NEXT morning the house was in an uproar. Servants ran to and fro, and
the fish-pond was dragged at Mr. Fountain's request. But on these
occasions everybody claims a right to speak, and Jane came into the
breakfast-room and said: “If you please, mum, Miss Lucy isn't in the
pond, for she have taken a good part of her clothes, and all her
jewels.”
This piece of common sense convinced everybody on the spot except Mrs.
Bazalgette. That lady, if she had decided on “making a hole in the
water,” would have sat on the bank first, and clapped on all her
jewels, and all her richest dresses, one on the top of another.
Finally, Mr. Bazalgette, who wore a somber air, and had not said a
word, requested everybody to mind their own business. “I have a
communication from Lucy,” said he, “and I do not at present disapprove
the step she has taken.”
All eyes turned with astonishment toward him, and the next moment all
voices opened on him like a pack of hounds. But he declined to give
them any further information. Between ourselves he had none to give.
The little note Lucy left on his table merely begged him to be under
no anxiety, and prayed him to suspend his judgment of her conduct till
he should know the whole case. It was his strong good sense which led
him to pretend he was in the whole secret. By this means he
substituted mystery for scandal, and contrived that the girl's folly
might not be irreparable.
At the same time he was deeply indignant with her, and, above all,
with her hypocrisy in clinging round him and kissing him the very
night she meditated flight from his house.
“I must find the girl out and get her back;” said he, and directly
after breakfast he collected his myrmidons and set them to discover
her retreat.
The outward frame-work of the holy alliance remained standing, but
within it was dissolving fast. Each of the allies was even now
thinking how to find Lucy and make a separate peace. During the
flutter which now subsided, one person had done nothing but eat
pigeon-pie. It was Kenealy, captain of horse.
Now eating pigeon-pie is not in itself a suspicious act, but ladies
are so sharp. Mrs. Bazalgette said to herself, “This creature alone is
not a bit surprised (for Bazalgette is fibbing); why is this creature
not surprised? humph! Captain Kenealy,” said she, in honeyed tones,
“what would you advise us to do?”
“Advertaize,” drawled the captain, as cool as a cucumber.
“Advertise? What! publish her name?”
“No, no names. I'll tell you;” and he proceeded to drawl out very
slowly, from memory, the following advertisement. N. B.--The captain
was a great reader of advertisements, and of little else.
“WANDERAA, RETARN.
“If L. F. will retarn--to her afflicted--relatives--she shall be
received with open aams. And shall be forgotten and forgiven--and
reunaited affection shall solace every wound.”
“That is the style. It always brings 'em back--dayvilish good
paie--have some moa.”
Mr. Fountain and Mrs. Bazalgette raised an outcry against the
captain's advice, and, when the table was calm again, Mrs. Bazalgette
surprised them all by fixing her eyes on Kenealy, and saying quietly,
“You know where she is.” She added more excitedly: “Now don't deny it.
On your honor, sir, have you no idea where my niece is?”
“Upon my honah, I have an idea.”
“Then tell me.”
“I'd rayther not.”
“Perhaps you would prefer to tell me in private?”
“No; prefer not to tell at all.”
Then the whole table opened on him, and appealed to his manly feeling,
his sense of hospitality, his humanity--to gratify their curiosity.
Kenealy stretched himself out from the waist downward, and delivered
himself thus, with a double infusion of his drawl:--
“See yah all dem--d first.”
At noon on the same day, by the interference of Mrs. Bazalgette, the
British army was swelled with Kenealy, captain of horse.
The whole day passed, and Lucy's retreat was not yet discovered. But
more than one hunter was hemming her in.
The next day, being the second after her elopement with her nurse, at
eleven in the forenoon, Lucy and Mrs. Wilson sat in the little parlor
working. Mrs. Wilson had seen the poultry fed, the butter churned, and
the pudding safe in the pot, and her mind was at ease for a good hour
to come, so she sat quiet and peaceful. Lucy, too, was at peace. Her
eye was clear; and her color coming back; she was not bursting with
happiness, for there was a sweet pensiveness mixed with her sweet
tranquillity; but she looked every now and then smiling from her work
up at Mrs. Wilson, and the dame kept looking at her with a motherly
joy caused by her bare presence on that hearth. Lucy basked in these
maternal glances. At last she said: “Nurse.”
“My dear?”
“If you had never done anything for me, still I should know you loved
me.”
“Should ye, now?”
