Away he tore to the station. The first person he saw there, officials excepted, was Hamish Channing, who had gone to it for the purpose of seeing a friend off by the train. The second, was Lady Augusta Yorke.
Hamish he saw first, as he was turning away from getting his ticket. “Hamish,” said he, “you’ll tell Arthur that I did not come round to him for a last word; I shall write it from London.”
“Roland”—and Hamish spoke more gravely than was his wont—“you are starting upon a wild-goose scheme.”
“It is not,” said Roland; “why do you preach up nonsense? If the worst came to the worst, I should come back to Carrick, and he’d set me on my legs again. I tell you, Hamish, I have a hundred reasons to urge me away from Helstonleigh.”
“Is this carpet-bag all your luggage?”
“All I am taking with me. The rest will be sent afterwards. Had I despatched the bellman about the town to announce my departure, I might have been stopped; so I have told no one, except poor harmless Jenkins.”
Of course it never occurred to proud and improvident Roland that it was possible to travel in any carriage but a first-class one. A first-class ticket he took, and a first-class compartment he entered. Fortunately it was an empty one. Hamish was filling up the door, talking to him, when sounds of distress were heard coming swiftly along the platform. Before Hamish had time to see what caused them, they were close upon his ear, and he found himself vehemently pushed aside, just as Roland himself might have pushed him. He turned with surprise. Panting, breathless, in tears, wailing out that she should never see her darling son again, stood the Lady Augusta Yorke.
What could be the cause of her appearing there in that state? The cause was Roland. On the previous day, he had held a second conversation with his mother, picturing the glories of Port Natal in colours so vivid, that the thought nearly crossed my lady’s mind, couldn’t she go too, and make her fortune? She then inquired when he meant to start. “Oh,” answered Roland, carelessly, “between now and a week’s time.” The real fact was, that he contemplated being away on the following morning, before my lady was up. Roland’s motive was not an unfilial one. He knew how she excited herself over these partings; the violent, if short, grief to which she gave the reins; he remembered what it had been on the departure of his brother George. One other motive also held weight with him, and induced reticence. It was very desirable, remembering that he was not perfectly free from claims upon his purse, that he should depart, if not absolutely sub rosâ, still without its being extensively known, and that, he knew, would be next door to an impossibility, were the exact period confided to my lady. Lady Augusta Yorke could not have kept a secret for a single hour, had it been to save her life. Accordingly, she retired to rest in blissful ignorance: and in ignorance she might have remained until he was fairly off, but for Roland’s own want of caution. Up with daylight—and daylight, you know, does not surprise us too early when the dark days of November are at hand—Roland began turning over his drawers and closets, to pick out the few articles he meant to carry with him: the rest would be packed afterwards. This aroused his mother, whose room was underneath his, and she angrily wondered what he could be doing. Not for some time until after the noise had ceased did the faintest suspicion of the truth break upon her; and it might not then have done so, but for the sudden remembrance which rose in her mind of Roland’s particularly affectionate farewell the night before. Lady Augusta rang her bell.
“Do you know what Mr. Roland is about in his room?” she inquired, when Martha answered it.
“Mr. Roland is gone out, my lady,” was Martha’s reply. “He came down to the kitchen and drank a cup of coffee; and then went out with a carpet-bag.”