“There; enough of that,” snapped the Squire. “What took them away?”
That was the letter, resumed the girl in her deliberate manner. It was the other thing, that letter was, that had contributed to Madame’s bouleversement. The letter had been delivered by hand, she supposed, while she was gone to the pork-shop; it told Madame the triste news of the illness of a dear relative; and Madame had to leave at once, in consequence. There was confusion. Madame and the young ladies packing, and she (Mathilde), when her dinner had been cooked and eaten, running quick for the propriétaire, who came back with her. Madame paid him up to the end of the next week, when the month would be finished and—that was all.
Old Brandon took up the word. “Mr. Brown?—He was not here at all, was he?”
“Not at all,” replied Mathilde. “Madame’s fancy figured to her he might be coming one of these soon days: if so, I refer him to M. Bourgeois.”
“Refer him for what?”
“Nay, I not ask, monsieur. For the information, I conclude, of where Madame go and why she go. Madame talk to the propriétaire with the salon door shut.”
So that was all we got. Mathilde readily gave M. Bourgeois’s address, and we went away. She had been civil through it all, and the Squire slipped a franc into her hand. From the profusion of thanks he received in return, it might have been a louis d’or.
Monsieur Bourgeois’s shop was in the Upper Town, not far from the convent of the Dames Ursulines. He said—speaking from behind his counter while weighing out some coffee—that Madame Brown had entrusted him with a sealed letter to Monsieur Brown in case he arrived. It contained, Madame had remarked to him, only a line or two to explain where they had gone, as he would naturally be disappointed at not finding them; and she had confided the trust to him that he would only deliver it into M. Brown’s own hand. He did not know where Madame had gone. As M. Bourgeois did not speak a word of English, or the Squire a word of French, it’s hard to say when they would have arrived at an explanation, left to themselves.
“Now look here,” said Mr. Brandon, in his dry, but uncommonly clear-sighted way, as we went home, “Clement-Pell’s expected here. We must keep a sharp watch on the boats.”
The Squire did not see it. “As if he’d remain in England all this time, Brandon!”