The Lady Evelyn: A Story of To-day

by Max Pemberton

Griggs did not really know what to make of it.

"She was as white as a sheet," he told the kitchen afterwards, "and she asked me to lock up the 'ouse. Now, am I in the 'abit of leavin' the doors open or do I see 'em shut regular? Mark my words, Partigan, there's something more than her luggage she's left in London, and the sooner his lordship takes it out of the cloakroom the better."

Here was something to set the servants' hall by the ears beyond possibility of discretion. Williams, the groom, who had driven her ladyship home, added an ingredient to the sauce of their curiosity which proved appetizing beyond measure.

"There was a young man at the station wot kept hopping about us just like a 'oss about a hayrick," said he. "I could see she didn't want to take much notice on him, but what was I to do? If he'd have opened his lips, I could have given him something for hisself. But he didn't say nothing to nobody and all she says was, 'Drive on at once, Williams, and don't stop for anyone.' Be sure I made the old 'oss slip it. He come along for all the world as though he were riding to 'ounds and me in the first flight."

Williams, be it observed, had not exaggerated at all. There had been a young man at the station and Lady Evelyn had been very frightened by him. What is more remarkable is the fact that she was perfectly well aware of his identity and knew him beyond a shadow of doubt for the apparent nonagenarian who had been so persistent at St. Pancras. That white-haired old man and the youth who appeared before her suddenly at her journey's end were certainly one and the same person. The only conclusion possible was this, that she had been watched closely in London and followed thence.

"It must be Count Odin," she said to herself, and upon this she tried to reason out a secret of which the key lay far from her possession. Why should the man have been at such pains to follow her if he knew her father's name, as he pretended he did? It never occurred to her untrained mind that a foreigner recently arrived from Bukharest might be quite unaware of the identity of Robert Forrester and altogether ignorant of the fact that he was Robert Forrester no longer, but had become, by a strange accident of fortune, the third Earl of Melbourne, Baron Norton, and heaven and Burke know what besides. Here had been the Count's difficulty. He had searched every directory in vain for the whereabouts of a man he had now made it his life's purpose to discover. Knowing scarcely anyone in London, and having no particular desire to declare his presence to the Roumanian chargé d'affaires, his quest had been profitless until chance brought him face to face with the Lady Evelyn in the Strand. Instantly he had resolved never to lose sight of her until he had discovered Robert Forrester's house, and had asked of him that question the answer to which should tell him if his own father were alive or dead.

The Lady Evelyn, upon her part, had no share of the story, save that which her own eyes and the Count's brief words had told her. He had spoken in London of her father, it is true; but there had been no betrayal of a warm anxiety to meet him, nor had he mentioned the name except as a passport to Evelyn's confidence. The fact that she had been followed from town to Derbyshire disquieted her exceedingly by the very pains which had been taken to conceal it. No longer could she believe that Count Odin had been fascinated by her acting and had foolishly fallen in love with her. Something lay beyond, and her clever brain divined it to be a thing dangerous both to her father and to herself.

So it was not Etta Romney but my Lady Evelyn, grave and stately, and dreadfully afraid of her own secret and of another's, who returned to Melbourne Hall, and, declining the attentions of her servants, went straight up to her bedroom, but not to sleep. Whatever danger threatened her must speedily declare itself, she thought. It was even possible that the morrow would bring it to her doors.

And if it came, her father would know that Etta Romney had been "presented" by Mr. Charles Izard at a London theatre and that she was his daughter.

He would never forgive her, she thought. It might even be that he would call her his daughter no more.