II

We have said that Mademoiselle Verbèna was the French governess of

little Adolphus and Olivia Greyne, and so she was to this extent—that

she taught them French, and that Mr. and Mrs. Greyne supposed her to

be a Parisian. But life has its little ironies. Mademoiselle Verbèna

in the house of this great and respectable novelist was one of them;

for she was a Levantine, born at Port Said of a Suez Canal father and a

Suez Canal mother. Now, nobody can desire to say anything against Port

Said. At the same time, few mothers would inevitably pick it out as the

ideal spot from which a beneficent influence for childhood’s happy hour

would be certain to emanate. Nor, it must be allowed, is a Suez Canal

ancestry specially necessary to a trainer of young souls. It may not

be a drawback, but it can hardly be described as an advantage. This,

Mademoiselle Verbèna was intelligent enough to know. She, therefore,

concealed the fact that her father had been a dredger of Monsieur de

Lesseps’ triumph, her mother a bar-lady of the historic coal wharf

where the ships are fed, and preferred to suppose—and to permit others

to suppose—that she had first seen the light in the Rue St. Honoré,

her parents being a count and countess of some old régime.

This supposition, retained from her earliest years, had affected her

appearance and her manner. She was a very neat, very trim, even a very

attractive little person, with dark brown, roguish eyes, blue-black

hair, a fairy-like figure, and the prettiest hands and feet imaginable.

She had first attracted Mrs. Greyne’s attention by her devotion to St.

Paul’s Cathedral, and this devotion she still kept up. Whenever she had

an hour or two free she always—so she herself said—spent it in “_ce

charmant_ St. Paul.”

As she entered the oracle’s retreat she cast down her eyes, and

trembled visibly.

“What is it, Miss Verbèna?” inquired Mrs. Greyne, with a kindly English

accent, calculated to set any poor French creature quite at ease.

Mademoiselle Verbèna trembled more.

“I have received bad news, madame.”

“I grieve to hear it. Of what nature?”

“Mamma has _une bronchite très grave_.”

“A what, Miss Verbèna?”

“Pardon, madame. A very grave bronchitis. She cries for me.”

“Indeed!”

“The doctors say she will die.”

“This is very sad.”

The Levantine wept. Even Suez Canal folk are not proof against all

human sympathy. Mr. Greyne blew his nose beside the fire, and Mrs.

Greyne said again:

“I repeat that this is very sad.”

“Madame, if I do not go to mamma to-morrow I shall not see her more.”

Mrs. Greyne looked very grave.

“Oh!” she remarked. She thought profoundly for a moment, and then

added: “Indeed!”

“It is true, madame.”

Suddenly Mademoiselle Verbèna flung herself down on the Persian carpet

at Mrs. Greyne’s large but well-proportioned feet, and, bathing them

with her tears, cried in a heartrending manner:

“Madame will let me go! madame will permit me to fly to poor mamma—to

close her dying eyes—to kiss once again⸺”

Mr. Greyne was visibly affected, and even Mrs. Greyne seemed somewhat

put about, for she moved her feet rather hastily out of reach of the

dependant’s emotion, and made her scramble up.

“Where is your poor mother?”

“In Paris, madame. In the Rue St. Honoré, where I was born. Oh, if she

should die there! If she should⸺”

Mrs. Greyne raised her hand, commanding silence.

“You wish to go there?”

“If madame permits.”

“When?”

“To-morrow, madame.”

“To-morrow? This is decidedly abrupt.”

“_Mais la bronchite, madame_, she is abrupt, and death, she may be

abrupt.”

“True. One moment!”

There was an instant’s silence for Mrs. Greyne to let loose her brain

in. She did so, then said:

“You have my permission. Go to-morrow, but return as soon as possible.

I do not wish Adolphus to lose his still uncertain grasp upon the

irregular verbs.”

In a flood of grateful tears Mademoiselle Verbèna retired to make her

preparations. On the morrow she was gone.