“Oh yes; there is the look in your eye that I used to long to see in
my poor aunt's, but it never came.”
“Well, Miss Lucy, I can't help it. To think it is really you setting
there by my fire! I do feel like a cat with one kitten. You should
check me glaring you out o' countenance like that.”
“Check you? I could not bear to lose one glance of that honest tender
eye. I would not exchange one for all the flatteries of the world. I
am so happy here, so tranquil, under my nurse's wing.”
With this declaration came a little sigh.
Mrs. Wilson caught it. “Is there nothing wanting, dear?”
“No.”
“Well, I do keep wishing for one thing.”
“What is that?”
“Oh, I can't help my thoughts.”
“But you can help keeping them from me, nurse.”
“Well, my dear, I am like a mother; I watch every word of yours and
every look; and it is my belief you deceive yourself a bit: many a
young maid has done that. I do judge there is a young man that is more
to you than you think for.”
“Who on earth is that, nurse?” asked Lucy, coloring.
“The handsome young gentleman.”
“Oh, they are all handsome--all my pests.”
“The one I found under your window, Miss Lucy; he wasn't in liquor; so
what was he there for? and you know you were not at your ease till you
had made me go and wake him, and send him home; and you were all of a
tremble. I'm a widdy now, and can speak my mind to men-folk all one as
women-folk; but I've been a maid, and I can mind how I was in those
days. Liking did use to whisper me to do so and so; Shyness up and
said, 'La! not for all the world; what'll he think?'”
“Oh, nurse, do you believe me capable of loving one who does not love
me?”
“No. Who said he doesn't love you? What was he there for? I stick to
that.”
“Now, nurse, dear, be reasonable; if Mr. Dodd loved me, would he go to
sleep in my presence?”
“Eh! Miss Lucy, the poor soul was maybe asleep before you left your
room.”
“It is all the same. He slept while I stood close to him ever so long.
Slept while I--If I loved anybody as these gentlemen pretend they
love us, should I sleep while the being I adored was close to me?”
“You are too hard upon him. 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is
weak.' Why, miss, we do read of Eutychus, how he snoozed off setting
under Paul himself--up in a windy--and down a-tumbled. But parson says
it wasn't that he didn't love religion, or why should Paul make it his
business to bring him to life again, 'stead of letting un lie for a
warning to the sleepy-headed ones. ''Twas a wearied body, not a heart
cold to God,' says our parson.”
“Now, nurse, I take you at your word. If Eutychus had been Eutycha,
and in love with St. Paul, Eutycha would never have gone to sleep,
though St. Paul preached all day and all night; and if Dorcas had
preached instead of St. Paul, and Eutychus been in love with her, he
would never have gone to sleep, and you know it.”
At this home-thrust Mrs. Wilson was staggered, but the next moment her
sense of discomfiture gave way to a broad expression of triumph at her
nursling's wit.
“Eh! Miss Lucy,” cried she, showing a broadside of great white teeth
in a rustic chuckle, “but ye've got a tongue in your head. Ye've sewed
up my stocking, and 'tisn't many of them can do that.” Lucy followed
up her advantage.
“And, nurse, even when he was wide awake and stood by the cart, no
inward sentiment warned him of my presence; a sure sign he did not
love me. Though I have never experienced love, I have read of it, and
know all about it.” [_Jus-tice des Femmes!_]
“Well, Miss Lucy, have it your own way; after all, if he loves you he
will find you out.”
“Of course he would, and you will see he will do nothing of the kind.”
“Then I wish I knew where he was; I would pull him in at my door by
the scruf of the neck.”
“And then I should jump out at the window. Come, try on your new cap,
nurse, that I have made for you, and let us talk about anything you
like except gentlemen. Gentlemen are a sore subject with me. Gentlemen
have been my ruin.”
“La, Miss Lucy!”
“I assure you they have; why, have they not set my uncle's heart
against me, and my aunt's, and robbed me of the affection I once had
for both? I believe gentlemen to be the pests of society; and oh! the
delight of being here in this calm retreat, where love dwells, and no
gentleman can find me. Ah! ah! Oh! What is that?”
For a heavy blow descended on the door. “That is Jenny's
_knock,”_ said Mrs. Wilson; dryly. “Come in, Jenny.” The servant,
thus invited, burst the door open as savagely as she had struck it,
and announced with a knowing grin, “A GENTLEMAN--_for Miss
Fountain!!”_