HAVING in some degree recovered from the terror inspired by Skinwell's denunciation, Fanny occupied herself in calling together all the fragments of information of which she had thus strangely been put in possession, and in endeavouring so to fit the broken pieces together as to make something like an intelligible whole. In this attempt she necessarily failed. The whole matter was a maze, a mystery,—a jargon of seeming truth and certain falsehood,—of things partly consistent and partly contradictory. In this state of uncertainty she determined to consult Colin upon the steps most advisable to be taken; for though he was now only about eighteen in actual years, yet his early mental developement and his plain manly honesty entitled him to be considered upon an equality with many who were several years his seniors. A note was accordingly despatched by the first convenient carriage to Whinmoor, requesting Colin to pay a visit to Bramleigh at the earliest possible opportunity.
Such an opportunity very fortunately occurred within the ensuing week, and on a day which, by a lucky coincidence, Mr. Skinwell himself had chosen for a drive, on business, to the city of York. Ample opportunity was thus afforded the young people to discuss the subject of their meeting.
Troubled as Fanny had been in her own mind to devise what course to pursue under the seemingly difficult circumstances in which she was placed, she had no sooner related them to Colin, than that youth declared the steps proper to be taken were as clearly chalked out as the track of a plough along the fields.
“Leave it to me, and I will find it all out very soon. In the first place, I shall ask my mother whether she ever knew, anything of your father; for it is plain that she must know something of the place you came from. If that does not answer, I should then ask Mr. Skinwell and Dr. Rowel. The truth is all that would be required of them, and surely people cannot very well refuse to tell the truth in such a case as this. But let us try my mother first. Shall I go down to her now?”
To this proposition Fanny assented; and, while she remained behind in a state of anxious hope and expectation, Colin went onwards to Mrs. Clink's, for the purpose of obtaining the required information.
A dreary pause of an hour or more, which to Fanny's imagination appeared half a day, followed Colin's departure. “Now,” thought she, after a little interval of time, “he has arrived there; now he is talking about it to his mother; and now, perhaps, she is telling him what she would never tell me, though I often asked her so particularly about it.” And then, again, as time wore away, and one five minutes after another were scored on the side of that great eternity the Past, she thought he must be coming back; she mistook the footsteps of every passer-by for his, and every distant external sound as the wished-for herald of his approach. At length, as she began to grow heart-sick with anxiety, he came.
“Has she told you anything?” asked Fanny the moment she saw him.
“Not much,” he replied, “and that of no great consequence.”
“Ay, I feared it would be so! Then what is it, Colin?”
“She knows nothing whatever of your father, that is certain. She never did know him, nor your mother either.”