It was not until Ella had been gone a fortnight that Charley Vining
learned the news of her departure; as it happened, upon the same day
that it was brought home to Max Bray that his visits to Laneton were of
no effect.
But he was shrewd, was Max Bray; and encountering Charley directly
after, and reading his disappointment in his face, he assumed an air of
perfect contentment himself, played with the ring upon his watch-chain,
and passed his rival with a mocking smile.
Five minutes after, Charley was at Copse Hall face to face with Edward
the hard, who encountered him with a shake of the head.
"Show me in to your mistress," said Charley hoarsely; and it was done.
Mrs Brandon was seated working, but she rose, evidently much agitated,
as her visitor entered to catch her hands in his, and look imploringly
in her face.
"I have only just learned the news," he said. "Dear Mrs Brandon, you
know why I have come! Be pitiful! See how I suffer! Tell me where she
is gone!"
"I cannot," was the gentle reply, as, with a mother's tenderness, Mrs
Brandon pressed him back into a seat. "You forget that I have given my
word to Sir Philip."
Charley groaned bitterly.
"You are all against me!" he cried reproachfully. "You measure me by
others. You do not know the depth of my feelings towards her. You all
think that in a few days--a month--a year--all will be forgotten; but,
Mrs Brandon, it grows upon me with the obstacles I encounter. But you
will at least tell me to what part of England she has gone?"
Mrs Brandon shook her head.
"It was her wish--her express wish--that her retreat should not be
known, Mr Vining; and, in addition to what I promised to your father, I
must respect that wish."
Charley looked sternly at her for a moment, and then rose, and without a
word left the room; Mrs Brandon following him with a sympathising look,
till the door closed upon him.
"I must be a boy--a simple boy!" muttered Charley fiercely; "for they
treat me as such. My father, this Mrs Brandon, and even Max Bray laugh
at me! But," he muttered fiercely, "I may be a boy; but these
bitternesses will soon make me a man--such a man as they do not dream
of! Give her up? Yes, when I see her in Max Bray's arms--not before!"
Then he laughed, almost lightly, at the utter impossibility of such a
termination, and returned to Blandfield after vainly trying to obtain
information at the Laneton station of Ella's whereabouts. He could find
that a young lady answering his description had taken a ticket for
London; that was all; and in spite of his laugh of assurance, that was
all the information that had so far been obtained by Max Bray.
But there are ways and means of finding all who play at hide and seek;
England, as a rule, proving to be too small a place to conceal those who
are diligently sought.
Max Bray knew that well enough; and returning to town, he sat tapping
his white teeth as he made his plans; on the whole feeling very well
satisfied at the change in the base of operations, since, in spite of
his hippopotamus hide, he was beginning to be a little annoyed at the
notice taken of his visits to Laneton. Old women were in the habit of
thrusting their heads out of their cottage doors to watch him;
servant-girls would titter; and on more than one countenance of the male
sex there would often be a stolid grin.
It was satisfactory, then, on the whole, for London presented many
advantages to a scheming mind; but the first thing to be found out was
whether Ella were in London.
Max was seated in one of the windows of his club, as he ran over his
arrangements; then rising, he ordered a cab, and drove away, ignorant of
the fact that the hall boy was imitating his gestures for the benefit of
the porter, who was convulsed with laughter.
That same day, without a word to Sir Philip, Charley started for town.
A week later, and, to his surprise, Charley Vining, who was staying at
Long's, involuntarily raised his hat as the Brays' carriage passed him,
with Mrs Bray and Laura on the back seat, Nelly and a stranger on the
front. So introspective was Charley as he stood upon the hotel steps,
that the carriage would have passed him unnoticed if a loud shrill voice
had not shouted his name, when, starting and looking up, he saw Nelly,
flushed and excited, leaning over the side of the barouche, as if ready
to jump into his arms. But the carriage passed on; and though by a
little exertion he might easily have overtaken it in the crowded street,
beyond raising his hat, Charley made no movement.
Ten minutes after, an empty hansom passing, Charley hailed it, gave his
orders, and was soon being spun along through the streets, thinking over
the encounter he had just had, and wondering whether Sir Philip Vining
would be the next to make his appearance.
"To see what I am doing!" said Charley bitterly. And then his thoughts
reverted to the past, and he came to the conclusion that it does not
fall to the lot of any of us to pass a life of uninterrupted happiness,
such as his had been until he first set eyes upon Ella.
"Branksome-street, sir?" cried the driver through his little trap-door.
"Number nineteen, sir?"
"How did you know that I wanted number nineteen?" said Charley
pettishly; "I did not name a number."
"Lor' bless you, sir, this makes, I should think, a score of times I've
been here in the course of a couple of years' hansom-driving. I never
come wunst when it was a growler I druv. You want number nineteen,
sir--private-inkviry orfice--that's what you want."
"And how did you know that?" said Charley, who could not help feeling
amused.
"How did I know that, sir?" grinned the man. "It's a sort of instinkt,
sir, as is only possessed by drivers of kebs. Here you are, sir--number
nineteen. Up on the first floor for Mr Whittrick."
Charley leaped out, ran up the stairs indicated; and directly after he
was in the office of Mr Whittrick, of private-inquiry celebrity.
Volume 2, Chapter XVII.