“Is it any one you know by sight?” she inquired of the parlour-maid.
“I think she has been here before, miss,” was the reply. “She comes from Scaling Harbour, but”—with a little hesitation—“she seems rather in trouble. I don’t think she would give me her message,” and at these words there returned to Frances’ memory the promise Ryder Morion had made to Jenny Silver of help and advice, should need arise, from herself.
She started to her feet with some self-reproach for having forgotten, in the pressure of other thoughts, the poor girl’s anxiety. And further back in her mind there lurked another remembrance, which did not till later on take distinct form. It was that of the association of some trouble menacing the young couple of which she had dreamt, though but for this visit she would probably never have thought of it again.
As she expected, the figure awaiting her was that of Jenny Silver.
“Oh, miss!” she exclaimed. “I am ashamed to trouble you, but the gentleman told me I might come to you if things got worse.”
“You were quite right to come,” said Frances, and as she spoke she glanced round. “I will come out with you a little,” she said. She still wore her out-of-door things. “We shall be quieter in the garden.” And she took the poor woman to a seat hidden in the shrubberies.
After all, things with the Silvers were not in one direction as bad as she had feared. Jenny had come to her partly because her husband’s old father was very ill—dying, in short. Her Jack, she went on to say, had not offended again, but he had remained sullen and unlike himself. This had troubled the old man, and Jenny had come to ask if Miss Morion thought it would be possible to get Mr Ferraby to go to see him the next day.
“Father thinks a deal of the old vicar,” said the young woman, “and he thinks maybe it would be a good chance for Jack to start fresh again. Father can’t be with us long, and the vicar might know how to get hold of Jack just at this time.”
Frances quite agreed with her that the opportunity should not be lost, and after a little more talk it was settled that she should walk up to the vicarage with Jenny, and explain things in the first place to Mr Ferraby, as it was a good while since he had seen any of the Silver family. Jenny was full of gratitude for Miss Morion’s help, and fortunately they found the old vicar at home. A few minutes’ talk between him and Frances while Mrs Silver waited outside put him in possession of the state of the case, and he expressed himself as eager and ready to help and sanguine as to the result of a good talk with the young man.
“He is far from a bad fellow,” he said, “though I am not surprised at Jenny being anxious. Her own people, the Bretts, have always been so very respectable and sober that the contrast between them and what she sees down at the Harbour must be painful. But put them off your mind, my dear Frances; Darnley and I will see to it that he is pulled up in time.”