked up curiously. "Are you
from the Yard too?"
"What yard?"
"Why Scotland Yard, of course."
"No, I am not. Have people been here from Scotland Yard?"
"Ay. And if you was in with Timmons and that crew, you'd better show a
clean pair of heels. There's something wrong about a dwarf or a
cripple that's missed down Chelsea way, burned up in a fire. Timmons
and a cracksman was seen hanging about that place, and they do say
that if they're catched they'll be hanging about somewhere else. So if
you're in with that lot, you'd better clear out too. They say Timmons
has got out of the country, but they'll ketch him by Atlantic cable,
and hang him with British rope." The man laughed at his own wit, and
resumed his work upon the axle. Hanbury thanked him and turned away.
He had nothing to do here. The police had information already.