"I beg your pardon, Captain," said the peremptory Banks, "but nobody won't do but Sir Charles hisself. It's a party as has been sent up from Fishbourne, where my lady comes from, and his orders is to see Sir Charles alone, and not to let out his message to nobody else."
The good-natured Captain looked extremely grave. Only one occurrence could have rendered so much precaution necessary, and he conjectured at once that that occurrence had taken place.
"I fear Mr. Stanfield is dead," he said to his companions. "I must go and find Mitford. Just excuse me for a while, and make yourselves comfortable here, will you?--Come with me, Banks, and take care your mistress gets no hint of this person's being here."
"There ain't no fear of that, Captain," replied the man; "my lady's in the droring-room, along o' Lord Dollamore; and I knew that Sir Charles worn't there, so I didn't go to look for him."
The Captain found the messenger in the library, where Banks had sent him to await Sir Charles's appearance. He was a respectable elderly man, and he answered Captain Bligh's inquiry at once. He had been sent by poor Georgie's old friend, the curate, to convey to Sir Charles Mitford the melancholy intelligence of Mr. Stanfield's death, which had taken place early that morning; and particulars of which event were contained in a letter which he was charged to deliver to the Baronet. He had received special injunctions to communicate the event to Sir Charles alone, and leave it to be "broken" to Lady Mitford by her husband. The simple curate had little thought how difficult Sir Charles would find it to assume even a temporary sympathy with the feelings of his wife.
Captain Bligh ordered refreshments to be served to the bringer of evil tidings; requested him not to communicate with any of the other servants; and strictly enjoining Banks to secrecy, went out of the front door and into the shrubbery on the left of the house. Mitford was not unaccustomed to take fits of sullen moodiness at times, and the Captain thought that he might perhaps find him walking about and smoking, in all the enjoyment of his ill-humour.
The intelligent Banks had asked Gifford if he thought it likely that Sir Charles was in his master's room, in the presence of several of the ladies and gentlemen of the household, assembled in a comfortable and spacious apartment which the insolence of a dominant class caused to be known as the servants'-hall. Among the number of those who heard the question and its answer was Mademoiselle Marcelline, Mrs. Hammond's "own maid." She was a trim-looking French girl, who had not anything remarkable in her appearance except its neatness, or in her manner except its quietness. She was seated at a large table, on which a number of workboxes were placed, for the women-servants at Redmoor greatly affected needlework, and had a good deal of time to devote to it; and she was embroidering a collar with neatness, dexterity, and rapidity, eminently French. Mademoiselle Marcelline made no observation, and did not raise her eyes, or discontinue her work for a moment, during the discussion as to where Sir Charles could be, which had ensued upon Banks's inquiry. She had spoken only once indeed since his entrance. When Gifford had said Sir Charles Mitford could not be in Mr. Hammond's room, because her mistress had been, and was there still, he had asked, "Isn't she there still, mam'selle?" Mam'selle had answered, "Yes, Monsieur Giffore, madame is there still."
Mademoiselle Marcelline was so very quiet a little person, and differed so much from French ladies'-maids in general, by the unobtrusiveness of her manners and her extreme taciturnity--to be sure she spoke very little English, but that circumstance is rarely found to limit the loquacity of her class--that her exit from the servants'-hall was scarcely noticed, when she presently looked at her little Geneva watch, made up her embroidery into a tidy parcel, and went away with her usual noiseless step. Mademoiselle Marcelline mounted the stairs with great deliberation, and smiling a little, until she reached the corridor into which the suite of apartments occupied by the Hammonds opened. The rooms were five in number, and each communicated with the other. They were two bed-rooms, two dressing-rooms, and a bath-room. The latter occupied the central space, and had no external door. Mademoiselle Marcelline entered the last room of the suite, corresponding with that in which Mr. Hammond lay,--this was Laura's bed-room,--and gently locked the door. She passed through the adjoining apartment--her mistress's dressing-room--and paused before a large wardrobe, without shelves, in which hung a number of dresses and cloaks. She opened the doors, but held them one in each hand, looked in for a moment, and then shut them, and smiled still more decidedly. Then she softly locked the door of this room which opened into the corridor, and passing through the bath-room secured that of Mr. Hammond's dressing-room also; after which, with more precaution against noise than ever, she glided into the old man's room. He was sleeping soundly still, and his face looked wasted and ashen in the abstraction of slumber. Mademoiselle Marcelline glanced at him, shrugged her shoulders, sat down on a couch at the foot of the bed, where she was effectually screened from view by the heavy carved bedpost and the voluminous folds of the purple curtain, and waited.
Meantime, Captain Bligh had not succeeded in finding Sir Charles, though he had sought for him in the shrubbery and in the stable-yard. He could not make out whither he had gone, and returned to the house to take counsel with Banks. That functionary suggested that Sir Charles might have gone up to the keeper's house; and though the Captain could not imagine why Sir Charles should have gone thither at such an inconvenient time, as he had no other to offer, he accepted this suggestion, and said he would go thither and look for him.
"Shall I go with you, Captain?" asked Banks, who felt curious to discover what "Mitford was up to."