In Lord Ashborough's house, however, with all these prepossessions in William Delaware's favor, she heard nothing coupled with his name but pompous censure, or flat and pointless sneers, and she dared not say a word in his favor. Now this, as it furnished her with a motive for not only thinking of him from morning till night, but furnished her also with a legitimate cause for connecting, in the sweet, unanswering privacy of her own bosom, all those manifold arguments in his favor which she could have put forth in society, had she not been afraid of their being controverted, caused imagination, and zeal, and generous enthusiasm, to labor hard to build up the said bricks and mortar into the firm and regular structure which Mr. Wilkinson, in his over-hasty conclusions, imagined to be already built.
However all that may be, it is certain that few people had been more completely wretched--and she was not a person to be so, without seeming so too--than Maria Beauchamp, since the business at Ryebury had taken place, and she yielded to a degree of gloom and despondency which Lord Ashborough had never before seen her display under any circumstances. As she never mingled in the conversation regarding William Delaware, the earl imagined that anxiety and suspense in regard to the fate of her brother were the causes of her gloom; and--with the very natural consideration which people generally display, who, however much grieved they may feel for a time, love to get over the memory of their dead relations as fast as may be--the noble earl took every means of removing her state of doubt as fast as possible, by assuring her, on all occasions, that unquestionably her brother was dead.
Suddenly a change came over Miss Beauchamp's whole demeanor. Though she admitted that it was very possible her brother might be dead, yet she resumed her usual tone of spirits; and instead of being silent in regard to Captain Delaware, she repelled with contempt the idea of his guilt whenever it was mentioned, declaring that she felt as much confidence in his innocence of the murder as she did in her own. All this surprised Lord Ashborough. The first, indeed, he accounted for pleasantly enough to himself, declaring that Maria's mind had now recovered its elasticity, having been relieved from suspense by the firm conviction which he had taken care to impress upon it that her brother was dead. He lauded at the same time, be it remarked, his own wisdom in the course he had pursued, blaming severely those ill-judging friends who, in such cases, suffer hope to linger on till it wears itself out. He even ventured on a simile, saying, that it was like torturing a drowning man by holding out straws to him.
In regard to Miss Beauchamp's extraordinary perversity in defending the murderer, he declared that he was more puzzled; and one day, after having remonstrated severely, he related the fact to the worthy Mr. Tims. That excellent person, however, only decided that it was a lady's caprice; and with this solution of the enigma his lordship was forced to rest satisfied.
In the meanwhile, Henry Beauchamp did the most uninteresting thing in the whole world--namely, he traveled from Calais to Paris; for, with the exception of Sterne, who carried his own world about with him in his post-chaise--and a strange mixed world of beauty and deformity it was--I know no one who has been able to make any thing of the journey between those two towns, either one way or the other--except, indeed, the Duke of Guise, in 1558, who made Calais a French town of it.
Henry Beauchamp's journey was somewhat Quixotic, certainly; but the whole details of his sally serve lamentably to show how the science of knight-errantry has declined since the occultation of the star of La Mancha. For a squire he had a Bow-street officer, backed by letters missive from the Foreign Secretary, and seated upon the rumble of a dark-green armless chariot, beside a fierce-looking mastiff of a courier, whom Beauchamp had engaged upon somewhat surer grounds than those on which Master Harding had been received into his service. Dapple and Rozinante were converted into four French stallions, of all sorts and sizes; and instead of mistaking inns for castles, one might have concluded that the young Englishman mistook them for prisons, so strenuously did he avoid them by traveling night and day.
As Mr. Wilkinson had stated, an officer had been previously sent to Paris in pursuit of Captain Delaware; and although it had not been judged expedient, notwithstanding the information given by Mr. Beauchamp, to recall him from that search, yet he was directed vigorously to co-operate with the person now sent to arrest Harding and his accomplices. Beauchamp, in his inexperience of such matters, had thought it might be better to follow the culprits by the ports at which they had landed in France, and which had been clearly ascertained from Willy Small, the smuggler, and his eldest son, who had acted as master of the cutter that took them over. The officer shook the wise head, however, and said, "No, no! Let us go to Paris first, sir; for that's a place which is sure to draw all rogues to it, first or last--as a saucer of honey in a shop window catches the flies. We get at all the passports there, too; and, beside, the mayors and folks in the country places wouldn't dare to back us in seizing the men without a government order, and a _John Darm_, as they call them. When we have searched Paris, let us set off for Cherbourg, and meet them in the face."
To this reasoning Beauchamp of course yielded; and although some difficulties occurred on the part of the French government, they were speedily removed--the passport-office was examined--some of the most active agents of the French police were employed--and such information finally obtained as the Bow-street officer thought likely to lead to the discovery of the whole party, either at Cherbourg or at Caen. Thither, then, Beauchamp and his attendants of various kinds, now increased in number to four, turned their steps, making the most minute inquiries at every point which offered the least chance of affording information concerning the culprits. Beauchamp, at the same time, pursued another search, anticipating, with no small eagerness a meeting with Miss Delaware and her father, who, he concluded must journey with slow stages, on account of the baronet's health. Strange, however, to say, that he, and the Bow-street officer, and the French agent of police, were all equally disappointed. Beauchamp found nobody that he sought; and his companions, though they laid hands upon the three personages whose passports and description had excited suspicion, were surprised and mortified to find that they bore not the slightest resemblance to those who had carried Mr. Beauchamp off from Ryebury.
On minute inquiry among the fishermen of the village where the culprits were said to have landed, the house was at length discovered in which they had first lodged; and the _aubergiste_ at once declared, that, understanding the English, language, he had heard them announce their intention of proceeding to Havre, in order to embark on board some American trader.
No time was to be lost under such circumstances, as ships were sailing every day for some transatlantic port or another; and the horses having been again put to the two carriages which now formed the cortege, away went Beauchamp and his train for Havre. From Cherbourg to Havre, running through one-half of the peninsula of Cotentin, is a long, though not uninteresting journey, to one who has nothing else to think of. But Beauchamp was in haste to get on. French postillions are notoriously slow, and Norman postillions notoriously slower. The steamboat was gone when the party arrived at Honfleur; and, in short, every thing that nature and art could do to stop them on their way was done to perfection. At length when they did reach Havre, they found that one vessel had sailed for America the preceding day, full of emigrants of all descriptions, and that two others had departed about four days earlier, each of which, to believe the accounts given of them, must have been a perfect Noah's Ark.