“Have you not any notion where they went?—to what part of the town?” asked the discomfited Pym. That little trick he had played Betty Huntsman was of no use to him now.
“Not any. Truth to say, I was too vexed to ask,” confessed Mrs. Ball. “I knew nothing about their intention to leave until they were packing up. Sir Dace paid me a week’s rent in lieu of warning, and away they went in two cabs. You are related to them, sir? There’s a look in your face that Sir Dace has got.”
Mr. Pym knitted his brow; he did not take it as a compliment. Many people had seen the same likeness; though he was a handsome young man and Sir Dace an ugly old one.
“If you can get their address, I shall be much obliged to you to keep it for me; I will call again to-morrow evening,” were his parting words to the landlady. And he went rattling back to the docks as fast as wheels could take him.
Mr. Pym went up to Woburn Place the following evening accordingly, but the landlady had no news to give him. He went the next evening after, and the next, and the next. All the same. He went so long and to so little purpose that he at last concluded the Fontaines were not in London. Sir Dace neither sent a messenger nor wrote for any letters there might be. Two were waiting for him; no more. Edward Pym and Mrs. Ball became, so to say, quite intimate. She had much sympathy with the poor young man, who wanted to find his relatives before he sailed—and could not.
It may as well be told, not to make an unnecessary mystery of it, that the Fontaines had gone straight to Brighton. At length, however, Mrs. Ball was one day surprised by a visit from Ozias. She never bore malice long, and received him civilly. Her rooms were let again, so she had got over the smart.
“At Brighton!” she exclaimed, when she heard where they had been—for the man had no orders to conceal it. “I thought it strange that your master did not send for his letters. And how are the young ladies? And where are you staying now?”
“The young ladies, they well,” answered Ozias. “We stay now at one big house in Marylebone Road. We come up yesterday to this London town: Sir Dace, he find the sea no longer do for him; make him have much bile.”
Edward Pym had been in a rage at not finding Verena. Verena, on her part, though rather wondering that she did not hear from him, looked upon his silence as only a matter of precaution. When they were settled at Woburn Place, after leaving Crabb, she had written to Pym, enjoining him not to reply. It might not be safe, she said, for Coralie had gone over to “the enemy,” meaning Sir Dace: Edward must contrive to see her when he came to London to join his ship. And when the days went on, and Verena saw nothing of her lover, she supposed he was not yet in London. She went to Brighton supposing the same. But, now that they were back from Brighton, and still neither saw Pym nor heard from him, Verena grew uneasy, fearing that the Rose of Delhi had sailed.
“What a strange thing it is about Edward!” she exclaimed one evening to her sister. “I think he must have sailed. He would be sure to come to us if he were in London.”