This problem set her pondering. If she were to borrow Camilla’s cutting-out scissors from her work-basket, she might cut snips in the canvases of those dismal primitifs. If she were to employ the aid of a poker, she might break the nose of the young Augustus coldly glimmering at her from his pedestal in the centre of the little circular vestibule at the stairs’ foot. But in neither of these, nor in any analogous crimes, would there be much point nor any enjoyment.
In her total destitution of all opportunities for evil, the poor young creature snatched eagerly at the one sin—though it was only a paltry one of omission—open to her; the entire neglect of the tasks assigned her by her departed tyrant. It relieved her to kick the instruments of her intended elevation and enlightenment into a corner, and when “L’Enigme du Péché”—a work whose very title would make Camilla’s straight hair break into horrified curls—was produced from its hiding-place; when the little shoes lately employed in propelling Greene, Bryce, etc., were hoisted to the top of the nursery fender, which still stood in long-unneeded precaution before the generous grate, Bonnybell’s conscience grew clear. Her power of doing wrong in her present surroundings was infinitesimal, but she had done what she could. To do what one could!—this was a standard beyond which Mrs. Tancred herself did not attempt to rise. At the ingenious perversity of this reflection, Bonnybell laughed delightedly.
She had been in the enjoyment of her illicit pleasures for an hour and a half, and had begun to suspect that the solution of the “Enigma” would form a plat too highly spiced for even her seasoned palate, when the door opened. She whisked her feet down from their dizzy height and sat up, to find a salver, a note, and a footman at her elbow.
“Any answer?” she asked, taking the note and looking at its superscription curiously. The handwriting was at once familiar and unfamiliar; known, but not lately known.
“The chauffeur wished to know how soon you would like the motor to come round?”
“The chauffeur? The motor?” repeated she, staring; then, bethinking herself that the best way to solve this new enigma would be the same as that which she had been employing on the other, she tore open the envelope and read—
“My darling little Bonnybell,—
(The unaccountable warmth of this opening took her eye to the signature, “Flora.”
“Of course! How stupid not to have remembered Flora Tennington’s scrawls and flourishes!”)
“I have just heard from Harrington” (so Harrington is still with Flora, is he?) “that he had seen your ugly old gaoler and her souffre douleur at the station and off to London, so I have sent the motor to fetch you to spend the day. If it comes back without you I shall go on sending it until it brings you, dead or alive. I have millions of things to say and ask.