“I want you to give this letter privately to Miss Verena Fontaine. When she is quite alone, you understand. And here’s half-a-crown, my pretty lass, for your trouble.”
The girl touched neither letter nor money. She surreptitiously put her bonnet straight, in her gratified vanity.
“But I can’t give it, sir,” she said. “Though I’m sure I’d be happy to oblige you if I could. The Miss Fontaines and their papa is not with us now; they’ve gone away.”
“What?” cried Pym, setting his teeth angrily, an expression crossing his face that marred all its good looks. “When did they leave? Where are they gone to?”
“They left yesterday, sir, and they didn’t say where. That black servant of theirs and our cook couldn’t agree; there was squabbles perpetual. None of us liked him; it don’t seem Christian-like to have a black man sitting down to table with you. Mrs. Ball, our missis, she took our part; and the young ladies and their papa they naturally took his part: and so, they left.”
“Can I see Mrs. Ball?” asked Pym, after mentally anathematizing servants in general, black and white. “Is she at home?”
“Yes, sir, and she’ll see you, I’m sure. She is vexed at their having left.”
He dropped the half-crown into the girl’s hand, returned the note to his pocket, and went to the house. Mrs. Ball, a talkative, good-humoured woman in a rusty black silk gown, with red cheeks and quick brown eyes, opened the door to him herself.
She invited him in. She would have given him Sir Dace Fontaine’s address with all the pleasure in life, if she had it, she said. Sir Dace did not leave it with her. He simply bade her take in any letters that might come, and he would send for them.