“What is it, Mr Greenwood? May I not know?”
For answer I handed her the note. She read it through quickly, then gave vent to a loud cry of dismay, realising that Burton Blair’s daughter had actually fled. That she held the man Dawson in fear was plain. She dreaded that her own secret, whatever it was, must now be exposed, and had, it seemed, fled rather than again face me. But why? What could her secret possibly be that she was so ashamed that she was bent upon hiding herself?
Mrs Percival summoned the coachman, Crump, who had driven his young mistress to Euston, and questioned him.
“Miss Mabel ordered the coupé just before eleven, ma’am,” the man said, saluting. “She took her crocodile dressing-bag with her, but last night she sent away a big trunk by Carter Patterson—full of old clothing, so she told her maid. I drove her to Euston Station where she alighted and went into the booking-hall. She kept me waiting about five minutes, when she brought a porter who took her bag, and she then gave me the letter addressed to Mr Greenwood to give to you. I drove home then, ma’am.”
“She went to the North, evidently,” I remarked when Crump had left and the door had closed behind him. “It looks as though her flight was premeditated. She sent away her things last night.”
I was thinking of that arrogant young stable worker, Hales, and wondering if his renewed threats had really caused her to keep another tryst with him. If so, it was exceedingly dangerous.
“We must find her,” said Mrs Percival, resolutely. “Ah!” she sighed, “I really don’t know what will happen, for the house is now in possession of this odious man Dawson and his daughter, and the man is a most uncouth, ill-bred fellow. He addresses the servants with an easy familiarity, just as though they were his equals; and just now, he actually complimented one of the housemaids upon her good looks! Terrible, Mr Greenwood, terrible,” exclaimed the widow, greatly shocked. “Most disgraceful show of ill-breeding! I certainly cannot remain here now Mabel has thought fit to leave, without even consulting me. Lady Rainham called this afternoon, but of course I had to be not at home. What can I tell people in these distressing circumstances?”
I saw how scandalised was the estimable old chaperone, for she was nothing if not a straightforward widow, whose very life depended upon rigorous etiquette and the traditions of her honourable family. Cordial and affable to her equals, yet she was most frigid and unbending to all inferiors, cultivating a habit of staring at them through her square eyeglass rimmed with gold, and surveying them as though they were surprising creatures of a different flesh and blood. It was this latter idiosyncrasy which always annoyed Mabel, who held the very womanly creed that one should be kind and pleasant to inferiors and cold only to enemies. Nevertheless, under Mrs Percival’s protective wing and active tuition, Mabel herself had gone into the best circle of society whose doors are ever open to the daughter of the millionaire, and had established a reputation as one of the most charming débutantes of her season.
How society has altered in these past ten years! Nowadays, the golden key is the open sesame of the doors of the bluest blood in England.
The old exclusive circles are no longer, or if there are any, they are obscure and dowdy. Ladies go to music halls and glorified night-clubs. What used to be regarded as the drawback from the dinner at a restaurant is now a principal attraction. A gentlewoman a generation ago reasonably objected that she did not know whom she might sit next. Now, as was the case at the theatre in the pre-Garrick days, the loose character of a portion of the visitors constitutes in itself a lure. The more flagrant the scandal concerning some bedizened “impropriety” the greater the inducement to dine in her company, and, if possible, in her vicinity. Of such is the tone and trend of London society to-day!