The morrow was a day of much perplexity, much bustle and excitement

for Mr. Greyne and the valet, Darrell. They were preparing for

Algiers. In the morning, at an early hour, Mr. Greyne set forth in the

barouche with Mrs. Greyne to purchase African necessaries: a small

but well-supplied medicine chest, a pith helmet, a white-and-green

umbrella, a Baedeker, a couple of Smith & Wesson Springfield revolvers

with a due amount of cartridges, a dozen of Merrin’s exercise-books—on

mature reflection Mrs. Greyne thought that two would hardly contain a

sufficient amount of African frailty for her present purpose—a packet

of lead pencils, some bottles of a remedy for seasickness, a silver

flask for cognac, and various other trifles such as travellers in

distant continents require.

Meanwhile Darrell was learning French for the journey, and packing his

own and his master’s trunks. The worthy fellow, a man of twenty-five

summers, had never been across the Channel—the Greynes being by no

means prone to foreign travel—and it may, therefore, be imagined that

he was in a state of considerable expectation as he laid the trousers,

coats, and waistcoats in their respective places, selected such boots

as seemed likely to wear well in a tropical climate, and dropped those

shirts which are so contrived as to admit plenty of ventilation to the

heated body into the case reserved for them.

When Mr. Greyne returned from his shopping excursion the barouche,

loaded almost to the gunwale—if one may be permitted a nautical

expression in this connection—had to be disburdened, and its contents

conveyed upstairs to Mr. Greyne’s bedroom, into which Mrs. Greyne

herself presently entered to give directions for their disposing. Nor

was it till the hour of sunset that everything was in due order, the

straps set fast, the keys duly turned in the locks—the labels—“Mr.

Eustace Greyne: Passenger to Algiers: _via_ Marseilles”—carefully

written out in a full, round hand. Rook’s tickets had been bought;

so now everything was ready, and the last evening in England might

be spent by Mr. Greyne in the drawing-room and by Darrell in the

servants’ hall quietly, socially, perhaps pathetically.

The pathos of the situation, it must be confessed, appealed more to

the master than to the servant. Darrell was very gay, and inclined to

be boastful, full of information as to how he would comport himself

with “them there Frenchies,” and how he would make “them pore, godless

Arabs sit up.” But Mr. Greyne’s attitude of mind was very different. As

the night drew on, and Mrs. Greyne and he sat by the wood fire in the

magnificent drawing-room, to which they always adjourned after dinner,

a keen sense of the sorrow of departure swept over them both.

“How lonely you will feel without me, Eugenia,” said Mr. Greyne. “I

have been thinking of that all day.”

“And you, Eustace, how desolate will be your tale of days! My mind runs

much on that. You will miss me at every hour.”

“You are so accustomed to have me within call, to depend upon me for

encouragement in your life-work. I scarcely know how you will get on

when I am far across the sea.”

“And you, for whom I have labored, for whom I have planned and

calculated, what will be your sensations when you realize that a

gulf—the Gulf of Lyons—is fixed irrevocably between us?”

So their thoughts ran. Each one was full of tender pity for the other.

Towards bedtime, however, conscious that the time for colloquy was

running short, they fell into more practical discourse.

“I wonder,” said Mr. Greyne, “whether I shall find any difficulty

in gaining the information you require, my darling. I suppose these

places”—he spoke vaguely, for his thoughts were vague—“are somewhat

awkward to come at. Naturally they would avoid the eye of day.”

Mrs. Greyne looked profound.

“Yes. Evil ever seeks the darkness. You will have to do the same.”

“You think my investigations must take place at night?”

“I should certainly suppose so.”

“And where shall I find a cicerone?”

“Apply to Rook.”

“In what terms? You see, dearest, this is rather a special matter,

isn’t it?”

“Very special. But on no account hint that you are in Algiers for

‘Catherine’s’ sake. It would get into the papers. It would be cabled to

America. The whole reading world would be agog, and the future interest

of the book discounted.”

Mr. Greyne looked at his wife with reverence. In such moments he

realized, almost too poignantly, her great position.

“I will be careful,” he said. “What would you recommend me to say?”

“Well”—Mrs. Greyne knit her superb forehead—“I should suggest that

you present yourself as an ordinary traveler, but with a specially

inquiring bent of mind and a slight tendency towards the—the—er—hidden

things of life.”

