“Oh, never, never! Besides, I don’t think a woman who has been divorced, should marry.”
“That is a much-debated question. And what if Lancelot Lumley were to return, and claim you? He has gone through the furnace for your sake. His poor old father has entirely lost his memory, and fortunately has never heard of the great Blagdon scandal. The last time I saw Frances, it seemed to me that she was changed; there were lines in her face, and she looked out of spirits, and down on her luck.”
“Poor Frances, I have indeed returned her evil for good. I cannot tell you what a support she was to me in those days when I was alone at Sharsley. I was so silly and nervous in that big house; always afraid to go to bed. My room was by itself in the west wing, and the rats in the wall, gave me palpitation of the heart, and I used to think of ghosts too—the blind Scrope lady, who gropes and fumbles outside doors—but Frances would come up with books and jokes, and insist on my going for walks with her, and talking me out of my fears. She and you, are my best, and only, friends.”
“Your best friend should be yourself, Letty—I can only offer you money and advice—you accept neither. How I wish I could give you what you want most—a will; a will to keep upon a certain steady path.”
“I am on the right path now,” she answered, “and, to follow your simile, hand in hand with Cara, I intend to stick to a road that leads to happiness.”
Mrs. Hesketh muttered something under her breath about a hedonist; then as the band played ‘God Save the King,’ they rose side by side, and presently were swallowed up in the streaming crowds returning to their several hotels; Letty expatiating on the beauty of the moonlit night, her companion dumb and distrait, in the face of the inevitable.
When the critical Saturday arrived, Nurse Smithson, dressed in her best, what she called ‘private’ clothes, and a superb hat, went off in high spirits to the theatre, attended by her friends. Letty collected the child’s belongings, packed them in a trunk, and took her away in a cab to the Pavilion Hotel, where she met Mrs. Hesketh, and her own luggage. By the four o’clock afternoon boat, among hordes of holiday passengers, was a remarkably pretty girl in blue serge, with a small fractious child in her charge. The two were sped by a distinguished lady friend, who waved to them from the end of the pier, as long as a handkerchief was visible.
CHAPTER XXV
AS it happened, the kidnapper was not an experienced nurse, or accustomed to the sole charge of a fractious child, and little Cara proved unexpectedly peevish and obstreperous. The trip across to Boulogne was well enough, but once in the railway carriage, nothing seemed to please or pacify her; fruit, pictures, chocolates, were but temporary alleviations; her one shrill continuous cry, repeated a ‘crescendo,’ was, “I want my Ninny—I want my Ninny! I want my Ninny!” and the more her mother soothed and coaxed, the louder and more passionate became her screams. The miserable passengers in her compartment had no peace or rest, and thankfully parted at Bâle Station, with what a sleepless individual apostrophised, as, ‘that accursed brat.’ It was also with a sigh of profound relief that her worn-out and haggard mother, with the treasure in her arms, climbed down into the airy, spacious station of Lucerne. As soon as she had claimed her luggage, she drove off in a little open trap to a well-known and well-recommended hotel in the old town. Here, the fugitive remained sequestered for several days, gathering herself together before she made the next plunge.