“Yes; close by. Why? Have you any adventure there too? Nay, forgive me; it was but a jest. Good night!”
Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly why he should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the neighbourhood of H——. It was the foot of the profane violating the sanctuary. An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground for forebodings. Fanny did not stir out alone. An adventure, too—pooh! Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London. Lord Lilburne’s more recent conquests were said to be among those of his own rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations. Any other thought was too horrible to be contemplated. He glanced to the clock; it was three in the morning. He would go to H—— early, even before he sought out Mr. William Smith. With that resolution, and even his hardy frame worn out by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and fell asleep.
He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over his abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him that an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him. His head was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely expecting some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah broke into the room. She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and then throwing herself on her knees to him, “Oh!” she cried, “if you have taken that poor young thing away, God forgive you. Let her come back again. It shall be all hushed up. Don’t ruin her! don’t, that’s a dear good gentleman!”
“Speak plainly, woman—what do you mean?” cried Philip, turning pale.
A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny’s disappearance the previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to bed; the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence she had picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a female shriek near the school; but that all he could perceive through the mist was a carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah’s suspicions of Vaudemont confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny’s room, she perceived the poor girl’s unfinished letter with his own, the clue to his address that the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood what she herself was talking about,—Vaudemont’s alarm seized, and the reflection of a moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in the neighbourhood the previous day; the former attempt;—all flashed on him with an intolerable glare. While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed from the house, he flew to Lord Lilburne’s in Park Lane; he composed his manner, he inquired calmly. His lordship had slept from home; he was, they believed, at Fernside: Fernside! H—— was on the direct way to that villa. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story ere he was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a mile could extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the flanks of London post-horses.
CHAPTER XV.
“Ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum
Extollit.”—JUVENAL.
[Fortune raises men from low estate to the very
summit of prosperity.]
When Harriet had quitted Fanny, the waiting-woman, craftily wishing to lure her into Lilburne’s presence, had told her that the room below was empty; and the captive’s mind naturally and instantly seized on the thought of escape. After a brief breathing pause, she crept noiselessly down the stairs, and gently opened the door; and at the very instant she did so, Robert Beaufort entered from the other door; she drew back in terror, when, what was her astonishment in hearing a name uttered that spell-bound her—the last name she could have expected to hear; for Lilburne, the instant he saw Beaufort, pale, haggard, agitated, rush into the room, and bang the door after him, could only suppose that something of extraordinary moment had occurred with regard to the dreaded guest, and cried:
“You come about Vaudemont! Something has happened about Vaudemont! about Philip! What is it? Calm yourself.”