“I suppose you wish me to visit the public houses?”

“I wish you to see everything that has part or lot in African frailty.

Go everywhere, see everything. Bring your notes to me, and I will

select such fragments of the broken commandments as suit my purpose,

which is, as always, the edifying of the human race. Only this time I

mean to purge it as by fire.”

“That corner house in Park Lane, next to the Duke of Ebury’s, would

suit us very well,” said Mr. Greyne reflectively.

“We could sell our lease here at an advance,” his wife rejoined. “You

will not waste your journey, Eustace?”

“My love,” returned Mr. Greyne with decision, “I will apply to Rook on

arrival, and, if I find his man unsatisfactory, if I have any reason

to suspect that I am not being shown everything—more especially in

the Kasbah region, which, from the guide-books we bought to-day, is,

I take it, the most abandoned portion of the city—I will seek another

cicerone.”

“Do so. And now to bed. You must sleep well to-night in preparation for

the journey.”

It was their invariable habit before retiring to drink each a tumbler

of barley water, which was set out by the butler in Mrs. Greyne’s

study. After this nightcap Mrs. Greyne wrote up her anticipatory

diary, while Mr. Greyne smoked a mild cigar, and then they went to

bed. To-night, as usual, they repaired to the sanctum, and drank their

barley water. Having done so, Mr. Greyne drew forth his cigar-case,

while Mrs. Greyne went to her writing-table, and prepared to unlock the

drawer in which her diary reposed, safe from all prying eyes.

The match was struck, the key was inserted in the lock, and turned.

As the cigar end glowed the drawer was opened. Mr. Greyne heard a

contralto cry. He turned from the arm-chair in which he was just about

to seat himself.

“My love, is anything the matter?”

His wife was bending forward with both hands in the drawer, telling

over its contents.

“My diary is not here!”

“Your diary!”

“It is gone.”

“But”—he came over to her—“this is very serious. I presume, like

all diaries, it is full of⸺” Instinctively he had been about to say

“damning”; he remembered his dear one’s irreproachable character and

substituted “precious secrets.”

“It is full of matter which must never be given to the world—my secret

thoughts, my aspirations. The whole history of my soul is there.”

“Heavens! It must be found.”

They searched the writing-table. They searched the room. No diary.

“Could you have taken it to my room, and left it there?” asked Mr.

Greyne.

They hastened thither, and looked—in vain. By this time the servants

were gone to bed, and the two searchers were quite alone on the ground

floor of their magnificent mansion. Mrs. Greyne began to look seriously

perturbed. Her Roman features worked.

“This is appalling,” she exclaimed. “Some thief, knowing it priceless,

must have stolen the diary. It will be published in America. It will

bring in thousands—but to others, not to us.”

She began to wring her hands. It was near midnight.

“Think, my love, think!” cried Mr. Greyne. “Where could you have taken

it? You had it last night?”

“Certainly. I remember writing in it that you would be sailing to

Algiers on the _Général Bertrand_ on Thursday of this week, and that on

the night I should be feeling widowed here. The previous night I wrote

that yesterday I should have to tell you of your mission. You know I

always put down beforehand what I shall do, what I shall even think

on each succeeding day. It is a practice that regulates the mind and

conduct, that helps to uniformity.”

“How true! Who can have taken it? Do you ever leave it about?”

“Never. Am I a madwoman?”

“My darling, compose yourself! We must search the house.”

They proceeded to do so, and, on coming into the schoolroom, Mrs.

Greyne, who was in front, uttered a sudden cry.

Upon the table of Mademoiselle Verbèna lay the diary, open at the

following entry:—

On Thursday next poor Eustace will be on board the _Général

Bertrand_, sailing for Algiers. I shall be here thinking of

myself, and of him in relation to myself. God help us both. Duty

is sometimes stern. _Mem_. The corner house in Park Lane, next the

Duke of Ebury’s, has sixty years still to run; the lease, that is.

Thursday—poor Eustace!

“What does this portend?” cried Mrs. Greyne.

“My darling, it passes my wit to imagine,” replied her husband.