It was a shock to Mr. Morgan when he learnt that Miss Harding had quitted Cloverlea without a word to him. At first he could not believe that she had gone; that she could have gone without his knowledge. When belief was forced on him his language was unbecoming. While he was engaged in little matters of a sort which demanded privacy, and which had to do with the safe storage of certain articles which he had brought himself to believe were his own property, a wagonette arrived at the front door, which, the driver explained to the footman who appeared, had come to fetch Miss Harding. The footman, with the aid of a colleague, had borne the young lady's belongings down the stairs; for which she liberally recompensed them with a sovereign apiece; and she and her possessions were safely away before Mr. Morgan had a notion she was going. Mr. Morgan abused the footmen for not having said a word to him; which abuse they, having no longer the fear of him before their eyes, returned in kind. The butler had to console himself as best he could.
"Given me the slip, have you, Miss Harding?" That was what he said to himself. "Very well, my dear, we'll see; I'm not so easily got rid of as you may perhaps suppose. You're a pretty darling, upon my Sam you are!"
As soon as circumstances permitted--at Cloverlea there were a great many things which he thought it desirable that he should do that day--he went out on a little voyage of discovery. He learnt at the local station that Miss Harding had not taken a ticket for her home in the west country; she had not taken a ticket for herself at all, Mr. Nash had taken one for her, and another for himself; they had gone up to London in the same compartment, and both had luggage. This news added to Mr. Morgan's pleasure.
"Dear me, has she? And I meant her to be Mrs. Morgan, and so she would have been if I'd put on the screw when I'd the chance. As my wife she might have come to something; but as his wife--I'll show her, and I'll show him. If she thinks she's going to hand over to him, by way of a dowry, that nice little lot of money, and leave me out; if that really is her expectation she'll be treated to another illustration of the vanity of human wishes. That sweet young wife will have an interrupted honeymoon."
Mr. Morgan called at an inn which it was his habit to honour with his custom in quest of something to soothe his ruffled feelings. There he met a friend, George Wickham, the Holtye head groom. Mr. Wickham had a grievance, in which respect, if he had only known it, he resembled Mr. Morgan. It seemed that he was the bearer of letters which had been addressed to the Hon. Robert Spencer at Holtye, which he was carrying to that gentleman's actual present address, the Unicorn Hotel, Baltash. It was supposed to be Mr. Wickham's "night out"; he wanted to spend his hours of freedom in one direction while Baltash lay in another.
"Might as well have sent 'em by post, or by one of the other chaps; but no, nothing would please the old woman"--by "old woman" it is to be feared that he meant the Countess of Mountdennis--"but that I should go. I had half a mind to tell her I'd an appointment."
Mr. Morgan was sympathetic; he explained that he was going to Baltash, and even carried his sympathy so far as to offer to take the letters for him. The groom hesitated; then decided to take advantage of his friend's good-nature.
"There's thirteen letters," he pointed out, "five post-cards, four newspapers, eighteen circulars, and these parcels, about enough to fill a carrier's cart."
Mr. Morgan laughed.
"I shall make nothing of that little lot," he said. "And I'll charge nothing for carriage."