never saw it before to-day,” he replied. “I have come here from Douai to meet a friend, having two or three days to spare.”
“Douai is a fine town,” remarked Captain Fennel, turning to speak, for he was still looking out over the sea, and had his opera-glasses in his hand. “I spent a week there not long ago.”
“Douai!” exclaimed Nancy. “That’s the place where the great Law Courts are, is it not? Don’t you remember the man last year, Lavinia, who committed some dreadful crime, and was taken up to Douai to be tried at the Assizes there?”
“We have a great case coming on there as soon as the Courts meet,” said the stranger, who seemed a talkative man; “and that’s what I am at Douai for. A case of extensive swindling.”
“You are a lawyer, I presume?” said Miss Preen.
The stranger nodded. “Being the only one of our London firm who can speak French readily, and we are four of us in it, I had to come over and watch this affair and wait for the trial. For the young fellow is an Englishman, I am sorry to say, and his people, worthy and well-to-do merchants, are nearly mad over it.”
“But did he commit it in England?” cried Miss Preen.
“Oh no; in France, within the arrondissement of the Douai Courts. He is in prison there. I dare say you get some swindling in a petty way even at Sainteville,” added the speaker.
“That we do,” put in Nancy. “An English family of ladies ran away only yesterday, owing twenty pounds at least, it is said.”
“Ah,” said the stranger, with a smile. “I think the ladies are sometimes more clever at that game than the men. By the way,” he went on briskly, “do you know a Mr. Dangerfield at Sainteville?”
“No,” replied Lavinia.
“He is staying here, I believe, or has been.”
“Not that I know of,” said Lavinia. “I never heard his name.”
“Changed it again, probably,” carelessly observed the young man.
“Is Dangerfield not his true name, then?”
“Just as much as it is mine, madam. His real name is Fennel; but he has found it convenient to drop that on occasion.”
Now it was a curious fact that Nancy did not hear the name which the stranger had given as the true one. Her attention was diverted by some men who were working at the mud in the harbour, for it was low water, and who were loudly disputing together. Nancy had moved to the side of the pier to look down at them.
“Is he a swindler, that Mr. Dangerfield?” asked she, half-turning her head to speak. But the stranger did not answer.
As to Lavinia, the avowal had struck her speechless. She glanced at Captain Fennel. He had his back to them, and stood immovable, apparently unconcerned, possibly not having heard. A thought struck her—and frightened her.
“Do you know that Mr. Dangerfield yourself?” she asked the stranger, in a tone of indifference.
“No, I do not,” he said; “but there’s a man coming over in yonder boat who does.”
He pointed over his shoulder at the sea as he spoke. Lavinia glanced quickly in the same direction.
“In yonder boat?” she repeated vaguely.
“I mean the London boat, which is on its way here, and will get in this evening,” he explained.
“Oh, of course,” said Lavinia, as if her wits had been wool-gathering.
The young man took out his watch and looked at it. Then he rose, lifted his hat, and, with a general good-morning, walked quickly down the pier.
Nancy was still at the side of the pier, looking down at the men. Captain Fennel put up his glasses and sat down beside Lavinia, his impassive face still as usual.
“I wonder who that man is?” he cried, watching the footsteps of the retreating stranger.
“Did you hear what he said?” asked Lavinia, dropping her voice.
“Yes. Had Nancy not been here, I should have given him a taste of my mind; but she hates even the semblance of a quarrel. He had no right to say what he did.”
“What could it have meant?” murmured Lavinia.
“It meant my brother, I expect,” said Captain Fennel savagely, and, as Lavinia thought, with every appearance of truth. “But he has never been at Sainteville, so far as I know; the fellow is mistaken in that.”
“Does he pass under the name of Dangerfield?”
“Possibly. This is the first I’ve heard of it. He is an extravagant man, often in embarrassment from debt. There’s nothing worse against him.”
He did not say more; neither did Lavinia. They sat on in silence. The tall figure in the Scotch plaid disappeared from sight; the men in the harbour kept on disputing.
“How long are you going to stay here?” asked Nancy, turning towards her husband.
“I’m ready to go now,” he answered. And giving his arm to Nancy, they walked down the pier together.
Never a word to Lavinia; never a question put by him or by Nancy, if only to say, “Are you not coming with us?” It was ever so now. Nancy, absorbed in her husband, neglected her sister.
Lavinia sighed. She sat on a little while longer, and then took her departure.
The shoe-shop on the port was opposite the place in the harbour where the London steamers were generally moored. The one now there was taking in cargo. As Lavinia was turning into the shop for her parasol, she heard a stentorian English voice call out to a man who was superintending the work in his shirt-sleeves: “At what hour does this boat leave to-night?”
“At eight o’clock, sir,” was the answer. “Eight sharp; we want to get away with the first o’ the tide.”
September 22nd.—The town clocks have just struck eight, and I could almost fancy that I hear the faint sound of the boat steaming down the harbour in the dark night, carrying Nancy away with it, and carrying him. However, that is fancy and nothing else, for the sound could not penetrate to me here.
Perhaps it surprised me, perhaps it did not, when Nancy came to me this afternoon as I was sitting in my bedroom reading Scott’s “Legend of Montrose,” which Mary Carimon had lent me from her little stock of English books, and said she and Captain Fennel were going to London that night by the boat. He had received a letter, he told her, calling him thither. He might tell Nancy that if he liked, but it would not do for me. He is going, I can only believe, in consequence of what that gentleman in the shepherd’s plaid said on the pier to-day. Can it be that the “Mr. Dangerfield” spoken of applies to Edwin Fennel himself and not to his brother? Is he finding himself in some dangerous strait, and is running away from the individual coming over in the approaching boat, who personally knows Mr. Dangerfield? “Can you lend me a five-pound note, Lavinia?” Nancy went on, when she had told me the news; “lend it to myself, I mean. I will repay you when I receive my next quarter’s income, which is due, you know, in a few days.” I chanced to have a five-pound note by me in my own private store, and I gave it her, reminding her that unless she did let me have it again, it would be so much less in hand to meet expenses with, and that I had found difficulty enough in the past quarter. “On the other hand,” said Nancy, “if I and Edwin stay away a week or two, you will be spared our housekeeping; and when our money comes, Lavinia, you can open my letter and repay yourself if I am not here. I don’t at all know where we are going to stay,” she said, in answer to my question. “I was beginning to ask Edwin just now in the other room, but he was busy packing his portmanteau, and told me not to bother him.”
And so, there it is: they are gone, and I am left here all alone.
I wonder whether any Mr. Dangerfield has been at Sainteville? I think we should have heard the name. Why, that is the door-bell! I must go and answer it.
It